City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Uh, good evening everyone. We're going to go ahead and um call this regular city council meeting Wednesday, April 8th, 2026 to order. Uh, now we're going to stand for a moment of silence and then we'll be have the pledge led by council member Matthews.

Great. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madame clerk, uh, roll call, please. Mayor Jones, here. Vice Mayor McPartland. Do we have him on Zoom yet? He is on Zoom. One second. Let me say Vice May Partland, can you hear us? All right, that's Council Member Nun here. Council member Matthews present. And Council Member Dodd here.

All right. and uh thank you so much for that. Our first order of business this evening is um we're going to be doing um three proclamations. The first one will be water conservation month. Um and that's going to be accepted by Mr. James Cannon, intergovernmental coordinator of the St. John's River Water Management District. And I will read that sir if you want to stand up there and I'll come down and hand it to you and take a photograph with you if you don't mind. All right. Water conservation month, April 2026. Whereas water is a basic and essential need of every living creature. And whereas the state of Florida, the water management district, and the city of Sebastian are working together to increase awareness about the importance of water conservation. And whereas the city of Sebastian and the state of Florida have designated April, which is typically a dry month, when the water demands are at most acute. However, today is a little different, right? as Florida's border conservation month to educate citizens about how they can help save Florida's precious water resources. And whereas the city of Sebastian has always encouraged and supported water conservation through various educational programs and special events. And whereas every business, industry, school, and citizen can make a make a big difference when it comes to conserving water. Whereas outdoor irrigation comprises a large portion of water use, the city of Sebastian will encourage citizens and businesses to focus on improving outdoor irrigation efficiency. Now therefore, I, Fred Jones, mayor of the city of Sebastian, do hereby proclaim April as Water Conservation Month, and call upon each citizen and business to help protect our precious

resources by practicing water saving measures and becoming more aware of the need to save water. I appreciate it.

Take a picture. That would be great. test test.

Uh Mr. Mayor, council, uh thank you very much for this proclamation. We do this every year. Uh every April, this is the 28th year that um April has been recognized as water conservation month in the state of Florida. Um, I' I've this is probably about the 10th or 11th one I've done in the last couple of weeks. Um, and and my typical spiel is to come out and say, "Well, look how dry it is and look how warm it is outside." Obviously, it doesn't apply tonight. Um, but the state of Florida, just so everybody's aware, every uh every location in Florida across the entire state is in some level of drought condition right now still. Um, despite these wonderful rains we had this evening. Um, and about half the state is still in what they consider severe drought or extreme drought. Um, so we need a lot more of this. And this is a these proclamations are wonderful. They're a good way to just kind of highlight um the issue of water conservation. It is uh growingly uh ever more important here in Florida, especially with more people coming in, more development, the growth of the state. It's a wonderful thing from a commercial aspect, uh not so great from a water aspect. So, um, this is just a really friendly way to remind everybody just kind of keep an eye on your water usage because it does matter. So, thank you again. Thank you, council. I appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. You could just lay that here.

All right. Um, our next two proclamations, one is for Arbor Day and the next is for Earth Day. And our natural resources staff, Alicia, do you have any members from your board that's that are here? All right. I'm going to read both of them and then I'll come down. Okay, if you want to stand up with your team. Thank you all for being here this evening. So, the first one is Arbor Day um April 24th, 2026. Whereas the first Arbor Day was held in Nebraska City in 1872 uh when the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture offered prizes to counties um for the largest number of trees planted. And it was estimated that more than a million trees were planted on that day. Whereas trees clean our air, filter our water, and even slow storm surges and flooding in our city, as well as help preserve the character of our city, and provide ecological services that support the well-being of the community and the local environment. Whereas through tree preserving actions, the city has been awarded the Tree City USA designation for the 24th consecutive year, demonstrating our effort to protect this valuable resource and enhance our quality of life. Now therefore, our Fred Jones, mayor of the city of Sebastian, do hereby proclaim April 24th, 2026 as Arbor Day in the city of Sebastian and urge all citizens to protect our trees and nurture our relationship with our natural resources so that we may continue to enjoy thriving and a livable community. Next is Earth Day, April 22nd, 2026. where citiz uh citizens, governments, and businesses are essential in

harnessing our collective strength to care for our local environment and protect against environmental degradation to preserve the earth's beauty and resources which are finite. Whereas a global community faces challenges such as health issues, food and water shortages, and economic struggles. And all people have a right to a healthy, sustainable environment which is within reach if we work together to commit to action and invest in our planet and our collective future. Whereas the city of Sebastian has chosen to participate in this global movement by adopting the sustainable Sebastian initiative which strives to protect our natural resources while balancing the social and economic needs of our community. Now therefore, Fred Jones of Mayor the city of Sebastian do hereby proclaim April 22nd, 2026 as Earth Day in the city of Sebastian and encourage all citizens to celebrate uh our home on this earth and join the city of Sebastian's natural resources board at the Earth Day and Arbor Day celebration in Riverview Park on April 18th. So come on down. April 18th. Hello test. Um to there's a lot of people here. I just want to notice uh

mention that we have the the National Resources Board has a meeting every month on the first Tuesday of the month at 6 PM just like the city council meeting. We are on Zoom and we don't get a lot of of of re of of interaction from the public. So, if you have something that you have in your mind about our natural resources here, please join us on uh on Zoom or in person here in the council chambers at 6 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month. And we hope to see you all on Arbor Day in the park. Uh it's going to be huge. It's going to be a lot of fun. There's a lot of stuff going on there. And bring your kids.

Thank you so much, Frank. I did want to throw in there that the celebration on the 18th is from 10:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. During that time frame, there will also be a couple other events going on. Uh if you have any household spring cleaning needs from 10 to 12:00 p.m. at Riverview Park in the overflow parking lot, Waste Management will have their shredding vehicles as well as their electronic recycling dumpsters. And at the Barber Street Sports Complex if you have any need for disposing of large household uh items or bicycles, uh the BikeWalk of Indian River County will be there with waste management to collect those items. Bikewalk of Indian River County has a bike rehab program that they collect gently used bicycles um or just no longer wanted bicycles that they will uh contribute to their program. They have uh staff members or volunteers that will assess the bicycles, determine if they can be broken down for parts or if they can be used whole, and then they will go to people in the community who are in need of transportation methods. Um I hope you'll join us for any of those opportunities and we'll look forward to seeing you there and hopefully our dear mayor will join us to read the proclamations out loud during the celebration.

I will. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you all.

Thank you. All right. Um, our next agenda item is a presentation of the fiscal year 2025 annual audit by the firm Carder Rigs and Ingram. Yeah. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, our audit for the fiscal year 2025 has been completed by our auditors. Um, and uh, Miss Christine Null Ran is here to present them. It's the audit of the city and the um, CRA district.

Good evening. I'm the audit partner that oversaw your fiscal year 25 audits. So you have an audit of the comprehensive which has everything from the city which also includes the CRA and then you also have separate CRA statements because the state requires separate statements for them as well. Both of them have clean and modified opinions which is the opinion that you want to receive. Last year we had um six audit findings. Five of them were cleared of the five biggest ones. So your material weaknesses, significant deficiencies were all cleared. Um the only thing that was left was a compliance issue with the um building fund. The balance is larger than statute will allow and management is working on a way to figure out how to properly spend those funds as legislation keeps changing as they try to find ways to spend it. Um to walk you through a few things in the um full report. One thing to notice is the accounting standards. Something changes every year. This year the compensated absences rule changed. So now you have to add in some estimate of the sick time to be used even though all of it is not paid out. So you have to estimate what will be used and include that in your liability. So everyone's liability increased slightly because of that. In your general fund, which is your main operating fund, if you compared this year to last year, your revenues increased 1.3 million. Most of that was in property taxes about 680,000 and then you had about 460 from FEMA. So you finally got some cash from hurricane previous hurricanes. Your expenditures went up 1.9 million. The majority of this was salaries and benefits because you filled actually quite a few vacancies that you had across the city this year. So overall in the general fund, your fund balance increased 216,000. So you have about seven months worth of expenditures in your unrestricted fund balance and you want a minimum of three.

So you have a good amount sitting in there. You're not on the risk of bankruptcy or anything like that. In your CRA fund, they had 89,000 more revenues. Again, it was increase in your property taxes and you transferred um a little bit more out this year to spend on street paving. So overall, it had a positive increase of 141,000 this year. And I just wanted to point out you also had a new fund. It's rolled up into your non- major funds. You have a new solid waste fund and you did charge enough to cover all the expenses your first year because it ended up with a positive 111,000 at the end. And there was one um it's buried in the footnotes, but I just wanted to point out you all left the 1CWA pension plan, but that was as of October 1st, 2025. So the future liability for that is not recorded in the financials because it was subsequent to your year end. But there is a footnote about how you left that and you're opening up your own new individual employee pension plan in this fiscal year. Does anyone have any questions that I can answer?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to step in and say thank you Christine and your entire team. Um they they spend many hours in our finance department and also just want to recognize our finance department, their staff and also other associated staff within the city that have to help with documentation for the audit uh throughout that entire process. Thank you.

All right. Uh thank you so much for that. Um next we have the natural resources board annual update. Can you hear me? All right. Yes, ma'am.

All right. Thank you, council. Um, for those of you who don't know me in the audience, my name is Felicia Gordian. I'm the environmental technician for the city of Sebastian and I am the staff liaison to the natural resources board. Um in this report we will be going over some very simple information. The mission of the NRB always to kick us off for this presentation, the current status of where we are with the board members, the highlights from the past year, some recent and upcoming projects, and what our uh projections are for the near future. Of course, the Natural Resources Board mission is to improve the quality of life in Sebastian by nurturing the balanced relationship between our citizens and our environment by protecting, preserving, and promoting our natural resources. Currently, we have seven board members and one alternate. There is one vacant alternate seat, and if anyone is interested, please do reach out. Um we are gearing up of course for the Earth Day and Arbor Day celebration and at this point it is only 10 short days away. Highlight some of the highlights from the past year. Uh we hosted two coastal cleanups in 2025. The Treasure Coast Waterway Cleanup and the International Coastal Cleanup. Um you typically will see the Natural Resources Board at the Main Street Boat Ramp for either of those cleanups. Sometimes they will be found at other locations. Uh we have also provided some new educational activities uh thanks to some of our board members at some of the recent kids event or some of the recent city events. Uh the stormwater superheroes activity at touch and tour was a new one for us and then we had an African blue basil planting activity at the new kids fest that was a firsttime event for the city of Sebastian. So we were honored to be a part of that as well. And the natural resource board also has hosted hands-on volunteering opportunities um on our parks and properties also in conjunction with our

parks recreation advisory committee um with the planting of Garden Club Park um in early 2025. Um subsequent weeding and mulching needed to take place to tend to that landscaping. Unfortunately, with the frost, we did see some of it die back, but I have heard and I have seen some of it for myself that some of it starting to bounce back. So, we're excited to see how that starts to progress over the course of the next few months. And uh this year we have hosted the second annual air potato roundup in partnership with the Pelican Island Ottabon Society. They've been a great partner. They helped guide us through the first ever iteration um back in uh 2025. And so we're honored to be able to host that again, this time on Valentine's Day this 2026. And our cope unit from the police department joined us this time around. And it was really wonderful to see the engagement that they helped to provide. Um, a lot of people at the event were really jazzed to have access to snow cones and popcorn um before and after helping to remove invasive exotic vegetation from the site. And that site, I mean, is Stormwater Park. And if anyone has not been to Stormwater Park, it is a fantastic facility. Please go check it out. Um, I think the formal name is Stormwater Treatment Facility, but it is a wonderful place to go for a hike. One of our most recent accomplishments with the Natural Resources Board was the first annual environmental poll. The big goal of this poll was to better understand the environmental concerns of the community to really give them a platform for expressing those concerns and understanding if the way we're headed with sustainable Sebastian or the goals of the natural resources board are in alignment with the needs of the community. Uh currently the city of Sebastian population is just over 27,500 individuals. um and about 1% of our total population. So 405 individuals did

participate. We did have this slight uh 23 outliers of people who were technically outside of the jurisdictional limits. Uh we made sure to include a question and answer responses in the survey that accounted for that. So um thankfully we were able to capture that data and most of the participants were 35 years and older and live within the city year round. some of the main takeaways. And these are just a few takeaways. And if you're interested in the rest of the takeaways, I encourage you to either come talk to me or to sit and watch that presentation that I gave to the natural resources board where we went over all of the data. Um, but 75% of the participants indicate participants indicated that they believe that the health of the local environment is getting worse. Um, this is a little bit unfortunate to see, but it does represent the reality that we are living with. Um when we asked them for the specifics, some of the big concerns were overdevelopment, pacing of the sewer, septic to sewer conversion, uh habitat loss and biodiversity loss, and of course pollution. All of this is tied into the health of the Indian River Lagoon throughout the majority of the questions and answers and responses. A big theme is the health of the Indian River Lagoon. That's the thing I think that connects a lot of the people in this community. And you'll see that those respondents believe that that is directly tied with the character of our city. It's part of who we are as the city of Sebastian. And not only from an economic level, but cultural, tourism, recreation, all of these things are connected to our natural resources and the health of that environment. All right. Some of the significance of this is really to take a look at what we can do to pivot or to change and understand where we should head from here. The community definitely cares.

There are, you know, some of the respondents you might see some outliers um that indicate maybe there's some more um there are gaps in the education and outreach that we really need to get our messages out to people and help people better understand the environment that they live in. if they understand it, then they're more likely to care. And we also have an opportunity here to address any gaps in our current policies or if there are things that we are currently doing that the public doesn't know about and they're not aware that we are making shrines or that we're making efforts that the city is communicating with local organizations to try and make certain projects come to life. Maybe there's an opportunity there to actually spread the word about those acts. If people don't know, they think we're just sitting on our thumbs. Coming soon, we do have some exciting partnerships with the solid waste disposal district and uh the Sebastian River Area Chamber of Commerce coming up. Um we have a recycle the recycle right workshop um which will be featuring the solid waste disposal district hosted here at the council chambers on May 5th at May at 5:00 pm. That'll be right before the next NRB meeting. Uh that'll be a brief recess between the two meetings. Um but we're excited to have them come out and we're inviting all residents to come out and learn a little bit more. And this will be a preamble to what we're working towards for July um with both of those organizations to have a small business recycling workshop to invite our businesses in to have a conversation with them about what their options are for small business. you know, for recycling and find out what maybe some of the barriers are. We really want to better understand um what their needs are and how we can assist in giving them the resources that they need. Some other projections for the future.

We are very excited to introduce the possibility of a comprehensive environmental education guide. Uh this was initially proposed by board member Frank Trinkle, who you saw a few minutes ago. And this the intention for this guide is to place this in um short stay, you know, vacation rentals. Um and of course, you know, with organizations such as the local chamber of commerce to find uh outlets where maybe people aren't going to be here for very long, but they still need to know what our local environment is really all about. and helping people understand the local regulations and depend even if somebody is going to be here long term uh this kind of information will still be really useful to have at their disposal. So we're hoping um to flush this out within the next few months and we are looking forward to that process and then staff is also looking into more u invasive species removal efforts. We do have some ideas in the works that we are workshopping and we are constantly having conversations with our partners trying to find new outlets to work on some of the invasive species within the city of Sebastian. Some of our parks and properties really do see need some TLC and the um the success of the air potato roundup these past two years have really shown us that people do want to come out. they do want to get hands-on and we're hoping to find more ways to engage the public. And it was as an anecdote from this most recent Air Potato Roundup, we actually had a couple of the neighborhood kids who just happened to see that we were out there. They hadn't heard about the event before. They didn't know, you know, this was happening ahead of time, but they came over and they decided they wanted to participate. And that's the kind of engagement we want to see. And we're hoping to find more ways to make that

happen. Thank you so much for your time and for listening and of course I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. Uh thank you so much Felicia. Anybody have any questions for her? Great job as always. You guys do a great job. So thank you for the whole board. Really y'all do a wonderful job out there. Thank you. We love it. Thank you. Um we're on to the next item.

Um Mr. None. Can you do the brief announcements, please, sir?

All right, brief announcements. Friday, April 10th, the Chamber of Commerce concert in the park starting at 5:30 p.m. will featuring Day Tripper. Saturday, April 11th, the Craft Club of Sebastian will be at Riverview Park from 10:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 18th, Earth Day celebration at Riverview Park from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. On that same day, there will be paper shredding electronic recycling at Riverview over Overflow parking area just south of the splash pad that from 9:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. Also on Saturday, April 18th, there's a spring cleaning event at the Barber Street Sports Complex from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. that you can bring couches, mattresses, appliances, lawn furniture, stuff like that. They'll take all kinds of stuff. So, if you have all those things, uh, go check it out. Earth Day will be a great celebration.

Absolutely. All right. Thank you so much for that. Our next item is item seven, public input. And this is where anyone from the public would like to speak on anything that's not on the current agenda. Do we have anyone that doesn't? Yes, ma'am. To the left over here. and then you in the back. I'll make this real quick. My name is Louise Cotenberg and I am the chair of the planning and zoning committee, a volunteer board for the city. I have been authorized and asked to ask the city council and our city manager if you would consider putting together a workshop with our board and perhaps other the other boards as well. We have um experienced um a rather large number of people who don't seem to understand the process, how you get from point A to point B and point C and on down the road. Um we've lots and lots of people who have come here from other places and um and make the assumption that things here in Florida and in Sebastian work the same way they do. we're all over the country and and that just isn't the case and we'd like to help people understand better what our boards do and um how they operate and so we kindly ask you to consider a workshop at some point in the future. Thank you.

We can talk about that. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for that. Uh next lady on the right my right. Yes. Um, hi. Um, I'm I'm here. Your name, ma'am?

I'm Gina Garcia. I'm a resident here and I asked Miss Ta how I could bring something to your attention because I'm planning to put it in writing as a memo to each of you because the most important thing that we keep hearing and I saw personally when I was here at the um comm the zoning commission meeting back in February was I hear the word progress all the time and what I'm I'm ex-military and I'm an ex- army captain. in in in the combat arms and the field artillery. We didn't do anything without a mission or a metric. So when you sit here and and whether it's a meeting or or that's what most of these people are here for, a waiver and a change when you say progress, we'd like to know what you mean. What is progress? 512 being six lanes is progress having a Starbucks so that Latid goes out of business. I I mean what is progress to you? Because that word gets thrown out constant. Oh, we can't stop progress. We can't stop progress. Well, we can control it and we can determine what our quality of life is by doing that. So, all I ask is when I send you an email, it it's not rhetorical and it's not that I want to aggravate you. I just would like to know you personally what you consider progress to be for this city. Is it 50,000 residents? We've got the Grace property and now the latest one is going to be Sebastian Pines. What What is What do we want? You know, what is it that you as our representatives feel it should be? Because you keep saying it as if you can't control it. But you can't control it if you don't know what it is. And that's all we're asking you to do. Tell us what progress is. Are we going to have IHOPs so that then the hen house goes out of business? just we just want to know is it more more facilities, more

places, more buildings, more people. I'm just curious and and I'd like to know. I plan to make this my home forever and this is a great place and you guys are doing a great job. I appreciate it. I appreciate you giving me the time, but I will just personally send an email to each of you and maybe you can define it for me so that as I go forward and maybe volunteer for the resources board that's got an opening, then we'll be a little bit more clear on on how we need to proceed or help you get to where we should be for a community. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you so much, ma'am. Is there anyone else? Yes, ma'am. Hello, Grace Reid, Sebastian. Um, I didn't realize we were getting audit results tonight, but um, I wanted to say thank you to the young lady, but she's already left. And to also to Mr. Stewart and his staff. Um, the results of that, anytime you can get a good audit result, I was an auditor in my career. That's kind of a blessing that that somebody's not telling you you've got a whole string of issues to take care of. Um, and so the results of the audit that we got, I thought were outstanding. And it proves to me, and I hope it proves to a lot of others in this community that y'all are spending the money correctly. Well, not y'all, but the the staff, Brian's staff, they're spending the money correctly. There's not a bunch of crooks. There's not a bunch of kickbacks and all of this other stuff that you see on the the Facebook agenda. Um, it looks like in one department, we're not even spending enough. So, I just wanted to say thank you and appreciate all of y'all representing our our city.

Thank you so much, ma'am. Um, is there anybody anybody else? Fred.

Yes, sir. Come on. Uh, Richard Pocket. Uh, Ray Payer. Um, I really wanted to just get up here and see what it felt like and announce my running for city council here at Sebastian. Okay, Chris, could I see you and and Mr. Dodd after the meeting?

This is what What are you talking about? We're not we're not this is not a point where you ask questions of us. You talk about whatever you're going to talk about and then you that's what your time is right now. So sir. Yes sir. Thank you. There anyone else in the chambers for public input that's not on agenda? Anyone on Zoom? No one has raised their hand. All right. Uh thank you so much. Public input is closed. We're on to item eight, consent agenda. Council, Mr. Mayor, I move approval of 8 A, B, C, D, and E. I second that. All right. Uh, we have a motion in a second. Any discussion from anyone? None. Madame clerk.

Vice Mayor Rick Partland, are you here yet? I Okay. Council member Nun, I. Council member Matthews, yes. Council member Dodd, yes. Mayor Jones, yes. Motion carries. All right. Um, thank you so much. Um, any committee reports, council? Anybody have a committee report? If not, we're going to move on to item uh 10 A and B, and we're going to take those together. The attorney will read both of those, but when we get ready to um move them forward or backwards or whichever direction they go, we will do them separately. Correct. Uh the the recommendation is that you have one public hearing.

Yes. Um, I'll open them both, have one public hearing, and then we'll take each question one at a time. So, um, so the the two items, um, resolution number R-26-16, a resolution of the city of Sebastian, Indian River County, Florida, providing for an annexation agreement between the city of Sebastian, Florida, a Florida municipal corporation, and Octarian Orange Grove LLC, Pioneer Orchard LLC, and TCGL Sebastian Pines LLC to memorialize the party's understanding and agreements with respect to the annexation of 204 acres more or less into the city and with respect to the future development and use of the property, providing for conflict, providing for recording, providing for scrier's errors and an effective date. Um then item following that would be ordinance number 0-26-03 an ordinance of the city of Sebastian, Florida providing for the voluntary annexation for land consisting of 204 acres more or less located south of 77th Street, east of 74th A, north of 73rd Street, and west of 66th A, providing for the extension of the corporate limits and boundaries thereof. of providing for severability, providing for conflicts, providing for codification, providing for scriveners errors, and providing for an effective date. All right. Uh thank you so much for that. Uh staff,

good evening. Um we have received an application pursuant to Florida statute 171.044 in regards to a voluntary annexation. This property is um in our office called Sebastian Pines. It's roughly southeast of where the Graves property is. And we've been working with the applicant for um a little over a six to eight months now and and getting this squared away. And um just when you think about this with this parcel of land and where it sits, it is um it abuts existing city property or ex existing city boundary, which is what you want to look for when you're looking at annexation. So, um, it's gone through all of the checks and boxes with staff, if you will, and I know that the applicant is also here to make a presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have in regards to this application.

All right. Um, thank you. Did anyone have any questions up here so far for um, do we need to let the applicant come up? Yes. Applicant, where are you? Swear in swear in. Do we need to swear in at all? Because it's a resolution and No, this is Yeah, this is legislative, so it's not quite mutation. Thank you.

Good evening, Ken Tumo with Urban Design Studio. We're a planning and landscape architecture firm. Looking forward tonight to discussing with you Sebastian Pines. What is in front of you this evening is a voluntary annexation and an annexation agreement. Those two items, one is a resolution which is your which is your annexation agreement. The other one which is an ordinance is the actual annexation. So tonight you are not approving any land use any reasonzoning. What you're doing in the voluntary annexation is the first reading. The second reading will be way down the road. My presentation this evening though is going to be myself giving a quick little bit about the project and the request that is in front of you. Then I'm going to ask the developer Mr. Collins to get up to really explain his vision for the site and then I have Mr. Mills here to discuss infrastructure and then Mr. Robeck will be here to also follow up. So my presentation is going to be about 10 minutes this evening. So first thing your development team is on the screen in front of you. Uh the Concordia Group is a developer that is Mr. Collins family business. Mr. Collins is here. He will be addressing you. We have Mr. Mills here from Mills Short, our civil engineer. Mr. Lambert is here, our transportation engineer. Mr. Rodenbeck is here from Dills Evans. And then also myself from urban design. So the request that is in front of you is an annexation agreement and a voluntary annexation. As I said earlier, I just want to set the framework. You're not approving any density, any land use, any reasonzoning this evening. You're at the first step of the process, which is, hey, what is an annexation agreement? An annexation agreement is setting up the guard rails and an agreement between the city and the developer. If you decide to annex the property, then this is how the property will be developed. And I will walk in more detail after Mr. Collins

speaks. The second part is the actual annexation itself. It is an ordinance. It's consistent with se with state statutes 171 and in essence says first reading we are first reading we are annexing the property. However, it is not effective until the second reading which will be way down the road when we have all the other information in front of you. So this evening, you're not really doing anything in regards to annexing the property except doing the first read. The second read is when it actually becomes effective and comes into the city if you decide that is a course you want to take. So the subject site on the screen in front of you is indicated by Bispard is a little south of 77th east of 74th and it's 204 acres. Uh on the left hand side you'll notice the area in green which identifies the boundary of the city of Sebastian. I'm going to go in just a little bit more detail. You'll note on the left hand side where that red line is. That is the property line. You're going to hear me where use the word contiguous. The property is contiguous to the city of Sebastian by the Graves property along the west side of the property or the east side of Graves. So, it is contiguous. The second word that you're going to hear when I walk through the statute is compact. Is it compact? That's one of the criteria. And the answer is compactness means is it is it uh in a form that is adjacent to the property? Is it in a form that's not serpentine or uh creates weird enclaves? And the answer to that is this property is not uh meets the criteria for being compact. So this is a request is to actually annex it into the city of Sebastian. Again, tonight is the first reading. Later down the road will be the second reading, which is when it's actually affectuated. I'm going to ask Mr. Collins would get up to talk about the plan. Now, the best part about my job is I get to draw pictures for a living. So, this is just a picture that we drew to come up with a concept. This you're not voting on this. There's lots

of time to come up with design decisions, but I'm going ask Mr. Collins get up and talk about his vision for the property. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Good evening,

Mr. Mayor. Uh, members of the council. My name is Will Collins and, uh, I'm the managing member and, uh, the founder of the Concordia Group. Uh, we're a development company that, uh, has developed, uh, communities throughout the east coast of, uh, our country. And uh I want to tell you how much I'm appreciative of your time this evening. I I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. While we are currently developing two residential communities within Indian River County, we fully recognize that we are newcomers to the city of Sebastian. And ever whenever we enter a new city or a county or a township, we hope we arrive with a high degree of humility and a desire to be good listeners. From our initial introduction with your city manager and your planning staff, we've been warmly welcomed and I am very appreciative of the insights, the suggestions and the direction which have been shared with us. I've been in the development business for over 42 years and I'd like to share with you that your staff is some of the most professional individuals I've ever worked with. They've provided us with your collective vision and requirements for new development in the city. And I want to personally thank Brian Benton, Alex Bernard, Jim Stokes, and your entire staff for their time, their insights, and their kindness over the past year. In addition to u the input of your sa staff, we have been very very fortunate to work with a team of professionals

who have provided us with a great deal of local knowledge. I want to thank John Roadback, Wes Mills, and Ken Tuma for their willingness to work with us to provide us guidance and their friendship. Their local knowledge is invaluable and we are so appreciative of their great work. I also want to thank Chuck Meckling for generous generously spending time with me, educating me on the wonderful attributes here in the city and kindly welcoming me to this community. Uh we hope if approved that this project and the future work that we hope to do in the city meets the quality of the work that Chuck and his team have been developing for the past 30 years. If we are granted the opportunity to move forward with this development, we welcome and will make every effort to reach out to local businesses who can work with us in the many different phases of this development. This certainly includes Chuck and his team. In responding to your staff's direction, we have spent a significant amount of effort to envision a community with a wide variety of housing types. This proposed project will be marketed not only to firsttime home buyers but also members of the senior demographic profile. We're proposing villa homes which we are specifically designing for firsttime home buyers that currently live within your community. We believe these homes can be sold to teachers, police officers, and other members of the city community who are seeking housing which meet the need of the missing middle which currently is everpresent in uh throughout everywhere

in our country. Um, we have worked with your staff to create craftsman architecture for these homes as well as special attributes to all the amenity buildings which we believe will set the tone for the type of highquality design that you require. We are proud of the architectural work that we presented to you and to staff. Uh and we specifically designed these renderings for this community and they represent the quality of homes which are needed in the city. I want to say as Ken stated that we know before you tonight is the issue of annexation. We view this as an ever moving process as we work with your planning staff, planning and zoning and any input that you may have in terms of the design of the project. Uh we we pride ourselves on being good listeners and this is just the first step in the process and we look forward to any input that you may provide. It's extremely important to me that we become active and positive members of the business community within the city. I certainly hope this community will be our first of other opportunities to work here in this beautiful and vibrant city. The quality of life within the city is what attracted me to seeking development opportunities here. While we will pay the normal fees associated with new home construction, I'm happy to say that we are going to commit and provide a significant financial investment towards new recreation enhancements in the city. We are very excited to be a supporter of the working waterfront initiative and hope that our contribution will help

further this great work. I also hope this contribution reflects our desire to be a member of your business community. I want to thank you again for your time tonight and your consideration of um the annexation here before you tonight. And with that, I'd like to bring Ken Tuma back up uh from Urban Design Studio. But once again, thank you kindly for your time.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Collins, Mr. Mayor. So, I'm going to start again here on kind of the get into the details of all the exciting part of zoning and land use. So, the item in front of you this evening, there are two items. The first one is the actual annexation agreement. The annexation agreement establishes a framework. It's really kind of the big picture. It creates kind of the rules of the road. It's an agreement between Mr. Collins and the city on what this could become. Again, it's a commitment on Mr. Collins's behalf and and a commitment on the city's behalf, not that you have to annex the property. But if the property does get annexed, it get an annexed under certain rules. For example, within the agreement, within the agreement, there is an agreement that we would request a future land use. That future land use is your category, very low residential density. Mr. Collins has also made a commitment in this agreement that he would not do the full density that's allowed in that very low excuse me, very low residential density. He's actually restricting it to approximately 81% of available density that he could request if he did achieve that lower density, if he did achieve that zone, that land use category. It also sets up time parameters um time parameters. It also sets up the contribution of a park site, a 1.93 acre park site. It also, as Mr. Collins indicated, his voluntary commitment for additional financing for the fund that he indicated. that's also outlined within the agreement. It also identifies recreation that we will meet the recreation requirements. It has specific discussion on buffers and open space and infrastructure also. So it just kind of sets up the rules of the road and everything in that agreement Mr. Collins has to meet or be below. Meaning for example in this particular project he would be allowed to ask for additional density but he's going to keep it at that 502 unit count number.

So the second part is what the second one is actually an ordinance and this is the first reading of that ordinance. It's chapter 171 and it's very specific on what it is. It's laid out in the Florida statutes. How does a municipality annex a piece of property from a county? It's laid out within the within the uh Florida statutes. More specifically, there are a couple key items that you have to do. You have to have the permission of everyone who is applying for annexation. I can attest that we have permission and it's on file in the uh records that we have permission of every piece of property that's being annexed. Number two, it has to be published and noticed correctly. Your staff has handled that publish and that notification. I know that has been done, but I know Miss Bernard will agree with me. Also, we have to put the county on notice. The city has placed the county on notice and sent a letter to the county indicating that this potential annexation. The other key things were those two words that I addressed to you before. contiguous? Yes, we are contiguous to the city of Sebastian. This 204 acres is contiguous. Is it compact? Yes, it meets all the definitions of compactness. Those are the items that you're required to review. Your staff agrees with that analysis also. So, from a land from a a statute standpoint, we've met the criteria. So, the next step in the process is we look at what is in your comprehensive plan. Well, the city of Sebastian being forward thinking, you have a 2040 comprehensive plan. you actually include an annexation requirement under one of your policies, policy 1.24. I can tell you I do this in different jurisdictions. It's very rare to see this. It's actually a very wellthoughtout comprehensive plan thinking ahead. It has two items associated with it. The first one is we have to do something called an annexation study. That study is in your packet. It has a lot of information. Mr. Mills is going to come up and walk through some of the highlights of that uh study in a few minutes. and that's focusing primarily on infrastructure. And then the second part is you're

required to submit a concurrent land use if your property is greater than 10 acres. Our properties greater than 10 acres. We have submitted a concurrent land use to allow for that very low residential density that is on file within the city. It's also outlined within that annexation agreement. So those are the criterias that we have to make. So I'm going to ask Mr. Mills will come up to talk a little bit about infrastructure because obviously always an important item when you talk about annexation are the capacities there are the road network and all the items associated with so Mr. Bills is going to discuss this real quick and I'll be back. Thank you.

Good evening Wesley Mills Mill Shorton Associates. Good to see you guys tonight. Um so I get the pleasure I guess of talking about the fun stuff infrastructure analysis and technical capacity. Uh first I'll start out with uh transportation and and roadway improvements and kind of talk a little bit about what we reviewed in our analysis um in the uh annexation study. Uh so first what we do with the transportation analysis is we start out with we look at the existing trips on the road within the area that we're annexing and we take that data along with all of the projects that are currently vested both in the county and the in the city that are within the area of our development. We load all that into a traffic analysis and then determine is there capacity and if there isn't capacity what type of improvements we may need to do as we kind of get through the site planning process. Uh that analysis looks at traffic generation review of transportation capacity and evaluates the proposed site access uh for the property. So the first step in this process is we prepare a traffic methodology and that gets sent to Indian River County's traffic department. It kind of is the broad framework of our analysis and they review it, provide comments and eventually we get to an approval and then from there that's kind of the jumping off point of how we start all the detailed analysis with all the trips and things like that. So we have submitted that methodology to the county. They have approved it already. We have already prepared our traffic analysis based on um a subdivision based on the the subdivision and number of units that we anticipate to come in with at a later date and we'll submit that complete traffic analysis for your uh department as well as the county uh to review and approve. But that's all part of the site planning process at a later date. But that that report is completed. There are some anticipated improvements

that have been um developed through that report. Um it's at this point it's there's a process to be followed. Some more improvements may come up along the way. As the developer we'll have to do whatever improvements are required to support our subdivision. We'll have to build those improvements and that's a commitment um that we have for for the project. So, a few things we've identified that I just want to review kind of high level with you tonight is we plan on paving uh 77th and 73rd Street from 66 all the way uh to our project entrances. Um so that will meet county standard requirements, DOT standard requirements, and and also the city's requirements. We also recognize that there will be some left turn lanes that will be required on 66. Um so we're already in advance kind of knowing that anticipating it and we'll incorporate that into our preliminary plat submittal at that date um assuming the annexation is is successful. Another area of infrastructure that we looked at to make sure that we had uh capacity and and really we started this was the first starting point for us and started this very early on in the process was coordinating with Indian River County utilities um because we had to get utilities and be able to service the site with municipal water and sewer. Uh so we met with Indian River County, we've reviewed utility capacity. We've even got into the details of how we're going to bring the pipes to our site and how the county wants to see that the alignment of it and then also got into even more granular on where we're going to connect into their system, what the pressures are. So, we have put a lot of thought and effort into how we're going to service the site and are there capacities in in the municipal system to accept us. Um, Indian River County back in December of 2025 issued us a will serve letter um, which is saying that if

the city annexes uh, this project in, the county will serve the project with utilities. Uh, they they won't guarantee or reserve our capacity quite yet, but the capacity is available as of right now, and as we work through the site planning process, we'll work to secure that. But there there's plenty of capacity, and I'll I'll go through that. um here shortly. Uh there's also as far as extending utilities to our site, there's public benefits to that. Uh the county just went through their master uh plan process and and further developing um where their infrastructure is going to run in in later dates and our extensions are part of a grander plan that the county has to to service the western um area of northwestern area of the county. um to get a lot of these existing uh residences off septic systems. So, they have a goal to kind of get sewer out into this area and our project which the developer will design, build, pay for, construct and then he dedicates it to the county. So, it kind of completes a system that they they're already looking to um expand. Uh the other part or b public benefit of the utilities that we're going to build as part of this project um will create redundancies in the county's utility system that they don't have right now. And with those redundancies, it helps with water pressure, overall water quality. Um so our projects will satisfy a good portion of that that northern area between 77th and 73rd. There's some gaps there that will complete and loop the system. uh just diving into potable water and the availability for capacity there. So the county currently has uh 16 million gallons per day available. Our site is

projected to have about 125,000 gallons per day of demand that that we'll need. So that will leave over a little over 10 million gallons per day of surplus capacity in the county's system. So there's there's more than enough uh water at this moment to to service this project. As far as wastewater, there's 4 million gallons in the central regional wastewater treatment plant that the county has. Again, our demand is going to be um 125,000 gallons per day. And that leaves a surplus capacity in that system about 1.6 million gallons per day. So, our loading on that system is relatively low versus what capacity is is there. As far as storm water and environmental um considerations for the site, so the site's located in FEMA flood zone X. Um we actually border um we are the northern border of Indian River Farms Water Control District. So we do not our site does not discharge into um Sebastian River improvement district with an out ultimate outfall to the Sebastian River. Our storm water goes into two canals that are at 73rd and 77th and then they flow east and ultimately discharge into the north uh relief canal. Um so as part of the farms's criteria, we will have some flood compensation. We factored that into the project and we've done preliminary drainage analysis to support that. Our storm water system, we will have a master storm water system for our project. Um it will meet all the city requirements, the county requirements, the farms requirements, and St. John's requirements. Uh the big thing is St. John's right now they just had a code change at the end of the year which increases um the requirements of um pollutants that you have to treat before you discharge. So our system will

completely meet all the new criteria um and um we'll have uh plenty of of reduction in in the nitrogen and phosphorus discharge on the system. Um just kind of relation to Graves Brothers site with our project. The Graves Brother site is located in Sebastian River improvement um basin in district. So our system is in a totally different basin and district and you can't crawl you can't mix the two basins. They need to maintain their historical flows into the basins that they were intended to discharge to. Um the other thing I I'd like to talk about is is just wetlands. Um we did do an environmental assessment. It is included in the um annexation study. Uh there are no gopher turtles, no endangered species, and there's a very small wetlands on site. It's 0.25 acres, which is well below the 0.5 threshold.5 acre threshold for St. John's that even requires you to mitigate for it. So, very little environmental concerns uh with this site. Uh with that, I'll turn it back over to to Ken. Thank you.

Good evening again. Now, the fun part. I'm just going to let you look at a concept plan. This is completely flexible, but we just thought it'd be a good idea for you to get an idea of what potentially could be coming. Um Oops. So this is the proposed potential proposed plan that's on record with the city right now. The plan indicates it's 204 acres. We're showing 502 units which is a density of 2.46 dwelling units per acre. The very low density is three dwelling units per acre. 55 acres of lakes and trails. We have a pretty significant large amenity area proposed in the middle of the site. And then let's see that does work. So we have a sixacre amenity center proposed in the middle of the site. We have public park in the southeast corner of site. We also have overlooks and bridges to really kind of make it come together as a community. When you have a community that has a lot of lakes in it, the the pods tend to be separated. But with the concept of adding bridges and walking trails throughout the community, there's also going to be a walking trail around the exterior part of the community. At least that's our proposal and would hopefully create a really nice place for people to live both who live here and also folks within the neighborhood. access uh access is identified on the screen. These are just our initial access points. On the the arrow on the north, which is 77th, is the main entrance. The blue arrow on the south is 73rd. Those two red areas are uh emergency access only, just an additional way out in case there was a need to get out. So, kind of back to where we are, what does annexation do? What it does, it allows you as the city to place this piece of property under your control under your comprehensive plan under your land development regulations. It becomes your decision um is kind of topic number one. It allows for coordinated development allows a developer in this case to apply for a PUD and have an annexation agreement to allow for flexible development regulations to have a higher quality of development with with design

characteristics. It also uh supports housing goals. And finally, it does increase the city's fiscal basis. So, in conclusion, and I'm going to ask Mr. Rodenbeck to get up in a second, we have met all of the criteria under the state statutes. Your staff has agreed with our analysis. Um, and it is also a logical and orderly boundary expansion to the city. With that, I'm going to ask Jonathan to get up for a second and just talk for a few minutes and then we'll be done and happy to answer questions you may have. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir.

And this is a very important slide. I want you to look at this slide. This is Mr. uh Mr. Collins. What you need to know about him is he's hands-on in everything. Those drawings uh he's with my wife and I when we're drawing pictures and really trying to kind of make a plan come out right. It is a family business and Mr. Collins is the is the key to that. Jonathan,

put the mic to normal height. Jonathan Robeck from Dill Evans and Robec. I'm a local attorney here in town and I've had the privilege of uh representing Will and his business and this uh assisting him in this particular development. U when we initially got the call um there was a conversation about a potential out of town developer that's interested in a project in the city of Sebastian. Alarm bells start going off in the head. you know, is, you know, I want to have a peaceful meal in this town and things of that nature because you get concerned whenever you hear something like that. What are the intentions? When I first met Will um and his development team, what became obvious is that he wasn't concerned so much about what most people are concerned when they come and talk to me. What's the hourly rate? What are the issues that you're having at the city of Sebastian? How long it's going to take? None of that came up. It was about my belief in the project and he wanted to make sure that I had it and he wanted to make sure that we developed a team approach to giving a development for the city of Sebastian that's desirable for your staff, for the council. That way it can be an excellent project moving forward. And throughout the entire process, I don't think I've ever represented a client that has never pushed back or said no to any of the requests made by staff. That's very unique. Not that it has to be confrontational. That's not where I'm going with it. But, you know, financials are sometimes a very big concern for many of my clients. Anything that was asked of Mr. Collins and the team, however, it was always yes, yes, yes, yes. And I think that shows up readily in the annexation agreement when you look at the contribution made to the recreational fund. To be quite clear

with you, that's not a legal requirement. That is just something that Will and his team believed that you should do to invest in the community in which you are going to develop. And that's what you have here tonight. You have an excellent project. I'm not like Mr. Tuma, respectfully. I don't have beautiful pictures to show you. Those have already been shown to you. I think you have an excellent concept that contemplates a community in which your missing middle, I believe is what Mr. Collins described, can purchase in there, raise their family, and become great members of the city of Sebastian. I don't want to delve too much into the legalities of it largely because I don't want to just read to you the annexation study and your staff report. This complies with the Florida statutes. This complies with your comp plan. Your comp plan specifically talks about how annexation makes sense. That way you do not have adjacent properties that are going to be under two sets of development regulations, which would be the case here if it's not annexed into the city. This project being annexed into the city, it's under your control. It's under your guys. it is going to fit your vision of the city instead of some other jurisdiction's vision of what this project should be. It would make sense because whatever is developed or whatever jurisdiction is going to be, it's going to have an impact on your infrastructure, your schools, your roads, your um your parks. So it only makes sense logistically speaking for urban development and all the concerns that have been raised in the comp plan that this particular project be annexed into the city. The team still remains very flexible and open ears to what the city council wants

with respect to this project. Those concerns that you might have can be addressed later. We're only here tonight to discuss the annexation and it's respectfully requested that you approve the annexation by approving resolution number 26-16 and ordinance number 26-03. And thank you for your time and we're available for any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you so much for that, sir. Uh, are you all done? Um, staff, do you have anything final? Um, I just would like to add that if it is um annexed into the city that it allows the city to have greater control over the destiny of what happens in that area. And so I think that that's something to be mindful of. All right. Uh, thank you so much. And this is um, anyone from the public would like to speak on this? Yes, ma'am. Please come forward.

Grace Reed Sebastian. Um, I just want to say that I'm all in agreement for this annexation. Um, I firmly believe that the best thing a city can do is expand its boundaries, whether anything's built on it or not. Um, and that's just not even in relation to the tax base. It's just that we would have the ability to govern what goes on it or maybe not necessarily what it is, but how it is. Um, but the only thing that I was hearing was uh about the villas and the housing and the residential and stuff like that. And my understanding was that this is there's could be a possibility for a PUB, which could be a lot of mixed use. Um, when all of that comes to fruition, I would really like to see y'all really put some thought and dedication into not necessarily the influx of residential, but how are we going to serve those people for emergency services? Do is there possibility for like an emermergency room like they have for Lawnwood and Vero Beach? Um, what about the fire departments? What about the the ambulances? I live right off of Rosland Road and they are constant. So, when we add more residences, we're going to have more um need for the ability to get people quickly to help. Um, one thing that I'd like to see less of is gated communities. Um, I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia. There's two communities up there which are mixed use. One is called Winhurst, one is called Greenstone. There's no gate to go through these communities. You can go, you can park at one of their parks on one of their side streets. You can walk their sidewalks. There's plenty

of different types of housing from town home to villa to single uh family to apartments. There's uh commercial buildings, realators, businesses, restaurants. Um there's just all kinds of things in addition to the parks. So, I just want you all to keep that in mind when that time comes. Um, but as far as the annexation itself, it's better us take care of it than the county. And one example is that is that three-story hotel they were going to put right down on that river. Thank you. All right. Uh, thank you so much for that, ma'am. Yes, sir. Was there someone in the back? No. Was coming up. No. Oh, come on up, sir.

Mr. Mr. Mayor, members of council and staff, thank you for allowing me to be here for service to the city. Your name?

Frank Holtzau. I live on Malis Grub Boy in Sebastian. Been here 26 years. I just thought of it. Quarter century I've seen Sebastian grow. Um I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. I have a differing opinion than the prior speaker and I'm not against development, not against growth. certainly seen the city grow. I'm to the point now where the false promise of if we don't take care of it, it won't be ours and somebody else will develop it. I think that's a bad way to look at things. We're in a community that Felsmere Vera Beach Sebastian and the county we should really be working more together. And a big concern I have that really got me thinking was the article in yesterday's paper by Mr. Riceman. And I'm not going to repeat all the things that he said. They were all very good. You probably have read it. Two things really stood out. One is that residential development does not pay does not produce enough to pay for itself. And the study by the Indian River County report of just two years ago said there's no need to urbanize rural land at this time. And I think we keep going down the path. If we don't take care of it, then it's going to run rampant. I think what's real important is for the city of Sebastian being the largest population city in in the county is to take the lead. And I'm sure you folk, pardon me, I'm sure you folks talked to the other uh entities, but we need to grapple with this on a more regional basis or at least a county basis. I've heard this argument which stimulated me

to get here tonight. My neighbor said, "Well, if we don't take care of it, then it's going to run rampant." I really don't believe that. And I think that folks are kind of I'm fed up with listening to reports that say we meet capacity. This development's going to meet capacity. Sure. I'm sure in Port St. Lucy they get the same reports. It's going to meet capacity. We can handle it with our roads. What about Sebastian capacity? That's the whole issue of the being of Sebastian. It takes me forever to get out to Route One anymore. Think about that. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you so much, sir. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Come on up. We'll get you next, Laura.

Thank you very much. I'm Richard Baker on the board of the Pelican Island Autobon Society, and I'm sure happy to to work with you on getting rid of some of the air potato and with your natural resources. We we appreciate all that we can help you do. Um this is going to be called Sebastian Pines. I didn't hear any word about pines. You I know you're the tree city and uh you love trees and there was no discussion about how many trees you're going to put in there or if they're going to cut down the trees or how you going to handle the trees. We have to save our trees. They provide us the oxygen that we breathe and uh they help conserve our water. I appreciate you uh mayor. viewers some concerned about uh development that's occurring in uh in our county and and I appreciate that. Larry Reeseman did a the previous speaker I thought made a good point and Larry Reeseman did put in a a good article yesterday. Uh development is exploding and traffic light is unlike when we were moved here in this peaceful county a few years ago. It's getting heavier and heavier. Sadly, many citrus farmers sold their lands, finding major developers interested in building, clearcutting our lands. This affects us as well as our bird and wildlife populations which thrive on open lands. At some point, Florida will have to say no. I think that the Felsmere uh and Sebastian and our county must work together in the public to agree on how to manage our growth and we can work together and do that. Such collaboration was one of the five recommendations of the county's uh two 2024 urban services boundary uh consultant report. How unfortunately Indian River County now is becoming ground zero for land speculators and developers to hoping to buy cheap agricultural lands and and then building one

uh building more units. Uh three units per acre is called very low density here in Sebastian but a standard subdivision in Indian River County. Residential development really never pays for itself particularly uh in Florida where taxes are capped. It doesn't uh pay to expand urban services such as water, sewer, pave streets, stores, parks, police more than until you need to accommodate more people and can pay for all the traffic. So, uh, you know, sewer and water are expensive to build and maintain, but they're essential and and hopefully we'll they won't have septic tanks in this system. Uh, this urban service area is more than just a boundary on the map is a strategy to get greater return on the tax dollars by focusing new growth and redevelopment in areas where existing or planned infrastructure. Eventually the city or county uh does more when there's need to work together. Um and the uh Indian River u Sebastian and Felsmeir must get together and discuss the inner local agreements so that everyone in the county is on the same page not just accepting peacemail annexation proposals. Waiting for annexations is not plan is not planning. It's putting planning in the hands of developers. And I think we need to to control all this wild development that's occurring in our county and in the city. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you so much for that, sir. Yes, ma'am. Miss Moss. Commissioner. No, Louise. Miss Moss is coming up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh Laura Moss, uh Indian River County Commission. And good evening to the mayor and to the council and to the staff. Um I'm here tonight because I would like to see all of us uh and we we've heard this stated tonight. I would like to see all of us work better together. And I mean the county and the city and the cities, not just Sebastian. You know, we had the uh the meetings, joint meetings or joint workshops, I think we called them a year or so ago. I think it would be great to have one in the future. And this is, you know, it's up to you. I'm just I'm just thinking out loud here. It's always dangerous, but have one in the future about planning and development because there were some very good points made tonight. That's why I and by the way, that's why I'm here tonight to listen. I'm not here to take a position on any kind of decision that you're making tonight. I'm here to listen. And I have been listening and there's been some very good points made about working together, about defining uh progress, you know, and we and we know what it is and it's it's quantified in statutes and rules and regulations, but be able to explain it to the community. Um, I'll give you an example. We did uh last October, we had a joint workshop with county commission and our uh planning and zoning commission. We had it in the evening uh as you know we meet during the day. We don't usually meet in the evening but we had it at 6 and it went for 4 hours and the place was packed. I mean it was very enthusiastic. Um there there were a lot of us on the dis but only about half the meeting was county commission and the planning and zoning commission. The other half was the audience. There was a lot of participation and it is videotaped by the way. So, if any, you know, residents of Sebastian want to are curious about it, it's on the county website, Indian

River.gov, and it was last October. I think it was October 23rd. It was a special call, so it'll come up easily, but I would I'd really like to see that, and it can be educational. And to the the one uh there was a lady who commented on the hotel, and I know that that's a a sore point, a big sticking point, but it's something that what people don't understand is that never came before us. We didn't vote on it. It was administrative review. And I understand that the community doesn't understand, you know, how the process works. So that was a good point that was made earlier about it being educational and in addition to that, as I I've said earlier about working together and some of the other people have made that comment as well. So I'm just here to, like I said, think out loud and put that before you. And I know each of you individually, so you're, you know, you're welcome to reach out to me individually or however you want to handle it and uh decide what we want to do. But anyway, it's always nice to see you and thank you for the time.

All right. Uh thank you so much. Is there anyone else?

Uh yes, I'm Luis Cottonberg. I'm coming to you now as a citizen of the city representing myself. I brought notes, okay? So, you know, it won't be too long. I moved to Sebastian in 1994. When I got here, we had slightly more than 11,000 people. I can tell you in the 30 plus years that I've been here, the atmosphere of this city has not changed. A lot of the vacant lots have changed to wonderful neighbors. I also would like to say that I think it was about 15 maybe 16 years ago, we had a council and a community that were frightened of of growth and they uh it was it was a a very contentious time and they decided that we just weren't going to have any growth at all because we want everything to stay exactly the way it is. Um and I think that was 15 or 16 years ago. The result of that was that there was an interlocal agreement drafted, but it didn't really work out very well. Um, shortly after that happened, Felsmere annexed property on this side of I 95, rather substantial amount of it. And you know what? If the property is not within your boundaries, you do not have any control over it. And um the lady who spoke to us just

uh just last indicated that we would all be welcome to speak with the county and participate in their ratings. And I know that that is absolutely true. They aren't very convenient for us though. And when we have enclaves in the city that are under the control of another community, be it Felsmere or the county, we can certainly give input, but we have no control. And the process being if if it meets their criteria, it has to happen. They can't just say no because we don't like it. We can't say no to a property because we don't like it. We have criteria that we need to follow. Everything has to meet the state standards. Everything has to meet the county standards. And then it has to meet our standards. And it's kind of like um a hierarchy of needs. Um I I think it's a mistake. I've I've been uh actively involved in seeing properties developed for I'm going to say it right out loud 50 years. Um I've seen it done well. I've seen it done poorly. I know that impact in the impact that it has on your lifestyle and as far as the statement going that residential doesn't pay for itself, there's no question about that. But people have to have places to live. And if you think you can cast off the expenses onto business, you need to recognize that if you don't have people, you won't have business. If you need to create a market in your community in order to keep your

community sustainable, healthy, and moving into the future. If we'd like to keep our children here, if we'd like to keep our workers here, we need to control our what's within our boundaries. And sometimes that means we need to increase our boundaries. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much, ma'am. Is there anyone else? Uh, yes, sir. There's one coming up. Hang on, sir. You'll be next. You can come on up, sir, on the left. Hang over there for a minute. Yes, sir. You can come on up, Chuck. Yeah, I know. I got to give better directions. You're on the left. You're on the right.

Good evening. I'm Chuck Meckling, 1765 Laconia. And uh I've been for over 30 years doing business in this community. And the question, and Louise was so spot on with so much tonight, but the question that we always ask ourselves is, how do you grow with grace? What the emotional point of what everybody loves here is our community. And I would tell you that growth is inevitable and the point of this group, Mr. Collins and the Concordia group is exactly what we would want to have in this community. We have a development spirit of Sebastian and we are part of this community. We put on activities and functions and we have had many meetings with Mr. Collins on what his plans are. And the point of it is is good growth promotes good communities. And I too am grateful that our children have a pot spot here to work and to live. And that doing a project where the city and everybody can work together is by far the route that I would hope that we're able to go and able to do. I appreciate it.

All right. Uh thank you so much, sir. Yes, sir.

I don't want to be on record as agreeing with the attorney, but this was the right sight height for the microphone. I've never agreed with an attorney before. My name is Mike Johansson. I am the chairman of the Indian River Neighborhood Association and uh I am a resident of the city of Vero Beach. We look back at the at the growth and there is no doubt that Sebastian could annex Sebastian Pines. The real question is should you? We're looking at this state of Florida as the third largest population density in the United States. We have the 22nd most land in the United States. Think about that a little bit. The the growth that we're seeing and approving, we don't want it to be classified as urban sprawl. We want it to have a purpose and we want to have the support to support the people. We want to have the hospitals. We want to have the schools. We want to have the police departments. We want to have the grocery stores. We want to have public transportation. If we have a resident for people that are workforce housing who most of them can't or don't want to afford a car, you have to have public transportation to get them to their jobs. Those are all considerations. I look at the big picture and I see the the annexation on the table. There was the Graves Brothers and two 2023 that was over 2,000 acres which is now part of the city. I look out in the west and there's the Crestwind development which you haven't

seen yet because they haven't applied for annexation but they will. 383 acres. I see the pines which is 204 acres. Where's where does it stop? What how is this part of the plan? Is there a plan? I I hear from uh the contractor that uh this the county has said that they will provide concurrency which they refuse to do for the Graves brothers. I I I'll have to look into that, but I've talked to Sean and I've talked to John Teanich at length and the 16 million gallons consumptive use permit barely accommodates 150,000 people when they have 157,000 now plus industrial users. So, um, the big plan doesn't doesn't seem to be supporting this, but, uh, I I I caution caution as you proceed. It's certainly your call, but thank you for letting me talk to you.

All right. Thank you, sir. You want to come up, sir? Come on,

Mayor. Council members. Uh my name is Peter Roberts. Um in regards to the Concordia Group, um that's a tough act to follow. Um I've been in resident of Indian River County for 50 years, almost 50 years. My parents had the good um foresight to leave uh South Florida in 1978. Um on your map, you see that big finger pointing down from the north. That's me. Um, that's my 10 acres. My wife and and I have owned that 10 acres for 14 years now. And we could have sold for a profit, quite a nice profit, but we said, "No." We said, "No, thank you. I farm that land. I grow vegetables. I grow flowers to sell at the farmers market. I'm a beekeeper. I also sell honey at the farmers market. I can't make honey out of concrete and asphalt. This county is being given away to the highest bidder and it really needs to be stopped, slowed down. We all need to take a step back and look at some growth, some realistic um growth, some quality growth. And I don't think it's zero rot lines with for maximum profit. I urge you to deny the annexation. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Come on up.

Hi, I'm Sharon Herman. I live here in Sebastian. And thank y'all. Um I made a couple of extra notes different than my original thoughts but the gentle the gentleman two people before mentioned about Vero Beach and I don't think very many people realize that Vero Beach City proper is very small compared to what we usually think of as Vero Beach because they didn't annex the and but it kept growing. The more that we do not annex and this gentleman said we've got all these other projects that could be coming for annexation. I say great annex them all because that way we can control the density of the building. We can control the storm water issues. We can control what kind of infrastructure is required and needs to be done. If we're going to leave it to the county, the county is not the the step. Like Louise said, you've got the state, you've got the county, and then you've got the city. And our restrictions can be more more defined than the county can. The way I understand it, I'm I'm not 100% sure if I'm right, but the way I understand it is the state has put a a kibash as far as being able to put a moratorium on building. If people own property, they have the right to build as long as they're within the guidelines and within the ordinances of the city. If we annex this property, we as a city have control over what happens with that property. If we don't, it goes back to the county. And nothing against the county, but maybe their guidelines aren't as strict as ours. Maybe they don't have the visions for

Sebastian that we have. It's just like all the what is it 62 or 64 those little houses just north of um Sebastian Saltwater.

Those went in right there on the lagoon because that's county. That's not city property. I know she talked about the hotel. It's been kind of kibashed. We don't know that back again because that's county property. That's not city property. As long as it's not within our city control, we can't complain because it's going to get developed. Develop's going to happen as long as owners own land. Our hope is just that we can choose to try and develop it a way that keeps our paradise. Thank you.

All right. Uh thank you, ma'am. Um we have anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council. Um, Robert Vot, City of Sebastian. I live here. I also sit on the planning and zoning commission representing District 2. Um, Joe Flesher. Uh, I'm I'm honored to to do that. Um, Louise, I thought what you spoke was was absolutely true. And in fact, I also want to uh compliment the team on their presentation. uh sitting on planning and zoning. I see a lot of these presentations and I think they brought their agame today. I think what they're asking to do makes sense for this community. I think it it does give us that control to develop this. Uh I know Mr. Collins is very open to making sure what he does meets our community's standards and meets our community goals. and he is so thoughtful about that um that it's a rare thing to see uh these days when it comes to development. Uh here at the Spirit of Sebastian uh we do have bees there and we brought all of our uh landscaping. Everything that we do is pollinator friendly. It is Florida native. So, you can do that in these communities and allow for butterflies and bees to exist in harmony with us uh just by making sure that those kinds of landscaping are what you you would want and to have. So, I I hope you uh actually support this and uh I appreciate your time. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much for that. Sure. Yes, sir. Come on up, Mr. Bean. Terry McKinn uh Miller Drive Sebastian I wasn't going to do this but you know the meeting is about whether to annex or not to annex and I'll go back to 2019 when we when we did the other annexation and the subject um issues and I would compliment the group that made their presentation tonight as a longtime engineer, a project manager, I'd say they did a they did bring their aame. But the question is um whether to annex or not. Uh if you drive down Route One, there's another brand new set of RV storage facilities. There's the big yellow banana, the uh threetory um nursing home. And uh Commissioner Moss was partially correct. The reason the hotel didn't get built was uh Jeannie Soul and I found a way to get 3,700 petitioners against the hotel and bring it to the county and it did us absolutely no good. The only reason the hotel wasn't built was the guy died and nobody else in his group thought it was a good idea. uh that hotel was going to be 100 yards from the city of Sebastian. What? And I went to every councilman when that hotel was uh uh moving along and the answer was we cannot do a thing about it. It's in the county. Uh I've been here for 20 years. Uh I've gone through the charter review, the

comprehensive plan, uh the budget advisory board, and I I think this is the bestrun city and and the whole treasure coast. I also think that the uh as long as it's under the control of the city of Sebastian, we'll have much more structured growth than we will in the county. Uh just take a ride down through Beer Beach and continue on south. Uh and either side of Route One, it's not Sebastian. Uh this 200 acres, um it's a nice development. Uh there are five factions here tonight and and they were all very important. There are environmental people here who are really concerned. Uh there were people who don't want growth at any point. Um there are the people who understand that annexation means control and we do need to control that property and so I I I think that uh you should go ahead with the annexation and they will have to come before the planning and zoning board and the city council and they won't um get away with what they get away with both places. Thank you.

All right. Uh thank you so much for that sir. Um anyone else in the audience? Anyone on Zoom? I have one with a hand raised. All right. Thank you. Bring them on.

Mr. Gills, can you hear us? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Good evening.

Good evening. Good. Yes. Good evening, city council. So, you had a lot of good speakers get up there today. You know, I've been in the community 40 years. By the way, I'm Damian Gills. I'm a business owner and a convicted uh misdemeanor guy. Sat on the city council. Anyway, um those guys were good. The presentation was good. However, the town's growing. Larry Reeseman made a very good point in his article yesterday. The municipalities need to get together immediately. This all annexations should be on put on pause and there should be interlocal agreements written up with all municipalities so that the the county has a plan and the cities have a plan and and we're all singing off the same sheet of paper. I noticed the 2.4 units per acre. I think that's too high. I think that should be at two and less. They did a great presentation, but did they invite the other nonprofits and the environmentalists in this community to the table to discuss their issues? Nobody contacted me, the president of the homeowners association. I'm sure nobody contacted Mr. Baker from Autobon. Nobody probably contacted Tim from over at Sebastian River. Did they? Would would you get them to come on up and address those questions and see if they did invite us? Um, we need to draw up the annexation agreement, not the developer. We need to retain the city, the taxpayers. We need to retain a land development attorney to look out for our interest and we need to be a part of that annexation agreement so that we do not leave anything undone and we don't get stuck with a mess down the road. It's going to come not just with this organization, and they they may have great intentions, and I'm sure they do,

but we have to have a model annexation agreement for all of them so that we protect our environment, our rivers, our traffic, our schools, our emergency responders, everything. We don't need another Fort St. Lucy. We don't need another Fort Lauderdale or Bvard County, Palm Bay. I mean, be nice if we can petition the state and just shut down 512 and 16, let them go develop in the other places, but that wouldn't be fair either. So, but I would like to hear from the developer to see if he did invite the other community organizations to be a part of the planning process. And uh with that, I thank you very much for running a good meeting, Mr. Mayor. God bless.

All right. Thank you so much, sir. All right. Um, public input is closed. Um, I think we'll move on. I just want to say a couple things before we go into further deliberation. I've heard uh multiple times tonight that uh we need to work together. What folks don't understand that may not know is that we have a coalition of cities, all cities in in River County, including a county commissioner and the county administrator in involved in that coalition. and we've been having meetings uh weekly sometimes uh twice a month and we will continue doing those. So, and there's other things that we all work together, the NPOS's and everything else. So, but we are working together and we continue to work together. That's the goal is for all of us to work together, all of the elected bodies and everything else because Indian River County is strong when we're all together. So, and u you know I I want to not sound make this sound mean but I I hear this stuff and and it's always okay for others to build and grow in the county or other places but when it come to Sebastian we get people come out they don't want us to grow but it's okay for everyone else to grow and and that I I I don't take count to that because we love our city and we want to remain sustainable in the future and as long as things stay in in this city those properties We have uh we have control over what gets developed there. We get to decide our citizens and us get to decide how those things get built based on our comprehensive plan and our land development codes. And with that, I'll leave it to council. Anyone?

Oh, it's on. Thank you. Um a couple of general comments. Uh there there have been and I think it was referenced by u at least one of the speakers. There have have been prior attempts to put together some type of a u in a local agreement to handle this and quite frankly it it failed maybe because there wasn't necessarily an incentive on the part of all the participants to make it work. Um there's I think eight governments in in Indian River County counting in river shores and so forth maybe don't don't do a AI search on that and correct me because I may be wrong on the number but I believe there's eight and each of those has their own priorities their own things that they want to accomplish and when you try to get eight entities together who have their own internal priorities and internal things that they want to accomplish and you try to get them to decide who's going to give up something so somebody else can have something. It becomes very difficult to make that happen and it failed miserably. I mean that was a point in time in which the county a couple of county commissioners at least were attempting to possibly become a charter county to take the ability to govern away from the cities as a result of that. And that was because they were so ingrained in gaining what they wanted to gain out of the process, not necessarily in trying to make sure that everybody won. Um if political bodies could negotiate correctly, we wouldn't have wars. It's that simple. And they can't. That's one general comment. The other one is that um this Sebastian has has done a pretty good job. I I I heard one speaker say this, maybe I'm not sure who it was, but I I've been here 26 years now and uh

the character of this city is still good. It really is still good. Um and I I can't see the people up here nor the people on our staff who want to destroy that character in this city. They're they're they do what they can to maintain it. the annexation agreement that we're going to vote on uh hopefully in a few minutes uh is is very much structured around providing hopefully somewhat of a win-win situation between the developer and the city. Uh the developer quite frankly has done a really good job in working with the city on understanding the city's needs. I I I didn't have to do that as an exparte communications, but I've personally met with the developer and I'm sure the rest of the council members have u they've done a really good job of trying to understand the city's needs and the city staff has done a good job in presenting those. And if you haven't read the the the annexation agreement, you'd be surprised at what may be in there. They they can't develop this piece of property without county utilities. They can't develop it without appropriate storm water structures. They can't develop it without curbon gutter streets. They can't develop it without um maybe Miami gutters, I don't know, but they can't develop it without that stuff. Um the amount of workforce housing that could possibly be in this of the of the lots is significant in my opinion compared to what we've been able to get from other places. Uh there's been efforts within any river county to try to do workforce housing. And when they give away money, give away impact fees and provide cash, they the people still want to build something that sells for $350 to $400,000. And a secondyear school teacher or a thirdyear police officer can't buy a house that sells for that price unless they've got an inheritance that lets them pay for most of it. And so there there are things within this. That's just some a general perspective on this. Um, when

you look at it, the city is not going to lose on this process. Um, I look at it a little bit differently than some other people do from some perspectives. We are by agreement going to have a new town on that 2,000 acre grace property. New town is my term. I know Alex may she may be frowning at me, but there is going to be some form of a new town development on that Grace property by agreement. It's going to be mixed use. It's going to include commercial, residential. It's going to include this stuff. There is every incentive to address the individuals who talked about things like emergency rooms and so forth. There is every incentive for someone like Florida Health or someone else to build a emergency clinic there. There there will be an incentive for there to be a a potential fire station located there. There's going to provide stuff for police substations. This piece of property to me is almost like saying that's a neighborhood to the graves property. It's contiguous to it on a large boundary. Uh and if we look at it as though this is just 200 more acres that's going to be contiguous to that new town concept that's going to be on the grace property, it doesn't make it doesn't create a problem in saying we want to build a PUB residential there without mixed use. It doesn't create a problem to think about that from that perspective because we're not and I understand I agree 100% with the people who said this it makes you you cannot pay for residential development only. It doesn't generate enough tax revenue and after the state finishes the next 6 months uh it won't generate enough tax revenue anywhere but it doesn't generate enough tax revenue to pay it for self. you need commercial, but this is basically a neighborhood to a development area that's going to have that commercial in it. Uh there is in the county a development relatively close to this uh Liberty Park that is

going to have commercial in it in in those commercial parts of that. I'm assuming that gets built. I I don't know, but I'm assuming it's going to get built. So I don't view this as a standalone annexation of a residential piece of property. I view it as a extension of something that is beneficial to the city in that in that overall 2,000 acre new town project. Um, you can put something really great in 2,000 acres and it's going to be up to the city with its staff and its elected leaders to make sure that that happens. And we have every opportunity because I tell you the annexation agreement that we did with them provides every bit of the tools that we need to make sure that happens when it takes place. Um, so I I'm I'm in favor of this primarily for those reasons. I think it fits well within our comp plan. It fits well with what we're looking for and it is not going to be cumbersome on the city if you lump it lump it together. I don't know that I would have be in favor of this if Graves was 2,000 acres of residential only. I wouldn't be in favor of it, but it fits well within that overall picture. And quite frankly, that is called planning. Okay, that is that is that is planning. Uh we we may not have sat down as in our strategic plan and in our comp plan and said we're going to do a growth plan. Maybe we should just to kill all these arguments about it. Maybe we should do a growth plan. Okay. Uh and talk about that. Um of course if we do then we might be talking about trying to annex all the way down the 52nd Street between 99th and 66th because that's a growth plan. Now people would go crazy if we start talking about that but in reality if we were to really talk about a Sebastian growth plan that would be the boundaries that we would be talk supposed to be talking about in that regard. That's what Felsmere did when they annexed 80 thou 8,000 acres is their city manager

had was looking at a long-term growth plan and he did that by annexing large pieces of land in that process. And I'm I'm sure they're now haggling as much as anybody is on how they control that growth because they're starting to get people come in want to build on it and they'll be dealing with that as they go through the process. So for those reasons, let me make sure on my notes here. Um yeah, I I the Indie River County study uh for their extension of their urban service area was sanctioned by any river county with the overall intent of expanding urban services down Oslo road beyond 95. And the part of that study that said we shouldn't do anything in this donut hole of no urban services in the middle of the northern county was really an afterthought. I I I firmly don't I firmly believe that there was they they were told to look at growth down in that south part of the county beyond 95 for an urban service barrier. Uh if anybody takes a look from Oslo Road all the way to Indian River all the way to to um uh St. Lucy County is going to be uh St. Lucy County North. It's all that's that's where it's headed right now is St. Lucy County North from that that that perspective. Okay. And I wouldn't want to do that to Sebastian and I don't think that's what we're talking about doing. Um administrative review. I think uh Commissioner Moss mentioned administrative review on that hotel. Once again, don't do an AI search, but we don't do administrative review here.

We do do administrative review, but it is very minimal compared to what the county does. It is it is extremely minimal.

Yeah. You you wouldn't build a three or four story hotel at Sebastian through an administrative process. You wouldn't do it. We don't we don't in in fact we're talking about a a mixeduse um a a mixeduse ordinance or impact our land development code. And the one argument I have against it is the fact in there it says staff approval on certain pieces, you know. So we'll talk about that when we talk about that later. But uh so I mean that's something that wouldn't necessarily happen here. Uh so I I'm I'm in favor primarily because I think it does fit within that overall picture of where Sebastian needs to go and I don't think it's going to hurt Sebastian at all. Uh when we do that, uh all we got to do now is just figure out how we can uh get through the process without a whole lot of consternation. Um and I do disagree with one thing that the that you guys said. We we are not just approving the annexation. Without a picture, you can't convince people to annex. So when we do the annexation and we have a picture, believe me, if what comes back is radically different than this, there's going to be the devil's going to be screaming, you know. So this when when when you do government things which are perception becomes reality, this is what people expect to see there. Okay. So yeah, that's that's the one area I disagree with. It was a great presentation and if you haven't read it, this this document, the justification statement on for the annexation is the best that I've ever seen written. I'm I'm telling you, I don't uh it if you read through it, it's an extremely extremely well put together document and and I I applaud our staff and I applaud the uh the developer staff on putting this thing together. It's very informative and reading this answers all your questions. So, it does a good job

with it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right. Uh thank you so much, Miss Matthews. You have a couple. Oh, I'm not sure how to follow that.

Um, one of the things that I I really and um that strikes me is the growing with grace. You know, we are a community that through all of our growth, through all of the years and and I've been here 50 years um that I have watched Sebastian and it's still Sebastian. It's still a town that people inspire. They want to be a part of. Um, one of the things that I that I really um that sticks with me when we start talking about annexation and annexation is it's inevitable. It it growth is inevitable. It's going to happen and if we don't then we become stagnant. We lose our cities. They die. You know, we have to grow. Um, annexation in municipalities is one of the easiest way to grow because it's it's a simple process. But one of the things that I keep is what are we leaving for the next generation? What are we doing? what what where where are we and what are we going to give? Um this is a well put together um I am notorious and I know that some people at the other end will agree with me on this for picking things apart and finding the little things and I couldn't and yesterday I did have a small conversation um it was a quick question and Mr. Mills was gracious enough to answer and what I have said through or what I've found through all of this process is that the com they're wanting to be a part of our community. They're not let's drop a communic a community in here and then we're going to run. They want to participate. They want to be here. And these are the people these are if we're going to grow. These are the people we want here. We want the folks that care about our community, that are going to participate, that are going to stay and are going to be a part of it because those are the people that now see it as well. They're living it just like we are, you know. So, these communities, this has just been a great I mean, it

really is. I think this is a good um start. So, some new beginnings again, you know, the growing with grace and that's that's how we we look at this and and what are we leaving? So, thank you. Exactly. I thank you, Mr. Nun.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, uh, going through all the all the paperwork, looking at the annexation agreement. Um, I I hadn't had a chance to talk to the team. I do know a few members of the team from other projects, but, uh, I met Will for the first time tonight and very nice gentleman. I talked to other people to talk to him that have nothing but but gracious good things to say about what he wants for this community and what he wants for this development. Um, you know, people complain about traffic and and I, you know, I I don't disagree. Traffic can be difficult, so we shouldn't annex the property. Well, okay. So, if the property's here and we don't annex it, we have no control. We we receive a zero amount of dollars from that property, but it's still there. They still come to our parks. They still that traffic that you were worried about is still going to come through your city, but you you have zero benefit and zero control. If you annex the property, that traffic that you're concerned with will now be your traffic. It will benefit you with tax dollars. Yes, it's it's not going to pay for everything. Uh unfortunately, residential doesn't. I I pray that Graves Brothers has a huge amount of commercial when it does get there and some other things that are coming around u provide more commercial because that that's where our our tax base really benefits. Um but the only way we retain our community and retain what we want is by annexing. We have to annex this property that surrounds our city. Uh Liberty Park's a great example. The project that was scheduled for that was at one point there was section 8 housing. There was all kinds. It was super super uh tight clustered, high high uh um number of people per per acre and and units. You know, that's not what we want there. And and who knows what'll happen with that property if they'll still do that down the road, but it's

right there at our back door. And we have zero control over that property. It's going to have who knows how many people, if they ever develop that property, sitting there that will use Sebastian for everything because why? It's right there. So, this here's right next door to it. And if we don't annex it, we still have all the impact without any of the money or any of the control. So, and I see no reason this is a great project. I I I pray that uh you know uh like uh council member Dodd said that it looks very similar to what you've presented when we get there because it's a very nice project. Uh the members of the team that I've talked to in the past, I have no doubt about that. Um, Mr. Collins I I feel, you know, is is a really nice, good person that wants good and and you know, unfortunately, uh, in life you have to make decisions on how you feel about things, what you're doing. They've done the environmental impact studies. When they go further, they're going to be doing more of that when they're they've already talked to the county about about servicing it and and they've already got a we serve letter from them, which means that they're going to serve it. Uh, you know, I I feel like they've done their homework and they've done what needed to happen for this and and I'm I'm in favor of it as well. Thank you.

All right. Uh, thank you. Mr. McPartland, you still with us? I'm always with you there, mayor. All right. Good. Thank you, sir. All right. I I don't want to reiterate everything that everybody else say, but I do like to comment growing with grace. Growth with grace. and I've been sitting up there for 15 years and I think Sebastian in that period of time has grown with grace. So I support the project before I lose some video here.

All right, that's it. All right, thank you sir. Um I guess we're done with that and I think the first thing we're going to take a motion on on them separately if you all are done with your deliberations. Um we we'll start with R26-16 the annexation So, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. And we have a second. Any other discussion? Madame Clerk. Council member Nun. Yes. Council member Matthews. Yes. Council member Dodd. Mayor Jones. Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland? Yes. Motion carries.

All right. Um, thank you so much for that. Um, the next item is Ortness 0-26-03. Mr. Mayor, if I may. Sorry. Yeah. We just have one issue with this and now that you've passed or approved the annexation agreement um

for ordinance 0-26-03 like to uh ask that council add an additional whereas clause. You got copies of it. All it says that whereas the owners of the real property and the um and the city of Sebastian have entered into an annexation agreement approved April 8th, 2026 setting forth certain terms under which the annexation will be governed. Um so if if that meets with your approval when somebody makes a motion if you could make a motion to approve it as amended and then for the second reading it will come with that language. All right. Very good. We understand

2603 as amended. I have a second. Any uh discussion? All right. Um Madame Clerk. Council member Matthews. Yes. Council member Dodd. Mayor Jones. Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland. I think he had to go. Council member Nun. Yes. Hang on just a second. Is he still there? Can you see him? He is still on. All right. Can you All right. All right. There you go. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. All right. Motion carries. Five.

All right. Thank you guys so much. Um we're going to take a 10-minute recess and then we'll convene in 10 minutes. The boat did a

All right. Um, we're back on. Um, next item on our agenda is uh unfinished business item 11A. Mr. Benton or Mr. Mr. Stokes. Sure. I can read this. It's resolution number R-26-15, a resolution of the city of Sebastian, Florida, authorizing the mayor to execute deeds and real estate documents, adoption of recital, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date. All right. Uh, thank you so much for that, sir. Um,

I second it. So, we have a motion and a second. Um, we talked about this before. Yeah, we're correct. Um, is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Anyone on Zoom? No one has raised their hand. All right. Uh, thank you so much. Public input is closed. Um, Madame Clerk, Council Member Dodd, yes. Mayor Jones, yes. Vice Mayor McPartland, yes. Council member Nun, yes. And Council Member Matthews, yes. Motion carries. All right. Um, can I uh Yes, sir. Can I have I need to have a quick one minute discussion with the attorney. Can we hold for two seconds?

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Dinner. Mr. Mayor, we just wanted to clarify on on the u the item before uh which was resolution R-26-16 that when the motion was made for approval uh by council member Nun that it was stated as R-26-16. He believes that he may have misspoke and said 15 instead of one six. So we just want to and of course I don't I don't remember you know I wasn't maybe I wasn't listening

close but in any event I think we just clarify just clarify the correction and the consensus that that's okay because cuz what matters is what you guys understood you to be voting on but we just want to make sure you said 16 instead of 15. So if you want to redo the motion I can do that if you think that'd be appropriate. I think on the on the resolution for annexation I said 15. No, he talking about 2616. Uh 26. I think I said 2615 because I think I was Oh, you're talking about the annexation. Okay. I just want to clarify that my motion was for R26-16 as for the positive. So I agree with that. I I know that's what I voted for for that number too. So we have a consensus. Okay.

Okay. Just as long as you know everyone confirms that they're understanding what they were voting on so that no confusion. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Um, new business item 12A. Um, I think there's some errors on page 85. Um, the dates were incorrect on that. So, uh, Mr. Benton, are you on this one?

Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, um, this is a request from um, the police department through our procurement manager. I apologize. Jessica is out sick today. Um, so I'm kind of carrying her load forward to discuss these items. Um, this is a purchase order request uh in the amount of $60,133.40 for a 2026 Ford Transit T350 cargo van, including upfitting, but as mentioned in the staff report, it does not include the graphics. That'll be purchased separately. It doesn't meet the threshold to come to council, but we wanted to make sure we were transparent that there will be an additional amount on the purchase of this once we get the vehicle and take it to graphics. Um and there is uh sufficient funding for this as mentioned by the mayor on page 85. The column under amount budgeted um all of those items came forward to council in 2025. Um it was inadvertently listed on here as 1082026. Um and so with that just for clarification the vehicle is uh out of that is $49,282.68. The upfe upfitting is $10,850.72. So we request your approval. And if you have any specifics, the chief is here to to answer those as well.

All right. Thank you. Is is this for crime scene or something else? Yes, sir. It's for crime scene. All right. Any anyone have any questions for the chief? Yeah, it's 60,133 plus the bid out on it. Is that correct? No. Oh, no sir. So, the 60,13340 includes the vehicle and the upfitting. Okay, that includes it. The only thing additional on this that we were being transparent about is when we receive the van out completely outfitted, we will send it for graphics. Um, and that will be an additional amount, a couple thousand for graphics. Okay. All right. Correct. I move approval. Usually 750. Usually about $750 to $1,000 for graphics.

Yeah, I'm good with it. Uh, second. I I was just confused when you were talking about what that was. So, it's all right. I move approval. All right. A second. And we have a motion and a second. Um, is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Seeing none. Anyone on Zoom? No. At this time. All right. Um, council. Um, madam clerk, unless council has anything else. Nothing. Nothing. Madam clerk. Mayor Jones. Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland. Yes. Council member Nun. Yes. Council member Matthews. Yes. Council member Dodd. Yes. Motion carries.

All right. Thank you so much. We're on to item 12B, consideration of selecting the top seven ranked firms. Um, Mr. Benton.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so real quick, this is going to pertain to items 12B, 12 C, and 12 D. I just wanted to provide some clarification. The reason we have chosen so many um to award so many firms in this is due to the specialties um within each of these RQs to best provide the specific services necessary um when the city needs something. So you'll see obviously the item we're discussing now RFQ uh 26-6 um we are requesting council's approval to award to the top seven ranked firms. That doesn't mean that all seven are going to get all the business. It's going to mean we're gonna the one that fits best with the need that we have at that specific time. We will then negotiate uh CSAs with that firm at that time. So, what we are doing tonight is we are recommending selecting the top seven ranked firms for RFQ26-6, continuing coastal engineering services, and authorize the city manager to exec execute the negotiated agreements.

All right. Uh, thank you so much for that. Um, any questions, council, from there? No. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. Can I Can I make a motion to approve BCND? Is that appropriate? Can I make a motion to approve BCND or do we need to do individually? No, that's different. Um, that's 26 27 different RFQ 28, right? So, RFQS. I'll make a motion to approve RFQ26-6. I'll second. They're not public. Are you okay, Mr. Tone? Do you think we could do it?

Uh, yeah. I mean, these aren't things that require a public hearing or anything. These are pretty much administrative. This is the type of thing that had the manager not wanted to go into an explanation, he could have even put on consent had he wanted to. Um, it's the type of stuff a lot of cities will do on consent. So th this is a situation that that you could as long as a motion is clear that you're approving. I will re pull back my motion and I will make a motion to approve RFQ26-6, RFQ26-7 and RFQ26-8. Second. All right. Um, is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item? Seeing none in the chambers. Do we have anyone on Zoom?

Not at this time. All right. Uh, public input is closed. Um, madame clerk, unless we have anything up. Anyone of you all have anything? Mr. McPartland, do you have anything on this? No, sir. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Council member Nun? Yes. Council member Matthews? Yes. Council member Dodd? Yes. Mayor Jones? Yes. Vice Mayor McPartland? Yes. Motion carries. All right. Um, thank you. Um we're going to move on to item 12E. Mr. Benton.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um once again, uh procurement manager in working with our public works director um had solicited uh issued an invitation to bid 26-9 for pre-engineered metal storage buildings for the public works compound. This was a budgeted item in this year's stormwater FY26 CIP utilizing discretionary sales tax funding. We had budgeted $450,000. Um for this we have expended $68.64 um for the legal ad uh for this. The original plan for this was two buildings. Um, if you remember the the expansion points for the public works compound included a a shelter structure um heading off of the existing break room building uh heading to the south towards the um retention pond that would house smaller equipment, some vehicles, things like that. And then on the the most southern portion of the fenced in area, we have a large compound area that houses our large equipment, back truck, back hose, um tractor trailers, all that stuff gets housed there. The price for both of those structures, shade structures or storage buildings, um came in over budget. So, with that, staff and and Jessica went back um to the lowest bidder and requested if they would honor their price if we only selected one of the buildings. So, with that, coming before you tonight is a request to um approve issuing a purchase order for $335,117 for a metal storage building that will house our large equipment um in the southern portion of the building, not including the extension off of the existing building. So, it would only be one structure that we're requesting approval for due to

budgeting. Yeah. All right. Um, thank you. Can we have a motion for this? Or I'd like to ask a question if I could, Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. Uh, where are we storing all these items now? In the open. Yeah, they're just out in the open right now dealing with the elements and um and they need to be under a covered structure. Okay.

And I will also have one other thing I should have clarified when I was having discussion. This still has to go before planning and zoning. It has not been approved by planning and zoning. The reason we're coming forward for the PO is we can't get signed, sealed, engineered drawings from any of from the firm until we have a PO to go forward with them. Our agreement with them as we go forward. I spoke with Jessica on this. We will um place language in the agreement that it will be conditioned on planning and zoning approval for the entire project. There will be some costs with the signed sealed engineered drawings out of this that we'll pay but it still has to go to planning and zoning.

This is u this is for storage of the large equipment and is is there any u consideration for things like possibly grease separators or some type of trap system for for contaminants that come off the equipment onto the onto the the floor of this building. I I didn't see anything in the bid for that kind of stuff and that's so yeah. So, it'll be built as kind of a um a shade hanger, if you will. It won't it won't have concrete under the bottom. It's going to have the existing subbase that we have out there. Um so, there will be some concrete right around where the poles go, but other than that, it's going to be an structure. That answers my question. I was just concerned with a concrete slab that there might be. Okay, I'm fine with this then.

And this is actually building two on the quote that you got, right? Yeah. two or Yeah, let me clarify. This is one the second one not it's the second there was two quotes. The second one was the the amount of money that you that you've got in here. I think correct. Correct. So this is for building two which is the southern building because the the the stuff here says buildings buildings buildings but it's one building. Correct. Yeah. One building. Yes. Correct. It's only one building, but we when we did the bid, we did this on purpose because we did have some concern that it was going to come in over budget. So, we went ahead and had them separate the two building cost out for us. Okay.

I move approval, Mr. Mayor. Uh, second. So, we have a motion and a second. Um, is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this? Anyone on Zoom? I have one hand raised. Thank you. Bring them on. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Is this the building over at the uh airport uh the storm water uh the public works building over there? Uh yes, sir. It is. This to cover those vehicles what you spoke about in the past about covering them so we don't destroy the vehicles.

Yeah. Yeah. When I went out there and I looked at that, I took pictures of it. I couldn't believe it. But here's the problem I have. Wasn't that project $6 million over budget? Oh, we're beyond that project, sir. We're We're talking about shade hangers, fire equipment. Now, I understand that, Mr. Mayor. I understand it. But this is the same project that we were $6 million over budget was cuz when I was on council, it was 3.5 and it ended out at about 9.2. That's the same project. That's I just want to get clarification. All right. Thank you, sir. Are you done? You sir, you don't want to answer what we were $6 million over budget because the the city manager said we were. He told me we were cuz I was at the meeting when I asked him. Mr. Mayor, I have a point of order.

Yeah. Um, we have a point of order. This is this is not about the old building. This conversation is about this agenda item and this conversation has nothing to do with this agenda item. Yeah. I'd like to Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Listen, don't don't let Mr. Dodd cover up. Okay. First of all, that was changed. Mr. Mayor, I have a point of order on these rules. All right. Um, Mr. Gill, can you hold on for a moment? We have a point of order on the floor. We need to vote on this. Um, no. Hang on. Yes. My my point of order is that the discussion item is pertains to only purchasing this building and to other items brought into that are are suitable for public comment and this is not public comment

and I agree this is about this particular item. It's not about anything in the past. So this is what we should be speaking about. So so our next meeting if a speaker would like to bring it up under public comment he's more than welcome to. All right. Um, did you All right. You're right, Mr. Mayor. Let Let Dodd cover it up. But I'll make sure that the community knows that we were over budget and you're going to go ahead and it's okay. I'd rather see you cover the equipment. But you're right, Dodd. You're right. Let's just cover it up. The embezzlement of six million may All right, sir. You All right, I'm done. You're done. Yes, sir. I'm just tired of him. All right. Um, no more public input. Anyone else on there? Um, Madame Clerk,

Council Member Matthews, yes. Council member Dodd, yes. Mayor Jones, yes. Vice Mayor McPartland, yes. Council member Nun, yes. Motion carries. All right. Um, thank you so much. Next item on our agenda is item 13, city attorney matters. Mr. Stokes, I have nothing for this evening, sir.

All right. Thank you so much. Um, next is city manager matters. Mr. Benton, you have a couple things. Uh yes. So so the first item is a discussion with council regarding the city clerk position interviews and scheduling plans. So before you all tonight on the dis um I provided a document that gave a proposed schedule for the city clerk position. Um the position the advertisement for the position closes on April 12th. That's next week. Um April 13th through the 17th. uh human resources and myself and including our acting city clerk. Um we'll review the applications and we will select the ones that are qualified. If you all are okay with that, if you all want every application to come to you on that a on an agenda so that you can choose the finalist yourselves, you all can do that. We're just proposing that we will kind of go through and pull out the ones that are not qualified. So, I'm looking for some direction on that. Currently I list on here there's 47 applicants. I checked right before I came down. I had already printed this off. It was 49 applicants um that have applied. Then moving forward April 22nd based on your direction um for review of applications. Staff will then present qualified applications to council to determine your final candidates and we will include those applications in the agenda packet. um and schedule a date for interviews. Um we can schedule that date now. We were kind of looking at the week of April 27th. If that's too soon or if somebody has conflicts, we can obviously push it out, but we were just trying to be um as efficient as possible to get this process moving forward. Um, and then obviously whatever day we select for interviews, and I guess it depends on the number of candidates that

you all choose, we would then schedule a 5:00 pm meeting for you all to um discuss the applicants and make a selection. The other question with this is do you want to have typically in the past when you've done charter officers, you've had your individual interviews and then you've you've brought them in for a public interview. Do you want to have a public interview with the city clerk candidates or would you just prefer to have your individual interviews? Those are answers we're looking for tonight. So, we'll start with the first one. Um, do you want us to kind of sort through the applications before they come to you all or do you want all of them to make your own decisions?

I think as a my me personally as a charter officer and we're you know it's it's our responsibility. I I think we should It's kind of our job to do it. I mean, I appreciate the offer. I Yeah, but I

I my my thought and I'll offer a thought. Uh my thought is obviously with 47 whatever 49 applications, let's just talk 47. Uh we had a a list of qualifications that were what were desired uh require slash required. Um, me personally, I would I would while we won't discredit any of those 47, I think I would like to see the qualified applicants first and let us go through those. And if we'd look at those and don't see anybody that we think, you know, I mean, if we look at it and like I think we need to see more, then maybe we could do more. I don't know if if I think HR and and and that should go through the applicants and understand who's qualified for the position first because just because somebody was a administrative assistant doesn't make them qualified to be a city clerk.

And I agree with that. I I meant the qualified applicants. I I mean if of those 49 there may you know there may be qualifi they're not qualified. They don't meet the qualifications of what was posted. I'm talking the ones that are qualified that meet all of our agreed um requirements that we've posted and put out there. Okay, I agree with that completely. I mean, if there's 10, 12, 15, whatever that turns out to be, whatever that every whoever's qualified for this do that. I mean, I don't basically you've got an application from someone who has absolutely zero experience in a certain city clerk's role or hasn't worked within a certain

Oh, I'm sorry. has you got an application someone has zero experience in a city clerk role or has not worked in a city clerk office before. Um we we we're that's not someone I mean I'm not saying they're not a good person and not can do a good job. I'm just saying that we're looking for someone who can come in and jump into that role. We're going into an election cycle. I mean I walked in today and Cindy was out there trying to make booklets up for the election. you know, we're So, we have to have people who can fit within that very quickly. So, if we hire somebody in May, first week of May, we want them to at least be able to walk in the door and know what they're talking about the first week in May or the second week in May or whenever. So, I would think HR can do that relatively quick. Uh, and I'm not discounting the city manager being involved in that, but I think that that HR function can be done without any any any uh uh any any assistance. I'm I trust Cindy to do that. I mean, you know, don't don't pull out an application from somebody who is has experience, but I don't know, you don't like their name or something. I don't think you'll do that. So, I'm not worried about that happening. And then, are we talking about on the 22nd at our council meeting where we might get this where we might do this u pairing this down or what's the process? If we get let's say let's say we get 10 applications as a result of this pairing down and we don't want to interview 10 people probably. So the council has got to some way or another say these are the five people or whatever number that we want to interview. We had issues before with marked ballots and you know I mean I think at one time somebody was talking about so how how do we want to do that? Do we want to do that in the open in a meeting where we mark ballots or do we want to do that and send it to HR and say here's here's the four people I like or here's my rank

one through 10 and have them decide. I mean how do we

Yeah. As as far as as you know putting what yours are. I mean yeah you could send you could send those to HR. You'd identify so it' still be a matter of public record. So it' still be you know council member Dodd selected these if anyone ever requested. So but there's no communication at that point. There's no communication among you correct because you're dealing with staff. So it wouldn't be a sunshine issue public record issue. Yeah. Those would be retained in the file. Um and then based upon that um you know HR could then create what would be the short list. They would still have to come back to you for approval. So then, you know, if HR came and said, "Here are the five, you know, top ones." If somebody here said, "Well, I really want this person." Maybe collectively you'd add a six or or go down to four or whatever. So, so, so you would still have to have some public conversation before the final list was finalized or the short list was finalized, but you could get the ball rolling by submitting your

So, before the actual meeting to determine who we're going to interview, we have to almost have a meeting to do that final selection of the of the people that

I mean, if I look at this list, it's saying, "Okay, on the 22nd, I want to send you that. Then the week of the 27th we're going to interview. Well, it seems to me like on the 22nd we have a step that has to happen in between. That step is that each one of us needs to communicate to HR who a ranking and we can do it in a in a choice ranking list. If if there's 10 list one through 10 mmatically come up with the top five or something and then at that point we almost have to have a special meeting to determine whether that's actually the top five we want to interview. Does that sound reasonable? I I don't So So here's how I thought this would play out. The decision will be made by HR to narrow the candidates down to only the qualified. We would then put those in the agenda packet for the 22nd. At the 22nd meeting, you all would determine we want to interview three, four, five, whatever your number is. You then choose those to interview at the 22nd meeting.

Okay? So, we're going to do that ranking in public at the meeting or you can do it before if you want to send it in before. I just know that you get the agenda on Thursday. Everybody may not have I mean, it'll be tight to get it in before the meeting on that following Wednesday to get it into Okay. I'm just reading what's on the paper and it says April 22nd, which is the day of our meeting that we'll get a list of the qualified ones and then we'll determine the final candidates. No, you'll have it in the packet. It'll be in your packet. So, we'll present those candidates to you in an agenda item, but you'll have it in your packet that you received that Thursday before. So, we'll do our ranking at that meeting, basically. Yep. And you'll decide whoever you want to interview. Okay.

Yeah. This was a cumbersome thing in the past when we did a couple of these ranking things. have it got to be kind of cumbersome and and you know that's so I mean I think realistically the number of candidates you're going to see out of these 49 Cindy tell me if shake your head know if I'm wrong you're only going to get qualified candidates of somewhere in the range of six to 10 yeah 10 I'm thinking 10' be and 10 might be pushing it might it might be le you know so I think you're going to have a short list already to be quite honest Okay.

And then so then so we will do that. We'll get it all we'll get it on the agenda for the next meeting. You at that time will determine your final candidates that you want to interview. So my next question is we'll obviously have in um individual interviews with each of you. Do you want to also have a public interview session like we've done for managers and attorneys? I think we need to do individual and that's it. I do too. I do too. So, we'll do individual throughout the morning. Yeah. However many there are, and then we will come back at 5:00 pm that day and and you can discuss it. Right. I like that.

Yeah. Me, too. But I also like um one other thing I want to say. I I know that HR will break it down to the the top qualified candidates. Um but I'd still like to be able to see all 47 at at some point, the applicants, and what they were. So, um I I know there'll be a list of them and and um because from my experience from before, I believe there would be uh information that you sent in cover letters or whatever that you can look at their qualifications, etc. I'm not saying that um um somebody is not going to choose someone that's qualified that we may want to choose. I I'm just saying I'd like to look at all of those applicants myself. Could you put those put all of the applicants in a in a book and have it in the clerk's office so that we individually if we choose could come in and look through the book?

Would that be a reasonable approach to do that? It closes on the 12th. We'll have the book in the clerk's office on the 13th. Yeah. And that way if we choose to, we could individually come in and look through that book if we choose to. Correct. Okay. And I would request that you come in on the 13th and look at them if you need to because the agenda packet will have to be posted and out pretty quickly. Well, but the agenda packet is not going to include. Okay. All right. But if you see someone that we completely That's just one of those things where I say so what? You know, if I come in on 15th and so what? But if there is one that somebody missed, you can we can always add it because it would be an agenda item. Is that correct?

Correct. You can add Yeah, you can add that person, but then the rest of them wouldn't have seen it, but then you can discuss it that night. Yes. Yeah. All right. Um I'm good with these dates. Anyone know? So, we're looking to possibly make an do do a selection and the next question is the the after the 20, let's say the 27th, we do a selection at a meeting at 5:00 p.m. at the 22nd. 22. the week of the 20, we can't meet the 27th. There's a parks, there's a parks and recreation meeting. So, the week that's what it says. Okay. So, whatever day in that week, you have to pick a day in that week. You're going to have a meeting at 5:00 p.m. meeting.

So, we make a selection at that point in time. Then, based on our procedure for charter officer contracts, the mayor then works with that individual and puts together a contract. And then we have to have that contract brought back to us. And will we do that on the first meeting in May? Would that be appropriate to think about doing that? So we could What is that date? I mean it would basically like say we did interviews April 29th or 28th. You made a selection that would be almost a whole week to negotiate before it had to be on an agenda. So it is possible to get it on May 13th.

So would that Mr. Mayor is that a goal that you think you're comfortable? Oh, I I think um what are we doing on the 27th? That's the 27th. We can't. It's parks and rec. Oh, it's can't, but we can do the 28th. On the 28th or the 29th or the 30th? So, 29th's a Wednesday. And so, could we just plan on doing it on the 29th if everyone's available? April 29th. Um, what time is we talking? It'll be 5:00. 5:00 5:00 p.m. But the interviews would be the morning, right? Of the 29th. Yeah, it would be an all day. You It would be all day. Okay, that's fine. All day. So So So

Vice Mayor, are you available on the 29th? April 29th at 5:00 p.m. All day. All day. All day. I'm not I didn't bring my work phone with me, so I don't have my schedule, but I could probably get in touch with my assistant tomorrow and she could tell me what I got going that week. Yeah. So, tentatively we can schedule it for Yeah, we'll tentatively schedule it. Everybody put it on the calendar for the 29th. Are you good, Councilman? None. Yeah, I'll figure it out. I don't need to work and make money. So, well, I mean, you don't you're not going to be all day if you've got five candidates. No, it'll be the morning, you know, in and out time based on the interview time. We'll make it work. The afternoon. Okay.

What time are we going to start? Morning. 9. We can do morning or we can do afternoon leading up to the meeting. Either one, however you want to do it. We would start at 9:00 am if we did it in the morning. I mean, Cindy can work that out. If if if if Chris, for example, has to do his interviews in the afternoon, she can work that out. So, he does that as opposed to whatever. We will work with each of you and have that schedule ready for the 22nd meeting. Yeah. Okay. Well, on Okay. Oh, we'll have to do it after 20 seconds after the number after we figure out how many final candidates there are yet. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would be surprised if we have more than four or five. Yeah.

All right. Miss Mr. Mayor, if I may also, um, I'd like to to recommend that when the applications are put on an agenda that we re go ahead and authorize right now to redact out address, phone number, um, email address, and everything because I don't know if you've seen, but there is an uptick in the scams of people pulling stuff off of the our public agendas, um, and, uh, and sending out scam emails, and other cities are are having that. In fact, WPTV just did a story uh about another city in the Treasure Coast that's having this same problem. So, we we had talked internally about starting to put less personal information on published agendas. It doesn't take it away from being a public record or anything if somebody comes in to look. Um, and if you want it, certainly we can get you unredacted copies, but anything that's posted that goes online, I would recommend be redacted uh for for security sake.

Good idea. Agree. Agree. And then building off of that, I just have one other item.

All right. Um, building off of that in in your in your agenda packets, we have always historically for alcohol permits and different things that we we've done, some that come through community development with applications. We've included the full application to you all. We are no longer going to going to include that in the agenda packets. If you see an item and you're like, I want to see the application, you can request it from us. We have had numerous um scam actually uh events that have made attempts even simple things as our alcohol our a baby shower rental at the yach club that cost them a couple hundred. They got a letter in the mail from someone who pulled their information off of our agenda packet. That's the only place they could get the application that had all their details on it. They then sent them a scam letter that said they owed planning and zoning $4,000 to in order to have their baby shower. Um, and it outlined everything. It used our logo. It used a watermark. So, we're starting to go through some changes here with how we're going to approach things. And we're going to be working on a PSA as well um to the public for that as well. So, just want to make you that was the other item that I had for tonight to make you all aware of that.

All right. U Thank you so much for that. Um, madame clerk, I don't have anything tonight. Thank you. All right. Um, city council matters. Mr. McPartland, nothing. I think everything went well tonight. Yes, sir. Going to go up and get some pizza on the boat.

Okay. Okay. Um, it's my turn, council. I'd like to ask if we could have staff take a look at doing a military veterans discount at our golf course. Uh these are other entities and everything else provide uh discounts to military veterans. I just want to get a consensus whether or not we could do something like that. Whatever the percentage is, we let staff take a look at that. But I I think that's something that we should probably do. I I was going to actually bring it up down the road in the past and just forgot to to be honest. So no, I think it's a great idea. What's it going to do to the financials at the golf course? The golf course is financially not sufficient. Not solve it basically.

But even if so the more things we do like that now I if if I don't know I'd kind of like to get some idea what that might do to the finances in the golf course before we do something like that.

Yeah. I mean, I I think it's it's going to be hard for us to guesstimate how many We could we could throw a number out there. Um, you know, my question is, are you only talking about rounds or you also talking about memberships? Cuz memberships would make a different element on that. Um, so if it's just rounds, we could just take because we don't track those numbers. We don't track how many veterans come in to use the golf course. So, we can get some numbers put together. um and whatever the percentage is, if it's 10%, then we can kind of, you know, equate that to what that would what that would account to um in the fiscal impact to the golf course.

And if if you're talking about just greens fees or cart rental, cart rental is a big issue because if if we re if we reduce cart rental, then we're increasing the potential impact on the city to replace batteries and all that kind of stuff. So there's there's a I I'm a veteran. I'm I'm 100% want to do everything for the veterans, but um it it's just another one of those things where there's a potential financial impact of that. And was it Yeah, I mean I'll have a discussion with Greg. I don't personally I don't know how many rounds are played by veterans. I don't know that it would be a huge number, but it obviously is would be an an impact to the golf course of some amount on an annual basis.

Yeah. And for veterans that are have an annual membership, if we don't include cart rental, they don't get an advantage because they don't pay green fees. Yeah, but we I think Yeah, but we're not I'm I'm not adjusting the members. I'm talking about just rounds when folks come in, not on the membership side. So you're just talking So if you're if you're actually that's actually a member, you don't if if we only include greens fees in the discount. And if you're a veteran that's that's a that's a member, uh you're not paying green fees, so you're not going to get a discount, right, in that regard. So, a different discount. So, I mean, there's I think there's impacts to that that

there may be, but I don't I mean, the concern is is obviously it's going to cost a little bit of money, but what do we owe the people that have served and put took us? I don't even want to get in that discussion, Fred. I I have no issue at all of what we owe veterans at all. I spent my time in Vietnam, so I don't Uh it's just a matter of just uh a little something to give back. We have local businesses that do that and everything else. I don't want to get in that discussion. I would just ask that we we take a look at it and see see if we can have an I

find a way to have an idea what we're looking at. Maybe we talk to one of the other courses that do offer veteran discount and see see what their numbers look like, what kind of percentage, you know, maybe we can get an idea of what we're talking and then look how it hits the financials. I think that's probably the simplest way. My Yeah, what I'll do is I'll have Greg get us some information. This will be something that we can bring forward. We'll start working on it and I'll bring forward in our budget discussions, our budget workshop, and we can hopefully have the information before then so you all can see that. But we'll we'll get some stuff put together and and see how that could potentially affect our golf course. Well, that's all I'm asking is just take a look at it and see if it's something that we're willing to do. There's no harm in in checking. So, yeah. Right.

All right. I'm Miss Matthews. I have nothing tonight. Oh, thank you. Uh, Mr. Dodd, you have nothing, sir. All right, Mr. Nun, I

I have one thing. Um, and I I talked to the city attorney about it, and actually, I talked to city manager about it as well. Um, I was up in uh South Carolina and was talking to uh my friend. He's the the code and building official up there in that town. and um their board members for their planning and zoning and other boards, they have to do three credit hour um three credit hours of training every year. It's a requirement to be on the board. I was just wondering, it's not something we've ever done. Uh there are other cities in in Florida that do that as well, is I I'd like to maybe we can bring it back at a regular meeting what you think about requiring our board members to go through training that's relevant to the job they're doing on the board. I don't know if you've watched some of the meetings, but I'll use planning and zoning, and I've seen some pretty uh interesting questions and and conversations happening up there, and I feel like maybe a better trained uh board would uh provide a better uh experience. Does that sound like something y'all are willing to talk about? I think what said earlier definitely

I turned it off because I'm ready to go home, but I did I got to turn it back on. But I I think the comments that Louise made earlier about about that are are spot on because I agree with you 100%. I've seen some action take place in some of the boards that maybe are questionable. I don't know about if we can find some courses. I don't know whether Florida League of Cities got something like that or not, but if the worst case would be that we develop our own course criteria. I I I think it would might be appropriate from from her comments to to have some type of training. Maybe the growth management people can do this. I hate to to throw more on them because I know they're very busy, but but to come in and and go through the process, you know, if if if somebody comes to us and wants to put together a development, here's what has to happen and here's the steps they go through and here's here's the things you can consider when you consider when you do a quasi judicial hearing on a site plan. Here are the things that you could consider and you can't turn it down for other reasons. you have to you have to be in this scope of things

and that would apply definitely to the uh to the plane zoning commission cuz I of course I spent years on the plane zoning commission. I can remember getting lectured by one city manager and one growth management director about you know you're asking stupid questions. Um and I think it was well it was a good actually what it forced me to do was was uh read through the the land development code. I spent a whole boring weekend doing that, but it really turned out not to be so boring and after a while I worked a little bit. I think that's a good thing. There are some other boards that are getting into some pretty amazing things. Yeah.

And uh I can think natural resources is one and they need to, you know, they're doing some really good work. Um and other people need to try to understand that and and see what they're doing. So yeah, I agree with you 100%. M go ahead, Mr. Stokes. Just refresh my memor. Didn't you have a training uh program put together?

We we have something that that covers a lot of the sunshine and public records and some of the how to do quasi judicial all that. Um, but I would I mean my suggestion and based upon what uh Councilman Dodd said, I would suggest that you know maybe we put something together in house and we might want to do that one year if we're going to make this a yearly requirement but then maybe that you know alternating years we find somebody else because you know I go through this on on our local government seminars we have one for local government law every year same speakers year after year and you're like, okay, I heard this last year and now I'm hearing it again and all that. So, I think we could mix it up and provide uh, you know, a combination of both in-house and, you know, outouse training. I think we could do that.

Okay. Well, something we can bring back and talk more about. Appreciate it. That's all I have for tonight. That's all you have. All right. That's it. We're journ.