Public - workshop

Do you want questions at the end of each district or after each slide, or how would you like to do that?

Yes. Just clarification. The 752 operational expenses. I see the very bottom. I apologize. I'm on my phone. It's very tiny. It says 454 paving project. Can you jog my memory on what that paving project is?

Yeah, I totally agree. The numbers make sense. I would prefer if it's allowable for us to separate those line items because citizens' initial reaction to that is going to be, whoa, my goodness. So I think separating that out might give them more clarity and a little less hysteria from locals or people paying attention. I think that would be really good. Yeah. Yeah, we can break that down further.

Yes, thank you. Following up on that, have those roads already been determined that will be paved? Because there are a lot of them in both north and south of Business 98. So I'd like to know where those roads are planned for this next fiscal year.

So, Jonathan, can you have that report of upcoming? Yes, ma'am for for me when we meet on Friday. Okay. And then the other question U. S. 98 corridor between Sherman and East Avenue, especially need some love and attention. And as I'm looking at what's planned. For this year, there's not a lot. in that area. We're deep in the south side of Business 98 with the exception of the Amerigas property. Well, that's also on the south side, but that is along Business 98.

It's actually development. It's a lot of vacant property and would be a nice little area for promoting business development. there in that stretch.

Yeah, I get that. This question is actually for Mayor Branch. Do any of your developer... Sources have ways for the municipality or the CRA to promote the development of private property. And I know that's a fine line, so.

No, I think that's a great question. It's almost, you know, there's a lot of along that Fifth Street corridor. There's a lot of vacant land and we could set aside. What I would want to do is go spend a whole bunch of money on something that can never happen. But I think we could. There are people like John Anderson who could sketch something out for like a thousand dollars. that would add to their, their sales packet. And Robbie can maybe even add to that of like, what can we potentially give or help an agent within that area that would help them with their listings? Or maybe we shouldn't be helping them at all. I don't know. But you know, when I contacted a few of those people that didn't have aerial photos, they didn't have all these things that helped sell a property. So that's a great question.

I guess we could start by looking at what's in our Millville plan. at the very least we could promote that because it's the Dover cold plans did go you know a little more in depth with promoting what could be so and maybe a conversation with Becca Harden if there's anything that in that area that we could attract manufacturing

Yeah, you know, part of the hard part, there's just not a lot of businesses in that area, you know, past get you a box to about... the old dollar general is there's there's just not many things and um and so uh maybe there is some hesitation on investing in the area because people don't know what should go there what should be built laundromat daycare restaurant um office spaces i don't i don't really know and maybe maybe it would be wise or prudent for the uh cira to get some sort of I don't know how we'd get it, and maybe Robbie knows. I get some data that shows here's what needs to be there

Yeah, so I just want to make sure I understand. We haven't completed any paving projects yet. There's just money set aside for paving. Is that correct?

12th Street for sure has been done. And I know I looked at something else, but I can't recall now exactly where they were.

Yeah. What I'm asking is there's $500,000 that's been allocated and we haven't spent it yet. Is that my understanding?

But is there any work actually being done in Millville?

And my question is, how do you take money out of Millville without having work complete in Millville?

What I'm asking, I'm going to rephrase the question again. There right now has been no pavement that has put down in Millville. Why would we transfer out of the CRA money?

Yeah, you guys just said you guys are going to be asking us to transfer it out because we allocated it this year. And so my question is, does it stay in CRA coffers until you've actually completed the work?

You guys aren't using Millville money to go pay downtown North? 100% no. That's what I was asking. You guys answered my question. My second question is what you guys know I'm going to ask is what's going on with the landscaping maintenance?

Okay. And then my next, so I'm assuming you'll show that to us in budget before we have something to approve.

And no concerns about admin going over 20%? Okay, good. Yeah, no concerns, correct, yeah.

As we move into fiscal year 28, I guess, is when we start budgeting for or planning projects for the extended area's of the St. Andrews CRA?

Yeah, a couple questions. One was what you just answered on the I'm sorry, guys. I just completely forgot what my question was. We do it all the time, sir. We do it all the time. I cannot remember what it was.

That'll refresh my memory. Oh, that's Velvel. Yeah, keep going. Or maybe it's forward a slide.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK, here it was. This was my question. So Sheila sent us all an email talking about NSP funds being eligible for CBDG or community block development grant purposes. Me personally, I would love to see those program dollars as well as the the community block development grant dollars. Program similar how we did before program together in synergy sidewalks is eligible use for Community block development funds. And so it seems to me that it would just make sense for us to plan this stuff together.

um what that impact would be on the cras yeah i would i would just like to see those dollars included in our budgetary process i've never in this entire time that i've been on the commission gotten to to you know program community block development grant funding it's always been reactionary you guys bring us something i'd like to be proactive

At least that's what made me think of that. That's it. As far as we talked about moats, I know that's part of the bonding issue. I'd like to have a further conversation on that before we commit to any kind of physical improvements to that area. And then Sweet Bay, that one got pushed forward because CPAR wants to adopt that park. And so we need to engage with CPAR and see how much they're willing to contribute towards that project. Projects that people are willing to contribute to, hey, push them forward. But if we've got to do it all on our own, I don't know that that's the number one priorit

Yes. A couple, I think all the projects are great. I am a little worried that we haven't fully gotten the Sandy Marina back online. And we potentially might need something extra for that that we're unaware of or something beautiful for that. We also have large amounts of property in the new corridor of the CRA, including your CPAR, where the old canopies was. And I'd like to see us hold back a little bit of the money to ensure that if those opportunities come around, that we are not left without options. That's my little concern there. There was one other point I wanted to make before Josh for

There are situations where often the developer wants to add a public amenity, like additional waterfront access, and they say, oh, well, I want to do this, and I need you to come in with some cash for this additional thing. Not an insurmountable amount of money, 100 grand, something like that, or even looking at those pieces of property or other ones in that area and continuing to keep a vision for those and using neighborhood evolution. for those properties. I do agree about the CDBGB money in those parks. There was some other comment about St. Andrews I forgot. Oh, I remember. The publishing

Yeah. The lighting in McKenzie park has, it was a test and, um, I'd love to see, I know this is a separate district, but my point is lighting and parks changes at night. We have people now that were sitting in the swings on like first dates or they're just sitting there swinging at night, watching the, uh, Watching the lights change in the trees. And so it does help to activate a park and then kind of deter bad activities with good activities. So I would love to see that project happen. And then I was told also bonding will help us extend our CRA timeline too.

I would prefer waiting till November to know. Yeah.

Let me ask this question. Are you guys, what is the debt carry on that loan? That's not a massive loan for the CRA. It's basically twice revenue a year.

So out of a million dollars, we'd lose $200,000.

Well, there's no way the property tax is going to affect that much. But I like what Alan brought up where it's like, you should be doing 20 years. So what is it on 20 years? Is it half that?

How long does a boardwalk last? Let me ask that question.

Well, I mean, you can borrow against the useful life of it. So if it's 20 years, that makes perfect sense. A 20-year loan on a playground piece of equipment, I'm a little iffy on that. But the boardwalk... pavilion, things like that that are physical assets, for sure.

But in favor, I'm in favor of the bonding. I do agree maybe being a little prudent, but if you guys can get the loan payment down enough and reduce the risk, you know, you'll have more program money to go do other things with.

Is this a situation where if we don't have it budgeted, we can't go for a loan during the year?

What's that budget amendment process entail?

So the county would not have to weigh in?

Oh, no, just kudos. The A.D. Harris project is coming along very well. I'm looking forward to the open house and the difference that it's going to make in the community.

Great. Hey, I had a quick question. Yes, sir. And this I'll just care about today. I had a man on Facebook ask me about tennis courts. And I sent Jonathan an email.

Yeah, that's okay. I've been called worse. But I didn't know if there was an appetite of looking at, you know, the rec is an amazing facility, heavily used after school. If there was a way to put in a lot of these nets for pickleball and stuff are not even attached to the ground. And would we maybe be able to use that basketball court using CRA funds and retrofit it for daytime use on weekdays for tennis and pickleball?

Or is there another place we could put one down somewhere?

What about even looking at, and just giving it to the Neighborhood Evolution folks, looking at the way to activate the, we call it Amerigas, but it's the property behind the wastewater treatment plant, saying maybe it could be a building where people are living or whatever, but maybe it's,

I would wonder, too, if there's not a surface that you could put on that where you could use it. I hate to say a parking lot occasionally if you don't want to tear it up. Is there something you can lay down where it's a once every six-month parking lot for an event? I don't know.

Yeah, so maybe I misunderstood the idea when Keith presented it. Is he just trying to move the tennis courts into a CRA so we have funding to build them?

Yeah, yeah. But when I asked Keith – I said, what's the cheapest option to get tennis courts back in our city that are good? The Oakland Terrace Tennis Court was. They're already stormwatered. They have lighting. They have fencing. Even though the base is bad, it's still not as expensive as going and engineering and creating something brand new. I don't want us to get caught in what we term it as... pie in the sky thinking and forget about the the wind that's like right in front of us if that makes sense

I'm not fighting to keep tennis courts at Oakland Terrace. I'm just saying, like, if expense is an issue, I think that's why it hasn't gotten it done. I don't know how making the budget bigger is going to is going to help us get across the finish line.

It's good. It's good feedback, Commissioner Idea Crusher.

look i watch john's videos too and they're really funny i'm sorry alan but but i mean to his point like we we said for like three years in a row we bought those temporarily that was 350 000 it was only supposed to be there for two years max and now we're sitting here at like year four and so um I don't know what the fix is, but I did have one of the tennis guys say we could get grant funding if we remove the pickleball courts. So maybe we need to go find a different place for pickleball so we can get funding for tennis. That's also an idea that we could do. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, as long as there's options, but it is true. Pickleballers and tennis players hate those grid things, especially when it's humid in the morning, you slip and get hurt. So anyway, so if there's a way for us to compete for some funding or something like that, that would be great, even if it changes the design. And if we can compete funding elsewhere and we can go and build it from scratch, that's fine, too. I don't care. But I do think we're going to continue to hear from John until we actually fix it.

Yes. Um, I want to really put a pause on, uh, us paying for amphitheater. especially when we haven't gotten, we may need to come in with some money for railing or lighting or benches or sprinklers or landscaping or signage or Benches and pavilions, I think the vast majority of citizens want those spaces back before building new ideas, especially before the timing of us not getting Martin Theater off the ground. I think we should have that before we even discuss amphitheater stuff is my personal opinion. And I think the amphitheater could be – I just already discussed it with Jennifer Vigil. It

I would much rather see, I want to see us borrow bond, whatever loan, whatever. I think that's a great idea. I'm hesitant on using the money for amphitheater. If you said we're going to use that money to pay for 50 more slips or the railing and this and that, or the infrastructure and this, I would say yay or pavilions or, or, you know, anything that's in the Dover coal plant out in the T dock. I want to see us hitting singles and doubles before we do another beautiful project.

Go ahead, Commissioner Street. Yeah, I mean, to what Alan was saying, I mean, on the breezeway thing, if they don't close, I'm sure there's a bunch of people that would take the property for free. So I don't know. I don't know that I'm super concerned about us having to carry that very long. The question is whether they'll do what we wanted them to do and building it out. Yeah. The one thing I would say to what Alan's point was, it's really on prioritization of how we get to where we're going. If we did 50 more slips, well, that's 50 more slips of revenue. And, you know, by investing any dolla

So that's just the thought that I had, what you guys were talking.

Yeah, I want to just thank the staff. I've gotten multiple people in our Sierra districts who said the staff has on their own reached out to them and communicated grants and what we can offer them in those areas and followed up on paperwork. And I hugely appreciate that. That is a big deal. Thank you.

Did we, and this kind of, sorry, I'm going back to Millville real quick. Did we learn anything? I mean, I don't really know. I'm just kind of the post-mortem of the rock and roll event that was down there. Are we going to, I would love to see that group do more shows. Would love to be curious of what they learned or how we could help them do more or other groups. You know, when we build facilities, we want them used. I want that amphitheater or the doors that don't exist blown off of them used so much.

Yeah, I would challenge staff, not just CRA staff, but challenge all departments of staff of how we become great collaborators with the spaces that we have and people who want to use them. all the parks, all the facilities. How do people, how do we best promote the things that we have, the things that the citizens of Panama City own that we take care of? How do we get those out to people who want to host concerts and soccer camps and basketball leagues or whatever the things are? And I don't really have that answer, but that's what we should be doing. And I think we're doing a good job of it,

Yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, and I think the collaboration piece is a really important part of that equation because a lot of times we can look at facilities and just say, we just need to program more stuff, more stuff, more stuff. No, we just need to make our environments as friendly as they possibly can because there are a lot of people in our community that want to do stuff. And so I agree. Nothing makes me more irritated than vacant facilities. It drives me insane. And so I would just say, yeah, anything we can do to be more collaborative, how we can do it, reduce the cost,

Round of applause on that one. Under budget. Nice work. Yes. Love it.

I'm making a motion. Jonathan appears only in videos where he's in a swing looking adorable in his little swing.