City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. If you would, Mr. Tony Clayton, would you come and give about invocation?

Good afternoon, City Council, Mr. Mayor, city staff, and public. Would you please pray with me? Almighty God, ever wise Father, thank you again for another beautiful day here in the city of Ocala in Marion County. Father, we just praise you and thank you for the opportunity to gather and conduct business that continues to honor and glorify you. Father, just have your hand upon our meeting today. Give us discernment and wisdom to make decisions that continue to glorify you. We praise you and we thank you in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Well, I'm going to say good evening again. I'm not sure I hear anybody. Well, that didn't work. Good evening. It is now 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, and this meeting of the Ocala City Council is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

I'm sorry. Mr. Marciano?

Here.

Mr. Musley?

Here.

Mr. Mansfield? Here. Mr. Hilty? Here. Ms. Dreyer? Here. Mr. Bethea?

Here. Item 2A, new employees. And when I call your name, please stand for us. Stephen Hawley, Public Works. Jason Guess, Information Technology. Welcome to the family. Item 3, the clerk will... Provide the public notice for this evening's meeting.

The June 2nd, 2026 City Council meeting was publicly noticed on May 22nd. 2026 on the City of Ocala's website. As a reminder, public comments and presentations are limited to three minutes unless authorized to extend beyond that time by the Council President or majority of Council. All materials for the Mayor and City Council must be given to the attendant staff for distribution. Prior to speaking at the podium, please state your name and address for the record and to maintain order, speakers must be recognized by the Council President. Please silence your cell phones and all electronic devices for the duration of this meeting. Thank you.

We will move to item 5A, a presentation on municipal separate storm sewer systems by city engineer Sean Lanier.

Good evening. Sean Lanier, city engineer. This presentation is required by our MS4 permit, municipal separate storm sewer system permit that we have. So I'm going to do a quick overview of our permit and our program. Basically, MS4, Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems conveyance system are conveyance that basically takes all of our stormwater and under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, the act that it comes from, it's to eliminate the pollution of discharges to the waters of the United States. The city has a permit, and although we're a closed basin system and we do not discharge to any water body of the U.S., we do discharge the Florida Department of Transportation right away, and they have a statewide permit, and by our administrative code, we're required to have a permit because we discharge to them. In our permit, we... pollution discharging in our stormwater and we have five areas that we focus on our sanitation of course the stormwater maintenance fleet water resources and code enforcement in 2025 there were 116 reports from our citizens 34 sanitation and seven stormwater 43 streets 22 traffic and a couple mosquito and miscellaneous this is part of our requirement for our data gathering for our permit and Stormwater operations, all the city and all of the privately owned maintained drainage retention areas are inspected for sinkholes, illicit discharge, erosion, trash and debris, buildup of sedimentation, and they're basically on a rotating schedule annually. Only eight city and 30 private DRAs flow into the Florida Department of of transportation right of way that this eventually flows to the Silver River, area known as Half Mile Creek, and that's the discharge to the water body of the U.S. Fifty-seven DRAs went through a demucking process this last year in 2025 by city staff or contract to services, depending on staffing and length of the project and the cost. Stormwater operations, they maintain certifications as part of our best management practice under a permit. There's 16 employees holding various certifications for stormwater systems and maintenance. Sanitation does its part. They sponsor a tire waste amnesty day on March 8th of last year. They had 4.26 tons. October 4th, they collected 5.28 tons of basically waste tires for a total of 9.5 tons. So you can see where the tires end up if they don't collect it, and we're trying to discourage it from being just abandoned out there. Additionally, sanitation sponsors hazardous and electronic waste collection. This would be stuff like lawn and garden chemicals, paint, thinners, gasoline, cleaning fluids, solvents, fluorescent bulbs, used oil and filters, auto batteries, cell phones, battery chargers, so on. They collected a total of 15 and a half or 15,500 pounds, which is approximately very close to eight tons last year. There's just a picture of representing the household hazardous waste. Our fleet, we collected and disposed of 869 batteries, 7,622 gallons of used oil, 1,545 used oil filters, and 554 gallons of antifreeze. Another big component is code enforcement. Our environmental officers that help continue cracked down on stuff that would end up in our stormwater system, such things as cleaning facilities. This one shows a picture of the used oil, which is recycled grease and oil, which is one of the big things that we try to keep out of our system. Illicit discharge is defined as any discharge to the MS4, or municipal stormwater system, that's not stormwater. So it's a pretty broad definition. Examples would be sanitary wastewater, septic tank effluent, car wash wastewater, motor oil, laundry wastewater, auto and household toxic disposal, even leaves and yard waste. So the six steps that we follow to keep illicit discharge out of our waterways, we recycle the used oils and antifreeze and batteries, wash vehicles at the commercial car wash sites because they're equipped with separators and stuff that prevent it from getting into the stormwater system. Empty bottles of household cleaners, pesticides, and weed killers should be disposed of according to the labels. Grass clippings should be kept out of the roadway and storm drains. Our stormwater system, they go around and when they pick up the yard waste, sanitation picks up the yard waste, but the stormwater goes through and they routinely clean and maintain the stormwater system. So they'll clean the leaves and stuff out of the gutters and the drainage basins when they get filled up with the leaves and stuff. So this is just a little synopsis about the pollution, polluted runoff. You've got your cars, oil and stuff that drips off of that when you drive and gets onto the asphalt. Most of your drainage, that will discharge into our drainage retention areas. A lot of the stuff that will filter that has to do with our own natural grass and things like that that The plants will actually pick it up and help do some of the filtering of it. We prevent erosion with our sod and our lawns and vegetation and the DRAs. And then you've got, of course, when you walk your dog, they try to keep your pet waste out of the thing. So pick it up if your dog does the business, so to speak. And that also helps reduce the nitrates. Now, it's not part of the surface water runoff, but nitrates is also part of the... What we're trying to keep with the Basin Management Action Plan for Silver Springs, nitrate's the pollutant. So anything we can do to reduce nitrate. So that's very important to try to pick up pet waste and stuff if you're walking your dog at the park. And so just some last points to keep in mind. What we do on the land affects the quality of the water we drink and use in many ways. Many of the small sources of pollution add up to cause big water quality problems. Natural things such as soil, leaves, grass clippings, and pet waste can cause water pollution. And automobiles and other vehicles cause water and air pollution. And that's it. Any questions or comments?

I got a question.

Yes, sir.

So do we use the same method of getting rid of mosquitoes as we used to? You know, we used to back in the day spray at the truck going down the road spraying.

That would be a question for Darren from Public Works.

Darren Park, Public Works Director. Yes, we still spray. We don't spray as much because we do more larviciding, which is putting out the briquettes proactively. But when it gets really, really wet, we'll get the calls and we spray.

Okay. You know, as a kid, man, you know, them trucks used to run down the road, spruing, you know, spray out and all that kind of stuff. And I noticed that I don't see them as much, but then again... I don't be out in the field of mosquitoes neither.

They're spraying in the evening and at night.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you, sir. Okay. Item six, consent agenda. Are there any items which council would like to remove from the consent agenda for individual discussion or consideration? Hearing none, I will accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second?

Second.

The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Musley? Aye. Mr. Hilty? Aye. Mr. Dreyer? Aye. Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye. 8A is an introduction and first reading of Ordinance 2026-17. Is there a member... The city council will introduce this item. I will. The clerk will read the ordinance by title.

An ordinance annexed into the city of Ocala, Florida. Certain property located at 5575 Southwest 52nd Street. Parcel 23835-000-00, approximately 82.40 acres, ANX 26-0001, Marin County, Florida, pursuant to Chapter 171, Florida Statutes, providing for terms and conditions of said annexation, describing the area to be annexed, providing directions to staff, repealing inconsistent and or conflicting provisions, providing for salvability of ordinance provisions, providing for modifications arising from consideration at a public hearing, providing direction to the codifier and providing for an effective date.

Item 8B is a public hearing to transmit to the Florida Department of Commerce an amendment to the future land use element of the comprehensive plan and an introduction and first reading of Ordinance 2026-18. Is there a member of the City Council who will introduce this item? I'll introduce it. Thank you. The clerk will read the ordinance by title.

An ordinance amending the future land use map series of the City of Ocala Florida Conference. The plan is required in section 163.3161 through and including section 163.3248 Florida statutes. Detail in the future land use change case number LUC. INVOLVED INTO THE FUTURE LANGUAGE SERIES FROM HIGH RESIDENTIAL COUNTY TO LOW INTENSITY CITY FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT 5575 SOUTHWEST 52ND STREET parcel number 23835-000-00, approximately 82.40 acres, providing direction to staff repealing inconsistent and or conflicting provisions, providing for severability of ordinance provisions, providing for modifications arising from consideration at a public hearing, providing direction to the codifier, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Item 9A.

Excuse us, sir. There will be a staff presentation on this. Okay.

Sorry, Aubrey Hale, Planning Director. So this one is a little unique in the sense that we are going to be doing both an introduction and a public hearing today. So this is associated with the item 8A, which is the annexation of unincorporated piece of property coming into the City of Ocala. It is appropriate at the time of annexation to consider a future land use category to be assigned, to be designated with that piece of property. This piece of property exceeds 50 acres in size and therefore is subject to state review and therefore has to go before the Florida Department of Commerce for their expedited review process. So as part of this, that's what the public hearing is to actually transmit this to the state of Florida to initiate that expedited review process. It's anticipated that it will take about a 30-day review from the state. As you can see, the property is – BUDDYING THE PROPERTY, THE FOUR RANCH DEVELOPMENT TO THE NORTH AND THEN THERE'S SOME COUNTY PROPERTY ALONG THE SIDES THAT ARE GENERALLY A1 BUT THEY HAVE HIGH RESIDENTIAL LAND USE WITHIN THE COUNTY. THE REQUESTED LAND USE THAT THEY'RE PROPOSING IS LOW INTENSITY WHICH ALLOWS THREE DWELLING UNITS, A MINIMUM OF THREE DWELLING UNITS PER ACRE UP TO A MAXIMUM OF 18 DWELLING UNITS PER ACRE WITH A FAR OF .75. STAFF RECOMMENDS APPROVAL AND IS AVAILABLE FOR ANY QUESTIONS. THE APPLICANT IS ALSO HERE I BELIEVE.

Is there any questions from the public? Any from the council?

You need me to? No.

You'll need to just make a separate motion to actually approve the transmittal. The motion for what will happen at this one is all of them, after it comes back from the state review, if there's any comments that will need to work into the updated staff reports, it's anticipated that they would come at a concurrent meeting. So we'd also have the PD is scheduled for the June 8th P&Z meeting. So all of them should line up upon the review cycle of the state to come back at a single hearing.

So the second and final reading is not going to be on June 16th?

No, it would actually be whenever we get those comments back. It likely is going to be August 4th, but we don't know exact dates yet.

Okay. Tainted to 8B. Mr. Will, what do we need to do from here with that? Vote to transmit.

So you had the introduction by Mr. Mansfield, the clerk read it by title. That satisfies the city code requirement for first reading. Okay. You'll now accept a motion from a council member to approve transmission of the proposed future land use change to the State Department of Commerce and then get a second in a vote.

Okay. Is there a member of the council willing to do?

Yes. Okay. You do need to take public comment, too, before you make your decision.

If I'm not mistaken, I just was asking that. Sorry. That's okay. Okay, so do we have anybody in the public that want to make a comment in regards to the presentation that have just been made? None. Is there anyone on the council?

I'll make the motion.

Motion made. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay. We vote on it? Yes. All right. So, Madam Clerk, will you call the roll?

Mr. Musling?

Aye.

Ms. Dreyer? Aye. Mr. Hilty?

Aye.

Mr. Mansfield?

Aye.

Mr. Bethea?

Aye. Okay, so we're on 9A. Now we're 9A. Is the adoption of Ordinance 2026-16. Councilman Hilty, who introduced this item, is recognized for a motion.

Council President Bethea, I move that ordinance number 2026-16 be adopted as provided by the Charter of the City of Ocala and City of Ocala, Florida, and based upon evidence presented to City Council, except that adoption by sections on second reading be waived.

Is there a second? Second. Clerk Jacobs will read the ordinance by talent.

An ordinance amending the zoning map of the city of Ocala, Florida, changing the zoning from B2, community business, to M1, light industrial, for certain property located in the 200 block of Southwest 27th Avenue, parcel 22780-002-00, approximately 1.25 acres. Case number ZON26-0001, providing direction to staff, repealing inconsistent and or conflicting provisions, providing for severability of ordinance provisions, providing for modifications arising from consideration at a public hearing, providing direction to the codifier, and providing for an effective date.

Planning Director Aubrey Hale is recognized for his presentation.

All right, good afternoon. Aubrey Hale, Planning Director. So again, this property is located near the intersection of Southwest 27th Avenue and State Road 40. The property is currently 1.25 acres and undeveloped. A lot of the surrounding area that you can see on the case map is predominantly M1 light industrial with employment center land use The applicant is requesting similar M1. With that, you do have some other B2 and B1, and then B4 at the hard corner of Southwest 27th Avenue and State Road 40. Staff recommends approval and is available for any questions.

Any comments or questions from the public? Council? Call the roll.

Mr. Hilton?

Aye.

Ms. Dreyer? Aye. Mr. Musley? Aye. Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye. 9B is the adoption of the expansion of the sale of beer, wine, and liquor for on-premise consumption to include outdoor consumption within the approved sidewalk calf area for Martin and Wiss LLC doing business at the Tipsy Skipper. Is there a second? I'm Council president and make the motion to approve. Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Mr. Hale is recognized once again.

All right. Aubrey Hale, planning director. So it's okay. I'd like to present the next two are kind of related with one another. So they are businesses that are owned by the same entity, but they're two separate locations. And so in doing so, they have had a alcohol license for this location. However, they are expanding and would like to include for the sidewalk cafe that is now that is outside of each of these locations at 46 and 47 South Magnolia's With that they would also like to include Outdoor consumption of beer and wine and liquor on within that designated sidewalk cafe that was approved I believe earlier in April staff does recommend approval there has been a I think 38 calls for service over the last two years at Mutiny, and then all seven calls of service at Tipsy. Staff does recommend approval.

Is there any comment, question from the public? Council? Yes, sir, Mayor.

I was in CrimeSat today, and one of our focuses is open containers in downtown. We've been working with the bars and restaurants. It's been a major challenge. issue downtown. I guess if the applicant's here, I'd love to hear how we're going to make sure that that's not an issue with open containers leaving the site.

Yes, the applicant is here.

Good evening, Council. My name is Sam Betty. I'm the general manager of Mutiny, employed by Martin and Weiss. Our intention is to staff on a regular basis to have a door person that will enforce our area, which is under the awning. We are following the same standards that are already in place for places like the Black Sheep on Broadway and Big Hammock Brewery and Bites. enforcing the awning space with simple tables and seating and having someone to keep an eye and make sure that all alcohol remains in that space and does not extend out into the street.

Can I ask a question? Sure. When your officers are stopping people for this, are they asking where the containers came from?

Chief, do you want to come up and answer some questions?

Mike Balkan, police chief. Yeah, that's been an issue, and it's come up. You know, this has really come about, quite frankly, because of a pretty significant increase in after-hour fistfights and things like that downtown. That's caused our bike unit and our patrol officers to make these stops. We've issued a multitude of warnings, some court dates, and the problem is, We ended up having to focus on the patrons who are sometimes ignorant of the city ordinance as it relates to open containers. We're moving beyond that. I think it's good for the mayor to bring this up and working with alcohol, tobacco, and the beverage department to do administrative actions against these bars themselves. So our officers have gone out and warned these establishments that these activities were going to occur if these problems continued. You know, I... I think it's problematic for a business to say they're always going to be there at the door to watch these patrons coming and going with alcohol. I understand what he's saying, that these other businesses are already doing this. I just think it's important, certainly a good time for the warning to be put out there. We have got to take enforcement action, not only on the patrons that are leaving with the open containers, But we're going to have to start moving towards the establishments themselves, too, because there is an administrative responsibility on their part to make sure this doesn't happen.

So I think what part of the issue is, is that when you go to many other places, they have established zones where you can freely walk around with like a solo cup or something, right? And so people, maybe they get used to that and they just assume you can do that everywhere. I have no idea. But I will say that because this is my district, I do frequent our downtown at strange hours of the night just to check out like what's happening down here, right? Sure. Of all of the establishments, these two actually do have somebody at the door. They card me when I go into the place, which I really love, by the way. Thank you for that. But they really do have people at the door. When I'm thinking about who doesn't, I can see where these problems would be created. Because there are some bars, one is coming to mind, that really has zero oversight. So I can get my alcohol, kind of roam around the whole entire building, and then leave and do whatever I'm doing. And they kind of have like an outdoor club scene at night also. So I don't know who specifically we're talking about. with creating your problem, but I can see where some places would be causing a problem. What I would say to council is that these two facilities provide a location for a genre of patron that nobody else does. And so I'm very thankful that they're here because they kind of have like a punk rock, you know, type of client that goes in there, and I can think of no other places in this city or the whole entire county that provides that for that person that wants a certain community that is really kind of hard to find. The establishment itself has a really positive atmosphere. And I'm like a grandma when I go in there. But everybody is very welcoming to me. They're all in black. I show up in my white pants. And, you know, it's a whole thing. But I would ask that maybe we meet privately and talk about who these businesses are.

Yes, ma'am.

That are causing the problem because...

Yeah.

I don't know that this is one of them.

I want to be clear. The TIPSI and Muni have been great partners to us. I think it's probably good timing to put the warning out there, but that is not our issue. I think you and I are in agreement. We know where specifically the larger percentage of that problem is coming from, and we're dealing with that.

Yeah. Okay. All right.

And, Chief, I will agree with you that it is opportune time to – make sure that everybody heaves and knows because we knew when we started having sidewalk alcohol outside, et cetera, et cetera, some things going to begin to escalate sooner or later. Okay. And then also when we do, Kathy, what is it called?

Alpha.

Yeah, FAFA and all of these other things, when we are able to walk around a little bit with our colored cups and stuff like that, so things was going to begin to happen. So it is time to say, hey, guess what? If you do such and such a thing, this is what's going to happen, and it's going to happen. And we're not talking about those two. We're talking about everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Can I ask an additional question, if you don't mind? Is this something that we need to vote on every time, or can we just say that there's a set of parameters that if you meet them, staff can just handle this administratively? Why do we have to address this every single time?

That's a policy decision that council would have to make, but we're prepared to do that. We'd likely have to do a minor change to the ordinance so that we could actually say, here are the requirements.

I would be in favor of that.

Of handling administratively? Yes. Okay.

If you direct me to do that, we'll work on that and bring something back for you.

Because we can always revoke it if it becomes a problem.

Yeah, and that's in the ordinance now. I mean, that applies to them as well.

Yeah, we'd leave the revocation piece in there for you and then create some kind of objective criteria for criteria that you have to meet, a location analysis, and boom, we'd issue it.

The one question I have is this has been going on for a long time, so what are we going to do with staff to make sure that everybody has had the right permit? Because, I mean, they've had those tables out there for years, and now they're coming before us for a permit. So there was a failure there somewhere. We're going to turn it over to you. We need to be assured.

I think there was a misunderstanding in a couple of places in this case. But they had the right state license. They just didn't have the right local license. And I found out from the chief, actually. He called me right away and said, hey, did you know this? And I said, no, I didn't know. We'd have to survey the whole. The only thing that I could think that would be something that we'd want to be careful with is how many calls for service. And that's always tricky because it depends on the types of calls for service that they got at the establishment as to whether you would actually, you may want that to come to council as opposed to just being administratively

approved we can we can deal with that in in the crafting of the language so to that point when it was mentioned that there's been 38 calls of service if you read what the calls of service were half of them are like hey we're just doing our job and patrolling for safety issues like being proactive so it's fine if you want to call that a call for service but it's if we're including that in the number of 38 calls that's i don't want to say disingenuous because it wasn't intentional but it doesn't count

Right. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. I agree. I wouldn't want that to count. And we would further oil that down that these are significant. These are the calls that are – these are the types of calls that are significant. And I'd work with police to determine that. We're not going to do that on our own. We're going to work with police to determine what those were. And that may be something you're interested in putting in there or not and saying if you get this many – If the police have to come and say, look, you're a consistent violator of this ordinance, at some point you come back here, like we've done in the past with other nuisance...

I would use it as the guide, right? Whatever the place next to OPD was, the Billiards Hall back in the day that was shut down for that, like whatever they did, let that be the guide of things not to do.

We don't want to get to that point.

Not bad. That was really bad. They were probably past the tipping point.

Are we in agreement to have Pete then go?

He's going to have to craft an ordinance and bring it back, so we'll have an opportunity then to – Discuss it more and vote up or down on it.

Yeah, we'll work on that. We'll do that.

Bring it back. Very good. So do we vote on this? No. So it's 9C.

Well, I think we do.

Well, we don't 9B. We need to vote on it. I have a motion.

You have a motion?

We have a motion and a second for B, and then we separate.

Is there any further discussion? None? All right. Call the roll.

Okay.

Ms. Stryer? Aye. Mr. Musling? Aye. Mr. Hilty? Aye. Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye. So 9C. Motion to approve.

Second.

Is there a second?

Second. All right.

So we don't need for Mr. Aubrey to come back up because he brought that to our attention. So is there any other... comments in regards to the sidewalk selling of alcohol. We're on the same thing. None? Council, call the roll.

Ms. Dreyer? Aye. Mr. Hilty? Aye. Mr. Musling?

Aye.

Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye. General business, TNA. Aye. is the adoption of the one-year renewal of the agreement with C.W. Roberts. Do I hear a motion to approve this item? I move. Is there a second?

Second.

It almost died on the floor there. City Engineer Sean Lanier is recognized for a presentation.

Good evening, Sean Lanier, City Engineer. This agenda item supports the city's strategic goals of operational excellence and quality of place. This is the second one-year renewal of the contract with C.W. Roberts with a 2.4% increase per the contract terms. Staff recommends approval, and I'm here to answer any questions.

Are there any questions or comments from the public, from the council? Call the roll.

Mr. Musley. Aye. Mr. Hilty? Aye. Ms. Dreyer? Aye. Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye.

Thank you.

10B, is the approval of the award of a 40-year ground lease agreement to GLJ Aviation LLC. Do I hear a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Second. Our Port Director, Matthew Groh, is recognized for presentation.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Matthew Groh, Airport Director. This agenda item meets Council's strategic goals of operational excellence and fiscal sustainability. GL, sorry, GLJ Aviation has been operating in and out of the Ocala Airport for several years now. They approached us in early 2024 about constructing a hanger for their aircraft. The ground lease before you now is the end result of an invitation to negotiate financial review and then the subsequent negotiations. It's built upon the standard airport ground lease with a few notable differences. The lease rate is substantially higher than what had been previously posted in years past. The tenant has a feasibility period of 120 days from the inception date. There's a five-year option on an adjacent parcel currently occupied by the HECS support. We call it the HECS support. Their lease expired in November. Long before their lease expired, we worked with them to try and find a new home for them, and they're well aware of our efforts to redevelop their site. There's a rate of first refusal built into that option, so it's kind of a hybrid. The first full year of revenue is $27,429, which includes $3,000 annually for that option. Uh, the city also secured an FDOT grant about a year ago to design and construct an access road that'll serve this site. And then all the other adjacent hanger sites, uh, in this, in this particular area, uh, our engineering department with the city, uh, has designed that it's, it's at a hundred percent. We're, um, procuring the necessary swift mud permits right now for that staff recommends approval. I'm here to answer any questions.

Any questions or comments from the public? Council? Call the roll.

Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Ms. Stryer? Aye. Mr. Musley? Aye. Mr. Hilty? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye. Thank you.

Item 10C, is there approval of the utilization... OF THE FLORIDA SHERIFF ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT WITH NEXT TRAN TRUCK CENTERS FOR THE PURCHASE OF A REFUSE TRUCK. DO I HEAR A MOTION TO APPROVE? SO MOVED. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. FLEET AND FACILITIES DIRECTOR JOHN KING, RECOGNIZED FOR PRESENTATION.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT. JOHN KING, FLEET AND FACILITY DIRECTOR HERE TO PRESENT THIS AGENDA ITEM 10C. that aligns with Ocala's strategic goal of operational excellence. I'm seeking your approval to purchase an automated site loader refuse truck for Public Works Department Sanitation Division in the amount of $432,521. We'll be using a competitively vetted contract, the Florida Sheriff's Association contract, who has an agreement with the Mack truck dealer, Nextran, to make the purchase for this automated site loader. It's necessary to purchase the site loader because back in December, 2022, the side loader, unit number 06273 was involved in an accident at a transfer station that left the frame of the truck severely compromised. So we'll be replacing that truck utilizing that Florida Sheriff's Association contract. And this agenda item will be followed by a budget resolution to appropriate funding in the amount of $477,837 from our risk claim fund to make the designated purchase. I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. Staff recommends this replacement.

Any questions or comments from the public? Council?

I have one.

Yes, ma'am.

So are we doing a separate, are we just doing both presentations in one? Can I just consider that that's what we're doing here, the truck approval and the budget resolution?

That makes sense. There's a 10D, formally we'll do that budget resolution today.

Because I can wait until 10D because that's what my question is.

Ask the question. I think I've got the same question.

Here's my question. So the cost of the truck is $432,521. In the budget resolution, we're asking for the cost of the truck plus $45,316 because that's what the general liability claim reserved fund has approved. So I guess my question for now is who is the general liability claim fund? Who is that? And what happens when we don't use the full amount? Where does it go? Back into the fund?

It goes back into sanitation's general fund or account for machinery and equipment. SANITATION FUND, MACHINERY EQUIPMENT FUND.

WHY ARE WE APPROVING MORE THAN WHAT YOU NEED? IF IT GOES BACK INTO THE FUND, WHY ARE WE APPROVING MORE THAN WHAT YOU NEED?

So the accident claim was for $506,840 and out of that there was a $25,000 deductible that left us with $481,840 and of which the vehicle had a salvage value because the certificate of destruction was issued for $4,003. And that lets the adjusted claim amount of $477,837. So it's those funds that will be used to make the purchase. However, the purchase is less than, the fund amount. So of that, $45,000 would be returned back to sanitation. That answers your question.

Okay. We got that much money back in and spent $430,000, whatever, and the rest goes into the fund.

Yes. So basically you're taking it out of the liability fund and putting it in the sanitation fund.

Yes, because the claim for the truck was higher than the purchase that we're going to make.

It's an insurance payout.

Okay. Is it our own insurance or private insurance?

This is an hour liability.

This was a no-fault accident. It was the fault of the the place we were dumping the garbage, they paid this claim. So their insurance over, you know, we're buying the truck for less than what they settled the claim for.

Okay.

Good for us.

So private insurance, we just were overpaid. Okay. I'm fine with that.

Yeah, I don't like the word overpaid. No, not overpaid. We were paid the value of the truck. We paid value of the truck, but we were able to cure one for less.

You did a good job getting the truck for less. Okay.

You got it. That's exactly right.

We weren't overpaid. This was their fault. I don't know if everybody knows the story, but it's a story worth knowing.

Yeah, it is.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

No, I think we all had the same question. Yeah.

All right.

So we are on for B, right? C. Or C. 10. And C. I went to sleep, I reckon. 10C. All right. Call the roll, ma'am, please.

Mr. Mansfield. Aye. Ms. Dreyer. Aye. Mr. Musling.

Aye.

Mr. Hilty. Aye. Mr. Bethea.

Aye. So we all heard... the conversation about 10D. So is there any questions from the public in regards to the budget resolution? Having none.

I move approval.

Second.

All right. Call the roll, ma'am.

Mr. Musley. Aye. Ms. Dreyer. Aye. Mr. Hilty. Aye. Mr. Mansfield. Aye. Mr. Bethea.

Aye. Thank you. We're on 12, City Manager's Report.

Sir, 10E.

10E.

I don't know what's going on here today. I'll see it. 10E is the approval of the Eighth Amendment to the agreement with Waste Pro of Florida, Inc. Do I hear a motion? So moved. Is there a second?

Second.

Public Work Director Darren Parks is recognized for staff presentation.

Good afternoon, Darren Park, public works director. This agenda item supports the city's strategic goals of operational excellence and quality of place. In our January 13th, 2026 solid waste rate study workshop with council, council directed staff to modify the existing single stream curbside recycling contract and work with WastePro to negotiate a price per ton for recycling commodities for us to deliver to them from our drop-off locations and a purchase price for, per cart purchase price for all the carts that were out there. Staff worked with WastePro. We negotiated $125 per ton for recycling. The county is paying $137.70 and we negotiated a price of $18 per cart. We feel that both are good values to the, for the fund and for the resident taxpayer. Staff recommends approval, and I'm here to answer any questions.

Any comments from the public? Council? None? Call the roll.

Ms. Dreyer? Aye. Mr. Hilty? Aye. Mr. Musley?

Aye.

Mr. Mansfield? Aye. Mr. Bethea?

Aye. Thank you. Internal auditors report?

None? city managers report yes sir thank you several things uh... on the internal water we will need to obviously conduct an internal auditor search so uh... i'm asking council to allow us to post a position uh... men out give you a little What that whole process looks like is we post the position, we'll take in the applications, review the applications, and create a short list. Then we'll review individually with counsel those applications, set individual interviews with each of you individually, and then as we did with the attorney, we can do a special session or we can simply do it at a counsel meeting, choose the... choose the internal auditor. So that process will take a little while, the length of time that it takes to get the applications in. But simply asking right now for you to allow us to post the position.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yes, we need to post it.

I don't, yeah, that's all I need. Let me ask a question. Yes, sir.

At this time now, we have, INTERNAL AUDIO ASSISTANCE, ANYBODY THAT'S HANDLING THE...

YES. VAUGHN AND VIN ARE ACTUALLY HERE IN THE BACK.

VERY GOOD.

THANK YOU. YES, MA'AM. THEY'RE KEEPING UP.

YES.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. APPRECIATE IT.

Um, The Florida legislature passed the governor's property tax relief proposal today. It will be placed on a 2026 ballot for voter consideration. That's all I have on that right now. It had a few amendments to it, but we'll keep you posted on exactly what moves forward from here. And some of you, if not all of you, have met with upward communities. You've either met with Jason Roberts or you've met with –

Kurt Kelly.

Kurt Kelly or maybe Rob Batsel or some combination of those people. It's a proposed housing development that we would participate in. There are, there's a lot to sort through for us in that. But right now all I'm asking from council is to allow us, Janice, the CFO, and the Director of Finance to meet with our bond council to allow Mr. Roberts' team to poll our employees to determine viability on his end. And then Mr. Roberts would like to make a presentation at council on June 16th. It will probably be about five minutes. And I think Rob's here. Rob, I don't know whether you have anything to add or you don't.

He's shaking his head no, but he's coming up.

Good afternoon. It's a typical lawyer move. Give me a microphone. Rob Bassel, 1531 Southeast 36th Avenue, Ocala, Florida, 34471. That's it. I've had the pleasure of working with these guys in the more recent history here. I know they've been in town for a little while, and I have not been privy to most of the conversations that you all have had with Jason Roberts or their team or Mr. Kelly. But you know i've got to say this is one of those unique mechanisms and Like you probably if you spoke with these guys at first Said this almost sounds too good to be true Let me I need to understand this from soup to nuts and I need to be comfortable and I'm before you today because I know after a good meeting with staff a couple weeks ago That's where staff is, you know, it really is a unique opportunity or else I wouldn't be in front of you That's what I believe But I do know that some due diligence is required. So Mr. Lee is correct. We're going to crawl before we walk. What we're hoping is that over the staff's already dug in, which we appreciate. So I want to thank them. They've got a lot to do. So tackling this. you know new idea which has a thick stack of paper paper that comes with it and significant due diligence that comes with it we appreciate we do think that in the next month or so working with staff getting Jason here to talk to you directly and answer your questions that you may have we've shared the lease the p3 structure the management agreement and are happy to share anything and everything we can to eliminate any questions or answer any questions, or if there are perceived issues, absolutely to work through them. And ultimately, just to determine whether this is something the city wants or not. And frankly, my client will tell you, if the city's not completely comfortable, then they'll move on and that's okay. But we do think it's a real opportunity, and that's why we're here.

And we'll meet with them between now and then, and we'll correspond with individual council people.

What is the timeline for polling our employees?

I'm glad you asked. So there's a lot of chicken and egg to this. And really, whether we're going with the chicken or the egg is up to the city. So on one hand, the polling of employees. They're ready to do that now, and they'll kick that off immediately if council gives consensus tonight. The concern there was, do you want us to do that? Do you want us to go get employees excited if ultimately we don't know if this is going to work yet? So it's all chicken and egg, right? But they're going to do that immediately if council gives consensus tonight. Then Jason would be here on the 16th. And we're on a track where we're hoping that by July 21st, I believe that date is correct, your second meeting in July, we'd be at a point where you council could make the first, could have the first public meeting of two involved with the P3 process. We don't have to get into the weeds of that right now, but that is essentially the public interest determination, which kicks off staff's deeper analysis. Now, unlike your typical P3, a lot of the analysis will be done by then, because we understand that before we get there, you all want more questions answered. Staff does. And we, and we agree with that. And then the second hearing would be no sooner than 30 days after that. Not hearing, but public meeting, which I think is September 1, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay.

And the polling will determine. A lot of the questions are demand, how big is the project. That's all going to be based on take rate. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Rob. For clarity on alcohol, do you want that only in the downtown or at Or citywide?

I mean, I'm fine with it citywide, but...

Okay. We can do it either way.

I just want to make sure that we don't... Well, it seems like everything that comes up is pretty cut and dried.

Yeah. It's mostly... Most of the things that... Most of the outside ones that come here, but we'll do the whole city. And then the only other thing is I'm going to... Have Lori contact each of you to set up probably between a 45-minute and an hour meeting to discuss fiber in depth coming up over the next week or two before the next council meeting. That's all I have.

Thank you. Ocala Police Department Police Chief Mike Balkin to recognize for his report.

Good afternoon again, Mike Balkin, Police Chief Ocala. For our public safety report for this period, we reflected a 3% increase in overall call responses, ending at 81-23. Our dispatch calls for service rose by 11% to 27-25, while our self-initiated responses dropped by 1%. We worked 300 reported crime calls, which is up by 5%. We affected 242 arrests. That's up by 11% from last year. Also, our officers were able to increase our traffic contacts by 11%, making 1,177 traffic stops while investigating a total of 162 traffic crashes, which is down slightly when compared to the same period last year. I want to talk real quickly about our detectives. Let me back this up. keeping our SWAT team extremely busy. You guys might have to help me with this. Never mind. I got it. Make it cop-proof. Extremely busy. The SWAT team has executed 14 high-risk search warrants so far this year. They've had one barricaded subject call out. They also assisted with the protest on the square. And, of course, we had the presidential visit detail at the airport that they had to deal with. I am going to play a video of some of their recent handiwork real quick.

Come on. put your hands up keep them up come out to me turn around one at a time

So in this case, detectives developed information connecting five individuals to illegal drug activity and firearms possession at a particular house in the county. Our SWAT team secured the home. All detained, total was five. Ultimately arrested all of them for a multitude of charges to include trafficking weights of fentanyl, methamphetamine, along with two stolen firearms. And, of course, two of those up there were convicted felons. And I know we often talk about recent arrests and successes related to the emergent problems that we see. You guys don't always get to hear, sorry, and girls, the results of some of those efforts. We do work closely with our state and our federal prosecutors to ensure that the offenders are held accountable for those crimes that they do commit. And this next slide is a great example of that work. During this period, the state wrapped up a multitude of our cases. I wanted to key in on these three. Between the three of them, they've had no less than 180 contacts with OPD alone. That's not talking about the sheriff's office. And up here, you can see their respective prison sentences. So they've been a plague for us for several years. We were finally able to wrap these cases up with the state attorney's office. And then lastly, on May 21st, officers participated in a joint traffic enforcement effort called STEER. That was along the State Road 200 corridor. That yielded over 200 stops, 141 citations, and two arrests. So we remain focused on traffic safety around the city. That's all I have. Thank you.

Any questions for Chief Balkans? Comments? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Agenda item 14, Ocala Fire Rescue Department. Fire Chief Cliff. Wellborn is recognized for his report.

Good afternoon. Clint Wellborn, Fire Chief. For the last two weeks at OFR, here's our update. As you can see, Rescue 4 leading the way with 170 unit responses. And Engine 4 on the engine side with 118. Call types, we do have 78 motor vehicle accidents. There was 134 throughout the city. OFR responding to 78 of them. Six structure fires and 33 community paramedicine and core calls. Call total for this period, 1,120, bringing the call total for this year, 11,490. We do want to welcome Firefighter EMT Jonathan Hurt to the team. New hire started May the 22nd. And congratulations to OFR's Honor Guard. We're thrilled to announce that this Honor Guard team has been awarded first place in the 2026 First There, First Care Honor Guard Competition. The team's exceptional skills were showcased through a variety of ceremonial activities, including inspection, colors posting, casket watch, casket carry, and flag folding. Congratulations to fire equipment operator, paramedic Christopher Maxson, fire equipment operator, paramedic Jacqueline Nettles, firefighter EMT Andrew Boyer, firefighter EMT Michael Brittle, captain paramedic Tim Carver, and firefighter EMT Emmanuel Del Rio. That's all I have. Thank you.

Any comments or questions for Chief Wellborn? Thank you, sir. City attorneys?

No reports, sir.

All right, so we have two public comments. Mr. Randy Buss. Mr. Buss, you asked for 12 minutes. I can't give you 12 minutes. I will allow you to have five minutes.

Thank you. Yes. My name is Randy Buss, address 745 SE 45th Terrace, Ocala. I'm here today to ask for your help in addressing what's become an excessive and damaging pattern of broadband construction in our neighborhoods. including AT&T's recent installation under the Lumen brand, our neighborhood has now seen at least three, possibly four, separate broadband providers install infrastructure within roughly the last two years. Each project has involved new digging, new equipment, new disruptions, and new damage. Each time, the number of equipment eyesores and the yard obstacles increase. We are not an unserved or underserved neighborhood for which the federal programs were intended on addressing. Residents are experiencing torn up yards, Damaged landscaping disturbs tree roots, utility boxes multiplying throughout the neighborhoods and repeated restoration work that requires additional watering time when water restrictions and high utility costs are already in effect. I'm aware there are some payments from these companies to the city and I suspect the taxpayer resources are also being consumed through permitting or utility locating or inspections or oversight. I'd like to share what happened at my home last week. I returned home last Wednesday to find multiple deep holes extending well into my yard, well into the right of way and beyond. After checking my survey, I discovered crews were working beyond the property, beyond or in my property. When I requested a supervisor, I was shown some plans that essentially said that they could only work up to the edge of the easement or the city right away, but they said since they were beyond, they would be quick and they would be out of the way and they will fix it. What concerned me most was witnessing workers using a sledgehammer against a large exposed tree root of a neighbor's yard, which was 10 feet into private property. They were hammering on a sledgehammer. I have a video that I'd be willing to show of them kind of abusing the tree. And they were basically disregarding their own boundaries of the permit by working up in the yard with the big orange pipes that kind of have to be threaded through the dirt. I was disturbed by that. I contacted city staff. They informed me that the city is aware of this ongoing concern and the providers must work within the permitted easements or the right-of-ways. And an inspector was sent out and they instructed the contractor to stay within those boundaries. However, they did not. A couple of days later's crews returned Again entered my property while preparing to install some equipment after repeated requests for them to leave the area That's beyond there right away. I Felt compelled and I'd let them know I'll have to call the police and so so I did. Thank you They arrived and only then or just moments before they arrived at the crews leave What troubles me most is? as that multiple representatives, contractors, even public officials have acknowledged that these types of issues are happening regularly, yet residents are left feeling powerless while more providers continue arriving. My concern is not opposition to internet, competition competition is healthy but there must be some reasonable limits accountability and enforcement our neighborhoods do not need endless rounds of excavation repeated damage and to mature trees and landscaping and a growing number of above-ground utility boxes every time another provider wants to enter into the market I'm a concerned citizen impacted by this out-of-control situation and I'm asking for your immediate help respectfully ask the City Council to please review what authority the city has to better protect residents or seek it from the state enforce permit boundaries and help preserve neighborhood aesthetics by requiring all underground permanent equipment and prevent unnecessary excessive duplication of infrastructure thank you for your time and consideration mr. bus

Thank you for coming and sharing that with us. We all are concerned about it. We are limited to what we can actually do. We do have staff researching, trying to see if there's stuff we can do. There's things that happen on a state level that we have no control over. And, again, all I can say is we're looking into it. We're not just standing by. We're trying to do what we can. And we hope that we can do something to help all of us because we all are being dramatized by what's going on.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Actually, I know Randy, and he's in our neighborhood, and we have complained about this at length. Yes. There's got to be something. Can we just stop the permits until we figure this thing out? There's got to be something we can do because I've got another one that's fixing to come back down in our area so that'll put us at five or four so it's like and we hear about this all the time I get calls obviously because I'm in the neighborhood so and then I think in your neighborhood you've had just as many calls correct

We've had a lot of calls. Everywhere. The calls are everywhere.

I mean, we keep talking about it, but I know I feel very helpless that there's got to be something we can do as counsel. We don't have any kind of control.

I think we control it with the hammer. And Chris... People having to water their yards, they have high water bills. They ought to be able to aggregate all this up and submit a claim, make the subcontractors pay that claim, or we hit them for the bond. Until we hit one of these guys with a bond for a large sum of money, they're going to continue to be the tail that wags the dog.

With all due respect, Councilman Musley, as of right now, I'm not aware of one claim that has not been paid by one of these contractors that's been submitted.

That's just not sufficient. Our citizens don't even know that they can make a claim. That's the problem. Could they claim, say they have a water bill that's normally $30 and then it's $300 per month because they had to water it excessively. Could they make a claim for that? Yes. Okay. I think we need to do a better job than of educating our citizens that, hey, unfortunately it's going to happen because the state law precludes it. The state, whoever you voted for, for state house and state rep, they're the ones that gave the fiber companies the authorization to come in and basically all they got to do is apply for a permit that we really can't reject.

We cannot reject it. Matter of fact, if we take no action, it's automatically improved. Correct.

They have to put up a bond. That's it. And then they come in and they wreak havoc. They don't adhere to the easement zone. I've seen that, and I'm sure every one of you have seen that. And then the multiple service boxes above the ground, it's crazy.

Hey, that's something, you know, I got a question about that. Now, we might not be able to do some of this stuff, but, you know, they've been putting these cheap, I almost said another word here. But these cheap boxes that stand about this tall, one of them is in my yard. Can we, like, physically make them? Hey, we're not accepting those in downtown City of Ocala or any place. You have to spend the extra money and put it in the ground.

Is there something we could do there? That's a long, my thought process is along that vein. It's a little late. Make them come back and change it now just because of the aggravation. Can we, is there any locational criteria that we can put upon them that says you can only be in this? In this portion of the right-of-way.

I don't know whether we'll get away with that or we can do that. Get away with it. I mean, you can't park a boat, you know, in some of my neighborhoods. You can't park a boat. You can't put stuff out. You can't have a shed. You can't have a fence, you know, in front. But you can put a freaking sign that's about this big. I mean, not a sign, but a pole about this big around with a bunch of wires in it. That's okay.

I think we'd have to look at that. I also don't know if... Logistically, that makes our engineering department's job harder.

It will.

Because now they're not only policing, are you in the right-of-way, but are you in the portion of the right-of-way that we said that you can be in? And oftentimes we're not dealing with a tremendous amount of space to...

I think we're past the hard, though. I mean, we work for them. It's not that way around. I mean, we work for the citizens. At some point in time, we have to stand up and say, guys, no, we're not doing this anymore.

We can... I think we've always been willing to look at all of the different options that have been available to us. So I think that's a new one that I hadn't heard before and we can certainly look at now. Can we regulate the type of equipment that they leave above the ground in the right of way?

And the height at which they leave it and the location in relationship to the edge of the road and the property line. You know, other than, I mean, we don't have the ability to put a moratorium on this.

And if we don't, as Mr. Watt said, if we don't take action on the permit, they get approved automatically.

Well, let's take action on it. We have. And say, you know, we're not approving above ground connection boxes. And they're going to start arguing, and I fully anticipate that. But if it slows them down, if it makes them think, That's disruption to their business model. And right now, I think we've got plenty of fiber providers to provide enough competition. And there's another one coming to town, too, by the way.

At least one. At least one. When we issued a permit, did we look at the past record of some of these contractors? And does that allow us to deny it? And then also, when we issued a permit, is there a time limit on it? There is a time limit on it. That would have to be short. I think we should have a time limit on it so we can at least focus on keeping track of where they're at. Because if we give them a permit that's never ending, they can be all over the place. We can never keep track of them.

It's not. There is a time limit.

There's a time limit and there's a geography to their permit that they ask for. So, you know, I don't know how many contiguous whatever it is, you know, how big it is. But it's a contiguous area. On the performance piece of it, as Chris said, there's no company that when we said you did, there's a claim filed, you need to pay it. They've paid everyone.

We're tracking every single claim now. Everyone, ever since this first came up a month or so ago, we get a report from RISC every week or two showing every claim, where it's pending, what the status is, the amount of it, and we're filing for everyone to date. Like I said, they've all been paid.

resists insufficient there's a boy who was fixed the property there's a piece in mister buses statements that we can look into i don't know exactly how much success will happen it's been my opinion might that these aren't underserved areas and part of the reason that all of these companies are coming to town is that they're using that money to come into this area and that's not what it was intended for. It was intended for rural areas that were underserved and this does not qualify. And that's research that we can We can do. I don't know whether we're going to make any progress at that or whether the companies are going to be forthcoming and tell us, yeah, we used that money or no, we used investor money or we used corporate money to do that with, you know, other than.

Well, I think at least we got to put something in the ground. At least we have to have our own. We should at least account maybe set it and process it. Hey, you're only allowed to. We do it now. I mean, as a contractor, there's only certain things I can do when I go in utility. Sean right there gives me a data and a spec. You are only going to use this product, and here's what it looks like. Why can't we do the same thing to them?

It's a little different. It's a private service. You know, they're putting it in as a private contractor.

When I'm on the city property, I have to do it per your specs.

When you're on city property, you do. You're in an easement. But if it's water or it's sewer, yeah, that's a different spec than a private provider providing fiber.

I think we should look into that. We've got to get creative somehow.

Well, but same with you. I mean, this is conduit for fiber.

No, it's the boxes. Oh, the box boxes? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that when you're looking down the road, like this street, you don't see a bunch of little big, huge... Yeah, we can take a shot at that. That's at least we can do that. Say, hey, you're not putting anything above ground. It has to be below ground. It's going to cost them more money. That's fine. So you want it flush. I got you. I want it flush. We need to set us back. And then, you know what? That man right there needs to pick the most expensive box that you can pick. Okay?

That's on back order for a year.

Whatever happened to the letter that was originally drafted that was too nice and we sent it back for revision that we were sending?

So we met a few weeks ago with Senator McClain and he had suggested that we draft some language for statutory changes that we could present to him. I know that Jared Ganey, our former council, he drafted that language. We incorporated it into a letter. Ms. Robbins is not right here right now. I don't know if it was transmitted to our lobbyists yet or not. Okay. But I know it's done. Okay. So that's the status of where that is now.

Of course, by the time all that gets done, there will be five or six or seven providers already with conduit in the ground.

Well, they're not considering anything at the legislature this year, right? Right.

Not even in session. You know, they're here for a special meeting.

So one of the things that I heard us say is that the citizens, average citizen, don't know that they can file a claim. Is there any way that we can get information?

Yes. I'll start that right away.

We'll do that this week.

Yes. We can get that message out on social media. We can put out a press release. There's a lot of things we can do to make the public know that, hey, if you're damaged, get a hold of us and we'll help you.

And contact the property owners that are in the subdivisions like Randy. We also have Rose Woods who's been up here and complained. We've had...

I don't know why we have to keep talking about this part. We have discussed this part of this conversation about notifying the property owners numerous times.

Not about the claims process, though. It's more about the notification.

That they're coming?

That they're coming.

It's kind of like a two-part thing.

They're under no obligation.

It's specified in we'd have to do that. We have to do it.

I'm aware. I mean, we have to do something because to his point, we all agree with everything you said, and you are not the first person to say it, which is very unfortunate. It's a weird feeling to be able to make decisions for the entire city and have no control over this whatsoever.

We can do that. We'll get some kind of door hanger. There's a worry in that, but I'll discuss it with staff. I have a concern. I have a concern that we'll miss something, first of all, but, you know, that we may not know where everything's going. But we'll work through that. Actually, Mr. Buss, I'd actually like it if you'd either stick around or come and see me after. I know you had a longer presentation, so I'd like to hear the rest. Thank you.

Nothing, nothing. I do appreciate you coming, and we heard you. and we're going to try to do what we can. Now, this is something else I want to just say. There's something called a home rule, and that's where local government has laws that they make, and the state want to take a lot of those things away. See, the state is making this problem for us right now. So remember, when you vote, stuff remember that you know some rooms a lot of rooms need to be made locally but this is something coming from the state that we have very little control over at this moment okay but we're gonna do our best we can to serve our citizens right thank you very much thank you thanks Randy miss Sarah Hendricks in regards to recycling

Good afternoon.

My name is Sarah Hendricks, address 2134 Northeast 8th Street. So I saw something concerning today, and I've seen a lot of citizens chiming in on it. I'm not sure if it can be reconsidered or not with the recycling that on July 6th, it's no longer going to take place. It is concerning to myself as well as other citizens that for residents $4.96 a month, which equates to $1.25. We are no longer going to have that. That is kind of an insignificant amount compared to, and I'm not sure where we're at, and maybe you guys might know that we're running out of space. We bought space. Our utility, well, the city bill went up already, and that was a three-year proposal, so we've got to be getting close to it. with just looking online real quick on census of how many people are here what how many people put out per pound per person every week as well as recycling the poundage I just took 35 a person I went high recycling 15 pounds that's on the high end too it's a 20 pound difference And what it's going to equal out to per week is a million pounds. we decide to go ahead and get rid of this a lot of people have expressed their concern that they're just not going to go to these sites so even though there's multiple sites they don't seem too far like myself we recycle at my house a ton more than I do any trash like we fill up maybe an eight gallon container and for trash and then the recycle bin is to the brim I even have two on our property that's how much we recycle I Read that the bins are gonna be given out and I'm sure they're no bigger than this I would literally fill up one in my house every day So people are going to go ahead and go in the trash and I and I do understand that people Misuse the recycle bins and I've seen it myself And I know that we do have magnets that go out to try to educate but I I don't know if people really look at the magnets. Um, they're helpful, but people aren't getting that and possibly putting it with the bill may have helped. Um, but, um, I think a poll before this could have been decided, whether it went with your bill online in the office, um, we have Facebook, like we're in 2026 or anything else. that could get people to vote on whether or not instead of coming in person in person's kind of, you might get 1% obviously, um, that will come up and speak or even just show up. And four o'clock's kind of hard for families that are working. Um, so having more input as an online, like, like I saw today, a lot of people are just like, well, I'm not doing that gas is too expensive or where am I going to have the time? Um, and you have that, so thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Will there be reconsideration on, I'm sorry, that was my question mainly.

No, there will not be a reconsideration and it's not. that we don't hear your argument. Part of the problem was the immense contamination in the recycle bins. And another part of the problem is many of the materials that were going into the recycling, including glass, which is the heaviest, there's no market for. So that was simply going to the landfill anyway. So, in effect, we were paying a price that was substantially higher to take stuff to the landfill all the while thinking we were doing the right thing by putting it in a recycling bin.

So my question with that is I thought we did take glass.

We did take glass, but there was no market for it. The market dried up a couple of years ago.

I understand that.

The market's dried up for a lot of recycled material. And just because you see the little triangle on it.

I totally understand. I understand that. I know glass, you can 100% into the next product. The problem is trying to find facilities to do it. It takes a lot of time, a lot of resources. So I totally understand that. I just, I guess my thing is it's $1.25 a week. And our landfill is already filling up. what is the cost going to be for citizens when we reach that point? And it's going to go even quicker now.

Well, the landfill was filling up anyway.

I understand.

A lot of the stuff that was in the recycle bin, first of all, if it was contaminated, the whole bin's going to the landfill.

Understand.

And then what was not able to be recycled was going to the landfill too. So I think you wound up with, what, 20% or 30% of the actual? It's 30% is what it is. Punnage collected? Yeah, it varied, but it was over 30%.

It's like 30%. I already know all the factors, and I've known for years, and I've gotten other people to kind of join in. It's just concerning for literally $1.25, and I don't know. Maybe that statistic, what the city put out, wasn't the amount, but the problem is that as a citizen, you see that, and you start adding it, and you go, well, I did my part, and maybe... 10 people on my street did, but maybe not the one. So why wasn't that one? Um, find like my neighbors last week, they put clothing in theirs. I saw it and I saw the garbage guy come pick up the garbage. Keep going. Why wasn't that picked up for garbage? I mean, literally, overflowing. So stuff like that could have possibly been implemented or a fine. Fine them. We fine them for ordinance outside if their grass isn't mowed high enough, all that other stuff. I just think for that such small, I think we're going to run into the problem. And I don't know where the tonnage is on a million pounds, and that's quick math, but at some point. we're going to run out of space faster so i i didn't get to that point when i just did my research of short i just felt that it needed to be at least so i could go back and go online and say nope this is the decision because of this thank you but i appreciate your time thank you item 17a uh not

17, rather. Please look at your agenda, and you'll see all the different calendar things, and you can go from there with that.

Do you have a workshop next Tuesday? Tuesday coming?

Yes. Okay. Comments by Mayor.

I'm good tonight.

Thank you. Comments by City Council Member Manfield.

I'm good. Thank you.

Mr. Hilty. I'm good. Councilwoman Dreyer.

I'm good. Thank you, sir.

Councilman Musset. I'm good. Councilman Bethea. I'm good. If there's no further things, council is adjourned. Okay.

That's what, you know. Maybe we all came up with good ideas. Why can't we?

Yeah, the game's a document. The county has to pick it in the morning. We signed it real quick.

You got a game tonight? Yes, sir. Yeah, why are you wondering? Because I had no comments. I was on vacation last week.

I'm still trying to get caught up. He's got an attorney right there.

Tell him to do the same thing. You get to the point where the right-of-way is...

They need to get a better chair. That's because I squirm around all the time. Is that what that is?

Which is the one you need?

Or you can say, we'll go on the pole and we'll pay the cost to put it on the pole. Which means you've got to replace the poles because they've got to go higher. But you know what? It's a dollar and six thing. They want to go underground even though it's so expensive to go underground. It's more costly. There's one in my yard. No, we're talking about they could do a pole attachment. If there are polls available. But in so many of the neighborhoods, the polls are all filled up too. If the polls are filled up.