City Commission - Regular Meeting

There we go. The button to work. All right. Let's call this meeting to order. We'll have Pastor Troy Stanley do the invocation for us. Actually, let's start with a roll call. I got, well, here it says roll call.

All right, okay, yeah, I see it. Pastor Troy Stanley, please.

Here. I guess he is going to be one of those nights for me.

All right. I got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Let's start with the budget hearing.

Yeah, don't feel bad. I'm doing the same thing over here.

Move to approve. Second. Motion and second. We've got public comment. Caroline Willis. I assume it was Willis with the W. I'm Carolyn Willis.

Thank you, Carolyn. Any other public comment? Go ahead, Janice. Janice Scott, come on down.

Thank you, Janice. And I wholeheartedly agree that the role of government is to provide services that the general public cannot provide for themselves. I agree with what you said. Thank you. Any other public comment? Sure. Go ahead, sir.

Dan Finnelli. Dan Finnelli, thank you very much. And actually, Tim has actually helped us. We all voted to make Minuteman a park, and one of the, I think, the ideas was to try to do exactly what you're saying, is get that power lines underground so that we can. So it is in the works. We've been talking about it and thinking about it. But thank you for your comment.

Okay. Okay. ANY OTHER PUBLIC COMMENTS ON THE BUDGET? WE WILL HAVE PUBLIC COMMENT LATER ON, BUT THIS IS JUST ABOUT BUDGET. ANY COMMISSION COMMENT? OKAY. THANK YOU, CAROLINE, FOR YOUR comment about the budget as well and the millage rate. The difference between, you know, the previous approved millage rate or the proposed millage rate, you know, is roughly around half a million a year. So I understand what you're saying, but in all reality, that wouldn't fund all the projects that we needed to do anyways. So I'm not saying that good more money is not nicer to have, but in any... We're looking ou

Yeah, go ahead. Our responsibility on this commission is to keep our infrastructure sound. and safety and security of the people. The millage rate, going back to the rollback, is basically saying, hey, you're not getting a raise this year. No one's getting a raise. But in reality, every city employee is getting a raise. Everyone out there that has a job typically gets a raise. Those that are on Social Security, they get raises too. Everyone does. We're not. The $500,000 turns out to be $45 per resident per year, which comes out to less than $4 a month per resident. Half a million dollars would

Aye. Motion passes 4-1. All right. Item C-1. C-2.

Move to approve is read. Second. Motion and a second. Any public comment? Any commission comment? All in favor? Sorry, roll call.

Aye. Motion passes 5-0. All right, we've got special presentation. Bear with me. We've got the 9-1-1 Remembrance Proclamation. accepting will be Justin Grimes, fire chief, and Chris Kuehn, police chief. Whereas on September 11th, 2001, the American people endured the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the nation's history with courage and heroism. And in response to this tragedy, Americans across the country came together in remarkable spirit of patriotism and unity and carried out countless acts of kindness, generosity, and compassion. And whereas community organizers and family members o

If you guys would come up and grab these proclamations. All right. Thank you, guys. All right. This is our next proclamation. And Jane Benton will be receiving this one. Here we go. So whereas September is designated as National Suicide Prevention Month, as recognized by the National Association of Mental Illness, and whereas many health officials and community leaders locally, state, and nationally understand that mental illness is a significant issue of concern, particularly among our youth, and whereas we realize that no address more open and honest discussions about mental health, and wher

Thank you so much, and I have some proclamations for you here.

All right. Okay. So we would normally be at public comments right now, but I know there's a lot of people here for the fourth street incident. So let's let public's work come up and talk first. And then if you still have questions or comments, you can bring them after he speaks on public comment. So come on up, Brad.

Thank you, Brad. And Brad, would you like to address their comments as they come or do you want to do it all at once at the end?

Thank you, Brad. And, uh, I just want to give you a, a public, uh, pat back because I've spoke to a few of those residents as well on that street. And, uh, and, and you too, uh, city manager, uh, they had brought some concerns, uh, within, within, I think three hours you were out there taking samples. Um, so of, of when I placed that call, um, also, um, Today, I think it was today, you had a meeting with some other people as well. You gave them your cell number. You explained to them exactly everything that was happening. So your promptness on this issue, I think, has shown the residents, or a

All right, so let's go to public comment. Anybody have any public comments or concerns that was not addressed by Brad that you'd like more information about? Yes. Could you come up, state your name and address?

Is that on the north side or south side of Manaman? I didn't hear the address.

Okay, so that's more than likely Manatees. I have Manatees prepping. That wouldn't travel through there.

I appreciate that. I think we all understand the difference between what manatees can do. Appreciate that. Any other concerns? Let's keep it to what Brad's going on right now. Anybody else that wants to talk about public comment, at least for Brad at this point? Janice? Go ahead, Janice. Was it about this or no? All right, well, let's do all the 4th Street stuff first, and then you can do it at the end.

CHRIS RODGERS- Jen, thank you for your comment. Ken, you got my cell number, so you can always call me. And if you want, please feel free to share it to everyone on your block if they want to call me. You guys have my cell. And any time your husband's called me, I've always answered and tried to answer him as quickly as possible. So thank you for your concerns. And if it wasn't for actually your husband calling me in the first place, I wouldn't have known some of the stuff that was going on. So thank you. Is there anything of that that you need to address? The swimming, can people swim in that

Okay. And not just in that area, the entire lagoon?

Right. Through that testing, it was determined that it's It's not any different in that canal than it is in any other canal throughout the city and actually the entire lagoon, as I just said. Correct.

Real quick, Brad, too, because a lot of these people weren't here last week or two weeks ago. Could you explain to them that you had to stop work and what kind of happened and why you had to stop work just so that they understand that you guys tried to take –

All of the river, but that's not due to us. It's just that's what the river is right now. Name and address, please.

Thank you, sir. I agree with you. We could definitely do better on communication, and I think the city manager also hears you as well. Thank you for your comments, and we'll take that to heart. Thank you. Any other public comments? Name and address, please.

Thank you. City Mayor, do you want to say anything on that?

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Any other public comments on this matter at least?

And on that note, if you guys don't let me know that stuff is happening in your community sometimes or any of the other commissioners, we're not in operations, so we don't necessarily know What's going on or what's happening? So sometimes we need we need to know this so that we can get information for you because we are liaison between you and the and the city. So, you know, feel free to reach out to us. And, you know, sometimes we don't know stuff's happening until until it's brought. So. So please do that. Public comment on this still. Go ahead.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. Uh, city manager, is there, is there an emergency contact or is there a way for residents? Is it, is it the police on non-emergency line or?

Okay. Yep. Thank you. And I really do appreciate all your comments because, you know, without, without your comments, we can't fix. We don't know what's wrong. So thank you for that. Any other public comment on this? We can, but I want to get this out of the way so I can get Brad relaxed.

I'm not trying to make light of it. Thank you. Yeah, we understand it and we hear your concerns and we're not trying to, well. The rest of the commission, he's not trying to make light of it. He's long-winded. So we understand that.

Yeah, no, I think you got it. And I truly think he was just trying to explain what he said, but he was a little bit more eloquent when he speaks because I'm not good myself. But yeah, we've heard what you said. The staff has taken note. Our city manager has taken note. We have all taken note. And like I said, if you want my cell, you can get from Jen as well. But thank you for your concerns. Any other comments on this? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. From what I understand, all the levels were identical? but I don't know what the levels themselves were.

So I suppose, if you don't mind, we can try to look into that a little bit and maybe get an answer for you, at least by next commission meeting. But thank you for that. Any other comments on this? Okay, let's go to regular public comment. We'll kind of close this one out for now. Go ahead, Janice.

Thank you, Janice. I agree. All right. Let's go on to the next public comment. Reminder, public comment is three minutes. Go ahead, Rick Anderson. Step on down.

Thank you, Rick. Last year, you did a little history thing too. That was nice. Lauren, did you want to speak again? I do. OK, come on down.

Yeah, you're good. Go ahead. OK, thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Just so happens that Mark Granger, you're up next.

Thank you, sir. Does anybody know, is it spelled N-O-O? D or is it N-U-D-E? Spelt like noodle. Okay. Just wondering. All right. Dan. Fans. I can't read that. Come on down.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. Chris, real quick, let me just ask a quick question. Is it lawful to do a safety or equipment check unprovoked on a bicycle or a kid? Is it lawful to do an unprovoked safety check on a bicycle or e-bike?

Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Appreciate that.

Yeah, well, you come up, please. Yeah, you have to. That way you can see your name and address and you have three minutes to...

There is no class on that currently. It's not required because they are classified as basically the same as bicycles at this point. Unless they're over, I believe it's... Was it 250 watts or 500 watts or something like that? So there's a requirement for them to have a license or a class or anything. Now, I'm all for if we could do something with the school and have a class like maybe once a quarter or something, like a one-day thing. I'd be okay with that. But that's something that we're going to have to try to see if we can set up with the school. We haven't done it yet. I would be open to di

They're classified the same as data. That's exact.

Thank you. I believe that's all we have for public comment and we're going to go All right, before you, more behind you.

No, I appreciate it, and I can see the city manager putting stuff down right now, so I'm sure he's going to follow up with that. So thank you. All right. Public comments usually limited to one person, but we'll go ahead and go. Fred, trust.

Real quick, you just had your three minutes real quick. I'm not trying to stop you from talking, but the main thing that you're asking looks like you want murals on all three of your bills. Is that right? What I want to do, I don't want to make it any exception. But you don't want any writing on other than the one side, right? Can you explain to me the difference between that and Jazzy's Mainly Lobster or Coconuts on the Beach or...

All right. So, Fred, the three minutes, I understand where you're coming from. I'm going to discuss with the city manager more about this and I'll better understand.

So, I give you my word that I'm going to talk with him and figure out what it is. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right. That was a lot. That was the most public comment I think we've ever had. All right. Staff reports.

Okay. Skip, go ahead. It's your turn. Your time now.

I have a question from the commission. Me and the city manager have talked about this a little bit. Since we didn't vote on the 4th Street charging for the boat ramp, is everybody on the commission pretty much okay with that?

Charging for parking at Ramp Road. Yes. You're okay?

Well, I'm just torn because I've been here since before they were charging even for the beach.

I know. I know. So I just want to see. Obviously, I'm not going to make a big lot if everybody else is for it.

And I see where we can, as residents, we can pay $20. Everybody gets to use it. I see that a bit as well. And honestly, it probably keeps more of the outsiders from interfering with it as well. But I just wanted to see your guys' view on it. And I'm not going to push it any further than.

Consent agenda. He wants to pull item two. Okay. Tim wants to pull item two from consent agenda. We got a motion with pulling two.

I make a motion to accept the consent agenda minus number two. Second. Second.

Okay. Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes five. Let's remove the consent agenda. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, I'm just wondering why this is even on the consent agenda.

hear you um i might suggest that that we have an inauguration like the president does so it's the same time same day every year not on the january 20th but um have the same day every year so we have a consistent date to have the oath of office but our commissioner's um sworn in well we only have elections every two years so why would we do that every year every every two years That's what I misspoke also. So I guess we're even on that stance. But apparently there's going to be an issue coming up in a future election where there's going to be a discrepancy on the time of election day.

I did a two-year term. And the code states if you're in office for two years or more, it counts as a full term. I got sworn in a week before that two years up, so technically my first term was in two years. So that's what he's referring to.

There you go. So you got sworn in not on the day of the meeting, but a week before the meeting, so that it would be less than two years. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. We need to have some sort of consistency with the date that we get sworn in rather than just arbitrary picking a day every year and, you know, using legalese to skip through certain things to be able to avoid a...

Let's get them going. It's due on the day that you were sworn in. That's your actual dates. I see what he's saying. The thing is with that, it wouldn't fall on a Thursday every two years. It doesn't matter. January 20th doesn't fall on the same day every year. So if you want to do it like that, we can do it where it's no matter what day it is.

I'm bringing up a point here, you know, because I see this.

And there's no potential of somebody getting sworn in before and making less of a term or more of a term.

Okay, any public comment on this? Go ahead, Janice.

I'm curious as to why you want to do that. I mean, it obviously came from you. I'm just wondering, is that a date special for you or something? It's a matter of a meeting.

One less meeting for you? Well, that way you don't have to. After 40 years.

I don't think it's really that big of a deal at this point. I do see Tim's reasoning, but I think at this point, this election doesn't make that big of a difference.

Okay. So all in favor of Skip's one-time change? Was there a motion? I think there was. Yes. Okay. And a second.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 4-1. All right.

Second. Motion and second. Any public comment on this? Any commission comment?

All right, well, you guys know my concern is it's going to be a consistent drain on the city. We'll never receive revenue for it, and we'll always be required to take care of a specialty park. So that's my only concern with this. So are we ready for a vote?

I would be OK with that, but let's hear from Devin.

Thank you. For the record, we have consent. Does that guarantee that you're going to be at all our meetings going forward? Only for three minutes. On each item.

I'm going to hold you to those three minutes too, Skip. Thank you for doing that, Skip, and thank you for putting that together. I appreciate that.

We got six miles apart along the beach. 6.1 now. 6.1.

Any public comment? Any commission comment?

All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 5-0. We are adjourned.