City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone. We'll call the pre-aggenda meeting to order. Let the record reflect that council members Denton and Lockheart are not here today. The rest of the council is the beginning of the meeting. We always call for public comment. Is there anyone wishing to make a comment? Seeing no one, we The first proclamation is donate life month. Who would like to give that proclamation

and then national telecommunications week?

Okay. So, let's give it to Janice. Yeah. Spread it out. And if Janice is not here, would you be okay with that one? We'll have you. Okay. Let's All right. We'll give it to the parliamentary law if you don't mind. Y think you did that one. Uh recognition of sales tax.

Okay. I know Mayor Lex will do the mayor's ambassador award service award will be Tom Spencer. The plan operations excellence award excellence award is myself and Tom the engage innovation award myself. All right then we have a variance for 312 Sullivan Street. Um my my only question is just reading through the stuff. Why did they think that they needed two stories? I don't I'm just I was like what

two stories we have to have even if it's obviously not right. Is that just a thought they had? I think it was the ratio. Good morning Rachel Barry zoning official for the record. So yes, that is part of it. the ratio of commercial to residential and also the conditions for a mixeduse building. Um, in the city center district, the residential is required to be on a second floor. So, they would have to add a second floor to the structures.

Okay. They're doing a beautiful job, by the way. Drive by gorgeous. I'm jealous. Beautiful. Next, we have the utilities turnover for US 17 and Pepper Road. We have the agreement for city maint. you'd like to share it.

Absolutely. Okay. Thanks. This is just renewing an agreement. We already have the one the one is the 4B. Y

I just want to say you're referring to Mr. Gather, correct? Yes. Yes. He has been extremely communicative with me lately and I very appreciate that. Okay. Giving me a heads up on all kinds of things that are going on and we're working closely together. Okay. Then 4C Wildlife Center.

Um my question was did anybody wildlife center and did the staff kind of come up with any ideas with the server wildlife center more than just what we have here with comparisons? I can speak to the staff portion of it. Uh attorney and myself had a conversation with P River Wildlife Center about the agreement that they put forth. Um at this point they are aware that there may be an ask for additional financial um payment to the city regarding that space. They had asked us if that could um happen potentially down the road, maybe when they got their loan paid off or something like that. But at this point, what we have before you is what Peace River Wild Life Center had proposed. And if I'm not mistaken, you're you're fine with the form and content of that. Correct.

Yeah. They don't have any idea right now what their expenses are going to be because they're building something 10 times the size of what they currently have. They'll have a bathroom and they have water bills and things like that that they don't currently have. And until they have a solid idea of what their financials are going to be, I don't think it's appropriate to increase their fees until they know. I think we all go in with an unknown when we build a new house what the fees are going to be. No comments.

Okay. The local government area of opportunity and request for applications on this.

Um yeah, I do have a question. If we do a loan, is there any interest on the loan? Glen cool grants coordinator and ack liaison. I don't know about the uh the particulars with the uh the loan itself. I don't know what the loan looked like last time when we entered into the verandas agreement. Um so I do know that it acts very similar to a a mortgage once it's u executed. So um this is just basically we're not even to go into an agreement right now. We're just going to do a presentation and then discuss what's going on with Panagorta Housing Authority and see when they might be ready to engage this program and so that we can have a competitive prog uh program and a grant for them so that they can actually rebuild what they had in place that was destroyed. I have no idea about the the loan agreements. Oh,

Kristen, finance director. So, on our last $340,000 loan, um there is interest and it's amortized over 30 years. However, there's going to be a balloon payment I believe after maybe I want to say 15 to 18 years. I forget when they do that. So, and again, it's a lower level interest because or the timeline there. It's just something like

that is one of my is to see if we can shorten that progress. That's what they proposed in scope because there's quite a bit of work in there. I don't and I think when the last assessment was done was over five years ago. There were some since then. So that's why

and procurement for the record and yes the planning director is absolutely correct. The last time the assessment was performed, we've had several hurricane and two flood flooding events. So there there is possibly more damage to the building. So an assessment would be crucial to identify any additional work that would need to be done. Um the planning director and I had a meeting on Friday and we were discussing this very topic. Um we know that council's um goal is to get this done as soon as possible. So I think once the assessment has been performed the um consultant we will have them address counsel and and give you the findings and I think we can have a better direction moving forward once we identify everything that needs to be taken care of and if there's anything that needs to be addressed with the envelope to secure the building if anything is identified that uh we need to do something ahead of the planning director will sit with them and uh in their meetings to see if we can get those things uh procured and and finished beforehand.

Awesome. Thank you. Wasn't it a different company that did the previous assessment? No, this is the original company.

The design was done by another company because the scope had expanded so that's it. application and permit approval periods. So that I do a lot of it says um sorry I'm trying to read my do but I didn't know if staff had ideas.

Okay. Yes. So for variances typically the timelines I have seen is six months for approval. Um you know if if you're requesting a variance to you know deter from the code um you know either start the work or get the permit within six months or we really act with trying to build the project. um special exceptions. It often times depends on the exact use, location, intensity of the use. Um I know that there is one in particular um the special exception for a storage facility that was approved end of 2024. There was a two limitation that was on the appeal that was filed after that. So there was a timeline on that. Yeah. So, for special exceptions, it could depending on the exact use. Okay. And then I know we talked about the demolition permit, but I think or that you have it on here. Maybe you want to provide 16.5 application for demolition permit for ST or for council to see as well because I think it does

talk a little bit about failure required demolition within six months. Shall be guilty of noncriminal infraction. So maybe that should be added in there just to kind of help us along. And the other my other question was I said 60 days for Christmas trees and farmers market. That's generally what it is typically. Yes. And then are there any and then are we going to be looking associated with temporary use permits as well or do we not have fees with that?

I don't know if the mic keeps cutting in and out. Uh we do have fees for our temporary use permits. Um some if residential property may just be $50. Um there's some that are 150 for residential property or 250 for commercial. Um so I'll I'll bring as well. Thank you. But we will be assessing fees further for all of our applications. Awesome. Okay. And then one other thing, can you give us a copy of the the statutes 163 and 64 and 252? That way we've got it on hand so we can take a look at it. Be awesome. Thank you.

That way we've got a guideline that we can Sorry. Thank you.

No, that's nothing to be sorry for. I did want to make a comment that I I didn't make at the beginning and I should have this. That's what these meetings are for. If we've had a couple times at city council meetings over the last couple of sessions that council has made the comment that they didn't have enough information to make a decision or wish they had more information. This this meeting serves as that opportunity to ask for information. We may not have it before the actual council meeting, but at least you'll get it at the council meeting to make your But things like what was asked for today, we definitely can get out ahead of time. Um, back when we had the one-on-one meeting, that's a lot of times when the additional information was addressed with individual council members. This gives us the opportunity to give it to all council members at one time. And please take advantage of that. That's why we have staff here at all of these meetings so that we can make sure that we meet your needs on council day.

Thank you. We have discussion regarding allowable travel van length question. I do. Sorry. I do until you might as well just sit up here. I'm sorry. You know, so part of it with the the travel van parking and storage is, you know, have like the boats where you can't sleep in the boats. So, do we have anything with the travel vans that they can't sleep in them? because I think we might have some people worried that all of a sudden they've got a van and next thing you know, you know, people are walking out of it. Good morning and stuff like that and people don't want that in there are certain areas. But

I'm sure there is a a prohibition against it somewhere in the code off the top of my head. I don't know exactly which section. Um I will figure that out if it's specifically listed in there. Um if not, then it probably is something we should consider including. Yeah, because I think that you know And I think uh for boats I think it's 8.6 it's somewhere someplace in there. Yeah. There is a permit that is allowed right for seven days within a 30-day period and they can stay. Is that right Rachel? I know that there is a permit

I know there's a permit that they can stay but I wasn't sure if there was a permit that they could stay and live in. I I'll double check and see where if it's specifically written out. Either way,

I know with the hurricane that's an exception for sure. And we are on to the traffic signal maintenance and compensation agreement. travel request for the Florida League council policies review. Where did this one come from?

Jennifer, can you speak to that? Good morning, Deputy City Clerk Falconer. Do you mean um what was the impetus for putting it on the Oh, okay. So, basically it was just as Sarah was going through and reviewing things to try to clean up our J drive. We realized that there were a number of policies um that were currently effective, but that had not been reviewed. And so she decided that to try to get that updated um in advance of because council always does an annual adoption of of policies by resolution after the election. So this is just to basically get everything to a place that when we go to do that after the election that all of the council policies are current at that time.

You're welcome. Thank you. And then we'll have project updates questions. Vice Mayor Pope, do you have any comments? No, I do not. Oh, I was gonna ask. Sorry. Sorry. Do you have something on the I'm sorry, boards and committees? So, I have a question. Um, I know Jan Dick is on two boards or one board right now and he wants to be on another one. I thought that at some point anybody, no one should be on two separate boards. I thought that was passed a while ago. So,

I think you had a determination where you would try to avoid that circumstance. Um, Do you know if there was a policy created surrounding that? I thought there was prior to me that was a big discussion at one time.

Yeah, I would have to go back and double check. I recall that there was discussion about um so there were kind of two things at play with um with dual members serving on board. So under Florida statute, there's a prohibition against members serving on two decision makingaking boards at the same time. that's um that violates the dual office holding prohibition under state statute. That's not implicated here because of the nature of planning commission and board of zoning appeals. The other thing that I recall council had discussed was um having regular members sit on two boards at the same time. So I'll have to go back and review the discussion on that. Mr. Dick is applying to be the alternate on the other board. He is currently an alternate on I believe planning commission and he's applying to be the alternate on board of zoning appeals since the alternate seat was added um when council did the membership composition. So if council wanted to ex I believe it was only applicable to regular members but if council wanted to expand that to alternates that would be perfectly fine. Um, I know planning commission and board of zoning appeals were a little bit different because when we brought board of zoning appeals back, we basically staffed it with the people that were on the planning and zoning board. Um, so this is really just kind of continuing that forward into the alternate seat. But I'll definitely bring um the information on that discussion and then council can have that as part of the part of the information if they want to consider um that during Mr. Mr. Dick's appointment.

And how long has that that position been open for? The board of zoning appeals alternate. That one was just created when we re when council redid the membership composition. So there has not previously been an alternate seat on that board. So this is the first vacancy essentially. Right. So I'm just not sure if we were advertising it long enough to have more people come in. Well, it's advertised the same way that all of the other vacancies are advertised.

So when was the when was it advertised? I'm sorry. So, I I believe the I'd have to look at when the announcement was. Um, but if council, again, that's up to council's discretion in terms of how long you, you know, want something. I mean, it's council's discretion whether you want to um appoint someone when there is a vacancy. I mean, similar to the HPAB situation, you know, we had an appointment that went a little bit different than the standard procedure. So, um, but it it was advertised in the same fashion that we typically advertise all of the vacancies. Okay. Thank you. One other question while you're up there. Um, so Eric Gentry is no longer on code enforcement, correct? And now he wants to go on utilities.

Correct. Okay, that was Yes. Perfect. Thank you. No worries. I'm sorry I skipped over. Council member Julian, do you have any comments?

Attorney, just a couple things. I have court tomorrow for RJ. We're seeking to continue the case until October, November. The attorneys for RJ are not opposed to continual seal. Secondly, you guys have asked me to look at contracts with every now you're certainly able to do that. There's two ways you can do it. is the tenant is in breach of contract whether they're insolvent or bankrupt or not in compiance with contract. The other one is if they are in compiance there is a paramount public and then the city is responsible for paying market. So there are ways to do things. It's a matter of I would like I'm sorry. Can you hold for the record? Back to me. Um, the sound was really really hard to hear. The last time I got a lot of complaints about that. So, is everything now? Are we good for tomorrow?

I mean for Wednesday. So I know that you had said the microphones needed replacing. Um so we're working on that. Um and then just hearing the sound from that's what my husband came in because he's like can't hear it goes in and out. So I'm sure you guys know reverberating. So maybe it's during live feed that it goes in and out. I don't know.

We're monitoring and trying. It is very important. And I noticed even today I can sit like this and be picked up. That never happened. Yes, it's much better today. I can tell it is. Yes. We are Thank you.