City Council - Regular Meeting

all my friends council could we get a little mic test good morning Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning, everybody. It is Wednesday, June 17th. It's 9 a.m. at Lashley Court, and we're going to do roll call. Janine Polk here.

Greg Julian.

Melissa Lockhart. And we will do an invocation call. Good morning, everybody. It is Wednesday, June 17th. It's 9 a.m.

Heavenly Father, we call you Father because we are your children. We thank you for the city of Punta Gorda. We are so blessed to work, live, and play here. Father, when we read the news, we see all the violence going on in our big cities, and yes, some of our smaller communities as well. We pray that you bring revival to our nation and its people. Father, we pray that people begin to look for you for answers. Let us remember, though, revival starts with us. Lord, we pray for our first responders who keep us safe on the home front each and every day. father be with them in the split decisions they have to make lord we pray for the decisions of this council today that they are pleasing to you and the people of puerto gordo father bless every family represented here today it's in your holy and precious name we pray amen next is the pledge of allegiance

And please all our veterans in the room, please stay standing to be recognized. Thank you for freedom and your sacrifices. Do you have any announcements? only thing i'm going to say is that there's been a change with some of the microsoft and stuff like that if anybody has been trying to get in touch with me with email i have not been able to get on it for the last week so i apologize if i have not responded to any emails our next meeting and i don't know if it's happened with any other council members next meeting is july 1st um it's our regular council meeting it's going to be here at lashley community room and i can't wait until we can say that it's going to be back at the city hall for the last week so i apologize anybody want to do anything with the approval of the agenda and i don't know if it's happened but it's all fine okay and then we're to our proclamations and presentations and i can't wait until we can say that it's going to be back at the city hall anybody want to do anything with the approval of the agenda

Good morning, Holden Gibbs, Fire Chief. It is my pleasure to recognize Lieutenant Steve Richardson with this 15-year service award. Steve currently holds the rank of Lieutenant Paramedic for the city. As a Lieutenant Medic, he is responsible for initial scene management on both fire and medical calls, in addition to managing a fire station and its personnel. He also serves as one of our boat captains rescue divers, and is also one of our field training officers, responsible for conducting monthly trainings with his coworkers. Lieutenant Richardson has been an integral part of the fire department's success. He started his career in 2011 as one of the original paramedics that allowed Punta Gorda Fire to transition from BLS to ALS. And this was a big step for our department. It allowed us to really provide that level of medical care to our community. He is characterized by his coworkers as a positive influence and a dedicated family man. It is easy to see how he has earned the respect of both his crew and the community. I would personally like to thank Steve's family for their support and sacrifice during the days and nights spent away from home protecting the city. Lieutenant Steve Richardson is truly considered a leader and a mentor for our department. Thank you, Lieutenant Richardson, for all that you do Steve's also one of those guys that gets numerous emails on just how professional and caring he is. So he truly does a great job. He's one of our main guys. That's awesome.

He truly does a great job.

Okay, next we're gonna go to public input. And this is gonna be for a board or committee first. Those wishing to introduce themselves as nominees for a board committee may do so at this time. Those who choose to speak must state their name for the record. And this is for a board or a committee.

Okay, next we're gonna go to public input.

one more time for a board or committee one last time board or committee okay we're gonna move on anyone wishing to address the council on any matter must state their name for the record each person will be allowed to speak up to a maximum of three minutes please try to be kind it's ideas not people

Joe Como Punta Gorda, and I could probably do about an hour and a half on this topic, but I won't. Boards and commissions. Something kind of near and dear to my heart. Going over the slides you have here, I think the first thing that you can do that is not on this thing is update the handbook on boards and commissions. This is the 2025 edition, which is the result of a lot of real hard work on the part of Sarah and her crew from way before this council was even in place. But unfortunately, as soon as this council came in place and the LDRs were voided and there were changes in meeting days, times, and frequencies, it rendered parts of this document already outdated and that has a rippling effect all the way through all of the boards and committees it also affects attendance and it also affects participation and being able to get people consistency is very important and we've had a number of people and this goes back to my days in the planning commission now on the code board have to resign just because the date of the meeting was changed and they already had a standing conflict or people had to miss meetings because they scheduled a cruise two years ago and counting on a schedule and that got changed. So I'll just look at a couple of these slides and the notes that were on the online version aren't here but on the one policy 501 amended public hearing request. If you're going to start defining substantive and insignificant, this is kind of like going back to the city marketplace. You need to define your terms. Make sure you define what insignificant is and what substantive is so people know the difference. The biggest one is 2601, board and committee attendance. And this is actually an agenda item on this week's code board. The biggest thing that we need is a provision for excused absences. The city is almost at times draconian in their policy concerning absences. And just the provision for excused absences, which is provided for under state law for the code board, but only the code board because the code board is the only one established by state law. And that says that two or more...

without the concurrent approval of the board chair and staff.

The city's policy just says three absences in a 12-month period. And I think that it would allow board chairs and committees considerably more leniency and adaptability and flexibility if a person knows they're going to be missing and comes to them and says, I'm not going to be there. Last month and again this month on the code board, we're going to have four because we only have six meetings

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Samuel Turpening. I am a Punta Gorda resident, and I hope everyone's having a nice day. I stand here today out of the duty to the Constitution. On February 18, 2026, council member Melissa Lockhart publicly stated that our city attorney had no government experience and was unqualified. Yet on June 3, 2026, the entire city council, every single one of you, voted to extend the private operator's temporary use permit through December 31st. hiding behind two low-level memos from that same attorney as if they override the united states constitution that is not leadership that is collective hypocrisy just yesterday at the charlotte county commissioners meeting which council member lockhart attended the county correctly stated that it is improper and in fact unlawful to issue public funds or grants without a full audit of financials. You were there. You heard it. Yet in Punta Gorda, this council continues to grant exclusive long-term control of public Taylor Street to a private group with no full independent audit of the claimed $80,000 in revenue. No consistent form 990 filings over 17 years and serious inconsistencies in insurance and alcohol operations on a registered flea market footprint. Where is the money? Where is the transparency? And why do you ignore at the city level the very legal standard you accepted at the county level? Every member of this council who voted on June 3rd to extend that permit has now ratified the problem. Public property does not belong to any private association. It belongs to we, the people. The First Amendment protects petitioning on these sidewalks. The Ninth Amendment protects retained rights the government cannot disparage through private proxies. Florida Constitution, Article 7, Section 10, forbids lending public power to aid private control. Low-level memos and selective permitting do not sit above the Supreme Law. Pretending otherwise disrespects every citizen and taxpayer in Punta Gorda. Just recently, we celebrated Flag Day, by which we honor not the cloth, but the Constitution it represents. Without that Constitution, there would be no Flag Day. And no republic. I will continue working on the public record until neutral stewardship is restored for audits, transparent operations, and adoption of the municipal governance proposal that returns proper city control to our public land. Block me from next door, by all means. Have a nice day. Thank you. Well, good morning, everybody.

I'd like to thank you, Sam, for reminding everybody about our constitutional rights. It's really important when I think about my grandfather at Arlington National Cemetery in Column K. My grandfather was at Midway, Pearl Harbor, Battle of the Coral Sea. My uncle walked off of Hamburger Hill, a medic. Last Tuesday out in DeSoto County, we had the first time I've seen that many people out there in DeSoto County since July 24, 2018, guys. Fighting to stop the massive AI data center. Yesterday, Mr. Terpening and myself were at the Charlotte County Board of Commissioners workshop. Now I want you all to take a hard look at this. This is where I was standing in front of. This is the clay settling area you took the photograph of me in front of, Colonel. Toxic tour is gonna be happening real soon. I haven't spoken about Mosaic in a while because Mosaic has an agreement with DeSoto County that they won't be coming out here for ten years fifteen miles from this chamber well it's going to be seven years Back on May 23rd, 2023, while you were all sleeping peacefully, I was on my way up to Titusville because Mosaic was coming for a modification for their existing use for mining and dewatering for their Mosaic Hardy, Hillsboro, Manatee, Polk, Sarasota, oh, and DeSoto County was on the document. But they don't have a phosphate mining facility in DeSoto County. And we don't have any extra water. Tim Ritchie and staff, please pay attention because I'm here to educate you. You don't get this in college. Daddy and mommy don't get to pay for this type of education. This is delivered by God.

We don't have any extra water.

We don't have any extra water. And I wanna thank you for filing the lawsuit against DeSoto County.

Thank you, Tim.

We don't have any extra water.

Anyone else wishing to speak? You need to come up here, sir. Thank you. State your name for the record.

Greg Geiss. I'm in Burnstore Lakes, the land of Never Never Land that's being built up. I thought I was coming to a meeting for the new medical center on Jones Loop. Am I in the wrong place? Nope.

We'll talk about this.

All right.

Thank you. But if you want to comment about it, you certainly can. Greg, if you wanted to talk about it, you certainly could. We can't answer any questions here, but you're more than welcome just to ask them here and we can listen and hear it, but we don't answer at this point. Okay, perfect, thank you. First time here, guys. No, welcome.

Okay. When the plan gets approved, I'm assuming it's probably gonna get approved, which we so desperately need, are there expansion plans on the books for that facility? And then part of that is what health group is that gonna be part of? Is it Millennial or Advent or Lee? And I guess that's, oh, a helipad. Is there a helipad? Because I'm assuming that's gonna be a temporary spot. If you have a heart attack or something, they bring you there and they'll take you from there if you need more treatment. That's basically about my questions.

I won't talk about the overdevelopment on Birdstar Road yet.

Thank you. Are we expecting people from Mars?

Thank you. Hi, morning. Kathleen Davis, PGI. I don't want to waste your time, but I just want to say thank you for the absolutely amazing, wonderful Flag Day event on Sunday. It was absolutely spectacular. It was wonderful. city manager and the vice mayor did a fantastic job with the proclamation and the time capsule. It was so inspiring. And then the mayor was like there all day, every day, sweating and doing all the manual labor. And the police were awesome. Just thank you guys. You guys really pulled it off. It was awesome.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Lee, did you wanna talk? Okay. I saw you move forward and I was like, is he ready? Okay, then we're gonna go ahead and move on to our quasi-judicial.

Thank you for the hour on the parking lot. Thank you.

So this is where I come into play again. This is V-012026, a request by Jake Pretzel of Catalyst Design Group as the authorized agent on behalf of Advent Health Port Charlotte, Inc. 10.7b and 10.7c Staff? Boyd? Yeah. Raise your hand and be sworn in. Do you solemnly swear that your testimony is going to be true, truthful? Is that what you got? I do. Okay.

Hi, Boyd, good morning.

Yeah, Boyd Lawrence, planning director. And as background says, they're wishing to have a continuance on this public hearing, mainly so they can go back to the zoning board of appeals, which is next week. They're gonna do some recalculations on the parking. with an effort to dial it back somewhat. This is going to be a three-phase project, so ultimately there will be a full-scale hospital there. I don't know if there will be a helicopter pad, but initially they're starting out with an off-site emergency department, and then it's going to expand to a full-service hospital.

Awesome.

Any questions?

And before you move on, I just wanted to let you know it's Advent Health that will be building.

And the goal is to come back here July 8th.

the public hearing with the council after it goes to cba any questions so we're not approving anything today okay so do we want um do we need a motion for the continuance right but do we want any public to talk or anything i was gonna say do we have the open public hearing so because no one's sworn to talk then you know you know you don't talk at this time but if you wanted to say something you have to swear yourself in if nobody's swearing in then we can close the public and after after we do something then we'll go ahead and i want to make a comment yeah i mean it's going to be continued but okay uh do you uh do you swear that all are all testimony provider will be truthful so i'll be god and after after we do something then

Still Tim Ritchie.

I'm waiting for the aliens to land. For about four or five years now, I have been quite a few times suggesting to the Charlotte County commissioners that just possibly Charlotte County and the city of Punta Gorda needs not one hospital, not two hospitals, but probably three hospitals. So I have no idea what's going on with the hospital issue down the street from here. I know it's in a terrible flood zone. I know the last meeting I identified multiple properties down the street that can be purchased and turned into detention ponds for the safety of downtown Punta Gorda.

Tim, we're talking about AdventHealth.

Yes, that's for the hospital. Where are we gonna get a hospital built? When are we gonna get a hospital built? And with all the people that we have here and the influx of more people and more people and older people and older people, it takes three to four, five weeks to get an appointment, some of our doctors. So hospitals, yes, immediately.

Thank you. And the influx of more people and more people and older people and older people.

Move to close public hearing. Second. We have a motion and a second to close public hearing. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. So I'll make a motion that we have the continuance until July 8th.

I'll second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to continue it. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. One of the things that I'd like to see is if we could have a consensus. Aye. To help expedite time, it would be really nice if we could have consensus where the board would say, yes, these are the variances. If this goes to staff and it's all correct by the staff that we allow it to move forward to go to council instead of having to go back to them to be approved to come back to us does that make sense so that they have a consensus saying yes we're missing this but if you provide this for us then we are going to go ahead and give the approval for you to go ahead and go to council for approval instead of going back to the board one more time I don't think that's that's kind of what we've done here too we're like okay if this is you know okay then we agree to it and we've done that here in our council meeting i'm thinking in the board meeting if there's criteria that need to be met and staff can say yes they have met these then we approve it because staff we they have met all the requirements that the board of zoning has needed are you concerned that we'll have a lot of time off in the summer we have a good six to eight weeks and i would hate to not have this approved before that because that would hold them up even more

Exactly. So if that's the case, I would agree with you 100%. I don't think anybody here is going to knock this down at all. We're all on the same page with this, I would imagine. So whatever we can do to shorten their time that's legal, I'm in agreement with.

We need to continue with the proper protocols that are in place for a reason. Yes, I don't think it's gonna be a problem. If they come back on July 8th, that'll be right before our, right before.

i think we as council members have done that as well saying if staff has said yes to this or you know staff has looked at this we approve it so it didn't have to come back to our council meeting as well we have already done that and that's what i'm saying the same with the board if they meet the right criteria that staff is asking for then they give uh you know an approval for that to come forward to the council if if the staff doesn't approve it it never comes to us it has to go back to the board

that's all i'm saying we all received an email suggesting that we require them to put in a turning lane that was not done by the developer that developed that sea haven community and i haven't seen anything about that included in this information we've received i mean i want to speed it up but i also want to make sure we have everything that we need

i just wanted to point out this still has to go to the bza for their their approval public hearing and then come we understand that we were just saying that if they would have if they had questions that needed to be answered and it was an easy go to you and you say yep they provided all these things if the board said okay these are point a b and c if staff is okay with a b and c then it can go ahead and go to council instead of the extra a month three weeks however long two months that it keeps on getting delayed if we want to help anybody with development in our community that's the only thing that i was saying but it is what it is Okay, I was just trying to help development move faster, properly.

We just don't have all the information, that's the problem. I don't have that information to say whether that's a yay or nay.

Okay, let's go ahead and move on, ordinances and resolutions. So the next one is a resolution of the City Council and the City of County Board of Florida amending the budget of the fiscal year beginning October 1st and by providing for reappropriations and supplemental appropriations. Any amounts identified in the certificate and provided in the subject date.

Good morning, Kristen Simeone, Finance Director. So we have some reappropriations for the PGI and BSI canal maintenance and most of it is either a little bit of operating and continued hurricane related projects. Then we have some appropriations that were also related to things that Council has already approved or additional funding that has come in. So for the general fund, we've had some donations for the special response team. We've had some insurance proceeds for accidents and repair of boat motors, so things like that. For burnt store aisles, we had approved the land acquisition, so it's just a matter of appropriating those funds. For the special use fund, again, insurance recoveries related to hurricanes. In the building fund, insurance recovery for a vehicle. And in IT fund, again, council had approved moving those funds for the network switches. Any additional questions? Any questions? No. No.

No. Building fund insurance recovery for a vehicle. Moved to approve 4A.

I second it.

have a motion a second to approve for a all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you for the network switches anybody want to pull anything on the consent agenda no motion to approve consent agenda second we have a motion a second motion carries regular agenda captains for clean water presentation thank you for

Good morning, everybody.

Morning. Morning.

Yes.

All right. Regular agenda captains for clean water presentation.

OK, thank you. I'm one of the founders of Captains for Clean Water. I want to say thank you to Lee and also Mr. Julian for setting this up and allowing me to be here. I'm born and raised right down the road in Fort Myers. I actually grew up on Sanibel and was a fishing guide by trade. And it was in 2016 that kind of my course in life changed from showing people the experiences that Florida has here to offer to fighting to save those experiences. January of 2016, we fishing guides were celebrating. New Year's Day, we were catching our first tarpon of the year, which is pretty early for that. We're all pretty excited about what the year held for us. We had a double here, probably second trip of the year, right between Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach. Everybody was really excited. The tourism industry was thriving. A couple weeks later, the Army Corps of Engineers opened the gates at the locks from Lake Okeechobee. and sent billions of gallons of water from Lake Okeechobee to our coast here. This is the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River and you can see that turbid water flowing out. Within 48 hours that water pushed out into the gulf of mexico you're looking here at the the north end of fort myers beach the santa bel causeway in the upper left corner there and right where that plume of water meets that that green water is where i was catching those tarpon just a few days prior 48 hours after a couple weeks of this entire grass beds started to shed their leaves and die the oysters and grass can only sustain fresh water levels for a matter of a few weeks and and this started the collapse of our ecosystem here in 2016. along with this was massive blue-green algae blooms this is a freshwater toxic algae cyanobacteria It has a potent neurotoxins in it called BMHA that are linked to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS and numerous other degenerative diseases. This was in the marina on Lake Okeechobee and with those discharges to our coast here as well as the east coast came those toxic algae blooms. This is on the Caloosahatchee River, about a mile from my house, as the other founder and myself, Shadows, standing there. Before we knew really the impacts and dangers of this algae, we probably should not have been there without respirators and whatnot. But it wasn't long until those discharges started fueling saltwater harmful algae bloom, Carinia brevis, or better known as red tide. And our beaches here in South Florida from Boca Grande to Naples were littered with dead fish. It wasn't just killing fish. This is a 27-foot whale shark that washed up on the beach of Sanibel. They had to bring in an excavator and bury it on site. Dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, everything started to collapse, and with it, the tourism industry collapsed. This is a result of draining of the Everglades, something that started in the early 1900s, really hit its peak in the 1940s and 50s. And in an effort to drain what was thought to be a worthless swamp, Canals were dug below Lake Okeechobee to bleed the water out of the Everglades out to the Atlantic Ocean. Connections were made to the St. Lucie River and the Caloosahatchee River to act as relief valves for that water that naturally would flow down through the Everglades ultimately to Florida Bay. And when the lake would get too full, it would get pushed out to our coast. Coincidentally, or not coincidentally, the year before we suffered this collapse in 2015, Florida Bay lost 50,000 acres of seagrass because it became hypersaline. It became three times saltier than the Gulf of Mexico. The very fresh water that was destroying our ecosystem here was desperately needed in the Everglades to balance salinities in Florida Bay, replenish the Biscayne aquifer that almost 10 million Floridians are dependent upon. That was really the catalyst that, as fishing guides, we looked and saw that Everything from our way of life to our careers to the very reason we live here was being threatened by these discharges that we had seen for our whole life and they were happening more and more and more frequently. We commissioned a study along with numerous partner organizations to see what was the financial impact because we can talk to, we can go to Tallahassee in D.C. and talk to them about the sea turtles that died and the seagrasses and the oyster beds. But the reality is they live in a world of making financial decisions. And so what is exactly the financial impact? So a catastrophe like we saw in 16, like we saw again in 2018 and 19, just in lee collier and charlotte county this is not the east coast not inland not anywhere else just in our three counties here 17.8 billion dollars in lost property values 43 000 jobs lost 5.2 billion dollars in economic output lost 60 million dollars in lost property tax revenue and eight billion dollars in outdoor recreation lost and this study was based on uh tourism economy that was about $109 billion at the time. We're approaching now $140 billion in tourism here in Florida annually. So very, very significant economic impact caused by these ecological disasters. The community after these events was pleading for help, whether you're in the restaurant industry, the hospitality industry, hotels, you name it, car dealerships, everybody was feeling this and they were pleading for help and what we discovered in 2016 was We were halfway through what was supposed to be the timeline to fix this issue. There was a bipartisan effort in the year 2000 to restore America's Everglades. It was thought that it would take 30 years to reconnect that system, clean the water from Lake Okeechobee through engineered wetlands, and send that water back on its historic path where it's south to Florida Bay. And here we were at the halfway point of a 30 year project and not a single one of the 68 infrastructure projects had been completed. This wasn't because there was not science, it wasn't because there wasn't engineering, was because there was a lack of political will. And the reason there was a lack of political will was there was simply a lack of public pressure. People like myself, a fishing guide who grew up on an island at the mouth of this river, were not involved in saying this is unacceptable and it has to change. And so that was really the catalyst that started public pressure that ultimately today has resulted in tremendous progress on these issues. This is kind of a, and I apologize for the quality of this, but you can see on the left-hand side, that was before Everglades drainage, historic flow. Water would overflow Southern Bank Lake, Okeechobee flow all the way down to the Keys and the 10,000 islands and the hundreds of rivers that spill out there. The middle one is our current flow. You can see very little water. We saw earlier this year in the droughts where the Everglades was on fire. Drinking water is a concern across the state. And then the far one will be the restored flow. So you're not going in and flooding out communities. You're working around them and reconveying the water, timing and delivery of water the way Mother Nature once had it. At the heart of this is what is called the EAA Reservoir. You're looking at Lake Okeechobee. Those two parcels outlined in blue are the heart of Everglades Restoration. It's a 16,500-acre above-ground reservoir and filter marsh. It's the largest above-ground reservoir the Army Corps of Engineers has ever built. And Everglades Restoration is the largest ecosystem restoration project ever undertaken in the history of our nation in the last 250 years. This project is where we will take Lake Okeechobee's water in the wet season, store it, clean it, and then be able to deliver it back to the Everglades. in the dry season, and to put it into perspective, you could put the entire island of Manhattan inside of this reservoir. It's 30 feet tall, it is absolutely massive in scope, and it is under construction today because of public pressure. When we started Captains for Clean Water in 2016, we were told point blank, this will never happen. It's too politically challenging. Nobody wants to touch this. Today, it's under construction. Not only is it under construction, but the state reached an MOU with the federal government earlier this year to complete this project almost six years ahead of schedule. So instead of it being completed what was estimated at 2035, the new estimate is now 2029. This is a look at this from the air. Here's another outline. Those areas outlined in green are STAs, stormwater treatment areas. They're engineered wetlands. They're man-made wetlands. They use a series of cells and aquatic, submergent and emergent vegetation to take up nutrients out of water and send clean water out the bottom. Their primary use now is to clean the runoff from the EAA, the sugar cane fields, to clean that water and send that water south. But these Everglades restoration projects have those same type of technology accompanying them to clean Lake Okeechobee water. So part of Everglades Restoration is infrastructures, these big projects, raising the Tamiami Trail, removing barriers to flow, filling in canals, taking down levees, letting that water get back to ability to flow south. The other part is how those infrastructure projects are operated. And over the last several years, the Army Corps of Engineers was looking at implementing a new Lake Okeechobee system operating manual, a new way of how they operate the lake. And this was a big collaborative process, and through that process we weighed in multiple times, as did municipalities on both coasts, and today we have a new management plan. It's not perfect, it doesn't solve the problem, but it gives us an average of 37% reduction in those damaging discharges. and it sends more beneficial flows south to the Everglades. But we can't fix this problem solely with operations. You have to have more infrastructure, more area to put that water, and that's where the infrastructure projects take place. So the importance of engagement, and this is really the role that Captains for Clean Water fills. We're not scientists, we're not engineers. For years, there was scientists and engineers and environmentalists that were pushing and pushing it, and there was very little progress. What we recognized was the void was public pressure. And the reason many of us, like myself, were not involved was we just simply didn't understand that there was a problem or what the problem was specifically or that there was a solution or we didn't simply have a mechanism to use our voice and so that's why we built captains for clean waters to give individuals and stakeholders a voice and give them a mechanism to amplify their voice and use their voice um to where policy makers would hear from them when time was needed, whether with opportunities like restoring the Everglades or with threats to those opportunities. And you can see here, this is a couple hundred fishing guides with a few of their boats on the Capitol in Tallahassee, Capitol being right behind us there, to fight back a bad piece of legislation a few years ago that would have taken the funding for that EAA reservoir and made it available to other less substantial projects. So simply defunding that project. So our philosophy is pretty simple, educating and empowering stakeholders who can articulate the connection between these ecological issues and the economic impacts of those issues through their personal lens of how this affected them personally. People's personal stories of how this truly impacts them is much more powerful than lobbyists going in and repeating what, you know, name the client says they want, why they should do something. So through education and empowerment, we get engagement, pressure, and better policy. This is that bill that we were talking about, Senate Bill 2508. Lee traveled to Tallahassee a couple of times for this, as did many, many of your constituents. It launched into a massive grassroots campaign over the course of 55 days. This was, at the time, the priority of the Senate president. It was told that there was no beating this bill, but that was before... tens of thousands of peoples took action not just from here in florida but across the country as you can see the everglades and florida's waters are critical to not just us as floridians but but to the entire nation and after that um you know we reached in a matter of a few weeks reached it's actually a little over 13 million people um through that public pressure it resulted in the governor governor de santa's coming down here standing with a bunch of fishing guides and vetoing that bill this was a historic moment not just for everglades restoration for our communities but for the proof that the power of people's collective voices can in fact change the course of policy, even if it is policy that you are told there's no way to beat it. And so that's why CAPTNS exists. As far as our community here in Punta Gorda, For years, fishing guides identified that those discharges were making the red tide blooms here in Charlotte Harbor worse. We were told, no, it's not it. We're miles away from the Caloosahatchee River. Finally, a scientific study came out that shows that the Carinia brevis organism sampled in Charlotte Harbor was feeding on the nitrogen from Lake Okeechobee. They were able to track a little radioactive isotope in the nitrogen molecules in Lake Okeechobee and see that it was indeed fueling the red tide here in Charlotte Harbor. I'll say before I take some questions is the value of people engaging with agencies and policy makers on these issues is the number one thing that we have seen progress. Those 68 projects in Everglades Restoration that had zero progress when I started are now underway, and over 60 of them have been completed or are under construction. Countless ribbon cuttings I've attended. And so progress is happening, but we can never let our foot off the gas. Even when these projects are complete, we have to ensure that they're operated to the maximum of their capacity. And so as a commission here, I would encourage you to, you know, go to meet with the Army Corps of Engineers. Meet with policymakers. Let them know how important water quality is to your community. I just came back from a week in Washington, D.C., and People from the city of Sanibel, leadership from the city of Sanibel, from Fort Myers, from the East Coast, were up there letting people know, hey, we want you to continue to invest in this. And that could go with Everglades restoration. It could have to do with development of wetlands. It could have to do with phosphate mining. Whatever it is, I'm not saying Everglades discharge is the only thing, but... It's this massive problem that we have a solution for and we're pushing for that solution. The reality is your voices as council members to other agencies and other committees that are making decisions carries a lot of weight. And I would encourage you to meet. We're about to get a new uh Colonel in charge of the um Jacksonville District of the Army Corps and so he will once once he takes a seat there he will go on a road tour um we've met with him already I would encourage you all to meet with him I'd be happy to facilitate that but um really getting outside of of just here and going if you'd like to go to DC with us or Tallahassee with us would welcome that as well so with that I'd be happy to take any questions any questions

Well, I was going to ask what are the next steps, but you just told us. So I'm ready to jump on board with you. We appreciate that.

so i i do have a couple questions um and i understand thank you so much for this great presentation i commend you on it um i think most of us here are so environmentally sensitive about things and and i like the fact that you're talking about here we had a natural release through the mangroves for our land that actually could take the contaminants our mangroves are so important to cleanse it to go back out and here man-made kind of change things around There's the Department of Environmental Protection and Recently, there was land acquisition, and I was wondering your thoughts and takes on taking environmentally protected land and using it for other means. Do you try to protect environmentally protected land as well?

Yeah, I mean, in theory, we should protect all environmentally valuable land. CAPTNS is very narrowly focused on Everglades restoration, and the reason for that is, It is a monumental effort. And what we have seen is, you know, the reality is there's very powerful special interests in Florida in the industrial sugar industry that push for the status quo. And so we... We have to stay so focused because this is this David versus Goliath fight. So unfortunately, captains doesn't have the resource and bandwidth to take on all these other issues like, you know, turning over of lands like like phosphate mining, like all these, you know, name the thousand paper cuts that Florida is is dying from. But. I can tell you just as a school of thought, yeah, once you impact land, you don't get it back.

Exactly.

And the thought that because something may increase tax base, is ultimately the end metric of good, you have to look at the long-term impact there. We can have concrete from shore to shore here in Florida. If the waters collapse, we're no longer gonna have white people come here. So yeah, I think we have to think long and hard about what the long-term decisions are. Once we lose a piece of natural land, you pretty much never get it back.

I wish you would have spoke a little while earlier with counsel on this. There is the smell of dead fish again coming out here. Is that part of what you're talking about?

Yeah, the issues we're seeing now are not from Lake Okeechobee discharges, and we actually have been in a pretty severe drought. We've seen water shortages. I think there are some isolated events when we see a period of drought for a long time, and then you finally start to get rain, you'll get a little bit of purge of stuff off the landscape. Um, I don't know exactly, you know, the root cause of some of these, but it's likely that as we start getting more rains, we will see some of these, you know, kind of isolated issues. The reality is that the difference and we should address those whether it's whether it's talking about, you know, stormwater runoff in our local municipalities or fertilizers or any other thing. Um, What we saw in 2016, the year before that, 2013, after that, 2018, which is the one many people really probably remember and made international news, was these isolated blooms usually will spark up, they'll eat themselves out of food, and they'll dissipate. When we are dumping billions of gallons of water out of Lake Okeechobee, it's like pouring jet fuel on a natural forest fire for months on end. That red tide bloom in 2018 lasted longer than a year. and it was so much more toxic than a normal bloom. So you start to really expand on the toxicity of the blooms as well as the duration, and that's where you really see the collapse, both ecologically as well as economically.

appreciate everything um if you could give dates maybe to dr reichardt to share with all of council that would be wonderful i don't know about anybody else but i'm totally on board with you absolutely next time we have some stuff set up i'd be happy to to push this along and i will tell you i'm just looking at your website here and it's amazing you can sign up for the newsletter you can do

membership and a lot of people say well you know if i can't get involved with this i mean even just a year membership for thirty dollars and you get a hat and you get some swag and and you know that's just even a small part of how you can get involved so um i would refer people to your website too for that immediate to to get involved and also it gives a lot of information yes ma'am thank you that's captains for cleanwater.org we do try to make we recognize people are very busy in their day-to-day lives and we we want to make it to where

you can plug into this effort, no matter how small or how big. You wanna quit your job and dedicate your life to it and travel the world fighting for it, I'll welcome you aboard if you simply want to become a member, we'd love that as well, but we try to put a lot of stuff out there on the website as well as our social media. Yes, ma'am, did you have a question? Captain Chris Whitman.

So also when we have any kind of land acquisition that might be environmentally protected, I'm gonna call you up and have you come here.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you all, appreciate the opportunity.

That was awesome. Okay, next up is a temporary use permit extension application for the temporary staging lot. Thank you.

Thank you all, appreciate the opportunity.

Good morning. Adriana Greke, Planner 1. So the applicant is working on a utility expansion project on Cooper Street and has requested to utilize the city-owned property located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Cooper Street and East Olympia as a temporary staging lot for equipment and materials related to the project. City Council approved the original permit on April 22nd, 2026, and they are requesting until July 10th, 2026. Staff recommends approval of the extension request with the conditions noted in the current permit. Are there any questions?

No. Move to approve 6B.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve 6B. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

okay next on the list is land development regulation update good morning for the record good morning all right so this presentation um is really just an update to chapter 26 of the land development regulation review and study currently underway by staff So in April, a proposed review outline was provided by a city council member to staff for consideration and staff to break down the LDRs into the following four categories.

No changes, minimal changes, significant changes, and wholesale changes.

So breaking these down, you kinda see how there's no changes, zero revisions, minimal one to 25. Staff is still in review process and have multiple articles in each one of these categories, so it's quite a task. There are 19 chapters in chapter 26 of the LDRs, so staff is comparing the regulations line by line and documenting revisions between the two documents. staff is also preparing a color-coded document that will indicate removed added and revisions or revised sections of the code and as staff gets further as this gets further along the color-coded documents will be provided to you guys as supplementals for each one of those meetings that correspond with those all right so really what we're asking for is we're asking how would uh city council like to see this would you like to see specific things brought to you and we talk about them or would you like to go line by line um and how and with that how is the presentation going to come so that's essentially uh what we have going on and we're willing to answer any questions

Yes, as I said in the workshop we had a little while back, it's my hope that we can readopt everything that we were not opposed to. there were four things that we were concerned with, height and density, reduced parking and setbacks in the TPG. And if we can just focus on that, we can settle this matter quickly and not extend for months and years. There are a few things we've noted. When we spoke to the execs at Advent, they said that the medical overlay was very unusual and that was problematic for them. So I would like to address that. the language in the old version in the waterfront overlay talked about environmental protection in the new version that's taken out and it focuses on intensive development so i would like to bring that language back forward and then there are some landscaping issues that greg i think you're backwards say again what no yeah the the current one that we have protects our environment the 2020 the one that's in effect right now protects the one that was repealed does not correct and that's what the way you said it was backwards and and so i want to bring the language from the one that we're currently under forward to the 2024 version And then a few other minor things that we can get into detail, but it's my hope that we can just readopt everything that we weren't opposed to and focus on those elements that we were.

Melissa. We're still under SB 180, that hasn't changed, so I think conversation is good to have and I think we can get consensus and we can start dialing in those details, but nothing can be readopted or changed at this point, in my opinion, until we get to that SB 180, which I think is set to expire next October. But the conversations should go on and we should go through the details and line out what appetite everybody has for what. And yes, I agree that, I think there was some stuff that didn't change from one to the other, that's completely the same, then yeah, that's done, right, take that off the table. It's just focusing on what has changed, and we should have a workshop on it, go through it and have a consensus, but I don't think much can change until then.

so i agree i think that um right now we have to look at and there are there are minor changes like you said you can take a look at that there are like five feet ten feet so there are changes so we can't just go say hey the 2024 looked great let's just go ahead and do it because there are changes in how many feet away is that acceptable to all of us is it right is it wrong that's one of the things um there are a lot of things where if you were comparing them you didn't realize areas were deleted and so we have to take a look at what was deleted in 24 and what was not so it isn't that easy to just go ahead and even like when we were talking about when we were looking at repealing them or not repealing them we always were looking at i know greg i think you wanted form-based code but that actually is more burdensome so if we were just going line by line we would have we would have had to keep that and not go ahead and take it out because it's less it's less burdensome or it was more burdensome so we couldn't do it same with the waterfront overlay if we wouldn't have gone if we didn't repeal the whole thing we wouldn't have been able to to protect our waterfront overlay so I'm glad that we repealed it but there are sections and this is my thought because I can go through with a lot of it and a lot of stuff still is very vague and it's language that we need to be more specific on so it's not as easy as let's just take these and say 2024 is good but what I would like to see is the ones are a little bit easier um you know like we liked how much parking you know the parking spaces the the streets uh the way they're laid out they're different but we can come to a conclusion which ones we like better having more trees and stuff like that so if we can take these that are in there if we think the 2022 ones still look great we can go ahead and adopt it if we want to put something more restrictive maybe highlight it and say once the sb 180 is done then we can go ahead and add that into our language so that when it is done, and we have plenty of time to do this, so when it is done, then we can go ahead and say, yes, this is more restrictive, but now it's lifted up so we can, you know, bring that in. Melissa.

Another thing I'd like to see is even when this was back before me, 2019 when it first started, just started looking at it the first time, we had charrettes. what am I trying to say, citywide campaign where every resident was notified about the meetings that we were gonna have. We need to do that again. I'm happy that we have assistant city manager and I'm hoping that that'll be his task is to start advertising and really getting people to get the whole lay of the land that we have, not five people to come to the meetings, but a good slice of our community so they can have input.

And again, as part of the supplemental is we are gonna provide that line by line comparison so you will see what is being added, what was removed and what was changed. We'll have it color coded to three different colors so it's easy to see and each section is called out. Now, there are small things when we go the line by line that we're not including like changing the name from commission to council. You know, that's Scrivener stuff that we don't think that we need to really burden you guys with stuff like that. But the larger things, we are highlighting and bringing that to you. And like I said, that will all be part of the supplemental documents as we looked at each one of those chapters or each one of those areas.

And to get rid of the vagueness. Janine, I'm sorry.

And so I would like to ask, we've got a comprehensive plan still with the map that's our future land use map for 2045, which does not coincide with the current land development regulations. So are we saying we're going to back into the comprehensive plan or are we going to change the comprehensive plan?

uh we are going to have to make some changes with the comprehensive plan as we move forward and we're making those notes as we look to the ldrs we have some of the staff looking for the ldrs our urban design manager is going through the comp plan and trying to find the corresponding things that need to be changed in that so we're all working together and trying to make it happen and most of that is in like page 1 to 86 and at the comprehensive plan i think where most of the changes occurred so

I will have to defer that to him because I can't do that, I'm sorry.

I know map number five was a huge change. Map number five was really where the densities came in and changed, so that we have to be aware of because they do have to, they have to match.

I think we should definitely go ahead with some public workshops and charrettes, but there's a lot of the work that should and can be easily accomplished by council. So if you would allow us to still continue land development regulations as a regular agenda item, we can work through some of those things. some of those more controversial topics that that were referenced earlier those yes we definitely want additional resident input on mike will be happy to put together some of those the marketing for those type of events and work with urban design staff to get these storyboards ready and things for those events it is important to have a lot of public participation and it a lot of times we get criticism when we do those things in the off season when our seasonal residents aren't here. So we'll be planning some of those workshops when people start returning as well. But in the meantime, I'd like to see council continue to move forward with agenda items to make progress on the land development regulations.

Perfect, I think that's great. And especially since some of the articles coincide with another article. So that's where we have to keep everything on track.

Yes, and we're working on ways to present it to you. Some of the articles, as we showed, will have no changes, and then you'll bump into something that has 75. So we're trying to make it to where it's something easy for you guys to bite off and chew. We don't want to give you guys a whole bunch all at once. and keep in mind we have a very diverse group now that has experience background in a bunch of different areas so we're bringing that forward and we're also trying to add things that we think maybe should have been in the code. Those are gonna be brought to you as well as recommendations.

thank you so much i think we can do large batches we've got five that are word for word identical from the old to the new plus the definitions article we don't need to waste any time on that great then there's an excuse me i'll let you know when i'm finished speaking and there are another five that are very minimal changes for example article six three sentences it's a three-page article and there are three sentences that were added in the 2024 version i think we can get through the ones with no changes and minimal changes and then focus on those final ones

actually greg article six a lot of the portions were deleted and i can show you i've got them here that's actually very different but also we need to go ahead and be very specific so if you find that and and i think that we should let staff do their job but if you find a couple of articles that are pretty easy to go through maybe we can do a few at a time

We have quite a few of those. It's really when you get to what was identified as the wholesale changes, that's when we really get into the big chunks. And maybe just one of those articles of meeting would be something depending on how fast we can get through it.

Exactly.

But yes, there are a couple of articles that we could go through relatively quick because a lot of the stuff outside of the TPG really didn't change. And most of those changes was verbiage to council, committee, and I'm not saying there weren't any changes, I'm just saying the majority of the changes happened in the TPG zone.

well you've got your streets that were changed you had your parking that was changed those are different articles and and they were changed in there as well so yes majority of that is in three seven and eight no nine and ten is parking in streets Sorry, I know this back and forth. Okay, thank you. No problem, thank you very much. Thank you so much.

Project updates. Okay, the Permit Software Committee meets on 6-18.

Sorry, one moment. What was the formal consensus of council for how to proceed?

They're gonna go line by line and bring us, you know, as they complete them to show us.

We have a majority in favor of that?

According to staff, yes. Thank you.

Procurement has negotiated the final and best offer for the procurement study, so that should be coming before council soon. The FEMA grant manager, reference checks, and lease license verifications are underway. The vocal grain construction, the draft solicitation has received approval from two of our agencies. We're still waiting on FDEP, but that is significant progress. Fire training building, the purchase order was issued, so the concrete will start to be poured, then you'll see that structure go up. the herald court membrane pre-construction meeting happened on 6 16. public safety assessment we are negotiating with the top ranked firm booster and main water improvements the fee schedule was received and the award is in process this has been a huge focus of ann's work the last couple of weeks any of these water projects are very very extensive and time consuming and she's doing a great job of getting these through and meeting our timelines the pedestrian crosswalk improvements are in evaluation right now the ami draft solicitation is back to utilities and the veterans gazebo we did receive word this week that we can do it for under the fifty thousand dollars so that'll be a minor construction contract so we have a contractor on board for that they are just um getting their bid together their final their final information and estimate together and boyd should have that by friday And that's one that we are staying really on top of as well. It is a quality of life project. It's very important to our veterans. So it's always a balancing act. It's a balance between those really critical infrastructure projects and then these smaller projects and making sure that everything keeps moving forward. That's all I have for updates unless you have questions about a specific project.

Thank you for keeping us on board with everything.

It's always a balancing act.

Next is Council Policy Review, Board and Community Engagement.

And then these smaller projects and making sure that everything keeps moving forward. That's all I have for today, unless you have questions about a specific project. Thank you for keeping us on board with everything.

Next is Council Policy Review.

Good afternoon City Council, City Clerk Sarah Welch for the record. So today we are continuing the review that we've been going through of policies that are currently on the books. The purpose for this review is to modernize our policies, remove those that are obsolete and to strengthen our framework for civility and public engagement. Today we're working on the boards and community engagement portion. Our first policy that we have up is policy 03-01 regarding board nominations. This was adopted back in February 19th of 2003. Key provisions were that the city would not accept new applications or resumes for board vacancies after the close of city hall on the day prior to the meeting where nominations are accepted. Resumes received after the deadline were retained for consideration during the next available vacancy. This policy was established after several instances where applicants submitted resumes after nominations had already been made or after the formal agenda material had been distributed and caused some procedural delays. If this is a policy that council is interested in retaining, we'll just need to update the deadline to align with when our agendas are published instead of the day prior since we don't tend to amend our agendas last minute anymore. So how would council like to address this policy?

Yeah, I'm good with the way they are existing.

I know we still do make some minor changes right up to it. So, I mean, we have done a few. So if there's somebody who brings it in, I'm okay with that, the way it is.

The way it is written currently or the way we've been handling it? Okay, so we'll just update it to... Oh, we won't update it then. We'll just leave it at that. Correct. Sorry. So if someone does submit an application after the publication but before the meeting, should we include in the policy that that be emailed to council? Yes, please.

Thank you for that.

Our next policy is 05-01, amended public hearing request.

changes made to a public hearing request after it has been reviewed by an advisory board must be remanded back to that board for further review and recommendation prior to being presented to the City Council. This policy was adopted after a dock and landing petition was significantly revised just two days before the council meeting and so the changes that they made which were fairly significant bypassed the initial review by the Pinacord Isles Canal Advisory Committee. So the question here is if someone makes a significant change, do we want to continue to have those significant changes go back to the board? And if so, do we want to define what would be a substantive change versus an insignificant change?

As Mr. Cuomo said earlier, we need to define those.

That's the same with the land development regulations. You know, we have to define some of these words that we're using. I think what we just said earlier is any kind of change needed to go back to the board before it came to us is what I just heard earlier. So if we're saying that, you know, with what we just had with the quasi judicial, then we should have it the same way as this, that any changes made, you know, has to be completely approved by, you know, any kind of board before it comes to council.

so um if the board says they want to see a certain change made to an application should that go back to them once the person has made the change according to the board's direction or should that proceed to council if it see and that's what i tried to say earlier if if the board says hey

staff take a look at this this is what we need staff says yes this is actually it then it doesn't have to go back to the board it could come to council that says these were the requests that the board had made we see it it's approved what you you had a consensus to approve and then come to council now what you're stating here you know is it has to go back to the board which actually makes things take longer to counsel so

So to summarize, what you would like to see is that changes other than those that were discussed by the board would need to go back to the board, not council, staff would review the changes that the applicant makes to make sure it does align with what the board had requested and if it does, then it proceeds to council.

Exactly, thank you.

Is everyone in favor of that?

I mean, you know, so let's just do a scenario. So if they say, I want you to make a change to, you know, an entrance of a parking lot. And they say, okay, we've made the change to an entrance of a parking lot. You can look at that two different ways. You can say, okay, they've recommended that and they've made the change, so now it could come to council. problem is sometimes though when they've made that change and it doesn't go back to that board there may be more changes because of that change in other words you know there may be more conversation that needs to be had because of the change they've recommended that they didn't consider so I just wanna make sure we have proper process that's why we have boards we don't have we don't need a board and let's just get rid of them you know kind of thing but there's a process for it I understand it takes longer but I just want to make sure that we have you know the process down where if they say to make a change let them go back make sure there's no other changes because of that then

move on i would hope that the board would be which i believe our board is very educated enough to say well okay we need it to change here but let's like take a look at it if it goes here then we have other issues otherwise they wouldn't say to do it so i'm hoping that the consequences wouldn't allow it to say oh well we approved this but oh now we just made another mistake because we approved this i don't think that should be happening

Yeah, but you can look at something and say, you know what, I would like you to make this change. They come back and they say, all right, we've made the change and now this is how this layout looks like. That may be something that is, they may say, you know what, at the same time we have more information and that's not what we need now or we want to do some more changes on top of that. It happens, sometimes they make changes and then there's more conversation past that.

What if, to address that concern, if in making the change that the board requested, additional changes are made, then that staff would flag that and return it to the board for them to review those additional changes?

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Would that satisfy your concern?

again I just it's been a process that's been in place and it seems to work so I just don't want to be circumventing boards that we have for a reason if they ask them for a change I feel like we say that please make the change and bring it back to us so we can see the final product I feel like those boards feel the same way but it's whatever the majority wants to do

Would that satisfy your concern?

I don't see it as circumventing.

I think that they made a recommendation that is being looked at by our staff. And if you see something that is an issue and it goes back to them to take a look at, I think it's proper. But I don't care. But I just see it as we want to try to move our development forward. We don't want to be known as the city that doesn't try to help all our developers move forward on what they need to do.

and i i think too that if you know the staff has been asked to change something i i depend on them knowing what they're doing yeah you know for it to go back again and it could take four to eight weeks before these things get done and time is money in development um so i think the quicker we can get it done the better for me

we're not just talking about staff changes we're talking about changes for a person or a development or whatnot so it's not just staff it's it's relying on staff relaying it to that potential development if that's what the case is to do and to you know make those changes based on what they say i've heard this council many times say please bring it back to us we just want to see the final product we just want to make sure that everything is correct before it moves on to the next stage that's my point

have a suggestion why don't we instead of us making the decision right now let's bring it to the board and ask them how they feel about it and if they say hey we think this is okay we approve this then it can come back to us with what the board thinks and that way we'll just let them make the decision that way they can say yes this helps it move faster we recommend this if staff can do this if they see changes that need to come back to the board fine so that's my suggestion is bring it back to the board and see what they want to do

We can do that.

I'm good with that.

All right. Awesome, thank you. And we know the BCA was planning on meeting this month anyway, so.

Awesome.

All right, so next up we have a policy regarding naming rights, policy 08-01. This was adopted June 11th back in 2008. The key provisions were that council was reaffirming their intent not to rename existing city property or streets for honorariums or memorials. There was allowance for an individual or group underwriting the full cost of a new city facility to name that facility And the visual recognition for the philanthropic naming was limited to a single plaque no larger than 16 by 24 inches This was developed in response to a private offer to fund the construction of an entertainment stage I believe Wally stage over at Lashley Park in exchange for naming it after the donors deceased son and So some considerations if council wants to look at revising this policy would be Whether or not you want to keep that 16 by 24 inch plaque limitation if you want to adjust it based on the scale of the facility that is being donated Anything along those lines or if you want to remove the policy entirely Thank you next up we have policy 2026-01 this is the board committee attendance policy that we just revised back in january 14th this year the key provisions are that there is allowance for all boards for three absences in a 12-month period with a slight caveat for the code enforcement board since state statute does have a further requirement that their members can't have more than two consecutive absences for all other boards it's the fourth absence that results in forfeiture which can be appealed there had been discussion when this was being developed with boards about whether or not there should be allowance for excused absences the boards that we discussed that with were not in favor they decided it would have been to messy for them. There is allowance in state statute specifically for the code enforcement board though to have some kind of process for excused absences. As Joe mentioned, that is going to be discussed at the next code enforcement board meeting. We do need some input from the city attorney on that regarding how we can allow for that process without also violating the Sunshine Law. Is council interested in making any changes to the attendance policy at this time?

The boards weren't in favor of it, so.

Okay, when we do have the discussion about the code enforcement board's process, we can always return to council about what that's going to look like. Thank you. And then we have a proposed policy for the promotion of alternates. This would provide for the automatic appointment of an alternate that is interested in promotion to a regular seat on the board. We would ask the longest serving alternate first if they were interested. Council would confirm the promotion at the next available meeting. The purpose of this policy would be to promote continuity on our boards, to encourage alternates to gain knowledge of board business and procedures throughout their terms. People are not always interested in applying to the alternate positions. As you've seen, we do have some lingering alternate vacancies that we are having difficulty filling. We're hoping that this policy would incentivize citizens to serve as alternates, to acknowledge their time and preparation as a direct prerequisite for a regular voting seat. As long as an alternate was interested. Some people prefer to be alternates forever. They find it to be more flexible for their own schedules. If we were going to move forward with a policy like this, we could have some requirements, such as we could tell alternates, if we're going to do this, you need to be present at the meetings if you want to be able to be considered for promotion to the regular seat. We could have a minimum number of meetings that they must attend, like a percentage, something like that. Perfect, I like that. So what does council? I like it.

You said what I was gonna say, suggest, so that was perfect.

Okay, so is there, what percentage of attendance at meetings would you like to see for alternates? Because right now, their attendance isn't required the same way it is for regular members. Would you wanna see them attend 75% of meetings regardless of whether or not they were needed to serve, higher, lower? What would you prefer?

I'd say 50%, at least half of them. At least 50%. At least 50%. Who's going to keep track of that?

I think if there's two of them who are alternates and there's one, the one who attends most of the meetings, I think should take priority. That's fine.

And then if they're equal in attendance, we would give perhaps preference to the one who's been on the board longest as an alternate.

Yeah, probably.

Okay, thank you very much. So those were all of the policies that we had for review today This one was a shorter one and next time it will be a little longer The next set is going to focus on operations finance and aesthetics in the city So we're nearing the conclusion of this if there are other policies that council would like to see considered that don't currently exist that we haven't thought on and of on our own please do bring those up with us and we can include them in a future presentation once we are done reviewing all of the policies we're going to have to draft a resolution to adopt them and then we'll be reviewing those annually going forward just like the rules of procedure perfect so thank you very much for that thanks for all your hard work

So we're going to close our regular meeting. We'll open up BSI next, but let's go ahead and take a 10-minute break. If that's okay. Thank you. Okay, let's go ahead and get back and get started again. We're opening up as the Bernster Isles Canal Maintenance Assessment District.

Good morning, Kristen Simeone. As part of continuing on with our budget discussions, we're going to talk about the BSI Canal Maintenance District and their budget and proposed assessments. So we do provide you a history of assessments, and in fiscal year 2016... $820 operating assessment rate with a special assessment rate of $190. And that $190 was broken up for project accumulation assessment, which is being used for the land acquisition at this time, and the lock removal rate. So again, they have that project that we had an Interfund loan for, and it's gonna take several years to repay that back at $90 assessed per year. Further revenues, again, we just talked about those current rates. In 27 through 2031, they do add in a $25 rate to increase annually, specifically for inflation, so that they can at least keep up with their program of lineal feet per year. Then, again, the $100 additional rate to accumulate funding for that land purchase, and then after that, the Channel Quarter Winding Project, ninety dollar debt service is only through fiscal year twenty eight so two more years on that special projects will require approval before funding and assessment is determined so again we talked about the land purchase but when the channel corner winding comes up it's kind of off the books right now um as far as unfunded because we needed those funds for the land purchase We do have federal and state assistance percentage in there for both Hurricane Irma riprap and the E&C wall replacements and mitigations. As we move through the projects and continue to work with FEMA on that, if at some point there are parts of the projects that they don't fund, we would have to turn our temporary loan into a possible longer term loan for that. For fiscal year 27, the operating are per the request of the division. It's the same type of personnel increases that we were talking about. We did just recently get some good news from our HR manager that the health rate came in at 5.5%. So we'll have a 3% savings and for the budget that we give out in August, all that will be reflected in there. We still don't know on the dental and life insurance policies yet but it's still good news. The health is the largest portion. Ten percent estimate on workers comp, five percent on general liability insurance. For BSI their annual program assessment is 1,100 lineal feet but they do keep a $50,000 contingency in there. That way during the rainy season after their program is complete, if a storm takes out a seawall, they won't have to wait to come to council to try and appropriate additional funds. They can use that $50,000 to take care of that seawall immediately. any time that contingency is not used it does move back to fund reserves in that at the end of that fiscal year the administration is estimated at three percent but again we update that once all budgets are completed we talked about the hurricane ian replacements so any associated revenues and expenditures that are not completed in fiscal year 26 we do continue to carry those over and we're still waiting on obligations Debt for hurricane replacements, again, if we're not, it's scheduled in fiscal year 26. If we don't finish, we will carry that forward. We talked about the debt for the Interfund Loan through fiscal year 28. Inlet dredging, so this is going on from fiscal year 2028 to 2031. We just put in a flat amount of 25,000 per year. At some point that might have to increase, but currently they've been using about 25,000 per year. They have the contracted seawall assessment and that's $10,000 every other year. So they have a schedule of how they do those seawall assessments and they do part of PGI in one year and then the other part in the second year and in that second year it's a little smaller portion so that's when they do the BSI as well. Estimated increases for seawalls is 3%, and again, the same type of annual inflationary increases we use in the pro forma. Fiscal year 26, the riprap mitigation project, 310,000. Again, we'll move forward. And the special projects, which we'll talk about on the next slide. so again here we have the land acquisition for staging this is the approved project that we had brought to both the board and council earlier um so you have the current funding of 900 000 and then 140 000 per year to again make that parcel usable for the purposes it's intended The Lockwood railing improvement and channel corner widening are not funded at this time, except the original 200,000 of the channel corner widening. Part of that was to do a feasibility study, which is underway. Here's the pro forma, and again, this was the last pro forma that was shown when we were talking about the land acquisition. I highlighted in there the three out years, the $90 per year, that it goes to zero, and we'll give you the board recommendation, what they would like to see here in the pro forma. They would like to, when those funds drop off, Leave the 90 or move it up to even $100 per year to start increasing the lineal feet that they are Continuing to replace per year We did bring up various items for discussion, so the materials of seawalls, the council suggestion to change to vinyl panels, so should a seawall construction study happen, the channel corridor widening project, which, again, the board decided, yes, we wanna delay that project, so we were just confirming that, and the proposed assessment rate, and they wanted to keep the current proposed assessment rate and not add additional lineal feet at this time. as far as the material of sea walls their recommendation for that was to not move forward with that they would like some more research for a future discussion some of the items that they brought up was they feel like vinyl bows out it wouldn't be uniform throughout the district the sea walls they just had a study you know five to six years ago and they don't think there has been dramatic changes since that time but again they're willing to look at that if there have been changes they're also concerned that petrol based products may cause increases in the next five years so things like vinyl might all of a sudden start seeing extreme increases due to petrol based products being used So those were their recommendations, but now I'd like to open it up for council discussion.

I still think that, from what I understand, talking to some of the people who deal with this, that there have been changes in strength and not bowing out. And I've even kind of asked a few different people about

um if they thought that one place you're starting with vinyl because you're going to change it if they would have an issue with that and i didn't have one person say that there would be an issue with that as a part of that conversation at the canal advisory boards they did as kristen indicated ask for staff to do some more research so i've had conversations with mark storm and he's going to meet with other public works or directors who have used the vinyl seawalls he's going to meet with some of the representatives of the companies take a look at those vinyl seawall project products that are out there and come back with a recommendation to the board ultimately if we were to make a change a study would likely have to be done for those methods but this would just be a preliminary step to take a look at what else is out there in the marketplace and if that could serve the needs of the residents of panagora when was the previous study done

my other question is it seems like everything kind of is within five years so you're giving everybody who lives on the canals five years to pay off these very large projects and most people take out mortgages they don't take out five-year mortgages you know and again we're looking at you know, how much we're giving property taxpayers more bills. And I didn't know if we could try to extend that out so it's not quite as expensive. You know, it's $10 a year, it's $50 a year, it's $100 a year, but it adds up for our residents. Is there any way we can extend the time instead of just five years that we're paying this?

We would have to go to more traditional financing then in that type of instance. and again they would we'd have to look at what would be the source of revenue for that and usually typically for our financing that we have done for the assessment districts they're still backed by the city of Punta Gorda so even though they would be the ones paying it back it's still backed by the city general fund as far as that the so it's not that it can't be done we could do it but like say with this one the final amount they they accumulate they're accumulating the funds right so they really only have one project pretty much at a time that we've been paying back on so they did the lock widening project and when they paid that one off then they went on to the this particular

But there's no forgiveness. I mean, you're going from one project to another project. So there's just that relief isn't being seen anywhere.

Yeah, and it might not even if you do traditional financing because, again, you're going to have additional projects that come up each.

But it's less over a longer period of time.

So we could look at doing financing for 10 years if you'd like. And, again, there's a cost to that too because, again, we're just doing the inter-fund loan and using a – two percent interest rate to pay back the fund that is doing the funds so like for the lock whiting project it was three hundred and forty seven thousand dollars over four-year term right so but you've got something that are more expensive than that that you know so we do a typical financing it is a smaller dollar amount to do a financing for again these aren't very very large projects

But like land acquisition, that's not just a couple hundred thousand dollars. For it to expand over a longer period of time might be easier for our residents with that. My other question also was, were supposed to be done with our sea walls like two years ago and i know we've got one group right now and i don't know if there's any way we can get another group or something because the longer we wait the more costly it gets everything just adds up so i would hope that we could try to find more people to possibly help expedite this instead of having it linger on as many years as it has

think the sea walls are pretty much done it's the mitigation that's not complete and the only I think there's only one small section of PGI that's still being worked on as far as sea walls from the hurricanes this is just their regular program so what about well and again even with a regular program it would be nice to have more than

and i did i did just ask that question and what would happen though is we would have to cancel the current contract we would lose the pricing then that we're locked in at right now um and staff really feels that that would be more expensive to go back out to bid to open it up to more contractors

okay that makes sense so once the contract is over again then we may want to try to consider having more than one out there if we can to help yes so riprap can't go in yet i i'm sorry so we have to um the hurricane irma riprap they're going to start working on that bid to go out because they can move forward with that part now we don't have hazard mitigation currently approved yet on the hurricane ian walls okay We are working on that. Basically, as you know, or we've talked about, FEMA has been denying some of our walls, and some of the walls that they are approving are saying that the form of method of repair should be riprap and not replacement of the seawall. So because they're saying that that would be an acceptable method of repair, We're working on a benefit cost analysis to say that the mitigation would be to replace the seawall. So working at it from a different angle of the previous Hurricane Irma.

So FEMA actually approved at first for us to replace them and now they're saying no, which again costs the taxpayers.

no so they never so again they just did it they gave us a determination memo that on some of our projects they either denied some 100 some they said okay yep we agree with the seawall replacement and others they said should be um replay not replaced but repaired with just putting riprap in front of them and that would have been acceptable and we did appeal and they didn't denied our appeal so we were trying to say that and again there was a document that said in some cases riprap might be put in front of seawalls and that's what they're hanging their hat on and we're saying no that was in some cases but we have a whole checklist of the various types of things that occur and i can have um ryan come up and kind of discuss that with you if you'd like but there's a whole kind of checklist of what causes us a full failure and why the whole seawall is compromised and now needs to be replaced as the repair so that's what we're working on

And that's what FEMA has to see is what was determined to make sure that we can hopefully get our money out of it instead of them saying just riprap.

Correct. And again, we are continuing to work various methods. So on seven seawalls, we're working on the hazard mitigation from the opposite angle. There are four that we got later determination memos on, and those ones we're going to actually try arbitration. Okay. Okay. So does council have any other discussion or are they good with the proposed rate assessment that is in place for BSI?

I just told you my concern to see about extending, but on smaller items, I can understand you don't need a longer one, but on the very larger ones, I think that really needs to take a look at how much, again, to help the taxpayers financially every year with their assessments.

so what i'm hearing is next year during our budget pro or before our budget process like but basically as part of this try to do traditional financing and try and wrap up the link the land purchase into a financing you see the cost benefits or you know let show us like this if we extended this this is going to actually cost us much more again we're looking at

how much each resident has to pay. And I think that's where we really have to weigh in is our residents and how much they're paying. Yes, but I, yes. Okay, we can look into that. Good. Okay. Thank you. So then we're gonna go ahead and close the BSI and we're gonna open up the Punta Gorda Isles Canal Assessment District.

So again, for PGI, it's gonna be very similar to BSI, except they have been increasing their seawall percentage replacements each year. So the current operating assessment is $1,350. They want to stick with increasing the $150 per year as they have planned to again continue increasing the amount of seawall that they replace each year. This increase is needed based on the increased costs and installation panel materials and the interest on the hurricane project loan. For the operating assessment, for the line of credit continues to carry forward if not complete. Again, the state assistance as well. Revenues not received do carry over till fiscal year 27. again carrying over the actual project so again there's various pieces it's the revenue from the the state in fema it's the loan amounts it's the actual costs so all this stuff is is continuing to carry forward based on original estimates for ian and our approved project for irma fiscal year 27 same type of operating requests they are currently doing 10,000 linear feet of seawall replacement for fiscal year 27 we talked about the administration and the computer overhead remaining flat Their inlet dredging is $60,000 per year, mangrove trimming $67,120 per year. Their contracted seawall assessment is $30,000 in one year and $20,000 the next year, and that continues throughout the pro forma. The estimated increase is approximately 500 additional lineal feet per year. And then we talked about all the other type of operating cost increases. Repayment of debt for Hurricane Irma we talked about and same thing on the hazard mitigation and then our special projects are on our next slide and it's coming from planned reserves. So they have replacement of some equipment and that was included in our packet as far as what that equipment is. So if we need to go over that, we do have that available. You have the PGI spoil site channel. This project is scheduled to end in 2029. So you see the cost there. This is their current pro forma. So again, they have good reserves. They get a little low in fiscal year 2031, but again, those reserved for contingencies, if they're not used, drop back into reserves. They had the same type of questions. I did ask them if they wanted to stop that increase in any of the future years, at what point they wanted to stop that. Like I said, they still were wanting to continue increasing the amount of seawall in their program that is completed to make sure they don't get to the end of the life of the seawalls, of those original seawalls that were put in 50 to 60 years ago. So their information was, again, stick with the proposed assessment rate, continue to keep in the increases for the future years. And their information on the seawall materials, again, they were concerned with the aesthetics and the look. They were worried about how docks would attach. They were also concerned with the cost of having another full study. So if we were going to do another study, maybe just doing materials only. So again, they were talking about maybe having, bring again some additional information to them before making a decision to move forward with an additional study. I don't think that's attached to the sea walls.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm just telling you what they brought up.

So Brian Clements, Public Works. Their concern was if you do the Z-shaped vinyl piles, you have that in and out, so your dock is going to hit on those outer parts, so there's going to be a gap every so far. That was what their concern was, because people get pretty upset after we replace the seawall if there's a small gap between the dock and the seawall, so then you're going to have that in and out pattern, so you'll have all those openings. I'm just...

relaying what the message was from them and I should say again from the study from that they were reading from five years ago was that the concrete standard currently employed that we currently use is generally a 65 year life where the vinyl that was in the study was a 40 year life so again they were concerned about That it doesn't last as long so then you have to replace it sooner Again the concern not uniform when looking at the canal when looking at the canals may decrease property values Was one of their thoughts as well

Do we have? I think that our concrete is graded or used to be graded, you know, to the performance of it. Have Do we have any evaluation of like, how many times the value of it like for breaking down again? How many cracks are in it when they're put into place? How sturdy it actually is? Is it really going to last the 65 years? I think we used to have a study on that. I don't know if we do or not anymore.

Brian Clemens, Public Works. I don't know if I'm real clear. I mean, in the last study, they did estimate a life expectancy for our panels. And then, of course, we do the assessments each. We go out and do the assessments each year, whether it's a new panel, old panel, where we're looking at those and rating those.

So where is, and what is your rating on those? So you assess your own and you grade your own work? Is that what I'm understanding? Because we make the concrete.

So it's split into, It's split into two zones. So every other year, each of those zones gets assessed. We send someone out, they look at the, there is a whole list of things. It's the cap, it's the wall, it's all these different ratings. That's how we determine our maintenance program is the rating of those.

so we're always going out and looking at those um i know you seem like you're at are they cracked when they go in yeah like cracks in them that might go in or when they're putting them in you know they're pounding them in the concrete cracks there's issues you know i've heard that they were just trying to still put them into place which may have compromised them but i thought there was a grading on them like for excellent you know they're that that's the seawall assessment that's done every other And we do our own assessments on our own concrete that we pour and put into place.

Once they're in the water, they're assessed. I mean, if it's cracked in the yard, my understanding is they don't go out to be installed.

Do you have that report of the assessment of how?

I will see where the most recent ones that we have.

Thank you, thank you.

So we, in the, at least the last few years, there is a vendor that goes out and collects all the data and then it is processed in-house.

It would just be nice to see that data. Thank you.

Is that something you have readily available or is this gonna take time from staff? I'm not asking you, I'm asking staff.

We're always working on that each year. I don't know if, I have to go see where we're at and within.

I would like to know how long that's gonna take to compile that.

Mark may know better what year we're on.

Hi, Mark Storm, Public Works. So we have the South Complete, and that was from 25s. So I have that data available.

And it's pretty easy just to give to us the data.

Yeah, I can print out a sheet. So we're working on 26 currently. Thank you. Which was completed in February. So we're getting there. Perfect.

Thank you.

Brian Clemens again. I just want to clarify, you want to see how many ones, twos, threes, fours, fives, that type of information?

What's in the data, yes. Just want to take a look at the data. okay so um is there any discussion or you want to talk about any of these items or are we ready to are you okay with the rate you know when i look at the bsi you know it goes up to 845 you know on the operating assessment rate and it doesn't state if it's going to increase or anything after 2027 it's kind of left open whether that is going to and yet PGI is increasing $150 every single year. So since 2009, it was 400, and by the time they are done, it's gonna be $2,100 a year for the PGI residents. And to me, I'm thinking, That, again, is a lot of money going for these residents who've been here a long time that used to only pay $400. Now they've got the burden of $2,100 by 2031. And I don't think we should just automatically be saying, oh, we're going to increase it $150 a year. I'm just looking out for our residents.

Well, we do look at it every year. But we have to put something in the pro forma and what are the estimates and what is the plan by the board and council to replace the seawalls. and so again they had a study that said hey you're the length of the seawalls is coming to an end over the next 20 years and each board made a decision about how they wanted to handle that um bsi wasn't ready to kind of pull the trigger of course they were the newer ones right so um And again, when everything was new, instead of putting funds in every year, it was just the normal maintenance of the actual canals and the dredging and things like that. You weren't having to replace a lot of seawall. Well, now you're coming up that they're all coming due around the same time, right? So of course the costs are higher and then the cost of the seawalls are higher than they were 50 or 60 years ago as well.

And we were behind too, weren't we? A few years ago because they hadn't pulled the trigger, we were kind of behind the barrel and had to catch up. Correct. Yeah.

And this is where we needed more than one contracting group to catch up to get these things done so it doesn't increase in finances and costs and everything that's happening to the residents right now.

Well, to have two contractors, doing more work, you would have to have an increase now.

Correct.

So, and again, PGI at the time, they wanted to bite the bullet and have a very large increase to get it to, I forget how much, I think it was like 12,500 lineal feet of seawall per year to do that. Council was not ready to increase that much, so they actually did not follow the board recommendation at that time.

I know that there's a lot of seawalls that still need to be replaced out there, that's for sure. Yep.

And I mean, there's been thought again by, you know, everyone, you can't predict exactly when each seawall will fall, right, or will be at its worst. So some said, well, even though the study says, you know, you should replace everything by 20 years, there may be some that will last 30 years. So, you know, because some might just last a little longer.

So replacing them every how many years?

This was just the remaining seawalls from the original seawalls. Okay, I thought you said every 20 years we were replacing them. No, it's not every 20 years. They said over 20 years you'd be getting to that end of life of those original seawalls. They were looking at what was left that hadn't been replaced yet of original seawalls in the system.

i guess this is where i'm saying that we need longer years to pay stuff back you know that might help with you know the additional costs

yeah and just to kind of throw one more wrench into to the thoughts right but or into oh this is good is that okay once you get to that end right well now you're going to have to start over right those other walls that were replaced 20 years ago where are they at you know and if if they don't need to be replaced what are we going to do at that end of that 20 years to start keeping funds for when they do need to? Do you keep pushing it down the road because, well, guess what, they don't need to be replaced right now, but in 20 years, you're starting that whole cycle over again, and who's gonna foot the bill for that? Are you starting to keep it, you know, the people that are having these walls during this time, or does it start with the next homeowner?

That's the toughest thing. People who've owned a home for 20 years who've been paying all this money and still haven't had a seawall replaced. But hopefully it's 65-year life, so 50 years maybe we'll start looking at replacing them instead of 20 years. it would be nice for us to really get an efficient timeline for our maintenance for our seawalls.

And I think the department is starting to do that in that they know when every seawall was replaced, so they can start, hey, this is our oldest seawall now, you know, once we replace those original ones and where we're at.

And see how many years it is and if we can start assessing. Yep. Just watching out for taxpayers' money.

Yep. But again, during that time when you're not replacing a lot of seawall, do you keep the rates or do you lower them, but then you're not collecting enough funds for that when you start this whole program over again, you're covering that.

I think people get used to how much something costs, but if you keep on increasing it and increasing and increasing it, that's where it hurts. So once, if we've gotten it at, you know, $2,000 and you can maintain it at 2,000, it's still gonna keep up. I think it's easier on people instead of like keeping every year jumping it up. no the cost of materials and labor keep going up absolutely year after year so you have to keep up with that right so then where do we charge for what you know for who and when how often do we do it can we extend the life a little bit longer you know that's what we're looking at so brian clements public works

of course we want to extend the walls as long as we can yes but i'm just sitting here listening to the conversation so thinking of this so we're talking fifteen hundred dollars a year so you know that goes to not only sea walls it goes to mangrove trimming dredging channel markers all those things that go in the canal maintenance district let's say a typical 80 foot um lot it was $50,000 to replace your seawall if you owned it. It's going to take at $1,500, that's 30 plus years to pay for that.

But then you've had people who've paid it for 30 years who've lived in that place and then

yeah so there are there are well we have i know that those numbers are very close to put together i think it will be mind-boggling if you put if you figured the entire amount that everyone paid into that how little seawall they would get replaced today it is not but a few feet i i don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head but i know it's not a very large it's not just a seawall it's then allowing to use those waterways

because of the seawalls. So it's not just the fact of I lived there for 30 years and I've paid on this, which could have exceeded 50,000, but I have the advantage of being able to live in the water and using those waters because everybody has those seawalls. So it's a cost of doing business on the water.

So do we have a fund for the mangroves and the seawalls, a separate fund that we haven't seen for out here along the harbor, along Gilchrist Park?

That's budgeted under parks and grounds. okay so that's all okay and like so just bringing up this original chart operating assessment this only went back to 2009 but you can imagine it was very much lower than that the years before that there were I think when they first started it might have been like $25 a year so that's where Brian is trying to say if you looked at the 30-year history they weren't paying 1350 every year for 30 years. They were paying a much smaller amount, but now that all these seawalls need replacement, you know, we're getting to the end, you know, it's just more expensive.

And I know when we're looking at it, and I don't even want to get into that because I have a lot of residents talking to me like, their backyard is only 40 feet wide, and they're paying the same amount of money as somebody with a 180-plus foot backyard. And if you're talking about a resident foot in the bill, well, the people... wouldn't have to pay as much as the person with the wider one. And I know we just give one straight fee to everybody, and I know that we can legally do that, but if you're trying to compare apples to apples, it really isn't fair for those people with a smaller backyard that they're paying the same amount of money as somebody with a wider canal.

haven't these boards already evaluated and discussed that it was it was legal challenge it was a legal challenge that was right down i'm just bringing this up for reference greg but but again i think it's bigger than that you have the benefit of living on the water to have access to the waterways and that's because of the sea walls that allow you to have access to this waterway so again it's a cost for you to decide to live on the water and have access to those waterways with a beautiful boat you know so it's not that it's just your paint for your seawall you're paying for access that those seawalls allow to all those different canals that have been dredged.

I think people who don't live on the water also have the same access to the same waterways, and they're not paying anything, where the residents who live on it actually are. They don't have the view either.

Yeah. Or the access to their boat in the backyard. So there's a benefit to it, for sure. And they're not paying anything.

Yep, and so again, as Brian mentioned, the assessment rate isn't just seawalls. It's the maintenance of the canals, the whole system, the mangroves, all the passes that they have to take care of.

So the mangroves that you're talking about are in people's backyards out there? Part of the canal system. Part of the canal system, but wouldn't that be city instead of the people who... no because they're wouldn't that be part of parks and recs they're within the district they're within each of the districts so if district three has ponds park then that's because it's part of pgi that they paid for the park wouldn't be there i'm just asking i'm throwing that out as a question when you're saying mangrove

Sorry, I'm a little confused, sorry. No problem. Mark Storm Public Works. So it's within, from say the boat ramp at Ponce. We take it all the way into Ponce at Central Panza, do the perimeter, do the barge canal, do everything related to the perimeter of your... pgi or psi and then that includes there's a bird section there's another three or four just in between within pgi and barge canal the old ones on there too for trimming that we do yearly

But that wouldn't be part of Parks and Recreation?

That's all part of our assessment for the district.

Interesting.

There's like nine spots.

But that wouldn't be part of Parks and Recreation?

Thank you.

Yeah, I think that a lot of the parks he's talking about aren't part of the parks that a normal citizen could go to. We can talk about the bird section and stuff like that, right?

It's in the waterside.

It's in the waterside. All right, thank you.

We can talk about the bird section and stuff like that, right?

so i just want to make sure because we'll prepare the um resolution that is that for pgi we are okay with the 1500 assessment rate yep it doesn't matter whether i say yes or no the majority says yes so i'm just going to say no i'm okay yeah i'm good with it the board that's their job

okay we're gonna go ahead and close up the Punta Gorda Isles canal maintenance and we're gonna reopen the regular agenda boards and committees

Still good morning City Council, City Clerk Sarah Welch for the record. Under boards and committees, we do have three announcements of vacancies to make. On the building board, we do have the one consumer advocate seat and the one alternate seat. Still, we will bring forward both individuals for appointment once the resolution is finalized to amend their bylaws. And then on the Burnt Storer Isles Canal Advisory Committee, we have one alternate seat. And on the Code Enforcement Board, we have one regular seat and two alternate seats. Would it be okay if I go ahead and make my announcements? Yes, please. Thank you. So the business tax renewal period is going to open on July 1 with all businesses that will continue to operate into the next fiscal year required to renew their business tax receipt by September 30th of this year. Businesses which have closed or are closing will need to notify our office of the closure so that we don't continue to pester them. We are currently working with IT to prepare the email notices that will be sent out on July 1. If you are a business owner who has changed your email address since your last renewal, please contact our office at 941-575-3369 or by email to businesstax.puntagordafl.gov. We are only able to accept cash or check at this time that we hope we will be able to take card payments before the renewal period ends. Also coming up is the third annual Fall Festival. After the 4th of July, we'll be sharing materials with potential sponsors and participants. The time for the event has shifted from 10 to 4 to 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. On Saturday, October 17th at Lashley Park. We'll be sharing more information as the event approaches. Thank you.

So you have to excuse me, I don't have these notes readily available in my brain as Attorney Leskovich would, but he wanted to announce that the non-binding arbitration for the R.J. Gorman case is set for July 15th. Mediation in that case is set for August 25th, and they're going to work to coordinate a shade meeting prior to the arbitration. That's his only announcement.

Thank you. Dr. Eckert.

okay staff has met with the representative from the artisans atelier they have indicated that they are unable to pay the cam as suggested we were suggesting that four dollars a square foot our next steps would either be to terminate the lease or would council be interested in further negotiations to see if there is a number that they'd be acceptable to pay They open it up to others to apply.

What do they currently pay for rent?

Odellis, do you have the current rent at the Atelier please?

isn't it like under 2000 a year it's yes it's a very small very small amount and remember that's also the the unit that has a floating floor you can't put up walls i mean there's some issues with that yeah i don't know if we can remedy those

There are limitations to the space. We would likely have to do some leasehold improvements as the city to be able to lease that out to somebody else.

And do you know how much that could cost? Because that's probably gonna be a definitive and you know.

We don't know exactly how much that would cost at this point in time.

I would be interested in that number or a ish.

How much time will it take to do that? We're certainly, we'd be probably looking at September before we would have a number of what it would cost to have that space.

It's a unique space. I mean, we're talking about a tenant that doesn't pay a lot of rent. I'm not gonna argue that at all. But we're also talking about a space that's pretty much unrentable.

I think that return on investment, if you put a little bit of money into something and fix it up to get $17 a square foot plus $4 cam is well worth it.

where's that money coming from to fix it up yep well it's just like anybody else if you fix something up they don't their money doesn't even cover cam if we're talking about making that um like the other spaces where it has flood proofing I just want to say that I expect that to be very complicated and expensive. Correct. That building has a lot of helicals underneath. So when they put those flood panels on, you know, despite how big it is, evidently the flotation numbers, they had to put all that infrastructure underneath the building. And I don't think it's accounted for in that area.

So we could open it up to somebody who's aware of the limitations of this and if they accept it or if they don't I think that that's an option because apparently somebody did rent it with the exceptions I think that we can open it up and see if somebody else would be willing to pay. That also provides a benefit for arts downtown.

So if you want to get rid of that, that's fine, but it is. I think they're at History Park and Visual Arts Center as well. No, they're not actually. There are some of their pieces, but no, that's their main store.

What currently is the occupancy in the entire building? What is the occupancy currently?

we are all full except for the one space and i believe we'll be having that contract coming to council either july 1st or july 8th and i thought that we did have flood proofing on that building i thought we bought the tiger dam specifically for the entire building we have the tiger dams but that is not considered dry flood proofing and the floor is wonky that's my sticking point i still think there could be somebody else who may be willing to accept those conditions

You can roll the dice. We can have it empty for years. I agree. You don't know that answer.

I'm all for having them pay the right amount. Yeah, me too. You know, we've gone way too long with that building not really functioning as a real moneymaker. I'm concerned about it.

We're losing money and taxpayers are paying it right now. So you're just burdening the taxpayers doing that.

so we need a consensus. I would like to go back and negotiate with our current tenants so we don't have a building empty.

Adales. Hi, Adales Valdez, for the record. From what I see on the most recent, it's 10% fees plus property tax and $440 per month, and it's 2,478 square feet. It's 10% fees plus property tax and $440 per month. So Melissa, you wanna repeat yourself?

It could be used as office space, so I don't understand why we're even talking about this. I think it's time.

Melissa's asking for consensus. I'm saying go back and try to negotiate. Melissa asked for consensus. All who agree with Melissa?

Aye.

Oppose it?

Aye. I'm sorry, I was confused on that one.

My ask, I think your ask was do you wanna negotiate more or do you wanna open the space?

So I will bring this up again at the next council meeting.

When is the lease run out?

The lease is currently expired. Staff this week participated in our annual hurricane update. Chief Gibbs did a really nice job of prepping staff for the upcoming season. We go over things like where you report after a hurricane. the predictions for the hurricane season, things like that. It's a really good event that brings multiple departments together under one roof, so there's value in connecting with the departments as well. We signed the letter of engagement with the SBWH law firm to assist in the Fisherman's Village Reverter Clause. We're also, this is more kind of operational, enterprise asset management. We have put together a team led by our ITGIS professional, Todd Helts, and so various departments are meeting. We are looking at an enterprise asset management program We have to do this very scalable, though. We had a representative from Charlotte County come and talk to us about their program. Very expensive, very time consuming, but we are looking at the upgrades that we can make to our current processes that can move us down that path to a total citywide asset management plan. Also, our IT department is leading efforts to update the website once again. Alicia's gonna be doing some training, so we're really looking forward to that. then I had a suggestion residents in the past when we send out that Punta Gorda developments they've noticed where somebody's had a variance or a special exception or something for a property and the property doesn't move to construction very quickly is there an interest from City Council to discuss those time frames for variances special exceptions development approvals do we do we want to have that conversation yes

Yes, and I would like to re-delegate some decision authority that we pulled away from them at the beginning of this mayorship, because that's also slowing things down. We'll make note of that, and we'll make sure we get that out.

I think you need a consensus on that. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I saw head notes. No.

sorry i think we already discussed that once in our board but i agree that we should look at the variances and everything but i disagree with what greg said sorry i thought no i think let's take the first step first and see what we've got but that's exactly what's slowing things down i think going back to the board again for a decision is also slowing things down that we talked about earlier today greg

Look at it all. Why not? Look at how our decision, you know, see what our decisions are and what timelines are. Look at it all. Why not? Put the variances and then we'll go from there.

Look at it all. Why not? Just heard look at it all. Look at it all. Correct. Yeah. That's consensus. That's all I have for today. Look at it all. Correct, yeah. That's consensus.

We do have, I don't have the donation request in front of us today, but the people that are doing the work for us about construction, they are offering us a potential for a donation of a wall fixture, mural type. Do you know the exact name of what that's called? It's a laser printed item. Mike, you wanna talk about that a little bit?

Good morning, Mike Bonasera, Assistant City Manager. Yeah, so just think of a printer. It's new technology that goes along the wall, and it creates a mural or painting, the same capabilities of a printer you'd have at home, and it's quite amazing.

We'll have a formal request in front of you. We had thought that we would have a video available for today, but we did not receive that video, but we'll get that to you in the near future. Awesome.

Yeah, just one thing, I'm a little concerned that I noticed I always look at the code compliance meetings that are coming up and you know we allowed Lewis McGuire homes a variance which obviously I was against but now I see he has six properties, six properties that are coming up for code compliance for not cleaning up um those residences and that's a big concern you know if we're going to give variances and allow him to i think the variance was or not the variance but the exception is was to allow him to redo those foundations and now his six properties are up for co-compliance that's not okay with me so i hope that mr uh mcguire gets you know into compliance with the homes that he was supposed to go back after letting sit for a year or so and and uh

Actually, I think he's in discussion with Ron in the code compliance, so he is working with him.

Again, why did he even get to that point? So that's disappointing.

I'm sorry, forgive me. So I thought that the reason why, part of the reason why we pushed that was so that code could get their clause on it. That was kind of the understanding so that they could go ahead and move forward with, you know.

One of his properties is for building material, concrete, debris, overgrowth, so I'm concerned that we gave him the okay to go ahead with it, now there's been no movement, now I see there's six properties on there, so I hope that gets resolved. That's it. Greg. I have nothing.

I have a couple of things. First of all, I will be at the Juneteenth celebration on Saturday, June 20th at Cooper Street Rec. I'm looking forward to that. I would also like to discuss, and maybe we'll be doing this with Ordinance 168811, which is electric vehicles on the Harborwalk. I went and looked at the sign the other day, and I know that I've seen it on the path before, and yep, there it is, no motored vehicles. City ordinance number 168811. Does that mean all throughout the city? I think that there's a lot going on with these electrical, not only bikes, but there's something without handlebars on it. It's some kind of apparatus. A guy whizzed by me going so fast the other day, and then he... had the pleasure of riding on our courts late at night. So I'm just a little concerned about what does that mean and when we do look at, I think it's the golf carts, I think they're all together in that ordinance.

so i would just we have the item ready to go okay for the golf cart we wouldn't have this ready to go because we need to clarify what we can legally do and what we cannot okay so i could put them together but then you wouldn't hear the golf cart one as quickly

okay well then we'll wait on this one but i know that there are a lot of people who are concerned um yeah just i'd like to know definitely are are motorized vehicles allowed on the harbor walk or not just a yes or no i don't think i can get that can i

I'm not going to be able to give that to you today, but I will get that for you.

Because the sign says no motored vehicles, and that's just, okay.

Can I get consensus that we want to put that on the agenda? Yes, sure. We're talking the e-bikes.

Because the sign says no motored vehicles.

Okay, and the drainage on Bethel-St. Marks, I noticed it was on the list. Any time of completion for that, I'm being asked by the neighborhood. Also lighting in that neighborhood. I know I asked last time, or we asked last time.

there's gonna be a little delay in that but maybe you heard something since then I have not heard any updates since then we are moving forward though with projects on the the area east of 41 so I'm sure that those are ones that are a part of that

Okay, also crosswalks. I know we're going to discuss those later. Some that I haven't spoken about, but I feel like I see them so many times being used without a crosswalk, like a street being walked across. And I hate to pick on Leroy's, but I'm there a lot. So I notice people going between Leroy's and Artesia and just walking across the street. There's no crosswalk there. They don't go down to the corner of 41 and cross. A lot of people park way over at the Sheryl Harbor Events Center because that's the only parking that's available. Then they walk across Retta. Then they walk across. And so they're walking all the way down to go to wherever they want to, and there are no crosswalks. So I'm concerned at the Sullivan area, Olympia, and Marion, all the way down, everything that's parallel to 41.