Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our every other week city commission meeting. Welcome. We're going to have tonight, we have Reverend Aldrich Kirkman from Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church here to lead us in the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance. Reverend, thank you for being here tonight, sir. Thank you.

Heavenly Father, Almighty God, Lord, we come humbly in your presence once again, Father. Lord, we come thanking you for being awesome God all by yourself, almighty, all-powerful God. Heavenly Father, as we come this evening, we come asking your blessing upon this city of Lynn Haven meeting, Father God. We pray for your peace, unity, love, and understanding, Father God. Lord God, we pray that you guide us, Lord God, and that all that's said and done be according to your will and your way, Father. We ask that you bless each and every heart here this evening. We thank you for all you're doing with this beautiful city of Lynn Haven. Pray for your continued blessings upon it. Bless the leaders, Lord God. Bless the residents, Father God. But Lord, as we come, we also come thanking you for sending us your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying on the cross. paying our debt of sin, Father God. Lord, we just bless you. We love you. We pray that all that's said and done again be in alignment with your will and your way. And we say this prayer in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Reverend Kirkman, thank you very much, sir. All right. We're going to call this meeting to proper order. Additions, deletions, modifications of agenda. Does anyone on the commission have any additions or deletions or modifications to propose? Hearing none, we'll roll right ahead. We have no proclamations or announcements tonight. So on the consent agenda, we have a total of one, two, three, four, five items. Approval of our regular meeting minutes for June 23rd. Approval of the special meeting minutes for June 23rd. Approval of M0088-A4 Pine Forest Drainage Improvements Project. we have approval of a vehicle a 2004 ford explorer at surplus and auction on govdeals.com and approval to appoint miss margaret barnhart to the community services advisory board so motion to approve second we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda is there any discussion or questions among the commission just want to say thank you to margaret barnhart for joining the team Okay, I will open the floor. Is there any questions or comments from the public regarding these five consent agenda items that anyone would like to discuss? Yes, ma'am. We have that. It's towards the end of the, it's called public commentary. It's page, it's number 24 on page two. Yes, ma'am. So throughout the meeting, every time we have an open discussion point or we have a motion and a second for a vote, I'll ask the commission, did they have any questions or discussion, and then I open up to the floor for that specific voting item. If any member of the public has a question or discussion about that item, they're allowed to stand up, come up, identify themselves, and talk for three minutes on that specific item. At item 24, that's broad, general, everything. That's where anything dealing with city business, you can come and talk for three minutes, ma'am. So regarding the consent agenda, do we have any Issues, concerns, or questions? Hearing none, City Manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes, we have a 5-0 vote. Thank you so much. We have no old business. We have no tabled business. So that gets us to new business. And that is discussion and possible approval of Resolution 2026-07-568 to settle case number 23-1405CA, Phoenix Construction Services Incorporated versus the City of Lynn Haven and Vicki Gaynor. City Attorney, Mr. Rob Jackson.

Yes, sir. So this is resolution number two zero two six dash zero seven dash five six eight the resolution of the City of Lindhaven Florida approving the final settlement of a settlement of Phoenix Construction Services Inc versus City of Lindhaven Florida and Vicki Gaynor 14 traditional circuits case number two zero two three dash one four zero five dash CA Authorizing the mayor to execute the mediated settlement agreement and general release and amended and restated half cent infrastructure surtax design bill contract and adopting an immediately effective date. And I know we've been through this for quite some time. The agreements are in the packet for your review and approval. The only exceptions would be there were some changes made by Ms. Gaynor's counsel, because all three parties have to approve. I pass those out to you, and those changes are relatively minor, just clarifying that she's released from this lawsuit also. and also there should be an addendum to the design bill contract that has also been added to uh provided to you all for review as you consider uh this resolution and final agreements okay thank you so the plaintiff is fine with those changes yes all parties are fine with the changes that uh are been passed out any other questions among the commission no

All right. If there are no other questions, may I get a motion to approve?

Make a motion to accept. Second.

I have a motion and a second. With that, I will open up the floor to any comments or discussions or questions that the public may have on this. Mr. Johnny Beshear, come on up.

I gave the city attorney some papers, or a paper plan to each of y'all when I start tonight. Don't get too bogged down in it. It's just a few figures that I put together. This is almost unbelievable. If it weren't playing out right here in front of me, I would have thought it was a fiction novel. This commission acted against legal counsel's recommendations, thus giving Mr. Finch's lawsuit more standing. Now the same group, some financially and publicly supported by Mr. Finch, plus the mayor who owes his seat to Mr. Finch via the recall that Mr. Finch spent over $100,000 orchestrating, are voting to award Mr. Finch $1.25 million and a 10-year no-bid contract on any infrastructure project under $300,000, which, by the way, is the maximum allowed by state statutes 255.20. All the while, Mr. Finch says it's never been about the money. This based in part on the deposition given by Chris Forehand and Panhandle Engineering stating that Vicki Gaynor had participated in bid rigging, an accusation that never resulted in any criminal charges being placed against her. Amazingly, Mr. Finch dropped Mr. Forehand and Panhandle Engineering from the lawsuit. And even more amazing, all the engineering projects that are awarded to Mr. Finch, Phoenix Construction, under this settlement will be done by Mr. Forehand and Panhandle Engineering. Now, I realize it's a foregone conclusion basically, but there's an attached price schedule to this. It wasn't put out for bids and never will be put out for bids. So I went online and looked at some figures. On that sheet, and I'm going to give you Phoenix's numbers first, and the state average unit cost for that per DOT for 25-26. So for optional base group 4, Phoenix was $24 a square yard. The average was $28 per square yard, so it's better for us there. The rest of them are all in Phoenix's favor. Optional base group 6, Phoenix $33, state $24. Milling asphalt, $6.50 a square yard versus $3.88 a square yard. Miscellaneous asphalt pavement, $400 per metric ton versus $2.94 per metric ton. So you get the idea. On every line item that's on that unit pricing, bench is probably at least one and a half to two times more expensive than what DOT has paid historically in the last year for the same items. So I think that personally, give him the money, whatever, but don't commit us to a 10-year contract. Just shake hands and go away. Or not go away, but get back to normal bidding of the process instead of just giving him everything that goes under $300,000. Or, better yet, just don't do any more projects for infrastructure that are under $300,000. That's it. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Bernie Thompson, come on up. Good evening. Good evening.

Bernie Thompson, The Bernie Thompson Show. I didn't plan on commenting on this at all.

Bless you.

But that's got to go answered. Those comments have to go answered. I was in the courtroom when they persecuted James Finch, and two juries said he didn't do it. I didn't know James Finch. I thought he was a mobster. And I went in the courtroom ready for them to throw this guy in prison, and I looked through all of the documents. You know the story. He didn't do any of that. As a matter of fact, Mr. Jackson, you'll remember when he fixed the 17th Street ditch, the biggest danger in Lynn Haven. And you guys couldn't afford to fix the ditch. And guess what he did? He said, I'll do it. You guys said, we don't have the money to fix the ditch. You remember that, Mr. Jackson? But you never said anything. And you know what he said? He said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll finance it myself. And guess what? Two and a half percent interest when the going rate was like six. And then he said, you know what? I'll actually do it for less than I thought I could do it. And that left a little money left over. And you know what you guys did? Vicki Gaynor did. And the other commission back then, they said, you know, the money that you offered Mr. Finch, they left over money, can we borrow that too since it's cheap money? You guys called it cheap money. It was cheap money. And then somebody came up here and said, you know, Mr. Finch, how do we know he's not going to get change orders and it's going to be way more expensive? Remember this Mr. Jackson? And he came up and what did he say? Don't pay me until the job is done. And he did it for less than he said he would do it. And he did it in less than a year. And they tried to prosecute him. Well, Bernie, you know, with all that interest, he's going to become rich. Finch is rich. What's going on around here, Mr. Jackson? But you never said anything. And you were the attorney. Shame on you. How do we let our citizens go through this? I'm telling you, if Jesse Nelson had been charged like that, I knew Jesse didn't like him, but I would say the same thing for him. There's not enough people in this town to stand up when people are wrongly prosecuted. And for you guys, what was it, $250,000? That's all you have to give him? Is that what you guys said? What is the number? Can I please find out?

What is it?

A quarter of a million. I just... One and a quarter million. Man, that's cheap. A man's life, they tried to throw him in prison forever. My God. And you know what else we found out in the hearing, in the trial? Five nothing. He was always voted unanimously. Nobody cast the vote, the deciding vote. Unbelievable. You guys got off really lucky on that.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Finch, come on up.

Good evening. I'm a little late. I figured I could make a few minutes for that and get started. But when the half-cent sales tax come up, I was the one that brought it up because they was going to raise the property tax on everybody in this county. And I said, hey, let's get together and do a referendum and get the money for half-cent sales tax where there won't be any property tax. I raised $90,000. I went to the Chamber of Commerce, paid them, give them the money to go to the cities, tell them what we'd do with it, how we'd fix it, be no property tax raise. And that's what happened. It passed. We got it passed for 10 years. We got another 10 years. Six months ago, I had to do it a year early. We got it passed again for no property tax. But what does government do? They take that and raise the property tax anyway, mainly. But that's what I did for that. And then as far as, you know, Doing the work, did the work. I did have the 17th Street ditch. I did that, and I donated more money than anybody has to this city. I've given over $2.5 million to the mentally challenged school over here. And I'm proud of that. And the reason I give it to them, they can't ask for nothing, and they deserve it all. And so I would hate to be 75 years old and have a 50-year-old kid, and I was fixing to leave the earth, and nobody could take care of them. They take care of them. So they're one of my favorites. The city's been one of my favorites. So I come here tonight to settle that lawsuit. When I sued the city of Lynn Haven, the only way I could get the truth was get them up here and do this.

They're all gone. The lawyer, the police chief, they're all gone.

The corruption was inside the city hall. I told them not to build this damn place right here. What did they do? They come wearing a wire on me, trying to trick me into that. And I said, y'all cannot build this for that. And they did. and I'm several million dollars over. You know, I only got 54 seconds left, but this city's been running like BS for the last few years. We got him out of here. He run. Nobody wanted him. He ain't done nothing. He's up here every week trying to fix something. You know what he's fixed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And this city needs some fixing. Y'all going to write me a check, I think, for $620,000. I'm going to take my lawyer... lawyer fees out of it and give every damn bit of it back to you. I hope he'll match it.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Any other public commentary on this tonight? Or questions? Hearing none, city manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Perno? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. 5-0 vote. Thank you for that. Before we go on, Mr. Finch, just to clarify, Mr. Thompson, you asked a question. The $1.25 million is split between the City of Lynnhaven and our municipal insurance. They are paying half and we're paying half. Had we... Gone forward in a court action, Mr. Finch would have been liable for probably three times that amount. And he settled with the city, his city, of his whole life. Mr. Finch, I was not here, obviously, nor was any member of this commission actively involved in any of the wrongdoing that was done against you by your name or by your business. I am truly, as mayor, I am truly sorry that happened. i'm glad we're able to move forward with this and make this right i appreciate you being willing to take your lawyer fees aside and turn around and donate the money back to the good of the city and the needs that need to be that need to happen we're going into a very tight budget error and we could certainly use every bit of the help we can get so thank you sir for your grace and for working with us to try to right this wrong. Yes, sir. Come on back up.

Judy's been up here the longest. You know, I talked to Judy. I said, Judy, I'm going to take the $620,000 that the citizens liable for. I've spent over $5 million. I was the one who reported the corruption. I told Margo, I said, Margo, here's what's happening. you've got one choice she says i know what choice i got i'm going to the sheriff and that's what she did had some of the people who were supposed to be friends of mine in the deal you know he got the lawyer he got the city manager he got all those people the corruption was in right here so anyway i said i'm going to donate this i'm going to take my lawyer fees out of it i'm going to take the out of the money that these citizens owe and I'm going to give the money back. What I want to do is to come out here, get with Judy. I want to see the money spent on the parks and the stuff like that. I really don't want to give it to the government because it'll just disappear. But I'm going to give every bit of it with Judy, and we're going to put it out, put it in the schools, the parks, or whatever. But I'm going to donate the money. I don't want the citizens' money. Never did. I never wanted to sue the city of Lynnhaven. I had to to get them under oath. And when I got them under oath, they're all gone. So that's the reason I did that. And like I say, my family's been here over 100 years. I've been here 76, and I fought this for six years. World War II lasted four. And I've been fighting this, and I come up here to settle it tonight, you know, and do that. So y'all do what you want to do. That's what I'm going to do.

Thank you, sir. With that, we'll move on to discussion item number 10, discussion of Lynn Haven Raiders Field Rentals. City Manager.

Yes, sir. The Lynn Haven Raiders have been paying $1,200 to utilize our facilities at Kinsol Park for the last several years. With recent discussions of field rentals and facility rentals throughout the city and budget discussions, we thought it was best to bring to you all to ask for some direction since you all approved the fee schedule. If we were to charge the fee schedule, as you all have approved it, it's $75 per hour with an estimate of $11,400 for the year. So we are asking direction from the commission tonight on how to move forward with the Lynn Haven Raiders and their facility rental for their football season. We've listed a couple of alternatives in the car, keeping it the $1,200 rate that it has been. charging the standard $75 per hour fee, which would be approximately $11,400 or coming up with some type of discount, whether it was a 25% off for the year for an $8,500 fee. Just kind of want some discussion tonight from what you all want and we would bring back a resolution to make that official.

So just to be clear, this is not a city-ran team, right? It's a non-profit team that is located in Lynn Haven, but it's not part of our programs, right?

That is correct. It is not a league that Justin and his team put on.

Right. So it's essentially like the equivalent of maybe like a travel baseball team. Yes, sir. Or travel softball. I'll start by saying I absolutely don't think they should be paying the $11,400. That's kind of absurd. because it's guaranteed that we'd get money in. I've always been under the, I like the analogy, bird in hand is better than two in the bush. We got customers that keep coming back. I do know that it does get expensive to maintain grass and use electricity though, so really the data I need to make any type of decision is to know how much we pay from the taxpayer to maintain those fields.

That's a good data point for me. So we spend approximately just under $3,000 a year on the turf restoration at Kensal. That does not include any man hours. That is just the supplies needed and equipment needed to take care of the field there at Kensal after they're done for the season. We do have increased restroom and maintenance supplies. There is no way of tracking exactly how much it increases at the restrooms there. And then our power bill does increase a little bit throughout their use, not significantly, but I would say $1,000 or $2,000 for the year in the increase in power there.

Mr. Justin Ward, I thought I saw you here tonight. Are you here? Would you come on up, sir? You're our sports and rec department head. What can you tell us in terms of this team? I know they're not a city-sanctioned team, but you work with them. How many kids are we talking? How many teams? How much kind of usage on our fields hour-wise are we talking?

I'm not sure on the amount of kids in the program, but I know they utilize the fields after the 4th of July. until about November or about the second week in November.

Okay. Do you have a coach here by chance tonight we could have come up?

Mike is here. Mike is here.

Coach, if one of y'all, one of you coaches, whoever your head coach will speak for y'all, come on up, sir. Good evening, coach. Please state your name.

Hi, I'm Devin Hayes, a coach and board member with the Lynn Haven Raiders organization. Thank you, sir, for speaking. I appreciate you guys for having us.

Can you tell us a little bit about how many kids you got?

Yeah, so we range from about 150 to 200 kids. Okay. And that's, of course, depending on sign-up and, of course, there. We've been in this organization for 60 years. Right here in Lynn Haven, of course, it started. with our school systems. And after that, the school systems kind of pushed football away. Wanted to keep that going. Football is more than just a sport. Even in our organization, it's more than just a sport. Because not only do we owe football, but it's cheer. We understand where you guys are coming from, because of course you have to keep these. And we appreciate you giving us the opportunity, of course, to play on those fields, to practice on those fields, and giving us a place to call home. But we're a nonprofit organization. Everything that comes in is from either us fundraising, us, of course, going out, doing these car washes, or asking businesses where they participate. This is about the kids at the end of the day. This is our future. We always talk about investing in our future, but raising that price does not help our kids whatsoever. We already have a limited amount of kids that are able to do it because times aren't easy right now for no one. And for us to be able to continue to give kids discipline, showing them teamwork, showing them accountability, leadership, respect for the others. That all comes with a game of football or cheer. Creating a environment where these kids can grow. It's hard to see that our city is putting that burden up towards us to have to pay upwards of $11,000 a year, especially when we only use the field for four months out the year. That's steep. And of course, we already charge upwards of $250 just for the football side. The cheer side is a little different as well. But up to $250 for a kid to be able to register. And honestly, that isn't enough. We're just skating by just what we have.

Coach, can you clarify what's your normal season, 4th of July?

So we start summer conditioning June. 4th of July, of course, is when we move to. So we have to pay for other facilities because, of course, that is the plan that you guys have given us, that we can't occupy the field until after the 4th. Okay. So we're spending money elsewhere to get kids in shape and conditioned. And then having to come over after the 4th of July, because we understand you have your 4th of July activities that will go down at Kensal Field as well.

So 4th of July, Coach, you guys get started and you wrap up when? November time frame?

November time frame. And honestly, I know we talked about light usage. We've been there since 4th of July and not a light has been turned on. Because we're done by 8 or so every night. So, of course, the sun is just now setting at that point. Right.

So you've got 200 kids, give or take. How many teams, individual teams, do y'all have?

This year will be a five-team organization. That's ranging from six up to 14, 14-year-olds. Now, the 14 is a newer age group to our league, but, of course, with us constantly trying to grow and grow the game, we want to make sure, of course, we have that availability for all kids of all ages. Yes, sir.

Commissioners, y'all got any questions for the coach?

Well, I feel very strongly about the fact that football is one of the greatest things that you can get a child involved in. And I can honestly tell you, I have a family member who was a cheerleader for Lynn Haven 40 years ago.

Her dad. Yes.

And this organization runs deep in a lot of people's family history.

It does. I've had people that has came to me and said, oh, when I was a young girl. Yes. Even then, our past city manager was part of the Lynn Haven Raiders organization. Uh-huh.

And they get so much more out of it than just playing games.

The friendships that will last probably their whole entire lives. Like I said, it's more than just a game to us. And to those kids, of course. Because I can speak for myself, but I also know that the coaches behind me feel the same way. Each one of those kids touch us in a different way. You may think that we're putting the imprint on them, but they're putting more of an imprint on us.

You know, Mayor, maybe we can chain a riding lawn mower up there at Kinsaw Park.

Listen, we have 200 kids. I guarantee you we can help you with maintenance.

Yes. You could mow a little grass and call it even. Yeah.

So, Coach, I just wanted to make sure I understood the situation. Can you speak to how long, because right now you guys do pay a minimal amount, right? To help with field maintenance and cost and all that. Do you have any idea how long y'all have been paying that? Our city manager, can you answer, chime in here? Can y'all speak to how long they've been paying their current set amount?

I cannot answer that. I'm sure our vice president and president is here today. If they want to shed a little light on that itself. If you, come on up coach.

I think it's important before the city commission does anything is to understand what the basic facts are and hear from y'all.

My name's Mike Russ. I'm the president of the Lynn Haven Raiders. We've been using Kinsaw since Hurricane Michael. Obviously, before Hurricane Michael, we were at the recreational facility sports complex that you guys have. So we basically have been renting Kinsaw since Hurricane Michael. When we first, I took over the program roughly about six years ago. When I first took over the program, we were paying roughly about $700 to rent the field. And like I said, we understand that maintenance goes up. We also understand we have one of the most beautiful practice fields in the county. We get kids just because of that. So we do understand that it's nice and we know it costs money. So every year it's been going up and we don't really complain. I deal with Justin a lot. And I really, I just pay the money so that we have somewhere to play and my kids have a home. That, when I seen that number, that terrified me because that'll shut my program down. We run on about a $45,000 to $50,000 a year budget on what it costs to make kids be able to play football. We already pay $275 an hour to the Bay County School Board to use their field because we're not allowed to play games even in the city of Lynn Haven. We would love to get games back into our city, but we're not able to do that. So every Saturday we drive up to Bozeman and I pay Bay District Schools $275 an hour Roughly, Game Day cost us about $3,000, which is, it's crazy that it costs that much. And people, I've seen some comments today online about people saying, well, just charge your kids more. Well, we have roughly 150 to 200 kids All those kids don't pay. We have moms who have four and five boys. Are you going to ask them to pay $250 per kid? That's like a $2,000 football bill. So, of course, we sponsor kids. So on top of that, we're sponsoring probably 25 to 30 kids every year so they're able to play football. So in reality, our budget is low, and we're behind the ball from the get-go. So that's one of the main reasons we're here today is because if something like that passes, our program won't be able to do it. Will we shut down? No, I refuse for that to happen. We'll move. But I want to stay in Lynn Haven. This is our home. This is our program's home. It's important to us. It means something to us. But that's the main reason you see people and you stand out here is because we can't handle that. That's a lot of money.

Yes, sir. So, no, before you go, I appreciate both y'all stay here for a minute because I'm considering y'all my subject matter experts. I think it's important for us to understand you guys and your program before we make any decisions, right? So your season's already underway. And what did you and how long or how much money have you paid for this season, for the four months and for this year? Because I don't have that. I don't have visibility.

So the way we pretty much operate is we love to pay everything up front so we don't owe nobody no money. We've already dropped off a $1,200 check to pay for this season. We've always, I normally start reaching out to Justin at the beginning of summer to make sure that, hey, everything's in order. We're good to go. How much money do you need? Most of the time that's the question I ask. How much do you need? Because at this point, that's our home. So we just pay it. But normally we pay it all up front just so that, because we understand that is a great price for us to be able to get there. So there's no reason that we shouldn't be able to pay it. So we pay it all up front most of the time.

Mayor, they brought their check probably two weeks ago. Justin brought it in and that's when this conversation started because we have had the conversation the past few meetings of facility rentals and the budget.

So copy that and thank you city manager for that and thank you sir for clarifying that. So up until two weeks ago or a week and a half ago when this popped up, you fully assumed you were paid in full for this season, you're good to go. So yeah, I can appreciate it. Feels kind of like Lucy in the football with Charlie Brown, right? No pun intended. We also need to recognize that y'all have been here 60 years, and this is a grandfathered legacy kind of program, right? Can you tell me offhand how many years y'all have been paying the city of Lynn Haven $1,200 for the field rental for the four-month period from July to November? You know offhand how long y'all have been doing that?

The number?

Yes, sir.

At least, I would say three years.

Three years?

Yes, the last three years it's been about $1,200. Okay. Okay.

Commissioners, do you all have any questions for the writers, coaches?

Well, I mean, I will say if they've already paid for this year, they've already paid for this year.

So we have not deposited the check? Yeah. But Mr. Jackson, correct me if I'm wrong, but if the fee schedule is set by the commission, the commission is the only one that can change the fees?

That's correct, yes.

I guess my point, though, is we're working on next year's budget. This is this year's budget. So if we do make a change, we should not raise the price for this season. We should start. If there is a change, it should be starting next season is my point.

I agree with that.

And just a quick comment there. This is the Lynn Haven Raiders. Most of our kids are from Lynn Haven. Most of our families live in Lynn Haven, pay Lynn Haven taxes. We already pay for this field.

Yeah.

And the addition on the parents not only to pay their property taxes like they're supposed to, but also pay for everyday living expenses, try to make sure that kid is doing something other than I guess in my head in the broad scope is

they could be doing a lot worse than playing football. Yeah, for sure. So my homework for you coaches and Justin, who's my sports subject matter expert, I need you all to figure out and keep due diligence as you move forward. Keep records for this season, right, on what the actual expenses are. You all have been with us for 60 years. Y'all are a legacy program. To your point, I would assume, I would be really interested to know how many of the Lynn Haven Raiders are actually Lynn Haven kids. 80, 90%, that's wonderful. That's a success story. We need to highlight that. But also, I want to know what our costs are. We shouldn't be making a ton of money on y'all, but we shouldn't be losing a ton of money on y'all either, right? So whatever the honorable field maintenance is, the cost of grass, the electricity, whatever, toilet paper in the bathrooms, whatever, Let's figure out what the fair amount is for next season. To Commissioner Peoples' point, you've already paid your contract up front for this season. Anything we do for it, and we should be keeping good records so that we both know honestly and honorably what you're costing so that we can break even or maybe make a little bit, right, to cover his team's costs for man hours and that kind of stuff to support you all. But we shouldn't be losing our shirt, and y'all shouldn't be losing your program trying to make this inherent goodness happen. And I think that's how we do a win-win here. That's what community sports, that's what community ship's all about, right? Getting these young men and women together, teaching them the values. I know you live and breathe this all the time, Sam. This is your total wheelhouse. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

any other commissioner got a question comments um i mean i think no doubt there's going to have to be some adjustments done in the future um it would be totally unfair for us to all of a sudden go 11 000 and ruin your program for this year that's not our goal obviously we would not want to do i i would not want to do that um do you guys have like a website or something where people can donate money to this maybe we can help promote it help you guys get some more money or anything like that

We would love to have some type of partnership with the city. We've been looking for that. I guess a big thing too, if we're going to be the Linden Haven Raiders, We need all of the community. Community means a lot to us. And why not do it with the people who run our community at that point? So we don't have a necessary website. We do have a Facebook that, of course, we post most of our stuff on. The website is more so for registration purposes more than anything. but of course we would love to find some common ground and a partnership with the city that way of course not only can you guys be involved uh with creating a better future for these kids but also be a part of that community that we call football and cheer

so if after this meetings or something if you don't mind contacting me I actually know of a website that works really good and it's totally free if because I know like a lot of website they you get donations and then they take a chunk of it this one doesn't do that however there's a little bit of caveat to it that I can kind of explain to you and help you out with that I think it's a great website for trying to do things like that but yeah so i i'd like to make a motion for the to stay the 1200 for just this season and then we coordinate with them for next season um to kind of come up with a um a resolution as far as uh the rates ongoing from here i'll second that so we have a motion in a second and i agree with that i mean we have to recognize y'all have been here part of this community for 60 years

That's nothing to sneeze at. And I appreciate y'all continuing, because you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart. And you're probably paying for some of those kids. Those scholarships that you talked about, I'd be willing to bet you're probably paying a third of those out of your own pocket.

We do.

Most of our board members. If they're in our program and they're volunteering, more likely they're paying for a kid, or they found somebody else that would pay for them. That's just what we do.

I'll sponsor a couple kids.

So, Justin, going forward, sir, I'm not tasking. I'm asking you work with them and the city manager, obviously city manager. Y'all figure out, y'all do a cost data. I mean, y'all figure out what it's actually costing. Let's look back at this. If there is a organization, a community sports organization, we're going to grandfather into anything. It needs to be this organization. But we need to know what those legit this season costs are so that we can come back and make an informed decision before next season so you're not caught off guard two weeks after the season started. And we do right by y'all, and we do right by the city, and we do the very best we can with what we got.

I do think that we need, if there's an adjustment to the fee schedule, we need to figure that out during this budget season, not wait until next season to make that decision. They've paid for this season, but we need to make that adjustment if we decide to do an adjustment within the next few months.

And, City Attorney, if we were going to make an exemption, like some kind of grandfathering exemption to this 60-plus year organization, we would need to spell that out in the normal fee schedule, correct?

yes mayor yeah it would when you look at it i mean you could put whatever criteria you want for the fees i mean generally you need you want them to be uniformly enforced but you could put an exception in there so mr jackson would it also be better if we bring a resolution next meeting to put this uh 1200 fee for the year as a resolution to accept that payment Is that the current fee schedule is not $1,200? There's no contract for this, is there?

That's correct.

Yeah.

And so if a resolution wouldn't be necessary, if you want to just go by a motion, but we could moralize it with a resolution. Perfect.

I do think this is a good time to talk about I think with the rise of travel and specialized privatized teams we need to get more on board with doing this making contracts with individual teams and put it on the fee schedule because I mean we don't want teams to be blindsided with but we also need to be able to budget for field maintenance. Because we do have an increase, the more travel ball teams that use our fields, the more field maintenance we're gonna have. But if we're able to get that budget, that money in our budget ahead of time, we'll be able to budget that maintenance as it happens.

So like I stated earlier, we've got about $3,000 in documented expenses for Kinsaw. So the $1,200, of course, won't pay for the $3,000 fees. That doesn't even cover the man hours. But we can track it through a work order.

Let's do our due diligence. Like I said, let's figure out what y'all are actually costing the city. And if y'all are willing to meet us on that actual cost. And if we have to figure out sponsorships or whatever we got to do to thread that needle, I think that's honorable intent for everybody. And as long as it can be a break-even proposition for us and y'all, and y'all have a field and we have a legacy that continues, I think that's a win-win for everybody.

Yeah, the goal is never to make money on sports. I don't know if you guys know this, but our sports program is $1.1 million in the hole. So sports is not a for-profit thing. We just got to make sure that it's fair for everyone involved because, you know, you make a good point. Most of the parents are taxpayers and it's your legacy program, so obviously we want to work with you. But we also can't lose a ton of money. You know what I'm saying? I apologize for anyone that thought the intent was for us to start charging $11,000. I can't speak for everyone up here. Don't think that that was the intent. It was more of a data point of showing like, hey, here's what our fee schedule says. If we did it by hour, this is how much it would cost, just to give us a data point. You'll see it if you ever follow a city in a budget season. You'll see these large numbers of things that seem like doom and gloom. What's really happening is we're gathering data because we have to make difficult decisions. So I apologize any stress that brought you guys and I appreciate you coming out here to explain your side of the story.

yeah so kind of hopefully you guys understand where how this all came down we we tasked the city manager with we want you to look at everything as far as cutting expenditures and and uh to help with our balance and our budget and everything and and that's what we tasked him when that's what he did so that's kind of how it all came up so i hope you don't take it as we're trying to target you guys or anything that's not how this all came down so i appreciate it and i appreciate everyone coming out and supporting this

Yeah, appreciate y'all. Y'all work with us, we'll work with y'all, and hopefully we get another 60-plus years of the Landhaven Raiders. Now, thank y'all. Y'all are welcome to sit down, unless you have anything else you'd like to say. One thing. We're not a travel ball team.

That's a huge word when you use that. Most municipalities don't have football, so we have no choice but to go play football. Now, granted, Callaway and some of these others have teams, but we are not labeled as a travel ball team.

Yes, sir. Thanks, Coach. All right. We do have a motion and a second, so we'll... We do have a motion and a second, but I want to open up the floor to anybody else that has any comments or questions or discussion on the raters. So Mr. Thompson, and then Mr. George Hines, and then Ms. Sandy Garman.

Thank you. I'm Bernie Thompson of the Bernie Thompson Show. I hope I agree with Mr. Hines today, because I'm tired of him always beating me up. You know, sometimes we overthink things. You know, we're talking about this organization was charged $700 a year for a long time, and then it bumped up to $1,100 or $1,200, and they didn't complain. And this year, they were told they might have to pay $11,000. There's a trend going on in cities. And it's squeezing all the juice out of good nonprofits. There's a story I'm not at liberty to tell you, but it's a tragedy. It's just awful.

And it's the same type of thing.

I live next to the Panama City Beach Sports Park, and I know they charge a lot more. And I know that Panama City charges a lot more than Lynn Haven. And Lynn Haven might need to sort of get in parity with everybody else and charge more. But here's what I recommend. Lead by example and charge less. If I got the math right, James Finch just donated like a million dollars to the city after you did that to him. And you guys are talking about not losing a ton of money, 700 a year? So if we cut it to 500 or if we, here's what I propose. Cut it to zero. Do you know how lucky you are to have two men like this? Here's what's been on my heart a lot lately. It's young men. It's teenage boys. A lot of them are doing great. They're working hard at school. Both parents are working. They don't have much money. It's stressful. And I think about when I was a kid, and Mayor Lowry, maybe you, and certainly Pat when we were kids, we could just run out the door, hop on the bike, go play basketball, go tackle other kids. That's important in the growth of a young man. This is not about resolutions or tasking somebody to do a study or coming back. My goodness, as much as the guy makes, and I'm sure he does great work, If it takes three, four hours figuring this out, you basically, I mean, come on. This is a lot easier than that. This is about a lot more than dollars and cents. This is about giving young men an opportunity to be young men. You know, if they've got fathers or coaches, great. But if they can't get out there and sweat and, you know, go at it, it really affects their soul. And I hope you'll think about this and think about the grace that you were given today. And let's stop talking about losing a ton of money on this. I mean, that's about as nice a speech as you'll ever hear from me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Good evening, Mr. Hines.

Good evening, gentlemen and lady. Bernie do a lot of talking a lot of time, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to talk better than Bernie. But I was a kid once and I played football in the streets. We didn't have a field. So I'm going to offer $1,000 a season to this team and tell me what I need to put on the check. And it will be from July to November every year as long as I live. So I don't know how long that's going to be. That's the best I can do for you.

Thank you, sir. Good evening, Ms. Garman.

I happen to be a grant writer, and most grants are given in the October time of the year. So I'll start looking to see if I can find a grant for this team. Thank you. There's a lot of them out there. I'll search and see what we can get.

Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate you. Thank you. Come on up, ma'am. Good evening.

I just had a few questions.

Grab your microphone.

My name is Becky Santoro, and I just had a few questions. This is my first meeting. The gentleman said that they can't play in Lynnhaven and that they have to go to Bay County, and they pay $3,000. Why can't they play in Lynnhaven? You know, why are you giving up $3,000? Why can't they play here?

That's a good question. Because we're doing field recovery for the 4th of July. So we have to oversee top dress because there's going to be a lot of cleats on the field. So we want to prepare the fields before they get there.

So, Justin, how long of a period are we talking about? No play on the field, like a month or two weeks?

Probably three months, three or four months. Oh, wow. Yep, starting February.

Basically early spring. Correct. Spring break kind of to early summer. Yes, sir. Okay.

Are you saying, are you asking why do they play at Bozeman and not the city of Lynn Haven?

One of you coaches want to come back up? I can't answer this.

Again, the Lynn Haven Raiders are not a...

they July so right now as if we start practice in July and we start games August 15th and we play games for nine to eight weeks all the way into November we have a bye week that we normally take off with those is five home games so add three thousand times five and that's what we pay and just alone out of that three thousand dollars It's roughly to almost $2,500 just for the grass that we play on, that we pay Bay District Schools. We've been trying to get back into Lynn Haven. Last year I tried to work, the last three years I've been working out deals with North Bay Haven because they are in Lynn Haven. So I was like, as Justin mentioned, field space is not the best because unfortunately um this this might be another conversation for another day but we've been waiting eight years for a football field at land haven sports complex i watched a million million dollar baseball field get built and we're kind of left in the dust and we only have that option would i play games at kansas if it was made for if i was allowed to yes probably i would because my community want like we want to be in lynn haven um And do we always play at a field where there's goalposts? No. We make it work. But that's something that you guys have to decide about. We have talked before about maybe even partnershipping with you guys. That's a good way for y'all to maybe earn a little money, if it doesn't cost as much money for us to play football on Saturdays. That's one reason why our budgets are so high. It's not because of football pads or things. It's really because of where we play. It costs so much money. So we've been trying to get back in Lynn Haven for a while, and the school board only keeps going up, so we just have to give them more money and more money.

Three months.

But we practice during the time. Yeah, we saw our game start in August, and they run until, say, November. We play on it five times throughout that whole time. If they're aerating it, then how are we practicing on it?

So what, I can't answer that. What I have asked, and it sounds like you and the other coach and Justin are in agreement here in the city manager, y'all huddle and figure out what we can do better together. And I really would like to look at a, no kidding, Lynn Haven partnership between the Lynn Haven Raiders, recognizing y'all have been doing this for more than half a century with us. Let's figure out a way to partner, because right now y'all are not officially part of our sports program. We gotta figure out a way to basically fully embrace y'all. Y'all carry our name, you have carried our name, and you've taught our kids, so why aren't we? I don't know why we've never done this before, But let's figure out a way to make this a success story.

So prior to the hurricane, the Raiders always paid at Buddy McLemore or Pete Edwards on the beach, right? Our facilities do not have a security entry where they can charge for people to get into the games. So at Kinsaw, it wouldn't be a perfect setup for them to run games. It's not large enough, we don't have the parking, none of that. So they've always went other places. And also on top of that, I wanna say whatever we do today, we need to make sure that we're very smart about what we do because it's gonna put a lot of pressure on our office when other organizations come and ask for the same thing.

Yeah, I understand. And if we're gonna make a grandfathered exemption, it better be with the one that we've been working with for the last 50 plus years, right? But right now we don't even have a good estimate of how much it's costing. We just know that they've had this flat fee that they've paid, right, historically.

So we have a good estimate of what it's costing. It's costing at minimum around $3,000 per year. Okay. But we do have other organizations that rent our facility, and after today we will be facing those other organizations come in as well that you all will have to make an exemption for from the fee schedule.

So let's look at how we can do this transparently and honorably. Let's figure out, I feel like we can't even, they've already paid their check, even if we haven't deposited it, right? We need to honor this year. What next year looks like and going forward is a big question mark. We want a partner. I'm going to leave that to you and the city manager, Justin, to figure out how we make how we can make this work and what's the best way forward i don't know the answer to that you've got the biggest heart i know for kids in sports and you got three kids of your own in it so i know you got skin in the game a lot of it y'all figure out what we can do how we can do it and then let's come back and have a real serious public conversation about this and figure out where we as a commission can support and what the right answer is moving forward The fields have already been conditioned this year, so that ship has sailed, and we go forward. They're already playing their team now, right? You kick off in a couple of weeks for your normal full season. Thank you, ma'am. Sir, are you coming up to speak? Come on up. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome. What's your name, sir?

Bryce Gillings.

Good evening, Bryce. What you got for us?

All right. So I played – so this was a very touching subject because I was a little kid playing for Cali Rebels. So y'all are doing $11,000 proposed, right? So 11-4, is that something I saw for it? No. Well, initially on the – I saw online it said 11-4.

That's if the entire fee schedule was used fully, right?

That is correct.

Okay.

So the city of Panama City charges about $25 an hour for 150 hours, roughly 20 football seasons or whatever. They generate about $3,200 a year. What y'all were talking is about $3,000, you said, for field use, lights and all that, possibly. So I don't know why y'all can't charge $25 an hour. That is outrageous from $75 to $25. That is a massive drop. And plus, that is brotherhood, sistership, all that comes along. It also helps kids stay off the streets, do whatever else they want to do. Right. So... I don't know why y'all can't drop it, or at least I don't want to up it for them because it's very cheap. But, I mean, $25 an hour is very reasonable compared to $75 an hour y'all have proposed.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Gray, come on up. Like your shirt.

Brian Gray, 113 Florida Avenue. I've been in Linn-Avon since 1965. I even have a shirt. And the Linn-Avon Ravers have been a good organization. Both my boys have played. And I'd like to partner with Mr. Hines and make it at no cost to the organization. Whatever number we come up with, I'll split the difference with it. We'll make it happen.

Thank you, Mr. Gray. Ms. Day? Yes. Sir, and then would you like to come here or would you like for me to bring you a microphone? Go ahead, sir. Good evening.

Good evening. My only concern, I guess, is Mr. Lightfoot over here. Large crowd, the rest of our crowd is actually practicing right now. And we really care about our children. We really care about, we really care about, I'm a little fella. We really care about youth sports. I have four children currently in this organization. He can't make eye contact. He can't look at anybody. Every time somebody says something, he has a smirk on his face as if we're just poor people that just want to play our little game on a field. And it's pretty offensive. It's pretty offensive. You guys have been more than helpful, friendly. We want to negotiate. We understand that maybe we're not paying enough and that might be okay, but this was kind of slipped in to the agenda. not talked about, wasn't advertised. This is a decent organization. We're a very good organization, 60 year organization. So to just kind of slip it in the agenda with a massive $11,400 number, of course we're gonna be emotional. Of course we're gonna have feelings about it. And for you to just dismiss everybody that's come up here with you roll your eyes, you smirk, you look down at your phone and you don't listen to anybody. And that's what I've noticed this entire time. And now you're making eye contact. And that's okay. But these two coaches up here, the president and the coach first, you didn't look at them. You looked at your phone. You were looking at papers. They made a good point. You would smirk and turn around. That's just pretty offensive. We're up here genuinely trying to show concern for an organization that has 150 to 200 children. Lynn Haven, your city. And you're smirking at us. You're laughing at us. You're ignoring us. They've all come up here and been cordial and nice, but I've watched you the entire time. And I just can't help but to come up here and call it out. They've all, well, this group here has been very friendly, more than willing to listen and look and pay attention. And you just sit over there and smirk and laugh. And that's just very offensive. So I just kind of hope that maybe y'all understand where we're coming from, where this was just kind of slid into the agenda, where they were gonna up our rate to 11,400 a year. That's a wild number. And of course, you guys didn't know the numbers. You still don't know the numbers. But I hope that we could also get the numbers that you pay for lighting, for maintenance, so that if we do make a deal, it's kind of even playing field. We do know how much man hours are to cut grass. Two guys to cut that field? It's not a whole crew. Maybe one guy can cut that field in maybe three hours. I have a three-acre piece of property. I can cut it. Two hours by myself, and we did it. So man hours is ridiculous. That's not a huge cost. Multiple people use this field. So thank you.

Thank you, sir. Mayor, have the feast. the fee schedule pulled up with all of our our field rentals we've got the power bills in front of me and the expenses of what i was trying to work up to give the commission the educated information they needed to make a decision tonight which is where i came up with it just under three thousand dollars and then the different scenarios through of our fee schedule um it's on my computer here if you'd like for me to read it out sure what i will ask of you is for the president of the organization um and justin make sure they both have that

We have our power bills. I don't mind sharing a copy with y'all. That's good faith. Here's our expenses. Here's your expenses. That's old-fashioned men and women being honorable people and working together, right? That's what we're trying to do here. So I'll commit to you that. And if you can't get that, you need to let me know. But we will share. I mean, the city's bills are your bills too, so there's a public access to that anyway. But We'll work with you all and we'll share and we'll make this right as best we can for both organizations. Yes, sir. All right, we got anybody else tonight that wants to speak on this?

Yes, I do.

Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Day.

That's okay.

And then, ma'am, then we'll get you next, okay? Ms. Day, good evening.

I guess I go way back to the early 80s and the late 70s. The sports means a lot to the young people whether or not you have any in sports. I was a coach, might not look at it right now, but anyway back in those years the Lynn Haven had girls softball leagues. And let me tell you, it makes you feel so good when you go. And there's a lot of girls that I coach who are always number one, too. So that worked out good. We did not have to go. We would go out and get sponsors. City didn't have to pay. So that worked, too. So we always, since we were number one, we always had the same sponsor, Don Harlan. I have to give him the credit. So anyway, these girls, when you're going down the street or wherever you're at, and one of them comes up to you and they always call me Mama Day. Let me tell you, I spent a lot of hours in Lynn Haven at the Kennesaw Ballpark. You know what? I paid a lot of money, too. But that's okay. Mr. Harlan paid a lot of money. So therefore, what we've done, we just had something going all summer months. As the girls got out of high school, we put them on our team. And it was a good way to go. But to stand up here and charge these kids people this kind of money. You know, Chris, you don't mind passing something over a resolution a while ago that you passed that took a lot of money. So what happened? You know, these are things that's been on the agenda for years ago. So these are things that you've got to pay attention to. You know, are you passing money that you're not really taking your young people in consideration? Think about it. You pass a lot of resolutions that you don't ask anything about it. And it's a lot of money. So tonight she passed one under the consent agenda. So these are things that the people need to be aware of that the reason you're talking about, what, $12,000, I think it is, Chris? $12,000? Right. Okay, so they need help. They're going to need help, and I appreciate you trying to lend them a helping hand, but when you increased this a few weeks ago when I heard that, I thought to myself, I think Sam was the one that spoke up a little bit about it, but not any of you said too much about it. You just wanted to see how you could make more money. Just make more money. So I'm sorry to say that I feel honored to know that I was part of the Lynn Haven girls softball team. And I really appreciate every one of those girls. They're very much appreciated. They're here today. They have good jobs. So we have a lot to give a credit to. Lynn Haven.

Thank you, Ms. Day. Thank you. It's good to see you out tonight. Ma'am, come on up. Good evening.

Megan Brinson, how are you today?

Good evening, Ms. Megan.

I just wanted to share a different perspective. I'm a mom of four boys. I got to be on the Lynn Haven Raider board two years ago. My husband's a football coach for the Lynn Haven Raiders, and two of my boys play football for the Lynn Haven Raiders. We pay a lot of money to pay football, just in mouth guards, helmets, you know, oh they need a new pair of practice pants, oh they need water at the ballpark, they need to get into the ballpark. There's a lot of expenses that parents incur. But on the other side of that, I know, Mr. Lightfoot, you were just doing your job. I know it's your job to look at numbers, and I appreciate that. On the other side of that, these coaches and these presidents, the vice presidents, this is not their job. They all have jobs outside of this, and this is truly just 6 to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Saturdays on the weekends, too, we've got games. So they're just giving their time because it's for the kids. So I hope that you put that into your perspective because it's not about us. It is about these children in the community, my children in my community. A Lynn Haven resident, I get it. But I just wanted to say we do appreciate you for looking at numbers. I know you have a job to do. But I also appreciate the volunteers and the organization for giving my kids something to do that is productive.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. Anybody else would like to speak about the Lynn Haven Raiders tonight? Hearing done, we will call this, we'll call the motion, or excuse me, call the vote. The roll.

Mayor, just to clarify, is there a date certain that you want the data back by for a date, the data from the Raiders?

So I asked CJ to make a note for the second meeting in April that we bring this back for next season.

So my understanding is the coaches and Justin will be working together on both sides of that organizational fence, per se, to document each other's costs. And we'll come back together in the spring, well in advance of season kickoff, and we'll figure this out. All right. Thank you all coaches for working with us and for what you do. Sincerely. All right, so we got a motion and a second. Everybody's had their questions and been heard. City Manager, we're ready to call the roll.

Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Thank y'all for that. Thank you again, coaches, moms, dads. We'll pause and let y'all roll out. Yep. Go take care of them kids. Everybody, we're going to stand by about 15, 20 seconds and let them clear out.

all right we're down to new business number eleven discussion and possible approval to award rfp twenty five dot twenty six dash seventeen for attorney selection city manager yes sir uh... we talked about this last meeting as well but we had three firms submit we had one in-house applicant submit uh... the in-house applicant withdrew uh... his at right before the last meeting uh... and since then we've had uh... the vose law firm has withdrawn left us down to the Sabatini Firm and the Dunlap Shipment Firm. We did ask both of those firms to come tonight. I do believe we have representatives from the Shipment Firm here tonight. I'm not sure if anyone is here from the Sabatini Firm. I have not seen anyone there. But it's up to you all to ask questions, to discuss amongst yourselves, and if you all want to choose to pick a firm tonight or direct staff for another option. So, ma'am.

I guess we could ask questions, but to be honest, I would make a motion that we accept the Shipman firm. They're local. They're right here. And I see no point in going on and on and on about this attorney issue.

So what are we voting on? Because there's a difference in price now because there was an error that was put on the form. So I think that's the first part we have to figure out is are we voting on the $750 a month monthly retainer or $7,500 a month monthly retainer? Let me repeat. Originally, Shipman put in their bid package. It had $750 a monthly retainer, but they came back and said there was an error, and they missed a zero in it, and they said it's $7,500 a monthly retainer. So that's what I'm trying to figure out is which one are we voting on.

Well, before we vote on anything, let's have a... sunshine law friendly conversation among the five of us on what we're looking at. We had three participants, or three firms apply. Ms. Judy, can I ask you to pull back your motion for right now? Let's discuss first. Sure, I'll pull it back. Thank you, ma'am. So let's first have a full, frank discussion, all five of us. Whatever needs to be done. So we had three law firms, right? One has withdrawn, so we're down to two. We have Sabatini and Dunlap Shipment. Of those two, my understanding is there are two different prices given. There's a monthly retainer and then an hourly rate, and then there's an all-in flat rate for an entire year. It's basically an apple or an orange. We can pick either one. We don't pick both. If we go all in on the flat rate, it's X amount. If we do the a la carte almost, if you will, the Apple, you're paying a monthly retainer plus so much per hour for legal expenses.

Well, there's actually three things there then when you bring that up. So you have the flat rate, which I think was $275,000 a year.

For Dunlap Shipment, yes.

And then you have the initial bid. package had $750 a monthly retainer. And they came back and said, we left off a zero in there. And they said it was $7,500 monthly retainer. So I think the first thing we need to figure out is, is it considered a clerical error or not?

If we go down the option of the a la carte option, I'm going to use the apple and the orange here. If the orange is the all-in price, 275, versus the, if we're not even going to look at the apple, if we're going to go for the orange, then we don't need to price haggle over the apple, right? If we're going to do the apple, then yeah, we need to talk about the apple price.

Right. That's what we got to determine because when I did my evaluation, I based it on the $750 monthly retainer. Now, would mine change if it was $7,500? Yes, absolutely. That's why I think we need to decide, do we go with the $750 a month or $7,500 a month retainer? And then if we decide to stay with the $750 monthly retainer, then Shipman needs to make a decision whether they're okay with that or they're gonna withdraw their application. Because we've had this, this is not the first time this has happened where a vendor or contractor filled something out wrong and we've rejected those bids because of mistakes like this. And my fear is if we allow something like this, what's the future precedence gonna be? And when this has happened in the past, what are those vendors and contractors gonna be looking at saying, oh, it's okay with this, but not with this.

So again, I go back to, we have an apple and an orange. I am much more, and you're talking about what I'll call the a la carte, the apple, the monthly retainer and the hourly fee. I am far more interested in the flat rate, which is everything for the whole year, which is all paralegal costs, all legal costs, anything and everything. It's basically unlimited use of them for a year for a flat fee, which Considering what we've done what we've used in legal services not only the past year, but like the last three to five years It's been significant so Yeah, exactly so This seems like if we go with the orange not the Apple so bear with me here if we focus only on the flat rate We have a local lawyer form well regarded well established and Seems like a very good option to me. Flat rate, we save money, we're done. This seems like a pretty open and shut case to me. But Jamie, Pat, or excuse me, Sam, Pat, y'all give me y'all's thoughts.

Well, honestly, the main question for that flat rate is based on the services, I guess it'd be a question for them, but the services that they provide, would that also include what we're already paying our labor attorney? Because right now we're using the current council that we have, but we also have labor attorney fees on top of that. that we pay to other firms that specialize in labor will this 270 will they be covering the labor stuff as well ma'am come on up identify yourself good evening

Good evening to you all.

Thank you. My name is Courtney Sinagra. I'm an attorney with Dunlap and Shipman, and I just wanted to come up and answer this question. The flat fee of the $275,000 would include our... We do specialize in labor, so that would include labor issues. We do have attorneys that specialize in that. It would not include areas that we don't specialize in, which are very few, such as Social Security law under ERISA, but... It would include labor services.

Thank you.

Any other thoughts there?

I get where Commissioner Wark's coming from. I mean, because of the clerical error, but I get where you're coming from too. And we also have this weird situation where based on the data that's been given to us, it's almost like the decision's been made for us. I mean, this is a very unique situation. It's not a standard, you got three bids, you look at the best one and you go with it. I mean, it's a different situation to me.

Pat, you got any thoughts here, sir?

My original thoughts were I didn't want to bid anything, but I ended up bidding. And when I bid Shipman Dunlop, I put down in the bid it said they were transitioning to municipal government. So I put transitioning with a question mark, but then I put local, and price was substantiated because it looked like their price was going to be better than anybody else's. And then if we're talking about an over, you know, a flat rate fee versus a monthly retainer, well, the flat rate fee would make the monthly retainer moot, wouldn't it?

Yeah, apple versus orange. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm considering everything based on that. And I'd like an answer to the transitioning to municipal government and what's the manpower lineup and what's going on there.

Traditionally Dunlop and Shipman has focused on HOA law and different types of law but myself and Mr. Eric Krebs have experience in representing governments. My whole legal career has been representing a county entity and before going to law school I worked in government and then Mr. Krebs his experience is doing insurance defense so insurance companies paid him to defend municipal and other governmental entity clients and so Since we've joined Dunlap and Shipman, this area of government representation has become part of the firm. It's a practice area we're trying to grow, but we are local. We've been in the panhandle for over 20 years. We have four offices, 20 attorneys, and lots of experience. to offer to the city of Lynn Haven. And I do want to address the clerical error. A zero was unfortunately left off of our original proposal, but even with that updated rate, it's a great value to the city. You guys don't want an attorney that charges $750 per month. That's just not going to give you that high quality legal service that you deserve and that we intend to provide for you. Yes, sir. You have another question.

No, so you're the, on paper, you're the person from Utah, right?

Yes, sir.

Ms. Judy, you got any thoughts or questions for?

I feel like if I'm hearing what you're saying is correct, it's $7,500 a month.

Yes, ma'am.

Correct?

Correct. That's for attendance to two commission meetings and up to 20 hours of legal work. It does include some more specifics in the bid, and then anything over that would be our hourly rate of $300,000. That would be the apple. If you want to go with the orange, that is $275,000 for the year for all of our services.

And what did we pay last year?

I remember I did ask, I did email Kiki about this, and she did make it very clear that it varies heavily from year to year based on what we do. But I believe the math last year was well over 300,000. It was.

It was.

So this is, just looking at this past year, we're looking at a $25,000 annual savings in flat rate. And that's why this, and with the only local company in the mix of the three. This looks like a no-brainer to me. And I would like to ask the Commission for your grace, let's give the only local company offering the flat rate, save 25 grand. We can do a lot with 25 grand. Let's give them a chance.

So here's the issue I have. I don't know why we're glossing over this. We have initial bid of $750 a month. There was a change to happen. And the question is, is it considered a clerical error? And when I look at the definition of clerical error, it's not a clerical error. If we accept the bid of $7,500 a month, we can open the city to lawsuits.

Again, we're not even looking at the apple pricing. We're looking at the orange.

I'm going to make this simple, real simple. I make a motion that this is not a clerical error and we have to accept the bid of $750 a month and then Shipman has to make a determination whether they accept that or not. That's my motion.

Yes. This is a request for a proposal. This wasn't a bid. So there's a difference in the way those are calculated, how those are determined. Proposals can be changed. They can be adjusted. In fact, your proposal request mentioned that the city, for the benefit of the city, can look at irregularities or basically technical issues that come in the proposal and determine if it's good for the city. So in this case, yes, there was an unfortunate error of a zero being left off. But if you look at what that calculated, would be 37.50 an hour for legal services you cannot find anybody charging for legal services for 37.50 it was clearly a clerical error on the request for proposal it's unfortunate but we've owned up to it in this respect and we do believe that the 275 000 rate is probably the best one and just so i'm eric krebs i've represented the city of lynn haven in the past uh through um the fidget for governmental insurance trust through the warner firm which i was with six and a half years and i've um i live six blocks down the road on pennsylvania so i've been a resident of lynn haven for 14 years my wife grew up here she went to i went to bay she went to mosley we've been in this this community for over 50 years total and so you know we would love to be able to have a vested interest as we do in the city of lynn haven to be able to represent y'all with what we've been doing

Thank you.

But as far as the bid, it's a proposal, a request for proposal, not an actual bid.

So, City Attorney, am I off base here? I mean, I thought with a RFP, once you get the bid, that's what you have to accept. Yeah, there's allowed for clerical errors. Usually those are typos and things like that. But if it changes the math, then that's not considered a clerical error.

So I've tried to stay out of this, as you know. I know, and I hate to put you on the spot, but. Sure, and so there is a provision in our procurement manual for RFPs that says that the original proposals cannot be changed unless it's a clerical error or some other reason. So that may be what you're referring to. Yes. And it's not that I have anything. As we've talked, there's a lot of flexibility in RFP to accept what the proposal is. Right, you can negotiate afterwards. Yeah, that's what's in the procurement manual.

Right. So I just want to make sure we're doing everything. I got nothing against the shipment firm. I'm just saying we need to make sure we're doing everything fair and legal. That's why I'm looking at it this way.

We solicited bids. We had three bids. Actually four, one in-house, and he withdrew. So we had three bids. One pulled out. We have two we're considering. One's local, one's not. They both offered monthly retainer plus hourly rates. They also both offered overall one price fits all rate, right? So that's what we've looked at. The local company is $25,000 a year cheaper. It would actually be less than what we had last year. If we move forward with the orange price for the price for everything, the apple a la carte prices is moot. Now, if we go down and we accept the apple a la carte prices, I absolutely agree with you, Commissioner Ward. That is problematic. that their clear cut flat rate 275 a year is less than we're spending now.

I don't know why we're talking about the flat rate. I'm talking about the fair. That's what I'm pushing for. Okay, that's fine. I made a motion that I don't believe it's a clerical error that we need to accept the bid of $750 a month to make sure it's fair and legal. Okay. and and then if if it passes then shipping needs to make a determination of whether they're going to keep that that bid or not okay so that's my motion yes sir i have a motion do i have a second for commissioner wark's motion hearing no second the motion dies

Now, the other option is let's, what I'm proposing to the commission is let's give Dunlap and Shipman a chance. They're the local company. They're the best priced company. They have the expertise. Let's give them a chance. Can I get a motion for this?

I'll put my motion back on the floor.

Thank you. I have a motion from Commissioner Tandridge. Do I have a second? is the motion to accept the flat rate yes flat rate 275 a year for all of our legal services from dunlap shipment so it was between them and vose for me so i mean i'll second okay vose pulled out so so we're down to them and sabatini All right, so I have a motion and a second. I'm going to open the floor to any public commentary or questions, and I have Ms. Sandy Garman here. So, ma'am, the floor is yours.

I love Jamie Dodea, but I'm telling you, I've worked for attorneys, and my son's an attorney. $750 a month is absurd. I mean, would you work for $750 a month? I mean, really. We want the best attorneys to do the best job to keep us out of danger that we've been in before. So I'm just telling you, I think that they've got a good price for what they're going to be doing, the flat price. Like I said, I've worked for attorneys, and $750 a month, that's absurd. So, I mean, it was a clerical. I'm sure you've made mistakes before. I have. So you can't hold them to that. That's silly.

You can address if you'd like.

So this is not the first time it's happened. It's happened before. But it didn't just happen on one page. It happened on two pages. It happened on the very first page where it had to be handwritten in. And then when you look in the bid package, it was typed in. So there's two spots. I'm not accusing anybody of anything. I'm sure it was an error. But it changes the whole entire proposal. And when you read our procurement policy, this is not a clerical error. And when it's not a clerical error, you have to accept that bid or it has to be withdrawn. that's the way i see it and i'm just i understand what miss garman's saying i'm i'm not arguing as far as whether they're a legitimate firm or anything i know they're a legitimate firm i know they're experienced i'm just trying to protect the city and i want to make sure we're doing this legally that's the that's the only reason i'm i'm making this point yes sir

Mr. Fetch. Yes, I don't believe this was a bid. I believe this was a proposal. There's a hell of a difference.

Yes, sir.

You know, between a bid and a proposal, and I guess Rob could tell you about the Professional Services Act, you know, whatever it is. When the engineers come up here, and I bid jobs for 60 years. That's all I've done, all of them government, whereas Corps of Engineers, the Navy, the Army, whoever, DOT, Georgia DOT, Alabama DOT. I've been through all the deals, 8As, minorities, or whatever. But this was a proposal. Well, see, in engineers, you select one. You rank them. You remember how to rank them, Rob? One, two, and three. And you always take the number one ranking, and then you can't even ask them how much money they're going to charge. You take them and have a meeting with them after you've ranked the number one guy, and then you negotiate the contract. This one, y'all asked for proposals and the money to be wrote out. They wrote out the money. They said, hey, it's clearly they made a mistake on that deal. They got the 275. If y'all want a 275, you had a motion. You pulled a motion off of the 275. You got another motion on the floor for it. I wouldn't open it up no more. When I get a first and a second, I can tell you one thing, get the vote, and then you'll stop all this stuff, and you won't be paying him $300 an hour for a couple hours extra. First, second, and then a vote. You know, you got the deal. We need to do something.

Yes, sir. Mr. Beshear.

Real quick, and even in the world, if you could force them to accept $750 a month for this thing, by the time you pay their hourly fees, that's for them to come to two commission meetings a month. That doesn't include the CRA meetings, the board meetings, et cetera. You're going to have a lot of excess hourly charges that I think you're going to see that number would probably go past what the flat rate is. So whether or not you tried to hold them to... $750 a month. I think at the end of the period, you would still end up paying more than you would pay with the flat rate. I liked the firm that withdrew, but they withdrew and now we've got this. And personally, I think the flat rate is what you ought to do and just be done with it.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Beshear. Anyone else? Mr. Langford and then Ms. Well, how about ladies first, Mr. Langford? That's all right. All right. Come on up then. You're next, Ms. Davis.

I'm definitely not a lawyer, that's for sure. But I'm just curious on, Mr. Warrick brought up some concerns there. It opens us up for a lawsuit. Is there a statute of limitations that somebody would have to sue us over this deal? I'm seriously asking that.

Statue of limitations for the RFP?

Yeah, let's say they hire them right now and somebody decides eight years from now to sue us over this deal.

Well, there's a general statute of limitations, but we also have a procurement manual that requires bidders that aren't successful to make a protest within a certain amount of time.

Okay, so here's what I would offer then. If that's a valid concern that's brought up, you know, they baked up this sandwich here with this clerical error, put it in the contract. If somebody decides to sue the city over their clerical error on this bid, that they'll cover it 100%, no cost to the city, if y'all decide to hire them tonight.

Okay.

Maybe that'll satisfy any concerns if they're willing to do that. I mean, they forgot to write down a zero. That's kind of a pretty big deal, seems like to me. But, you know, if somebody decides to sue the city, if y'all decide to hire them tonight, all right, if somebody sues the city over this deal, It's going to be written into the contract, black and white, that they're going to cover every bit of litigation, whatever it is that they've got to cover on that lawsuit at no cost to the city. And that will satisfy that concern maybe. Just an idea.

Thank you, Mr. Langford.

Ms. Day, let's get you a microphone. No, no, let's hang on there.

Hang on. I'd rather you not have to yell.

That way everybody can hear you.

I guess, how did the bids or proposals go out? What happened here? Who sent those out?

The bids, well, there was a request for proposals that went out and then we had three law firms actually submit proposals, Dunlap and Shipman, Vose, and Sabatini. Vose has since withdrawn, so we have Sabatini and we have Dunlap Shipment. And in both of the cases, they had two different price options. One was a $7,500 a month retainer versus $750 where they had the zero missing, plus $300 an hour, or in their case, $275K a year, flat rate, everything. Yes. There are two different prices. That's why we're saying the apples and oranges. It's two different prices for two different things. There's the a la carte and the all-in price. Commissioner Warrick's proposal concern is for the a la carte price. The rest of us have motioned and are looking at the all-in price, so looking at the other price versus the a la carte price. Does that make sense?

Okay, so you have a motion, you have a second. You should take a vote. Okay, thank you.

We will, just as soon as we let the floor. All right, any other comments or questions before we vote? Hearing none, city manager, call the roll.

Can I just say one thing before we vote? Sure. So in the procurement policy, it says modification prohibition. After the publicized submission time and date, proposals should not be modified or allowed to be modified in any manner except for correction of clerical errors or other similar minor irregularities as may be allowed by the selection committee prior to making its selection. And in here, it talks about minor and major irregularities, and this is a major irregularity. But I'm just going to put it out there. You guys vote how you want. But I'm not trying to go against the Shipman firm. I'm just telling you this is what it says in the procurement policy. And I'm just trying to make sure we're doing it in a fair, legal way.

Would you come up for a second? So you understand the dynamic here and what's being discussed.

Yes, sir.

I do. And you understand the clerical error that you all had, that you all identified.

Yes.

To Mr. Langford's point, and I don't know if you're authorized to do this or not, but I'll ask, there's only one other law firm at this point still in contention with y'all, and that's the Sabatini Law Firm.

Right.

If the Sabatini Law Firm was to protest us selecting you for the all-in price when you had an administrative error on the hourly a la carte price... I don't know that that would be legally sufficient, but let's say it is, and they want to sue us because we hired you versus them for the other prize, for the other proposed option.

Right.

Will you all defend us for your error?

Well, we'll defend you if we are your attorneys in any lawsuit, because we would be your attorneys, and that's part of our proposal. I don't know that, I think he mentioned something about us paying for it. I'm not, certainly that's above my level, but I certainly appreciate Commissioner Work's point. It is for you all to decide if that is a clerical error or not. We believe it was a clerical error. And that is for the a la carte option. You're correct, Mr. Mayor, in your apples and oranges metaphor that the $275,000 as part of the original proposal that was given. And so if that is the option chosen, I don't think that clerical error should affect. But that is for you all to decide. But if you hire us for your attorneys, then we would certainly defend you in any lawsuit that is brought.

You're all in at that point anyway.

Yes.

All right. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, city manager, call the roll, please.

So, Commissioner Tender, before we do, could you restate your motion for Ms. Rushing, please, so she can reflect the minutes accurately?

Yes, please. Yes.

Yes. 275K a year was the proposal.

Good.

Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Perna?

Yes.

Commissioner Ward? No. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. All right, we have a 4-1. Congratulations, Denlap Shipman. You guys will begin working with Hand Arendelle for transition and Mr. Rob Jackson starting later this week. But thank you, congratulations, and look forward to working with you. All right, next up, number 12, discussion and possible approval of resolution 26-07-563, lift station 26 refurbishment in the amount of $67,692, city manager.

A resolution of the City of Lynn Haven, Florida approving an agreement with Marshall Brothers Construction and Engineering Incorporated relating to the refurbishment of lift station 26 in the amount of $67,692. Mayor, we've got some work we've got to do over at lift station 26. Staff reached out, got three quotes, and Marshall Brothers is the lowest, and this will be funded out of the sewer department with the R&M infrastructure and the lift station rehab.

yes sir and do you remember offhand city manager how many lift stations do we have right now that are in the pipeline for for this maintenance it varies i mean it just depends on if we have some that have immediate repairs that are needed and some that are on a transition well there's there's some that are that need a lot of love and then there are some just kind of on an annual maintenance or a scheduled maintenance plan

Yeah, we've got about probably 11 that are in immediate repairs stage.

Out of how many offhand do you remember? 76. 76. Okay. Thank you. Any questions among the commission for this?

Sorry.

No, go ahead.

Was this originally in the budget? Was this a budgeted item?

We have lift station, rehab, and R&M infrastructure in the budget, yes, sir.

Okay. Yeah, it makes sense because you don't know exactly which lift station maybe. All right.

Any questions or concerns? If hearing none, can I get a motion to approve?

I'll motion to approve. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Thank you, gentlemen. Any concerns from the public or questions regarding lift station maintenance for lift station 26? Hearing none, city manager, would you call the roll? Commissioner Peebles?

Yes. Commissioner Perno? Yes. Commissioner Wart? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Thank you all for that. Item number 13, discussion and possible approval of Resolution 2026-07-564, Procurement Policy Amendment. City Manager.

resolution of the city commission of the city of lynnhaven florida approving updates to the city's procurement policy manual repealing all resolutions or policies in conflict herewith and providing an effective date and back in december of 2025 we brought the commission an updated procurement policy we said we were going to use it about six months or so to work out any other kinks and issues we had, staff has done that. Mr. Bracey has been working with staff on any changes along with Mr. Jackson and Ms. Myers. Got those changes implemented and this is the revision for that.

Okay. Any questions or concerns among the commission?

None?

If none, may I get a motion to approve?

A motion to approve. Second.

Got a motion and a second. Any questions from the public on this one? Johnny, come on up.

Sorry, I talk a lot, evidently get nothing done. Couple things on the procurement policy. There's a section 505.4 change orders, in the change orders, mentions that any change order that results in not, or does not result in a net increase in the cost can be done by the city manager at any time. Just want you to know, we did that in the past, and I don't have a problem with it, but You had 50-something change orders on this building. A lot of them would fall under that guideline, where it was changed, moved for tax purposes, and didn't cost anymore. Just an observation. Kona silence, section 606. You as a commission can't talk to anybody about it after the bids go out unless it's in public. Just be aware of that. That's something that can trap you if you're not careful. My last thing is more of a question. And as much as I hate to even bring this forward because I think it needs to be in there, There's an affirmative action section in the purchasing policy that says that you're going to look at minorities, women-owned, veteran-owned businesses. I don't disagree with that policy, but in the current political scheme with DEI and what have you, is that something that is going to be enforceable in this policy or is it something that we need to discuss?

Good point.

Are you going to talk on Section 5? No, go ahead.

I know I talked to Mr. Lightfoot about this where, and this was how it was written before that if there's any change orders, it's based on how the contract's written. What was that called?

Yeah, 10% leeway of... Well, it's not like that anymore.

No. But at the beginning of the contract, what do you call that if there's any change orders?

Contingency money.

Contingency. Okay. And then if you have something, let's say you have something that's $30,000 and then there's a change order that makes it over $35,000, then that has to come to the commission. Did I get that all right?

Yes, sir. If there's a deductive change order, it wouldn't have to come to the commission. Or if it's a change order for weather days or non-contractual changing change order, then it would not come to the commission.

I'm assuming this would be you, city manager, or it might be Mr. Jackson as well as city attorney, but do you want to speak to Mr. Beshear's DEI concern there?

So to my understanding, Mr. Bracey can probably address it better, but that is a requirement for a lot of our grants and other funded projects that we have to have that language in the bids.

Okay. Mr. Jackson, do you have any thoughts on that, sir?

This is in the federal contract provision, I think. And I know there's been a lot of changes in that in the law lately as far as whether that's required or not in certain things. So we would stick with whatever's required by federal law.

Copy. Okay. Does that answer that question, Mr. Beshear?

Okay.

All right. Any other questions, comments, or concerns from the floor? A lot of long faces. Y'all are sticking with us. I appreciate that very much. All right. City Manager, call the roll, please.

Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Thank you. 5-0.

Item number 14, discussion and possible approval of Resolution 2026-07-565, approving the FY2026-2026 Mid-Year Budget Adjustment. Director of Finance, Ms. Rollman.

A resolution of the City of Lynn Haven, Florida amending the final budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 and providing an effective date.

So I bring to you this budget amendment for a second time in mid-year. This was brought in because of a couple of projects that we needed to add into the budget. One is for the Wyoming Avenue HMGP project 22031, and one is for the 10th Street Infrastructure project number 22032. This is adding money to the stormwater. Both are refundable, so it's actually budget neutral. Because I had the opportunity to look at the budget again, I went through and analyzed nine months' worth of actual data. So I've made some modest changes throughout the budget just to get it tighter to what actuals will be by the end of the year. It did result in a 2% reduction in general fund, but a 2% increase overall. And again, that's primarily for the stormwater projects that I just described. Can I answer your questions?

Any questions? So just to confirm, the heavy hitters are budget neutral? Yes. And everything else is just kind of tightening up actual data? Yes. So thank you.

Any other questions or concerns from the commission?

No, but I will also note that we will have to bring back another budget resolution next meeting, our budget amendment next meeting to cover the settlement that was approved earlier tonight.

Say that one more time.

We will have to bring back a budget amendment at the next meeting as well to cover the settlement that was approved earlier tonight.

Okay, copy. That is not included in here.

Understood.

so what's the variance difference right now is it budget to the good or budget to the bad general fund is going down by two percent so it's going from about four hundred thousand you said um yes almost exactly four hundred thousand any other questions or concerns

All right. Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve?

A motion to approve. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any questions from the public at large? Hearing none, city manager, call the roll, please.

Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. So 5-0, thank y'all for that. Number 15, discussion and possible approval of Resolution 2026-07-566, duplication of benefits policy approval per Florida Department of Commerce requirements. City Manager.

A resolution of the City of Lynnhaven, Florida, adopting a policy regarding the duplication of benefits in state and federal grants. Mayor, we've got several CDBG grants through the Department of Commerce. They did an audit as required a few months ago. One of the findings was we needed a duplication of benefits policy. They provided the template. Ms. Jordan and Ms. Discernia went through, completed everything, submitted it back to the state. They approved it. Now we just need you all to approve it so that we can send the official copy to the Department of Commerce to be in compliance.

Any questions from the commission? Make a motion that we accept. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any questions from the audience? Hearing none, city manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Perno? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Thank you all for that.

Item number 16, discussion and possible approval of resolution 2026-07-567 to award IFB 25.26-19 asphalt services to Incite Contractors Incorporated as needed and not to exceed 100,000 city manager.

A resolution of the City of Lynn Haven, Florida approving a service agreement with Insight Contractors Incorporated for asphalt repair services on an as-needed basis in a total amount not to exceed $100,000. Mayor, we bid out asphalt services. We've had several times where we've had larger asphalt repairs and we had to get three quotes. It is hard to get three quotes because they're small patches compared to what several of our contractors around here do. So we put it out to bid so we can have this company in place for any of our asphalt repairs on an as-needed basis.

So just to clarify, this is stuff that's too big for our own in-house public works folks to be able to do?

Correct.

So this is your first round backup, right, coming in to be able to do whatever repairs that our own public works crew can't do?

Correct. We will utilize them for any of our typical asphalt cuts and stuff that's too large for our patch truck or if our public works crews get behind.

Have you worked or has the city worked with this particular contractor before?

No, sir. How were they selected? They were the low bidder.

The low bidder?

Yes, ma'am. And they're located in Panama City? Crestview. And they have asphalt? I'm sorry?

They have asphalt. We'll get it when we need it.

They do not have an asphalt plant. No, sir. They'll go get asphalt from wherever they utilize CW or Anderson or American Sand. They'll buy asphalt from them.

Wasn't that our problems before that we couldn't get asphalt sometimes on scheduling roads?

If the bigger companies are paving, it is hard to go get asphalt.

Yeah. I know that we've had that happen before with some of our potholes and little stuff that we've had sand in there and not asphalt.

All right. Any other questions from the commission on this one?

I'd like to make a motion to go with the low bidder.

Got a motion. Do I have a second?

I'll second. I just wanted to add that thank you for adding the not to exceed. That's very important. So the not to exceed $100,000 because we've had it years ago where it was just we had a contract with a contractor and there was no max amount and they would, you know, by adding that $100,000 we're guaranteed budget-wise that it will not go over $100,000. And I think that's important. So I just wanted to recognize that.

Yes, sir. And just to clarify, Commissioner Peebles' point, that's $100,000 for the year, right, for the contract? That's correct. That's not at one time.

That's correct. We have several resolutions that you all have approved this year that the contract is for a multi-year term. We will have to bring new resolutions in October for the new fiscal year for not to exceed amounts.

Copy. Mayor, I did research this company, too, because they advertise as a development company.

company construction and development and i never saw anything about asphalt either but i haven't heard of them but they're from up in near my neck of the woods and where i grew up the this is actually okaloosa county on the other side of walton county in grestview but that place has been growing and booming for the last 20 years something major so If this is a construction contractor company over there, I'm sure they're quite readily used. And they're probably trying to get into this market. Hence the bid. Any other thoughts, questions, or concerns, City Manager, with us approving this tonight?

No, sir. It will greatly help us out.

All right. Well, we have a motion and a second. Any questions from the audience? I see two. That's all right. We'll do Mr. Langford, Ms. Day, and then I'll get you, ma'am.

I was just curious. I was asking Mr. Baker back there. I didn't know if there was a discussion that occurred to make a determination as to whether this $100,000 comes out of the surtax money or why it would come out of the general fund and not the surtax or why it's better or worse to do either or. So that was just my question. I didn't know the thought process on that. Which fund is this money coming out of? And if it's not the surtax, why not? And that was it.

This comes out of our general fund street department, the R&M infrastructure line item. It doesn't make any sense to put the small little repairs out of surtax money when surtax is for our larger projects and big infrastructure improvements.

The only reason I ask that is I don't know, I haven't been on that committee in a while, the surtax committee, but I don't know what the health of that fund is versus the health of the general fund. That's why I ask that question. If that's healthier, we know how constrained. I mean, we spent $2.8 million more than we brought in this year. So, you know, we're not balancing the checkbook here.

The intent of this is to actually save money by this price. It's pretty cheap. So we have several asphalt work orders out there and we will compare and do the math to see if it's cheaper to do some of this work while utilizing this company versus some of the in-house on the smaller repairs as well.

Okay, thank you for that. Good question, Mr. Langford. Ms. Day.

Oh, yes, I would like to ask who chooses to select the bid? Who selected it?

Yes, ma'am, so we had seven companies bid on this project.

No, but who selected it?

Well, the commission hopefully is about to.

No, but who selected this bid? That's all I wanna know.

It's not scored. It's based on price.

Chris, you know what I'm talking about. Okay. Did it come through the engineering company?

No, ma'am. Mr. Bracey.

Did it come through Stantec?

No, ma'am. Mr. Bracey, our procurement manager, put the bid package together?

Yes, but it comes through one of those companies. Am I correct?

No, ma'am.

Okay, I'm wrong. Okay. This has been going on too long, commissioners. He can sit up there and tell you all he wants to tell you. He was here in 2020. He has been promoting certain individuals. He knows what he's doing. It goes through channels. And you need to go, and don't grin at me, okay? You take this serious, Chris. Take it serious. Okay, this is something he has been doing. He went down to the county, and he's drumming up all these $100,000, and you all need to really be questioning it because the taxpayers cannot afford all this stuff that he's doing. They're going to come up with a big plan. I see it right now. It never fails. I was in this too long to see how it's worked. And let me tell you, it's going to come up a big plan for stormwater. You need to go and read and read is all I can tell you. This guy's got some plans on the move is through stormwater. Panhandle Engineering, Chris Forehand, and also you've got your Stantec people. It's right there. They're promoting all of it. Chris, there's a lot to this, and please be honest with the taxpayers, okay? Don't come up here and start promoting all these again. Let's get on the same page. Let the commissioners know everything you're doing because you went to the county. He did all this negotiation with enclaves. Now we're going to pay. I see an annexation coming on here. So let's, you all think about this, okay? This is very, very important. Don't come back to us and try to get the dollar bills from us, okay? All right, that's all I want to tell you. I'm sorry, but this bothers me. Just add it up.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So page 279 of your agenda packet is the list of bids and everyone's price.

Go ahead. Good evening again.

So I was wondering, did they say how fast they're going to respond when you guys call them since they're coming all the way from Crestview? And are you required to go with the lowest bid or the best bid of what they're going to give you?

So the city does reserve the right to not go with the lowest bid. But in this case, it would not make any sense. They are a well-qualified company to do the work. We would not call them down here to do one small asphalt patch. We would accumulate several for them to do at one time.

OK. I was just wondering, because Ms. Tinder said that when she looked them up, they didn't have anything about asphalt. And he said that with Crestview growing, what makes you think that they're

So they have multiple pictures on their website of them doing asphalt work. But they are an asphalt company. There's companies from all over the Panhandle that work in Bay County every day. So we don't have any concerns about them being responsive.

Thank you, ma'am. All right. Any others? Hearing none, city manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Perno? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Tender?

No.

Mayor Lowry?

Yes.

All right. 17. Discussion and possible approval of Resolution 2026-07-560 to purchase two Ford Police Interceptor Utility SUVs. City Manager.

A resolution authorizing the City of Lynn Haven to purchase two 2026 Ford Police Interceptor Utility SUVs from Aikens Ford and to trade in one vehicle to offset the purchase price. Mayor, as described in your car, you all approved the surplus of the dually that's been parked out at the Senior Center for a while. We attempted to sell it twice on Dove Deals. The first time it did not meet reserve. The second time the buyer did not pay for it. So Captain Blalock reached out to Akins Ford, worked a deal for a trade-in. We also have some insurance revenue from two of our vehicles, a Tahoe and an Explorer that were totaled to help offset some of this cost. It will cost $50,776 out of the police budget.

Just so everyone is aware, city manager and I have personally talked about this one. My concern was with our budget being as it is now and us going in, do we really need two more police vehicles? And yes, we had two totaled. Police officers ran and got hit by non-police officers and literally they were totaled. They wanted four. These are the last two they're getting before we hit our lean. Of the two decked out, it's 96,000. We have a dually that's had gone up for govsdeals.com twice. The last, it didn't go the first time. The second time, someone bid on it, but didn't pay the bid, so it closed out and canceled. They're going to be able to get $46,000 worth of trade-in value on that. So they're getting two new vehicles for $96,000. They're getting the trade-in for what we were trying to do the dually for $46,000. So this is roughly $50,000 for two fully decked out police cruisers, which will be the last ones Lynn Haven PD will be getting for a while. They wanted four, they're getting two, and we're getting it for basically half the price of what we would otherwise because we were able to trade in and we're getting good trade-in value on the dually. So...

Couple things to clarify there, Mayor. We're getting 42 for the trade, and they are not decked out. We pay for that separate.

They're not?

Right, that's separate. You still have to deck that out? Yes, sir. That's purchased. How much is that? It's about $15,000 per.

Well, I apologize. I fully misunderstood that, and I screwed that one up. I will own it and apologize.

I stand corrected.

So this is $50,000 plus get rid of the old dually. but yet they'll still have to be decked out. So it's $50,000, 50K for the vehicles, plus another 15 per to deck amount?

That's correct.

So we're literally looking now at like 80K. That's correct.

I humbly stand corrected.

I somehow missed that when you and I talked. So I'll own that. All right. Any other questions from the commission on these two vehicle acquisitions? Do you want to speak to, you talked about the two that got totaled by our cops in the line of duty getting hit by other people. That's no fault of ours. We have to replace those. That's kind of a no-brainer. Do you want to talk to the need of four and how we're only going with two vice four?

No, sir. They requested four. I told them to.

Okay. Okay.

Any other questions from the commission here? All right. Captain Blalock, you wanna pop up here for a minute? I'd just love to hear from you on this. No worries. Good evening, sir. So talk to us a little bit. I managed to screw up the math here. I think it's been unfuzzied at this point. So you're getting two $96,000 vehicles, but you're getting the 40 some odd, 42,000, I think you said, trading credit for the old dually we tried to gov deals.

Yes, sir.

So we're looking at about 50K, but then it's going to take about 15K per to fully equip them?

15K to put in the emergency lighting equipment, yes, sir. Okay. 15,000 per vehicle to get it set up for emergency operations. The vehicles are police pursuit rated vehicles. They need to be that pursuit quality to be on the road for policing. They are $46,000 each. With the $42,000 trade-in, that gives us a really good deal on getting two vehicles We're paying $3,000 for one and $46,000 for the other. We have an aging fleet. Right now we currently have two 2013 vehicles in our fleet. We have a 20, I'm sorry, three 2013 vehicles up under the police department. One 2016, some 2018s that are just falling apart. They just run hard. They run it 12 hours a day and they're just falling apart. The maintenance on them is really high cost. So what we have done also, too, we have recently went before the commission, several other vehicles that have been surplus that we can put into govdeal.com to offset some revenue off that to pay for equipment. We have that money left in our budget. Prior to Chief Blanchard coming, I didn't spend any in our budget. I wanted him to have a full budget when he got here. So he and I sat down and tried to strategize the best way to do it. We need four. We told we could get two. we'll take the two because we really need it we have cars now last week we had five cars in the shop um air conditioning front ends just different pieces parts i mean because they they drive 12 hours a day so we do need those vehicles and we're happy to get two um of course we need four but we'll take the two and these two will be what frontline cruisers There will patrol vehicles, be more police vehicles. There'll be very great representation of the city. And when people see them, they'll know it's the police department driving down the road.

Thank you, Captain.

Any other questions, Commission, for Captain Blalock?

No.

No? Well, in that case, we're at item number 17. May I get a motion to approve?

Make a motion to approve.

I've got a motion and a second. Any questions from the public at large on this one? Mr. Langford, come on up.

Definitely support getting these vehicles for our fine police officers. I didn't hear any discussion about the insurance money that come from the accident. If y'all wouldn't mind just kind of going over those numbers. Appreciate it.

Yes, we received...

He's got $21,000 in there.

At the $27,000.

$21,038.27 is what's in the car. I haven't independently verified that number.

That's correct.

So we got how much back?

$21,038.27 in insurance proceeds.

And is that just going into the general fund or is that those fundings going directly to the payroll?

That will go back into the police department line item.

So they're still being used here, but it wasn't, we're taking that 21,000 and putting it towards these purchases. It went into their vehicle line in their budget, right? But it went back to Lynn Haven PD vehicles.

Correct.

Gotcha. Okay. That's all I needed to hear. So we have a motion and a second. No other questions. Thank you, Captain Blaylock, for your input there, sir. If nothing else, City Manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Perno? No. Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Wark? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Thank you all for that. All right, 18, discussion and possible approval of Resolution 2026-07-562, approving temporary voluntary annexation fee waiver. City Manager.

A resolution of the City of Lynn Haven, Florida waiving city annexation application fees for certain properties located in unincorporated areas within, surrounded by, or generally situated within the overall city boundary and receiving city services, identifying such properties generally on Exhibit A, authorizing an annexation outreach campaign to encourage voluntary annexation, providing for administration, providing for limitations, and providing an effective date. mayor back in 2023 the county and the city entered into an interlocal agreement to alleviate to eliminate some of these enclaves that we have like along 389 nothing has been done with it so far we now have miss grand prix on board we're asking to waive the annexation fees of 200 for the next 180 days so that we can try to get some of these parcels annexed in and eliminate some of the enclaves i have a question uh is it approximately about uh 33

How many parcels?

I believe there were 47 parcels total.

I knew I wasn't counting right. And Gina, can you tell us what you hope to achieve by doing this?

bring in some of those, Chris could probably explain it a little bit more, but these are sort of areas that are currently serviced within the municipal service boundary. So they're receiving some city services, definitely emergency services, but some have sewer services, some have water services, maybe some have both. There's, they're, bringing them into city, they get a right to vote, and they get additional benefits as being part of the city, I think. Millage is part of that as well.

And this conversation, too, came from the Finance Review Committee as, hey, what kind of campaign can we do to get some of these other parcels to annex in? Page 301 of your packet shows the city boundaries and the pinkish colors there show the parcels that are part of these enclaves that we'll be reaching out to.

I actually watched y'all discuss this on your July 2nd board meeting. And yeah, I mean, it seems like a no-brainer.

The interlocal agreement that was signed in March 28th of 2023 is for a five-year term. So if we go through this term and we're not having any luck with any of the parcels annexing in, we will likely present to the commission to ask the county to terminate the interlocal agreement if it's not working.

Any other questions among the commission?

I just like that it's an innovative idea where you're not forcing someone to annex in, you're allowing them to. And then on top of that, waiving it to incentivize them coming in. Good point on the utilities because maybe something we want to push to these people is your utilities will go down. Because if you're not part of the city and you're utilizing our utilities, there's like a 20% bump or something like that. 25%. 25%. If they annex in, I mean, they could ultimately be saving money.

And some of those may be able to, I mean, they can connect to city sewer if they have a septic tank, but this may incentivize them to do so sooner than later. I think the distance is 300 feet. If a utility is within 300 feet of a property, when they annex in, they're required to connect. And just to be clear, so you understand, this just waives the fee, their application fee. They will still have to do the survey and pay those costs, but at least this is a $200 discount.

It might entice somebody.

For sure.

We hope so.

All right. Well, thank you, Ms. Gina, for that.

Make a motion we accept.

I'll second.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, sir. I have a motion and a second. Any other questions or comments from the audience?

Ms. Day?

Commissioner Wark's going to bring you the microphone, ma'am.

Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you reminding the commissioners what you've been up to. This has been ongoing for a while, so now we're needing some money, so what we're going to do is go out and annex these people in, but how much is it going to cost to annex them in? The $200, sure, but that's nothing. It's going to cost us. We've got to put the stuff down because a lot of these people don't have it, Chris. You know how many do and how many don't. You know. So a lot of them still don't have all this stuff. So we've got to pay. So what, you're going to come back and you're going to attach a stormwater fee on us coming up. It's going to happen shortly. And you're going to come back to us and get us to pay for all this annexation. I know it's been there before, and we're suffering for it today. And it's on its way again. You got to watch 2020, 22, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26. It's still being promoted. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chris.

So city manager, just for clarification, everybody involved and make sure I understand this right. 47 parcels, right? These are enclaves where they already have some or all of the city services. Some have sewers, some have water. Some have both, right?

That's correct.

Do you have a ballpark of how many have both versus one or the other? I don't. Gina, do you?

Danny McRiddle has done that work, and I have the information. I don't have those numbers for you right now. I haven't analyzed that information yet. So that, I apologize. I just got that this last week, so.

okay so there is no intent for us to run utilities in the locations we do not um we part of this interlocal agreement we are taking care of the storm water in the area we are not collecting any storm water assessment from these parcels so it does nothing but benefit the city by getting them to annex in so that we can collect some revenue from them okay

So there's no additional cost, just to clarify. There's no additional cost here. We're asking them, hey, come vote, come be Lynn Haven citizens, come be part of us. Yeah, you're going to pay taxes, but you're going to vote.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions or comments from the audience? Hearing none, city manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes.

Mayor Lowry?

Yes, sir. All right. Number 19, discussion and possible approval to terminate contracts with WOW Internet Services authorizing the city manager to execute contract termination. City manager.

Yes, sir. We've started shopping internet, looking at various ways to save money throughout the city. The internet is one of them. We have been a WOW customer for several years now. We have not been happy with the service we get from them. We do have several instances where it drops out repeatedly. Staff started reaching out to various companies. We talked to WOW. Unity Fiber, AT&T, and Comcast. Comcast did have the best long-term rate for five years. We will save approximately $12,000 a year. On page 311 of your packet shows the early termination fees. We will slowly phase these out over the next few months. So the only early termination fee we will pay is $5,454 for the sports complex. And we will, if this item is approved, then hopefully the next item will be approved as well to go into a contract with Comcast for 60 months.

So we'll save 12,000 a year, so 12,000 times five. But we will have the one-time hit of 5K, give or take, because WOW actually did install a bunch of stuff.

They had some construction fees at the sports complex.

Two out to the sports complex, right? Yes, sir. Is this a fiber optic?

Yes, sir. This will provide internet services to every facility we have except the Bayou Preserve, which utilizes Starlink. The construction cost out there was, I believe, $120,000 or something like that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this will also be kind of a hub and spoke. You'll have a main hub here. and you'll be sending the fiber optic out versus kind of the hodgepodge of just wherever they can tap into in the local community, right? Any other questions?

No, I think this is a no-brainer for me.

Okay.

Make a motion.

I'll second. Got a motion and a second. Any questions from the audience on this one? All right. City Manager, call the roll.

Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. All right. Number 20, discussion and possible approval of 60-month contract with Comcast for internet services based on what we just said for number 19. Anything else you want to add to that?

No, sir. As I stated, it is about a $12,000 a year savings for the city and hopefully more reliable service.

I know we've had some really bad experiences with WOW, so hopefully so. All right, any other questions from the commission?

I'll motion to approve. Second.

Got a motion and a second. Thank you, sir. Thank you, ma'am. Any questions from the audience on this one? Come on up, Johnny.

Just a question. I noticed in the proposal that Leslie Porter Park, Sheffield, AL Kinsaw, Kane Griffin all have internet or connections with this. What are those? Where are those? What are the purpose of those?

So many of the parks have cameras and Wi-Fi capabilities. Then the Garden Club, the Senior Center, we provide internet services for the people that rent those facilities. Okay.

I was just wondering about the parks. Yes.

We have cameras at all of our parks, and they run off the Wi-Fi. Okay.

Thank you.

As well as the concessions.

Any other questions for number 20? Hearing none, we're getting to the end, y'all. Hang with us. We're almost done. Fund meters are pegged across the board here. All right. We have a motion and a second. City Manager, would you call the roll?

Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Perno? Yes. Commissioner Wark? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. All right, 21, discussion and possible approval following advice and consent on the appointment of Mr., actually, Captain Brian Blaylock as the new Chief of Police for the City of Lynn Haven, City Manager.

Yes, sir. As you all know, Chief Blanchard submitted his resignation. We advertised the position internally after discussing with Chief Blanchard on the best steps to move forward. We thought it was best to stay internally this time. We had two applicants, Deputy Chief Infinger and Captain Blaylock. We conducted interviews with myself, Chief Blanchard, and Chief Smith from Panama City, and we all were in agreement that we thought it was best to move the agency forward with the selection of Captain Blaylock as our next chief. Make a motion to accept.

And Deputy Chief Enfinger will continue to serve. And so basically our number three officer will become our new number one officer. Our number two officer will remain our number two officer. And they will continue to tag team.

Yes, sir. And Deputy Chief has actually had a two-week leadership class right now, started yesterday. So he will still remain in his role as is.

Copy that.

All right, I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. I'll open up the floor. Any questions or comments from the community? Hearing none. City Manager?

Commissioner Tender? Absolutely, yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Congratulations, Chief. You've been with this department since 1987? 89, my apologies. I'm back to 1,000. He's been around a while. He knows how to do his job now. Congratulations, Chief. All right, 22, discussion and possible approval of SMART goals for city manager. Commissioner Warrick.

So yeah, when we originally did Mr. Lightfoot's contract, I had brought up and foot stomped about making sure we have SMART goals. The contractor says we need to come up with SMART goals within 90 days. And I brought up at the last commission meeting to come up with some SMART goals. So just interested in what you guys have.

Anybody got any thoughts or discussions?

I was under the impression that he was providing his SMART goals to us.

No, I mean, when we originally did the contract, I was like, we're going to have to come up with SMART goals, so get prepared. So I'm assuming nobody brought SMART goals.

No, because like I said, typically with SMART goals, you provide your own SMART goals of this is what I'm going to do. We didn't understand the assignment.

I brought it up at the last meeting. I said bring SMART goals.

Okay, well, it's pretty clear that it wasn't communicated that way if no one brought them. Why would you not make SMART goals then?

SMART goal example that you can share or have Ms. Hodges share with the rest of the commissioners. We know an example of what you're looking at. and we can actually tag team on developing a couple of key discernible, objective, smart goals for the city manager. He literally has five bosses, the five of us on the commission. We all need to have inputs here, but we all need to collaborate, and it needs to be something clear, direct, and objective that he can actually accomplish. So rather than have him play monkey in the middle administratively, Ms. Hodges, would you do that for us?

Thank you, ma'am.

So we'll have the assistant city manager send that out. And we will defer that.

CJ will defer that to our next meeting, ma'am.

Thank you for that. All right. So that gets us to number 23, rules of decorum workshop feedback and direction to staff. So just to clarify, city manager, you're just looking for overall feedback?

so i think we got that from the workshop but i wanted to put an item on the agenda just in case but i think everybody got their direction from the workshop unless someone has anything to add that has came up since now and then i believe mr jackson and commissioner wark have everything they need to continue forward with that

I think Commissioner Warrick did an excellent job. He had the 85% solution. I might have added another 5%. Bernie Thompson had a great issue with the whole clarification of the sergeant at arms. Our city attorney is now gonna look at it. So I think we have pretty much a 95% plus solution with minor refinement to happen. We'll go from there. That's what teamwork and collaboration's supposed to be like. And we did it today, so good on us. All right, we're now to public commentary number 24. So I believe a lot of these folks have already gone, but I will go through. I know, for example, Bernie Thompson is gone, Mr. Beshear. Yeah, all good. Would you like a chair?

Are you good? I'm good, I'm good. So first off, I would like to say in response to what Mr. Finch said about me earlier not accomplishing anything, not doing anything, and my position, I never will have a problem if somebody proves me wrong. If he proves me wrong that this lawsuit and the settlement was good for the city, fantastic i applaud him and i applaud his efforts if it turns what i perceive as a negative into a positive i'm very for it i will never hold that against somebody and i'll never hold a position that i have that is wrong that i feel is wrong when presented with other information that said onto what i was really going to talk about is are these meetings they're long they're drawn out the the packet was 322 pages long for this meeting Some of this stuff we may need to pull out and do a workshop on. I know it's more effort for y'all, but I feel like sometimes we rush through these items because we're exhausted by the end of the meeting. I don't want that to happen. I think we need to address it a little bit better. um you can't just delete the items because you've got a lot to do a lot of things to get done but at the end of the day there's probably a better way to do it than at a single meeting when you've got sometimes you've got a long agenda and they're really simple items sometimes they're not but you need to look at those agendas and pull some stuff out for some special meetings or something like that y'all been here since three o'clock It's going on, what, 7.30 right now? 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock. That's a long time, and you get fuzzy after a while. I just think that you may need to pull some of that stuff out and do some workshops ahead of time or go back to pre-meetings. I know that's not a popular opinion, but that's something that I think should be considered.

Not to mention that we're making $3.51 an hour. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So thank you, Mr. Beshear, and that's a fair point. City Manager, that's a takeaway for us is we need to do, we as a team need to do a better job. And bad on me for not pushing back on this, but sometimes when we know we're going to have some really controversial or really in-depth discussion things, We should have probably cleared the deck on some of this and pushed it to the next meeting. Or if we get to a point where you really need a lot from us, maybe we need to, not that we need to have a meeting every week, but maybe we need to set up and have a special kind of, once a quarter or twice a year kind of house clearing event where you got a lot of stuff we need to do. We do for stuff that's not necessarily controversial at all, like passing resolutions to purchase police cars and stuff like that. Maybe we can do that in a separate public special commission meeting versus just the every other week one so we don't just end up, to Johnny's point, five hours later, here we are, just shot, right? Something to think about. Ms. Garman, did you want to come up, ma'am? Oh, yeah, go ahead.

What I'm going to speak about is controversial. I have a lot of very dear friends that I love dearly that do not like the flock cameras. But I like them. I have a lot of friends who are police officers. Lock cameras have helped catch a lot of criminals. I work really big in with the child abduction. And it has helped save a lot of children's lives. So I know a lot of people are against it. And some of them have tried to sway me on that, but you know me. I'm pretty, I think, for myself. And I just want to thank you for having them in Lynn Haven. I'm probably one of the few that... But I have a lot of friends as well in Atlanta and the other bigger cities that have said it has saved a lot of lives. And with as many people that are coming to our area, I think flock cameras is a great idea, and I appreciate you guys having them here. That's just from me. I want to say thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Garman. Mr. David Wagner. Good evening, sir.

Thank you. I am David Wagner. US Air Force, retired E6, and my wife Karen, 1506 Illinois Avenue. We've lived here, taxpaying, law-abiding homeowners since 2005, 21 years. I'm retired, decorated, technically partially disabled veteran, elderly, and a pillar of my neighborhood. I'm nicknamed the Good Samaritan by many on our street who know who I am, but not by a few questionable new people in the area who throw around trespass orders like candy at a parade. i really want to read the national anthem the pledge of allegiance and ten bill of rights in this three minutes but i can't have time for six years starting february 19 and 20 and 2020 i have been persecuted here by a false accusation alleging i did child enticement as i was falsely accused by some basketball kids and parents at a park who committed a federal perjury lie after my dad recently died in 2019 i was out playing tennis In that park, to pick out just one good racket afterwards was my 30th anniversary of my former enlistment. I was feeling happy enough to join in with a basketball game and a progress nearby. I was declined by what was actually a young teenage boy in a rude manner.

He looked down at the ground like I guess I'm doing right now.

i was shocked by him only looking down so i simply in defense said i mean no harm i was a good local guy fix broke stuff at the park he said no again as if i still wanted to play i did not want to play i had no intention of playing anymore at him so i simply just walked out the gate sat down in my car and left. I was nervous because I didn't know why he treated me that way after 15 years. Anyway, I backed out, drove home. No matter what false lies he later told, all I did is I walked away. And they say I allegedly verbally enticed him, if you can believe this, to the truck of my car saying, come on over to my car and get some games and come to my house in a public place across the street from his parents. Everyone in town knows me over there. They know our dog and they know my wife anyway. No vet would risk his pension, his house, his wife, his reputation for the stupid accusation that somehow the police took hook, line, and sinker. I don't know why they do that to us vets. But anyway, they were abrupt, and they trespassed me over the phone the next day, screaming at me, saying I have mental problems, and they never once checked my ID, and never once asked my name, or said my name. They denied my complete bill of rights to treat me unhuman, and slammed the phone down. And I called the manager, of course, back then, no one's gonna return your call. The real predators are the slanderers, abrupt cops, unethical former city stewards, Even a state representative I didn't mention to when he was campaigning, and even a fellow here that I thought was going to help me, but anyway. The new stewards we have now, I'm asking for your help. Please, the Bill of Rights, Betz and Elroy, I hope means something to you all. Please don't let the name Haven be misbehaving. God says let my people go, so please let me go. Let me have my rights back to the park. My wife has had a stroke. She has leg swelling. We don't walk for six years. We had a Dalmatian.

Thank you, sir.

I just want to say on behalf of the military and Jesus, we love you and thank you for all that you do our citizens. We just hope you return the favor to us. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Ms. Mary Ann Drew.

Consolidate with the Bay County Animal Shelter, which is at the top five, top number five in the state for euthanasia.

And if that happens, there's going to be more euthanasia.

There's going to be more dumping. And Glenhaven Animal Shelter gives animals a fair shake. And I just hope that you keep the children and you keep the animals at priority when you make your cuts.

thank you yes ma'am thank you miss drew i'll tell you i love your shirt the rescue is the best breed i literally have five dogs and eight cats and every one of them are rescued from two local rescues here we the consolidation is a possibility But nothing has been approved, and I completely understand your concerns on the kill rates versus the no kill. I'm totally there with you. We asked the staff to put all options on the table for us to look at. Just because something is evaluated doesn't mean it's going to happen. And I can tell you I'm very much... Keenly aware of your concern there. The city manager and I actually had a rather in-depth discussion about it this afternoon. We hear you, we hear the rescues. Please know I'm a very avid animal lover. Everybody up here loves animals. We'll see what happens. But that is not something that I'm personally, I anticipate supporting. I just, I can't. But we will see where, there's going to be a lot of tough budget decisions that come out. And there's a lot of things in the mix. But I can tell you that is the very last thing I have any interest in doing is supporting taking our almost no-kill shelter and putting them into a very high-kill shelter. It's just, it's not something I'm interested in doing at all, period, end of story. So please know you're heard, and that is something that we'll be looking at very, very hard, and we'll see where everything falls. It's one of many, many pieces of a budgetary puzzle, but please know it is very important.

Thank you for coming.

And I can tell you were very nervous, but I really appreciate you coming up and speaking. Most people would rather take a beating than come up and stand there and publicly talk. Now we've got a few folks like Mr. Beshear who will gladly come up and talk half a dozen times a night. There are a lot of folks like you, and thank you for coming.