City Council - Regular Meeting

call the February 4th city council meeting order. Commissioner Smith, would you give us the prayer pledge and fact of the day, please sir? Our father our God, the creator of every good and perfect gift, giver of all mankind, we come once again to say thank you for the many blessing bestowed upon us. Thank you father for this opportunity for us to serve as servants of your city. We ask them how you bless all those that are present here today and that all that we shall say and do be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. In thy son Jesus name we pray. 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.

Fact of the day. On February the 4th, 1789, George Washington, the commander of the country army during the Revolutionary War, unanimously was elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors who cast their votes. John Adams of Massachusetts was elected as vice president. The electors who represented 10 of the 11 states that ratified the US Constitution were chosen by popular vote, legislative appointment, or a combination of vote four weeks before the election. The fact of the day, welcome to the public meeting of the city council of the city of Apka. Please turn off all cell phones or set them to silent. The city council permits and encourages input and comments by members of the public on all matters which may come before the council for action. If you wish to address the council this afternoon, please make sure you filled out a card with your contact information and if presented it to the clerk. When called upon, please proceed to the podium and speak clearly into the microphone, stating your name, address of record, organization if any, and direct your comments to the city council and not to individual commissioners, staff, or members of the public. The council and the city staff encourages constructive criticism. However, personal attacks are prohibited. Please observe general rules of decorum and civility. Speakers and members of the audience shall refrain from rude or derogatory remarks, shouting, disruptions, reflections as to integrity, slander, abusive comments, profanity, vulgarities, and statements as to personalities. Any violations of these provisions may result in the issuance of a verbal warning, including warning for trespass. If violations persist after such warning, violators may be removed from the council chambers.

Okay. Public comment, Susan.

Okay. Is it is it pansancy? Okay. Hi. Y'all had a busy night last night. Some of you um I uh have some concerns about the implementation of safety and health issues in the city. We've had a struggle with getting uh warming centers opened and getting them open in the public purview. We have empty buildings that are air conditioned and heated. They have working HVAC systems. They have kitchens and they have bathrooms in them. And putting on the onus and the liability on private churches to do it, especially when they're small and hold very few people, is unconscionable. We have a $30 million reserve that can help pay for the food, but can also take on uh we have insurance and there's no reason why and and our volunteers are very glad to help cook and come in and serve or be there. But there's no reason why a city employee cannot open up these doors, unlock them, and let the people serve the people. We have citizens who have had bursted pipes that can't be in their homes and needed an emergency place to go. We have citizens who don't have electricity. We have people who don't have their

heaters or air conditioning working at regular times because of problems. They need a place to go. And what I recommend is that we get an emergency services division, an ad hoc one that doesn't have take staffing all year round. and that that emergency services response team be under the purview of both chiefs and that they can direct and advise it and have that team pull together in a minute's notice when we know that there's going to be a need for their services to coordinate and work with uh the community people like hope and myself and other community service people like Matthews Hope. But we shouldn't have to have people find their way to Pine Hills and Winter Garden to get help because that's why a lot of them stay here is because they don't want to have to or can't get to Winter Garden or Pine Hills and they shouldn't have to. And when you have a facility that only holds 30 people, people are not wanting to be crowded, especially in this time of severe illness where people are dying of pneumonia and dying of the flu. And I have a friend who's that's well known here whose mother died and was buried this week from the pneumonia. We need to think about our citizens, all of our citizens, and this is not just applying to the homeless. Thank you. Rod Olsen.

And before I start, can I request that we run to 6 minute 9 seconds? That's that time you allowed a noncitizen to go uninterrupted at the last meeting on the 21st supporting one of your proposals that popped up regarding legal services. 6 minutes and 9 seconds uninterrupted and you cut us off at three. It's not fair. Can I have 609? And not only me, for all of the people that come up here. Three minutes.

All right. Thank you. uh 24th uh spasmatic Saturday night sounds was wonderful. Uh I'm talking in the slide up here as employee pension plans. Uh my numbers were were questioned at the last meeting. The $21.7 million in fact was the number at September 30th of 2023's audit. When you look at the audit for 2024, the most recent one, you'll see what I see up here. General uh is unfunded by $7.7 million although it's 90.45% funded. Police is funded at 80.52 yet is $10.10 million underfunded. Fire 85.1 and is 11.83 million underfunded totaling 2963 million. Your $30 million reserves is gone just covering the pensions. What concerns me is even goes a little bit further. The fact that we have the the the I'll get it out. The company that oversees this thing has 276 people currently receiving a pension. They made a mistake on 106. That's 38.4% air rate. Which means the number they projected for the budget impact of 430 mill $430,000 could be anywhere between 165 and $595,000. If the city is not already looking at a new pension manager, they need to be looking at it now. There's no reason for the taxpayers to incur an additional $5,000 per event in that the city has general and professional liability. There's no excuse for that. On January 21st, you reported that the first quarter finances were 36% off budget, projected 31% off for the rest of the year. How can you operate that way? Every

department head and you sat up there and put this budget before us and said, "Oh, this is it. This is what we need." Wrong. It's not working. 95 99% of all expenditures should be budgeted. If there's emergencies, that's what they funds. That's what the reserves are for. We deserve, excuse me, no, we demand an accurate budget this coming year. With regard to the street and park naming, we don't have enough streets and parks to go around for all the veterans that have lost their lives serving our country. Uh maybe we should be looking at park benches. Maybe we should looking at uh some kind of uh uh bricks, a brick with the name of them on. We don't have enough streets and parks to do that. Everyone out there complains to your neighbors about what problems we have. How come it's not working? You complain to the DS. You need to stop. You need to start emailing. You need to start calling. You need to get your butts up here and address it. That's the only way it gets done.

Please vote. Good afternoon everybody. Sylvester Hall, Rock Springs Ridge. um over the last five years when you hear resident like Mr. Olson come up here and it falls on deaf ears. Even though he's complimented many other times for his approach, but nothing never, no solutions, no action. He's mildmannered. He's well spoken, but it still falls on deaf ears. So when the ones that come up here frustrated and try another approach, it falls on deaf ears. So, after watching the the mirror uh debate last night at Popka High School, you will understand. And young folks that are in here now, I hope you're listening to me. We need your critical thinking. We need your input. We need your involvement to get involved. That's why you constantly hear me say the city of Apakka, the state of Florida, and our country is in a national crisis because too many good people sitting by watching bad things happen and not doing anything, being completely silent and sometime complicit. To all my young people, when we normalize the abnormal, it desensitized the truth to the point the truth doesn't matter anymore.

And that's sad. I watched the debate and if you have been at the city council meeting, you know the answers before the candidates even opened their mouth. I heard the mayor mention a couple times he was in he was in support of having an audit, but yet instead we had we tried to have one and it was killed on the floor. So many lies. Then I look and when I hear a exchange that practically says ethics don't matter, rules don't matter. And so when you constantly hear me preach about my moral values, there's only one candidate in the mirror race who have dictated, who have understood and lived and practiced these things. The truth matters. Laws matter. Morals matter. Ethics matter. Leadership matters. Character matters, integrity matters, principles matter, rules matter, facts matter, procedures matters, and all God's people matters. That candidate is Mr. Nick Nester. That's why he have my 125% confident to be our next city mayor. If you go back and you start watching from 2021, that's the year I consecutively started going to city council meetings. That's five years ago. And the only reason I decided not to run for mayor is because if you go back and watch 2021, the first uh January, I stood here and said my goal is to bring love and prosperity to all

povertystricken neighborhoods starting with South Aka. And that's my mission. Thank you.

It wasn't 602 mayor to to Ra's part. We see how you are and that's why you need to be relieved from your duties. Leroy Bell Mar. First of all, I was like to thanks two and a papa chief for the pep rally last night. Secondly, uh unlike Sylvester, I uh I heard a few things. I didn't know until the mayor told us at the debate last night that a couple of the houses out of the CRA this grant that we were doing, they weren't houses, they were sheds. He said that we were redoing shades, but we'll we'll we'll take care of that a little later. Uh, Bingan Road, is Bingan Road a part of the city or the county?

It's a city, right? Okay. Because what I wanted to know because we got we got the uh code enforcement truck 1699 picking up Nick next assignments. So if we if we can tell him we know uh campaign signs supposed to be out off limits, correct?

Oh, so uh it's just Brian Nelson signs is not off limits. I I I just want to get that straight. It it it it shouldn't be that way. And since we got $31 million, I also heard the mayor speak about one of his great accomplishments last night. And I think that's fire station six right over on Herman Road. Six. So we got $31 million in reserves. I travel that road just about every day taking my son to college. It almost been several accidents out there. You bragging about this fire station out there and you got $31 million in the bank and you got an accident waiting to happen for somebody come down through there when these guys is trying to get out and save lives and you don't have an emergency signal across there. But then you get up and brag about this is one of your pet peeves. this is something that you accomplish. It makes no sense. And I hope everybody watched the felt rally last night because South Popka it was a you had you had everybody up there that couldn't vote. You and Christine Moore, they can't vote in this election. So I I would hope that everybody would take heed and like they said look way to the east. Nick Nester, thank you man for the integrity and thank you for the truth because it was so many lies told last night.

Sam, did you speak at public comment or do you have something?

Okay. Sam Ruth, uh, 75 West Magnolia Street of Pap, Florida. Um, I've pretty much lived there my entire life. But I I did go to the rally last night. I wanted to commend the two that are here. It was it was a good rally. It was a good uh substantive debate. that I had one question that uh actually went back to the current administration when when there was a comment that was made about the reserve of the previous administration and what I was trying to get clarity on is the remark said that the reserve was down the general fund was down to 3.6 million. Was that general?

Yes, was general. He said,

"Right, because when when I left office, it was 10 years ago. That reserve was at or above 20% of our general budget. So I I started doing some homework and I went back to those dates that were in question. The way I read the budget, we were at 19.5 billion dollars general general fund, not 3.6. So what I was trying to do is where was the 3.6 six number come from because it alluded to the fact that the previous administration had done some actuary figuring that made the city looked a lot less financially supported by the general and I just wanted to make sure that the clarification were we talking about general funds or were we talking about utility funds because every one of these have a a a bucket. Was it the utility reserve or was it the general reserve? It's important that we clarify that

because what I don't want to do is make it a reflection of a previous administration when in fact they weren't there to defend themselves and when they left the the general fund was at 20% or greater. So, um I don't know if I can get that by next council meeting, but if somebody would reach out to me and let me know what that where that number came from, I'd appreciate it. I'll get that from Thank you. the finance department.

Anybody else? Right. Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners. Um, just want to first just uh commend and thank everyone for the uh shelters that uh we have provided with the city this last past week. Um, I had so many businesses and churches that reached out and gave me donations. Um, you know, um, I know we might not be where other people think we should be, you know, with having a a large facility, but I'm grateful for what we have. And so we had um I think the first night we probably had uh uh 15 to 20 people stay over and then the next the next night we had pro 30 more than 30 because we had some people that uh did not have they slept on the floor. They were grateful for just being on the floor. So, I thank each one of you uh uh Nick Neesa for the warming uh the hats and the gloves and the warming packets that you gave us. I called them warming kits. Uh that was very uh I actually just drove around passed them out, you

know, whoever I saw. Uh I thank you, Commissioner Smith. You're always there whenever I asked for anything. And um I'm I'm grateful for that. I thank you, Mayor Nelson. you uh made the buildings available for us and um uh rounded everything up. So, I appreciate that. Um and uh the to the rest of the commissioners, I know just you guys do everything you can to help me and if I if I ever reach on you, but I had so much um I had food from restaurants. Um, I had ribs from uh Fat Daddy and and food from um Just Like Mama's and just churches, large donations, you know, Hope did their thing that they normally do on Sundays. Um, Naughty Lobster was there. Just so many, I could go on and on. So many churches uh within the community that supported this effort. I know the weather is going to make a change and it's going to go back again. So, we'll probably have to look and see what we're going to do next. But where we are now is not where we're going to be in a few years from now. But I thank I thank each one of you for everything that you have done today up to today. And I'm very appreciative on behalf of the unhoused and the needy. I'm very appreciative and they are also. So, I appreciate you. And as we continue to do the work that uh I have been assigned to do, you know, as an advocate for the unhoused, I ask you to continue to support me in this effort. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Jim Moyer. I'm elected Orange Soil and Water Conservation District 2 supervisor. I come to these meetings and I'm hoping in the near future that Bradley and public works and I will be able to get together. I want to learn of the priorities regarding land and water resource protection because I want my priorities to be I mean your priorities to be my priorities. The other thing I want to share is about a survey that's taking place uh here in Apakka at UFAS um research center on Binyan Road. It is um it is a survey dealing with storm water pond um experiment they call it. I've actually taken the survey so I I know what it's all about. So I would encourage anybody in Apakka or if they live in Orange County, if you live in a HOA, if your HOA has a stormwater pond or or lake, please consider taking 30 minutes of your time to take the survey. I'm presuming that these surveys when they put it together if they don't get enough participants which at at this point in time when I took the survey they need a 100 more people. So um please encourage people to take the survey. They pay you $30 for 30 minutes and uh they told me two days to get paid and I was paid in an hour.

So, but the crux of the survey is this. They're laying out several scenarios and they're trying to determine the importance of the participants, how they balance uh the reduction in the percentage of nitrogen in the storm water pond versus uh also the number of um homeowners whose um whose flooding potential for flooding is reduced. or increased and the HOA fee. So they're adding in the dollar component too. So they're saying they're doing like 15 scenarios, you know, this is up, that is down. Which would you prefer? So again, I would encourage anyone here in Apaka or in Orange County to go over schedule an appointment at Binion Road and take the survey. Thank you for your time and God bless you all for everything you do.

Yeah, Dr. Moy, I just so you know, we we sent we have 99 um private storm water ponds and so we've sent our whole list to EAS. So they've got the list of all 99. Yep, you got it. Did it? Okay. All right. Approval of minutes. Any changes from either the public or from the dis? Not look for a motion to approve. So got a motion by Commissioner Anderson.

Second. Second by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? All oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Bradley,

uh, mayor, we have one item. Staff would like to pull. Business item number two, the assignment of overview oversizing utility line and partial construction reimbursement agreement uh to allow staff additional time to review this uh agreement with the finance department and city attorney's office. So, we'd like to pull that off, bring it back. Okay. And then also uh just uh recognize we've got uh quite a crowd with us here today. The University of Central Florida uh School of Nursing is with us. They're doing a public health uh section of their coursework. So they're here visiting uh learning about local government at the city level. So welcome. Uh go Knights. I'm a UCF alum. So charge on.

We'll see you everybody. Come on, sit up. Nice. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming out. All right, go Nights. There we go. Okay, we've got five consent agenda items. Does anybody from the public or from the das need to pull any? If not, look to a motion to pro to accept all five consent agenda items. So move. Got a motion by Commissioner Smith. Second. Second by Commissioner Anderson. All those in favor? I.

All oppose. Motion carries unanimously. I did want to add one thing to the agenda and uh we respectfully asked to have the agenda item either added at the end and it's regarding a vote for a the last resolution that we took at the last meeting and I did uh send an email to our inim chief administrator and I did get a response from the attorney and basically so we don't want to do that Now, Cliff, do you want to let her make a motion to

review? Otherwise, as I mentioned, she can report if there's a second or just want to do it on your report. Is that okay or you want? Okay, that's all right.

Okay. So, uh let's see here. Business item number one. Freshfield Farms AKA Jean Sanchez. Good afternoon. Jean Sanchez with the community development department. This is a request to approve the Freshfields form a popka major development plan and construction site plan. The project is located at 18/19 Armando Borehouse Jr. Way and proposes a 17,550 square ft specialty perishable food market on approximately 5.6 acres of vac vacant parcel. The site is a triangular parcel bounded by southop by south ofka boulevard, Hayawasi road and pontyra road and armando borehouse junior way. Surrounding uses include residential subdivisions to the north, south, and west with commercial and industrial uses to the east, including the Walmart grocery store. The location has long been anticipated for neighboring serving commercial development due to its roadway frontage and proximity to existing neighborhoods. The subject property is designated commercial on the future land use map and zoned CC community commercial. The proposed Fresh Fields Farm Specialty Food Market is consistent with both, excuse me, in both the future land use designation and zoning district. The use is permitted and aligns with the intent of providing neighborhood serving retail while transitioning between major roadways and adjacent residential areas. The slide represent the represents the proposed major development plan construction site plan. The grocery building is centrally located on the side on the site with parking arranged around the building and the storm water

facilities integrated into the site design. The layout reflects roadway buffer requirements, driveway spacing constraints, separation of customers, customer service circulation and buffering along residential edges. The applicant is working with the with Duke Energy for their photometrics plan which will include street lighting. Access is proposed as a right and right out access points on Apaka Boulevard and Hayawasi Road as well as full access proposed in AR on Armando Borehouse Junior Way. The landscaping plan emphasizes a rural farm aesthetic consistent with the Fresh Fields brand. The plan includes a layered combination of shade trees, understory tree, shrubs, and ground covers. Enhanced buffering is provided along residential edges through perimeter landscaping, preservation of select existing trees, and wood fencing to reduce visual and operational impacts on adjacent neighborhoods. The DRC recommends approval of the major development plan construction site plan. at its meeting on January 13, 2026. A planning commission unanimously recommended approval of this MGPCSP. The recommended motion is to approve the Fresh Fields Farm Apka major development plan construction site plan subject to the condition that the applicant continues their coordination with Duke Energy and submit a code compliant photometrics plan. Staff is available for questions.

Any questions for Jean? Uh, two questions. I just had a couple questions. Um, I think this is a a pretty unique product that we haven't seen recently. So, I like that. Uh, a couple concerns that came up from the residents when they had their meeting and just want to reiterate those and just make sure u we're all on the same page there. One was making sure that truck traffic that was delivering and and um picking up whatever it may be is not spilling over into the um Armando Bore. Correct. Yes. And and it's my understanding that the way that site's designed, it's not going to lead in that.

Correct. Yes, sir. It is it is infor enforced in the on the site design. Um it's right in ride out only on Hayawazi and Apaka Boulevard and um it's intended to have truck turn. Their loading is actually um kind of enforced um to be their their loading um areas enforced where uh the ride in ride out access points on Hayawasi and Apaka Boulevard which are arterial roads um leads to and the full access on Armando Borhas is really um the way it's designed is intended to have cars only. Um it is a um slower speed road obviously a neighborhood road. So we um the applicant has um designed the site uh accordingly as well and and it's also supported by their traffic study.

Okay. Thank you for that. And there's also concern from the residents of light pollution spilling over uh into the neighboring parcels. And it's my understanding that we can't that's per our code. You can't have light. There's only a certain amount of candles permitted to spill over. Okay. Um we will have though for public safety we do require street lighting as you know. So that's also for public safety but it's only permitted as certain um candle grade. Okay. Thank you. Last question there and thank you for the answers. Uh will this be will they be adding sidewalks surrounding this site? They're required to to add sidewalks just like any other new developments. Yes sir.

Perfect. Just want to confirm. Thank you. Any other questions for Jean? The landscaping that we're um going to put on the pro what they're going to put on the property. Um where were they getting the trees and the buffers? Where were they are they using any local? Um I'm not sure. I can try to get an answer for you. I don't know if the applicant's a is the applicant here. Anthony is here. Um so I'll defer that to the applicant. I'm not sure where their source is. Oh, hi. We came in the building together. I could have asked you out there.

Good afternoon, Mayor. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Anthony Juku. I'm with Bowman Consulting representing the applicants. Uh, in terms of the landscaping, um, our job was to design the landscaping to meet code. the contract the owner and the contractor will be responsible for who they decide to go ahead with providing the landscaping on the site. But if there's any recommendations that you would like us to provide to the owner, we can add that in as something that um we can go with. I just want to make sure that they're all Florida friendly uh trees and buffers and whatever that they're for Florida.

Yes. um the landscape plan all adhere to the city of a popup um building code. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Anybody from the public wish to speak on this one?

Supervisor Dr. O of the Orange Soil and Water Conservation District. Uh I looked over the landscaping and um it looks better than most that we get. Um it has a lot of plants and preserved a lot of trees and has a lot of new trees added. Uh what I suggest with landscaping companies and um Commissioner Vellesquez brought it up is is sticking to the state code and and now the city code that after it was added is the Florida friendly and compatible plants and then getting rid of as much grass as possible. Um even though this is a low water using grass, you still have to mow it. That takes energy and that takes labor and um going to ground cover. Ground cover doesn't take the mowing. doesn't take the water, doesn't after established, doesn't take fertilizer, and doesn't take chemicals if you get the right ones. So, that would be a great advantage to the company in the long run for maintenance, etc. And, um, makes it fun to walk on and look at because they bloom, etc. And they self fertilize the ground because many of them are nitrogen fixating. And then um in the pond areas uh there are many pond pl pond trees that will absorb water and they can absorb up to 40 40,000 gallons a year of water. And so um adding in around the ponds and two ponds in landscaping designs of uh pond cyprress and bald cyprus and red maples and things like that that grow vertically. add color, beautiful color throughout the year. And then but can be in the ponds will add to the cooling effect of the business and reduce the cost of your electricity and cool the

neighborhood uh the roads that are there and the cement and asphalt and um provide more um carbon sequestering and uh nutrients to the soil. So, I think it's a wonderful design and but we can always do better in this city with landscaping. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Um, close the public hearing. I tell you, this is I'm excited about this one. They their their store down in South Orlando is just amazing. Um, it's basically like a like uh fruits and vegetables, but they buy it by the truckload. So their pricing is just really really good. And so you you'll be a you'll be happy they came to town and and with all the fresh vegetables. They they'll buy like a a whole semi-trail load of strawberries and sell them for, you know, half the price of, you know, a grocery store because they've got them, you know, they're ripe and ready to go. But yeah, you'll you'll enjoy it. So anyway, any other comments or not? Look for a motion to approve the major development plan and construction site plan for Freshfield Farms.

Got a motion by Commissioner Velasquez. Second. Second by Commissioner Anderson. All those in favor? All oppose? Motion carries unanimously. We're on to business item number three, right, Mayor? Well, wait a minute. We're going to pull So, uh we while you're here, though, we can we can um Do you want to talk about Can we do it the next meeting? We We're going to pull number two. Yeah. Do you want to readvertise for next?

Well, we didn't have to advertise anything, but um if we're ready with the and complete the review, we'll bring it back at the next. So, let me let me get a a motion to um continue. Uh can we just repeat why it was being pulled again? I'm still working with legal counsel. Yeah. Um to review the contract. Okay. Okay. So, look for a motion to um continue the assignment of the Oak View oversized utility line reimbursement agreement to land sea homes. So, got a motion by Commissioner Blasquez. Second, second by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? I all oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Next up, authorize the execution of contracts for Corin Maine LP on site.

Thank you, Blanch Sherman, finance director. Good afternoon, mayor and commissioners. Um the item before you is to authorize an execution of contracts with core and main LP and on-site performance inc. In regards to the core and main contract, um the proposed contract with core and main is necessary to support the city of Apopa's current census meter water meter infrastructure and ensure seamless integration, maintenance, and upgrades. Um the contract source for this um contract is the policy exemption for information, technology, software, hardware. There is an exemption that exists in our current procurement policy that allows us to do it for equipment that we already own and utilize which removes the requirement for a formal competitive procurement process. We do currently have a piggyback contract with um advanced metering infrastructure systems with Cormain. However, some of the items within that contract have become obsolete. So in conjunction with this contract directly with core main and that piggyback we will continue to use core main in regards to on-site performance. We did receive a a grant from FD for a pilot program in the amount of $75,000. the uh performance um phosphorus removal demonstration that's what it's called is to evaluate the phosphorus removal capabilities on the existing units that we have out there in Kyiba gland. So again they given us 75,000 to to perform the a pilot to see if we can increase the nitrogen removal by removing the phosphorus.

That's the best I can do to explain that. Any any questions for Blanch? Uh yes. Did we determine how they're going to select which ones they're going to do? It's only one that 7. Yes. 75,000 for one. I said how many spending. How do you actually have a good uh track because it's waste that we're talking about. So depending how a family is, is it a single person? Is it a couple? Is it a family? So there's a lot that goes into that that it there's a lot to to I guess somebody needs that mic. Yeah, it was me. Glenn is coming up to help with that.

Yeah. Yeah. The question like I say I know in your meeting Tuesday. Talk to the mic. Oh, talking the mic. Can you hear me now? All right. Uh, Commissioner Neesa, when we spoke uh Tuesday, I did check with Major on that. And again, far as I know, it's just the one. And again, on-site did select who they wanted to one of the residents out there to use it. And the 75,000 is just for the pilot test for the one, but I think they were doing some other pilots in in Lake County or were we the only pilot? I'm not sure of Lake County, but I know that far as for us, right? No, I know.

Yeah, I think there is. I think you are correct. There is some, but I can double check to to reiterate or to make sure on that. Uh, and that was to remove the phosphorus. Phosphorus. Yeah, it's a pilot test to see how effective the system can be removing phosphorus. So, and so if the pilot results in positive where they feel it's going to work, how are they going to retro are they going to retrofit the new septic tanks that they again once they have that pilot test? So again, D will have to they'll have to get approval from D to move forward with it based on the results that they're seeing if it's effective in in removing the phosphorus and go from there.

And so is onsite going to take on the expense for it or is it going to come back to the city to for the retrofit for their septic tanks? I don't I don't know when we maybe when we get to that point that discussion I have I'm not sure to have that answer right now how that will go. Any other question? Yeah. Are we able to get an update? And we discussed this yesterday just to get uh

kind of an update on where our on-site program is because I thought at one point I don't have the exact number. We were trying to get to like 130 in there and that could be a wrong number. Uh and where we at now? When does that expire? I know there was funds if we didn't expend it by X date, we had to give them back. So where are we at with all that? Yeah, they extended that for us, but we've got we just on the week a Glenn subdivision only. We got 70 already. We're we got 13 more that we're going to be installing. And I think was the goal was to get to was it 90? I think 90 or 90. I think it was I think it was 90. Yeah. So when does that extend to?

Because they actually extended it. We thought it was just going to be a few months, but they actually went ahead and extended it. I don't know if you know, a year. Yeah, one year. Yeah. To expire when? Yeah. Say it again. When does it expire? Oh, goodness. I don't need exact date. It was just extended a month ago. So, I'm going to say Okay. So, March and then if they we requested another extension. If you saying that they granted it, they granted another year for March 2026 on 27. Okay. And now are we trying to go out and take any other neighborhoods to do this or are we only focusing on only focusing on weava plan right now? Okay. So there's no other neighborhoods that have been contacted or approached with this in any capacity? Uh well I don't know I know we had some or I think major had some discussion with the Rock Springs.

No no we we looked at um uh Bluegrass Bluegrass Estates. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But no, we had no takers. And we really want to focus on uh we got them in because they're the closest to the spring. So it makes the most sense. And you know, if we can put them all there, that would make most sense for everybody to have them whole 90 of them. And I and I think the thing we discussed too, you said, you know, why would everybody not want to buy into it's the same old why if if I have a septic, not everybody's want to be as environmental people like we like we care about the environment. And if you have a septic and it's working fine and you tell me, hey, there's gonna be a little charges, probably not gonna want to do it.

So, yeah, you made the point that, hey, there's some cost associated with it. So, I I can understand that as well. Uh, back to the actual what we're approving here today. The and Commissioner Vasquez had asked us, I guess, what's the goal of this pilot program? What when and how long does it run? So, once let's say it's three months, five months, six months, maybe it's a month. What do we what's happening with that? I think the goal is for for on-site to say will this we know that it's really effective on on nitrogen.

We want to see if it's effect or they want to see if it's effective on removing phos phosphorus phosphorus. So uh that's the whole reason for doing it doing the pilot test and then what are the results will be the results and again it would have to go to DAP regulatory authority to say here's the results and again it would be from an an outside independent lab what the results are and make a determination based on that. That's what we're looking just to see if it if if it uh it FD is okay that it's just one house. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Blanch or for Glenn? Anybody from the public wish to speak on this one? Uh real quick at the debate last night, there was a question posed that uh if we lose property taxes, how will we replace that that money? And it was very interesting some of the answers that we got, which we didn't get any answers uh but from one candidate. But I'm looking at this process right here. just sitting back trying to fit in where I uh get in where I fit in at. And I'm looking at the the whole process and the questions and the answer that's being given. It's like it's not really thought out. We don't have anybody out there in the expertise in that field that where we don't have to do it as a pilot program and then we're only using one entity. And so if I had to answer that question, the first thing I would do, you have to know where you at in order to get where you're going. If anybody call you and say, "Hey, can you come meet me?" The first thing you got to know, where you at? Because I can't tell you how to get to me if I don't know where you at. And so the first thing the city needs to do is to have that forensic audit so they'll know where they at in all their expenses in all their financial endeavors. That way you'll know what need to be cut, what don't need to be cut, and how to move smartly in the future, and you'll know where you wasting all your money at. But I heard somebody say, "Hey, I

welcome that twice and still shine it down." For the young people that are here in the audience, it's important that you do your critical thinking and it's important that you go back and you watch these city councils meeting so you'll know what's being done with your tax dollars when you get ready to grow up and become a contributing member of society and raising your own family. So, I'm gr I'm glad that you're here and I want to extend one more courtesy to you. You all stood up proudly and you pledged one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And I want you to use your critical thinking and what's going on in the world today. If that's a true fact, then you don't it it shouldn't bother your moral conscience. But if you know it's not a true fact, you need to do something to make a change. And when we come up here and we presenting these things, when you do a presentation to anybody sitting in the audience, it should be crystal crystal clear why you're moving in that direction. And we shouldn't have to have questions and come to you with questions that you should already be nominated. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Not we'll close the public hearing and look for a motion to approve execution of contracts with Corin Maine LP and On-site Performance Inc.

So got a motion by Commissioner Smith.

Second. Second by Commissioner Neesa. All those in favor? I. All opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Let's see. All right. City investment portfolio update. Thank you, Mayor Blanch.

Um, tonight I'm requesting acceptance of the portfolio update and authorization to proceed with the investment policy revisions to incorporate the cemetery funds. On December 6, 2023, city council adopted resolution 202340, amending and restating the city's investment policy to comply with state statute. The purpose of the investment policy is to set forth the investment objectives and parameters for management of public funds of the city of Apakka. Mr. Glenn Scott with Morgan Stanley and Trisha, I apologize, is here tonight to present to you the updated portfolio and the proposed language to be incorporated in the investment policy. Go first.

I think she want policy first.

Oh, good. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and commissioners, for inviting us here today to discuss the investment portfolio that Morgan Stanley manages and as well as an update with the US economy and the markets. Okay, today I will begin with a portfolio characteristic summary is in the top left corner. The city's cash investments are 127 million. You have 31 million in money market funds and approximately 70 million in fixed income securities. The portfolio's duration is a little under 2 years at 1.7 and the yield of the portfolio as of December 31st was 3.859%. Your security breakout is to the right. Your demand deposits are approximately 56% of your portfolio. That is your bank accounts uh sea coast and senovas. Your US government securities are 28% of the portfolio. Your local government investment pool which is in the SBA is 12.57%. Your corporate securities are just above 2% and the money market fund which is used as a sweep vehicle uh for interest and securities that mature at the end of December was about 1%. This is a list of the current investments for this city. As of December 31st, your the city's net unrealized gain is 692,000.

your the interest on the local government investment pool SBA ended the year at 3.99%. Today that is down to 3.88%. Your C coast bank money market fund or the bank account currently is at at the end of December was 2.9% and so was at 3.79%. Morgan Stanley runs daily compliance on the city's portfolio and it was compliant to the investment policy every day during the fourth quarter of 2025. Now I will turn it over to Glenn for an update on the markets.

All right, I'll I'll be quick here. We gave you a lot of material to start off the year, probably more than I'll talk about today, but if if you have questions that it's there for reference or if you want to go back and look at more detail, what I'll kind of do high level, you have uh that backup material for you. This is just a quick graphic of uh interest rates. So the horizontal is term to maturity, so overnight out to 30 years on the right. The vertical is uh interest rates. Uh the dashed kind of teal line is where we were a year ago in interest rates. This is the US government uh Treasury curve. And uh where we're at right now is that darker blue line. So you can see on the front end of the curve over on the left, the Fed has engaged in interest rate cuts. Uh and potentially some more this year. We we think there will be two more. Um but that's brought short-term interest rates down somewhat. Uh but we're still quite a bit above where the neutral rate probably is, which is probably down closer to two and a half percent. And then out longer we have the problem of um massive deficits and um long-term concerns about uh inflationary risk from those deficits. We're at $39 trillion of debt. And uh you see that title wave in the numbers here. No matter how hard the Fed pushes down interest rates on the short end, the um investment community, the markets look at the 39 trillion and we're adding two and a half trillion to that every year and say, "Who's going to buy all these bonds and who's going to pay for them?" And it just creates this upward pressure on long-term rates. And as we go through time, you'll see that move to the left. And the concern that we have obviously is mortgage rates are

set off to 10 year. And so um this is going to put more and more difficulty for younger people to be able to afford homes because mortgage rates are just going to have a hard time moving down. Uh so that's the hidden tax of these deficits that we think we can kick off into the future forever. But you know here we have all these young people here. you know, they're the ones that are gonna have to support that kind of debt. $39 trillion million

Glenn Glenn Glint need 100 million people that are, let's say, under 30, that's $390,000 on the top of each of you. So, it's brutal. All right. Um, sorry about that. Real quickly, just looking off into the future, uh this is the three four scenarios that Morgan Stanley sees as uh where the economy will be going in terms of GDP growth rates, labor markets, and inflation for the rest of the year. Uh the base case over on the left is continued elevated inflation above the 2% target, but no recession and the unemployment rate remaining in around that four and a half% range, which is all good. So this is strong soft landing and the consensus is this is where we're heading. That probability of that scenario happening has been rising. We just had the new Fed chairman named Ken Marsh who came from Morgan Stanley. Um I think that was a moderate choice. It was kind of surprisingly non-controversial. who was concerned is that President Trump would uh nominate somebody that was extremely hawkish, meaning they would bring short-term interest rates down for political reasons to jack up the economy and the stock market going into the 26 elections. Uh but he chose uh I think wisely to appoint somebody more moderate, should have no problem getting through confirmation. And uh this is a person that's more balanced in terms of trying to fight inflation and keep full employment going. The other scenarios I won't spend too much time on. I think the one interesting one is the second one over the productivity driven upside. This is the one to watch as we go through 2026 and the big theme of artificial intelligence and robotics starts coming into play. This is the scenario. This is the optimistic scenario potentially. Uh

I know there's a lot of concern about how automation and AI will affect jobs but the but it's offset this is the hard thing for for people to grasp. It's offset by the potential of massive economic growth that come out of this and increases in productivity. So there's a it it balances itself out and this is probably the one scenario that could help us with that massive deficit if we get the economy really growing on a technologically driven future. Um going off to the next one. We'll just I'll do these quick because these support the previous slides. This is just looking at GDP growth rates. You can see that uh the our forecast on the left has been re revised up from the previous forecast last year uh for economic growth both in 26 and 27. Uh we see re real GDP growth uh at or above 2%. So that's good that we're staying out of that recessionary risk. The um playing off that how does growth relate to job increases? This is where we're a little bit more concerned. If you look at this is the uh graph on the right is the total number of jobs created per month in the US economy both private sector and government. The vertical is in hundreds of in hundreds of thousands. So that 100 is 100,000 jobs per month. 100,000 jobs a month is where we used to set as the benchmark for what the US economy needed to create to absorb population growth and uh net immigration. uh this is where the immigration policies are really showing up. Uh so we're seeing now sort of permanent uh cut in half of the number of jobs being created and this is a combination of net de immigration net flows out of the country of working people and the effects of automation and AI. So, uh,

while the economy may be growing, job creation is not as robust as you would historically expect. Uh, let's see. Here's the inflation forecast on the um, again, inflation appears that it's going to be a little stickier. The the target is to get us down to an inflation rate of 2% or less, and we're having problems getting it below three. Uh, tariffs um, aren't helping. uh when the tariffs are implemented, that's creates a one-time inflationary effect on the price of everything that's passed on to consumers. It doesn't elevate the inflation rate going forward, but it kicks inflation up and then holds it there permanently. And you can see the effects uh in that graph on the left where we differentiate tariff uh affected components of the economy versus the um nonaffected components. So if we take away the effects of tariffs, inflation does come down quite a bit. I won't go too much into the Fed policy thing because we got the new chairman. So I'll skip that over. This is the implied forwards. So this is uh the top graphic is the expectation for interest rates off into the future. This is through the end of 2027. And again, this is on the front end of the curve. This is overnight interest rates. And you can see that we have a on the right hand vertical a a total of two cuts between now and the end of 2027. So that would take uh short-term interest rates down closer to 3%. How this affects your portfolio? Well, we started this whole program together a couple of years ago to diversify the portfolio from bank deposits and reliance on the SBA LJIP and build you a portfolio of term securities. And so that's performed very well. You saw that we had uh just under $700,000 of unrealized capital gains

resulting in the fact that those securities that we bought longer term are coming down in time and picking up value because they're um they have interest rates as above the overnight interest rate. I think that's probably enough on that. Um any questions on the economy? Any questions for Glenn? No. Thank you. This is very informative and it's it's good to see that our money is getting put to good work for our taxpayers.

Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner. Um I'll switch over real quickly to the um policy update. So um you were granted um approximately $188,000 of funds that were to act as an endowment essentially to offset uh future needs for cemetery services here in the city. and uh the state legislature uh creates a statutory list of allowable securities to 218415. Um your investment policy conforms to that and by doing so and by addressing certain specified elements in that statute, you're granted further expanded statutory authority to invest in all the things that we invest in with your portfolio. At the very end of that expanded list is a a home rule power that kicks in and says uh basically you can also invest in anything else that US fiduciaries deem appropriate for odd cases that might come up where there might be certain investment parameters that would be appropriate for dollars such as these long-term uh reserve funds for the cemetery. you have authorized uh the drafting of uh new language to your investment policy that takes advantage of that home power and you're allowing up to 50% of that to be invested in a low fee uh broad-based equity u mutual fund. So you'll have 50% in stocks and 50% in short-term fixed income securities. So sort of a sharp ratio blended mix there that's appropriate for long-term capital appreciation. So it's you're using the powers granted to you by the legislature exactly as intended for these odd hard to predict in statutory law things that might come up before a city. So that's the proposed language that goes into your investment policy which will be a legisl Have you legislatively adopted it

yet? No. Okay. Well, at some point here you'll legislatively adopt that and we will not uh it doesn't fall under our parameters. the city can identify a a lowcost fund VTI or something. They're widely available. Uh it's not it's not part of our specific contract. We're not compensated on it, but we're happy to help you draft this language. That's it for me. Any questions? I just had a couple questions and and thank you for going through that. the we so we have about 188,000 in there in this fund or or bucket we'll call it and that's funded how

20% of the proceeds that come out of the um cemetery funds go into this perpetual perpet so so we can start back into some numbers and start kind of forecasting where we can be at do we know approximately how many plots or I guess we can kind of look into this how many plots we have left to sell before we're fully sold out okay because then we can kind of back into, okay, what's our total income coming in for this fund? How much is going to be invested? Because from my understanding, our conversation yesterday, we need about $200,000 a year to run the cemetery, correct?

Forever and that's going to grow over time obviously due to just raising costs and things of that nature. So, we can back into a number and see if we can get there without costing the general fund money and let it be self-sufficient. So, I think that would be beneficial as we start uh crafting this and formalizing the language is really look into kind of those deep dive numbers and see are we actually going to get there or do we need to maybe kick in out of reserves a little bit just to get the fund there so that long term this will start paying out how we need it to and be self-sufficient. Okay, we can do that analysis.

Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions for Blanch or Glenn? Anybody from the public wish to speak on this one? Thank you, Blanch. Yeah, this was um one of my initiatives. I thought, you know, as as we're probably half probably half full now, the the cemetery. So, at some point in the next 10 or 15 years, maybe quicker because it's

that we'll have, you know, the cemetery be full and yet the maintenance will still be the maintenance. So, you know, right now we're spending, you know, the cemetery uh plot dollars for maintenance. And this will give us the the long-term benefits of being able to when it's full and there's no cash coming in for additional burial plots that it won't be a burden on the city. So, that was the whole goal when I set this up and and I think it's um we're starting to see, you know, uh the fruits of our of our work. So, appreciate it, Blanch and Glenn. Thank you for for your help on this. All right. Um, nobody's wants to anybody from public then we will look for a motion to approve the

acceptance of the city investment portfolio update and proposed policy changes to incorporate the cemetery. Correct. And and when will the policy change take effect for the cemetery? I'm going to bring it back I'll try to get it back to the next meeting. I just got to get with um legal and make sure they're comfortable with the language. It's just a resolution. All right. So, so got a motion by Commissioner Smith. Second. Second by Commissioner Nesa. All those in favor? I. All oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.

And and mayor, before you go to the next item, I just want to ask since you mentioned that we're going to be full within the next 10 years, what have you. Uh, do we have a plan once the cemetery is full? We purchasing more land for another cemetery or what's the game plan? I guess that's something for for us to areas that we haven't yet. Well, we but some point that'll be full. So, yeah, you know that you know we have the we have the the uh the resident rate, we have the non-resident rate, but it just seems like everybody comes in at at the resident rate. They've got some way to get to the resident rate. But, you know, we're we're

you know, like the one new section we just opened up um where we used to park a lot for, you know, like the Memorial Day services, it's, you know, it's it's at least half full, maybe twothirds full now. So, it's it's going faster. So, um I think across Central Florida, you're seeing a lot of the cemeteries are, you know, filling up. So, I it it, you know, it's not a bad idea to start looking see if there's some property that we that we could uh to purchase, but Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Ordinance number 3154.

Ordinance number 3154. An ordinance of the city of Apopka, Florida, changing the zoning from T transitional to RSF1B residential single family large lot for property located at 55 550 West Lester Road owned by Christopher Williams and Katrina Barrett comprising of 3.05 05 acres more or less providing for severability complex and an effective date.

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Amir Hanza. I'm a planner one. Uh the applicant is requesting a reszoning from transitional to residential single family large lot RSF-1B for property located at uh 550 West Lester Road which is between Vic Road to the west and North Rock Springs Road to the east. These are the vicinity and aerial mass of the 550 West Lester Road property. The total site area is 3.05 acres. The applicant is requesting the reszoning of the property to be able to build single family homes on the property and to be uh consistent with uh with the existing future land use which is currently residential low suburban. As shown on these maps, the future land use is residential, low suburban, and zoning is currently transitional and proposed to change to residential single family large lot RSF-1B. The development review committee has recommended approval at the January 13, 2026 meeting. Uh the planning commission recommended approval of the change of zoning. Uh the recommended motion is to accept first reading of ordinance number 3154 and hold it over for second reading and adoption on February 18, 2026. Okay. Any questions for air?

The goal of this is to match the zoning to the future land use. Correct. Correct. And then the the owner or applicant is wanting to do six to seven units there. Yeah. About the six or seven units per se. the the future land use so and know the size of the property allows a maximum of 10 units on there but um uh the idea was six to seven units but that that's at a separate application under construction site plan that's down the road yeah I just want to understand what kind of what the goal is there and what that's going to look like exactly okay understood thank you and so currently there's just one residential home on this three acres correct

uh it's currently vacant to my knowledge but like it it's a 3.05 05 acres vacant and the residential low suburban allows 3.5 units an acre. So three acres. Any other questions from here? Okay. Anybody from the public wish to speak on this one? Not we'll close the public hearing. Look for a motion to approve ordinance number 3154 at first reading and hold over for a second reading and adoption. So move.

Got a motion by Commissioner Smith. Second. Second by Commissioner Neesa. All those in favor? I. All oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Next up, resolution 2025-47. Resolution 2025-47. A resolution of the city council of the city of Apka, Florida, adopting a non-advelorum tax assessment role for East Kelly Park Ridgebrook Street Lighting District. providing directions to the finance director for certification and transmission to the assessment role to the Orange County tax collector and providing for an effective date.

For the record, this is Amir Hamza, planner one. So, this is a resolution to expand the East Kelly Park uh street lighting district to include the Ridgebrook subdivision. The Ridgebrook subdivision major development plan was previously approved by city council under the previous name Plymouth Harbor. The project consists of 86 single family detached lots and is located on the west side of Plymouth Sarrento Road which is between West Ponan Road and West Lester Road. The property has a feature land use of residential low suburban which allows 3.5 units an acre and while the zoning is RSF-1B residential single family large lot access to the subdivision is from Plymouth Sarrento road. Uh so the recommended motion is to adopt uh resolution number 2025-47.

Okay. Any questions for air? Anybody from the public wish to speak on this one? If not, we'll close the public hearing. Look for motion to approve resolution 2025-47. Some got a motion by Commissioner Vasquez. Second. Second by Commissioner Nesa. All those in favor. All oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Next up, resolution 2026-07.

Resolution 2026-07. A resolution of the city council of the city of Papopa, Florida, amending the budget for fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026. Providing for a budget amendment.

Thank you, Susan. Um Glenn Sherman, finance director. Um, amendment number three before you, resolution number 202607. This amendment is related to the pension change that was recently made and approved by this council at our last meeting. The amount of the amendment is $273,630. Um, that includes the increase in contributions for the employer. Uh, for the general fund, it's about 160. We do have some transfers that are going from the general fund to funds 101,120 and fund 402 and fund 401 is sufficient enough to um remove funds from reserve to support this effort. So the dollar amount of 273 630 is different than the 240,000 due to those transfers but the actual amount is still 240.

Any questions for Blanch? I had a question and it's not specific to this but to the pension fund itself. Uh where are we at with that kind of over underpayments that has been discussed for the pension? That is a question that you probably have to address with the actuary. I I don't have that information off the top. Well, we hired an attorney to look into it.

Okay. The over and under payment. I'm not um we did I think the mayor may have that mayor's report. Happy to bring it up now if you'd like. Yeah. So anyway, uh spoke to Milton Collins. Uh matter of fact, this morning, um he'll have a draft of a letter that to go out to our our consultant. Um he he thinks there's, you know, obviously there's some things wrong and and he wants to make sure he's got it, you know, right. So we have a draft probably next week, if not the following week, that we can we can take a look at and then if we agree with the draft, then he'll send that letter on to Empower for their response. Um, so far they're they're not accepting any responsibility. Um, he feels like there probably is and so we'll we'll wait to see what his final analysis. I know he's gotten gotten public records from Susan and from Blanch and so got the numbers and and uh so we should have some and then our policy just to make sure everything's uh all our ducks and road. I don't I don't think he's talked to Cliff but I mean at that point it's you know we'll get we'll get Cliff involved. So that's that's where we are with the

and then it it was referenced and I'm sure it was just a misstatement last meeting that we only paid like $600 for this attorney. It was closer to 7,600 for that attorney. So I just want to make sure that was and that's not reimburseable from the pension at all. That's it hadn't been discussed to be reimburseable yet. We we're paying from the city because theoretically we could there could be a a conflict between the pension funds and the city. So reason that's the reason the city's paying for this and not the pension funds. They should align but they might not. So that's the reason we decided to pay it out of the out of the uh the reg regular general fund.

Attorney Shepard, did did you review that and confirm that that that could be a an issue coming up? Confirm that. What could be an issue? The pay the repayment? No, not the repayment. the fact that we may need different legal counsel than what absolutely that I know about. Yes. And it's for exactly the reason the mayor said you don't know whether there's a conflict particularly when you're starting out. You got to get into it and sort of peel back the layers which is what I understand Mr. Collins has been doing and that's what you recommended us to do then. I don't know that I recommended it but it is exactly what happened. I don't remember one way the other. It's been a couple months. I might have. I'm not saying I didn't. I just don't remember. Okay. Understood. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions for Blanch? If not, anybody from the public wish to speak on this one. Rod Olsson, 3156 Rolling Hills Lane. This is where I've been really on you guys for the last three years with regard to the budget process. As you can see from this and everything that's up there, it has to do with adjustment for retirement funding. And again, for all of you in the city, your workers appreciate the work you do. You deserve every nickel you earn and the pension plan as well. The concern is it was an afterthought. This should be part of the normal budget process. This budget amendment is made because it wasn't budgeted properly in the front end. In the 2026 2027 budget, we need to have a thorough survey of all our pension plans, our wages benefit package to ensure it's right, so we don't have to make amendments like this. This is ridiculous. And then we're counting on the numbers from the fiduciary who is 38.4% off or a swing of anywhere from 165 to $595,000. This is crazy.

Anybody else from the public wish to speak? Not. We'll close the public hearing. Look for a motion to adopt resolution 2026-07.

So got a motion by Commissioner Smith. Second. Second by Commissioner Anderson. All those in favor? I. All oppose. Motion carries unanimously. Next up, resolution 2026-08. Resolution 2026-08. A resolution of the city council of the city of Apaka, Florida, establishing 2026 rate schedules pertaining to the city of Apakka water use charges and deposits, wastewater use charges and deposits, distributed wastewater treatment system uses and deposits and reclaim water rates and deposits and providing an effective date.

Thank you. Um item before you um is approval of resolution number 2026 um 08 establishing a rate reduction for services provided by water wastewater and reclaim water utilities. On September 17th, city council approved resolution number 25 202538 establishing a 15.5% rate increase for services provided by water and wastewater utilities for FY26 effective October 1st. During that discussion pertaining to the rate increase, the administration instructed city staff to review the fund 401 utility operating operations provided in the FY26 adopted budget in an effort to improve revenues and identify operating efficiencies aimed at reducing the rate increase plan for the year's FY26 to 2029. On November 18, 2025, city council approved resolution number 202544 establishing an increase in the backflow replacement fees and water wastewater reclaimed tap fees to better align with the operating costs associated with that equipment. In addition, included in that resolution was a search charge for credit card payments received from our utility billing customers. On January 7th, 2026, the city also adopted resolution 202545 establishing meter tampering fines to be imposed for any person who willfully or fraudulently without the consent of and authority of the city tampers with a meter. The objective of the tampering fines was to create a deterrent. In addition, city staff have identified more operational efficiencies that will provide reductions in the plan for operating expenses in FY26 to FY29. Such operating efficiencies include reductions in overtime, the census

metering system, other contractual services, and rentals and leases for fund 401 utility operations. utility operations staff continue to the meter replacement program and we've added a new base station tower for increased meter reading coverage overall overall in addition to the um items that I just presented before you to help increase our revenue and and and improve efficiencies the city staff work with the utility rate consultant Mr. Deshan Okacio Raf Tillis. He's here today to do a presentation after I complete this overview to update the utility operations revenue projections FY25 base based on the final amounts that we have for the year end as of September 30th. Even though our audit is not final, those are good. They're updated amounts and the current revenue transfer October 2025 to December. Sean reviewed those amounts um for FY25 and the revenue trends for October 2025 to December to determine if the trends would be sustainable. He concurred that they would be and he incorporated it into the rate reduction in the rate study. As a result, the rates that we incorporated under the plan was 15.596 15.5 for 26, 9% for FY27, 6% for 28, and 6% for 29. With the revised plan is it will be 10% going forward for 26, 6% for 27, 6% for 28, and 6% for 29. The adjusted increase of 10% um is applied to the 25 rate which resulted in overall reduction of about 5% and the rates are listed in as exhibited in your staff report. The rate decrease would not affect the current

excellent bond rating of AA2. So resolution 202608 is before you with an effective date of February 3rd. So I have Mr. Sean Oacio here. He'll give you a presentation of his analysis and then our interim city administrator will give you another overview.

Good afternoon. Uh for the record, Sean Oesio Rafalis Financial Consultants. I'm a senior consultant with the firm there and I'm heading up the the update here that we were just talking about. So, uh, this presentation is an update to the rate study that was recently completed in October of 2025 and I and as Blanch mentioned, you know, there's some, uh, good news here. Um, just a quick recap for the presentation, and it's a short one. Um, just a quick overview of the recently completed rate study and then an overview of the, um, alternative scenario analysis that we did, and then the summary findings and revised rate uh, recommendations that Blanch mentioned. So, as you uh recall, you know, as a part of the u the recently completed rate study, you know, it was a a rather exhaustive uh review of your the finances of the utility system. We looked at your your customer statistics, we looked at your growth projections, we looked at uh operating expenses, revenues, we looked at internal uh transfers, the capital plan, and so on. So, we we you know, modeled out all of those um items in the operation of your system for the forecast period. And some of the major items that were the cause of the the significant rate increases were again the funding of the capital plan. We had significant capital improvement program in order to upgrade and improve the system. Uh that plan was about $180 million over the forecast period. So you know some significant funding requirements there that you had. Uh in addition to that in order to fund that plan there is also um assumed usage of additional borrowing in order to finance some of those large projects. and those uh additional borrowings had an impact as well on the projected debt payments that you would have on a forward-looking basis. So there was an increase in annual debt service payments. Uh that was projected at about $8 million increase going from your current level of about $5 million per year to about $13 million per year. Um so there was that increase there. And then the other component um that's that was impacting your system that is impacting the system was that the impacts of inflation on your operations. you know, the the cost of all of your your normal operating items uh you know whether it's electrical, chemical, you

know, cost of labor and so on as well as uh there were some additional positions in the plan that are planned to be funded as well. So you had all these different items, you know, uh causing the the need for those increases. Uh the other thing as a part of that study is we were also looking at not only just the funding of those expenditure needs, you know, the funding of your operations and your capital and transfers and debt and so on, but also making sure that you maintain certain uh financial uh health ratios and metrics. you know, you have certain requirements as a part of your loan agreements that you have to maintain coverages at certain levels. Uh you also want to maintain, you know, solid liquidity over the forecast period. You know, cash on hand um to handle any sort of contingency events, but also um to have um you know, strong ratios because if you're going to go out to to borrow money, you want to make sure you have strong financial metrics so that you get a good credit rating and you get good terms for those loans. Um and then a part of that uh presentation uh from the prior rate study also we had some comparables about you know the rates and how you compare to other uh municipalities and and so on and so um so the the prior rate path as Blanch mentioned you know there was a 15 and a half% increase for fiscal year 2026 followed by a 9% increase in 27 6% in 28 and 29 thereafter uh that's a cumulative rate increase of about 42% when you account for compounding year-over-year here and um what I would note here is again this uh forecast of uh rate needs was based on you know the best information we had at the time as when we were doing the analysis for the rate study. So, you know, with that, um, as Blanch mentioned, since then, there's been, you know, some initiatives on the city side with respect to, you know, um, upgrade updating the u, you know, some of the miscellaneous fees, creation of some new charges there as an additional revenue source. Um, there's also some improved billing information with respect to your ongoing, you know, normal utility rate revenues that we had accounted for. And then also there was the um, operating expenditure items that were revised for certain efficiencies, so certain costs that could be cut in the forecast period.

So, so with that in mind, you know, the the city reached back out to us to update our financial projections to account for those, you know, efficiencies on the cost side, improvements in the revenues, improvements in the miscellaneous revenues and so on, and update the the forecast in order to see what potential benefit and relief there could be uh to the previously adopted rate increases. as a part of that just to go into those um you like Blanch mentioned there's the improvement on the rate revenue forecast that we had you know based on revised uh billing information that we were provided uh there's a increase in um ongoing rate revenues about $2.1 million compared to what was projected for 2025 so that's a significant benefit there there's the increases in other revenues associated with you know tap fees backflow fees credit card fees and so on that's an increase in your revenues of about approximately projected at um 130,000 134,000 per year and then also There was the line item adjustments to the budget like Blanch mentioned. There's you know the adjustments to overtime, the adjustment to some other items. Uh that was a reduction in operating costs projected about 900,000 when you layer them all together over the forecast period. So all those items added together is about $3.1 million per year in net benefit to the system in the form of increased revenues and also decreased expenses. Um so that increase in your margins provides a benefit to everything. Uh now one thing I'll also mention is as a part of our update you know again we were looking for updated information. The other thing that uh was revised was there was some uh capital project costs that uh increased. Uh you'll see that here on the slide about 39 essentially $40 million in additional project costs um due to revised project cost estimates. Now towards that end uh the city is pursuing um funding with the state revolving fund loan uh fund program SRF program and also um pursuing a principal forgiveness for some of those financings. And right now uh SRF has initially committed to providing about 36.9 million in principal forgiveness associated with that 39.8 um in additional uh projects. And

actually one thing I'll mention on the slide where it says 36.9 there's a slight typo. should be uh 36.7. So I do apologize for that there. Um so essentially the net effect is you're increasing your projects by about $40 million, but you're also getting about $37 million in principal forgiveness, which means that the net impact is only about $3.1 million in additional capital costs. So if those projects are anticipated to be funded through, you know, the SRF program through debt, then that's an annual debt service payment of roughly between 200 and 3,000 200 and $300,000 per year. So there's that net increase in cost there, but it's it's completely, you know, consumed by the the benefit that we talked about earlier, the 3.1 million in benefit associated with the increased revenue and the lower expenses. So effectively it's it's that increase in cost there on us on the debt service size is negated and there's still sufficient margin left over to reduce the the rate projection the rate needs. So with that said, as as Blanch mentioned, uh the revised rate plan from the perspective of the 2025 rates would be an increase of 10% for 2026 as opposed to the 15 and a.5% increase that was done. And then for 2027, instead of the 9% that was projected, it'd be an increase of 6% followed by 6% increases thereafter. Um that's a cumulative increase uh in the bill of about 31% uh compared to the cumulative increase in the bill under the previous um rate path about 42% there. So it's about an 11% cumulative benefit or reduction. Um in terms of how the average bill compares, if you remember some of the slides we had on the bill comparison, uh the average bill at 6,000 gallons was going to about $82 and almost 8250 roughly. um that would be lowered to about $78.50, maybe $79. So an average bill um based on the survey, you'd be right in line with your your other neighbors

essentially with with that path adjustment. Um with this uh proposed rate trajectory, the rates would still be sufficient to meet your coverage requirements. They'd still be sufficient to meet all your liquidity targets that you have. Um and they would generate sufficient cash flow for all those items. So trying to roll through it pretty quickly. Um you know based on those again that revised information that we were provided after the conclusion of the study we were able to update you know the analysis find that there are some margins here that could allow for some rate relief for for your customers. So we wanted to to bring that forward. So it it would be our recommendation to consider adopting the proposed re revised uh rate program. Um again it'll still maintain all your cash flow targets. It'll maintain uh coverage requirements for on your loan agreements and you'll be building uh sufficient operating reserves for for liquidity and for credit waiting purposes.

Okay. Questions for Sean or for Blanch. Bradley. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Riley. Go ahead.

All right. Uh good afternoon, mayor and commissioners. Uh just again to kind of recap what what we've gone through here. Uh at the time of the rate increase vote, the administration committed to doing uh multiple items to try and uh help this first quarter look in. Uh we've been working to rectify the meter and flex issues to try and get to that national standard of somewhere between five and 10%. Uh the latest numbers for this past month have us at 10% estimated billings, uh which is 2,854 meters that we're still working towards. Uh the next goal is to achieve 8% by the end of March uh 2026 which would be approximately 2 2300 meters. So a lot of uh hard work and effort and dedication that's been going on with our utility operations department and our utility billing department to continue uh working through those issues and um getting those meters back up and running. uh like we're here today uh to ask we asked reptilis to conduct a look in after the first quarter of FY26 to see if a reduction rate could be recommended uh be recommended. Uh we have installed a new base station in the northwest service area and that became active in December 2025. We prepared uh free increases for the new installs which are the portable sewer and reclaimed that was adopted in November. The meteor tampering fine uh to discourage fraud and abuse was adopted at the January 7th council meeting. We have started the search charge on the facetoface transaction credit card transactions in January. Uh we're continually uh searching for operational small capital budget efficiencies throughout the fiscal year and we're currently trending above projected revenue and below projected expenditures. And uh we have implemented a new email notification process to uh try and uh capture those delinquent accounts prior to sending to collections. Uh the first run of these emails was sent uh back in

January 15th with an 8.33 success rate within the first 24h hour period and we had emailed out to 168 accounts. So uh I just want to pass some appreciation on again to our utility operations teams and to our utility billing teams. um since our latest push in August to where we are today, we've made a lot of progress and and couldn't have done it without them. So, any questions for either Blanch or Radley?

I've got a couple questions um and a lot that came up yesterday during my agenda review. One thing I'll say is that when we first went over uh increasing the rates, it was something that I did ask of staff to basically increase it. We don't want to go past 10%. We wanted 9.99%. Um that was back in September time frame and it was impossible then it had to be that 15% rate no matter what had to be that. Now we're back here uh where I originally had said. So I'm glad that we're doing that. I'm glad that we're going to be able to save the residents money. It's just what I'm concerned about is are we basing this off of true data and factual data. So, some of the emails that were forwarded to me less than 24 hours ago included uh I guess expenses that were taking off of fund 401 and that's inclusive of overtime. It's inclusive of the census metering system, other contractual services, training and rental and leases for a VAT truck. So, I guess let's start at the top. Why are we reducing or how are we reducing overtime? We looked at our overtime trends and um basically we're not using as much overtime as we have in the past. They're not out in the field as much as they were in the past during the meter replacement program. So we're able to reduce that overtime going forward. Again, this is one of the efforts to identify efficiencies in our operations. I understand what the goal of this is obviously to establish efficiencies which is what I wanted September before we did this huge increase. Um the census metering system that's still a cost to the city. We're just moving it to somewhere else. Correct.

We had in included additional cost in our budget when we brought in a contractor to help with the meter replacement program back in from October through now. So we're removing that cost. We no longer need that outside contractor going forward. And we don't need the rental. The vac truck rental. That's Yes. The department has confirmed that they don't need that going forward. Yes. Do we have one? Yes. Got two. Yes. So then why were we budgeting one then? I said going that's in 27. That's probably one that's starts in 27.

Okay. Interesting way to budget on that. Uh the other one was how are we establishing a trend or like how do we have confidence in a trend of being able to continue the revenue that we currently are seeing just for one quarter because what we saw in October of 2025 about 3.3 million in revenues November of 25 2 million in revenues so a reduction of 1.3 million and the December of 25 revenue of 4 million. So it doubled. So I don't really see a trend in any capacity there. If anything, I I there there's nothing there. And then I pulled October, November, December of 23, October, November, December of 24 to see if similar trends were going on there where increases, big decreases, increases. And we're not seeing those same trends that's going well, it's not a trend, what's going on in 25, Q1 of fiscal year 26. So how are you able to confidently establish a trend and say that we can duplicate this over the next three quarters?

So what we're looking at is what was um reported for fiscal year 2025 as the basis for the revenue forecast. So in the uh original analysis we had projected for uh 2025 uh thank you um we had projected revenues of about 30 I want to say 33 $3 34 million on a combined basis for utility rate revenues uh for the system um I believe uh 33.7 in my notes here uh increasing to about 36.6 six by the end of the forecast period. Um however, once the actual um trial balance information was provided for the close of uh 2025 where we could see all 12 months and how 2025 was actually build, what we found was that the revenues were actually uh that were collected were much higher than what originally anticipated for 25. So the basis is coming more so from that adjustment um on the history side for 2025 and then projecting off of that number into 26.

And we saw an increase of about $3.7 million between what we were estimating revenue and then what we were receiving. Is that an accurate number? I believe uh in my numbers it was about two million and change. The email the email that I got that was forwarded to you said 3.7 million. So that's the only reason I'm using that number. This was provided by uh from Mrs. Sherman Christmas Eve. I didn't even realize that difference between

and and we I don't need the exact number right now. I just want to make sure the the concern is that for sure I want to reduce rates. I want to get them to what we're actually going to need to charge the residents to cover our debt service and to service our residents properly. The problem is I want to make sure that we have the data that backs it properly as well moving forward for years to come. and build confidence in our residents that we're doing what's best. Uh the the other question here, we're adding about from one of the spreadsheets that was forwarded to me, like I said, less than 24 hours ago, it was about $6 million in uh in additional debt for this for all the the CIP plan, including the the difference between the the state revolving fund loans. That was

if you can remember, we had 19 million in forgiveness on one of the projects that I presented to you last um council meeting, but the project actual cost is about 25 million. So that 6 million was factored in there, but we were able to offset that with some of the forgiveness overall and that's why it netted down to the 3.1. And id asked that I guess last week. So I do understand that concept. And I'd asked is there anything that makes this non non-forgivable? Is there anything that would happen that we would that this money we would have to repay back? So and there wasn't really an answer then. So it I want to make sure we're still it's in the schema of calculations to make sure we know hey that money could still be have to be paid back and then which could affect our credit rating uh our debt service coverage ratio things of that nature. So

so it's factored in there now so that we you know have the means to pay it back. Do we have the means to pay that back with this rate reduction? That's what he's saying that is factored in there. Okay. And then are we able to get a number? Do we have a number of approximately this? It's a 5% approximate decrease. Is there a uh reduced revenue amount? Like is there a dollar amount attached to that 5%. What is that 5% valued at revenue reduction? Go ahead. From what we originally agreed to starting October one to now. Uh, for that one I'd have to calculate that for you to know the differential there.

Okay. Well, figure it's 35 million something plus or minus then minus times 0.05, right? That's well, basically the revenue numbers that he he's given me with this rate reduction, they basically come out to be the same. Keep in mind, we've had we'll have about four or five months at the 15.5%. So, the new revenue numbers are basically almost the same. A little bit of difference. I'll be bringing that back if I need to do some adjustments.

Okay. Hopefully you guys understand and and I asked Mrs. Sherman yesterday too, kind of put yourself in my shoes. Look look at this as a resident. What this looks strange that we're able to reduce something 33% in 4 months when we have we were pounding this as if it was definitely needed. So I just want I'm not trying to bite by any means. I'm just trying to understand the numbers so I can articulate it properly to our residents as well why this went up and then down 33% effectively in an increase. So, um again, it was something I'd asked for back in September to only increase 10%. So, I'm happy that we're back here. Uh the residents are definitely going to want it, need it, and I'm glad that we're finally there after some advocacy. So, thank you. And I just want to just add that um one of the things just to be clear and just to make sure that we're not creating a false narrative, it was definitely um we did hear the residents and the what happened was we did let the residents know that we would look at how to make sure that we're listening to them. So you guys went back staff. So thank you staff for going back listen to the residents and finding ways to reduce the rates because it was said and was promised to the residents that they would do that and that's what you guys did. So we thank you for that.

Definitely. It's great to see this coming down.

Well, and and to your point, you know, I I very much understand your your perspective there, you know, the change and everything. Uh what I would say is just, you know, like I mentioned in the presentation, you know, when we're developing these forecasts, we're using the best information we have available to us at the time. And, you know, the analysis is concluded slightly before when it becomes a matter of public presentation because we're trying to prepare all those briefing documents. You know, essentially at some point we have to put our pencils down and then go with with that item. But once we got this revised information on on the efficiencies, on the revenue initiatives, on those other things, we wanted to make sure we could fold that in to provide a benefit to the picture there. So I I do understand, but that's that's why that happened. And you know, I'll be honest, it's it's not often I get to actually come back and say we can actually lower something compared to what it was before. So um you know, it is actually kind of nice to be able to do that once.

Any other questions for Sean or for Blanch? Okay. Anybody from the public wish to speak on this one? Um, Sylvester Hall, uh, real quick, not to, um, accuse anybody of doing anything, um, but there's old saying, if it sound like a duck, walk like a duck, act afflot. I want to hold this moment here because there's a lot of moments in my last five years of city council meeting where we have certain things and we all agree on it and it's the truth at the moment then when it's come back and is vetted somehow it's really not the truth. So I'm not saying anybody's not telling the truth about anything. I'm reserving this moment till these figures and these numbers are are vetted to make sure that we're moving forward in the right direction because when we did this originally, we told the the residents, "This is why we doing it and this is what we needed." Now, if we come back in a short period of time and say, "No, we didn't need this. We didn't need that." When you're analyzing numbers, numbers don't lie. Facts don't lie. What you put into is what you get out. If you put facts and you put down real data, it don't change in four months. That's all I'm saying. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay.

Rod Olson, 3156 Rollling Hills Lane. Uh Mr. Casio, as part of your review, do you do an audit or look at preventative maintenance?

It's just part of the operating

it. Well, I raised the question because last year, you know, I made a request for preventive maintenance schedule and I know that fire and I know that police does because they wouldn't get certification otherwise. I know that fleet maintenance does because you can't get gas if you don't get the car in for regular duty. I kind of look at the old commercial where they showed the mechanic with his can of oil in his in his filter saying, "Pay me now and then picture behind him, pay me later with an engine overhaul." That's what we have. We don't have a preventive maintenance program, which is why some of this equipment goes. You look at staffing issues. Last year, 60 to 90 position vacancies. What's that number now? How many right now do you know, Bradley? Okay. It's been historical that we have openings, which means you don't have staff filled. Guess what? You don't get the water meters fixed. You don't You're going overtime in order to cover basic basic services. It all gets back to budgeting, having historical numbers, look at things. We didn't have a rate increase for a number of years, and now suddenly everyone screams because the last two years we had a rate increase because we didn't budget properly. Say, "Hey, look, our costs went up x. Why not pass it along now? No one will be objecting to 2 3 4 5% each year because that's what everything goes up. But no, we wait and all of a sudden it's 15%. Then everyone gets their their head out of joint. This is something that is controllable. It's controllable by a factual, fact-based, historicalbased budget. And you look at that budget every month. And I will be looking at it every month. You'll be getting my request the tenth of every month so I know what it is. And I will be reporting on staffing and I will be reporting on fun on where we stand with financially. This has got to be better and you've got to do a better job. You control it. Make it happen. Anybody else from the public? Okay, we'll close public hearing. Any

final comments? I've got just a couple things I'd like to um so I'll just let me just start out with well appreciate Sean your I would say your unbiased opinion. You know, Rafelis is well known, not only, you know, here in Central Florida, but across the state for what you do. And and when when you came to do this, you look at our numbers. We didn't Blanch didn't say anything. Rally didn't say anything, and I sure didn't tell you what what we were looking for. We gave you the numbers. You You put them into your magic little computer, and this is the number you came up with. So, we appreciate that. and and what what you've done, you know, to help us have a plan that that's that's that's um that we can all depend on. So, now to the to the staff. Um you know, we we went back to August and we knew we had a problem. We we had to make a couple of highle um staff transitions. Uh I asked Radley Williams, I said, "Rally, uh we need to we need to take this on." And I put Rally in charge. And let me tell you, we had so we had city administration, public services, utility billing, IT, the city attorney, all of us collectively were working for the last six months to to to get us to the point where we can we can be confident that the rate we've got now is is is adequate to meet the needs of our public services department, but also, you know, we we we won't have to come back next year and raise the rates. We're even going to reduce rates next year by three addition 3% additional. So, I I can't tell you how much how proud I am of the staff from all these departments that have come together. Not always easy, and I won't say it was it was pretty. There was times that we were we were bashing heads, but but at the end of the day, uh couldn't be more proud of the staff that we have here in Papka that we we knew that we we had a problem and they everybody stepped up, made a difference, and uh here we are today. And also like to to thank the four commissioners that that believe that we could make it happen. Commissioner Smith, Commissioner

Velasquez, and Commissioner Anderson. We said we would make we would make we would go in and we'd work hard to get the rate down, and we've done. So, I I appreciate everybody who's been a part of this. And so, with that, look for a motion to approve resolution. Mayor, if you don't mind, let me make one clarifying statement that we are increasing it next year. Yeah, we are doing an increase next year. It's not a 9%, it's a 6% increase. Yeah, it's still an increase, though. And in this email that Mr. Sherman had said, I know you said that there was no involvement with uh Raph Telus, but it says in addition, you'll be updating the study to incorporate the information requested by the mayor. So, in this email dated December 24th, 2025, there was some involvement. So, I think that was a mischaracterization there, but

and and that information is more or less the discussion about we were coming back. Okay. Okay. Looking for a motion. So, moved. Got a motion by Commissioner Neesa. Second. Second by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right. City council reports. Commissioner Nester, why don't you get us started? Absolutely. Um, if we can, I don't know who's running with this on staff. Just a brief update on the Kelly Park Road widening. Can we bring that next? Well, who's who's running point on that on staff?

Well, it would be really be Dale Smith. So Dale Smith is running. Good afternoon, Commissioner Estimovski. I'm sorry, I didn't care. The name of the road was uh Kelly Park. The Kelly Park. Kelly Park. Okay. Yes. So the design not super details, just the timelines of where we're at. Yeah, we are about three to four weeks away from finalizing the design.

Actually, the design was pretty much done. We had some minor changes in the last moment and we're currently working on that with uh the three pioneers and the designer which is Paul and Bennett who was working on that for the last year and a half and we should be starting construction soon. Okay, thank you. Yes,

Tanya. Thank you so much for that. Um and then just my consistent office hours um reminder that I do office hours every Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Um anybody can just walk in. Uh, you don't have to have an appointment. Feel free to make an appointment, but come in, talk about anything and everything you'd like. Again, I'll be there from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. tomorrow. Uh, and again, I'm always open. I can meet anywhere. If you're not comfortable meeting here, I can meet elsewhere. And, uh, for those that need to hear it, there's no need for any anonymous letters and games of that nature. Just come meet with me. I'll talk to you about anything. Thank you,

Mr. Smith. Uh I just want to say uh thanks to the churches and the volunteers that stepped up during the cold nights and provided the services for those um unhoused in the warming centers and to uh Miss Street and others that have really put forth a great effort to make sure that our unhoused are taken care of. Uh they're very vital part of our community and we care about them as well. And so we'll be doing the same thing as the weather continues to get cold. Uh you have my numbers. Whatever I can do, I'm here to help. That's all I have. Thank you. All right, Mr. Velasquez.

Yeah. Just want to add to the um the cold centers. Um I was approached by one of the volunteers uh that did work at the Methodist uh church. They had some issues there with some of I think it was one or two of the unhoused and what they asked was is it possible to have someone that can volunteer that can handle um when one of them uh kind of is is uh starts to act irrational. And they found that that was a challenge for them because their volunteers are not equipped to handle uh when yeah

when one of them becomes irrational and I understand that uh one of them had stuffed the toilet with their clothes and that was the method Methodist church but yeah but we had the police were they were always within earshot they they didn't come inside they would walk through but they were always available at both um one one family and um and the Methodist church. So that there was the the volunteers were completely comfortable with with the way it worked out. Well, the volunteer who approached me had asked is it possible to have someone there that can handle and as far as an irrational

we we had I was going to say we had the police were but that's police enforcement. Well, well, may I don't think it's uh law enforcement that we need. Uh we need somebody who has expertise in mental health. Somebody has expertise. That's what they were asking for.

Well, the one there's one lady we're talking about and uh she shouldn't be on the street. She ought to be in a in a in a mental hospital. I mean, so let's just be honest. She does has no business being out in public anywhere. So, uh, that's not police, that's not volunteers. It's just she we probably and I don't know how you commit her, but anyway, it's a uh yeah, it was um it was unfortunate, but yeah, I I understand your your concern and and uh we we've we've just said she's not coming to any other shelters. We we just eliminated her from from coming.

Okay. So the other um subject that I wanted to discuss was um and I I realized that I had approved the minutes. Okay. Um five to zero. Is there somewhere that I can

four to zero? four four to one and only because there's a discussion regarding the last resolution that we had approved at the last council meeting and I had written to our uh interim chief administrator on Friday when I left here no sooner than we left here almost at 11 o'clock at night and um I did get a text and I did get a call and I did get an email and I have been approached for the last two weeks and a social media post. I mean I've had everything where everyone has asked me to reconsider my vote and I did speak to our interim chief uh administrator. tried to send him an email. According to our city attorney, it's not reconsider. It's resend because the vote was taken. So, at this point, I would like to resend my initial vote on this. And the reason for it is that the public and I have very strong uh support from different constituents have all asked me to reconsider my vote. They do not want city tax fund pay uh funds to pay for anyone's and that includes all of us to pay upfront for legal fees. So, you're making a motion to resend the

was it a resolution? I I can't remember how. I think it was a resolution that you all adopted with a policy and also a repayment agreement. Okay. Um and so the motion the first motion said to rescend

that requires a second and then a consideration and then if there is a vote to rescend it then that is done and there's a question whether there'll be a subsequent either this meeting or next meeting to do something different. So I want to res I want to can I respond? So I want to respond. Can I I actually asked uh it to put something up on the um on the screen for me as well. So I want to first say that um I know we have someone that said they'd be coming for the past three to five years saying that integrity matters, morals matter, principles matter. Um what I'm about to um bring up is in-house um council um corruption that has been going on and it's it's going to take a lot for me to get through this because I'm so emotionally charged by this and I'm so it's just a disgrace that the public um kind of doesn't know some of the secret um things that have been going on um behind the public back in regards to attacks on the commissioners um that is sitting on the diet. Um, with that being said, so there's a few things

forward me. Okay.

Okay. So, it's going to be Okay, thank you. So, in regards to and it's this is an interesting time that I'm going to bring up these different emails and stuff. See, I want to start with the the We'll start with this one first. Okay, hold on. So, we're going to start with Go back. Go back. I'm sorry. Could you pull back up the first thing? So in regards to this, so changing a vote should be grounded in new information, not u reactatory pressure. I respect that every commissioner has the right to reflect on their vote. At the same time, our responsibility is to make decisions based on facts, law, and what is in the best interest of the entire community, not pressure from online hate groups. Leadership requires the courage to stand by informed decisions even when they're unpopular. Okay? So to be if what you see on the screen now is what um and unfortunately um I have been the uh uh have been the um person that has been attacked um the mayor as well has been attacked by these different online um hate groups and it does require a lot of pressure. It does require a lot of courage to be able to still stamp what's right even when they're attacking you. So unfortunately I did see these things. So, one of the things that she's referencing, um, Commissioner um Diane Vasquez is referencing is one of these groups said online at a post, Christine Moore is absolute no vote. And let me tell you why. Below is a text message I sent to Commissioner Diane Vasquez, who sold her soul to the devil by supporting Nadia Anderson when she voted to support and pay for Nadia Anderson Anderson's defense, which that didn't happen. But in reality, this is about supporting Christine Moore, who's probably is as guilty as Nadia Anderson is concerning her residency issue. Diane Vasquez lost me tonight. And I hope the citizens of Apakka wake the f up. Okay. So in addition to that, this person that

controls this online hate group that um which we'll see later that different uh that there's another commissioner that's on this diet that actually feeds information also supports this hate group which we'll show a little bit later. Um it says to Diane which is very I mean I actually saw this and actually started crying because my daughter actually saw it as well. Um you lost me today and you are not going to be the focus of a lot of you now I'm going to start back. You lost me today and you are now going to be the focus of a lot of stuff I post on Facebook. How dare you? How dare you sell your soul to the devil and defend Nadia Anderson when you know damn well she's a effing guilty. You are a former police captain. You're nothing but a poss. Diane, pull your damn head out of Christine's ass. You're going to be out of a job damn soon. A out of a job. Damn. A damn job. You retire. Just retire now. Do us all a favor and retire. All the respect I had for you went out the window tonight. Shame on you, Diane. Shame on you. And I'm telling you, the constituents are going to make you pay. You're blinded by Christine Moore. Do you think I'm stupid? And block me. I'll never speak to you again. So, let me be very clear on this. I believe that the state and federal attorney generals need to investigate as to whether these hate social media group pose a danger in inciting violence. In addition to that, we have to make sure that we're not allowing groups like this to bully us into changing our votes when we vote on something unless we receive any type of material facts. We should not allow groups like this. So, I'm going to go past this and while we're bringing this up, this is a great subject. We have another commissioner here that sits on the das and I want to be that by the name of of commissioner uh neesa uh backend and this is an email here where he back in his email address in

neesa22gmail.com January 22nd 2024 10:45 a.m. Um he uh received an email from another um resident, Kelly Butcher, that stated, "Still have a few edits to make on this before a the final complaint is done, but it should be ready this week to file. Really hope the city steps in and does the right thing because they're going to going to be on the hook for whoever money we have to spend out." Thank you, Kelly. So this is in regards to the subject is draft copy of the declar declaratory judgment apocalu right. So we then have the commissioner that is sitting on the dis goes back and edit and assist this edit because integrity matters morals matter right says see attached notes within the PDF please do not share this doc with anyone or tell anyone that I assisted you in this effort. It is a shame that a sitting commissioner would conspire with the residents to try to draft a legal document to try to get someone removed off a ballot. Then he goes back and forth. It's evidence and you guys can actually go and see yourself and do a public record request. Uh number two, Kelly, I guess send something back to him. All number all number items have the proof attached. Then commission Esther states I cleaned up a little formatting and just a couple of words otherwise looks good and she responds and says thank you. I'll be pulling and making copies of the documentation to put it and we'll send a copy out for filing to the mayor attorney. Everyone else commissioners then says in there as well, please do not let anyone know I helped you with drafting these documents. does not sound like a person of integrity. Doesn't sound like a person of of high bore

character. So why should I and just to be very clear I've spent he also and I will also and this is important because this is in regards to something that someone is going to wants to listen to online hate groups and resend their um their vote. In addition to that, Commissioner Neesa also with this same person assisted them in pointing out a complaint against my real estate license where I had to pay an attorney to fight it. It was dropped because it was it was no, you know, findings. But so we should be protected protected from other commissioners. It's just not the public that, you know, that has, you know, hate in their heart. We have other commissioners that sit on this dis like their integrity matters, um, honesty matters, transparency matters, and they're the main ones that sitting cowardly behind the desk and using these hate groups to push their narrative in their platform and it's shameful. It's very shameful and that's not what leadership looks like.

All right. So, I just want to make a correction and I respect what you did say and I appreciate that um you did read these things out loud. Um it it wasn't an entire hate group and I just want to say that the person who did send me that text that was very upsetting um did actually reach out and apologize for that. Not that it makes it right or wrong, but that isn't the text that's as making me resend uh the request to resend my vote. What's actually doing that is not not the hate groups, not the ones are really my supporters uh friends that have asked me to reconsider my vote and it wasn't about you because they said they said across the board this is what I was told across the board they did not feel that city taxpayer funds should pay for legal um defense.

Well, that's the statutory is required. the I mean it hasn't

and the reasoning for it is they said if if the commissioner um whether it's uh from a lawsuit or ethics complaint if they're found not guilty they can submit for the expense and be reimbursed without any problem but they do not want and this is a consensus and I have some emails and even Yesterday at the debate, I was approached and they said to me, uh, Commissioner of Velasquez, we have always supported you, but we did not agree with you with the vote on the resolution, and we are asking you to reconsider that vote. So, I've sat here for almost 10 years, and I don't think I've ever asked to have a vote rescended. I have stood by all my votes. I have been um for many of my votes, not everyone agrees with them. I've had people come up here and kind of scold me about a vote. Um but this one I actually thought about it and um I felt, you know what, this was the first time that I actually felt unsure about the vote. It was the last thing we heard that evening and um it took me a while but for two days I had a lot of input from people who have supported me throughout my career here and I felt it was important to say that I needed to reconsider my vote and ask to rescend it and it has nothing to do with you. I'm sorry that this is all going on. Um, you saw that even I can get

subjected to uh a lot of anger, but it wasn't based on that text. It wasn't based on anything from the um hate group because a lot of the posts that was on social media are from people who are not part of the hate group. They're regular everyday people and friends. Well, what I what I've experienced and what I've seen and I have a lot of, you know, data. I'm a data girl. I have a fact girl, but it's a lot of people that hide behind these hate groups. They just too cowardly to come out and put their name on it. No. Well, they have put their name on it.

Well, no. I'm Well, no. Some of those names are part of the hate groups, too. I mean, I have a whole bunch I have like probably 100 pages of data of people that hid behind the hate group. They've sent messages to these people to display and this cowardly emails like this. And then instead of and then it's interesting is that when someone constantly talks about integrity, integrity, integrity. But when it comes to integrity, the highest level of integrity, you cowardly hide behind someone that's on social media that has a history of attacking me. And honestly, this particular person here came to me, apologized, and came clean. And a lot of these different complaints came from Commissioner Anesta who actually instigated these complaints

documented. These are facts. Well, um I'm a fact person. Yeah. I knew I knew what I heard about it, but until I received the actual facts, I couldn't put it out there. And I have more facts than evidence than this. Well, put your name on it. Don't h do not be a coward and hide behind things. If this what you believe, put your name on it and speak out about it. Okay. All right. Um, anybody else want to weigh in? If not, look. Uh, Commissioner Velasquez is making a motion to resend the attorney fee um pre prepayment. Yeah.

Advance advance on the attorney fees. Okay. Got a motion by Commissioner Velasquez. Second. Second by Commissioner Neesa. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed. I Okay. Motion fails. 3 to two. Okay.

Okay. In addition to that, so that's that ends that. So I pray and hope that because that was part of my my report. So, um I pray that everyone that's currently running for office because there are some other people that's running for office now um through the county that is also has started, you know, with you know, with supporting these online hate groups and stuff. It's really important that you look at facts and to make sure that and I know it's so unpopular a lot to stand up for what's right when you have a large sum of people online that is spreading hate, but true leadership is about even if you're the only one in the room standing by yourself when something is right. That's what you do. It's not always popular and I'm just going to leave it at that. Um, with that being said, um, it was a blessing and a pleasure for me to, um, I saw that there was a need for different families and stuff, uh, with the cold weather. So, I took it upon myself to invite the, um, the PKA residents to come to, uh, the store and to pick out whatever jacket they wanted and it was very successful. There were very uh, there were so many so many so many families that came and even afterwards, I'm still receiving a lot of requests and I'm still fulfilling. So, um that was definitely a blessing to be a blessing to um to um these families. And if you know anyone that's in need, um please please um definitely definitely um let me know. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, Bradley. Nothing. Mayor, Cliff U. Mayor, it's up to you guys, but if you'd like, I can give you an update on property tax reform. Would you like that?

Sure. And what about any anything on 840? Uh I have nothing on 840, but I do have something on HJR203, which is the one that cuts property taxes over 10 years. Okay. And alternative funding uh issues. So the the bill that has advanced the furthest and seems to have the most traction is called HJR2203. It is a bill out of the house. uh and it proposes to up up the homestead exemption from the current 50,000 to a 100,000 on top of the 50 and an additional 100,000 every year for the next 10 years through 2037. So, for example, in year one, if it is in effect, uh the the homestead exemption for homesteaded properties, it only applies to homesteaded properties, and it only applies to property tax, not school levied property tax, um would be 150,000. So, if you have a $350,000 house, you'd be paying taxes on $200,000 house, and so on. The goal is by 2037 for houses that are under a million dollars, there would be no property taxes by 2037. The uh obvious problem with that from a local government standpoint is for those who may not be aware local government is f funded probably 98% by uh property taxes. Now not it's it's not all homesteaded properties but property taxes whether it's on business um on on any kind of other property but a significant portion of that in many communities is homesteaded particularly bedroom communities. Aapka has more businesses than many bedroom communities. A good example of that would be Eatenville. Uh Matland has whole west side of of I4 that has businesses and so forth, but for many communities that are small little bedroom communities, this would be devastating uh for their ability to to function. And so it's important to understand, okay, if they are able to do

this, what is the procedure? Well, the first thing is the legislature has to clear it both houses. And it could certainly change. Changes happen all the time. It could go down from a 100,000 to 50,000, let's say, per year for the next 20 years instead of 100 for the next 10. Don't know. It then has to be signed by the governor in whatever version passes if it passes. And there's no guarantee it will pass out of the house because both houses have to agree. Last year, one of the big issues on the table was the doing away with or getting rid of CRAAS alto together. Uh the House and Senate didn't agree and that bill died. Of course, the net effect of this will be if property tax goes in reform, all CRAAS are funded by property tax only and that wings the end of CRAAS one way or the other. Um, so that's a big deal. Um, the process if it gets through the both houses and gets on the leg on the governor's desk in some form of the other, he has said very clearly he intends to sign it. It's sort of his signature deal to get through. uh the the mantra being if you've paid for your house, why should you have to keep paying for your house? I'm not going to get on that political bandwagon, but I simply say that since government, local government in particular, is funded your police, your fire, your utilities, all the things that you expect from local government fixing potholes and roads, that doesn't happen without those local property taxes. So, the question is, what happens if the governor signs it? It is a constitutional amendment as it is currently proposed. There are some measures that haven't gotten as much traction that would not require an amendment, but the big ones like this one would. And that requires a 60% vote of the voters at the ballot box. That would be on the ballot, it appears, uh, if it were to work in November. Uh, we will see. And then it's got to pass by 60%. That's not a guarantee. Why would I say that? Well, some people predicted the marijuana amendment would pass easily. It did not. Some people predicted the right to uh an abortion in Florida, which had been in the

constitutional amendment via vis visa v the right of privacy would pass. Even though it got over 50%, it did not get 60%. So there's no guarantee that it will pass. But if it does, the impacts on local government, it is not an overstatement to say, will be devastating. Now, what are the options to provide alternate funding? There are three that have been discussed and a fourth one that has been discussed but the governor has said he will not agree with that one is increasing the sales tax. Why is it important to understand that? Because sales tax affects everything that everybody buys. all that consumers buy and therefore the people who will be most affected by a increase in sales tax are the people who can least afford it because we all buy groceries, we all buy gasoline, we all buy goods and if you make a certain amount of money those taxes don't bother you as much but if you don't they can be very very difficult and they are not a substitute for property tax. We will see if he sticks to his promise on that. The other three main ones that are being proposed are for uh real estate sales transactions when you sell your house a 5% fee to the government to support local government. But that's only when you sell your house. So that doesn't deal with the day-to-day expenses of a community. And that is a problem. I do not see how that solves anything. Maybe it's helpful, but it certainly won't solve the immediate problem. The second thing that's been discussed is the possibility of uh raising fees uh or taxes on renters. Well, rental properties. So, if you're in an apartment, if you don't recognize this, your landlord or your owner of your apartment pays those taxes only because they charge it to you in rents. So, if you're a renter thinking, I don't have to worry about any of this stuff. Oh, yes you do because your rent is going up to pay those properties on property

taxes that will be on the rental properties as opposed to the homestead properties. So that's also true. And another thing that's been talked about is an offset but only to certain smaller communities or rural communities from the general fund surplus. Uh there's a a significant surplus in state government. Don't ask me why, but they have one. And they're talking about to supplement certain smaller cities, uh, rural cities, some of their, um, difficulties in not having property tax revenues with some contributions from these funds. But obviously, there's no specifics on which communities, how much that would be, and so forth and so on. critically important if this passes goes through all the processes through the constitutional amendment process and is not tied to a replacement form of income which currently it is not. There is no answer for the shortfall. So I love to be upbeat on a Wednesday. That's all I got.

Thank you Cliff for that inspiring news. Um um I think we ought to probably if you would maybe just to give us some idea maybe could you try to find out how many homesteaded properties and the values that we've got just so we could I I don't know if that's I would think that's something you could come up with just so we got a number that would be helpful um maybe for the next council meeting at least have an idea now, but but Cliff, it hasn't even there's no there's no Senate um not yet companion bill yet. So,

and again, that's what sort of happened with CRAAS yesterday because

as between the two chambers, arguably the Senate is more rational than the House. That's arguable. Um and so that died. But this has been such a deal and I have I've heard voices from the Senate side saying, "Oh, there's going to be something." But what it's going to actually finally be, don't know. And of course, it still has to pass the voters. The biggest problem with passing voters is just like many things, if you only know what little you know is, hey, I'm going to pay less taxes. Or in my case, I'm an older gentleman. I'm getting older still and I have no kids in school. I'm going to get the same roads that that everybody else gets. I'm going to get the same representation everybody else. I'm not going to need any more soldiers any Why would I want to pay any more taxes? So if you have an aging population, and Florida does, you have to look at the fact that there are people on fixed incomes and say, "Well, why wouldn't I vote to not pay more property taxes?" So it is a very I cannot promise you that it will pass, but I likewise would not bet against it for those reasons.

Yeah. Well, it but it would wipe out the small counties in the panel. It just they'd either they'd have to fund them somehow because it it Yeah. But anyway, well, you know, glad that we have reserves. At least we can we could weather the first or second year's worth of cuts. But yeah, it's to be determined. Okay, next up, um couple of things. Boy, had a great meeting. Um the Florida High-Tech Agricultural Corridor discussion, which was really interesting over out of EFAS, we had NASA there, Space Florida there. We had uh Four Roots, you know, which has got the the uh the farm uh out off of Princeton. And uh what a uh talking about having an a tech cluster here in Apopa or in this Yeah, I I mean really some really cool stuff that uh was really excited to be a part of that and so um obviously we'll have some more meetings about it, but uh they're looking a couple of them that they were they were mentioning was the St. Louis cluster and then there's a Malddova a cluster as some some kind of an example of what it could look like. So anyway, looking forward to some additional meetings and internet. I didn't know what what we were what it was about. So next time I, you know, would have had you there, but I know that was where where we were heading. So I'll keep you keep you a breast of that as well. Okay. Uh next up, a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new uh drinking water storage tank out at Northwest, which right next to fire station 5. and really really neat uh reached out to um former Congresswoman Val Demings and uh who's the one that that got the million dollars from from uh Washington. She's going to be there, right? Or pretty sure she's going to be there for that. So, you know, that was four years ago where we got the money from DC and we're finally, you know, coming to fruition with the uh with the ribbon cutting. Um,

Saturday sounds. Um, this Saturday, uh, February 7th, 5 to 7, the band is after 5, which is the the band we had for, uh, New Year's Eve here on Fifth Street. Okay. Ready? Okay. Awesome. So, anyway, we're talking about warming centers, and I I just took a couple of pictures of of our volunteers. This is the first night at um at First Methodist, so I'm excited. Uh they were really neat. They had a big group from Renewal Church that night and they even had a uh a Bible study there um with with the the unhoused. And so it was really neat to see, you know, that that's the first time they've really gotten engaged with with our, you know, with helping out. And so I think they were really um honored to be a part of that. So really neat deal. And um so next slide. Uh then this is the second night group. U it was bunch of different churches there. And I'll the last slide I'll show you who who was a part of the the u of the uh uh the warming nights. And then the third one this is from first Presbyterian um one family church uh which was the first night we we did it. So anyway I want to last slide I'd like a big big big thank you. I tell you what our our faith community is one of a kind folks. I'm telling you, I am so honored to be a part of Apopka for the the efforts that that we put into, you know, you know, bringing food, you know, staying overnight, um coming in, getting up early and helping with breakfast. Just um honored to be a part of this this great city and our faith community. So, here are some of the folks I need to I'm going go ahead and read them off. One family church, First Methodist Church. These are all people that volunteered. First Baptist Church, Pentecostals of Apaka, Calvary Church with the Nazarene, Filaman Ministries, New Hope Baptist Church, Salt, Just Like Mama's Restaurant, Naughty Lobster

Restaurant, Hope of Apaka, First Unitarian Church of Apaka, Renewal Church, Trinity Baptist Church, Sher Wley, who made some amazing uh like sweet rolls and Virginia, what an amazing woman. Um really running point for a lot of that. So, we appreciate um what what you did and and and Commissioner Neesa and and especially Anti Anderson for the all the the the coats that were donated. But we ought to be proud of our community this these last two weeks for what we've done. So, thank you all and have a good evening.