Town Commission - Special Meeting

Okay, we are recording. It is 6 p.m. I'm going to call this meeting to order and do the roll call. Mayor Allison Dennington is absent. Vice Mayor Terry Cronin is absent. Commissioner Anna Butler?

Here.

Commissioner Tim Reed?

Here.

Commissioner Sherry Corey? Here. Town Manager Amory Smith is present. Finance Manager Jennifer Kerr?

Here.

Public Works Supervisor Tom Davis.

Present.

Police Chief Tim Zander.

Here.

Okay, thanks. And Town Clerk Sid Jones is also present. All right, before we get to the Pledge of Allegiance, we will need to take a vote to decide who will chair this meeting. I don't know if anyone wants to make a motion.

Like make a motion to nominate someone?

Yeah.

I make a motion to nominate Commissioner Quarry.

Okay. I can second that.

I believe you can second. Yeah.

Second.

Okay. All right. We have a nomination and a second. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. That carries 3-0. All right. So Commissioner Quarry will chair this meeting. Would you like to rearrange and be in the center? I think she wants to get out of the middle. Out of the spotlight.

You need the gavel. It's right there. It makes it easier.

Will you just switch your name tags for me?

Yes. Yeah, do you want me to just move the gavel? Yes. Do you want to just stay there and have the gavel?

I don't care. Are you not comfortable where you're at? I'm fine. You are fine? Okay.

Whatever you want to do.

And Commissioner Corey, whenever you're ready to go on with the pledge in the moment of silence, feel free.

Okay, so we'll bring the meeting back to order and do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of 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 will now have a moment of silence. Thank you. And now I'll read the civility pledge. The commission and staff of the town of Melbourne beach pledge to conduct all public discourse in a 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 towards staff. We will be respectful of one another. Even when we disagree, we will direct all comments. towards the issues, we will avoid personal attacks. This first meeting is regarding the general obligation bond resolution that will be on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot for voter approval. Saying that, is there any public comment about anything other than this general bond resolution? Sid, will you change the clock, please?

Susan Stark, 307 Fifth Avenue. August marks one year since a longtime friend called and urged me to take action to become informed again on the details of business on the town commission's agenda overall, and specifically with regard to the financial issues impacting staffing recommendations for MBVFD. I had taken a 10-year hiatus from active involvement with either one due to personal and family situations that made my plate very full. The timing was good for me and I jumped back in with both feet. I first made an effort to meet with all the members of the Town Commission individually to introduce myself and share my experience and knowledge from participation with both the Town Commission and the Fire Department over the past three decades. I appreciated that opportunity and have continued my involvement by attending most of the Town Commission meetings over the past year to continue to become more informed. What a difference a year makes. I'm carrying forward into this week, a message from Sunday morning about the importance of reordering priorities and inhabiting time to be more present. What impacted me the most was the emphasis on the need to focus attention on accomplishing our intentions. without allowing distractions to compromise progress towards manifesting those intentions. Good intentions should predominantly be on the front burner, not pushed to the back burner due to distractions. After a year filled with a multitude of distractions impeding adequate attention from being given consistently, to critical issues facing the town of Melbourne Beach. I am encouraged by the most recent progress towards fulfilling the intention of making prudent choices for the benefit of the residents in our community. Let's keep it moving forward, thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Name and address, please. Hello, my name is Dominique and I'm a resident of Melbourne. Good evening, city members. I'm here to propose a reallocation of funds from the AI cameras on the beach to hire more lifeguards instead. These invasive AI cameras are not what we of the people in this town want. Although it was sold to you as something that can help save lives, it hasn't saved one life or even been used in an emergency yet. And how many videos has it captured in the meantime of families on the beach? We don't know. This system goes against our principles as a nation. Mass surveillance is not allowed and it's unconstitutional and everyone knows it's wrong to film minors on the beach in their swimsuits. We have to protect our children now more than ever and letting some out of town company to own footage of us on the beach enjoying our free time, when we don't have any clear details of who has access to the footage, how long it's being stored, or what else it's used for. There are so many flaws in this system, making it time to remove them and use that crucial funding towards hiring lifeguards, thus creating more jobs in the community, putting trust back into our people and not machines. Because this is the only shot of surviving in a drowning emergency, is having a real person there to help. A camera isn't going to help. And on top of those concerns, there's a lot more than meets the eye. We can't have tunnel vision and ignore all of the other issues, if it's a funding issue and they are less expensive than hiring lifeguards, then what's the price of someone's life? We have a problem with lack of lifeguards and now we have an even bigger problem with these invasive cameras that have a goal of reaching every beach across America. Please stop working with this business and go back to being a community that cares about human life and not profit. I started a petition for this exact issue. It already has over 150 signatures on the petition that agree with me. So if we could do that, that would be great. I would also like to request any documents between the city and the company that you're working with to be clear of what it's done in its trial run here.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Name and address, please.

Nicholas Perez, 217 Cherry. I want to second her concern. Just is there maybe setting a bad precedent having cameras that we don't know actually how they work. It's a proprietary system. Okay, again, yeah, maybe there's no funding for lifeguards and yeah, there's people drowning, but it's setting a bad precedent to put cameras. We don't know how the system works. There's maybe better solutions. I mean, let's say the camera's just, it's just noticing the life buoy and it notices when it gets removed and it calls emergency services. That's cool and all, but if that's how it works, you don't need a camera. It could be like a simple switch or something. Uh, so maybe some more transparency, uh, if you're going to put cameras and in our backyard, um, that's, that's the big concern is more transparency. If they're going to, you know, who has access, is there anybody auditing these systems? It's kind of like, uh, you can see where that goes. That's all I got.

Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing no one else needs to give public comment, we'll close that section of the meeting and go forward with our presentation.

Excuse me. No, I'll sit down and run the PowerPoint for Jay.

Good evening, commissioners.

In 2009, the town of Melbourne Beach, almost 20 years ago, went forward with a $3.5 million general obligation bond to fund various stormwater projects at an interest rate of 4.23%. Over the past 17 years, payment for that bond has been in residence tax bill as a line item, which was listed as Melbourne Beach Stormwater Debt Payment, or DBTP. that bond has just been paid off and we are requesting a new general obligation bond in essence to replace that bond uh... to continue funding for stormwater and also for transportation project needs uh... that are imperative in the town there are several areas in the town where stormwater projects as you've seen over the past few months and road improvements can no longer be deferred We saw that in Basin 1. We saw a lot of work in Basin 10 that is going to need some infrastructure repair and significant funding. A list of other of these projects is also in Attachment A of the draft resolution, which is in your packet. In order for the town to address these needs, though, the commission, I want to congratulate you in its June meeting, moved forward with a $5 million general obligation bond, and we hired PFM as bond and financial advisor as the fiduciary also for the town, and bond council, Neighbors, Giblin, and Nickerson. And I don't know if Steve Miller is on the call. Okay, he's on the team's meeting, our bond counsel for this general obligation bond. I wanted to make it clear why towns and why we need to use a debt instrument for major capital projects. It's kind of likened to a homeowner who finances their home with a mortgage instead of paying cash. You know, we can't delay these longer-term projects without draining the cash reserves or delaying improvements that will increase in cost every year due to inflation. Other things to consider is that by taking out a general obligation bond to fund these immediate projects, we're protecting our financial reserves, which is extremely important for our financial security against anything like hurricanes, storms, emergency infrastructure repair, Unforeseen operational needs like we saw during COVID response or any kind of economic uncertainty. As you all know, we also have different amendments coming up for a vote. Second, we do earn a return on our town reserves, and that increases our liquidity for emergencies instead of tying it up. in infrastructure projects. And third, and something maybe most people don't think about, is that by bond funding, we spread the costs of these projects to all who benefit instead of just those who are living in the town now. And it's a lot more of an equitable solution. And what I mean by that is the lifespan of many of these capital projects are 15 to 25 years. And then financing these projects over time with a bond allows the cost to be shared across all those who are utilizing that infrastructure. instead of just placing that cost and tire burden on the taxpayers today. So to move forward with the general obligation bond, the commission must vote in favor of a resolution language and the ballot language which is in your packet. I have also asked PFM Jay Glover to come in and speak to us again. and to also have our bond counsel present in case you have any questions. Our town attorney Ryan Knight has reviewed the documents for legal sufficiency and he has given his okay as well. I recommend voting in favor of the resolution and ballot language and I now turn it over to Mr. Glover.

Thank you, Marie. Commission members, Jay Glover from PFM Financial Advisors, and we are the financial advisor and municipal advisor that was engaged to help you work through this process, which means we are your fiduciary, and what we do is actually help to structure financings that provide you the most cost-effective means of funding capital projects. At your June 17th meeting, you'll recall I gave a presentation about why you borrow, gave some preliminary estimates about what a general obligation bond might look like, And at that meeting, we got some direction from you all to go back, prepare the actual referendum language for a $5 million GEO referendum, which we've done so, and it's before you in your package. Today, I'm just going to spend a few minutes just going over some of the facts and circumstances related to the proposed GEO, and then also be here to answer any questions that you all or the community might have. If you flip to the next page, I won't reiterate the first few bullets here. This really just goes through what Marie mentioned in terms of why local governments actually bond for capital projects. And she's directly on point. Most importantly, as was mentioned, it allows all users of these projects over the next 20 years to pay for those projects and not burden the current users with the full payment of those. Uh, at that meeting, we also talked about the options available to local governments to actually fund capital projects. We talked about revenue bonds, which are paid from non adblom revenues or existing sources within the town's budget. And we talked about the fact that most of those, if not all of those resources are being used to operate the town now, and there's not a recurring revenue stream available to actually service debt for capital projects. Uh, that lended us to the recommendation for a general obligation bond, which would create a new revenue stream or a debt service millage on the tax bill for each town property over a period of time. And we mentioned that that would require a voter approval, be a referendum. So we're obviously here today for you all to consider the resolution that would put that referendum on the ballot in November. Slipping to the next slide, this just provides some statistics related to how a potential general obligation bond might work if it was passed by your electorate. And again, here we're assuming a $5 million authorization with a 20-year term. As we mentioned at the meeting, you're not required to issue all $5 million at once. And more than likely you would not do that because the ability to complete those types of projects in the required timeframe might be difficult. So most issuers that approve these GOs do them in a series of financings as the projects are done. So for instance, you would take the most high priority shovel-ready projects and potentially do an immediate financing, you know, early 2027 if this was approved. And then you might come back a couple of years later with the balance of that. And that can be broken up into any, you know, increments that you wanted. I would caution, I wouldn't be doing, you know, five $1 million financings because there is a cost and an effort to doing that. So you want to probably break it up into two at the most, I would recommend. And what we're showing here in this slide is, for instance, if you did an initial $2 million financing in 2027, which would put a tax levy on the November 2027 tax bill, fiscal year 2028, you would essentially be levying .22 mills, which would be about a $54 impact on a $250,000 taxable assessed value home. So each year for the next several years, 20 years, you would be assessing that level. If tax bases grew, obviously that millage levy would come down, but you'd be required to levy a millage to cover that debt service. If you came back, say, two years later in 2029 and added on the additional $3 million for the full $5 million, you would then increase the millage levy by approximately 0.31 mills. So you would be levying about 0.53 mills in total. Again, at that point, it would be about $131 annual impact on the tax bill for a $250,000 home. I will point out that these figures here reflect the current homestead exemption. So they do not reflect what might happen if property tax reform legislation goes into place, which is obviously also on the ballot in November. To help understand how that might impact uh... the town we did run some preliminary estimates based on what the taxable assessed value of the town might look like post tax reform legislation and as you can see here the millage levies do go up slightly it would be about point two nine mills after the first two million and another point four one mills for the additional three so you're looking at about point seven mills if you're talking about post property tax reform uh... again You know, these are estimates. We're still trying to understand exactly how that might impact the tax base. But you would be required, regardless of what the homestead exemption legislation was, now or in the future, to levy a debt service millage to cover the debt service payment. So if your taxable assessed value goes down, your millage levy would go up in a corresponding amount. So I just want to be clear with that in full transparency that there would be an impact. You would still have to levy that debt service millage, regardless of what happens with property tax reform legislation. And it looks like you might have a question. So I'm happy to pause and address them along the way.

I just what's the interest rate you you had in these projections?

Yeah, this is about four and a quarter 450 interest rate in terms of the borrowing rate. So about where the market is with a little bit of cushion today. And then the final slide that we have is just really a timeline of events, which is very similar to what we presented to you before. You'll see the June and July, they're sort of shaded out in the graphic here, at least on the screen. Those are things that have already been done. Well, we talked about the projects and we had that meeting in June. During July, your staff, town attorney, financing team has been working on refining the project list and preparing the resolution that's before you. we sit here today august for the town commission meeting where you will consider the actual referendum language the key date is august the 17th if you want to move forward with the referendum that's the date by which you have to have the ballot language to the county supervisor of elections so thus the need for the special meeting tonight so if we want to approve this we can get it to the supervisor of elections the two other key dates are There's two advertisements that are required in September and October. Those are also spelled out in the resolution before you. I think one is like five weeks before and then another one's like, you know, three weeks before, but not more than 30 days. And it's pretty specific. But there are some advertisement requirements, obviously wanting to make sure that the voters know that this is on the ballot and what this all means. And then the ballot would be obviously in November. As I mentioned before, if it's approved, I think you could move pretty quickly to get a financing in place, probably the first quarter of 2027, if that was your desire. And again, the first tax levy would be on that November 2027 tax bill. You could wait longer if you weren't ready to do projects. Just some other things that have come up during the course of discussion. Just because the voters approve $5 million doesn't necessarily mean you have to issue $5 million. There's no penalty if you don't issue all of it or any of it, quite frankly. each financing will have to come back before the town commission for approval so before we move forward with anything you're going to have to come back and approve a bond resolution for any financing so this is not as if this is the last step or the last say so you have before any issue debt occurs it will come back before you for consideration and it would have more specific terms in it at that point in time Another thing that was asked, you know, what are other people doing? What are other local governments doing, especially in light of property tax reform? We have several clients that are going through this same process. We did provide a couple of links to websites where issuers that have ballots coming up actually in August, in a couple of weeks, have put on their website some information about the ballot measure, really educational because you can't, persuade the voters one way or another in terms of being elected officials using public funds, but you can educate them. So again, Marco Allen's a client of mine. They're seeking a $23 million bond referendum in August. You see here they have some information about the projects. You know, they scroll down. I think they have some information about the potential impacts in terms of payments as well. Another one of my clients, the City of Temple Terrace, I think they're doing $50 million for a public safety facility. There's again information on the website educating people. Bonita Springs is another one. We have several that are taking measures to the November ballot as well. You know, despite property tax reform legislation, things are moving forward. People are obviously cautiously considerate of that, but by no means is the market locked up. People are still borrowing. Lenders are still lending. We have gotten a lot of questions from the rating agencies who rate local governments in the state of Florida. They understand that this will be a big hit for people, But I think they're taking a cautious approach and understand that people will have to make decisions. You're going to have to either find ways to cut expenses, raise revenues, do both if this does pass. So, again, we want to be fully transparent, but the GEO bond will still have to be serviced regardless of what happens in the future, you know, with a debt service millage. There's probably a lot of questions that you all have, the community might have. I am here to answer those. I want to be fully transparent. As was mentioned, Steve Miller with Neighbors Giblin Nickerson, he specializes in the legal work in the bond world. He's the one that's drafted this resolution. There's certain specifics. You can only have like 15 words in the title, and you can only have 75 words in the actual ballot language. So all that's been worked through, and he can address any legal questions you might have as well. With that, I'll pause and see if there's any questions, or Marie, if there's anything that I missed that you might want to prompt me with. I'm here in full transparency to provide any information I can to help with the process.

Do we have any questions? Go ahead, Commissioner Reed.

So we're talking here initially a $5 million bond, right? And so I think of this as kind of like a line of credit basically. So what if after year one or two, you decide 5 million is not the right number

do you is there a process to add on or do you start over with a whole lot start on it you can always issue less but if you want to issue more than five million you essentially have to go through another referendum vote of the voters so there's no way to increase this you really are going to be maxed out at the five million dollars without further voter approval all right then um

So my understanding is that the servicing of this or the way you pay is not like people are familiar with at their home or their car loan on a monthly payment. So how is the payment structure? Is it semi-annually?

Yes, a great question. So there's generally a semi-annual interest payment and an annual principal payment. So if I might, for instance, if you issued bonds, say, in May of 2027, The tax bill would be levied in November, so the town would start getting money likely in November and December because people pay early. We would structure it with like a January one interest payment and then a July one principal and interest payments, which is pretty standard in the market. You obviously want to pay as soon as possible to eliminate interest costs, but you want to make sure you have funds coming in from the tax bill to pay that debt service. But yeah, it's a semiannual payment structure. You don't require to do that, but that's the common prevention in the market. You could pay monthly or quarterly, but generally semi-annually is sort of the standard convention.

So if this goes on the 27 tax bill, I'm trying to get the sequence correct in my head. The TOW is not collecting money until actually 28 then, right? Yeah, late 2027, January 2028, yeah. So if we start... project and we're paying on the loan out of our pockets until we get that financing.

No, because if we issued in, say, April or May of 2027, we would defer that first interest payment until January 1 of 2028, which is pretty common. It's a little more than six months after issuance. So there would be no funds that would be needed from the general budget of the town. It would all be paid from really because if you think about it in that November tax roll, you start getting money in November and December, January. So you would have enough to pay an interest payment and then you would have sufficient funds to pay the principal and interest in July. So this should not have any impact on your general fund budget.

So there's a terminology here in the in the language where it says the interest rate, it doesn't cite an interest rate. It's a rate not in excess of the maximum lawful limit. So there's a Florida statute, I think, that governs that. So I don't know.

We're kind of deciding to get a loan that we don't know what the interest rate is going to be and it could be if that This maximum lawful rate looks like it go up to almost 8% Yeah, and I the interesting thing I was at Marion County this this afternoon and they were considering a similar referendum and they had the same question about the maximum lawful rate and what was that and I will say that's pretty standard language in these referendums to give ultimate flexibility. But like I said, any bond that comes before you, before it will be issued, you will have a bond resolution before you, which would also have a not to exceed interest rate within it, which will be much lower, generally, you know, five, five and a half percent, whatever the market conditions warrant. And I would defer to Steve on this. There's nothing that prevents the town, I don't think, from putting a specific interest rate in there in lieu of the maximum rate. I would caution that make sure you give yourself enough cushion that if rates do move up some that you don't lock yourself out of the market. you know I think it's pretty common to give that flexibility but I don't think there's any legal requirement to say that I think in general you could put say you know not to exceed six and a half percent or seven percent or what if that if that gave you more comfort um so there's some flexibility there

Yeah, I guess I was expecting that we would, how you would cap it versus this maximum.

Well, you're going to ultimately cap it because anything comes back before you for approval. If you don't like the interest rate at that point, you just don't have to approve it.

But at that point, we would have had the voters say they want the bond and then we're like saying, well, no, we're not going to do it.

Yeah, I mean, I will say, I mean, I've been doing this for 26 years. I know there was a point in time where interest rates were probably double digits. I don't see those days anytime soon. You know, we haven't seen rates in the last 26 years probably above 5%, quite frankly. And more recently, we've got pretty close to that. But yeah, like I said, you have ultimate discretion. If you're more comfortable with a specific interest rate in that language, you can add that. But again, anything would come back before you before it gets approved. So you would have to say so at that point in time.

Yeah, I just... APPRECIATE YOU'RE GIVING THE INFORMATION UM YOU KNOW THIS IS VERBAL ALL UM IF IF PROPERTY TAX AMENDMENT GETS APPROVED IT'S REALLY KIND OF UNCHARTED TERRITORY FOR THE BOND MARKETS BECAUSE HISTORICALLY IN MY VIEW HISTORICALLY THERE'S ALWAYS BEEN ADVALORUM YOU KNOW TAX BASE UM SO THIS IS GOING TO BE KIND OF A SHOCK TO THE system even for for people that have existing bonds and then how they decide to proceed with new bonds it just seems there's like a fair amount of really uncertainty about how the what the reaction is going to be yeah i mean no doubt i think there is uncertainty i i will say again a lot of revenue bonds are secured by non-advalorm revenue so they're away from the ad valorem side

Also, general obligation bonds require you to levy a millage regardless of what the tax base is. So no doubt. I mean, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There's a lot of questions people are asking. All I can tell you is the market's still very active. You know, people are still pursuing debt. We priced several deals this week, have several more coming next week. So, you know, but again, it's uncharted territory. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. That's why we're trying to be fully transparent that, You know, we think this will cost you about a half a mil if it's approved and all the debt is issued But you know that goes up to about 0.7 mils if the property tax reform legislation passes and you're going to be required to levy that 0.7 mils to pay the debt service There's this and that's That gives the bondholders comfort. I mean, if we were doing a referendum where we were putting a limit on the millage you could levy, that would provide significant CERN for a bondholder. But in this case, you're agreeing to levy whatever's required to cover the debt.

Great. And I understand what you're saying, and you're just talking really just the next year out. I mean, this is a 20-year obligation. So I have some more things about the language if you want me to continue, or do you want to...

Would like to stay on this subject Portion right now and then talk about the language in a minute if that's okay with Commissioner Butler. I Wanted to ask if I may excuse me. I'm horse You said that Annually, we would have to pay principal and interest. Can you elaborate on what that possibly could be? what is that like in 20 if we took out in 2027 like your graphs show the two million. So does that mean that then in 2028 or 2029, we would have to pay back two million plus interest?

No. So the way that's structured is there's a level annual payment over 20 years. So if you do a $2 million financing, you're going to be paying essentially $150,000 a year of principal and interest for 20 years. So it's structured just like a home mortgage where you're paying back a level amount each year. Mortgages are usually paid monthly. This is paid semi-annually. If you add the additional $3 million, that's another $225,000 of annual debt service. So just for easy illustrative purposes, if you issued $5 million from day one, that's about a $375,000 annual debt service payment over 20 years, level basis. So that's what you're going to have to levy to cover is about $375,000. Okay. We don't do ascending debt service. We don't do anything of that nature. It's just a level debt service payment. So in theory, if the tax base grows over time, that millage levy is going to go down over time as well to cover the debt service. And I think your finance staff can attest to this. I think when the 2009 referendum was done, you might have been levying close to a mil for debt service. And I think as you work through time, the last one was maybe like 0.1 mils or something because the tax base grew so much. I wouldn't suggest the tax base is going to continue to grow like that, but if it does modestly go up over time, your millage levy will go down as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. So, um, if everybody is happy with that portion of the discussion, um, let's talk about the language commissioner Reed.

Right so in the resolution 2026 or 3 here in the in the talks about which is on page 5 of the package, I believe the so finance certain stormwater and transportation capital improvements now. Well we first started talking about this it was stormwater I don't know when the transportation or I guess we're talking about roads is we're using the word transportation got factored into this. Um, may I, and, um, no, I'm not done. The, um, Also in this appendix A, or add on A, which has all the projects in there, which is page eight, exhibit A, excuse me. So we have, there's these listing of all these projects for storm water and then road work capital improvements. So I mean, there's no dollars attached to this. Does $5 million cover this? There's no indication that $5 million is enough to cover this.

Yeah, I would need to defer to your staff on that. We didn't develop the project list and obviously don't do cost estimates. We just determine the financing options available given a certain amount.

So yeah, so I mean, this is could get in a situation where we have spent all the money. We still have the 20 year obligation and some people in town will have may not have finished this and some people in town will never been got any benefit of it, but everyone still has it on their tax bill. So I'm uneasy that the addition of road work came in without, because that wasn't a part of the prior discussion, and then there's really no balance here to say that this is even the right number, the $5 million.

We added the road work because in prior discussions it was requested by the commission to take a look at that. I had asked our public works director to take a look at what we have with the existing stormwater master plan and to update the cost estimates of what we had. We were able to also put some road work into that plan as well for capital improvements. We did not want to tie exact numbers. We do have some numbers we can share, but we did not want to tie exact numbers because as you all know, we haven't, we have in the plan to update the stormwater master plan here so that we can get more accurate funding numbers. There are things that over the past 10 years since the last plan was put in place that may have occurred that we don't know because it's under the road. And so we want to be able to have that updated plan so we can have extremely accurate numbers for today's date. So that's why we don't have the exact numbers there as we want to be able to get more specific pricing. But we do believe that based on What we did as estimates, Tom talked a little bit more about it. His team also went out and looked at the capital improvements for the road work. And there's a whole scale. I think we talked about it a meeting or two ago about what the scale is that FDOT uses based on that scale. We put together an estimate as well. And we had its team go out and do that very recently.

So what's the number? Does it all fit in the $5 million?

Right now based on what we know it does again if there is something we open up the road or look at the pipe work and we find out there's something else underneath there then it may not be then we're going to have to prioritize what needs to be done. We also have our stormwater assessment that is going to be increased that we're asking for again. And so we can supplement that with any anything that really needs to be done in an urgent matter.

If I may, that stormwater assessment is now going to be how much per year for the homeowner? that we just increased?

I think it's 111. No, I'm sorry.

6890 per household. It comes out to be 111,000, a little over 111,000.

I think it's per unit, whatever that specific unit is, because some houses have more.

But it ends up being 6890 from 36 to 6890. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Butler do you have any questions?

These are all great questions that answered a lot of my questions but I mean it sounds to me that we do this incrementally which was is the recommendation anyway and we prioritize as we go so because I mean I think I understand the frustration frustration or concern about not having a solid number not having but we we don't we don't have a crystal ball on how any of this is going to look and we're going to do The best with the wisdom of the people that do this I think that have provided us with this information and you have a lot of Knowledge behind you and you know, I think that what's the alternative? I mean we have to Take care of this and it's not coming from reserves It can't there's not enough So we have to really be logical about what we can do in my opinion. I

Um, I would like to add as far as the, um, the road capital improvements, um, over the years that I was on the commission previously, we could never keep up with it. It was always something would happen. So there, when you get into stormwater and the road, there is no guarantee what what our infrastructure looks like and to try to tie the staff down to an exact number when you don't know. I mean, some of our plumbing, if you will, is from the 50s and the 60s. So there's no way of knowing what ultimately is under. And you you can't really just say Basin one is going to be X, Y, Z, because it turned out Basin one wasn't X, Y, Z. It was a lot more. But I feel like this is the best that we can do for our residents, and I feel like it's the best in financial planning for our residents. And when you break it down to the amount per resident, I think that it is a good form of spreading the cost, and I support it. The next item I think we should discuss then is the ballot, the words that are going to be on the ballot. Does anybody have any input on that or?

I'm not comfortable with the interest statement. And I'm wondering if this can be made contingent on Amendment 3 not passing.

I'm I'm not sure is there someone on. Mister an expert Mister Miller, I believe you said legal yeah. I see an SM on the screen. Not very well.

They're turning you up stay for one second.

Work about it.

Okay, how's that?

Is it any better? Yes.

Yes.

Okay. Let me know if it's not very good. I'll take, I have my AirPods on. I can take that off and just try to speak into the phone. As to the first question about the interest rate, although as Jay pointed out, you know, I have not seen that in any ballot question, putting the max interest rate in there. Most people defer to the maximum legal rate, as Jay pointed out. You guys will have a look at, you know, each debt issuance that you do pursuant to the authority of this referendum. And if interest rates are at a level that you're not comfortable with, you certainly don't need to go forward with the transaction. But there is no legal restriction from us putting in a number if you want to, you know, an interest rate. some interest rate. And so that's fine. I didn't quite understand the other one about putting in the question that you would only issue bonds if the property tax reform question didn't go through.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, make a contingent on the Amendment 3 not being approved.

I don't think there's a legal problem with that other than making the question confusing. I mean, we'd have to work through that, I think, and give it some thought and talk with Ryan and others with staff about how to craft that. Because the biggest risk with any of these referendum questions or any ballot question is not making it confusing to the average voter. I haven't seen anything written before about a ballot question like that being contingent on another question on the same ballot. I think that has potential to be misunderstood. So we'd have to give that a little bit more thought and have to work on the question to make sure that we were all comfortable it wasn't misleading or confusing.

And I guess my only thought on that is if amendment three did pass, you always would have the ability to not approve a bond resolution in the future, which would be required to issue debt. So obviously that would all of issuing any debt in the future is dependent on the town commission approving a bond resolution. So in theory, if the referendum for the geo passed and the amendment three passed, if there was a consensus amongst this group, then you just would never bring a bond resolution before for consideration, or you would just vote it down if it did come. So that, I mean, there, again, you can stop this at any point in the future. I understand you would be stopping something that the voters potentially voted for, but you know, we've tried to be transparent, the impact of amendment three on this referendum, and they should know that as they vote yay or nay.

Commissioner Butler?

Sorry, nothing further?

Okay, thank you. Can I make a statement? Please. Right now, as we speak, there is that court challenge that just went through on the amendments. Because the language of that amendment itself is confusing, And I think by adding that language into our bond language, it's going to make it very difficult for our residents to really try to discern what we're asking for, where we've been working with bond council to make this as clear as possible and technically correct that would still be attractive enough for the bond market. And we've come to these words, you have only 75 words, so that's gonna be extremely difficult to try to add in language about yet another, pending on another referendum, which even that language is difficult for people to try to understand. So I would recommend not trying to add that type of language in there.

Okay, so do I have a motion?

I'd like to make a motion to approve the general obligation bond resolution as written that will be on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot for voter approval.

Do I hear a second? May I pass the gavel in order to second that to sit or to whom?

I think it would have to be Commissioner Reid. So I will second that. All right.

You seconded the motion so you need to call the vote correct or correct Times we have a motion and a second to approve as it appears public comment Bruce picket 1501 oak I would urge y'all to approve this I think there's several off ramps if interest rates go way higher or whatever ultimately it doesn't sound like you actually have to use the money if it's approved if you decide not to use the money it's just approved we're not stuck for anything if we use part of it and it goes down the road and interest rates go to 20 then you don't have to approve a resolution to get more money so i i think you have several off ramps if things happen that are not comfortable for our residents so For now, I would encourage you all to approve it and get it on the ballot. I think this gives us a way forward in our community to fix things that need fixed. And if we start when interest rates are lower, then possibly whatever, five years down the road and interest rates go higher, we at least get some stuff fixed while we can. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Bruce Larson, 1507 Pine Street. So I think I'd like to comment. First, Commissioner Corey, you're exactly correct that we need to be acting now. We don't have the annual funds and we never have in your 10 years prior. So the need for a bond is urgent. So we can get ahead of these things rather than saving up for several years before we can get started on one project. And most of these projects are not easily broken up into pieces, as some of the documentation just said here. I'd also like to then counter that with what is the scale we really need? If we have 17 miles of road in town, we paved 0.89 miles two years ago. at well over $200,000, if my understanding that a bond, we've opted to pay for the council and fiduciary out of the proceeds, so five million isn't really what's available for projects, it's more like 4.8 or something like that, then if roads alone over the next 20 years, all 16 miles will need to be repaved, other than the Riverside Drive paving we just had. So I think that Commissioner Reid's comment is what is the scale we really think we're going to need in stormwater and roads. Basin 1 was 2 million plus. So if we look at the rest of the town, 5 million is well, well underneath that. So I think that Commissioner Reid's comment on what's next after this 5 million. Get started on this for sure, but what's next after this is going to be imperative because that will not be the end of our infrastructure needs. Just back of the napkin calculations here, well under 20%. This $5 million will represent less than 20% of your real needs over that same 20-year period. So that's the question before the commission, I think, is that the right number? What are our options to add additional bonds after that? I know we've talked about what the process would be. but is there financial room available for the town to actually get more revenue? All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Susan Stark, 307 Fifth Avenue. I believe in the beginning of the presentation, it was mentioned that the bond that was taken in 2009 has been completed, and that was 3.5 million, and that was for stormwater. So that would come off the tax assessment at this point. So this is the perfect time to replace it without really having an increased cost. It just seems logical.

Thank you.

Any more public comment? I see none. All right, so I guess we have a motion and a second on the floor. So I guess we call this to a vote. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

And opposed, say nay. Nay. So we have two votes in favor. My understanding is that is not sufficient to move this forward. That is correct. Excuse me. That is correct. So I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

Meeting is adjourned. Do we want to call a short recess before starting the next meeting?

Not necessary for me personally, but OK, then yes.

I think he's on, but we can confirm.

I see RK on there.

Yes. Hi, Ryan. OK.

Thank you Yes, and I will I'll run that and then we'll vote again for the chair for the meeting No, we vote again, yeah, yeah, there's separate meetings we'll do it again I Okay. It is 6 58 PM. We're calling to order the second special town commission meeting this evening. I'm going to go ahead and do roll call. Mayor Alison Dennington is absent. Vice-Mayor Terry Cronin is absent. Commissioner Anna Butler.

Here.

Commissioner Tim Reed. Here. Commissioner Sherry Corey.

Here.

Town manager Amory Smith is present. Finance manager Jennifer Kerr.

Here.

Police Chief Tim Zander, or yeah, Tim Zander. Public Works Supervisor Tom Davis. Here. And Town Attorney Ryan Knight is here via Zoom, and Town Clerk Sid Jones is also present. All right, at this time, we can take a vote for who's going to chair the meeting. Would anybody like to make a motion?

I make a motion that Commissioner Quarry continue in this meeting, as she did a good job in the first, to chair the meeting.

So I have a second. All right. Commissioner Reid seconded. All in favor? Aye. All right. All opposed? All right. That carries 3-0. So Commissioner Quarry, you are chair once again.

Is it? Would everyone like to dispense with the Pledge of Allegiance and the moment of silence? So we just had the previous meeting, or would you like to do both? Go either way.

Commissioner, I'm fine with just proceeding with the meeting.

OK, thank you. So this meeting is regarding the Commission approval to proceed with the agreement to resolve the Fano LLC shed case do we have any public comment on anything that is not about the shed case. Seeing none public comment will be closed so new business is the commission approval to proceed with the agreement which will be presented by our town attorney, Ryan.

Okay. Hi commissioners, this is Ryan Knight. This has been the product over the last several weeks in conversations with opposing counsel, Mr. Maloon for the breach of settlement case and Ms. Pastorius for the shed appeal case. I believe Mr. Maloon is there. But I wanted to thank him for reaching out and attempting to come up with a resolution for the breach of settlement and the shed appeal matter. The parties have been discussing the agreement and we've come to an agreement subject to commission approval. And the terms of the agreement for these two cases would be first a filing of a motion to abate the shed appeal case for 60 days, which means there would not be a town response or a town brief filed during that time period. While the shed appeal case is abated for 60 days, the town and the new LLC would go before the town's special magistrate for code enforcement and ask these

Ryan, are you still there?

Yes, I'm still here. Are you able to hear me?

Just a little bit of that most recent comment.

Okay, so let me start over. Did you hear the first part about the shed appeal and the motion to abate?

Yes. Yes.

Okay, so while the shed appeal is abated, the parties would go before the town's special magistrate of code enforcement and ask the special magistrate to enter a stipulated order vacating the findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order that was entered in the code enforcement shed case. What we would be asking the special magistrate to do would be to vacate that order and essentially state that the shed on the property is now in compliance. Previously last year, the town filed an affidavit of compliance that was recorded in the public records that stated the same. It stated that the shed had been grandfathered in pursuant to the ordinance and that the shed is now in compliance. Once the special magistrate would render that order, which just means that she would sign the order, Let me go back. There'd also be a stipulation that the parties would agree not to appeal these special magistrates stipulated order. Once the special magistrate signs that order, that order would be recorded in the public records. The new LLC would make a $6,000 payment to the town, which would represent my attorney's fees for the breach of settlement case. and the shed appeal would be withdrawn and the breach of settlement case would be dismissed with prejudice. That would bring a conclusion to the shed appeal and the breach of settlement case. And it would essentially have the effect of FNU not being able to bring a cause of action based upon the shed or the settlement agreement forever in the future. So what I am requesting that the commission do is to vote to authorize me to proceed on that course and to proceed with that agreement with FNU LLC. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them right now.

ma'am yes quick question um the six thousand dollars represents your fees although this has been in the appellate attorney's hands for some time i believe is there anything addressing that or not the cost for that i'm sorry no and we've had this conversation with our appellate council as well um in florida

you can be entitled to attorney's fees pursuant to statute or an agreement. Okay. Such as a written contract. For the Shedd appeal case, since it was a code enforcement case, there was no statutory or contractual provision that would allow for attorney's fees. So the attorney's fees for the Shedd appeal case would not be part of this agreement.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Reid, do you have any questions?

Yeah, I had a couple so. Just going to reiterate, I mean, there's a lot of legalese here, but in plain English so that. The outcome, the final outcome of this is that that puts the end. Puts the end of both of these cases once once and for all. There's no zombie clauses, clauses or loopholes or whatever that you know causes the town to deal with. this again ever is that is that correct yes sir that's correct all right so then and then with the six thousand dollar payment there there were 20 days why why 20 days why not 48 hours

It just gives the parties time in a little cushion to get that money to the town. There's nothing that would prevent them from sending it within 24 hours or dropping off the check the very next day.

Then again, I guess with the $6,000, are you agreeing to then cap your fees at that amount to complete this?

Those are my fees approximately about a week ago when the party agreed to that number. There's probably a little bit more that's been incurred since last week, just with conversations regarding the case. But that's what the parties have agreed to at this point.

Thank you. Um, if I may at the 6,000 is within 20 days of rendition of the joint order. So that joint order would be prior to the magistrate here hearing or after. No.

So we would have to go before the special magistrate and request that she enter that, that order because it's a stipulated between the parties. Normally it doesn't take any time for the special magistrate to sign that. However, I didn't know if she wanted a few days to look it over or consider it or whatever it might be. But normally if it's a stipulated order, it would be signed most likely at the special magistrate here, right?

OK. Thank you. OK, do I have a motion?

Yes. I'd like to make a motion that we, the commission, approve to proceed with the agreement to resolve FUNO LLC shed appeal case, Circuit Court case number 2022, AP 025737, and breach of settlement agreement case, Circuit Court case number 2025, CA 019574, as presented. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Public comment? Seeing none, may I have a vote? Yay. May I hear a yay, nay? Yay.

Yay.

Yay. So that's 3-0. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you.

I appreciate it. All have a good night. Thank you. Thanks.

Drive carefully. So may I have a motion to adjourn? Second. All in favor? Aye. Does anybody need a moment before we start talking about the budget?

I'm going to go ahead and recess us. So I'm actually going to stop this stream and restart it when we come back for the workshop in a few minutes.