Remarks by Rene Champagne
129 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 5 of 6
- Play at 2:26:44
“I would... As a business person, I would not discount the concept yet. Let's make it a business plan. If someone wants to get a benefit for free, well, we remove the word free and you need to put skin in the game so that no one loses anything and we do have a public benefit. I would suggest that the plan has to be both a business for construction of seawalls and a benefit for the public. And the county should not absorb losses, nor should the city. The people benefiting from it should be paying some sort of fee, some sort of investment. I think it can be made to work so long as those who…”
City Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 2:28:27
“It has to be under review let's put it that way.”
City Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 2:34:04
“All right. We need to do it more frequently.”
City Council · Aug 27, 2026
- Play at 41:26
“Vice Chair Champagne? Just a follow-up on Casey's comments. I'm not so sure the contract would permit an allocation of funds to the senior softball field.”
City Council · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 42:12
“I'll just go forward and people are under the misconception, as I was also, that the donor, unidentified, donated a million dollars. That's not really true. He donated $900,000 over several tranches, has been asked to complete the donation, has not yet done so, nor has he agreed to release the funds to be used for any purpose, even those that are stated in the contract. As a philanthropist, I find it interesting that there was a contract for a gift. Certainly not the way I conduct my donations, but nonetheless, it is what we agreed to. and it has to be abided by. Now, whether or not there are…”
City Council · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 1:17:02
“I think we find ourselves in a very, very challenging situation here. The state is going to, the governor, is going to amend Amendment 3 and come out with a new referendum, possibly any day now. So the question is, will the Homestead Reduction Act pass? You want to talk about a gamble? There's a gamble. Will most voters in Florida who are complaining about affordability pass up on the opportunity to vote in favor of a homestead reduction act I don't think so if I was gambling I would say they're going to pass that and if they pass it I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind in this…”
City Council · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 1:29:49
“YEAH, I THINK I'M COMING TO GRIPS WITH A PERSONAL DECISION. And I liked Ron's comments that he just recently made here in the last few minutes. I think we continue to contract as it is with some negotiation yet to be determined what that leads to and revisit it after the election in November and decide at that juncture whether we wish to terminate it because of Amendment 3. or or not but let's go let's make the effort state focused in the short term to see what we can do with a negotiated contract to be revisited after the election in november new council decides what to do at that juncture…”
City Council · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 1:35:28
“Yeah, I favor option one with a fixed rate of 4% going forward. I think that's the simplest one to choose from my perspective. So that's my contribution here.”
City Council · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:13:12
“There are pros and cons involved. The concept that we've heard the negative side of people just jumping on and very difficult to decide who they are and in reality versus who they claim to be and whether or not they're residents. If there could be some way of registration to participate on Zoom where we can first check who they are, might be a way to get around that issue and problem. Without that, if we can't vet the person other than letting them just get onto Zoom, I think there could be some problems.”
City Council · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 13:13
“Good report, thank you. Very good performance up to this point in time. Have you had the opportunity to develop a year-end estimate? Not yet.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 45:56
“I'm just going to carry on to some of tomorrow's concepts. Should the bond not be approved? If the community and people sitting in the audience think we've been discussing cost cuts too frequently Up to this point in time you haven't seen anything if the bond doesn't pass We are going to go into every budget every department and start looking for more cuts It's the only way to keep this city fully funded and keep the services flowing on top of that should amendment three the government's governor's proposal pass we are really looking for serious problems that would be anywhere from three to…”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 54:20
“Yeah, I'm going to follow up on Counselor Gray's remarks regarding the bond referendum. I could not disagree more than I am going to disagree with with Councilor Gray. It's misinformation on his part. There was more than ample information provided to this community with regard to the $23 million bond, what specific projects the money would go to. They were spelled out for months of debate, workshops, and council meetings before this community in a public environment. There should be no confusion of what was agreed to. Remember, the number was much larger. We spelled out the details of even…”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 55:31
“The point is that is a false statement. There is simply no way that we could do those projects except for the Caxamas Bridge project. Everything else would have to go by the wayside because there is simply no money and no ability to raise taxes to get the money to do those projects. So the road repaving that's already 20 years behind continues. be 30 years behind before we do anything. These projects have been delayed for eight consecutive years due to tax rollbacks. And we're about to enter year nine and 10. This is just off base. Unnecessary and unfortunate that these comments were made.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:02:10
“I just watched the video of the planning board meeting. That's it.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:29:49
“I'd like to make a motion to accept the resolution as proposed. Second.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:33:15
“guess I have a basic question if amendment 3 passes doesn't that affect this millage rate or won't it affect this millage rate not this year no it will not affect the millage rate and is there no other reason why we would hold off on approving this millage rate once set it can only go down There are still some obvious questions with regard to the budget. In my mind, I would, at this moment, be reluctant to vote in favor of keeping the millage rate at 1.267 because I don't know what all the issues are going to be by the time we formalize the budget at the end of September.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:35:06
“Vice Chair, you're still up. Yeah. What is the maximum millage at spending cap level?”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:35:18
“I propose that is the millage rate we set and decide by the end of September whether we choose to use that or not.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:35:49
“Let me go on for one more second. Please. This city has been dealing with declining millage rates since 2016. We're now entering our 11th year. millage rate neutral or declining millage rate it has gotten us to where we are today which is financial difficulty meeting all of our objectives I think agreeing to keep it at millage rate neutral is asking for continued financial difficulties of finding money to pay for various services and or, more importantly, infrastructure improvement. So I would vote against the 1.267 and choose a higher number. That's it.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:41:39
“Since 2016, the city has only gone one direction with millage rate. That's down. At best, we've held it equivalent to what it was the prior year. That's the last two years. We know what kind of difficulty those City Council decisions have led to we've been facing them from On the council now for about 18 17 18 months It's been non-stop trying to find ways to develop new revenue streams so that we can expend it for necessary items that need fixing We've not been able to do that as we sit here today. The budget we put together, quite frankly, doesn't meet all the obligations that the city has.…”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:51:26
“Yeah, $100 a year. Come on. Not going to cause a ripple effect among the community. To budget more safety and security, I don't know why we're arguing over $100 a year for a million dollar residence, because most of the residents are under $1 million in assessed value, quite frankly. So they pay even less than $100 a year to go to that number. And let me just remind one last comment. From 2016 to this year, 2026, millage rate has gone down 39%. Inflation cumulatively during the same period of time has gone up 36%. As we sit here trying to develop a budget forecast for the inflation rate this…”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 1:54:40
“I'd like to make a motion to adopt a millage rate of 1.30.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 2:04:11
“My light sign is on only to make a motion to authorize the city manager to request withdrawal from the MIPD dock construction project.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 2:04:24
“Like I said, it's that important. We need two motions.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026
- Play at 2:28:08
“Thank you. Jeff, you're going to be sorry for sitting around here. Did I hear you... On the water rate issue being charged to hotels, did I understand you correctly when you said the rate was established in 2010 or 2012?”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026