Commission - Regular Meeting

got city manager, got city attorney. We even got a rent a crowd. So, we're in good shape. All right. Well, let's call this I guess you call it informal workshop to order.

So, first one of these we've ever done jointly, I I know the day after I took office, I came and visited with y'all briefly, said hello and thanked y'all for what y'all did and kind of what my priorities were, and I got out of your hair. stuff. Um, with this we're looking for Mr. Chairman, you requested this, so uh, want to kind of respectfully defer to you other than just an opening remark. Y'all are here to support us and we all support the city. So, we want to be good collaborators with y'all without stepping on toes and uh, hearing what y'all got and then we can collaborate, discuss from there. So unless you have other thoughts or objectives or commission if y'all do, uh I'll turn it over to Chairman Langford. We'll hear what he's got to say and we'll review and discuss what you want to discuss. Okay. Well, yeah, thanks for uh first of all, thanks for to to all of the commission for giving us the autonomy to be able to to work through these things and figure these things out. Um kind of like what I discussed during the commission meeting. um you know, all of these items that we're talking through, we're we're hyperfocused and and really kind of peeling the layers of the onion back, so to speak, on each one of these topics that are coming up. So, you know, you you guys don't have the ability or or the uh to to really kind of hone in and focus in a deep dive on these individual topics. Um and this this topic is is one that uh is a great example. Uh so, non-avalorum assessments. Um so we've spent I don't know how many meetings at least three if not four meetings of two and three hours a meeting um going through to this to get to this product. Um we we understand as as a committee that this is a major not only mentality shift but operational shift and in a mindset of how we may or may not do business uh going forward with non-avalorm assessments. So, um, we

we've we've come up with this product. Um, and it's it, like I said, uh, everyone had input on the committee. Um, once we finally once we finally got to the point, we we all voted on it and said, "Hey, we're this is where we are on it." Um so we wanted to provide this to you all and since it is such a complex uh item um during that vote the motion was made that um we wanted to vote on this and and um and and request a joint workshop again not to ask for answers but to help you all work through any questions that you all may have regarding this as the why or how did we get to this point or you know how are we how would we implement this if it were to to go into effect and you know maybe bring up some things that that we didn't think about um or if you do have questions um maybe we did go through that and we can help answer those questions. So um again thank you for the autonomy to be able to to focus on these items. Um and uh I'll just kind of leave it at that. Um what you all have in front of you is and I I discussed this during during the presentation the ordinance and resolution. Um, we chose not to not to prevent not to uh figure out uh ballot language for this particular item because we felt like there would be a lot of discussion back and forth and that there may be potentially changes. So, there's really no reason for us to figure out ballot language just yet. Um, while we're kind of still earlier on in the process for other things that we've that we've presented to you all, you will receive ballot language that that goes with that proposed charter change. So, what you're looking at is the ordinance that includes the charter verbiage. This is also on on the screen. Um, so you can you guys can can look at that and see what what will this look like in the charter, you know, um, and kind of go from there. So, with that, I'll just kind of pause and, you know, we're all

here to to help you all work through any questions that y'all may have. How would this work, etc. We can I can start with with why this is why this came up in the first place um and and work from there or we can just you know bypass that and and work through the verbiage whatever y'all want to do. Well, thank you for that, Mr. Chairman. Commissioners, do y'all have any opening comments or any questions or requests on how we uh have Chairman Langford walk the dog here for us and uh go through this? Is it just the nonavalorum one we're going to be discussing tonight?

Yes sir. So the intent of this joint workshop was to discuss the nonabalorum assessment. Um it wasn't necessarily really to discuss all of the other um deliverables as as I as I call them. Uh those are are pretty self-explanatory. Um so yes, the intent tonight is to discuss non-avalum assessments. Now, if somebody wanted to go over one final time like the city clerk verbs, that's pretty much clean and pretty much baked at this point for what y'all are delivering to the commission. Correct. So, um we could revisit on that if you want to and discuss it while we're here in this forum, but uh is there anything else that y'all are cooking on right now that might potentially pop up in this workshop? Um the only the only thing that um that has not been quote unquote presented to you all yet and again the my thought process is that we will formally submit those deliverables to you all during a commission meeting. It's you know in in the public you know everyone can see that the work that we're doing that that we're formally presenting it to you all for whatever y'all want to do with it would be the city manager residency. um that was discussed at our last um I believe our last charter review meeting and and we kind of slapped the table on that, voted on it. So um that happened after the commission meeting that I that I briefed you all on. So that's not been formally presented during a commission meeting to you all. Um but we did figure that out. Um and that ordinance is is ready to go. So, the next the next charter review update that that I provide during a commission meeting, that will be the first item. Uh, as well as any any items after that. Well, we could certainly potentially talk about that too if you'd like uh the commissioners. Commissioner Pero, you have any thoughts or uh questions as we get started, sir? No, I just uh I mean

if this workshop is about the nonavalorum assessment, we should start at the beginning. I mean Chris, your your public works when it when it came about and the necessary evil of it is we wouldn't have storm water if we didn't have it. Yes, sir. Now I see I won't say I don't want to use the word restrictions but what we're what we're offering here is a defined start and end date you know methodology. Um I I see this I see that you want to be more specific about it. I don't know I don't know if there's if there's a vagueness to it. What what's wrong with it first of all?

Okay. Okay. So, so what what did you feel were the deficiencies to where we're we're at the point where we have to present it to, you know, on a referendum. So, I'm going to I'm going to start and then I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Scray to kind of help clean up uh whatever I I think we should all understand where we're going.

Sure. And and that's a that's a good starting point is the why, right? like why why is why is this why is this here? Why why did this come up? Why are we going in in this direction? Um so in 2021 22 we sat in the 21 we sat in the the building across the street um to discuss the first non-abborum assessment and um I think it was actually pass.

Yeah. Well, I'm talking about the actual vote was voted on. It was standing room only. There were people there were people all all in there from the public, right? Um I was one of those individuals. Um and and at the time we had had some major flooding in the city of Linhaven. Uh water was getting in houses. Uh water was obviously in the streets etc. Right? So there was a huge appetite to solve flooding in Linhaven. What I understood that was going to happen with this storm water assessment, and maybe I was wrong, but this went on for years. What I understood with the storm water assessment was is that there were going to be major infrastructure changes within the city and that this storm water assessment was going to somehow help or aid or fix the flooding that was going on within the city. Okay. So, I said, "Okay, well, hey, I'm I'm I'm willing to give this thing a shot. Let's let's try it. Let's let's put some some serious money to this thing and let's let's fix the problem that we've got with flooding in Lin." So, we've went on now year after year. It's been it's been updated and and and increased and so on and so forth. All right. So,

and stopped and and

Well, it was never it was never stopped. The increases were paused. Yeah, they were the increases were paused, but we've not stopped the storm water assessment. So, um to to save the entire this entire, you know, board or committee a long history lesson, I I'll tell you where we are today. Okay, where we are today is this the nonavalorum assessment. And first of all, this is this is written not to a storm water assessment flavor. This is written to a non-avalorum assessment. It will be applicable to any sort of non-avalorm assessment, not just storm water. Okay. But where we are today is the non-avalorm assessment in the city of Linhaven generates, and correct me if I'm wrong on these figures, 2.7 million a year under the new tiered system. Okay. Out of that 2.7 million, 2 million of that goes to operational costs of the storm water department. the remaining or the remaining 700,000. Of that 700,000, 600,000 of that goes to personnel, salary, cost, etc. Okay, so that leaves us with $100,000 left to put towards storm water improvements. Okay, so I looked at that. I said, "Okay, well, how much do we have?" And thanks to Mr. Lightfoot for providing all this because these are questions that I had for years and needed these numbers to really kind of wrap my brain around this. So remember, we've got $100,000 left over, right, that we need to put towards quote unquote major infrastructure changes to solve the storm water flooding issues within the city of Linhaven. Right now, we owe on the price tag to quote unquote fix flooding in Linhaven $30,625,000 in capital improvement projects. And that's between the actual projects themselves as well as design and

engineering. That's the price tag that we owe, okay, to fix storm water. So where we are right now is is we are 100 almost 100% grant reliant to fix the storm water problem in Lynhaven. So I I go back to think, well, what was the purpose of the storm water assessment to begin with? And I don't think that you would have generated the support in that initial meeting over there in that building across the street had you told the citizens of Linhaven, "Hey guys, this storm water assessment, it's not to fix flooding. It's just to fund the storm water department. This is not for major infrastructure upgrades. This is just to fund the department. We're taking this $8 a month that you're paying in the water bill, that's going away. We're going to do it now in in a non-abalone assessment so we can we can fund a department. So, Miss Kiki has told me that the idea was never in the storm water assessment was never to create major infrastructure upgrades to solve flooding. It was to fund the department. So, you know, again, it kind of feels like the goalposts have been moved ever since the inception of this until where we are today. So, that's why this all of this has came about. Had we known back then exactly what what it was the money was for instead of just posting a a generalized storm water tag on it, then we might been able we might have un understood it a little bit more. if we would have known when it was going to start and end. I've asked the question for years, when does this end? And I've not I've not been able to get an answer. No one no one can answer that. So, this is this is why these these things are had have came up. And I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Scrady. Catch anything that I miss.

So, um to follow on to that, thank you for providing a lot of how we got to where we are. Um so, as a committee, we really dug in after kind of getting through that portion. We dug in on, you know, what what is the charter for? The charter is the city's constitution, right? We have a state constitution, a federal constitution. Here at the Linhaven level, we have the Linhaven charter. And so, it's setting the guidelines and the rules for the legislative body, the commission to to follow. What can the city do and can't do? Um, so in an effort to try to not make things excessively operational, you want to try to limit things in the charter um, and allow a lot of the operational details to be delegated through ordinances and things like that. However, sometimes you come into certain things and certain topics where if you don't provide it through the charter then the operationally the legislative body which changes every two to four years um or even more periodic than that can really start moving things around operationally speaking. Um so I think the goal for our committee was as as we discussed was to create guard rails and guidelines for the city to follow particularly when we're living in a an age when we have a political appetite at the state level to um remove property adoran property tax. So we wanted to ensure that the citizens of Linhaven, which is all of us, um have guardrails and guidelines in place in regard to non-avorum assessments that protect the rights of the citizens. Um not from this commission, but from every commission, right? Um the commission that Sam uh Sam's kids will see in 20 30 years and so forth. Um, so that's kind

of what we went through is we went through and broke it down into what what we thought was important to protect and guide. Um, and so what was what we finished with is the the product you see here. Uh we did as a committee discuss the likelihood that there will be pieces of this that maybe want to change in order to get commission buy in to put it to referendum or even to get um citizen buy in to pass it at referendum where some things might need to be moved to the operational level and taken out of the charter. But at its core, there's that the core concept is we absolutely want something in the charter that drives um guardrails and guidelines for how Len Haven will utilize non-applorum assessments. For example, one thing I've continued to champion and will today even is if you look at, for example, B1B, it says ballot language, but really that list of seven things to me that are the that's the core seven things that every non-Aboressment regardless of how it's passed in the city of Linhaven should have to include those seven items because those seven items are the entire recipe of what that non-adaborum is about. And if you can check off all seven of those, then the citizen should be fully informed of what it what it is for. So, thank you for that. Um, I want to make sure all four commissioners get a chance to ask any kind of opening shot questions, if you will. We have kind of deep dived already a little bit. That's great. This is very good discussion and context for all of us. Commissioner Pebbles, do you have any other opening salows if you will, sir? Questions or comments?

Well, my first comment, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is I wish we would have had this before the storm water one. It would have made our life a lot easier. So, uh, and I do really like this for future nonorum assessments. Um, my fear though is if four years from now the public votes no to renew the storm water, how are we going to fund it? Cuz then we're going to be out $2.7 million per year. And I don't have an answer to that.

So, I mean, I'm glad you brought that up. Um and and and that that is exactly what this is designed to do is to require the city to come up with alternative funding mechanisms. So the idea that we begin funding a department using non-abboralum assessments is is probably not the greatest. Okay. Um we we'll start there. But the idea is is that there has to be an alternative funding source. So the a non-avalorum assessment I I am I'm not against and I don't think anyone at this table is against non-avalorum assessments but a non-avalorum assessment has to be used wisely and and I'll use the the tourniquet um analogy. It's it's really like when a when a city has an emerging threat whether it's foreseen or unforeseen that needs immediate dedicated funding to attack that emerging threat. We can use the we can use the uh the sewer plant for as an as an example. Okay. Um you know that that non-avalorum assessment is is used as a an immediate funding mechanism to address an emerging issue within the city whether it's flooding a sewer treatment plant or whatever. Right? But it's not an enduring funding mechanism to replace our abalorum tax system. So what would be smart is to have an alternative funding mechanism just like what Mr. Warick had presented at the last meeting to say, "Hey, here's another option in order to fund storm water if we don't go to the assessment. What does that look like?" But right now, there's only one answer and it's a non-avalone assessment and that's where we're going. It's it's it's the easy button.

Yeah. So, to to follow on to that to Commissioner Vills, um during our meeting, I think we asked like if that happened, what what would the city do? And I correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, I think, but the immediate solution was it would go back to the utility bill, which as we know is is a viable solution. However, it's a solution with a big gap, right? Cuz you're not getting all of the properties paying their their share. And that's kind of one of the driving forces of why we switched. Um, so the alternative solution does exist. Um, it's just it's not not a great one. So yeah.

Yeah. My my thing is it's virtually guaranteed if they vote not to do a non-adable um for the storm water that they will pay more per year. Like that's virtually guaranteed. That being said, that's a quick way to learn that maybe we we should have the non-ag, you know, but that would be a bit big headache on the city every four years to do that. But and I mean that's something the city could the commission could easily put in a referendum for example. You know this is what it's for and if if it fails this is the outcome, right? It'll go back on your utility bill and everybody's going to pay X per month and so it's like you do this or you do this.

Yeah, that's fair. that would I would agree with that because I the the idea is that we want when the people are that's why I like the seven points because it's hard to put a bunch of stuff in a question ballot question but we got to do our best and you guys have have done a fantastic job with that but as much context as we hum as human possibly humanly possible because people are going to be shocked when they start getting charged $30 a month for storm water, you know, when they were paying 165 a year or whatever two whatever your tier is, you know. Um, but that's also all of our jobs to educate people, too. So,

yeah, that's just my initial thoughts on it. Thanks for answering our questions. I would like to pause and give the other charter review members um an opportunity to address Mr. Perno and Mr. peoples if if you guys have anything that you know feel free to

yeah I mean kind of deferring to you guys is keep it simpler but you know one of the big things with this was we've had a lot of things about transparency in the city lately in the last you know three or four or five years and this is part of that guidelines and guard rails letting the people know what's going on giving them definitive answers to where their money is going that type of thing and that's where we're kind of steering everything we're doing with the charter so that's what I have I brought up uh there was discussion about voters never voting for a tax on themselves and being from Georgia in 1985 the state allowed local governments to pass what was called splust and it was a local nonad balor it was a sales tax but it was a local nonadalor But it has to be voted on by the voters. And these seven items are in those referendums. I looked up today uh in 2024 between 61 and 89% of those lost items on referendums passed to the affirmative because the voters knew what the project was, how much it was going to cost, the beginning date, the end date, and you can't raise the fees over the term of that referendum. So if voters are educated and they know it's for their good 60 to 90% they'll do that.

I mean that's true. I mean I I believe it cuz look at the half cent sales tax. It passes every time because they know what it's going to. It's the infrastructure or whatever. So I like what you said Jamie about the transparency. So whatever. Yeah. Thank you'all for that. Commissioner Ward, any thoughts or questions you have, sir? I have lots of thoughts. Um, stand up. No.

Um, I'm trying to say this without sounding negative, but I think when you look at the charter, um, I think it's important for us to step back and remember what the charter is meant to be. The charter is our governing framework. And you even touched on it earlier, Ryan. It defines structure, authority, and roles. It's not intended to function as a policy document. And I think that's what we're getting into when we're talking about this is this is policy. And I understand like the points that you brought up, uh, Corey. Um, I understand some of the reasons why you're not happy with it. There's some things if I went back, would I do differently? Yes. and one of them would be the vacant lot things, but I think that's on us as the commission. That's our role. Um, and so when you look at the proposal, there's a lot of operation details like the timeline, caps, and procedures. And I feel like those are more appropriately handled through ordinance where we can adapt over time, especially when we start looking at the difference between general and enterprise fund because I think there's a big difference when you start looking at non-aggalorum for a general fund and enterprise fund. Um, as we know, general fund encompasses the whole entire community. It's for all different services like police, fire, parks and recreation, administration, all those things. There's a lot more flexibility with that money. And and the way we treat that money is a lot different than we treat enterprise. Enterprise is like a business inside the city. It has to be self- sustained and it can be extremely fluid sometimes, literally. And and so you take a certain situation that happens and you can't you can't adapt to it because now you got to

wait until you take something like that on a referendum and have the voters vote on it. And I think that's going to really tie our hands in the city. Now, when I initially looked at this, I was like, you know what, I'm fine with it for general fund, enterprise fund. I just I think it's it's a mistake. Um, and um, and the reason I when I started to look at the general fund, I kind of changed my mind a little bit because what Mr. Spray was bringing up about the property taxes where we don't know what's going to happen with that. Um, if I I don't believe this is what's going to happen, but let's just say if they do decide that they're going to eliminate property tax, we know schools not going to get affected, but for municipalities, let's say they eliminate for municipalities, it's going to really limit on how we're going to bring in that revenue. And what I foresee if they were to do that, and not that I'm a big proponent of this because I'm not, especially when it comes to general fund. To me, general fund is tied to the to the millage rate, and that's the way we should do it. Unless you got like an extreme dire need that you have to take care of, it's you'd have to have very strong justification for it. But let's just say they they do eliminate property taxes for municipalities, you're going to be limited to doing assessments. And if you do and we get and if we're very restricted on what we can do with that, that's going to make it even more difficult for us to fund the things that we need to fund. Um I don't know. I just I just think there's a lot more risk to it. enterprise fund. I you know, one of the things you brought up was

or I want to bring up is what we used to do is we used to have to steal from other enterprises funds to to fund Storm War. That was back I think people were paying what $6 a month, right? And they were literally taking I think correct me if I'm wrong Mr. to light foot. I think it was over a million dollars from water and sanitation funds in order to fund storm water. And that's one of the advantages of what we've done with storm water is we no longer do that cuz enterprise funds are supposed to be self- sustaining and they weren't doing that in the past and now we're having to correct that and as you know the longer that goes on the more painful it is for us and we are experiencing the pain now. Um, there was another point you brought up. Oh, as far as like the end of the assessment fee, this is if it was like a special situation like you talked about with the sewer plant. I could understand where there's a start and an end date, but storm water never ends here and it will never end because we're a coastal community. We will always need funds for storm water. So, to answer your question as far as when does it end? It never does. because even if you didn't do the assessment, it would always be on your utility bill. Always. So, I I have a lot of concerns with this. So, I have I do have one very rudimentary question. It's probably going to sound dumb. Um, is there and I just want to confirm. Is there a requirement that the storm water department falls under the enterprise or can it be funded from the general fund?

I don't think there's a requirement for that, but you would want under the enterprise fund to make the revenue. So, is there a is there a requirement that you know of Miss Myers?

Okay. So, here's where I'm going with this. Water, trash, and sewer are all quantifiable. You can quantify how many gallons of water that I use every month. I can quantify how many trash cans that I have at my house every month. I can quantify how many gallons of liquids or solids that I'm putting into the sewer system. I cannot quantify how much my property is or is not putting into the storm water system of Win Haven. So I want to start really from a genesis of thinking about a storm water funding a storm water department through an enterprise fund that's non-quantifiable. So here's where I'm going with this. We're always going to need a police department,

right? Why do we not fund the police department out of a non-avalorm assessment? There's things there's there's departments within a city that we are always going to have to have. But what we have here by having storm water and funding the stormwater department out of an enterprise fund that like you said is designed as a business I think is it's inadequate because you can't quantifiably charge a customer based on their usage of said system. Number one. Number two, storm water should not be a money-making adventure for the city. And I think Mr. Lightfoot would probably attest that we're not making money off of storm water.

So, if we think about the enterprise fund and the and the departments within the enterprise fund as a quote unquote money-making or a business adventure for the city, storm water does not belong in an enterprise fund. So that's that's kind of my thoughts on on the surface about why do we have storm water associated with these other quantifiable items that we're paying for each month. I I think we've got something here that doesn't look like the others. Number one. Number two is you you mentioned that the the the state looking at removing the Avalorum taxes. Okay. And I'm glad this came up because this came up in our meeting as well. Let's say for example that it does go on the ballot in the state of Florida and the voters of the state of Florida say that we do not want to pay abalorum taxes anymore. What that's going to do like you said it's going to create a vacuum for cities to run towards the assessment the non-abalorum assessment process. And this is what frustrates me that all of this right here should be being discussed in Tallahassee. It should not be being discussed in the city of Late. Okay. So, how do we say do you know what happens if if I don't if I just choose not to pay my non-abalorum assessment? You know what happens? A lean goes on my home, my property. You know what happens if I choose not to pay my abalorum taxes? The exact same thing. So if the voters of Florida says we don't want a lean on our home and have to pay taxes on a property that we own in Florida for the rest of our lives, why would we mirror that process with something called a non-avalorum assessment? So if the voters say we don't want we don't want to have a law assessment, we don't want to pay we don't want to pay taxes for the rest of

our lives, why would we create a vacuum with no guard rails and no guidelines in which it's going to become a vacuum for cities to create funding from. So I that's that's kind of my response to those to those mentalities. I I'll say this, we I know we went up to Tallahassee was it back in January

and this topic actually came up when I mean obviously we were there um trying to push appropriations for the city and make face with with representatives but this conversation came up you guys can chime in and say whatever but that was one of the things we come we were asking like what's this going to look like for us and they don't know

they don't know yet and and we don't know yet and that's that's the struggle is we don't know what it looks going to look like in the future Um, but the assessment thing did come up when we talked to these senators and representatives that you might see more of that. And not that I'm a proponent of it. I'm not. Um, especially with general fund. To me, general funds tied to the millage rate. And if you can't if you can't get it taken care of with a millage rate, then you really need to look deep into that. Unless it's like a special case, you know, I'd like to use a sewer plant, but that's an enterprise home. If if you take a situation like that with general fund, I could see something like that, but it would have to be very few and far between. Like Panama City, they have a fire assessment. I don't understand why they have a fire assessment. Um because that's tied to the the abalone. So,

so rather than being reactive as a city and a community, um couple things. First is um fire assessments are actually something that the state did define, right? And that's that that is written in in legislation. I think the reason they define it as general fund

and uh so using that as a part of a guideline, you know, a city like ours can instead of being reactive, be proactive and say we're not going to wait for a bunch of legislators who go up to Tallahassee what once or twice a year um for a block of time to get their act together and figure stuff out for the whole state. Let's focus here on Linhaven. And the main thing I heard from you, Commissioner Warick, is that you you're worried about things slowing the city down and getting past that referendum. Um, I mean, that is one big part of this proposal, but it's not the only part of this proposal. The the core of this proposal is not get things past that referendum. That's one one piece of it that was introduced by one member. Although we all agreed to put it in there, it was introduced by one member and it's not the whole of the proposal. So there's still a lot of guardrails and guidelines that can be looked at and preserved.

That's the increase of it. I get that. Right. And it ties into the growth of the city. Yeah. But I and I see your point about operational operationally. The concern is that some things need to be in the charter just because if you leave it for a legislative body to do, they may never do it. Example, how how many years have I been talking about zoning? you know ho how many more years would I need the commission to wait you know whether it's you5 or a different five I can give you a bunch of examples of things that

if we can at least bring this to the voters and say hey do you want the city to be imposed to have some guidelines on how they'll inform you on how non-avalorms are going to work in the city even if it's the commission's decision to pass them but hey before the commission can pass it they have to do xyz right that's the stuff that we can capture in the charter that protects our citizens. Is there any other members of the charter review committee that want to chime in with Mr. Ward's comments? Cover.

Yeah. Well, Commissioner Tender, last but certainly not least, ma'am, I want to give you the same opportunity any questions or thoughts you have as as we kind of open salvo here and but it's it's facilitating a good discussion and I appreciate your patience. So, ma'am, your thoughts? I got patience. Um, well, I can I remember back when Corey first started talking about his vacant lot.

I knew then instinctively something was wrong. That didn't make sense to me. Here you have an empty lot and you're being, you know, charged and all that. I still am working with a resident who will not take no for an answer. She comes to see me. We sit down. to say the same things every month. And but the truth is I have no answer for her. Chris has been I've passed it on to him. He has no answer for her. Uh when it comes to this assessment thing, and I'm just rambling at numbers, but it's this ridiculous. She lives in a 400 square foot home. She's being assessed more than the Oh, thank God. um she's being assessed more for the neighbor who lives in 30 a 3,000 square foot home. I mean, there's just things that we have to protect our residents with. I don't know that this document I don't know that the charter is the place. Now, I don't know if the charter is the place, but I know uh I know there are some old-timers, and I give it to their age because they've been around a long time, that hate to see the charter change, period. Um, and I've really never sat down and gotten into a conversation with, you know, okay, so tell me why, and all that kind of thing. I think I think part of the issue even like in the last election when we were going for whatever it was we were voting on people didn't understand what they were voting on period. It wasn't clear. It was not clear. And

about the zoning. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it was clear and I think that's something we owe the residents but I don't know that the charter is the place and that bottom line that's just my real thoughts. Nothing magnificent just I I just don't know that the charter How long has this charter been in effect? Forever. Forever. Ever. Well, I mean, I know when I look at the charter, I look at certain things and I I kind of ask the question of why is it written that this way, right?

Like for instance, I know they're talking about the city manager living in the city. Well, that used to be uh the way things were done back in the older days, but that that role has changed over the years. It's become a lot more specialized. So, it opens the pool of more people. And so, as time changes, those changes take place. And you can tell by looking at our charter, those changes have not taken place, right? And then you can't park your horse out in front of the business or things like that in the charter that don't belong there. I haven't brought my horse to work ever. Never. Never.

No, I I appreciate your comments, Miss Tinder. And, you know, does it or does it not belong in the charter? You know, um I I think we could we could debate that all night. I think Mr. Scra's brought up some good points.

One more thing real quick for her. We'll uh we'll switch over we'll hand it over to Mr. Gray here in just a moment to to address some of those things. But um you know section six the title of section six in our current charter as it is today is powers vested in commission designing manner of exercise abandoned property and payment of advorum taxes. So we said well what better place of non-advalorum assessments would would would this go and that and that that's exactly where where it would be. Now you mentioned that the methodology of of the individual the residents you spoke with I don't I 100% do not believe that we should be getting into methodologies of non-avalorum assessments in this charter that's at the granular level that should not we should not be we should not be in in the in the charter but this charter the these what we what we come up with are overarching applicable to multiple assessments These are not on a on a very granular level to get into methodologies of non-avalorm assessments, whether it's storm water or whether it's building sidewalks within the cities or purchasing slides for parks. We're we're trying to keep this what we this verbiage at a at a very broad level, but again, put those guard rails the city must operate under um when when when implementing a non-abalorm assessment. and you know abl taxes, millage rates, you know those things keep coming up and right now you all have an extremely defined process when you want to increase the millage rate. Right now there is no process there is no restriction on how much our non-abalorum assessment that we have in Linhaven can increase yearbyear.

It can increase 200. That's wrong. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. That's wrong in my opinion. It should be have a a number attached to it and how long it will last. So this is just leaving it wide open. Yes, ma'am. I mean that's that's what this this is all contained here. And all we did was we mirrored the fire assessment. So the state of Florida in all their infinite wisdom said, "Well, we're going to set guidelines for increasing yearbyear a fire assessment, but a nonavalorum assessment, you guys increase however much you want." I think mine increased for my vacant property 75% last year.

And I think that goes back to my point before about how a non-avalorum general fund is a lot different than a non-avalorum on enterprise fund. So I'm I'm more of a proponent of using it for the general fund, but I'm not a proponent for using an enterprise fund because as we know enterprise funds, they they do a lot more of this where the general fund you're talking it's a lot bigger and and so you you have a lot more flexibility on okay, we don't need money here and you can move it over here to fund this other thing that you need funding that's short on funding.

Yeah. Do you think we we also talked Commissioner Tinder, we also talked last week about with Mr. switcher a proposal separate proposal that's coming up but we we talked about getting small wins as we go you know so this proposal is something where as you said the charter's been around for what 100 100 years it's not been updated since our last committee but before that I I don't even know when um so but we're operating nowadays in 2026 in an everchanging landscape both politically and socially and economically and the charter was written as commissioner works at for for a different time. It's it's not like the it's not like the US constitution where it's it's very high level broad and it's enduring and everything can fall under those core fundamental rights at the city level. It's more like what's going on specifically in Linhaven and how can Linhaven operate. So really like the commission with this proposal like you really have two decisions to make. Number one is do you want something to go to referendum and the voters to vote on? Are they going to be required to vote on every non-aggle? That's really your first decision as a legislative body in my opinion. And if you guys decide no to that, that that's your prerogative. Um future commission could decide the other way. But the second decision you have to make is do you want to leave the charter without any guard rails and guidelines for future commissions to follow and the city to follow? And that's where I think 80% of this proposal is focused on that guardrails and guidelines. And like Mr. Langford said is it's not it's not how will you do this one specific methodology for this one specific um uh non-adaborum. Like for example, our example referendum statement was for sidewalks because that was just the flavor of the day when we were talking about it. But like the list of seven

things, that's something that I'm going to continue to advocate throughout this whole process that that does need to be in the charter because that's the core fundamentals of the city being transparent to the to the community saying, "Hey, every non-adorm we're going to do, we have to tell you these things, and if we don't, then we can't do it." So, are we going to put in guard rails on uh water and sewer rates and sanitation and things like that too or because again it's enterprise fund. Enterprise fund is a lot different than general fund.

So, I'm glad you brought that up because I think that one thing we need to figure out at first it does does this funding of the stormwater department belong in the enterprise fund? I've done a lot of research. I don't think I've ever seen the general fund. I'm not saying it it's not an option, but I mean, have you ever seen that? To my understanding, most stormwater departments are enterprise funds. And have you ever seen them in the general fund? I I don't know. Not off hand. But to the chairman's point, how do you quantify that?

Right. I mean, fair share based on population and you know, but how do you quantify otherwise? Just like police and fire, there is a it's an operational cost, right? Versus a business cost. So it this bear is different if we look at these across Jellystone Park, right? One bear is not like the others. Um it doesn't make it necessarily right or wrong, but it gives us a context. I'd never honestly thought about that before, Mr. Chairman, in that context, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense to an old Florida country boy like me. Um it's something we can seriously look at. One other thing I'd like to say is I really really like this 1B v1 the seven uh criteria to Commissioner War's point which I fully appreciate we don't know what's going to happen with the state and with Avalon but to your point regardless of whether and I understand the hesitation of tying our hands um if Avalor excuse me yeah Avalor taxes go away completely get But if we write into the charter one way or the other before the Linhaven City Commission can approve a new not avalorum these seven criteria have to be developed and at least presented to the public in some form to the chairman's point where the define starve and end date what the monies will specifically be used for at what rate for this 4-year period right that is open kimono truth in advertising. And to Mr. Marlor's point, that is 100% transparency. We're telling you what we're going to have to do while we're having to do it and we all, and to use a military a marine term actually, embrace the suck together, right? And work through it. So regardless of the rest of this, these seven criteria I think are great because I think we as citizens, we

as taxpayers, we as neighbors deserve that. Now, where we go from that, you know, with the unchartered times we may be in here in a few months, um, remains to be seen, but this is very, very honorable, transparent, good work 25 did, and I want to seriously thank you for it. This is a great context. I think our communities deserve this before we tax them. However that mechanism happens with a referendum or city commission vote or whatever, we deserve to tell them this for anything, not just water. Even though storm water was the genesis for us talking about all this, it's the gator closest to the boat right now. Right. So, thank you for that.

The only way to quantify storm water, by the way, is hydraological study, right, Gro? You can you can do a hydraological hydraological study on a property and determine how much percentage of storm water is leaving the property. uh the costs on that are so absurd that it's not attainable by your average citizen and your B businesses would bulk at you wanting to require that or something. So it's really is it quantifiable? Yes. Is it is it realistic to try to quantify it? Not really. So impervious square footage has nothing to do. It is a mechanism you can use to measure.

It's one item in a whole algebraic equation. I can tell you that we have failed miserably within the city of charging people based on quote unquote quantifiable impervious square footage. Case in point, I've been paying more for dirt than I do for a home, a driveway, a pool deck, etc. So, you know, however we decide to quantify it, what has been happening from 2021 until now has failed. But we're covered by for example in that seven list of seven things number two is that item how the the commission even if the commission's passing the nonline themselves we have to explain the methodology now the commission did explain the methodology for the storm water multiple times because we've changed it a couple times even but every single time even though it was explained there was a lot of question

discontent and disagreement on it. And I mean, there was multiple versions presented. And somehow through all that, to his point, you still pay more for dirt. Dirt and what else? Dirt.

Just dirt and a house and a pool and and stuff. Um, but I appreciate you giving the kudos on that, Mayor Lowry, because as we discussed it, we came up with this list of seven things that we felt would have, I think you even said would have answered all your questions when the storm water non-adorm had originally passed. So if we can if we can preserve those core fundamental pieces of the transparency and the guardrails and guidelines and saying yes commission you can pass non-advorums but you have to do these things. Um maybe we reach a point where a resident like Mr. Langford is like, "You know what? I'm glad we didn't require those all to go to ballot because now that we have all the information, I agree. It would have just slowed the process down and we didn't need to do that." That's where I'd like to see us in maybe 5 years and to hear him say that. So, this my thought process and based on what the verb draft verbiage is, is this is what it will look like. And I'm going to give you two examples because I want to share with with you all something that we learned through all of these discussions. The first the first example that I want to talk about is the overall project cost. Okay. If you would have told me in 2021, Mr. Langford, it's going to cost the city $30 million to fix flooding in the city of Lin Haven. $30 million. Our plan is to generate $3 million a year for the next 10 years in order to pay this $30 million price tag to fix flooding. Okay. I'm like, "Okay, well now now I know how much it's going to cost to solve the problem that we all know exists. All right. I know exactly how much you're going to be paying towards this problem every year, right? I know when it's going to end. In 30 years, we're going to quote unquote fix the flooding

problem. That's $30 million today.

I know I'm I'm I'm using an example of the city providing the citizens with a problem of this is the problem. Here's how much it costs to fix it. Here's the methodology in which we're going to generate funds to fix said problem. And here's our plan to pay this off. Right? None of that happened. We didn't know how much it was going to cost. There was a there was a study that was done by Stantech that, you know, it looked at the rates, but how much is it going to cost to fix flooding in London? No one knew. I don't think anybody really knows anymore, but that's that's what this would solve. All right. Now, here's example number two, and this is one of the things that we learned during all of these discussions. A non-avalorum assessment can be targeted towards a specific geographical area. All right. So use the um is it Milu and the lights the street lights. Okay. We're just going to use that as an example. Mil Bayou wanted the city of Linhaven to put these street lights in the in the city in their neighborhood etc. You could literally have a non-abboralum assessment for mil byu residents saying this is how much it's going to cost to replace all of the street lights in your neighborhood. Here's how much it's going to cost to to maintain etc. Do you want a non-avalorum assessment to do that? And it would only be on the balance of individuals who live within Bayou. So, you know, you can you can target an assessment based on what the emerging quote unquote threat is that you're trying to address, whether it's storm water, whether it's street lights in one particular neighborhood. We even discussed on the committee of flooding. We said, "What if everybody east of Highway 77 in Linhaven was being

severely flooded, but everybody west of Highway 77, they're all high and dry. No storm water issues, man. and they're they're fine. Would you would it be more appropriate to have a non-avalorum assessment for everyone east of Highway 77 to address storm water issues versus the entire city? I mean, we could get into the methodologies of who should pay and who shouldn't or whatever all night long, right? But that's not what's going to go in the charter. What's going to go in the charter is just that you have to share your methodology as one of the seven items. Have we double checked that you actually can do the non-abalorms to specific areas? That was my question. I mean, we do it on individual properties as a nuisance,

right? I don't think there's ever I don't think there's one 100% fair way of doing storm water. There just is. I think this is the most fair way you're going to get except for the vacant lots, which I in my defense, I tried to address that. I didn't get anybody. But we're not really here to address storm water specifically.

What we're here to address is if you guys like for example, if you guys want to do a sidewalk assessment, can can the public get, you know, the information it needs to. Right now, the public's not protected. You're not required to give any of this information. All you have to do is have your couple of meetings, listen to the public, and vote. So, what we want to put in the charter is that citizen protection. I'll go back to my original point. I'm I'm more I'm I'm more likely going to be fine with it for general funds, but enterprise fund I just

So regardless of what fund do you think it's uh okay for us to require the commission to hit these seven items before passing their own nonadalorum like I guess the real question is do you have a problem with these seven items being required for general fund

for either like what's wrong with informing the public? Well, if you want to go down that road, okay, how many workshops did we have on storm water before we implemented? And I and the first time I ran for office and I went door to door and I kept telling everyone, go to the workshops, learn about go to the workshop, ask questions, how many people showed up. But by golly, the when we did the final vote over here, everybody showed up and I even stated it. I told you're too late. You're too late. So back to your point, I was telling everybody about it and we had five workshop before we did the final vote on it and you didn't like what's the storm water assessment about.

But the problem is Commissioner War, you didn't even have all the information to give to them. You were you were not given all of the information because enterprise funds are treated differently than general funds. That's why. But why can't an enterprise fund come up with this list of seven things? Because there's no end date to storm water. Storm water will be here to the end. So you just say indefinitely. Okay, that's fine, too. I mean, like, don't throw the whole farm out just because you get one bad crop or the baby with the bad foot. Yeah.

I I'd like to just say this. I agree with what Sam said. One of the most important things I think to me are the residents. That's number one for me. Transparency with them is vital. I think Sam's kids could grow to be 60 years old and live here. And I think that's what we have to shoot for. We have to shoot at making Lyn Haven better than what it is. We have one lady in the audience. I don't know her name, but she always gets up and says, "Why are we copying Panama City? They should be copying us." I think all the ideas and everything uh make a lot of sense. I tend to agree with you. I don't know if it's cuz you raise your voice or what,

but uh

as far as the enterprise fund versus uh the other at least the other, you know what you're doing. But I also love love love what the idea of when we take on projects in the general fund, the public should be told this project is going to cost $300,000. And then when it passes that, and it normally does, somebody's got to get up there and say, you know, the one we said two months ago was going to be $300,000. Well, there's been some change orders. Now it's going to be 400,000. I think the public has a right to know that and they need to know why it changed because that's how I feel a lot of our money is squeezing out the side of the tube.

Not to change subject, but to answer your question on that, when we redid the U purchasing policy, Yeah. that'll take care of a lot of that. Yeah. Not all of it, but most of it. Did we Did we go a percentage over or No. Yeah. What did we uh it was based on how the contract was written. So we present to you all you know 5% contingency that you all approve or a 10% contingency depending on the all depends on how the contract but if there's a project that that has change orders you all have to approve it.

So one other thing in funding Commissioner Ward talked about this in late January. I'd been in office all of six days when I went up there. I'll come out a rookie uh and sat with these great gentlemen. And uh one thing that when we talked with leaders on both sides of the aisle from North Florida, Central Florida, and South Florida, they all talked about something that we don't really have here in North Florida. But if Adalorum goes away, it may be a thing across most of Florida. And it's called user fees. And apparently South Florida is riddled with it. So if you can't fund through advalorum, how do you fund your police and your fire? fund through user fees. Those aren't things we have. But if we were to do this uh as written right now and proverbly handcuff ourselves to the will of the people. Now, I think we owe it to them regardless of whether or not there is a referendum approval or not. We owe them this. This is what your tax dollars are going to for the next x number of years. Um, if you do don't do the Avalor or the non Avalor, the only other even possible equation piece that I know of in the state right now are user fees. That's how you can fund fire and rescue storm water. You know, core functions that are never going to go away, right? Um, don't know. It could be a whole new world depending on what the legislature and the governor comes up with and then what people vote on. Ironically, some of the best polling companies in the state have run polling uh in the last month asking citizens and they were pretty darn accurate when it came to like the marijuana amendment the last election cycle where it got voted down. Uh they were pretty much right on point with that. So, uh they came back and when the citizens basically found out that they were going to be voting for this but Robbie and Peter to pay Paul and still cost you him, but now it's going to cost us out of this other pot. um only like 53% of voters actually still supported the amendment. Now, everybody supports grandmas and grandpas, you know, over a

certain age, 65, 75, whatever that magic number is. Okay, let let's give our senior citizens a break at this point. But for everything else, everybody seems to be pretty much aware there's no free lunch, right? At least taxpayers. So, where do we go from here? Don't know. But regardless of funding mechanisms and funding streams, if we're asking people to fund something, a new initiative or a new program or even renew an existing program with some kind of advalorum or nonadalorm outside of the basic village, uh, a user fee, whatever, I don't think it's unreasonable to have these seven things up there for truth and advertising holistically.

I I don't either. And and you know, if we would have had these seven things, you all would be able to answer tonight based on we have an an in excess of $100,000 a year. We've discussed that and we know that right now it's going to cost $30,625,000 to quote unquote solve the flooding in Lin Haven. So my question is to you all is what is the plan to take $100,000 a year and pay off a $30,625,000 problem and how long is that going to take and is it reasonable? So had we known that we would have known what we were up against. We would have known how much the problem costs. We would have known how much a year is going to go to it. we would have known when we're going to quote unquote I know when my house is going to be paid off if I make the payment every year. I know when that's going to happen. Right now the voters of Linhaven, the residents of Linhaven, they have no clue when storm water flooding issues are going to be solved. They have no clue. Why? because we are throwing millions of dollars at a problem every year with a very very lowly defined plan of attack other than relying on grant money to hopefully come in and save us to fix this problem. This would prevent that. It would force the city to come up with a proactive plan of how we're going to address an issue, how much the issue costs, explain to the voters, this is why we need you to pay this money every year, and this is why we're taking this money from you, and this is our plan to get this problem solved for you. But that's not happening right now. If we can sit here and say, and you guys can all look at us and say, "Yep, we're willing to do this on our own. We're willing to put this in an ordinance." Then my question to you is

why has it not already happened? And people need to know it's for them. It's for Sam's kids. It's for everybody's kids. It's for the future. There's a country term in this. It's called plan your work and work your plan. Say something real quick. Go ahead. Yeah.

We're going to have to be open to change. It sounds like people aren't open to change and it has to change. We hear I hear commissioners complaining, you know, we're not getting there's not um transparency and there's not accountability. And then that's what we're asking for right here and it's being fought against. So it's like, you know, you can't you can't do both. You have to be open to this changing or it's not going to change. I don't I believe like um Jamie that that or um I just believe that that that a problem can be solved. I don't believe in open-ended problems. I live in Bair and there's a a lift station right there. They spend a month over there digging the ditches much deeper and wider. They put piping in there because they're on Bell Circle at about the 8:00 position. It floods like two feet. And they solved it. They solved it like a couple weeks ago. So, I believe that these problems can be they're not infinite. I believe this this is going to be uh it's going to require change and I believe these can be solved and I believe that this h the city has to be transparent. That's a perfect example of let's be transparent with the people that it seems like it should be easy adoption to me.

So I have I guess kind of a legal question. This is probably an obvious answer, but if let's say this ordinance was to pass or not warrants, this charter change was to pass at the at the ballot, do would we be legally required to retroactively go back to the swarm water because and make it fit this? I don't exactly know the answer and that's something that I would like to know what the committee's intention is here because your storm water assessment under Florida law you have to levy every single year. So the way I read this is that if the voters approve this in April say you will have to have a referendum before you can levy your next special assessment in September. I don't know any other way to read it. Um because it's from our assessment does not go on forever. It has to be implemented and adopted by the local governing body every year to be affected. You may have a plan that we're going to have these rates for four years or 5 years without changing them or we're going to have this these rates that will go up incrementally by 3% every single year. You may have a plan like that, but it's not effective until you adopt that annual resolution every year. You are required to do that every year for it to be effective. So I I don't think you retroactively have to do it, but I do think it will throw a kink in that very first assessment you levy um after this passes.

Okay. So this is my concern because every year we're defining a start date and an end date. No. Okay. So they have built in here that you have to have the referendum every four years at least. But your question was when does it start? And I think it starts with that first assessment that comes up and presented before you after this passes and becomes effective law. Yeah. My concern that also brings up my concern is

like I said earlier I if this I would have loved this to been in place already. Um, my concern though is that and like I've said in the past, I was as soon as I came in office, I was I hated the freaking thing. I hated it and I couldn't I didn't have a solution. I just knew I didn't like it. Well, and then I tried I thought of things like credits to bring it down for people or whatever and I couldn't make any headway. So, I said, "You know what? I'm just giving the history on on where I've been at with this. I said, "You know what? If we're stuck with the tier system, the math doesn't freaking make sense. So, let's make the math make sense." So, I sat down for hours. Ryan helped me a little bit. We did the math. Lo and behold, the tiers were way off. And that's why we had the change. We had Stantech come back in. They confirmed what I found that the tier system, the money was wrong. And I know that your uh property t I mean your nonavone went up on your vacant properties. I do want to reiterate publicly that me and Jamie both both fought for when they when they advised Stantech to raise this the the vacant property up higher.

We said absolutely not. So we did fight for that a little bit. I wish we could have done more. I do not like to not add more storm water. That being said, the city for the past since 2000 what 2022 is when or 20 whenever it came into effect, they now function under this is how we storm we fund storm water. So it's going to be a massive burden to shift from this is how we fund this to overnight. All right, well we got to start from scratch. Like if this was if this was like we don't have a way to fund storm water, I would be like 10 out of 10 10 times absolut absolutely. But if we take if the voters vote to take this away without having the knowledge of what they're really doing because the reality is it has to be funded. So the option is either you keep this or you pay more money in the on your utility but bill every month. They're going to be mad either way. Um, they will know what they're doing, which is this which is why I like the seven bullets, but we're going to we're going to be starting from scratch on something that we're already behind on. So Pat asked a question about would you have to approve the date and duration and everything every year. So, if you focus on the the appetite that I've gotten from the commission tonight is a hesitancy to have the referendum approval required. Um, I talked about this in our committee meetings. I've said tonight my focus is to keep the guard raising guidelines, you know. Um, so I had CJ prepare a version that's in inclusive or exclusive of the referendum language. Well, yeah, that would need to

be edited, but it's essentially exclusive of the referendum language. And what would remain is the the requirement to inform the public of the seven items. You would have the limitation on the annual increases that Miss Meyers already mentioned, which by the way is the exact language out of the fire state fire assessment thing. And then also a whole section which is section C which talks about how the city can can manage and utilize the funds and compliance and oversight requirements. To me and to what Commissioner War said earlier, this is the meat and potatoes of what really belongs in the charter um based on what he said. So, I asked her to prepare this to kind of show you guys what that would look like without the voter referendum portion. And and this is what would remain, which is in my opinion the guard rules and guidelines that the citizens deserve. Whether you want them to vote on every referendum or you want to leave through the charter, leave that decision still up to this commission and future commissions. there's still structure in place to protect the citizens and keep them informed. So, while we're removing stuff from what was already voted on and sent to you all, I'm going to add back because the discussion point on the committee was if if you're willing to if you're if you want to if you want to put it vote put it on the voter, then we need to fund both programs and departments or projects and departments. Okay. And to your point, the reason that we're in the position that we're in right now is because we are funding a department with a non-abboralum assessment. We are not funding a project. So, if we want to take the voter referendum off the the charter review, the charter change, the

proposed charter change, I'm okay with that. But here's what we're going to add in. We're going to add in that a non-evalorum assessment can only fund a project. It cannot fund departments and personnel operations.

I'm frankly okay with that. Uh and honestly, separate of you saying that as we wrapped up here uh tonight when we get ready to walk away, shake hands and move our separate directions. Uh I wanted to ask Mr. Lightfoot, how do we need to seriously look at that very point of treating storm water department just like we would fire department or police department or any other ordinance department? Um, how do we treat them not like a a special business but more like an operational department and what would the cost be different ones? How would that impact our millage rate? It would significantly increase.

Understood. But we need to walk the dog on those numbers. I mean, cuz the citizens Well, the numbers wouldn't change. We have the numbers what it takes to run the department. Okay. So, it's just if it takes $2.5 million a year to run the department, you've got to take in another $2.5 million a year in mill.

So, either way, the citizens are going to be paying that, let's just say $350. My my non non stormwater nonavalorum this year past year was 350 went up from 175 to 350. If I'm going to be paying 350 extra bucks a year for the greater good of Linhaven, am I paying it through the millage rate or am I paying it through a nonavalorum or am I paying it through 26 extra bucks on my water bill a month? you know, whatever that is, there are different avenues for us to get that same set funding to pay and operate that department, right?

Well, the theory on that though is we're cutting a foot off the a foot off the bottom of the rope and tying it to the top of the rope and thinking we have a longer rope. It's the same thing. We're just we're still collecting the same amount of taxes on your tax bill. It's now instead of an ad instead of a nonadville arm, we're adding it to the advil arm. So, what's the difference? But is it a more clean and distinct long-term?

No. Because the next commission can say, "Hey, we're taking in this much on the advalorum. We are going to take this away from storm water and we want to put all our money in the fire department or all our money in the police department or all our money in the parks department." And it's not dedicated to the storm water department anymore. the average taxpayer would actually be paying more if you did that because if you live in the city of Linhaven for over 20 years and you're over the age of 65, you don't have to pay property taxes. So, and so that means the people that don't meet that criteria are now going to have to cover that money. Can you rephrase that? Because they do pay. It's just they're assessed differently. No, they're exempt from property taxes.

So, I'm pretty sure we have some that are paying tax. What is the difference here? If your income is below a certain amount, you don't pay. Okay. It's above a certain amount. And the price of the house is right. That's what it is. Okay. Got it. The value of your property, right? And it it's not just them. It's 100% disabled veterans. It's widows of first warm water. There there's a small handful of different individuals that qualify for that homestead exemption you're talking about. I get a free garbage can.

So, it's something I seriously want to look at. How do we operationalize storm water long-term organization? It may not be a fix that we can do today, tomorrow, next week. It may not be, and thank you. Seriously, Mr. visit this year um until we know what the state's going to do. But long term, if storm water, if we're going to treat storm water like an operational department, then we need to fund it like an operational department. Correct.

That is a honest to God fair point. you know, um, just like this, regardless of handcuffing mechanisms, because I totally get where everybody's at as far as we don't want to handcuff ourselves and then that's the only avenue we have to fund in this brave new world, right? Assuming that the amendment all passed. What I do like, and it seems like everybody on the commission I've heard is pretty good with these seven criteria, regardless of how we have to do this, before we move forward with some said new taxation or new funding stream of some sort, we're asking our citizens to pay, including ourselves. We share these seven things. We have planned our work. This is how we're working the plan, and here's how we need set extra funds from you and every other citizen to make this work, right? I think we can get to some violent agreement on that. Maybe it's not in a referendum. Maybe it's in a formal letter that we have to send out some type of legal notice to every resident in Linhaven and maybe we have to put it on the public web page and maybe we have to share it, you know, in a public commission meeting or make hard copies available in five places across the city or something. I don't know. But there are ways we could share, share, and reshare these seven basic informations and at least give our citizens an opportunity to be aware, read it, see it, hear about it. Whether or not they do, it's on them at that point, right?

But there's an old saying, if you communicate, you overcommunicate, and then you reovercommunicate, and you feel like you're exhausted communicating this, you might have just gotten where you need to be, right? So that's the sentiment. Is there an appetite for the the uh it's item 3 B3 the limitation on annual increases to match the fire assessment with the restriction. Is there an appetite on the commission for that to be included? I I'm wondering I'm always for 3% because that's national average of um of inflation. Seems like it's been going there yet.

Yeah. Um, I know that staff's not going to like that because there was years, which it's not 3%. It's actually just matching the methodology of the fire assessment. So, the actual percentage could change this year. It's closer to 7%. Yeah. Okay. But is there an appetite for keeping that in that what what you guys may consider moving forward with? I think some reasonable sustained growth to it's only fair and logical. Um but again it's all comes back to what is it for this year? I mean it's set in motion on a 5year tearing up right.

Yeah. I mean, I don't remember what the what the percentage was this year, but in that defense, if I may, if we handcuff ourselves with this and we have a box covert collapse and all of a sudden we need to take in $2.5 million next year, you know, increase the the non-adarm for a $2.5 million project because we had a box covert collapse and we have a road shutdown. If you put this in there, you've you've handcuffed us and now how do we take in the money? What if we do the rear? Is there not a Is that not what the half cent sales tax is for? Emergencies.

What if we had a half cent project? Half cent projects planned out and we had spent that money on paving roads or putting new water lines in and we had depleted the halfsent and we had an emergency come in on a a box. So you do these seven items on a one-year nonadalorum assessment for the 2 million or whatever you want for that one year. Can you add more on that still in order? Yes. No, I think the better mechanism is if for any reason you have to exceed this limitation, then you take it to refund. There you go. And that was that was identified in here is that we're not saying that you can recede it.

But if you have to exceed it because you have an emergency, you don't have any other funding sources at that point. So 3 B3B covers that econom uh any proposed increase exceeding this limitation shall be deemed invalid unless separately approved by the qualified electors in a referendum. So if what he's saying happens, which we can we can play the what if what if what if a truck comes through and and rips up, you know, 90% of our our city streets through an accident? you know, I mean, there there's there are things that we could say that would happen that would cause an emergency funding for for whatever that is. Um, but we're not saying that you can't exceed that. You can't exceed it. You just got to go back to the voters and say, "Hey, remember that that price tag that we told you this cost? Remember that methodology that we told you about? Remember we told you it was only going to be 3 million a year? Well, yeah, guess what? That changed. Why? Cuz the box covert fell in. you know, we're either going to shut down this road for the next 10 years or we can we can generate another $500,000 or whatever it costs to fix it. What do you guys want to do?

I think if if that's the route we're going to take, we need to do it to where it doesn't go to voters cuz in a perfect world on paper, 100% agree. But the reality is is anytime we have to do an election, it's going to cost us 15 to $20,000 just to have an election. Yeah, in all honesty, in all honesty, when I had her do this, I forgot to have her ticked out. Cory doesn't like to hear that. But

I I'm trying to get a victory here at some level for the citizens. And if going to the referendum is not the right answer for this commission, I don't want all this effort to be lost because you guys are afraid of of the referendum part. What I want to see is that these guard rails and guidelines get in place, put in place. Now, if an emergency arises, well, guess what? You got five people on a commission. You got a city full of people. Figure it out. You know, find a way. We already find ways to do stuff. It's not, you know, it and but general fund, you could do that.

Yeah. And if it's uh if if for example, you're worried about the limitations of the increases, then focus your discussion on what you guys actually said to referendum on that. you know, that's something that you guys could put good work in on and figure out, do we want to include this or do we want to change it or, you know, at all? So, mayor, Mr. You can come to the podium if you want. Might be better. Yeah.

It'll be weird looking that one. Y'all are y'all are talking about a couple of different things. I'm going to put this forward and you can think about this. Um I would say instead of having a referendum on every special assessment that you're going to have or nonadvalorum assessment you're going to have, I I wrote this down. any any non advalorum assessment or combination of non-advalorum assessments that exceeds a certain percentage of the yearly city proposed budget or actual budget has to be approved via a referendum. That gives you some leeway to have some special assessments and communicate with the the citizens on how you're going to do it. if but if on the lower rates the lower ones but if you get above a certain amount on special assessments I do think the citizens need to be able to say no and and that's what I think you know is is you know if you've got a special assessment for a fire it's a million bucks it's something you ought to have I think that's probably acceptable but if you're going to do an special assessment for $10 million that's probably not something the citizens need to vote on so once your assessments exceed a certain then go to referendum to get it approved. And if you've approved a fire truck and now you're going to approve two more fire trucks and it exceeds that amount that you've said of the budget, the last one you've got to take to the referendum. It kind of ties your hands a little bit and keeps those numbers somewhat manageable. Um nonadalorum assessments as y'all talked about. Some people don't pay adalorum taxes period. There's exemptions for disabilities and what have you. If you do it, if you go back to the city water bills, you're going to pay 22 20 to $26 every for every person that has a water meter. That's a guy that's renting that can barely make his payments each week or each month. You're going to have those kind of things come in. It's going to shift the burden from one set of people

to another. I can't say I'm for or against that. That's something that just needs to be considered. But I really think you need to to do the seven things that that Brian's got up there. Put them in an ordinance. That that to me is where you get into the city. Y'all manage the city. The the charter is how the cities govern. Y'all decide how to manage and that's where it splits for me. I think you ought to put the seven in an ordinance and pass it. And if if they don't vote them out of office if you're that adamant about that's really that's what you got to do. But I think it should be in that should be in an ordinance and I think that's doable. I thought

I think those seven things there. Thank you, Mr. Busher. Um those seven things up there if you take out the referendum again with the hesitation of we don't know what this fall is going to look like, right? Uh we don't know what next year is going to look like, right? In terms of it can be a whole new world. Those seven things are still core transparent guardrails is what you call them. Guidelines, swim lanes, navigational beacons, if you're a Jimmy Buffett parenthead. If you take out the referendum, what you have there is you have nonadvelor assessment transparency. You might as well just add a word to the end of it. Transparency. According to the city charter, before you can add or create a new non-aggalorum in the city of Linhaven, the city commission must approve and advertise these seven defined elements. Right. Even that alone would force a much more coherent common plan like you talked about. It looked like two different plants. Are we funding a whole water department or storm water department or are we doing something to fix storm water as a project funding? Right? If you have to do these seven things, whether it's storm water, sewage plant, pick a project, you plan, you work, you work, you plan. We are we as a city and city commission would be required to advertise that and be articulate and everybody would be on the same sheet of paper. I don't think at a fundamental level that is inherently wrong in any way, shape, or form. It gets us all on the same sheet of music. Right.

Right.

Yeah. And I'm completely I I'm I'm not necessar I will never say that I'm okay with giving the residents of Lyn Haven less of a voice. I will never say that. Okay. But what I am going to say is that items 1 through 7 become easier to comply with when a non-abalorum assessment funds a project, not a department. And to quote Mr. fetch here. We have Win Haven is trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube. Okay, we have went completely crazy with the way we're doing and our thought process with nonabalorum assessments. Why? Because we're now funding an entire department. So tell me what a defined start date and end date would be for the storm water department.

All right, so this is what I was going to say. As uh Mr. Schwitzer was talking. I was trying to bring this up and I went through my emails and I found the original slides that were presented to us by Stantech. All right. So defined start and end date. Well, there was a defined start date. I don't know if you can really say there was a definitive end date, but they did show 10 years of funding. Brief description of methodology of assessment. I wouldn't say brief. They went in great detail of of the methodology. They described each one whether it's a business, whether it's residential and the different tiers. They went in all that estimated specific cost per year by property and they use some examples of different properties about how much they would cost depending on how much what your square footage was. They went through all that um total project costs annual and overall and they had that in here and I totaled it all up. It didn't give me a grand total on the SC on the uh slide, but it was about 7.839 839 million for 10 years. That's the information we were given at that time. Okay? I don't want to go back and say other things, but that's the information we were given. So, that was given to us. Specific statement on usage of funds. Well, that's pretty clear. On non-avalarms, you have to do that. Limit on annual increases. We didn't have that. And, you know, that goes back to my point of how I feel about enterprise funds. and then specific client compliance and oversight requirements which there is specific compliance and um oversight requirements with non-adorms. So almost all that information was given out five workshops.

I just want to make sure cuz you're making it sound like this information wasn't given. Yeah. Yes, it was. So, so we were So, you're saying that you were told the price to fix flooding in Linhaven in 2021 would cost 7.1 million. Is that what you're saying? 7839. So, okay.

So, if we're if we were going to spend if we were going to generate money and and and pay to fix the flooding in Lindhaven and it was going to cost $7 million, we're 5 years into this endeavor. First of all, why has it not already been fixed? Second of all, with the plan, the 10-year plan, what we're saying is is that in 5 years from now, the non-avalorum assessment is going to go away based on Stantex's plan. That's why, remember I told you that it's been told to me now, well, it was never it was never the plan to fix flooding. The plan was always to fund the storm water department. Wait a second. No, that's that that doesn't sound the information we were presenting.

I I know and I'm saying so here's where I'm going with this. We know today way more than we knew in 2021. And I think the comm commissioner war just hit the nail on the head. He had very little information. Okay. And this thing has morphed year after year. It's snowballed and it's now grown into this $2.7 million check that the residents of Linhaven are writing to the city to fund a department. and we're we've got $100,000 left at the end of the year to fix flooding. That's what this is designed to address. These conversations that we're having would have never been had had this not come up. So, what we're asking for is not unrealistic. It needs it's got to be addressed. The way we're doing business now is not sustainable. It is not sustainable. So again, items 1 through 7 become completely easy to comply with when you fund a project and not a department. You cannot fund a department and answer items 1 through 7.

So in theory, what you're projecting or suggesting would be that the department is funded through say the water bill and then projects would be funded through non. So here's what I'm saying. I and and we we keep going back to the water bill and all this other stuff. I I'm glad that Mr. Warick brought up the fact about the the general fund and the enterprise fund. I'm telling you right now, the storm water department should be in the general fund because it's an unquantifiable department. Why are we not funding the IT department through nonavalorm assessments? Why are we not funding the police department through nonavalorm assessments? the fire department. Like I said before from the beginning, those are communitywide type service.

Storm water is a communitywide service. Everybody in Lin Haven has a storm water coming off their property, right? You can't quantify it. There's a reason that I'm paying more for dirt than I am for imperous surfaces. We fail. Matter of fact, the first 3 years, and I had to bring this up during the commission meeting for it to get changed, it actually said in the resolution that if you had zero impervious surfaces on your property that you were exempt, do you believe I paid storm water assessments for my zero impervious properties? Absolutely. Mr. Obo said it was a scrier's error. No, it was not a scrier's error. It was a major legislative change that happened that we didn't even know about. So, this thing has been screwed up since day one and we got to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

I don't disagree. I just We have to have a solution to fund the department. That's not decided tonight though. It's not decided in the charter either. Yeah.

What is decided in the charter is the things that Mayor Lowry spoke about which is pres preserving that there will be guardrails and guidelines. So, do you want guardrails and guidelines on what needs to be transparently provided to the citizens or not? Now, to Cory's point, you can't fulfill the seven things. Well, I mean, clearly we can cuz he just did. The end date is indefinite and you can figure out your annual budget. We we budget every year for everything. and you just put those numbers in and if they're going to change then you you come up with you end that one and you come up with a new one and there's but that's all operational and legislative and that's not what needs to be decided in the charter. We keep going back to storm water because it's the only one that we have. But keep in mind the example I provided was for sidewalks and I did that for a specific reason so we would get stuck talking about storm water like we have been. Yeah, this is not about storm water. This is about non-advorum assessments. Every non-advorum assessment that may arise from now until the end of time. This is basically a recipe requirement before we put anything else in the oven.

Well, it's you telling us that you're you're going to tell us Pat works in a restaurant. You're required to tell us the ingredients of the meal. We need to know what's in every meal. Yeah.

This is primarily for projects. You got to get away from operational departments. Operational. If I were to ask at this room full of citizens and say, "Hey, how many people here know storm water department is funded by the storm water fees that come in." They say, "Wait a minute, the department, why a department?" They wouldn't know that. I didn't know that. Now I know that. This is talking about capital projects separate. Get storm water away from it right now. Capital projects. But if you want to fund the police department through one of these, you can. You just fill out the damn things and publicize it. And then everybody knows, okay, we we knew that let's say Adalarm goes away and we need to fund fire and police. Well, the state already gives us a mechanism for fire. Use the same process and do it for police and you fill out these seven things and you say, you know, this is it's going to start now. It's going to never end because we don't want the police to go away. Um, it's how how are we going to assess? Maybe it's by property, whatever. That's figured out. That's operational. The charter doesn't need to know that. Estimated specific cost, that's just math. Total project cost. Well, we budget for the police department, so we know how much it costs. Specific statement on usage, that's not that hard to figure out. Limit on annual increase, that can be discussed. If you guys don't want to keep the item three a item six already covers that if you don't want to say hey we're going to limit ourselves you have to say what your limited what your annual increase is going to be. So if you're not going to if you're not going to follow the methodology the fire assessments do you have to say what your limited increase will be. So, if you say, "Hey, we're going to limit it to 20% a year increase," you'd have to say that on the non-adaborum, and you could have a line

of people here to yell at you for it, you know. Um, and the specific compliance and oversight requirements, that's not hard to fulfill, even if it is for a department. I'm not going to say whether I think it should or shouldn't be for a department. What I'm going to say is it can be done regardless. Well, I think if we go with the the non referendum at this point, you basically have the whole section B, non-advalorum assessments. You add one word to that title and you make it non-advelorum assessment transparency, right? And you use those seven elements. This is what is required. This is what the city commission or this the city of Linhaven must share with its residents before a new non-evalorum can be established. Right? We should be doing this anyway. This should be part of inherently of us planning the work before we work our plan. Um I think that's the Solomon Act to quote splitting the baby in half at this point. I think that's what we could do without hurting ourselves or shooting ourselves in the foot, not knowing how the the statewide constitutional amendment will go and what will come of funding. I know everybody's trying to be smart and do the right thing here for our community. You don't want to handcuff yourself before you jump in the ocean and try to swim, right? But what we can do is be very upfront and transparent with these seven things. This is basically the recipe for this is how the city will move forward with proposing or before a new nonaval alarm can be approved. Here are going to be the requirements. Right. Interestingly enough, if we have to renew and reapprove uh the current storm water, which my understanding council is every year we have to do this, right?

Um, at some point if this becomes charter law or charter guidance, we will have to put that additional dexterity into this plan. I mean, we will have to fit our current current storm water departmental funding into this. we either move it over to operational department funds and millillage or if we continue on the nonavalorum we will have to repeat this and redefine that project which is repeatedly morphed and evolved anyway right so it will be a interesting guinea pig it'll be the first test case out of the shoot unless some other non-avalorum pops up

so where are you guys at on a non-avalorum assessment funding a department versus a project I don't agree with it. It It makes it too difficult to try to to do what the non-abalor was trying to resolve by doing it by project cuz you're going to have to fund a department. Well, because we I think it goes back to what Mr. Scra was saying. It's hard to look at this and not think about storm water. And I'm trying but it's difficult. Um because like when you look at storm water you got to fund the department. So if you don't fund it through not a warm how do you fund it? It's an enterprise fund. So you you have to get it funding through fees and and assessment or whatever it is that you're using it for. So if you were to put if you were to put it back on the utility bill, how would the storm water department be funded? through the storm water fee that's on your utility bill

and I pay the same amount as Walmart which is BS. True. So, right. I agree. So, the question is is why do we not fund the general fund through a non-avalorum assessment then? Because we've already talked about it. Are you talking about storm water? No, no, no. I'm talking about the entire city. Let's fund the entire city off of a non-avalorum assessment because we've already talked about there's there's

disable difference between general and enterprise. Enterprise is it's treated like a business within the city, right? Correct. It's a specific measurable service. That's why sanitation, water, and sewer, it's so easy to quantify that. We're doing the same thing with storm water, but it's so much more difficult. It's a lot more difficult to measure how much storm water you're using compared to how much storm water I'm using there. And I've said this from the beginning, there's no no 100% fair way of doing it with storm water. There just isn't. And even if you go to use a sidewalk example, well, what if I have no sidewalks in front of my house? I mean,

so if you can't quantify it, then why is it in the enterprise fund? It should be in the quantifying it incorrectly. You're talking about storm water. Yeah, absolutely. We are quantifying incorrectly. All right. Well, how would you do it then? I would move it to the general fund. No, I I'm just I'm just telling you it it's I I would move it to the I would move it to the general fund and fun the department off of the general fund

cuz I I looked up that question and this is what it gives me. It says storm water is typically set up as enterprise fund because it behaves like utility so service similar to water or sewer. And here's the key reasons. It provides a specific measurable service. It can be feebased, not tax based. Cities charge storm water utility fees. For us, we we charge storm water assessments. Um there's a legal discrip distinction, especially in Florida. Fees must be tied to a service received, not general government activity. This helps avoid being classified as a tax under Florida Constitution. Um financial self-sufficiency enterprise funds are supposed to cover their own costs, not rely on property taxes. And I think that's the key thing is when I look at this and I look at the pros and cons of it, um, where is it at? Oh, here it is. And one of the trade-offs is that is now you're going to have storm water competing against other departments like police, fire, parks. They're going to be competing with that, right?

Where if you have an enterprise fund, it's specifically for that, right? So, let's say we, you know, we always know that police and fire are going to be your biggest budget and it's going to be your your biggest focus all the time, right? And then let's say, well, we really need to focus on storm water. You take something away from that. It it's that's just bad business.

You're going to have departments that compete with other departments, whether it's the IT department competing with parks and and and uh the maintenance facility department. You guys just had a strategic workshop. Then you look at what we did in the past where we're taking from other enterprise funds. That's what you're going to have happen in the general fund. That's a bad idea. Like I said, we we should have 36 line item non-avalorum assessments then to fund every individual department within the city through a nonavalorum assessment. Think about it. You've already passed a special uh so how do you quantify all that? Well, we we just said remember the start date and end date. It was just indefinite. That's we quantify it based on their budget what they need. How many computers do we need to buy this year? I I

Yeah, but how do you quantify that per resident? That's why that's why it's tied to a mill rate because based on assessment of your property cuz that's like general overall services for the city where enterprise is something that's specifically and measurable special benefit test. So if something can't be qu quantified then it shouldn't be a nonabboral assessment. Is that what you're saying? That's what the law is. That's absolutely right. So how do we quantify storm water

impervious area? We have It's You may not like it, but we have to say I don't like it. I don't like that we have an a a assessment fee period. And I hope this is the last time we ever do an assessment fee in that cuz this is the biggest pain in the neck. It's been the biggest pain in the neck cuz I fought for certain things and it just nothing happens. You know, I have

I presented it. Where did it go? I expected to start a conversation which could lead into something else. Nothing. So I understand your frustration, but it doesn't mean it's right. So no one has answered how we're going to fix the flooding in Lhaven with $100,000 a year and 30 million.625.

So even if you put it on the utility bill, you'd still be back in the same same same. I'm just saying if we continue doing what we're doing today, you all have $100,000 a year to pay off a $30,625,000 price tag in infrastructure to fix the flooding problem in Lin Haven. How do you tell your constituents this is how we're going to fix the problem? Fix storm water. And I hate saying that because I know when residents hear that they're going to be like project going to want to fix it. That's not the case. Storm water is going to be an issue when you try to we've digressed into a project specific discussion. That's not really what this workshop was for.

Well, I don't know that we have an answer. I wanted to make sure both commission and committee got heard. And if there's any other commissioner or committee member that wants to speak, speak up, please do. Um, I do know that the chairman and the vice chairman have asked a couple of times, a couple of different ways what appetite the commission does have, and I'm genuinely curious how my three brothers and commission sister feel about these seven items as some type of transparency requirement. Regardless of the rest, take away the handcuffing of the referendum for a moment. What do y'all think about incorporate requiring whether we do this as an ordinance or as the city charter uh write up? We require these seven items be presented to the public before any type of nonavalorm assessment, our special user fee can be implemented. Not knowing how things are going to shape up this year and next year, we owe it to our constituents and our neighbors to at least spell out these seven things to the utmost of our ability before any type of new assessment is levied.

If your verbiage is any new assessment, I think that's a slam dunk. Of course, um my concern is I don't know how to go back and fund it. The reality I know we keep saying we're focused on the charter here, but the reality is is this is going to have r ripple effects if it changes. I don't know how we would handle the storm water department because yeah, we only get an extra $100,000 every year. But if we take away the non-aval recession, we still got to pay that $2.7 million a year plus whatever it is to fix those projects. So, we're all going to be paying money regardless. It's just the method of how we get there.

Yeah. But the seven items I mean I mean to me it's obvious I do want that other three brothers or other two brothers and sister on the commission. What do y'all think? I personally I I personally would agree to it. I don't know if ordinance versus uh charter charter is one way or the other

anything that would help the residents understand what's going on that we can explain. Um the whole water water issue um I don't know that that will ever be explained. We're at water level, you know. Um,

I would agree. Commissioner War Po. I mean, I've already said it. I I'm good with probably 95% of this for general fund. I'm not with enterprise. for the one through seven you talk about. I'm good with probably all that. The only concern I have would not be number six because it is an enterprise fund be extremely fluid. Um that would be the only concern I have with that. Thank you, sir. Mr. further.

I'd be good with it only in the in a in an ordinance. I don't think it needs to go to a referendum. I mean, because we could settle it and make it the way it should be through ordinance. And why what would what what would uh what would it why would we have to spend a bunch of money to put it on a referendum for people to say yes or no to it when it's a good thing. We all we're all sitting here saying it's a good thing.

All right. So, so, but before we go any further, I the the whole the whole angle of attack everybody used tonight about saying that, you know, the the assessment shouldn't fund um a department versus a project or or or um Chris, you know, you were you were you were in in storm water and public works before and I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I've sat at many a where you've done the storm water update and that what you know we're we're talking like the $266 million is you know is being it's it's not being wasted. It's being used and it's being used with with great diligence and a lot of progress has been made in storm water with it a as it as it's being used to fund the department so to speak. So I'd just like you to expound on where storm water came out of the blocks once it got once once we got it funded.

Yeah. So once we put it on the took it off the utility bill and and made a nonad alarm. We can't use the word fix because we will never fix storm water. Commissioner Tender said it right. We're at sea level. We're we're influenced greatly by the tide, by storm surge. Um so fix is not the correct term to use. But look at the money that we have put into the storm water maintenance since 2021. We don't have those calls of all the rain and people have, you know, they're concerned about storm water is about to come in their house. Um, we have been able to utilize the non-avalorm to dig the ditches. You all just approved a new contract that we've had for 5 years. We just approved the second contract uh to be able to dig ditches. We've been able to replace multiple coverts that were failing. we've been able to purchase equipment that we needed to to maintain the storm water department and storm water collection system. Um, when we talk about letting the public know, you know, the the specific cost per year and what the project cost annual and overall was the workshops that Commissioner War talked about, Stantech utilized the CIP, the capital improvement list for every everything that was in there. So all of those projects were presented. The $7 million was there's no way we're going to collect $30 million to do all of these projects. So it was prioritized based on projects that were not HMGP funded, were not grant funded, were not ARPA funded. And hey, there is absolutely zero funding to complete these projects. That's what was put in as part of the $7 million. Since then, some of those HMGP projects have been denied for construction because of FEMA requirements. they didn't rate uh meet the benefit to cost analysis ratios. So those projects have come off the HMGP list and so they will have to be funded and by other avenues whether it's we

increase the non-agorum or alternative grants uh that are out there but every one of those projects was was analyzed by stand and what the rates would have to be. Um honestly I think the best compromise for this is to eliminate vacant parcels on the naval alarm. I think you solve everybody that's in here is tonight's issue. You would still have to re reassess and increase your your parcels that do have impervious to accommodate the difference in there. Um but the nonvalor is very successful. If we go back to the utility bill, it's not fair at all to do it. Commissioner Warick also said this is the fairest way. Is it fair? Not 100%. It's never storm water is never going to be 100% fair across the board. But if we put this on the utility bill, the single parent who makes $40,000 a year is paying the same as the Well, not only won't we can do commercial totally different, but the same family who brings in 400 grand a year in combined income and lives in an $800,000 house. That is not fair to collect the storm water in that way. Why wouldn't you be able to do the same four tier that we have now on a water bill?

Well, we would have to have additional software, hire additional staff. You're getting rid of all that. Now, we rely on the property appraiser. They take their values. Stantech pulls all the information from from them and that's how the non-adable alarm is calculated. If we do that, it's you're going to put on the utility bill at a different rate for everyone. It's it's virtually impossible.

Well, you have four tiers right now, and I'm a $350 a year tier three guy with a third of an acre lot. So, if you're plugging in any there's 1, two, three, or four, and three is, you know, 350 bucks divided by 12, like 29 bucks and 31 cent or something like that. If if I'm a tier three, how would you not be able to do that with minimal and still have that fair share? Because whether I'm living there or I sell it to somebody else and they're there, the the the logic behind how you assess that is still there, right? Unless something gets torn down or built up, which would go through a permitting review. You would have that.

Yeah. So, you would have to go through and make a whole you would add a whole new module in the Munis building software to do that. They've done the research. I think it was like $27,000 to implement just the software alone plus hire the additional person to handle that annually. So it goes also it goes back to the single parent who's renting a house for $1,250 a month. Now they're paying whatever whatever tier level that is on their utility bill versus the non-adable alarm that's on the tax bill annually. So, if we take it off the non-medical alarm, that landlord is not going to go down on their rent because their tax bill went down $150 or $350. That rent's going to stay the same. Their utility bill just went up. So, it's still not a fair dispersement of those funds.

Chris, I want to ask, do you know what we're paying Sante every year? Now, uh we paid them around $40,000. Uh but the reason we're paying that is because the last 5 years we've looked at the the method every year. If we would leave the method alone for the next three to five years and let it run its course, we would not be paying them $40,000 a year to handle that. Does anybody other than Jamie have a problem with number six only for enterprise?

I would just to be fair as the author of this list of seven. I mean, you could literally say there will be no limit and you will have fulfilled number six. Okay, I'm good with that. The public would then know there's no limit on annual increases and if they don't like that, they can line up and tell you, right? Should you have should you word it to say if there is a limit on annual increase?

Getting too wordy. Honestly, at that point, I I put this list of seven through three different AIS like seven times each to try to cuz it it was way longer. I tried to condense it down and only focus on what was absolutely needed. What would pass like a court review and stuff and this was my end result. That's why I'm so adamant about it. I feel like it's easy to fulfill. I knew um cuz Jamie and I had previously talked and he shared that they shared all this information during the uh original one. I think the only thing is one thing I disagree with is the specific use. I feel like it was a little lax on that because even as Mr. Lightoot said they took the CIP projects and stuff and it's like you know if you look at the actual use of the money it's like how much of that the money we've collected from the NAV has actually been used specifically on CIP projects. I think that's where the disparity was back then. Um, but I feel like regardless of what the DA's for, this list of items can easily be fulfilled and you can say, "Hey, per the charter, cuz I think this list deserves to be in the charter. Per the charter, we fulfilled this list by publicizing it. All the methods you talked about, Mayor Lowry, the citizens have been informed. I agree with M. Commissioner Work. They were informed before. I think some of this information was shared very sporadically and spread out. It wasn't packaged into a cute little deal, you know, and I think that's what the public deserves.

I don't know if you saw Ryan, but I like number six. Some whoever is that CJ CJ with her feet. Okay. Yeah, that looks good.

I have no problem with with the change. Well, I think we potentially have a Solomon act kind of in the middle um on this and I think transparency, this will be kind of a standard template for transparency. And I think it's it's basic plan your work, then work your plan, but at least you would have a common frame of reference for everybody who's looking at this and what's the impact to my bottom line going to be? What's the impact to the city going to be right for how long? What's the scope? That's all right here if we do this properly. C

can we look at Can you scroll to see? I feel like the focus is so much been elsewhere that we haven't even touched on the it's the oversight section.

Yeah. I mean, I if you guys want to look at it now, you can. If you want to consider it as permission as you move forward, I'm happy with that. But I think there's a lot of good useful information in in this section of the proposal as well that um it doesn't really tie the city's hands. It just puts in place what the city's already doing um to ensure that future administration should it not be, you know, as the same quality we have today will be held accountable if they don't. councelor, how is this not already a state requirement for

because this seems like this would be a state level guard rattle. So I think the it is special special assessments by their nature are dedicated funding streams. So Kiki already has a method for accounting and she went over this language and she can confirm that she is already separately accounting um for how these revenues are collected and how they are being used. Um this may be duplicative of what the state is doing. I think the charter review committee is trying to make sure it is always true in Linhaven regardless of what the state requires.

Is that a fair statement? Yeah, we talked about that in the meeting and we we touched on pieces of it that were duplicative. There's some stuff where we expand slightly versus what the state has. And so it's kind of one of those things where even if you know our representatives in Tallahassee decide in the future to be more lax, Linhaven won't match that. we would still be held to the same standards we put at our in our charter because I think specifically uh Miss Meyers I forget which element it was here of of this list but I know at least one of them we aren't specifically um so the statute doesn't require an annual public reporting

for instance and the charter committee believes that that is important for transparency purposes um that they don't get it from the budget and they don't get it from the budget summary. Um, and so they would like to have an assessment annual report to show how those funds were used. I'm good with that. I think that's fair.

I also I'd like to add is I'm a big fan of if you can add to your ordinances or charter something that if I go to find something, I don't want to have to go through 17 documents to find it. If I can just go to what is how does Lin Haven feel about this? How does Lin Haven run this? I can just go to the charter or to their ordinances and find it cuz I know the true meaning of a charter and ordinances and all that is to to legally make the rules. But I'm also a believer that it should be for the public and the citizens to be able to read the way our city is ran. And so even if this is in a state statute, I still would like to see it in the charter so I can just for people that want to know how the city of Linhaven functions, they can just pull open that document and it's right there.

I will say too, you do have you currently have an assessment ordinance um that it's not codified, but it is specific to um how you do assessments in this city. And so someone said earlier this can just be an ordinance and you do already have the architecture to insert some of these things straight into that legislation. This makes sense. This looks like something you would put in a charter though. This would be a firm hard guard rail, right? And it's very specific,

but it's very general in application. That's kind of my sales pitch is how often do we we you know we did the charter review committee what five years ago and uh you know it's if it's going to be done every five years it's not easy to change right it's it's meant to not easy be easy to change um and so the commission that maybe only two of you are on the future commission and the other three people are like this is crap let's get rid of this and you guys are But we worked so hard to put that ordinance in place and just like that with a vote of 3 to two, this is gone if you put it in ordinance. Yeah.

Versus if you if the charter requires you to do this, it's it's harder to change. It's true. And it doesn't really prevent the city from getting the job done either. Have we changed all the old stuff on on the charter? What have we changed the other stuff on the We're just going section by section. So what are there specific things you're referring to? Yeah. Tying your horse up to your business. That's George. That's not That's not charter. That's not sure.

Back back during uh George W. Bush's tenure as president. He proposed privatizing some of Social Security investments. And there was a term that was used for a long time called the lock box. I don't know if how many of y'all remember that, but social security lock box, right? you Gen Xers are older, you should remember that.

I see this as kind of that proverbial lock box, right? By putting this in the charter, that specific section one, um, makes sense. I will say that, Commissioner Tender, one thing, and these guys done a really good job, the charter committee, I just sit back and listen a lot. um they were looking point by point by point, section by section, not trying to add on a verbiage or add things that just don't need to be in a charter. For instance, on the city clerk, we didn't want to add a job description of it doesn't need to be a repository, the charter for job descriptions, but there are some things in there like that that need to be moved away. There there's a lot of verbiage I I would say. So, I I think they're doing a good job looking, but it's going to take a while, section by section, to make sure it's done properly.

I've always said this from the beginning, when you're trying to make changes to a charter that hasn't been changed for quite a few years, it's difficult. That's why I think doing it every 5 years, once you get it to a certain state, it should get easier and easier and easier. So, I I know a lot of work been put into this. I know it's not easy. I know a lot of conversations go I watch it online only one I haven't watched at the last meeting so far. So I I do appreciate all the the efforts been put into it. One other um so I think you've got a test temperature from the commission on two different things now and they've been pretty positive. Um, and we can discuss more if y'all want to, but there's one other thing. Since we have had a relatively recent and significant change uh in our city leadership team and in the commission hiring a new city manager and the city manager residency having come up since Mr. Chairman, you briefed us last night. We're already here. I don't want to belabor tonight, but let's take a few minutes. It actually directly impacts a key leader uh with how we move forward for this. So, let's take a couple of minutes to talk about that. And then as we kind of wrap up, I want to make sure everybody gets some closing thoughts and comments. Um,

but let's talk about that and get that out in the sunshine and see what y'all are thinking and what we need to do from from here. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the only thing we have left to do is just finalize up the uh the proposed resolution. Miss Myers, I didn't I didn't do a resolution. I did do an ordinance um and I did some draft ballot language for y'all to consider, but I didn't do a resolution because it's going to be up to

Yeah, it in lie of workshop, we were going to have a regular meeting tonight and we would have visited that and voted on the final thing to send forward to y'all. Um it it kind of mimics with what um with what you guys kind of already I guess what you guys already touched on in the commission meeting which was to uh

it effectively you guys would set yeah you guys would effectively set a term in which the candidate would need to relocate and uh geographically speaking I think we uh much to my reluctance we settled on anywhere in the county but you guys obviously would be able to further restrict that as the hiring party if you wanted to.

Yes. So, we we actually did not give you all the uh ability to determine how long um that the individual should establish residence within 12 months of appointment within Bay County. That's that's what we settled. The idea was is that um there was discussion that well you know maybe it's a radius from town hall or city hall rather maybe it's a a driving time. We we went through and we peeled back and tried to discuss that or whatever. Uh well maybe we maybe we say that the commission decides where the city manager lives. Um I know a house. So

the intent there was was to in a sense um not necessarily handcuff the commission but standardize the procedures in which the city manager residence would be established or maintained. Um you know what we didn't want to happen is is three commissioners didn't like a city manager. There's not enough there to vote to to fire him or her. Um, so you know what? By George, we're going to come up with a we're going to come up with a rule that we'll force them out and we're going to say you have to live this distance from city hall. Three of us are going to vote for it. Two of you won't. So, we'll win. Right. So, that's what we're trying to prevent. You got to live in Bay County. You got to establish residence within 12 months. Um, it's very simple.

So, what was the 12 months? cuz if they're working here, I guess you could be a geographic bachelor or bachelorette the family somewhere else and rent a place.

No, it's more like uh so the uh international city managers association in modern terms they say that it's it's given giving a candidate a reasonable amount of time to permanently reside. like you would still say in the contract that they need to temporarily reside close like within the county but like for example um this isn't what happened because the candidate dropped out but Mr. Rory, you lived in another state, right? Had you elected to interview him and hire him, you could have under this, you could have said, "Hey, you have 12 months to establish permanent residency, but within that 12 months, we need you to live somewhere in the county." Maybe he rented or got a Airbnb or some type moved, you know, and that's kind of where it is. 12 months. The reason ICMA I researched this pretty heavily. The reason the ICMCMA says that is because of market conditions and school schedules and just different things, you need to provide a reasonable amount of time. So that's why we came up with with that. Um

and I just want to point out that there was there there has been some public resistance on this. Um, I mean, I said in our last meeting, Eddie Cook from Callaway is a great example of of a city manager who lives outside of the city limits. That is a strong and adamant uh uh advocate for the city they work for. So, to say you have to live in city limits is is surely not accurate. You know,

Mr. Gray also made a made a point during the discussion with this and Miss Miss Moore was actually here. Miss Moore does not Miss Jodie Moore does not reside within the city limits of Linhaven, but she is very involved and contributes um to city business. So, it's it's unfair to say that you have to live in the city of Linhaven in order for you to care about what goes on in the city of Linhaven. Um we have individuals that come to our commission meetings. One individual, I think, drives from Port St. Joe or something.

All right. And and she's she's heavily involved in in the city operations of Linhaven. All right. So, and she doesn't live in Linhaven. So, the fact that someone doesn't care about the city of Linhaven because they don't live in Linhaven is is proven false at every commission meeting. Yeah. Well, and we have no requirement for any other city employee. Now, S5 commissioners are required obviously uh but no other city employee is other than the city manager currently. I did get that right. Correct. Councelor.

All right. Well, thank you for showing us. Commissioners, do y'all have any questions or thoughts on this? Doesn't matter to me where he lives. Okay. Yeah. If I He's the one that's got to drive to work every day. I like your idea when you're Yeah. Down there in Colorado. We'll get it home for you. Have him out and ask when you get done with this. Okay. I was saying buy this house over here on the corner and that'll be the city manager. The yellow house. I like the parcel. He doesn't fit into the senior center. Yeah. No, the the house in the corner down here. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I don't think Chris would be the hard sale. I think would be the hard sale. Hey, you you will sit on your porch for the concert. That's true. I would ask that um if they don't live within the city, they would make a donation equivalent to the highest tier of the storm water. Can we agree on that? Did that get written into the contract negotiate? I haven't seen it yet. Not I already told Sam that we said it was going to be the city hall in per square foot. Yeah. Yeah. You only had at least pay as much as the mayor's paying, right? That's right. You're good.

I just want to also express my appreciation for the commission doing the workshop with us tonight. Um there are loads more things to go through in the charter to to make it more more modernized. Um and just to the citizens that are concerned about the changes that we're making, it's it's for me individually, I can speak. I'm not trying to take away anything from the citizens. Quite the opposite. I'm trying to make sure the citizens are protected for for present and future because the charter as it's written protects us from the path, you know, in the past, but it doesn't cover a lot of stuff that's that's happening now real time. Like the last committee meeting, we just had discussions on artificial intelligence and things like that. I mean, there's this charter is so out of date in regard to what could come up that um I envision that we will probably need workshops again in the future to discuss topics. So, I appreciate your time. This has been long.

Yeah, it has been long, Commissioner Tender, but um I feel like we we got to a good place and as you see, we're five distinct commissioners on the commission and we're all here with a big heart for Linhaven, but uh we all kind of have our own thoughts and points of view and as do you five on the committee and you put the 10 of us together, you know, that's a lot of opinions. That's a lot of hurting cats, right? So, uh they're all good cats. Hopefully, we're all going in the same direction together. So, as we kind of wrap up, thank you. Sorry for the long evening. Um, but some good was done here. Um, I want to go around and anybody that wants to to say some parting shots or as we say the Air Force has saved round, if you've got one you want to share, please do. If not, chairman and I will wrap up. Oh god,

ma'am. Oh, no. I No, I think Amy wants to talk to us at some point. Yeah, she wanted to make an announcement of it. Yeah. Yeah. So, for my commission directly, I need advice concerning the city's pending litigation with Phoenix Construction. And I'd like to request an executive session be scheduled. You can do it as soon as this Friday the 10th or any other time um that three of you or and hopefully all five of you are available. Um, I estimate that we'll need at least an hour for that session um to update you on the recent mediation and get some direction from you. That's cool. Um,

you don't have to set that date tonight, but I wanted to announce that I need that from you so that you can coordinate um with CJ and that we can get a notice out. You want to do it before the next commission meeting? So, I Commissioner Peeles will have to call in the next commission meeting and you cannot call into a shade meeting. Correct. That's correct. Yes. So, so the sooner the better for me. Well, how would y'all look Friday? You said that's the earliest. That's the earliest. What time frame are we looking at? I mean, afternoon or during the day or It's completely up to you. Just during the day. I know. I don't know about Friday night. I haven't I haven't talked to my wife. Friday morning. Um I can't What's today

with with three Fridays? Tuesday. It's Is there a deadline you got to meet with us? No. Do we do not this Friday but next Friday? Does that work for everyone? I can do anytime. I can do anytime next Friday. A hard no this Friday. This Friday I'm pretty busy. I can't do next Friday. All right. I'm out of time. Start the 15th through the 17th. I'm out. Unless we do it in the afternoon like 3:00 or so. Friday 3:00. We go to the concert after. Did y'all do that? Sure.

Friday. This this Friday at 3. Okay. Sam uh or after I think I'm going to do three. something on the schedule at 5. Okay. April 10th. This Friday at 3. This Friday 3. All right. April 10th, 3:00.

All right. I'll get we'll get this notice out and um get a court reporter. Uh the only people who can attend that meeting are Chris, myself, insurance defense council Chad Dunn and Ben Andrews and then the five. We will have a court reporter here to take uh to transcribe uh our discussion which will become official public record when the litigation is complete. Everything we say will be public record. Everything you say will be on the record. That meeting will be private with just us, right? But afterward everything when the litigation is complete completed all of that is open record and subject to inspection. Okay. Okay. So it won't be public record

after the litigation is completed. However that concludes brother I don't want to Friday at 3 it is. Thank y'all for that.

All right. Um, any closing shots for anybody? David, Jamie, I appreciate y'all. Y'all being kind of quiet over here. Um, but we really appreciate y'all being here. Ryan, Mr. Chairman, um, kind Sir, all of you guys, we really appreciate the diligent work y'all are doing. This is not easy stuff, but we appreciate what y'all are doing for us, for the city. Y'all got any closing comments or thoughts anybody wants to add to the team before we ready ready break? Mr. Chairman?

No. I as as far as this uh the one deliverable with the with the non nonavalorum. I mean I'm I am what I see is is that this is done and then it's going to remain with you all. Um I don't think that this is going to get kicked back to the committee to make any sort of changes. Uh but if I'm mistaken, please let me know. Um the idea is is that again we provide you all with these deliverables. If there are some things that need to go back and forth that's that's fine. We can do that. Um but I would just ask that you all make that very clear to us that that's getting kicked back to us for revision as such. Just FYI, how many things are you planning for referendum? We're for August, you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. Like is it going to be like six or No. Well, so I think uh I mean I proposed our the deliverables was three during the initial the last commission meeting and then tonight we just gave you a fourth one. So Mayor Lowry asked us to address um not Mayor Lowry, the commission asked us to address the city clerk position first. That was why we were still reason. Yes. So the idea is is that we're not going to just hold on to these things until I believe 1 June was was the date, right? for the August 18th.

That's right. So, we're going to hand all of this stuff to you all. How much y'all decide to put on the ballot, if any at all, is up to y'all. We're simply going through conducting the review. As we finalize these things, we're providing it to you all. You all can prioritize put on ballot or whatever.

Ultimately, y'all will have y'all get to choose what to put on the ballot and when. So, because you'll have two cho two chances. You can do it first go round or you can do it the second go round, but you get to choose. And even if you say we're definitely going to do some version of nonorum, you may break it up into three or four questions on the various different elements of it. Um, so deciding what charter amendments you want to adopt is question one, which you'll do by an ordinance. And then how you want to present that to the voters on a ballot is a resolution you will adopt separately. And there are two separate pieces of legislation that do two separate things. Ultimately, it's up to you. They can give you a fully fully prepared ordinance. You can still modify it however you want to. Um, it's your ordinance ultimately to adopt, but they are doing trying to give you a complete fully vetted product so that your work is as easy as possible. So, going forward to August 18th, which is going to be a free election for us because we're piggybacking on the state primaries. Um, we will have the city clerk is the intent right now. Without a doubt, I think we're all in violent agreement there. We could get the city manager living requirement for adjustment on there easily. Uh, and whether we do a nonadvalorum assessment transparency or not, that's a possibility. What's the fourth? What am I missing?

I think there's one that's like uh it's like some generalized changes. It's it's not like spec it's not like one specific topic. It's like some various nuance changes that we had found that were needed. Y'all have spent specific time on the appointment of department heads. Yes. um but you haven't finished that entire article. So that has not been fully baked, voted on and put into an ordinance that I think is ready to be delivered to them. But that isolated section I think is complete. So we we established department we established um officers and directors direct well not directors it was um department

department heads uh we had basically identified that the officers this the officers within the city works and reports directly to the commission. The department heads are called I I don't have it in front of me but they they report to the city manager. So there's kind of some delineation there organizationally as to how the how the city is is set up with the addition of the city clerk being an officer. So some of it is kind of I don't want to say clerical in nature but it's kind of organizational in nature. So um I could go back and look at the slides that I briefed you all but it it basically covers everything that that was proposed. And we also specified who within the city is a dedicated whistleblower recipient. Um because that wasn't something that was defined. So we wanted to go through and define that.

Uh so we we did that and it would be the uh the city manager, the city clerk should that go through um and the city attorney and and the I believe yeah any member of the commission too I think. Did we include that? I think so. So, is that four or is that five? Because you said I had to go back and look at the slides. I I mean, I briefed you all on the on the deliverables that that we've provided to you all. Whatever it was in the slides, that's that's what we all we've provided you. I believe the whistleblower stuff in the department that was all one. So, it was there was one large four. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

I just wanted to say I appreciate you guys because I learned a lot tonight really and I appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome. So, city clerk, nonadville assessment, transparency without the referendum, right? Um, the city manager residency requirement and an administrative housekeeping is what we're currently looking at. Yes. With whistleblower and terminology of officer versus department head or something like that. Yeah. Right. The leftovers. Yeah. Advice and consent confirmation.

Yes, that was in there. Um, have you have you sent the commission the the ordinances that capture Oh, I sent them to CJ. Okay. So, I think that's probably the piece that's missing. Um, the things that we've that we've discussed that I that I briefed you all on during the last commission meeting, there is an associated ordinance that goes with all of those items that I briefed you all. And there's language with all of those as well. So, so when you see that it'll make more sense. Caveat obviously the one for not have warm you guys have work to do on that

and I'd really appreciate that because when I called in it was impossible to hear anybody pod. So I don't know the method in which you would get that to them but they they need the the ordinances and the resolution that the only one that we've not done a resolution for ballot verbiage on is the nonavalorum and I believe we did it on the uh on the residency. I I did ballot language for res.

Okay, we've still got to close that one out. Let's let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still got to slap the table on both the ordinance and the resolution for city manager residency. But everything that I briefed you guys at the at the commission meeting, there is an ordinance andor a resolution with the exception of the non-avalorum assessment that needs to be in your guys' inboxes that will will clarify what it is that you have on your plate. Okay? And then we'll see if we can get a few more in in the next month or two. Overachiever. All right. Well, everybody, if there no further, thank you for the time tonight. Y'all have a good night.