Community Economic Development Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good morning, everybody. We're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. This is the meeting for the Community Economic Development Advisory Board for the City of Norwood. It is Tuesday, January 20 at 10:30. And we will do a roll call starting at the evening. Tim Drum. Mike Indy.

Jacqueline Waterhouse.

Michael Mehrman.

Sean Burrows. Terry Chaney.

Lacey Holland.

Julie Lacour. James Jerome. Hershel Eisenhower.

John Perkins. Sharon Matthews.

Kevin Lopez.

All right. And if we can join them in the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. Do we have any public comments?

There is no.

No public comments? Thank you. And if we can have an approval of the minutes from the 12/16/2025 meeting.

Make a motion to approve them.

I second it. So we have an approval from or a motion from Michael Edney and a second from James Jerome. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Excellent. Thank you. Okay. And we'll go to 26 Dash 0224 presentation of Sunshine Law presented by the city attorney office of the city attorney.

Can you

hand me that microphone? Good

morning, everybody. I'm Caitlin Coughlin. I am an assistant city attorney here at the City of Northport, your favorite time of the year. I'm sure Tim will teach it now because this is the second time. And I have your answer for your reply also. I will be brief. This is a high level overview. Stop me if you have any questions. If you have any follow-up questions or you want a couple of the AGO opinions, I did add more in here. So I know it interests a lot of people with the AGO opinions, so just let me know.

Before we get started, I'm gonna read an introduction on government in the sunshine. I think it gives the back history of why this is so important in Florida. This comes straight out of the sunshine manual 2025, which if you're not familiar with it, it has a lot of really good information. You could literally Google Sunshine Manual 2025, and hopefully, we'll get a 2026 coming up. The attorney general does write that with, obviously, the help of public records experts. And here's kind of what the introduction says. A public policy of open government. Our system of open government is a valued and intrinsic part of the heritage of our state. Each day, Floridians use these laws to inform themselves as citizens, to attend government meetings, and to review government records. As a result of these efforts, government leaders can be held accountable for their actions.

The founding fathers of our country recognized this as fundamental truth during our nation's infancy and remains just as valid today. As James Madison said, knowledge will forever govern in ignorance. And the people who mean to be on their own governors must arm themselves with the power to which knowledge gives. Florida is nationally recognized for its strong support for government in the sunshine, and this commitment is reflected in our statutes constitution. As Attorney General, I remain committed to the principles of transparency embodied in these laws and the benefits they secure for our state.

That kind of just gives you an introduction of why sunshine law in Florida is so important, why we have these rules. Most importantly, the reason it is a mandatory training is because there are very real examples of where you could get yourself in really legal trouble, if you do not follow this. So most importantly is what is Sunshine Law? It's the right for governmental access. As you see with the commission meetings, there are certain rules that go into it so that the citizens are are well informed. Who does that apply to? It's gonna apply to this board. You guys are making recommendations that are going to go to the commission. That's why advisory boards are equally, as important as the commission itself. Member elects also do.

So if there's a member elect in this room, they're also gonna be held liable to this. What is the definition of a public meeting? This is the most important, especially because there's a lot of people on this advisory board. A meeting is going be any gathering, whether it's formal or informal, of two or more members of this board. Why is that important? Because if you were chatting on Facebook, let's say, or if you were chatting via email, Mr. Drum had asked a question about a reply all. If you are meeting and it's giving the impropriety that you are discussing something that may be a foreseeable action on this board, you are now in violation of the sunshine. That matters because we do live in Northport, and the citizens are very well informed. And I'm not just saying it's just Northport.

But if you're talking about a discussion, let's say, More Mineral Springs and you don't let people know that that's the discussion coming up, you're very, very, very much going to be in violation of the sunshine. All of that needs to be discussed in this room. What's a foreseeable action? A foreseeable action could really be anything. Our city touches so many things. So let's say, Welland Park, right? You're talking about development in Welland Park. Well, now all of a sudden, we're talking about building a new police department or we're building something that that has that potentially could be foreseeable. What does Welland Park have to do with the rest of the city? Well, it could be something you're discussing on here.

So I would take a foreseeable action is anything that may be discussed in this room. Why is this important is if two or more members are discussing something that would be business on here, then you're in violation of the sunshine. So requirements. It does have to be open to the public, reasonable notice so that the public can be aware of it, and then the meetings are taken and recorded. All of our advisory boards, the clerk's office takes care of that, which

is

excellent for you guys because you don't have to deal with that. So you're not prohibited from meeting, whether that be casual or maybe going for coffee or something like that. But just be aware that a violation could potentially be present if you start discussing something that is on next next week's or next year's agenda. So be cognizant of that. Any potential meetings, like I said, Facebook being probably the most prominent as far as an AGO opinion, and and law that goes on now, but it could be a writing reflecting the views on a particular action, telephone conversation, any text messages, whether that be on your private or personal phone, and then communications relayed through an individual or resident acting as a conduit between board members.

That is the most important because that's exactly where there's a short video I play. While we're on this page, let me discuss the reply all. You'll notice sometimes when the clerk's office has correspondence to maybe not just this board, but any board business in general, it'll say at the bottom, please do not reply all. The reason that that is is in there is not to say if you accidentally reply all, you just wanna bring up what you said in this room, essentially. The reason that they say not to reply all is because if you're giving your opinions or if you're giving, you know, any indication on which way that you're being persuaded and you reply all, well, now every board member in this room is potentially part of that conversation.

The cure is any ex parte communication. Hey, I accidentally replied all on this and and I said x y z. Most everything in Sunshine has a cure, and it's gonna be to put it on the record in this room. Social media. This gets confusing, and this is where a lot of people wanted the AGO opinion on the Facebook.

But if you're seeing any content that somebody else in this room is posting that may tell you one way or another how they are going to vote, that potentially could be a violation of the sunshine. So just keep that in mind, especially if it's something that's gonna be on the agenda in this room. AGO opinions, I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, but just as a, back history, an AGO opinion is not a court opinion. The attorney general will make opinions on law, whether it be formal or informal, and it helps, really, the attorneys in this state, look at the different statutes and break those down. So here are just a couple not so recent, but important examples.

The first one, city commissioners may not use an electronic newsletter to communicate among themselves on issues that foreseeably may be coming for the board. That's going to be the trend in every AGO opinion or any court opinion is the foreseeability. Ability. Members of a city board or commission may not engage on a city's Facebook page in exchange or discussion of matters that will foreseeably become before the board. Board members should discuss public business at publicly noticed meetings rather than in a series of letter between board members.

And then lastly, members of a public board may not use computers to conduct private discussions among themselves about board business. Any single one of these examples is creating a public record. So the citizens are able to pull those public records and see that you are in violation of the sunshine. Personal devices, I always tell this to the police department, especially I was the police legal advisor for two years before coming full time to the city. And they'll get confused when there's a public records request for your private phone or your WhatsApp messages.

Well, all I did on my WhatsApp message was message the other officer and say, you know, hey, do we have this? Do we have this, statute? Like, do you think we meet the requirements for this? Well, now you've created a public record because you're talking about issues with the city so they can pull those messages off your private, off your private device. So just keep that in mind. Just because you're conducting business on your private devices does not mean that you cannot pull a public record. Penalties, which is why this is a mandatory training, is removal from office, non criminal fine, court costs and reasonable attorney's fees, and then criminal prosecution. If this plays

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It's a good video.

Two members of the Holmes County Community Development Commission are facing second degree misdemeanor charges for allegedly violating Florida's sunshine law. Commission member Stephanie Smith Cloud and executive director Joe Rohn are each charged with conspiracy to commit a Sunshine Law violation. State attorney Larry Bassford's office filed the probable cause affidavit at the Holmes County Courthouse. It details the findings of state attorney investigation John Pettis into the Sunshine Law complaints. Pettis says Rohn committed a Sunshine Law violation by providing Cloud with a list of names of potential officer candidates and told her to contact other board members and discuss the other nominations.

Cloud allegedly contacted other members of the nominating committee to discuss the names and even left a voice mail on other members' phones talking about the list. Both allegedly told Pettis this was common practice among the board. They've been issued notices to appear in court. They'll be arraigned on July 10.

So a seemingly innocent conversation then turned into a violation where they were charged with a second degree misdemeanor. I will say I was a state attorney for eight plus years, and I have never charged that. So that is new. I mean, that's a very difficult charge, a conspiracy to commit a Sunshine violation just from those communications. So people will find a violation if they want to.

That's just a very prime example of an advisory board dealing with a Sunshine Law violation. Same thing, this was a lot larger. They held a basically, they held a public meeting that night. They didn't notice it. They had re issued notice for another time, and then they voted to fire the city attorney, city manager, city clerk and remove the mayor from his position.

Obviously, you can't do those things without the citizens being able to make a public comment on there. I'm not sure if they took the training that year, but, he served forty five days or I believe it yeah, Damien, he served forty five days in jail. Public records. Everything you're doing in this room that is made and received pursuant to the connection with your transaction of official business by this agency is creating a public record. That could be in any form, that can be in a voice note, that can be in an email.

And this is all too real. I did not realize any of this before. I started four years ago and you really are creating a public record. If somebody wants to see my entire week of emails, you can absolutely be bored and you can have that. And so that's something to be cognizant of is everything that you're putting in writing is becoming a a public record. Just a little cheat sheet, am I receiving this material because of my position with the city on this advisory board? Is the material made and received in connection with the transaction of official business of the city? And is it used to perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge? Emails or text messages, obviously those are all subject to retention. If you're having that communication on your I know we all have a life outside of this room.

I hope so. And if you are on your private computer and you are discussing things about this board, you're not creating a public record. So just keep that in mind. Public records request, I always call it like the elevator rule. If somebody's in the elevator and they're like, hey sorry, Tim, you were just right in front of me, so I'm using you as an example. Hey, Tim, I'd like to get a copy of the report that you used on this advisory board. If they do that, then you have to forward that to the city clerk. The city clerk is retention of all records, and they have to respond to that public records request. And that's just kind of says to forward it. You can try and handle it yourself, but they're more equipped to do that.

And this is basically just reiterating it. We put this in here because it does happen. I do get a lot of people who email me thinking I'm still the police legal advisor and they're like, hey, can I get a copy of this? But I can't ignore it because that's now my fault. Now I've ignored a public records request. And it may not look like a formal public records request. It may be like, hey, can I get a copy of this? Same thing here. If you forget about a public records request, it could get you sued. Thankfully, the clerk's office, like I said, is very well equipped.

We they have I do not envy them whatsoever, but they get a lot of public records request, and that's kept in Gov QA, and then we keep track of all of them that way. Same thing, inability to comply with a request is no excuse. I remember when I first started, Margaret Roberts was my pre she predated me, and I took her position. And I said, well, it was her case, so we're gonna wait till Monday because she's on vacation. And they're like, can't wait till Monday?

You don't you don't get to wait till Monday with a public records request because that's not a reasonable amount of time. So I ended up doing it, which was fine, but I did not realize that. A reasonable amount of time means that you cannot just forget about a public records request. And then not complying with a public record request can obviously be expensive. This was $60,000 in legal fees that the city had to pay.

Ethics. This is nobody can tell you better in this room if you should abstain for voting or if you have a conflict of interest besides yourself. The best way to discuss that or chat about that is going be with the ethics statute. Because I'm an assistant city attorney, I represent the city. You never want to have a conflict of interest now come up between myself and somebody in this room, and then I can effectively help you out later on. So the best place to go is going to be the ethics statute. I use it for the Florida bar as well. And then the same thing, I just linked a couple Florida state statutes as well. Prohibited conduct again, this is not to insult anybody's intelligence, but it could look different out in the real world, right? A solicitation or acceptance of a gift.

You cannot solicit or accept anything of value, favor, or service based on an understanding that your vote, official action, or judgment will be influenced. I know on PZAP last week, they kept saying, well, what if we're at a party and everybody's there? And it's like, well, if I'm litigating for you later on and we have a potential sunshine violation, what does that look like? You know, if you're going to the developer of Welland Park's Christmas party and chatting it up and having all having all this fun and then later on, you know, there happens to be a sunshine violation or that it looks like you accepted a gift, I'm the one having to argue that. So always keep that in mind.

It's not that you can't go out socially and you can't have these discussions, but it's more what does it look like based on my vote in this room. Unauthorized compensation, you can't accept anything of value. This could look like something de minimis. What the law says is that if you accept something de minimis, that's okay. To what what does de minimis mean though? Because at this point, coffee is like $7.25. Does that is that de minimis? If somebody goes and buys you a coffee, potentially. So just keep that in mind. If it's influencing or it appears to be influencing anything that you're doing in this room, on the side of just paying for your own coffee.

Mis of a public position, you cannot receive any special privilege or benefit for yourself or others, and that includes your family as well. I say all of that to say the cure is that you are no longer biased from voting in this room. So there's always gonna be a cure. If you need to abstain from voting because you feel that you have something that doesn't allow you to, that's the cure for all of this. Misuse of a public position, we kind of just went over that.

No disproportionate benefit to yourself or others. And then you cannot disclose anything that you may find out in this room that's confidential. I do not have a real life example of what that would look like because mostly everything's gonna be done in this room. However, if you do request something that is maybe confidential or public record that you are reviewing, obviously don't go out and share that information with others. Doing business with the city, prohibited relationships. You can't purchase, rent, or lease. And this applies to your spouse or child. And then you cannot have any conflicting employment or contractual relationship. That just means any private interest in what you're voting on. You cannot abstain from voting unless a conflict of interest exists as set forth in the ethical statutes.

That's why I say your first bet in the Florida State statute is to go to that ethics. Call them, see if you have a violation or not. And then the same thing in quasi judicial proceeding to assure a fair proceeding free from potential bias. And then you have to abstain from voting if you have any financial interest in what you're voting on in here. And this applies to your relative or business associate. Like I said, the cure for all of this, we're gonna get you that fifteen day conflict of interest, and then you're safe. That's really the point in this is so that you are not voting on something that somebody can later come back and sue the city for. Who's your relative? And then penalties. There's very real penalties, as you saw in that last example.

And people will figure that out. That is why we have open government. We have open government so that everybody follows the rules and we have those discussions here in public. And then lastly, this is just an overview. Quorum obviously means that the majority of the members are here. You have to make a motion, which should be a clear statement about that decision. It requires a second. Discussion will open beginning with the person who made the motion. And then lastly, the board will debate the motion. You have to stay on topic.

We do that because the agenda is written. It's published. What's on the agenda should be only what you're talking about. You'll notice the city attorney doesn't do a whole lot of talking up on commission, but when he does, it's going to be like, hey, that has nothing to do with what's on here. Let's redirect a little bit. And that's just so that, again, the citizens are aware of what you're talking about if they would like to participate. Time limits, it can be modified with the two thirds vote. And then each board member will speak once promotion unless nobody's waiting to speak. I put this in here. The clerk is always gonna be here and myself not too far away.

So if we have an alternate member that we need to fix in there, it's it's gonna be in our city code. We'll get you through it. And then lastly, if you need anything that's not a public record, if you're voting on something in this room, and you would like a again, real life example, maybe a document, maybe a report, something that is not yet a public record, you're going to vote on it in this room. You're gonna approve it unanimously, and then the board liaison will send it over to either our office up at the city attorneys, the city manager, the city clerk. And then you guys will be able to review that. Any questions?

Yes.

Yes.

We're right before the meeting, we actually were talking scheduling. So that's cool. And can you go back two slides to the alternate members? So if an individual in the room was not able to attend a meeting, can they send a replacement on their behalf? Or do they have to be a technical alternate member?

I believe they have to

be voted in as a technical member. And then they'll be the alternate, and they're going to already be approved for that alternate. You can't just send somebody in here.

Okay.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. And then the other question I had was, what is considered a reasonable amount of time?

Great question.

Because if it was like a Friday and you said, hey, wait till Monday, to me, that's a reasonable amount of time.

Typically so it depends. Real life example of what that looks like is we get so many public records requests. So let's say they're saying, I need Caitlin's last three weeks of emails, which is fine. That's not a hard request. However, I was a state attorney before, so a lot of my information now has to be redacted.

So just using that example, a reasonable amount of time would be the request comes in, acknowledge the request. If there's a fee associated with a public records request, then that's going to be something that the individual has to pay before we produce those documents. And then it's going to be dependent on staff time. So if I have to go through all of my documents or let's say I just had one for our new city attorneys, I had to go through like 3,000 pages. That's a lot of staff time, which isn't gonna be hard for me, but it's also that's something to take into consideration is how many redactions are going.

So it really just depends. If it's something easy and it's like pleadings, let's say like court pleadings, well, that's going to be done within probably a week or so. So it's just more what's the staff time look like. If this goes to litigation, how can I reasonably litigate this? What was a reasonable amount of time for litigation? Was it like the example I gave when Margaret was out of town? I don't want to go through those 4,000 documents because those were hers. She was most equipped to do that. That was the wrong answer. Because she wasn't coming back, I had to do that.

And that was not reasonable. So it really just depends. There's a lot of litigation on it. There's a lot of argument to be made because it's not black and white. Is absolutely gray on how you make that argument. So just as soon as possible, essentially. Sorry, that was a very long winded answer. But we write memos about this all the time because it is very, very difficult. And their office gets so many public records requests.

Sure.

So many public records. And the scheduling that you had mentioned, that's Okay, too. I've had a lot of people ask if you reply on, it's about a scheduling. Well, that's not something that you're necessarily voting on. That's just your scheduling issue. So that's absolutely fine. Gotcha. Thank you. Anybody else?

Yeah. I have a question. So if you're talking to a friend or a family member and they ask you like, what does your advisory board do? Like, what are you safe to say? What's obviously, you can't tell them what you vote on and stuff. But what's safe to say that just is generally this is what we do?

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's absolutely fine. And since it's not another member of the board, potentially could discuss something with that individual. The way I look at it is, like, instance, we have Mr. Lisinski, who and he does all of our petitions. Well, I don't know what he would look like out in the wild, right? That was really the bigger concern, is that who are you talking to that may be a sibling or a wife or somebody in this room? And then it's like, are you using them as the intermediary to say, like, this is what I'm voting on. So, yeah. Private conversations are absolutely fine as long as you're just cognizant of who that individual may be.

So if it's a friend, you can just say, yeah, the advisory board, you know, we vote on things and stuff like that. Right.

Yeah. The issue is stuff like that. And then really, don't see an issue with that unless you're posting it on your Facebook and you're friends with somebody in here. So yeah, good question. Anybody else? If not, I'll see

you next year. I live upstairs too, so

if you think of anything, I'll be there. Thank you. Thank you, guys, so much.

Thank you. Thank you. On to Have a good night. New business, twenty five-three thousand. Discussion of possible action regarding elections of chair and vice chair.

Do we have anybody that you'd like to nominate or suggest? And we'll start with the vice chair. Thoughts, concerns, hypothetical situation?

I think I'd like to recommend that Lacey be elected president, whatever the position the chair. Because with the next couple of years, with the new hospital going in, I think her expertise in that area will be invaluable. And she can lead us in the right direction and ask the right questions and make sure things flow correctly. Because I think that's probably one of

the most important things we're going to be discussing in the next few years. I could be wrong, but it's just something. Since I already got some background, you've been attending this for a couple

maybe I'm overstepping here. I

don't know

if you want it or not. But I think you're perfect for the position.

Any other recommendations? Since we went chair first, we'll just keep it open. Who and which position would you like to recommend for?

I would recommend that we leave it the same unless we need to unless you have a term limit or something.

No. I just passed that, unfortunately. Alright. Any other recommendations? Don't be bashful.

Are you not eligible to say? Is that what you're saying?

No, no. Good. Yeah. You're Okay. Any other thoughts, concerns?

Pressure would be that you guys still wanna do it

for another year. Hopefully, my question

A lot of times in these recommendations, it's not even a do you want to. It's more of a, hey. We think that you'll be the best person all in favor. I'm like, crap. I'm that's the how I ended up here. So whatever. In theory, we're all servants to the city. And we're here to do a job. And if somebody feels that we would be the best person to be leading or presiding over this particular committee, then so be it. Since Okay. There are no other discussion Wait. We do have

So if you're going to leave it the same, I think you need to make a motion.

Yeah. Well, that was going to be my first thought since we had one individual that's taking Lacey the chair. And then Michael stated, leave everything the same. How do we address that? How do we have discussion on that?

I'm all about formality and process. Let's make sure we do it right.

I just make a motion to keep it the same? But if you decide not to keep it the same, you would need to make a motion to change that. So if you guys want to keep it the same, just make a motion to keep you as chair and everyone else as vice chair. If that's what you would like

to do. Yeah. So I would like to make a motion to leave Sean Burrows as the chair and Lacey Holland as the vice chair for the upcoming year.

I would second that motion.

I second that motion.

I object. Any further discussion on that? Okay. We'll vote. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Well, alright. How about that? Welcome back, Wigesley.

It's like Groundhog's Day all over. Okay. So we'll move on to our twenty six-three nineteen Economic Development Division update.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, just to carry on the theme of health care, there will be a lot of discussion about that in the coming year. There's been a great deal of economic development activity around health care to date already. Just again, a quick recap of some of the interesting highlights here in the community if you haven't heard them before. And welcome new board members as well. Just a quick recap. Obviously, the Sarasota Memorial Project is in our face every day if come down Sumter Avenue. And what a bright spot that is for the city, a $500,000,000 project. It's not just that project that's of interest.

It's all of the secondary and tertiary things that come as a result. It's all of the organic growth around health care that comes as a result. You can imagine that physician offices, technical locations that deal with specialty services, hospitality to include hotel and overnight stay and accommodations, restaurants and the list goes on and on and on of things that represent organic growth around just that hospital location alone. But in addition to that hospital, as you may recall, it was about this time last year that Northport Behavioral Hospital opened up. You may recall that it was, another nine months or so ago that HCA opened the emergency facility in Welland Park.

You'll note that there's a good deal of property around that HCA emergency facility. And of course, they have plans to develop that property into a larger scale, multi bed location. I shouldn't ignore that stretch of the community there on 41. We're adjacent to the, college. Sarasota Memorial has a second property that they have had discussions about developing.

There's still signage there on that property. Advent Healthcare purchased approximately 17 acres along Route 41 to the east of the Cocoa Plum Plaza on the same side of the road as the Cocoa Plum Plaza. I sat in this room about a month and a half ago and heard about their development plans. They too are going to follow the pattern that HCA has with their freestanding emergency. So AdventHealth has proposed putting a freestanding emergency center on that 17 acres with a future plan to develop out the rest of that property to a multi room, multi bed care facility.

Next to Costco, some of you may have noticed something going up. And that too is an interesting health care project. That is a rehabilitation hospital, in excess of 100 beds. And that thing has come up out of the ground very rapidly. So these are prime examples of the health care content that's active, very visible.

And all of that will bring about the requirement for jobs, careers. As an economic development team, we are actively working on the workforce development cycle. So that includes the local and regional locations where health care training and development occurs today. A great example would be the Suncoast Technical College. The, college has plans to continue to grow their health care offering.

And obviously, we're very interested as a city in supporting the growth of that program there to supply the needs of health care workers in the area. I met recently with the director of nursing from Sarasota Memorial. And he has an active interest in having ongoing discussions with us to further develop that pipeline. There are other educational institutions in the region. We have reached out as far as St.

Pete across the Bay, where there is the Galen School of Nursing, who also has a location in Sarasota. Many of their students actually graduate and move through and to HCA facilities. They are well sponsored by HCA. There are other opportunities for growth in the workforce development cycle. I'm working with CareerSource and CareerEdge, both of whom offer, scholarships.

And I use the word scholarships because it's a familiar term to most of us. But in fact, they're grants, grant money that they provide to eligible students and eligible institutions. I believe, Mike, your school is a benefactor of those students getting, grant money. And often the difference between somebody choosing a career in healthcare or advancing their existing credentials to a different type of healthcare provider is contingent on financing or money. A of folks just don't have that money.

And so these are examples of what's going on in the community economically from a health care, workforce cycle. We are working with the employers. We are working with the principals at those primary health care locations that I've talked to you about. We have constant interaction with them, understanding their needs and requirements. And that's all great news. The one thing that you're all wondering, is it enough? And the answer is no. And it's not just Northport. It's a national desert, if you will. Health care providers got burned out during COVID.

Many of them left the trade. Many of them have relocated to other things. Some have converted to traveling health care professionals, popular among the nursing profession. And so we've seen a decline in the numbers at a national level, at a state level, and right here in our region. So what we are seeing and the needs we want to fill are the same needs that everybody else has nationally.

So we're competing for many of the same people. So how do we combat that? Well, economically, from a development standpoint, one of the more novel concepts that I've been working on is working with developers who want to develop property here that includes housing options for the health care trade. In North Sarasota and in Bradenton, there are some developers that are doing just exactly that. They are working on housing specific opportunities for members of the health care trade and for, first responders.

They're calling it attainable housing. And we've talked about that concept in here. And I'm a big proponent of it. Of course, it still requires private investment. It still requires developers who want to specifically target those folks and create and set aside that type of living structure and environment.

And in our community, like all communities, it still would require appropriate levels of zoning, right, land acquisition, entitlements and all the things that go with the development cycle. But the good news is we're interested in it as a community, as an economic development team. We're pursuing it and moving forward along those lines. Any questions about the health care sector? I did want to take a moment to introduce a new staff associate who's joining us today, Mr.

Kevin Lovelace. Kevin is a seasoned economic developer. He brings to the city twenty five years of experience. He's got a strong background in commercial development. He understands the development cycle.

He's moved here from the Lakeland area of Florida, spent a number of years in Georgia working for the utility up there in economic development, a critical thing for us to have here in our community as well. And he hails originally from, can I tell them, Plano, Texas? So we're excited to have Kevin on staff as another economic developer. He helps round out our team. Kevin will be specifically working in the niche and vertical silos that we've established for industry that we want to attract that work toward developing our economic tax base.

Specifically today, I wanted to share with you some activity that I've not previously spoken about. And that would be our pursuit, our continued pursuit of the tech sector. That I have spoken to you about. And we continue to want to grow the technology, research and development sector here in the community. But more specifically within sector, we have taken an additional focus into the semiconductor world.

Semiconductors represent a significant portion of the manufacturing growth occurring in the state of Florida today. Specifically, in the past couple of years, more than 10,000 new jobs were created in Florida in the semiconductor silo, which is very interesting because many people think of Florida and they think of palm trees and sand, The beaches. We don't think about high-tech necessarily. We don't think about job creation in that high-tech sector. Maybe you've heard about things going on along the I 4 Corridor in that tech sector there.

But technology growth is rampant in the state of Florida. Several months ago, I had reached out to the University of Florida. And the University of Florida has a premier engineering program, if you didn't know it, coveted around the country. And that engineering program is something that I wanted to become affiliated with as a community. Because the engineering trade, if you will, if I can call it a trade, has definite applicability when you're talking about research development, technology, and now more specifically when we talk about semiconductor.

Whether it be electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, right? And the list goes on and on. We began to form a relationship with the University of Florida to understand better how we could attract the engineering community to our community and dovetail with those silos of industry that we are chasing, aerospace, aviation, technology parks, and now semiconductor. Kevin will be focused on those very specifically in his early months with the city, as I already have been, but I'll continue to do so. We have formed relationships between University of Florida and I would call it the early education cycle, specifically the Imagine School here in Northport.

Imagine School has had, after our introduction, discussions with UF to begin to offer, if you will, advanced placement classes, dual enrollment classes and things like that for students in their high school who are now interested in developing or potentially developing into something related to engineering, research development, and the like. We plan to continue to have those discussions with other educators in the region. Mr. Endy and I have had discussions around this subject. I have spoken to the State College of Florida on this subject.

And there are many nice turnkey solutions that help us build upon that base that we've established already. Back to semiconductor for a moment. Florida is the fifth in the nation with regard to the numbers of people employed in semiconductor. So if you think of all the states, we are the fifth in terms of the the number of people employed in the semiconductor industry. We are only behind California, Texas, New York and Arizona.

And those are kind of obvious choices. Florida sticks out as the unobvious. And we need to, in Northport, capitalize on that. I've got some heat maps that I created through our economic development studies. And one of the things that I determined was from Tampa Bay all the way down to Naples and then across over to the midsection of our state, there's virtually nothing going on here with respect to semiconductor.

So we have a blank canvas. We have the opportunity to create something here. And I'm very excited to be spearheading that on behalf of the city. Obviously, with the aerospace and defense industry, there's a lot of opportunity on the other coast. But as I've spoke to you before, we are looking to capitalize on those industries and become an inland hub for them supplying things going on here along the Suncoast.

Any questions about our pursuit of technology and more specifically today my introduction to you to semiconductor? I might add, people say what the heck is a semiconductor? And believe me, it wasn't that long ago that I didn't have a clue what it is either. Semiconductors control the, they regulate electric current. So if you imagine, if you take apart this telephone, it's made up of all kinds of transistors and resistors and these mini little boards that have been soldered by machines. And there are impulses of electricity and signaling that goes on on those circuit boards. Right? Do we have any engineers in here? Nobody? We have one.

Jump in when I'm making

it two.

Civil didn't like electrical very much.

And the semiconductors control, if you will, they are governors, if you will, of these impulses and signals and electrical currents that pass between these resistors and capacitors. And there's much more than what I'm describing. I'm keeping it simple. On these miniature circuit boards. And they do that in virtually every electronic device that you can think of, from your car to your watch to your telephone to your PCs and a bazillion things you've never thought of, like when you're going through the car wash and you've got the $30 a month plan and the person ahead of you only has the $10 a month plan, well, there's something that's telling that car wash to put Armor All on your tires and not theirs.

You don't think about it. There's something that says, Flash all those beautiful rainbow lights when I go through, but the $10 person doesn't get that rainbow array of LEDs when they go through the car wash. And it's hard to imagine our world today without all of those electronic impulses controlling everything that's going on. And that's the semiconductor industry. And boy, if anybody was here hearing me pitch what semiconductors was, they'd never hire me.

But I've dumbed it down just to give you an example. You can't escape it. You might remember, well not all of you, but a few of us will remember 1999. I hear a few sniffers. And y two k.

And we were wondering on New Year's Eve, should we all go to the ATMs and withdraw cash tonight because tomorrow, those ATMs weren't going to be working. And we all were rare in some form of an Ironman Timex watch before we had Apple watches and we thought all our watches are going to go bust. And we didn't have mobiles yet, but we were sure worried about technology. Would gas pumps work? Would our credit cards work?

Well, boy, we've come a long way, baby, since 1999 and 2000. And semiconductors are at the heart of it all. So we don't want to miss out on this beautiful wave of technology that is passing into Florida right now. And we are well positioned to take care of it. Questions, thoughts, ideas?

Most of what we see is actually along the Eastern Seaboard. The Eastern Seaboard is heavily dominated by aerospace. As you can well imagine, there's not an aerospace company. And when I say aerospace, it includes aviation. Just don't think of rockets. Although that's a big piece of it, too. There's

a

huge amount of business from Miami all the way up through Daytona in the aero component. In fact, so much so that Kevin and I will be attending a trade show. We are exhibitors on behalf of the city next month in Miami at the world's largest aircraft parts show. It's known as Parts Base in Miami. And we are exhibiting at that show to meet people who are in that parts industry for the aero and aviation industry to talk to them about potentially considering Northport as an inland port for distribution and logistics, but also for light manufacturing and research and development.

So we're going to be hobnobbing with people from all over the world who are tied to it. And it's, again, East Coast.

Cool.

Other thoughts, questions? Mr. Chairman?

Okay, great. Next topic, future agenda items. Is there anything that we need to or would like to get updates on or get new information on?

Yeah, I'm curious with the thoughts of we discussed how health care is coming to Northport. That's great. That's half the reason that I joined the board, constantly leaving Northport to go work in Sarasota or whatever the case is. I feel that once health care is here, we will have a lot of the local North portions, whatever we call ourselves, be able to work where we live. I think that was half the goal.

With that, I know a lot of people, even specifically that I work with, that work in Sarasota also have their kids in Sarasota schools rather than Northport schools. I'm wondering how close your department works with even Board of Education with Sarasota that with this growth of even talking of housing possibly coming for health care workers or trades, whatever, obviously we have housing booming all over, even down Sumter. How are we projecting to make sure that our schools are going to be sufficient for one? And two, are we going to have the options like Sarasota does at some point to maybe keep those people from having to drive to Sarasota and back to Northport or whatever the case is, even if they are able to work in Northport eventually. So roundabout question, but that was the basis of me joining the board years ago was healthcare.

I have small kids. I want to be able to eventually drive ten, fifteen minutes to work rather than an hour and also keep my kids in a school that's not going to

be

too overcrowded. Now, I know with the new high school in Willin Park or whatever, it's going to take some load off of a couple of the high schools, but not so much North Port High. So looking ahead, that's why I'm curious how much we are communicating our growth because it's no secret how fast we are growing. But every time I see an apartment complex, I almost cringe because I'm like, that's just more kids that are hopefully getting a good education. Don't get me wrong. But we do only have a certain amount of schools here in North Port. Okay.

So it sounds like a topic of child care and school growth and expansion projects. So in this section, can we bring up topics for us to bring later? So we can't have a full on discussion right now about it, which is fine. So yes, we'll put that on the list. Anything else?

Not just high school too, the elementary school one,

you think? Yeah. Yeah. School growth and expansion project. High school too,

I would just say without having discussion, rhetorical what your questions were, school board does have an active level of census data. And you're not going to want to hear this. But in Sarasota City of not Northport, even though we're part of the school board, they have seen a decline in numbers. And that census has actually caused a couple of schools to not be used right now.

Here in Northport?

No, in Sarasota. But

it would be a good discussion on a going forward basis

Right, for the projection.

For us to bring recommendations on what we think could be solutions or modes of operating to accommodate the future. Perfect.

Did that include parochial schools too?

Parochial are considered private.

But

it does include charter. I'd say the possibilities are endless, yes.

Whether he

would accept the invitation is a different thing. Mr. Has a relationship with the executive members of the county administration.

I know multiple answers to this, but obviously, this is just bringing up for the next time. So it is something I can discuss to a certain extent with what we have in the community, the prepurchase properties that the school board already owns to build another high school next to Woodland, future elementary school, future middle school. But it is driven by enrollment. Enrollment is down in the district. Well and Park, there's no additional FTE.

We're just shifting student enrollment from Venice and Northport and potentially Lemon Bay. And it's not really increasing numbers, which then makes it Yeah, makes it you're shifting money, but these new schools have a fixed cost to run them. I mean, you're bringing in no new enrollment, you're not increasing any funding to run those schools, so it's putting the district in quite a deficit. And as the population boom has kind of slowed a little, we're not seeing kids coming into these communities. There's capacity right now at all of the schools.

I guess I'm more worried about the conjecture of health Once SMH is done, once the rehab hospital is done, people are going to be more local and or stay in Northport.

Okay. We can continue, but we

have No, this is back to my specific points of bringing up the health care.

No, I totally understand.

Our growth is different, but growth wants these other factors hidden.

Not saying your comments aren't valid. It's just they're not appropriate for this section of our agenda right now. We don't want to get geeked on that. So that's why I state child care, school expansion growth, projections. That would be a topic that we can discuss more of this stuff. So at that time, we can bring up feelings and thoughts and all that good stuff. So any other topics that we would like to talk about

or give

some I'd more like to ask bring it up for issue, more development along Toledo Blade besides the business part. I think last time you mentioned something about negotiating with a big box. What other kind of development is going on Toledo Blade because there's still a lot of property there that's open for development? And I'm just wondering what we'll bring in there because the population has grown in that area too, especially with the new development near Atwater. More population moving there and it's going to need we want the income here in Northport, not in Port Charlotte.

Toledo blade update. Toledo blade update. Excellent. Any other topics?

Mr. Chairman, there was the one to discuss and pre approve technical members as alternates.

Technical members.

Technical members was the term that the city clerk and attorney

Oh, for alternate members, if you wanted to bring that up. Yeah. I guess we should probably look into have that as a discussion so we can have some set individuals for selected alternates.

Okay. For future?

Yes. Yes.

Got it.

Our next meeting is April. The next meeting, from what I understand, is April 17. Is that accurate?

Yes. I believe that's right.

That's correct. Okay. Excellent. So our next meeting will be April 17. And if if there's any need to have another meeting, we'll put out that request. But if there's nothing else to be brought before, they call the the April 17. Seventeenth. I

believe it's the '20

No, sorry. That's right. Was it April, sorry?

I was

trying to pull up the calendar.

Yeah, have it on my calendar as April 21. April 21. Which I will not be able

to see. See, this is the importance behind schooling. Make sure your kids go to school. Anyways, yes. So April April 21.

Twenty first. April 21.

And it's still gonna be this

one? Yes. Twenty first. Excellent. Don't let your kids be marines. Okay. If there's nothing else that needs to be brought before the committee, we will call this meeting adjourned, Ed.

Sean?

Yes, ma'am.

It's March 17 and then May 19 and then September 15. That's

what I thought.

Think that's what the city sent me.

We're Because doing every other month. I can confirm

March 17.

That's what I thought.

Let's see. Thought we changed that,

but Okay.

This is what I was saying.

Alright. Now

you can adjourn. Sorry.

No. Wait. What's the name? Do we gotta make sure everybody's got this clerk first? May 19. Then September 15. Then November 19.

Yes, I concur.

Yes. Sweet.

See. Can you say those things again?

Yes ma'am. March 17, May 19, September 15 and November 17. And we will go over them again if we need to. Okay. We're all good? Yes. Okay. So we'll try this again. We will now adjourn at 11:30. Thank you.