Village Council - workshop

For this meeting at the Wellington Village Council agenda review for April 13. And we are gonna welcome to this the not yet sworn in council members, Johnny Meyer and Stephen Levin. However, you don't get to vote today. None of us do. So you can be here on sworn. Perfect. Thank you. Mr. Barnes, take us

All through Let's get started. First item, of course, before we even get to any part of the agenda, you'll have the appointment of the vice mayor. So that'll be happening first thing after we get the meeting started tomorrow evening. And then under presentations and proclamations, we actually have four items. You only see three there.

In your folder, have an item that we're gonna recommend that we make seven a, and everything would correspondingly drop down as b, c, and d. That's senator Lori Berman will be coming in for a legislative update. She was originally scheduled to be here at the May meeting, but unfortunately, schedule prevents her from being able to make that date. So she requested and we have agreed to allow her to present an update for us tomorrow evening. So she'll be that'll be moving first item at seven a.

Next item is a presentation by clerk Mike Caruso, and he's been making the rounds to different communities to just give an update on the clerk's office and their respective activities and initiatives throughout the county. And the third item will be a presentation by board members of the Wellington Community Foundation annually based on a request and programming schedule we provide them. They have raised funds to fund some of those programs, and they'll be presenting that check to counsel tomorrow evening and making a presentation on behalf of the foundation, and we'll have several of their members here joining us. And lastly, a presentation by Charles Duvall and some of his other associates from CareerSource, Palm Beach County, and they'll just be providing us an update on both partnership that we have working together with CareerSource and the village as well as other programs they have. If you recall, probably I think about a year ago, maybe a little longer, the folks from CareerSource were here to present to us.

This is just a continuing update. Those are our presentations and proclamations bringing us to consent agenda. First item is authorization to utilize the Southeast Co op contract for the purchase and delivery of Stream Pool Chemicals. Mr. Dale Gray

can take us through it.

Okay. Good afternoon everyone. The Parks and Recreation Department uses a variety of pool chemicals at the aquatic center including Pulsar brand Binders over there. Pulsar Brand Bic briquettes. These briquettes are required in order for the current pool chlorination system to operate within the parameters necessary to meet the National Sanitary Foundation and American National Standards Institute requirements.

The city of Sunrise acting as the lead agency for the Southeast Florida Co op awarded a contract to CES for the purchase and delivery of these Pulsar brand briquettes. The contract is effective from 03/26/2026 through 03/25/2027 with a contract price of $178.7 per pail. That's a slight increase over the previous year's cost. It will increase our annual price by $7,200 more year over year. We are still requesting authorization to utilize this contract, it's the best price that we can find for such Pulsar brand briquettes and these are required in order for us to continue to operate the pool. And you guys see these every year, it's probably your

Which we're going to do. The price also went up because we have more pools now?

Quantities are going up, we're not there yet. I was just talking to Mr. Harris who obviously manages our pool and we're seeing slight increases as we get into the summer. We suspect that the usage will increase even more. Okay.

These are the most exciting items we do.

That's the tenth I one you've approved Mr. McDonough.

Tenth, I think this would be like however many,

yes, sure. Anyone have any questions on pool chemicals? Thank you. Next item.

All right. Next item is authorization to continue using a Southeast co op contract for multiple vendors for the purchase and delivery of sodium hydroxide. This is for the water utility and Ms. Pence is here to provide any backup.

Hello. So sodium hydroxide is used for odor control at the water and wastewater plant, and also in the water plant for water stabilization. This item is an authorization to continue to use a Southeast Florida cooperative contract for two vendors for up to a $135,000 annually. Council previously awarded this contract to last two years at least to the same two vendors, Univar Solutions and Brenntag MidSouth. This is a renewal with no price increases, I'm happy to say, from either vendor proposed. Staff is recommending approval of this item. A total of 14 municipalities use this contract. The pricing is very competitive. The funds are allocated in our operating budget, and staff is recommending approval.

No price increases is always nice. I rarely heard.

Can you say nothing after that?

We rarely heard. Just approve it as quickly as possible. Any questions? All right. Thank you.

Moving right along, the utility show continues. Next item is task order provide hydro consulting services for Phase VI of the Wellfields Rehab Project and also a task order for the labor equipment materials for that same phase of the Wellfields Rehab Project. And Ms. Bantz is going give us some information.

And only because we have new people who want to explain the project is two in general so we know what we're talking about when we get into the dollars? Yeah, I'd be happy

So just for some background, the utility maintains 18 surficial wells that provide our raw water supply. So this is untreated water that we pull out of the ground that goes to the water plant. So a standard practice proactive well rehabilitation is essential to keep the well field healthy and operating well. We do this yearly. We do this based on reviews from our hydrogeologist. We review the well field yearly, and they make recommendations regarding which wells to rehab, how many, to keep the program going. So well filled rehab overall, again, we do we do this every year, the wells that need it the most. So this is to get the wells functioning where they need to be. We do something called acidization. You put acid down the well.

It helps kind of the hydrogeologic, the pores and stuff in the ground, keep them keep the water flowing the way it needs to. Brushing and swabbing, is just a manual cleaning of the well. They're 70 feet or so underground, so it's a bit of an operation. We video to look at the well and we do what's called well development, which basically means we pump out the well at a high volume to kind of keep the well healthy and operating the way we want to. So the first authorization is a task order for Florida Design Drilling for the actual rehab and an authorization of up to 550,000 for this phase six rehabilitation project.

This will include rehab of three wells. It has about 40,000 in owner controlled contingency. The task order uses a village of Wellington on call contract that we bid earlier this year for well field drilling and rehabilitation. So we have the pricing all under that that we do these under, and that was bid and approved earlier this year. The second authorization is for JLA Geosciences for $96,816 for hydrogeological consulting service for the oversight of the well rehab and the three wells.

They stay on-site for a lot of these operations to protect the wells and make recommendations based on their certifications as a professional geologist. So staff is recommending approval of these authorizations for Florida design drilling and JLA geosciences. And any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Great.

You will all learn that utilities are very expensive to operate and maintain, and Ms. Pantz is here a lot asking for funding to keep everything running properly. Ms.

Pants can run through a million dollars real quick.

Right. But it all goes back to your drinking water and wastewater, so it's where you want it spent. Any questions on this? All right. Thank you.

More utility still here.

To utilize

Southeast Florida co op contract for the purchase delivery of chemical scale inhibitor, which is anti scalant, also for the utility. And Ms. Bans can give us some background.

Sure. So similar to many membrane plants across the country, our department utilizes a chemical called anti scalant as part of the nanofiltration membrane treatment process. So this is a chemical that keeps hardness and metals dissolved in the water so that they can be effectively removed by the nanofiltration treatment process. They protect the membranes, help us keep a longer life on the membranes, and also help us maintain regulatory compliance. So this chemical was also we've had a couple of them bid by the Southeast Florida Cooperative led by the city of Deerfield Beach in this case.

The Southeast Florida co op contracts in general are used by dozens of municipalities for the purpose we get very competitive bulk pricing for common water treatment and other items. So the Deerfield the city of Deerfield accepted a bid for antiskalant with Amaya Solutions, also known as American Water Chemicals, at a price of $1.33 per pound. This is up about 6% from previous years. Anticipated annual expenditures are estimated at $100,000, So these funds are allocated in our operating budget and staff is recommending approval of this item. Any questions? I'd be happy to answer.

Any questions? Did you want ask them?

Yes. You've mentioned a number of different coops and different municipalities that lead different coops. I understand the idea of leverage buying power. How many different coops participate in what we're doing and who decides which municipality is lead agent?

You it's you see the same municipalities lead the same ones every year. I'm not sure how they decide it. It it tends to be like 10 or 20 municipalities participate in the coop, us included. We can always and we have in the past, we don't like the co op pricing and we can do better, we've done that. But if op the pricing is competitive, we'll tend to lean toward those.

And what actually Tim walked in on me because I was counting how many participants there are to the Southeast Florida co op because I figured, hey, maybe the question might come up. There's 57 total cities that participate in the Southeast Florida co op. Now, not every municipality will actually be part of every bid. Like for instance, some of these, I think you mentioned 14 municipalities, in other cases 20 municipalities. There's no way the village, if we went out to bid on our own, could come anywhere near that price because we're putting gallons and gallons and gallons of this use of fourteen, twenty municipalities to get a bulk price. There's no way we'll ever find a better price than that as long as we're using the co op.

I appreciate that you researched that since we haven't heard that question in eleven years. Right. Thank you.

Thank you. Well done.

Another fun footnote not related to co ops is that all those preceding items you had from utilities are all funded out of the utility fund, which is not funded by ad valorem tax dollars. Those are funded by strictly the actual customers of the system.

Right. It's an enterprise fund,

which means

it funds itself as it goes along. It's not the ad valorem tax dollars. It's set up as

an enterprise fund and not funded by ad valorem.

Any other questions on this Yes.

This item? Hi.

We can do that at the end. What's that? We'll do that at the end. We're on the roll. All right. Brings us to our next item which is authorization to renew existing contracts for purchase delivery and installation of mulch pine straw and ground prep village wines. Mr. Belveda can get us started.

Yeah, on 05/10/2022, council awarded a contract for mulch pine straw and ground preparation to AmeriGrow Recycling, Delray Limited Partnership and East Coast Mulch Corporation to provide those types of materials to be used village wide. The initial term of the contract was from 05/10/2022 through 05/09/2023 and had the option four additional one year renewals. We're seeking our option to renew with both companies, both have agreed to renew at the same unit price that was previously awarded, so there's no increase. We're looking at approximately $177,500 annually. If you look at Page 67, it's a few pages down, you can actually see the unit prices for each of the items and both companies East Coast mulch and AmeriGrow, and I'll use the first row as an example, equal mulch shredded or proved equal.

East Coast is at $2.39 a bag, AmeriGrow is at $1.75 a bag. So our guys would go to AmeriGrow and the event AmeriGrow for whatever reason doesn't have it available, we would then have East Coast as a backup on that item. But as you can see, there's 31 different items and some of them are lower than others, so we will always go to the lowest one first. If it's not available, we have the second company as backup.

Mr. Wagner, you're happy? Always. Always. Not always, but you're happy in this instance.

Question. So it ran from '22 to '23 with the option to renew for four additional one year. So are we in our third year then?

We'd have to run the numbers on my head. No, it looks like according to

this year and your last year of this renewal.

Yep, this should be the last one.

The last year.

Yep. And we're still holding pricing from that original contract, so that's good.

That's the

that's four or five years. Mr. Wagon? The

same pricing.

Wait, you want to say something? No. Oh, you came to the microphone. Thought you had a comment.

Just in case.

Okay. Any questions? Alright. Moving on.

Alright. The next item which is authorization to issue purchase order for irrigation pump station upgrades at Greenbrier Park and Village Park. Mr. David gets started. Mr. Wagner is here for details Okay. And

We're seeking authorization to issue purchase orders to Hoover Pumping Systems and Cerrito Electric for two irrigation pump station upgrades at a total cost of $115,948.37 The Public Works Department is looking to install two irrigation pump station upgrades at Greenbrier Park and Village Park Fields 13 Through 16. Those are the fields that are nearest the new Wellington Sports Academy that are currently being used by our Wellington Wave travel soccer team. The existing systems require replacement to ensure reliable operation of the irrigation system. In addition to the pump station upgrades, electrical improvements are required to upgrade the existing panel to meet the system requirements at Greenbrier Park. So staff separately obtained quotes for the electrical work and Cerrito provided the lowest quote at 6,280 for the removal of the existing equipment installation of a 200A service panel and coordination with FP and L.

The total project cost for Greenbrier Park, the pump station is $54,677.16 The additional upgrades for electrical for Cerrito is $6,280 for a total of $60,957.16 And the total project cost for the Village Park Irrigation pump station upgrade is $54,991.21 and both of those combined are the total request for $115,948.37 and we are seeking authorization to go ahead and issue purchase orders to both Hoover and Cerrito for this job.

How old are these systems mister Wagner?

Over twenty years old.

Okay. This is their this is the end of their natural life. It's time to replace and upgrade them? Exactly. It's the age. Okay.

More than anything. The other thing at Greenbrier though, seeing that we added those two fields out there,

we

had to upgrade this system.

Right. Because it only took care of

really the dog park area. So now we had a

boosted and this is the boost. Okay.

But I mean, we've made those last for twenty years. I mean, that's as good as you're going to get in regards to maintenance and upkeep on something that we use as regularly as not.

The parts too. Can't get them.

Any other questions? Alright. Mister Barnes.

Alright. Thanks to the next item which is resolution number twenty twenty six dash 19, which is the rescinding of six eight eight zoning in progress resolution. Mister Silence is here to present.

January, the council approved a resolution for zoning in progress where we were moving forward to remove or amend the LDR to remove section six eighty eight from the code With the anticipation that the legislature would make some changes to the statutes that were changed for in senate bill one eighty whereby we couldn't make any compliment amendments or LDR amendments that were more burdensome or restrictive on property until October 2027. And so there were no changes in this legislative session and we don't anticipate any in the in the special session. We recommend rescinding the zoning of progress and we'll go back to working with the EPC to see how we might modify six eight eight to be clear or to provide better direction. In talking with the chair of the EPC that he would appreciate some direction from counsel if you have any specific instructions on six eighty eight. Otherwise we'll work with them on how they would like to see it changed.

Can you or Ms. Cohen explain why we can't keep this in place as long as we feel like it? Explain why that we have to rescind it now?

I say one because it effectively is more cumbersome and restrictive and so we're effectively in violation if we continue to pursue it. One, we're not pursuing the amendments which would or the progressing with the zoning in progress. And so that would be the reason to rescind it. Ms. Cohen?

Yeah, I agree. I mean, you can't have a the purpose of this is because we didn't want to process any more applications while we were considering this change to our code to you know, to 6.8.8. And now that we're not able to make those changes, it's not appropriate to prevent applications from coming through the process. So we do need to rescind this.

And we put this in place because we were hopeful that this legislature would amend SB 180, which they made it overly broad that applies to literally everything seemingly forever because whenever there's an emergency it reactivates and extends. And so we're hoping they would make some changes to that and anything we change to this would be more restrictive or more burdensome which means we would run afoul the statute and we can't do anything.

And effectively would preclude us from processing those applications.

In essence, what our intent was should have there been any modifications to Senate Bill 100 that allowed us to do this, our intent was to actually eliminate the provisions of six eighty eight so that there would not be an ability to have those clustering provisions. But given that in that scenario now Senate Bill 180 as it's been written and approved and not changed the session wouldn't allow us to that because that would be more restrictive.

So we can't abolish 6.8.8 because of SB180 in

That's its current right.

But that then leads to the second question. If they're supposed to give direction to the Equestrian Preserve, what direction can they give if they can't do anything that's more restrictive than what we have? I mean, we can go through it and do all of that clarifying that you just described, but ultimately to reach what end? How do you clarify that we would like something to be more restrictive but the law says it can't be? I mean, how does one square that circle?

I think the objective would be to provide more definition to some of the provisions while not being more restrictive. So that's the clarity that would be sought. It'll be a kind of a balancing act.

Ms. Cohen, what's the status of the lawsuit that was filed by other municipalities to challenge SB 180 because they didn't like the way it impacted their comp plans? Is it still ongoing?

I believe it is. I don't know the answer to that, but I can have an answer for you by tomorrow night.

Okay. Because we opted not to join that because we were hopeful that they were going to fix this problem they created, whether inadvertently or in purpose, and they did not. So we might want to revisit whether we want to join that lawsuit because it ties our hands on what we're allowed to regulate that our people would like us to regulate.

Correct.

Okay.

Brings us to the next item which is Resolution Number twenty twenty six-thirteen which is the resolution supporting the MPO's Transportation Alternatives Grant Program. Mr. Stilent is going take us through it.

We have submitted application to the MPO for bike lanes on South Shore Boulevard between Forest Hill Boulevard and Lake Worth Road. As part of the grant application, we need to submit a letter of a resolution of support by the village council and that is what this resolution does. The maximum award that we can receive is 1,500,000.0 and we're currently going through the review process with the MPO and FTOT right now.

Mr. Stelling, have you received some letters of support from the community? Yes, I have.

Thank you very much.

We would like his bike line to continue.

We received two from residents and one from Wellington Lifestyle Partners.

This would go in front of their property so they're in favor of it?

Yes, sir.

Okay, that's good to know. Any other questions on this? Go get the grant money.

Go get it.

Last item on the consent.

Consent agenda is outside legal fees and costs for Johnson and Selmo. Ms. Kellen can take us through it.

So this is the lawsuit, kind of a friendly lawsuit against Brie Frank to Quiet Title. And we're currently at over 51,000 almost $52,000 in legal fees. But as you recall, there is an agreement in place for BREFRANC to reimburse us for 50% of those. And we are doing very well in getting all of the defaults and also resolving outstanding issues. And I think we should be able to get this wrapped up within the next couple of months.

We haven't had any problems with any defendants objecting or fighting the issue yet?

No. The one that we had, I believe, will resolve.

Okay.

And that will bring them all into resolution at that point?

Yes. I think we're still waiting for some clerk's defaults. The motions have been filed. There were two defendants who just needed to get approval of the form of the stipulation, and that's been approved now. And so once we get all of those clerk's defaults in and we resolve that one particular defendant that we were working with, think that we'll be in a position then to get a judgment.

And when we talk about these legal fees, are these legal fees are only for this matter?

Yes. This is for the quiet title, yes. That's 51 to date, almost 52. But our exposure there is 50% and it's budgeted. So it's not an unbudgeted or unexpected expense.

Sure. Well, I mean, is coming to us just like all these other items simply because it's over the number

Correct.

That you all can do without coming here.

Right. And it's a you know, this is required in order for us to close on the property, in order for us to provide clear title to the property.

And so the new folks understand this is because it's ongoing litigation. We had a shade session to discuss this and the shade session is one of the few things we do outside of Sunshine. We can discuss these things and strategies and how we're going about this in more detail than we can do here. So we don't waive attorney client privilege. If you have any more detailed questions that Ms. Cohen is dancing around answering more specifically, see her after class.

There is a budget item for outside legal services. What portion of the budget does this consume?

It's within the legal services department budget, and this year that whole line item I think was $200,000 for outside legal services, so it's within that line item.

It's a small percentage of

the And 50% of that will be recovered?

No, no, no. Only 50% of the fees expended on this particular matter, but our overall outside counsel budget for the year was $200,000 Now, you know, we have had some litigation that we did not anticipate, and it's possible that in the near future you may see us come and ask for a budget amendment to that outside counsel budget. But for purposes of this particular matter, the fees expended are this 50 one-ninety 2,109 to date.

And we had already negotiated in this that they were going to pay half of those legal fees, right? Without getting into any of the attorney client stuff, this is part of the settlement of a lawsuit between the village and Brie Frank about a mapping issue and a whole number of things. Concludes all of that litigation, results in the sale of the 10 acre site behind the Hampton, etcetera, etcetera, and concludes that in its entirety. This was an unforeseen issue related to that that had to be litigated and addressed, that's why we made them pay for half of it. There were a lot

of title issues that had to be cleared up with the property that we couldn't do outside of the lawsuit. So we had to file a friendly lawsuit to get all these title issues cleared up with all the different various landowners who once had a title to this property. We have to get them all resolve it. It's this dragged this whole process out and it costs money to do it and they've agreed to pay half the freight to

get it done. Partly because it's their title people that brought this issue up in the first place.

But we're getting it done.

But when it all when this all ends Does that get you is approve? Concluded and that property is sold and we get all of that money, which is a very significant number.

Plus half a week.

Which is a pittance of that other number.

So before we flip into the public hearing section, again, going doing the Agenda review 101, we usually spend more time at these meetings on the consent items because we don't discuss them in detail at the meeting tomorrow night. But there's always the option if we have a consent item that someone wants to discuss further, any one council member can pull an item off a consent and put it on the regular agenda in case we think it warrants further discussion or something people should become more aware of than just blowing through on the consent agenda. This is generally not of the things you know I think we need to pull anything off of you know chemicals and stuff that we have to buy is fine but sometimes we have more interesting items that we want to pull off and when we get to the public hearing and regular agenda items we generally do them briefer here because we're going get the full presentation tomorrow. We do today to kind of hit any questions we have that we want staff to be aware of we're going ask tomorrow night so that way they're not surprised hearing stuff for the first time.

So I guess with that as a background, next item.

All right. With that, we're bringing it now public hearings, orders number 2020 six and also 20207. One is for 50th Street rezoning, the other one is 50th Street Comprehensive Plan Amendment, and Mr. Silence can take us through those two items.

And just so you know, we do have some interested parties for these items. So you'll hear from not only the applicant, but the interested parties tomorrow night.

And I think we've discussed considering these separately in the past now instead of doing them all as one combined item. Do we have a suggestion on whether these should be dealt with separately or as one item? Sometimes there's confusion because one standard applies to one item and a different standard applies to another item. We don't want to gloss over and

misconstrue I what we're think that if they are agreeable to combining the hearing, I think we can go ahead and combine it unless you feel differently.

Okay. And that's up to us tomorrow night. We can decide what we want to do. All right, Tim. Let's go. What do we got?

So this is the 59 acre property at the Northeast corner of Owsley Farms Road and 50th Street South. The first item is a comprehensive plan amendment effectively eliminating conditions that are tied to the land use that were associated with the proposed Littlewood Showgrounds that was contemplated to move to this property from the where they had been operating the show just west of Wellington International in what's referred to as Grand Prix South. That show never moved. The property was never developed in such a way and so the owner is asking to remove those remove the restrictions tied to that proposed showground. And then the rezoning is to bring the zoning into compliance with the land use of equestrian commercial recreation.

That was done in initiated in 2005 and adopted in 2007 but the zoning was never changed and the owners has come forward to ask that to happen now.

On the comp plan amendment on page 159 it shows a strike through of section two site specific conditions. Is that what we're being is that all we're being asked to remove? And is that the only change to the comp plan that we're voting on tomorrow?

Yes. Yeah, the land use is a question commercial recreation. It won't be changing. The modification is just to remove those conditions as I said were that were tied to the proposed showgrounds that was going to move to this property. And at the time the staff that brought this forward concerned about the intensity of the show and so they established some land use conditions tied to it.

Typically it would have come forward with a compatibility determination or conditional use which they did ultimately apply for in 2010 but later withdrew. And so back in 05/00/2007 it wasn't uncommon to condition land uses because of transportation and public utility or public infrastructure considerations, but we do not do that as a practice any longer.

So for the purposes of anybody watching this, when we delete Section two, what are we replacing it with?

Nothing. You're effectively just switching it to a general category. Well, you're the land use would be the the property would be permitted the uses that are permitted by that land use and then ultimately the zoning should that be approved as well. And what's happened since the o five zero seven is that what was previously the land use was commercial recreation, which was village wide. It included a host of uses that you wouldn't want in your area.

We changed that to specific question commercial recreation further tailoring those uses separating what was commercial rec between sort of inside the EOZD and outside And the Equestrian Commercial Recreation narrowed those permitted uses even further than what was previously allowed to to be very equestrian area oriented such as agricultural uses and supportive uses of the equestrian community.

And that's essentially what's getting subbed in here?

Well not subbed in but that's essentially what would be permitted on

It already exists on the property. The issue is we've now taken away the site specific initiative but only allow a showground on that property because they're not the owner's not doing a showground on that property, which is why they asked for the change in the first place back 10 ago it was, twenty years ago.

Well, twenty years ago was an actual land use from residential to commercial recreation for the show Okay. Showgrounds. And that just never went forward. I think in in the timeline, that was completed in 2007. Mister Bellissimo purchased the property in 2008 while also taking over Wellington International and kind of the history moves on from there.

And on the other application, the rezoning, that's because the underlying land use is inconsistent with what the zoning is because when the land use change, the zoning never followed it. But my understanding from talking to both of you is that if there's an inconsistency between land use and zoning, the land use controls and the zoning is somewhat irrelevant because you can't limit them by the zoning because it's the land use that controls what they can Yes. So we're looking to just harmonize the zoning with the land use because whether we do this or not they can still do everything permitted under the land use.

Yes. And equestrian commercial zoning is the only consistent and compatible zoning with equestrian commercial land use. Did I say that right?

You know you confused yourself. I did. You get it? Okay. Neither of these other than taking off the site specific conditions for a showground, neither of these applications provide the landowner applicant with any additional rights or entitlements that they don't already have presently today?

No, sir. Okay.

I think that's important for people to understand because there's a mis perception about what this actually does and doesn't do.

And the other question a significant misperception in that regard. And the question then becomes if you go in reverse. Right? Take the take this in reverse. What what what if tomorrow night they don't repeal this? This what if they don't repeal the site specific conditions related to a showground? What happens?

Effectively, nothing. Our our position has been that those limitations were on a showground not on the use of the property. So that if they wanted to do an agricultural use on this property that was permitted they would be allowed They just if they were because again a showground was a conditional use and was often conditioned as you see here. Whereas other uses which are permitted by Wright don't have those same limitations or even the additional need for that added condition of approval. And so and and it's it's very I think it's very challenging for us to tell a property owner in the question area that they can't do a permitted agricultural use.

And that's why generally we've also really moved away from the practice of conditioning comprehensive plan approvals. While it's certainly allowed and permitted and was done twenty years ago, generally those conditions are more typically found in zonings and more importantly in master plans as opposed to the comprehensive plan.

So if this had come back at any point in time under our tenure, we wouldn't have done it this way?

That's correct.

You would have done it like we did with Wellington Lifestyle Partners and Pod F. You would have had a master plan and then a the compatibility determination for the show grounds.

And that would have all not been like this.

Right.

Can we get a copy of the ordinance twenty two thousand five dash nineteen that these conditions are part of? I'd like to see what the overall ordinance says. It's not in the book. If it's in the book, I missed it. Sure. Thanks. Any questions on these two items for today? Seeing nothing, regular agenda. Mr. Barnes, item

That's Resolution twenty twenty six-eighteen, which is the fifteen five five five to have on court lien reduction. If someone can take us through that.

Mr. Khalil, the co compliance manager is here with me as well. This is a request for a lien reduction from the property owner at 15555 De Havilland Court in Aero Club. They have four liens totaling $254,106.83. They've requested that to be reduced to a $181.83 with which is effectively our administrative costs for those liens.

The liens comprise life safety issues, property maintenance issues, and I think garbage cans and I think that was that was it. The the non compliance ranges from a few months to a few years. The bulk of the liens is for the life safety for the pool enclosure which was not in compliance for three fifty days comprising a little more than a 175,000 of the $2.54.

There was no pool enclosure around the pool for a year, basically?

No pool enclosure or what they tried to do temporarily was not secured and and in place consistently.

What is it that they tried to do?

The orange netting that they typically see during

construction. So

safety barrier.

So what, it was up and it was down, was never up there consistently? Correct.

At multiple inspections, it was not in a secured in place.

That's with this ownership versus the previous ownership?

Well, it only recently sold in February. Mhmm. And so it was the the previous ownership. However, the current owner, I think, has made the previous owner the agent, if you will, for this request or given them authorization to seek this request.

Wait a minute. But what does that mean? Because so we the history of all of these code reductions is that this used to be something that we saw on a regular basis. And people came in and told us their tale of woe and told us about, you know, that somebody got cancer and that somebody got divorced. There was a whole story. And we and we had the counsel was dealing with multiple of these every couple meetings.

Sure. Then Which was a terrible process, by way.

Make someone commit to plead for

mercy because they have a medical issue was a terrible idea.

So we

get rid of that.

Put in an entire framework where the administrative staff can approve these on various levels. Tim can do some, and then after that, they go to Jim, and a series of those kinds of things. Only later on could it come back maybe to PZAB or to the council. But this the reason that this is here is because these people are asking for a reduction from $275,000 to a $100. I mean, this is

It's also coming before you because it's a not a non homesteaded property. And so that was one of the other considerations for homesteaded resident property owners that they would not have.

They would be able

to handle it administratively.

So the question then becomes, right, when this property was sold right? This property has been sold Yes, sir. To who? To a trust. To a trust. And when the trust purchased this, they purchased it subject to the lien?

Yes. Yes. Mhmm.

And now the lien has to be satisfied for clear title.

Or

compromised. Right.

But they sold subject to the lien. So did they get a reduction in the sale price because the lien existed and now they are here to say they want the lien to be reduced to $185 I

don't know if we know that. Am not sure we know that. I mean, would be a good question for the

Well, does the property appraiser say that the sale price was?

2 and a half million.

Mr. Stanley, can you share some of the reasons why some of these were not satisfied during all that time?

I there will be a question for the gentleman who's attending the meeting tomorrow night to make the request. He was the owner or the owner's rep at the time and would would know more about

I mean, because we have a pool that for a year was not Mhmm.

And I

Safety purposes was not satisfied. That's concerning.

We also had work without permits too, which is another concern.

So we talked about this in our meeting, but you said the norm is that you would reduce it by 80%. And I don't remember exactly how our discussion norm being 80%, what were the reasons why you decided to do that? Is that just if they ask or is that if they have a good reason for the ask?

Well, Mr. Khalil works with the property owners when they make their request and and we try to negotiate to the best that we can. And it does depend on the the violation, the extent of the violation, and the the non compliance time frame as far as how low we will go. Ultimately the objective is getting compliance and so we also take into consideration the property owner.

Okay. Miss Cohen, this might be a question for you. When we were sending out the or giving them the violations, were they responding back to us?

Don't think so. I don't believe so.

The property owner was aware of the violations. However, he wasn't following what we asked to do. For example, putting up the temporary barriers, obtaining building permits. It took them a while to do anything that we asked.

So basically, he was acknowledging them. He knew he

was

receiving them.

Correct. That is correct.

I mean, the allegation here is that he didn't receive notice of any of the hearings because they were sent to the trust. But that's the address that was on file with the property appraiser, and that is what we're required to go by. So the fact that the former property owner was not getting notice is not

How do we send

the notice? We send it

certified Did anybody sign for it?

He also says

in If don't, we post the property.

Okay. He also says that he spoke directly with code compliance staff about an address change. Was that you that he spoke to? No. Okay.

When we last address the last one of these that we addressed was similar to this and involved commercial buyer and that kind of thing. The the issue here is that that this was out of compliance for a huge amount of time, ran up this massive lien. Then this property is sold to essentially a commercial buyer. And the commercial buyer says, we bought subject to the lien, but we don't wanna pay it. And so so we're setting a potentially a bad precedent, which is one, that we don't enforce our own rules, but two, that you can get out of it if you sell your property for profit to a commercial buyer who will then come in and petition to ask for it all to be taken away.

Especially at this this, you know, reduction here. This is quite a bit of a reduction.

Well it's ridiculous.

Well that's ridiculous.

Here's four separate lanes in here and I can understand two of them. The first one is for the pool enclosure. The fourth one is for remove work without a permit. What are the two middle ones for? What is n 0 H C c 2415 dash two hundred twenty twenty two, which just says violation of our code and land development sections? That's what they both say. I don't know what what what did they not do?

That was a landscaping condition and a vegetation removal permit and the fence condition and then twenty five eighty one was garbage cans.

2581 is That's the third one.

And just for the benefit of the two new council members, because this is not homestead property, is a property that we could foreclose on. The statute does not allow you to foreclose on homestead property.

So we could have enforced this lane ourselves by foreclosing on the property, then they can pay it. We could. And we opted not to. Okay. So we can have a fun discussion on

this I one. Believe you all made an offer to this property owner. Did you make an offer to try to resolve it or

No. We couldn't because No. That's right.

It's homesteaded and it's above the 60,000 Okay. Dollars

Well, so

Can you repeat

that?

Did make We did make it So we're limited. We cannot make a reduction of an amount greater than $60,000 And so any offer that was made to them, they declined. But we because we can only reduce it down to roughly a 190,000.

So your maximum dollar amount reduction is $60,000? Is that a percentage?

Right. 60,000. 60,000.

Okay. So each of the triggers 80%

or not exceeding $60,000.

That's one of the triggers that brings it to counsel.

Okay. It's the request. Did you make the offer to reduce it by 60,000 or what number did you agree to reduce it by?

The property owner was foreman $181 He didn't want to pay anything else. So that's when we

But what did you offer?

Again, we we knew given what he was asking. He didn't make

him an offer because he said I'm only paying 181 We

were too far apart. Didn't you didn't make an offer.

But a $198,000 was not going to

Just find additional background. Generally, what we've done in the past is the way these projects or these these kind of transactions come about is that the property owner or potential buyer approaches the village to try and negotiate a settlement in advance of sale, at which point then we try and look at it as we want to obtain compliance and generally conditioning that sale and putting a timeline on it that would guarantee compliance and that's when we are incented to go ahead and make that reduction. That didn't happen in this case and that's why we're at today.

Okay. So they'll come in tomorrow night and tell us what they want to do and we'll decide what we want to do.

Is the village familiar with this trust? Have they done business in the village as far as like buying and flipping homes

prior that we know of?

No idea.

I don't think it's like one of the big corporate owners. Think it's, you know.

This is a revocable trust. It looks like it's for an individual family that's named it in a trust.

But again, it's going to be the former property owner who's Right. Coming before

The you company that flipped it to them. And

the fines total 10% of the last sale price?

With the person that's coming tomorrow is the person who incurred the fines?

Yes. That sold

it Yeah, to

the

yeah, yeah. And the other folks or just him?

I don't know.

They're acting on behalf of the buyer There that they

sold it is a requirement under the statute that if there is code enforcement lien on your property, you have a duty to disclose that to the buyer. So I don't know whether that occurred in this case or not, but that is a statutory duty.

We have the consent from the current owner that the seller

is To represent him, but my point is there's a disclosure requirement prior to selling your property.

I'm sure it would have come up with a title search anyway also.

Yes, it should have.

Would expect the sellers on the hook for this fine amount because the buyer is not going to pay it. That's why they're coming to argue for a lower number because it puts dollars in their pocket. That's why I would think they're otherwise, if they sold it, what do they care? So I think that's why they care. We can find out tomorrow.

Any other When this person comes before the council, is this person going to be under oath at that time? Any kind of

This is a this is remember, we had that issue. This is a legislative

I I understand. That's my that's my question.

No. They are not under oath. This is not a quasi judicial. It is strictly in the in the nature of a settlement. And so there's no Right.

Because the mayor's point is a good point, right, as to who is responsible for this. But they've already closed and sold the property to the trust. So the best would be some kind of refund to the buyer.

Or money to this money could be sitting

in a Yeah. That's what this is about. Right.

Alright. Brings us to the next regular agenda item, is an easy one, which is just designating a voting delegate an alternate for the League of Cities.

Currently I am the voting delegate and Councilwoman Antonia is the alternate. I've been on the League of Cities board for six years. I was on the executive board. I decided to step off the executive board and the governing board. Mr. Levin, unless he does something terribly wrong between now and April, will probably be approved with the slate to be on the board of directors for League of Cities for the next term. So it would make sense that he has to go to these meetings anyway that you would be the I would suggest you be the voting delegate. And if you want to stay the alternate, that'd be great. But if you want to pass the buck to someone else, we can do that too. We do this tomorrow, but this is for discussion now. Anyone have any thoughts on who should be the delegate and the alternate? Fine with

that suggestion. And I'm fine with that.

If you're good with that, I'm okay with that.

I'll stay. I'll stay. I'll see all.

So as long as you manage to get elected with the whole slate, you can be the voting delegate.

I'll try to screw that up.

Do your best. Go

get them, Tiger. What

else we got, mister Barnes?

Those are the only items we have. Have nothing left. Just a couple of quick updates. Ms. Gould can give you an update on the PFAS litigation.

See that. That's a good update. Go ahead and tell us that one. Think Take your

emailed earlier today that we received another payment from Tyco and BASF from the PFAS Forever Chemicals lawsuit, and that settlement was $1,112,963 and change. That brings the total we have received to date up to $6,300,000 and that's 95 percent of the total. So we're very pleased about that.

But that's 95% of the total we're expecting?

Yes.

So we still have another payment of something?

Yes, correct.

Explain what we've been doing with the funds, where they've been going, what the plan is.

They are required to

be used

in the utility fund and they're going toward the new membrane plant, which is our switchover to decommission the lime plant. So that project, and that removes the PFAS chemicals from the water.

Which is what we've been doing for years now,

So very good process. We also received a grant this week for the tennis courts in Olympia Park, USTA, gave us a grant for $47,250 and we're putting that together to resurface the tennis courts at Olympia Park.

And how many courts are there? Six. And is it a matching grant?

Yes.

Okay. What's it going to cost for the whole project, do we think?

Probably about the same. It will be a little bit over $100,000 We're probably going to do some additional work out there as well. This only covers the resurfacing.

Good job. Keep finding that money.

Very nice. Mr. Gill worked on that with the engineering.

Any other questions? No.

The only other item is to give you an idea of upcoming attractions. We've been working Ms. Cohen and I have been working with Related Ross in terms of a at risk license agreement for them to be able to work in advance of closing on the property. The work contemplated is generally limited to site work and they would be proceeding at risk. The license agreement would grant them the ability to do that and basically have a requirement should they elect to not close or the project eventually doesn't move forward that we would not be required to reimburse them for any of those costs incurred and also provision if we do some work that we would need them to remove based on the extent of the work that they would be also subject to do that at their cost.

This is because they want to get started on the site work before they close. Correct. So we're willing to let them do that by letting them know if they don't close they're not getting their money back and we may make them put some of the property back the way it was before they started doing their work. So this is they're at risk for doing this, but they want to get started sooner than later.

Correct. And at this point, I think we have a we certainly have a license agreement that we're satisfied with and they're looking at it one last time to make a determination if they've they're in agreement with all our proposals on that license agreement.

And if we're able to finalize that, I would like to be able to bring that forward tomorrow and ask you to approve it tomorrow night.

What's the anticipated closing date?

They have one more extension on the related piece, and so I think that they will be exercising that extension that would put it into late May. And then the school parcel has an additional four extensions. And I don't know whether they'll be exercising that or not. So you could see the related piece close first and then followed by the school piece.

But this work, this pre work that's being allowed to happen in May prior to the closing at the May or the June, is on which piece? On the whole site?

PRESENTER The whole site. The

school part and

Yes. That's correct.

Yes. The civil work generally is one comprehensive system. So when they start doing the earthwork, filling the existing agricultural ditches that are on the property, as well as beginning the site work related to the overall water management system, it would encompass both sites.

So the agreement that we're making here is with EIM and with related?

No, because recall that you terminated the EIM purchase And

related is buying the whole thing.

Correct.

Related in two separate transactions, they'll buy the related piece first, the front parcel first, and then later they will buy the school parcel.

And what have they said is their intention in regards to do they are are are they anticipating two separate closing dates where there's going to be a closing on the front and a closing on the back?

I believe so.

Or are they expecting to just close on the whole thing?

They haven't made that final determination yet. There's a possibility they may close on the entire piece, but they haven't finalized that decision.

They have the option to exercise those extensions, excuse me, for the school piece.

But the longer the school postpones, the less likely they'll be open for the school year that they have targeted. So they have more urgency than related does that close sooner than later if they want to not lose a school year.

And it's one of the reasons that Related wants to move forward with the site work.

And also recall that when we terminated the EIM purchase and sale agreement, we said, okay, we're going to do this. But when you exercise your last extension on the related piece, that's it. The money goes hard. So after that, there's no refunding of any deposits or anything like that. So once they exercise that last extension, they're committed.

Right. And once they exercise that last extension, pay the money, and start doing all of this work that they would have to that they're going to pay for, number one. And number two, that they may have to pay additional money to take out. Mean, one of these is a step further down the road that becomes More committed. Irreversible, regardless of how many extensions are left and when the payments actually occur.

Right? Because we in this room know that even if something happens with the school, once they've closed on the front half, their plan would be to buy the second half and either to add to a pool operator, when we know that it's one or the other. In that regard, that makes this a no brainer and a good thing, right? I mean, this further commits them. Right. We would close

the approval of this item.

Yes. It knits them to the fabric of the land.

What else you got Mr. Barnes?

That's all I have for this evening.

Any questions from anyone? Any questions from new folks about how this ran and what how this runs and what's going on tomorrow?

That was fun.

Can't wait to

do it again.

You've got

four more years of

more money here than

Buckets of sand? Because you

just spent $9 from those pumps that nobody's gonna talk about. It's about

because we're still on the record, we're gonna go adjourn. We're happy

to have a remedial session on sodium hydroxide. Yes.

Very good.

I've had

very exciting. And mulch.

Thanks, Javier. We're done.