City Council - Regular Meeting

2026 West Melbourne City Council meeting to order. If you would please stand for the pledge and a moment of silence.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy and justice for all. You may be seated, please. Welcome everyone to tonight's meeting of the city council. Members of the public are welcome to speak on any topic, whether it is on tonight's agenda or any issue that is important to you. Each person that wishes to speak should complete a speaker card, which are located near the glass doors, and submit it ahead of time to the city clerk. After you have been recognized to speak, please use the microphone at the podium and clearly state your name and address for the record. Please address all your comments to the city council rather than individual members. Please direct questions to the chair. Speakers will be given up to three minutes to speak. All right. Our first item is going to be the state of the city 2025. And here we go.

Mayor And once again, I apologize. It's either going to be my back to council or my back to the audience. So h however it moves around I I apologize. All right, we'll get started here. And uh this of course is um for the end of 2025 where we wound up. So here we are. I'm not going to read this verbatim to you can all read. I'm sure how you got here. But it is my honor to be there be here. This is my second time presenting this. So it hoping it will be better than my first time last year. And every year I do it, it will get better and better. Uh, so on a chilly February morning, the Florida Commerce joined the city for the ribbon cutting for the Melbourne Estates drainage. And should we have some photos coming up here and we'll go through that and you'll be able to see that's what they are. Uh, I would would like to say that we uh have received almost $4 million in grant funding and part of that is $1.2 million allocated in 2026 for our efforts. We will be receiving that in 2026. Our vision of course for the city of West Melbourne is committed to being a vibrant, growing and caring community that continually seeks excellence for the residents. Our vision is to grow West Melbourne into the Space Coast premier location for homes, careers, and families. Some of you are here tonight to help us with that. Thank you. Uh this is uh from last year, our West Melbourne elected leaders in of course we had the holiday party, the Christmas party. You'll see our

illustrious um city manager there in his lovely jacket over there to the right. It's the only time he gets to wear it. All right, so now we're getting to the numbers and this is the most important part here. I kind of done the little bit of work on that. We are now 10.76 square miles, which I'm just going to round that to 11 square miles just to keep it simple. But I wanted you to know that at the incorporation of the city, September 11th, 1959, it says so right back there on our documents right back there. We were just six square miles. In 2005, we were eight square miles. And compare that now to 11 square miles. We have grown. We have grown in population and we certainly have grown in area. in we have 280 acres of Parkland, 135 full-time employees for part-time. And look at down here for the median household income. Look where West Melbourne is compared to our nearest neighbors to the north and the south. West Melbourne is obviously a great place to live. Uh our gross rents, look where our rents are, our um of the value of our homes, and of we have approximately 2.65 65 persons per household and we now have 9,924 households. In 2000, just 25 years ago, we had only 4,497 households. And compare that to where we are now at the 9,924. Our current population 32,372. In 1959 again when we were incorporated we had just 3,50 people. I think they were all plats and in 2005 our population was 14,000 196 9 I'm sorry

14,963. In 2005 and now in 2025 32,373. So we have certainly grown a population. We've grown an area. Um again West Melbourne the word is out. This is just a great place to live. And also I'm very proud of the fact that with for veterans there's 2756. Now that's combined for all three cities. They didn't give us we're it's a region. So we don't have that number for just West Melbourne. Although Jet GPT seems to think that that's just us. And in two let me go to our tax rate here and go to the next one. I'll get to that later. I wanted to mention here this first one that for accounting and this is really important because this is what keeps us out of the newspaper. Our we were awarded the awards thanks to our wonderful accounting departments we have here. Um the GFOA which is the government finance officers association award. It's a professional organization that promotes high standards in government financial reporting and the ACFR which is the annual comprehensive financial report which is a detailed report showing the government's financial position including statements notes and key statistics and financial excellence recognition. These are only giving given to the to the cities that just have the best of the best the cream of the crop and I'm very proud to be able to live in a city with that reputation. We were awarded 36,591,119.79. Thank you for being accurate, Keith. Thank you. And 79 cents in grants over the last five years. In new construction, our net new construction for just this year is $119 million. I don't think there's another city even close that can say that. Um that's wonderful. We have a double A minus um bond reading and our building permits

processed over 3,5 3531. Our new finance director that I keep pointing to over here, Keith Smith. He is new here, but he has been working with the city of West Melvin for quite a while. We had a total of 72 public meetings and those are all of our public outreach meetings, not just council meetings, all of our planning and zoning and all of our other meetings. In the general reserve fund increased to 1.6 6 million. So, we are very happy with that. And the public officials community outreach meeting, we've had over a thousand of those. And that is every time uh one of the one of the um public officials is out going to meetings and meeting with the public. And the reason that we are such a good re um city in addition to our wonderful staff is our community collaboration. We would not be where we are if we did not did not play well in the sandbox with others. Uh again, West Melbourne has 280 acres of parks. We broke ground on the ARO, the reverse osmosis water plant, and that is going to be as of January 1st, 2027. When you turn on the tap, it'll be West Melbourne water. We are very proud of that. Uh we completed Melbourne Estates's flood risk reduction project. That was a huge project and it was certainly helpful to people to they will no longer have uh will not keep repeatedly receiving water in their home during heavy rains. And we broke ground on the BNR, the biionutrient removal, sewer plant improvements, and our next septic to sewer projects to help improve the Indian River Lagoon that is underway and mitigated. We've mitigated impacts of major flooding events with canal maintenance upgrades. We did a huge job in Westbrook, which two of us happen to live in Westbrook and uh flooding was um quite severe there. Measuring success again, public meeting 72. Website visits, 435,000 visits to our website. I'm sure our IT department loves that. Our weekly Friday

roundup. Some of you um submit to subscribe to the weekly roundup. 883 business tax receipts. Two 2356 business tax receipts and grant dollars awarded the number down there which I can't see. and $34,500 which again oh the bank I still can't see that I'm going to go to the next slide I'm really proud of this this is how West Melbourne um pairs to the cities around us so I wanted to give an idea here in 2005 is when we first started collecting a tax 2005 2006 was the tax our tax rate was a $1.96 per thousand and at its highest the millillage was $2.88 and that was in 2011 and now we are well below where we started. We're just at $181. So we have certainly gone full circle on that. Our nearest neighbor to the south, Palm Bay, our nearest lovely neighbor there, they are at 7.699 or 7%. And to the east, Melbourne, it is 7.3%. And even to the north, Melbourne Village, their millage rate is 6.41%. Chat GPT's numbers are a little bit different, but they're pretty close to to what I had. So, I just wanted to bring that forth so we can see what a why West Melbourne is great. Everybody wants to be here, and why wouldn't they with numbers like these, our police department, uh, police department is just going gang busters. I'm so happy to see the their visibility on the street. I see them everywhere. Uh, you can read this the same as I am. The total calls for service you can see is up. The crimes are down. The traffic stops are up. So, mind your manners when you come into West Melbourne because our officers are out there, aren't they, Chief? They they are out there and they are busy.

Um, and I'm very proud of this. At the bottom, we went through a part where nobody wanted to make application to be a a police officer, but we went through that and look where we are now. We are recovering and we are well manned at the police department. Our major projects that we've had that we have here at the very bottom that's our water plant coming up. I'm not going to read those individually. I'll be here. We have the raw water conveyance project with the Melbourne Estates as I mentioned earlier, Westbrook. And we purchased 24 acres of land on Minton Road, which is going to be a future park for the city and community center right down here right in front of Crystal Lakes. We're very happy with that. Uh, and again, a $52 million state-of-the-art reverse osmosis water plant. So, we Oh, and I must mention the driver safety speed monitoring signs. You may be seeing them um more and more here. It's a warning to residents when they are speeding. So, when the officer does stop them, they've already had their warning. Uh, some of the things we've done here when we've broken ground, some of the events that we've been to, this was brown ground baking torch run. Uh, the holiday tree lighting, that was a wonderful event. And that's me up there at the top there dumping balls down onto the ground. It was a great day. U and we have the Tesla charging units that are new and so some of the that's some of the new construction new projects that we have in West Melbourne. This is the new Amazon project coming in. So we are very excited about that. And uh we you can see the construction going on across the street. That is the new um city council chambers which should be opening well I don't know about early in 2026 but it's working on it. We're working on that right now. I don't know if it's quite open yet. And this is our water plant and this is what should will look like on the inside. Construction update. One of these is a video. This Oh, here we go. Do we have any sound?

Haven't you had enough? As the mayor is floating above the water plant. Oh, that's in her flying drone. You can hear me screaming. Surveying the new water plant. It's this is this is 45 seconds long so it won't keep you here much longer. And this is the last slide. So this is pretty cool. This I believe is Mr. the tr the gorilla who did the who did the the I believe our uh one of our IT experts I believe our uh one of our IT experts uh Christian Shast Christian did this uh Christian Shast Christian did this okay okay as a licensed drone pilot as a licensed drone pilot okay yes that is what it looks like

okay yes that is what it looks like right now so that is the state of the right now so that is the state of the city as it sits right now today so thank city as it sits right now today so thank you very much okay you very much okay here we go this behind here we go this behind the tr the gorilla who did the who did Thank you. All right. Next, we have no modifications to the agenda. We'll open the public hearings and the first is Miss Fischer with Lenar Town Homes.

Okay. If you give me one minute to load that. Are you going to load it for me? Thank you. All right. For the record, Christy Fischer, planning director for the city of West Melbourne. And I'm going to go through agenda items 5A1234. Um, and it's going to be part of this presentation. and the applicant is here um in the audience and remember this item had been tabled um last meeting in January. So here we are the last time this was before you all was December. Uh so the second reading is for the annexation. Uh remember that the annexation, the future land use and the resoning is all about the 2.75 acres. Um, it's one vacant land parcel that was still sort of a remnant next to John Rose Boulevard on the west side. U, we didn't annex it in 2006. There are legal reasons. Now that we can annex it, we are annexing it. Have not heard from neighbors. So again, that's just a reminder. Um, the area is that rectangle that's shown in yellow. We have to look at the adjacency requirements from the statutes. It is next to our city. So it it meets that requirement. And I'm going to now go through the smallcale comprehensive plan map amendment and the resoning the development agreement conceptual master plan. So remember you all did not take a vote on any of those items. You wanted some changes to the development agreement and then to bring everything back to you. I'm going to let the city attorney ask you questions on this slide.

Thank you. And as always, uh, this is a public hearing and, uh, it is a quasi judicial matter. Therefore, you are required to disclose any communications that you've had that may inform your decision outside of the materials provided by staff that's in the record. Um, so this includes obviously conversations, but also anything that you've uh personally observed that may inform your decision, such as visits to the property to uh observe the property uh for the purpose of uh evaluating it for this hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Carrey. Miss Boltz, I talked to Mindy Gibson on it. All right. Thank you, Miss Adams.

I visited the site the other day. All right. Thank you. All right, Miss Fischer.

Okay. Uh again, the background, Anna Saunders, I don't believe, is here tonight, but we have Kim Rosanka uh representing Lenar Homes. And remember, this property was going to be developed as legacy West Melbourne. Um, so those were going to be market rate apartments. Instead, we have a new type of development, the townhouse lots. The existing use, you know, now is vacant. Remember, it's been different things over time, but it's been vacant for several years. The proposed use for that yellow rectangle is to have a little city park um by virtue of having a walking trail around the storm water pond. So in the county they have a community commercial future lane use designation. They have the RU215 county zoning and they're trying to get the city's urban density in R3 zoning. We always look at, you know, the surrounding future lane use and reszoning. We've got some industrial uh to the north and to the east. We have vacant property that's to the south and also vacant property to the west. Um it is compatible with the surrounding properties. It's sort of a transition use and you know having this sort of city park and walking trail does provide a little bit of buffering um from the more intense industrial uses. So 5B2 is all about the future lane use designation. And that's what that staff report is about. It's about going from the community commercial um in the county. So whenever we annex a property, we have to assign it city zoning and city future land use. The right hand side of slide says that it would go to UD-RES. That's the acronym for urban density residential. With the comprehensive plan changes, there's a number of things we have to look at, including some of the infrastructure. Um, and that's a image of that property today, you know, with

it standing as a vacant field instead of having a building on it. We also have to look at impacts, sort of compare if it was left in the county, how much development could it have on it versus in the city. There are some decreases by bringing it into the city. They would be able to build sort of more intensely if it had been in the county. Um, police protection, as you know, would be West Melbourne now instead of the sheriff. It's also consistent with uh FLU stands for future land use and the comprehensive plans, goals, objectives and policies. Those are some of the things that we have to look at when we do look at a future land use map amendment. Um and you know public facilities they we have the capacity to deliver the basic water and sewer. They do have to extend it to their development. The city does not pay for that. They will be extending it. Um the state of Florida also has a private property rights element that it's required all 400 local governments to put in. So they are going to be able to if if they get the zoning they'll be able to you know proceed with the multif family type of uh layout for the resoning they're going through um going from the RU-2-15 um which is sort of like a medium density. So with the zoning, they're sort of more comparable into what they're going to be with the city with the R3 zoning. We also for the zoning have to look at is it consistent with other parts of our land development regulations and that it's not conferring on them something um special that other properties don't have in that same zoning. Um what we have on the right hand side is an image um sort of just of that. It's 3.01 01 acres because the park in that area for the storm water is going to be slightly larger than the 2.75 acres that we're annexing. But you can see a little bit of the blue and I think we talked last time about you know that they're going

to have the one driveway that's going to come in from John Roads. There will be some parking on the right hand side before you get to the gate that would be for you know this West Melbourne town homes. Now switching gears to the development agreement. This is kind of what you know got us to hold off until this meeting. Um there is of course some property history about the overall parent parcel is what I call it. So that's the larger rectangle and you know in 2006 um most of the the 14 acres were annexed in. It went through you know it was going to be a bunch of different sort of u apartment type of developments. 2007 2022, you know, and here we are that they applied in 2025 um for 144 unit fee simple townhouse community. I'll let them talk a little bit more about that. But the development agreement, you know, deals with the entire property and it does provide some asurances about the use, the density, what the the type of development it's going to be, the townhouse subdivision, the infrastructure improvements, architecture, landscaping, the city park facility, all of that is in the development agreement. This is just to remind you of some of the architectural elevations they've shown us and committed to by putting it in the development agreement. They're committing to this. And then you all did your draft review 1216 and then it was supposed to be January 20th. It got tabled until today. Um well, it was actually tabled last meeting. Sorry, February 3rd. Um I'm not going to read through each of these items. We did talk about that a little bit more in the previous meeting and this was the conceptual master plan. There was no change between that meeting

in December and today there's been no change to the layout. Looks same if you were to pull up that staff report from that agenda. It looks identical. What has changed is some of the wording. So remember we started going through that this section five um there was a lot of talk back and forth between council and the applicant about you know what did the applicant mean about certain things. So some of it has been changed um I'm going to let you know the applicant go through that if they want to. I think this was changed you know favorably based on the conversation with city council back in in December. Another thing was the rental restrictions. That was something that you all asked as a you know request during that meeting which is to make sure that you know the rental periods are no less than 12 months. So that has been changed. So those are the two primary sets of changes. That's why you know I show those slides. Um we can certainly you know try to answer other questions about it but for the development agreement um I believe they did change what council had asked and even with the development agreement we have to look at our comprehensive plan the land development regulations make sure it's you know consistent with that compliant with the land development regulations that they're not trying to do something that they wouldn't be allowed to do in that zoning district. So in conclusion, remember there's you know three ordinances in one development room. So you have four actions here. The first action is to approve the second reading of ordinance 202529 that annexes in that front parcel. The second two actions have to do with changing you know the future land use and giving a zoning to that that front parcel. So those are are the next two and then the final action would be the development agreement however you want to you know rule on that. So, those are the four items. I'll try to answer any

questions you have. And like I said, the applicant is here. Thank you. Thank you very much. The applicant, Mr. Rosen, did you want to?

Good evening, mayor, members of city council. My name is Kim Zena. I am here representing LAR Holmes. With me are representatives from LAR to answer any questions you may have and also Samantha with LJA is here. Um Anna Saunders is out of town visiting colleges with her daughter and she's very excited about that. But she has been here, she's explained this to you. We were here in January and there were questions specifically about the development agreement, about the signage, why we wanted the ability to look at the sign, whether or not we had control over the landscaping and the rental restrictions. So, we just took all of that out based upon your concerns. So, the signage will all be the same, whatever the city decides, and that we won't be maintaining your park um unless there's trash or something, they happen to pick it up. I don't really remember why we struck the word primary, but I think that benefits you and I think it was we kept changing the language and that just stuck that way. And then, um with the rental restriction, you had asked that the HOA not allow rentals less than one year and that's going to be in the HA HOA as well. Other than that, this is a town home project. Lenar does good product. They're going to be fee simple. Yes, we have long discussions about what that means, but they are going to be sold to people. Lar is not keeping them and renting them out and their intent is to be a very nice development, high class, and they want to be here. They want to do town homes. They want to be part of the community. And with that, we would ask that you approve the four items before you. We're here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Is there any questions for Mr. Rosena? All right. Is there anyone else from the public who wishes to comment on this? I do not have any speaker cards. I do not. Seeing that, we'll close the public hearing. Mr. Kerry, would you like to read the ordinances?

Thank you, Mayor. Um, and as usual, uh, we have two different ordinances for this. um or excuse me, there's three because this also includes an annexation. So, I'll read each of them in turn and settle in for a few minutes. Uh, the first one is ordinance number 2025-29, an ordinance of the city of West Melbourne, Vard County, Florida, annexing by voluntary petition a parcel of land approximately 2.75 plus or minus acres in size, located at 9:30 South John Roads Boulevard, and as more more fully described herein, finding that the area being annexed is reasonably compact and contiguous to the city, that the annexation of the property does not create an enclave, that the annexation of the property otherwise complies with Florida law, amending the corporate boundaries of the city to provide for the incorporation of the real property. described herein, providing for filing of the res revised city boundaries with the department of state, providing for repeal of prior and consistent ordinances and resolutions, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. The second ordinance is ordinance number 2025-30, an ordinance of the city of West Melbourne, Vard County, Florida, amending the future land use map of a comprehensive plan to change the future land use on a parcel of land totaling 2.75 plus or minus acres located at 9:30 South John Roads and is more fully described herein from Bvard County Community to City of West Melbourne urban density residential providing an effective date. And the final ordinance is ordinance number 2025-31, an ordinance to the city of West Melbourne, Bard County, Florida, reszoning a 2.75 plus or minus acre parcel of land generally located at 9:30 South Johns Boulevard and as more fully described herein from Bard County agriculture residential to city of West Melbourne R3 multif family dwelling district providing an effective date and each of those needs to be voted on separately. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Bentley. Thank you, Mayor. Make a motion we approve the second reading of ordinance number 2025-29 annexing property located at 9:30 South John Roads P. Thank you, Miss Folz. Second. Thank you. Oh, my lights are disappearing. All right, we have a motion on the floor from Mr. Bentley, a second from Miss Folz. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries 70. Thank you. All right. 2025-30. Mr. Gaylord, I'll make a motion that we approve 2025-30 amending the future land use designation.

Thank you, Miss Folz. Second. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor from Mr. Gaylord, a second from Miss Volts. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries. 70 dash uh 2025- um 31. Miss Folz, make a motion to approve uh ordinance number 2025-31 reszoning the acre the property. All right. Thank you, Mr. Gaylord. Second. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor from Miss Voltz, a second from Mr. Gaylord. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries 70. Thank you. Uh the development agreement. Any Miss Adams?

Thank you, Mayor. Um before we take a vote on this one, I just wanted to share my quick thoughts with council because I this was the part of this project that I know we've had long discussions um both at our last meeting, but also I don't know if the rest of council's had as many meetings with Mr. Roadie about it as I have, but it was it was some good discussion and I appreciate his input as well as staffs with it. And I just wanted to share um in terms of the the park that we're looking to potentially add as this piece which is part of the development agreement. Oh, thank you, Miss Fischer. I do appreciate the opportunity for us to have added green space in the city, but I also encourage council to consider that green space doesn't always equal quality park space. up. I think this land specifically has some limitations and I think we would then if we do decide to add it as a public park to the city. We're then battling with perception difficulties of a public park that could feel private like we're already dealing with another park within the city and now we're trying to correct that issue. I do want the residents in the northwest section of the city to have a quality park. And to me, that means it's accessible, it's inviting, it's created for the purpose of providing our recreation opportunities for our residents. And to me, this doesn't quite feel like it. And I appreciate, you know, from the development side that you thought of this and said, "Hey, we're willing to work with the city and provide this park space." Um, but I think from a overall parks perspective, as we are looking at building our parks network, we're looking at in enhancing that northwest section with some quality parkland. To me, this doesn't feel like it. So, I just wanted to share my thoughts with council.

Thank you, mayor. All right. Thank you, Mr. Francis.

Just to add to that, I think uh this is an unusual case for us because um typically we don't join our parks with other people's water reserves. Um, and by doing this, we're also taking the some liability away from them because typically the homeowners association would have to pay for the insurance for that land and for the water access and and be responsible if if a child uh, you know, falls in the water and has problems, it falls on them. we're releasing that liability by by taking this on as our property. Um, I just have had a problem with this this uh part from the beginning. So, that's just my thoughts. It's something uh unusual that we're doing and it's not consistent with how we do things. So, thank you.

Thank you, Miss Boltz. Yeah, I don't think it was meant to be what we would consider a big city park that the neighbors would go to kind of like that we have now. This was just I think the generous offer um to do something with that land. Uh, I think it's a great opportunity um to do something with the land and and so um I really would just like to go ahead and make a motion that we go ahead and approve this uh development agreement. All right. Thank you. We have um is is there a second?

I do. Miss Magcguire. Um, I'll second. But does your motion include the conditions that staff put in? Absolutely. Okay. Then yes, second. Mr. Bentley. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Rod, does this count as a formal park to be north of 192? Th this pocket park, if you will, does not intend to solve the park what's the fancy uh desert

desert. This does not intend to solve the park desert up in that uh northwest quadrant of the community. I think it was just a good opportunity. to the developer. Um, you know, because of where the land and the pitch and everything, this this looked like a a situation where we could at least open up a pretty good size walking area for that part of the community and and add some value. This is not intended to be the sole northwest quadrant park. And yeah, thank you. Um, no, that was a no. This does not count as a park. it it's going to be a city park, but it's not it's not intended to be the solution, the long-term solution.

That's what I was referring to. It's just a value ad as an as an opportunity to, you know, instead of 144 residents having that uh area to enjoy the that part of the community, really the whole community, but that more specifically that part of the community. As part of our parks plan though, we identified that the north end north of 192 was short park-wise. And what I hear you saying is yes, this counts as a park. Obviously, it is a park, but it's not to fulfill that need. There'll be a bigger formal park done for that purpose. And I'm hearing yes, that's true. We are still looking to acquire a traditional park in that area.

So, uh my second question, don't we have another illustration like this? And is it Westbrook that there's a park that's also part of the city? Yeah, I think several, you know, just about all of our community, all of our parks minus the community park, right? Um is an element of a subdivision, right? Whether it's Westbrook, um Tallwood, Hammock Lakes, Hammock Lakes, and um uh Clemenswood are all, you know, parts of a subdivision. So, I'd ask the city attorney the point that Mr. uh that Steve actually brought out

that was just about the retention pond that had nothing to do with being near things. But the concept is this I I hear you but the concept is that the city has taken on responsibility that would normally belong to an HOA whether it's a water park or that someone falls off a swing set whatever it is is that how does that work? I mean is it because city has deep pockets they're always responsible? How does

the the issue is that when you are on city property, the city's liable for maintenance of that property and if the property isn't uh properly maintained, then the liability for that lack of maintenance would fall in the city. Whereas, if it's in an HOA, uh then the HOA is responsible for the maintenance. And if it's not properly maintained, the liability would go to the HOA. So, they wouldn't go after deep pockets and sue the city. They certainly could. I mean, we get sued from time to time by people who get hurt in our parks. It would be our property, right? It's our property, right? Okay. So, I didn't know if it

Yeah. So, the So, let's The the issue is again, who's responsible for the maintenance and if the maintenance isn't done properly, right? We're only responsible to the extent that we're negligent in our negligent in our uh in our responsibilities. So, if we're responsible for maintaining a property and that maintenance is lacking, then we could be liable for the lack of maintenance. I hope that clarifies things. Thank you. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, Miss Magguire. Um, on that note, looking at what just got pulled up on the screen, I just want to further clarify on this though that technically their CDD has the responsibility for maintaining the pond up to the high water mark. So, wouldn't that I mean, obviously it's still a public park, so technically, you know, liability, but it's still theirs.

Yeah. Again, when you're talking about negligence, the issue is who's responsible for the maintenance. Um, most likely in the real world, if somebody got uh hurt in within the pond itself, they would probably sue both the HOA and the city and see who they can go after because that's kind of the way these things tend to work. They'll sue anybody that they think could potentially have liability and the city would certainly be in that bucket. Miss Adams,

but short of the activities mentioned at previous meetings about walking, you know, the walking loop around the pond and a couple I think there were some sort of small play struct, it wasn't a full play structure, kind of an activity space at one end of the pond. I don't see it in that drawing, but I do recall us talking about it at a previous at the previous meeting. There's a s like a sail shade here at the north end, right? And then this is the park in here. So then there would be you it's not shown on here but there would be a sidewalk um that goes around the park right one of your questions

short of being a walking trail around the park this would not be from a I know our our parks director is sitting in the uh sitting in the audience th this would not be a park where you could have programming opportunities for our residents correct um short of a relay race around the pond. Yeah. I mean, never say never that it couldn't be an activity, but you know, most of our programming is at the community park or the or here at the Veterans Memorial,

right? But as we enhance our parks through our master plan, the goal is to identify areas where we can improve each of those parks to provide better opportunities when it would come to something like this. There's no expanse growth. There's no change in what we can do here due to its size, due to the pond. Am I looking at that correctly as far as growing this park into something else other than what it is? Other than a walking trail around the pond? No, the this there's there's not much to work with other than what it is there. But again, it's it's not intended to be the the west the northwest quadrant city park.

Understood. And I appreciate that we're continuing to explore those because I think it's going to take some some time to find that being as land is coming to be a premium. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you, Miss Bol. Yeah, I just wanted um to find out I know that there's a lack of parks in the north end. Do we have any idea at all any possible projects, any prospects anywhere up there at all? So, we we are working with several pieces of property in that quadrant. Um, we just have not gotten a realistic price yet to bring to the council to to try to purchase.

Okay. So, you are working diligently on that. Thank you. All right. Thank you, M. Fish. I have a question as well. Okay. And I I had a comment. Oh, go ahead. Make your comment.

So, my comment is, you know, that the chapter 86 code, which deals mostly with subdivisions, also deals with any residential that any residential development has to do one of two things. Either pay a recreation fee or donate land to the city and the city council gets to, you know, decide whether they want to do that. So that in the spirit they are doing that they're you know asking to donate it to the city and not pay that recreation fee. So remember that opportunity has been there ever since the code started in the 70s and that's why we have Hammock Lakes Park and Clemenswood and all those other little parks that you mentioned is exactly for that reason transaction was done the retention ponds that they're using. Right. Well, in Hammock Lakes, we do. Hammock Lakes, if you look at the property appraiser map, it's a mess. One part of the lake is actually owned by that HOA. Another part of the lake is owned by the city. So, it's not always just that upland sort of area that you can play on. Sometimes we have gotten water with some of these transactions.

Interesting. But typically, Okay. So, my question is this. If that if this does not go through and the and the council decides not to take the park, would the park be behind a wall where they would not have people passing by just thinking it's a public park and going in and using it? It would be protected. It's gated. Correct. I I think I mean that's really for the applicant, but I thought you guys were going to kind of like if that wasn't a public park, you were going to have that just be an amenity for your residents, not everybody else. So, they're agreeing.

Okay. And I wanted to mention that um two of us here happen to live in a LAR um subdivision and we have these city park right there. The Westbrook park is a city park. The pond however that's there belongs to the HOA. So the HOA maintains it. This the city maintains the entire park. The pool and things which is on the other side of the street that's for us to maintain. And of course we have to keep that gated because people think that it's part of the part public park. um that I think is just education of and re-education of people who just want to use something that isn't public. My point in this was is that we've had no issues between um responsibility for the pond and the and the park and and the city maintaining the park. So if this was going to be the same thing as what we have in Westbrook, would it be the same thing, Mr. um

Westbrook? It's, you know, the the liability question is is a fair one. Um, you know, you're never going to get out of liability when you have things, right? So, we have a community park and we we have a lot of public space that we're in charge of and that makes us targets for liability. Um, lots of times, you know, our our city attorney and past city attorneys have been able to um show that there's there's been no lack of maintenance or low no lack of uh responsibility by the city and so we're able to step out of those. But certainly anytime you know uh LAR then Lar may build this out and in 10 years something happens there and LAR has no affiliation to this they they still would probably be sued because they were the ones who built it. So I mean the the liability one is is um it's a hard one. Again, the intent was allow some public space for that part of the community as opposed to it just being for the 144 town homes. That that I that that was that was as simple as it gets. That's how

Thank you, Mr. Gaylord. Christie, if you could remind me, um, if we as the council decide, you know, that this wants to be something the HOA should own rather than a public park, um, what is the, you mentioned the recreation fee. Um, have have we, has the city done any kind of analysis on like the value that we're get we're giving to our residents for this park versus, you know, us getting the recreation fee? I'm going to turn that back to Mr. Roie, I don't know how you want to answer that. I didn't do any analysis.

Yeah, we we have not done a calculation of what their wreck impact would be uh based on their their donation. So, we could get you that number, but I don't have it in front of me. In the next 30 seconds, it would probably be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just that's what it's tended to be for a lot of these developments. Um, but I don't know what the exact number would be. and it's based on the value of the property. That's part of the equation. Then there's like four other sort of factors that go into that equation.

Mr. Bentley, is there parking around this for visitors? The parking is down in this area. I see the the line that says public parking or and then there's entrance tower. So, this is not gated. You know, what you would do is you would come in through here and I think Anna said she was looking at having like six parking spaces, you know, and then that the gate is actually up here. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. All right. Thank you. All right. No other comments. We have a motion on the floor from Miss FZ and we have a second from Miss Maguire to approve the development agreement. All those in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries 52. 542 against with Mr. Frampus and Miss Adams voting nay. Mr. Kerry. Next item, recovery residences.

Thank you, mayor. This is a second reading of the recovery residences ordinance. Um, as you may recall from uh the first reading discussion, uh, these are what the state calls sober homes. Uh, the intent is for, uh, people to rent out individual rooms in an area that's supposed to be free of alcohol and drugs so that uh, people who are recovering from addiction can uh, be in a space where uh, those items aren't allowed. And uh, the group homes already exist under our zoning. uh but the state has mandated that we uh create criteria for approving of recovery residences uh which includes the uh addition of um reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. Um so this ordinance is an ordinance that's similar to ordinances created all over the state. Um, I've reviewed quite a few of them in my uh drafting and preparation for this and um they're mostly very similar because they just draw from the requirements of the statute. Um where we've uh differed from say Melbourne is that uh Melbourne has elected to not have a fee for the processing of the application whereas um we've put in the our ordinance that we uh can implement a fee and that's why this was delayed until tonight so we could get the fee uh nailed down uh to go in the fee schedule which you'll be saying later in the evening. Um, so I'm free to answer any questions that you may have, but I do need to read this out loud uh before we discuss and vote on it if I may. May I?

Yes, please.

This is ordinance number 2026-01, an ordinance of the city of West Melbourne, Florida, relating to recovery residences, creating section 98-1455 of the city code of the city of West Melbourne, setting forth the purpose of recovery residences. creating chapter 98 article 5 division 13 sections 984 1455 through 19 or excuse me 981465 of the city code of the city of West Melbourne relating to application of recovery residences relating to findings of reasonable accompl accommodation relating to the decision process creating an appeal process creating the requirements for the request form relating to stay of enforcement of the code relating to expiration of approvals relating to revocation of reusable accommodation relating to annual certification relating to provisions or revisions providing for conflicts providing for severability providing for codification and scriveners errors and providing an effective date.

All right. Thank you. Um this is a public hearing and we don't we have no cards. We will close the public hearing and Mr. Francis make a motion we approve the second reading of ordinance 2026-01 as written. Mr. Mr. Gaylord. I'll second. All right. We have a motion on the floor from Mr. Frampus and a second from Mr. Gaylord. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Those oppose say nay. Motion carries 70. All right. Thank you. Next item, public forum. We have a speaker card. Public forum. Kevin Frank, would you please come to the podium? State your name and address for the record, please.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Frank. Uh my address is 3162 Wreath Street, West Melbourne. And uh first I'd like to thank the city council. What's this? Speaking to the mic so we can hear you.

You can't hear me? Okay. I'd like to thank the city council for the land that they purchased in front of Crystal Lakes West because the community is uh hearing what you plan on doing and we're very pleased about that and you have our support. So thank you very much for that. Um, I'm here tonight uh because in the last 10 days or so, I've received several phone calls from uh residents in the neighborhood um asking why we're not getting support from the police department in areas of traffic in the neighborhood and some situations in the neighborhood. And um I personally have experienced this because uh we have a situation at a house where uh it is rented and a corporation is renting the house and there are eight cars there every night and unknown amount of people. We don't really know how many people are going in and out of there. We are in a HOA. We are zoned as uh R1B in that area and this should be single family residents which we don't understand why these people are allowed to go there. We think it is a violation of city ordinance. It's certainly a violation of our covenants. We've contacted the owner who is uh Invitation Homes who has eight homes in our community and um after being very sympathetic on the phone call they have completely stopped communicating with us. So they're not responding at all. I did contact uh the police uh ordinance department and they basically told me, well, there's a broad definition of what family is. We have eight cars, eight independent people that are working for this company that are living there. It's a flop house, and I'm asking for city support in some way to tell us what can we do about this. Um, when I contacted the police department initially, I asked why they couldn't issue tickets because that is what we were told by the police on presence because there were cars that

were parked illegally, blocking sidewalks, parked facing the wrong direction. And they said, "This is an HOA. We can't issue tickets in the HOA." I know for a fact that this HOA signed an agreement some two and a half years ago requesting that traffic violations be uh enforced within our community. And uh I was told that it expired. Um I don't know what we need to do to keep the expiration going, but if it means I need to fill out a form daily, I will be glad to do so. Um, we just need the support from the police department that will enforce traffic violations and possibly look into this ordinance situation with this uh with this house. We've had this situation in the past. Uh, it was worse in the past with a different house from the same owner and uh I believe a resident called ICE and that is what cleared it up because they came and took quite a few of them away. Um, I don't know if that's the situation here, but we need help. We need help from the from the police. We need support from the police. And the truth is is that I have about four or five residents that were planning to go march on city hall and meet up with the chief of police and say, "Hey, what are you doing?" And I asked them to please hold off and give us a chance to just address it with the city. So, um, that's why I'm here today. I'm looking for some support from the chief of police to see what we can do. I'm not expecting you to solve it here tonight, but I wanted you to hear. So, that is why I'm here and I hope you can help us.

Thank you, Mr. Frank. I actually we have some questions for you from the from council, Mr. Francis. Mr. Rodie, I believe uh it's every two years on enforcement agreements or is it every year for renewing those? If it's if it's every other year, we we would reach out and renew it. We we would not not I know they expire for right. We we would we would uh not take a position that it expired and so we we would not be able to do anything. And so I I think you have two very um you know two two kind of different issues. And

that was going to be my suggestion that maybe um have you re you haven't reached out to Mr. Roadie yet. Okay. So probably your first I I would suggest your first incident would be give him your name and number and he Yeah, we're we're happy we're happy to to work with you. The the traffic whether it's expired or not, we can get that resolved. But either way, we're we're always happy to enforce uh traffic. The other issue is a little bit more complicated and there is a process involved and so we're happy to talk to you about that process, but it's not as easy as and and your HOA has more powers than the city.

That was going to be my other suggestion is what what your attorney said and uh I know we would go through our attorney and and uh enforce our declaration at that point and start finding. So I have not brought it to our attorney yet. I have brought it to our management company and our management company has not uh taken other action other than just notifying the owner that this is a violation of our agreements. I'll sounds like got a couple steps to go through first. Go ahead, Chief.

How you doing? Um so I'll certainly uh meet with the gentleman and you know see what uh what issues we can address. I I do have the agreement currently up for uh Crystal Lakes West and it's in effect for an indefinite period of time and can be terminated by either party, but there is no expiration on the current agreement. Good. Um and I know myself and deputy chief have been out there a couple times in the last couple years dealing with some parking issues and meeting with the homeowners association uh leadership uh and gave them some suggestions on what to do, too. So, we're we're happy to address it. Um this is the first I'm hearing of it. Um and but uh I'm happy to meet with you and we'll see what we can do for you.

So there you go. Name and number to the chief and city manager and you're good to go. Hold on. Um hold on. Miss Adams,

my followup to that was going to ask about interacting with your HOA attorney, but it sounds like that's going to be a step that's going to be involved in this. Uh chief just clarified that it doesn't look like there's an expiration date on the agreement with the police department. Mr. Do you know of any of our other HOAs? I'm just thinking if if this gentleman thought his was expired, do we have other HOAs that either they do expire? Because I couldn't imagine that we have some that say indefinitely, but others that have dates. So, I just want to clarify that because I don't want some HOAs thinking they're good, others thinking there's an expiration date and then there being that ambiguity.

We're happy to look into that. Off the top of my head, I do I do not know the status of all the HOA enforcement agreements. Understood. Thank you, sir, for coming to us. Uh because I think coming to us and having the conversation lets us open those doors. I don't think anybody wants uh I don't know if your neighbors necessarily want to walk all the way to city hall and stand outside either. So, I like conversation and I appreciate you coming. So, thank you. Absolutely. So, um Mr. Okay. M when we spoke earlier, did you did you mention that they keep a there's so many people there. They keep a lock box on the door and it's more of a roaming house.

Draw our suspicion at first. When we first saw all these cars there, we saw the lock box was still on the door. So, we thought they were like day workers that were crafting there. And then we contacted the owner and they said, "Oh, no. It's been leased." And I said, "Well, the lock box is on the door." Well, the lock box is on the door because they arrive at all different hours and that way they can all get the key and go in. All right. Thank you for the clarification. All right. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you, Mr. Frank. All right. Which is why corporate ownership is a problem.

U next item is consent agenda. Need a motion and a second to approve the regular council meeting minutes of Tuesday, February 3rd. Miss Adams, I'll make a motion to approve the regular city council meeting minutes of February 3rd. All right. Thank you, Mr. Gaylord. Second. All right. There's a motion on the floor from Miss Adams and a second from Mr. Gaylord to approve the the minutes of the February 3rd meeting. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries 70. Uh action item um non-consent Westbrook lift station rehabilitation project.

Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, members. Only one tonight.

So, uh this is our annual uh rehabilitation of lift stations. This year it's lift station 133, which is the Westbrook lift station. located on um Windgate Boulevard. Um we're going to be utilizing um Hinterland Group, which has done work for us before, lift station rehabilitations, and we're going to be piggybacking off the Palm Beach County contract, which they have. Um the cost proposal is based off the prom Palm Beach Couns County contract and that's the contract that we're going to be piggybacking off for this for this project. Interland group submitted a cost proposal for the project for 23586413 um in cost for the lift station rehabilitation on that part of it. And the city usually purchases the materials, the pumps, everything else that goes with it because that's what the lift stations have. So, we keep it consistent with all our other 80 lift stations. So, um the products we're we're dealing with are the same products for all the lift stations. So, we're going to be purchasing from Barney's Pumps a total of $88,040 for the materials um for the rehab to supply to uh the Hinterland Group.

All right. Thank you. So with that, um, I recommend that the city council approve the award to the contract to Hinterland Group LCC in the amount of 235,86413 for the rehabilitation of the Westbrook lift station and along with the expenditures of 88,40 for Barney pump for the parts totaling 323,9 90413 for the total cost and we have budgeted 350,000 for this project.

All right. Thank you very much. All right. We have a motion on the I'm sorry, Miss Vultz. Yes. I'd like to make make a motion that we approve all the figures that he just mentioned. Mr. Bentley. Uh second and I would mention I think it also saves you on sales tax to have you guys buy the materials. somehow. Thank you, mayor. All right. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor from Miss Folz, a second from Mr. Bentley. Although, Mr. Francis, I didn't see your light. Thank you.

I And I could ask that after, but uh Mark, how often do these lift stations get rehabbed? Because you mentioned we have 80 of them and we're just doing one and it's costing 323,000. So, I'm guessing we're not doing just one a year or is it as needed? Um, it's not as needed. We do have a pro up and let us know. But we do have a process. We do do the older ones. And as we work south, obviously the same as paving, the south end is more newer than the north end. Um, last year we did windgate. Not windgate, I'm sorry. Um, we do last year,

but we only do like one or two a year, right? So, I mean, we used to do two a year, but um but with 80 I mean, I'm sure they don't last 80 years. So, I mean, that's we're probably going to get hit we're probably going to get hit hard at some point, right? Everything else, the more you use it, the quicker you have to replace. So, this one, luckily, it's been around since the 90s. If you think about Westbrook wind was first developed, so we've gotten a life a good life run out of this station. It's overdue. We've pushed this back, pushed us back, but we have to get which is kind of my point. We that maybe it's 30 years, but if we're only doing one a year, then we're still going to fall behind at some point, right?

Could Yes, but we've been ahead of the game. All these investments we've been making been paying dividends off, especially come hurricane season. I'm just thinking about future planning and all. Yeah, we had we used to be able to do two a year um before CO and then the prices just went went crazy. We had to go to one and now it seems like the prices are are starting to um level out a little bit more to where maybe in the future with a little more we can do go back to start doing to again. Thanks for the information. Thanks. All right. Thank you. All right. So, we have a motion on the floor from Miss Volultz and a second from Mr. Bentley. Those in Pardon

me. I didn't second. I don't think Oh, okay. I I had a question. That's why I had my light back on or just a comment. Mr. Bentley,

I'm sorry. Um I I still agree with Mr. Francis's point. Unless they're lasting 40 plus years, their days coming and we ought to be thinking about that at least going forward. That even at two a year, that's not going to keep up. the full our our regular m we do have a regular maintenance program where we do pull the pumps, we maintenance the pumps, we could send the pumps out. Uh we do have spare pumps for the lift stations for um a lot of the lift stations. So we do a maintenance on that part, but the other part is just once the corrosion and everything starts happening,

right? I'm just saying that it has to be unless they last 40 years, you're going to have a problem. If they last 40 years, we can break even. So, I'll let it go. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Back to that motion on the floor from Miss Voltz and a second from Mr. Bentley. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. Those oppos say nay. Motion carries 70. All right. Thank you. Recreation fee schedule. Good afternoon. Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor. Afternoon,

council. Um, I'm here with the recreation fee resolution. The only thing that we did change this year was an adjustment to the rental time of the pearl room from midnight to 10:00 p.m. to keep the consistency of the Saturday and Sunday rentals. And then we want to establish a $200 rental fee for the use of the amphitheater only. Right now, we rent that side of the community park for $400 and that includes the pavilions to rent the entire park. We have had a lot of requests lately for just the amphitheater and then they said we could continue to rent the pavilions while they were using the amphitheater. So, those are the only two changes that we have on the fee schedule. Any questions?

Miss Bolt? Oh, no, sorry, Miss Adams. I did have a question seeing the breakdown and the addition of the amphitheater. How far into that green space is it the entire green space and the amphitheater because the pavilions are obviously much further back from the amphitheater. So, I just wanted clarification on what that means for a rental. It usually goes to about where the skate park offices, you know, where those offices are in that bathroom right around that area. Okay. So,

they the groups that rent it are usually pretty small. It's usually like dance troops. Um Our belly dancers rent it the day after our tree lighting. Um, so it's usually like a smaller group, but I would say the cutoff would be right around that skate park restroom area. Okay. And does that then overlap or come right next to if a pavilion was rented, they would have the space up to then or there's a dead space in the middle? There would be a dead space in the middle. Okay. Thank you.

All right. What are the wishes of the council? Oh, Miss Bolt, your light again. Yeah, I will go ahead and second uh make a motion to approve the um um yeah, the recreation fee schedule. All right, I'm looking for a second. Miss Magguire. Thank you, Mayor. I'll second. All right, we have a motion on the floor from Miss Folz. We have a second from Miss Magcguire. All those in favor of the recreation fee schedule, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries. 70.

All right. Thank you. All right. Uh, next item 8 C, revising the development review fee schedule. Miss Fisher.

Okay. This is um the last change we made was in 2024. And remember, land development fees are not just the planning department. It involves other departments. That's why in the staff report, I I wanted to make sure that that was, you know, the message. This is public works. This is a city engineer. This is other departments. So from the planning perspective, there were a couple of fees we changed. That's all we really did. There's, you know, with this recovery residence that the ordinance was passed tonight. We had to have an application fee and, you know, we followed sort of the the lead that some of the other local governments down in South Florida had done. We have also encountered um lot splits. It it a lot of times people think of lot splits as just residential. We actually have more nonresidential, so commercial properties, industrial properties, church properties, you know, something that's not residential that do lot splits and involves a little bit more work than what you might think. Um, so we wanted to include that. Then switching gears and going to public works and all the other departments, they identified a number of areas. So they had more changes to that ordinance or to the resolution than we did, like as built drawings. So, when a building's built, there's a drawing that shows where exactly it was placed on the lot, rightway use permit, inspection and reinspection fees, storm water connection to a local system. So, I'll try to answer some. Mr. Road is here in case you wanted to talk about sort of the non-planning stuff, but I'll try to answer any questions you have.

Right. Thank you. Anyone have any questions? We don't have any questions. Would anyone like to make a motion?

Actually, I do have a question. Did you get any feedback from development at all on these fees? Um the planning department does not um the one area we do get feedback and it's really the city engineer and public works has to do with a pre-construction meeting and a lot of the contractors. The way development works sometimes is that contractors have to pay for some of these fees and then they get reimbured by developers. They experience a little bit of sticker shock especially if it's a large project but that's the only one. And as you see, there are tables and tables of the different fees. And planning has never gotten any, you know, feedback about, oh my gosh, these fees are too much. It's really only been that pre-construction meeting that I've heard feedback from.

Okay. I make a motion that we go ahead and approve the fee schedule for land development. Thank you, Mr. Frampus. I'll second the motion for 20263. All right. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor from Miss Voltz. We have a second from Mr. Frampus. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries. 70. All right. 8 D. You know there was a resolution there. Does the attorney have to read that? No, just just ordinances. Okay. Um, building official Oh, I'm sorry. Department building department fee schedule. Mr. Roie,

uh before you kind of keeping with our our annual theme of trying to do the fees all in one night. So I I know this is kind of three fee items, but our our goal is to not do this spread out and confuse anybody. We try to put all the fees on one night so that uh everyone can see the fees that we charge for for the services. and kind of an ongoing uh theme with uh both what Miss Fischer presented and and um a couple of the changes that the building department is uh proposing is really the reinspection and the more challenging items. Um as you saw with uh the planning uh fees the you know as builts and resubmittles of asbuilts and the building department here we have a reinspection fees uh and then offhour uh um permitting is probably the two biggest ones that we're we're trying to capture the more realistic cost what we continue to see here over the last you know 10 years But it's really gotten bad here the last couple years is we really rely on asbuilts. Asbuilts are the so so the we'll pick on LAR since they were here tonight. They're going to have construction plans that our staff will review and approve. They will build the project and then we require ASB builts which are a set of documents that come in after the project is over that that identifies where the pipes actually did go because when you're out in the field and you hit a big boulder you go around it. It doesn't pay to have a construction set of drawings that say the pipes over here if it's really over there. And one of the challenges we've been having with the uh the asbuilts is

just the quality. And we and we want the quality good so that 25 years from now when there's a a water leak or a sewer leak or a storm water's not draining right, um the public works and utility crews aren't out there digging around trying to find where they where they think the pipe is. We want to know where the actual pipe is. And so it's something we've been talking about here probably for about a year and a half. Uh we just want to make sure the quality is what we're getting. And when we don't charge enough, what tends to happen is they turn in as belts that aren't very good. Our staff spends a lot of time reviewing them and and pointing out where they are not correct and then they make those changes and then submit again. And there's kind of a trend of using the city as quality control as opposed to doing it right the first time and and giving it to us. And so we're just trying to balance that. The the other significant item is is the uh off hours work. We we continue to see a big push in, you know, speed in construction. And we're, you know, when it's reasonable times, we're we're happy to try to work with the contractor. Um but we also have to charge if if they want us out there on a Saturday to inspect something, we need to charge the appropriate rate because it's, you know, city's paying time and a half for somebody to be out there. So,

all right. Thank you, Mr. Francis. Make a motion we approve the resolution number 202604 as written. Mr. Gaylord, I'll second. All right, we have a motion on the floor from Mr. Frampus, a second from Mr. Gaylord. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. Those opposed say nay. Motion carries 70. All right, that was easy. So, we'll do the first quarter budget when we get around. Do we want to do that first before we do council reports? Get all the business taken care of. Mayor, that is 100% up to the discretion of the mayor.

Okay. Well, let's let's get the business taken care of and then we can do our council reports and then we'll be done. So, Mr. K. Yes. Mr. Smith, did you want to do the business? Thank you. I'll figure out who it is sooner or later. Uh, good evening, mayor, uh, deputy mayor and council. Thank you for tonight. First of all, mayor, I want to thank you for the comments you made before, but I can't take all the credit as much as I want to, but you know, that's just based on the amazing staff that we have in our accounting department and the predecessors that were before me that laid the foundation. So, thank you. I do appreciate that. And I'll pass along the staff.

Um, trying to get through the uh, budget uh, fairly quickly. For the uh first quarter uh revenues on the general fund, we're currently sitting at about 41% which looks a little bit ahead of schedule. Uh but this does not take into account the $1 million of appropriated budget we have set aside for various citywide projects. When we take into the account the budget the appropriated budgeted portion of the fund balance, we're at 20 and 6% which is about where we should be at this time of year. Um, and actually we're probably about 370,000 ahead of where we've been collecting as of 2024. So on the general fund expenditure side, our wages and benefits are about 20 21% which is in line with our expectations. Our operating expenditures and incumbrances are about 51% of our budget appropriations with actual spending at 39%. The capital outlay and debt service expenditures and incumbrances are at 86% and that's mainly due to the Mitten Lo Mitten Road land purchase and the new community development building. Right now we have a unrestricted fund balance in our general fund at about 20 million. So there's plenty of reserves available. on the storm water fund. Storm water revenues are currently at about 87%. Um that's because a larger portion of our storm water tax revenues are received in the first quarter of the year. Um our current storm water expenditures are at 50% of the budgeted appropriations and that's mainly due to the city's purchase of the streets we burn earlier this year. Um

on the first quarter water sewer revenues uh things look a little bit um unexpected at six and 8% respectively. Um but this is really driven by uh some of our non-recurring revenues that were budgeted such as the bond proceeds and the grant revenues. Um, by removing these non-recurring items, we're looking at about 27% in our water fund revenues and about 21% in the storm in the uh sewer. So, we're pacing just ahead in the water fund and right at expectations in the in the sewer fund. On the expenditure side in the water fund, uh our incumbrances are at 87% of our total budget and that's mainly due to the full cost of the water purchases being encumbered. Yeah, I've been I've had a raspy voice all day long. So,

yeah,

it kind of comes into play, doesn't it? So our water fund operating expenditures and incumbrances are 87% of the total budget and that's mainly due to the incumbrance that we get from the total cost of Melbourne water. Uh the actual spending is at 27% which is right in line with our first quarter budget projections. The water fund capital outlay the actual expenditures during the first quarter are actually at 6%. That's actually below our expectations and that's mainly due to the pace of construction. The elevated incumbrances are associated with the water treatment plant conveyance lines and the well construction projects represent the total contract commitments over the life of the projects. And that and that's rather than the actual expenditures that have been incurred to date. I'll get through this in just a second.

Doing good.

I should. Yeah. Um, on the sewer side, the operating expenditures to date are at 14%. And the total capital outlay is at 1% which is also a little bit behind. But as noted before, some of the encumbrances, the elevated incumbrances are due to the construction pace and that's all due to um the various projects like the bionutrient removal project and the septic sewer projects. Um also like to note that both of those projects are fully grant funded. So when you know the expenses are incurred, that's when our grant revenues will be recognized. So, overall, everything looks to be where I would expect it to be at this time of year. Um, and we'll just keep tracking our construction projects to make sure they're in line with our with our budget.

So, I'm available for any questions if you have any. I don't have any lights on because you've done such a great job preparing the the packet. Surprised you actually could understand me. Uh so so also just a reminder uh we uh director Smith did a great job wrapping up the audit and u with the auditing firm and the auditors are planning to be here on the second meeting of March or the first meeting of April to do their to do their annual uh audit report. So just a side note in case you're wondering minds.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, we'll go back to council reports, Miss Adams.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, just a couple things to highlight. I thought since our at least according to my calendar, we've had a council workshop since our last meeting. It felt like it was not that long ago, but I thought it was very well done. I think it's echoed pretty much every time we have a workshop that everybody feels it's productive and we get a lot done. So, I appreciate that. I think everybody else does as well. I did want to let everyone know I got a last minute notification that Farm Share was coming to Melbourne the other day. It was freezing outside. Can confirm. Uh but we, you know, tried to get the information out as quickly as possible to residents all around Bvard County. I can share with you just from people that showed up and came through and were able to be helped with the food from Farm Share that we had quite a few that drove over from West Melbourne to Melbourne for that opportunity. Uh, I do want to recognize we did get an email from a resident concerning the development timeline that's affecting residents in Sawrass. And I know Mr. Roody's aware of it. We've had a conversation about it. Um, but in terms of, you know, the the road connection versus some other development that's happening there. Um, the a question was raised about access to that community in case of an emergency. And it was a conversation we talked about in terms of how uh Mr. Roadie and I in terms of how the police department could access uh residents if there was an emergency while there was a second emergency happening. Um I think there is a solid plan in place. Um but I do think the resident raised some good concerns and so I don't know if there's flexibility in terms of from a development perspective asking them to wait until the connection road is completed. I know there's not necessarily a timeline for that being as there's some other things that have to happen first, but we did we are starting to hear some concerns about that and I know it's not the first time we've heard concerns regarding access with Sawrass. So, I did want to bring that up. I also

wanted to share with council since uh you've asked for updates regarding things moving at the state level regarding property taxes. There is a piece of legislation. It's HJR203. It was actually co-sponsored by our representative Monique Miller here at the south end of Bvard County. And so her piece is moving forward to a house vote on Thursday. So it's going to be this Thursday. If you're someone that wants to pull it up online, watch it wherever. There are multiple places that this particular um vote will be taken will be shown. Uh, but I did want to bring it to your attention because the way that it's written, it looks to be phasing out nonschool homestead property taxes over 10 years. And so with that change, they also included in the piece of legislation that uh cities cannot reduce their first responder budgets. So, be aware that, you know, if it moves forward the way that it's written, um, they're looking at reducing that over a 10-year period to ultimately get rid of it. Uh, but then we just have to be aware that that could mean making changes to ensure that our first responder budgets are not impacted. So, wanted to bring that to your attention. I don't know if it will pass on Thursday. We will find out. But I did want to let you know if you're someone that wanted to watch or ask questions, not of me, but of the representative or people making those decisions, but just wanted to bring those to council's attention.

Number it is HJR203. Mr. Gayler, did you have a question? Uh, Council Member Adams, uh, is there a companion bill for that in the Senate? Good question. Um, so if I don't I cannot confir give me like I would I would assume there is but know if it got past committee so but I didn't have that on my notes so give me a minute and I'll get back to you before the end of reports. Okay. Is that it miss? Okay Mr. Bentley

I I could answer that question real quick. There's not a direct companion. Um they actually addressed that in the league's um uh briefing that they did yesterday. Um there's the potential for one still to pop up. You know, again, if it's a priority of the Senate President, there are ways they can make things happen even this late in session, but uh right now there's not a direct companion. Okay. You can ask. Go ahead. So there's not a bill. So there's not a companion bill in the Senate. Is are they expecting the bill to die on the vine? Then

I will tell you that the opinion of the league's um uh representatives, the lobbyists that they have, none of them seem all too worried about this happening at this point. That doesn't mean it can't. That doesn't mean it won't. They I just was I was asking about the expectation of a lead. There there seems to be a general feeling that this isn't something that the that the House has created um something that is designed not to pass and the Senate's not really interested in picking it up. But again, this is kind of vibes at this point, right? Not anything definite. Understood. Just wanted to know what you heard from the meeting. So, thank you. All right, Mr. Bentley. No report, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Gaylord. Uh nothing to report.

Miss Magguire. Um, on Sunday I was able to meet with a um, not our local scouts group, but a different scouts group in the community. Um, one of their adventures that they have to do at this stage is have a current elected official walk them through the election process. Um, and we have our local West Melbourne Scouts group who actually uh, when is that date? If any of council would like to come Monday, February 23rd at 5:30 in the PD um training room there, our local scouts group will be coming in for me to kind of just tell them about the election process, how it works, how you get on the ballot, how you win elections, those sorts of things. Um, but anybody is welcome to come to that. Go ahead.

What time? Uh, it's at 5:30. Yes. If it was AM, I would not be there. room.

Correct. Yep. So, Monday, February 23rd at 5:30 in the PD training room. Um, the PD has been very gracious to host it for our lovely West Melbourne scouts. And then I think they're giving a tour for them afterwards, too. So, I think they are really going to enjoy that. So, if any of you guys would like to come out and listen to them, uh, the one I did on Sunday threw out some oddball questions. Really gave me some curve balls. Um, I'm excited to see what ours come up with. Um, other than that, I know I know we got the email today or the other day, I don't remember, about the 192 pedestrian cross lights, crosswalk lights going live. Um, I know how they're supposed to work. I know we've been telling people how they're supposed to work. Nobody already knows how they're supposed to work. Um, and it is kind of confusing the difference between if it's flashing yellow or if it's just yellow or if it's flashing red or if it's just red. Um, obviously it's not our project, but it's going to be ours to deal with. Um, so I don't know if there's something else we can do to put signs up that say what to do, at least for a little bit.

What? Yeah, we we we you know, they did a good job of reaching out to us to let them know they were going live about four and a half months ago. Uh and then sent an email when they went live. So, little, you know, bless the state. Um I wish they would have given us a at least a week's notice this time. That's what the sign's going to say, right?

So, we we will push again. uh with with the social media we will push again uh the stuff that we've been putting out the last couple months. We you know part of the challenges we put it out pretty heavy and then they never went live and now and now and now two of of them are live and not all of them. So we'll we'll uh get that out to social media again and remind people and try to help try to help get the message out.

I will say they've had signage up in places that signage would be good for. I was at the mall food court and they have them in the tables at the mall food court that kind of tells you what to do when it does this or that. Um, was not expecting that when I sat down in the mall food court, but I was like, this is the perfect place to tell people. Um, so yeah, here I have it. I got you. I pulled it up. Um,

so if there are no lights, it means go. Um, if it's flashing yellow, it means slow down. That people walking have activated the button. If it's just straight yellow, no flashing, just yellow. It means prepare to stop. Uh, watch for people walking. If it's red, two red lights, straight, no blinking, no flashing, just straight two red lights, it's stop. People are crossing. And if it's flashing red lights, it means proceed with caution if clear. So, you got to stop and caution. like a regular.

So, it's like your slow down and then be prepared and then stop and then if it's clear you can go or it could be off, right? I guess it's like a typically flashing. Yeah. So, it's not insanely difficult. There's just two additional things that the light does that people aren't used to. and then the fact that it's off at sometimes versus not. So, I think that is going to cause us some issues, especially as more of those start going live. Um, so it might be worth it to try it again now that they're actually working.

Okay, that was easy. Um, Mr. Frampus,

thank you, Mayor. I just uh wanted to reiterate on the 5th we had the workshop and uh like Miss Adams said, it's it's it's nice. It's a good change of format and where we can just talk about things and uh worked out well. Hopefully we have more. I know we got one more coming up at least. Um and uh just to touch a little bit on the sawrass thing that Miss Adams talked about. Um the reason that that all came up was because we had a disabled tractor trailer that was caught on the top of the hill. Um, the residents I I spelled out everything that was supposed to be done. The residents didn't like my answer because they wanted this emergency evacuation route opened and they were inconvenenced for an hour. And today's society, we can't be inconvenienced at all. So, um, it would, like Mr. Rodie had said to me before, it takes at least an hour to establish to reopen, you know, an evacuation lane. So, it would have been pointless to do that. They didn't like my answer. So, they reached out to everybody and uh apparently they're getting some response out of it. So, um I know Tom had gotten three or four calls and answered some emails and and you know, so the procedure is it's an evacuation lane. If we got a hurricane and our the main road shut down, they'll open up the evacuation lanes. You know, for for emergencies, it's up to the discretion of law enforcement if they want to open it. But typically, it's just for emergency vehicles coming in. If there's a blockage, it needs to have a clear lane for emergency vehicles to come in. And that's what it's for, not not to open it up for convenience of residents. So, if anybody else gets calls, it's not about the resident being convenience.

It's about getting emergency vehicles in and that's what it's there for. And it's not for public convenience. Mayor, Mayor, if I may. Yes, ma'am. Please. I'm just clarifying the resident that I think reached out to us was talking about an emergency situation for them accessing, not a community coming and going.

And that came up, oh, what if my son got sick or um probably the one that you got um you know, well then you call 911 and they have an emergency way in. That's what that's not opening up so you can get your son to the hospital. you call 911 and they'll come take your son to the hospital. So, they didn't like the answer. I I said it just the way that the city was putting the information out there. So, um you know, it is what it is. It's there for a reason and and they're going to utilize it the Thank you.

Okay. Miss Vult. Yes. Um attended the League of Cities in Rocklage. That was um a good event. I just wish that they would serve normal food. Um I have to say um that John ordered Oh, they had steak and plastic silverware and he broke his fork trying to cut it and it was a total disaster. I didn't even eat hardly. It was It was kind of funny. But anyway, um the food could be better. Um anyway, um Palm Bay Chamber lunch and I went to that. That was that was really uh well done. And then of course, you know, I'm on the commission on aging. There was a lady from the state, maybe from the federal government, I think, that flew down and talked about um seniors being scammed. And it was she did a really really good presentation on that one. And um and I agree the council workshop was good. I think we should do more of those soon. All right. Thank you. All right. Um so speaking of council workshops, um I went to the Florida League of Mayors event um Fridays um Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and uh there was 66 mayors there. And one of the things we do for this particular one, we we talked about media media training because a lot of the councils and a lot of the mayors don't have media training. They have a PIO officer. Um but the public doesn't always go to the to the regular PIO officer. They know people on council. They see them shopping in the pickle aisle at Publix and they want an answer. If an emergency happens, like it just so happened that the table I was sitting at was with the mayor of of uh Ocala.

That's where we were. And they had a very recent emergency where a a person that was having a a mental problem just walking down the street just shooting people in the back of the head with their his 45. So that was an issue that was a real true emergency. And so it was all hands on on deck of course. And um so our our workshop that we were having is what do you do first? What what is the first thing you do? Well, is it is it speed? Is it accuracy? What do you say to the public, your PIO officer, once your residents have spoken with the PIO officer, you have that person up there speaking with the sheriff and in in some towns it is the mayor. In some towns, fortunately, this one is not the mayor. Um, but you still are speaking with people on on the street. So, we talked about different things or what would happen if these things were to happen to us. So, I wrote down some things for any time. I mean, we have schools here and we have planes fly over and we have flooding and we have fires and we have those other things that any of these given moments it could be us. Um, do does anybody here think we need to have a workshop on media training? What to say? Though I it hasn't happened recently to me, but I would get calls from Dave Burman from Florida today when we'd be having an issue. And you know that they're just waiting to catch you saying something about any issue going on in the city. And sometimes it isn't. Now that we have social media, it could just be a blogger somewhere that's looking to get likes on their social media. So, they're just looking for you to say something. you know, once it's said you can't retract it, then you can't argue with them. So, do you think it would be to anyone's benefit here if we had a um a workshop on media on media training with the council would how to what to say, what not to say, what is definitely off limits. I know it's difficult to schedule all of us on a on a day when we can all be there, but I just thought I would throw it out there.

Maybe some people feel it's not necessary, maybe some people feel it is. What's the workshop where it's just kind of abbreviated session included in a workshop, a regular workshop? All right. We don't have a workshop coming up, but when we do we do we don't have a date for it, but Okay. All right. So, maybe we can do that. Maybe we can spend spend some time on that. Um, Miss Adams, you someone trying to put their light on because I don't have it here. Okay.

My only thoughts on that are don't personal perspective, I don't see as much value in necessarily training of this is what you say versus not because there are seven of us that represent the community. And so I think ultimately that's your decision elected official if you decide you're comfortable with what you want to say then you go for it and you're held accountable either way moving forward but I think you know we are not necessarily we may call for My understanding is typically they reach out to Mr. I don't know if it's necessarily first. I don't know his timeline versus what other people have reached out. I just don't know if training necessarily the way you're presenting is valued versus how do you understand sorry how do you understand an emergency and what would we do as a council in that situation? I think that's valuable versus a training of this is what you say and not say. But that's just my opinion. I don't see as much value from a training perspective in that regard. That's what it feels like. If I were a resident,

we should be deflecting this person. If I were a resident hearing, my council wants training on what to say and not to say to me in an emergency, I'm going to ask, well, if I'm calling my council member and asking a question, I'm going to want them to tell me whatever it is they can tell me. You know, obviously the truth, but that may not include all details. if it's a, you know, a medical emergency or a mental health crisis or something like that, there's private information that probably can't be shared, but that's, you know, something I think we understand. You can share what is public information and I think we get clarity on that from our legal department and our city manager, but

and so we're sending the same message because I know when when I run into um to some of my residents have known me a long time, I cannot give them a pat homogenized answer. they're just not going to accept it. They want because they're going to take whatever was said publicly and call me or run into me at the store and they don't want to verify it. So, uh, and I think that's with all of us because we're all out there on on the street and our residents know us. They look in our face. They don't want a homogenized answer. They just tell me, just tell me straight when we're having a boil water, whatever, whatever it is. So, but I think there is value in understanding what is our policy, our protocol, what do what happens in an emergency there. I think there's lots of value, but that's my opinion, mayor. Thank you.

So, do we have Okay, we've got at least forehead shaking. Can we do that in our next um workforce u work shop? All right. So, that's what I wanted to say about that. And other and um after that, the city of Ocala was so clean. There was no trash anywhere. It got to the point where it was spooky and I was looking for trash because be because it's like this is a regular city. This is was like the Twilight Zone. There was no trash. There was no traffic backups. It was a very very very clean city. That was the first thing I noticed. So, I just wanted to mention that if you're going to go inland over there, that's a a good place to go.

Proposing our next council meeting be on the road. We can take trash bags and trash pickers and walk and talk. We That's what I'm That's what I'm thinking. No, we do not take our trash there. That's fine. We be proactive and we pick up our own trash. Anything else from council before we go to management reports? Okay, Mr. Vodie.

Uh just real briefly, uh the council certainly invited the next uh five Wednesday nights we'll have our citizens uh leadership academy. Uh got a good group. I think we're uh still at either 14 or 15 um for tomorrow night. Um they're over at 6 o'clock at the uh police training room. And so feel free if you just want to uh pop in and listen or um or if you if you just want to pop in, I'm happy to introduce you and uh um feel free to stop in any of them and and introduce yourself. 6 o'clock every Wednesday the next what? 6:00 to 7:30 and we usually go a little little longer but so usually 6:00 to 7:30 it looks like a really good group so I'm excited to uh last year we didn't didn't quite have the numbers and so this year it's good to see a a full group again.

All right. Can I ask a question? Is it would it be something that me as a city council person would benefit by? I don't know. We we don't we charge a little bit more for council members to attend. It's it's free times two.

Um if you would like to attend, any council member is like is is more than welcome to come. If you just want to come to one of them, come to all of them. Um don't bother coming to the police night. That's never any fun. uh they bring out all their toys and the dog demonstration and all that stuff is not as exciting as city attorney and I talking about sunshine and uh ordinances and the fun stuff that goes into local government. Don't forget the sewer plant tour

and and the sewer plant tour. So, um uh we'll forward the itinerary, the agenda. Um and feel free feel free to stop in. Uh everyone uh council is always welcome. And thank you, Mr. Kerry. And uh for an added bonus, I'll be speaking tomorrow, so I'm not coming.

Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't recommend it. Um the uh only thing I wanted to use this platform for real quick was to remind you in the wake of Valentine's Day that if you received any gifts, this is a gentle reminder that you need to make an evaluation of whether you need to report it or not to the state. Uh the state does have recording reporting requirements for gifts. Um, now this doesn't include gifts from your significant others. So, you know, or those grandfathered relationships, but if say, you know, a lobbyist or somebody who does business with the city gives you a gift out of the kindness of their heart, that should uh prompt you to think, do I need to report that or not? And if you ever have any questions about whether you do, uh, please let me know and I you all know where to find me. Um, you know, this also comes in with tickets to gallas and balls and stuff like that. And you know, there are rules about this and and I don't need to get into all that tonight, but just as a reminder that it is your responsibility as a council member anytime you get a gift to think about if you need to report it or not. And if you ever have any questions about that, please call me. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Roie, I forgot to ask you about the street sweeper. I think it was mentioned earlier. Um, Keith mentioned it earlier. I haven't figured it out. It's still working. Okay. It should. It's brand spanking. But I haven't I I in the beginning I saw some of its maiden voyage run, but I've not seen it since then and maybe I've just haven't seen it stealthy. We we

put it on stealth mode. No, we uh we have had the street sweeper out uh per the schedule. Um we did have it did install a GPS tracker uh so it can make a map of what it's doing. We're still finalizing some routes um to try to get it, you know, the fewer left turns it makes, the more efficient it is. So, we're we're trying to get that pattern in good, but it's working very well. Uh haven't had any maintenance issues with it so far. And so, um but that a lot of that goes to the quality of the operator. If a good operator, while the bristles are um uh underneath uh the mechanics of it, the the more skilled you are, the longer they will last. So,

oh yeah, let me I'm happy to get poundage that we're uh paying to get rid of. I didn't know. Yep. I I don't have it in front of me, but I happy to We used to We used to get a a report on that when they would go through how many pounds of debris and stuff they took off the road. That would be nice to know. Maybe it could go on the Friday roundup for whatever some more text in there for you, Megan. All right. Anyone else have any more comments for the good of the order? All right. We are adjourned.