City Council - Regular Meeting

You all ready? John, you ready? Call March 24, 2026 meeting order. Remind everybody to silence your cell phones going by.

Heavenly Father, we come to you this afternoon just praise for who you are. How you work in our lives and the lives of people. Thank you for the spring coming on Lord reminds us that you're still in control. Thank you for this council and the time that we spend together discussing the laws that go in the city of Terry. Help us to make good decisions for the decision that you would be pleased with and that the people would be pleased with. Ladies and gentlemen, the flag of the United States of America and to the nation. Thank you all. Repres items on the consent agenda. Approval read by title only of resolution 2026- 11 one. Resolution 2026-12, Resolution 2026-13, and Resolution 2026-14. Have a motion.

Motion. Second. Second. Yes.

Yes. Okay. We have any requests from the general public for anything that's not on the agenda here. Come on up. Thomas Edward II, still at 2847 Pisar Road. Uh, growing up, I was always taught you can't just, you know, beat the dead horse to death. Sometimes you got to give a little praise. So, I'm going to say something positive for a change today. And I want to thank John for the effort I saw when I looked at my phone today and actually being able to see an agenda before having to come to the meeting. So, I want to let you know that's well appreciated. If you're the one that put it together, that is whoever did. Was it you?

Whoever did it, it was refreshing to see ahead of time. Thank you. Appreciate it, Tommy. Anyone else from the public here would like to speak on anything that's not on the agenda?

Hello, I'm Kate at 103 East Ella Street, and I had not planned on doing this, but I wanted to thank you, Ward, and John particularly. I run my dogs three times a day at the dog park in period. We have an excellent one, but it's on a slope and whenever we have any rain, not a lot of rain, any rain, the bottom third is underwater. Well, guess where the entrance gate is underwater that time. So, I sent a note with a photograph said, "I'm waiting through, you know, ankle deep water. Could you guys put another gate?" The up upper two/irds is perfect, dry, the water drains off of and it's dry an hour after the rain. Y'all made it happen. So, whoever really did the work, I also thank them. But, but sent the note, got the work done. And so, not on any role other than me as private citizen, but my dogs and I appreciate having a really nice upload place to run our dogs here in the city of Perry. Thank you. Very good. Anyone else who has anything that's on the agenda? We'll move on to general business or excuse me back here. Well, Tommy, can you hear pretty good? Very good. All right, dental business. basketball. Agenda item 6A resolution 2026-11 opportunity zone 2.0 resolution of the city council of the city of Perry Florida supporting the nomination of certain census tracks in Fair County, Florida for designation as qualified opportunity zones under the opportunity zones 2.0 O program identifying the city's priority order of

recommended tracks authorizing transmit transmittal and providing for an effective date last week and basically what it is is an incentive for business investment in the community of Perry. Now, it's not property tax abatement or it's not other gas incentives. This is just simply tax incentives. And if they make an investment in an opportunity zone, the basis for their investment, which uh you know, your capital gains is determined by your basis and what your final price is and that tells how much tax that you get paid on capital gains. Also, there's some other if you keep it longer, the tax benefits increase. Currently, 9503.01 and 9503.02 census tracks are in opportunity zone designation 1.0. Those expire in 2027. Okay. And if we'd like to continue having this opportunity zone uh investment uh incentive for businesses to to come here to Perry, we need to submit these tracks for the governor to consider. We have a the governor can only do 340 tracks in the state. If we miss this submission deadline, we get to wait 10 years and we can submit again. So there's a uh document in there that pretty well describes what businesses that we've had that are involved on 9503.01

102 and what's the other 9502.02 and then for Hail Mary 9501. So that will pretty much cover all of the census tracks that are inside the city limits period and extend beyond the border period. So, with that, we're looking for your support. We've got a deadline to uh submit on these that we would uh we need to make and folks are standing by to see if we can have opportunities on 2.0 in the city of Theion on these tracks. Any questions?

It's April 30th. Would you remind investigation of the location?

Okay. Uh Sean helpfully has put a map up on the monitor. Uh number one is 9503.01, which is our priority site. That pretty well. That's south of US 98, west of uh Jefferson Street and uh Bucket Road down to the Holloway River. 9503.02 extends out to the old mill site and the city of Perry property. And then 95 950 number three is the one that's it's north of town and it extends all the way up the US 19 corridor past Bigtown. Okay. And then of course the number four is the big one and it takes a lot of swamp area but it's also uh one of the uh this extends out on the north side of US 27. So pretty well all of your major transportation corridors in and out of the city limits of carry uh which are one of the things folks like to look at for building business. All that transportation is covered. It's a good question. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Question.

Yes.

Yes. Agenda item 6B resolution 2026-12-MS032 CDBGR budget amendment a resolution of the city council amending the budget of the city of Perry Florida for the fiscal year October 1st 2025 through September 30th 2026 to the facility. This part we have coming up. Got you. Have any discussion on this? Any questions for anybody? I will entertain a motion. Motion is empty. Have a second.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Agenda item 6 C resolution 2026-13-MS033 CDBG DR budget amendment a resolution of the city of Perry amending the budget of the city of Perry or excuse me a resolution of the city council amending the budget of the city of Perry Florida for the fiscal year October 1st 2025 through September 30th 2026 six. It's along the same lines.

Have any questions or discussion? Not entertain a motion. Motion Landry have a second. Second,

yes. Yes. Yes. Agenda item 6D. Resolution 2026-14-MS034 CDBG-DR budget amendment. A resolution of the city council amending the budget of the city of Perry, Florida for the fiscal year October 1st, 2025 through September 30th, 2026. Again, practically the same thing.

We have any questions or discussion on this? No. Entertain a motion. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Motion is hand.

Yes.

Yes. Agenda item 6, council to discuss tuition reimbursement policy and council to take any actions deemed necessary. I think that's change. Then you kind of nearly cap on how much We just need motion to approve. We have a second. Yes. We don't know what situation but I can say running on

yes down at 6 council to consider and adopt procurement permit policy for CBPD grants and council will take any action being deemed necessary. Did we have a policy covering this previously?

Okay. So, we just qualified what we had. Okay. Any questions or discussion? I'll entertain a motion. motion.

Motion has a second.

Yes. Agenda item 6G. Council to discuss engineers task order for capacity analysis report for wastewater and council would take any action deemed necessary.

Yeah, that's the report. We have any questions or discussion about it? after this about it.

Is she okay? Any more questions or discussion? I'll entertain a motion. We have a motion for we have a second.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Agenda item 6H council to review city of Perry welcome sign quotes. The council will take the action necessary. Have you seen any samples of their work? Just don't do any recommendations for anybody on these Tommy, you have something you want to say?

Sure. There's four right there's four right outside the post every post and we're not talking about banners we're talking about welcome signs at the city let like that

like a big like brick and mortar thing like well like you go Leon County you see the big Leon County that kind of something I was saying we're a little too small for that I think got several of them around so are we since we talked about we anywhere on the banners for the from the kids school energy but not allow it would not at the months. Yeah. All right. So that reason I'm asking is because uh I'm going to share my own personal opinion. We

u with everything being tight budgets and everything uh everything's happened to the county. I mean, I and I listen to her prayer, you know, for guidance and doing the right thing with money. Uh, I'd like y'all all really take that to heart. Uh, I know $15,000 don't sound like a lot of money for banners, but it's like, how are we buying banners? And one of your questions uh going to the agenda just before that was, is it in the budget? I mean, are we budgeting money for banners? This

this is not banners. This is not spoke. I'm talking about recently spoke about buying more banners, Christmas manners because there was somebody looking forward to the Christmas. I understand what you're saying, but that's not what we're discussing right now. Okay. All right. Well,

okay. There's no question the city limit. Ir the other day of places where for every

I'll get you an answer. I understand. I mean, the last one we have is just to get to prevent dysfunction. already holding them. Just the way the title wind up being.

That's just for the signs, correct? Do we have anywhere we can or research it bring to us might be able to come out. We're not sure. We're going to look and see.

Okay. We're We're going to table this in the next meeting. You already

I suggest that this I activities from then we come up more money put it on then I see you saying do I want

you got something That's what we pretty much main highways coming in. We'll address this again the next meeting that motion sirction and I'm sure if you get back soon they're going to be Get a dance. We'll address this at the next meeting. First meeting we're agenda item 6 I council to discuss potential litigation for Jefferson Street damage and council will take the action necessary. Um I did

go through a process for I did review and found that the driver and are they only at the time of purchase,000 area for now 147,000 in short time in that I wasn't able to verify whether or not Um and the overall what I estimated as the lower cost for legal 3500 there's no law evidence overwhelming that the driver. And the profile

cost would be about $400 and then the average 40 $40 for um and so the I only have one property. Um, so I did have access to it. Um, again, I did not forever about whatever. Um so the number that um We would be that child. um that it may be a better I believe I think they did.

Um the bureau um and um and see if we can do all that. land bill where you basically file and and open um that may not enforce unless you know other I know all the property It seems like a lot of $100,000 out there. Um but you know the judge if they had no phone number I reached out to the trans that maybe what did we determine that our cost was or had we deferred? 45,000

60,000 that's not over their insurance with that. Okay. Also again, but um situation, but I Um, it does look like so That's what that's

filed with policy. that word was homestead. So they have likely I will pay for that. Oh, excuse We haven't really gone through one. I haven't gone through one of these before. I think what it is that there's about 60,000 down about $10,000 worth of insurance on their vehicle. office

for $8,000 for another offering. The last meeting that was there on the floor was to save money by not pursuing access would not provide any more money to the city but in fact become a liability or a problem. And I asked if I could research, but we asked them to because there was no information outside of their insurance coverage. So for it came back home that the city may have decision. It was all based on assumption. So I asked for an opportunity to report back to the city as to whatever assets I could find for the city to be able to make a decision not so well this time all was trying to do was make the city whole not trying to capitalize on I mean, I understand it was an accident, but should the city taxpayers have to pay for

I feel saying that that's what we were. Exactly. Yeah. They might have had 10 or 15 pieces of property somewhere. We didn't know. We're just looking into it. That's

all. I think we at least the citizens were due diligence to find out if there's any way they could pay for their accident. That's all. That's all we were doing. Anyway, guess make a motion to pursue it or not pursue it. You got 10,000 worth of insurance probably going to see the technology.

Glad to get that entertain,000 not They they got they got $10,000 worth of insurance if all they have liability insurance on their vehicle is all they have. The motion is to take the 10,000 pay as an operation.

How much how much are we into it already? How much are we into already?

Excuse me. And what is that? How much in

we won't have any pursuit. If all we go after is the insurance, there won't be any involved. But I'm I'm hearing the city attorney discussing what she has done.

She was checking it out to see if it would be worth our time. That's a part of her job. I don't want to get into situation where they feed exceeded. Well, we're not talking about going there. just filing for the insurance, the $10,000 insurance that the people have. That's what we're just That's what we've got a motion for and nothing else.

I didn't understand your question. Well, I think what we're trying to do is not do what you're talking about is not go spend all these legal fees and find out we can't collect anything anywhere. Just cut our losses.

I don't think the So motion is to take excuse me take the 10,000 in insurance and let the rest goal Yes.

Yes. Okay. Agenda item six J council to discuss the FRDA or per that grant priority list and council take any action necessary list. one. Wow. So, it's a lot and Get out of my phone.

Will you take any action on this? put that together together. Congratulations.

6K approval of minutes from March 10th, 2026 regular session. Have any corrections or anything from that minutes? a second.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Amen.

Over. Not yet. Anything? Okay. Charlie

Anthony all I can says that they look and I would like for John to look into what can be done, how we get paid for it. Let's just get it done. It's got to be done. Is he think she talking about tear down dams or something? I'm speaking to anyone anyone speak

So I want to or something. I'm not seeing down. We appreciate the next time. I don't know.

It's so stunning looking charge But they come to Florida. Right. Yeah. Facebook starting now. Some of the rideways are looking better and I appreciate that work. Something else about it later.

Not okay. You don't have problems in the world. I don't see anything. There we go.