City Council - Regular Meeting

We're going to get started in just a minute. If you are going to speak in public comment, please make sure to fill out a card and put it in the basket in the back. What is this? Okay, all right. Very good. I apologize for the delayed opening of this meeting. As our previously scheduled workshop overran its time, but we'll go ahead now and call this meeting to order. If you would, please stand for the pledge and invocation led by Councilman Jernigan.

Let us pray, please. Dear God, thank you for all creations. Look over this council. Help us make decisions that is pleasing in your sight. Look over our first responders, our armed forces, and our area and abroad. In God's name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Councilman. Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Jernigan?

Present.

Councilmember Harris? Present. Councilmember Young? Here. Councilmember Carter? Present. Mayor Walker?

Present.

Senator Rosenthal? Here. City Attorney Martin? Here. Chief Butler?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Lake City Council has opened its public meeting. And since 1968, the city code has prohibited any person from making personal and pertinent or slanderous remarks or becoming boisterous while addressing the city council. Yelling or making audible comments from the audience constitutes boisterous conduct. Such conduct will not be tolerated. There's only one approved manner of addressing the city council, and that's to be recognized and then to speak from the podium. Failure to abide by the rules of decorum will result in removal from the meeting. We will now move to approval of the agenda.

Mr. Mayor, move to approve the agenda.

Second. have a motion a second thank you all three of you but thank you both for for making that happen um do we have any further discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed like sign all right agenda is approved we'll now move on to presentations we have a presentation tonight uh it's the city of lake city's annual audit for the year end fiscal year end of september 20th 2025 by james moore mr brendan mcpatrick and spencer machuga

Good evening, everyone. Spencer Machuga, manager with James Moore, with my partner, Brendan McKettrick. I know in previous years, he's been the one to present the audit. However, I did express interest in presenting the audit this year, and he allowed me the opportunity to do so. And this evening, I will be presenting the financial audit for the year ending September 30th, 2025. Before I get started, I just want to say a couple quick thank yous. First, thank you to Angie and her team for all the assistance throughout the audit process. There's definitely a lot of hard work that goes into a financial audit from both sides, and Angie and her team did a great job responding to all our audit requests very timely in what was otherwise a very smooth audit process, as well as thank you to the members of the council for engaging our firm to perform the annual financial statement audit. Along with the financial statements that we passed out prior to this meeting, I also have a PowerPoint presentation that will help guide the discussion tonight. This first slide here, I just want to dive a little bit into the independent audit reports that can be found within the financial statements. Again, these are management's financial statements. We do issue reports throughout. The first one is the audit report, which can be found on the first few pages. The main thing to note there is that we're issuing an unmodified opinion, essentially saying that we believe the financial statements presented to you to be presented fairly in all material respects, and it is the best opinion we can issue on a set of financial statements. The city did have two state single audits this year, and we issued a report related to those. This is related to your grant activity, and there was no issues of noncompliance noted. Towards the back of the report, you'll find a report on internal control and compliance. I do always like to emphasize that this is not an internal control audit. We're not issuing an opinion on internal controls. However, we do consider internal controls when designing our audit procedures, primarily those related to key transaction cycles, such as AP and payroll. Another report can be the AG report, which can also be found towards the back. There's no modifications to that report. Then finally, the examination report that can be found on the last page. And again, just basically saying that the city meets all state statutes related to investments. Here we have kind of a snapshot of the general fund balance over the past previous five years. The general fund balance at year end at September 30, 2025 was about $27.5 million. This was about a $2.3 million decrease from the previous year. Of that fund balance, the two main amounts we'd like to focus on is the assigned and unassigned. On the next slide, I'll dive a little bit deeper into that. Here we take a look at the total assigned and unassigned fund balance within that general fund compared to the expenditures and transfers out during the current year. We'd usually take a look at that as a percentage. This year was about 108%, last year being about 143. And what we use as kind of a benchmark is this, is from the Governmental Finance Officers Association, which recommends about two months or at least about 16.7%. Therefore, we believe the city has the reserves to be substantially healthy and above that recommended minimum. This next slide here, taking a snap of the two proprietary funds, the wastewater and the natural gas. As you see, the wastewater is pretty comparable in consistence over the previous years. The natural gas fund did see a pretty significant increase through that increase in gas consumption during fiscal year 2025. Diving real quick on some other governmental fund activity, you have the fire department fund and the airport fund, as well as that CRA fund. And the other thing I want to highlight there is that we did separate, the state statutes require that we issue a separate audit for the CRA and there was no findings or modifications to that report as well. But all that CRA activity can be found within these financial statements as well. I also want to touch on the ARPA Transition Project or the American Rescue Plan Act. This is the funds that the city received a few years back related to the coronavirus. And about 2.7 is included in that general fund assigned balance related to this amount. Last, we always like to touch on that net pension liability that's recorded on the government-wide financial statements. In the governmental activities, there was about a 4.5 net pension asset, about a 4.5 million net pension liability as well. And then on the proprietary funds, there was about 2.6 million of a net pension liability allocated across, and about a 200,000 net asset. Also included on this slide is just a snapshot of the previous years. I believe that covers everything I want to touch on this discussion. I'll open it up for any questions or comments.

Thank you very much. Council questions, comments? I have one quick question. Yes, sir.

You pointed out that our reserves are substantially healthy. Is there, in y'all's view, a level on which they're perhaps too healthy? Do you have an opinion on that?

Feel free to chime in. But as far as I'm aware, there's no really no maximum. There's no state statute, anything about a maximum percentage. Again, we just use that GFOA as kind of our benchmark just to kind of give a comparison because it's looking at versus just looking at percentages and have nothing to go against.

Yeah, I think Spencer. Hey, how are you doing? Sorry. Spencer summarized it well. We look at, so the GFOA slide recommends the minimum. We do get a lot of questions as to, well, where should it be? What is too much? Where's a healthy amount? I think a good kind of practice is if that is something that the council wants to explore, you can look at making certain policy decisions around that. The thing is, really, everyone has a different opinion of what healthy is. I Kind of going back to the GFOA minimum recommendation, they also say there's other things to consider as well. Carry forward balance for emergency gains. If you have significant capital projects on the horizon, you may have grant funding, but there may be a portion the city has to contribute as well. So there's definitely things to consider as part of that. But from our perspective, we see fund balances kind of all over the place. I think it's the minimums that we're more concerned with. We don't want it to drop below that two-month threshold.

Thank you. Great answer.

Mr. Jernigan. That was sort of my same question. What's the maximum or minimum that we should have there just in case something happened? And along with that, I just wanted to know how long you say your name was John James Spencer Spencer. How long have you been with the with this firm? i've been with the firm for five years now i started as an intern and i worked part-time during my last year of college then went on full-time for four years that is excellent man that you would land a job such as this and handle uh funds and finances the way you do so i just want to let you know how proud i am of you just coming out of college and getting uh landing a job such as this so but getting back to my question is there a minimum or maximum amount that we should have in that reserve? You basically answered it. So I just want to let y'all know I appreciate that. But is there any way you can find that out? Maybe for the city of Lake City, I'm not talking about all these other states and cities that you deal with, maybe for here and the city of Lake City. I'm just interested in that, you know, I know you said it's up to the council and, you know, probably the city manager. But having having those funds and in that account like that, it's really not making any money. Right. You agree.

Sorry, Spencer. So. So I would say to your question, that is an exercise you can go through. And we don't have to necessarily do that. I know Angie and her team are more than qualified to do that. But looking at similar type municipalities is probably a good exercise, too, just to see what others are. There is an analysis that we perform. This is kind of getting in the weeds, but there's a financial condition assessment we have to do for all entities. And there's different basically comparables that we look at. Included in there, it does kind of speak to kind of fund balance and reserves. But again, everyone varies. You'll see kind of it drastically all over the place. So it's hard to give you, hey, this is what we would see ideally. Again, I think where we get more concerned with is if it's too low, again, that minimum threshold. But again, there are a lot of different perspectives when it comes to carry forward balance and reserves and things of that nature.

Thank you so much.

Sorry, I wish I had a direct answer for you, but there's definitely, we get a lot of those questions and it's definitely worth looking through it just to see if there is, you know, some sort of policy decision you all want to make.

Thank you.

And I think Spencer's great too, by the way.

Any further questions? Thank you all. Mr. Rosenthal, you wanted to add something?

Yes, I just want to mention that state law requires 16.7%. We just passed an ordinance that allowed us to keep up to 50%. We have some heavy lifting coming up with places like Gwynn Lake, and so we're probably at 108% now. But when we pay for some of those things, we'll be back closer to our 50% over time. Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal.

I'm so glad you said Gwinn Lake. All right. Any other questions?

No, I'll just give a shout out to our finance team who are doing a wonderful job with the funds. And we're doing all right. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McKittrick and Mr. Machugo. We appreciate you guys very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

All right. That concludes item number one. We will now move into public participation. We have two people signed up right now. I did have somebody else express the want to speak. So if you could, make sure that you fill out a card in the back and get it into that basket. But we will begin tonight with Mr. Mark Eshbaugh.

Good evening. Got a lot to talk about, not a lot of time. But my subject tonight is flock safety, specifically their automatic license plate readers, which I'm going to refer to as ALPRs going forward. Specifically that I don't think we should have any of them in Lake City to even include Motorola Solutions, Rekor Systems, Gentec, Axis Communications, Genoptic, Axon. I feel like if I say no flock, it's like wishing from a genie and you'll swap it for another one. Firstly, the physical concerns, specifically Florida Statute 316.0745, which states that road signs or devices within the right-of-way or public easements should be on a breakaway pole or a slip plate. In the event of a vehicular collision into the pole, it transfers energy to the pole, to the ground, and stuff, all to the vehicle. Now while there have been no cases in Florida of the polls violating such statute, in other parts of the country there have been concerns and private citizens have looked and found such violations. I would say trust but verify, especially with how many singular vehicle crashes happen in Lake City. I'm concerned that physically these could get someone hurt or worse. From a logical standpoint or digitally, You've heard it in the news before. There have been countless vulnerabilities with these cameras. I'm an aspiring cybersecurity student. The biggest one being that there was a 87-page white paper uploaded to the National Vulnerabilities Database at the National Institute of Technology and Science. Open to anyone to read. It's how industry experts keep up with the ever-evolving technology. Flock was given 90 days to acknowledge these vulnerabilities from the author of these white pages, and it went ignored, and the author published them only after being ignored. So if this company doesn't care about the safety of their own product and essentially the data that it's collecting, which is all of ours, why should we have them? Not to mention the countless upon countless violations of the use of this data by law enforcement. I'm not saying that it's Lake City, but but it's happened. There have been three cases in Florida where they were used to stalk women. Two of them were. One was the spouse of another police officer. One private citizen was falsely arrested because of the use of flock safety in conjunction with its AI. So flock was used to do the job itself and not from the police. And when it comes to privacy, Florida seems to be under the mindset that when you're out in public, you don't have it. Chaudhry v. United States, which happened in June at the Supreme Court, pretty much dismissed that argument. It wasn't about flock, but it was about geofencing and cellular dragnets. But they still mentioned that even if you're out in public, you still have a right to privacy. And it also mentions the concerns of reverse data searching and data holding. And I'm going to quickly state that the state of Illinois, via an internal audit, found that flock safety handed over data to ICE without their consent. So our data truly isn't even ours.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Eshbaugh. All right, up next we have Mr. Eric Tober.

Hi, how are you all today? Funny enough, Mark and I did not plan to be here today together and speak about the same thing, but here we are. So I'm also addressing the public regarding flock safety, and I'm going to read from it just because there's a lot to say and I don't want to miss anything. So I'd like to bring awareness about something that's a growing concern across our country and has now reached our small town, the expansion of AI-powered surveillance and what it means for privacy, liberty, and the future of our community. I'm sure you all are aware of what these flock devices are. However, I want to bring to your attention that they are not just license plate readers. Do the research yourself, but their base model, the Flock Falcon, their automated license plate reader, it's also used to create a vehicle fingerprint. It sees the bumper stickers. It assesses dent marks, make, model. They advertise themselves as being able to identify vehicles without plates. The other thing is a lot of these flocked falcons, they're also showing up in nature trails and in parks. Kind of odd for a license plate reader. And that's just one of their devices. They also have the Condor and the Raven. One of them, which is a camera that actually videotapes using AI to zoom into people. Do not be deceived. This will be used with AI facial recognition. It is only a matter of time. And their Raven system, which detects sounds. And originally it was marketed as a gunshot detector. However, in their latest trial, they were actually using it to assess human voices of distress. And that trial was discontinued in July, now, due to privacy concerns. However, you must know that the capability of the software and the hardware is there. So that's a line that's ever evolving. You know, supporters and most certainly law enforcement that I've talked to, they are very supportive of these systems. They help recover stolen vehicles, locate missing persons, solve crimes, and these are worthwhile goals. And we all support catching dangerous criminals. But we have to ask a larger question. At what point does a tool for solving crime become infrastructure for mass surveillance? These cameras are being installed not only on major highways, but in residential streets, rural country roads, parks, nature trails. We have to ask, when government-owned surveillance cameras can build a digital footprint of common law-abiding citizens, mapping out their patterns of life and habits, and depending on the camera, even continuously observing actively entering and leaving private property, are we becoming comfortable with warrantless monitoring of the daily lives of ordinary law-abiding citizens? And they'll tell you, we're not surveilling you. But you have to ask yourself this. Would any law-abiding citizen volunteer to have a police officer follow them every day, all day, 24-7? Of course not. Not because we're doing something wrong and we're breaking the law, but because we have our privacy and we are entitled to privacy with the Fourth Amendment. So it's funny how the United States has long criticized countries like China for building a mass surveillance network. And here we are in the States doing the exact same thing under the guise of public safety. And I wish I could say, as people say online, don't New York my Florida, don't California my Florida. However, even LAPD. One of the largest police departments in the United States recently canceled their contract with Flock due to privacy and safety concerns. So tonight, I respectfully ask our commissioners to think carefully before allowing this surveillance infrastructure to expand any further. A lot of counties in the United States have actually already overturned and canceled their contracts with Flock, again, due to safety. so we have to most importantly we have to ensure that the people of this community have a voice before more surveillance becomes a permanent part of our daily life thank you mr thover thank you very much all right uh up next we have miss hill welcome good evening

My name is Octasia Hill and I am the head coach of Carnage 10U Hill. Thank you for allowing us to speak with you this evening. We are here today asking for your support in helping cover our $5,000 tournament expenses for our upcoming fall season. To give you an idea of where that money goes, we will compete in eight tournaments between September and December. Each tournament requires an entry fee and umpire fees, with also some requiring gate fees. Tournament fees require from $525 to $685 each, bringing our total tournament season cost to $5,000, before we even factor in uniforms, equipment, practice supplies, or travel expenses. at kernish 10u hill we're building much much more than softball players we're teaching discipline accountability teamwork resilience and leadership these young girls are learning that success comes through hard work dedication and supporting one another these lessons will stay with them long after they leave the softball field our families have already committed countless hours to fundraising because we believe our girls should earn EARN OPPORTUNITIES, NOT EXPECT THEM TO BE HANDED TO THEM. WE'VE WORKED HARD AS A TEAM, BUT WE'RE ASKING FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP TO HELP EASE THE FINANCIAL BURDEN AND ALLOW THESE GIRLS TO FOCUS ON COMPETING, LEARNING, AND REPRESENTING OUR COMMUNITY. WHEN THESE GIRLS STEP ONTO THE FIELD, THEY ARE REPRESENTING MORE THAN CARNISH TO NEW HILL. THEY ARE REPRESENTING THIS COMMUNITY. Your investment would allow them to compete against teams from across the United States while proudly representing this community. An investment in youth sports and an investment in the future. It allows children a safe place to grow, positive role models to learn from, and opportunities to build confidence, character, and lifelong friendships. We respectfully ask for your support in helping cover our tournament expenses. Your contribution is more than paying entry fees. It is creating opportunities, removing financial barriers and investments, and the next generation of leaders. On behalf of our players, families, and coaching staff, thank you for your time, your consideration, and you for believing in our girls. We truly appreciate the opportunity to stand before you today.

My name is Ava Cooper, and I play pitcher in shortstop. My name is Kennedy Bing and my favorite position is catcher and outfield. Wow. Hello, my name is Trinity. Hello, my name is Trinity Hill. I play third, first, and pitcher. Wow. My name is Zarian Dunning and I play shortstop. My name is Melissa Vaughn. My name is Melissa Vaughn and I play catcher and outfield.

These are just some of the girls that I was able to schedule and get together here today. So I hope you guys, you see we are building something much more than just softball, much more than a game. We're building friendships, lifelong friendships. And one day these girls will play for CHS.

Thank you very much for coming. I think there was a question from the council. Where do you play and what's your team?

So we are, our organization is Carnage Hill. We are a travel ball team, and we practice out of Winfield, on the Winfield Fields, the community center, the Winfield Community Center, that's where we practice. Our tournaments are from Jacksonville. We have tournaments in Stark, Altamont Springs, and those areas, so north to south.

and the reason I asked is because honey when I tell you you put you condensed some information I need help with that so there was a lot of information so are you in a certain league or um so like I said it's 10 you softball um the league would be a fast pitch um travel ball yes ma'am

We're trying to get our tournament fees paid for as of right now. So our uniforms and the team fee, it comes out of the parents' pocket. So our uniform fee this year was $194. Our team fee for the year was $125. Now, this isn't the year, and I'm saying year, but this is actually for the fall season, which will go from August until December, and then the next season will start. It's not a whole year. It's just a couple of months. What's your age, your group? Our age group, so our youngest player, I believe, is nine years old, and our oldest player is 10. So it's 10U. Okay.

So you're asking for how much?

$5,000.

Is that the total amount, or are you going different?

No, ma'am. That is not the total amount. That is only the total for our tournament fees. Okay. Sorry.

I'm going to rock hard for you, okay? Okay? Don't say she didn't want to be here, so I hope you make it worthwhile.

There are a lot of them I think it's kind of past their bedtime. They'd rather be at home watching TikTok.

Getting there for us, too. I would say I gave my card to one of the parents that's here tonight. I think this falls perfectly within the mayor's matching grants, especially to help offset some of those costs. So we'll be following up. And she's got my number, so we will be following up. And we'll get her hooked up with Ms. Terry. Mr. Jernigan, you had something?

Yes. From my understanding, you said you knew the mayor. Y'all were classmates?

No, so actually, I know his sisters. I played your dad. I played softball with your sisters, yeah.

Yes, so when you told me that, I thought that was very interesting. Can you bring the coaches up here, or the coach? You got another coach?

Yes, I'm the head coach, and then this is my assistant coach right here.

Yes, I'm glad to see you guys coming up here and requesting funds. Of course, we'll do whatever it takes. And we have a good mayor matching grants and things of that nature. And just like she said, It goes beyond softball, fast-pitch softball. Friends, entrepreneurs, it could be politicians. I wouldn't suggest that, but it could be that. But it appears that these young people here is on their way up, because I heard you say it was 10 up, 10U or something like that. So they're on their way up. So I just want to let y'all know that I appreciate you guys coming and coming before the board. to suggest and recommend what you may need and how we can help you guys. So that's amazing.

Thank you. Thank you all. I'm going to encourage you all because you all know that Lake City just won the championship. Exactly. So y'all up and coming with you letting us know.

That's what we're saying. We have the next generation right here in front of you. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Ms. Octasia. All right. That concludes our open public participation. We don't have anybody else signed up, so we will move on to approval of the consent agenda. Mr. May, second. We have a motion and a second. Thank you both. Any further questions, comments? Bearing none, Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll? It was Mister jernigan and seconded by Mister Carter.

Yes.

Yes, I was reminded by Christian before we started to limit our bending and pushing of the microphones. It seems to affect the system whenever we do that. So and don grabbed it as soon as i said all right uh so that moves us past the consent agenda we're now into old business we'll move straight into our open public hearing uh item number four city council ordinance number 2026-2380 mr martin mr mayor council members you have before you on second and final reading ordinance number 2026-2380

An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Lake City, Columbia County, Florida, amending Chapter 2, Article 7, City of Lake City Code of Ordinances to expand the Community Redevelopment Board of Commissioners from five members to seven members, providing definitions, establishing eligibility criteria for said members, providing for severability, providing for conflicts, and providing an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. We'll now open this up for public comment. We only had one person sign up, and that person is absent, and so they submitted an absentee message prior to. While we've never done this before, this is Ms. Betty Goggins, who regularly comes to our meetings, and she had an issue that took her away, so I'll read her brief comments. And Mr. Thomason, this is really a question. So who are the five to seven members that make up the Community Redevelopment Board of Commissioners? Can you come speak to that item before we... Move into council questions, comments? Who are the five to seven boards that make up the CRA board? Well, currently it's the council. The council and then the other few. There too will be people within the district. Thank you, Mr. Thomason. All right. That closes our public comment. And so we'll move straight to council questions, comments, anything. Or I'll entertain a motion to adopt city council ordinance number 2026-2380 on final reading.

To adopt city council ordinance 2026-2380.

Second. Motion and second. Thank you both. Any final questions, comments? Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Carter. Yay. Mr. Jernigan. Yes. Ms. Harris. Yes. Mayor Walker.

Yes. open public hearing on item number five city council ordinance number 2025 or 2026-2381. Mr. Martin, will you please read this by title?

Mr. Mayor, council members, I have before you on second and final reading ordinance number 2026-2381, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Lake City, Columbia County, Florida, amending chapter two, article seven, section 295, City of Lake City Code of Ordinances to provide additional detail to the legal descriptions defining the area of the City of Lake City Community Redevelopment Agency, making findings of fact and support thereof, providing for severability, providing for conflicts, and providing an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. We don't have anybody signed up for public participation on this, so we'll move straight into council questions, comments. Approve City Council Ordinance 2026-2381. Second. Thank you both. Any final questions, comments? Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Carter? Yes. Ms. Harris? Yes. Mayor Walker?

Yes. All right. Now we'll move on to new business. City Council Ordinance Number 2026-2378. First reading. Mr. Martin, will you please read this by title?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council members, you have before you on first reading ordinance number 20262378, an ordinance of the City of Lake City, Florida, amending the future land use plan map of the City of Lake City comprehensive plan as amended relating to an amendment of 50 or less acres of land pursuant to an application CPA 2607S by Elizabeth Steele, the property owner of said acreage under the amendment procedures established in sections 163.3161 through 163.3248 Florida statutes as amended. providing for changing the future land use classification from county commercial to city commercial of certain lands within the corporate limits of the city of Lake City, Florida, making findings of fact and support thereof, providing severability, repealing all ordinances in conflict, and providing an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. We don't have any public participation signed up for this event, so we'll move straight into council questions, comments, or I'll entertain a motion to adopt city council ordinance number 2026-2378 on first reading.

to approve Council Ordinance 2026-2378. Do we have a motion?

Second.

And a second. Thank you both. Do we have any further questions, comments? Hearing none, Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Carter? Yes. Harris? Yes. Ms. Young? Yes. Sagan? Yes. Mayor Walker?

Yes. All right. Item number seven. City Council Ordinance number 2026-2379. First reading. Yeah, item number seven. with the quasi judicial hearing mr martin number six on the on the online oh no it was in the prior agenda there was a modification to the agenda oh there's an addition on the consent agenda item uh item number i got you now number three was added today okay thank you All right, so we'll move on to City Council Ordinance Number 2026-2379. I'm first reading, Mr. Martin. This is quasi-judicial, so I will let you take it from here.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. Item seven on tonight's agenda is ordinance number 2026-2379 on first reading an ordinance amending the official zoning atlas pursuant to application Z-2605-S submitted by Elizabeth Steele. This is the companion rezoning to the comprehensive plan map amendment that you just adopted on first reading. presentations from the city, the applicant, and any party interveners, followed by public comment from individuals and group representatives, then cross-examination if there is any, and then any additional response by participants if the mayor allows. We'll then proceed after all of that to questions from the city council. Following questions from council, we'll move to final arguments from the parties if they have any. I'll advise the council as to law and necessary findings, and the council can deliver a vote. All persons have a right through the mayor to ask questions of staff or other speakers to seek clarification of comments. While the city council welcomes comments from all persons with an interest in the proceeding, Florida law requires the council's decision in quasi-judicial actions be supported by competent substantial evidence presented to the city council during the hearing on the application. Competent substantial evidence is evidence a reasonable mind would accept is adequate to support a conclusion. time i will make inquiry of each of the council members individually to see if they've had any ex parte communications involving any of these or involving this matter and if so to disclose it an ex parte communications an ex parte or is a communication involving this matter that took place outside of this meeting starting at the end of the dais miss young have you had any ex parte communications thank you mr carter mr martin quick question

Does watching the planning and zoning meetings that this goes through beforehand, does that count as an ex parte communication? Is that a form of communication, just watching the meetings?

It could be, and so an abundance of caution if that was the case. I watch almost all our planning and zoning meetings. Okay. I would just say, as a matter of course, just declare that moving forward. The next question always is, did anything you heard during that meeting, would it affect your ability to give an impartial hearing tonight? No, sir. All right. Thank you. Mr. Jernigan? Yes. Ms. Harris? And Mayor Walker? No. All right. Thank you. At this time, I need to ask each person who's going to offer testimony or speak to this application, if you could stand to raise your right hand and take an oath. Mr. Angelo, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? All right, thank you. Council members, you have before you the proposed ordinance 2026-2379. The title of that ordinance is an ordinance of the City of Lake City, Florida, amending the official zoning atlas of the City of Lake City land development regulations as amended relating to the rezoning of less than 10 acres of land pursuant to an application Z2605S by Elizabeth Steele, the property owner of said acreage. Providing for rezoning from county commercial. Consistent with annexation. So all they're doing with this one is changing parcels. Does wish to speak who did not submit a card. Seeing no one. Assuming, Mr. Angelo, you don't want to cross-examine yourself. As interesting as that may be to watch. At this time, are there any questions from the council, Mr.

Anybody have any questions for Mr. Angelo? My only question would be, this property, the folks came and presented this property a short while back. Are they still intending to use it as a storage unit?

Yes. That is the intent behind it. They're going to do a mini storage facility. So the next step, once we get done with the rezoning, will be a site plan to present that.

Very good. Thank you. the furthest no it's it's this is now city yeah this we've annexed this into the city this is the furthest west unit in the city first federal same okay

Pine Mountain. Council members assuming no final argument. Seeing none, decision of the council should be based only on evidence provided by sworn witnesses. In addition, the council shall take into consideration the recommendation of the zoning board. Those matters listed in section 15.2.2 on first reading following an appropriate motion in second. Thank you, Mr. Martin. 2026, 2379. Second.

A motion and a second. Thank you both. Any final comments, questions? Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll? 2382. Mr. Barton, will you please read this ordinance by title?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members. You have before you ordinance number 2026-2382 on first reading. An ordinance of the City of Lake City, Florida relating to the criminal background screening of certain public service providers, municipal employees, vendors, contractors, contractor employees and appointees, including volunteers. Amending Chapter 70, Article 1, Section 70-1 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Lake City, Florida, providing for criminal background screening of such individuals, making findings of fact and support thereof, repealing all ordinances in conflict, and providing an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. We don't have anybody signed up for this item on public comment, so we'll move straight to council questions, comments, or I'll entertain a motion to adopt City Council Ordinance No. 2026-2382 on first reading.

Mr. Mayor, I got a question.

Yes, sir.

Am I reading this and hearing this correctly? Everybody that applies for a job for the city will go through a background slash criminal records check. Am I correct?

They already do. Yeah.

I'm just making sure that I'm hearing everything correctly.

Chief's coming up to clarify, but yes.

The police department's been doing all the background checks, fingerprint supported, and we were notified by the state that unless it's for law enforcement part of the department, the city had to get what's called an ORI, originating agency number. So what'll happen is HR is getting their own separate number. They will still do the live scan at the police department, but we do it under the HR number for purposes that the state has, and what'll happen If somebody that we did the background on for non-law enforcement gets arrested by fingerprint, HR will get notified instead of the police department. So basically it's the exact same thing. This is just cleaning stuff up administratively.

Mr. Mayor, move to approve City Council Ordinance 2026-2382. Second.

Motion and a second. Thank you both. Any final questions, comments? Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll? Yay mission Mr jernigan mayor walker yes right now we're moving on to resolution city council resolution number 2026 dash 079 is a resolution of like city of lake city adopting an update of the lake city community redevelopment plan providing for several ability repealing all previous resolutions and conflict and providing an effective date. This item was tabled on July 7th at our last meeting.

Mr. Mayor, does it need to be untabled? Or I guess that's it. Mr. Martin.

Mr. Martin. By placing it on the agenda, it was removed from the table.

In that case, Mr. Mayor, move to approve Resolution 2026-079.

We have a motion. A second. A second. Thank you both. Quick note, there was no public comment signed up for on this one. So we've got a motion and a second. Do we have any final questions or comments from the council?

Yeah. I want to be a little clearer on this. I know I talked about it with you earlier, but could you go over that again? Mr. Thomason.

I DIDN'T HEAR HER QUESTION.

GO OVER THAT FOR ME RIGHT QUICK.

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO GO OVER? OKAY. IT'S THE PLAN THAT WAS DRAFTED BY INSPIRE AND WE HAD IT AT THE CRA MEETING. Two weeks ago, and CRA board, which is the council, voted to move it forward to the council. So here we are with this resolution to adopt it. Okay. I was making sure. So we had a motion, a second. We've had a question. Any final questions, comments? I think it's a really good thing. It's got a lot of great things in it that we can operationalize quickly. Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Carter. Yay. Mr. Jernigan. Yes. Ms. Young. Ms. Harris. Yes. Mayor Walton.

Yes. All right. That moves us to item number 10, City Council Resolution number 2026-083. This is a resolution of the City of Lake City approving certain agreement between City and Play Corps, which is the same company that's doing the Young's Park equipment, and this is for the Kiwanis Kids Park. which is also in dilapidated shape to repair and replace that equipment as well. Quick summary. We don't have anybody signed up for this item in public comment, so we'll move straight to ask questions, comments.

We approve resolution number 2026-083. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Thank you both. Any final questions, comments?

Yes, I'd like to make a comment on that. The Kiwanis Club, they've had that park and they've had it out there for a long time and um to um to turn that park over to the city of lake city and for us to uh let them know how much we appreciate them i think that's something that we should do to get that equipment updated and make sure it's safe for our kids and our families so i'd just like to thank mr carter i think he's the president so thank you very much sir

Thank you. In all fairness, the Kiwanis Club gave that part to the city, I think, about 20 years ago. Yeah, they did. Yeah. I wasn't there yet.

Yes, ma'am. Do you have a question?

I have just one thing. It was pointed out that on the second whereas, there's just a small error on the part that's identified. It's identified as equipment at Young's Park, and we'll just make that correction. I just want everyone to know to Kiwanis Park. So, yeah.

My only comment on this is I got as many comments on this one as I did on Young's Park, so I'm very glad to see this one get renovated for the families out in that area. So, all right.

But you tell us what district that's in. That's in your district. That's too, yeah.

Good bounty. That's good bounty, Ms. Harris. All right. All right. We've had discussion. We have a motion and a second. Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll on City Council Resolution number 2026-083.

Miss Harris? Yes. Mr. Jernigan? Yes. Mr. Carter? Yes. Mayor Walker?

Yes. All right. Now we move on to other items. First one is discussion and possible action designation of Florida League of Cities voting delegate. The Florida League of Cities annual conference is down in Hollywood. And yearly, annually, we have to designate a voting delegate from our city. And so that's where we are here. This is a business meeting on Saturday morning at 9 a.m.? Yes, sir. Mr. Carter.

Mr. Mayor, I move to designate you our delegate.

Thank you for that motion. We got a motion and a second. All right. I appreciate you guys. All right. Thanks. All right. We have a motion and a second. Any further questions or comments?

Yes, I think you would be the ideal mayor to go down there and represent us. And don't get me wrong, I know that your family is very young. And just to be going here, there, and everywhere, it's going to be tough on you. So if you can't do it, just let us know. And then we'll put Katie Carter, somebody to take your place.

For the sake of discussion, the way this was written, I thought the suggestion was that we make you one. If you would prefer not to be, I will also be there. Obviously, I think we're all going to be there. I don't mind doing it if it's a...

I think it'll be fine. Yeah, I think it'll be... Okay. I should be fine. Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, if we need to designate, then I'll say so at our next meeting because it's before this. All right. We've had discussion on this. This was not a defined action for the public to comment on, so I will now open up public comment on this item. If anybody wants to move to the microphone, seeing nobody, I'll close public comment on this item. We'll come back to Dias questions, comments. Hearing none, Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Carter? Yay. Mr. Gernigan? Yes. Ms. Youngs? Yes.

All right. Now we're on to item number 12, which is discussion and possible action concerning long-term extension of public bench program. Options include, but are not limited to obviously directing staff to finalize negotiations of a long-term contract of vendor to continue the program. Placing a resolution adopting the contract on a future agenda. Directing staff to send notice to current vendor terminating the current contract. Or option number three, options include, sorry, other possible options including the program

reducing the number like reducing the number of locations or benches around town so uh we will start yes sir mr i have a question for mr martin yes um obviously we talked a little bit about this at various points throughout the year uh in this particular fashion the way this is presented i am the president of the local civic organization the kiwanis club of lake city um the current vendor donates a portion of its proceeds to the kiwanis club do i need to recuse myself from this conversation

I don't think you need to recuse yourself from the conversation. It may be possible. I don't know how much closer I can get. It may be necessary that you recuse yourself from a vote, depending on what the nature of the matter is, the proposition that you're voting on. So I'll keep an ear out for it, as I'm sure you will as well, and perhaps address it later. Okay.

Thank you. We will go ahead and open public comment on this. We have a few people signed up to speak. We'll begin with you, Mr. Patrick Minchin.

All right. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Walker and City Council. My name is Patrick Mincy and I'm president of Fuel Media Holdings. Sorry, I'm president of Fuel Media Holdings. First, I'd like to thank the staff for reviewing all the proposals that went forward and all the work they put in. So I'm not here to criticize the evaluation process. Simply, if you're gonna continue the program, just ask you to consider one question, and that's which proposal provides the greatest value for the citizens of Lake City? This contrast, it isn't just about advertising, it's about maximizing an asset that you currently have. And coming up with the whole tripling the homestead and everything, cities are gonna be looking for additional revenue. And this is a vehicle that some cities utilize. And Fuel is a Northeast Florida company. We live here, we hire here, and we work here. We're members of the Florida League of Cities, and I'll see most of y'all. next month in August. Before starting with Fuel, I used to work with the company being proposing a long time ago, and they flew me up to Canada to help them get contracts throughout the United States several years ago. Fuel is, so when people spend their advertising dollars with fuel, they're spending with a Florida company that hires locally Floridians and we reinvest in the Florida communities that we serve. Now, if the city wants to continue this program, we're asking that the city give fuel an opportunity to negotiate with the city if you're going to continue with the program. And if after negotiations that we determine that fuel isn't the greatest value for the city, then you can still make a final decision after that. But we feel that our proposal, we provided more revenue than the current company. And that's about it. We provided more revenue than the current company. And tonight, if you're going to continue the program, we would like you to look at the local Florida company versus outside of there.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Patrick. I do think, yes, sir, Mr. Martin, we'll start with you, and then we've got a question from Mr. Jernigan.

Mr. Mayor, just to provide further information to the council, it may be helpful to ask Ms. Carr to come to the podium and talk about how we got here through the procurement process. Our procurement director, Brenda.

Brenda, can you come help us introduce this item? And then we do still have further public comments, so we'll get to you right after this.

So once we receive the proposals.

We're having an issue with that microphone. So just shout into it.

So once we received the proposals, we had an evaluation committee of three people that ranked their proposals, and if we are to move forward, then we would like to move forward with the highest-ranked proposal.

Okay. All right.

Yes, sir. Just one question, and that was in response to a publicly solicited request for proposals, correct?

That's correct. It was a RFP.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brenda. Mr. Jernigan? Yes, I just had a question. Ms. Brenda, you could probably help me as well. With the current contract we have now, that company is out of Canada or somewhere, another country? Do you know anything about that? No. No.

I do not know.

Yes. And I was listening at the young man speak. He was saying he would, it's more beneficial for us to have his, they would give us more revenue. So I'm just trying to make his entails out of this.

It wasn't only based on the revenue. It was also based on their experience and qualifications.

Okay.

To what they could offer the city.

So it was based on those qualifications. Um, and with this company that we have now, uh, I don't know how to say this.

Should we terminate them and go forward, uh, with those other expectations or, um, the current company we have was, is currently ranked the highest proposal by the evaluation committee.

Oh, okay.

It would be the same company.

I got you. I understand. Mr. Martin. Mayor, council members, so this matter is before the council tonight based on public comments from Mr. I'm sorry, Quadris, thank you, at a prior meeting where he made a request that the city not go forward with the blue bench or public bench program at all. At the time that Mr. Quadris made that request, the city had already gone through the procurement process to solicit proposals. A committee had ranked the proposals. We actually were in the middle of negotiating a contract with the highest ranked vendor in that RFP process. And we're nearing the point to bring that to the council for consideration. And then Mr. Quadris came to the council and said, I really want you to give serious thought about doing away with this program altogether. tonight the matter is before the council not necessarily to uh to reconsider the ranking process that the the city staff went through uh in the rfp process but to decide whether you want to go forward or not with extending this program if you do want to go forward do you want to Do it in a different way by, you know, as I suggested, an option might be to limit the number of benches. Just do away with it altogether. There are multiple possible options. Or you may say we just don't want to restrict it at all. Bring us the renewal contract. It's not an extension. It's just a renewal going forward long term. And put that on an agenda for a future vote. But that's why it's here tonight is based on Mr. Quadris' comments. Thank you, Mr. Martin.

I would also like to say that the current contract is only good until August 18th.

We'll finish public comment. Do you have?

I do. The reason the issue came up with the benches, I believe they were home this week. There is a state law about sleeping or being able to sleep on the benches. And so with that being said, I called Frozen Ball. And I think I called you. Yeah, I think I called you. And I spoke to you about the police office making sure that they don't. The reason why I would say I still would like to have the benches, first reason is because I can tell our community, right? Okay, my other question is, Ms. Brenda, people that, the two other people that have bid on this, have they committed to putting money back into our community as the privates that are there now?

All the proposals were going to put a certain percent, donate a certain percent to a organization.

Did they meet or meet the one that we have right now?

They all offered different...

Sorry, finish your answer. I've let this get off track a little bit.

They all offered different percentages that they would do, but there was other things that they would offer, too.

Before we move on, we started public comment and now we've moved into council questions and comments. So I'm going to ask you, we're going to finish public comment before we move further. I apologize. Mr. Quadrus, you're up next. And then we'll come back after full public comment. We'll have questions, comments by the time.

Thank you, council members. I'll make this very quick. In summary, the bench, to put things into context, we're a small community. We don't have a metro transit system. We don't have a local cab service. Because of this, we're observing our local citizens aren't actually using these blue benches as temporary resting stops while commuting. Instead, the benches have unfortunately become occupied spaces by the homeless community. Because the original intended use is no longer warranted in our community, we cannot justify keeping them. Our recommendation is to let the contract expire at the end of this 90-day window, requiring the vendor to remove all benches per the terms of the agreement. So based on that, number two, direct staff to send notice to the current vendor terminating the current contract. Any potential revenue that is earned out of this does not outweigh the negative reaction effect that we're seeing with this bench program. So yes, I do applaud that they're giving money to local charities or back to community, but not at the expense of what it's doing the cause and effect of with the homeless use of. Whether it's encampment throughout the day, the littering, it's become a vehicle that is not productive for our community. Therefore, it doesn't belong here. It's not being utilized by citizens, so it should be removed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Quadris. Now we conclude public comment. Again, I apologize to the council and to the public for allowing that. Now we'll go into council comments, questions. You want to finish up with Ms. Brenda? Do you have any more questions for her? Yes, sir, Mr. Jernigan.

Council comments. With that being said, me personally, I think we should just cancel the contract and move forward with removing those benches. because of the heartache it has caused some of our constituents in this community, especially the different businesses west of town. So I think that we would be... I just think that we should cancel the contract. I'll just leave it like that.

Thank you, Mr. Jernigan. Yes, Ms. Young.

Not inclined to vote in the... I have spoken with no business that agree that those benches need to be moved.

And this is the blue ones. This is the blue benches specifically. I'll mirror Mr. Jernigan's thoughts on this. The current contract, I don't believe, is good business in the community. Our public works are constantly cleaning up. Those benches, I watch them across the street from my office. My business neighbors are constantly cleaning up our parking lot from trash that migrates across a four-lane highway from that bench. It's a steady flow. It's going down into The water drains that go straight into Lake DeSoto from there. I've also heard complaints from our hoteliers, our restaurateurs. I am now being flooded with a stream of pictures from these benches from the other side of the interstate. All the way down to the 47-41 split. So we need to change this. And if we ever come back to it, it needs to be a heavily reduced number. And there needs to be maintenance, cleanup clauses in those contracts so that we're not stuck footing the bill. The constituents aren't stuck footing the bill for the profit somebody else is gaining. Does that make sense? To me, anyway.

I agree with you, Mayor.

Mr. Carter? I'm perfectly capable of being objective about it, but I'm not sure I'm capable of sounding objective about it. I mean, in all fairness, like I said at the beginning of the conversation, I'm currently in a leadership role at an organization that benefits from them existing. I also, as I discussed earlier in our workshop, they do tend to be a magnet for mess. I don't think they all are. There are certainly ones that always seem messy. I also don't think they're useless. I literally sit on one multiple times a week. There's a long path I go on a big walk, and I sit down. It's right in the middle of my five-mile-ish walk. And I actually use the bench. I know I'm not the only person who uses the bench. And so there is a level I find... many communities, even if they're not bus stops, they have nice benches where people can go walk down the sidewalk and have a seat in the hot sun. You know, it feels almost like we're being held hostage by the fact that the benches are abused to a degree in which we don't we feel like we don't get to have them. Right. So it's kind of one of those things where obviously One problem we discussed earlier, if it could be solved, then we would get to have benches, right? So obviously, I don't know that, depending on how the rest of the council goes to move, and I don't intend to make a motion of any kind on this. So I don't, depending on what of these three options gets chosen, I don't know. There's certain ones certainly I could not vote on. But I would say one concept I would support in general is the The third option, which would be, I certainly think there are probably areas that the benches would be significantly less necessary and where they are significantly more abused. So the idea of restructuring this where there are less of them, especially down around the interstate where we already have a lot of issues with transients and that thing and those spaces being abused where the hotels are, et cetera. So if the city decided to keep benches, I would support the concept of having significantly less of them in certain areas. Um, that that's just, that's my overall thoughts on this. There's certain like downtown, you know, there've been discussions before. I mean, it seems like we may have voted to move the benches that are downtown already that aren't the blue advertising benches and just never did move them. Not entirely sure where that is with that, but we should, I, every community has pretty cast iron benches downtown where they're downtown is that it's part of the aesthetic and it's part of encouraging people to walk around and shop downtown. So those benches, which have nothing to do with this should exist. Uh, but yeah, you know there are other areas in the retail space besides our downtown area where you know you could argue that many communities have benches like that in those areas so miss young and then mr jernigan and i'm i'm pretty much the same um i agree with a selective reduction um and again um

What I'm hearing is the homeless aren't the only ones utilizing the benches. So does the citizens who utilize the benches, are they going to be punished for the homeless using the benches? I say a selective reduction. We can choose those which we think are... i guess more of an issue i hate to even say it like that because i i i just you know when you talk homeless when you talk about homeless you just got you just got to have a heart and um councilman carter hit it he hit it earlier that is not just homeless these people have issues And many of us have some of those issues. We just not homeless. I'm just saying. So, um, I, my heart goes out to them and I, I just, I just wish there was a way we could help them. Um, but moving the benches is not, that's not helping. That's not helping the homeless. And it's really not helping this city.

If you ask me, Mr. Jernigan, you know, um, You know, it could go either way, but I just think that, I mean, I walk my German Shepherd, I sit on the bench, and I think it's State Farm that's at that particular intersection, and I use it for the right reason. I don't sit there two hours. I may sit there for about five to ten minutes, and then I'm on my way again. But I think that in certain areas of town, I just don't feel like if it's right, you're either going to move them all or you're not going to move none. Certain areas of town. We have to always remember this. These hotel users, all you got to do is call the Patels out there, any of them, and they'll say, please get these homeless people off of these benches. It's making my property look bad. It's making my property, nobody wants to stay. People are scared. Those are the kind of things that you hear from the hotel owners or managers or supervisors. And that's what I'm basing my decision on. Those businesses are going, they're having problems out of those individuals. I guess they could call the police and say, hey, please have this guy removed or something to that effect. I guess they could. I don't know. But that's what I'm basing my decision on, Ms. Young, just in case. And Carter's right. There is beautification in those signs, especially if you've got them orange and blue, you know, gator colors or something, you know. That would be so nice. But, again, no, they just blew. But we're still going to have people, business owners, complain about those benches, no matter how we do it. So I just say that we should get rid of them altogether.

So if the bench is removed, that's one of your resting places.

I won't be resting there. I'll just keep on going, rest at the house.

Right.

I would say my thought on this is wholesale removal of all of them. Identify places where they are needed and wanted and we could do that through a community survey and let people identify you know where where they use them and then respond back to the people who want and use them and allow a company to come in again though with those strict maintenance and strict maintenance clauses in the contract but that would be my thought is remove this contract start over and have a dramatic reduction but remove it remove all the benches see how it plays out for a little bit and then let the community decide where it's going to come back that's too no that's too much either i mean make a decision if we're going to select it um do a selective reduction

Leave the benches, do the survey, and then move the benches that are chosen to be moved, if any. But remove the benches and then put them back?

Yeah, I would let the companies do that. But the reason I say that is they need to understand that the maintenance and the placement of those is on them. Does that make sense? Because we've been maintaining, we've, the city, the constituents, we've been paying to maintain those benches.

When you say on them, who are them?

The business. The company, yeah. The company. No, the company.

The company.

The company that's placing, the company, whether it's his or the one that was raided or any of the other ones. Does that make sense? Yes, ma'am.

All right, we have talked about the homeless sleeping on the benches or whatever, but it's advertisement of different businesses here in Lake City as well that are on the benches, because I've gotten a someone off of a bench and I saw their information on it. So we just can't say it's just for the homeless. And even out on 90, I've seen people walk from hotels to different restaurants out there and they sat on the benches out there. So it just seems like we're gonna punish everybody for the few. And to me, it don't make no sense to move all the benches then wanna put some benches back. If you're not satisfied, Mayor, if you're not satisfied with who the business is that is over that, say that and let's come up with a new plan versus saying, let's take up all the benches and we want to put them back.

I'll be honest with you. I'm not satisfied with the benches altogether, but I would be open to placing benches back where they're used because they are a massive trash producer along our streets and it's costing money. not just it's costing the constituents and our taxpayers to clean that up clean up all the refuse that's around it and clean those benches on a regular basis i watch it i watch it every monday or so there's usually a huge pile of trash under the one across from my office and you guys we can't you guys can come sit in the parking lot you can't talk to me because it's a sunshine violation but i would invite you to come watch that happen that's gross well it's some other trash

There is.

There's a lot of trash. We got a lot to clean up, and this is one thing that we can do to clean it up.

And even in, I'm even thinking about the selective reduction. What determines whether I'm worthy, that I'm worthy to sit on the bench, but there's a homeless person who's not worthy to sit on that bench? That's not our call. If I can sit there, they should be allowed to sit there as well.

Absolutely. And then as far as the maintenance, whoever the company is that want to take over the benches or whatever, put that in there saying you have to maintain your benches. The city would no longer do that. But to use that to say about removing the benches, I'm for the benches.

That's the way it should be. Get rid of the contract and the benches. Yes, ma'am, Ms. Lykes.

Again, Mayor, we can agree to disagree, but on this one, I would like to see those benches removed and start all this contract right here. I think where there's some confusion, you're talking about removing the benches and then putting them back. It won't be our responsibility to remove them or put them back down. It'll be the business owner to do this. And I just feel as though we terminate this contract, remove all the benches, and then maybe the next contractor will be able to handle cleaning, maintaining, those benches. I just think we just need to do it. I mean, just terminate them. Was that in the contract or agreement with the bids?

Were they aware of this when they bidded on this?

I can't answer that question. I'm talking about for the next contractor. That's all I'm saying for the next one.

I have a question to catch him off guard. But if Mr. Steve Brown wouldn't mind coming up for just a moment, I would like to ask him something. Only if you don't mind.

I don't mind.

I don't mind.

I'm just curious. Obviously, I've spoken in tonight's meeting about specific benches where I have seen an issue. You're running the guys that would be out there. Is this a big, messy issue all the time all over town?

They are problematic. So what we typically get is we get flooded with calls through public works all the time for many different issues. And we don't prioritize them unless it's public safety. So if our mowing crews or right-of-way crews are out there, we'll take the one that the mayor's talking about. We mow that parking lot every Tuesday. If there's anything around there, we automatically pick it up. So there is maintenance involved in them. And it is sporadic. The one up here by Hardee's that went by today had a blanket over it. He's actually upgraded to having creature comforts up there. So, yeah, so they do become problematic. And what happens is when they leave, they just don't take the stuff with them. and if it does get in our road where it does get in our storm drains all of that is is a fact it comes down we catch a lot of it in the lake right by the park down there that you're talking about where you walk at we get a lot of that stuff there mr brown we have the same issue at the parks is that right so are we gonna lock everybody at the park

I think we're about to. Yeah, we put up six-foot fences and we put locked gates on there.

It's open during the day.

It's open during the day.

Same thing happens during the day. Are we going to lock everybody out of the park?

At night.

Yes or no?

At night. That's what we decided.

At night. Are we going to lock everyone out of the park because the parks are?

No, ma'am. No, ma'am. We will, as he said, the conditions are going to change to make it not favorable to stay there. Um, we're, we're fixing to move into the second phase of that, removing some of the pieces out there, but there is a component of it definitely for the benches.

So you named two places. Um, how many would you say?

Um, we've received them. We've received calls, um, as far as out on 90, um, and not just benches. I mean, we got a call from a council member the other day about a bumper that was out there. So anything in the roadway, we try and make it safe. Um, And the benches right around the Publix area, I haven't messed with those as much. That homeless guy stays on the Publix side and the benches on the other side. We haven't messed with that one as much, but the other ones we have. And it's not every day. We don't see it every day. The one that's at Winn-Dixie is awful. That one typically blows the stuff around.

So let's just say we have 20 benches throughout Lake City. How many benches normally be full of trash through the city?

It's just one or here and there. I mean, we don't get a call about them every single day.

Would you say half, more than half?

Not at one given time, no, ma'am.

When you narrow the number down of the benches, they're just going to the ones that are there.

What is that solving? It's removing the benches that aren't used to collect trash, and it's putting the benches only in places where they are used. That's my suggestion. But I can't make a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I already said I won't make a motion, but I do suggest it seems like we're at the point where someone ought to.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we remove all of the benches and terminate this contract.

We have a motion.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Further discussion? Hearing none, Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll? Yes.

Real quick question. Can I do that? No. And can I vote in this one? Yes.

Okay.

What did you say? You said he could?

He can vote in this one. He does not have a conflict.

What do you mean he does not have a conflict if he is the president of the Kiwanis Court?

Quite frankly, the only conflict I have is that a lot of friends of mine are going to be pretty upset with me.

Come on. What are you talking about right now? They're going to be upset with you because you're...

I won't be benefiting in any way from this decision, nor will my organization. As a matter of fact, my organization will suffer for it.

Yeah, so you stand by it's okay for him to vote and not recuse himself, knowing that he is the president of the Kiwanis.

For the reasons he just stated, he is not...

Whether it's for or against... It just, just, go ahead.

And it's because it sounds like he's not going to benefit.

Mr. Mayor. May I ask?

Yeah, please clarify, Mr. Martin.

I was going to ask if we could take a short break. Let me look at the statute just since the issue's been raised. Let me verify that this is the case. It's not an area I deal in every day. And then reconvene in a few minutes.

All right. Let's take eight minutes.

Is it completely dead, Tammy? Is it completely dead? Okay, okay. You're welcome.

Do I have a report due soon?

I think you got another one coming out. Can we text it to you?

Yeah, when they have these different forms, okay, Jody O'Hare or whatever his name is.

Joey.

Joey. He sent a form out, and I was in a rush trying to get it out. But I got it out, and I bombed it.

Did you? See, I have it right here. form at um

Turn these. Check, check.

Welcome back, everybody. We're on item number 12, discussion and possible action. Mr. Martin, you were looking up procedure on this. So fill us in.

Feedback. Oh, yeah. That's the first.

All right, there we go.

so yes we got the sound now there we go all right uh so yes mr mayor i did some research on the issue regarding a conflict of interest and whether it needs to be declared by councilman carter i'd have to give kudos to miss harris she gets an honorary law degree for the night Thank you for pressing that issue. After further research, the statute reads that Councilman Carter can't vote on anything that would inure to the special private gain or loss of, in this case, the Kiwanis Club, which is an organization that he's an officer in. So because the statute reads private gain or loss and Kiwanis could, should the proposed motion pass, they would lose the revenues from the existing program. Councilman Carter cannot vote on the issue, which means that he also cannot offer a second. So my advice to him would be to, in light of this, withdraw a second and then follow up with the clerk to fill out the necessary paperwork for the Commission on Ethics regarding the conflict of interest.

Mr. Mayor, I rescind my second. And to be clear, that's why I kept asking. I only wanted to do my duty and make sure that it was above board because I know if I am allowed legally and don't, it's just a yes, right? So I rescind my second and thank you guys.

For further discussion, I will second this item. So we have a motion by Mr. Jernigan and a second by me.

What was the motion?

uh, to terminate the contract.

Okay. And that's going to automatically cause removal of the benches. And then we will do a, um, exercise or survey, right? Okay.

Mr. Martin, do you have any problems with me motion or seconding the motion?

I don't think there's anything procedurally that would prohibit the mayor from offering a second to a motion. You just can't offer a motion. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Let me clarify. Under the council's rules, not under Robert's rules, but under the council's rules.

We're at discussion, right? We are.

We've got a motion and a second. Ms. Young?

Okay. So just to say what happens after this. So we're terminating the existing contract. The benches will be removed. And then after there's...

Occasion of positive respondents. The yes, I use this. This is where I live. Map those out. Come up with a very strategic placement for those benches. And then... bid it back out for a limited number of benches.

Okay. And you will exercise the survey. Is that what you're saying? Who will do the survey?

The city. The city would, yeah.

The survey.

So we'd probably push it out in D. You can talk to me about the operations. We'd push it out through our app. We'd push it out through social media. And we'd notice it in the paper.

Okay.

I can go with that.

So this is, we're in discussion mode.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. So why can we not leave the benches? do the survey with the benches there, come back, because why take up a bench that somebody is satisfied with, and then have to return the bench? Do the survey.

It might be a different vendor. That's one reason.

Oh, okay. Okay, so we haven't even gotten to the vendor.

Yeah, our current vendor. If we remove number, I mean, because that's revenue for them. If they don't see the same number of revenue, they might not even be interested. So I would just say terminate the contract altogether and clean slate it.

I get that, but I'm just, I would not want to lose funding for the Kiwanis Club. I just, that's my biggest thing.

So it has been motioned in a second?

There has been a motion in a second. Are we ready for a vote? To answer that, I would, yeah. I think that we can help them fill that gap. Yes, we are ready for a vote. Ms. Sykes, if there's no further questions, comments, Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Jernigan?

Yes.

Mayor Walker?

Yes.

Ms. Young? Yes. And Ms. Harris? No. All right.

Mr. Mayor, if I could ask for one ancillary item for the council to consider, and that would be for someone to offer a motion for the council to consider that would reject all proposals that were received under the RFP that the city recently did.

Okay. We need somebody to make a motion to reject all ancillary proposals for the RFP.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make that motion to reject all proposals with our procurement process.

Motion and a second. Thank you both. Do we have any further discussion, questions, comments? I guess this wasn't a defined proposition on our agenda, so I will open up for public comment in just a moment. Yes, ma'am.

Just to be clear, with what Councilwoman Harris was asking, we only have how many days? Is it? August 18th. Until the 18th? Until the 18th. Okay. That wouldn't have been enough time.

As for RFP, how many days you have to have that out? 90 days. 30. 30. So today is what? July the 1st. It's about a 60-day turnaround on that. How many days before the 18th? That's under 30?

Mm-hmm.

And yep. Yes, sir. Mr. Carter.

Just checking on the status of this motion. This motion here, is that something I can vote on? Or need to or not need to?

Because it deals with the procurement process that would necessarily affect the existing contract, I would also recuse yourself from this.

Correct? Recuse. Perfect. All right. We've had a motion and a second. We've had discussion. Any final? Well, I actually need to open this up for public participation. Does anybody want to speak to this? Okay. Closing public participation, opening back up for the diocese. Yes, ma'am, Ms. Harris.

So, to be clear, we have canceled the person that we already have with the benches, and the benches are going to be removed. Right. And you don't have the 30 days, and then we done canceled the RFP that's supposed to go out.

Yes.

Which takes 30 days.

This is likely not to be...

resolved before i would imagine before christmas yes sir mr martin uh mr mayor uh just to clarify the rfp went out months ago we received the responses to that rfp and the item before the council right now is to reject all of those responses to the rfp that went out months ago so basically this this starts us over from scratch based on the prior motion the current contract would be terminated we will direct the current contractor to remove the benches there is no further ongoing relationship based on comments from city administration and the mayor there will be an effort to gather information and do a community survey to determine how many and where Any future benches should be located, and then based on that information, an RFP would be put out at some future date to solicit proposals about locating benches at those particular locations and at that quantity in the city.

Yes.

So, Don.

Yes.

To do this public survey, how much is that going to cost the citizens of Lake City?

I have to look it up and see. I don't know offhand, but it's going to cost something. It's not free.

Absolutely. So money that could be actually put into something else in the city.

Well, we may be able to do a survey monkey or something like that. Who knows? And I use that.

I asked the question, who's going to do the survey? And it was said the city will do the survey.

The city has an app. We have an app. Sure. It's not free, but it won't be. It's not going to be cost prohibitive. We're not about to drop thousands of dollars direct mailing everybody. We have technology that we can reach the majority of the community.

Yes, sir. Mr. Johnson. Oh, the survey will be handled inside. We have done surveys through our HR department. There's not going to be any cost to the city.

Thank you. Okay.

Perfect.

All right. We've had the motion. We've had the second. We've had any further discussion on the RFPs? All right. Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Jernigan? Yes. Ms. Young? Yes. Ms. Harris? No. And Mayor?

Yes. All right, that concludes item number 12. We'll now move to item number 13, discussion of possible action. Approval to move forward with Dog Park on parcel 00-00-12300-00 adjacent to the City of Lake City Information Technology Department located on Northwest DeSoto Street between Northwest Stadium Terrace and Northwest Hilton Avenue. Council Member Harris.

D, would you like to speak on that for me? Yes. It was budgeted in this year's budget for $20,000 to build a dog park. At that time of the budget, the location wasn't decided. Speaking with Ms. Harris, she wanted me to look around at city-owned parcels. So the parcel that we have right now is adjacent to the City of Lake City's IT department over there next to Teen Town. And this is what she would like y'all to consider, putting that there. And you said the money is already. Yes, ma'am. We do have a plan already drawn up for it. We just need approval to use city property. Okay.

I don't. We do have one note and public comment from Miss Goggins. A big thank you for including approval to move forward with a much needed dog park. That's all she said. So we will close public comment now because I don't have anybody else signed up for it. We'll move straight into Dias questions, comments. Discussion. or a motion to.

Mayor, I just got a question. That would be read over by IT department and Teen Town and the, I just want to know when we do this dog park, who's going to, I guess the city will be responsible for keeping the dog park clean, just like every other park. I guess the city will be responsible for if my German shepherd get hold to a pit bull or who's going to be responsible for those for those actions. Would it be the citizen? Or would it be the city responsible for if an attack or some child, uh, get hurt and, uh, or some elderly person that, uh, these big dogs, when they jump on you, they'll just knock you down. Even though they'd be playing, they'll just knock you right down. I asked those questions simply because of the area that is in, and I do not have a problem with a dog park. I am all for a dog park. I remember, I think it was Glenn Hunter and that regime that came up and said, hey, we got so much land out here. We would love to have a dog park in that area. and it's still in the city. And if an incident would take place, there's people that's working right next to the dog park for aid or assistance. So I'm just wondering, being so close to the park, tennis courts, IT, and I want to say the police department is over there somewhere. I don't know for sure, but somebody's over there. I just want to know who's going to be responsible for all of those things. I know it took me a long time to talk about that, but I apologize. You see where I'm coming from? I get that from you, I guess. But anyway, I'm all for this dog park because Ms. Harris has been on this for quite some time. The area is where I have the problem at. And then somebody wants to give us

or allow us to have a dog park still in the city but not in that particular area you understand what i mean thank you for your concerns but that we have thought about that as well so whenever mr glenn hunter come and produce something probably in the next year, two years, three years, we'll visit at then. But as of right now, the funds have already been set aside for it to be there. As far as the question, and I'm just going to go off of my honorary, what is called, attorneyship. If your dog bite me, you are concerned. And I'm sure at all dog parks, they probably have some type of signage or something saying you are responsible for the actions of your dog. I'm almost positive and I'm just going by my little honorary degree for this week.

I think that's the question for

That park opens. Those rules will be coming back to this council to decide what those rules might be. I don't know at this time, but we definitely thought about something like that. There's other things we thought about. Maintenance, who's going to clean it up? If that's going to be on the city, I will have to speak with Steve Brown, who's over at Public Works. I don't think he has anybody that's trained to pick up. things that are left behind. The question about adults attacking each other, I don't have that answer right now, but my first call would probably be the PD and Steve Brown. And so Steve Brown told me that.

And let it be known, too, that we have one part that would be for larger dogs, and then on the other side it would be for smaller dogs.

Correct. Mr. Brown, yeah, absolutely. So are correct. So what we'll have is a divider between the two. I do not know all the rules yet. I have tasked Clint Pittman with this. He's been working with us on our park since he's come over, and he has started researching it, but this is pretty hot off the press for me. So we're just getting into all the details, but we're going to find out how to mitigate this as best we can. But we are looking into all the details now.

The location is definitely the first thing we got to have as a location to start. In District 12.

Mr. Carter, you've indicated.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve moving forward with this project at this location. Thank you.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Thank you both. Any further discussion? Ms. Young, you had something?

This feels real strange. We just keep the people out. And now we're making, yeah, we just kick the people out. The people. The homeless. We just kick the people out. And now we're making provisions for. We did kick the homeless out. We moved benches for the homeless and now we're making sofas for the dogs. We can't compare apples to oranges now. That's just where I am.

We've had a motion and a second. Thank you for the comments.

I care for the homeless just like I care for my husky at the house. So you're comparing apples to oranges.

I didn't say you didn't care for the dog. I'm talking about me, nobody else.

And I'm just answering to you right now. It's me.

Any further questions, comments? Ms. Sykes, will you please call the roll?

Mr. Carter? Yay. Ms. Harris? Yes. Ms. Young? Silent. Mr. Jernigan?

Yes.

Mayor Walker?

Yes. right item number 14 discussion possible action staff recommendation to approve proposed uh fiscal year 2026 2027 tentative millage rates to the columbia county tax appraiser for the trim notice uh advertisement to property owners for the city's tentative budget hearing mr rosenthal mayor you had three choices for your trim notice

If I can find my list. I was so captivated by the discussion on the dog park. It was quite captivating, Mr. Rosenthal. The rollback millage rate was, well, the maximum millage rate was 5.2532, and that would produce a 10% tax increase in the amount of $6,273,292. The current millage rate is 4.9, and that would produce a 2.6% tax increase in the amount of $5,851,506. The rollback millage rate is 4.7756. That would produce a 0% tax increase in the amount of $5,702,950.

Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. We don't have anybody signed up to speak to item number 14. I will start by saying let's roll this baby back. Mr. Carter.

Mr. Mayor, I was going to say a very similar thing. I recommend we advertise the rollback rate. Does that need to be in a form of a motion for them to move forward?

Yes. Motion.

I move that we advertise the rollback rate.

I second it. We have a motion and a second. Thank you both. Any further discussion, questions, comments? Lower that effective tax rate. Ms. Sykes, you have a question?

May I just have someone repeat the rollback rate?

4.7. 7.9. Rollback is 4.

5. 6. 7.7. 5. 6. Okay.

All right. Mr. Carter? Yes. Ms. Harris? Yes. Ms. Young? Yes. Mr. Jernigan?

Yes.

Mayor Walker?

Yes. All right. Number 15, discussion of possible actions, staff recommendation to approve the trim schedule for fiscal year 2026, 2027. Mr. Rosenthal.

I'm going to defer to the finance director.

This is just the trim schedule that it's following all the Florida statutes to make sure that we are in compliance. So this is the guidelines that we follow every budget year. And these are following the same dates as basically last year.

Thank you very much, Ms. Angie. All right. Does anybody have anything they'd like to say? We don't have any public comment on this, so we'll move straight into questions, comments, or if anybody would like to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation to approve the trim schedule for fiscal year 2026-2027.

Mr. Mayor, move to approve the staff – move to approve the staff recommendations for the trim schedule for fiscal year 2026-2027. Second.

Second. Thank you. That was pretty close. Mr. Jernigan.

Thank you both. All right. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, Ms. Sykes, please call the roll.

Mr. Carter. Yay. Mr. Jernigan. Yes. Ms. Harris. Yes. Mayor Walker.

Yes. All right. Now we'll move into comments by Mr. Rosenthal. I have not the nightmare. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. Mr. Martin. Nothing from the city attorney. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Ms. Sykes?

Nothing from the city clerk's office.

Thank you, Ms. Sykes. Vice Mayor Young?

Okay, a couple of things. First of all, I would like to say we've got to do something about these mics. We put a lot of money, paid a lot of money for these mics, and for you to have to eat them to get a voice through it. And that's not sanitary either. Somebody. Okay. The other thing is, and I know y'all talked about parks, but have y'all passed Salome Jerry? We have white gold on the ground. Yes, I have. White gold. And we're going to have opal. We're going to have black pearl very soon. I'll split it this week. It's beautiful. i like that smile there it's beautiful so let's just keep our eye on that should be soon a grand opening huh absolutely okay the other thing is there was a question concerning question came to me concerning water soak shortage and which brought about a concern to the citizens I think it was kind of misleading because we don't have a local issue, but several has contacted me and asked the question. So I think there's a need for some knowledge to be put out there. so that we can soothe this concern of the people that we're not going to have water. Thank God for the rain and all. And we know that there was a notice that went out. Am I correct, Johnson? He gone?

No, I'm saying.

There was a notice, right?

No, what we did was when the Swanee River Water Management had, we wanted to kind of reduce the use of water. Our wastewater, our water treatment plant guy sends notices out. We also, I was telling you about the water conservation stuff that we also send out to the public to make them more informed about it. And I think the question that you brought to me was how can we get them more informed? Because obviously we're missing some people.

Because they really think that we're not going to have water in Lake City. And it's just the way the question was asked, the way it was put to us. So I do think that it would be great if we can actually have that information put out But we're in good standards with the water. We have top of the line. Our utilities director, and I let them know, our utilities director is dynamic, and we have a great team at our water plant. But I do think they need some support. And, of course, we have a team to do that. It wasn't my – it wasn't. Can you arrange that you all –

If that's okay with the council, we have a water treatment plant guy who loves water, very educated, and I think he'll take pride in educating the public. That'd be great.

Awesome. Awesome. I think that was it for me.

Thank you, Ms. Young. Next, Councilman Jernigan.

Oh, yeah, I got some things to talk about that is for sure. First of all, I'd like to give this police department out there very outstanding in this fire department. These are services that we really, really, truly need and appreciate from every source that I know of. I got a phone call about a public records request. And right away when I got that call or that visit, I took it over to Ms. Sykes, and they took care of that. Supposedly today it closed the business, if not first thing in the morning from my understanding. I also got another call on the potholes over there off of Southeast Allen Place. I got a call for the last two weeks on that, and I brought that to Mr. Rodenthal, Dee Johnson, and I just mentioned something about to Mr. Brown back there. So I wanted to make sure we take care of that. And there's an organization out there called First Things First. And they basically... We were talking about homelessness and the things that we could do to help this community. This is a family awareness activity team that they take care of first responders, military, families, your health, wellness, and some other priorities. And then they also... It's almost like who's going to be our hero for Lake City? I think the last time, the last meeting I was in, I think there was Pete Spurlock. He's got 40 plus years experience here in Lake City, the longest serving law enforcement officer in the city of Lake City. So that's one of our heroes there. With first things first. And you can contact these people at 386-302-6995. Talk to the administrator there and they'll be more than happy to address some of the homelessness, some of the maybe mental health. And it's all free. All they want you to do is contact them and talk to them, and they're going to keep it confidential. So that's something that they're offering this community and making a connection with the community here in the city of Lake City and Columbia County. So I just wanted to pass that information on. Thank you very much, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Jernigan. Up next, Councilman Carter. Ooh, I got a lot.

Just kidding. No, actually, I have nothing of note to say, although I am going to start saying one thing kind of over and over again. I already do in public to just anyone who's listening. It is my belief that if you want to live in a nice place, you should dedicate a portion of your time to trying to make that place nice. So I encourage members of this community to come to these meetings. Make your voice heard like Mr. Chris did tonight and before. Thank you. And to find ways out in the community to get involved, whether it be churches, civic organizations, et cetera. You know, it takes everybody. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Carter. Up next is Councilwoman Harris.

I would like to give a special shout out to Mr. and Mrs. McGuire. They had the florist. They had their grand opening. They were grateful to get a phone call from the mayor and said that he wasn't going to be able to be there, but they were happy that you did reach out to them. There were three council members there as well, and that was not my district, but just not i kind of know my district but um and i will also employ i spoke with don indeed today about making sure that our fellas that's out there boots on the ground that's um cutting trees and the lawn please try to stay hydrated um it has been really really hot and it was sad in me to find out that somebody has had a heat stroke or someone and me and my husband will be coming out again and doing our thing with the waters and the um Gatorade um also this year I will only be taking 40 people out for lunch and I think I want all of those people to be the people that are the boots on the ground and I'll get back with you all on that date also I would like to give a high five to Angie and the finance team you're making us look good um and also at this moment I would like to um say of um a couple of events that's coming up you all know on august the first it will be our unity love fest um we have over 200 book bags that will be given out we will have the helicopters there we have vendors we have free food and all of that so please bring your children the community really stepped up, and when I say community, I'm not just talking about District 12. In everybody's district, a few people have stepped up because they wanted this to be a success. So I'm happy about that. On August the 2nd, they will have their thing at Richardson Gym where they will have the free haircuts by my cousin, Jazzy Cutts. Mullins, they will be having their book bag giveaway and the haircuts and what have you. Then I think on August the 6th, I believe we will have former councilman Jake Hill, he will be having his book bag giveaway. So we have, and these are the only things that I know about, but there may be more. We have a loving city. We have a loving city. Though things happen, that still does not diminish how loving and caring we are for one another. And I also like to give a shout out to everyone that's sitting behind this desk because we are the bomb. And I yield the floor. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Harris. Yes, ma'am.

I'm sorry, Mayor, but when I left off concerning water, these beautiful people want me to ask you all to please no increase in water and sewer. Please, no increase in water and sewer.

I agree with that. I don't think the utilities are going to be increasing. I don't think the citizens are going to be seeing any increase from the city of Lake City this year. And we're rolling back your tax rate. So only good things from the city of Lake City. At least that's what your mayor is saying. A couple things. Don, I know that we had a pretty robust conversation about animal control and animal welfare a couple meetings ago. We need to come to a resolution on that. So if you guys could take what was spoken about and come back with a recommendation, that would be great. We talked about naming of parks in the splash pad last time. And I want to say that I see this... I've really been thinking about this. And there's an opportunity to do one of two things. I just want you guys to mull on between now and when it comes up. One way we can give the youth an opportunity to name something that they're going to be using on a regular basis. And the other thing is... We sell sponsorships of something like that in our city to fund youth programs like what those young ladies came up for today or violence prevention and other things like that. I think that we could really create a program where corporate Lake City and business owners in Lake City could integrate with the community on another level and provide funding for some incredible youth programs. We can use the assets that we have and that we're building here on Lake City to do that. So just think about that. And then I was with a group a couple weeks ago, our Community Cares Coalition. We went around to a bunch of businesses in Lake City. We're going to be doing this on a regular basis. It was great. A lot of youth leaders. Ms. Coker was heading that up. Um, and, and I think that that'll be a really good thing going forward. Um, and then also, uh, black benches just for resolution on that. Cause we talked about it. Uh, when I looked it up, there had been a vote taken on those, uh, back in the day and it had come down to public works, um, discretion on which benches to be removed. So, If you've heard, and I'll look at that again because Steve's saying no, but I looked at that. It said 10 benches to be removed from downtown. So I know of just a couple. And they're right here around City Hall that the business owners have asked me to remove. But if there's not a robust movement for them to be removed, let's find those 10 and relocate them. And I know that Ms. Young has a vested interest in this as well. She knows people that want to keep their benches in place. So let's not move those ones. Let's make sure that those are productive. But the ones that aren't wanted, aren't needed, let's activate that. um swanee river league of city dinner this week the ones in the park area we're not considering those no no those are staying yeah people use those all the time um swanee river league of cities uh dinner uh meeting is this thursday night i'll remind uh city staff and and um and everybody that's uh attending that and also there's a couple of events uh for the for the police department coming up um we've got saturday july 25th breakfast with the chief Go out, hear from the chief, and share your concerns, if you have any, with the police department. There's going to be a rib-eating contest between the police and fire, so that if you'd like to see the finest and the bravest see who can take down the most ribs, that will be on July 28th, starting at 5.30 p.m. Winning team gets 10% off all sales, so that'll be fun. That's 3 to 5 p.m. August 8th, 2026, 12 p.m. at CHS Gym. Boots versus badges. Okay, so you guys have got a lot of competitions going on, basketball tournament. So that'll be interesting. It's a fundraiser. Admissions, $5. Kids under five are free. And then Citizens Police Academy. It's a free community program. If you're interested in the Citizens Police Academy, please, please, please email HardisonA at LCFLAPD.com or call 386-719-5742. That's my infomercial for this evening, folks. So I hope you have a wonderful evening. Thank you very much for joining us.