City Council - Regular Meeting

Call the City Council regular meeting Tuesday, June 9th at 6.30 p.m. to order. Roll call, Kaylie.

Council Member Darmes. Here.

Council Member Knight.

Here.

Council Member Johnson.

Here.

Vice Mayor Grimm. Here. Council Member Stafford. Here. Council Member Richardson. Here. Mayor Marz.

Here. Okay, we're going to do the invocation and pledge allegiance.

mike carroll well it's always a privilege to be here thank you so much for that privilege and that honor thank you father we do thank you for this city once again we pray blessing and peace and safety over this city thank you for lord all you have done how you've prospered and caused this city to grow and we thank you so much for all that you've done and how you've watched over us and we thank you for that Now, tonight we ask you to be with our mayor, our city council, our city manager and clerk and attorney, guide their decisions, guide their thoughts, grant them wisdom, grant them understanding, grant them insight so as they face difficult questions, that you would give them the wisdom that they need to make good decisions and we thank you again for them all the hours that they put in that both are seen and unseen and we thank you for them thank you for our first responders thank you that They help watch over the city and protect it and be with them now as they do that, cover them and cover their families as well and speak peace and safety over them. And again, we thank you. Again, continue to speak peace and blessing and safety over this city, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Okay, number one absence since one a show the absence of Mayor Kelly marks from the May 26 2026 City Council meeting be excused. Council.

What do you need a head nod?

I need a motion. I second. We have a motion. We have a second. Kaylee, can you call a question? Any public comment on this? Okay, can you call the question, please?

Council Member Knight? Yes. Council Member Tiamson? Yes. Vice Mayor Grimm? Yes. Council Member Stafford? Yes. Council Member Richardson? Yes. Council Member Darm? Yes. Mayor Marks?

Yes. Okay, 1B, shall the absence of Council Member Lisa Richardson from the May 26, 2026 City Council meeting be excused? Do we need a motion for that also?

Make a motion to accept Lisa Richardson's absence from the meeting.

Second we have a motion we have a second any public comment on this See and then we'll bring it back for the question Yes Yes Yes All right, so we've got two absences that have passed with excuse. One C, shall the absence of Councilmember Dawn Thompson from the May 26, 2026 City Council meeting be excused? We need a motion, please.

I'd like to make a motion to excuse the absence of Dawn Thompson from May 26, 2026 Council meeting.

I second. We have a motion, we have a second.

Any public comment on this?

Seeing none, we'll bring it back for the question.

Vice Mayor Grimm? Yes. Council Member Stafford? Yes. Council Member Richardson? Yes. Council Member Darms? Yes. Council Member Knight? Yes. Council Member Thompson? Yes. Mayor Marks?

Yes. And the absence of Council Member Thompson also is excused. Moving on to two presentations and proclamations. 2A, Code Enforcement Officer Appreciation Week Proclamation. I'm going to have our Vice Mayor read that and present it.

City of Orange City, Florida proclamation, whereas code enforcement officers play a vital role in protecting the health, safety, and welfare of our communities by ensuring compliance with local codes and ordinances. And whereas these dedicated professionals work tirelessly to maintain property standards, preserve neighborhood's integrity, and enhance the quality of life for all residents. and whereas code enforcement officers often serve as first point of contact for addressing community concerns, demonstrating professionalism, fairness, and unwavering commitment to public service, and whereas their efforts contribute to the stabilization of property values, prevention of and promotion of safety, health, and sustainable communities, and whereas code enforcement officers frequently perform their duties under challenging conditions requiring extensive knowledge of laws and regulations, strong communication skills, sound judgment, and a dedication to serving the public with integrity and respect. And whereas the code enforcement officers is essential to building stronger, cleaner, safer, more vibrant communities throughout the state of Florida and across the nation. Now there, Kelly Marks, Mayor of Orange City, on behalf of the city council, do hereby proclaim the week of January 1 through January 5th, Excuse me, June 1 through June 5, 2026, as Code Enforcement Officer Appreciation Week in the City of Orange City. A witness whereof, I hereby set my hand and seal the official seal of the City of Orange City to be affixed on this day, June 9, 2026. Mayor Marks.

Officer Byers, you want to sign up? I present this to Officer Byers and staff here.

Come on down. Take a picture. Do we want to sit her in front of the seal? I'm sorry. I was just thinking of the Orange City seal being in the background. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Let me shift just a little more.

Yeah, I just want to say thank you to you all, because I know that, like I said, it's a thankless job and you hear a lot of things from different people. So it's not a job that I'd want to do.

It's hard.

Okay. Moving on to to be the administration budget presentation by city manager Christine Davis.

Good evening mayor council members the administration budget the high overview Is that our personnel expenditures on this first slide? Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to be operating this. Sorry. It's just magically You can see that the amended budget to the requested budget is Increasing less than a percent at this time, but it does exclude any recommended cost of living or pay adjustments and it won't be reflective of anything that would take action, that council takes action on pertaining to the pay plan. That is underway and we anticipate bringing that to council in July. Operating expenditures have a net increase of 7.8% or $5,000. Proposed at this time the capital requests are two Desktop computers they are we have a replacement program and it's time for two of the five in the department Not counting IT because they have their own But they would be in here too if it were it was for IT. But at this time, there's only two proposed replacements So you helping me No, no, I'm just not sure why I'm jumping around. I got to go. So for general government, the large change here for personnel is the $150,000 that was appropriated to implement the pay plan will be removed in the requested budget. And then in operating, we had a net decrease of $12,000. dollars and change. With regard to operating we are looking at a recommended increase from $50,000 to $55,000 for other personnel services. Software, it's time to do a scheduled replacement for an exchange server and then we're funding the chat GPT business. We are currently using it. And each department pays their own according to the approved users. And then your cyber backup, that is a renewal. And then for capital, you have a core router upgrade. And that is, too, a scheduled replacement according to our replacement program. Not a lot to really highlight in these smaller budgets. But that's what we're looking at as our review for tonight. Any questions? Any questions, Council?

All right, comments. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on to 2C, City Council and City Clerk budget presentation. City Clerk, Kaylee Burleson.

good evening mayor and council members kaylee burleson city clerk um so we are going to start with the budget presentation i have city council and city clerk ultimately they're both just a couple slides we will start with city council there is an increase to personal services roughly sixty dollars or decrease i'm sorry then there is an increase a small increase of operating expense this is mainly due to just inflation of cost of everything currently There is a computer workstation replacement. That is the computer that is located in the mayor's office that all the council members are able to use. So that's part of IT's upgrade schedule. I forget how many years they do it, but automatically they have the rotating schedule for the IT equipment. So that computer is for replacement of the mayor's office computer. For the city clerk, we have a slight increase of personnel services. From my understanding, that's mainly because of insurance rates and whatnot. So we're waiting on those final numbers. And I do have a small increase to our operating expense that mainly to do with inflation. There's just small increases to multiple line items in the budget. But ultimately, just minimal changes to our existing budget. And that's all I have. Are there any questions? I just have one question.

Go ahead.

The $325,000, $324,900, that encompasses the three or is there more other people in city clerk operating budget for personnel?

would include just the three individuals in my office myself the executive assistant and the deputy clerk any other questions council comments okay thank you thank you i never seen presentations go so quick

hope to continue the trend oh so sorry utilities budget presentation robert luller i should have said that until you were done i'll do my best i'll do my best so mayor council members i'm robert i'm the utility services director i'm going to go through the utilities budget overview so we're going to start with the water budget if you don't mind like don't mind driving so overview personnel services operating expense capital outlay and debt service there's a Increase in all categories, I would say negotiably inflationary. And the following slides will show. So these are the additives. They don't necessarily show the progress that we've made and the projects we've accomplished. But the upcoming projects within this budget, a few that I want to point out. so we'll go through so the grant services we increase that budget both in the water and the wastewater fund just to help us fund these current unfunded mandates in septic to sewer in pfos you know we'll likely need some help to go chase some money from the dep from the epa from the federal government from what have you from fema whoever we can so that's to provide some out of staff assistance for that task We have a unidirectional flushing program. So right now we're working with a consultant to design a program to make the water turn left here and right there and create good mazes and paths for the water to flush out and clean the system about once a year. So now this is the budget to actually execute that plan. And when you do that, you eliminate the iron that just can sit for years at the bottom of the pipe. so The other big one is the cross connection program so we're in need of a refresh on that program that program is Important to make sure that the water going to individual households don't go back into the water distribution system especially when properties of irrigations or pools or some commercial properties have some irregular uses like car wash or gas stations and a couple more so some of our infrastructures age including auto flushers so we put in a budget just to get some replacement as well as you know other miscellaneous parts and then so this is our first full year with the new green sand system and with that we underestimated the amount of chemical required so you'll see that in the budget that sodium permanganate that's the chemical that's used to oxidize out the iron in the water at the main water treatment plant right down the road So as far as capital projects go, so a few of these, you'll see the first two, these were in the Reclaim Water Master Plan and would utilize funds from the alternate water fund, so not from the fund that would bill the customers actively. So this is the design services for those two. We also have the park hill the junior street water main loop this is a project to provide a secondary transmission line from the south side of the city to the north side of the city because our only line today is along veterans memorial parkway a couple other of these jobs the lakeview the service line replacements and the julia avenue water main replacement so these are lines that are made out of old galvanized metal and we're looking to replace that with up-to-date materials, whether it's HDPE or PE pipe. And then last but not least, so we want to have a backup fuel tank at wells six and seven. Right now, there is a generator, there's a separate fuel tank, and it's aged, and we want to make sure that we have adequate water during a hurricane because that is our primary source at the South Water Treatment Plant. Additional equipment, the largest piece of equipment on this one is the ground-penetrating radar. As you know, there's a lot of cable companies working in town, and Marquis is the best locator, and the device that he's using is about 10 years old. so it's right about at its shelf life we want to make sure we have in the budget to buy a second uh device and a replacement device just in case that one breaks um and then in case you know we have more cable companies at the same time so you have att mobile and you know uh wire three or what have you you can have a second staff member also out there assisting with locates so right now we have one of these devices and a man that's very good at using it but i think could fail at any moment We're also looking to have security cameras. So right now, this week, we're actually undergoing security camera upgrades at the main water treatment plant. So, so far so good. So we're looking to do that same system that we have at Mill Lake Park out at our remote well sites. are in our funds so these are funds that are used on an annual basis to you can think of them as like high yield saving funds these are your rainy day funds to where you can have long-term projects to replace fire hydrants and valves you know we don't need to inspect a ground storage tank every year but when we do it costs quite a bit of money these guys are specialized so you throw a little money at the pot every year and then then you can hire a huge chunk project you can paint the ground storage tanks like we're looking to do this year so you know we put back 50 grand a year then then you can spend 150 200 000 painting the tanks so that's what the flurry of the projects are so these are really making sure that we can take care of the infrastructure that we have the last three are projects that are in need of you know we We built a chlorine room at the main water treatment plant back in the late 90s, and now the door's eaten up with all the chemical over the years. That happens. Now we got to replace it. So that's what that $25,000 is there for at the end. So as far as position requests go, so the one is an annual request for a GIS intern to help our GIS analyst, Carleen, during the summer months. And then the other position I am requesting is a utilities processes manager. So this is a technical support for the director. Director, you know, I can speak for the current director that they wear many hats, administrative, managerial, technical, project management. really to help streamline processes the idea behind this position is to have somebody that can handle more technical and project management tasks more so for somebody skilled and specialized and then allow the director to be seeking funding for septic to sewer for PFAS and really handle administrative funding and just making sure that They're the ones kissing babies and shaking hands and making sure that things are being messaged properly. And then the idea is this process manager would do the behind the scenes work, technical tasks, sit on the TRC that level. So you'll see that in the requests. So wastewater, wastewater is a little simpler. So our personnel services is actually going down year over year. So I think it's because we transferred a staff member from wastewater to water. Operating is an inflationary number. I think capital outweigh. Right now we're not showing the $7.5 million pending grant coming from the DEP for septic to sewer. So that's just a current project. So for wastewater, again, we have the grant services in there to help us seek funding for septic to sewer. Survey services, if we do projects, we need to make sure we're doing on public property. We're increasing the maintenance because we are getting new lift stations, new generators. We need to make sure that those things are being taken care of and we're cleaning lift stations on an annual basis as well as the asset management system that we're looking to create so then we can document when we take care of our assets, how we're taking care of their assets, and when those things have their shelf life and require maintenance. So big devices on this side. So we have our, actually, so this includes equipment as well as those same R&R funds. You put away money for a rainy day for your lift stations to help inflow and infiltration for pipes that can potentially be impacted by storm water, your manhole rehabs. There's some property acquisition required for a septic to sewer phase, so you have to acquire the property first before you can go to construction. And then we're also asking for a Ford F-350 with a crane for the wastewater staff. So we have one of these trucks today. It's pretty industry standard that every lift station mechanic on a fleet has one. The city currently has one. this was actually in the shop for a couple months this year so we had to we are very lucky that we didn't have any issues happen the middle of night we had to pull a pump and de-rag and stop you know we were able to get by and you know you know we thank you guys for you know improving in previous budgets generators bypass pumps to where we do have redundancy in place but in reality you know redundancies can fail and that's why we want to you know have a second truck there that's what I have pending any questions any questions council comments

I want to thank you. I always say you're one of the smartest people in the city, because you took me for a tour, a bunch of people for a tour at the Citizens Academy, and that's when it kind of clicked that you are a really smart guy. I just had to say that, and you know your stuff about this, so I appreciate that, and I feel honored that you're part of us to do this. But that's a big list, right? And that's a lot of things that are needed, and I know that a lot of our infrastructure is older, and so that's a challenge for your department I'm sure right and you know I think it's it's a challenge on where do you start right I know you have your rainy day stuff and then you know it's kind of like a home thing what's what's your priorities right they're all priorities right so that's really hard so I appreciate you doing that presentation and giving us a roundabout of what what's needed thank you

Anybody else? Good.

OK, Robert.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any citizens comments? Kaylee. I do not have any more. OK. No, ma'am. OK, so we're going to move on to the consent agenda. And

Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda. Hold on one second, sorry Vice Mayor.

We are going to, we are gonna pull 4A for discussion. Do we need a council head nod for that, to do that?

Just a head nod.

Just a head nod, is that okay, council? Okay, all right, now you can just, when you say your motion, just say excluding 4A. Okay. 4C? Council? Can I get a head nod? Council? Council?

Sure.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Okay. Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda minus 4A and 4C.

I second. We have a motion. We have a second. Any public comment on this? Okay. We'll bring it back for the question.

Councilmember Stafford? Yes. Councilmember Richardson? Yes. Councilmember Darmes? Yes. Councilmember Knight? Yes. Councilmember T. Onsen? Yes. Vice Mayor Grimm? Yes. Mayor Marks?

yes and the consent agenda passes excluding those two items moving on to five ordinances first reading we have none six public hearing ordinances second and final reading we have none seven resolutions we have none moving on to eight discussions and we actually need to address items 4a and 4c uh i was told to address that after 4a is a discussion in action the item that councilwoman thompson removed is a resolution oh i have i was okay we'll go to the resolution which is the 435 dash okay so we're going to we're going to do that under seven seven resolutions okay sorry about that okay so 4c resolution number 435-26 mr waters would you mind reading that

This is resolution number 435 dash 2, 6, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Orange City, Florida, amending the annual operating budget for fiscal year 2025 dash 2026 by adjusting revenue and expenses, repealing all resolutions or parts of resolutions in conflict herewith, providing for severability and providing for an effective date. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Thompson, I think, pulled that one.

but the boundary fence for Mill Lake, I guess in order to move forward, we have to, less than $15,000 is the amount that we have to additionally pay. Given the fact that FDOT, I know that they give us funding for our roads and things like that, I just didn't know if we are, if there was something in the contract when we assumed the property that absolves them from

That was done

I'm trying to remember what year.

No, we took possession of that pond prior to Mill Lake ever being constructed. So if I had to hazard a guess, I'm gonna say 2010 or 11. And so with that, we took on the responsibility when we took ownership of maintaining it. Recently, we had a resident come and show us a survey that showed that the property um that the fencing on the property is on according to the survey is on their property and so they have asked the city to remove it and so at this point we can only assume that while it was owned by fdot that they put the fence there we have no information otherwise and so staff did recommend based on them presenting the survey that the fence be relocated off of their property and it's it's it's just unfortunate that it didn't happen prior to us taking ownership or taking on the responsibility of maintaining No, we're presuming. John might be able to add what research was done.

No, sure.

John, I believe the question is the fencing. How do we know that it wasn't the resident who put that fence up and not instead of us presuming it was FDOT?

The fence material, the aging of it and everything is consistent with all the other fencing that starts at Blue Springs and follows the properties all the way over. It's all very consistent. Obviously, it's part of the fence that the DOT put up. So if we looked at old photographs in Google Earth Pro, you can look at historical photos and you can see that that fence was there for quite some time. Yes, ma'am, it's a it's a lovely family that lives there At first I didn't really have a problem with it but the kids are starting to get older and they would like to have the backyard for them to play and Fortunately part of the septic to sewer project. We had survey to confirm where the property line is So when we move the fence, we know who will be off the property at that point. I yes ma'am we are using a basically construction uh we use them for general construction work um it's on a piggyback contract with the city of winter gardens they have a very long list of pricing and fencing is including in part of that pricing okay all right go ahead what's the length of the fence that has to be removed oh you had to ask me that um hang on

That's a good question. That's very good.

I believe it's in their proposal.

230 square yard.

That's regrading the yard. Install six foot galvanized fencing. It says LS4, I think. What is LS?

They're installing it, or are they removing it?

They're doing both. They're removing it off the property, and we're reinstalling on our property line.

Yes, ma'am.

What does LS in that proposal stand for? Lumpsum. Lumpsum. So I do not have the length, but it's $4,929 to install, but...

material is another lump sum but you just said the material you're just moving it right it's not new material or

John are we replacing it or just relocating it.

No, we're replacing it because the defense is old enough. The foundation is attached that we can't recover the post in defense material. We are going to replace all of it. So they've been new and that it will withstand a long-term situation.

Yeah, I kinda see your point. If you don't know whose it was, why are we on the hook for it? How do we know it wasn't theirs? So if you had your fence on my property and I didn't wanna pay for it, I'm not saying they don't wanna pay for it, but if I didn't wanna pay for it, I could come to you and say, well, nobody knows who put this fence here, but I need a new fence.

Well, we have to get, first thing we've got to do is we've got to get right of entry from the property owner to enter their property to remove the fence. So, you know, we're working cooperatively with them. It's really in our best interest to have a fence there to protect them from the park, some people coming from the park, and vice versa.

I think it could go either way. You could also say... you know what i mean they could say well i didn't put it there and i want it off my property line right so it could go either way really

I remember when they put the fence in and the state of Florida put that fence in on that property. The property owners that's there now, they were not in that house. We also had the same problem. So the state just came out and they just, so the owners, I know the owners did not put that fence there. One of the property owners that's along that way, and the state of Florida did do it.

Okay, good, we got a witness. There you go. Problem solved. Thank you. All right, any other discussion on this item?

Okay, we'll just have to bring it to a motion.

motion to put it back in yeah, that's the number.

Madam mayor make a resolution number 4, 3, 5, 2, 6.

To move forward with that yes, I made a motion he said a resolution said I'll make a resolution. I got a motion we got a second any public comment on this. Seeing no bring it back for the question.

Councilmember Richardson? Yes. Councilmember Darmes? Yes. Councilmember Knight? Yes. Councilmember Thompson? Yes. Vice Mayor Graham? Yes. Councilmember Stafford? Yes. Mayor Marx?

Yes and resolution number 435-26 passes. Okay and we'll move on to We're gonna go to 8A, which is Consideration of Sponsorship Special Event Request for Cirrhosis Club of Orange City Summer Splash Bash, SPEC 03264470 at Veterans Memorial Park, and Annual Haunted House Event, SPEC-04-26-4503. And Lizette Santiago is presenting.

hello good evening mayor council uh yes so today we have the um i'm presenting the two events two well-known events um in the community one is the summer splash bash spec zero three two six four four seven zero and one is the haunted house spec zero three two six four four seven zero oops is the ending on that one. So we received these two sponsorship requests and the organization from the cirrhosis club. All right, hold on, let me get my stuff here together. Okay, so Summer Splash Bash, so here we go. The Splash Bash is scheduled for Saturday, August 1st, 2026 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park. Planned activities include inflatables, water activities, and games. Free watermelon drinks and school supplies will be handed out. The total expected attendance for this event is approximately 250 attendees. The total value of the requested in-kind services is $320, which includes $120 for parks and maintenance, $125 for pavilion rentals, including electric, $50 for their special event application fee, and $25 for their sign permit fee. That's the breakdown. The sponsorship committee convened on May 27th, 2026 to review the request, and we recommended approval of in-kind services for the Summer Splash Bash. The Cirrhosis Club is also putting on the Haunted House, which is scheduled for Saturday, October, sorry Pete, October 22nd through the 31st from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at their facility, which is at 222 University Avenue, Orange City. This is a fundraiser and monies will be raised with the sale of entry tickets, food, and novelties. The total expected attendance at this event is about 1,700 people over the range of their dates. The total value of this requested in-kind services for this one is $235, which includes $110 for park maintenance, $50 the special event fee, and $75 for their sign permit fee. They'll have three. We also... convened on May 7th about this one. We reviewed and we recommend approval of in-kind services for the Cirrhosis Club haunted house. Our recommended motion is to approve both special events, SPEC 03264470 and SPEC 04264503 for both of the Cirrhosis Club events, Splash Bash and their haunted house.

thank you council any discussion or questions on this okay we just need a motion not until we go to the okay well i'll make a motion to as you stated uh so moved the motion that you just stated

We have a motion. We have a second. Any comments from the audience tonight?

No?

Public comment? Okay. We'll bring it back for the question. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

Council Member Richardson? Yes. Council Member Darms? Yes. Council Member Knight? Yes. Council Member Thompson? Yes. Vice Mayor Graham? Yes. Council Member Stafford? Yes. Mayor Marks?

yes and the sponsorship request is granted for the cirrhosis club two events for uh sbec03264470 sbec04264503 okay moving on to 4a from the consent agenda to approve amendment number one to work order number 259-23 water treatment plan deep well lower floridian aquifer exploratory well program engineering services robert lawler

yes ma'am so council mayor so this amendment is to the engineering technical services for the LFA exploratory well project going on along Kentucky Avenue as can be understood I would hope with a deep well project The well project was originally intended to drill down as deep as 1,400 feet below the ground to see if that water could be worthwhile for serving the city of Orange City without impacting our consumptive use permit. once we got down to about a thousand feet we learned that the water was so um had a lot of specific conductivity and was a very um had a lot of salinity very brackish and salty and was not able to be used for our services without a massive amount of investment for water treatment once we found that we still wanted to better understand that process but So in order to do so, we had to do some targeted testing at those deep depths. When we went to install the testing equipment, we ended up having it where the drill hole was not large enough to fit the testing equipment, so we had to run a second, bigger drill bit. Through that thousand foot to clean That hole out to where we can sell that testing equipment from there We did a targeting the targeted test from 800 to 700 feet and from 700 to 600 feet just to see that water quality Because we won't dig down that deep ever again So while we had that hole deep and open let's figure out what that water looks like in doing so, you know, we we found that that water wasn't usable and just confirmed that with further testing then we went to back plug that fill it with grout so then we wouldn't have that water impact us going forward so now we are currently developing the water at a depth of 400 feet but at this point that development is taking longer than expected So with those two larger delays, that's why we're needing to extend this to continue the testing, to continue the project. So they're just about out of hours, the engineering firm is. And so Paula is a PhD in engineering, she's with Plummer, she's here tonight, if you wish to hear from Plummer directly. So here to answer any questions you may have on the process.

I had a question. You said it was taking longer than expected and we're almost out of hours. Is that what you said?

Yeah, so when an engineering firm builds their scope, typically it's on time and material. So there's not many materials involved. So really, it's based off of how many staff members they have and the amount of hours that those staff members have to invest. So part of that, they have a subcontractor that has a licensed hydrogeologist, where they know everything about subsurface, depths of the earth the type of you know dirt and rock and those type of things and they they have their sampling processes and they so they've had to sample a lot more than they were originally expecting

And then the other question I had was when you went down that deep for the water and the quality just wasn't there, do you think that comes from the septic tanks? Do you think? I'm not saying as a fact. I don't think so. Okay, I was just curious. It's interesting that if you don't go that deep, the water is better, but the deeper you go, it's not, and we're right on top of the aquifer. That's what I was trying to understand because it's interesting. Okay.

Yeah, so the issues we encountered with that water quality are high chloride levels, and so it's just a brackish water. We wouldn't necessarily see that from septic.

Oh, okay.

It's more just the water quality of that lower floor dinographer is expected. We just weren't expecting that high of a saline water.

What do you think that the characteristics are that made it that way, though?

That's just the nature of that aquifer.

Any other questions, Councilwoman Knight?

So are you saying that you're gonna drill in a different spot but drill at a shallower depth of 400 feet?

So essentially what we did to start the project, you drill a hole. And based off of what we know about the city's water, that the best water quality in the city is along Kentucky Avenue and Country Village. Those customers do have the best water. we don't have to have fancy filters to get the iron out you know that water is clean so based off of that the city had a multi-year plan to purchase property around the well to create a buffer for that protected water for that good water and then expand that facility so this was our first shot to put a hole in the ground and as we were digging the hole in the ground we at about 200 foot you set a steel casing and then you then you drill 50 foot and you pull some you pull a sample then you push another 50 foot deeper and you pull another sample and you got another 50 foot you pull a sample go another 50 foot you pull a sample so you're you're hitting all the way down as you hit down then you pull it out then you pull the water out then you test it then you hit down again pull the water out so you're kind of testing it as you go down so we're getting a good picture and then as we kept going going going oh my gosh okay we're seeing we're seeing a dipping point to where it's it's just exponentially you know has that water quality and once we really confirm that we put the brakes on it and we said okay well now that we got this hole this deep before it went off the deep end and it was a productive spot let's at least pull some water out of here and see what it looks like and see if it's treatable or not or treatable to a process that makes sense to our staff and our team and our residents.

So same question.

So do you plug that same hole up to 400 feet or do you go dig another hole down to 400 feet?

So what we end up doing, it's like what the oil rigs do. So they end up using a trimmie and they pour like a low strength concrete. So it's a concrete like you pour your sidewalk except for it's got a lot more water than you do cement and you're pouring that down into the hole and you're filling up the hole a little bit at a time and a little bit at a time to make sure because when you do when you drill this hole in the ground you do have little fractures here and there and that's how the water gets into that hole when you suction it out so you're kind of putting some route in there let it settle for a little bit and then you put more concrete in then you little push some more concrete in so this is what we ended up doing concrete concrete concrete now we did that we're at about 400 foot deep so now we're full bore pumping that thing 40 hours a week And we're seeing water quality improvement, but it's not at the point to where we're ready yet to do our pilot testing science experiment on Kentucky to figure out what the best system is to treat that water.

Do you think the green sand filters help in that particular thing?

So the green sand is really good at treating iron. There's the potential. I'm not sure Paula can expound about the iron level that we originally saw when we were digging down 50 feet, 50 feet. But so green sand, if there's iron there, green sand will work great.

But if it's stuff like that PFAS or organics like a chloride or bromide, all those type of things in the water,

green sand won't do that job and that's where we'll have to look at we're likely gonna look at the same technologies we tested at the south plant with the granular activated carbon and the ion exchange that John and Paula presented with me last meeting but you know until we really get those samples pulled and those off to the lab we'll have a better technical report prepared by plumber before we bring a bunch of science equipment out there to test it out thank you anybody else

No? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So we would just need a motion for that.

And that would be 4A. Madam Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve consent agenda item 4A, approve amendment number one to work order number 259-23. Do I need to read the rest of it, or is it just enough to do the A? Okay.

I second. We have a motion. We have a second. Any public comment on this? Okay, we'll bring it back for the question.

Council Member Darmes? Yes. Council Member Knight? Yes. Council Member Tiamson? Yes. Vice Mayor Grimm? Yes. Council Member Stafford? Yes. Council Member Richardson? Yes. Mayor Marks?

Yes. And work order number 259-23 is approved for the amendment. Okay, moving on to reports. City Manager report.

The city manager's report tonight consists of a legislative special session update. This is information that we've been sharing. High level is first year, should it pass in November. The homestead exemption would go to $150,000 and the second year would go to $250,000 and projected revenue loss or reduction varies. I'm sorry, first year is $1.3 million, second year is $2 million. Page two, we have had some significant rain or weather events in the month of May. These rain events amount to 50 to 100 year storms in an afternoon of no weather warning. They just kind of blew up and caused significant flooding in the areas of industrial for the first two days, which I believe were like May 21st and May, I don't remember, 22nd. They were back to back, two days in a row. So what we've included in this report are some pictures because they tell the story. The first one we highlighted was we did experience flooding in the police department. It was minor. We were able to mitigate it and not have any damage, just cleanup efforts. We've had to implement using the storm gates every day. The storm gates were purchased for during weather events like a hurricane. But given this situation, we're erecting them every day and they are on hand should we have rain start, need to shut up. But unfortunately, once we put those gates up, that operation is shut down. Citizens can't get in, don't get access. to the phone. And we're also doing some research on the stormwater. It appears to have gotten overwhelmed, but it's just sharing that we did experience both events, one in the industrial area and one in the cities uh holly avenue adjacent to the police department the historic register application is moving forward you will be the historic preservation board will be taking action on that on june 18th and city then it will come before council on june 14th The next page shows the pictures of what the area on south of it's really it's not South Thorpe is the backside to where the flooding actually came in from so the rainfall roll transferred in off of Thorpe down into the hole which ended up flooding the building on the corner. The picture at the top is before construction began. You can see some grassy area. The second picture is during and it shows the area was being prepped and there was a gully in there but there was, you know, there's no erosion control because it's under, arguably under construction. We approved some emergency work and the contractor got in and the bottom two pictures are the the after work um and it was it it did hold up under the next rain event but arguably the the amount of rainfall there was less than what we experienced here at holly Also, we went and met with Senator Wright this past Wednesday, and it's an overview of some of the things we discussed regarding what can we do to help lobby for our items funded in the budget for the police and fire facilities along with what he's doing himself to help keep both funding items in the budget.

and that completes my report if there's any questions any questions for the manager councilman johnson i saw a lot of back and forth emails and and um facebook social media interest in the south thorpe avenue do we have any insurance claims coming from that has anybody claimed any insurance

not to my knowledge when I met with some of the property owners they sustained damage to vehicles and the building and they will they will those claims first go to their private insurance no not yet I don't anticipate any so but you never know I mean people can do what they do but at this point we've received nothing in the city gotcha any other questions for the manager

I actually have a comment and a question. So I noticed that West Blue Springs took a hit on that also.

Oh, yes.

Like it usually does, you know, West Blue Springs where knuckle sandwiches that intersection. And we know that's one of our problems in the future that we're trying to fix. But it's... if I remember on the list it was kind of not right away and It was just a typical rain and these places were flooding out. And so What is our plan for hurricane because did we purchase the tiger dams yet?

We have no funds No items in the budget to my knowledge for tiger dams. I will have to report back on that tiger dams going where I

wherever we need them during hurricane season because i know like last time we got hit by the hurricanes we had ran some um they weren't tiger dams but other piping that went from john knox i believe around the corner to you know what i'm talking about alleviate the fun rhode island right right and so and that was a good fix for that so that that road wasn't shut down um but west blue springs is is really bad and if you all remember there was a gentleman that came in here I think it's been a hurricane two years ago now, and he came in and his whole house was devastated from it, because he lives on the corner by a property that has a small retention pond. And I don't know what happened with the end result was that, because he doesn't live there anymore, I don't think.

No, he sold the property.

he sold the property he had no choice he it was he was devastated and it's right in that plane that flood plain that we we haven't dealt with yet and so i guess i'm asking if we can somehow move that up on the list because it's that there's two things one that excuse me i wasn't sorry my apologies so i i want to move it up on the list because there's many properties along west blue springs that it affects and businesses and um Hurricane season, we never know what's going to happen, right? So I'd like to be proactive with it. And I know we have lots of other floodplains that we have to think about. But I actively saw it happening last week when it was just a hard rain. It wasn't a hurricane. And that's scary. So I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I'm sorry.

So the rain events actually mounted to hurricane levels, five to 100-year levels. The intersection at West Blue Springs, which is at, it's actually Blue Springs and 17 is a state road. Yes. We're working with the transformation 386 project that will help alleviate some of that because that water that flows off of that road flows to Mill Lake and so once we have implemented and built that project that would help relieve it but I did go by park and The area there did not. The pond rose, but by the next day, it never overflowed. I could clearly see the watermark. It was about a foot, and it had already receded by the next day. So this is really like a hotspot situation. Are you talking about Mill Lake? No, I'm talking about the pond at Park that flooded, that area that flooded, that ultimately flooded the Park houses.

Did we pump out Mill Lake before that rain, or were we prepared for that? No, about it.

These were afternoon thunderstorms that amounted to 50-year to 100-year rain events that we would see during a tropical storm or a small hurricane. There's some data that engineering provided and I issued through the email that explained the calculations. And I think they're in this too. that there's calculations that we did based on the amount of time and the amount of rainfall that was documented that then helped us back into what was that equal to. And it is not a standard afternoon thunderstorm. I spoke to different council members who experienced 12 inches of rain in a swimming pool in an afternoon Storm not normal So we we were out, you know, once the rain happened We were out documenting and they was a really big hotspots two days in a row that hotspot was off of Thorpe And then a week later or so it was here But it did not have a very vast You know Spread it was big it affected a lot of areas. We had localized flooding on Levitt that we've documented and And then there's another one, it might be North Orange, I think we went out, or Thorpe, but we've got some hot spots that we've been looking at, but with what I was saying is we will be prioritizing, we're at 60% design for that transformation 386, Once it gets to 100 we plan to bring it back and we'll be going to bid depending on do we have enough money to do the project. We had a meeting on it today. It's looking positive but we've got some work to do. But that will help alleviate that. And I don't, I'll work with staff and we'll provide a little update on stormwater. I'm not aware of any tiger dams that the city is proposing to purchase and use anywhere. What we did was we presented the stormwater master plan and then adopted rates. But all of our projects are typically one to three year design. And you don't see construction until after that. And we do have things in design. But actual construction, there's really nothing to be able to prioritize and be able to construct until we go through that design process.

So on Blue Springs, if you're all familiar with the borrow pits down that way, right? That's on French. Oh, that's French, okay. So I know, you know, when Dale was here, we had talked about the Blue Springs and how it floods there. And there's a, if you're all familiar with the Lions Club, how that was underwater for a while when we had the hurricanes hit, and now it's, they moved out. There's no save in that building. It's pretty much done, but... um behind that is another pond and there's businesses all surrounding that pond and so that's another major problem in that particular area i just wanted to bring that up that in that um what do you call it i just said it a minute ago but development no no huh Yeah, okay, that'll work. Sorry. But that whole area right there is all hooked to that pond. And so Dale had said a couple years ago about maybe pumping it down the road somewhere. I don't know where she had in mind or anything. But I didn't think it was Mill Lake because I thought she said that Mill Lake could could probably not hold the capacity of West Blue Springs when it was trying to take care of East Blue Springs.

Yeah, I believe the Marshall Pond is the pond that has caused the flooding, and that too will be included in pumping out to the borrow pit.

Okay, yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. Thank you.

Okay, so I just wanted to put that on your radar.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Moving on to the city clerk's report.

I do not have a report tonight so we are right in the middle of election qualifying week so it's been a very busy two days so far it closes Friday at noon so I will definitely have an update for the next City Council meeting but right now we're just working on qualifying all of our candidates so didn't you have a couple people drop out though I have had a couple people drop out. Patricia Wall has dropped, Cassandra Jones, of course, Don Thompson, but that was announced at a previous meeting. But those are the three individuals at this time, yes.

Thank you. Any questions, anybody? No? Okay, thank you. City Attorney?

okay council we had a big week uh last week in tallahassee um tax reform uh i think everyone probably knows the the high points um we don't know what's going to happen we don't even know if it's going to even make it on the ballot because there is rumors of lawsuits being filed challenging the constitutionality of the ballot amendment so um It's an eternity between now and November, and it becomes effective January 1st. If it passes, it has to be voted on by 60% of the voters, not 60% of the registered voters, but 60% of the people that vote. so that's an important distinction you won't see it in next year's budget you won't see it until the year after so I think 2028 is when you'll see the first impacts all of our cities are scrambling trying to figure out ways to cut make cuts and and how to make you know make up the shortfalls the average number for city this size is between 1 and 2 million so any questions about the potential budget amendment or tax form or what's going to happen next any questions council no question no okay i'll keep you updated in the future if anything changes thank you thank you includes my report okay number 10 new business any new business

Yes Madam Mayor. In meeting with some of the legislators today at the forum, I would like to bring the fire assessment back to our next council meeting if possible. Because from what we can understand in that meeting, it's a dire need that we have other resources that we can pull from. And I would really like for us to really get a true understanding. Go talk with your legislators and see what they're saying about this. Because in the meeting that we went to this morning, they encouraged it. So I would like to see if we can have that brought back at our next council meeting.

City Clerk, City Manager.

Councilwoman Thompson, did you have a comment?

No, I had a new question.

Okay, let's go. So we're going to do a head nod. Do you want to bring this back again? We just beat this to death, but do you want to bring it back?

Not at this time.

Do a head nod because we talked about bringing it back later after we figure out what's happening.

The only thing I said, if we speak with your legislative, they will tell you exactly what's happening.

I've been following. Thank you. okay let's do a head nod do you want to bring it back council will go down the line council knight okay richardson thompson no darms no yes and it's a no so it's coming back perfect four to three

I've got something for new business. OK, go ahead. So kind of piggybacking off what you're trying to do here, I would like to for new business, since we need to look and see what kind of challenges that we're gonna face, I think that it would be so much more advantageous if the jobs that are in place like city clerk, city manager, everyone that is in charge of the city budget goes through and looks at those things that can be cut or can be modified. I know in our own budgets we have at home, we have things that just kind of like we pay for all the time and we don't use it as much as we think we should or we don't. I think the same thing occurs with the city and some of the priorities that we have right now I don't think are true priorities for our constituents I think their priorities for this is my wish list kind of thing so I think we should go back and we should look at some of the costs and expenditures and bring that up for new business I got some ideas

So are you asking for new presentations from each department with priorities?

I'm thinking that we need to do that. I think we should look for ways to cut funds. I think we should look for that and be prepared. I don't think we should just look for an assessment to add to. I think we should look for some more funds.

Okay, do you want to comment?

Direction, I would say, would be to ask each of your managers, city manager, well, ultimately it'll fall on your lap, because you're the city manager. Figure out where we can mitigate some of our costs. Do we need, I'm just bringing this up, this is not what I'm asking you to do, but $6,000 for chat GPT. Can we be a little bit more creative with our own writing than asking AI to do it? You know, those kind of things. So I'm just saying, can we find some things that we can save money on?

Okay, so before we have any discussion, council, we're asking, do we want to bring this back to have discussion?

Right. Yeah. So that's the new business that I'm trying to bring up.

Did you wanna make a comment, though?

Yeah, I agree with Council Member Thompson. This goes back to when I had originally talked about doing a process flow and workflow to find efficiencies and stuff of that nature. Okay, so you say yes? Yes.

Okay. Can I get a head nod, everybody? Okay, we'll bring that back.

Thank you. Any other new business?

Go ahead.

Another question. On what Councilwoman spoke on just now. Can we do, is it too much trouble to do like a workshop so they can go into details as to what we're spending our money on, how we can go? Would a workshop work better? Just have them present it to us in an open meeting?

I think once it funnels to the city manager, she should be able to articulate it.

so let me let me jump in here this is just a yes or no do we want to bring it back to talk about it and councilman stafford's asking should we put it into a workshop right um we just went through i know i missed the first part of the presentation because i wasn't here i think a bunch of us wasn't weren't here right but I know that they they draft these presentations and they take time to do all that you know I did see a little different this year than normal for the last seven years of me being on the council I felt like it was kind of light which made me feel like maybe you don't need that much which is good but except for public works obviously because you know there was a long list on there which is expected but um my point is is i i think i'm getting what councilman tiamson's saying is we're seeing a wish list but what's the priority what's the top like like um i didn't hear the police um presentation i'm sorry i wasn't here but generally you would see like i need three officers i need this i need that and that's my high priority and then you know Because I almost asked that during the presentations, like, what's your top one? What's your second one? What's your third one? And I don't think that was clear tonight for me. I don't know about you all, but so I think that's where, is that what you're going? We need a little more clarification of detail of what?

So, no, I'm looking for cuts, actual cuts. Okay. I see what you need. I want to see what you can cut. Okay.

okay you go ahead i i yeah but i believe if i'm understanding and following yes miss thompson or councilmember champson is asking for something different we will be having a the budget will be issued by august 1st in there you will get that detail what did they ask for we give you uh probably a 200 page document that shows how many officers um you know chief wants how many fire personnel And that's where I said we don't know what we're gonna need to set the millage rate out because we have to get through that process We know the overall objective would have been to you know, reduce it by whatever we you know generated But we'll get into that and we'll also have a workshop We'll work with you guys once the budget we immediately schedule those one-on-ones But I think going into that I'm hearing where can you cut?

basically we're looking for a head nod so that we can bring back to council a budget that would include cuts but the only thing is is like just from experience that when when these departments put their budgets together I think they have that in mind what what do I need to not not put on here because it I can't you know what I mean i didn't hear that that much tonight but i'm saying like usually it's like well we really need this but we really need this more you know so we're gonna we're gonna take that off and um and then the other thing is is each department comes up here and presents of what their needs are and usually that's that's what i was trying to say is like the police department would have said i didn't hear yours but need I need three officers or I need I need body cams or and and this is this is what I need and then we would all look at each department and go okay this is what I think they really need individually and then also you said you'll give us a 200 page document you know the whole budget which could be very overwhelming for some people up here when you look at it and you sit down and read a 200 page document of every department and all their budget needs versus when you did it separately and

it's easier for us to see that view of each department and that's why we do that right but i guess what you're saying is we didn't see the cuts so go ahead so let me clarify okay we're going to go into budget season and we're going to see all these things that they want and what they need and all of that kind of thing i think that it would be very productive for the city manager to poll and work with her city department heads to figure out what they can streamline in our city, and then it would be up to her to put that into, you know, that's her job, to put that into some sort of situation where we can look at it and go, okay, yes, we have a wish list, yes, we have a want list, but let's see what we can do for our city because we are faced with the fact that we might be Getting tax cuts. So that's what I want for a new business.

Don't you already do that though? No, normally we come in with a budget. We know what you've approved. We know what Services we've been providing and so when we were always ready to to look at what you can cut but first and foremost you the the dollar value comes from personnel well you know you have 70% of your give or take of your budget is personnel so depending on what the target is and this is like a little exercise so the state has already adopted some new legislation that's going to require this council next year who's here to cut the budget 10%, not the city manager. I can't do it for you. So this year will be a trial where I'll be the one showing you what it could look like with cuts because next year I won't be allowed to do that. You will be tasked with developing a budget that's cut. And so we can use this as an exercise to meet that, because that's also something that the state, along with a laundry list of stuff of different bills and what they need.

And you're not allowed to guide us at all or say this is what I think should be done, because you're the manager.

It's developing. You're going to be adopting your budget calendar earlier, December, I believe, for instance. January, you'll be adopting your budget calendar. We used to bring it to you somewhere between January and March. It's now mandated we bring it to you. then you you all have assignments from the state and that is to cut the budget correct Devlin so I'll let him expand I know we're not on the right topic because this is new business so I apologize I just want to clarify so it is an exercise of cutting the budget 10% it doesn't mean you have to adopt that correct budget

they just want you to go through the exercise so that maybe you say oh look we could actually cut that and so maybe you end up with a five percent cut in the budget well look at me being proactive so i'm just saying i think that we should do that for new business and some departments may not have any cuts they might be bare bones as it is but i think it's up to us to look at that so okay so we all okay with that right i think we said yes i think i lost track at that point okay

All right, any other new business from the council? Okay, moving on. We already did the approval minutes, council and mayor's comments. Vice mayor, you got anything?

Just that this morning we saw a roll of elected people and it was very informative. All the delegates that were there.

I have a question are we allowed to commemorate a particular business we do that already we have the facade awards is it I mean on a personal level Yeah, I think you're talking about that would be if you wanted to do that, that would be under new business.

And we already passed that it's just a compliment.

Okay, so I would suggest if you that's something that you want to do, you could bring it back next meeting on a new business and ask if we would do that.

Is that correct?

it really depends i don't know it sounds like she wants to say oh you just want to say something oh yeah you're in common yes you know we have to make it short you know we have different businesses here and there and um i just jumped on board with one of them don't tell me you forgot their name no fun day sundays if you want really great ice cream i i just started going there and it's like wow very good very good don't advertise just just give them a compliment and they're fairly reasonably priced i mean for what you get so i just wanted to uh commemorate them because they are very very good and there's a lot of other ice cream places around here so they deserve the recognition thank you councilwoman thompson

Okay, Councilman Richardson?

No.

Councilman Stafford?

Not today.

Councilwoman Knight?

No. Okay, I just have a couple things. I'll be quick.

Let's see. kaylee i'm not going to be going to the league of cities this year i decided not to go and i wanted to tell you that enough time um just decided that i want to save the taxpayer money after thinking about what we talked about and i've been there for well it would be my eighth year so i'm gonna let you all take it and uh come back and report hopefully that will save some money since we're pitching pennies here and um freedom and fireworks i will not be there because i just bought a new camper it's my bucket list camper and i'm going camping for the week so i will not be there so vice mayor i'm going to need you to take the stage okay which he's good at that i'm sure it'll be wonderful and i'm i'm really happy that you all did the flags this year so i won't be there to hand out the flags but you all can hand out the flags and it's a beautiful sight to see everybody holding their flags up in the in the field So I wanted to let everybody know ahead of time that I would not be at that. Let's see what else. I think that's all I got. So with that being it, I just need a motion to adjourn.

Make a motion to adjourn. Second.

Got a motion, got a second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Meeting adjourned. And it's only $7.50. All right. How about that? That's a shocker. I told everybody 11 o'clock easily. Usually the presentations are long.

Oh, you were talking. So usually they charge you $2.00.

All right.

How often is this?

Thank you.