Town Council - Regular Meeting

Okay. Well, I think we're back on. I'm sure someone will let us know if we're not, but just to recap, everybody introduced themselves. We did the pledge of allegiance. Um, we just at the starting point of the town manager offering up some suggestions to the public safety committee. So, continue, Will. Yeah. Thanks. I think I love Mr. Mayor. Hold on. Do you want for for the record for the record, do you want Don to summarize what you you had said at the beginning? Reiterate. Well, let's make sure we're on first. Eric says we're on. So, Don, would you mind? I

sure. Um, good morning. Um the reason the public safety committee actually asked for this joint meeting was we have noticed in the last year and a half that our meetings really are redundant and we feel like we are not offering the service that was originally intended for the public safety committee. as our town continues to grow, um, town staff or, um, town council are addressing a lot of the issues that we continue to bring up. For example, um, we all talk about the lighting on the bridge and we know that things are already being done. And so, one of the frustrations with our committee is we just really don't feel like we're adding any value. So, that's what we called to say, is there really a a place for us anymore? how can we help the town? Um, and really we're asking for guidance from the committee if this is a uh the safety committee needs to be revamped. It needs to have a different purpose and are looking for direction from you all.

Okay. And Will had started saying which was one of the things I was going to bring up so I'm glad Will's doing is the the neighborhood watch program. I know some neighborhoods or streets have something kind of already but go ahead. [clears throat]

Yeah. I I thank [laughter] you, Mr. Mayor. I I do I was talking about potentially uh the committee could potentially help us with uh um you know, looking into the establishment of a neighborhood watch uh um program for Fort Myers Beach. Uh because I know from previous experience that there's, you know, they're best when they're um organized and synchronized with town activities and in this case, Lee County Sheriff office activities. Um Tom Yazo, our emergency services director, he and I have talked about this and uh the Lee County Sheriff's Office does have a program, you know, where they help communities establish these with some training and and other things like that. And then would be able to help us in man uh to with that part where then we could, you know, focus on the uh working with that program from a management perspective for the town. Um and there there have been some instances uh I think of different uh certain maybe criminal activity that could have been uh reported you know and avoid potentially resources allocated to if we had a program like this potentially such as the you know petty theft of some um of our lighting projects uh um contractor's equipment and supplies uh which continues to happen unfortunately. Uh I just got a a call yesterday about that. Um and uh you know we just don't have enough rangers. The sheriffs don't have enough deputies to be everywhere at all times. That's always in any town that's going to be the case. That's why it's always great when neighbors and residents step up, you know, to be a watch. But when if you're going to do that, you want to make sure that they understand, you know, um their boundaries, uh understand um what we don't want them to do as as far as putting themselves at risk and what we do want them to do as far as eyes and ears, you know, for for our uh for Tom's uh department as well as for uh Commander Leler's um uh district. And uh I think that would be a great thing.

There's other things like, you know, we we um when we get into the high peak seasons of tourism and we get, you know, issues of of uh um with the short-term rentals and disturbances in the community, just another set of eyes and ears out there to to help uh report those and help get that information to the right uh town department to deal with uh or hand over to Lee County Sheriff. So, I think that would be a great program. I'd love to see, you know, potentially a suggestion. You know, there's other things, too. I think that it may be within that same area, but there may be others. You know, we um it may have been discussed before I got here if the committee has has talked about, you know, um pedestrian crossing issues of Astero Boulevard and if there's I know it's an ongoing problem, but uh helping us with maybe looking at some ways to alleviate that concern or uh um suggestions that then we can pass on to the others. Uh we do talk with Lee County about some of those things already, but also, you know, we've had our our bicycle ordinance in effect now for since July or August, I believe. So maybe um you know, a discussion about how that is working. Is it working to the intent that uh that we wanted as a town and uh and we could work together. Those are a few suggestions I thought of. Um Riley, did you guys do and Tom have anything to add before we go to the counselors?

Good morning. Riley Baker, neighborhood services coordinator. Um, so we were just discussing, uh, Will mentioned the neighborhood watch. I think that would be a good initiative. Um, sort of have a more direct line to us or the help that you need to keep the neighborhood safe. Um, so I think that's a good thing. Um, and then I I also would love to explore the idea of aert team. um which is uh it's a team of prequalified volunteers basically that you have the volunteers out of your community they come and they get trained they get specialized skills. It's really a program to teach that everybody even if you can't like lift things you can still find your place helping. Um those are normally run by the fire department. So I would love to explore starting one of those getting that implemented in the community I think would be very helpful. Um and then I was also looking into like the old product or uh projects that like we were talking about before. Um and I want I would love to revisit the emergency call boxes. I know we were planning on putting them at the tram stops, but I think we should look into grant funding or finding a grant or something to get these call boxes for Time Square in downtown um as like the police call boxes um that they put in like parking lots at

night. Um, I think that would be something that we could explore. Thank you, Riley. The It slips my mind now as soon as you mentioned there there used to be a program of citizens and they kind of dissolved around the time of maybe Scott you remember. I can't remember what they were called, but it was a group of citizens. Sir, thank you. Yes. That that would work. So, basically

CRT's emergency response team. They they worked with with first responders and and you could for instance like we we offered our our boat was on a trailer in our front yard. We offered it to Cert in the case of an emergency after Irma if they needed it to be able to take it and use. So but I think they've kind of dissolved I think to your point Rally is it's kind of dissolved and or people have gotten older and retired and moved on or whatever. So that might I think there was more to it. Maybe Anita would know, but it

and I think it comes back. Commissioner Frell, you're you're on the fire uh board. Maybe you can follow up on your end. I I think there was some I don't want to say tension. There was just some they felt they weren't being utilized. They they felt they weren't being utilized and uh or they were underutilized. So, it was a they had a strong membership. I mean, back 10, 15 years ago, I remember they, you know, they'd all be in the parade and they'd help out at at stop lightss and they'd help out, you know, they'd always be the volunteers at, let's say, tomorrow with the 30th anniversary. They'd always, you know, have bodies there in case, you know, somebody needed water or

um they were always at the parades help, you know, passing out water, helping people in case, you know, somebody needed medical attention. Yeah. there and and talking to a lot of their members, there was, you know, they were getting up there in age, so they didn't feel that they could help do physical type work in the case of an emergency, cut trees, move logs. That was a lot of their concern. Part of the reason why they

Yeah. And then then when we had Irma, they, [laughter] you know, they were out helping, you know, hand out water, make sure people were safe. Uh, a lot of them couldn't do the heavy lifting, but they were they were on the ground, boots on the ground, making sure that everybody was okay, identifying people with need and everything else. So I but I I I recall there was some there was just a little friction there with with the fire department. They weren't full control and they didn't know how to con you know they there was really no one that was the town's responsibility or was it the fire department's responsibility? Who who was in charge of these people? They're they're great volunteers but I I think there was no no one at the top to you know do do the workflow. So maybe if if you could sir figure out, you know, what if if their fire department's willing to, you know, coordinate with us or I I don't know how we how would you want to manage it?

Yeah. know, I'm I'm I'm pretty confident that the relationship that that myself and Tom have with Chief Worth and and and Commander Layer, you know, on both of these kind of topics that uh we could work through any of that issues and uh as far as like the delineation of work and and you know, leadership responsibilities, but definitely something uh Commissioner Frell, I think would be great. I'd love to I'll ask that that time and and I can I can also talk with with with Scott and and with Tim, you know, about these things personally to make sure smooth out anything. But to to your point, Riley, I mean, it'd be great. They they get certified in CPR, they get certified in whatever, I mean, it's the more people traffic.

Yeah. Directing traffic, the more people more people that are certified. Everybody on this island is certified. You know, a lot of people want to volunteer and just need to know where to go. just need know where to go and [clears throat] who's who's directing them. Yeah, I think it could be very useful to the community to have someplace to direct their energy towards together. I think that would be very useful. Yeah, that'd be all I I would I would think you that would be a good direction for you guys to to take a look at and maybe revitalize that that program. Scott, what's the acronym? CERT. Is it community

community emergency response team? Civilian emergency response civilian civilian emergency response.

But sorry. Yeah, I have some experience with them too in disaster relief disaster response. And yeah, they it's it the key is is a a core group of civilian volunteers who get certified, you know, by the, you know, the emergency response. you know, entities like the fire district in our case, like uh Lee County Sheriff's to uh to do those key key things so that uh it just so that we're not putting them out there in a in a dangerous way, you know, danger to them. Um, and they just kind of like I said about the neighborhood watch so they know, you know, what their boundaries are, you know, where their where their responsibilities kind of end and where it hands off to the other emergency response and then where they the coordination is, you know, because in a lot of cases you just want to make sure but that that they help tremendously uh in emergency response situations, but even in special events as you as you alluded to and others where they can where we have a limited number of resources, the town, you know, and uh so yeah, that could be very helpful.

Rebecca, what do you got on your list? You said you got a whole list of things. Yeah. So, I was um doing some research and looking at small island communities like ours just to get ideas for us. [cough and clears throat] And um I thought if you wanted I can read through some of them. If any of [clears throat] them jump out and feel like we could use that, then that might be an idea. But first, I wanted to ask Don, do you guys have any ideas of things that you know matter to you or to your group that that you feel we should be working on?

I just Well, now that season is upon us and the traffic is clearly greater than it was a month and a half ago. Um, more pedestrians, more bikes, and more hazards consequently. So whatever suggestions I mean the thing of it is and a little bit referring to what Don was mentioning the the sterile boulevard is under the guy under the supervision of the county the bridge is under the supervision of the state. So where does that leave us as a committee and the town? Are we do we bother talking about anything that goes on in the sterile boulevard? Um, in terms of I mean I thought for a long time sidewalks and more signage, more delineation on how bikes should ride on the sidewalk. A lot of people know I ride my bike to work three days a week. Everybody sees me and I'm happy for that. But there's a lot of different there's some intricacies to negotiating the island on a bicycle.

A lot. And so is that something we need to address? Is that something the county's already working on or something you're already working on, staff? So that's that's really what it comes down to. I you know, so

well, some of the things we worked on that we always talked about were the lighting um on the bridge, the lighting on a stereo, and like Kieran said, you know, who does followup on that and and what ends up So that was one of the things that we address quite frequently. We addressed the um pedestrian crossways. We talked about the new crossways that were going to happen after the bridge was completed or the oval about at the north end and how we were going to mitigate people just walking across. And right now we're seeing that it's it's bad up there when people just we have no rhyme or reason. We've conditioned our visitors and our residents that you can walk whenever you want. even if it says don't walk, you know, please wait. We've got lights that aren't working. But again, we don't know who to follow up on. We bring it to everybody and they say, "Well, we're working on it or the states FDOT has it." Um, we talked about um bikes on sidewalks, bikes in the bike lane, which direction to go. That was an educational um campaign that we were working with the u information officer of the city to make sure that we let people know with um renters, you know, if you rent have a bike there, this is what you need to, you know, you don't ride the bike in certain areas. Um what are some of the other ones we we talked about?

Uh the hurricane response was

hurricane [snorts] response was huge. We worked on that with the fire department. when a hurricane is coming, how we can proactively have [clears throat] residents reach the fire department so that the fire department knows that there's nobody at the house so they don't bake break down a door. We did that. Um I guess that's you know Rebecca to answer your question. I think a lot of the things we talked about staff has talked about and they're looking at it. You know, we're looking at the dilapitated buildings. Who's cleaning them up? When is the timeline? Why why are they still there? Um especially ones in commercial areas like Times Square or Astero Boulevard on the north end when you have quite [clears throat] a few visitors walking by there again. Where does it go? Who takes care of it? So we we lob these things out and now and then we you know how do you we don't want to harp on them every month and they're like we're working on it. Sure.

What I'm hearing is that there are a lot of good things going on. There may not be a framework though for carrying these things forward or making sure they're done the way we all would like them. So, I'm going to go through my list and if anything sounds interesting, just write it down. Then we'll come back and talk about it. But one thing I want to put all over this is it sounds like a lot of what you're talking about, Don, in all these different things could go around visitor and residents, but visitor education

um about our local rules. And so maybe there would be a framework where, you know, when you go to Publix at hurricane season, you know, every year they're going to have that pamphlet. There's one out here. I grab it every year. It just reminds you of the things to do to prepare for a hurricane. Could you possibly think of um maybe pamphlets or flyers that go at all the hotels, any of the condos who might want them? And it's kind of the tip sheet, you know, boater rules, you know, what's slow speed, what's no wake, um, you know, just kind of the big picture education [clears throat] because you could pull from all the different things that whether it's your organization or ours and just keep educating people. It's a thought if some of this would would be an overarching program, of course, websites, but being able to grab it, you know, so you're not repeating it over and over again. Well, maybe just to expand on that, researching better ways to get the education out to people, whether it's through besides social media, but radio, TV, working with the TCB or or the, you know, the TDC to to remind people in some of their ads as you come to be safe. This is, you know, every barrier island basically has the same type of rules when it comes to bikes and everything else, but maybe getting a unified message or figuring out a way to work at the TDC to get a unified message out preemptively before season starts.

Sorry that it's available. Not that you missed that Facebook post or you missed that meeting, but it's always kind of there. Maybe condos handed out, you know, when people check in or, you know, hotels. Anyway, that could be something you could think about. So, I'm going to talk about just my quick ideas that I have. I put them in buckets, but I'm going to get down into the buckets, too. So, my first category was around emergency preparedness and disaster response. things like hurricane evacuation planning and communication, storm surge and flood preparedness, disaster communication systems. I know we had the code red, but I'm not sure quite what we use now. Um, text alerts, sirens, any apps, things like that. Posttorm debris removal planning. I don't know that that would be in your bucket, but that's under emergency preparedness and disasters. The next one would be public workshops. Maybe we want to have a public workshop at some point to talk about evacuation and uh or insurance readiness, you know, for storms. Um the second bucket would be traffic and pedestrian safety. Things like crosswalk safety, scooter and golf cart regulations. Um do we have a seasonal traffic u management plan? Third bucket, water safety and beach safety. I don't know how often we have rip currents, but do we have any digital alerts? Do we tell people about rip currents? Um, water safety education for tourists. You can see if you live on a canal, all the crazy things they're doing out there. Maybe this could go in an education. What's no wake? What's slow wake? What about kayak safety? Um, channel safety. boat rental safety. Next bucket would be high-rise fire preparedness. I don't know if that was one, but at

last night at the women's club when they were showing us how to use the AED, um Ellen Vaughn was sitting next to me and she said, "Wouldn't this be great if every condo had one or each pe each group on a floor could have one if they wanted to pay for it?" Anyway, just kind of coordinating anyone who may want to purchase these for their business, their hotel, their condo. Um, the fifth bucket was code enforcement and building safety. So, things like short-term rental enforcement, um, occupancy limits and vacation rentals, fire safety inspections, and flood compliance. The sixth one is police and community safety, seasonal policing strategy, which I think we were talking about with CERT, maybe how can we get volunteers, um DUI enforcement, I don't know if we do that, noise and late night disturbances, public safety during events, uh bike and foot patrols, and um that just came back to the whole visitor education about our local rules. So, in my brainstorming, those were the things that I came up with. I don't know if any of those are of interest or sound uh important to anyone.

So, I have a question. Go ahead. All great ideas. How do we attack these things without overloading your public information person? That was one of the things that happened last time. We came up with a lot of ideas and we wanted literature printed and um you know graphics done and this and um at that time we came and met with the um with the information officer and she was like I'm working on it. I have a budget. I can't you know I have to stay within these parameters or I don't have the manpower.

Um I get that. I was a VP of marketing forever. So, you know, you've got you've got your budget and you've got what you can do. So, we're trying to be respectful. We don't always say, "Here's here we've designed these five flowers, put them together, do this, do this, do this." And and they say, "Listen, we don't have we can't afford to do that this year." And so, I I want to be we want to be work with people here instead of keep overloading and they're going, "Oh my god, the public safety committee, I'm ready to kill them." Right. Right.

So, go ahead, John. Um, [clears throat] so what what I'm hearing is there isn't a lack of ideas that you guys have. It's not an issue of finding important things to bring to light. It's I think it's got more to do with process, organization, responsibility, how do you message to council a and to staff? Um, I'm not sure that that's very well defined. And then as you do speak to them, [clears throat] perhaps informally, there's no way that it's tracked or followed up or any of that. Um, [clears throat] that's kind of what I'm hearing. Uh,

I think some of it has to do with what we're trying to do is bridge the gap between the concept and the implementation. Right. Mhm. So, we come up with a great idea. I mean, I wrote I jotted down a couple that uh Rebecca put down. Hurricane preparedness might fall under the fire department, but tip sheets, local tip sheets, like, you know, cross at the crosswalks. Don't cross wherever you feel like it. You don't necessarily have the right away anywhere, but those kinds of tip sheets for vacation rental companies, that might be something that they can put in their guest books. Absolutely. You know, that might be a helpful thing for them to know. Um, but what we're looking for Yeah. So, how do we take that

take that great idea and put it in rental companies guessbooks and what's proper and so if I could if I could just follow up on that

I don't know and actually I we I just had a conversation um last night with Chris King because I've just been assigned to the Anchorage and one of the things that we were talking about is there there isn't really defined responsibilities uh information flows even how to run the meetings and how to bring the ideas that come from the meetings. How do they actually get to council? you're here talking to us right now so that you can try and and say, "Hey, we we need a way that that we can prioritize our top ideas, make sure they align with the strategic plan that we're building and the town's initiatives, and somehow bring them together." And I'm going to work with Chris to try and define that for the Anchorage Committee. And then I think we should look to try and roll it out across all of the advisory committees. um from coming from the LPA there's actually you know we know it's a very limited scope that we looked at while I was on the LPA development but there was a really well- definfined process for okay we are behind this project or we're not behind this project and we've hashed it all out and then we make a recommendation to town council and then town council talks about it and then town council gives direction to staff and that staff talks about it. It's kind of the flow of the way an idea evolves into something actionable. And I I feel like that's what's missing. It's not a lack of ideas of what to attack.

Um it's a way of getting them implemented.

Yeah, I I appreciate that, Councelor McClean. And and that is exactly why I was working with Chris as well on that. She's sent she's sent me some drafts of that that um process she wants to implement for the AAC. Um and I have discussed with with staff how I'd like to see it a universal version of that across the committees. Um because yeah the LPA and the charter commission you know they have a very specific kind of you know this is what you're to do and then you know um this is how you get the additional resources that you need. You know LPA obviously they do talk with staff when they have questions and so forth. And I know the other committees have done that and continue to do that in the past. And I think that's there there are things that that definitely uh I would like to see anytime the committee has questions they or they want to have a staff member attend one of their meetings just send the request and I'm happy to uh based on their availability. But I know most of them are also want to be involved in those discussions with the committees instead of just hearing it on the back end. So that's an easy thing. I know Abby came down. She was watching from upstairs, our new public information officer. She's saying, "I can do that. I can do that." You know, as she came down here, I know she's more than willing to do a lot of the things that you guys were talking about. And, you know, I think she brings a fresh perspective and some new ideas and new ways maybe to do some of this uh at lowcost means or no cost. And if there is a cost, she's, you know, we we we want to still have the discussion. Um, and leave that decision to me or whatever on whether or not we'll do that in, you know, when I weigh the different, you know, uh, pros and cons, I'm happy to, uh, to spend the money where where we think it can be spent wisely. But there's lots of other ways. So that's just one example uh Don that I if you know it's happy to um honor that request have Abby come and sit in maybe at your next next committee meeting and she can tell you what

capabilities there are um what her ideas are and you can give her some of your ideas and you can go from there. But that's one example but you know same thing with with the others that we've discussed. I think that's a that's a you know have Riley is going to be your liaison but if if you need someone else from the staff to attend your meeting um as you talk on a specific topic just so send that request to either of us and we'll get it down to the director to make sure you have the right people there. If I if I could just continue though, I think that when you look at the impactful, you know, the impact on bicycles on the sidewalks and how that the impact on people not um being able to designate themselves as being present in a house prehurricane and not I mean those are very impactful things that really have um and we all know that there's tons of things we could talk about. One thing I'd like to talk about is lightning detectors on the beach. Uh we get a lot of lightning down here and we don't seem to have any warning systems. I don't know an idea but I think the the to be impactful your organization will be able to understand from the community what's important and be able to distill it down to you know your priorities the the few projects that you'd really like to try and and dig into and then that way we can flow it through your liaison at council into council, become part of our M&P meetings to discuss it and hash it around a little bit more. And then potentially it's either a staff [clears throat] funding issue or it's a it's a a legislative thing or an ordinance or something like whatever it may be, but it's the path in which to

get it done, I think, is is what we'll work to define a little better for you. Yeah. One of the main things that I've thought a lot about would be interesting to have the public safety committee do is have maybe twice a year an event, a public safety event similar to like what Anchorage Advisory Committee does, you know, at at Bayside Park where you guys can do a lot of research on new and improved technology or bicycle safety, any kind of technology or things that come out, you can reach out to these vendors to bring them down to help educate. The fire department could be there with your background in in in the police force. You mean public workshop?

Yeah. Basically like a public workshop but let people one I think it would get people involved. They would come out understand what the public safety committee does offer their suggestions or input like we're doing as to lightning you know I I think this could be something that you guys should look into. Then at the next event it just can can grow and maybe we could start getting donations in similar to what the Anchorage Advisory Committee does to be able to make that event bigger. Um I think that would help with awareness. I think that would help staff obviously certainly would help council members be able to to be able to go to because we all go to the Anchorage Advisory um one and and you get to talk to people and you get to see some of the new stuff that's out there and understand how it relates to the boating world. Maybe we need to do the same thing for the public safety committee and have an event where you know here's the new technology on a bike that could automatically alert if you get we all have cars now that slow you down before you get too close to the car in front of you drives you crazy. Things like that maybe they're available on bikes we just don't know about it. Um audible things that let you know, hey, I'm coming and it does it for you so you don't have to remember to do it. You know, things like that I think would be helpful both for you and for us.

That's a great idea

to be able to say here here's what out there. you know, the fire department could be there, the police department could be there. Um Tom, not that he's got anything to do, he could be there [laughter] just, you know, just to get the awareness out. And I think as it gets bigger, then, you know, Abn Pio can we can get the news stations down there to cover it and say, "This is what we're doing. This is how we're trying to be proactive to help drive that momentum." And I think eventually you'll have we'll have to have a meeting saying, "Hey, we've got too much on our plate. We can't cover all of this." To your point, Don, I think a lot of the things that the public safety committee has been working on over the last three or four years are either near completion, talking about the lighting, or so now it's what's next, right? What what is next? And I think having an event like that might be very purposeful in finding out what is next because what is next is always going to change, right? So being able to hear from the public and being able to then advise us, this is what we're hearing. What can we do? Then we can advise Will and staff to say either we have to put money aside to do this come budget season or we don't.

That would be a great Bay Oaks kind of thing where we have a lot of parking almost a welcome back. You know, it's a new season. Welcome back. What's new? You could have a couple different speakers, maybe the fire department. The fire department last night was telling us you can get the discount on those AEDs if you purchase it through them. All kind of little booths could be happening. Yeah, maybe that's a way to disseminate a bunch of information. I love that idea. That's a great one. Yeah, at Bayokes would be great because then you could have the fire trucks out there, police cars could be out there. You could get the kids involved. Just something to think about.

But you'd be the organizer of it and let each of those groups bring their own, you know, what do you want to present to the community? What do you want them to know about safety? I'd like to hear from Tom if he's got ideas if that's okay. Let's finish. Scott hasn't had a chance to weigh in. [clears throat] Yeah. So, I I kind of like um Rebecca, I've kind of got a list just to bounce some ideas off. Um you know, number one is is obviously the crosswalks. I know we had talked about some other communities had at one end of the crosswalk, they had a bucket with a flag. The other end they had a bucket with a flag, a little pole. So, when they're crossing the street, especially down here,

I don't know what the cost would be. I don't know what the implementation but perhaps looking into that. The other thing is in the downtown area I I know we we've talked about this but people just won't use the crosswalks. They're going everywhere. So, you know, I go to Marty Gar every year. Every year they've got barricades up just, you know, cattle crossing. What would that cost? What what would it what would the cost be to implement that? Uh what would the safety factors be? Are we worried about drunk people jumping over them or just would that mitigate the traffic down there? U what would that mitigate the crossing and would that help with with the traffic flow? Um then the potholes, especially the potholes on the crosswalks. I mean, how do we get to where there's there's a pothole between Mojo's and the goods right now that's in the middle of the crosswalk? And I we see bikes swerving around it. Somebody puts a cone down and they think the road's closed, so they move the cone 10 minutes later. But we've got to get those potholes in those crosswalks filled either with shell immediately or get it on a hit list. I mean, how do is there a way to implement Hey, I know there's potholes all over the island, but we've got to take care of the potholes in the crosswalks because somebody's going to wipe out. Somebody's going to twist their ankle. It's just I mean, is there a way we can get like a hit list that

So, I'm I'm just bouncing ideas. So, so another one is especially with the lighting, identify hot spots where we have to have lighting, even if it's temporary, what what the cost will be. Identify those locations. I mean, we all pretty much know what they are, but we keep hearing and I think the frustration with these guys is, hey, we need light and oh, it's coming, but there's got to be a temporary solution, especially in season where we we put up some temporary lights. We we find a vendor, we find a cost. Is it budgeted? I mean, but just talking about it doesn't do anything. We we've got to have some implementation where we identify those those those those part those places and make darn sure there's there's lighting during at least season.

That's that's the big that's the big part of it, I think, is you can have great ideas. You can bring them to council and council can make recommendation, but if you don't own the property, it's very difficult to you can say we're going to pay for it, but to your point, you got to have that planned out a year ahead of time. Right. Right. And and then even if you have the money, you still have to get permission from the property owner to be able to do it. So, it's it's that's part of my frustration.

It can be done because I'm not saying it can't. So on on the beach, I know next week the uh Commander Leler is going to put up some some of those towers and it was a quick ask. A couple of my vacation properties are are on the beach. Ask the owner, "Hey, can we put that tower up?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah, great." And so it I mean it can be done. It's just we just got to get done. We got to figure out a way either a flow flowchart or what whatever to to to get those get those things accomplished. Um, the other thing I had was obviously the the you know the the traffic on the sidewalk. I've almost clobbered three people not looking right. So there's still car there's still bikes going the wrong way. I don't know if again to your point, Don, I don't know if it's education, if it's more um an Abbeby deal, but pe people are just riding their bike on the wrong side of the street constantly. Um and then I had emergency call boxes. I I think we should really you guys should look into that what what the cost is, what the implementation would be, identify spots that that would, you know, obviously the parking lots obviously Times Square um you know, maybe maybe we we put this is just an idea, don't go crazy, but if if you're going to have a parking lot in the future, you're going to have to have a call box. That's just going to be one of the one of the parameters. I don't know. So,

Scott, can you explain what a call box does? Sure. So, like if you're on a campus like FGCU, there's always a a light and so if somebody feels unsafe, somebody or reports something in reports something, see creeper, it shines and lets No, no, there's there's a light and there's actually a phone that you pick up and it goes right to whomever. Hey, I'm, you know, I'm down here at, you know, the corner of Mango and Eststerero and there's creepy guy or there's there's kids vandalizing or something's up. Does it go somewhere different than where it would go if you call 911?

Well, I can I can I I I know on campuses it goes to campus safety. I can tell you that this has already been researched and data has been provided from the public safety committee numerous times back when John Gagen was still on you know so the information is already there and there was an implementation process to start putting that in place working with the county and then obviously the hurricane came in and we're back to where we started so I think to for the call boxes I we thought they were great ideas public safety everybody thinks they're great ideas but now I think if you just take the data that's already there now how do we implement it right how do we get it in the right hands to find out how we fund

couldn't now I mean we're 10 years down the road from when Gagan looked at it couldn't I'm sure they're solar operated their cell right we right before Ian we submitted everything it was all submitted with pricing they were actually doing a test at the it was going to be at the uh by the library yep yep in the um bus stop with the bus stop area so we had a test there going and then it got nuked um but we presented everything with with [clears throat] um pricing and everything to town council. We recommended it and it was on path to go in that and then and to your point everything disappeared

and then it went away. But yes, so we we did present that. So now it's really funding it again and seeing if it's part of the budget that it could go to all the new um or the new Yeah, I'm sure there's new technologies even the last four years. I mean it could be sell instead of hardwired it probably. Well, these these were these were sold. Yeah,

but I think the task for the public safety committee would be finding funding sources, right? That would be a good task for you to to find grant funding. Is there flame and mitigation funding now that we could use to try to get funding? I mean, going to the county is probably not going to have the budget to do it either. So, get creative, figure out ways that we can find ways to fund this. I doubt we'll have any issues with from the county when it comes to public safety putting things in place, but it's how do you get the money? And I think that's that's a lot of leg work. I think the public safety committee could work on. Well, I have a question on that. Um, I'm not a grant writer and I don't know if anybody on our committee is a grant writer. If we establish and find grants, which uh Kieran did some, uh, searching for,

uh, bike riding, is there someone on staff who is a grant writer that we present it say, "Hey, this is grant ABCD." If they follow up on it, because I do know when you write a grant, it's just not a oneanddone. You have to write the grant and then you follow through on it and you give their updates. Sometimes grants it's a partial payment at the beginning and then you have the rest of the payments come as you uh validate that you have submitted all the information you've followed through with it. It this is what the process has been this is how it's gone. So we we want to make sure that we are providing somebody here with pertinent information and that they actually can do it or if they just go well we don't have a grant writer and then it's a moot point.

No I I agree. I've had people come up in the past, it's been a while, but who are grant writers who volunteer to say they've volunteered their time to help with things like this. So maybe again it at having one of those events, we could get people to come out that maybe could help do this where the town doesn't have to pay for it. Someone's willing to do it. There's always will people willing to help. You know, before you were on council, Rebecca reached out to me many times.

I was sitting at the table last night at the women's club, Don. um right I can't remember her name but she was right next to Buffy and she's a grant writer and she just joined last night as well and she said anything I could do to help with my grant writing skills so um I'm sure Buffy would know her name because she uh knew her you don't have any access to find out who that is do you I'm totally stealing yeah [laughter] okay I'll find her yeah that's all I have John that was great idea on lightning detection that That's a good one. Another great thing. Yeah. So, that that's all I have. Tom, you want to come up and add a few words before we [clears throat]

move on to the next item? Unless anybody else has more they want to add to it. Good morning, Thomas. I think you got to turn it on back there. Eric, can you turn that? It's on.

Good morning, Thomas Yazo, bridge services director for Myers Beach. Uh, I apologize for being late. I was down with Commander Ler uh doing planning for the weekend. So, I do I like the idea of the lightning detection. I know they have that in a lot of beaches along the coast on both sides of the state. Um, I think it's a great idea and I know there is some federal money out there for that which we will investigate by all means and if you guys dive on that that would be helpful. Um, the a couple things that we came up with were the C teams which were a state a that you use for emergency situations. They're volunteer organizations and they're a great asset in in the event of some type of incident. Uh we also talked about a couple other grant opportunities that we were going to suggest to the committee um just as staff

but everything you guys have talked about so far is great. We are still working on assigns for the bikes just so you know that. Um there's been some issue about how big they can be with the county. So, we've talked to the county a couple times of what they're going to allow us to put out there because some of the stuff we put out was too large. They didn't like it. So, we're back and forth and figuring out how that's going to work for the signs for the bikes and trying to direct people. They've not been open to us uh painting the sidewalks. I know that was something that came up from the public safety committee many times. They still haven't been open to that cuz I know they're going to be replacing a lot of stuff as well. So, we're still working on that as well. Um there's a couple other things that I would like to see happen. A big part of that is those barriers on Asterero and downtown uh like you see in the big cities. Uh and there's a good reason for them. And yes, you do have the issue of somebody might be intoxicated and they decide they're going to dive over it and they get hurt. I do understand that. But I believe for traffic movement and public safety as a whole, I think they're a great asset. And if you put them in the right way, I know public safety had talked about that before as well is putting those in, it'll it'll help us with our traffic movement up a stereo on this little island. And it'll also, I think, create a more safe area when you cattle call people into a certain space and move them down in the right area.

Very good. Yeah. And I don't even know if they have to be the metal ones. Maybe the plastic ones. I would I would actually I would recommend that we go with a cement barrier as a planter. So, it's aesthetically pleasing as well, but it's also a good barrier, permanent. Well, how do we propose that we actually how do we propose because we've been saying it for quite some time. Absolutely. To come and do a formal request. I mean, you're bringing it up now. I'm like, write down. Let's get it done.

I think you I think you follow the same the same roadmap that you did with the call boxes. You you researched it. You figured out what would be the best cost-effective way to do things that was still able to work. You presented the plan and then the plan got [clears throat] forwarded on to the people to implement it. And I think that would be the same thing you do with this. Do the research, figure out what would be the best in our in our case, what we think would be the best for the island cost. Put the cost together, put the plan together, and then you hand the plan off. And then the decision makers have to make the decision at that point. But getting everything lined up, we could talk about it, but unless you actually have physical, this is A, B, and C. Here's, you know, choice number one, two, three, and these are the costs associated with it. Here's how long it would take to implement it. Here's how it would be implemented, whether it be the town or the county doing it or a combination of both. And once you have that plan together, then you can bring it and we can say, here you go, whoever the agency is that's going to be running with it. We've done all the work. Now, all you got to do is make the approval and let us know that we can do it. Just like the call boxes.

Don, I I can I can see your frustration. I'm thinking um I'm thinking the same way you are. But what I think may be different, at least I hope it is, is that there were so many things on so many people's plates for the last three years. I'm hoping that it's a better opportunity now. Um, it's hard to redo the same work if you wonder if it's going to go anywhere. Well, I want to know. I'm all for doing the research. I I mean, we can do that. That's not my issue. But, as Tom's talking, I'm sitting here thinking, Tom, have you guys already looked at stuff? We have We have looked at some things. Yes, we have. Maybe.

So, that's where that's where I get like we're working on it. I'm like, well, we could help you, but if they've already got the contacts and the businesses that they know who like other towns have used and you're like, this is our best bet.

We have not done that. So, that that's something that you would be very helpful. We've looked at what's applicable, what's going to be acceptable to uh F dot Lee DOT because it's so close to the roadway. Uh we have we've looked at the space available to that area and we're not going to because we can't shorten the sidewalks in some respects. So, we have to figure that part out. So yeah, we've looked at that aspect, but we haven't looked at vendors. We haven't looked at the what's appropriate as far as cement or steel or those things. So we just kind of dug into the first part of it. And when we saw the cost, a basic cost, this is not us digging into vendors, but what we saw just what we' kept a pick up on online, it's it's a large price tag. So

give me a ballpark. I know you can't, but I mean, are we talking hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, millions? depends on the on the area you want to cover. So let's just say we took the worst of the worst place for now. So if you really wanted to cover the place that causes some of the most most issues is from Ksterero shops all the way north to Margaritavville in that whole area. That's really the key area and I would I think when we did the approximate on that it was somewhere in the range of about $400,000. Okay.

So but that's that again that's off the top of my head and I don't have anything in front of me. So what so what would what would temporary for six weeks until we get can figure out the budget for that um you know for for a six week cycle midFebruary till Easter when it's the worst for temporary right what would the the pl the yellow and white or the orange and white ones be to rent so that I would have to sit down with PW and talk about what we have in place and what we can order our rent um and I don't have a number for that so that was something we'd have to look into. Okay. Because I I I agree. I would say just a little bit past Pat, you know, past Kister maybe Mango. Fair.

From from there to Margaritavville. That's that's where the choke point is. It is. That's where our biggest foot traffic comes in and it combines really hard with a bunch of parking parking areas that dump a lot of traffic into the roadway. But I think to add to that cost, Tom, you you'd have to have a couple people manning it. I mean, so you only only as good as Hey, come here. Come here. No, you're you're not crossing. You know, not letting one person at a time through. I mean, we saw we saw it at uh Sand Sculpting. If if you listen, hey, please wait. Please wait. Please wait. Okay, go. And then you have everybody cross it. It And when we weren't doing that, the traffic was backed up to Scott. Did you use volunteers for that or did we have to call?

Yeah. Could could you [laughter] provide volunteers for those kind of things while we try to find Well, that maybe that would be part of part of SER, right? It would be a SER issue by all means. CERT is more defined towards emergency situations. So that would be you creating like a neighborhood watch again was something we talked about you guys [snorts] have brought up many times almost like school crossing

but that would also be something that we'd have to go through legal I think to see where our liability would be for having somebody because the training would have to be there for them to be handling traffic anytime that you are modifying traffic in any manner you have to have some type of training for those people uh we put the all the rangers go through that training now any deputy you see out there are firemen they've gone through some type of you My training is modification of traffic space. I Well, I will tell you from experience in working with getting that Lenel flashing crosswalk installed that took a very long time to get approval. I know working with the safety and and

we finally got it through. But the only reason it went through, I could tell you working with the state and with the county, unless you have data to back it up, you you can research what it's going to cost, implement all that, and it isn't going to matter unless you can prevent them prevent present them with facts. How many accidents happen, is it during the day, is it at night? getting a letter from the fire chief, getting a letter from the commander, all of that stuff goes into the decision because when it gets to the county level for approval, whether it's for funding or to allow us to do it, they're going to look at it and say, "I want to see the data. Show me why this is necessary." So, even before all the costs, I think you can do it all concurrently, but I would heavily suggest that you get as much data as you can. And Tom, you probably have the best access to it for the committee to to put together again that package that we can then take to the county or the state and say here, look at this guy.

Oh my god. Wow. [laughter] Uh, John, do you have anything to add to this discussion before we [clears throat] beautiful? All right. Is there anything else, Tom?

I have nothing else at this point. I the the the public safety committee has been a huge asset and they have a lot of great ideas. Um we've talked through a lot of them and Dawn's right. Sometimes they've come up with stuff and we started working on it and we've hit roadblocks because of funding or timing or just other uh necessary things that have to happen before what we we would like to see. um like those barriers. We talked about that. PW Jeff and I had big discussions after Dawn and the team brought it up. Yeah. And we talked about trying to make that happen. That's where we started doing the pricing side of it a little bit. So, yeah, I I would love to keep move forward on things we spoke about. I like the call boxes a lot. They're very effective. I know you did a lot of work on those before the hurricane and we could get those into the downtown area and they do connect to the 911 center. That's what the That's what the goal is on them. They go to the 911 center. So, it's a direct call right in when you pick it up.

Very good. Don, you guys have anything else? I'm good. Got lots to work with. Feel for feel more comfortable now? Yes. Okay. All right. Anybody have anything else? If not, we'll thank you for coming and thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you guys for your service. [laughter] Really appreciate it. I've never seen you in pants, John. That's throwing me off. Easy, Don. Throwing off easy. [laughter] Yeah, you said that on record. That's not Make sure that's on record. You might be getting a call from Chris very shortly. I apologize. I apologize to you for my late, but my wife won her award, so I'm very proud.

Congratulations, Chris. All right, we'll move on to our next agenda item, which is a discussion about an ordinance for smoking and vaping. Nancy or Will, you guys want to start this off or do we just want to dive right into what it says?

So, um, Will had, uh, come to me and asked if I could, uh, work with him on, u creating some type of regulation regarding vaping. And uh doing a little bit of research into it, I found that um there were some changes made by the Florida legislature back in 2022. Um at that time um the there was a preeemption in Florida law uh preempting local governments from any type of uh smoking regulation inside buildings. Um in 2022 that was expanded. Um the name of the legislation changed from the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act to now the Florida Clean Air Act. Um again, the preeemption remained. However, there was um a bit of a carveout from the preeemption uh which would allow municipalities and counties to prohibit smoking um in their public beaches and public parks. However, they could not restrict uh the smoking of unfiltered cigars. So, shortly after that legislation was changed back in 2022, um actually I think it was last year, Lee County in 2025, they went in and updated their um smoking ordinance to basically include vaping um and also talk about um the regulation within the boundaries of any public uh park or beach or public beach. Um the state statute allows the town to do the same if we have any public beaches,

which the mayor educated me that we don't. Uh but we do have public parks. I believe we have one. Um, but the state statute also said in the event that there is a county park located within the municipality's jurisdiction that the municipality could still uh regulate there. So, at that point then I um pretty much drafted um an ordinance, shared it with Will. Um I think we mentioned it perhaps at one one of your meetings and it was scheduled to come before you but we had some shifting of agendas in the last month or two. Um and so now it is before you at your u management and planning meeting uh for a discussion in the event you wanted to go forward with this. I do also want to point out to you that in your existing code, pull it up, um you did have some language regarding um the prohibiting smoking within the confines of recreation centers and community buildings. Um in view of the statutory prohibition, um that language in your code would not be enforceable. Um, so this would also be an opportunity to do some cleanup um and just get out take out the language that really is no longer applicable. So I I defer to Will if he wants to add um concerns perhaps with vaping.

So I I believe what we're we are talking about smoking and vaping. Correct, Nancy? Not just vaping, but smoking and vaping. Um yes, but we do have an existing section in our code regarding smoking, but it it needs to be updated. Okay. Um because it does include regulations within recreation centers and community buildings, which we are preempted from um enforcing in those indoor areas. And correct me, you're saying we do have something in our code that covers beaches and parks with garage smoking. I wasn't aware that we do. No,

our code currently has something in there regarding recreation centers and community buildings. So, we would be adding the language. If you have your um your draft um you can see the language that we would be inserting. I don't know three three sections. Yeah, it's in there. I it's in section two. Um, there's also a definition of smoking, what that means, and a definition of vaping and also a definition of public beach. Um, and it's your interpretation that public beach, which is not really defined, would include any beach access areas.

Okay. Thank you, Nancy. Yeah, I um so I just take an opportunity to start. I think it's timely and prudent to have this discussion as you know, as a uh council and staff. That's why I I propose bringing it up. Uh, you know, I want to reiterate this. Lee County did recently, [clears throat] within the last year, Lee County did pass a similar ordinance. It's not an effort to copy or to fall in line with Lee County. Just felt that it was a a topic worthy of discussion for us as well as the town. Um, since we have we do, you know, fall within or next to a lot of, uh, their properties that were covered in that ordinance. Um, the purposes I feel to bring something like this straightforward is to protect public health and comfort, preserve the natural beauty of our beaches and parks, reduce litter and environmental harm, and enhance the overall visitor experience uh of Fort Myers Beach. Um, yeah, I I recognize, you know, we're balancing personal freedom and with uh shared responsibility. Um, I would say for those that that bring up that, I would say it's equally true that others have the freedom not to be exposed to smoke or vapor or the litter associated with it. Um, so that's why I think it's a warranted discussion. There are many that have health issues, you know, that uh that make this um something that could affect their visit to the beach or just other um personal desires. So, just something to have a good public debate about, you know, um from talking with staff, uh talking with others, uh from the environmental community. It's, you know, cigarette butts are and and the uh cartridges and devices and pods and stuff associated with vaping are uh you know, the most common items found during coastal cleanups. Um and uh they they do cause concerns to the environment and the wildlife as well as visitors of our beaches, uh other visitors of our beaches, you know. Um, you know, I think it there's a tourism and community image thing to be talked about too just in here that uh there are a lot of visitors who consistently talk about how they

value clean beaches, healthy environments, family-friendly spaces. I think should be, you know, considered in the discussion. Uh, some might ask about how do you enforce this? Well, you know, it's it's it's not intended to be necessarily a punitive thing, but really I think the enforcement is something that is a balance between um you know, enforcement by designated officers, but also just, you know, uh compliance, you know, the information, educating the public, and then you know, self-p policing, if you will, like a lot of similar type topics is the best way to uh to enforce something like this. Uh you know, peer enforcement, community you know, engagement, community education. Um, of course, we have the normal code um enforcement process if things escalate to that level. It's similar to uh our leash ordinance on the beach uh as an example. Um our rangers, if they see it, they do address it. I if I see it, I address it with a visitor or a resident on the beach. A simple courteous discussion about our ordinance. Usually that's the end of it. Usually that solves it and everybody walks away happy. Um if not you know then we have the you know a delegation from town council to then deal with it through a enforcement process if necessary but that is not really why we want to have these things you know and uh it would be you know we'd enforce it like we do anything else. It does you know it doesn't matter who it is really we'd educate them first and then go to the enforcement process if necessary. Um, and I, you know, I think there we can talk, that's why I wanted to have the discussion, talk about with council. Council might have some ideas to share with me, to share with staff. We can refine this a little bit or uh take it in a different direction. So, that's m Mr. Mayor. That's all I have.

Uh, thank you, [clears throat] Will, for bringing it to the MP. I thought it was important to to clarify some of it because when it first came out, of course, the news stations picked up on it that the town of Fort Myers Beach is talking about banning smoking on the entire beach. Well, we don't own the entire beach. So, I thought it was important to have the discussion so people understood what exactly we were talking about potentially doing. I don't have any objection to the staff moving forward and bringing forward an ordinance on this. However, you have to work it out, Nancy, with staff on the wording and how it pertains to exactly what we're trying to do. But I thought it was important to one get a consensus from the council on whether they want to move forward with this ordinance and two just let the public know exactly what it means by public beaches when it pertains to the town. John, how do you feel about it?

Well, John McLean,

sorry. Um, I'm kind of ambivalent about it, quite frankly. Um, and I'd only say that because I'm not sure it's enforcable and I don't know that it will have an impact. Does it is there a way that it enhances the [clears throat] feelings of Fort Myers Beach? Perhaps. I can understand that. Um, my concern is, I mean, the fact that the lobbyists for the cigar industry were able to exempt cigars in of itself, unless you're a cigar smoker, which I'm an ex- cigar smoker, um, and like the smell of cigars, that could be the most offensive smell on the beach other than perhaps marijuana, you know, like it. So, I'm not sure about the impact of it, quite frankly. I think the thing that would concern me is do we have our recreational bay oaks covered? Do we have places where there are more active recreation like the ball fields and things like that? If that's covered, that would be my concern more than it would be the beach quite frankly. Is it something that I would vehemently disagree with? No, it isn't. Um it just to me feels a little bit of overreach. Well, I had the same and in speaking with Nancy, she had a very good point. It's important to maybe not necessarily this one, but to have ordinances in places to address things should something come down the line. If you don't have anything in place, look at the canals for instance, and I know I'm comparing smoking on the beach to canal dredging, but because we didn't have an ordinance in place or a plan in place to handle something, we weren't able to access certain things that we could have had we. I would challenge staff if this comes back as an ordinance to find how this could potentially affect us down the road, whether it's through a state of emergency, whether it's through uh beach reourishment, whether it's through any kind of environmental thing that we're trying to do. By not having this in place, would it take us out of the

running for something like that? I think that would be important to know, but I had the same concerns that you did. So, that's why I kind of figured it was a good discussion to have. Yeah. No, I think it's I think it's a fair disc uh discussion and we you know, government overreach, nobody's comfortable with that. I mean, we aren't. Um, or at least I'm not, let me speak for myself. Um, the, uh, I think the thing that's most important is that we accomplish cleaning up the language for uninforcable um, what we have in there right now. That's not correct. And I mean, we accomplish that. If we want to put this on, I'm okay with it. Rebecca.

Yeah. So, when I saw this on the agenda, my first thought was I used to be a smoker and I remember the times I would annoy my friends when they'd come to my house and we'd be outside and I'd be smoking. I'm sure it was annoying to them and I have a hard time being around smokers. So, I was thinking this was about the smell of smoke and taking in the nicotine until I started to research for the meeting. And it came across to me more as environmental than how it [clears throat] smells. So, when I looked into it, um, I saw as well a lot of the things that will mentioned that it was the number one item found on roadways, beaches. That's a big deal. I also wasn't aware about the filters being microlastics and that's damaging to the marine life and the wildlife who pick it up and eat it. I had no idea about that. Um so that gave me a new awareness. Um then I started thinking about the cigar lobbyists. What what's up with that? Only to learn that the reason cigars were out of this was that they are biodegradable. So they don't, which is why they say unfiltered cigars.

They aren't creating the biohazard, the problem for wildlife and marine life. And I thought, okay, well, maybe a lobbyist was in there. I'm sure they were. Then I thought, well, what's up with vaping? I mean, there's a lot of people who I know that vape now. And then I started to research and I thought, well, that releases nicotine. I didn't know that. I mean, I should have, but I didn't. the plastic waist waste, the lithium batteries on the beaches and um well, yeah, the nicotine, the plastic and the plastic waste. So, it kind of opened my eyes to being more about overreach and more about um environmental. So, that would go back to what the mayor said. Does that put us in a position where we're not doing what is standard across other communities like us that someone would say, "Well, you're not even following the basics, so why are we going to give you money for environmental things?" I don't know if that's the case.

So, I'm in support of at least considering it and bringing it up. Okay, Scott. Yeah, I was like everyone else. I was a little ambi ambivalent thinking about the government overreach until I went to Ireland last year and the vaping. It's not so much the cigarette, it's the vaping. And we're not anywhere near where Europe is in the amount of uses for vaping. And they're about to ban single-use vapes because of the pollution,

the batteries, the the cartridges. It's out of control over there. And if if you just do a a little bit of a a search on what's going on in Ireland, they're going to ban those for good because it is so out of hand. And and from environmental impact, those those batteries and and those throwaway plastic things are an environmental disaster. And I think we should get ahead of it here because vaping is nowhere near what it is in Europe. And I I just from an environmental standpoint, if we're going to be stewards of of the island, I I'm I'm really all for this to be honest with you, just from environmental impact.

Okay, Council King.

Well, thank you. I've never been ambivalent about this. Um I go back to my junior high civics class where your rights end where mine begin. And that's not government overreach to me. That's government support. Um, I I agree to a certain extent about the cigar industry, but I I'm I'm I'm also disappointed in the Florida state statute that it allows smoking outside in decks on open air restaurants. And to me, that's that's an affront uh to to good food and good good drink. U that's that's just boggles my mind. But I don't have any problem with this whatsoever. As far as enforcement, I think you could say that about almost any ordinance or law we have on the books. It's whether you choose to enforce it or not. Um that's always been a copout to me that there's no way to enforce it. If you want to, you can. And that's uh so I will support this.

All right. Will Nancy, you guys got enough direction to move forward bringing something back to us? Yes. So it would come to you then on first reading. Uh we'll read the title and then we'll um hear debate and public comment and then if you approve it, we'll take it to second reading. Um I do want to point out Amy was doing some research while you guys were discussing. Um it looks like the city of Santael has a very similar ordinance that they had on second reading this past Monday. So we don't know if it actually passed or not, but it pretty much is the same type of wording that you have in yours. Okay. Nothing further, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. All right. Agenda management. Councelor King.

Um, I don't think I have anything except that Scott and I brought up last month the uh CRAAS. I don't see that on here yet. Yeah, that's that's what I was going to say. We we need to get rolling on this. Have to. [clears throat] If I can you clarify what you're speaking about for us newbies? Yeah. So, we're we're considering we we're not considering I I would like to bring it through an MMP meeting that we would consider establishing a CRA, which is a what's actually Scott, it's already before you were on council. It's already gone through

it's already gone through that process and staff has already been given direction that we do want to we want to go down the CRA path. So I don't know that it has to come back to M MMP for discussion because we've already Frankie you remember we had this discussion I think it was before we even got into the the forplex of trailers I think is when we were um still working out of Diamond Head.

Well I remember that we were um in the trailers we were rushing to try and get something on the books uh because we were worried that the legislature was going to upend it or remove that right from us and and I'm not sure what happened after that. Yeah, that was the second discussion, but the original discussion I think we had at Diamond Head about trying to we were specifically looking at the Times Square area. I think Chris and Keith were still here at that point. So, I don't we I'm certainly happy to bring it back again, but to me if I think we've already given direction to to move that CR and I know that staff is working with trying to meet with Commissioner Mleca. Obviously, the county has to be involved as everybody knows

to to see what their support level is as we continue. There's also a study that needs to be completed and so I I have no idea what the status of. We're working on that. So for a community redevelopment agency something like that which CRA um

we are we are working as directed by the council um moving it forward kind of two kind of parallel efforts of the approval that we would need. So trying to educate uh our leaders and then the the BOCC who ultimately would have to would be the approval authority for this. Um but at the same time Frankie and uh Frankie's been working with AECOM uh the new one of our new uh contract agencies uh that we have on our last approved a couple of months ago. Uh they're going to do the study for us. So we've had some about two discussions so far. Frankie's had with them giving them some guidance. are going to do the study. I think what we could do is we could come back the next M&P and give a full update on where we're at with with that.

I like that especially to get these guys up to speed. I think it's very appropriate. Uh Vice Mr. vice mayor, you know, we can bring uh the new new members up to speed, catch the full council up to where we're at and uh because it's it's moving along and once we get the study going, I think then that study is is an essential piece that we would then need full support from the council to then take to uh the the BOCC to ask for their approval. So, I have one question. It's moving along. Nancy, [clears throat] is there any anything percolating either in the House or the Senate that we would have to expedite this again to your knowledge? No, I'm not aware of anything, but I'll I'll look into that before our next meeting.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's all I had to Yeah, that's that's it for me for me. Yeah, I watched um the charter review yesterday and it looked like Amy, you brought up some um comments about timing and these last two items on the agenda here. Do you need more time to get uh possible things on the referendum? Is there anything you need from us relating to that because of the um the elections office? I think you're okay.

You're in good shape. So, yeah, we're we're in good shape. Just just an update for for the council. The charter review is almost finished. They they'll be ready to to prepare um on April 20th. There's about five items, I think, that that want to come before review. There's probably five more items that I think we can clean up via ordinances that don't have to go through the charter, you know, to to the the electorate. Mhm.

So I they're they're on they're on target. We've we've read word for word the entire charter. Um we've got a great flowchart u each section whether it's it's clean, whether it needs an ordinance or whether it potentially should go to to charter to to referendum. And they're going to bring those five items to us on the 20th of April. We have one more meeting I think April 3rd or 4th and then we should have it all cleaned up. We're doing doing a little bit of language

make sure that it's it's clean. But they they've done a fantastic job and I I think they'll be ready to present. We can get it done in the future in 10 years and you're still here. Um [laughter] we we we want to expand it. It it's six months but in all actuality we really need a year. So, um, that but they've they've done a fantastic job. I don't do you have anything else, Amy? Oh,

uh, no. We're we're still on target for as long as we have if the um charter review brings their recommend when the charter review brings their recommendations for the discussion will happen here at council and whether or not you decide to put them on referenda or not. As long as we have that ordinance finalized before you go on your summer break, we're good. Perfect. And there needs to be two meetings for that. If it happens, as long as the timing is good, it would be by ordinance. So that brought up two meetings. Yes. Made me think. Thanks, Amy.

Mr. McLean. Um, nothing other than just to reconfirm that I'm going to be working with the Anchorage Committee to try and get some more formalized policies, procedures, which then I would like to bring back to the rest of council and see if it's makes sense to uh make it consistent across all of the advisory committees.

Very good. Uh the only thing I have is to make sure we add at Monday we had direction to add uh discussion about potential shelter for the town's assets when it comes to the bigger assets. So it's not on there and I know it's probably because short notice but just want to make sure that makes it onto the next somewhere on the agenda management for the future discussion. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll I'll give consent for that too. So you got two. Great.

Thank you. We'll we'll definitely add that. But I have one thing agenda management management wise, Mr. Mayor. So, actually the next M&P is currently scheduled for April 8th. Um, we however going to recommend that we add these things that we that were discussed to that one, but move it to the 15th because we want to have this the next strategic plan working session with council uh in April, but USF, our USF partners aren't available till the 15th. So, if it's okay, we can shift that M&P one week to the right. Um and uh that way we can do that topic and these additional topics uh for a good meaty MMP that day. [snorts] Sorry, that would be April

April 15th if it's okay with all the council members. I I'm going to be out of town babysitting grandkids, but I can I can zoom in. I also have a conflict. However, I can zoom in. I also have a conflict. Oh, no. [laughter] Well, it'll just be the two of us, Mayor and John. We have to I haven't checked my calendar because I don't have it with me. But as long as we have three, as long as we have three, the others can zoom in. But um do you want to maybe offline work on a date that works for everybody and then we can codify it at the next meeting? We can do that. Okay. Yeah. All right. Is there anything else? All right. John,

thank you for indulging me and allowing me to go support my wife. Uh, not knowing how this was going to turn out today. I could have ended with hot chocolates. Everyone's a winner, but we're going to go with queen and we are the champions, baby. Move to adjourn. All right, second. We are joured at 10:33.