Charter Review Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Alright. So I will call this meeting to order at 05:58PM. Let's start with our roll call.

Joe Justice, Vice Chair.

Sue Garin Staples, Board Member.

Steven T. Harrison, member.

Bridge and body chair. If we all rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag is right over there. I pledge allegiance to the flag The

United States Of America and to the republic which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Now it's time for public comment. Okay. At this time, we have no public comments. So we'll move on to approval of minutes. Anybody?

I'll move to approve.

I'll second.

All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. The minutes have been approved. Now we move on to new business. So the first item under new business is discussion and possible action regarding recommending new verbiage allowing the city to borrow money. And there were some attachments as well.

Well, if nobody else has any comments, I'll throw out an idea. On, adding to article 1.2 b, I'm thinking of something along the lines of in the event of a state or governmental declared disaster or emergency, the city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds to cover the cost of a declared disaster or emergency without voter approval.

So can we discuss what the concerns are potentially

Doctor. I'm just throwing this out there as a starting point.

Okay. Don't have a provision necessarily to recommend, but the concerns that I've heard is it's a blank check. There's no limit to how much they can borrow and reading what it had been. It was reconstruction, was which to me is the area where there's concern. Because let's just say this building is damaged beyond repair.

The way it had been stated, they could borrow to reconstruct this building. And I don't think that's necessarily the intent of what they're looking to do. If I can interpret what they're asking for, they're asking for monies to be able to respond to the emergency in between the time of then a budget cycle coming in where they can ask for money. So I think the challenge that we've seen is it's too broad. It's too open ended in that regard.

Do you have any recommendation in that regard? I think the reconstruction to me starts to stretch into now we're talking full building, which really should be a capital project and a whole process involved in that, which really should fall within a budget cycle. So I think reconstruction starts to take us down that place. If we can I think the intent is clearing of debris, repair of roads, repair of I think more the repair, not necessarily getting into major construction?

Again, what would your recommendation be if you think there should be like how would you word that?

And I don't know enough about how much these things cost to be able to throw at a number to say, with a total not to exceed x amount of money. That's where I feel we need a little bit more guidance in that regard to be And

that's Mike, because we're going to this is not something we necessarily do. Would send off so they would have a better understanding. I will say, being in a situation where something goes wrong during a hurricane and if you don't have that ability to fund it, people also get mad when roads don't work. Also get mad when the government doesn't work. When your library doesn't reopen, they also get mad at that.

I do think a lot of times people don't necessarily understand how it all works. So I don't have a problem with putting wording in, but I think if you have a feeling about what that looks like, then I feel like you do need to have an understanding of what that is, too. And so potentially doing more research and coming in with more of an idea. Because I think the actual practical number would probably be a lot more than you yourself might feel comfortable with. Because the actual practical number is probably much larger than you would believe or under it would be like, woah, that sounds like a lot, when really it's like, well, fixing a road costs more than you might imagine.

What happened, say, during after Ian with Price and all those roads washing out. That's not a simple repair. That costs a lot of money to fix. And if a building is damaged beyond repair, it means displacement. It means possibly not having government services, which in the middle of

an emergency is an issue, too. But the problem is the time that's going to be needed to get that back up and operational, there's gonna be a budget cycle within that. So it's to me is how do we fill the gap to give the city what it needs to be able to respond immediately to borrow what they need and then allow for and it should be a finite amount of time until the next budget cycle when the normal workflows of process can kick in. So the only piece that I

would say just from what I've learned so far, and please, anybody who might know differently, please correct me if I'm wrong, I get what you're saying. But I think you're thinking like, and then the budget cycle and the money would be there. Well, that would still needs to be approved, right?

It

still Well, needs would to go through the actually go to the voters for additional money. So that's not a budget cycle. That's going to voters to get the money, to get that approved before they could even start the process. So that's where I think the problem runs in is people complain how long it's taking to widen price. But that's because that's the process.

They can't start bidding on things. They can't start doing things if they can't bond it out. So that's the reality of actual process. So if we say, oh, you can only do so much and then wait until you can go into the voters and ask for more money in an emergency situation, as we've explicitly said, then that could delay it years. Because it's not just a delay of being able to do the and I'm just talking general understanding of how this process works.

So being able to move right away towards something and get things bidded out and funded, they still have to pay it back. But you can pay it back over time versus going and getting that approved, which isn't a guarantee necessarily at all. Only then can you, once you have the money, bid it out and do that. So that could be years after an event before that process could move forward.

Let's look at it slightly different. Hurricane comes through. We lose all of our garbage trucks. I know the city's insured and they'll get money, but how long is it gonna take to get that money? And how long can you store garbage in your garage?

You need something right now to be able to start buying new trucks. That's what we're thinking of here, something like that. We're not looking at replacing Price Boulevard or replacing City Hall or a police station. This would be strictly in the cost of we have a natural disaster declared by the government or the State. Therefore, whatever is needed to do that because right now, if I understand this right and I might be wrong, FEMA does not give you free service. You end up paying for it. And you have to do all that money and all that work and send them a bill. And right now, I don't believe this city has enough money if another eon comes through to be able to do that. They would have to go out and borrow money.

Well, and it takes years and years for FEMA to pay you back. Oh, yeah. It's not like FEMA you send them a bill and they pay you back. It takes a long time.

What I'm looking at here is to be able to make this very specific to the point that the money that's needed has be gotten. But it can't be for something like the city declares an emergency, oh, need a new police station. Right. That's not part of this. This is natural disasters, things that happen that nobody can control. True. And if we need the money, we have to be able to get it and you can't wait for a referendum to get it. That's what I'm trying to put in here. I'm not trying to allow the city to borrow money for a project that they think is an emergency.

No, but the reality is if it is a state of emergency and a building was destroyed under what you currently preferred is they could borrow money to get that potentially rebuild if it's totally destroyed.

They can't do it today. Not today? No. We can't borrow a single cent unless we have a referendum.

Yes, Steven. If I may. So obviously, we all know the city. We're like one of the only cities that can't assume debt on itself, which is crazy. So like you said, the blank check. Maybe the citizens aren't so worried about how much money is going to cost. Maybe it's more of like a trust thing. So maybe in the actual verbiage, can include like declare natural disasters for x, y, and z, like road clearing or fixing lights that are down or major things like going on getting on I-seventy 5 and areas like that. So it's not such a broad thing because, if I believe I'm correct, that this has been tried to get the city to assume debt on itself for a long time. It's been shut down over and over.

So if we can start very specific, like the natural declared disasters for roads, for, like I said earlier, that would hopefully maybe push us in the right direction to at least get some debt on itself passed, right? And then as we go on further, we can, as time goes on, maybe include other things that we may So be able

as part of this, if we want to put forward with that idea, what are the things? That's what I

we have to kind of work

that part out too. What is our suggested I would

say debris clearance so people can go to and from, try to mitigate flooding if you could, the major exits, get those cleared and whatnot.

What if we worded it something along the lines of the borrowing of the money would be specific to what has been destroyed or damaged during the disaster only? Because you can't put 15 items It's in gonna get so broad that people will get tired of reading it and say no. But you're on the right idea.

I agree with you. I completely agree with you as well.

It's just how can we We're moving in that direction.

We're just to be very specific and not 50 pages long.

MR. Maybe like something along the lines of for the sole purpose of getting rid of I don't know how we would say that of what the hurricane or natural disaster brought upon the city, you know, just for Absolutely. The Absolutely. We're not

going I to think

that's the language, yeah.

Yeah. We're not going to be repairing buildings and all that stuff because, like you said, that's going to be a blank check. The city spending way too much money.

So

I think something like that would work.

And the taxpayer is going to be saying because they're going to have been hit by the same natural disaster as the town. And so they're looking at their personal loss on top of, now what is my property tax bill going to be? And I know that's where the rub is coming in, right? So I love the direction that you're going. Start with at least freeing up some capability for the town to be able to get money for the purposes of debris clearing, repairing road infrastructure. We've got to think of exactly what those words are. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

How about if we worded something like specific to damages occurred during that disaster?

Yeah, during the declared natural disaster. I think something like that would be good.

Okay. It's a starting point?

It's start. It's progress.

So if we add that to what the wording you had, what would that be like?

If you don't mind reading your

Let me restate this then from what I have and add that part. In the event of state or government declared disaster or emergency, the city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds to cover the cost of the declared disaster emergency without voter, only without voter approval?

For the purpose of maybe?

I know you lost me on that one.

Well, just because basically the addition to it would be for the purpose from what they were to add what we were talking about for the purpose of recovery and repair due to the emergency or

caused by Well, we need to I think the word only has got to be in there so nobody could think they could add something to it. It's only supposed to cover what was destroyed or damaged.

Right. I was just saying adding to the part of the piece about being for the emergency those items that were damaged during the emergency.

Well, if we do that,

let's see. Yeah, like for the sole purpose maybe of bringing the city back to the state of what it was before the disaster, however we could word that. You know what I

mean? Possibly.

I think we're all on the right track. It's just how do we put it together? Got any good ideas?

I was also going to say for the sole purpose because I feel like it meshes, which for the purpose

Hey, feel free to speak. None of us are experts.

So for the sole purpose is what you were thinking. And then it's

only and also for the purpose, since soul would just be that one thing.

Yeah. So maybe soul purpose. I don't know if we have a cleaned up version of that. But do we have a motion towards that if we say for the sole purpose of bringing the city back to poll? Don't know that I mean, we can put something forward, but I think a dollar amount is a dangerous place

to be. No. We don't want to put dollars on here because we don't know what dollars are. If we say we're

going to

only allow $50,000 or say a million and we turn out we have $15,000,000 of damage, we've got a problem.

Yeah. Like that's why I would say we don't want to put a dollar amount down. So it's still a blank check. If we say what it's for, then it's not necessarily a blank check. It is for if that's what we're saying, like, oh, there's an emergency. We want to bring everything back to what it was before the emergency. I don't know what that's going to cost. We can't predict what it could be $5 It could be $100,000,000 I don't know.

How about if we say at the end here, changing the wording slightly up, the city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds to cover only the cost of the declared disaster or emergency without voter approval.

Only the recovery costs or

Yeah. I think people would probably not vote on that because like you said, then people would say, oh, they're going to rebuild city hall with those funds. You know what I mean? So I don't know how we could make it, but just make it into a way the minimal monetary amount that the city can get back to normal operating before the storm. I don't know how we would be able to word that. But in order for the citizens to vote on it, vote yes on that, it would have to be worded some way in that structure, if

that makes sense. You're right.

In my opinion.

No, you're right. It's just a matter of how do we word it.

Yeah.

Well, and I do think it's important to think about the purpose of it versus trying to get something passed. Because if the item we get passed doesn't serve its purpose, then I don't know that it'll go beyond this meeting, which is fine. We can put anything forward. But the reality is, I think I get the thought process of a blank check, but that's not really how that would work if it was something where it was like, it's specifically for this purpose. You can't just do anything.

There are laws in place and reality in place. But it is I'm just saying, in general, it's not like, oh, and then the city's going to build something off of this money. If it's during a declared emergency, that's very specific. If it's based on that, it's very specific. It's not like, oh, we need some new of this.

We're going go spend it on this. It wouldn't be legal to do that. So that's part of this, that process. But I think restrictive language too, just for that purpose of a declared emergency, bringing it back to normal or whatever the wording might be, is probably the direction it needs to go. But there's never going to be an amount. It may say not to exceed so much money. But I'll be honest, that amount of money is going to be very large.

I would say don't put a cap on it just in case, because you never know how bad a hurricane's going to be. But then the basis of what the, I guess, law says has to be surrounded on the natural disaster Yeah. To prove, like, his point and yours, that it can't be people can't think that we're using it for other things because it's obviously illegal. But they also understand it enough so they vote on it.

Yeah. And so, again, that's question of the language, I guess, in the thought process of what that language looks like that would make people feel confident in that. Even though the reality is if you put together what he's saying, you can't spend it. Now it doesn't mean in a declared emergency a building might not be destroyed. Many buildings can be destroyed.

You'd go through your insurance. You'd follow this process. But that might be part of what gets taken care of. And the only other piece that I don't know if there's a way to and probably not in this language. But when they borrow money against themselves as much like you, they pay it off over time. So it's not as big of a bill than if we have to pay for it just in a big chunk of money.

Let me try another one here. How about if we, at the end of it, to cover the cost of the declared disaster or emergency only to bring the city back to working condition or something along that line. That would eliminate because you're going to get money back from insurance as far as buildings and everything else goes. It's just how long is that going to take? But we need to be able to have the city get the roads cleared and things like that. Otherwise, people are going to be a little hot.

Right. I think we should add, like, restore, like, for the sole purpose of Oh,

This? Oh. Anyways,

I think that it should be I like what he said, but we also have to put, like, for the sole purpose of restoring the city, like adding the word restore, I think, will also give the word so people knows that we're not just adding things to it, but bringing it back to how it was before. So like for the sole purpose of only restoring the city back.

That would be something like, cover the cost of the declared emergency to only to cover the only to cover the cost to restore the city to working condition.

Do you think it would be too specific to after that we put excluding city owned buildings? Or do you think that's too specific for what the purpose of what we're trying to

The only thing I would say is that would be restrictive if, let's say, you have a city room building that does have damage from the hurricane and you have to then wait I mean, just know examples. The library, the front door blew off. We were not able to open our doors for three months. We were able to get it fixed. But if, let's say, that wasn't possible without this money, just not being able to have a functioning door meant and when I say that, I mean it wouldn't function at all.

You can use it if open or closed. And so it could be we're restricting ourselves and now we can't restore it back to where it could be used for the public. Because these are all public buildings supporting the public. So I would hate for like, oh, that fire station got destroyed. It's going to be three, four I mean, in Charlotte County, there's a library that still hasn't reopened from Ian. So it can be a very long time to get things fixed. So I just don't know that we want to be so restrictive that we can't make things work if it needs to because we just can't predict what an emergency might look like, unfortunately.

Well, difference is they wouldn't have approval to go after the money that they needed for those things. So what we're trying to accomplish is to move the needle, right? Right now, they've been asked is it a couple different times the voters have been asked? Has it been just once?

Three or four that I know of.

Okay. So we keep coming back to the voters to say, we're looking for money without your approval. What we've got to do, to what your point was, is start to move the needle so that ask for less, not quantitative, but scope, so that we can get to yes. So then the city doesn't need to worry about that. They've got permission from the voters to get the monies that they need for at least this piece. It's not everything that they want, but at least it's better than where we are right now.

Okay. Well, you stop and think. Any building is destroyed, things like that, city is self insured. So it means they have to pay for it. If we put something in here with the wording that to be able to borrow only what's needed to get the city operational might satisfy many people.

I just want us to get so restrictive that now we're not really going to be able to do what needs to be done in a declared emergency situation.

If the city is able to operate like normal, that's what

we're doing. No, no, I know. But when you say not for buildings or not for this, I feel like that can start getting really restrictive. Because then, I would never predict there was a fire tornado that took out half the city, whatever.

Well, that's why I didn't want to say it. I'm just trying to forward it to the point of they can borrow only what's needed to get the city operational. And that could include almost anything because I mean, you may not need to have an operating city hall, but I think you need to have an operating garbage collection. Right. Or you're gonna have an awful lot of people at city hall. So that's kind of what I was trying to do here, is just word it that way. I mean, you're on the right track. I mean, feel free to throw in here and see how you guys want to word this.

Well, the only thing I was going to say that I don't know if we want to add it or even if add a bowl. But it would be nice if we could put some language in there that did just touch on the fact that in the effort to do this is to reduce spending because ultimately it would be less expensive to do it this way than it would be to do it other ways. Because it always costs more down the road.

Well, it always does. I'm not sure how you could word that. I mean, it's

And I don't know that we could add that necessarily into the language.

Just so we know, it is true. Like, if you can get something used today, it's going to cost more if you have to wait till you get the money a year or two years

from now.

I would think the logical people in the city would realize that interest rates never go down. Temporarily, they may change. But they're always going up.

Well, even if you go to the voters for approval, the cost of a project that's quoted today is going to be different. Six months, years, it's always going be more.

Cost of labor, cost of materials, everything goes up every year. That I know for a fact. I deal with that daily. But I'm thinking what I have here is if we just add to it to cover only the cost to get the city in working condition with limited what people think could be borrowed. True.

Could we put something like solely to restore the city and the state prior to the declared natural disaster?

I didn't even know that we need

to go that far. I think what you've hit on is to be resuming normal operations. It may not necessarily be to the state that it was before, but if we can at least function

That's the idea, keeping the city functioning. Right. Read Read that again. Yeah.

It was so the first part that you had and then I would say solely to restore the city and the state prior to the declared natural disaster.

How about if we change prior to the national debt to working

conditions? Functioning conditions? Like functioning? And then if you really wanted to add your part, could say functioning conditions to decrease the cost of future spending. Spending?

Putting that in there, cost of future cost, don't think it's going to do a whole lot of good. I don't think anybody's going to look at that part. Well, they've worded this thing so many different ways three or four times. And the closest they ever came was 300 votes, which is why I would not want to put this up at a primary election because people that come out at the primary are generally for specific purpose, whereas the general, they're looking at everything. So if we're going to try and do this, I would like to get it on the November ballot.

And I think, I mean, you hit it pretty good. Instead of just before the disaster, to just working condition would probably mean to a lot of people that it's going to keep the city functioning.

I

do like what Steven said. The only piece is that's a very definable, quantifiable thing versus working conditions is a little more nebulous. To some people that might mean, hey, you cleared the debris, minimal stuff. And to other people that might mean, fixed everything. So I don't know. At least I feel like with Stephen that's a very clear statement of expectation. And I feel like for but maybe that's a better thing to be vague. Don't know.

Okay. Don't know

what you know what I mean? Like, one I feel is a little clearer in general and one is

more vague. Can go along with that too if you want to.

My only thinking is, like you said, it has been denied over and over again. So if we just get a little bit in there, right? And when they see that on the ballot, they'll be like, solely, yeah, that makes sense. I got to go to work after the storm. I would like my roads to be clear, right? So I mean, my thinking obviously, people think differently. I would think at least including that, maybe they would be inclined to that. And then afterwards, we could always change it to include or in addition or you know what I Yeah.

Later on, you could. But keep one thing in mind. Whatever we do here, we'll send to the commission. Commission will then either approve it, disapprove it, or modify it. And

I Well, if we're not lawyers or don't want wise. I feel like the words are the lawyer thing.

Okay, then we'll throw my part in and add yours at the end. Sound reasonable? GREGORY Sure.

Either way, it sounds good.

GREGORY Do we want to try then read it one more time?

Okay. I'll read my part.

Then you do that piece

of the I'll read my part. You add your part.

All right. Here we go. You ready? All right.

In the event of a state or government declared disaster or emergency, the city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds to cover the cost of the declared emergency disaster

without voter approval. Now, you can add your part either before the voter approval or after it however way you want. Yeah. Solely to restore the city into the state prior to the declared natural disaster. Could you read that back? Maybe.

You can repeat it one more time. Okay. One more time. No, no. It's a lot.

In the event of a state or government declared disaster or emergency, the city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds to cover the cost of the declared disaster or emergency without voter approval. And I would think your part would go in to cover right after to cover the cost.

Yeah. To cover the cost solely to restore the city and the state prior to the declared natural disaster. City and the state prior to the declared natural disaster.

To the state. Yeah.

State of it.

Or to the condition.

You want to read back what you got? You can fill in the holes.

Okay. You're up to you. Right after, declared disaster emergency, you have the city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds.

Stuff. That's

okay. Take a word.

We can go line by line.

We're until midnight. That's

no problem. So in the event

In event of a state or government declared disaster or emergency.

Declare emergency. Disaster or recovery.

Disaster or emergency.

Declare disaster or emergency.

Yeah. The city may issue general obligation or revenue bonds. To cover the cost and then you take your part?

It's obligation or revenue.

It's what?

Obligation or revenue.

Obligation or or

revenue? Revenue?

Yeah.

Bonds over?

Solely to restore the city in the state prior to the declared natural disaster.

Without porter approval?

Declared natural disaster. Am I right? Be able to all chant it. We all got it. And

then the last part of that would be without voter approval.

I'll second that. Without voter Voter.

And who motioned and seconded?

Oh, let's see. Okay. Going to

read that back to us before we make

Just a

one last read through, make sure we have it all right.

Oh, it it says, prior to the d, the declared disaster or emergency. And then the ending is without voter approval.

Was it declared natural disaster?

Declared natural. I would say. Declared natural. Well, whatever you guys want.

I just want to be clear what we have.

Is it natural or any disaster?

Is it natural disaster? Would say or natural disaster.

Natural disaster. Yes.

So that you know, Caitlin, assistant city attorney, it is disaster is in the Florida state statute. So it's inclusive of not just natural disasters.

Just disaster?

We have to

Or we have to indicate

natural disasters. Whichever. You guys more know more about that, we do. We'll take your advice.

Disaster in the Florida state statute means any natural, technological, or civil emergency emergency that causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to the result.

I think We feel confident just in saying disaster because we can't predict it would be just a natural disaster. It could

be SPEAKER Yeah, Okay.

Other kinds of disasters. Yeah. I mean, says damage.

Well, at that point in time

Like if we had a big giant attack on our electrical grid, I don't know, we might want to be able to fix that. Okay. Fix that. Alright. So we'll use the word disaster as a Florida statute word. Alright.

Now, do we need to have that read back again?

Yes. Probably one last time because it'll just now be the word disaster. If I don't get it, we'll go line by line to get it perfect. Okay. So we're just going to use disaster. Taking all natural? Yes. Because that's the Florida statute word.

Sounds reasonable to me. Anybody have any thoughts or changes?

I thought it was to restore the city to the state.

Yeah, it's to restore the city to the state. Prior. So to make sure it's you repeat it one more time?

Go ahead. Prior, We'll get there.

Get

there.

Sounds reasonable. I'll make the motion.

I'll second that.

All right. Any comments? Don't we do comments after

that before voting? You can.

Any comments that anybody wants to make prior to voting? All right. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Unanimous. Wow. We have a suggestion to that.

The only thing I would say is send it to the commission.

Yeah. Send it to the commission that this is our suggestion of wording.

And I would say when you send it to the commission that we're looking at putting this on the November ballot, Give them plenty of time because I know they're going to debate it, discuss it, and who knows what else.

So I would recommend making that a separate motion.

Yeah. That's what I would say.

Okay. I'll make that motion now. We're looking at having this put on the November ballot.

November 2026.

2026.

Okay. Just to clarify. Any second?

I'll second that.

All those in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right.

Technically, you should ask for discussion after everybody goes in case they want to discuss the issue. But since it was unanimous, it doesn't matter. All right, one thing done. You're on.

All right, moving on from the inner agendas. Now I have to find it. I have it. Here we go. Alright. So the next discussion and possible action regarding the recommended new verbiage along allowing charter officers to live outside the city. Does anybody have anything they wanna share about that?

Well, I would not be in favor of the, city manager or his assistant manager to live outside the city. But I would have no obligation of clerk, attorneys, things like that because we're limiting ourselves to whoever lives in the city And you may have a lot better candidates for attorneys, clerks, things like that that live around us but not in the city.

Just to add to that, I'm of the same opinion. Our attorneys are opining on the law that is written. They're not making personal guidance. They're not that the law is the law. It's defined. And they're giving us the guidance based on that law. So where they live isn't going to matter. So that's the reason why I'm on board with your position there. The other positions, you're making decisions that are going to impact the lives of the people living within the city limits. In my opinion, they should be in the city so that they have a vested interest in the decisions that they're making as well.

Yeah, would also

That's why I

Okay. I would also add to that the police chief should live in the city too.

I think, you know, thinking like it would be like an all or nothing thing, like, they all should be able to either live in the city or they all should be able to live wherever they want. I personally think that they should live in the city. That's where I kind of stand on the situation.

I mean, I'm kind of in between because if you do work for the city, you obviously should have to be able to feel the effects of what you're doing to the city. But again, just like Susan said, if you are like an attorney, then it doesn't really matter whether you are in city limits or not. But I guess it would be clearer to just say that all positions live in the city or without.

I mean, feel just for my personal opinion, I feel like every job has its obligations. And I do think it does make sense to have an expectation to live in our city. I don't know that there's any particular or specific argument other than the fact that I do think how far outside the city can they live then? Are we talking they can commute from Tampa or Miami? And then if something happens and they're not here, how can they even get back here?

And we might need the lawyer on the grounds, but they live farther out. Where's the limit of how far away they can live?

I think if they do live outside of the city limits, then there should be a radius that we put into it. Because I would like myself, I live on the cusp of Port Charlotte, North Port. I'm still in. Yeah. I think if they are going to live outside of city limits, you could even argue, Welland Park is technically a part of Venice in itself.

Well, it's

North America. Why

not? But it's We're all like, no. It's North America. Really?

I've got a school

in Venice. So like, Welland Park to us is considered that.

It's got a Venice zip code, but it's in the city limits.

Well, would argue that we should at least have a radius if you do live outside of the city of how far.

How about if we would say they have to live within Charlotte or Sarasota County? Well, you would have

to say in a neighboring county, right? Would make sense to me. Mean, where I work, you get a vehicle to take home, you have to live in a neighboring county. So I work in Manatee, so you did Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hardy.

I don't know.

Part of

me is always like, why don't you want to live in Northport? What's that about?

Mean

Northport's great. You should want to live here.

So this is just for the city clerk and the city attorney, correct?

That was the previous

In my opinion. Valid.

So I would say, you know, if we're going to do that, then why wouldn't the city manager be able to live outside, right? So for that, I would like I said earlier, it's either they all can live wherever they want or they all have to live in the city. And it would make sense to me that they all live in the city.

Does anybody know of any of the other charters like Venice's charter or any other cities and how they handle this? I'm just curious.

No. That I don't know. The county says they have to live in the county.

How do we get that information?

So Munico Pro will have everybody's charter if we need to look into the neighboring

Yeah, I would want to know neighboring cities, how they handle it. Because if it's something that everybody else is doing x and we're doing y, then maybe that doesn't make sense.

Could we table this to the next meeting?

I think if we're comfortable with you, we have to motion a tabling. What's the rule about tabling?

No. So it would actually be continued tabling. It's just for if you want to discuss it later in the meeting. But we can continue it to the next meeting. I will just add it to that agenda.

We'd like to continue the next meeting with research about other Sarasota cities or even outside of Sarasota, local cities. I

I would say we can include in verbiage like neighboring cities, right? See what they do, what their practice is.

I think it would just be edification, good information for us to understand what the standard is and what other people are doing and if we're outside what the norm is.

Did you want to take, like, assign that task to a board member? Or were you all just gonna kinda look at it?

How do we wanna do it?

Well, we can't have staff do it.

No, no. I meant

Somebody can can People would have to look at it on their own. I guess it would be Do something

we want an individual to come back and report on what they find? Or are we all going to want to do How would we like to handle that group of people?

I think that my thinking is, I think individually, we should collect the data and then talk about it amongst ourselves maybe before we involve the commission? You think maybe we

Yeah, should talk about we're going to bring it back here.

Yeah, it'll come back to

the next It's just a question of, does somebody want to be like, I'll do the legwork and bring back a report and then we can discuss it? Or do we all want to go off and research it and bring back what we find as a group individuals in the group? You

said the charters are available somewhere? Municode. So if you go on Municode or even if you Google the different one: jurisdictions, everybody's city code is going to be online.

SPEAKER Yeah.

Okay. And there's certain search engines that you can also like, we review ordinances, if I'm looking at the verbiage that we were just talking about, when I'm looking for certain verbiage that others use, it's a good tool. Should all be public, right? It's all public, yes. Okay.

Could you repeat what that would be again?

Yeah. Muni code, MUI let me pull it

up.

I think it's M U N I C O D.

MUNICODE, right?

MUNICODE Library, yep. So if you look on there, you can search any jurisdiction.

Or they probably have it on their website too. Somewhere it's out there for sure.

It's always probably just in different spots where

we can Right, right.

So does everybody want to take a look and see what you find to bring some examples back, looking at neighboring whether it's in Sarasota County, neighboring counties, and see what they have in there about residency for their city attorney and their

City clerk and city manager?

You'd be looking at the charter offices, wherever they say for the charter offices. It would be

the city clerk and the city attorney, right?

Right. It would what

it was previously put on the ballot about. So we've also said we have an interest in the city manager as well, right? Yeah.

I mean, if you want to bring back any other information. Yeah? Do we all want to tackle that?

Yeah.

Okay. Great, you all have homework assignments. Homework for next time.

And I'll add that to the next meeting. Or I'll continue it to the next meeting.

Great,

Thank you. All right. Then if we're moving on, that's we'll push to the next meeting. Our next one is discussion and possible action regarding the Charter Review Advisory Board 2025 annual report.

So in the backup materials and I printed them out here, I just kind of drafted a report. It just kind of goes over what we accomplished this year, which now that we meet quarterly, we don't have a whole lot. But we did Sunshine Mall training, chair and vice chair, review the city charter to see any changes, and then the two discussions today. And then our goals for next year right now are Sunshine Training chair, vice chair, review city charter, and then whatever else we may have. But that's the draft report or the draft annual report. So we just either need modifications to it and an approval or however you guys want to do it. If you guys want to do it in a different format, we could do that.

To accept that format.

Second.

Any discussion? Sir? No. Anyone else have any discussion? No. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed?

No sense making a mouth All out of a

right. So then we will move on to updates.

Okay. So I just wanted to give you guys an update because recently, the city commission had an agenda item on their agenda titled Tasking the Charter Review Advisory Board to review and provide recommendations regarding potential revisions to Section 5.02 of the city charter through a referendum question to incorporate language regarding commissioner communication with city staff. And, if you see in the minutes that are attached, or if you watch the meeting or if you saw the meeting, the results were they had a discussion and they voted three to two to not send it to the court for review. So just kind of wanted to give you guys an update on that and let you know where it stood.

Well, I was the one that requested this, but I did it before the big argument blew up. So I'll mention my comment and maybe we wanna think about this and add it to the next meeting also. But the only thing, if you look at section 5.2, does everybody have

a copy of the charter?

I have it. Maybe not. Yes.

Yeah. We have some over here too if

you need one. Yeah, the whole charter. Under section 5.2, I was only thinking of making two changes. One, as you go through section a, it says commissioners shall deal with administrative services to the city manager. I was gonna change that word to must so there's no ambiguity as to whether they should or shouldn't.

And, as you go further on, it says neither city commission nor commissioners shall give orders to make requests of any city manager's subordinates. I was going to say there, will not be permitted to make requests of any city manager subordinates. It really And the reason I'm saying it this way and the way it work it, having been a manager, somebody comes in and says, I want you to do this and your boss has already given you a a task. You don't get the task done. Well, person's in trouble with the boss and the boss could be in trouble with his boss because he didn't get it to him.

And that's why I don't think they should be doing this. And the other thing is, if a commissioner walks into a department and then starts talking to somebody and says, Hey, can you do this for me? There's no guarantee they're talking to subject matter expert on that and the information they get may not be the latest available. So they're getting the erroneous information.

So just to make sure we stay on, proper procedure, is this something we would like to discuss at the next meeting?

That's why I'm throwing this out now for people to think I

would actually like to discuss it now.

Go right ahead.

Because it's not

on the agenda, we can't discuss it now. We can put it on the next agenda.

Oh, the recommendations?

Yes, for the discussion. So if we'd like to, we can. But we can't have the discussion now.

You can't put a motion on it.

Right. So this was just an update to let you know where city commission stands.

And I appreciate your update to explain what led to that. But if we'd like to discuss it as the charter review, it'd have to go to the next agenda. Correct? I'm correct. Correct. Okay. So Go ahead.

I was just the update was that they voted not to make a change to the language, Correct?

So no. Not to send it to us.

Correct. The agenda item was to whether or not to send it to this board, the Charter Review Advisory Board, to discuss. And they voted to not opt to do that, to send it here for review.

The good news we can

We can still take that.

Send it to our next agenda for discussion. We're always allowed to

do that.

Yes, we can discuss whatever we want. It's just got to be on the agenda.

Got to be on Yeah. The if you'd like to do that, do we have to actually motion it?

You could just bring it up for future agenda items.

Okay. So the next piece of this is future agenda items. So would everybody like that to be moved to a future agenda item?

Beforehand, no. So I looked at other cities, and I just wanted to tell you what I've collected from that. But we can't disclose it.

Not till

next time.

Bring it with me next time.

I'm doing this, so I'm trying

to has to the rule is just for clarity of the group. The rule is it has to be on the agenda for discussion. That just means usually we have to say, for the next time, we'll talk about this. So please, yes, bring your research with you for the next, and we'll put this on to be discussed at the next meeting if everyone's in agreement for that. Great. Do we have that

for future?

And I'm doing the sunshine law training, so you'll learn all

of that. I'm always like, we can't talk about it.

Agenda items. Yeah.

And so we're on future agendas right now? Yes. Okay.

Yes. Yes. Sorry. We went through your update into future agenda.

I just want to be clear.

Yeah. Okay. I said that at one point, but it wasn't as clear. But so this with that, we've decided to add the update information to our future agenda discussion topic.

Okay. And you'd like basically the topic that they have potentially revising Section 5.02 of the city charter? Correct.

Okay. Yes.

Just to be sure.

Yeah. Can we leave it open enough to just to incorporate anything else that we may learn from?

Yes, of course. Steven? Yes. Yeah. That'll be full agenda. Much like we did on previous things, we will be able to discuss all the aspects. We just don't want to talk about it now.

When is our next scheduled meeting? Let's see here.

We'll find that out real quick.

March 18. 03/18/2026 at 6PM.

I think we'll have our sunshine training. I

can't remember.

Yeah. We generally will also include our sunshine training.

And our chair and vice chair and all that stuff too.

And I did it. I it's new. So you're pretty excited.

Oh, I was excited.

Michael Golan in my So

it might be a little bit of a longer meeting than we might normally have Because we have a couple discussion items in our Sunshine Tree.

So the meetings commission directed are supposed to be limited to about an hour and a half. Yeah. So depending on what the agenda may look like, I may push one item to the next meeting. I I hate to do that because it's quarterly. So we'll see.

I think it'll be okay because generally we're an hour. I'm thinking this one will be the full hour and a half.

Right. And I can always put it on and then if we get close, we'll just have to continue it. Yep.

Okay. I

can table it. I mean, it's not a crisis for any of this stuff.

Is there any other future agenda item? Might not be the next meeting, but could be in a future meeting that anyone would like to add. Now is the time in the meeting where we can do that.

At this point, I can't think of anything.

Okay.

But you do have the option, if we want to add something to the agenda, to contact the clerk's office and say, could you add this to our

agenda? Correct. And we look like our next one has quite a bit to discuss, as well as our Sunshine Law. So it may even move to our next quarterly meeting. So we would have time at next meeting or in time between is fine as well. All right. Any public comments?

There is none.

Oh, all right. Well, then I call for adjournment at 06:58PM. Do I have to say the date?

No. You're good.

Okay. Good. We're adjourned.

Sweet. Thank