City Council - Regular Meeting

Donna Carol from Valicia Sheriff's Office, Senior Chaplain.

Good evening.

Thank you all for being here and thank you all. You are an amazing group. Somehow I always you always make me feel like family and uh y'all are precious. Father God, I just ask that your presence would be here in this meeting, that your peace would be here. And Father, that you give everybody up here wisdom. Wisdom straight from your throne. Because Father, no matter what our cause is, we want the right thing to be done. wisdom God and father just bless each one of them and bless each one of these wonderful folk who come thank you Jesus.

Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Number one, absences. 1 A. Shall the absence of council member Dana Knight from the October 28th, 2025 regular city council meeting be excused?

Madame Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to excuse the absence of council member Dana Knight from the October 28, 2025 regular council meeting. Second. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. Kaylee, will you call the vote? Council member, yes. Council member Knight, yes. Yes. Yes. Richardson, yes. Mayor,

yes. And the motion passes to accept the absence of council member Dana Knight for the October 2825 regular city council meeting. Moving on to number two, presentations and proclamations to a good citizenship award presentation. The good citizenship award program was implemented in 2021 as a way to recognize people who go above and beyond for our community. A city the city council recognizes that the strength of Orange City is built on the efforts of residents, organizations, and volunteers who dedicate their time and talents to improving the quality of life for others. We are honored to present the 2025 third quarter good citizenship award this evening to three outstanding individuals who have made lasting contributions to our community. Our first nominee is Miss Narita H. Williamson. She has spent more than five years helping neighbors navigate county bylaws, elections, and community concerns. She personally conducts neighborhood cleanups, reports illegal dumping, and works closely with law enforcement to keep her community safe. Miss Williamson also donates her own funds to support community events and provides guidance to residents seeking affordable housing and financial literacy resources. Miss Williamson, please join us at the front for your certificate and a photo with the city council. [applause]

[applause] [applause]

Okay. Our second nominee is Miss Leah Brooks. Led to the creation and care of the Wildflower Garden at Alberta's Cottage, transforming the area into a vibrant natural space for residents and pollinators alike. Through her leadership, she has inspired others to participate in sustainability projects strengthening civic pride. Miss Brooks, please join us for your certificate and a photo with the city council. [applause]

Everybody who [laughter] also Is she headed? One more everybody. One more. One more. Vice mayor is getting impatient here.

Okay. Our third nominee, Miss Sharon Stafford, is the founder of Everybody Is Somebody, Inc. and organization dedicated to empowering local youth. Through her programs, she helps young people build confidence, develop academic and social skills, and discover their potential to positively impact the community. Her compassion and leadership continues to make a difference in the lives of many. Miss Stafford, please join us for your certificate and a photo with the city council. [applause] You're working with kids. [applause]

Yes. [laughter] I'm sorry. You know what's great about him taking the pictures is he's up there and they always say when you take pictures up high they look better. So, thank you. [laughter]

All right. Okay. We're moving on to citizens comments. We have a bunch tonight. Okay. Let's start with Leah Brooks. [clears throat]

Uh, good afternoon. My name is Leah Brooks, 313 West French A. Uh, I normally prepare something, but tonight I'm really going to speak from the heart. Um, one of the things that I've seen over the last few months is a disintegration between relationships between the city and community organizations, women's groups, other philanthropic philanthropic organizations that have poured a lot into this city. You know, we have women's groups that are 60 years old, 130 years old. We have organizations from Dan that are very strong and have done a lot of things here. And what I see up here, um, it's not easy for me to say, but what I see up here is interpersonal relationships interfering and breaking down these women's organizations. And I am talking about you, Kelly, the mayor. Um, and it's not to

have to direct the council.

Okay. Um, so it's not to um, shame anybody. It's to plead like let's um bring back I've done I really really want these women's organizations and other organizations to come together in caring and compassion for the community. I don't want to see the disas used to shame people to demand people forgive to um hash out interpersonal relationships to um punish because I have seen a lot of people who are afraid now they're afraid of what's going to happen to me if I say something if I stand up for myself um what what kind of punishments are going to happen to me and unfortunately I'm seeing it among city staff too the ones that I've talked to who are afraid for their jobs who are afraid of standing up who are afraid of doing the work that they've done for years and years and years and people who have left who have left feeling defeated like what I've done so much I poured my heart into this city there's a lack of respect there's a lack of community that our mayor position is a it's a weak mayor position which means that the mayor doesn't have any more power than anybody else but it's a figurehead so what's supposed to be happening is the mayor goes to Tallahassee secures fundings secures funding for critical infrastructure ffstruure. The mayor goes to community organizations and brings people together. The mayor takes citizens complaints. The mayor comes with innovative solutions. The mayor brings people together. And that is what our mayor did run on and promised to do. And I would really like to see that happen. Thank you. [applause]

Okay. Next, we have John McHugh. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Excuse [clears throat] me, council members. I'm here to uh talk about the recruitment. I can't stay through the agenda items, so I thought I'd just throw my two cents worth in up front. I've got quite a bit of experience in uh recruitment for city managers and county managers, having gone through them myself. I've had some of them where they've been through private recruiters. I've had some of them use the FCCMMA, ICMA, the Range Rider program. And the one thing that I always understand in a recruitment is is it's not just for in this case, we have uh Miss Davis here as an interim manager. I personally, it's just me, believe she is more than qualified for the job. She's got 30 something years of history in this city. She's run the finances forever and ever. As a matter of fact, she was the first person I ever turned my finances over when I was a city manager or a county manager. I never gave them up to my finance director. I always did them, but I turn them over to her because of her capabilities. One of the things when you go through a recruitment with somebody in current interim position uh with this much background in the city is your recruits are going to be limited because probably 80% of the time the interim gets the job. And when that happens, you're not only putting your staff through a a tumultuous situation, not just Miss Davis, but the other candidates. They come in with an expectation of of of of being on equal footing with each other, and they're not. It's just a fact of life. It's not that she's better or worse than the other. She's here. She's got the continuity. And the other thing I want to bring up is I've I've understand that there's been a significant amount of turnover in the

leadership of the city and that presents a big problem for somebody coming in that front door. To me, that's the single big problem that a new city manager would have. There's no continuity. There's no institutional knowledge. Your department directors are just getting their feet wet. Now you got a new city manager coming in trying to get that their feet wet. And that's a long time. That doesn't happen overnight. You don't just come into the city as a city manager and things start clicking like that. It doesn't work that way. New relationships have to be formed. Uh trust has to be earned. Uh the council has to be comfortable. Communication has to be both ways. I've seen Christine in action. She's wonderful. As a city manager, I think she'd be remarkable for this city. I know you're going to have a meeting with I think somebody from the Range Rider program or something later on or saw something about that. I don't know when it was coming up. They're a great group of people. They do a good job. If you go down that road, I guarantee you they'll do everything they can to get you the qualified candidates. But just their experience and my personal experience, you got somebody there now. Don't put everybody through the stress if you can avoid it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. [applause]

Sharon Stafford. [snorts] Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm sorry. Sharon St. 461 Clark Street, Iron City, Florida. By now, everybody know when it comes to the city of Iron City, I do get a little emotional. It has been my understanding all elected officials, including council members, should not discuss issues that appear before them or on the Dallas. This does include the city of city council members. This could be a violation of chapter 286 of the Florida sunshine statute, also known as Florida Sunshine Law. After listening to a recording of the October 14 meetings, I listened to it several times to make sure I understood it. It appears private conversations and actions were conducted between council members prior to issues coming before this council. The violation of the Florida Sunshine law was very very thin. as a CEO, visionary, mentor, community advocate for our young adults who my only concern is for their success. That's my heart. The youth, I

ask you to please, please remember the eyes and the ears of these young people are upon us. They are watching you as well as listening to you. I would like to suggest to all council members to please please be very cautious of this. Your actions are very important. Therefore, please use cautious as you do your due diligence to represent our community. Let's continue to encourage our young people to take stock in our community and local government. Professionalism matters. But fascialism matters. I do appreciate you. Thank you. Be blessed.

Thank you. Thank you. [applause]

Um, Paul Fire. Did I say that right? I just know you as Paul with the American Legion Post 259. Mayor, council members, citizens, good evening. I'm [clears throat] Paul Frederick, past commander of American Legion Post 259. We serve the veterans and communities of Orange City and Dear. We have initiated a new program in support of our local young people. The members of Post 2559 have elected to award five $1,000 scholarships for continuing education to our 2026 graduates. The requisites are child, grandchild, or great grand of a veteran, resident of the Barry or Orange City, high school senior with a 3.5 or higher GPA, written recommendations from two of the following: a teacher, guidance counselor, spiritual leader, elected government official, youth andor sports coaches, names of institutions of continuing education applying or accepted to with a copy of the letter of acceptance. Provide a list of community service accomplishments. The submission date will be February 1st through April 30th of the graduation year. The date of the award will be at our local high school's May award ceremonies. a handwritten letter of application from the requesting student. No text or email. [laughter]

There'll be copies of these requisites at the table over there when I leave. Uh the post Sir, can you address the council when you're talking? Can you address the council when you're talking, please? I can do that.

Thank you. The post wants to do what the American Legion stands for and one of the four pillars of the American Legion is youth programs. Uh we award certificates, we award programs. Uh we back all the high schools, the elementaryaries, the middle schools. This is the first time our local post is getting into a scholarship program. Uh you must realize it's not easy for us to come up with five grand, but we have come up with the money and we've committed to doing it every year as long as we can. These are your children. I put kids through college and continuing education programs. I don't know where you go. Ike wasn't able to reach in my pocket and just shell it out. Copies will be at that table. Thank you. Bring your kids forward. Let them apply.

Thank you, [applause]

Patrick Murphy. Patrick Murphy, 678 Swan Range Road of Blue Springs Villas near the corner of Levit and Rhode Island. Speaking about the roundabout, maybe for the last time. Um, a couple weeks ago, uh, our, uh, HOA had a meeting. I was elected president of the HOA. At that meeting, not a single homeowner supported that roundabout. Recently, I posted to several places on the internet, including the Orange City Community uh site uh Facebook site, and got some responses. And I'm kind of surprised. I got up until a couple of hours ago 46 comments. 41 of them were of the variety of no, hell no, and beyond. 13 angry likes on our own Blue Springs Villas site as well. Again, no one in support of I'd like to read just a couple of the comments since you've heard from me before a couple of the concerns. I believe if they put a traffic signal there that it would cause more accidents from people trying to beat the yellow red light, running the red light, or pulling out in front of someone. I would encourage the RV boat storage to install a camera and share the inevitable mishaps, shenanigans, confusions, and wrecks that will occur. Hell no. The Orange City idiots that speed up to run the stop sign when they

see you coming to stop will just run the yield sign at the roundabout the same way and probably kill somebody. Absolutely not. With all the tractor trailer traffic coming from all four directions, it would be a disaster. It is not one that is waiting to happen, but one that will happen. Please leave it alone. No. Stop with these stupid roundabouts. No one, I repeat, no one, including me, knows how to properly use these. After it goes in, we can all gather our lawn chairs and watch the show. Bring snacks. It's going to be entertaining. There there's more of the same. Um, my request that I would rather if I had my brothers that we leave it the way it is and move on. However, my immediate request since you're rolling along to approve and actually distribute the funding is to have a workshop that's open to the community where and I'm not talking an all day or morning. I'm talking an hour including discussion where we can be presented the reasons why this is the best answer.

Thank you. Thank you. [applause] Okay. Is there any other citizens comments at this time? You're on an agenda item. I mean anything that's not on an agenda item. Okay. Thank you. We're going to move on to the consent agenda. I just need a motion. Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda. A second. Got a motion. We got a second. Any public comment on the consent agenda? Seeing none, Kaylee. Yes. Yes.

Then yes. Yes. Council member Richardson. Yes. Mayor, yes. And the consent agenda passes. Moving on to five ordinances, first reading. 5A, ordinance number 696. Becky, could you read that please?

Yes. This is ordinance number 696 on first reading. An ordinance of the city council of the city of Orange City, Florida, amending the introduction future land use element, transportation element, housing element, conservation element, recreation and open space element, public schools facilities element, capital improvements element, intergovernmental coordination element, sanitary sewer, solid waste, storm water management, portable water and natural groundwater recharge element, property rights element, administration and interpretation. definitions in the official map s series of the comprehensive plan in accordance with the evaluation and appraisal requirements of Florida statutes chapter 163 repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict here with providing for severability and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Joe Ruiz, development services director.

Yes. Good evening, mayor, city council, respective members of the public, and thank you to our city attorney for reading that mouthful worth of ordinance into the record. Um, it'll only happen one more time um in the upcoming months, uh, Becky. So, thank you for that and thankfully it only happens every seven years. So, um, ordinance 69, number 696, first reading before you all today, city council, as has been read into the record. And so, uh, today in in concert with our, um, our consultants, um, and city staff sat down and went through and, um, came up with this presentation, uh, which is very comprehensive overall. I know you saw your packets and I I'm sure the hundreds of pages that you all received was was lovely and we hope that you read through it all um, truthfully because we did.

Um, no, there's not a test. [laughter] um it'll be open book right with the presentation today. Um so when we look at the comprehensive plan amendment and when we look at what is called the evaluation and appraisal review um and the amendments that are presented to you all uh today essentially Florida statutes requires that we look at two 10-year planning programs. And so you're going to kind of hear some repetitive information from what came at the discussion in action about a month ago. Um, so we're we're going to be looking at 2045 projected population, the amendment process itself, the amendment summary that was presented to you all in your packets, as well as what the next steps are for the EAR process. Uh, so 2045 projected population when we look at uh what is presented before you here in this chart, um really the city uh has grown significantly um over the years. Um so I've been on and off with the city from um since 2017. Um and I've seen the growth in the city have um held had a hand in reviewing many projects uh both for residential and commercial. And so when we look at u population projections um truthfully these are projections based on data right and and statistics uh statistical information on how demographics are produced and and how they come up with this. Is the data always accurate or you know one to the tea or 100%? No. There's always a margin of error obviously when it comes to these things. Um but it is um back data. It is um data that that can be um can be studied and also have background to how for example Bieber which is essentially the who the state recognizes out of UF it's it's the statistical or the demographic arm of the state essentially who they contract with. And so, uh, Florida statutes mandates that comprehensive plans, uh, be based upon jurisdiction, uh, permanent and seasonal

population projections. So, based on the, uh, latest surveys that that were available to us, uh, it was projected that in 2025, the city's population will be at 16,51. And when you look across a 20ear span, two 10-year periods, uh we were looking at a both permanent and seasonal population projection, uh when we sat down and we looked at um the percentages and we have outgrown the county as far as our growth, right? Um so we we wanted to keep a modest but a true um percentage to our growth. And so we looked at at at the end of it all 2045 um with this um practice and with this review of our comprehensive plan looking at 19,956 um residents in our city um by 2045. Right. And so based on uh based on Beaver's census data and the US census data, um the city is expected to increase about 4,000 people within this 40ear span. Uh we've seen um a couple thousand since I started here with the city. um and so we are only growing and we do still have available lands to develop and things like that which actually helped us um in this evaluation over this 20-year period. So pursuant to Florida statutes, it mandates that plans uh be updated and the components are based on these projections that you all see before you today. Uh so when we look at that analysis memo that you all have in your packets and that was provided to you. Um there is what is called a land capacity analysis. Um and so uh per the residential capacity analysis, it is um per the American uh community survey that was done in 2023 which ranges between the years 2018 and 2022 uh data collected in that time period. Uh the cities uh expected or projected to have 6,961 existing housing stock. Um so with the

needs of 2045 and looking across a 20-year span uh it's it's contemplated and projected that we will need an additional 1988 housing units uh in the city to accommodate for the growth that Florida seeing and the growth that is anticipated for us to see. Um when we look at that, so we look at that carrying capacity and essentially what the consultant does and what the consultant um with with the with something that is acceptable to the state provides an evaluation of all the acreage that we have available yet to be developed within all these zoning districts. And so you can see the residential zoning districts. We looked at uh or future land uses RHRL. So residential high, residential low, medium, um and whatever still zone this county or or future land uses county. Then we also look at our mixed use areas, our mixed use activity center, office transitional, um our general commercial. And then we also look at uh those areas that are for public use industrial and things like that which for that bottom bracket that you see that bottom uh column or row um essentially um doesn't produce any residential right that's all reserved for industrial lands and and there's no provisions in our comprehensive plan for any residential. Um so when we look at it uh really when in evaluating our comprehensive plan um and evaluating our city and available lands we're in pretty good shape. the city's in pretty good shape. Uh, one of the things when we were meeting with our consultant and knowing that we had kind of a short time frame, uh, we were concerned about how would the comprehensive plan look and things like that and and really when the data came in, I could really breathe a fresh breath of fresh air and and also staff was just like, okay, we're not we're not in a bad shape at all. Right. Um and so when you look um our carrying capacity for residential lands uh we have potential for,51 units and then in our residential um possibilities for MX

um OT and and commercial we can accommodate possibly a potential 4,300 units uh exceeding well above the 1900 that we would need for 2045. Um now mind you and keep in mind uh it's not to say that we would get all these units. It's just what can the land hold, right? Um there are provisions for commercial commercial future land use areas that can have up to 12 dwelling units per acre and things like that, but typically what you're going to see in your commercial areas is commercial, right? Um and so that's what we anticipate. And then we anticipate in the mixeduse areas there are caps to how much residential you can have anyway. Um so that's all kind of looked at and and when you when we look at it, we're we're in pretty good we're in pretty good shape. Um, we also wanted to look at the commercial side of it. Um, just to kind of maybe ease the question of, okay, we're looking at residential and and the reason why we look at residential is because that's where the demand, right? The residents that we're getting, it produces residents. Um, and then obviously the commercial um is what supports our rooftops. Um, but when we look at it, um, so from the data of the 2022 to 2023 uh, census data in the same um, American Community Survey, um, our city's uh, employment rate grew 3.61%. 61%. Um so about almost um from 5.9 essentially thousand employees to 6.2 employees within the same range u that we've looked at um with those 2018 2022. Um and so under the the employment growth scenario 3.61 annually uh to 2045 the existing 123 acres of commercial industrial land um is enough right? But we've we've deemed it as enough to support say all these other units were were built out. We still do have enough lands to accommodate the residential growth in our city on a commercial side. So just wanted to present that scenario to you all. Um so the amendment process uh what does what does uh the city have to go through

when we're looking at these earbased amendments? So the amendments are intended to address recent changes in Florida statutes. So in the packet there was a large matrix of about 20 something pages in there ranging back years and years of legislation and laws that have come about and have changed. Um some of those exceeding seven years, but it's always good to look back and was there something that the city missed? Was there something that maybe we we weren't aware of as laws are are always ever changing as we all know, right? Um but we're required to to update the comprehensive plan via the ER process every seven years. Um, so it's a good practice and a good exercise for us to sit down. It makes us evaluate our comprehensive plan as opposed to reacting to applications perhaps that come in and and really looking at and saying where are we at as a city? How is our framework? Because overall the comprehensive plan is how we develop, right? As uh our city attorney read into the record, there's all these elements um and as planners is not just right looking at use. We look at all these items um because our department is in charge of of administering the comprehensive plan. And so um it our our job is never boring, right? We look at this and and that's why it's fun to coordinate with all these other departments with uh utilities and with public works um and just trying to figure out how do we develop and how do we develop correctly and and and wisely for our city. And so that's really what the framework of the comprehensive plan provides. How do we grow? Um so the updates to the plans through 2045 planning horizon include a second uh 2035 planning period. So from now to 2035 and then from 2035 to 2045. Um and then we updated also our future land use map series. Um and part of that is um with a lot of the words that go into play with the comprehensive plan. You want visuals and you want maps that we can provide to people, be developers, be residents, be citizens, be uh agencies that provide grant funding and things

like that so that we have all this information codified, right? We've created policies, we have an implementation for it. Here's the guidance here. Here are uh the lanes of road that we anticipate. Here are what our road classifications are. So that when people are building and proposing development or looking to move into our city, they're not blind, right? they have a map that they can kind of uh look at and essentially reference and say okay I I see where the city's vision is u in reference to what the words are saying on on the comprehensive plan. So uh amendment summary u when we look at the amendments there are three key areas uh so it's revise references update map series and update per uh statute references and statute changes. So, the planning horizon um and as you looked in there, there was a summary that was provided to the planning commission and also for you all. Um the planning horizon now changes from 2035 to 2045. Um things like agency names have changed. So now we're no longer looking at Department of Community Affairs. Uh we're looking at the Department of Commerce, right? And so if you've looked on their website, Florida Commerce, it really shows what the state's initiative is, right? They're they're looking for commerce. They're looking for business to come into the state. Um, but us as local municipalities have challenges that we've got to look at and and as we grow, how do we accommodate this growth and this commerce? Um, and then so you look at Florida statutes references. Um, years ago they repealed 9J5. And so now we look at um updating per section 163202 of the Florida statutes. And then also there were definitions that were updated to meet new statutes and things like that so that we are in compliance and making sure that every all the references are consistent with the state um department of commerce. So u in the map series that were that was uh updated we incorporated a new

planning horizon as for 2045 as mentioned and then we also uh presented latest available data. Uh so we went in and we updated our map series um to update classifications from FDOT for example that have changed in the functional class um that have have been upgraded or or maybe have even been downgraded as far as the classification of the roadways. Um we we we updated so that we can put in our capital improvements and things like that that that we are planning and anticipating. Um so we we had went ahead and made sure all all of our maps were current, right? and and we're reflecting what the the policy changes are and essentially what our current situation is now and projected into the future. Uh one of the things I did want to highlight um as far as roadways uh we looked at the 2045 projection and and is something that stood out to me um all the roadways that would possibly be failing the levels of service in 2045 were none of our roads. They were all either county or state roads, right? Um so for for for us as a planning department we looked at that as a plus because it means that funding that is from the state and from the county will be coming into our city right to uh upgrade roadways and improve roadways and do widening and improvements and things like that whatever is necessary to uh bring it to an acceptable level of service. So it was really a a good analysis to look at and go cool our our name is clear right but we we will be working with these agencies as as roads fail to to bring them up to to level of service. Um and then one thing that was changed um between our now and our presentation to the uh planning commission and we wanted to add that into to our presentation here uh we realized that the map series did not have the CRA map and there are policies in our in our comprehensive plan regarding the CRA. Uh so we will be requesting that in in your all in you all's motion we add the CRA map um to

have that as a reference and um include that into our comprehensive map series. Uh so some of the statutory changes that we were looking at um and really this is where kind of the the nuance language came in. There's a couple of other areas too that we'll get to, but uh we're looking at c certain preeemptions that we all presented to that I presented to you all um at the at the uh discussion and action uh hearing. Uh and so it's provisions for substation preeemptions, floating solar facility preeemptions, and resiliency facilities. And I kind of wanted to just point those out um because we did we did our best um as staff to try to preserve these areas, especially our residential communities, our PUDs, um that have a a nature and a character where we could uh to essentially make sure that these more invasive industrial uses don't necessarily go into those areas. Um and that we meet statue however we we're able to regulate them as as far along as we can. um obviously considering Senate Bill 180. However, here because we're we got some flexibility because we didn't have any language because we've got to update it to meet our our statutes. And so within keeping in the bounds of of the statutory language. Um so essentially one of the policies 210, the city shall permit resiliency facilities in all commercial industrial and manufacturing uh land use categories consistent with the statute. Um, policy 221, the city shall permit new and existing electrical substations in all land use categories except conservation or the historic district on the future land use map consistent with the statute. And then 2212, the city shall allow floating solar facilities in all land use categories except for conservation residential developments within the MX and MX uh activity center or historic district on the future land use map. So, we really wanted to protect our historic areas, protect our residential areas to say if we've got to allow them, this is where this is where

we'll allow them. And and the state and the statute backs that.

Um some of the other statutory changes is financial feasibility no longer is a requirement um of the capital improvements. So, we can plan for capital improvements whether we have the finances or not. The state no longer requires whether it's financially feasible. Right? So we deleted all the clauses that we had to regarding financial feasibility within the schedule of the capital improvements. Um septic to sewer um we were commended by our consultant regarding septic to sewer because that's really one of the areas where many cities were lacking in their uh ear updates. Um and so the fact that we do have a program for septic sewer um and the city does have a long range plan still in the works. Um but essentially um we had to make some updates to provide and include those initiatives into our comprehensive plan that weren't there before. And it's really just to to accommodate state statutes that have changed. For example, um as was presented here, uh local governments to address the feasibility of providing sanitary sewer services to residential subdivisions of 50 lots or greater uh with more than uh one on-site treatment and disposal area per one acre. So we know the state has been more strict on on septic tanks and things like that and and there are very proeptic to sewer. So we we have included our policies and our uh in conjunction with working with Robert our utilities director to make sure that all these things were were good for him on his end um applicable and we can implement them and and meet statute. Uh the other thing also was the water supply plan. So the city council approved the water supply plan back in 2023. There is a statutory requirement that we included within our comprehensive plan. Now um and so what we've done is we kind of piggybacked the ear process so that we didn't get kicked back from the state and said hey consultant can you help us also integrate our water supply plan? Um and they did. And so in the packet and in a lot of the new policies and things you see that's really one of the biggest sections that you see changed is our

water supply plan and our comprehensive plan. Um so all those changes discussed our next steps. Uh so it went to the um November 5th uh planning commission hearing. Uh there was recommendation of approval uh with with one uh condition which I'll get to in the next slide. Um essentially today is the city council transmitt hearing. Um and so with this hearing today, this so the ear of the comprehensive plan amendment update is a living document. Uh so essentially it comes to you all if you all um bless it today uh for uh approval at first reading as well as transmitt uh then we would send it out to both the state uh land planning agency which is the department of commerce and we would send it out to Valuchia Growth Management Commission uh where there's a state coordinated review of 60 days. So, the state will essentially look at all of our changes, look at all of our amendments, uh see if it passes the litmus test, right? Does it pass the test of you're good to go? Um if not, um they will provide comments and concerns on areas and things like that. However, they do provide us with a review and a report of everything and pretty much let us know are we ready to pass go or do we have to make changes to accommodate anything. Um and so all that review and coordination occurs uh prior to obviously that adoption hearing. Uh once the state's good, then we bring it back to you all second hearing uh for adoption, right? And you all get a chance to also review those changes if any um at that time as well. So it's really a living document. It's really a process that that has multiple steps and multiple checks and balances um just to make sure that um you know we're we're meeting state statute and that the state um blesses essentially what we're doing. Um so at the planning commission hearing um I was not there but um our my de the

deputy director was able to cover and it fly it went with flying colors and staff has done a great job um collectively working on this project. Um the planning commission on November 5th uh made a recommendation to the city council to approve ordinance 696 regarding the earbased amendments to the comprehensive plan with the condition uh that um a map or one of the maps depict the areas planned for the septic to sewer improvements and initiatives within the comprehensive plan map series. Um, I had a conversation with Bernice uh once she updated me on on how that went and things like that and what the rationale was. Uh, which from uh from the outside looking in, normally I would go that is a fantastic idea. Let's put that in. However, the challenges that staff uh discussed on doing that is um and we've discussed it with our utility director, the septic to sewer plan is still work in progress. Um, it is not fully designed and fully funded. Uh so things may change with that plan. Um so we've we've done a lot of work to create policies and and wording in there. Um and we also have internally um we have kind of a map tracking of all these improvements and things like that if should anyone need them, right? It's the council want to see them, staff need them or whatever is available to the public. Um we have that data available, right? And so as u people are hooking up to sewer, we the map our GIS analyst is updating that and and creating those those updated maps and and things like that. So it really is a work in progress um that we don't necessarily want to tie ourselves down to a certain map design if things can change, right? Because funding can change and we're not sure how that can go over the next 20 years. Um so typically um I would say that you know let's go with the planning commission recommendation. However um we've got staff just has some

reservations because not all of it is fully developed and fully um approved and funded. Um so today uh staff's recommendation u to the city council is to approve ordinance 696 uh for the year-based amendments to the comprehensive plan at first reading uh with the following actions. There's one that I'm going to caveat at the end that's not on this slide, but um I will give you the reason why. So, number one, addition of the CRA map uh to the comprehensive plan map series. Um and also authorize uh staff to transmit the amendments to Florida Department of Commerce and Valuchia County Growth Management Commission for review. And that is really um per state statute requirements. Um, the other thing was, uh, and I I I wanted to make sure that obviously we're capturing our our current, uh, information and data and our, uh, current conditions here in the city. So, I did notice and and we really didn't touch much of the storm water element, mainly because of Senate Bill 180, we didn't want to um, make anything sound too strict. Neither did we want to loosen any restrictions. Um, the introduction portion of that uh, has some information that was per the previous uh, year, per se. Um, and so I saw on page 95 of 167 of those changes, um, it mentioned that that time, uh, storm water flooding, uh, hadn't been an issue in the city, but considering Ian and considering Milton, uh, there have been obviously flooding impacts in our city. So really um with the basin studies that we're waiting on the county to do and whatnot um if the council also is in agreeance what I will do and what staff will do is update that little blurb um to note our current conditions and what what's being worked on so that we can send it off to the state and the state has that um the introductions to the elements are not required. Uh we just have them there so that anyone reading it kind of has background data as to the the rationale behind these policies uh um goals, objectives and policies. Um, but really it's just it's just background data. The state will

probably won't even look at any of that. However, for our posterity and our purposes, um, if you all allow, so I would I would say add a number three to say we will include, uh, information regarding our current flooding status in the introduction of that element. Um, at this time, um, thank you to city council, thank you to staff and our consultant that has worked very hard on this and trying to fasttrack this and make sure we didn't miss anything. Um and so I'm here to uh field any questions from the council. So um does number three he said include the information on current flooding status? Yeah, current flooding stat that we've experienced within the last last couple years and that needs to be included in this uh in the motion. Oh yeah, I would. Yeah,

thank you. Any discussion from the council on this item? [snorts]

No. Okay. Well then we just need a motion. So, Madame Mayor, I would like to make a motion to one approve um ordinance the council approve ordinance number 696 at first reading addition of the CRA map to uh first read. Let me go back. Staff recommends that the city council approve ordinance number 696, which I am doing that for earbased amendments to the comprehensive plan at first reading with the following actions. One, addition of the CRA map to the comprehensive plan map series and two, authorize staff to transmit the amendments to Florida Department of Commerce and Valuchia County Growth Management Commission for review. And three, include our current flooding status. A second.

So, we have a motion. We have a second. I just want to clarify that this is a motion from the city council, not a staff recommendation for the record. Uh, any citizen comment on this? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the uh council for a vote. Kaylee

Richardson, yes. Yes.

Yes. And ordinance number 696 is approved at first reading. Okay. Moving on to six, public hearing ordinances, second and final reading. We have none. Seven, resolutions. We have none. Eight, discussions and action. 8A, election of Vice Mayor Kaylee Berles, city clerk. [clears throat] Key Berlesen, city clerk. Um, so election of vice mayor. Section 2.03 of the charter provides that the city council shall elect one of its members to serve as vice mayor. Um, that is to be done annually at the first regular city council meeting in November. Um, at the February 11th, 2025 meeting, Council Member Harold Grim was elected to serve as the vice mayor and he does remain eligible to serve an additional term. Um, council members may serve no more than two consecutive years as vice mayor. Um, he is only on his first year, so he's definitely eligible. Staff recommends council would determine who they wish to elect as a vice mayor. Normal procedure would be that council would announce any nominations. If more than one nominations received, the mayor will call for a voice vote for each nominee. The nominee receiving the majority of votes will be elected to serve as vice mayor for a term ending November 2026.

Thank you. Okay. Council, do we have any nominations? Counciloman Knight. Um Harry, are you interested in in serving for another year? Sure. I'd like to nominate Harry Grim as vice mayor for the next year. Any other nominations on the floor? I was going to suggest the same thing. I think you're doing a great job and I think that you've only been in there since February, right? Yeah. Not even a full year. Exactly. So, I think you should continue. You're welcome. Okay. Thank you, Lisa.

Okay. So, we only have one nomination on the uh horizon here. So, that means that uh we don't need to do a vote on this, right? I suggest that you have a vote. Head. Do you want a head nod? Yes. Okay. All in favor of uh Harold Grim as vice mayor for this year um term number two. Um let's do a head then. Okay. Okay. So, it's final. Um congratulations vice mayor again. Congratulations. That was easy. [applause]

That was easy, huh? That was easy. Okay. 8B, consideration of sponsorship requests for phase pillar of hope. Christine Davis, interim city manager. Well, as the presentation's being brought up, I will start by saying we have two different sponsorships that I'll be covering tonight. Um, one is a brand new request and the second is a repeat. The brand new request came from a taste of West Valuchia event. It was request. The applicant has submitted a formal sponsorship request seeking waiver of the following. Staff fees, special event application fee, facility rental. The advertisement assistance through the city's communication channels, and the policy does allow for a $1,000 waiver. And the sponsorship committee did convene and has a recommendation of um approval for the sponsorship request. A breakdown shows that the event would happen on September 20th. Staff time that is anticipated is none no personnel from our administration, one personnel from the fire department, two for parks and wreck, none from police or public works for a total of three personnel. The estimated hours would be 18. The rental fees are there are four pavilions, pavil pavilions one through four. They each have a $75 fee for rental or $300 for the day. The special event permit fee that's asking to be waved is $50. And the special event

application at this time is not complete. And you will note in the recommendation that it's proved cont approved if if approved, it's contingent on that staff review. That staff review includes things as an evaluation for safety. It goes through a number of channels and just based on timing of the shorter 45 days that we approved recently and coupled with the one meeting a month for November and December, it wasn't feasible to push this off into the December 9th meeting and for the applicant to be able to act um advertise as you would you would want and expect.

Excuse me. I just want to for the record, you said September 20th, but it's December 20th. So that's why this is in the I didn't even know I did that. So sorry everyone December 20th. It makes sense what you're saying. That's why we're doing this now.

Correct. Yes. It's it's it's could not wait. It was not recommended to wait or the or the event would not necessarily be viable with that short of turnaround to advertise. So the uh fire marshall is estimated at two hours. Your standard rate for fire personnel is 55 for $110. Your parks had the two per maintenance specialists. $40 is the standard rate for eight hours at uh total of 320 per staff or 640 total. A summary shows the total fire fees of 110, police zero, park fees 640, rental fees 300, and the special event permit uh fee of 50. Total event cost would be 1,11950. That would be a recommendation to pay for the $1,000 uh or wave the $1,000 in kind through the sponsorship program and then the applicant would pay the difference for for the 11950 I believe. Um I do believe the applicant is here uh as I believe she was making her way. No, quite all right. So at this this point that wraps up the staff um portion and we recommend that council discuss the the sponsorship and if any um at what level and if any and council to approve the uh applicant's request.

So I have a question for you. Um under the staff time it says 16 hours for parks and wreck um times two. So I'm assum I'm assuming that's eight hours for each park person. Yes, it would be an eight hour shift um estimated before you know the setup this pre and then clean up or monitoring and then the cleanup afterwards if any. Okay. And if it's less there would be a refund. Okay. So if she paid if the if the there's a reconciliation at the end and then the other thing was is um they're a 501c3 so they shouldn't be paying tax. And I see tax on here. Yeah. which it's removed I think here

but it's not on the the bullets but over here in the total I think it's included but yes we would remove that just want to bring that to your attention no appreciate it any questions from the council I have a question um thank you very much for the card I just have a question there is a city of orange city um logo on there or is it a city sponsored event or oh I Typically when you provide a sponsorship in the past it would be a city sponsored event when you when you approve through the sponsorship.

Gotcha. I was just checking. And then the other thing so these haven't been handed out yet. Okay. Sorry. And then the other thing was if you back up to the advertisement did it say something about I thought we had talked about this in a prior city council meeting about the LED sign. Did we decide not to do that for a city sponsored event, we would that's up to you. It's at your pleasure. I don't remember. It's it's recommended at this point that it's as a as a request from the applicant. Um but it's it's once it's a sponsored event. If it's somebody's hosting a a sale at their business, we're not it's not that's not up for consideration. But if it's a city sponsored, we'll put it in. Correct. And

going back to hearkening when we were talking about that. Absolutely. Councilwoman Knight. Um yeah. We did discuss that because we had talked about we didn't want to open it up for other events that aren't sponsored by Orange City because then we would have everybody coming forward including businesses wanting to utilize the sign. So we wanted to keep it strictly for city sponsored events and and Orange City business. Okay. Any other right discussion council? I just wanted to say I did see this flyer on social media. So, that's something that you shouldn't have done yet because that's against our ordinance that to use our logo until you're approved. It's just letting you know we're not, you know,

Do you want to come up? You want to come up? Come on. See if anybody wants. Sorry about that. It's okay. So, yes, I had asked Maddie about it because the time is so short and she said I could post it, but I didn't think to take off the envelope. So, that's my fault. It's an honest mistake. I just wanted to let you know for future before you get approved, don't use the logo. You can definitely put the flyer out because you need to get that traction, right? Yes. But um just so you don't get in trouble.

So I apologize. That was just me trying to get the word out so I can come to you what we don't we already have. So the sheriff's office is already donating a delay swat beer cat bear cat. Sorry. So it's the SWAT truck so the kids can go in and play around. We have a woman who donated a craft table for the kids to do Christmas calfs crafts in the kids zone. We already have lunch credit union that's going to be a part of it. And I myself, I have a wine bar here in Orange City. So, I'm a business owner right here in Orange City as well. So, I am sponsoring the Mr. and Mrs. Claus. I am sponsoring um excuse me, [clears throat] the photographer so the kids can take a picture with Mr. and Mrs. Claus and the mayor uh sorry, Mayor Kelly Marks. You've been to my event last year. You saw like anything I put on. It's great. It's awesome. The community shows up. So, I'm excited. And people have been sharing. They've been asking questions. They're so excited. They're tagging their friends. So, I do think this will be a great city event and Orange City needs this.

Any questions for the applicant? No. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. You okay? So, uh just need some action from the council. Would anybody like to make a motion? Mayor [snorts] Marks, I'll make a motion to consider the sponsorship. Can you say that again? [laughter] Make a motion to sponsor request for phase pillar of hope. Okay, we have a motion. Second.

We have a second. Any public comment on this? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to Kaylee for action. Yes. Vice Mayor. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And the sponsorship request for phase pillar of hope is approved. Okay. Okay. We're moving on to That's okay. We'll share. No.

Okay. We're moving on to 8C. uh consideration of sponsorship request for Blue Spring Manatee Festival. Christine Davis, interim city manager.

So, this is no new uh event. This is the Blue Springs Manity Festival that would be scheduled for January 24th and 25th of 2026. The applicant has submitted a formal sponsorship request seeking waiver of the following. Sign fees or staff fees, sign permit fees, special event application fee, facil facility rental fees, advertisement assistance through the city communication channels, and this is also a an area where the policy allows for the waiver of up to 10,000. Your sponsorship committee did convene and has a recommendation to approve the sponsorship requests. This is a more robust program or partnership as it spans over two days and is arguably it starts uh Friday I believe setup runs through Sunday upon completion and then there's a lot of um after um so you'll you'll see a a much larger scale. No administration staff for fire department personnel, two parks and wreck, two police personnel and no public works. They all fall under the the recreation staff for a total of nine personnel. The rent the event would encompass pavilion A2, A3, the football field and the mo multi-use field. And again, we have the little sales tax that is not applicable as they two are a 501c3. The total rental fees amounted to $350 a day or $700 for the event. The signed permit fee waiver was $50 along with an additional um I would imagine the special event permit fee was 50 with the signed permit waiver of 25* 2. And again, this one is under review, but we do have a little bit more time because the event's not taking place until January. But in the essence of getting

it through the process, it was in arguably before the taste of the West Belutia. So, it's on a different um timing track. Anyway, this is a little bit more comprehensive when you look at the breakdown of the fire marshall over the two days of estimated at four hours both days. Fire staffing a firefighter for the two days at 10 hours. Your standard rate of $55. And when you look at day one against day two, you then uh calculate out to $1,540 per day or $3,80 for the for the two-day event. The parks department, you have two uh maintenance staff at 10 hours over day one and day two. Uh that rate is set at $40 for $1,600. And then the PD staff, since the publication of this, the cadetses are not available. So, we have deleted the line for the cadetses, which has reduced the estimated police cost u by $480. And you can see the officers, there's two officers at eight hours a day uh both days. And the total would be the uh $1,920 for the two days. A summary, our total park fees of 1,600, fire fees of 8 3,080, police, 1920, the rental fees of 74515, which I suspect has that little bit of in tax in it. So, we'll we'll remove that from the equation. So, it's just the 700. Total sign permit fees of 50 and the special event permit fee waiver of 50. The total event cost is $7,400. Your program currently allows for the 10,00 um sponsorship. Your sponsorship committee did convene and recommended approval. Um and at this point, staff is

open for questions, but we recommend that you discuss the sponsorship level if any and um approve as you see fit. But I believe you have people to speak on this one, so I'm getting out of the way. Any discussion from the council? Uh, Councilwoman Darmms. Well, I'm not sure who put this together, but I was a little confused about this. Um, are these signs where it says 4x6, 2x6, 3x9 banner signs, I believe. Okay. Just wanted to make sure you can't excuse me. You have to come up here if you want to speak.

It's It's being recorded. That's why we have to provide it's one of the reasons we have to provide um the sizes that we're requesting to hang and those are what we currently have. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments from the council?

No. Okay. The only comment that I have is that I was reading in our charter today and it was saying like every sponsorship does not have to be approved. Okay? And I was thinking about the fact that and I've said this before up here is that after so many years you have to be self- sustainable. You have to be able to to take care of business here. You can't keep asking the city for money. um and the prior sponsorship is a brand new event. So it makes sense to help them get started and make them successful and I think over the years our city has helped to make this event successful um that it brings a lot of people to the city and it's a good event. So my question is is you know even it's inind but we still have to pay our our um employees. So, it is money that comes out of the taxpayer money and this event does make a lot of money and um the um the group that's proposed and just did a big event made probably made some good money with the haunted house. So, I think that they can Excuse me. Order. Or order. Okay. I'm sorry. I apologize for that. Separate groups. You're correct. Um, but there has been there's people on the same boards. That's what I'm getting at. So, um, when these groups come to us, I just want you to we're trying to be consistent up here, right? Treat everybody the same. So, once you start something, we have to do that for everybody. And that's why I'm bringing this up. So, I just want you to know that if if we do this, keep this in mind that if anybody else comes with us with an event that's been going on for a long time, you cannot turn them down if you're

going to do everybody. That's all I'm saying. If you agree to it, I'm in, you know, but I just want you to know that if they have the money, why are we giving it out? Okay. Last year, they did I think we had their financials. They brought in um Can I ask the applicant what they I know I have the paperwork, but I'd like to ask you, please. I I didn't bring those paperwork with me. There's no need. I'd like the council to know what money was made out of the Manatee Festival last year.

We gave away every dime except for what we need to put it back on. Okay. Thank you. And no one makes a paycheck.

Okay. So, we're not in the business to give money to someone to give out money. We talked about this before. So, if they want to raise money for the community, that's wonderful. But, do we want to take taxpayer money to give someone to give money to give out to the community? That's that's the question that I'm raising tonight. And this goes for any group, not just this group. But I want you to think about that before you vote. And if you feel that that the answer's yes, then that's fine. But I just want you to think about that before you do it because once you do it for one, you should do it for all. It's only fair. And there will be more groups coming. We just had um phase come and there's going to be more because we're going to have more events in our city. So, and then we're going to have our uh LED signs going to be loaded with all these events. I love events. I think it's great, but we do not have to agree to every single one. So, I want you to think about that. Councilwoman Knight,

I have a question. Do you mention that um if someone's coming forward and they've been doing it for years, should we look at putting a cap on if they've been doing it for x amount of years, then they're not eligible? I mean, it's I'd hate I'd hate and the reason I say that is because I would hate to go yes for one that's been doing it for 20 years and no for another one that's been doing it for 15 years. You see what I'm saying? So, I think I want to make sure that we stay consistent. I Are you finished? I don't want to interrupt you. Um I was going to say that would be in the sponsorship um um what do you call it?

To amend the spend. Thank you. You we would have to amend the sponsorship program and um we're not here tonight to do that obviously. That would be something that would have to come up under new business. Um so that's all I'm saying. That's my point. I just want to be fair for all. Okay. Um Councilwoman Stafford.

Yeah. started back in 199. This is when the city started in Valentine Park. It got so so too big for Valentine Park. So they moved it to because at that time they had rolling, they had beauty pageantss. We had We got all of that. Something happened. I think a rain came along. They had two days of rain. So when they prepared for the event out, no one showed up, so they dropped. Nobody wanted to be bothered with it. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. It was businesses in the community, nonprofit business. said we want to do it again. They brought it back to city Valentine. We had the uh at that time they had during that time we had our own chains. It was the change. It was the Rotary, it was the I mean everybody came in because they wanted something in Orange City for Orange City. And at that time city was in bad shape. So when the manity festival came the city of city went to them and said would you do the advertisement and it was city of city home of the manity that's what we were city of city home of the manity and at that time nobody nominated or anything but the manatee was our mascot and if you notice like in some Christmas parades you have people

dressing the manity because that was our mascot and for us And when Ern City was in trouble and they needed the manity festival, the Blue Spring Manity Festival Inc., they came in, they did, people came from all over the world to our manity. Okay? And when they came from all over the world to our manity, it brought revenue into our city and our city. What they did was they gave back. Everybody was volunteers. Uh at that time, Yaba and couple of more people only they knew they it was volunteers they stayed at the fairground I mean at the Valentine park they did security for us they wanted that to happen because they were proud residents of our own city and when they did that everything is volunteer nobody on that man festival get paid one dime the only thing they did do after each festival they would have a dinner toelebrate what they had accomplished the manity festival gives back to mostly residents of Orange City and what when they have monies left over someone else come and need a donation they give it to them. It's not like some of these people that come in here and you let them come in they get people's money and give nothing back to the residents. They might pay whatever fees we charge but as far as giving back to the residents and now it's a hard time for everybody and people can go to the ity festival now and said, "Okay, I got laid off. I don't have food here." They're going to do their best to get them some food. They're going to give them some money to help them pay their rent. They're going to give them money to I know for a fact that they have done this for several people. They help the residents of city first and then whatever they have left over, they give to other people that

might need it. But they focus on our residents. Not like some of the private companies in that comes in now. They make all the money. They pay the city whatever fees we charge. But they take that money outside. They don't care at all about the residents. They don't care about our residents. The man festival I know for a fact cares about our residents. So why would we not all this vindictive personal stuff that we got going on? We need to stop it. We need to keep our management festival here in the city of Orange City. And we need for the same people that came up with it and developed it. We need them to continue to support us in whatever we do. When city needs something, man festival is here. Why can't when manage festival needs something be there to support them? I have seen this firsthand over 60s something years that they come out and they take care of the residents of our city. to all this other foolishness. Some of this stuff has happened before any of us. Not any of us, but anyone on this diet except for me was here. So you all don't understand how important it is for us to keep a relationship with people that has always kept a relationship with us. What we're doing is wrong. What we're doing is wrong.

Okay. Order, please. First of all, I want to say that we're not we're not just like I think what they do is great. I know what they do for the community, okay? I know that they give out to all these nonprofits, which is wonderful, but they put on an event for how many years now and they made money last year. So, they either you put some money away for next year or you gave it all out. And I heard they gave it all out to the nonprofits, which is wonderful. Excuse me. So, what I'm trying to say is that we're up here to decide what we're going to do with our taxpayer money. Okay? Excuse me. Just give me a second.

Let you finish because I have something to say about our taxpayers money, which is part of my Excuse me. I have the floor. Thank you. So, what I'm trying to say is that they should be self- sustaining after this many years because you we can't keep carrying them. So, if most uh events that you put on I'm sorry. If you're going to disrupt the meeting, I'm going to have to ask you to leave and I'm going to have the sergeant-at-arms. So, please stop. This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. Excuse me. Chief, can you have her removed? Can you have her removed? She's disrupted the meeting.

Thank you. So, what I was saying is is that when people put on events, they either save money from the year before to start the event and pay for the fees or they get sponsors and that's how events work. So, if you can't get the sponsors to cover it, then maybe you shouldn't be doing the event. But, let me back up. Yes, this event is great for Orange City. It brings people into town. It gives back to nonprofits. It has all those positives. No vindictive. This is We're making decisions up here for the residents of our city and their money is part of our deal. We are fiscally responsible for the dollars that go in and out of this city. So, what I'm saying is is that if they've already done this for how many years? would you say 50 some I think or

40 years okay 40 years if they can't sustain now are they ever going to sustain it's just like what you said about food if you give somebody food after so many years they got to they got to take care of theirel you can't keep enabling them it's the same thing go ahead

okay and I'm not saying that we're going to enable them what I'm saying is we're working in partnerships with these people when we don't have they step in and gladly give the city whatever they need. You know, it's not a one-sided affair. They can sustain themselves. They've been sustaining yourself because they've been giving back to the city. Orange City will do XYZ for them. But these people have been giving back to the city, which is the residents of Orange City. The residents of Orange City is profiting from what they do. And that's what I'm saying. We're not sustaining them in any type. We're not giving them in any We're helping each other to survive.

Did you want to speak, Councilwoman Thompson? I do. And I have no emotional involvement in this whole thing. Yeah, me neither. Um, so I'm looking what did I hear? Okay. Anyway, I see that there's a total estimated cost of $7,44455 to the cityish, not the $45 because of the taxes. Got it. Got it. So, $7,400.

So, my question, and I'm going spin it a different way, is not about sustainment. It's not about how long they've been here or what's happened. We're taking $7,400 of not our money and spending it for our taxpayers who may or may not go to the manatee festival and we're taking the money that the man festival or the manatee festival is earning and giving it back to the community. But we're in essence taking $7,400 and giving it to the community. Is that what we're saying? No, I don't think so. Kind of. Isn't the $7,400 they have to pay for all the services except for $1,000 is what they're asking for. Correct.

Under the sponsorship policy, you limit a maximum contribution of $1,000. Okay. So that 7455 is just the estimated cost of our overall cost and as I hope indicated in the agenda item, the difference would be paid um by the applicant, right? and would then would be estimated a refund if if it came in less or you know more if it came in. So we're looking at $1,000 of any kind. Your current policy allows $1,000. $1,000 of any kind. Got you. That was my question. Anything else?

No. Okay. So, I'm just going to clarify. Excuse me. This is not emotional for me. I just want to make the right decision for the city. And alls I'm saying is if you do it for one, you do it for all. So if we're gonna do it, then we're going to do it. But just keep in mind that you set the presence for the future because you cannot stop other people if you do this for one. And that's what it's this is about. It's not I told you I'll say it over and over again. I think the Manity Festival is awesome. I think you all work very hard. You give a lot of money out to all these groups. But that money should not come from the city tax dollars. That's all I'm saying.

Go ahead.

Excellent question there. It is not so emotional right long and now. But it's common sense. Okay. And so what you're telling me if they don't put the man festival on or if they decide to put it on and they charge the city $10,000 to put that festival on like somebody did with the city of Deltona, you charge them a fee. They pay you charge them a fee. They charge you a fee for putting an event on. Okay? you get they'll get only like a certain percentage of the fee that the city pays them. The rest will go back into the community is what you're telling me. I don't follow. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So, what I'm asking is and I did some research myself as well. When you did an event in Deltona, you charged them for doing that event. Kelly Marks, whatever charged them for that. Kelly Mars, whatever got 10% of whatever fee the city paid to that event, right? No, that's not it. That's not what happened in Deltona. Now, do you want to know what happened? Yes, I do. Okay. So, the city of Deltona um wanted events in Deltona.

So, Kark's events went there. But I, you know, I don't need to air my personal stuff, but I will just to make y'all happy. The city of Deltona did not charge me for their event because they didn't have any events and they were dying for events. So, they charged me for police only because it's uh Valuchia County Sheriff's, but everything else was inind because they wanted a big event there. Kelly Events charged them x amount of dollars doing the event. No, I didn't charge the city anything. They didn't charge me. They charge me for the police. So what I don't understand what my personal business has to do with this city business.

What I'm saying is the manity festival. We asked the manity festival to come here. We asked them to years ago. We asked them to. They have been working in partnership with the city to make sure that this event is carried on each and every year. If If they can't afford to do the event because they don't have the support for the city any longer, will the city bring someone in that would pay that would pay the the city would pay to do the event for them? I can't answer that for the city. That's not my decision. Um, but the bottom line is if you're going to have event, you got to be able to afford it. And if you can't, you go out for sponsorships, which that's what they're here for tonight is a sponsorship. But what I'm saying is is the city's not in the business to keep giving money out to someone that's been doing it for 40 years. It's time to find other sponsorships and we need to to to uh give boost to new businesses or new events that come in and get them going. We were not around when this started and they and the city asked them to come. So, I can't even speak on that. I don't I can just take your word for it. Okay, that's fine because it's a great event. I agree. And it brings people It brings in revenue. Absolutely. There I'm not I'm not uh questioning that at all. I'm I'm just trying to take care of the taxpayer dollars here. If we're going to do this, I'll say it over and over again. Just keep in mind we have to do it in the future. That's all I'm saying. I didn't say don't do this to the council. I said, "Think about it when you make that decision because when the next group comes and asks for $1,000, we're going to keep giving $1,000 out because we have roads to fix. We have storm water problems. We're trying to build facilities. I mean, things are tightening up for us, too. So, we really should be selective and not just keep

handing out $1,000 because we like them, you know, because they're a great event. We need to look at all the all the figures around it. Is how long you've been in business? Is the is the event successful? How many people does it bring to Orange City? Um, you know, do you give out to nonprofits? Yes. So, they they check a lot of those boxes, but the one box that they don't check is they've been in business for 40 years and it's time to find other funding. You can't keep if you continue to um keep asking the same people for revenue for sponsorships. I could tell you just from experience, then you're going to get um sponsors that are just going to go, I'm done. Like you should be able to do this yourself now. So that's that's just from experience. So that's what I'm saying is if we're going to do this, let's call a motion and do it. But I'm telling you that you need to think about the future, too, because that's our job up here is to think about the future. And if other groups come to us, be ready, right?

Yeah. But can we hear from from from from the Manatee Festival to see their purpose and she she's dying to say something. I I mean, I think we already know their purpose. It was all in their packet. Um, just like they want to come up as long as it's not going to be a personal attack. Come on up. Okay. It it doesn't even mention your name. Thank you. My name is Christina Bertrand. I'm sorry I'm a little upset. And you have to address the council, please.

My name is Christina Bertrand. I live at 1298 Catherine Street. I'm going to skip the first part of my speech because it doesn't matter. When you give an $8,000 bill, which it dropped a little bit to $7,000, to a nonprofit, that's detrimental. Yes, we do put aside money every year to sustain us and pay all of our bills to put the festival on. Yes, we do that. So, yes, we sustain ourselves. But when the city went after us vindictively, then it the bill we weren't prepared to take on an $8,000 extra bill. I have gone over your council budget and you have stated in the past and today that you must answer where your money goes and how it is being spent. It is appalling to see that the council's budget from 2324 to 2526 has increased by $73,315. And it seems as though your travel pdium is up by $34,90. That means someone or a few council people are using this as their personal expense accounts when no other council has needed $49,000 a year for this. You have in even increased your pays by $15,000. And for the council special events, you have increased that to $20,30. And that is a $12,350 increase in one year. That does not include Fourth of July. That doesn't

include any of those events because they're in another part of the budget. So, I don't know what these special events are, but they're not for the citizens. These special events um and the sponsorship area for 2526 is listed as zero. So, I would say that the sponsorship program is looks like it's going to be dismantled or disbanded, whatever you want to say. This is a sad and terrible way for the council is turning, putting the money into your pockets and for your benefit. I have lived into this city for 24 years and raised my daughter here. My husband and in-laws have lived in this city for 43 years. We love Orange City and the wonderful community that it is, but the way the council is changing and using it makes me and many others sick. The council has the ability to change this today and sponsor all inind services for the Manatee Festival. Working together with the city has always been a staple and the charm to our small town. Giving back to those in need and creating better opportunities for our children is really what it's all about. But that's not what you guys are about anymore. You want to come up? Jeff All 482 West Holly Drive, Orange City, Florida. I think there was some misconred conversations of the history of the manity fest festival.

The sponsorships were brought on by former city managers who loved the idea that non-paid volunteers organized the festival. So, their public works staff didn't have to do any of that. and they were happy to have public works and parks and wreck and different groups be a part of it. So we had a event in January to show off Orange City and how nice our community could be. It was a community fundraiser cuz at the time in the '9s when Tony YBA and Ted Irwin and other Council members, the policy of the Orange City Council was no donations because Ted Irwin said exactly what your mayor said today. He had the idea that if you say yes to somebody, everybody's gonna ask and it becomes political like you have to say yes or you won't get reelected and things of that nature. So when the festival was raising money, guess where people that would have gone to the council went to get

donations placed people like the fire cadetses, the police cadetses, the DARE program that couldn't be funded because the city of Orange City couldn't even afford for shotguns that they had to get a donation from the city of Alamont Springs. So now that you're flush and the city's flush from getting growth and leadership of the past, you want to claim that we're milking and mooching off the city or it feels that way. And you might be right because we were a partnership, but just don't just kill it. Go ahead and make a motion that you no longer want the Manity Festival in the city cuz it's old and decrepit and all the new people should get money. Not people that put 30 years of their time into putting event on for the city of Orange City. My first Manity Festival meeting was August of 1995. So, and even now taking away the five grand, the world is more expensive. And that was the first cut. Now it's here. We'll give you a grand

and you got to pay $7,000. how you know how much your logo should cost being on my website, but you're only you haven't paid any of that for years. So, it wasn't about supporting us and carrying us. You were paying for advertising for our community. How many ads have the city of Orange City paid for in other magazines, things like that? It it is a process of the city function. So, and our insurance doubled. So, it's not a matter of m maybe you're right. We shouldn't be in the business anymore because it's too damn expensive and nobody gives a So just go ahead and vote yes on the grant, but it won't mean anything. So just make a motion you want to cancel the festival and start with bunch of new clubs to see who will last 40 years. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Come on up. Good evening. My name is Chrissy Gonzalez. You need my address here too, right? 470 Redwood Avenue. Um, I just wanted to say I understand your point of view where yes, we should consider how long we've been supporting different groups and putting money out to them, but I really think with that we need to consider, okay, yes, we've been supporting them, but how much have they given back to the community? If they're giving back as much as this group has with the Vanity Festival, that's pennies on the dollar. And I think 100% it is worth supporting them and showing that yes, we want you to continue doing that manity festival and bringing in people not just the community but outsiders to support the festival to support our businesses and to bring that money in and then um as uh Miss Stafford was saying, you know, put that money back to people who need help with different other things. So I think 100% it is worth that time and that investment to especially looking at how high that bill is. Nobody can afford that easily. So $1,000 that would go pretty far I'm thinking especially again when you consider how much money we're getting back into the community.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's bring this back to the council. Uh hold on a minute. We're not actually at public comment yet. We're still in

We're still in discussion. So, let's finish discussion and then we'll go to public comment. Got it. Got out of order. I'm sorry about that. Um but let's bring it back to council for u action or discussion because we could talk about this all night. I think everybody has got a good um you know, rounded thing of what's going on. We've heard from the applicants. I should have only taken the applicants. So, I apologize for that. That's my mistake. And we will have public comment after. Um, but we did I think um Mr. Alabach brought it up. We did cut the $5,000 for the same reason of, you know, we got a lot of things coming up that we're paying for. So, that's why we did that. Um, and not only that, when you looked on the actual um, budgets, you know, people would say, "Well, why are you giving them $5,000 and not me?" We had several groups come in and they were very upset,

right? So, that's why that went away. But then moving forward to this, now we're into the incind, and that's what the discussion is about tonight is the incind. and we agreed to do the $1,000 as in kind. Um, and I think uh, Councilwoman Knight brought it up that maybe in the future we need to amend it if that's how we feel. Um, if that's how the council feels and uh, but at the end of the day, we need to make a decision because we could be here all night talking about this.

So, I think we need to move it along and um, we need some kind of motion. Yes, we do citizens comment after we do the motion and then we Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion that we continue with the $1,000 for the Manatee Fest to go on this year. That's my motion. I'll second that motion. Okay, we got a motion. We got a second. Public comment. Miss Brooks, you want to come up?

Leah Brooks, 313 West French. First of all, I want to apologize for my outburst. It was completely uncalled for and I sincerely apologize. Second of all, you call this a business. It's not a business. It's not Kmart's Enterprise. This is a nonprofit. It's a big huge difference. The way they operated within the city was standard for many many years. We did take away the $5,000 and I actually led the charge for that and I said, "Hey, this is a line item thing and they should be treated like everybody else." But what I'm seeing is now we're being asked to treat them not like everybody else. saying because they actually make a profit and give it back into the community that maybe we shouldn't be giving them any money because they should be more responsible with their money. This is not the way they've operated for years and years and years. This is not the year to do this. But also, this is a this is Orange City. This is the Manatee Festival. 40 years the Manatee Festival. I would be so ashamed of our city if we took away sponsorship completely. And that's not anything that I wanted last year. They are just asking for the um the police, the fire, things like that, $1,000. That's all they're asking for. Last year, the council said, "We want to take away the five grand, but we want to still continue sponsorships like this." to say no, we're not going to continue sponsorships because geez, I don't think they run their business like they should. They're not a business people. It's a huge difference. They're a nonprofit that cares about the community that's doing a treasure. This this Manatee Festival is Orange City. It is a treasure. There's no other city around that has this. We should not be punitive. And that's exactly what I got up and said before. Stop the punitive personal attacks, please.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Carrie.

Good evening, council mayor. Um, my name is Gary Knight. I live at 1555 North Silverstone Court, Orange City. my point of fell. Anyway, um as a citizen of Orange City, okay, and one that's like I guess I'm 76 years old. Happy birthday, by the way. Thanks.

Um Orange City to me, okay, is home. I've been here a short, I don't know, 12, 13 years, but it's become our home. and the Manatee Festival. We used to come up and visit the Manatee Festival earlier when we lived in Altoon or back when we lived in Orlando. We'd come up and we'd visit. So, the way I look at it, Orange City, okay, um, everybody kind of took away the $5,000 line items on everybody, okay, which is totally understandable. But when a nonprofit comes in and says, "We need help from Orange City. We're going to put on a manity festival." And everything that all these people come in and they spend money in Orange City, okay? And all they're asking from us is real simple. We need some taxpayer money um to help pay for the police, help pay for some of the signs and stuff like that. And it's it's just $1,000. But they're coming out of their own pockets with like 6,400 or maybe G know it's probably a lot more. But all that money they get, they get that back, they pay it, and then what they make ends up going back to the city. and what's left over they may give it to some some other nonprofit that they're also associated with but they give it back to the city as well. So, I think it's best as a citizen, I think I would like to pray to the council, please listen to these folks. Give them the $1,000. They deserve it. They take care of Orange City. They are actually manatee. I can remember the manatee in Christmas parade last year. I shook his hand or his flipper, right? Flipper. Um, so it's something that Orange City is associated with the manatees. It's Blue Springs. Blue Springs say park city. That's all I have to say. Give them $1,000. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. Seeing none, bring it back to the council. Um Kaylee, we called a question.

Yes. Council member Richardson. Yes. Council member Darmms. Yes. Council member Knight. Yes. Then yes. Yes. And the motion passes for the sponsorship for the manity fest for $1,000.

Okay. Moving on to 8D, Florida City County Manager Search Program. Christine Davis, interim city manager. At the previous city council meeting, uh I believe actually it might have been two on the on the 14th, um Mayor Marks presented a handout and that handout was the Florida City County Manager search guide and with that the staff was asked to investigate the opportunity to work with the uh the association for a free service. Um, in the small print in that item, it did indicate that a city u eligible for that program had to be 10,000 population of 10,000 or less. Um, fast forward, I met with a senior advisor uh Mr. Kenneth Parker with uh FCCMA while I was at the ICMA conference and we spent well over an hour together going through with a fine tooth comb what the program even though we don't qualify for the free program could afford the city that would help reduce the cost of a of a city manager search. So as outlined in the uh agenda item, I'll go over the the uh basically the program highlights and the program highlights are the sen senior advisor program can provide guidance for the process which would help include um developing the candidate profile, creating the outreach plan and conducting a resume review. The services are delivered by a experienced former city manager and are offered at a low cost. It is a group not a not a not an individual and it's typic typically the costs are limited to reimbursing these the the participants for any uh mileage. The city still bears the full cost of certain things. Um the city does retain full control over the process. It's

managed by uh and funded uh for the other recruitment components such as the advertising and background checks are born uh on your your your budget. we would have to budget for those. The resumes submitted by applicants are reviewed by the senior advisor team and categorized into one of three groups. The team does not make candidate recommendations rather they review these um and and and generate a paperbased review or evaluation applicants under this process process any applicants resumeumés and questionnaires become public record upon receipt. The advisor program is basically a hybrid recruitment approach where it enables the city to manage the hiring process internally while receiving ex expert guidance from the FCCMA advisor. Um then it is a reduced cost compared to a uh firm that you could retain. Uh staff does recommend that council review the material that was provided and we've given you some possible motions um to consider. Oh, closing note. Mr. Kenneth Parker is available to come on December 9th to speak to council if they wish.

Thank you. You're welcome. Council, any discussion or questions? I'll go. So, what I'm understanding from what you um summized together is that they will assist. They will do it for free if we're uh under 10,000 um constituents, but we are not. So, they will do it for um a fee, which is generally a nominal charge for their mileage and whatnot, but they do it as a as a um onradus pretty much their knowledge and and what they can assist us with. Um so that would also afford you said they do the recruitment they assist with they actually help craft. Yeah.

They um the the applicants or any resumes would come to staff and then be provided to them to review. Okay. Unlike a uh firm that would all of that would be done by that firm. So, let me ask you this question. With regard to a profile of what we wanted our city manager opening to look like if we went that route, they would help craft that as well as far as like guidelines and and what is requirements and and those kind of things. Um, you know, what qualifies you and that kind of thing.

They would actually facilitate um information from you all to help um Gotcha. And a lot of it's done through staff then provided to them, but you do get get to work with the advisor. So that's my next question. Then if staff is doing this mostly on staff's back, basically it's going to be out of our budget, which understandably it would be if we got a private firm too. So you know, apples and oranges and apples and apples and all that stuff. But also would that create a conflict since we are in the situation that we are currently not really I did talk and and maybe um Becky can chime in the the process would not be managed by myself right

and I couldn't answer that the night that we had that I said that's a little interesting right right because it was a very interesting question uh or a valid one but it would just be managed by uh your city clerk and your city attorney so they would gather [clears throat] and they would help facil facitate as opposed to myself. Gotcha. Gotcha. Perfect. Thank you. That was my questions.

So, uh, let me understand this correctly. I'm going to kind of reiterate what you said a little bit and then add to it. So, if we what I'd like to see is an advisor work with us like you're talking about and give us the tools that we need. um you know because we need to know you know what do we want in a city manager and you know things like that um what does our city want you know economic development whether it be economic de development I think that's what Dale was hired for a long time ago was that was one of her strengths so we would all have to decide what what strengths we want in our city manager and I think the adviserss could help us get there with um the questions that we need or guide us with the forms that we need or getting getting it out there. But I I still think we need to go for a search after that. I don't know that they are the ones that should go searching. That's where I'm kind of on the fence about. Could you touch on that maybe on what the difference is between them and a a a search company? Well, the the biggest the the to summarize how it was explained to me is with a firm you get turnkey. With this, you get to do a hybrid of where you're utilizing your in-house um resources and staff and they will help um guide you through the process. Um and that's the that's how it was explained to me and that makes sense to me. You pay $32,500 for turnkey. You pay your actual cost out of pocket plus some nominal amount for these these um individuals who will review your your or help you craft your advertisement um help you review your um uh resumeumés and and come present to you those résumés, but they don't give you a recommendation where your firm

would give you a recommendation. They would help um do different type searches than just a background check background check. They would look at social media. They would look at newspaper articles. With this, you you don't necessarily get that in-depth evaluation. So, if they if they um craft all these things and then we get let's just say we get 50 resumes, right, come in. Then it goes to the clerk and the attorney. Is that correct? to to decide to before it comes to us. Is there a short list or no? You would make your short list based on them categorizing those 50 apps into one of three placeholders. I see. Um and bless you

everybody. Um so that would be very you won't get a recommendation like you would from your firm who would go through and and and look what best models you I um Mr. McHugh when he spoke earlier. Yeah. Um because he when I talked to him earlier, he was saying like you got to be careful when you get firms sometimes you could go through this whole process, spend $35,000 and then you end up not you could either number one not like any of them or you could go back to your income, right? Because that's what you know and that's I'm still not clear. Are you going for the job? Okay. I didn't think I think I didn't know that. So I'm sorry. [laughter] Yes. Okay. So,

and I've got one other thing that I wanted to just um touch base on. So, when I was not on the council and in the audience and I remember when we went through and we actually had gone through a search and we paid the monies and they brought forth applicants and it was debated on on council and the prior mayor and all things. It was the city clerk position and it ended up being an internal placement. Long story short, and Kaylee was the successor because it was just a bad choice or whatever happened. I don't remember what happened. I just know that that was taken away. That that position was

that person was was let go. Kaye filled her choice, but she went for the job choice. Let me just clarify that for everyone. That's not what I said. Um anyway, so so yeah, so that kind of happened. So, as far as due diligence is concerned and being just like making sure because constituents and the public sat through and watched that happen as well

and it was explained why she left, right, and the things that were done. And so, I don't know. It's a it's a very difficult position where you're at and it's a difficult position where we're at because we want to make sure that we don't not uncover every stone and and I think in the public eye maybe that would be a way if if we don't look and see some people would say no you have a a great interim city manager keep her do this and and move along with life. Others would say well wait a minute should you look should you go out and and see if there's anything else out there for our city. That's where we're at right now and I don't have those answers. There's six, seven of us up here and I don't have that answer.

Councilwoman Darmms [sighs] is a little wobbly. Um, we just had a a discussion about trying to save money for the town. And if we do any of this, we're gonna have to pay for this. Okay. How long are you planning to wait till you retire? Minimum. I need three years. However, I'm only 55. I am not eligible for Medicare. For a very long time. That's right.

It's a safety net. There's a difference between when is Christine retiring and when is she eligible to be comfortable to say well the reason I'm mentioning I have no retirement because if we were looking for somebody through you know whatever organization I'm guessing we would expect that when we pick somebody they're going to hang in there for at least five seven eight years that sort of thing maybe longer. Okay. But you got plenty of time before your retirement age.

I do. And my observation over the last several months, I personally have been happy with what we're getting from the city manager's corner and I'm actually getting information and stuff that I wasn't getting before and I appreciate that. That makes it a little easier once we're sitting up here. So, I don't know what we're supposed to do to try and make it like if we want to make this official for you, the direction we need to go and I would support Christine.

I I would like to comment on that. So, we should not take this lightly. The city manager runs our city, right? runs all our employee or or I'm sorry, not runs but handles all our employees. Um, we don't run the city. We make decisions. We're policy makers.

So, this is super important. So, that's the only reason I said is maybe we should go out for a search because you don't know what's out there. And um I kind of want to see, no offense, but I I kind of want to see what's out there. and we did the same thing with the city clerk and then we were like, you know what, she's great. We want her. You know what I mean? So, but at least we did our due diligence to see what's out there. Um, and so that's that's where I'm feeling. Uh, Councilwoman Stafford's money, why would we Why would we waste it on a search when we know we have a we had text message from a search company that said she's our best choice? Why would we waste money, our taxpayer money, my money on going on a search when we have a capable person who has been with the city over 30 plus years and if she gets the city manager, she doesn't plan on going anywhere, she's going to retire at the age of 65, [laughter] not 62, but 65. That's a good 10 years.

Yeah. So, I don't I don't think we're wasting taxpayer money. Like I said, this is a major decision. This is not putting on an event for the city for the citizens. This is running the city. It's not a waste of money to do our due diligence to make sure we have the right person running our city. Becky,

um I just want to make a comment because we just went through this in Cocoa Beach and there was an interim city manager there. Um everybody liked him. They went ahead and and paid money to go ahead and have a search. And the end result was that people who would have applied did not apply because you can't be a recurrent applier. Frankly, you know, it gets out particular if you already have a position. You jeopardize your position. It's very difficult to get top quality people to apply if there is an in-house person who's doing a good job. And what happened in Cocoa Beach, I think they spent about [clears throat] I think it was about $35,000 and they ended up um interviewing I think five people. They didn't like any of them and they were not your high quality people. And that That's just the facts of how these things come down. I'm I'm just telling you from experience. It is very difficult to get your

So, I would appreciate if you didn't opine though because you're our legal counsel and we respect everything you say and we take it to heart because you're the one that keeps us safe and legal. So, when you tell that to the council, they're going, "Hm, you know what? She just said this in another city, but that's another city and it could happen differently in every city. And I think that's up to the council to actually I appreciate you putting that out there, but I think it's not appropriate because the council should be discussing this. Okay. And you should be our legal counsel. Council D.

Very simply, you know the devil you have. You don't know the devil you're going to get. Well, go ahead. I wouldn't call her a devil, but [laughter] I'll take angel. I'm the angel.

You know, we all, you know, but I will say also trust but verify. And and where I work, that's what we do. And yes, you trust, but you verify. And I think that we looked at ICMA as a a go-between between the $35,000 $40,000 expensive outside agency and the we'll pay you for your mileage person that can give us some good honest background. And we've done it for 30, 40, collectively a hundred years these people will be in if they're in a group because they have put in all of that information, all that time and effort into running cities and they've been city managers and so they would be able to help with that. So all I'm saying is is that yes, trust but verify, but I also say that we do have a due diligence to kind of look and make sure that we're doing the right thing for the city only because I sat in the audience when that whole fiasco happened before and I saw what happened,

right? So I'm just I'm just that's just me. So are you suggesting we was one of the options? Let's hear what this Kenneth Parker has to say on December 9th if he's willing to come out here. I think that would be a great idea. And why not? What's it hurting? We haven't changed anything. So, what does everybody think? I like the idea. Yeah. I just We just need to get this thing moving. No, ma'am. So, all right. Do we need a motion to come back on December 9th with M with the FCM? I've got clear direction. I will have Mr. Kenneth Parker attend the December 9th meeting and address you all. Do we need to do public comment on this?

No. I think it would probably be a good idea too. Okay. Is there any public comment on this Sharon Staffer 461 clock street Florida and Miss Don I agree with you. I sat in the audience when this happened and I'm saying taxpayers money, my money, everybody else's money. Why are we wasting and you say I know you're saying it's not a waste, but we we know what we got. Um Christine has been here has worked her way up the ranks. I've seen it and every position she's been in, she's excelled. Um she's since our I city manager left, she's stepped in. She's been doing an excellent excellent job. We sit here for 47 minutes discussing $1,000, but we're going to sit here and say do diligently and give away 35,000. No balance. We we know what we have. We know what we have. You know, me myself, I can call Christine any day or time or night. Hey, Christine, I need so and so. She's on point. She's on point. So, I can't see why we want to go out and hire agency, pay them the $35,000, and we sit here talking about a thousand. Don't make sense. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other citizen comment? Okay, I think we got direction for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] Okay, we're moving on to AE city lobbyist review and consideration. Christine Davis.

Thank you. So, at the October 28th meeting, Mayor Marks advanced the new business item to consider uh retaining a lobbyist to help us at the state and and uh uh federal Latavville when we when we have requests for legislative funding. We know from our current um consultant that our legislative requests are making it through and into the budget. And where we're seeing um the the the failure is when it gets to the governor and and it gets redlined. And this is arguably an option that may help us get it over the finish line. So, uh, since the meeting um was held, we did some research. I had actually, let me back up. The mayor had started the conversation with me prior to bringing the new business, and we had actually done a little bit of the footwork. Um, with that direction, uh, purchasing jumped in, got some hardcore documents for me to help build this, uh, agenda item and therefore the presentation. So, to summarize for not only you all, but our audience, Orange City has previously advanced legislative and funding priorities intended to benefit residents, including public safety, infrastructure, and resiliency projects. uh staff capacity to monitor or analyze or advocate during peak legislative legislative periods is limited. A professional firm will extend the city's reach and help coordinate messaging with regional partners. The legislative monitoring alerts, they will track bills, amendments, budget items, and agency rulemaking affecting the city and provide timely analysis and recommended um action items. the advocacy and relationship management. This represents the city. They will represent the city before legislators, committees, state agencies, and federal offices. Scheduling meetings and facilitating briefings. And what I will tell you shortly in my manager's report that scheduling meetings and

facility briefings is very tedious. [laughter] So I'll give you a little more detail on that late later. Funding strategies and pursuit. It will they will help identify and pursue uh appropriations, grant opportunities, and federal funding that align to the city council's priorities. And they will also assist with the application and supporting materials. With the program messaging development, they help refine the city's annual state and federal legislative program, prepare talking points, issue briefs, and one pagers. Here's a review of the jurisdictions. Our neighbors we have dear, they currently use the lobbyist Ballard. They obtained them through an RFQ process and their annual budget is $78,000. The city of Dan does not currently have a lobbyist and it is being considered. Deltona has the GA Mc MCN Mcnau [clears throat] Mchu Mchugh sorry associates. I should have practiced that before. I apologize. They went through [clears throat] an RFP project process and their uh budget is $45,000. I will want to back up on Deerry. Deerry is currently pursuing adding a lobbyist and Ballard would be their state lobbyist and they're going out for a federal lobbyist. So, they're going to actually possibly mirror what I'm about to tell you with Daytona because Daytona has two lobbyists, one that represents them for federal and one that ref um represents them for state. It is the under their purchasing policy, those contracts were awarded through the city manager. uh signature. I can talk to you about that for us um in a moment. Um and the two contracts are roughly 50,000 each and that's how they kept that under the city manager uh signature in my opinion. Um so we have a recommend uh the recommendation is to allow direct staff to issue an RFI which is a request for

information. The key points that we're going to ask in in that request is for them to provide us a bio to tell us why we should want to work or hire them or retain their services. They'll state their hourly rate. And then they'll also ask them, thanks to John Peters and picking his brain, um they will also ask us, we'll ask them to provide evidence of their success for the last five years with their varying clients. At that point, depending on the cost, it could still be the city manager authority because we have zero funds budgeted for this. This is a new initiative. I did I did um share in the agenda item where the funds could come from contingency, I believe. Um I'm not I don't recall.

I think so. Is that going to wipe out our contingency because then we only have

No, that that if you look at the other the amounts that your other neighboring cities are budgeting. I would think if Deltona can manage with 50,000 or less. We wouldn't want to go over that. We'd want to set that based on the hourly rate. We could enter into a work order that's not to exceed and we could set that limit at either 25,000 35,000 something to get us started. Um, but if you look at the the different funding levels, I don't know that we need to go over a certain amount. I would not recommend 90,000 and wipe out your contingency. Um, so for me, I would say, you know, once we bring back the results, you we could go work on a work order of you would establish maybe a 50,000 or less because we're kind of on a fast track for this. The legislative session is starting early in January and ideally we want them on retainer sooner than later. Um, there is a possibility we could miss the boat, but I I'm thinking uh we're going to do our best not to. It's just time is not our friend in this process. Um, so at this point, with all that said, um, that is a recommended motion that you could consider, but I would say talk amongst yourself. If you have questions, I'll try to field them. Um, and that's all.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, I do have one question. I noticed that you did the neighboring cities and that smart. Um would those be the ones that you would be looking for RFI from or would you look further out? We don't we don't limit the pool. Okay. We publish it on Demand Star and we will get far more than what you saw. You will just have to pick and we will try to help navigate that. But hopefully the information you get between, you know, what they have to say about themselves, what they've successfully done, and then considering what their rate is because, you know, it could be, you know,

very large rate. I I have I'm not in this I haven't worked in this arena just yet. So, um, but hopefully with those pieces, you can make a good educated decision. So, I think I think I brought this initiative up because I think it's important because we have a master facilities plan that's going to cost us about 45 million when we're done. I believe that's about right. Close. Yep. Um, you're good. And so, you know, last year we had we didn't have any success. We we you know, I mean, we sort of did. It went through

it made it to it made it to the governor. So, we we had a little bit of success. It just we needs we need someone like this to push it past the governor. The governor to say yes. Right. And so that's why it's important. It makes me nervous that we would be taking half of our conting contingency fund. Sure.

Because that's not a lot for emergencies and you know whatever we need that could happen emergency wise, right? So that makes me nervous. And I don't want to say like Hold on one sec. I don't I don't want to hear well I probably will hear this but personally that we shouldn't spend this money because we you know it's $50,000 because this is another thing that is very important and we're up here making decisions to move the city in the right direction to have a new fire department to have a new police department public works and all that and we need this help to get there so that's why I was asking for it. I'm a little nervous about the 50,000 because of that, like I said. Um, but I just wanted you to know how important it is. It's not just a sponsorship. It's not just a um, you know, something two two major items tonight, city manager and this. In my eyes, this is something that we really need, right? So, we just need to do our due diligence on that obviously, but I just want you to know how important it was. Uh, Councilwoman Stafford,

we put an additional council for we use that money to get a lobbyist. That's your discretion. I do recommend that you have a presence. I just don't know with us having a lobbyist maybe you could consider a little less presence. That is really a policy decision, not a Christine decision.

Well, council, can I ask the council then? the council would and still using those $30,000 for additional. The mayor is going to go up there and do a fantastic job if she have a lobbyist up there with her rather than us. But a lobbyist that knows the profession rather than us going up and trying to get a feel of what's going on. If she had a lobbyist, she'll be having direct contact with the lobbyist and they could direct her as to, okay, this is what we need to do. take that $30,000 so we won't mess with any other take that $30,000 and allow it to go to uh a lobbyist council timeson tired. So to your point and I was going to say the exact same thing in with an add with an additional yes because if we have it in the budget for several of us to go what would be the point if we do hire a lobbyist because that's what they do day in day out and that they they are good at what they do. Yes, we would need someone to represent and then obviously you know that would that would work. Um that was part of it. The other part of it was if we get a lobbyist and yes, it's $50,000. If we pull from the budget that we currently have and we have these contingency funds, we stand to get millions of dollars

because it might pass much better than what we could make it pass. So, those are the things that we kind of It's similar to your grant investment. We currently are investing $30,000 a year for your grant writer. And some years we get a lot of money and then years we don't. And so this is your first time at looking at adding this tool to your toolbox is what you're considering. Right.

So I want to tell the council that when we went to Tallahassee last time and I had expressed to you that I was the only one there and I really could have used your support there with me. Right. Um, all the other cities had their city manager, their uh, assistant city manager or uh, a few council people and their lobbyist. Those cities up there had their lobbyist already working on it before we got there. So, they were working on it way before that week when we were there. And that's the that's the value of having both is that you you know you start with the lobbyist and then you come in in the end and you show them you mean business, right? And you come in as a group because I was there by myself and I just felt like it wasn't um I guess the impression wasn't as hard as like when Dear walked in and they're spending 70ome thousand on lobbyists and they had their mayor there, their city manager, their government affairs person. I mean just a bunch of people there. Um their vice mayor was there and so and I know that all cities have different budgets and you can only afford what you can afford, right? So we have to we have to work with what what we have. So you know anything more than what we did is good, right? So if you if if council decides that we just want to do the lobbyist for now um and the mayor or just you know I'm open to all that. I just I just want to get the money so we can get new facilities for our first responders and our public works.

Agreed. I would just like to add that multiple council members should not attend the same meeting with senators and house representatives because you will violate Sunshine Law. Correct. So different council members would have to attend different meetings potentially with staff and whatnot, but council members like um like the mayor and vice mayor would not be able to attend the same meeting with you know said representative. They would either have to set up separate meetings or you know separate senators or house representatives. But two or more council members in attendance with one meeting would definitely v violate sunshine laws.

So that's a good point. So when you're in Tallahassee, how it works is is that you split up the work because there's a lot every 15 minutes. It's like college. You're going here, you're going to the House, you're going to the Senate, back and forth, back and forth. And you might even miss meetings because you can't get there quick enough, right? And so when you have more than one person there, you split up the work. And you know, you would go to Senator Wright and you would go to, you know, Representative um Barnaby or you know, whatever. Like you just split it up. So, and then also um when you also go to represent the Valuchia League of Cities. So, when you go there, you do go in the same room with your um your council or your commission because you're talking about Valuchia League of Cities business, not personal business or you know, council business. Um and so, and that was just my experience. We would go in the same room and go, we're here for Valuchia County and we want home rule and things like that, right? So, so that's one part of it. So it helps to have presence from Orange City there. The second element is that you split the the workload because it's a lot and so I was the only one there and I was running ragged. I'm not going to lie. But you know it was an experience and I think that you all should experience to be honest with you so you can see what it's about. Um and then it shows that we want that money, right? We're there. We're we're there in numbers and we want that money. And that's all I was trying to say is um you know when they see that when they see me walk in by myself, they're like little old Orange City. Uh we're going to give it to uh Port Orange because you know they're all there or you know to Barry and that's just the way it looked to me. I'm not saying that's the way it was but we didn't get any money. So and we got a lot of projects at hand here and we don't want to put that burden on the taxpayers. We want to try to get that money from them so that we don't have to keep spending money. So to uh

councilwoman's point, you got to spend money to make money. Unfortunately, but the question is how much money or how you know, Councilwoman Stafford, you're right. Maybe we shouldn't all go because of that reason. Maybe we should divvy it down. That's a good idea actually to

the city manager I think too. Yeah, I was just going to say it's real important because sometimes they ask questions that that I may not have the answers, right? And the city manager does. Um I could have used Dale there so bad because I know she would have had the answers, you know, and they respect that. When you go in front of the delegation like we did a couple weeks ago, they want to see your mayor there and they want to see your city manager there. And if they don't see it, they have a different way of looking at things, right? We've seen it in action. It's definitely a benefit if you team up. Council,

I would venture to say, and I'm not putting it out there to to to suggest that we volunteer or volunte, but if we're looking for fire and we're looking for police, wouldn't it benefit to have those top tier people with you as well? Yes. It's just not necessarily funded. And I could get I prom I promise you if we ask somebody to come with us um they will come from one or both of those. Right. I'm saying instead of a council member. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? That makes more sense. So what would you do? Move the funding or how would you

Yeah, we can if you we could come back at the with the once we have the RFI and I have the timeline for that. um we could bring back a possible budget amendment that would take into consideration not only your contingency but the um the money that was was actually I I don't I can't quote the dollar amount tonight Devlin might be able to I doubt it so I won't do that to him dollar amount for what

the the actual money that was you know your your council budget is a bucket of everything you guys are doing all year I would need to look into the weeds and see what was the dollar amount for um going to Tallahassee and then say Okay. And how many people did that fund? And if we're going to fund the mayor and uh the city manager and one to two staff, how would that look? And that could just get spread to uh it's it's basically moving money from the the city the council budget to the appropriate. So we could come back with a recommended um based on this discussion um at the next at the meeting once we have the RFI results

um for consideration. I hear what you're saying and I I see where you're going and I believe we have enough information to look at what's actually funded in the budget. Um along with I'm hearing that, you know, maybe we want to do a not to exceed 50,000 for the the lobbyists. Wherever that money is coming from, we could show you um in, you know, with that agenda item and through a budget amendment. Councilman Darmms.

Yeah. [clears throat] When I first heard about this, um, I'll have to be very honest with you, I kind of regarded it in a negative mode. I've been involved in politics for over 60 years and, um, as a teenager and [laughter] I'm old. What can I tell you? I'm old. Um, and I over the course of time, and I'm sure others have heard this, um, you know, you hear about lobbyists and there's often been negative negativity related to lobbyists. So, I would I would say this, um, anything is worth a try. I would say maybe let's do this for about a year and see where it goes. And if this guy Kenneth Parker can lead us to somebody who's a reliable li lobbyist and not just doing it to make money, let's face it, they're they're probably plenty there just to make money, but are they there to do the job for us? That's how I feel.

So, it's just like uh Christine said, it's just like grants. There's going to be some years you are successful and some years you're not successful. And so if you want to gauge it on the particular person that you hire, that's one thing, but you don't stop. Once you start the program, you got to keep it rolling and hope for the B uh the best, right? So you're saying try somebody for a year and if it doesn't work out, then dump them. You you have to build momentum. You have to show these representatives and these senators that you mean business. You have invested in Orange City because you have a lobbyist. You spent money on that lobbyist to bring somebody there. You spent money to send some of the counsel there to say or or the or the firemen or the police to say we mean business. Because last year I told the story to every single one of them. And and it was a good story. It it was pictures of our facilities. It was, you know, the the conditions that they work on. And at that time, Milton destroyed the facilities. They didn't even have facilities to work out of and we didn't get the money because I I believe they were focusing on storm water at that time and not so much public safety. I think they are just from our meeting a couple weeks ago, I felt like they did talk a little bit about public safety this year, more so than they did last year. Um because there's been a lot of funding being put out to storm water throughout the cities. Not to say they're not keeping their eye on storm water. They really did talk a lot about it, but I think we got a more of a chance this year than we did last year, which amazes me because like I said, they didn't even have facilities to work out of. We were renting facilities. Um, you know, their cars were ruined. I mean, I went through the whole story and told the story because that's how you get money. You tell the story about what's really happening and why we need it, right? And and we and we weren't successful that way. We were with the

ones that I spoke with because they pushed it through to the governor. I think it was 900,000 for the fire. Um I think it wasn't as much for the police and the public works, but so when we went before the delegation a couple weeks ago, um we pushed the fire this time because that's what they were interested in last time and we thought, please just give us one building. Let's get started here, right? because we got this big project

and all three of these facilities are needed equally, but we're not getting any progress here. So, when we went before the delegation, we brought firehouse 68. They stood in the back of the room. We had our three minutes to speak and uh and I tried to tell the story again, but then I told them, "I have firehouse 68 in the back of the room." and they waved to the to the legislators and I said, "This means a lot to them. They need this. They deserve this. They're first responders and they should not have to live under these conditions." And then we gave them the handouts of the pictures of their the the double wide they live in the the um the shed that their gears in and and and express that, you know, a male and a female are sharing the same room, but they have a divider. That's how they get dressed. I mean, that's not acceptable for any first responder, right? So, I'm trying to sell that story because it's true. It's a true story, right? And so, I think the more they hear it from us and the lobbyists going in, I really think we have a good chance this year. So, I think that we are going to put our if we put our money where our mouth is, it shows that we mean business. It's not just please give us money. It's we need money, we need it now. So, with that being said, on that rant, sorry. Um, what do you want to do, council? So, if we're done with discussion, I would like to move to direct staff to issue a request for information for state and federal government relations, lobbying services, and to bring the RFI results to council for consideration [clears throat] and approval.

I second.

Okay, we have a motion and we have a second. Any public comment on this? Come on up, Patrick. Patrick Murphy, 678 Swan Range Road in Orange City and a member of the council's uh ad hoc citizens facilities committee. I've toured those facilities. This is not a need. This is a must. And if we don't get the grants, you're going to be raising our taxes in order to pay for this. Our facilities are 20 years behind. Not keeping up. The numbers we just saw are 25% increase in 20 years. How do we get ahead of that? How do we have police services, fire services, and again public works to uh help repair everything? So, I'm much in favor. I know we got to save money, but sometimes we got to spend money

exactly to get the real money that we need for the millions of dollars for these facilities. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public public comment? Okay, seeing none, we'll bring it back for the question. Kaylee Stford, yes. Richardson, yes. Yes. [snorts] Knight, yes. Yes. Vice Mayor, yes. Yes. and uh it's approved for the lobbyist review to come back to the council. Thank you.

Okay, moving on to reports. Uh city manager, I won't go far. So, Aaron's going to help me and hand out two documents. um one is the city manager's report and the second is a a one-page um report or overview regarding the Rhode Island Levit Avenue roundabout. Let her get that handed out. It is late and in the interest of time I'm going to go over the items that that have the update. Um okay so with or or are new so the landstone um sidewalk project um the pre-construction meeting was held on November 10th. The notice to proceed has been agreed to be uh issued on or about January 1st 2026. We expect substantial completion to be March 6 with final completion on about April 6th. that this project is running simultaneously with the uh I want to say sidewalk and it's not it is a parking lot um the Holly Avenue parking lot and this contractor I believe is the same contractor on both and when we did the pre-construction meeting there are uh materials needed for the landown sidewalk that are going to take some time to get in so because of that they're going to go fast forward on the sidewalk or on the parking the the Holly parking and so they're not doing both projects at the same time. They will get in get the parking lot done have the materials in and be able to get in and do the lands down. So that is how that that that timeline evolved um with the uh electric vehicle we have.

Hold on. Can I ask you a question before you move on? I'm sorry. So do we have a timeline on the lands down sidewalk project? Then you said they have to wait for materials. Is that just kind of in limbo? Yes, that's what I gave you. But let me let me let me not do acronyms because they don't really help sometimes. So the notice to proceed will allow the contractor to begin the work on or after January 5th. The timeline from there is they have to be substantially complete by March 6th with final completion by April 6th. Okay. Okay. That's both both projects. No. No. Landstown is that's just lands down. Um because I thought this timeline was um the parking lot.

The parking lot is going ahead. Okay. And is going to start now. Okay. And the reason for that is that material that we don't have that they have to get in in order to do the the project on the sidewalk project. Thank you.

You're welcome. With regard to the electric uh fleet vehicle, we are still pending the Dukean um engineering review of where we would put the charger that would support the electric vehicle that is being proposed now to buy for the uh public services area. And we just can't move forward because there's that's that's the chicken or the egg came first. Well, this has to come first before we can own a an electric vehicle and and and and uh operate. The waste pro uh contract is uh having a few issues. Um Mr. Abraham shared with me tonight his that he's not getting service. So, I will look into that tomorrow. We are we ran into some issues with side door services. And the best I can explain is the list that came from JFL to WastePro was not wholly accurate. And so as we're doing these, people are calling in and they're not they're not getting that that rear door service that they were uh previously getting. Well, Race Pro has taken the position that well maybe they weren't approved. They're not on this list. Therefore, they're asking these individuals to provide evidence that they qualify for this rear door service. And that has it's it makes sense, but it also doesn't make sense to your resident who's had it for 10 years and now they're not. So I worked through with Waste Pro to establish what that procedure would look like and they're now trying to do that side door rear door service, but also saying, but you have to do this by the state. You have to work with us. We're going to do it, but um the the one lady has committed. She totally understood, said, "Yep, I'll go get and others, you know, might be a little bit more more timeconuming, but that's being worked through. The monastery road update is the articulated block um along the shoulder of rightway has got to go in first and they anticipate that's happening um in the next few days, but

uh paving is slated to start November 17th. Let's see. Oh, I'd like to introduce our newest hire. Our newest hider hireer is Justin Valley Joe. Thank goodness. So, previously it wasn't being pronounced correctly. So, when I asked him and he gave it to me, I'm like, that's just too simple. We were making it so comp complicated and now I'm getting getting stuck. But Justin, would you stand up and say hi?

So, he started on Monday, got a a a federal holiday off on Tuesday, but he's been uh working feverishly. today he attended a a meeting uh of the I think they call it the pin meeting but um the the county uh when I attend certain meetings has been saying hey we're getting this group together and we need your PIOS at the table for a storm water initiative. So he was able to jump in and attend that I think followed by an actual regular pin meeting um immediate immediately after that. He uh I don't know if you want to say anything or you guys have any questions, but it's late. So, what are we doing? What do you want? Welcome. Welcome.

If you want to say anything, you can. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Um the Levit Avenue condition assessment. I went back through uh our correspondence and I show that on about the 26 you were going to check verify some concerns with pineapple and daily regarding big dips and I don't think I ever replied between those two

between those two. Did you get out there and survey that and you have concerns regarding Yes. Okay, you hear that, John? I'll get with you tomorrow. Um, the old elementary school, we did have the meeting with the uh school board staff and and our staff. Since then, uh Joe uh Ruez was at the meeting. uh Mayor Marks and myself, we convened afterwards, walked the building and um have sent to the count uh Valia County School Board of two official questions that we we think we need answered in order to proceed. Also, uh I contacted Young Blood um building movers out of Sanford. They are worldrenowned for moving buildings. They did us a courtesy, went out, surveyed the building, and called me with the very, very sad news that that building will not survive being moved. In order to move it, you would have to break it down into such small pieces that it it would not survive. So, we did get that information in. Um, and now we just await the school board's official response to what they would require uh and what they're what they would consider of either giving the school or giving the school to the city or giving the school to the city with the land that it sits on. Um, and there's a lot of other things that are going to go into that discussion once we have those answers. Um, but we're working on those uh at at at this time.

Can I ask you a question? Um, did you ask Young Bloodood if they would be willing to take a piece of it like we talked about just the front piece? No, I think we could handle that through our own engineering. Yeah, they could. Yes, if we if that if it's decided that, you know, once we get down the road, I would bring our engineering. Yes, we might contract with them because that's, you know, but I think our engineering can answer that question, but they would come back out. He's these these gentlemen are just salt of the earth.

They've been doing it for 70 years, literally. They moved a school already for for Orange City. Um, I'm just confused about which school it was, so I'm not going to speak, but he spoke very uh candidly about moving a school from one location to another. And I I I I would love to get that information out of him at some point, but he's familiar with our area, and they and they're right over the bridge in Sanford. And they drove over here, looked at the building, and gave us their honest uh professional opinion. Do you mind if I touch on the conversation briefly with the council because they were waiting to hear what we had to say? No, absolutely.

Um, so we had the conversation with the staff of the school board and um we made it very clear that we want to work beside each other, not point fingers at each other because we want the citizens to know that we're doing our due diligence to see if we can save the building. And if we can't, then we have to have a good reason to to tell them that we can't because of many generations went through that school in Orange City. But also we um we couldn't get a definite answer. That's why Christine reached out to him to say, can we can we keep the building there and use it? Can we have the land? That was number one. Number two, can we move it? Um and then we had discussed, well, if we move it, where are we moving and what are we doing with it? Right? Um, and then we had discussions on that it would be millions of dollars to fix the building, whether we it stayed there or moved. And then the other thing that was thrown in there was if we moved it, our streets in the historical area are not wide enough. So, it would have to be moved in pieces maybe or and they would have to take down all the electric poles and things like that. So, it' be a major major thing, right? um not saying it was off the table, but we just kind of threw everything out there for them and and then it came back that the staff really couldn't make the determinations of what we wanted to know. So, they were going to take it back to the school board and ask them to run it up the flag pole, how she described it. and she was off for a few days and would get back um from vacation and start running it up the flag pole uh in order to even recommend giving away the building and the land. That is a schoolboard initiative that staff cannot do that, right?

And then there was some discussion that they felt they could maybe donate the school to the city. that at this point it's officially out there from the city of Orange City asking these questions so that the council the the school board can then give us or staff whichever I believe it will go to the school board and they know that if it goes to the school board we want to know ahead of time because we want to be present we don't want to find out at you know five o'clock on whatever night their meeting is that oh you're on the agenda so they they they really do seem to want to work with us and they they understand the the So the clock is ticking and it's about a year before anything is actually going to be done. So I said to them if it comes to the fact that we it has to be demolished,

right?

They had told us that they wanted the the same people that were building the school to demolish it because they're already there. So it' be about a year. Um which doesn't really give us a lot of time to put our ducks in a row if we even decided to take over the building because once again it's going to be millions of dollars. Could we get grants? Probably. But that's a probably it's not a definitely. and then do we, you know, do we'd have to put it out to the public. Do you want to pay for this? Because that's a lot of money. You know, it could possibly be more on their taxes or whatever. So, we went around and around with all this stuff. And then it was, if we move the building, where are we moving it? What are we doing with it? Right? Um, and then we had discussion in the parking lot and I was like, well, what about a police station? And I was like, wait a minute, you can't take prisoners in there right next to the school, right? That wouldn't work out, right? So, we're like, no, no, no. But um because the bottom line is is the shell of the building looked pretty good except for the roof, right?

But there's a lot of interior renovations that would need to be done and asbestous and things like that. You probably all saw the report. Um but then I said, "Well, what if we just cut out the little piece in the front of the school that says Orange City Elementary? It's like an arch. And we moved that somewhere as a memory of the school so it's not all gone." and you could say, "Yeah, that was a piece of the school." Just to have that feel good for the community to see that that was part of the school. Um, so we talked about that and where we would put that if we did do it and if we could do it. So, we tried all different possibilities with this group of the school board to see what we could do. And that's where we're at, right? I mean, that's the best way to put it. Yeah.

So, a lot of work to do and but we need clear direction to be able to begin to figure out which direction we could be going. Oh, one more thing. Sorry. And the other thing was is if it is going to get demolished Oh, yes, you were going there. Yeah, that's where I was going. Yeah,

it's late. Um I I said to them, we need at least a viewing. If you're going to take this building down, then you need to open it up to the residents of Orange City that all the generations that went through there and you will put it out there as an announcement that you can come on this day at this time and you can take pictures on the front steps of the school or you can walk through the school and get your last viewing of the school before they take it down and take your pictures with your family and all that. And they said absolutely. So, I just wanted you all to know that.

Thank you. Thank you. So, uh, wrapping up, I attended the, uh, Valuchia County elected officials round officials roundt. We received several presentations. One from Votran. Um, with regard to the Votran, they offered to come to a meeting and share uh, an overview and educate not only us, but our our our residents about the program. and I was able to reach out to the Valuchia County Transit Services Director, Miss Bobby King, and we have set a tenative date for her to come and give that presentation on January 13th. Um, in your Friday letter coming up, the presentations that I got to see, I'm going to include in your Friday communication so that this can have a little bit more meaning um, possible. But the other presentations were the Belia County Jail Second Chance Initiative. That was very eye openening, very inspiring. I did not know this was happening, but you'll see the presentation. Uh the Valia County Animal Shelter gave an update and that's with regard to Halifax um Humane Society not taking animals. They've had to urgently set up their own and they gave a report on, you know, how that process is going, how many dogs, how many cats, and where they are. And that will be um handed out. The Valuchia County Science Center provided an update. they've undergone some major renovations that um the the gentleman who presented that is um very passionate about what he does and if you could ever get the chance to listen to him talk about that marine science center it it's very engaging and then they gave a flood uh flooding subcommittee report as I mentioned earlier um Justin attended a meeting and there's this there is a subcommittee that is under the Valia County elected officials roundt I attended that meeting on October 22nd, they provided a transformation 386 report and then we the cities got to um explain what they had received. I was

able to talk about that Orange City was awarded the uh $15 million.3 in or $15.3 million in grants for our $18.4 million uh Mil Lake pipeline project along with we anticipate funding and work is underway for the five basin studies. The Valia County is creating an interactive website and that website they really want all cities to be engaged. You go to the map if Orange City has um participated in the program our residents can hover over a dot and that will tell them what project is either going on there or has been done there and they really want that picture to be on a countywide level. And we don't we are at the table we are uh Carlen will be attending a meeting tomorrow to help ensure that either we get them our GIS information or they allow us to upload it. Um so that's going to be great for for the countywide initiative. Um and then from there after the delegation meeting uh Mayor Marks asked that we work to set up meetings with all of the legislators that were there. I believe there were six. Um, no, I think there was. Yeah. Wright, Gentry, Lee, Traymont, Barnaby, and Partington.

Traymont wasn't there, right? No, I believe Gentry wasn't there. He was absent, but nonetheless, we've started that. And that is like hurting. I don't know, not cats. Something a little faster than maybe a cat. I don't know what that is. Um, but we successfully have our meeting set up with Senator Wright tomorrow, uh, afternoon in his office on November 13th. Um, we've had some hiccups along the way. We had a meeting set up with Barnaby. He suffered a death in the family for any of you who know him personally. Um, and then I've given you an update. So, that completes my report other than anything from Gentry.

He actually called the office. Somebody called the office and told um, Elisa that we he doesn't represent us. So, I'm back to square one there. Um, I don't understand. Uh, she happened to share that and didn't know why the call came in and so now I'm thinking it's because of the I go I went to the state database to do all the request um and I'm guessing they got that request and some staffer um is confused, but I will be reaching out to them. So, the one-page document about the roundabout that is for you to get a an overview um and and a bit of an update. And so this project has been ongoing since 2020. You're at the point where if you were in some type of a football game, which I'm not, somebody forgive me for trying to do sports analogy, but you're basically uh I think maybe a minute left in the final quarter from winning. And at this point, your your bid for construction went out on November 9th and council awarded um or approved on September 23rd to uh appropriate the final funding that was needed. So, this project is a $2.4 4 million project with 1.3 um five in uh FOT uh lap of funding and 1,60,000 that are coming from your city's transportation impact fees. Um, I don't know where we'll end up, but I do did want to give you this so you could We have invested and spent to date over those uh five years $241,000 and we're set to move forward with construction for 1.7 million CI services

of roughly 300,000 and your um estimated it's contingency for the construction cost of you maybe 68,000. Um, and the contract award based on the bid that's out on the streets now would come back to council on January 27th, uh, 2026. So, that wraps up my report. And if you have any questions, I'm happy to All right. Questions, council? Okay. Thank you all. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. City clerk. I have no city attorney. Nothing tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Any new business, council, council dorms, sorry. Um, well, this past week, last Friday, I finally finished the uh JJ Masters. Uh, wait a minute. City, this is for new business, not comments. Never mind. Okay, we'll come back to that. I'm sorry. Any new business from the rest of the council? Seeing none, we'll move on. Okay. Uh approval minutes we did in the consent agenda. Okay. Go ahead, friend. [laughter]

Council and mayor's comments. See, I'm gonna let her go since she started. Okay.

Thanks. Um yeah, this past week I finished the JJ Masters uh professionalism course. I actually got the certificate. I didn't think to bring it. They gave everybody their certificate framed. And now the only thing we got going ahead for us is the uh graduation on December 8th. So I don't know who'll be appointed next to go, but it's um um Lisa knows what she had to go through. Um it got a little involved on times, you know, but um it was worth it in the long run, right? Debbie [laughter] and Jazzy Jerome. Uh, no, we it was good and we met a lot of great people in the in the process and um hoping to keep in touch with quite a few of them and we for me it was like reliving life because I was probably the oldest person in the in the entire thing and um we had it's based on professionalism. What do you do? And it can affect what we're doing here. But I lived a lot of that because I had to work and I had, you know, a really great job when I was working way before I retired. And a lot of the stuff that I reviewed and read, I said, "I did this already. I did this already. I did this already." So at least I felt I was just reviewing what And you got to understand with with us in that group, there was a lot of college students also attending. So I I we had to write an essay at the end and I said I think this is a very good program for the college students to know what to expect once they graduate and move on. So it was interesting and I'm glad I did it and I wish a lot of luck to the next appointee.

Thank you. Don, you have anything to say? I have no comments. Lisa Murray, no. Please. No. No. Vice Mayor.

Okay. Tomorrow, Orange City um Greater West Valuchia Chamber has got a ribbon cutting at 12:00 at Orange City Social. 2-year anniversary. Um following week on the 19th, I'll be at the Manatee Cove Middle School, uh talking to the civics classes. And on the 22nd I'll be at the VFW in Dear the Celebrating Veterans. So that's all I got. Thank you. That's awesome.

Um, so I attended a proclamation for Pastor June Huff of her tenure service at the Mount Mariah Holiness. I want to say it was awesome. My adrenaline was going so fast when I left there because there was lots of music and dancing and fun and you know they were all just it was like they were all in one and I just never saw it like that before. So it was a really good experience for me. I really enjoyed it. Um and uh I just I think everybody should experience that. I just can't even say enough about it. Um, so I really appreciate the invitation and um, Councilwoman Stafford was there also and uh, so we presented her with a proclamation for her 10 years of service and let's see um, I wanted to talk about earlier with the, you know, the fiscally responsible thing. I just want everybody to know that, you know, when we make our decisions up there, we don't make them lightly. We're just trying to do the right thing. And you know, it's really hard with a balance. Just think of it like your own budget. You know, like should I spend it on this? Should I spend it on this? You know, should I spend on groceries? Should I spend it on electric? It's kind of the same thing only a bigger picture up here because we're trying to do something to move the city forward, but we're also trying to um keep our residents happy um but be fiscally responsible because that's our job, right? So, I just wanted to put that out there and and try to keep the emotions out of it because we're up here just to make decisions. Um, even though we are passionate about things and I appreciate that, um, I just wanted to make that a statement. And then, uh, let's see, there was a comment about our our meetings being, you know, going on and

on for 46 minutes about a sponsorship. That's our job. We need to discuss these things. How do we come to the right decisions if we don't talk about it? That's why we're here. We come here to meet and if it takes us two hours to come to a determination, then so be it because that then we did our job right. I hope it doesn't take two hours and I hope it doesn't take 46 minutes, but sometimes it does. So, I just want to make that statement that it's important that we do talk it out. There's lots of personalities up here and there's lots of opinions and that's what's great about the council because it's not all the same and you know as you see we can all come together at the end when it when we have that decision but you have to hash it out sometimes. So I just wanted to put that out there that that's what's great about the council is that we do that with everything we do and we're passionate about that. So you know I appreciate that. Um and then lastly I was going to mention the roundabout. Um, you know, one of our constituents had said that he would like to see a workshop and, um, I would like y'all to think about that because we didn't bring that up under new business. And, um, that may be something that we may just have to call a special meeting for to talk about it to educate the residents on why we're doing it and what's happening. um because that was a request because if we do have all those comments out there, I think it's important that they know how we got there because I was not a fan of it all these years. I just came on board when I saw the money we're making and where we're at in that decision where, you know, what stage we're in right now. It's hard to go back and just, you know, get rid of that money. But I think there's more to it and I think the city manager, interim city manager could help us with, you know, discussing that with the residents. I think it's important. So, um,

I may call a special meeting and, you know, we'll do it the proper way, but I just wanted to bring that up that we did hear you. Okay. And, um, and then the other thing with the the, uh, the school, like I said, we'll just keep you updated as we know. So, um, I don't want you to think we're keeping you in the dark about it. It's just when we went to meet with them, they had said that when they last met um a couple years ago, maybe it was with the mayor and the city manager and we had no idea, right? So, I'm doing my best to keep you all a breast of what's happening so that when you're asked questions from the residents, you can answer. So, I just wanted you to know that. And Christine also, we're working together on this to to do that. So, um and with that being said, we just need a motion to adjurnn. I make a motion that we adjourn.

A second. We have a motion. We have a second. All in favor say I. I. None oppose. And I want to thank mom for doing her job over there. No, not you. I said I want to thank mom for helping her with her job. They went out.