City Council - Regular Meeting

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated.

I will just inform all the projectors in this ceiling is working, but the one behind me will not be working, okay? This afternoon we have a fire department awards. Fire Chief Ezell.

Thank you, Chief. Before you all leave, I noticed a lot of them have family members here. I would like to give them an opportunity to come up and get a picture with their family members that has one here. Because while they're out there making sacrifices and risking to save our lives and protect us and everything, the families at home... making sacrifices as well. So we need to make sure we make them feel just as welcome because it's all a team and family thing. So I would like to take a few minutes and just hold off for a few minutes. Anyone want to take pictures with their family member, ple

Again, thank you from the residents and the members of the city council. Thank you all for all you all do and the sacrifices you all make every day protecting the city and the residents of Clermont. And as I said, the families make those sacrifices as well. Even though you are out there, they got your back when you get home. So we appreciate them as well. The next item on me is the public comments. If you wish to address the council, In person, please come to the microphone and state your name and address. Once in-person comments have concluded, we will move on to virtual comments. If you are

Just keep in mind, ma'am, any pictures you show, you have to turn them and leave them with the clerk, okay?

Okay, Tracy, can we make copies of those? Go ahead. I'm going to give you a minute to go ahead and show them real quick.

You insist on us seeing these pictures, so. They can see that.

Thank you, ma'am. And if you would get the clerk over there, she was trying to get you some coffee. You don't need them? Thank you.

Thank you. This is a public comment. Anyone in the chamber wish to speak to anything that's not on the agenda may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. This is a public comment. Anyone in the chamber wish to speak to an item that's not on the agenda may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Seeing no one else in the chamber. We have anyone online, sir? No one online. We are closed public comments then. All right, before we move on, Mr. Van Wagner, is there any changes to the agenda this evening?

We don't need to do nothing with that. Okay. Entertain a motion on what was it?

I have a motion and a second to table item number six, ordinance number 2026, there's 014 to 13 October 26th. Any further discussion? No. Hearing none, all in favor, let me know by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And the chair vote aye as well. Motion passes 5-0.

No, at the beginning. Okay. We have a motion and a second. The table ordinance number is 2026-025. Any further discussion? If none, all in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And chair vote aye as well. Motion carries 5-0. Item number 9.

I have a motion and a second to table resolution number 2026-022, Ara. Any further discussion? None. All in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Chair, aye as well. Motion carries 5-0. And for anyone that may have been here for item number eight, it has been pulled as well. Okay.

No, we don't need a motion. It was pulled, buddy. And so we need no motion there. Any other changes? That's it. Okay. So the next portion of the meeting is the consent agenda, which contains items that have been determined to be routine and non-controversial. If anyone in the audience wish to address a particular item on the consent agenda, now is the opportunity for you to do so. Additionally, if staff or members of the City Council wish to speak on a consent item, they have the same opportunity. The consent item for consideration tonight is item one through five. Anyone wish to have any item

I have a motion for approval of consent item 1 and item 3 through 5. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, let it be known by saying aye. All opposed? Chair vote aye as well. Yes, sir.

Is that it? Okay. This is a public forum. Anyone in the public wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anyone in the chamber wish to speak to this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anyone in the chamber wish to speak to this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Seeing no one in chamber, anyone online, sir? We have no one online, so I'll close public comment and bring it back to council. Ms. Myers, you have question time.

No, no question. Just a statement. You have any questions, Mr. Peterson? No, this is yours.

Mr. Van Wagner, when will we get the utility rate study back that we ordered over the summer?

Thank you, Mayor. You said end of this week? Yeah. When will that come back before us for presentation, workshop?

Sure, yeah. I would expect that you would have a chance to review everything, but I'm just curious what the schedule is moving forward. Good afternoon, council.

And will that be through a workshop, or will that just be an item on the agenda? What's the plan moving forward with that? Because I know we had them here, I think, previously, but they didn't give us any specifics about the actual rates for post-2027, right?

Thank you. I don't know, Mr. City Manager, I'll ask you this question. I don't know if it's going to be you or a different staff member, but when I talked about this in the agenda review, it was brought to my attention that this is not actually the resolution that there was some confusion or clarification as to what we're actually doing with this rate schedule fee. Can we get some clarification on that and how this council can go about making changes to the rates and what are the implications of to the bonding and current structure were under the ends in 27, if we did make those changes to the

When you say look at that, you mean changing rates? Yes. Okay.

It does. So I guess then for further clarification, if we vote, if the vote ends up being in favor of the fee schedule, it implements the fee schedule, all of the ones that are in here. Yes. If we vote, if the vote ends up being no, none of these fees are implemented in at a new rate. So the continued rates, so like what it costs to rent a pavilion or, you know, all that, because that's all included in here. What happens to all those other things if we don't approve this fee schedule?

Okay. So even if this resolution failed, unless there's specific action through a different resolution or vehicle, the rates would still go into effect as presented in the fee schedule.

Okay. I think those are, my only other question to the city manager in final is, with these fees, I think it's important to understand the perspective of staff and particularly all of these other fees that are included in here. I mean, we've got, gosh, 20 some pages of different things. Are these all fees reasonable, adequate, and where they need to be from a staff perspective to operate the city and cover the costs? Okay, thank you. Those are my own questions. Okay.

Well, let me start with, you know, yes, I voted for this resolution back in 2023 and everything, but here's something I guess I need everybody to understand. In 2023, we hired a professional company organization to come in and do a rate study on our utility rates. At that time, our utility rates hadn't seen an increase. They haven't did too much with our utility in about 15 years, I think it was at the time. So they came in, and their recommendation was basically what we voted on and what we presented was their recommendation based upon the fact that our infrastructure, wastewater infrastructu

I'm sorry, was that not your statement time?

No. I'm asking, one other question I'm asking you, are this council ready to reverse the decision that was made by the previous council? Is that what we're looking to do here today? Okay. Am I on the question I asked? And then if that's what we're doing, the next question I have is, if that's the case, where did the money come to operate with?

Well, we've hired a firm, Mr. Mayor, to do a study. Ever since this was done, we've added about 3,000 people to our list of persons being served. And if you count the annexations or the JPA agreements that the county's been approving as of late, we've got an awful lot of servicers that are going to be coming online who hopefully are paying appropriate impact fees and user fees. I think that it's fair to reevaluate it. It's been three years. The prior council said they would reevaluate it in three years, and that's the process that we're in. So, yes, I would love to roll back that rate. I'd rol

And I have no problem with that. We can sit here. We can roll it all back. Guess what? Like other people come in, guess what? The cost of operating that infrastructure and providing that service to people, the cost went up as well. Okay? See, we sit here and we say we want to roll back costs. and everything because we get all these extra people in, but it costs us extra to provide that service to the people as well. So that's one of the things I ask, where would the fund come from if we decide to roll it back? And I have no problem. We can cancel it all, but as Mr. Waugh said, hey, we may have

I don't know if you want to call for a vote.

I have a couple of comments that could affect a motion on this. So the first is, as our staff has shared with us, this is really truly an administrative function. There are a couple of decisions that need to be made in here. For example, bulk collections is something that wasn't in the original 2023 report. We've got some cemetery changes. There's a hard drive charge and then use of the disc golf at Hiawatha Park. And those are kind of the changes. And so technically we're approving those, but we're rubber stamping the utility bill increase. I don't like the idea of causing confusion for the p

I agree that this fee schedule isn't the appropriate venue or vehicle to actually address the rate per what the city attorney has indicated. I guess I would want to know from staff if we do make a motion to table this because the budget is built as such that these are going to go into place at day one of fiscal year 27, what does that mean for us financially? Because again, whether this gets tabled, and please city attorney correct me if I'm wrong, I ask the question if we vote yes, they're implemented. If we vote no, I'm talking utility. If we vote no, they're implemented. If we table, I'm as

Yeah. And so I feel like my recommendation, we approve the fee schedule and then we address the rates. We address the rates, whether it's in the current fiscal year through that appropriate vehicle or not. And I read this as this is through fiscal year 26, 27. So they end at the end of this next fiscal year. The fee schedule is no longer going to be in place after this budget that we're putting in place at the end of this month for fiscal year 27. So we have the ability then to really address the fees moving forward. I don't think we should be putting the city in a position for bonding and lev

As I stated earlier, this wasn't just done out of nowhere. It was done because of professional advice we received from a professional company, which we are doing the same thing right now, getting professional advice. It wasn't up to staff to sit down and determine these rates and everything. This is what we recommended through a professional company. One of the other things I need to add here is that the fact is we were sitting here, and one of the things I found when I came in, I was told that we need to improve our wastewater treatment plant. However, it was operating at 97% of the time. Oka

Right. Well, I understand that we take that chance if we do this. And I just finished like this and said, basically, you know, I sit up here as elected official, and sometimes we have to make tough decisions when it comes to these type of things. And that's part of our job, and that's what we were elected to do. When I voted to do this, guess what? It didn't just increase your rate. It increased my rate, too, because I'm a resident as well. And I'll be honest with you, I'm one of those that complain about my rate. I saw an increase, but still, I understood what went on there, and I asked mysel

I'm going to move the table of this item to the September 22nd meeting.

I have a motion to move this item to September 22nd meeting. Is there any requirements you're going to...

I'd like staff to bring us options to reduce the rate based on the new rate study and or the bond status with any funds that we have available in the enterprise funds. I'd like staff to take a stab at lowering this rate before we adopt the final budget and publish the final fee schedule.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. And asking staff to bring us a possibility of rate reduction, whether it's September 22nd, September 27th. Next council meeting is September 27th, 2026. Any further discussion? And all in favor, let me know by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And share vote aye as well. Thank you. All right. Item six was table seven, was table eight, was four, nine. So we had item 10, variance request.

Not for me, not at this time, sir, but if you hang around for a little bit, I'm going to open it up to the public. Then we'll come back if we have any other questions, okay? This is a public forum. Anyone in the chamber wish to speak to the site may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else? This is a public forum. Anyone in the chamber wish to speak to this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anyone else? Seeing no one in chamber, I'll close chamber. No one online will close the land. What say you, Ms. Marsh?

Can I suggest that we maybe table this so that our attorney has a chance to review this and meet with the applicant? And I'll point out, too, we've talked about the Development and Design Center, and it feels like this being kind of the gateway to Claremont Lake County, there might be something that staff could come up with and bring back to us. Because what I'm hearing is not we're trying to bribe you. I'm hearing we're trying to get along.

And I'm just going to say, I think we're all going to walk into some real hot, muddy water if we go down too far on this. That's just my suggestion.

I agree with you. I agree with you, but can I ask Mr. Wong one question? What's the difference between what they just offered to do and what we did with the Volkswagen deal?

Yeah, well, they donated two acres of land and everything to us as well. But they didn't get a variance. Yeah, they asked for some variances, but I don't sit here and try to prove a variance on what they donate or whatever. And you can't. Well, one of the things I always ask, what is the give back to the community and everything? When you come in here, I'm not a... Well, I hate for developers. I don't like developers coming here and developing and just run off. What else are you going to contribute to the community rather than just do your development and leave us high and dry to take care of everything? Okay.

Well, didn't they say one, two, and four meet all the standards?

One, two, and four. The grading. Three didn't meet all the criteria. No, three didn't.

Hold on. If we start getting into cutting and filling, we're going to be talking about cutting down trees. And what we're basically doing in that scenario is approving the proposal. And I just think given the way this record would read and the fact that our attorney has... I don't want the answer, actually, of how we got here without you seeing this.

Well, Ms. Strain, didn't you have a motion?

Yeah, I was going to suggest tabling it, but I was going to ask if the applicant – I don't know the process on that because it's their application, so they might need to table it, but – I know I if I can't get a clear picture on everything, I would not approve anything. And so that's just so, you know, kind of how my brain works. So I don't want to put you in. I don't put either of us in that situation if we're talking about tabling it. And then again, I just don't want any of us to forget. We've talked about a development design center, which could be incredibly useful in this particular proj

You tell me how we buy more time without causing more problems.

And I'm only one of five, but I can tell you I'm against the thing you want. So if you want us to move forward, I'd be happy to be one of the five.

Yeah, we've seen the outcome of that before. It definitely affects the resale value.

Yes, she was about to make a motion. Okay. I don't know if there was a second. I think you seconded it, yeah. So we had a motion and a second to table October 27th. Cool. So we got a thumbs up for the applicant.

Can we go for a vote? I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a motion to table item number 10 to October 27th.

Well, if there's 13, then the 14 is in there.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And chair, vote aye as well. Thank you.

This is a public hearing. Anyone in the public who wishes to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name, address, and have three minutes.

Thank you. Anyone else? This is a public forum. Anyone in the chamber wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Anyone else? Seeing no one else.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else? This is a public forum. Anyone in the chamber which addresses, I may come to my phone, state your name and address and have three minutes. Seeing no one else, I close the chamber. No one online, so I'll bring it back to council. What say you, Ms. Myers?

Yeah, real quick question. Rick, are you accepting any benefits currently?

I didn't think so. So I averaged the scores, and Mr. Van Wagner averaged a 4.01, which exceeds expectations. There were four areas for the public watching that somebody felt he fell below expectations. And then there was one area that related to procurement, which we've talked about publicly before. And I think that both – and I've talked to Mr. Van Wagner about – my evaluation, he knows which one is mine. One thing that I suggested, so then you'll all know which one is mine, is that we have some sort of task management software. This actually came up recently. A public member said, hey, can w

Thank you, Mayor. Is the four and a half percent, is that a, if I can ask Council Member Myers, I think you were the first one to bring it up. Is that based off of what a merit increase that we've given all staff or is that a number that you came up? I'm just curious how you came up with that number because I was going to ask the question about what we did for staff and department heads.

The directors for their staff? To go up as high as five.

And then I agree with Council Member Strange, her comment about the project management. You know, I think there's a couple different things that we talked about trying to accomplish in this process, which was potentially doing an evaluation for a merit increase. And then also, do we want to set goals for Some sort of specific goals for the next calendar year so that moving forward when we do this, the city manager can actually report back. Here's how I accomplished what you asked me to do. And here's also what I accomplished on top of that. So that going into the evaluation process, we actuall

Yeah. And I mean, I think they're all good ideas because they came from us and we have a real, well, but I mean, okay, that sounded, that sounded, that didn't mean the way that sounded. I did not mean the way that sounded. What I meant was, is that obviously we cared about what they meant to us to put that in a goal. And so I think that's important to recognize. However, I also don't want to give a list of I don't know how many there are here, but even if it's eight or 10 goals that are pretty intensive, I don't think that that sets him up for, for success. So, um, I don't know if there's a wa

If I can contribute briefly on that, I think whoever Evaluator 3 is gave five really good targets for next year. I don't know, but I thought those were good.

I mean, Mr. Van Wagner, you say we go up to 5%. Isn't that with performance as well? They can get up to 5%. It's based on performance.

I thought we cut it down to three. We're a performance, and then we take performance out.

Well, that's what I thought. That's what it was set up. It was set up at 3% for staff, but they can do another 2% for performance and get up to 5% is what it, what it was. Another question, police and fire. Didn't we just do 4% for them? Wasn't there contracts?

Well, the first year of the contract, police got 18% and fire got 15%, but then we set everything else for the next two or three years at 4%.

Right, for the union. Yeah, that's union, yeah. But they said, if I'm not mistaken, what we approved was 18% for fire last year. Now, fire was 15% and police was 18% because that brought them up to the minimum pay equal to everybody other agency around to get them up to that level, okay? That's why we gave them big boosts. Then each year after that, it would have been 4% for each one, if I'm not mistaken, in that contract. But anyway, I was thinking more 4% because that's where we went with everybody else. And trust me, when it comes to pay increases, anything over 2% for me is – It is crazy.

Make sure we're somewhere in the same range with everybody else, what we're doing with everybody else, and like I say, other employees and everything. But if I'm not mistaken, police is at four and fire is at four. Okay.

I know most of them I've done was around 4%, okay, not 4. Anything over, so. And that's what I'm saying. In action. But I entertain a motion.

I have a motion and a second to approve 4.5%. a merit increase for the city manager. Any further discussion?

May I just ask, how do we want to handle the goals piece of this? We didn't decide. That's why I'm asking if we want to just make... Council Member Strange brought up Sorry. The five items under Evaluator 3. There's another one for project management. There's another one about community outreach. I just don't know if we want to set that here or if we're asking for something to come back to us. I just don't want to not do anything and then we...

Well, I was going to go back and if I'm not mistaken, when we did this evaluation, it asked us to list improvements or goals you wanted to do. So, when you did the evaluation, you should have done that already. Correct. the evaluation so I don't know why we got to come back now and have a whole nother meeting on goals when we were supposedly when you did your evaluation did that now are some of repetitive I think so okay so maybe the city manager deficit manager and Tracy whoever can go through and narrow them down and get rid of and just say here's the goals but I don't think we need to have

Yeah, so Mr. Peterson, you might consider amending your motion to accept the valuations of the council and approving a merit-based pay increase to 4.5% and the amount of 4.5% with specific instructions to the city manager to bring back. What? A resolution? What are we? To pursue the specific goals for the next year as identified by evaluator number three.

So I think to Mr. Bain's point, and I actually do agree with it, is we've done the process, but if the motion is simply the pay increase, there's no one acceptance of the evaluations which support the pay increase. And two, there's no direction. And so I hear everybody and I agree. I don't necessarily feel we need to workshop it. I think we're on the same page. I think evaluator three, I might wordsmith a little bit, Frankenstein it, but I think evaluator three nailed the top five kind of targets for 2027 and their proposals for the next year.

Yes, I agree with that. Okay. The fact that, you know, we've given all this to him, what our expectation is. And if either one of us feel he's not meeting our expectation, I think we need to have a one-on-one with him to express that rather than trying to sit here and say, okay, we're going to take evaluation number three goals and apply. Then you're trying to dictate to me how I'm supposed to up your person. Okay. Yeah. accept the evaluation as it's been given, anybody have any problem that he don't think they're meeting your expectation, his or her expectation, then you need to have a one-on

Well, and yeah, the three-pager performance evaluation tally form really does, I mean, Mr. Van Wagner, do you feel... Um, do you feel like this form, this three page form was fair? Do you think that this process gave you, I mean, how do you feel about this process? And do you feel like you have the tools that you need moving forward for fiscal year 27 based on what we've provided with you?

Is there anything that we can provide for you today that would give you clarity moving forward as we go into fiscal year 2017?

Well, I just want to point out that if those twos that are on there were fours, you would have had a 4.51 score. So that's pretty darn good. So I hope you take it that way. I think you're a perfectionist. So I like that about you. I just want to make sure if there's something we need to do today to give you clarity and make you feel more at peace that we're doing that for you.

I think hearing him say that, I think accepting just the motion of accepting the evaluations and issuing the 4.5 merit increase for this year is absolutely justified and warranted.

Good. Okay. So that's the motion and a second to accept the performance evaluation as presented and award a 4.5% merit increase. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Shareable, aye as well. Motion carries 5-0. Ordinance number 2026-019. Introduction, Lake Louisa. Here we go again.

Thank you. Anyone on council have any serious questions or concerns about this introduction? So are you telling me we don't need to do a public forum? No. Okay.

to approve Ordinance Number 2026-019, Intro Lousy, I hate Louisa, Grandy. Louisa Grandy. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? And Chair vote aye as well. Item Number 13, Ordinance Number 2026-020.

Okay. Again, any serious questions? No. In that case, I entertain a motion.

I have a motion and a second for acceptance of Ordinance No. 2026-020. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, let it be known by saying aye. All opposed? And chair, vote aye as well. Item No. 14, Councilmember Request Candidate Form Advertising.

Okay. This is a public forum. Anyone in the public wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else? Anyone else? No one else in the chamber? I'll close down public comment in the chamber. We have anyone online? Certainly no one online. I'll bring it back to council. What say you, Mr. Peterson?

Yeah, I actually would like the question requested by the public to be answered by staff, whether there's been some communication by any member of council. I mean, I would also direct it to Ms. Myers. Like, why is this on our agenda tonight? Did somebody ask to take this off of our website? Are we not promoting it on Facebook? Like, what caused this to happen?

So you're the one who pulled it from the website.

Well, the question was, did someone on council direct staff?

Right. Attorney client. Yeah. Um, is there anyone else on staff that feels the need in full transparency to disclose any information to answer the question of the member of the public?

Well, help me because my recollection, which I prefer to look at black and white, and I apologize, I'm not prepared. Ms. Myers brought up in a report. Two months ago, was it? Something like that? Two months ago, asking if we as council supported this, and I thought there was a general sense of yes.

Am I misremembering? No, your memory's right. There was only one person that wasn't for it. So is there something, Mr. Waugh, that... Are there... Are there funds that are necessary for advertisement? Is there some sort of approval that you need that Ms. Myers is needing? And I reiterate, I appreciate you hosting this. I can't think of anything better for use of civic space than for civic engagement. So is there something that is necessary that we can help move this forward with?

Is there staff on the city dedicating time to coordinating it and setting it up? I thought it was the moderator, Doris. Yes, yes.

I got one of my two questions. So the other question is, do we currently have a policy or procedure in place for items like this? Okay, I'll save the rest for comments. Thank you.

Okay. It's always been my understanding since being here. The city didn't get involved in these kind of things. This is my first time in all the years I've been around here that we had the city get involved with this. To clear the record, I did call Mr. Waugh and ask him some questions about it. One of my questions was about the legality of it as far as the fact that we're hosting this and then what could concern me when some taxpayer dollars are involved. That brought up a legal question to me, so that's why I called Mr. Waugh about it. I had nothing to do with it. I don't know what went on w

Yeah, I think that I think that I do feel, you know, Mr. Mayor, if you're not going to be there, it's Unfortunate would be one word to use. I mean, I think the purpose of a town hall is that people can come and they can engage and they can meet the candidates. I remember the meeting that you're talking about. I was running for election and I wasn't invited to that meeting, which was the issue with sunshine. It wasn't an open public meeting, um, back in 2024. So, you know, this one's open to the public. And so it's tough that, um,

Right. We have the problem of, you know, has it been – are people planning on coming? I mean, if people are planning on coming, then it sounds like it's been vetted and it's been – if people are planning on coming and it's been advertised, I think it should move forward. I personally – I think public spaces are for public meetings. I will never oppose any public meeting in a public place ever. So – I'm stunned that there's a problem here. I want to make a just decision if there's a decision to be made, but it sounds like we're moving forward in a direction. And I think the only decision for me

Well, when you just set up a date, you don't inquire with anybody else what's on their calendar and everything and then just schedule something and expect somebody to just drop everything. It doesn't work that way.

Well, you know, just like I didn't make the hobnob because I was out of town and everything doing the hobnob.

I'm not sitting here to try to stop this or do anything with it. See, like I say, I know I can't be there. If this is what you all want to do and my city attorney then told me that everything is okay. And he's vetted it and everything, and we're not getting ourselves in any legal trouble. That's the only thing I'm ever concerned when I look at things like this. What legal ramification or drawback can the city be facing when we do things like this? Okay. And that's all. And, of course, like I said, he's the attorney. If he's assured me that, hey, we okay, and if something do come up, he can def

But I know what was brought to my attention, and I needed to satisfy my soul and everything that we was okay and legal here.

May I just make my comment, please? Sure. Thank you. My only concern about this was if there's a policy for advertising if it's not a city event. Because what I don't want to do is create a, we advertise these, but don't advertise these over here. And hearing that it's a city event, I don't think that there's an issue. However, I will say I think it probably behooves asking our city attorney for future so that if there is a majority of the council up here that could enact a way through not approving or approving, even though that's not the case this year, let's go ahead and put a policy or pro

Let me say, we used to have council meet the candidates years ago, and the city never did them. They were always done by some private organization. The chamber used to do them. They do the harm now. They do all these meet and greets and everything. It was never done in the city. And to go back... to kind of like what Mr. Wagner was saying earlier and somewhat to your comment that you made a few council meetings ago, Ms. Strange, is the fact that now you're asking, somewhat asking city staff to get involved and they're trying to remain neutral and all. And now we, the city is sponsoring the eve

So, Ms. Myers, is there anything you're asking for from us as a motion?

I move to advertise it on the website and social media. Sorry. Thank you.

I have a motion and a second to advertise the approval of item number 14 for advertisement on the website. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Chair vote aye as well. Motion carries five-all. Item number 15, consideration of adopting a physical year 2027 parks and recreation policy.

Yep, so this one is mine, and full disclosure, I think this kind of upcoming year, what you'll be seeing from me is a lot of attempts at policy. Also, full disclosure, I've never written a policy in my life to my recollection, so they're probably really poorly done, but I'll get better, I promise. One of the things I noticed is... Bless his heart. And I don't mean that in the Southern sense. I really mean it. I ran into Brian Foreman at the ARC, and he said, you know, I came to that meeting. Sorry, I'm just calling you out. I come to that meeting, and I asked, like, can I work on the developme

Thank you. This is a public forum. Anyone in the chamber wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes.

Anyone else? This is a public hearing. Anyone in the chamber wish to address this item may come to the microphone and state your name and address and have three minutes. Seeing no one else, I have one online. Caller online, please unmute yourself.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else? No one else? We close down public comment and bring it back to Council. Ms. Myers.

I do have some questions, but first, I think we already have, if I'm not mistaken, we have a park and recreation policy already, if I'm not mistaken, that required to have 10 acres of park for every 1,000 residents. Is that not in our comprehensive plan already?

We already have established in our comprehensive plan to have 10 acres of parks per 1,000 residents. Okay. And currently we have, what, 443 acres, give or take, of parks? I'm going to trust you on that. I don't know the exact number. I'm just trying to verify this before, because I do have some questions, but I want to make sure I get all this before.

Well, I can speak to that a little bit. One of the questions that the ABA had when they did the NRPA assessment was how to calculate any lakefront access as park access. And so there's the opportunity to short-come ourselves or oversell parks. I mean, it can get tricky because we do have so many lakefronts. Not in a bad sense tricky, just a little more complex than the average neighborhood or community. So the reason why I've proposed one active park and not treated that as necessarily a lakefront is so that we're actually intentionally creating spaces that the average person in the average ci

I agree. And, of course, this policy, we will replace the current policy, which you're creating five geographic quarters, right? Ten acres, like you say, ten acres of active, ten acres of passive natural park. And then here's the other thing in there. You say five minutes. Mm-hmm. access within five minutes, but then in the policy you state walking, automobile, bicycle, and everything. So what standard are we using to measure that five minutes?

Yeah. So parks are unique, like any piece of real estate and every child, right, is the five minute is actually simply having access to a park of any kind. It can be a private park. It can be what I'm proposing. It could be a private park. It could be a public park. But the point is, everybody who lives in Claremont would be within five minutes of a place they can go. and be connected to nature or play outside in the sun, in the elements. Now, the active park, natural park component of this would be, these are going to be big spaces. You start dealing with a 10 plus acre park and it takes a lo

Okay. Well, I'm just looking at what you're proposing here, and like I say, if I'm not mistaken, our comprehensive plan already provides for a citywide acreage and level type park, and we want to go from that to a geographic distribution of parks and all. So another question is, will this policy apply equally to every park, all the parks and recreation park projects?

If we put this in here, will we be able to apply the standards or whatever? Every park and recreation project that we have in the city or looking at in the city, will we be able to apply these standards and take a look at it from this policy?

So I didn't go that deep into each park's, for example, the basic amenities. I didn't address the basic amenities, so it's actually great that that came up. I would suggest that that could be done later than this. This is more of a 10,000-foot view looking at the city as a whole and first and foremost ensuring safety. And then what happens at each one of those parks and how they look is going to vary greatly. And I think that evolves over time where it becomes more obvious what is necessary. But this policy is I intentionally wrote it so that it would be high level, except where I got into the

Well, I guess what I'm getting at is making sure that every project we have, for example, meet us in the middle. Can it be evaluated under this policy using the same objectives and criteria that's set aside in this policy?

Yeah, so Meet Me in the Middle would fall under item three, direct staff to pursue options for activation of the waterfront between the boat ramp and Hiawatha, consistent with the adopted plan. And then, you know, that's actually not even at the 10,000 foot. At that point... once we adopt the master plan for downtown, we're getting into kind of the 2,000-foot level. And so it's just executing that plan. But it is actually giving staff instruction and direction to execute the plan so that they know this is something you're going to be measured against, which can be a curse, but I think it's pro

Yeah, to know what you're going to be measured against.

Am I right, Mr. Van Wagner? Well... Well, I'll get to that in a little bit, but I just want to make sure that the other thing is, under this policy, that Meters in the Middle will be able to be funded, right?

Well, you know, my position on Meet Me in the Middle is it's not funded. And I mean, I'm just going to put that skunk on the table. I don't think that we have the funding for Meet Me in the Middle and we haven't approved the final design or the final drawings. We move forward to get more information. But as I sit here today with what I've seen, which is limited compared to yourself, Mr. Mayor, I would not think the citizens of Claremont would appreciate a concrete-focused park that rips out trees rather than installing new trees. That's my position. I'm only one vote. I have been outvoted on t

Okay, you just said something that really caught my attention there. It precludes impact funds being spent in this quarter if it wasn't paid in this quarter.

Yeah, well, that's the law. That's not my opinion.

Well, I guess that's one of the problems I have with that because basically you take this quarter, this quarter, which is the northwest quadrant, how many impact fees are being paid here today in this quadrant? Because it's totally developed. Impact fees here are pretty much utilized. So any of these parks you're right now talking about developing in the downtown and everything, where's their impact fees coming from if they're not coming from other quarters? Okay.

Well, do you think it's just for them to come from other quarters?

Well, I think impact fees should be put out there, and if a park is there, we fund the park. Okay. Of course, I know in here you're saying – Do you want the policy to require 60% of the recreation impact fee balance to be allocated within six months? Yeah. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out why is that? First of all, we want to allocate it within six months, but yet and still we don't have any parks or anything else that we've actually set out and agreed upon that this is what we're going to do. Completely agree. Wouldn't that be putting staff under a little bit of strain there?

I hope so. And I don't really say it to be funny. I think it's a very serious issue that we have over $11 million in our impact fees for parks without a plan. And so look, we're all going to be here in six months. Well, God willing. But in six months, that's a short period of time. If in six months staff has been hustling and they've negotiated deals and, gee, they got $10 million worth of land for $3 million and we've got grants and donations and they've only allocated 30% of the funds – then we can evaluate it then. I mean, these are aspirations and targets so that we can move projects forwa

Well, I just like to say you talk about allocating 60% of what was that 11.7 million or something like that, 11.7 million. So the 60% of that is $7 million. So we've talked about committing approximately $7 million before we necessarily know any Projects that provide the greatest return to our residents which project have Outside funding any of these things with it. We just go ill it will it nearly say, okay, we're going out arbitrarily those seventy seven million dollars to the park Projects without any analysis or anything which is best best to do I

I am glad you say it that way because it's a fair concern, and I want to address it, is I'm not picking parks. I'm saying staff is directed to go spend money, and they're directed to spend money on parks that meet the following criteria that ensure access for our residents, and that staff would have to come back to us, but they are being directed to spend the money the same way that we tax the taxpayers and say we direct staff to go build fire departments and save lives. We're directing the parks and rec to spend the money that has been paid. I would be very interested in seeing an audit of th

I'm not going to say New Citizens in Cleveland don't have parks when we have 20-something parks in this city, all over this city.

They don't have parks they have access to.

Well, they have access all over the city. You know, I guess that brings me back to the question I asked before. You say five minutes, access in five minutes. Yes. And I'm a little still confused on that when you say five minutes. I can walk to this park. It may take me 20 minutes to walk five minutes to this park. Okay. But you also have in the automobile. It may only take me a minute.

Foot, bike, scooter, golf cart. I did put golf cart.

I guess I'm trying to define what you mean. what, transportation and five-minute access? Is it walk-in? Is it by scooter? Is it by golf cart?

Any of those qualify. So if staff comes to us with a plan and they can say, okay, the people in this area need a golf cart. So let's say, for example, Let's just use Verde Ridge as an example. There are no public parks in the northeast section of the city. There's the National Training Center, so that's cool. There's The View, so that's cool. So they have access to some recreation, but there are no public parks currently. Now there's a group here who wants to give us land, so that makes it interesting because there's no public parks in the northeast corridor. But if I live in Verde Ridge and I

Yep. Okay, like I say, I'm still trying to define what you mean by five minutes. Like I say, I can get in my car and I can drive to a park. It's not about cars.

You can't drive. That's not part of the policy. Not driving.

Well, I can get on my scooter and drive to a park in five minutes. Yeah, that's fine. However, if I start walking, it may take me longer to get there.

Yeah, but you can get there by scooter or golf cart. In places that have golf carts, that would work.

Well, I guess I can say that's what I'm trying to define exactly. What do you mean by five-minute access? By scooter, by walking or whatever?

I mean, we could make it walk, but it's going to be much tougher for staff.

Because if you're telling me I need to have a park five minutes from my house by scooter, okay, we got to park here. But if it's by walking, to park it way over here when I live here, see? Yeah. Okay, let's redefine all that. I think we're kind of getting a little tough there when we start saying within five minutes, and we give all the oxygen to get there. ABA, heard the ABA. I think they said, I think ABA said we had about 530 acres of park when I looked at their report. And I think our statistics say 443 acres. Okay. Well, I guess my question is the ABA, did they, well, I went to look it up

Okay. That's me. Well, I was just curious if ABA, where it came from, how we just pulled 60% and started spending 60% and everything. So that's just a random number you pull.

Yes. I wanted to say 100, but I thought that might be too much for staff.

Yeah. Well, well, and like I say, here we are, you know, as we stated in other talk earlier this afternoon, we just randomly pulled numbers out here and those are without really analyzing everything and going to spend money.

Well, I do want to be clear. I'm not author. I'm not proposing that we authorize staff to spend the money. I'm looking for them to bring us projects that collectively would be 60 percent. So they would have to bring that to us, not move forward with the projects. So this is this is policy, not other than the specific items. This is a policy so that they can bring us back ideas.

OK, an ABA policy. I guess they define us as being a little deficiency in parks, right?

Okay, yeah. So would you say we should first, the council should first determine what the actually 443 acres, hold on. Brian, do me a favor. Can you give me an accurate number of how many acres we have? Because the city website says 443.9 acres.

Yes, so that's actually bullet point number one under staff obligations to provide by October 15th is a city map that identifies all parks and designating them as active, natural, or neighborhood. I think identifying the acreage would be great. It might be too much on the private parks, though.

Well, I went to the website and it's saying 443.9.

I just want to make sure we're using the right figures. So my thing is, shouldn't we, of that 400-something acre, we actually... What actually consists already within that 443 acres before we go out here and just start jumping on everything else, right? Allocating other parks.

Yeah, that's the point of bullet point number one.

And, of course, ABA recommended we maximize the existing parks first, right?

Well, that was my suggestion at the workshop as a potential target, but I didn't feel like we had an agreement, so I thought I'd take a stab at a whole policy instead.

So don't you think they should be in this new policy that we maximize existing parks before we start worrying about new parks?

I would not suggest that. I would suggest those two processes proceed simultaneously. And now that you say it, I do think an intended aspiration of meeting the NRPA requirement of parks at an A or B level would be that all parks meet an A or B level for NRPA standards would be a great aspirational goal.

Well, I think one of the things we need to be doing here is identifying what we have first, what we have out there, and so we can determine what we're missing out of the active parks or the natural parks that you have. looking at proposals that we're doing. Of course, ABA did their study. And of course, we can go back and look at all these studies, which one of the things they did was identify waterfront and arts and recreation center. I'm on the six most active, you know, when I go back and look at their study, right? So then that argument for improving and activating existing access rather t

Well, they did not give us a task list. They just identified everything. So that's why I'm looking for us to identify what we think we want to direct staff to do. I mean, we have the funds and the impact fee. So I guess my question to all of you would simply be, you know, how do we feel about the intended and aspirational outcomes? Because at the end of the day, that's where the policy is going to be driven from. And do we feel like these are good goals for staff? I do think, at least I'm speaking for you, that we would like some sort of direction on where to move with some parks, you know, so

So an ABA recommended parks in the wellness way, right? Right. um specific part they just identified that there weren't any so i'm looking at the access to parks well i guess when i went in there i looked at it and read the reward again i looked at it as saying they recommended that we do do some park park development in the wellness way area right um so Is it simply to buy more parks everywhere, or is ABA recommending that we strategically develop parks in the needed areas right now? Okay, like Wellness Way, where we have the most growth. Wellness Way, as you stated, doesn't have any parks or

Yeah, so the last I saw was an assessment, not a recommendation or a master plan for parks. Are they working on a master? They were just updating the assessment from our last meeting, right?

So they did the assessment. And so what I'm doing is I'm looking at the assessment and saying, okay, where do we want to go? What do we do now that we know where we are? Where do we want to go? So my suggestion is that we look at the city holistically and a very I mean, we could talk. We could negotiate. You can negotiate me to 10 minutes where everyone has access within 10 minutes walk or 10 minutes bike. I mean, those are details that. I think, but the point would be, does everybody have access by bike, by scooter, by golf cart, safe access? And then what is safe access? We're in Florida. Yo

Okay. So, and then one, another thing that you mentioned connectivity, you have always talked about connectivities and all this here to the trails and all. So when these, uh, Then with the project, any of the projects that we're looking at right now improve the bicycle connectivity and everything to the trail between downtown, the waterfront trails and all that. And of course, the other thing I have, I'm concerned with you seeing all these parks within 10 minutes in these quadrants. Where are we going to get the land? Another concern, where's all the land coming from?

You know, I couldn't have predicted 42 acres at Lake filter. No, I couldn't have predicted it. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of land around in the city, around the city, um, that we wouldn't even necessarily know unless we are seeking it out. I mean, people like to donate people. There are people who love this community who might leave us land that we didn't expect if they know that this is the vision for the city, um, There might be people who say, I want to write a check. We don't know if we don't publish and say, this is our goal. And as far as allocating the 60%, you touched on that

There's ABA recommend activation of clean waterfront and mixed use opportunity, right?

Yeah. And meters in the middle include the waterfront components, correct? All those components, right?

Well, it's certainly between those locations, yes.

And they also look at using parks as economic development assets. So there's two, right? Yeah. I mean, I, when I go back and read, I pull all this stuff out of that recommendation and everything.

So, yeah. So active parks definitely can. I mean, if you look at Hancock park, there's no doubt that's a community park. It supports, I think 250 kids in softball and something like 400 kids in soccer. And yet it's also the number one economic driver outside of waterfronts festival park, or what I call festival park in the city. So. A well-designed park can satisfy both recreation and tourism needs.

Well, I just want to make sure with this policy, because we actually have a policy in place. Now you're looking to rewrite the policy, and you're taking us in a whole different direction of what's already in place. I thought we were meeting most of the requirement for our parks and recreation, and according to our understanding, how many square miles we have in the city right now? About 20-point-something square miles? And I think we got like... And we got like one square mile for the number of parks we got. We got one park for each square mile we have.

Yes, our existing comprehensive plan, you might look at it as a 15,000-foot view to say 10 acres for every 1,000 residents. This is saying, yes, we still want to do that. But getting down even closer, we want to say we want the parks located in equitable distribution. And so we still want at least 10 acres per 1,000 residents, right? And the lakes can qualify for that. But we're saying if people in one section of the city don't have access to any parks, then maybe a conversation might be had about where we should be spending our money. Mm-hmm.

Well, you're right. And with this bringing me to that area, we're making the wisest choice here and obligating funds to parks that we basically, according to what I'm reading in your proposal, is to say we're going to spend $7 million within the next six months, obligate $7 million in the next six months. But we don't know what parks or what condition, what return or anything. No analysis has been done on any of these parks.

Yeah, that's the target. That's the aspirational goal. And I'm open to discussion on what might be more reasonable, but why hold on to the money? I mean, this $11 million was paid in $5,000 chunks.

Well, don't you think we need to maybe know what operating costs or whatever we're committing to a recreation impact fee before we just do anything and say, hey, we're going to automatically commit 60% of this fund?

Yeah, and that's why each park has to have a programming and maintenance plan adopted 60 days prior to opening. So we could change that to prior to approval by council. But I mean, that would be but the goal I 100% agree with you. I think that we need to have a complete picture before we approve parks. This is just giving staff direction to go seek parks programming. Activation. And to bring it back to us.

Well, see, I guess I'm concerned with the fact that, you know, once we go out here and we start buying all these parks, we start doing all this land purchase and new parks and everything, we're adding reoccurring costs and all, but maintaining these parks and all these things, see, and all. And yet still, we're still sitting here talking about reducing millage and reducing revenue intake and everything, but we want to sit here and add all these parks. And you're committing right now. like another $7 million to new parks, which means more costs, more current. So how it's going to be funded is o

Yeah, and it's not going to be easy. That's why the sooner we get started, the better. But when you think about like Main Street, for example, we already have a willing partner stepping up and saying they want to help. I don't want to commit them, but Live Well Foundation is another local grant provider. There are different grants. You heard the caller who said that there's different programs for parallel parks. I love that name. I'm going to continue to use that. So I think that if staff knows what the target is, it allows them to seek those relationships and grants.

Right. So, well, that's the last thing. Basically, I feel it all. I don't think we need a policy change. I think we just need to let staff go ahead and do what they normally do and recommend everything, and then they come back to us to determine which one received funding, and maybe they give us recommendation on the funding part. But first of all, before we change the policy, it's my opinion that we need to Maybe you give staff authority to go out, find these parts, do the study, do the analysis and everything with no 6 months commitment. But I think that's putting the money. We, like you say

It's actually fiscal year 2027 specific projects item number three.

But I'm just concerned with we're sitting here and committing, changing our whole policy, parks and recreation policy, when we have one that's in place that's been working for us. I think we have a total of 22, 23 parks all over the city in the public place. I have no problem with saying, hey, can we partner with some of these other subdivisions to utilize some of the private parks and give access to some of those people? I think it'd be tough, especially when you have gated communities and everything, to try to utilize some of them. I think, well, in this way, yes, we need to focus on wellnes

You got a statement. Mr. Bryan said, I think he said he wanted a statement.

Okay. If you guys don't have a statement, I'm happy to just move this forward. So at the risk, here's my concern. I want to vote yes on this because I love the idea and the concept. This talks about an adopted downtown plan. We haven't adopted a downtown plan yet. I'm very concerned about implementing a policy that references a document that hasn't been approved. I love the conversation that this has started. I'm not sure this is the vehicle, we used the term we talked about earlier, for this policy. Or what is included all here is what should be included in the policy. Because there's also so

So what if I work with our attorney to come up with, as I acknowledged, I'm not a policy writer, but what if we work on coming up with a better policy so that we can give staff direction for fiscal year 27 so they have action items for fiscal year 27? I mean, is that something we... Yeah, I think our job is to...

Not, I don't know if, I'm sorry, were you asking me?

Okay. I don't think our job is to necessarily write policy at a staff level. I think our job is to provide direction to the city manager to work with his staff to create the policy and bring it back to us. Okay. And so I think this is also a shining example of why we need a parks, rec, trails, and waterways board because this should be workshopped by citizens who are passionate about parks and trails and waterways. And this could be vetted in all kinds of different ways at that level where citizen input is there and it's not – You know, at least there's some sort of coordinated or or message t

Yeah, so how do you feel about the intended outcomes and aspirations on page one?

I don't know how I feel totally about the 60% fund balance piece yet.

Yeah, but in terms of the aspirations of having access quickly in a non-vehicular dependent way, Thousand percent. Thousand percent. To ensure that we have active and natural parks in all areas of our city? Thousand percent. Safe, purposeful, interesting? Thousand percent. Neighborhood parks through grant sponsorship? Absolutely. Those theoretical, conceptual parks. I'm fully on board. I think some of the other pieces where it can get like, Oh, am I okay with 60%? I'm not sure. Cause I am concerned longterm about putting that kind of thing in a policy where what if a future council is presente

You wasn't going to make a statement, Ms. Strange?

No, I appreciate everybody's input, and I know this took a lot of time. I didn't actually mean for that to happen, but I do appreciate it. So I'm going to get with Ms. Van Wagner and Christian and see if we can come up with something that we could bring back so staff has some clarity for next year. That also takes into consideration the points that were made. I took copious notes.

Let me wind it up with this. I see an existing comprehensive plan has already established a standard of 10 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. So I don't think the question is, do we need parks? The question is, what parks do we need? Where do we need them? And what's the best way to use the assets and dollars we already have? That's why I think the ABA... evaluation that is extremely important okay to us because they laid out a very good plan to us aba told us our parks are one of the most valuable assets that we have okay uh they identified the waterfront they identify arts and crafts hig

Just for the record, nothing was willy-nilly about this proposal, so I just don't want it to be unsaid.

Well, when you just, I'm sorry, I used the bad term. I won't say willy-nilly, but just pull a figure out and say we're going to allocate this kind of money just with no analysis, no data to back it up and anything. That's what's really needed. We're just going out and we're just going to spend this kind of money simply because we have it there. I agree. We need to invest the money. Instead of sitting there. And the reason it's the real sitting there because we've always had problem finding projects to invest in. And that's why I'll go back to meters in the middle. That's how meters in the midd

In partnership with Kiwanis, yes. In partnership with Kiwanis, yes.

So it does exist already. We have one here. Can we do another one? I think they're looking at trying to do a couple of other parks in the city of Cleveland with Kiwanis, but that's been out there for about a year now. about that time yes yeah feltner park was converted to all-inclusive uh kiwanis of south lake um put the fundings up in the city put in everything for us about a year ago so if anybody looking that's all and supposed to be all-inclusive now we did the ribbon cutting about a year ago so uh the caller said that uh one curious about that so so we're met yes motion please Unless some

I don't think there's a motion I'm going to get with staff and come back with an updated policy to address as many concerns as I heard and wrote down.

Don't forget about the CEMEX. My understanding is the 100 acres as well. So that would be a county conversation. Yeah.

Well, the thing is, like I said, I went back and I looked at ABA report, and they specifically really hammered wellness way as a great opportunity. Okay. So I don't want to miss out on the opportunity, just like they talked about waterfront. And when I go back and look at theirs in comparing this policy, what you're trying to do with ABA, I kind of agree with, hey, okay, we can do this, but I think it needs to be some parameters set there. and criteria set there on how we decide where we're going to put parks because, as I say, we have a lot of parks in this city already. A lot of them. And bu

Great. I'm ready for reports. How about anybody else?

All right. I'm good. Thank you, Brian. Mr. Van Wagner, rather.

So I do want to point out, we have a CRA meeting next week. And one of the items on the parks proposal was to treat that 250,000 as a grant that we talked about in the last workshop. Is that something that we want to give staff direction on at this point or no?

I don't think so. I would like to see what we got in the workshop first. Isn't that part of the workshop?

It's not a workshop. So it's a CRA meeting. And if we're adopting the CRA budget, then what I would suggest is that we do a transfer as a grant from the general fund reserves to the CRA to be used for a parks program. I'll remind everyone that $250,000 was in this year's budget to do a park at Victory Point. So I'm simply trying to move that forward, which allows the CRA to potentially make an agreement with Main Street.

well in my view with what with the policy that you're trying to establish right now with parks and recs i think we need to just hold on to that until we decide where we're going with with the new parks policy and everything and you're sorry i'm i'm viewing it right now yes sir i mean we already allocated that money a year ago so i don't see why we wouldn't just now move it as a grant to the cra and let the grant however it legally needs to be done um

I'm not keen on just waiting. I'm not trying to spend money. If we're not going to spend it, I think we should give it back to the people.

To answer your question, I thought there was consensus to do that. I thought so too. And so I would support just having the resolution and having the CRA vote on it.

Yes. I got a thumbs up from Ms. Myers for the record.

So however you guys need to do that. Okay. What else you got?

Thank you. No report. Council Member Peterson.

I mentioned it briefly, but just by way of reminder, the Tourist Development Council or the Lake County Capital Fund for Tourism will close on November 1st, 2026. Those are not easy applications. They do take a great deal of work. So I'm going to work hard with staff to see if we can come back with both a policy and some specific targets for fiscal year 27 that might meet the TDC criteria so that we can try to leverage some of those funds. It'll be interesting to see what happens at the next meeting. That'll be in October. The policy that was given to me looks very much like the old policy. So

Thank you, Mayor. To reiterate about the 25th commemorative 9-11 event at the Arts and Recreation Center on Friday at 10 o'clock, if you have never attended before, I strongly encourage you to attend. I'll be the first to say I feel like attendance has gone down since I've been going. And so I would love to see all of those chairs filled to honor and remember that day and those who were directly affected by what happened. On Sunday, September 13th, on a slightly more jovial note, there's the farmer's market. But what makes Sunday, September 13th farmer's market even more special is that you ha

Thank you. Sorry. Of course, now for my report, I want to address something that was brought up in public comments, and that's about answering questions that is brought up in public comment. As I stated before, when we move public reports back to the end, OF THE MEETING, THAT TOOK AWAY OUR ABILITY TO ADDRESS THE QUESTIONS THAT IS BEING BOUGHT UP IN PUBLIC COMMENT. OKAY? NOW, AND I TOTALLY AGREE WITH THE COMMENT THAT WAS MADE. THE PERSON COMING HERE FOR PUBLIC COMMENT SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SIT HERE UNTIL THE END OF A MEETING TO HEAR They'll get an answer to their questions, okay? So I would like fo

I actually did submit that to Debbie. Yeah.

Yeah, so maybe it just got – which is totally okay, but I just wanted to make sure – I'm fine either way.

Okay. And the last thing I really have – well, I have – well – I attended a Quilts for Valor ceremony last Friday out at Southlake High School. That was very touching. You know, of course, I've actually received a Quilt of Valor a couple years ago, but I actually go there to witness ceremony, and I guess the biggest thing about that was I was in the auditorium as a battalion of sea cadets, young sea cadets, about 50 or 60 of them sitting there watching the ceremony, and it was very touching to hear them come up afterwards and say, and see what they had to say about it because their commander,