City Commission Regular Meeting - Regular Meeting

Out the main pool kept at a wonderful 84 degrees all year long. I just want you to have a good time. We have safety covered. Lifeguards here, staffed all day, every day when we're open for you to enjoy. Concession is open. Pizza, pretzels, nachos, ice cream, we got it all. My crib is your crib. Looking forward to seeing you here.

Duty to the barn.

Duty calls.

Hello. My name is Jerome Fletcher, city manager of City of Northport. I'm at the Northport Aquatic Center. I'm on the job today. Let's go.

Nice to see you. Alright. Thanks for having me today.

Of course. We're gonna go through our opening checklist for this morning to make sure that the facility is safe and operational.

Alright. Sounds good. Let's do it. Before anything else, the team walks the entire area to make sure everything is clean and in good shape.

Our next part of our task is to make sure that our body of water is one, clear. The water must remain clean. We must identify any possible materials that shouldn't be in the water.

Then it was time to check the surge tanks.

As you can see, the glistening of the water down there Right. If the water is too deep and you hear a rushing of water, that means that this needs to be filled before we can begin operations for this. Okay.

It's part science, part intuition.

At the Relaxahatchee River, Jesse showed me the digital checklist system, the hydro app.

As soon as I click yes on this checklist that let's say the water is clear Right. And I do not identify that the water is cloudy or any sense, that yes goes directly to my manager and lets them know that at this exact time, I checked that water to make sure it was safe and clear. This technology being used at its best Now our rotations, we have evolved to having our lifeguards into a more of a roving position. With the competition pool, we still maintain the chairs for the height eligibility. But here, we have to have a minimum of five lifeguards just to run this body of water. Wow. And we actually have a lifeguard positioned in our

Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, 05/19/2026 at 4PM. We are in the city chambers, and I call the road drainage district meeting to order. Commissioners present are commissioner Duvall, commissioner Stokes, mayor Enbridge, vice mayor Langdon, and commissioner Petro. There is a quorum present for this meeting.

Also present are city manager Fletcher, city attorney Fowino, deputy city clerk Powell, board specialist lender. We have captain Fussell in the back and fire chief Titus. I am requesting that all commissioners, public participants, and staff maintain order and decorum throughout this meeting. City commission policy twenty twenty one dash zero three states that attendees shall refrain from engaging in personal tax and boisterous, immaterial, inflammatory, obscene, profane, or disorderly conduct. Additionally, meeting attendees must refrain from obscene, profane, and disorderly conduct, including clapping, yelling, and similar demonstrations, all of which deserves disturbs the peace and good order of the meeting.

Thank you. I'm gonna call on vice mayor to lead us in the prayer. I'm glad to see you.

Good afternoon. Thank you, sir. I pledge allegiance to

the flag of The United States Of America Thank you, ma'am.

You are welcome.

I am looking for a motion to approve the agenda.

Move. Second.

I have a motion on the floor made by commissioner Stokes, seconded by vice mayor Langdon to approve the agenda. If nothing to that, please vote. And that passes five to zero. City Clerk, public comment, please, sir.

Tim Doyle.

So I wanna kinda go back to what I was talking about at the last meeting. So I requested some paperwork. Everybody's working on it. That's fine. But I had to go to pay for some of the documents that I got. And I went down, paid for them. No problem. And I found this sitting right at the counter there, free of charge. It's beautiful. I'm not being facetious or anything. I love this. I'm glad we're spending money on stuff like this. It was funny because when I opened it up, we went right to archery. I remember when I was a kid, that's what I learned at the park. It was one of the things I took was archery.

Good book. Very good quality. Someone spent some time on this. That's what we should be spending our money on, not spying on individuals. My next comment about this book is free of charge. You used to have code books in this town. One of you up there said you wanted to go to one of the HLMA meetings to see what was going on. Years ago, I said in this room some of you weren't here, but you can go back and look that you should give your condo book at every closing. Every realtor should hand out your condo laws. As you have condo laws, how long your grass is?

How long is this? How long is this? Mr. Fletcher says he's going after that money for people who didn't pay him for the past twenty years. Now, I don't know if they didn't pay you in twenty years how he's going to get the money. The only way he can get the money if he's foreclosed on the property. They haven't paid you. They ain't gonna pay you. The only way for you to get it is take the house and sell it. He said he could come up with 2,000,000 to $3,000,000 that way. I was in this room. I heard him. So my problem is, this is great. I support the parks. I support all the programs.

I don't support the spying. I don't support you spending $5,000 on spying on people who come to your events. That's what they said. It cost them $5,000 to find out over 600,000 people came to your events. We should have a code book. Anybody should get it. If you want to charge me $3.05 dollars for the paper, fine. But you should have it accessible. You used to have it. This is free of charge.

I don't I don't understand why you ditched it. Is that so someone like mister Fletcher can send someone out, give someone a fine, and steal their house twenty years later? You can't have everything on the computer. We used to have the book. I want the book back. Take the $5,000 you're spending on spying and get some code books in this town.

That is all, mister mayor.

Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. City manager, any items been pulled? No, mister mayor. Thank you. Do we have public comment on the consent agenda?

No, mister mayor.

Okay. I'm gonna request a motion.

I move to approve the items in the consent agenda as presented.

Second. I have a motion on the floor made by vice mayor to approve the items in the consent agenda as presented, and that was seconded by commissioner Petro. There's nothing to that. Vote. And that passes five to zero. Moving on to public hearings. Resolution number 2026DashRDash18. Deputy city clerk, can you read this by title only, please?

A resolution of the city commission of the City of Northport, Florida as the governing body of the Northport Road And Drainage District authorizing the purchase of real property located on Shorewood Street described as Lot 67, Block 666 of the seventeenth edition to Port Charlotte Subdivision. Parcel identification number 0958066667 incorporating recitals, providing for filing of documents, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

Thank you. City manager, this is your item. Thank you,

mister mayor. The Department of Public Works is seeking to purchase real property located along the Cosmic Waterway on Shorewood Street. It's currently owned by Joseph Casaputo and Deborah Casaputo as co trustees of their revocable trust. This per this property, excuse me, property acquisition will provide permanent access for future inspection, maintenance, and rehabilitation activities associated with the city's water and conveyance systems. It was appraised in December at the value of $21,000, and we have agreed I'm sorry.

The seller has agreed to sell the property to our voted greatest district for $23,000. We ask that you approve option one, which is approved resolution number 2026DashR18 as presented, authorizing the purchase of real property located on Shorewood Street, Northport, Florida 34288. Thank you, mister mayor.

Thank you, sir. Commissioners, questions? Any none? I see nothing. City clerk, public comment?

Tim Doyle.

I guess if you need the potty, if you need the property to get to the drainage and work on

the drainage, then you should get it.

But my point is you gotta be careful what you're spending. To be paying 23, it says 21. They know the town wants it or you need it, so you're gonna have to pay a little bit. Usually, towns, when they want something, usually have to overpay. The taxpayers always get overcharged. In so many different ways. It's not right, but we gotta live with it. So if you need the property and it's available, then you should get it. But it takes another piece of property off the tax map, you're gonna have less revenue. Foreclosures are all over the place down here.

They're going up. So just make sure you know what you're doing with the money. That's another $23 done. My question on the 23,000 is, does that include closing costs? Who's paying for that? I don't see the contract. So that 23,000 could actually go up. I bought and sold plenty of property in my lifetime. Just because that's the price, that doesn't mean what you pay. Tax stamps, everything else, I still think you have to pay tax stamps if you're paying for the property.

It's not being donated. So I don't know what the final cost of the property is gonna be, but it's probably not 23,000. But again, if we need it, that area of town, if I remember, flooded pretty bad over toward the highway over there. So there might be some problems. If it's a life safety issue, you should do it.

That is all, mister mayor.

Thank you. I'm gonna close this public hearing and request a motion.

I'll make it. Uh-huh. Go ahead, sir. I move to adopt resolution number 2026DashRDash18 as presented. Second. I

have a motion on the floor to adopt resolution number 2026 DashRDash18 as presented by commissioner to develop and seconded by vice mayor Langdon. There's nothing to that. Please vote. And that passes five to zero. City clerk, final public comment. Tim Doyle.

I'm not off the parks, Dick. People might have taken me wrong on what I said at that meeting about the $5,000 and the geofence and everything else, but it's 100% true. If you have a cell phone, you can't back out of that. Do you know why you can't take out of your cell phone battery anymore? Because if you take the battery out, they can't track you. Even when your phone's off, they can track you. It has the battery in it. This is getting crazy. And, you know, right now in the stock market, what companies are taking off? All these tech companies.

You know why? Because all of you guys are spending way too much money on these tech companies. And you're going to have to make a decision whether you want to pay people in jobs because I'd rather see people, not a computer and your programs that are in this book. You guys are all talking about money. Album is running out. The fees are going up. You're wasting $5,000 on a geofence to see who comes to your event. I mean, this is ridiculous. I'd rather see the $5,000 go to the races, add a program, help out the nonprofits. I don't want $5 going to a tech company somewhere in La La Land.

And I want you to know, when you put all this stuff together, they're selling that information to other people. So these these tech companies would be out of business if they weren't spying on everybody and the government wasn't giving them money hand over fist. Parks' money should stay in the parks, it should stay in the staff, and it should stay in the people who use it. It shouldn't be going to some la la company somewhere who wants $5 to tell you you had 600,000 something people coming to your event. Wow, you've got a big number.

That's all you got out of that. And if he gave you demographics as they told you who was there, then that is definitely spying. All this stuff is going through the court system right now. You are the government. The government should not be spending money to spy on people. It's a Fourth Amendment violation. You guys could all be brought up on RICO charges, you, the parts department, and the company. You know why I say that? You're breaking the law on all the spying, and you're using my money to do it. I'm tired of it.

Put the money back in the parks. You've got to give out raises? Put it back in the raises. Don't send it to the tech companies. You guys are gonna have to make the decision real soon. Tech or people?

That is all, mayor.

Thank you. It's 04:13, and I adjourn this meeting.