Parks & Recreation Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

It's now 6.30, and we are in City Hall, room 244, and we are here for the Parks and Recreational Advisory Board meeting and attendance. Joan Morgan. Ken Stevens.

Gavin Gray. Paul Jackman. Kevin Wallace.

Okay, can we all stand for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

Okay, do we have any public comment? No, okay. Approval of minutes, 26-1016, approval of the July 16, 2026 Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting. Minutes?

I move to approve the minutes from the July 16th meeting.

Any second? Second. Second. Okay. Gail seconding. Ed Paul first and Gail second. Any questions? Any comments? All in favor? Aye. Okay. Approved. Okay. New business 26-1039 discussion and possible action regarding approval of the 2027 annual meeting schedule. So we do have that, a copy?

Oh, yeah, we do.

We have a copy. Okay.

Comment? Pending upon Amendment 3, we might need to go to

We might need to stay here. We might need to move on. We might need to roll it back because of.

Because we're not here? No.

I might need more of you than I've ever needed before.

Yeah. Yeah. Right when I joined, it had just changed from monthly to bimonthly. And I've had mixed feelings and thoughts on that, where I thought that it's probably the most consistent way for us all to work through our day-to-day lives and still be able to make the meetings consistently. I'd also brought up the concern that it doesn't give us enough activity and interaction with the council. whereas if we were monthly, then we have that chance to make more suggestions and more encouragement in directions that the Board deems worthy.

Hey, I'm for whatever. I'm very much in favor of a monthly meeting, but if bi-monthly is better, and the encouragement, I do agree. you know, and so whatever.

If we could, if I would be so inclined to go with a monthly scheduling again, I would also like to maybe think about the fact of us rolling it back to maybe six instead of 630 due to constraints for city employees having to be here so late personally.

Yeah, I'm fine. I'm very good.

I believe we're the latest board to meet.

Yeah, I'm OK with that. The bi-monthly meetings, obviously, we've been able to maybe better kind of adapt around other people's schedules, because obviously it's difficult to go with other people's schedules. But with the bi-monthly meetings, I also have felt that we've had less of a chance to converse with each other on suggestions on the happenings of the North Port community. And I think the monthly meetings just kind of give us a better chance to converse on new things happening or just to spot anything that we haven't been spotting in the community. So I'm fine with a bi-monthly meeting and I'm fine with a monthly meeting, either way.

Right, right.

We are right now, Lori File has arrived for attendance. We are on new business. We are on the idea of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and here's the new schedule for the meetings for next year. And do we want to go, we're talking about, do we want to go back to a monthly meeting? Do we want to go to earlier? Because this is the latest any board meets. Yeah, I know with the every other month meeting, I'm sitting there going, is this the month? Is this not the month? You know?

I am curious, what was the primary motivator for why we switched it?

I was not at that meeting. Siobhan was here. I was away. And when I came back, I was actually shocked. So I would have to lean on those people over here.

If I remember correctly, I think it was just back when we did the monthly meetings, I believe we were having a bit of a hard time for people to attend. Yeah, with people contending consistently, I think consistent attendance was a bit of a problem. So people were having a bit of difficulties with adapting everybody's schedule to one meeting to meet quorum, because I remember we haven't met quorum on multiple meetings back then. So I think that might have been why we did the bi-monthly meetings there to adapt to other people's schedules. But honestly now I think we've come to a point in everybody's lives I hope that we can attend meetings consistently because it's just kind of been a bit weird with the way things have been going. But yeah, I think that's what the bi-monthly meetings were about. Okay.

I know that I can commit to one Thursday night out of the month. If I can do it every other month, I can do it every month.

Of course. I've missed a lot because I was doing Northport University and I followed it right up with Citizens Safety Academy, which was meeting on Thursdays, which I don't have that anymore. That was my biggest problem.

My question to you people is would six o'clock work as far as scheduling goes? Okay, all right. I'd like to take a motion.

Yeah, I'll make a motion to go to monthly meetings that start at 6 p.m.

Okay, do we have a second for that? I'll have to second that motion. Okay, Paul seconds. Kevin made the motion. Any discussion?

Well, does it have to be separate or can it be joint? Okay, so you made it joint, okay. Is that? Okay. Are we voting?

Yeah. Anybody discussion? First of all, discussion? OK, then we ready for a vote? OK, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? OK, let's try for 6 o'clock monthly meetings.

So if you want to go monthly from bimonthly, that would require a motion.

OK, you want to make the motion to go monthly?

I'll make a motion to go from bimonthly to monthly meetings starting in 2027. I will second that motion.

OK. All in favor? Aye. OK. Next, updates, review, and discussion on recent and upcoming parks and recreation department events.

All right. This is my item. participated in the back-to-school bash. They engaged with over 500 community members and both offered to be part of the division as a whole. Five after-hours rentals took place during that month in July, including two full facility rentals, which are usually our goal. They're a nice revenue generator. War Memorial Springs had two staff members be recognized with the American Red Cross Lifesaving Award for saving a life. A non-water rescue, a cardiac arrest, and the lifeguards were able to assess it. The Red Cross will be coming on site to present that award to the staff. We hosted the Heart Hunt Ceremony for the official kickoff of the rehabilitation of historic buildings that were lost. in recreation the freedom festival successfully commenced its 250th anniversary and we had almost 12 000 people on july 25th the drug free youth summit the very first one was held at the morgan center we had 42 youth and adult attendees representing around our Southwest Florida area in future years. We hosted the first nature walk at Boca Chica neighborhood park with 13 attendees. So it's starting to get its following on Boca Chica. And we welcomed the over 500 members to the D5 program at the beginning of last year. And just to highlight, this week's ginseng had another 100.

Fantastic. Wonderful.

During the maintenance portion, we had Island Ridge Park installing difficult court signs. working with the tree planting plan. You see some of the trees that went in over here, working on shade trees for rough playgrounds. So there's an annual plan working with that for resources to replant trees in those areas, which is really nice. They also installed some more. Upcoming event, we have the Sweetheart Ball on October That's been on October 31st. It's not as involved as you want to say, Senator. Upcoming agenda items. On 9-22, we have an approval and award for special event assistance for the Kiwanis Club happening for the Community Health Expo. On that safety, we have the award of funds for the Kiwanis Club for the Bike Safety Expo. On 10-1, we have recognition of me for taking

That's almost as bad as the FAA certification.

That's why there's only 400 of us in the nation. Wow.

Wow. Congratulations. That must be very honored to be part of that 400.

Yeah, it's very cool. I was just happy I was talking to you. About three quarters of the way through, I was like, not so sure. So at the end of it, I said, oh, I have an extra half an hour in my time limit. Should I go back and check? And I said, no, I'm just going. of the Red Cross Life Saving Award. And then there will be a presentation, a proclamation for Red Ribbon Week for the DeFi community happening on that one. So 10-1 is a good, positive thing for Parks and Recreation. And then on 10-5.

Listen up, everyone.

We will have a sustainability strategies and Parks and Recreation operational efficiencies focused on cost recovery happening at that meeting. That is where we are going to try the bus on the things that may be presented to us after Anybody wanting to attend or anybody we know that wants or can attend, it's a good place to have our voice heard. So on 10-5, happy birthday to the member visiting. We will be there and doing that presentation.

And that starts at 10 o'clock?

10 o'clock a.m. And just an overall update in the same time frame. Parks and Recreation has been challenged with the addition of the Facilities Maintenance Department Division of Public Works will be moving to Parks and Recreation. So I've spent the last month getting intricately involved in as we are, and they have been without a position to manage that division for almost two years. So it was kind of a city manager finance kind of decision that they were gonna try to move this into a federal funded place. And the only one we experienced to manage facilities on that widespread that could take that on was me. So we're looking at, to general funding for parks and recreation. But as this year moves through, that's going to be a big piece that's going to pull me from the other pieces of parks and recreation. So we're trying to work on the back end of that. How does that look for us administratively and how do I take on that load and how that reorg has to kind of look. So that's been a big piece for us and a very busy time for me. I've done these 12-hour dates a lot more in the last month, and I don't even have it until October 1st. So just for general awareness of that what's going on in this fund. So you will see that in the presentation on October 5th, you will see that that budget is not the full department.

Financially speaking, that's a good thing for Parks and Rec, giving us more control over general funds since we've developed so much of that general fund.

It's amazing. It's amazing. It's just, it's unbelievable, okay? All I can say, and all any of us can say, is we have seen so many years of growth, optimism, and we're finally at a point where things are really looking good, blossoming, and, you know, so proud of everything that's happened, and our place looks so good, and our Parks and Rec Department is so phenomenal, you know, and now we have this huge cloud over our head, which everybody, which really gets me because everyone's just saying, oh, there it is, and like there's nothing we can do about it. And sadly, we're little people trying to move a huge cloud. But I hate to see everything that everyone has worked for for a long, long, long time and all that you've put in and all that Sandy and all that Devon and all that everyone has put in be destroyed because of stupidity. And that's what it is. And yeah, I hope we can get people to the 10-5 meeting, 10-1 meeting. We don't know how many kids' lives we have saved by the swimming lessons. You don't know how many lives you've actually saved. And yet, we have those that want to sit there and see the pool closed. When we say 500 kids are in DeFi, we are actually saving lives there too. Because of what you've done, and because of bringing Kevin Mace, who is a phenomenal person in there and all, and his ambassadorship programs and everything he's doing, and bringing all the communities together under DeFi and all, it has changed a whole culture. For example, Connors, who's the superintendent of Sarasota Schools, they didn't know that we really existed a year ago. Let me tell you something. He's our biggest fan. I mean, he absolutely loves our DeFi kids and what they're doing. and the growth we've done, and we are the model. We have Welland Park, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing there, but North Port High School still can hold its own, and it's because of DeFi, and it's because of what these programs are doing. And they are recognized, and I find it extremely sad that you can have a program like the city put on, and that you are not alone, and have maybe 20 fresh faces there, if there was that many. But yet you can have a meeting over something like a data center, and it's a packed audience for something that truly we really shouldn't have to even discuss. But yet something so important, and all the service people that were there at that meeting, at the You Are Not Alone, every single one of the key players were there. and no one to listen to them and no one to hear them and it's sad because those were the key players. And our city is going to lose so much growth and positivity and it just makes me sick to my stomach. We need our leadership and we need every mayor, we need everybody in the state government to get their heads out of their rear ends and do something. And that's not the only way it's going to be saved. Because I do believe, and when you talk to people about this, when you tell them what's going to happen, they change their minds. They understand. But right now, all that's being said is, hey, you want to pay taxes?

I don't.

You know?

Well, and then, you know, the consistent argument that all politicians and all politics are crooked and therefore the funding must not all be going to these services so they don't need more of my tax dollars. That's one of the most common things I see people fit-throwing about when they're talking about it online. And in truth, it's a community. And we're a community together, not as individuals. And that's what taxes is meant to be. It's contributing. And we all contribute to our community and our community can thrive. No one, even a single person with no parent or significant other can prosper in a community where half of the people are turning to crime because they're starving. So we all benefit when each of us benefits. So rising tide raises all ships to something.

I honestly got to say, out of everything we've seen from what's been done here in Northport, I want to say, I honestly think, in my opinion, our community has been developed, has developed itself throughout. It's seen great growth. I've heard many great things about the DeFi program and what the kids have been doing. Every time, people are really proud of that program, people, and they should be. great problems. I hear great things about our staff. I hear great things about our facilitators. I hear great things about our parks. And just I'm glad that people can be proud of um being in part of a program that for example like the monitor swimming program that's been like saving future lives because swimming in its is essentially a survivor survival skill at this point and just seeing all these programs um help people get uh obtain a decent life and even saving lives it's just great and Unfortunately, when put in that position, many people will mainly look at the big picture and not necessarily the smaller details. Don't get me wrong. It's extremely important to see the big picture, but the smaller details of like. why we're paying for this, or why we're putting this into place is just, I think some people just need to see the effects of these accomplishments, truly. That's my two cents about it.

I tell you what, I mean, Laurie, I celebrate you, because all she did for DeFi, out of the goodness of her heart, not that she got paid, OK? And if it wasn't for her holding that program and people like Monica Beckett and some others holding that program, until now, we have help. It wouldn't be there. If it wasn't for what you did, that program wouldn't have been around long enough for them to save it. 12 years. Yeah, yeah. Wow. So it's been a lot of people doing a lot of things. And man, I hate to see it.

destroyed you know too many people too many years too many efforts out of curiosity and i know i should probably already know this but i would like to be more involved in what's happening outside of these meetings with parks and recreations and i feel that i have a hard time keeping up with all of it what should i be doing to have my finger on the pulse so

And that's why they're applied not reply all You know Okay.

Isn't there something on the city's website about places where you can volunteer?

Yeah, there's always our volunteer program. There's also our current projects. Like, there's a lot of things that we put on the website. Okay. So that you can see. So that's a great resource to do it.

All right, awesome. Yeah, that right there, just those two things will help me get started on that path and start getting my schedule worked a little bit better.

Yeah, you go over to the Morgan Center at any time to see the flyers for all the different things that they have, too. We used to have the book, but that's another thing that got cut back because of funding.

How do we target a certain, because I think most people are on information overload. There's so much information, and it's hard to kind of weed through what's, like I want to be able to do this, and how do I find out how to do that? It's like anything parks and rec, how do you target the information the community so this way they know. Because a lot of times I hear, oh, I didn't know that was happening. I didn't know until after it was done or in a world where everybody is overwhelmed with.

For now, we have a marketing team. And we do social media. We send out cards this time to every household in the city, to the QR code, to go to the virtual. Well, we also do a ton of social media. They're scheduled two and three times a week for everything that's coming up. And really, those are the main avenues for us to reach. But no matter how much you get it out there, if somebody didn't see it in that right place or didn't see it in this place. So the marketing team works closely with the city.

Yeah, it's hard, too, because the social media algorithms, sometimes you see those things, and then sometimes you don't. But that can't be controlled, obviously.

All right, are we good? Yes. OK. All right, next, 26-1020, review and discussion of Parks and Recreation Department agenda items of recent and upcoming city commission meetings.

I think you kind of did that. Yeah, you kind of did that.

The first, 12th, or October 1st and October 5th are two that.

Okay.

We need to get there.

Okay. 26-1129, update and review of War Middle Springs Progress Parks and Recreation Department projects. Here's another area where if you gave a test to the most of the people of Northport, they would fail it. They do not understand. And that's sad, you know, because they're thinking it's a loss and it's not.

level of comprehension, depending on how long you've been here, depending on how interested you have been in it. So I've kind of done a big overview of all of the things we have going on out there, and I've printed off all of the resolutions and all of the things, so if there's more questions, please feel free. One of the things we need to start with with an update on there is that year-to-date attendance

than it brought in.

It's showing a 136% cost recovery for that facility. It is an enterprise fund, which means that it pays for itself. It doesn't come back into general fund. An enterprise fund is run like a business account. The money goes into it, it pays for itself. everything that happens, and we even take back to the general fund $117,000 for cost allocation for support like HR services, finance services, the common IT services, those common general services that the city general fund pays for, we actually pay back into that to cover those costs, and that's still where the cost is.

OK. I really, really wish somehow we could make the people, force them to take a test on it.

So let's talk a little bit about the building conditions, because this is kind of where we ended up. The former Meryl Springs Park was purchased back in 2010 when the county are interested in it. And it was a management company that was hired to run it, and the city basically just managed a contract with them to run it. Being that it was a management company, and the age of the buildings, the buildings were built in 1959, your SCI have identified there as building A, building B, and building C. As we go through it, we'll reference those buildings. Building A is the initial building where you walk in, which once held the had a little gift shop and had a little spa area. And it was functioning and running when parking. Building B had been closed a year prior to that because the facilities in there, which were years ago, had a commercial kitchen and a vendor that came in and had some food and things. It had the big two lockers you know, big room showers, and the age of that building just couldn't sustain the moisture of the water. The elements out there are an extremely difficult thing to manage. That building had been shut down, and we had already installed temporary restroom facilities at that time when Mark gave me an interview. In 2020, the cyclorama, which you see at sea, was closed to the public and no longer utilized in any way. The building C, you can see that in that image, this is just a post-Ian image. This is right after we took it over. So in 2022, the whole site, when Ian hit, was closed. The very front building A had nearly 18 inches of water because of the water from the back. There was a project that was created in 2020 to renovate the buildings historically. And when we went out to bid, the bid came in in excess of $18 million, and the commission at that time chose not to fund that renovation. So it was kind of sitting on a shelf. In 2023, after being closed for six months, and everybody very up in arms about that, as you can imagine, 136,000 people that normally go there, going, hey, what's happening? The city leadership decided, a contract with the manager team who had basically left it in disrepair. And I was tasked with in three months having it open to the public. So we put into the site, you'll see the temporary facilities that are there. We put in the ADA accessible walkway. We built that up. The back building is the restroom facility, which has a male and female side. We did not replace showers because they're temporary buildings. and the cashiers have to run out. So that's kind of an overview of what happened. After that storm during Milton, one of the very large trees that you see to the right that's between there, which is an invasive tree, by the way, it's a beautiful tree, but it's invasive, lost a number of branches and caused further damage to building B. And after many, many months of debate and how we were gonna pay for it and multiple funding sources and a modified plan that 20 people in this room sat together and figured out how we could bring the cost down to this renovation, make it something sustainable, capitalize on getting a return on this investment from FEMA because we still have that ability to apply for some of these funds from FEMA. Not a building beat, they won't touch it

It actually is Building C. It is a cyclorama.

And back years ago, you walked in, and in the center, it kind of has a TV-shaped concrete walkway. It goes up to the top. Around the entire perimeter of the building are walled murals. I have some on my phone. I'll show you after. They are in phenomenal shape, considering it has been neglected and left without AC. roof for some time. They're in phenomenal shape. At one point in time, it was a tourist thing to come in. It tells the story, the interpreted story. I'm not going to say a real story, a true story. I don't know. It tells the story of possibly on discovering the Mormonal Springs and labeling it the fountain. So as you walked in, there was like an audio system and different lights that would go and you would follow around the story and be able to watch

It was very cool. It was very cool.

And it's one of only two in the nation that are still in existence of this type of thing. Just for a little bit of clarity, the buildings are on the National Historical Registry and they are also under local prioritization for historical preservation. So we have two things that we're helping us along with this. With this renovation, the change came is that we would not try to build the big locker rooms. They're very difficult and expensive. We would not replace the commercial kitchen. So what happened is Building A will become an entry room where you have your check-in still on the left side as you walk in, which is similar to what it was. The offices will move into that space. On the right side of the front of Building A, which you see in the top picture, that will become a conference room that is rentable, giving me another revenue stream at that location. Building B, as you see at the back section here, because part of the historical renovation, the only way they would go with my plan was that all of the tiles on the solid walls have to stay intact. The roofline has to stay intact and the overall concept. Because in this design, the design is meant to mirror and have that same shape designed into the walls. So we had to keep that as a very important piece. On the side, you will have 11 individual restrooms, which actually are a better fit than family restrooms. They will have individual space in there. Due to the nature of the people that are out there, they tend to be Eastern European and tend to be much more open with their And so this was a better fit for us anyway. It reduced our costs and it put children who might be exposed to another type of acceptance into a better place. So we have that. On the inside of this, this back section that was once all closed in and not really usable, will be an open-air pavilion where there will be gathering space that's shaded for people to be able to go up, have their lunch, sit with people, and it will become a big open-air space through the center of that. The Magdala that was once there will be reinstalled in there, and that will give people a much-needed shade that they don't have out there right now. Because right now, every year I hear that they want to support pavilions out there. Well, ground disturbance on an archaeological site is very difficult. So for me to put quarters in, difficult. Putting it here, it. So now we'll give them that much in its face, get the print from the sun, especially given the demographic. We're talking, you know, Eastern European predominantly and in the age group of 60 to 90 is that big demographic in there. So really important piece of the health and safety of the matrix being there as well. So this project came in at, as I said, 16.7 funding sources come from Park impact fees, surtaxes, a lot of different hands went in it. The utilities connection, there's a portion of it will be paid by the utilities fund. The next piece we have is I have a Charlotte Harbor Natural Estuaries project that is for $230,000. It is in work assignment right now to go onto the street. This grant will remove a lot of the overgrown invasive species and replant native trees and underbrush in the areas to minimize As part of this, there will also be interpretive signage meant to educate the community on what it is and why we did it so that they can start to see. There's a tremendous amount, you'll see it. I was actually out there today getting drone pictures. Along this waterway that crosses here and goes up, it's part of the watershed from the and some of that flooded area that we get on the other side of 75. Along that, it is 90% resilient factors. So our $230,000 is not going to eradicate it, but what it's going to do is it's going to put us in a much better place for the next project I'm going to talk to you about. This is the conservation easement work that we're doing on the same property. Conservation easement with the Big Waters Land Trust, one of the things that they'd like to hear about It's a conservation unit that we have to be dealing with those invasive species. This grant puts us at a place where it makes it palatable for them pledged another $50,000 in year two and $30,000 in year three to come back in after we do this initial invasive and to support that, to continue with it. Do we need to retreat the areas? Can we go any further? So they've pledged for year two and three to come back and support it. So that way, Big Waters Land Trust would be happy to put the rest of this acreage into . So what you see up here is kind of a map that I just actually drew it and didn't have another one that was good. I drew it with the company that's doing the landslip for me. If anybody saw that any of the commission meetings about it, the commission wanted to exclude this 15 acres because this is zone 7A, which is zone for commercial properties. So if somebody should come If somebody came in and said they wanted to have a small, you know, restaurant, we still have land available to do it. They did not want us to restrict this because when we go into conservation and easement, it's in perpetuity. It means they cannot sell this property ever. It remains in its natural state. It also limits things that I can do. It's part of that agreement. I can't go in there and build a building right in the middle of just We could put open air pavilions, we could do walking paths, we could do interpretive signage, we could do anything that fits into the natural scope for that conservation life. So the yellow above the black line is what would all be conservation easement. It works out to somewhere around, if we take the Petro properties, 80, 81 acres. conservation and city-owned. So you take that out, we're down to around 60 acres, or round number, and then we take out the 15, right? So we're at about another 60, 65 acres that will go into this conservation area. You see the waterways flag there, that's a big piece because of the granting. The Charlotte Harbour Estuaries really likes to have a component So you're saying that the 15 acres is commercial? The 15 acres is excluded. It is commercial and it's city owned. It will not go into conservation use.

Okay, so it's city-owned, so you said something about somebody could build a restaurant on there, is that?

Yeah, potentially, so if we had a developer come in and propose to purchase a subsection of that lot to put something commercial on, that could happen.

But they wouldn't actually own it, right?

Depends on how the commissioner So being that it's commercial and if people isn't it that if you own your land you can pretty much build whatever you want can they build like a like a auto parts you know like so part of that would be they would have to apply to the city to purchase it and because of the nature of where it is we would have input into what would be there we wouldn't approve something that would be an auto parts store isn't that the way commercial zoning works and and to kind of say what can and can't be there. Yeah, it has to be wellness. It has to be recreational complimentary. There's a lot of very specific terms, but it does give us some power. And I sit on that review. I review every development that comes in. If there's a parks and rec component, whether they want a reduction of an easement, if it's not road drainage, but it's easement from a parkland, or they have a...

Fantastic.

Yeah, it's actually really exciting. I moved to North Ford in 95. It was one of the first things that my grandparents brought us to see was the springs. And I was blown away at the fact that, you know, supposedly Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth was in the town I was living in when I was 14 years old.

It's even more cool to be in it. I've been down 35 feet in the center of that spring.

Nice.

Okay, so that's project number three. How far are the springs that's coming forward? The Connector Trail. So this is what the North Port Connector Trail looks like right now. Everybody know what the Legacy Trail is? Familiar with the Legacy Trail? All right, so where we connect right now is here at the top of Deer Prairie Creek. And we come along, which we still all see on 75. You can see it on the side of the road, that little path. It comes down, and then it turns in and comes straight down here and currently ends that natural area. So if you go all the way to the west end of Price, you're gonna end at that legacy trail severing point. The Connector, as it's named right now, had 90% approved plans to continue down. I'm gonna show you some more pictures. And it kinda sat there. The county has some funding. They had 90% plans to go And they had some money left in there. So they have since given that to us. But it is for construction costs. This kind of gives a little bit of an overview. And one of the biggest things on this I wanted you to see, in case anybody wasn't familiar, is the current Legacy Trail sees 600,000 residents and visitors a year. So it's kind of a no-brainer that connecting this to i said ends there i've kind of drawn this for you i know it's a little harder to see because this is the county's pre-loan map that i just showed you but it ends at that price full of our trailhead point which is not a real trailhead it's really just a little bridge and nothing more one of the biggest challenges for the people in this community is there's no restrooms so there's nowhere for people to stop along that trail there's nothing you can get so the connector would run from that point along this yellow line that I've drawn. At this point, there's a very heavy area of and then we come down through and count a couple of these properties, and then there's one property that is withheld that the owner will not sell. long. It starts all the way up, it's all the way long. We're going to come into the drainage easement, because we have enough side to it, and we're going to come back here, and then it's going to run all the way down, and then into the front of Moore Middle Springs Park. You see there's the park in the springs, there's the existing parking lot, and there will be a trailhead restroom, and by So with this one, this will create obviously the connection at that point down north east of 41, out to river. It's like a whole, we're looping in a part of the city to a trail that doesn't have a loop right now. We're going to be able to finish that connection here. Down in Lee County, they just received like a $260 million grant. is we have paid for plant. We now have the remainder from where the county was at 90% point to our 90% point of the rest of it. The county has the 250,000 committed for construction. The friends of Lake C-Trail have pledged 130,000 in addition to that. And this is a prime project that we may be looking at moving impact. Um, they're very heavy and the state of the government, they don't think they're going to be expanding those types of things. So we have to be aware of that. They did send me just today a list of other grants that they suggested that we do. So our grants department is working very diligently to get on those. But whatever becomes short with the grants, we would would probably be looking at taking impact fees especially those ones that have been sitting there for a number of years investing and finishing this project because of the magnitude it would have to work um come that time we may look at endorsement from the board to endorse that use of it but i wouldn't want to do that until we get down to what those numbers are so that is probably

So that is the point right there near Price, just past Biscayne?

So Biscayne runs here, parallel to that drain.

Okay.

So if you were on Price and you went over Biscayne, you kept going all the way to

Yeah, and when you can and let me tell you something that that is used.

Yes Okay, just like the greenway trail it is used constantly that is used the bikers and all I mean it is fantastic You can go on the legacy trail website and punch in legacy trail North Port connector and they'll tell you how many to date I think the last time I was on there was like 68,000 it is packed and and it doesn't need restrooms i will tell you that personally right so imagine how many of those are now going down to the restroom into the warm real springs park into you know maybe connecting out going out river road to meet back up because now they can fully loop it so it's definitely um a priority for us moving forward could see those numbers swell up around a quarter million in attendance after uh you know

a year or so of that being fully connected.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I know out of, um, is it Nokomis or Osprey? They have the community center there on the legacy trail and they do, they have volunteers that do Surrey rides. Um, and we did it one time. It was, it was a lot of fun. It would be neat if they could get that out of four middle Springs.

All of these little projects, They haven't been a light lift. Every one of those projects I just put forward have been huge lifts for us as a department. But I think if we can keep on that track and even through every big phase, finish this one, that subsidy of that million dollars coming back in and that cost recovery really does support

I think it's beautiful because it's one of the other strong things that starts to make a point for how great our parks and rec is and how much it really does affect the community. That's not a small number of people we're talking about.

All you have to do is drive down Price there beyond, and you can see cars parked right there every single time, and you see the bicycle racks on them, then you know those are the ones with the bikes, and they're there all the time, especially on Sundays and that. All right. Future agenda items. Just upgrades on all of this. Just keep us together. Sure.

I can do, if you'd like, next month, just update on the projects where we're at. Yes. I feel at ease doing that now because I've at least got you all up on all of the main things. So we can make it just a discussion point where I can just bring you up to where we are.

Yeah, it's really exciting.

When is the Poinsettia Parade scheduled for? Are we in December for that? So we'll have the November meeting to get our judges.

I volunteered out. You just called for the seat?

No, last year I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it last year, I remember.

Well, that's one of the nice things about when we get back to 2020 or get to 2027, we'll have the monthly meetings. We won't have to be so concerned about that. Yep.

Well, there's a lot of things. You know, the Freedom Festival with at least 12,000 there. I mean, please with that. Okay. What is it going to look like?

Yeah.

Okay. What's the poinsettia parade going to be like? What are these things which are Northport, which we all loved and people appreciate and all this stuff, what are they going to be like if this amendment goes through? I mean, it's sad to think. It's just very sad to think we've come so far and we can be so destroyed by something so ridiculous. But, yeah, and Poinsettia Parade is another great example. I mean.

Unfortunately, nobody is thinking it that way.

Yeah.

Nope.

Well, they better start.

And they really need to.

Yeah. I mean, you can't put on these programs with no money.

Okay?

That's just the thing. All right. Another committee I'm on, which is phenomenal, the NP squared, where we give money to a nonprofit that's been reduced to half. And if this goes through, it's probably going to be gone.

question talking about the poinsettia parade and festival and this is kind of moving into the future obviously not this this year but being that there's a proposed tax collector office to be put out in front of wherever over here how does that affect the poinsettia parade and festival because that's going to take up a lot of room so with those

that is absolutely but we do have a whole list of concerns that we have for utilization um one of the suggestions that we made back was that maybe we have talked for many years about the renovation of the front green maybe producing from the two roads proposal that needed that renovation to make it more accessible and not reduce it. But we haven't decided. We've just presented our reading.

Yeah, because I know the bulk of the people sit right there. I mean, they've got the whole row, but the bulk of them want to sit right there.

And you're doing for Halloween, right? Is it on?

It is on the 30th, October 30th this year.

So Friday.

So it's always that last Friday before Halloween. And it has changed because, remember, my wedding changes on October 1. So the city... We have increased the number of public partnerships because we have the public rail partners. And part of the requirement is if you sign up and bring your business in, you bring candy for 5,000 kids. We've increased the number of that to compensate for the loss of the city participation because I don't have the budget anymore to pay for the city participation. And we paid for all the candy that the city handed out, and we paid for all of the booth supplies for the city to hand out.

What about the Mullen Center now that the senior center has moved into there? How is that going to change all the programs that was going on there?

We didn't change the programs. We just modified programs. We moved things to the Morgan. They're in and they're settled and they're doing really well. It's working well. The utilization has increased. And we are still on the projected start for January 1 of the after-school program there. They will end and our after-school program will you that's exciting to know that they transitioned well over there they did they've done really well it took a lot of meetings in the beginning but um and just getting them you know changing their comfort zone showing them how to work with breeze showing them how to you know um we can schedule this we can do this let us support you uh so yeah we had that ribbon cutting this weekend they were settled in and well and everybody was very positive awesome The biggest factor actually is the city events because they're so used to being able to just run over there and put on their employee appreciation or do something. Now they have to go to the Morgan. So they're displaced a little bit.

I'm just going to put more strain on that because that place is used a lot.

It is. It is. With the budget reductions, you'll also see the Saturdays closed at the Morgan Center. And you'll see a reduction of the hours at the Morgan Center.

going over well with some of the people that are used to going there and working out in the morning. And that's not going well.

They're not happy. The reason is I have people counters on that door. And we could not take away times that were higher utilized and times that were under utilized. And I would have loved to shrink a couple of hours at night and a couple of hours in the morning. I'm losing a position. It's a shame. It's a really great gym. I have personal training clients that go there that are elderly. And

The reason why they like going there so much is that it's open early enough in the morning. They can go there before all the teenagers and young adults get there and get their training without it being like that.

But the nice part about it is they're also seniors, and they can go out when the kids go to school in the middle of the day.

That is true.

I feel worse with the people who are working and are trying to get there before they go to work. Yeah. What's the hour?

What is the opening hour right now?

Oh, that's not so bad.

That's huge.

It'll hurt that entire group that wants to get there before work. But as you said, it's not a big group. we have done all we watched we went back historically pulled all the counters and and proposed it that way before that you know in those circumstances we do have facilities in the city that are private anytime fitness you know things like that so it's a little more expensive for sure um a hundred dollars annually is incredible pricing but the same people are going to see that change too yeah as we keep going there's going to be other events yeah

And look at all the youth leagues and that that are using it for a very small price.

Yeah. Yeah. Our not-for-profits that have 50% discounts. There's going to be a lot of user groups who are not happy. The biggest thing is that hopefully they get the message before. If I send the message, my fear mongering, I can't do that. The public needs to get the message.

Well, unfortunately, oftentimes, things like that, they end up going through. And then, in hindsight, everybody goes, wait, what? And they see the damage done. Then people start to get together and they work to fix it.

It's got to be the guts to do it ahead of time.

It's got to be done soon because it's a constitutional amendment. And to take a constitutional amendment off is even harder than getting it out.

I mean, I tell you what. I mean, some of the sheriffs in that are having the guts to come out and say it, and some of the other people too. We can't just hide and say we can't say anything. Unfortunately, that did not go over well when we wanted to talk about the police department, and they weren't able to say what they really wanted to say. And here we are again with we can't talk. But yet everybody else who knows nothing and that's negative can talk. And that's just, you know, it's sad. Because people need to know that these youth programs are going to be affected. Now, you want your kids in these youth programs or you want them out there doing God knows what?

Just before we close, I'll add that sentiment. Somebody told me once, and I have believed it forever, Dropping a rock in the water is like dropping something negative. It ripples and ripples and ripples until it meets a shore where there's an equal and opposing force that pushes it back. Positivity is like dropping a rock in a sink. It stops once, and there's not much you can do to keep it rolling without keep rolling it back. And it's the best thing I've ever heard about the positive and negative side.

It was positive. That's why motivation and positivity are one of those things we have to keep checking in on and keep on taking action with. And negativity has a way of running away with itself.

Well, we've got to keep talking, too. We can't, you know, everybody we see, we just can't. Absolutely. You know.

Always do your civic duty and speak your mind. Right, right.

But we have to, you know, I tell you what, we need every mayor of every county Community to come out and say what's going to happen everyone Because unfortunately on this one we could have a hundred percent of Northport voting against it. We still could lose You know and that's the problem. We need every mayor in every community and all our government officials Need to start telling the truth Anyway, okay public anything else for future agenda items Well, I think we need to, oh wait, this will be after the election. Oh boy. Yeah, the election update from the election. Maybe we can have just a party because we won. Okay, anything else for future? Well, we'll be talking about, we have to talk about the poinsettia parade. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got to be on there. Okay? All right. Public comment? Any? Okay. Then I call this meeting adjourned. Any questions? I don't even know what time it is. 736. 737, I guess. Okay.