City Commission - Regular Meeting

in our regular meeting of the Stewart Stewart City Commission. Sorry, I'm on your There you go. Okay, Mary, would you call the role? Mayor Collins here. Vice Mayor Reed here. Commissioner Clark here. Commissioner Gio here. Commissioner Rich here and we'll have the pledge of allegiance or forgive me the invocation followed by the pledge of allegiance and pastor Brochious is with us. Yep. So invocation and then the pledge.

Good evening all commissioners. Let's pray. Father in heaven, again, thank you for your grace and mercy and kindness to us. Uh just the grace of allowing us to live in such a beautiful place and uh thank you. Thank you. It's all of you. And we do pray for these our leaders with thanksgiving. Lord, we ask that you would grant them continued direction and wisdom that would come from you for the good of our people, of the good of our city, and it would bring honor and glory to you. Lord, again we pray for health and strength for all of us that we may be the best that we may bring uh your good to our families, our neighborhoods, and those around us.

Lord, thank you for Helen McBride who has been so faithful, Lord, to care for our city over the years. Lord, uh how we pray that you would uh be with her with his stroke and now in hospice. We ask God that you would be comfort and guide and direction and again that it would all uh bring uh glory to you. So we pray for her family and all that you would bring comfort, peace to them. So Lord again thank you for tonight. We pray that you would guide and direct us and we pray this in Jesus' name. And everybody says amen. Amen. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to theublic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Before we get into comments by commissioners, I wanted to ask if Helen's daughter would you mind just

Yep. Just a comment. Yep. Um, I'm moved to be here. Um, because my mom has spent years in this room and at this podium. My name is Robin and my mom is Helen McBride. That makes me proud to say. Um, I wanted to update everybody. Um, I don't know who knows her. Um, everybody

specifically. Yeah. Dumb question. Sorry. Um, my mom had a tragic fall on Thursday afternoon and she had a mass massive stroke. Um she had several CT scans and an MRI that confirmed that she will not recover from this and um but she's still talking to us and spoke with Ula today which was beautiful. Thank you for coming to visit my mom. And uh I think that's just such a gift that we've been given that even the severity of her disability that she's still able to talk and we're able to share so many meaningful conversations. Um don't know how long this is going to last but I'm grateful for that. Uh, my mom loves Stewart, Florida. I grew up here and I love it as well. I don't know really any of any of you, but I've heard your name several times by my mom's voice. Um, she spent all her energy making sure that Stewart was the best city it could be, and I'm proud of that. I I did want to make everybody aware of her situation, but also I want to do something for my mother and honor her when everybody's voting on anything that relates to Florida. Ask yourself, what would Helen do?

Praise the Lord. And you'll never make a bad decision. Praise the Lord. Um, now for those of you who knew her well, you're going to understand this last comment. When she does pass, I feel sorry for anyone in heaven because she's going to make sure that everything changes and she doesn't care who Jesus is and she's going to make it known that she's there, right? Um, I just want to especially thank everybody for loving my mom. I was the luckiest girl in the world. Thank you. Thank you. And please send all our love to your mom and we're saying prayers.

Commissioner Rich, did you have any comments? Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sir,

I wasn't going to mention that, but I'm I'm not glad you mentioned it because obviously, but yeah, this community is very lucky to have an individual such as Helen who cared so much in um participated in such a civil manner and enriched um local government. So, unfortunately, I have to travel to Tallahassee very soon, but I hope I can get back. And I know my wife and I are anxious to go visit her. Um, the mayor and I were at the Rivers Coalition meeting the other day, and an interesting remark was made and they were talking about government responding to the needs of its communities. And as they pointed out, cities respond faster than counties. Counties respond faster than states. And states respond faster than the federal government. And sometimes the most powerful example is the simplest example. And I just want to point out to you that on the 12th of this month, all the commissioners received a letter um through the city email and it said, "I was down at the amphitheater by the boat house and she's not familiar with our community." And I was trying to walk down the stairs and I couldn't see the stairs and I couldn't gauge the depth and it was very dangerous. And so I went down there, took a look at it myself, and I forwarded an email to the interim city manager saying, "Do you have an interest in addressing this matter?" And today, he responded by showing us pictures, I don't know if the other commissioner saw this, but of the new lighting that they have in fact installed. That is terrific. That is

going to make it safer for people who visit our downtown. And Well done, interim city manager. I can stop you right there. It's going to sound very familiar. This was Milton Leget. Oh, Milton. And uh Milton Yeah. Milton Leot and Jim Croski speech. As soon as they heard something about, you know, uh boardwalk and all that, they they jumped into action. So it Well, it was at it was at your direction and Yeah.

But that's good you got my my my neighborhood because he's been causing a little trouble. No, he we we actually redid the median on Flamingo and it looks absolutely terrific. Um the point I'm making is that local government is so important, is so essential, and can be so responsive.

Um my concerns during the legislative session deal primarily with ensuring that we have home rule. uh because I'm the city of Stewart's representative of the Florida League of City and that is what they do. And along those lines, I'm going to ask the my fellow commissioners indulgence because I have to be at Tal in Tallahassee at 8:30 tomorrow morning to talk to our legislators about the issues that are of vital importance to us. So I I am going to leave just before the DND starts and I hope no one takes offense. Believe me, I will review um uh uh the remarks made during that. But I don't drive that well in 2:30 in the morning. So I'll thank you, Mr. Mayor, for

No offense taken. And thank you for for going up there and helping fight for home rule. uh for home rule what what appears to be a unhinged session. So uh that's a very good description. Uh Commissioner Gobi, uh I have no comments. Thank you, Commissioner Clark.

Thank you. Um I just wanted to say that I went to see um Miss McBride today and Miss Joby wanted to know and I think others I don't know if Robin wanted others to know, but she's actually here at the hospice right in front of the Splash Park, the Hey Madera Harper Center. So, it's on the north side. The other front part is on Indian Street. And she's right there. Visitors are welcome. And um she did speak to me. and Chief Felicion um she said you know the guy whom came by all the numbers for all my children and everybody was on the on the um on the refrigerator and you know the fire department they came so quick after he called them. So and I'm just surprised knowing the level of illness that she's at. She's actually speaking and her her wit and her memory and everything is right there. So, um, she's just

10 minutes. Yeah. Just amazing. So, awesome.

And she remembered that. So, if if you didn't come fast enough, she would let you know. So, um, we had an interesting meeting before this meeting, which was our CRB meeting. And I know that people make a lot of effort to come out to our city commission meeting. If you could continue to go to our website, look at our meeting schedules when the individual CRB meets, when the individual LPA meets to discuss projects um and and matters before them, and then when we have those joint meetings, those are important, too. It's not just a 5:30 city commission meeting. Please watch those schedules and come out to those meetings. Right now the Steuart main street is doing survey to look at this particular property here and the entire property down towards the point and but especially this property. And so there are ideas for us to make plans or change plans for the future. So, please get involved with that survey, find it, call Main Street, go on the website, call City Hall, and find out what you can do to put your to put your input uh into that process. Um, Mr. Mayor, other than thanking Milton for all that he does, we'll wait. I know that there's a particular item on the agenda with the um East Stewart situation and I hope that we can um we'll have members of the public here to help us look at that as we talk about what we'll do with that committee and how that will end up um as of tonight. But um our soon to be city manager is among us for those who don't know Roz Johnson and we'll soon get a chance to meet her. Roz Strong we'll soon get a chance to meet

her and see her. So I I just I I I just think that we um we have a great city and we need to continue to support each other and work to get things done. And thank you, Mr. Rich for what you're going to be doing at the legislative level. We appreciate it. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yeah. Um I have some notes from my town hall. Um the biggest thing that I heard was they want the public wants more from us. They want more open government. Um so I plan on doing one a quarter and I'll probably bounce back and forth between city hall and 10th Street. Uh, I did take some notes, but the biggest things too were like safety issues as well. Uh, so I'll rattle some off. So, and some were already addressed. So, the Tarpon Avenue and MLK, the silk fence for project lift, that being a blind spot. Georgia Avenue and MLK potentially being a four-way stop because that's another blind spot there. Um, the stop sign not being visible on MLK and Palm Beach Road when you're heading east. Uh there was a pothole and speeding I believe on uh by Alamanda. Um one thing too this was this and this might be for Lee or uh Jolie. Do we have a say so when hiring outside counsel for litigation? Like who sets that policy? Um yes uh we have a list

we have a list approved list through TRIRO and so they have to be vetted through Trio and so we have a list of various attorneys. Sometimes the adjuster makes a recommendation but ultimately I I decide who we we hire. Okay, but it's usually from an approved list of several different firms in exchange they've agreed to a certain hourly rate and so forth.

And then this one too, uh Lee, you might know about this one. So traffic count and studies before a property is issued a CO. For example, if you have a development and this might I think it might talk about Florida state statute stuff. So if you have a project in question that has not seeded yet, they don't have to include that in their traffic count. I don't know the answer to that. So I'll have to get back to you on that.

And then uh one big one that keeps getting talked about is affordable housing as well. Um, that's a touchy subject because I think everybody in this room has a different uh mindset for what's affordable versus their neighbor. So, I'm not sure how to fix that one. And that's all I have. I have no comments, Mr. Bioli. Um, no sir, not at this time. Um, other than just that we're anxious to see Roz in the seat. No pressure. There's your smile. Do I have a motion and a second for approval of the agenda? Move. Approval of the agenda is published. I'll second the motion.

All in favor? I I um comments from the public on non-aggenda related items. Three minutes. I do. I have Janine Alexander. Can I disseminate these letters that were actually um attached to an email in December 30th of 2023? They're addressing public records requests. Mr. Mayor, this is an this is an agenda item. This is an agenda item.

Um not this in particular. No, for hang tight. That item we weren't going to have public comment. It was just going to be a DND, so this would be her opportunity to speak. Good. Um, I'm gonna wait till Thank you.

Thank you. I seen this. Some of you all, if you were in attendance on December 8th, 2025, might recall my name, Janine Alexander, as I presented that evening some concerns as to how public records are handled um primarily by the former um city administrator, Michael Martell. Michael Martell and I became um introduced in 2018 when I filed a citizens complaint in regards to several concerns about police matters. This evening, I would ask for you as citizens of Stewart. I was once one of you. In 2015, I was a resident at Vista To remain until the final agenda matter is heard this evening. I attended state legislation this past week in regards to public um a bill on domestic violence SB 682. I was allowed to present to senators. And as you might already realize, my voice was shaking then, too. I've never presented in that magnitude in my life, but I felt like it was my civic responsibility and duty to do so. I am the victim of a domestic violence incident. It turned my life upside down. And for 10 years, I've fought hard to regain what I lost in one night. It was as if a magician had pulled the tablecloth and nothing remained on the table. I was arrested on March 11th by four Steuart police officers who came to my home at 10:30 at night without a warrant.

If they had probable cause, they could have served it earlier that day when I was at the police station. They could have made a friendly arrest, but instead they subjected me to circumstances that could have cost my life. I was driven into a state of anxiety where I took anxiety medications that were enough, as the ER doctor said, to kill a horse. I don't know why I'm here today, but I'm glad of it. My sympathies go out to this young lady that's whose mother's in the condition she's in because my mother passed five years ago and I still wear the title of felon and I'd like to erase that title before I die. My name is Janine Alexander and I hope you'll remain and listen to the final agenda matter this evening. We have David Kelman. Ladies and gentlemen, I personally want to thank uh Mr. Rich and Ruth for coming out to my property, Palpatine Creek, and observing the issues that we are having there in our creek. Um, it was wonderful to have him out. I wish others would have came out, but unfortunately, I guess schedule is conflicted. I would also like to thank the chief of Steuart PD for coming out to our community, um, introducing himself at one of our meetings. Uh, it was very nice to have him out there, um, and introduce himself and talk to the public. and, you know, educate them on certain aspects of the police department. Um, that's pretty

much what I have and I hope we still haven't forgotten about Paul Creek and the issues that we're having there. Uh, this morning I do have photos. I'll show them to Mr. Rich and Ruth at some other time. About 400 ft of our creek this morning was nothing but sludge and oil. So we we need to as a city find out where our water is becoming contaminated. Big part of it is Caner Highway. The other part of it is the Papa Creek D Park water retention area which nobody wants to address that situation's going on over there. But our waterways are in serious condition. Okay. I mean the smell, the sludge, the oils. Mr. Rich, I believe witnessed it himself along with Ruth. So hopefully it stays fresh in everybody's head and we can move forward and all come to a comp compromise on getting this addressed throughout the river, not just Papa Creek, Razor Creek, Pton Creek, and the rest of our waterways. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I have no further public comment, Mayor. Okay. Do I have a motion and a second for approval of the consent calendar? Mr. Mayor, I move approval of the consent calendar, which is items numbers one and two with various minutes. Do I have a second? And do you need individual? I'll second. I'll second. Okay. Seeing a motion in a second. Mary, would you call the role? Unless there's any discussion. Forgive me. Commissioner Goi. Yes, Commissioner Rich.

Yes, Commissioner Clark. Yes, Mayor Collins. Yes.

Moving on to commission action. Item number three, utilities easement hanger with a field airport. Resolution number 08-2026, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Steuart, Florida, accepting a utilities easement granted by Martin County, Florida, authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute a partial release of nonex non-exclusive water and sewer easement agreement between the city of Stewart, Florida and Martin County, Florida related to hangar number 10 located at Wamfield Airport providing an effective date and for other purposes. And this is my agenda item. So I'll provide a a background. So the airport is outside the city limits. However, um several years ago that the city agreed to provide uh water service and sewer service to the airport. And so as a result, the city and county entered into an agreement in which several easements throughout the property which would include the infrastructure in the ground. We're responsible for the infrastructure within the easements that provide the sewer and uh water service to the airport. Um I guess the city was granted a utility easement where the infrastructure was located at what's called hangar number 10 which already has been built over uh and so they built a hanger over our easement. uh once they became aware of it, they had the developer who was developing the uh hangar number 10 to put in new infrastructure in the ground around and rerouted around the hangar. And so, um, this resolution would be, uh, accepting this new easement that Martin County had provided to us, um, which is rerouting the infrastructure around hangar number 10. And then we would be releasing the old easement with the old infrastructure in the ground.

If you have any questions on this, I'd be happy to answer. I do. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. um city attorney. It's my understanding that this sometimes happens and maybe we need to have an agreement with the county where we overlap on certain things so we know in advance, not after the fact that they've built over a piece of property or built over a line of ours. So maybe going forward we could have that as just not that either one has to approve it, but just an awareness of, you know, we're building this, it's over your waterline and everybody's aware. So I think that would be important. And then I understand that the developer paid for the line, not the city. Thank you.

Ah, forgive me. Go ahead.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, um, Commissioner Ji. Yeah, I was going to bring up just for the record if there's any cost um involved in this cost loss and I think you brought up the fact about who paid for the line, but just as a course of business when in looking at these things, especially when we have things that are joint with the county, we want to make sure if we're spending or losing any money on this type of thing. So, I I I don't think that we're losing any money. And um I I mean I don't object to us accepting this um arrangement as it is now. They keep what's underneath that hanger and we keep the the new easement that's been created.

Not really. I mean Sunshine 811 exists for a reason. They would have known these utilities were there then before they built the hanger. I I can't explain what I I can't explain. When did they build the hanger anyway?

I do not know those details. So my my my my impression is like just like when a developer comes in the city to develop, it goes through the various departments, utilities, fire department, uh you know, development department and so forth and everybody checks the box. But since this is outside the city, we're not included in that process. and and so it's would have been up to the county's utilities to notify them that there was a utilities uh easement there, but I don't know the details of how that escaped. Technically, it's an open hanger, so the the the easement could still remain and the utilities could be accessed. You just got to, I guess, blast through the concrete flooring. But they put in new infrastructure. So, we have new infrastructure. So, we're benefiting by having new infrastructure, not the old infrastructure in the ground. Uh, you know, I know it's a nuisance having to have to go through this hearing, but it it is actually probably a benefit to the city. I know before Mr. Mr. Mortell left that there was potential discussion of maybe having the county take back over the water and sewer, but I I don't know that any further discussions has occurred on that issue. But I know it was an issue that was going to be discussed or may have been sort of discussed, but I I I wasn't involved in that discussion. So, so for context, I've been waiting to to speak to this. I, you know, the mayor comes in and signs forms and this particular item was in the package of items I was to sign. And so, you know, I I thought that's strange. We never talked about this. Why Why is this, you know, and and so I brought up bringing this in front of all of you and the public because I think this is This kind of a thing is part of what people and this is a small item. This is

not a big deal. But this type of thing where you know the things are done and and there's no transparency potentially outside of the daylight outside of public awareness. uh if and again I don't want to beat up on this on the county or this particular item but if you're going to try to encourage a culture of more transparency you know having this on the agenda is for that purpose because in what other in what other uh situation could a property owner build on top of somebody else's utility easement? I mean, there's lawsuits that have been happening in the city of Stewart that we're all aware of where this kind of a thing has been a huge issue. When could you do that and then just move it and then send over the form to be signed? You know, it's a strange thing. You can't do that. You couldn't do that in in private sector, certainly not public, and then somehow hope that it just doesn't hit the dis. So, you know, again, not to beat this to death, but I I think it's inappropriate for the county to function that way. um to mo move our utilities without our permission, get it all done and then send us the form to sign, you know, and I and I I I don't want to litigate it with you guys as to when what happened, but I hope if anybody's listening over there, don't do that anymore. And and on our end, we'll try to do our best to be as transparent as well. And if this is the way we've done business in the past, let's stop. Um would be my my sentiment on this. Mr.

Did you comment? Okay. She Commissioner Clark had had her light on first. The light system is not working. Oh. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Go ahead.

Thanks. So um the loss so I I guess maybe one day we need to have staff probably our development staff or building staff uh especially on building type matters development matters when you have the school board and the county and especially the county property that's the county's property that is not in the city limits. it's kind of taken out of the city limits um for whatever reason although people assume that it's in the city but it um especially the school board they have they have their own procedure for doing buildings they do things and we have our joint city county school board meetings and maybe if we need to ask each other and find out how we can better um get these things done because they are always constantly doing things. We have Steuart Training School, we have JD Parker, we have um uh the school in Jensen Beach, and we have Steuart Middle School. But all the time these construction, they do not come through the city. And so something could be happening on a school ground that maybe even affect some public waterline or whatever the situation is. So I think that we just need to figure out how we can better um coordinate things but we don't have it's been traditional and that's the way it has happened that they have they they they completely do their own thing school board and this thing with the county but I think that the history was there with the with the county that they knew that this line belonged to the city and um so definitely we have to I think that maybe there could be something that we can work with bringing to the joint city county school board meeting to ask for

an explanation to see how we can better um not that we're going to they're going to come to us with all of their building plans, but we at least need to have have some kind of an inquiry or a checkbox that says is there any impact to the city of Stewart or some city city facility or or something like that,

city easement, city facility Uh we've had like the the water lines that are the um the purple lines that um give gray water to different places and they go all throughout um the along the side of the road and you know it could be something that the school board or somebody's doing and so we just all need to to know what we're doing with

Yes, we we are liable for those pipes, right? whatever was whatever infrastructure even if they paid for it to be redone, we would we're still on the hook. It's still our we we we own the infrastructure except now that we're releasing the infrastructure that's under the hanger, we won't be responsible for that anymore. But the new infrastructure,

we had a chance to properly inspect that to make sure it was done. Yes, there was um there was a lot of back and forth with Mark Rogalino and Peter Kunan with the representatives from the county airport that we made sure it was inspected and cleared by DB and other uh certifications were made. So, we actually were delaying accepting the new infrastructure until it passed those certifications. So, it's been certified by D. But did Peter or whoever have a chance to re before the dirt went back on top of it? Um, now that part you and E would have to speak to, but this is because we don't have the airport's not ours, right? That's why they give us access to go into that secured area to do that. Easement is

right. That's why they gave us the easement so we can access our utilities to maintain them. Did you have a chance to investigate that?

Uh, good evening, uh, mayor, commissioners, Peter Cunan, utilities and engineering director for the record. Uh yes, we did. Uh we had uh one of the city's UNE director um inspectors out there that observed the abandoned section of water man that was beneath the the hanger itself. Mhm. And also observed the construction of the the new section of water man that's within the the new utility easement. Perfect. And it met all of our qualific. Yes, sir. It did. Thank you. You're very welcome. Appreciate you commenting on that. Thank you. And Commissioner Gio.

Yes. Um I I had mentioned it before. I think I would like and I would not like to blindsight them at the city school and county meeting. I think in advance if we could send a letter if the other commissioners are in favor of that sending a letter to the county to ask that future projects please be aware to make us aware that they're building or changing something over a pipe or whatever that we own. So then we can certainly at the city, county, school board meeting, which is coming up in a couple of weeks, we can ask them if they've resolved the issue, if they've addressed it or whatever.

I'm happy to uh to assume positive intent and that it was just an oversight and not that they were merely looking to maximize hanger space at the airport. Easements be damned, you know, right? But in the future, they would also then be on record to know that we're aware and if they could please just be considerate of, you know, our pipes and whatever. So I I would like if the other commissioners are amendable to sending a letter to the county in advance of the meeting. And I wasn't thinking about the next meeting exactly. I was just thinking that working on a policy just to inform each other. Okay. I mis I may have misunderstood because you said when the meeting comes, you would bring it up.

I didn't have that schedule. I didn't have that schedule for the next joint thing. I'm thinking of that coming up in June because that's usually when they come. If there's no other comments, do we have a a motion for approval and a second for item number three? Move approval of item number three as published resolution number 08 2026. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Is there any public comment on item number three? Seeing none, Mary, would you call the role? Commissioner Ridge, yes. Commissioner Clark, yes. Commissioner Gio, yes. Vice Mayor Reed, yes. Mayor Collins,

yes. Item four, selection and appointment of magistrates. Lee, are you taking this? Yes.

All right. Resolution number 10-2026, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Stewart, Florida, appointing blank as primary code enforcement magistrate for the city of Stewart and blank and blank as code enforcement magistrate alternates and providing an effective date. Uh pursuant to section 26-21 subsection C of the city of Stewart's code um magistrate appointment and powers this a city it specifically states a magistrate shall be appointed and serve at the will of the city commission but shall be initially appointed for a term of not less than two years and shall serve thereafter at the will of the commission and shall continue to serve until a successor is appointed or until said magistrate may earlier resign or forfeit the appointment as provided above. A magistrate may be removed from office upon an affirmative vote of a majority of the city commission members for any reason except to seek to influence the outcome of any matter which shall come before the magistrate. Um, back on the December 8th, 2025 commission me meeting, the mayor requested a discussion regarding the city magistrate's uh position uh and whether the city of Stewart desires to maintain the current magistrate or potentially se select from the two alternate magistrates. So going further back in history, back in 2009, the city commission passed a resolution 01-209 which appointed Paul Nicolleti as the city's code enforcement magistrate primary and Thomas Baird as an alternate code enforcement. The resolution always also approved an hourly rate of $200 per hour and consistent with our code, it provided for an initial term of two years. On April 10th, 2023, the city commission passed a resolution 2920-20223 appointing Wendy Worb as an additional alternate to the city code enforcement magistrate during Paul Nicollet's

appointment as interim city attorney. This initial term for this office was a minimum of two years. On December 9th, 2024, the city commission passed resolution 124-2024, which appointed uh GMA Torcivia and Brett Lashley as additional alternates for the city co city of Steuart code enforcement magistrate position because the previously two appointed alternate magistrates were no longer available. Uh in the resolution, the city authorized a continued hourly rate of $200 per hour. Uh since then, on December 19th, Mr. Lashley communicated that in order for him to continue to be available as an alternate or a primary magistrate, the hourly rate for him would need to be increased to $375 an hour. And on December 26, 202525, Miss Torcivia communicated that she is willing to continue to be an alternate magistrate or a primary magistrate and continue at the hourly rate of $200 per hour. On December 26, 2025, the primary magistrate, Mr. Dr. Nicolleti notified the commission via written correspondence that he would be stepping down as the primary magistrate and be available as an alternate. In addition, he was um requesting that his hourly rate as an alternate be increased to $400 per hour. Um so we have potentially three positions or two positions. We need we definitely need a a primary magistrate to be selected from the three. Well, from the two, I should say. Mr. Mr. Lashley and Miss Torcivia and then Mr. Nicoleti is willing to continue as an alternate and then whoever you don't select as the primary is also willing to be an alternate obviously on the different hourly rates. So, we're going to need uh we have the resolution. We're going to have to have you fill in who would be the primary magistrate and and either at least one alternate and possibly two. And we'll

also need to address the hourly rates.

So, This is a really uh important move for us to make. Who is going to be the magistrate o over the city? I mentioned last time the two different um between Gemma and Brett, Gemma Torcivia and Brett Lashley. both very qualified, but I felt more comfortable looking at Brett Lashley in terms of his past relationships to to those who have been magistrates and then just overall the firm he's a part of. So, I'd like to make a move that Brett Lashley be appointed as the primary magistrate and Jim Torcivia as the secondary. If there's a second

point, can the mayor make that? No, but the mayor passed the gavl. Gavl didn't see that. So, we have a motion by uh Mayor Collins to have Torivia as the main right. No Lashley as the main and then Torivia as the alternative. Primary and alternate. Primary and alternative. Yes. I'll second the motion. Do we have a second? I second the motion. So, we have a second from Commissioner Gio. Are there any public comment on this motion? We have one public comment.

You can you can speak and then you can fill out a card. Remember, it's three minutes. I just need 30 minutes. No, 30 minutes. 30 seconds. Um just uh for the benefit of the public, I might ask the commissioners or perhaps the the city attorney in 20 seconds or 30 seconds, can you tell us the role and purpose of the magistrate? Can we just name Thank you. Um yeah, can you give your name? Can you give your name, please? Oh, I'm sorry. 32 seconds. Yeah, sorry. Uh Clay Sher 200 Southeast uh Fort Winds Drive Stewart green card

Mr. Bag. Do you want to answer that Lee or I can if you want me to. Yeah, that's fine. All right. So our our code our code section 26-21 identifies all A through J subsections which is defines the magistrate and appointment and powers if you want me I can go through it all I mean briefly.

Yeah I was just looking for like a 20 second summary for the we little people so we could understand. So, as I already said, the commission may appoint one or more magistrates who will be the hearing officers for code violations. Magistrates shall be members in good standing of the Florida Bar and shall remain in good standing during their entire tenure as a magistrate. So, there's a requirement that they be a lawyer. Trying to see what I bypass here. I've already said that they will be for a term of not less than two years. um magistrate shall be compensated by annual appropriation by the city commission and we did not have that addressed in the motion but we will need to address the hourly rates. um you are it and this is in the code but so I don't have to sit here and read it but you you've def you've delegated the authority to the magistrate or magistrates to um have public hearings on code enforcement violations so that you don't have to do it in your board. So we meet once uh once a month for the for the hearings. Um, magistrates shall use sound discretion, may determine violations of ordinances, levy fines, levy administrative cost, grant or deny or modify extensions of time for compliance. They may also suspend, reduce, wave, or abate fines and cost in whole or in part, and may fashion other reasonable orders not in conflict with any applicable law or ordinance, including but not limited to the rehearing of matters and the modification and vacation of interlocatory and final orders.

He's way over 20 seconds. All right. I'm sorry. I'm trying to get through, sir. He can't do 20 seconds. Um it it does say the jurisdiction is not solely exclusive to the magistrate. When I was at city of Port St. Lucy, I know some code violations, especially with animal control. We we we presented those to u a county court uh judge in Fort Pierce. So I mean that we don't have mag we don't have animal control here.

Pretty much everything that the all the codes predominantly go before our uh city magistrate. Uh they should it also says in here there's it's a broad discretion of jurisdiction granted. City commission hereby specifically designates magistrates to decide petitions for abatement, reduction or satisfy fines and all leans recorded in the public record in attempt of the city commission to de delegate the authority uh concerning the satisfaction release of leans to the city magistrate. hearings and orders regarding contempt proceedings and rules to show cause. I think we got it. All right, we got it.

Does that help? There's more, but this was uh adopted in 2005 as well, this ordinance when it first started. Uh, Commissioner Clark, do you have a comment? Yes, sir. May I? Yes.

So, going back to um what Mr. Bagot just stated just for the public and I know that Mr. uh Shearer just asked this question. So that's section 26-21 of the code and ordinances regarding magistrate appointment and powers and the the main part about that is the the appointment and the powers the designation of the powers that has been a major issue in this time when we've been transitioning our magistrate that um the public or people are interested in items that have been handled by the magistrate have um asked or how does how do you appeal from the magistrate and what is the authority of the magistrate versus what happens with the city commission and we very clearly have guidelines that said that we've delegated that that decision making power in the areas that Mr. baggage just brought up to um the magistrate and any appeal from that goes in accordance with what is in that same section and it goes to the the court system and um so all that I don't know if we need to maybe make a little white paper so that people can have that process on our website and kind of have an idea how does the magistrate work how does something happen I don't know if that's in Jod's area or if it's a city manager's area. But I think that people need to have a little explanation and put a little white paper on how our magistrate works and that would be important um to do. The other thing is that in the motion I thought that when the mayor made the motion he mentioned that it was he was

asking for the 375 an hour. So I'm hoping that that is what it is the 375 an hour and that was in included in the motion. Uh I mentioned the delegation and of course the whole idea of sound doctrine and the appeal process. I think that whole idea of appealing from the magistrate and how that decision making um tree works is very important and I think that we need to get that out to the public and and um let them understand um how this process works and and um how the fines and and are are decided by the magistrate and how that goes through. So I think I think that that's important. I just wanted to bring that up. Does that conclude your comments, Commissioner Clark?

Yes, sir. And that that's I had a comment as well. Uh I think we'll clarify that in the motion as far as the rates because we have three different rates going on. So I would like to thank Mayor Collins. We'll have to amend his motion. Uh Commissioner Jobi, did you have a comment? No. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I did not. So let me update my motion to include the 375 rate that Mr. Lashley had included as that new All right. And that that would be the hourly rate for Miss Torsivia as well. I think it's fair to compensate him the same. Both both rate. Yes. The alternate. So when Miss Torcivia covers for Mr. Lashley, if he's unavailable for any reason, she would receive the same rate.

Now, how would that work for Nicoleti that asks for 400? I don't think he would be included at 375. Yes, it would be the same. Mr. Collins motion did not include Mr. Nleti as a an alternative. No. No. So, you're going to need a second on that updated motion. Who second? That was okay. I really was it Miss It was Commissioner Commissioner Joy needs to. Yeah, you need to accept his amendment. Commissioner did it, but I amended the second to include the 375 rate. So, you would have to amend your second, right? I know Commissioner Clark, thank you for jumping in there. Are there any I second the amendment. Thank you. Are there any public comments on the amended motion?

Nice. Mayor, can you call the role? Vice Mayor Reid, yes. Commissioner Clark, yes. Commissioner Rich, yes. Mayor Collins, yes. Commissioner Gio, yes. You want to continue or take it back?

Sure. Give it back. Okay. So, moving on to item five, interimm city manager appointment. Resolution number 11-2026, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Steuart, Florida, replacing Lewis J. Baglioli the third finance director with Rosman Johnson Strong, human resources director as interim city manager, authorizing an increase in compensation to the department director acting in a higher capacity as interim city manager providing an effective date and for other purposes.

Um,

so on as a background on October 27th, 2025, the city commission appointed Lewis J. Balioli the third, the director of finance as the interim city manager and he continued to perform his regular duties as the director of finance in addition to taking on the duties of the city manager. And um at on chapter four of the city's employee handbook provides for an additional compensation of up to 10% for employees acting in a higher capacity in excess of 30 days. On December 8th, 2025, the city commission authorized an increase in comp compensation via resolution number 111-2025 for Mr. Balioli while he was the interim city manager and it was retroactive to when he took place back in October. Uh the city commission uh desires to replace Mr. Boglioli with Rosman Johnson Strong, the director of human resources, as the interim city manager until such time as a new city manager is appointed by the city commission or at an earlier date determined by the city commission. So, we are looking for a uh motion.

Do I have a motion? Motion. I have a my light on. Mr. Mayor, you have a question for No, I want to make a motion right away, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Mr. Mayor, may I rise to ask the commission to approve resolution number 11-2026 um for the appointment of Rosman Johnson Strong as a interim city manager? Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Is there any public comment on the motion? I don't think the subject should be

until they say yes, I'm still the city manager, so come up here.

I've never seen you stand before. I've seen her stand before for a motion or something. Yeah, I think she's waiting for you to vote. Yes, we have to vote. She's waiting for you to vote. Okay. I thought you were cute. There's a motion in a second. There is a motion in a second. Call the RO. Mary, Vice Mayor Reid. Yes. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I have a question, Mr. Mayor. Perfect. Yes. Yes. Forgive me. Roz, could you come to the DAS, please? I'm sorry. Sure. Your last name is Johnson. Sorry. Strong. Strong. Strong.

How do you want us to address you, Roz? My children's godparent is strong, so I should know that. Um, when did you become aware that this position was available? Oh gosh, I've been away at a training event, so the actual timing is going to be a little a miss for me to be honest. It wasn't long ago. I can't give you the actual date. I I can't recall the actual date. When you became aware the position was available that did you then apply for it?

No sir. I was asked to sit as the interim city manager until the position is filled.

And by whom were you asked? Mayor Collins.

Okay. Um, thank you. Um, on a more general note, I would just like to say that the charter does not provide for an interim city manager. There's no language for an interim city manager. We do have an acting city mana city manager position and explains how it is filled and how a successor is is uh designated to that position if the need arises. And I think at some point we should address we should have specific language that addresses uh the specific position of interim city managers since it seems we've now had two in a very short period in time and we're really in no man's land as far as our charter is. So thank you.

Thank you. Is there any other comments from our commissioners? All right. Seeing none, Mary, would you call the role? Vice Mayor Reid, yes. Commissioner Gio, yes. Commissioner Clark, yes. Commissioner Rich, yes. Mayor Collins, yes. All right, Ros.

Thank you, Jolie. Thank you, Jolie. Keep that. Thank you. Are you leaving? She's taking a seat. I'm not leaving the room. He's our budget director. She's taking the seat. The budget director doesn't need to be here. I'm not leaving. Finance director. Always finance.

I would like to just personally take a moment and thank Jolie Lewis. Lewis. He is an incredible finance awarded finance director and really took this whole thing on short notice from us. Uh not everybody knows but he's been working nearly remotely from out of state and so he he radically upended his life to come and cover for us in this process of getting a new city manager. So, uh, very thankful for for Lewis and he did a fantastic job and I know we're all very appreciative of him. So,

thank you for Roz. Don't thank her yet. Roz, do you have any comments? You want to jump in here? No. Just want to thank you for the opportunity to serve in this manner. Fantastic. We look forward to working with all of you. You're going to do great. Okay. So yes,

for for clarification purposes, Commissioner Rich, I know it doesn't say it in the charter as far as like an interim city manager. So like hypothetically, if the acting city manager had quit, how should that have been filled with an interim city manager then? Should we have functioned without one and gone through this process or who would actually run the city then? It may be an item for discussion. It might be because it's in so it's in the charter. So the only way to amend it is to go out for a referendum which is very difficult to do and one it's costly. So I don't know if you'll I I know. Yeah.

I was just No, sir. Just to something that's in there. The the charter speaks to an acting city manager, but it references when the permanent city manager is currently not available, right? and it speaks to a department director being appointed the acting city manager. Since we don't have a permanent city manager at the moment, it left a it left a gray area. But imagine a situation where you're trying to appoint someone who's not already a city employee, right? Then you're talking about an employment contract and advertising for an actual position,

which we're trying to fill the permanent position anyway, actually. So, it's just, you know, the transition from me to Roz is very easy because we're both already employees. So that whole point of coming up with an employment contract and advertising the position just makes it easier to pass it around the department directors who are obviously willing to fill the position as needed. So for clarification, there's not explicit language around an interim city manager, but there is language around an acting

there. There is and and it's specifically about when the city manager is not available, an acting city manager would be appointed from the department directors. We of course kind of created, you know, I think interim was thrown on the title maybe my four times back ago. Yeah. Right. I've been the interim city manager multiple times. So, Commissioner Rich, would you like to see that better defined? Would you like Well, if we're going to say there are de facto acting, there's very specific requirements for replacing Mr. Boglioli with M. Strong

and we we did not adhere to those. So, do we want to follow the rules? Do we want to pretend it's this? And I just think if we're going to act in this area and have people being cons compensated at a very high level and these positions, I you know, I'm not sure how we got from Mr. Boglioli to Ms. Strong. And um yes, I would like clarification in that as to the duties and responsibilities of the commissioners as regards to succession. I'm not saying it has to happen now and certainly we should not have this discussion right now. It was suggestion at some point in the future.

Mr. Bagot.

Sure. I actually pondered that issue um when this came up and when I dug into it that historically we've referred to the person as interim city manager or interim city attorney but when you look at our code in section 2-140 succession for city manager and department directors um it references the terminology acting um we have con when it came up I considered calling it acting city manager versus interim but historically we have called this interim city manager and also in section 2-140 subsection B it says nothing in this section shall be deemed to preclude the city commission from appointing an acting city manager so it gives you the authority um I I I think acting and interim are can be used interchangeably in this situation because there's an absence of interim in our code so we we based we made the decision to continue like we always have and called it interim because that's what we've done. I know that's what other cities uh do as well and and that's I remember it happening at Port St. Lucy. So um that's that did come up but it's Commissioner Rich is right. It's not mentioned interim anywhere but it's acting.

Thank you.

Yes. So I' I'd like to say that my understanding or the way that we've worked this is it's like acting for an interim period, the interim time period, but then we've still called it interim before the the title of the the the the position. So but it's technically acting for an interim period. It's an interim period and it got all convoluted into one thing as interim city manager. But we really need to look at succession and um we have a big job ahead of us to get a new city manager and we'll be looking at that in the future. Most cities have a city manager and an uh assistant city manager um or we at least have some departments that work very closely with the city manager so that when they're something is happening they can always pitch in. Um, so we need to really look at that as a city in the future.

Before I move on to item six, Clay, forgive me. I uh I ran right past your your public comment. Do you want to offer it up now in between five and six? Whenever you have Let's go for it. We work for you, man. Oh, that sounds so nice. That's right. It's true. It's true. It's true. Um, so Clay Sharer, um, Clay Treeman Sharer, actually, that's right. Um, 200 Southeast Four Winds Drive. So, during public comment, I I did want to to bring something to the attention of, uh, the commissioners. Good evening, by the way.

Um, it's a it's a concept that um originated from my participation in the the CRB and some discussions in the CRA. You're probably aware of the tree planting program that exists um through the CRA which is quite popular. Um so a few of us um uh residents um have been gathering from from that concept around well how can we do that further into the city not just the CRA. Um and as uh this band of volunteers has uh gained some some momentum um as any of you know who who have worked in a maybe a large corporation or perhaps in a in city government uh in hierarchal systems once you have a project name then you have a project. So um project shade maker as the team has uh decided to um name it has picked up steam and um when you start thinking about how can we improve uh shade trees uh along rightways in in the city you then start to think about sidewalks pedestrian utilities roads and so I just bring to your attention that um I know there's an ongoing effort obviously in Stipman Boulevard that neighborhood or stipman uh in that neighborhood, which is a great concept. And now folks are looking at 10th Street uh east of the CRA. There's quite a few of us who are interested in in bringing that into the neighborhoods uh let's say uh south of Ocean um west of uh Monterey between Palm Beach Road and Monterey. It's all residential and it just makes sense uh in many ways. But this sort of band of what I'm calling the bad news bearsers of of residents um um bring various expertise to the table. And so it's not it's it's cooked pretty well. It's actually well baked, I think, and it's ready for for you all to maybe consider taking action on it or considering it whether it's a good idea or a bad idea.

We don't really know what the process is, but um when the time comes, I hope that uh we're able to share some of these concepts for for your consideration. So, it's I don't want to call it just a tree planting program because it started from that but built more into how do we make our neighborhoods more pedestrian friendly which involves uh shade, sidewalks, roadway, utilities, all that kind of stuff. So, thanks. So, you would function through the commission. So, you would work with your commissioners to bring it forward as an item and iron it out potentially before it does because it's outside of the CR CRA. Correct. If you're looking at a city-wide initiative, it wouldn't go in front of the CRB. It would come

Yeah, we wouldn't do it in the CRB. I guess we would So would you would you recommend we you we did meet with um I guess uh the city manager which then of course changed to a different city manager and we we uh met with him and maybe we'll meet with another uh city manager but it's I think it's baked enough where it's it's really ready for you guys to think about it and whether the funding comes from you start sitting down with your commissioners from the tree I mean from the halfsent sales tax around green infrastructure or not but maybe there's other ways to to fund it. So yeah, thanks for your concern. Okay. Yep. Thank you. That's okay. I I we normally don't make comment afterward. I'll we'll discuss it later because it was again with funding and the water in those trees, but that's okay.

Moving on to item six, budget amendment number one. will name

resolution number 12-2026 a resolution of the city commission of the city of Steuart Florida approving budget amendment number one for the short chain POS removal pilot study authorizing the use of funds from the water and sewer utility enterprise fund authorizing the city manager to execute a related task order with consulting engineers inc and providing for an effective date Okay. Thank you. Well, good evening again, mayor, members of the commission, and members of the public. This item before you uh this evening is uh it's resolution 12-2026, which approves budget amendment number one for the short chain POS removal pilot study at the city's water treatment plant. So, first and and most importantly, the city's drinking water meets all current federal and state regulation. PFOS and PFAS POS remains below detection in finished water. This item is not being brought forward because of a compliance issue or an emergency. As part of the EPA's unregulated contaminant monitoring rule, the city identified certain short-chain PFOS compounds in the source water. While these compounds are not currently regulated at this time and at the same levels as PFOS and PFAS, regulatory expectations at both the federal and state level continue to evolve. The purpose of this budget amendment is to take a proactive measured approach to collect data now so the city is not forced into a rushed or costly decision

to make later on. The pilot study will allow us to evaluate treatment performance, operational impacts, and potential costs under real world conditions at the water treatment plant. The requested budget amendment is in the amount of $323,93.40, a sizable sum indeed, funded through water and sewer utility enterprise funds. The work will be completed under an existing professional services agreement and includes pilot testing, engineering evaluation, and reporting. I would also like to add that we've currently the city has currently submitted a uh application for grant funding to fund a portion of this pilot study through the uh one lagoon or the Indian River Lagoon Council and grant management services which are included in this the scope of work would only be utilized in the event that the city does get a grant funded through one lagoon. Any awarded funds would then be applied as reimbursement to offset the the project costs. So I want to be very clear about where what this action is not intended to do. So it does not approve construction of a new water treatment facility. It does not modify current operations and it does not commit the city to any future capital projects. Once the pilot study is completed, staff will return to the commission with results and the findings of how successful or how successful the pilot study was, any alternatives and and cost information at which point the

commission will determine the future direction to take for our water treatment in the city. In short, this item positions the city to be ahead of the curve, to be ahead of any potential regulatory actions that are going to be required. It supports long-term planning and preserves full commission control over future decisions. So with that, if the commission would like to have or pose any additional questions, any technical questions at this time, I have I have our consultant here uh to provide any any answers uh to address any of your questions at this time. I'm here as well. So, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh Peter, um the total would be 323,000, correct? That that is the total amount. Yes. For the pilot study. Yes. And then we're applying for a grant with Indian River Lagoon. Yes. And when did we apply for the grant? The grant was applied for just this this month. How much did we apply for or do we apply and then they tell us how much we get? Yes. Yes. We're not not quite sure what the what the funds are. I've heard that it could be upwards to $100,000.

Mhm. But uh with with that uh the application is in and we'll know within the next uh you know three or four months if if where if the grant is awarded to the city now if if we move forward with this resolution what's Holtz construction engineers time frame for them to even start I guess well the reason I say that is would it make sense if there was a motion for this resolution pending the outcome of the grant and then it come back in front of to the board to reauthorize it or that's not what you're

we have to be proactive as possible with this. So, our consultant is ready to get started with the pilot study next month which is in I would say by the middle of February to start setting up the the pilot testing uh certain resins, certain absorbent to see how effective they are in the removal of this this short chain POS. and and how many municipalities have approved this resolution so far? That I do not know. Perhaps uh our consultant uh would be able to address this question and I have I have Dr. Will Leven. Awesome.

Welcome.

Good evening. Hi, my name is Will Leven. I'm a consulting engineer with ACOM technical services. I serve as a process water treatment process engineer. And to your question as to other utilities, POS is a very hot issue in the drinking water industry throughout Florida. The regulations, as you may be aware, for the long chain are at detection levels uh for PFOA and PFOS. So as part of the uh uh unregulated contaminant monitoring requirements and rule uh we're looking now at shortchain uh uh POS compounds. So it that is a emerging constituent. There aren't many utilities looking at that specifically yet. Although those that are seeing it in this monitoring should be taking proactive steps as the city is considering at this point. And and so this is a pilot program for you to look at data

I'm assuming. So the pilot program I'm I look at it as a an evaluation to see how we can optimize the treatment to tailor it towards these shorter chain POS compounds and looking at ways to use existing hardware to uh adapt the operation maybe changing the media and uh that to a media that is more amunable to the short chain compounds to give a longer life and longer run time between uh media change out. The current media in the plant does provide the short chain removal although it's not as long as economically optimal. So we do think in our experience there are other media that could perform much longer.

Do you mind speaking to the cost of the media that we use currently? I think it'll give context for this. It's very expensive.

Yeah. Well, currently we budget it's almost $1 million a year to change out the media at the the water treatment plant in those ion exchange vessels. So, it's uh those costs just like with everything else will continue to to go up. Uh costs are going up every day just about. So, uh, with with that said, uh, it's a it's a sizable it's sizable portion to budget for basically pre-treatment of our of our water, the groundwater. So, would this take the data and look at filter alternatives then? Is that the end goal to remove it? Are there filters that exist that are on the market that I'm just trying to understand it

in in a sense it it it will. Now, as far as a a filter, so basically it's it's a it's a resin that's that's loaded into each of the ion exchange vessels over the water treatment plant. Now, obviously with a pilot study, it'll be on a much smaller scale, but what that will do is uh be able we'll be able to test various resins that or or combinations of resins to see how effective they are with the removal of the short chain POS. Now, will this be tested before it gets sent to residents for drinking water? Absolutely. Nothing with this test is going to none of the water is going to be sent to the the residents at all. So, it's all done at the water treatment center basically.

That That's correct. And also, I I I do want to just state for the record that there were two production wells, superficial production wells, wells three and five where the short chain POS was was uh found. Once we had the the lab results and we identified those two wells, those two wells were taken out of service. We're not we're not drawing water out of production wells three and five anymore. So, in answer to, you know, to I guess the concerns that that may be out there, uh those two wells are the ones that where the short chain POS showed up. uh we targeted uh uh those two wells to to shut them down so that we basically would effective we would effectively uh curtail any any of the P short chain POS that would get through the the treatment process. So it gets back to the the city has had a long history with with the the longchain PAS going back 10 years ago and uh this is something new. We definitely want to be in a in a proactive position to address it headon. After all, the city of Stewart was the first city in the state of Florida that actually had the the ion exchange pre-treatment system designed, permitted, and constructed and placed into service in the entire state. And that whole process uh took a period of a little over three years from inception to placing the placing the the pre-treatment system in in service. Uh 3 years may seem to be a long amount of time, but in the world of engineering and and certainly with with some new technology development, that's a remarkable remarkable short amount of

time that that has had taken place. We want to be on the same cutting edge, if you will, as the city was 10 years ago with the addressing the short chain POS. Same way, hit it headon and and just keep, you know, keep uh addressing it until we we find we find the right combination. that's going to take take the short chain POS out of our water.

I'm thankful for you guys. This is uh this is not an easy thing to do and to your point, you know, we have a history of dealing with this before anybody else does. We really are blessed here. Water is very important and we're not just saying that because it's what you should say from the dis. This is a difficult situation where as the ability to even test for contaminants comes online, we're going to have to adapt in real time. And thank God we have that POA money to even be able to make these changes. So, I'm thankful for for you guys and as soon as possible as we can test for new contaminants that you're going to be looking for solutions to get this filtered so that everybody here stays safe and we have the cleanest drinking water anywhere, you know. So, I'm thankful for that spirit with you guys. Who who was first? Was it Commissioner Joby?

I was. You want to fight to the death over who gets to No, I've had my I just had a clarification. If you want to go, go ahead. Since you're not You're going to be less than I am. Oh, well this is true. Okay. I just have a clarification. So it's 330,000 for the pilot program for them to do the pilot. The 100,000 is a grant to cover the pilot program. Yes. Okay. Is there a grant available for when the final cost to switch over to the resin? Because that'll be a different cost. There very well may be. Okay. Uh the main main thing with grants is to keep, you know, to keep looking for for new grants, grant opportunities, and that's something that we will continue to do.

Okay. Thank you, Peter. And I also want to commend your department for being on top of all of this and for the safety of our constituents. Thank you. Thank you. Should we be giving credit to some of the gentlemen in the department? Absolutely. Yes, of course. Without a doubt. All of the people. Would you drag them up here and please I'm very I'm very blessed to have to have I mean out outstanding people within the UN department here at the city. So well to start start off with please do Mr. Michael Woodside our superintendent uh the water treatment plant

no no Mr. Woodside. He was here 10 years ago with the initial POS uh the challenges that the city faced and so he he saw firsthand everything that was involved and and certainly what what scrambling had to be done back back at that time because the regulations just tightened up practically within a couple weeks where uh we we the city found themselves behind the the eightball so to speak in a short amount of time. So again,

but but to your point, the city reacted before D or anybody else even said that it was truly an issue. We took the lead. We didn't wait for the state to say, "Hey, this is not good. We preemptively started making those changes." That's correct. That's correct. Forgive me. Thank you. Staff did that. Yeah. Mike, great stuff. Sure.

Thank you. Mike Woodside, water treatment superintendent. And um as Peter said, I have the misfortune of being here since day one. Um the initial the initial UCMR3 testing, I was uh the lab analyst, so I actually grabbed the samples to send to the lab. Uh we didn't know what we were looking at. Um 2015 when we got the second set of samples, I was a chief operator. Again, didn't know what we were looking at. Uh, I got a call from DP. We got the samples in uh um July 2015 was the last set of UCMR3 samples. I got a call from DP in February of 2016 say, "Hey, you have this stuff. We don't know what it is. You don't have to do anything." Two weeks later, you have this stuff. Something's coming down the road. We don't know what's coming. two weeks later you got a problem. So that was the sequence of events. So with UCMR 5 uh we got our first set of samples for that in uh October. And when I saw the short chain PAS like okay deja vu all over again. And so I sounded the alarm. I went to Peter told him what we found. um 20 uh 25 April, second set of samples, we found it. Again, the thing about this pilot study, it does a couple of things. First and foremost, it puts us ahead of the curves. We're ahead of everyone, but second of all is we have to notify our customers that we found this stuff in

the water. So, we did that with the 2024 uh water quality report. We have to do it again this year because we found it in 25 already. And I think it's best if we can tell our customers, hey, yes, we know we have this stuff. We're doing something about it. Here's what we're doing. As opposed to just saying we're doing something. And so I think the sentiment on the day is is that we're going to move forward with this. And I hope I'm right because we don't want to have to answer that. Well, you knew this so why didn't you do something? Um, when Peter mentioned earlier that we turned off wells three and five, the offending wells, that's true. The problem is water moves underground. So, it'll move to other wells if we don't do something to try and recapture and contain that water. And so, with this pilot study, C

can I interrupt you? Would you make I think that's an important point is part of truly cleaning this up out of the groundwater is capturing it in these filters. Yes. It's not just overlooking it. We have to get this out of the water.

We got to get it out. Yes. The the other thing is you you just as someone asked Will if there are other utilities dealing with this. I spoke to a couple of utilities in Florida and one in Ohio and they all seem to have the wait and see approach even though they have concentrations that are much higher than ours. The problem that I've learned with wait and see is we've had that here. Peter mentioned earlier that we were the first utility in Florida to put in the treatment system. Strangely enough, we weren't the only utility in Florida that had a problem. So, when we put our system online, I've had utilities come from all over the state to see what we did and ask how we did it. Um, we're doing a resin change out tomorrow and I have a utility coming tomorrow to look at what we're doing and how we're doing it. So, we're ahead of the curve. I'm proud of that. Um, I'd like to stay ahead of the curve because I remember being the lab tech and on the road. I'm in the convenience store and people would say, "Man, I love Steuart Water. You guys are doing a great job." I haven't heard that since 2014 and I want it back.

Thank you. Thank you.

Are there other comments? Okay. Uh, Commissioner Clark.

Yes. With regard to resolution 12-26, I'm looking at section number two, which of the resolution, which reads, upon approval of the budget amendment number one, the city manager is authorized to execute a task or order with Holes Consulting Engineers, Inc. for pilot testing, evaluation of treatment alternatives, and Indian River Lagoon grant support services in an amount not to exceed 32393.40 consistence with the city's existing professional engineering services agreement. and we have the resolution, but the actual um pilot study timeline or something, you're going to be developing that or do we have a timeline of when it's going to be done?

Well, I could tell you that we're planning on starting in February. As far as when it's going to be completed, uh I could ask Dr. Levens if if he has a timeline in in mind.

Good evening. Will Evans again. Yeah, our proposed schedule for the pilot testing that we have scoped out is for a six-month duration. Of course, there is time to get equipment mobilized, a lot of logistics just to get things set up and the staff up and going with the operations. So, uh, you know, there's couple months before that getting everything in place. And there's also time as well after the evaluation, get all the reports in from the labs, do the assessment, and submit the draft report to Peter and his staff. Thank you, sir. Jolie, are you still here? Can you confirm uh would you mind popping out and confirming that this is Come on. Come on.

Could you confirm that this is not uh coming out of the settlement money, but out of the um reserves? Oh, as I've advised the commission, there is no settlement. So, um, this is coming out of water sewer reserves because you have an incredible finance director and there's plenty of money there. No one had any doubt. No one had any. That's true. Uh, Commissioner Rich, can I ask him a follow-up question? Yes. If we were to receive the settlement, if would it be appropriate hypothetically if there was a settlement

to buy to use either of the principal or the interest to pay for this type of project? Um yeah, I I think it would be smart money that if there was a settlement amount that the interest would be used. It should be a significant amount of interest to fund the kind of operations. Right. This is exactly this is exactly what it we and why we have the responsibility to move forward and continue to stay in the vanguard. Yes. Okay. So if there is a settlement in the future, those funds would be available for exactly this type of Okay. Thank you. All right. Are there any other comments from the I do have a public comment, but Oh, I'm sorry. We don't have a motion. I don't think we have a motion. I don't think

I I was just about to make a motion, but I didn't. Okay. and then we'll have public comment. Okay. Make a motion for resolution 1226, the city of the city commission of the city of Stewart approving the budget amendment number one for the shortterm POS removal pilot study program. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Is there public comment on item number six? Yes, I have Robin Cartwright. Robin,

good evening, commissioners. Robin Cartrite for the record. Um, I was glad that you asked the question about the settlement, but now I'm a little confused because my question would have been, why are we not using the money from the settlement? I've asked previously the commission and the former city manager to please advise as to the settlement, the breakdown of it, when we would get it and what it could be used for. But now it sounds like we don't have the settlement which was settled back in there is no settlement.

Can someone from the commission and or the city attorney or the city finance director please advise as to why there was an announcement of a settlement then if there is no settlement? tell you um

to put a finer point on it, there are certain things like in legal issues, there's a cone of silence and like gag orders and since there has been no settlement officially filed with any provider of the foam or POA stuff, the city has no legal settlement yet to comment on publicly or otherwise. what other individuals have made about the city's legal status in these cases is um obviously a misstatement. I I understand what you're saying and I'm trying to tell you this is one of those things like did you ever see the movie Brewster's Millions? Okay, I use this analogy all the time. I if if he had a certain amount of time to spend money, if he failed to do what he had to do, he would lose all the money

versus he had a certain set of requirements and if he met those requirements, he would get the money in the end. So, the city of Stewart is not at liberty to discuss a settlement which has not been finalized or legal yet. There is no settlement. Okay. Um, are there other public comments? I have no further public. Are there comments from commissioners? All right, seeing none, Mary, would you call the role? Commissioner Rich, yes. Commissioner Gobi, yes. Commissioner Clark, yes. Vice Mayor Reid, yes. Mayor Collins, yes. Thank you very much. Item seven. Steuart Landings. Thank you department.

Thank you guys. Keep up the good work. Thank you so much. All right, just a reminder to the board. Are we taking a break? Let's take a 10-minute recess and then we'll get right back to it. You gone or you going to stay?

for yogurt. All right, we will reconvene the meeting. Cinnamon rolls. You have to if you like apple.

So item number seven, Lee the best. Just want to remind the commission that this is the second reading of this ordinance. Ordinance number 2545-2026. An ordinance of the city commission of the city of Steuart, Florida for a major amendment for lot number three of the Steuart Landings Roman numeral 2 commercial planned unit development. Also being associated with lot number one and lot number two of the Stewart Landings Roman numeral 2 CPU. providing for an amendment to the master site plan for lot number three of the Steuart Landings Roman numeral 2 CPU to accommodate a 470 square foot coffee rush convenience restaurant with two drive-thru facilities and the existing 2,845 ft Burger King restaurant and single drive-thru facility providing for an amended uh development conditions a timetable for development and master site plan approval for a parcel of land located at 3991 Southeast Federal Highway, providing for conflict, providing for severability, providing for an effective date, and for other purposes.

Do the commissioners have any exparte communications to disclose? I had a conversation with the previous interimm manager. I did the same. I'm here with an open mind. I'm here with an open mind. Um, I spoke with the applicant at the intermission at the last meeting very briefly. I have none and I'm here with an open mind. I have none. Will the development department Oh, forgive me. Direct uh city city attorney, would you place everybody under oath? All right. Everybody's going to be testifying in this incident, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you affirm that the testimony that you're about to provide to be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? So, help you God. Seated.

You may be seated. Okay. Will the development department please provide a brief summary of the agenda item um including the location size of property, current zoning, zoning request, and list the applicant's request to deviate from the land use development regulations.

Thank you, mayor. Uh you did see the presentation last time. Do you want to see the complete presentation or just go over the two changes that were requested? Okay. Does the applicant wish to speak or present? So, mayor, if I may, um the application at the last meeting, uh you had requested or or asked the applicant to consider larger trees, and the applicant did take that comment back and um did upgrade the the the shade trees and to a larger uh shade tree from your your live oak was originally at 14. Now, it's at 16 feet planted.

There you Um they did

they did change out some uh material from a um hold I have to go back to the sorry I have to go to my cheat sheet to the landscape. So they did uh the buttonwoods that were projected um they instead of 12 feet at planting they're doing them at four 14 feet at planting and they did change out like I said the myrtle the crate myrtles to an orange geigger and they'll be planted at 14 ft. that gives you a little bit more color. And then the Alexander Alexander palms from 12 12 feet to 14 feet in height. So they did take coming your comments and and and uh did at your uh recommendation. Um and the other comment was the color. So they did mute the color from the gray to this earth tone that was requested that was recommended by the LPA board.

Um so those are some of the changes that were made. Also, um we went back and looked at the outdoor seating as, uh Vice Mayor Reid wanted to confirm the size. So, after reviewing the outdoor seating, um this one right now is not being proposed with any outdoor seating. The traffic report did not capture the outdoor seating. So if they are proposing any type of tables with outdoor seating, they'll have to come back for with an amendment to the city to get the site plan amended showing that outdoor seating and upgrade update the uh the uh study. Those are the changes that has happened since the last presentation. Okay.

I'm sorry. Could I just ask for clarification on that? I I I may not have understood. So, right now they're not asking for outdoor seating, but they're looking to come back once this has been approved with an amendment.

So, no. So, uh at the last meeting um at the the January 12th meeting, Comm uh Vice Mayor Reid had stated that he wanted to know the overall size of the outdoor seating area and then what's what did that look like and because it showed like 700 square feet and I think it was um had some concerns about that. So, in talking with the applicant and going back and looking at the um outdoor seating requirements, um this particular area is not proposing any outdoor seating um which means like a tables with umbrellas and everything um because the uh traffic report did not allocate any outdoor seating. Um so, if they want to in the future have outdoor seating, they will have to do an amendment uh administrative amendment to propose that outdoor seating and update their traffic study. And that condition has been added into the um ordinance as well. Okay. And I just have one more question because I'm not very When the they have two lanes,

they do. Yes. Right. Are both lanes Yeah, they're going Okay. So, they're not both exiting onto federal highway? No, they will be exiting an internal roadway. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jody. Do the other locations have that 700 roughly 700 square feet of outdoor seating? What? Uh we don't have another proposed location right now. There is an application house for another location, but the city of Stewart does not have a outdoor seating. Uh if you're referring to the one in Oregon, the other coffee rushes,

uh this is the one in Oregon that shows today. Um and I will have to to rely on to the uh applicants. Uh representative, Jason Gunther, Thomas Engineering.

Um the 700 foot outdoor seating uh was based on a queue. We did a queuing analysis to show how our drive-through facilities work. Queuing analysis was done from other stores and I believe that's um queuing analysis was taken that showed the 700 foot of outdoor seating from a proposed store in Port St. Lucy. We are not proposing any outdoor seating at this particular location. So the reference to the 700 foot was for the store for a queuing analysis that is not this location. It was representative of a similar store at a different location. Did it also include a like a walk up window though? They all include walk up windows. It does have a walk up window but no not anywhere to sit.

Correct. Over 90% of the business of coffee rush is drive-thru. They do have a walk up window for someone who's riding on a bike or or in the neighborhood or may work at the adjacent retail store and wants a cup of coffee. I I'm a little disappointed to hear that there's no outdoor seating because I do think that already this sort of thing is a little bit transactional for Steuart. I think um you know mayor they could um if if I may they could uh go ahead and add the outdoor seating and update their traffic report administratively if that's the will of the board. That would be what I would like to see is that there's somewhere for people to sit so it's not purely just driving through and and getting coffee. That's my my

So if we could amend the motion because there's an there's an condition of approval into the ordinance that was added saying that they would have to come back as administrative order. If that you could amend that that if we could amend that condition just to state that they will work with staff um and to uh provide outdoor seating as part of this approval process. Okay, we we can live with that. Okay. For for the record, there is no indoor seating either proposed. It's the business model isn't to actually drink on premises, but we're we're amendable to that condition. Nice umbrella. We are in Florida, so not like Colorado. There are times you could sit outside here.

Uh did you want to present? This would be the opportunity for you to speak generally to the project or specific um we were happy with the presentation that staff gave last time on test. Do commissioners have any questions for the applicant beyond what we already asked? Okay. Okay. Yes, sir. Um, with the the queuing, is it is it typical to have um drive-throughs in opposite directions or was it specifically designed to fit like this site plan or I'll answer that from my experience first, but no, in my experience, it's not typical of other

um we we do Chick-fil-As, McDonald's, other stores you've seen before. It's not a typical design. I think it's fairly unique to Coffee Rush's model and it has worked for them. Um, they don't have menu boards like other um, uh, restaurants have. So, it's it's drive right up to the window and go. It's a very fast process and the two windows with that fast process is actually um, part of their business model. I think it's convenience for the customer directions. It's part of the business model. Yes. So, because the driver needs to be at the on the window side, so it can't work both flowing the same direction. Otherwise, you'd have to reach across your car on one side to get to pay and get your money or get your coffee. Excuse me.

Checkers and Stewart flows the same direction. Yeah, because that's was my question because now you have both lanes coming out onto one. I was just curious. I've never seen it before. So, they don't and with our technical deviation, I'd just like to point out the code requires six queuing spaces. My understanding is that's contemplating every other drive-thru is a is a one drive-thru where you have six cing spaces. We have two and we're providing a total of eight albeit four in each lane. So the deviation is four. We don't have six in a single lane, but we do exceed the overall number of providing eight instead of the six.

And in your experience, this will be plenty to not cause a backup. Uh based on the queuing analysis we provided, there was never witnessed any more than five cars total in at the store. So we make it really popular. You never know. We we we'd love it to be That's right. busy a problem. That's a good problem. Okay. Yes. So we just opened a store in Fort Myers, so I'm there working every day. It's my family's business. Great. We get cars in like in and out under a minute. So we take their orders in line a lot of times. will walk up to you like a human, take your order,

and then we'll have your coffee ready at the window. It's not transactional at all. We're so genuine. That's like my parents mission, too. Not I didn't mean to be disrespectful. No, no, no. I totally get it. I mean, drive-thru can be very impersonal. My hope is that there's a place where two people can sit and talk like, you know, it's not just in Oregon do have that. So, I hope to see that here if it's the will of our commission that that there is somewhere to sit. traffic because I get to talk to them for a while. Fantastic. Very fun for me. Good. Fantastic. Okay. So, do I have any other I had a question? Yes. Commissioner,

I just from the last um meeting. It was my understanding some people were concerned about you don't have one. You're basically you're going out to take the orders or they're coming up to the window to take the orders. So, there's no microphone blasting. You know, I want two coffees and a donut to go. Okay. Yeah. That was a concern for people because you open early. I mean we open up right so at 5 a.m. that we open at 5 am Monday through Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Does the petitioner wish to offer any additional information before concluding its presentation? Speak now. I forever hold your peace. Okay. The presentation of evidence has ended and the hearing is closed. Does any member of the public wish to make a comment? Seeing none. All right. There's no additional and forgive me, I'm still getting used to the yellow sheet. There's no additional uh remarks, right? Nobody's got any additional remarks. Okay. So now I would be seeking a motion,

Mr. Mayor. Mhm. With regard to ordinance number 2545 202 26 move approval of staff's recommendation including the recommendation that if they do want to do outdoor seating it would be brought to staff and it would be approved administratively through the development department. Can I caveat that a little bit that it would include it will the outdoor seating and that that could be done administratively? Yes. Yes. Okay. without obtaining a separate application through this process. Okay, perfect. Yes, I'll second the motion. A second. Okay. Do you do we have clarification on the motion? Yes.

Perfect. All right. Are there comments from commissioners? I think your website's very nicely laid out. By the way, I'm I'm not a coffee drinker myself, but yeah, I I think it's very nice like na Yeah. to navigate it. It's actually very clean. Hey. Um, some websites are are very difficult. Um, and the options are there, at least from the website. I haven't tried like mobile or anything like that, but the website's nice. There you go. There you go. It's very nice. Well done. Okay, let's record the vote. Mary, Mayor Collins, yes. Commissioner Gio, yes. Commissioner Clark, yes. Vice Mayor Reid, yes. Commissioner Rich, yes.

All right, guys. Thank you. Looking forward to a cortado with honey. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor. Fantastic. Yes. Yes, sir. In light of the fact that the next two items are first reading, so we'll get another I'll get another bite at that apple. And then the final two items are DNDs. Uh I would ask that I be allowed to leave and get on my way to Tallahassee to represent the interest of the city of Stewart for your effort. I just want to say having attended the enormous boat show, the Steuart boat show, I'm fully in favor of the application for the grant. It has nothing to do with Bright Line. It has to do with the ability our voters to get from that side of the bridge to this side.

Absolutely. Because it's a problem. So, I hope we're successful with that. And All right, Commissioner Rich. Travel Travel safely and safety. Be safe. If you're falling asleep, just just call call Lewis. Call Jolie. Milton. And where do you get a cup of coffee at this point? He'll be up. He'll be up. Don't worry. He'll be up. Okay. So, moving on to I'll give you a second to pack up. I won't just deal like that.

All right. All right. Godspeed, good sir.

Be careful on the road. Item eight, code amendment adding language to reasonable accommoded. This is the first reading of this ordinance. Ordinance number 2547-2026, an ordinance of the city commission of the city of Steuart, Florida, amending section 8.07.07 07 of the city's land development code in compliance with recently enacted legislation, Senate Bill 954 providing for conflict, providing for cotification, providing for an effective date and for other purposes. Florida Senate Bill 954 is an act related relating to certified recovery residences and it was adopted and became effective on July 1st. And in Senate Bill 954, the mun municipalities are required to adopt an ordinance establishing a process for requesting reasonable accommodations which are consistent with the Fair Housing Act of 1988 and title two of the Americans Disability Act. Uh although the city already had um a a process in place in section 8.07.07 of the uh city's land development code. Uh there were still some stuff that were identified in Senate Bill 954 that it was my opinion needed to be added. While we were in there, I felt personally that I needed to draft some edits to the code uh that would kind of spruce it up. So I'll be happy to go through some of these with you. So in section subsection A I had added in some additional language and the only thing I added in there was identifying and citing um to the appropriate statutory citations for the fair housing act and also to the title two of the Americans with Disability Act. In the previous code we mentioned FHA or Fair Housing Act and we also mentioned ADA but we never actually defined what those were earlier in the in the code. So, I

just wanted to be a little bit more clear on that. Um, in subsection, uh, C, um, and I had my opinion of just kind of clarifying who the request for reasonable accommodation shall be submitted to, and I said that it would be submitted to the city attorney's office. Uh, I've had a couple of these since I've been here, so they were just confused on where they send it to because our code wasn't very clear on it. Um, our code NC subsection 2 already had some criteria. However, Senate Bill 954 also required that we add that they are responsible for identifying the parcel identification number. That was not in our code and the the statute required that. In addition, in subsection C, I added upon receipt, the city shall date stamp the written request for accommodation. Senate Bill 954 required that we have that in there. I will say that we have a habit of doing that regardless. the U city clerk would stamp stuff when they come in. However, I'm just adding it to the code. Um, in the next subsection C4, uh, talks about, um, you know, this is, uh, to accommodate for the Americans with Disability Act. So, some applicants might need to present medical information or do medical records saying this is why I need a reasonable accommodation. Um, some of that would be confidential. So, I put in a mechanism on how to keep this confidential and it it just it wasn't required by Senate Bill 954, but I felt that it need we needed to have something in there addressing it. Um, subsection D um 95 Senate Bill 954 required that we have time limits on when to respond to these applications and so I added that um the initial response is 30 days. If we're requesting um additional information, we need to do that within 30 days. A final decision or determination by the city is required to

be within 60 days and that is also spelled out in Senate Bill 954. So I put that information in there and then in subsection G under appeals um I I put in more information about an appella process. We talked about the magistrate earlier and so an appeal from uh the city attorney's u administrative uh determination could be appealed to the magistrate initially and then ultimately to the uh to the court system. So I just spelled out some timelines and all that's not required by Senate Bill 954 but I added it as my recommendation. Um subsection H which would be revocation of an approved reasonable accommodation. So, Senate Bill 954 allows that we can put some of this uh in there, but it doesn't require it. But since it allows it, I put in some information. You know, if if the city manager would have the authority to revoke uh a request if, for example, the applicant provided false or misleading information. Um the property subject to the request for reasonable accommodation has been found to be in violation of the conditions of approval of issued by the city and any applicable state or federal certification has expired. They're they're required to have um in the statute uh for a certified recovery to have certain uh lensures and and so forth. So if they lose their lensure that would be a reason to revoke the reasonable accommodation. Um let's see here. I also put in there an appellet process on the revocation. So if we if the city manager decides to revoke for one of those reasons, there's an appellet procedure through the city magistrate and then ultimately the court system. U this was allowed in Senate Bill 954,

but um so I went ahead and added it to it and uh provided the process uh for appeal. Uh, so I put in here in subsection I that the reasonable accommodation shall be valid for one year and each year the applicant has to renew it. Reason why I put that in there, this is not required by Senate Bill 954, but I placed that in there because otherwise it kind of left in unopen indefinitely. We don't want someone having an indefinite approval. So this requires them that they still need an accommodation on a yearly basis. And last but not least, uh section J, u that there would be no fee in connection with them making a request for reasonable accommodation. In addition, I spell out that the city is not going to be obligated to pay any of the applicants attorney's fees if they choose to have an attorney uh hire an attorney to go through that process. This again was not required by Senate Bill 954. I just felt that that needed to be in our code. And that uh ends the proposed uh additions to the uh section 8.07.07. Again, as I mentioned at the beginning of this uh public hearing, this is the first reading. So, I'm looking for a motion to transmit this to second reading and it'll come back to you at the next commission meeting.

Vice Mayor. Yes. For clarification, the So, this is for recovery residences inside the city, correct? U well the Senate bill Senate What's that? Is it half is like a halfway house? Yeah.

Um so this the the Senate bill 954 dealt with certified recovery residences. Okay. Um this is our reason request for reasonable accommodation which most most of the time we've gotten a request for reasonable accommodation. It is for um what you certified recovery residents. Um if you recall the clarity point our uh rpud, we had the um detox facility in recovery residential home that brought forth um a a development application which was denied. They then went through this reasonable accommodation process. So um when I went through that process with them, that's where I thought some of these needed to be cleaned up. That is not mentioned by 954. But this uh honestly u I know chickens have come up when I worked for the city of Port St. Lucy, people were asking for reasonable accommodations to allow chickens in their backyard under the so it could apply to other things, but Senate Bill 954 that the purpose of why I brought this is brought this forward was because it dealt with certified recovery residences, which is one of the reasons that you have this reasonable accommodation procedure in place.

Commissioner Gobi. Yes. Um, city attorney. Yes. question is um these type of facilities quite often get bought over by another facility or whatever. Do we have anything that each time that happens or they consolidate with someone else that they would have to reapply? I mean, as you said, so it doesn't really just continue their approval. They would have to do it every year anyway. Regardless if it changes over if it's the same I I feel that a year is enough time. It's an annual something. Commissioner Clark. Yes, sir. Thank you. Um, attorney Maggot, uh, is that resolution number 2547-2026?

Uh, this is an ordinance. First reading. So, I'm looking. Yeah. Okay. Looking for a motion to transmit it to second reading. Okay. Just Okay. So, I just have a question. Sure. on the fourth line or so the warehouse clause. I I don't know if I'm missing something, but normally I thought when we have the LPA or any other um group that we would say either they vote to recommend or even put their vote or something, we just said the LPA held a duly notice public hearing to consider the ordinance, but we didn't really say anything. Right. It it's my recol recollection that they recommended to adopt the the changes. Okay. I think

correct on that, city clerk. Do you remember? So I think I'll be happy to add that in the whereas the third whereas clause you're right. It doesn't indicate whether they voted in recommendation, but I believe that there was a recommendation. Yeah. And I lost my spot now. And there's nobody here from there was Sue say is the board secretary. All right. It was so the deputy city clerk just uh noted that there was a a vote a majority vote to recommend the approval the amendments to this code to you guys and and I'll be happy to add that to the warehouse clause if you want. This is the first reading. I thought that we were just going to say pass it on to the next transmit. He's looking for

I'm looking for what's called a motion to transmit it to second reading to the second reading. May please make that amendment. That's my motion. I'll second the motion. Is there any public comment on the motion? Seeing none, vice mayor. Yeah. Yes. Correct me if I'm wrong, Lee. And just so the public's aware, uh, the state is requiring us to adopt this ordinance. Correct. Parts of it.

Well, we already had this. We already had this code of ordinances. Okay. There were certain things that I pointed out that Senate Bill 954 requires that we have. And first off, Senate Bill 954 requires that you put if you don't have one, you got to adopt one. We already had one. So, there was some things about our code that was mentioned in Senate Bill 954 that we don't have in our code. They're very small and just a select few. And there were other things that I've learned as being the city attorney that we should probably have that in there, too. that's not required by Senate Bill 954 that I wanted to clean up in our code. So, you met their bare minimum for this Senate bill and then went above and beyond as well. Correct. Right. Thank you. Yep. Commissioner Clark.

Mr. Mayor. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Um Mr. um baggot. Um, under item number two, it has a capital H and then there's a big I afterwards like I don't know if it's a capital I or Roman numeral like they're different fund f fund types but whatever it is this question has come up before as to when we approve something and the city manager moves forward and does something we say well they never came back to the city commission with this thing this particular particular um ordinance clearly states on the revocation of an approved reasonable accommodation request, the city manager may initiate an action to revoke and there are lots of other um guidelines all the way to three four that refers to the city manager and plus in terms of um language preparation I see again where what I thought was an I a big I and then there's an I J down there. So just to make sure that it's flowing in the um delet the the notation of the the paragraphs that we have it um correct. Did you see what I'm saying, Mr. Bagot?

So two where it says age two three H then big I then there's a little um I and then double I then there's afterward the sub. Yeah, the sub. Then there's a big I then there's a sub. Is that a sub under four that says I J? And then there's one up here. If you go up, you'll see that there's an H. So section. Yeah, they're just that's H. That's number one under H. Go down and I that's a one. And then what's this other one? This is I. It comes after the H. But they're lower Roman numerals one. So you got

there was a print difference in that H. So under 8.07.07 I'm not drafting this completely new. It's already put in the code and they have subsections A B C D E F G and the H should be a and and H G H okay I J H I J is what I'm adding. So H right the H needs to be

on now each of each of the alphabetical subsections have regular numbers 1 2 3 4 etc. And under H we do have H 1 2 3 and four also similarly like we have in other subsections but we had to go further. So we have under H1 we have lowercase Roman numeral one, lowercase Roman numeral 2, lowercase Roman numeral 3, and then lowercase Roman numeral 4 because we have the four reasons why a manager could initiate to revoke the prior approval.

All right. So if the H is changed from italics to a regular H and then it's it's the pageionation. It's a pageionation that messed it up. Well, that's okay. We're good. Okay. Pagionation and want. Thank you. So, the motion is to move it forward. Are you second? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Okay. I don't think there was any public no public comment. Commissioners, any other comments from you guys? Seeing none, Mary, would you call the role? Sure. Vice Mayor Reid? Yes. Mayor Collins? Yes. Commissioner Gio? Yes, Commissioner Clark. Yes,

I didn't say, but I appreciate you buttoning that up. Sure. That up for us. I I I probably wouldn't have normally just come up to do some of those changes, but since we already had to make changes anyway, I thought it was a good time. Thank you. You're the man. Okay, so moving on to item nine, dissolution of East Stewart, the East Stewart Historical Committee.

Okay. And again, this is the first reading of this ordinance. So I'll be looking for a motion to transmit it to second reading as well. So, ordinance number 2548-2026, an ordinance of the city of Steuart, Florida, amending part two, chapter 2, administration, article 3, boards, committees, and commissions. Division one, section 2-28 and division division 7 East Stewart Historical Advisory Committee sections 2-118 through 2-121 of the city of Stewart's code of ordinances by removing certain provisions related to the East Stewart Historical Committee due to dissolution, providing for the repeal of prior ordinances and resolutions, providing for cotification, providing for severability, providing for an effective date and for other purposes. And I apologize for that t title, but it's a lot of different subsections in the code. Um, the city commission u under chap chapter 166 of the Florida statute, the city commission is authorized to establish and adopt ordinances which are intended to serve and protect public benefit to the residents and visitors of the city of Stewart. Part one, article four of the city's charter permits the city commission to create and establish boards and committees to serve at the pleasure of the city commission. And the city commission has the inherent authority to create advisory board to provide assistance to the community redevelopment agency i.e. the CRA. The ES Stewart Historical Advisory Committee that we've also referred to as ESHACK was originally created by the CRA for the purpose of making recommendations related to the history and culture of the east historic East Stewart community. The ESHAC provided valuable insight regarding the founding residents and their contributions to the East Stewart area, including evaluating and recommending art and public places

and recommendations for the integration of design components into the Martin Luther King Jr. streetscape improvements and Guy Davis Community Park improvements project. On February 13, 2023, via resolution number 11-2023, the city commission found that the continuation of the ESHAC provided a public benefit to the community and created and ratified the ESHAC to continue as an advisory board. In 2024, via ordinance 2525-2024, the city commission added the ESHAK's bylaws to the city's code of ordinances and um to the various sections that I've already read through in the title. I'm not going to repeat it for sake of time. Throughout the year of 2025, however, the ESHAC had no meetings. They were not held because there was no need for its assistance. As a as a result, the city commission has requested that the ESHAC be dissolved in the city's code of ordinances, the sections that I've already identified, uh um the the ordinance proposed here is removing mentions of the ESHAC in its entirety. Normally, you could do it by resolution, but because we adopted all of the bylaws for all the advisory boards into our code of ordinances, we have to do an ordinance removing the language pertaining to the ESHAC out of our out of our code. So that's why we have to have an amendment to the ordinance and and having a first and second reading. So again, I'm looking for u a motion to transmit this to second reading and we'll come back at the next agenda or next commission meeting to have the second reading.

I'll make a motion to move ordinance number 2548 2026 forward to the next second to the second reading. Is there a second? Do we have a second? We have a motion. Is there a second? I'll second it for discussion purposes.

Um, is there any public comment on this item? I have no public, Vice Mayor.

Yeah, my my my thoughts on this are If if we were going to do anything, one, I'd ask the advisory board members, and I I think there was some confusion, I think, on why the board was established, what the goals and objectives were, and also we're also not done with the streetscape on MLK or the Guy Davis Park improvements. So, if we were going to do anything, I'd have like a sunshine date pertaining to those two items in particular, just because they're not finished. I know all I believe said they were 60% designed for the streetscape on MLK. Um, but those are my thoughts on it. I think it's hard to gather a 100 years of history in two years, but I understand why it's being discussed because of the whole sunshine. Like we're very familiar with sunshine. Um, and you know, is is it a benefit by having the board with the liability with the sunshine laws? I don't know if Lee can touch on what could potentially happen if there are sunshine violations from advisory board members. Lee,

I don't have firsthand knowledge. I was just hearing this hearsay. Yeah.

But my understanding is some of the advisory board members on the ESHAC were concerned. they they wanted to meet, you know, in a in a informal setting to discuss stuff at East Stewart. And because they were on the same advisory board, the ESHACK, they could be violating sunshine by engaging in those conversations if more than one person from the board is present. So, I think you're wanting to have community involvement and it and especially when they don't meet for a whole year. So I I we were getting guidance to dissolve because it appeared that what the initial need has is no longer the case is it's they they've gone through those those two projects the the streetscape and the park. And I I don't know if there are any other issues that will come up in the future. I'm not sure. But I think that's why if that helps discuss

the issues of the the the sunshine the advisory board members didn't want to violate the law. Yeah. And and like reality is there a true like is there damages I guess for advisory boards with sunshine? I know there's if if I do it I get in big big trouble. They could too. It's a crime. Advisory board use the same weight. It's a crime in Florida statute. Anybody who's Yes. and a fine is an extension of us, right? falls in that same anybody that's performing that's been like a subordinate role has been given to them that authority through us.

So So in theory, I mean the board members could almost accomplish the same thing if they held a meeting here without even having it ashack board. C can I give context to this? Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to Albert about this too. I I think what the the goal is truly is to have like a NAC like an advis neighborhood advisory committee and they can do that without the city though.

There was frustration that they can't meet we don't have any meetings scheduled for them. It's just sort of a liability and to my understanding that's already starting to happen is you know their their ability to get together and start to hash things out to ultimately bring to us if there is an issue. But like the streetscape may or may not even, you know, have anything to do with Eshach because there's no historical information to procure out of, you know, so is this kind of putting people in a position where they're at risk. Yeah. With no upside, you know, I'm torn, I guess. Like

I see some board members. I don't I I I hope uh the discussion's good at least by us doing this. So the board members are familiar with with what's going on. I don't know if the board members are familiar with an NAC board that is trying to be created in East Stewart or if that's the first you've heard of it. I don't know. They have too. The difference would be instead of us putting people on a board to represent E Stewart, E Stewart could decide who is involved in that board on their own.

They wouldn't be subject to us. Uh and then ultimately that group could bring to us their uh thoughts for policy or whatever we're doing, you know, because that was one of the frustrations too is is is everybody who's even on this board living in East Stewart, you know, so that would not be it would be outside of the city.

I'm gonna because I spoke to Mrs. Franklin. Yes. Um, and just to let you know, uh, Commissioner Reid, back in October, November, I spoke to Mrs. Brinkley, and I've also spoken to Mr. Brinkley. Um, and would give them a larger scope if they were a committee of a community committee rather than something that comes under the sunshine under the guidance of this commission. And I think the mayor and myself have offered to help them set up these this committee, which would have a wider scope for them. And you could not only address the issues with the historical society, you could also address other issues within the community that you could bring together as a group to the commission

and you all can set your own schedule, talk about the things you want to speak about and not have to be directed by us as to when to meet and what you can say. Right.

Okay. I think that um when we created the historical advisor committee, it had very discreet task. It's there in the ordinance and yes um it's difficult for the members as it is difficult for us or anybody who uh uh operates in a sunshine committee. Um and it's something that needs to get used to the fact that they didn't have a meeting during um 2025. I know that they had prepared and they were had staff was working on the website and gathering information. There's more information that's continuous and still needs to be gathered. That is one concern. However, I think it can be done in in other um ways. And then um if there's a a will to move forward and keep the committee, if we can keep it and people operate in the sunshine, fine. Other than that, I think they still need an official voice. I know that we're saying they can go off and do their own. Traditionally in East Stewart, there has been concerned citizens of East Stewart and they've been around a long time. I think during Mr. Chris's time, I don't know how active they are or how official they are as a form Florida um corporation or as a um 501c corporation. I don't think that they are. But there's ACES. ACES is African-American um citizens of East Stewart that is a viable, very active, good organization and they have been working with the community and they have a 501c3 and they can provide leadership and and work with the community. if the community wants to form another group again um and to bring ideas to our commission or ideas for the for the

community. I know that I've had lots of um town hall meetings in East Stewart area and um even though sometimes they're some are productive, some may not be as productive. I think the last couple of years we've spent a lot of time with the with the um the zoning changes um when we were we we were working with that. But I I just think that ACES is there and if new groups need to be formed, but we have members of the the actual committee here um that can speak up and if it's a if it's about money, if we have to advertise a meeting and people come to a meeting and still speak because they're gathering data and they just want to sit around a table and talk about something or how they would approach a vignette or how they would approach approach gathering video information then that's something that can be advertised and they can sit and do that. They did change leadership on the committee and I think that that kind of created a little bit of a momentum change with the committee in 24 and then of course in 25 like you said we didn't have a meeting and maybe um I was working closely with them and with Pinal and I think that we were Jordan and Pinal were gathering information and working on their part and the committee had done their part. We just need to know if if it's the will of the community to maybe continue with this. But again, if the sunshine is an issue and there was issues about if people live in the community consistently or if they just have property or have a history in the community or if they um uh if they're, you know, if they need to be a a part of the of the comm of the um of

the committee. So that's um that's it. But I think if we we look there's no lack of uh community groups. The churches are there. The um ACES is there as a community group and if people want to form an individual group on their own um it can be done but people still need to have I think this committee this committee saw themselves as a voice that was coming directly to the city. I think some people misconstrued what they should be bringing or what they should be doing, but there's no misconring what the ordinance asked people to do. It was stated in the ordinance, what the purpose of the committee was. Vice Mayor,

I was just seeing if any of the board members that sit on that board had any comment on anything that we've discussed, but right now Harvey, there's a motion on a floor on the floor to transmit it to the next meeting. Oh, what's up? You can fill out a green. Sorry, mayor. Sorry.

Philip Harvey, citizen of Martin County. Um, I was on that committee and when I got on, I was told that we was going to be dealing with history and, uh, I found out it was not. because we could not communicate. And now that I hear some of the reasons why uh and I hope that you all give these two a community opportunity to work together in a uh in an organized manner so that we can accomplish some of the historical elements that took place in the east community, how it helped Martin County grow, Stewart, Florida grow. And uh we just need your help and a little bit of guidance to keep us going.

And there are several commissioners here who have offered to help other than under the city limits to be able to help you set up the committees you the committee you need and how to make the scope larger for the whole community and still include the historic piece. Okay. Well, we're we're willing to work with you. any could I ask? I I appreciate it, Phil. Okay. And like I said, I plan on doing town halls as well every quarter. I did one um recently at 10th Street. Um I'm going to try to do one once a quarter, okay? And I'll bounce back and forth and I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. Um some people have my cell number,

but just take the sunshine law out of it because that scares people because we can't communicate. Scares me. Why do you think I don't talk to anyone up here? They're all blocked, by the way. Cuz I've been accused of communicating with certain board members and I've proved it time after time that they're blocked. Um and and yes, I've been in that position and it has been by online bloggers is what I call them. Um and it's disgraceful because I take this position very seriously. Why would I put my reputation being, you know, Martin County local as well, be thrown in jail or prison for violating sunshine? That would be silly on my part for $18,000 a year. That's not worth it to me.

Yeah. Um, so I don't know if any other board members have comments that sit on the board currently, but thank you, Phil.

We do have another comment. Good evening. My name is Pearly Clark and I was here. Sorry about that. I'm going to say this. I prefer, just me personally, prefer if we have a neighborhood advisory group. I would love to see our community work together without depending on others so heavily and make decision about our own uh community. There are things that we would like to do that we can do on our own. Fix up the place, clean up the place. But we can do that. But we know where to go if we need support. So the sunshine law is is bad because my neighbors are on the committee and we talk and we talk before we got on the committee.

Yeah. So that would be a burden for us. But this is my uh my thought. I prefer not to be on the committee. Thank you, Pearly. And for anyone that wants my cell number, if you want to write it down, you can call me. It's 772-2474772.

Dr. Grant, do you have anything? I know that you had acted as did you act as a leader. Miss, I'd like you to come up, Dr. Grant. Kim Grant. Um, I didn't serve too long. I came in on the tail end of the I like the concept. I like the idea of having voices of East Stewart. I guess I came in and I was not quite clear on the purpose. I thought we would have more bite. So with the history I agree with we need to preserve the history of East Stewart. I just I'm concerned that as a neighborhood advisory council the impact that we would have if we came to you with different um ideas or suggestions, how would it be brushed off or would it be taken to heart and and listened to? So, I just I want something that's going to reflect the community and where the commissioners are actually going to listen and hear what we're coming to you with and not take it lightly, actually put some time in. So, I like the town halls. I was not able to attend the last one, but to actively participate in East Tour, get to know the residents and take our concerns to heart. So, that's what I'd like to see. I'm not sure if that'll be done through the East Store advisory committee or if it's the neighborhood, whatever is going to be more effective.

Did somebody want to address that? What was that? She's not In other words, I don't know that she realizes they would be making up their committee and deciding who's on it and how to approach us.

Yeah, it would it wouldn't wouldn't be a sanctioned we Okay, so I made up the neighborhood advisory committee for the county through the CRA a long time ago when we were working on those. They have one in Solerno, Jensen Beach, whatever. All these communities have a NAC and so if they want to have an NA NAC with guidelines and deal with procedures but it's not something that would be sanctioned through us they would have to make it up as their own nonprofit group do whatever and that's why I said ACES is there the community can come together and use ACES in order to to bring things or or it can provide leadership to bring ideas if people needed to do something there's another option that um has been brought up before through the um concerned citizens for East Stewart and that is to develop a community development cooperation to steerhead uh redevelopment. But again, that is something that a group of people, whether they're business people, interested stakeholders, they come together and they form that CDC, they manage it, they run it, and they if they need to apply or get grants or partnership with the city, they have to do all of that.

Okay. Any other comments? We had a motion, a second. We had a motion and a second. So we'll come back with it again. I mean the same language is going forward that it would it would be dissolved at the next meeting. That's what you're asking to go forward. Transmitting it to the next one. Yeah, that was the motion. It's admitted to the second. Let's call the role. Commissioner Gio, yes. Vice Mayor Reid, yes. Mayor Collins, yes. Commissioner Clark, I want to say no. All right. Item 10, discussion and deliberation. We'll work it through.

Okay. U commissioners uh this item is uh I have discussed with with each of you individually but just for the benefit of the meeting in the record. So, previously, prior to me being the interim city manager or anything, the city had applied for as a co-licant with Florida Inland Navigational District and been awarded the mega grant, which was approximately $130 million. And that is that was related to this project to replace the 100-year-old train bridge. And the project couldn't move forward until all the financing was in place. And so, uh, several weeks ago, Florida and Land Navigational District approached me and said, you know, we have an opportunity to co-apply again for an FSP grant, which would fill the remaining gap of about $78 million. Unfortunately, you know, this began back during the Biden administration and and so some of the original grant projects that we expected to receive to fund the train bridge project went to other governments and entities. Then at the beginning of the Trump administration, a lot of the grants were reset. And so there's been some staff changes. And so the other day after commission action and find both took action to adopt and approve us applying for the $78 million FSP grant, we submitted that paperwork to FRA, the Federal Rail Administration. And whereas the previous staff had said, "Oh, you can have the mega grant and the FSP. That'd be great." after we submitted the application, they said, "You can't stack two grants like this." So, um, there's been a number of calls and meetings between them. And what we're waiting on right now is for FRA to make a ruling that they would still

accept the City of Stewart and Florida Inland Navigational District stacking two grants together to pay for the bridge project as part of the funding pieces. Unfortunately, that decision is going to be between two city commission meetings and the deadline to apply for the grant will be February 7th. Our next meeting being February 9th. So, we haven't received that ruling from FRA yet. your options are either a they say okay and we go forward with what's been approved or the other option is if FRA says no you need to make you know you need to do something different then the plan that we tentatively have is to forego the mega grant because we haven't pulled down a single dollar of it yet because we didn't have any of that uh total funding in place and then to then instead apply for the whole 200 million in FSP grant instead so this is just an option where I need to inform for you because I'm not sure yet to have it on an agenda item on what's going to happen ultimately, but this is just our goal to try and get that train bridge project started to replace that bridge. If you have any questions, I would entertain them.

Um, thank you, Jolie. I I guess my question is you're saying the 6th is the deadline, but the 9th is our next. Is there some emergency? Well, you could that we can have you you could convene a special meeting of the commission, but you have a very busy schedule coming up with the we referred to the fast and furious schedule of getting a new city manager on board. You're going to have a number of special meetings and stuff coming up. So, but funding the bridge is quite an important item. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. So, if I mean I can't speak for the other commissioners, but if we had to come in for another special meeting to get that funded, that's most important.

Yes, ma'am. I I I those of us involved in the project, we we feel like we're going to prevail and just go forward like we originally planned. Um it so of course if the FRA suddenly tells us, you know, may maybe tonight or tomorrow or something, the FRA says, "No, no, no. We're not going to let you stack the grants." I'd start the notification process to the city manager and thereby to the commission after that. Okay. We're hoping it just continues as we all originally planned. So, sounds good, Joe. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Moving on to

item 11. All right. This one's mine. And so at the December 8th, 2025 commission meeting, Miss Jannine Alexander had came before you during public comment and wherein she had alleged various issues that she had in the past with the city's police department and with other city staff at the time. Um the commission had asked me to provide some background from the city's perspective to which I could not because the allegations that she was alleging occurred over 10 years ago and long before I got here. So I I didn't feel competent enough to even provide you with a summary uh of any of those events because I wasn't involved in it. So, I I asked for some additional time and you asked me to come back in the future and provide you with some information as far as the background from the city's perspective. Since December, I've had to review a large number of police incident reports, lawsuits, emails, and other documentations. And I've I've attached some documentation to the agenda item. Um, and I guess the question is what do you leave what do you put in and what do you leave out kind of thing. It was a there's a large number of records that I could have attached, but I tried to limit to what I thought were the meat and potatoes of it. I'm going to provide you with a background summary of what I outlined and uncovered when I started reviewing all this stuff. And again, there could have been a lot more added to what I'm telling you. There was a lot more to it. I just again had to make the decision what to leave put in and what to leave out. So, back on February 27th, 2015, multiple uh Steuart police officers were dispatched to a disturbance at Dennis Gallis's residence at 2600 Southeast Ocean Boulevard in the Vista Pines community. Miss Alexander also lived in the same community. At or recently about that time, Miss

Miss Alexander and Mr. Gallas had ended a romantic relationship. The two of them were in a ver verbal altercation uh in his uh condo on that day and an an elderly female neighbor must have heard the altercation and came to Mr. Gallas's condo to check on him. The elderly neighbor and Miss Alexander got into a physical altercation. Upon being interviewed by police officers, Mr. Gallas and his elderly female neighbor confirmed that Miss Alexander was asked to leave the apartment and that she pushed the elderly neighbor down to the ground. officers noted an open wound on the elderly neighbor's face. I'm just not mentioning her name, but she is deceased since this event. But at the time, the elderly neighbor did not want to press charges because she feared that she would be retaliated against by Miss Alexander because they also live in the same neighborhood. Uh, however, Mr. Gallas wanted Miss Alexander trespass from his condo at the time. During the incident that night, Mr. Gallas captured video footage on his cellular phone. Investigating officer uh Noan Bo, I'm I'm I'm butchering his name, uh who's no longer with the police department, reviewed the video footage on Mr. Gallas's phone and observed Miss Alexander being asked to leave and grabbing the arm of the elderly neighbor. Officer Vo requested Mr. Gallas to send him the video via email. The initial video file sent by Mr. Gallas was too large and it didn't make it to officer Vo's email and it had to be resent. At this point, there's a discrepancy as to how much video footage was taken that day on the cell phone. A video placed in evidence by officer Vo was 54 seconds, which officer Vo contended was the only video footage that he viewed and received from Mr. Gallas. Years later, Mr. Mr. Gallas confirmed that there may have been additional footage and this is involving a civil lawsuit between Miss Alexander and Mr. Gallas. He he

confirmed that there may have been additional footage but it had since been deleted. Uh if there was any additional video footage, it was never obtained by the police. Before Officer Vo could interview Miss Alexander at the scene that night, she had a panic attack and was taken via ambulance to the emergency room. Officer Vo later went to the emergency room to interview Miss Alexander. On March 7th, 2015, over a week later, the elderly neighbor contacted Officer Vo and changed her mind and p wanted to pursue criminal charges for battery against Miss Alexander. On March 7th, 2015, the same day, Officer Chris Heightfeld was dispatched to the neighborhood in reference to a suspicious incident. Officer Heightfeld spoke to three residents of Mr. Galas's community and each of them reported receiving a phone call from an un unknown female police officer of the Steuart Police Department. Each of the residents were questioned about the initial incident from this unknown female officer. Officer Heightfeld affirmed that there was no female off police officer investigating this incident. He then made contact with Miss Alexander who confirmed that she had called the individuals in the community but only related to available real estate because she was a realtor. um but she denied impersonating an officer. Officer Heel did not believe her and sought an arrest warrant for Miss Alexander on the charge of impersonating a police officer. On March 11, 2015, Officer Vo went to Miss Alexander's residence and she refused to open her front door. Instead, she dialed 911 and requested fire rescue to have an due to having another panic attack and reported that she was suicidal. Miss Alexander told dispatch that she was suicidal and consumed multiple pills. Miss Alexander told fire rescue that she took the pills to avoid being arrested. She was taken to the emergency room and subsequently Baker acted by the hospital staff. After 24 hours, Steuart police served a warrant for Miss Alexander's arrest on charges of battery against an

elderly person at the hospital and she was transported to the Marty County Jail. At the time, Miss Alexander sought from the police and the state attorney's office to bring charges against Mr. Gallas and his elder elderly neighbor for false imprisonment and battery. However, the police and the state attorney's office declined. On April 10th, 2015, officer Zachary Py was dispatched to the lobby of the police department to meet Mr. Gallas. Mr. Gallas reported that the night before his right front tire of his vehicle was cut and slashed. Mr. Gallas alleged that it was Miss Alexander. However, officer PY concluded that there was not enough evidence to say one way or another and closed his investigation. On April 13th, 2015, the police were dispatched to the same community due to an alleged violation of a trespass order by Miss Alexander. While officers were there, Miss Alexander called 911 to make a complaint about the officers and to request another officer to her residence. She was asked to hang up from 911 dispatch and she declined. Miss Alexander was arrested again for misuse of 911 and resisting arrest without without violence. On May 22nd, 2015, Miss Alexander plead no contest to the following criminal charges: falsely impersonating uh an officer, battery on an elderly person, uttering a forged bill, check, or draft, and resisting officer without violence. In the plea of no contest, she acknowledged that she was giving up her right to a trial and to confront her accusers. And I think this was an important act taken by Miss Alexander on February 6, 2016. So now a year later, Mr. Gallas and his new girlfriend met at Sam's Club in Port St. Lucy and parked their vehicles in separate rows. Upon returning to the vehicles, both of their vehicles were vandalized. Only their vehicles. Although Mr. Gallas alleged that it was Miss Alexander, only an incident report was created by the Port St. Lucy PD and the investigation was closed.

Next month on March 4th, 2016, Mr. Galis reported to police that he he was sent an anonymous Valentine's Day card and believed that it came from Miss Alexander. Um if and if Miss Alexander had such sent such a card, it would have violated her no contact order and violated her promotion. However, this this was not to be was not able to be proven and the investigation was closed. Um, the next week on February 12th, 2016, Miss Alexander presented to the Steuart Police Station, met with an officer Sudhoff, and alleged the following. That she was falsely arrested a year earlier, that Mr. Gallas and the Steuart police officers tampered with the evidence, and and that would be reducing the the amount of video footage, and that Mr. Gallas and his elderly neighbor gave false statements and were the aggressors in the incident. A report was taken and provided to the state attorney's office for review. The state attorney's office declined to press charges based on find of not finding probable cause. On March 16th, 2017, so another year later, uh the state attorney's office denied moving forward with the charges of tampering with evidence. It should be noted that there was never any allegation from Miss Alexander that the video footage of the 54 second was altered in any way. She only alleged that there was additional footage that was never that never saw the day of light. In December of 2017, so going now forward another uh nine months, Miss Alexander renewed her complaint on the tampering with evidence allegations. And then next a month later on January 4th, 2018, Miss Alexander met with Officer Buchanan of the Stewart Police Department. um and complained again that the video provided to the police in 2015 was tampered with and there was much more on the additional video footage. She

produced a text message from Mr. Gallas indicating that he took a 7-minute video on his phone that night. Officer Buchanan spoke to officer Vo and Officer Vo reported that he only viewed a 40 54 second video on Mr. Gallas's phone three years earlier and the file was too large to email. Officer Vo assisted Mr. Gall Gallas in emailing him the video from the phone. The 54 second video was submitted into evidence. Officer Buchanan spoke to Mr. Gallas about the video footage. Mr. Gallas thought that it was possible that he recorded more than one 54 second video that night on his phone. However, he did not recall one totaling seven minutes and he was uncertain why he stated such in a text to Miss Alexander. He further stated that any video footage taken that night has been deleted from his phone. In officer Buchanan's investigation, he spoke to Miss Alexander multiple times. Based on Officer Buchanan's investigation, he concluded that there was no probable cause that Mr. Gallas tampered with the evidence. More specifically, that the 54 second video used to convict Miss Alexander was not altered in any way prior to officer Vo viewing such. In addition, her claims of being kidnapped or falsely imprisoned could not be substantiated. Miss Alexander persisted with her complaints at the recommend recommendation of prior city attorney Michael Mortell. Miss Alexander submitted a written complaint for an internal investigation to the city then city manager David Ross and that was on February 8th, 2018. So now we're three years later again from uh the initial incident. The former city manager Ross tasked our human resource director Ros Johnson sitting to my left with investigating the complaint. Miss Johnson concluded in writing that there was no evidence that the 54 second video was tampered with and uh internal police policies on evidence were not violated. Subsequent to that, the former city manager, David Ross, affirmed her conclusion and decided to take no further action. Going forward five more months, in July

of 2018, Miss Alexander filed a civil lawsuit against Steuart Police Department, several officers, and the State Attorney's Office. In the lawsuit, she alleged that Officer Vo tampered with evidence that Officer Vo and the other officers were negligent in their duties, that she was battered by excessive force by officers, and that the Steuart police caused intentional infliction of emotional distress. Um, I'm doing math in my head. So, eight months later, the court dismissed the lawsuit against all defendants on March 6, 2019. So, a little over about I guess a few weeks later, she filed a second lawsuit in federal court against the city, the police department, and multiple police officers, and I believe some city staff. In her complaint, she alleged that the defendants committed numerous violations of her constitutional rights uh under federal and Florida state law. I'm doing math again. 6 months later, the federal district court entered an order dismissing her case against the defendants. Two years later, Miss Alexander filed a second federal lawsuit against the city, the police officer, mult multiple individual officers, and individual staff members. In her complaint, she alleged that the defendants committed numerous violations of her constitutional rights under federal and state law. And then five months later, I'm sorry, a year and five months later, the federal court entered an order dismissing the second case against all defendants and entered a final judgment against Miss Alexander and closed out the case. I want to point out that the city's insurer has spent approximately $45,000 in illegal fees in defending the the various three different lawsuits uh filed by Miss Alexander.

What I did attach to the agenda item was Sergeant Charles Buchanan's internal investigation which I addressed in from 2018, Miss Johnson's investigation summary report in April of 2018 along with the city manager Ross' affirmation of her decision to take no further action. The first lawsuit in state court, the second lawsuit in federal court, and the third lawsuit in federal court. Again, I I'd had to make decision what to leave in and leave out. There are thousands of other pages we could we could go through, but I felt those are like the meat and potatoes of what you should or need to see supporting what I just told you. Um, Miss Alexander has alleged the following that she has been denied due process and the submiss submission of a citizen's complaint. She has asked for a hearing before the SRB u board and that means that's an acronym for the Steuart Independent Review Board. She's al and I'll address that in a second. She's also asked has had no closure or financial settlement from the city. She's looking for financial settlement from the city and I think she's communicated that to me in email since then. And um she is also alleging that the city andor Dennis Gallas had concealed the 7-minute video. That seems to be the the crux that there was a seven-minute video. Um and lastly, she's alleged that the city has failed to respond to her public records request. I'll address that in a minute as well. I want to uh go back on the SIRB or the Steuart independent review board. In the past, the city had the SRB board and it was an advisory board consisting of five members appointed one each by each of the commissioners and it was a civilian board reviewing internal investigations of our law enforcement personnel. Uh they didn't have any binding authority. They would just they weren't even allowed to take evidence. they would just review what the police department's internal affairs and what the city manager if the city manager was involved

uh any any um any action taken against the officer uh they would just simply review the documents in the case and give an opinion but um after um I think it was in 2024 there was a house bill 601 the state of Florida preempted municipalities from creating civilian and review boards concerning the receipt, processing or investigation of complaints against law enforcement under the police officers bill of rights. And that was Florida statutes sections 112.531 through 535.

Florida statutes 112.531 through 535. That's called the it's the Florida Police Officers Bill of Rights. As a result, we we we dissolved the SRB and removed the board's bylaws from our code via city ordinance, just like we were just about to do with that. We're on to the second read reading on the ESHAC board. Thus, we cannot hold an SRV more hearing for Miss Alexander um because that board has been dissolved. Furthermore, the police officer bill of rights prevents um the city from having any civilian hearing or review board um concerning disciplinary action against police officers, including the city commission. So, we we we can't do that. So, the the the statute preempts it and we're not allowed to do it. It has parameters on what can be done internal on an internal affairs type of complaint and how that's handled. And I can only say that I can't say for certain, but my my thought is that the reason why they do that is a police officer bill of rights when they have an internal investigation um they're allowed to have um the union present. They're allowed to have an attorney present and they get their due process. So by having a secondary civilian review board, they're they're duplicating and they have to defend themselves twice. And so that's why in my opinion why they state preempted this because there was it was popular to have a bunch of municipalities started having all these civilian review boards um created throughout the state. Um I I want to reiterate that she has had multiple internal investigations by city off city's officers and human resources and she has filed three separate lawsuits which have been reviewed various by various courts and judges and each of them have been dismissed. Lastly, she has alleged that the city has failed to respond to our public

records request. I conferred with the city clerk and um Miss Alexander has made I think about 12 public records requests and the city clerk has responded timely and provided said documents. Some of the requests were closed for lack of payment. Some of them were significant amount and we required payment for the to to review and and produce the records and they just weren't paid. Uh others Miss Alexander failed to follow up and some were demanding improper responses to the request. For example, this is something that I handled. So, she was demanding that each document produced by the city clerk be certified. So, each page had to be certified for her clemency application that she was making. So, I started in October of 2023 and back in December 2023, I believe she came to a city commission meeting and raised some of these similar issues. And that's why I thought I it was right when I first got here. But I I went back on my emails and I sent her an email addressing this certification in the clemency application. I attached a standard application for clemency by email and the standard clemency application requires that the court documents be certified when they're attached to the application which would be obtained from the clerk of courts, not from the city clerk. And so the documents received from the city clerk were not court documents. They were internal affairs type documents. So the the the application didn't require that the cities be certified, but it required that the courts uh from the clerk of courts got documents be certified. And I addressed that in December of 2023, and I did not hear back from her on that. So those were the issues that she raised last commission meeting. This is a summary of my review of looking through various documents. And so that concludes my providing you with a background on her complaint. And I'm available for any questions. If I can answer them, great. If not, I might have to get back to you.

I appreciate you taking the time to go through this to provide us a comprehensive um question. Is this considered a No, this is just a discussion item.

We had brought we had asked our attorney to review for us the nature of the case. So, it's it's just a discussion item. I consider some attached to the case that were totally So hey

Janine Janine Janine hold on the nature of this discussion is not to litigate the case. It was just to have Lee review for us because there are new commissioners up here who were not familiar with the case to go through the timeline of so that we're all familiar. Again, the the purpose was not to litigate.

I'm sure if you have a copy, I'm sure fantastic. Yeah, you can give that to the clerk. What would be the purpose of Was this the same one that you had emailed me? I'm very proactive. I think you all consider that after that evening, February 15 27, 2015, I doctors document your failed to follow again. Again, we're not we're not litigating. You're not telling I understand. I understand.

Yeah, if you wanted to just skip for those documents. So, Commissioner doesn't stop understand Michael was believe Janine, we're not we're not we're not taking public. We're not taking Janine, please. Please, Janine. You're going to have you're going to have to be escorted out of here if you're not going to follow the rules. Please please you don't have to leave. Just follow the rules. We're We're not doing public comment. Um, Miss Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, uh,

your mic on on um your mic, Miss Oh, my mic. Sorry, I thought you were saying um floor. Okay, thanks. I'm the only one who has a light on. Thank you. So, Mr. Mr. um Bagot, that's right. I'm gonna just run rampant and ask a whole bunch of questions and I hope I don't sound crazy. So, you don't even have to answer them. I'm just gonna talk. Okay. So, um I thought that the per and I'm glad that you went back to what 11 years or something. 11 years. It's been 11 years.

11 years. Okay. So, I I'm I'm going to say something about that too. But on this particular matter, I thought that one of the big reasons, and maybe I'm mistaken, but I've read a lot of things and I've looked at it. I thought that let's say for example, um, someone is applying for clemency, the felony pardon, and the governor's office or whoever it is tells them, you need to submit a b cde e certified copies or whatever. I thought that one of the issues and one of the glitches that we had in this matter was that um this particular individual um had a request to the city, please provide me a copy of ABCDE such as a police report or whatever it is or a video or something and if they got that they would put it with their packet and they would send it back to the governor. I didn't think that we were litigating anything or trying to do anything. So that's my one thing. What is it that she needs from us exactly? And is it that fits with the requirements that she need to fill for her um her clemency? And is it something that we can give her? If there was something from the time of Dave Ross or whoever somebody behind, let us know. And if it's something we can give her on the public records request and she needs to get it fine if it's something that the city has. I understand I think I know if it's with her or with other cases sometimes people think that we're the court. We're not the court. So we don't give certified copies of whatever it is certain things. the clerk might give a copy of something that they have and said these are the the minutes for that meeting and I'm not sure how the clerk provides that to make sure that it's a bonafide copy to the person but whatever the clerk does I'm sure that's what they do under legal advice but if

it's something that comes out of the court the 19th circuit or any other court circuit then it comes from them so that brings me into the court system I want to ask Mr. baggot us not being a tribunal body dealing with this specific truth of the matter um content of her case. What is are we in any type of procedural posture here with her case at all or are we just supposed to be supplying her with some requested information? We're not um relying on any detail or making any decision regarding her case. And we've had this case, this 11 year, we've had other cases where people have gone through this process, this legal process with appeals and coming back and forth, back and forth. And after so many times of appeals through the court system, they end up coming right back to the original city council and saying somehow we need uh we need um some kind of a we need you to to give us address you need to address our our issue that we have and you need to re give us um I don't know I guess an answer and we're not the court of law. If somebody has taken something from the city and appealed it through the court of law, that's where that goes. But apparently the answer is, can the city still do something for us? Whether it's to give us um um give us uh property back or give us a proper deed or give us whatever, but because it's out of the hands of the city, I don't know what we need to do since it's up and we're talking about it and we want to be frank and and transparent. Um the procedural posture is not with us, it's with the

with the appeal court. And if she does need a document from the city, if we can find it, we can give it to her. If we can't find it, we respond just like we would with any other public records request. We have searched our records and we're not able to find so and so. Now, apparently there might be some controversial thing that Yes. you say that you can't find this officer's report or that person's report, but I know that it's there. Um, I'm not, you know, there lots of ways to try to deal with that. But I think I'm not sure why something which I consider simple as somebody saying I need a copy of a police report or I need these two or three things from the city so that I can add it to my pile of stuff to send to the clemency board in order to get my myself situated and to claim and to clear my name. I'm not sure where all this appeal and all these other things got involved with it, but and I'm thinking you're telling us that you're not sure either because there are a lot of things that were from a long time ago. I'm not sure why we have it's this and I it's kind of unique to us that we've had this where it's been going on with with certain cases and they go through the court system and the appeal system and they come right back to us. But I think this is a very unique case. To me, it's an easy case where somebody's requesting a document from the city. Either the city has the document or they don't have the document. And I'm not sure where else we get involved with it.

That was a lot. We're not again we're discussing discussing. So, I looked at the Florida um clemency application and it said court documents need to be certified. So, you mentioned the deed. It's a court. Yeah.

You can go get a certified copy of a deed or a certified copy of a of a a final judgment. That's done by the courts, the clerk of court regularly. So, we don't do certified copies here like the clerk of court does. But Mary did stamp it and certify that these were actual copies from the city um you know in response to her request. But again I the application requires that court documents be certified. Not that's a clerk

not a police report not not an internal email from Joe. You know I mean she's requested a large number of documents. So if we got served with a subpoena, the the clerk would do an affidavit, you know, saying certify that these records are from the city and were kept with the city. That way we don't have to go to court and authenticate the documents. We've done that before. So um she did something similar to that and provided it. Um I know that she was upset because Mike didn't bring hard copies of documents to the courthouse one time. I think he brought a flash drive with the documents, which that's not uncommon if there's 10,000 pages, you know. Um,

when the court

um, so I I'm I'm just giving examples. So, I I don't there's a obvious disconnect, but we have produced records multiple times. She sent more public records requests to me. I think I got 20 emails in the last couple weeks and a couple of them were public records requests. I forward them to Mary and she said she's already requested this and we've responded. So I um I don't know what's I I I I don't know what's, you know, is still out there or what is needed, but I I we've produced everything multiple times at this point. There were times where she didn't pay for it. There were times she didn't get come and get them even though we said they're here. Uh Mike gave them to her on a flash drive whether they're hard not hard copy or not. Um they were provided to her. I I don't know what else the city can do as far as the litigation. I mean there was a criminal case. She pled no contest and spent time in jail from my understanding. I I that was over

days. You hear it from her and then she filed three lawsuits against us and we've litigated for years and and they're over. They they were dismissed. So I I don't know what else there is to do. I she can't I mean she can come back at public comment but the cases are over. Miss I mean

can I continue Mr. Bagot? So so you brought up something good. So there's no existing case with us. So it's not like we have to have this meeting in a shade meeting or anything and Miss Alexander herself has come here and asked for this information in public. But this question of looking for a settlement, what is there a settlement to be made a settlement about if there is no lawsuit that has any judgment or what is what is can you clarify that please? What is the settlement being sought for? And on what basis?

I've seen records and and I believe she sent me an email wanting to be compensated. She's reiterated it that she wants to be compensated, that she's suffered damages, but that's what you take your you address it in the court system. She has three times and lost all three times. So, I don't know what else there is to do for the case, the civil cases that she's filed against. I mean, it's against the city city police officers and city staff. I think you were defending one of them.

Um, so you guys have all it's been dismissed. So, um, that's where you take the redresses. So, I don't know. I my understanding and I think she said one time that Mike Mortell offered her $10,000 before the litigation, but then she litigated and we had to we ended up hiring a lawyer. And I mentioned that our insurance has paid $45,000 in attorney's fees defending them. But that was before we incurred all the legal fees that he had made that offer. And so she has reiterated re reiterated that a couple of times in emails and she might have done it on the phone with me or in person.

Thank you, Mr. Bagot. Mr. Mayor, may I continue with regard to the review by this um Steuart independent review board? Can you just review for the public the the what is that committee and how that committee got dissolved and how um even if she was seeking redress under that committee, what the status of that is now. He has already I know. Oh, I know. I know. He's already commented on it. He said he was going to come back to it. No, I did, but I can readress it if you missed it. So,

I don't remember when. I don't know exactly when we created the SB, but I would say it was obviously before 2015 because she was requesting it back then. And through the years, I believe it was very popular for municipalities to have civilian review boards. And I think there was a case in 2017 that went to the Supreme Court that questioned whether or not there could be a um a civilian review board. This legislature then subsequently in 2023, I think I said um codified it in the officer's bill of rights that we cannot have civilian review boards and our sb was a civilian review board. Mhm.

So, we dissolved the civilian review board because the state of Florida preempted it in the Florida's officer's bill of rights. Just, you know, we and we we removed it from our ordinances. That's why you can't find it in our ordinances. And some of you didn't even know what it was. You knew newer commissioners because we haven't had it in a few years. I did have a couple when I first got here in 2023. I faintly remember we did like one or two in in in the chambers but then shortly thereafter the state preempted it and we dissolved the sb. So we we we cannot

we cannot have an sb we can have any review city commission cannot review what's already been done with the disciplinary action of the police officers which is what she wants big chunks. All right, your honor. Thank you. Thank you, your honor.

Yeah, like Commissioner Clark said, I I guess I'm just looking for clarification on what Janine's asking for from the city so we could produce it, do public records. Um, I still haven't heard that. I've heard a lot of stuff on it. Um, are you want me to clarify it?

Yeah. Yeah. What exactly I gave you earlier in the public those documents I just handed you those were filed in the tampering they should have been filed in the tampering I went to great to reseen those documents were misplaced in another case my medical never required by even though he came to the ER that night to serve me not to charge me with he found I taught school for 16 years my license was revoked because of this

the impersonation This Dallas was texting me at after the initial incident alerting me crazy because he was covering himself in his police statement. He swears a sworn police statement. Three days later, I had seven minutes of video. When I sued for defamation, I received a statement in the email where he details the account of how we don't have the seven minute video. No, we never never had it. Exactly my point. Exactly my point.

We cannot be in record is not there because the law enforcement officer that came to this crime scene did not follow Florida Department of Law Enforcement polic and procedure on crime scene investigation. I'm a former teacher. I would never conduct an experiment the way this was done. You can't expect an outcome if you don't start the experiment right and follow the protocol. You have a comment people. I lost a career over this. You want to know what's wrong with me? I suffer from post trauma. I wake up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning still from this

and I'm determined by God to honor and everything that I do and this is part of it. Thank you. My constitutional right to due process were violated preliminary. He cannot conduct the kind of investigations without starting it right. I apologize. Do you know but in their policy 27 it tells how he is supposed to comply I can show you the domestic violence code where he is mandated by the state law and I can tell you why I don't need to be tormented any further by his

no we're not trying to torment you because when you're Janine, Janine, you're still going. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. M. Will be uncapped.

Thank you. So, Mr. Mr. um city man, city attorney, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. It's been a little while since I did some clemency work. I helped some people when they were trying to get their vote back when amendment one was on and people were trying or after it came through. people are going to the supervisor of elections and getting all their paperwork in order to get their vote back, sending stuff up to get that done. And if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Bagot, not knowing specifically what is being asked to be produced, it would be some type of a final judgment, some type of a final disposition, and that's all that's all they they need. I mean,

application returned. I have to wait another five years of my life. Oh. That's why I came forward. Get somebody to help you. Get legal counsel to help you. There's a Florida There's a Florida group. There's a group out of Gainesville. There's a group out of Gainesville that will help you. Let me tell you, I've been financially restricted all of these years. I was driven into poverty by this. There's a group in Gainesville that will help you.

God honored everything I've done. I own a home. I will burn equity in that home. It will go to damages. I'm trying to tell you, you better reach 768.28. The minimum is $200,000. The maximum is uncapped. I'm giving YOU OPPORTUNITY NOT TO MAKE ME go through any more litigation. I wrote all of the legal briefs in the federal case and I WAS ARRESTED 10 DAYS after I served that to Michael. Again, put in jail. four months in jail restricting me from being able to file responses to the motions to dismiss. There is so much intentional stuff here. I will take this. I KNOW HOW TO ORGANIZE and do what I need to do, but I'll hire an attorney. I will end up paying 25% of any any remedy I get on my mother and father's grave and their name. I WILL PURSUE THIS. I BEG OF YOU TO RECONSIDER WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? UNDER THE statute of fraud, I have 12 years of concealment. That video was concealed by Dennis. If you can't hear my intention, if you can't hear, it's honorable that I'm doing what I'm doing. If any other woman has to deal with what I've dealt with, it's disgrace to your community that it happened. It is a public disc. Look at the bruises. Look at the medical reports and physically abusine. The meeting is off the rails.

I'm waiting for my own help. Okay. Janine. Janine. Janine. Janine, please. All right. Are there any are there any other comments? Thank you for record. Are there any other Are there any other comments from commissioners? The only thing I'd like to say is any documents that she's looking for through a public record request. Correct. they've been given, I believe. Or maybe have her renew the public record request so they could be fulfilled if they need paid before they're fulfilled. Right.

We have fulfilled all of the requests and the ones that were not fulfilled um were withdrawn from her or she didn't pay. There was a very few of those. But there was another request that came in through the police department records um division and it included everything everything we have on this entire case. And that one wasn't the I have that number that was provided to her. Okay. That was in 2023 number 1923 or 1983 2023. So there's nothing else for us to give. We've given everything and sometimes duplicate because the requests keep coming in.

Okay. Janine. Janine. We're not trying to Is there anything else from the commission? Well, Miss Alexander, thank you for your time. I don't mean to be disrespectful. I know I owe it to myself. Yes, ma'am.

I don't feel like I was trying to commit suicide. The law enforcement officers around my home at 10:30 at night. I needed to calm myself. I was like this. I was my life to handle things the way that they terrorist.

All right. Seeing No further comments or business. This meeting is adjourned.