Public - workshop

Awesome. Welcome, everyone, to the Charter Review Workshop for I don't even know what day it is. June something.

June 15th. June 15th. They all blur together.

We're not doing a roll call. There's no vote. So kick it over to Jonathan Hayes.

yeah awesome thank you mr mayor commissioners uh good evening and i also want to say a special welcome to miss nina ward supervisor of elections for bay county tonight i think is an exciting time in our city's history since it was first incepted in 1925 our city's charter or constitution has not had any real substantive review or any changes other than changes that have been pushed down by changes to state law since 1963. Last summer, the commission voted to direct the staff through a charter review advisory board. to look at the city's charter and go through that and make recommendations to change that. And so in front of you today, you have before you a memo from the chairman of the Charter Review Advisory Board, which we refer to as the CRAB, Charter Review Advisory Board. And just as a reminder for those that may not know that are watching this, the Charter Review Advisory Board was made up of Brandon Berg, who served as the chairman, Brandon Henderson, who served as the vice chairman, Cecile Schoon, Ron Danzy, and J.P. Ferreira. Those were all the board members. So three of the five were attorneys, so that proved to be quite helpful throughout this process. I meant that in a positive way, Mr. Zimmerman. Thank you. Yes, sir. So they went through and basically have made modifications and suggested changes to our city's charter for each of you to now consider as a commission. And in the process, that's what it starts with. It starts with the Charter Review Advisory Board, and they make their changes and recommendations. And then ultimately, the city commission has to either decide to accept, reject or partially accept or partially reject those and then put it forward. Ultimately, though, it does have to go before the voters of Panama City to to either be approved or rejected at the polls. And so that's one of the reasons why Miss Ward is joining us here today to answer any questions that y'all might have or that staff might have about the process. We do know, though, that in the event that we would like to, if you would like to see this, rather, on the November general election ballot, we would need to have the approved language and appropriate resolutions to her office no later than noon on Monday, August 24th, in order to make, again, the November general election ballot. In front of you, you do have the comprehensive memo that Mr. Berg drafted to kind of just give a summary. Additionally, this was emailed out several days ago. You also have the red line version of all the changes to the city's charter, as well as a clean copy in front of you. And again, that was also emailed. There's also a couple of memorandums that I drafted doing research, looking back at voter history through a number of different elections, getting some data from available both online from Ms. Ward's office, as well as the supervisor of elections office over in Leon County, as Tallahassee made some of the proposed changes many years ago that you are considering here today. And so those memos were circulated earlier today at the request of one of y'all and they're available today. And then again, the very last page, just a couple of items for you to look at again, in order to make the November 2026 general election, approved language must be to the supervisor of elections office prior to noon on Monday, August 24th. We do have an example, if y'all do move to agree with the charter review recommendations to align our elections with the gubernatorial and presidential election cycles, how the next elections would fall. And then the big question is, how did the charter review advisory board review and consider these changes? The board did not review articles in numerical order. The work was organized by theme, starting with core governance structure and working outward in the report. that you have before you today, which is his memorandum, spells all of that. I will say that one of our assistant city attorneys and Mr. Zimmerman's colleague, Miss Smith, Caroline Smith, was very instrumental in this. She's out of town, but wanted to be here and available. So she is joining us via Zoom and is happy to be a part of any conversation and any questions and answers that you all have today. I will dare say that she probably did the bulk of the administrative and legal work

this process over the last year and I would at this time turn it over to Mr. Zimmerman if you'd like to add any comments thank you we do we are fortunate I am very fortunate to have Caroline helping on this project and she will be available to answer any questions you may have what we did was a lot of research as far as how other There we go. A lot of research as far as how other communities have tackled their charter review. And changes have been made, looked at the model charter that has been promulgated through the Florida Association of Cities. We had a seminar actually, or we had as guest speakers at one meeting, the individuals there that put on symposiums for helping with charters. So we have that background. We're available to answer any questions that you may have on it. It touches pretty much everything. One thing we did to, quote, clean it up, as state law was enacted in 1960, the short history, Panama City started it was in 1908 and it had a charter then in 1926 7 or 8 25 in 1925 Panama City got a new charter and they the state legislature merged st. Andrews and Millville into Panama City And in those times, only the state legislature approved and adopted charters. Then in 1963, a new charter was adopted, and that's the one that we've been operating as state law has preempted different things in the charter. Municipal Code is the group that takes our ordinances and produces the Panama City Code. It also would take our charter. And it would redact things and say, superseded by ordinance, superseded by state law. So a lot of those notes have been removed in the clean charter. So that is what's before you today. So happy to answer any particular questions.

If I can just add one more thing, Mr. Zimmerman referenced You know, we got some outside support during this. We did rely heavily on the Florida League of Cities in looking at other examples and charters and the particular kind of educational slash informational session that we had was led by Dr. Bob Lee. He's a prominent Florida public administration scholar, former city manager of Naples. He's an executive the executive director at the Center for Florida Local Government Excellence, and he's collaborated extensively with the Florida League of Cities for well over four decades. So he kind of came in and helped us and answer a lot of questions throughout this process. So, you know, at this point, there's a number of different ways that you all can move forward, but we just felt that kicking it off with a time of informal discussion and answering any questions that you all might have was the best first step.

Mr. Mayor? Yeah, do we want to cherry pick topics or do you want to go just down the list from the summary that Brandon Byrne provided or how would you like to proceed? Let's go in order.

Nina's here and we can go over all that part and we can let her go home.

She can just sit here and have so much fun with us.

We're a lot of fun to hang out with.

Well, that's not a bad idea. Do you want to jump down about the effects of voting?

Do we have to do 60% or 50 plus one? And Nina, do you think that us being on this ballot, which is also going to be the property tax, is going to be on the same vote, does that hurt this? Because there's going to be a lot of promotion on the top.

So currently for the November ballot, we do have three statewide referendums already. So it just kind of depends on how many questions you guys come up with, you know, how length of ballot currently most of the ballot will be just one sided. And then we'll have two state referendums that are expected to roll over on the back. So space could be somewhat limited. If you're asking if I think that voters that come out specifically for an amendment will affect that, your guess is as good as mine.

I will. One question, and I failed to ask this of Ms. Ward, but can you tell us what is, you know, because some other cities have done this recently. There's obviously not going to be 20 pages of language on the ballot. So how do we do that in advance of and then on during early voting and on election day?

How do we do it in one vote to adopt or not adopt? How do we do that?

Are you saying combine the entire charter amendment into one question? Is that what you're asking?

Yes.

Well, you have 75 words or less, so that might be tricky to try to get all of this under one question. What the state does is they put out a booklet with the complete language of the referendum. So you don't see the whole bill printed on a ballot. You see 75 words, kind of a summary, and then the state publishes a booklet that we post on our website. We have it at all the polling places. So if a voter wants to read the entire language, we have that available. So my recommendation would be narrow it down, you know, summarize the questions as much as you can so that we don't take up you know multiple sheets of a ballot and then create some you know even if it's just this full language that you have and we can post it on the city's website have it at the polling locations and then also on our website as well

I, my thought is try to get it to 1 question and if there's something that we feel is super controversial, that's probably something we should hash out before we go into it. I mean, I fully anticipate we'll probably do another charter review at some point. So, if there's items that need to wait until another thing, I mean, I think 1 question is probably.

Yeah, I don't want to have any new. I mean, that is kind of the point of going through the entire exercise that we did. But, um, I'm with you, I want to have it towards 1 question that way. We're not asking getting into voter fatigue where they're getting 3, 4 pages that they're having to sort through.

I think our supervisors can appreciate.

I think the voters would appreciate it. Could it be as simple as. Shall the revisions to the Panama city charter as approved by the charter review advisory board on June 10th and the city commission on July 24th be adopted? Yes or no.

It's it wouldn't be that simple because you do have course you do have you have 75 words and that'll be the key is this. You got to put people on notice what it is they're voting on. So you've got to figure out how to summarize. The whole charter, and usually you just go by section headings and you just list the section headings and it can be done in 75 words, but you're going to use up. Close to 75 words, can we put both of these documents on the website?

That puts us in a all or none position.

However, based on what we elect, what we suggest to send up.

No, what I'm saying, if we take all of these changes and people go through and they determine there's one thing that they just can't vote yes for, and it turns into a big no vote, there's that possibility.

I definitely agree with that statement and that concern. My only thought is it's been 60-something years since this has been looked at. I think everything that I've read thus far, I mean, there's a lot of things that the Chartered Committee just communicated back. We're not going to deal with that. which is fine I mean that's their that's their prerogative but I think these are more the common-sense approach items and even some of the stuff that's listed here this looks like a lot but there's a lot of things it's like we recommend no change we recommend no change you know so I don't know how much there's actually going to be it's in the context that maybe one or two pages as maybe all it is

So we want to go through each item or cherry pick the ones that you want to discuss.

Yeah, I would suggest we cherry pick the ones you want to discuss because it's quite a few items.

Ms. Ward here, did you want to talk about the election dates, that section?

Well, I mean, nothing that we ever do is – any single one person up here's perfect idea. One of my concerns was – and I'm totally in favor for all these changes, just to be clear. The idea of campaigning in August sounds like a complete nightmare, knocking doors in 110 degree weather. It wasn't that bad in the spring, but I think it's a good change and I'm willing to do it. If only two people qualify, it would go to November.

I think the 1, so in the elections that I wanted to, I wanted just to clarify single member districts. So we are, we are saying we are charterizing that, which is currently only established through ordinance. It's a new word.

I think it was already that way in the charter. They just cleaned it up. I didn't understand.

It's a foundational element of city governing. I think that's what threw me off. What page are you on, sir?

I'm on page four. What happened was that the municipal code, the charter did provide for at-large elections. Then in resolving the litigation, an ordinance was adopted and moved to single-member districts. the municipal code just kind of took it out of the charter and said, this is handled per ordinance number blank. And so Caroline actually took the language from the ordinance and just put it in the charter to make it easy to read.

So we're putting it in. So to clarify my question, it's not in the charter currently. We're putting it in the charter.

It's referred to from the charter.

It's referred to in the charter. At the end of the day, the clarifying is a commission will not be able to change that.

Exactly.

Okay. So it's being added to the chart. Right.

I think the red line version reflects that. And that's from page 9 of the red line.

So, the document. Yes, sir.

So.

What else? All right. So if we go to four years, right now it's every two. So we talked about this a little while ago. That means that this election coming up would be two or be four because we're changing it if it was approved.

So currently you have no candidates up this year. So you're talking about putting the charter revisions or the referendum on the November ballot. So instead of your next election being in April, it would then go to 2028. The presidential election. So it's extending the current terms.

All of us.

So we're not the first one in Callaway as well.

And it would extend the terms of all five.

It would necessarily have to. So Josh and I would be on an extra... We'd be on the next gubernatorial election.

And now Janice and Brian would be on the side of the dark story. If you so choose to run again.

That's my least favorite part of this. But I'm not willing to throw the whole thing out for that.

So one of the things that I thought about is every two years, can we get to vote for Allen? Well, the mayor. They get to on the floor, but they're not voting that year for their ward. Like mine would be on the off year from president to governor. But the mayor doesn't run then either. So two wards that are running, plus getting the other people who are going to go to the presidential election to vote too, are they going to be as inclined to do that?

I think they'll show up to vote for the president.

So I think the heart of your question is, is there the same turnout for the gubernatorial as there is for the presidential?

Well, it's got to be better than what we did with the highest turnout we've ever had. Is what I'm looking for.

Yeah, to answer your question, the governor's years are a lower turnout. However, the governor's year is still higher than your current municipal date.

August 28th, October 28th. If you look at that, no, it has to stay.

So there's a couple of things that play of why that voter turnout is higher. Yes, it is because of the national elections because the statewide. money being best in advertisement get out but there's also the supervisor puts more early voting dates there's more voter education that's going there's more polling places right now we get one polling place per ward i think on a standard municipal or standard statewide national election i think there's like three or four and we have five five precincts i believe that make up panama city limits

And then 8 early voting sites, so that increases the opportunity.

Yes, that's that's that I think that has a lot to do with why we get a higher turnout as well. And we're not paying for that. That's already absorbed into the supervisor's budget. If we were to try to do that on municipal election.

I don't know how much that would cost us, but it would be a lot if so initially I was not in favor of. Moving to November, because of the concerns of the agendas being applied to. the city commission race. But looking at data from other municipalities that have done this has eased that concern. And I've always championed voting. And so the opportunity to increase voter participation and engagement outweighs my concern about the agenda, of course, until it happens. Right. I'm good with that. Oh, you said there were currently three statewide referendums, has the deadline passed? There can be, there will be no more? No more.

Okay.

Okay.

What's the next topic?

City clerk fiscal oversight. And this isn't so much about the charter as it is, we are... Okay, I went before.

Any other questions about the motion? Nina's about to leave early, too.

We got you out of here in like... Nina, could we go on record on who you think's going to win all the elections?

I don't have another question, but I do just want to say thank you for making your office available, not only to us, but to citizens. You come out would ask or send others. And so we appreciate that. That's part of the show running.

I mean, they were awesome officers. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

So this is, um,

City clerk, physical oversight. Really, it's just the city clerk and what we're going to do with the city clerk. Commissioner, can you tell us what you're looking at, sir? I'm looking at page five of the memo. Got it. Page five of the memo. And so the idea here is that we are potentially going to move the clerk underneath the city attorney. I'm sorry, not the city attorney. you're welcome did caroline do that so um yeah under the city manager and then create a cfo position that would just give physical oversight and i think that was the kind of the compromise that solved both issues of we want physical oversight that the city manager cannot influence but at the same time we also have these other clerk duties that need to be done um and I think the rub there was, can the city manager manage? Can the city manager actually manage these things? And so I think what is born out of this is a much smaller office that doesn't have near as many people tied to it. And it moves the majority of the folks that would be in that office now underneath the city manager. I'm not necessarily opposed to that. But what I'm pointing out is that we are hiring for this position right now. So we can continue to do that. We can continue to hire for that. But if we're going to tonight vote to move or not vote, we're not voting tonight. But if we're going to tonight have this thing move forward where it comes in front of us to vote, and we don't have a lot of contention in this document tonight, um then we need to probably approach the city clerk hiring in a different manner is my point and so it's not so much about the charter as it is if we're moving forward it's just that if we're moving forward with this charter we need to think about how we're gonna who we're hiring for the city clerk and is that position going to be a cfo or is it going to be the clerk commissioner if i could um the uh

The city clerk job descriptions vary from my recollection. I know you guys helped craft it, but it's very highly technical and really focuses on the financial piece. I think what's being proposed here is that the clerk functions, really the public records request, the person that serves as the records custodian would then report to the city manager. So just from an org chart, if you charted that out, it would really just be accounting and And the CFO or control or whatever you call it remaining with those duties and then the. What I would imagine the deputy city clerk and your records clerk would just move over to underneath the city manager.

So you're suggesting that the clerk that we hire for that position be the CFO.

I mean, I'm, I'm suggesting what I think the charter suggested to y'all is. Keep the duties over here and move the public records and the court duties under city understood.

All I'm saying is that currently we're hiring for this for singular position. And if this passes, and if we put this before November, and it passes. then that's now two different jobs.

So I brought that up to the same concern. I had that same concern. Jonathan, tell me what you said.

Yep. I think I emailed with Commissioner Street had the same question, but and I did confirm with Mr. Zimmerman and also with Ms. Lewis, who has 30 plus years of HR. Obviously, the heavier part of this job is the what I think they're using the term comptroller or the CFO component to it. So it's the the treasury treasurer part of that job. And so we could, you know, obviously there's a lot that still has to happen for y'all to approve it, although I like the way we started now. It seems like we're moving pretty quick, it seems. But, you know, it has to be approved by you guys. We have to get it on the agenda for November, and then it has to pass. So there's a lot that has to happen between now and November 3rd. So, you know, the feeling is to proceed, as y'all have right now, and hire you know, a clerk treasurer. And then, you know, during the interview process, we all and you all can let the person know that, you know, this is a potential change come November And that's something that can be worked out in the contract down the road if need be if a, if a portion of that job, because the clerk's responsibilities, even now, I would say are the smaller part of that job when it comes to the level of responsibility, because that that financial oversight and independence away from the city manager and the city attorney. Is what's critical so everyone feels we can easily deal with that down the road and it would just be a, you know, somewhat of a, you know, with an expectation that when the, when the contract is finalized, just like the contract that I have with y'all, that could be 1 of the notes that, you know, that the job could change.

In November of 2026, would we so. So, my, my, because I turned in were much heavy. financially than clerk. But I think my point might would be that if we could go to November and have the job description for that position of treasurer, would we get more and better applicants for a treasurer role versus muddying them together where someone's like, So that was my concern about having these two decisions in tandem at the same time.

Because somebody might not have applied. So that's a very different conversation. Well, and this is how I handled it. And I think this is kind of one of those common sense changes to me. We had a saying when we used to do music stuff, like, find me an artist that also likes to do spreadsheets. And I think that's very similar in a clerk role versus someone that's a CFO. They are ultimately two different skill sets, which is why we've always had to have deputies. And we see what happens when we don't have deputies because you need to have specialists in those areas. In specifically moving it under the city manager's role. I think the clerk, you might find somebody of deputy quality is able to facilitate that job. Doreen has done a fantastic job. What she's doing. I don't think we would go and hire anybody else if it was that person and I think that's the same thing that kind of exists. So, for me. I do think this is kind of a common sense element. I do think our heaviest need is on CFO responsibilities. And so, I mean, anybody that was just a straight clerk, I eliminated them from my, from my consideration. So that all the applicants that I, before I even said this to Vicki, when I sent them to her, I said. I really struggled with a lot of these applicants because there's a lot of clerks in them. And by the time I got through everything, there were a lot of people that had experience as a clerk, a lot of people had experience of some finances, a few that had in between. But I did ask the same question. You can look at that 1 or 2 ways we can proceed forward with interviews and start process. See how we get as we're going through it. It's definitely not going to happen overnight or we could look to brandy and say brandy. Would you facilitate a couple more months as we continue to find applicants and let the people facilitate this? You know, I haven't had that conversation with brandy. I don't know whether she'd be willing to, but. That is an option is that her heart to stop where she is right?

Yeah. So, Josh, is that a conversation you should have.

I think this is the conversation that we should have.

In as much as when I looked at the candidates, I looked at clerk-treasurer equally presented. If we are moving in a direction different from that, I would say that we need to re-advertise for what we're looking for. And we've got Unless the timeline has changed, Janet's in the office until August to provide the insight. And then November is, what, three months after that.

And somebody told me that we have our deputy, I think, secured. Do we have a deputy treasurer now?

Yes. Joss Gosich joined our team a few months ago, doing a great job. I know that both Ms. Smith and Ms. Waldron are very impressed by him, and he's joining and meshing in with the team very well.

So better to advertise for what we want, and then we all look at the candidates with the same criteria in mind.

I truly did struggle and I communicated that back to Vicki and Jonathan was on the email thread too.

So I like these proposed changes to the charter and I'd like to see the job description or the job posting continue and even possibly be rewritten.

in the in the anticipation that this change does get passed why don't we have um two set up and then um if if this passes in November then the CFO job goes out and if it doesn't well then we just there's clear treasure sure job goes out But, yeah, I share the same concerns. You know, we're hiring for – we put out that we're hiring for a specific thing, and then we've got people to apply to that, and then we're changing the job on them potentially.

So I was surprised at the number of people on the minimum qualifications that just had a driver's license. Yeah, that didn't – But if we separate that office that has 11 employees in it What does that look like? The city manager's office is not really slim on their fat on a lot. They don't have a lot of room. We don't need to give them much. They're pretty busy in there. So putting something underneath the city manager, that's just more there. Is that a concern? How many people does it take to do the clerk part of that? I don't know. I think she's in charge of setting up all the agendas and all that, right?

I mean, from a task perspective, she's not picking items. She's taking what she's given. Exactly.

Creating it, yes. What does it look like on the other side? Are we going to decrease people or are we going to increase people? Where are they going to sit? Let's think this through on how does that look.

It looks like it looks now. It's just you move one hierarchical organization underneath the CMO. I mean, that's a pretty easy.

Yeah, I don't think anybody's proposed more staffing.

If anything, we're talking about everything.

Yeah, I think if anything, what it allows you to get more specific in the skill set that you're looking for, for those particular individuals, like, for the deputy clerk, or which would be a clerk, you know, you now have eliminated essentially a layer of of complexity for that. i mean jonathan hasn't asked for a raise to to to manage the more employees so i don't think i think it's a i think it's kind of a smaller amount and to be fair you already have the hr piece to that you already have that um so i mean it's yeah it would just be more of a um

In the military, you always want to know who's your boss and who reports to you, that kind of thing. And so I think in this sense, it would just kind of realign that.

I think from our perspective, it probably gives us more access to a specifically financially minded person. um and allows us to hire that position with far greater intention than trying to find this duality somebody that's going to help with election somebody that's going to help with record keeping somebody's going to help with agenda prep somebody's going to help with all those things rather you just get somebody that's that hey look i'm here to be your comptroller make sure there's accountability in your finances make sure that you're doing a good job and and ensuring your bondholders are satisfied and you know where every dollar goes and what all those it's just a different role

Any other discussion on that item? No. Let's move on. What's the next hot topic?

I've got one. The city attorney shall prepare all contracts, bonds, and other instruments.

Can you tell us what you're looking at, Commissioner?

City attorney, appointment duties, section 104.

What page? On the red line?

So if we do an RFP with an underground guy, they have their contracts.

is it is it it's easier in my opinion to take that and um add changes or whatever we need to unless we have a template that we use because that's just that's hourly work that we're putting towards the the bulk on the all part of that where we can add an addendum if we need to and i wanted to ask nevin about this because it's not that it's a problem that they're writing them it's i'm just trying to create where That's one last thing our attorney has to do, but can bring that in and review it and make sure if we need to make changes to it.

It's page 24 and 25 of the red line version.

So you're... And do we already do that? I don't know. Your comments are related to standardization of legal documents.

Well, not necessarily. I mean, if you win the bid and you've got your contract, you know what all the insurances and all that, and you bring it in, by this we have to rewrite it and then send it back down to that why not take what we have and if it works we need to add a few more things in there now there's less time spent on that contract no surprises and there is um there's just there there's more time for for um the attorney to work on stuff because that takes a lot of time now i don't know And I need to ask you, do we have templates already ready that we use for underground for survey? I don't know.

That'd be a resolution that we pass away.

Must look 1st step and it may not be a problem. I just saw words matter. So.

just history this that same language that we've had since 1963 and so the practice is that it's not so much that the city attorney prepares but the city attorney does review and sign off on all contracts so whether or not the city attorney prepares it it's is not that We've always interpreted that to mean that the city attorney reviews it takes ownership of it and signs off as far as standardizing of of legal documents that I think that is something that happens outside of the charter. We have a lot of things that are standardized. We can always do more as far as that goes, but. We have, I know with code enforcement, it's become, through Natalie's efforts, very standardized as far as how we handle that. Different contracts have a lot of the same provisions in it. And so that is standardized, different provisions. But what that means is that The city attorneys signs off and takes ownership and has reviewed primarily all of the contracts that the city enters into.

And it says shall not will. So shall doesn't mean you have to, right? For will does. Because some engineer comes in here and pays attention to every word and says, oh, no, we're not going to do that. If we're changing things, I'm just trying to think into the future. And it's not a problem for me.

I think shall and will are similar, but it's when you put can or should. The key is the word prepare and whether –

I mean, I've interpreted prepare to mean... And it has in there, Nevin, that you have to okay everything.

So that's still there.

Yeah. So one of the things that I... Nevin and I had this conversation. I was like, why do we spend so much on attorney's fee? Why are you reviewing every single thing? Something's caught up in legal. We had this conversation multiple times, especially at the very beginning. I'm like, this is just a bureaucratic mess, it seems like. But as time has gone on, what I have seen is the wisdom on the other side of it, which is there have been instances where our team members have executed contracts that did not go through the city attorney's office. Therefore, they're not legally valid. There you go. And there have been times that the attorney's office have caught things that would not have gotten caught otherwise. So it's a two-edged sword. It does create additional legal expenses for the city in doing it the way that we're doing it. However, it also creates added protection. And if you look at it from just the perspective of how many items I can say have been denied as true and legitimate contracts because they were not executed through this review process, it probably adds up way more. Does it have to be in the charter?

It can't be procuring policies? I don't know. It's a great question. Yeah, that's true. And I'm not against any of this. I'm just trying to figure out Is that if everybody has a contract, can we attach to it and make some changes? Yes. Does that speed the process up?

Don't know. I think the standardization absolutely should be a policy thing. I think that that is something that we could as much as we can. Yeah, as much as you can. I agree with that. But the real teeth of the charter is explaining who has the authority to create an executable contract. And what it's saying is the city manager can go and contract for things, but it is not a legally binding document until it has gone through the city's attorney's office. And they have to be the ones that have to defend us against it.

And control, too, I think.

has to approve on it no no mention no no where we're spending money it's the no sir it's the uh it's the city attorney and the purchasing division have to review all contracts and the city manager's office okay yes there is an occurrence with our purchasing policy and procedures manual to answer specifically your question now that i have it clear he or she shall prepare you could add or review all all contracts

I mean, I think that answers your question.

I'm not trying to take you out of the meal. I'm just trying to make it so.

I understand. So I mean, so that could be an easy.

I think the word prepare is the more precise word to use. When you put an or in, that begins to muddy things. And if it doesn't go through his office, he has to prepare. So prepare it for our review. Prepare it for commission decision.

I'll look up the word, the definition of prepare, but I've always interpreted it to mean I don't actually have to write it, but I accept the work that's provided by people that work for me, individuals that I do business with, they give me something, I look at it, and so...

A lot of our bids and the contracts are kind of templates that we kind of plug and play.

I just wanted to show off that I hadn't read this document. You did.

You read the wrong section.

Right. I'd like to, if you're satisfied with your question, I'd like to move us to agenda setting. And a question that was just raised in the last issue.

Ma'am, can you just tell us what page on the red line you're on?

Oh, I have no idea what page is on the red line. It's on page three at the bottom and continues to page four on the summary. And so my question that I plan to have here that came up in this just past discussion is, is this something that needs to be in the charter? agenda setting can be handled by procedures, by policy. What makes it a charterable, as we're charterizing everything, Commissioner Street, what makes it worthy to be in the charter?

I also had a question on this section, too, so maybe that can be answered at 1 time is what about an emergency situations like 48 hours notices? I don't see any provision that allows for the flexibility that may be needed with a disaster or.

I guess that was the would that be handled under the rules for emergency meetings?

I don't know that that's my question. I don't. I got an agenda setting that says 48 hours notice, which ultimately I don't disagree with. I mean, that's fine to me, but just as long as I mean, I can see a hurricane happen the next day. We can't meet because we got to publish an agenda. You got to get a computer. What what happens?

Yeah, my concern is whether. we need to address it in the charter, number one. Number two, the hypothetical presented at the end of the paragraph on page four, last-minute unpopular items can be raised and decided on at a Commission meeting without real public notice. My question is, has this even happened? And then the decision, 48 hours, the provision here that Any commissioner can notify the city manager or mayor to add any item to the agenda anytime prior to 48 hour posting. If at 47 hours and 30 minutes, the mayor decides we're going to add this to the agenda and we're not aware of it. This doesn't block that from that scenario from happening.

Yeah, I think this raises a lot more questions than it answers, is kind of the thought process I have. What are we solving for here? So, like, I don't have a problem with the mayor approving the agenda as long as that is a More ceremonial thing, rather than any 1 of us trying to put something on there and then all of a sudden we can't because I want to prevent John is awesome.

I want to prevent the city manager preventing this board future boards and from putting things on the agenda. So, I want us all to put these future commissioners future. So. Understood. What do you mean? Well, what I don't want is John, the stock has the city, the future, a future city manager, not a lot of electric officials to put things on the agenda. That's what I'm trying to have.

Has that happened? It could, but has it?

No.

Okay. Yeah. The realities of categories that are hitting us, we're, we're.

I could think of an instance that maybe it has happened. You guys can clarify with that. But I think that we had an issue that kept coming up over and over and over again. And eventually we kind of had the conversation of like,

robert's rules of order you can't keep bringing up the thing you keep voting against like does that make sense so i don't know is this prevent that i don't know that it prevents no i don't know that you can no that's a tough one mr zimmerman does uh rules that we set whenever there's a new group elected we review the policies and procedures rules of of order um

does agenda setting fall there where it doesn't have to be a charter review meeting to address any of these things that might come up this does not have to be in the charter this can be right today it is handled as far as how you set the agenda and how you conduct your meetings or in the rules of procedure and you can change that you can get more specific But the charter review committee felt they wanted to put it in the charter because they felt it was a, as Mr. Berg said, they called it, he termed it a citizen protection measure, trying to make sure that citizens had notice, more of the notice of what was going to be in the charter. Because there were two issues in this. One issue is notice, the other issue is setting those.

but i did discuss that with him and he said they met hardline 48 hours so 48 hours is sunday well i think they meant they don't they don't mind discussion what they don't want is uh voting items a voting on where we go we call you're out of town we call some special meeting to vote on something that's super controversial because we know someone's out of town and everybody's surprised by it we're trying to keep surprise i think so i i don't mind adding agenda items as long as they're non-voting agenda like discussion items But we're trying to keep the public from being surprised something just happened and they were unaware of.

Yeah, I'd like to see us move this out of the... Yeah, we'll talk about that too.

I have a suggested change. Just change the word agenda where it says the mayor shall set the agenda. Just change that framework. Because I think that's what you're aiming for, right? Or they're aiming for, not you. But the goal of this is to aim for... that the mayor has some kind of way of controlling the meeting um that can happen very easily but the problem is is that if you if you get a very very contentious mayor which would never happen um that uh that if if you give this power this specific power it could be read in all kinds of different ways and in ways that could be used as a bludgeon against other commissioners And while up here a lot of times we don't agree about everything, you know, and imagine that. You think that? We don't agree about everything, and that's okay. That's part of how this is supposed to work, right? But I would never want to see us...

a fashion a bludgeon out of out of this for for a bad actor what about what about a statement of no adding agenda items that are to be voted on unless we're in a state of emergency like there's someone that's codified in the policy where it's like yeah we can all we can we want to avoid a city manager in the future walling off

don't want sneakiness of future boards where it's like they added some of the day up and they're voting to do some terrible thing that no one's aware of and we can't show up for and i get that to me my biggest problem is today we're all equal that gives the mayor a step up immediately and you're not all equal yeah so i think your agendas for the last two years would have one item on them yeah

Yeah, I think the entire board's going to have whatever they want.

I want to prevent the city measure and I like your but then that say that right now, does it say that the commission can add anything? Yeah.

Well, they can add with 2 votes to get there.

No, no, no. That was the original. That was the original. They changed that. This language is more focused around just 48 hours notice is really what it comes down to, which I think the intent of it is very good from a transparency perspective. I think the practicality of trying to determine every single instance in which this may affect I think is very challenging.

And for that reason, I think it should be in a document that we can change more easily than the charter.

So right now we have to have everything in by today for next meeting. So what this says, if we wanted to add something, it has to be within 48 hours of that meeting.

40 hours of posting. So that would actually be, we post four days by policy, so that would be six days in advance.

Mayor and commissioners, is there any appetite to entertain addendums from staff? I mean, we know we have them occasionally because we run into either it's grant projects or construction projects. We may need a resolution in support of a grant on a deadline, anything like that.

I think call a special meeting for it. I'm trying to prevent, you know, Me, in my older years, I'm going, what just happened? They did what? And no, 1 be aware of it. And then also a future mayor feeling walked off. Those are my 2 points wherever they lean on.

It's not going to be another. 50 years before the Charter is true. We're making up a lot of well around.

So, today we have to turn it in. We get our draft who approved that. Draft was it Doreen or was it.

The actual draft of the agenda, honestly, it's a collaborative effort between the city manager, the city clerk, and the city attorney. like the most of the i i was using as an example as city manager and i want to say one thing that the the charter review board really tried is like to to take personal personalities out of it we all know everybody loves me and everybody loves alan right we all can agree on that so but what happens down the road when it's we're not in this city and so so you know they were very careful to that end but honestly i i I rarely, on my own initiative, pick my own agenda item. I mean, most of the time it comes up through the planning board process, through the directors or the chiefs because of something that requires a budget amendment or it's above the $100,000, even if it's in the budget, if it's over $100,000 or it's a contract or something like that. Um, so, you know, so it to answer your question, it's really a collaborative effort, but, you know, again, the part treasurer is not really making the decisions, except for under their section. Everything else is like, what's given to them. From the directors from the chiefs from Mr Zimmerman and his team, and then all the clerk does is organize it in accordance with our standard template for agendas.

Okay. So I'm all on board for you can add something to that. That's pretty cool. Or if it's within the timeframe doing that. But I think we ought to make a rule where we all stay equal.

This is page 13 of the red line.

Oh, I know.

So I fully support exactly what you're saying. I don't think, as written, there's any change of us not being equal. What I would ask the question is, one, the reason why I went to emergency powers is I'm thinking through You've been actually happens, you know, does this apply to that? Or is the emergency powers to proceed this? And should that be spelled out here? Because, you know, you guys know as well as I do an event happens sewer line breaks, whatever we could find an emergency task order onto our thing. Now, a policy perspective to Alan's point. I don't know why a policy decision would have to be made within a 40 hour period. I think that is completely. Like, we don't just wake up 1 day and say, hey, we're crafting an ordinance. Let's go put this on the agenda. That's not that's not the way that process works, but an expense. Can be very much immediate and that does require a vote. So I would just like there to be clarity on how that's executed a policy point. I could completely. I think it's great for transparency. It's great for that. The purchasing is where I get and and.

Emergency contracts, emergency services that we did this last regular meeting where you had an item that you wanted to bring up and it was very, very proposed for the discussion at hand. And we moved that forward and that wasn't technically on the agenda. You would not have been able to do that.

That's true. Yeah.

That's a good point.

So you just. Talk me into maybe that's not good. Great example.

I mean, truly, that's a good example. So thinking through the fundamentals of this and, like, how does this thing work, right? How does this work? So, for instance, at one of the meetings, a commissioner wanted to add an additional item or an additional wording on top of the motion. But where does that line, where's that line drawn? When the motion itself has completely moved away from the item at hand, which has happened, that has happened, to solve for maybe the root causes why that issue was being brought to us, right? Maybe that's why it happened. Maybe it happened because we just tangented and went down a rabbit hole. Um, but at what point do we say, well, hold on. This wasn't 48 hours notice. Like, I don't I don't see that happening in the middle of a meeting because I mean, unless our parliamentarian is like, well, time out because we're going to be so engrossed in what we're doing that it's a. You know what I mean?

Who's within the 48 hours and it's not voting. They're going to tell us at the meeting.

Well, it would have to be non-voting if it wasn't within the 48 hours.

You'll find out.

OK. This could be an aspect of maybe we work on this from a policy perspective prior to trying to put into a charter. I mean, your question was very, or your question to me was very poignant of, yeah, it would have actually changed something that we just did. And I think it was a good policy decision. Of course you do. So did you.

Well, yeah. I just couldn't pass up the obviousness of the moment.

Yeah. So what do we do with that? We just keep working on it? Remove it, iterate on it. What should we do?

I'd say remove it. Is my desire.

No, we can't, but we can provide direction and you can provide input and then you can see a draft where I'd be okay seeing a draft. Otherwise, if it's going to extend the timeline, I'm the exact point that there's so much here that we have to reduce to 75 words.

Should we move in that direction?

don't we remove it and then ask staff to bring it back to us in policy form yes very good you're talking about section 32 just to be clear and and i would go further than a policy point maybe it needs to be an ordinance so that way if anyone did try to change it there would be multiple public notices that would have to go into it yeah yeah so yeah the eyes just the ideas just keep coming okay better and better

Do you want them to have to live in the city?

I would like them to live in the McKinsey house altogether in the McKinsey house.

I'd say too close to the mayor move to the city or close enough upon taking office within so much time become a city resident.

Yeah. Cause I saw, um, that was in here if I remember correctly, that, that we, uh, yeah, obviously if we're looking to hire somebody, they shouldn't have to live in the city in the moment when we're hiring them, but they should have a certain time period where they should have to live in the city.

The six months is what it's in here.

What's a big County resident is what's in here.

Yeah. We want them to live. I want them to live. I'm a big fan of you going to be the manager of the city.

of eat your own dog food. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that. So that's a software.

Did you just describe it as dog food? It's called eat your own dog food.

There was actually a lot of discussion about this. I think there needed to be clarity for the city manager, because it says that time of appointment. But I think to your point, that means. If you hired someone that didn't live here from 6 months from the appointment, they need to become a resident. It's much more clear for the city attorney, and there was no requirement for the city for treasurer. But just to give you a little bit of kind of peek into the discussion that the board had, it was, you know, they kind of looked at, like, today, like, the number of. attorneys, you know, when Mr. Zimmerman retires in, like, 20 years, you know, the number of attorneys that actually live in the city limits that have municipal experience is, so if you wanted to be able to pull someone in locally, that's why they said Bay County. That's why the board chose to expand it to not necessarily just live in the city, but to live in Bay County. That's all.

So I'm convinced this was added to the charter by the attorney that drafted these documents in the 60s. to keep other attorneys from competing for being city attorney. Because it makes no sense why the clerk and the city manager were not required to the same thing. So the orchestrator of the document just happened to put a limitation on that one office. but i i mean i i i do agree with there's something good but i would point out that mark wasn't mark wasn't a city resident and there was definitely no loss of love for the city and how he served and so i mean he he was very passionate oh understood and i don't i don't think that that we would probably run into that issue i think it's just more of a if because there are rules there's are there are saying things that the city managers make decisions on and and it does impact the city

And again, I think they should have to live under the rules that they execute. But we do. I mean, we make policy for the city, and we have to live under the same rules. I can see both people.

So I could be, if you're very passionate about it, I would encourage you to speak up now.

But just the history on it, the way the 1963 charter was written is the city attorney had to be an elector of the city. City clerk had no residency requirement. The city manager did not need to be a resident at the time of appointment. It never said when.

That was back when the city attorney told the city manager what to do.

So the charter review, the city was much smaller. So the charter review committee said, let's standardize. And so until the last meeting, the draft read that within six months of appointment, then the clerk and the city attorney and the city manager would need to become a resident i'd like to see that city and we're going to put it here that's that's the way it read until the last meeting and then it was changed we also can solve this for um through the contract so that is the mechanism which we could use here we could leave it as it sits and just say hey for the next contract that we write we just include that um

then somebody we forget on the next contract well what i'm saying there is just thinking through it if if we get um you know a great clerk that has applied and and they live and i do not have anybody in mind so i'm sure somebody fits this but i do not have anybody in mind let's say attorney let me switch to attorney here but let's say we have a city attorney who wants to fly and and you know we're hiring for a city attorney and they live in bay county but they don't necessarily live in panama city Do we really want to force that individual to relocate just a mile or so? We could do that through the contract. And we would have the contract when we know who it is we want to hire. So it leaves us that flexibility to say, hey, you know, Nevin's protege or whatever doesn't have to live in the city limits, but maybe they do.

This is widely debated across the United States in city manager positions. Residency requirements are something that commissions vote on regularly before they even offer a contract to a city manager. I see it widely and Not that I'm looking, but there's recruitment brochures that go out all the time nationally. And you see it very widely. And just about every recruitment, one of the first things they say is there's a six-month residency requirement, or there's whatever that is. And industry standard, I would say, for city managers is a six-month after appointment that they have to reside within the city. Now, that's becoming, as the talent pool continues to shrink to a degree nationally, there's there are some city commissions that are that are trying to flip that so i would say you know it'd be just in my opinion not that it counts but if it were not in the charter to offer you guys more flexibility um yeah that's that's kind of what i'm leaning into is the flexibility piece of it i believe mr zimmerman with the charter that commission could choose uh to tighten

some of the requirements, but not loosen them. So if the charter says you must live in Bay County, you could on a contract say Panama City specifically, but you couldn't say okay to Gulf County or Washington County or Walton County. That's generally the rule I think is you kind of work down. What I've always understood with laws locally, you can get more restrictive, but you can't get less restrictive than what might be in a document such as the charter or constitution locally. So that's my question for Mr. Zimmerman. Did I stump the city attorney?

We could restrict it further with ordinance. Probably. We could restrict it with the contract. I mean, they would still.

They're still in Bay County. So they do have to reside in Bay County. I believe so. I mean, this came up at the last meeting. It hadn't really. But I think if it stayed, you have to live in Bay County. and then you wanted in the contract to live in Panama City, I believe you could make findings about why to do the job. That makes sense. But then that gives flexibility. I believe so. I believe that's a fair statement. I'll think about it further, but I think that's probably correct. So we have 2 items possible going back to us to discuss.

Residency and the agenda agenda. I'm fine with it as it reads, because I'm fine with putting it on the contract. To be in the city, I know I kind of brought it up, but I'm fine with putting it on the contract as to whether or not they need to live in the city.

Yeah. What page is that on the red line, sir?

I'm not looking at the red line on page 4. Thank you for with the.

All right. Any other discussion on that item? Let's go to the next one.

Any other hot topics?

I mean, we're skimping over on the first page where they kind of got all the changes and motion passed and all that. think we all are i'm assuming that we're all kind of agreeing on that and the ones we're not talking about we're okay with you know putting mayor to be mayor commissioner to you know the cleanup part of this yeah okay i mean you can bring up any topic oh i know but i'm what i agree with yeah yeah yeah yeah silence is agreement with what you're saying yeah well i mean i mean there were things i'm better when i'm quiet so

There were things that they didn't tackle, which is understandable, but I don't want to tackle them either. So they just won't be tackled.

That's a lot of changes. It's easy to say no to.

I think this is a really great document. I really do because, again, this thing hadn't been looked at since most of us here hadn't even been born yet. And so that's where I think they did a really great job going through it. I know it was difficult for them at times, but I wasn't expecting this much to come out of it, let alone changing all kinds of crazy stuff in the Charter. So I really do think that they provided a very solid foundation for the future.

And I think it's reflective in our conversation, because the vast majority of this feels like very common sense. Like, I could explain these changes to anyone to any constituent and be like, no, this is why it made sense.

And Josh, I think we're going to need to do that because it might get lost in the in the property tax thing. We need it. One thing that Brandon said to us at the beginning, he said, having too many changes creates the possibility of somebody just saying no because what are y'all doing to it? I don't want to learn anything about it. I'm just going to say no. And I agree with that. But most of these, if you sat down and looked at it, you'd be like, oh, that makes sense.

Well, I think if we can get this through with a 5.0 load up here, that's a vote of confidence from us. And then we could even direct staff to produce a video. Two minute long video that goes over these changes briefly. FAQs. Yeah, something like that would be helpful too. Yeah, I agree. No one, if you hand them to this and say, here you go. Right. They're going to burn it. That's a no.

Conversely, when y'all got the charter, I mean, when I first got the charter and I looked at it and I was like, geez, like there was so much into it and so much stuff that just needed to be cleaned up. And there was things in there that didn't apply anymore because law had changed.

Home rule filled on charter.

And, I mean, it was very difficult to understand. So I would much rather hand this to a citizen and say, here's your city charter. It's 18 pages. Anyway, I think it's much better.

And I agree with that, Brian. The idea here is we know that it needs to be changed for the betterment of our city. Nobody's getting one off on anybody. But the citizen, we've got to make sure that we communicate to the citizen why it's a good thing. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And probably four times more than we normally would have at that time around that election.

Any other topics to discuss?

Just when we hand this to the citizen. And they read the first section that says the existing municipal government of the city of Panama City in the county of Bay and state of Florida be and the same is hereby abolished.

Yep. That wipes clean the old charter. Right, Nevin? Yes. Okay, yeah.

Shouldn't it be something right after that that says, any new one?

Well, yeah, that's section two. Municipality to be known and designated as the city of Panama City. That's the next line.

I'm with you. I'm with you.

But that does sound kind of harsh, doesn't it? It sounds ominous. It makes you want to read more.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the same language that was there in 1963, probably there in 1925 when you combine, I think that's probably what this is. So I'm not a lawyer.

We'll, we'll look at that and see if that's the way.

But yeah, that does sound. But it sounds like you guys and gals would like this clarified and address, because it does sound kind of harsh at a collective. Yeah.

If you can soften it up, I think abolished or get rid of it altogether. If it's not right. Right. Right. Yeah.

Maybe add the year of 19, whatever it was and.

For the video and anyone watching, nobody wants to abolish the city of Panama City. Exactly.

That's the headline tomorrow morning.

Commissioners, Caroline Smith could answer that question if you'd like. Caroline?

Please, Caroline. You're muted.

Can you hear me all right? Yes. Okay. Sorry, I needed to unmute myself there. So I just wanted to clarify that 1963, they were wholesale replacing the previous charter. That's not what's happening here. This is an amendment. to the 1963 charter updating it. So that section one that you're working looking at. Yeah, that does seem seem a little confusing, but it because this is still the 1963 charter with amendments. And what's been happening all along the way is that in a way, amendments have been happening, but they've been happening, you know, because of the state law superseding what's in our charter and laws changing and things no longer being appropriate to be in our charter. And so that's been happening, you know, factually speaking, but then we still are left with this charter that has all this archaic language and can be difficult to go through and could be confusing to people. Just for example, the boundaries where the ordinances just go on and on and on and on and on. You know, cleaning those up is what's happening through amendments.

So, Caroline, we might be able to change that to just state what you said. This is an amendment to the 1963 charter rather than abolishing and starting over.

Right, because we're not abolishing and starting over anything. That's going to stay.

You'll see some different words there.

In Section 6, and there may be other places where it says the former city of Panama City.

Along the same line.

Oh, okay.

That's a holdover from the last.

That may be salted throughout there.

Thank you.

I do want to have one brief, and this may be, I see that compensation of employees was taken outside of the compensation of officers and employees and created its own separate section.

What page is that, Commissioner?

This would be page 21 and 22 of the full packet. I guess my question is, and if I'm understanding correctly, this language has been there Um, but we are changing compensation to grade, which reflects our city pay band system. And the only reason why I asked this question is it's going to limit any of the budgetary conversations that I know you guys are having.

All right, let me see you talking about section 82.

You want to say that in layman's terms? In layman's terms is once we establish in the charter that there is a grade and it says the salary compensation will be fixed and be uniform for like services of each grade of city service. Um, the same shall be graded or classified by the city manager. So, it's basically alluding to a grade system for personnel, which in some ways. Limits the city manager's powers from the standpoint of they have to have some type of unified system of pay. It can't be. You make this, you make this, you do that. But in the other side of it, too, is it is codifying that there will always be some type of graded pay system.

Do we have, don't we have like ranges now or steps or do we?

He's just saying it codifies it. We did starting in, starting in what year?

We had, we've had, I've been here 11 years and I know Brandy's been here near double that. and we've to to my recollection and i believe she could confirm that we've had a graded system the whole time okay it's just the grades like what was added in the most recent pay plan yes and so everything we've always had grades and i don't think so this doesn't lock you into steps that it still locks you into grades as you have correct because when i started here you had that's the way i understood it you know i just had grades and ranges yeah and so we it's a new section even though it's not a new section so that's what it

It qualifies current practice, any organization this large, you'd want to be handled like a professional organization. So that's a best practice inside of a professional organization have different grades. Not necessarily steps. A lot of times they do pay bands inside of grades.

Well, it's not a performance-based system, I guess, is my point and what I was pointing out. It can be, though.

It doesn't preclude that because it just says you have to establish the grades. It doesn't say how you get from one grade to another. You answered my question.

I mean, based on the conversation tonight, I think we've got a handful of very reasonable, simple changes. I would think probably that first meeting in July, we can put it on the agenda. This is about a month. It's too late for June 23rd, obviously. July 14th, is that our first commission meeting? I think it is. I believe so. So we could look at putting this on there. If you'd like us to change the language of these few things and then maybe have one more workshop, before before we put it for you for actual voting you know we could do that and we could look to maybe do the actual voting at the second meeting in July are any of you not expecting to be the second meeting in July I would suggest that we not have another workshop and you just do like a first like like a first and second okay we can do that too if that's the case I'm assuming

are only two items that are still in discussion sounds like everybody's good with everything with the exception of the two items that you guys are coming back with us something yeah not that we're pulling a vote but no because i i still want to go back and go through the red line again okay this is very important so

I believe that we would adopt it by ordinance and it would not be binding obviously, unless it's approved by a referendum election. So, typically, when you have a referendum question, you adopt it by ordinance and then it's, it's, it doesn't take effect unless it's approved it. Do we have enough time to do that?

Yes. Or is it 60%? Yeah, this would be 50% plus 1 for the. For the city election in November. Yes, sir.

Mayor commissioners before we. Push the timeline if we're not going to do another workshop, which I thought coming into here, we more than likely would. I'd like to see that there. I just got 1 other item to.

I probably won't be able to go to it.

This is just cleaning some language up after staff review. Both items are on page 26 of the red line version. It's police and fire services. The charter review committee did a great job in simplifying this and taking out a lot of the stuff that's been home as far as what home rule is preempted and the state has. But both of these sections read identically, and I just wanted to suggest some language that might help clean this up even further. It says the city commission shall maintain police protection services with the chief of police comma or lead person designated by the city or city manager or other lead person. And upon reflection of that, it reads wonky. And so our suggestion would be to have it read, the city commission shall maintain police protection services with a chief of police who, if it needed to be a different person than the chief of police that's employed by the city, you could still designate a chief of police just like we designated chief building official. But my the thought was is again the city commission shall maintain police protection services with the chief of police designated by the city manager. And then the same for fire because the or city or lead purse other lead person is very pagan it doesn't make any. It doesn't make sense of who the designating authority is.

Can I ask why this wasn't brought up with the Charterview? There's multiple attorneys on that board.

This was noticed by our staff. And when this was sent out Thursday, I think these edits were there. But I just wanted to bring it up in case we don't do another workshop. I don't have a problem with it.

Well, I don't know what the effect is. Yeah. So I would appreciate the board being included in that kind of language.

I read the summary.

It does address review board is what I'm saying.

Yeah, it does address it. And Mr. Berg's memo cleaned it up.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because where it says designated by the city, who would that be? That that's the question, right? Um, and I think I follow that.

So, who wrote that when the board that they cobbled that together and I think Caroline with them when they passed the motion to make that change, she presented that back the charter review committee reviewed it. But when I see designated by the city is.

is that a municipal vote for our chief of police is in the city commission doing that is it anybody with a badge well and without a badge yeah so that's the city what page is that what page is that it's page six at the bottom and it goes over to page seven no no i read i already read what what i guess 26 of the red the red lines we do so

We don't have to do an in-person workshop, and I don't want to take up a virtual, but maybe we just lead off for the first 10 minutes of the virtual workshop discussion.

I think the next one could absolutely be, I was going to suggest that, I mean, this has gone, in my mind, very swimmingly, and it seems like there's a collaborative effort to move this forward.

So my interpretation of the way that this is written, this allows the commission to choose how the police chief is appointed. That this is just my this, I'm not an attorney. It is a 1 sentence statement that says that the city commission shall maintain, but police protection services with the chief police or lead person designated by the city. which would be us as the representative, the city manager, which would be Jonathan, or other lead person, which would be if there was ever another change in leadership. So that means the city commission can designate that authority to the city manager, or they can designate it to someone else.

I think if that's the will of this board, I think it would be better just to state that than it being vague as is.

We do not need to be involved in

any enforcement of a police chief this was a big conversation just over in lynn haven and what i i think what i understood from this is they tried to and attempted to give us maximum flexibility so should the boards will be that the city attorney or the city manager continue to appoint the specific position that can be should it be something different it allows the board to make that decision

Oh, and cities do that all kinds of stuff. Oh, I know. Some kind of appoint the parks people, but not the chief of police. Some can fire, but can't hire. It's crazy. It's crazy.

But what I will say is the way that it's currently written in the charter, that was unspoken. And so at any point in time, the commission had the authority to appoint a chief of police if we wanted to.

100% correct.

I'm not arguing that point. So they really didn't limit us any more than what we are today. They just... Summarized everything, it's the exact way that it is today.

Yeah. And it doesn't offer any additional or or does it offer any less? Quote, unquote protections or sureties that chief of police would actually exist in the city policy. So, but what I'm getting at is. I just don't I didn't want it to cause undue confusion if it's not this board interpreting that, you know, when Mark Smith retires in 20 years.

I mean, I felt like I read it, and I was very clear. It's the same thing. The commission has the authority to appoint fire chiefs. We have the authority to appoint any department head, whether we want it to or not. It is only just at the discretion that the city manager has that.

Then my suggestion would be to take the lowercase city on the second line and just change that out for commission.

What gives us the authority to appoint department heads?

The fact that it wasn't in the charter saying we couldn't. Yeah. Yeah, so there's so we have the authority to investigate departments officers and we have the authority to stand up a department to to take down a department and we've done a office existed because the city commission allowed it to exist. It did not exist before. So it's no different than the powers that exist today is just you don't see the commission leverage those authorities in whatever way. So I guess it's stating the same. If we're asking do I want to limit the elected bodies on their ability to appoint, not appoint, or make some future decision or something like that, the answer is no. If there's different language, happy to see that language.

Yeah, I agree. And the existing ordinances that are on the books, as far as how the city manager would appoint, I mean, they would require ordinance changes as is so for both fire and police chief.

So there's already protections in place unless we choose to change in order. Correct.

So, let's assume there's a basket weaving department. If you all vote to direct that that department be dissolved.

it's gone it's either going to happen in one step with me doing it or a second step with me being removed and then y'all doing it it was a concern with staff i wanted to make sure you guys heard it um i wanted and if this process was moving as fast as i saw it moving then i'd i'd be remiss if i didn't bring it up i think what i what i looked very specifically in looking to this is at what point in time are we limiting a an elected body

From influencing government operations, that is the whole reason why people elect people is to influence the way that government operates. So so if there's different languages presented, but the core responsibility still needs to be rest is we ultimately set up the way that departments operate and then we hand them off to the city manager for the day to day operations of the city.

You're preaching the associate pastor on that one. Fun intended. But I just wanted to make sure that you guys had an opportunity to discuss it before it just got packaged up to a commission meeting. That's all. Thank you.

I do have a question. Section 54, page 16 on the red load, power over waterways.

Yes. I love it.

The city shall have full power and jurisdiction, and the commission may, by ordinance, provide the protection, care, and control of the waterways within the city limits. Do we have a survey or a map of where the water is within the city limits? Because you can get into the intercoastal waterway, and then it comes back into who owns out as you get closer to the pass. Where does that begin and end? All right. i'm not sure i mean we definitely have have surveys and maps of the city but that's a very specific one i'll have to and the reason i ask is we have a litany of new votes out off of beach drive and we got a whole bunch of we got a whole bunch of new ones out in the back of watson mile oh yeah they lit me up out of cove condo the other day and honestly They were cool with it until the junkers showed up. But they're sitting right on the edge of the intercoaster. I mean, they are all parked right on the edge. So FWC won't go over there. And the Coast Guard, one day, it's their job. It's their job. And I've talked to everybody there. But if we have control over the waterways... Now, get a boat removed is like getting into Fort Knox, but we might have some more influence than I originally thought.

I don't know what powers we have. Where do the city limits extend out to the water, Mr. Zimmerman?

Caroline Smith is going to answer that. But before Caroline, because she did a lot of work on exactly how far we extend out into the waterways.

I think that's why we have a police boat, too. We have a fire boat. We have jurisdiction inside of the waterways to a big extent.

How does this impact dredging?

What I wanted to mention before Caroline answers that question, going back quickly to the police chief and the fire chief, the charter review committee you know they wanted a simple statement that provided maximum flexibility and the word city lowercase city they Caroline believes that was the the purpose was that that was city commission so that the city commission or city manager and the and the word lead person was in case there was ever a consolidation someday like the city of Callaway consolidated into the sheriff's office and so they won just maximum flexibility that's that was the purpose behind that but but Caroline could you answer the question for us about how far our jurisdiction goes into the water well um in general the

It goes to the center of the bays, so the center of St. Andrew's Bay, except you must deduct the intercoastal waterway from that because we cannot go into the intercoastal waterway. So wherever the intercoastal waterway is, we go up to the intercoastal waterway. Wherever it's not, we go to the center of the bay or the bay system that goes around us. That's where the boundaries are to the city.

all right so caroline if i'm standing on the dock at the yacht club i've got our waterway i've got the intercoastal and then i've got more water and then i've got a redfish point what's the center but i've also got all the bay that goes out to the gulf where's the center well where the intercoastal waterway is uh we we do not go into the intercoastal waterway

You go up to up to up to the waterway.

So we're moving.

So to clarify, there's no change to this section.

It's same. So I do have a question for the attorneys in the room. If I'm standing on, say, the end of the old runway, how far does the city limits extend to there?

it would go to the uh probably the center of the uh of the bay but it could but it would go to the intercoastal waterway probably you're talking it comes out on east bay there that's on i think the key you're trying you're trying to help some constituents to get a dredge it does say which public water supply of the city but that whatever whatever it is it remains the same yeah i know it's not been it's not being changed it's not changing

I just want to know if we have any maps.

It's very interesting that that's in the charter, though. It is, yeah.

And it's approved by the legislature. The mayor wants a pirate hat.

That is interesting. So you're saying that this authority supersedes state authority?

Yeah, I was going to mention that. We can't go snatch a whole bunch of boats out because FWC is the ruling authority on that. I don't want to get the word out tonight that we're

Yeah, there's the headline. We're not doing that. That was fun. But I am going to talk to them some more.

Just like the state troopers can write you a ticket within the city limits. The FWC can write you a ticket within the city limits.

Yeah, so they still have authority. It's not that. The question is what can we do to aid the requests that we get with, like, a derelict boat or, you know, or – Dredging issue or things like that.

They're dumping in every day. They're dumping into the back.

Removing trash, you know, that kind of stuff. Enforcing people from dumping their sewage into the bay. I mean, all that kind of stuff.

I might be bringing more in places and that way they can pay and get enough.

Any other discussion? Media adjourned. Oh, actually.