Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. It's it seems to be a while. It's been a couple months since our last meeting. Welcome everybody. We can start. Jerry, if you do a roll call. Mr. Danch here. Mr. Desai here. Mr. Morian here. Miss Tormatory here. Mr. Lily here. Mr. Monaco? Yes. And Mr. Pard is excused. Thank you, Sherry. Uh, second item, the minutes from last meeting. I know it's been a while. Anybody able to read it? And do I have a motion to pass those minutes? Motion to pass the minutes of the January 13, 2025 meeting. Second. Thank you, Cherry. Roll call. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Motion passes. Thank you. And our first action item, ordinance 2025. Wait. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair, planning board members, Query and City Plan. This agenda item pertains to ordinance number 2025-05, which is a future land use map amendment for Cross, which was annexed into Dayton Beach Shores April 1st. This action, if an affirmative recommendation is made, is the first step to adding a future land use for this property to the city's future land use map compatible with its Lush County future land use and that of the neighborhood consistent with the

neighborhood. All items have been submitted into the record. This property uh numerical address 3836 South Atlantic Avenue and as I stated it was annexed on April 1st just recently. Property owners are also the applicants Samuel Coughing and Janelle Coughing and Mr. Coughing is here this morning to meet you. He's behind me on the right. The property size is just under2 acres. It's one that's 181 acres with South Atlantic Avenue of 75 ft. Its current future land use through Valuchia County is urban low intensity and its proposed future land use is residential low intensity which is compatible and consistent. Future land use is single family residential background for um the point at which we are now. The property has been annexed, but until um until we go through take these two steps, the future land use map amendment and the reszoning, the property is not fully um able to be to be processed and treated as a Daytona Beach property. This is an aerial view of the property along South Atlantic. It's a 58 square foot single family residence. Here's a what it looks like from the street. Although he's definitely cleaned up all of those um all of those I took the picture when somebody was trimming the tree, but it's a um nicely kept property future except now our sign is the current city future land use. Um you can see in pink the square in pink

it says annexation candidate but it has already been annexed. Basically it has no current city future land use assigned to it. Um but through this process it will be assigned the residential low inensity future land use. This is a a summary analysis of the land use change impact and there are none according to all of the criteria which are specified to be um to be analyzed as far as comprehensive plan consistency that has been um that has been analyzed and has been met. Public notice requirements have been met. Impact analysis has been completed and the requisite staff review has been completed. Staff is recommending recommending approval as presented at this time. Thank you. Any questions? No, no question for Gwen. Everything's cool. So, currently as a resident, it's not it's not a rental unit. It's a It's a resident home. If he's nodding behind me, then then that is I just wanted to check No questions. No. All right. Is there a motion to uh pass ordinance 2025 as given? I move to recommend to the city commission approval of ordinance

2025 as presented. Second. Thank you. Sherry. Roll call. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Now we're going to enter the quasi judicial hearing and uh you want to go ahead and ask the question about exparte or do you want me to ask? Thank chair I'll take care of that. Um this is a quasi judicial hearing that means it is not as formal as a trial but there still are rules and procedure that we must follow. But one of those rules is that the board members have to disclose any exparte communications they've had with anyone um about this particular matter. So I'll start at the end and work my way towards me. Any any party communications? No. All board members have said no. The next thing is anyone who is going to give testimony should be sworn in. Um, all right. Anyone who's going to give testimony, please stand and raise your right hand. [Laughter] It's been a couple minutes. Okay. Oh my gosh, I just swear. You swear to tell the truth, hold truth. Nothing but the truth to help you God. I did. Thank you. Okay, chair. Thank you. procedural matters have been handled. It's all yours. Great. Thank you very much. Great. You can go ahead. Thank you, Chairman Balanch, vice chair, planning board members when herian city planner for city cures. This is ordinance number 202504 and it's a zoning map amendment.

If approved, it will assign a zoning designation to 3836 South Atlantic Avenue consistent with the property zoning when in Valuchia County and compatible with similarly situated properties in the surrounding area. All items have been submitted for the record. Again, property location 3836 South Atlantic Avenue has been annexed into the city. The toppings are the property owners and applicants. Property size is still.181 acres. Current zoning district for this property is county R9 urban single family residential district. And a proposed zoning district accomplished through this ordinance is Daytona Beach Shores residential single family or RSF-2 urban single family residential detach district. Current land use is a single family residence. The residence is 5,18 square ft. Again the background. This is a necessary step which takes place and can only take place after the future land use map amendment is approved. And this would complete the um ability to um it would complete the process after annexation including this property fully within the city of Deji Shores. This is the site location. It's 2 and a half miles south of where we are right now, which is about a six minute drive. Again, the aerial map showing the property right along South Atlantic [Music] Avenue. This is the current city zoning, which you can see it doesn't have a current city zoning. And the city city zoning, if this ordinance is approved, would be RSF-2. There are 14 criteria only nine are on

this page and the remaining are on the next 14 criteria which must be considered um for resoning and before resoning and before requesting resoning. These 14 criteria have been analyzed and summarized in these slides. All criteria have been met. And again, the property is um consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. The public notice requirements have been met, impact analysis has been completed, and the reason zoning criteria have been met. Staff is recommending approval as presented. Thank you very much. Any questions? Any concerns? Any questions? All right. Is there a motion then? I move to recommend to the city commission approval of ordinance 2025-4 is presented. Second the motion. 102. Roll call. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. That was good. So, if there's any other comments or concerns, I guess we will move into nominations and elections. Is there any motion for nomination? [Music] I nominate Rick Danch for chairman. Second, I guess. Do we have to do a a roll call on that or do each one separate? So, um, can we do a roll call on the chair? Sure. First and second.

We want to get a nomination for the vice chair yet or just we'll finish the chair. We'll finish the chair and then we'll do the vice chair. Okay. Okay. All in favor of Rick Delange as chair say I. I. I. Any opposed? Okay, that one passes. Only him. I know. Congratulations. His wife. Thank you. Thank you. Blindness support. Nominations for vice chair. Nomination for vice chair. Oh god. guy. Guy, how would you like to do? That guy down there. The guy. All right. Anybody else wants to do it? Do I hear a second from Mr. Desai? Second. Does Mr. Desai want to be? You didn't ask me that. All right. All on that. All in favor of Mr. Desai as your vice chair say I. I. Any opposed? Pass it. Say no. Hey Chuck, one minute maybe. Thank you. Thank you. So officially do I close the meeting. So when so you can start or I think this is training is Yeah, this is part of the meeting. So Oh, the training is part of the meeting. So, I'll turn it over to you for the training. I'll just jump right in. Okay. So, I think each of you have done this before 15 years. Many, many, many, many times. Yeah, I think it's the only

one. Guy is the only one and Mr. Monica first for me. Oh, so this is really just for the for for their benefit. But with that said, for the benefit of of everyone else, um I'm going to run through it. Um this is this is nothing that you don't already know. This is just something that we're doing our due diligence. Um and we try to do this at least annually. You can see behind. So you can see it. You can see behind you. There. It's that's a bigger one. Okay. Wherever you are wherever you can see better. I can see that screen. Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, this is a uh smaller version of the required training that uh elected officials and board members have to do annually. Um and that's more like a 4h hour training. This is going to be let's take some votes here. Let's take some bets here and let's see if I can get this done in under 30 minutes. I got to get out of here. Has nobody to say Sunshine Law, public records, voting conflicts, quasi judicial uh hearings uh for local board uh members. Okay. Government in the sunshine. That means Florida's open meeting laws. Basically, that provides the right of the public access to any public meeting. So that means that all meetings that there are official acts taking uh or public businesses as transaction is transacted or discussed uh should be noticed and open to the public and applies to both elected and appointed boards. It applies and here's the elements. It applies to any meeting between two or more board members of the same board when discussing matters that may

foreseeably come before the board. So the key for you to understand is of the same board. So that means you can't communicate among yourself outside of a public meeting. So if you see each other at Publix, you can say, "Hey, how's the family doing? How's the golf game doing? What are you doing this weekend? How are the kids? That's totally fine. If you see each other public, you can't talk about the upcoming zoning variance that's on the agenda. That's a big no no. But if you see it Yes, sir. Does that apply to alternates? That applies to alternates as well. Just want to make sure considered a a member of the board. Um now the the statute says member of the same board. So if you see a council or commission member, you can speak to a commission member. Proceed with caution, but you can speak to a commission member about items uh about city business. So really this only pertains to amongst yourself. Uh not only does it include uh meetings and workshops have to be open to the public, it also includes telephone calls, text messages, emails, written correspondence, and uh informal discussions. One of the big things we see around the state with our clients is uh a board member will email all the other board members about it. They'll get the copy of the agenda and they'll shoot out an email to all the board members saying, "I don't agree with this. Here, here are my comments on this. It's a big no no. Do not communicate even by email. Um Sherry uh sends out the agenda. Uh we what we recommend when when our when our staff communicates with everyone is to BCC

all. That way you don't see who else is on the email. And if you do hit reply, you can't reply to everybody else. So there is no cross talk. So it's not only in person, it's in writing. It's an email, it's in text messages, it's any kind of communication you can possibly have. Um, three basic requirements of a public meeting. Um, must be open to the public. This obviously is open to the public. Uh, if you have a meeting inside your house, that's not open to the public. If you have a meeting at a restaurant, that's not open to the public. If you have a meeting in a small boardroom, that's not open to the public. That restricts people's access. Uh reasonable notice has to be given. The statute doesn't say 7 days, 10 days, 15 days, 2 weeks. It just says reasonable notice. I think in this case it's 7 days. Is that correct? Um certain things have statutory notice like ordinances. Second readings of ordinances for commission have 10day notice but for what you do it's reasonable notice has to be given. Um and of course meeting minutes must be taken and recorded uh and open uh to public inspection. Notice there's a difference in in minutes and transcripts. Minutes are just general notes. Those are not transcripts. If someone from the public wants a to transcribe it, they can contact Sherry the clerk. Sherry can give them a referral to a uh court reporter. A court reporter can get the audio and transcribe the um the meeting. Um you cannot use staff to be a liaison between each other. So, you can't have

sharing or any pass messages to each other. That's also another um See, I'm burning through this. I'm going fast. I'm trying to get you guys out of here. um can adopt reasonable rules um to ensure orderly conduct of the meeting but the sunshine law does not allow you to ban uh videotaping, tape recording, photography uh at public meetings. What we see this most often now is First Amendment auditors. Uh Daytona Beach tours has been hit very hard in the past year and a half with first amendment auditors at least three or four times. And those are the guys that go around with um cell phones going to city hall, go to the front desk, they film things on the ceiling, they or on the walls, and ultimately the person at the front desk says, "May I help you?" And they say, "I need your help. Thank you. What are you doing? You can't film in here." And then they put the camera on the person and then it gets confrontational. Then the person says, "I'm not, you don't have my permission to film me." And the person at the front desk calls the police. The police come, the police do what police do and it escalates and the person gets arrested or detained and then they sue the city because they have every right under the first amendment to be in a public space and film even individuals. They could be in here right now and they could film each and every one of you and they have the right to do that. They can get you in the parking lot with a video camera in your face. It's uncomfortable. It doesn't feel good, but they have every right to do that under the First Amendment. And they they make

money off of it and they look for your reaction. So what and this is a whole separate training, so I'm not going to get into that. But my only advice there is if you ever are confronted by a First Amendment auditor, don't take the bait. They call you names. They call you stupid. They call you worse than that. They curse at you. Don't take the bait. If they call you corrupt and stupid, say, "Well, thank you. That's very nice of you. Isn't it a beautiful day? It's such a nice day for you to be exercising your First Amendment rights. This is a wonderful country we live." You know, just say something like that and just keep walking. Um, what they're looking for is the reaction. Um there's a group here uh in Valuchia County. Um they hit the police officers really hard. They go to the 7-Eleven. Poor police officers at his lunch break. He's going in the 7-Eleven. He's buying himself a fountain soda, a hot dog, and a bag of chips. He's walking out of the 7-Eleven. First of all in his face. What are the first what are the fire protections of the of the first amendment of the Constitution United States of America? And the poor police officers just like on his lunch break. Number one, if you ask 90 out of a 100red lawyers, what are the five protections of the first amendment of the first amendment or the five protections first amendment? 90 out of a hundred of us couldn't lawyers couldn't tell you what those five protections are. Any of you can any any of you for five protectors are the right be silence or speech assembly petition your government um press uh religion those are the five and I'm I'm thinking religion might not be one of those but see even lawyers don't know to buy so how do you think a poor police officer on his lunch break is going to know. So the police officer

doesn't respond well to that. The police officer says, "Get out of my face." It gets confrontational. The police officer does what police officers do and then he says, "Me your ID. I don't have to give you my ID." Yes, you do. He doesn't. But the police officer, it escalates into an arrest. And the First Amendment auditors always sue. The insurance companies take the case. They always settle. They always write a check for between 10 and $30,000. It's an industry cube. Thank you. These guys make lots and lots of money going around suing cities. They also have websites on YouTube. They get paid for YouTube hits. They also sell merchandise on their website. So there is a group of folks and they go around and they make a lot of money off city. So, don't be victim to any First Amendment. That's my I'll step off my soap box. We do have First Amendment order training that we do give. It's more in depth, more detailed, but you're under no obligation to answer. Correct. No, you don't. Exactly. You have under no obligation whatsoever. We even address their question. You don't have to respond. Um, you don't have to engage. And if you do respond, I recommend dealing with ju just to for the purposes of this training that applies to at the public hearing as well with the exception of at the public hearing as well. If they they are allowed to uh come up during public comment, remember public comment is not public question and answer. Public comment is public comment. You're under no obligation to answer any questions they may pose. If they ask questions, you can also you can refer them to staff and say staff would be happy you'd like to meet with them during business hours.

They'd be happy to help you if they have a reasonable question. If it's something out of from outer space, no staff can't help them. But if it's something legitimate, point them to staff. Otherwise, you're under no obligation to answer them. Now if they get disruptive um if they um they the first amendment protects it doesn't protect all language. It doesn't protect fighting words. It doesn't protect obscinity. By the way curse words are not obscinity under the law. Obscinity is it has to be very vile. Like think of the deepest darkest things in your mind. That is obscinity under the law. Not cursing. Um, they can call you corrupt. They can call you names. That's all protected under the First Amendment. They can they can as long as they're within their three or five minutes, they can say whatever they want as long as they they don't lie, as long as they don't cross the line and get into unprotected speech and they can't just be disruptive at a at a meeting. So, if they go beyond their five minutes as chair, you can have them removed. That's that's not against the law. Now there's not an officer here but at a commission meeting there is there are officers and and they people often do are asked to kindly leave the building if they're if they're disrupting a public meeting. Um try to avoid that because it's not a good look for the city. Um it always end up on the news that the city police officers drag someone out of a public meeting and that's always a bad look. Um so we try to avoid that escalation. Um public meetings There has to be right to public comment. Um, so every official action you take, there has to be public comment. Today there was nobody in the public, so it didn't matter, but typically uh there would be a public comment section before any vote. Um, now typically uh under the

law, the public comment doesn't have to occur at the same time of the action item. It just has to occur at some time during the hearing of that. A good example would be during an ordinance. There's a first and second reading. You could have public comment during the first reading. That's totally acceptable. Now, the practicality is most board, most commissions or councils will allow public comment during the first and second year. Um, any questions so far? I'm kind of burning through this stuff fast. You guys already know this stuff front and back. Um, talked about that, talked about that penalties. Um, one of the only things, one of the only times we've actually seen elected officials or board members go to jail besides fraud, you know, taking bribes and kickbacks is for violating Sunshine Law. And a good example of that is uh city of Sebastian. This is all public record. Um not our client. Um they I think it was a brand new council. They decided to um lock the doors of city hall and hold an impromptu private meeting and vote on a uh city issue behind closed doors without public without notice the doors. they were criminally charged. Um, it's a it's a uh misdemeanor, second degree misdemeanor. You think misdemeanor, no big deal. No big deal until you're charged with and I can tell you it is a big deal because you got to hire an attorney. You got to defend yourself. Obviously, it'll probably be kicked down to a lesser charge, but still the the harm it'll do to your reputation

u is not worth it. So, please do not violate uh public record laws. Um anything any decision you make uh at a meeting that's that doesn't follow the public records uh laws is null and void. So it has no force or effect. So that decision they made down in Sebastian Inland behind closed doors, no good. Um any questions on uh sunshine in the sunshine? All right. Public records. Okay. So the public has a right of access to all records of of the state and local governments uh as well as private entities acting on their behalf. What are private entities acting on their behalf? contractors, um, vendors, that type of thing. Uh, any documents, uh, that you create, um, uh, is a public record and is is, uh, open for public inspection. Um, public has a right of access under the Florida Constitution unless there are exceptions. There are lots of exceptions. Um on the floor statute 119 uh it defines public records too and it goes down the line. It's basically anything and everything you could possibly create. uh includes audio, written u text messages, emails, uh any means of trans uh information is

um even drafts doesn't have to be final form. So, uh, for staff, uh, your draft documents, uh, it's not uncommon for staff to have first, second, third, fourth, fifth, you name it, drafts of ordinances, contracts. Uh, even the drafts are public records. So, they don't have to be in final form. Um, there is no exception. There are lots of exceptions for public records. things like police officers, um, names, pictures, addresses, phone numbers, including their family members, that's exempt from public records. Medical records are exempt from public records. Code enforcement officers information is exempt from public records. um security plans uh for uh like police uh uh emergency evacuation plans. They have like during special events or or uh hurricanes, those types of things. Uh infrastructure plans that show detailed way in uh detailed uh plans to how to get in and out of uh public buildings. Um some of that stuff is exempt from public records. There is no exemption for it's really embarrassing. This comes up often where there is something very very embarrassing. It's usually in staff's emails something they write between one another. Um, people say terrible things in emails to each other that but so everything you write, I would write it on with a lens that this may end up in the news or before a judge. If you write everything that you write with those two things in mind, you'll keep everything you write clean, simple, to the point. Most of

your emails or texts should be things like, "Hey, are you available for a call?" or um it should be short to the point. You shouldn't really put a lot of substance in your emails and text. That's my recommendation to you to the attorney um who's use emails and texts sparingly. Um the really embarrassing thing is passing notes. Um we have had an instance and we always give this example. This happened to Wade Rose who is the uh one of the managing partners at my firm. Um to the commission members or passing post-it notes during a meeting um one on the post-it note there was something derogatory about someone sitting in the front row. There was an applicant or something on one of the items and it said something like can you how stupid she is or something like that. It was it was just something that shouldn't have been said, but it was and it was written down. The person who saw it, who it was written about saw the note being passed and immediately stood up and said, "I want to see that. That's a public record. I'm doing a public records request. I have a right to see it." She's right. She has a right to see it. And the law says you have a reasonable amount of time to produce the public record. What is a reasonable amount of time? that is however long it takes staff to to obtain the record, review it for confidential information and to provide the record. Now, if someone asks for any and all records related to the building of this building, that could take 30, 45, 60 days to to get all those records. If a lady at the front row says, "I want to see a copy of that note." A reasonable time is city attorney takes the note, looks at it,

reads it, there's nothing exempt here. Gregor, here you go. That's and and so be very cautious about passing notes and creating public records. And again, no exception for really embarrassing Um, emails we've talked about, uh, Facebook, social media page, um, that's also public record. Uh, we deal with that a lot. Actually, we've dealt with that here with with city business shores. Uh, their Facebook page is in public record. Uh so you can't so andly um the city post you know be sure to come to the Memorial Day parade this Saturday just a terine post like that and sure as day the very first comment is city's corrupt mayor's corrupt the whole city's taking money for taking bri you know it's just something awful but unfortunately you can't remove those comments first amendment protected free speech. It's a public record. You can't destroy it. It's protected under the First Amendment. Have to leave it in there. The Facebook page is public record. Um the uh in Tallahassee there's a division of library services. I believe that's the name of the agency, but they they have a retention schedule that says you have to keep certain records for certain amount of time. Certain records have to be kept for five years, 10 years, whatever. Facebook pages. I think there's a I can't recall, but I think it's it's maybe I I'm totally I may be totally wrong, but you have to keep that Facebook page up for a certain amount of time. Uh so it applies

to social media. Um so anything you put um on your personal email pages that has to do with public business could be considered a public record. So be aware of that. Um, anything you text on your personal phone, if you text public business on your personal phone, that particular text is a public record. That doesn't mean you're everything in your phone is now open to public inspection, but that one particular text you will have to provide. Again, that doesn't mean that they get total cart blanch access to all of your text and all of your kids pictures, vacation pictures. They don't get all that. They get that one text or that one email that you sent. Um, but just be aware also apply to your private devices. Um, we've gone through that. uh you could sue. Um the penalty for not providing a public record is uh civil action. So remember I talked about first amendment auditors. The scam used to be public records. That used to be a scam. And what they would do is they would go to a large agency in Tallahassee like DBPR. If any of you have ever heard department of business professional regulation, it's like three or 4 thousand employees. They regulate over a million people. They have a call center that has two or 300 people that work at the call center. They call the call center. The poor, you know, uh 18-year-old college kid answers the phone. They say, "I'd like all the chief of staff's uh calendar events from uh 2024." And the poor lady that answers or

the poor kid that answers the phone is like, "I talking about chief of staff? I don't know what's the chief of staff. I don't I work in a call center." I mean, can I transfer you or something? So, but anyway, they they used to do that or they used to go to the guy who's mowing the grass in the front in the front lawn and they would hand the guy mowing the grass in the front lawn the same request. I'd like chief staff's calendar events for all 2024. And the guy mowing the grass, what do you think he's going to do with that? He's going to ball it up, throw it on the ground, and run it over with the lawnmower. You know, he's not going to know what to do with that. And and people and and and what they would do is They would go around to every state agency, go to the lowest person they not don't mean that in a demeaning way, the lowest position they could find and ask for a big public records request and of course it would get ignored and then they would have a right to sue the agency and it was a it was an industry for a while. They would there were attorneys were involved. They would just make hand over fist money handover fist. They need the attorneys. So, the legislature put a legislature put a stop to that scam by saying that before you sue an agency for not giving public records, you have to put the clerk of that ASC on five days notice before you sue them. So that you actually have to find the right person, in this case it would be Sherry, and give her five days notice that if you don't give these records five days, I will sue you. That put an end to all of that nonsense. Unfortunately, they the legislature can't fix the auditor problem because that's constitutional problem. they could put they could fix this and they did, but there still is a penalty if the if if after all that the agency still doesn't provide a public record,

they could still sue and get civil damages. Um, it's also a crime if you intentionally violate it. It's a uh first degree misdemeanor. It's lowest level crime. Um but again misdemeanor is not a big deal but getting charged with a misdemeanor and I think you realize it isn't a big deal but have to defend yourself. It would do more harm to your reputation than anything else. Okay. So that is um that is uh public records. Any questions on public records? Am I going too fast? Too slow? Well, if we have any questions, we just ask Sher. Microwave it. Text you. Microwave it. So, this is this is a pretty straightforward voting conflicts. It applies um anybody who holds office, you can't do anything uh to benefit yourself. That's kind of everything you need to know about voting conflicts. You can't benefit yourself uh a principal uh that you work with, a parent, a relative or a business associate. So the key is uh it would ignore uh personal or private gain or loss uh insider stock trading type stuff. So any kind of zoning thing that comes before you uh you know you can't reszone a property knowing that you're getting ready to buy it. You know that's going to increase the value of the property. I mean we we have seen that. Um this what defines what a principal is. I'm not going to waste your time with that. But that's you

know the employer you know things like that. um somebody that you work for. Uh who's relative? Um you know, this is common sense. Uh it's pretty close here. Father, mother, son, daughter. Um and the anti- neepotism and gift laws, the definition of relative is much much broader. It goes to like second cousins and all that, but this is just this is really is your family and your close business partners. What is a business associate? Um, you know, as a business associate, as a business partner, anybody do business with um private gain or loss, that is one of the keys. Can't gain or lose money. Um, I'm not going to uh bore you with the affected class. um except to say that um just because you're a member, just because you live in the neighborhood doesn't mean you are it's a voting conflict to vote on an item that comes up in your neighborhood. Doesn't that that's that the class is too big. So that doesn't count. So if you live in a subdivision or a condominium and an item comes up that deals with your condominium, you're not conflicted out there. You can still work unless you have a gain or loss that's very specific that can be identifiable. All this. So what do you do if you have a voting conflict? Number one, you abstain from voting. Number two, you disclose the conflict orally pri prior to the vote. And number three, you file a form with Sherry within 15 days. She has

those forms. She probably has them with her. Um, so you must uh disclose the conflict uh before participating in discussion of the matter. Um, actually there's case law that says if you have a a conflict, you you you're prohibited not only from voting, you're also prohibited from deliberating. So keep that in mind. So I would be extremely caution if you do have a conflict. I wouldn't even deliberate. I wouldn't take part in the discussion or the vote at all. Um, I would just maybe leave the room. Some some council members do silly things like they turn their chair around or they, you know, Now's the time to take a bathroom break or something like that. I recommend not taking part in deliberation or voting. Um, we talked about that quasi judicial hearing. Any any anything on voting conflicts? That's pretty straightforward. Just don't do anything that you could gain or lose money. Don't do anything corrupt. That that's it. Don't do corrupt. That's basically the gist of that cause hearings. Uh we had one today. Um that's those are the types of hearings that we have. Um so basically there are two types of local government actions. There's legislative action which affects everybody in the city and there's quasi judicial actions which affects a small group or an individual usually an applicant. Uh quasi judicial hearings are similar to court proceedings but the

rules of evidence are relaxed. Um you see that we go down the line and ask for voting conflicts. Everybody is sworn in. Uh the person has a right as due process. That means they have to have received notice. They have to have a chance to appear to present evidence to give testimony. There has to be public comment and has to be a record meeting kept and they have an a right to an appeal to decision. Quasi judicial hearings your decisions must be based on uh three things. Uh it has to apply. Number one, there has to be u process, meaning the person has to have notice. That's never an issue because generally the person always gets notice. Knock on wood. Number two, you have to apply the right law. That's never an issue. Uh even if you apply apply the right law incorrectly, courts will uphold your decision. So as long as you're applying your variance code to a variance request, a court will generally uphold your decision. even if you apply the law incorrectly. The big one is um competent substantial evidence. You have to base your decision on competent and substantial evidence in the record. So what is competent substantial evidence? Um competent substantial evidence is um quantifiable uh facts uh things that are are not speculative things like staff reports or comp substantial evidence. Expert testimony uh is common substantial evidence. Um public comment um from angry neighbors. That's not competent substantial

evidence. Realize the mob mentality is not confident substantial evidence because you have a room full of angry people. Um please don't let that sway your vote. That doesn't necessarily mean that the entire city feels the same way that the 10 or 15 people in this room feel. It may feel that the whole city is up in arms, but really the reality is there's only 10 or 15 angry people. That doesn't that the entire city feels the way those benefits. So, don't let mom mentality rule your or persuade you. That's easier said than done. Um, lay person uh public comment is not competent substantial evidence. Things like this development is going to flood my road. The traffic is going to be bad. That's not commonial evidence. A traffic engineer saying this will cause traffic problems. That's confident substantial evidence. A uh someone from the St. John's River Water Management District saying this development will cause the area to flood. That is confident substantial evidence. Not a neighbor saying this development will flood my land. That's not confident substantial evidence. Do you have a question, sir? Yes, sir. So, so there has been times in which um a neighbor is also an expert in a particular field and the chairperson, if you correct me if I'm wrong, has the ability to ask for a background to determine whether or not that person is an expert in the field and thereby given confident substantial evidence. Is that true? That is true. If one of the neighbors happens to be a civil engineer and he gets up and he says it's it's my um it's my expert opinion that uh this project will cause uh flooding or or you know that the ingress egress is not

proper here. Um that's evidence if you establish or establish on the record that he is an engineer go through his qualifications and certify him as an expert. Yes ma'am. What if our engineer disagrees with him? I mean that that has a public that's why you make the big bucks. You have to deter that's called battle of the engineers and that's very common in the law and they always find engineers to whoever's I I'm trying to think of a delicate way to say that. Yes, ma'am. Things like that have happened. and I've been here 15 years and I would say okay well I appreciate your comments and uh we will discuss it with our engineer and get back to you. That's right. And remember your decision has to be based on competent substantial evidence. The court doesn't make you place that burden on you that you have to pick which engineer is correct. As long as you pick an engineer and go with what he says, I would pick your engineer that's confident substantial evidence. Or she says she say my only concern question I always have about the quasi judicial hearing is when we do not approve it, we have to give a specific reason why we're not approving it or can we say simply say no? Um the record on appeal uh the record is always part of the appeal and you have to site with specificity what the reason for your denial is. So the city attorney will usually say can you please tell me why

you're denying this and I would cite the specificity what the competent substantial evidence in the record is that need you to deny the application. So point to page number 45, point to paragraph number of this, point to expert testimony of this person, point to all the above. So yes, please put on the record what your confidence substantial evidence is that lead you to your decision. It it's it's very common to for there just to be a no vote with no explanation. That's very hard to defend on appeal. Just a question. Uh two expert opinions and they don't agree city attorney as city engineer and person that comes from the audience. Uh can the meeting be postponed or like if you can't make a decision or is it just a yes or no vote has to happen? The meeting can be postponed uh at the will of the of the board. Um if the board feels like they need more time or more evidence, uh there should be a motion to table it or a motion to continue it. Um you have a duty to vote on every item before you and that vote could be to continue. Uh so yes, you can um you know, but but realize when you do continue things, there are people on the other side that are being affected. There are applicants that are waiting for the application or paying for attorneys or paying for engineers or waiting for their house to be built. So just be aware of what the effect of that continuence is. This board only meets once a month. So if you continue it, that means that that person has to wait

at least month to get his shed bill or his addition bill or his project. There are ramifications, but yes, you can ask for it. And we most of the time we're the first hearing. So there's a couple hearings after that. Most of the time you're one of two or three hearings. There are some exceptions that you are one and done that you are the final say and that would be for variances special exceptions special exceptions and variances you are the sole arbiter so it stops with you um it can be appealed to the commission that that's the next step but you are you have final order for it. Uh today was an example of one of the first item was the uh annexation ordinance. Um you're the first stop. There's two more stops. There's a first a second reading the commission. So that's going on for two more I think. So the second part the reason zone and the flu the city commission twice. So both of those ordinance. So you were the first of three stops on both ordinances today. I got I got a question. Something detailed and intricate of an understanding of that. Would that allow us to discuss amongst the board members or would that fall into the sunshine? Well, uh at in a public meeting uh while the meeting is in progress, you're free to discuss the matter all that you'd like. Um but if you're asking if you could all meet um at the coffee shop after the meeting talk it out. That's why a lot of times when I say any

questions or concerns please bring it up. Now you can have special meetings, you could have workshops. There's any number of ways if you feel like you don't have enough time to discuss it. There's any number of ways you can continue it to a to the next meeting. You could ask the staff to provide more information. [Music] And there's a copy of all this. You know, when I first did this, we had a book of all of this in the book. Yeah. And I think I I think we may still have stuff. I put Sherry on the spot, but there is there is some information. But if you you could email my firm, you could email me directly if you ever have any questions. If you ever, you know, need there's a very valuable resource online. It's called Florida Sunshine Manual. The attorney general puts it out every year. If you just Google Florida Sunshine Manual, it's 300page document. It's it's keyword searchable. It's all about everything you need to know. All the law everything about public records and sunshine law is in that document. It's free. You can download it online. Uh I do it save on your desktop. Again, it's keyword searchable. So, search police officer. You'll find every police officer. Um just real quick, today's hearing you saw two examples of two types of hearings. First was the legislative hearing. That was the uh annexation. That's a legislative issue. The the Florida legislature has said that annexations are legislative issues because they affect the entire city. You're bringing a property into the city as legislative. Second one was quasi

judicial totally different state. That's why we did the uh exportations. That's why we swore in witnesses. Um that's why we did the second one. Any more questions about quasi judicial hearings that last slide? Any questions? How long that that was? 25 minutes. Right. Very nicely done. Thank you. Thank you. Uh again, if you have any uh individual questions, uh I think you all have my cell phone or if you don't, Sher can give it to you. I'm available 247 uh by email or phone. So, please contact me. I I'll keep you out of trouble. Uh contact me before you do it, not after. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, having said that, is there any other questions or concerns? So I can adjourn the meeting. Happy Easter. Oh yes. Happy Easter and Passover. Yeah. Thank you. All right, Harry. Thank you.