Parks & Recreation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Forty four is the City of Northport Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Calls, water, roll call. Joan Morgan, chair.

Kevin Wallace.

Gail Stevens. Gavin Gray, Oleith himself. And Okay.

Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Public comment. We have several people who want to do public comment tonight, so that's fantastic.

We can I'll introduce yours, sir. So I'll just hold it for you. You don't want to hold it.

Okay. I'm Eric Taleska of 2033 Lyons Avenue Northport, respectfully requesting the Rainbow Bridge project be placed on a future agenda for board discussion. The community Rainbow Bridge is a simple, inexpensive, and easy to maintain. It is for those to memorialize their lost but forever loved pets to place items of decent presentation such as collars, harnesses, toys, etcetera, that were important to the pet sand handlers. Benefits of the Rainbow Bridge include respect to pets we loved, comfort for grievers, increased park use and diversity, social interaction and strengthening of the community, fills a need for something not available in the entire region, a unified single location of which is recommended to be the K9 Club dog park.

I have asked several patrons of the dog park what they think, and everybody said they would like it. Thank you for considering.

Perfect. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Okay. Next approval of minutes, approval of 03/19/2026 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting minutes. Anybody want to I second. Okay. Who wants to do it first?

Motion to approve the minutes from the March 19 meeting.

Okay. And Gail first and Omni second. Any comments, any questions, any changes? Board Directors the of And a

point. Point. Works for you guys, it works for me. So we're talking now March and April because post our last meeting and then the month of April where we didn't have one. One of the big advantages of North Port Aquatic Center that we had this time was we, through Memo, were able to get the ability to shift operating hours.

So when something happens that is not projected, weather storms, we can now close those hours and add them somewhere else, which is something we didn't have the ability to do before because it was so controlled by the original plans with the commission. So bringing this forward resulted in a 32% cost recovery rate for us because we weren't paying people when they didn't need to there, and we were only giving the hours where needed. So that was a huge gain for us at that time. We hired 18 new lifeguards by that point. At this point now, we're at 40 just because that's heading be get

efficient. To to a little So

Springs Park. They were upgraded. The floors were pulled out. These sinks, as most of you know, we have mobile trailers out there filling that void for our office space and restroom space until the new buildings renovated. And they get a real taxing clientele with the mud and the sulfur and the contents of that water.

It eats things up. So although they've only been there since 2003, the flooring and any of those permeable spaces within that trailer needed to be repaired. So we've done all that, making it a much nicer atmosphere in there. Building renovation planning meetings are underway all the time. We just completed the GMP, which is the guaranteed maximum price.

So using the process that we use right now, which is called a CMAR, it's a construction manager at risk. So a lot of times, we and they bid projects to become basically the GC over it, and it alleviates city staff from being the project manager. Once we get that and project is ready at 100% planned, it goes back to our internal project management, and we get them to basically quote it out at a guaranteed maximum price. So it builds in contingencies. It builds in room for those things to take place.

But if the project should exceed anything that's there, they will never be able to exceed the guaranteed maximum price to still meet the needs. So it's a good process. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer because each time and each stage, we have to go back and part of commission for that amendment or the passing of the GMP. So we tend to see it a lot more before it comes to fruition. But that's a good step.

It means we're at the point of now funding. And as soon as we get the funding in place, the project can start. There's a little bit of a shortfall because the last time we were in front, they did add all of the utilities. So the utilities added about $4,000,000 to the project. But in the long term, the utilities will recover.

Cost from that, we won't. But utilities department will because it will make connectivity of Ortiz available to households. So there will be taxation dollars that come back and utility fees there. In recreation I have to do this with my finger we had successfully launched a program called Early Explorers. And it's available to a lot of our homeschool groups, but it's also available to the toddlers in the preschool level, where they advance youth development in educational engagement and opportunities for future programming to expand that program as it grows with the kids.

It's been highly attended and very well received. The extended seasonal programming impacted by hosting a fully enrolled spring break camp. For the first time this year, we hosted spring break camp. And with full enrollment, it was 100% cost recovered, plus money went back into the general fund for those It's been great. Our camps, we also extended just to add to that, we extended when we took out the fitness center at GMAT, we extended that room to another room available for camps.

So we extended the camp program by 30 participants. And as of right now, our camps are 100% local. Wow. Increased community engagement through the egg hunt. We had over 700 participants there, and it was good, although that event is one that we will talk about a little bit later.

And then on April 10, we had the book swap, which was very good, always well attended, 155 people there. Maintenance installed AEDs at Blue Ridge Park, Dallas White Park, Highland Ridge, McKibbin Parks. They removed invasive vegetation at the disc golf course. About 20 stumps were ground out there at Dallas White as well as that process there. We had the grand opening for the Dallas White Field, which was very nice to see. Yes?

I'm so sorry. You reminded me of something with the circle of honor. Is that tomorrow? Tomorrow at eleven. So I'm

sure I could. Okay. It's a volunteer service. You're going to get volunteer hours for it. We built and installed two bleachers and two soccer goals for the new multipurpose field at Dallas White Park.

We installed crime stopper signs in many parks locations, and I put them up right where the AEDs were put as well, because although they're not monitored, I just thought it a good idea to make people think that they could be potentially if they're messing with them. So we have those in there as well in a partnership with Crimestoppers Sarasota County. We're trying to get them to every park. We also installed alarms on those AED cases so that when they open, the alarm goes off, and we put a little tracking device in them. So if somebody decided to walk off with one, we would be able to find it.

And then we installed many palm palm trees around or trimmed them and installed some. But Butler Park was trimming, and we have installations going on at Boca Chica Park for larger trees trees to create more shade around the playground. And we have the plan for GMAC around the playground here for some more trees. And they're also working on Kirk Park, I think, the next one after that.

That's something I really enjoyed seeing when I was at the Pine Park ribbon cutting. The idea of using the pines there as the natural shade for the playground.

And wherever we can, we do. Boca Chica was one I really wanted to be able to do that with, but there's just not enough mature trees there. So we were really specific on what we're going to plant around that will give quick shade, but still be within the native planting. Because our department really focuses on not putting in that's not native. It's an important part for us.

We work closely with natural resources, making sure it's on their planting list for native, not just Florida Flagler Family, but Florida native. Us and administration, besides all the other things that we do, including preparing for budget and budget reductions right now, we were able to complete a Northport University and a Northport University Teen Program last month. Upcoming events. We have the world's largest swim lesson on June 25. It's a very interesting program.

It's done through an international water safety coalition and in partnership with the World Water Park Association. And what happens is simultaneously on that day around the world, we provide a free swimming lesson for anybody who shows up. So they learn water safety. They learn getting in and out of the water. It could be adults. It could be children. It could be infants. But everybody around the world does it at the same time to show the world's largest swim lesson and participation. And then, of course, we have the Freedom Festival coming up on July 4. Agenda items.

Before I get into these ones that are upcoming, just this week, we did get the approval on the Charlotte Harbor Estuaries grant that Natural Resources and my team worked together on securing a grant for $230,000 that will remove some invasive species at Warmiddle Springs, as well as provide interpretive signage, educational signage, and allow for people to experience Warmiddle Springs once we get that area ready and kind of learn as they're going to see what they're doing. And then in conjunction with that, we have $50,000 pledged from the Community Golf Foundation for a follow-up second and third year to that removal to ensure that the removal is successful. Many times people remove it once, it comes back within those two years. So we kind of have a three step plan to take care of that removal. With that grant, the other thing that got passed the other night was the conservation zone for that 60 acres that is remaining at Warmanil Springs.

So we're going to enter into a conservation agreement with Big Waters Land Trust. And Big Waters and the Community Foundation have been very supportive. And we worked on the general terms together, and that was passed unanimously the other night. So now we can step into actually formalizing the agreement.

That's awesome.

Upcoming, we have an award for Hope Park Playground, which is a CDB grant, which is a community block development grant. And that will pay for Hope Park Ground. So when we talk about budget, we talk about playgrounds. There's playgrounds that don't qualify for them because they're not in the proper economic zone. But anyone that's in an economic zone that we'll hit, we always make sure that we get the grant. Pine wasn't, but Hope Park is, Dallas White was. Anytime we can get it, we try to do that. Those grants are usually about $300,000 to replace the playground.

That's a nice bit. It helps.

Yeah. We have the amendment to the CMAR, as I explained what the CMAR was for the Mineral Springs Building coming up. So that will be on sixth sign as well. Approval of the award of funds for special event assistance for the Qantas Club on that agenda, and award of special event fees for the Qantas Club for the Pet Expo, the fourth amendment to the contract for the North Port Connector Legacy Legacy Trail. So once we get the springs underway, the Legacy Trail is our next battle. It is an unfunded project, but a highly beneficial project.

Oh, it is wanted. It is definitely wanted, and those people are definitely out there. Mhmm.

So we're still working on where we're gonna fund that front. And we have some funds already. There's $250,000 from the county that was left in their project that was allotted to that extension. There's a $100,000 Friends of Legacy Trail grant, but it's a construction grant, so we have to get to that point before we receive that. And then we had a $33,500 donation as well. So it's building, and we're getting there. It is up for the Sun Trails grant program. We put it in last year. They decided not to fund that grant last year, so we're hoping this year it will return and we have a good opportunity. It is high on the MPO priorities. So we're hoping.

So this is all coming up on the June 9 meeting?

All of this is the ninth. Yeah. Right. And then the last one is the info that's not that's not ours. Sorry. That shouldn't have been on there. Any questions?

All good news.

Yeah. Just No. I tell

you what. You're really coming up with a lot more funds to please them with the, you know, the fact that you are getting back so many sources of money, and it's amazing. Is And

we'll talk about it as we get in the presentation with cost recovery. But we are in the top percentage of the nation supervisors, Shelby, went up to a revenue and cost recovery school we sent our way to this year. And of the 22 municipalities that were represented in that room they were in Cincinnati we were the highest cost recovery in that entire room. So we went back to NRPA and said, do you keep stats on this? And she said, yeah.

And she said, you're in the top 10 of the nation. So not many places to see. And many of the places, as I started to look into them, were ones that were not funded the same way we are. So in a traditional funding source like we are, we're doing very well. And we're only getting better.

We've got a plan with grants that we have taken impact fees and set them in out years so that we're trying to match grants to those those impact fees. Because a lot of times, you'll see a grant come in and say for a community center. And they'll say, well, we'll give you, you know, $500,000, but you have to match it at a 100%. So I'm trying to group all these projects together so that when eligibility for grants comes up, that we have those matching funds right there that we can say, yeah, we got it. It's ready to go. But that's a big endeavor, and we've been working on that for about three months. So we're getting there. We're getting there.

Alright. Okay. Any other questions? Fantastic. What's being done is just phenomenal.

Okay. I'm gonna pull up this presentation while you introduce it, ma'am.

Okay. So we have, the events, agenda items for recent and upcoming city commission meetings. You've covered that. So now we're down to, c, review and discussion and suggestion of budget reductions.

That on there okay? I guess so. Control minus. On there? I think. And the keyboard is in now. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. To get it. Can we do it? Control I can actually pull out my actual one from PowerPoint. It'll be easier. You can see my ELC training I did today. Beautiful. I gotta go. I gotta close that one.

No.

Slowly but surely. I hate when I don't bring my mouse, though. Oh, yeah. Because I have to use it. Yeah. What do we call this?

Nope.

I'm gonna have to run it out of the minutes. Alright. We'll make it work. There's got to be a way to widen the screen though.

Yeah. You just

press the control button as you're oh, you don't have a wireless

mouse. Yes,

please. She doesn't have a wireless mouse. Anybody under 50. I'm only four years under 50. I'm almost four years over

50. Is

that good? There you go.

That's perfect. Just so we can get it, yeah, where we can

see it. Yeah, there

you go.

Thank you so much. Right, so the supporting documentation that you have is already public knowledge. It is information the most relevant I pulled out of the 200 page presentation that was done back in March on the budget assumptions. There's a lot of information in that supporting one that we can talk about as we go through in reference to some of the things that I will mention that you might not know about, things like millage rate, things like that. But we'll start with the parks and recreation and where we're at with the last presentation that we did for our upcoming budget cycle.

Just from how you would like the mouse. Right. It's weird. Yes, he's you know what happened. So a little bit of the overview.

Parks and Recreation supports and operates 30 parks and facility sites with one additional site in development, which is the Circle Of Honor we will open tomorrow. This includes core facilities like the Morgan Family Community Center, the George Walton Activity Center, and the North Port Aquatic Center, and Warmoral Springs Park, which collectively serve more than 620,000 individuals a year. We, this past year, invested in if anybody's watched commission meetings, I'm sure you've heard about it now a geofence system that allowed us to put it around a park's face that utilizes census data and phone pings off of cell phones to discount the amount of people that frequent it. It doesn't give us personal information. We don't know anybody's name.

We don't know anything. And the only thing that it would do additionally in some communities is it can tell the destination from where the phone originates. That doesn't do us any good here because nine out of 10 people are not from Florida and still have their phone numbers from where they used to live. So that demographic information really doesn't help us. But the numbers overall do.

And of our 30 Park Support facilities, the 620,000 individuals were done solely on the door counters for people going into the rec centers. Each month, they take the door counter, and they take the number in half because you have to exit the building if you enter it. They reduce it by the number of staff on average in the building a day, and they are two times, and then if you have a count. That, added together with the total counts from parks, builds up this number. A key factor to remember is we only have 16 of these spaces monitored.

And you just heard we have 30 parks and facilities. So this number is substantially higher, but we have the lowest package, which only gives us a 16. Two, cost savings. So it just still gives us that number that we can talk to, but doesn't cost us a fortune. The park system spans over six fifty acres, offers a diverse mix of active and passive amenities that serve residents of all ages, which is a focus for us.

Many homes here in Florida especially are multi generational. There's grandparents, and there's parents, and there's grandchildren living in the same space. So if we don't diversify to meet that need, we are missing a huge section of the population. We are also, as you guys know, accredited. There are only two twenty two accredited agencies in the country, making us part of 3%.

Accreditation stands for commitment to best practices and making sure that we're following a systematic approach for everything we do, whether we're creating a new park, whether we're expanding an offering, whether we're expanding a program. It's all based on a fact. We've had to bring in the community needs assessments, our surveys from participants what are you looking for, what do you need more town hall type meetings that we have with people open to the public to come in and talk. Our teen talk at Morgan Center, we have a teen talk where people get to sit in and they bring in different things. We usually have to feed them because these guys like their food to get them to come.

But we take their input, and we make sure that we're going. One of the newer things we did this year, talking about that, was our eSports lounge, because that's a very big piece for the youth, And so now we have met that need.

Yeah, saw it. It's very impressive. Thank you. So

in this, we'll talk a

little bit about

the organization evolution and those other core factors that are there. What people don't often think about when they see the accolades and we talk about CAPRA and we just recertified is that the Parks and Recreation Department is very young. In 2018 is when the Parks and Recreation Department was actually fully established. So before that, there was a recreation department that was actually just a division of general services. And there was parks and maintenance went through public works.

So in 2018, we became an independent department, and we took on all of that parks and grounds from public works. So when people talk about our evolution of budget, remember that wasn't an evolution, that was a transfer. It was still in the budget, but it just came to us. In 2019, we opened a products center. At that point, we absorbed the cost that we were paying out $40,000 a year to an independent contractor that was maintaining the splash padded Atwater Park, and we absorbed that into our staffing at the Aquatic Center.

With that, also brought on 22 year round employees. The rest of it is all seasonal help that we have. Then in 2021, the city became fully responsible for the maintenance and operation of 19 sports fields and two specialty parks. This was previously part of a county interlocal agreement. We knew it was expiring. We brought it to commission. Commission didn't act on it. They figured they were going to grandfather it in. But at the same time, the county had changed their objective on how they were operating the parks. It became a bigger oversight as opposed to programming and managing individual parks.

So we ended up taking that on. And that first year was a small budget adjustment because of the fact that it was a partial year. And then in 2022, it gained $937,000 into our budget. We did assume a lot of equipment from the county at that time. But at this point in time, obviously, that stuff is its life, and it's still part of our inventory now we're replacing.

2022, Warm Middle Springs Park closed ahead of the hurricane. And then the commission decided to terminate the agreement with the management company that was running it. And in twenty twenty three, April, about four weeks before that, I was told, you're going to open it and staff it. So the first year, opened with a hybrid model where I had everybody but the lifeguards were contract employees because we didn't know what the future was going to be, if I was going to have to keep it or not. So I staffed it with my internal lifeguards, and we hired temporary help to get us through that first year.

By the time that came into about a year into it, we found out it was ours permanently, and we that staffing model because, obviously, external non staff, city staff, non oath staff, let's put it that way, is not the ideal place to run all the time. So at that point, we then did that. So as you can see, we are reasonably young and done a lot in the process. Our performance metrics are as follows. On the right hand column, you'll see the NRPA standard.

That is the National Recreation and Parks Association. And you will see ours. The standard for cost recovery is 27.2%. And we just got the demographics for this year out this week, and that's actually going to drop. I think it's down around 26 now. Ours is 51.3. So when people talk about the parks and recreation budget and they say, you are $8,000,000 technically, we are $4,000,000 because 50% of the costs that we expend go right back into the general fund. So you'll see some things in your book that show little pie charts. Those pie charts show our percentage of the general fund. It's actually 50% less than that.

Now, when they look at the budget and the numbers, do they account for that recovery?

Unfortunately, no. They look at expenditures and costs in one bucket. We put in the revenues in another, but there's really no direct correlation that they do to that whole factor. They expect us to have a good cost recovery, but they don't really understand that that's money going back in. So when we came into budget cuts time this year, we had to really be choosy because you don't want to cut things that are putting money back in.

So you always want to make sure, where are the things that aren't doing that? And what can we do within that? Because many of the items are either fee schedule mandated, like our cost for our fields. When we got the fields, commission did not want to increase the field cost to our youth athletics programs. So they're held there. Although our maintenance costs go up every year and our employee costs go up every year, we can't change that. So now how do you take something that you can't increase your revenue in and still make it cost effective. And you can't cut it because you're going to have a direct hit on our use. So we'll talk about that when we get into that little piece. But you'll see the other ones.

We are right there with everything we do. In some cases, the only one that we're a little bit higher is our operating expenditures per capita. And one of the reasons we're a little bit higher right now is because we've had so many EN repairs. So our that got transferred into our budget, but it it doesn't come out as an expense that's not qualified. We have to put our total budget in when we submit the metrics, and then they don't have an ability to pull pieces.

The cost recovery model and community benefit is that we operate under this model designed to balance financial stability with equitable community access. You have to really look at that every time you look at a cut. If we make a program too high, can somebody actually still participate? We tried very difficult very diligently, as I said, to make sure that we use a model and you'll see it in a minute that kind of looks at all of those factors on the bottom. And that looks like here's our cost recovery.

So recreation as a whole, recovers 34% of its costs. Aquatics, at the end of the day, which is just without Warm Mill Springs because it's separate, recovers 56.82%. And you'll see why the breakdown is there, is that during the spring and summer months, you've got a huge amount of participants in the water park. So water park is open 111%, which means we recover all of our costs, and then 11% of those costs goes back to the general fund. Summertime, we're really doing great.

When we get into the wintertime, when the it's just a community pool, and you don't have the level of people participating, and it's literally a community pool, it's a 12.77% cost recovery, which is still higher than every pool in Charlotte County. Charlotte County has really invested in their pools. They lose $2,900,000 a year on their product program. Dollars 2,900,000. They charge very minimal for people to get in.

They have very few rentals of the space. And it's what's considered the loss leader, right? It's a community benefit. So $2,900,000 on their three pools. Then we get to Warm Middle Springs, and it is a 148.97% cost recovery.

Warm Middle Springs, as it sits right now, deteriorating buildings, a hole in the roof, it still is sitting at that point. So as we move forward and we improve that, you will see that increase. Our administration and our parks maintenance divisions do not directly have any revenue. But when we do our cost recovery model, there is a percentage, which is somewhere around 12.2% that we apply to every one of those programs because they couldn't do it without us doing our end of it. So it's still calculated, but it doesn't fall into a specific Our reservations unit is actually housed under recreation.

So the costs for the admin staff that rent the fields and all of that revenue goes into recreation for the rentals of the fields, not back to park maintenance. That's just because that's where it was born, when we first had to build this. So the cost recovery rate on that is very low because of the man hours, but the rates for the families to be able to continue to have sports.

Just want to start to get over the fact that work in Old Springs makes so much money. It just comes back and amazes me,

honestly. Yeah.

And definitely makes a lot of sense.

I think it amazes all of us. Yep. I mean, truly. But those people are loyal.

Well, people come on. People do travel from all over to come. It is. It is. The Spokane. You know, magic waters.

Oh, yeah. So they they know it in Europe. They don't know what Northport, but they know Warmanoke Springs.

And with our conservation easement and the things we're working on out there, I really want to create the other part of it to benefit as an environmental hub. Have a little environmental welcome center there, not only just for ours, but for the access for people to learn about Orange Hammock if they want to go there, to learn about the State Forest if they want to go there, to learn about Oscar Schier. All of the environmental open spaces where people can walk in, hopefully from the Legacy Trail, and be right there. That is the demographic that loves that stuff. Why not have that hub right there, where they can go in and find out what's available to do all around them?

It was really exciting for me to hear that were setting so much of that land aside for conservation. I've seen a big I've a lot of talk about it in the community on social media of people being concerned with the Warm Mineral Springs project, that there's all this land there. And oh, now the city's going to do what with all of that? Now we know You large portion

should have math, didn't I, Chad? I did my math before, so I hit them at every roadblock that we possibly could.

That's awesome.

So we got there. So we also base these things on what's called the community benefit framework. And this community benefit framework is, again, part of our CAPR standards and kind of shows how we actually classify to do things. So at the bottom, you will see that's the foundational level. And as you go up that, you see bottom is mostly community benefits.

So things like our trails, our playgrounds, our signature events, those are for everybody in the community, and everybody in the community utilizes them. Then you go up to the next one where you have a considerable community benefit, like youth leagues, reservations, seniors center that we have going on now, and then free community events and programs. Then you go up a little bit more, and you see those things are individual community benefits. And there might be a smaller group of people that are there and participating in them, like the youth and teen programs, swim lessons, fee based community programs, like the little explorers I was talking about. Those are the kind of things that kind of hit halfway.

Then we go into the adult leagues and fitness centers and things. So they're more specialized youths and they have less community benefit. And then the top one are the private swim lessons, things that only individually people benefit from. So we try to really focus on a balance of all of those, which helps us with that cost recovery model so that we're making sure we get the most benefit for the least dollar. Not that we don't need all of them, because we do.

Because a private swim lesson, sometimes people can go kids can go through group swim lessons 10 times and not get the same out of one private lesson session. So they're still very valuable type things, but we do less of them because they're not we can charge more for them, but they're just not the fuller benefit picture. So all of those things are taken into account when we look at budgets and we look at programs or capital investments. So as you guys know, some of our signature events we have, free community events we have, fee based community events, and then outreach events. So each one of them have a different amount of attendance.

Each one of them have a different need that's met. And again, we make sure that we take all of that into consideration as we build these programs and models to make sure, again, maximum benefit for minimum dollar. Here's some numbers on our special events that we take into consideration when we're talking about budget reductions this year specifically. The Freedom Festival last year, our attendance was 8,400 and I can't see it because I don't have my glasses on just about 8,000 500. Our budget for it was $74,280 and we came in at $79.97 Was that right?

$5.97

$5.97 Okay. Yeah. These aren't going to help me that far away. So basically, what we do from that is then we take down what was the cost to us, to us as a community for each attendant to be there. So we break it down. So that's how much it cost us for everyone to attend at that program. Then we look at the fees and charges for vendor fees that we bring in. That's the next column. And then we look at contributions. That would be our sponsorships and things that we were provided for that.

And then in kind value. So if somebody comes in and says, I'm going to provide this to you at no charge, we still still put the dollar value to that because it's something that we don't have to pay for. We recognize the in kind valuation for that. So as we do that for everyone, the three signature events are obviously our most attended and most important. And then we get to the free events below.

These events, with the exception of Concert on the Park, because Concert on the Park last year, we ended up with an independent sponsor who paid for the band 100%. That does not happen very often. So our numbers for last year for that are a little bit skewed, but they directly paid for the band and had them come in for us. So when we get into those ones, those are the ones that are really on the chopping block because they're the ones that for example, the Movies on the Green would be very similar to Concert in the Park if you didn't have somebody do that donation last year. So that actually costs over $10 for us to provide that service.

And there's absolutely very little revenue. And that's only for the vendors who are signing up to bring the food truck or something there. So they just pay a small vendor fee.

Was that just a single band?

Yeah. Yeah. Very close. A single band is running us right like, have $3,000 budgeted for the year for it, and that's for two events or three, whatever we can stretch out of the $3,000 And it's getting harder and harder. Every year, those costs for bands are getting higher and higher.

That's great. I'm a musician. And that's just to think about

You would think some of the local guys would like the publicity

to I keep was getting just considering I could put something together. I've been playing in this area for almost twenty years.

It's crazy. But insurance, things like that that we require for participants to have, to get a band that's pretty advanced that wants to have the insurance and those types of things to be in there. But, mean, not saying we couldn't do something with a local open mic would be a lot of fun. If this should go away, that might be So yeah, that's kind of where we start to look at when we looked at the budget reductions that came to our table this year. Basically, we sum this up a little bit with talking about the benefits that parks and recreation and I'm preaching to the choir with this group, because you're here and that's why you're here to know what we have.

The biggest thing to remember with Parks and Recreation is the economic impact. Because so many people do not remember that there is a financial component to this, that you have increased visitation from people out of state. So that brings in money for a lot of other businesses that are here. Many people stay in the hotel down on 41 because they're coming to Warmanoke Springs. Many people stay in the hotels, get gas, have food when sports tournaments happen.

And we support the tourism industry as a whole. We need an identity, identity. And Parks has a big identity in this community. And then it boosts their property values. It is proven that if you live closer to a park, your valuation is higher than somebody who lives in what we like to call a park dead.

So these are just some national stats that people, through different types of organizations have proven. This one is for, according to the Center for Active Design, 29% of people have greater satisfaction with parks and recreation agencies. 14% have greater satisfaction with their police departments when there's parks in their community. And 13% show greater satisfaction with their mayor because they attach the commission to the advancements in parks. And then NRPA standards is 90% of US adults consider parks and recreation as important in the local government service, and 22 visits residents report per year to parks in one way or another.

So those are some big and kind of speak to why we're seeing the 600,000 number for visitations, right? If you think of everybody in a household doing at least 22 visits a year, as your population grows, all of that grows. So there's a snapshot of our parks. As we said, we have six fifty acres. The 30 parks that are there outlined as three community parks, nine neighborhood parks, 13 special use facilities, two greenways, one open space, which is City Center Front Green, and two conservation areas currently.

A little bit on the other side. At the total number at the end of the day, we said six twenty utilization, but our total visitor count, that we got was actually 850,000. So we exceeded that with this year's metrics when we got them back. And then 3,527 athletic field reservations and 3,700 youth athletes were served in those branches.

Do you happen to know we're a standing population right now?

Right now? 96 plus. 96,300, somewhere around there.

Thank you.

This just kind of goes into what our maintenance department does, our level of service on maintenance. Again, because we're going to talk about some budget cuts to maintenance services. What we do with our services and again, I have to just keep reiterating that the CAPRA accreditation sets the framework that we have to do this. Some people do it very minimally. Some people do it very well.

I feel like ours is done very well. We put into every park is a mode, either one, two, three, or four. And on those modes, depending on the uses of that park, determines how many times do we pick up trash, how many times does it get mowed, how many times does it get fertilized. Everything goes into a mode, and then our grounds maintenance crew follow the mode for every park we have. So it's not just, again, willy nilly. It's not, Okay, they're mowing the park. Well, they didn't get to it this week. No, there's a mode. There's a set standard. And they have to follow that.

And as they go down to four, you'll see it's minimal maintenance preservation areas. Three is a little bit more maintenance, a little bit more maybe some specialty work. And then one is obviously like our Butler Park, which is so highly used with the youth from the high school, so highly used with field rentals, it takes a much more consistent and robust level of maintenance. And then that is the end of that. So in your package, you have a number of things we can talk about.

I'm going move over here now. I don't need that. And the first pages on this, you'll see applying the efforts to Northport was a big focus in the budget assumptions this year. Budget assumptions are the first time city manager puts together a package to present a commission on what it is he's looking to do with the budget this year. So he did a big presentation at the beginning about Doge because there's very important factors within it that although we weren't called to task on it or investigated on it, that he felt we should really be considering in what we do every day.

So the first page is just a little bit about what his thoughts were with the budget and the inflation factors and things like that. As you go into it, one of the key factors is Doge talked about essential services and nonessential services. And in that conversation, you'll see the four that were outlined are police, fire, infrastructure and utilities. So that's our public works, our utilities and fire rescue police. Most of them have some component of general funding.

Police is 100% general fund. So just to be aware, that's what we are. They talked a little bit at that meeting about our cost recovery as I just went through with you. And it shows there that last year we generated $618,000 in revenue. So that was extremely important to mention.

And that's just revenue direct from a program, not the total revenue that came in with everything else. Outlined our cost recovery and it gives you some fund balances. I just thought if you guys would like to have it, you could see it for your own reference, anybody who couldn't make it to that meeting. Then we look at the effective millage and service cost rate. And you'll see on that sheet that we are we are amongst the lower numbers.

There's the City Of Palm Coast, which is 7.47 and the City Of Bradenton, which is 6.85 that are lower than us. Everything else on there is higher than us. Active grants that we currently have by department. You'll see police and, public works have twenty and twenty two. That's because there are many more grants available to those two departments.

When we look at infrastructure grants, they're huge, they're available all the time, and police are in the same boat. For us in our department, we have open projects 10 in the grant queue. So we're trying to get every possible thing we can do that way. You'll see his overall identification of potential reductions of 5%. I will say, not that I 100% agree with it, but it's not mine to agree with, 5% across all departments is very different, right?

5% to a fire department who has funding from districts and has funding from the general fund is a lot different when you have another money source than the general fund. Our only other funding source is park impact fees. And park impact fees are very limited. They're limited because they are restricted to use to equal growth. So I can't use it to repair something. I can't use it to hire staff. I have to have it allotted to growth and growth only. So Boca Chica, 100% funded by park impact fees. Circle of Honor, 100% funded by impact fees. And so an impact fee is collected when a builder or developer wants to build a house.

They pay this much money because their presence in this community is going to impact parks or whatever entity. So just to understand. And if I'm being too simple for you, please let me know. I know you really wanted to understand the process, so I'm trying to pull it all together for you. It's a little bit different when you're looking at 5% from, you know, other places and not just one.

Compensation impacts are on there. That's a big thing this year because with a 5% reduction, we had to start at a flat budget, which means all of the compensation increases that are already awarded, we have our parks and grounds are part of the union, They mandate a raise. The raises for the entire population of the city used to be a merit based raise. So if you came in there and you just met your qualifications at three, you would get a 3% raise. If you exceeded them, depending on how you exceeded them, you could have up to a 4% raise.

They were capped this year at 3%. But at the 3%, remember, I had to absorb three percent first from a flat budget before I was asked to reduce 5%. So now I was at an overall reduction of 8%. The general fund increases, the the union ones, were big. If you look at the nonunionized increases compared to for some of the other ones, they were quite large.

The next page that I gave you was our commissioner's priorities, and that is basically what defines the city's strategic plan. And in the strategic plan, every department and everything we do fall under one of these pillars, whether it's safe community with police and fire, whether it's quality of life, which you'll see quality of life is maybe natural resources and us, environmental resiliency and sustainability, natural resources and us kind of fall under the same thing. Infrastructure and facilities, good governance, and then disaster response. Those are the seven pillars that they have. And within that strategic plan, there are priorities set.

So whatever the commission sets for our priorities, not only do we have to take all of things we talked about on that presentation into effect, but we have to take the priorities that the commission sets into account when we're doing them. Adopted budget by pillar. You'll see on there that quality of life alone, which I said does encompass other departments, works out to be 6% of the general fund budget. And then when you look at the general fund here, quality of life overall is about $9,000,000 out of that whole thing, where you see the safe community is almost $56,000,000 So taking 5% out of $56,000,000 and taking 5% out of the nine is very different. Again, when there's cost recovery associated with that that are not with the others.

So then it talks a little bit about what our property taxes and how they create them. And the millage rate is the next page and it actually breaks down right for you because a lot of people actually the general public, I don't know if I've ever walked into a room with people who are not government employees who actually fully understand what the millage rate is. So that's how it's made up. It's your taxable value divided by 1,000 equals your millage rate. So that gives you that overall number.

So if your values go up like we all experienced in the last few years, your taxes go up. That's not a reflection of the tax increase on our millage rate. It's a direct reference on the value of your home going up. Who sets those values? Well, are set by your property values by the property appraiser. That's not the city's function. We don't set them. We don't say what they are. Then you look at this one, which I find is so interesting. We had a millage rate in 'sixteen of 3.59.

It increased to 3.87 in 2020, and then it went down that next year. So we saw a reduction in that to 37.67. That is still, from 2021, the exact same rate. So our property taxes and the millage rate that we collect has not increased a single one hundredth of a percentage in those years. Now, from a personal perspective, think about what else in our community has increased since 2020.

Everything. Everything. Especially in, like, '21, '22, when the effects of Ian and the effects of COVID started to hit and supply and demand issues started to hit, everything we do costs more money now, but yet there's been no increase whatsoever. Next page is another very informative one, and it's called out as a slide 46. That is how your tax dollar breaks down. So that shows the percentage of that dollar. So think about every dollar that you spend, dollars $0.04 2 of that goes to the school district. Yes?

Just a quick question. I know there are a lot of political candidates right now trying to run to lower the millage rate or to lower, obviously, property tax. So if the government were to do that at the local level, for example, how would you guys have to deal with the adversity of budget cuts?

Cut. Cut more. Yeah. You got to cut until you

It'd be a shame if they did. Because truthfully, if they've been holding steady for what was that, six years?

Six

years. Without moving at all and everything else is going up. Our cost to do everything has gone up exponentially.

Mhmm.

And we're dealing with the same amount of income and now being asked also to make cuts because of national things that are happening.

Yeah. Right. So what I just wanted to get at, basically. If we keep lowering these things, the amenities and recreation Will

go away.

Enjoy will go away.

All of the nonessential if the property tax reform for the state goes through, those four pillars I talked about fire rescue, police, infrastructure, and utilities will be untouched. We are not allowed to reduce service on them. They will be fully funded. Everything else will Everything under quality of life, everything under environmental and sustainability, everything else that is not essential, social services, not essential. Everything else that's on that list of the bottom end of not essential will have to go slowly and incrementally because basically if you take the property tax cut alone, it removes about $18,000,000 a year from our budget as a whole for the city.

And if you look at this dollar, you will see that the $0.42 isn't going away because that is your school taxes and they are not talking about touching them at all. Dollars $0.02 6 that comes to us on every dollar will go away. The $0.23 that goes to the county will go away. And then there's $09 of miscellaneous stuff that's in there. That's like your districts and stuff. And that's we're not sure whether that $09 will stay or go.

At this point. Our property taxes here are not bad. I am sorry. We really have nothing to complain about. But yet, unfortunately, people will still complain. Yeah. So the next page

you will see by department, how much of your monthly, of your tax bill, think about your tax bill. I'll speak to mine. Mine is about $2,300 a year. How much will go to each department monthly for that? For police, it's $32 a month.

For parks and recreation, when you get down to parks and recreation, we are $6.5 a month. But a household, doesn't matter how many people live in the household or utilize parks, dollars 6.5 a month goes to Parks and Recreation. So that will go away. So when you see at the bottom, the total amount of that 26% that comes to the city actually only equates to that $78.47 a month. Just a little bit of that impact, as I said to you, with the current rates and then the proposed tax cuts are on there.

So the $97,000,000 revenues, that will minus out $18,000,000 from the ad valorem taxes. And those are that direct cost with the homestead exclusion. And police, fire and EMS will have to make up $55,000,000 of what they currently get out of our budget from some other means just to remain where we are. And then at the end, I just wanted to bring this one home. This year, we did also implement a capital improvement plan evaluation and ranking.

So I sat on the committee. Somebody from every single department sat on the committee. And we took two seventeen capital improvement projects from across every single division and we had to rank them. We created criteria that said, is this already invested in? Do we have funding for it? Is it a mandatory need? Is it alike? Well, when you add those criteria, where does Parks and Recreation end? At the bottom. So that's already a piece of it.

So when we're looking at the future investments for the capital improvements, which are assets, things that we build, things that we have, we're on the bottom of that list as well. So that's just for your general information to support that. We

had talked previously, I think it was in our last meeting, discussing the idea that we don't have to maintain coming from the general fund. There is a process where we could separate, basically,

from Yeah. We talked about creation of a district. District is very common in northern communities, but there is not a single one in Florida. I have researched through the Florida Recreation Parks Association. There is not a single one that is there.

The city of Sarasota in 2019 passed that city commission that they would designate a district. But when push came to shove, they did not attach a millage rate to it. So it basically fell off because they didn't know how or what to do at that point because they were the first ones and they were trying to engage in it. So they still have it on record as a district in Sarasota, City Of Sarasota, but they do not have a millage rate attached to it. So in essence, I believe it's more of just a structure change for them than an actual millage rate where there's direct funding.

But that's how they work. It's basically like a fire district. Our utilities has a district. Our public works has a district. Our fire department, they have a district. They all have their own little millage rate. And you'll see them outlined on your tax bill. And those are that other $09 of things that come on your tax bill. So they had to be an approved by commission rate that just got attached to that.

Because if we were able to do that, then that would mean that all of our recouped costs and all of our income

Would go back into us. On our own. Yeah. Yeah. It would go back into us. Which would

make it more budget friendly for us to maintain.

Right. Right. Yeah. But with the flavor of taxation and people looking at this reform, they don't want us to add more taxes, right? And this would be adding in a separate tax. I think if we're going to pursue that, we're going to need some years of gap between the referendum votes that went out for borrowing opportunity. And then as we see budget cuts happening more and more and people start to see a level of service adjustment down, then we might be in a place to say, hey, let's put it on a referendum and get the vote for it.

It's not going to now. It would not

Nope. Go So with that, we proposed 38 budget proposals this year. One has already been rejected. So one of them was to remove the amenities like the bounce houses that are 12,000 to $13,000 at our events. And each one of them, and this one specifically, we had pulled up from Freedom Festival. Because Freedom Festival is a big cost to us with fireworks. It's our highest cost at over $70,000 So we thought a reduction to just those bounce houses, if we could get in kind sponsors to do it, the commission did vote down your memo to pay for those services. They did not want that. Yep. They voted it down.

The cost recovery on it would have been too high. To recover from four fifty to 500 children, dollars 13,000 would have been too high. So we were just saying, what if we had just put it at the five, ten, anything like that, and recover a portion, it's still a recovery rate. They voted it down. And that proposal that we had in there, so since you voted it down, we're going to put it in there to reduce it and take it out.

And we'll provide what we can provide with our rec staff out there instead of those services purchased. That was denied and was put back into our budget. So some of the other ones that you will see are, we had a couple of increase proposals. One is after school care at the Mullen Center. It is a full cost recovery program.

It's going to be about a $35,000 investment for us, but we will bring in about $48,000 So that's about the only one that we had that's a purchase for us. The rest were all reductions. Some of them were operating hour reductions at the Northport Aquatic Center, staffing reductions of one part time position at the Aquatic Center and one part time recreation attendant there, causing just more work to go on the next up position. So the coordinators and the other people will have to take on more responsibilities. Reduction to operating equipment at Northport Aquatic Center.

Every year, we budget money if a pump should break. If a VFD, we have to have a big computerized system that controls the speeds of the pumps to make sure we still hit the rotation in the pools. So we put money in in case those break to minimize downtime. So basically what would happen, they're going take the money out and if something happens, they would shut down until we can get emergency funding to pay for it. So a little bit different option there, but still an option that doesn't have a huge impact other than if we should have a problem.

Reduction in landscaping supplies, palm tree maintenance reduction, reduction of operating equipment for Warmrack Springs Park, operating supplies reduction for Warmrack Springs Park, I just said that. Budget reductions of contracted trash removal. So we have a contracted company that picks up trash in our parks every week, certain days. And so when we talk about those tiers of maintenance, we would reduce the tier and we would have it picked up less frequency, probably adding in some of the state park type literature that was pack in, pack out, asking people not to do it. Could we potentially see our parks become dirtier?

Absolutely. Are our staff gonna have to pick up more? Yes. If they're mowing and they see something, they're gonna have to pick it which is going to increase their hours that they now put in a park because, as we said, we have 30 and in grounds maintenance, we have seven employees on the ground side and seven employees on the parks athletic field side. So imagine seven guys trying to do all that and now you have to add in trash pickup in the middle.

So it's going to have some effect. We get to mulch. Mulch will be cut in half so they won't be remulching beds and tree trimming as much. We will reduce the court resurfacing. So every year, we have a rotation that's set out that we make sure that the oldest feet courts get resurfaced and repainted and that would be reduced so it would not be as frequent as it happens.

Park maintenance equipment replacement, those are the Sand Pros, all the specialty equipments, mowers. There'll be a reduction to that, so it would extend the life longer than what is right now currently accepted by fleet. Movies on the Green would be discontinued because of the fact that it's a very free, it's a 100% expense. Concerts in the Parks would be discontinued unless we had somebody step forward and say they wanted to do it free of charge, then we might be able to put one in. The egg hunt would go because it, again, is a 100% cost.

And the reason for the egg hunt to go is it's offered in many other places throughout the city. So it's an easier one for me to take than, say, the Freedom Fest and start to cut and hack that or the, you know, we even looked at trick or treat. And trick or treat will have a reduction. So right now, in my budget, we spent about $6,000 on candy. We provide it to all city departments who want to participate and we also provide them with a little bit of money for the decorations out of our budget.

Over the years, we've seen fewer city participation. I mean, last year, I think we had five departments in whole be there. So we decided that but we had 68 vendors. And part of the condition, we don't charge a vendor to be there, but they have to bring enough candy of their own. So we said, let's just double up the vendors, pull the city out of it.

We'll coordinate it. Our department will still do it, but we'll reduce the expenses by not having to buy the candy and do that piece. So, I mean, there's a ton of thought and ton of background into each one of these decisions. DeFi, I was able to take its 100% operating costs and my boxing gloves into our opioid settlement meetings. The city does receive opioid settlement funding every year from the the government receives it back from the companies that produce opioids.

And every year, I get in there with fire, police, parks and rec, social services, and we hash it out till the last man is standing. And this year, I was able to cover 100% of the DeFi cost with that. So I've pulled that out of our budget and moved it over to a different funding source. So it's a wash, You'll so see it kind of in and out. And then I did reduce it by all of our startup costs because we had some first time opening costs this year.

So it's still funded as long as we keep getting that opioid funds. If not, I'm gonna have to go back to the drawing board and put it in as a budget proposal to get it back. But for right now, it doesn't look like that's going anywhere. The Morgan Family Community Centre fitness cardio equipment replacement, That was added in as an add, but we have not heard back from that. We already had an established year over year plan that they take the oldest equipment out and they bring it up to par. It works out better for us because we purchase the equipment. So the preventative maintenance as you get to that older equipment becomes so costly that it's not worth having it. So it's in there, but we don't know whether it's going to stay to be funded.

That's cardio equipment?

Yeah. This year, we had cardio equipment and strength equipment up for replacement. The cardio equipment was, I think it's three treadmills that have to be replaced. And then the strength equipment, which is original. It hasn't been changed since we opened. And so it was up for replacement. Trick or treat reduction, as I explained. Advertising budget reduction. Freedom Festival reduction, which got added back in. Poinsettia Parade and festival contracted services reduction.

So with that one, we spent a lot of money on the MOT, all the fencing and the barricades. So our reduction was just to bring it back to a level that we could have public works provide. But there's a lot of safety concerns with that for us. So we're still working out the logistics on I don't want to take it away and not have it. Some of that fencing is very important, especially with the kids that run into the road.

But whatever we can salvage in house to reduce it by using what Public Works may already have. And then, staffing facility operating hours. So we have proposed to open the Morgan Center later. It's currently open at five a. M. For fitness center users. It would not be open until 07:30, where it starts to get the majority of use with the youth going to school. And then we would close the George Mullen Activity Center Saturdays. So that way, overall, that gives me the ability to reduce a staff member with that. We've reduced all promotional items.

You know, everybody has those little handouts. We will have none. We have reduced staff uniforms. All of administration will no longer have uniforms. And we've also reduced our outsource printing. So like our playbook will go down to probably one time a year instead of twice a year like we have it now. And so those are the 38 that we currently have in there.

It's too bad to get rid of those. Those are good things. It's a shame and they will be seen.

But they are the least impactful.

You saw Right. And honestly, it sounds like a lot of that I mean, obviously, it was very well gone over and debated over what was going to be cut and how to handle it, things like the courts being resurfaced at a lower frequency. That's something that probably could have been done anyways and not suffered too much.

Yeah. I mean, we're very frugal with it already. But we will start to see a higher level of deterioration before we get there. And we have a very vocal community. I'm going tell you, the pickleball at Highland Court, if there is anything, they are on my phone like that.

The dog park, if there is anything, are on my phone like that. The dog park has their own page on Facebook. And literally, every Monday morning at 7AM, the facilitator of that page puts my phone number, my cell phone number, the director's cell phone number, the park and grounds maintenance manager and assistant manager's number and says, If you have a problem, call these people. Every Monday morning. So we have a very vocal Parks community.

So it's gonna be harder to keep that messaging out to them to say, I'm sorry, with the reductions you're going to see this. Unfortunately, the communications like we've just had, most people don't get. So they don't understand that $6.5 to Parks and Recreation. They don't understand the cost recovery rate that we have. And so they're still going to be disgruntled when they start to see the trash, you know? It's going to be a time before people realize, hey, I have to pack in and pack out or I'm destroying my park, you know? That's going

to take a long time because, you know, they're spoiled.

Yeah. Well, then before they start realizing that that lower tax rate, the impact of that.

Some will never get it. They vote before and

give them that education and understand, hopefully

Mhmm.

Potentially have someone step in that will increase that rate again and fix fix our budget, so to

speak. Right. And this is just the first round. If we get into where the property tax reduction is completely taken away, it's going to be a whole lot deeper than this. So Questions?

Did I better understand? Fantastic job.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, no problem. Gavin, makes sense?

Yes, of course.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, you good?

Get deeper into it

when I'm at home. Yeah, yeah. I just wanted that's why doing just my presentation, I wanted to make sure that I gave you that backup information because it really, from the budget assumptions, this stuff is really good. You can see the full presentation if you go online to the last commission meeting in March. And you can see the whole presentation on there. I just pulled the ones that were more relevant to us because, you know, I knew that that's what you guys wanted. So that's my presentation on

Budget It's and my a shame that the people don't understand it. It's a shame that our own commissioners don't understand at all. And that's a real pity.

Say, like, I just wish more people were educated on, like, such topics. Like, yes, property tax reducing seems very ideal, right? Like, everybody wants lower taxes until the repercussions hit. Right.

I think that's our job, though. We get the opportunity to be citizens also, not just be on this board, but be able to have access to that and then go be citizens and talk to our friends, talk to our neighbors, and let people know, hey

That's why voting is so important.

Yeah. And I mean, you guys are a minority because you're out here because you want to be out here and you're good stewards of the community. And we can't fill this board. We can't fill a lot of our boards. We don't give the message to everybody. The major people only step forward when they have a problem with something because it's like we just have parks and they're great and we just move on until there's something in your park that you want or there's something in your park that you're not getting or you don't have a park. And that's the same with anything, the nature of the beast, right? The vocal people are gonna be the people who have a problem. And it's unfortunate because it just takes away that opportunity to spread the message of the facts. Here's the facts. This is kind of how it's going to work.

Well, I'm ashamed that the reason why that they're going to be reducing the property taxes like that is most likely just a political At all.

That's all

it is.

It's got nothing to do with a betterment for anyone. It's an observation that people

are planning And to explain

I can get votes if I tell people I'll get rid of their property taxes.

And I mean, it's a great thing when you think about it just in that statement. Okay, you're going to put almost $3,000 back in my pocket this year. Great. You know, that helps me a lot. But when I look at long term, and I'm a resident too, so it affects me just as much.

There's how do you sustain all of the things we have by cutting an $18,000,000 budget out of the city and without giving a recourse of how or a financial stability plan? That's the thing for me. If you want to do that, the state could then say, Okay, well, the tourism taxes or this or that, you're going get a share of this or a share of that. And here's a plan to implement higher sales tax. That's what many communities do that have reductions in property tax. They take it somewhere else. You know, you're paying for it. You're paying for trash pickup that you don't have to pay for now. You're paying for road taxes. You're paying for tire taxes in some communities.

You're paying for gas taxes. You're paying for a bunch of hidden taxes that all hit our pocketbook in the same way, but don't necessarily get seen the same way. Fees. Exactly. Yeah. So all right. If that's it on budget, we can move on. You guys all look so sad. I'm sorry. We have future agenda items first.

That would be great. You can make a motion that I bring back a proposal with options for implementation of a rainbow bridge at the K9 Club.

Any comment? All in favor? Aye. There you go.

So that is the future. Does anybody have anything else for future agenda? Anything for

other future agenda items? Okay.

I know. But we can wait for you.

Okay. Any other future agenda items? Okay. Now we're going to have public combat.

So they're gonna they're gonna pull it up.

They're gonna

do public comment.

This is on future agenda items.

We can go back.

Don't worry. I

want to give you a little back. Y'all familiar with the circle of honor, right?

Yeah. I

hope to see you all there. I was involved with the vision of that project in its earliest stages. In its earliest stages before the committee was even formed, there was another segment to that circle of honor. And I want to propose you to make a recommendation that it be added. And what that is, is the wetland to the east of it.

There is an expanse that goes around and that wetland is an intricate part of the reflection and meditation for that vision. It's in its very end stages. I've discussed it with Parks. I've discussed it with Natural Resources. I am bringing it to this board and what that is, is to develop a low impact mode four trail but also to extend overlooks like short boardwalks with a pad that overlook the wetland, which is probably, I can't even tell how many acres it is now.

I don't know now.

But it was part of the original plan. And in the early discussion, there was that it was too big of a bite of the apple. So we concentrated on the circle of honor. I'm a member of the committee. I've been chairman of the committee for a few years.

Then I wanted to get this into the boards so you're aware that that that was part of the original plan. But I'm trying to bring it back to where it was. So it's truly a special place and that's where it relates to parks and have also discussed it with park with natural resources and the environmental advisory board that will be talking to them. Here is the reasoning behind that. You look at City Green, everything in City Green has been cleared.

Okay? The circle of honor and that wetland are the last vestiges of any natural habitat on this campus. And and and the wetland is a unique and diversified ecosystem in its own right. And I don't believe there's any park that incorporates or has the central feature of wetland. So that's the proposal.

And, hopefully, between now and your next meeting, I'll have the aerials and data and sketches and the proposed reasoning for it. And what I'd like to do is consider it to put it on your next agenda and endeavor to get you backup material. But you get an aerial photograph of the thing and you'll see.

All

right? Thank you very much.

Thanks, Jim. Am I allowed to make a motion? Yep. Yep. So I make a motion to talk about the development of low impact trail to overlook the wetlands, see, obviously, if it is feasible

to Attach do that the circle of honor.

Yeah. Attach to the circle of Honor.

All right. So let's consider condensing it. Let's say I I make a motion.

I make a motion to develop a low impact trail overlooking the circle pond.

No. I make a motion to add to the future agenda item a presentation from or Mr. English, sorry. I don't know where that came from. At the next meeting to consider

Phase two.

Phase two of the circle of honor. That's why he's calling it.

So I call for a motion to add on the future agenda item for a presentation from Mr. English regarding the Circle of Honor

phase two. Phase two.

I'll second that.

That was Joan. I'll work with you on that. If you want to just get me the stuff you want in it, I'll put the presentation together for

you. Okay.

I'll be getting with Stefan.

Two, yeah. And I'll ask him to be here with us.

Any comments on that?

No, Lynn is aware already, too.

Okay. All in favor? Aye.

So

if that can be added for our next agenda.

Thank you very much.

No problem. And just a comment for that work. Have you considered possibly doing it as less than just a phase one and phase two or more than, I should say, to take what you still want to it and divide that maybe into two or three more phases. And the reason for that being is because of the budget and the expense of each of those things, like to create observation decks walking out or that'll walk you out into the wetlands. That's going to be a lot because of setting pilings into the water.

I totally understand that. Basically, got to get past the logistics will be

When we do it, we may have to phase it as we develop it because the other part is between myself and Natural Resources, we may find grants that would have to phase in the stage with the grants.

Okay. And that's what I was thinking, is that that way, if it's able to be done in a little smaller bits, it might be able to be worked more financially.

The smaller bite was a circle of heart.

Right, right, right.

And besides which veterans grants and things like that.

Right. Absolutely. Yeah.

As well as, like I said, there's some restoration that we can go for some restoration grants over there, I'm sure, too.

That might be able to include things like that.

Yeah. Yeah. So getting you guys talk about it, getting to all the boards is the important piece. We get the buy in, then we can get commissions buy in to take it to the

next level. We need to preserve all that we can.

Yeah, right, right. Absolutely.

I never wanted to see any of City Green used for anything else except for things for our city. I hope.

The key thing for natural resources is the last vestiges of any natural habitat on this campus.

And it's going to get fewer and fewer as the building up front goes on.

Right. Well, and for it to be connected to the Circle of Honor, it's a cool thing. It makes it a whole nice thing for the veterans to be able to go over there and then contemplate and walk the weapons and have that.

Exactly. There

are some alligator habitat in there. Alligators are not a bad thing. They were here first, so maybe like an environmental education sign that

explains why they're important.

I'll have them just do another public comment on this. Oh,

there's alligators. I don't want to go near them.

Just to protect my clerk over there, do I need to just fill out one more of those on the subject? Because that way, they can change their official comment. Tiffany's over there going, Yeah. Alright. I think we are there's I

think that's it. Okay. That's it.

Did anybody else have items for future?

Okay. I call this meeting adjourned.

Thank you all.

Thank you you. For all you do.