Town Commission - Regular Meeting

What if we were not able to go live? Are we live? Yes. Okay. So, I'm going to call the meeting to order. Miss Brown, could you uh help us with the roll call? Mayor Allison Dennington is absent. Vice Mayor Terry Cronin, present. Commissioner Anna Butler here. Commissioner Tim Reid here. Commissioner Sherry Corey here. Town Manager A. Marie Smith here. Fire Chief Gavin Brown here. Public Works Director Tom Davis here.

Town Clerk Amber Brown is also present. All right, let's all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We're going to respect a moment of silence. Okay. And then I'm going to recite the civility pledge. The commission and staff of the town of Melbourne Beach pledge to conduct all public discourse in a civil civil manner. The mayor and all members of the commission will treat one another with courtesy and respect and ask the public to do the same toward the commission, each other, and toward staff. We will be respectful to one another even when we disagree. We will direct all comments toward the issues. We will avoid personal attacks. Okay. When we begin here, we're going to start with the any additions, deletions, and changes to the uh to the uh agenda. And I just want to point out that uh in a previous meeting we we uh had decided for the town staff board reports we were going to move the town attorney and the town manager uh reports to the top of the of the line so that they will be item eight and eight of item eight and item nine respectively. So town manager report would be item eight, town attorney would be item nine. Are there any other additions, deletions or changes? All right. Seeing none, um we're going to move on to proclamations, awards, and announcements.

Would you like a motion uh to to accept the agenda? Okay. Uh sure. Walk on. Oh, the walk on. Do we have a walk on? Yes. The uh application. Is that what you expect? Yes. Application. Oh, for Curtis Bird and the environmental advisory board. Thank you. And where will we place that in the agenda? Consent agenda. Consent agenda. Very good.

And then did you want uh Chief Brown's um item added to the U manatee report, the afteraction review? He added that to us, which would be uh on page 20 four. Miss Smith, would you like that be to be added to the uh to the agenda? That would be perfect. Okay. All right. So, let's add that. So, I'd like to make a motion to um approve the agenda with those changes. I second. Any discussion? All in favor? I

I I That's unanimous. All right. And then uh Miss Brown, do you have town announcements and upcoming events?

Yes. So those are on page four of the packet. So upcoming events on March 14th is the Springfest and Kids Business Fair from 11:00 a.m. till 300 p.m. And then on April 4th is the Easter park in Easter event in Reichman Park. The time has not been set yet for that event. And then Nature Day hosted by the Environmental Advisory Board is on April 11th, 2026. And then that is from 9:00 a.m. till 2:00 p.m. And then also our reoccurring events are listed on there as well.

Thank you so much. Do we have any special guests today, Miss Brown, that are giving a presentation? No.

No. Okay. So, now is the time for public comment. After being acknowledged, uh, members of the public should state their name and address for the record, and the commission encourage encourages citizens to prepare their comments in advance. Each individual will have three minutes to address the commission on any topic or topics related to town business not on the agenda. Jim, I have two things I want to talk about tonight. One is the sergeants report just roll up summary of numbers. We don't know where accidents occurred. We don't know where occurred. We don't know who was all of those kinds of things report. I would like the commission to direct the town manager to include those sergeants reports and future police reports for the agenda that the other thing too is since Curtis is up for reappoint we've name we named one facility in the town after one person and that was the pavilion up there in honor of Kurtsburg put in over 30 years on board. He started and has the uh the since it was it inception and he ran the surf festival for over for 30 years up there. He's the one person who's put into this town more than anybody else over an extended period of time. And I don't know if Ocean Park why it was renamed Carolyn Parks or Carolyn Park. I have no idea. She has no connection to Mel Beach. She lived on the south beaches. She can't even be bothered to come by. I would like the commission reconsider that I think it's it was bad choice and I

knew it was on the agenda and spoke at the time she can't be bothered to even come back and accept that I would like you to consider resending it once again just ocean thank you thank you Jim any any comments or thoughts Okay.

Um, Marie V Walker, 511 Riverside Drive. Good evening. Um, first I want to sincerely thank the new town manager, the dedicated employees of the town of Melbourne Beach, our volunteer fire department, our police department. They're not here, but um you know FWC, SeaWorld, Bvard County, and any other local and state agency along with our town commission I respectfully and enthusiastically encourage the commission to continue working closely with FWC, SeaWorld, and any other partner agencies to We honor his natural habitat, but also strengthen the incredible sense of community that has grown around him. We're not asking for anything extraordinary, just that he'd be given the opportunity to come back to the waters he knows, surrounded by the community that loves him. Mal has already become in many hearts the mood of Mal Beach in a way. We care deeply about him and would be so grateful to welcome him home. So, thank you for your leadership, cooperation, consideration of this item. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, well, well put. Thank you so much. Yes.

Hi, um, town manager Marie Smith. Um, Marie Walker, I just wanted to say thank you for that. Uh, we did have a meeting Friday uh with all the uh folks involved and uh we did talk to SeaWorld about the release. I was trying to figure out it's going to be a few months before he's released. Um, and I asked them, I said, 'You know, we would have a terrific sendoff for Melvy if you brought him back here to be released. And they said, 'Well, we will take that into consideration. They said it depends on the water temperature. It, you know, what it is here versus in other areas. They want to release them somewhere where it's warm. So, um, you know, but I have already put that request in. I just want to let you know. Thank you. Mhm.

Hash manity mania, right? Anyway,

Susan Stark, 307 Fifth Avenue. I want to thank the commission for including a civility pre pledge in your meetings. February is random acts of kindness month. Um, and I want to bring attention to two longtime residents who have taken the initiative to share kindness in a more organized manner. um through founding two great nonprofits here in Bvard County. The first one is Pam Breast from Ways for Life, which is a wraparound services for children at um aging out of child care. They're having their gala this Saturday, and I'm I'm happy I'm going to be able to attend. And the second is um Ed Strutman um St. Stevens Way, which provides housing for 40 families with school age had previously homeless families with school age children. And this is an initiative he's worked on for years when I was teaching. I had students that were living in Wickham Park and I communicated with Ed. They just weren't there yet. And so I'm really grateful for those two for their more than random acts of kindness and contributions to the community. Um, and also my own effort today. These flowers over here can go home with anybody here who would like to take one. It's my random act of kindness. They're left over from a Valentine fresh flowers event I did last week. And share the love. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

I'm not going up there yet. I want to share this. This is the one that one of the residents wrote. Um, and you can buy it. It's about Maui and it's online now, but I just want to share it with y'all. Um, because I'm not really going to talk about, but it um, so Sarah Russo is a res of her mom and she wrote the book for her twin daughters. So, I thought that was awesome. Jan, if I could interrupt you for a second, I brought one for the town manager because I thought she did such a wonderful job. I thought she needs her own very own copy. Amazing. Um, yeah, I thought that was pretty exciting. Yeah.

And I wanted to say also to the town manager, I I actually spoke with FWC as well, and they were very specific with me that SeaWorld did not get to decide where the manity goes. That Fish and Wildlife Commission makes that decision 100%. So perhaps we ought to consider maybe a a letterw writing campaign or something that we can do. Uh, obviously that manatee did it. He survived here for a long time even though he's just a teenager. So anyway, um, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Jan Pence, 200 Riverside Drive, and I know I've been rambling on. Um, I do love the civility pledge and I think it's made our meeting so much more functional and just amazing to come to, but sadly that's not necessarily the case when town staff is still having to deal with dysfunction of specific people. And I think we all know who I'm talking about. I did a public records request uh because I realized that one of our employees was really hurt, our finance manager. I'm going to read to you what was sent to her and then I'm going to ask you as a commission and I know we've talked about it before. We know how the staff feels like they're stressed out. We know how they feel like they're harassed. I don't know what the solution is, but this has to be addressed because our town is the town staff. That that's who makes up our town. That's who makes everything wonderful for us and we are all a part of that. So, I'm gonna This happened three weeks ago. Uh, Mayor Dennington sent a an email over the weekend to finance manager uh Jennifer Kerr, and it said, and I'm going to read it exactly like she writes it. There's no capitalization or anything. Is there a reason y'all aren't paying this? Jennifer comes in the office on Monday morning and very kindly says to the mayor in an email, I don't receive this invoice for this. You have always sent me the email in the past. It goes to you and then you send it to me. This is the first email I have seen for this. It is paid now. Can you see that? They will add me. This is like the League of

Mayors will add me to their dues notices so I will see receive the invoice. This is the response back exactly how she writes it from the mayor to our finance manager in an email. That is patently false. Literally a lie. Literally a lie. Hyphen hyphen in numerous ways. Sometimes I'm misspelled shocked by your audacity in how you are willing to lie, reframe, rewrite history and fact in numerous ways over and over. I realize that's blunt and harsh, but it's the truth and it ought to be said and you know it. Last year when you failed to pay and I fa forwarded you and mascara, let's not forget we all know it's mascarero, but our mayor does it all the time. That email notice of the first notice. This is the thud notice. You clutched your pearls in an email response and said you were about to pay it. it had just gotten the invoice or some ridiculous excuse and had the audacity to try to shame me for suggesting by forwarding a late notice to you that this is all one word you weren't doing your job or not as to me even though all I did was then was forward an email and ask so this year I waited this is still the mayor BTW they do in capital letters send the town you an official invoice voice they also send a notuce to the elected official if the the staff or management doesn't pay. So, stop trying to lie because I'll be happy to prove it. So happy to prove it. That email is so inappropriate for anyone. And I can't believe and I'm I I'm not trying to beat you guys up because I think y'all are doing a wonderful job, but to allow Mayor Dennington to speak to any human being in that dysfunctional way and for that to be okay is is a problem. I I I really have a problem with that and I hope that

y'all do too. So, I'm going to ask this commission, you know, I don't care if you censure her, it does nothing. Maybe you can vote. Maybe you can insist that she does a public apology. Maybe she can do something in writing. But to to send that to anyone, and by the way, I've verified with the League of Mayors. I also verified with other mayors that invoice is only sent to the mayor. So, thank you for letting me have a little bit of time over. Um, I I feel like this is a very important issue and I know we all love our town staff and let's do what we can to bring them back together. Thank you. Thank you.

It's a tough act to follow. Um, thank you for seeing me again. My name is David Drake. I live at 604 Alden Place. I came last month to uh discuss a request to remove a street light outside those houses. Um you asked me as a commission to go back and get a petition signed. I emailed the petition to all the um people on the board and I'll give this the record which is a copy of the signed petition by all the neighbors around the light. Um, again, the basis for my request is that the light is the only thing requiring the electrical line to travel from across A1A along my property line to the light on Alden. I'm building a pool in my backyard. The electrical line is above my pool and that's creates a a danger a dangerous situation. I've been in contact with numerous people at FPL um wearing them down I think. Um, maybe I'm naive in that, but not giving up. So, I would like to have the commission tell me what their intention is according to the light. Do they want the light or do they not want the light? Um, so that when I get asked by FPL, well, what's the town's stance? I can give them an answer. A letter would be great. Verbal is fine with me. Um, any suggestions from Tom to make this work? Because the back and forth and back and forth that I anticipate or have been experiencing is just going to go on and on and on until we make a decision.

So, I'll just give a comment and then ask the other commissioners for a comment as well. But, uh, certainly you're doing a lot of work and you're doing it the right way. So, I want to give you kudos for that. I I do think we do need to have time to look at that uh uh petition, make sure that we've got all the neighbors in in in congruence. Once we have that, uh I don't think uh we necessarily have any support for that electrical power line at all. But as long as you know your all your neighbors are involved, I think we could help move it forward or write a letter of support. Uh I'd like to hear other comments from other commissioners.

I agree. I thank you and thank you for all your work. I um looked at what you had sent and I walk the dog on your street so I know all those names and you did cover everyone and and I think again if if they're all in support of this decision I would have no problem being I my question was do we have the authority to say we don't need I mean I think we can we can write a letter of support is what I'm saying okay I I would I would definitely for the removal of the light not replacement right okay Right. Great. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Well, Commissioner Commissioner Cory,

um yeah, I was going to say that um in your last email to us um today, you uh referenced to Mr. Bass. Yes, ma'am. And um so I would like to say that um perhaps our town manager and if public works is needed could um deal with you and Mr. best to get the FPL situation completely taken care of with us embracing um the outcome of of no power above his pool and and leave it up to that. I I sent you a copy of this uh but it was right before the meeting so I can give this to Amber to give to you if you if you want it.

Okay, that sounds great. We'll do. Thank you,

Commissioner Reid. So, um I kind of feeling like we're maybe a little out of process right here. This is public comment and um it's not uh not an agenda item. Um if we're talking about something that's I don't believe is town property. Um and um so I this we I don't think if we want to bring it in as an agenda item here or something to do at a workshop, but I kind of feel like we're um out of process seeing as the we're in public comment and Mr. Knight can add to that if he wishes. So you can you can place it on an agenda item for the next uh meeting um and request that the staff do research on that as far as what would be required. Normally it would require FPL to provide something in writing stating that they would have no objection to the removal of the light because I'm assuming it would involve a right of way there. Um and normally that would be with the utilities. Um, so it would be FPL and I don't know if there's any underground cables there. Um, but that's what that's something that we would have to look at for that.

What would be the fiscal impact, Ryan, of doing that? We do we need legal advice and other things like that? So, normally there would be a process if there is a right of way and um I did provide some information on um vacating an easement or a right of way. There is a process to do that. The town does not have any written procedures for that. But absent any written procedures, the town would look to the county and what they would do um for their procedures. And that would require notice. Um it would require a petition, which it sounds like we do have. Um but the uh abuing owners would also need to sign the petition and give their consent. Um, and then just the consent of the utilities.

So, we're at the point of consent of the utilities is what I understand.

So, I I think what uh what our town attorney is saying is that we do need to do a little investigation and then that we could put it on the agenda for a month from now and then sign off on it on our our position on it. I did want to uh give Mr. Davis a chance to because you were saying you were ready to say something. only that it's very difficult to get response from FPL. Mr. Drake and I on separate issues have gone months and they change names and also pursuant to request last month he submitted to the clerk the actual signed affidavit that FPL wanted about abudding areas. Just FYI, we do have that.

Has that been transmitted to uh Florida Power and Lake? it it has been transmitted. I have not received confirmation that it has been received. Okay. So, I will continue to that endeavor and um my whole issue was to get the blight removed so the electrical wire could be removed because I understand that the right of way if there is one. However long ago it was set up is going to be cumbersome to get undone. As long as there's no wire over the pool and the poles are gone, it doesn't bother me that they have it right away. I can get that removed later on. Okay. So, does that if you like me to come back and report next month, I'd be happy to.

So, I think we we'll develop a response for you and put it on the agenda for you next month and we'll I I appreciate your patience, but as uh Commissioner Reid points out, there is a process to how we do things and it sometimes it it grinds slowly, but we want to grind it appropriately, right? Exceeding fine. Yes, I understand. Um thank you very much. I guess I'll be on the agenda and I'll get a letter from Okay. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Any other public comments? Okay. It's a different one than Do you want to pass this down to the town manager?

Okay. All right. Seeing no public comments, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Town Manager report. Excuse me. We're going to go to the town manager report. Miss Smith. And if you if before you start, I just want to thank you for all your good work. We moved it to number eight.

We moved 13. Manager report to eight and the town attorney report to nine. Yeah. Okay. Was there anything? There's none of Neither of those were in the package. There isn't any supporting documents. Yeah, it's just right here in the town staff board reports. 13I has been moved up.

Hello, commission. Good evening. Uh, I want to first thank you very much for uh providing a very exciting first day at work. I will never forget it. Um, there there are two things I wanted to um just ask you as your new town manager. just a a request. Uh first of all, I would ask you to please allow me to be the manager of the staff and allow me to uh work with the staff. If you have concerns, um problems, questions, anything, please come to me first instead of going directly to the staff. I think this will minimize any kind of friction that the staff has with the commission. I am already looking at some of the trainings that we can undergo. Um I've talked to some of the staff. I've looked at uh the survey uh the staff survey that was taken about uh satisfaction, job satisfaction and um you know I'm going to come up with a plan for them as far as some sort of training and a listening session for them as well. Uh so that was the first thing and the second thing is something we're going to have to develop and that is going to be trust uh with each other and I request that you would just trust me to use my judgment do you know and to have my back and if you ask me to do something to uh work with me. I think that day one showed that you all are amazing with collaboration and I really like that and so I just ask you for that that too as we work together that will grow and uh you know I just don't want to be blindsided by anything. So th those are just my my two requests uh after very exciting week. Uh I did have two uh other items just to update you. I think um the whole situation with the manatee and a couple other things showed us that we really need to have in place

just a very simple communication system with residents whether it's text messaging or calls whatever is the best way. Uh social media is great but that's only if you're on social media and if you're able to look at it every day. Some people are not able to look at it every day me included. So, um I just wanted you to know that I am working with um you know, Fire Chief Brown and with Sid, our deputy clerk, uh to look at a couple different options and um they'll all be under 5,000. So, um it will be something that I'll be able to proceed with, but I just wanted you to know because I know that when I interviewed with you, communication was a very important issue. Um, I did want to ask you if you if you want me to, I can see if anyone from the tech advisory board would be interested in assisting us with that uh with that decision making. But, uh, I wanted to bring that to your attention. Um, secondly, um, and it would include things like when we had the, you know, manity the roads closed off, we could send out something saying, "Hey, there was a manity stuck there. Roads are closed off. Please go a different way." or boiled water alerts or I know when we have founders day we're going to have roads closed off. We can say reminder these roads are going to be closed off from 7 a.m. in the morning. Um you know if you'd like more information though about the event here's a link to it. That type of thing. Just very quick kind of messaging simple. It doesn't have to be um you know too gaudy or you know expansive or anything like that but I think that will that will go a long way. Um, a second thing I have to report is is not as great. Um, and it has to do about the code enforcement officer we just hired. Um, he just turned in his resignation notice today.

Um, I was surprised. He really seemed to be a very good fit. Um I will tell you this is the sixth code enforcement officer in the past year and my understanding is um almost every single one of them was because of the pay. It was too low they said. Um and I did talk to our current one and he said that um you know he looked at his bills you know he has a he has a young child and he's married. he said, you know, and they just it couldn't work out for him and he already had another job in a totally different field that he was taking. So, uh, he already had something else lined up. So, um, I wanted to let you know that I really think there must be a salary increase, uh, for this position for us to be able to, uh, retain somebody in that position. uh right now for this fiscal year because there's been so much lapse in the position it's been open for so long we we can increase the salary um a little bit but that increase would also remain for next year as well but I think it's something that um we need to really look at I'm going to look at it with uh finance HR and see how much that lapses how much more and it would be increased by maybe a dollar or $2 an hour more, right? Not not a whole lot because it's not a great deal of lapse, but also see what other municipalities in the county, what they're paying for the code enforcement officers, some that are similar size, so that we can be competitive. So, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be looking at doing that uh before we repost that. Um, but I also just wanted to see if you had any comments or suggestions as well. disappointing.

One question I have is were there other uh candidates that we didn't choose? We chose him. Uh were there other candidates that were interested who knew what the pay was going to be, but we didn't choose them instead and instead chose the one who within a week uh decided to it was too too little. Actually, we chose another candidate before him. Yeah.

And that person filled out the forms, went to get drug tested, and then decided to call in at the end of the day saying, you know, this is too little money. I'm not coming back in tomorrow. So, this is the second one that we had in that. Um, I asked if there were any others after that and they said, "Not not really that we're going to be uh a good fit because you have to have somebody who this is not their first job. they have some idea of uh enforcement whether it be law enforcement or code enforcement. So this is not a uh you know beginner you know position but the salary uh for the times is is closer to something you would pay somebody just starting out of uh school. So I just want you to think about that. Um, I will have some um ideas of how much more we we need to offer and I will come up with uh maybe a couple of u alternatives, but I do want to post it because I really think that um it's unfortunate that this has happened, but um the town really needs to have a code enforcement uh officer immediately as soon as possible. So, I'm going to work towards that end.

Okay,

Commissioner Reid. So I this probably uh was just just prior to you coming on board is when the decision was made to go transition from the part-time stuff to back to the full-time position. We asked as the commission that um kind a couple things. One was that the candidates be versed in the um the Decard software the STR tracking software that the candidates had some experience in in that uh as as a qualification. And we had also said that it asked that if we found that salary was in becoming was it was an issue to to get back to us to let us know that. So to this is the first feedback that we've gotten that that that was the issue. So because we I think personally like I kind of anticipated that we would probably struggle with that anyways. So

yeah. All right. I I've had a lot of experience in looking at other municipalities and coming up with something that is going to be compatible. Um I've done it with police forces, fire, um you know, which are very hard to recruit also. Uh so I'm going to come up with some recommendations. Um but I I'm going to proceed forward. So, would would you want to try to schedule a special meeting or something to or to uh you could bring forward your your proposal and we can go from there?

Um uh Ryan, do do we need to have like an official I guess I guess the big concern is that whatever salary we decide for this year is going to then be added to the budget for next year, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we necessarily need a special meeting just to increase the salary. Um, especially since we have not had a code enforcement officer. Um, I think it would just be a vote to give her authority to um I don't want to say a specific amount because then the applicants are going to see that they're going to request the full amount,

but um maybe just authority, you know, up to something that is comparable to other cities and towns in the area. Would one of the commissioners like to make a motion or do we need to wait for the comparable information that you're going to provide and where we know kind of the parameters as far as how high we're going to go?

Well, I mean part of it um one of the ceilings is going to be how much laps we have. So for the budget for this year, obviously we don't want to go above that position salary for that. So I have to look at how much laps we have. Um, so I'm not thinking it's going to be more than a dollar or two per hour more. Um, but it still will be something a little bit a little bit more. Um, maybe we can play with that and also have a signing bonus for the first year, you know, something like that as well. So, I'm going to look at that and figure out what would be the most uh attractive type of proposal.

I would be comfortable with making um the recommendation of going up to $2 additional per hour um just to get the ball rolling and not have a special meeting. Um just to get us until budget so that then we can figure out if if $2 is not enough to hire someone then we could figure out okay what is the magic per hour. But just just to get it going because we do need to have someone in that position. Now, years ago, um, we used to have some of our police officers do code enforcement, but it's my understanding that they're not comfortable doing that anymore. I don't know if that's true, but maybe you could speak to Chief Sander and see if he is comfortable with that. Um, and that would just be code enforcement things like um things they could see from their car like overgrown or um nuisance animals,

things of Yeah. things of that nature that are not um you know the nitty-gritty of code enforcement that might help some I but with the rental situation um the police department is doing quite a bit of that anyway I believe. Mhm. So, that would be one recommendation, but I but I would be comfortable with allowing it up to $2 per hour if the rest of the commission is just so we can get that started. I mean, it's going to cost us money to have a special meeting. Well, well, I I would love to hear a motion giving the town manager the authority to offer that. If one of the commissioners willing to make that,

I'll make that motion to authorize the town manager to increase the salary $2 per hour for the code enforcement officer. I second discussion. Commissioner Reed,

I would I just want to reiterate that we need to have the qualification of that they have experience in the um in the software or managing short-term rentals also. But otherwise, I'm I'm on board. Um, if I may, Commissioner Reid, um, it is going to be very difficult to find somebody who has experience in Decard. Again, with that that salary level, um, the two candidates we had did not have that experience and they were going to be trained on Decert. Um, and they still said no. So, um, that that may be a, if I'm being honest, it is going to be a barrier. However, the training is available. So, as soon as they get the job, they will be trained in decor.

Yeah. In fact, we had uh set up for training for this gentleman and unfortunately he gave his uh you know resignation today. Right on. Um any other comments? I'm I'm not comfortable making that a requirement. I would rather have the person trained uh in house with our computer situation because we may not even keep that in the future. So, I don't really think a job description should be dependent on them. Well, I think I think Commissioner Reed, I might be putting words in your mouth. You're alluding that's what we agreed on before, correct? Yeah, that we did.

Yeah. So maybe we can we can open that up to allow the uh um the town manager discretion uh and the authority to hire someone knowing that they'll be trained in in in Decert uh and that we could raise the the uh salary to $2 an hour or $2. I just don't think it's wise to have that training already in place as an applicant to the town, right? we would train them, not require that they have that experience coming into the job. I don't think we're talking about doing in-house training. I think we're talking about having Decker do the training. Is that correct? That's absolutely correct. Yes. And that's a provided service that we get. Yes, that is.

Okay. So, I I would take it as a goal um to do that. I mean, it doesn't it's not the hard and fast. I guess if they have some relatable experience, it would be great. Um, but like to get it going, I I'm I'm on board with up to the up to $2 an hour. Okay. So, can we make that a friendly amendment that friendly amendment that would we will include the decard training uh at the discretion of the town manager for the new code enforcement officer? Yes. All right. Okay. All right. So, all in favor? Did I have a second? You did. Okay. Yep. All All in favor?

Public comment. Oh, public comment. I'm sorry. Miss Smith, there's If there's anybody from the public who would like to weigh in, Marie V. Walker, 511 Riverside Drive. I'm not clear how you ended up on the Decker software, but you know, it's only been in Bvard County since 2023. Like, how many people are going to come in fully knowledged? So, we're not I'm all I'm saying and I think is what you're saying is they will be trained, right? Correct. We're not going to require that because you're not going to get very many people if the software's only been around for three years to Yeah. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Thank you,

Jan Pence, 200 Riverside Drive. to expound on what Marie just said. I I looked it up because I I you know I I have short-term rentals. Not only did the county just start looking at Decert in 2023, they didn't start using the software until 2025. It's a it's new software. You're not you're I think you're really limiting yourself if if we put oursel in a situation where and and number two, short-term rentals is not the only thing code enforcement does. I mean, we I don't even know if we have an issue anymore. We we hear about it every meeting, but um I think that you're really limiting yourself if you if you put that requirement in there that they've got to have some training on that. Thank you.

Uh I would just reiterate, come on up, Jim, but I would just reiterate that that was really like the number one issue during the election season uh was short-term rentals and code enforcement and our lack of code enforcement. So getting this code enforcement is a priority for the commission. Jim Simmons, 409 Avenue B. Two things. went 10 years ago when we started looking at code enforcement very closely we came up with a policy that they would not be on a standard 40hour actually a 20our at that time you know 8 to 2 or whatever it was you work it at random hours because our biggest code violations are start Friday afternoon and they're done by Sunday

and we said let you know have it random so that they can catch people who don't know when they're on duty and when they're not on duty and they could work it during their hours. The other thing is to uh Commissioner Cory's point about the police, it aggravated me deeply because our codes are our ordinances and therefore they are able to be enforced by the police. And I would sit and watch police in their car with a roadside sign day after day after day after day sitting right outside their window. they could have easily gotten out and picked up that sign. There's not a single one that's legal except a garage sale or or a uh um u a worker who's actively working that site or uh for sale sign. So all of these rug galleries, the moment they go in the ground, they're illegal. And our police could help with that. But all they got to do is recognize that they have to enforce those laws as well as the ones they want to enforce. So I would I would push that back on the police, too. They are our ordinances and they are laws that should be enforced by any law enforcement officer, which a code enforcement officer is.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. Miss Miss Brown, could you read back the the motion? So, the motion was to authorize the town manager to increase the salary by $2 per hour for the code enforcement officer. And then there was an amendment to not require but encourage experience at the discretion of the town manager is what?

So I think we changed that a little bit to to give the town manager discretion in training the candidates with Decard software. Okay. after hire because there's a we had a rule before that we wouldn't hire them unless they had experience in decor which sounds like it's next to impossible to find that. So we were just going to change that. Okay. So the motion was made by commissioner Corey and seconded by commissioner Butler. So we would need approvals to amend the motion. Commissioner Corey is it? I move um you accept the amendment. Yeah, I I accept the amendment. And is there a second?

And I second. Okay. All right. And if there's not any other com anybody want to make a comment? If not, all in favor? I I I. All right. Miss Smith, were you done with your presentation? Um, yes. Well, thank you. Yes, I'm done with my present. Thank Thank you so much for now. Thank you so much. That's right. We're going to bring you back in a moment for some great stuff. Um, and next, uh, uh, we are going to bring up the town attorney. Ryan, I don't think we've had a a town attorney, uh, report in a while, so I'm so happy to hear you speak.

I'm glad we have some time. Um, first order of business. Yesterday morning, uh we had a productive meeting with the auditors pursuant to the JLAC um audit. Derek Nunan, Jim Cole, um Jeff Prisonine, I don't know how to how to pronounce that. Um the mayor, myself, Jennifer Kerr, and Amber Brown were in attendance. Uh they just really went over an overview of the process and what we could expect uh for the JAC audit. um they stressed that it was an operational audit. So their concerns would be um control procedures in place that the town has compliance with town policies and procedures um and compliance with town ordinances and statutes. Um essentially what they're looking for is the town's internal controls to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. and the time period uh that they are looking at uh ranges from October 2024 to December 2025. Um they mentioned that some of the areas where that they would be requesting additional information from the town would be public records request staff turnover um competitive selection, fire protection, building permits and procurement with the town. So, we can expect that they would request RFPs, um any contracts that we have with vendors, invoices, um things of that nature. They expected um to be done by the end of the summer and their goal would be to have a final report by the end of the year. Um, so one of the things that they stressed was that they will be sending emails to us um and to the town requesting this information. Um, the town will endeavor to get that to them as quickly as possible. Um, they they

don't have a strict time limit, but they would like it within a few days. Um, if it's a request that was made of a previous fiscal year, um, then uh they mentioned that uh they would expect that information within a week. So, we have some procedures in place um where Marie will be copied, Amber will be copied. So, we'll make sure that we get those requests and respond timely to that. Um do you have any questions for me regarding that?

What were the dates of the period they were investigating again? October 2024 to December 2025. Do you foresee any difficulty with building permits since we've had a change in that department? Um, are records pretty well complete? I can't speak to that. I don't have access to the town records, but I do know there's a central location for that and there are multiple people who can have access to that and locate the information if needed.

So, the the fact that we have a company that's our building department that's not here. All those records, they're going to fully cooperate with us and with giving us everything we need or because that the time period 10:24 through 12:25 is when we switched over to a company is what the only reason I was asking. So no staff would be responsible for going in there and pulling out whatever information is requested. So if they're requesting all the building permits from that time period, then staff would be responsible for going in and pulling that out.

So the building permits are in our building. They're not in the company's possession that we have contracted. I believe they are they're on the BS BSN platform. Yeah, it's our software. Thank you. We don't use their software. Mr. Knight, just a question. And I was going I was going through your billing and and there was some um discussions you had with the auditor general. Is this uh in regards to the JAC audit? Yes. Okay. So the auditor general who is the auditor general. Is that one of those three people that you met with? No,

it's a was it Stacy? I forgot her last name, but she's not involved in it. So what happens is they have a subgroup essentially where they have the consultants and another um another auditing firm essentially that's affiliated with the auditor general and they perform the work once they perform their investigation. They put that in writing and then they send those findings up to the auditor general. She and her staff will review that and then they will compile a final report once they have all that information. Fantastic. So is this uh as as uh pleasant as a colonoscopy or is this something that happens frequently?

Um it remains to be seen but um you know it's something that I mean it's it's going to take extra work and staff time because I anticipate we are going to be getting a lot of document requests. Once you get those then you normally get follow-ups um based upon what you send. So it will take some time um and effort on staff's part. Okay. Sure.

Um, one thing they mentioned which, uh, was the timing is that they are going to take all summer. This audit is going to go through the end of the summer and that they would hope to get the report out by the end of the year. And after that, we have 30 days to respond to anything if we think it's incorrect. And uh so it is going to be a process that is going to take us through the end of the year and into next year. It's not a short thing, right? Okay. Can I ask? Yeah, sure. Commissioner Corey,

um, can you can you prepare us for our budget session as to what the increases may end up being with staff? Um, so that we can prepare for the money on during budget. Yeah, we'll do our best to to predict everything possible. We really will. Anything else?

Okay. Um, next item. Uh we did receive a trial date uh for the litigation with Funo for the public records request. Uh that date is scheduled for April 8th. It's scheduled for one day. Um at this time we are still essentially in the discovery phase. So um the next deadline would be February 27th for us to provide a witness list for that matter. Um that's the only update I have regarding litigation. The total outstanding fees for the public records request case is $6,340. Um in the other case, which is the breach of contract, the breach of settlement um action also brought by Funo, uh the outstanding uh attorney's fees in that are $4,27.50. Uh there's really nothing to update um on that. We don't have a trial date at this point. Um, we're essentially still in the discovery phase, but there's not been a lot going on with that. If I do get any additional information regarding settlement, um, or settlement offer, anything like that, then I will let you know, and if need be, we can call a shade meeting if warranted.

Can you just uh tell us again what a shade meeting is for the for the

So, a shade meeting is something that would not be open to the public. It's strictly regarding um an update on settlement uh negotiations. Um there's a specific Florida statute that requires um me be in attendance, the town manager, um the commission, and a court reporter. So that would be transcribed. Anything in there uh would be transcribed by a court reporter. And at the end of the litigation, uh that transcript will become available to the public. but it protects um the town from um having to disclose any settlement negotiations or lit or litigation strategy in public

and the mayor would be present in that shade meeting as a member of the commission. That's correct. Um there were four lawsuits. So um what about the third one? I believe the first one was settled a long time ago but then reopened. But what about FOB gate? I'm not aware of any law lawsuit regarding FOB gate. Um I believe it's on the county website um about a key fob access. It was nicknamed fobgate.

So there's no litigation that that I'm aware of with that. Huh? I It doesn't show closed. It It doesn't show that that was closed. Uh would you look into that? I can't. It might be part of the lawsuit which is the breach of settlement agreement. Um but I'm not aware of the key fobs. Yeah, I'm not aware of a separate lawsuit regarding that. Uh there was an issue with the key fobs with the public records request. Maybe that's

um so that might be that might be what you're referring to. Um, as far as the third case, which is the appeal, my office is not handling that. That's outside counsel. Um, so I don't have an update on that other than what was contained or what is contained in the court record. Um, still looks like we are uh awaiting a hearing on the motion for reconsideration. Thank you. That's with Elizabeth Harris. Yes. Okay. Um, vice mayor, could we request the town manager to maybe get us a update from Elizabeth Harris on that other court case?

Miss Smith, would that be would you be able to do that for us? Yes, we'll go ahead and do that.

Thank you. And then um last I just wanted to bring up for discussion um I know I just had this discussion in another town regarding cell phones for the uh for the commission. Some towns are going through that. I did receive a request um to discuss this at this meeting having uh town cell phones for the commissioners uh for purposes of public records. Um, so that would be something that would be a policy decision or a legislative decision that you would have to make for that. There obviously would be a cost to that. Um, I don't know what that exact cost is. I don't know if you have any additional information regarding that.

I do um I spoke to Chief Xander uh because he's handling the phones right now, the cell phones. He said that um with the family plan or business plan uh each phone would be 99 cents

and it would be $40 per person per month for the service. So um if you had five people that would be $200 plus the roughly4.95 the phone that was onetime cost. So, just a question for you, Mr. Knight. Um, the the reason you would want that, it would make it easier for people to get the public records requests. Just so everyone knows, there's a there's a problem with commissioners communicating with each other because of the sunshine laws. We actually don't have healthy communication between us. We're we can communicate while we're up on the DAS and in public, but we can't uh communicate about town business in private. anything that we do in private is is open to to being subpoenaed or asked for or public records requests. Would this having a a cell phone would that make thing make things easier or would we be allowed to to would that open up communication between the commissioners where we could talk about? We couldn't, right?

No. No. So, you still couldn't. Um just the rationale behind having a town issued cell phone is that the town would be uh would have access to the information at all times essentially. Yeah. Um so you wouldn't have to say if you sent a text to a constituent regarding an issue before uh town commission. You wouldn't have to then turn around and send that text to Amber for public record purposes. Um, essentially there'd be a way for it just to transfer over into the the town's cloud. So, if the town did get a public records request, they wouldn't have to reach out to each individual and request that they produce uh the requested documents.

So, just just personally, I think it would be a bad idea, but I'd love to hear what the other commissioners have to think. Commissioner Reid, I'm not in favor of that. I'm not in favor of that either. I'd rather that money go to the code officer. Commissioner Cory, I don't get text messages from town business. I I do everything through email, so I'm not in favor of it. Yeah, nothing to hide. Thanks for Thanks for letting us know, but I don't think we want it. Yeah, appreciate it. No problem. Um, that is all I have as far as updates go. All right. Well, thank you so much. So, uh, Miss Brown, the next thing on the agenda is the consent agenda, correct? Yes.

I don't think we have public comment after board reports, do we? I don't think so. Okay. So, we're going to have some more board reports a little bit later, but now we're going to uh decide to approve the consent agenda. And you have to remind me uh make a motion to approve the consent agenda, right? With the addition of uh Curtis bird's application. Is there a second? I second. Okay. Is there a discussion? Mr. Reed, uh I'd just like to thank the uh the two volunteers, longtime volunteers and valued uh for continuing to apply.

Okay. And I don't think we take public comment on the consent agenda. So all in favor? I

I that is unanimous. All right, we're going to move on to uh I don't think we have public hearings or special orders, right? But we're going to go to unfinished business and we're going to talk about resolution 20261 adopting the Bvard County hazard mitigation plan. This was presented last month uh by the prior uh interim town manager, Lisa Frasier. Uh and then we have a resolution of the town of Melbourne Beach, Bvard County, Florida, adopting the 2025 update of the Bvard County hazard mitigation plan. Uh this was a a big document. It is available uh for viewing on on the website uh the town's website. Um is there a motion to accept it? like to make a motion to accept the Bvard County mitigation, excuse me, hazard mitigation plan 2025 as presented.

I second. Okay. Is there discussion? Any concerns about the about this? Seeing none, is there any uh comments from the town? Seeing none, uh all in favor? I I I

I. All right, that passes. Uh now we're going to go to 10B, discussion of the proposed town policy and procedure regarding grant application. I'd like to recognize Fire Marshal Dave Micah. Okay. We uh I took what you all had asked for last the last last meeting, previous meetings, took that document uh since I have a lot of experience in writing policies and procedures for uh fire department, major corporations and stuff too. Um I tried to take this if and uh consolidate it down into reduce the conflicting information that was in it, reduce a lot of the fluff um as well as put it in the proper format which it previously wasn't. This the format that you see is the town policy format that I got from HR to make sure that it truly was done the right way. Um I believe I've got the requirements that you all asked for as far as the oversight that the commission wanted uh based on the dollar values and stuff that we talked about before and still allowing for the town manager or their design for the lower value uh items to be able to react quickly to the grant periods that are open. Some of them are open very short times. Uh even the federal good ones are only open for 30 days. The larger grants, the over the $10,000 that you talked about um has to go before the commission before it can even be submitted. the lower grants can be submitted and anything under $5,000 or less that the town manager can which is under the the same thing as the uh purchasing policy can uh produce the grant, submit it to grant and accept the grant and then notify the commission at the next meeting. Anything greater than that um up to 10,000 could be uh written, submitted, and then before

acceptance, if assuming it was awarded, the commission would agree to it or disagree. And then over anything over $10,000 um would be uh written, but before submitted would be reviewed and and approved by the commission. And it also talks about previous approvals or anything that's already budgeted, the same things that you all asked for before. I presented this to the town attorney. He's reviewed it also and we I think we're in agreement that it's succinct and and we'll still allow the the activities that you wanted. Well, great job. Thank you. Um I'd like to hear a uh first I'd like to hear a motion to accept this.

I make a motion to accept this exactly as it is. It's what we asked for. Thank you. I'll second. Second. Okay. Any discussion? Any town uh town comments, public comments? Seeing none, there's no discussion up here. All in favor? I I Great job. Really really appreciate it. Really appreciate it.

All right. Now, now we're going to talk about the consider uh 10 C consideration of the costs to access and remove a live manatee from a storm water pipe and then uh do the necessary repairs. And I'm going to recognize again our town manager, Marie Smith.

Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, so last Monday, truly February 9th, was an auspicious day for the town of Melbourne Beach as we rescued a manity from the storm water drain with help from a lot of our friends. It truly took a village to save Melby. And by the way, I I'm suggesting we change MELB instead of MELB Y mela, which is Melbourne Beach if you think about it. Um, so but for the storm water pipe though, Melbby surely would have died from the cold snap. Um, and I know FWC I talked to them and they they uh agreed. Our surveyors from Haley Ward found him and got the authorities on the scene very quickly. FWC, US Fish and Wildlife, Bvard County, the University of Florida, SeaWorld, and Melbourne Beach staff work quickly for a positive outcome. And I really want to thank this commission for gathering and acting so quickly. Clerk Brown for calling everyone together. Chief Brown and the fire department for quickly responding and managing the scene throughout the whole event. Chief Xander for getting officers out to manage the road closures and direct the traffic flow. The public works director Tom Davis for getting me um on board and getting estimates uh for the work so that we can make decisions very quickly and especially for our residents who showed so much love and support for all of us and especially for for Melby. It was uh really an unusual uh and spectacular experience. So, I just want to let you know Friday, February 13th, our team had a debrief call with Bvard County FWC, Florida Fish and Wildlife, that is um

and SeaWorld. The manity is doing well and is on the mend. Uh at that time we uh discussed mitigation or actually we call it um manity protection in the storm water pipes. And the reason we're using the larger term is because we don't know whether grates or ballards or what might be the best way uh to protect the manatees from the differentiz pipes that we have. Uh but we are arranging a follow-up call from our debrief call with FWC and Bvard County to see exactly what FWC recommends for manatee storm water pipe protection and we'll proceed with an evaluation and cost estimate from there. I wanted to um ask you if you could amend uh your resolution from uh last week to include in that 30,000 the cost uh for the uh manity protection pipes um in in that cost because I think it is um going to be something that we're going to have to do uh fairly quickly. Um, I have not gotten an estimate as yet from Bvard County for the work they had done on our roads, but uh, you know, I I know it would be a lot less than um, you know, the 60,000 we discussed because they use their equipment and their labor. So, I do think we have some flexibility there and I would like to make that I would request that you make that uh, that amendment to your resolution.

Thank you. And uh I'll ask for a um motion in just a moment with that amendment. I I did want to give uh kudos out to everyone who helped. It was truly an amazing event. Uh it was something that I'll never forget and all the town coming together. Uh but the thing that was so neat, it was almost like surgical precision watching all the everyone worked together to get that manatee out. And they took the road up and they opened the bath. It wasn't a baffle box. I was told it was a junction box. And then they lifted the manatee out and it was just it was just spectacular. But then even more spectacularly, it was all fixed the next day. I mean, the road was all back to normal. So, kudos to everybody. Tom, you deserve a lot of credit. Uh, Chief Brown, I mean, the fire department was just all over the place. It was It was amazing. It was amazing. It could be a movie. I think somebody should secure the movie rights. All right. But it was really something. But um uh I I do want to I do want to hear a motion uh to accept this uh with the amendment as stated. Go ahead. C

can we have some more discussion prior to Oh, sure. Sure. So um so did I hear it correctly? We we haven't seen a bill yet from the county for for anything yet. No. No. I think it probably would be for materials. Um yeah. Do we know when they we would expect be expecting to see that? Um it may come within the next couple weeks. I will have conversation with their storm water um director Bach Mccclure. Uh we're hoping to set that up meeting up next week so I can ask him at that point.

So I think that that would be a something key for us to uh to know. Um I I guess also I don't doesn't seem like there's really maybe there is or there isn't any regulations or rules that require us to do any kind of uh put any kind of grates or protection in place. So it's not a situation where we are currently non-compliant. Do we know that?

Yes. So as of right now um we know that the town does own and control that portion of the storm water. We know there is not a grade or anything protecting that. So at this time since we are in possession of that and since we own that piece of property right there, we would be responsible for placing a grade or a ballard or whatever it may be um in front of that storm water pipe.

There's there's not a requirement that we do that. Uh there is um Florida wildlife uh commission. They have a design for the grates that they use and that they do require on that. It does require some type of um either a grate or um a ballard. So manatees cannot swim in there. So that's an FWC. So rule regulation that's applied to all municipalities. It's in conjunction with FWC and the St. John's River um Water Management District. Can we see that? I can get it to you. I don't have

Yeah. No, not not right now. No. Yeah. Can you get Can you get that to us so we can see what that what that's saying? Um I guess I was also thought I don't believe all those outfalls are normally submerged. Um, normally um I I guess I suggest that maybe we would need to do or suggest we would do a kind of a some kind of a survey of those out all the uh all the falls so we know their condition and elevation and and location or whatever. And this I'm talking about just a a visual get a photograph to identify where where that is. Then we have a complete picture of what all the uh what all falls are. Um the fire department has a has a boat they could help facilitate uh getting to those the ones that are accessible on the water if we can't do the uh assessment from land. Um I think we would need to I would recommend that we have that uh to be a part of this decision as well. You know if we're talking about all or some I mean if they're above mean tide then that that's doesn't seem like that would be necessary. Um, do you do you mind if I have our public works director? He did go do some of that assessment. I mean, you talk about some of that. You sent me a list of the pipes and um, you know, some of their conditions. And I think a lot of it too depends on the time of year, the water levels they, you know, become

and this year we had a king's tide which was the water level was so high that all the outfall pipes were Yeah. You know, so it's it's it's interesting. Um, Mr. Davis manager and I had discussed you got to press the microphone. I'm sorry. Yeah. Manager and I had discussed this briefly and certainly what Commissioner Reid mentioned is is important to us and uh that can be accomplished. The chief's boat draws way too much water. I'm in 18 of water. Uh, and I had approached the manager about a johnboat, small johnboat that we can't carry in our pickup trucks, no trailers, very minimal.

I think you can access anything that's visible in the canals. Maybe not everything on shore, but I'm sorry. It seems like they would be able to access all the outfalls that are in the canals from a boat. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's of concern. the deeper areas and they're often deep in front of those because of the outflow of the water. Yes, sir. And we would document those by photograph. We So, have I I I'm confused. Are you saying you've done that or you're you're thinking about doing it? We had discussed doing that as part of our effort moving forward.

Yeah, I think we uh we had uh I had Mr. Davis go and take a look at the particular pipe that the manatee was in. And uh you know we did a assessment of that. I think it was partially submerged at this point. Um but that one's going to be tricky. Um I also had him uh inventory all of our pipes, the sizes of the pipes um because they're not all the same size. You're going to require different types of uh manity protection um depending on what the permits say from uh St. John's. So, um, we we we can go ahead and start taking a look visually. And I think, uh, Mr. Davis also taking pictures of each of those pipelines to see, um, if they're submerged or not and how far in.

Is it is it safe to say that this pipe is one of the biggest pipes or is this a smaller pipe? No, sir. It's one of three of that size pipes in town because of the size of that basin. No, sir. It's the largest. We've one of three of the largest. Gotcha. Yeah.

So, so Haley Ward is already working on coming back to us with some proposal for basin 10. Correct. Now, we maybe we should ask them to include they're going to my understanding was they were coming back to us with recommendations with their report and their their results of their survey and some and recommendations. So, maybe we should ask them if to include that in in there. So, Yes, we can ask them to include some sort of recommendation. Um, I don't think uh we have um the capability to necessarily put in depending on what type of uh manity protection we may not have the ability to and we may want professionally installed because there's a warranty that may come with that. Um but we still have to first have that meeting with FWC and the county to find out what exactly they would like us to install because um that is incumbent as uh Ryan had said on the permit from St. John's uh water district. So we have to kind of follow those steps because St. John's relies on FWC on their advice uh to issue us the permit. So we have to follow basically we're just going straight to FWC so they can give us the directions directly.

That is a wise strategy. Yeah, that's really the right way to go.

Thank you. So, if if I may, um, basically FWC is going to look at our public works department's inventory of the size of our pipes and where they're located, and then they're going to give us the recommended protection devices for each of those pipes. Correct. I don't know if they're going to look at all of them um or if they're mostly concerned about this particular one. I don't know. We have not extended the scope of it um because I think we do have to look at the permits right to see what they require to. So each one has to be taken on an individual basis. But if they say for instance in that river in that basin if you know this is acceptable you know because of the outflow um you know then we know what type of uh mitigation we can put in place.

So how would you like to us to um rephrase this um the funds? It's on page 24 I think. Yeah. the motion that Anna's going to make. Yes. How do you think we should rephrase it?

So, it's actually at the last sentence on the on page 24 kind of fits into that plan. An additional item for discussion, the potential allocation of funding for improvements to storm water pipe outflows for manatee protection. So that would be the uh the uh friendly amendment to your potential with potential allocation of Well, I can't actually make that. Somebody else has to make that but with no specific number. We you have a we have the cap that we spoke about, right? You have a cap keeping that and you think that would be sufficient? Yeah, I think it would be

because the if I'm understanding correctly, the county is you think only going to charge us for materials, right? Which would be great, right? Okay. At least that was in my discussion with the county manager. That's what he had had told me. Yeah. And the reason for this is the charter says that any action taken at an emergency meeting must be ratified at the next regular meeting. So your options right now are essentially to just reaffirm that decision that you made at the emergency meeting or to ratify it.

Okay. I would like to make a an amendment to the previous resolution for the allocation of funds for the repair of the manity uh of the destruction to the road due to rescuing the manatee. to um including to include potential allocation of funding for improvements to storm water pipe outflows for manatee protection. Second.

Okay. Any public discussion? Yes, Jim. Jim Simmons, 409 Avenue B. Um Tom, when you're looking at the methods that they're going to clog up our pipes with screens and all, you need to have a method for cleaning them with all removing them or what they can't be permanently installed a little bit. They'll be clogged in six months. So just make Okay. Yeah, cuz everybody blows their stuff into storm drains. All the landscapers and everything blows it right into the storm drains. I had spoken, May I speak?

Sure.

Um, I had spoken to one the FWC gentleman at the site that night during the rescue and he we had kind of briefly discussed that and he said, "Is that the ballast is what he's talking about? Kind of like a pole that would prevent, but he said you actually would have to do two because there might be a baby manatee so it could be small enough to get, you know, so that would be the the maybe a better option to not, you know, to eliminate the problem of clogging. And he he was he thought that might be a good option, too. He brought it up. Just to be the devil's advocate, it seems like this manatee uh was saved from the cold by going up this pipe. Now, we're going to prevent from uh them from going up these warm pipes. I wonder if if FWC has a way of wrangling them when the cold weather comes that they have a place, you know, like Dodto or They probably don't, but it would be it would be neat to have some manatee wranglers,

you know. So, if I may, uh, Vice Mayor, are we going to buy a Johnboat or are is someone going to volunteer a Johnboat? We have I've got someone waving. Okay. Nice. Thank you. So Tom, you're not getting a new boat this year again. Thank you, Commissioner Quarry. That was great. That was great. Just w make a few more wishes. Few more wishes that come true. All right. All Yeah. All in favor? I I I nay.

All right. All right. Vice Mayor, could we take attention to the um fire department um action review if there's any questions? Sure. So, we received a a wonderful action review from Chief Chief Brown. It kind of is a debrief of what occurred for history. I I I would like the whole town to be able to have this uh access to this so they could read all about this. Was really an incredible event. Uh thank you so much, Chief Brown, for doing this. Um did you have any comments?

No. So, this was written um from the perspective of the fire department. So it doesn't include um some things that might be pertinent to the town um like you know what caused this in the first place and preventative measures for the future which we're already discussing. So just be aware that this is more so um from the fire department's perspective of this incident and things that we can improve on in the future and things that went well um not necessarily the whole scope um of the town. But if anybody has any questions I'd be willing to uh answer those. And just the only other thing I'd mention about this, um the city manager, our town manager brought up some thank yous, but I always think it's important just to make sure we we thank the people that that made this possible. And so um Bvard County really stepped up without them. Um you know, it wouldn't have been possible. They they really um came to our aid big time. So, just a couple people specifically, County Commissioner Kim Atkinson, um the county manager, uh Jim Lizenfeld, Bvard County Emergency Management Director John Scott, um and his operations manager Chris Elitus, Bvard County Fire Rescue, um and their technical rescue team and their district chief for this zone. Uh were all there handling the extrication. And then Bard County Public Works, road, bridge, and storm water personnel. Um and then like Marie mentioned um Florida Fish and Wildlife were there. Both their marine biologists and their law enforcement members, University of Florida disaster response team was there. Jack's Recre Service um you know they came out with the tow truck to hoist the man out. They actually came out two two separate tow trucks because the first one wasn't big enough. Um and so also SeaWorld of Orlando and US Fish and Wildlife uh service for their contributions as well. But um it really takes a big team to do this and coordinate. This is a large scale operation. I think that overall it went um pretty smoothly when you look at uh we had representatives from every

level of government. You know, us with the smallest municipal and going to county and then state and federal all working together to resolve this incident in a relatively quick time frame. So normally when you see this level of multi- agency coordination, you're talking about you know a days long event and slowly ramping up. this went from zero to 100 quick and um to resolution um fairly quickly. And so I want to give kudos to our new town manager. She handled it extremely well. Um let's give a round of applause. Really?

Yeah. So overall from the fire department's aspect, I think that it went went pretty well. Um you know, there's always areas we can improve, but nothing nothing major and it was a good uh resolution to the incident. So that's all I have.

Thank you so much, Chief Brown, and thank you for thanking so many great people who did a great great job. Uh it really is important to mention everybody who did so much. It was awesome. It really was something. Um we're going to move on to new business now and we're going to resolution 20262, uniform method of collecting non-advelorum assessments levied. And we're going to uh go to our town attorney, Ryan. This is resolution number 2026-02, a resolution of the town of Melbourne Beach, Bvard County, Florida, electing to timely preserve the use of the uniform method of collecting non-advelorum assessments levied in all or part of the town of Melbourne Beach for the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 beginning October 1st, 2026, stating a need for such levy, providing for the timely mailing of this resolution as provided by general law, and providing for an effective So what you have before you is really the um next part of uh what the town must do in order to have the non-advelorum assessments essentially on the tax role. Um again this does not obligate you to adopt any special assessments. It's just preserving your right to do that should you choose to do that um in the coming year. Um if we don't pass this resolution then uh we would not be able to get um the assessment that could be levied on the tax role and in that case the town would be responsible for collecting any payment or of the assessment um moving forward which is something the town would want to avoid because then you'd have to set up a whole system for collecting those a whole system for enforcement. Um you'd have to process the payments. It would require a lot of additional staff for that.

Ryan, thank you again. I I think I thanked you last last month for your vision and seeing this ahead of time and it kind of reminds me of what happened with the short-term rental thing. You know, we missed an opportunity to do something about it and then we weren't grandfathered in like in the Atlantic was when it comes to short-term rentals in residential areas. But you having the the vision of doing this ahead of time, I think is really important. And I think it's, you know, kudos to you for doing this for us. I can say it was a team effort between me and the prior um town manager, Lisa. She um had a vision for it as well, so I'd have to give credit to her um as well. Wonderful.

Thank you. So, I'd like to hear a motion. I'll make a motion. Yes, sir. I I'll make a a motion to um approve resolution 2026-02 as as presented. And I'd also like to propose that we have uh the town manager uh initiate an RFP to go out for RFP for firms to uh to structure um a nonadalorum fire tax. Could you explain your your addendum to that for us? If I So, yeah.

And if I could, Commissioner Reed, I don't mean to step on your toes. Um, but I would, if you do do that, I would not limit it to just a fire tax. I would just make it general um to where it's for any and all assessments because there are firms that specialize in essentially general assessments and that would include fire. Oh, okay. I see. All right. All right. So, I'd modify that then so that we're we're then the motion is to approve resolution 2026-02 as presented and uh ha have the town manager go out uh for RFP for firms um to uh help us structure uh adarm taxes.

So, Commissioner Reed, if you'll allow me, let's separate those into two two different two different motions. The first motion will be to accept what is written as the uh motion and then we'll we'll uh look at the second one for the RFP after that. So first one uh is there a second? A second. All right. Any discussion? Any discussion? Public comment. Not seeing any. Uh, all in favor? I I I So, what's the motion again? Let me read it back.

Uh, a resolution of the town of Melbourne Beach, Bvard County, Florida, electing to timely preserve the use of the uniform method of collecting nonadvalorum assessments levied in all or part of the town of Melbourne Beach. I I know what the the resolution is. What What's the the uh the motion? Wow. So, how does the motion read? Well, you made it. You made the you made you you amended it. I didn't want to know what I just split I just split it into the first part and I split it into two motions. The first part is the the as written motion and then the second part we're going to talk about your RFP motion which was your addendum or we made it into a second motion. Right. So we're approving the the um or the resolution as presented. Correct.

Okay. I thank you. Okay. Now would you like to make your second um motion? Sure. Third time. Um, so I the motion is to have the uh town manager uh initiate an effort to go out for RFP for firms to uh that can uh structure um non-advelor taxes for the town. Is there a second? Second. Good discussion. So I got a question for you, Commissioner Reid. Why would we want to do that at this point?

Well, that Okay, so we the we have the the the commission the the the there's we're supposed to hire three full-time firefighters on the fire department. Right.

Okay. Um the plan for paying for that um is in the the 26 budget. uh the means for doing that through fiscal year 26, but there's no plan for how to do that in the next fiscal year. So, um the idea would be that this be adopted if we were to structure a nonadvalorum um tax to help uh offset the cost of the paid firefighters in in the next fiscal year. the urgency, the the idea to do it now would be be the timing of it in order that I think we would probably have to get this in before September I think of this year uh fiscal year 26 so that it would actually show up in the next year's tax rules.

Okay. So I'm still a little bit confused. Maybe I ask uh uh Mr. Knight. So my my thought was that this was really uh like a safety net for us if the property taxes were to disappear and we have a way to actually assess uh residents and and get fire, storm water and have assessments with uh this this process rather than property taxes. Um are we actually trying to do this to to pay for the fire firemen? Well, that would be up to you. Okay.

Um I can say it is a lengthy process. It does involve um hiring an outside firm. Um the RFP uh between that and actually settling on a firm, you're looking at two months probably. Um and then once you get to that two months, which would be around April or May, they still have to conduct research, pull all the information depending on what assessment you'd be looking for. Mhm. Um and in between now and then, we obviously don't know what's going to happen with the legislature and the vote for the property taxes. Um so there is there is a time crunch uh because we want to be are you saying we need to be prepared in case they they do get rid of property taxes?

Uh that reason and in case you do want a fire assessment or any other type of assessment to help raise revenue. Okay. Um, if you start early, then there's a good chance you will be able to complete it in the time you need to. If you hold off on it, like I said, you got to keep in mind there's a two-month lag between when you send out the RFP and actually retain somebody. Um, and they need they do need to compile a lot of information for any kind of of assessment. Um, so it does take time. In this situation, the sooner the better um to ensure that you can get it on the tax roll for next year if you need to. and also for budgeting purposes.

And do you have an estimate of how much something like that will cost? Um, not really. It just depends. Um, you know, obviously it costs a lot more for bigger cities. Um, I don't know what an estimate would be. Um, that's what our RFP would be used for

um for as for, you know, for pricing. Um I can say typically in these it does require outside specialized counsel as well. Um so there are specialized lawyers that um handle this and they specifically know what to file, what you need to preserve um for the future. So that would be an additional cost. Um legal services are not required to go out for an RFP. Um but there are firms that essentially work with uh specialized attorneys um for these. So

just for commission is there any kind of a like fiscal restriction you'd put on this?

Well, I mean okay the RFP gets you the they bid you get numbers so then we know what what we're looking at. um you you have to go through that process to get the prices. We're speculating. We could look at we can look at other municipalities. They have their have done this and their RFPs are out there and you can kind of get some kind of gauge of it. But um I would say that um uh the um the budget that we have now for fiscal year 26 has had salary money budgeted for the three paid uh firefighter positions which has not been filled. So that allocated money is essentially not hasn't been spent. So that's on the order. I think if from the finance report it's looking like that's around there's $50,000 and some amount of money there. So I mean I I would s my recommendation would be that if that we would use those funds that that funding to do get the uh the uh the structuring of the of the tax done. So, so it really I that would be basically without having to incur additional costs this year.

So, it sounds to me like it's specific for taking care of the fire positions because there's nothing else that we can specifically ask for in an RFP, right? I'm not that I'm Am I missing something? I It sounds like you're a proponent of doing this. However, I'm hearing it's very specific to the fire positions. Yeah. There's nothing else we can ask for an RFP on. Yeah. So, I I'm not a proponent of it. That's your call. It's a legislative call. I'm just saying.

Yeah. I'm just saying um I think if you do make the motion, it should be more general um instead of just limited to fire because you might find out that you either need something else or you don't need fire and you maybe need something else to make up for revenue. It's just at this point you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, I think I thought my most premature. I get that there's timeline, but is it premature as far as specifics of what we're asking for? That's my am I

I don't think so because once you send out the RFP, you will still have the option to actually se uh select somebody or say no, we should wait till next year or we don't need this right now. But I think as far as getting the RFP process going, it would be beneficial for the town to start it sooner rather than later, knowing that you don't have to follow through with it if you don't want to or if it turns out the cost is too high. Yeah, I thought my motion was general to to hire a firm that does help structure um nonform taxing, not specific too. But my my vision kind of looking is that our first use of that f type of firm would be for fire and and we may also be need to consider it for um uh the existing modifi modifying the existing storm water um nonavalorum also but top first priority I think would be the the uh the fire aspect.

If I may.

Yes, Commissioner Corey. Basically, anything that is going to be below the line is what this firm would help us with. Below the line on the tax on the tax trim notice. So, that could be storm water, that could be a fire assessment, what whatever in the future would be something that would be a below the line cost that um the residents would would have and we would need to have a firm a professional firm figure out how to do that and and what we need to have. I think it's a very insightful motion and I think that um we we don't know what's going to happen in the future, but we do need to know what our options are as a town to protect the safety of the residents and our infrastructure. And to have a company that can figure that out, I think is a very um it's a wise decision in my opinion, which is why I seconded the motion. Thank you so much. Um, do we have public comment? Jan Pence, 200 Riverside Drive. I'm having a hard time following it as well. We obviously have had stuff below the line, storm water and other bills that we've gotten on our trim notices. We still have storm water on there. How have we done this? Or how do we do this without if we don't have an RF? I mean, were those done with RFPs? Is this I mean, this I'm I'm having a hard time understanding why we have to do this. Why we have to spend the money to do this? I know we're not spending money getting the bids on the RFP, but we've

obviously have stuff below the line on our tax bill. So, how did that work? So for storm water, that's codified in the town's code of ordinances. So that's where you derive from that. Anything else regarding a special assessment, you're going to need a report and an analysis and justification as to why the town would need this either to make up for um budgeting shortfall, anticipated budgeting shortfall, or for capital improvements or for anticipated future storm water improvements. So

relate to storm water because we already have I it it could I'm saying once a professional firm would look at it then they could say okay you need to increase your storm water rate to this to account for future capital improvements um but you would need the justification and the backup for that which is what the firm would do Jim

Jim9 is anticipation of threats by the legislature to cut off ad valorum taxes because property taxes.

Yeah, advalorum property taxes. In in the past, the only thing we've done special assessments for, we haven't done it for operational costs like personnel or equipment or anything like that. We've done it for infrastructure improvements like the storm water improvements like the library and those kinds of things. This looks like a whole new um arena in that we're now looking at paying operational costs by special assessments. I mean, are we going to have to pay for our finance department by a special assessment and our public works by special assessment? Is that where we're going, Ryan?

No, that would be with the town's operations. So, that would not come under a special assessment. Well, certainly our new town fire department or our town opera operational expenses, right? So, why would that not just be a budgeted line item like public works or the police department or our current fire department? It's not really a special assessment to pay for ongoing personnel who we hire and anticipate to have in place for many years. I don't know why that would be a special assessment. So, so it essentially it' be for any capital improvements if we did hire three, six, whatever it may be firefighters and there may be capital improvements or additional vehicles that they need. It's just essentially

right. So, it would be not for the personnel. It might require a new fire truck or correct or something like that. Okay. Okay. So, thank you. Okay. So, I I I mean, I've been kind of convinced uh to support to support this motion, but I got a one more question for you, uh uh Commissioner. Um just thinking fiscally, how much does uh shopping around an RFP cost? Do we know?

It's minimal. It would just be advertising on the websites if we do that or in the paper. A $300. $300. Okay. And then whoever writes it. Okay. That sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. All right. All in favor? I I nay. I So that passes three to one. Thank you so much. Our ne our next uh uh item of business is discussion on regulating artificial turf. Commissioner Butler,

thank you. Um it was brought to my attention by resident that um you know, I mean obviously we see artificial turf popping up here and there. Um and the residents are whether purposefully or not kind of circumventing um our recently adopted water retention and percolation codes by installing that turf. Um it's almost totally impervious and per our codes requires no building or review prior I mean I'm sorry no building permit or review prior um or subsequent to the installation. So the the point is that I'm asking that we have our attorney look at the verbiage in our in the land code which I the land development code which I've I've noted in here previous or pvious area what the definition is. Um basically artificial turf is not listed as something that's impervious. there's nothing specific in there for that. And so when we're talking about the 30% that's that's not being included. So it could be that this just runs rampant and it is impervious. I did I did speak to our public works director and just kind of verified from more of an expert opinion. um that turf is packed so compactly it's almost like it's almost like concrete and there is there's there's no water running through it. It puddles up. It goes to the neighbor. It goes anything downhill it's going into you know obviously it'll go down into the river. Um so not saying get rid of it. I'm not saying you know bad bad

people for doing it. I'm saying we need to to look at the way things are written because I I think we just need to update to include that because these artificial turfs are getting more popular. Would you like to make a motion? Um and would that motion be to investigate this further or to do something about it? How would you how would you word that?

Um yes. I would like to make a motion that we ask the town attorney to revise the code of ordinances um to include artificial turf should require a building permit. The building permit is to require the civil engineering documentation and review whether construction was before or after implementation of the ordinances. Construction since the ordinances was enacted should have to prove that they still meet the 30% percolation slash8 in in 24 hours. Construction prior to the ordinance will either meet the new requirement or will not lessen their current percolation slash retention. I know that's a lot of words.

Can I ask a question? So, let's hear a second first if see if there's this. I'll second. Second. Okay. Discussion, Commissioner Reid. So, your motion um it sounds like it's it's you're once it's this ordinance took place that it would be retroactive so that people that had it in place would then be basically non-compliant, potentially non-compliant, and then have would have to rejustify. Um, they're going to have to prove that they still meet that 30%. And you're saying in the event that they don't, what will we do?

Yeah, that's Yeah. Or what? I mean, so we make the Yes. Or what part? So you're asking then that we they that you're requiring them to tear that tear that out or um have it inspected to show that it was done per the code. Um, I'm just reading your words and that's that's so that those words kind of imply that. So, I'm making sure that I understand that's your implication.

That's a that's a good question. What um I think that in the effort to preserve the town, what we're looking for, if we require 30%, then we should stick with that. then that if that meant that tearing up a certain portion of it, then maybe we would have to discuss that. But that that's up for discussion.

So if it's already installed, it would be grandfathered in. If the town did adopt a regulation regarding that, I can say there is a um bill passed last year regarding synthetic turf. Um, and it provided that the DP uh specify and provide specifications for artificial turf. And um, it does allow the town to uh, regulate it through a uh, a building permit, but it doesn't allow the town to absolutely outlaw synthetic turf as long as it meets the D requirements. So, I understand what you're looking for as far as requiring a building permit to be issued in order to verify that it does meet those requirements is what it sounds like.

So, perhaps that's how I need to word it is to have a resolution that or just reword it so that it is in compliance with the I don't think you have to reward it at this point. I think it would just be to authorize me to look at language um that would require um artificial turf to require a building permit. Okay.

And I've got a question. Um I would suspect that there's different types of artificial turf and some are more porous than others. Um how would I mean if if you just banned artificial turf in general, right? Would you would you would you I mean there must be some that would be uh porous, right?

And I'm certainly never said banning, but um perhaps Mr. Davis knows if there are different types of artificial turfs, some more porous than others, more impervious than others. I don't know that. I in my just looking it up, I didn't see that to be the case, but I'm certainly not an expert. if I could comment. So I what the the town attorney said and was that you know the there was that legislation passed in in July of 2025 you know preventing you from banning it but the the uh the standards for it um would be are being developed by the uh department of environmental protection. So if you had an ordinance and you're had have a building inspecting, you require them to have a building permit, then you have to have something to inspect against. So if like you're building walls or whatever, there's building code that they can inspect and verify you comply with. In this case, it would the the building code really does I don't think addresses it. I think the only thing out there is what DP may or may not already have have developed. Um, and there are municipality you you can go find this right now. You can see at other municipalities how they've structured this this ordinance or whatever. Um, I guess I would suggest maybe we have our our our planning uh planner and versus the attorney maybe hand it off with our our planner first or the PNZ or the building official to uh to kind of structure what this ordinance would be. What would look

Can I ask a question? Yes, Commissioner Corey. Is that um the product the amount of water that goes through the product or is that the installation the underlay under the product included in that percolation? So that I don't know offhand. Um, even if you would have artificial turf within the town, it would still be required to comply with the other requirements as far as storm water um, and drainage and stuff like that. Addresses the what's underneath of it in that uh ordinance that you that you saw. Oh, I don't know offhand. So, it's just

I would be interested in having know what is under that because if if they have a if they have can percolate water that has a high percolation and they've got it over something that's, you know, like stone or something that is not allowing water to get through. That makes a different rating. So, I would like to have that tied in in some way as far as what's under it also that will allow the the water to go through because it is a problem and we need to address it.

Yeah. So, at this point, I don't know what the D standards are or what they have adopted yet. something I'd have to look at. Um, but it very well may be it's something like that to where it does have a poorest rate or whatever it is. But perhaps I just don't know off hand suggestion about planner um being involved in that would be a good idea as to what the astro turf is on top of. So are we talking about a second an amendment or a friendly amendment? Mr. Would you prefer this go to planner?

So the the u yeah I I think we should versus the attorney uh do I think we should have the our our planner and perhaps involving the building official and maybe planning and zoning to be taking to take the first look at this and come up with what that ordinance might look like and they'll have access to D regulations. Okay. Do you accept that as a friendly amendment? Um, I'm not going to amend mine. Okay. All right. We'll keep it the same. Uh, we have public comment.

409 Avenue. We passed the original over. We decided we were not going to argue about whether this is 10% or 28% or 72% pvious. It was either totally pvious or considered to not meet the requirements. People wanted to argue whether pavers were partially pvious. You can't put down weed cloth even though it's partially pvious because most of it runs off. It's the same thing with this uh astro turf. It is not 100% pvious. in order to meet your codes. Right now, the people who are putting it in had a building permit and a CO that said they had 30% totally pvious property and they could had a civil engineering survey that said they would retain the first 8 in of rain within a 24-hour period. They had to certify it with their civil engineer. it had to go to our civil engineer and then that was approved and that was the basis for their CO. Now they come back just like time shares I mean uh short-term rentals we find out oh there's a way around it. So now there's a house right now on Sunset that is less than a year old that put uh artificial turf across their whole front yard and told their neighbor, "As soon as I can afford it, I'm doing the backyard, too." That violates the intent of what we passed in 2019. This is not a hard hard decision. It's a loophole that people are taking and and and benefiting and and at the expense of the town and their neighbors. It should be just that we go in and we say, "Oh, by the way, you know, you cannot put that in unless you can still guarantee that you meet

the CO that you were granted." And we and and as for what the substrate is, it's crushed concrete, which is exactly what the same as they put under pavers. and then they roll the carpet out and all that water goes out into the street or onto their neighbors. They've transferred their problem to somebody else. And I benefited greatly from that type of thinking when neighbors came and built their lots up four feet above mine and put their downspouts aimed at me. So, this is a hot button issue for me. And so, I think the action right now is exactly what Commissioner Butler said. direct the town attorney to close that loophole. You know, just close it. Don't we don't need P&Z. We don't need the building official. We don't need to argue about whether um artificial turf is permeable to this extent or that extent, whether the substrate is permeable to this extent or that extent. Just go back and get your CE to prove you still meet the requirement. And if like me, you've been here for a long time and I decide I want to uh uh put in artificial turf, I have to go in and prove that I'm not making if I can't meet the 30% threshold, I have to prove I'm at least not making it worse than what I currently have and was grandfathered in. Now, as to whether they're grandfathered in, I'll take the town attorney's advice, but to me, that's the same as going and knocking down a wall and building a new wall uh without a building permit. You know, they they violated their CO and their building permit when they did this cuz they guaranteed it was a condition upon which they were able to build their house. So I think there ought to be at least some recourse for people who build it under a certain set of plans with a certain uh approval by the town and then

come in and violate it. So I think that needs to be looked into more. So I think it's a simple thing. It's just closed the loophole. We don't need a whole lot of analysis. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Jim. Any other public comment? Any further comment from the commissioner? All right. All in favor? I I I. So that's unanimous. Okay. Thank you, Anna.

So, I'm going to call your attention to the finance budget report on pages 42 through 79. Miss Smith, are you uh presenting this or is there any uh questions regarding this? No, I'm not presenting. No, I'm not presenting that. Okay. It stands as it is. Any comments from the commissioners?

I had a couple questions and maybe the town manager can u you don't necessarily have to answer them, but you may want to feel them. Um so recently the um the police department got this that grant for um funding for the um the uh the ICE uh 287G money. So I was just wondering how we're handling that money in in the uh in the budget. Were we going to is there going to be another another special use fund or there's already done to park that money and then track the expending of it? Um or I mean there's already a fund 622 out there, a special police fund if we if we were utilizing that and if we needed to do any kind of budget amendment um related to that. Yeah, I have not talked to the uh finance directors yet about that. Uh we'll have a we have a follow-on budget discussion. Um we didn't that did not come up. Um do you have any recommendations?

It it it seems like it would be tracked in some separate fund. That's but if somebody can tell me why not, then I' I'd been willing to hear hear that. So, okay. Yeah. Give me an opportunity to talk to the finance director and I'll get back with you.

Yeah. No, I wasn't expecting an answer this evening um for this. Um and then um recently the um the the sale of the um the fire truck occurred and I'm guessing where where where's that revenue go show up? Does that's just going to show up here in the uh in the general fund um next month? Is that what we're expecting to have happen there? Um, I believe that that money was going to be transferred into the fire department to offset the cost of the salaries for the paid positions we were hiring. I believe that's what the commission decided um back in October.

That's why I'm asking where how we're handling that. So, those just got notification while we're sitting here. The transfer is going through today. Um, we've been waiting. So, we we've um that fire truck's been shipped off. We're sending the title out tomorrow. Um and and our payment should be entering our bank account hopefully tomorrow morning um or this evening, I guess. Um and then I believe the finance director will be putting that money um into the fire department for salaries to offset those costs for the paid firefighters for this year to reduce the amount we have to pull from reserves. So, we're going to follow up with finance. have a firm answer on Yes, I'll confirm with the finance director.

All right. So, also um in in the uh in the report there's um the the funds uh like specifically fund 351 the uh the storm water capital fund is not reported in in this uh in the finance report. So right now we have pretty significant expenditures going on in that with uh with the basin one work being on the order of $2 million. Um and it'd be good to have some kind of insight in how that is playing out uh financially in in in the in the fund. So is there any reason we can't um I mean they started the work in January. Um so this report that we're seeing here is is covers January. Is there any reason we can't um see that uh similar information for um fund 351 and and then and then the future report as well?

Yeah, we can make that we can make that accessible. Sure. I'll make a note of that.

Commissioner Butler. Nothing, Corey. Nothing. Anything further, Commissioner Reed?

One last item is on um the building department fund uh 125, which is page 54 in your in your package. Um so look looking at the the the way these numbers are playing out here. We were waiting to see um where uh how CAP build us and I guess the first bill from the uh the building official company has has showed up in this report here under professional services there. Um, so, so looking at the way the the revenue and the uh and and the costs that are going right now, it looks like the building department is is basically kind of just entered into the red. So, it's it's operating in in the for this report, it's operating in the red. Not a lot, but but it's operating in the red. Um and the revenue is um relatively low compared to where the budget had the the the planned revenue show. So I mean the actual revenue is around 42 grand and then at this for this point in the year the plan it should have around been around 80 grand. So I'm just maybe we need a couple more data data points to kind of show us which which way that's going. Um and uh I wonder just just to understand that the the uh the building department is really going to support itself here going forward. Um so I just had a question. It it was my understanding that you had your own building official and then now you've contracted it out and you're seeing now a loss

in revenue. Is that what you're saying? No, I'm just saying there's there's a number of revenue on page 54 of the uh of the finance report. It shows all the the income sources that come in from permits and planning and and and you know other things like a 10 8 10 items there that that generate revenue. So, and then the expenses against that revenue are for for salaries and then and then also other other costs and and and then and now the the uh the private company that we've hired as well. So,

okay. Is there something you'd like me to review or prepare for you? I would I think we should be paying attention to where that's headed because like I said this it shows that we went into the red basically this month at the at the end of this month that the January report. So some kind of like a trend analysis or something. Yeah. Some kind of projection. Okay. Okay. I can do that. Those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh I'd like to hear a motion to uh accept the budget. I make a motion to accept the budget, the finance budget as presented.

Second. We're talking the finance report, right? Thank you. That's what I just um No, that's not what you said. All in favor? All in favor of accepting the finance report? I I I All right. So, that's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. So, now uh we're going to have some town staff board reports. Um is there anyone here representing the tech advisory board? Okay. Not seeing any. Uh anyone representing the building department here?

Could Could Vice Mayor?

Yes. Um the um tech advisory board, I wanted to go on record. the um attorney sent um everybody I believe an email and um I wanted to um go on record that some of the items that were on the um advisory board's January uh 26 uh memorandum to the commission was stating that um it was their position and I'd like for the attorney to elaborate that perhaps we were not in compliance with a few things. The um attorney sent everyone a um email that I think you all got and also um the finance manager sent an email showing the resolution for the um standards to safeguard showing that we are in compliance which is the resolution 2025-09 and also the attorney um spoke about that in his email. There was also some um confusion that um made the staff feel that we were um able to give access and the attorney and the previous interim manager um pointed out some items that we're not able to make access available. So, I'd like for maybe the the attorney to elaborate on that to get it on the record for the residents to understand that we are um cyber sufficient if you would please.

So, yes, last year the town did adopt a resolution that also incorporated several cyber security um protocols pursuant to the state statute for that. So, the town has complied with the requirement that the town does adopt cyber security measures for that. Um, I did speak with Bruce Larson from the technology advisory board. He did have some questions regarding uh the town's compliance with that. I told him that I would reach out to computer experts because there were some questions that I did not know such as what does computer experts actively do um for certain things. So, that is forthcoming to uh Mr. Larson and the technology advisory board. Um, but going back, there were uh a few issues that I did see some concerns with regarding their request for certain information um regarding procedures um related to like a cyber security attack. There is a specific Florida statute that does uh provide that that information is privileged and confidential. Um so I did have some reservations about sharing that and creating a public record. um that would essentially put the town's cyber security protocol and response um out in the public. Um but I did uh speak with Mr. uh Larson and let him know that I would reach out to computer experts um just to get some additional information to see if there are any gaps there that computer experts uh does not cover and that we would need to either hire a separate firm for that um to ensure that we are in compliance with Florida statute. But as of right now, my my position is that the adoption of the resolution uh with the um incorporated um procedures and policies does uh satisfy Florida statute. Um and then

with respect to some of the other requests um you know certain computer information, computer inventories, IP addresses, my position on that is that everything related to cyber security um or technology that the town has would be privileged and confidential. Um so at this point my position is that we have computer experts as a retained firm. they are in charge of cyber security um and uh we need to essentially trust them that they are providing that cyber security. Mr. Knight, just a just a question. And it seems like um

you know some of the things that are being requested it might work better if you know if we trust in our our residents who are experts in this field who are members of this advisory board that they can add to the to our cyber security and everything that we tell them would become public right anything that they talk about actually has to be public because again of these Florida sunshine laws. So if we tell the world what we use for cyber security, that actually makes us more vulnerable because now the world knows what we use. So we probably we probably shouldn't have that discussion with an advisory board. I wonder if we made them consultants instead if that would be a better thing or if I mean if that was be something that would be workable or if that's really just going down the rabbit hole. We don't really need to do that. You know, I I I'm just I'm just trying to think, you know, because obviously we have some residents who have expertise and we don't want to dis disparage their expertise, but at the same time, we we don't want to put ourselves in danger.

No. And you know, we do have some very qualified people on there and they know what they're doing. That's a tough situation that we're in with Sunshine Law um and what information they can have access to as far as confidential information. As far as making them consultants, um I don't see how the town could do that just to give them access to that information. Yeah. Um you know, if we wanted consultants and we'd have to do an RFP and go through the procurement process, we couldn't just So it' be better to put a firewall up on that information.

Yes. Yes. So the statute does provide that for instance if uh the commission were looking at a cyber security firm that they could have a closed dooror session essentially like a shade session um to go go over cyber security protocols and what the firm offers um so the commission and the firm can discuss confidential information amongst themselves and not in public. Um, but as far as an advisory board having access to that information, that's the tough situation we're in because, you know, I've met a few of them and I have no doubts that they probably know just as much as anybody in the world about cyber security. Um, for sure.

But, you know, the fact remains that we do have sunshine law and uh the creation of public records is something that the town would not want to be out in the public. Thank you for clarifying all that. Commissioner Corey, is any other items you wanted to mention on? No, I think we have public comment. Some people want to make comment if you want to address it. Um, Amber, is that unusual to have public comment during the board reports? Yeah, kind of. Because it's usually after a motion, but it is up to the commission.

I I'd be happy to let you if you guys want to if you want to say something. Come on. Come on up. We're run we're running ahead of schedule. So,

um, Marie Walker, 511 Riverside Drive. I'm a little confused, and actually this goes to what the town manager said to trust her and go through her. I'm a little confused why a resident who's just an ad on an advisory board has the authority to tell our town attorney to call computer experts. like who who is he to give you a to give you direction? You guys should be doing that. I don't understand why that's happening. They're an advisory board. That's great. They're supposed to advise you. I I think we need to be very careful with any advisory board telling anyone, any staff member or the attorney to do anything. So, I think as the new town manager said, hopefully that will go through you in the future and you will say yay or nay. They're they're just citizens.

We we had a a big discussion at our last meeting and I think it kind of blossomed out of that.

Okay. Well, I I think you all need to think about that because people do talk about that in town like so so we've got some experts so they get to tell the attorney what to do. That's that that they weren't they weren't elected to do that. You guys need to give direction. That's all I'm saying. I mean, you don't I'm not upset that you're calling them, but I just don't understand why he or any other board member would have that right. That's all I'm saying. So hopefully from now on it'll go through the new town manager. I just want to make clear, Mr. Larson did not direct me to do anything. He had a specific question about an agreement with computer experts. And I said, I did not know that answer. Um, and it's something that would take a 10-minute phone call with computer experts just to figure out does this portion of the contract encompass this part of cyber security. So, I offered to do that just because I did not know the answer to the question right off hand.

Jan Pence, 200 Riverside Drive. My question to Ryan is, did you offer to do it for free? because you're spending our I'm I'm here to reiterate exactly what Marie said. Unless you just sat right here and I wrote it down and told us that you have met you have met with multiple people on the technical advisory board, which means we as taxpayers are paying you to meet with them. That's not what we pay you to do. I've been told by multiple town attorneys that we're not allowed to ask you specific questions. So why and like y'all said, maybe the technical advisory board is made up of the smartest people in the world, but they don't need to be telling you what to do. And we as taxpayers do not need to be paying your time for you to call computer experts. This is our town manager's job, not yours. And and to and take it a step further. I've talked to many people who work, many of our town employees who tell me that each member multiple times of the town advisory board goes in there and they want to meet with Amber and they want to meet with Sid and they want to meet with this person, they want to meet with that person, taking up a lot of time. They are one board. We've got we are paying computer experts. We've got a commission who has directed computer experts. Why are you even involved? as an attorney that we have to pay for to answer questions for Bruce Larson or anybody else.

I met with the board when during their first meeting when I gave them Sunshine Law um the Sunshine Law presentation. That's the only time I've attended any of their meetings. You just told us that you talked to multiple members of the technical advisory board. Are you charging the town when you do that or are you just doing that on your own for free? when I spoke with them, uh, Lisa had forwarded me an email from Bruce Larson to address and that's when I addressed it. And you the other multiple ones that you talked to, you said it. I'm just repeating what you said. I just told you it was during the first meeting when I met them. I have not talked with anybody else besides Did you build the town? Yes. For attending the meeting? Yes. Did you build the town? Are you going to build the town when you call computer experts?

I'll probably build it build it a 0.1. I'm just saying that's not what we hired you to do and that's not what this commission should be doing in my opinion. So, it was brought to me by Lisa to address with Bruce. So, that's what I did.

Jim Simmons 409 Avenue B, which puts a whole new spin on it. I mean, when it's forwarded to you from the town manager, it's you're obligated to answer it. I get that. But I will say that if we have um boards that are making phone calls, which we've had in the past, we had uh quite a quite a bit of problem, especially not with the town attorney, but not this town attorney or the previous one, but where they were calling up uh the town planner and assigning him tasks and all that. We had to rein that in. If you'll remember, Commissioner Corey, and you might just want to reiterate to the boards that any action that has to go that's going to be expended has to go through the town manager and has to be approved by that person to forward the request. And town manager, you were you were talking uh asking the uh commission to um go through you in the town charter. It's very specific as to the town staff. point of contact is you. Now, there is caveats to that. You might want to look in the town charter. There's a couple minor ones. If it's only going to take a couple minutes to answer a question or something like that, you can contact them directly. or and this I tried to get taken out of the uh uh charter becau when I was on the charter review committee because it was abused so much a town commissioner for the purposes of investigation which we've had town commissioners in the past who I'm performing an investigation and they'd go in and just bollock up the whole town staff repeatedly. So, so you might want to keep an eye on that too. But there is it does specifically say that they have the town commissioners have to go through you and then you would coordinate with the town planner or the town attorney or the town civil engineers or whoever. We c we as board members I'm on the BOE or

BOA. We can't we cannot pick up the phone and call the town attorney or pick up the phone and call uh whoever. So you might want to reiterate that when the board meet boards had their meetings if you see a problem with particularly a couple of them that in the past have reason to contact the town planner as part of their reviews of things and like that. But that's the only way you're going to get a control on it is to reiterate it with the boards themselves. But you know if if Ryan had it forwarded by Lisa then that's that's the way it should work. So so that worked fine. Okay. So, I'm glad you clarified that, Ryan.

I I just wanted to make uh one quick comment. Um so, last week, my first week, I met with each of the commissioners separately. Um this week, I met with all of my department directors and next week I am setting up meetings with all the chairs of the advisory board. So I will take that under advisement and make sure I am very clear that they need to go through me to talk to any of the uh staff or attorney. So thank you very much. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Uh any comments on the building department um report pages 80 through 88?

No. All right. Mr. Mr. Davis, I wanted to first uh thank you again for all the work you did during the manatee rescue. It was amazing. Um I also uh know that your job is going to be cut out for you with the the cold snap has released all these dead trees and we're going to see we're going to see dead trees and leaves everywhere. It's going to be it's going to be a tough uh time, I think, going forward. But uh I I know you're able and willing to save us from that. So I wanted to ask you uh for your report.

Yes, sir. Uh we have a piece of equipment that we had purchased a year or so ago that for leaves. My guys have been on it. We're trying to get ahead of that and we we planned on our Monday morning. This is what we're going to deal with. So it's going to throw our schedule off, but we're going to try our best on that. I understand there's going to be another cold snap Tuesday. So you put another nail in the coffin of my my plants. And our landscape guy is very conscious. He's not cutting stuff low. We're going to try to save as much as we can. So, if you see some of that dead stuff still there, it's with design go after this next cold. Shout out to Joe.

I also wanted to I wanted to thank you uh for the roof on the old post office. What a great job and you did it so uh uh inexpensively and so well. So, thank you so much. And uh and then I also wanted to bring up a problem and maybe you know and that's of course is uh there's someone uh wrecking the bathroom. Yes. Right. And uh and flushing rolls of toilet paper, clogging the toilets, graffiti. Um any thought any thoughts on, you know, I remember I remember Cheryl Crowe recommended that everybody just use one little piece of toilet paper, you know. Uh is there some way that we could we could not use rolls or use a different method of of delivery? I have sign bring your own

bring your own. No, I mean I I think that No, sir. That that that is a problem. Yeah. All over in public and I haven't found anything at this point. Yeah. Uh but certainly I'm open to it. Uh Miss Crow's offer was great, but I remember it well. I don't think it would work. But uh uh we have tried a couple different grades of toilet paper as crazy as that sounds. And then when we buy the cheapest cheapest uh the people get frustrated because it keeps falling in pieces and we get a stack of it on the floor. So they But we are we are keeping an open mind on that.

Leaves. Leaves we do. Yes sir. I I don't know. I'm open for suggestions. I I don't I don't I don't know. I had some some uh some residents reach out to me and they said that they would be willing to do an investigation. But again, I think it's it's hard to do it when it's a bathroom. You can't put up cameras. You can't, you know, so you can't do that. So, it's like a it's like a it's a vicious circle. You know, the police have worked with us somewhat and we it's very difficult to identify the offenders. Uh, if I might pay back the compliment, your first position as PIO for the town went great. Your interview on TV.

Well, as as did our commissioner Butler. Yeah. Well, that was a perk. And, you know, I was I was nervous that it could have ended in disaster. And so I was so happy that it ended so successfully and you know we all got to we all got to be uh stars on TV, you know. So thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, sir. And it was a big day for our new manager. Yep. She thought I was joking at first when I said this. It went well. And uh I unless you've got questions, I really don't have anything. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. The uh the pier. Could you could you elaborate on on that? The for inland waterway.

Yes, ma'am. Uh there are some concerns on the pillars at the roof end on the west end. I'm very during our routine inspections. We've noted that I've spoken to one of our residents, Mike, who's an engineer, and he's probably going to take a look. I contacted find as I pointed out for funding or possibilities matching money it will bring forward if and when that happens. Uh but I I really have got to get the engineer study and the manager and I I've kept her up to date on that. So we're kind of I've got to wait till I get that before she the manager will have anything to come back to really report.

Perfect.

But we're that's where we're at on that. And by the way, and Commissioner Reid had asked me a good question. Sixth Avenue boat ramp to bring that sore subject up. I did take the find agent uh representative down there and as God rest his soul, Jerry Samson, who was with us forever who passed away had told us, it's too small of area and it's isolated in a residential setting. So it would not be appealing to draw the general public and that's one of the criteria we got to serve have parking uh and facilities to facilitate drawing the public in which of course we have at the pier.

We do not there so that's not even for consideration was his input. Well thank you so much. Appreciate it. So had a question. Oh yeah. Commissioner Reid. Yeah. So, just to expand on on that, um the the Florida Inland Waterway Find, um that's a grant available grant. So, are we still pursuing that grant for on the for the peer sub to money for money for the pier or

Well, I I will have to meet with the manager to come back. the prerequisite, the precursor to even bringing it forward to them was I had to have an engineer's report specifying the damage or the weaknesses. So So we're getting a report. Is that it? Or we'll have to come back.

Well, we have to look we have to look in the budget because those reports aren't cheap. It's about estimate I think Tom had mentioned roughly about $2,500. So, we have to look in the budget to see where um we can pull that money from because it was not budgeted. But I'm trying to look for that because I know that we really that fine money is um at 50% to 75% um you know with match. So, it's fairly generous. Um so, um we just talked about it today. So, we're going to look to see where we can find that money.

Okay. Very good. Um I was going to ask uh um public works director. So um the um there was a speed limit sign survey done by the uh police department volunteers. And so my understanding was that that was completed and I don't know it's on your desk I guess. Um so where where are we at with that? I had the uh the interim manager I had forwarded the estimated cost to that. I don't have that with me. Uh by at that point I got no response uh and I don't remember the figure I'll put we did I pursued it. I gave pri there's a price list of the cost per sign with a total with new pole poles using poles we had purchasing a balance and all new 20 mph signs. Uh I do have that available. I'll forward that to our new manager. She has not been made privy to that. That was under the purview of the interim. It is completed commissioner.

Yeah. Well, I mean we foresee that. So if maybe we factored in factored into budget planning going forward, maybe we would decide we want to do some part of it critical areas that are the most in need and then kind of spread out some plan for how to uh to to do that. Um I mean as the um DOT is going to be repaving A1A here in the spring, right? And that's probably going to push a lot of traffic off through through our through our neighborhood here.

And uh without signage, the the police department's hands are kind of tied in terms of enforcing speed limits only, you know, 30 miles an hour. If it's unposted, then it's 30 miles an hour, right? So, which is pretty fast to be driving down some of the some of the streets. So, um yeah, good if we could see a way forward with that in maybe the most at least the most um important areas.

Yes, sir. And I I in when I do meet with our new manager on that. I have a way to break it down because the expense is large. I would want to do a large portion hopefully in next year's budget, but I do have a system broken down to discuss with the manager in phases versus a Thank you. Thank you, Miss Mr. Davis. This is one question that came up on social media. There was a lot of complaints about the crosswalk on on uh Ocean A at I think at Orange and O. Really hard to see. really hard to see people and and that's that's DOT, right? That's that's not really under our control.

Correct. And in fact, historically, several years back, the police chief u at that time, Chief Duncan was here. We actually made an appeal to state rep and FDOT. They came out reportedly and looked at that intersection. And they're saying that we no way will our traffic count ever meet the criteria to give us lighting there. Yeah. But but maybe now with those flashing ones that are on A1A, they would meet the criteria for a flashing if a person is going to cross.

I don't mean to sound malicious, but we have had nobody killed. We've had one injury. And those are figures that they actually look at in the overall statistics. And uh I'm not talking about those big red ones. I'm talking about the little yellow ones. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, that Yeah. Well, thank you again. We do have an appeal pending with them. We're trying to win them over to give us those. Okay. I don't hold out a lot of hope. The the uh the interim and I had discussed that, but that is still there. Certainly our manager will be made aware of that. But yes, sir.

Thank you so much. So I know that we don't have a code enforcement officer to to give the next report. So maybe we'll move on to uh Chief Brown. Yes. So I apologize. I was not able to get my written monthly report uh completed in time. We've had a busy month. So I'm going to give you a quick verbal rundown because I know we don't want to be here too long. Um so part first of all, there is some congratulations, right? You just took a new uh new office. Uh yes. So I'm the president for the Space Coast Fire Chiefs Association for the next two years because I have lots of extra time. What am I going to do with my extra time? I'll just fantastic. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. forever.

Um, so for the fire department monthly report, we continued implementation of our new fire records management software and transitioning to this new nearest reporting standard, um, which is a federal fire reporting standard. We thought it was going to be all good to go and done for January. It's proven to be a lengthier process than we thought it was going to be, but we're still working through that um, and learning the new system and getting it built out. fire department responded to 20 incidents um from January 1st to February 4th. That's the time frame for this reporting period. Uh we did three vehicle accidents, two fire alarms, two medical incidents, four water rescues, one electrical brush fire, um two hazmat incidents. We had a child stuck in a vehicle and some other miscellaneous um incidents. The highlights for the fire department. So, we had three of our volunteers attend the Florida Fire and EMS conference over in Orlando. Um, we did six trainings at a donated structure here in Melbourne Beach. Um, thanks to Cory Runty, who was the homeowner, he donated his house to the fire department before it was demolished um for us to go do some additional trainings in. So, in total, we did 20 hours of additional training um during this period um in that donated structure. So, thank you to him for that. Uh we've got the engine 58 sold and facilitated that. Um we attended a FEMA webinar for the grant that we were awarded um here recently from FEMA. Not not the one we're hoping for, but still any grant is good grant. Um we've issued nine beachfire permits um and facilitated those. I attended a preliminary fire assessment and a fire pension feasibility meeting with interim manager Frasier. So, um, more on both of those to come. Uh, and then we, uh, Lieutenant Amber, um, Brown and Fire

Marshall Micah and I attended the Space Coast Fire Chiefs awards ceremony. Um, you know, so Amber got volunteer firefighter of the year, Dave got fire marshall of the year. Um, so congratulations to both of them. It was there. I'm very proud.

And let's see what else. Uh we reviewed public notification solutions uh worked with the clerk's department um which we are working with the prior um interim manager on and it's now been handed over to um our new manager. So she's moving that forward. Uh we are also uh we've been investigating updating the fire department's policies and procedures because it's been a while since we've um done that. And so we're utilizing a third party vendor to assist us with that update and the management to make sure it's compliant with uh Florida statutes and regulations and administrative code. Um so we've started the process for that. So I started that with um interim manager Frasier and I'm going to carry that forward. Um that's in process. And the last thing we had an additional 15 hours of training um also for live fire preparation for our firefighter students that are going through their fire school that we teach here. Um that's students from Indie Atlantic and Melbourne Beach that were going through that. So we did 15 hours of prep training and then they went out and did an additional eight hours out at the state college um for live fire evolution um with multiple agencies. uh us in the Atlantic and Indian Harbor where they're training together and getting those um firefighter recruits through their required state fire evolutions to become certified firefighters. So that's one of their big last requirements. Um so hopefully next month we'll be swearing in some new state certified volunteer firefighters for our department. But that is all.

Great. So fantastic. Yes. Thank you. Any any comments from the commission? Seeing none, uh I'll direct you to pages 91 to 92, the police department report. We had a public comment about the uh police reports were a little different from what they used to be in the past, but uh is there any comments from the commission on the police report? I'd like to recommend that um the town manager get with Chief Sander and see how he feels about why he's doing it this way. if there's maybe there's a reason that we don't know. Yeah. And um investigate that.

Um and see what what his feelings are about naming every single little thing that like it used to be if it's necessary or what. Right. Then the other thing I wanted to talk about was um we have in the speed compliance there's over 105,000 vehicles on Riverside Drive but on Oak there's only 78,000. That's a big disparity of vehicles that are going up Riverside Drive. It's hard to believe actually in comparison. Yeah,

it's in the report. And and on Atlantic there's only 72,826 is according to I mean he's got the machines there that are taking the number counts. So that's a lot of vehicles. Yeah. I've uh I reviewed all that information from last year and it and Riverside carry has a lot more vehicle traffic. Um and like just for total number of vehicles I think that were counted in the town over for the entire year was like over two million. Yeah. So there's a huge amount of traffic. So

So do we know are we measuring also the traffic on the DOT roads? Well that would be um A1A. Yes. the two signs. The one sign when you come in from the north and the sign if you come in from the south tell tell tells you to slow down it's it's it's counting you and counting measuring your your speed compliance. So that still seems hard to believe and giving you a shock. It really is. Yeah. Really is 105,000.

Wow. Amazing. Any other any other comments? I had a comment. So, if you want to take a see if everyone wanted to take my suggestion and have the town manager speak with chief. Yeah, I think I think I'm in support. Everybody in support of that. That makes total sense. Makes total sense, right? And then Commissioner Reid.

Yeah, this is I guess for um a message to carry forward to the chief though. So, with the ICE 287G um funding, I guess um he was pretty excited about that. um I guess which is and he should be. So I guess was wondering when he was going to have some uh associated purchase requests uh available for uh to bring to the commission for approval because I'm assuming some of those purchase amounts are going to be exceed the the $5,000 threshold. I'll have that

I'll have to ask him. I know that he was looking at purchasing uh two unmarked police vehicles. So, you know, he did mention that to me, but he did not uh tell me the timeline or I guess when um that funding was going to be in the bank for him to make those purchases. I I think the funding is in in the bank. It's already in the bank. My understanding is that that it's already been deposited. So, I'm just trying to um encourage him to tell us what he needs to do with that. So, okay, I will pass that on to him.

Fantastic. Commissioner Cory um um also maybe find out exactly how long it's going to take to get the new vehicles and then the um the vehicles that he's replacing or if he's not replacing um what we're going to do about those. I don't know. I know there's one vehicle that's really old, so I don't know. I can I can reach out to him tomorrow and see if I can get some more detail we can share. Perfect. Okay. Thank you all. Now I'll direct you to Mi Miss Amber Brown, our town clerk, pages 93 through 101.

Yes. So the one thing I wanted to highlight is the scanning project. Um so the company that is doing the scanning, they have completed the entire redo of the 39 boxes that we sent out. Um I have since then imported the sample that they've sent which is nine boxes into the system and the deputy clerk and I have started the review process. Um we are having to do the review process in two phases so it'll take a little bit longer than we expected. Um but that is ongoing. So other than that did anyone have any questions? So the assumption is that they resolved the issue now.

So from what we've seen, yes. Um, but the reason we need to do two phases is because there's a couple boxes in particular that they wanted us to um go through more carefully because they were the ones that we had we we noticed issues with previously and I can't file them in the system properly until we have verified the corrections because once I file them, we have no idea what box each document came from. So phase one, I have to drop them in as is. I can't rename them or file them properly until I verify the document is correct. And then once we've completed all of that, then phase two will come into play and we will file and rename them. So

that sounds like so much fun. It is. That's a great Yes. All right. Um, may I ask a question? Sure.

Could Could we have the attorney go um on record as to the um page 96, the open um public record requests um that are a pending response from a commissioner. There's four different ones that are pending response from the commissioner that were opened in uh June, August, September of last year. Is there any is there any resolution to any of that or does it just going to constant constantly be on Amber's notes?

Um I don't have any information at this time as far as an update goes. So there isn't really anything that can be done. Um, not from me at this point.

That that was one thing Ryan and I talked about. Um, and I know earlier you took the vote on having the commission phones is that um, we could have better access to anything that is uh, made by public request. Um, so that that was I think part of the thought the thought process when um I was told that we were having troubles getting uh some of these documents together.

Mr. Knight, it it I mean you can explain this. Obviously it's it's difficult, you know, when people post things on social media or text things or send emails and how you get access to them. It seems like um the people you ask have to be helpful to get it right if they say no. I mean, I I read something in the news recently where people were trying to get these kind of records from different political figures because they didn't like that political figure and this person didn't like this political figure and they were kind of mashing heads and it went on for years that they could not get the get the uh social media post or the texts or the emails and then a judge finally agreed that they had to do it and they still didn't do it. So, like how do you how do you enforce it? And and then there's a somebody told me when I decided to get into politics, first of all, they said, "You're crazy for doing this." All right. Got that from a lot of people, but one person told me, "Don't put anything on social media about the town, especially on something like uh uh Facebook or or uh or uh Next Door or something, if somebody has control over it, they can actually take your post down, right? and somebody can say you posted something and you need to you you you need to provide it for freedom of information. You need to provide and now you can't find it because it's been taken down. Well, now you're not in compliance and now you can be um now you can be cited for being not in compliance. So, it's like a it's like a a whirlpool of trouble getting into this. So, I I know we all have uh worries about these things, and I do think it affects our ability to communicate effectively with each other, but it's it's crazy. It's crazy stuff.

Well, yeah, it is one of the pitfalls of social media because once you post that, then you are in under the Florida statute, it says that you are the custodian of that record, right? It's your account that you're posting to. Yeah. It's you're controlling the content. So, you are the custodian and nobody else. So, it does create issues, especially if something does get removed or if you're locked out. Yeah. of the account and can't have access to it, then it does create issues. Social media campaign smart. So, we we've come to the end. Uh there's some um a thing for commission reports. I don't think we have any commission reports, do we?

Right. And then we come to the task list. I don't think we've come to anything on the task list. I did want to just take a few moments before we close the uh the meeting to kind of go over what we talked about and some of the things that we we can think about. One of the things that uh you know I like to think about the positive stuff and one of the biggest positive things of course was the the successful manatee rescue and I like to say hash manity mania people are very excited. We do have an opportunity uh if we do have the opportunity to welcome this manatee back to our community. We could have a big unifying wonderful event that I think everybody could get you know revved up for and excited about. So, I I want to just put that out there, send a good message out to the world that this is something that could come our way. We could have a lot of fun with that. Uh they even even there was a prayer vigil for the health of the manatee uh on Friday night, which is, you know, just people are excited about this. So, I think that's that's a key thing. Um you know, we we had talked about um in the past having a monthly schedule uh ahead of time so we know where we are in the budgeting process. we know where we are and what's expected for uh for the comprehensive plan, what is expected of us for everything. We don't really have that, you know, at least not finalized. Um we also talked about how how are we going to address that terrible work survey. We never talked we really never got to address that. Um I' I've talked to the town I've talked to the town manager about it. How how do we do that? Um I don't know that we can. And then and then you know this the the letter the mayor sent to the finance uh uh advisor finance chair uh director. Thank you. Um you know I don't I don't think that that was a a nice look. I I would I would in in ent in intreat the mayor to apologize. I think that would be the right direction is to have an apology. Uh you know you know

people do crazy stuff. It doesn't always mean you're a bad person, but you need to you need to apologize sometimes. And uh and it's it's hard to do. Not everybody can do it, but I I would recommend that. And I I hope everybody be supportive of that idea. 100%. Right. All right. Is there any other items that we didn't talk about that we should Oh, one one other thing uh came up. I think we all got an email asking us uh uh to set aside May as and set a proclamation at our meeting for foster and adoptive parents. remember I think came came through you Sherry. I I I don't I don't I might have um sent something to the town manager that

it came from the town man from you to the town manager but it was a it was a group they were asking us to make a proclamation at our May meeting in support of foster care. It's national foster care month that some it's obviously not on the agenda and process would but it's something we should consider. you know, we have time to consider that if if you think it's worth considering because everybody What do you think, Commissioner Reid? I think somebody's typically sponsors it and that's one of the commissioners sponsors it and then it gets a resolution comes comes on the agenda and gets I thought it came from you. I don't remember. I'm sorry. That's all right. That's all right. I thought I thought it was something like that and it only has me. I'll I'll usually send it to the manager so that she can

All right. So, you never really looked at it, but I think it was a nice a nice thing. I'd be happy to sponsor it if if if you may. I'd be happy to sponsor that and get that in into because I I think that's a nice thing. Is there any other issues that you commission want to talk? You know, this is our chance to to actually talk to each other. Do we want to schedule a uh a workshop topic for um in uh in March or our typical March time frame? What would you like what would you like it to be centered on? You know, I was hoping that we could uh talk about uh um improving workplace, you know, the the workplace, that kind of stuff, but I don't know if that's what we need to do. Is there something else that you think that needs to be done in this workshop?

I was going to suggest we could use it to talk about the um advorum tax, non-advelor tax. Okay. Excuse me. A little more education on it. some some education and and and uh what we would think we would like to try to get out of that, how we maybe suggest we would would like to see it structured, how who how it affects the different um groups in town. What do you guys think? Will we have enough information to to have a meeting on it? What do you think this?

Would we have we be able to put together enough information to educate ourselves and the residents about this? on this one. I think we have we can have I can supply some bullet points to talk about relative to it and uh deciding on if these are things we once to be prepared for an RFP response. So if we to turn around and be able to kind of give them what our wants are. So we can we we can actually uh chew walk and chew gum. We don't have to do just one thing right at a workshop. Is there any other issues that if we're going to have a workshop? I think we might be able to do this in like 30 minutes, right?

Maybe. I I'm I'm not I don't have any ideas at this minute. I think the the workplace survey is one of the most important things, but I don't think we're ready for that yet. We don't have the um facilitator the facilitator or any of that put together for March. Yeah, I I I do agree. Um I did look at it and it was awful.

Um it was surprising. Um from somebody who was been in government for many many years. Um so I will take a look around to see if we can find uh you know maybe workshops on how to deal with difficult people. Um you know other things like that. Uh I have a few ideas that I can uh talk to some of uh my uh colleagues in the industry and HR industry. Um if you have other ideas too, I know some of you have worked in HR as well or professional um services that you know you can recommend too that that um because you probably have better understanding of the dynamic here um you know let me know as well but I will look at that and see if there's something we can put together for March. Are you looking for something as far as like a um a moderator with because I don't know if having a moderator with staff and commission which somebody had mentioned to me. I think that's going to be very tricky. Yeah,

I don't think that's I don't think that's I was hoping for more of like an education, you know, because it is a public workshop, more of an education and then that we would all kind of uh sign a memorandum of understanding that this is, you know, best practices and this is how we're going to move forward, you know, how we do things and, you know, going forward. Something along those lines. And I'm not trying to uh think about ascribing blame, you know, or anything like that, but to really kind of understand how to how to uh influence people in a positive way so that we can get the very best out of our town. I mean, I think that's what we all want.

Yeah, I'll look at I'll look and see what I can find. Um, you know, there might be some cost to it, but I will see if I can find something that is uh low or no cost. Um, but I'll I'll check that out because I did Thank you. I did recently look at that, but I I will look at to see if we can find something for November. I mean, for March, I'm sorry. March. Okay. So, I'm going to come back to you, Commissioner Reed. Do you think we'd be able to get things together in time for March or do you want to push that off to April? What do you think? I'm I'm interested. I'm not disinterested.

I I I would um think we should be talking about it sooner uh than than later. And um what what is our stand our time in in March? Which date is that? So the meeting is on the 4th and which would mean the deadline for agenda items would be this Friday in order for the packet to go out next week. Okay. Think you can do it? Yeah, he's accepting the challenge. Um yeah, I mean well I I'm I'm asking the commission if they want to do the workshop. I'm

we do suggest suggesting it. Um and so I haven't got the sense that we want to do it. So if we want to do that then uh that's a 6 p.m. on Wednesday the 4th. Do people is that a good time or is availability? Yeah, I think it's a good time. Yeah. Um Mr. tonight. Would you be available to to support that? Yeah. And what was the exact date for that? March 4th. March 4th. Wednesday at 6 p.m.

As of right now, yes. Okay. All right. Then I'll I'll um submit uh the bullet points to u to the clerk for uh to put on an agenda item. Fantastic. Any other comments? Like to hear a motion to close the meeting. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I I thank you.

That's a great idea. I think it'll be good because I'm a little confused by the whole thing and I think it'd be awesome to know more. How did they doice? They were