Council Agenda - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. It is Tuesday, August 4th, 530. I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. I'm going to ask the mayor to lead us in the prayer and pledge.

Please follow me. Heavenly Father, thank you once again for blessing us with this wonderful city we live in. We ask that your blessings on this council, that the discussions and decisions be marked with wisdom and fairness. Help us to present patience, respect, and understanding in this chamber. May our words build bridges, not walls. We also give thanks to our dedicated staff who serve tirelessly and keep our city running smoothly. And thank you for our first responders and ask that you lay your protective hands over them. We do all we do in your name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Kathy, can you call the roll?

Here. Here. Here. Here.

Here. If anybody is here who wants to talk about something that is not on the agenda tonight, please see Clerk Haley. She has a form for you to fill out, and later in the meeting we'll get to you. If you do want to talk about something that is on the agenda, we'll get to that point too. I will say during that time we're going to limit it to three minutes. We'll go through more of that procedure throughout the meeting. So going on to the mayor's report.

Not a whole lot to report from this angle. Just want to let you all know school starts next week. So just be careful with the kids out there and the buses. Don't pass the red lights on the buses. It'll cost you $200. But other than that, summer's half old. Hopefully we'll keep getting some rain. That's all I have.

Moving on to the council members' concerns, comments, liaison report. Start over here. No comment. No, no, whatever.

No report.

Yeah, there you go. No report. Roland? David?

No.

Nothing? Okay. I do have one thing to say. Last week, or I think it was in the paper last week, there was a group of foreign exchange students from South Korea that were able to come to Seabury, and my parents were able to host them. There's a little article in the paper, pretty cool. One thing that the paper didn't say, though, that I thought was fascinating, I think there was a handful of students and some staff and some teachers who were with them. They went to Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and then Sebring was the last leg of the trip. And by far, they said Sebring was their favorite place to visit. Wow. What's fascinating is they just said that there's green space, there's clouds at night, they're all looking at the stars and they're not able to see that anywhere else. A few of them reported that when they're done with their schooling in Korea, they want to either come back So it was just a fun report, a lot of negative ones. We live in a great city and I think sometimes we can maybe take that for granted and it's great to be where we're at. So that's all I have. Moving on over to agenda item eight with the consent agenda. Do we have any comments, concerns about the consent agenda? Looking for a motion?

Make a motion we approve the consent agenda as presented. Second.

got a motion in a second. Is there anybody on wants to talk about the consent agenda questions? No.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. There is no old business. So we're going to move over to the new business with 10. A with the public hearing to talk about resolution 2026 dash 20. So Scott, would you mind taking it from there?

So it's a public hearing, purpose of the public hearing, city council is considering a resolution that if passed will reimpose a special assessment for the provision of fire protection services within the municipal boundaries of the city. Assessment is currently levied at 35.5% of the maximum allowed. And for this upcoming year, council gave us instruction to levy it at 35.5% again, so it would be the same levy, if you will. Buyer assessment is expected to generate $1.808,550 million in net revenue and is used to help offset property taxes. The purpose of this public hearing is to receive public comments on the proposed assessment. Following the public hearing, Council will consider a final annual rate resolution, 2026-20, reimposing the fire assessment.

Thank you for the introduction. Because it was a public hearing, we're going to open up the public hearing. So does anybody have any questions or concerns about fire assessment and what we're looking at? This is your time for input. Let us know what you think. Any comments from council?

I just want to re-echo that we are leaving the rates as they were this past year. I had a call about someone who had received a notice and thought we were increasing the assessment. Same rate level as it was last year.

Any other comments? I'm going to go ahead and adjourn this public hearing. And I'm looking for a motion.

I move to approve the final assessment resolution 2026-20 as presented.

Second. Motion and second. Any other additional comments? Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

OK. Moving on to 10b. this is about ordinance number 1576 looking to applicant initiated request to change the zoning classifications on approximately .09 acres located at 400 Grapefruit Avenue from commercial district C1 to residential to allow the reconstruction for an existing family home Bob go ahead and open this up

The ordinance is entitled an ordinance of the city of Cedar, Florida, changing your zoning classification for approximately 0.09 acres, located at 400 Grapefruit Avenue, parcel strapped over from commercial district C1 to downtown residential DR, providing for severability, providing for conflict, and providing for an effective date.

Ms. Jennifer.

All right. Good evening. I'm Jennifer Cotto Salisbury with the Central Florida Regional Planning Council, and we work in partnership with the City of Sebring and review land development applications. And I feel empowered tonight. So I'm going to go through our brief presentation. The first item is mentioned in the reading of the ordinance is a rezoning of 400 Grapefruit Avenue and this property is about almost 4,000 square feet but it received significant damage during the hurricane season and it qualifies for Rebuild Florida but in order to meet the requirements we do need to facilitate a rezoning to downtown residential and that allows for A lot size comparable to this lot size. This is an older lot so really the rezoning is to Recognize the property under the most fitting zoning and the setbacks within that zoning This is a picture of the property and this home will be replaced through the rebuild Florida program and And this is a photo of the street, Grapefruit Avenue, that it accesses. This is a snapshot of the future land use. That's the umbrella over zoning. It is downtown mixed use, which does allow for single and multifamily development, as well as non-residential development. And the proposed zoning is consistent with that future land use. The current zoning is C1, which does not allow for single-family dwelling units, which is why we're requesting the rezoning. And again, the downtown residential, the zoning proposed, will allow for this home to be rebuilt. And as we look at the surrounding properties, the downtown residential would be compatible with the surrounding areas. And just kind of a snapshot of the lot sizes, the downtown residential is most comparable to the existing lot size of the property. The impacts on public facilities and services are negligible because it's a single family home today being replaced by a single family home. And this is the map, the existing map is on the left showing the They see one zoning today and then the proposed zoning to downtown residential. On July 14th, the Planning and Zoning Board held a hearing and recommended to the city council approval of this rezoning. And I'm available for any questions, and I'm not sure if the applicant from the state is here.

Thank you so much. Any questions from council? Any questions from the public? Hearing none, we're going to close this public hearing.

I'll make a motion that we approve Ordinance 1576 on first reading and schedule second and final reading for August 18th, 2026. Second.

Motion to second? Last chance. Okay. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Moving right along. Moving on to 10C. 10C, Bob, do you want to introduce this one?

Yes, sir. With your permission, if you'll open the public hearing and if we could hold the public hearings for 10C and 10D. Together please we'll vote separately on the ordinances when we get to that point. So let's open this up. So ordinance number 1579 is entitled an ordinance of the City of Sebring Florida changing the future land use classification for two parcels that total approximately 0.70 acres located at 1398 and 1399 Las Villas Boulevard from mixed use the medium density residential providing for severability providing for conflict and providing an effective date. Also for your consideration is Ordinance 1577, which is entitled an ordinance of the City of Sebring, Florida, changing the zoning classification for two parcels that total approximately 0.70 acres, located at 1398 and 1399 Las Villas Boulevard from Commercial District C1 to Plan Development PD for a six-unit multifamily development, providing for severability, providing for conflict, and providing for an effective date.

So Jennifer, you're going to do the report for both 10C and both 10D, and then we'll do separate motions.

Yes. All right. Once again, for the record, Jennifer Cotto Salisbury with the Central Florida Regional Planning Council. These two parcels are just north and directly adjacent to the existing Las Villas development. And it is, as mentioned before, a future land use map amendment and a rezoning. The future land use today is mixed use residential and commercial. And that allows up to 12 units an acre and with special approval up to 20 units an acre. And the proposed land use is medium density residential, which allows for single family and multifamily development and it allows up to five to 12 dwelling units an acre, so a little bit of a decrease in the potential of density on the parcels. And then the zoning, as was mentioned, is commercial, C1, which allows for development excluding single family development, and the maximum density potential is 20 units an acre. So the proposed zoning is planned development, These are views of the property. And the address, as you can see, they're both sides of the road. And this is looking down Kenilworth. So overall, a total of Six units are being proposed on the two parcels. On one side is proposed to be a duplex and the other is proposed to be a quadplex. And this walks with a binding site plan and development conditions. So just kind of going over that, the change in zoning, if it's approved, actually decreases the development potential of the site by two dwelling units. And overall, the lot size in the proposed zoning just drops by about 3,000 square feet. So the maximum or the minimum lot size in C1 is 15,000 square feet. In the plan development proposed, it's a little over 11,000 square feet. Overall in the proposal, the C1 zoning requires 800 square feet of living area. The proposed zoning would be 850 square feet of living area. So that being said, as we looked at infrastructure to serve the site, there are existing water and sewer lines available to the site. And again, there really aren't anticipated to be significant impacts to the existing infrastructure since we're talking about six dwelling units. This is a picture of the entrance and kind of the entrances for both parcels, and it's right before the gates of the existing Las Villas development. And then if you see here where that median is, it gives folks who are visiting an opportunity to make a U-turn. So overall, a traffic impact analysis is conditioned when this is approved. When the applicant comes in for further approval, there will be a traffic impact analysis required. With regard to recreation and open space, the applicant does propose to allow stormwater ponds to serve as recreation and open space. This is not within any environmentally sensitive areas. With emergency services, this is close to services and also close to public schools. So overall, the land use change and the rezoning are consistent with the requirements of the comprehensive plan. And we did, our staff worked a lot with the applicant. We appreciate them working with us. But as you look at the property, it's a tough spot if you were doing non-residential development. With the site design, it does allow, again, for the duplexes and the quadplex. One duplex, one quadplex. And I'll just briefly go over the conditions of approval. And you'll see on the plan here, there is landscaping consistent with the city's land development regulations with the type B, C, and D buffers. So overall, a summary of the conditions. Again, there will be a maximum of six multifamily units. Again, one duplex, one quadruplex. Maximum living area is proposed at 850 square feet per unit. The impervious surface is a little more than 50%. The open space is 44%. The maximum height of the building is consistent with the other development out there at 25 feet. And then there are required setbacks and the landscape buffers. Again, a traffic analysis will be required. And then following up, there are detailed conditions regarding the buffering on site. And again, the recreation and open space is required. And then there will be a minimum of two parking spaces per unit. The site lighting will be designed to focus on the site itself and not to eliminate outside. And then with regard to garbage collection, folks will roll out their trash bins rather than having a dumpster. On July 14th, the Planning and Zoning Board heard this item, both the future land use and the zoning, and both were recommended by the Planning and Zoning Board to forward to City Council with a recommendation of approval. And I'm available for any questions. I know I went through that pretty fast.

Thank you, Jennifer. Is there any public comment on either of these?

I have one. Victoria Shaw.

If you could come up here and state your name for the record.

Jackie Stocking, I spoke before.

I think you just wait up here just with the microphone. We do have three minutes on this one.

Okay. So Victoria Shaw, I'm speaking for her right now. She owns the first unit. Coming in, it would be on the side with the duplexes. She has concerns about the retention pond. or whatever that is gonna be on the other side of the fence right by her unit. So that was one concern. And then there still was the concern about the palm trees and what's gonna be done with those. if the last time you guys spoke, you talked about, or not you, but they talked about the possibility of having to move that unit, something about the fire engine could not make the U-turn into the duplex or something along that line. Whatever that question was, if that key and spot unit thing has to be moved, who's paying for that? So those were just three of the things that in talking with some of the people they had questions about.

So that's all I have. Thank you very much. Would anybody want to address those questions and concerns?

Thank you, Dana Riddell, owner of Stonehenge land development consultants for the record representing green group development LLC this evening. The first thing that was mentioned was a retention area. So there is retention proposed to go around. Can I use this? Thank you. Okay. Was there a site plan? Yeah. So there is retention proposed to go around the rear of the duplex. Ms. Shaw's unit that's in reference is on the duplex side, not the quadplex side. And there's a 10-foot landscape buffer between this and the retention pond. In that buffer, two feet will be left grass for maintenance on Ms. Shaw's side. And the rest of the... required landscaping will be set behind a fence. So there will be a fence dividing the property. She will not see the retention area aside from potentially driving past it as she enters Las Villas. I believe there was some additional correspondence regarding a palm tree between the owners of the property and Ms. Shaw's residence. That palm tree is not part of the Las Villas subdivision. It's part of the properties in question. As far as the intent to remove that palm tree, there is no intent to remove that palm tree at this time. If we can keep it, we'll keep it. We'll do everything in our power to keep that palm tree, although it is part of this development, not part of Las Villas development, and it is at the discretion of the owner of this development. But again, we'd like to try to keep it And then she was referring to the, yes, the gate area. There's an area where you can enter the gate code and there's the potential that that might have to be moved back toward the intersection a little bit more so that a full 90 degree angle could be made because right now it's a little bit of a U-turn in order to get back over to that side, but Definitely, the developers for this development would be responsible for any costs associated with moving that keypad.

And then what about the fire engine issue, too? I think just the U-turn in general, too. It looks like a pretty tight fit.

yeah i think that's kind of what she was referring to is that gate code uh that the fire trucks might have some issue navigating a left-hand turn into this development because of that gate entry point um so that's something that will be looked at during the commercial review process and definitely sort it out then so it will be addressed and chief will be able to give his approval and his green light a hundred percent we do not build without approval from the chief

Any other, thank you, Dana.

I'm gonna come forward. My name is Kathleen Dillon. I live in Los Feliz also. And my concern is they move that gate back

if you would like to address that as well.

Certainly. So these driveway access points are already approved when Las Villas was established. These entry points and driveways were part of the approval, including FDOT in terms of distance from the intersection to Kenilworth. Um, so the intent would to try to be to avoid moving the access points, especially because this is a plan development zoning. When you go for a plan development, you do not want to move the access points after. Sometimes I can trigger an additional amendment, but because we have to do the traffic study and we have to do a circulation analysis. we will have to make sure that it doesn't create a stacking issue on Kenilworth. Again, Highlands County won't allow us to create a stacking issue. So we have a lot of mechanisms and controls in place to make sure that they definitely have access to the property as well as not creating any stacking issues.

Okay. That we would stay where they are.

Yeah, I think the developers have been really reasonable in communicating with the HOA. And like I said, they're willing to try to keep any landscaping as possible.

Just wait until you know, as I was pulling off to go into town. There was a big sod truck that we have, when we're coming to get into Las Villas, we have a certain amount of room to pull over off the Kenilworth, and there was a sod truck parked there, just sitting. So sometimes we have those kind of issues too, where people seem to think, just because that's a pull-off, it's... A minor, but it's there.

Thank you. Any other comments? Hearing none, I'm going to adjourn this public hearing. Councils, questions, comments, concerns?

I was at the zoning meeting for these. I believe they were both unanimously approved. Some of these concerns were brought up then, and I think that developers done a good job of addressing them. I know one consistent complaint about Las Villas is there's not enough parking. I think their site plan shows almost maybe three or more spaces per unit. There's a lot. So I think they've done a really good job of trying to make this work. And I think it makes sense for what it is. I mean, right now I think it's on commercial. It could be a much heavier impact than what they are proposing.

I agree.

Any other thoughts? I'll make a motion that we approve Ordinance 1579 on first reading and schedule second and final reading for August 18th, 2026.

Second. Motion. Second. Additional comments? Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.

So looking at also Ordinance 1577.

I'll make a motion we approve ordinance number 1577 on first reading and schedule second and final reading for August 18th, 2026. Second.

Motion second. Comments? Concerns? Hearing none, Kathy?

Fish?

Yes.

Overtime? Yes. Lydell? Yes. Stewart? Yes. Hayford?

Yes. So, Jennifer, you're popular tonight. So going on to look at the city comp plan. So if you want to move up, I'm going to open up the public hearing, give us an introduction, and Jennifer can take it over.

Ordinance number 1578 is entitled, excuse me, an ordinance amending the 2050 Comprehensive Plan of the State of Sebring, Florida, said amendment being known as Amendment 26-01-CIE, specifically amending the adopted capital improvement element by updating the five-year capital improvements plan, transmitting said amendment to the Florida Commerce for information, providing for severability and providing for an effective date.

All right, once again, Jennifer Cotto Salisbury with Central Florida Regional Planning Council. This is actually just good housekeeping. This is amending or updating the city's capital improvement plan in the comprehensive plan. And this is done annually to really respect capital projects that the city has already adopted in its plans, but it's reflected in the city's long range plan. And it's also very helpful as you're looking at other funding opportunities one of those key questions is is it in your capital improvement plan so just we really appreciate the city working to always keep this updated but after this is approved it will be sent to the state for notification purposes only thank you any questions about capital improvement plan and the comprehensive plan hearing none i'm going to close this public hearing

Questions from council? Comments?

Make a motion that we approve ordinance number 1578 on first reading and schedule second and final reading for August 18th, 2026. Second.

Motion and second. Any other comments?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Okay. I do want to say thank you to Jennifer and Garrett and Finance for making this happen. It's not a small thing to do, work on CIP. So this gets us to 10F, the lease for the municipal golf course. So I think before we go into this one, I just want to make clear of a couple of things. So just to make sure everybody's on the same page, the purpose of tonight's meeting is to go through all of these proposals. What the council is not going to do is to make a decision about the proposals. The intent is to make a decision, think about all these things in the next meeting. So no decision tonight. If anybody from the audience has any questions, concerns, comments, we're gonna ask you to limit your comments to three minutes. And if anybody else is saying something similar to what you're thinking, we just ask you to limit your comments in that aspect. We'd also ask for you to address your comments to the council, not anybody in the audience or to anybody who's proposing. So there's gonna be time for questions and answers as well. For the presentation, how that's gonna look, Roland has this very fancy mug that he is going to be able to draw things from, and that's going to set the order of everybody getting the presentation. So we're asking everybody with presentation to keep that to 15 minutes, and then we'll circle back to questions and concerns, give you ample time to respond to those. Bob, am I missing anything on that? No, sir. Okay. Roland, do you want to go ahead and make some decisions here?

J38 group.

Okay. Let's just pick all five of them and establish one.

You want to do them all?

Yeah, we can do that. Let's do them all.

Next one is Troon.

Then the Blackmans. Next will be Commonwealth partners. I think that leaves H&L.

We don't have time for that. So, Mr. Lane, come on up, introduce yourselves, and we'll start with the 15 minutes. What's technology worth? Turn it off and on again. There we go.

Peace.

Good evening. I probably should have let Jennifer give this. She went four for four tonight. Residents, council members, Mr. Mayor, thank you. My name is Joey Lang. I'm the founder of J38 Group, a disabled veteran-owned business, and I'm excited to be here tonight to talk to you about the future of the Sebring Municipal Golf Course. Our offer is simple. $18 a year plus 30% of the profits from golf operations. We would take over on October 1st of this year. We're asking for a term of 25 to 50 years, and I want to spend the next few minutes telling you exactly what we would do with the property, what we're asking of the city, and what the city gets back. This is the whole proposal on one page. We put $1,070,000 of improvement into a property the city owns in the first phase. We pay rent, we share the upside, the city stops carrying the losses. Everything after this slide is the detail behind those numbers. A word about why we are standing here tonight. This is personal. Ever since my great aunt Iris put a golf club in my hand, when I was eight years old, I haven't been able to put it down. I've taught golfers at military facilities on three continents. I've run clinics for juniors, beginners, ladies. And when I moved to Sebring in 2022, that did not stop. I co-founded the Muni Mafia, which played this course every week and will return. You see, I'm not a management company that found Sebring on a spreadsheet. I play this course. My friends play this course. And that is the difference in the room tonight. Now the honest baseline. Every projection in this proposal is built from the city's own reported numbers, not from a target we picked. We noted that fiscal year 23-24 saw 23,000 rounds equating to 479,000 in green fees. 24-25 had around 25,000 rounds, a little over 600,000 in green fees. Those are your figures, not ours, but we built everything in this proposal on top of those. Our operational strategy is we see a public course with membership options, labor and money go to the Greens first. We have a consulting superintendent engaged already. And because the people in our community matter to us and we value the institutional knowledge that they have and the relationships they've built, the current employees will have a home with us if they so desire. The Caddyshack stays. I wanna say that again, the Caddyshack stays. The Mendoza family has built a loyal following and residents made that loud and clear at council meeting after council meeting before this RFP went out. We wanna partner with them and not replace them. What we wish to add is the halfway house for fast service options at the turn. Our plan is to take it from 25,000 rounds to 40 to 45,000 rounds a year. That's not an assumption. That is a calculation of very specifically funded changes. The largest single driver is restoring playable conditions. Currently, this course loses rounds to its own condition. Once we turn that around, we will add organized play, tournaments, leagues, and events we run internally. Membership revenue starts with the 2027 season Full membership is forecast to cost $2,500 a year, and we will add a monthly payment option of $250 a month, which represents a minor convenience premium to be able to pay monthly instead of all at once. Winter seasonal membership is forecast to cost $400 a month, and we'll keep a legacy rate for the existing Sebring Golf Association members. Our monthly payment option is there to widen the membership base, not to raise the price. A family rate is coming, and it is deliberately not priced in this proposal. Every projection in front of you carries the single rate. If families come in at a family price that is upside, we have not counted into our proposal. The revenue and expense detail behind you is in your packet. I would rather spend the time on what it buys. Here's where the money goes first, turf treatment and green recovery, including the nematode remediation protocol. That gets fixed first and is non-negotiable. Give us good greens and we'll play anywhere. The column shows what we propose as city grant, what is a repayable loan, and what is our own private capital for phase one. Let me say something here that you will hear me say again. We are not asking the city to fund the course we intend to build. We are asking the city to help us bring this course back to the condition generations before us love, so that we can build the one future generations will be proud of. Phase two and three are funded by us, not by the city. New pro shop and restaurant, $3.5 million. We have a plan to light nine to 12 holes to increase play in the summer and in the winter. And the commitment behind it is ours. 50% of our profits every year will go back into the plan until we deliver. Our team has decades of combined experience managing, caring for, and teaching at military golf facilities in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Our team has experience with semi-private clubs. Our new greens crew standard will be experienced with professional turf management. Joel Walkup is our consulting superintendent, and he is the reason I can stand here and talk about dealing with the nematode issues with confidence. We plan to raise capital directly with the Sebring community. Our goal is to embrace 40 founding members, $1 million at zero interest. This is not debt financing. These are our neighbors and friends becoming stakeholders in the course that we see to revitalize. $18 a year, $1 per hole. 25 to 50 year term commencing October 1st, 2026. I know how that rent number sounds, so let me put the rest of it beside it. In exchange of what we are asking of the city, the city takes 30% of the profit from golf operations calculated from the first dollar owned with no threshold, no hold back, and no cap. That is the whole idea. We are not asking to be a vendor. We're asking to be a partner. The difference is a vendor sends you an invoice while a partner sends you a share of what he earns. On the right side of the slide, you'll see that the Sebring Golf Association, we fully intend to honor the city's 2004 agreement with a continued good faith effort to accommodate the association's play and their tournaments. I want to raise something that you haven't asked me about. Development along US 27 is expanding impervious surface in the vicinity of the traditional drainage routes near the course, and it could materially affect water flow across holes 8 and 9. Our current rainy season understates this because the rainy season has been fairly light. I'm raising it now as a condition to be engineered for, not a loss to be claimed later. Here's our ask. $1 million, and we are flexible on how. Grant, repayable loan, or the hybrid we recommend, whichever the city prefers. Alongside it, we fund the halfway house, which is how the total reaches $1,070,000 of improvement into the property the city owns and keeps. A further request is on the right side of the slide. We request a moratorium on property tax on the leasehold interest for the first two to three years. because a tax assessed on the leasehold in its turnaround years is assessed against the very capital doing the turnaround. I want to be plain about that. We are asking for the relief. We are not banking on it. Property taxes and insurance are carried in full in every year of the pro forma in front of you. So what does the city get? First, the losses stop permanently. Your own adopted budgets show the general fund carrying the golf course. That ends. Second, 30% of net profit from golf operations calculated from the first dollar. Our vision is a public-private partnership. A timeline. We request 30 to 90 days of due diligence on award. However, we understand that we're in a compressed schedule and we're fully prepared to assume full operation on October 1st. We plan to shut the facility down for 45 to 60 days to do the work of phase one, which is repair the buildings, beautification of tee boxes and the greens. We plan to fully open in December so that we're ready for the January through April peak. But any December play we get, we have not calculated into our proposal because we're just gonna view that as upside. We do ask for one thing and it protects you as much as it protects us. We will be investing private capital in a facility we will never own in phase two and three. So we propose that if the lease is terminated at any time for any reason, the city remits 110% of what we have spent on capital improvements. That clause is a reason we can responsibly spend this kind of money on your asset. And to be clear, it excludes the city's grant. Your investment is not reimbursable to us under any circumstance. We're asking you to be protected on our own money, not yours. I want to address one item where our submission is short. We are not submitting a bank letter of reference and guarantee at this time. Given the recent press coverage and the present condition of the course, that constraint attaches to the property rather than us, and it will apply to any operator the city selects. It's not only the banks. It's local capital, too. There is a risk on this property right now that our own network is not drawn to, and I would rather tell you that plainly tonight than before you find it in a file. But I will say this, city participation is what changes the math. The city helping return this course to a playable condition is what unlocks local funding and the optimism that comes with it. That's what I meant earlier. Help us bring the course back to the condition generations before us loved, and we will build the one future generations are proud of. We all know the course is in rough shape. It was nice to hear something good in the news, but this article right here was mildly devastating, the worst I've seen it. See local money dry up, put that article out there. But I'll close with this. We do not view this as an opportunity. For us, this project carries the weight of responsibility, and we are up to the task. Make the first phase possible, and we will use half of our own returns every year to make our vision for the Muny a reality. This course has so much history over the last 100 years. Help us honor that by returning the course to the condition generations before us loved, and we will steward this course into the future. Thank you.

First opens up Council Questions.

on the finance side um if we can't loan you or you know do some combination of grant loan for million dollars do you have the availability to get that capital elsewhere we have pursued it um it's possible i have to work through it From my end, that's hard with the budget issues that we're dealing with right now. I understand. The second one, the founding family memberships, the title sponsors, the community partner sponsors. Do you have some of those lined up ready?

We have three so far.

Of the memberships?

Of the founding family members.

Okay. To me, I love the optimism, but I'm involved in some… civic organizations that try and raise money every year and you can pull that i would like to invite you to join our club um because they're they're pretty good um so i wonder if i wonder if those are a little optimistic um and again admire the enthusiasm i'm just wondering if the numbers make sense if you can't achieve that

So the community money, it speeds up the revival of the project. Our proposal is not necessarily operationally based on receiving that. We can still be profitable without a dime of those. But it is a program that we would love to try. And I can talk to you about later how we can try it at your organization.

So you can do it without that money. It just speeds up your capital improvement plan.

Yes. We're not using that money for operations, just capital improvement.

Okay. So all you need to get going is the million in startup capital, and that can get you on the path to profit, and you can use that profit to continue on if you don't get those things. Yes. Okay. The last question I have at this moment, I would definitely want to see some change to the language about your capital investment protection. I mean, should the lease be terminated at any time for any reason? You know, we're absorbing a tremendous amount of risk there because you could have capital improvements and we owe you 10% if you cancel the lease, if you breach contract. That freaks me out. If we went forward with you, I'd want that a little more lawyered up so where Bob is okay. Yes, we can tune that up. I think those are all the questions I had initially.

Can you talk about the halfway house? What was the term of it?

Yeah, so that's the halfway house. When golfers make the turn, they're looking for beverages, hot dogs, fast snacks, and it's kind of hard to currently do that with the caddy. So it's not a service that's routinely offered. So we're not jumping onto their economic position. We're just adding a feature that supports the course.

Now, help me understand. Is it a brand new build that you're going to do that?

Yeah, right between where the fence is near the first tee. Are you familiar with that? There's some open land there. It's a perfect spot. Every golfer goes by it. It would be a very small building, hot dog roller machine, a few beverage things, but it could also be a place where we could move the range ball machine to so that barn could be then rented to a cart owner.

I think I was just concerned about the price on that too. It's a brand new building that just seemed low.

It'll be a very small building. More gazebo-ish.

And I do share the same concern with Josh, too. I'd like to know, too, if there's, again, since we're not making any decision tonight, we're not bound by any of it, what the flexibility is on that original million dollars ask of the city, what that could look like.

Yeah, we're willing to take it 100% as a loan. We've built this proposal based on a portion of it being a grant, a portion of it being a loan. The numbers look different in the tables based on whatever we come to. But we're super flexible in how to obtain the city's participation.

So, on that note, too, I think maybe just somewhere in the lease agreement. making sure the city's on board of new restaurant improvements too. So that, like what Josh was saying, that we're not responsible for the 110% of it. We're building something together.

Yeah, we can certainly do all that together. And we're looking at putting a fiduciary in place, kind of like an escrow type thing. So the city, the funding isn't received to us, but it's done in draws like a traditional construction loan. However, we're applying it to rebuilding the course, not building a house.

Okay, one more question. So you're committing 50% of the profits reinvested, and then in addition, 30% go into the city. So is that saying that there's only 20% left?

50% of our profits. So 50% of our share. So 50% of the 70%, which we will do audited financials for. Got it.

Anything else?

You ever done anything like this before?

This is new for us. We've been a part of many golf operations, but taking one over, yes, is a new thing. We have a very robust plan for it, and we're going to surround ourselves with people who are skilled at what they do. We've all been out to the course, a whole eight tremendous number of craters that you can see. I put my drone in the air 400 feet in the air, and you can see the holes in the green. So we're going to put smart people in the right place and do the right thing to get that course back in shape.

I'm going to open it up to the public if you have any questions, concerns for Mr. Ling. Again, keep it in the three minutes, address the questions to us, and then we'll give Mr. Ling the chance to respond if anybody has any questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Going on to Trinh. I do send in a request to share the screen that can be approved.

Can everyone see that correctly?

Yes, sir.

Wonderful. Well, thank you all for the opportunity. Thank you, City Council, residents, and Mayor. RFP process that has been ongoing for many, many months now. My name is Grant Johnson, a senior director of business development with Trune. Trune is the world's most experienced golf course operator, managing over 150 municipal golf courses across the country and over 500 golf courses worldwide. um excited to be here today to present a little bit more about our proposal which as i'll get into is a little bit different than what you all asked for and the other proposals which you received uh we'll certainly go in more in depth into that and the reasoning why but um we are uh as i mentioned you know we've been following the rfp process that the city of sebring has been ongoing over the last 12 months or so we did not unlike some of the other respondents here today respond to the initial rfp for a few different reasons train is predominantly what we call a third-party management company we do own and operate several golf courses as well as lease municipal golf courses across the country but for a lot of reasons we felt that the lease was not the most advantageous structure for the city and the operator. I'll go more into depth into that, but seeing the conversations around the golf course and the residents concerns, city council's concerns, the first go around on the RFP, and obviously the inability to meet successful agreement on a selected lease agreement and the re-release of the RFP. We look at this as an opportunity to put forth our alternative bid for a third party management structure. for the city council and residents to consider should they explore a different option that would be more advantageous for all parties. Because we were reviewing the RFP and analyzing the opportunity in front of us. We kept coming back to these three main goals that both the city stated throughout the RFP and previous meetings, and that we also analyzed and came to. Obviously, the golf course needs to be financially sustainable. It needs to be an asset for everyone in the community, not just the golfers. Only 12% of the population in the US plays golf. we look at municipal golf courses as really an extension of the park system and should be available for all residents of the community whether they play golf or not and then finally it needs to be an asset that can be stewarded for for generations to come plain and simple needs to make money everyone needs to use it and it needs to exist for the future this is the basis of our presentation and why we put forth the proposal for an alternative structure which i'll certainly go into a little bit more in depth A little bit more about Trune for those who may not be aware of us. Trune is the world's number one golf course management company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. However, we have large presence all across the country. We manage golf courses on behalf of owners and municipalities. And as I mentioned, we manage over 150 municipal golf courses all across the country, including several in Florida. We are hired to be a solution for golf courses to bring expertise in all areas of operations, as well as all areas that extend beyond just the day-to-day, whether that's renovations of golf clubs, designing and renovating food and beverage facilities, clubhouses, etc. We have extensive resources in all areas. bring in-house unlike many of our competitors simply due to our size and scale and can provide an offer to each of our clients significantly more resources than than typically in a management agreement structure and we deliver these benefits and these resources on the city's behalf not on ours and the structure that we're proposing all of the economics will retain and live with the city as they are today the caveat is that you'll now have it an expert operator in place that will be delivering uh you know best in practice operations to the golf course that we have delivered on and seen success at over 150 other similar golf courses across the country as I mentioned across the country we do have a variety of structures that we operate within municipal golf both on lease agreements with about 50 of those across the country and over 100 third-party management agreements we maintain strong relationships with over 75 municipal clients across the country several of which have multiple golf courses that we manage under a single portfolio of structures in the state of florida alone we manage 10 other municipal golf courses if for a total of 50 State. Locally, we manage Sun and Lake Golf Course, which we've had a strong relationship there in the City of Sebring with the Improvement District for over 12 years now. We maintain a regional presence in our Jupiter office just a few hours away from the City of Sebring. and have a regional presence in how we approach all of our clients. Each of our clients are presented with a regional vice president of operations, agronomy, food and beverage, and marketing that all live within market and driving distance to the facility and oversee the onsite staff and the relationship with our clients to ensure that we are delivering on the promises that we say we're going to. As I mentioned, our proposal is not what the city asked for. Obviously, you all were looking for a lease and received several proposals for leases. So I imagine the evaluation process and looking at our proposal might have been a bit challenging and a little bit difficult to navigate the comparisons across these proposals. goals and visions of our partners and what makes the most sense for the golf course when we look at municipal golf courses we say golf is obviously a very high fixed cost business so regardless of of 40,000 golf courses, it essentially takes the same amount of dollars to open the golf course on an annual basis and host those rounds. When you're over that break-even point, roughly 90% of all dollars fall to the bottom line. So when we look at any opportunity, the goal first and foremost is always to optimize revenue. We have several ideas on how that can be capitalized at the city whether we were leasing it, we owned it, or we're simply managing it for the city, we're going to operate it in the exact same manner under any of those structures to optimize revenue and optimize performance of the golf course. As we look at how that revenue is then split up as pieces of the pie, so to speak, certainly your largest expense is always going to be labor followed by operating expenses. But those are no different than under a lease or management structure. Where we start to see differences between leases and management is that under a lease agreement, the cost of capital, both for improvements and Funding those through interest rates if it's up on a loan or privately fundraised, regardless of how the money is raised, there's going to be a much higher rate of return expectation on private capital versus public funding. That alone grows this pie when it comes to a lease versus a management agreement. and vice versa under the lease agreement that the city is requesting the operator will be required to bring forth equipment maintenance equipment golf carts on their own books or purchase the existing equipment from the golf course again that is an added expense that would exist under a lease that would be smaller under a management agreement given that the city already owns that equipment outright Just in those statements alone, these pieces of the pie become much larger and shrink the operator's ability to maximize profit and ultimately capital back into the golf course. Our proposal is essentially that the city would fund any capital improvements using their ability to obtain capital at a much lower rate with much lower capital return expectations. using existing equipment at the golf course and taking advantage of trend size and scale to obtain improved pricing on inventory, merchandise in the pro shop, chemicals and fertilizers on the golf course. And then finally, one of the largest differences is that the labor force today at the golf course are all obviously city employees. The cost of structures is tremendously expensive and inefficient. And we see this time and time again with municipal golf courses. When transitioning from the public sector to the private sector with private benefits, no city pension structures, the cost of the savings potential there, it can easily be 20% to 30% on labor alone. When it comes to your largest expense, that's a huge opportunity to save you money. ALL OF THESE WOULD BE MORE BENEFICIAL UNDER THE TRUNE PLATFORM DUE TO THE SIZE AND STALE THAT WE BRING TO THE TABLE. SO WHEN I LOOK BACK AND THINK THROUGH THE GOALS THAT WE'VE IDENTIFIED FOR THE CITY, CERTAINLY UNDER A LEASE AGREEMENT THE GOLF COURSE WOULD BE FINANCIALLY SUSTAINABLE TO THE CITY. ANY FINANCIAL LOSSES WILL BE REMOVED AND THAT RISK WILL GO AWAY ON DAY ONE. We also think that a golf course can be really successful with improved operations under a management agreement. And therefore the financial sustainability goals can easily be accomplished under our structure. Secondly, a community accessibility, making sure that resident access is affordable, guaranteed and prioritized under a lease agreement is not always a guarantee. The lessee is going to optimize performance of the golf course for their interests first and foremost. We're under a management agreement. We are acting on your behalf as the city and keeping your goals and visions priority. So certainly in the agreement and in our annual plan presented to the city, community access needs to be number one. And then finally, asset stewardship is certainly incredibly important. And, you know, God forbid, under a lease agreement, where the lessee fails to meet their obligations or their expectations. Oftentimes, we see lease agreements fall short, and the facilities hang back to the municipality in similar or worse condition than when they handed it off to the lessee. So certainly under the wrong structure and wrong agreement, asset stewardship is certainly not guaranteed. We're following all of the agreement structure and the third party management that I've spoken to. We believe confidently that the facility can be maintained and stewarded for generations to come under our proposal. As I mentioned, our proposal is such that the city will continue to own the golf course. Trin will be hired to execute on a daily basis, delivering on the goals and vision of the city itself. You'll have one operator operating the entire facility for golf, agronomy, food and beverage, marketing, HR, and accounting, with one point of contact and one leadership under a general manager onsite at the facility. Residents will continue to get the same access and benefits that they've been receiving over the years guaranteed in our contract. You'll have monthly financial reporting and agronomy reporting directly to council to build out full transparency and visibility into the operations. And you'll retain the ownership control and financial upside of the facility. I think all of us that are here today and presenting clearly have strong belief in the city of Sebring and the Sebring municipal golf course. presented we our proposal simply we believe that the city should be the one retaining that entirely of the upside not the private Enterprise that's coming forth The key terms of our detail include our proposal. I won't go through them line by line here, but the thing I do wanna call out is that our agreement is simply a five-year term with some extension terms beyond that. We provide the most flexibility, short-term advantages to the golf course that allow the city to explore this option without committing to generations to come under one structure. Our vision for success for Sebring, I'll go through these quickly. Transitioning the associates from city employees to Troon employees, right away we believe will provide over $100,000 in annual savings to the city. As it was mentioned previously, the golf course needs to be improved from a condition standpoint. Without that, we can't deliver the experience that golfers are expecting, nor the revenue expectations that we're projecting in our pro forma. So certainly bringing in a team of experts to analyze the golf course conditions today, put an action plan in place to deliver improved performance is critical. Enhance the marketing once the golf course is back to strong, playable conditions. Leveraging Trune's footprint of golfers throughout Florida in the Seabourn community directly and nationwide. Over 15 million rounds of golf were played at Trune facilities across the country. We can use that scale to help market your facility and deliver more golfers on an annual basis than any of our competitors. Hey, Mr. Johnson, what... Optimize the revenue to make sure we're getting the most revenue per opening. and scale for better procurement deals and annual cost savings. And finally, elevate the experience with improved training and experience across the entire facility. We'll provide a follow-up pro forma. Do you believe the facility can break even?

You have one minute left.

Am I out of time? One more minute. We believe the facility will break even in year three and significantly cut down on losses within year one. Again, we'll provide this pro forma to follow up afterwards. We can transition the facility in 30 days and take over on October 1st guaranteed, just like we do with all of our facilities worldwide. And we've included, we've done this before at several of our golf courses in Florida, where we've turned around financial losses from over half a million dollars to turn around to making over half a million dollars in profit within two years. And we've included client references to some of our longstanding Florida municipal golf courses that would happily speak to the strength that we've provided to their communities. I appreciate the time tonight. I believe that there's tremendous opportunity for the golf course and we'll love to be a part of it under the right structure.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Let's start with the council's questions, comments.

Yeah, I've got a few. Mr. Johnson, you're pro forma where you mentioned reducing losses year one and getting to break even by year three. That's operating expenses only, right? Not any capital improvements to get back to a baseline.

That's correct. Simply looking at it from an operational perspective. Certainly the capital plan. We have not. Factored through directly how that what those costs would be in year 1, but that would be part of our. Transition plan is to bring in the key leaders from each of those departments to put together. a formalized recommendation and work with council to firstly prioritize the projects that need to get done right away and what those cost estimates are but then go build that five-year capital plan so that we are identifying those projects in a phased annual basis and in delivering transparent expectations of what we believe the facility needs uh in order to improve performance

okay and the other question i had was on the pay structure um it is a little opaque you got a lot of kind of a la carte options and if i understand it correctly it would have to be after an award that you would determine we would be able to determine the the total cost paid to you to run the golf course is that accurate Like you referenced putting together.

Yes and no. We provided optional services for accounting and IT. The reason being is that some of our municipal clients prefer to keep those resources in-house and we can operate in those spaces if that's the case. Many of our clients, we do provide those services for, but those are discussions that we would have as we're going through the contract negotiations and understanding the equipment in place today the processes and procedures and how we could incorporate into the city's accounting uh practices today but you know yes and those would be included in the pro forma that i'll send to you after this presentation okay do you often find that that you're cheaper providing those services than municipalities significantly yes okay all right that's all the questions i had

You answered or you asked some of the ones I had. Rebecca, did you have anything? Nothing, yes. Yeah. Any questions from the audience to ask Mr. Johnson? Come on up and give your name.

away are these people going to be like totally like okay we're done you know longer city or just people that are working for the law force now going to retain their employment as a city employee are you going to take on responsibility for health care retirement these are questions that a lot of them need to know there's a lot of them right now

Great question. Ultimately, we remain flexible in that approach. Those are conversations that typically unfold as we're going on an individual basis for the golf course. Typically, in previous situations, we've had opportunities where there may be a few key employees that are long-term and they're close to fully investing on those municipal benefits. That is a situation where either those individuals stay on as city employees while the others that may not be close or they may have never been city employees, maybe they're taken on as student employees on day one, but that one individual retains a city employee and or the city finds another role for them to ensure that they're not losing their their long-earned benefits from the city um ultimately it comes down to to having that conversation with the municipality individually and understanding the you know where they want to find land if they're able to find landing spots is not to come in with a bus full of new employees and kick out everyone who's there today that is not the case as we all know finding good quality employees in today's world is very challenging we would almost certainly retain all of the existing employees today barring uh you know any any red flags or unforeseen circumstances but certainly present all of them the opportunity to work under TRN if they so desire. But certainly we would navigate that tricky situation alongside the city if we were selected.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Final question. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I'm going to invite Mr. Blackburn.

You have three minutes left.

And the council is voting tonight. Jim Blackman, Historic Harder Hall Hotel, and the Wachovia Bank downtown that's 98% done. Good afternoon, Mayor Shoup, city council members, city administrator Natelik, attorney Swain, clerk Haley, and members of the public. Thank you for your time, your service, your commitment to the future of Seabrook. On behalf of our entire team, I am honored to present our proposal for the future of the Sebring Golf Course and the City of Sebring. It's important to clarify the fundamental choice before you today. This is not simply a decision between golf operators. It is a choice between just a golf management proposal or a destination resort anchored proposal. We are requesting a long-term lease that provides certainty necessary for us to invest significant capital, improve operations, and attract visitors from across Florida and beyond. The city's RFP stated that its goals were to transfer operations to a qualified entity, enhance tourism in Sebring and Highlands County, foster job creation and economic growth, and establish a financially sustainable long-term plan for the property. When measured against those criteria, our proposal stands apart. Other proposals focus primarily on operating the golf course as a standalone business. Our proposal is the only one that addresses all three goals together, long-term financial sustainability, tourism generation, and economic growth beyond the fairways. Highlands County is an extremely competitive golf market. with about 11 courses currently in operation. There's a reason public courses across the region struggle financially. Even experienced operators will tell you that breaking even, letting alone turning a profit, is an uphill battle. You will hear shortly from our partners at DTE Golf Management, one of the most respected golf course management firms in the Southeast, actively operating more than 44 courses in Florida. Their participation reflects confidence not in easy profits, but in our broader vision. We do not need the golf course itself to be profitable. We are willing to backstop any and all losses that may be incurred. That is why DTE has agreed to partner with us. They would be unwilling without that assurance. That distinction matters. Some of the other respondents still want the city to cover losses or even all expenses, or they rely on golf profitability to succeed. We do not. We are structured to absorb losses if golf continues to struggle because success is driven by the resort as a whole, not by golf margins alone. We will use the course to support the success of Harder Hall as a destination. In doing so, the city benefits from job creation, increased tourism, expanded tax revenue, and a revitalized public amenity without carrying any financial risk. No standalone golf course in this market can function as a destination driver on its own. A resort anchor changes that equation entirely. Our lease proposal, as you know, is $1 a year. This is not a revenue trade-off. It is a risk transfer. The city does not give up income. It gives up substantial losses. If the course continues to lose money, we absorb those losses. That is a commitment no other proposal makes. Our team brings proven experience. Drew Locker was the construction manager of Streamsong. All of Streamsong's courses are ranked in the top 100 public courses nationally, and one of their courses ranks as the number one public course in the state of Florida. Streamsong has become a nationwide destination, and Drew will manage capital improvements here. Just as important as experience is commitment. Our proposal includes defined capital investment, ongoing reinvestment, and long-term stewardship, rather than improvements made only if operations allow. If another group is selected and the course continues to struggle, the city resumes the losses. There's no buffer. There's no backstop. Under our proposal, the risk stays with us. It also provides the certainty required for us to continue investing confidently in Harger Hall. using local contractors as we have been creating good paying jobs and strengthening sebring's reputation as a place to visit our goal is a true public buy-in while not every resident will stay overnight at the hotel they will come for drinks dining the golf course the amenities they will hold weddings and receptions proms and dinners that is how this project benefits everyone this is not just a golf course contract but a city shaping proposal i want to say that again this is not just a golf course contract but a city shaping proposal we are looking 100 years into the future of sebring to craft a brighter future for everyone We believe this is the most responsible path forward for the City of Sebring, and we look forward to building a strong partnership together. Thank you for your time. Next, you will hear from DTE Golf Manager.

Hello. I'm Joe Haines with Down to Earth Golf, Director of Business Development for the Golf Division. We're unique. Like Jim said, we do have 48 golf facilities. Currently, 44 of them are in the state of Florida. We have nine municipal golf courses, most notably Dunedin Country Club, which has got ranked number two municipal golf course in the state, and the Winter Park Nine. It's been in the news like crazy. non DTE superintendent killed the greens and they've contracted with us to kind of bail them out and regrow the greens. Got a lot of history with municipal golf courses and we've got a very much proven track record of increasing greens fees. by about twenty percent doesn't mean across the board there are some grandfathered uh... rates and stuff in there but also the number of rounds played by twenty five percent this is not inclusive of any capital expenditures or anything like that uh... i got introduced to the blackman's i was actually when the original rfp came out i was actually looking at it trying to decide what we were going to do and i was thinking i was going to propose something very similar to trunes when mr blackman called me and asked if we would like to partner with them i thought it was a great idea and i think ultimately the benefit for the the residents of sebring uh it's that's that's the best option in my opinion for them Oh, sorry.

Good evening, members of the council. For the record, my name is Brian Sykes, attorney with the law firm of Meridian Partners Law in Clearwater, Florida. It's not the first time that my client and I have appeared before you in regards to this matter. In fact, in March of 2025, we actually came forth with an unsolicited proposal to lease the golf course based upon some of the conversations that my client had with the city officials in the past. Based upon the feedback at the March 8th presentation, there was a workshop that was subsequently held in May to discuss the proposal, get city input, resident input. And I think the meeting went well, all in all, for what it was. But probably rightfully so, in November, the city decided to send this out for an RFP, which is probably the right decision to do. After the RFP was issued, my clients responded to it and my client was selected as a prevailing bidder or respondent. That's when the wheels fell off the wagon. That's when things went sideways. The main issue was some changes in terms that occurred between my client's proposal and what the lease, proposed ground lease stated. And we're not here to point fingers. We don't want to create any animosity. The Blackmans have a lot invested in this community already with Harder Hall and with the bank property downtown. They want to maintain an active, solid, amicable relationship with the city. I know that a letter went out from Litigation Council doing a reservation of rights with respect to the original proposal. Our presence here tonight is not to talk about that, not to bring up that issue. We don't want to pursue that issue. We're here to talk about the proposal that Jim talked about a few minutes ago. There were three main issues when we started discussions on the ground lease and negotiations on the ground lease. One was changing the term of the ground lease, and it kind of caught us by surprise. Our January response to the November RFP included a 99-year ground lease, and when we got the first turn of the ground lease, it was a 50-year term. This proposal or this RFP limits it to a 50-year term, so we're traveling under that term and condition. So that issue's kind of resolved. The second issue was that the ground lease tied the hotel ownership to the lessees' rights, if you will, under the ground lease. So in other words, the Blackmans had always maintained a 51% interest in the hotel. If they ever wanted to assign the ground lease for the golf course operations, it would have to be an assignee who owned 51% of the hotel. And it just creates some problems. They have no intentions of selling the hotel They have no intentions of bringing in other investors. But you've got to look forward into the future and what could happen. If they have an opportunity to bring in a partner who brings a national presence, let's say, but that results in a 48% ownership for the Blackman family, now what happens? Now all these years that they've put into the golf course, improving it, operating it, bringing up to the standards that they've committed to doing so, that's all potentially out the window now. with the city having the right to terminate the ground lease, they lose their investment, they lose their hard work, they lose everything on that. So that was a very difficult pill to swallow. The third issue related to subleases. As we know, there's a restaurant on site. There's potential for doing a spa or additional amenities, not just for the Harder Hotel, but for the golf course and for the community. We need the ability to be able to lease these types of uses under the ground lease. At the end of the day, it should not be an issue to the city. If the Blackmans enter into a sublease, the sublessee's rights are only as great as what the sublessor can give. So if there's a default under the lease, the city's not stuck with that lease. So those are the three main issues that we were really kind of struggling with. in the terms of the ground lease. And incidentally, we've been going back and forth on terms of ground lease since October of 2024, before we even did our first presentation. I think the last version is actually version 14, which is probably one of the most highly revised and negotiated leases that I've done in a long time, to be honest with you. You've heard my client's response. You've heard their presentation. It's consistent with the first presentation. And the main issue or the main thing that should be focused on is they're going to take 100% financial responsibility, 100% operational responsibility. you know other responses to the art fear in nature of a golf course management proposal which i think truant did a very nice job of their presentation they're definitely an excellent company but that leaves you guys holding the bag a hybrid golf course kind of management lease proposal which would require you to put up a million dollars we're asking for nothing zero The third proposal is a good proposal, but it has, in our opinion, an inadequate budget and doesn't really address future CapEx concerns. The path forward should be obvious. Let's finalize the terms of the Blackman family under the proposal. We'll go with the 50-year term. We would like to have potential for an option. If the city doesn't want to have an extension option, we understand, but we'd like to put that out there. But we'd like to eliminate the restrictions on entering into subleases, eliminate the restrictions which tie the lease to the ownership of the hotel, And we'd also like to discuss one thing, which is having some form of access from Westminster Drive to the golf course. It's been used historically. It's something we'd like to be able to continue to do. We understand the city may have plans for what we call the boot property, but I think there's a way that we could all work together and make it a win-win. As presented tonight, my clients assembled a team of proven professionals to manage and oversee the golf course, the operations, and food and beverage components. They have a vested interest in seeing the golf course succeed, and they're best positioned to promote the golf course as a destination for visitors. In conclusion, we'd respect the request that if council approves of our proposal, that we have a meeting with Attorney Swain, Mr. Natelik, my client, myself, and to iron out these last few issues of the golf course ground lease. We're in the position to most quickly proceed forward. The lease is 99% negotiated. And in conclusion, my client stands ready, willing, and able to perform.

30 seconds for me. Questions for council?

I've got some questions. Do I need to go first every single time? Okay. A few things. We spent a lot of time this last week reviewing our timeline. We've spoken a lot at a lot of meetings. public meetings and one-on-ones, et cetera. I take a little bit of issue with the idea of being blindsided by the idea that council wasn't on board with the 99-year lease term mentioned repeatedly by members of this council at the initial RFP presentations. And then on, and that was on February 3rd, at least three members said they were not comfortable with the 99-year lease term. On the meeting where we awarded it, which was February 19th, I specifically asked about different lease terms, if it would be amenable to 25 years with potential renewals, et cetera, et cetera. The response to that, and this is a direct quote by Robert, is we know that, hey, if we don't play ball with you guys, how do these RFPs work? They go on to the next person. So we understand that we're going to have to get to a place where you guys are comfortable. that so it bugs me that that was considered a foregone conclusion because to me it was a foregone conclusion that that was a term that would have to um to to get a council consensus to vote for an agreement The other thing, and maybe this is a legal mechanism that has to be ironed out, throughout the entire time that you guys have spoken to us, it has been presented that the strength of your proposal is our call, and I agree with that. That's ultimately why I voted for you in the RFP, is I think that the overall economic benefit outweighs what some of the other respondents could offer. But to do that, I feel like they have to be kind of linked together. You talk about using that this is a loss leader that you don't It's not just a golf course contract. You don't need it to be profitable. Well, the mechanism to cover those is Harder Hall. So I have concerns about not tying it together in some way to where if Harder Hall goes away, if you guys sell it, if situations change, that the golf course lease doesn't just get abandoned. There are no penalties, really, if you guys walk away from a golf course lease outside of whatever investment you have put into it. And again, that's part of why we, at least me, myself, have pushed for that interconnection is to make sure that we are getting the package deal, the resort, the vision that you've outlined, which I think is a good vision. And then the biggest thing that I have struggled with and that I would like an answer for tonight, we're trying to get this thing to the finish line, right? We're 99% there. on our may 19th meeting council went through and kind of determined what what issues would what what would be we'd be willing to vote for right there's been locked back and forth i know that uh mr sykes didn't want us to have that meeting again we're trying to get to the finish line we're dealing with budgetary issues like every other city in florida after that was done our attorney sent sent that red line version and then um stated in the email that council is willing to consider potential revisions especially clarifications to avoid misunderstanding proposed a virtual meeting flag that time was of the essence that we were trying to get this thing to the finish line before the start of our fiscal year and wanted some finalized language in a meeting before our june 16th agenda he never responded to that there was no response from your group in any way until after our June 16th meeting, where we viewed your lack of response as the response itself, that you were not willing to accept the terms that we proposed. And that's really why we're here tonight. So I'm a little bit concerned about voting and expecting negotiation and it just going the same way. What assurances could you give me that it would be different this time? Or would you be willing to agree to the red line version of the lease that we sent after our May meeting?

I'll go ahead and address the 99-year lease issue. And part of that, I think, had its genesis in what the RFP response was. Don't take this the wrong way, but probably procedurally, when the approval occurred in January, it should have been, we'll approve it if that term is reduced down. And I was not there for the meeting. I just had a chance to review what was the February meeting.

Because I was. um the motion was a move that the city of sebring continued conversations with the blackmans to negotiate at least on the golf course and there's clarification immediately after from me i said to clarify to the audience the blackmans have been awarded the conceptual rfp and the city will now enter into the negotiation phase of the contract To me, that is expressly clear that we are not accepting this as is, but we have negotiations to do.

Understood. And we agree with how this lease or this RFP has come out with a 50-year term. That's fine. At one point in time, it was starting at a 25-year term. And from my client's perspective, the issue of term and the reason why they wanted longer term is to provide for longer term financing opportunities. If you have shortened terms and leases, whether it's a commercial lease, whether it's a ground lease, there is only a certain amount that lenders will do knowing that there's a sunset coming up. Fifty years gives us enough opportunity. gives us enough runway that it's not a problem. So that issue is completely off the table. As far as tying the golf course to the hotel ownership, There's just, from my perspective, and I think from my client's perspective, there's just some long-term ramifications to that. We don't disagree that it's going to be marketed as an amenity to the Harder Hotel, the historic Harder Hotel. The historic Harder Hotel should have a significant influence in driving golfers to that course. There'll be people staying there that want to play at the course. It's associated with everything. We can market it together. If they were to enter into a sale of the Hope's Tale in the future, I would presume, and I've seen this done in multiple other types of situations, that there would be some kind of continuing licensing agreement between the hotel and the golf course operator. The two are going to be separate for liability reasons. If you noticed in the last draft of the lease, we still had a blank as to what the lessor's name would be. That wasn't because we were trying to be cute or trying to hide anything. It's because we're going to set up a separate special purpose entity for that.

so that the liabilities associated with operating and managing the golf course the time and the place to negotiate the lease so that i don't think so that was kind of what was said at the last rfp award and then once we got to the time and place to negotiate the lease okay things changed and uh communication broke down i i understand is october one a feasible target to start operations if you were awarded

Yeah, answer.

Operationally, absolutely. I've got plane equipment. And as we said in the previous RFP and this one, we want to retain as many of the current employees as possible. But in the event that none of them want to stay, and to my knowledge, I think there's only three or four of them left. But in the case, I've got enough manpower where we can take this over for sure by October 1.

Are you willing to honor the remaining SGA contracts?

Yeah, absolutely.

Can you say that into the mic?

Yes. Yeah, they will honor all the existing SGA contracts.

What would be the plan for Caddyshack? Is there a plan? Or have you been talking with them at all? Or did you have a plan there?

There has not been any discussions. My client would be open to having discussions with them. But obviously, without things being finalized with the ground lease, there's nothing that we could do at this point in time.

One of the things I've been asking for for a long time now is looking at financials. Is there a reason that even though it was asked for in the proposal, why that's not included either financial plan with supporting documents, five-year pro forma, reference letter, not the letter from the Valley Bank saying that you have the...

Yeah, both proposals, I believe, well, I know, there was a five-year pro forma included in, I think it was down the earth side. This was provided, it's a five-year Sebring Municipal Golf Course, five-year pro forma for the years 2026 to 2031.

You're right on that one, I'm wrong. Thank you. Any other questions from council?

When you talk about the jobs and the numbers, In the perfect world, if you are operating Carter Hall and the golf course, how many total people do you anticipate would be employed? Didn't mean to stump you.

No, I mean, you're looking at. Well over 100. It could be with part-time housekeeping, bartending jobs, ballet, up to 200.

And have you guys looked at the real estate tax revenue generated by Harder Hall and by the golf course?

You think it'll be great news for you guys.

Well, yeah. I was just wondering if y'all had looked at the number. We haven't, but I was just curious.

We're happy to pay it.

And you're not asking for any relief on property taxes or anything like that?

If you're offering, we'll take it.

I'm not offering yet. I'm asking.

No.

All right. And how many hotel rooms are at Harder Hall?

As it sits, 106. But a lot of that's because South Wing has been two and three to one. In other words, walls blown out. North Wing is one to one. So the original size.

So when you consider the overall impact, you're going to have the hotel revenue, you're going to have the employees, all of that, plus the real estate taxes coupled together. That's the economic benefit to the city.

Right. And I mean, the other thing that we just thought is... And I mean this sincerely. Everybody who applied wants to do a great job on this. It's just you can't justify the expense of marketing that was one of the city's stated goals when it's just a golf course. And it's always going to be hard to stand out and shine as just another golf course because there are so many in the county. And the other thing that... I mean, one thing that just personally I'm a little bit nervous about is not just the condition of the course today, but... YOU KNOW, THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE THAT MR. LANG BROUGHT UP AND ALL, THERE'S A STIGMA NOW AND YOU'RE LOSING, I MEAN, MR. LANG SAID HE HIMSELF DOESN'T GOLF THERE BECAUSE OF THE CONDITION. SO WE NEED TO BRING BACK IN LOCALS AS WELL TO TRY AND GET THINGS BACK ON TRACK. SO WE THINK THAT WE HAVE THE MARKETING MECHANISM, MARKETING ARM, AND THE FINANCIAL ABILITY AND COMMITMENT TO DO THAT BECAUSE IT IS GOING TO BE, I MEAN, TOUGH TO BRING PEOPLE BACK, NOT JUST DESTINATION BUT LOCALS AS WELL.

just wanted to add one thing and that's the amount of contractors local folks that we've been invested in who've worked at harter hall in the back i could list over a dozen and i won't take time to do that but whenever possible we're using local folks and we'll continue to do so any questions for the public

Karen Neal, once again, for the record. Tedder, sorry. At the last council meeting, I remember the city council stating that y'all were more than likely not going to entertain an RFP from the Blackman group because there was no contact from the last meetings in between. If I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong, but I think I interpreted it that way because y'all hadn't had any communication with them between, I believe it was May and June, and then we came up with the June, y'all put out the new RFPs. Am I correct or am I wrong?

I think that our motion was to...

I just want to make sure I have my records. Generally, that's what I said. Okay. Second of all, I have not heard any response from the Black Men Group on what their plans are for the RFP as I have with the others for the Caddyshack, which is of main concern. Also, the golf course. I have pictures of yesterday of the golf course in great condition. where pictures were posted when they killed the greens. The golf course is not getting the attention it needs publicly because it's not being promoted. It's being trashed and bad mouthed. You have employees out there who are working night and day, very limited, trying to do their best to keep the golf course open with uncertainties. Are they going to have a job tomorrow or next week? You have someone saying, I'm gonna give you $1 for a golf course, but that's it. Okay, I'm not a member person. I kind of grew up with all the CRA grant stuff and redevelopment, all that. If someone's gonna offer the city $500,000 a year to maintain everything, take it over, take it off the tax rolls, I think I would take that over a dollar a year because you're guaranteed to have that off the tax rolls. You're guaranteed that $500,000. You're guaranteed city employees or people who work there, their jobs. Now, the CRA grant, downtown, I don't want to start on that because there's a whole other issue there. I just feel that the city is being pushed into a corner they don't need to be pushed into. I know I got 41 seconds, John. I'm looking. I'm a good teacher. But my point is that it's not going to be entertained because I bailed. And I think you need to take a look deep downside and hard of who really wants to put the money into it to make it work and to promote it back to what it used to be back in the 70s, 80s, when they had the good tournaments. It's not promoted like it needs to be promoted, and I feel that the city really needs to take a deep look into it.

Thank you for your comments. Anybody else? Come on up.

Yeah, Christopher Tuffley here. I don't play golf. I have no skin in this game. But sitting or listening tonight, There are a bunch of proposals on, you know, being, people have taken the time, companies have taken the time to propose plans to the city. And it just seems that they're being run over by the Blackman group. And no offense to the Blackman group, but I just, I don't think that everybody is being treated fairly here. and and I don't see why a managed golf course. I mean, you can build your resort. There can be a golf course there. I forgive me. I just I'm just worried about the way this is going. It just doesn't seem to be straightforward or fair to everybody. Thank you.

Any other comments? Tell us who you are.

David Greenberg. I just have a question just kind of on more of like, because it's the transition to a resort. How would someone like me, who's just, I'm a teacher, so no regular salary, would there be accessibility to a resort course like it would be in Muni? Or are we transitioning fully away from letting the local citizens, I live right down the block, be able to play that chorus, or is it going to be out of the reach?

Who would you like to address?

Speaking with the blackness, I think we have this, you know, we've talked about it many times and yes, we're going to keep it. The goal is to keep it affordable for all the local residents and whether they do that by a zip code type thing or or whatever, obviously. You know, the game of golf is business and supply and demand. So their idea is they're going to drive demand and then they can charge more money, but they do want to keep it affordable for the local residents. So that's a place to be proud of and play.

Yes. Any other comments? Come on up.

Good evening. I'm Kim Pysak, and I'm president of the Sebring Historical Society Board, and I just want to express how much we appreciate all of the work that the Blackmans are doing to preserving Sebring's history, what they've done with the Wachula Bank, that when we look back, it doesn't seem that old, but it truly is part of our history, as well as Harder Hall. And we just want to plant one little seed of our own. We're going to be looking for a place to have a golf outing. Can we have dibs on being first? Anyway, we appreciate them. We appreciate everyone's efforts to keeping our city as beautiful as it is.

Kim, that's the Wachovia Bank, not the Wachula Bank.

Oh, thank you.

That's okay.

I can never get the name of your bank right either.

Thanks, Ken. You just lost a member.

Hello, guys. My name is Jerson Salazar with Circle Park and Associates. I own a building on the Circle, signature floors on the Circle, and just recently acquired Liberty Plaza down the road. I just want to encourage you guys to see if any of whoever gets awarded, and I'm glad that you guys are doing it, but try to use local subs. I've been in the flooring business for about 20 years, and I was in my restaurant. We started meeting with a couple of subs and we were like does anybody got a invitation to bid and nothing had nobody none of the old school subs have been invited so uh i will encourage you guys to encourage them whoever gets awarded to to you know use their local subs and local uh employees and stuff like that i agree with the lady that says that we need to secure the employees for the golf course you guys are doing a great job thank you

Kirsten, just to let you know that they have used, they've bought all the windows and doors from a local vendor. Excellent. And also the guy that's putting them in has been around here for 50 years probably. So they are using local people.

Any other comments? Final comments from the councilor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and city council members. I appreciate the opportunity to be virtual. My name is Mike Bennett, and I'm one of the partners in the company.

With me is John Hilker. John's also one of our partners. And our third partner, Peter Dijak, is not available with us this evening, but you'll hear us reference him a couple of times. I'm going to share Let me see if I can make this magic happen. All right. Can everyone see that screen? Yes. Yes, sir. Okay, great. So just real quick, our proposal is also a lot different than what we've heard so far today. We thought it was interesting enough for us to try to at least submit something. We have a handful of properties that we're involved with. And the one that caught our attention is we're involved with the city of Asheville in North Carolina, where we lease their golf course in a very unique situation. And it's proved very well. It's done very well for all parties of the community. It's done well for the city. And it's been it's just it started to get pretty good for us until the hurricane came through. So we thought maybe, you know, as another option or something for y'all to think about, we could put that in front of you. So that's really kind of the genesis of our offer, our proposal, if you will. So let me just kind of page through and touch on a few of the high-end points of it. You know, obviously, between John and myself and Peter, you know, we have a long background. Peter's in the construction business. He does a lot of golf course renovation work. His office is in Pinehurst, North Carolina. That's kind of our satellite office. And then John and I office up in Williamsburg, Virginia. But we do a lot of our own work in-house, but we are, John and I are more operators or backgrounds in operations. We've been in this crazy business for, you know, myself in 35 years. I happen to be a PGA member, so please don't hold that against me. But John's been at some of the high-end clubs in the area and around the world at Kings Mill Resort most recently here in Virginia and some super high-end clubs. So we come at it with an operator's background. We formed this company several years ago and just kind of a pooling of all our efforts. And as I said, Peter is kind of our agronomy guy. He's built several golf courses and done a lot of construction work on courses that we're involved with. So So, you know, a very high level. What we wanted to do is, you know, we tried to get as much information as we could out of financials that were available. It was pretty difficult to really understand, you know, quantity of rounds, average rates, because everything was kind of pulled together into the city's financial statements. So we did the best we could. But nonetheless, you know, our strategy with our businesses are really to try to operate them where we operate them as true businesses and not just convenience fees and out of, you know, more of a, you know, we want obviously services tantamount, but we want to make sure that it's truly being run as a business and not the good buddy network, if you will. So we're, you know, we've gone recently to where all of our reservations are done online or via an app and we get prepayments for those in advance. We found that that was a very useful way in cutting down the no-shows and short showing. You know, we do, as all the folks that are presented today, you know, we'll utilize dynamic pricing and things of that sort. One of the unique things that we've done in Asheville is we've partnered with them, and we actually impose a $2 fee on every round that goes through there. That fee goes back to the city, and it goes into a marketing bucket or, excuse me, a capital improvement bucket. that we later can use for future renovation work that the city wants to get done on the golf course. So, you know, I thought that that was something quite unique. There was also a stated goal in the RFP to grow tourism. As one of the other respondents mentioned, you know, it's very difficult to just, you know, plant a flag in the ground and say, we've got one golf course, therefore we're, you know, golf destination. It just, it doesn't work that way. But I have seen, I've got firsthand experience pulling together golf courses in Williamsburg. We did it at the Williamsburg Golf Association many years ago and partnered with all the area hotels. And it's a co-op alignment. It still exists to this day. Very, very beneficial. We just started having some of those conversations in Asheville as well, kind of doing the same thing, trying to pull the courses in Asheville and using what's already there in terms of lodging. Unfortunately, though, as you'll hear me reference here in a little bit, Helene destroyed the front nine of our golf course. So we're in the process of rebuilding it. So we've kind of tabled a lot of those discussions. But nonetheless, we we kind of understand how to do it. But there needs to be like, you know, one golf course clearly does not, you know, make a destination. So, yeah. You know, as I said, we're our financial projections were based primarily off what we could take out of the financials that were packaged in with the whole all the city's numbers. You know, we did look at the equipment list that was provided. It was hard to really understand or see what was there, but if what was there, is all that's there was shown. It's it seems like it's it's it's lacking a bit. So one of the models in our performer that we, you know, one of the things we did add in our performer was we did include some additional operating lease expense or operating expense for new equipment. Some pieces were pretty frugal. We don't need, you know, three fairway units, but we need, you know, we need stuff to adequately groom the golf course and maintain it like it should be. We did provide a pro forma. Again, you know, we're trying to take a very conservative approach, and I'll touch on our financial terms in a minute, but at a high end, you know, we've heard a few of the responders talk about they're going to backstop losses, and I want to be clear that that's a heavy lift and good on them for doing that. That's not what we're seeking to do here. However, we won't be profitable. Our company, our little company, won't be making any money until the facility does make money, so Our lease is structured on a split of profits of 70-30. You know, we understand, we've heard clearly the golf course is in need of some improvements. When we took it over in Asheville, it was about as bad as anything I've seen. The city did have some pathways and avenues to put together some money for capital improvements for the golf course through some tourism grants that existed. and some stormwater drainage improvement funds that the city had. So, you know, we were fortunate to be able to work with them on getting those dollars put together and make them come to fruition. And then we did the work for them through our partner, through Peter's company, Cignet. So, you know, I want to be clear that, you know, any capital improvements that the golf course might need, which, you know, again, it sounds like guttered irrigation system might be a problem. that's something that we would have to do, we'd have to look at. And we would, you know, what we'd want to do is kind of come in as part of the, you know, the lease due diligence is just, you know, kind of give you all a reserve study. If nothing else, it just says, here's, you know, kind of what you're facing and here's what, you know, the future looks like so that we can put together a long-term plan that either those facility maintenance fees start going towards, you know, knowing that it's going to take a while to build those up to be able to do something in the magnitude of an irrigation system. But, Nonetheless, it would be helpful, I think, for everybody just to understand kind of truly what the life cycle is, life expectancy of an irrigation system is, or CARPAS. You know, the greens even have a useful life, bunkers, of course. So kind of moving along. So we touched on tourism. This is just kind of a slide of, you know, what we did to pitch the city of Asheville on tourism. The economic impact of golf tourism. Again, I don't want to get too far in the weeds on that because it sounds like that's probably not the focal point of tonight. These are some golf partners that we found for them. For tourism related golf packaging, I want to spend a minute just talking about our relevant experience. You talk every talk about Asheville Municipal. That just happens to be the one that kind of we thought might be the most applicable here. Asheville Muni is 100 year old historic Ross course. That was, you know, no other way to say it. It was bad. There was no fairways with no grass. It was about as bad as anything I've walked into. And we went through it with the city. We went through a negotiation with them. They retained us. We leased the property from them where we remitted to them a certain percentage of profits. We actually participated a little bit with losses. Their property, however bad it was, was close to breaking even, so it wasn't – You know, I can extrapolate here. It looks like Sebring's losing, you know, a pretty good chunk of money. So this was a little bit of a different animal, if you will. And then as part of that, we also, we introduced that facility maintenance fee with them. And all went well. We, you know, we put the money to work. We redid all the green, or excuse me, redid all the bunkers. We redrafted a bunch of fairways, car paths, rebuilt some T's that had gotten destroyed. remodeled the clubhouse in a little bit, and everything got done, and the model really worked. We were doing pretty good in June of 2024, but when I say it worked, the revenue skyrocketed. It really took off. We were seeing people coming from all over the state of North Carolina to experience it. They had heard about it, and the profit-sharing plan that was identified in our lease worked perfectly. They were making money for the first time, And we were just finally starting to make some money. And then Feline came through and destroyed our front nine. So we are now in the process of rebuilding that. We like to say a second time because we went through it when we first took over. But here's just, if you've never seen an original golf course drawing, here's Donald Ross's handwriting right here from, this is the first hole at our course. So it's kind of cool. We got to go to the archives and get these. And we went out in the field with, we had a, an architect come on board, Chris Spence, and he helped us relocate everything. So it's kind of a fun exercise. And this is what it looked like when we were all done. And again, it just recently got destroyed. Some of the other municipal properties that we've been involved with, as I mentioned, Peter's company is Cignet. Through them, we were involved with the city of Detroit on their three municipal courses. Those were management contracts, and Peter's company then did some capital improvement work for them as well. But through my history and John's, we've worked with several municipal partners, and I'd say each one's a little bit different. So this is another one of our properties up in Fairfax, Washington, D.C., where we did some stormwater work, and we operate this golf course for the HOA. So I'll just kind of skip through it for the sake of time. And full client list is in here. Did some work with City of Dallas, Texas. few military courses as well. We have a bunch of experience between us on courses outside of the municipal world. Again, client list is included in our presentation. And I want to spend kind of most of the time that we have remaining just talking about the financial terms, because as I said, it is a little bit different. It's probably not easy to understand, but What we would propose, as I said earlier, we're proposing that we would lease the property. We're suggesting 20 years. We're flexible with that. It could be more. We would ask that we would allow or recommend the city approve our annual operating budget. And we are asking, and we're being realistic, the city's going to continue to operate or fund the operating losses on a 12-month cycle. you know, our goal would be that the sooner we can get this thing to breaking even and making money, that's when, you know, John and I would actually start to, you know, make this profitable going concern business for ourselves. Um, so we're motivated to, to reduce that number. This isn't a, you know, we're just going to come in and collect a, you know, a check and, you know, after five years, just, you know, take our lumps and move on. So we want to, you know, we want to be realistic and let you all know that, you know, it's, there may be folks out there that can do that. Um, But just based on the numbers we are seeing, it's a big number. And so it's not something that we would represent that we would be covering. So I want to be clear. However, we think that our approach is probably the most conservative and the most predictable model for you guys to get your arms around in that you sort of have a history. You'll know what the operating budget looks like every year as we go in. So our goal would be to remit 30% of all operating income to the city. Losses, again, would be covered by the city. We would ask that the city wants to do some capital improvements, which it sounds like there's a good amount of that. We would love to be able to do that with the city. We found, again, in Asheville and Detroit, some other operators that us being able to manage the process has been a cost savings for everybody, and we can get it done on time and under budget.

Hey, Mr. Bell, one minute left.

Okay. And then, thank you for that. And then we touched on the facility maintenance fee of $2 per round that would go back to the city for their goals if there's specific marketing issues that they want to do or something like that. We can go towards that. And then we can gear up and ramp up within 45 days, I would say. Does that sound right, John? Yes, sir. Okay. So that's us. Sorry for the running through pretty quick. We didn't do a slideshow by any means. We just figured we'd go through our presentation, which all council members have. So thank you for the time. And, you know, very learned a lot tonight. You've got a great, you get a lot of people that are very passionate about the property. We'd love to be part of it, but hope it works out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you, John. Questions from council.

So if I'm extrapolating your pro forma, you wouldn't expect to achieve profit till year nine?

We built out a five-year pro forma for you, and it goes from, as best we can tell, the facility is losing in the area of about $600,000 today annually. We think over the years, by the end of the first five years, we can get that down to where it's about a $200,000 loss. After that, that's a conservative number. I'm trying to get to it. It looks like you're losing about $500,000 right now. And we're proposing, again, year one, we think the loss could probably go even more because in what we can extrapolate, it looks like there's some staffing deficiencies, particularly in the maintenance department, that would need to be addressed. We also touched on the need for the operation to have some additional equipment. So that will cause the operating expenses to go up. And then we would slowly start bringing that back down to where In year five, it's about $200,000, $225,000. I think we could beat those numbers, but this is what we're comfortable showing you.

And to clarify, you don't get paid, period, until the course achieves profitability? Is that my understanding? That's correct, yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Thank you.

Any questions from the audience? Nothing else here? Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. All right. With my new proposal, I'm presenting a 10-year with a 10-year option. The 10-year option would be renewable on ourselves and you guys. It would have to be agreed upon by both parties. I would start off with $20,000 a year, and that would go up to $30,000 a year the second year, go up to $40,000, then $50,000, then increase 3% after that. For a commitment on my end, I would pay the first two years up front and a certified check on the first day of the contract to make you guys feel a little more comfortable. Transition would start immediately on August 19th if awarded on the 18th. I would work with the city on the next day to get this thing going, as you saw in my proposal. I had September 1st as the target date to take over. That is feasible since I have all the staff in place basically already. I have a contract basically already drawn out with Gabriel at the Caddyshack ready to go. And I have Jason Lehman doing the maintenance end of the aspect of the golf course. So him and his staff will be overseeing the maintenance side of things at Seabrook. All right, and unless the city wants to discuss any changes with my proposal, this is my offer. I don't need to negotiate anything. This is what I'm giving you guys. If you guys want to make any changes, I'll discuss that with you guys, but this is my final offer, basically. I don't need to change anything. My goal with this proposal was to be as transparent as possible, so sorry if I overshared some things here and there, but I just wanted to get it all out there so everybody was well aware of what was going on, what happened in the past, and what's happening now, basically. And with that, I'm just going to transition it to Jason. He's going to just talk a little bit about what he's going to do on the maintenance side.

Hi, good evening. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jason Lehman. I'm the owner and operator of Golf and Country Club and also Lehman Field Maintenance, a turf maintenance company. And I met Harry a couple months ago while we were doing some verification at the municipal course. And he's a straight shooter, and he asked me right away if I'd be interested in doing his consulting. And I said, our turf company, we consult anywhere. So he has retained my services, and if he gets awarded, then I'll be going every week and helping him make a plan to improve the conditions of the course so that he can run it.

Thank you, Jason.

Yep. I mean, our goal is literally our first five things we want to focus on are the greens, greens, greens, greens, and greens. That's the main thing. That's what tracks conference. Then we're going to move to the green surrounds, then move our way back to the T's fairways and rough. The buildings need a lot of work. They need a lot of attention. So while we're focusing on the greens, we'll still be giving them some attention like the chemical building that needs attention right away. So that would be done right away. And some other things.

so basically that was it i mean i presented before i wanted to keep it short and sweet and this is what i'm offering you guys so opening up to questions all right since i always get to go first here um i appreciate everything you wrote in the letter and i will say that having letters of recommendation from your creditors is um Pretty awesome. It feels like a rare thing. One question, so you're ready to hit the ground running. To clarify, you're not asking for the city to fund any capital improvements? No. You're going to handle it?

Besides the well that Mr. Blackman brought up.

Right, the existing, yep. Okay. I... You know, that the lease payment is less than last time. To be honest, it made me feel a little more comfortable because that felt unsustainable. I think I voiced my concern that it was not a sustainable number. This one definitely is. I don't think I have any questions.

I agree with that last statement you just made. I just didn't see how the math was going to play out, but this is a little bit more realistic for our area. Jason, you probably have more golf knowledge than anybody in Sebring. What do you think it's going to take to get the horse to turn around?

Well, it's just going to take a common sense plan to do greens first. I mean, it just hasn't been done. It's not even that much money. It's just doing the right thing and putting those first. We all know golf's about the greens. So I think Harry realizes that. That's why he came and asked me.

So you feel you could salvage what's already there?

Oh, it's already been changed to the same grass that I redid at Golf Hammock three years ago. And as they say, our greens are the best in the county. So, oh yeah, it could be salvageable.

Any other questions, thoughts? I echo Josh and Roland too. I'm really thankful for the transparency and For me, that wasn't as a concern, too, because everybody's one bad decision away from being in a bad spot. But you need to be really clear and honest about it. Getting the letter means a lot, too.

what iraqis it proposal thanks for the flexibility and just want to work with us at the ground running could i say one more thing i didn't really come here to argue for for harry to get the proposal i came here because he contracted me to if he gets it to help with golf course so you know i'm getting paid to do it but one thing i've noticed about harry is He's said over and over again, this is his first step. He's looking to get his company in Florida, and then he's looking to expand. So he needs to turn this into a success so that other people in the state can look at him. He can expand, and as he does, then my turf company gets bigger too. Anyway, just wanted to add that in.

I think, too, looking at the RFP, one of the reasons, too, you're not getting rich off of this, but you've got all the other ventures, too, up north that are the slow time up there is the busy time here.

That's what enables me to do this because this time up there I'm making a lot of money. And down here is obviously the slow season. But their season down here is our slow season up there. So having that 12-month positive cash flow is very, very helpful. Very helpful.

Very good. I have no further questions. Anybody else has any questions for the public? Did I ask that already? It's been a long day. It's been a long day. Go ahead and watch the clock, John.

I've listened to all the proposals, and I've been around here for a long time. I've seen CAR start from nothing, which my mother started, the Council 100, everything. Out of all the proposals I've heard, only one person brought in one of the main things, and that was the Caddyshack restaurant. It's been there almost 20 years. Who's already willing to work with them. Nobody else really did. The golf course, he's ready to go. He's guaranteeing you money. Less money than last time, he's guaranteeing you money, not just $1. He's looking out for the community. Yes, we all want to see Hartle Hall get big and pink again. I had my high school prom there. But you've got to think about other things besides just Hartle Hall. You've got to think about the golf course. Get it back into shape where people can use it and we have tournaments there again. They used to have lots of them. The Caddy Shack is a welcoming place for everybody. We've all been there. We all have memories there. I just hope that y'all use your good judgment and you go by what you said in the last meeting about maybe not entertaining someone's proposal. Nothing against the Blackmans. I want to see them do well. But I still haven't seen downtown. I know there's issues with that down there also. I just think that You've got somebody that's shown willing, and he's guaranteed money, that we need to go with it and secure everybody's future.

Anybody else? I think I asked Bob this five times and he said he don't need to address it. So I'm going to address it. With the RFP, just want to make sure the public knows too, again, we're not making any decision tonight, not ranking him for the next meeting, but whatever the RFP that we choose to go with too, that's not binding. So the details, the terms, the agreements listed in what we just heard tonight does not mean that we're guaranteeing those terms. It's going through negotiations. We're going to talk through things and make sure that everybody's on the same page to make the best with screen with the city. So apologies, Bob, but just wanted to say that for the record. So that's all I have. Moving forward, going over to the, no, this is from you, Bob? No, sir. So 12A, city administrator and project report. Scott, you're up.

Good evening, Council. Before we use the project report highlighted in bold, any changes we've had, you'll notice FDOT is now scheduled to begin August 31st on Lakeview Drive at Kenilworth. Staff is expecting documentation for the appropriation for 126 West Center. And staff is working on proposed language for an open container ordinance that we look at having either around the circle or in our downtown entertainment district.

Any other questions for Scott? 13-8, Kathy, do you have a piece of those?

So moved. Second.

Any comments from the audience? Council?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're heard. Have a great evening.