City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Let's call this meeting to order. Madam Clerk, a roll call, please.

Mr. Engelke. Here. Mrs. Frank. Here. Mr. Howard.

Here.

Mr. Smith. Here. Mr. Weed. Here. Vice Mayor Bolt.

Here.

Mayor Pechota.

And I'm here as well. We will stand for the invocation, and today's pledge can be led by Captain Hill.

Lord Father, we pray for our mayor, city council, and all who serve our community. Strengthen us with wisdom and grace for the work that we do every day. May our duties be carried out with respect and care, keeping our hearts pure as we work towards the best interest of all of our residents. Amen.

Okay. Let's have some fun. If we could get the police chief to join me up front. And we will start with James Browning and family. Oh, yes.

Good morning, everybody. This is a great day for the police department. We get to have three promotions that we're celebrating. And first, I just want to thank City Council for kind of helping us over the recent months to reorganize our department, creating some new positions as well, and helping us to move forward. So thank you for that and for celebrating these moments with us. These supervisors will be... taking the oath of office. And when you start as a police officer, you take this oath, and then during these milestones where they take on new responsibilities, it's a good opportunity to publicly renew that oath. And that oath is to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the state of Florida, and this trust that this community puts in them. And then we have pinning of the badge, which is part of this ceremony. Where in this case the badge elevates them to a new role and if anyone has a business you know that your line level supervisors are some of the most important. So James Browning here is moving into that critical role. Well he'll be a role model for the officers. There's a lot of them you see here. And he really, as a supervisor, sets the tone for the organization. So we're looking forward to him taking on this new responsibility. And then we incorporate family, his wife Jessica's here, into this moment because these achievements are not their own. It's shared achievements because their family's with them during all the hard times and all the good times as well. So we're glad to have her here with us. So let's go ahead and get started.

Ready?

Ready.

I, James Browning, do solemnly swear. That I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution and government of the United States and of the state of Florida. That I am duly qualified to hold my position under the Constitution of the state. That I will well and faithfully perform the duties of sergeant at which I am now about to enter. So help me God.

For one, it'll be a lot easier.

And when we swear in the new officers, I usually don't make them say anything. But, you know, as a supervisor, I feel like it's only appropriate.

Thank you, Chief. First, I want to say I'm grateful and thankful for God for giving me this point. Also, I want to thank my wife. My family, my kids, who have been my support system and have sacrificed so much. So thank you, guys. Thank you, Chief and the command staff, for entrusting me with this new role, position. I don't take it lightly. And... All right. The officers, my past supervisors, colleagues, thank you for getting me to this point. You guys have assisted me and helped me out so much and I really appreciate you. I'm thankful for this opportunity. Thank you.

All right, next we'll get Matt Sosnich and family.

There we go.

There we go.

So this is another great promotion with the, yeah, thank you Mary, get him set. And then with the pinning of this badge, now we're moving to a higher level of, yeah, you can relax, higher level of authority and responsibility. Not only is he still being the model for the officers, but he's also running a division. He'll be in charge of the patrol division as he takes on this new role as captain. And so he'll also be developing supervisors now, the sergeants and lieutenants that work under his command. And he's certainly shown over the years that he's prepared for this job with his dedication and his service. Good job. Sorry. I've known Matt a long time, so this is pretty cool for me too. And Jill. Yeah, I might need a hug. And of course, Jill's been there through all the difficult times and all the good times, and there's been many of both. So I'm glad to see you here as well. So let's go ahead and do this.

Hi, I'm Matthew Salsonich. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. that I will support, protect, and defend the constitution and government of the United States and of the state of Florida. That I'm duly qualified to hold my position under the constitution of the state. That I will well and faithfully perform the duties of captain on which I'm now about to enter. So help me God.

Thank you.

Now we'll have the pinning of the badge. All right, Matt, it's your turn.

All right.

Well, first, thank you for everybody being here today supporting me and my family in this ceremony along with the other people getting promoted really means a lot to feel that support. First and foremost, I need to thank my beautiful wife here. Every law enforcement officer that comes up here, the first person they recognize and support is their wife, their husband, their significant other. There's a reason for that. Law enforcement can be challenging. We have our ups and downs. I've been doing this for 18 years, and my beautiful wife has been on my side the whole time. She's been there to support me, listen to me, and, you know, be with me. So thank you, and I love you, sweetie. Next, you two. So there's a common expression that, you know, some things in life are bigger than you, and it's true. Thank you for allowing me to understand that and believe. You know, Mom and I are so proud of you. We love you and keep being you. And I love both of you. Thank you. And then my family, my parents and my brother who are sitting here and meeting here today. Thank you for the support. Some of you would find this hard to believe, but it is true. I was the wild child growing up. So I put my parents through quite a bit. Right after 2001, the terrorist attacks, I decided to join the military. I joined the Marines. That was 24 years ago. I was sitting at my dinner table, and I told my mom and my dad, I said, I'm going to join the Marines. It was 2003, so there was a lot going on in the world, and my mom looks at me and goes, you know that's the hardest one, right? So I said, yes, I know, and that was it. That's all she said. As a mother and a father, they supported me for everything that I went through. And when I came back to the world, they made sure that I was standing upright and supported me into the next path. So thank you and I love you. To my brother, hardest working guy I've ever met, thank you for being that mentor and showing me what real worth ethics is. Thank you. Finally, everybody in the back, sworn, non-sworn, the civilian. It's not just the police department. It's the city. We have so many great people that work here. I've been privileged to see that for 18 years of everybody who really pits in time every day to make sure that the city is running to the best we can. Thank you for your public service. I really appreciate that. Thank you all. Have a good day.

All right, that's it for promotional ceremonies today. So if we could get Alicia White to come up with the kids. Lewis, you're going to be postponed to November 3rd when I'm not in office anymore. Go wherever you want with all of your children.

All right. Just got to, you know, keep the mayor in line sometimes. It's not an easy job. Not at all. So for this next pinning and oath of office, again, I want to thank council because this is a position that kind of went away from our department for a while, and it was much needed, and so I appreciate the opportunity to bring it back. And... Deputy Chief White is certainly the right person for the job. This role certainly has the highest level of trust at our agency, but not only that, but with the city as well, being that it's with the police department. He's not only making sure our mission and vision is implemented, he now has a hand in shaping that. So it's a very important role and he's proven time and time again that he's prepared for it through his efforts and dedication. And Alicia, thank you for being here. Again, I know all the phone calls that I've made to him at night that you probably had to hear and all the good times and bad times throughout his career and the sacrifices that he's made that you've stood behind him. So thank you for being there. And let's go ahead and get started.

I, Lewis White, do solemnly swear that I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution and government of the United States and of the state of Florida, that I am duly qualified to hold my position under the Constitution of the state, that I will well and faithfully perform the duties Of deputy chief, yeah. Of which I'm now about to enter. So help me God.

The mayor is going to help out with the pinning today. He secretly fired him, I think, 22 times and 2,200 times. And so this is redemption.

Congratulations.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you to Mr. Mayor for pinning me, Chief, for your... you know, dedication to kind of mentoring me in this role and preparing me for this role and trusting me with the role. Again, to the city manager, appreciate it as well, and to council for, you know, voting yes to move forward on those staffing study changes and some of the things we have forthcoming. To my wife, I appreciate it. Thank you for being with me all these years. I know the late night calls from Lieutenant Dannemann, often two, three times after 2 AM, they get stressful. Usually she boots me to the couch after the second call. So I do appreciate it. And to my kids for understanding when Daddy walks away with a phone call from the chief or the mayor or whoever it may be. I love you guys. To the staff in the back, officers, I think the most important thing of this staffing study that came out of it in my mind was we're running lean, right? You guys feel that day in and day out. But what the staffing study vendors came to us with was it's your effort, your daily effort and dedication, really, that makes sure we uphold the standards that the citizens expect, that the council expects, and the chief expects. So hold that high, hold your chin high as we move forward. There could be some budget constraints coming up with the property tax amendment, but we're gonna shift some stuff around, work lean if we have to, and we'll get it accomplished. So just trust us to move forward with that. That's all I have, and I do appreciate the chief again for kind of mentoring me in this role and getting me ready and prepped for the future.

All right, with that, we will come back at 30 after. We're going to go take some photos out front for anybody who wants to do that, and then we will continue.

Okay, we are back. We are now on to audience participation.

And audience participation will be limited to one hour for the first portion. Madam Clerk, how many do you have signed up?

Six.

Six, okay. Speakers are not to address council members individually. Any person making personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks who becomes disorderly may be barred from the meeting. This is an opportunity to provide the City Council with your comments. City Council will not respond to any questions or comments during this time per the City Code. A member of city staff will follow up with you if it's appropriate. Any documents shown during audience participation or part of the meeting must be given to the clerk for the official record. Madam Clerk, our first speaker.

Our first speaker is Steve Oglethorpe. He has five minutes.

Steve Oglethorpe, and you'll have five minutes. Good morning and welcome, sir.

Good morning, Mister Mayor council members and city of Venice staff. My name is Steve Oglethorpe. I live here in Venice. I believe that city employees are misleading the city council and the public about intentions for the airport. I believe this based on recent information presented by city employees. In a nutshell, they are telling the council and public one thing while telling the Federal Aviation Administration the opposite. On June 23rd, James Clinch, the Venice city manager, led a presentation to the council. That presentation included several statements. First, that Venice is not working on increasing or decreasing operations at the airport. In the presentation, the word not is in bold capitals. Second, that Venice is not working on what he called the T word. It is the airport administration building. In the presentation, the word not is in bold capitals. Yet, in the July FAA discussion briefing by Nicholas Dumas, the airport director for the city, there is discussion of, first, a quote, new terminal project and control room timeline. Second, a budget for Venice to hire five full-time staff to manage increased traffic. Third, planning to fund this through, quote, protecting and expanding the airport's existing revenue base. Fourth, quote, growth-driven revenue through, quote, flight training expansion, corporate and business aviation, increased transient operations, and new aviation business development. Fifth, a, quote, 29.8% projected revenue growth over the period fiscal year 26 to fiscal year 29. And finally, of a, quote, new terminal building, a two-story, hurricane-hardened terminal administration building at a projected cost of $7 to $9 million. These recent presentations are directly contradictory. The public is being told one thing, the FAA another. One position or the other is intentionally deceptive. Mr. Mayor and council members, I request that the city end any and all current applications, negotiations, or plans underway with the Federal Aviation Administration. Further, I request that Venice scrap all VNC master planning to date and begin anew with the process characterized by honest and open communication among all stakeholders. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments.

Madam Clerk, next speaker.

The next speaker is Amber Jacob. She has five minutes.

Amber Jacob. Good morning and welcome.

Good morning.

Good morning, all. My name is Amber Jacob. I am with My Favorite Race Events. We are a local company nonprofit that produces 5Ks, 10Ks, and was planned to introduce our very first half marathon this year. Our largest event, Megalodon Weekend, is held the first weekend in March. On topic with the airport, unfortunately last spring we were sent an email that said we could move forward with permitting our events but there was no guarantee that we would be allowed to have our event. That being said, we have about 1200 people that take place in our Megalodon weekend. We bring in a lot of revenue, we bring in a lot of volunteers, we include the entire community in our events and we give back a ton of money to the community. We could not launch our event because we can't take thousands of dollars from people and then tell them, hey, sorry, by the way, the event is not happening. Luckily, Darlene Culpepper has worked tirelessly for our, to get us kind of an answer. And we were just told maybe two weeks ago that we could move forward with permitting and housing our events at the airport ground through spring. I would love for myself, for our nonprofit and for all the other event holders in the town that there's gotta be a more concrete date or there's gotta be an answer somewhere. We keep being told that someone at FAA has a paper on her desk and that that answer is there, but it keeps getting piled under other more important things, and that events at the airport ground are just not important, so why figure out that date? Well, they're important because we all rely on that. There's a ton of events that take place out there, and I really think that someone has an answer. So can we work on getting a more concrete date? Can we house our events out at the airport ground through 2027 or can we house them out there through 2029? Again, we were supposed to be including and introducing a half marathon this year, and that would have brought in a ton of revenue. We've been working closely with the Gasparilla Distance Classic. If anyone is familiar with that, they bring in millions of dollars to the Tampa area. And that was our hope for Venice was to be a smaller version of the Gasparilla Distance Classic. and really grow that event to be a destination event for Venice. So to have an answer of how long will we have to produce our events out at the airport ground would really help a lot of us event holders going forward with planning, but also not only having a date of how long we have to house our events out there, but there's a ton of property out there. Is the possibility of sharing that property even an option? can faa keep part of it but also still allow the city of venice to have part of that property to continue with events i mean i'm i'm not an architect and i'm not a surveyor but we having our events out there can visually see that there's a ton of property left that's untouched so could we please get a date and could we even maybe talk about sharing that property that would be incredible Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Of course. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

The next speaker is Bryce Ferguson. He has five minutes.

Good morning and welcome.

Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council, members of city staff. When I was a little boy, Nine years old. One of the things I look forward to most on weekends was meeting with my dad out at Venice Airport and hopping in a little Cessna 172 and taken to the skies. It wasn't his plane. It was one he borrowed, one he rented. Whatever the circumstances were, I don't know. I was a little kid and I got to go flying. And I loved it. I'd spend all week at Venice Elementary and we'd go up in the air. We'd fly all over the area. We'd fly down and head south. We'd go down to the Keys. We'd head north and go to my grandma's house in Lake City. We always had an adventure. This year, this spring, I took my dad for his final flight. As his cremated remains were spread in the Gulf, three miles offshore. I tell you this because I want you to understand where I'm coming from. As someone for whom this airport has always been very vital in my life as an airport. But when I look at the vision emblazoned on the back of the wall here in Chambers, that airport ground is so much more than just aviation. And I understand, and this has been a public discourse for a while now, and there's been a lot of back and forth, and you have had many things to navigate. And I, as a member of our community, appreciate your hard work and diligent effort on making sure that we retain our vibrance and our historic value. And understand that this is a historic year, at 100 years of being a municipality, that change has become inevitable through that process. but I am asking that you preserve a few of the great things about our community as you navigate all these complications. As previously mentioned, the use of those fairgrounds is so much more than just a place for an event. These are places where annual events have happened over the years, where young people get volunteer hours, where non-profits make enough revenue to continue to exist for the next 12 months, where folks like myself take their kids to the Italian feast to have their first experiences of what a festival can be like. Where I, as a kid, got to go spend mom and dad's $10 on tickets to ride rides and play carnival games. Where the chalk festival helps local Venice Nokomis Rotary raise funds for all of the great mission work they do. And so many other organizations. Public records show that between 80 and 100,000 members of our community and surrounding communities participate in these events every year. Once there are unknowns, unknowing of the future, where these events could be held, will they be held, is that next year, is it three years from now, whenever there's uncertainty, participation drops. People can't plan their vacations and travels around these great events if they don't know they're going to happen. Clarity is kindness, and I ask that as soon as you can, if we can have clarity on how we move forward as a community, and hope that you will all continue to seek preservation of these grounds for these purposes that are much bigger than just aviation use of the airport. It is publicly available that there are provisions within the FAA handbook, published just February of this year, to allow for community and municipal airports to use their spaces for non-aviation purposes. I know that you all are doing your due diligence, and I appreciate it. Just hope that you guys can continue to find ways forward that will continue to include that vibrant portion of our community. Thank you for your time this morning.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

The next speaker is Bonnie Kivlin, and she has five minutes.

Good morning and welcome.

Good morning, thank you for allowing me to speak. My issue is the proposal that was written by city manager Clinch and I think also airport director Dumas, I'm not sure how he pronounces his name. The gentleman who preceded me, who was the first speaker, very clearly listed the reasons why we're having a problem with the proposal that was written by these two gentlemen. Interestingly, it was not brought up at a council meeting on June 9th, which would have at least given the community knowledge of what was going on. It's feeling from the neighborhood to be almost totally dishonest. I've been involved or I've been active in going to the meetings that are talking about the future of the airport and planning for the airport. And each of those meetings, we were told that a remote tower, if anything, would be in an administration building. It would be basically technology in an administration building. This proposal is asking for a two-story tower. And not only, we were also told that the tower was supposed to be mainly for safety, that it was not gonna bring in increased jet activity. This proposal is saying that it is, the building or the tower would be seven to eight million dollars or more, and it would be paid for by more activity from private jets and businesses. Interestingly, this proposal is out there right now in August, which you all know is before the snowbirds come down, the people who live near the airport. My main goal is not about just the people who live near the airport. I live near the airport and I see from November through March, it's just lines of cars. It's about the beach, it's about Sharkey's, it's about our weather, it's about Venice. i can't understand how more jet activity at the airport is is going to benefit venice florida and uh let me just see if there's anything i maybe have a minute um the proposal is exactly the opposite of what we've been told at the meetings exactly the opposite and we you know we were told that it was for safety that it would be maybe two years out this is right now and they've written it and they've done it at a time when nobody's here to notice and i'm asking for this proposal to be withdrawn immediately before it gets put on a schedule for meetings in fall thank you thank you for your comments madam clerk next speaker

The next speaker is Brett Spangler, and he has five minutes.

Okay. Mr. Spangler, good morning and welcome.

Good morning. Welcome back. I hope everybody had a good break. All right. I thought you were going to play it. In light of the deeply concerning FAA grant proposal and slide deck briefing, I realize that nobody in particular is interested in hearing from me. What we all want is answers and accountability from you, the city staff and city council. In that same vein, I compiled video clips from the April 8th capital improvement plan workshop and the June 23rd city council meeting regarding the airport. I want to preface that it is not my intent to make enemies here today. I've had the pleasure of speaking with many of you and my gut tells me that you're generally good people and want to do the right thing.

class not registered we say there's misinformation out there every PR course I ever talk or taught if there's misinformation it's your fault aren't your job is to get out

the correct him for the city is not actively increasing or decreasing operations.

The festival grounds and that's actually where we're looking to concentrate where jets would be versus the rest of the airport. So one of the plans that we have is to, you know, put in this taxiway, which will then open that area for that type of development to so that jets would be on that side of the airport. If we find a developer who's willing to work with us for a development over on that side of the airport, that we can give them rent credits if they provide the funding to build this taxiway. Because currently the FAA and FDOT will not participate in a project that is solely for economic development. They'll do it for safety, efficiency, and capacity issues, but they will not do it for an economic reason. So that's where we're trying to put the creative hat on to find alternative funding.

We are not actively working on a Part 139 compliance.

We're on the trajectory of becoming required by the FAA to meet the Part 139 standard.

This one is the control tower for the airport, and that's for fiscal 31. Any questions on the control tower?

Are you turning it off?

No questions on that one.

There's several in operation across the country, as my understanding, referred to as remote towers. So it's not brick and mortar. They sit in a control room, and they direct traffic no different than a tower, but they're not visible on the airport property in terms of brick and mortar.

This is just going to be a pole.

But in functionality, it

performed the same function as having a yes seventy foot control time i think that's important because that's for none of us want to see a seventy five eighty foot round tube sticking up out on the airport property so they don't generate a lot of capital investment revenue so they rely solely almost entirely on grants from the state in the f a so expediting these projects which is something that we are focused on will have to happen through these public-private partnerships in order to have that funding available. The way they're programmed now is to make sure we get the state and federal funding that's available, but we are absolutely moving forward with the potential to move these projects up. They have different priorities in the community at times. Our priorities are always going to be safety first, period, financial sustainability second, and working with the community is going to come third. It has to for the interest of the airport.

After reviewing the FAA grant proposal, I can't help but feel we are being misled about city staff's vision for the airport under the guise of promoting safety. My concern, along with hundreds who cannot attend today, is that the actual vision is to pursue as many government grants as possible, attract public-private partnerships to fuel further growth, and ultimately generate profits to pay for all the new obligations we acquired with free FAA money. The grant proposal and slides taken with the context of capital improvement, the master plan, the city council meetings, makes the vision abundantly clear. This council should rescind and postpone all grants until there's a vision that's voted on by elected officials and puts residents' concerns first, not last.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

The last speaker is Jonathan Barrett. He has two minutes.

Jonathan Barrett, two minutes. Good morning and welcome.

Good morning. My name is Jonathan, and this is my first time speaking before the council. I'm here because I care deeply about Humphreys Park, the South Jetty, and continued public access to our shorelines. I understand the hurricanes Helene and Milton caused major damage. I understand the jetty itself is unsafe, and I'm not asking the city to reopen damaged infrastructure before it's ready. But nearly two years later, the entire area remains closed, and with Humphreys Park inaccessible, the next established public beach access south along the shoreline is roughly nine-tenths of a mile at Venice Beach. That means this closure affects much more than one damaged jetty. It removes access to a substantial stretch of public shoreline that people have used for generations for walking, fishing, surfing, biking, and simply getting to the beach. We've seen elsewhere that access and construction can coexist. At Casperson's Beach, repairs have continued while the county provided temporary bike racks, signage, and defined closures. And at the South Jetty itself, controlled access has been possible for contractors and special events. There is a historically used route along the gulf side of Humpfers Park towards the sandy beach for access and there also appears to be an existing public access easement farther south that may provide another connection to the shoreline. I'm not asking council today to determine exactly where a fence should go or how that access should be configured. I'm asking you to direct staff to look at the existing access points and seriously evaluate an interim bare bones solution while the larger repairs continue instead of a completely closed space that has become a source of frustration we have an opportunity to create a safe community driven area that reconnects venice with shoreline humphreys park is more than a jetty it is part of venice public shoreline i believe we should make every reasonable effort to protect it thank you thank you for your comments

Madam Clerk? That was the last one. Okay. And with that, we will move on to the consent section of the agenda. All matters listed under the consent section are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless an item is removed by a council member. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If discussion is desired by a council member, the item or items will be considered and voted upon at the end of the consent section. With that, are there any council members that would like to remove anything from consent? Mr. Mayor?

Mr. Howard? I'd like to remove 26-0701.

0701. Any other items from any other council members? All right. With that, I will entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Vice Mayor.

I move to approve items on the consent section with the exception of 26-0701. Second.

Seconded by Mr. Engelke. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Aye. Passes unanimously. All right, we will move on to 26-0701. Mr. Howard, you pulled this item if you'd like to briefly introduce it.

yeah i uh this item addresses uh vital um which i'm not opposed to but um i think in light of everything that's going on with the with the airport we're hearing from residents that um i think that we need to have all hands on deck and that includes our airport director our city manager and staff and council to make sure that we're not getting distracted um and focusing on electric flying apparatus from A to B.

Do you have a motion?

I would move that we postpone this MOU to a later date and also that council be provided a more comprehensive understanding of how this would impact the airport itself and also our residents.

Okay, seconded by Mr. Smith. And then, Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak? I wouldn't imagine you would. I don't. Okay. Then we'll move to council discussion. I've got three names on my list right now. So, Mr. Howard, are you good? Okay. Mr. Bolt?

Yes. Thank you. I think I just want to put it on the record that I don't think that I can disagree with Mister Howard on this one. I think we've heard enough in public comment already to say nothing of the emails that we've received that there's grave concern and there needs to be. So we need to keep our eye on the ball. However, having said that, I also believe that it's really important as one of the major small airports in the area that we have a seat at this table ultimately. because we don't want the FAA coming back to us at some point and saying, okay, well, this is what we've decided. This is what it's going to be. So I think ultimately, while it is maybe really important to put this on hold for now, I do hope that it will come back to us once things get cleared out a little bit and we have a better understanding, we get closer to the end of the year and our master plan being finished, so that we can make an intelligent decision as to whether we want a seat at this table or not. But firmly, I believe that I'd rather be at the table than away from the table. Thank you.

Mr. City Manager?

Thank you, Mayor. Just wanted to kind of clarify what the intent of this MOU is. So this is an emerging technology that is coming. Now, it's not coming tomorrow, probably five, 10 years down the road, but it is something the FAA is actively working on. And what that means is at some point in the future, the FAA will be giving us guidance, directives, and eventually mandates on how we need to provide infrastructure for this technology. So it is coming. We will be at some point in time mandated to participate in this network across our state. So the purpose of the task force is to sit down with our colleagues at the county level, Sarasota Airport, our other cities, and talk about the questions, because there's a lot of questions out there on how this would work, where the network would be, and start getting answers to that question. It doesn't commit us to anything, doesn't obligate the city to anything. It's just about getting the facts and researching for future planning purposes. Thank you.

Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mayor. I seconded this because I'm very disappointed. I thought we had won the trust of the airport neighbors, and now I feel like we've lost it again. And for that reason, I think we shouldn't have something like this on the consent agenda, which means there'll be no discussion. So I'm happy for us to discuss it. I'd be happy to hear a presentation about it. And perhaps it's something that we will wholeheartedly endorse, but I don't think we can afford to do things without being transparent. without having open discussions about them anymore on airport matters in the environment that we're in, so thank you.

Thank you I agree that potentially this could be a great topic for the hopeful airport workshop that will be approved later on our agenda today and I do have significant concerns that if we do not eventually participate in this task force with the other partners in Sarasota Manatee counties that then we cannot advocate for the residents who have concerns as obviously changes in the technology are coming down the coming down the pipe. So I would just hope that we would have a seat at the table and I would hope that we would be able to advocate for the residents. And when we are not able to have our staff on the task force to understand what's changing, it puts us at a disadvantage. So I agree, as long as we can discuss this in the near future and hopefully give staff's blessing to proceed to be a part of this.

Mr. Engelke?

Thank you. I agree with my colleagues. We need to have a seat at the table. This is going to be a topic of discussion for the next 10 years and maybe five, maybe 15. But I think it's important that we as a community are out front in front with the technology, with what could be impacting us. Right now we have a lot of discussion about the airport. So timing wise is probably, it's in between, at least for me. But I, I do feel that we need to stay out in front on this and we need to communicate clearly to everybody in this room and to everybody in our community and the surrounding environment. I think we need to make sure we do not lose this and my suggestion would be perhaps putting it on the agenda for a topic of discussion shortly not within one month 2 months, but not 6 years either so that's kind of where I am thanks.

All right, Mister city manager, I have some questions so so in reviewing the memorandum my understanding was that this is just like any other. I don't want to say task force because we don't do it very often, but any other committee we would serve on. And when I read the agreement, it said that this wasn't going to be binding. It was really just to have our voice. And there's a host of other cities participating all the way from Bradenton Beach down to City of Northport and organizations that don't even have an airport. So if you could just clarify for me a little bit better, is this simply just another committee like the the hundreds of other committees we have or is this going to lock us into any are we giving are we giving the the faa guidance on what we want to see are are we are we giving staff the ability to communicate for the council as to our wishes for the future you're exactly right i mean this committee is really so we can go out and get the answers and get the facts on what this future technology is going to look like you know you're

opinion on the technology for anyone is not really relevant at this point in the game because we don't even really understand what this would mean for Venice. So this is to work with our partners to get those answers so we can bring them back. Does not obligate us to any infrastructure, doesn't obligate us to spend any money or any future projects, but those Future questions are gonna come up, is my message to you. This technology, whether we participate in the task force or not, is not going away and it's going to end up in our lap at some point in the future. So my recommendation is let's be as prepared as we can be when it does come our way. But happy to give a presentation if that would make council feel more comfortable with the technology.

So I just want to highlight my concerns for my colleagues is to me, this is nothing more than us participating on the council of governments. Um, you know, the TDC, the economic development, all these different committees that we serve on aren't making binding decisions for the council. They're just so that we have a voice at the table. Uh, so I grow concerned that I understand how, how. how cautious we need to be with the airport and make sure that we're listening to the citizens. I'm just concerned that we're tying two items together that don't necessarily relate to each other. I mean, since I've been on council, we've been talking about seeking grant funding for the tower. And I remember in, I think it was after COVID, maybe 2022-ish, that we had discussion about pursuing grant funding for this. So it's not something new that just came up yesterday. But I don't even see this as an item that relates to that. So I'm just concerned that we're going to be lumping everything airport into one silo and lose a seat at the table. So that's just my only concern is I don't want us to be absent from any discussions that may impact us.

Mr. Howard. Yeah, thanks, Mayor. And I appreciate the comments that my colleagues have made. And trust me, I don't have anything against VTOL. It is the future. It's kind of Star Wars if you want to think about it that way. It's a very quiet delivery system. These are electric. I think the ultimate goal will be unmanned. So there's no pilot in these things. And they fly from point A to point B with people or products. It takes congestion off the roads. They're relatively quiet. Some are like weed whackers. Have you ever heard these little drones flying around? Well, picture this thing as a big drone. And so I'm not opposed to VTOLs, and I'm definitely not opposed to having a seat at the table. My focus is more on where the focus is at the airport right now, and I want Nick and staff to be focused on what my colleague said about it feels like we've lost trust of the community again. And we worked really hard. I think it was a great presentation that was given before we went on break. And I think everybody was embracing that. And yeah, our emails are blowing up. I read every single one of them. I've spoken to many of our residents. Some are here in the audience today. I think I'm speaking for the entire council and staff. We want to do what's right for the residents and for the airport, and there's just a lot of moving parts. So I just want the focus to be on what's at hand, what's on deck today. I don't want our airport director going to a meeting about a VTOL right now. We've got bigger fish to fry that we should be focused on, in my opinion. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, with that, Madam Clerk, if you'll ready us for an electronic vote. And council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote.

And it passes five to two.

All right, with that, we will take a 15 minute and come back at 1020. Okay, we are back and we are on to public hearings. Unfinished business. Madam Attorney, I believe you have an update for us on this one.

Yes. So yesterday afternoon we received a request from the applicant that the hearing not be held. They would like to revise their application to resolve some of the issues that were brought forward by the appellant. And so they are asking that we have this remanded back to staff.

okay then uh with that and i should also add i'm sorry that the uh appellate is aware of this and and staff is aware of it as well and no one has an issue with that outcome okay then with that i'll move to vacate planning commission's order and um remand petition 25-40 sp back to staff for amendment and further review sorry two six uh dash Do I have the number right, Madam Attorney?

26 or 26? 25-40SP is the actual application number.

25-40SP, okay. Second. Seconded by Vice Mayor Bolt. Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No, I don't.

Okay, any council discussion? Seeing none, then Madam Clerk, if you're ready, ask for an electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And go ahead and tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. And I'll just remind the audience that we can hear everything you're saying up here, including curse words. So please be respectful in the audience and if you're having an issue with the speaker system, get with the clerk's office so we can get you a part of the loop recording system and a speaker box. You have a point of order? I do. Okay. Point of order, Mayor.

I'd like to restate my vote on our last, my own motion, which I voted on incorrectly.

Okay, so we're back to 26-0701? That's correct. All right, Madam Attorney, how would we remedy his wish to restate his vote?

I actually need to look up Robert's Rules of Orders on that to tell you the proper procedure.

All right, we're gonna take a five minute break. We'll be back at 28 after. Okay, we are back. And Mr. Howard has a motion to, or you can make a motion to amend your vote on 26-0701. If you want to make that motion.

Well, he doesn't have to make a motion. It's really just a request. I believe you voted no and you intended to vote yes. Is that the situation? Okay. So that's his request. So if there's no objection from anyone else on council, then his vote can stand as adjusted to the yes versus no.

Any members of council object to Mr. Howard's request? Okay. Seeing none, then we'll go ahead and let the record reflect that Mr. Howard is voting in favor of the motion, so it is a six to one. Okay.

And I'd like to apologize to everyone in the chambers and everyone listening. Sometimes passion creates Freudian slips, and I just had one.

All right, moving on now, we will go to Ordinance's final reading, ordinance number 2026-22. Public hearing is now open. And Madam Clerk, when you're ready, if you can go ahead and read this title, by title only, please.

An ordinance of the city of Venice, Florida amending the code of ordinances chapter 87 land development code by amending section 2.4.3 residential uses, adding section 6.11 certified recovery residences and amending section 9.1 defined terms. Pursuant to text amendment petition 26-22 AM to establish procedures for the review and approval of recovery residences and a process for requests for reasonable accommodations from land use regulations, providing for repeal of all ordinances in conflict herewith, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

And do we have any written communications since the last hearing?

No.

All right. And is there an update from staff since the last hearing? No. No, sir. Okay. Madam Clerk, anybody signed up to speak?

No.

Public hearing is now closed, and I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Vice Mayor.

I move that ordinance number 2026-22 be approved and adopted. I'll second.

Seconded by Mr. Engelke. Any council discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you already asked for an electronic vote, council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. We will move on to ordinance number 2026-23. Public hearing is now open. And Madam Clerk, when you're ready, you can go ahead and read this ordinance by title only.

An ordinance of the City of Venice, Florida amending the code of ordinances chapter 87 land development code by amending section 1.9.3 specific application requirements amending and renumbering section 1.10 preliminary plat quasi-judicial application. Amending section 3.1.1 building height. section 3.1.2 black configuration requirements section 3.1.4 building placement requirements 3.1.9 accessory uses and structures section 3.5.2 exempt signs section 3.6.1 off street parking table 3.6.1 and 3.6.6, parking requirements by use. Section 3.6.5, design standards. Section 3.8.1, purpose and applicability. Section 3.8.3, fences and walls. materials and design standards section 3.8.4 height of fences and walls section 7.8.1 certificate of architectural compliance section 7.10.9 fences and walls and section 9.1 defined terms pursuant to text amendment petition 25-12am to resolve issues discovered through the implementation of the land development code providing for repeal all ordinances in conflict herewith, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

All right. Madam Clerk, have we received any written communication since last hearing?

None.

All right. And do we have a staff update on this one?

No, sir, unless there's any questions.

I actually do have some questions specific to the signage, temporary signs and such.

Good morning.

Good morning.

For the record, Nicole Tremblay, Senior Planner for the City of Venice. What questions do you have?

I was waiting for it, the introduction. So I've received some feedback as it relates to, it sounds like it's political sign related. We're in political season, so it makes sense. That our code is more strict than Sarasota County and Manatee County. And I'm just curious. It sounds like we have a kind of a square footage based on the size of the building and and some things that that make it a little bit complicated. And I wanted to see if we could we could discuss that. And if there's any merit to the idea of being a little closer to the county code so as to avoid confusion, confusion during this time, because, you know, one of the big reasons that I'll say this carefully, one of the reasons that we went along with the voter referendum and kind of changed our terms, and when they coincide, it was a lower hanging fruit, but it was because we go through this every year where there's political signs all over town. So it was going to be nice to have a little time off, but at the same time, I don't want to reduce anybody's freedom or ability to properly advertise their campaign so that we're being more strict than somebody else.

okay so I don't know the county's code off the top of my head but the sign standards related to the size of the building and things like that are for permanent signs so a temporary sign now they're not explicitly political because we're not able to determine the content that way. But the temporary signs, it says, may not exceed three square feet for a residential property. or oh you know I apologize if you're going to put it at a non-residential property you do have one square foot per linear foot of building so we typically see them in residential I apologize but I can look up the county's code and bring it back either later this later today or at the next meeting

So I would ask you, is it better for us procedurally to get through, because there's a lot of things on this that I'd like to just see us get through, and perhaps I put this on the agenda to readdress this specific item at another meeting?

That would be fine with me if we want to pull just this item and talk about it again later.

I'm okay with doing that, and I'll put it on a future agenda.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that, you know, I don't want to stop the train on some of these other things that are pretty common sense, but on this particular one, I have received feedback, and I want to make sure that we... at least address the feedback in a proper way whether it's no we like being more strict or whether we want to come in line with the county's code whatever it might be i just want to make sure that we do that properly and give the residents their opportunity to speak to it okay okay yeah that sounds fine with me

Mr. Mayor, for the record, Roger Clark, Planning and Zoning Director. So I want to make sure I understand. You're going to pull this on individual amendment and let the other ones be approved. If that's your plan, I have a little issue with that because that's going to eliminate the 90 days that we have that this is changing to, which I know was something that was originally requested.

So my plan was actually to let this go the way it is and then just kind of put you on notice gently. that I'm going to bring this back at another agenda so that we can talk about finite details of that specific piece of the code and make some changes to that. I don't want to delay the process. I don't see the need since we're on our second hearing and we're kind of at the finish line. But I do want to readdress this since it's now been brought up. So I'll put it on the next agenda, and we can isolate that particular item. But as far as today, I would like to just move forward as is with all of us on the same page now that I have had some conversation, and we do need to look at it a little tighter.

Okay. I understand. I just wanted to lose that 90 days that we had put in place.

No, I don't want to stop the train. I just want to make sure that I'm on the record for saying I've received some feedback, and I think we need to address it at a later date. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay, with that, anyone else have any questions of staff? Okay. Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No.

Then with that, we'll close the public hearing. And I'll go ahead and move that ordinance number 2026-23 be approved and adopted. Seconded by Mr. Howard. Any council discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you'll make us ready for an electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. Okay. We're now on to new business ordinances, ordinance number 2026-24. Madam Clerk, when you are ready, you can go ahead and read this ordinance by title only, please.

An ordinance amending city of Venice ordinance number 2025 dash 32 as previously amended, which adopted the official budget of the city of Venice, Florida for the fiscal year beginning October 1 2025 and ending September 30th 2026 by increasing the total revenue by 6476400 and total expenditures by 6476400 and providing an effective date.

And Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No.

All right, with that, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Becker? Mr. Engelke?

I move to approve ordinance number 202624 on first reading and schedule it for final reading.

Seconded by Vice Mayor Bolt. Any council discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you'll make us ready for an electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you may indicate your vote. And Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. All right, we are on to resolutions. Resolution number 2026-15. And Madam Clerk, when you're ready, you can go ahead and read this resolution by title only, please.

A resolution of the City of NS Florida accepting utilities and improvements installed by Southwest Florida Retirement Center Inc. and accepting a one-year developer's maintenance bond and bill of sale, providing an effective date.

And Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No.

All right, then with that, I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor. I move the resolution number 2026-15 be approved and adopted.

Second. Seconded by Ms. Frank. Any council discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you're ready, ask for an electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. We are now on to presentations. Presentation 26-0702. And this is Finance Director Linda Ceni with her quarterly financial update. Miss Senny, if you'd like to come down.

Good morning, Mayor and Council, Linda Seny, Finance Director. This is the quarterly financial report as of June 30th, so it's nine months into fiscal year 26. So as of today, it's the number one on there, the property tax revenue. We've collected 100% of our budget amount at this point in time, which is, we always generally collect our money by June 30th for the property taxes for the fiscal year. The fire and insurance premium tax, which is the number two, is as of now it's zero. We generally get that money in August or later in September, so that shows zero collections. Our communication taxes is slightly below at 74%, because at this point in time we should be at 75%, so that's just slightly below. The utility service tax is slightly, that's the one that's above at 82%. That's the number four, 82% at this point in time. The franchise fees are at 81%, which is the number five. Licenses and permits are below target at, they're just at $239,000. The majority of that is business tax receipts, it makes up 29,805. And the majority of those licenses come in August and September. That's again where we get the money in August and September for business tax receipts. And then the other bigger part is the zoning and permits certifications, which makes up 168,048 at this point in time. Seven, the investment income, we are higher above than what we, sorry, the seven is the intergovernmental revenues. And the city received, for the first year, $265,000 under an ICE agreement that we have. And then we also received $298,000 from FEMA as reimbursements that are due to Hurricanes Ian and Milton. So some of those are way back from Hurricane Ian. So that goes to show you how long it takes sometimes to get our money reimbursed from FEMA. And then also our state revenue sharing is on target, slightly above at 76%. And the government have sent sales taxes right on target at 75%. And those are all the number sevens that you see in red. And then for charges for services, they're slightly below target at 74% and the EMS transport fees are right at 74% also. So number nine is the investment earnings. So we are above target at this point in time. We've collected more than what we have budgeted for this. We budgeted so we're above that dollar amount by 100%. For miscellaneous revenues for the first nine months, we're already above the budgeted amount for the entire year. The second quarter, which was in the March quarter, is when we received the contribution from the Venice Peer Group. And then also our other miscellaneous revenue includes a bank rebate of almost $67,000 that we get for the city using the purchasing card. We get a rebate back from the bank when we use our P-card. And then also we had $87,000 of insurance settlements this year so far. So general fund expenses. They are projected at where we expect them to be at this point in time. They're tracking well. There's only one department, that's the one that we have in pink, which that was also noted on the last quarterly report. That exceeds the 75% target, and that's due to the $5 million that we paid to Sarasota County for the Wellfield Park. So I'm gonna go back to this page. The ending fund balance of September 30th, 35.3 million, that's this number right here. That was September 30th, 25, and we had a project rollover of 2.1. So at the end of fiscal 26, we're expecting that the fund balance will be up to 29 million. And then I'm just gonna make a note, when you see the proposed budget of that net revenues, on the far right column, the negative 800,000. That's what we had at the proposed budget, when we did the proposed budget, and that was for that $800,000 transfer into the new fleet and operating fund we're going to make. So when I'm talking this afternoon, or the next session, the next part when I'm talking about the changes since then, this is the number that slightly changes, just so that you're aware. Cuz you won't see this whole thing unless you want me to bring it back up again. When I go over the changes from the proposed budget, that's later on the agenda. This $800,000 number is the final number that changes. So when I'm talking about the change, that'll be that change. So when you see the net revenues number, it's slightly different than the $800,000 now for the fiscal 27 proposed budget. So any questions to date on the general fund?

Mr. Smith?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for that report. It's a lot to take in. And I look forward to the discussion later where what's changed with the funding of these positions that we wanted to add. But Mike my question is something I've asked before about the FEMA money because you say some more came in. Now if I understand correctly there's still a whole bunch more we're hoping to get. Could you talk about that. And was I think in the next budget we didn't show any revenue from FEMA because we can't be sure it's coming, but you told me there was a big number we were hoping to get. And was this another number that The money we just got from FEMA, was that something we didn't budget this year? Correct.

It was not budgeted. We don't generally budget because they tell us that we're not sure you're going to get any money. We submit projects, and then they, like one with an Ian project that was, what is it, Ian, three years ago. So then they just determine whether they're going to fund the project or not. Right. So we don't budget generally for that revenue. Not sure if we're going to actually get reimbursed for it. right but the money we did just get it wasn't budgeted and it changes how much we need to find in the budget to fund these changes we wanted to make is that correct well that increases the bottom line when i say the estimated um dollar amount because when we did the report in when i did the report in march i estimated that the Fund balance would be $28.4 million. So now I'm estimating it'll be $29 million because we have the revenue increase.

So we're basically rolling that money over into the reserve. Correct, correct, correct. Rather than using it for...

Correct, correct. So it increases the... your ending savings reserve amount. Because when I did the budget, when I did this in March, I estimated that that time was $28.4 million, and now the estimate is going to be $29.1 million. Okay.

So we're just banking it, is what you're telling me?

Correct.

Okay. And then could you tell me again, at this point, since that's now changed, how much money we're hoping to get still from FEMA, even though we have no guarantees, we're in the process of Trying to get repaid for work we did.

We got reimbursed for all the, which went into the solid waste fund for the debris. We got reimbursed for debris. So that's all done for Ian, and for Milton, and for Helene. So all that money is reimbursed, but that went into the solid waste fund because the expenses came out of the solid waste fund, picking up the debris. Maybe another one to two million. Max, but it doesn't all go in the general fund. Some of its utilities fund and some could be stormwater fund. So probably one to two million maybe. Okay, thank you. At the high end.

Thank you. Ms. Frank.

Thank you could you expand a little bit on the stormwater fund for 80. Particularly because I believe you know it's healthy reserve according to memo here on page 6 it talks about the non earmarked working capital balance dropping a 5.2 million but you say it's still well above target levels just because I believe it potentially could be germane to our conversation later. about Curry Creek Deer Town Gully and update on all of those efforts I just want to fully understand where our stormwater fund is at and maybe what you mean by well above Target levels okay let me pull that fund up stormwater okay for stormwater because they've had um here's stormwater

Because they're in the middle of some of the projects that aren't encumbered yet, but they have some projects that they're working on. But when you look at this part right up here, when you see expenses to date for some of these projects, there is no money yet spent to date. for some of the storm water projects. So at the end when you look at the overall fund, when we say it's above target because we estimate, they're estimating at the end of fiscal 26 what we're expecting. That the working capital would be, we have 5.2 total expenses and then with an estimate of 2.9 million that would be basically in reserves that they could use for other projects. That's what we're expecting at the end of September.

Okay, because in the memo it says the 2.9 million is earmarked for water quality projects. You're saying separate than that earmark you believe.

Well, I say it's earmarked for water quality because everything in the stormwater has to go to stormwater projects. Like it can't be spent on some other projects. So we just say that whole dollar amount, the 2.9 million that's above our required reserve is available for water projects, any stormwater type project.

Very helpful.

Thank you, Linda.

Mr. Engelke, did you have a hand up?

Any other questions on any other funds?

Okay. Looks like it. Thank you so much. And then Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak on this?

Nope.

Okay. Then we will move on to Council Action Discussion 26-0703, and this is to appoint a member to the Citizen Tax Oversight Committee to serve a term from September 1, 2026 to August 31, 2023. Madam Clerk, do you have any more introduction than that?

No. Okay.

All right. Then do we have anybody signed up to speak on it?

No.

Do I have a Councilmember that would like to make a motion? Mister mayor Mister vice mayor.

I move to appoint Payton the whip to the citizen tax oversight committee to serve a term from September 1st 2026 to August 31st 2030 and all second that so with that any council discussion.

Seeing none madam clerk if you'll make us ready for an electronic vote council members when you like to flashing you can indicate your vote. Madam Clerk, you can tally and display. Passes unanimously. Thank you to Peyton DeWitt for volunteering for that. And we will move on to 26-0704. And this is to appoint two members to the Historic and Architectural Preservation Board to serve a term from September 1st, 2026 to August 31st, 2029. Madam Clerk, did you have anything in addition to add to that? I don't. Okay. Then do we have anybody signed up to speak?

No.

I will entertain a motion from a council member.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Howard.

Move to appoint Gene Trammell to the Historic Archipelago Preservation Board to serve a term from September 1st of 26 to August 31st of 29. Second.

Did you want to do the end or? Give me a minute. How many minutes do you need? Just one. Okay, 60 seconds.

I move to appoint John Pretty good. To the Historic and Architectural Preservation Board to serve a term from September 1, 26 to August 31st of 2029.

I'll second it. All right, so with that, any council discussion? All right, Madam Clerk, we have a proper motion of both names and a proper second. We can go ahead and take a electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And you can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. We'll go ahead and take a seven minute break and then we will return. Okay, we are back. if i can get everyone to quiet down for me we are at 26-0705 which is airport workshop scheduling that is the next item on the agenda mr city manager if you'd like to introduce the topic please

Thank you mayor. Um, as you know, we have a couple things happening at the airport this fall. Uh, we are actively working towards the finalization of our master plan. It is almost done. It's been, it'll end up being about three years in the making. Um, We've gone above and beyond the number of public meetings required, and we'll be picking those public meetings back up in October. I think it's very important, today's a great demonstration of that, that we do everything we can to get the real story out there, make sure everyone feels informed, and clear up any questions that there are related to the airport. And there's just unfortunately a lot of things happening at the same time. And I appreciate that and I recognize the concerns that come along with that. The flip side is we, as you all know, are stewards of the airport and subject to the FAA federal regulations. So with that comes a lot of restrictions to our authority. So the purpose of this workshop would be before we kick off the public meetings to finish the master plan, I'd like to bring in our aviation attorney, Chris Wilson. He is an expert on aviation law. He's a teacher at Embry-Riddle University, and he can speak to the FAA rules and regulations firsthand. I had the privilege of meeting with the FAA in person about a month ago, first time I had that privilege, and hearing from them firsthand what we can do and what we can't do was very eye-opening. So I believe bringing Mr. Wilson here to speak to those regulations will give you all a much better idea of what our authorities are, our capabilities are as we move towards closing out this master plan. It's gonna be a very difficult process to bring this to a close. I think we all recognize that. And just because there are these FAA regulations doesn't mean we don't have any power. and Chris can help us to navigate where are areas we can advocate and we can make leave our fingerprints on this master plan and do things for the community like we've committed to. And where are things that we cannot, frankly, because of federal law. So he'll help us navigate that. He'll take questions. We can ask him the hard questions. We can ask him about the festival grounds. We can talk about the golf course. We can talk about noise and environment. Whatever we want to talk about, I think it would be a very healthy exercise. So my request to you today is, number one, do you want to hold this council workshop? And number two, what would be a good date to get that scheduled?

And is there more of a presentation than that or is that pretty much sum everything up.

That sums everything up unless you know I'm happy to dive into any questions you have I'd love to talk if there's time a little bit about some of the the misinterpretation of the tower that we've we've heard from today, but I'll leave that for your discussion there.

Any questions of Mister clinch. Mister Ingle key.

I love the idea of scheduling a workshop. uh to hear from the attorney i think it's going to clear up a lot of um concerns a lot of misconceptions and kind of outline what we can and cannot do so i'm highly encouraged that we have that opportunity miss frank

Thank you. Again, in favor of scheduling this workshop, I believe the dates floated were in October. Is there anything you can educate us on relating to the special events and the festival grounds from the public comment concerns we heard today? Because I feel like October is a long way to wait for clarity on that particular issue.

Sure. We can address that right now. I met with the FAA directly a month ago, and we asked them point blank about the Festival Grounds. The Festival Grounds has always been part of the airport and has FAA oversight. It is intended for aeronautical use at some point in the future. The FAA made that very clear. At some point in the future, that area will be used for aeronautical activities, which is and will be reflected in our master plan. The FAA understood because I expressed the importance of this location to our community. We actually generate revenue by having events there and there's nothing happening out there right now, right? There's nothing on the books. There's no leases coming your way anytime soon. So there's really no reason to preclude events from happening there. And they were very open to that. The concern and the reason why our department reached out earlier this year is we had received some correspondence from FAA with concerns about the festival grounds. They don't want to see any more improvements there. They don't want to see any more non-aeronautical investments in that area because they know at some point in time that will be aeronautical expansions. And they made that very clear. So I think we've put to rest with them that in the meantime, these festivals are a very positive thing, but we wanted to be transparent with our event holders because, and we've learned this in the past with the FAA, they could send a letter at any point in time that says you have 90 days to vacate the festival grounds. This isn't a non aeronautical activity. I don't anticipate that's going to happen, but it's important that our event holders know that is always a possibility that's on the table. So that's what we communicated to them, but I hope after our meetings with the FAA recently, we can give them a little more confidence that we will give you every authority we have to schedule and hold your event. If a federal authority above us says we can't, that's out of all of our hands, so just be aware of that.

Mister Howard. Just echoing my colleagues total support James of of having this workshop. I think it's a great idea to make sure we're educated as possible with what the FAA does and their authority, our authority or not. And thank you, Rachel, for clarifying the fairgrounds. I know that is special to a lot of a lot of residents and event holders. It's in there.

And then Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm very happy we're gonna set, it seems like everybody's in favor, of a workshop. Originally, Mr. City Manager, I had asked if we could have the FAA, actually some representative, be here so that we could ask questions. And I wanted to do that because so often our answer is, Well, the FAA won't let us do that. And I just want to ask him, can we do this? It was interesting that earlier today, one of the speakers said that there's a new statement by the FAA that they can approve non-aviation uses. That fascinates me. I know nothing about it except what I just heard and everybody else here heard. But I'd like to know if that is the case and if we can formally designate some areas with their approval for non-aviation uses because we have some that we'd like to have for sure. But I believe you told me they declined our invitation to be a part of this, is that right?

That is correct. It was not personal to Venice. They were and I asked them point blank if they'd be interested in and willing to come speak to our council. They said they have policy. They don't do that. That's all they would end up doing all day, every day, and they have another job to do. They were, however, very supportive and actually referenced Mr Wilson directly and said, You know what? He we work with him regularly. He knows our rules. He will speak to your questions just as the same as if we were. So that was their recommendation.

Right, and I thank you. And I thank you for your suggestion that we have our attorney, who you said graduated from the aeronautical school himself and knew the FAA rules better than anybody, to be at our workshop. So I thank you for that. And maybe he can answer some of the very questions I would like to have asked the FAA. But I think the workshop has taken on a whole different light response to presentations made today the vice the mayor-elect I'm not gonna call you vice mayor anymore mayor-elect pointed out all the emails he's gotten on the concerns over what seems to be an evolving idea of what was once a poll and cameras to becoming something that would be a locally based you know, flight control operation, and now even possibly a separate additional building to the terminal building to house up to five city employees. So the dismay we've heard from the public and from even members of the Citizen Advisory Council for the master plan has me very... concern that we need to have a discussion about all that it is the right place for that discussion at this workshop will be opportunity to have that conversation at that workshops what I want to ask.

Yes, I think that workshop, you know what my original intent is to bring in Mister Wilson's we can get a presentation asking questions, I think the remote tower. which I need to speak to you here in a moment, but if the grant is successful on the remote tower, I think at that point we'll be able to have a meaningful discussion on what this remote tower is gonna look like. So that would be the perfect time. Our airport director's in the back, and I'm sure he would be more than happy to put together a presentation on the remote tower, of which we'll have a lot more answers at that point. So I'd love to speak just a little bit more on that topic when it's appropriate.

Okay, and if I can just ask this, I just feel like we couldn't really have a citizen panel working with us on adopting a 10-year master plan without them knowing that this existed, that we were pursuing this, which is that they didn't have any knowledge of it. I didn't have any knowledge of it. And it's very different than, you know, we saw that little video where we're saying it's just a poll. It reminds me of that old thing they did in grammar school. It's just a bill. I'm just a bill. And it's not anything until, you know, it gets signed by the mayor or the president. And the group we recruited as a citizen advisory board to the master plan conversation, I think every single person on this council attended the meeting at the community center with 250 people and it was never mentioned that this was the direction we were gonna take. So that's my big concern is the transparency and the leaving people who are on an advisory board feeling like they were not informed or misled. And then to a certain extent that I was misled because somebody accused me of being to blame for all this because I've been out there saying it's just a poll and a camera and there's nothing about expanding the airport. Stop saying we're expanding the airport. And some people told me that they ramped down because I was telling them that. But I was telling them what I was being told. And I feel, to a certain extent, let down that I was put in that position. And so I'm aghast, and I apologize to everybody for anything I told them that was short of what is reality. So I do look forward to your addressing that.

Thank you. Let's go ahead. And Madam Clerk, if you'll reorder, put Vice Mayor Bolt up ahead of mine, and we'll let Vice Mayor go first.

Thank you. It is distressing to listen to the public. It is distressing to listen to all of this. simply because for anybody that's worked with the federal government, which we all have in some way, shape, or form, whether it's paying our taxes or otherwise, you know there's no easy answer. And there's usually not even a straight answer. And so I'm not here to defend anybody, but the reality is that this is kind of a moving target, shall we say. What we think we should have And what the FAA tells us we need to have can be two entirely different things. And I think, you know, I'm, I'm not putting words in James' mouth because I don't really know the answer, but I get the impression from our discussions that, um, you have to approach this from different ways, depending on what you're after. Is it, you just need a tower for safety or do you need a grant? for a tower? Well, if you're asking for a grant, you have to substantiate that. And I think that's a lot of what we've seen in the report that went to the FAA, trying to substantiate the need. Now, do I agree with all the wording? Of course not. Because it does sound like we're trying to expand the airport. And I can tell you from my standpoint here, that is not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for safety. I would just, you know, I'm all for this workshop. I look forward to it. I think it'll be a great opportunity for us to get with Mr. Attorney Wilson and try to get some clarity on what we're allowed to do, what we're not allowed to do. Because I really get the feeling that it's just like every other federal government situation is, well, today it's this, but tomorrow it could be this. So I would just ask everybody to just bear that in mind that, you know, what our staff is trying to do is put together a program that gets us where we need to be. However, you know, that may require them to say some things that aren't necessarily, I don't want to say untrue, but aren't necessarily what we in total are looking for. I'm all for this and the sooner the better. Thank you.

So I have a few points of clarity and this is where things get complicated is we have a lot of discussions, we get a lot of feedback. But unfortunately, unless it's a motion made by the council and voted on, then it's not official. So I think that perhaps looking at some of our previous information sheets and making sure that all of the data to date is correct is another important piece to this puzzle. But I'm reminded now specifically because the minutes are in front of me, when we were discussing this back in May of 2022, and we were having a discussion about the master plan and it needing to be updated. And I was then vice mayor and I actually made the motion to move up the master planning process because we were afraid we were going to be too far behind. So again, having a plan in place is the most important thing so that we know what's coming and what to expect. But at no point in time did we ever promote, discuss, encourage expansion. beyond the current footprint of the airport. So I think that's important that we highlight that because I'm reminded by reading through the motion here specifically that we said, well, we rather, instead of this coming out of our general fund or our taxpayer dollars, we rather get a grant for this because we know it's coming. And it was very clear by these minutes that this was the presentation. We were gonna be getting some form of a tower, whether it was remote. At the time, I think we were even talking about a traditional FAA staff tower. but we had the forethought to say we want to make sure we apply for grants so that we don't have to take it out of our general fund. So that said, I'm absolutely in favor of transparency and I think having workshops is very important, but I think it's important that people understand that when we have these workshops and we listen to all the feedback, that doesn't make it the actual direction moving forward like this does. When the council actually makes a motion and approves that motion, and this is a unanimous I wasn't mayor at the time but but everybody on the council at that time had agreed to move forward with pursuing grant funding for that tower so I think that's important that we're talking back to 22 this has actually been a very long process if you look back at the timeline and it probably even started before me but that said I do have a concern as it relates to the date for the workshop Having just gone through this in the primary election, I'm very concerned that we would be doing a workshop in the middle of early voting. So with all the candidates for seat two and two candidates for another seat, I just think it's important that we not take away from those individuals the ability to participate. So I would say that we need to look at something that's more October 15th would be my suggestion. I don't know how that fits into staff's timeline but I would caution before we solidify a date here that we look at what's going on during that time because you'll have early voting and then you'll have the election and then of course things could change on the council as far as who's actually officially on the council but I would like everybody to have the opportunity to participate so I think we need to look at the week before early voting so we're not taking that away from anybody.

Mister clinch any any comments or objections to that not at all, I mean I think more than ever moving it sooner is a good thing for us and we'll just have to confirm with Mister Wilson to make sure that works for his schedule so if you want to give us authority to work with the city clerk with the you're all schedules we can work with Mister Wilson to find a date that works.

Yes, so as of right now, I mean my my proposal to the council would be October 15th. because I think you have Make a Difference Day happening the next day and then you have that weekend and then it's early voting starting that weekend. The other thing is I'd like to give you an opportunity to kind of speak to some of these things that we're talking about. I specifically... I'm going to need to remind everybody, this is probably the third or fourth time, if we could take our cell phones and put them on silent so that we can have uninterrupted discussion, I think that's very important. I'd like you to take a minute, Mr. Clinch, and just kind of talk about some of these concerns that have been brought up because I specifically remember a time when we were talking about Laurel Road. I just come on to Council we were talking about a public private partnership everybody out on the North East side was in favor then we had a group come in I think they just moved into town and it kind of built up and then all of a sudden we want to pump the brakes on it and then it came back to the Council hey we want to move forward on the expansion of little road and it's very complicated as a as a council member because you're trying to listen to your constituency so I'm I specifically remember looking at the audience at that time and saying I want to very cautiously move forward on this because we've already had two different pump the brakes conversations. And if you guys really want us to move forward, I'm going to need to hear it from a lot of people that we're moving forward on this so that I'm not pumping the brakes on something again. And I'm kind of reliving that with the airport. I mean, we've definitely had concerns over time. Since I was a kid, we've talked about having the airport relocated across town and in other parts of the state. I'm not trying to minimize anyone's concerns, but at the same time, the master plan should be for us to have a plan so that we can see what's coming. It should not be for us to do any expansions, to do anything that's going to drive more growth at the airports. And I've been very vocal about that since the beginning of this, so I just want you to have an opportunity here to talk about some of the concerns, because I'm seeing it again in my email, and there's definitely some things that seem to be misconstrued facts or misunderstandings or whatever it might be. So if you'd like to take a minute to kind of go over some of that, I'm going to give you that opportunity.

Thank you, Mayor. Happy to. I'll start with the history which you touched on on the tower. So this did come up originally over four years ago. It was brought to our attention by VASI directly, and it still is today, all about safety. So this was a major safety concern that they brought forward to us, made a presentation to council, and we got the direction at that point in time to expedite the master plan and to pursue grant sources for a tower. at that point in time remote towers were not really well known were not authorized for use so there were was a real potential of having a brick and mortar style tower i do want to clear that up as my next topic you know what we heard today nothing has really changed with the tower it's still a remote tower that we're pursuing as it always has been a camera on top of poles, but you still have to have a place where humans are monitoring these virtual, uh, the virtual information that's coming into a control room. When I spoke to y'all in June, and this kind of goes to the root of the challenge we're having here. And, and, uh, and I certainly apologize to the community for any misinformation or misinterpretation that's happened. But while we are on breaks from council meetings, our staff are actively still working. And so there's been some changes since June that we just haven't had the opportunity to share. One of the big changes is we had hoped, and I talked about in June, we'd hoped that we'd be able to put that control room within the new administrative building that we are building that's under construction today on the airport property. Our engineers and our architects were directed to look into that, modifying the building to incorporate it. And the only way it would fit, because it's a pretty big space with all these screens and IT equipment, is if we lost the community room. Well, that community room has been something we've been promising the airport and the South Island community for years. So I was not comfortable with losing the community room and replacing it with a control room. So I asked our staff, I said, we need to go back to the drawing board. So that's where this potential other location came from. So we have to put the control room somewhere. Where could that control room be? Well, it could be offsite. It could be anywhere. It could be at our airport in another small modular building. It could be at a different airport in Tampa or Arcadia. These are decisions that have not been made yet. But as part of the grant process, they are decisions that have to be clarified and conceptualized for the FAA. So that's where this presentation came from. It was a direct response to questions that came in from the FAA as part of the grant process. So kind of going back to the history, we've talked about this remote tower for four years, talked about it at length at our February strategic planning session and got into our strategic plan and we've been lucky enough now that there is this authorized remote tower system that we can pursue. We've submitted the grant, we don't know yet if we're gonna be awarded this grant or not, but if we were, it would be a huge benefit from a safety standpoint to our airport And from a financial standpoint, it would cover virtually the entire cost of that remote tower. What I would propose and why this workshop is so important is if we hold it after we know we should hear on the grant award really within the next 30 days or so. And when we hold this workshop, we'll know if we're getting the money or not. When we know we're getting the money, we can have those more substantial conversations about how are we going to staff the tower? Do we want to have in-house controllers or do we want to contract it out? Where do we want to put the control room? There's a lot of benefits, pros and cons to all these scenarios. We just haven't gotten into that yet. So it is a little bit unfortunate that this conceptual plan is being taken out of context and used as a this is what's going to happen. That's just not true. But I'm sorry we weren't able to get ahead of it sooner. The last thing I want to say, and this is the most important thing, it's still about safety. In 2022, when this came up, it was about safety, and we are now 41% higher operations than we were in 2022. So if it was unsafe then, it's 41% more unsafe at this point in time. We've also had a study from FDOT, an engineering analysis, to say a tower is warranted for safety purposes. And I can't stress that enough. I actually loved the video clip of the statement I made because That is so true. Safety is paramount when we are running this type of operation. Unfortunately, we've had incidents, we've had fatalities at our airport, and I'm going to do everything in my authority to make sure we reduce that risk moving forward. So safety remains the most important thing. Will there be benefits for noise abatement? Absolutely. We'll have more control over the zero control we have today. So there's some ancillary benefits, but it's all about safety. Last thing I want to say is I appreciate everybody who reached out to our office yesterday with questions. We answered everybody who called in and every email that came in, and we will continue and be open to do that. But I hope that helped to at least clarify a little bit where we are today.

All right. With that, is there any other questions for Mr. Clinch? Mr. Smith.

that I first focused on yesterday when we saw emails, and again, I don't know the actual situation, so I'd ask you if you can give us a quick update, not wait until a far-off workshop. People are asking about whether we are planning to buy air rights or outright buy homes in as part of our noise abatement situation, and there was a map showing where they were gonna be, and people were saying, I live right next to that. What's going on there? Is it possible to update the public on that at this moment? And then the other one, last night I was being asked about whether we were gonna have a second fixed base operator and what is the status of that? If I could just ask those today so that people know what the situation is.

Sure, and I'm happy to tell you what I know. Our airport director's in the back if you want to get into more details. these are really separate from the tower discussion there was an exhibit in the tower grant that showed what's called the rpz the runway protection zone showed it overlapping three properties and this is really part of the master plan process so we'll be talking more about this my understanding is the faa is looking at those three properties as a hazard because they are they're in the rpz We were able to move that RPZ about 10 years ago or so, which was great. We took a lot of houses out of the danger zone by shifting the runway to the south. But there's still three properties that are within that RPZ. So I believe the FAA is looking at that going, you really need to have a plan for these properties in the future whether it's getting an easement or outright buying those properties so that's something that we will talk more about when we get into the master plan but there's no well I spoke to a couple people about this yesterday we're not actively pursuing any purchase of those properties nothing is happening at this point in time but it is a discussion that will be part of the master plan

And I think you need to just highlight on that that we're not actively pursuing eminent domain either, because I think that was a very big concern was, are you coming to take my house?

Correct. Not pursuing eminent domain, not taking any action. It is a master plan. It is the plan for the next 10 to 20 years of the airport. And then going back to a second FBO, Again, that's something that ties into the master plan. I think it's very well known at some point in time there will be a need for a second FBO, and we're looking in the master plan, and we'll really get into where these kind of things could go because, as we heard in the video clip, which is true, we do want to try to shift the more impactful operations to that far east side of the airport. So if and when an FBO were to come in, that would be the area we'd be looking at. But again, that will be talked about in more depth with the master plan. Thank you for those answers.

With that, I'm going to go ahead and make a motion then that we schedule the airport workshop. And if we could, look at the date of October 15th or, working with the clerk's office, propose a date that works with all of the council members. Seconded by Vice Mayor Bolt. Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No, we do not.

Okay, any council discussion on the motion? All right, seeing none, Madam Clerk, if you can ready us for an electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote. It passes unanimously. We do have a noon... Executive session scheduled, so I'm going to move on to the next item, and then we'll probably break after that to go to executive session. So with that, let's move on to 26-0706, and this is an item that was put on by Mr. Smith and Ms. Frank. So Mr. Smith, if you'd like to introduce the topic briefly.

Thank you, Mayor. I know you want the Introduction short and then a discussion to follow, so I'll try. I was extremely impressed with a presentation given to us over a course of two meetings by Steve Carr on this topic, and then we've since received materials from their lawyer, and so I wanted us to have a good discussion of this longstanding issue involving Curry Creek.

Okay. So with that, is there any staff input on this, Mr. Clinch?

Yes, Mayor. If it's satisfactory, I'd love to invite our city engineer up to give you an update on really the two items, one being the swap with Sarasota County on Deertown Gully and Curry Creek, and the second being the private maintenance discussion on the sawgrass section.

Okay.

Hi.

I'm like, where's our engineer? He's already up here and ready to go.

Good morning, mayor and council. For the record, John Kramer, city engineer, and I do have some exhibits for the overhead. As a reminder, you're probably familiar with this exhibit. This is showing the patchwork, fractured nature of maintenance for Curry Creek and Blackburn Canal. There are several segments here that have different entities responsible for their maintenance. Some sections, there's a different entity on the north side and the south side of the creek. The city is responsible for the portion of the yellow and green portions of Curry Creek. In an effort to consolidate the maintenance, city staff began a conversation with county staff to transfer this portion of Curry Creek from city responsibility to county and in return the city would take the responsibility for Deer Town Gully. This is the portion that the city is responsible for maintenance of Curry Creek that we would like to transfer to the county. And through that discussion, we recognized that this would also be an opportunity to resolve some right-of-way segments and easements that were never transferred in the 2014 road transfer agreement between Sarasota County and the city, but were probably believed to have been at the time. So this exhibit, and I have one more, is showing the easements and right of way that the city would assume from the county. And then here we have Deer Town Gully, the unimproved Beach Road, unimproved Circle Drive, unimproved Sunset Drive, Circle Drive north of Short Road, an unimproved alleyway in the crosswind landings easement. In addition, the city would like to take maintenance of this easement portion of Flamingo Ditch. We would like to be able to maintain that. We, city staff, have worked with the city attorney's office to draft an interlocal agreement for consideration by the county staff and then presentation to city council and the county commission. This now, since we're looking at road right of ways as well as drainage right of ways and easements, this is going to require input from the county stormwater and transportation departments they've notified us that the earliest they might consider this would be the end of this calendar year now i'm sure you're also familiar with the portion of curry creek within sawgrass that is maintained by Sawgrass. This has been about a 10-year discussion and we did receive the recent correspondence from the attorney with Sawgrass Questioning the maintenance responsibility of that portion, our city attorney has responded and there's been no change to city staff's position that Sawgrass is the responsible entity. There are currently no discussions with Sawgrass about the city potentially assuming some maintenance of this portion. If council directs staff, we can initiate some sort of discussion. I'd like to point out that council may not hear requests to assume maintenance of private infrastructure very often, but In the engineering stormwater department, we get these requests several times a week. We did analysis and if you look at the lane miles of roads within the city, the city is responsible for the maintenance of less than half the roads within the city. The rest are private roads, CDD maintained roads, county roads, state roads. And in addition, we don't have a good number of the stormwater, private stormwater infrastructure, but we believe also the city is responsible for about half or less of the stormwater infrastructure within city limits. If city staff were to start maintaining private infrastructure that would generally require an increase in our stormwater assessments. So city staff's position when we're asked to maintain private infrastructure is not to recommend approval by council in general. However, this is a policy decision that is up to council. If council directs city staff, we can look into some sort of maintenance agreement with Sawgrass.

Does that conclude your presentation? Yes. Okay. Then we'll start with Ms. Frank.

Thank you so much for refreshing our memory on county versus city versus privately maintained. First, as a quick aside, I'm thrilled that we've asked the county about potentially taking over maintenance of what I would call just north, what did you call it, Golden Beach Unit 2 easement, just north, Hibiscus, Poinsettia. I mean, that would be... amazing to have that within city control, obviously because we are all well aware of what that neighborhood went through with the storm two years ago. So to have the accountability with us and not with the county, I think would be a win for the residents in that area. So that's wonderful. In regards to Curry Creek, I hear you loud and clear that if multiple times a week the city staff has to tell individuals, no, we're not gonna assume public infrastructure, whether that's roads, pipes, etc. We can't without dramatically increasing our budget. So I would like a little bit more clarity on You know, you're the engineer, not us. Is there any broader public benefit to potentially maintaining the sawgrass section of Curry Creek? Just talk to me a little bit more in detail about the water flow in that area. Obviously, the residents are very concerned about flooding after all that we've endured over the last two years as a city. So can you talk to me a little bit about the water flow in that area and the dynamics of the sawgrass privately owned and maintained portion?

Sure. If we go back to the exhibit, you'll note that this portion of Curry Creek within Sawgrass is in the middle of the curry creek conveyance so obviously any obstruction in that portion or any area downstream could cause potential issues for residents outside of sawgrass the uh we have had discussions that during an approved state of emergency if there's some obstruction in that area or any other area of Curry Creek or Blackburn Canal, the city or county would likely do whatever it takes to resolve that. So emergency situations, I don't think there'll be anyone questioning who's responsible for the maintenance. It'll really be who can get there first and resolve that. I would like to point out that the portion of Curry Creek within Sawgrass is no longer a natural channel. There's bridge there there are houses that are adjacent to the to curry creek there and if council were considering maintaining this portion staff would recommend that this area be brought up to city standards that routine maintenance be performed there. There are some erosion spots which may threaten homes that we would want to see repaired before we would assume maintenance of that.

Very helpful, thank you.

Mr. Howard.

Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, John. On the same, I guess, lines as my colleague was talking about, I mean, I think there's definitely public benefit. And I've always, it was on my motion, it's been, seems like months ago, we directed and the council unanimously supported directing some grant dollars to go clear out, it might have been post-Ian, if my memory serves me correctly. And I think that Rachel was touching on that is the upstream properties. So if Curry Creek or in the Sawgrass section were to become occluded, then all of the properties potentially upstream from that could potentially flood. I think that there is a public benefit. I think when we all supported what we could do for Flamingo Ditch, I believe that was some definitely public benefit in that area too because flooding wasn't not restricted just to the sides of Flamingo Ditch. I'm of the opinion that, I mean, I don't know when I can make a motion, but at some point I think that my wish would be that we would basically, we need to protect the city, but it's really a flow issue, right? We want to make sure that that tributary, that outflow all the way to the Gulf of Mexico never stops flowing. I don't think, and I've been working with the, working, talking with the residents and Mr. Carr and others for two years, I think. It feels like this is one of the biggest cans we've kicked down the road and I really would like to see it resolved and I don't think that it's unreasonable to make sure that if the community of Sawgrass is willing to follow some of your suggestions with the banks, the shoring up, the erosion, where the city's responsibility would be just simply just make sure that the water's still flowing so that we don't worry about upstream flooding would certainly be my wish. Thank you, Mayor.

Mr. Smith.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you for that report. I am really excited about it.

And thank you for your invitation to us to give the staff direction to try to reach an agreement with Sawgrass to take over the routine maintenance with the provisos that you've indicated. I want to talk a little bit about that, but I also want to say right off, I was so happy to hear what you said about Flamingo Ditch. and the road trades as well. I've been wanting us to make this trade of maintenance of Curry Creek for maintenance of Deer Town Gully for a while, and I know you've been working on it for a while, just so there'd be less confusion. And that map you put up just cinches it. That's insanity, is what that is. Each little piece maintained by a different entity. So the idea of let the county have that creek, we'll take this creek, is a wonderful effort. And you say we might be able to pull it off by the end of the year, fantastic. But I love, when I asked about just this Curry Creek update, that we're also making some progress there on Flamingo Ditch. I don't know that the Flamingo Ditch neighbors were aware of that, that you were trying to make that effort to take that over. I know they complained. to the city why isn't why is this culvert under the road clogged up and we go well we don't maintain that area and they shouldn't have to deal with that they live in the city they should know the city's maintaining those culverts in that area and they've been frustrated in that neighborhood that we can only do so much right now and we put some of the things into the plan for 27 some for 29 some for 31 but it sounds like by the end of the year, that could be a little piece that's fixed of a very complicated situation. So I love all of that, okay? I do want to say this. The presentation, and I apologize to Mr. Carr that we made him take two five-minute public speaking opportunities to give us a presentation that was maybe seven or eight minutes long. And I apologize because I could have made a motion to give him a little more time, finish it in his first appearance here, but instead we sent him off. But he was speaking, he doesn't live in Sawgrass. He was speaking on behalf of an organization that represents 53 community associations and HOAs. He was speaking for the Central Venice Coalition. And I got to tell you, I think that's the most important civic organization in the city to listen to. It's an enormous coalition. And so he was here to present on behalf of really that whole region that we need to do something about Curry Creek and the city needs to get in the business of maintaining that portion that goes through Sawgrass. And of course he educated us, but also Morgan Bentley, the attorney for Sawgrass, I believe that's correct. Um, educated us, um, and our city attorney took a strong position in contrast to Mr. Morgan Bentley, uh, said, no, we don't have any obligation. Um, unless we wish to have that obligation. And my argument is we should wish to have that obligation. And I like Mr. Bentley's arguments. I even agree with them that if he went for a court decision, he may get a declaratory judgment that maintaining that creek is our responsibility. He also told them it would cost them $75,000 to bring that suit to try to get it. We shouldn't be requiring our neighbors and our residents to sue us to get what seems like a civic

action that we would want.

And we point to, I'm sure the city attorney correctly points to, old documents that seem to indicate, although they dispute it, that we don't have to be responsible for that. But logic tells us we should, because as their attorney points out, there are 42 bodies of water in Sawgrass. They're responsible, in their mind, for 40 of them. The only ones they say they're not responsible for are Blackburn Canal and Curry Creek. And the reason is those bodies of water start outside of sawgrass, transit across sawgrass, and then go on through all kinds of other properties to dump into the bay. And that, to me, makes it a very different situation than a drainage pond on their property. The city is using those two bodies creeks as part of our stormwater system. And to say, well, we don't have to maintain that piece because it's on your property. It is sort of a unique position that we're taking because these bodies of water don't usually cross through a community. They're usually like on the border, like they're right on the border of Bay Indies, not in Bay Indies, but right on the border of that type of thing. And so This has been a long standing problem many, many, many years. And to me, even if we were, we had a good argument not to maintain it years ago, the situation's changed because we've approved all kinds of development along Auburn road, both sides of a Foxley farms. We've approved the, all the development up near the hospital up there on Curry lane. that's created flooding in that area, the situation is more severe than it's ever been in terms of the damage that creek backing up could do to properties. And so I believe it's incumbent on us to make an agreement with Sawgrass, and I'm hopeful the council's gonna direct the staff at your invitation to work with Sawgrass on an agreement to take over routine maintenance of Curry Creek. And I want to thank, again, Steve Carr for his representation to us, trying to educate us on it and the problem. And we need to address it as a city council. So thank you.

Mr. Engelke.

Thank you. My colleague Mr. Smith and I I think agree fundamentally on just about everything that was presented. I'm going to use a lot fewer words. Steve, thanks for your work. And secondly, with the Deer Town Gully, it's part of the city. And I don't think that it should be differentiated between county and city, especially something like that that's clearly within the city limits. Which leads us to Curry Creek. and not just sawgrass but the whole area john i do understand the city's position regarding cleaning out culverts and that type of thing but to me this is a little bit bigger than just sawgrass it really is from the beginning to the end and i love the idea where we can make it as seamless as possible giving some stuff to the county and taking some stuff to the city Now, that being said, I am very, very concerned about any potential liabilities that the city might be picking up in the event of, hey, if we do something and it's not done perfectly or standards have changed or whatever, we have the responsibility for paying for a lot of wet houses. I am very, very concerned with that. But I do understand the need to look at this as not just being Sawgrass, but being from start to finish of the whole waterway. So, Sawgrass and the Central Venice Coalition, they've done a lot of work on this thing. And I know the city's done a lot of work on this thing. But what I'd like to do is kind of bring a motion, maybe a little premature for a motion in terms of our discussion, but a motion that would essentially direct the city staff to engage with Central Venice Coalition, because it's not just a sawgrass issue, and with sawgrass, maybe working more with Central Venice Coalition to come to an agreement on what we can and cannot do. So, Mr. Mayor, I'm not sure if it's time for a motion.

and a second it's not it's not time for either we still got three people on the list to talk okay all right so that's why i'm asking mr vice mayor thank you not to prolong this but my memory's not as good as it used to be so i may need a little help but it seems to me in the last couple of years we were working with sawgrass trying to do a rezoning And, you know, the history of Sawgrass, if you go back a little bit, my memory again is not that great, but it was county, it was city, it was county, it was city. There was this back and forth thing that went on. And ultimately we had to compromise, as I seem to recall, on what we wanted to do versus what we ultimately did. But what I'm trying to say is I feel like the community of Sawgrass got stuck in the middle of this whole thing And so there's a lot of finger pointing going on as to who should be taking care of what. And so the easiest way to resolve all of that is say, hey, it's your problem. And that seems to be where we are. And I completely agree with my colleagues up here that are saying it flows through the community. It affects other areas of stormwater within the city. If we don't take care of it, at least to some degree, if we don't help take care of it, we can have bigger problems than we started out with. So I am an advocate for starting some negotiations with regard to how to separate this and how to put some influence on one side or the other so that we don't have to worry about this going forward. Thank you.

Mr.

Wheat? Thank you. Jonathan could you put up the map again for me please I have some questions about the map.

Sure the overall one.

Yes thank you. So there is no legend on this. So as I understand it currently the yellow section is currently maintained by the City of Venice is that correct?

Yellow and green.

Yellow and green. Okay and we are looking for the county to take over the maintenance of the yellow and green? Correct. Okay. Then also up where the words say Cray Creek Canal, there is gray and black. Who has responsibility for the gray and the black area in that area?

There is a legend that goes with this that unfortunately I did not print out, so not the city.

Not the city, okay. No, my concern is we have many, many different groups work on different parts of the of Curry Creek and Blackburn Canal. You know we're looking at transferring the maintenance responsibilities to the green and the yellow to the county in exchange for us taking over Deer Tongue Gully which I have no problem with. At the same time we're looking at further complicating it by taking Venice taking the city of Venice taking over the section that goes through Curry Creek. which is just like changing one patchwork quilt for another. And I don't know if there's any possibility of negotiating with the county to take over the sawgrass portions that they have that entire run under their responsibility rather than just moving this patchwork quilt around.

If council directs staff to look into maintaining this portion, city staff would likely talk to county staff about having the county perform the maintenance in that portion and city may fund that maintenance as just a point of reference right now our last maintenance contract city paid about a dollar and 55 cents per linear foot to maintain the banks of the Curry Creek portions were responsible for. So if Council would like us to look into maintaining that we would likely ask the county to perform the maintenance and fund that.

Thank you for clarifying.

right so i'm i'm last um on the list and then we'll go back around round two um my biggest concern is just like everything else that's come our way flamingo ditch curry lane theme green road all these different parcels and properties and easements is that there's always a funding component to this millions of dollars to do these things and and When the development begins, they have the opportunity to bring it up to standard and present that to us as us taking that over, and the city could take that over if they wanted to, but typically there's millions of dollars that needs to be spent, and Curry Lane is my best example, to bring it up to standard before we take it over. So I just... I pause here with all this discussion. I mean, yes, of course, I'd love for us to maintain it and make sure it gets done, but at the same time, I would need to see the costs associated with us being responsible. Plus, I vaguely remember with the Flamingo Ditch discussions that anytime we take something over or take over the responsibility of the maintenance, we then become liable for any of the the issues that that uh develop later on or or bank improvements or whatever it might be so there's a lot of caution in my mind when we start talking about taking these things over that the developer could have done that when they built this in in the first place and they chose not to do it for whatever the reason was and now um you know we're going to have to take that on as a city-wide taxpayer base so i just I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm saying that I would need to see all of the financials involved and all of the legal ramifications involved in us taking responsibility of that. So when we do get to that point, I would love for those questions to be answered as we're moving forward with this discussion. Ms. Frank, you're next, then Mr. Engelke.

Yes, to my colleague Mr. Reid's question, I pulled up the email from Mr. Carr and it stated that the black line is Sarasota County owned and maintained and the gray portions were privately owned and maintained. So there's a little bit of difference there. But to my colleague, the mayor's point about the economic realities associated with new maintenance responsibilities that was why questioned our finance director about the overall state of our stormwater fund which at first glance appears to me to be in a very healthy position which would warrant at least an investigation to the ongoing annual maintenance cost for this sawgrass portion of Curry Creek. If our stormwater, for transparency, if our stormwater fund was distressed and it would cause immediate increases to our stormwater fees that we pass along to our full tax base, I would have more concern. But it appears at first look we might be in a healthy place and have the capacity. But to your point, I warrant further dollars associated with it, full transparency on that.

Mr. Engelke?

Well, thank you. You mentioned a prior contract, $1.55 per linear foot. What would that translate to if we were to pick up that responsibility for the area that we're talking about? $25,000, $50,000, $200,000? Routine maintenance of that portion would be about $10,000 a year. I hate to say, but an insignificant amount relative to the $2.9 million, whatever we have in the reserve for it. So I do continue to stress the city's liability that we're picking up, but I'm certainly in favor of starting the process. And Mr. Mayor, you'll let me know when I can make a motion. Thanks. I'm ready when you are, sir. All right. Thank you. I would like to make a motion for the City Council to authorize the City Manager to meet with representatives of the Sawgrass community and the Central Venice Coalition to develop a plan for the City of Venice to provide general maintenance to the section of Curry Creek that flows through the Sawgrass community. Second.

Hang on.

keeping in mind the city's exposure to additional liabilities. Now I'm done. Second.

Mr. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to clarify the language. So we've been talking about routine maintenance. I think the word used in the motion was general maintenance. If we can have the flexibility to bring back an agreement, the most important thing, which I've heard from you all, is that we define the scope of what that maintenance is and make sure that it's very clear for everybody who's in the room. We're not going to be going outside of that scope because there's a lot of private infrastructure out there that could be high dollars.

I agree with your interpretation. I'll come back with whatever you feel appropriate. We gotta get the ball moving. Thank you. Madam Clerk?

We do have two speakers. Just wanted to let you know.

We'll get there. All right, so with that, we have a proper motion and second. We'll go ahead and entertain any speakers, Madam Clerk, at this time.

First speaker is Steve Carr. He has five minutes.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and city councilors. Thank you for the positive comments of support. It's clearly going in that direction, and again, thank you, thank you very much. But I really want to give kudos to City Manager James Clinch and Assistant City Manager Roger Omenheiser and John Kramer and Steve Behrens from the Engineering Department. Having the opportunity to do that transfer, the stormwater ditches, to bring them more under the, especially out that way, under the county's umbrella is just, really is terrific. And it really is quite a wonderful opportunity that is now possible. um with the county because as anybody that's tried to work with the county it's almost like the federal government that that uh the vice mayor had mentioned it it's really really difficult to get a straight answer it's really difficult to get in the same room so it it really is a terrific um project that looks like it's going to happen the only other comment other than thanking you again is unfortunately within our um our process to approve projects as mr merritt had mentioned it really stops at the developers agreeing to do the 25-year storm water ditches to accommodate the water that would be displaced by not having the community there and that's where it stops there really isn't any thought to the the um amount of water that that flows toward curry creek and other places once there is the storms and the ponds fill up and the overflow that's the key and that's not that's one part that is not considered in our process i'm not sure how we deal with it but it should be something we're cognizant of because it does impact not only curry creek area central venice area and in all the business scenarios but it is all around the city uh and that's what's um i think the floodplain uh management um project that the engineering department is starting to look at will will again give a big picture of how um storm waters is um handled in the city of venice so again there's been a lot of positive things in it Appreciate your time, your consideration through all this time. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Excuse me, one other thing. I think there are a number of Sawgrass people that are here today, and I'd really like to thank them for coming out and hearing this conversation. Thanks.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

We have Morgan Bentley representing Sawgrass.

And I'll be super brief. We look forward to the conversation. We're going to come up with a great agreement. We think you'll like it. Your staff is great.

Thank you for your comments. All right. Is that all of our speakers? Yes. Okay. Any council discussion? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move to an electronic vote. Madam Clerk, when you're ready, make us ready for that process. And council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote.

Mr. Smith?

All right. And Madam Clerk, you can tally and display. Passes unanimously. And with that we will take our executive session and come back at 1.10.

All right, we're back.

Thank you to everybody in the audience for still being here. All right, we are on to 26-0707, and this is the status of Laurel Road widening project, including bidding and revised timeline. Mr. Smith, you put this on the agenda. If you could briefly introduce it.

Thank you, Mayor. was asked for this course 5 weeks ago and have it on the agenda yet. But I understood there were some developments with the widening project in terms of bids that came back I wanted to be able to report that to the public. And I understood that the bids exceeded the amount of money the city had already committed the state had already committed. And so I want to get an update on that where we stand and what will have to happen if those bids exceed what we budgeted.

Mr. Clinch, do you have anything on this topic?

We do. I asked Mr. Kramer, our city engineer, to touch base with the county and he can provide an update.

Good afternoon, mayor and council. For the record, John Kramer, city engineer. As you're aware, Laurel Road widening is a public-private partnership project managed by Sarasota County and the Laurel Road CDD. The project has a $16 million budget, half from a state grant and half from mobility impact fees. About $6.5 million of that amount was spent on right-of-way acquisition. leaving nine and a half million for construction. The CDD did bid the project earlier this year. They opened bids on May 22nd and all the bids were over the project budget and the CDD rejected them. The CDD then worked with the contractors to value engineer the project. to reduce the construction costs. They looked at things such as switching the pavement design, the material of the stormwater pipes. They switched from bidding the project as a lump sum to unit price. costs and most importantly they have identified a fill location for the contractors the cost of fill is usually inexpensive but the transportation of fill is very expensive some of these contractors were looking at bringing in fill from adjacent counties and in particular i do have an exhibit i can share on the overhead. The CDD has identified this existing pond as a source of fill. They want to dig this pond deeper. This is in the CLO adjacent to where the village at Oral and Jacaranda is proposed. So this existing pond, they want to dig deeper within the existing footprint, and they believe that there'll be a million dollars of savings by using that pond as a fill location. The CDD has re-advertised the project and bids are due on September 3rd. They expect construction activity to start late this calendar year. I can't answer any questions. Mr. Smith.

Thank you. Can you just talk about that,

lake if you excavate it for more fill does it have any environmental impact does it is it something some folks are going to be unhappy with the lake will need to be dewatered to dig it further i've been told by the project engineer that the swift mud permit for that lake allowed it to be dug deeper And whenever it was originally dug, they didn't go as deep as planned. So digging it deeper will require dewatering. It will probably provide a water quality benefit by having a larger permanent pool, but I wouldn't expect to provide any stormwater attenuation benefit. If you excavate a wet pond below the control level, the groundwater will just rush in and take that space. So this is digging ponds deeper is something that I typically see during the construction period when the pond is originally being constructed, contractor wants more fill and they may modify the permit to dig the pond deeper. It's a little unusual to be digging an existing pond deeper, but I have seen that occur in the past.

Okay, thank you. And Swift Mud is the one that approves that?

swift mud they i'm told that swift mud has approved it they have not yet applied to the city to do that about a year ago we did receive an application where they wanted they proposed excavating this wetland portion for phil and we had some meetings with them they withdrew that application and that's when they decided to pursue digging the existing pond deeper

When that request came in to dig some in that lake, I thought that that was for the publics. And now you're saying that they're going to do this for the road.

Am I wrong? The environmental report that was submitted to us to excavate this wetland said it was for the Village at Laurel and Jacaranda project. We subsequently met with the consultant team. They told us that was a mistake, that the spill is needed for Laurel Road. They withdrew that application to excavate the wetland, and I don't have any current pending applications.

Okay, thank you. Ms. Frank?

It's been a couple years since we've discussed Laurel Road in this amount of detail, so if you could refresh my memory. Regarding the process now, you're explaining to us to have it re-bid. Was there any conversation or any components talking about the hawk or signalization or access across from the Venetian Golf and River Club? Was that mentioned at all to have any change from when it was initially bid to now?

As far as I know, there have been no changes to that. signal situation.

Okay great because that was an important aspect of the project to me and then second this does not impact the MERT design or that piece of the project or is that separate?

The Laurel Road project includes the MERT on the south side of Laurel Road so as far as I know that has not changed in this rebid.

Okay, great. I think those two pieces will be important for the public to be aware of because they were aspects of the project that we heard from residents were important to them. So I appreciate you clarifying that our current understanding is that there's no changes to that, two aspects of that road. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right, Mr. Cramer, thank you for your time. Appreciate you. Mr. Smith, do you have a motion as it relates to the information you received? Do you have a motion? Okay. Madam Clerk, I wouldn't imagine we have anybody signed up to speak.

We do not, and I'm having some technical difficulties.

Okay, then with that, there's no motion, no need to do anything there, so we'll move on to 26-0708, and this is Mr. Smith, latest information regarding developer's approach to the city concerning a wellness village development on the Old Venice Hospital site. Mr. Smith, if you'd like to briefly introduce that.

Yes, again, this is something that I was asking about in our last meeting before we took our break for the summer, and I was I'm anxious to get the public an update. Mr. Mudge has given me much of my update since. Thank you for that. But I would like to know from the staff if there's any more to know since whenever that last council meeting was in June and what the current status is and what we can expect to be the next development.

I'll yield to Mr. Clinch. Him and I had a meeting with those folks, so I'll let him chime in with what he'd like to say.

Thank you, Mayor. Unfortunately, I won't have a whole lot more to report than we heard from Mr. Mudge, but we were able to sit down with the developers back in July, middle of July. The mayor and I I met with them and our planning zoning director, Roger Clark, met with them separately. The intent of that meeting really was to let them know what our rules and regulations were for this area, what the zoning requirements were, the density, the height restrictions, and then what that process would look like if they decide to move forward. They were very cooperative, they seemed very excited about the potential project, and they followed up, I believe they sent some correspondence to council about the next week with some updated renderings indicating they were willing to scale the project down to meet our rules and regulations, which was also encouraging. Since that time, we have not heard anything new from them, which is probably not good or bad at this point, but we have no applications or additional correspondence to share. Thank you.

And I'll just add to that that the meeting was requested of me and I didn't really encourage or discourage anything other than what our current code says. And I was there more to listen to what they were proposing and provide them independent feedback as an individual council member. So they seemed very, very receptive to working within current code. and not doing anything that would go outside of the current boundaries of what we have. But very, very unique designs and configuration of things that would be some very good use of technology for their water use and energy use as well, which was very impressive with what they were trying to do with the medical component of their wellness village. That's all I have to add. Is there anything else, Mr. Smith? Again, I don't have a motion to make. I thank you for the report.

I want to tell you that in three years as a council member, I've been asked more questions about that hospital than anything else. And I'd appreciate it if there are developments if we could be alerted to them rather than be working back in the back and 3 months later it comes to the council. I just like to know that there's now something sitting in the planning department that is proposing some massively important project here in the city that possible.

Absolutely that is no problem happy to let all of you know if we do end up getting an application on that project.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, anybody signed up to speak on this one?

We do not.

Okay.

Miss Frank, is your button pushed to talk or is it just, okay. Technical difficulties. All right, the next one is me, it's data center moratorium. And basically I put this on the agenda to discuss really the concept of having a plan should this come to us. So kind of putting a moratorium together. so that we can develop those plans and be prepared if and when something should come to us. There's not many opportunities in the city for this, but don't wanna be unprepared. So that's why I put this on the agenda. Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No.

All right, so let me make a motion, and then if there's any discussion, we can have that discussion.

Once I get there.

All right, my motion is to direct staff to bring back an ordinance for an 18-month moratorium on data centers and, or timeframe that is legally permissible, because I know Senate Bill 180 is a concern. So direct staff to bring back an ordinance for an 18-month moratorium on data centers or a timeframe that is legally permissible. seconded by Mr. Howard. And with that, we'll open for discussion. Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I'm going to vote for this motion because I'm told we don't have anything in our code that addresses it and that we need time to prepare some language for our land development regulations. And obviously, that's a good thing. I do think that this is a national scare that reminds me of Y2K. It's really an overreaction to something we don't know enough about. I've been to two seminars over the summer break on data centers, because I wanted to know more about data centers. And much of what people fear is not a reality. The biggest thing that's not a reality is it is no threat to our water supply. The speaker I heard from Miami, who's head of water for the South Florida Water Management District said, this is not a concern. We regulate it, they have to get a permit from us, and we will give any one of them a permit the way it's done today, which is in a closed system, recycling water. That speaker said, think of a car radiator. It's being used over and over. And he said, think of a cooling tower and a nuclear plant. That water goes back in and is recycled and reused. And this speaker said that the use of wells in Cape Coral which doesn't have municipal water everywhere, is a bigger problem than all of the data centers that are thought about and contemplated in South Florida. And so I said, okay, well, that makes me feel a little better. And then the next issue comes along as, but what about electricity? And then I'm told most of the modern ones are supplying their own power. It doesn't affect the power grid at all. And... Calm down, relax. There's still other issues, pollution, land use, is that what you want it for, and that kind of thing. And we do need to put language into our LDRs. So I'm for the motion, but I'm for calming people down. Thank you.

Madam Attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. Just an appendage to your motion and consistent with Mr. Smith was saying just for the public's clarity to the 18 month or whatever is legally defensible moratorium would enable us to not just prohibit receiving applications, but allow the development of code provisions that currently we don't have anything specific to data centers.

Yeah, correct. That is actually the sole point of this is to give us the opportunity to to breathe and come up with something in our code that addresses it. Mr. Engelke.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I happen to agree with my colleague. It's being overreacted, the data centers. And we don't know, but I do like the idea. And let's just keep it to our land use code and work out that way. Just keep it a very neutral, very objective land use code. Only and no further comment on that thank you.

Boy. All right so okay that looks like everybody off the list and yell summarize. You know with that as well as. Everything we're hearing from the discussions around Northport Sarasota County around the state. is exactly that is that it the technology is far better than people realize and there is a lot of hype on it right now so making sure that our codes reflect. You know proper planning is all I'm looking to do and I think that's important as there's there's again not many areas in the city, you can do this, but there are some areas that. would definitely draw outrage from the residents so all right with no further comment let's go ahead and do an electronic vote madam clerk when you're ready actually mayor i'm going to have to do a roll call vote because something's wrong with we let you clerk for a few minutes and now all of a sudden the whole system's down that's what happens when kelly leaves us all right go ahead and do a roll call vote all right mr smith yes mr reed yes

Mr. Engelke?

Yes.

Mr. Howard?

Yes.

Ms. Frank? Yes. Vice Mayor Boat?

Yes.

Mayor Pechota?

Yes. So it passes unanimously. All right. Now we are on to Charter Officer Compensation. Do we have an Alan Bullock in the back? We do. So if the HR Director would like to come up and get us started on Charter Officer Compensation.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. For the record, Alan Bullock, HR Director for the City of Venice. We have three charter officers, one of whom is our city attorney and is not a city employee. The other two are our city managers, city clerk, both of whom are city employees. So it is within your direct remit to Adjust if you like their compensation typically would happen October 1st along with other employees you're aware of the collective bargaining process that exists for Unionized employees for non bargaining that's within the administration's Realm, but this falls exclusively to you. So as is covered in my memo I We have currently James Clint city manager 217,000 and $500 annually based salary of Kelly Michaels or Clark and her annual salary basis 164052 currently also supplied you with a whole ton of information from our peers around the state along with our local peers and so that's the information before you today if you have any questions by all means go ahead please.

All right any questions for Mister Bullock I've got Madam Attorney, your button's still pushed. I doubt you have any questions for him. Mr. Smith.

Thank you.

Okay.

First, anything I say here, I want it to be known it's not a criticism of any of these three individuals, but of the process. Because for three years, this will be the third time, I am not happy with this process. Once again, this year you sent me performance evaluation paperwork and to every other council member. But it is our practice not to evaluate these people, just to give them a raise. And I think that's a mistake. I think I won't make you commit to it, but you keep sending us the forms to fill out. We just don't fill them out. We voted not to fill them out. My experience is that a superintendent of the schools, a county executive, and a city manager, in particular in any city, has to endure a very uncomfortable process of a public discussion of their performance for them to get a raise, and we choose not to do that for our reasons. I wanna know, and I think, would you agree with me that when somebody is in their first year in a position, it'd be even more important to do that evaluation, that formal performance evaluation.

In general employment terms, yes. Typically we'll see a probationary period that might be six months or a year depending on the position of the city that's kind of built into other positions. It is not there within these charter officer positions, but certainly that would be kind of more common practice, yes.

Okay, well I want to repeat again. Mr. Clinch has done some great work for us. I'm particularly proud of what he's done with us on the budget, his first budget, but I think the process requires a performance evaluation and some setting of goals for him, and I'd like to see us do that. Have we ever done that? I know we haven't done it in three years, but in the past, how long is your tenure, and did we ever do this?

So here's my experience, and I've been in this job since 2008, so I've seen many council members approach us. Typically, you'll see that of the seven elected officials, there might be two or perhaps three who are interested in doing performance evaluations for the charter offices. Each has their various reasons for wanting to do it, not wanting to do it, opting out, having no comment, doing nothing with it, or whatever. So it kind of depends on people's approaches. I typically expect to see two of seven actually doing it, and they may or may not have a direct correlation to pay. It just seems to be the way that... Each individual council member approaches it. And at the staff level, we have no authority to tell you what to do. So it's left up to the individuals.

Okay, thank you for that. I want to ask, too, about the information that you have given us, which was very minimal in terms of making this decision on pay. And I'm very uncomfortable with the comparables that you give us information on. I understood that when the police study was done, that the police study told us, here are better comparables to the city of Venice than we've been using previously when evaluating what we should be paying people. Is that correct?

Could you repeat that question, please?

Didn't the police study use different comparables than what we had previously used. Yes, that's correct. Okay, and I think you told us that you were gonna now use those comparables that they said were our comparables after their research when you negotiated with our unions because these are the real comparables to Venice Is that fair? Not necessarily, no. Okay.

The comparables that we typically use at union negotiations are local peers, so it would be the city of Northport, Longboat Key, city of Sarasota, et cetera, et cetera. The police study used comparables that were comparable in terms of police service, as I understand it. I mean, that wasn't my focus this year. I was more involved in the general union negotiations. they certainly have some comparable traits. And given that you're interested in these as being used as comparables, I did take some time yesterday to do some research. I was advised by James that perhaps you might be interested. So to the extent that you might find it useful, I do have

the city clerk and city manager salaries for all of our comparable cities within that realm if you'd like to have those i'd love to have those before we had any vote but um the my criticism of the comparables that we were originally given um are that you know they are sarasota and longboat key and northport and they're all not comparable Okay, they are local, and the theory for union workers was, well, that's the easiest place for them to go to are these bigger, better-paying places. But the League of Cities calls Longboat Key a golden city, and that phrase is related to the fact that the average home is over a million dollars. That's not our city, and our pay scale isn't gonna match that city. And of course, the county's a much larger entity. There's only a few of these golden cities in the state. cities where the average home is over a million dollars palm beach is another one if we compare ourselves to there we pay less they can pay and have the best benefits anybody ever had naples is another one it's now a golden city so any any references to them and evaluating what we pay is not fair to the city of venice and and so i object to the use of them i did ask the league of cities for I didn't do it as sophisticated a way as our police study did where they were actually looking at do they also have seasonal residents and are they a coastal city and things like that but I just asked for a nice basic measure can you give me the numbers for everybody every city in the state and with a population between 25,000 and 35,000. That would just be one other way of trying to find the comparables. And in that, I didn't find anything really out of line on city manager or city clerk, but we were the highest of anybody in legal expenses. And so I want information like that to see so that we can evaluate it as we uh you know award increases and then my last question for you you didn't give us any information on legal fees and i guess it's because we have a contract and they're not an employee i don't understand but you gave me an evaluation form in there right and so i assumed we would be looking at them in the same way we would look at the clerk and the city manager

In my view, certainly, this discussion is nothing to do with the legal fees for the city. That may be a concern to you or others separately. This discussion today is to decide the charter officer pay for the clerk and the manager positions. In terms of the information provided, I mean, I accept from your standpoint perhaps it's insufficient, If you look at the attachment that I provided from the statewide survey, which comes out annually from the public HR association, you'll see dozens and dozens of cities, along with their manager and their clerk and how they are paid. I'm kind of at a loss to understand why exactly you think it would be lacking, or certainly I don't have a more specific guidance from the council as to what you might be looking for at this point.

I don't mean to be faulting you on this. I'm faulting our process. You've asked us to participate, and we've chosen not to do that. So I'm really just making those points for my colleagues, for the public, and excusing our behavior. Thank you.

Would you like to hear from the police study? I have those comparables if that's of interest to you. This was not generated in time to actually give you something written for the agenda, but I do have it. We have a total of eight comparable cities that were identified in that police study. They are Cocoa Beach, Fernandina Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Ormond Beach, Punta Gordas and Augustine Stewart and Vero Beach. So those are the eight we're looking at and I mean I have the individuals but I will tell you the average for those eight and I got all eight of them yesterday for the city manager is $211,806. And the average for the city clerk is $121,854. So that's 211,806 and 121,854. That's what I have. Anyone else have any questions for Mr. Bullock?

So the only thing I want to just clarify with you, Alan, real quick, because I've been through seven years of doing comparables and not doing staff evaluations and all these kind of things, and I've got 375 employees that work for me in my full-time job. So my issue is what I've learned is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, I think City of Sarasota is a perfect example. I believe their city clerk has a financial component to what she does. I think it's a comptroller and clerk. And there are cities all across the state that run into that same situation where a city manager may be responsible for the entire city, however they may not have a solid waste division, they may not have a water department, they may not have a lot of these other departments. So there's really a difficult time finding apples to apples when you're comparing one city to another. the certifications of a police officer or the certifications of an EMT or paramedic or firefighter, which is a standard, I think it's a lot easier for us to look at those positions. And same with, like, even Public Works, I would say, or AFSCME, is complicated because you've got to look at what a cdl driver should get paid versus necessarily somebody who just operates a truck you know and i think that's that's where things get a little complicated you look at our our utilities program and there's certain compliance certificates whether it's a level c or whatever it may be for wastewater so i think i think it does get kind of complicated and we have to keep that in mind when we're looking at these positions And as far as even legal services which which we're not really evaluating right now I I look at it as well some some cities some counties have their own attorneys and some of them have a handful of attorneys. We have a contract with an attorney so would would you say that's kind of a fair assessment on my part is that that it's really difficult for us to do apples to apples and it's fair for a council member to do their own research.

Yeah, I mean in the world of HR we spend a lot of time every day trying to establish how is this versus that, whether it be this program or this situation or this position versus that of another city or entity. It is virtually impossible to get an exact match as you say there's some which lend themselves more readily to direct comparison, police officer, firefighter, for example. When a city manager, broadly speaking, is responsible for the administration of the city, whatever that entity is, and many times we'll look at averages, that's why you look at a whole list of positions, or a whole list of agencies, one may not be directly comparable with another, but then the more you look at the average as a whole, assuming that all of those are relevant, then the more accurate a picture you're going to get. I mean, at the end of the day, this is provided as guidance. You also have other factors that may play into your decision today. There's no perfect way of doing it. I mean, I think we probably all design it differently if we're left to our individual devices. So it's just a question of being flexible and making the best informed decision you can at that particular time.

Okay. All right, any other questions for Alan before we do a motion? All right. If you're pushing your button, unfortunately the system is not working so you're going to have to do a little hand raise because I can't see anything on the screen. Did you push your button, Rachel?

Not a question for Mr. Bullock. Just when you're ready for a motion.

I'm ready for a motion.

I is a starting point for discussion. I move to award the city clerk in the city manager. A 3.4% increase to base salary second. So let's go to discussion so I have some discussion you have just a quick comment I would say that I hear my what my colleague Mister Smith is sharing about the paperwork and conversations. But you were not privy to the individual conversations I had with the city clerk and with the city manager where I shared with them from my vantage point how pleased I am with their performance over the last year. And how it is my mission to make sure that they feel valued and appreciated. and in relationship to their performance. And then also it would be in the city's best interest, in my opinion, to make sure we're keeping up with CPI and increasing their base salary appropriately. So that's kind of the background to where I'm at.

So I'll just say from my perspective, I've always said this and I said this to the new city manager when he came in. If I've got something to criticize, I'll definitely give you the respect to criticize you in your office. And then if we can't, from an employer standpoint, come to terms on that, then may need to go out to the council. But very rarely in seven years have I ever had to bring things out to the council that couldn't be resolved. It was truly a performance-related object. So that said, I think that our clerk has done a phenomenal job. I think that our city manager has done a phenomenal job. I struggle with the numbers a little bit because I know we're looking towards the future as far as some tax changes, and I'm always looking at keeping things tight around here as far as our belts, and I think that CPI is a very fair number. You know, I think that in years... to come, you may have to go a little lower. But I think that with where our city manager and clerk currently are, I think that they're fairly compensated and that a CPI adjustment would keep them within that. So I would agree with Ms. Frank's motion and we'll be voting in favor of it. Anyone else? You'll have to raise your hand because I cannot see it on the screen. Mr. Smith?

This is so I can say this I'm going to vote for this motion. I think that's a modest phrase again all of my comments were at the process I don't think we're using the proper process and and everybody can have a private conversation but the public deserves to hear what we have to say in the way of performance every other employee in the city gets a performance evaluation these 3 do not because we decline as their supervisor to give them one and and it can't it's not enough for any individual to tell somebody their thoughts it has to be discussed as a group and it usually is in other places i and i just i just want to draw attention to that this is my last uh you know budget discussion like this but i i wish that the council would reconsider um and in the future have public discussion about the performance of the three people that report directly to the council every other city employee gets that kind of an evaluation and this just doesn't seem proper to me we went through a lengthy interview process to hire our city manager and we did many things in public and this is the kind of thing that should occur in public as well in a frank discussion of what we're doing.

At any rate, I'm actually going to vote for it. Thank you. Anyone else?

Yeah, it's not going to work. It's okay.

The only thing I just want to close with is just that, you know, I absolutely agree with your struggle on this one, Mr. Smith, and I think that in a normal world there's merit to it. I think the process definitely should change, but I don't think it should necessarily change in making it mandatory. I think it should just go away as far as the performance appraisals are concerned because seven individual people, many of which may not have a management background You know, a layperson coming in here and being expected to properly evaluate somebody on their performance, I think, is an unfair expectation. I think that the option has always been a great thing, that if somebody wants to use it as a tool and go through that process, but I think that They're at-will employees. We can come out here and terminate them at any point in time we want to, and I think that if it gets to that level, that's where the public conversation happens, but I don't think we need to go through an entire process, and that's just my opinion, and I encourage all my colleagues to follow whatever process brings them peace at the end of the day, but I feel like I can easily justify my decision to give them a a raise on cpi and and you know I think that again I would just emphasize that our clerk our attorney and our city manager have done done very well over the past years and I'm very pleased with the direction we're heading so all right madam clerk being that our system is down we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote if you'd like sure Mr. Howard yes Ms. Frank yes Mr. Smith yes Mr. Weed yes

Mr. Engelke. Yes. Vice Mayor Bolt.

Yes.

Mayor Pecota.

Yes. Passes unanimously. Little gavel tap there. And then we are on to 26-0711. And this is going to be Ms. Senney with a approved changes to the fiscal year 2027 budget since budget workshop.

Mayor, if I may have a couple opening comments here.

You're not on the agenda packet, so. Take your raise and be happy. No, I'm kidding. Go ahead, Mr. Clinch, if you'd like to.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. I just wanted to compliment Linda and all of our directors. This was not a simple exercise. This was an exercise where we had to get creative and go back through really the entire budget. And what's in front of you today is 20 different items that affects nine different departments. I would ask for your privilege to go through every item here, because it is a little bit unique. You know, I appreciate everybody coming to the table as a team and saying, let's see what we can do to make these two police officers a reality. And we have done that. So what is being presented to you today does provide some cuts in certain areas to provide for the two traffic officers, which we were directed to try to accomplish. And it also includes the fire assessment and staffing study as well. So those two items are in there. Some of it is through cuts. Some of it is through shifting some funds around and moving projects to some different accounts. So Linda will go through all that, but I just wanted to highlight her work and all of our directors to make that happen. Thank you.

Okay, this is a result of the June and July budget workshop discussion and some things that we've discovered after that. We got our July 1st property values in, so that increased the budgeted revenues for property taxes $114,000, so that's into the general fund. We also, since we had the budget workshop, we received notice of a grant for the Golden Beach Historical Survey. This increased budgeted revenues in the general fund by 41,600. We already had the expenses in there under historical society, but we had not included the revenues and we just got notice that we will be getting the grant funding for that. So that's where the revenue will be into the general fund. Then we also received notice which is going to go into the tree mitigation fund. We applied for a grant a while back. We received notice that we're going to get a 2025 community forestry disaster recovery grant program for the tree mitigation and that's $60,200 and that goes into the tree mitigation fund and that'll be used for tree planting. So we included the revenue and the expense will be further down. So the number four incorporates the police organizational chart changes. And so that's an increase of $43,145 to the general fund. And then the number six is We also added then two additional police officers. And keep in mind, this is, we're putting them as a start date of January instead of October. So by the time they would be hired. So this is 75% of their cost. And this is at the current salary level. So then next year for fiscal 28, they'll be fully funded at 12 for 12 months. And this is at 75% assuming they start January 1. So that cost is 319,918. So to accommodate and make some of these expense increases, we then looked at departments and we did a thorough analysis and a study of every single line item. We went through all the line items again to see what are things that we really can cut and do without for fiscal 27. So with that, we reduced the travel and training budget in the city manager's office. The staff retreat was moved to one day, we used to have it as two days, and we also removed the hotel costs. And we removed some tuition reimbursement from the city manager's office. and removing the strategic planning consultant for fiscal 27. So when we have our next strategic planning, we'll do it in-house instead of having an outside consultant come in and helping us with that. So overall, we took 29,500 out of the city manager's budget, so that's a decrease from their budget. Then we reduced... professional services within historical resources by $10,000 we move back the gondolier digitalization to fiscal 28 so we're just going to put that on hold we've been doing that we're just going to put that on hold not do it in fiscal 27 but then we'll pick that back up in fiscal 28 so that decrease that dollar amount by $10,000. Then within the public works general maintenance, we removed decorative street lights that was $50,000 that was on the CIP when we had our CIP budget workshop. So we removed that because we had due to the hurricanes and the timing of street lights, the decorative street lights, public works, the timing of it had still some street lights that they did not get put in place from before. So we had some on hand that we can use so then we'll pick this up. budget this again in fiscal 28. So that's why we're removing it from fiscal 27, because they have enough that they can accommodate to make for fiscal 27. Then in number 10 is we have, we hired last year, we put into the budget, we rearranged and changed a position with an engineering and added a grants coordinator position, which was 100% general funded. Then we talked about that and discussed that some of that work that that person is doing should really belong to the stormwater fund. So we're taking money out of the general fund, some of that position. We're going to split fund it and say 60% is stormwater fund and 40% is general fund because she's doing functions for both the general fund and the stormwater fund. So we're decreasing $52,142 from the general fund and then that will be added into the stormwater fund. then for information technology we had um in the cip we had a built-in camera system which was for fifty thousand dollars we're taking that out of the general fund and then we had a city-wide access control system that was thirty five thousand dollars every year for the next five years and then we have professional services for those two projects in the general fund we're going to take that out of the general fund and then it came up with We told them to look at these two projects together and make it one big project instead of trying to carry it out over five years and doing a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit here. What's it going to cost to do the whole project up front and then we could charge it to the one cent sales tax. So we're taking 135,000 out of the general fund and then we'll be adding the expense within the one cent sales tax. So for fire, as we discussed earlier, that we're adding professional services for adding the fire assessment and the staffing study and estimate a cost of $120,000 for both of those two. That'll be two different vendors that does that, because one does the assessment fee and another will be doing the staffing study. So that's an estimate of $120,000, so that's being an expense added into the general fund. Then number 13, within parks, we reduced the scope for the Venice Beach Pavilion roof. Remember we had in there $500,000 for the roof and they're gonna change the scope and redesign and do something different so that decreases that to $350,000 and that one is within the one cent sales tax fund. So that's a decrease from the one cent sales tax fund. So information technology, I think it was at the July meeting where we talked about removing the IT service and the data equipment for the backup site, to remove that project totally and then reevaluate it again in fiscal 28. That's also within the one cent sales tax fund, so we're removing that expense out of there, 521,700. So number 15 is the new project for IT. Adding in where we're removing the camera system and the citywide access control and professional services and we're combining it into one security project for IT and we're putting $420,000 into the general fund for that security project. That's combining those two projects into one big project within the one cent sales tax fund then. Then number 16, we added, this is where we're adding the contractual services for the tree grant we're getting. So this is into the tree mitigation fund and this will be for adding avenue canopy road trees and other tree plantings. So that's from that grant, we're getting the grants. We added the grant revenue and here's the expense for that. 17 is where, since we're adding two new police officers, we're getting them two new police vehicles, and that will be expensed out of the police impact fee fund. Since it's an additional vehicle that we currently don't have, we can use the police impact fee fund. And on future maintenance will be out of the general fund after that, but the initial purchase will come out of the law enforcement impact fee fund. Then the airport increased the amount needed for maintenance of the engineering material arresting system. We had an amount in there with $110,000 and we're adding 242,600 based on quotes that the airport has received since we did the budget workshop. So this is just adding that into the airport's budget to accommodate for that expense. So number 19 is what I talked about, engineering position, the grants coordinator. So this 52-142 that's coming out of the general fund will be added into the stormwater fund. And the last one, number 20, is we moved the solid waste truck. When they had the CIP for the solid waste truck, they had one in fiscal, and one in fiscal 29. So we're moving one from fiscal 28 up to fiscal 27, and then the one that was 28 is getting moved to 29. So this is just moving the one that was in fiscal 27, moving it up from 28 to 27, so we're adding $350,000 into the fleet fund. And the funding is already there for that, so this is just appropriating the expense for it. So this becomes the bottom line. When I talked this morning, I said that number of that $800,000 that was negative for the general fund is now $885,821. So that's the offset of increasing some expenses with the fire assessment fee and for adding, I think I missed one, for parks. I think I missed one up here for parks. Number nine, I'm like, wait, I missed one. Number nine, the parks. We're increasing other contractual services to add contractual mowing for the Northeast Park. Because when we did the original budget, we didn't have enough in there for Northeast Park for the contractual mowing. So the combinations of decreasing some expenses and then adding for the fire study and adding for this contractual services, the net effect of that is really $85,000. Because we were at the $800,000 originally, and now that number's $85,000. $821 for the general fund. So any questions on any of the changes? So then when we come forward for the public hearing in September, these changes will be included within that public hearing then. So the dollar amounts when we show the dollar amounts within that ordinance will include these changes if they're approved by council today.

And I would say depending on how many of you guys want to ask questions, if you just push your mic and put it up so I can see the green light, then I know who wants to talk instead of the system being down. Give me one of those. Then I know you want to talk.

Anybody have any questions for Ms. Senning?

None? Good job, Rachel. You followed instructions. That's fantastic.

A quick comment, I appreciate the list of items considered but not removed from the budget.

I forgot, I was gonna talk about that after that.

I was just seeing if anybody had any questions on this one. Okay, I do have one question about what you've already covered. Okay. The significant change in expense to the Venice Beach Pavilion roof. I love that it was a significant savings. but considering it was recently placed on our local historic register and it's an important asset to our community can you talk about is there any noticeable changes that a passer buyer would observe that might be more engineering question city manager i could wear multiple hats public works is really hand on that project but

What they've told us is, you know, they did a structural analysis of this, of that beach pavilion. I'm not going to get the word right. Hyperbolic parabola. Was it Roger Clark when you needed it? Yeah. And it was in need of repair. And so we had already programmed in, well, let's just plan on replacing this. And this was before it got placed on the register. and before they did some of their own structural repairs to it. So if you go out there now, you'll notice there's some steel support columns that are in place that have reinforced it. It's also been through several hurricanes without issue. So Public Works was able to look at this project that's been programmed for a while and say, Ripping this down and rebuilding it, which was the original plan, it's going to be very disruptive. It's going to put the food vendor out of service for six months and put that beach access out of service for six months. Let's look at just doing a renovation to this as opposed to totally tearing it down and rebuilding it to look the same. It was always going to mirror what's there, but this would be more of a renovation project now versus totally rebuilding it.

Okay, very helpful. Thank you.

i don't see any other green lights so you can go ahead and continue then there were okay we did a deep analysis like i said of every single line item of possibilities of cutting the budget in places so there were other items that we considered but we did not remove from the budget that is up for consideration for council if you choose to want to remove them or not they currently are still in the budget and not removed but these are other items that we did consider possibly removing from the budget One was federal lobbyists within the city manager's budget. We have $66,000 budgeted for that. We currently have $40,000 budgeted for Venice Main Street, so we thought about either removing or reducing that contribution for Venice Main Street. Another one was the Centennial Park ADA ramp rail upgrades over here for $45,000. And then, if you remember, it was last year we implemented the royalty program within The loyalty program within HR based on years of service because we didn't really have anything for longevity pay. So we implemented a new program last year that was the loyalty program. So that was one that we considered maybe would we want to no longer do that even though we had just implemented it's only been a place for one year. And that was $50,000. So the total of other items we considered that we did not remove was $201,000.

So I did just want to comment on that. So as I'm walking out the door, I just want everybody to know that the lobbyist expenses that we have are pretty low hanging fruit between the federal and the state. And I think that the way I've always looked at it is just analyzing what your return on investment is for those. And I know that we've used our lobbyists in the federal level a lot for beach nourishment related activities and kind of coastal aspects. So I think that, you know, while that one hasn't had a significant return on investment in cash dollars, we had to not use the fire department funding and stuff because of the timing. But I just think that it's important the council keep those things in mind, especially our state lobbyists, the amount of money that we've brought in every year at least for the past four years, has been significant. So the return on investment, in my opinion, is pretty good. And again, I mean, you know, when you look at things like Venice Main Street, I know we pay into VABI and different groups like that too. I mean, you've got to look at what exactly you're getting for that money. So I think that... I'm glad that these items are still able to hang on, but I don't think this is the last time you're going to see these kinds of suggestions and needing to think outside the box. But I just want to remind everybody, I mean, I don't remember what last year's was, but it's usually $600,000, $700,000, $800,000 that we get from our state lobbyists in return. So I just wanted to make sure I brought that up.

add to that you may um important point these are all great programs you know we really don't want to cut any of these but when faced with this versus a another police officer on the street that's why we had to look at them and then speaking to our federal lobbyists i agree with you we haven't seen a large dollar return, which we have seen on the state level every year. We have some big projects facing us this coming year on the federal level, mainly the South Jetty repairs, which is something that will be very important that we bring through our lobbyists to D.C. this year. And also the post office is something that I think we need to explore again on the federal level. So I just wanted to mention that.

Very good points, Mayor. Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mayor.

I want to congratulate the finance department partners and city manager for finding a way to fund what we wanted and spreading the pain I'm sure is a little pain in there around in a way that we can live with I particularly am happy with what the mayor said. in terms of studying the return on investment. And it does seem that we should be doing that constantly. And it does seem like while we're fighting for that jetty, we need that person right now more than we have for a long time. I don't assume he gets us this FEMA money. We just somehow get it eventually. And I want to thank you, James, our finance director linda um especially for showing us what you didn't cut but that you had to think about cutting because that that's the way i understand next year's budget's going to be that the state has passed the new law that's going to require you to show us a budget and then show us a budget with 10 percent less in it and i look forward to that because That shows us where savings could possibly come from if they have to be. Because I don't think anybody on the council could find this money and make those cuts on their own, so we rely on you to do it. But the state's going to insist you show us where you could cut 10%, which just happens to be the number that would be cut if we passed this amendment. So that's a good thing that's been passed in state law, and you're doing it already, and I really like that, and I appreciate it, and I thank you. Anyone else?

Okay. Can we have a vote on it?

So then I know if it's included in the public hearing.

This was for action.

Linda, do you want the gavel?

No, sorry. I thought you said okay, meaning we're done.

We gotta get to the next part where I say, okay, are you done with your presentation? Cuz usually you pull up another tab and you're like, wait, that was just that one tab, so.

I'm done.

I don't wanna get ahead of you, Linda. I've learned, it's been seven years, but I've learned. All right, so Linda says she's done. So Madam Clerk, do you have anybody signed up to speak?

No.

See, there's a process, Linda. I can't offer Ratana the gavel because she'd take it. All right, with that said, I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Vice Mayor.

I move to approve the changes to fiscal year 2027 budget since the budget workshop.

I'll second.

Seconded by Mr. Engelke, any council discussion? We've got a green light.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would just like to once again commend the department heads and our charter officers on doing this. We gave them just an incredible job before break, an incredible challenge, and they met it. And I just want to appreciate all the creativity that went into getting these numbers together for us.

Mr. Engelke?

I want to echo Mr. Weed's comments, because we gave the city staff, city manager, finance department, and the whole operations a major challenge, and they came through. And I commend the staff and the city manager for pulling this through, even though we gave you what I feel was almost an insurmountable challenge last minute. So thank you.

Okay, then madam clerk, we can go ahead and do a roll call though, please.

Mr. Angle King. Yes. Mrs. Frank. Yes. Mr. Weed. Yes. Mr. Smith. Yes. Mr. Howard. Yes. Vice Mayor Bolt.

Yes.

Mayor Pachota.

Yes. All right. Passes unanimously. We will move on to charter officer reports. Madam attorney.

Plenty going on, but nothing I think I need to update you on at this exact moment.

Madam clerk.

Just a reminder, next council meeting, September 8th, but at 5.01, we have the budget hearing.

All right, thank you for that. Mr. City Manager?

Thank you all for the kind words today and the support. The only project update I'll mention while you're on break, I'm sure you saw the beacher nourishment happening. It was an excellent project with a great team, great contractor. They are completed now with all the dredging work, and we are working on scheduling a ribbon cutting with the Army Corps and our other partners probably in about a month, but a very successful project overall. Thank you.

Mr. Engelke?

No report.

Mr. Weed?

A very eventful break, but no report.

Mr. Howard? Nothing to report, Mayor. Mr. Smith?

Mr. Mayor, you know, I always have something else to say, but Mr. Engelke has advised me I have exceeded my word limit for the day, and so I have nothing more to report.

Well, thank goodness.

Ms. Frank?

Thank you last week as a liaison to the Venice housing authority I participated in their quarterly meeting and I just want to give the Council an update that the Venice housing authority received some updated renderings of what a potential development could look like. on the property where Fire Station 52 is currently located. And the Venice Housing Authority is continuing to work with our staff, the planning department, city manager's office, et cetera, to fine tune the amount of units, the amount of parking spaces, et cetera, in an effort to have something that meets our rules and regulations and that They look forward to presenting that to council once they've done some more updates to their proposal.

Vice Mayor Bull.

I really don't have anything except to say congratulations to the mayor on his making it through the first phase last week, and good luck going forward. Other than that, I think I'll leave the rest up to you.

So I got a couple things. I just want to congratulate Mr. Smith. You had a lot of items on the agenda today. They seem to be very successfully addressed, and I'm glad we finally got there. The other thing is I do want to admit I might have missed you a little over the break, so I did pull up a Venice Council scoop just so I could get my dose. So never feel like if you don't hit your word count, like, you know, there's not some of you floating out there somewhere that we can go watch. A remembrance ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9-11 will be held at Patriots Park at 9 a.m. Friday, September 11th with speakers and music. There will be limited seating available, so please bring chairs. Cold water will be handed out while supplies last, so also remember, you know, it does get hot out there and to bring, you know, water as well. and I believe I'll be doing a proclamation that morning too. The 17th Annual Downtown Venice Labor Day Weekend Craft Festival, presented by Venice Main Street and Howard Allen Events, will be held at 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, September 5th through 6th, and that's going to be on Miami Avenue. The Venice Main Street Beach Party, with live music and food trucks, is set for 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and that is Saturday, September 26th at Venice Beach, And for more information on that, you can go to visitvenicefl.org. Lastly, applications for the 2026 Holiday Parade set for Saturday, November 28th downtown are open and filling up fast. Volunteers are also needed for a variety of tasks. The parade, the city's 50th, is themed Golden Traditions. Visit venicegub.com under Things to Do, Venice Holiday Parade to get involved. Other than that, I think that's it. So... We will move to audience participation. Nothing? Okay, Marty says she has nothing, so we will go ahead and adjourn.