City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to go ahead and call this regular city council meeting to order. First order of business is we're going to have the invocation provided by Pastor Mark Hinkle from Shiloh Tabernacle. Can you please come forward, sir? And then we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice Mayor McPartland.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This past Saturday we celebrated our 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of our great nation. But today marks another milestone in our history. On July 8, 1776, the citizens of Philadelphia were summoned by the ringing of the city bells to the Pennsylvania State House, later known as Independence Hall, to hear the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. Colonel John Nixon read the Declaration aloud to the gathered crowd of ordinary folks from all walks of life who could now call themselves Americans. And they heard those familiar and famous words proclaimed, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm grateful for the honor of acknowledging and calling upon him this evening as we open this meeting. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we bow our heads and hearts before you this evening in humble gratitude. I thank you for the wonderful way that you've blessed this nation. I thank you for the freedoms we enjoy, the precious rights that have been enshrined in our laws, and for the privilege of representative self-government. I pray for these elected officials who represent our community. I ask that you would give them wisdom to understand the issues that they must consider. I ask you to empower them to deal justly and righteously in their decisions. I thank you for the folks who've come together this evening to participate in this amazing American experiment that you have so blessed and prospered and preserved for these 250 years. And I pray that you will enable each of us to be responsible and honorable citizens, working together to cherish and preserve the unique and wonderful bounty of blessings that you bestowed upon us. In the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

All right, thank you so much for that. We're going to have roll call tonight, but first, Councilmember Dodd is on Zoom tonight. Is he there? He is. I'm promoting to a panelist now. Okay, thank you. And Councilmember Nunn is being excused for tonight. Madam Clerk?

Mayor Jones?

Here.

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Here.

Councilmember Nunn is absent. Councilmember Matthews? Present. Councilmember Dodd? Perhaps you can hear me.

I have him in the panelists. He's still muted currently.

Okay. All right. We're going to go ahead and move forward. Let me know when he's in completely. Put him on my screen. We have a proclamation tonight for Parks and Recreation Month, July 2026. The Parks and Recreation folks want to come up, I'll come down and we'll take a photograph when I get done reading it. Oh, what a beautiful team. All right, here we go. Whereas parks and recreation is an integral part of our communities throughout this country, including Sebastian, and whereas parks and recreation programs enhance our quality of life by contributing to a healthy lifestyle, community building, economic development, and environmental sustainability, and whereas recreation builds family unity, strengthens neighborhood involvement, offers opportunities for social interactions, enhances education, develops creativity, and promotes cultural diversity. whereas our parks and trails ensure ecological beauty provides space to enjoy nature help maintain clean air and water preserve plants and wildlife and whereas local state and national parks located within the state of florida contribute to the overall quality of life enjoyed by residents of and visitors to our state now therefore I Fred Jones by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Sebastian and on behalf of the Sebastian City Council do hereby proclaim July 2026 as parks and recreation month in Sebastian and ask all of our citizens to celebrate and promote the parks in our city and in our county sign this day July the 8th 2026.

Good evening, Richard Blankenship, Parks and Recreation Director. We would like to recognize all the men and women of the Parks and Recreation Department, what they do 365 days a year because we function 365 days a year. But most of all, we'd like to thank the citizens of Sebastian and our elected officials for demanding such a comprehensive and quality parks and recreation system. So thank you.

Anybody else?

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much. The next item on our agenda is public input, and this is a part of our agenda where this is public input on anything that's not on the current agenda. And for those in the room tonight, when we start proceeding through our quasi-judicial hearings, anyone who wishes to speak tonight, please make sure you complete an OAT card and bring it forward with you. So this is the public input for anything that's not on the current agenda.

yes sir yes good evening council mayor Richard Gilmore Sebastian I bring today some budget concerns that we've spoken about before a little bit y'all know that the Budget Committee is in the process of meeting coming up with a budget recommendation for the next fiscal year And I would hope you all paid a little more attention to their recommendations this year, reflecting the specter of losing 64% of ad valorem taxes, rollback. The possibility, the probability of the homestead measure passing this year, I think, is pretty strong. And according to the folks that tabulate our taxes, about 64% of the city of Sebastian is under homestead exemption. Now when the homestead exemption was first put in place, houses were cheap. And a $50,000 exemption would take a lot of the exemption just completely the taxes away. Now we've got folks that are buying $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 homes coming down here to retire, and it's not cheap anymore. Even with the homestead exemption, it costs a lot as far as taxes go. In fact, if you Google cities in any river county, you may be surprised to know that Sebastian is one of the highest as far as charging ad valorem taxes, millage, one of the highest, if not the highest. So I would say coming up with the budget process, please look forward to trying to rein in costs because next year it's going to be really tough. Thank you very much.

Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Is there anyone else in the audience? Yes, sir.

Good evening. Jeff Hamilton, 426 Pinocchio Street. As I put forth several meetings ago, and there's got to be a reason for these annexations and the card shark architect and everything else and the rezoning requests, I found a large one. Sebastian Pines is a prime example of misleading information and misrepresentation. They're claiming they want to be very low density. There's a discrepancy in how this is being interpreted. If we look at true apple to apple, i.e. actual lot sizes, not including drainage, roads, et cetera, Their density is above what an RS-10 would even allow. We're holding habitat to humanity to 10,000 square foot lots. The actual lot sizes and numbers these sharks are presenting are 8320, 7020, and 4810 for a duplex. Using those numbers and the proposed number of each gives us 5.2 units per acre on the 64 foot wide lots, 6.2 per acre on the 54 foot wide lots, and a minimum of nine per acre for the duplexes. Now, that's not including the fact that it's actually two dwelling units, even though it's one structure. They labeled each duplex as a single dwelling unit instead of actually two units, which means up to 18 per acre. These are the real density figures. If I buy four contiguous lots in town, previously planted, I cannot get a group together and build 10 units by claiming the adjacent roads, swales, right of ways, et cetera, as part of my total square footage. Otherwise, my single family 10,000 square foot, 80 foot wide lot becomes 14,000 with the adjacent right of way. I would recommend making them go back and do an actual apple to apple comparison of density. Thank you.

All right, thank you so much, sir. Is there anyone else?

Anyone on Zoom? No one has raised their hand at this time.

Thank you. Public input is closed. Next item on our agenda is a consent agenda. How would we like to proceed?

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of the consent agenda.

I'll second that.

So we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Mr. Dodd, is he there? Yes, I am. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. have nothing all right thank you no i don't have anything thank you all right um madam clerk this is my roll call mayor jones yes vice mayor mcpartland yes council member nunn is absent council member matthews yes council member dodd yes all right um thank you so much for that we're going to move on to item 10a this is a consideration of ordinance number 0-26-17, Mr. Stokes.

Yes, sir. An ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida, providing for the voluntary annexation for land consisting of .55 acres, more or less, located south of 132nd Street, east of U.S. Highway 1, north of 131st Street, and west of 76th Court, providing for the extension of the corporate limits and boundaries thereof, providing for severability, providing for conflicts, providing for codification, providing for Scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date.

All right. Thank you so much. Is the applicant here? No? All right. Staff?

Good evening. So this is the second reading for the Shalom Shaloud annexation, and it is for .055 acres, more or less. And they are looking to annex into the city limits. And everything is consistent as it was before. And it is contiguous to our current city limits. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right. Thank you so much. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? All right. I'm seeing none. Zoom?

No one has raised their hand.

All right. Public input is closed. Do you have anything final or you just prefer for me to close and move forward?

I have nothing additional to add.

All right. Thank you. We'll go ahead and close that hearing. And, counsel, do we need a motion or any discussion?

Mr. Ray, I'll move approval of Ordinance O-26-17.

Second. So we have a motion and a second. Is there any other discussion? Madam Clerk, roll call.

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Council Member Matthews? Yes. Council Member Dodd?

No.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Motion carries. Two, three, one.

All right. Next item is item number 10B, consideration O-26-18.

An ordinance of the City of Sebastian, Florida, providing for the voluntary annexation of land consisting of 1.93 acres, more or less, located south of Industrial Circle, east of 129th Street, north of North Sebastian Conservation Area, and west of 130th Street, providing for the extension of the corporate limits and boundaries thereof, providing for severability, providing for conflicts, providing for codification, providing for scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date.

right uh thank you so much is there an applicant here for that yes the applicant please come forward yes richard maxwell 920 truman street sebastian um i just wanted to go to the city because it's closer i've been here all my life instead of going to vero to do the project it's basically cut and dry most of the most of the road is already um No All right, you may sit sir. Excuse me. You could you may sit now staff

So this is 1.93 acres, more or less, and it is what we call in the office the Maxwell annexation. This is second and final reading, and you've already spoken to the applicant with that. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right. Thank you so much. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Anyone on Zoom?

No one has raised their hand.

All right, thank you so much. Public input is closed. Anything final, staff? I know we didn't have any questions, so I'm taking that as a no. Okay. This hearing is now closed. Now we will deliberate. Or first of all, do any of us have any questions? No, sir. All right. I'll consider a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of Ordinance O-26-18. Second.

All right, so we have a motion and a second. Do you have any other discussion? Hearing none. All right, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Council Member Matthews? No. Council Member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Motion carries 3-1.

All right, thank you so much for that. These next two items are combined. We're going to go ahead, item 10C and item 10D. We're going to go ahead and open this second hearing, rezoning of the Contra Drive project. Mr. Stokes.

Yes, an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida approving a small scale amendment to the future land use map changing the land use designation from institutional to low density residential with a maximum density of five dwelling units per acre for approximately 2.93 acres of property located north of Concha Drive, west of Ocean Cove Street, east and south of Horizon Terrace, providing for findings and implementing administrative actions, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for correction of Scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date. And Ordinance O-263, dash 05 is an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida approving a rezoning to change the zoning designation from public service to RS 10, residential single family, 10,000 square foot lot minimum for approximately 2.93 acres of property located north of Concha Drive, west of Ocean Cove Street, east and south of Horizon Terrace, providing for findings and implementing administrative actions, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for correction of scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date.

All right. Thank you so much for that, sir. Counsel, does anyone have any ex parte communications?

No, sir.

Not I. Mr. Dodd?

No, I don't, thank you.

All right, thank you so much. So anyone who's going to be speaking on this, make sure you bring up a... Speaker old card. I'm sorry. Thank you. All right, applicant, your turn to make your presentation.

Yes. Mr. Stokes, did you want to swear people in?

Everybody who's speaking is going to bring a speaker oath card, which has the oath on it. Okay.

All right. Okay, thank you. Tonight we're here for Concha Drive Subdivision. I'm just going to jump ahead and talk about the land use request and the zoning request to move to the RS-10 as the proposed zoning and the LDR as the future land use. That is CONCHA, and we're looking at just proposing an 11-unit subdivision on that site. You can see how we've sketched it out, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have and to ask for your support tonight. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much. Staff?

Good evening. So the request has been made to our office to go from a small scale future land use amendment from institutional to low density residential. As you guys know, that this is part of the overall housing strategic plan element that you guys have talked about before. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

All right. Thank you so much for that. Council didn't want to have any questions for the applicant or staff at this point No, all right now.

We're going to go ahead and open the floor to anyone speaking in favor of this request In favor yes, sir come forward In I am in favor though skim gotta remember Jeff Hamilton again for 26 Pinocchio Street here in Sebastian good evening to all of you again I am definitely in favor of this, having done several hundred or at least 100 Habitat for Humanity homes in Broward, including about 12 complete neighborhood restabilization program projects. The only thing my question is, is I'm hoping that they can assuage what some people are complaining about the drop in property values if they build across the street. Well, are there any guardrails in place to make sure that whoever is the first purchaser, the first one benefiting, doesn't flip the house shortly thereafter. Does the mortgage have a tie-in? I've seen projects where a developer came in and bought a large adult facility, lots of apartments, but it was on the intercoastal, came in, bought it, and promptly paid off the HUD mortgage, went to tear it down, and HUD said, no, you've got a 30-year mortgage. We don't care. There's still a term on it. And are subsequent purchasers going to also be on that same list of prioritized, the first responders, educators. Is it going to remain in that lane of affordable housing, or is it going to flip to immediate market? This is just something we need to consider. But I am in favor of the Habitat for Humanity homes being built. I've seen them ground up, and I've seen them remodeled. As an aside, seeing a late agenda item, I know our full fee was only about $2,500 for each of those 12 houses, about half of what

of the later agenda items fees is thank you all right sir thank you is there anyone else we'll have some of those concerns addressed later uh is there anyone else want to speak on this and all right um no one else all right public input is closed on that side and now i'm going to open the floor to anyone opposing this request Seeing none, we're moving on to, the applicant now is provided an opportunity to respond to something you've heard here tonight, so.

Good evening, Rebecca Grohall, MBV Engineering. For the record, there are absolutely guardrails in place. And I'm more than happy to call up Trevor Loomis, who can talk to you about what those are. But in addition to the stringent screening, overall, I think Habitat Homes, the homebuyers put in hundreds of hours of sweat equity into building their homes. And I do hope Mr. Hamilton, if he sticks around, will want to come volunteer for Habitat. With that said, let me call up Trevor Loomis, and he can talk to you more about the guardrails.

Good evening, council folks and staff. Appreciate the opportunity to be heard tonight. To answer those questions, yes. There are a variety of affordability devices that are put into place to ensure that these homes are not flipped, that they are not turned to market rate homes immediately, not the least of which are a variety of different mortgage products that that we either originate or outsource along with the ship mortgages through the county, a deferred second mortgage that goes on every home that ensures right of first refusal and a shared appreciation clause that exists permanently on that property. That allows us to, if a family chooses to move on, we can buy that house back and then recycle it back into our program for for the same use. We did that seven times this last year. We've been working here for 36 years. We will start construction on our 600th new home in Indian River County next week. And so we have those systems in place to ensure that we are putting the right people into these homes that earn 80% or less of the area median income. They're working families. They live here. They work here. And just need a little bit of assistance and a push in the right direction towards home ownership that being said we like to ensure that that those homes stay for the purpose that they were intended for so we have a variety of legal devices in place to make sure that they stay that way and i think there was another point the gentleman brought up i want you to address it is uh and in the

the agreement that we have a habitat here that that it goes to a resident or city employee of the city just say if that happens in the home someone gives up that home is that still the same level of that proc process starting back over at the top are you all just going to try to get someone in there as soon as you can.

Sure. In the contract, and I'm not looking at it obviously, I think we prioritize four or five things, starting with city employees, city residents, teachers, Indian River County residents, that sort of thing. Obviously, we would do our best to always adhere to that. We don't just put homes up on the market. We have a have a list of applicants that is long and so we can we can go through through that list anytime we have a home that becomes available obviously most of the homes we build brand new and and those families put in three to four hundred hours of sweat equity and they are matched with a lot once they've completed sixty percent of those uh requirements So they've saved some money. They have done that sweat equity in construction, in the restore. We give sweat equity hours for kids getting good grades, things like that. And so once they've achieved 60% of that requirement, that's when they're matched for the lot. That's when they're matched for the build. So there's already buy-in once that has happened. And so our program has been well-structured over the course of three and a half decades to make sure that we're putting the right people into these homes. They're not stuck there. You don't ever want to penalize people for doing better. A lot of government programs are set up that way, unfortunately. We try to structure our programs to make sure that you're never penalizing people for doing better. And so if they want to move on for a better career opportunity or something like that, we try to facilitate that and make sure that happens while keeping that home affordable and putting it right back into our program so that people in the same or similar circumstances will qualify. So, yeah, we will certainly do our best to adhere to those priorities within the contract, the initial build-out. And then in the case of follow-on, we'll actually look at how an amendment to the deferred mortgage situation to put that in there as well.

Right. Well, I want to thank you for answering that because I want to make sure that folks out there understand how this works over there.

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I want people to understand is that we're a local nonprofit. Habitat for Humanity is an international brand and an international organization. Our affiliate here is an independent company. We are based in Indian River County. We all live in Indian River County. My kids go to school in Sebastian. We build and we already, we've done over 100 home renovation projects over the last three years in the city of Sebastian. A lot of people don't realize that. Our interest is in bettering this community and hopefully addressing the affordable housing crisis that so many people are dealing with. We're so grateful for the opportunity to do this and to work in concert with the city government to make this happen.

All right. Thank you for that, sir. Staff, do you have anything final?

Nothing additional to add.

Okay. Okay. All right, thank you. Council, does anyone have questions for the applicant or staff? None? Mr. Dodd? No, thank you, sir. All right, we're going to go ahead and call for a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of Ordinance O-26-04.

So we have a second by Vice Mayor McPartland and second by Council Member Matthews. All right. Any other discussion on that? Hearing none, Madam Clerk?

Council Member Matthews? Yes. Council Member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right, so that was, wait a minute, we have to do it two ways in my career. Mr. Stokes, that was just on item 10C, and now we're going to go ahead with item 10D.

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of Ordinance O2605.

And second. And second. Okay. We have a motion by Councilmember Dodd and second by Vice Mayor McPartland. All right. Any other questions? Any statements? Madam Clerk?

Councilmember Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland.

Yes.

Council Member Matthews. Yes. Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Thank you so much. Then we're going to move on to item 10E. This hearing is now open. Mr. Stokes.

Yes. And this will be combined also E and F. All right. That's correct. E and F. So ordinance number 0-26-10. 2006 an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida approving a small-scale amendment to the future land use map changing the land use designation from institutional to low density residential with a maximum density of five dwelling units per acre for approximately three point eight one acres of property located north of Barber Street west of Adams Street south of Acorn Terrace providing for findings and implementing administrative actions, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for correction of scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date. and ordinance number 0 dash 2, 6 dash 0, 7, an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida approving a rezoning to change the zoning designation from public service to RS 10 residential single family, 10,000 square foot lot minimum for approximately 3.81 acres of property located north of Barber Street, west of Adam Street, south of Acorn Terrace, providing for findings and implementing administrative actions, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for correction of scrivener's errors and providing for an effective date.

All right, thank you so much for that, sir. Counsel, do we have any ex parte communications?

No, sir. No, sir.

No. All right. City Attorney, okay, we're going to, everybody's coming up. Applicant, you may come up and make your presentation.

Good evening, Rebecca Grohal, MBV Engineering. Acorn, I think, is one of our prettiest sites in the three here. And again, we work to apply for the RS-10 zoning with the low-density residential land use. So I'm just going to skip ahead. There's our site. Many of you are familiar with it. I do want to call out, this is important, that on the Barber Street curve, there are no driveways proposed as part of this development. All the driveways are going to be either on Acorn Terrace or Adams Terrace. And with that said, I'm just seeking your support, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much for that. Staff?

So this is what we call the Acorn Terrace parcel. It is 3.81 acres. The request was made to our office for a small-scale future land use amendment from institutional to low-density residential. In addition, also a rezoning application was made from public service to RS-10. And this is the second and final reading. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you so much for that. Counsel, do you have any questions of staff or the applicant at this point? All right. We're going to go ahead and open the floor up to anyone in favor of this request. All right. Next, we're going to open the floor to anyone opposing this request. Seeing none. Applicant? There is nothing stated, so do you need any closing? Staff? Nothing? All right, it's our turn. City Council, let's go ahead and decide what we're going to do, make a motion, discuss it. Any further?

Well, Mr. Mayor, I can't think of a better partner to undertake this than Habitat for Humanity, as they've been in the community for over 36 years and all the houses they've built and rehab. So I'm happy to make a motion for Ordinance O-26-06. Second.

I'll second that.

All right. So we have a motion and a second. Do we have any other discussion on that? Hang on. Roll call.

Mayor Jones.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland.

Yes.

Council Member Matthews. Yes. Council Member Dodd.

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Thank you so much. And we'll entertain a motion for item 10F.

I'll move approval. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to approve Ordinance O-2607.

Second. We have a motion by Councilmember Dodd, second by Vice Mayor McPartland. Any other discussions? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Councilmember Matthews? Yes. Councilmember Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Motion carries, 4-0.

Thank you. Next items on our agenda are items 10G and 10H as in hotel. Mr. Stokes.

Yes, first one is ordinance O-26-08, an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida, approving a small-scale amendment to the future land use map, changing the land use designation from institutional to low-density residential with a maximum density of five dwelling units per acre. for approximately 2.49 acres of property located north of Tuxedo Terrace, east of Clermont Street, and south of Surrey Terrace, west of Persian Lane, providing for findings and implementing administrative actions, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for correction of scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date. and ordinance O-26-09, an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida approving a rezoning to change the zoning designation from public service to RS-10, residential single family, 10,000 square foot lot minimum, for approximately 2.49 acres of property located north of Tuxedo Terrace, east of Claremont Street, and south of Surrey Terrace, west of Persian Lane, providing for findings and implementing administrative actions, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for correction of Scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date.

All right. Thank you so much for that, Mr. Stokes. Counsel, do anyone have any ex parte communication to disclose?

No, sir. No, sir. All right.

Thank you so much. Now is the applicant's opportunity to come up? Good evening. This is the last in our trio of applications for how to attack this evening. We refer to this as the next week of sub-division.

And again, we're simply seeking the artist. And so we would like to thank you for your support of this. All right, thank you so much, ma'am.

Staff, do you have anything?

So this is called the Tuxedo Terrace property. And with Habitat for Humanity, it's 2.49 acres. And they have made a request to go from institutional to low density residential for the future land use, small scale. In addition, they've also made a rezoning request to go from public service to RS-10, which is single family dwelling units of 10,000 square foot per lot. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you so much for that, ma'am. Counsel, you guys want to wait till later again? All right. So we're going to go ahead and open the floor up for anyone in favor of this request. Seeing none. Is there anyone opposing this request? Seeing none. Applicant, you wish to provide any further? Nope. Staff, do you wish to provide? Nope. All right. City Council is our turn now. Let's make a motion or any discussion.

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of Ordinance O-26-08.

Second. So we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Matthews? Yes. Council Member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones? Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Thank you so much. Next item on our agenda is item 10I, consideration of ordinance number O. H. Oh, we've got to vote. Oh, sorry. We've got to vote on H. All right. Let's make a motion on H. That was 2608 and then 2609 now, right?

Mr. Mayor, move approval. Ordinance O-26-09.

Second. All right. So we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Madam Clerk.

Council member Matthews? Yes. Council member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Now we can move on to item I. Go ahead and open this hearing. Mr. Stokes.

Yes, sir. So I and J are the same property. So do we want to do them together as well? Yes. Okay. So I is ordinance 0-26-15, an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida, approving an amendment to the comprehensive plan future land use map to designate a land use classification of VLDR, very low density residential, three units per acre. to property containing 382 acres, more or less, known as Crestwind, located south of 69th Street, east of 82nd Avenue, west of 78th Avenue, north of Sebastian River Improvement District ditch, sub-lateral, C-8-E, with a current land use designation of AG1 Agriculture, one unit per five acres, authorizing findings and administrative actions, providing for conflicts, severability, and scrivener's errors, providing an effective date, and providing an adoption schedule. and Ordinance O-26-16, an ordinance of the City of Sebastian, Florida, providing a zoning designation for annexed land with a prior county zoning designation of A1, Agriculture 1 to PUDR, Planned Unit Development Residential, in accordance with the conceptual development plan for property consisting of 382 acres, more or less, south of 69th Street, east of 82nd Avenue, west of 78th Avenue, north of Sebastian River Improvement District, ditch sub-lateral C-8-E, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for scrivener's errors, and providing for an effective date.

All right, thank you so much for that, sir. City Council members, do you or anyone have any ex parte communication?

No, sir.

No, sir. No? Nope.

Okay.

All right, is the applicant here? You may step forward, sir.

to a parcel that you recently asked them to the city. And part of that was annexation.

And annexation had two items that Holder was the applicant to see if he had to do. And those two items are in front of the city. One is to request a land use change to very low residential. And then also to request a rezoning of the UDR.

Both of those items are in front of the city, and I've been walking through them very quickly.

Screen is the 382 acre parcel just south of 69th, just east of 82nd Street. The parcel is the one that was subject of your annexation agreement. As you can see on the screen, you approved that agreement on May 13th, and then it was actually officially annexed into the city of Sebastian on May 26th. So the items that Mr. Stokes read off are on the screen in front of you, a comprehensive plan amendment, in essence, changing the density to three dwelling units per acre. And I'd like to stop there just for a second. The developer, as part of their annexation agreement, agreed to cap it to about 79% of that maximum density. So the actual density that's going to be on this site is 2.35 dwelling units per acre. The second part of this is a rezoning, and that rezoning is to allow it to go to PUDR which is your implementation for residential plan development. So on the screen is the proposed change to your comprehensive plan, and you can see identified as a very low residential, three dwelling units per acre. And then here is the rezoning, changing the color to meet and match the City of Sebastian PUDR zoning designation. This is the project that's in front of you this evening. As part of the application, we're required to submit a master conceptual plan And that's a little bit later in the document, but this is a colored graphic of that master conceptual plan. And there are a couple key items here. On the left-hand side is north on this screen. You'll see 69th Street and 82nd Street. And let me walk you through a few details on the site. So the proposed site is 900 units. It is an age-restricted community. Your transportation study is based on that, meaning that it's entitled for people 55 and older only. and it is an age-restricted community. As part of that, Coulter has a product called Crestwind that they develop, and they do a really great job in developing that product, and they develop not just in Florida, but across the Southeast United States, and it's a very popular product, and that product, why it's popular is because the amenity center. The amenity center proposed on this site is 8.29 acres, and it'll have several buildings, and we're really being engaging into the community. As I said earlier, the density is 2.35 dwelling units per acre, The code requirement of open space is 191 acres. The proposal is 210 acres. We are also having some public benefits that are part of this. We are actually dedicating land area for a canal here along the south boundary. And then also we're dedicating 76 feet of right-of-way along 82nd for the DOT plan. And then finally, we're incorporating a water management district that Mr. Mills can discuss for the water management track that Mr. Mills can discuss in regards to for the Florida Department of Transportation also. So there are public benefits associated with the subject site. A little bit more detail about our design concept. It is the large amenity really is the hub of the community. I mean, that's really what makes these active adult communities special. And that becomes the center of the entire community. We have large landscape buffers throughout the site, in particular adjacent to the community to the east and also then to the west. So this is the actual plan that if you decide to approve the sieving, it's more of a technical plan on the screen in front of you. It identifies generally where the water management tracks will go, the road network. It identifies the phases of how the project could be built in a phase component and the total number of units of 900. So a little bit about access to the site. So there are two points of access, 69th Street and 82nd Street. So to answer your question, what happens if 82nd Street, if FDOT doesn't have 82nd Street constructed prior to this project coming online, the developer is responsible for constructing 82nd Street in front of its project to get to the access point. And you can see the main access point both off of 69th and 82nd. The standard right-of-way sections are identified on the screen in front of you. Coulter has a design concept where they go for a little wider right-of-ways. It allows them to place street trees in certain areas. They also believe in having the center island to allow for additional landscaping. And this is the actual landscape buffers. These are sections that are part of your plan. As we come back in for the individual approvals, the details of the landscape plan will be identified. But for the purpose of PUD, we're providing a 50-foot buffer adjacent to Quail Valley. On the north side on 69th Street, it's a 50-foot buffer. On the south side along 82nd, it is a 50-foot wide buffer. And on the south side, it's a 30-foot buffer adjacent to the canal. And these are the proposed landscape section. You'll note that there are berm sections and a significant amount of landscaping in plan view. Again, when we come back in front of you for the next layer of approvals, we will have very detailed landscape plans as part of the application process. And this is not the amenity parcel that we're proposing. This is one from another project. We haven't worked out all the details of this one. But I just wanted to give you a flare of kind of where Coulterhead's. This is an actual project that Coulterhead built You'll see a pretty significant clubhouse, lots of pickleball and paddle and all, and bocce too, which I'm not exactly sure what that is, but they have a significant amount of amenities proposed. And that is required to come back. And then in regards to open space, I identified the area, but on the screen in front of you is identified as the open space, how the calculation comes about. Again, we're at 55%. The code requirement is 50%. And these are typical lot details for your review. The key items here are the lot size. I had the opportunity to speak to Coulter this evening. Lot sizing will range in this community for several different lot size. The setbacks are five feet on the side. And then here is a quick view of the architecture that they had built on other projects throughout the process. Of course, this all comes back in front of you when we come back for a PD. And then conceptually, our engineers here, but I'll just go through real quick the utilities just so you understand where everything's coming from. The water line is connected to 69th Street. We'll also do a water main extension on 82nd Street and also a force main extension for sanitary sewer. Transportation, our transportation engineers here, but on the screen in front of you, we have identified the additional trips that are available. The most important thing to note is that This meets all of the requirements, and the transportation network is not adversely impacted. So in conclusion, going a little faster this evening, we're requesting the implementation of the annexation agreement, which is a land use amendment and also a rezoning of PUDR. Our whole team is here assembled to answer any questions you may have. Thank you this evening.

Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Staff, it's your time.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Jim Mann, Community Development. Tonight we have before you, as Mr. Tooman was explaining, a future land use change. This is a large-scale amendment from the current zoning of AG or current land use designation of AG1, which is in the county. It's agricultural, a maximum one unit per five acres to a very low residential density to three units per acre max. So the project name is Crestwind. The applicant is Colter Group Acquisitions LLC, and the engineer of record is Mill Shorts and Associates. As I said, it's a large-scale future land use amendment going from AG1 to very low residential, and the acreage for the property is 382.48 acres in size. Before you, we have a location map of the parcels in question. It's just south of the Graves Brothers annexation property, west of the Quail Valley Golf Resort, and north of some agricultural and east of some agricultural vacant land. So the existing future land use right now is agricultural and the proposed is a very low residential density. So with a competent consistency, this is consistent with our policy 1-1.2.1 that designate a very low density residential with a maximum three dwelling units per acre. And any other applicable elements within the comprehensive plan is consistent. And I'll move on to the zoning portion of these items. It's a rezoning and conceptual planned unit development. Currently it is a one, which is agricultural one dwelling unit per five acres. They're requesting a PUDR, which is a planned unit development residential. The acreage remains the same. Again, we do have a location map of the site in question. So some of the items listed within the conceptual plan, this is a total of 900 single family lots. It is an age restricted community with 55 plus. The proposed density is 2.35 acres, which is consistent with the future land use of a very low density, three units per acre maximum. So also with the open space, we do require them to provide 50%, which they have proposed 55% for open space and recreation. And in lieu of a public park, because of the location and it being a age-restricted gated community or private community, they will provide a recreation in lieu of a public park. And that will be consistent of the fair market value of the site. And they do the determination. We do some calculations and whatnot. Some public benefits they are providing. They are going to extend the utility infrastructure. They are going to provide some off off-site roadway improvements for 69th Street to be consistent with the county codes and Green Book standards that they required to design the street. They're also donating some land to the water management districts for the canal right-of-way to provide maintenance and widen those canal and increase the drainage for those canals. So here's a proposed conceptual plan. This is the overall conceptual plan. It's a little hard to read, but this is what they submitted, and you guys have this in your packet. As you can see, it is broken into five different phases, the first phase starting in the north and then moving south to phase five. This is the overall site plan. It is not color coded like Mr. Tuma's. presentation but this is as sufficient as i have as you can see it provides you know the lot dimensions and right-of-way dimensions for the site and as a recommendation for 26-15 we want to be authorized to send this to the state as this is a large-scale amendment the state is required to review this for at least a 30-day time period. And we will schedule the second reading for the future land use after receiving those comments from the state. And for a recommendation for the second item is for the future land use amendment. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

All right. Is that it for you, sir? All right, thank you so much for that. We're gonna go ahead and open the floor up to anyone who wants to speak in favor of this item. Seeing none, is there anyone wishing to oppose this request? Seeing none, all right. Oh, sorry, come on up, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Damian Gilliams, 1623 US 1, real estate developer in the community for over 40 years. So this is really good for our community. 900 units on 300 plus acres. Sounds like 10 pounds of sand in a five pound bag. It's not consistent with what's going on in our community because we have 80 foot lots by 125. You're reflecting 50-foot lots with five-foot setbacks. It's not consistent. You need improvements not only along 69th, but if I looked at that correctly, I think there was another egress and ingress. That other street was left out. This is not consistent. This is going to be a big impact on this community. And you are setting the standards for the future. This is a five-phase deal, probably not paying any taxes on the phases because it's done Agricultural, Lee, no taxes, but the police department will have to be out there. This is all one-sided. It's all for the developer. It's not consistent with what this community wants. They're very upset about the last turnout with the annexations that have been going on in this community. It's just cut and dry. We're going to bring these guys in. They're going to profit. And then they're going to leave, and we're going to be stuck with all the traffic. And I thought that was pretty interesting with the amenities that it's going to be for that group, no public parks within this PUD. But they'll yet share in our public parks in the community, as far as that goes, and our docks and access to the river. This is being run through by a bunch of professionals, and they're good. These guys are really good. I mean, over 40 years of watching presentations done in this community, these guys are well greased. That annexation agreement, I'm sure it's been well prepared so that the people that vote you in this office here, you're not representing their views and their interests. You're looking out for the developers. And that's not good. That's not good. as the president of the Sebastian Homeowners Association, which we're still there, but we're just laying low. We're watching what you guys are doing. And this town is going to grow. I don't need to tell you that the statistics are showing 1,200 people a day are moving into the state of Florida. It's backing down a little to 600, 700. But they're coming to Indian River County because of our lifestyle, our quality of life. And you're changing that. You're changing that because nobody wants to come up here and confront you and say, hey, let's slow this thing down. They have good money behind them representing them with their presentations, and our staff is doing a great job in presenting their proposals. But who's standing up for the taxpayers of this community when the crime goes up and we've got to increase the... We've got to increase our budget for police safety, Mr. Mayor. Please, don't rush into this. And I don't know these people from Adam, but...

Applicant, you're provided an opportunity to respond to any issues you've heard raised here this evening.

Thank you. Good evening again. I just would like to respond to one thing the gentleman said, and it's in regards to the part that our in lieu of fee is going. So what everyone needs to recognize in the annexation agreement, in the agreement that the developer has with the city, They are contributing $700,000 up front to help the recreation, which will be used for your waterfront. Number two, as part of the individual building permits when they come in, there will be an additional $2,000. So this is contributing to that situation, and I appreciate your time this evening.

All right. Thank you so much for that, sir. Staff, is there anything final you need? No?

I have nothing more to add, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thank you, sir. We're going to go ahead and close that, and we'll deliberate how we'd like to proceed, counsel. Or do we have any questions, first of all?

I don't have a question, but I do want to just clarify that during your presentation, you were addressing it as 82nd Street, and it's 82nd Avenue. I don't want the community to get confused where 82nd Street, there's a big difference there, so.

Thank you. All right. Hearing none, I will go ahead and entertain a motion on 026-15 first.

Mr. Mayor. I move approval of ordinance 026-15, first reading and transmittal, and then set the second reading for a date uncertain.

Second. All right. So we have a motion and a second, and the second reading is... for a date uncertain right now? Do we have a date? I know we're going uncertain.

Correct, we will receive comments from the state.

We'll entertain a motion on item 10J, 2616.

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of ordinance O-26-16.

All right, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Bob McPartland. Do we have a second? Second. So we have a motion and a second. Do we have any discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Mayor Jones.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland.

Yes.

Council Member Matthews. Yes. Council Member Dodd.

Yes.

Motion carries. All right.

Thank you so much. Our next agenda item is Item 12A, Consideration of Ordinance 26-19. I'm going to open this hearing. Mr. Stokes. Oh, sorry. Item A. A. A.

I'm Kay. Kay. Kay is in Kilroy. Oh, okay.

That's Kay.

Oh, okay. Here we go.

Okay. All right. We're going to item 10K, talking about the city charter established in the ballot language. Mr. Stokes.

The ordinance O-26-19, an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida, providing for a referendum to be held at the general election on November 3rd, 2026, for the purpose of determining whether the city charter should be amended, providing for placement of three referendum items on the ballot, providing the text of the proposed charter amendments, directing the city clerk to provide the supervisor of elections with a copy of this ordinance, publishing the referendum items in accordance with state law, providing for severability, providing for repeal of ordinances in conflict herewith.

I'll keep this one. This is the item that

Charter review committee worked on for so many months and the three items we we talked about it several times here the first item is for the eligibility to run for City Council requiring domicile for two years immediately the final date of qualification and defining domicile as being physically present as a resident in the city for no less than 270 days in a 12-month period. So it does kind of solidify that it's somebody who's a little bit more connected with the city. The second item is a compensation item. which will be moving the mayor to $750 a month and the vice mayor and council members to $600 a month. This is the first increase that council has seen in I believe it's 24 years. I think it was, or 22 years. It was 2004 the last time the salaries were adjusted. And then the last item is dealing with vacancies and forfeiture of office. It just clarifies that That that is something only a the governor can remove a elected official or reinstate an elected official But it does establish that there will would be a hearing that's a City Council would would entertain before requesting Removal or suspension by the governor So it does provide that due process. And those are the three items. And if council approves it, then we will put it on the ballot.

All right. Thank you so much for that, sir. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Damian Gilliam, 1623 U.S. 1. I'm happy to see that the committee is reviewing the charter. Great microphone system, by the way. But they didn't follow the charter back when I was elected. The charter says that we're required to have one meeting a month, and we didn't have that one meeting, the infamous meeting that you removed me. It was required under the charter, and we went in front of Judge Croom, and Judge Croom said, you need to go back and have another meeting to decide if that was a legal meeting. So changing things to the charter is very important. And I take it personal. I call the changing of the charter very significant because these are the rules that the council has to follow and the charter officers have to follow. And they did not follow these charter rules in the past. So they're only as good as this council enforcing them. And when you don't enforce them, they mean nothing. So if you go back and you look at the record, you will see during COVID-19, we were required to have a meeting a month. And Mr. Nunn, who was the attorney, and Paul Carlisle, who was the city manager at the time, failed to have that meeting that month.

Sir, what have I got to do with these things right now? This is part of the charter, sir.

If you're going to interrupt me, stop the clock, and I'll be happy to listen to you, Mr. Mayor. No, go ahead. Thank you. So I want to get back to the charter. If you're going to make amendments to the charter, you need to follow the charter. You agree, I'm sure. So as far as compensation, this is a public service job. There are a lot of people in this community who would serve this community for nothing. To do it for money is an insult to this community. If you really need to have the money, you need really to go get a second job because we're looking for people to do public service and to get compensation and double when people are having a difficult time with inflation, gas, paying their mortgages, paying their student loans. And then this council has the audacity to take a look at, I mean, you should have sent this back to the charter committee and said, no way in hell are we gonna double your salary. This is the wrong time to be raising your salary. People are hurting out there. And what you're doing is you're sending a signal after that nice multi-million dollar project you did at the airport, and I hate to keep bringing it up, but it was $6 million over budget, it was 3.4 million when I was on city council, and it was a 9.2 when it was completed, give or take a few hundred thousand dollars. And I'm not saying that this city manager, he was the one that's cleaning this mess up. And I want to commend Brian and his staff and the city attorney for doing what they're doing, because they are making this city a lot better. And I want to, yes, I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the extra time. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Absolutely. All right, thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this? Yes, ma'am.

Hello, counsel. Hello. First, I've served on the Charter Committee, and these are my feelings. I'm not representing the Charter Committee. I think it's important to put the compensation to the vote of the folks. When we considered this in charter, there was a lot of research done on the communities around us. I don't think that sometimes people realize how much work is done. It's not just about a couple of hours that you sit here and listen to us. You spend hours in the community. You spend hours on the phone with citizens and reviewing hundreds of pages of sometimes very complex documents. And when everyone's saying it is a double, we're talking about $600. And nobody on council contacted any of us on charter committee to ask us to do this. So I want folks to be aware. that this is something that we felt really strongly. And honestly, we went down in the amount of compensation that we sent to you knowing that all of you were here for serving the community and not about this pittance of money is not going to change your lifestyles. But it may help other people consider running in the future. So that was one of the reasons we put this forward. And I certainly hope that you will approve the two-year domicile because it really takes that long to kind of get the feeling of Sebastian and know what's going on. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you so much for that, ma'am. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this? Anyone with their hand raised on Zoom?

Not at this time.

All right. Thank you. Public input is closed. Counsel, how would we like to proceed?

I just want to clarify, I know that when we discussed this at the beginning that we were going to break these down and vote on each section and we've kind of lumped it together and it's one good thing. I do stand by my original statement when I said in the very beginning that I appreciate the hard work that the charter review went through and what they did and how much effort And anybody that watched that or participated or attended any of those meetings, you'll see that they went back and forth for a long time. I still stand by my original statement is that I serve this community because that's what I want to do and not because I'm looking for compensation or I'm looking for money. As it was stated earlier, that if I was looking for money, I would get a job versus serving as a public servant. I recognize the work. I appreciate the consideration. The other thing that I do want to make perfectly clear, because for whatever reason this is a misunderstanding, that this is going to the voters, that all we're doing is saying yes or no to put it on a ballot to send to the voters. We are not giving ourself a raise. And I just want to clarify that, that this is the voters of this community that will decide whether or not the council continues or goes with a higher income or stays the same.

All right. Thank you so much for that, ma'am. Anyone else have anything? Well, Mr. Mayor, I think it was. Hang on, Mr. Dodd.

I think it was 16 years ago that me and Mr. Dodd were serving on the Charter Review Committee, and we did put forth the money issue to the voters, and it was shot down. And I kind of feel the same way as Ms. Matthews does on the compensation. But again, this is the hard work of the Charter Review Committee that are putting it to us, and all we're doing is putting it out to the voters, and the voters will decide what they want to see in the Charter. So there are three recommendations. I'm in full support of those recommendations.

All right, thank you so much. Mr. Dodd?

Yeah, I was going to say basically the same thing. If I was on the council and made an extra $300 a month, that wouldn't change my lifestyle at all. However, I feel like it would be kind of inappropriate for me to refuse to transfer forward to the voters something that comes out of that committee. They're there for a purpose. They're there to look at the charter and to make these recommendations. And like the vice mayor said, when I was on the charter review committee, when he served on it, we did the same thing. We tied our increase in salary to a four-year term, a two-term limit, and that got shot down by the council. Part of that did. So I think it's appropriate that we transfer this forward. I do want to clarify something that one speaker said. We were not in violation of the charter during COVID-19. And that individual took his paycheck during the six months or so he was able to stay on council. And it was not... It was not something that was done in violation of the charter. Those were exceptional times. I don't think there's anything you could build into a charter that identifies something like that first nine months of COVID before people realize they need to settle down. So there was no violation of charter that was done by the council at that point in time. So thank you, sir.

All right, thank you so much for that, sir. And I will say, I served as a chairman of the Charter Review Committee years ago, and I can tell you, we put in a lot of work, like this group put in a lot of work going through the charter, deciding what they thought would be best to be changed by the voters of this city. And I remember when I was the chair, we had decided on four or five things, and the council at that time pretty much shut down everything we had worked on for six months. I think it's important those people put in that type of work. Whatever they put forward with us, we are going to move it forward, and I am in full support. So now we will entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor, I move approval of Ordinance O-26-19. Second.

All right, so we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk.

Vice Mayor McPartland? Yes. Council Member Matthews? Yes. Council Member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Motion carries, 4-0.

All right. I guess now we can do the Community Development Block Grant, Item 12A. I think we skipped earlier.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. This is the resolution for the annual action plan for fiscal year 26-27 for the Community Development Block Grant. We have our consultant here who will do a little bit of a deeper dive for it, and we'll bring him up right now, and he'll go over some things with that. Joseph Sheets will...

Hang on just a second. Mrs. Stokes, can you read that?

Would you like me to read? Yes.

Resolution R-26-25, a resolution of the City of Sebastian, Indian River County, Florida, approving the Community Development Block Grant 2026-2027 Annual Action Plan and authorizing the City Manager to execute and transmit all documents to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, providing for conflict, providing for Scrivener's errors, providing for an effective date.

All right. Thank you so much. You're the applicant. Good evening.

My name is Joseph Sheets. Thank you all for having me. Good evening to the council, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Manager, all members of the council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight, Joseph Sheets with Accenture, to present our presentation about the CDBG Housing Rehabilitation Program. We're going to go over the annual action plan tonight. So, as some of you may know, I think I've seen a couple of you here once a year for the last three years or so since we've been engaged with the city. But we, on an annual basis, we have to present this to the elected officials as well as to the public to make sure everyone is informed about the program, about the plans for the future, and about results from the current year of this program. as a statually required part of the community development block grant program. So the community development block grant on the city side is administered by Alex Bernard, Michelle Faulkner here, So, as I mentioned, it's a yearly planning document. This annual action plan is just one portion of, like, say you have your comprehensive plan and some of those other general planning documents, addresses things like affordable housing, community development, homelessness as part of the consolidated planning cycle, and helps feed into setting the priorities for for the housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant. I'll say CDBG moving forward. That's a mouthful. So again, the plan determines how funding will be used and examines results from the prior years. So the city is about to begin rehab on a single-family home to restore failing interior and exterior quality of life components including windows, roof, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical. It's typical rehab work to be done through this program. There's five residents that have submitted applications and currently undergoing eligibility review with the goal to serve at least two of those. So what does that eligibility review look like? Well, a lot of it has to align with the national objectives, right? We have to prioritize very low income, low income, low to moderate income households. And the eligible homeowners, right, the repairs have to be to restore specific items and urgent need, health safety issues, and then elimination of slum and blight. So the city's program, right now, the eligible activities are those code, correct code and housing quality standard deficiencies. The CDBG program as a whole, you know, can't address many different items, so it's the city's responsibility to determine, right, what are the most pressing, what are the most appropriate to address with the amount of funding that they get. So, as mentioned before, prioritizing very low income, low income, low to moderate income households, veteran families and individuals, elderly families and individuals, disabled families and individuals. Additionally, every year the city is eligible to use up to 20% of that funding towards the administration of this program. which includes general administration, environmental reviews, IDIS reporting, which is HUD's system for the statutorily required reporting, vouchers, planning, vendor coordination. These programs, as I mention here every year, are notoriously administratively burdensome. They require a heavy amount of administration just for one applicant to move through the process. HUD has very, very strict regulations to ensure that the funding is being used properly and to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. Current funding timeline, so that would be September 1st, 2026 through August 31st, 2027 for the fiscal year 27 funding cycle. The annual allocation is 121,235. As we see, we have the 80% to 20% split. So, again, not a ton of funding, right, in the grand scheme of things, but for one person, right, that amount of money, or one or more people, right, that amount of money can be a significant game changer. So, I said a lot of things, talked a lot of words right there. Any questions from the council?

I don't have any. You guys have any questions? Staff, you have anything further?

Nothing additional.

All right. Thank you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Anyone on Zoom?

No one has raised their hand.

All right.

Counsel? I just wish there was a way that we could get increased money for this grant because the services it does provide, like you said, it might seem like a little bit of money, but for one person, this is a lot of money, rehabilitation of their home, and I just wish there was more block grant money out there. And with that, I make a motion to approve resolution R-26-25. All right.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second. Second.

Second, Mr. Dodd. All right. Thank you. Is that, you know, I know they're labor intensive, all the work that has to go behind. Is that 20% admin fee truly, is it, does it cover it really? It does? For the most part.

Yes.

And unfortunately, with the five applicants, only one applicant was eligible. So they have to do a whole lot of work to go through that process, and we aren't getting very many applicants that are eligible.

Wow. So we have money.

We just need to give it away.

There's other programs that don't have that high of percentage of administration, and it can be difficult.

Yeah, for sure. All right, thank you so much for that. Madam Clerk, roll call.

Council Member Matthews? Yes. Council Member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones? Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right, thank you so much. All right, we're going to move on to Item 12B, Rehabilitation Program. Who do we have, Ms. Graham?

Good evening, Council. So, today we are here for the selection of Rotako and Chan Architecture for CDBG Housing Rehab Program. So, procurement issued out a solicitation to rehab one house that was eligible during the cycle, and we had three vendors submit. The lowest vendor, the lowest responsive and responsible bidder was Rotako and Chan Architecture. And even though their price was significantly lower than the other prices received, it was in line with our estimate that we received, which was $49,000 when they went through When the company went through to create the scope of work, that was the estimate they had. So today I'm just asking council to approve the selection of Vertaco and Shand architecture for ICB 26-15 CDBG housing rehabilitation program for one single family home. And the total cost is $57,500. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you so much for that, ma'am. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Anyone on Zoom?

No one has raised their hand at this time.

All right. Public input is closed. Council, any discussion?

Nope. Is this a particular application part of the September 1st, 26 through 27 grant program, or is it part of the one for this fiscal year?

So this is part of the previous year. The five applications that they referenced is the 26-27, but this is part of the previous year's funding. So we're trying to... Oh, go ahead, sir.

Well, the funding comes out of the grant that we approved last year for 25-26. That's correct, yes. That's what I was asking. Okay, all right. And it shows, this may be a question for the non-purchasing, but it shows in the staff report that we have an $80,000 budget against this. Is there any opportunity that we can find someone eligible for those additional funds to provide some assistance?

So the housing and rehabilitation program guide that the city has, that $80,000 is the max that we could spend with per house. But Ms. Wagner is here.

Yes.

So, yeah, what's left in last year's funds that we need to try to expend? After this.

About $183,000. So we're still working from 2025 funds. And we only received one applicant also during that funding year.

Okay, so we've got... We've got $180,000 in available funds, and we're going to spend $57,000 roughly. Is that the case?

We have $183,000, I think, approximately, from last year that's going to roll over, and then we have the new funding from the 26th program year.

Okay, so does that money from – this is where I was trying to understand. Does that money go away? Is it a use it or lose it philosophy, or does it roll into the 26th, 27th calendar year?

Yes, it will roll over.

Okay, so if we can find people eligible, then we'll have more than the, what was it, what we just approved in the last item, I think was about $100,000. Yes. So we'll have more money than that that we can spend in the next budget year if we can find people that are eligible.

That's correct.

Okay. Is there anything we can do to try to increase? I mean, is there something we can do from an advertising point of view that's not, that doesn't cause a problem with us, of course, that lets us try to identify more people to apply?

We do. We actually had two public hearings. This is being the second one for this round of funding. We advertised for our previous year funding. We do social media. Avery does a good job at putting stuff out there. We're just not getting eligible applicants.

OK. Is there any coordination with the SHIP program people at the county that maybe they've got people that they've run out of funds for that we might be able to help?

Yes, they do. They send them our way if they have somebody that's on a waiting list. And we currently do not have a waiting list.

I mean, it's a great program. It just surprised me we can't find enough money, enough people in Sebastian that are eligible that we could spend this money on. I wish we could. But I'm not questioning this bid here for this. That's good work on that. I'm just questioning all the money that seems to be sitting there that we're not being able to use. So that's it. Thank you, sir.

All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Dodd. Is there anybody else have anything on this? Or we can go ahead and entertain a motion.

I think maybe on what Mr. Dodd's talking about, have we considered talking to the veteran service officers next door? Because a lot of veterans come in for this type of program. And, you know, there is some housing and funds through the VA, but those are specifically for like a remod of a bathroom, and it's not a lot of money. So letting them know.

They are on our stakeholder list to receive the information.

All right, that sounds great. You're telling everybody you can except just knocking on everybody's door. So we're doing all that we can. So I'll move approval of ITB 26-15.

All right, we have a motion by Vice Mayor McPartland. Do we have a second?

I'll second. I'll second.

All right, so we have a motion and a second. All right, any other discussion? Madam Clerk.

Council Member Matthews. Yes. Council Member Dodd.

Yes.

Mayor Jones.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland.

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Thank you so much. We're going to move on to Item 12C, Consideration of Resolution R-26-24. Who do we have? Mr. Stokes. Yes.

A resolution of the City Council of the City of Sebastian, Florida authorizing the submission of a grant application to the Florida Division of Arts and Culture Cultural Facilities Program requesting $500,000 for the Riverview Park project and further authorizing an amount of $1 million as the city's matching funds.

All right. Thank you so much for that. Mr. Blankenship.

Good evening, Council. Richard Blankenship, Parks and Recreation Director. This is another, you know, as we progress through the renovations to Riverview Park, this is another grant opportunity that we can maximize on grants that we've already received to receive additional funds. And this would be specifically for what we call the entertainment area. It would be the band shell and that area that would surround the band shell. We may end up with a different type of seating or ground surface or something like that, but that's what this is specifically for. There's been no design, so part of this, if awarded, would go toward design. And we've received five letters of support from the Chamber, the Shrimp Fest, the Clan Bake, those folks that are using Riverview for this type of event. You know, we have the portable stage, but it's over 20 years old, and we're putting a lot of money into that to keep it portable. So, you know, it's time that we... Even if awarded in the fall, it's probably a year or two out before we're able to do any construction. So with that, I'll answer any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you so much. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Anyone on Zoom?

No one has raised their hand.

All right. Public input is closed. Counsel, do you have any questions? Anyone have any questions for staff?

Do we have any idea of what a design would look like?

I'm sorry conceptual conceptual design any idea I mean a band shell is not not really anything specifically you know we want something that you can see through the if there's nobody on stage you can see the river yeah I think kind of our our design for Riverview Park with the project is to have this located on the eastern portion of Riverview Park up against Indian River Drive, that area, where you could sit underneath the trees, underneath the oaks, keep the shade, where now where you're sitting facing this band shell, there's not a lot of shade in the front area. You've got to sit further behind the trees. So we'd move it down towards the eastern portion, utilize the trees in that area, and you would look right out towards the Indian River Lagoon. So you would be able to see right through the band shell and see the lagoon in the backdrop.

All right. I mean, the only other thing I think of is I just want to thank Richard. I think this is kind of like old Richard brought this money in, crying out loud, right? Richard just... Right? I mean, you applied for the new way the grants were, and I mean, I think that's important to locate is that, you know, we had already a million dollars in grant approved, and this is another $500,000 from a cultural affairs grant that the city was on the lookout, picked them up, and that's where we're at. So I'm very happy.

Yeah, absolutely. Are there any other questions?

No? I'll move approval of Resolution R-26-24.

All right, we have a motion by Vice Mayor McPartland. Do we have a second by Council Member Matthews? Sure. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Council Member Dodd? Yes. Mayor Jones. Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland. Yes. Council Member Matthews. Yes. Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Next item is item 12D. I think, who's up? You're on this, Mr. Benton, or is someone else handling the first part?

Yeah, I mean, I think we got Mr. Blankenship and Ms. Graham. They're going to tag team this one and provide the information.

I'll let Ms. Graham go first. Do I need to pull out the number sheet on this one or you're going to be able to do it without me looking at all?

I'll go ahead and start, Mr. Mayor. So we are requesting to issue a purchase order to Net Zero USA to conduct an LED retrofit of the city hall building as well as the police department. And the total cost would not exceed $99,865.00. And that does include a 10% contingency, which in case the city supplied count is off or in case we needed additional items during the conversion, we wanted to make sure that we had a buffer so that we did not have to come back to council and we could go ahead and complete the project in one go. And I did also just want to point out that this item is going to be funded through savings that were achieved during the police department roof project. So Mr. Blankenship requested $300,000 in this year's capital improvement plan, but we only spent $151,530.38. So we're asking to move the $99,865 from that CIP project to create a new project for the city hall and police department LED retrofit And this will be, this purchase will be processed through a cooperative agreement. So if you have any additional questions or if Richard, if you have anything to add about the entire project.

I can add some issues, well not issues, but some information about how we got here. We had been working on this project for about nine months as far as we knew we wanted to do it. We wanted to have a positive effect on the ad valorem budget. If you come here at any time during the evening or off hours or whatever, you see that there's a lot of waste. So we wanted to take care of that. But we knew that the majority of our fixtures were not LED and they needed to be. So we were already working on putting in the budget for next year, but this opportunity came up and Mr. Benton agreed that this was something we should bring to council. So, you did receive a savings analysis this afternoon. I got to caveat that with that was done by not net zero that we're proposing is a manufacturer. The analysis was done by a distributor. We asked net zero about doing a similar analysis and they don't recommend that because this is all based on our numbers. This is based on our counts and our counts may be off so they don't want mislead the situation. So what will happen from here is if it's approved, the net zero will send an auditor down and we will go around together and do the counts. And at that point, they'll tell us, well, you really don't need to do that. You need to do something differently or, you know, they're the experts. So again, if this is moved forward tonight, we will have the auditor do the counts and that's why we put in the contingency and the not to exceed amount.

All right. Thank you, sir. What I can tell you that there would be definitely a big cost savings to this campus and all over once those things are converted over because there are lights that stay on forever. What is the disruption to the city would be like when that project got started? Have they talked about that at all? It wouldn't be any disruption.

This is a turnkey. This is the product installation and the removal of the the product that's in the ceiling now. It takes them about 10 minutes to do an install. So there would be no, you know, somebody may have to step out of their office for 10 minutes or do a bunch of offices during the lunch hour or something like that, but there would be no interruption to operations.

Unless they run into some wiring issues because the building is old partially.

We don't anticipate that. I mean, the LED conversions are very compared to other conversions because there's no ballast. There's not a lot of wires compared to the old way of doing it.

Okay. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item?

Mr. Mayor. Oh, sorry. There's one item that I forgot to mention that upon completion of the retrofit, Florida Power and Light, FPO, will issue the city a $10,140 rebate for completing this LED conversion.

Well, thank you for that. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Anyone on Zoom?

No one has raised their hand.

Any other information from staff that we need before we make a decision?

Nothing? Sir.

All right. Council, any questions or anything?

Yeah, I have a question if I can, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, sir.

I'm up in the sky.

I'm looking up at you right now.

Thank you, sir. Okay. I was just, is there an opportunity that any of the fixtures themselves, other than the illumination device, may have to be changed out? I didn't really recognize that in there. I'm talking about if they go in and they find they have to actually take out the entire current fixture and replace it with another one that includes an LED. Okay.

Yes, they will do that to all of them. They'll be completely new fixture.

Okay, so my question is, is there money in here for the potential of repairing any potential building impact that it might have? I mean, if there's walls damaged and the fixture switch out or whatever, is there money in here for that, or should we include some contingency money in for that, or is that part of the contract?

If there's damage done by the contractor, that would be covered by them. There is contingency money. but it's really not for damage. That would be under, you know, the contractor would cover that. If it, and we do have staff, you know, qualified to make any repairs if they're minor like that as we go along. So there's no delay.

All right, okay. I just want to make sure we've got the money in there to cover the potential impact, long-term impact of it, so.

Does it, that sounded like a motion, Mr. Dodd, was it?

I'll make a motion to approve The light switch out. Okay. Item 12D.

Item 12D. Item 12D, a motion by Councilmember Dodd, second by Vice Mayor McPartland. Any other discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, roll call.

Mayor Jones.

Yes.

Vice Mayor McPartland. Yes. Councilmember Matthews. Yes. Councilmember Dodd. Yes. Motion carries 4-0.

All right, thank you so much. Next item is item 12E as an echo. Mr. Stokes, you're up.

Yes, resolution R-26-26, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sebastian, Florida, appointing special magistrates to adjudicate matters as set forth by law and approving engagement agreements with a primary and secondary magistrate, providing for severability and providing for an effective date. Council, this was necessitated by our former magistrate who resigned because she was running for state house and it was a resign to run situation which solved a bit of a problem for us. reached out to attorneys who are knowledgeable in the area of of uh... local government uh... found two gentlemen one of whom you all know uh... many a non the other gentleman is uh... michael pelzman uh... and uh... both of them have have agreed to do it and agreed to do it at our terms which is considerably less than our last contract these agreements uh... And my idea of getting two is so that we have a backup, so we don't ever have to cancel a hearing because a magistrate's unavailable. And so it won't increase our budget at all, because we'll still only be paying for one magistrate per month or per hearing. But we will have that flexibility of being able to use either of the magistrates available. It's going to be $250 an hour is the proposed rate if council approves it, which is a lot less than the $400 that the last one was. And this one doesn't provide for no billing for prep time, travel time, or any post-hearing time, which the other contract called for. So this will necessitate a significant reduction in my budget for special magistrate fees.

All right. Thank you. And thank you so much for looking out for the reduction in that budget as well. But obviously, we've had times in the city by having one magistrate that if they weren't able to get here, the cases had to be pushed out. So I really like the idea of having one on standby myself. So having the two available and ready to go in case we needed one. So I'm in support of that.

So I move approval of resolution R-26-26.

Second. So we have a motion and a second, approving the two special magistrates. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Seeing none, is there anyone on Zoom with their hand?

I have one hand raised on Zoom. All right. Thank you, sir. Bring them on. Hello, Mr. Gilliams. Can you hear us?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Damian Gilliams. So I couldn't stay because I had another meeting to go to, and I wanted to talk on this one particular item. Is that the Manny and Nunn that was our former city attorney back in the day when he advised the city manager, Paul Carlisle, to cancel the meeting? Is that the same guy?

Manny and Nunn was the city attorney here, yes.

Yeah, that's the guy that gave the advice to the city manager. Why would we bring this guy back? I'm kind of confused. He had a record down in Port St. Lucie, and I can give you the press journal article. They wrote it. you know, about his issues he had back then, why would we bring this gentleman back? I'm kind of confused. He had a very hellacious background at Port St. Lucie. If you did his background check, you will see that there's things in there that you would not be willing to vote for. I mean, I'm not sure about the other gentleman. One is enough until you find somebody else. But Matty and Nunn brought nothing but heartache and problems to this community and gave very poor legal advice. And to bring him back to this community would just open up old wounds. And I'm not going to accuse anybody of, things that were brought out in his report through human resources, but there is a report on him in your human resources department that you should review before you vote him in. If you don't review it, then you fail to do your due diligence on an attorney that should hold the highest regard when judging people for issues such as code enforcement. I think this is the type of attorney that should have been brought in front of the Florida Bar. and brought up on charges. And that's just my opinion. You call it for what it is. I, back in the day when I was up there, he was on the agenda to be removed because of his incompetency. And I'd be more than happy to provide you with the documentation of his record because I was on the council at that time. And it's serious allegations. And so, I would think twice before you put him on. I'm not sure about the other gentleman. I'm sure that the city attorney does a good job in checking these people out. But manny and none should be put on hold. That's just my opinion, Mr. Mayor. So you do what you're going to do. Obviously, sometimes you guys have your mind made up. But you have a record on him, and it's not a good one. So if you move forward with him, then you're failing in your due diligence. That's all. Have a good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thank you so much for that, sir. Mr. Mayor, may I?

Yes. I just have to correct that. Manny Anon, when he was a city attorney, was on an agenda to be removed from that position. That agenda was for an illegal meeting that resulted in a charge of sunshine violation and perjury against a gentleman who just spoke. Manny Anon was never on an official agenda by the city council to be removed. I've worked with Manny. He's fully capable. All of those instances that were discussed were vetted at the time that we hired him. We spent time looking over the information that we had provided to us. I think it's absolutely unfair that unfounded accusations are made by someone who, quite frankly, has a personal grudge because he feels like he was mistreated by the city at the point in time in which he was on the council. And I think it's an unfair accusation that takes place. And I certainly would be more than happy to vote in favor of the resolution.

Yes, sir. Thank you for that. All those words are on record. Do we have any other comments up here? Hearing none, do we want to make a motion?

We got it.

We do? Madam Clerk?

Vice Mayor McPartland?

Yes.

Council Member Matthews? Yes. Council Member Dodd?

Yes.

Mayor Jones?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-0.

All right. Thank you so much. All right. This item here is a City Council discussion and consideration of performance evaluation of the Charter Officers. Anyone? Well, we'll go ahead and start. Mr. Stokes is a contract employee. I like what he's been doing here so far in this city. I think he's made some really good progress in a lot of things. He's also looking at ways of cutting his department's budget already, and that's a plus. Ms. Garcia, Jane, you're up next year. You just got here, so I don't have much for you right now, but I want to tell you that the job you're doing so far is simply amazing. You're right on point so far. And last but not least, our city manager. I gave Brian a written evaluation, and obviously there are glowing remarks shown there because Brian does a great job for our city, and I appreciate everything that he does, the way he handles the staff, the morale, the way it is in the city. Mr. Benton, I'm so glad that we have you here as our city manager. And thank you for everything that you do as well for this city. Mr. McPartland.

I mean, again, I concur with Mr. Stokes. Couldn't ask for anything more from Mr. Stokes as well as saving money. Now with Brian, I joke a lot with Brian. I don't know if he gets nervous all the time, but I I think, you know, the fireworks the other day. I know he was kind of nervous. Maybe his whole charter evaluation was riding with the fireworks. And I texted him right at the end there, you know, before the encore. And I know he was dreading that text, you know. Because, again, I'm a bomb guy, so fireworks are kind of like my lifeblood. And, you know, I actually thought that was really good, that pause. And having that encore at the end, I think it made it even more. But, Brian, you know, Brian, I love you. I mean, there's nothing more I can really say. I don't understand where Brian gets his time management skills. I don't know if there's two or three of him that actually work here. Five might be the case. Anything I've ever asked Brian to do, it is done It couldn't be done any quicker. And I think he leads the team. I think he improves the morale that's around here. And everybody that I talk to within the city, not just residents, but people who come to the city to do business, have nothing but glowing things to say about Bryant. and about the entire staff, and I could not be happier. And I'm expecting the same glowing one for Ms. Garcia next year, you know, when she's, you know, fully vetted. But, Brian, thank you very much. The city runs very smoothly, and that's a result of your leadership. I know the team is amazing, but your leadership, and I know they're, they love you just as much, and thank you. That's all I have to say, Mr. Mayor.

Ms. Matthews.

I agree. Mr. Stokes, he stepped up, and I do like the fact that he's taken the initiative to go through contracts and different things and has saved quite a bit of money just since Christmas, I believe, since he stepped up. And that's kudos to you, and especially we don't know where we're headed in the city and what's coming out from the state. So anytime you're looking at the dollar, we appreciate that. And just being there every time somebody needs you, you're right there. Mr. Benton? You have been, the way that your staff is constantly wanting from you. The collaboration and what they do, they don't work hard enough. They can't work hard enough for you. And that's a testimony to your leadership and what you require of them. However, you allow them to do their job and to make decisions and then become their support. And that's highly commended. We've talked about things in the past of making, just doing things more for the community, making things user-friendly. I hope to see some of that come you know, to fruition, maybe in the next, you know, year or so or whatever, that we can eliminate a lot of this misinformation that gets out there. I know that there's some things that we'll just never conquer because it's just going to happen. But I think if we do our diligence, but you are an exemplary employee and a great standing of leadership for this community and to the people that you represent. I appreciate you.

Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Dodd.

Well, you know, I feel like I have to say something bad after all that. You know, I mean, come on.

You better be glad you're not here then.

And the only problem is I can't think of anything bad to say. So you know me. I could probably sit here and talk for five minutes and say all these boring things all over again. I won't do that before you to death. I'm very, very satisfied with the work for all three of our charter officers. I think the city is very lucky. not only to have Brian as our city manager, but also to have the staff that we have, the department heads that we have go out of their way to do exceptional work. And I think the whole culture of the city staff, I think that's something that you can see in the way that the city seems to be running. I hope we can continue that. It's going to be difficult if they take all this tax money away, but I hope we can continue that. So that's it. Thank you, sir.

All right. Thank you so much for that, Mr. Dodd. All right. Now we're going to go to item number 13, city attorney matter. Okay, is there anyone from the public who would like to comment on the, yeah, right. All right, seeing none, hearing none.

I have a hand raised on Zoom. Okay. Hi there, Mr. Gilliams, can you hear us?

Yes, Mr. Dodd, did you just say God? I'm here. So listen, Brian, Mr. Stokes, congratulations. You guys are awesome. I saw the potential in Brian back when I put Paul Carlisle on the agenda for the infamous meeting, the one meeting that we're supposed to have that month. And Mr. Dodd, I challenge you that the charter says we gotta have one meeting a month. And he canceled that meeting because he was on the agenda to be fired. And I saw that everybody else sees in Brian now back then, and I'm happy to see the city attorney, Mr. Stokes, who's a very well qualified attorney to assist Brian and the clerk. But these guys are doing an awesome job with their leadership skills, especially Brian, to take the amount of employees under his wing and get them all moving in the right direction on behalf of the taxpayers of this community. I think it needs to be reflected in their pay, not just with you're doing a good job, that a boy. These guys are keeping their budgets in check. They're looking for ways to be frugal and trying to return dividends back to the taxpayers, which are the shareholders of this community. Ed, check your records again. I like you as a person, but you have not been fair to me. And I will be happy to pull that file out and show you and the charter one meeting a month. And they took that meeting away from us because it was a very, very controversial meeting because Mr. Nunn and Mr. Paul Carlisle were both on the agenda to be fired. And that's why that meeting was canceled. And that's not over, because I'm not completed with that yet. I'm going to show this community that they put an innocent guy in jail.

Mr. Gilliams, Mr. Gilliams, we're talking about the charter officers now. We're not relitigating the past and all of that. So if you want to continue talking about the charter officers, then that would be fine.

Well, you know, Mr. Mayor, I think I had a lot to do with helping Bob McPartland, keep an eye on Paul Carlisle. And he saw what I saw. He's a good old boy from New York. I'm sorry, my mic is on. Excuse me. Respect my time. Come on. Bob McPartland did a good job in bringing it up in his review. to remove Paul Carlisle.

Mr. Mayor, I have a point of order. I think this is out of whack right now. All right, pulse the clock. We have a point of order.

You don't like the truth. You don't like the truth.

I have a point of order. Call a point of order.

All right, point of order. Stop, Mr. Mayor.

Stop the clock.

I agree. Shut him off. All right, thank you. Point of order, Mr. Dodd.

My point of order was that I think that the speaker was getting carried away. I do, too. And so I just don't think we need to listen to someone relitigate something that was obvious the way it was.

Right. Agreed. Mr. McPartland, you agree? You agree? All right. Can he still hear us?

He can still hear you.

Okay. All right. Well, that's fine. Mr. Gilliams, when you come back on, we're going to give you 30 seconds. You have 30 seconds left. If you want to speak on the charter officer's evaluation, you may do so. But anything else, you're going to be cut off.

On Mr. Benton or Mr. Stokes.

On Mr. Benton or Mr. Stokes. That's correct. All right. Bring him on. Are you there, Mr. Gilliams?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for realizing that you guys cut into my time and allowed me my 30 seconds to say my piece. This is America, and we do have a right to speak. You may not like what I have to say, but it's the truth, and it's nothing but the truth, so help me God. But it's not over until it's over, and I want to make sure that I get some credit for removing Paul Carlyle, who ruined his community.

All right, cut him off. We're done. All right. What do we have?

Mr. Mayor, I just want to bring up also, as far as I think they're both deserving of merit increases, but I think we need to look at the budget workshop and what we have. And anything the rest of the employees would get, I think they're more than entitled to that.

Right. I believe we have that written into the contract. Mr. Mayor, I agree with that. Absolutely. All right. Mr. Stokes, do you have anything else?

Yes. Very briefly. Okay. First is the ordinance you approved for the charter amendment. Could I maybe get counsel to provide authorization or direction to allow me to work with the city manager and the city clerk in doing an education campaign? Do you want us to get information out to the public about what these items are? We cannot advocate for or against them, but we certainly have an obligation to let the public know what's coming so that they know about it before they get into the ballot box. So I don't know if you want to provide that authorization to let us do that kind of education campaign for the charter amendments.

I think, couldn't we use Avery?

Oh, I would anticipate doing it in-house and with minimal cost.

Yeah. We're getting a lot of stuff out there now so folks know where to look at now. So this would be great for Avery to get that out there. Yeah, I'm good. All we need is a consensus. You have that here.

Okay, great. The only other thing is just for information, I will be leaving first thing tomorrow morning to go down to Fort Myers area for the Florida Municipal Attorneys Conference that's put on by the League of Cities that'll go through the weekend for four days. And so I am available by email and by phone. If anybody needs anything, don't hesitate. I let staff know the same thing. I'll have my laptop with me. But I will be out of the area.

All right. Thank you so much, sir. Mr. Benton, you're up.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So first thing I want to do is just thank staff for everything they do. Obviously, I wouldn't be successful or have any little bit of success without staff. So they get all the credit. I'll take none. It's all about staff. So thank you all for the kind words. Second thing is budget workshop. Just a reminder on that. Next Wednesday and Thursday, the 15th and 16th, we'll be here in council chambers, 9 AM to 4 PM. So we welcome the public to come out. I think the sessions really are nine to 12 and then one to four. Um, but public can come out and we'll take a department by department. The agenda will be coming out and next day or so. Um, so the public can see which departments are on which days. Um, but we'll go right into the departments. We'll look at their operating budgets, their capital improvement projects, um, every fund that we have within the city. So all of that will be discussed next Wednesday and Thursday. in our budget discussion. So it'll be a lot of information. We will have it streamed, obviously, and available recorded as well as we do all of our meetings. So just invite the public to check those out and take a look at it. Very informative information is given and a lot of questions come out from that. So just want the public to be informed on that. And kind of building off that, the proposed FY27 budget document is uploaded on the website. I've provided you all a copy here on a dais. It was finalized today. That is the proposed draft as of July 8th of the FY27 budget.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much for that, Mr. Benton. City Clerk, Ms. Garcia.

Yes. I just wanted to let the residents know that the candidate qualifying period opens up on July 30th at 8 a.m. and goes until August 14th at 4.30 p.m. And candidate packets can be obtained in my office, or if you give me a call, I can probably email you one.

All right. Thank you so much, Ms. Garcia. Mr. Dodd, you're up.

Just have a request of the clerk to have my copy of the budget document put at my house so I can get it up Saturday when I get back.

Okay.

And that's it.

Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, sir. Ms. Matthews.

I just wanted to thank the city and the staff for the great Fourth of July. The entire event went off. It was beautiful. Everything was perfect. We didn't have any hiccups or anything. It was a really great day, and thanks for everybody that did their part.

All right. Thank you so much. Mr. McPartland.

Yes, Concur and the 4th of July staff did a fantastic job. I mean, they were out there long before we were out there and probably out there long after we went home. So what a great team effort. And then I can't just reiterate again, the budget workshops next week. If you want to know where the money goes, come to the budget workshops and see line by line. It's an extremely tight budget. And I believe also you're gonna go through the possibilities of what it might look like next year and the following year if the property tax referendum goes through. And I think Brian does a phenomenal job and all the section heads do a tremendous job. So come out and see it or zoom it in and look at it or it'll be on YouTube and look at it later. So anybody that questions where any of the money goes, This is it. So thank you, Mr. Mayor.

All right. Thank you so much for that. And I, too, want to say thank you guys for what you did for the Fourth of July parade. It was simply amazing. Staff with the float and everything that they did down there, shutting down the roads from picking up trash and especially our police department as well. We had a lot of our police officers out there providing security for our residents. And I really want to thank all of our residents that showed up It was so wonderful to ride down the road on that float and look at all these young kids and families. And everyone was dressed similarly. It was really heartwarming to see that, so many kids. And they're going to remember that. Those kids are the future that were there. Those little kids, 50 years from now, they're going to look back and say, this is where I was on America's 250. So it was really nice to see that. And it was just great. Other than that, I have nothing else because I started getting too sentimental here, so that's it. If there's nothing further before us, this meeting is adjourned.