City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening. It is 5.30, Monday, July 20th, and welcome to our regular scheduled city council meeting. Let's not forget, for all those in attendance, including counselors and staff, rules of decorum are in effect. We've been so great with that and so courteous with each other that there's not much more to be said about that. Jim, would you call the roll, please?

Councilor Henry.

Here.

Councilor Goler. Here. Councilor Dome. Here. Vice Chair Champagne. Here. Councilor Schwan. Here. Councilor Gray. Here. Chair Palumbo.

Here. All right, all councils are here. Tonight, guys, we have for the invocation, it's Reverend James Thielen of the Marco Lutheran Church. And right after that, leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance is going to be Councilor Dome. If you are able, please stand. Do we have a... Reverend Thielen, are you... Oh, there you go. I didn't see you. Sorry. Yeah, it's fine.

We pray. Good and gracious God, the giver of every good and perfect gift, thank you for this place we call Marco Island. And thank you for the blessings we have, not just the beauty of the nature, but the beauty of this community. And for all those that serve you, may your hand of blessing be upon them as they are a blessing to so many others. And Lord, we continue to pray for our country and this world. We pray for the unrest and the danger. May your hand of protection be upon all who serve you, whether at home or abroad. And we pray all of this in the name of Jesus. 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.

Counselors, if you want to remain standing, Oh, forgive me. I got a few other things. I apologize. Jumping the agenda here. In one of those days. All right. All right, guys. On to item five, approval of the agenda. With no changes to the agenda, I'll intend to take a motion to approve.

I'll move to approve the agenda.

Motion by Councilor Schwan, second by Councilor Dome. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? The ayes have it. ITEM 6, APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES FROM THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF JULY 6, 2026. COUNCILORS, LIGHT SIGNS IF YOU HAVE ANY CHANGES TO THOSE MINUTES. ALL RIGHT. TAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE.

I MOVE TO APPROVE. I'LL SECOND IT.

MOTION BY COUNCILOR HENRY, SECOND BY COUNCILOR GOLLER. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, SAY AYE. AYE. ANYBODY OPPOSED? THE EYES HAVE. GUYS, ON TO ITEM 7, THE CONSENT AGENDA, WHICH WE HAVE THREE ITEMS ON THERE. COUNCILORS, ANYBODY WISH TO REMOVE ANYTHING FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA? CAN WE GET A MOTION TO APPROVE AS PRESENTED?

I MOVE TO APPROVE. OR APPROVE. SECOND.

MOTION BY COUNCILOR HENRY, SECOND BY COUNCILOR SCHWAN. JIM, WOULD YOU CALL THE ROLL, PLEASE?

Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Schwan. Yes. Vice Chair Champaign. Yes. Councilor Gray.

Yes.

Councilor Goler. Yes. Councilor Dome. Yes. Chair Palumbo.

Yes. All right, this is seven to zero. All right, Councilors. Now, you have to forgive me. I had a little family stuff going on today like Councilor Gray. But now, proclamations and presentations. If you'll join me up here, and I'll step down, and we have a special award. Tonight, I'm pleased to announce we have a second quarter award. And I'm not sure if she understands she's here for the second quarter award. Heather Smith, do you realize why you're here? Well, come on up. It's okay. I get teary-eyed all the time up here. You can get emotional.

All right.

Please, if you have family, please come on up. Everybody, please. And we'll take pictures. This is the family, I presume? Yes. I just want you to come right here. All right. Well, this is the employee of the quarter for the second quarter presented to Heather Smith for an outstanding work performance and commitment to the core values of the city of Marco Island. On behalf of the city council, myself, all the councilors, and the city staff, gosh, we greatly appreciate you and all you do for us.

Thank you. Actually, Diane.

And before I give you this mic, if I say a few words, a couple words from the staff.

Thank you, Chair. Today, we are pleased to recognize Heather Smith for her exceptional leadership, dedication, and outstanding contributions to the Water and Sewer Department. Heather successfully led the complex replacement of the electrical control panels at the South Water Treatment Plant, demonstrating exceptional technical expertise, strong project management, and effective collaboration across city departments and local power utilities. Through innovative thinking and commitment to finding cost-effective solutions, Heather also identified an approach to save the city approximately $2.6 million. Heather consistently demonstrates professionalism, innovative, and a strong sense of ownership in everything she does. Congratulations, Heather, on this well-deserved second quarter employee award, and thank you for your outstanding service.

Heather, as Dr. Lucius has taught me over the years, first responders, those who take care of the community, as important as they are, police, fire, rescue sweaters, also your water, electric, Department of Public. We don't realize what happens when you turn the faucet on or do something else. You take care of all of our needs. Would you like to say anything? You don't have to. Would you like to?

I thank everyone. I can't do this without all of you. You all help me in being a member of the city of Marco Island. It is truly amazing. And a lot of good employees and people that work here. Thank you very much. And also to my water and sewer cohorts, thank you very much.

Stop Heather and her family and get them to come back up here real quick if they're still here.

This is not on me.

This is Vice Chair Champagne made a suggestion, and it's under the city limits, so everybody enjoy ice cream later. It's on the Vice Chair.

I never pitched my own company. You guys know that.

Go enjoy. Thank you. Good suggestion, Mr. Vice Chair.

And if you wait a couple hours, I'll join you.

Well said, well said. All right, guys, we are on to 8B, a presentation, City of Marco Island 2026 Traffic Count Report. Dan Smith, Director of Community Affairs. Do we have Dan here, or are we going to present for him?

Actually, I think we're waiting for our consultant. Oh, good. Perfect. She's here. And I think Dan is in the lobby waiting for you, but please go ahead.

Somebody could check on Dan and...

We have a presentation correct that we'll pull up.

Yeah, well welcome Dan if you would introduce this nice young lady here Yeah, this is Leah Holmes Josh Hildebrand is in the parking ladies he's on his way in here they're gonna do the presentation for the 2026 traffic study the City Council asked Or if you remember how there's a discussion here roughly about eight months ago We hadn't done one since 2012 our land of our land development code level of service Requirements is that we do it once a year and for whatever reason Funding whatever we haven't gone through with it this council asked that we put a study together we hired Johnson engineering which is part of apex to do the study. So we just got the results recently. Lee and Josh are here to discuss the results and answer any questions from the city council. Thank you.

Did we have any presentation or just right to questions?

Perfect. Thank you. So as you mentioned, so we're going to go over the 2026 traffic counts that we just completed. So just kind of a quick background. So we kicked this off back in January. So throughout February and March during peak season, we want to make sure we really hit that targeted peak season. collected all of our traffic data so after March we started compiling everything and getting a draft report ready so we're here today just to kind of go through those draft findings and everything that we can present to you So, with that, here's just kind of a quick data collection map of the locations that were done. So, locations 1 through 16 are within the draft report. However, locations 17 through 20, there was some areas where they were either under construction or one of the traffic data collectors because they're they're tubes that go across the road they broke due to um either some sort of tire going across it sometimes we have trailers with like chains dragging things like that so we're going to recollect those in the peak season of 2027. that way we can get all that data as well So with that, before I get into the actual findings, I like to go through what is roadway level service. You hear it all the time, A, B, C, D, E. And then F, obviously, is failing. So this is just a really good graphic. If you have a level service of A, B, C, you're in pretty good conditions. And then once you get up to level service of F, that's when you're in traffic congestion the entire way. So when you see all those letters and stuff, this is a really good graphic to kind of bring that together. So we looked at the data from two different ways. So this first one, we looked at the two-way roadway level service. So what's going in your bidirectional both directions. So you have your overall capacities, and we looked at those. And as you can see, there was one location, Bald Eagle Drive, actually just right up the road here. That location was exceeding capacity in your bidirectional bidirectional capacities. There was a few others that were getting pretty close, and you can see those are the ones that are labeled as, it says LOSD, so that's your level service Ds. They're getting close to your level service F. but we also want to look at these as a directional capacity because sometimes you can have a huge everyone's going one way in the morning or one way in the afternoon so you wanted to check that out as well and it same thing bald eagle drive It was still in the failing capacity. And there were still several level service Ds as well. And like I said, these are the first 16 locations. And then we have the other 17 through 20 that we're going to count again as well here in 2027. So we can add those into the report. But with that, thank you, and any questions?

Well, thank you for the presentation and such detailed work. I thoroughly enjoyed diving into this. I didn't like seeing the two Fs, but I understand where we are on land scarcity and whatnot. But I'm sure we're going to have some questions, so we'll start with Vice Chair Champagne.

Do you believe that the rerouting of traffic in order to accommodate the construction at Barfield and North Collier influenced the numbers in any way?

Yes, and that was actually something that we had discussed because of the construction. Oh, sorry.

I don't know if you want to chime in, Josh.

Josh, if you just state your name, please.

Josh Hildebrand. I'm a transportation engineer with Apex. And you had to answer that question, and Lee and I prepared the report ourselves. Absolutely, we do think that there are tendencies, especially you did have some corridors earlier this year that were under construction. Thank you. Excuse me under construction The good news is there was one corridor as we mentioned that did exceed capacity However, that was in the the peak season during a isolated incident That's why we did want to make sure we counted during that peak time we don't obviously anticipate that that capacity issue throughout the year, but I As you collect data over the years, you can start to see different trends. If you do have corridors under construction, obviously people are going to learn those patterns and make adjustments. So, you know, I don't know the evolution of this program, but the good news is there were a few segments that were, you know, getting closer to your adopted level of service, but we really didn't see that many segments in that peak season that were at that level. that level of service that exceeded what was adopted in their comprehensive plan.

For the portion of Bald Eagle Drive that you did site with an F, would that have been affected by this rerouting?

potentially um you know and again keep in mind we only had one full week of data um just to clarify we did want to make sure you guys had a full um seven days of data so we have uh basically a a friday to friday or saturday to saturday um collection so But during that peak season, and I think it was predominantly in the southbound direction, if my memory serves, we did see that exceed for a brief moment of time. It was both directions, but a little bit worse in that peak direction. I am hoping and optimistic with limited construction moving forward that you might not experience that on that one particular segment moving forward.

The piece or the section that did not appear to be a problem, which I would have automatically thought was going to be a problem, was the one that goes out to Snook Inn, Bald Eagle Drive out to Snook Inn. That looked like it was okay on your report. And every time I go there, it looks like it's jammed.

Yeah, based off of the periods we collected for that particular week, and we did, in fact, on Bald Eagle Drive, in that segment, we did put focus. We actually had two locations there because in talking with Dan and staff, there were certainly concerns. Again, it did not, at least when we counted, and that's not to say, again, we counted for one period of time. We did try to capture that peak season, not to say that there isn't one or two periods Weeks within the year that were a little bit worse than that that particular time of counts We did observe it at least it was theoretically Operating within your adopted level of service But keep in mind even within an optimal adopted level of service as you get into those C's and D's It can still feel feel congested especially during that that peak hour of the day and as Leah mentioned that peak direction can even feel even worse. And I do believe in that general vicinity, there was some construction going on close to the time frame there on Collier Boulevard when we did the count. So I don't know if that affected it one way or the other, but I did want to point that out.

Now, because of the construction that we're referring to, Does that beg that we repeat that?

I always recommend the more data you have, the better. One thing we try to do, and we've done this for other municipalities, the best snapshot is the same week, year over year. So if you could have multiple years in a row, it really starts to paint a a better picture of the trends, the growth, the movement. Again, we tried to capture all 20 locations. Obviously, as Leah mentioned, there was two that were under construction and then we did have, although not common, we did have some damaged tubes when we got the data back. So we're going to collect those next year. But it doesn't hurt having year-over-year data. And if you are going to do that, I recommend using the same location the same week of the year so you can get a good idea of those trends and changes. Very good. Thanks for the report.

Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Goehler.

Thank you for the report. My question is concerning on this F, the Bald Eagle area, what would be your suggestion to take measures, corrective measures? And even those Ds are somewhat not to get to the point that we go to the F. So what would you suggest we as a city would do to

corrected obviously you guys are nearly built out so the the increases there's always going to be some inherent increase in traffic but as far as widening corridors those aren't you know typically a good remedial action for built out urban areas typically. I would say one of the biggest things I would if you wanted my recommendation I would monitor that site for more than just one isolated week. We could certainly when we were out there in 27 I can certainly add since it is a primary concern put another set of tubes out there and we're certainly willing to do that. And then see you know if maybe that was just a higher than average we do to some other factor such as construction but again more data sets would probably Help the the other thing at those now we looked at it from a volume perspective Keep in mind. There's a theoretical roadway capacity of the actual travel lanes and Intersections are kind of a different way of looking at level of service. It's in terms of delay, and that's vehicle second delay. If you do have corridors that theoretically have enough capacity but you're really feeling a lot of congestion, sometimes it's not the roadway itself, but it may be the intersection. Sometimes things like extending a turn lane where cars back up or optimizing signal timings can help with Improvement of your roadway network what they feel like the roadway may not necessarily Be the roadway itself.

It may be the pinch points at intersections Unfortunately Such option as widening roads cannot happen on it because we have swells and Justin will be very upset if our storm water systems will get damaged So we are very, very limited when it comes to widening roads and build out. I'm not telling you. I'm just making my observation.

And we're certainly not advocating for that. We just wanted to, we collected the data. We wanted to present the findings. I would, my recommendation is monitor that corridor. And then and see you know where where we stand now if it starts to get worse year over year That's maybe when you want to take a little bit closer look and look at different operational efficiencies To improve not just that corridor, but maybe the surrounding network in the general vicinity Thank you Thank You councillor councillor Henry

Thank you very much. That was a whole lot of data, so thank you, because they're facts, right? My question actually is for Dan. I'm getting mic time. With this level of service, is your plan to compile the data to present to us with ideas or requirements, or is this purely just data for us to take in and know that there's too many cars on Bald Eagle

I think at this point we lost some of the information on some of the other corridors. Josh was willing to hit some of these other corridors where we had construction. At this point, I don't see anything alarming. And we can have this discussion on really what level of service means. You can flip this all the way around and you can say F might mean fantastic. I don't want widened roads. I like the idea of these small roads and if there's a bunch of traffic there, a lot of people avoid those because there is a bunch of traffic. Sanibel Island is that way. All their level of service is F. So those are decisions you have to make really in the comprehensive plan. We did ours in 2021. We think a little bit differently as time goes on that maybe level of service of D. Well, that was my question.

In the vast reaches of Attaining monies or qualifying for state funding and stuff if you have F roads, does that hurt you?

I'm not aware of it, but I guess Josh can answer that As far as the the fun, I can't speak to that again We were grading it against what was adopted in your comp plan I will say, you know, we didn't we saw one isolated location and not to say that that couldn't change it I've mentioned that but I really do believe if there are operational efficiencies that feel constrained, maybe take a closer look at some of those intersections and pitch points.

That part of Bald Eagle, everyone knows and sees, and you don't go on it on Tuesdays because it's the farmer's market. Thursdays are hard because the trash and recycling are on it. I mean, there's all factors. That road is the tightest corridor and the most traveled. As long... In my opinion, thank you for the information. It's something we already knew, but now we see it in writing. But if it's not going to hurt anything, there's really nothing we can do about it unless the land development code tells us that if we get an F, we have to be reactive.

And again, I'm not advocating for widening roads. I just wanted to report our findings. I understand you have constraints with swells and adjacent pedestrian infrastructure. I would just say the reactive portion of it is

The Land Development Code gives you three options, and I think I put that in the summary. And one of them is go down to a lower level. I mean, those are things you can do. But you don't have to make those decisions right now. To be honest with you, this is new information. I think all staff, even Justin, who's our transportation person, The director needs to be able to read this and know what's going on.

MS. As long as there's – my biggest concern is the repercussions towards any kind of things with the state or any requirements with FDOT or anything like that, that they wouldn't give us money because we have too many people in February.

Might I add, you can also look at a specific corridor as a constrained corridor. It does not have to impact your whole system. In fact, I think you have one of your corridors does have a different adopted level service. So if you do have a constrained facility and you have year-over-year data, you can identify that specific facility as a constrained road, if need be, without changing the requirements of the overall network.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Council. Councilor Dunn?

Once again, great study here. In my 50 years of transportation, which beats 26 years of banking. That's a good one.

I started riding my bicycle at four. I think I've been in transportation for 68 years.

No, no, no. It doesn't count. It doesn't count.

Well, you didn't give me the defined term.

OK. I love this kind of stuff. Who assigns the grades, A, B, C, D, and F? Is that something we did ourselves?

So to answer that question, the grades were adopted in your comp plan. However, my colleague Lee and I did spend time using the FDOT context classification, but we did make specific adjustments. DOT has generalized tables that follows the highway capacity manual. So they have general guidance, but they're more higher speed type facilities. So we did look at a It's a class 3 urban roadway, but we looked at each of your corridors and then we did make adjustments to the math based off of the Posted speed limit the lane with whether there was curb and gutter So there was some discretion between Lee and myself, but that's how we made those adjustments And then once we had it from a that two-way bidirectional we felt it was important to also look at that worst case at that peak season because typically you Anywhere from 55 to 65% of your corridors, especially on our coastal communities, you have people coming in for work in the morning and leaving in the afternoon. So it may not feel the same both ways. So we wanted to also make sure we looked at that worst case direction.

Yeah, the other question was, and Dan, I was going to ask, what other island communities have you done? But Dan answered that. Sanibel is all Fs. And it really makes no difference.

while I'm not sure if he did Sam did you do Sanibel you tell some of the communities there so we're currently doing a similar exercise for the city of Naples where they are I'm actually again it hasn't been adopted but they are looking at looking they currently look at a two-way directional standpoint but I think they're going to look at that also adopt it from a directional standpoint for the reasons I mentioned Leah and myself do this on an annual basis for the village of Estero. So we've been monitoring different roads throughout southwest Florida for the better part of a decade.

The F grade really is not a penalty of any kind. It's just our grading and how we want to think of ourselves as fantastic.

It is up to you what level of service you adopt, but we do try to make sure it aligns with the specific roadway corridors because not each road has the same capacity.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Gray. Thank you. 17 through 20, what were those segments that still have to be tested?

So 17 through 20, you can see, are further down towards the southern end. 17 was North Barfield Drive, and I think that was right where construction was. 18, 19, and 20, further to the south, those were the other three locations.

Okay. Perfect. Perfect.

Yep. So North Barfield right here. And then down here was 18, 19, and 20. So those four will get recounted.

Thank you. There's a notion in traffic that expressway goes at 60 miles an hour until you add one more car, and now the whole thing starts slowing down. So when you look at this, how much more incremental capacity before we would drop a notch in terms of the ratings? Do you have any idea? Go ahead.

Thank you. Do apologize, I know it's difficult to see on the screen. It does look larger on the computer screen in front of us. What we do have here is in this column here, this is that theoretical capacity, both from a, in this case, this was the peak hour two-way. We did provide it also in the directional. But that theoretical capacity is how many vehicles can occur in that peak hour. And then over on the right hand column, This was the worst case that we counted. Now again, we had seven days of traffic. We picked the worst. Typically, we don't consider a weekend when we're doing this. Typically, we're looking at Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday when we're assessing what day of the week to grade against level of service. Not to say that we can't see how it operated at the weekend. But if you compare this column here versus the actual volume, Using Yellowbird as an example, and this one operated at a level service C, and I can get the breakdown as you go from an A, B, C, or D, and we can certainly provide that in the report. But the theoretical capacity, 950 cars in our peak season, the week we did count those cars, and the data is provided in the report, it was 450. in the peak hour directional for that specific corridor. So I guess to answer your question, theoretically, that particular corridor could handle a lot more traffic, and each additional car that would count would be added against that theoretical capacity right here.

Thank you. From a trend analysis standpoint, A lot of residents are always concerned about traffic. Traffic, that's something that bothers everybody. Based on where we're positioning and potentially the growth on Marco Island, our traffic patterns are never going to improve. Is that a fair or unfair position statement for the community?

As far as how the growth and development happens on the island, I can't tell you one way or the other. What I can say, I mentioned we've done this for other communities. For the village of Estero, we count the same location year over year, and we target the exact same week to try to – Look at how those trends change there are modeling softwares that are you know available that can also look in and kind of how the The shifts shifts are occurring We do we will see fluctuations both up and down Over time on on corridors. So again, this is a snapshot of time But yes as more development occurs in one area Location on the island.

I would anticipate that the vehicular volumes would increase in that area with more development Did you happen to look at our Daily vehicle counts on Jolly Bridge, which we report and how that might have overlaid to some of your data. I

We did look at the Collier County AUIR on and off the island. Collier County does have count stations. In fact, for the capacity analysis, and I do want to clarify, we generally looked at FDOT's tables. However, we did for that specific corridor near the bridges, we did look at the – we did compare that to the county's adopted performance standard, which would be – THIS 2200, WE DO KNOW THAT that that corridor that that segment of road is is getting closer to capacity going on and off the island it hasn't exceeded both in the AUIR the Collier County what they monitor and then also the counts we collected did show that there was still a little theoretical capacity left but I would expect that you do feel and the residents feel that that coming on and off the island in peak season this feels pretty congested around the bridges, I would anticipate.

Thank you. Last one's maybe just speculation. We're getting more golf carts. We're getting more e-bikes. We're looking at more alternative transportation methods. Does that help hurt or make this conversation indifferent?

I believe you're referring to micromobility. I guess. If they can legally operate on the road and not impede the flow, I don't know if it necessarily hurts or not. We didn't do an analysis, a breakdown of how many golf carts or e-bikes or anything like that as part of these counts. That's... A separate discussion, but I would think if they're not able to run with the speed of the road or the flow of the road, I would think that may have a potential impact.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No further questions. I really appreciate the presentation.

Thank you, Counselor. Counselor Schwann?

Just one quick question and to follow up with my question was about bike lanes that are anticipated on bald eagle Which would help the flow we would hope? To get the bikes the e-bikes other micro mobility if they can operate in those bike lanes Is that something that you just said you don't really go and study that?

So I wasn't aware if you did we could for again for this specific study we were looking at the vehicular counts on the road and I will say if you have a shared bicycle vehicular lane and the vehicles are supposed to speed limits 30 and the bicycles or golf carts are going slower, again, I think that would have at least a perception of slowing down traffic. Obviously, having that separate bike lane, that designated lane for that type of traffic takes it off of that. In that shared capacity, I would think that would provide benefit.

Thank you for your presentation.

Vice Chair Champagne.

Yeah, I guess I'm going to address mine to Dan and Casey and, quite frankly, to the City Council. When I came on the City Council in March, from March until this report, my gosh, the fact that we hadn't conducted an LOS for 12 years was being described as a national emergency We were wrong. People were being criticized, not by name, but pretty much so, for not doing it sooner. So we've done it. We don't see a problem. So what was the reason for this big hubbub? We spent a considerable amount of money to make it happen. What did I miss that people thought was going to be exposed? That we were overcrowded? Do we have a lot of cars yet? That's what it sounds like. Yeah, we have a lot of cars. Is it an emergency state yet? No. What was driving this? You were a target, so what do you think was going on?

I think what's great about some of these studies is it kind of eliminates a lot of rumor, innuendo, that over time builds up. They don't really know where it's come from. When I first got here, everybody said parking structures are not allowed on the island. And that didn't come from me, but everybody was telling me this, and it was like, the Land of Uncle doesn't say that. So these are just some of those things that people bring up. And a study was needed. It had been too long because there's certain pinch points, things. We're seeing stuff level left, and it helps us. gives us direction on maybe some projects that we probably would either go or do or not do so but you know it's in the land development code that it will be done every year and that's really pretty much the gist of it it was something that was adopted I guess I'm asking why why would we spend money every year to do this because do we expect different results

Casey, any ideas? I don't get it, to be honest with you.

Yes. We have an ordinance. It's, I believe, Ordinance 10-06 that says the city will conduct these level of service studies every year in five areas. Transportation is just one of the five areas. They haven't been done in quite some time because it can get pricey to do this every year, especially times five. Takes time and as you see they they started their counts in January We're getting the report in July and then as soon as you get this report, they'll start cycling back to do next year's report. So What I would propose is on a future agenda because this was one of the goals of the City Council when you had your goal workshop was to examine the best practices for level of service studies and So what I would propose is on a future agenda, maybe in August or September, Dan and I will come back to you with here's what the code requires. Do you want to invest the time and money for five level of service studies every single year? And then once you get the results, here are your options for how to respond once you get the results. And as Dan indicated, the options are limited, mostly because we have limited space here. So I do think there's a kind of a larger philosophical discussion for the council to have about the value of these studies. They certainly do bring value and important data, but whether or not you want to invest in these studies annually I think is the conversation and decision that the council needs to make.

I have that. an add-on to that. I do agree, we need to take that agenda item into consideration. But even more important, who sets the standard in the LOS? Do we as a city council determine how many cars should be on the street?

Well, it is identified in our comprehensive plan. So, for example, it says the roads, collector roadways, local roads will be rated D. And the only exception is Collier Boulevard from the Jolly Bridge to San Marco Road will be rated C. And that is in our comp plan, and that was approved by the city council. And Dan can speak more to how those grades came about, but I think those are standard.

That's my point. Right. These are the same standards when we became a city. I don't believe any of those standards has changed, and they were just a goal. Like I said, a lot of this was adopted from Collier County, and now we're getting the capacity, and now we have this study, and we have three things we can do. We can lower it. We can... make adjustments of some kind. I doubt if widening roads is a good thing. I don't know if some of these council people remember, we had a traffic speed study back in 2017, and the city council, I don't believe, followed the staff's recommendation because what you'll find out is even though the speed limit's higher, you're not moving the number of cars any faster because it has to do with street lights, it has to do with other things. So we can revisit this on a direction, and a comp plan would be in order to follow with a land development code change. I would think that's necessary.

Guys, before we get one second go around, and we could kind of pare this down a little bit. We're not going to make any big decisions today. I appreciate the study. I was here during when we were talking about why are we not doing the LOS studies, and that was a little newer, and as much as I'm forward, I kind of listened to that one. And we had counselors that were smart, of yes, they were saving money. They were rolling back. They had very, very strong convictions about being a conservative. But more importantly, what was it going to tell us? So when it came, I made 13 suggestions for tracking traffic and parking, and not one of them was popular. Trolley, oh, my God. Parking in the churches. Working out a deal with Micah. More e-bikes. Company called Slider. I have a whole list of them. And at the end, I just said, I think maybe the citizens want us just to do nothing. They want to vent about it a little. They want to realize it's busier in season. So I think there's five solutions. Correct me if I'm wrong. One is do nothing. Two is widen the roads. Take some lane space, which people at Bald Eagle would absolutely love that. We're not going to show up here and have any concerns. Three, maybe one we can do. And Justin, we just had a while back, I think it started with previous council, ended with this one. Although they're older and they couldn't receive firmware updates, we reprogrammed our traffic lights, correct? And received a real bump in efficiency with them. if I remember correctly. Saved a minute or two. It was a big deal to me.

That's correct. And we have some more improvements on the way. We awarded a contract to replace the controllers at all the signalized intersections throughout the city.

So would this information possibly be able to help with that type of study or that type of initiative?

Yeah. If you'd like my take on all of this, first take is that, yes, absolutely, these counts were affected by the construction at the Barfield-Collier intersection. And so I would just keep that in your back pocket, and I would say do this again in another year and perhaps maybe not just do it for one week, do it for maybe two or three weeks, spanning into March, which is the actual peak traffic season that we see down here. So you may see some different results. And to answer the other question earlier about whether this affects our ability to get grant funding, and actually the worse your level of service is, the more that actually helps you because it shows a deficiency where then you can use that as a basis or justification for obtaining grants. So I just wanted to share that with you.

Well, I said five, right? Do nothing, widen the road, change the timing and the lights. We can change the flow of traffic, move them to different streets, which probably isn't Seymour. We could look for an alternative source of transit, which wasn't very popular on Marcos. So we're probably going to be where we're at. Vice Chair Champagne, as you said, what are we learning? Well, this might have been more effective when we had 5,000 undeveloped lots on the island. Now that we're pretty close to build out, not much is going to change on the island 951 the collier corridor could change and it's not just people coming to our beaches or to go out to eat which is a concern for many of our citizens think of the size homes being built look at yellowbird look what's being torn down and built there how many vendors how many contractors how many people put up the blinds how many people on the tile like all the services provided to that the level of homes that are being built are so Massive. They're much higher cost. They're bringing a lot more services in. So that might be affecting us coming over that bridge on a daily basis, contractors and services to the island. The other thing I'll say is the last thing I'll... I read the first 25 pages. Because if you folks are watching or listening, there was 363 pages. And the pages after 25 were every 15 minutes of the traffic count. So I got through the first 25. And I naturally looked at the F. Oh, there's two Fs. What can we do about it? And I realized I drive down those streets every day, even when the farmer's market is there. I go to my place of business, and it's like an extra two extra minutes of my life. I just give two more minutes of my time to drive down the street, or I go around Yellowberg through the turnabout. So to answer, to piggyback on what you're saying, there might be not much we can do, but realize we're close to build out, and this is about the way it is.

Councilor Gray, I see your light on. I just wanted to respond to our Vice Chairman. I took an oath to try and follow our ordinances and try and follow everything that I agreed to do. And the concurrency requirements in Florida. In Florida, concurrency refers to the requirement that certain public facilities and services must be available to support new development. This ensures that infrastructure keeps pace with growth. Non-optional concurrency measurements, sanitary sewer, solid waste, drainage, potable water, transportation, Parks and Rec, this is what we do for a living. It might be boring, it might be miserable, but we hadn't diagnosed it in 12 years. We're out of compliance with what we'd stated our mission statement was, and I absolutely pushed to try and bring this back into compliance. So I apologize if that caused you a problem.

No, but I think we've got to the point where we are today, which we're pretty much conceding that maybe the ordinance is a problem. and not the reality. The reality is the reality, and we have an ordinance that is probably out of date with reality.

Isn't this a state statute?

No, level of service is, level of service, the adoption, that's something the city council has.

The concurrency requirements.

There is concurrency requirements, but it's absolutely something that you adopt.

You set the, it is a state statute for concurrency purposes, but you set the level of service. You determine what that is.

Okay. Now, there are two projects on the horizon that are coming up real quick, which are already catching the community's attention. of LOS for traffic. And that is Rosemarina and the Hilton proposal. People are already saying, without any facts, that they're going to overload the roads. Well, we'd better test it. Is that true? I mean, I don't know.

We're going to find out. I don't see any light signs. Dr. Lucius, you might have been correct, and I can't say if this is more valuable. We're already growing. We're reaching our full build-out. We were already anticipated to be this, but while we were getting here, this information might have certainly changed. voted more effective when things were changing on a yearly basis. Two, three, four, 500 homes were being built. Casey, I think you had said maybe we don't need it as often. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but we might want to take a look at putting this on a future agenda and seeing if we want to change the amount of times we do it. That might make sense to me. Did you want a consensus on that, or do we need to direct you on that?

No, it's something that I already planned on doing because it's on the city council goals. So I think we need to follow up with some action items.

Excellent. Gentlemen, thank you. Yes.

I just have a quick question. Since we're talking about land development codes and comp plans, Mr. Attorney, how many votes do we need to amend the comp plan?

Dan, you know.

Dan, I'm sorry.

For just general changes that don't have anything to do with changes of land use or density, four is needed. Any time there's a change of land use or density, five is required.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for your hard work.

We appreciate it. Thank you.

All right, guys, it's 6.20. We're going to circle back to item nine, citizens' comments for items not on the agenda. So if you're here to speak about something that's not on the agenda, now would be the time. How many people signed up for it?

We have two registered speakers.

If you could please call them up.

Our first is Mr. Elliot Mascoup, followed by Mr. Tony Oliverio.

Elliot, how are you tonight?

Good evening. I'm doing great. Elliot Mastkoop, 1300 6th Ave, Marco Island, Florida, 34145. I just wanted to say a few words of support for the Marco Island Police Department. This inquiry that was floated and is being investigated by our manager to see what we could do without when it comes to the police department has really taken quite a turn in the public. The public is very, very worried, and I am too. This is the kind of thing that, in my opinion, should never have been brought up, and most everybody I talk to also agree. We have an unbelievably spectacular police department with a new interim chief. I hope he becomes our permanent chief. We don't know yet. But he's really turning this into a model for the nation. It's really the rapport, the fantastic response time. We have people that are alive. We have children that didn't drown. We have heart attack cases that didn't kill because of the spectacular police department that we have on Marco Island. It is absolutely one of the most important things that probably the most, along with the fire department, the two most important things in my estimation that we have that make us safe, secure. They have an unbelievably positive image in the public. If we needed to cut something, there are things that we could cut, but not the police department. I can come up with lots of items that I would cut, but I'm not you guys. But you leave the police and the fire alone. A couple of things that... I also wanted to say was that if we are operating on a shoestring or worried about the upcoming vote when it comes to property tax, we should be taxing adequately. I know you just had a meeting this afternoon, I didn't get to watch it, but I'm hoping that the taxation rate, the millage rate will be adequate rather than a shoestring to support what's really important here in Marco Island. I just really wanted to also say that When we come up with ideas to cut or things that are not as important, that we protect certain things that should never be touched. And the police department is one of those things that... I talk to people all over this island, and I think that... I have not talked to anybody who likes this idea. Everybody supports the police department, and I would love to see this council bring this up and get rid of it, tell our manager, drop it, forget it, it's a bad idea. Let's support the MIPD. That's what I wanted to say, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next and final registered speaker is Mr. Tony Oliverio.

Good evening, Council. Tony Oliveira, 1801 Olds Court. Elliot, you know what? I'm going to just start with that first. You're 1,000% right, and I'll speak for myself, my restaurant. If people want to defund our police department, don't come to my restaurant. I don't want your money. Don't come. Look at everyone at home. If you eat at the Italian deli, don't come anymore. I don't want your money. It's an insurance policy to have a police department. The message that we're sending to everybody is let's defund the police. By the time we're done, we'll have tampons in boys' bathrooms. We left those crazy states of New York, Chicago, New Jersey, L.A., California but I like all those crazy places it could happen right here so Elliot you're a thousand percent correct now for the good news that was good news though for the better news because of you mr. chairman when you were a when you weren't a chairman you sat I think it's where mr. Juan was or maybe possibly when mr. Graves I don't remember you wanted me to give a donation a gentleman's agreement to the Jewish congregation slash church. I consider them one entity. And you said David Tolstice was here. Unfortunately, Mr. Gabriel was out at that time. And he said, oh, you can't be doing deals here on the dais. And you said it's a gentleman's agreement. suggestion yep suggestion so you asked if i would give a donation twenty thousand dollars when i started well i said i'll do it when i start construction so the reason why i'm doing it publicly is because you deserve that credit without you bringing it up it would have never happened It would have just went nowhere. And you guys are going to have some big decisions to make coming up between the Hilton, Rose Marina. What you do is up to you. But those are times to ask these private developers to contribute, to kick in some money, what it is. I don't know if it's a pension fund, improvements to our roadways. That's going to be for you guys to decide. But I'm just here to give Mr. Ulster his check for $20,000 because of you. Thank you. Thank you very much. You got it, buddy. Thank you.

I just want to say thank you to everybody here. It was an interesting time a little over a year ago. We're going to use this to beautify the cemetery after the construction is over with to the best of our ability. And I want to thank Tony for honoring that and the council for helping us through this. So thank you.

Go ahead, guys. Since I was mentioned by name, and I appreciate the compliments, but a little background if you were not here for that. That was over a discussion over landscaping, buffering, helping each other out, and that's how that came about. That wasn't a mandate from council. It was a suggestion if you want to work it out between yourselves. And I'm glad you did, and it just shows the way business and community and everybody can come together. So good luck and God bless, and thank you.

We have no additional speakers.

All right, we are moving on to item 10, city manager's report. Light signs if you have any questions for Casey. Casey, anything for us?

No, nothing to add.

Okay, I see no light signs. I do have one. Councillor Henry.

I just wanted to say I attended, if you read Dr. Lucious's report, when she presented to the Sunrise Rotary. She did a great job, and I think it just goes to her presentation to the public, the complete transparency, answering questions to the point that the meeting might have run a little over. But she did just a fabulous job. So if you're with an organization that she is speaking at, I highly recommend you go, because even as a counselor who has this great relationship, it was great to see her PowerPoint and all the various information. It's just very informational for everyone.

I have one, but I'll just comment. Casey, we've seen you all over the island, every type of ceremony, awards, luncheon, and we appreciate the presence, and it matters to the community, I believe. And it helps when they see us around, when they see staff. answer the questions, put a name to the face. So thank you for that. But I wanted to highlight on your manager's report number four, congratulations to the Marquand Police Department Accreditation Coordinator, who was awarded the Florida Police Chiefs Association Civilian of the Year Award. This is nothing new. We knew this and wanted to just revisit it. That is Lori Green, if I understand correctly, who received that. I had the privilege of meeting her, getting to know her a bit up in St. Augustine when I went with the police for their reaccreditation. And forgive me, this might not be the proper English, but I said it. This is a really big deal. This accreditation is hard. It takes a lot of work. State law enforcement agencies get this, and this saves us on insurance, not only makes us a better police force. So big congratulations to the whole police force for that. And Chief, I will say to you, Look, we're doing nothing different. We're saving the same lives we've saved before. Maybe your presence now as our interim chief might be a little bit different, a new spark for the community. But you are getting nothing. You and your team and the whole force are getting nothing but compliments out there on the island. So we've mentioned it four or five times, I think, in the last few meetings. So keep up the great work, and thank you. All right, nothing else for the city manager. We can move on to the city attorney's report. Alan, anything we covered all today? Yes.

Mr. Chairman and council members, there's just a couple of things I want to bring to your attention. In my report, I actually have, and I think I mentioned it to you earlier today, foreclosure of code liens. And I identify that there's two complaints that were filed on behalf of the city since our last meeting, which was 581 Tiger Tail Court was a case against luxury homes of Southwest Florida. They were seeking, the question was how much was the judgment, the monies that are outstanding. We're seeking $6,200 plus attorney's fees and costs on that case. On another matter, 1710 Canary Court. This is Federhoff O'Neill Home Builders. Both of these are contractors, actually. We're seeking their judgment of $6,450 plus attorney fees. So those are two cases that are actually filed and are pending now. Also, there's another property, 910 Ship Court, that we're actually putting together a complaint right now to file against them as well, which you'll see in my next report. Just as a reminder, I had asked at the last meeting on July 6th for an attorney-client session. That was for case number 26AP02, petition for writ of certiorari, 6666 Avenue LLC versus the City of Marco Island. And we'll also have discussions with regard to another matter, which is 666th Avenue LLC, 6826th Avenue LLC, 6586th Avenue LLC, and 6746th Avenue LLC, which is a Burt Harris claim filed against the city. That is going to be scheduled for August 17th. At 1.30, it will be approximately a two-hour session. It might not take that long, but I want to give you plenty of time to ask whatever questions you need to while we have that opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you. No light signs for Alan. We're moving on to item 12, which is the monthly departmental reports. Finance, community affairs, and fire and rescue are on the agenda for tonight. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Gray.

This is a question for our fire chief. Unscheduled, unexpected. Do you know, do the other municipalities around us do annual fire and safety inspections on short-term rental properties? I'm looking for revenue streams, but I'm just curious. This is a 3,000-plus units on this island that I don't think we take any look at at all, and I was just curious if that's standard procedure in other communities.

There are no fire departments in Collier County that currently inspect short-term rentals, but there are departments in west Florida, north of us, that do have fire inspection programs for short-term rentals.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one comment for Chief Byrne. We got together this week for about two hours, right? I brought the Dunkin' Donuts and coffee. You brought the knowledge. And we talked. And I won't go into all the details because this is going to evolve over time. But my main reason was, Chief Byrne, I want to get together with you. How do we have some type of first responder presence on the south end of the island to save lives and to cut down the time to get there by under eight minutes or less? As the Chief told me, hold your breath for eight minutes and see how it works. That drowning or the saving of the child, it just, as I said, it was too long before I was putting off getting together with you. We had a wonderful meeting, covered a ton of ground. I was made aware of things I didn't understand as to our fire ratings and why we have possibly sometimes the staff we do, what it means to your insurance. Chief, would it be safe to say we have a lot of exciting stuff we're going to be sharing in the near future with the citizens and hopefully we'll get to where we want to go?

Yes, I believe so. And I would say I'm available to all city council members for similar meetings.

Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great. No other light signs. Guys, we're moving on. Nothing under item 13, quasi-judicial public hearings tonight. Thank you. And nothing under 14. It's nice to have these little bit of lighter agendas every now and then, isn't it? Nothing for public hearings or first readings. So we're on to item 15, resolutions and city council items. So we're on to 15A, authorize the city manager to award a contract to Rikon Construction Inc. FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC WORKS FACILITY, PUBLIC WORKS COVERED OPEN STORAGE STRUCTURE AND ASSOCIATED SITE IMPROVEMENTS IN THE AMOUNT OF $2,450,749. JUSTIN MARTIN, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS, PRESENTING. HI, JUSTIN.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. AGAIN, JUSTIN MARTIN, PUBLIC WORKS. And so this has been long in the making Some of you have visited the South water treatment plant and have seen the public works facility trailers and the condition that they're in These are old 1980s vintage abandoned surplus school trailers that the city initially rented and then purchased from the school district that were sitting in the Manatee Middle School yard for years. And the Public Works field crew is the last of the city employees that are still in these trailers. You may recall the Water and Sewer Administration had the same type of trailers at the north water treatment plant. Those have since been demolished, replaced. They went into some new trailers. The same thing happened with the collections and distribution crew of the water and sewer department. So this is the last department still working in these old 1980s school trailers, which the roof leaks, the air conditioners don't work. We had to put in some window air conditioners, and there's a lot of problems with them, and they're not adequate facilities. I think we're all aware of that. So when I became the public works director, the former city manager charged me with finding a solution, providing an adequate facility, and I looked at several things. I looked at purchasing some property that was adequately zoned for that. We have very limited amounts of real estate in the island that is available for that, that's zoned. However, properties that we looked at were all in the million and a half plus just for the land, and then you'd have to develop the site and put a new facility in there. Also looked at out-of-the-box, outside-the-box type of solutions like relocating the dog park. and some other things so the those items were tossed aside and what was ultimately approved was to expand the site where we're at now and build right on the site that we're at now and so in order to do that we had to rezone the South Water Treatment Plant site because it was zoned residential single-family and You may recall a couple of years ago we went through a rezoning process, and now that's properly zoned just like the Mackle Park, just like this campus is. It's zoned as a public zoning. And so in FY24, city council approved the budget to have this facility replaced and And it took us until now, going through all those zoning processes. We had a variance process for the metal building and the landscaping. All that's out of the way. We have since designed the, had an architect design the facility, went out to bid. And I'm happy to say that we sent notices to over 1,800 vendors, and we got 12 bids. Since I've been working at the city 19 years now, I've never seen a project where we've had 12 bids. And that's just fantastic. That's great. We had a lot of competition on this. And if you look at the bids that were received, they're very, very competitive. And so we're getting a really great price for the market that we're in right now. The bids are within budget and it doesn't it's not just for the public works building It also includes site improvements, which has a public works yard parking some drainage improvements and there's also a an auxiliary building to store the the city's heavy equipment underneath of that so it's out of the weather and So all of that goes into that, and this is the same contract. The low bidder was the same contractor that we had for the Aeronasium, and it's the same contractor that you awarded earlier this month for the portable generator storage facility for the water and sewer department. So staff recommends approval of the awarded contract for this long-overdue public works facility, and I'm here to answer any questions.

Justin, thank you for this. And before I turn this over to the counselors, and they've heard this story, I'll be quick about it. When I first toured the facility as a newer counselor on a council with returning veterans, I said, I'm forward, but I knew my place. But I saw that in the conditions that they were functioning in. And these were the most resourceful employees, taking car rims and welding them to stop sign poles and making dollies that worked out of them. They were like Boy Scouts meet MacGyvers meet Green Berets. But the conditions were deplorable, and they were unacceptable, in my opinion, for an employee of the city. And I came back to the meeting and opened my mouth on that one. I didn't hold back. respectfully but I said this is unacceptable we need to resolve it and I was excited that I got a little bit traction I felt like I accomplished something so before I turn the light signs over to any of these people I'm gonna break a little bit of protocol not rules protocol motion to approve motion by myself Thank You councillor Schwan second by councillor Schwan councillor Henry your light sign is on well-deserved as a newer counselor and walking through there and realizing you guys need this and deserve this

What is your timeline for construction? How much longer do the trailers have to last?

Well, actually, those trailers, the first thing that will happen once we award this contract is the existing trailers will go, and we have a temporary leased trailer in the interim until we get the new building built. That will be delivered.

So you're not moving the old trailers?

No, those will be demolished and removed, and we'll be temporarily moving into a mobile office trailer similar to a construction trailer in the meantime.

Great. Yeah, and the only other thing I had noted, that you stole 12 bidders. And the numbers were great, the competitiveness and the bid. So, yay. Thank you. Thank you.

Justin, we can't sell those old trailers? Don't answer. Vice Chair Champagne, you're up next.

Actually, Justin just answered my question. The question was, where are employees going to live in the time we're building, they just answered no other questions. Thank you.

Councillor Schwan, you're still lit up.

Yes. Thank you for the presentation, Justin. Also, thank you again for the tour that you gave me of the facility and met all the people who work there, the employees, and look forward to this moving forward.

And I'm sorry you had to walk up all those stairs and ramps and all that.

It was very educational. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anybody signed up to speak?

We have one registered speaker.

Please call them up.

Mr. Michael Josephs.

Michael Josephs, Marco Island. I'm not always here to speak negative. I am certainly here to speak positive. Justin, fantastic job. The broken record isn't broken anymore. Twelve. Twelve. Wow. I saw that. Impressive. So if we're one, and not a piggyback contract, not a piggyback, independent 12 bids, it can be done. You proved it, Justin. You proved it. So if someone's wondering how do we do it, I'm sorry, Justin, but talk to Justin. He did it. This is the kind of financial responsibility that the citizens want. Thank you. Thank you.

No other registered speakers.

Justin, thank you for the presentation. Thank you to the team. Jim, call the roll, please.

Yes, sir. Chair Palumbo? Yes. Councilor Schwan?

Yes.

Councilor Dome? Yes. Councilor Goler?

Yes.

Councilor Henry?

Yes.

Councilor Gray? Yes. Vice Chair Champaign?

Yes. All right. Motion passes happily, seven to nothing. Can't wait for the ribbon cutting. Thank you. We are on to 15B, which is a resolution.

Thank you. I'm reading the resolution 26-32 by title into record. A resolution of the City Council of the City of Marco Island, Florida, authorizing the city manager to execute, one, a locally funded agreement, and two, a transportation off-system post-project maintenance agreement for financial project numbers 445460-1-52-01 and 445460-1-62-01-08 with the Florida Department of Transportation. Three, and a three-party escrow agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation THE STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES AND THE CITY OF MARCO ISLAND FOR THE DEMOLITION, RECONSTRUCTION, AND MAINTENANCE OF CASAMBAS COURT BRIDGE OVER ROBERTS BAY, BRIDGE NUMBER 034112, AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

Justin Martin public works so you're all familiar with this project this is the the bridge on CAC Sambas Court that has had the the worst rating one of the worst in the entire county FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW AND WE ARE HAVING FDOT INSPECTIONS EVERY THREE MONTHS AND EVERY THREE MONTHS THEY IDENTIFY THE SAME THING. THE CONDITION OF THE BRIDGE, THE SUPERSTRUCTURE IS IN A POOR CONDITION AND NEEDS TO BE REPLACED. And so we've discussed this over the years, and one of the biggest things was funding, how we're going to fund this thing, because we thought we were going to have an FDOT grant that covered $3.75 million, and then the city would have to pay the rest of it. And initially, this bridge was thought to be under $5 million, but given the bidding that we did on the West Winterberry Bridge and what the thing – The cost increases that we've had after COVID, this is now almost a $12 million bridge project, and that does not include the water and sewer replacements that's on that bridge. So the good news is that DOT was able to identify additional projects additional federal funding that could be applied to this and I'm not sure of the exact funding source Jeff Jones from FDOT is here tonight and available for questions if you have any but I some of that may be from the infrastructure jobs act but The good news is that the city's component right now is about three point four million dollars However, we need to budget four point five million because this is based on the engineers estimate as you know Sometimes the engineers estimates don't match the lowest bid sometimes lowest bids come in higher so we need to be prepared for that because we only have a 14-day window and to deposit any additional funds that are required because of a low bid price increase over what was estimated. So DOT requires these three agreements. There's the escrow agreement, the local funding agreement, and then the maintenance agreement. And once we provide these signed agreements to DOT, that commits the city to provide this funding. Earlier today during the budget workshop, the city manager outlined how we could get there without the transportation bond. And so what we did is essentially we pushed aside a lot of the infrastructure, normal capital improvements infrastructure that we have, including the bike lane projects on Bald Eagle in order to be able to provide funding for this bridge then also the the 1.3 million that we need for the drainage repairs every year and then 1 million for the the annual street resurfacing so those are the three major projects and that will be able to fund this doing some reallocations and the cost savings that you saw earlier today about the 5% reduction so with that just wanted counsel to be aware that once you vote for this and This does get executed that does commit the city to move forward with this and deposit the funds into an escrow agreement 14 days after the signing of this so we'll be providing this document to do t in the October timeframe because October 19th is the city's deadline in order to deposit funds in the escrow agreement that will be in fiscal 27 since it starts in October 1st so we're good there I've talked to the finance director and they're aware that we would need to deposit those funds at that time so with that I'll take any questions and like I said Jeff Jones from FDOT is here to answer any questions you may have

I think there's one other important note here. With the approval of this agenda item, the next one will need to be approved as well.

And the next one is for the water and sewer replacements on this same bridge. Very good.

Okay. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the clarification. Councilor Schwan, you are up.

Thank you for the presentation and also thank you to dr Lucius for laying this out to us in our workshop on the Operational workshop earlier today and we do need to do this in a timely basis So I'd like to move that we authorize the city manager to execute this on a timely basis Second we have a motion to approve by councillor Schwann second by vice chair champagne

I see light signs on. Before I go over to you, Councillor Gray, I just want to clarify what Jeff Poteet said. So this motion is only for 15B, correct? I will still have to still motion on 15C. even though they are somewhat of a package deal. I want to frame it in the right words.

Two separate resolutions, and the clerk will read the second one into the record, and you'll take a separate vote. But to Jeff's point, once you make the commitment and we replace the bridge, obviously the water and sewer lines connected to the bridge will need to be replaced as well.

Appreciate the heads up on that and a little bit of guidance. Thank you All right with that counselor gray your light sign is on it.

Thank you a couple questions on funds flow Will you be asked growing three point four million or four point five nine three point four initially?

Until the bids are open and when the bids are open if let's say the bids come in at four million so then we'll have to Deposit that additional six hundred thousand into the extra agreement within 14 days after those bids are open and we get notice from DOT

Understood. Thank you for that. So if we go with the 3-4, we wait for the news, it would be wonderful if it came in at that, but I think we've been advised the number will probably go higher. So let's say it came in at 3-9. I'm just arbitrarily picking a number. What happens to the other $600,000 that we allocated to this project? Does that get looped back into a fund, or when would that money be turned loose for us to use for other purposes?

I would reckon that's ultimately up to City Council, but I would recommend that we do that after we're well into this project because You can award a low bid. Let's say it's four million and let's say there's some unforeseen condition where you know, they they they find that the the conditions under the bridge are unsuitable and they have to change the lengths of the the the foundation piles or something that would end up being a change order so if if we reallocate those residual funds before we're well under this project then we won't have money available for a change order and then we'll have to come back to you and say well we need to find money in order to do this so I I would just say we would need to budget the 4.5, even though it could be as little as 3.4 or less. We don't know until the bids come in. And do the project. So if we have residual funds a year from now, we could reallocate those funds. Council has control of that.

So maybe 12 months in the future, we'd have a pretty good idea what the final capital call is.

12 months after the bids open, yes, absolutely. Okay.

And hang on. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you. I see no light signs. First of all, this has to be done, right? If us and every councilor's picture's on the wall back there since we became a city, I think we've done our job. We've exhumed every single ounce of life out of this bridge that we could. And now it's time to build a new one. Casey, I think we spoke about this. If you could just clarify, how is this affected if our referendum passes?

This agreement will not be affected if the bond passes. If the bond passes, we just make changes to the budget instead of reallocating some of the funds we talked about today. But it doesn't affect this agreement.

I appreciate that. I just wanted to get that out there for the public to know. Thank you for letting me know that. Anybody signed up to speak on this?

We have no members of the public signed up on this one.

Will you call the roll, please? Yes, sir.

Councilor Schwan? Yes. Vice Chair Champaign? Yes. Councilor Dome? Yes. Councilor Gray?

Yes.

Councilor Goler? Yes. Councilor Henry? Yes.

Chair Palumbo? Yes. Motion passes 7-0. We move on to 15C. Joan, if you would please read this lovely paragraph.

Thank you. I'm reading Resolution 26-33 by title into record. A resolution of the City Council of the City of Marco Island, Florida authorizing the city manager to execute a utility work by highway contractor agreement. financial project number 445460-1-56-01 with the Florida Department of Transportation and a three-party escrow agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation and the State of Florida Department of Financial Services and the City of Marco Island for the relocation of its water and sewer mains within the limits of FPID 445460-1-52-01 Kiksambas court Roberts Bay replacement structure number 0 3 4 1 1 2 and providing an effective date.

Thank you Jeff anything you need to present on this you want to wait for questions and answers I think Justin did an excellent job of Overviewing we're replacing the the lines in kind There's no need to upsize any of the lines. So I think Justin did an outstanding job and very good Thank You councillor goaler

I'll move forward to approve them. I'll make a motion to approve this project. Second.

Motion by Councillor Gould or second by Vice Chair Champagne. Light signs if you have any questions on this one, Council. Jeff, you got the easier part. Oh, Council Gray's got one. Come on back.

It was actually a tag team. Is there any risk we could get hit with a higher number if you kept out a worst-case scenario?

There's always a risk, but I'm pretty comfortable with the number that we have, and we're budgeting, again, for a little higher number. We'll also have staff time that gets allocated to that as well.

Thank you.

All right.

Anybody signed up for public comment? Members of the public have asked. Call the roll, please.

Yes, sir.

Councilor Goler.

Yes.

Vice Chair Champaign. Yes. Councilor Dome. Yes. Councilor Gray. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Schwan.

Yes.

Chair Palumbo.

Yes. Again, motion passes 7 to 0. Excellent. All right. We're on to 15D, which is a city manager's performance evaluation form and timing. Diane, here you are. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, council. So I am here to present the city manager performance evaluation for your review and discussion tonight. Just to go over the form. As a little bit of a background, we did have this discussion originally on February 17th. Regarding the city managers of performance evaluation following that discussion We determined that myself and vice chairman champagne would work together on the next evaluation to make some changes which we did During that meeting council provided several key directives So just to go over as a reminder, we wanted to use the 1 through 5 numerical rating system rather than the descriptive rating, such as meets expectations or does not meet expectations, develop an evaluation that is less subjective and based on measurable performance, and to create a process that promotes consistency and accountability from year to year. So what has changed? The previous evaluation was primarily based on opinion-based questions. Council members could interpret questions differently. There was no weighting of the evaluation categories, limited ability to compare performance from year to year, and the overall evaluation relied heavily on individual judgment. The revised evaluation uses a defined one to five rating scale with the performance descriptions. measures performance against established goals and measurable outcomes, includes weighted evaluation categories, creates an objective and consistent evaluation process, produces an overall merge score that can be tracked over time. The benefits of this evaluation is it aligns with Council's priorities, evaluates measurable accomplishments rather than personal opinions, provides consistency, creates accountability with established goals, allows year-over-year comparison, establishes a transparent and repeatable evaluation process. The next step, if you were to approve this evaluation and the use of this form, also discussion on the last council meeting was to have the city manager be able to provide a self-evaluation form. So once this is approved, whether it's tonight or the next meeting or the next meeting, I can then create a self-evaluation form that could be up for review that would be comparable to the evaluation so that they can coincide.

open for questions. Well, thank you very much for this and putting your hard work into it. I think it's an excellent forum. Councillor Henry, your light sign is up first.

Thank you for your efforts. Thank you, Vice Chair. I'm sorry, I didn't like it at all. Only because I went through the job description for our city manager, as advertised and as obtained. And the majority of the things on here don't correlate. from our conversation today, I took a simple little AI through the job description and said please submit an evaluation that goes with that. And it is more, it's based on the job description. A lot of these things, from my notes, capital improvement and infrastructure delivery, Capital improvement and infrastructure delivery. The word delivery, that's not part of the job. It's the execution. It's following the things. Council relations and governance. My note was kissing our butts is not in her job description. Identifying new sources of revenue. That is not in the city manager's job description. So I would like kind of everybody maybe if we go through this, if we care that much to maybe submit our own and merge. I just didn't feel like this was a very objective way of what the job description is for the city manager. This still, in my opinion, leaned a little too much of personal opinion going in of, you know, if you had something that you wanted to pass and it didn't pass, you could hold that grudge in this description. And that is not her fault nor her responsibility. So that's kind of where I'd love always open to opinion. I'd love to hear other voices. But I think there's another way to go about this.

Very good. Appreciate your input. Vice Chair Champagne?

Thank you. I'll start by saying we're fortunate to have a professional HR director. I found her to be very easy to work with, open-minded, had her own points of view, stood her ground when necessary, despite this old bull telling her what he would do. She was very... Very diplomatic, but could be very firm. So she was very easy to deal with, very knowledgeable. Quite frankly, I heard your comments. I think everyone has the opportunity to read these. If you can think of a better description, put it down. Let's debate it. Opinion-wise, from my point of view, you put numbers next to these. in terms of the target, the goals, and it is what you're looking for. I didn't compare it, to be honest with you, directly to the job description, but this is the job description, to be honest with you. Maybe we need to rewrite the job description. We didn't take that as our task, but when you're looking at a city manager and a performance of somebody at that level, You put numbers in here to be measured against, that's the job. That's what we ask her to do. That's what we question her at every single council meeting on. And we built in some of the subjective evaluation material also because, no, I don't like those as part of a routine performance evaluation. Understand there are people on the City Council who do and so we talked about the subjective Subjective part and you know, I can go with that part. I think it's a nice balance. I have to admit it's Probably leans more towards private industry measurements than city government measurements But in all honesty, maybe it's time we start leaning in that direction. This holds someone very accountable to measurable results. And along with the measurement, is the accountability. What happens after you say three? Is that good, bad, indifferent? I don't happen to like numbers from performance evaluations, but that's neither here nor there. The important thing is establishing goals, measuring the goal, and holding someone accountable, good or bad, to what the performance was. And stop ducking the issue. Address it firsthand. But most important, that young lady has done a phenomenal job. I gave her crazy ideas. She looked them all up. Did a fantastic job of putting it together. So thank you very much, Diana.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Counselor Golder.

Thank you, Diana. I think I actually like this. I even like, for some reason, Councilor Henry said that Dr. Lucia's job is not to kiss her, but I think it's very important to have a clear, open relationship between city manager and the council. That's how we establish the relationship, the clear communication. I would like to also, next thing would be if Dr. Lucius will develop his own self-evaluation sheet. We've had it in our OER, your self-evaluation. I think it would be also a great idea. to look at where you stand at your point of view. But no, I do like it, and I personally approve it. And Counselor Champagne, you did a good job giving those directions. Thank you, Diana.

Before I have a second go around, I'm going to throw a few thoughts out here. And I always have a good, I don't know if it's a good story, but I'm trying to make it a short one. 2022, when I was running, I said, I start showing up at these meetings. Like we see candidates out here, which is wonderful. You pointed out the workshops are seeing all the candidates come into the meetings. A lot of them come regularly, but I physically showed up instead of watching it. And I watched them debate the strategic plan. And for 45 minutes, they debated the opening line to the strategic plan because it said Marco Island is a quaint city or something. And they debated how it set the tone for the whole plan and never got to the actual plan for God knows how long. And now that plan probably needs to be updated. There's only so much information you can analyze, only so much that's going to help. Really, the evaluation can truly be What job is the manager doing? One to five, pick a number, and you have it right there. That's on its most simplistic. But then it gives us some other things. And Vice Chair Champagne, and I agree, I like this version because it's what's going on today with the city? How is she doing on our goals, things that are relevant to us today? And it goes into detail, but not as much detail as the previous version. Evaluation which was specifically drawn up for manager searches of the time. I think this evolved nice. I like it We could spend five meetings hashing through this and changing it But the bottom line is one to five how she's doing and some of these subsets might help us and Casey go through What we think needs to be approved upon or maybe a little self critique, but that's the way I see it I like it. I wouldn't change anything, but I'm certainly open if counselors want to by all means counselor Henry second go-around

Diana was wonderful and actually emailed my questions back on Sunday, and I thank you. I did a deep dive into the Florida City and County Managers Association, and I'm going to butcher this name. Akalawahwa? No, it's not Akalawahwa. No, it's O-K-L-A-W-A-H-A. unless it's a fictitious county, but they had two different types of evaluations. One was the number system and then was statements to agree or disagree. That was very interesting in just carrying out information and they were basically, they were full performance evaluations that I would say were comparable to corporate. and kind of gave a more clearer question with answers and statements. If – I'm sorry, I do take this stuff seriously because I do think, especially as different councils come on board, things can be interpreted in different ways. And I'll take it back to – I do not recall if Chair Breckness was, but they were going over the evaluation for Mike McNeese, and Eric came right out and said, I don't ever give above a four. And we all joked, don't ever judge anybody's Airbnb, because we all live for the fives. But if you go into it, you're never going to be a five. That could make or break somebody's situation and career, how different people interpret specifics rather than the person's specific actions towards the job rather than situations. The one thing on the citywide grant policy, I look at grant policy as more of an issue right now with the audit versus now because we got rid of our grant writer and we're trying to do different things in-house. We can't judge our city manager on that because That's not part of what her job is, maybe to get somebody or to interpret. So I have all kinds of stuff here. I will gladly email out for a different review. I can sit down with Diana and stuff like that. But I can tell you, and maybe I'm the only one, I would not approve this as submitted.

Let's do this, Councillor Henry. Let's see what Councillor Schwan has to say, and then we can talk about putting a consensus or how we want to treat this going forward as a council. Councillor Schwan, you are up next.

Thank you. Diana, thank you for all your work that you did on this, and also Councillor Champagne. As a council, I asked you to do that. I will fully support what you brought forward, and thank you for your work on it.

Thank you.

All right, let's just see who's bold enough to, I support it, you support it, I presume, Vice Chair Champagne?

I'll move that it be adopted.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. We'll get right down to it. Dr. Lucius, your light sign is on.

Thank you. If I could provide some input. Please.

Now's your time.

Sure. I actually think this is a fair and reasonable evaluation form. I just have two observations, and that is there are some repeat items. So Section 2 and Section 3 both have council relationship and governance. and community engagement and public. One says community engagement and public trust, the other says community engagement and public presence, but the bullets underneath are pretty similar. So I don't mind having the two repeats, but it also just seems like If I score low in one category, then it's two doubles. If I score high, then great, it doubles. But if I score low, it doubles. So I just don't know. I think maybe there could be... So here would be my recommendation. My recommendation would be remove those from Section 2 and instead in Section 2 add strategic thinking and vision because Section 2 is about strategic goals. So I would move strategic thinking and vision from Section 3 to Section 2, and then I would leave the other two, council relationships and community engagement, in Section 3, which is leadership, evaluation, Those are my only suggestions. And then if those edits aren't adopted, it's fine. I think you do these things one year at a time and then you make tweaks as you go. But I would also like to just have a discussion about the timing of the evaluation when that time is appropriate.

Perfect. You know, this isn't just both for you, Casey. This is any manager that this report comes to that it's either going to get, as you said, double positives or negatives. Before we talk about maybe if you want to amend the motions or keep it the way it is, has anybody signed up to public speak on this?

We have no registered speakers.

Okay. Motion maker and second, do you want to keep it the way it is? Do you want to entertain Dr. Lucious's feedback and amend your motion for that?

Yeah, I think at this juncture, I'd prefer to leave the motion as it is and take suggestions from other people. We're open to listening, and if there are ways to make it better, then we'll make it better before it's fully adopted and implemented. And it gets to Casey's point, when are you going to measure me on this? Well, if we set a timetable, that will tell Diana and I when we have to have the final document presentable to you for final approval to go forward on a performance evaluation. But if anyone else has Not immediately, but you take it home, you look at it, and you say, you know what, I should have mentioned that XYZ could be stated better. Do so. Tell us. Tell Diana. And we can make the adjustment.

Mr. Chair, I have a question. Please. So if we will adopt it as motion.

I was going to get into that, though. Please.

If it's adopted as motion, so that means that they will become as a evaluation form for the city. And we won't be able to amend it later on. So I would suggest that.

You could sit right here and say that. I could say it no better. I was going to say, once we adopt this, we're losing the right to fix it, or we're going to convolute it. We should either do it now or put it on hold and come back with those possible changes, and then decide on voting on it.

Let me ask Diana, do you understand what is being requested by Casey to change? Yes. OK.

I do understand and I'd like to and that's fine if we want to make those changes but I would like to just take in for consideration the job description is not all inclusive we can certainly make changes but it's not an all inclusive job description to hold everything but also once this is approved and adopted whenever that is The idea is to look at the entire evaluation process for all city staff because it's just not the best. Dr. Lucius's evaluation will bleed out to her direct staff too. So, you know, this is, yes, it's an evaluation of her, but it's an evaluation of the team that she leads as well. to help her raise these numbers so please just take that into consideration when you present your questions or any changes I guess my point to you Diana is that I have no problems in making the suggested changes do you I don't have a problem doing it. I just think that we will have seven different opinions potentially each time we come forward. But certainly if that is the consensus, I have no problem changing it. It's really up to all of you. Okay.

If you want, if you remove, well, our attorney can advise us on this, but if we want to make that motion in a different form.

So let's, let's, Steve, in your light signs, I promise I'll get to you. Guys, this isn't major, this is a minor change. We have a couple decisions here. We adopt it the way Dr. Lucia suggested. It's not only for her, it's for future city managers and staff that it might bleed over to. We leave it the way it is, or we ask them to bring back the rework before we even vote on it and see what it looks like before we do that. It's pretty simple. But before we do that, Councillor Gray, your light side's patiently been on, so please weigh in.

Just to mess with you, I think there's another scenario. Please. First, great work. Thank you for all of this. This is very constructive. I frankly think we just come back to the next meeting. If everybody looks this over, if they've got some sincere suggested changes, I think Casey added a couple of very constructive points to this. And we come up with a refined one and say, let's vote on it, approve it, and move forward. So we just bring it back at the next meeting for final approval. And in the meantime, anybody that has sincere changes I think will be brought through that conversation. We're really close.

I agree. I'll remove my motion. Draw your motion.

Very good. All right. So motion and second has been withdrawn. Casey you go back watch the video for that exact language or whatever make that change counselors I like what counselor grace said counselor Henry you want you had some thoughts on it bring them back to the next meeting get them to stay up before time guys pitch your case to your co counselors I don't think this is gonna be a major debate I think we're gonna settle in the next time it's on the agenda and probably do it relatively quickly so probably better to just stop to follow that path any other questions counsel

So, Mr. Chair, I would just like to jump in for a second. So are you thinking about having this back as an agenda item on the August 3rd meeting?

Next available. We have a couple of meetings on this, right? What's the time sensitivity?

Our deadline for August 3rd is this Friday.

So I just, yeah, I wanted to give you a heads up.

No, I mean, we, sorry, I didn't mean to. Your evaluation's not happening tomorrow. We have a little time with this, correct? So if not, we'll have it on the next agenda, a little extra time. And like I said, I sense that it's going to be a pretty quick item. We're not going to spend meetings and meetings on this unless I'm missing something large.

So I think to answer the clerk's question, I think we're looking at maybe the second meeting in August.

Okay.

Okay. Very good.

Thank you, Joan.

Can you continue it, make a motion to continue? Would you like to make a motion?

I'll make a motion to continue. I'll second.

Motion by Councilor Schwan, second by Councilor Gray. Light signs? Anybody signed up to public speak?

No public speakers.

All right. Call the roll, please.

Councilor Schwan. Yes. Councilor Gray. Yes. Councilor Goeller. Yes. Councilor Henry. Yes. Councilor Dome. Yes. Vice Chair Champaign. Yes. Chair Palumbo.

Yes. Motion passes 7-0 to continue. And thank you, Alan, for the help in bringing this to closure for this meeting. Yes, sir.

City manager had a question on that.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see a light sign. I apologize.

He wants to know when will this performance appraisal be conducted?

if i may please and you don't have to decide this tonight but i would ask that you think about this so when this item does come back you're prepared to vote on the time frame as well i think there are two options i was appointed as interim city manager in november so one year would be this coming november and then i was appointed city manager in may so you could wait until next may So that's for your consideration. Do you want to do the annual evaluation in November or May? And then if it's in November, because you're using the interim date as my start date, either one is okay with me. But I would ask you to consider instead of November, the last meeting in October. Because as you know, our first meeting in November may have an entirely new council that I had not worked with. So I think it should be the current council that I've worked with for the previous year that actually performs the evaluation.

I was going to say that's the one year. So a new council, plenty of time to make an evaluation. But that was just my thought. Vice Chair Champaign, your light's on.

Yeah, my comment is along that line. This council is the council that needs to review. So my suggestion is that we do it in October. Okay. And if I'm not wrong, after that performance appraisal, when do we normally give salary adjustments to other employees?

Those go into effect October 1st.

All right. We're not going to make October 1st. So we do a performance appraisal, and we decide as a city council if there is an adjustment required or necessary or desirable to her income at that point, which is not bad, by the way. Usually performance and adjustments to pay should not coincide on the same day. So that's the way I would handle it. Do the performance appraisal first. As a council, we then decide where the outcome is and then decide whether there is or isn't

the adjustment to compensation councilor anybody else feel different or are we okay with that your silence will be your consensus on this one sounds good all right case anything else on that thank you sorry i missed john that one so excited we're moving so quickly yes all right we are on to uh we have nothing on item 16 removed from the consent agenda so now we're going to item 17 counselors communications and future agendas counselor schwan you have an attachment here would you like to go first

It doesn't matter to me.

Please.

I actually have two items, and both of them won't take very long at all. The first item has to do something that I've discussed with Dr. Lucius regarding recreational activities in Marco Island by our residences, et cetera. And this also has to do with could we ask the planning board a specific question requiring a conditional use permit for a new facility or changes to an existing one. And actually, I'd like to call on Dan Smith at this point because he has looked into this also.

I think the question is is it reasonable to have the planning board look into some of these new uses that have come out and to be honest with you doing this for 30 years tennis was an issue when at first when we had those hockey was an issue lights and ball fields was an issue so this this isn't an isolated thing my suggestion as you look at any kind of change in use possibly go through the conditional use so it so it has a little more teeth to it and it goes to city council right now it's just by right now you can do it either planning board planning board and city council but right now it's by right Any kind of use of recreation is allowed. And we're not just talking about community facilities or parks. We're also talking about single-family homes. We do have tennis courts at single-family homes. And at one point in time, you're going to have one that's probably going to want a pickleball court. So it'd be all uses, all zones.

And City Attorney Alan Gabriel did a document that he presented to us, too, on some of these additional uses, too. I don't know if you want to comment, Alan, at all?

Yes. Well, yes, conditional uses would be appropriate depending upon how and what criteria you want to look at as opposed to just a simple permitted use. Otherwise, it might just be a building permit is what we might be looking at if it's permitted.

And, Dr. Lucius, is there anything that you would like to add at all?

not really i think the question for the council to consider would be whether or not you want to either ask or direct the planning board to to consider this and bring a recommendation back to the city council on that process or just go forward with some i don't know if that would be a change in the land development code or change in our code to require conditional use permit so either direct planning board to look into this or direct staff to bring back some new code language thank you very much so I just think it's important that the council decides if they would like to refer this to our staff or refer it to the planning board

Because this is a problem that other cities across Florida and across the nation we know that is happening with noise, basketball courts, next to homes, just all kinds of things. But then we could direct either staff or the planning board to look at this specifically. Because then we could make some resolution on this, but definitely this would have to be a councilor consensus. So anybody who might want to chime in.

Guys, I cleared your light signs, and I'll get back to you in order. But light signs if you want to talk about this particular subject. Councilor Gray, you're up first.

Council Swan, I appreciate your recommendation, and I think it's responsible to have it evaluated by the planning department.

Thank you. Thoughts? Anybody else? I appreciate it. Go ahead, Councilor Gullar.

Sorry. About this one. Dan, what are your thoughts about this proposal? I want to know your thoughts.

My thoughts are is, again, all kinds of uses, especially when they're right next to your backyard, people have issues with it. It's been doing this a long time. Right now it's by right. Conditional use would have that extra level of scrutiny because the city council would ultimately be making that decision, that recommendation for approval.

So it's going to be more overreach and more involvement of city council. Is that what it is?

That's your That's what you believe. Yes, the City Council would all be making that decision.

I think as an example, I Let's say there's a multi-family residential condo building or apartment building, and they're converting tennis courts to pickleball courts. And right now, they can just do that. No approval is required. They can just get the building permit and do it. but the conditional use permit could require, go through a planning board process, could require noise barriers, could require landscaping, could require a certain setback, could require some lighting regulations. I think that's the question that the planning board would explore is, first, would they recommend this process because it is new, and second, then what kind of conditions would be attached to that permit?

Yeah, I should have asked her.

And if I may, in some areas, a conditional use was required for tennis courts. The YMCA, they had to go through the conditional use process when they put those tennis courts in in 2002. And one of the requirements is no parking signs along, if you've probably heard, Sand Hill. They decided at that point in time they wanted to make sure that no one was gonna be parking along Sand Hill. Our approval was based on that. So we did require it for certain sports, just not pickleball.

Got it, thank you very much. Councilor Henry.

I'm going to ask another. So is this a way that, though, if people wanted to make changes, they could circumvent their HOA board? For example, the condo that wanted to put in all the boat lifts, but they never asked their HOA. They went right to the planning board, and everybody from the HOA came and complained. Do you remember that they wanted to put the boat lifts in? And they didn't make the decision within their HOA. They came to the planning board to do something. And I don't think the planning board cared if they did or not, but everybody in the buildings complained because it was going to review in the view of everybody on the first floor. I don't know. Is this overreach? Let's you decide.

If I can comment to an HOA, that's more like a deed restriction than it would be a zoning restriction. And they failed to get the approval of the HOA independent of the city. It's almost like a MICA regulation.

Okay. I'll let the planning board decide.

Vice Chair Champagne.

Yeah, I I'm only thinking about it here quickly. I should have thought about it more off-site. But Isn't there also an unintended consequence here that could seriously affect home value? And if it affects home value, we may be wrestling the bee nest. And I would visualize more legal action coming up as a result. We have homes here that are getting more and more valuable. And if we put up things that, restrictions that weren't known when someone bought it or, I don't know, it just seems to me they'll be opening up Pandora's box to things we can't even think of yet. But boy, if it changes, you're stirring up a hornet's nest. That's my view.

I would like to point out, this would only be new or changes to existing ones. So things that are there now, that would not be affected. Actually, there's been several several lawsuits taken in cities across Florida where large homes put it in. They didn't get it permitted first and things like that, too. But this would only be on this island for new builds where they'd have to get this for recreational activities or if existing ones wanted to make changes. And I'm just trying to be helpful in answering your inquiry.

I appreciate my thoughts. This is something that should not be decided on a consent agenda on 728 on a Monday night. We don't have any homes putting pickleball courts in. Dan, you are correct. There used to be tennis courts in 510. You could see old tennis courts. They tore them all out. There's not a tennis court in a house in 25 years in Margo anymore.

There is a house with a pickleball court in the backyard. It's right around the corner from me.

Is there one? There's one landmark used to have a tenant. But I mean, I can't even.

It's one meatball. Yeah, no, they have a tenant. Pickleball.

I mean, so you have a few. The condos, this is really a condo question, in my opinion. We don't see an epidemic of this happening in homes. And the condos are pretty much self-governing. Not that I'm against it. I don't know if I can make a decision and start directing staff to increase government tonight. It seems a little premature to me when we're getting pickleball studies and noise ordinance studies and noise suppression studies. I'd like to see those things first. So this is a bit premature for me, not a no in perpetuity. But for tonight, I don't think I'd support it going forward. But that's just my opinion. So you want consensus on – do you want to send this to planning board, direct staff?

Give me a – I actually thought it should go to planning board. Okay. But if there's not support for this to do this now, we can bring it up another time as an agenda item if you'd like that.

I don't know. I mean, you have two, and I heard two. I don't know where the rest of the council is, so I can't tell you if there is or isn't. I just – I have two maybe. I don't mind those.

Yeah, that's it. Well, there's three of you then. We can get some guidance from Planning Board on this, because I don't think any of us are experts on this. Or maybe some of you are, but I'm going to say I am not, and Planning Board is. So that's where I think the appropriate body to look at this would be.

All right, so do you want me to ask for a consensus for it?

Yes.

Okay, we are asking for a consensus to move this to Planning Board, correct?

Correct.

All right, all those who consent, raise your hand. You got one, two, three, four. Four to three, it passes. Go on to planning board. And you had another item, Councilor Schwartz?

Yes. And it's just a data item. And Martin, if you'd bring up the first slide, please. Thank you, Martin. So what I wanted to give Council tonight is just a nightly beach report recap of where we're at with this. And this is an example of the nightly beach reports. These are posted on our MIPD website. Anybody can go in and look at these, and a lot of people do. So during the month of May, MIPD patrolled 31 nights. During the month of June, MIPD patrolled the beach 21 nights. During the month of July, MIPD patrolled July 1, 5, and 8, per their website, but we knew this change was coming, that they were going to be altering how much they were out there. So this is all appropriate as to what was going to be taking place. But what I wanted to do was just provide some data to be helpful in this regard. And the data comes from, there are over 2,000 full-time residents that live in the Marco Island beach condos. This is data that I can provide that's been gathered by the residents in the beach condos who, like so many of us in Marco Island, you go out and see the sunset and you hang around the beach for a while or on your lanai for a while. So there are condo beach residents who are looking down and they're taking pictures or videotaping things and they had some additional data that was provided to me regarding the sea turtle protection violations that they think are taking place this is only to be helpful uh... and what some seven additional nights when the condos reported with documentation by photos and videotapes martin can you turn it to the next Visual? OK. So this one actually was from July 7. It says Tuesday. And that was July 7 at 9 o'clock. And you can see all the things on the beach. But of course, it just became 9 o'clock. So it's not being accusatory that people have to run off the beach at 9 o'clock or anything like that. But you can see all the items there. And there were several of them. Martin, if you would go to the next slide. Okay, this one was actually from July 11, and you can see on that one, not the amber poles, there's a kayak, and there's several other man-made items there. That photo was taken, again, on July 11 at 9.02, and then there was companion photos taken at that same site at 9.36 and other times also. So they actually provided data July 5, July 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, and 16. And so what they did, they gathered then what time frames these were happening from. And these were all from South Beach. And they all involved bright lights, man-made items, et cetera. And there were a few that were very concerning that were videotaped. On July 5 at 10.06 p.m., there was a three-minute and eight-second video of a continuous bright light that looked like a Hollywood photo shoot, and that lasted continuously for three minutes and eight seconds. Additionally, there was on... the Thursday, July 16, another bright white light on the beach. It was very large, like a large lantern that came on the South Beach at 9.05 over by the mat. And this continuous bright white light videotaped lasted four minutes and 12 seconds. And it was so large it looked like a... vehicle light. So this is just data that we want to be helpful with and provide when the key times where there seems to be violations and that seems to be at night on South Beach between 9.02 and 10.46 and then also that there were seven occasions of this. We are just so appreciative of what MIPD and CODE are doing out there. We are so thankful, but we just wanted to give you some additional data of these time frames and where they're occurring on South Beach. So that's why this is provided, just to be helpful. And again, we're very thankful for everything you're doing, our new interim chief in this regard. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Golder.

I have two items I want to talk about. First of all is for last meeting you probably remember that we had a discussion about one of our advisory committee members missing three meetings and our city manager made a decision to allow him to attend one meeting to meet the quorum. Today I had a meeting and I may ask the follow-up about it and the certain member has been removed. Is that correct, Dr. Lucius?

I can take that one. Yes, he has been removed and we are currently in a search for a replacement for him.

Thank you, so there are no ordinance, code ordinances breaking in the town, so I just want everybody to think about that. My other item will be, I'm going to pick up where Mr. Elliott left. I think we are taking this incredible direction right now with our new interim chief. Joe, you are so respected, and we are so grateful for you. And I would ask reconsideration of the vote asking Dr. Lucius to research the problem, Collier County's

upon to police because yes can I help you with that I led you astray a little bit it was a consensus I was led to believe we needed to reconsider it with you don't you could simply just bring that up Alan am I correct with this and you could simply ask consensus to to vacate that and stop getting the county sheriff numbers when I brought it to you the second time it was a bit convoluted Al am I correct on this any counselor could ask to direct Dr Lucius to no longer look into those numbers Okay, so you don't need anybody to bring it back up. You could simply bring it up yourself, and you could ask me to ask this council for consensus if you'd like to stop that process.

Yes, I would like to stop the process. I think it's so good for morale for our MIPD, for our first responders, and I know that nobody meant, I don't think that Councilor Schwan meant any ill of that, but I also would like to make sure that we are with you, all of us, and we will stop this process. Okay.

So to be clear, you'd like me to ask this council to offer consensus to Dr. Lucius to no longer look into the numbers of the county sheriff to replace the police department with our sheriff's department.

That is correct.

All those who consent. Can I comment? Yes, please. Absolutely.

Thank you very much. And Councilor Gohler, thank you for acknowledging that. So I would like to ask Dr. Lucius, how far along is that process? Do you know?

yes i actually spoke to the sheriff last wednesday and he was going to be getting a presentation by his staff on friday and then providing that information to me this week and depending on what that information looks like i was going to schedule him to attend an august city council meeting to present it and make any answer any questions of the council

Thank you. I would like to follow up just a little bit more, too. So, you know, there were five of us the second time who voted just to get the information, the data, information only. None of us have ever said defund the police. None of us. I know I've been thinking about the lines, you know, things like integration of services to see if there might be some – savings, money savings, cost savings there. But none of the five of us have ever said defund the police. And I think in light of the information that all of us received today about the even larger than anticipated loss in revenue of $4 to $5 million, from the state if that referendum passes, this would just be information. And there may be no cost savings. We won't know that. The only one who will know that is the sheriff's office and our city manager. And I think it's in good hands with them. But I'm just so concerned about this revenue shortfall that's coming up. It's just information. So that's my opinion.

Councilor, before we go on, let me clarify something. I, on the second go-around, were you looking to get the numbers for the county sheriff or did I confuse you because I made a mess out of the second?

I actually did not. I don't want to hear anybody's idea. We have MIPD. They take care of us. Why do we need to worry about it?

So for all practicality, it probably would have been four to three again the second time. However, Councilor Henry, do you want to weigh in on this topic or another one? I do, actually.

Please. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know I supported, and Chair Palumbo and I were the only ones that said, don't proceed on any of this. The fact that it's this far, and it's almost, I want to use one stone and hit a bird. I don't want to get two birds here. If we can get the sheriff in here to speak to him about other things, I think that could be purely educational. I don't want to talk about numbers. I don't want the police to go anywhere. But if the process has gone this far, I would almost think it would be interesting, if anything, in defense of how Councilor Schwan's suggestion was interpreted. I think it would be an interesting thing to be presented so that we realize how much we have for what we spend. Do you see the twist I'm trying to do?

I'd be happy to invite them by, not at the cost of, do you want to give us numbers?

Absolutely. But I think it would be an interesting conversation. Let me double down.

I never want to replace them, so I never need the number from that .

I'm not interested in the number, but I think it would be an interesting conversation to just try to understand. Because he could turn around and be like, in just conversation, be like, I was going to tell you $12 million. You don't know unless you ask, and I'm saying this because I think what Councillor Schwan presented was misconstrued, because I don't think in any way you ever intended to shut down the MIPD, and I don't think anyone's intention here is. You were curious about numbers. But I think it would be an interesting conversation, just kind of the same way we've talked about having the head of Collier County in here, the police chief. We've talked about having the superintendent of schools. I think that's The process has gone this far, but I don't think having a conversation with someone just because we're a part of this, but not in any way about a price about the police.

I just want to be clear so I understand. So are you saying we should just invite them for a conversation or keep going through with the numbers?

I don't think we should keep going through the numbers, but I think it's instigating having a conversation.

We could talk about that after a consensus, but let's get, I don't want to weigh this out all night. Counselor Gray, are you weighing in on that?

Yeah, no, my perspective is slightly different. We're in a creative world and you should always look very carefully at what you're thinking about and what your options are. Love the police department, not gonna have any interest in forsaking our police department under any scenario, that's not what the conversation's about. I'm always wondering if there's a better way to choreograph our services and what we have to offer with the county. So I don't know if anybody's ever asked the question. I'll ask just a simple question. Are we convinced that we are managing our relationship with Collier County and their law enforcement as effectively as we can to dovetail with our services. And in asking that question, please acknowledge we've got serious surges in seasonal demand here. So I could argue if I was trying to staff the police department, it's none of my business to staff it. I'd be having a tendency to have more people not on vacation during our peak surge seasons and looking at trying to staff when we have less pressure. So I can't answer these questions, but I was looking to validate, are we missing any opportunity to choreograph more effectively with the county in ways for everybody's benefit? Now if the answer is yep, we've done that, we're all good, No questions to ask, then I have no question. I don't believe that.

All right, before I ask for consensus, I'll give my final thoughts. I don't think anybody up here is being malicious to our police, but they keep hearing, we love you, we love you, we love you, but we just want to get that number to see what it'll be like to replace you, even though we'll never replace you. I don't know how they received that as a positive message. Now, if you want to change the conversation to invite the sheriff in so we can talk about Coexisting of services, expanding what the county sheriff provides now, and I'm not sure I have this all right, but our dispatch, correct, our jail. If you want to talk about those things, can we get additional services, you don't talk about them and saying, I just want to see what number it'll take. to hire them and not you. They're not receiving this as just some academic foray into numbers. They're receiving it as you are considering replacing us. And so is this entire community. Hence, they printed signs up and put them all over the island. Councilors, I respectfully, I appreciate your opinion. I respect the heck out of you personally. I disagree with this direction. I think Councilor Goldler was right. I'm going to, of course, give consensus to move away from this. And, Counselor Henry, after that, if you want to bring up still inviting our sheriff for a deep dive into a bunch of questions, I'm certainly open to that. However, the consensus we're asked to give is to direct Dr. Lucius to move away from obtaining the number for better lack of a term to see what it would cost to employ the Collier County Sheriff's Department and no longer employ the Marquand Police Department. All those who want to move away from that number, raise your hand. Raise your hand. Sorry, sorry. Repeat that again. Apologize. In its purest form, you're being asked to direct Dr. Lucius to no longer explore the Collier County Sheriff's option. Simple enough?

Simple enough.

We are taking that option off the table. Sorry if I once again convoluted it a bit.

Again, this whole thing started because we have a history of Mark Weiland to be the most crappy... communicators from the trolley from the ambulance years ago we don't communicate well and this is a perfect example Councillor Schwan really just wanted if I remember right that night the city manager said we're gonna be facing a shortfall if this thing goes through and that's how the whole subject came up unfortunately the word police got into it and again typical Marco Island everything got twisted around an axle So we communicate, and it's our fault up here, it should never have gotten to the point where we're getting rid of the police. No, that was never, never the thought.

I might agree. You know, Counselor? Look, I hear what you're saying, but there's only one way to interpret it. We directed the city manager to get the number to employ the Collier County Sheriff Department and no longer employ the Marquand. It was that crystal clear. There was no in between there. Now, maybe it wasn't intended to be that way. Casey, what exactly are you exploring? What have we directed you to explore with the county sheriff? What are you doing with them?

What I asked the sheriff was for cost savings proposals.

That's what I'm saying, that's what he's saying. He's saying it was very wide open. So now let's get right down to it. We'll offer consensus, see where we go. And if you want to, depending on how this passes or don't, if you want to redirect her to stay with cost savings and the caveat that we have no desire to remove the Marco Police. And you are right, Counselor, it is a bit convoluted. But right now what we're doing is direct the city manager to no longer ask the county sheriff for cost savings or police replacement initiatives. Fair enough? Clear enough? Is that not crystal clear?

Shouldn't the motion really be to direct the city council to not investigate switching to the Collier County Sheriff's Office? That could be the consensus. Isn't that the issue that concerns everyone?

Councilor Golder, would that be sufficient for you for consensus?

The motion is we will not pursue switching to the Collier County Sheriff's Office.

All those who consent, not pursuing, switching to the Collier County Sheriff's Office, raise your hand. We got one, two, three, four, five, we got seven, all seven of us. Okay, police, there's your... Now, so we made it clear to the... Counselors, I appreciate you helping me work through that for my part in it. Whatever convolution, I apologize. Now that we made it clear to our police, we are not looking to replace them. It's crystal clear. Do we still want to direct our city manager, which may be much of the same you're doing right now? This might have been a proclamation to the police. Do we still want to direct her to look into cost-saving initiatives? Councillor Haney, that's what you were bringing up. Do you want me to push that forward or not? Or do you want to just let it go?

I was looking at the conversation. I don't think pursuing all of this, and I didn't vote for it, so that's other people. Then we move on. Very good.

Anybody? Please, if you have a final thought.

I know there are other people who were interested in just cost savings. We do not want to defund our Marco Island Police Department. That was never the intent. But just as Mr. Gray just said, and other counselors have said this too, maybe there's some integration of services where we might be able to save some money. We're not talking about defunding the police, but if we can save money, a little bit of money. What's wrong with looking at that because Like we all found out today, if that referendum in November passes, but absolutely, we are not replacing MIPD here on Marco Island, okay? But maybe there are some cost savings in there because they've been working on this already. So I don't understand why it would be bad if there's some better integration of something. Other communities across Florida are doing, just looking for things like that. I know I worked in state government. We also look to integrate services for cost savings on both sides, if those are possible.

Councillor Schwan, I can get behind that. Now that we've made it clear, and for all of our miscommunications or misdirection, mine included, now that we've made it clear that we're not looking to replace them in any capacity, I'd be more than happy to hear if the county sheriff has any type of higher level of service integrations. Chief, is there anything you could think of that would fall in this category? I don't want to put you on the spot right here, but school resource officers we talk about, the jail,

Well, we're already heavily integrated with the Sheriff's Office. We do joint investigations. We rely on them for our jail. We do a lot of our training with the Sheriff's Office. So there are already a lot of things that our agency shares with Collier County. We share our communications with them. So we already do quite a bit of integration with the Sheriff's Office. And we have other things that we're going to be working on coming up. We're going to be changing the way we do our dispatching, changing the way that we patrol the zones in the city. So we're always looking for ways to improve service through integration and efficiency. So we do have quite a bit of integration with the Sheriff's Office already. We have a very good working relationship with the Sheriff's Office. We depend on them for quite a bit. We rely on them for a lot of the resources. Obviously, they're a much larger agency than we are, so we rely on the resources of the Sheriff's Department when our resources get outstripped.

So yeah. Chief question for you, and I don't want to put you on the spot. At this point, would you find it offensive if we invited the sheriff by and just bounced ideas off him and had a meet and greet with him that we haven't had in a while?

My relationship with the sheriff is very, very good. It's very positive. Never be offended by a visit from the sheriff to come down and discuss anything. But just so that you're aware, we already have a very close working relationship with the sheriff's office. I have a lot of contacts up there. I consider a lot of the people that work up there colleagues, and we work closely with them. So, yeah, I wouldn't have an issue with that at all. So, you know, that's...

Councilor Schwan, if I'm hearing you correctly, we could simply turn this into bring the sheriff. He has some numbers to present. We know we're not looking for the number to replace them. We can look at everything else he brings and have a wealth of information. Is that what you're directing?

Yes. And I want to give you an example. So on the Collier County MPO board, they were wanting us to consolidate MPO with Lee County. But we chose we did not want to do that. But we are continuing to work to find with Lee County on additional working relationships that we can have to take advantage if there are some cost savings, et cetera. So just as you pointed out, you have such a strong relationship with Keller County already. So thank you.

Casey, let's put this one to rest. Do you need any consensus to just keep the sheriff coming and exploring whatever other numbers you have besides the possible?

I apologize. Sorry. If I could just hear from you.

What do you need from us to help me get out of this? I know you're not going to...

have some suggestions on that topic hold that thought vice chair champagne yeah I look once again I think the City Council is way ahead of the of the ballgame here we're getting into the weeds of the job of the city manager and the police chief We should be seeking information from every source about cost-saving opportunities. Look, they're facing the same darn problem as we are. They're going to lose revenue also. So wouldn't a very appropriate question be, hey, what are you guys doing to save money in preparation for this tax reform bill that's likely going to be passed? How are you approaching it? What things are you already looking into in terms of cutting costs? And let those two people, city manager and police chief, gather the information, decide if it's worthwhile going forward. with a discussion before we go inviting the sheriff up here. What are we going to ask him once he gets up here? The numbers? Oh, my God. No, you can't do that. So anyway, I'd let the investigation research, rather than the word investigation, let the research take place, see what they think about it. They're running the operation. We're trying to run the operation. and that bothers me, and not a negative, just we have a tendency to try to get into stuff that sounds like it's our purview, but really it's not. Let the people who run the city do the job. Come and tell us, is it worthwhile to invite somebody here? Great, if so, what are the questions we're gonna ask? So we don't look like dummies. And by the way, if we come back and say don't send us any numbers now, we look like dummies. I'll blame you.

Very good. Councillor Grant. Two comments. And then we're going to come up with a deciding factor.

I just wanted to thank our interim chief. He used word choices that I like better. Service delivery. Really, we're after trying to run our businesses as well and constructively as we can for the benefit of the community. And I don't want to send a mixed message that it's obsession with cost savings alone, because sometimes you can create value at the same price if you can deliver more capabilities for that. So I just... Everything we do, we need to think carefully about are there opportunities for betterments and improvements, however you look at it. So I love the conversation. They can go back and sort it out. But that's really what I'm after. And it's not necessarily cutting costs. It may be hold costs where they are, but we can enhance services. I don't know. It's just important for this council to be able to ask these questions for the benefit of the community. Thank you.

Casey, you were gathering some information, and you were going to invite the sheriff here in August, correct?

Yes.

Guys, from what I hear, I say we just let that happen. We've made our proclamation to our police. We're very clear on what's going on. We've all been clear. We've cleared the air with the misconception amongst all of us. I say we still let that happen. I think it's a good thing, and I think the police are going to be okay with it now that we've made crystal clear our intentions. Everybody agree with that? If you consent, raise your hand. All right. Very good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Councillor Schwan, anything else? No, thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Councillor Henry, you're up next for your council comments.

For starters, I want to thank the resident, and I failed to write her name down, that brought up to me that there are no signs at the beach entrances explaining the lightning sirens. There are at Residence Beach, but there's not at the regular beach. One long horn alert is to signify to leave the beach. All clear sign is three short horned blast. I spoke to Dr. Lucius, and she brought it up with Joe, and it sounds like something for the safety of our visitors and our residents. I know I hear them, and I can't say I realized what they meant when I was at the Marriott because they have a sign. Also, there's lots of stuff going on. Anybody that's stuck around this long, this Saturday, July 25th, the Marco Island Area Association of Realtors is doing their annual cleanup of the waterways. Please reach out to them if you are interested in participating and get a canal assignment. I know I did it last year. It's supporting Keep Collier Beautiful, and then everybody ends up on Key Waden, but we just basically ride around the canals with our nets and clean the trash out. On Tuesday, July 28th, we're having one of the very popular Meals of Hope happy hours at the Snook from 4 to 6. We need to raise $50,000 for our packaging event on November 14th. We need everyone's support. The Rotary's golf outing is on August 29th at Hammock Bay. All proceeds go to the Marco Island Charter Middle School. Please sign up for a foursome or a signed sponsorship. And lastly, the Y is collecting school supplies. Yes, it's almost time for the kiddos to head back to school, so please drop off any supplies at the Y. Your generosity to the younger generation of our area is most appreciated. If anyone has questions or need more info, please feel free to email me. And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Gray. Thank you. The white paper that was presented by Mr. Dahm, an appointed counselor with one month of experience, in attempting to amend our rules of procedure in a material way that affects the community. One, a white paper is not an action item, and a vote should not be permitted. Per ordinance article 2, section 2-32, it states the council shall hold regular meetings as prescribed by the city council's rules of procedure. Our rules of procedure state in section 2F, time certain citizen comments of 6 p.m., and in section 3a that regular meetings shall commence at 5 30 p.m robert's rules dictate that any vote that modifies the rules adopts or changes special rules of order requires a two-thirds or a super majority vote further defined in robert's rules is that a two-third vote of the members present not the entire body this action cannot To change our meeting times requires a change to our rules of procedure. I will, Alan, when I'm done rambling here, I'd love your input on that, but I believe that's true. which must first be amended with the supermajority. The entire process went from a white paper to an illegitimate vote and an immediate enactment with no public notice of an action item or provision for citizen comment of an action item as required by state law. Additionally, the schedule for council meetings is required to be posted for the entire ensuing year. Council rules of procedure section 3 point B and must be published at least Once in December of the preceding year in a local newspaper of general circulation The current year schedule has been published if amended in a non-emergency and permanent fashion It deserves public notice and discussion I would contend, in accordance with Florida Statute 50 and pursuant to Section 166.041, that such a change would rise to the level of an adoption of an ordinance amendment, Article 2, Section 2-32. I'm seeing a trend in decision-making by this Council that is very disturbing and is showing a clear pattern of ignoring our laws, procedures, and the Florida statutes. I would like to be formally on the record for protesting this change of our rules of procedure and requirement to duty notify our schedule in advance to the public. I don't believe the city manager has the legal authority to change the rules of procedure absent a directive vote. Am I misguided with my analysis?

Mr. Chair, may I address this? Your light sign is on. Because I believe this is entirely misguided. This was initially brought up during council communication in June by Councilor Dome, and it was agreed upon by the council, by consensus, to put it on a future agenda for public noticing and a vote. It was then put on a future agenda, which was July 6th. In that agenda item, it specifically says that if the council approves this change of time, you are approving a change to your rules and procedures. So that was voted on. It was voted on six to one, more than a supermajority. And the agenda item specifically mentioned the change to the rules of procedure, the noticing, the start time, all of those things. This was publicly noticed. It was part of a regular agenda item that allows for a vote of the council and for public comment. So I just believe that most of what you just said was not accurate.

That's why I told you I was an attorney in training. There wasn't a vote or there was not a vote on a change in the rules of procedure.

There was a vote to change the times, which included a change to the rules of procedure, and it stated that explicitly in the memo that's in your agenda.

Okay. Alan, do you concur with that analysis?

Yes, but no modification to the rules has come forward to you, but it was voted on, and notice has been provided to the public as well.

So... If we've been required to notice to the community 6 p.m. certain for public comments and that we notice those meetings a year in advance, this adjustment is warranted?

It's not a year in advance. We decided to do it effective October 1st, I believe.

Correct. Our meeting agenda was published through December.

Yes, but we modify times all the time for meetings.

I just wanted to make sure my comments were duly noted. You can stuff me if you wish, but thank you for your answers. MR.

Very good. Councillor Dome. That's the only one. I'm sorry.

MR. Oh, I have one more comment. MR. Go ahead. MR. Just to add on, for the – I did get my mail-in ballot for the primary election. I filled it out, and I marked no on the bond. Thank you.

Very good, thank you. Councilor Dunn.

I appreciate your comments and your researching this way, but I just think it's very sad that you're taking your marching orders from a constituent and you're disregarding the health and welfare of our city staff. I find it very sad.

Well, sir. You know who I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. We have a community of constituents. There's a whole community that did not weigh in on this.

I got one email and it was in favor of it. I had no negative emails. So the city had a chance to do it.

Very good, Councilor. Anything else to add or any other? I see no other light signs. A couple of things. Councilor Dome, you brought some value. I mean, you've been bringing value, and I appreciate that, with the police consensus. Councilors, I try to let your voice be heard as much as I can. I'm not perfect in fabricating. If you ever have any question on these, this is a great learning lesson. Ask the city attorney or city manager first if you know you're going to come and maybe ask me for a type of consensus, I might be able to help fabricate it before you get here. If not, I'll help the best I can to try to fabricate it.

Make sure you call them, not email them, because if you call them, it's free.

Touché in putting a little light on it, Counselor. We're working well. We're communicating well. We're trying to let every voice be heard as loud as it wants to be. So that's a wonderful thing. I have something very quick I want to bring up. Martin, can you put up on the overhead you were sent today the new District 22 congressional map? I can't believe I'm the veteran here. All right, guys, I've been here a little while. And yes, somebody's attendance record at Audit Advisory is important, but as you said, Vice Chair, being tardy to a meeting that was changed three times is of so little importance as a community. When we are redistricted to probably the most unique-looking district, and if I've been informed properly, the second-largest agricultural-based congressional district east of the Mississippi is now what we're going to be part of. We are the only coastal community. You can't see it with the red line, but we're the only coastal community in this district now. The east coast of Florida, their coast has been taken off. We have from, I don't know, 10 miles in, don't quote me. So we're their interior off the coast on the east coast. We are Henry County, Collier County. We have Lake Okeechobee in our district.

We're Glade as well, right?

I believe we are, yes.

And these maps are...

So the new map shifts District 22 west as it now will cover the inland Palm Beach and Broward County communities of Wellington and Parkland and will continue moving west into Hendry County and into southern Collier County, including Marco Island. Here's my point. This is what should be important to this council. This is one of the biggest things you might ever be part of. Many people may be seeking your endorsements. I gave one. You can give one if you choose, anybody you choose, or you don't have to. 15,500 registered voters in a coastal community are now going to be part of a farming community. I love American farmers. I want to support them. Food security matters. Growing in America matters. Clean diesel technology matters. Not stifling their ability to do their job matters, especially here in Florida. But gosh, are we not one of the most unique districts you've ever seen? I don't agree with the way these lines are drawn. I don't like it, but it is what it is. We have no control over where we sit now. But you as a council may have control with your voice. I would just say if you choose to use it, use it wisely. Get involved. Understand this. Meet the candidates. You may be working with them as our future congressperson, man or woman. So I think that's one of the most important things we should be thinking of. We don't have to discuss it as a council. Life decisions on Marco are important. Pickleball is important. Noise, quality of life, all of this matters. But this is a really big deal, what they've done to Marco. And we are going to be left out in the cold as the only coastal community in this giant farming and East Coast district if we're not careful and a good steward of our vote. If you want to weigh in or make – please.

Can I say something? MR. Please. I have attended the forum for District 22 candidates, and they're very interesting candidates. I'm not endorsing anybody. We already know who endorsed whom. But I just want to know that they are having – on the 11th of August, they are having a forum. that you are more than welcome to attend. I will be sending email to Dr. Lucius tomorrow and to Mr. Gabriel. So you will be – you are more than welcome to attend it. It's open to public. Mostly go – they are a member of one of the clubs, Republican clubs. So I will be going, obviously, but they are open to everybody. They will be – all seven candidates will be there. Listen, make your own decision, and I'm encouraging you highly because this is very, very important. I agree with Mr. –

To clarify, all seven Republican candidates will be there, correct?

MS. Yeah, because it's – yeah, because it's the Republicans. Sorry. MS. So – but I will send you all the information. But thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a great, great conversation.

Thank you for giving us those dates. I saw a light sign that went off, but – you good?

MR. I have some comments.

Oh, it's off now, but jump in, please.

I don't know if it's a city, but Everglades City is part of that. I didn't mean to disrespect.

We are on the actual beach is what I was trying to say, just to clarify.

Just for purposes of knowledge, I am endorsing a candidate, one of the Republicans, for the first time in my entire life have I endorsed a political candidate. The only reason why, I'm not getting into names or anything else, I've known the individual for 40 years. I know who the person is. That's why I'm endorsing the individual. But I'd like to know more information about the form. And anyway, it is a ridiculous district. Any individual trying to do the job properly can't do it. I mean, I don't know how the person gets in the car and drives that entire district, regardless of where they live. If they live in Marco, they've got to go all the way across the state, circle back through the farm countries. But you know what? We can't do a damn thing about it. It shows you sometimes the craziness of politics to get an extra body. And that's what we've done. So anyway. Moving on, I just want to say one thing about the city council in general, this city council. I hope everyone watching and listening understands how far we've proceeded in terms of forming a functional team as a city council. This team, compared to just six or seven months ago, is a dramatically different team. Primarily because of the leadership and the chair that changed the tone the tenor and the discussions And we have all seven of us have been influenced by it people are speaking their minds more openly more freely and People still disagree, which I think is great because that encourages further debate to explain why you're taking different positions. I just think we're finally beginning to operate the way I would like from a private business point of view how I try to make my team work. We didn't always agree, but by the time we left the room, we always agreed. And it's beginning to happen here more frequently. So I want to say thank you to everyone. I think your opinions are very valuable. I think everyone on this committee has an intention to try to improve the city. I do not, despite comments we hear from... Occasionally, once in a while, that people are here to create problems. There's none of that going on. I mean, people on this council are working together. And yes, we disagree. I say that's democracy. So let's keep functioning. And congratulations. We don't always have to agree, but we need to run the city for sure. Thank you very much.

Mr. Vice Chair, thanks for the nice compliments. I'm only as good as the team, and we're only as good as Casey and the team, and I think we've all come together extremely well, including the citizens and those that participate. Everybody just seems to be gelling well, so thank you for that. I do appreciate it, though. With that said, I see no other light signs. Do we have anybody signed up for a comment, public comment?

Public comment, yes, we do, sir. We have three registered speakers. If you would please call them up. I shall. Our first registered speaker is Mr. David Boggs, followed by Mr. Dennis Bartolucci.

David Boggs.

Thank you, Councilor Goler, for your motion to correct this tragedy that was created in trying to remove the Marco Island Police Department. And this idea of saying this big word salad of like, oh, we never wanted that to happen, is the equivalent of the explosive diarrhea outbreak from lettuce. Because that's exactly, you can't say on one hand that you don't want to cancel the police and go get a price to replace the police. Like, nope, it's political bull crap. And that needed to be said.

Try to keep it civil, please. Yes, hold on. Point of order, Kim, from somebody else?

I'm sorry. I said point of order. I mean, we just talked about decorum.

OK, decorum. You are entitled to your opinion. You said so in your speech online, Ms. Henry, that we have freedom. And this is part of that freedom, is freedom of speech. Mr. Boggs, you're entitled to it.

I kindly just asked for my sake. OK, I just want to hold my time. I'll give you your time. Just keep it a little civil, if you could, please.

And so none of asking the sheriff, the Collier County Sheriff, was beneficial to our city. None of it was. It created unrest. It created people to be concerned about their jobs, their livelihood, and their safety. And so we hear the council saying that we just want to do what's best, but I want to tell you that the sweet taste of a cheap policing is long gone after the savor of long response times settle in. There is no price that is worth what the city went through since this idea came to light. And so we need to stop wasting time, and that's what happens here. And so... Cost savings. Stop giving bad ideas that run up attorney fees for bad ideas. Over and over again, we come with a new motion, a new rule, a new regulation of how that you can control people. Nobody wants to be controlled. That's not what you was elected to do. Fix the real problems of the city. And we talk about data. And everyone knows the elephant in the room. But on the picture that was shown, it was made the comment that it's fishing lights, but those weren't fishing lights that you showed. Those were just reflections in the thing. There's no fishing poles and there's no lights. The only one that had fishing poles are leaving at 9.04. Does Marco Island really want our police at 9.02 and 9.04 down there whipping people off our beach? It's about compliance, about doing the right thing, not get out of here, you're here at the wrong time. And fortunately, none of those pictures you showed was anybody that I'm associated with. But what I do want to show you is that 955 on June 19th, if you could put the screen on, please, is, it's screenshotted, June 19th, 955. Thank you. But in your data, it doesn't show anything about that.

Here's one at the Apollo. June 18th at 9.45.

So if we're going to talk about data, let's talk about all data, not just people or assuming that it's just fishermen on the beach. Like, all you have to do is just go to any social media and just type in the search Marco Allen. And what we have is people always coming after fishermen, taking rules away, taking our freedoms away. And we have all these problems, and this beautiful place is all focused on a waste of time. So let's get over it. Like, I know, I just want to say, put this on record. I know every person, every government agency that you called, every single one of them. And I'm putting you on notice now that you shouldn't have done that. It's wrong. And I'm going to give you a chance to apologize to me.

Actually, Chair, that public comment should be directed at the entire council, not one individual. This is inappropriate.

Thank you. Ms. Juan, I would like, or the council, I would like to let you know now that that the unethical comments may...

I'm going to let you finish your time because we took so many.

Okay, the unethical comments, messaging is absurd between Benita Swan, Counselor Casey, and the former chief. And she can apologize, and with her legal background, she can know... This is something you could take up with staff. Yeah. I appreciate it.

And so therefore... Public comment is over. Mr. Boggs, thank you. Stop coming after us. Mr. Boggs, thank you. Please, thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, Counsel. Thank you. Please call up the next speaker.

The next speaker is Mr. Dennis Bartolucci, followed by Mr. Elliot Mascu.

Okay. Earlier today, the council... Dennis, we know you, but for the record, please, your name. Dennis Bartolucci, Marco Allen. Earlier today, the council spent three hours having a preliminary discussion about what the budget and tax rates might be for fiscal 2027, a normal... a normal annual meeting and well done, good discussion. And let's just say that, you know, the Marco Island property owners are going to pay somewhere in the vicinity of $24 million to the Marco Island treasury next year, right? More or less. 96% of which will come from the residents, okay? We've covered all that. And you know those that pay attention to the meetings and what you do know what we get for that money We know what we got My comment is our taxpayers on Marco Island our residents Pay well more than that to the Collier County general fund they pay between 55 and 60 million dollars to Collier County Do you know? what our taxpayers get in return for that $60 million. Now, my comments are for the public and for you, okay? I know what they get. I know, because I looked. And what we get is a giant pile of overhead. Giant pile of overhead. And we get a few tangible services. one of which are the services provided by the sheriff. So if you're going to have the sheriff come in and talk, you should find out How much of the Collier County government allocation to the sheriff is dedicated to services for the residents of Marco Island, residents, businesses, the community? How much of that $60 million is dedicated to the sheriff for our protection here? I THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD THING. I THINK I HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT IT IS, BUT I WON'T SAY IT BECAUSE I THINK IT SHOULD COME FROM AN EXPERT. THE SHERIFF WOULD BE THAT EXPERT. THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT LET'S TAKE THE QUESTION OF VALUE AND NOT ENOUGH MONEY AND ALL THE REST THAT YOU HAD EARLIER AND OVER PRIOR MEETINGS, LET'S TURN THAT AROUND A LITTLE BIT AND NOW LET'S ASK THE COUNTY WHAT ARE WE GETTING FOR OUR MONEY? Because we know what we're getting for our money here. We know what it is. We all know what it is. It's not a secret. We know we get excellent service 24-7, 365 days a year. We get on-island help when we have a calamity, natural disaster. We know what we get. I don't think we know what we're getting for the money that that we're giving to the county and in particular in this case I'll say the sheriff and I think that you would do the community a favor if you would address that when you have the opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you Dennis. Anybody else?

Our next registered speaker is Mr. Elliot Mascoup followed by our final registered speaker Ms. Terry Sommerfeld.

Elliot welcome.

I'M BACK. ELLIOTT MASKOOP. I JUST WANTED TO GIVE A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE AND APPRECIATION. TAMARA, FIRST OF ALL, YOU ARE A LEADER. IT'S GREATLY APPRECIATED WHAT YOU DID AND YOU GOT THE WHOLE COUNCIL. Chairman Palumbo, thank you for also spearheading the entire change to drop this. I think this whole island can breathe a big sigh of relief. I think this was the right thing to do. You did the right thing. And I salute every one of you as just awesome, fantastic, and with the utmost of appreciation, I know, from me and I think from about everybody on this island that will be tuning into this. We're very grateful. Thank you all.

So Elliot, we should assume you support our police? Thank you.

Our final registered speaker, Ms. Terry Sommerfeld.

Hi, Terry.

Council Terry Summerfeld 1111 San Marco Road. Have you had a long day ready to go home? The first thing I'd like to say is I'm really excited to see what our numbers look like this year related to our turtles I don't think we've had more attention paid to our beaches and the lights on our beaches as we have to have this year We have the fishermen looking at the condos. We have the condos looking at the fishermen and I think When we look at everything together, we've got a lot of people who are paying attention to what is really important to protect, and that's the turtles during turtle season. The second thing I'd like to say is I don't know who I thank first. I thank Tamara. I thank Councillor Schwan, Councillor Henry, around the police. I agree that the citizens of the community never really had any interest in supporting removing our police department. I didn't hear what a lot of people, other people heard. I didn't hear that we wanted to defund our police. I heard a council trying to be responsible towards figuring out how to save some money. And when it comes to the sheriff, We are to get services from the county. And so I appreciate what Dennis had to say to you already, because when I was thinking about looking at the dollars that are going to the county, I was thinking about the jail. I was thinking about the SWAT team. I was thinking of the backup. I was thinking of the 911 number. We already get a lot of services from the county. So it's not a matter of the county taking over anything. It's looking at how do we coordinate better than we do now. And you're right, Councilor Champagne, they're going to be in the same position we are. We're all going to have to try and figure out how to be more efficient and more effective. Actually, I think a good night tonight congratulate all of you for bringing up some good topics We have no more registered speakers Before we make a motion.

I'm gonna make one statement. No, you can you got two more minutes in you 60 seconds I'll address it to all the citizens You want an apology, you offer an apology. You want to end a war, I've tried this, guys. I've sat up here and I've tried to fight to win, and it doesn't work. But when you fight so that all of us do not lose, you have a chance at things happening. We stop the online comments with each other. We play fair. We go out for a cup of coffee. We get to know each other. And we just settle our differences. It helps the entire city move forward. As I'm speaking from experience, I serve with counselors. I literally campaigned from sitting right on this dais. It was a poor look and a mistake. But you know what? You learn from it. And you learn how you can become friends and support each other. Marco, we're better than this. I try to be better than this. Get to know each other and be nice to each other. What's the words I need?

Peace out. Leave to adjourn.

Leave to adjourn.