Commission - Regular Meeting

spend all such a Bobby Baker. Is it true that you basically move up here? As an officer, yeah. All right.

If you want to make him six. Hello. Here we go. Hello. Hello. All right. Kiki, are you sitting down? You ready?

All right. Well, I'm working with two general fund budgets. One of them is fleet maintenance, which is not in here cuz we're not asking for any capital. It'll just be operating money this year. The street department is a general fund. Currently, we maintain 125 miles of roads. A lot of people are surprised we have that many miles, but we do. Uh with a staff of seven people. Right now, we've got several trucks that run a monitor system that grades our roadways. It's been an excellent program. It tells us the grade of all the roads. So, it's easy when we budget for road repairs, we have them in order of need. You know, we grade them A, B, C, and D. So each year we typically try to budget about a million dollars for roadway paving out of the uh sir tax and then we'll if approved we'll actually you know bring the roads prioritized to the city to get repaired. So and it it changes every year on the priority. A program we just started is crushing our concrete. We just put it out for bid. We've been restoring this concrete. This is sidewalks, driveways, curbing, any concrete we take out. In the past, we've had to pay to haul it off, pay the tipping fees, then when we need roadway base, we have to buy it and go to Mariana to get it. So, this is

going to be a huge cost savings. We just got a price in for this at $1,750 a ton. We could use this for road base, which is less than what we're paying for limerock. So, it's it's going to be a huge cost savings to the city, but we're if the program works as good as we hope, we're going to continue to do this every year cuz we do collect more and more concrete. And where do you where do you stockpile it at?

At the P Well, we call it the pistol range. It's at the end of Britain Road. You know, you don't know where our storage yard is. Um, if you go down Aberdeene, which we don't, we go down Britain, the Was it the VFW right there? American Legion. American Legion. It's right behind it. Okay, I know what you're talking about. The American Legion used to be part of the that parcel right there. That used to be the city dump and our pistol range where we used to shoot. The police used to practice. And Okay. And this is on the agenda for Tuesday. Yeah. the first work.

Right now, we have a a real good street sign replacement program. We've got a guy in there now that is on top of it by the name of Justin. He's wellversed on the requirements for the signs. He's got a program set up now where he does it in phases. So he's working throughout the city and different blocks to bring all our signs up to grade. So that's been a huge help because we're constantly getting them tore down and they're deteriorating and it's just been a big problem.

Bobby, is there a particular time frame or lifespan expected for your typical street sign that goes up? Well, they'll last 15 to 20 years. to be legible, you know what I mean? Then they start fading off. Some that face the west, you know, tend to fade out much quicker. A lot of them on the corners get smacked by the semiis and trailers. And there's some corners we kind of go back to regular, you know, just because of big trucks. But just curious if there was kind of an average you saw here in Lin Haven.

Excuse me. If there was kind of an average like a normal sign here last 10 years, 15 years, they'll last good 15 to 20 actually because they're made out of aluminum. Like I said, the sun is the worst part on them. Right. So, if it's facing away from the sun most of the time, it'll last 20 years. There is two trucks that we're looking at replacing. One is um just a standard pickup truck for the street department. The other one is the asphalt truck. Our current asphalt truck is what 15 years old I think. Right at

04, I believe it was

04. Yeah, that one is 04. And it's getting worked more and more and more every year because we got a lot more patches. So, it's really time to retire it. and we'll sell the old one. This is not an addition. This is a replacement. All right. Now, we're going to get into the enterprise funds. We got four enterprise funds to go over. Um the the water department maintains the drinking water and distribution facilities, including all the wells, the ground storage tanks, the pumping stations, chlorine injection, and water meters. There's 18 staff members in including two water plant operators and three meter readers and one backflow inspector. Currently we're replacing the water meters with radio read type meters. We've done the majority of them inhouse each year. We we're doing a percentage each year. We have a remaining 2137 to be installed in 2007. Uh, which we could do. We could also Panama City Beach just signed a contract with Core and Maine to install these meters that we could piggyback off of and get them done quickly versus stretching it over a whole year.

And that is the intent to have you all approved that piggyback contract April 14th. Yeah. It did not make March 2014. So,

so that is an option, but we're just about there with replacing these water meters with the radio readings. So, we do have a 10-year capital improvement plan for the water system, which we've been gradually working through. We've also got a 10-year for the wastewater study that's been done which we gradually work through. So, some of these projects that I'm going to show you are actually on this CIP plan. Uh the construction projects we're proposing for 27 is to rehab well number four estimated 170,000. It's part of the plan. Bradley Circle the water man replacement it's 300,000 it's also part of the plan and the rails to trails water main extension which is 400 what is that 65,000 construction cost. So those are the threes we're proposing

for this coming year between Minnesota and okay

the projects that we're going to engineer for this year not necessarily build them is design the Johnson drive water main replacement estimated 35,000 and the replacement of the asbestous water line we've got the majority of the asbestous replaced, but there's some scattered remaining pieces throughout the city we got to get, which hopefully will finish it up. We need to service the high service pumps. These are I don't Have you ever been to the water plant, the big service pumps? It's time to service a couple of them, which averages about $10,000. To replace them is right at 50,000. So, the option is to service them. Hopefully, they're still in good enough shape that we don't have to replace them. Uh, replacing truck 16. This one would be a replacement. We would auction it off the old one and collect the revenue from it. But it's an old locker body service truck that they use every day. This any questions on the water? Go back to the We've got a lot of big projects. We've got them planned out for 10 years. It's a matter of funding them. The sewer division is another enterprise fund. maintains the sewer treatment collection facility. Um, lift stations, gravity sewer pipes, force man pipes, wastewater treatment facility. We have a staff of 10 full-time, one half part-time

position. So, 10 and a half. What we're looking at is replacing one half ton truck with a 3/4 ton. Currently, we've got a trailer with a a vac system on it that a one-tonon truck cannot haul it. Since we got to replace this, we need a 3/4 ton ton big enough to pull that big trailer when it's full of water along with any other equipment they may need like the mini excavators and stuff like that. Every year we put in two to three lift stations that need to be rehabbed. We have approximately 76 list stations. So even doing two a year, it's going to take over 30 years to rehab them. Now, they've got a certain ones have a life expectancy to be rehabbed anywhere from 10 years to 15 years. Depends on the volume that they use and the the chemicals and stuff going through them. But this year we're setting lift station 13 and 15 aside to be rehabbed staffing at the AWP. This is, as you know, been a been been a hot topic. We have four full-time, one part-time budgeted. We actually have one full-time, one part-time, and we contract out the other three positions as you're you're aware of that contract we have to do that. We we have a spreadsheet, too, that showed, you know, a lot of the conversation was, oh, just increase the salaries to that to what what we're paying. That spends more money. And we can show that in the spreadsheet. It is the cheapest way to do it right now. the way we're doing it with one part, one part-time, one

full-time, and the contractor filling in the void until we make a decision on the future of the plant. And then we can decide if we want to staff it full time and spend more spend more money.

Just hard to get staffing. It's not a career people want to get in. the AWT future like Chris mentioned earlier. Um we're doing the rate study now to see where we decide to go with it or you decide to go with it. Won't know that for 6 months. Storm water. Currently, we maintain the collection system of little over 25,57 catch basins, 96 outfalls, 52 miles of culverts, 153 ponds, and 44 miles of ditches and swells with a staff of 12 people. The construction projects we're proposing for next year is the Aberdeene drainage improvements approximately 850,000 and the Merrick entrance improvements which we haven't got the final cost estimates on yet. That's at the front gate of the Merrick Industries. The vehicles we're looking to purchase is another dump truck. This is an addition. This is not a replacement. We have one large dump truck for the entire city that works with storm water, streets, water, and sewer. And that truck is just it never stops. And when it does stop, it puts everybody down. So, we're asking for an additional truck because it the demand is just too much on one because if he's not hauling dirt or debris, he's having to go up in the sand hills and get clean fill and bring it back. So, it's constantly running one way or another. And then a F250 truck. This is um a

replacement for an existing one that we have that's It's another locker body truck that the crews use. We're also looking at purchasing a adaption of a st a mulching machine stump grinder for the little mini excavator. Currently, we're also requesting an additional mini excavator. We have one for the entire city and it water uses it, sewer uses it, street uses it, storm water uses it, everybody uses it and it's always in demand and we really do need another one for the water and sewer to help with them also. But it's our crews that usually help run them. Sanitation. Sanitation is one of our best enterprise funds. We currently run three garbage trucks on the road every day. Um, five knuckle booms on the road every day with a staff of 10 people. Some days we end up running four garbage trucks depending on the load and Wednesdays our worst day. This year we're looking to replace one of the side loader trucks. We currently lease a couple of these trucks and the lease is just not working out like we hoped. So, we want to go back to owning them again. So, we'll finish out this lease, but we want to purchase our own trucks. The lease trucks are not built like the ones that we used to run. So they constantly break and they're just not a good quality truck is what you can purchase. And replace one knuckle boom and auction

off the old one. So, it's not an addition, it is a replacement, which sanitation is solid to the point that it can replace trucks every year, which is intent cuz these are probably the hardest working trucks in the city. They start in the morning, they run all day, and they got just numerous moving parts on them, which is constantly breaking. But yeah, they are probably the hardest working trucks in the city. Garbage and knuckle booms. Any questions?

None. What's the total? How much is all that together? I wasn't tracking it because it's different budgets. Yeah. Well, the storm water is always my first concern. and he's got a half million dollars worth of uh additions to storm water. Storm water. Even with the non with the nonavalore right now, we're barely breaking even with the when you put in the disposables, we're like 100,000 under, right? We're not even close to breaking even with storm water

with the with the disposables or the equipment stuff that they get the perishables. They're like a 100,000 over budget, right? I thought that was the last number I saw. You need you need another dump truck. You need another look like that little mini excavator, right? And I asked Chris, do you have oper if you have a second one? You have a second operator. And he said you did. You have operator for both? Yeah. Thanks to the program that with the CDLs we just did that program, we've got backup CDL drivers now. That's good. That's great. It was hard to get them before, but

if you can't get the truck, you know, hardware. I asked Chris again, but but I just just for everybody to hear. I asked about a like a company like Redmond, like David Redmond or somebody, but he said they want they want to they want to charge you for hauling. So, yes. So, they you can't lease a truck from them or anything. Right. There's no lease program for the dump trucks. There is less programs for the dump trucks, but yeah, we've tried the leasing of the larger trucks and it's not doesn't work. Okay. I know you were talking about the trash truck, but the side loader, but I didn't know about a big dump truck. Can I talk about this?

So, mayor, you asked me to put a very simplistic kind of report together, which I have done. um and it compares the last year of when we were uh including the fee on the utility and it compares it against moving towards the non-adalorum assessment. So the last year that we were uh including it on the utility bill, the storm water uh department was in the whole a million $100,000 and that's after transferring over a million3 into uh the department from water and from sanitation. So basically there were $3 million in the hole that last year.

Okay. Wow. Over the course of five years, uh they're in the storm water department is in the whole million7, but over the course of five years, we have transferred in $10 million from the other departments. So, in five years, we've been in the whole almost $12 million. You see why I always say to you the storm water department is my biggest concern for the city. Absolutely.

The nonadvelorum tax barely covers the operating cost. It is not enough to cover the capital cost. So in 25 the year we just finished in September we brought in a million6 in non-advelour. The department cost $700,000 in personnel and nine almost a million dollars in operating. Then we had $300,000 worth of project related expenses. That was just last year. It was

your disposables I was talking about.

And then last year, of course, we had the very last debt service payment. So we paid the the debt service over the course of the last 5 years has been 5 million. So that's done. That's the good news. Going forward, we won't have any debt service for storm water anymore. And we were running at a deficit even after we went from three tiers to four tiers on the non-leaf Lord. And a lot of them literally doubled in a year. A lot of the assessments. I know mine went from like 174 to 350 just boom one year. So there was a lot of movement in that and we're still need.

Yes sir. It is my largest concern for the city. Copy. We have got as a team y'all. We have to get a hold on storm water. The financing, the funding, it was kicked down the can for many, many years by folks long long before we were here, even before Bobby was here. Um it it but it's a crisis we all have to deal with now. Well, and of course it was exasperated by Hurricane Michael. Fair.

Yes. But it those there was a lot of deferred maintenance and a lot of deferred expansion done for a long time because it was expensive and it was a pain to do, right? So now we have this big monkey on our backs that we have to deal with. And what it has in common with the sewer department is you don't really think about it until it goes sideways. No one wants a glass of water till the well runs dry. But without the nonadalorum, it it would be we'd be in terrible shape if we didn't have it. Regardless of how we get the funding in,

I am not a fan of the non-advalorum whatsoever. Um because it's not sunset right now. It's just basically another revenue stream that we've latched on to and there's no end date. There's no sunset and we're not even breaking even with the extra funds we're making our citizens pay, which is bad on our house. It's a box on our house. So, we have to get this figured out. And whether it's additional money on the the water bill, I mean, I think we're all going to have to pay the money. whether it's an extra $30 on my water bill every month for my particular rate or whether I pay an extra $350 right before Christmas. Again, I'm still paying the same money. But it's how we do that, right?

We got to figure that out. There, in my opinion, there was a serious inequity in the utility bill. Someone who was renting a 700 foot apartment was paying the same as Walmart. That makes no sense to No, it doesn't. So, we really have to plan our work and work our plan in that. Um, but that's one big area, y'all. That's kind of our collective Achilles heel. So, if we don't fund it through nonabalorum, how would we fund it? Cuz we sit there and we say we want to put on the water bill, but the problem is you have less people that are paying into it if you put it underwater, right? Am I right about that?

Yes, sir. The non-advalum is the fairest, most equitable way you can. I'm not saying it is the fairest, but it is the most fairest, equitable way method of collecting the money. Now, I I could I mean, I've already discussed some other options, and I think there's some other options as far as how to do it as a non-avalorum. But, you know, one of the statements you say, and I've heard this before, not just from you, but other people, is there's no sunset on it. Well, if you put it on the water belt, guess what? There's no sunset on that either.

It's fair. But Corey Langford, he brought up a great powerful quote. He came up there instead of that podium and said, "As it stands right now, my great great grandchildren that aren't even thought of yet will be on tap for this storm." Now, it gets renewed every year to be fair, but there is no sunset to that. But they'll still be they will still be paying a utility bill too if it comes in. And and I think of it as a maintenance program. So when you say there's no end to it, well, when are you going to stop changing the oil in your truck? When I don't have a truck anymore, you we are always going to have storm water issues. The city is at sea level. There's nowhere for the water to drain normally.

Yeah. We are always going to have storm water issues as long as the city is here. And the cost to maintain them is very expensive. It's only going to go up. If there's ever been a good example of money being used to help something, it's been storm water. The issues have declined drastically in 5 years. So the money is being used and the money is being effective. It's Yeah, there's been a change. So this nonadvelor that we're all currently paying that increased from the three to five tier and it seems like we had a bunch in the three to four tier jobs that's barely paying salaries for those 12 employees

and the disposable so things that they need to do their job. Right. Right. Um that's we're and we're not even breaking even now. No. Well, we're not breaking even because it wasn't increased the way that the original plan was was set forth either. We we implemented it and then two years it didn't get an increase. Then we had to do a higher increase. So the plan was not followed either. This is year five or year six. We should be at the break even point this year. But we are not because the plan was not followed. So this is why I say regardless of how we triage, this is probably our biggest financial Achilles heel as a city right now.

Well, yes. Well, aside from the $50 million sewer point in general, but in terms of an operational ongoing, right? Yes. Fund, this is our largest our weakest Achilles Hill. Yes. So, we really as a team have to figure out how to how we're going to thread this needle. Bobby, could you put your slide back up here if you don't mind that shows all the projects for storm water that are current like the ditches and the this and the ponds? I think it was the last, wasn't it? Yep.

I mean, I'm fine with putting on the water bill, but we just have to expect you it had happened. We just have to expect that it's going to be a lot more and people are going to be like I'm paying what a month for storm water. What I know we talked about it before. What what would we project it would be a month if we put it on our on water? 30 to $40 a month. It was something in the order of eight bucks a month. It was eight bucks commercial, three bucks residential. Is that what it was? So,

and it total in the last year $517,000. I don't know about you all, but the majority of people have an escrow account that they would much rather pay in their escrow versus paying an additional 3040 bucks a month on their utility bill. You're going to get a lot more complaints with 30 to $40 a month than you will. People not even realize they're paying into an esco account because they just do the monthly. That's true. If you have a mortgage, it's not as impactful. You just write those checks to the mortgage and the mortgage company takes care of it. Most of us do not analyze our escrow account with the mortgage. Let's put it that way. I forget about my escrow until I get the text the other day that they paid my insurance.

That's so at $350 a year, which is what I just paid. And that was the paying early in November versus the April of the following year with the little with the discount little $67 discount, whatever it was. Uh $350 a year for mine and mine's a third of an acre lot. um my that's divided by 12 that's $29.16. But it would have to go up drastically to cover the people that are not paying a utility bill that have property that's not paying. Yes.

Right. Cuz the nonaval loan also covers vacant lots. It covers residential. I mean it covers um commercial paying at a much higher rate than the residential. So if you change to the water bill, then you're going to have to raise the average citizen's monthly back. That goes back to what Kiki is talking about. You have Walmart paying the same amount as every residential.

I don't see that. If if we do go to a water bill, it would have to be residential only. The commercial, the industrial would have to stay a non-avalor, but residential, we'll still have to look at it. So, I I'm just telling y'all I'm not a fan of the non-avalor. I'm not saying we have to continue it or we have to kill it. I'm just saying I don't like it as a team. I recognize this is a gaping chest wound financially that we as a team have to come to a conclusion with and whatever the solution is that's best for the city, that's what we need to do. The other factor is going back to on the utility bill, going to need more staff because there's going to be questions and there's going to be administration. Currently, with it being on your property tax bill, city staff is not answering those questions. Our phone is not ringing asking why why am I paying this bill? It may be going to the city manager, but it's not going to the utility billing department. Put it back on the utility billing department. I'm going to need another staff member over there just to handle the added traffic. So, uh, every November, December, we get about, I'm going to say 20 to 40 calls just from one, people forgot about it, or two, maybe they paid off their their mortgage and don't have escrow anymore, or their escrow increased. And the 20 to 40 calls we get, we explain it to them. It's not like every month where they're calling the utility billing department because their water bill went up or they had a leak or something like that which would impact going back to the utility bill would impact that drastically.

Fair.

And we have a percentage of people who flat out just don't pay their water bills and we have to cut them off. I'm writing those dollars off on a regular basis. So now I'm going to be writing off the storm water assessment or utility billing or whatever we're going to call it. And and to be fair, there was a big sticker shock last year. I was surprised mine jumped from 175 to 350, you know, with no warning. It just boom. And and I had to go back and run the tape on what happened. And I watched the whole workshop and I understand the three and the four tiers now. I wasn't on the commission. So I talked to my commissioners and said, "What the hell happened?" And I've I got educated, but there's a lot of sticker shot there. So that the direction that was given to the consultant who worked up the numbers was this is a quote rip the band off.

Y'all damn sure did. And there was I wasn't a call but I was a definitely a what the hell moment and I paid it begrudgingly and and it something I ran on and the rec mayor re recall was we need to take a hard look at this. I didn't say we were going to kill it, but I said we were going to take a hard look at it and we really do. Is that the best option? And if it is, great. If it's not, what are the other options? And how can we do best optionwise for the city to fix this Achilles heel? So, because you are new to your position, we say this publicly. We have tinkered with this every single year. That's probably

for five years. My recommendation would be stick with it. Give it a while to work out. Give it a while for people to get used to it. But the idea that every single year we make some changes, tweaks here and tweaks there, and we're trying to address this problem, we're trying to address that problem, it's not allowing the system to see if it works.

That's fair. General McQueen has a great quote and he likes to say, "Let's not rush to failure." You know, measure twice, cut once. We really need to do a deep dive into this Achilles heel honestly as a team a frank assessment and then come up with some no kidding potential wayheads and let's discuss it and as a team we need to figure out what that best option is moving forward so that we mitigate that risk and we do get it to at least a break even proposition and then hopefully into positive territory. I know that's crazy talk for a municipal government, but we really need to be shooting in that direction.

Well, and that's the direction we've been going. But if if we wouldn't have tweaked it every year, if we would have stuck to the original plan, we would have been broke even. And who was driving those tweaks? Me. You? Yes. The quiet one. Um, and I I think we're at the point now where we have got it where we want it as far as the collection. If we change it again, we're going to face this conversation again and we're going to have a a sewer or utility rate increase as well. Again, we need to walk the dog and maybe this isn't the right time. Maybe we need a whole storm water workshop. But um

well, see, hold on a second. When we this whole storm water thing started, we had five workshops. Five. I was campaigning. I wasn't even on the commission yet. I went door to door. I told everyone, I say, "Hey, storm water's coming. This is what they're talking about. Not a peep from everyone." But as soon as it goes on their bill, everyone's complaining about it because nobody pay I shouldn't say nobody, but the vast majority of people don't pay attention. This has been talked about to death. It didn't impact them until it did. Yeah. And then they cared about. But what did impact us before then is the flooding. if you remember the major flooding and CJ that we don't see anymore.

I just wanted to add that we actually publish so many notifications ahead of time to notify people when the hearings would be what to expect what percentages would be what the different scenarios would be and so um the notifications were done that was published I don't what else we could have done to to Jim's point August every single year

August of 2021 we had major flooding that year the same meeting that the commission was going to vote on this non-adalorm the senior center was full but every other person this person got up to complain about flooding this person got up to complain about the assessment

the next person complained about flooding the next person complained about the assessment so we do not have that issue we Bill, we have nowhere for the water to go during high tide, during a 20-in rain event in 24 hours. We will have flooding issues. It's never going to be fixed. But those issues have declined. Bobby and I aren't getting the phone calls on Sunday when it's pouring. Hey, come over here. Look at this. My house is about to get water in it. We don't face those issues anymore. When we have major rain events, I call Adam. I call Mitch. Hey, y'all got any calls for dispatch? Not one. So, yeah. The work we've done with the money over the last four years has been tremendous. We don't get near the flooding cause. Yeah.

So, we we've improved it a lot. And I experienced the same thing. I actually had a poll that went out, I don't know, about a month ago. Um that was a free poll because I'm I was a member of goodparty.org or and they sent it out to I think it was 5,000 people and there was like maybe 30 responses and the same thing I showed you them. You have people complaining about the assessment fees and you got other people complaining about storm water fixing storm water. It's like you can't have it both ways.

Yeah. Well, I do want to say I get where you're coming from cuz when I first came on the board close to 3 years ago, I was super passionate about storm water. Um, especially the non-avaloom and the method of how it was being done. Uh, but I will say myself and many people have spent hours and hours and hours trying to make this thing better. I mean, I I've probably spent more time running numbers on storm water than any other issue. And I'm at to the point now where I'm like like Kiki said, let's just see if this works because anytime we need to tweak this, we got to bring back the company and the consultants and pay them to tweak it. We've got to spend money to do that. Um, and there's no question that the money's working. My question is like you really where you're at is the method of how we get the money,

right? But it's I just wanted to say that I get where you're coming from cuz I've been there, but I want to assure you that there have been hours and hours and hours and hours put into this already.

This is a a well-known issue. Um, I've been very passionate about it in the past, but I think we're at a point to where we kind of just need to see if it works cuz we just changed it not that long ago. I mean, it was my idea for the tier system because like I ran all the numbers. I showed it to the consultants and they ended up pretty much agreeing with me is that tier one was very much uh there was way too many houses in tier one. That's why you saw so many go up because there was way too many houses in tier one. Um if we were trying to to me the best method is it should just be square footage across the board. But um the consultants and the rest of the commission prefer um the tier system and I'm not going to die on that hill. I if they want the tier system, everybody think that that's good. That's fine. Um but the tiers had to be changed. that was me and um or I was I was driving that rather and um my main point is I get where you're coming from and I appreciate it. But I also want to add that we have put a lot of time into this already, a ton of it.

Yes, sir. I will say the the idea behind the non-ador is you have a house that's worth $700,000. They have a swimming pool. They have a shop. they have the money to to afford that $700,000 piece of property. You have a 1,200 foot home that's worth $75,000 and we're going to put it on the utility bill and charge these people the same money. That's that's not equitable across the board.

Fair. And I don't think anybody has talked about a single fee. If we've got the tiers and we already have that data, if for example we were to put it back on the fee, y'all are charging me for my third of an acre lot um of $350 a year. If I am a tier three or a tier four, then I should my address, my water bill account should register as a tier three or tier four and I should still be paying that city the $350 whether I pay it as $29.50 50 cents a month or I pay you a check $350 once a year right before Christmas, you're still getting the money for me, right? And these homes aren't going to typically change. And if they do, if you take a 7500 or $75,000 home and you convert it into a new McMansion, there's going to be building increments and stuff, right, that go with that. So, you're going to have to figure out a way to integrate those things in.

And that was about a 30 or $40,000 charge with mun just to implement a way to do that. So now, as Kiki said, we don't do that. We get that information from the property appraiser through Stantech. It uploads every year. If we if we go that route where we have to look at every parcel, we're hiring at least three people to to do that. So the savings that we're we're looking at and not hiring Stantech, that's gone. The methodology is the same, but it's not as efficient. And now we are responsible for collecting that information instead of importing a spreadsheet or a CSV file that we get from the property appraiser one time. That method also we have to make sure it stands up in port and has been certified. That method has not putting it on the utility bill in that way. The method we do now is stands up in port and has been approved by the by the court system. So even with y'all doing what you're doing and doubling most of the assessments, we're still not even breaking even. We're not even coming close. So we still have regardless and we can argue about how you get that extra 350 for me for my lot every year. Um but it's still 350 coming out of my pocket extra to help just like everybody else in Manhagen. I'm not special. We got to figure out the best way regardless of the way we get it in, how we manage it, and how we get to where we need to be as a city, right? To make sure this isn't the Achilles Hill it is. So, I don't know how to fix it. I mean, Sam's one of the smartest dudes I know, most unassuming. Uh, and he's put in a lot of math and numbers here. We'll figure it out, but we whatever we come up with, we need to do it as a team, and it has to be clear and transparent. And uh I may have missed it. You know, we're all living our lives and dealing with our own stuff. But I darn sure didn't see that the the assessment rate doubling for the non-aval alarm until I opened my envelope. So, what the hell is

this? Right. Again, the original intent was that it would gradually increase. At the last discussion with the consultant, the direction was rip the band-aid. That's exactly what they were told. Yeah. So, everybody's adjusted to that. I assume we're not ripping more band-aids off because it's already off now. Correct. The major increases are over, but there are still increases as as the plan goes. So, I won't beat the dead horse anymore, but I appreciate y'all hearing me out and us discussing this. We all know it's a problem.

So, how we went down this road is Mr. Baker just asked for a half million dollars worth of capital. So, since we have the storm water since we have the storm water loan paid off. Yes. How much does that free up money each year? Well, annually we were spending about 2.5 million. Um, so that doesn't mean we're going to have an extra 2.5 million. No. uh paying it off early. The storm water department saved I believe it was a million3 in interest over the life.

Any other questions? You definitely brought the beehive today. It's always the bigger money projects that shook the hell out of it. Yeah, you guys are expensive. Well, what can I say? Thank you, Bobby.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. On a lighter note, let's let's talk about the CRA in economic development, too. I want to cheer you guys up a little bit here. This is going to be fun. So, you may or may not know my position. Um, I'm my time here at the city is being cut into a 7030 split. I spent 70% of my time uh on CRA projects and 30% of my time on economic development. So um when I when I started uh working for the city as a CRA director back in 2009, one of the first things I focused on was to develop a mission statement with the commission with the public to really understand what is the CRA about? How do we implement the projects that are suggested in the CRA plan? I'm just going to have I don't know if you had a chance to take a look at the CRA plan, but this is a document that was um developed in 2003 that kind of outlines the issues the CRA had back in 2003 and uh comes up with a list of uh recommended projects um to fix these issues. So back in '09, we uh decided to um on the mission statement to promote a familyoriented, walkable community with a vibrant small businessfriendly downtown area that preserves our local small town heritage. So a lot of key words in this mission statement and I'm bringing this up because this is an excellent test. Every time I I'm suggesting I'm coming up with some project ideas what the CRA should focus on. This is an excellent test to see is this project really a legitimate expense under the CRA CRA rule. So if I I turn

this mission statement into a question, if I can answer the project with a with a yes, then it is a um a qualified um project that can be funded through CRA money. So there are I would say about five um cornerstones in the CRA uh when it comes to CRA projects. Um we've been focusing on um building a lot of sidewalks and trails in our CRA area. We've been updating with Tai's help um some city parks. Um just recently installed that new playground there on Kang Griffin Kang Griffin Park. um improving the public right ofway u the infrastructure addressing drainage issues and but also we're offering some incentives so one of the incentives is the residential incentive program so um in a nutshell if there's a vacant lot in the CRA and Chief Blancher decides to build a new home in Linhaven on this vacant lot we can offer him up to $5,000 just for the fact that he's building a new home um on that vacant lot. It's one extra family in the in the city that pays a water bill on on existing infrastructure, one extra garbage uh pickup uh account, but more most importantly, it increases the taxable value of that property. And that's what CRAAS are all about. It's all about increasing finding ways how to increase the taxable value of the CRA. So, and that's why I showed the that's why I'm showing these two pictures here. Same lot at different times, vacant, it had a taxable value of 50,000 improved it changed to about $300,000. So, the taxable the tax increment is 250

obviously. And that's not only a benefit for the city, but also a benefit for the CRA to fund additional future projects. Oops. What happened? Errol. There you go. Thank you. Another incentive is the storefront incentive program. Um, up to $25,000. Here's just an example. Ace Hardware, that property was vacant for for many years. Um then Ace Hardware purchased it. The intent is not to fund to provide the financial uh funds to to pay for an improvement like this. It's like a carrot on the stick. We want to encourage people to spend some money, but the majority of the funding should come should come from the private enterprise. Same thing here. This is Arthur Rutenberg Homes, their office um on Ohio and I think it's Seventh Street where they're located or maybe 8th. Um same thing there. And then also we we've been um focusing on a lot of um sidewalks within the CRA. Um and yes, there is a structure to this. We are just not randomly building sidewalks. We actually developed a sidewalk master plan for the city, identified areas where people would like to walk to and uh looked at the existing infrastructure and the and the gaps and then focused on the different gaps to kind of fill fill these in. Not only do we use CRA funds for this, but also some other funding such as mainly DOT to pay for these sidewalks. for example, the sidewalk um that is planned for Tennessee Avenue um that will be on the agenda um this Tuesday.

So, but we don't stop at sidewalks. It's it's also I think rails for trails gave us a kind of like an an idea how excited people can get when it comes to the use of some a trail system. If you look at rails for trails of any time of the day, you almost always see somebody on there. So, it's it's frequently used. The actually has a traffic counter on our trail, so we know exactly how many people use the trail at what time and you know which day of the week. We can get some average numbers. So, so we can actually quantify the usage of this trail. And um our ultimate goal is to really to develop a trail network um by really strategically thinking about where can we add some segments um to our existing system. So we have a trail actually the county has one on 389. We got rails for trails. DOT will be building a trail along 390 as part of the six laning all the way to 231. And once we're suddenly we're kind of creating a network and things will get even more interested interesting at that point because we can connect more neighborhoods with your sports complex with the different parks and um so it's it's another option another way how to reach out to our community and how to connect our residents to the public places. This is just an overview of the the projects. Um we've been looking at again main focus would be incentives and grants corridor improvements on Florida and Ohio Avenue. Um I think Commissioner

Perno mentioned earlier the the grant that we received the $4.3 million from the state. that um grant will pay for a good amount of that that project, but it's not going to be enough. We can we know this already. So any any financial gap could be covered by CRA funds. And so that's something that we're looking into right now. Um we continue to work on our sidewalk network and we're also focusing on a regional storm water system. The reason why you're seeing a lot of vacant land along Florida Avenue, our commercial corridor, historic commercial corridor, is that the lots are too small to build a new commercial building on it. There's not enough room based on our current standards on our current development regulations to put um an office building on it, some parking and storm water. So one thing, one way to approach this, one way how to fix that problem is to provide storm water treatment offsite. So I'm we're essentially creating a storm water mitigation bank offsite and the developer developer can then purchase or yes purchase the storm water credit for that assuming that we're treating their water offsite so that they don't have to build it on their particular property. you ever talk to Johnson?

The following years, um, again, you you will see similar projects. Um, sidewalks, storm water drainage improvements. I've been working with Bobby handinhand on different projects, drainage projects here within the CRA. We've installed uh or paid for some of the uh Seventh Street

drainage pipe on Seventh Street. Um so this is a continuous um conversation that we're having. All of these projects are based on the CRA plan. So whatever this is really this is people always ask me is this something the CRA can pay for and and I always refer back to that CRA plan. This is really my justification. If it's listed in there then the answer would be yes. The the main expenses that I can see for the CRA is really the corridor improvements. This will be several million dollars. Uh and we may not be able to afford all of this all at once. We have to cut it up into phases and then do it in increments. I think it was the last part. The good news is the CRA was just the time frame was just extended by another 10 years. So, our new sunset date is in 2043, which gives us um more time to and money to uh for improvement projects here within our downtown area. Are there any questions about this?

I know there was talk and uh at state about doing away with CRA. Did we hear anything from this session? I think that's kind of died down. Um it was kind of killed. Not saying that won't revive, but for now that that push is done. This kind of discussion comes and goes and um yes um Griff Griffiths was very vocal about um his dislikes about the Front Beach Road CRA which quite frankly got out of hand. I mean they have a hundreds of million dollar budget um and they're only focused on traffic. So, it's um there's there are some reasons why there was this this

tweaking probably need to be done. One thing I wanted to bring up was back to the rails of trails thing. I really want to look at uh changing the flashing lights to where they only flash when someone's crossing. Yes. So, I don't know if that's uh something we need to we can use CRA funds for like a sensor or a button, but that definitely needs to happen at some point. If it's within the CRA, then the answer is yes.

So, and only the 17th Street crossing is in the CRA. So, all the other crossings on 26th Street, on 389, Mosley, that is unfortunately outside the CRA. Oh, we could not use CRA funds for this, but maybe through Bobby's office on those and we'll likely add it to the fiscal year 27 budget out of the It'll have to come out of the street department.

I see those as must pay bill soon, but I agree with you. I live over there by it. And when these trails came in, they're used. They're popular. They're great. We could use some shade for sure. Um, but other than that, the problem is when people are on that trail, they expect these big moving cars and sometimes folks aren't paying attention and they just jump right out in front. And we've had people hit on bikes and and on foot and they you walk out in front of a moving vehicle, you're going to get hit. They don't stop on a dime. So, you know, getting the right whether it's stop or whatever we do to reconfigure that I think would be a very good thing. Yes, they even got stop signs there for the pedestrian and bikes, but

yeah, I went and double checked just to see and there are stop signs for the bikes, but I don't know. I think just from a psychological standpoint, if you're driving and you just see a constant flashing light, you get used to it. It doesn't get Exactly. You get used to seeing it. Mhm. Agree. Unlike a school zone where you, oh crap, I got to slow down, you know, and then you creep along. If it's 24/7, you're like, ah. Right. Yeah. All right. Harold, can you put up the presentation for economic development?

Let's talk about economic development for a second. Is this your 7030 split? Yes. Yes, sir. Okay.

So, same thing with uh economic development. Um, I'm big about a mission statement to really understand which direction we're heading and that there's really clear communication, not just between city staff, the city commission and the public. Um, of course, uh, so to enrich citizens quality of life by attracting new businesses to Linhaven by promoting the retention and expansion of existing businesses. So, it's all about bring, keep, and grow. Doesn't matter if you do economic development in New York, in Tulsa, Arizona, or in Foley, Alabama. It's always about these three components. And all of these activities, all of the the the the actions I take as part of the econ the city's economic development director, they all fall back to bringing new businesses to our community, keeping the existing ones, having a good business relationship with America industry, Jensen USA, Train, and so on and local retailers and helping them grow, listening to their concerns. Um, man, I wish I could do this, but I'm, you know, I have some problems here with this with this property. And that's something where sometimes the city can help with our expertise from a development side and provide some ideas how to approach these issues. Um in terms of projects the economic development outlook I think my top priority would be to look at an economic development study. I know today that we are running out of inventory which is a good problem to have but it does not help us. If if I had a business that wants to that knocks on my door

tomorrow that wants to bring a 100 new jobs to our area, I would have to refer them to another community because we simply don't have the commercial space to offer them a new home. Then one

um we I'll get to this in a second. Um and then I'll answer your question. Um so economic development study really identifies the gaps and uh would help us to um focus on on a strategy how to improve our economic development footprint. It would also help us when it comes to going after some grants uh some state or federal agencies they're asking for an economic development study. So, we all know we have a commerce park on Aberdine Loop, Aberdine Parkway, and we have an industrial park um um over on the the west side of the the city. And um although there are some vacant lots within those those commercial areas, there's a reason why they're vacant. There are a lot of wetlands in this area. back then. These commerce parks or commerce and industrial park they have been around for a long time. I still don't understand why somebody wanted to build an industrial park right on the water in a wetland surrounded by residential. It's strategically from a location. It's challenging. You have to get all the semi-truckss through a neighborhood. It's not ideal. Um, but in all fairness, this industrial park has been around for a very, very long time. And back in the 60s, there was probably no neighborhood. All of this kind of started to fill in over time. Um, how can our community grow? Uh, Chief Johnson mentioned this earlier in his presentation. We cannot go to the west. We cannot expand to the south or the

east. I think the only area that that is somewhat viable in terms of growth is the northeast corridor. Going straight north into Southport, you will be facing a lot of small properties, hundreds of different property owners, and you would have to get the the consent from every single property owner to annex into the city. Very unlikely. The northeast corner is owned, most of it is owned by one property owner, St. Joe,

and that's a St. Joe company. So my message here today is St. Joe should be our new BFF. We should have a healthy business relationship with them and at least a conversation with them how we can expand to the northeast whether we like it or not. what whatever they're doing. Bottom line is this is the only area we can grow. We cannot cross the um 231 because Panama City annexed in the railroad tracks and we cannot cross another jurisdiction to annex in something on on the east side of 231. Hey, Ben. So, you're saying for over there where like Derby Woods and uh Harvard Boulevard and all that each individual

person would have to request to be annexed in? Yes. Okay, that's correct. Right. I mean, I just want to confirm. You can't force them all. Yeah, I mean I that makes sense. Oh, it just I see

implementation of the ADA transition plan. So I discovered uh through the a grant process that um the city is required to actually have an ADA transition plan in place. This rule was established in the 1990s and there was a grace period of some two 3 years in the late 1990s to put this into action. We haven't had an ADA transition plan um all these years. So you talking Americans with Disabilities Act?

Yes sir. So ADA transition plan identify it's it's a it's a self-p policing plan. There's nobody that is really checking this unless something goes wrong. Then they will ask you, do you have your 88 transition plan? Did you follow your plan? This plan basically analyzes all the city's infrastructure, sidewalks, buildings, um, and parks and identifies some ADA disability um, deficiencies. It lists all of these deficiencies with a cost estimate. And our plan is our goal is to repair fix these deficiencies over the next coming years. Right now we have some $25,000 um in our budget to work on that to-do list, if you will.

And there's 50,000 in fiscal.

50. Perfect. So, we've been working with a fire chief and also public works on implementing um the these different projects. Uh we've identified some some public bathrooms, they're non-compliant. They the stalls need to be a little bit larger. Um it's really specific what's what based on the findings that we we've identified out in the field. Um so as money becomes available we are um using these funds to make it better. Uh sometimes detectable warning pads are missing on a sidewalk at an intersection. So those that's a deficiency and that can be that should be repaired at some point. um in terms of um funding or um budget for economic development, I think the study is really paramount. It's really the foundation that we're building here. And then based on that, more than likely, we need we would need another um commerce park, industrial park here in our area. Um, Triumph GF Coast uh funding could be an option to pay for that infrastructure. Um, but we would have to purchase the land first, get the funding from Triumph GF Coast to put in water and sewer lines to get these sites shovel ready. That's the term economic developers like to use to really be ready when a company comes into town that we can say here we we can sell this piece of property to you to build a new office center warehouse whatever it is.

So the northeast corridor would likely in 231 would likely provide that opportunity for us. Yes. So right now I think the Milb Bayou development the the Milb Bayou property some parts of the what 900 acres or is it 600 900

900 something acres that could that could be turned into a commerce park for example. So light industrial or commerce park no noise pollution any of that it wouldn't be heavy industrial any it wouldn't be any manufacturing everything would be indoors. Funny you mentioned that. I talked to George Gonzalez who is the CEO of St. George uh Tuesday. He's out of town this week. We're supposed to be getting together for lunch next week. So, I probably need to huddle with you and Mr. White Foot. Yes, sir.

And uh get kind of spun up on this. And if we're going to do this, we need to plan our work and work our plan and diligently pro plan for that. The other piece is all of these little nooks and crannies you see as you look at that map of the carveouts are the folks that didn't incorporate. Yes. Um and how we try to fill in I mean we're providing a lot of services to those folks already obviously but how do we long-term incorporate that into Linhaven and how do we do substained responsible wellplanned growth to help the city and our our residents?

Absolutely. Yes, sir. I'd like to end my presentation with an old-fashioned SWAT analysis. This is this is what we did when I went to school. What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in terms of economic development strengths? U no doubt quality of life um compared to other communities, affordable lifestyle, beaches are nearby. Um we have we do have deep water access to the bay um um at the fuel depot. Uh we have excellent schools here in Linhaven. Those are all reasons why people want to live in Linhaven. It's a safe community. We have excellent schools. Those are all selling points and that's a reason why our our real estate continues the the property values continue to go up. uh good regional strategic location for aviation, advanced manufacturing and medical sector. I'm starting to see the development of um an aviation business cluster here in our area and it's all fueled by the airport. IG Arrow is just one example. They're building a test cell at the airport right now. Those are some major major developments that an engine test cell they will never move this whenever this is built they will stay and it will bring a lot of highquality jobs to our area. um urban core closer proximity to ECP. I had some professionals, some attorneys reach out to me because they like Linhaven because it's only a 20-minut drive to the airport instead of an hour drive from Panama City, downtown Panama City. They don't have to be right next to the courthouse anymore. the a lot of

the the court appearances there are on Zoom and so the physical um presence is no longer needed which really changes the dynamics in the in the real estate market. Ben.

Yes sir. So last week I had a meeting with the new CEO at the Navy base u when we were doing our training and his future plans are is to have his area dredged so he can get actual Navy ships into that port over at the Navy base. Depending on the size of the ship, I'm not a Navy expert, but however many people are on those ships, they're going to need places to stay. They're going to need places to live if they're going to end up porting those vessels there. I don't know the time frame on that, but that goes kind of in the same lines as your airport uh drill. Um he's going to be meeting with the county soon to have all that dredged out from his area all the way to where the port ships come in. if he brings in one naval destroyer or some of the smaller ships military guys, you know more than I do how many people are in those ships and where they're going to have to go to stay hotels, houses, rent and all those other things. So those that's another possibility to go along with your economic development for growth to be ready for and to stay kind of on top of.

And Tindle's the same way. Um, and a lot of the like the drones and the intelligence and the the fighter pilots and or the F-35s, those are very uh manpower intensive. They have a lot of, you know, higher ranking pilots and senior NCO maintainers. And what do most military people have that have been in for a while? Families. Where do most families want to be? Good school areas. Right. That's one of, as you said, to your point, that's why Linhaven is so popular. It's, you know, it's a nice area. It's got really good schools, but with the really good schools and antquidated roads, we have really bad traffic.

So, you know, you pick your poison. So, if we can mitigate our risk, but improve upon our strengths, that's a beautiful thing.

Yep. And just to highlight a few other items here on weaknesses, we don't have any direct connection to the interstate. Um, for landing is good. Um, direct access to the interstate would would be better. Um, workforce is always a challenge and I and I feel like it doesn't really matter where you go. Qualified workforce. Um, so this is not Linhaven specific. I think that you can see this all across Northwest Florida. Um, lack of shovel ready sites most certainly. Um, we are a bedroom community. We're not a traditional commercial hub. There is always a reason why there was why there's a a city in a certain place in a certain location because there was a train station, a courthouse, um a port. Lynhaven is a master plan community that was developed 120 years ago by WH Lin. So, so we have a different story to tell. Uh we don't have a courthouse, we don't have a train station, things like that. Um the existing inventory is not demand friendly. So we're um more people are looking into uh our area but we don't simply don't have the inventory. Expansion can be a challenge. Um what are our opportunities? um building these development alliances with strategic partners, Bay EDA, Chamber of Commerce, but then also the private side. Uh so I I see economic development as a like running a marathon. This is not going to happen overnight. We want to build this positive business relationship with George Gonzalez and and and see it may not happen tomorrow, but maybe next year. So, but I think it's important to start a conversation. Um,

what other threats? Um, undiversified economy. We're we're still we only have a few anchors. Train, Jensen, Merrick, that's it. There are no other large companies here in this area. So, to diversify our economic footprint is definitely something we should focus on. um potential annexation challenging. It can be challenging. That's you have to get consent from every single property owner and that is the challenge. There's a reason why they're not in Linhaven today because I don't want to pay extra taxes um because we may not be able to provide utility services to them should they if they wish to annex into the the city. So that's all I got. Are there any questions?

Yes, sir. Wonder when you mentioned incentives for the for commercial or or businesses, what are some of those incentives to bring new businesses in? So, we we do have a commercial incentive in place up to $25,000 if you decide to build a new commercial facility or new commercial building here in Linhaven in the historic part of Linhaven. um we would pay up to $25,000 for the additional space. Um it's a matching grant, so you would have to bring at least $25,000 to the table and you have to increase the footprint of the building. So it can be a renovation or it can be a brand new building.

Okay? And we're actually this Tuesday, no, it's going to be probably in April, we already received one commercial incentive application. So, um, for a business that is moving into that's renovating on Florida Avenue right now. Oh, cool. And just to bring home the point you're talking about, u folks not wanting to expand with us, I met with a he's a retired Air Force Senior Master Sergeant, 82 years old, been a resident here since the late 80s when he retired out of Tendle. His wife was from here. They did their career, they came back and retired here,

and he lives right off of Minnesota Avenue. and uh he said, you know, why should I? And he's got like a 5 acre lot. He said, I had to put in um you know, my own whale and septic and all that. And then the city came along and said, well, you want to hook up with us, you'll have to pay taxes, but we'll give you water and sewage. And he goes, I have all that. Why? You know, so for the folks that have done that, the kind of I guess the legacy or the long-term folks that had to be self-sufficient when the city wasn't providing those services, now they have those services.

So, they don't really want or need our services now, right? That's a lot different than carving out a new neighborhood or carving out and remodeling a track of land and turning a 20 acre lot to 500 town homes. Absolutely. I think timing is crucial because that septic tank needs to be replaced at some point, right? And that might be a good opportunity for us to restart that conversation. Is he still interested? Maybe now. If not him, certainly his children, grandchildren that take over grandpa's farm or house or whatever when he goes, right? But it may not be something where folks are readily willing to sign up to be New Lin Haven taxpayers, right?

Yes. What's the cost to replace sewer uh box thing is probably about what? It's expensive. I know this. I only know it's expensive. It's about 10,000 to abandon it. And then you have to tie on impact beans and a plumber. No, I meant uh if you have your own sewer if they have to replace cuz you know after so many years they have to replace that a septic tank. Septic tank. It's about 10,000. It's about 10,000 minimum these days. But the way the law reads, if the sewer is in front of you, you can have your septic tank. If it fails and there's sewer within 100 ft of your property, you have to hook it. Oh.

You won't get a permit to redo it. Okay. Didn't know that. But if there's no sewer available, then there should be no reissue of permit. So it goes back to your point. Yeah. Does that does that sanity check? I mean who checks to make sure sewer is not available is would they have to come check for the permit the health department. Okay. Does the permit for submit and they'll check with the city. Gotcha. Where sewer is. So you do have an honest broker factchecking. Yes. Gotcha.

Um with us possibly um servicing sewer out in Southport area. Um, since that would all have to be piped out that way, do you see opportunity that way of Lin Haven expanding out over the bridge there? I would say it is possible, but Chris, you probably know more about this. It's the you you have to for people to agree to the annexation.

It makes us it makes that area unanex. If we're if we're doing the retail billing in that area, providing service in that area, makes it hard for someone else to come in and annex it. Not that we have rights to it or anything, but it's a step in the process. Is it not correct? If we if we become the retail utility service provider, Panama City, for example, couldn't annex all the way down in in that area. Oh, but not harder for them to annex into Linhaven. They could annex into Linhaven if they wanted. Oh, I thought that's what you were saying. Make it harder. Us being the retail provider. Okay. Makes it makes it hard for someone to come in providing

that type of a service. Yes. And the next step would be, you know, fire and police, better protection and quicker response on the So, there has to be you have to kind of do a it has to be a balanced approach, right? Because you're going to have one customer there every quarter mile or eighth of a mile versus 300. No, not anymore. I mean, there lots of subdivisions in Southport that the utilities are in. There's about 4,700 utility connections. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's not It's not the early 2000 Southport anymore. But I foresee that,

especially with the airport now. I see a lot more neighborhoods and businesses going down there in the future. So, um, Jennifer Vigil with Panama City Destination. I don't know if you've I think you've talked to her in the past. Yes. about um vet tax and um us being part of that. Just wondering what your opinion on that whole thing is. Absolutely. We should definitely look into this. Jump on that.

Um it the Linhaven residents won't have to pay for this. It's only the visitors that stay in a hotel that pay the bad tax and Airbnb and Airbnb and the and the hotel wants us to do the hotel industry apparently wants wants the expansion. Just a reminder, we have that on the calendar for April 8th for her to come do the workshop at 5:00 p.m. Got it. So, yes, absolutely. Especially with the Atlantis uh event center now. Yeah. Um I I'm seeing a lot of

movement in that in that type of industry here in our area in our area, especially when Justin continues to build some more or or bring up some more some um um sports tournaments. That's a reason for families to move uh to travel here to Linhaven and spend a weekend at the sports complex. They have to stay somewhere obviously. It's all definitely some some that would be definitely something positive for our community for sure. I have wor.

Thank you, sir. fall asleep.

All right. Good afternoon. I am not going to be long. I don't have any capital improvement projects um for human resources and risk management. So um if you will just kind of picture it. Um it's a very small department in terms of resources, staff resources. And the goal here this year, the next fiscal year and the years to come is to move the needle from being reactive to proactive. So if you can kind of picture it in your mind that we are flying this plane as we are building it. And the reason I say that is because due to um hurricane Michael and some other um incidents documentation although we've had our enterprise resource system documentation and the way the city has operated in the past very paperbased everything being manual although we have the system not everything was uploaded into the system so that we could act we can access that. So, it is my understanding that several documents were lost and damaged um during Hurricane Michael. And so, to um use it as a lessons learned, we're trying to avoid those things and kind of move more to a innovative automated way of um operating. So, three objectives here. Increase the use of automation to improve efficiency, reduce administrative cost, and ensure consistent service delivery across the organization. And one way we can do that is to maximize the existing system. So currently this is how we operate an an applicant is interested in a job. They submit their application through keair. We take that information. Then we use a separate system docuign to obtain secure information so that we can do the

pre-employment screening. Once we have that completed then we do a separate system. and we use a separate system to conduct the background check. Once that is completed, everything is good to go, the director gives me the green light, they would like to hire, then we have to manually enter all of that information into Munis. Well, Munis has most of those capabilities from application tracking system, background check. we they have different vendors or systems that could interface with um UNUNICE. Um and if we utilize what we're already paying for, there are some small savings that the city could achieve. Now once we get into the um the meat the nuts and bolts of um customizing units there may be additional cost but for example if kale dair is about $3500 a year um based on based on minimum usage um if it costs the city about $3500 to turn on different um bells and whistles within units it'll be an even swap. Another key strategy is to standardize our digital workflow and convert our routine HR and risk processes um into standardized electronic flows. again um it's a lot of manual you know getting the approvals um from Chris from Jennifer from the department heads um whereas if we utilize the ERP system all of that could be done electronically which will reduce um manual data entry um reduce the um um administrative costs and increase um transparency um and again I think I've already spoke on reducing the manual touch points. Um

so we do a lot and right now um it's just HR and risk is a a team of one person as of Tuesday. Um the HR coordinator, she um took a different position. We wish her well. Um so it's just me now and I'm doing the end to end um with the help of Jennifer as well for HR and risk. Okay. When it comes to our workforce sustainability, um, one objective is to ensure that the city remains competitive, prepared, and positioned to retain and develop talent. And so, several directors have already briefed you all on the compensation study that we are currently um doing. The consultants were here Wednesday and yesterday. And so we are expecting to receive those results and those recommendations end of April, early May, hopefully in time of budget. But let's not only think in terms of salaries. Let's think of those fringe benefits that the chiefs mentioned earlier, such as providing um vouchers for our police officers to, you know, make sure that their shoes um are are are adequate and we don't have, you know, different employees in different types of shoes. Um let's think about policy um changes in terms of I know Panama City for example they have a policy that if your department is at least 50% I think it's 50% um under staff there may be additional funds that employees can receive until staffing is um brought to um an adequate level. um our benefits. Um that's one way, you know, while while the younger younger millennials, Gen Z, Gen X may be just focused on their salary, you know, that's not the only,

you know, population that's applying for jobs. Benefits may be more attractive in terms um of an employee. So, there are changes that we could make that we're hoping to get results from our compensation study as well. I know Panama City for the employee all of their health benefits are free for the employee only. The employee begins to pay once they add dependence or you know spouse or the family. So there are other things that the city could look at in terms of policy changes um procedure changes um fringe benefits um right now we don't have maternity or paternity leave that's available. It's just one one um pool of leave your your paid time off. Some CDs offer employees a different set of pool should they an employee um have a newborn. So um the compensation study is going to be holistic and just not focused on um salary. Also included in this is the need for training um to keep our employees to to develop an internal mentoring program. Um one thing one thing that I did in my previous capacity I developed this walk a day in my shoes because for some of the employees who are you know have aspirations to promote you know the position looks attractive but you know once they get you know you know walking in the shoes they may not they may say oh well this is for me this is not for me. Um so having those mentoring programs internally that will only not only train staff but also help us to retain them as well. And as we move to the risk management side of the house, this is really where we have been reactive and we would like to move to a proactive model in terms of workers compensation

um providing true analysis and into the data. I believe in making data informed decisions. Um and right now we just don't have the bandwidth to um um invest you know into some analysis right now. So we're pretty reactive um in terms of workers comp trying to go um avoid accidents um and that's just where we are right now. I work with the police I'm sorry the fire chief um on you know safety standards. We have started doing inspections quarterly. Um there are public safety committees that are required that we're trying to come into compliance with. Um so we have a lot of work to do. Um and it's not hard work, but what it will require is additional resources. You know, we can't do it with two FT FTEEs alone. Um so for human resources and risk management um requesting additional to staff so that we can begin to roll out some of these goals. Okay. Any questions? All right. Thank you, sir. And you're doing the health and we're excited about the whole

Yes. for you to go back to the Yes. Go back up there and do a whole thing on the health. So that's all on the staff end. I know the mayor's got one, but we want to take about a 5m minute break and then we'll do the mayor's wrap up. That's right. So much easier to have it all. Mine is primarily for the commission. Was it? Mine is primarily discussion. super logos.

This was a good opportunity for us to publicly share. Guang, Japan.

I was staying up pretty sleep until kind of me. We wouldn't even appreciate Wednesday.

Good kid. I just bought history.

I have no idea. I have no frame of reference for whatever. This is cool. Sam, I appreciate your comments.

Y'all know the only reason I say not trying to cut off our nose. We're not just white is the best way. That's not all that.

Hey, I was only responsible for one of those.

Yes, sir. What size? Large. Extra large. Extra large. We never

Is that what that was? Now we're trying to do all kinds of stuff. Here's the irony. It's actually think about particular south multiple firefighters. in station two. Tell me when a call comes in, we have a joke in your head. I wonder if it's on.

Wow. You're up. Yes, sir. Cool. to get another cookie.

That was all different. We'll give Pat another minute. I don't want to wait too long.

Well, y'all, I get the distinct privilege of being the caboose today. And the only thing other than a kind of a wrap- up discussion keeping us from heading out of here to wherever we need to go. I know, Chief, you're uh your day is probably still just started, but you know, we appreciate you. Um because of Sunshine Law, it's pretty interesting. The five of us commissioners are rarely able to talk and collaborate outside of the meeting unless there's some kind of natural disaster event, right? So, Commissioner War, Commissioner Perno and I um Commissioner Peoples had already done his training. So, I was day six on the job as mayor. So, it was January 26. We went to Tallahassee and we were doing uh this 4-hour annual ethics training. And I said, I got a question for you. And coming from a military background where I'd been a squadron commander three times and I had a director of operations, I had a right-hand person and you know, you kind of had an established chain of command. So if I got hit by lightning or hit by a bus, the number two guy or gal would step up and you know kind of rock on. Said, "How do I as the mayor mayor will you use the mic for the people?"

Sure. There we go.

Sorry. How do I as the mayor uh collaborate with the mayor pro Tim, the deputy mayor, right? And uh the the state ethics attorney there goes, "Good question. Do y'all have the city manager form of government?" I said, "Yes, we do." He goes, "Well, you basically can't work with the deputy mayor then. You have to go through the city manager." Sunshine Law being what it is. You basically are like Spongebob and Patrick. I don't know. How are you today, Patrick? I don't know, Spongebob. How are you today? That's about the level of detail you can do. So, coordination between uh the commission outside of a forum like this or our city commission meetings are pretty limited. So, these are a couple of minor things. I am literally two months on the job today. Two months ago tonight, I swore in here and uh I appreciate the honor and the privilege. Uh in some ways it feels like it's been two days and in some day or in other ways it feels like it's been two years, right? So welcome to the rodeo and be careful what you ask for, right? I'm honored and privileged to be here with you guys and uh and gal if Judy was here today as well. Uh I'm honored to serve with y'all and honored to be a part of this city and I've gotten to meet so many of y'all. Y'all been very welcoming. Uh, and I didn't keep the rookie guy title too long before Chief Blanchard came in. So, Chief, thank you for taking that away from me. Um, but I just say all that to say thank y'all for including me, welcoming me. Everyone here has been very, very gracious and I appreciate that more than you know. We're all here because we love this city and we want to do well for our city, the residents, as well as each other. We really are a team here. Even though I don't care what department you're in, what color shirt you wear, we they all say city of Linhaven on it, right? We're all here for the city and for the residents of the city. So, um, couple of quick wrap-up things. Again, mostly geared towards the city commission except for the mission statement. Uh, and certainly

that'll be a discussion for everybody. But first thing, coins. Before I joined the commission um back in December, the city commission had authorized the commissioners to be able to mint a coin um to present to folks. Uh of course in the uh the fire and police also coins are a very big thing and Chief Blanchard has an incredibly impressive collection himself over 30 plus years in law enforcement. Um but so we have this coin on the top. We have this oval style coin using the city logo as it is on our shirts. It's oval style and there was a really nice back on that with the new city hall and a patriotic American flag and all on it. That's great. We're actually looking to uh reorder some of these. Uh city manager Lightfoot and I have been involved with the coin company. They're out of Iowa of all places and tracking down where those were amended and try to recreate that without any additional die setup fees or anything like that. But so we have an oval style. Well, I was working on a coin that I could present as mayor to folks just like we did with Justin Ward and and his folks at our last commission meeting. We handed out the very last of those large oval style coins on the top. That's what we handed out. We are completely out of those now. Um but we were we're seeking to reorder some of those and those are great for like retirement gifts. you can frame them up with the signed pictures that people get and stuff after they've served x number of years. But so we'll have those and if a commissioner, police chief, fire chief, someone else wants to mint one of those, they certainly could with that that large oval city of Linhaven on the left hand side there with a new back versus the American flag in city hall. Uh and it would only be one setup instead of two. But the other one I started working up and took the exact same center, the sailboat, the two

birds, the bay, and made it into a round coin. And I'm an Air Force guy, but I did fly, work, and live with the Navy for two years of my life from 2008 to 2010. And the Navy is huge into the rope border around the circular coins that they do. Um, and you know, we live on the water. we have sailboat. So it seemed pretty logical to jump on the nautical theme. So that's what I did. I actually put together for a coin design for myself. I actually did the office of the mayor with the same core center but round instead of oval. And of course that's kind of the back that I came up with. Well, in doing this I said well we really should have one an office of the mayor regardless of who the mayor is. you know, for stationery or um logo, business card, it makes sense to have a formal office of the mayor logo. And then I thought, well, we have four commissioners. It would make sense to have one of this these for the four commissioners as well and one for the city manager. Again, stationary business cards, any type of professional correspondence you want to do, you can do so with this as long as you're representing and serving in that office. So, this literally came off of a coin design, but the more I thought about it, I said, "You know what? This makes a lot of sense." So, I wanted to bring this to you guys to uh consider. And again, you see the the oval at the top. That is our official city logo. So, it's the same core, but I've just turned it into a circular design with a rope nautical kind of theme along the outside of it. And I even made personalized versions, which you could do, and you could do this for your time on a business card or uh your email or whatever, but I literally put all of our names on it, including uh Lightfoot with his recent promotion. So, there you go. That's kind of what that would look like if you

wanted to use that. Again, it's informal, but if the commission is good with the three standard office logos, that would become officially part of our heritage, if you will, as a city, right? So, when you have four commissioners and a mayor serving in these roles and one city manager, this is what you would have. Okay? It can be informal, but if we formally adopt this or recognize these designs as official office logos, they could be used as such on official stationery for congratulations letters, condolences letters, you know, anything like that. A coin you wanted to present. This would be a nice official logo. Would you want to put those on a business card as well or your

very well could be.

You could either do that like office of the mayor instead of just the, you know, um or even the personalized one like I showed before like this. You could literally on your business card you could have your name on there with the logo. So again, I wanted to pitch this to my other commissioners and say, "Hey, here's what I was thinking. I had a creative moment and wanted to share this." The cool thing about it is if we adopt this and everyone that's good with it, these logos will outlive our tenure here, right? So when the new folks come in, it's just standard. And you change out Dave Lowry for John Smith or whoever the next mayor is and they have a standard logo and this will continue to outlive us. So as long as we have that core logo in the center with the sailboat and the birds on the water, that makes sense to me to have that. the nautical theme with the rope outline. It It just makes sense. So, um I don't know. Do y'all want to have any discussion about this at all? Do you guys like this or not like this? And what do the rest of y'all think about it as you kind of see this?

I think it works out pretty great that all six of us use a nickname so it's shorter for you. I can change it however we need to. Light foot, you know, his was the the longest. I had to kind of cram that in there. But obviously the text size could change. You can make it a little smaller, a little larger as need be. But you know what's on the back side, whatever you want it to be. For example, on this one, look at that bottom coin design that I designed up for my coin. Uh, personally, the flag looks weird to me. The X, it doesn't look like our state flag. That would be my opinion. Yeah, it's offset.

It's offset. Yeah, it is. I had to offset that for the state flag. Uh and the problem with our uh state seal, um it's so intricate. The only way you can get that on a coin, even a larger two, two and 1/2, 3 in coin, is to have a vinyl sticker basically printed and applied.

Would it be better just to have a statement or something rather than another visual? You can you could literally have and I'll pick on Jamie here for a second just because he's in line of sight, but let's say Jamie wanted to do the city of Linhaven that top oval on the back. He could literally have one with nothing but raised words presented by Commissioner Jamie War. Thank you for what you do or, you know, whatever. He wouldn't have to have intricate logos or whatever. It can literally just be words. Uh or it could, you know, he could personalize it however he wanted to. So, but yeah. So, that's kind of what I was thinking of. So, Pat Sam,

that's good. Jamie, is it there's a cost involved, right? It Well, depends. So if we were to do something like this for initial coins, there would be an initial setup, but then as we rotate out, basically future commissioners and mayors would, okay, you use this, you use the official side, and then you personalize the other side. Is it cheaper to stay with the coin that we have and add a little something to it or I mean, just hand this one out, that one at the top. That one at the top. Yeah, you can. What's the $3.75? What's that? $3.75 for the top coin.

We've already paid for the die and everything. You already paid for the die. The new coins are 750 per 100, 7 per 150, and 650 per 200. So, but depends on where you're at, too. I'm actually getting quotes on that bottom one at 2.25 diameter. And right now, if I order 300 of them, um, they're down to like 360 a coin. So, pretty much the same cost as what the first one would be. So, it just depends. Two from that. We also have a round coming from the grand opening, right? Yeah. We've got a few of those left. We're out of the the top ones. We gave the last ones to Justin's. Those are all gone.

Unless there's another box floating around that we may not know. There were 300 of them. The the order in 23 was 300. Can't imagine they got 300. Chris found like a box of 20 of them or something. I'm going to want to bet there's more boxes somewhere. H Did marketing have them? Yeah, I assume so. They may be in that closet back there. Okay. All right. Well, let's look and see if we've got more. I'm looking. They look very well received. Justin and his crew. So, yeah. I thought that was really cool. So, and even if we reorder three and a half, four months, that's a large coin. That's like a 3inch horn. It looks like a felt. Yes, it does. It's pretty damn know what it was.

But yeah. And then what do y'all think about just incorporating the making those kind of the official logos for stationary, business cards, whatever. You don't have to use it, but you can use it. And making that kind of the distinctive logos of the office. Is that a color? Is that color right like a navy blue? Well, I mean on the screen I mean you could adjust that. Yeah, it could be changed to match that sameish navy blue. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, the navy blue. Yeah, I literally took this off of a coin graphic I was working on building a coin and converted it, sent it to Lightoot and said, "Hey, what do you think?"

The rest is history. But u we can kick it around. I can come up with a formal presentation of it and I can introduce it at one of our next commission meetings and ask for commission blessing to kind of approve this as optional office logo use or whatever you want to call it. I've had other citizens and I've been a citizen for a long time. So this is going to it may sound negative but it's what I've heard from others. Lyn Haven and sailboats. Why sailboats? Well, I mean, honestly, there's not a whole lot of sailboats in North Bay.

Not just that. Honestly, this logo design is 40 years old. I mean, it is so outdated compared to other cities. Well, no, I'm saying the design. No, I'm saying the design of it. That is a good question, Bobby. When did this logo come in place? Um, I just remember the competition cuz and sailboats. I got a picture of our original logo. Oh, would like to see that. Which was city hall. Cool. Actually, I don't even know if I have it on yet, but I do have one. See, that's the thing with competition. This was a competition by the res

and every time I look at it, it looks like the logo to a Mike House coffee. Yeah. I think breakfast competition for and you you get these renderings that are not professional. Yeah. and and then you ask the public and then the major you get a majority vote and suddenly you're married to this to this design that it sounds like to me we're at a point where do we want to rebrand

and the cost to rebrand is not cheap. When we were Chris and I were in Panama City we decided you know Pensacola at the time had Pelican everything so we kind of shaped everything around sales so we could use it so many different ways. was $750,000. When you look at business cards, letterhead, think of signs up on the building, the cladding on the middle there. Yeah. But I I can tell you this is I hear it from other people say, "Man, y'all's logo is ugly. That's old looking." And

well, you can take the We can keep the same logo and modernize it, right? Military patches do that. most military units that have older units that have been around since World War I, World War II, um they use the same patch, but they kind of modernize it, right? So the the the lion or the arrowhead or the whatever becomes more defined and distinctive over time. It's not just like an old Disney cartoon from World War II anymore, right? So we could look to streamline it. It's not a bad logo. It does look a little outdated, but we've had it for almost a half a century now. So, you know, we could do some tweaking around the edges, but it's kind of ours now. We own it, right? And ironically, if we went back to the historical first city hall or first city logo, which is the old city hall in front of us, that's like just a historical little meeting room building now. It's not even kind of who we are anymore. So, I mean, we could recognize our roots, but I don't know. But this Bobby, when would you say that was, sir? How long would you say we've had this logo?

I think it was before 2000. So it was in the 90s. Well, for now, and WH Linda did that or was that you and WH Linda did that or Reggie helped design it. They put out competition like with the schools or the public anybody. Mr. Mayor, have you seen Pensacola's new logo? I haven't seen their new.

Yeah, they've uh they've incorporated an exclamation point. So, it's a branding that's not tied into one specific. So, Ty just showed me the uh

Ty just showed me Pensacola kind of rebranded their logo and it's kind of a big eh burger. I mean, I I get where they were going with that. Uh back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, the Air Force rebranded from the HAP Ar Hap Arnold Air Wings, the old Army Airore Wings that my grandfather wore on his uniform when he was fighting the Germans in World War II. Um, no pun intended, brother. You're you're our German turned Fidian. You join the other side. Um, but in when in World War II he wore that patch, uh, flying in combat. And, uh, that is still our historical logo. Well, they revised it and made it, we call it the Decepticon logo. It almost looks like the Transformer logo, right? And so, they tried very hard to make it new and modern and cool and just kind of flopped. So those of us that started out as youngsters with the old half wings and then they moved to this new one, we don't even recognize that. They're like, "Eh, that's not us." But the younger kids that came in after that was the logo, they don't know any different. They're just like, "Hey, that's always been it."

But but let's just say that we did decide to rebrand. We wouldn't have to change everything at once. I mean, we could do it by attrition as as it needed to be changed like like you're talking about building. What's that? 50-year building, right? True. So, it might have to stay there the whole time. I wouldn't want to change it just because we rebranded, you know, but if we if we did want to do it, I think we'd have to keep that same shape. So, I'm getting a glare from Chief Johnson because we did just spend $2.2 million on fire trucks with a brand new logo.

So, I didn't mean to get us open Pandora's box into rebranding. I was just looking for head nods on the the logo design, but using our current logo, I wanted to see if my fellow commissioners and the city manager, we're good with this concept, even if we refine it and tweak the colors a little bit. I was curious if y'all like it. And then what do the rest of y'all on the team, I'm sorry, this has been kind of commissioner focused. I apologize, but what do the rest of y'all think of those logos?

I think coins look nice. It's whatever you enjoy giving out to people relationship wise in the community. It's going to be well received. You know, they're going to enjoy anything that you share with them. I do believe um it's going to make them feel special, you know. But I people do bring up to me the Bailey Bridge a lot as a landmark for L Haven and I don't know if that would logoish for city hall. So, River's new logo with the the Manhaven 444 podcast has got a lot of good feedback for sure. Justin's 444 with the the tournament that you did earlier.

I'm not saying you have to have one that says 444 on it, but that that background has gotten a lot of positive feedback. Okay.

So, if anybody other than military or in the coins, it's our cops and firefighters. What do our two chiefs think of these logos? Just the concept I don't like the part at the top of oval and around the the gold around it. I'm not a fan of the sailboat, but it is what it is. And I like the office of the mayor because I have one produced right now says office fire logo in the middle of it and then on the back of it it's got the new brand of new fire on the back of it. If you're going to I mean you have to look at this a little bit deeper. The coin looks great, but if you're going to rebrand or thinking about rebranding instead of wasting money, I think you need to do a deep dive and really look into what you're going to do before you just jump on.

Fair. And this intent is just to use what we currently have and make basically a round version and individual office logos. I just take you like for you to buy 300 a month if you decide to change it all. Now you got 300 coins. So, there is the option that Justin has some, you know, he the hats he has has the LH that may look better in the circle than than the sailboat. We could try that. L with 444. Thanks, Chief. What do you think, sir? They look great. I like coins obviously. Um, I believe they're great for the especially for no matter what department, any employee that does something

that you recognize them, you hand them a coin because of the good job. Um, I've seen plenty of coins that use the logo and I've also seen numerous coins that don't use the logo. So, if it's strictly as a coin, it doesn't have to have the Linhagen logo on it in my opinion, but if you're going to use it on letterhead and other things, then obviously you'd want to stick with the Linhaven logo. Yeah, my fault. I appreciate it. I won't belabor this too much longer, but again, I did want to share. Pat, what were your thoughts, brother? I was just thinking that if if we we probably could design something where then the back of it could be the fire the fire the fire department and police department and whatnot. You know what I mean?

Every department could use this logo right here um on the top. They literally could use the city of Linhaven and do their own departmental back and they wouldn't have to do a new coin fee. Now, a lot of coin companies, depending on how many you make, um, 300 or more, they'll wave the coin fee or the coin the the mold process, the setup fee, the die set.

Yeah. So, the die cast and all that. But if you're only doing 50, 100, 150, 200, you're going to they'll do it, but you got to pay for it. So, um, but we have that die. Anybody, if the police department wanted to use that today, they could and make their own back and call it good. So they can be reused in the future just like the coins. We're we come up with a standard office for commissioners and mayor and city manager that can be used in the future with whoever comes in behind us. Um as long as we don't again change the city logo and even if you do you could still use it as a historical I guess to Chief Blanchard's point. All right. So a couple other things. This is the city man or the city of Linhaven mission statement that's right outside the door here as you head out into the main hallway. I I looked at that especially the first word progressively that has a very very politicized political connotation these days. Um but I know words change over time meanings change things that are normal and for one generation become derogatory in another. So, I asked the LA two of my last three most recent predecessors, Walt Kelly and Marggo Anderson, if they recognized that statement, and they said no. I also asked our longest serving commissioner on the commission if he had seen it before, and Commissioner Pero said it it didn't ring a bell with him either. So, I'm not sure where that came from or if that's just something the last city manager kind of made up when she was designing the hallway and put it up. I'm just not sure. But it got me thinking that we probably could come up with a good mission statement that would be clear and would add some clarity for us and literally taking what's already

there basically and tweaking it a little bit instead of progressively I would say diligently, right? But, uh, you can see at the bottom kind of what I come up with. And we're trying to enrich our community's quality of life through consistent, transparent, and professional customer service, as well as seamless utility provision to all of our neighbors. That's really what we're all about here. So, not something we have to change today, but 2 months in, I noticed that in the hallway and I thought that doesn't look right to me. Especially that first word, progressively. it it's very politicized in today's day and age and kind of the uh some of the older legacy mayors had never seen it before. So that leads me to think it's a newer something just got come up with and put on the wall.

Mayor it that's a product of a strap plan meeting like this about six years ago. Okay. That we as a team worked on that. So you did? We did.

Well, that's a good thing. So, it is newer and it was a team effort, but it is newer. It's not a a long-term thing. So, I propose that we at least get rid of the progressively term in the beginning and it might be time to look at revising that mission statement. Um, but again, I wanted to just bring that to the team's attention. Again, two months on the job, I saw it. I noticed it. I find that first word offputting. Uh, and it's something I'd like for us to look at, whether it's the one word or whether we tweak and polish and modernize the mission statement. And really and truly, a mission statement should continually evolve. Your core purpose stays the same. We are a utility city other than our first responders. That will always continue to be that way. But that doesn't mean we can't tweak, refine our core purpose as we go along and reidentify.

I don't think there's anything wrong with updating the mission statement. That's like you just said, it's um from time to time it's nothing unusual to update statement. So I'm not hard wed to the bottom. That was just my proposed well if I was to change it, this is kind of what I'm thinking. Uh I would very much like this to be a team effort and we can put this on the next team workshop to look at revising the mission statement. Uh again my my sole ick is that first word progressively in the current political context. Um I don't think that's a good word for us to use in our mission statement. And I'll just leave it at that.

All my work in mission statements typically less is more. So actually streaming lots of those words out could have a bigger punch and in the future wouldn't be as political, right? Because the next political world word word could be diligent. So I think if we make it crisp, it's easier to remember, it's easier to to use, um, less is

Yeah, that's a fair point, Jennifer, and thank you for that. So Chris, for our next uh and fellow commissioners, uh our next workshop, that's a minor thing, but I'd like for us to take our current mission statement and look at updating it. And the one word I very specifically want to strike is progressive or progressively. How we replace and how we polish from there is totally up to the entire team. But if you say in today's modern era, I am a progressive, that sends a very distinct political affiliation, agenda, philosophy. Um that I don't think was the intent there. So that's why I thought I feel very strongly that needs to be updated. And I'll leave it at that. Also, as I walked the the hallway here, the far so the mission statement is basically right behind Kiki uh out here in the hallway basically. So, this would be the southwest basically side of the hallway. On the northeast corner, we also have Lin Haven, a great place to live. And I've looked at that wall and I've talked to uh city manager Lightoot about it a couple of times and it's always struck me as odd that it's it's kind of a hodgepodge. I would think of this as something like uh when you're moving into your first apartment and you have a whole bunch of assorted stuff and you kind of just put it on the wall to fill up the space. Um if you notice in the bottom leftand corner there are a few pictures of Hurricane Michael damage. There's a little note. There's some cool things about history makers, the first female mayor, first African-Americans elected commissioner, and those are all great trailblazers. Walt Kelly, the longest serving mayor, 18, 19 years. Uh, but then you have a

bunch of just random stuff put up there, parades, you have a 50-year time capsule down in the bottom right hand corner that takes up just as much space as Hurricane Michael did. I would argue having lived through and rode out Hurricane Michael here in my home with my family and I just hung up my uniform from the military two months prior, um, Hurricane Michael, not only was it a historically huge moment, the fifth Cat 5 ever in recorded history in North America, but the Western Eyewall came right over Linhaven and it packed a heck of a punch on us. That was a defining moment for Linhaven. It changed the course of Linhaven in a lot of ways. We had the president of the United States here. We had the governor of the state of Florida here. Um, literally at city hall or what was left of it, shaking hands with the then mayor and commissioners and what do you need? What can we do to help? Um, there's no pictures of Governor Scott or President Trump here with Margot Anderson or any of the commissioners at the time. And that whole piece of Linhaven is kind of just one little blur equivalent to a 50-year time capsule. somebody put in a corner. I would really like to revise the northwestern wall and I don't know that that far section with the city seal and then a whole bunch of empty space and then a quote at the bottom from our former city manager. I don't know that that's the best utilization of that space either. I'd like to look at uh revising that, updating that particular wall and showcase more of Hurricane Michael kind of before and after and our community's resiliency and what happened here. Um I'd also like to add the last two mayors uh both of my predecessors uh Mayor Anderson and Mayor Nelson, neither one of which are up there. So there needs to be some modernization to that

particular panel. And I don't have all the answers, but I'm identifying it to the team that I'd really like to when people come in the the western side of our hallway is great, particularly the northwestern side. It's got pictures of WT Lynn, uh Bobby's old buddy from high school, and you know, going all the way. That's all great, but when you get to the more modern contemporary side, it just kind of feels like stuff was kind of randomly put together to take up space. And I would really like for us as a as a team um and Ty, you're really good at this in the public affairs kind of world. Let's showcase our strengths. When mother nature really put us on the ropes, here's how we came together as a community, right? We had the president and the governor here. There's no pictures of any of that. You know, so you know, I would love to get a quote uh from what was said then from Governor um Scott and President Trump about Linhaven and put that prominently up there. I'd much rather have those up there than a former city manager talking about, you know, good stuff. I'd talk about the the the tenacity of our community or the strength of our community or how well we came together as a people, as a team, as neighbors. That's what we want to showcase in city hall, right? So, I share that to say as the new guy, almost newest guy on the team in here, um, I want to get that updated. And if anybody has any heartburn with that, please speak up. But otherwise, I'm not hard sold on how we need to update it other than the last two mayors need to be included. And I think much more of a focus needs to be put on our Hurricane Michael recovery and how we have changed for the better as a community since. So, anybody got any thoughts on that? Ber

I think it's always safer when you do something like this. I'll be real honest. Person needs to have passed. That's why the other walls seek speak to our history. If you have living people, things happen. So, almost every one of those people up there are still living. Uh, and only one of them, ironically, was not elected, but the rest of them were elected leaders of our community. Uh, black, white, male, female. Um, but yeah, they're they're still around. So, there might be one.

Well, side not. this side. Only only Only Vicki is Vicki and Walt Kelly are the only two alive. The rest are are passed. Oh, on the left. Yeah, I just had lunch with Walt two weeks ago. Oh, that's true. But she's with Montiel. She's Montiel. Okay. Commissioner Miller, I just I just And I did would not I would have said the same thing. I'm sorry, but what do you think of this? I think you too. History is history.

I'm primarily looking at the the if you look at these as three sections, I'm primarily looking at the center and the right. I'm not really looking to change the left other than maybe that bottom Michael corner. Maybe you put something else down there, but I want to more effectively showcase Michael and our recovery sense. So, commissioners Any thoughts? What's it going to cost to do an update? It's about $20,000. Not for just one or two panels. It's about 20,000. Really?

10 to 20,000. It's going to be most of the work will be removing it and then printing the new one and installation. Um, but it will cost we would budget 20 grand for it. And that's basically printed wallpaper, is it not? It's painted on there. Yeah, it was a uh It's very cool. They set up a track and it's a big printer that goes up and down. So, it's not it's basically a mobile printer on your wall,

right? You have It looks like a little railroad track. And most people didn't see it because they covered it with a blanket while it was doing it. So nobody would see what the pictures were. And then it just goes up and down like a big like an old dot matrix printer. Pretty much all the old folks in here know what I'm talking about. Younger ones are like what? 40 grand for the entire wall to do to make your the replacement one. I don't know if you can just do the portion with the print, but they have to remove the the glass, remove everything from We would budget, we would budget 20 grand.

Well, the center and the right panels of this one in particular, I think need replacing, need updating. Um, and maybe we could put Walt and some of that other stuff in the bottom left corner instead. that um whether that's repainting over it or whether it's removing it or if they if they print on top of it, maybe you actually use a special kind of paint and paint over it and then they reprint on top of that. I don't know. But I can't imagine if they're printing on it that it's going to be that extensive to wallpaper over and then have them reprint. But I anyway, I'd like to get a quote once we have an idea of what we would like to showcase. that is like the one piece of the display in the entire city hall main hall that's kind of got a bunch of open space and kind of doesn't look finished. So, um that's the area I want to update with a particular focus on Hurricane Michael and that's what I wanted to throw up to the rest of the group.

I'll be the other person to make a comment. If we're worried about progressives, are we concerned that some of the things you're suggesting are very political? Adding my two predecessors, a white female and a black male, to the history of Linhaven leadership, I don't think would be progre. I personally think as a citizen, it's blue. In what way? Well, we have a mayor that was um convicted of a felony.

That's my thought as a citizen. Any others? I have set this public. It's a municipal building. It's not a museum. Exactly. I don't think any of it's perfect. I think it all should be just Yeah. bleeds into what we're doing. How about a picture, Dave, in the back? He needs a He needs a glamour shot back. Um I'm I'm not worried about a glamour shot in the back. Um I'm not even proposing putting me up there.

You got to go. You got you know it's succession. The mayors are always

understood and I really don't honestly side note I hadn't even planned to talk about I really don't like how we did that whoever we is on the team. We start over here. I realize that the old city hall those were all up on one big nice wall and Michael basically ripped it down. Um, we can I think we need to look at trying to display those a little better. Whether we do it on both sides of these two large pillars versus coming down the hallway and kind of snaking around, I don't know. But something to look at that doesn't look like all the mayors either since 1911. But again, if there's anything to be updated other than the mission statement, it's these two panels there. And we have a bunch of wasted space. And I don't think we highlight Hurricane Michael near as appropriately as we should. And those are things that I would very much like to do. And therefore, I am sharing it with the rest of the team here.

So I will leave that at that unless there are any questions or anybody wants to discuss further. All right. Well, that wraps us up. Thank you for your attention. Um, I guess now it's just kind of a I'm going to go sit down. We can have a kind of a a back and forth feedback.

Yep. Yep. We got a few things. Lots of really great information today. Thank you for all participating. Um, commission, what you've seen today is historically what we've done behind the scenes before we brought you numbers. This is the presentations that you've seen. We did these internally. I'm thankful that you see the sausage making as it were. Um I'm going to focus on general fund first because that's the thing that is easiest to digest. In aggregate, all of the requests that you received today for general fund additions over and above what is already in the budget in aggregate $10.5 million

and that doesn't include salary increases. That includes a salary increases or the police department. Not based on the salary study. Just not based on the salary study. I have no idea of how to put a dollar value on the salary study yet

for obvious reasons. So while we all would love to say yes to everything, you would have to more than double the door to say yes to everything. So, as has been the case in the past, we will need to prioritize and I'm hoping that you will lead us in that endeavor. We need your input on what is the priority of the system of the city. What's your vision for 5 years, 10 years, 50 years? How do we get there? We need vision from you so that we can implement the strap plan and then once the strap plan is solidified then we develop the budget to support the strap plan which supports the miss the vision statement. Does that make sense? In the past what we've done is here's the bucket of money who gets what? It's reactionary. I'm hoping that we can move into a more proactive budgeting and and strap planning ability. So again, today you heard adding 10.5 to general fund. We need your guidance on what the priorities are so that I can help you with what that's going to end up being. So with that means that this was set today not to everyone in this room knows that they're not going to get everything that we put in our powerpoints today. If we did, it would make the jobs way too easy and we would just have everything that we thought the city needed. Um but we want you all to take what you heard today and think about this before our budget workshops. And if you want to

have another one of these sessions prior to budget workshops, we can do that. Um, but as Kiki said, we want you all to help set the priorities of the city based on the needs that each department has set forth today and give us the direction that you all want us to go. And as far as action items, I know from this meeting, um, to set up a a workshop with Ray Greer for the planning and zoning, you wanted to see the numbers of sports part participation with revenue, the support and growing the fire department, police department personnel, the list of vehicles and cost of maintenance for fire department for the fire apparatuses. We do want to talk about fleet issues as Chief Blanchard talked about in his presentation. We've got some some things to talk about there. We have been getting quotes on outsourcing some of our stuff and it may be cheaper to do that. Fortifying the park near near the water at Sheffield. Commissioner Pero stated the push button crossings at the rails to trails. Update the mission statement. missing anything as far as action items and CJ captured a lot more in her notes as well that we'll review to make sure. But no, this is uh this has been extremely beneficial. Um how do I word this? Um, as you all know, the commission's supposed to be the one that sets the priorities, but I don't think that culture has been there for a long time. And so, I want you all to understand that this is new to us. So, when you say you want to know what our vision is, you want to know our priorities, it's going to be a learning experience for us because that's not how it happened in the past. I think you all can understand that. So,

we do we as a commission have a lot of work to do as far as what are our priorities. Of course, safety and security is always going to be the top ones cuz those are the ones that affect lives, but um but the information you're providing us helps us get to that point. So I I don't know how the rest of the commission feel, but I feel like this whole thing has been extremely valuable for us to be able to do our job as commissioner. So I just want to say thank you for that. Y this is great.

So do you all feel the need to do follow up to this prior to the budget workshops? Yeah. with just I I mean I know you don't need to see the powerpoints and all again, but would you all like to bring back some input to each department head? Would you like one-on-one meetings? I think we got to I think we got to run numbers because I mean a lot of like you said, there's a lot of the stuff that do we want them? Yeah, we do. But then at the same same point is we're not going to be able to fund everything. No. And and our job as staff to build you the budget. We will build a budget. we will pri prioritize with each and then when you all get the first draft of the budget there will be some things missing from today and that will be what we work with

to to build the budget and realize what we can and cannot afford this process that we're doing is what I had envisioned for quite a while and obviously I got a lot of push back from that and uh so I I don't know what do you guys think I that's what I'm thinking is we gota we got to run numbers now we know what each department is giving us as their subject matter expert for each area. I think we need to approach it as a declining budget from here without knowing the without knowing the the set first kind of

we've met with Kiki before when we've done this but but it's like okay everybody presented everything they think they want or could possibly ask for in the next fiscal year. We don't we know that you can't get everything, but you're you're going to you're going to get maybe your top two items or three items. We're gonna we're gonna yield yield back to y'all to sort that out and then have the number of the budget to work to work from for each department. You all have access to the folders with the or the folder with the presentations in it. I would ask for you in the next two weeks to review those again in your own time and send me a list of kind of your priorities based off of that of what you feel is a priority and maybe there's some things that that were missing today as a as a capital improvement priority and we would like to hear that for sure. But if you could email me that in the next two weeks that would kind of help us lay the groundwork of where you your priorities are prior to having another workshop so we're kind of on the same page. Yeah, that's a good idea cuz I think it's important to I'm sure we all have different priorities. Like some of us our priority might be police, some of us it might be infrastructure, you know, and so we kind of need to figure out where we're at. I mean, obviously we want at least some for every department if we can, but we have to have a priority. Um, but yeah, I'll get you that. Okay.

I mean, when you look at how other cities typically do this and you I know you a lot of you've had experiences from other cities from what I've seen going just looking at their web page and processes and that I think typically you see a city start around May June when they start their budget workshops and then they work from there based on projections cuz the the reason I always got is we don't have firm numbers. It's like, well, you need to go by projected numbers cuz it's a rough draft and as you get closer, you firm those numbers up. So, I think that's how typ cities typically do it. So, I'm glad we're doing this in March and starting early because this is going to be a learning experience, I think, for all of us, especially us, the commission.

Well, this is my first one, obviously, two months on the job, and I appreciate the the collaboration. It's actually nice to get the department heads together and actually have a team. Uh, and frankly, it's nice to be able to sit down with three of my four fellow commissioners, which we don't get to generally do because of Sunshine Law outside of something like this or a normal commission meeting and have these kind of conversations and feedbacks and um, but yeah, it's been good. I will tell you, I campaigned on doing all I could to help take care of the police department. Um my priorities are going to be police and fire. Uh I want to support animal control with their additional uh person. Um and then the rest is where the needs are. But we need to take care of in the air force. You would say there are two types of weapon systems. There's the warheads on foreheads and there's the flesh and blood weapon systems. We have focused from the outside looking in. up until two months ago. It looks like infrastructure has been the the key focus with a a laser focus almost for a while. Um we really need to take care of the flesh and blood weapon systems, particularly our first responders. And so I'm just telling y'all all up front. I'm just one fifth of the commission, but that's where my focus is going to be. Anything from anyone? Chief Chief,

should we ask for direction on Red Speed at this time? Whether we want to keep looking into it or not? We will definitely will and I'm want to set up a uh Greg, I believe was his name, Greg Parks. Yes, sir. Um want to set up a a meeting with each commissioner. Okay. Um so they can get an understanding of that. One other big thing that's kind of I think we're all in violent agreement that we need to do it. It's just a matter of getting it done is the zoning. So, I've already emailed Ray today to get some dates and we'll get a workshop set up and go from there.

What about you other commissioners? I mean, anything publicly y'all want to share at this point with the team kind of where your heart or your priorities or your laser focus is in terms of the budget? We got to figure out ways to get more funding from fundraising for things like because clearly we like for example we don't the city doesn't fund uh Easter or whatever those type of events. We got to figure out a way that we can get more funding through partnerships with uh private private public partnerships. I don't know if that's not really something staff can do or we as commission can figure out, but we got to figure out ways to bring in more money besides just taxes and fees. Um because if people really want events to happen, they'll make them happen. And we've got I mean we've got professionals that live in our city that know what they're doing, you know, and setting up events. So, if the we just got to figure out the way forward there, which I'm hoping with this sponsorship policy coming up and and um staff has, you know, Chris and Kiki and on them has been really good about working towards that, but we still need we need to not take our foot off the pedal on that cuz there's a lot of things that we can provide just by having the land and and um facilities and stuff to facilitate events. uh that we can still provide to our residents without them having it having to come out of tax dollars.

Commissioner War, I pretty much said what I wanted to say. I mean, budget priority wise, um yeah, I'm I'm with you as far as the first responders. I mean, that's I think that's something that's overdue and uh it's going to hurt, but it needs to happen. Commissioner Po, any budget priority thoughts?

Just what we talked about today. I think it's up to everybody to tighten their belts now and get the final numbers in there. I mean, I I don't I don't see how you can't uh know that we're going to we got to increase manpower in police and fire and and the wages and you know, I mean, that's a given. I believe I think the the the salary study is going to show that. Yeah, the salary study was mentioned earlier. The beach did one is the same company um that's doing ours. We worked with the beach and got their information. So, I mean, they pretty much have all the information here in Bay County already. So, we should see some results on that pretty soon.

I think I think it'll be plain and just go from there. I think it's going to be I think it's going to come down to you know, you came you came and asked for six things. You're going to get you're going to get two. What are your top two? You know what I mean? One better be maybe the most expensive and one better be the medium one. You know what I mean? I just don't think that it's going to be as easy for any one department even though some will benefit more than others but it's that's how it is every year when we do the budget. So well we want to make sure it's most beneficial for the city not just the department but that's right

how do you and and anybody else can pipe in too but I know you worked at Panama City. How did Bandon City typically do it when you worked there to when they formulated the budget and the commissioner set priorities? We had a meeting such so just like this and then what was their next step that they did after that? We start hearing hearing back from the commission to the city manager of what the priorities were

but their priorities and then they formulated a budget off of that and then they had discussions. That's okay. Now, not saying that you all send me a list of your priorities and every one of those priorities going to we're going to be able to pay for when you pass the budget. I mean, but we will work to set it and then we will tell you if hey, there's no way that we can do this unless you all raise the advorum X or we would have to cut this to achieve this. Um, and we will present that to you.

We'll then have to work with Kiki to come kind of formulate the budget, get a rough draft of the budget as far as where we're at. Once we hear back from you all on the priorities, then we will have the one-on-one meetings with each department head to build the budget, get everything in there, and then when Kiki is able to look at the proposed budget or the proposed revenue, we'll be able to tell where we're at. And then when we get closer to time and we get the official numbers, we'll give us a more deadon of It will be preliminary, however, as you mentioned, because we won't know what the property values are until June 1st. June 1st. June 1st. Um, so it's better to have a rough draft than nothing at all.

I can have a rough draft and I have have it so that I just change the numbers as they become hard and fixed. You wave your magic wand, right? I wish it were that easy. So, I have a question just to clarify. Um, so if we were to ex all of these projects that we just talked about, right, would we stay at the same military right now? No. Or was it would it still go up?

It would still probably Well, it depends on what the property values do. So, it seems nationally property values are softening. Yes, that's what's everybody's hearing. So, I don't forecast that we're going to have a large increase in property values. We will have some sort of staffing increase. Whether we keep our existing staff or we add those that have been requested, there's going to be a salary increase. The salary study, I would bet you a dollar is not going to tell us anybody is be overpaid. Okay? So,

I'm just throwing this out there. It the next step for the city commission will be to sell the new proposed military to the public. So one different approach could be to pick military and work your way back. Say which is what we've done in the past.

Whatever that number is, this is what I feel com at the end of the day. You need to feel comfortable selling that number to the public. If you're not comfortable with that number, we're wasting our time here. So, but and once we can settle on a certain military, then we know exactly how much money is available to pay for some of these projects that we talked about today. One other big wild card in all of this is the state legislature and what they're going to do for property taxes. Um we all went up visited uh the four of us commissioners and and uh city manager Lightoot went up in late January uh and met on that. The the house moved out and did a bill. Uh the Senate has not. They're going to come back into special session and do that. Uh however, as of yesterday, the incoming House Speaker said he was adamantly opposed and we actually met with him. who's the Orange Park guy from around Jacksonville, Gavin or Galvin, uh the incoming speaker said he was adamantly opposed to uh having the state basically rescue the small uh least populated counties from this impact. So, there's a lot more to be said and they actually came out with some statewide polling two days ago and when the public was announced that, hey, basically you're still going to have to pay the same money, but you're going to now pay it user fees to have police and fire versus this, only like 53% of folks were still willing to vote for the property tax to go away.

Um because obviously there's no free lunch, right? So, um, and it would need a 60% to pass the constitutional muster. So, there's a lot to be said. The Senate has not agreed with the House. The governor has just said he would like to get this done, but he doesn't have to live with the consequences cuz he's term limited and leaving, departing the pattern, as we'd say in the Air Force. So, there's a lot of unknowns. They're going to come back in the special session and try to hash that out. Uh but we could be looking at what 25 30% of our budget potentially long-term going away potentially. So based on what the state legislature does.

So there are some unknowns that we just don't know yet and we won't know until you know what happens. And when we were up there in late January, they literally the speaker, the incoming speaker, the unders or the deputy speaker, they all looked us in the eyes, shook our hands and said the same thing. We don't know. The Senate's on one page, the House is on another, and nobody knows what the governor's thinking. So, it's still a big question mark. And in all that, we still have to make the sausage and make the utilities work and figure out how to make sure

and that's what we do as a team. The chief keeps us safe and the rest of us do our best to add value to the process. row and the rowboat together chief.

Um, not from where you come, but Commissioner Peles brought up a good thing. I don't know how much it cost us to do like for example the firework show, but where I come from, we don't pay for any of that stuff. That's all 100% sponsors and vendors. They're paying for the fireworks shows. They're paying for parades. They're paying for all that stuff. The city runs it, but it even gets budgets for the extra police officers that are working, you know. So, it doesn't even come out of the police budget when you have to put 30 police officers out there because they basically determine how much it's going to cost. Have gold level sponsorship, silver level sponsorship, you know, etc. And it covers all those types of events. And that might not be a lot, but I'm sure over all the events we use, it's at least 100,000 a year, I would think. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, usually. So, city manager, as we wrap up, I'll ask you um I guess officially you've been on the job eight months with the interim title, but um what are your biggest concerns? What keeps you up at night right now? And what are your thoughts as we kind of move forward in this budgeting process?

Being able to to get a budget passed that everyone is in agreement with. You saw the priorities of all the department heads today. Um, again, need to hear back the priorities from from you five and we need to be able to build a budget off of that. And we need to know that we're going to be able to build a budget that we're going to get you all to stay in line of whatever increase or whatever rates are going to have to be set to make that happen. Well, we're all a team. It's one team and one fight. That's what we say in the Air Force. I don't care if you're flying tankers or F-15s or F-22s or you're a cop at the gate or a civil engineer guy or the personnelist or the medic. We need all of those folks to make those airplanes fly and keep those pilots healthy and fed and flying. So, um we can't make this city work without all of y'all and your teams, your departments, and the commission. We truly appreciate y'all very much. And we're all in this together and we'll figure it out together. We all got a part to play. We just do it as a team. I'll row it in the rowboat if you will. And with that, good ready break. Y'all have a good Friday afternoon.