And it's not a good idea.

Yeah, just popped up there for a second.

Are we on?

Whenever you're ready, sir.

Okay.

We're on.

I would.

What is the date?

I would like to call the September 9th, 2026 Marine Advisory Board meeting to order.

First agenda item two point one.

The approval of the June 10th, 2026 meeting.

Has everybody had a chance to peruse those?

Yes.

Do I have a motion?

I'll make a motion.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

That is passed.

Right away, we can get to our citizen to be heard for things not on the agenda.

If you would like to take the stand and take the stand.

Please tell us and spell your name, please.

Mike Colby, C O L BY, current president of the Clearwater Marine Association, representing the charter boats in the Clearwater Beach Marina.

And I want to thank all of you for being here today.

It was airily quiet at first.

Now, it isn't my intention to come here and say we don't want an increase.

We're going to get one.

I'm speaking on their behalf.

Maybe in two to three year deposits.

So that does several things.

One, that gives our market time to respond to a drastic increase in our pricing.

So that's a concern.

So I would like to see maybe a memorandum of request or understanding sent to council that says if we're going to have this increase, can we do it incrementally?

So our operators can make plans and respond to it, and our market can respond to it.

Now a tour boat can put five dollars on a ticket and kind of overcome large increases.

And you know, it it would be very helpful for us to have that increase come in in increments.

So we can all adjust to it.

Our operators can set pricing where we think our locals and our tourists will respond to that.

Because they come, they're gonna come here to fish, but they're not gonna come here to lose money, a lot of money either.

And the other request would be, and I've talked with Mike about this, is possibly leveraging some of our fuel pricing when we do get fuel services back in the marina, leveraging that against the increases.

And I think that's still set around 45 cents a gallon, something like that.

So if we could trim some of that, leverage it against the increases, that would certainly help because well, obviously, right now fuel is hurting everyone.

It's hurting my customers, it's hurting you guys, hurting our operators.

So it's uh, you know, it may it may be reasonable for us to request some kind of leverage against increases by looking at how can we massage that uh surcharge that's on the fuel.

So that is my intent for you guys to hopefully inform along with Mike, and form counsel of those those two requests.

If you have any questions, I'm ready.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Yeah, I've got I've got a question.

How does and it's kind of to you and Mike, uh, how how does the slip rent at the marina compare to other similar facilities in the area, not statewide, but just in this area?

Competitive higher or lower?

Well, I I've been told that the there's been another survey uh on top of the one that was done, I think initially about a year ago, that showed that we're still under market.

Okay.

Now, does that mean we have to be over market or at market?

I I don't know.

I mean, if what we want as a collective, if we want Fort Lauderdale on the West Coast, but we're headed in the right direction.

We are but so uh I'm unsure, and the initial survey that was done, uh even the vendor that did that survey and one of their paragraphs in the survey admitted that they're not sure the economy would handle uh huge increases, and they did that survey based on property value in this area, not on it what will the market bear.

Right.

And those are two separate issues.

Now, unfortunately, I may have the resources, maybe not the time to engage uh a vendor or a firm that can provide a true market survey.