Okay.

I want to thank everybody for coming to our meeting today.

And I'd like to start out by letting us introduce one another, starting down on that end, and we'll come all the way around here.

Press the buttons.

Different over here.

Anthony Ricardo, School Board District One.

Melody Balduke School for District 7.

Hi, Cindy Pearson, School Board District 3.

And good afternoon, Matt Carlucci, City Council Member at Large, Group 4.

Good afternoon, Tyrone Clack Murray City Council, District 9.

Okay, thank you very much.

Today's meeting, I called in its last minute, but uh I would have tried to have called it a little earlier, but State Farm had me strangled yesterday.

I've got this pesky other job that I had to work on.

So but I felt this was important to call this meeting today, and I was glad that uh Councilmember Arias called the meeting because that means council members that may have questions still about the resolution that we're uh looking at this coming Tuesday, hopefully, we'll uh have two chances to have any questions that they have uh answered.

I also believe that it's a chance.

Is that councilman Jones down there?

Councilman school board member.

Warren, come on, come on up here, please, sir.

It would it would warm my heart.

It would warm my heart to have uh my good friend Warren Jones up here.

For those of you who don't know, Warren is the longest serving council member since consolidation, 29 years.

And Warren, come over uh here and sit next to Ty Rona.

That way you'll be close.

He got a hug everybody on the way over to a seat assignment.

So I've got time to break it right.

Um I don't think so.

Okay, and so we have uh former council member Warren Jones.

Why don't you introduce yourself, say hello, and then we'll get back to where we were.

Uh good afternoon.

It's a pleasure to be here, and uh when Councilman Matt Carlucci calls, I have to show up.

So uh thank you for the invite, and I'm not gonna thank you for being up here, but I thank you for the invite.

Thank you.

Um, I uh would be when you would you get a little older.

I gotta tell you it almost brings a tear to my eye to uh see my friend up here.

And uh, I get I'm I'm getting too much like that.

My voice starts cracking.

Everybody says, you know, he's getting old, he's getting old.

Anyway, um, but I love him.

Like I love all of y'all.

Okay, so we're called to order, and uh first uh we're gonna do is we're gonna clarify the city council's role on this.

So I asked Michael Fackler, our general counsel, um, the head lawyer of this city uh to come and explain that, and then we'll have um the uh Duval County Public School Superintendent uh speak to the importance of this issue, and I would like to hear from our school board uh members as well as to anything that they want to speak to and any questions that Tyrone or I may have or any other council member who might be wandering in this way uh for they to uh ask, and then we'll take public comment.

So I want to thank uh our general counsel, Michael Fackler for being here.

And um, so why don't you um just kind of lay it out for us and um for everybody, including the media that might be here and the gentleman over here, um the simple truth of what you know what our role is.

Happy to.

Um, I think importantly, this is not the SHAL versus May controversy that we had in 2019.

In this case, the shall has been interpreted conclusively by the Second District Court in 2024 in a case out of Hillsborough County.

Uh, there the court said that in this case, shall in the statute left the in that case the county commissioners no discretion to put the measure on the ballot.

It was a purely ministerial act, and therefore the county commissioners had to do it.

Uh the appellate court affirmed the trial court's issuance of a writ of mandamus, which was essentially the court ordering the county commissioners to put the referendum on the ballot.

This is a different statute than Shaw versus May in 2019, and it is our opinion as well as the binding law in the state of Florida, the act by the city council is purely discretionary.

And I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

Do you have any questions by any of anybody here?

I have a question I'd like to ask, but anybody have a question?

Okay.

Well, my my question would be this.

Um Mr.

Factor, what what would happen if um because we do have a red button and people I suppose could vote no if they wanted to?

I don't know if that's me echoing that I hear out of my left ear, but anyway, um what if people what if what if we had 10 no votes just hypothetically because we may get some no votes because some people just you know want to vote no, and that's their right.

I would not take anybody's right of vote away from them, but what would happen?

It that's a fascinating question uh that I don't know that we fully explored.