City Council - Regular Meeting

I don't want to...

Well, good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday, August 26th, 2026, 9 a.m. in the morning. We are back here in our historic city hall where we've always had our agendas. And it's wonderful to be back here. I think everyone on council probably agrees it's nice to be back here today. And staff, thank you so much. This looks quite amazing, beautiful for us to be back here. So we're going to do a call to order. So we have to play with microphones here today as well, so I apologize. I'm not sure, Sarah, if you could hear everybody, because I didn't hit the buzzer for everybody to say their roll call. I heard them in the room. Okay. Next is going to be our invocation. Carlos?

That we no longer have to wander from one place to the next. That we are back in City Hall. It's been one month short of four years. Thank you for bringing us home. Father, today we pray for our council members and the tough decisions they have to make. May the decisions they make be pleasing to you and the people of Punta Gorda. Father, we pray for our first responders who keep us safe on the home front each and every day. Father, be with them in the split decisions they have to so often make. Father, we ask that you bless every family that is represented here today. It's in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray.

Amen.

And how many veterans do we have in the room? Please stand to be recognized. Thank you all for our freedom and your sacrifices. Does anybody have any announcements? Dr. Reichardt? Yes, thank you.

Yes, thank you. Welcome back to the city council chambers for the 1st time since before hurricane Ian. It's been quite some time and I appreciate all of our residents bearing with us and following us around the city as we've had meetings in various places. Thank you to city council for investing in this space to make decisions vital to our community. A huge thank you to Avant Construction, our contractor. Thank you to Tommy Macy for leading this important project and support team, Carl Bench, Danielle Berhal, Odalis Valdez, Mike and Ashley. Thanks to Brian for his quick work to upgrade our technology and Matt for being here every day to make it work. Thank you to Steve, Samantha and Ben for your work to beautify the grounds. We have a renewed opportunity for civil effective meetings and I look forward to our work together. Now I'll turn it over to Sarah for additional announcements.

No, now mine's on.

Thank you. City Clerk Sarah Welch for the record. The technology in council chambers has been set up to ensure clean audio record, assist with ADA-compliant closed captioning, and support City Council Rule of Procedure 34, Rules of Discussion. Specifically, the technology and procedures will support the following sub-rules. Rule 34.1, any council member desiring to speak will seek the floor by addressing the presiding officer by title and or raising a hand. Rule 34.2, upon recognition by the presiding officer, the council member should be confined to the current agenda item. Rule 34.3, a council member once recognized should not be interrupted when speaking unless to call said member to order. The member should then cease speaking until the question of order is determined without debate by the presiding officer. If an order, said council member will be at liberty to proceed and finally rule 34.4 all questions and comments from fellow members staff applicants and the public should be directed to the presiding officer the microphones are set up in a queuing system with indicator lights to show the speaking order a solid red light means the microphone is live only one microphone may be live at a time a blinking green light indicates the next speaker in line A solid green light means those speakers are waiting in the queue. The mayor is responsible for managing the queue and activating the microphones. To seek the floor, council members will press the talk button on the microphone and then wait to be recognized by the mayor. Council members will turn off their microphone at the conclusion of their comment. When council members ask for staff input during discussion, the mayor must clear the queue to activate the microphone at the staff podium. At the conclusion of staff's comment, the council member who requested input will have the first follow-up question or comment. and then the queue procedure will restart. During public comment, speakers will press the talk button and the mayor will activate the microphone. The mayor is responsible for keeping time during public comment. Each speaker has a maximum of three minutes. A green indicator light will go on once the time has started and a yellow indicator light will go on when there are 30 seconds remaining. At the end of three minutes, a red indicator light and a buzzer will sound. All speakers must speak directly into the microphone from no more than two inches away. A speaker holding the floor should not be interrupted, but city staff may interject to ensure comments are audible on the recording. Thank you, everyone. We're looking forward to having a great meeting.

Yes, I'm very pleased to announce that while we were in Colorado for Jerry's Brothers Memorial, I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Southwest Florida League of Cities.

Great job, Greg. So our next meeting will be September 9th at 9 a.m. here. It will be a regular council meeting. And the address, of course, you know, is 326 West Marion Avenue. And then on nine, nine, we will have our budget meeting at 5 0 1 PM. Does anybody want to add or change anything to the agenda?

Yes. Janine Polk for the record. I would like to add a discussion on fishermen's village. If we could add that to the regular agenda.

everyone in agreement with that I think that's probably a good idea fine yes Greg you're not you have to ask to be addressed it's not on here but I think it's just a discussion from what we agreed upon with the previous council so it's something that we already agreed upon that you just want to have clarification

Yes, basically wanting to get more clarification. I don't think that we were clear on on the avenue that we wanted to take. And I think it's time that we we do that. We have an attorney waiting in the lurch, and he needs to know how to proceed. And I'm sure that Mr. Laskovich could talk more about it. But if we could put it on the agenda, then we could have time to discuss it. So yes.

Sorry, hang on.

I'm fine with that.

No, I'm opposed because it wasn't on the agenda. We can't add an agenda item on the day because it hasn't been advertised to the public.

Okay, and it's something that we've already talked about in the past, and I think it's just clarification of what we've already agreed upon with public. So I'm gonna say yes, I think majority rules. So Mr. Leskovich, I guess Janine will ask you some questions on that, okay? Okay, then first is our proclamations and presentations. The first one is the Punta Gorda Boat Club Day.

Good morning. It is with great pleasure that I can, um, give you guys this presentation today. Uh, I would like to see common or Sue and Fambro and Carol burn to accept. And anybody else who came from the boat club today, you're dressed so beautifully. I think, I think there's room to stand up here if that's okay with the city council. Yes. Okay. Please everyone. Thank you. You all look so dapper. Thank you so much. Whereas on August 31st, 1951, 56 residents of Charlotte County, Florida met approved bylaws and elected the IL Brownie Brown as Commodore of the Punta Gorda Boat Club, which now celebrates 75 years of continuous operation. And whereas driven by Chamber of Commerce President John Rose to promote water-oriented tourism in the small fishing and cattle town, The club was organized to meet the American Power Boat Association's requirements for holding sanctioned regattas, and whereas establishment of the club led to the first American Power Boat Association regatta in Punta Gorda in 1952, an event that successfully drew 9,000 spectators to the shores of Charlotte Harbor and 400 attendees to the subsequent regatta ball, And whereas after receiving a lease from the city council in 1961, the members utilize their own labor and finances to erect a seawall, dig a channel and construct the enduring clubhouse at 802 West Reta Esplanade. And whereas today the volunteer based club offers diverse boating and land-based social activities while actively fulfilling commitments to community organizations, including the Boaters Alliance Organization, the Charlotte County Marine Advisory Committee, Community Resource Network, the Great American Cleanup, Adopt a Road, and St. Vincent de Paul Society. And whereas the facility serves as an essential meeting place for local groups, such as the Punta Gorda Sailing Club, the Charlotte County Woodworkers, and the Buena Vista Property Owners Association, while the club's 501 foundation provides critical charitable contributions to local academies and networks. And whereas the city of Punta Gorda wishes to recognize the formative and lasting history of boating in our community created by the Punta Gorda Boat Club and express its profound gratitude for the 75 years of service that continually strengthen our community's foundation, Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Punta Gorda, Florida, does hereby proclaim the 26th of August, 2026, as Punta Gorda Boat Club Day in the City of Punta Gorda, and we urge all residents to recognize and celebrate the club's 75 years of boating history, community service, and positive impact on our beloved city, passed and duly adopted this 26th day of August, 2026. Thank you all so much for being here.

i just want to thank you for this presentation and thank the city for the years of dedication and and support that they've given the boat club that's been a long time and we do appreciate everything the city has done for us thank you

Thank you very much, and like Janine said, you guys look awesome today. And if you don't wanna stay, you don't have to. Okay, next is our presentation of the city's annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2025.

Good morning, Chris and Simeone. I'd like to introduce Tony Smith of Ashley Brown and Smith, our CPAs, to present our two annual financial comprehensive reports.

Hi, good morning. My name is Tony Smith. I'm with Ashley Brown and Smith CPAs in Punta Gorda. We are your auditors. We're actually located just six blocks away, so if any time you guys have any questions, we are local to you and we're at your fingertips. I'm going to present the two audits that we did this year. I'm going to start first with the CRA, because it leads into the general financial statements. So the first one, if you have it, is the CRA. The CRA, you had set it to close out in 2024. So in 2025 was the wind down of all the funds. So you'll see that it started with assets and ended with zero assets. So all those assets were then rolled into the city. Okay, so I'm just gonna go over some of the things, the thing that I have to cover. And then if you have any questions, we can go over that. On page one, second paragraph, in our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects the respective financial position of the governmental activities and general fund of the CRA as of September 30th, 2025. So that that is the the full financial statements for the CRA and then again all those assets then rolled over into So now I'm presenting the city financial statements this giant book I'd like to give a big shout out to Your finance staff. I mean they to put in This much work for this book is incredible. And one sign of that is included within your financial statements. Every year, you can apply for what's called the Certificate of Achievement of Excellence for the financial statements. And once again, Kristen and her team received that award for the previous year. So it's in your financial statements now for 2024. And we've applied, and I'm sure you'll probably receive it again. So within your financial statements, you really have three different audits. You've got an audit of the financial statements, an audit of your federal grants, and then an audit of your internal control policies. Okay, so the first opinion, just like the last one I'm going to go over, is on page one. And then again, the second paragraph, in our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects. And then again, on page 187 is your federal single audit. So since you spend more than a million dollars of federal grant funds, you're required to have a single audit. So on page 187 is the opinion on that. Let's see here. So again, on the second paragraph, in our opinion, the city complied in all material respects, essentially in accordance with federal grant requirements. At our age, your financial statements are governed by the Government Auditing Standards Board. With that, every single year, the rules change. They add more rules, add more rules. So your book gets bigger and bigger, unfortunately.

If you could please speak more directly into the microphone. You can raise that up some if you need to.

I'm sorry. I did hear you say two inches away.

I think this goes up.

Well, look at that. Well, you guys are fancy. So with that, again, I would like to thank our firm does 26 audits annually of governments. Of those, the city of Punta Gorda is the best as far as staff. I'll probably get in trouble with my other audit clients. But as far as staff goes, your staff is dedicated to it. And to make our job efficient requires an efficient staff. So that goes a long way for your staff. I would like to thank you for that. So if there are any questions, I will do my best to answer them. If not, again, we are six blocks away. You have our phone number, and happy to have any conversations you need. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Oh, sorry. You have to press it again.

I want to say thank you to our auditing team. Again, it's a full team, including Tony, and all the work that they put in and the hours they put in to audit our financials. Thank you.

Thank you. So that took care of both of those. Nope, I just turned it off. Okay, next on the agenda is public input. And I think as Sarah said, you'll have to press the speaker to get started. And then we have a timer here, red, yellow, and white. Okay. Remember to state your name for the record.

Good morning, Bob Fritz, Bernster Oils. Welcome home. A couple comments on the two agenda items, 6A and 6B, which are both about the public safety building, possible renovations to the public safety building, possible relocation of the public safety building. There's a lot of money involved in these two items. I'm just wondering if it would be prudent to, because of referendum three coming up about the homestead, to delay this for two months and see what happens with that homestead. Large deduction then, instead of obligating us to spend the money now. Comment about 6H land development revisions. When does the public get a chance to comment on these? It seems like staff is going ahead and just doing this without public comment. They have mitigation in there, bad idea again. It was bad the first time, it's bad this time. We have to be careful of what we do with that flex commercial zone. We have a backwards 7-11. We don't want to continue doing that with new development there. We just really need more public comment on that. Thank you.

I like you already.

Press the button. Hello, good morning. My name is Lisa Arnold. I am a 28-year combat veteran of the United States Air Force, and I'm the president of a nonprofit, 501 , called Sisters in Arms of Cape Coral. I do reside in Cape Coral, so there is a reason why I'm here in Punta Gorda, and you're looking right at it. So I moved here, and after I retired in January of 22, I moved to Cape Coral. And quite frankly, I love living in Southwest Florida, but we can do better in this regard. So as I was traveling around and getting acquainted with the area, I realized there's not a single monument in South Florida, let alone Southwest Florida, that represents women in the military. So if you've heard of Pat Tillman or Chris Kyle, but you haven't heard of Elizabeth Jacobson or you haven't heard of Shannon Kent or Isabella Gonzalez, that's why I'm here today. Because those women died for their country, yet we do not hear their stories. I can give you an example where I just finished up being the American Legion commander in Cape Coral. And as I was wearing my uniform, I had my ribbons on, and a gentleman actually asked me if those were my ribbons. And then he proceeded to say that they must give them away. uh so i say all that to say we can do better in a city cape coral calls itself a purple heart city and trust me i've met with their city council quite a bit in this regard and they know we can do better so it doesn't just represent cape coral it represents the 25 000 women that call themselves veterans in southwest florida And so we're gonna change a culture. We're gonna make a difference. And we're building this beautiful monument that we have the city's full support. They've given us a spot next to the Iwo Jima at the four mile ecological preserve. And we are bound and determined to make this happen. And in the first two months, we've raised about $55,000 towards our $400,000 goal. So why am I here? Please share this information with those in your city. Please invite us to speak at your events because we do not do this without the donations of the people and the support of the people of these cities that call Southwest Florida home. So I appreciate your time. My business card is there. If you have any questions, please let me know. I'll be happy to answer them. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. I'll be in contact. Anyone else wishing to speak this morning?

Ah, okay. Good morning, my name is Niles Higgins. I'm a Punta Gorda resident, and I wanna congratulate the council on a job well done for getting the council facility back. However, I'm always gonna say, you only have two ADA spots out there. We need more. I do wanna thank you that we didn't have to have the Taj Mahal and spend 16 plus million dollars. We saved over 4K a month, as Council did, by getting out the Military Heritage Museum and not getting Lynn Matthews and her cohorts all that $48,000 a year. You have fixed the water meter problems, repealed the LDRs. The rebuilding after the hurricanes is, going on. The infrastructure and our water problems are being taken care of. We have new commercial space coming in. You have done a fantastic job and I congratulate you on it. I do want to make a suggestion. that and I've said this before privately, there are a lot of retired, well educated, well versed people in this city who are willing to help. And I think you need to find a way to enjoying them in your ventures. Um, the police department has a V. I. P. Program. They use people and I don't see why the city can't do it too. We have problems that I think that they can help us with. And in closing, it's very interesting. I got this flyer the other day and This is for one of the people running for city council. No longer sort of mentioned that he was COO of the Boy Scouts. And I'm sure it says on the front, accountability with measurable results and transparent decisions. There's probably 82,000 children that will disagree with that. Thank you very much.

Good morning City Council and everybody in the chamber. I want to first congratulate John Fleming and Craig Williams on their victory for John Fleming becoming the next Charlotte County Commissioner. That was really, really a wonderful thing that happened in the county. Chamber looks good. Chamber looks great. Now, I want to share some things with all of you, because we're getting ready. We're almost here to September. And the Florida water quality crisis has not improved since I took you up for the toxic term. Colonel Julian with Alex orange shark. Matter of fact, it has continually to decline. Councilwoman Denton and you should be very concerned. Attorney Alaska rich everyone in this chamber should be concerned and in our city and in our county. Now I don't see any of you ever at any of these AI data center meetings. Now I don't see any of you getting in front of harm's way. How many environmental advocates in this chamber this morning? That's right, one. My battles every day. I'm a soldier of Christ fighting for you whether you like it or you don't like it or you like me or you don't like me. That's your issue and your problem to deal with God, not mine. Now our harbor is in very bad shape. The river is. I can tell you that I've actually seen some new seagrass growing, but I can't tell you there are thousands of acres or even hundreds of acres, which is really unacceptable. I'm just going to leave you all with this. Our city needs great leadership. So please vote for Vice Mayor Janine Polk and vote for Mayor, excuse me, City Council Member Janice Denton. We all deserve to have great leadership. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak this morning? I apologize, I also jumped ahead of the game. We need to have anybody wishing to announce themselves for a board or committee to come forward. Anyone here for a board or committee? That's a great suggestion maybe to send to, or yes, that's fine, thank you. But we're gonna try not to talk from out there when we hear, thank you. Okay, so next on the agenda is our public hearing. The first one is actually quasi-judicial. So Dr. Leskovich will read it and then he's also gonna swear people in who is gonna speak.

Quasi-judicial CCSP-03-2026, petition for special permit pursuant to chapter six, section 2-1, parens E, Punta Gorda code to allow docks and other support structures to be constructed at a length of 500 feet, extending from the seawall and in configurations. which do not adhere to dock location or alignment or extension shape or size allowance, otherwise prohibited by Sections 2-1 D-6A and 2-1 D-6B Punta Gorda Code for a proposed marina on the submerged lands immediately adjacent to and abutting the property located at 300 West Retta Esplanade, Punta Gorda, Florida 33950.

Do you want me to do them individually as they come up or do it all at one time?

If anyone is wishing to address this matter, please stand, raise your hand. Anybody else? We have five individuals. Do you all swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? The record will reflect that all five agreed.

Will you press that button?

OK.

Good morning, City Council. Brian Clemens, Public Works. I'm here today to introduce CCSP 03-2026 to you all. I will give a short presentation and then I will offer the applicant or their representative a chance to present their portion. The property is at 300 West Retta Esplanade. This is just a little snapshot of the historical layout. The original dock was kind of a T configuration, approximately 200 feet in length. It had a boat lift and there were mooring pilings out there. The proposed layout will extend approximately 500 feet. It's roughly 320 feet in width. It will have fixed docks, floating docks, fishing pier, and a breakwater system. The reason we're here today is because the code for properties on Charlotte Harbor or the Peace River only allows for a dock extending out 80 feet into the water from the seawall and only allows for a T or L configuration at the end of those docks, 8 feet in width and 20 feet in length. As you can see here, the layout here is much more elaborate than something such as that. So there are 62 slips proposed in the marina. There will be electrical and water pedestals, sewer pump out, the breakwater structure, tracks, receptacles, dock boxes. There is a fishing pier. We have asked, as we went through this process, that they put in a gate onto both of those docks that lead out. And we have asked that to remain secure at all times until the marina is operational. As part of this process, Chapter 6, Article 2, Section 2-1E4, there are six criteria which you're looking at to recommend approval or denial. I will note that if anyone does not recommend approval, you would have to identify which item you are, do not feel that it is in compliance with Based on our staff's review of the project, we recommend favorable consideration of the project with two conditions, one being that the access gate be installed and secured at all times until the marina is operational, and the other is no construction may begin until the sovereign submerged land lease consistent with the proposed project has been approved. That's all I have is the, Representative here? Yeah, okay.

Actually, we're gonna first ask, does council have any questions for Mr. Clemmons? Okay. Mr. Rooney, will you press?

Yeah, all right, thank you. This will take a while to get used to, but if it controls the meeting, that's fine, and I just wanna state for the record that the reason this is still as elevated is because Mr. Smith was here earlier, not because I'm that short. if i knew how um if i may get derek rooney uh gray robinson law firm on behalf of punta gorda waterfront hotel um if i may take just a quick point of personal privilege i think that it's it's beautiful what you've done it clearly looks like it's a very resilient facility and will survive any future hardships we may we may face and i hope that we do not face any especially in the next What I would like to also add is that to Mr. Ritchie's point and the gentleman who spoke before him, the city does have a lot of issues facing it. I think it would be a great idea to have some more committees to get more buy-in and participation from our community. And with that, I am here joined by Phil and John from Stokes Marine. We do have a presentation. We can walk through some of the specifics, but it's pretty straightforward. I would point out that one of the things, if you do want to hear from us, that I think would be very insightful would be the resiliency measures that we are taking to make sure that this, this facility would survive future storms. I know that that's very important to the city council as with its own marina. Um, as we've gone through this process, um, as you heard from public works, one of the, one of the questions that came up was the code itself. Your car doesn't really have a process for marinas. Um, essentially we are, you know, extending the PGI regulations, and the regulations in places like Jamaica Way to commercial operations. And so it's something that standards need to be adopted for, whether it's for Fisherman's Village or the city or any other future marina site. So that would be something that I would recommend as well. If you'd like to hear from the presentation, I think many members of the public might. I might ask if Phil could come up and just walk us through that.

Good morning. Phil Labudier, Stokes Marine. We're out of Fort Myers, Florida. I don't have an opportunity to go through the presentation that's uploaded. Can you do that for me? Thank you. Is there a way I can see it as well? There we go. So that's just a general, outline of what the marina will look like. This is in 2D format. The bright yellow portion, those are gonna be the floating dock portions. It's gonna be floating dock and fixed dock. The floating dock is the bright yellow. The off yellow is the fixed dock portion. Hans Wilson and Associates, Hans is the engineer, he designed this for resiliency. He designed this to be able to get through the next big storms. Of course, there's no guarantees in terms of what's gonna happen with the storms, That was first and foremost in his mind when he put this together. He's been designing marinas for 37 years now. He's designed 502 marinas, I think, at last count. So this marina was definitely designed with purpose. It's mostly made up of steel pilings, which is going to be holding the fixed, I'm sorry, the floating docks. And then we are going to have standard wood pilings for the fixed docks. The decking is going to be unique. It's going to be perforated decking, which means When we do have a surge, and we're going to have another hurricane at some point in all of our lifetimes, it's probably not going to be an Ian or a Helene or a Milton, but we're going to have another storm, let's be realistic. The perforated decking is going to allow, and you'll see a couple slides in a bit, you're going to allow for the pressure of the surge to come up and to come through the actual decking, which is going to keep the pilings in place. Of course, the floating docks are going to float up. The steel piles for the floating docks, they're gonna be 14 feet above elevation. So it's suggesting a 10 to a 12 foot surge. So hopefully when the next surge comes up, the docks are gonna remain in place. There are gonna be 63 slips like it shows. And if you could go on to the next. This is the same thing as just in a 3D version of the 2D. Again, you see the floating docks right in the center. What you will see in a bit is you're going to have a breakwater around the outside perimeter of the fixed dock. The breakwater was designed so if you are a boater and you are inside the basin, then you're going to have a little bit more calmer water to be able to put your boat and your vessel inside the slip. The breakwater in the outside is going to be held up by a bar force system, which means it's going to be calmer in there. but also the pilings are gonna be at a different length. I'm sorry, the panels are gonna be at a different length to allow for circulation. Oftentimes we'll see at the end of a canal, you'll see that there's a lot of muck and kind of stuff that kind of accumulates there. Well, Hans designed it so it still flushes.

So we're gonna keep the water nice and clean.

It's gonna be able to circulate on its own without a bubbler in there. So it's going to be, that was again, designed with purpose. Next slide, if we could. Just a different angle. That is to scale. If you look on the forward part of that, you'll see some of those panels that are in place. There's another picture at the very end of this, which will demonstrate it a little bit better. But those are the panels that are in place to provide as the breakwater.

Next slide.

Again, just the same thing, just a different angle. Your two entrance points are gonna be on the left side, of course, against the seawall, and also on the right side. There are gonna be slips that are aligned along that long entrance on the way out where you will simply tie up a port side or starboard side. Next slide. There's a better example of the perforated decking. Traditional decking is wood or it's synthetic decking. This is simply holes. It allows for 50% of less uplift to, like I said earlier, to allow the water to go through the decking and not push underneath the decking. But if you can't zoom in on that, but that's an example of what it looks like. There is gonna be a guardrail around the entire facility, ADA compliant. And next slide, please. There's a ramp that's gonna lead from the fixed dock down to the floating docks. Again, that's an example of the wood piles on the, the shorter piles are the wood piles on the fixed docks. And then the taller piles are the steel piles, which are 16 inch in diameter by a half inch thick. They're gonna be driven 25 feet into the ground. So they're gonna be able to withstand some good pressures. Next slide, please. Next slide. Better example of the perforated decking is actually called Legacy XP, if it really matters, but it's a good quality decking. Unfortunately, we learned about how to do this after all of the storms that mother nature has been throwing our way and kind of picking on us. So we've had this in place, it's proven tried and true. So we feel pretty, Hans feels pretty certain this thing is gonna be able to withstand the next set of storms. And I think one more slide, please. There is an example of the fiberglass panels that are gonna act as a breakwater that are gonna go in just on the outside perimeter of the fixed dock portion. That black section in the center is a bar for us. It's got two pieces of rebar in the center that's gonna hold those panels in place. What you can't see is the fact that some of those are gonna be shorter, some of them are gonna be longer. Again, to make it so the water quality in there will be the same as the water quality on the outside. And I believe that is it. So that's just a quick presentation. I'm here to answer any questions you have on the technical side. I'll do my best. I'm not the engineer. Hans was going to be here, but he's up at a roundtable discussion up in St. Pete. He's one of the better engineers in the country, more or less Florida. So he's pulled in 1,000 different directions. So he gave me some cliff notes. So if it gets a little too technical, I'm going to have to come back to you on the final answers for those. But if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer what you got.

Thank you. That's a great presentation.

I'm learning quickly. I just want to add, you know, there's There's always questions about the property. I live here too. I wanna see the property cleaned up. I consulted with the engineering team. The probable cost for the total of the build out of this marina facility without the upland improvements is $4 million. So it's a substantial investment. We agree with the staff conditions. The marina can't be used until those upland permits are in. Part of the reason why we're not proposing the upland improvements at this time, we bifurcated it in a phase one and phase two, is because we have an Army Corps permit that's already approved. We'd like to get this constructed. We're looking at commencement in October and completion before the end of the year. The history of this property and the Harbor Walk and the marina, the city actually had, we had agreements going back as early as 2006 to put in a marina, to put in some docks. Those didn't materialize except for the Harbor Walk. As we move forward and look at the phases and future development of this property, the property owner has designed a plan for 160 room hotel on the west side. The remainder of the property still doesn't have a use for it. Originally he was planning to build two towers with Sunseeker, some of the other absorption. The market may or may not be there yet. There's a possibility of interim uses. There's a possibility of standalone marina facilities. I think we'll probably be coming back as of talking to Mr. Everett in Public Works about working with the city on possibly combining some of the work while we are mobilized out there to do seawalls and other improvements. And I think at that time we could have discussions about the public access, but other things with the marina as well. So if you have any other questions, we're all here to answer.

This is a great presentation. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the thoughtful consideration for the breakwater. Obviously, it's needed. Plus, if a boat happened to break loose, it would be contained. And we all know what it's like to have boats floating around on our parks and then landing there. So that's very good. And that the water flows through is really important. Very good design. Thank you for all the thoughtful input. And we want that hotel and this property to move ahead. So this is part of it. And I really appreciate all the thinking that's going into it. And we are a marine town. We're a maritime city. So this will help reestablish that.

So just like you Councilman Denton, this has been long in coming and I know Derek, you've been keeping us abreast. You know, it takes time to do things. I'm just in the process of building a home and it takes a long time to do something to this magnitude. very much appreciate the patience of the city it's going to take a while but this is a marina coming to us guys i mean we don't even have like you said anything in our land development regulations that would help um you know with the docking area and i'm so excited about this i can't even stand it so i'm looking forward to it moving forward and i appreciate the presentation thank you

Okay, yeah, that was great, too, because I had the questions also. Anybody else? Okay, thank you. Oh, Derek, press the button.

I beat you to it, Derek. There was five total people who had raised their hands to get sworn in. Are there others that we've heard from, too?

Right, so now we're done with the presentation. We had questions. Now we're going to go to public. So anybody from... Okay, so... Tim, did you swear in? Okay, wait, you need to be sworn in, please. Okay, I'm going to get that one off. Okay, now you're on.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

So how many more slips are we going to have from what was originally there? That's one question. Now, two, I don't want anybody to fall out of their chairs this morning. I can throw some curveballs from the mound. I actually like this. I like this. Because this is the type of growth I'm interested in. Now, I can tell you I haven't sent any letters to the Army Corps of Engineers about this project. But I stand adamant about no marina ever at Sunseeker, ever in Sawtooth territory. Ever. No. Period. One word sentence. But this is good. We are a fishing community, Councilmember Denton. We are a boating community. Too bad we aren't a surfing community. Too bad we don't have waves on our beach. But this is the type of smart growth we want to see in the city of Punta Gorda. And we love the idea of one hotel building there. What ultimately would have been the best situation for that property hands down would have been for the city to purchase it and turn it into the detention pond that Mr. Ritchie so eloquently presented to the city to help save downtown flooding. I don't see any other leaders in town giving presentations like this. I know attorney Rooney is aware of my efforts, but I don't see other gentlemen doing this type of stuff.

Sorry, Tim. I accidentally, I was going to, I accidentally disconnected you. Let's stay on topic. Okay. You have to press again.

Well, this is going to be some training to this, guys. But old dogs can learn new tricks. Anyway, this is good. We like this. And we like it that the water's going to flow. I understand why. I actually saw Marina Del Rey getting built when I was a young man way back. Thank you.

You want to come back up again? Yes. Yes, sir.

Thank you. I just had one follow-up comment on, and I believe that Derek had touched on that. We do have the state endorsement and we do have the DEP permit. We do have the Army Corps permit, and those Army Corps permits actually have been in place for 17 years now. That's when they first applied for this, quite a long time ago, well before Ian, Irma, Helene, Milton was even a thought. What we're chasing now is to get this done pretty quickly because that Army Corps permit does expire on January 2nd of 27. We are in a position as Stokes Marine to deploy a lot of barges, a lot of crews to get up here, and it's going to be a very fast start, and you're going to see it go up quickly because we're chasing the Army Corps permit. We actually tried to extend the Army Corps permit until past January 2nd, and they said, nope, you've been playing around with us for 17 years, you're out. So we're kind of having to fast forward this just a little bit more than most. But if it does make a difference, we do have the endorsement of the feds and also the state. Any other questions while I'm still here?

Yeah, the land lease went to the cabinet over the summer and was approved.

And for some some of you know that I'm also the president had check and I have been there is a public interest component with that which requires the landowner pay a substantial 6 figure some money in exchange for the land lease they denied our request to have that money stay locally at check. But I am still pursuing an appeal on that issue so the goal is to get the money to stay here in the community and benefit. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we still have any public input. You'll need to be sworn in Mr Higgins.

You swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Niles Higgins, Punta Gorda resident. I'm a little bit confused. I'm for this project. I think it's a great thing. But I'm not sure what size boats it's gonna accommodate. Are these transient slips? Or are people gonna be living aboard in these slips? And for what length of time? I didn't see anything where the pump out stations were gonna be. Now I can tell you from experience, I had a boat at Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey for many years. And people that live aboard boats are not prone and they're not inclined to untie their boat and drive the boat around to the pump station. They just wait till nighttime and they just dump. And that's the last thing we need in our harbor. So I think I don't say this on the plans, but I think there has to be really, really good accessibility to pump out stations because if people are living aboard on these boats, that they're not gonna pump their waste out into the harbor. Thank you.

Very good question, very good concern. I'm glad you asked that. There is a pump out station in the design, 100%. Nobody wants to flush that water out of there and then have it go everywhere else. So yes, there are pump out stations in there. The marina was designed for shallow draft boats. Because it's in an aquatic preserve, dredging is pretty much not an option. So because of that, it is going to accommodate boats that are 35 to 60 foot in range. The draft would be anything from 16 inches or two feet to a smaller vessel, up to a 60 foot vessel, depending on where they would position them in there. But to your point, and again, I'm glad you brought it up, there is gonna be a pump out station that is on site. Whether you use it or not, let's hope that they do. Let's hope that they do the right thing. But it is in the design and Lincoln Marine most likely will be the ones who do the installation of all the fire suppression and also the pump out station.

So it will have transient and liveaboard?

I don't know about liveaboard. I don't know about transient. I think that's up to we design it, we install it, we build it, how it's going to be used from there on out. I can't comment on that. I'm not really sure. So the...

At the moment, it's intended for use as day docks. Until the upland final use comes in place, the owner hasn't decided. This is a supplement to restaurants, retail, hotel. I know I've spoken probably with all the council at some point, there was an exploration by the owner. into a vertical storage facility actually having both storage as a use on the property. I've heard loud and clear from the council. That's not something that is appropriate for that area. And so he is, he's taking that off off the table. Um, so I think that ultimately the goal is just to have activity, to have whatever the final end use on the upland is to be an active participant. We're not looking for condos. We're not looking for anything where it'd be permanent storage. I think it's gonna be likely day dockage. We may be able to work out some arrangements for some long-term, because 64 slips is a lot of slips for day docking. And as I said, these plans go way back to win when the city and the property are working together to have a long term, you know, facility for boats. And this is before all the upgrades at Lashley Marine before considering anything that may be happening at Fisherman's Village. So I think the use is still in flux. The goal right now is just to get it in place and not let all those years of hard work disappear. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we're gonna open it back up to public input again. no wait rachel let me should we close public input and then you come in or do you want to come in now i think i'm still on red means go that's

Sorry, Rachel Berry zoning official for the record and I have been sworn I just wanted to note, excuse me that a live aboard Marina or live aboard vessels would have to come back in front of you for public hearings for that approval.

Thank you. Okay, let's finish public input. Anybody else? Okay, Janice, you're gonna make a motion.

First, I have a question. I don't see any power pedestals anywhere. And if you do want overnight merge, you're going to need those. And overnight merge is also a good idea. You could maybe have some of each. I know you're not at that stage yet, but I just wanted to ask that question.

I heard the first question on power pedestals. What was the second question? I'm sorry.

Wait. OK. You'll need them for overnight moorage and also water will there be water, you know for hoses and all that.

Okay Yes, there will be so there's 30 there's gonna be 64 hose bibs There's going to be 34 power pedestals from a 30 amp circuit up to a 50 amp circuit And there'll be one pedestal at each location with two hose bibs on each side. Absolutely.

I

Okay, last time for public input, and if we don't have any more, I'll need a motion.

I move to close public comment.

I'll second. My fingers are getting a really good workout. Okay, how do we do this with all in favor? Since I can't just raise our hands. Okay, so we're going to raise our hands in favor of closing public comment. Okay, opposed motion carries. Okay, let's have our talk amongst each other.

Could I just make a procedural request? Yes, ma'am. I cannot see all hands being raised. So could you just please let me know if anyone ever dissents?

Absolutely. So everybody raised their hand.

Okay.

Discussion Janine.

I just think it's a wonderful idea. It's a great concept, long in coming, and I'm hoping it will come to fruition soon. I know you guys are in a rush, so I'm going to be moving to approve this today.

All of my questions and concerns were addressed, and I'm prepared to approve it as well.

I want to thank the staff for all the hard work they put into this. I know it was something different and unique that you went through a lot of issues, and Hans Wilson is a great resource. So the teamwork on this is excellent, and I agree that we need to move forward on this.

And I think, I agree, I think though what Mr. Rooney brought up is maybe we need to take a look at changing section six, especially for commercial area. I think maybe we should have a consensus on that to bring that up so that we can bring section six in for commercial. Can I have a raise of hands if y'all have a consensus for that? Okay, everybody raise their hand. Thank you. So then I will need a motion.

Motion to approve 3A.

Go ahead. I second it. You're up. Real quick.

I second that motion. And does that motion also include approval with the staff's two conditions they had noted?

Yes. I believe that they said that the submerged land lease was approved. So that was one of the conditions. And I think the second one was the secured at all times for the gates.

Agreed.

So amend that. Jeanine? So amended. You still okay with that, Janice? Okay, so all in favor, please raise your hand. All four raised their hand. Oppose? Zero, motion carries. Thank you so much for the great presentation. Okay, so next on our list is again a legislative, so there will be public input, Dr. Leskovich.

This is item 3B, legislative, ZA-08-2026, proposed amendments to chapter 26, land development regulations, to update the historic preservation regulations and overlay districts, require disclosure of historic property designation, reestablish the local register of historic places, review procedures, and amend historic preservation board authority. This is the first reading.

Good morning, Council. Rachel Berry, zoning official for the record. So as was read into the record, this is hearing ZA08-2026. There are several changes in this ordinance, all related to historic preservation. I know that there was a question at pre-agenda on Monday about if SB 180 could be involved with it. I don't know if we should get that clarification first before we start.

Councilman Julian brought up the possibility that this could be in conflict with Senate Bill 180 and or 250. In reviewing the two Senate bills that have been passed that stay in effect at least until summer of 2027, there appears to be some conflicts with the Senate bills. So at this point, my recommendation is that you don't move forward with this, at least for us to be able to look forward a little more into what we're trying to modify with Chapter 26 with this, because certainly you don't want to have the possibility of it being considered more restrictive or burdensome on any homeowner.

So Mr. Leskovich, I know even with the prior land development regulations that came before the comprehensive plan, I think that council and staff move forward with stating maybe that it will only take effect if the SB 180 is removed. Is it okay for staff to move forward and do that until, so it continues to move forward so that we're not waiting and waiting and waiting? Can we do that?

You can certainly move forward with it, but for council to actually vote on it and have it amending chapter 26, that's what I'm asking you to pause right now.

Okay. So we can have approval pending the SB 180. That's correct. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for that. All right. So, Excuse me. So to cover some of the changes, um, the sections that are proposed to be update would include section 3.1, four of chapter 26, which is for the historic overlay district. section 8.1 which is referencing demolition and relocation of historic buildings article 15 section 15.4 for the historic preservation advisory board and section 16.3 applications for certificate of appropriateness and 16.5 application for demolition permits Um, so of course, as most of, you know, the historic preservation board has, you know, had many meetings through the last year, two years, you know, to try to get some more traction, you know, with repairing damages that happened during the storms and to have, you know, more. enforcement ability when it comes to historic preservation so one of the ideas that was discussed was to require disclosure of historic designation when properties are being sold and so the city if approved the city would drop a form and we would get with the realtors associations make sure that everyone is educated on what we are requesting and then we would most likely require those certificates to be recorded with the deed so that it also comes up in public record when people are doing their title search. One of the other changes that proposed was to the Historic Preservation Advisory Board's role and duties. One is to strike advisory from the committee's name to then be known as the Historic Preservation Board. For the certificate of appropriateness when it comes to replacing, you know windows doors siding roofing the current proposal would have Those not be administrative approvals anymore. They would go to the historic preservation board and then come to City Council for for your determination, so just wanted to point that out that that could take some more time when it comes to repairing certain items One of the other major things in this ordinance that we are most excited about is readopting the local register of the historic places and national registered district contributing structures. As part of this process, we sent out hundreds of letters They were customized based on whether the property was not included in the 2024 updates when the local register was adopted, whether they were added in that time, whether they were removed in that time or whether they remained the same in that time. and then whether they're currently designated or currently not designated, and then whether they are to be included or not to be included. So we sent out a couple hundred letters to those that those applied to. Now for those that were not included before, currently are not designated and are not proposed to be designated, we did not send letters to those owners. And that I believe came up to almost 250. One of the recommendations from the Planning Commission after they reviewed the proposal was to include an opt-in, opt-out procedure for at least six months after the local register is approved. That way, homeowners who haven't, you know, if they feel like they haven't had enough time to truly weigh, you know, the options of having the designation or not having the designation, they would still have a timeframe to say, wait, I didn't want this. I want to be included or I don't want to be included. When this ordinance comes back to you all, we would bring a resolution that would outline that process. The proposal would be that staff would gather a list of those owners, take them to the next Historic Preservation Board, and have the Historic Preservation Board have a consensus on whether they should or should not treat the property as if the request were to be approved already. And then at the end of the six months, it all would come to council in an ordinance format. Last but not least, just reestablishing the historic district overlays. So while many properties would not be on the local register anymore, they still would be located inside of an overlay district, which still has design regulations and requirements to still keep the feel of the historic district. And I believe that is all that I have at the moment, if you have any questions for me.

Thank you for the clarification. Anybody have any questions?

No, I don't have a question, but I just want to make clear that my intention is not to hold things up because this is good progress. I just wanted to make sure we didn't get crosswise with the law and I appreciate the consideration for extended time for attorney and staff to work that out.

Yes, and there are some things in here that might be more restrictive, but there are certain things that are not, like striking the name. the word advisory within the name that shouldn't be unlawful um you know there are plenty of other things in there that that we could have approved but if there's even one thing it's all put together right as one is that what i'm understanding so that's why we really couldn't approve all of it today the problem is in the historic district as you all are well aware there are people who are waiting who were on the list this is so confusing and convoluted But we're on the list and then prior to the storms were somehow removed from the list and now they're up against a 50% rule where they have to knock their home down. But if they had been on the list, are you following me? It's a mess. If they had been on the list, they would have been protected. So this is, this is a, this has been a real hairy mess and thank you so much to staff for trying to, um, figure it out. But we need to do this expeditiously because people are kind of waiting. I had someone asked me at one of the meetings, Hey, what can I do? What can I do? And, and, you know, trying to help them while you could get an appraisal, I guess. I don't know. I don't know how to help them because at this point they were on it, we're taken off of it and now they have to knock their home down. So it's, it's a big mission. It's a big issue. Thank you.

I will get with staff as quickly as possible to try to rectify some of these issues that are being raised, that we can try to make wording that will be conducive and that will become lawful as well.

Thank you for that and also, you know, when a realtor sold me my, my home, I did not know that my home was on the historic registry. And then I was 1 of those people who later received a letter that said, you're no longer on the historic district on the historic registry. I was like, well, I didn't know I was in the 1st place. So it's important that. That get pushed through as quickly as possible, so that the realtors when they're selling these homes and they're selling them like hotcakes right now because they're selling them at a discount. Because many people just walked away from a flooded home, so you know it's important that again we get that done as expeditiously as possible, thank you.

Anyone else. And I was going to say the same thing. I think that we need to get some of these things, you know, whether we, you know, don't include just, you know, but we, I think resolutions like to get a realtor letter out and to change it to the board and, and to help these people move on right now. I think that's, that's very important. So, Mr. Luskovich, thank you for so much. Anybody else have anything? Okay. Then what we're going to do is we're going to open it up for public input. Please state your name for the record, too, please. Press the button.

Is it red? Okay. My name is Kurt Havel. I live downtown at 301 Goldstein. I did receive the letter. It was written, I believe, on July 13th. The meeting was supposed to be July 27th. The letter was stamped July 24th at the post office, which is a Friday. That means it probably went out on Saturday. I may have not gotten it until Monday. I wasn't even in town. I was at a wedding out of state. I would have never even been able to make it. I was told that it's really not that big of a deal because there's a box already checked on my particular one. I truly don't even know the definitive reason of which way it is. But how can it be written on the 13th? It doesn't even get mailed till the 20th, or it doesn't get put in the post office till the 24th, and we're supposed to be here at the 27th. That's not fair. So if there's 250 of them that got sent out, or however many, you need to ask people that didn't show up, did they ever get it in time to come to the meeting? Because I did not have an opportunity to come to the meeting. I wasn't even in the state. I was gone, matter of fact, I was supposed to meet Rachel the day after, and I drove home 21 hours, I got home and it was in my mailbox. I'm like, what is this? And I had already missed it, because I didn't get home until late Tuesday night. That's not fair. That's not fair. We've got to have a better system. It can't be written. What it'd do is sit in somebody's drawer for two weeks. I had no opportunity to respond. I would like to talk to you eventually and say, what does this box mean that was marked on my particular page? I may be totally for it. I told Adriana, I said, I just want to build my house. I don't know what the definitive differences are, the benefits are. It's sort of very complicated. It's probably complicated for you folks too. And if it is complicated for you, it is definitely complicated for the citizens. So I'm just gonna ask for some clarity on this, in that you need to know that a lot of people may never have gotten that letter. I have the envelope at home, I'll show it to you. I showed it to Adriana, I said, how could this happen? It was just deflection, and she has been wonderful. I don't fault her, because she's probably not the one that sent it out. But I would like to show that to you as proof, because that is completely unjust. When my vested rights got bumped back, it got bumped back because it was failed to have been advertised. So we had to bump it back, which caused me more pain. And here, I get it literally. I mean, I probably would have gotten it the day of the notice. It can't be both ways. It can't be both ways. The citizens can't lose every single time. So I would like to meet with you and show you that letter and find out exactly what the meaning of that letter is. There's a box marked on there. And I think that you should give everybody the opportunity by maybe sending that letter again because a lot of people didn't get that letter or they didn't get it in time to come to the meeting that was supposed to be on that Monday. So that's all I got to say. And I'll bring it in as proof. If everybody wants it, I'll email it to you. Sort of seen as believing, you know? That's it. Any questions?

So to Mr. Havilland's point, I actually have people who have sent me stuff that I've gotten well over a week later. So it might not be staff. It could be the post office. So I do want to say that that can happen. The other thing, sir? The other thing too, that, that I'm talking about is that, which I think he brought up and I have highlighted here is maybe Rachel, we should consider having workshops as well for people to actually understand what that is and everything. So even though with the letters that came out, um, have a workshop and have them sign up. So, you know, that whoever does not respond, maybe to have a reach out to those people to, to make sure that they understand or that they can opt out saying that they get it. They don't need the workshop. I don't know if that's a good idea that you consider that. I don't want a director, so.

Absolutely, that's completely reasonable and we'll get those scheduled.

Awesome. Anybody else for public input? I'm not sure if you got your time because we didn't hit the timer and we have three minutes. That time was- Three minutes is maximum time, sir.

Okay, so I can't talk about the Historic District?

Is it okay for him to talk about the Historic District as well?

I want you to know that Janine Polk came with Mr. Perry to the Realtor Association two Fridays ago. All the realtors there, and I shouldn't say all, it's not unanimous. We want the city to turn around. We want the city to be beautified. We want people to buy these old houses and fix them. We are not against that. We can tell you boots on ground. It's not happening and they're not selling like hotcakes. I asked Mr. Perry, I said, Mr. Perry, I said, I don't even know you, sir. I do not dislike you in any way, shape or form. He was from Michael Saunders. He gave us credentials, how he is on the historical board, I guess it was. And I said, how many of your people at your place right here in town have a listing, have sold one or helped a buyer buy one in the last three years? He can't remember one. We want it to happen, but it is so hard to buy an old house and fix it up financially because it makes no sense from a financial standpoint. And the insurance to cover these old houses, even if you fix them up, is so drastically high. My insurance right now through Frontline is $1,200 a year. I had a quote on the house across the street. It was $7,100 a year. Even if you can get a better deal because it seems like some insurance rates are going down. Let's say you got it for $6,000. Then it's still at base grade. You still got to have flooding.

Oh, I'm sorry. I accidentally did that. That was an accident, sir. Push it again.

So it's not a matter of people not liking these old homes. We would love these old homes, but they're not moving. We've got 20 years of a sample size that is not happening. People are making judicious decisions, financial decisions. It doesn't make sense to buy some of them. We would support anybody that wants to. I have good friends that are fixing up a house on Palm, and they've done a wonderful job. It's beautiful. But he is having so many problems, and now everything is so expensive that it doesn't make sense sometimes. We're just saying give us people latitude, especially the people that own the properties, They're stuck right now if they can't sell that house. Some of these houses are put right in the middle of a lot. You can't put a driveway in or a garage because of where it was put in 1940 or 1950. Nobody's gonna buy those homes unless they can bulldoze them and build a new one. I'm just saying let people make a choice. You guys are basically saying you can't make a choice. And these people are stuck with these homes and it is way too expensive to fix up these homes because you will never get your money back. Miss Janine, you bulldozed your house. You saw a reasonable dozer house. The proof, I mean, your action spoke louder than words. Your house was much nicer than the house I bought. It was beautiful. Matter of fact, your likable year age by Charlotte County credit was a 1972, even though it was built in 1935, because it had been up there.

Okay, you're going off subject, sir. That's okay. Thank you. I just wanted to let you know. Thank you.

Uh, dear green resident, I just want to point out that. You know, this is not this issue is not the fault of the city. Um, as many, you know, I, I serve a city attorney in several cities, and we are also trying to address some of the historical preservation issues because of the flood. question on that. You are exempt from the 50% rule. I don't have a simple answer for Steve. I know that I've had to pull back one of my own ordinances for the same exact reason. Senate Bill 180, the legislature put in place, ironically, for the purposes of helping property owners who are damaged by storms, which has been now extended twice and likely to be extended again, if what I'm hearing is true. The the solution, of course, is that if there is a way, and I, I will work with your city attorney if he wants to take any of my advice on. Finding a way to move forward regardless and severing any provisions against it, but essentially what Senate bill 180 says is until October of 2027. The city cannot enforce any new regulations that are more burdensome than pre hurricane or any new processes. So, if the ordinance was adopted, but said you have an opt out provision for 6 months, that's a new process. And under the letter of the law, even though it doesn't meet the spirit of law, it could be a problem. So. I think I think it's something that needs to be addressed. I think to the last gentleman's point, it's holding up a lot of properties that people don't want to tear down. But have no choice at some point. Like Councilman Pope, you have to, you have to live where you have to live. And you have to make a decision what what to do. Thank you. Thank you.

Press the button.

For the record, Mike Polk, we didn't have any choice but to tear down our house, both our houses. We were over 50%. We weren't, we didn't have the historic designation so that was our choice and the city wasn't gonna let us do anything else but that I didn't try to bring subcontractors in you know at night or in the weekend okay and do it illegally I did it legally and that's why we tore down the house and we'll be tearing down the second house because we have no choice we exceed the 50% rule thank you

Press the button, Tim.

Well, Tim Ritchie, yeah, we want to keep our historic district looking historic. But I have to tell you, I've been up here more than all of you, probably put together for years. Yeah. And I'm not gonna sit here and hear anybody come up here and try to project them as being bad. This is the best city council, the four of them sitting up here today are the best city council we've ever had. Exactly the four members here today present are the best we've ever had. And anybody want to argue with me, I'll be out in the parking lot after the meeting. We can talk about it all day. No, mayor, good mayor. We know if these buildings have to get knocked down, because as Mr. Polk said, they're past the 50% point, then that's what has to happen. I'm sure they're rebuilding their house is close to the to the historic district deems it necessary. You know, I'm tired of people take an attack at my mayor and my vice mayor. I'm not going to tolerate it for one minute. I helped get rid of the previous attorney. We got rid of the previous city manager because he was not good. No, I'm not going to hear that.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public input?

So are we tabling this? What do you suggest? Um, Mr. Leskovich.

You can either approve it and move it. Um, or my suggestion is, is that you table it for myself and staff to get together. I'll take Mr. Rooney up if he's still here. I'll take him up on his suggestion as well, getting with him, trying to get this back to you guys as quickly as possible to see if there is a way that we can get around Senate Bill 180, 250. That's going to help out the historic district. So I would suggest that you table it for today.

my question is to try to help expedite it and stuff like that is there things that we would like to give guidelines to say yes if if you can do this council is approving this or do you again just time expediting these poor residents who are stuck here you know in that 50 50 whether they can take it down or not i really feel that maybe if we say if it's okay with the SB 180 that you've got it, that let's go ahead and expedite that. Can we have some sort of an approval on that? Or are you saying we should just completely table it?

I would suggest that you table it today, um, because we could change the name of the board. You know, that's not an issue, but when you're changing the process on how the demolition works and whether you are or aren't included on the list, that's going to have to, you know, or that's, that's going to have to be detailed just a little bit more.

So you're saying that we can today say change the name of the board is fine and having workshops is fine, but table just a decision?

Sorry, I just want to note real quick that we will need to close the public hearing.

Okay, we need a motion to close the public hearing.

move to close the public hearing second that okay all in favor please raise your hand everybody has raised their hand opposed motion carries with everybody approving that okay my suggestion would be is just table it at its entirety today let me get with staff get with mr. Rooney as well and hear his suggestions staff can certainly get Staff can certainly have a public here or workshop together and we can try to get this back to you guys as quickly as possible.

So can we get a date certain for our next meeting for these. And I don't mean to be like that but I don't want it two months down the road after everything happens. I'd like to see this expedited. I think so.

If it's available September 23rd could be a date because I can get with staff as quickly as possible within the next week or two for us to hopefully get this back on your September 23rd agenda, but that's going to be pending that staff is available.

Sarah, can I clarify, will this need to be re-advertised?

Yeah, there we go, thank you. So if we continue this to a date certain, we would not need to re-advertise.

So September 23rd. Jenny.

You want me to make a motion? Please. I move to table this and reconvene this topic on September 23rd after consideration with staff and our attorney and Derek Rooney.

That, I second that.

These are fun, okay. Jenny, did you still wanna speak again? You're just going, I'll just turn it off, okay. So all in favor, please raise your hand. Motion shows everybody raised their hand. Opposed? Motion carries. Okay, next up, ordinances and resolutions.

Agenda item for a legislative. G a dash 0, 4 dash 2, 0, 2, 6, an ordinance of the city of Punta Gorda, Florida amending chapter 23. Traffic article, one of the Punta Gorda code of ordinances to revise regulations governing the operation of golf carts on city streets and, and rights of way amending section 23 dash seven motorized vehicles prohibited on title Creek bridge on west RETA Esplanade exceptions amending section 23 dash eight golf carts permitted on West Reta Esplanade and providing for conflicts, severability, um, and the cot codification Scribner's errors and an effective date. And this is the second reading.

Hello, Carl Venge, Urban Design, for the record. We're just here to discuss something that we brought to you before vacation, which was the golf cart ordinance. There was some confusion when it was finally approved in the verbiage, and so we're just asking for clarification and discussion.

And good morning, everybody. Chief Pam Smith, Punta Gorda Police Department. So unfortunately, I wasn't here at that last meeting, so I wanted to get a little bit more clarification in reference to enforcement if this revised ordinance Um, gets approved. So give you a little bit of history back in 2019. Um, this, we went to the city council to ask to allow the golf carts to be able to travel over that bridge in reference to Fisherman's village, being able to, And it has evolved now into them transporting some of our elderly visitors, and I believe they also transport the cruise ship passengers over to the Military Heritage Museum. So, if we're going to put this new ordinance in place, we're going to have to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make sure I just wanted to clarify, no motorized vehicles can be on that harbor walk or any sidewalk without an ordinance. So we would have to enforce if they decide that they need to transport people over or they would just have them walk, I guess, or drive around. So I just wanted to get clarification.

Any questions for them? Okay, any discussion?

Yes, I would just like to allow the transit of the golf carts or the elderly back and forth and continue that.

I didn't realize that when they were bringing in the buses that they were actually coming across in a golf cart, but that also concerns me because that means more people are using it than was alluded to in the initial. in the initial, I guess, agreement or the discussion for the last meeting that it's just once in a while. We all know and we've all seen and eventually we should all agree that something's going to happen at the Military Heritage Museum impact building and it will be more crowded. So we have to be careful. I mean, if we're if we're going to allow this to happen, There are also pedestrians who walk there all the time. There are bicyclists, there are people who live there that are trying to get into their driveway. I just think it's one more thing for the citizens to have to have on their shoulders if an accident happens there. And we have to be responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of the people. So I'm very concerned that I did not know that, that the buses were actually using this whenever they needed to.

I think also a concern we talked about was liability.

Well, and the police have many jobs. Are they supposed to determine who's elderly? You look like you're about 70, so you qualify, but if you're 55, you don't.

I mean, how does that work?

so we don't question whether they have somebody a certain age on their golf cart it the ordinance allows the golf cart to go across um and i don't know how often they transport any of those passengers i that was just something that had been brought up at one point in time but they do transport people that say hey i'd really like to go over there We just don't want to walk over there is what I what I've been told We have never had an issue just for the record with any of the the way fishermen's village They train their people to stop make sure nobody's crossing that bridge when they when they go across then they go across And like I said, I've never even gotten a complaint

So one of the things too is it was an impact building and that's the reason why they had less parking. Now it's changed and I don't know if the variance with parking is anything that should have been changed as well when that whole area was changed because before it had people living on campus so they didn't need to have all the additional parking and now because that's changed And the city hasn't done anything about requirements for parking. You know, we have to take a look at that, but I still, I worry about the liability and other people coming over. And if there's more buses that are transporting people, and we know that the cruise ships great that they're in here because that brings tourism, but that does also maybe mean more liability for more people crossing over. And I think maybe the fishermen's village to find a trolley or something just to transfer, if that's the case to transfer, transport them around. Jenny.

They don't have to use the bridge. They can use the roads, correct? So it's just a convenience and it's a cute pathway and everything, but all right.

Motion.

So as far as using the roads, the golf carts cannot use the road unless it is a registered licensed low-speed vehicle. So it's my understanding they're not using low-speed vehicles that are registered. So that's why they're using a bridge.

Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and make a motion to approve now, right, Carl? I can't think the last time we got that wrong, but motion to approve this new ordinance for A.

So this is a second reading? Yes. So do I have a second on that?

I second that.

Okay, thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second for approval of the second reading. Oh, wait.

I apologize. We didn't actually put this on as a second reading. We put it on as a clarification because the first reading was unsure the way she worded it. So we can actually move this to the second reading. We'd like to classify this as a review of the first reading. I apologize for not clarifying that before.

So it needs to come back then? Yes.

Okay. I apologize.

So we're doing a review of the first reading and not doing a second reading. So we are approving the review of the first reading to have a second reading done again.

So we went back and listened to the verbiage of the approval, and she was approving the strikeout version. The verbiage wasn't correct, and so we're just asking for the correct verbiage so that we can just make sure that we cross all of our T's and dial up our I's. Whatever we're doing, yeah. We're just doing it to make sure that procedure is done. That's why we brought it back.

Okay, thank you. So we have an approval and a second on this. All in favor, please raise your hand. All four of us have raised our hands. Opposed, nothing. So the first whatever is approved today for the second reading. Awesome, next one.

Oh, sorry.

So what you guys were approving was clarifying the first reading and then you'll come back on a different date for the second reading. Correct. Um, section four B or agenda item for being a resolution of the city of Punta Gorda, Florida, authorizing the city manager to accept, execute and administer the federally funded hazard mitigation grant program per ends H M G P contract with the Florida division of emergency management. parens number H1, I'm sorry, yeah, H1461 for watershed master plan in the amount of $225,000, recognizing a local match of 75,000, authorizing the appropriate budget amendments, providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date.

Rick Lempool, grants coordinator. So earlier in January, Florida Division of Emergency Management offered up this opportunity for a second iteration. It was closed previously, and we did not take part in it. The county has also taken part in this, and they're going through their process right now for their watershed master plan, which we're not involved in. We need a separate one to participate in the CRS program, If you've got questions about the CRS program, we've got the building official here. But basically, this is the last chance for funding for a watershed master plan through FEMA. And this is our opportunity to move forward with our national flood insurance program. So if you have any questions regarding this program and the importance of it, Ron Kowitz can answer those questions.

Any questions? Oh, Ron, do you want to come up? Sorry, you're going to have to read. Wait. I have to take Greg. Greg, will you just go off? Thank you. Press again. There we go. Got it.

Rock Alice Building Department. Just to expand on that a little bit more, we have been partnering with Charlotte County. Charlotte County has spent an enormous amount of money to try to get their watershed in place. They've been very generous with us. So this grant is to help the city pick up the portion that we specifically need for our portion of it. It's I don't know how much you understand about it, but it is a prerequisite. So it's absolutely required before you can go anymore. And your CRS credits. CRS credits get to the city as a whole discounts on our flood insurance. So we're trying to achieve an additional credit to gain even more. More discount on that credit as we've heard from people insurance is outrageous right now. So. But it is a long process, probably another couple years, two and a half years to finish. But this grant is going to cover the city's portion that's needed to finish that process.

And this is an absolutely essential tool in our kit, and we should proceed with this.

I'm in agreement with Councilman Julie in here. Yeah, and in our packet it said another 5% reduction if we do get this. So everyone's excited about that. So yeah, I'll be approving this today for sure.

So do you want to make a motion then?

I make a motion that we approve 4B.

Hang on. OK. Is it me? I move, I second that motion. Okay, we have a motion and a second on the floor. All in favor, please raise your hand. All of us are raising our hand. Opposed? Motion carries, thank you.

Agenda item 4C, a resolution of the City of Punta Gorda, Florida, authorizing the city manager to accept, execute, and administer the federally funded 2024 Community Forestry Capacity Grants Contract with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, parens FDACS number 340789 to plant 100 native wind and salt tolerant trees and restore the tree canopy in the amount of $48,617, recognizing a local match of $5,649 Authorizing the appropriate budget amendments providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date Oh

a good afternoon rick limco once again grants coordinator this is um a great opportunity for the city to accept um funds from fdax this is uh to plant and restore 100 trees um in our city and so um Of that match about $3400 is expected to be from volunteer in kind services so we're kind of only out of pocket right now about $2000 unless there's overages in the in the actual procurement process so. Pending any questions.

Congratulations on your hard work. We all love free money from grants and to get our city more beautiful. So good job. Thank you.

Right, and I agree with you, Councilwoman Denton. I 100% think we need more trees. More oxygen is always good, and I very much appreciate that we were allotted this kind of money, so thank you so much. Move to approve. Can I do that now, or was there any more discussion? Okay, so move to approve for C. I second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second on the floor to approve. All in favor, please raise your hand. All four are raising their hand. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, thank you for your hard work.

Agenda item 4D, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Punta Gorda, Florida approving amended bylaws governing the membership requirements of the building board providing an effective date.

Good morning City Council, City Clerk Sarah Welch for the record. The proposed resolution was drafted per City Council's direction to amend the bylaws to remove the lifetime prohibition against involvement in the building industry. for consumer advocates and to add a second alternate so that one may be designated for a contractor and another for a consumer advocate. If approved, City Council will be able to consider William Prasha for nomination and appointment to a consumer advocate seat on the building board later this meeting, with Kathy Komeny being considered for appointment to the alternate seat as a contractor. KATHY KOMENY.

Sorry, Sarah. I can't see when you press a button, so I apologize for that. Any questions for Sarah?

Okay, I need a motion. I make a motion we approve 4D.

I second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second on the floor to approve it. All in favor, please raise your hand. All four of us are raising our hand. Opposed? Motion carries, thank you. Okay, next is the consent agenda. Does anybody want anything pulled? Dr. Missy, were you going to talk about impervious structures or urban design? Or you want to do that in the projects? We talked at the pre-agenda about impervious and also about urban design because they were only doing it once a month and they weren't. So do you want to talk about that in the projects? Yes. Okay. Okay, so I need a motion for approval for the consent agenda.

I just have a question. Are gentlemen here for 5A? No, no one's here to speak on 5A. Okay, someone is here to speak on 5A. I would hate to approve it and him not get to discuss it.

Okay, okay, great. Do you have any questions for him? If not, I have no question. So that was a request for a motion then to approve the consent form?

I would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

I second that motion. Janice Denton.

We have a motion. I'm going to have a sore finger by the end of the day. We have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda in full. All in favor, please raise your hand. All four of us have raised our hand. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Does anybody want to take a break or do you want to continue on? Let's take a break, please. Okay. We're going to take a quick 10-minute break, please. Thank you. OK, everybody, we're going to go ahead and get started again. Please sit down.

we're going to move on to the regular agenda 6a agreement award to architects design group inc of winter park florida for a master agreement to provide assessment and planning for the city's public safety complex at 1410 tamiami trail punta gorda florida good morning anne heinen procurement for the record

Procurement received a request to issue a request for qualifications for engineering and architectural services for the public safety expansion project. That solicitation was issued to 764 vendors, 18 viewed, and the city received three responses from teams of consultants and architects. A notice was also posted on another e-procurement system advertising the bid as well. This will be the master agreement that contains hourly rates in order to negotiate authorizations for a phased approach for the project. Future authorizations will be approved by the appropriate award authority. Proposal packages were evaluated by a committee which ranked the proposals and then we entered into interviews conducted with consultant and their teams. The top ranked firm designated by the committee was Architects Design Group of Winter Park, Florida. We then entered into negotiations.

This is a project that was previously approved by the voters to be funded by the 1% sales tax. We do have the consultant from Architects Design Group to speak to council if you do have any questions regarding the project. Staff is recommending award of the agreement to the master agreement to Architects Design Group of Winter Park, Florida as being the most qualified and responsible bidder.

Any questions? Sorry.

There you go. Jenny. What is the cost to this point? What is the cost to hire them? I can't find it in the...

There is no cost.

There is no cost to the master agreement. It's putting the agreement in place with hourly rates for all the different positions to move forward to the phasing approach. The first phase will be the next agreement, Amendment 1, which will be the assessment.

Follow-up question. So we have a lot in question right now. the 1% sales tax, which this would be funded by, correct? And then we've also got the possible property tax reduction. So I don't really, I mean, it's a lot to ask of these folks if we don't have the money to move ahead. So I don't know if we should postpone. You've obviously done a lot of work, and these people are probably great. But the question I have is, will we be able to follow through

And going into it, we knew that grant funding would be an integral part to making this project successful. It did go out to bid one time previous, and we canceled the bid because we saw that there were items lacking in the scope, and we added grant funding to be part of the consultant's team. Amendment number one brings them in from the beginning during the assessment of the building to start looking at grant funding.

Kristen Simeone, Finance Director. I'm sorry. I just wanted to speak to the funding as well. So this is 1% sales tax. It also incorporates public safety impact fees for this project. The needs assessment was determined should be done first to determine what the actual project will be. So depending on what is determined whether you're going to expand the existing facility or if you're going to have to buy land and have a different facility somewhere else. That will be determining what the full project would be and then again looking for grants. Thank you.

I guess my question is, um, where are these numbers being projected from it somewhere in there? It said 110,000 square feet may be needed. Now they're probably, I'm sure projecting out years from now, obviously. Um, and there definitely is a need for it. And if you've ever been into the safety building, you know, it is crowded. Um, so something's going to need to be done, but I just want to know where, where did that number come from? And, um, yeah, it's quite a bit more than what we have right now. I looked up on the, on the property appraisers say have somewhere here i think it's what we have like twenty thousand square feet maybe a little bit more uh... which is not adequate it's twenty three thousand and then the a cd area seventeen thousand but they're projecting maybe a hundred and ten thousand square feet so that's a lot of square footage

All right, so Chief Pam Smith, Punta Gorda Police Department. That number is not the right number. It really, it was just put in there. I think even the, and we do have our person that bid on the group that ADG bid on the contract, but I think they even mentioned, yeah, that's way too much. It should be like around 60,000, but I'll let him answer that question.

Hi, my name is Rodney McManus. I'm with ADG out of Winter Park, Florida. The chief is right. There's a process that we go through to determine the exact amount of square footage that is needed based on the programs that the chief wants to run out of the department. So that number could flex either way. But we do think 110,000 square feet is larger than it's going to have to ultimately be.

Did that answer your question? Are you still on?

That does answer my question. The other thing is I just want to make a couple of comments here, and that is I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Fritz. We're going to spend this money. We don't know going forward. I mean, I know it's plans. It's very preliminary. This is the first we've heard of it, right? And in another, what, 10, 12 weeks, there will be two things on the ballot. One of them is the 20-year 1% sales tax that may or may not pass. And if we're depending on those tax dollars, I'm a little weary of making this choice right now. The other one is obviously the tax reform bill, and that may pass. So six, eight weeks from now, nine weeks from now, this might be a different story, and I'm just wondering if we shouldn't just wait. I know they hate to hear that, but just wait before we take a dive.

What would waiting that long do to the project? What would waiting that long do to the project?

So, hang on.

Ann, go ahead. I'll let Mr. McManus speak. Okay.

The process to determine the size and the shape and the scope of work that's gonna have to be done takes several months, probably four to six months. Regardless of whether it moves forward or at what speed it moves forward, this preliminary work would have to be completed in order for us to know exactly what the scope of the work needs to be in the future. So this is really a preliminary step one, we call it pre-design or phase one, that would then lead into the phase two, which is the actual design of the building. So this first part, which is under the amendment that Anne talked about, really has to deal with the programming and determining the scope. It doesn't have to do with actual construction of the of the building it's just determining what needs to be done and i would suggest that that that six or eight weeks isn't going to change that's what's going to have to be done for the next 50 years which is the the duration of the project that they want to plan for and the chief has been talking about so i i'm in agreeance i think that um what

we are looking at, I think it's kind of like twofold. Is this space going to be able to be built, maybe a second story to expand it and stuff like that? that might be our best route of what we need because we know we need to do something with that we need to expand it to fit everybody but maybe this is the best way we're doing it because this might be way better than us trying to find land someplace else and do the building which is going to cost a lot more so i really think that this is something we should actually be moving for no matter what we're going to do even with the tax reform we're still going to have to do something for that department so um i am myself I would like somebody to have motion to go ahead and approve this.

Just wanted to make a quick comment that this was a voter approved project. So we have had community backing for this project. And as has been mentioned, it is a phased approach. So we're just we're taking the first step in moving forward with creating what we need for public safety into the future.

Anybody else have any comments? Do you wanna do a comment, Greg?

No, I was gonna make a motion.

Anybody have a comment first? Just not, no, good. Make your motion, please.

I move to approve this agenda item.

And based on the fact that it doesn't cost us anything at this point, I will second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve this. All in favor? Okay, all four of us raised our hands. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

6b an award of amendment number one to architect design group llc of winter park florida for professional services to assess the public safety facility

Again, Anne Heinen for the record. City Council previously awarded the master agreement to Architects Design Group to provide professional services to assess and plan for the needs for the police department and fire department as it relates to the public safety facility. The agreement contained hourly rates for negotiating future phases of the project. Staff requested a proposal based on the rates and to assess the current needs of the police department and fire department. The consultant will perform an assessment of the current facility to determine if improvements can be made or if an additional site may be necessary. The consultant will provide a report of findings to the city council along with a concept plan and an opinion of cost. The total cost of the authorization is $335,042. Time frame to complete this will be eight months from the notice to proceed. Staff is recommending award of the amendment number one to Architects Design Group. Any discussion on this?

And, you know, this is the thing, you know, us in government with the costs, I think we all look and go, wow, that's a lot of money and stuff, but that's probably very accurate for what is needed. And again, I think going off of our last conversation is that. We need to try to figure out what we can do to hopefully make this building, you know, workable for a future for us to expand it. So that's just my comments on that. So did you want to say anything or you're just up there to answer questions? Okay. So Janine.

So just for clarification, it's task A through K. Task B said staffing study optional if requested, but it's not included in this $335,000 cost. Can you explain that? What would a staffing study entail?

Um, there, there were in the, in the, the actual amendment, um, and the exhibits, there were three different levels of staffing study. The first level determines the number of staff based on, on, um, emergency calls and things like that. Uh, with the, with the, the, um, obviously important input of the chief, um, and the way they run their facility or their, their department, excuse me. Um, but the staffing study can either say just how many people at what positions, uh, a deeper dive into that is, is how those positions can work together. And then in even deeper dive would be pay rates compared to other communities and other departments in the surrounding area to make sure that the, um, the police want to work there and want to continue to work there rather than jumping and going to another facility or department in a neighboring town. So it just wasn't determined whether or not that would be a need at the beginning or not. And if it wasn't, then we won't utilize it.

I think what Vice Mayor Polk was asking, is there a cost you were asking? Like if this needed to be included, what is the additional cost of that?

It would be based on the initial information that we gather talking with the chief and all the departments at the station. That would give us the information we would need to know how much that staffing study would cost and then determining which level of staffing study you want to move forward with. At present, though, I think it was pretty much agreed that the staffing study will not be necessary. It's just in there if, in fact, it comes up.

One of my concerns, which we fought so hard against, but is there going to be a point at some point point where the county is going to take over our 911 system and are we taking that into consideration too where we may need the 911 area or not need it and and it kills us if it is taken away from us but it actually might happen uh that that's beyond our pay grade I guess uh to to say that we don't know that's what would come out of the analysis that we were planning to do

Since the public approved this based on the 1% tax, I'm willing to go ahead, but I would like to hear from the public regarding these considerations with this kind of money involved and if they're still in agreement. So feel free to email me and the rest of us, but I'd like to hear from the public just in general on these kinds of topics.

Pam Smith. So the staffing study, one of the discussions during this process was about is this detailed space assessment that they're going to do going to cover that rather than paying for extra money for them to actually do a staffing study. The fact that they'll go in and they'll interview everybody and find out how our department works, how the fire department works, that would determine how big the building is as opposed to doing a full-blown staffing study, because that can have a very high cost. Bendish just paid $65,000 to do a staffing study, so we're trying to save a little bit of money there. And this goes back, from the 1% sales tax that's been happening over the last six years. So the money's there for this needs assessment right now. And so we need to just know what can we do? Do we build on top of what we have or is that not gonna work and we have to move somewhere else? So that's where we are with this.

Anybody else, any questions? Any emotion?

I move to approve amendment one.

Do I have a second?

It's all about button pushing now.

It is. I second that. OK, we have a motion and a second on the floor. All in favor, please raise your hand. Four yeses. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

Agenda item 6C, award of amendment to Carollo Engineers Inc. of Sarasota, Florida to provide professional services for the rehabilitation of well number five and well number six at the Shell Creek Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Plant.

And Heinen from Procurement for the record. This is an amendment from the master agreement providing engineering services for the public water supply to curlew engineers of Sarasota, Florida Staff requested a proposal based on the negotiated hourly rates to plan design bidding assistance and technical oversight of the rehabilitation of wells five and six at the water treatment plant the purpose of the rehabilitation is to restore and possibly increase capacity and water quality and The total cost of the authorization is $152,654.25. Time frame to complete the authorization is six months from the notice to proceed. Staff is recommending approval of the amendment to Carillo Engineers.

Any questions?

Would this be considered part of our $197 million we're putting towards our water quality sewer and all the rest of it?

The plan. Push the button, Tom. Thank you.

This was included in our budget for 2026, and so it's part of that budget.

I move to approve 6C.

I second it.

Okay, we have a motion and a second on the floor. All in favor, aye. Raise your hand. Okay, four yeses. Opposed? Motion carries. I just have to say thank you. I see the utility department on top of everything. You're always one step ahead of everything we're doing in our city, and I just can't thank you and procurement so much for moving these things forward quickly for our residents, so thank you.

Yep. 6D, Trayview Park improvements.

Press the button. Press the button. Thank you.

Good morning. Carl Benj urban design. Uh, we are here to talk about tribute park improvements. This is a presentation for park improvements, but the main focus of this presentation is really grants. The city is lucky to have a proactive grants coordinator and Richard Lim cool. However, one of the issues that we hear from Mr. Lim cool is that we need to have concepts and plans to go for these grants. Uh, so this is a high level plan for Mr. Lim cool to use to go for trade view park improvements. That's fine. So this is the area in question. It starts at the Adrian Street Pier area. This is the end of the Harbor Walk. We're calling this internally the Harbor Walk Gateway. We have a draft unfunded CIP for 2027 through 2031, which would allow us to pursue this project and grants that we were talking about later. So some of the improvements that we're talking about is the National Fitness Campaign Court. This was brought to the city. They reached out for fitness opportunities, and we thought this could be a great way to start this conversation. There's also passive park upgrades with winding paths and a small bridge that we'll show you later, along with open area activities, too. provide a nice, cohesive place to hang out. There's also Adrian Street Pier, possible reconstruction improvements, and we'd also like to perhaps expand the parking to facilitate more activities down there, a little fishing hub, people who come and exercise. And also the Harbor Walk East, there's a possible acquisition that we can get the property and possibly provide amenities within the area. And we can do the special flood hazard area property purchases, which would increase park access, use, and mitigate future property losses. So these are the existing fitness stations that we have. And they're over by Fisherman's Village. And this is where we get the idea of bookending this fitness thing. We have all of that at that side of the park. So we don't really have anything at the eastern side of the park. So we want to kind of bring something there. And this is a national fitness campaign. These are the people who reached out to the city. They reached out to the city offering a $30,000 grant, which is great. They have two options. There's a fitness court, which starts at $200,000, but they do have a lot of amenities that's attached to it. A part of this whole process is really bringing the community together. There's a large, I shouldn't say large, but there's a wall on one side of it, and it provides an opportunity for us to give a local artist a place to paint. So it kind of makes it a community area. The other version is a fitness studio, a fitness court and studio. It pretty much doubles the size of the area and offers a nice flat area for exercises and activities. That cost starts at around $262,750. But these are two options that we can look into if it's so decided. And those aren't the other options. There's a lot of other ways that we can make this an active park. Look to the right. Some of us grew up with those wooden training things in the parks. When I was a kid, you'd find them as you walk around. There's still some in Sarasota when you go around. They're a little cheaper to maintain. They may not be as durable, but it still offers some sort of activities, and we can still maintain at a reasonable price. There's also things like ninja courses, which are really big for kids nowadays. There's an indoor one in Bradenton. I take my kids there. So it's a destination. It makes people want to go there. And that's something that we thought that may be fun. This is on the east side of town. Cooper Street and Carmelita have almost all of our schools. There's three plus schools there. We have the Boys and Girls Club on Cooper Street. There's a lot of teens and children on that side of town that would really really kind of congregate to this, and that's something I think we should really think about. So these are the properties. Back in 2005, the city was able to work with the Trust for Public Lands and were able to accumulate, let's see if, I don't know if I can, some of those properties in red that are budding against West Marion. There, I believe, was six or seven properties and through the Trust for Public Lands, the city was able to acquire those properties and reduce future loss through mitigation. These were targeted after Hurricane Charlie And so this is all part of a bigger plan that the city has been working with for a while. So this is the current layout of the Tribute Park land use. You see in the Tribute Park area, there's three NCs. Those are properties that weren't able to be purchased during the first TPL purchase in 2005. However, two of those parcels are available. And those are things that we're interested in doing. We would love to be able to acquire those parcels. However, we understand that Upcoming things being voted on may limit our future finances. So with that we are We include it as the overarching Grand we'd love to do it all but we're also kind of kind of separating them for the purpose of if we're not able to do the land acquisition now we would still like to do the improvements to Trayview Park, so we're keeping those separate so they don't tie each other down and So here's the proposed future use that we're talking about. The bottom left corner, there's a very small square. That is the National Campaign Fitness Court. Moving up a little bit more, there is a open fitness area. That could be another fitness area like the Ninja Court, or it could just be a passive place for recreation. Going across the street, there is one of those properties that we weren't able to acquire. We already own that big, huge green square, but it's underutilized. We would like to plant some trees, create a passive park, create a little environment there, make it a little more attractive Sometimes an open field with no shade is not really appealing, so let's create something there and make it a little more appealing. The little blue building is one of the properties that we would like to acquire in the future if we possibly could. It's an existing structure, so if we wanted to convert it to restrooms or some sort of amenities, there's already water and electric there, so it would reduce some of those costs. And then across the way is another part of the NC property that we would like to buy if everything went well. And that would just be used for conservation just because it's mostly wetlands as it is. So we included this park concept from 2006 to highlight that the plan is something the city has really wanted for almost 20 years. The city is trying to pursue these grants. And this concept back in 2000 or 2020, we had reached out to get to work with trust of public lands. However, all of that stuff fell through in 2020 and we kind of know why due to COVID. So it kind of hit a wall. So here's the proposed layout that we would like to use moving forward for all the grant applications. You see to the left is a fitness court, and that could be expanded or could be moved. We have a winding sidewalk that kind of just goes through it. That long rectangle on the top would be a pedestrian bridge to tie into the existing harbor walk. So it creates a nice little circle walk if you just want to stay with it. I'm so sorry for hitting this microphone. to stay within the area. The winding path also leads to another activity, a passive activity zone, all of which we could change as we needed to, but this is just a large view. And then here's the park by Adrian Street. So we would like to ultimately fix the Adrian Street Pier. We think that's a huge draw. As it was mentioned before, we were a fishing community. I'd like to think that we still are a fishing community. So we want to reinstate that and create that fishing and exercise hub, really like a nice little place to go. And with that, we have possible expansion of the parking. Right now, we only have eight parking spots, and two of them are handicapped. So there's not a lot of accessibility If we really want to draw attention to this place, we're going to have to expand that and make it comfortable for everybody. And with that, I will let Richard explain the grants.

Thank you. Is it back?

Rick Lemko grants coordinator. Thank you for the time here. What we've got here is a couple opportunities to fund these improvements in property acquisition for tribute park. So tribute park is actually a pretty good sized parcel of 10 acres but there are enclaves inside of there that make the park not as accessible and not as usable. But right now what we have, the first opportunity for funding is something called Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Program or grant. And that's with the National Park Service. It can fund up to $15 million in projects each year or each grant cycle. But right now it's funded for the next five years and the funding opportunity, the grant availability closes on November 1st with the feds. I have been working with the Trust for Public Lands for the last couple of months and basically talking with them, seeing how we're going to be able to develop anything if we are able to do anything for acquisition for technical assistance. So right now they're able to assist us with grant application. I'll be doing the grant writing here internally, but they will give a technical overview of it. Part of this program is really dialed into access to recreation. And that's what we're trying to do is we're trying to improve access to the east side and to all of our residents so that we can improve Numbers and the amount of people that actually go there. And so what Carl was talking about earlier was this internal discussion of calling it a. A gateway to the harbor walk and so as we come in from from the east on Marion, that would be the 1st thing that we see. The 1st thing we see is the hospital. But we need a little bit more going on because we've had some hurricanes. So this may be a first step or a step that we can bring everything together and make the east side beautiful again. So increasing access to Trebut Park with that permeable parking. would be great because right now we only have eight slots for people to park, use Adrian Street Pier, and walk the Harborwalk. That's not enough. We got an underserved community out to the east side, and all these narratives work really well together to make this a successful application with ORLP. But we're working together right now. That grant, it's good for five years, or funded for five years, But we can move forward with any grant opportunity with this year, next year, or the following year. FDAP is a smaller grant with FDEP, and that is a recreational grant program also, but it's limited in the amount of money. It's a little bit harder to get and less that you can do with. FEMA. offers up something through flood mitigation assistance and through hazard mitigation grants for acquisition. And so that acquisition of those properties that we were talking about, one is at that corner and then the other is also at the corner of Marion and Adrian Street. But those two parcels were dialed in and we were looking forward to that in 2005 until now because it is access point to Adrian Street Pier. As long as I've been here, I've never really seen a lot of traffic going into that spot, and it's because we don't have site control. And so site control gives us access to Harborwalk, gives us access to the amenities, and gives us access to that pier, and that pier is gonna get rebuilt at some point in the future. we want our residents to use it and that's the way that we're going to be able to do it um property acquisition uh we we did put in a um a notice of intent to apply uh for this fema grant um and it's a 25 match it's not been applied for yet but um there's an intent an intention that we could move forward with that um with the outdoor recreation grant and i didn't mention this before there's two opportunities uh for grant funding one is for just improvements that Carl mentioned before in that slide deck. And so the improvements would be one grant application and a separate grant application would be for property acquisition. What I didn't mention, what we didn't mention was they're listed for sale. They're distressed properties and they're listed for sale. And so there's an MLS listing for them right now. And even if they're not listed, you can always have a negotiation, a discussion. There's a couple other grant opportunities out there that I haven't discussed, but National Fitness Campaign is a small grant that has 30,000 available for that one little fitness course. And then there's another one that just opened up called CPI, which is Coastal Partnership Initiative for access to waterfront recreation, waterfront opportunities. And that's available right now and it's more of a technical assistance in grant planning thing for planning and design of our peers. I think it's a really good opportunity to move forward with increased resilience for our peers. And a lot of these grant opportunities always really discuss access for residents, access for underserved, and then also improvements in resilience so that we don't have to go through the same um hardship again because we had that hardship of eight feet and we lost all of our peers so who's to say that that eight foot storm surge doesn't happen again and so um i believe earlier in the discussion with the um the waterfront hotel they were talking about a 12 foot storm surge that hands designed uh for uh with that dock system so that's kind of where we kind of need to be understand that construction costs increase with better improved designs but That would be a separate source of funding. Okay, so the next steps would be trying to get a feel for where you want to be with Adrian Street Pier. I know that's a public works process right now, but I did talk to our. Our finance team, and there's there's a way to go after mitigation with FEMA, but we have to talk with FEMA and make sure that this is an allowable thing to pursue designs that are. better than what we are trying to replace. Trebut Park improvements, right around a million dollars. How do we want to proceed? Do we want to proceed with this concept? The good thing about this ORLP grant is that I can move forward with this grant application without having an actual design and without having permits. A lot of grants require that in place. All they require right now is a concept. And then any funding would take us past 2028 fiscal year. So if we do get awarded in May, it would take at least 180 days to get an executed agreement. So realistically, we're looking well into the end of 28 or the beginning of fiscal year 29 before we can actually even start a project if it's awarded with this grant cycle. So we don't really need a design yet. But that's in the future, whenever you are inclined to do that. And then I've got a couple opportunities for grant funding that I can start to move forward with. And that's kind of where we're at. There are any questions? So we're just looking for directions. And then this slide deck shows what the, the actual fitness court looks like. And it really is designed to bring the community together. And then that's kind of where we're at. So we're just asking for council direction and or questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions?

So we're not obligated to spend taxpayer dollars. AT ALL UNTIL WE RECEIVE THE GRANTS AND THEN THERE'S A COST SHARING INVOLVED IN THAT. SO WE CAN PROCEED WITH THIS CONCEPT AND APPLYING FOR GRANTS WITHOUT HAVING TO OBLIGATE TAX DOLLARS.

SO NO, UNLESS YOU'RE AWARDED A GRANT, NO, YOU'RE NOT OBLIGATED TO PROCEED AND THEN SO BUT WITH THE FEDERAL GRANTS, IT TAKES a long time before you can even get a contract written. So we're looking at not this fiscal year budget, we're looking at another budget down the year. Or what I'm thinking, when I'm looking at my numbers and the dates for this bigger grant, it's 29 is what I'm looking at, and expecting to actually, if we're awarded that, we're gonna look forward to a 50% match, but a couple of years down the road. And then the other grants are a little bit different, but, um, like the CPI grant that would be awarded in March and that would be a 50% match too, but that's a much smaller project for designs, um, of, um, peers or whatever like that. But, and the FEMA one would be very similar. FEMA would be a 25% match, but you know, it, it takes a long time to execute contracts.

You've got some great ideas. Whatever we consider, we need to also think about the cost of maintenance. And so if it can be natural or some kind of low maintenance That would be helpful. But then again, I think, what about pickleball? Did that ever come across your mind, that we could use more pickleball courts? Because people always love that. And then another question I had was with the piers, if it's that flow-through perforated dock, that might give you your better solution for what we had with wood that floats away. Sorry about the echo. Okay, let me just see if there's anything else. would it be possible to do something like a climbing wall for, I know there's always liability issues, but just thinking about what people would enjoy. The ninja park idea looks really fun and would attract young people. And I was hoping to get a comment from Pastor Thomas before he took off because it really is near his community and I'd like to hear from him and from some of the people that he knows. and see if they have other ideas, like maybe we need some soccer area, or I don't know, but what would appeal to them as well? Because Eastside is definitely an underserved area. I like all of your ideas. I don't want it to cost money at this point with so many questions ahead of us, but we gotta get the grants.

So thank you ma'am. Regarding pickleball, we did kick it around a little bit. Soccer, we did kick that idea around a little bit too, but we've got East Marion there. And so we were thinking about how are we supposed to address flying balls? And so, Don't think that that's appropriate place that close to the road. But there are a lot of considerations that we did take into account. Walls might be incorporated with the ninja course, that little small climbing wall. What we were really dialed into is there's gonna be fitness courts for adults. We got those fitness courts for adults over there by Linear Park. we do wanna incorporate another adult fitness court there potentially, but that's for the adults. And then what we really wanna do is embrace the children. My child, brings this up to me all the time and so we've got three schools over there there's a way for those kids to get to the water and enjoy the water if there's a way for those kids to cross the street with a new crosswalk to enjoy a ninja course or an amenity or whatever fishing that's what's important to me is the kids right now we really don't have amenities for kids we do have a few parks but They're few and far between. They're typically usually most of the time at the schools. When I go over towards Sally Jones, I see a really nice park, but it's closed after school hours. So I think you had another question, but yeah, funding is going to be an issue. It's a concern, but this is a discussion that's been in the works for 20 years since we had a CRA. It's an underserved area and we can absolutely make things happen with that. We did have a discussion with other departments in the state that do transportation in regards to crosswalks. If we have a reason to have a crosswalk, We can get a crosswalk right there from that medical old medical overlay district so we can bring in a crosswalk. We have to have a purpose for it. So now we can actually have a safety measure to bring people in from the actual city proper into the recreation area. If we design it, we can get it. We can get that crosswalk of some kind. So there's there's a number of things that we can bring together on to make this really really nice and my thinking is this is a gateway to the city, it is. So that's where we're at and so looking for direction and and maybe the the ability to pursue this grant.

Okay. I agree with you. I think that's one of the biggest things we keep on talking about. We talk about our development and what we're going to do. And it seems like everything stops on the west side. And I think that we need to incorporate the east side, which is actually going to bring development into our community. And what a great way to do this. Like you, Councilman for Denton, you know, especially the ninja who's going to maintain it, you know, the cost of that. I was also wondering, what is the Adrian peer part of Hans with fixing all the docs? Is that correct?

Oh, that is correct. That is one of the projects that's in the works right now, in process.

So that's actually part of it, which is great. And my thought too, maybe this is also a good area for learn to sail, you know, because it might be a little bit more protected of an area for the kids and learn to sail to go into that in a nice, Again, recreation area. My other question is you're saying that there's properties, you know, that are for sale right now. They're asking price. To me, if it's distressed, seems a bit unique for their costs. Is this something that we would be looking at like their assessed value if we considered bringing it on? Because if it's a distressed and it's already in a flood zone and things like that, is it really valued at this amount of money? Oh, there we go.

it just became more valuable today because we talked about it that's one of the tough things about oh wait hang on so yes um absolutely um but it this has been on the books uh for some time since the cra was uh in in process years and years ago um There is a process through FEMA where they actually have to use something called a yellow book. You have to, the real estate, entities and, and, and the female coordinators and us, we'd all have to coordinate the actual asking price. And so, and it's going to be according to their yellow book and it's a real estate term. I don't quite understand it yet. I never heard of it before, but, um, there's a process to negotiate the price down into a realistic term. I don't, whatever. So that's, that's my, uh, my thing on that. If it's a property acquisitions done through ORLP, I imagine there's going to be a similar process, but I don't know what that would be.

And I think again, you know, just kind of talking is we are saving a bunch of money in the 1% sales tax. And I know this is currently unfunded. Is that correct?

Oh, that is correct. It is unfunded.

I get my buttons correct. But there's areas where I think that we are actually saving money in some of our other projects. And maybe, again, I personally think this is a wonderful way. It is coming off of the freeway. This is a great way to see that, you know, we are nature. We're on the water. This is a park. We're inviting people. This might be something very good. I understand the cost and everything like that. But we might find some money in our 1% that we're not using someplace to actually maybe help with that.

I would have to verify. I don't believe that that was ever a voter approved project. If it was maybe 12 years ago or something that I'm not aware of, I can look into that, but otherwise we cannot use voter approved money to a project that voters haven't approved.

It actually was, um, when I was looking at all the, when I first got on in 2023, it was one of those unfunded with tribute park. So.

That could be the cpi might be have been out there and the and it listed as unfunded i'm just not recalling tribute park as a part of our list, the last time I went through the process, but I can certainly check on that the newest one that you're doing I got okay.

So it's something that you might want to request to see if we can use one percent sales tax, yes, got it it's as simple as checking the list, yes. Is this just for discussion, you want direction? What do you think, Greg?

Yes, I believe they are asking for our direction and this is great vision for the future. It's been undergone for quite some time and I think we could recommend that they continue with applying for the grants and see how that goes and then take it from there.

Is that including looking at the purchase price of buildings as well?

Yes, all of it. The whole plan. It's a great collaboration between Urban Design and our grants coordinator. I think they've laid out really good funding options. I recommend we let them proceed.

Well, from what I'm understanding, we're not necessarily purchasing the properties. Now, this is something that in the future that we would like, like to. To be a part of the park and absorb it. Um, at some point, and I would, I would imagine that. if we had those properties appraised, at least have that in hand so that we know for sure what the, um, what the value of those properties with the market value would be currently. Um, I think it's a great idea, a wonderful concept. Listen guys, we just spent 400,000 on redoing one side of our entrance, which is the, um, Freeman house. And when you come through now, when you see the Freeman house, what do you think? You think, wow, look at that big, beautiful, bright yellow home, and it must be a historic district. And then coming through the other side, could you imagine if we had this, just like you said, Carl, I'm sorry, not Carl. Thank you very much for bringing that up. That that side, when you enter, just isn't as fluffy as we want it to look. And this could really do that. Also, the children on that side of town need something to play with. And I, I absolutely understand when I was growing up, parks were just the school that you went to. You went to the school after school and you hung out and you could use a swing. Well, all the schools are completely blocked off. You cannot get in them at all. No access. So those playgrounds that taxpayers pay for are not able to be used outside of school hours. So that is something to think about when we're discussing this. Thank you.

Jenny, anything? I think that it would be wonderful to move ahead and search out grants and see what we can do. I'm not sure if we need to acquire the NC Passive Park wetlands, because you can't really do anything with that anyway, unless you have a plan for that property.

Can I get a motion? I'm trying. Oh, got it. Okay, there we go. Now we got it.

Okay, it's motion to approve 6D. I'll second that.

Okay, I'm trying to find where that red button is. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve. All in favor, raise your hand. Four yeses. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you so much for looking into all of this for us.

Agenda item 6E is a vacant parcel donation to the City of Punta Gorda, and the recommendation is to accept the parcel donation from Carol Keys and provide counsel direction on execution of the deed transfer.

Rick Lemko, Grants Coordinator, once again. So earlier in the summer, we were approached by Ms. Carol Keys, who's the owner of these parcels here. There's three parcels that she wants to donate. At first, she wanted, well, to donate. And so there's no real value or purpose in these properties anymore. Many, many years ago, submerged, um land was parceled out and sold um with no use in the present present day so we changed our dredge and fill laws in the 70s for a very good purpose and this is what remains of some of the antiquated um property uses that we had back in the days so we've got two submerged lands and parcels that are valued at about um thirty dollars and then we've got one mangrove that's valued at ten dollars that she would like to donate um it's already part of treyview park there is no um nothing for us to do with it right now um we might have to do some minimal maintenance with the mangroves. That would be a question for Public Works, but we're already doing mangrove maintenance anyhow, and I don't see any downside to us accepting these parcels. And that's it for me. So Ms. Keys would like to execute this transfer by the October 1st, and that was her request earlier in the summer.

I'm on, thank you. So really, we're just approving this today and we need a recorded deed is basically what you're saying, move forward for. And even though there are not any value, I think it's kind of cool that she's allowing us to have these for free. I'd say that we approve 6E.

Greg, did you have anything to say before we approve it?

Yes.

Okay, hang on.

I would just ask, is a title search necessary?

I'm assuming you're asking me because you were looking at me with it we did all the background on it the information was sent to me we verified the deeds and everything else and we're able to go through a quick clean deed with it okay so we you might redo your mush Oh Janie sorry it was you made the motion I'll make the motion to approve

Carol Key's generous donation of the three parcels named in this, what is it?

Just partial. Okay. Vacant parcel donation.

Yes. Vacant parcel donation.

I'll second that. Okay. We have a motion. It's almost like a keyboard here. We have a motion and a second on the floor to accept this. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. All four yeses.

Agenda 6F, City Exterior Displays.

Press the button.

I'll get used to it, I promise. Mike Bonasera, Assistant City Manager. It is the afternoon, officially. Let's get my PowerPoint out. All right. So another exciting step into the future for the communication side. We are seeking approval for three exterior city display placements. The displays will be remotely operated by staff and they enable efficient centralized content management. All right, so the displays themselves we already have on hand. They are 43-inch ViewSonic displays. And they... We are looking to place them in heavy foot traffic locations around the city. So Lashley Splash Pad would be the first one. There's that wall that's blank that we could get power to and internet to that display itself. So that'd be the first location. It's on the southeast exterior wall of the public restroom. The second is the Herald Court parking garage, that blank space that's there right now. There's a heavy amount of foot traffic constantly going through there. So we figured that would be another great location for high visibility. And then finally, the Harbor Walk at Gilchrist Park. So that restroom building that faces the harbor is another excellent location for heavy foot traffic as well. So we are just seeking the approval for those three locations and I'll take any questions.

So I just want to know what would be on these, what would you be putting up there? And let me just, since I have the microphone, I'm sorry, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, Mike. The other one is, is this all day? Would someone be there putting up things on it all day long? You're saying an employee would be used. Is that just like in the morning one time they put something up and they leave? So kind of delve into that a little bit more. and they're already purchased. When was that approved and how long have you had them and what was their purpose to begin with?

All right, so great question. So the company we're already using is Revel Digital. That's the one that you would see in PD, the public safety building over there. So it's something that's pre-programmed, something that I could monitor. IT is being very useful with this. They're helping me along the way. And it's simply just pre-programming our messages, right? So any city event that we're looking to have, the fall festival, tree lighting any important messages that we want to display it's just having it on a rotation and the question about where the displays we had them prior and they're sitting in storage so it's something that i figured it's a way to step into the right direction of communication and we're all about expanding that and getting messages to our residents so why not you uh put those into use and and get those into those locations

This is a project that we had planned in a prior budget year. The reason that we're bringing it forth to City Council is because outdoor signage has to be approved by City Council before we put it in place. So we're making you aware of the project. We're not asking for any additional funds. These are all funds that have been previously budgeted. Emergency messages would also be shown on these displays, given that if we have our power and internet back, we would have messages there. But it also serves as a location as we get the community aware of it that we could have a central place too for them to gather at one of those sites where we could have paper information available in the case of a hurricane and things like that as well.

I would love to see us actually have Internet access over at Lashley across the whole park area, because I think that would really work when there's events there and stuff like that. There just isn't that Internet, which we're trying to promote, you know, revenue. I really think that is something that would be cost effective. And if you're already looking at doing Internet right in that one spot. Could we see, I guess we'd have to have a consensus if we could see about, um, expanding that to more internet access across the whole park area and how much that would cost. Do I have a consensus to consider looking into that as well? Yes. Yes. Greg. Yes. Okay. So you don't need a motion or anything like this. This is just letting us know, or do you want to, you need a motion as well, because this is something that's a signage. Oh, sorry.

hang on i got it yes please if you could just approve the locations that would by motion that would be appreciated do you need also for us with a consensus or are you okay with us all saying a consensus looking to the end the consensus was fine for the looking into internet for lashley park perfect thank you

I have one more question, like the duration of time these will be on and this has to do with lighting at night. Um, you know, I, I'm, I'm just a little concerned because we do have, we do have the historic district and I love the ambience of the lighting that we already have. I just want to make sure it's not, you know, it's not taking away from that. It's, it's, it's like, um, stepping back in time when you're walking at night, if you haven't done that recently. Um, and then you would see this thing lit up. I just, just want to make sure that it's not on 24 7 and we're not seeing something flash isn't that on in

That's a great question. So right now that that's up for discussion at this point. As far as the timeframe we I believe 24 seven was the initial thought. I don't know how that's going to affect the lighting, but that's up for discussion.

The one in Lashley. doesn't face any any um housing or anything like that it's in in a commercial area and then the one in gilchrist is on the water side of the building isn't it facing away from the community

all right i'm back so here's the one in the harbor that faces the harbor itself um this one uh faces um there's the one restaurant there and then the dessert place as well um so i'm not sure if that's going to affect too much on the lighting side if that was ran 24 7 and then this one is facing the parking lot um so does that answer your question jenny yes okay

This looks interesting. You can subdue the lighting, too. Maybe you could have it automatically subdued at night, you know, still there but not bright. But I'm sure you've thought of this, but I think they should be mounted rather high. Okay. In each location, because it is, you know, we've had problems in those areas, so. And I, can I, should I go ahead and make a motion?

Move to approve 6F.

I second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve 6F. All in favor, please raise your hand. Four raises. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you for that.

Agenda 6G, Strategic Plan Quarter 3 Update.

All right, Mike Bonasera, Assistant City Manager here for the Strategic Plan Update 2026, quarter three. We're gonna jump right into it, getting into the fire department. So goal one for the fire department is the safer grant staffing that was reapplied for and that is in process. Goal two is the emergency response vehicle. They hired six personnel and purchased the vehicle that is on track. Goal three is purchase tiger dams. Tiger dams and material have been purchased and ready for deployment that's been completed.

Planning department.

The first goal is the living shoreline project. The design contractor was selected and that is on track. Goal two is the bayfront center improvement. Design scope work is in process and that is also on track. goal three historic district improvements the reassessment is in process and that's on track goal four historic city hall rehab the design to start may start may 2026 and that's on track as well goal five is the building permit software the contractor selection may 2026 and that is on track as well the city clerk's office Their first goal, that should say, host the third annual plan for the Neighborhood Fall Festival, and then the third annual event to be held in October, and third annual event planning underway, 17 nonprofit, which I believe that number is higher at this point, and $1,500 in sponsorships, which is also higher at this point as well, and that is on track. Goal two is revise city council policies, all policies reviewed by council. Revisions per council direction underway, and that is on track. And finally, goal three, finalize record management training. Recently hired records coordinator has received training, basic training materials prepared, digital retention materials to be finalized once file bound rolls out, and that is in process and paused. All right, the police department, their first goal, deploy license plate readers.

Hang on, Mike, I'm sorry.

It is paused because we have to get the FileBone software completely implemented. That kind of took a backseat to some of the other priorities that Brian has had recently with getting the communications going in here, starting to get our new switches deployed, things like that. It's very important, but lesser important than a few of the things that we had to do right now.

Sorry, can you press it again?

There we go, we're red. I'm not sure if you heard goal one, but goal one to deploy license plate readers, and that's completed. Goal two is upgrade firearms. All pistols have been received, and all but six officers have completed training. They are scheduled for training July 29th. That has been already completed. Goal three, enhance radio system for public safety. All radios have been received, and we are reading on CCSO radio manager Doug Blevins to program them. That is on track. And finally, goal four is procure equipment for safer response and rescue during weather-related emergencies and high water incidents. The Bearcat has been received, as everybody has seen, and it's waiting for registration from the city clerk's office, and then officers will be trained on that, and that's on track. Human resources. Goal one, improve ADA tracking and reporting. Currently in procurement, RFP, and that is behind. Goal two is safety initiative. There's a 10% decrease in lost work days due to accidents and injuries, and that is in process. And finally, goal three, training software and content. The upskilling of employees through online training, that's on track. All right, public works. Goal one, increase staffing levels. Hire 15% more staff by March 2026 to improve infrastructure maintenance response times. That's complete. Launch proactive stormwater planning. Inspect and rate 100% of high priority stormwater pipes by April 2026. Develop phased replacement plan and that is on track. Goal three, complete Boca Grande project. Finish all phases by September 2027 to improve drainage conditions. That's in process. Goal four, modernize GIS infrastructure data, digitize and verify 50% of public works infrastructure data by September 2026. That's on track. Goal five, plan future infrastructure and facility needs. Develop GIS integrated asset maps using survey one, two, three for maintenance planning by September 2026, that's in process. Finance. Goal one, implement invoice automation. Initial scope has been presented to finance and IT. Due to the new IT manager starting recently, no additional progress has been made. Finance has also been very busy with SRF grant applications, interim loan RFP and loan agreement, land purchase information, and various council requests related to the police union research. of other municipalities and counties and review of legislative developments for property taxes and utilities. There's a slight delay. Goal two, improve FEMA documentation. Bids have been received, records obtained, and committees are rescheduled. There's a slight delay. And finally, launch CIP planning software. Initial scope is developed. Due to the new hiring of the IT manager, no additional progress has been made. Slight delay. Procurement. Goal one is integrate with invoice automation systems. Schedule a training session for procurement. That's been delayed. Goal two is streamline procurement processes, procedures, and technology. January 2026, review and identify improvement opportunities. One, they updated dispute language in agreement with the city attorney. And two, collaborating with the departments to update project checklists. That's in process. And finally, goal three, expanding staff training. Excuse me. We'll be working with the vendor to implement new system and procedures and to schedule training. That's in process as well. IT. Goal one, automate processes for finance, building, utilities, and police department. Replace travel request management process that's on track. Goal two, automate processes for finance, building, utilities, and police department. Establish invoice management system. That's on hold. And goal three, automate processes for finance, building, utilities, and police department. Establish permitting management system. That's on track. Goal four, automate processes for finance, building, utilities, and police department. Establish other management systems. That's on hold. Goal five, security at campus gates and facilities for utilities, public works, and police department. Developing scope of work to support procurement of a security camera system design vendor. That's on track. Goal six, phase one of the automatic vehicle location for public works, utilities, fire, and code compliance. Engaging departments to define the pilot program leveraging existing GIS tools Evaluating feasibility for phased AVL implementation. That's on track. Goal seven, implement call tracking and city-wide, city work order solutions. Working with departments to optimize use of existing work order system prior to pursuing new solutions. Focus on improving adoption and efficiency. That's on track. And finally, goal eight, set up call center tracking, coordinating with ERP vendor to restore and evaluate call tracking functionality, assessing viability of existing solution before replacement options. That's on track.

Another big one, utilities.

Goal one, implement AMI water meter system in procurement finalizing the RFP for release. That is on track. Goal two, RO plant expansion. Engineering checklist for the design criteria package and the owner's advisor has been finalized and transmitted to procurement. REC number 69381 has been entered. Procurement process is now formally underway Surface water plant rehab has been intentionally separated to maintain focus and schedule certainty on the RO plant and well field expansion. This prioritization, I can't speak today, I'm sorry, is necessary to meet interlocal agreement commitments with Charlotte County to address MFL constraints under the city's Southwest Florida Water Management District water use permit. Project is fully funded through the combination of Florida Department of Environmental Protection, SRF financing, loans, and grants eliminating funding risk to schedule. That's on track. Goal three, conservation program. Foundational elements incorporated through chapter 17 rewrite strengthens enforcement and irrigation efficiency standards. Conservation program will be formally developed as part of an upcoming WUP renewal. Met with Corolla engineers on four three to define WUP renewal. Scope, including conservation requirements. Program will need to align with SWFMUD or Southwest Water Plant, excuse me, Southwest Water Management District to demand management expectations and demonstrate quantifiable conservation measures. Next steps to include defining program components, tracking metrics, and integrating into WUP application package. That is on track. And finally, improve wastewater reliability. LS30 project is fully funded including SRF support for the lift station, sewer basin, and upgrades to the master and booster wastewater pumping stations. Project scope includes 8,296 LF of VCP sewer replacement, 24 manhole rehabilitations, and 28 service connection repairs or replacements. Engineering and design phase is beginning with SUBSEQUENT PERMITTING AND CONSTRUCTION TO FOLLOW WWTP CONSTRUCTION REMAINS ON SCHEDULE FOR JUNE 2026 COMPLETION AND WILL PROVIDE IMPROVED TREATMENT PERFORMANCE AND REGULATORY COMPLIANCE PROJECT WILL SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE BASIN RELIABILITY REDUCE INI AND STRENGTHENING OVERALL SYSTEM RESILIENCY THAT IS ON TRACK AND CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE Our first goal is complete and implement procurement action plan to facilitate the successful delivery of projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. Evaluation committee currently meeting to select the vendor that's in process. Goal two, produce additional multimedia content to inform the public about city initiatives and projects. Video is completed and guide is printed that's on track. And finally, goal three, create an AI or artificial intelligence policy. The policy is being developed in a user group framework that is on track.

Any questions or anything?

There it goes.

Oh, I think the city manager had something to say, so I'll just wait for you. I'll wait for you first.

Okay, I did just want to make a quick comment that this presentation was put together at the end of the quarter. And so there's been a little bit of a time delay. A lot of things have happened since then. So you're going to hear more in my project update report and more details. Everything that's in here is correct, but we've advanced on quite a few of the items from where they were reported at this time.

I just have a few questions with there was a flood response marine vessel and mud moat with the mud motored. Was that this year or was that the year before? And a trailer for the dive team, do you.

Sorry, I just took you off.

Those were completed at the they were going into the new fiscal year and we hadn't received received them yet.

Oh, Chief Smith.

Hang on. Oh, thank you. Oh, hello.

Here we go. Chief Pam Smith. So actually, the boat with the mud motor is coming Friday. It was in the Mack Grant. that we did last year. And then the dive trailer's already been received. So all that was, the mud vote was as we applied for that after Helene and all that. So we are ready, and I'm hoping that prevents anything from happening. Exactly.

Thank you.

Anybody else? You may be addressing this, but can you tell us a little bit more about the Bayfront? Will we have another look at those plans and then also City Hall, a little more detail on that?

The Bayfront plans are moving forward. You will see them at the various design stages as they move through the procurement process. Actually, after we have that vendor selected, then council will get periodic updates at, I believe, 30%, 60%. I'm not sure if that contract has 90% in it or not, but you'll see plans every step of the way. Right now where that project is at, all of the bid documents are ready except for the independent estimate that is being worked on right now. We have to do that because it does have FEMA funding potentially attached to it. So as soon as we have that done, that's going to be out on the street. We're hoping maybe even next week that the RFP will be released.

I just wanted to add that when you mentioned the user group working on the AI policy, I just met two residents that have completed their AI master's certification and they offered their assistance.

Oh, wait. Hang on. Try again. There we go.

If you could give me those names, I would really appreciate it. I think it would be good because as you've seen in the past when we presented this, this is going to be a group effort on the AI policy and I think maybe integrating a few community members into that group would really be helpful. Thank you. And I missed the comment about City Hall. You should have, and I'm thinking you're talking about the historic part of City Hall, correct? Okay, we should have a presentation for you the second meeting in September with some initial information regarding that process.

Uh, no, my only thing is, uh, is about the safety, um, fencing. I'm glad you brought that up. Uh, the fencing around the police and fire station is that I know we approved that quite a while ago. I feel like it's been a long time. Is there a hold up somewhere some way?

It's been a little difficulty in curing the materials that we had wanted to use for the price that we can afford. So, um, there's been some back and forth with that, but that is, um, moving forward and on track.

Okay. So, um, one of the things that I would like to see on here, like if it says on hold or if it's slightly behind, it would be nice to have an update of like, hey, this is on hold, but we expect it to be on track at this date, or if slightly behind, we look at having it updated. So we're not just like in limbo of like slightly behind, because we don't know that's very vague for us. So, and I know we don't want to give very specific dates, but say, hey, we were a month behind on here. We plan on getting it started again next month or something so that we are just aware that we know that we keep on moving forward, which I know we are, but I think just for the general public to when they see like on hold or delayed, you know, maybe make a little bit more of an explanation of what's happening and what we're going to do to make it move forward and i love the the fact greg thank you for saying that we've got some experts in in there because i think even for writing scopes you know using ai you know as a helper might have us move forward a lot faster with um all of our our scopes that we have because that seems to be one of the areas that we get you know put behind is we're still working on scope so hopefully ai And our experts will help us with that as well. And my other question is, again, with utilities, fantastic. I know it says AMI water meter system on track. Do we have any kind of a date of when we're going to get it released for bids and everything?

Yes, ma'am. We should have those documents released the week of August 31st. So next week you should see those go out. Uh, we got the plans back towards the end of last week. One more time. Um, Tom and his team are taking a look at them to expedite it. Usually, usually review is done independently. Thomas pulled his team together to look at those documents one last time, all as a whole. So we'll be able to move that quicker. That's wonderful.

Okay, so you don't need any kind of motion or anything on this. This is just informative, so. Steve, I'm gonna take you next again.

6H, Land Development Regulations Revisions, Height and Density.

Good afternoon, Boyd Lawrence, Planning Director. So I have to move over here a little bit. I think I maxed it out. Just slouched a little bit. And this presentation is stemming from the April workshop that we had where we talked about land development regulations and bringing them more in consistency with the comprehensive plan since we had the appeal about a year ago. Those issues were building height and residential densities. The key issues, downtown parking and environmental issues, especially along the waterfront. And then historic preservation, which was discussed earlier today that's been in the works. So this one's going to deal specifically with the some proposals for heights and density so these are not etched in stone this was just thoughts that staff have come up with to make a compromise between the previously 2024 code and you know what's in the comp plan. Okay so the purpose of this update to advance consistency with the comprehensive plan That's critical because the code that's in place now, the LDRs, it's not consistent with the comprehensive plan and that is one of the statutes or requirements. We have to reestablish the zoning districts that align with the future land use categories, provide downtown walkability and mixed use development, preserve neighborhood character and promote environmental resiliency, and establish development standards that balance community concerns and redevelopment opportunities. Why the updates needed I explained earlier that there's a legacy to zoning districts or do not currently align with the land use comprehensive plan categories inconsistent zoning District structure difficult to implement adopted policies of the comp plan Limited form based standards which makes less predictable development outcomes and then downtown mixed-use districts not clearly differentiated from other districts that's currently in place so WITH THE PREVIOUS CODE, IT WAS MORE DIRECTED DOWNTOWN. SO OUR APPROACH HERE, CURRENT CODE, AS MENTIONED, DOES NOT FULLY IMPLEMENT THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. THE PREVIOUS ADOPTED 2024 CODE BETTER IMPLEMENTED THE PLAN, BUT THERE WERE CONCERNS ABOUT DIFFERENT ISSUES, NAMELY THE BUILDING HEIGHT AND RESIDENTIAL DENSITY. SO WHAT WE'RE PROPOSING TO RESTORE THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK WHILE REDUCING THE PREVIOUSLY ADOPTED HEIGHT AND DENSITY The charts provided here I'll have to slouch down a little bit so that the base densities have been reduced more in line with what's in place now that we did did allow or continue that mitigation. That's within the 2024 LDRs, and the mitigation required public space or parking allowances, and that was part of a negotiated agreement, so that would allow some flexibility, maybe unique designs by a developer. And I should point out, this is just your downtown area, so this is Fisherman's Village to the, Previous location of the hospital or the house Currently not operating so that was that was referred to as the traditional Punta Gorda area Really the the district's names changed but the the regulations Didn't change as much in those areas outside the traditional Punta Gorda in terms of those residential areas in the commercial highway areas And then setbacks

Please the two two to one mix there.

I don't understand that Hang on you got a read set yourself up again There you go, yeah, that's based on a commercial residential mix so it's What regulates it is they have to have two commercial? Units for one residential unit based on square footage That's kind of the limitating factor, but then you still have the height limits. And then the setbacks. Those were not altered as much other than the neighborhood transition. It was zero to 20 and now it was proposed to be 10 to 20. You know, the downtown core is not unlike what you have in the city center right now. So you have those zero to 10 setbacks. And I just wanted to bring the density question into some context in some of the various buildings that exist now. Everyone's familiar with the Sunloft Center. It's a four-story, 59-foot mixed-use building on approximately one acre. Commercial uses occupy the first through third floors, and then there's 15 residential units on the fourth floor. Say, for example, if the third floor was converted from residential use to commercial use, could nearly double the density without increasing the building's height or footprint. This illustrates increasing residential density does not necessarily require a larger building footprint or taller. Another example, one-story, three-unit residential building, similar footprint and height to many single-family homes. This one is just down the street on West Reda. It looks like a single-family home from a distance or across the street, though it's a three-unit. Provides additional housing choice while maintaining traditional neighborhood scale. And the summary is to restore the zoning framework that better aligns with the comprehensive plan. Reduce maximum height and residential density permitted under the previously adopted 2024 code. Continue to support downtown redevelopment and mixed-use development. provide a balanced approach between the proposed regulations and the previously adopted 2024 standards. This is just kind of a starting point on that, if you have any feedback on where we're going, because we'll probably consolidate these different, also the parking issue and the environmental, waterfront environmental final proposal. That's all I had.

Questions?

So this isn't written in stone. I just want to put that on the record. This is just the avenue that staff is taking based on what they heard from the community. The one meeting, the one meeting that we had, but obviously we need a lot more meetings. And I think Mr. Fritz was on the right track when he said that today. We're going to need more input. And we do have a flood study, too. And I would, if I'm making this decision at all, and anybody in the community is making this decision, we really need to have the facts about that. There were 120-some people who were rescued for one of the flooding events. I think it may have been the first one. But that needs to be taken into consideration before we even look at density or decide on density, in my opinion. You know, when you, when you see, and you're trying to pull out of your driveway, and you see those rescue trucks coming and picking up people, it gets real, it gets real. And so, you know, this density thing with 25 units an acre, which is currently in the historic district. I don't know how it ever could fly, but thank you for bringing it down to something that's realistic and at least looking at that. But again, I want a lot more input from the citizens before I speak and step on anyone's toes because I feel like this is really going to be a big decision. And again, thank you for your presentation and staff that you are hearing us and I appreciate that.

So I do have a pretty good concern here. I know the comprehensive plan had a lot of this traditional Punta Gorda that you're talking about, which seems to be the focus of everything that we're doing here. And you keep on, and I know that the room was filled with people who did not want the comprehensive plan. They didn't want the LDRs, they didn't want the comprehensive plan. And now we're basing this, but let me tell you, Even with what you're saying, if you're looking at the changes of the 2024, and I tried to say this before the comprehensive plan was approved. Did you know that maker village is not in the comprehensive plan? Neighborhood transition is not in the comprehensive plan. Residential edge is not in the comprehensive plan. Traditional residential is not in the comprehensive plan and we missed highway commercial. And we don't know if flex is part of highway commercial in the 2022 with the LDRs. Comp plan also states that it's transitional neighborhood, not transitional residential. So I think there's a lot of issues, and these are the things that I tried to talk about back then. So it sounds like we really need to have a comprehensive plan that is accurate with what we are looking for. And I agree, we need to have the public input, especially with the residents downtown, because this whole traditional Puente Gorda really relies on our downtown residents. You know, we had the one time, the one meeting where people didn't want duplexes, and it was already a mixed-use street. And do the residents downtown who are building these single-family homes or have them want duplexes and triplexes next to them? We have to really have that input. And again, I agree with you, Janine. I didn't even think about flooding study. We really need to have that to see what we're doing. My number one thing I think like Greg was saying, we should be looking at some of the easier articles of the land development regulation that we know that are not more burdensome, because even with, you know, the mitigation and stuff and form based, that's more burdensome. So we have to be careful how we're doing it. But I think getting some of the easier articles of the 2022 versus the 2024, you know, we could do. You know, several of them that are very similar. We just have some, you know, discussion with how some of them are worded. And in the meantime, let's look at just the 1st element of future land use of the comprehensive plan. And let's see, because do we want that many zonings traditional point to guard? I added all these extra zonings. Is that more of a liability to city and staff to make mistakes accidentally? Because oh, on this 1 side of the street, you've got a higher density and you've got a higher height. Oops. We made a mistake here and then also. Also, we're in these litigations, I really do think, like our good saying, let's find these easier LDR slits, let's work on them, let's get a definitive date to say we're going to work on Article 124 and five, you know, or however many we can handle in a meeting, get those set aside. And in the meantime, let's look at the comprehensive plan and really make the the map and the future land use because if you're looking, even We have 21.9 miles, 15.5 is land, 6 miles is water. They don't expect the increase of population to go up very many. And we need to concentrate on our east side. That's why I think this conservation with the park and everything is wonderful. Our concentration shouldn't be on the west side. It should be more focusing on the east side. And I hope everybody agrees with that. That's where we want. We want our city to grow. But where it needs to have the growth is on the east side because we're doing great development. And plus the comprehensive plan is also inaccurate because it used, even when they were talking about annexing, they use the Jones loop area as commercial and we know it got changed to residential. So there are issues even with the comprehensive plan that was done in the future land use. And I think we need to correct those issues. And I think it'll be more of a realistic workshop that we can have with the residents.

Okay, thank you. Those are really important comments. And I think simplifying those zones would be very helpful. Like you say, so much interpretation with staff, Something more simple would be great, and this is just a small point, but when I saw one to ten, I know we're developing this, but one to ten feet in the downtown core for your setbacks, then we have people who want to have little tables, and you can't even get a walk-by, let alone a wheelchair, and so I think, I mean, if we could have higher setbacks without hurting the builder, because every foot they buy matters of land, but gosh, to have some some vegetation, some trees, some planters. I mean, I look at Naples and some of the beauty they have on their streets, because they have wide sidewalks. And then you can have the tables and the chairs, and it works. So just something to consider. And then, of course, the parking will come up. What about this two to one that Greg mentioned? So give me an example of how that would apply, because Finding two businesses that want to open in order for a person to have a residence, I mean, I don't know how that would work. Oh, wait, wait.

A mixed-use development, as proposed, a developer was going to construct a building, they would have to set aside the commercial space with that ratio to the residential space. That's part of that design. So, yeah, it would be... definitely be a market research and determine whether they can fill those spaces.

Thank you. Sorry. And again, mixed use can be very difficult to ask of someone because not everyone wants to live above a bar or a restaurant. It takes a kind of a special person. And that's great if you have a lot of high traffic city area. People in New York City live in mixed use. The downstairs and the upstairs is living areas, and then the downstairs is not. So is that really realistic for our city, mostly retired people? I don't know. I think it works for some that are already downtown. but again this is a conversation to be had by by the citizens also the comp plan to your point mayor lux i absolutely agree that's what's going to in the end get us um the comp plan is what most developers will be looking at to guide them and then they look at the land development regulations that are supposed to be um I don't know, for lack of a better word, contiguous with. They're supposed to be the same pretty much. So that future land use map is really what's going to need to be changed. Because if you still on your future land use map have 25 units or 50 units per acre, it doesn't matter what your land development regulations say. That's the Bible. That's what you go by. from what I understand, and Rachel, you can correct me if I'm wrong in that, but I would never want a developer to come along and go, oh, well, your comp plan says this, and I think that's what we're running into now, so do we change the land development regulations and then back the comprehensive plan into that, or do we change the comp plan, and I'm sure this is a dilemma that the staff has talked about a bazillion times, but just kicking that around, and I think the citizens need to understand that the comp plan is what's going to drive these land development regulations. Thank you.

Rachel Berry, zoning official. So I wanted to add two things too. To answer your question about mixed use development, we currently have a development plan application on file. The ground level is going to be parking underneath the building. The second floor is proposed to be retail third floor office and the top would have eight residential units. And so basically the square footage of the residential units is half of the square footage of the commercial units. And so that's how they're working that project together, which would be the same for like the Sunloft building. You know, they've got the two floors of commercial and then one of residential. So that's where the two to one came from.

Great, sorry. Question. So what if, like Jeanine said, people don't want to live downtown. They want the quiet residential retirement lifestyle. Was it going to inhibit development if there aren't people who want to live in the core above a building that has businesses and music and stuff? So is it required? Could it be optional? I mean, no. Well, we have to think about it anyway. What's gonna work for developers and residents who might live somewhere?

Jeanine, are you saying feasibility study? Is that what you're kind of getting at?

I'm not sure if I am. So are we committed to the mixed use? Is that something we can talk about? Isn't that part of what the LDRs and the comp plan that we're discussing?

I think that's what the residents, you know. Yeah, I'd like their input. Okay, hang on.

And the developer input.

Okay, so Janine, you want to go next to Rachel, or do you want to let Rachel go? No, let Rachel go. Okay, set yourself up. There you go.

Okay, gotcha. Got it. Okay, so to answer the first question, the mixed use currently is a use that's permitted with conditions. It's not required. So they could just do pure commercial. But if they want to do mixed use, they're capped at half residential to the commercial. The comprehensive plan. When the form-based code 2024s, TPG code, all of the above, when that was in place, there were specific provisions in there that you could not apply for a plan development in that area, that whatever the regulations in the code were, that was your cap. Right now, with that not being in the code, someone could apply for a plan development to go up to the densities that are in the comprehensive plan. So you do have an option of when the LDRs are rewritten to add that cap back in there to say you cannot do a plan development in these areas and that whatever density is in that zoning designation is the density of that zoning designation.

So can we just get it clear on the record when the date is when this SB 180 will be completed and we can make changes that the public wants to see being made?

Did they just say that?

Go ahead.

There we go. Wait, Greg, we have, there we go.

Currently it's October 2027.

But did Mr. Rooney just say something that it might be extended? So that's another concern for us. But I still think we need to really look at our comprehensive plan right now as our guide, because that's our master guideline, and that's what I really think we need to focus on, because you're right, with some of these, even when we do the articles, something might be more burdensome, like form-based code is more burdensome, even though it's something we really like, but we really have to take a look at you know, even a sideline, you know, like this is what we're going to accept. If this is lifted, you know, we can talk about implementing these other things. And so, Floyd, do you want to? Okay.

One more point to make. As of right now, our code is not consistent with the comp plan, with the zoning districts, with the land use districts. So that is an issue we have to deal with. The state actually requires some type of schedule to get there. Our thought, going back to April, was a lot of time and expense went into the comp plan that's currently in place. It was just two, two and a half years ago. The more efficient fix was to modify the LDRs to make them fit the comp plan into some place. But if we want to go all over again, that's going to take more time and expense. I just wanted to bring that clarity.

You're only looking at the first article of the first 87 pages, not the whole 1,200 pages. So it really isn't as expensive or thoughtful. And even with what you've proposed here, it doesn't match the comprehensive plan. So that's what I'm saying. We're going to have to scrap the comprehensive plan, you know, in part, anyhow, we're going to have to revise it. So let's revise it correctly the first time.

I was going to say the statute's more we have to be consistent in implementing the goals of the policy. It doesn't have to be a match to the 50 units per acre or whatever's in the comp plan. So there is some flexibility there.

I'll give this to you so you can see what I'm talking about, where it really is consistent even with what was just proposed here with the comp plan. That might help. And what I can do is maybe clean this up. Dr. Reichert can give it to you so everybody can see this. Greg. So I think we kind of need a consensus because sometimes this is what's happening to us. I found in past meetings is we don't give proper direction. I think this is so important for us to give direction to staff because sometimes they hear things. And if we all haven't had a consensus on it, if we're not talking about it, they're not sure if it's just me saying it, or if it's just Janie staying, or if it's just Greg saying it. So I think that we really do need a consensus. I personally would love somebody to say something about let's take a look at the future land element of the comprehensive plan. get that the way the residents want it, not the way I want it, not the way anybody else up here wants it, but the way the residents want it so that we have, and like I said, I'll provide this, and then have workshops. And then what I was suggesting, like Greg suggested earlier, is maybe to get some of the easier articles of land development regulations out of the way.

I'm all in favor for having more discussion on this and definitely we're going to have to change the comp plan. I mean, I don't know why that hasn't been in the process yet because it's one map that the community overall did not agree with and it was pushed. So I'm in agreement with you. I think we should have at least some sort of, I don't know if you want to call it City Council Chambers, Town Hall meetings or whatever meetings to get information from everybody in the Community. City Council Chambers, To have their say, and it should be the COMP plan, I think people need to understand the difference between the COMP plan and the land use like I said before, in the land development regulations so that's another thing we need to educate the Community on.

City Council Chambers, I like. the idea of public discussion and input as soon as possible, even though we do have quite a bit of time. But if we change the comp plan, is that against the, no, okay. Also I'd like input on if you think simplifying the zoning and all the different, all those different things would be beneficial for you and for the community. So you don't have to tell us now, but is everybody okay with that if they look at that?

Simplifying things a little, okay.

So those are my comments.

I think if we want to have effective workshops, we need to not do them in the format that we've tried the last couple times in order to accommodate the Sunshine Law, because that just simply isn't working where you all sit on the dais and then people aren't sure when they're supposed to comment, when they're not supposed to comment. we really need to have that interactive type session that we did back when we did the citywide master plan. That would involve all of you not necessarily being involved in all those conversations, but the information, we would probably work with a partner to do that. The information would come back to you synthesized. You're certainly welcome to attend. But really the focus would be on the residents and you would allow the staff to do the listening for you from the residents and bring that data back to you where you could discuss on this dais. That would be my recommendation for how to move forward with workshops.

And is there an opportunity for some kind of a questionnaire or something that people could do electronically online if they can't make it to the meeting? Or how did they how did they do any of that? I thought they tallied up votes.

We would certainly have the ability through our website to do a survey. We can do a Survey Monkey. We're limited. We can drive people to the website that aren't necessarily subscribed to any of our newsletters or things, but we can definitely push that survey out to residents that are registered. And we have a lot of people that are in that database. The only qualified The only disclaimer I'll give to that, though, is there are people that don't actually live within the city limits of Punta Gorda that would receive that survey also.

You know, one of the things I think, you know, even with the comprehensive plan and land development regulations, again, you know, by 2045, I think we're only going to, we're still going to be under 26,000 and 47% of our city is in conservation. So when you think about it, we don't have a whole lot. So You know how we're developing let's develop it the proper way and, like my personal thought again is, and I hope I have a consensus again with everybody is developing on the east side, you know, maybe that's where we need to concentrate on land development regulations is on the east side. of 41 so. I think this is really good again i'm going to give this information, but i'd like to see a time like can we get a specific timeframe for. Let's work on the other articles. Is that okay with everybody to work on the other articles that are not more burdensome? Let's start getting this stuff done so we don't always look like we're delaying, delaying, delaying. And then also take a look at the comprehensive plan to make sure that those first 87 pages with the map and with what this major guideline is for us is well within what the residents want. But we can probably direct some of the traffic and then have the residents finish it. Wait, Janine, go out so Missy can, oh, is Missy, oh, wait, I think you are, nope.

Just want to clarify, I don't want to have us go through the exercise of putting these items on an agenda and then city council say, well, we haven't had enough resident input. So would you like us to schedule the workshops and then after each of those workshops, then that's when you would discuss the item or how would you like that? And it is going to take, we can't just hold a workshop next week. It is going to take some time to put the schedule in place and have things ready for you.

I think some of it is language between the two of them, but I agree. I think workshop. And maybe in the meantime, everyone, if they're looking at these different articles, just give you our suggestions independently. Maybe that might help as well. I know when I had my town hall, I presented a lot of what the residents wanted through that. But I think if we kind of direct it and then let the residents decide, I think that's what's most important.

Janine. I would like to also say on the record, maybe Maybe Rachel Barry could give you this explanation, but there's a lot of development going on right now and anybody saying that the land development regulations are holding up development. That is absolutely wrong. Um, and so I don't feel like, even though we're in limbo here, it doesn't feel like to me and maybe Rachel can correct me if I'm wrong that that we're holding anything up. Um. And I'm even hearing that properties have sold that are commercial right now in downtown and their people are getting ready to develop on it. So interesting that that that's what's happening and it it all I'm sure can come to fruition from this young lady.

Rachel Berry zoning official. So actually, just the other day I looked back at the total number of development applications received for calendar year 2025, and we currently calendar year 2026 already have more applications on file than we did all of 2025. So we're not necessarily seeing a decrease in activity, but there are certain parcels that may have issues if they wanted to redevelop, but currently the vacant parcels we're seeing, we're still getting applications coming in. Do you have enough direction from us?

Okay, fantastic. Let's go ahead and move forward.

Agenda.

Oh.

Agenda item 6 I quarterly revenue and expenditure financial update.

Oh Sorry Good afternoon, Kristen Simeone finance director. So we're bringing you our third quarter update for our major funds and We provided them all in the packet, so there were 15 funds going over in total. We have general fund, and this is 75% of the year, so this is through June 30th, 2026. So for the revenues, we're at approximately almost $31.9 million that has come in. I'm sorry. Yes. And then at 25.4 million of expenditures. So we're exceeding our revenues are exceeding our expenditures. One thing I do like to note, and you may remember from our past discussions is that on our expenditures, especially our operating expenditures, we're always like a month behind because so like our October invoices are generally paid in November. And so then in September is where you get two months when we accrue that final month back to the correct fiscal year. So we're doing well there. Did you have any questions on the general fund? And then we have our PGI. So again, we're at approximately $7.3 million of revenue collected, $6.3 million of expenditures. So again, exceeding at this point in time. We have budgets for items that haven't been completely spent yet. And we also do show you the encumbrances as well. So those encumbrances, again, if they're not fully spent, sometimes they're carried over if they're a purchase order for commitments. If they're blanket purchase orders, those go back to the fund. They don't carry over. BSI, $1.1 million were expended as of June 30th, and about only 142,000 of expenditures. I think they're just kind of getting started on some of their projects for the year. They do have encumbrances of like over .800,000, I'm sorry. And especially for their regular program. Going on to the Special Use Fund, we've collected approximately $1.3 million, and we've spent about $400,000. We do have a lot of carryover projects, though, in that fund. And again, we haven't done the reappropriations yet, so some of those reappropriations will still be coming over for this. Again, because some of it's FEMA money that's in the fund balance, projects for that are transfers to the general construction funds. That part has already been done, because we did bring you the construction funds. So again, we're doing okay there. The additional five cent gas tax, we're at $949,000 in revenue, $36,000 in expenditures. I believe they have put in their requisition for their annual program. And as you'll recall, for next year's budget, we are reducing that fund for transfer from the general fund. We have our six cent gas tax fund. Total revenues to date are about 516,000. Operating expenditures have been spent approximately 643,000. Um, a lot of our contracts are with the state. They don't come in until the final quarter of the year. So that's why you'll see

Those haven't had a question. I do have a question. One's a 5% sales tax and one's a 6% sales tax. It's on the same gallons used, right? Yes. So my credit, and maybe my math is way off, but when you look at the year to date for the 5% is a lot less than the 6%. And I don't think 1% makes that huge of a difference. Is there something I'm missing?

So the part that is being missed is that one of the gas tax funds is based on the straight, whatever the state determines as the percentage between the city and the county. Another one is an interlocal agreement that was agreed upon the percentages. The state does review that every five years as well. So part of our gas tax, We do have to provide transportation information on a transportation report every year to the state. Thank you. The next fund is the 1% sales tax. So again, revenues to date are approximately 3.7 million. We've expended approximately 1.9 million so far this year. There's about a million dollars still in encumbrances. And again, that was as of June 30th. for our city leased property funds. And this one has the two different divisions. So we have the Herald Court division as well as the non-departmental division. In the Herald Court division, revenues are approximately 151,000, expenditures approximately 186,000. And we do know that that was gonna happen because we are using a lot of those lease units for city offices at this time. The non departmental side we have a 143,000 in revenue and no expenditures at this point, although we do have 380,000 in. In conferences and that was for the in there's a 166,000 in the other division that that whole part was for the ceiling of the garage. General construction, we've only had our transfer so far of 310,000 from the general fund. Expenditures to date are 936,000. Again, a lot of these were carryover projects. Utilities operating fund is 22.5 million in revenue and 20.1 million in expenditures to date. They do have approximately 1.4 million in encumbrances, still outstanding for the year. On utilities construction funds, our actual year-to-date revenues are approximately 8.9 million. Expenditures to date are a little over 6 million. We do have encumbrances of 15 million. Again, we have a lot of large projects in that fund as well. Sanitation fund, 4.1 million in total revenues and approximately 3.6 million in expenditures. They have about 700,000 in encumbrances outstanding. The building fund, we have approximately just a little over a million dollars in revenues. Expenditures to date are approximately 1.3 million. They have about 124,000 in encumbrances. Lashley Park Marina, we have approximately 103,000 in revenue, and we're at about 250,000 for expenditures. We do expect that revenues are going to start increasing now that some of those slips are starting to be rented. And then we have our information technology division, and again, this fund is, all the revenues come from other funds, so to support the staff and all the funds. So total revenue is approximately $3 million, and there are about 2.6 million in expenditures with 350,000 outstanding and encumbrances. And I know I went through that very quickly, but if you have any questions, I'm here to answer those.

Do you know, did we find out if we can charge for the boat ramp at Lashley? I think that was one of the questions that we had to go through.

I think we were still working on that. I talked to Rachel about it, but we have to look at that.

Because we need revenue there, so I wasn't sure if that was one of the things.

Because it might be the boat ramp and possibly parking as well. Which would be great, especially if we're maintaining it.

That's awesome. Anybody else? No. Again, thank you. Congratulations on, you know, hard work and, you know, to actually have an accountant say like, we're number one, basically. So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, six J, uh, Dr. Reichert's project updates.

Thanks. We get a lot of questions about the Harbor Walk and some residents think that the city is not doing enough to hurry up and get areas of the Harbor Walk open and things like that and get those fences down. I did just want to give council an update about that. Actually, that area in front of the event center, that's the responsibility of the county. And they have let us know that they're about two years after they received their Army Corps engineer approvals that's about how long that seawall project is going to take to get done so setting just setting expectations there the area in front of tts that hasn't been done that fencing that goes to code board in september and then our areas that we have there's a the bridges and the fishing piers those are all going under evaluation and permitting and i'll get into that a little further down in my report but just kind of setting that you know clear that It isn't actually the city that controls all of that area, the harbor walk, and it isn't. And I wouldn't say that it certainly isn't the county dragging their feet or anything like that. That is seriously how long it takes to get Army Corps approval to do that kind of work. The gazebo at Veterans Park, that'll be completed by September 30th. Very excited about that. Lashley Marina City has completed all of the temporary repairs at Lashley that can be done. So we have 32 slips rented. There are 76 operable slips. And as we move into season, we fully expect all of those to be rented. We now receive the copies of all the insurance and insurances and applications and everything as they come in. Odalis in my office is managing that. It's really working well. The historic district infrastructure evaluation that was done by staff, they have just recently completed that. The next step is really determining what work can be done by Public Works and what we need to bid out. So we're very excited about moving that forward. That has sales tax funding attached to it, but as much that we can do in-house more cost effectively, we're gonna go ahead and do that. Just really working through that. The procurement action plan that had kicked off two Fridays ago. Mike Bonasera in my office is going to serve as the project manager on that. We have site visits that are going to take place beginning September 29th. We're currently providing all the documents that the consultant needs to look at such as our procurement policies, financial policies, There will be a survey that is developed that will also go out to our vendors to find out how we might be able to improve things that make it easier for them to bid on our projects and point out any areas that we could possibly improve. So if you can't tell, I'm super excited about that project. The permit software, we had seven firms that provided demonstrations to our team. The committee evaluated and ranked the top firm. So with this, we have them doing a proof of concept so that we can make sure it works with our systems, and that'll take place on this Friday. That permit software, that's going to do a lot to improve permitting efficiency. We also pulled together a working group of staff that is now looking at improving the efficiency of our permits aside from that software that's going to help a lot. What can we do in the meantime until that's fully up and optional? And we're also going to do a video series kind of setting expectations for the community of how that permitting process works, what they can do to check on their permits. just to make things easier for everyone involved. We have a lot of cases where somebody says that a homeowner will call up and say, why hasn't my permit moved? And then we go and we look and it's the contractor that hasn't even submitted the permit. It happens time and time again. Or the other one that really sticks out to me too is a permit application will be dropped off on a Friday and we'll get a call from a business owner or a resident on Monday saying, where's my permit? Why isn't it approved? it takes a little bit longer than that and we follow all of the statutory guidelines for when permits have to be issued and completed and mike's going to do a series that educates the public on on what those statutory requirements are and and what our city of punta gorda averages are and all of that the bilka grand construction is out to bid the engineering library evaluation committee has been selected to review the proposals and they are going to meet by september 8th so that's making nice progress. The Bayfront draft has been approved to release. All we're working on is that independent estimate. As soon as we have that, that'll go. The well-filled improvements and an RO plant study is ready for the evaluation committee. The FEMA grant manager will meet by September 9th, so that evaluation will be ongoing. You can kind of see a theme here. Everything is really starting to come together and it's a lot of hard work over the year to get to this. Crosswalk Study Evaluation Committee is going to meet on September 9th. I mentioned the engineering library, but I do have the date of September 15th that they will meet by. I did have some questions come in about the fishing piers and docks and all of those kind of things. Those are all handled by one vendor that was mentioned earlier today, Hans Wilson, and he's got all the drawings set setups done, so those are all in place. He's done the bathymetric surveys on the bayfront dinghy dock area as well as the Lashley fishing pier. So what we What we're doing is we've got him working on all of these concurrently so that we can package up the Army Corps permits and put these all through together. So basically anything on one side of the bridge that isn't in the Manatee Protection Zone, those permits are expected to take about 18 months. Anything that is in the Manatee Protection Zone is about 24 months. And then construction on all of those piers is at 12 months. So it's gonna be a little while yet, but all the steps are moving to make it happen. Let's see. Nature Park, the same with the fishing pier there. The drawings are complete and the Army Corps permit should be getting out over the course of the next week. And as far as oversight of the all the work that we have on docks and piers, we have written into our contract that we are to get updates frequently once a week on the status of our fishing piers and docks. And I'm not going to bore you with sending that out every single week, but I do just want to let you know that that check is there and that staff is monitoring those situations. A couple of things that weren't necessarily listed as large projects but I think are pretty important that happened over break, all of the bollards on Linear Park were reinstalled. The benches and plaques that had been taken away by the hurricanes and floods, those have all been replaced, so we're all set with that now. The Ponce pavilions have had some column repairs and the Lashley pavilions rust repairs and have been painted. So you'll see those things looking really, really nice. And I'll take questions on anything I didn't mention.

I think that's fantastic. That's, you know, considering we had two major back to back historical flooding, I think that there are you directing staff have done a tremendous job in trying to get all this stuff done. Like you said, you know, it's all coming together all at once and, and thank you for, for doing that. Okay. Oh, Janine, Janie, sorry.

Great work. Um, couple of questions. So there's 32 slips rented at the Lashley, and the water is pretty shallow there. Have we applied for the permit for dredging, or is that kind of like, how does that fit in? And then in regard to that also, we are dredging the waterway into where the dinghy dock is, correct? Or we have a, did we get, I have so many questions, and I have to say it all at once. Did we get... We got funding for that, didn't we, for that dredging? For the dingy dock waterway? There we go.

Yes, we did get funding, MACRAT funding, to dredge the area by the boat club. So that's in process. We're working through the grant agreement right now to make sure we follow all of the protocols, but that's moving forward. Yes, and the Lashley Marina dredge, we are looking to see if we can piggyback that on a contract that we already have to get that moving. And then all of our work with Hans Wilson includes applying for the permitting. So it's all together and all moving forward. And since I still have the microphone and the mayor graciously thanked me and I cannot accept thanks without recognizing all of my staff that put in so much hard work to make all these things happen. They are simply amazing.

That's right. Awesome.

Is there anything happening with that public private partnership for Gilchrist Marina that we heard about a while ago?

Yes, I had just reached out to Reeves again. He was looking for a little bit more time to kind of get through some projects that he's working on. There is still interest, but nothing that I have that I can bring before you at this point in time.

Okay, I guess we're going to go on to boards and committees. Sarah, are you ready? Oh, wait. Oh, wait, sorry.

We did not add Fishman's Village as 6K, item 6K, right?

Yep. I'm sorry. You have the floor.

Oh, okay. As long as I have the floor, I'm just, I'm just asking for clarification because we did engage an attorney. Um, my understanding was is that we were going to go ahead and, um, do whatever we could in order to get the property back 100% into the hands of the people. And I do remember saying that, but maybe I didn't clearly. You don't hire a commercial litigator to just give an opinion. You typically want them to litigate for you and figure out a mess that you might be into. So I just want to make sure and clarify that that is definitely what we put him in place for. And I know that, I know that you would like to talk on this, Mr. Leskovich, a little more.

Hang on. Sorry. Okay.

There's been, I'm hearing some public rumors and public sentiments out there about has the city lost its opportunity on both of the reverter deeds or the one reverter deed and the amendments to all the contracts and everything else. So I'm letting you guys know, no, the city has not lost its opportunity, given up any rights, any procedural rights, any jurisdictional rights when it comes to the reverter deeds. Some things procedurally and jurisdictionally held up the city from filing the deed itself, whether it be foreclosures, whether it be flooding, whether it be the deed itself, whether it be bankruptcy, some things held us up, which caused us from actually filing the deed the way that we have it. It is recognized, it was recognized, and the reverter deeds are recognized by what is now the former trustees of the bankruptcy and of the foreclosure matters that we have the reverter, that the parcels can come back to us. But again, it was procedurally held up and jurisdictionally held up because of some other court issues. Council did here maybe 2 months ago 3 months ago did engage. Trip Barlow, who has been fantastic and communicating with me and getting specific documentations that he may need if in the event. the new buyers and or the previous trustees of Fisherman's Village was going to contest the deeds. When I spoke with him as late as last Friday, whatever day that was, he's looking for additional direction from you guys, because now that the trustees and the receivers from the bank are now out of the question, There was an agreement where the city did not have to sign, but between the buyers and the receivers to completely eliminate them from any negotiations that go on with the city regarding the reverter parcels. So what Mr. Barlow is looking for from you guys now is how you want him to proceed because the buyers have in essence proposed to the city that they're very interested in working with us, coming to some kind of common ground that is beneficial to not only the city and the residents of Punta Gorda, but also to Fisherman's Village. The discussions have been coming about potentially the buyers may want to look into a new contract with the city, potentially a new reverter deed with the city, some kind of alternative that was kind of previously in place. potentially a land lease where the deed actually or the properties do come completely back to us and there's a land lease or potentially just buying out the whole property again. Their attorney, Mr. Rooney, he was incapacitated for a little bit. So now that he's back in the groove, I've been back in contacts with him. They're gonna be getting back in contact with Dr. Reichert and I to work something out in terms of that. I explained to Mr. Barlow, once I got direction from you guys, whether you want him involved with the negotiations regarding the new buyers and what they're looking for, whether you want to just say no let's just go ahead and proceed judiciously through the court system and get the deed actually recorded but he's looking for additional guidance from you now that the property has closed on and the receivers are completely out of the picture but again the city has not lost its opportunity the parcels are there we've got the deeds we've got them recognized so we're good to go with those

Janine pulled for the record. So, um, we do not have the property though right now. And, and that's the thing. I mean, I would like to see this deed recorded so that we have more of a position of strength. I am not okay with not recording it, not at all. And I feel like this has been very, a very long arduous process. A lot of it is not our fault. Um, but I do know that both, um, Melissa Lockhart and uh, mayor locks councilwoman Lockhart, excuse me, were on the dais in 2024 when the city council said, yeah, let's move forward with getting these properties back. And so, you know, that's why I thought, you know, we need to really dot our eyes and cross our T's here and make sure that we have it in the hands of the people. That's just my take. Um, before we do any negotiating, always better to have that, um, already tied up. Thank you.

I was going to say, I agree. The previous council as well as the current council all agreed to get the reverter back. So I think we just do need to record it. We've got it back. Then we can negotiate. And whether it's leasing it, whether it's selling it, you know, that's in the future. But right now, I think it's most important for us to get that recorded and have it as a city because that's what the residents and that's what we all agreed upon with old council as well as current council. Anybody else?

I just want to make sure I'm hearing correctly. So in my communication, because I told Mr. Barlow I'd speak to him sometime today or after council meeting, depending what time we got out of here, what I'm hearing is go ahead and move forward with the filing of the deed but I want you guys to understand it's not just we can take the deed, walk down to the tax collector and the city clerk's office and everybody else and just record this thing. It's not like a typical deed with some of the hurdles that we have to jump over. So I'll speak to Mr. Barlow about how we can do this judiciously and expeditiously at the same time so we have it recorded and then go from there with it.

Consensus, yes?

If that's what I'm hearing, Because normally you can just take a deed, you know, you give me a deed, I can just go right down and have it recorded. This one's a little bit different. So we have to be a little more careful with it.

Again, I'm just going to repeat what I said. I think we can need to negotiate from a position of strength period. End of story. This has been going on forever. Um, I, my personal opinion, this property should have never been sold. The land, not the property, um, should have never been sold. It was given to the citizens of the city of Punta Gorda for safekeeping. Some people allowed it to be sold. So here we are with, with a, an opportunity to get it back. please, please, please give it back to the people and then we can decide what we want to do after that.

Can you go into a little more detail about what the process would be for recording the deed and the cost?

We have to go into court with the deed because the original deed was destroyed in the hurricanes. So what we have, and it was no fault of the city, all parties have recognized that there is a copy of the deed there, but we still need the courts to recognize that what we have as the deed, as a copy of the deed, is a copy of the original. So once we have that declaratory judgment recognizing that, then we can go right down to the clerk's office and have it recorded. It could take anywhere between 30 days, upwards of 60 days. Doing a court filing can cost about 400 and some dollars, roughly $460 to actually open up the case with the clerk system. In terms of legal fees, whether I do it, you know what my rates are, or if we have Mr. Barlow do it, who is an expert in that field, I can't imagine it would cost, you know, more than, you know, three, $5,000 to actually do it if Mr. Barlow did it. Um, you know, but that's entirely up to you, but I can come back to you guys after I speak to him or get with Dr. Riker on it, or you guys give me direction on how you want to proceed with it. Um, and then we'll go from there, but that's kind of the process of how it would have to happen.

Again, Jeanine Polk for the record. So let's not forget the cost of this is nothing. It's a $3.6 million piece of property or $200,000 a year in land lease. Let's not be silly. Let's go ahead and do this. Get it done and give Mr. Leskovich the leverage that he needs in order to say, yes, we will move forward with this. Thanks.

I'm in agreement. And if you can get back to us by next week, perhaps with a couple of suggestions on the best way to move forward. I mean, obviously, you've got the steps, whether you or Barlow, it doesn't matter too much. But if you could just keep the process moving and get this done. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm going to go back to like, And I agree, I think you're very well qualified, but he might have some ways to expedite it a lot faster than what you can do. And again, even when I could do everything I could in my previous profession, I still gave it to specialists who could do something faster and better. So I'm in agreement, let's find out how much it would be for him to actually execute, do all the right things, maybe he has the right connections to get it done, let's take it back and then we can consider if we're gonna lease it for however much we're gonna lease it or look at selling it. This is important for us to get it back right now. So you have a consensus? Go ahead and move forward. Good. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Oh, wait, sorry.

Yeah. So I'll contact Trip Barlow then this afternoon and then I'll report back to Dr. Reichert with what my conversation was with him then.

Thank you.

I think we're ready now. Good afternoon again city clerk Sarah Welch for the record under boards and committees, we have a few announcements of vacancy. On the building board, we have one consumer advocate alternate position that's been created now based on the resolution that was approved earlier, we have one alternate seat on the code enforcement board and we have one. seat for a city resident member of the police officer's pension board. Under nominations, the first one we have up on the building board is a consumer advocate seat. William Prasha had expressed interest in serving, and now that we've fixed it so that his previous involvement with the building industry is no longer an obstacle, if city council would like, you may nominate and appoint him by motion at this time.

Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry, I got to take her off. Okay.

Motion to approve Bill Procha for the building board.

Appoint and nominate.

Excuse me.

Do I have a second?

I'll second that motion.

Okay, we have a motion and a second for William Procha. All in favor raise your hand. Okay, four yes, opposed nothing. That's done. Thank you. Did I get you? Oh, sorry.

There we go. And then next up on the building board also, we have the alternate seat, which will be for a contractor. Kathy Kameni had previously submitted an application based on her interest and experience as a contractor. If city council would like, you may also nominate and appoint her to that seat by motion at this time.

I do have one question, Mr. Liskovich. I asked you that, and I'm not sure if you recall. It says for a contractor, is Kathy the person who owns the contractor's license? Because if she isn't, this is a contractor's position. Oh, sorry. I've got to text her off. Okay. Steve?

I'm hot, but I see her raising her hand over here, though.

Okay, so you want me to text? Okay, hang on.

I just wanted to point out that in her application, she does have a certified building contractor license with the city.

Okay. Did you verify that? Cause I couldn't find it when I was looking for it. Age three of her application. I understand that. I was just saying that looking on the application that she actually has a contractor's license, you know, on the state of Florida, but that's what it indicated, but not verified. Okay. Well, if she has it, then that's fine. I just didn't think that she was the one who actually had the contractor's license. I saw that her husband did, but I didn't see that she did. So, if she's stating that she does, then that's fine. But if she doesn't, then it's not appropriate for her to have this position. Okay. So, if she has it, then we need a nomination. Oh, Sarah, sorry. Give me one moment. I'm going to pull up their bylaws.

So the bylaws state appointment shall be made by the city council with preference given to the following professions and trades if available to serve. Engineering, architecture, general building, contracting, plumbing, electrical, construction, and miscellaneous building trades. It doesn't speak to any kind of certain license in particular, but more of just a general involvement in the building industry.

Okay, thank you I nominate in a way I think mr. Let's go.

It's just gonna speak Okay, I nominate and appoint Kathy to the alternate position on the building board

Oh, I'm sorry. It's an alternate position. I'll just go ahead and second that.

OK. You didn't want to say anything? Janie? Well, perhaps we should look over the, if those qualifications are a little vague, we might want to look at it and just make sure we're getting the people that have the right. I mean, it sounds like I would qualify. I rehabbed a house and did a lot of work. So anyway, we might want to refine that a bit. in the future.

Okay. So we have a nominate and a point for a motion all in favor. Okay. Four oppose motion carries. But again, I, I agree with Janice. We need to have that more detailed. I don't know if consensus Janine, Greg, not necessarily. Okay. So three to one. Okay, great. While you've got there, Sarah, do you want to go ahead and go with your information?

And I do actually have one last one to bring up.

Oh, sorry. So the last item we have under nominations is for the Code Enforcement Board. We have two regular and one alternate seat up. We have three applicants, and we would like to bring them back for appointment at the next meeting. The plan would be to have voting first for the regular seats, and then whoever is not appointed to a regular seat could take the alternate seat. if that's acceptable to council.

And both Carl and Mark are currently on it. And Teresa is asking to also be on. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Not paper to do it. You're just going to have us, uh, we'll use sheets at the next meeting. Okay. So this is just to nominate then to nominate all three. So we need, oh, and I'm sorry. Carl Rich is the only one who is a current member of the board. So we just have to have a nomination for all three of them at this point? Correct. Do I have a nomination? Oh, sorry, I'm staring at you. I will nominate all three. Do I have a second?

I second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to nominate all three. All in favor, please raise your hand. Four yeses, opposed, motion carries. Thank you, and if it's okay, we'll go ahead and do my report. Oh, wait, one second, sorry.

Okay.

Sarah, do you need explicitly, since you are nominating two regular and one alternate, which one of the three, or which two of the three you're designating as the regular members and which one for the alternate?

I think we pick, oh, sorry, here we go. The intention is to figure that out at the next meeting by vote, who would be which.

Okay, so are you on again?

Yes, okay All right, and then under my report I just wanted to let everyone know that we have just over a month left for businesses to renew their city business tax receipts to date 393 renewals have been processed of the 1011 active businesses as of the current fiscal year and Late fees will begin October 1st for businesses that do not renew prior to the September 30th deadline. So we are encouraging anyone who has not received their renewal notice to reach out to us to update their contact information. And if possible, go ahead and knock out the renewal in one fell swoop. And then I'm also excited that the fall festival is going to be here before we know it. We now have 22 nonprofits signed up for the trick or treat circuit to provide candy, share resources and let the community know how they can get involved with their services. We have also secured one very important party sponsor. Thank you to Quantum Fiber by AT&T. For Frightened Delight sponsors thanks to the firm advertising agency. chair at Fort of Charlotte County, Chapman Insurance Group, and Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth Management. And we also have two custom sponsorships, one from Brooklyn Joe's Pizzeria and Restaurant and one from Bath Fitter. We still have plenty of space for more nonprofits to join and lots of ways for local businesses to support the festival via monetary or in-kind donations. Anyone interested in learning more can reach out to the city clerk's office at 941-575-3369 or by emailing fallfest at puntacordafl.gov. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Rachel Berry reported to me that they have collected lean payoffs in the amount of $61,065 so far this year. That is over last year. Nice. Staff has been working with a group called Seahawk. They have the ability to provide technical assistance in the area of sustainability, and that also includes design. We're going through our plans that we already have in place and looking at Initiatives that we think could be the best use of this technical assistance But if City Council has anything that you'd like to add or chime in that you'd like us to kind of consider for that Just send me an email and let me know about that Tom Spencer wrote and submitted an alternative water supply grant application this would put additional wells on sites should we need them because when wells are rehabbed we take one out of service and would give us some additional reliability and We submitted our paperwork for the legislative appropriation for water meters, and as I mentioned before, that bid should go out next week. I want to ask you if you'd like to consider an item regarding ribbon cuttings and outdoor music permits. It recently was, we had one business that was turned in by someone to complain that they didn't have this particular license, and we had one business Quite frankly, city staff has not been, has not ever enforced these two that are actually, they are on the books. Would you be interested in discussing these on a future agenda to possibly amend this requirement? Yes. Yeah, that was a yes by everybody. Yes. Yes. Some updates on FDOT. Now through October crews are placing the final asphalt layers across the corridor. Work is underway on State Road 17 and will shift to US 41 northbound where surface prep and rumble strips will be installed. That is going on late August through September. Final striping and lane configuration and the RETA signal September to October traffic monitoring loops and thermoplastic September to October and the signal will be turning back on October to November. So it's making progress. I know it took a while, but it's getting there. We will have a ribbon cutting at the beginning of the next city council meeting. So that'll be September 9th. We'll do that right away. Our first item at 9 a.m. to officially cut the ribbon on this place. And then one other piece of excellent news, AdventHealth received their development order approval last Friday. So moving forward. That's all I have.

Thank you. And I'm sorry, you're speedier than I am in talking. It was the MPO has finally with the traffic signal next to the Wyvern is going to be October, November is when it's going to go get turned on.

Fantastic.

That's correct by her. Okay.

I think I've spoken more today than I have in the last year. Um, Several things have been going on. As Dr. Reichert mentioned in her project updates and here just now, her office has been very busy keeping things moving along and projects becoming close to finishing. The legal department has been closing out lawsuits and I'm pleased to announce that right now Dr. Reichert and I participated in the RJ Gorman mediation yesterday. We were able to, at least for now, we did come to an agreement. We believe that it is saving Punta Gorda residents and the city over a million dollars. So we are proud to announce that. Dr. Reichert and I did sign the agreement yesterday. It is contingent upon your approval on September 9th. Uh, once RJ Gorman is hopefully approved by you guys on the ninth, all lawsuits in which the city could be potentially on the hook for have been resolved. There are no more pending active lawsuits that could come out of your fund. Uh, I had a few phone calls while you guys were on break, where we've been able to curtail potential lawsuits, uh, where those are no longer going to be sought after. You will start seeing now an increase where we are moving forward now on a lot of code cases that have been pushed off for for many reasons, whether it's because of bankruptcies, foreclosures, we've now been bringing code cases back on the docket to get rid of a lot of these old homes and homes that had some issues. So we're gonna start seeing a lot of movement on those cases and we're looking to close out some of those that quite a few residents have been showing some concerns about. And lastly, two more things. It was brought to our attention on Monday, potentially if elected officials have a nondisclosure agreement because they have some kind of interest in a business or a property. if they're still potentially subjected to a conflict of interest announcement when it comes to a vote. I think it will be something we'll have to discuss, not just with this council, but for many councils coming down the years as well on how those procedures may have to come about as well. And Odalis is still doing a wonderful job, but she was not here today because she was appointed as a board member to the United Way of Charlotte County. But outside of that, everything else is moving smoothly through the legal department. And I will keep you guys apprised after I hear from Tripp Barlow today.

That's awesome. Thank you for that great update. Now, do we have to wait until September 9th, or can we do a consensus to finish it? Do we have to wait until September 9th?

It would probably be best to wait until September 9th, because the way the agreement was written was it would be addressed at the September 9th council meeting. Okay.

I have a question. How many lawsuits were coming against the city when you came into office? More or less, like are we talking?

There was seven. Four of them never got to the point of being filed. We were able to correct the problem pretty quickly. Two were dismissed through the court systems because of motions to dismiss.

And then we just have RJ Gorman was the last one floating around.

Now, the city does have other suits that are being done by the insurance companies, whether it's for some kind of personal injury, slip and fall, but they're not going to be coming out of the city's coffers. It'll come out of your insurance, which is why you guys have those.

Great job.

I appreciate that and I kind of wanted the public to know that you've been working hard and we've been working behind the scenes, but it's very important to get these things dismissed, taken care of in every way possible, thank you. So what would be the action plan regarding that NDA issue you brought up? You just said we gotta do something, what would we do?

Let me kind of give you an example of it. Let's say you owned 100 acres out in farmland somewhere in East Charlotte County. And a data center wanted to come in and buy your land. Let's say that that land is going to be using the city's water sources. And then you're sitting on council voting on it. There could be a conflict of interest. So there's also, some public officials now in the state of Florida who have non-disclosure agreements because of corporate reasons or personal reasons for their interest in corporate entities, such as maybe, you know, a 501 or potentially, you know, um, an escort that owns land. And I'm just using this as an example where they have non-disclosure agreements where they can't disclose that they own part of the property, but then they're an elected official. So there could be a conflict where somebody, where you could say, well, I have an NDA, I can't talk about this and not have to disclose it. So it's being addressed statewide, how it's gonna have to come about because of the Sunshine Laws.

So there's no immediate remedy, but it's something we need to be aware of. And how do we know if someone has a non-disclosure, we don't even know what it's about or what it pertains to. What are our options to protect citizens from having someone vote where they really do have that conflict?

A lot of it has to do with your ethical duty to just announce that you have a conflict, but it will be something that I'll have to look into and kind of dig around as well. I'm not saying this has to come into effect immediately, but it's gonna be something that we're gonna have to look into as we move forward as well, and how we implement a conflict of interest vote that comes about.

The state is dealing with this now. Have they always been dealing with it, or has it just come up more recently? Is it a new problem or just something we haven't addressed before?

It's coming about. On Monday, we were given some documentations which kind of raised an eyebrow, which makes it look, you know, which makes it seem like that we're gonna have to look into it. I guess it's becoming more relevant and more prevalent around the state, but it's something that I'm gonna have to look into to see how we can protect ourselves that way.

Yes. Who do I have Mark Dumser contact regarding his donation?

You can start with me.

Okay, I am on the MPO board, which is the Metropolitan Planning Organization. And we work very closely with FDOT. We are, it's both Punta Gorda and Charlotte County. And then the airport is also on that board. And what is happening within the state is obviously funding may be short. So the the state is trying to make it so that our MPO board is consolidated. And that's not a good situation because we could be consolidated with Lee county Sarasota. I mean, we don't, we don't know right now how large that MPO, um, board would look. And it really gives us a disadvantage as far as having a seat at the table. And I just want everyone to be aware of that, that that is going on with the MPO right now throughout this entire state. There are some that have consolidated and say that it works fine for them, but we have a small airport here and they have a seat at the table and they want to continue that. And I don't know about you, but I definitely want them to. And then I want us as a city to be able to have a voice and I'm only one person on that board. So this is not a good thing for us and I will keep you abreast as far as what's going on. I also sent through Dr. Reichardt some information on the strategic highway safety plan. They're trying to get down to net zero, zero serious injuries and absolutely zero deaths. They do that by various ways, working closely again with FDOT. and making sure that roadways have also walkways and bicycle paths and things like that. So it's a very important thing for the citizens to know about that we care about your safety and everything that FDOT does, even lighting is very important to them. It's all been studied. Crosswalks, they study where people should, yes, and even circles, those driving circles that you have to go around. So they have people involved who are very knowledgeable and they do all kinds of studies. And so I just want you to know that the MPO consolidation is coming up. Also a question from a citizen who's asked me twice on this, the fencing around the parking lot behind the city hall building, citizens wanna be able to have access to 41 if they're walking so that they can cross over without having to walk between the city chambers right here and Ichihibachi. Now I go to Ichihibachi a lot, I love that place, but it's very difficult for when a car's coming out, for a car to pull in, and then you have pedestrians too, they're forced to walk through that parking lot to get out to 41 to cross. They're just asking, if I park here, Can there be an area in the fencing, maybe you can answer that a little bit later, that's wide enough for pedestrians to just walk through and have access to 41. That way they're not walking through the parking lot. Another thing I want to bring up to you is thank you. Thank you, Sarah, for encouraging civility and engagement, having those engagement exercises. Sarah, thank you so much for that because I think it's very important. I'm also appreciating these as much as you don't like your fingers working so quickly. I really liked it. You can't interrupt someone else. It just kind of forces you to not be able to interrupt other people. So I really appreciate that. Thank you, Sarah, too, again, for the civility engagement exercises that you've given us. Miss Eunice Wiley was a very important woman in the city. She recently passed away. And so in 1970, Eunice Wiley became the first black teacher to integrate East Elementary School in Punta Gorda, Florida. and stepping into the role that demanded uncommon courage and resolve despite facing resistance from those who did not welcome her presence miss wiley met every challenge with grace patience and an unwavering belief and the power of education to unite children of all backgrounds she went to a eunice wiley went on to break barriers as a black female principal she was the black female principal at Neil Armstrong Elementary, providing steady and inspiring leadership until her retirement in 2005. And throughout a distinguished career spanning more than three decades, Ms. Wiley served the children, families, and staff of Charlotte County Schools with tireless dedication compassion and integrity. Her leadership, resilience and lifelong commitment to equity and education left an indelible mark on Charlotte County schools and Punta Gorda community. And her story continues to inspire all who hear it. So my message today is to extend a heartfelt thanks for her trailblazing service, her devotion to the students of this community and the lasting legacy of courage and excellence that she leaves behind. Her memorial service will be August 29th. If anyone doesn't know about that, it will be at the Life Celebration Center at 4 o'clock. They ask you to wear shades of yellow and orange in her memory. Thanks to all of the staff. This was wonderful today. Staff, we cannot thank you enough. This was a property that they were going to tear down. This is a savings of not only a lot of money, but it just feels good here. It feels like home. So I appreciate you all so much. And thank you, Dr. Reichardt for being at the lead of all of this. I really appreciate it.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

I agree. Great, great discussions here today. Um, one of the things that I do want to bring up, uh, we have One gentleman here in our city who has been so influential and so kind and getting everything done, including putting that Vietnam wall up, making sure the gazebo making sure the grounds are beautiful. He's bringing the Huey over to our Vietnam wall. He's one heck of a wonderful. Veteran, and I would love to present a mayor's award to general car. And I'd like to, I think I can do it on my own, but I want a consensus for from everybody to say, let's give this man a thank you for recognizing our heroes. And I wish Lisa was here to hear that too, you know, but I think that this is really important on this gentleman who, who is going through some medical issues right now. And I'd like to make sure that he is, he knows that we want to thank him so much for all he's done in our community. So, okay. Fantastic. And hopefully you can do it when they have the MIA, POW, Huey, everything. That would be wonderful if we could maybe do it during that time, you know, have them here. Thank you. I'm really glad that you're going to be looking into transparency of people who don't hide behind non disclosures and stuff like that and claim that they don't have anything. I think that's really important for all of us. And even if you started it now on all of us, I think that's important. That's fine. I also did hear and I know that can't remember who also agreed but we i know we've talked about this before we really do need committees for public input i i just think it's so important i know it's more of a burden on staff time and stuff like that but if this is really what what we're supposed to do for the residents then we need to accommodate to make sure we have the residents heard and and like greg was saying we've got some experts here and and let's utilize these experts to help us out Also, thank you so much, October, November. I know the accidents at Wyvern. Thank you, Janine and Missy. I know pushing that along is wonderful. There's Southwest Florida regional planning board is 1 of the boards that I'm on very similar to Florida league of cities. Excellent group. What they do is they get all the communities together more locally here and I'm really enjoying it. And I think that even to have other people, I know we can go to Florida legal city stuff. And I think it's really good for people to consider listening to what they're doing and helping out. I know. I presented stuff to Dr record, who has passed it on to staff on things that might help us in the future, so I gave you that stuff this morning for the invoice do you need do we need to do anything with that.

yes that had been a city council decision not to be a member themselves of the regional planning commission you do know that they have done a lot of work with us in the beginning stages of working on these ldrs again we are technically a member through charlotte county if we would choose to join again i believe it was under four thousand dollars that does then reduce charlotte county's burden by that amount as well

I know it's more money that you keep on talking about, but I think it's just, it's actually more localized and what it does is it allows all the leaders to actually discuss everything that's going on around here in their communities. And sometimes it gives us ideas how we can make things more efficient in our city instead of reinventing the wheel all the time. We're like, okay, let's talk about what's happening over here. Like MPO, you know, this is us locally. So it's under 4,000. I think that's less than even what a lot of the other boards are asking for prices. that we even spend more money by going to meetings and things like that, that we spend a lot of money on. And this is, you know, I think a drop in the hat compared to everything else. Consensus. Yeah, I vote on it. The city has not paid any fees for us being there. So, in order to make things run smoothly with anything, they need money. And the county has not paid anything. And I think us as a city, we need to pick up and pay for the benefits that we've been receiving from them.

Didn't someone say the county was paying for it? They haven't been. Nope. Well, that's on them.

Oh, wait. Okay.

the document that you provided to me it looked like the county contribution would then be reduced by what the city would pay correct but they have not paid it okay do we know why okay so i'm asking for a consensus to go ahead and pay the city's portion which the city would be paying to the county anyhow it's just that they haven't done anything so

I'd like to think about it.

Hang on, I gotta get Janie off. Could we bring it back as an agenda item?

Yes.

Okay, let's do that, because then we can- To bring it back as an agenda item. Okay, yes, that's a yes on that.

Okay, then we can truly understand the value that the organization would provide to us. They've already been providing us with some really great value working hand in hand with Rachel. And I think it's something that you need to have all the information to consider.

Yeah, I think Commissioner McNeil probably would even come out and talk to us during the agenda time. So you can hear all the valuable stuff that is important to it. So welcome back. Thank you. Staff, again, tremendous job. Thank you for everything you've done pushing us along. And thank you to all the improvements during this crazy hurricane and stuff. I think that we, as a whole, our council has done a tremendous job thanks to you. You make us look good. So thank you very, very much for everything. And we are going to open it up to public comment. I think this has been a great meeting, even though it's been long.

I just wanted to address the fence issue around the parking lot. The fence is there because of a very expensive lawsuit that the city paid for with somebody falling down that slight embankment. So it was put in place because of safety reasons and that lawsuit.

Yep.

Hang on, okay.

So that means it's a big no. Not at all possible even in a different area to put the opening. I'm just more concerned about people walking. You should see it when there are people walking and there are people driving both ways and there's a lot of traffic there because of course you have the Italian place back here too in the evening. So I'm just a little concerned people walking through there like there's no tomorrow.

We can certainly look at that. That fence is scheduled to be replaced in the future, and at that time, potentially, there could be an at-grade kind of access. I will give it to staff to explore.

Didn't we also agree that we were going to put up signs that we weren't liable for all these trip and falls on city public property? I think we definitely need that, especially hearing that we have had a nice lawsuit. And that that sign has been placed in that particular parking lot. So hopefully that won't happen again. So, you know, I never stopped anybody from doing it, unfortunately. So thanks for the input. Okay. Are we ready for public input? Yes, we're getting there going. Okay, nice soft tone. We've had a great day today. Deep breaths. Everybody's been doing wonderful. We're here for you. There you go. Now you can speak. State your name, too.

Of course. My name is Samuel Turpening, and thank you all for... Allowing me to speak today, and yes, I do have a soft tone today in this historic moment of being back in the building. It's really great to be here. Part of me is actually really sad for each and every one of you because the state legislator with SB 180, SB 684 is taking the control out of many of your hands. So we spent many hours today talking about the comprehensive plan. I was in DeSoto County yesterday and in DeSoto, they had hired a consulting firm from the state in order to explain because their comprehensive 2050 plan was on the table. And in that conversation and what came out of that and a lot of conversation after the meeting that they allowed me to be there, participate and learn from is that Your hands are tied. So you're getting a lot of pushback that you actually none of you have control over. And it would be really nice that if we could explain to people. So when all of the folks were in the room today and and they were getting maybe a little anxious about what they wanted to see happen is that you have to realize that the state legislators are taking more and more control. So you have SB 180, you have SB 684, I'm sorry if I get that one wrong, and then you have the Life Local Act, which is taking much control. And many of the things that you actually talked about today were actually addressed in DeSoto yesterday saying that legislatively you have no control. that regarding density, regarding how high you want the buildings to be, how low you want them to be. There's many things going on that as a citizen I've had to learn for myself. Many times the citizens don't have time to read all of the things that I've read. And so as you know that I've come in here wanting to scream and yell and raise my voice. Why aren't you guys doing this for us? And then when I go and read and realize that it's not your fault and then the one that feels, I feel embarrassed sometimes because I think that I've read all of these laws and I figure it out only to find out that there's been more things put into place. So for SB 180, for example, it's to 2027, October of 2027. There are talks that they're already trying to extend that. And also what came out of the DeSoto meeting yesterday was if a hurricane comes within 100 miles of Florida, SB 180 automatically is extended.

Yep.

So God bless you guys. And thank you for letting me talk to you today.

Thank you. Tim, I'm just gonna leave it live, okay?

Sounds good.

Well, I have to say, hands down, I think everybody is going to agree that this was probably one of the best meetings we've had at Punta Gorda City Council in a long time. I didn't see one interruption on the dais. Imagine that. Well, I would like to first talk about I'm seeing some campaign signs around the city. I need to know, is our fire department endorsing these candidates, or is this like a fire benevolent program, like the police? I need to know who is doing that. Now, another thing I want to talk about, I want to talk to you all about toilet to tap. Isn't that going to be great? When we're drinking, twail it to tap. And that's what they have in plan for us. Now I'm glad you brought up some of that stuff, Samuel Turpening, because I want to talk about our legislative delegation. You think they're representing us in this chamber? No. Because if they weren't, we wouldn't have SB 180. We wouldn't have half the shenanigans we have going on up in Tallahassee and down at the RPOF. Same with the Democratic Party of Florida. Do you know those two parties are just subsidiaries of one another? Our river is dying. I want to tell you, all of you, the park, those properties we want purchased, I want detention ponds. I don't see anybody else up here bringing solutions and improvements to downtown flooding except Tim Ritchie. I don't see anyone coming to test my canal either and find out what the hell is in my canal. I've tested. I know what's in there. And lastly, we should be protected on social media. You hear me, attorney? I expect every citizen in this city to be protected, Chief Pam. And every one of you should be concerned about somebody impersonating you and using your home address. Yeah, my aunt was in Vietnam. She went in a lieutenant, came out a captain. God bless everyone.

Thank you, Tim. Anyone else? Bill, you don't want to say anything? Congratulations.