Good evening.

Even though it says good morning.

Good evening and welcome to the May 19, 2026 City Commission special meeting.

I'm going to call this meeting to order.

And we'll start with Jen um doing a Pledge of Allegiance, our City Attorney.

I pledge allegiance to the fly in the United States of America.

One under God, indivisible, liberty and justice.

Okay.

First we'll do citizen input.

And that is uh does anyone in the audience wish to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda?

So it'd be your time to come forward.

Deputy Renee, anything you want to say?

Yeah.

Okay.

I will close public hearing and we will move to new business, which we just have the one item.

Uh although very important item, discussion regarding implementation of a fire assessment.

And I will turn that over for uh staff presentation, but starting with City Manager Jennifer Bramley.

Yes, good evening.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners.

So this is a special meeting of the City Commission, and and I want to be very clear that uh there is not a sense of urgency.

What that's not the reason why we called a special meeting.

It's a special meeting of the City Commission because this is the only time we could get all five of you together with our attorney and Mr.

Rowe, our attorney from BMO, uh, who is uh specialist, if you will, in assessments.

Um so we had to call the special meeting.

So I want to be very clear uh that that's the reason why we're having this particular special meeting.

So this is why I'm not listening to baseball tonight.

Yes, Tryon and Blue Jason.

Yes.

Yes.

Sorry about that.

It's all good.

So as a result of property tax reform, uh, and in order to address uh structural budget deficits, staff is exploring other avenues, other sources of revenue.

As you know, there are several bills in Tallahassee that encompass varying degrees of advilum tax reductions.

The current bill, which has passed the House, but not the Senate, would equate to about a nine million dollar reduction in advilarm taxes for the City of Dunedin.

Uh should one of these bills pass, we need to be in a position to reduce services as well as identify alternative revenue sources as well.

This evening we'll introduce one of those revenue streams, and that is a fire special assessment to fund fire department operations.

No decisions are going to be made this evening.

We're not asking you to make any decisions regarding implementation of a fire assessment.

We've asked Chris Rowe from Bryant Miller Olive to explain what a fire assessment is and how it works.

And as I said, uh Mr.

Rowe is a very experienced attorney.

Uh he is uh has a great deal of uh background in special assessments throughout the state.

He's very well known for his knowledge, and he's all he was also our attorney representing us for the uh franchise agreement for Duke as well.

So he's well known to us, and uh so we asked him to come here this evening to present to you.

Uh this is the first time that the City Commission is receiving this information, and this is the first time that you will have a chance to ask questions regarding an assessment and uh to discuss it amongst yourselves as well.

Uh and mayor, I am going to turn this over now to uh Mr.

Rowe.

And when he's done, and after you've asked your questions and had your discussion, maybe we can discuss next steps and what we're looking for out of this evening.

Thank you, Mayor.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Commission.

Can you hear me?

Is this working okay?

Sounds kind of low.

Oh, that's a good idea.

Oh, you're she was right.

I have to be right on top of it.

Okay.