Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good.

Good to you.

Okay, good morning.

Good morning.

We're here at the new Sarasota County Administration Center, and this will be our first joint meeting in our new facility. We're glad to do that with the City of Sarasota. If you're able, would you please stand? We let in the Pledge of Allegiance by Commissioner Smith. under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you i don't know there any opening comments uh from our county administrator this morning maybe a welcome yes sir just a couple logistic issues uh

So these mics are actually counterintuitive. They go red, not green, when they're live. And when you go to push it, you do need to give it a little second of delay. When the little light comes up on the mic, that means it's live. We do have, just because it's not necessarily intuitive where the bathrooms are, but essentially through this door are the men's and ladies' room over there. So this door is locked, and people are directed to come through this door just for the flow of the meeting. So we do welcome our friends from the City of Sarasota here today. We're very excited to have our first joint meeting in the new County Administration Center. We're very proud of the public meeting space that we have for it all on the first floor. And I was talking to the Commissioner and certainly the view in the back is a wonderful view as well. So we're very excited to have you all here today. We welcome you all and we're looking forward to the presentations and the discussion. Thank you, Chair.

Why don't we, let's just take a quick minute and run through the room, tell us your name, who you are and what your role is. So let's start with.

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Kathy Kelly Ulrich. I'm the Vice Mayor of the City of Sarasota.

I'm Tom Knight. I'm a county commissioner in District 3. And very quickly, I want to apologize for the hat. It was a medical procedure that I just do what my doctor tells me to do. So thank you for coming today.

Good morning. Joe Polzak, city attorney for the city of Sarasota.

Good morning. I'm Carrie Freiling. I am the newer city manager on my 105th day.

Jonathan Lewis, county administrator.

Joshua Moyet, County Attorney, Sarasota County.

Me next?

Go ahead.

Thank you. Debbie Trice, Mayor, Sarasota City of Sarasota.

Yeah, Mayor mentioned she has seven weeks left, and she seems quite happy. Is she counting them? Ron Kutzinger, Chair, Sarasota County Commission.

Jen Ahern Koch, Sarasota City Commissioner at Large.

I'm Theresa Mast. I am County Commissioner for District 1.

Liz Alpert. I'm Sarasota City Commissioner, District 2.

Mark Smith, Vice Chair and County Commissioner for District 2.

All right. Thank you all. And thank you for being here. Great way to break in the new facility. And I hope we have a great, I'm sure we will have a great joint meeting this morning. Why don't we go ahead and get right into it. Moving to agenda item one, which is joint discussion items. And we're going to start with our breeze transit updates. And we have Jane for the presentation.

Good morning. For the record, Jane Grog, Director Breeze Transit. Thank you so much for the time this morning, and it's my pleasure to provide an update on transit in our community, and specifically the relationship with the City of Sarasota. I truly value our partnership, especially in recent times with the Bay Runner, which I will touch on today amongst an overview of our service and ridership, give you an update on that as well as talking about what's on the horizon or what should be on the horizon for transit in our community. So starting at the highest level, sort of 30,000-foot level, Breeze is bus, trolley, on-demand, paratransit, transportation disadvantaged, and veteran transportation in our community. By ordinance, our authority covers the entire geography of Sarasota County. We have service agreements. with Manatee and Charlotte County for portions of our service that cross those county lines. Sarasota County is the designated recipient for transit grants, both from the Federal Transit Administration and the Florida Department of Transportation. You'll see on this slide some of the overall ridership and fare collections, some nice growth on ridership, and of course our partial year reported so far. This year-over-year comparison on the total ridership shows 2026 as the dark blue bars higher than both previous years. And you can see that sort of seasonal pattern that we observe with our service through our community. What you might notice is A little bit of a change at the end of April, that's when the 76 Flyer, that was the trolley from downtown Sarasota to SRQ, stopped, and there was a trimming of the Siesta Islander to stay on key only. But then, oddly enough, in June, we had one of the highest June riderships on that Siesta Islander, almost 55,000 trips on that, where that was... quite a bit higher with the quarter at 30% higher than the prior year. So quite a bit of ridership on that. And so you see kind of a high number, especially for June and July, lots of tourists affecting that as well. So if we zoom in to the City of Sarasota and the service that is happening in this area, you can see numerous bus and trolley routes. 13 of our 16 routes touch city boundaries. And of course the ADA service, that's the Supportive Service, covers a three-quarter mile buffer around all of those routes and one of the on-demand zones serves downtown Sarasota, Lido, St. Armands, and Bird Key. That's shown in green, and you will see that in another slide in a moment. I like this graphic and geographic representation of some of the ridership in the city of Sarasota. To sort of orient you, it's a slightly turned look at a map of the city of Sarasota. And the bar graphs are a representation of the number of boardings at each stop. So you'll see the tallest bars representing the highest volume of boardings. And the most notable, of course, are at the Downtown Transfer Station and the Siesta Crossings or, as I will always remember, at the Southgate Mall. I added a note there also about the Bay Runner and its specific ridership, 123,000 last year. And year to date, we're already at 147. So nice growth on that one as well. Our on-demand service has grown year over year. We have seen some cooling of demand since July of 2025. You might notice that a bit more in one of the future slides. We attribute that to a new fare structure that went into effect in July of 25 that was both by design to adjust the resources and the amount of demand for that service and increase the revenues, and it definitely has done that for us. And as you may recall, the on-demand service is a point-to-point rideshare service. It covers the most busy, densest, intense part of downtown Sarasota. And riders can request a ride through the app. You've got screenshots here of that or calling. That fare structure, the first three miles is $3 with an extra dollar for additional miles up to a maximum of six. I'll just show you the map now of that. Because of the shape of that zone, it's so long, due to longboat key, it's difficult to show all that area in one place. So you see sort of a split version with an inset of the downtown area in the upper right corner there. But riders can set their destination anywhere in this green zone. Examples could be from a parking garage downtown to your favorite restaurant, or it could be from the downtown transfer station to a job at one of the resorts on Longboat Key. It also goes to Coquina Beach in Manatee County, so you could, if workers are coming from Manatee, they could come that direction as well, or maybe a visitor wants to go to St. Armands in that area. Traditionally, we see about nine to 10% of all the trips in this zone staying out on the barrier islands, starting and ending out there, and another nine to 10% staying in the downtown core there. So that means that about 80% of all the trips in the zone are going across the Ringling Bridge. So this statistic is, leading our thoughts about potential interconnections and efficiency of the whole system. We're considering how to encourage or potentially require intermodal trip making. Travel time across the bridge for this service is time and resources for the service. So one of the concepts that we're looking at is using the Bay Runner that is always running back and forth in that central corridor and are there ways to focus the on-demand service along the barrier islands and then, Also investigating what's the best way to serve the few trips that are happening downtown. So is there a way to take the most advantage of the existing service of the Bay Runner crossing that bridge and focus that on-demand service in the areas where it's still needed? Here are some statistics of that Lido longboat zone. You can see on the left side there's a map that is showing the top destinations. It's a heat map, so the more intense the color, the more trips that are selecting that as the destination. And then the totals and chart are for all of 2025 and then year to date so far this year for comparisons. And you might notice in the ridership by hour, which is the one that looks like two mountains, you've got two major peaks for trips. And that's the busiest time of the day, both in this zone and really across most of our services is that a.m. and p.m. peak time. The total volume of trips in this zone is not very large, so there's a low amount of driver and vehicle resources allocated to this particular zone, and alternative travel choices to those peak times could be planning your trip a little bit before or a little bit after the trip or the option of the Bay Runner that serves really the center line of at least the southern portion of that zone and being able to make those trips when you need to the geography of the zone being long linear stretch along major corridors just creates a long return time for for those vans that are out on the service and so those are the types of challenges that we're looking at how do you make it better how do you make it a better experience for the rider or how do you make it more cost effective for the community and balancing those sometimes competing issues. I mentioned Breeze Plus. This is our paratransit service. It is supportive in nature to the riders. It is based on eligibility for those riders. Riders with disabilities that limit them from being able to use a fixed route bus or trolley service, they can take curb to curb trips within an area that is three quarters of a mile from any of those fixed route lines due to sort of the compactness of the city and the 13 routes I mentioned earlier that touched that. Almost the entire city boundary is covered by that ADA service area because there is service in that area. BreezePlus also supports our transportation disadvantaged riders outside of the ADA zone. So whether maybe someone lives in the ADA area and they have an appointment or a need to travel outside of that, TD could cover that, for example. That eligibility is based on riders who have no other means to make the trip, they're unable to do that for themselves and having a qualifying condition of either being over 65, determined to have a disability or limited financial means. This past spring, We began a commingled service of the on-demand and the plus trips. The intent there is to provide flexibility to our contractor in an effort to gain efficiency so they can use all the available resources of the drivers and the vehicles for both services to address the highest need and, of course, prioritizing those regulatory required ADA trips first. Similar information, this is the county overall breeze plus trips. You'll see a more pronounced peak in the afternoon and slightly earlier. It's more like 2 p.m. And the heat map on the left where you see the most popular destinations across the county. All right, let's turn to the Bay Runner. It's very faint on this, but on the computer screen, you could see the dash line. That was the data that the city staff has shared with us and FDOT, tracking that sort of seasonality. You really see the up and down flow of the ridership on that service. And it's similar to how the Siesta Islander was until, of course, I mentioned this June when we had a record June and July. Bree's staff tracks the compliments and complaints for the Bay Runner as well. And I reviewed the very few comments that we do have. And I've noticed that most of the things that are categorized are actually questions about, The most common things are where do I catch the trolley, when does it operate, and other operational questions about time of day and logistics. So pleased to see that positivity continue about and around the Bay Runner. Earlier this year, Bree's staff shared with city staff the projected cost for the Bay Runner for fiscal year 27. As both the city and the county know, FDOT has a set grant amount that they are offering. And in the past, they've said that state fiscal year 27 is their last committed year. won't prohibit us from asking again and we will likely do that jointly with city staff as well to see if we can continue some kind of contribution from FDOT. And then there are two items that have the potential to impact the city's invoice or the city's share of that service this coming year. One is we're in the last year of extension with the contractor for this service, and the contract allows a provision for a negotiation of rate. We are working, they do both the Siesta Islander and the Bay Runner, so we're trying to get the best cost for the community in both. And then the other potential impact is the speed or the rate at which the FDOT grant is consumed and used over that time. Looking forward and shifting gears a bit, what's on the horizon? City staff has shared great project information with Bree's staff and invited comments on several transportation-related projects, mentioned some of them here. There are also others. Bree's staff shared input on the Main Street concept plan I'd say most notably mentioning the preferred travel lane widths of 11 feet or more. Our mere tip to mere tip on the vehicles is about 10 and a half feet, so it makes us nervous when those travel lanes are narrower. And I will say that mere strikes are probably the most prevalent incidents or accidents that I see of our service, and that's That's a good thing, right? Very minor, and sometimes they can just adjust the mirror and keep going, but it is something that we want to keep to a minimum when we can. Bree's staff has also shared insights on locations of stops along Main Street, especially in relation to parked cars. We don't want to drop people off next to parking. parallel parked cars. It's not as safe. And looking at sort of co-location of the places where there are neck outs, you know, the main street sort of has that where the crosswalks are now, and just making sure that the design incorporates the safest approach possible going forward. Excuse me. City staff has also invited and incorporated breeze feedback in potential development reviews. One notable one is related to the Siesta Crossings and Siesta Drive area. I'm going to show you the next slide and then come back for the end of this. I've got some images for you related to that. There are currently seven positions that we manage at that Siesta Mall location, and this is a very busy transfer location. Thank you so much. The current configuration has two standard shelters that are small for the volume of passengers and quite an awkward and uneven service in that area. There's a curb next to the road, a pad for boarding, and a sidewalk in between the grass. And Breeze would like long-term to make some improvements, but we've been waiting to see if and when and how the development plans will move forward. City staff has shared there's interest in also potentially designing Siesta Drive a little bit differently in that area. And I think a more accessible platform would be helpful. And if a new streetscape is designed, this is definitely a critical transfer point that's needed for the system. On the image you can see, for example, a shelter style we've used at Siesta Key Beach. It doesn't have to look like this. This is just somewhat modular. You can make it longer or smaller depending on your needs. Excuse me.

Sorry about that.

So I already touched on the intermodal issue. And finally, I'd like to touch on water transit. I understand the city project related to the docking or landing areas is on hold. And Bree's staff is not currently focused on water transit, but open to discussions about the topic. We've been with coordination meetings with city staff on that and especially interested that when city staff conducts the study for connecting to ground transportation, for us to be a part of that. And of course, currently on demand serves both sides of the bay there in the landing spots now. So if there's an interest going forward and how that might proceed, our staff is available to share our expertise as needed. And that is all of my remarks. Thankfully. Thank you. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you. All right. Any questions for Commissioner?

Do you want to take a second? You're okay? My question has to do with the Bay Runner. I know that the way the city was tracking it and the way you're tracking it, I think, is a little bit different. tracking ridership and how you know how many people are getting on and off, where they're originating and ending. So for the ridership numbers, I think that that's a really important statistic to have, and you're not tracking it the way the city was tracking it, correct?

You're doing something different? It is the same vendor. The same vendor. So I think for the most part, it is the same.

So that's the actual driver counting people? That is part of the tracking, yes. Okay. It's my understanding that on the breeze, should I give you a second? Do you want a lifesaver?

Mint. Mint?

It's okay. So it's my understanding that for the breeze that there was a relatively new system to track when folks got on and off where they originated and all of that. And a lot of that tracking helped really zone in on the numbers. so that we could analyze, you know, the number of people using the service. And that was really valuable information, especially for some of the more popular routes like 99. Is that technology in use for the Bay Runner? No.

The onboard passenger counter, the automatic passenger counters that's on all the buses is not currently on the trolleys. But we did include the Bay Runner route in our onboard passenger study that has been part of the entire system. And when that wraps up this fall, we should have some insights about riders and how they're making their trips and transferring. So that would provide some aspect of interconnectivity. And I think there is a potential to add automatic passenger counters, counting potentially, especially with a, in the new contract term as we're entering the last year. That could be something that we could add going forward as well.

Okay. Yeah. It's just important to have those numbers. And I know that it was so much more accurate when you had those counters. for some of those others and that was really valuable information. So, thank you very much.

Yes. We do audit the hand counting. So, do some testing against the driver observations for verification. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Jane. Oh, Mayor.

Thank you. I have two questions. One is I was excited to see that your ridership overall has increased, and I noticed that last year's ridership is equal to 10 months of this year. which is great, but I was wondering why the revenue from 10 months of this year was less than last year's revenue.

I could make some estimations and potentially that's something that we noticed as well when we put that slide together. One thing that I would like to look into further is also starting in July of 2025, Sarasota County agreed to respond to a request from Manatee County on Route 99 that we co-operate. It is the most voluminous, highest ridership route in the entire system that we have. We operate about 55, 60% of the trips, and Manatee is about 40 to 45% of those trips. We agreed to match their fare-free policy. on that particular corridor. And so what I'd like to do is go back and look at the number of trips in 25 compared to 26, because we had seven months of riders on that route in 25 and compare that with this year and see if that is potentially the main source. That's my suspicion. The other concept that staff talked about in preparing this was we're seeing a reduction in the average trip length in the on-demand service. And it may be, and I don't have quantifiable numbers, but it may be that the higher, fares for longer distances are encouraging riders to take shorter trips. And so perhaps there's a difference in that growth. You know, there's a bit of a change.

Well, thank you. I actually am a heavy user of 99 whenever I go to the airport. It's definitely cheaper than parking there, so appreciate that. My other question was about the Bay Runner, and I really like your idea about trying to integrate the use of the Bay Runner with other of your programs. modes of transportation. One of my concerns, and I hope this is something you will look into, is as a passenger getting off on one side of John Ringling Causeway, at a Bay Runner stop and trying to get across the causeway to your final destination, you're taking your life into your hands. So have you considered pursuing a pedestrian-activated crossing on John Ringling Causeway where the Bay Runner stops are?

That's a good point of interest to look into. I know that FDOT is in progress with their project for the entire length of the causeway. And I would need to look at those plans to both see what that includes, but also the opportunity. And we do this on all of our routes for riders who, even if it's a preference, a safety issue, or a physical challenge that they need assistance, encourage and allow those individuals to ride through the end and come back to get off on the side that they prefer, if that makes them feel more comfortable. But I think that's a great point, and I know there are some bicycle and transit enhancements in the FDOT project, and so I need to check on that. Thank you.

Okay. Mr. Oberg.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Are there factors that might influence or encourage FDOT to provide funding for the Bay Runner after the 27 fiscal year that we could maximize in our request?

We'll strategize on that and talk with city staff as well, and if there is a place for the two commissions. And I'm sure that even just support, you know, a letter of support is helpful. overall reduction in FDOT budget for transit. When I asked the District 1 multimodal administrator, he said there is an overall projected decrease for the entire department. I do know that for 2027, excuse me, 28, that there is a requirement for 50% match for all grants. This one particularly is over 50%. So we already meet that threshold. And I think they're trying to figure out ways to trim the overall budget. That's just to say, I think it's going to become more competitive going forward. So unless there's a, larger allocation at the state level, it's going to continue to be highly competitive.

So we don't want to do anything to drive the ridership down on Bay Runner, but has there been any consideration of charging a nominal fee?

Our staff has contemplated that periodically, both on our Siesta and what would that look like on the Bay Runner. The interlocal agreement between these two commissions includes consensus among the two commissions to pursue that. I think the formal steps are that the city commission would recommend that to the county commission. The county commission sets the actual fair resolution So it would be a two-part process that would require support for both commissions.

Gotcha. And one last question, please. I'm interested in marketing of the Breeze services, in particular for people who have conditions, they can't drive, and they need the service. How do you market it?

We've got a partner vendor that we use to help us with some of our marketing. You may have noticed in the last couple weeks that we've been promoting our new onboard fare payment system and that you can send a pass to someone Through that, we use those types of campaigns. We've done that for some of our eligibility-type services as well and developed sort of a multimedia approach to doing that. But I think that it's also important for us to use our partnerships and our interpersonal connections, talking with community associations, or stakeholder groups. We stay in contact with various organizations like Senior Friendship Center or Lighthouse or the Pines or, you know, different community groups. So always happy to use those stakeholder connections to help share the word with their members or clients, whatever their organization might be, to sort of explain how it works and walk them through how to become certified as eligible for those services.

Well, I have a lot more thoughts on this, but I'll stop.

Mr. Smith. Yeah, I was wondering if we had, I don't know, we kicked it around a a couple of times, Jane, having to do with maybe advertising on the trolleys to help pay for the service. I know there's, I've been approached by folks who would like to do that and didn't know if this FDOT funding fades away, that that may not be an option for us to help offset the cost.

Very good. There is currently a county, I believe it's a resolution, that prohibits the advertisement on the, a third party advertisement on the vehicles. During the brand transition, we definitely wanted to make the brand featured. But going forward, if the board would like to look at that, last year our staff prepared an alternative revenue study. I can recirculate that. And it talked about, also the cost of managing advertisements. So it's not, you know, reap 100% of the revenues from those, but just try to provide experience of other agencies who do advertising on transit vehicles and the manner in which and some of the administrative costs of managing that to give some perspective of is this worth the effort and worth the cost of advertising. encroaching on your brand as well. And so that's certainly a policy decision that staff tries to provide information, but I'll be happy to recirculate that.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Good comments. Appreciate you back in. Thank you, Jane. Let's move to item B on the agenda, 1B, long-term plan for a potential city park district in the city of Sarasota.

That's me. All right. Chairman, Mayor, Commissioners, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to be here together today. As someone relatively new to this table and this community, I think I just wanted to say that one thing that's become very clear to me in my short tenure here is how interconnected the city and the county is. We share the same residents and we serve the same residents. And our residents do not experience, as we all know, government based on jurisdictional line. And so, again, thank you for allowing us to be here today. And I think the agenda today demonstrates this shared collaboration opportunity. I'm going to briefly talk about something that our city commission has asked myself as well as Mr. Polzak to begin investigating and researching as it relates to our parks, our recreational amenities. our open lands, and also preparing strategically for the long-term future of those, not just today, but for the next 20, 30, 50 years. So one of the things that we are currently investigating and researching, and we're at a very preliminary stage right now, is the possibility of the city creating a separate, what we call a parts district. And basically the policy objective that the city is looking at is how do we create a district that protects, maintains, and approves and expands our parks, our recreational assets, our beaches, and open space for future generations, and also allow us to have a financially sustainable funding strategy long term. I've included today just a figure here on our current parks and recs budget, which is around $12.5 million. Our Parks and Rec budget is our second largest city department that is funded out of the city's general fund. And this also number does not include any of the capital expenditures that we also undertake as part of our capital or CIP program. So someone may ask, well, why are we looking at this today? And I think the answer is pretty obviously. We all know that we're facing growth pressures, continued development, pressures from development, And this only shows that our parks and our open spaces and our recreational amenities are even more valuable today because of that pressure that's being exerted on the city and actually on the county too. And we know that we need to do something now if we can protect these assets long-term into the future. We also know that every single, I've only been here 105 days, but I've learned very quickly that there are a lot of things, curveballs I call them, that get sent to us, whether it's the city or the county, that we have to respond to. Restrictions on what we can do with our money, restrictions on certain preemptions. And we also know that our municipal revenue streams are becoming more stressed every single day. How do we fund everything that we want to fund? And one of the things I will share, and I've been sharing this as I've been going out throughout the community, is I've been listening to reoccurring themes. So as the new city manager of the city of Sarasota, I want to know what is the priorities for our community that we serve. And there's two items, and they both happen to be on the agenda today, that I've been hearing over and over again. And obviously this parks, how do we protect our parks? Not just what we have today, but the opportunity to expand them too in the future and provide more open space and more amenities for our residents both today and the future. So we're really looking at this through a long-term, long-range planning strategy. How do we plan today to protect the future for tomorrow? There's a couple avenues and paths that we're pursuing legally. We're in a very early investigation phase of this, but I just wanted to make sure that since we're meeting today and we're having collaboration and we're communicating with each other, That this is something that you're aware we're going to be starting talking about more publicly in the public realm. Public input is very important for the city of Sarasota. And so we want to make sure that as we begin this path, and literally we are in the initial first step of it, but we have gotten a request from our commission to investigate this and come back with the commission. on what this would look like and how it would be funded and what our strategy would be long term. It cannot be a one year plan. It has to be a today plan, a 20, 30, 50 year plan. And that's what we plan on doing next year. So these are just some of the next steps that we're going to be activating and we're going to be pursuing. We are going to be working very hard next year on what the city's overall strategic vision is for the city. And we know already that parks and recreation is a top priority for the residents that we serve. And so we're going to evaluate, and we've already begun doing this between myself and Mr. Polzak, what is the legal structure where we could actually put this in place? And then how do we actually identify a funding, sustainable, long-term structure where we can take care of what we have today, we can continue to reinvest in our capital programs, for our parks and open space and recreational amenities, whether that's a community center, whether it's the beach, whether it's a neighborhood park. But then also, are there future opportunities where we can go out and acquire land and preserving additional land as we continue to see this redevelopment and this growth happening throughout the city? And then through this entire process, we're going to be engaging with our public. We want to listen. We want to hear, we want their input and how this can be structured as we continue to go forward. I just included, this is where we're at today. We have 64 recreational facilities. We have a total of 747. As the county commissioners are aware, you take care of some of our parks and lands and our beaches that we own. You know, we have an interlocal agreement with the county. We're going to have to go and look at that as well. We have all heard pressures about other areas within the city. where our public wants us to do things with as well that we don't currently control, which I know is next on this agenda. So this all wraps together in what we're here today to talk about is how do we collaborate in the future? How do we keep the communication line open? And how do we determine what is best both for the city as well as the county? And I can answer any questions you have.

Okay. Any questions, comments on this? Seeing none, great presentation, and I think all of us are going to be looking at how do we deal with these things going forward, and it's something we're all facing.

It's not going to get easier.

Appreciate the collaboration on that. So let's go ahead and move on to item C, which kind of follows it up very well. Ted Sperling, Nora Patterson Park update. And for that, we have Shawn Yeager. Hi.

Good morning. And thank you for inviting me out to speak today on Ted Sperling Park and South Lido and Nora Patterson Bay Island Park update. So, again, my name is Shawn Yeager, and I'm the Director of Sarasota County Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources. And, again, thank you for inviting me out. So the background on this item is on January 13, 2026, the County Commission approved the 2026 Sarasota County Strategic Plan. The 2026 administration agenda within the plan included the item transfer ownership of Nora Patterson Bay Island Park and Ted Sperling Park at South Lido to the City of Sarasota. This item was viewed as having the potential to facilitate consistency in law enforcement and application of the city code, as well as other operational efficiencies based on the locations of the two parks within the city. Staff researched the background information of both parks and including the acquisitions, any potential deed restrictions and operating costs and revenues. Discussions and meetings were held with the City of Sarasota staff in early 2026.

Come on.

There we go. In March 2026, the City of Sarasota shared with the county a memo from the City of Sarasota staff recommending not to proceed with the transfer of Ted Sperling Park at South Lido or Nora Patterson Bay Island Park at that time. Current interlocal agreement for operations and maintenance of Lido and North Lido beaches remains active, as mentioned just now. The term of this agreement expires on September 30, 2028, and county staff continue to coordinate with the City of Sarasota and law enforcement partners on the management of both park sites. And here is Ted Sperling Park at South Lido. So the county owns this parcel and the property, and Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources operates Ted Sperling Park at South Lido. So again, this is located on Lido Key within the limits of the city of Sarasota, spanning more than 150 acres. The park consists of two main use areas with separate entrances. So Ted Sperling Nature Park in the north, and also South Lido Beach there at the south end. And South Lido Beach is located in the confluence of the Gulf, Big Sarasota Pass, Sarasota Bay, and Brushy Bayou, and creates a dynamic, high-energy area with strong currents. Due to the strong currents from these converging waters, South Lido Beach is not designated as a swimming or bathing area. And again, that yellow line outlines the park, and you can see the main visitor use areas. So for instance, the northern portion of the park provides visitor parking, restrooms, and is home to the Commercial Recreation Tour Operator Program, which is our CRTO, where permitted operators offer kayak and paddleboard rentals to park visitors. On the east side, you will see the park's nature trails, and there's also trails that meander through the middle of the park and offer walkers views of Bushy Bayou or Brushy Bayou. There's some amazing orchids through there, too, if you keep an eye out. The southern use area provides visitors with parking, picnicking, and a playground. Also has white sand beach, restroom, outdoor showers, and offers access to the bay, golf, and views of Big Pass. It is this area that receives the largest volume of visitors on any given day and where we work with law enforcement partners with the city of Sarasota, Sarasota County Sheriffs, Contracted Security, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, FWC, to support our staff with law and rule enforcement out there. So how was this acquired? So back in 1973, there was a bond election, and Resolution 73-201 provided the issuance of a general obligation bond to finance the cost of acquiring additional open space and lands for recreational purposes in the county. So included beach property located in Southend Aledo, right there, and Otter Key, and a beach property on Manasota called Casperson Beach. All right, so existing amenities out there. The beach portion on the south has elevated restrooms, office space for staff out there, playground, picnic facilities, trails, boardwalks, parking, more organized parking now. The playground was replaced in 19, or I'm sorry, 2018, and as part of the donation from Wear Angels Play Foundation. Again, hurricane damage and most of the 2024 storm recovery repairs have been completed, except for repairs to an overlooked pier on Brushy Bayou. So as you're walking out there, you might not actually get out to that. But the trail is amazing. A contract to complete the work is in place and currently in the design phase. The park was issued, or I'm sorry, used as a sand sifting location for the quay. And that, what is sand sifting? So sand sifting is, when the storms came through and the impacts from those storms pushed tons of sand up on the key, as you know. And so that sand was scooped up, trucked down to South Lido and sifted to remove the heavy debris and that construction debris. That was hauled off to the landfill and that clean sand was then pushed, either pushed back out onto the beach and recovered or used elsewhere within the county. So what that did is provided the opportunity to speed up recovery for the community out there and help preserve those resources and the sand resources. The park was reactivated to the public for our local spring break in spring 2025. Recent park improvements, there's dangerous current signs were reinstalled in strategic locations throughout the park. Replacement of waste receptacles were recently reinstalled throughout the park. Bollards were replaced to delineate portions of the parking lot and prevent unauthorized vehicle access to the picnic environmentally sensitive areas as well. and better organize the parking out there. And a little more, let's see, in a little over a year, more than 30 trees, native trees were replanted out there. Operating costs. This is a chart from fiscal year 2022 through 2025. And it's actually, it's stacked, but it's, you can picture it as if it's end-to-end linear on the, throughout each one of those years, 22 through 25. So these figures are for the overall park, which includes the beach and nature parks. Additional considerations are that the vehicles listed service all beach parks on Lido Key. So Lido Beach, part of the interlocal, as well as North Lido Beach for our staff. Also includes lifeguard stand maintenance. That maintenance is done in-house. Playground inspections and maintenance that also done in-house. Bless you. Quarterly nuisance plant management in-house. Costs reflect contractual services and do not include grants or other funding. As I mentioned, the Commercial Recreation Tour Operators Program, the CRTO program, this identifies the revenues associated with those operations and has been updated through July of 2026. We also have a mobile vending program set up out there, or MVP. 2024, let's see, we only had one out there. Well, the reasons why, we had a couple hurricanes, so we had one person willing to go out. But that has increased significantly in the last two years. And for not familiar, MVP mobile vending, that's providing like a food truck or sundry items or whatever for the visitors that are out there. North Patterson Bay Island Park. So the county owned and operated portion of North Patterson Park is approximately 1.5 acres. The park is located at south side of Siesta Drive, west of the bridge to Siesta Key, and is within the city of Sarasota. On the north side of Siesta Drive, the city owns and operates additional parcels there in blue that together are over 0.8 acres and are also named Nora Patterson Bay Island Park. The sites are connected under the Siesta Bridge. This is a very popular waterfront park and is one of the sites that will be piloted as part of the new commercial water-based charter boat and tour operator program. Hopefully, we'll be rolling that out later this fall. The park name in 2015, the park was renamed from Bay Island Park to Nora Patterson Bay Island Park and dedicated to former Sarasota County Commissioner Nora Patterson, who served 16 years on the Sarasota County Commission and eight years on the Sarasota City Commission. Protection of the coastal environment and public water access were priorities for her while she was in office. The charter boat and tour operator program is planned, again, to begin technically in fiscal year 27, and the bid submission deadline for the invitation of bids and soliciting was August 18th. We received 22, and the program will be initiated following bid evaluations and formal contract awards. Existing amenities out there, accessible elevated restroom building, observation deck, beautiful views out there, picnic tables and benches. There's an electric gate. The parking and the bulkhead on the south and east sides of the park. So the elevated restroom building and other park improvements were completed and opened in November 2022. A plaque recognizing the Secret Architects Award of Excellence from the Florida Association of American Institute of Architects was installed at the restroom facility in April. A new composite bench was recently installed up there as well, and again, provides excellent views. The park was impacted by the 2024 hurricanes, and the 2024 hurricane recovery contract is in the design phase. And storm damage included some seawall bulkhead impacts and landscaping, the trail connection under the bridge as well. And our operating costs from fiscal year 2022 through 25 identified here. And I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I also have some staff here that are in support just in case I can't answer.

Mr. Smith. Thanks, Sean. I was wondering what the status is on the application or the permit the slow speed zone at ted's berlin park i know it's a arduous permitting process and wondered where we might be there right yeah we're going to be actually bringing that before the the uh before you coming up um yeah sir

Tuesday, yes, last day. But, so yeah, we'll provide that update, but just to bring before you some for your consideration and direction what we want to do for next steps. But the no speed item was not supported. Not supported by the FWC, so we're bringing other options to you for consideration.

Commissioner?

Yes. I had a question about the costs, if you could go to that. I see that there's a new one for 25, and it's security. It looks new here on this graph here. The security grounds, holidays, weekends, and it's $62,000. Right. How did that come about?

So we have, as you know, we have great support with the city of Sarasota Police Department out there. They're awesome and they do assist quite a bit on busy weekends, busy days. We also supplement that with sheriff's details. So the Sarasota County sheriffs, we set up details to go out there and assist us with coverage as well during busy weekends, holidays, spring break. And those details, that's a cost associated with that. Also, we've got security that assists us with gate closures each night. And then also on those busy weekends and holidays and spring break, we have security detail that helps us with routing traffic and rolling people, turning them around if the parking lot is full.

Okay, so that's new, but that's relatively new, right?

Newer, yes.

Okay. And have you seen positive results from that?

Absolutely, yeah, especially with the partnerships that we have with each of the law enforcement officers and that also not just on the land part, but out on the water, the Marine units from Sarasota Police Department, the sheriffs, and also FWC. So absolutely working in tandem and excellent communications and helps with that. Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Commissioner Knight.

Yeah. No, pretty much what Jen had asked us and what you said earlier, I just wanted to say thank you because I vote a lot and I go up in there and certainly a change of behavior and the voting patterns of those folks up in there now since it's been enhanced. So thanks for doing that. Thanks to the city of Sarasota. I see your boats out there a lot when I go up in there. So it's amazing. It seems like the bad actors aren't there anymore. Maybe they've gone back to Orlando, wherever they were coming from. So certainly I, you know, I don't see numbers like I used to, but certainly thanks for the coordination of them. the governmental bodies in fish and wildlife. And I go up in there and I can certainly see the difference in the boating behavior now compared to 18 months ago or a year ago. So certainly a significant change in the type of people boating up in there now than then. So it's amazing when the You get your Sarasota PD boats up in there and stuff, and it changes and kind of displaces them somewhere else, but that's a good thing. So just keep them off the park and keep them out of the area and make it safe for everybody. Thanks, Sean, for what you're doing out there.

Yeah, it's absolutely a great team that we get to work with out there. Are you sure you have a follow-up? I do.

I had a question about the slide on page three. Maybe this is for our city manager who probably, I don't know if she's aware of it, but the bullet item that says in March 26, the city of Sarasota shared with the county a memo from the city of Sarasota staff recommending not to proceed with the transfer of Ted Sperling Park. Can I get some background and some clarity on that?

Yeah, that was before my time, so I might need Attorney Polzak to help us, or Jerry's here as well in the audience, our Parks and Recreational Director. I do believe that happened, but I believe subsequently you have gone back to, and this was before I arrived as a city manager, and asked us actually to re-engage with the county staff to have some additional conversations, and we've actually already held one of those meetings already. So that was originally what was done, but then you guys went back and said, hey, we would be willing to have additional conversations. So those conversations had already started, and the county administrator and I have met with staff on this as well.

But the origin of that March 26th, do you have any clarity on that?

Yeah, Commissioner, that was generated by the prior city manager. And then subsequent to that, as Frayling mentioned, the commission directed me to reopen discussions with the county, which I contacted my counterpart, the county attorney, and We scheduled a meeting between the county administrator and the city manager, as Ms. Furonga mentioned.

And what is the timeline for this discussion? What are we envisioning?

Well, that's a good question because it's all tied up in everything we're talking about today. It's tied up in our plans for a special parks district. It's tied up in the impacts of Amendment 3. So we're going to continue to work together collaboratively, but I don't anticipate this is anything that's going to happen relatively quickly. but it's certainly something that as we're looking at the larger picture, we know we need to factor this in.

And when you say relatively quickly, what can we anticipate? What can our community anticipate as far as this conversation, the timeline that it goes through? This would be the first time that I would be experiencing the transfer of a park from a county to the city. And I have no idea what to anticipate as far as the timeline goes. It is a A year, is it 10 years? It's not 10 years, but go ahead.

Sorry, if I, so I think it was, maybe it was 2018, 2020, where we transferred a bunch of parks back to the city under the previous agreement.

Yes.

And certainly the city manager and I, we had the four of us had that initial discussion. I think I missed the detail that you, I knew you guys had directed the city attorney. I didn't know it was a, I don't think I understood it was as firm as that, but I think we both think some of this has caught up and we got to see where amendment three is going to go. And, you know, currently the agreement expires in 2028. So I think, Certainly something has to be contemplated well in advance of that. But, you know, we've typically, since I've been at the county, whether it was Northport or now the city of Venice or first with the city of Sarasota, as parks have transitioned, whether they were city-owned parks that the county was maintaining, they transferred back to the city or they were I guess we haven't necessarily had a county-owned facility that transferred to the city specifically. We did it in a phased approach. That seemed to work for the cities at the time. Now, in the city of Venice's case, the phased approach was we waited until the end. We met. We worked out the details. It works based on the expiration rate of our overall interlocal park agreement. And then there's some other items that are provided for. City of Northport chose a different path. It just was, it was, I guess, a meat cleaver. When the agreement ended, they took them all back. So I would anticipate, and I think we had a little bit of conversation on, in a reasonableness kind of standpoint, some kind of phasing would have to happen. But again, you know, I think we'll know more in November.

Well, and I would just add to that is, you know, regardless of what happens with Amendment 3, the park district concept that we just talked about is really having to figure out what is the actual financial need, not just of our existing assets, but taking over additional ownership of additional open space, as well as tying in with the expiration in 2028 of the parks and the beaches that the county already takes care of us. So I anticipate, you know, by the time we get to when the expiration of this agreement would be, which would be 28, we would have all that worked out. The commission would make the decisions. Okay, this is the path forward. This is the instrument in which to implement it. And then this is the funding source of how we're going to take care of it. All bundled in together.

Right.

And I do stand corrected. I was on the commission when we got the parks back. And the reason why it doesn't stand out to me is because it was pretty seamless. I mean, it was pretty seamless.

That was the intent, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. So, and it was pretty quick as well. So are we keeping the eye on 2028? Is that sort of working it out between here and then?

I think that makes sense because as we know, that agreement is going to expire. And so we would need to either do a new agreement or let it expire. And our concept is, okay, as part of all this, put it all together. But my primary concern is how do we fund everything moving forward? And that's the bigger question for the Parks District being developed.

Yeah, I think it's a bigger question for lots of us, for lots of things. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. All right. Thanks, Sean.

Great presentation.

Moving to discussion item D, Legacy Trail North Extension, City of Sarasota and Sarasota County. And Spencer Anderson is with us.

Good morning.

There you go.

Okay, here we go. Good morning. My name is Spencer Anderson. I'm the Sarasota County Transportation Director and County Engineer. Today, I'll be speaking on a more global look at the connection of the Legacy Trail from a connection from the Legacy Trail to Nathan Benerson Park. There's some multiple parts to that, which I'll tag team with the City Public Works Director, Nick Patel. That'll give you some more details about that. on the piece within Bobby Jones. I would like to take a moment and acknowledge former County Commissioner Charles Hines in the audience. He is now with the Trust of Public Lands and is a tenacious champion of getting things done on our trail network. So I know we've been working very closely with Mr. Hines and getting everything done and making connections, not just in the Sarasota County and the city, but also regionally on the Gulf Coast Trail. So as we work to make the connection from the Legacy Trail to Nathan Benderson Park, there's multiple pieces to it. The map on the screen shows this. On the bottom left is the existing Legacy Trail. Moving north, you come up Boniva Road. And with former County Commissioner Hines' assistance and multiple stakeholders, there was a very collaborative effort to build the MERT along Boniva Road from the Legacy Trail up to Fruitvale Road. And that was actually done with very private funding. The construction was privately funded. The county provided the design for that project. But it was done last year, very successful, and it is now in service to get that connection up to Fruitvale Road. The next is the existing connection along the Circus Trail within the city north to Bobby Jones Golf Course. And the yellow piece is an upcoming piece that Nick will provide more details on that does transit directly through Bobby Jones Golf Course. Under construction is the teal portion, which is on 17th Street Park property. That's going to be a new connection that gets us up to 17th Street. And then that will then finally, the last piece is the maroon color that we'll get from 17th Street Park up to Nathan Benderson Park. And that also has been very collaborative. We have really worked closely with the MPO, who is providing a significant portion of funding for that project. And it is under design and scheduled to start completion next year. Just as an overview of all those, here is the distances and the timing for each. And we're really looking forward to getting the pieces from the county side and 17th Street Park and also along 17th Street and Honore Avenue connected. And that'll be a really, really great connection from the Legacy Trail to a major concentration center of activity at Nathan Benderson Park. And then ultimately, as we have future projects that will connect further east into Lakewood Ranch. That's my piece. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them.

Okay. Any questions for Spencer? Commissioner Smith?

Yeah, Spencer, I know we're not talking about this right now, but extending Legacy Trail through the railroad corridor and taking it north into the Newtown area. Are we anywhere with that and making that happen?

There are ongoing conversations with that. Nick may have some better details than I do, possibly. But we have had coordinations meeting with the city and the Trust for Public Lands to work on planning and the next steps for that potential. Thank you, Spencer. Thank you very much.

Good morning. Nick Patel, Public Works Director for the Record with the City of Sarasota. Good morning, Mayor, Chair, Commissioners, and members of the public. I'll begin with two trail connections that would expand within our community.

Thanks.

There we go. So the first project I'm going to talk about is Circus Trail Extension. Connects Fruitvale Road through the Nature's Park at Bobby Jones towards the County 17th Street Park, which is a regional park. We secured $1.1 million through Sarasota Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization and Florida Department of Transportation. These funding bring federal aid requirements, and therefore the schedule must account for this. It may seem like a simple project, but all the federal requirements are causing it to be completed by 2028. That's our plan. Our plan is to, right now we're at 30% plans and we're going to complete it by the end of the year. Then we're going to do a lap agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation to move this project along to design it to 100%. And the good news is that we have money for all the construction for the project. and we anticipate completing in 2028. I want to thank, again, as Spencer mentioned, Trust for Public Lands and Charles Hines for the partnership on this, and thank you to Friends of Legacy Trail for supporting completion of the Boniva Trail to Legacy Trail itself. The next project is the North Sarasota Trail, and this is in draft concept. It extends the Lexie Trail north through Newtown. The city, county, regional transportation partners, and Trust Republic Lands are working together on this project, and the route, property access, and funding must be resolved before we can commit to moving this project forward. That includes continued coordination with Trust of Public Lands as well as Seminole Gulf. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Commissioner Over.

Thank you. Mr. Patel, as you know, the circus trail is in my backyard, and I've probably been on that trail more than anybody else in this room.

Mm-hmm.

Is it going to receive any upgrade? It keeps saying it's existing. It's sort of a mess.

So just to be clear, it's not going to be a sidewalk. It's going to be a trail. So we're looking to have at least 12 foot of sidewalk, well, multi-use trail at least. There's some tight right of way specifically in Circus Trail Road specifically, but we're doing everything we can to at least have a 12 foot wide multi-use trail.

So it won't be that same old sidewalk that's been there for 800 years or so.

That's correct. And it's going to be most likely asphalt because it's connected as part of the bigger trail.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nick, can you give us a general timeline of the trail going through North Sarasota? What you're looking, what is your projected timeline for that? What can we expect?

There is no projected timeline. We're still in the early discussions with, Trusted Public Land is working with all the partners together, Mr. Heinze's specifically. There's no timeline because it's a, you know, we have to work with Seminole Gulf Railway specifically on specifics and the costs associated with it, easements. There's a lot of things that need to be worked out before we could even, determine how we're going to even not only figure out what the route is, but also to build, design, and, you know, construct the whole trail. And maintain. And maintain it as well.

Okay. So just very early stages then?

That is correct, yes.

Is it, in your professional opinion, something that's achievable?

I think the biggest challenge associated with this project specifically is going to be cost. And it's up to the, you know, public taxpayers to determine how we're going to pay for this. So, I would say the biggest challenge associated with this project is how are we going to pay for this? And, you know, it's not going to be a small cost associated with that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Battea, are you on the?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. Have you decided which railroad line that it would travel up through Newtown, either Central or Leonard Reed?

So conceptually, this is the preferred route. Specifics is going to be worked out as we work through, how we're going to work with Seminole Gulf. And again, Mr. Hines is specifically working on those details. But this is just a rough concept. I don't want to say that this exact route itself, but this is just a conceptual stage that the routes could specifically change. But ultimately, the goal is to get it through Newtown all the way to the airport and connecting University Parkway at that location. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anything further?

All right. Thank you. Great presentation. Look forward to seeing that move forward. Thank you. We're excited about an overpass taking the trail all the way over east and even into Lakewood Ranch and what that would mean. So, good things happening. All right. With that, let's move on to joint discussion item E, which is discussion I think we've all been talking a lot about lately here. Amendment 3, and we have the Office of Financial Management, and is Kim Radke here? Is Kim? No? We want to start. We'll start with the city manager.

That's me again.

That's good.

Well, I was here three days, officially on the job, and Amendment 3 popped up on the radar screen, and the vote was taken to put this on the ballot. So obviously everything we've been talking about today is really about how we can afford to do the things that our citizens want us to do. So I'm just going to provide a brief update on what it means for the city of Sarasota as far as we know today, right? Because as we all know, there's a lot of unknowns that we don't know. So in terms of the impact to our general fund budget, I've included up here in the pie chart It kind of explains to you how we fund our various departments and operations out of our general fund. Obviously, our largest department that we fund is our police department, which is 48% of the money that we collect. Our second one, as I mentioned earlier, when we were talking about the parks and recreational departments, amenities is our Parks and Recreation as well. The 30% other is basically all the other various departments similar to the county has. know it's our public art staff it's our um finance staff it's our hr people it's my department it's you know all the support that we do the smaller departments are locked into the other which is the 30 so i just want to clarify that so we collect about 59 million dollars a year through our property tax revenue i would say that prior to the impacts of the hurricanes in 2024 The city commission had a very, very good track record of being very conservative, not that they aren't today, they are, about reducing our millage rate when the opportunities were provided. But obviously with the impacts of the hurricanes that we had in 2024, Our reserves took a significant hit. And so now we are in the process of trying to build those back up. We are projected by the end of the next fiscal year that we will be back within the range of what the policy has been set by the city for our minimum fund balances for our reserves. So one of the things that we do is as we try to build those up is any savings we have over the course of the year go into that as well. So 42% of the properties within the city corporate limits are homesteaded. But as we all know, this referendum does not just address the homestead, it addresses the non-homestead properties as well. which reducing the cap in terms of increase in fair market value. And obviously we are concerned, as I'm sure the county is, what does this mean as they get into the rulemakings and what things we may not know that could impact our finances long-term. So just to provide a little bit of impact on what this means to the city in terms of impact, you know, $5.6 million means the equivalent of 37 police officers, the equivalent of 47 full-time staff positions, the entire streets and highway budget, our entire, you know, one and a half times our engineering budget. So this is something that, you know, we've run the numbers to understand really what this in totality, what that would equate to. So what are we doing now? I call it the three-legged stool. As soon as I got here and this vote was taken, we immediately began working internally within the city to work with our department directors and all of our staff to identify areas where we could reduce services if we needed to and then cut costs. Look at other opportunities to increase user fees and other revenue sources. Again, we talked about the Park District as a possible option. And then the third thing we're doing, which will take more time and can't be done in just the one or two years that we're talking about with the impacts of Amendment 3, is really taking a look at how we're organized, how we do business, how we do the business of the people, and see if there's more efficient, effective ways to do that. And I've just included a few examples. of some of the things that we're doing right now. I have put as a city manager, we are under a hiring freeze for positions that are funded out of the general fund. I review each and every position to determine whether it should be filled or it needs to be held. And we have quite a few positions right now that are held in abeyance until we know the impacts of November 3rd. And a lot of those are already beginning to impact the quality of level of services that we provide to our community.

Okay. Any questions on that? If not, I'll call Kim up and we'll talk about what it means for the county.

Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, I'm Kim Radke, the Director of Office of Financial Management. Thank you very much. All right. So I'm here today to cover the impact from the county's perspective. So here just shows basically the first part, which we all know would take effect in fiscal year 28 if it passes. on the 150 homestead, which I know that there's conversations that I know out there in the public, people think that this is 150 in totality, but it is 150 on top of the already 50,000 homestead exemption that is... part of your tax bill already. This here is basically to show the different funds within the county that are impacted by the property tax or that have property tax revenue associated with them. And as you can see up there, I'm not sure that the public knows that our emergency medical services, the professionals that provide that service, are part of your property tax bill. And you can see there that first year there would be an impact of almost 6.2 million that would be on that. Also important to notice is our environmentally sensitive land programs. So we have an operating component. But also from a debt perspective, as we all know, we're legally required to pay our debt first. And you do have debt associated with the environmentally sensitive lands as well as the legacy trail. And of course, you can see there that there's also an impact to our mosquito control for a total of almost 47 million in that first year, which is about a loss for the county of about 11% of our revenue. Going into the year two, if it passes, you can see that it's almost a $90 million. This is our estimates, of course. And within there, you can see, again, the emergency medical services is just over $11 million of an impact, as well as a total there for all of our funds of almost $90 million, which is about a 20% impact to the county. This is for illustrative purposes. We do share this with our board on a regular basis. It does show the percentage breakdown of the total general fund and those services provided or those budgets within the general fund and their proportionate share of the total general fund budget. So you can see up there the board's portion of that as well as our constitutional officers. If you use that prior slide, again, this is illustrative, but using that prior slide with those proportionate shares, you can see they're making up that 87 million, you know, to reflect just that methodology. Again, just illustrative, nobody's saying this is how we would break it out, but just to put it into perspective of what that might look like from a proportionate share perspective of the total 87 million. So this here is our largest five departments within the county, starting, of course, with our transit, which you just heard about today, of course, parks and recreation and our libraries. Our general services, of course, is inclusive of facilities maintenance, which also includes jail facilities that we maintain. And then, of course, transportation, which is also another important department. But this is just to show that even with if you were to completely eliminate service for all of these top five, you just barely make that 90. And that's if the board decided, our board decided that they wanted the general fund to take the entire hit, because as you saw in the prior slides, our general fund proportionate share is about 68 million. So if, in fact, the board was to decide that, you can see there that those completely eliminating that funding for those top five departments, you're just coming in under the $90 million. And also, if you just look from a general fund perspective, those top three departments barely gets you there as well. So that would be eliminating funding for transit, parks, rec, and natural resources, and libraries. I just wanted to give a typical tax bill. We share this quite often in other scenarios. But on here for the $150,000, using an average tax bill or a typical tax bill of about $350,000. On the left there, you can see the breakdown that the folks see on their tax bill with the school board being at $25,000. And our current $50,000, you can see there the tax bill is about just about $3,600. If you look to the right in the green, when you take into effect the $150,000, and of course, keeping the school board at the $25,000, they are not inclusive in this. The tax bill is reduced by just over $500. to the tune of about $45 a month. And also, it's important to say this does not include non-advalorum assessments. This is just the millage portion of your tax bill. And again, this is the same example, but utilizing the $250 on this. And if you can see there on the left, the same amount of $3,600, but then you go where you reduce it about another $500, so a total of $1,000 or about $85 to $90 a month. Again, not including non-invaluable assessments. We thought it was important to show under the next two slides, and this is not an all-inclusive list, but this is some of the services that are provided using property tax dollars. Of course, you can see there you have your constitutional officers are on this list, like the clerk of circuit court and comptroller, the sheriff, property appraiser. supervisor of elections. You also have on there, of course, again, the emergency medical services, libraries, parks. We do offer a free trolley at Siesta Key. Your lifeguards, I'll say kind of what our county administrator has said, pickleball. That is my favorite, so that will impact me, but also other courts, such as tennis courts and basketball courts. And, of course, again, the jail operations are paid out of that, your social services. We also have a program where we enhance some roadside maintenance of our DOT roads. And let me see if this will move forward. There we go. Beaches, which we all love our beaches, the on-demand services you just heard Jane present, ball fields, code enforcement, transportation infrastructure, we do subsidize that with utilizing general fund to the tune of approximately 30%, summer camps, and veteran services. And that is all my slides, and I'll take any questions.

All right. Any questions, thoughts on Amendment 3? All right. Commissioner Howard.

Thank you. This is not a question, a comment. I just applaud the county staff and the city staff for planning ahead for the unknown. And I know it's hard to do, but I think you've done as best as you can do. Thank you for that. Thank you.

Mr. Knight. Just one comment is not our responsibility, but is a huge impact to us here, is that we have one of four public hospital systems in the state with a hospital board. And I think SMH will take a $43 million impact by Amendment 3. So with the demographics of the people that move here for great health care, people retiring here, who want to live in our community and the growth of our community. That would be a huge drain on our hospital system here locally. It doesn't affect us as a board, but it certainly affects the people they serve who are our people, our constituents. So something for the public to be aware of that they'll take a hit, too.

Yeah, I think that's the first year. And then the second year, it's $100 million.

Yeah, the first year, it's $43 million. And the second year, I believe, the second round, it goes over $100 million. You're exactly correct, yeah. Commissioner?

Yes, thank you. Maybe this is a question for your legal department. How are you interpreting that statement about the legislature needs to set a schedule to eventually do away with all that alarm taxes? How are you all? I can read the text to you. Do you know what I'm referencing? Yeah.

I think it says exactly what it says, Commissioner.

It says it requires the legislature to prescribe a uniform procedure for counties and municipalities for their respective levies to increase homestead exemption up to the full assessed value and allow special districts subject to the referendum approval to do the same. So to set a schedule to increase the homestead exemption to the full assessed value.

Chair. The way we have talked about it is, you know, one of the concerns that some people have as it relates to the language is it not only takes power away from the closest elected officials to the public, which is you all, but it also takes away their future power as a voter in terms of voting on what happens with, if there were to be additional adjustments later on, it gives that power to the folks in Tallahassee, not them as voters or you as the local elected officials.

Right, right. My question is about that specific statement. I mean, I know it's very vague, and I think we are not clear on it either. And I was curious of your interpretation of it.

He's not going to weigh in on it.

Are you going to weigh in on that? It means what it says? Is that pretty much?

I don't feel comfortable giving advice to somebody else's board. You have an attorney up here. And I don't, you know, we haven't talked about it together.

Okay.

So I do have, you know, want to be professional courtesy. Okay.

Yeah, we can discuss it offline. It's a touchy, touchy subject.

Okay. And another follow up question is, you know, the educational aspect of this. What is the county doing to educate the community about this? What tools are you using?

sure so uh obviously our board is very well educated um i was not there thursday but i've heard commissioner knight did a really good job talking about just the impacts you know not taking necessarily a position yesterday at tiger bay uh i think commissioner smith and commissioner mass have had the opportunity to speak things commissioner kutzinger is talking at uh an event next week uh with the chair of the the manatee county commission um And so certainly the board is out there educated. We've done public presentations just like the one Ms. Radke did and certainly where we've been invited to speak. And that's the key for us is we have to be invited to speak on that topic. But even then, we're very careful as staff. not to take, you know, a position. You could never advocate in the state of Florida. As you know, the law has changed. We have to be very careful about education now, too. We do have a flyer that we have made available, not just to our board, but is out there publicly. But we are being, you know, very diligent with how we approach that. So it's not perceived as us trying to sway people in a vote one way or the other.

Right. And is this information that was presented today available to the general public? It's very informative and very illustrative. It's all public record.

Yep. Okay. We'll be handing out some informational flyers at these events that we're attending, so doing what we can. Excellent. Get the word out. It's good to see some advocacy groups out there doing some work as well. That's very, very important. Commissioner Knight? Did you want something? It's okay.

I'll just give you a real quick two with it is I think all 10 of us are responsible for educating the public. And so the best is the elected officials sometimes are quoted and heard. So certainly we're all in this together, but we don't have an opinion. I don't. on it, just educational. But I think what is interesting in education, a lot of my constituents down the Venice area asked me about if this goes through, we would, one, it's a complete deterioration of home rule, but more importantly, would it require us to go to Tallahassee to backfill the gaps? But if you look at Florida Tax Watch, The state government itself is going to be going into a deficit themselves. So I don't know where we would go to get appropriations to backfill any of the needs that we may have. So I think it's a real dilemma for the public to be aware of educationally that, you know, one, would it require us to go more to Tallahassee for funding of services that may be deleted down here locally, which they will, but also the knowledge of even if we should want to do that, would it be available? And by the next couple of years, the state government itself is going to be working through a deficit. So I think it's going to be something that certainly the five of us on this board would say it's probably not going to be available for a legislative body to backfill. So that's this information that the public should know and understand that where we're at, the 10 of us are going to be at after November 4th.

Commissioner Mack.

Thank you, Chair. Kim, put up the slide where it gives the example, please, of what a projected trim notice might look like. And again, this is not non-advalorant, it's just. That's correct. So I think the thing that's so important that we all are discussing today is The average citizen does not understand what the implications might be to them personally, to their quality of life, to the amenities that are provided through our beautiful community, and how you would then afford those impacts, right? Absorb those, be able to what can be deferred, what cannot be deferred. And I think it's very critical that we as leaders take every opportunity to just inform, truly inform our citizens of what it could be or what it could not be and allow the voice of the people to then be heard. And whatever their decision is, we as leaders will pick up the torch and carry it from there. It's just very important that they know in advance what those impacts will be. So I think it's, again, critical for us to take the opportunity to make everything accessible to very transparent, and allow people to ask lots of questions. Thank you, Chair.

Okay. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I just came back from the Florida Association of Counties, and it's educational. And one of the things that I had learned is that there are – 15 states that were looking at eliminating property taxes. No state has eliminated property taxes, because I had heard some rumors that some states had, but that's not true. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you.

Well, I hope we get the word out and the voters do the same thing and realize that that would not be a good choice. But anyway, okay, well, conversation, I know we'll be talking about this a lot in the next several weeks. All right, with that, thank you, Kim.

Thank you very much.

We will move on to item F, our stormwater update. And welcome back.

Good morning again. Nick Patel, Public Works Director for City of Sarasota. I'm going to talk about stormwater and I'll cover four projects to reduce flood risk and request to advance a joint stormwater study. So Ian, Debbie, Helaine, and Milton showed how vulnerable our community remains. These four projects account for approximately $38.4 million in federal recovery grants through the city's resilient SRQ program. Additional contribution appears in individual project budgets. The shared delivery target is 2031, subject to design, permit, and agreements. These projects are designed to reduce flood risk. They cannot eliminate flooding from every storm. We want to thank the county commissioners and the county staff for their support in advance for these important regional stormwater and resiliency projects. So thank you again, county commissioners, for supporting these projects. Hudson Bayou is a county managed project with an overall budget of approximately 15 million. The project addresses sediment along nearly three miles of waterway. It's intended to reduce flood risk for approximately 150 homes and nearby evacuation routes. Whitaker Bayou just over $10 million in Resilient SRQ funding with a broader package of over $20 million involving the Army Corps and state support. The county leads south of Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The city and the Army Corps leads north. The work of both projects is intended to reduce flood risk for approximately 210 homes. Project scopes and long-term maintenance responsibility need to be clearly documented through an amendment to the interlocal agreement. I want to thank Congressman Greg Stubbe for securing federal appropriation for approximately $10 million, as well as Senator Joe Gruters for securing state appropriation for approximately $2.4 million. Thank you for their support. At St. Armands, the funding package includes over $13.5 million in resident SRQ funds, plus the city's contribution of $479,000. The county-led project upgrades drainage, pumping, and backflow protection to help water drain faster and support more reliable access for Lido and Lomboki for evacuation routes. The work serves residents, employees, businesses, and visitors. At MLK and Orange, the city leads the $1.6 million project to add drainage capacity to Newtown. This project was specifically pulled out of the Sarasota Bay watershed plan, and this includes $1.2 million in resilient SRQ funds and $400,000 in city match for this project. The project is intended to increase drainage capacity and reduce local flooding impacts in the Newtown area. Design work is to reduce flooding in the Newtown homes and connect Whitaker Bayou so the improvements work together as one system. So now to talk about the interlocal agreement. Improvements in one area depends on drainage conditions elsewhere, which makes coordination, maintenance, and emergency response essential. Residents need a clear point of contact, timely response, and reliable service. Both commissions need clear assigned responsibilities and a coordinated investment plan. Those expectations guide our evaluation of future of stormwater services. The 1998 city-county interlocal agreement defines stormwater responsibilities. Broadly in the city, the county leads watershed planning, maintenance, capital improvements, and stormwater permit compliance. The city leads development review, right-of-way coordination, and local priorities. Before recommending changes, we need to compare service quality, long-term cost, and how these services would be funded. City management is one option to evaluate. No option is predetermined. The study should maintain regional coordination and prioritize dependable service throughout any change for all residents. And what I mean by all residents is city and county residents, which city residents are also county residents as well. The joint study would give both commission a shared basis for decision about future stormwater services. The funding framework includes a 500,000 city planning grant from Florida Department of Environmental Protection to develop city stormwater master plan. It also includes a proposed $1 million county contribution subject to county commission approval. With both commission support, staff would like to move quickly to formalize a study and the proposed county contribution through an amendment to the interlocal agreement. City and county staff would work with one consultant and include public input. And the intent for this is to just be transparent and to work hand in hand with the county to come up with a comprehensive plan. The study would compare service options full operating and replacement costs, staffing, funding, regulatory responsibilities, and any transition needs. Our target for the final report would be July, 2028, coordinated with the city stormwater master plan. Recommendations would return to both commissions for consideration and any required approval. So we welcome both commissions' guidance on what is working today, where service should improve, and how we should measure results. I recommend focusing on response times, preventive maintenance, flood risk reduction, project delivery, and long-term cost. Today's discussion will help shape the study. A transition decision would come back for consideration and any required approvals. Any future recommendations should clearly explain what residents would receive, who would be responsible, and how it would be paid for. Thank you for your time. And I turn it over for any questions regarding the interlocal agreement. Thank you. And stormwater as well.

I'll have Ben come up and follow up. And that'll be good. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Patel, so to me, this stormwater issue is a real conundrum. Because the water flows from the county into the city, through the city, and then into Sarasota Bay. There are no gates that stop the water at the city county line. In fact, we wouldn't want gates, right? We want the water to flow as nature intended it to flow. But when you have discussion and when we have this study, it seems clear to me that we have to fairly identify who's responsible for what. And I just wonder how you can separate this city-county. It's very conundrum-ish to me.

Yeah, why don't we, let's have Ben follow up and then, you know, have a full picture here.

Yeah, so to your point specifically. I'm sorry? Yeah.

Thank you.

Good morning. For the record, Ben Quartermain, stormwater director with the county. So as we mentioned, the city's stormwater infrastructure is currently managed through the interlocal agreement and managed by county staff. And the level of service of that maintenance is to the county standard 100-year, 24-hour storm. Historically, the city has had a lower design standard than the county, but to note, our maintenance has been held to the 100-year storm or the higher standard throughout the city and the county. Our inspections and our maintenance are based on NPDES requirements. NPDES is the federal permit that allows us to discharge to open water. Since the inception of our department last year, and it's been about a year now, we were charged with two overarching things, transparency and increased level of service. So what that means is You know, although we've met or exceeded the requirements of the NPDES permit over the past 10 years, people weren't seeing us out working or they weren't understanding what it is that we were doing. So in an effort to reinforce transparency, we created this maintenance activity map. And why this is important is it shows all the work that we're doing throughout the city and county. A resident simply puts their address in and puts a radius outside of their home or business. half mile, mile, and it'll show all the inspections and all the maintenance activities that have been done over the past six to 12 months and are planned to be done over the next 12 months. And it really shows all of the work that we're doing, both the inspections and the maintenance work throughout all of the infrastructure, but it also allows residents to have an idea of what's planned in their area too so it's a really important web app and we're getting a lot of input from residents that are using it we're continuously updating it and it's working really well So to give an idea of the extent of the infrastructure, I just put this chart together. But, you know, a couple of key points here. Storm pipe, for instance. There's 75 miles of pipe within the city that we're maintaining. There's 50 miles worth of conveyance canals here. and another 13 miles of stormwater roadside ditch. So there's a significant amount of infrastructure, and all of this infrastructure is shown on the web app. It's identified as public county or city infrastructure, and it's identified as maintained either privately or by the county through the interlocal. In an effort in transparency, and pump stations aren't on here, but I wanted to address the St. Armands real quick. We've had on St. Armands in the past six weeks, we've had a number of pump stations that have had electrical faults. I think three in total by my count, two of them over the weekend. Both of the times that the pumps turned off over the weekend, we have on-call staff that has been able to take care of that within an hour, an hour and a half. So we've been able to take care of it. But what we really want to do is address the electrical issues that are happening in these pump stations and understanding that We've replaced all the pump motors in the past two years. Now it's time to look at the electrical systems. As these pumps turn on, every time they turn on, there's a tremendous amount of torque. It's like a sledgehammer hitting these pump stations every time. And those electrical connections become frayed and they need to be replaced. So we have staff currently on the island right now in St. Armand's pulling out the old conductors and pulling in new wire, putting in new electrical features to ensure that those connections are strong and that we don't lose these pump stations to an electrical fault. Even if it's only a couple hours, it's meaningful to the residents there. So we want to make sure that we're maintaining these systems and that's an example of both transparency but also increasing our maintenance and our level of service to these systems. I don't know why I'm not good at this, but it's not, it's going back, but it doesn't go forward. There we go. I put this in here just to give you an idea of how much of the city is part of the overall stormwater system that we manage. So in the utility, there's approximately 196,000 billable parcels of which 173,000 are in the unincorporated county and another 28.3 is within the city. Approximately 14% of the overall system that we maintain is within the city of Sarasota. I put some numbers here for operation and maintenance costs in the city in 2025 was 4.49 million. And the total assessments that we collected in the city in that same period was 4.2. This does come with a caveat that approximately $800,000 of those maintenance costs were one-year contracted contracts to increase our level of service. The county commission charged me with increasing our inspections, increasing our maintenance activities. That 800 grand got us to a point where a starting point with that increased maintenance. But just explain those numbers. to your point, Commissioner, about the big systems that run from the county to the city back through the county, it's important to note that these large systems, these large canal systems that are either in blue or white on this map, most of those large canal systems are platted county right-of-way systems. So regardless of the interlocal or the agreement within the city, the county would be charged with maintaining those canal systems through the city and the county unincorporated. I mentioned the increased maintenance that was required by the or charged by the county commission. What that includes is We know over the past 10 years we've met or exceeded the requirements of the NPDES permit. We've met the minimum requirements of the NPDES permits throughout our stormwater system. The Commission asked us to look at increasing those And not just across the board, you know, doubling or whatever it is, taking a hard look at each type of system and ensuring that the federal guidelines were sufficient. And if they weren't sufficient, increase them. And as an example, roadside ditches in our previous standard was once every 10 years. We were required to inspect them and maintain them on a decade period. I feel like, and our staff feels like, that should be more like every three years. So we've increased that standard to every three years for inspecting and maintaining roadside ditch. And that's where that extra one-time contract at 800 grand comes from. So we've increased our level of service. The level of service within both the city and the county systems are based on the county criteria of 100-year storm. In addition to transparency and increasing our maintenance standards, We were blessed with a number of resilient projects, three of which are in the city. You know, almost $100 million of resilient dollars came to us and were charged with managing. Both Hudson and Whitaker are in different phases of this either a call for services, or in the Hudson case, we're negotiating a contract now for the design and permitting of the dredge of Hudson Bayou all the way to the school, from Saratoga High School all the way to the intercoastal. That's the area that we're looking at. As Nick mentioned, Whitaker Bayou is a two-part system where the resilient project will be downstream of Martin Luther King, and it will stretch all the way to the intercoastal or the bay. And then there's an additional project upstream that will be in coordination with the resilient project, but a separate project managed by the city. And then, of course, we have the St. Armand's project that includes both resiliency but also looking at hardening or raising our seawall in those locations, potentially adding additional pump stations or just beefing up the pump stations that we currently have. That project. We've already selected a contractor, and we're negotiating the scope of that work as well. All three of these projects have a timeline and a date to be completed in 2031, and that's our chart, just to ensure that we can deliver these projects by 2031. It just summarizes what I just stated regarding the projects that are associated with the city, Hudson, Whitaker, St. Armands. Phillippe Creek, to note, also has a big impact in the city. A portion of the city does drain to Phillippe Creek. We are completed with the first phase, 60,000 yards pulled out of Phillippe Creek. Phase one, 60,000 yards is a football field, 33 feet high, stacked with material. That's how much material we pulled out in just phase one. Phase two is what we're calling the MADD dredge, and the acronym was MADD. Purposely, maximum allowable dredge, the MAD dredge, is the second phase, 80,000 cubic yards. So we're going to pull out more material this time than we did as part of the first phase. And the goal of the Phillippe Creek, the Hudson, and the Whitaker dredge is to really return the capacity to these systems. to make sure that these creek systems are flowing as efficiently as possible. And that's what we're doing with, we've seen excellent results with the first phase of Philby Creek, and I'm sure we'll see the same type of improvements in Hudson and Whitaker. currently in permitting now with the Army Corps. The second phase, our goal is to have a permittable project, a biddable project by the end of this year. And there's nothing in the way yet that would change that date. We're still on target for the end of this year for Philippi. And then Phase two might not be the last phase of Philadelphia. There may be a third phase, but we're working through that with the permitting agencies as well as the need for that. That's a summary of what I had presented.

Okay, Commissioner Smith.

Thank you, Ben. When we say 31, that's when we have to spend all the money. Correct. Yes. That doesn't mean that's when we have to finish. We could actually finish sooner. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Like the Phillippe project, we've already completed a portion of it, yes.

Yeah, I hear you. I'm just saying when people hear 31, that's a few more hurricane seasons than we'd like to sweat ourselves through. Fair enough, yes. I also brought to my attention in Phillippe Creek that we're not dredging underneath the bridges, which seems unusual to me. And we're not talking about Phillippe today, but Hudson Bayou has a bridge. And so are we going to be dredging underneath that bridge?

So historically, our operations teams have maintained the bridges. The rationale for staying away from the bridges really had to do with the structural integrity of the bridge and ensuring that we were sure that the material that we were pulling out wasn't causing any informalities or structural issues. And so there was a, the intent was to have those areas dredged, but have them done carefully and thoughtfully with our operations team.

I hear you. But, you know, the bridges were installed, built, designed without the sludge. So I would think you take the sludge out the bridge and hold up, unless there's a structural defect in the bridge. So I understand your concern, but... It seems to me putting basically speed bumps with the water trying to get out isn't a great idea.

Yeah, hydraulically, though, the bridges have always been a speed bump, if you will, to begin with. But it does increase velocities through the center sections of the bridges. So if you look at the sediment – and I'm thinking of Philby Creek Tuttle, for instance – There's no need to dredge underneath the tunnel bridge. There is sediment on the banks. But in terms of hydraulics and the efficiency of the canal, the tunnel bridge doesn't need to be dredged. And so that was part of the thought, too, was whether or not We risked any type of, you know, they could dig too far. They could dig past the sediment into the structural elements of the bridge. That was a concern. And so managing that a little tighter is the goal. I understand there's also an additional permitting. Absolutely. It's a DOT permit versus just the Army Corps permit that we're getting.

Are we in for a permit on those, or we're just not talking about it right now?

We're in for permitting. With the DOT? Not for maintenance dredging. The DOT would be a permit if we hired a firm to do it. We can do the maintenance dredge without a permit. Okay. Well, thank you. Yep.

Okay, Commissioner.

Thank you very much. I had a couple questions for you. One, and a comment. One is that I wanted to say that a couple of years ago, I visited Bayou Oaks Neighborhood Association area up in there, 46th Street. And there were some complaints about the clearing of that grass. It's very thick grass on the sides of where the I believe it's the Whitaker Bayou goes up through there. And we brought it to the attention of the county and because the grass is being cut but not being collected and it would gather in front of those bridges and potentially undermine the bridge but also impede the flow of water. Commissioner Smith and I did a recent visit up there on a beautiful rainy day. And we're happy to say that the residents have shared with us that that area has been maintained since we brought it to the county's attention. So thank you for that.

And we did change our SOPs to to better collect those clippings. They're hard to get, especially on the canal banks. But we're at least having the contractors put floatable barriers in to collect things that fall on the water during their work time. So they are collecting some of it. They're not collecting all of it, but they are collecting more than they were.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for that. And there's still much more work to be done along the the whole areas, of course. But that was one thing I wanted to bring to your attention again, and thank you all for doing a great job with that. A little bit out of the scope of what we're talking about here with Whitaker and Hudson and Philippi Creek, which was the discussion earlier, Hog Creek.

Yes.

I believe we brought that to your attention as well, that area, and it was cleared out on one side. Do you know if there are plans to clear out the other side, the east side?

So Hog Creek, the issue, are we talking about the illicit discharge issue or?

No, I'm talking about the growth that's going on there with the plantings. It's really overgrown. And the concern is that if there is a storm surge that comes in from the bay, it could, if it's not cleared, undermine that. It's not a bridge. It's a passageway under US 41.

Yeah.

It is. Well, I don't know. Is it a bridge or a drain? I don't know what it is.

It's a big box culvert, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't have an update on that. I've been involved with the – there's been some illicit discharges in Hog Creek, which have been our focus recently. And there's also – there's a potential that we utilize that site for some of the dredge staging. So I know that there were some improvements along Howe Creek that were planned, but we didn't want to do those improvements then come back in a year and tear them out to have to stage material there. So there were some planned improvements that have been delayed so that we could use that site as a staging area. But I can get back to you on the status of it.

Okay. Thank you. I have another question about the stormwater advisory board. It was brought to my attention that you all are doing, having incredible discussions and making a lot of progress with that advisory board, but that the general public and even the commission is unable to view that. Would that be something that we could be able to view online when you have those meetings, either live or just, you know, go back and view it at a later date?

You're talking about the staff meetings?

No, the advisory board. The city has a representative.

We're actually downsizing our advisory boards that we video. It's a cost-cutting issue in terms of look and where they're at locationally. We just did a strategic planning item for the board this past year analyzing which ones we video and which ones we don't. So from a staff perspective, certainly the board could direct me differently. We're not adding right now to the cost of doing them.

Okay. Okay. If you change that policy, I would appreciate it, this one, because it would, as a commissioner, it's difficult for me to get out here and watch it live. And I hear they're doing great work, and so I'd love to be able to see what's going on.

We do have, you know, the agendas and then the minutes are all posted on our, on the site, so that even if you aren't able to watch it, there's some good comprehensive minutes that we're taking every time as well.

Okay.

That are available online. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Is there any other questions? I did have one, Ben, having to do with Whitaker Bayou and Martin Luther King Park. I went to the Sarasota Bay Estuary meeting the other day, and the improvements to the park are coming right along. But knowing what we're doing at Phillippe Creek or Phillippe Mansion, with the storage, you might say, of what we're digging out of Phillippe Creek. Where are we putting the good stuff that we pull out of Whitaker Bayou? Hopefully it's not going to be in MLK Park because we're going to be doing, they're going to be doing plantings there real soon.

There's a couple of different options for, well, so that park is not big enough for us to stage anything substantial. So I'm not sure that that's the appropriate. I'm pretty sure that wasn't an option because you're making people nervous. Yeah. And I can make sure that we don't have the designer on board yet. So I don't want to completely say that it's not an option, but just generally based on the size of the facility that we needed, at Philpe Estates that I'm just not sure that it's going to be more trouble than it's worth probably to use it. Plus, it's in a residential area, and running trucks through there would be most likely difficult.

I know the residents around there have been enjoying the pumps now. Well, the interesting thing I'm sorry?

Considerably.

Yes, yes. It's been quite nice. But it'll be interesting to see how the solution is there. I mean, you may have to barge the stuff out of there.

Yeah, absolutely. And the other issue with Hudson and Whitaker that it's different than... and it's important to note both Hudson and Whitaker have had some level of contamination that has been identified over the years. So whether it's metals within Hudson or oils and greases and metals in Whitaker, we may have to wind up trucking a lot of this material to a landfill that accepts this type of material. In other words, Within the Philpe project, we're utilizing a lot of the cut material for a road base, Lorain Road out east. But there may not be the same opportunity within Hudson and Whitaker, which has a twofold impact. First of all, the unit cost of dredging Whitaker and Hudson, I suspect, is going to be higher than the unit cost that we're seeing in Philpe. It's a much, they're both much more dense areas, less areas to stage contamination issues. So when we're talking about the amount of material that we can dredge with the resilient dollars, just be careful. not to use the same unit costs that we're seeing in Philadelphia. And keep in mind that there's a cost associated with dealing with those contaminated materials.

I'm trying to say to us that we're not going to hit the budget on Whitaker and Hudson, or are we going to take out less material because that's as much money as we have?

The intent was to stretch the dollars as far as possible. The goal within both Hudson and Whitaker is to model the trench in which we're going to dredge and maximize that trench. It may not be the 50-foot wide trench that we have in Philippi, but it may be more like a 20-foot wide trench. But the depth of four feet by that width, We're going to maximize the efficiency of the canals. And that's really the most I could commit to right now. But we have the modeling in place to ensure that the dredge maximizes the efficiencies. And as important, reduces the risk of flooding. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Increases the efficiencies, thereby reducing the impact or the potential impact of flooding. Yes. Yep.

Okay, Commissioner, follow-up?

Yes, one more. Mr. Patel, I had a question for you.

Yes, Commissioner.

Yes, on page 12, you have today's discussion and you have three questions there. Were you expecting us to provide answers and discussion to this right now or at a future date or future meeting?

You know, discussions would be good to discuss it. Really, the critical question is, is there support from the county commission for the million dollars, you know, for moving this along? And this doesn't have to be decided at today's meeting. It can be certainly decided later, but that's what I'm kind of looking for.

Yeah, and I remind that just 3 weeks ago that you all gave us direction to go back to the table. We haven't had any meeting since then. It would be premature. Ben and I have talked about it. It would be premature from a staff perspective. Board can do whatever it wants to engage in those discussions until we're a little bit further along into the staff. I have discussions, but whatever the board prefers.

What staff comes back with as they have those discussions. So that would be important. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Okay, Commissioners, I'm sorry, Commissioner Petit. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask a question regarding bridges and the integrity and your apprehension to dredge underneath them and so on. How does that work with Whitaker? Because they have two with the one right there at 41 and then at MLK.

So I really can only speak to Philippi because that's the one that I have bathymetry on. Bathymetry is a survey of the ground underneath the water. As part of the design of Whitaker and Hudson, we'll have bathymetry done. So until we have that survey of the sediment, I'm not sure what that impact is. But it will be part of the overall design and consideration. I just don't have that answer yet. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yep.

Okay. Commissioners, I have nine open to the public cards. That finishes our joint discussion items. That's about 20, 25 minutes. Everybody good to push through for that? Absolutely. Okay. All right. I'll call Christine Nordstrom, followed by John Thaxton.

Good morning. I'm Christine Nordstrom. I've also submitted my complete written comments and supporting documents for the record. I'm a 25-year resident of Sarasota County. I proudly brought my first home in 2021 in District 4 on Ashton Road. For the past 15 years, I've owned several businesses in both the city and county, specifically for the past 10 years on Ringling Boulevard adjacent to the Legacy Trail, so I have a unique perspective in my comments today. Don't worry, this isn't about parking. However, it might be worse. Starting a firestorm on Ashen Roads in regard to Remnant Cafe was definitely not on my 2026 bingo card. It started last month when school started and I sat perplexed watching school children step over Remnant's clients seeking services on their way to the brand new school that just opened next door and as well as the school down the road, Riverview. The same week, one of my bonus children picked up a urine-filled bottle in my front yard. The next week, I caught another man defecating in my backyard. After five years of this, I decided I had had enough. Enough of years of quietly absorbing the consequences of a high intensity homeless outreach operation drawing more than 100 people from the city core into my county neighborhood. For years, a small section of Ashton Park has lived with human waste, discarded needles, trespassing, encampments behind our homes on county property, and repeated law enforcement responses. Many of us, all of us in Ashton Enclave stopped using the outside of our homes completely. The people needing these services deserve compassion, but compassion cannot require families living around these service providers to surrender their peace of mind or the sense of safety in their own homes. So I picked up the phone and called the county commissioner's office and asked one simple question. How is this possible? How can they operate that way? Within hours, a code enforcement investigation was opened. That investigation resulted in a notice of violation in determining that the social service operation was not permitted under the county's property's existing approvals. Remnant disputes that determination. But what I uncovered was far bigger than just zoning. For years, people mostly from the downtown core were bused back and forth, day and day, 150 people a day, into my single-family zoned residential neighborhood. Government agencies knew about the operation. Remnant was publicly recognized by county resources over and over and over, website after website, even county officials and organizations. Some people returned downtown each day. Many did not. Some remained in our neighborhood, on our own properties, in the brush, behind the bus stop on Swift, on sidewalks, wherever they could find respite until Remnant reopened the next day. the next day. That is part of this model that no one seems responsible for managing. The service day at Remnant had ended. The impact on our neighborhood did not. This went on for 10 years, almost 10 years. Somehow an operation of this intensity became embedded in our response to homelessness without anyone bothering to stop to reconcile whether it belonged in a single family zone residential neighborhood.

Okay, ma'am. if you want to wrap it up. Thanks.

That is the failure I'm asking you to examine today and how we can harness the good intentions of, the good intentions of, sorry, religious-motivated intentions should not exempt high-intensity, high-impacting land use from land use laws. The services belong in our community, and we ask for you to help determine how impacts are managed in our neighborhoods.

Thank you.

Thanks.

John Thaxton, to be followed by Kelly Brown.

Thank you, Commissioners. Pleasure to be here. I want to first talk about the Legacy Trail and kind of, as usual, invoke a little bit of the past and history. I can recall in the late 1980s, a group of us, including Commissioners Mills and Patterson, Bob Dylan, and Billy Weatherington getting together And we were inspired by the Venetian Waterway Trail, and we thought, what a great idea to connect Sarasota's neighborhoods with this facility that we now know as Legacy Trail. By the way, it was named by John McCarthy, came up with that name. All of the extensions that you see were envisioned at that time, the exception being Lakewood Ranch, because Lakewood Ranch was a potato field at the time, so we didn't think we needed a trail there, but I'm glad to see the connections has happened. The trail has now become critical infrastructure for Sarasota County. It is not just a luxury item. This year we're going to probably see one million uses of this trail. And that's great for non-discretionary user, for discretionary users. But it's more important than that. If you look at the multimodal use of the legacy trail, I think you will find more non-discretionary, more discretionary users on it any other form of multimodal transportation you have in Sarasota County. But it's very important for non-discretionary, and these are the people that because of physical, legal, economic, or religious reasons cannot use a single passenger car. In fact, we have not-for-profits that are now locating facilities on or near the Legacy Trail because their clients can get there because they cannot drive. a tremendous asset. We are here to encourage the extension through north Sarasota County. This is the largest transportation disadvantaged community in Sarasota County. And just like we saw the boost in use when we put this trail through Pinecraft, you're going to see the same exponential use of it there. And then do we have a timer? It's hard to. Oh, thank you. Good. I'm right on time then. And then I also want to talk about the golf course. I have recently sent the board a letter outlining alternative and equitable funding options for this. The suggestions recognize the opportunities and the constraints of the dual rational nexus test should the board go with an MS. and MSBU funding source, but it also identifies other funding sources that are intended for projects like the golf course. I understand and appreciate the difficulties with appraisals and contaminations, but those are largely beyond the board's control. The funding is not, and I would encourage you to look at these other options and consider the magnitude and importance of preserving this valuable piece of real estate for generations to come.

Thank you. Kelly Brown to be followed by Charles Hines.

Good morning, commissioners, city staff. My name is Kelly Brown, and I am here to speak to you today on behalf of the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations, representing over 22,000 households within the city. First, I want to say thank you. for setting aside almost $40 million for Hudson Bayou, Whitaker Bayou and St. Armands, desperately needed. I want to now say, please go faster. All of the people that live in that area, 2024 hurricanes were like yesterday to them. So to hear a date of 2031 is just not soon enough. Do whatever you can to move the process along faster so that they can have the same relief as the people that live on Philippine Creek. Secondly, stormwater maintenance. One of the things that wasn't talked about this morning is what's the status of where we're at with maintenance right now in the city of Sarasota. This new map is super cool. I strongly suggest you to check it out. It's great, Ben. Thank you. But now, Ben, I'm going to put you on the spot. I apologize. But if you look. and pick any 70%-ish of the maintenance projects in the city of Sarasota right now, when you click on them to see the status, it says, repair work shown as planned with a past due status is part of the County Stormwater Backlog and is being addressed. How does that help us understand how our drains are going to be cleared so that we're ready? Because even though we didn't have a hurricane last year, we're going to get another one. We're going to have storms. You know, on my street alone, there's a sign that's there 24-7 that the city doesn't take down anymore that says high water in road. Please get on top of the maintenance, assign however many additional contractors you need to get, but please get the pipes cleaned out. Thank you.

Thank you. Charles Hines, followed by, I'm going to take a stab, Laurel Korber. Chairman, good morning, everyone.

Thanks for the opportunity to address you here today. Charles Hines, Program Director for the Florida Gulf Coast Trail for Trust for Public Land. Let me first by say congratulations to the County Commission for getting this beautiful building open. so you can provide great services to our community. So it's a beautiful facility. On a personal note, Commissioner Knight, I feel your pain. Growing up in Florida, pre-sunscreen, I get it. I had a nice chunk. Yeah, I know. Well, that's too. We'll see you in November. But I had a nice chunk taken out of my nose a couple months ago, so I get it. So our public service announcement is please wear your sunscreen. But I want to first say thanks to county staff, Nicole Rissler and Spencer Anderson and city staff, Nick Patel, for bringing forth what they did today regarding the trails extensions. And two very key connections. One, obviously, the extension to Nathan Benderson Park is well underway. My ask to you all is keep pushing it. Keep pushing it. Because that's going to connect thousands of people to downtown Sarasota, downtown Benderson, to Nathan Benderson Park. All county or city-owned land. There's no acquisition involved there. And so just keep pushing that. On the second one, a little more complicated, but probably one of the most important trail extensions due to everything that's involved in that North Sarasota community. It's Newtown's time to have their trail. And I want to thank John Thaxton for his continued partnership and Gulf Coast Community Foundation for their partnership with us. in recognizing the needs of getting that trail up there. So it's in the My goal is to move it past the idea stage. It's in the idea stage. It's been there. We have a good working group that we've put together of North Sarasota residents. Commissioner Batty and Commissioner Smith are your all's liaison on that. So you're going to see a lot more coming forward. I know I introduced the idea to your all's commissions individually a few, maybe a year or so ago. But there's still a lot of work to do. And so, be aware of it. Be curious of it. Ask questions. If you want to meet with me individually, I'm happy to do that and bring updates. But you're going to see a lot more about this. And there's a couple different options that will need to be considered to make it happen. Who asked? Commissioner Koch, you asked, is it doable? Yeah. It's doable. And it's just going to take your all support, your willingness, the community supports there, And so I'll continue to work on it these next year and hopefully have some positive news to bring you. So thank you.

All right. Thank you, Laura Korber. And that'll be followed by David Lowe, I think is how you pronounce that.

Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Laurel Korberg and I'm the President of the Central Coconut Neighborhood Association and we are just north of downtown Sarasota. We also have a great portion of the Whitaker Bayou that comes right through our neighborhood. So I am here first off to thank you for once again having this meeting with both county and city because it really gives us an opportunity to share some of our most important issues. For us in our neighborhood, many of you have heard our neighborhood over the years talking about the U.S. recycle operation and its horrible effects not only on our neighborhood but on all of Sarasota. We were excited at the beginning of January when we heard that U.S. Recycle was ceasing their operations. Well, that optimism didn't last too long because we have recently learned that another recycling operation has purchased that property. So we do understand that the new owners, we are hopeful, are going to be better neighbors and actually enforce the operations that will ensure that our air and water remains safe. So we're asking you today, each of you, with your respective jurisdictions and areas of responsibility, to closely monitor this new operation and make sure that the new company has all of the required equipment and safeguards to ensure that our air and water stays clean. That's really probably the biggest issue for our neighborhood. The second is we are grateful, very grateful for the Whitaker dredging that's taken place. 2031 does sound like a long ways away, but it's better than no ways. So we want to say thank you. And mostly we want to thank you. These opportunities to speak before all of you, because so many things are blurred and back and forth, it's really just quite a nice opportunity. So thank you.

Thank you. David Lowe, to be followed by Chuck Half.

Good morning, everybody. I'm David Lowe. I'm a board member of the Downtown Sarasota Condo Association. I've changed my remarks a little bit today, so bear with me. If your objective today was to get my further attention about money and Amendment 3, I will tell you, mission accomplished. It is frightening, and that's why DSCA, has continued to educate. And just two days ago, our board unanimously approved a resolution taking a stand against Amendment 3. There are 22 whereas clauses in this resolution, and I think it will be on our website and is shareable if that's of any use to any other organization looking for some ideas of why we opposed it, one by one, two by two, three by three, and why we feel this is, would be terrible for our community. Heaven knows the chaos, can I use the word, the churn that we have in our country and the world. And the last time thing we need is in our county creating a degree of uncertainty and unpredictably that we self-inflict on ourselves. It's too risky. Even though economic and property tax reform is probably warranted, this is not the way to go about it. I draw some parallels with Brexit. When the British folks voted 52 to 48 to leave the common, the EU, They did not realize. It's been 10 years, and I think an objective evaluation would say, how has that worked out for the United Kingdom? I think some people would say, wow, was it, did we do the right thing? Did we think in advance of the financial implications, the inefficiency, the frictional cost of such a move? So, again, I want to applaud you. I think it's great to see this meeting. I hope there are annual events now for sure, maybe more frequently. And the final message is this is a we effort. the community, staff, and everybody in the Downtown Sarasota Condominium Association, which represents or tries to vaguely represent 13 to 14,000 folks these days. Count us all in. Thank you.

Thank you.

Chuck Haff will be followed by Bob Kelly. Hi, thank you. My name is Chuck Haff. I'm Vice President of the St. Armands Residents Association. In light of, excuse me, Amendment 3, I know this is hard to think about spending money, but really what you have here with St. Armands and this resiliency project is you're leaving revenue on the table. We have three of our largest restaurants that are currently under construction and not generating revenue. After Haleen and Milton hurricanes, residential debris was all over and a lot was forced down our stormwater systems on St. Armands. Since that time, common rainfall events overwhelm many of our streets, which create a safety issue since St. Armands is a choke point for evacuation routes. On Monday, August 16th, myself, Bob Kelly, met on St. Armand's with our county stormwater leadership and described these issues and toured the problem areas. If you'll please pull up the slide that I presented. Here we go. So in the red square right here, you can see an area specifically that we took the county stormwater leadership to. One of these areas is here, which is the location of a gravity drain outfall that has not ejected water in over two years. County stormwater leader walked this site specifically, looked at the seawall, looked at the outfall, and said, yes, this is line, and he will bring a surveyor out this week to investigate. The following week, I saw there was an outside consultant who had opened up manholes at this location, and I found an 80-pound piece of rolled-up carpet padding in the baffle box and a patio cushion. The picture is right there. A week later, after I toured that area, this is what I found in the baffle box. Two years after our hurricanes. If we're improving our service levels, as I heard him say a year ago, this sure doesn't look like improved service levels in my view. Why was this baffle box not inspected since Hurricane Helene and Milton? And how many other locations are there in St. Armands and the city generally, or county, which are preventing our existing stormwater system from working properly? I have been told by county stormwater leadership that the interlocal agreement states that baffle boxes will be inspected once per year. How many other locations have clogged storm debris? I appreciate Mr. Quartermain saying when we dredge the bayous, we want to return capacity to the bayous with the dredging. We do not need higher seawalls. I've only seen our seawalls breached twice, and that was during storm surge. We need to return stormwater capacity to St. Armands. And this is a great example of baffle boxes not being cleaned out for over two years. Thank you.

Thank you, Bob Kelly. Followed by Mr. Hermanson.

Good morning. I'm Bob Kelly, and I'm a resident of St. Hermanson, also on the Residents Association. As Chuck just described so well, We have an old and poorly maintained stormwater system. That's just the fact of the matter. And we probably have blockages everywhere on our island, and they were created years and years ago. Our streets flooded four times in July alone, one month, four times. All we need are basic systems that actually work and are regularly maintained. That's all we need. Nothing sexy beyond that. We believe our pumps are mostly new. Ben mentioned the electrical issues around it, but the pumps are mostly new. We do need some additional drains. Our outfalls to the Gulf are fixable. Some are busted, but they're quite fixable and they're visible. No gigantic concerns from our perspective. Pipes, pipes are a concern. because they're invisible. We still have no idea how many are blocked, broken, unlined, too small, or too few. Our residents were delighted when we were awarded the $13.5 million almost a year ago now. There's much to be done, and we want to help. And we are all very, very concerned that this money disappears. And if we go back to that 2031 number, we've got to get this going and get it done because the time frame isn't long. The clock is ticking. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Hermanson, that's the last card I have. Thank you. Is there another card?

Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm Sigurd Hermansen, a former resident of the Circle. And I just wanted to remind people that that storm, Helene, that deluged St. Armand Circle occurred two years ago and as of next week, and that it caused great damage. We estimate from insurance records that the storm surge from that storm was about 12 and a half feet compared with the storm surge at Fort Myers Beach right on the beach of about 13 and a half feet. So these are serious storms and we are urging the commissioners to take a more urgent path to trying to control some of that problem. We realize you can't stop the storms, but my concern and suggestion is that they construct some sort of passive barriers to the initial storm surge, which if you've watched the videos of that storm on the circle or coming into the circle, It's like a tidal wave and it has an initial very high peak and then of course things settle back. So the question is, is there a way to control that peak? And we've recommended hydrology studies and some notion about what could be done with passive barriers like sand dunes you know, shrubbery and vegetation, which do help in that case and are not rocket science. I mean, this is pretty standard stuff. But we also would like a little more attention to temporary barriers. So at our community meetings about the circle and the future of the circle sponsored by the city, We, well, I asked, when will you have progress on the passive and other barriers to the storm? They said within six months. I have not seen anything as yet. And I'm wondering, has something actually happened? I mean, 2029 is a long time to wait. And once again, we talked about Helene as being a 100-year storm. And of course, the next week, we had Milton come through. So 100 years doesn't give us any guarantee. So we're asking for a sense of urgency in trying to handle these problems. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Tammy, you're going to have to pronounce your last name for me. Excuse me.

Yarner.

Yarner. Okay.

Hi, my name is Tammy Garner. And first of all, I want to thank many of you who I've already met with personally. And I'm here to talk about Ted Sperling Park. I have, since 2022, the beginning of 2022, been a constant voice for that park. I have called... Every mayor, some of them called me back. Some of them chose to take meetings with me. Some not. Um, I have met with commissioners county as well as city commissioners. I've. Spoken to the police department on multiple occasions, and I would just like to say the presentation of Ted's Berlin part is not. exactly as it exists. It looks beautiful on paper. It looks beautiful in a PR report, but that's not what is going on. And I appreciate that you guys come out and look at it, but live it. Come live that park and understand exactly what is going on. It is a nature preserve that is abused. There is constant police presence on the holiday weekends. And when they're there, it is correct. It is under control. When they're not there, it is out of control. The weekends, starting at 8 a.m., you can pull up police reports and understand the level of noise. You can take a walk in the park and have speakers larger than me and the noise vibrating off of each other's competing speakers. You can find People with open fires, and I've been told by the park that an open fire is not really an open fire. It has to be on the beach. But you have them with their grills. And then when they're done with their grills, they just dump it either in the water or on the beach and just leave. I mean, it is out of control. I can tell you that I've been told that the park capacity is... It's under control. Who controls that capacity? I said, do you have people counting numbers on a regular basis? That's not the 10 people that come in the multiple cars or in the back of the pickup or by boats or with their animals or people bring goats to the park. They bring dogs to the park. I mean, it is so out of control. So please, please. I welcome you to join me. I welcome to come on a regular basis during the week, during the weekday. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. But on the weekend, it is not. So understand really what I'm talking about. Come live it. Come understand it. See the bags of garbage and the marijuana and. The open container laws and the children out of control and the gun fights and the police fights, the police are always there. Pull the reports and understand what's going on. Our police department is amazing when we call them, but we as citizens shouldn't have to be the police department. You need to get that park under control before it's too late. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. That was the last card I had. All right, commissioners, it's been a great meeting, great to be together. A comment was made, maybe we do it annually. I believe we did move that forward, and we're going to be planning on doing that. I know our combined staff is going to be meeting on some of the issues we raised today and then coming back to us, so I think it was great to be together. Any final thoughts, comments, questions, any further business? Seeing none, we're adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.