Crs Floodplain Management Plan Committee - Regular Meeting

All in order. Let's first start off with a roll call.

Mr. Carr. Here. Dr. Davis. Here. Mr. DeFalas.

Here.

Chair Efron.

Here.

Ms. Panfill. Here. Mr. Redmond. Here. Ms. Smith. Here. And Mr. Ellis and Ms. Moscatelli will be absent and is asking the boards to excuse their absence.

Okay. Before we begin an audience participation, I always like to start off something positive. First, he's not here yet, but to congratulate Mr. Pechota for his victory yesterday. Also would like to recognize in the gondolier, which came two hours ago, a front page above the pole, clinched where I'm supposed to be. So congratulations, to you for your job. The picture is great in terms of it being well written. I'll reserve those comments. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. So we're ready to begin. Our agenda is long and appreciate people being here and those who are watching. Chair, is there any, excuse me, is there any one who has signed up to speak?

No, not today.

Okay, then we will continue. The minutes of June 17th, are there any... Are there any revisions or motions to approve?

I make a motion we approve the minutes of the last meeting.

Okay. Do I have a second? Thank you, Mr. Redmond. Any seconds? I second it. Okay, Dr. Davis. And the let's take a voice vote asking those in favor first and then those opposed. So those in favor. Any opposed. So the first that we do is the park master plan. And we'll ask Roger Clark. and are very fine consultants to present on this. We're looking forward to receiving this, and thanks for all the information that you have sent. And good afternoon, Mr. Clark, and again from the Chair, I always appreciate the cooperation that you provide to me, and thank you very, very much for that.

Thank you, Chair, appreciate those words. For the record, Roger Clark, I am the Planning and Zoning Director Mr. Chairman asked me to go through a little bit of the history of the Parks Master Plan and how we got to here today. So I know he did that back in October for you all, but I'll just give you a real quick kind of go through. The Parks Master Plan is something that is required by both our comprehensive plan our land development regulations so is it something that we have identified that we do have to have so that's why we're in that position of hiring the consultants to have this draft master plan be created so background history we don't have a parks master plan right now the last time there was a project to develop a parks master plan was in 2015 A consultant was hired by the city to develop the parks master plan. At that time it was administrated by the public works department. They went through the process, I think it took about a year. They brought the master plan forward to city council for adoption. I don't know that council had seen it before that, but they brought it forward, not even for comment, but for adoption. did not go well the consultant got got kind of beat up that day by council the plan got remanded by council back to planning commission at that time planning commission was involved in about a five-year process of rewriting the city's comprehensive plan so at that point they said listen let's let's put this on the shelf right now until we get the comp plan done so that we can make sure that this plan is consistent with the comp plan They got done with the comp plan, kind of rolled right into land development regulations, and the parks master plan kind of kept to the side. So it was never adopted. We've had three interlocal agreements with Sarasota County, one in 92, one in 2011, and now we have a new one that's been executed last year. It becomes effective October 1st, and this is the interlocal agreement with Sarasota County. It becomes effective on October 1st of this year. It has a 10-year length and then it has two automatic five-year extensions. It provides the city and the county's responsibility for our parks. The agreement talks about level of service. It talks about the amenities and the facilities that are in our parks. uh it handles any scheduling of use of them talks about that it talks about maintenance requirements and and responsibilities any replacement of items insurance revenues so it's a very comprehensive document that covers pretty much the parks in the city now the interesting part about the interlocal agreement though is there's been some decisions on who's going to handle THE CITY'S PARKS YOU PROBABLY KNOW FOR MANY YEARS A LOT OF THE CITY'S PARKS HAVE BEEN MAINTAINED BY SARASOTA COUNTY THERE'S BEEN SOME RESOLUTION TO THIS TO CERTAIN EXTENT ONCE WE HIT OCTOBER 1ST OF THIS YEAR THE CITY IS GOING TO TAKE ON SEVEN ADDITIONAL PARKS UNDER THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAINTAIN FOR MR. Ricky in the background, he's gonna be taking on the responsibility of that. So that's gonna be a big task for him to do. So the county is gonna keep maintaining Brohard Park, which includes Service Club Park, North Brohard Park, MAXINE BARRETT PARK, THE PAW PARK, AND ALSO SOUTH BROHARD PARK. SO THAT WILL BE UNDER THE COUNTY'S MAINTENANCE SYSTEM. MARINA PARK AND BOAT RAMP WILL ALSO BE UNDER THEIR SYSTEM, ALONG WITH VENICE BEACH PARK. THEY WILL ALSO BE TAKING CARE OF PINEBROOK PARK, EVEN THOUGH THAT'S STAYING WITH US, BUT AS A PART OF THEIR TAKING OF THE WELL FIELD COMPLEX, THEY WILL MAINTAIN THAT AS PART OF THAT. THE CITY WILL BE TAKING OVER CHAUNCY HOWARD PARK, Heckscher Park, Heigl Marine Park, Legacy Park, Venetian Waterway Park on the west side, Venice-Mayaka River Park, and we will also be taking over the Venice Community Center as well. So those parks are getting added into the parks that we already maintain. And then in October 1st of 2029, we will also take on the responsibility of Chuck Ryder Park. Right now, the county is in the process of developing, hopefully, a master plan for the regional sports park of Wellfield that we're hoping that they will be able to take on the Little League Complex, and then there will be some changes probably to Chuckrider Park. So that's kind of where we were. where we're at now as a result of all these things we wanted to get that parks master plan in place so we went out looking for consultants and I think we found the absolute best consultants that we could have possibly hired for this for this job GAI consultants they almost I would say they practically specialize in parks master plans that they've done a ton of them and and they've been awesome to work with. We've been working with them since I guess maybe around May or so, April, May, and meeting with staff and they're off and running and they've been really good to work with. So I'm excited for them to be here today, for them to give you an overview of what they're doing and what they have done and kind of the plan ahead. So here today, we've got Kristin Caborn and Amy Zangottita from GAI Consultants to kind of give you the update on what's been going on. So at this point, I'll ask them to come forward.

Do you have some questions? Just a quick question, not about content. As you know, I was chair of the Parks Committee, and we dealt with public works Director, what is your relationship and his relationship as we move forward? When I say not his, but his department.

Yeah, my role in this is to kind of manage the project, make sure that I'm in communications with the consultants regularly and that we're on task and that everything is going well. And working closely with Ricky and his staff and keeping them in the mix. Obviously, they're the ones that are most involved with this. MR. SIMPSON HAS BEEN EXTREMELY INFORMATIVE FOR THE CONSULTANTS AND DID SOME TOURING WITH THEM, SO THEY'VE DONE A GREAT JOB, AND WE'RE WORKING WELL TOGETHER. SO I THINK LAST TIME IT WAS JUST PUBLIC WORKS. WORKING WITH CONSULTANTS IS KIND OF IN THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT'S WHEELHOUSE. WE DO THAT ALL THE TIME, SO THAT'S KIND OF WHY WE'RE MANAGING THE PROJECT AT THIS POINT.

GOOD, GOOD. IT GIVES A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THAT.

OKAY. SO ENOUGH FROM ME. I'LL HAVE THEM COME UP.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU. THANK YOU. Welcome to may ask where you're from so I can say welcome to Venice and only to find out you live down the street so.

Compliment. We are from Orlando actually my name is Kristen cable and I am the director of the parks and public spaces practice at G. A. I. And like Roger says, we do practically specialize in parks and recreation system master plans. But the reality is GAI is a full-service civil engineering, landscape architecture, urban design, urban analytics firm. We have offices across Florida. So Amy and I happen to sit in Orlando, but we're in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Palm Beach Gardens. So we really cover the whole state from those offices. And what's different about us and about the way GAI approaches park system plans is Amy and I are both certified parks and recreation professionals through the National Recreation and Parks Association. So this is all we do personally, although we sit in a large ever-growing 1,500-person design firm. We have a very specialized studio that does only parks and public spaces. So we do everything from the large system master plans like we're doing here right now in Venice down to designing the very smallest neighborhood park. So it really helps us have an understanding of the whole lifecycle process of a master plan. So with me, Amy Zangatita is a parks and recreation planner. We are both Parks and Recreation directors prior to coming over to the consulting side. So both of us have lived and breathed both the planning side, the capital oversight side, as well as the operations and maintenance side. And that brings a little bit of a different flair to our plans and why I think many of you all have read our Northport plan. We were able to turn that around for them in about seven months. because they had a very hard deadline. They had some funding that was from one of the local developers that predicated on finishing the plan by December 2025. So we moved very fast, but that's part of the collaborative process. And I do, before I get heavy into the presentation, want to compliment staff on making sure, and through the entire selection process, wanted to make sure that we were getting enough touch points with you all, with the city, elected officials with the public to make sure that roger alluded to at the end of the plan that it can be adopted and the reason why that's important is when you have an adopted park system plan you can leverage that adoption for grants so if you're applying for instance FURDAP, which is an acronym for the Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program, one that is funded by the Florida legislature, you get more points if you have an adopted plan. So we want to make sure as we're going through the process, we are here for you all. We're here to answer your questions, your concerns, take your input. We've already gotten a letter with some input because we're here to hear that. And we want to make sure that when we're gone, you all know this is your plan. And we want you all to have document that you're proud of that you're proud that you could participate in and has a lot of enthusiasm so feel free to stop us and ask questions we are absolutely here for you well we'll listen to you and then perfect well your presentation will last about three hours well you're one of the shorter consultants i'm one of the shorter ones yeah um actually i haven't timed it but it's it's quick and i know you'll have a long agenda and today's presentation we just have a slide at the end to start getting some of your preliminary thoughts but all we're doing today is introducing the process to you thank you so with that said um oh this is the room display so i have to look at this one can we switch Okay, perfect, all right. Oh, you're gonna click? Okay, thanks, we've already done the introduction. So I'm just gonna do an overview of the master plan and we're gonna talk about the public outreach plan. We made a very concerted decision to have the public outreach start in October after the people who leave from this crazy heat we have start to come back. So we wanted to make sure that we could capture as many residents of Venice as possible. So go ahead and flip. All right, so the overall purpose of the master plan is to understand the needs and opportunities, talk to the public, hear what they have to say. We take public input prior to professional output very seriously at GAI. We come in with no preconceived notions and we let what we hear as we're going through the process really create a master plan that is for your residents. And I do want to focus on that. We recognize that there certainly is an influence of tourists here in Venice but the parks master plan especially since it's part of your comprehensive plan and one of the recommendations we really focus on how the parks are serving the residents of Venice the people who are walking to them after work on the weekends taking their grandkids as opposed to the bigger tourism aspect this is very much a homegrown plan for your residents The idea is that we're gonna create a vision for the next 20 years for all of the parks. We really do that with an eye towards equity. So we're gonna look at how your parks, your existing parks are serving their intended use, how they're serving the residents around them. When we get to the survey, we'll ask people How long are you willing to walk to a park? When you get to a park, what are you doing there? To make sure that they're serving the needs of multi-generations, multicultural needs, that type of thing. And then ultimately to improve the quality of the life for people who live here. So the process, this is kind of an overall schedule. We're slated to finish... early next summer and again that's to allow enough time to make sure that we're talking to the advisory boards that we're talking to the planning commission we're talking to city council throughout the whole process and of course you all as the citizen advisory board so we've already finished task one and that is when we went out and visited all of the parks we did an assessment of all of the parks our landscape architecture team goes out and we call it dna the design and ambiance of each of the parks and looks at how they're functioning. We're not super focused on, you know, is there a dead shrub somewhere? We're really focusing on how it's working. Some of the things that we look for are evidence of flooding, evidence of do we need to control the water, that type of thing, but not down to the like individual plant material type level. We've also looked at the demographics of the city. We've looked at park trends. We're going to be looking at trends in regionally in florida we try not to look at a lot of national trends because we're very different in florida and the way our park systems function in florida is much different than the rest of the country so we're going to look at that and see how you all are keeping up with park trends We're going to look at evaluation criteria and how we are going to evaluate that and Roger already mentioned that we did spend a lot of time with Ricky and his team in the park so it was that's really for us a great experience because we get to talk to them about where are you having issues where are you seeing and this wasn't much of an issue in Venice but where are you seeing full trash cans with beer cans in a morning. So we know that there's some things going on in the overnight hours that might not be conducive to having a safe public park. So we got to spend time doing that. Task two is really focused on public outreach. So we're gearing up for that now. Really excited about that. I'll talk about that a little bit more in detail. And then the remainder of the schedule goes into the needs assessment, which is basically the difference between what we saw and what we heard and where the gaps are. So if you can think about the gaps and what the public wants, and what the city is currently offering, that becomes the needs assessment, what the city needs. And then we move into analysis and planning, which will ultimately wrap up with having a capital improvement plan for the park system. And when I say capital improvement plan, don't want you to think of only we're going to recommend the city build 20 new parks in fact i can tell you that's probably not going to be a recommendation at all so we're going to look at how can we help the city prioritize the implementation of the recommendations but we don't have any of that information yet so stay tuned and when we come see y'all later it looks like the next time we see you is in uh right after the holidays so in the early part of the year

The weather will be a little bit better then too.

All right, so data information collection. Here's just a very brief overview. Here's your park system. Very, very lucky to have a nice concentration parks in this part of the city. And then you can see as you start to move east, the parks start to spread out a little bit more, but you do have some nice sized parks. We're also working with the city. We just got a GIS data dump of all of the homeowners association parks. So we're going to be looking at those as well because we know people who live in HOAs do have some local park service for meeting their close-to-home needs, a playground, that type of thing. So we're going to be pulling that information in as part of the plan too. That just helps us have the city not have to be responsible for providing all of the very specific close-to-home service for parks. So that'll be the next time we update you. We'll have some more information on that. Just so you have a quick overview of how we get the data, we do everything in GIS. This is just a quick screenshot of how we pull in the data. When we're out, we collect the park features, we categorize them to what they are. That way the city has a complete database of all of your park infrastructure across the city. And then I mentioned the DNA or the design and ambiance evaluation. This is really how, especially your neighborhood parks fit into the social fabric of the communities, the neighborhoods that they serve. So we're looking at the arrival. How are people getting there? Do they have safe pedestrian crosswalks to cross the street to get there with children or if they're using a wheelchair or a walker? How is it organized? Do you have things together? Oftentimes we don't really prefer to see, for instance, a basketball court right next to a playground because the users of a basketball court have a very different, can have a very different language from young children on a playground. So those are the types of things we look for when we're looking at how the park is functioning for its intended purpose. How safe is it? How much shade is there? I can predict that we're gonna hear from public input that people want more shade. It just always seems to happen. So we'll look at that type of thing. Everything that really creates the experience from a park user's perspective. Okay, so then we come up with park scores. Next time I talk to you, I'll go much more in depth on this, but basically it's a comparative tool where we can use the design and ambiance with the condition that helps us. And I don't expect you to digest this graph, but the takeaway from this graph is anything that pops up in red is something that is a higher priority. It might be because it's reaching the end of its useful life and needs to be considered for replacement. This gives us the opportunity to have a more methodical and quantitative approach to prioritizing park improvements across the system. So this is something that we'll get into a little bit more as we get later on in the project. So public outreach, the very exciting part, and we really hope you all will come see us when we're working with the public. We're gonna have a survey. I know the draft of the survey was attached to your agenda, but we hope that you'll share it with all of your friends and neighbors and everyone you know and help us push out the survey. We can talk about it a little bit at the end, but that's gonna be a valuable tool for us because even though we will be here in person and talking with people on the ground, a lot of times people don't have the time and aren't able to come out and see us the survey is the quickest way to get us information so we like to kind of triangulate that with the open link survey anyone can take it and i do want to mention that it will be formatted in to be printed so what if someone's not comfortable taking an online survey we certainly understand that The city will be provided a PDF. They can hard copy and print as many as they want. They can mail it out at a resident's request and then it can come back to us and we'll just enter it into the database. It's no problem. We don't ever want technology to be a barrier for anybody participating in it. We're also going to be talking with stakeholders throughout the process. So the stakeholders will be somebody like Sarasota County. You heard Roger talk about how important the interlocal agreements are. So we'll be talking to Sarasota County Parks. We'll be talking with other park user groups throughout the process in a little bit more of a small group format. So that's coming up and then of course the open public workshop events. So our survey is gonna run and feel free, well you all have this, you don't have to take a picture of it. The survey is anticipated to run from September to November. The reason why it's gonna be open for so long is we want the survey to run the entire time that we're taking public input. So with all of our public input events, we're gonna be advertising it, we're gonna be trying to get people to take it. We have a QR code and I believe we have a shortened bitly site too where people will be able to take it. So we really are gonna spend two months collecting survey data and it will ebb and flow. We'll see after we have events, we'll get a lot of responses and then it'll slow down. But this gives us enough time to really have the opportunity for people to participate. So our public events, we are going to be here on October 16th from 4 to 930. And again, we're working closely with the city to advertise this and make sure that people know that we're going to be here to talk to them. And then the next morning we're going to be doing the farmers market from 8 to 1. Then we will have open public workshops here at City Hall October 28th and October 29th. And the stakeholder focus groups are gonna weave in between those dates. So we'll be here talking to people face to face as part of that during that time frame. So then of course the city check-ins, the citizen advisory board planning commission and city commission as we're going through the process. So our public workshops are very open, open house style. What we have found, especially since COVID, I think I'm extremely entertaining and everybody wants to listen to me give a presentation, but most people don't. So what we don't want, again, barrier participation. Does somebody think that they need to show up at 6.30 to hear the consultant talk at them for 20 minutes? and then take input. So instead, we do them open house style. That way, at the farmer's market or when people are coming to City Hall, they can stop by at their leisure. If they wanna spend five minutes with us because we pulled them off the side of the road and we asked them to come talk to us, that's fine, we'll take that five minutes. We oftentimes have a lot of people engaged and they wanna stay talking longer, so we have different stations where we look at where people live, work, and play, how they're getting to different parks, what's their close to home park, We have activities for kids. We bring crayons and let kids or adults draw their dream park for us. Kids seem to love it. We get some really great feedback that way too. We look at the priority voting. If you had only $5 to spend, how would you spend it? What are your priorities for infrastructure? We make it fun and it really creates an environment where we can get people to talk to us. And we find that people spend much more time than they think they're going to spend, especially if we arm wrestle them off the street and ask them to come talk to us, which we have no shame. We definitely do that too. So online survey, the question categories, right now we're looking at the current use of parks, the current conditions, which ones are important to your household, what would increase your household's usage. We really try to capture the non-users or the low users to find out what would bring them out. with the idea that you all have a wonderful between the nolan greens your neighborhood parks besides the heat because we can't control that what else would really make your neighborhood park where you want to be after work after school with your grandkids that type of thing looking at some of the park improvements at legacy park how do people prefer to receive communications from the city hear me now people are going to say they don't know how to get information from the city i can tell you the city of venice does an outstanding job with their public information but it just helps us reinforce how people would like to receive information from the city specifically about parks and then we do ask some demographic questions all the questions are optional people don't want to answer demographics they don't have to I do want to mention that on the first slide you can see here we're going to ask people what neighborhood they live in. That oftentimes very much affects the context that we read their results, right? So if somebody lives closer to the beach and they're driving way out east to go to the sports complex, we get kind of that frame of reference when we look at the results. So hopefully people will be able to self-identify with their neighborhoods. And those are the neighborhoods that are the same neighborhoods that are in the comprehensive plan. So that's very useful. We can compare the data that way. All right, needs assessment. This is, I'm gonna go really quickly through here because this is what we're gonna come to next. What we do is basically we take all of those pieces of information which are identified as a sample on the left-hand side that we hear from the people, very, very important. If somebody participates and takes the time to participate, we're gonna take the time to read what they say. Absolutely, we'll digest everything that we hear. And then we, um, it's our job to take all those pieces of information and theme them together. And those become the emerging themes. Again, this is a sample, this one, um, the emerging themes for this, for this particular master plan was connected communication, trails and pathways, safety, inclusivity, distinct user experiences, and canopy and wildlife. So that helps us really frame the recommendations of the plan based on what we hear from the public and what's important to them. And then as we get into the end of the project, the recommendations and the master plan, we work very closely with city staff on the capital improvement plan. Again, this is a sample. This is from the city of St. Cloud in Central Florida. We look at short, mid, and long-term timeframes. They're different for every community, what feels best for short-term for you all. Some it's just two to three years, some of it's five. You know, a very indifferent comment, depending on what happens in November in the state of Florida with the upcoming election. We are working on this capital improvement plan after the November election. So that's going to help us plan your financial future based on how we work with our urban analytics team on how you're tax revenues are going to look and how they're going to flow so we want to make sure that we're paying attention to that too and working with city staff because when we leave we want to make sure that we don't leave behind a plan that there's no way you can implement so we work very hard to customize your short mid and long term and how much money is in all of them With the idea that you don't go from an unadopted plan in 2016 to an adopted plan in 2026, all the way to 2036 without having looked at in the middle. So what we do is we encourage most of our clients to do, in the about five-year mark, do a little public input, celebrate your successes from the last master plan, and then help clients reprioritize based on what the public needs five years from now.

Great.

And then that is the end of my presentation. We do have some discussion and feedback questions that we thought we'd love to hear from you all. I'd be happy to answer any questions about my speedy overview, but these are some of the ideas that we would love to hear from you if that's okay with the chair and we can talk about this.

Here's what I'd like is I'd prefer to see if there's any questions or comments before we get into these lanes okay absolutely and um the other thing that we'll do is uh from we've had some great success in assigning a ring ring master we've had two major projects this will be someone on our staff who will uh shepherd this and uh rather than me having to call mr Clark all the time. They will call Mr. Clark if there is a question or something. So let me turn it over to my colleagues. First, do you have any questions or comments regarding any of this? Yes, sir.

John Ager is the new director of County Parks, and he has stated recently that one of his projects is renewing, updating the 2026 Parks Master Plan, which will include parks in South County. Have we discussed this with the county to be on the same page?

We have not yet, and I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but they're one of our stakeholders, so that'll be October.

any more yes yes sir excuse me a couple questions regarding the survey would this be an appropriate time to sure yeah um looking at the uh um below on the first page below number three where the map is of and all the parks that are listed pine brook park specific is not listed yet on that on the on the one through 42 or whatever number is there okay you know when you went to wellfield i i'm not sure if you remember but wellfield is like two-thirds and then there's pembroke park and across the street is curry creek preserve and and it's listed now wellfield and curry creek preserver listed as city parks but again i don't know if it's switched over from the interlocal agreement and so another another look at that to make sure it's it's correct and i'm wondering if pine brook park can be included into the list proper so that when community takes a look at it they're going to they're going to see that park it's a pretty active park in the central venice area So that's one. And I'm just wondering, it's all great, it's extremely thorough, extremely interesting. Why did we pick Legacy Park specifically in the survey to focus on that to get people's input? Are we really looking to improve?

yeah so that's one of the ones that is turning over from Sarasota County to the city of Venice and that's one has a lot of opportunity for potentially new amenities so we wanted some feedback of what there's a lot of um empty space that potentially could have different opportunities so we wanted to hear from the public what would they like to see there and that was something talking to Public Works that they would love that feedback moving forward to have kind of a plan as they take over maintenance of the park Okay, great.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

I have some comments, and thank you for this. And when I look upon this, I look upon this as from someone who's not as engaged as these people to my left and right. What is a parks master plan?

Oh, sure. Can you go back to that?

I know the answer.

Yeah.

But when someone sees this, this is sort of governmental jargon. So I wonder what you're trying to do with the parks master plan. Okay. And, uh, my suggestion, I don't need responses. Um, you can do that. Secondly, uh, the neighborhood, um, and the city can work with you on that. I'm worried about that, especially if you're new. Okay. Uh, I live in Northeast Venice. I live off of North Laurel road and I'm very, very close. tonight's trial. So I would hope that you would have distinguished these in a little better way. The other I trust that on the web that this a map will be larger and that I can expand so that I can can see that okay. One of the things that you don't have on here and this I will take a response Why don't you have how long they've lived here? Isn't that a factor?

We do have that, don't we? Yeah, that's the first question. All the way at the very front page at the top.

Oh, okay.

We snuck it in there on you.

I just wondered why you didn't put it. I'm sorry. I didn't see it.

So that, well, and that's a really good question because a lot of people will skip the demographics at the end and we don't want them to skip how long you've lived here.

I got it. I got it. Okay. Um, I also, uh, I look at all the things that you have here. And you probably will embarrass me and say, it's right there, Mr. Ephraim. I looked, did some research on it. You don't have putting greens.

Putting greens?

Yes. And there are certain parts, there are certain, please. There are certain parks that I researched that have putting greens and they're instrumental park. They draw people. to that. So I'm just asking you as experts is to, you have a very inclusive lift, whether that is a viable thing at this point.

So we hone down the list based generally on what's feasible in an area. So we don't rinse and repeat every time we do one of these surveys. If you think the putting greens are something that people in Venice might actually check off, that's great. We also have the open ended other. So like, for instance, I had I'll never I'll never forget this. I had over 200 people once respond that in the right end that a certain city needed more lawn bowling. Do you think that the survey got passed around to the Lawn Bowling Club? Yes. If we would have put lawn bowling as something to check off, would it have gotten as much attention? I don't know. It's no problem for us at all to put in putting green.

You're the expert. The only reason I say is that golf is a 12-month business here and people may and that's why I look to see do other parks have it. Not in this general region. I think Those are all my comments thanks for passing this out beforehand. Any other further comments.

Is there any value to adding a question or 2 about whether the resident lives in one of those communities that has access to the private parks that are like within their development and then maybe how much time they spend in their own private community Park versus a public Park.

I will people probably won't know because people don't know the difference between their HOA parks and city parks or county parks for that matter we can we can try let me let me think on that a little bit we've never approached it that way my concern is that we miss one so we got the GIS data from the city on the known HOA parks but sometimes if they're older than records we're keeping or you're breaking out the microfiche to find them that's that's the only concern and then somebody's like because they're totally out of the city's control um that's a little bit that's a little bit more difficult to to manage that but let me think about it i haven't dug into the hoa data yet to see um how it how it looks overlaid on the city limits yet to see if it's there's glaring things but That would be the reason why I would urge caution against doing it that way.

Okay, thank you. Anybody want to volunteer? Yes, go ahead, Lily.

When you guys go to the special events, like the Sun Fiesta and the Market, would you guys say that you are targeting kids and teenagers and young adults just as much as you do all ages?

Yes, absolutely. Usually the first thing we do at special events is we ask people if they live in the city. it's not that we don't want to hear from people and we're not going to kick them out if they say no but we do want to keep that in perspective but if we especially if we see a family we because we have multiple people at these special events and we'll work with city staff like amy will take the kids and take them to the coloring table and get them going on coloring and so we try to make sure that parents are comfortable with their kids and we're getting to talk to everybody so yes we we target very, very young to are the longest tenured residents.

Yeah, because my biggest, like, as someone that's 17 years old, if my friends saw these, they're going to put, like, number five every single time they see the word pickleball court. And unless that reaches them, I don't think they're going to be inclined to put in that input. However, if they have as much access to it as a regular, slightly older citizen, then I think the data would actually be slightly different, if not very different.

Yeah. And so are you the teen representative? I am. I love it. Thank you.

Student representative. Student representative. Is her official. And by the way, I just want how long is she here through the through the term of this plan? OK, so she'll she'll live through this.

that's wonderful thank you welcome I love to hear that I have a 18 year old freshman in college so I understand your demographic just dropped her off last week I'm still recovering so yes but I would challenge you as the student representative on this committee when this survey goes live ask your friends to participate get the survey to your you're a senior Yes. Yeah. Get the survey to your principal and ask them to push it out. Have the school TV show or newspaper, do a little, hey, we're talking about Venice Parks. You don't have to get into the technical, what is a master plan type thing, but hey, we're talking about Venice Parks. Tell us what you think. What do you want more of? There's a survey out there. It'll take you seven minutes. Fill it out. So that would be a really cool role for you. And then I think as you get through the project and get to see it at the end of your term, you're going to get to say that you had some say in it and that your friends did too. So by all means, please. I'm super excited to... I can't see real clearly that far because of my age, so I didn't pick up that you were a student.

Thank you. In terms of ringmasters, any volunteers?

I'll do it.

Terry will do it. The role of the ringmaster is not to tell you what to do. The role of the ringmaster is to coordinate with Mr. Clark. That's who we'll deal with, not you, per se. And if there are any issues or what's going to happen at the next meeting, that is the relationship. Your presentation was very comprehensive, very thorough, and very personal, and I appreciate that. Best of luck to you. We're looking forward to seeing a wonderful master of a garden. a master plan for parks, which you'll elaborate on what it is. But thank you very much for visiting us today.

If I may indulge in one more kind of response to your early question, what is a master plan? I do want to just leave you with this thought. One of the ways that we do produce a plan is we typically have a public-facing document, and that public-facing document is essentially the punchline of the plan. So if somebody's wondering what is a master plan, instead of having a phone book-sized master plan to get to the punchline at the very end, we create something that's very consumable that's very graphically beautiful and that will help explain the master plan and then all of the what you would typically call an appendix becomes the technical document where we put more of the background information so people who are interested in how we came to all of our conclusions can read that

Thank you again. We appreciate it and have a wonderful day and we hope to see you in future meetings.

Yes. And we hope to see you in October. So thank you all very much.

Right.

Appreciate your time.

Our next agenda item is the approval of the mayor's garden located on the Lavelli Municipal Campus. And our current mayor, Mayor Picciotta, is going to address this issue. And Mayor Picciotta, While you were coming here, the board wanted to congratulate you on your victory last night. And we know that you'll be an asset to all of us as you assume your new position with the state. But for the time being, break out the champagne and congratulations. And may I just leave the applause for a job well done. The floor is yours, sir.

Thank you for that. You know, it's kind of funny you have to emphasize current mayor versus the future mayor sitting in the back of the room. So, actually, I think James is going to kick us off first, but I'm going to let him talk about the future mayor's garden. And I do appreciate the kind words as we get started with this project, but this is something that I want to leave as a lasting impression. So, James, if you want to get us started, and then I'll fill in where I need to.

absolutely thank you mayor thank you chair this is the mayor's vision i can't claim this idea for ourselves but i will give you a little background on the process like any new idea it comes in to staff first and we kind of vet it through our our staff roles so public works has been brought in and we've met at the site that's proposed it is in need of some enhancement hopefully you got to see the the photos out there definitely area of the the Edla Valley City Hall campus here that that needs some help so I think it is a great concept we do have irrigation out there today so there's opportunity for some for some enhanced landscaping part of the problem is that it's very shady so you have to have the right plants out there for that environment but Like all of these ideas, they will, if it's a permanent improvement located on a park, which this would be, comes to the Citizens Advisory Board first for feedback and then recommendation to City Council. Then it will go to City Council for approval. And we will, depending on their process approval, we'll make it happen. So that's basically the process. Staff is supportive. I think it's a very warranted location. And as far as the vision goes, I'll hand that back over to our mayor.

Yeah, so the location on the campus is actually right outside of the mayor's office. The window looks out onto Harbor Drive, and it's an area that I feel needs a little bit more emphasis, not only because you have to look out that window when you're sitting in the office, but also as you're walking by, it's a very underserved area. So my idea is that so we don't have to use city funds, I'm gonna jumpstart the project by funding it myself, and then um as as mayors uh come along james and i had a very good conversation about this and and um he had kind of made the suggestion that we could allow enhancements to be made over time by future mayors if they so choose so that the burden is not just on one person but also it allows for the growth of vision and and as things move on in time with our community those mayors could kind of add their finishing touches to it so um kind of a neat little project something very small in comparison to a lot of other things we've done around here but um something meaningful to me as i'm getting ready to walk out the door so appreciate you all for listening to the the proposal and um considering it and if there's any questions i uh i yield mr chair any questions dr davis

being the plant person around here have you had any thoughts I saw that Babby was going to get involved in that sort of thing and so being shady not a lot of flowers there maybe but what what kind of plants have you been thinking about

Yeah, so we met with Justin Taylor over at MRT so that we could kind of do a design and then he's got some proposal he's going to give us as it relates to the types of more shade specific Florida native plants that we could put in there. The VABBY component, as I've advocated in the past, I don't want this to be something that the city has to take on additional expense and burden. So by VABBY being one of our community partners, allowing them to come in and kind of maintain was something very important. uh there there is the the possibility what we're looking at right now is one of the flower fountains so there would be some some flowers but you know be one of the ones that they maintain just like what you see on the avenue so um i'm not going to say that everything's going to be necessarily florida native but but it'll have the vabby touch and and i i know it'll look very nice and you know the suggestion is florida native and we'll see what the designer comes up with but the shade is the biggest consideration right now So hey, if you have any recommendations, we're open to that too. It's a community project.

You have a question? Yes. Would this purely be vegetation or would there be any paving involved or maybe like a bench or a fountain?

So initially there was discussion about doing some pavers and I'm kind of opposed to the idea because I want it to remain as natural as possible. So we did talk about repurposing a concrete fountain to make that flower fountain. And then we also did discuss one bench. There's a kind of a gap in the hedges right now. There's actually I think a whole line of hedges are missing. So we talked about putting a bench in and then bringing hedges up to the sides of the bench. so also to to provide you know a sitting spot for folks there's kind of a gap in that area also when you walk past you're going to see there's an area over in front of the um the building department that's full sun so sitting on those benches you know i'm sure it's convenient for a short period of time but if if you're going to sit there for any period of time you're in full sun that whole time so if we can put a bench there i think it'll provide a shady spot that that somebody could actually sit and enjoy and um so yeah so the answer to your question is a fountain that's non-functional so it'll have flowers in it and then no pavers no concrete and then one bench um along the sidewalk

And, Sheriff, I can just add likely a sign to denote the mayor's garden, some sort of sign or plaque that would go there.

We were discussing that idea, and it's still in transition, but possibly putting the names of the previous mayors just kind of like you see around the room. We've got their portraits and their names, and when they serve, something smaller than that that would just maybe identify the previous mayors of the city, a little historical fact or something like that that would be pleasant to walk by and read. But we haven't quite ironed out those details yet.

I wanted to make a comment that you covered it in today's world where they put everything a city does under a microscope. I think it is important as you roll this out that you indicate that it is I'm taking your words basically no cost to the city that that is donated so that it doesn't give the perception that a politician, elected official, is doing something that serves his or her interest. And so the more you can say that this is of no cost to the taxpayers, the better is my advice. Okay?

I didn't say that.

No, you did say it, but I'm glad you said that. Good luck with this. What's the timeline? Maybe I didn't hear it.

So pending your recommendation to council, we'll bring it to the next council agenda, which will be the first meeting in September. And we'll have the design finalized at that point. And we're working with the mayor to get it finished before his term ends.

I've told the city manager that he has until 1159 on November 2nd.

Will that be daylight or what time? P.M., sir. Let me ask... Do you want to vote on this? Yes, I think that would be totally appropriate. So those in favor of supporting the approval of the Mayor's Garden located on the Valley Municipal Campus, do you want to do this individually or what?

I think we can do a roll call vote.

Roll call, Madam Clerk.

Okay. Mr. Ellis, I'm sorry. Mr. DeFallis?

Yes.

Mr. Redman? Yes. Dr. Davis? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. Chair Efron?

Yes.

Mr. Carr? Yes. And Ms. Panfield? Yes.

And it'll be taken to council next meeting, you think?

It didn't make this next meeting, which is next week. It'll be the first meeting in September.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, and again, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Next is the bicycle-friendly level to gold. We've been waiting for that. And to present, you'll know her. You're presenting on this?

Mr. Chair, can I enter a couple comments prior?

Okay, Mr. Carr, I beg your pardon.

I did not see that apologies it is going directly over there okay board members just to update you or remind you the last evaluation of the of the city's program was in 2024 we did get a copy of that report the next one is four years later it's 2028 So there is some time still in terms of really gearing up for it. Darlene Culpepper from staff is here today to review what's going on and to see if she needs any help with anything from us.

So let me just clear before we start. What's the end of this? Last thing we did was take a vote. What are we doing with this?

Depends if she needs any help.

So that's what we're listening for.

Correct.

Miss Culpepper.

Hi for the record, Darlene Culpepper, Special Events and Mobility Coordinator. Yeah, so the report card, as you all were provided in your agenda, kind of summarizes the, you know, 150 plus questionnaire that I have to complete every four years and show us, you know, where our weaknesses are, where our strengths are and that type of thing. It does give some ideas of making the steps to move to gold. Getting us to silver was hiring in my position back in 2016, so we've been able to maintain that silver status since then, so that at least we're not going backwards. My key takeaway from the report card, a lot of the engineering and encouragement, evaluation and planning that kind of comes into you know what are our next steps to get to gold might be a little bit more challenging coming from a small town in all of sarasota county you know we do have some issues with education in the schools as far as bike safety programs i can't tackle that you know with the school board but i can certainly try my best to you know get out safety information and that type of thing i am on the bicycle pedestrian trails advisory committee There was some really good talk yesterday on e-bikes and education to get out there in the school systems from John Hopkins Children's Hospital. So I'll be working with them to kind of see what ways she's kind of interacting with the school boards to kind of get in there and get more education into the school systems. Particularly, ideally, we want to kind of look at projects and not necessarily something, what are the steps are that we can get to goal, but what our community is looking for to be bicycle accessible. So some of the areas that I kind of noted reviewing the entire report card is connectivity. Are there gaps in sidewalks? Are there gaps from the trail getting to the beach access? kind of end of trip facilities. So when they get to the end of the legacy trail and they're getting to their destination, are there bike racks to securely lock up to? Do they feel safe locking their bikes up in that area? Those types of things. So biggest thing is a protected bicycle corridor. So as we don't have more roads that are kind of getting built in venice but we are improving on those structures that we already have and especially with the new developments that are going into place are we making sure you know our master plan and all of our code enforcement all the types of things that go into the planning of these facilities are they making sure that there's bike lanes within the street connectivity the sidewalks all those types of facilities available for them and um you know we have a really low crash report given in all of sarasota county which is good but we still do have crashes and fatalities so we'll i'm going to kind of work with the police department to as those kind of come up assess the areas and see if it was necessarily something that we can improve on for the bicycle safety or if it was just you know one of those instances a true accident But overall, I think one of the easiest things that kind of was highlighted in the report card was about bicycle parking and the parking racks that we have available. A lot of our parking, our bike racks don't actually meet the national standards for securing your bike up. you know, if we present a city ordinance to secure those bike racks and what that looks like. So if we implement something like that, are we going to have to change all of our bike racks within our city system? So if we implement something like this, it is a drastic change that will have to kind of come with, you know, funds for that. So some of these might not necessarily be doable within this four year timeframe. But ultimately, just kind of getting ideas from the community. You know, when you're out there, I talk with all the people when I do my monthly bike rides in the end season, October through April. You know, if there's any areas of interest that they find that might need some improvements for the bike ped safety and that type of thing, that's when I kind of reach out to them. I work with Babby a lot. You know, there's a lot of cyclists in the area and it grows during season. So ultimately, we want to kind of shift to how do we improve the experience of the bicyclist when they're getting around town and how they feel comfortable? It's not necessarily about getting the gold, it's about getting for safety and accessibility.

Questions from board members?

What is the status of e-bikes being included in the bike plan and can you speak to any thoughts along what to expect here because there's more in there faster in there.

Well, so what I can say I heard from yesterday's meeting, I know Manatee County is currently going to their council board to kind of institute their own ordinance on e-bikes and as far as that goes. And so from one of the statements, and I'm gonna follow up with her tomorrow, is she said that back in 2025, Florida allowed that local municipalities can instate their own ordinances on e-bikes within their counties. So that's something that we'd have to work with the police, obviously, because it does come down to enforcement. So where I can talk till I'm blue in the face to people and talk about e-bike safety, we really have to kind of work in hand with our task force to, you know, the ones that are out there seeing this. but there's a lot of education and stuff that I'm going to get out with the PIO team and see if I can get with the school board, at least our local schools here in Venice, to kind of get more education out to the teens and the e-bikes as far as what class is actually allowed. She kind of implemented for Manatee County, they're looking at banning all children under 16 being allowed to ride these e-motos, which there's different classes of bikes, and those are the ones that you see the kids popping wheelies on going down the sidewalk, and they're not really bicycles, they have pretend pedals on them to make them look like a bicycle. And so there's a lot of education when it comes to that. They were stating that there's a lot of misinformation going out there. So parents are buying these bikes, not realizing they're technically the illegal bikes because they're mislabeled or they're buying fake labels off of Amazon and covering over the class designation of the sticker. So it's really going to come down to enforcement. But it's all we can do is educate and educate.

Okay. Okay. Again this is about the 3rd time presented here we appreciate your concise and helpful. Presentation and by spittling is a good part of our of our city so thank you. Board members do you want to 5 minutes shake and bake. Intermission just 5 minutes to stand up or or or you want me to just to continue.

Okay, continuing.

Lily, you're the deciding vote. Okay, then we'll stay.

All right.

We don't vote on this, right? All it is is an update. No, it is an update.

Right, right.

That's what I thought.

Well, we didn't ask her if she had anything to do.

could follow up if you want she would probably would have told us but the question is whether you whether whether you have any requests that that we could help you with

honestly the best thing I can say is you know moving forward if there are any projects that we want to look at I'm certainly happy and available to sit kind of sit down I don't have any projects currently under my belt to update any of these areas but it will involve multiple departments it will you know Public Works and police and that type of thing so it's going to take

more than just my little hat wearing here but we can definitely sit down and look at some project ideas if you have any and kind of see if that will benefit our application for the 2028 renewal okay next thank you very much is the review of the code section 46.5 for the naming and renaming of city-owned park okay anyone know You're taking that I give a little intro yet chair, yeah, no outside presentation or anything now go now.

So this was kind of an older assignment that was from City Council and I don't believe there's a ring master assigned at this point so you would ask to put on the agenda at the last meeting and we attached the actual code section section 46 5 there that walks through that process. I will add just for context, you know this initial request from City Council came after the proposal to rename Maxine Barrett caused a little bit of concern in the community on kind of how that process went. And so I think the goal from council was for CAB to take a look at this process and if there are any recommendations based on your experience with this last round that would help make this process better or perhaps a little bit smoother with the community, they'd be looking for that feedback. I'll leave it to you, Chair.

Any comments? Of course. I do. Number one, it says the person ties to the Venice community doesn't mean that they have to live in the community, correct?

You're asking specifically in the code the reference to?

Well, you're going to take this to council. E, under criteria, number C, the person's ties to the community. Now, it may be in here, and I've overlooked it, where it says the person must be a resident of the city of Venice.

I don't recall seeing that.

OK. So my suggestion, and I don't know if any board wants to say this, is to indicate that the person must be, requires them to be someone of Venice. That's my thought. I mean, I could live outside the community and do stuff in here and be a nice person, but I think this is for those It could be a corporate person who doesn't live here and wants to give X thousands of dollars to have the park named after him or her. I'm just asking you to look at that and see if it's going to get the board into any difficult, I mean the council of the city in any difficult. That's my thoughts.

Sure. And I'll just kind of back up. I mean, I think the model that the CAB has for reviewing an assignment is great. So my recommendation as your staff liaison would be to assign someone as the ringmaster, have them go through this code kind of comprehensively, and I'm sure there are several items similar to this where you're gonna have some good questions

for your next meeting to talk about with the group okay so this there's no urgency on this no no i this has been lingering for a little while so i don't think council is expecting a report back you know at any set time um another issue in today's america in looking at the current parks have you ever analyzed as to how many are named after men and how many named after women yes no I'm not putting you on the spot, but I am putting it. Have you ever examined that?

Not formally. It came up when we were talking about Maxine Barrett, certainly. So it is something we looked at during that time period. I don't have the information in front of me, but very good question and something that could be talked about. So you want a ringmaster on this one? That's my suggestion. It's your board, Chair.

Well, no, I appreciate it, and... I think Kaitlin said that she would be glad to help with this. Thank you.

I didn't know I had that. I didn't know I had that.

Boy, I'm getting cocky now, you know. I'm moving away.

And, Sheriff, if I can add one quick comment, since you've selected voluntold, and thank you. I would offer any support from the staff perspective as you dive into this if you have any questions on kind of our past experience with it or what certain terms might mean happy to sit down and go through that with you.

But if we have that Davis has a question she can communicate just for the record you can't communicate with her. Communicate to you or to the clerk. Either one is appropriate. OK, thank not to your fellow board members. OK. All right. Thank you very, very much. And thank you for so much for volunteering for this position. As for now, we go back to it, back to evaluate and recommend improvement as relates to the city's website. We'll first call on the ringmaster to. start us off and to introduce our guests who have waited patiently here and we appreciate that so the floor is yours.

So everyone here should have received an email on a very quick task to perform on locating certain things in the site. I hope you all were able to complete that and get the correct answers. I'm outside of that I haven't really seen any updates I mean right now is kind of the behind the scenes portion of the website creation and at this point I will.

Before you do are you pleased with the progress since you. or putting this under the microscope?

Oh, yeah, I mean, stuff like this doesn't happen overnight, and the timeline that they've given us is a very reasonable and a timeline I'm very happy with. Good. So, yes.

Welcome. Thank you for your patience, and if you may introduce yourself and take it from there.

absolutely well good afternoon i'm deputy public information officer brian lorenz lorraine could not join us today i am stepping in move away just a little you're getting a little muffled back up how's that go ahead test test don't eat the mic got it 10-4 all right um so lorraine couldn't join us today so i am stepping in for her this afternoon i am joined today by truck poor our consulting project manager for the website redesign project who i believe you have received some emails from So today we just want to provide you that high-level overview of the behind-the-scenes legwork that our team is working on along with our consultant, and then just discuss the activity that is open to the public right now. So I am going to turn it over to Chuck first, and then we're going to kind of ping-pong between the update that we have for you today.

Hi. We met one other time very early in the process, right after we had the contracts all signed. We've had a lot going on, but as you build a house, you're building the frame. You're not seeing a whole lot of what's happening, but We've been concentrating on something called the wireframe, which is the basics of what the website's going to be. It's the basic layouts, the screens and the menus, navigation process, the graphics that go into the screen. So these are all very, very basic things. There's been a lot of work done on the design, the format, the layout of the groundwork, the navigation. That's been going through and working with the vendor on gathering that portion. Brianne wants to just speak to another piece that we had going on concurrently. in reviewing the current website, looking at the legacy, seeing what screens have developed over the years, and there's a lot of junk that has developed over the years. So we want to make sure we have the vendor focusing on those things that are important. And also what we'll be looking at in a later time is something called configuration management to be able to administer how we're going to do updates so we don't get back to where at this point again. So with that, I don't know if you want to take on the...

Certainly, so like Chuck mentioned, you want to clean your house before you move your house. So behind the scenes, staff has been working with our Granicus consultant, who is our CMS host, to evaluate everything that currently lives on our website. And we found 400 existing web pages, which is not too above the average for government. We have a lot of information to provide to the public, and we do it in a multitude of ways. But this exercise has been a really great audit for us to figure out, is there anything that's old or stale or that could be refreshed or redone as we move to this new site? And really curtailing in what exactly is going to move over in its current state to the new website, what needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up, or maybe what doesn't need to be there at all. Some really exciting things that we've learned as we've gone through this process are really the use of the new search function of this new CMS platform that will have an AI integration. You know, right now you might use the search function on our current website and you might very well find an older document or not the first search result that you're looking for. So this exercise has really helped our staff and our team have that front facing focus of how the public and our constituents are really using the information on the website. And that very well brings me into our next point. So like Alex had mentioned, you received an email with a very brief activity. This has been publicized on our social media.

Turn it around.

I'll get it one of these days. There we go. On our social media as well as our website, I know Lorraine has sent this out to our media partners, her HOA distribution list, so we really are trying to hit it hard. This activity is gonna really explore how you, our user base, finds information on our website. We wanna know how your brains work. The way you look for something might not be the way I look for something. So this exercise will track any wrong turns. It will track what route or what area you're starting your search in. And it'll show us those behind the scenes curtains of, okay, what do we need to change on the navigation based on this actual data and not based on assumptions from staff or employees? So this activity is very, very critical. And if I can make it ask to cab, share this with your friends, your family, your neighbors, because the more people that take this, the better our search and navigation will be on this new website.

What we're going to start moving into now is, now that we've got the basics of the wireframe and the screens and the menus, we're getting this other input as Brianne had mentioned. We start moving into the more detailed, what data is showing up on what screens, how do I move from one screen to the next. We're gonna have a detailed navigation survey, which is when we get these responses back, that'll help the vendor be able to put together the test system for us. We're gonna be heading into a time here where the vendor goes off and starts developing. And it becomes an interactive process with us, but they've collected an awful lot of data from us. And we mentioned the 400 screens that were there. Part of this also is, again, putting in that discipline of being able to allow functional areas to be able to update information, make it fresh, but also do it in a controlled fashion so it doesn't get out of hand again. The next steps, does anybody have a question on anything we've done so far? I can briefly tell you the next steps that we're gonna be working on.

Can you just give a quick example of that last part, updating, keep it fresh?

Sure, absolutely. A great example would be the Holiday Parade webpage. I update that every year, whether it's new photos, new imagery, perhaps it might be the updated link to apply. So every department does have a singular staff person that is responsible or in charge owning their department's content on the website. But just like any job, some days you're hunkered down and you can't get to it. So that's where we do find where some pages might have stale or outdated information to no one's fault. So it is just having that accountability of ensuring that the most updated information is always out there. another great example would be as we're going through the parks master plan for example as we get those more public input sections those things will need to live on the website so ensuring those staff members are comfortable and confident adding those components in on a web page that they'll be maintaining

And part of that also is something called configuration management where you start to have some administrative procedure, some administrative oversight to make sure that what's going out there is current, what belongs out there. So you put some controls in place on that.

So that's somebody's job.

Well, it would not be a new headcount or anything. It's within change management, within an IT organization, or even within the functional area itself. But to just have that discipline as part of the configuration management.

My question, just to have clarified, is a website a historical depository? Because using using the let me just say using our current website, I put in something it gave me the answer. In 2022, OK, I would have gotten a for that, but in the year 2026. It's different. So that is one of the things that I understand BitPitch-wise you're working on. Absolutely. Right.

We're trying to clean that up and make sure that the data that's out there is current and correct. Perfect. Perfect. That's really the end state we want to be at, yes.

So I will add to that, Roger. With each different website hosting platform, or the term that we use for it is CMS, a content management system, They've evolved over time, right? So with this new CMS, we can actually set things to expire as well. So they will automatically remove themselves from the website when they are stale or outdated. That hasn't always been a functionality of the current CMS or they introduce it midway through. So there very well could be documents that were not moving over that would have yielded a result like the example you gave.

Okay. If I just may, a couple of things that we got going on through the fourth quarter of this year. We hope to finalize the navigation, the menus, the data content. That's what we're going to be working on with the vendor. Being able to lay out more detailed page content. Granik is developing a site map for us that we'll be able to work through with that. And then we're gonna start the content migration first quarter 2027. That's where we're gonna start moving over that data that we said needs to be moved over. And we're looking at some time in 2Q27 before we finally have something out there that we can put out in the field.

So it might not visually look like we're doing much but rest assured behind the scenes our staff is really working hard with the vendor to get these more minutiae things ready and set for us to do those more public interfacing pieces.

Just going through 400 screens and trying to weed out what's important is not an easy task so.

Anymore?

Just thank you, and again, if you can just help us share the navigation test, the QR code or the link is available on our website. That would be our ask of you today, please, thank you.

I think we understand what the request is today. What would we expect to come back with another update? What would be the next check-in step for this board?

I think when's the next meeting, October? Okay, we should, at that point, we may have some sample screens by that point.

Tentatively. May I ask, is the QR code still available? Yes. So I ask my colleagues rather than ask them individually as a group, if you haven't taken the test or survey, please do so because the data is very important. I'm curious as to what it's going to say.

Oh, I can't wait to see the results.

Yeah, yeah. And we appreciate all you've done and are excited.

uh... for twenty twenty seven uh... to see uh... the results dr davis i would just like to request a clean copy of of what we should send out what you've had here was different than what i was sent uh... with the agenda i think what i was set with the agenda struck me as being more of a draft hey you guys are getting a heads up of you of how to take this uh... go through these test runs for navigating uh... if you could Send that clean copy to the clerk. She'll make sure we get it. I'd be more comfortable sending that.

Absolutely. I will do that. Thank you.

Anything else, Alex? Nope. So we're on board and on time.

Yes. And next meeting, like they said, we'll have a lot more to dive into. Right now it's just the being patient kind of time.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for all your hard work. We appreciate it. We're open now to board discussions. And that's an open forum, is that correct? OK. So I'm going to first ask Lily. I made this observation to the board, and I hope this is not an offense. I've always noticed that the student is at the far end. Is there any reason for that? Am I right? Okay. As chair, but with your blessings, I would like to integrate the student for a few meetings into the mix. Do I have anyone opposing that? Okay. You're going to be sitting someplace else. I don't know where. Okay. All right. Dead away. Good idea. What's that? Good idea. Good idea. One out of them. Okay. Lily, is there anything that you want to comment on? Okay. Dr. Davis.

Since our last meeting, I sent a letter not on behalf of the CAB, but I sent a letter to the GAI consultants on the master plan with my request that they incorporate They incorporate parts of the city ordinances and development regulations and that sort of thing into the park plan specifically as ice. Did use this discussion in the last meeting to explain my concern that the parks are models for people to take care of their own yard so I just put those thoughts in a letter and send it in and so I'm not sure since it wasn't on behalf of the board, I don't think

it should go to the clerk but did you let me ask did you write it on behalf of the of the board or did you sign your name as a member of the cab i did not it's it's my own private yeah no then that wouldn't be considered board business it would need to cover record that's just your personal business so i just wanted to let you know that i've that i've okay uh been active on that uh mr carr anything thank you mr redmond

I mentioned at the last meeting that, uh, environmentally sensitive land, uh, knowledge is coming back up. I did see the PowerPoint presentation. It shows, uh, what they have done in the past and also the, what they have planned for the future. I would like to, uh, encourage everybody to look into the environmentally sensitive land and see what it's got, uh, planned for, uh, South Sarasota County. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'm good.

Alex?

All good.

Okay. I have a proposal to the... I asked her first. Am I right? It's all right. It's all right. Apology to the chair. Okay. I'd like to surface the possibility of a legislative referral. And first, in respect to you, I did not call you before this, but I have indirectly spoken with you. I respect your position, and I don't want to ever give you a surprise. But I think one of the things, and I would need your blessing, and that's what I'm asking for, is to examine the city's customer service. I think it is an important aspect of any organization In my mini investigation, I have found that, and you're more than welcome to comment about what we have after I speak, people answer the phone in a different way. Some of it is, there's an automated thing and then the name, Joe Smith, some are welcoming. If somebody is on a vacation, I only find out through the word of mouth. It doesn't say I'm going to be on vacation till September the 15th. Please give your calls to something. So I don't know in this city and we'll hear whether there's a standardized procedure. So I am recommending to if with your support passage that we submit a legislative referral to city council to examine the status of customer service within this city um do you want to respond i don't want to i don't like the word respond go ahead the floor is yours thanks chair you did mention this to me so it's not a surprise and uh

I think as a board, totally appropriate to follow this process if there's support from your fellow members to bring a legislative referral to council. On this topic specifically, I believe customer service is the most important thing we do here. We are a small kind of boutique city government here that offers an enhanced level of customer service in everything we do. So if there are areas that can be enhanced, that, to me, as the manager, would be incredibly valuable information.

Without putting too much on the spot, is there, during an orientation of an employee, is there a manual given? Is there a discussion given? Is there a priority? Are there any signs and peoples, these are things that I looked at. Is there a program?

So there absolutely is our policy procedures and rules handbook that everybody has to review. It doesn't always get as granular maybe as you're thinking, which some of these policies are more on a departmental level. And that may be where there are some shortcomings for some folks. So again, I think that from a customer service standpoint, there's always room for enhancements. And sometimes we don't even know what those needs are because you're the customer who is experiencing it. So I was certainly from a staff perspective only would welcome this discussion if it's something that council would like the right to be working on.

Right. I turn it over to my colleagues as to is this something that you think is worthy of a legislative referral? And this would be one of the first ones that we have taken to council getting their blessings. I mean, a lot of the others have come through different routes, but what are your thoughts?

Off the top of my head, from my experiences, I haven't had that as an issue. I think they've been, you know, I get a call, I get a call back, or that type of thing, so I'm not... It hasn't affected me directly, but I see your point, and I think it's worth looking into. It should be a standard procedure of a business or of an entity, so I would be in favor of that.

Okay. Mr. Redmond?

I'm in favor of doing that also.

Sorry. Ms. Panville?

Have you heard complaints? It's not a matter of complaints.

It's a matter of the one thing that I believe is customer service is at all levels. And the question is, are we at this level? Are we at the OK level? And is that OK with the city? And is that where we want to be? So it's not a matter of hearing complaints. I've just experienced enough to call to notice that everybody handles it in different ways. Some people, I didn't get a call back. Well, where's so-and-so? Oh, they're on vacation. Well, there was no mention of that. some greetings are friendly some aren't i mean not negative so that's what i've my background how do you feel support it yes sir is this something you would be the ringmaster leading i think that um it's too early to tell because of the fact that it has to go before council. I would, if allowed, I'd be there to make, as chair, make the presentation, but let's cross that bridge when we get there.

Okay, because it seems as out of everyone here, you're the one that has the most experience with not getting a baseline level of customer service.

Yeah, and just to clarify with you, it's not bad. Yeah, it's just it's very it's different is where do you want to always you say where you want to play the game. We want to play the game.

I'm not quite as quite as sold on the need to go to legislative go to the council on this it's in my mind. If I have a problem with my neighbor, I don't call the police. I should talk to the neighbor first and see if the neighbor can address the problem. I'm not sure exactly why this would go to the council. I'm sure Mr. Clinch would take it as under advice that might be something he would be able to handle with his staff. And I'm not sure why it would come from this board. On the other hand, I don't know what board it should come from. So to be honest with you, I'd rather try a more neighborly approach than going to the council.

Okay. Well, just in response to that, our role is to advise the city. And what I'm saying is we can't tackle anything without that blessing of counsel. We can't take on anything. I could comment as much as you want and you can tell me your experience, but if we're going to really look at it as we've done with everything else, we need counsel to say that's it. I guess another thing that could happen is we could in our board comments, make up something very simple and say, well, I think that wall should be painted blue. OK, Mr. Mr. Clinch could say, guess what? Don't worry about it. It's you don't need to do a study on that. That's why I ask him what he thought about this.

So if I could. That was a great comment, Dr. Davis. My suggestion would be, if you're gonna elevate this as a legislative referral, you may want to expand the scope to say, we're gonna look at customer service challenges throughout multiple divisions, not just out of office replies, right? Right. If the concern is strictly out of office responses and that kind of thing, that's something I'm happy to look into on my own, because it's a very, more of a simple kind of direct question. so maybe that's the distinction that you're looking for there is if you're looking to do something more comprehensive then that would be appropriate to to kind of move up and ask for permission to work on it if it's just a hey here's a singular issue can you check it out you know that's something i'm happy to look into what i believe is that there is no it's not this department if there was i'd call you and say hey i got a problem with this department okay

It's the overall lack of a plan, a game plan, and from my experience, the inconsistency in the customer relations between departments.

Well that that's a very valid experience of that's been your experience, I mean that's certainly not our goal and not really been my experience and working with the different departments to I don't know what the average citizen feels because I don't know when I call.

Honestly whether I get special treatment. Or when Alex calls whether he gets special treatment. So I I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT IN GOVERNMENT TODAY TO HAVE THAT, BUT I'VE SAID ENOUGH. LILY?

PARDON MY IGNORANCE, BUT WHAT'S A LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL?

WHAT'S A LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL?

OKAY. DO YOU WANT ME TO SPEAK? WE GET ASSIGNMENTS FROM COUNCIL. to say, we want you to tackle this. I also, in January, go to council and we talk about that. At that point, if we want to surface an issue we'd like to discuss, we have to get the blessings of council. So if we took this on, Lily, they could say, no, Got it covered or that's a good role for citizens advisory. Does that help you? Yeah. Okay. Like the website is part of the legislative referral big process telling us we want you involved in that. How did I do? That's great.

Yes, exactly. And again, we're welcome to discuss these items. It's really when you're working on an assignment. You go every year to council with a list of here's the items we want to work on this year. They bless that. If there's something that comes up mid-year that you would like to work on, that's where the legislative referral comes in.

I don't think this is as important as the web site, but my experience engaging with the city It's been all over the map. Okay. And, uh, therefore I'm asking council, can we at least look at it and then make a judgment as to whether, um, a policy should be part of the orientation. There should be standards on the way they answered the telephone, uh, I don't know, those types of things. Anybody feel strongly of not doing this? Did my explanation help a little more?

Sure, it helped.

Okay. So what is the next step?

Do we need to vote on a legislative referral?

So you could vote to make the legislative referral, in which case you'd prepare it and we would pass it along to council and get it on their next agenda. I do also want to make note that you are going to be discussing your next year's agenda priorities starting at your next meeting. So if you want to include this with your annual report, you could do it at that time or we can do the separate legislative referral right now. Okay.

I think we should wait and do it with our annual report. I agree.

I don't think it's of an emergency nature. And you know what? You may want to call and find out or see how people greet you or just do those things. And may come back and say, I don't agree with the legislature. It's perfect to me. I need to ask you, in your business, how many people in your office?

How many people in my office? Yeah. We have 140-ish. Okay.

Is there a customer relation book, way to answer phone, all those types of things, or is it just individual?

Maybe for admin staff, for project managers or... Production staff, no, I would say. There's no standard.

Alex, in your former life and current life, was there a focus on that? Were you ever in a company?

I mean, I'm working remotely in tech, so I know there's not too many policies on communicating with customers. It's just all inter-department. What about the two of you and your experience there?

No, no standard. Just, you know, pleasant in terms of answering the phone and responding to the questions, getting there. But no standard throughout the business.

Amy Muir?

Yeah, I've been to the federal government, national NGOs, nothing in particular other than to keep them current. You know, when you call and you get the answer that was, you know, I'm out for Christmas and it's Fourth of July, you know, that's...

oh that's the other thing i forgot to mention you know you know so okay i think your idea is good you want anything else no i just appreciate the discussion and i hope the takeaway is we always do want to do better so we are certainly open and willing for any feedback that you all have we are really lucky to have a designated, uh, administrative, uh, assistant at the front of city hall. Who's there to greet you. Who's answering every phone call that comes in here and helping to route it. I'll tell you during the great recession, we did not have that position. That position was vacated. for budget cut reasons and it was a phone tree. When you called in you got a machine and you pressed a button. So customer service is something that unfortunately during difficult economic times is one of the first things to go. We also have in-person service at our cashiers where you can walk in and pay your water bill and talk to somebody and to me those are highly valued quality of life type services that our city offers so it's important that we highlight the importance of it and that we keep it relevant.

I had when I retired one of the jobs that I took when I saw this was a secret shopper with the company and retail company and went in and it was all over the map. I think the city has done a good job in customer service for these meetings with this set up there and then things anything else for today's meeting. I have a motion for adjournment.

So moved. Second.

All right. Have a wonderful Labor Day coming up. We meet in next, what is this? This is August, October, and we look forward to it. Thank you very much.

I'll be joining you via Zoom on that next meeting.