City Council - Special Meeting

OK. We don't have it on the screen here, do we? Do we have a picture of the residents or anything on the screen? We have this here. You have this here. I don't have one, so I'll just .

So we're actually going down. Where is the shed going to go?

It would be a rear setback of five feet?

I mean, one of the big reasons, one of the main reasons before, in the past, we had the setbacks, number one, approaching neighbors' properties, but with utility lines. One good thing is the utility lines are now going underground. So at least from 64th all the way to 57th Avenue, all the residents now will be underground, except for Xfinity and AT&T. But the power lines are now underground. Were there any objections from the residents at all? I will ask this question.

So one of the ones they come and deliver and drop on the plate. Yes. Well, not fed, it's shed people.

Okay, so this is a big one here. And normally we're not in this predicament. It's been a long time. And I normally have a recommendation, but today I think it's important that we have a discussion on this topic here because most of the county did see a percentage increase in the total taxable value of their cities, villages, and towns. The average increase was 5.5% this year compared to 8.5% last year. But this year, we actually have a 5% deficit on the assessed values in Virginia Gardens. So next year, it all depends on what happens with the property taxes, too. We don't know what's going to

The main thing is once we set the millage rate tonight, we cannot go any higher. We can always go lower when we start our budget process, but that's why it's important we set the bar somewhere where it's manageable between a 5.0 and a 5.05 to be realistic. There's still going to be a deficit. I feel confident we can make up that $21,000. with a 5.05.

you know 0.2 mils or two tenths of a mil that's it we're stuck with what we have now what we can go lower so with that being said um you know i was a little confused because normally the rollback rate is the same dollar figure you would take in it from the previous year i even asked purchase what's what's going on with that so it's really strange this is the first year i've seen where it's still less than what we're taking in from the previous year so the value adjustment board throughout the year they had different hearings um property owners including business owners and residents. Residents

It's businesses, it's homes, any property owner. And it's throughout the whole year. So it's not like they hear everything in the month of January or February. You can file a petition and they haven't heard in two months from now.

We can and we can always go lower once we go through our budget process.

Well, it's going to be 21 plus because we have our police contract. So realistically, we're probably looking at about $35,000. $35,000 to $40,000, that's what we're looking at.

Yeah. Because we work. That's what we have budget, you know, workshops for.

We got the 5.8. five or 5.6 so um you know hopefully next year we'll be able to lower it back down and well and again it all depends on this um property tax issue we have now what what a lot of the residents don't understand is that money has to be made up somewhere so a lot of people don't want to see property taxes they want to vote against property taxes Money's got to come from somewhere.

What day of the week is that? Monday. It says Monday. It's September 14th. Well, you can't go by that.

I do have a couple things to report. I would like to thank our police department, our chief, our lieutenant, Detective Darwin, and Mandini. We had a very covert operation here last week. It's been planned probably for about two months now, a month and a half. It's been planned for a while. And I got to sit in and hear the briefing. There was probably about 40 officers downstairs in our senior's room. And it was a task force, a state attorney's state county trafficking task force that came in to the village and set up a scene operation in Kennewick. So there was a 25th operation during the FIFA

Well, they didn't even know. The workers didn't know either. So only the manager, I guess, probably. Nobody knew about it. We got the rooms, rented the rooms. The detectives went in there, dressed them. You couldn't even tell. It looked like all of us inside this room right now. And set the cameras up. And they did that. A lot of background stuff that was going on. And So yeah, it was interesting. Again, there was no children involved. Even the mother was not a real mother. She might have been a mother outside of her work, but she was not a mother with a 12 and 14-year-old. So they thought the

They actually apprehended three, yes. This is just the three people off the streets and, you know, preying on young children. And the mother was an undercover officer. There was no children involved. I know one of our council members was very concerned, but there were no children involved.

You know, everyone's sworn to secrecy. You can't talk about it. And once it's over, you can discuss it. That's why we put it on our social media page to get ahead of, you know, how the Internet is and social media. Oh, Virginia Gardens, they got predators in a hotel. That's not it. That was not it. So, you know, I talked to the lieutenant that night, talked to the chief. Everything was good. Go ahead and, you know, you're allowed to go ahead and post the pictures and everything. So I want to make sure. we got to go ahead from the state attorney's office. And again, it was like you're saying, o

It's in the works. It's going to be, right now the main line runs 66th Avenue from north to south. and the tee off on those lines in the front going under the sidewalk. It's kind of like what FP&L is doing now. They're boring. All the electrical lines are going to bore. The idea is to bore the on.

So they bore everything. Everything's underground.

Mayor? I heard a rumor that one of their machines got repossessed.

Boring. It's not a village project. I know, I know. I don't know. I don't even know about that.

So whether they're removed or abandoned, I don't know. We're still preliminary. I don't like to spend money until we know there's a project. I'm not going to go spend $20,000 engineering a project in hopes to receive the money. So now we're starting the engineering phase of that project. We'll cut the line off in 66.

I mean, years ago, I know when I was a kid growing up behind my house here, The garbage cans used to be underground. There was a lid, you'd lift it up, the garbage cans were there, put the lids back down. Do you remember that? Yeah, that was in Lansing, Dad.

Yeah, no, Mr. Priney had it. That's my dad. My neighbor had a place to cut his yard, and back in the day, there was a lid. You'd lift it up right by the fence line, and you'd pull the trash out of there. When I first came to Lansing, we had that.

It was up to each homeowner to see if they wanted to get rid of it or not. Eventually, they were gone. What year did you move into your house, Ms. Howard? What year did you move into your house? I remember that. I was young.

The other project, we received $350,000 for a roadway project. Some of the roads we had not paved yet, 38 Terrace, 39th and 40th Street, and 41st Street. That money we received there was strictly no drainage involved, strictly milling, overlaying, fixing some sidewalks, ADA intersections. putting some of the speed signs up. So we have like on Woodsboro Drive and Hunting Log, you have some of the speed devices up that are mounted in the ground. So on 41st Street, maybe putting one or two on that block and maybe putting two on 66th Avenue.

Yes, the sewer. So that has been, that has been axed, that portion. 37th Street is still supposedly in the works. There was about 16 properties, you said?

Yeah, so they went ahead. What happened is the county wanted us to move our water line on 41st Street. I said, I want to spend that money. If you guys want to come in and connect to the sewer, move the water line too.

So some may be really happy not having to pay a sewer bill. that didn't even know about it. So you're looking at a monthly sewer bill that you would have to pay out. Absolutely. So to make a long story short, they got axed on 41st Street from that project. The ones on 37th Street from 62 to 57 are still, it's been quiet, but that project has not been axed yet. They received funding from the state last year. So I'm surprised they haven't come back to us yet because they only have a certain time period. They'll be rushing back to us eventually.

That was my main concern, yeah. We just talked last night, I talked this week about that, and I was concerned that they were going to start cutting saw milling across the road, but yeah, so that's just been an accident. So whatever we can do with $350,000, we'll kind of expand it, we'll expand it. We heard anything at all about the $350,000

As a matter of fact, it was signed this week. We got $28,000, I think it was, $22,800 for planting trees. And we have $30,000 for trimming, doing a sector email a week or two ago. He hasn't responded. doing a tree inventory.

The tree inventory as in to be included in the GPO? Correct. We'll have a tree inventory. We can include that into that.

Are the black olives history now? Do we still have any? Yeah, we have them for a while. Oh, really? Where you been? I've been on my blog, but there is no... I've been on my blog, but there is no...

So for our upcoming project, for our stormwater project, Phase 2 from 6-2 to 6-4 from 37th through 40th Street and a little bit on the west side of the village. I think it's either 39th or 40th. No, is it 39th or 40th Street? 40th Street. 41st street there's a drain over there in 41st west side about third house in from where billy perdomo lives there's a drain there that's just full of roots needs to be redone so that's part of our upcoming stormwater project there's a meeting i believe a pre-construction meeting kind of leaves tentatively scheduled for august 6th with our engineer and our pu

Oh, we need to set a date for the police bargaining contract. We met today with Cle, myself, the attorney, the chief, the village clerk, along with police representative Dan Howard, Montute, Dan Montute Howard. Irene, is it? Elena. Elena. And Virginia Gardens representative for the officers, which was Manny Espinosa. So I think we got everything 95%, 98% hammered out. I kind of have an issue with one of them, with one of the requests, which I can talk about it now, I believe. Is there a problem with talking about it, or should I wait until we Maybe you should wait for the workshop.

And it's not really a big issue. It won't even affect us monetarily right now. But I'm not a big fan of it.

That's going to be a quick one. The police contract, I believe, that's going to take more than 20 minutes.

Does it matter the end of August, first week of September? You can do it for the end of August if you want.

No, like the 27th, the following Thursday? And then if we have anything, if we have any variances or anything else, we can always have it on the 27th as well.

We will not have a council meeting in August unless we have, I'm not going to make a resident wait two months for a variance. So if we do have a variance, do we have anything on the works right now? Okay, so if we don't have any variances from the residents, then we'll just go straight to the budget workshop on the 27th. We won't have a meeting.

You should have received an email from Zoila on Friday, I believe. We had the Bay County Chiefs Association dinner on the 20th. So please let her know if you're going to be attending or not. You don't have to do it tonight, but just look at your email.

Wait a minute. Hold on one second. At least you got water. I didn't even get no water, so.

It seems like yesterday I announced that the birth of my great grandson, right? He's going to be a year old on the budget on the 27th of August. My daughter is flying me up there for that. Can I be on this on phone or something?

Not during a budget workshop. That's way too much.

If I would have spoke up and said, oh, we've got to change everything because you've got an accident.

Spencer, turn this mic off, please. Listen, I don't have a mic. What was the other thing? Oh, no, that was it. And also, does it have any bearing that this council, special council meeting has got the wrong date on the agenda?

All right. Okay. No, that's it for me. How is your niece doing? Not good. And now that you mention it, my brother's daughter, They found a tumor in her brain. We don't know what's going to happen. She's been opened up, and then they had to open up again. So anyway, this girl grew up with Falange on them. They were at my house in Lansing all the time. Her name was Candy. And Falange was really tight. Well, anyway. A lot of prayers.