Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

O'clock at night to 01:00 in the morning.

Okay. Wow. Incredible. What is it? Like,

what was it? What? Ready?

Biking, swimming, running, walking, all of

it, I guess? Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for coming. Welcome to the joint workshop between the Parks and Recreation Committee and Parks Foundation Board. So we're here to talk about raising money for the betterment of the parks.

And we have a fairly decent agenda, I think. So I hope that this would not be the last of our joint meetings. I think we could probably use at least one more, maybe two to solidify projects that we think really makes sense for our effort. I want to thank member Champagne because he worked really hard on this agenda and put most of it together when I was not feeling well last week. So, Randy, thanks so much for stepping in and doing a better job than I could do.

Well, that's not likely.

And also today, we have Melissa Phillips here. And Melissa, just raise your hand so we could see you. Melissa is an ACE development officer, has had extensive experience raising money for organizations like this. And she's not here to participate particularly, but she is here as a resource. If we have any questions, she'd be more than happy to to help us with the answers.

So, don't hesitate to call on Melissa. And with that, I'll ask Jim to call the role. Why don't you call the Park and Rec Group first, Jim, and then the foundation?

Certainly. Member Hunagi? Here. Member Balthus?

Here.

Member Lynch? Here. Vice Chair Spindler? Here. Member Aegis?

Here.

Member Kramer? Here. Chair Siegel?

Here. Chair Siegel, do you have a quorum? I do. Okay. Would you call the foundation board, please?

Certainly. Director Cox? Director Folly? Here. Director Ilitch? Vice Chair Champine?

Here.

Director Richards? Here. Secretary Taylor?

Here.

Director Siegel? Here. Obviously here. And Chair Brechnitz?

Here. So we also have a quorum. So we're good to go.

Alright.

We have a handout that that our esteemed city clerk put together. And so I think I'll just ask Joan Taylor to go over this with you quickly and see if it's helpful in our discussions to follow.

Sure. So you all have a copy of the handout available at And your so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you through that handout right now. Martin, if you can advance to the next slide, please. So this is basically the agenda that we're looking at for timing. And we realize that we're going to have to be a little bit flexible because we're really hoping for some good discussion.

And I'm so happy that you guys sent through some ideas in advance for us, and it's going to give us a good springboard to jump from. So we're going to spend most of the time on identifying projects, talking about priorities. And if there's time and if people are agreeable, we'd love to have your thoughts on voting on the different priorities for that. And then we'll have a recap, and then we'll save some time for public comments so we can hear what the rest of the community is really interested in as well. Martin, can you go to the next slide, please?

So we appreciate everyone and the PRAC board dedicating your time and setting time aside to this. It's a two hour meeting, so thank you very much for that. It's gonna be a little bit packed for us to try to get through, but we are very excited about it. And, basically, the reason why the foundation wanted to call this meeting was because we would love to hear from you about your the priorities that you see that's coming through on the master plan. These are things that were weighed in by the residents and community members, and we appreciate you doing that so that when the foundation starts formulating their fundraising strategies, there are some concepts that we have that we can work with.

And this is the first step in the process for the foundation, is the feedback from the residents and also from you as well. And what we're really trying to get down to is what is going to be attractive to donors. There's an awful lot of things in the park's master plan, and what we're really trying to do is try to see what projects are there that can attract donors, what projects are passion points for the donors so we can get the excitement and so we can start making improvements and enhancements to the different city projects that we know need to get fixed and improved upon. Martin, do you want to give the next slide, please? So what we did to refresh everyone is on this page that it's kind of an ugly page, it's an Excel spreadsheet, but we just recapped some items from the master plan.

On the left hand side, we identified the top 10 items that were listed in the master plan based on the surveys. So this was based on the surveys from the PRAC committee, from the residents as well, and so these are the top 10 items. And then what we also wanted to do on the right hand side is also make sure that we also captured feedback from the community that was captured in the master plan as well that focused on what the residents thought were funding priorities as well. So as you take a look at this, I'll just call them out just to refresh everyone's memory, on the survey section, trails were very important for people. Shade structures, shelters so people can go outside and have picnic areas.

The band shell was very important. Community and special events were important. Natural parks and local wildlife, anything that kind of provided information and access to that was important. Pickleball courts, of course. Boating access, restrooms, and then some of the other ones, nine and ten are more programmatic, which is a little bit harder to execute from a donor basis because they're operational, but could be something that could be considered as well as we work through the items.

On funding priorities, we see again walking biking trails, improvement to parks fields, existing biking improvements, acquire new parkland, development of the existing facilities, and improvement of the indoor rec centers. So those were just, some of the items that came through on, the parks and recs.

Joan, you wanna wait for questions, or should they interrupt you as you go along?

People can interrupt, if they want. Yeah. Sure. Brian.

Does Marco currently own any undeveloped land besides the Owl Park he was working on?

I that's a good question. I I don't think we own undeveloped land that can be built upon. What were you thinking?

Okay. I was just wondering. You you said to acquire new parkland. So was just wondering, is there already land that's just not developed yet that Marco already owns? Or

is it No.

I yeah. I don't believe so. Yeah.

No. We we own we own a fair amount of land, but generally, it's owned by our public water utility. Okay. And it's off the island.

Got it. On Collier. I

I Yes.

That whole wooded area.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

And and beyond. Right. That as well.

Okay. Okay. So what I wanted to also do too as well is also just remind folks about some of the recommendations that were pulled out in the master plan. And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on them because I think everyone here is very well aware. We've all seen the master plan.

This is more of just a refreshing opportunity. But there are some opportunities such as from such came from the consultant improvement to the athletic fields. And I'm just trying to get to those pages so you can follow with me. Sorry. Okay.

So improvement to the athletic fields, which includes the softball, soccer, football fields, paved multi purpose trails. So again, this was showed in the master plan, but providing access to people as well as some information as people walk the trails and bike the trails as well. Improving the existing parks, so everything from the Racket Center down to Winterberry Park, Caloosa, Lee Plummer. And I noticed that some of the committee members mentioned about improvements to Lee Plummer Park as well. And then also improving the existing parks at Veterans Community Park.

So anything from shade to adding rooms, the digital boards have been already added to the Veterans Community Park. And then also some of the recommendations included Mackle Park as well. So when you take a look at these, just keep them in mind as we work through the priorities that we're going to try to set for the foundation.

Just have one question.

Yeah, sure.

Do we charge for the use of the softball fields or the athletic fields?

I'm sorry.

Do we charge for the use of those fields?

We do. Thank you, Samantha. Okay. And then finally, the last page that, we put into this little decklet that you have that I was gonna take you through is that we have on the left hand side the master plan recommendations. And then what we've also done is ranked some of the recommendations that was provided from the PRAC members.

And I can go through those as well. And they're also included on these two boards here that we can discuss about from the PRAC members. And then maybe we can add to them as well in part of our discussions. So the top items that came through were field replacement came through very strongly. Mackle, Winterberry Park, veteran community, the park there, the athletic fields, the grass for community events ranked very high amongst the responses that we received from the PRAC committee.

Racquetball center improvements also came through very strongly. Shade at all the parks, tot lot improvements, lighting across our different fields, more trees, beach parking access, Lee Plumber Park improvements. There were some suggestions about young adult amenities such as skateboards and bike pits. And then there's also other ones such as general maintenance and land acquisitions behind it. And that we wanted to also do as well because as the foundation works on raising funds for identified projects, one of the things that we also have to keep in mind is making sure that we're aligned with city council as well because they will be evaluating and providing approval for the projects as well.

So what I wanted to do is based on previous discussions with city council, I put a check mark next to the ones that have been recently discussed about at city council meetings showing that there is some heart from city council amongst these projects that have been identified. So I know this was a very fast review, and I apologize it was so fast. But I just wanted to make sure that we did a quick refresh and that everybody got to see kind of the culmination of everybody's input from the past couple weeks about what they thought priorities were from the PRAC committee. And I thought maybe what we can do next then is just have a little bit discussion and hear what people are saying behind their recommendations and just have a think if there's anything else maybe that's on the list that you've identified, knowing that some of the past master plan work being done and some of the recommendations. Is there anything else that we might wanna add to these sheets for consideration and and voting on?

I I don't have anything to add to what's been there, but I do have one, like, 30,000 foot view question that perhaps maybe Eric or Rainey you may have. Answers for it may be beyond this I know that. Actually councilor Blana had former councilor Blana had mentioned this a couple meetings ago is. You know is it is it really the best way to operate parks foundation inside of the city? Or may it be better separated so that future work can be done a little more efficiently.

I mean, we got a lot of work in front of us if we're gonna get to raising funds. And the handcuffs that you have with the sunshine law with a median every thirty days or sixty days or whatever you can hit a quorum. And if we have a great strategic idea that pops up between time, it becomes very difficult if I wanna say something to Rainier to you, Eric, or to anybody. And if you take a look at the amount of things that really need to be done, I recently finished reading a book from. His name is doctor needle conveyed and he's at high point university some of you may be familiar.

But he took over a. Delapitated declining university. And that his first goal was to raise $10,000,000 in sixty days. And they were able to raise $20,000,000 in thirty days with the right vision. We have a lot of things that need to be done here.

And I just think before you talk about all this other stuff I thought it would be appropriate to ask the question. If we're gonna be able to operate efficiently enough with all the things. Because I think when we get down to this we're gonna be able to identify a lot of great projects. And I think we're gonna be able to paint a good picture for people in different segments, whether it's softball, or owl people, or pickleball people, or neighbors who don't want pickleball noise, or whatever. And we can engage these people.

But in order to activate all these people, it's gonna be, I think, a challenge when it comes right down to it. Operating under the sunshine laws where you can only meet once a month or whatever the case may be. And if any of us around this table want to have a conversation about project A, B or C to get all of us in a room in order to operate efficiently, I think it's going be a challenge. And I thought it would be appropriate to at least bring that to the table upfront.

Well, you really bring up a great comment, frankly. And I totally agree. We have been given the opinion by legal counsel that the way we are currently constructed, we are subject to the Sunshine Law. Now I'm not subject to the Sunshine Law with anybody on the prac. I can talk to them all I want to, but they just can't talk to my fellow foundation members.

Right. But it does provide handcuffs really, right?

So

does the city council.

Yep. Well, it's the same thing. So that's why I asked the question. I mean, I think there's a lot of people in this community who are willing to step up and do things. But when you can only talk once a month, then you got to do it on TV and it

I think a better question for us to ask our attorney is how do we become independent of the city?

One thought I had on that, just if I may, if you must stay with the current funds, I know there's some funds in there And it was set up ideally because of one big donor. That's wonderful. Mean, what if you just spin up another one if there's no way to untangle number one. There is a new one that is independent. And it has a new board of directors that could be a mirror of who's existing there if these are the group of people that think taking on all this fundraising for the community is a great idea.

But I do see it as a big challenge moving forward, especially knowing the amount of projects and the amount of money that we need to do. And I think the diversity of groups of people that we're going to need to speak to in order to raise funds for Project one through 10 or one through 20. I just think it deserves some attention and perhaps we need to have that conversation with the attorney in order to get an answer on that.

So are we speaking to each other or through the chair?

You can speak to each other. This is a workshop. This is not a formal meeting. We're went

off on the wrong rules a couple of times.

Well, I never admonished you. Because I know that rules never meant anything to you, Jim.

Come on now. Darren, do you have a recommended structure that you're suggesting?

I don't, other than I think it's a five zero one(three) as it is, but outside of the city so that we don't fall under sunshine law. And that those who would like to participate can participate. But you can have a meeting a day or a meeting a week or whatever you would like in order to move the ball forward. In fact, I had a conversation, one of the lady, the grant lady who came and spoke to counsel a couple weeks ago, She reached out to me about some grants she would like to do for the parks. And one of the things that came up during that conversation was is if the five zero one c three for the parks foundation was outside of the city.

It would be it would open us up to more grant opportunities. And there are some of them that are limited once they're under the umbrella of the city. So I was something that was also interesting that I learned from her.

Well, you raised some some good points.

With that, how how do we separate the Prac Committee versus Foundation so we can discuss stuff? What if it's part of the PRAC meetings? Like, how do you

Well, the the the rule is that I'm not a member of of PRAC. And so I can talk.

Right. You can but like me and Darren still can't talk about the foundation.

But you can talk to me.

Oh, okay. So you have to go through him. Yeah. We just go through you to discuss stuff.

Yes. Okay.

But I That that makes sense.

I think talk to anybody

anybody on the foundation boards.

Okay. But if we wanted to talk to each other, we have to do it three

Anybody on the prac board with you, you you can't talk to. Right.

Which makes it very difficult.

Yeah. That person is also on the foundation board, you still can't talk to them, but you could talk to me because I'm not on the practice.

Right. Okay. Got it. But I think,

you know, we've got an exact a great example right inside of this room with what Rainey did with Joey and how fast they were able to get things done over with the baseball diamond. And that's a great example of a passionate group of people, people with some skills willing to put some time in, money got raised and things got done relatively quickly. Relative to government work, I mean, was instantly done. So I just think that we deserve a little I think it deserves a little bit of attention to think about because

I will make it a point to ask our attorney the question. First of all, is he really sure that we're subject to the sunshine law being a five zero one c three?

That's a good point.

And and challenge him on his opinion. And then receiving the wrong answer, if I do, then ask him how do we solve.

Yes. So I think that's fair. But I just think I thought it deserves some attention before we got into all of the details because we have a lot of work in front of us. But I think there's a lot of people in this community willing to do it if the right vision is put in front of them. And the money can be found and the donors can be found for the right projects. But getting there is going to take some work.

Well, that's why I have an identified Melissa Phillips as a as a valuable asset. That's what she does for a living. Got major gifts for for Collier County charitable organizations. And I think she'd be helpful to us because she's working every day on the project and we're not.

Anybody disagrees with that? I think that's a great idea. I think definitely we ought to proceed with that because it would make things far easier for the foundation.

I think it's a great idea. My question is, right now, the Marco Island attorney can answer your question. If he says, indeed, you will now be a separate entity, Do we have does the foundation have to go out and hire their own attorney to now take that next step? Oh, I think they can hear me. But would you think that we would then our next step is to if indeed this works out, which is a great idea, do we then if it's if the foundation is separate and it's not a city entity, are we that separate that we have to go out and find, an attorney?

I think our term is billable hours, mister Kramer. Is that is that what it is? Okay. So we

He's also heard the story about the guy who's trying to hire the attorney, and he's asked the gentleman what his hourly rate is. And he says, I'll let you set the rate if I can set the time.

Or we spend billable hours and research this. From my perspective, I'm a believer in what's called the case methodology. That's copy and steal everything. So what wealthy resort town in a tropical area who haven't raised enough in taxes to handle the wants and needs of the population have done this already so that we can copy it over before we and there's only so many cities, how do they how do other places do this same thing before we invest?

Melissa, do you have any comment about that? So

I definitely think we should look at other communities that are likewise to Marco Island and see what's worked for them. And, certainly, I've reached out in my career with other hospitals when I've done a capital campaign and seen what's worked and what hasn't worked. So I think that's a great idea. I do think that operating outside of the confines of the city will be great because I do think in a lot of ways you're handcuffed. And sometimes fundraising moves very quickly, and donors aren't as amenable to waiting till the next meeting because a lot of fundraising has to do with negotiation and how they're gonna be recognized and what the costs are and so forth.

So I would agree that working outside the confines, if possible, for the foundation would be very important. And definitely learning from others' mistakes and the wins that they've had would certainly be important. And you could basically look at some other campaigns, for example, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and different ones that might have the same type of population and see what they've done to raise money.

I think I'll use the baseball field as an example of a private public partnership that did move at the speed of light in terms of government speed. But that was set up as a five zero one(three) as an independent organization focused on the baseball field. Perhaps the better concept is to have interest groups for any specific item set up their own 5,013 and then you join that and anyone can talk to anybody because you're no longer on the council and you're no longer on the PRAC committee. And it would be far more effective, first of all, to identify donors, to be perfectly honest with you, because if we can't identify people specifically interested in specific items, the opportunity to get funds is very limited. People donate for things that they really have a passion, interest in and wish to participate to some degree.

So if we can and we have several of those. We have the senior softball league. We have the pickleball fellows. There other groups around. So should we think about forming independent five zero one three organizations and let them run their own show, so to speak?

I think it would be great if we could do that, but I think if you got 10 different interest groups and boards trying to do 10 things, it gets a little more complicated. I think we've got a good group of people who are passionate about Marco Island as a whole that are willing to step up and serve as a board for the whole entity. But I think underneath it, you can line up these 10 groups and just as we had discussed with like the pickleball players as an example, Like they're gonna raise money under the five zero one C three into that bucket of money and that's gonna be earmarked for that singular project. But they're not going to have to spin up their own organization, keep it for twelve to eighteen months, sunset it and then deal with all the legal that they would have to. So I think if we could find a way that it's one group, projects identified on

the Well, nine ninety Ts and all of that stuff.

It's a lot of work.

So I think if we can find a way to do it as one big group, identify these projects and then get the passionate people, whether it's for the soccer field at Mackle which needs to be done and there's a group of people interested in that. The softball field that's a group of people there. Then whether it's Yellow Park that's a different group. And then whether it's the shade at Veterans Community or at Mackle that's a different group of people. I think once the projects are identified and the structure is set up, I think the story can be told and the vision can be written for each one of these groups. And then you get a group of them to start working together, but without having to set up all these different individual groups.

Well, I think the first thing is how do we become independent because I think that's a For example, the city has already has guidelines on naming rights. Yep. They're they're way too restrictive in my opinion. And I think they inhibit our ability to to raise stuff. You know, sometimes for for soccer field, having somebody give a $05,000,000 is sufficient, where a band shell that costs $8,000,000 given a half 1,000,000 isn't sufficient.

That's right.

So I think we have to be able to write our own guidelines as to what naming rights should be in the city's right now. Just don't

Well, it boils down to exactly what you said. The more independent we become, you have more freedom to do some of these things. If we're stuck and that's a terrible word. If we're required to remain under the umbrella of the city, we're really, really restricted. Darren is correct, it will limit what this group can really accomplish because you have these sunshine rules which are absurd, to be honest with you. But nonetheless, they're in place.

I'm also persuaded by Jim's comment about if there's a good idea out there, why not steal it?

Well, I just looked at just looked up while we were talking here. Miami Dade has a Parks Foundation, Miami Dade County. Jacksonville has something similar. So we could look at those and see what structure that has and are designed to avoid the Sunshine Laws and facilitate fundraising for the parks. And I assume the idea, Darren, back to what you were saying is we could have various projects that we have because people don't necessarily want to contribute to everything. Want to contribute to the baseball field, to the pickleball.

Those of us who are philanthropic, we each have a category of things that we contribute heavier to than others. And it's usually because we have a connection to that piece for one reason or another. And that's just the way fundraising goes. I think the identification of the projects is great. I think once we paint the vision for the people on each one of the projects, I think donors are going to pull themselves up. And, I also think that once we start to get some things accomplished and show that there's some improvement happening. You're going to get more people contributing.

So Is there a way to sum up this point so that we can put it in a box, for instance? 'm And not as familiar as you, but what we're looking to do is to run a foundation for multiple making a motion out of something that says, hey, we're looking to do this. We want an independent structure that's this and this and gives us that flexibility. And throw it over our shoulder and let the accounts and lawyers take a look at it and come back and tell us how to make that happen. Because their first responsible is

I can do that. It won't, but we'll

have to explain to them we want it to be done.

I can do that.

Yes, if you need, I can I'm happy to write up at least some thoughts on it too. Can send you an email feel free to touch that up. I'll put that on my plate and we'll move forward.

Good. And reach out to me

and Yep.

I think on that basis then, we should focus on what are the priorities we're going to throw into this box.

Just remember one thing in my humble opinion. If you haven't looked at the demographic schedule that's in the presentation and it was presented by our consultant. We we we don't wanna put, you know, 60% of our effort, behind a project that affects five or 6% of our population. We we wanna put 60% of our effort behind the the the demographic of our population that's 60 or 70%.

20 That's percent of the resources for 80% of the population.

Yeah.

Well, that would What

I'm trying to say is

That would be more true if we were using city funds. But if we're using private contributions, if they want to give to it and there are only 100 people, great.

No, but I'm talking about how our efforts should be

Oh, so I would just challenge one thing.

So long as we're in a current organization structure, you're right.

Eric, I would just challenge one thing. I know that you've mentioned it a couple times before, the number of kids on the island is small and whatever. But the thing we have to remember is the number of grandparents, aunts and uncles on this island that have their family visit that appreciate all the parks. I think it's important to remember that they want a great looking park too for their grandkids or their nieces.

If you look at our seasonal population, the demographics mirror our permanent population. So the visitors that we get are very much identical to demographics of the population that are here.

But to Darren's point.

Yeah, would challenge that.

Both sides and we have a lot of grandchildren.

Yeah, you got to do is go walk around our neighborhood during the next six weeks and you're going to see a totally different demographic. If you go to Sweet Annie's at 07:30PM, which I've tried to three times this week and I've decided I didn't want the ice cream that bad, There's a lot more young kids on this island than you see maybe on a day to day

basis. For the

next three full schools here.

For two or three weeks that's the case.

I would challenge based on the demographic breakdown, even though that smaller number is younger people, there's a higher percentage of those younger people using the facilities. So let's say it's only 20% younger, there's 90% of that 20% that's looking to use the fields and everything like that.

You the other thing is this is gonna sort itself out because when we have the projects identified people are gonna And support the projects they that's fine. That's good.

That's right. And for instance, like, member Eineke, he brought to my attention last year, the whole situation at Mackle Park with the soccer field. I can't remember what time of the year it was that you told us about this, but I think it was in March or April. And he said, hey, the the field never dries out. So I went over there and out of rainy season, he's a 100% right. I mean, there's water in it and it's it's not good. And if we want that fixed, think there's plenty of parents and plenty of grandparents on this island that are gonna be willing to step up and contribute to that to have a better field for their for their grandkids or their nieces and nephews.

I think there's more to that equation too because Samantha used to have her own committee of people she could call to work on these fields. And under McNeese, they combined it into one big correct me if I'm wrong, one big department. She doesn't have just those core people she can call from. I really think we need like a senior greens person or something because it looks like all of our fields look so tired and messy and all kinds of different kinds of grass growing in them.

Well, that that's a budget issue.

Yes. It's a budget issue.

Should be during the budget process.

We're not here because the city doesn't collect enough taxes.

Right.

Give us the level of.

So, I'm just saying any project we do, we have to consider the maintenance that would be along with that.

I

think the foundation on these sublevels of people who are going give money for certain projects, I think that's going to create the priority itself because when the money is there to do a project, it's all going be there. You might as well get it started and complete it and move on to the next one. I think because we're not going to work on something if there's only $5 in the bucket for it because there's not enough money to do the project yet. So we'll move on to the one that does have the money, right? And I think that's where the priorities are going to sort themselves out.

I think we have some projects on the list that are already funded by private entities that we should look closer at because it doesn't cost us anything.

Okay. So you're saying projects should take priority based on what we have

in If people are giving if there's millions of dollars sitting there for a project, you might as well work on that project. That means it's a priority. Somebody is already ready to go. And I think that's gonna be one of the helps for us.

It's not super complicated, right? We're gonna identify the projects that are needed. For instance, I think about like in in our hometown, there's some tennis courts that were in bad shape. Actually, my banker, his family's tennis players at this school, they actually have a home here on Marco Island. Well, the tennis court facility is now named after his family.

They have six or eight brand new tennis courts. It looks beautiful. And again, it was a donor matched up with something they're tied to and boom, it happened. I think once we identify all these projects that need to be done, and we write a good story about each one of them, I think we're going to have people who raise their hand and begin the snowball downhill that we're asking for help on this project or that project. And I think with a little bit of work by us leading this, I think we can make some good things happen a lot faster than what's happened in the past.

Well, I think job one is for Joe and I to get together with our lawyers and find out how best we separate the five zero one c three from the city, in order to become more independent in our activities. And that's we'll start the process tomorrow, John.

That'd be a great next agenda item.

But I think after that, I think going through these priorities, I think it is great. I mean, the playground equipment, I know that there was discussion at the last two council meetings. I don't know how the dust settled on that 2,000,000 if that got shuffled out in the I think that got shuffled out as a part of the the budget so that that 2,000,000 wasn't there from the city. So, you know, that playground equipment I think is a priority. It's in tough shape.

Of course, is points I made at the time, but this is all prefabricated equipment. There was no bids taken. There was one vendor that was asked for a price. That vendor gave the price. We have to take these projects out for bid, for real bid.

Yeah. I I don't disagree with that at all. I think certainly you

I don't want us to get hung up on that. I think where we are today, we'll work through how the execution of the bids will occur. I think what's important while it's so hard to get all of you guys together, you guys all have busy lives, what I'd love to do is, is there a way that we can Darren, like you were saying, can we start identifying projects that we think we can start looking into and then bring that to the foundation to see if they can prioritize those.

Could I ask one question before I

Sure. Agree with

Yep. Okay. So when we're looking at page 13 here that says the potential projects for ten year plan is $26,000,000 If this goes away and we don't raise any money, do these projects never get done? Or do some of these get done by the city later on? What's the current schedule

for doing these? Some some will get done by the city.

Yeah. And these were projects that were identified by the consultant based on feedback from the community. So these these have been identified. These will be shared during our capital projects budget meetings. Some of them will. Obviously, they can't all be done in one year, but they can start being introduced slowly in each one of the capital budget meetings?

What I'm looking for is the first contributor towards the 25,000,000 that we need should be the city. My point is what is it that they intended to do to carve out, say in the next three years they were going to spend $2,000,000 doing this, this and this. I guess we don't need to raise money for that.

Well, there is money available in certain categories. For example, there's $436,000 that had been allocated from the 1% sales tax for The boardwalk. The boardwalk. Thank you, Remy. Senior moment.

I know the feeling.

Yeah. For for the boardwalk. That that money is still there. And and so, you know, that's not enough, based on the the estimate that we received, but it's a good start.

Just trying to figure out how does this

And there's other there's other examples.

Project and the other donors all swim together.

Well, I Things

the city isn't gonna do at all. So it's the entire foundation.

Yeah. I think if any of us are being real honest with each other, I think if we want the marble to move at all on any of these things, at any pace at all, I think it's gonna happen because of people in this room and us going out and helping find people move. And if the city finds some money down in the couch cushions, there'll be a project that can have some money either added to it or can be taken care of at that time. But if we sit and wait, it's gonna be a long wait. I mean, I've only been doing my government work here for about eighteen months.

And it is a slow pace. It is awfully frustrating. And especially when you're used to being able to I see a candidate. Yeah. When able to think entrepreneurial, like when you're doing your day job, the pace at which you can do things, it's very frustrating. So I think we have to think of, okay, these projects are important to us as a group. Let's put them up on the board and see if the community raises up and is willing to fund. And if the city's got some money left over and they're willing to chip in some money at the end, great. But if we wait for them to give us a green flag to get started, I mean, we could be waiting a long time.

Do any of these projects have funding in place right now?

So the arynesium, Joe, correct, that's already in the works, so we can take that off the line item.

I I will say this. 14 can come up.

Share the shade, potentially can.

Sign the, signage. Yep. The person who now that was not from the city. Correct. A person donated money Yep. Yep. To signage, and we have done that.

Yep. So I do think I I agree that there are some things that we can cross off. I also think too, I like the idea of identifying the projects and using the foundation and the people to collect the money. Because if we reach that level or if we don't get all the way to another project or the city can't afford to do a certain project, we can always shift money out of, say, the Owl Park since it was paid by community members, and we can shift that money to fix up Mackle Park. There's ways that you can move money around to get the items.

Can you do that? Say I gave $10,000 to the Allpark. You can't take that and move that out.

No. But what what we could do is if the city was planning on putting $10,000 towards that, then the city could redirect that money to another another line item.

City funds could be Yeah. Be redirected. The other thing is, for instance, you know, shade was marked up on Mackle. So, member Sherry Zener from the Beautification Committee and I have been working together with Tree City USA money. And we just handed over to Joe a proposed layout of some additional trees.

We may get 60% of it done this year and 40% next year with the money that's in the Tree City USA. But it's in the neighborhood of, I think, 50 additional trees in the proper spots around Mackle Park. And it also brings up something that I'd like to maybe propose as a starting point for us as a group. You know, at Mackle Park, there's a lot of what call deferred maintenance on little things like paint, basketball nets, tree stumps with people's names by plaques. That's bothered me since day one when I walked over there.

There's people who gave money twenty, thirty years ago, and they've got a dead tree there now, never replaced. And I think it's very important for us. The first priority when we put these trees in from beautification is to replace those trees where there's a dead tree stump to show some respect for people who gave to us in the past and now have a tree stump there. And, I think by doing some small things, painting like, for instance, even like the parking blocks and getting like the little things that like can show people. There's some progress happening here.

It might be a good first step for us as a foundation to put a small bit of money in to show some forward progress signage over there. There's some signage around the the lake that you it's been unreadable for a decade and, things like that. So I think if we could do some small things like that as a maybe a first step to say, here's what we're looking to do. And we just keep knocking these projects off. But Mackle Park as a starting point with some of its deferred maintenance, and if we could just put a little paint and clean up and new trash cans and things that people can see immediately would be, I think maybe a first good step for us because it's not a major amount of money, but it would show at least some forward progress.

For instance, even like tree bark, right? There's no tree bark around any of the trees around the lake. So it's like all these little details that would make our parks look so much better for a small amount of money.

Also I'm new to the committee, didn't a group from the Racket Center produce a master plan and offer to pay for it? Where do we stand on that?

That's forthcoming. And sometime, I believe, the second council meeting in April, Tim Annette will make the presentation. The group has been very constructive, working very, very hard. Just based on preliminary information, the concepts and ideas and suggestions they're coming up with seem to be very valid. And we haven't gotten beyond that, but perhaps they're going to touch on some of those other elements like how do you pay for it.

And I think they are. So we do have one group, I know for sure in pickleball that's working on a plan. We haven't heard the details, but we are going to hear the details in about a month. I'm really looking forward to that because this group has worked very, very hard on it. We have another large group of people called senior baseball softball players and they're very interested in getting their field completely redone.

Well, that takes time and money and effort. So perhaps we can encourage them to do the same thing as the pickleball players are doing, get research and data for us to really when when people in the community do like the pickleball group does for the city council, it saves an enormous amount of time on the city council's part because, in all honesty, we don't have the time to get into all the research. Now the staff can do it and to the extent that they have time available, they do do it. But we are loading that staff up heavily with a lot of different projects. So we need to be very cautious there.

So independent research verified, so it's factual, is very important. And regardless of what the project is, it can play an instrumental job in getting the project approved and done. And without it, it And would I be a think

it's for field over at Mackle Park. Like, if we can whoever decides to put together a plan to bring that together. But there's no doubt about it. That field needs to be raised, drained. Like, it's got some work to be done. And some group can help put that together. But I think that's a very big priority. That field is used a lot. You can go over there most of the day, and there's people out there playing, whether it's soccer or frisbee or whatever they're they're doing. And,

my personal, opinion in that is that it's gonna take to do that field properly is gonna take a significant amount of money that we haven't yet begun to think about. We're talking about replacing the grass. That's not the job.

It's You've to raise the a full on. It's got drainage. It's a flood zone. It's got a full on project. And I I think that, you know, again, that's why if we identify that as a project in a bucket, there's probably a bunch of soccer parents and other folks that somewhere, somebody will raise their hand and potentially lead that charge because that's what it's gonna take.

Yeah. Field just before we get off of it needs to be thought of strategically of not only what it's used for today, but how about a football field in combination with a soccer field? And I just mark it differently. But how about for let's see. What what's

Yeah. Don't remember Heineken.

Should be a multi purpose

field. That's what point. Lacrosse soccer.

Lacrosse the other Lacrosse is the

big one.

Track because their track team has to go off. But the problem is, and I don't think we've been able to solve it, it's slightly too small in order to put a real track around it. No matter what way you slice it, there's not it's a little too narrow and a little too short in order to put an actual Yes.

So my idea is not my idea, my suggestion is think strategically on these plans, not just today's issue because we may solve today's issue, but down the road, find out, uh-uh, pickleball is a good example.

Just on the pickleball thing one more time, a question. City Council did approve a plan a couple of years ago to expand pickleball, and then we got the bid and that was 2x what we anticipated it being. The question for the pickleball people, I think, too, there any of those funds left? And what how much is that so we know where we can go?

All right. Right now, we've the City Council just approved a $95,000 expenditure of the existing funds, which were 582,000 take $95,000 out of that, that's what's left. And so the city has funds available to do certain things. And depending upon the master plan that the pickleball folks come forward with, maybe some of that money goes into the lower cost items, they get it going, maybe sound barrier, who knows. But it's something you the pickleball group would have to I hate to say this, we may even have to go to the planning board and then come to the council.

But nonetheless, whatever the requirements are, we'll follow and I'm sure you guys will follow.

Yeah. We're going to have a chat with Zach Lombardo about that too to see kind of what hoops

are going jump through with that.

Just be aware that that project that was approved two years ago, a lot has changed since then. So there's a lot of that whole thing has to be reevaluated.

Now other available money that Joe has identified, There is $950,000 of money that he's identified that could potentially be used for Mackle Park, Winterberry, Veterans Community, Bandshell Field for field, grass changes, etcetera. The the challenge there is we have to think strategically on that. You just change the grass and allow people to park on it. You're going to be changing grass frequently. So what do we do to accommodate parking on grass?

And there are some ideas and Joe has followed up on some. There's also $175,000 of money potentially slotted for the tot lot over at Mackle Park. And then lastly, Mackle Park, Winterberry Lighting is about $400,000 of city money that could be spent on those projects assuming we make that a priority. All of these that I've just mentioned were done before these kind of discussions. So whether those remain the priority or not, I don't know, but there is some money available.

But it's limited. More importantly for all of you and those in the audience and those listening on TV, follow what we're doing as a City Council on budget. If we want things done, we need to budget them which takes money and that means we need support in the community to get budgets approved. So pay attention to those. Also the referendum that is coming along and on the road roads, bridges, bike paths, etcetera.

The projects I just mentioned to you with the dollar amounts are only available if that referendum goes through and the voters approved for it. Because otherwise, that money goes to whatever it's currently budgeted for. And at the moment, it's spoken for on a line item budget item, but we can rearrange it if referendum goes

through.

Yeah, and I think in reference to this, so like we're not sitting on an iceberg for the next, call it, until November. You know, if these are identified as projects and we as, as the foundation would like to say, Hey, let's these projects deserve attention now. You there's no nothing stopping us from going out and saying, Hey, we're gonna raise $2,000,000 for playground equipment. And if we want to raise $2,000,000 and somebody stands up and says they're willing to put some money in that bucket, if the city passes this thing, that 2,000,000 can be used for the laundry list of other items below this somewhere down the road, right? So I don't think we should sit on our hands from now till November to see if this passes or doesn't pass.

I think if we're going to identify projects, we identify projects, We put together like here's what this might conceptually look like doesn't take much. I don't even think we we can go on a number of, outsourced websites that we could have a drawing in three days for $200, probably. And say, here's what it might look like. And if you'd like to contribute, here's the way that you can contribute. And you do the same thing right on down that path. Because again Yes,

I would only add to that and you're speaking to the choir here. Everybody wants to do the same thing. I think we need to identify specific people who are specifically interested in certain projects. I can tell you Jim Richards and I and our Chairman who are active in the donation market here on Marco Island can tell you the key is identifying the interest level first. And with a little bit of effort, pickleball, very good example.

You got a group of guys all share the same ideas and I'm willing to work hard toward. There are other groups I know there are. We just need to identify them. And once we do, we'll be amazed with what can be done.

Yeah. I think in a small way, right? The Owl Park thing. So I think we've patched together some money from what Linda and their group working together, I think in 2027 with some trees and a couple of other groups to like move the marble along. We also discovered that it's gonna be a lot less money because of two or three, edits to that project that would bring it down significantly. But a project like that, you know, if you could get 100,000 raised for it, again, it shows people that a project can be started, completed, finished, done, and, progress. But the Owls are another group of people that are passionate.

You might put that one down. Let's help Joan complete the, the list of interest items.

Just remember, if you're 72 as I am and you have an IRA, you're required to take a required minimum distribution out of that IRA every year. And a $100,000 of that distribution can be given to the charity of your choice, and it is the most efficient way to give money to a charity. Because basically, what you're doing is you're giving them a dollar, and it's only costing you 65¢.

I have

a comment on when they did the splash pad at Mackle Park, they they found a cracked pipe below it, and the budget wasn't there to fix that. So they finished the splash pad. But the water pressure never really gets high enough, like once an hour, for the water to actually bubble up. So my question is, when we fund these projects, do we have a slush fund for when these kinds of things show up? Like is that part of your planning?

I was going to bring that up. I mean, we're talking millions of dollars here, but we're not talking about why to get this why to get to the point where it's disrepair and we have to bulldoze and replace everything. Right. Like where was the maintenance

Failed deferred maintenance.

No. Where was the ongoing

to keep That that's versus waiting for I think that's looking in the rearview mirror.

Council city council's living with that issue. We can point fingers and blame people from the past. That isn't gonna correct a damn The fact is just assume everything that is in place today has to be replaced.

Right.

I mean, that's the assumption because most of the infrastructure is fifty, sixty years old. It's already has life cycle wearing out or breaking. And by the way, your example, the American Legion was putting up or proposing to put up a Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And for a year or two, we had a site plan until we're about to break ground, and then we find out, oh, there's a water main below there. And now you have to pay to move this water main.

Well, forget that. So we had to move sites on the spur of the moment and we finally have done it and it's being it's under construction as it speaks. But it's a good example that not everyone knew what they should have known. And so we learned the hard way. But we're going to find that, by the way. Again, it's not to accuse anyone.

Think Eric's point on this with funds is an important one. I've had the same thought and I mentioned it at our last meeting because there's a lot of people, whether they want to give $10,000 out of their IRA this year or $100,000 I think there's a lot of people on this island that if you could prove to them that the place will be great for their kids, their grandkids, their great great grandkids, they will gift money so long as it's been responsibly used and they can see these things actually happening. But for instance, started my donor advised fund last year, and I'm at a different stage in life than some of the others in the room. But we're still putting acorns in, but there's a lot of people looking to take acorns out. And I think for us, how do we put a good vision out there and get people to say, I want to put 10,000 or 25,000 in on an annual basis.

Because there's plenty of it available. It's just a matter of having the right vision and then asking the right people. And I think I think we can do it.

Couldn't you just have an information night on how to donate from your IRA? Have good discussions.

I think

on that right like if we go out and we get four or five conceptual drawings off of our priorities. And you have a conversation whether it's here at. Here or whether it's over at the softball field where those folks are and you have a conversation with them or over at pickleball place and you have a conversation with them or over where the Owl Park might be and you have a conversation with them or if it's, you know, over and out. Either way, those folks, you have a conversation with them. I think there's a lot of like different groups of people that, if you put five, six, seven, eight projects in front of them, you say, hey, and here's a way that you can contribute to do this.

Well, how can we get them to buy into being a part of the fundraising? So that was brought up before about setting up interest groups for specific fundraising ventures, talking about the pickleball and racket center and then the softball crew. We've kind of set the tone that we're going to have to find the money to do these projects maybe turning to the softball crew and saying hey can you be the team that raises the money to fix these fields to help us, right?

Is that something that to I think that's part of that, right? That's why we go to the softball field. We have Tom that organizes his group and we go over there and have a conversation. And they do a beautiful job. I mean, those guys went out and they were watering the flowers after Home Depot did it because they care so much about where they play and that they didn't want what was just installed to die.

And they do great work and it looks beautiful. And I think if you go over there, you're gonna find a bunch of passionate people and some of them will contribute. Now, it get all the way to the whole thing? Maybe, maybe not. But beyond that, if we go out into the community, the broader community, and we have people who donate as Eric has just talked about, that money could go into the call it the unrestricted bucket that is our maintenance fund, deferred maintenance and dream projects or fill in the level that the players couldn't get to.

And the city council is contributing to this because we've just reduced the usage of air conditioning in this room.

Yeah. Monday, they shut it off and they invited the whole

city Let's let's get back let's get back to the focus. We've identified some of the we've got, what, five priorities listed.

Could we add one more priority

to that? Sure.

Mhmm. I think we have forgotten the playground assist the playground equipment. We have taken that, and I'm not sure that I think that should be left out.

I And if that's a safety issue, that should probably be a little if kids are playing on it and if there's splinters and rolling stuff, I

mean It's incredible.

You should either close it or make sure it's fixed.

To tell you what can be done and what isn't done, there is money right now in the foundation to do shade for the amphitheater. It's there. But there's only been one bid. Only one person has been asked to give us how much it would cost. And the person the person who donated the money said, uh-uh.

I want two bids at least to know how much it would cost to have shade at the amphitheater. The money was given, I don't know, four years ago, three years ago, and nothing's ever been done. That's part of our money. And if it was a separate foundation, we could have taken the taken it, run with it, gotten some bids, and there would be shade. But sometimes

We we could have done that under our current system, but didn't. But didn't.

We we still need to follow the procurement procedures.

Procurement procedure. Things don't go fast. I have been on the parks and rec committee for low these seven years. See this 13 list? We that list is about 13 years old. Yeah. And I'm here to share with you three, four, and 14 have been done. Marco Island, we live in a beautiful place. But when it comes to anything on that list, it's fufu. It's extra.

They don't have time. They've got to repair the streets and the bridges are collapsing. So when you look at an owl park, they're thinking, get a grip. The bridge is falling in on, you know, so they have their priorities. This would be a gift from heaven.

Yeah. Well, I think to that point, I think whatever we need to do in order to get the second and third bid because this should be part of our kickoff is like, here was a good example of a donor who stepped up, put money in the bucket, and here's a project that got finished. And that could be because it's a centerpiece of the island. And I agree with the the playground over at Mackle too because that's another centerpiece, right? The two biggest parks, those are probably the two most prominent things that people are gonna see that would show them some forward progress.

Let me ask this question.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Using the shade. Mhmm. Who's the leader?

Well, the money's already

been No. So the money. Who's the leader? Who's the person's first and last name that leads that project? It's not the Illages. He's a he's a donor. He has pull, but he's not getting the other 10,000,000. He's not the leader. Right. We don't have a leader for Al's. We don't we have a leader here, think, for softball and a team behind it. So let me suggest this because you could list all these projects. I heard what you said. You're absolutely correct. Nothing's gonna happen here anytime soon. Ever. Until there's a leader with a team named for each project. If you can't get a name, kill the project. There's not gonna this is about leadership. We're the leaders. What I'm suggesting is

I got you a leader for your shade structure right now. You the hey. You the leader? You've got Gene Siegel.

Say what I mean?

There you

When you have a person's name and that's their focus, stuff will happen. All the things you're talking about. So I'm suggesting we change the agenda from what items to who is gonna be the leaders.

That that that that's precisely why I've asked Melissa Harris to be here today. I figured. Because we need someone full time who's gonna be ramrodding this.

That's an outside consultant. We need a resident who wants to have sweat, blood, and tears at and not a team, a leader who has a team.

Each of each of the projects. Yeah.

Mhmm. Because we're wasting all this other time talking about the nickels and dimes and who's what you want Shay Dunn? Find the leader. Give him the million dollars. Give him the rules or her hopefully. And so we can get things done.

I think the leader just resigned. That statement, Jim.

They can't hear you, please.

I'm sorry. I think, if we can keep the conversation in here and then we can have public comment afterwards.

Where where where are we on in terms of of, public comment? So

we have public comments scheduled, at 04:45 to 5PM.

Okay.

We have only a half hour left to discuss more about the project.

So we only have fifteen minutes for public comment?

That's what we had scheduled aside for that. Yes. That's what I had scheduled.

Dolores, how did that how did that shade structure money get set aside and every

That that shade that shade structure came with a donation from the person who donated money for the, for our band shell. Okay. And there was a lot of, like, little things that had to be done, and we did them all. But now we're now to the shade structure, and we have

Is this where the bid person, I guess, left and you didn't have people to to bid?

Well, I don't know if that's it. Or they chose someone. They did get someone who had put shade structures in in Naples because you need to have a shade structure that is hurricane proof. And it's easier or it's maybe it's the only person that can do it, but they chose that person. This is who you got.

So I just wanna so I appreciate that, Dolores. So I just I just checked and got an update. There is city staff that's working on getting more bids for that. I would need to get back to you about where they are in that process.

Could talk to mister Siegel. He's the chairman. Yes. Yeah.

We we we need to go out with a formal bid structure on that project. So we went out and we had a list of vendors who do that work and we picked one vendor off the list and asked them for a quote and they gave us a quote. That that that's not first of all, that that's not the way state law says we should operate. We need to go out and do a formal bid a bid advertisement and get the bids in and take the lowest one?

So I'm happy to put my name on the owl thing because I'm a ways along on that. And I'm happy to also put a little bit of work on the Mackle Park field. I've had conversations with a couple individuals on the island about that. And maybe a member, Heineken, maybe you'd be willing to put a little work I've in with got a

team already for Mackle Park in mind that

we can put together. Beautiful.

So if we could do that maybe together, that'd be great. So we can take names on those bottom two.

We're making headway. I'm I'm I'm backing your your

make things happen when people get empowered to make something happen.

You know, one start might be to, on some of these projects, go to the advisory committee that's most acquainted with the topic and see if the advisory committee has a person or two who are interested in picking up. For instance, know, the

Just ask to Laura. She has all the names.

Well, PRAC is pretty much committed already. How about beautification committee? Okay. Trees and shade? Beach and coastal, you know, come on. There are things that we can get them involved in if they wish. We can't direct them, but we can suggest. And we could pick up a couple extra bodies right right there. I I assume they have interest in making improvements also.

Forgot the Eagles too. There's a whole Eagle group out there and those Eagles are in part parts of parks and parts of city areas that need improvement. You'll get the Eagle people.

Well, there's no area in the city that doesn't need improvement.

Well, and the Eagles are everywhere.

To get the foundations list here, if you put it online, that way the public knows that you're looking for funds for this. And then I don't know if it can tally up the money that's been raised so people can see all the interest there is on those projects. And then that might get the community involved to add more different projects that we're not even thinking of or something, you know

Yeah. And I I think just before we get into that, I think that's a great idea identifying the projects. I do think, though, that the the city has spent a lot of money on the developing the master plan, and it is based on the community responses. And and my only concern is this if you start opening it up just in general, you may get a lot of different responses coming in that may not align with already what the community provided their input in. But I love the idea about the list. Yeah, I love that.

A little comment on that too. If we move this if this does get outside of the city, you know, I'm happy to contribute a new website for the foundation. It's part of what we do is our business. Because you know, if you got a good website, good photos, good projects, with your designs on there and, you know, my team can I'm happy to contribute that to the the group because I think that's a a key piece. And, you know, once we do a story, right?

If we get shade in Veterans Community Park, we gotta go over there and take some drone videos and photos and talk about a completed project and, you know, what that looks like. You know, for instance, last weekend, I don't know if drone video was caught or not last weekend, but when they had Rock Republic there, it was beautiful. The whole community was there. The people as far as the eye could see, and we need to have that captured so that we can show the community all these beautiful things that happen. And then do that amongst all of the things that we do here.

You receive feedback that Marco doesn't do anything. And you guys do, but not everybody knows about it.

Yeah. So.

A technical question too, because this is we just were talking about the one project, the trees around Bandshell. Bandshell. And we said we have to follow the procurement process. Suppose we do the privatization that we've all been talking about. We're raising money for the city. We got a project, baseball field, pickleball, whatever. Are we able to avoid the procurement regulations and do the process the way a business would do it?

Greg, you're the lawyer.

Yeah. Well, I'm hoping

you But answered

I don't know what you did in the baseball field, for example, how you did that.

Oh, because that was a partnership with the entire county education group. Had to use their vendors. It didn't matter if we had a vendor who was less expensive. We had to use their vendor. And so we did because it's bed the project along. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric, I think that's one question we wanna ask have the attorneys kind of address. We get into a 501 C three private arrangement. Are we able to raise money for some of these projects? Go ahead and get the work done and turn it back to the city.

Oh, and turn it back to the city, okay.

I made a note. When I type my email to you, Eric, I'll put that in there as well. If we do a project, let's just say it's the Mackle Park field, like can this group use vendor one, two or three based upon those bids versus the city going out and getting bids one, two or three? I don't know.

I think we don't want to be handcuffed by sunshine laws. We also don't want to be handcuffed by procurement regulations when we can go out and do it in a more efficient process.

Well, I'm going to tell you for pickleball, the person that was found to build the pickleball courts

Right.

Was not I found him. And it's not he is not approved. He is not an approved city vendor, and that's why we came to the foundation. And, also, for the shade structures, That gentleman is, at this point, not approved. So what we we that's how it was able to do and and do it for one third or one half less.

So so perfect example. Can we get that done?

So it seems to me it can be done. And realistically speaking, my friends, when you do something and it's government issue or you're using government everything, you have to do you have to spend a lot more than if this foundation is off on its own. There are things that Joe has to have that we don't that if you're not a government entity, you don't need. And it really makes a big difference in how much you're spending.

Alright.

Are we are we sure these are the six

priorities? Plus the

Plus the playground equipment. Yeah. Do we do we all align on these? And that's tot lot.

Right? The playground equipment is the tot lot.

I think we can include the tot lot in that. Would yeah. Is that the thought?

I would I would include those as one project because you can't do one of them without the other one. Right. No. Because That's you'd have one eyesore next to something that looked beautiful, and I think they both should be considered a project.

Excuse me. They're they're separate projects. The top line is the small basketball court. The playground is just a it's there's two playgrounds. There's you're thinking that the smaller playground yes.

Yeah.

But but if we went out as a group and wanted to raise funds, we could say this is for the playground and the tot lot, which is a to this group would be a project versus two projects. I understand Joe why you probably and through the city have it as two because the buckets of money that could be identified. But I think if we're talking about it, I think this is like, let's fix one of our crown jewels of the island as far as the parks are concerned. And that playground area, that whole section should be improved, and that's a bucket. And the sports field, that's a bucket.

And that should be done. And man, if we could do those two things, it would it would and then you put shade up at Veterans Community Park, I think then you'd have residents being like, Wow, Look at what these guys are doing. They're willing to put their their hand up for other projects.

So if I look at the six lists the six items on the list, four of them have leaders. Okay? Ya'all Park has a leader. Mackle Park Field has a leader. Pickleball has a leader. Softball, I think, yes, volunteering. Two volunteers they see already. They have a leader. So we're looking for a leader of playground equipment, but I think we just heard it, right? Isn't

that That part of related to Mackle Park.

Mackle Park issue. So we've got five out of six. The only one we're looking for are donated items, trees and small maintenance fixes, which is going to be very difficult to raise money for, to be honest with you. But nonetheless, we should give it a shot. So we're missing one leader. Thank you, Jim. Oh, we got to that pretty gosh darn quick.

Once we figure out who they are, we'll tell them what they need to do.

So once we've identified all these projects in a perfect world, we get the financing for them. And we've removed that burden from the city because it's being done through the Parks Foundation, then the city should, in theory, have a good budget for maintenance of these items. Absolutely. Correct?

Well, you would hope.

And you could build that into the fundraising as well. Make sure that it that you fundraise beyond the capital cost that you would have some sort of maintenance built in for x number of years.

I think that is for sure built into the pickleball. That's the only one I know for sure that's already built into that.

Now will the city automatically put that in their budget? Well,

they're getting that from us because they're charging a lot.

That these are just some I just turned on your mic. So these are just, I believe, back of the envelope costs for these. They're just the capital costs involved in it just to demonstrate kind of the magnitude of what it would take to accomplish these. I think once we the city starts learning more about what fundraising is gonna happen, then the city can come back and and start talking about on an operational basis what it takes to to maintain it.

So that's leading to the point of having the city take over the maintenance.

Is that

realistic? It's I think it depends on how the contract is set up with the donor. I think it's gonna depend a lot on that. Some some donors, know, they will keep maintenance for a while on a project. So I believe, like, the Castaway Parks, that was donated to the city, but there is an agreement on maintenance from the donor to do the maintenance on that for x amount of years.

Thirty years.

Excuse me, Dolores?

Thirty thirty years.

Well, that's that's great. And I think it's just gonna be based on the donor and how the contract is set up with the donor when that that money is donated in.

Just a quick question for the for the fountain. I can't turn it back. Write it down. Community park. Who does the maintenance on that fountain?

The city. The city.

So in some cases, the city takes it over. In some cases, the donor leaves a Yeah. Annuity or something that to pay for maintenance or something.

Don't think we've got many donors so far.

So Veterans organizations raise the money for the fountain, and then the city's doing the maintenance.

I'm just saying it goes in both directions. Sometimes the city takes

Yeah. I'm involved in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that's gonna be built. We'll handle maintenance once it's assembled, but we're going to donate it to the city. Once we donate it to the city, then the city assumes the responsibility for the maintenance. And they have to build it in the budget, otherwise it never gets done.

Well, I think part of this too, right? Like if we put this plan together, we identify these six projects, we take a step forward and talk about like what Eric's talking about with getting money from people on a, let's call it, on an annual basis and work towards annual gifts. I think you're gonna have money that people are gonna gift one time into singular projects. And perhaps if the cost of that project is a half $1,000,000, maybe we need $7.50 to fund some period of, you know, maintenance on it. But in other cases, I think if we have a bucket of money that is, you know, unrestricted coming in through annual gifts and then it's like, keep Marco beautiful or, you know, like I mentioned to Dolores one time, it's like, your, you know, leave your mark on Marco.

And it's like, you know, annual gifting. And I think that goes into a bucket that could be potentially used so that, you know, if the playground over at Maccles looking rough in fifteen years, we're not waiting thirty years fix it, right?

All the stuff is already owned by the city and they're going to own it when it's all over with. So I think we're kind of worried about the last 5% cost, which is maintenance over some time

a year

versus let's figure out how to raise the first $5,000,000 and get something done.

Yes, that's right. And I think the good news here I think is we've got this shade situation. If we can get that fixing up, it would give us a beautiful first like launching point because it's already there and we just got to deploy it. So that would be like a beautiful starting point. And then we could say there's 10 other projects like that and we need you to step up.

Artwood and Island and start building onto it.

That's

right. I like that.

You said something on the marketing campaign to show that what we're doing so they know that stuff is getting Well,

won't want a piece of it.

Yeah. So I'm happy to, if needed, to What I'll do is with Curtis and I, we'll do a little drawing with somebody for Mackle Park. Just a well, I'll personally contribute it. I'll just go out and do it. Because I think we if we get one, and the owl thing we already have something on, it gives us something that is visual in nature that people can latch onto. And then if that looks good, and we put up on a web page, and we start talking to people about these things, I think the rest will take shape after that.

Anyhow, what else do we have here, Joan?

So I just wanna do a time check. So it's 04:30 right now. We have five speakers that are signed up for public comments. So that's gonna be about fifteen, twenty minutes for that. Are there are we happy

to Are there speakers on on the same same subject? Are they different subjects?

It's Jim, it's it's about this workshop. Correct? The projects in this so it's about the projects in this workshop.

They're not all speaking on the same subject. Everybody has a different point of view here.

Thank you. Oh, sorry about that.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let's hear them.

Okay. So I just wanna I just wanna pause for a second. Are these the six items? These are the items that we've identified as priorities for the foundation. And the foundation members feel good about this, getting this as well. Okay. Fantastic.

And we just need

to marry somebody up with project number one up at the top. Yep.

Mhmm. Okay. Oh, six.

I think we've got six speakers.

Project one is signage? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's already been done.

And it's capital maintenance, the second part.

Oh oh.

So it's about quick quick hits of fixing up all Yeah. What's already there, making sure that the It's maintenance. They look good. It's what it is. It's maintenance. Yep. It's maintenance.

On that on that first one, the American Legion is stepping up with Joe to replace some of the footings on benches that are now rusted out. So we're picking up one piece, but there are many other projects that need funding. Okay, let's hear the speakers. Okay,

so I'm going to propose Chair Brechnitz, that we limit the speakers at this minute to three minutes piece. We now have six speakers, so that's basically eighteen minutes or so.

Why don't we give them four?

You want to give them four? Fine. We'll do four.

Okay. And we just remind everyone, we have a hard stop at 05:00.

Yeah. Well, will not violate that.

Four minutes it is. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Our first registered speaker is Mr. Tom Polston followed by Mr. Bill Thompson.

Hi, everybody. I know some of you know me. I'm Tom Polston. I live at 140 Seaview Court. I am the commissioner of the softball league. And, Fred's in the league. You've been in there a long time. Bill Thompson. We have over 250 members between players, booth announcers. We broadcast our games. We have scorekeepers, and then you could double that with their spouses and girlfriends. So we're a large organization. Talking about shade. We put shades up at Winterberry and the bleachers. The city stalled me for about three years.

We had $10,000. By the time I put them up, the cost was 16,000. We still put them up through, hurricane proof, which is on the East Coast. Did a great job. If anybody would like to come over and see them, they're retractable. Really good. We put them. We I contacted the guy. He came over, put them in. The reason why we didn't have to go through, the city is because they weren't put into the concrete. We put them attached them right to the bleachers itself. So that's one of the projects that we did on our own over there. The field. Home Depot came in. A lot of cosmetic stuff.

Then they did pay for the field, new clay, but it was just a quick fix. It was a Band Aid. They put in all new plants, but I don't think the city had a plan to water them. We went out, bought hoses. We had a sign up who kept did a great job behind the booth. Some of the others, hopefully, the trees will come back. We'll find that out in the spring. So I did talk to JSM. They're the ones that did the work over at the field. I've already gotten three bids from them back in January.

One of them is just to improve the infield and the diamonds. The second one was to improve, with the incorporation of some synthetic turf, not the whole thing just the infield play area. And then the third one was a whole, overhaul of all of Winterberry. I have all three of them. I could forward them to anybody that would like them.

I think the first bid was around 65,000. Second one was 95,000. And the rehaul re overhaul, the whole field was 250,000. So when I look up at well, when they had it up here before, item four, 5.4 or oh, it was 5,400,000.0 for Winterberry. I'm trying to think what over at Winterberry could be that much money.

I know they talked about redoing the bathrooms at one time and a few other things, but we take care of stuff over there. We've repainted the booth. We have done work up in the booth. Guys, we're a proud organization. We like to, you know, help out. I have guys picking up garbage. I was out there. I know Lucy just retired. Bill's out there by himself, Bill Cookson. I rode around him the other day picking up all the garbage cans and and changing stuff.

So we care, And we have a lot of guys in our organization that would like to help out. And when Bill comes up here to talk now, he's gonna tell you about the, you know, 50313C. That's it. Because we have a lot of guys that are obviously, we're senior softball. We have a lot of guys that are hitting that age, they're gonna wanna donate to our league. And we wanna make sure that it goes for for our organization. And there's football games there. There's soccer games there. Guys play cricket there. And now I've we've seen the lacrosse team from the high school come over there.

So it'll benefit not just us, but a lot of different organizations. So with that, thank you for your time, and I think Bill's next.

Yep. Bill, Thompson is our next speaker followed by mister Rich Polano.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all today. Bill Thompson, I live at 1121 Swallow Avenue on the South side of the island. I, owned here since o two with my wife, Mary, retired from PepsiCo in 2008. And since that time, I played, this is my eighteenth season in the softball league. One of the things that Tom maybe just left out is that scoreboard over there at the field was donated by the PepsiCo Corporation in 2011. K?

Very

good. So that's the type of strength I think we have in our organization. I I reviewed what the mission statement was of the foundation, and I found that it aligned very closely with our league. And I'll just read you if you don't give just, give me a couple of seconds here. The primary mission of the softball league, was, set up in 2005, Fred help helped to set this out, is to provide men in their senior years an opportunity to play competitive softball within a structure that fosters principles of sportsmanship, collegiality, and physical fitness.

The mission of the league includes being recognized as an integral part of the community fabric through the support of other charitable and social organizations. As Tom said, we have a lot of scale. We have about 500 people that are involved in the organization when you count the spouses and girlfriends. And whenever called upon by Parks and Rec to provide volunteers, and we have certainly answered the call, whether it's with the spring fling, the Easter egg thing, the Super Bowl that we used to get asked to help set up, our daily bread, which, you know, Jim's very, very aware of. We have a lot of folks that not only donate to that cause, but also volunteer on Saturdays and different days through the week.

So a lot of a lot of man hours and woman hours being spent over ODB. We also support MIA with scholarships through a through a one of the families or softball players has created a scholarship fund, and we award two to five scholarships every year over at MIA based on the different fundraising situations we have within our community. We have a we have a scavenger hunt this weekend that's gonna benefit that cause. And we also participated. We have 55 guys in our organization who were veterans.

We we also have done a lot of work when the Vietnam traveling wall was here for the different times it was here, both setting up and taking it down. It's interesting, but the demographics of our organization are this. We we our average age with 212 players is 70.4. So to what Eric had and mister Brechner said said before, we're in that prime group of it's RMD time. And we have certainly talked with our folks on a number of occasions about, you know, Tom and I said we're, you know, coming over here today to work hopefully, work collectively with the foundation.

And I think that, you know, given given the right information and given the passion that our folks have for softball mean, nobody leaves a softball league until you die. That's that's a fact of life. I mean, our turnover rate is about 10%. So, I mean, we've got two guys in their nineties playing. So, you know, we we are we're committed to this.

It's our field of dreams, and we feel very confident that Tom and I do that we can certainly help not only, you know, not only, asking you all for some help, with the funding we need, but also supplying the funding back in the form of, RMD and QCD usage. Winterberry Park, as we refer to as the field of dreams, needs to be brought up to a proper safety standard. That field out there is not safe in a lot of ways. And people have gotten hurt on occasions, stumbling over the some of the you know, with lack of grass and and things like that. And and we had kids out there playing, you know, lacrosse and and and other organizations besides ourselves.

So it's not safe, and it's not doesn't align with the proud, aesthetic quality that we want for this island. And if we can establish a complimentary relationship with the foundation, I think we can get a lot of things done quickly. So if you folks are looking for leadership, you got it with Tom and I. Okay?

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Alright.

That's what it takes.

Our next speaker is Mr. Rich Blana followed by Mr. David Cadwell.

Is this on? Hi. Good afternoon and thanks for your service everybody. Since I thought the main topic of conversation was going to be the Parks and Rec Master Plan which was attached to the agenda, I spent a lot of time going over it this afternoon and I wanted to share some observations. On pages nine and ten of the plan there are only two categories that received the four top priority rankings and they were paved multi purpose trails and shelters and shade structures and picnic areas.

There were seven categories that received three top priority rankings and they included my favorite, non motorized boat access and pickleball. Now on page 23, there's even an entire plan for increasing safe access for non motorized craft to the island's inland waterways, yet that has never been brought up by your committee or the city council, and it's one of the top three priorities. In spite of this average ranking of three, all we ever hear about in meeting after meeting after meeting is paying to upgrade the pickleball facilities. On page 27 of the Parks and Rec master plan, there's even a recommendation to add seven more pickleball courts on the city's already overburdened racket center. Why is this so if pickleball only received three top priority rankings?

Why on page 40 is there nothing mentioned about funding access for non motorized boating when it is the same ranking as pickleball? So on page 14, under the vision strategies and framework in this document, pickleball isn't even identified as a high priority area. Yet on page 40 of the same document, I'm talking about the master plan, it recommends spending $1,200,000 to improve the racket center and add additional pickleball courts. How can that be? Now foundation members, I urge you not to waste your generous donations on one activity pickleball that didn't receive any more votes than six other activities including my favorite access to an inland waterways for non motorized vehicles.

I think you're better off following the recommendation on page 19 under the Connect programming that identifies pickleball as a program that is targeted for potential service partners to share the implementation of programming. In other words, instead of wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on donated money on an activity that shares the same mid range ranking as seven other activities, why not get your community partners to invest their money in a new private indoor pickleball facility that won't create a noise problem and that will better serve the community. And I just wanna go on record for saying something and I talked to Greg about this after the city council meeting. I think pickleball is a wonderful sport. I think the camaraderie that pickleball players show and the social connection they have as well as the physical activity of getting out and having some healthy exercise is a great thing.

I mean, someday when I get old enough to stop playing tennis, I may even take pickleball up. However It's

still my line, Rick.

It isn't the game. It's the location of the game. And I can't emphasize that enough. I mean, you're 60 feet from my backyard. When I built my house and I would talk to the people at the YMCA, that space was planned for an expansion of tennis, which I play and which I know the sound of and it's totally different.

Pickleball creates a sound that is unique in the universe. No one has ever anticipated what the sound of eight courts going clack, clack, clack, clack for eight hours a day could be like on the mental health of the residents. So again, I think that's what separates your sport and you need to find a way to recognize the health value of pickleball and support it, but in a way that doesn't really infringe on the neighbors. So once again, thanks for your service and I really appreciate all the time you're spending on all the issues related to Parks and Rec.

You.

Our next registered speaker is Mr. David Cadwell followed by Ms. Linda Scherzinger.

I got a hold?

Yes.

Okay. Very good. Thank you for your time. David Cadwell, 90 Marco Village Drive. I want to begin by just mentioning something the City Council had discussed recently.

Before any expansion at the Rackett Center is considered, the city should first address sound mitigation on the existing courts and verify that the product actually works in on Marco Island. That commit that commitment was made publicly, and honoring it is essential to credibility, due process, and community trust. The park's master plan is a long range vision document, not an approval or ex for expansion. In fact, the plan identifies many higher priority needs across the entire park system. Natural areas, multipurpose trails, shade structures, restrooms, beach access, and maintenance of existing facilities.

These appear consistently in top priorities across surveys, focus groups, and public meetings. Pickleball is listed as a need, but not the community's highest need, and certainly not one that overrides the city's obligation to resolve existing noise impacts first. The city's own February 2026 capital memo reinforces this. The top five recommended projects are playground replacements, field resurfacing, tot lot improvements, park lighting, and maintenance level racket center improvements, including resurfacing and installation of AcoustiBLOC panels, which do not work. Expansion is not included anywhere in the city's capital priorities.

We also have not yet tested the sound mitigation product on our own site. Conditions at Highlands Woods and Bonita Bay are not comparable to the Rackett Center's layout. Setbacks, zoning context, or proximity to residential neighborhoods. We need empirical data from Marco Island before we can responsibly evaluate any expansion. Finally, expansion of a use that is already generating noise complaints before mitigation is proven creates unavoidable or creates avoidable zoning and legal exposure.

PRAC's role is important, but it must operate within the sequence council already mentioned. Mitigation first, zoning review second, expansion discussion third. I'm asking this group to support a disciplined good government approach, install and test the mitigation panels on the existing courts, conduct the required zoning and compatibility review, and then only then revisit whether expansion is appropriate. This is not about opposing pickleball. It's about honoring commitments, following the correct process, and ensuring that any future decisions are grounded in data, compliance, and community trust.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Alright.

Our next speaker is miss Linda Scherzinger followed by our final registered speaker, mister Jean Siegel.

Hi, Linda Scherzinger, 724 Plantation Court, and I'm also on the Beautification Advisory Committee. And I'm really glad that this committee is here and that you guys are talking about these ideas. And I just wanted to talk very quickly about citizen led projects and fundraising and bid process because I have a very tiny, small experience in this. This year, Beautification did not have any money for Christmas lights, which we wrap the poles on Collier Boulevard, from the bridge to Barfield. So Beautification went out and went and found vendors, found bidders, and raised funds in order to get Christmas lights put up.

And I love working with Joe and I love working with our city partners, but they don't have time to go out and find these weird offshoot bids. So the fact that we found vendors, we were able to give them to Joe. We were able to get, these bidders approved and this project done. This is a very small example. Obviously, the softball players do a great job, and the new pickleball, Tim Arnett group are doing a great job. But if citizens can or any of leaders of these projects do the research, find the vendors who are willing to do this, and then share that information with the city rather than taking up city resources to do this, I think that'd be really helpful. But I appreciate all of you here, and I hope all of your projects are super successful.

Thank you. Could I ask, Alinda, could you just share the difference in, like, pricing you were able to get just so that everyone hears?

Yes. So we had been using a Christmas tree light installation company for I don't know how many years, many years, and they charged $15,000 and they brought all of their wraps and wrapped the poles and took everything down and stored everything and replaced things that were broken. We found two bids actually, they were very, very low, both around $3,000 So we have a vendor today who installed those lights for us for $3,000 He's storing them at no charge. From our fundraising, we were able to raise a little bit more money to buy extra lights and replace lights that are not going to work and hopefully in the future the city could take that back so we don't need to go back to fundraising. But that went from 15,000 to 3,000.

Final speaker is Mr. Gene Siegel.

Thank you everybody. Gene Siegel. I live in the Hideaway Beach community. As a citizen, what kind of frustrates me is that I listen carefully through the last budget process. And Randy, you were my hero at that time because you were pushing for $1,600,000 and then it got whittled down to 1.2 something.

But your comment during that budget process is we need so many things that unless we bring up the taxes a little bit and get some revenue, we can't do all the things that we need to do. Now this list could have been three times the size that it is, but we don't have the money to do it. We're looking for donors and that's what I don't understand. We're a city. We're a beautiful, beautiful city.

And yet we go out and we look for donors to help us fund these projects when the biggest donor should be the city of Marco Island. And so my thought is when we go through the budget process next year, let's not be so frugal and let's fund the city properly so that we can accomplish many of these things without having to go to private funds and go out and try and raise money through fundraisers. Now I'm coming back to where I live in Hideaway Beach. You know, I joke all the time. Hideaway Beach were probably on the wrong island because we have standards that we maintain the property to the highest level that we can possibly maintain.

And I wish the city was able to do the same thing. And the only way we did it at Highway Beach is we taxed our members. We grumbled a little bit, but we paid it. And no one really publicly got up and protested about it. And I don't think our citizens on Marco Island would protest either if their taxes were an extra $100 a year more on taxes so that we can generate the revenue that we need to generate to fund some of these things that are badly, badly needed.

We drive down Collier and everything looks beautiful, but when you get into it, need a lot of things. Now I don't know the referendum if that will cover some of these things or not or are we just going to be bridges and roads. But we need to we need to fund these projects and if we can do it with donors, fine. But I think the city has a responsibility. They should be the biggest donor. Thank you.

That is that is our final registered speaker.

I

just have a I have a question and a comment. I was around as Fred was and others when we converted from being part of the unincorporated area of Collier County to a city. That conversion was very difficult because it took six ballots in order to get us accomplished. We had six different votes. The first five were negative where the citizens said we don't wanna be a city.

And the final vote was 50.5 to 49.5 in favor of becoming a city. And a exploratory committee was then formed and they got together and they wrote a charter. And we have to live by that charter until we change it because the charter is our constitution. They were deathly afraid that the city would become out of control in terms of a spending machine. So in their fear of that occurring, they put in what is called a spending cap.

So we have a limit each year in which we have to keep spending. And that limit cannot go up the following year by more than 3% plus COLA. So obviously in 2022 when interest rates were 9% and inflation was 9%, that the COLA was pretty high and we got a pretty good increase in what we could spend. But in other years, it was significantly lower, somewhere around 2.6, 2.5 in that neighborhood plus plus three. So we were limited to that amount.

We can't go above that amount without changing the charter. So if you think this the city should spend more money on some of these things that we're talking about, then you need to come to your fellow citizens and convince them that the charter needs to be changed and get a petition up to change the charter. But that's the only way it can happen, and it takes 60% of the vote to change the charter. A super majority just like The United States constitution. So just be aware that that's out there, and you gotta be aware that you can't go above it.

And that now there are some exceptions and the and Charter is rather explicit about what those exceptions can be. You can have a referendum, for example, which would not be subject to the charter. But that referendum has to be for a single project. It can't be for a potpourri of seven projects. If you want seven projects, fine.

Put seven referendums on the ballot and have the citizens vote for each one. But that's the way the charter reads. And while you may not like it, that's just the way it is. Thank you. Go ahead.

I have a question.

Yeah. With that,

I don't know the rate. But say you just say, where do you put the, say, point 01% for Parks and Rec? Does that go in the real estate bill? And how does it get on there? Because I think we already told you cannot you can't add your sales tax and do, like, point o one for the city of Marco. Apparently, that's not allowed.

You mean you're talking about it in a referendum?

Yeah. Like, just to have a parks and rec extra tax where

Parks do not qualify

Okay.

Under under state law in terms of what you can have a referendum for. Okay. It's gotta be for public works projects.

Got it.

So

Bridge, streets, sewers, etcetera.

Okay.

Let me make a comment on as a follow-up to Eric. Part of the problem has been in the last decade, quite frankly, is that the city has the city council has chosen not to spend the full amount of the spending cap. We did rollbacks, which kept revenue coming in the door essentially the same as the prior year. So if you're interested in seeing items budgeted for any and all of these, then you need to support funding at a full spending cap limit, which is 3% plus existing COLA. If we did that, we'd have a hell of a lot more money than what we have had.

There are estimates Eric estimated we lost $7,500,000 by rollback. I estimated $75,000,000 and Seth Golub, the numbers cruncher came in at $69,000,000 We lost a lot of revenue that we could have had, had we been at full

spend