City Council Regular Meeting - Regular Meeting

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All right. Good evening everyone and thank you so much for being here and welcome to this regular meeting of the city council of the city of For Beach. If you do have an electronic device, if you are able to please put that on silent, we always have one during every meeting and everyone in the room always looks at them and shakes their head. [laughter] So don't let it be you tonight. Um we will call this meeting to order and begin with an invitation from senior pastor Bill Lwell from the First United Methodist Church. After the invitation, if you could please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance. Let us pray. Gracious God, in the 249th anniversary of this great republic, we gather this night where the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Florida and the Charter of Fort Walton Beach come together. This city council has to interpret all of that into home rule. We give thanks for those who work for the city, for all of the employees and all the staff and all the departments. We pray for our first responders whom we yield to on the road, but who hold special places in our hearts. We pray for those who every day in their sweat equity and their investment of their resources work for the good and the fabric of this community. We give thanks for those who work in education, for those who volunteer in recreation and in agencies, and for all who flow and live every single day to make this the wonderful city that it is. Bless us all in every decision made this night and every presentation and everyone whose life is lifted up. We are all made equal in the constitution and in your sight, oh Lord. And we pray this night that this city

will be a better place after this meeting tonight than it was this morning. We give thanks to you in the name of Almighty God. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, pastor. That was beautiful as always. We need to start with approval of the agenda agenda from the board.

So, move. Um actually uh mayor during the CRA meeting uh the CRA board uh provide direction to put on the agenda tonight a uh discussion item to discuss uh I believe terminating the lease at the corner of Highway 98 and Perry and uh I don't know where the logical place to put that on the agenda would be but they wanted to put that on the agenda. May I also move to uh amend this amendment to include permanent reset set. Well, let's put it at uh wherever you would like to put it. 11 1110 right after 11. Let's go.

All right. Motion by Councilman Schmidt, seconded by Councilman Jeter to approve tonight's agenda with that change. Any additional comments?

No, sir. We'll talk about more then. Council, please vote. Motion does pass unanimously. Uh, also our thoughts with Councilman Walker feeling a little under the weather tonight, so we hope he gets to feeling better soon. We start with proclamations and a proclamation recognizing November as epilepsy awareness month. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that causes recurring unprovoked seizures and can affect anyone at any age. It is a spectrum disorder, meaning symptoms, severity, and outcomes can be widely varied from person to person. In the United States, it affects about 3.4 million people, including over 426,000 Flidians, 88,000 of whom are children. People with EP epilepsy need access to affordable, comprehensive health care and greater awareness in our schools and communities. Despite legal protections, many still face discrimination and employment, education, and housing. Public education and advocacy are essential to reducing stigma and ensuring equal opportunities for all. Each November during Epilepsy Awareness Month, Epilepsy Alliance Florida leads efforts to promote understanding, support research, and advocate for all of those affected. The city of Fort Walton Beach proudly recognizes November 2025 as epilepsy awareness month and encourages all residents to show support, advance treatments, and help us move closer to a cure. I do believe we have uh someone to accept the proclamation tonight who I've known for quite some time, Patrick Rosser. Patrick, if you want to come on up to the front, I know you requested a photo with me, so I will come down there and get one with you.

How are you, man? Good. I just saw you Saturday, didn't I? Yes. It's good to see you again so quickly. Thank you.

Good. Thanks. All right. There you go. Thank you. Thank you, sir. [applause]

All right, we have our uh ACE award winner. We have two students to recognize tonight. We have Abigail or Abby King. I'm sure she probably prefers being called Abby. Uh Abby, if you and your parents want to step up to the microphone there, I'll read a little bit about you first before we give you a fabulous award. Miss Abby King exemplifies civic excellence through her exceptional academic performance, leadership, athletics, and community service. Ranked fourth in her class with a 4.66 GPA, which doesn't even seem real. I'm going to [laughter] it seemed like a typo, but it I guess it must be. Abby described by her teachers as a kind soul who always puts others before herself and is a hard worker whose grades reflect her dedication. As president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and an active member of Student Council, National Honor Society, and multiple leadership roles, she inspires peers through her kindness, initiative, and service to the community. Congratulations, Abby. [applause] We do have this ACE award for you as well if you want to grab that. And then Devin would gladly take uh photos with you and your family.

Yeah. If you guys want to come on up here and gather around all of the council. [laughter] Hey, it doesn't make a difference. We're all in it. We're all in it.

All right. Thanks, everybody. Good. All right. Thanks. Thanks for being here. [applause] ALL RIGHT, I'm going to need some help with the pronunciation of the next one. Mlanahan. Mlanahan. Gotcha. And it's Elena. Yes.

Okay. That's the one I was really the most concerned about. I always mess it up. All right. Uh yeah, if you and your family want to step on up. Miss Elena Mlanahan demonstrates civic excellence through outstanding academic achievement, artistic leadership, volunteerism, and work experience with a weighted GPA of again an unreal 4.73. She has excelled in numerous AP and CTE courses while also being recognized as a Viking scholar and a member of Mensa International. As president of the art club, Elena has projects raising awareness for community causes, contributed to school beautifification, and volunteered for local organizations. Additionally, she's performed and competed in piano for 9 years, and gained practical experience in animal care throughout her work at Blue Water Zoo. Her dedication, creativity, and commitment to serving her school and community exemplify the highest standards of civic responsibility. Congratulations. Thank you. [applause] And we have this for y'all. If you and your family want to step on up here and get a photo with all of us strange looking people, come on in. Congratulations to both the [applause]

All right, that moves us on to item seven, presentations. We'll start with uh another gentleman I just recently saw [clears throat] from one Okaloosa Economic Development Council, Mr. Nathan Sparks. We don't have to clap for him though, [laughter] but we can if we want. Not a member of Mensah, by the way.

All right. Well, um, fantastic to be with you this evening. Um, it's been hard to believe it's been a quarter since I was last here. And it was great to see some of you last week at the, uh, Bit Wizards talking parents. Uh, groundbreaking. What a fantastic day for the city and for the county and for our wonderful partners at Talking Parents and Bit Wizards. And we all know what a tremendous story that is and how it speaks volumes about uh a veteranowned business's ability to grow and prosper right here in the city of Fort Walton Beach. So kudos to all of you on what is a phenomenal win for our community and certainly we're looking forward to more good great things at Freedom Tech Center. So I don't have a lengthy report. I know you're sorry to hear that. uh but I do have some things I wanted to share with you uh nonetheless and I always appreciate the opportunity. So I will start by sharing that um it was a great honor to be asked um by Mr. Davis to participate in the recent uh cohort of the citizens academy held at the Fort Walton Chamber on October 8th and great group of folks really interesting group that uh had wonderful questions and inputs and uh I know that uh they're gaining a lot of knowledge about the city which is the idea. So kudos to Mr. Davis and and the team here for uh for establishing that that new program. I'm looking forward to seeing the fruits of that uh of that and I am always happy to support it. So just let me know, Jason, what I can do. Um also wanted to share with you, if you haven't heard, we've got some big news taking place this week um out at the Shaw River Industrial Park um the 10,000 acre site 7 milesi east of uh Crest View on Highway 90. And while it's not in the city, it is a major economic development win for not just Okaloosa County, but really for Florida as a whole. So much so that on Thursday, we will have Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins um coming to uh speak and celebrate the groundbreaking of Williams International. And I spoke a little bit about that last quarter, but as a quick

recap, that is a 1 bill40,819,000 investment that will result in a 1 million ft aircraft engine manufacturing facility. We were ultimately successful competing with dozens of states in many different uh and many different sites within those states. And uh again um we could not have done it without great partners with our local governments, with our state government, with Governor DeSantis. And certainly we're excited about those 336 jobs that will be created uh which will be well north of our average wage here in Okaloosa County. and you know knowing the types of jobs that will be offered we fully expect that people from all over our county and beyond will be willing to commute for those opportunities. So um certainly good things there but one thing that's really interesting to note is Williams has 2400 suppliers. So, um, we have brought in the mothership, so to speak, and now we have the opportunity to land additional companies in our community, including in the city of Fort Walton Beach, that support Williams. And I think many of the businesses that are here already have opportunities to support Williams. In fact, that segus into my next item for you, and that is um on November 13th, one of those companies that's right here in your city, Precision Measurement Incorporated, PMI for short, and many of you know PMI. um located on um Anchor Street in the Commerce and Tech Park. They recently acquired the building they were leasing, so they have now gone all in on the city of Fort Walton Beach, making this their permanent home. Quick recap, they are a service disabled veteranowned business owned by Mr. David Haynes and his family and just do tremendous work. They even support the presidential fleet, Air Force One, and uh I know now they are also providing calibration services for um your uh police force here in the city. And I as I was coming in, in fact, a couple of your officers stopped me and they saw that I had something for you and they said, "Are you with PMI?" They're awesome. So, I wish I was with PMI, but I am proud to call him a friend. And if

you haven't uh gotten an invitation yet to their open house that's taking place uh at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 13th. Now, you have an invitation. So, I'm going to pass these around by hand. And then last but not least, um also um in November, uh November 18th to be specific, uh we're going to be hosting something called Educate the Educators Plus One. We've been doing this since 2014. And really the idea is to get local students, high school students along with their teachers, guidance counselors, principles out into the community to tour industry to really plant seeds with young people like those that were just here about the career pathways, the very viable and lucrative career pathways that exist right here in our community. So we again been doing this for a while. We did one in Niceville earlier this year. We did one in Crestview last year. We're doing this one here in the city of Fort Walton Beach. We'll be touring uh three businesses at least, maybe more. We're adding um industry partners as we speak. Uh right now, Kratos Defense and Magnum Manufacturing, both in the Commerce and Technology Park, are on the list. Uh we're in discussions with Boeing. Hopefully, that'll pan out. And I had a conversation earlier with Mr. Davis today um about having him come and talk about the career opportunities that exist in the city. you don't have a wide range of career opportunities with the city government, whether it's technology or development services or law enforcement or what have you. So, um I think it's very important to uh to talk about those career pathways with these young people so they know that uh as they're thinking about their futures, they can also consider a future here at the city. So, any questions for me? That's what I have for you this evening. questions from the council.

Question. Sure. Absolutely. I know you do a great job of everything presenting and this is just another municipality where but I just want to say thank you for these things that you're saying and going through very quickly. That's what puts food on tables. That's what helps give to the local little leagues and so people can afford homes and rent and those kind of things. So these numbers and these investments aren't just numbers and just thank you for helping advocate specifically the city of Fort Walton Beach Commerce Technology Park arguably the greatest city in the world. So thank you Mr. Sparks. It's an honor to do so. Thank you for your kind words. Anyone else? Thank you sir. Appreciate being

right moves us to item 7.2 a proposal for council to consider a hybrid council model. Uh Sabin Williams from NAACP. There he is. I kept scanning the room for you earlier and I thought you weren't here. You were hiding. Maybe I'll lost a little weight, I guess. [laughter]

Welcome, sir. Good evening. Uh, and Mr. Sparks is a tough person to follow. He such an articulate person there. But, uh, council, let me first, uh, say good evening to you again, mayor and council members. For those of you who don't know, my name is Sabu Williams, and I am the president of the NAACP for here for Oakland County. Uh we're based at 1024th Street uh in Fort Walton Beach and [clears throat] I'm here today to request and uh your support for a community discussion on the merits of a hybrid form of city government for Fort Walton Beach. Let me get my glasses on so I can see. Uh the purpose is to invite residents into a structured public conversation about mixing district-based and at large council seats to strengthen representation, equity, and civic trust. Now, my core message for you council members is that a hybrid council balances neighborhood advocacy in citywide strategy by combining district seats with at large seats. It increases geographic representation. It improves access for historically underserved communities and it preserves preserves broad oversight for citywide priorities. Our proposal is that the council form a communitydriven conversations so residents and leaders can understand and evaluate the options of a hybrid system transparently. We are not seeking to enact an immediate change, nor are we intending to design a minority district. Our proposal is not about race or party. Rather, it is about representation. Local examples to excite if you will are Crescu. Crescu adopted a dynamic hybrid system combining both precinct base and at large council members to significantly enhance geographic and minority representation.

This transition to a new council structure occurred uh I think back in 20 uh 2018. The council now consists of five dedicated members. Three are elected from individual precincts and two serving at large ensuring a broader range of voices and perspectives in local governors. The city of Pensacola currently has seven council members. All are elected from single member districts. They have no at large seats and the two that they had were eliminated in 2014. So thus the council now is comprised entirely of district-based seats. Now we understand that redistricting can have some complexities. Uh for instance uh you can commit to an independent redistricting commission using census data and public hearings to ensure fairness. Uh sometimes, you know, there can be voter confusion about what a hybrid system is versus what we currently have, which is why we wanted to provide interactive interactive maps, clear voter guides, and multilingual outreach before any ballot action, and why we're also asking for there to be a um town hall meeting uh in several locations prior to any action taking place. One of the resistance can be you as an incumbent and we would emphasize that a phase implementation in a public review process to preserve stability while exploring improvements. A phase implementation potentially spanning several election cycles could be considered. Uh and there may be some cost and we believe that the cost of this action would be minimum. However, we would pursue grants or partnerships for public education in any technical needs that might be uh might might come about. Um and so our recommend what we would recommend is that uh in moving forward and then we would ask you to maybe do three things. First, we would ask you to perhaps consider forming a study group

or a task force to include council members, community leaders, civic groups, and neutral experts to evaluate models and draft options for consideration. And then we would have you direct that study group to produce an implementation report with draft maps, cost estimates, and a recommended timeline ahead of any charter or ballot consideration. And then we would ask you to approve a city facilitated public listening series hosted in neighborhoods across the city and online to gather resident input. A community-led study and public discussion will let Fort Walton Beach decide whether a hybrid model better serves all neighborhoods while preserving citywide leadership. The Oaklas County branch NAACP stands ready to partner on outreach education in ensuring historically underrepresented voices are included in the process. Um, and that's the that's my short note. I think I sent uh to you the our our proposal, the the long-term notion. I I watched uh I watched the city council meeting uh the last time you met at home on my YouTube and I think it was like 4 hours and four 25 minutes and so I thought I better give you the short version tonight. But serious and I'm so glad you had me up here at number seven. Um but I did I we did provide a a sort of a long proposal if you will that gives a little bit more background. It gives you demographic information, those kinds of things. I you know the city of Fort Walton Beach was is a unique place to live and to work and to play in fact uh but it is divided if you will in some cases into different kinds of communities. We have for instance here in uh 98 where you have like the beach community the the uh transit people who come and uh visitors that come and then you have other more affluent neighborhoods such as in the Kenwood neighborhood. Um, and then you have some other areas that are particularly

underserved. And when I watch uh council meetings, you know, I see uh our residents coming and having an issue that they want to address, but they're not as sometimes can't be as articulate about the problem that they have. But having a voice that they can go to, one of you council members that they can talk to prior to coming here and doing what I'm doing right now, can give them some some hope, if you will. can even give them some answers where they might even need to come to a council meeting because they may be able to get the answer by simply knowing who represents your council. Um, and it gives them a chance to have somebody to talk to. I know that I've spoken to many council members and we actually were proposing something like this several years ago. you recall you had seven numbered seats and I came before the city council back maybe it was 2010 or 2011 and said you've got seven numbered seats but those numbers don't mean anything you just pick a number why do you have numbered seats and I went overseas and came back and you got rid of the numbers [laughter] so I said well there's some improvement uh but still I would think that we could you know that we could perhaps find a way that um or at least explore whether or not it would be beneficial to the residents to have someone representing a particular district. Some neighborhoods um well in reality you could actually have seven council members coming from the same neighborhood. I mean that's just a fact. It may not be happening but it can happen right? Uh and then some neighborhoods may feel unrepresented altogether. And so I just believe that and and let me say this we're not suggesting that we have a uh district-wide voting but simply district-wide representation. And so it would still be at large voting. Everybody would still be able to vote for that member at large. Um I just think that it's something that that can be explored. And one of the reasons why we I chose to come um to this forum and

present it to you in this way is because it gives you a chance and the uh city a chance and other residents a chance to have some voice in it. I know that we can do a petition drive, but often times a petition drive means that it's something is being driven based on my idea and it doesn't have input from others. If I put a petition together and get enough signatures on it to get it on the ballot, what good does that do if it simply has, you know, my idea? So, I wanted to make sure that this was something that included uh all of our inputs and perhaps you might even decide it's not something to do, but I do think it's something that's necessary to explore. And having on that note, I will certainly uh remain for questions if you have any.

I'll ask you the first question. As a matter of fact, um what what would be the next step in in this? You know, I know that you said your group is happy to partner with the city, you know, and hold meetings of of folks and all that. Is that something that you would would organize and then the city participates in or is that something that the city is organizing and you're participating? I would I would suggest it to be something that the city would organize and we would just participate in it. I would like for this to be a citydriven um process versus an organization process. Gotcha. Anyone else questions for Mr. Williams? M

I don't have a um well I do have a question and um the mayor asked you know um who would be taking the lead on it whether it be the NAACP or whether it will be the city and you said you would like to have the city actually to be the one to move things along right but on the other hand but you are saying that the NAACP will be 100% supportive about with this and they will support Oh, absolutely. I'm, you know, a proposal and our our recommendations, but we would just make recommendations to whatever committee was formed by the by council and uh because you know there's there's different ways that you can form a hybrid system. It could be a 34, it could be 52, it could be all seven. And so we may have a suggestion that says it's 34, but that but that suggestion is just a suggestion on our part. But we would certainly want to pause for our suggestion if uh had any uh any form.

Okay. I I would just Oh, go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you off. No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Okay. I was just going to say I would certainly support the idea of looking into it. I think anytime you can get a bunch of people together to give their thoughts on something, uh, especially something so important as the makeup of this particular body, I think that's a great idea. I don't know how many people will be interested, but it would be worth it to try to find out and see. Um, I think that you're right in a lot of the things that you say. And I know I'm not a lot of times not supposed to as the mayor give my own opinion up here, but I'm pretty sure that of the eight that normally sit up here, six of us live in the same neighborhood.

So regardless, you know, we Kirby used to be on the on the board, for example, and he ad nauseium would talk about the Kinwood neighborhood. And I mean, it seemed like every other word out of his mouth was Kenwood, but he represented that neighborhood and he knew what was going on there. and people that lived in that neighborhood knew that they could go to him and say, "Hey, this is something that's going on in our city. I know you live here. I know you." So, that part of the the idea is certainly great to me. My biggest concern with the idea would be policing where someone actually lives. And that's been a problem even in the past in elections of people running for council being elected to council that don't actually even live in the city of Port Long Beach, let alone in a particular neighborhood. So that might be tough, but I think it is worth it to investigate and see if the population would want that change.

I agree. I agree. Uh, you know, and that's and that's why I, you know, I would suggest this process. I like I said, you know, we were prepared to do a petition drive. I have even the language uh um already uh developed for the petition if you will. But I just think that that would be um sort of forcing things on people versus having people have an opportunity to have input into and whether or not they would even choose to do it. And trust me, if if if we felt that there was no reason uh that it wasn't any public support for this idea,

then it would be no reason for us to continue to push it out. I'd be happy to help with it and I can certainly work with um city manager, city clerk, city attorney and see what we can put together um to get some feedback from some people in some various spots and see what kind of appetite there is for it. Mr. Mayor, I'm going to try to play a motion to help support that just to get Okay, please do. uh so moved to uh with the NAACP to work with the city of Fort Walton Beach to execute the ask of forming a study group. I was really sold on the neutral expert part that as well as recommending a timeline that if I heard it right included not a fast pace.

Correct. And you know as far as resources goes really being and to include in the motion really being NAACP led with coordinating with data or history. I know about 10 years ago we used to have districts. So, I'm sure there's a lot of information that we [clears throat] could have at fingertips to support this study group. We're forming a study group with neutral experts and with the recommended timeline so that we can have the conversation, but really being heavy on your vision within the NAACP and we're here to help support the forming of a study group with the recommended timeline that comes out of the vision. Okay. Second. That's all right.

All right. Debor, were you trying to say second as well? I think I think we say that. Yeah. Well, I'm giving that to you on this. We got a motion by Councilman Schmidt, seconded by Councilwoman Riley to uh move forward in uh Councilman Schmidt's uh vision there. Go ahead.

That's it. You know, also too very sensitive to staff's time like this past 6 months. There's been a lot of time with the charter amendment and the and the committee that was stood up to to put and I respect the fact that you don't want to or you could do the petition drive, but that takes a lot of time and effort, too. So, hopefully you understand this is a good compromise to keep giving some staff and and the mayor's vision as well to work with NAACP to have that conversation. So, that's that's the intent of the motion. Anyone else wish to comment? Ask an investigative question. It passes but it the thought is it'll be uh the mayor, city manager, myself meeting the NAACP to kind of figure out the initial steps to take. Is that kind of the thought?

Yeah, with the with leaning heavy on the mayor and then yes, city attorney and city manager working with whatever designate or you that you have. So, thank you for asking. With that, Councilman J. I have anytime we can collaborate in the community and trying to find a way to communicate and compromise, that's always a good thing. Look forward to seeing what comes up.

Anyone else wish to comment? I would like to um be a little bit heavily involved in it too. And I can tell you right now I honestly honestly 100% 100% support it specifically with public engagement because I believe that you know the public needs to be educated and with this study group I hope it come about where is some town hall meetings where a lot of a lot of our public really don't even understand that large election. you know, we have a lot of members of it that that really don't. And so I really like public engagement and I see it all the time, you know, hey, democracy for other people, other people by the people. So I think the people need to be involved in it and be educated in it. So I appreciate you, you know, adding that that component in there. Yeah. Everybody voices need to be heard.

Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else wish to comment on the motion? Council, please vote. Miss Barnes, you want to yay or n? There we go. The motion does pass unanimously. Thank you, council. Thank you, Mr. Williams, for being here and presenting that to us. Appreciate that. All right. Moves us on to the consent agenda. Any action on this council? So moved. Second.

A motion from Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Merrill to approve tonight's consent agenda. Any additional comments? No, sir. Council, please vote. The consent agenda does pass unanimously, which moves us to mayor and council comments tonight. We start with Councilman Merrill.

Yep. I just wanted to follow up from last um council meeting. We talked with the one hopeful place about amending the lease uh with a contingency that they come to the table um for the land swap. It forgive me if I misunderstood it, but I believe the contingency was that they come to the table for the land swap, not that they complete a land swap. And I just wanted to make sure that we were moving forward with the lease because if they came, which they have, come to the table in good faith about the land swap for the First Street property. I don't see any reason for us to hold up their uh building improvements that are that they have a grant for at one hopeful place. So, is that something that we would just give direction to possibly move have for the next meeting or would that require [snorts]

I think we just received the offer today from them. They actually sent it uh to Jason midday and I I received it right before the meeting and so uh so they met that was the contingency. They met the contingency by at least starting that discussion. That's how interpreted it. Okay. So, would we be able to see that amended lease? So we can start the lease negotiation. Yeah, we can start that. So uh obviously uh we'll start that tomorrow. Perfect. That's it for me. Thank you, sir. Councilwoman R.

Um I just want to commend um Chief Page and the Pwan PD. Um I was very proud and very happy to see that um they received their accreditation. And I also want to tell you great picture to our city manager. Great picture. Yeah. So [laughter] I you know I read the article saw the the photos in there and so um just wanted you know I can't thank Chief Mage in the after and I appreciate his officers protecting you know our lives and the safety of our community. Thank you Councilman.

Just to piggy back off Mr. Merrill uh whenever negotiations are going on that's going to have to come back to the board with whatever the negotiated lease would be. Correct. to include whatever you said a proposal came in this evening or this afternoon in that public environment. We have a chance to continue negotiations at that time for the the lease. I mean it's all the negotiated lease is still contingent on the board's approval. Correct.

Correct. Well, I think Mr. Davis and I will work the lease out with them. That will come before y'all probably the next meeting if it gets done by then. If y'all also want to discuss their proposal, which I don't know if Jason had a chance to send it to you yet or not. uh uh now that you'll all have that. Then uh y'all could also put down the next agenda, too, if you'all want to discuss that as well. It's a separate item. I

mean, definitely needs to be discussed. I know there was action taken last meeting. I appreciate Mr. Mel bringing it up looking for clarity. We just got a proposal this afternoon. I don't move as fast as Chad GBT, but it sounds like negotiations are happening. But before we just unilaterally say, "Hey, they checked the box and submitted a proposal. We're going to move forward with whatever they asked for to amend the property." I still would like to at least counter to their whatever said proposal and hear what their said proposal is, but it sounds like y'all are negotiating that and whatever that is would have to come back in front of the board. Um I I I don't know if Jason intends on counterposing or not. I think that would be a discussion to have with

Yeah, I mean I literally at 3:00 I said to you guys at 3:00 3:15ish, so I need to dive into it, but it's it's a substantial [clears throat] ask. Okay. It's a It's a lot to receive right before a meeting and digest it and communicate to you all. For sure. I just want to make sure that doesn't mean that they're still going to be able to move forward with whatever those those other the other asset they had to develop on the property just because they submitted a proposal. I guess that's the clarity I'm looking for. Because they submitted a proposal, does that mean they can just move forward with what they wanted to do?

I think they still have to enter the lease first. So that lease will come back before y'all the next meeting. I think we have the green light based on the motion from the last meeting now to continue the lease negotiation and get that drafted before y'all. Y'all still have to vote on that lease though. Copy. Thank you, sir.

Um I would like to also reiterate uh if you those who weren't at the CRA meeting, the initiative that we're having with the cleanest city of the Emerald Coast is something that is from public safety to growth management to park and rigs. Everybody's working extremely hard to make that happen. but also to the community groups and the nonforprofits that have done street cleanups and the the different organizations. So, I know at times just like any proposal that different people do in their businesses or in the community or churches, sometimes things kind of pan out. I want to try to keep that fan and keep that that going and working with our staff and working with our community. So, want to just encourage you to to reach out to our friends and dispatch that are very professional that will we'll take calls, but anything of concerning whether it's something going on in a park or or panhandling or things outside, please call the non-emergency dispatch line 850-8339546. Very non-confrontational. They'll take the information and evaluate whatever the situation is. We have the most probably friendly community with the resources that our churches and community offers, including one over the place. I I firmly believe a lot of people just don't always know where to contact or how to contact to get the information out. When the information gets out, Chief Beige and the team do a phenomenal job of trying to coordinate the ones who need help. Boom. There's great resources there for that. the ones who don't want help or that keep doing things that are breaking laws, we need to try to to fulfill that need, too. So, that will help that will help coordinate that if you can call dispatch and identify that. Um, and that's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, sir. Councilman Brown, I'll save mine for the end. Mayor, Councilwoman Dear, I'll save. Councilman Jeter.

Yes, sir. I got a few if you don't mind. Um, I'd like to thank Pastor Bill Elwell for always coming here and not just giving such an incredible uh prayer, but he has been very instrumental in our community. Welcome. Um, and to to I've been attending the uh preschool down here for many, many years and has always just been a drop off and he is out there in the morning saying good morning to all the kids, asking them what they ate for breakfast, talking to them about their day and the kids love him. Um, obviously we love him when he comes here as well, but he's also got a lot of insight on some things that they've done in downtown Mobile to improve some things if we haven't had time to really pick his brain and get some knowledge yet. I think he's very knowledgeable about what we're going through in our current downtown and I would love to learn more from you when you have time in a in a formal setting or informal setting. So, just thank you for everything you're doing in the community from the kids to helping us clean up downtown. So, thank you. Um, second, we had our TD meeting this morning. Uh for everybody who don't know, that's the uh tourism tax that comes from people that come from out of state that come here and pay taxes to stay here. We approved a 90 something million dollar budget a month ago. That's about uh close to $50 million in revenue a year. We do a lot of great things with that money even though they all don't happen here. It's just really, really cool. We had some of our staff go there today and I've talked to them since we left and it's kind of like a wow, I didn't know I was doing all that. So, it's really just a a thank you. And we're blessed to live in such a great area that other people, matter of fact, one of the slides today, Expedia did a study on the top 10 uh vacation spots researched or looked at in the world. You had Spain, Mexico, Australia. I don't know if yall remember the slide.

Yeah. Look at all Japan. And it didn't say it. It said exactly these words. Fort Walton Beach, Florida. All right. So, let's go.

Let's go. It's really cool to see, but we're taking a lot of those TDC tax dollars and we're doing awesome parks in Crest View and we're making trails and we're doing this and doing that. We're doing beach reourishment. We're doing bike trails. So, our entire county gets to benefit and we get to use things and it's just really cool knowing that our kids and grandkids get to use all these things for the next 20 or 30 years that uh our tourists pay for. So, uh, re really, really great, positive stuff. We're blessed to live in such an awesome area. And then I was going to follow up on some of the things that council member Schmidt said about the CRA. We had a great CRA meeting at 4:00. We talked about some new lights downtown. We talked about cleaning up some blight. We talked about spending some money and doing some great things. So, and we also talked about that phone number to call. Our police department is awesome. They're willing to help. and can't tell you how many people I talked to that it's that almost that in between of well I didn't know who to call or I didn't want to bother 911 with that or I didn't want no no this is a direct number that you can call and our police department will come help you they're there to help you they want to help you I've done ride alongs with police officers a lot of times they're waiting on that call so call if you see something they're there to help so I'll save the rest for later

thank you sir just a couple things to mention quickly uh one uh Mr. Barry and I, Miss uh Riley, we're all there at the grand opening of the brand new express lane on Okaloosa Island uh for your cars. [laughter] It's not not at all what it's for. The bike and walking path was very, very neat. Great little ceremony. Bit wizards. Uh Vince Mayfield gave a absolutely fantastic speech at that grand opening. And uh my youngest son got to see himself on TV holding a shovel, so he was very excited about that. Chalkaw Fort Walton Beach game. That was a bit of a blowout. Uh Councington Schmidt saw you there. Um but congratulations to Chalkall, man. They're incredible. Um I went to the Fort Walton Beach Buccaneers game. James Leewoods asked me to come out and flip the coin um for the game there for the junior team. I walk out to the middle of the field with the referees and I hear him on the microphone say, "And now to uh do the coin toss, the honorable mayor Dick Renerson."

So that was a good one. Um but he apologized and corrected himself. Um and then the last thing I wanted to mention was the United Fidelity Bank Community Day. Um which was this past Saturday, which was I saw Miss Riley and Mr. Browning there. And what a great event that really is. All the charities, bunch of charities come together there in the parking lot. Um, tons of kids, just everybody having a good time. They do that every year around this time of year. So, if you've never been to one, put it on your calendar for next year because it's a really neat, free, fun little afternoon for an entire family. That moves us to public comments. If you have uh something you'd like to say to this board or to your uh fellow city residents, something Oh, that's not on the agenda tonight, please step forward, state your name and address.

James Leovich, Canterbury Circle, Fort Walton Beach. And I'm here tonight because I owe someone an apology. Uh Saturday was Fort and Beach was one of the four cities in [snorts] uh the panhandle to host the first round of the playoffs, the wild card round. And we had two teams that in two separate games and we invited the mayor and the mayor came and I had the high honor of being in the press box doing the PA and uh well when the when the time came I said the mayor of the honorable mayor of Fton Beach, Mayor Dick Rinerson and I'm here tonight because I'm sorry I wanted to be out of the recordation. Oh goodness. It was right. I was outside listening when he made that.

I've never received an apology so quickly from any of them, especially my wife. So, this this is great. This makes me feel good. I've introduced Mayor Rinerson a few times. It was my first time introducing you. It was not intentional. 300 whatever people were there. Uh I'm sorry for that, Mr. Mayor. That's all right. I appreciate you inviting me. How How did the game go? Not too well. Okay. 12 Both of our wild card teams lost. the two teams that [laughter] had a by-week play this Saturday in uh Defoniac Springs. So, we still have two undefeated teams. We're probably going to bring home a Super Bowl trophy. Beautiful. Well, that's great. If you do, please come back and let us know. Outstanding. Uh can I be one other thing just while I absolutely

at the podium and I happen to have time and today happens to be my mother's birthday. So, I just want to go on the record to my mother who's turning 82 today in Las Vegas, Nevada. Happy birthday, Mom. I love you. Happy birthday. [applause] Let's go. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. All right. Anyone else from the public wish to speak on anything that's not on tonight's agenda? Seeing none, we'll move on to item 11.1, financing and funding options regarding the recreation expansion. I believe that's you, Miss Nakers.

It is. Thank you, mayor. Um, as you guys know, uh, staff was directed last meeting to bring back different financing options for the, uh, rec center expansion. Uh, I spoke at length with Jeremy from PFM, who is our guy that helps handle all of our debt options, and we decided that a bank loan option would be the best in interest for the city. Um, it provides the best combination of interest rates and financing conditions. It has a shorter issuance time frame and lower cost of in issuance. So before I go through those options, just a little b uh background on the financial information. The overall cost of the project that was um presented at last meeting was $7,59,312.75. We rounded this loan up to 7.5 million to cover costs of change orders um and things like furniture and supplies and and items like that for once the expansion is complete. We also decided to look at Liza Jackson Park in in this debt. Um, as you guys know, the county has uh pledged a million dollars and so this is going to get rolling soon here in the next few months and the city will have to put up front about 2.5 million for this project to be complete. Uh, the irrigation loan that we had on the books for a while falls off the books this year. We already paid it in the beginning of this year to save about $16,000 in interest. That was about 300,000 that we were paying annually in the general fund. So that gets freed up as of next fiscal year. One item to note that we do still have that $3 million balloon payment on the original rec center that comes due in July of 2028. Right now we only have $850,000 that is restricted for this payment, but staff is working um together with the auditors this year to see what um additional funds we can restrict at the end of the 25 fiscal year process. So there were two options that we looked at. One was the the one that included Liza Jackson and one is just the rec center. Uh the one that included Liza Jackson was for 10 million and the one for the rec center was 7 and a half. Uh after speaking with Jason and um my grants manager, we do have the $1.6 million

reimbursement from the landing grant coming back that will fall back into the CRA fund. So I felt it was um more financially prudent to not add the Liza Jackson Park back in and pay for that out of CRA funding. So we'd have a lower debt uh cost. Um so there's two different ones that we could look at. There was a bank the bank loan which I said is the one that we recommend or the bond. So out of the bank loan there is a 15-year option and a 20-year option. I'm recommending the 15-year option even though the payment is higher at around 700,000. We're going to save about a little over a million in interest. Um and the reason that I chose this and I know that we had talked last meeting about the TDC possibly funding a portion of this. Um, as Bryce had mentioned, the TDC meeting was this morning and myself, Daniel, David, and Wendy all went, um, they awarded us $400,000 annually for the loan or 47th of the loan, whichever is less. So, between the TDC funding it and then also the 300,000 dropping off, we can we can make it work and move forward. Um, there's also the inter it's the interlocal agreement, right? And basically that's just saying that if TDC funding um for some reason stops because you know how sometimes you know the legislature starts talking about that it would fall back on us in the general fund and also that future councils still have to use it for the tourism tournaments. Um so we'll be working with them on that uh with uh Craig Coffee and Charlotte Dunworth on that. So staff respectfully recommends city council authorization for staff to work with PFM and execute option two the bank loan for the 15-year term. And of course, if you guys have any questions, let me know. But whichever one we do, the more detailed information will come at the next meeting in November with PFM.

Gotcha. All right. I know this will be a popular topic. Questions for Miss Neighbors? Councilman Schmidt? Yes. The um information about the rec center, the 15-year loan, TDC, roughly 400,000 annually. But you also mentioned about Liza Jackson. You recommend on the CRA route. Yes. I know the next item we're getting ready to get to the the Gum Creek and moving forward with that or not to get the the u the rec center expansion with hopefully this funding executed. But what would the timeline be like on the Liz of Jackson side? Would they go parallel with each other? Is that more Mr. Payne or Mr. Davis question, but

that would probably be more of a Mr. Payne question on the timing. We're we're working on the bid. I know that in the purchasing department, but I don't know about execution and all of that.

Thanks for the funding information. So just a quick status on the Liz of Jackson project on there. So So the plans that we have um for the improvements of the park are done. The permitting for the water stuff is caught in the federal bure bureaucratic core deal that we've dealt with before. So up until I don't know, probably a few months ago, you know, we're you know, what do you do? Cuz that work is not authorized to perform and with shutdowns, I don't know. At at some point in time, we feel like, man, we just got to put it out there. I I mean, we ran into this to the landing, you know, and and it drugged the landing on for for years more than it needed to be. Um it's just it would be bid with the understanding that you probably just have to do the upland improvements on that side. um in in the the boat ramp, the uh the pier and that water uh word water improvement stuff would not be able to happen on that side.

Um that's where how long do we have to spend that million that the county's granted us? Do we know? I mean, I don't think there was a timeline. They were very open with it like and exactly what we could spend it on within the project, but I'll double check and see, but I I don't think there was a timeline on it. That's probably the fiscal year usually they kind of think those things out. So, I think that would be their time. Okay. Thank you for y'all's efforts, especially hearing what Mr. G mentioned about the TD meeting as well as Cole and staff showing up to get an attention and to try to procure some of this funding. So, thank you for that funding information. That's all I got for

Councilman Jer. Yes, we've been working on both for a long time, so I'd love to see both of them coming to fruition. When you're breaking them apart and doing option two, connecting some dots here, we just kind of heard Daniel's timeline. Um, we've got the million from the county. You said the 1.6 we're getting back from the landing. Yeah, we're about on that. Uh, we we'll get that back hopefully this this fiscal year in the next few months. Okay. So, we have that one six. We're going to put that one six with a million from the county and we're at 26 trying to fund a three and a half million. Okay. So, we're But we'll replenish separating those. You still feel confident that we're going to get the other one done cuz I really think both of them are just as high level priority. But we can get one done knowing we're going to get the other one done very quickly as well. As quick as Yeah,

we're waiting on something. I'll have I'll have the money. There you go. Got it. That's my only question. Make sure I'm going to vote. Anyone else questions? Mr. Mer. So, I'm trying to understand everything. Um, you're recommend staff's recommend option two. Is it the bank loan or the bond? Uh, the bank loan. We decided not to look at the bond. Okay. Well, we looked at it, but decided not to go that way. And my hesitation last time came from looking at SNAP and saying we don't have any uh truly we don't have the number that's dedicated from the TDC which you guys have and then also do we have the money to do this? I feel like it's a little different this time. I feel like you're saying like with this this is possible.

Yeah. With the TDC meeting this morning having the approval I feel a lot more comfortable with it. That's that's what matters to me. So anyone else questions on this? Would anyone from the public like to speak on this particular item? Not only would no one like to speak, they're running away. [laughter] Finance usually does that to people. Council, do you wish to make a motion? Mr. Mayor, so move staff's recommendation to execute option two, a bank loan, 15-year term.

Second. Motion by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Schmidt to approve staff's recommendation and uh execute option two, the 15-year term bank loan. Additional comments, Councilman Jeter. Thank you for having all this prepared tonight, Nicole. Thank you for going to the TDD meeting this morning, by the way, was all the way in Cresia at 8:30, but thank you, Daniel. Thank you, David. Thank you, Wendy. Thank you, Nicole. There's a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to uh again receive this funding. It's a benefit to the local residents and it's also going to be a benefit to our tourists. So, it's a great project to see get completed. So, thank you for all the work everybody's put in for many, many years to get to this point. Thank you, sir. Congressman Schmidt.

Yeah, just piggy back off that from many, many years to most recently this past two weeks. A lot of efforts was taken to procure $400,000 a year through that tourist funding that Mr. Jeters does a great job working with that staff and the community. So, it's really a team effort. Thank you for getting it to this point and I hope uh we get the support of the board. Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to speak on this?

Council, please vote. And it does pass unanimously. Just uh before we move on to the next item, I also want to echo that sentiment that uh Councilman Schmidt just gave to Councilman Jeter. Uh, Councilman Jeter has been a fantastic representative of our city on that board for his the entire time he's been up here. Um, always keeps us aware of what's going on and always represents our city uh, so we get the most money possible. I truly do believe that. Uh, that moves us to item 11.2, which is uh, the continued consideration of award of ITB25-011, the recreation complex expansion. Mr. P. Hello, uh, mayor of council. Um, tonight in front of you, you have continuation from last meeting. On that end, uh, there's really, uh, not anything a change other than, you know, the financing that we had on the financial side. Just just to kind of refresh the background, uh, the the property we're talking about is 203 Hollywood Boulevard. It's the old City Field Office complex. It's a roughly a 12 acre site and um you know it's got a long history but you know most recently it's it it was um identified as a council to for an expansion to the existing wreck complex um and our purchasing department um issued a bid um in June 20 24th uh earlier this year and that scope includes a uh 2,000 foot recreation operations building which replaces the existing structure that that is, you know, not suitable for the for the operations that are there. Um the restroom building, four multi-purpose turf fields, pickle ball courts, uh

associated parking to address some of the parking deficiency we have on uh Jet Drive, kind of consolidate the parking over to the front and Martisa Road

and Martisa Road. Um and and you know, make it a whole fully functional wreck complex. Um, and that scope was reduced from the time that we've historically done this before. Um, the lowest responsive bid we got was from Gum Creek um, farms out of Defunia Springs. And, um, when it was all said and done, the shaken out with the with the unsuitable material removal and some of the alternate stuff that we have right now, we have a uh, roughly 7 million price tag. Um on that side, um there is a few uncertainties on there, but but we feel like with the with the note and the financing that we have, we'll be able to address those. On that end, um the recommendation we have is for city council to award invitation bid number 251, complex expansion to the lowest responsive bidder, Gum Creek Farms, Inc. to Funiaak Springs in the amount of $7,59,312.75 including alternates and additional allowance for class 3 waste disposal. In addition, um on a separate motion, we have staff also request the city council authorization for the city manager to negotiate a contract with Gum Creek Fines and to approve project change orders up to uh 10% of the bid amount on that side. Um, there is a third, but I do believe that's already been taken care of in the previous item. So,

thank you, sir. Questions for Mr. Payne? Councilman Schmid. Parking. I know it's an in this agenda packet, but rough estimate. How much extra parking are we getting for? Good question. So, um, I do believe it's over. I can tell you right now. It's a lot, right? Yeah. So, parking wise, we are at some glasses. Yeah, I know. [laughter] Over 200. We'll say that. It's a little blurry with my eyes on and followup question if I can to that.

Please. Any any chance the adjacent property owners have any place to relocate? and not suggesting they do need to relocate, but h is there any is there any opportunity that those two businesses are moving before the lease ends? And if they do, feel free to keep that on the radar and bring it back with the, you know, neighboring property being being I just didn't know if it ever hit the desk of I I'm not privy to any um are were you talking about businesses to the to the west? building any of those those discussions.

Just curious while we're having on this parcel. I I'm ready just to be in question format now, but didn't know if it made it there. So, thank you for that other information. All right. Anyone else? Uh, Councilman J, on your second motion that you like separate that for the city manager to approve change orders up to 10%. That's standard operating procedure on a project of this size.

That's for a That's a good point. Uh, for a project this size, that's what we have done in the past. It helps streamline some of the things for for me and Jason because it's not always above, it's below. Uh officially what we run into before is if we did something on a cost saving deal and it was still above the amount that was in the purchase and policy, even if it was a deduct, we had to take it back. And in the sake of getting stuff done, it just it streamlines uh you know everything to keep it moving or else we're you know waiting or pausing or doing that. Got it. Anyone else questions on this?

I got one for you and I think you know exactly what I'm going to ask. So, in that roughly 200 parking spaces that we're talking about on that property right there, um, as someone who used to work on that exact site right there and who remembers the way that that parking lot previously looked, do we have any kind of guarantee on the length of time that this parking lot is going to last? And is and is there work being done deep below where that parking lot is going to be so that we're not ending up with a choppy day on the bay correct as a parking lot in 5 years.

Yes. So um we do have you know one of the good part you know this process all started back on the existing field office complex project you know six seven years ago. [clears throat] So, so the geotechnical evaluations and stuff that we have over the way, we have recommendations for those from from people way smarter than me, right? On the on the soil side for what those pavement sections mean, whether it's removing that stuff, that's why we wanted to put some of that stuff in the bid uh for the parking lot to over excavating and removing for the buildings or pre-loading sites and things like that. So, um, guarantees, right?

Not stop and short of one, but but we but we at least have addressed it we feel like in a professional, but it's baked in there that either stuff needs to come out or more stuff needs to go in one way or the other that it's going to make it as good as they can make it. Correct. Okay. Gota. All right. Anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Council, do you wish to take any action? Mr. Mayor so move staff's recommendation to award bid 25-11 for the wreck complex expansion to Gum Creek Farms of Definiac Springs, Florida in the amount of $7,59,312.75 including alternates and additional allowance for class 3 waste disposal. Second.

Motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Schmidt to approve the award of ITB25-011 for the recreation complex expansion. Any additional comments? No, sir. Well, we said it before. Thanks for the efforts, but also to this is going to impact a lot of local other folks that are going to be visiting us and doing a lot of great things. So, thank you staff. I know this is the second time we've awarded it now to the community and this time I'm very confident that we're going to execute. thing. Anyone else? Council, please vote.

And does a second motion needs to be made, I think, for the mayor. Mr. Mayor, make a motion to authorize the city manager to approve project change orders up to 10% of the bid amount. Second. Motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Browning to approve the city manager to make change orders up to 10% of the bid amount. Any additional comments? I like what Daniel said. Sometimes they're 10% less. A lot of times in construction they're 10% more. But this will this is standard operating procedure and this will keep the project moving on a fast timeline. Sure. Anyone else? Council, please vote.

That motion also passes unanimously. Moves us on to item 11.3. the award contract for software agreement with Central Square Technologies Limited Liability Company. Miss Neighbors, thank you, Matt. Um, I think everybody should be really excited about this. We know how outdated and obsolete our software is getting. We're using a DOSS based system pretty much throughout the city. Um, I'm going to kind of tag team this one with Jeremy, the IT director. Um, and then we also have Central Square on Teams to answer any questions. Uh so if Jere Jeremy you want to go up first kind of where we we looked at a few different vendors software vendors and he's going to kind of explain why we went with um Central Square.

Good evening. Good evening. Jeremy Willis ID director city for Long Beach. Um as much as I would love to know how you all sound when you're snoring, I'm going to try to keep this high level and non-technical. So I mean the ultimate goal here is to improve efficiency, remove on-site hardware, move us to a more modern [snorts] capable system. Um we did look at a total of four different options. Central Square was one of them. We also looked at Open Gov. We also looked at Civic Plus and Microsoft Dynamics. Um, ultimately we're going with Central Square because they uh currently host about 30 years of city data and that is on a uh it's not DOSs, it's OS400.

Sorry 1988. Yeah. Um it's better than 82. It does look like DOSs. uh the transition of that data from an old system like that to a new system is uh very difficult and I think central square has a lot of uh proprietary systems and mechanisms in place to help facilitate that data move without overly taxing staff. So any questions technically technical questions Councilman Jeter is this the same police department just switched to as well? No. No. What software?

Yeah. So, they have a Tyler that's a computer assisted dispatch system. Uh, and no, no, Tyler does offer an ERP system. Uh, and I don't believe that we have reviewed that one specifically. Uh, we didn't get great feedback from local. Yeah, I was about to say from from local interest. We we didn't really get good feedback. So, will the two be tied together at all? The reason I ask is I feel like Chief Bea gave us a presentation at one point in time that said once we get maybe it was Central Square he would have better reporting on some data and calls or no the two aren't going to mix at all. They're totally separate from this. They're pretty separate in their purposes entirely. So Ken Born, he's not here. So I I'll ask him directly.

Anyone else questions for Mr. Willis? M I was going to ask law enforcement with with Chief Beige. His database is going to be a little different. Wouldn't that be more catered toward uh what exactly? Sorry, I guess opposed to your the central square. Wouldn't that a difference? I I guess I was trying to figure out how you tie those tie those two in together. When receiving the data that um Councilman Jeter had just mentioned, they seem like they would be two different totally different. Yeah, totally two different. Yeah. So, uh, Central Square, what we're replacing here is a, uh, called an ERP, which is an enterprise resource planning system. It handles purchases and your finances and stuff like that. So, Gotcha.

Yeah. Anyone else questions? Miss Neighbors, do you have additional

Yeah. So, I just want to go over kind of the costs and the financial information. Um, and then actually have um Craig from or one of the one of the people from Central Square kind of uh clarify something. Um so doing the pricing um it is with so it's a software and then the service the software portion is for enterprise asset management and the finance enterprise and that's going to cost $153,240 and then for the services which is the consulting for all the implementation the data conversion the project management technical service is going to be $192,65. These two total 3458.45 and we have that already currently. We made sure we budgeted for new software in fiscal year 2526. So we're good there. Um the annual subscription cost going forward will be $153,240. Um and Central Square was really awesome. We told them about our charter amendment and our cap and they try to help us out as much as possible. I think it first came in at um an annual 5% increase but they did it so years 1 and two is a no increase so it'll cost the same. Years three through five, the 3% increase, and then years six plus, um, a 5% increase. Um, Craig, can you hear me?

Can you hear me? Oh. Oh, there he is. Yes, I can. Hey, Craig. Um, can you can you I know we spoke [laughter]

I know we spoke about it at the end of last week and we're trying to go back and forth on it. Can you can you just describe the implementation versus when the annual subscription cost is going to start? Sure. So the annual prescription so when when the dog first delivered delivered to you know the end users um that's when the actual annual starts when the renewal will start post that um post that that uh delivery of the software for the um for the services that starts it's it's called a painful milestone. We have five milestones per product. So today you have two products that we're going to be providing you called finance enterprise and enterprise asset management. Um so in total you'll have 10 different milestones that you pass as we go along the implementation process.

Okay. So so the total cost will be the 3458.45 45 and then that just the annual after all of this is implemented and we're live and we're in there and we're doing it will be the 1532 240. Correct. That is correct. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Sorry. We are going back and I just want to clarify it in front of council just to make sure. So it is budgeted for. Gotcha. Thank you ma'am. Uh questions from the board for Miss Neighbors or for our friend Craig here? Seeing none. Does anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Council, do you wish to take any action? So move st recommendation. Second.

Motion made by Councilman Schmidt, seconded by Councilman Jeter to approve and award the contract for software with Central Square Technologies LLC. Additional comments? Yeah, this is a big lift and you know way about way more about the technical side than than we do. But thank you all for lifting this special project and getting us up to par if not farther than par and a higher standard. And I know this is a project that a lot of directors uh will will benefit from and make things more efficient and the end user ultimately the taxpayer hopefully having a better experience as well. So thank you.

Anyone else? Council, please vote. does pass unanimously. Moves us to item 11.4, the recreation center fee structure for afterare and summer camp. Mr. Davis, thank you. So, just before Tiffany left, a parks team started to evaluate just internal processes and I Wendy ended up doing the heavy lifting here. So ultimately we found that the BPK afterare daycare summer camp program was trending in a bad direction in terms of the money that we were spending and recouping uh to the little bit more than six figures a year it was losing basically right. So, we met with the early learning coalition team and they made some recommendations, one of which being um catered to uh special needs children, catered to people that work night shift. So, we'd have to run an overnight program and there was one other um infants I want to say was the third to try to get more attendance cuz right now we have four in the VPK. Uh ultimately, their advice was to get out of the VPK business because not just for Walton Beach, it's like statewide. This is a common thing where the the numbers are drastically reduced. And I I think going from memory, I think she said it's because schools are offering this now. So it was basically just their recommendation that we get out of the business and they offered to help uh place the students. I mean, it's I I think it's just the right thing to do to let this if let's just say we do end up

getting out of the VPK business to at least let those students finish out the school year and then we can regroup. But uh we can discuss that. Uh then the second recommendation they suggested was to look at our fee structure overall for the afterare and the summer camps and I mean we were drastically out of market. So the team kind of did some research and ultimately if we have the same numbers uh whether they're residents or out of out of city residents from last year to this year instead of losing 100,000 we would actually make 18 to 20ish. There's some assumptions baked in there, right? Um that's assuming no overtime. People are going to get sick, so you got to cover the shifts. Uh we had to change some of the the fee. It's almost quadruple in the fees just to get us into the market. We're still probably going to be the lowest cost, but uh so we might not get the numbers. We're making assumptions that we have the same numbers. Uh that being said, we have a a Poly and a Amy Myra and everybody loves them. So, you know, it's a very popular program. That's kind of where we're at. um we need to adjust the fee structure and we you know I baked it in the uh agenda here so you could digest what what the recommendations are but uh that's that's kind of where we're at. So some of the other concerns I guess I have um you know is it Elliot Point or Elliot Park that's a school apparently today they decided to get into the the business themselves. The concern is a lot of our uh participants, if you will, go to that school. So, there's a concern that we might lose half of our people right off the bat, right? Cuz they they they go to that school

already. Um so, that's just something to think of in working with the ELC. um they suggested and I don't hate the idea that if we do get out of this business altogether, we partner with them and similar to what we do with Nathan Sparks Group, you know, and uh the swimming pool uh people, we just write them a check for 10 grand as opposed to losing the 100 grand, but they're really good at placing kids and helping them with this sort of thing. So that that was their request. If if we end up hunting altogether, but I again uh assuming everything trends as it did last year, we're we're not losing money. Um also another concern is I don't want to go a year and then say, "Hey, it didn't work. We only got five kids. We lost our t-shirt again." And I just feel it's it's it's tough on the kids to be changing all the time. You know, we kind of circle back in a year and say, "Never mind. It didn't work. Thanks for coming." So, I have some concerns there, but I think we just need you to personally, you know, we're all in or we're all out. And I I think we have the team to do it and we have some structure to it now. So, it's kind of where I got what I got for you. If you've got any questions,

thank you, sir. Questions from the council. Councilman Jeter, were we able to compile any data on how many city residents currently use it? Yes. How many of them are city residents? I have those numbers in front of me, but the numbers that we based on where that money would generate. Yes. Do you know the numbers off the top of your head? 40 60 being city, 40 being non. No. Other way.

So 40% city, 60 non city. And is that rate structured like our golf course and other places to where it's going to be more if you're not a city resident or less? Yes. And the Elliot Point, do we know what they're going to be charging? What they're going to be doing at their time? $70 a week. 70 a week. And the times will they be the same or different? Until 6:00 p.m.

So, they're going to do 6:00 a.m. 6 p.m. I first heard about that today, too, cuz I was actually at the sack meeting at Elliot Point myself and heard about that. And uh it's the only thing guaranteed in life is change. So, it was interesting to learn all that today. But that's great that someone else and when I was there, I kind of thought what you just said a minute ago. If if we're losing VP cakes, that's going to the schools where it needs to be. Maybe daycare goes to the schools, too, if that's where they already are and where it needs to be. So, a lot of moving parts here. A lot of interesting people now coming to the table and trying to work this out. It's very interesting.

Questions. Councilman Browning. And what what was their uh summer fees for summer LA point the summer fees they average for let's see like what is Elliot Point recommending for Elliot Point everyone was over $150. And that's why I had come up with something saying 120 and that and we're still less than everyone else.

Okay. Other questions from council M. Um so um what I heard you say is 40% of the um city residents the city and then 60% is county or non county. So are you taking out of county too? Uh we would yeah but I don't think we've got any that's out of county. Well a lot of times you know when you have parents that work out of county yeah they

they would prefer to have services in in county but okay well what I can say because I'm very familiar with the early learning coalition. I've had many years of um you know working with the um ELC and so it is a ve very good program and what I also would like to add to that a lot of the daycare centers do use early learning coalition because they're great for um subsid sub subsidized you know income for the parents that are low to moderate income families. Um on the other hand this a lot of the school districts are beginning to take early learning programs. So, I don't know how you all have it as far as your do you do USDA or is USDA involved in the feeding part of it?

In the feeding part of your program because you have to feed the children. Is that correct? Yes. Well, we we do not we we did offer snacks and then that ended up it showed that we are losing probably about 500 a month by doing that. So then Polly had started uh to where each parent would pay $50 a month. They took that away and instead that the parents were going to give snacks.

Okay. So what I'm hearing, you say, you've never used the USDA as a supplement because that's probably where you probably on the on the food part of it. USDA is a great program and they will they will supply whatever your snacks and need where the city wouldn't have have to pay for the feeding part of it. I I just do that, you know, maybe just up for discussion that um the USDA may be an option in terms on the feeding part of it. Anyone else questions? Councilman Schmidt,

when y'all when staff met with ELC, did they mention I see in the background 1.3.2 early learning coalition stated they would assist in the city relocating the four current BPK participants. With that context, did they mention anything about like a timeline about how soon or how late they would need to work to make sure those four families are acted as though they could place them immediately because I spoke to her today. She she said say when Okay. So, what I'm hearing you say is is there's capacity within our what 10 miles 50 mile radius that they could they could securely transition to that next door.

Next door pretty much. Okay. It's very close to the area. Okay. Thank you, Mr. You got anyone else questions? I don't really have a question, but I wanted to just uh validate what ELC had mentioned. They they do not like a break in service. I can tell you that. So, if the city is concerned about, you know, the children having a breaking service, I think that they they're true to their work. They'll be able to place them. Yes. If that happens, and they made that comment. Gotcha. Uh Councilman Brown. So the EL the ELC is not recommending we get rid of the entire program. They're recommending getting rid of PPK. Correct. And then you suggest letting Well, I feel like some of us suggest letting them finish out the school year.

I that's my opinion. Yes. Because I just, you know, putting myself in a little kid shoes like now I got new teacher, new friends right in the middle of school year. So it's it's probably somewhat traumatic, but I don't know. My I don't know my parents would care. But it's just the way of processing it. And we I mean we've already built the budget out for the year to to potentially you know take care of these kids but at the same time if uh early learning coalition promised me they could uh they actually told me that two centers had to close today because the numbers are low. So you know we're taken away from that that private sector logic if you want to look at it that way. But again I just think it's the right thing to do. It's my opinion.

Anyone else questions? Uh I heard mention that uh parents were requesting us to be open the uh uh daycare to be open 2 247 like overnight and I didn't hear that. No, the early learning coalition said to expand our numbers. Uhhuh. That's that's a trend in that industry is to offer overnights from people that work night shift. Yeah. And I have no no uh interest in doing that because it's [clears throat] specialized staff and training and more costs. So I Okay, good. Not a not a hook on something. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. Anyone else questions?

Anyone from the public wish to speak on this? Just please step up and state your name and address, please.

Hi there ladies and gentlemen. Um thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Ristanski and I have lived in Fort W Beach past 15 years. Before that I lived in Destin. It was an okay place to live, but it always felt a town run as a business geared toward tourists and selected few. There wasn't much sense of community or belonging for families. When my family moved to Fort Walton Beach, we immediately felt a difference. This city had a heart. It was safe, welcoming place to raise children with programs that truly supported working families. It was clear that the city priorities were focused on people, not profit. I voted for all of you because you promised to keep Fort Wen Beach the community we love, a place for families, not just businesses. That's why I'm speaking to you tonight uh today. I'm deeply concerned about the city's consideration to reduce funding or eliminate the children's afterare program. This program is essential for working parents. Uh providing a safe uh structured environment for their children after school hours. Removing or raising the cost of this program would have direct and painful impact on families who rarely uh rely on affordable care. Uh some parents could even be forced to reduce their work hours or leave their jobs creating unnecessary financial hardship. and weakening our community's uh stability. I understand the city must balance its budget. The projected operational revenue for 2025 to 26 is about $52.1 million while expenditure total roughly $66.8 million including capital projects. I also understand that

the afterare program is currently operating at a loss of around $100,000 per year, but that represents only 0.15% of city's total budget. For such a small fraction of our financial resources, this program provides enormous value to local families and the future of our community. Uh there are ways to address uh the shortfall uh through modest budget adjustments, applying for grants, or seeking local partnerships without taking away a service that so many families depend on. The long-term benefits of these programs are supporting child development, reducing youth risk, and straightening family well-being far outweighs its modest cost. Please protect the uh afterare program and [snorts] preserve what makes for me special our community to f our commitment to family safety and community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Shinsky. Yes, ma'am. [clears throat]

Good evening. Um my name is Shaya Chandler. I sent an email um and I know I got some responses, but I thought I would also come and speak as well. Um, I'm here this evening in hopes that you will reconsider the proposed changes to the Fort Walton Beach Recreation Center VPK after school program and summer camp. Raising the cost of tuition may seem like a way to bring in more revenue quickly, but in truth, it will only hurt our community in the long run. When education becomes unaffordable, enrollment declines. Families who are already struggling simply cannot keep up. And when that happens, we lose more than students. We lose potential. Losing any of these programs will cost the community more than a service. We will lose a cornerstone of our community's fabric. Education should never be about making money. It is an investment in our collective future. When we invest in our children today, we are shaping the leaders, innovators, and productive citizens of tomorrow. Every dollar we place in education returns to us many times over in form of a stronger, more stable, and more vibrant community. And this issue, it extends far beyond tuition. Without affordable child care, parents are unable to work. When parents are forced out of the workforce, families suffer, local businesses struggle, and our community weakens. Affordable education and child care are not just luxuries. They are the foundation of a thriving, sustainable society. Raising tuition shouldn't be out of the question. However, we do ask that you consider the law, the cost burden on the population. We must stand together and remind ourselves that success begins with opportunity. Let's choose to invest in our children, support our families, and secure a brighter future for everyone. Maybe you were lucky enough to have an educator or a caregiver in your life that made a difference, and you understand the importance of it. Miss Polly, Miss Ruby, Miss Janice, Miss Pat,

and even Mr. Aaron have become that person for many kids. They get to know them. They pour into them and they cheer them on. Not just at the rec center, but everywhere in life. In closing, I leave you with this. Two years ago, there was an incident that occurred at the rec center that many of you remember. It was a shooting. My husband and two of my children witnessed this event and were in the o were outside in the overhang when this happened. What you don't know is that those teachers quickly threw open that front door, grabbed my children and brought them into safety. And you know the ne and the next day they went back. Um they were scared, but they went back and they've gone back every day since. Not just because they have nowhere else to go, but because they feel protected and safe there. all of those members that work there, not just Miss Ruby and Miss um and Miss Polly, but all of them. Literally, it's like a family when you go in there. They speak to every kid. Every kid walks in and out of there, they speak. It's It's not like it's just a random person in um like that you see at a Walmart. Like, they know all the kids. And um that's pretty much all I have. Sorry. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Miss Chandler. Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this? Yes, ma'am.

Hello. My name is Sophia Ortiz and I stand before you as to represent one of the child of who went to the after school care program. And these programs provide support for students, family and community and offer a safe structure environment where cla students can continue learning building skills and explore their interests outside of the classroom. For many working parents, the program also provides a reliable child care peace of mind knowing that their children are engaged in a positive and positive activities and children can get their homework completed in audition. After school and summer camp and summer camp programs help boost academic performance and keep kids connected to caring mentors and peers. Removing them would take away the valuable opportunities for growth, creativity, and comm community connection that would benefit everybody. I would like you to reconsider these changes and see beyond these numbers.

That's all I have. Thank you, Miss Ortiz. That was very good. [applause] Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this item? Yes, sir.

Council members, evening. My name is Ray Garcia. I've lived in the city since 2010. had a 3 and 1/2 year break. Um, point of clarification, Elliot Point's going to charge 40 for before, 70 for after, and 85 for the week, which I believe is in line with what the uh current rate is. Um, and then the thought that I would like for you all to consider is is yes, the school is going to have it during the school year, but what about the after school when the school seat when the school is over, right? What are those kids going to do? I believe there's about 30 plus families that are affected by this potential change. Uh if it gets closed, there's 30 families that are going to be affected by all of this. Uh both of my kids went to uh this facility and not once did they ever come back that day and say, "I don't want to be there." The staff that was there back when Miss V was working it when it was Doy Bass Rec Center over at LA uh Ferry Park uh was fantastic in that just transition when it went over to the rec center. So, just please uh just consider everything uh to include what's going to happen when the school year is over and what's going to happen with those kids and those families. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Garcia. Anyone else from the public wish to speak?

Yes, sir. Hello, my name is Craig Dowski and also I think a consequence of getting rid of this program or changes is that the rec center is really like our family's home base and we have and had our children involved in many of the activities there whether it's the 850 the martial arts and also tutoring and with our work schedules, you know, and the we can send their stuff with them and they can just go straight from there if we're working late. And then also on the tutoring end, it's, you know, hey, they're there, grab them out and they can get their tutoring done. So I think not just financially wise but also with time constraints if it were to go away or you know a lot of those things would have to get eliminated for a lot of families and I think that'd be a negative.

Thank you sir. Thank you.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak? Yes mayor. My name is Christina Hollony. Um, I have been a resident of Fort Walton Beach for the past five years this time around. I grew up in Fort Walton. I went to Edwins Elementary School. I went to the rec center for after school programs. I went for cheerleading and football and all the sports and activities. When I first moved back, my heart and soul for my daughter was to be in Fort Walden and to have that sense of community. Um, when we first were looking at afterare VPK opportunities, as a single mom, it's very difficult to find somewhere that's going to work with an 8 to5 40-hour work week. When I tell you I spent 2 years, two years on weight lists, I'm still on weight list for VPK and my daughter is in first grade now. When I tell you that there is not a program that surmounts to what this program has ability to offer, the stability, the family, the community, the sense of protectedness that these teachers have over these kids, it's not all about numbers at the end of the day. These kids are affected. I was affected when I started at this program 30 years ago. So, all I ask for you is to consider not only the financial side. Obviously, that's a big hit for the city. consider looking into other options, more marketing for the program itself, grants, partnerships with other community members, businesses in the area. Um, I know when I first started, I reached out to the community and the businesses that I worked with at the time and nobody had even been approached at an opportunity to partner with the community to keep the VPK or the aftercare program. So, I understand the financial aspects. I also understand the impact it's going to have on the families, not only VPK after school and the summer program. I really implore you

to think about the effects that it has on the community, the children, not only financially, but emotionally as they go through this next school year wondering what's going to happen to the program. Um, I just want us to be able to ensure that we are researching all of our options and extending every arm possible that we can to make sure that we have the ability to offer such a great program from the city to our um, young citizens in Pro Long Beach. So, that's all. Thank you. [applause] Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this item?

Yes, ma'am. Uh Tammy Cocenau, 31 Morarity Street, uh resident of the city for 40 years now. The afterare program and the summer program provides so much to the children in this community and you are proposing a 400% increase in the fees. If you take a single parent that is making $17 an hour, that equates to over one month's salary for that individual. Okay? These children need a safe place to go. Uh 30 years ago, my son went to Dosey [clears throat] Bass afterare program and now my granddaughter attends the Jet Drive afterare program. They have become her family. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Carinau. [clears throat] Anyone else from the public wish to speak? Yes, ma'am.

Cheryl day, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and I go to the rec center six days a week. I um I do a lot of exercise classes there and I must admit I am embarrassed that I did not know how important this program was. I I that's always on that side. I see the kids. They're cute. There has to be a way. We just have to come up with a way to save this. We can't just give up on this this easily. It's too important. After hearing some of these parents, I realized, oh my goodness, what what's going to happen to these kids? So, let's come up with a way to fix it. Thank you, ma'am. [applause]

Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, council, do you wish to take any action on this item? Mayor moved to get staff to work with ELC. As I stated, they would assist the city in relocating the four current BPK participants as well as as any staff. Not any sooner than what Mr. Browning mentioned, the beginning of the school year 2026. Uh, and if I have a second, I'll further

second a motion by Councilman Schmidt to, I believe, end the PPK program, but allow the four students currently enrolled to finish the current school year at the facility. Correct. Correct. Okay.

And with the background information, what I heard was I think we all want the same thing is to get four students educated. We all believe in the same thing whether it's some of those presentations we heard there. I think we all believe the student needs to be educated. I think it's a conversation about now where our sports complex understand it's great to hear how much our staff really is valued and all the neat stories that we heard about how awesome our staff is doing is commendable. So it's not Mr. mayor just ending the program, but more giving staff some action based off the background of the agenda where ELC mentioned that they could facilitate and also heard staff mentioned that there is capacity to work with these families to transition in our neighborhood area. I know we can go back and forth and have more conversation on why some staff likes our program better than others and I respect that, but I just want to bring clarity to the motion.

And just so I have clarity as well as as the people listening and watching, this motion does not address at all any change in the fee structure. Correct. Correct. This is just VPK focused only on this particular motion. That's it. And then obviously we would council would be able to make an additional motion after this vote to address the fee structure or no action at all. So Councilman Jeter, I believe you seconded is additional.

Yeah, I'd like to echo everything Councilman Schmid said and I think all of us in this room obviously we're all in here because we love kids. We care about kids. We want what's best for our kids uh up here as a city. Sometimes we have to do what's best for all of our city residents. And uh I think that's what we're doing here. I think the last uh uh young lady said, "Let's find a solution and work together." together. That's what we're trying to do here is find a solution and work together. There's a lot of VPKs uh that are going under like Mr. Davis said because they don't have the students and that kind of seems to be where we are. There's a lot of VPKs thriving. So, let's work together with the people that are better at this than we are and see if we can get them in a better place. And that's all we're doing here. We're not No one's against the kids. No one's against any programs. We all have known Janice and Aaron and Pat down there for years and done all those programs and and uh uh you know, they're like family to a lot of us. Matter of fact, Aaron was like family to me when he was out in Destin and then he switched and went to Fort Walton. So, a lot of times you got to be careful because soon as you fall in love with somebody and call them family, they can leave next year, too. Not saying Aaron's going to do that at all whatsoever. I'm just saying that could happen, too. So,

anyone else wish to comment on the motion. Councilman Merrell. Yeah, I am I see I think Jason does a great job. finds where money has to be moved, where money can be saved. Uh we look at money um being spent sometimes as a loss, but we look at I look at this as an investment into the kids, into what we're doing. I know it's cheaper. It's not on par. Um but you look at the BPK program. I would be in support of that. Can I amend that motion? You can either substitute motion. Do a substitute motion. Yeah. And if someone seconds that

and if we end the PPK program, we don't change the fee structure. Second substitute motion by Councilman Merrill, second by Councilman Browning to uh uh eliminate the VPK program at same as they said at the end of the year, finish out the year. that's going to save somebody that's still going to be a loser as far as on black and white and paper, but it's it's not if you look at what we're we're providing to the city. So, yeah. Gotcha. Additional comments. Uh, Councilman Brown.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's recreation. Recreation is not meant to make money. If it was, then we would charge citizens to utilize the rec center. We don't. So, we don't look at that. We shouldn't look at it when it comes to children. So for those reasons, I support the motion. Gotcha. Anyone else comments on the substitute motion? Go ahead, M. Riley.

Um I support the substitute motion um because of the fact that if there was only four VPK students and we're going to make sure that there's no breaking services and you know I really think this is extremely important when you've um dealing with you know early early childhood education. no breaking services and then if they're going to be um transferred over BPK is I mean ELC is going to help make sure that they've transitioned at the beginning of the year and if you're going to keep the fee structure the way it is I'm totally in support of that. Thank you mrill you mentioned earlier on can I just get clarity of what the amended motion is after Mr. proudly comments as well.

My amended motion would eliminate the VBK program at the end of this year. So, we're we're not relo at the end of the school year. We're not relocating the kids. We going forward though without the VPK program, we would go forward with the current fee structure, not the suggested fee structure. So, we wouldn't be raising the prices. Good. Are you any other comments? I'm good right now. Okay. J, that's just for this school year. So at the end of this school year, if we come back to any fee schedule and we look at this next year, maybe we offer more services, less services. Kids go up, kids go down. We're going to revisit this at the end of the school year. This motion is just for this school year. Eliminate

BPK at the end of the year. Don't touch the fees structure right now during the school year, but we may have to go back and revisit this next summer. Is that where you're

I mean, the intention is to keep providing this. We we're all up here. We can make motions and things can, you know, things can always be brought back up. This might give us time to explore grants. This might give us time to explore community partnerships. Um maybe put together something for all the people that came out here to support this and emailed us um to come up with something in that time that it doesn't have to be such a loss for the city, but it doesn't have to be put onto the ground. So yeah, I mean, his motion does not include what you added, Mr. Peter. His motion would have to be amended that this would be killing the bee, right? There's no reexploring. No,

but obviously anyone could reexplore anything at any time as a member of the council and you wanted to bring it up and put it on an agenda. Correct. Councilman Smith, you good?

Got it on the fee structure for the rest of the school year, but it is the transition to get out of of the business and to transition with the ELC at the end of the school year or not. I can clarify that. What what he's suggesting, his motion is to let the VPK program run through the end of this current school year with those four students and then end the VPK program with the help of the early learning coalition to transfer those four students at the end of the school year and then no more VPK program from the city of Fort Long Beach. also to keep the current pay structure that residents, non-residents pay for their before care, afterare, wraparound care, snack fees, summer camp, etc. the same as they are right now. Thank you,

I'll say too, most of these preK kids are going to kindergarten next year, so there should be little to no involvement with the LC. They all should know where they're going. That's right.

Gotcha, Mr. G. and people wanting to enroll next year will now know that we're not going to offer it because we're transitioning out of it. I will support the motion simply because I do think there's a lot more a lot of people emailed a lot of people have come and spoke. We just learned today that another [clears throat] local school where the majority of some of you guys are attending Elliot Point could be offering that same service or program. So, it'd be interesting to see the numbers and the data at the end of this school year and possibly come back and revisit. Maybe our numbers go up, maybe our numbers go down. We got we're going to have to revisit this again. Anyone else wish to speak on this?

Council, please vote. That motion does pass unanimously. Thank you everyone who came out to speak to that tonight and for all your emails and participation. That leads us to item 11.5, the recreation center fee structure for afterare and summer camp. Did we just do that? Oh, we did. Let's not do it again. Just do item 11.6.

We'll let everyone clear the room for a minute. It's hard to know. I will say before we move to item uh 11.6 six here. Mr. Burns, in all the years that I was on the city council, I never had any idea that we could do a substitute motion in the middle of someone else's motion. I would have done that some [laughter]

especially how quick Jeter gets to. You got you got to put something out there. You got to go. All right. So, there's no point being there's no point being fast. Now, now somebody second that substitute like Jersey Mike's in here just All right. Uh we move on to item 11.6 proposed referendum ordinance amending charter elections, term limits, vacancies, and filing fees. Mr. Burns, this you

it is. And uh this is the proposed ordinance which if you do pass it tonight uh will come up for first reading in November and second reading December. So it can be put on the March referendum next year. And uh the order these are going to be presented to you here tonight are not indicative of what order we think they should be put on the ballot. I'm actually going to ask you after you've considered everything tonight to maybe give some indication what you the order you do want because when we come back in in November, we'll need to have the actual charter amendment like number uh the question number for the ballot uh at that point in time in the proposed ordinances. So, this one does have the number two on it. That's just cuz it's the second one I did when I was drafting them. And so uh this particular one uh makes changes to sections 3 4 5 7 and 25 of the city charter. Uh in the ballot the ballot question is shall those uh sections be amended for purposes of clarifying the nonpartisan nature of council seats updating terminal limit provisions establishing consistent procedures for filling council and mayor mayoral vacancies and providing flexibility in the establish establishment of filing fees for city elections. Um, I was able to combine five of the uh sections into this one question. I could not figure out a way to fit any of the others. And so this deals with some of the the proposed uh charter amendment uh uh preferences from the charter review commission. Um I just ask tonight if y'all do uh you do need to realize if you do pass [snorts] this tonight that we aren't not going to be able to make any changes to this at first reading. Uh so uh if y'all do want to make changes to it, let me know now. So

gotcha. Questions on this for Mr. Burns. Um yeah, just so I understand with this So this is how they're going to this is just us voting how these are going to appear in in what order. No, no, no. When we get done with all these tonight, I'm going to ask y'all to tell me what order you want them. Okay, let's work on this. This is just Yeah, not yet. This is just the important wording. The port and knowledge I'll fight over the order. That's perfect.

Any questions for Mr. Burns on the important wording of these items? Seeing none, anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, council, do you wish to take any action? So, move recommendation. Second. Motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Schmidt, to accept the recommendation of Mr. Jeff Burn, city attorney, in the wording of the proposed referendum ordinance amending charter elections, term limits, vacancies, and filing fees. Any additional comments?

Thank you, Mr. Burns, for all of your hard work during this process, and thank you for really doing some extensive research and working to condense these to prevent ballot fatigue. I can tell you worked really hard in doing that. So, thank you. Anyone else? Council, please vote.

I bet nobody in the world thought that was going to pass that quickly. [laughter] Well, the the point you brought uh Mr. Deer, um I will have when yall are talking about the order, I'll kind of broach. There are a few sections that are not covered in any of the ballots here tonight that uh the charter review commission had made some suggestions to change. Um ultimately, uh most of those sections can be changed by ordinance alone without a referendum. They're very ministerial. There's going to be two that can't, but I don't think and and they can't be placed on the ballot at all, but we'll discuss those at a point in time. Y'all might just want to maybe decide not to change those two sections would be my recommendation. But we'll get to those in a few minutes.

Yes, sir. Item 11.7 prop proposed referendum ordinance amending charter council meetings and council government governance. Mr. Bur

and this is the ballot question to amend section 689 of the charter and it's related to the council meetings and governance. It is the provision that does uh discuss let me scroll down real quick. uh when y'all might remember there was some discussion on what your powers were to uh discipline each other for missing enough meetings. Uh you asked me to cut out anything that was not in line with state law. So, I did that in section 9 in the proposed changes and uh and I took out the uh the I think they had a number in the original suggested version that uh it indicated that uh I think they could provide like excuses and so y'all asked us to take all that kind of mother stuff out of there. So, that's what we've done here.

Thank you. Is there questions on this for Mr. Burns? Anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Council, do you wish to make a motion? So, move staff's recommendation. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Merrill, seconded by Mr. Schmidt to approve uh item 11.7 and the wording as uh written by Mr. Burns for the proposed referendum ordinance amending charter council meetings and council governance. Additional comments, Mr. Jeter.

Just like to say thank you again to Mr. Burners for moving the paragraph due to to council member Merrill's correction so that we're not up here playing Judge Judy deciding if someone has an excused absence or not. So, thank you for removing that part. It it did it did leave the section in there. It says if you miss over half the meetings in the year and they're unexcused because I wrote it that in there. There's a lot of meetings in this. Thank you for also including the moral turpitude clause. That's correct. I think that's important.

Council, please vote. It does pass unanimously. Moves us to item 11.8, the proposed referendum ordinance amending charter administrative efficiency. Mr. Burns. And uh this is uh the largest uh I guess the ballot question that changes the most amount sections. It changes sections 11 through through 14 and 16 through 22 the charter. Most of those sections deal actually with Mr. Davis's uh duties and it's uh adopting all the recommendations that the charter review commission made uh regarding those sections to uh make his job a little easier and clear ultimately.

Thank you sir. questions on this section for Mr. Burns or Mr. Davis? Anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Council, do you wish to take any action? Mr. Mayor, so moved to accept staff's recommendation. Second. Motion made by council me, seconded by Councilwoman Riley to accept staff's recommendation on this uh item 11.8, 8 the proposed referendum ordinance amending charter administrative efficiency. Any additional comments from the council? Not on this one.

All right. Council, please vote. It does pass 5 to one. That moves us to item 11.9, the proposed referendum ordinance amending charter regarding council and mayor compensation. and Mr. Burns.

Okay. So, th this obviously is to repeal or actually it's amending section 33 of the city charter to authorize compensation, but uh just so you're clear, the compensation that's authorizing is is either the monetary compensation, so being paid cash, or the health insurance coverage. And the amount that you would receive if you elect the monetary compensation would be $1,000 for council members a month and 2,000 for the mayor. uh every council member and every and the mayor could uh individually elect the between the option of health insurance or the pay. But uh that was how I left last meeting with your vote understanding that's what you all wanted to do. And so if y'all wanted to make it an and this would be the time to tell me you want it to be and uh the and being you want both the monetary compensation and the health insurance.

Thank you sir. Questions on this for Mr. Burns, city attorney? Yes, sir. Can I get another apology for you tonight? I was researching and looking at this item my previous vote. I know we can't change it or do anything, but I want to apologize. My out was on this one, not the last one. So, okay, fair enough. Apologies. Accepted till last that far. Anyone else with questions on this question from Mr. Burns? Seeing none. Anyone from Oh, I have a question. Mr. Barry, go ahead. Help. It says uh is it either or either monetary compensation or health insurance? Correct. Either or.

It's either or. It's not both. You can't choose both. Oh, you cannot choose both. No, you cannot. We can change it right now and make it be Well, no. Uh no, I don't care either way. But but I don't I don't want either. I just needed clarification. Either or. Sure. Okay. Anyone else with a question? Seeing none, is anyone from the public? Oh, Mr. I got a question. I have a question. So, um, directing to attorney Burns. So, on the either of the or is there I mean is that clear or it's can any adjustments be made on that? It it's can can you go in if

you would not be able to get both? No, there's no way because the actual that the ballot question is a little bit more basic. If you go into the actual U I'm pulling up the language right now the actual okay which will actually be the provision as it's currently written in the language is what he's saying. Yeah. So it is I got it right. But if we want it to be both the time to change it is now because you can't change it. Correct. And now that's what I was asking. And that would has to be reflected in a motion that one of you had made after we've given the public the opportunity to speak on the item. Copy. And offer their Councilman Schmid a question.

Mr. burns. Procedure-wise, if that alleged motion that mayor's referring to was made and what second was passed, would it have to be brought back for another? It'll be brought back first reading brought to the first reading form. Correct. Just just making sure. Thank you, sir. And if y'all make too many changes at that first reading, it wouldn't make it to the We all probably would have to either call a special meeting to do the readings. So So what we passed tonight has to pass the second time. It'll pass. Yeah. two more times actually because this is not first reading tonight. This is to bring it back to first reading. So yeah, and you don't have time to it again. Yeah, cuz I think the deadline is Christmas.

December 25th. So our last meeting, we only have one meeting in November and one meeting in December. So you'll have the first reading November, second reading December. So tonight, Miss Riley, yes, it is. If you want it changed, it needs to be now, not next meeting. I got it. Okay. So, anyone from the public wish to comment on this item? Does anyone on council wish to make a motion? I wish to make a motion to make the changes for council and mayor to receive both health and the compensation. Second

motion made by Councilwoman Riley, seconded by Councilman Jeter, to accept Mr. Burns uh wording here except to make the change to include council and mayor compensation and health insurance coverage from the city. Any additional comments,

Mr. Mayor? I just feel that from the last amendment there was the vote to remove compensation. But when you looked at it, it was when it was both this what we were proposing with the ore was a pay cut. at the end of the day was a pay cut. And I just we could put it on the ballot at $10,000 a month, but we're gonna put something on the ballot that I think is not going to be received well by the public. I agree with you, Mr. Jeter. I think should pay should be a paid position. I do. But I think if we present something that doesn't reflect in line and in the direction with the last vote, I think then you're going to see it. not even have a chance. And that's that's where my, you know, I'm I'm concerned. I'm concerned that, you know, this is always a hard thing to vote on, but I mean, not only are we replacing the compensation, we're now giving a raise. And I just I mean, if we came back and said, well, then it's 250 bucks a month and health insurance for a little, you know, then it would be something. But I don't know. I don't think this is going to be received great by the public. And what's the point of getting it on the ballot just to have it shut down? Everything that I voted for to put on this ballot is something that I'm going to push for, something that I'm going to recommend. It's something that I'm going to on my own personal time try to try to get as much information out there so that they pass. And this one I feel makes it difficult.

Thank you, sir. Councilman Schmid, I saw you raise your hand and then we'll go over.

Just want to reiterate some of the concerns from last time we discussed this. More specifically, the similar concerns Mr. Merrill mentioned, but more specifically with more of the cost being added with a if it's an and not an or. Feel like we talked about those two words a lot this past year, too. The ands and the or um that $1,000 per month and the healthcare cost anywhere around, you know, I don't $2,000 a month or what that looks like. We're looking at a lot of operating expenses and we don't know how the ballot language is going to pass or not with the whole 3% cap. It's just going to be a tough sale to staff that we got about a 3 400 whatever the cost would be for for a council that chooses to elect into both the stipen and the healthcare. Um it's going to be a tough sale. So I'm out.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Councilman Brown. Yeah. [clears throat] Um, I don't think I'm going to support it either just because we chose, you know, people to sit up here, representatives that we chose for that um, charter board and they specifically said or. So, for those reasons, I'm I'm going to stick with what they said. Thank you, sir. Sir, and a point of clarity, if I can, they actually removed the healthcare. they only added the compensation and then because you know that was something we said or we we added the or they didn't even have it so to give us an option

but yeah I mean I just would hate to see us come back and be like and so that's that's just I think I think that sets us up for failure right off the bat anyway. So thank you sir. I like

Yes, M. Riley. And you know I absolutely would not want to set you know the council up for failure but you know you would have the option to say you know on the hand. So that's your option. you know, you you could dismiss both of them, the compensation and the healthcare. And I I'm believe that um some of us on the on the council probably would not accept the uh the healthcare and some may not accept the insurance, but you do have the option of both. And I do understand that the charter, you know, I'm not trying to uh erase what has been put out there and they did a you know, I understand that they did the work to get to where they're at. But my thought process on that is I think the mayor need to be comp uh compensated. I think the council need to be compensated. Health insurance is Yeah. But there should be an option though for both of them. I just like the wording and better because at the end of the day whether it's in or you most likely going to take option any regardless.

Thank you ma'am. Anyone else? That's me. Council please vote. The motion is not carried. 24. Would anyone like to make a motion to take any action on this item? Otherwise, Mr. Mr. Mayor, I would be so moved to accept the proposed referendum ordinance amending charter the charter regarding council mayor compensation as staff recommends.

Second motion made by councilman Merrell, seconded by council Browning to accept the wording as Mr. Burns has written regarding council and mayor compensation. Additional comments I don't think are needed because we definitely heard everything you guys said.

Yeah. So with my executive authority, anyone from the public wish to speak on this seeing none, please. And it does pass 4 to two. All right, that moves us to a place that I'm lost here. What happened here? 10. 11 something. 1110. Oh, yeah. 1110. Schmidt put in there. Schmidt put it in there. Wait, we're still in there. Yeah. 11.9. Sorry, we cannot skip that one. The board.

All right. 11:49. Proposed referendum ordinance amending charter regarding Wait, I'm still on the same one. How am I still on the same one? I'm late.

Charter regarding annual budget increases. My computer's different than my paper. That's the problem. And this is obviously the uh proposed charter amendment to or mouth question to remove uh and repeal section 35. Uh, the only thing I would say is, uh, I know, uh, Nicole and I and Jason went went kind of back and forth on the language and, uh, I actually think legally it would be fine if we removed a little bit of the verbiage that I put in here cuz originally I put more in than they wanted because they wanted to make it a simpler question for the voters to understand. And I actually think we could uh, the question currently as it's presented to you is rather lengthy. It does come in under the 75 words though, but I do believe you could remove everything from so on the third line. So, where it says limits, annual increases in the budget, I think you could start right there and cut out the word four and then everything down to uh the last line uh and and just have it read, shall the city charter of Fort W Beach be amended to repeal section 35 titled limitation on annual budget expenditures, which limits annual increases in the budget and which does not limit increases to property tax rates. If you'all think that reads a little simpler, Nicole, do you think that?

So, okay. So, it would say, "Shall the city charter of Walton Beach be amended to repeal section 35 titled limitation on annual bud budgeted expenditures which limits annual increases in the budget and which does not limit increases to property tax mill." Yeah, that's what you're saying. I think that reads I I think it's a lot cleaner for citizens to understand.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So, see the other stuff doesn't necessarily have to be in there because the charter amendment that was passed last year is a budget limitation amendment and so just referencing it and the numbers not publicly. So, all right. Questions on this for Mr. Burn, city attorney from the council. Seeing none, anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? See none. Council, do you wish to take any action? So move staff recommendation of the updated shorter version. Second.

Motion made by Councilman Jeter, seconded by Councilman Brownie to accept Mr. Burn's wording with his changes as read by Miss Neighbors for demonstration purposes. Any additional comments? Council, please vote. That motion does pass 4 to two. It moves us to item 1110. Actually, mayor, I was going to at the end of all these Oh, that's right. That's right.

for some direction from the council on how y'all want the question numbers. Technically, this is something if we came in at the first reading, we could change the number on the question, the proposed ordinance, if y'all can't decide tonight how you want them ordered. But I think it would make it easier to let us know tonight uh which how you want the questions ordered and uh cuz right now I think the logical way to do it would be just in the order that you asked them. But the best I was saying that cuz that's the only thing I know that you all done. I don't have an opinion either way how how the question should be presented on the ballot. [snorts] But what what that means is the uh the proposed uh amendment that was passed at the last meeting with moving the election date to November. That would be question one right now. And then questions two uh three and four would be those more technical uh amendments. And then it would end with the the council compensation and the repeal of section 35. And so that's how it will be presented right now to y'all next month. And so I'm kind of asking for some direction. Do y'all maybe have a preference on the order of the ballot questions?

All right. Somebody want to make a motion on accepting that or changing it and then you guys can debate if you see fit. Mayor moves to the attorney's uh recommendation or the way it's currently presented. Second.

Motion made by Councilman Schmidt, second by Councilman G to approve Mr. Burns uh recommended order of the uh presentation of these ref uh or amendment. Any additional comments? Anyone from the public wish to speak on this order? See none. Council, please vote. And that does pass six to nothing, which now moves us to item 11.10. Councilman Schmid, I believe you wanted to address this or is there someone?

Well, I I just motioned to amend the agenda to include this. Um, Mr. Davis or Mr. Burns, if there's some background. So, this is the lease. This at the corner of Highway 98 in Perry that was originally intended to be a golf car uh LSB parking lot. It's never been used that way. I think the propertyy's now been under lease for almost a year now, maybe 10 months or so. And uh it's really just sat vacant. Uh the city uh is obligated under lease to maintain the property for the landlord. And the city does pay monthly rent. It's not a high rent number. I think it's a few hundred bucks. It's 500 bucks. And so, uh, it's a it has been keeping the property clean. That's the one benefit. But I know at the CRA meeting, y'all directed and were very clear that y'all are ready to maybe terminate this lease. The only thing I didn't have the lease in front of me right then when it got brought up earlier, I pulled it up on my computer. The we do have to give them a 90-day notice. So, if y'all do vote to terminate the lease tonight, they will get a they also will get rent for 3 months unless they decide that they want to let us out of that provision, which I doubt they would have any reason to do That'd be nice.

Yeah. All right. Uh questions on it from the council. Oh, you got some additional information? Uh Tim, yes, girl management director. Um it's been brought up before, but just to remind you, um I have discussed with the property owner and developer on there. They are still planning on moving forward with development on the property. Um they said probably first quarter of next year. So whether we terminate it on our side or they're looking to terminate it in the near future as well. Um, obviously that could change their plans. Um, um, you know, their plans could change and they not develop, but that's their plans right now is to start development early next year. Either either way, however this action were to go, you seem pretty confident they're they're moving forward with their strategic plan.

That's what it sounds right now, but I mean, you know, the economy, the market kind of drives so many things right now. So, I mean, good. I'm I'm optimistic, too. Yeah. Mr. description. Just for clarity, you you're not saying in any way that this vote would impact their development plans.

No, I'm saying that it's potential that whether we take action or not right now that that lease could end up terminated soon anyways from their side cuz it is in the lease that either side can uh with the notice on there can terminate the lease. So, in talking with them, they are looking at possibly doing that. uh that came up during the CRA, the beautifification that we were looking to do on there with the fence um and everything that when we we asked them about doing some irrigation on there, they want to be very clear that they are planning on moving forward early next year with that. That's why we went with the cheapest option of just the fence wrap that's on there right now. I think practically, mayor, this property is never being turned into a parking lot in time before they start tearing it up is what what it means.

Gotcha. Uh anyone else knows? anyone from the public wish to speak on this? Just I I did want to talk about I I think Mr. Jeter wanted to keep maintaining it because that's the entrance to the city whether we keep the lease or not. And I I almost would rather not do that because just from a fair and equitable standpoint, if I'm going to maintain his property, I feel like I need to start maintaining other people's property. And I I think we take on a little bit of liability with you know we could I mean uh yeah I mean it would be a little bit more liability.

Yeah. So I'm I'm trying to you know just risk averse from that perspective. So working with that property owner I I prefer right now we're using park staff. It's not a contract. So our park staff is going out there and mowing that and that just gives me more bandwidth to focus on our properties. So just thought there but again open to whatever. I'm just trying to uh navigate a few things there, make sure we're all on the same page. So, if you're saying we had a current lease in place, you would still feel comfortable, even though we're never going to do a parking lot, even if lease is for a dollar. I don't want the lease. I didn't know we had this lease until, you know, again, stuff I'm still learning. So, when I found that out today, I was like, I have no interest in leasing that. We're not going to build a parking lot.

I don't think none of us want to lease it right now, but about a year ago before you got here, there was trash and debris and it was disgusting. And we got a Troy now. So, that's where Well, we can we can go that route, but that route takes Yeah, they won't. They they'll they'll they'll maintain it. They'll take care of it. I mean, Troy's more effective, too, now than they used to be. So, I agree with that. Anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? Council, do you wish to take any action? Mayor so moved to get staff to follow all terms of our current lease to submit the right notifications to remove ourselves from that lease committee. Second

to terminate lease to terminate termin motion made by Councilman Schmidt, seconded by Councilman Browning to terminate the lease. What Mr. D just mentioned, the intentions were to create a parking environment. There were some conversations about possibly LSVs and golf carts crossing First Street. We're strategically trying to find some parking and just like other things, things go a different direction. It's exciting to hear that they're optimistic about developing in the beginning of the year. Uh so that's why I made this motion. It's important hopefully getting out of this good attention one time and we are now.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to speak on this? Council, please vote. It does pass unanimously 6 to nothing. Great job to I wasn't here in CRA meeting, but whoever identified this and uh spurred on this action, great job. So, credit to all of you, I suppose. Uh moves us to item 12, city manager reports. Mr. Davis, just a couple things. Um, not sure why there was a delay. I don't know if I just missed it, but uh, we got a census from University of Florida and it brought in our population uh, like 20,000 as opposed to 22,000. We tried to file an appeal to say this can't be right. We've had some building, etc. And I guess we just missed the window. So, there is a process that we can follow for next year to have that evaluated, but uh I just got to get it on somehow. I don't know why it came physical mail. So, I don't know if it was lost in the mail, but I I got it, turned it over to Kim, and she tried to navigate that with University of Florida and they said no. Uh so, just putting that on your radar. Uh the fee structure for field use needs to be a resolution. Kim caught me on that. So, I will have that on the ne uh November ballot so we can improve that fee structure and implement that um for renting field space and maybe one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my entire life. We cannot get pennies from the bank. I It's just weird saying that out loud. So, in the utility building,

pennies.

They are apparently not going to make pennies anymore. Write your congressman. Tell them how angry you are. But in the utility billing area, not the software is smart enough, if you will, to either add or subtract a penny and just put on next next month's bill. No big deal. Golf world, not so much. Um, so it's not that the staff doesn't know how to use a calculator or do the basic math. Um, again, cannot physically get pennies. So rather than buy an upgraded software that would do the math, you know, that would, you know, bill it somehow to your membership, uh just not cost effective. So we've gone to a cashless pro uh product there. And oddly enough, not going to be a huge impact. A dollar in pennies lasts two or three weeks. So it's not like we do a lot of cash there to begin with, but pennies. Uh then just you know keeping with the theme on that 3% and how it's actually impacting the city. We had a police vehicle be uh get damaged. We are not going to repair it uh because we're early in the fiscal year and we just don't know how it's going to shake out. So that police officers are going to drive that bucket. Uh it's only $4,000 to repair it. But that being said, we're you know going to wait till we get towards the end of the fiscal year. Of course the price will probably go up because it's good for 30 days, but we just need to be careful with that. And oddly enough, uh, this council substantially more active than previous councils apparently. Uh, we're trending in a way that we're going to run out of your budget to go to FCMA, FCCMA, and whatnot. So, we got to do a little better tracking that going forward because we built our budget based on historical use. This council, however, is a little bit more involved. So, just wanted to put that on your radar.

Thank you, sir. Questions from the board for Mr. Davis on any of that. Mr. Dear, what about uh um you mentioned all those acronyms. How about Florida League of Cities? What about it? Does that include We can't go to that either or saying you can't. That just we have to track the budget a little bit tighter because you yourself and Mr. Yep. So I guess previous councils didn't go nearly as frequently. So Oh, I thought they did. I have no idea. I'm just giving you the information I've been given. before this group. This group that's here now is the one that didn't go for a couple years and then before that they did. But now it's it went from nothing to a little

I think this is the three series. So the December one should end the three series. I'm just doing it out here. What you say again? Yeah, we've got that that part's covered, but when we switch over to like January to to next year, if you start doubling down, we're we're going to be in a spot. the part four part [laughter] five. We'll have to Can we carpool? I'm sorry. Ask Mr. Burns on that one. So that means that we couldn't share a hotel room like two different beds either. We couldn't do that either. Couldn't we just car trip and have a camera on live stream? Yeah, live streaming. Maybe

I would watch. [laughter] Who would Who wouldn't watch that? All right. Uh, any other questions for Mr. Davis?

I do. I do. I'm just I'm really interested, but also it's just backtoback meetings where I really feel for my my the golf program that brings in a lot of cash. Last meeting was about golf balls. This meeting it's about [laughter] pennies, you know. And I I don't mean to make light of the subject, but I just feel convicted to take some action, but not action where it's going to be pulling the rug out of anything or over capacity for for staff, but so moved for staff to bring us back in January, February. some pros and cons and a due process of things to consider both funding as well as procedural wise for the golf program to begin an enterprise fund for the 2027 budget. Second. Motion by Councilman Schmidt, seconded by Councilman Jeter for staff to bring back information in January or February uh to look at moving the golf course to an enterprise fund system within our budget. Um and present that to council.

Pros and cons. That's right. Very neutral, not wanting to go one way or another. But past couple meetings hearing some things whether it's the 3% cap concerns. We don't know how that's going to go in March. Um, you know, it's a cash program that we're seeing budgets to actuals do very very well in the past two meetings. It's we're not sure if he can buy golf balls and get get pennies. So, I know we're all trying to move different things around the whiteboard. Staff's doing amazing at trying to circumvent go and do different things with with the new legislation, but that's that's where my appetite's at. Thank you, sir. Councilman Jer, your motion is just bringing us back data on how we can remove any handcuffs we have on Jacob doing awesome at the golf course ultimately. Yes. Going to an enterprise fund where we

I just want to highlight. Yeah. Going to enterprise fund where the handcuffs are off and it can do as well as it possibly can without any that's a good way to put government restrictions. While I'm sure there's some pros and cons that staff have that I may not be thinking about or anything thinking about, but yes, that would be the ultimate objective to to continue that program to fly at the highest standard like you mentioned. Can you do that, Mr. Jeff? Like, is that enough time that that would be really legally it's very easy to do this, but Nicole as the city's finance director has to basically cuz she's also an accountant and uh she has to test certain things. She has to be comfortable the funds and the everything is lined up correctly. So it's going to be a can really ask her and that would be information issue number

that would be the information that need to be brought back like we're not needing to figure that out. You know what I mean? But whatever that information is that are you talking about like not doing like a full analysis of when but just pros cons and like maybe the history of when it was in the general fund not like wasn't an enterprise

but what we can do to get to that but the cons that may say hey it'd be too costly to invest into starting an enterprise fund or looking maybe at the capital request that that program may have over the next 5 years. It might be a pro to throw a certain amount of money to start off the enterprise fund because our capital request for the next 5 years might be extremely expensive that's going to pull from the the general revenue. So those kind of pros and cons. Yeah, I'm sure a little bit of history wouldn't hurt. little background with her, but it's really trying to focus on the unknowns of this March 2026, the 3% cap, back-to-back meetings, trying to figure out how we're getting golf balls and pennies, but there's a I heard from the city attorney, not really anything legal, more accounting standards and due processes that we need to consider. Not here at I think it's 8:27 at night, but by you know, January and February bringing back the information. Got

it. Anyone else wish to comment on the motion? I have a question. Sure. Yes. Help educate me on difference between enterprise fund and what we have right now.

I got you. So right now the golf course operates out of the general fund budget out of parks and recreation. Um meaning if it has a shortfall in its own budget. You can pull money from the general fund to address a capital project or a downturn in the economy of the number of people who are playing golf. An enterprise fund would make it more like for instance Daniel's department public works or the water and sewer. So you know it's its own business basically it's separate from everything else. Its expenditures are own its own expenditures its incomes are its own incomes. So like whenever

so like whenever the pines got a lot of money that was invested in making that up in the future that enterprise fund would have to figure out how to structure and prepare and plan for that without pulling from other park money or potholes and things like that that go towards other things that enterprise like Mr. Mayor mentioned is is the objective is to try to be self- sustaining and ran like a business. So you ended like a full proprietary and this motion is just bringing us back that data so we can make spirited decisions and [clears throat] conversations.

All right, everybody's well informed. Please vote. And it does pass un. All right. Anyone else with a question for Mr. Davis on his city manager reports? Seeing none, Mr. Burns, your city attorney reports the night, mayor. All right. Thank you. Final comments from the council. Uh, I believe we started with Mr. All good, Mr. Riley. I'm good.

You are also all good. Mr. Smith, Mr. Davis, thank you for continuing to to keep this uh this uh standard improving. Always want to continue to highlight the cleanest city of the emerald coast. um the humility of needing to tweak some things, but also the confidence of getting our staff and our community to continue to lean in on that program. So, I plan on the next 17 months continuing to advocate for that program, supporting that program, and whatever we need to do to tweak it to make it better. Uh that's my council comment for the night. Thank you, sir. U Mr. Brian.

Yeah, I just to echo you from earlier, the United Fidelity event was pretty awesome. The city also had a fall event too that was really awesome as well on Friday and it was packed which was surprising because of the football game that was good. And uh I just hate that I miss jersey night tonight. Jersey nighters. You know what? A lot of people did suggest that tonight should have been council dress up in Halloween costumes. [laughter] And I think next I think next year we're going for I think next year we're going for I think it's what [laughter] the people want. Don't you? All right, Mr. very

okay. I just want to say uh uh I was uh pleasantly surprised uh with the uh kids playing ball um on the turf grass uh during the rain. It rained and rained and rained. Not hard rain, but it rained. But it was okay. At least they didn't go past 10 and 12 midnight. So, I I appreciate that. Um also, uh I've gotten a lot of good feedback with the citizens academy and the police academy as well. Um the feedback that I got is that thank you thank you thank you for opening up what what the city staff is doing what we are doing and allowing the questions and seeing how our city is is moving this way or that and bringing in uh Nathan um uh sparks from yeah they they had no idea. So this is good. we're opening up and showing what we're doing here as a city rather than closing everything down. And even like with the VPK and all that, people says, "What? What? What?" It needed to be brought open. It needed to be uh aired out so that they understand and they appreciate this. They truly truly appreciate that. So, thank you very much for doing that.

Thank you, ma'am. Councilman Jeter, yes, I'd agree with uh you as well. And I'm glad we just approved some more of those turf fields tonight cuz they're awesome. That's That's great. And uh just thank you. Thank you. Like everybody else is saying tonight, we're blessed to live in such a beautiful area from Nathan to the EDC like you said to TDD funds that we received. We live in a great area. I can't wait to see all of our new updated projects in the CRA district and all these awesome new parks and everything else we have. We got we really do have a lot of great uh things to be excited about going forward. Whether it's bike pass and parks and lights and great people running great organizations from the EDC to the TDD. It's we're blessed to live in a great place and I'm grateful and thankful to live here.

2.0. Right.

Yes, sir. Uh, I would just like to finally say, uh, I agree with strongly with something that Councilwoman Devi just uh, kind of mentioned, which is I think it's great when Mr. Davis, for instance, comes in, sees an issue like the the expenditure there and the losing money at the rec center and says, "Hey, is this something that the city wants to do?" and puts it out in this way that council can now put it out to the residents and be that conduit like they're supposed to be and then people from the community come and email and call and show up to the meeting and say, "We're passionate about this and we want to keep this."

They could have also come and said, "What a big waste of money. Get rid of all of this." Right? Or I run a a daycare operation and you guys are competing against me. Right? people can come and and voice their opinion. If you don't ask the question, you don't find out, are people passionate about this? Do people love this? Do people want this? So, there's tons of those things in the operation of a city. And I am very thankful for Mr. Davis exploring those opportunities to save money, those opportunities to make programs better, and to get people passionately involved in the process of making this city better. So, I think it's a fantastic thing when this room is packed with people waiting to speak about something and they got to witness all the other things that their government uh took action on while they waited for that. So, thank you very much. That's all for tonight. We're drink. [applause] Yeah, I like that guy.