City Commission Regular Meeting - workshop

right now we're getting a lot of new younger guys coming in that are excited about learning a new career or just coming in and you know getting their hands dirty through being a mechanic i had a lot of nut and bolt science so this really came naturally right naturally into it it's the kind of job where you're never doing the same thing twice But it's been a great place to work. I've been here seven years, learned a lot. I'm still learning every day. One of the greatest thing about the job is it's a lot of different career paths in the same job. We're never doing the same thing. A lot of it's plumbing, construction, grabbing a shovel, getting on a piece of equipment. Day to day, it's always different. Always keeps you busy, keeps you thinking. Yes.

Thank you for joining me today on the job here with our Utilities Department at Lift Station 113. Now, I want to say two things we learned today. One, water is dry going in and wet going out. We also want to highlight the 2000 plus hours it takes to get certified for our technicians in their profession. Most of them are done proactively and not state mandated. I will see you next time on the job.

Thank you.

Today is Monday, July 6, 2026. It's 10 a.m. We're in the City Chambers and I call the City Commission Workshop meeting to order. Commissioners present are Commissioner Duvall, Commissioner Stokes, Mayor Emmerich, Vice Mayor Langdon, and Commissioner Petro. There is a quorum present for this meeting. Also present are City Manager Fletcher, City Attorney Fuino, Deputy City Clerk Powell, Board Specialist Linder. We have Captain Fussell and Chief Titus in the back. I am requesting that all commissioners, public participants, and staff maintain order in decorum throughout this meeting. City Commission Policy 2021-03 states that the attendees shall refrain from engaging in personal attacks and boisterous, immaterial, inflammatory, obscene, profane, or disorderly conduct. Additionally, meeting attendees must refrain from obscene, profane, or disorderly conduct, including hand clapping, yelling, and similar demonstrations, all of which disturbs the peace and good order of this meeting. Thank you. I would like to call on Mr. Nico Ferrino if he would lead us in the pledge, please. Thank you, sir. City Clerk, public comment, sir.

We'll start with, we have one e-comment, John Krebsbach. One of the primary reasons to approve the new ULDC in 2024 was to be able to generate commercial tax revenues from the approximate 9,000 vacant lots in eastern Northport, now known as AC6 and AC10. Do any of the City Commissioners know how many construction projects have been submitted and approved by the Northport Development Review Committee? As of June 2026, the amazing total is zero. No wonder why numerous general contractors have told me they will not construct anything in Northport. Too many unnecessary regulations, red tape and costs that do not add value to a construction project. Here's a novel concept. If you want to be business friendly, create a business advisory group. You already have an environmental advisory board, art advisory board, historic and culture advisory board, and many other boards staffed with activists that ultimately increase building costs and delay construction schedules. Do not tell the citizens that you want to have affordable housing and then put as many financial roadblocks up to eliminate even the prospect of affordable housing. And one in person from Baldy Oleander.

Good morning. I am Wally Hollander and I come here in peace and I am not a criminal. Don't treat me as one. I have a dignity, please respect it. Emmerich, I am instructing you to remove policeman off my back. Tell him to sit over here. This is 24th time I am instructing you, Emmerich, to do it. How many times you violate Florida Constitution and you owe? 24 times. Keep in mind, since Fletcher arrived here, budget is up 85%, while the population only 17%. Because of that, you are creating the poverty in North Port. of inflation. Split inflation cost in half. 1% will pay half and 99% pay another half. We the people in North Pole do not create inflation. On trees, charge lot owner who develop property for house, et cetera, fee for each tree he uproots or cuts. Second one, offer a lot owner free taxation and promise that he will not develop property for, let's say, 20 years or something. Again, under fascism, how to look at on small scale? Number one, all in in the city. Number two, nothing from city. Nothing against the city. That's the Mussolini definition. Fiscal year 27 budget spending must be at par with population growth. What I observe here is the cult of personality. Manager definition is managing for less. Anyone can manage with more. Check and balances is the only way. Manager propose, people consent or not. I don't consent to your 2027 budget proposition. Take it with grain of salt what I'm saying and verify. I read that the unemployment 2025 in Florida is about 4.7% up from 2024 when it was 3.9. And 2026 is 5.8, 2% up. That is all Mr. Ram. Thank you.

Moving on to presentations. Item A, 26-0921, presentation by the Economic Development Division, providing a quarterly economic development update to the City Commission. City Manager, this is your item, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to turn it over to Michael Muirman, our Economic Development Manager for the...

Thank you, sir. Good morning. Morning. It is indeed a pleasure. to be here this morning, Michael Meerman, Economic Development. This is our quarterly update where we will bring you as current as possible to the activities over the last 90 days since I last appeared here before this group. And of course, we'll have the opportunity to answer any questions that you might have. I wanted to start by letting you know that our division focus has not changed. We have three primary areas of focus that include business retention, business attraction, and then workforce development. And in each of these areas, which I will elaborate on in a few minutes, in each of these areas, I have to say to you that I am well supported by a fantastic staff, and I don't want you to ever think that it's just me and me alone. I seem to get a lot of the public praise and criticism when they are issued, but I want you to know that we are well supported by a fantastic team of four, and we work together to accomplish these three primary objectives. The key themes that I wanted to address today are our business metrics, our economic development in action, what we're doing around advanced manufacturing and our development pipeline. The pipeline was something that was addressed by the Commission to me last time I appeared and you had asked if we could provide some sort of a funnel mechanism to give you better insight and we're going to do that today. Let's start with some metrics about what's going on in our city since we last talked. And the news is fantastic with respect to the ongoing growth of our community in the business sector. This metric that's on the screen right now shows that we had 186 new businesses, up 7% since 2005. Those are year-to-date businesses, and that metric is true for the timeframe in which this was developed, but I've got some updated metrics for you that include the month of June now as well, and that number of 186 has risen to 218. 218 new businesses here in our community in this fiscal year. That's just outrageous growth that most communities would die to see or be able to publish and talk about. Interesting component around that 218 number is that we're seeing more commercial enterprises enter into our community as well. And so you'll see here that we had that growth rate of 17% year-over-year commercial businesses. And just for edification, when we talk about commercial businesses, we're also talking about the fact that a large number of our businesses are home-based businesses. Right, and so we distinguish between the home-based and the commercial, not to suggest that home-based businesses are businesses that are part of the old gig economy. We're talking about very structured, multi-million dollar companies being run out of residences here in our community. But we're seeing new brick and mortar commercial entities as well, and we're seeing a growth in that area. Just since This metric that's published on this slide, we have seen an additional 32 businesses, seven of which are commercial, in the month of June. 4% of those businesses are in our targeted growth area, specifically in this case, we're seeing that growth in healthcare. No surprise, but nonetheless, that's where it's coming from. We measure a great deal of what we do based upon the business tax that we collect here in the city, infamously known as the BTR. The BTR season has started. While people can renew and apply throughout the course of the year, the official renewal season begins today, July 1 actually, and continues on through September 30. I mention that because we have made a number of significant technical improvements to the Acela operating system that we all use. to make it simpler for our businesses to renew their BTRs or new businesses to register with the city. And so compliments to the economic development team and the IT team for implementing these new and simpler to use tools in Acela to accommodate our citizens and our businesses. Business tax receipts function as an economic development tool. It gives us a record of what's going on in our community and by way of record keeping an example of that would be the job growth grant money that we received a few years ago. that allows us to complete and finish out and add to the infrastructure in the Toledo Blade I-75 area. Those job growth dollars that came from the state supported that project, and that is enabling development along that corridor because of that job growth money. But through our BTR process, we're able to help track businesses in that region and report the growth of new jobs to the state where we are required to show them that their money was well spent here in Northport. Additionally, you'll see here in the text, we make mention of the fact that we have recently partnered with the North Port Area Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Commerce's foundation itself, score and put out the new version of the North Port Next Business Academy, which kicks off this month. It's free to those who have applied and been accepted into the program. We've capped it out at 35 businesses. They'll be participating in an eight-month course program. that results in a certificate being presented by score, a status level that we'll recognize here at the city, and this is going to be our first graduating class. What are some of the strategic economic development activities that have taken place? Well, our inbound activity is very strong. When we say inbound, it's bringing people to the city or at least having conversations where they might entertain coming to the city. It could be a Zoom call. It could be in person. It could be a telephone call. It could be where I am out as by way of the first bullet point here at the Maintenance and Repair Operations of America trade show. And while there, I was meeting airline and aviation, aerospace executives from all over the world. And we talk about that inbound mission, we talk about why Northport is properly poised to accept those type of businesses. We participated in the ICSC, the International Council of Shopping Centers trade show, the world's largest collection of folks engaged in the retail and the real estate investment marketplace in Las Vegas, 25,000 people there for a number of days. We had an exhibition, we were an exhibitor, we had a booth there, and much of the inbound activity that we have seen over the last two years here in our city comes from trade shows like the two I just mentioned. We meet people there, we get together, and we talk about the opportunities that exist here in our city. I'm real excited to share with you about the third bullet point here. We're calling it the North Port Q&R Council. Q&R standing for quantum and R standing for resilience. The Quantum and Resilience Council is hosting its first meeting next week here in the city. We have 40 regional businesses, manufacturers, tech companies, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and educators coming together to talk about the quantum and resilient manufacturing environment that we're establishing here in our community and how we can grow that along the entire Gulf Coast with North Port being its hub. And that happens next Tuesday here in our city. From a workforce perspective and the initiatives that we're following through on, we hosted the city's first and the region's only healthcare exposition. With the growth in healthcare here in the community, it came to our attention by the healthcare providers where we have our healthcare council whom we meet with and they made it very clear to us it's not just about the nursing trade. It's not just about physicians. It's about all of the professions surrounding healthcare and they suggested let's have an exposition where we educate not only citizens and job seekers but the members of the healthcare trade who are looking to change out the role that they currently have in the industry. They may go from a bedside caretaker to a sterilization technician, just by way of example. And so at the healthcare exposition, we had more than 60 vendors participate, showing the healthcare professionals and career seekers the options that exist in the healthcare industry. Those show and tell booths and exhibits ranged from dummies to real live demonstrations, and it was extremely well received. We are working on our next iteration of that exposition. I've already mentioned to you the North Port Next Academy. And lastly, here under initiatives, I want to let you know that we're continuing our efforts to attract and to solidify the relationships we have with folks in both the semiconductor and healthcare workforce industries. By bringing members of those industries together here in City Hall and as far away as the West Coast, who participate on Zoom calls, who are providing us with guidance and counsel on how best to grow our workforce, to educate our workforce in these silos. Our team continues to become well engrossed in what we do in economic development and in order to do that, We have continuing education, and by way of example, I'm giving you one of those examples, the Florida Economic Development Council had their IGNITE conference back in May, and we did have staff members attending at that event. Commissioner Langdon, thank you for asking us to create some sort of a funnel that we could talk about economic development in a bit more detail than what we have in the past. This slide is our first attempt at getting us closer to those discussions, and we will continue to refine this and get you more information. But if you look at the top right side, you'll see that year to date, we have generated well over 800 raw leads. Raw, and I mean raw. People wanting to know things about North Port or us reaching out to people wanting to share things about our community. And of those 823 raw leads, take a look, we got down to 43 qualified opportunities. If any of you were ever in sales, you know that you have to generate a lot of activity to get down to that 1% or 2% of people that will actually bite or take an interest. And this is a terrific example of the amount of activity we have to generate just to get to 43 qualified opportunities. I must add that those 43 qualified opportunities don't necessarily all pan out. I must add that those 43 qualified opportunities could have the long game, and we're gonna talk more about the long game in a couple minutes, that could be well beyond any of us getting to see those projects come to fruition. But with those 43 qualified opportunities, we thought we would break it down a little bit more and help you understand what it is we're doing with them. And so that next line across the middle of the page represents what it is we're actually doing in economic development. And a heavy portion of what we're working on is around site selection and land acquisition. Commissioner Stokes once asked me here in chambers, This is great, but the city doesn't own land. So what is it you're doing? Who are you talking to? And he was absolutely spot on in his assessment because we can invite any kind of a retailer, any kind of a business we want, but if we don't have a place where they can go, where they can build, where they can lease, that doesn't do us any good. And of course, we have been actively engaged in the site selection and land acquisition process with many individuals, site selectors specifically, real estate investment people specifically, and a host of other types of organizations that do these type of things. We show them properties. We tell them about owners who have parcels that they'd like to sell. We tell them about owners who aren't interested in selling. I can think of a property along 41 over there in the retail district not far from Sumter that's been sitting there for a few years that a lot of people would like to buy. and the seller, or rather the owner, is not interested in selling. And so sometimes that's where we end up. A property that seems prime for development, that seems appropriate for a certain type of a development, and yet the owner isn't interested in selling. Sometimes property owners are interested in specific applications for their property, and until they find that right development firm, they're not gonna sell it. And it's not about money either. Money goes a long way, but a lot of times you'll be surprised to find out that money is not the driving force behind land acquisition all the time. We're engaged in pre-development activity. We have folks that come to us in economic development and they need to have a little help how to get through City Hall. How do we get our project started? How do we know if what we want to do is going to fit the zoning? How do we know if there aren't going to be these problems or those problems? And so we actively engage, and we're not zoning specialists, but fortunately I work in a department where I have peers that can answer those questions. And it's not just about zoning. It could be about building, could be about permitting, could be a hundred other things, could be a completely different department here at City Hall. But we aid all of these folks in that pre-development process. we help get them through, we help get them to the table, which then results in what we're noting here as development filings, where we get these development applications that come in, formal applications being reviewed by our planning folks, And then there are other groups that have been through that entire process already. They own the land. They've decided what they're going to do with it. They understand our zoning. They understand our ULDC. And now they're down to brass tacks. Who's going to occupy the space once we build it? Who are the tenants going to be? Where can we find tenants that want the kind of space that we want to build? Where are the tenants that the citizens of our community would like to see come to this town? And so we aid in that process of tenant sourcing. It might be retail, it might be business, or anything in between. And more recently, I can tell you I've been engaged, much to my surprise, into what I would describe as joint venture activity, where we have people who own property. And now we've got somebody else interested in that. And it's about bringing them together, to have them talk with one another, to see if they can do something together with that parcel, with that building. And so I'm surprised how much joint venture activity we're helping bring to the community. Now, in those 43 qualified opportunities, that bottom row gives you a sense of where that activity level has been. We're saying that 14 of them were retail oriented. We don't really chase much after the retail community. We do some. in certain instances for certain things, but a lot of retail growth is organic, it's market driven, it's gonna happen whether we do anything or not. And so some of that stuff we don't engage too heavily in. I would give you an example of retail that's also the last circular item you see in that line called lifestyle, that we chase. Things that support what our citizens are looking for around entertainment, recreation, hospitality, wellness, That's a type of retail that we're actively engaged in. And I think probably the best example for our community is the fact that we continue to pursue childcare and early learning development opportunities here in our city. We put that in that lifestyle category. Some of you may see that as retail. It's maybe an offshoot of. Our mixed use activity, there are plenty of folks out there that want to do mixed use development around the nation. They look at Northport and they say, yeah, that's a great place to do mixed use. Well, the reality is mixed use continues to be a strong play, but it has become softer. The Federal Reserve did not move the prime rate most recently. They're already signaling that it's gonna remain stable for the coming year. We'll have to wait and see what happens. And that drives a lot of the decision making around mixed use development activity. We see rent rates softening. We continue to see a strong level of housing inventory. And of course, interestingly enough, when it comes to housing issues, the housing marketplace by itself is not a strong indicator for our community. Yes, there are new housing starts planned, but it doesn't necessarily provide us with a benchmark for understanding the commercial marketplace, and I must tell you that we don't chase after the single family development in the economic development division. We do engage in the integrated mixed-use residential, but not in the single-family area. Healthcare providers and services related to all the growth we've seen here. A couple weeks ago, we had the groundbreaking for the new Veteran Administration Clinic out front. We continue to receive queries on a daily basis about how they can put up active level of support for the new hospital going up at the corner of Sumter and I-75, whether it be diagnostic centers, physician housing, all sorts of related medical components coming our way. And lastly, along that line, I wanted to share with you that I have active engagements on four different technology projects that are very exciting. As I've said, we're pursuing aerospace, aviation, semiconductor-related industries to all of that, and the tech community is extremely interested in us. The meeting next week on Tuesday with our Q&R Council is a strong example of that. By the way, members of that Q&R Council include globally-based firms that are interested in Northport. Be happy to answer any questions you have with regard to this presentation. And then afterwards, I have one more thing I'd like to share.

I just wanted to thank you, sir, for the numbers. I really do appreciate seeing how much activity it takes to identify such a relatively small pool of qualified prospects. And I really love the documentation of how many active conversations you have going on in sort of different business arenas. So thank you for that. I do appreciate it.

You're welcome. Yes, very good presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Very in-depth and very knowledgeable. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? All right, back at you.

All right, well, you've heard me speak about the long game that economic development is. There are projects that you start, and as I said, I know there are projects I'm working on now that I'll never get to see come to fruition during my tenure here at the city. And that really is and truly is about the long game. And then there are those intermediate projects. games that all of a sudden happen, and I'm here to talk to you about one of those today. When I came to the city, one of the very first opportunities that I had was to meet an Orlando-based development group, investment group. I can remember chatting and getting interested in what they were thinking about and shortly thereafter, there were tours of the city and showing real estate and parcels of land. Let me fast forward 18 months. In the last 18 months, this investment group has bought key parcels here in our city. Both properties on the north side of I-75 and Sumter. each running approximately 30 acres in size, northwest quadrant and northeast quadrant of Sumter and I-75, totaling approximately 60 acres. The northwest quadrant of I-75 and Toledo Blade, roughly 15 acres, plus or minus. And more recently, with your approval, a two plus acre parcel along Toledo Blade Commerce Parkway. Those same developers have been active and working aggressively on developing those properties. And I'm here today to bring an announcement to the city that they not only have submitted plans for the northwest corner of I-75 and Sumter Boulevard, but they have a list of prospective tenants that is a who's who list of organizations that our community would love to have here. And in that plan, there is an out parcel component in excess of 50,000 square feet where they have secured the commitment by Detweiler's Farm Market to move to our community. This has been a long time coming, right? When I go around and talk about what do our citizens want, and I meet with the citizens, and I get to do that regularly, by the way, Detweiler's is always at the top of the list. Bring us Detweiler's, get us Detweiler's. Along with a notable national steakhouse, which I can't do anything about that one. I promise that's not going to happen. But Detweiler's has been at the top of the list for a long, long time. We're not scratching it off the list yet because we're waiting for the store to open, but I don't want to say a whole lot more and steal their thunder today. We're very lucky to have with us the development team of Tom Harvey and Ty Shin, who represent an investment group who bought those properties and had been instrumental in helping bring Detweiler's here. And we also have two executives from the Detweiler team with us today. And I'm going to ask Mr. Shin to come on up and say a few words.

Thank you, Mr. Meerman. Mr. Mayor, I apologize for the outburst of applause. I know that's in violation directly.

Once in a while.

Once in a while. Thank you very much. So you're going to need a lot more room than 107 square miles for the economic boom that that gentleman, Mr. Meerman, is going to bring to your city. And he gave a wonderful presentation, but I want to tell you that, This is how it really works. So in 2023, I was at ICSC in Vegas, the trade show for retail developers and tenants. I passed by a booth hosted by the City of Northport. Ms. Ray was in attendance there. I said, where's Northport? It's in Florida, I've never heard of it. She then proceeded to educate me on all the benefits and the growth and dynamic growth of North Port. And she said, clearly, I still remember, there's no retail, there's no dining, we need a bunch of services. And I said, that can't be, someone has to be here already. Right after the show, I went down. I paid a visit. I believe I met with you, Mr. Fletcher. Ms. Ray took us on a tour. We visited some sites. We did the homework on the demographics. We were probably one of the 823 raw leads, right, that Mr. Meerman spoke about. And ultimately, the numbers did show a huge population boom, almost 100,000 residents two or three years ago. Now you're probably over 100,000. just a desert from I-75 along that I-75 quarter, a retail desert, no grocery stores, no restaurants, no shopping existed. So we said, oh, there is an opportunity here. It is real. And that's how I think you get from economic development to actually getting businesses on the tax roll, getting the tax revenue, employing citizens of North Port. So this is a great success story of how Economic Development Commission's efforts lead to a Detweiler's coming into your community. So I think all the credit, I think would have to go to economic development team that you have here. So since we've, you know, Tom and I have visited Northport numerous times, and I think I know a fair bit about Northport, and I certainly, we certainly appreciate that you all consider I-75 and Sumter to be the gateway into your city, right? And so taking that into consideration and understanding the importance of that geographic location, we're happy to announce that we're planning a family friendly dining and shopping experience on the northwest corner of I-75 and Sumter Boulevard for all the citizens and residents of Northport to enjoy. I think that our center is going to compliment Sarasota Memorial Hospital's economic impact in Northport by creating hundreds of jobs and by helping to keep North Port dollars in North Port so the citizens aren't leaving North Port to spend their money for family entertainment, for dining experiences. They're going to stay here and it's going to help the economy here in the city grow. In addition, as the gentleman earlier mentioned, our center is gonna generate a lot of tax revenue to fund programs and services for North Port residents, whether it's fire, police, and certainly, you know, as a disabled veteran, I'm very happy to drive by this morning and see the new VAC box, the clinic that's being built. So I think that's a great thing for veterans here. um finally i'm proud to announce that uh the anchor for our center is a grocer with what i can only call a cult following among west close floridians and so without further ado uh the gentleman you really want to hear from today mr sam detweiler

Well, it's an honor to be here. And we're, as the Detweiler family, extremely excited about this. And thank you, Ty and Michael Saunders, for making this a reality. I will say when you talk about North Port money going elsewhere, we are offender of that, so I apologize. North Port has been the number one most requested site for Dattweilers to come for probably seven to ten years. It's been since we started. Every time we post something, we have quite a bit caught following a social media. And, you know, if we say, hey, we're expanding to Palmetto, we're expanding to West Bradenton or whatever those locations were. We have about a thousand people. Northport, Northport, you forget about us. You forgot about us. And we're like, we promise we haven't forgot about you. But. We needed the right location, and we weren't able to find that up until now. So we are stoked. To be able to come here, and I would just say 1 of the things that's. That's great about it that while there's here is not only will it provide. Lots of jobs. We employ this site, which is gonna be our largest site today, which is even more exciting, about 125 to 150 new jobs. So, and yes, I'm the president of the company and a family member of the Detweilers, but I think we pay really well for our jobs. Currently, we bonus employees four times a year. So our goal as a family is not to come to a community and make it, see what we can take, but it's to see what we can give. And not from a, you know, look what we're doing type of a thing, but just normal, simple. As my dad says, we should be proud to be humble. Yeah. Our mission at Dattweiler's is to glorify the Lord in all that we do and to give customers the world's best farm market experience. And we hope that we can do this for this community. So that's all I have. Ty, anything else I need to add? Pardon me? That's a good question. Lord willing, we are hoping to be open in 28.

so we're we're really excited about that so i think that's all i have thank you definitely exciting news thank you very much for coming we we appreciate it we really do as a community anybody else up here anything yeah go ahead it's in there go ahead

I've been waiting for this for a very long time. And while I would love to think that your being here is the result of every time I'm in your store in Venice and I ask to see the store manager, and I ask him, when Northport? I'd love to think that was the reason why. But I know I really owe the debt of gratitude to the investors and the developers and DebtWiler's leadership. I understand that sort of building new is not your business model. So I appreciate you keeping an open mind and working with the city and working with our investors and developers to make this happen. I have no doubt. I have been to every store in Sarasota County, and I'm sure the Northport store is going to be by far and away my favorite. So I could just do it while I'm still on the commission. I roll off. in November of 28, and I'd love to be to your groundbreaking and to your ribbon cutting. So just factor that into your planning. And thank you so much for being here today. I think I speak for all of us. We are delighted to have you here. Thank you. Thank you.

Can I add one more thing? Can you go to the microphone, please? So I missed thanking the Economic Development because they were the best hound dogs south of the Mississippi and continue to hound us over and over again to bring a site here. So great presentation and You know, I'm proud to be a part of a great country called the USA. We just celebrate our 250 years, and it's people like this and like you that make communities work. So I'm honored to be just a simple citizen here, but I will say they hounded us over and over again. We need to get a site. We need to get a site. And we were like, we started on a little temp beside a road. We don't have big pockets. We sell our food maybe too cheap. I don't know. But it was because of that that made a big difference. And I will say our family is expecting this location to be, I said the largest, but it will be the biggest. I want to go out on a limb. I think it will be the largest, most successful grand opening the state of Florida has ever seen. So our Palmetto location when we opened, which everyone told us don't go to Palmetto because it was a bad location. We did because we're not the smartest people. But when we opened Palmetto, we've seen 1,600 people waiting in line to shop our store. There was people that showed up the night before to start camping out. to shop our brand new store and it really humbled our family but our family is totally expecting northport to smash that record so that's all i have thank you

One, I wanted to echo the Vice Mayor's feelings. We are delighted to have you join our community here. But I wanted to take the opportunity to really make a special note to really thank all the people who worked hard behind the scenes to make this happen and really to help this city move in the right direction from an economic development standpoint. From our city manager on down to our economic development people, our building and planning folks, to everyone in this city who's worked so hard. As a bedroom, residential bedroom community for so long, This city's future is dependent on a balanced commercial and residential tax base, especially with the challenges we're gonna be facing in the near future, I would think. So kudos to you all because the general public, I don't think fully appreciates the amount of work and the amount of upfront and behind the scenes that go on in order to nurture this kind of development. Keep up the good work. We love all the work you do. We support it. I support it. I believe everyone sitting on this dais supports it and hopefully our entire community support it. So thank you everybody for making this such a special day for the City of Northport. Commissioner Petro.

Thank you Mayor. I just want to express my gratitude to all of the efforts you are putting this component for the people, especially the Detweiler's family and for the investors and developers. And I apologize for my voice. Had a lot of celebration of 250 years of our nation. And this is a good coincidence that we are here presenting this news to the city and Somehow this news got out before people were aware of this because we were getting emails saying, let's open up the Deadwilders store. And here we are. And I really appreciate all the efforts the city did and all of you. Thank you.

Commissioner Duvall.

Thank you, Mayor. On behalf of the residents who elected me, I want to say thank you. It's a great day in Northport.

Once again, Vice Mayor.

I'm sorry, Mayor Fennell. I neglected to say when I was giving credit, I did not give credit to our economic development team and the rest of staff that I know firsthand worked so hard to keep this conversation alive. when things looked particularly bleak. So I really appreciate that. And this is indeed a wonderful day. I think next to Sarasota Memorial, finally breaking ground here, this is probably the most exciting announcement we've had in my 12 years of living here in the city. So thank you everybody again.

All right, city clerk, public comment? No public comment, Mr. Mayor. All right. It's 1046. I adjourn this meeting.