Good morning.

I'd like to call this uh November 17th regular city commission meeting to order.

Um we will have the invocation by the city auditor and clerk.

Thank you, please stand.

Emily Frother, we affirm our faith in thee.

We seek your divine strength, wisdom, and guidance in the deliberations that affect the lives of each of the citizens of our community.

In our name we pray, amen.

Uh Vice Mayor Ulrich, would you lead us in the pledge?

Under liberty and investors for all.

Thank you.

Uh are there any changes to the order of the day?

Um thank you, Mayor.

Yes, I do have one change to the order of the day.

Please remove under legislative public hearings agenda item number 10.1 public hearing rate, proposed ordinance number 26-5586.

That is the pension ordinance.

And that is per the request of city auditor and clerk griggs, who needs to have that pulled off to make me some changes, but that is all.

Thank you.

Uh may I have a motion to approve the changes to the order of the day?

Second.

Okay.

Move by Commissioner Batti, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Kotch.

May I have your votes, please.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Passed unanimously.

Um may I have an approval of the agenda schedule.

Move approval?

Second.

Okay.

Move by uh Commissioner Aaron Kotch.

Uh seconded by Commissioner Albert.

Um may have your votes, please.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Okay, passed unanimously.

Okay.

Um the agenda is um the comment.

I'm going to ask the city auditor and clerk to read the pledge of public conduct.

Thank you, Mayor.

We may disagree, but we will be respectful to one another.

We will direct all comments to issues.

We will not engage in personal attacks.

Thank you.

And it is time for public comment, and we have five people signed up, and I will call you all up.

Darcy Jacob, Brian Mattison, Ron Soto, Harmony Cruising, and Martin Hyde.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's room for you.

Ms.

Jacob, would you state your name, whether you're city resident, and whether you are representing someone other than yourself?

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Darcy Jacob, sorry.

My name is Darcy Jacob.

Um, I am not a city residence, but I have a business downtown, and I'm representing um the downtown merchant association, and we formed a committee about the parking, um, the the new streetscape.

Okay.

Um so good morning.

Um my name is Darcy.

I have a small business.

It's a woman clothing store in downtown Sarasota.

I've been there since 2015.

I'm also on the board of the Downtown Merchant Association.

I work with Ron Soto.

Uh, we put on the Pineapple New Year's Eve Pineapple Drop, Rocktoberfest, Seafood Festival, and many of the festivals downtown.

Our whole organization works on bringing people downtown and to support small businesses.

Last Thursday night, 6 p.m., I hosted it an event in my store, an in-store fashion show.

I do two a year.

Uh, usually at standing room only.

I rent chairs by little bites and serve refreshments.

So about 5 p.m.

I started getting texts from a few of my models.

They couldn't find parking.

Ums, no spaces.

One parked at the library, one parked at State Street, one parked at JB Hamill Park, and had to walk up.

Um, so they finally got there, but then I started getting texts from my clients saying that they couldn't find parking.

And then they left.

They said, sorry.

This is this was Thursday, November 13th, between 530 and 6.

And it's not even season yet.

We're already having issues with the parking.

Our small town isn't so small anymore.

So I know the redesign team keeps showing plans for the main street streetscape with parallel parking, which eliminates hundreds of parking spaces without having a plan in motion to compensate for the lost parking.

It will destroy these mom and pop businesses, these small businesses.

This is their life savings.

This is my life savings.

We small businesses can't take much more between the hurricanes, floodings, red tide, the meters, tourist season being down, tariffs, street closures, all of the above.

It's been a very challenging three years.

So FYI, if we keep los FYI, we keep losing businesses and customers to Lakewood Ranch, UTC, Waterside.

Let's stop and think before we continue with this main street.

Parking.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay.

Mr.

Madison.

Thank you.

So my name is Brian Madison.

I um got involved recently with uh the downtown association.

Um I represent I'm not a resident of the city itself.

We have a business which is Madison City Grilled in the middle of downtown.

Um when I arrived and got with the downtown association, I was um made aware of this project which was in the works at at whatever level it's at so far.

What concerned me was not so much my personal business but the entire environment of downtown.

Um when I read the article that came out on the last time, I think this issue was brought up with the commission.

Um what concerned me the most was that there was really minimal representation by the business community.

And so um in accidentally raising my hand, uh I was voted to kind of start a committee and uh see if we can um my belief is in politics before in upstate New York, that sort of thing, um, that we needed a collective voice that helped you as you all as commissioners to be hear all sides of an issue before it's finally decided on.

Um what I see is that uh there's certainly concerns from business community and whether they're personal residents of the city, maintaining businesses of whatever type they are, is certainly vital to the the atmosphere with the the honest law of new development, be it UTC or Lakewood Ranch, having their own downtown things, the viability of people being able to keep these businesses formable uh really does depend on their access to them.

Um I know I talk to customers daily that come in.

Um we have an elder clientele in general.

Um they are very obstinate about the their fear with parking garages and five or six blocks of walking to be able to patronize businesses that are in the downtown community.

Uh parallel parking has been removed from the um licensing procedure when you get your initial uh license.

So to change over from parallel to parall uh to from angle parking to parallel parking seems um kind of archaic.

There's very few people that could do that and those kind of things.

But this is not just about the parking issue only.

What we did is we wanted to form a committee that said, let's have a collective voice as the businesses in the community and partner with the commissioners when they come up with issues that are you know inherently important to us as a group.

So uh we just want to kind of come and introduce ourselves, tell you that we're very interested in being part of the conversation and offer suggestions not coming and just to complain about hey, we hate what you're doing.

Um it's got to be difficult to be a commissioner and all the things you deal with without having all sides of the story presented to you from everyone's perspective.

So I hope that helps.

That's why we're all here.

So thank you very much.

Um Ron Soto.

All right, I'm Ron Soto.

I'm also on the committee.

Uh I own Soto Opticians on Main Street.

Store's been there since 1949.

I've been there over fifty years.

I've seen a lot of changes to downtown.

I've seen it before when we did have parallel parking, and we switched it to the diagonal parking that we have now.

I remember when Main Street was a one-way street at one time.

So the person the people that are going to be affected the most are the merchants downtown.

So the whole idea of this committee is to bring you our concerns so you can hear us out, so hopefully make a better decision on what we're doing and the transition of this whole thing.

All right.

Thank you much.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Cruising.

Hi.

Harmony Cruising, owner Lotus Boutique, 1464, 1462, 1466.

Uh as um we I've been here many times talking about the streetscape, and I agree, I'm also on this parking committee.

And I would also like to, you know, come to you with more of a collaboration as opposed to opposition.

We all know that losing a hundred parking species will be detrimental to the merchants.

And we're here just to advocate about the parking.

Um I also agree with Darcy.

We have a problem as of now of people not being able to find parking.

We are a driving community.

We are not a walking community.

It's okay to walk, you know, one or two blocks, but anything more than that, people are not doing that.

Um I think we're here more in a collaboration to sit down and and try to make um both sides happy in this situation.

Um I also wanted to talk about two other things that I think could help this about the cleanliness of the sidewalks.

I know that we do once some the DID does six times a year and then the city does six times a year.

And I have said many times that that is not enough for the high traffic areas.

Right now there is a huge stain or something going on between on the 1500 block that has sat there for two weeks.

I would suggest that at least a once-a-week um power washing on the high traffic areas, which is the 14 and the 1500 block, because cleanliness and safety should be very, very important to the residents, the business, everybody downtown, and that's what what people want to come downtown and see a c a clean downtown.

And if it's not clean, people have a you know, oh not clean.

I'm not frequent I'm not going there.

So I think cleanliness could really be um something that we do more of, and then also holding the property owners and or tenants if the property owners want to do that about the cleanliness of their own buildings.

Um there are certain buildings that I've walked by for months, there's throw-up in the in the uh breezeway or it right in the middle of their their store or their place, and it's um a bad look for us all.

Um I had mentioned that the last time I was here.

I mean, cleanliness should be number one, the property owner should be held accountable of the cleanliness of their buildings.

As we all know, there's an eyesore at the end of the 1400 block that has who knows when that's gonna be settled.

Um needs to be buttoned up and cleaned up.

And so when people come and visitors come, this is the first things that they see, and I don't think there's any ordinance holding the property owners accountable of the cleanliness of their buildings, of the safety of their buildings.

Um so I would just like to call that out and maybe put something like that on the agenda so that we can start on those little projects to make it more eye-appealing downtown.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Hyde, again, name whether you're city resident and if you're representing someone else.

Well, I'm representing every taxpayer, but uh and uh obviously nice glasses, by the way.

Anyway.

Welcome to the new mayor.

Um last Friday, the Hell Tribune picked upon a theme I've talked about lots of times over the years, the list of the ten highest paid city employees, which uh the Hell published.

It wasn't complete because it didn't include uh the city attorney whose firm is paid an eye-watering one point eight million plus annually in fees from his monopoly with the city, notwithstanding that highlights included that a city of just 58,000 citizens pays its chief of police considerably more than the elected county sheriff who deals with seven times the population.

Again, notwithstanding he does it with just five times the number of stuff.

A chief of police whose department is being sued for millions over alleged constitutional violations, which uh so far have yielded no disciplinary action.

Best part though, 218,000 to the person who books acts for the Van Wazel.

That drew a hundred plus comments on my social media, ranging from outrage as to the oftentimes $300 plus tickets, lamenting the has been nature and lack of imagination of the ACE book, but mostly shock at the extraordinary paycheck.

You know, I don't have a problem with paying for exceptional people.

What I have a problem with is paying exceptionally high salaries for poor performers, you forgive the pun, uh in the case of the uh Van Weisel booker.

The Van Weasel, by way of example, recently published its projected income for the next three years.

In which they assert on a city sheet that their income will increase by sixteen point five million dollars a year, which is double what it's taking there.

It's literally delusional.

Uh and it's bizarre that they dare to publish it.

Short of building condos, or someone said investing in Bitcoin, or charging six hundred dollars a ticket.

How exactly would that uh actually be?

It's laughable.

And one wonders who authorized uh the publishing of such a fantasy.

This past year has seen the deflection and deliberate withholding of material facts given to you reach epidemic levels.

Shortly today, I'll detail another egregious example of the nonsense they attempt and generally get away with.

One might hope that whatever large S you pile onto a new city manager, if you ever find one, that it will be for someone who is actually worth the vast sums that you are paying them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that it concludes public comment.

And would you thank you very much?

And we have reached the point of uh approval of the minutes of the regular city Sarasota City Commission meeting of October 20th.

I had no corrections, and unless anybody else did, I would move approval of the minutes.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

May I have your votes, please?

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

The next item is a presentation about by the Board of Rules and Appeals for their annual report.

And I will call upon the Chair Dalton and building official Murphy to make a presentation.

Morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners and Charter officials.

Lawrence Murphy, building official for the City of Sarasota, and also Secretary for the Board of Rules and Appeals.

To my right is Ryan Dalton, who sits as chair for that board.

For the benefit of some of the people that weren't on the commission at the time, about a year ago, we went through a change of what we actually regulated through the Board of Rules and Appeals.

We met twice last year on April 30th of 25 and October 15th of 25.

And also during the last board meeting, we also adopted and published the Board of Rules and Appeals procedures.

And we are now, like I say, back to a full board in conducting business.

Some of the discipline is moved over to the magistrate.

And the other any discipline of a state licensed contractor would be referred to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

That I'll turn it over to Chair Dalton if he has anything he would like to say.

I'd just like to say that we have had a few changes, and I think we're kind of back on solid ground now.

Having been on the board for approximately six years, there hasn't been really any appeals that come before the board.

So I'd like to say it's a testament to the building official and their team to kind of handle those things at the uh pass instead of getting it to the point of having to utilize this board.

But other than that, like Larry said, we're kind of in a in a good position now, and um I think we can handle pretty much any business as needed.

Thank you.

Uh do the uh I was going to ask if the commissioners have questions, and the first one on the board is Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I want to thank you both for um for volunteering for the board and then for serving the board, Mr.

Murphy.

So I really thank you.

And it's it's good to know that you have been there for six years.

And I do have uh two questions.

One is, is there anything that we can do as a commission or that you see that your board can suggest that to make your board more efficient or more um better serving the public?

Um do you know as well that that's also a piece of the roles that to bring topics before the board for discussion to make us aware of uh of anything we can be doing to help your board?

Uh yes.

I mean, I think currently we're we're pretty much like in a good spot right now.

We've we've had some changes by rewriting the ordinance.

Um we've just cleaned up our um procedures for appeals in case something does come from before the board, so we're prepared for that.

So I think currently we're in a we're in a good position now.

So with the changes, you're gonna just give that time to sort of settle in and then figure out if there are any improvements or adjustments that your board can do after that.

Excuse me, Commissioner.

Can you guys speak a little bit closer to the mics?

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

Yeah, just to dovetail into that.

Um a lot of the problems that the previous board had was its makeup.

Uh it was very, very difficult to get 13 members.

Yep.

Um, especially when it came to the consumer members.

Um the consumer members were dictated by state statute that if we had a board of I think it was eight or more than we had to have at least two consumer members on that board.

So with that uh change, we were able to, you know, get get the quorums more often.

And I I think that will also, you know, uh roll over into our next fiscal year as being able to, you know, respond to appeals and you know, focus on that aspect of it.

Um so I think that um with the direction that we had gotten from the commission and their desires, I I think that um the board will be more productive in in focusing on appeals to the building official.

Um and I think the public would be better served that way as well.

Okay.

So there you don't see immediately anything to bring up that you want to discuss that we can help make this a better board for the moment.

You just want to see how it plays out.

I I think we're gonna have a melding period to to to figure out you know how this is going.

Uh and again, uh a lot of the stuff that this board would have been taking on now is going to the special magistrate, which is allowed under state statute.

So it's you know, we still have an enforcement wing and you know the code enforcement department and the special magistrate would work with us in in in especially when it comes to unlicensed and unpermitted work.

Um I think that you know the the changes in the direction that we got the commission has allowed us to you know proceed down that road and and hopefully have a a more streamlined, more efficient board.

Okay.

And then my second question has to do with the um expenses, so the operating expenses dropped significantly, and I was curious, uh or projected um 2425 was uh 3,975, and then 2627 is projected at 400 dollars.

That's in a direct relationship to the amount of meetings we were holding per year.

Okay.

Okay.

Um under our our our current um we can actually call if there's a a a an appeal of a decision of mine, we can call that board meeting.

But we went from four meetings to two.

So and you know, less board members.

Uh we went from 13 to 7.

So I think that's why you're seeing those those cuts in the in the uh budget.

Okay.

All right.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commission Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um you said that you haven't had any appeals come to you.

Is that correct?

I have not had any appeals this last physical year.

I've had appeals in the past.

In the past, right.

Um so appeals that would come to this board would be appeals to your decision, right, Mr.

Murphy?

That is correct.

And could you give us an example or two, not real life, but maybe what if examples that might come to this board for consideration and appeal?

Well, most of the most of the appeals you would see would be either to alternative methods and means.

Um in other words, if um a client of ours wanted to use something that wasn't specifically prescribed within the code, um the the Florida Building Code gives the building official uh the ability to look at that as a an equivalent.

Um the then the pure administration of the code um if a client thought that it was being misinterpreted, um they could appeal that decision to the Board of Rules and Appeals.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Oh.

And and if it goes to the point where there is a hearing and you know the board were to recognize that my decision was correct, there's also the ability of that client to go to the circuit court to to appeal that as well.

Appeal further.

Yes.

And what if the board deemed your decision incorrect?

Then what would the next step be?

The decision of the board is binding.

Okay.

So if if that's the decision that the board made made um, then again that's a binding decision is is just as if I had made it.

It's a binding decision on on the City of Sarasota, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I don't see any other questions on the board, so thank you for coming and filling us in on the Board of Rules and Appeals.

Thank you very much.

May I have a motion to accept the report?

Motion I move to accept the Board of Rules and Appeals annual report.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner A.

Hearn Kotch, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

May I have your votes, please?

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Motion passed unanimously.

Next on the agenda is consent agenda number one.

Ms.

Griggs, have any items been pulled?

I am aware of Commissioner A.

Kotch pulling agenda items 6.4 and 6.5.

Is that correct?

Mr.

Bullock, I believe you got me some information for 6.4.

Okay.

Just 6.5.

Okay.

So didn't just 6.5.

Okay.

So may I have a motion to approve the balance of consent agenda number one without number 6.5.

So moved.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner Batti.

Seconded by Vice Mayor.

Okay.

Everybody said it at the same time.

Go ahead and hit your buttons.

Okay.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Passed unanimously.

So now we're going to address item number 6.5.

Commissioner Ahern Koch pulled that.

Yeah.

Mr.

Bullock, do you do we want to get a presentation or how would you like to?

There is a presentation.

You guys want to come down?

Alvy.

Oh, there we go.

Alby Broxton and Jane Grog is here from the county.

Just while they are coming down, this agreement has been under discussion for quite some time.

This past year we were able to find the advantage for the city and presumably the county since they agreed to it to move the operation of the Bay Runner based on an interlocal agreement from the city to the county.

And our driving force really is twofold.

One, there is a financial benefit to the city of a few hundred thousand dollars, which is per year, which is significant.

And two, by folding it under the what is called the transit agency, that's a Federal designation.

It does make eligible these operations for Federal funds.

And as Alvy and Broxton can explain, the County has agreed to basically take over the same operation.

Our savings comes in the form of power transit, where the county already has contracts in place, but we were required to have another contract, which they'll go over the cost and benefit.

Good morning, Alvarey Crowis, Chief Transportation Planner.

Good morning, Broxton Harvey, General Manager of Parking City of Sarasota.

Today we're going to talk to you about the interlocal agreement between Sarasota County and the City of Sarasota for the Bay Runner services.

Okay.

So today on our agenda, we're going to be going over just a little bit of information regarding the Bay Runner, ridership, the operational cost, funding, cost savings, and then lastly, we will discuss the proposed interlocal agreement and transition of the Bay Runner to the Sarah to Sarasota County.

So the pilot program, Bay Runner was initially a pilot program that was put in place to relieve congestion within the seven the State Route 789 corridor.

And that was due to the construction at the big huge roundabout at Gulf Stream.

This trolley started in March of 2022.

It actually provides an alternative means for residents and visitors.

Instead of just driving your vehicle, you can actually jump on a free trolley and go from downtown to the barrier islands, specifically St.

Armands and Leto.

It actually again serves St.

Armand's, Leto Beach, and Leto Park.

Originally the hours were from 8 a.m.

until midnight, seven days a week.

But what we did, we actually took a look probably a couple of years ago, and we addressed that 8 o'clock was a little too late because we had a lot of workers that actually needed to get over to St.

Armand's and Leto to start shifts prior to 8 o'clock.

So we moved the hours up to 7 o'clock, and we also noticed that at midnight there was really no ridership at midnight.

So we kind of you know adjusted the hours based on that, and which also provided a little bit of cost savings.

Currently, right now the trolley is being managed by the city of Sarasota, and our vendor that actually operates it is CPR Medical Transport.

So the trolley has been very successful.

We've actually had over half a million riders.

So just to put into perspective, the first year was 117,000 plus.

Again, it didn't start until March, so that wasn't a full year.

The only real full year that we actually had that we can uh put down on paper would be 2023, which was 175,163.

Of course, 2024 we had the hurricanes, um so it pretty much um ridership went down where you can see the drop where typically that the it would have increased.

And then in 2025, we still have a couple more months to go, and plus, as we all know that um tourism has not returned fully in 2025.

So now I will hand it over to Alvi to discuss the operational and cost um funding.

So on the screen you can see a comparison of the city's operating rates versus Sarasota Counties.

Um the first column you see the trolley and paratransit.

The second column is the City of Sarasota's current rates based on an estimated annual of about 9,230 operating hours.

And then in the black box, you're gonna see breeze transit um estimated costs for fiscal year 26 and 27.

In fiscal year 26, you see a reduced number because it's only for 10 months.

It would be starting December 1st if the interlocal agreement were to go through from City of Sarasota's part and Sarasota County.

At the bottom, you're gonna see a comparison based on its revenue hours.

You can see that the trolley rate for City of Sarasota is 129.22, and for paratransit is $39.

And then in Sarasota County Breeze Transit, you see the trolley rate at 98.28, and that is the fully loaded cost.

So basically operating the trolley and the fuel projection in total.

And the paratransit, which is zero, like um our city manager mentioned, um, that is mostly where our cost saving is.

Paratransit is at no cost to us.

On this slide, you're gonna see our funding projections.

You see economic development at 986,000, give or take, and an increase of economic development about 1% based on those past trends throughout the rest of the fiscal year.

And this is a five-year projection.

The downtown improvement district remains at the 50,000 mark, and then FDOT, which is something I want to highlight here.

Um, we have a reduction in how much FDOT is allocating to the trolley.

The reason behind that is because the this is uh transit corridor pilot and it ends in fiscal year 2027.

So that is the last year that we will receive that that grant.

Um so in 28, 29, and 2030 fiscal years, um, there's no FDOT funding.

Here you see both tables that I showed you with the funding sources, and then at the bottom, you're going to see the current city's current contract at 129.22, which is our current rate.

Um, the city of Sarasota's new contract estimate provided by CPR, which is our operator at 129.12.

And then after the black line, you see breeze transit projection for the next five years of how much um their trolley is going to cost.

Now, these are just projections because Breeze will provide us with the actual numbers every January.

So annually, Breeze will provide us those numbers, but we projected a 3.5% increase annually in order to give you some numbers of how much this would cost.

Here you see our cost savings.

So now on this slide, you see the city's cost with the new contract estimate.

The reason behind that is because the current contract expires relatively soon.

Um couple of days.

Now the last two fiscal years, I put in a note.

These are if we extend the contract, or if we have new contract, these numbers might depend, right?

Our normal contracts are three years and then one two one year extensions, or we can just go out and get a new contract.

So that's why they're the rates stayed the numbers stayed the same, but those could um depend.

At the bottom, you see what is our five-year savings.

So 1.9 million would be our our savings.

I'm gonna hand it off to Broxton to go over um some highlights of the interlocal agreement.

So the interlocal agreement, what does that mean?

What does it all consist of?

So the purpose of this is to establish um Sarasota County Breeze as the managing entity of the Bay Runner Trolley.

So that means that they will operate it and continue to use CPR as the vendor.

Um management, the county assumes the full operation, um including oversight, regulatory compliance, reporting, um, basically dealing with any type of complaints that may come along with that as well.

Um funding.

The city funds the full cost of the service, excluding the paratransit for um the um with FDOT corridor grants uh remaining with the city through fiscal year 2026.

Um also um upon transfer of the F DOT grant then goes in 2027 to um the county.

The county provides federal um required ADA parentransit, that's what we talked about.

That's going to be where the bulk of the cost savings is coming from.

Um initially it's gonna be a one-year term with um a five up to five years auto renewals.

Um the performance uh reporting, the county actually provides us with monthly annual reports um, and some of those metrics will be ridership, on-time performance, and stop level data.

Branding, the branding will remain the same.

So there is not gonna be like the name is gonna be changed or anything is going to be changed to the the bay runner trolley.

It will still work and operate the same as it is today.

Um some type of service characteristics, the route will remain between downtown and Leto Key.

We will try they will try to maintain the headways of at least every 30 minutes.

Um the fare will remain free, so it's not going to be any charging of um rates, um, the schedule and the route adjustments.

If there ever comes a time where the it comes up that we need to adjust the trolley routes, um that will have to have coordinate coordination between the city and the county, and then also termination uh will require um a meeting between the city manager and the county administrator prior to 120-day notice to explore remedies.

And that completes our presentation.

And we open up for any questions.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayor is first.

Thank you.

Could we have Ms.

Grog come to the table, at least just to introduce her to people?

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

I'm Jane Grog.

I'm the Breeze Transit Director for Sarasota County.

Thank you.

I do have one question.

Um you said that the name Bay Runner will remain.

Do you have any information or data that tells us the Bay Runner has been a valuable marketing initiative?

Yes.

So I I set up goals and objectives each year that I have to report to FDOT.

And part of that is number one, the amount of traffic that's off the roadways.

So what we do is we work with engineering and we look at counts at, I think it's wrangling right across from Bird Key, and we kind of look at has traffic been reduced over the year by year.

And the answer is yes.

The numbers actually go down because more people are actually riding the trolley.

We also do surveys and we ask, you know, what's your purpose of utilizing the trolley, whether it's work, whether it's leisure, or whether it's shopping.

And it it's it's a mixture, but people are utilizing it for all three for work, shopping, and tourism.

So there is a value in a trolley, and we do have data to support that as well.

Great.

Thank you.

It's sort of like a circus, right?

Whenever you go to a circus, you're a kid.

Whenever you ride the trolley, you feel like a child and have fun.

Um, Ms.

Grog, this makes so much sense to me to transfer the Bay Runner to the county for operation.

Does it make that much sense to you too?

The transfer of the service, I think will both uh offer uh nice cost savings for the City of Sarasota, but also integrate it into the remainder of the Breeze transit system across the county.

Uh providing opportunities for travelers to connect to different routes or to our on-demand service and improve overall efficiency, and also add the ridership to the credit of the entire agency.

So one of the small pieces of criteria that the Federal Government uses in determining how much funding to allocate to each agency.

Um there's a large calculation, but one piece of that has to do with ridership.

So that's also a benefit to the overall community.

Thank you.

Those are my questions, Mayor.

Thank you.

Commissioner Aherncott.

Yes, thank you so much.

Um I first want to thank um the three of you.

Uh and I think this is uh an incredible effort of the city and the county working together for the collective benefit of the taxpayers, um, not just the city taxpayers, but also the county taxpayers as well, and working as as one in this kind of a fashion is it really proves that um our staff are working towards um uh servicing the citizens and making the most of our dollars.

So uh thank you for doing that, and thank you for um you know taking this initiative.

Um I have a couple questions, but uh I did want to also underscore the reason for pulling this item.

Um this, as you stated, Mr.

Mr.

Harvey, um, you know, it started out was to relieve the traffic from the um construction of the roundabout.

And um you had mentioned that um you had uh some data talking about how much it has relieved the traffic from that roundabout.

I would love to see any of that data that you have.

Uh and that speaks to the bigger picture issue that I would like to bring up.

But um also when you talked about doing getting data about work, leisure, shopping, that data as well would be incredibly valuable for this commission to to have, I think, uh on top of the other data.

And um, Ms.

Groggs, for the future, you had talked about gathering metrics.

Um how detailed will you go above and beyond what the city has?

I have just ridership information, just big numbers this month, this many riders.

I don't have anything more than that.

So thank you for making me aware that we do have more data available.

But how I know that um I'm aware that uh uh the county has in the breeze had sort of these um laser uh counters so that when people walk on and off the breeze it's a much more accurate representation of the ridership, and that has played a role in accurately tracking how many people actually ride, you know, 99, bus 99, for example, um, and making it free has increased ridership, I believe 44 percent, which is wonderful to hear.

So those kinds of metrics and data really help a body make important decisions that have fiscal impacts on our community.

What what uh will you get us above and beyond what we already have to drill down on this ridership?

So in addition to what we talked about, there's at least three metrics similar to um what's being tracked now that the county will report regularly, ridership, ridership by stop, and on-time performance.

Some of the other things that Breeze does system-wide includes our onboard passenger analysis that we're required to do every three years by the federal government, so it would be part of that.

We do our annual marketing benchmark study to talk to riders about purpose and branding and and some of that information.

Additionally we'll be adding this to the technology suite that we use for our other buses and trolleys and hope to be able to track additional information across our service.

So some of those new technology pieces are yet to be defined and understood but anticipate our detail that we check on our other routes in addition to the items that we have included in the interlocal agreement.

Okay.

And the insurance and maintenance of the whole system will that be taken on by the county yes with the construct that the contract that the county has with CPR Medical Group includes the provision of the vehicles, the maintenance of the vehicles, cleaning of the vehicles to be done by the contractor and it is included in the payment of that contract work.

The county staff will oversee the required state and federal reporting requirements of which there are are quite a few and that'll include the vehicle inventory, the annual safety inspections, drug and alcohol testing and all of those associated details.

And insurance?

And insurance is required by the contractor.

Okay.

Yes.

And it was mentioned that federal grants will now be a possibility for the city.

So the city can apply for federal grants for their portion of the funding.

No, to clarify that the governor establishes the official designated recipient for transit dollars and for Sarasota County the geography the Sarasota County Transportation Authority is the designated recipient for that.

So there is a potential to look at what is the overall funding strategy and what are the different pieces also the potential for the two staffs to work together to continue to talk to FDOT about potential extensions of their financial support.

But it's sort of a portfolio of different funding options that we use across all of our system and bringing the Bay Runner trolley under the Breeze umbrella would allow for some additional access to funds but again that's all contingent upon sort of the overall allocation and decision of those resources.

Okay and so FDOT funds could go towards the city's portion of funding?

I just meant that the FDOT pilot grant that is going away it is it is defined as a corridor grant and FDO could choose if they want to continue that.

They've identified the current end period of that but that's something that the two staffs can work on to see if there's potential interest of the extension of that.

And that would go towards the city's portion of funding it would go towards the specific corridor that they are funding so yes it would go towards the State Road 789 corridor and of course then help fund that section of of service.

Okay.

Okay.

And so Mr Mr Harvey can you bring up that um slide with the cost uh escalating over the years I guess whichever one you think is best no actually that one's good and commissioners this is was my is my main concern um you know the trolley has started out as one sort of a an image in our mind as a as a body and it's become something else I'm not going to call it the trolley I'm going to call it the Bay Runner.

The Bay runner is is really turned out to be something that is it's fun as as you said Vice Mayor it's um it's a tool people you know I think there are there's some evidence that folks in sort of the Golden Gate Ritz area there where there's a a new stop relatively new stop they can ride to St.

Armand's Circle have dinner come back they don't have to get in their car they don't have to look for parking and some folks on St.

Armand's even I've heard um anecdotally folks from Longboat park at St.

Armand's will do some shopping there take the trolley downtown and then take it back and then get in their car and go back to Longboat.

So there is you know there's evidence that it's it's serving multi functions and and and it is it is something that I I you know I think we all feel and we have evidence to show that the community does appreciate this service.

If you look at the numbers what concerns me most is the cost of this and how it's being funded.

The cost is escalating, obviously most things and costs are escalating.

The city funds most of it in the economic development fund.

And that's one of my main concerns.

So businesses in the city pay tax.

It goes into the economic development fund.

I believe it's all but it's 90% of our economic development fund 100 percent.

100 percent of our economic development fund.

Which leaves that economic development department with zero funds to do things like legacy business programs, fix up the storefronts of downtown businesses, fund sidewalk cleanings for businesses, help new businesses get started.

All of those dollars go to the Bay Runner.

We love the Bay runner, I'm not dissing the Bay runner.

What I am challenging this commission to do is to let's find ways to fund this that is an accurate representation of the community it serves from those buckets.

All of the funding is coming out of the economic development fund.

I think there's an argument to be made that it does help with some economic development.

If you ask the folks you know downtown they're not so sure of it sometimes because it bring to them it brings people to St.

Armand's uh to dine and shop and vice versa but I do think that there is some argument can be made for economic development.

I think there's an argument that can be made that it relieves traffic.

And I do think that there's an argument to be made that it serves a a tourist or even a local fund function as you mentioned.

And so my challenge with this is not that we should not do the program not that we should not partner with the county thank you very much but that we should come up with a rational nexus of where the funding comes from because the bay the the bay runner is not 100% an economic development driven project.

It has an environmental impact right if you're taking cars off the road that's an environmental impact.

If you're taking cars off the road it's a transit impact.

If you're serving tourists it's a tourist tool these this is the reason I pulled this item this is the reason I want to challenge this commission to think about alternative funding sources.

Can I interrupt you because your time is over and we have some more rules and that can be very apropos during discussion.

Okay I just wanted to make one more point very quickly and that is each ride costs the taxpayers nine dollar dollars not each round trip each ride.

When someone gets on and then they get off it's nine dollars do that in the next round.

No that was that was that was the statement although I do have some some more discussion but I I think Commissioner Bat T or Commissioner Albert do you have any questions in this round?

Okay.

The questions I had they answered with their presentation.

I I did have a question that was sort of along the lines of what uh Commissioner Ahern Koch was asking would you put up the slide again that showed the funding well that that will do because I was looking at the funding sources because my question was if we do this transition and do the interlocal so that the service goes over to the county would other than FDOT funding which would be transferred eventually would any of those other funding go away so we're saying theoretically that this is our economic development budget line which yeah or what is the plan for the DID money were they fully committed for $50,000 every year or is that potentially going to go away so the the the point of my question is what funding A might we be losing so that is less of a savings or then what funding might it free up for other projects.

So it's not really the bottom line savings isn't really savings to my mind as much as it is this is funding that we could use for other projects and it looks like the interim city manager has wants to respond to that.

And it looks like the interim city manager has wants to respond to that.

So Mayor, if I may, the uh the policy decision on funding this from the Commission previously and continuing to today has been identifying three primary sources of funding as you saw there.

The business tax funding, the $50,000 from the DID, of which the DID's not all that excited about, and then the FDOT grant.

And that constituted the full funding that the that was needed to fund this.

With the transition to the county the reason I mean recognizing the curve we're on, we saw a gap where we would have to turn now to the general fund to find funds to continue to do this.

So when in discuss when we understood the the county's proposal as we interacted with them it was clear that with the loss of FDOT grant and the savings from the paratransit we could continue for a while with those two identified sources of funding the business tax which we call economic development fund and the DID would be sufficient to fund this.

Any shortfall that would occur in the funding right in the future the only source we have right now would be to turn to the general fund.

So so far this is to the extent you can you know say it is sort of stayed out of the general fund and been funded by those two three sources the FDOT grant, the business tax and the small contribution from the DID.

So you know any change in that would come back to the Commission for a policy decision should you choose to find ask us to find another source of funding we can we can look, do some analysis, but the bottom line will remain the same and we're going to have to generate the amount of funds it it takes to run the operation so we can assume that what we're showing as the sources of fundings will decrease I I think they're going to stay just what you see there in that in that top line we project a 1 percent growth in the business tax or what we call the economic development it's collected as a business license and we deposit it into an economic development fund that we name it that.

So we project based on history a 1 percent increase holding the DID steady and we can we can operate this into the foreseeable future if there's any savings that would probably stay in the economic development fund or we may hold it for future years.

That's a decision we can make at budget time as we you know project this out.

But in a sense savings is funds that might be used elsewhere for other purposes.

Potentially yes.

Thank you.

And I I did have a question from Ms.

Grog mainly because you're here in taking over the Bay runner I'm assuming that you will use the monitoring that you use for the rest of the network and saying well is this stop in the right place or should we ask FDOT to for a traffic signal so people getting off the bus can get across the street will you plan to do that kind similar kind of monitoring with the Bay runner?

Yes.

We will continue to sort of have a continuous improvement sort of approach towards looking at services and we value our partnership with the city staff and their you know more close knowledge of their streets and experience and so I see that sort of twofold both as our transit expertise looking at stops and needs but also staying in communication with city staff about things they might be seeing and just coordination of of those types of things in the future.

Great thank you very much so we now have round two of questions and the Vice Mayor is first on the list.

Thank you.

So the concerns regarding funding brought up by several people are quite compelling.

I see us probably moving forward with this partnership contract but Mr.

Bullock at what time is the appropriate time to roll up our sleeves then talk about funding sources?

So for example, at any time the Commission could decide would like an analysis of the I'll use this word the the beneficiaries of the service, the the different uses of them and are there any sources of funding that we might parse to those different uses?

And are there any sources of funding that we might uh parse to those different uses?

You know, we could make a run on tourist development tax.

I I say that carefully, but we could give that a shot.

Um certainly we can continue to talk to the county.

They have a much deeper history of potential funding sources due to their larger, more complex system.

Um then should you decide that there's some benefit, and I um right off the top of my head I can't grab three or four sources of funding that would be likely, but we can look at the beneficiaries, in other words, why do people use a service and is there some source that um might be made available to that.

Uh just without doing any analysis, I think the likelihood of finding new sources of funds is um I would say it's modest.

And are you suggesting that those discussions be held jointly with the city and the county?

Well, certainly I'd the way I'd look at it is first ask staff to uh fine-tune that who why are people making this ride and then sort of quantify it, try to quantify that, and then see if there's any alignment with other funding sources.

In general, as you all know, the backstop for almost everything the city does is a general fund.

And you know, we're trying to manage uh those reserves in the general fund carefully.

So while that's always a place to turn, um, you know, I would first look for is there any place else we can search?

I just don't have a quick answer for you, and I suspect the folks at the microphone also don't have a quick answer or we would have been in it.

Yep, thank you.

That's good enough for now.

Okay, thank you and Commissioner Yarnkot.

Thank you.

Um yes, I do think that this agreement with the county uh what it's giving us is at least a year or two to sort of figure out other sources of funding for um the the bay runner that that are viable and don't completely deplete the um economic development fund.

And um so I thank the county again for working with the city and thank you for this to city staff for working with the county.

Um I I did want to uh highlight the did conversation.

Um they do not willingly allocate the 50,000 from their limited budget each year.

Uh it's a it's a source of pain for them.

And I believe the city has the authority to take it whether they want to give it to us or not.

Um but in the future good relations with did, I I think it's something we should think about phasing out as well.

Um the funding with FDOT.

Um we as a commission as a body and our staff can continue to talk to FDOT, maybe also in partnership with the county and talk about the value.

I mean, and we know that the county right now is going to be redoing that stretch between Gulf Stream and the bridge.

Um they're making a wider bus lane, among other things.

That speaks to the trolley, right?

It's making making space for buses, but also for the trolley the bay runner as well.

Um and if they're making those investments in that in the roadway system and we're making investments in the Bay Runner, then you know they should continue to step up to the plate.

Do you have questions?

Um no more questions, but I I just wanted to state that answer some of the questions over here.

So maybe we'll do that for discussion.

Are there any other questions from the commissioners?

Um I did I did have one uh two more questions.

One more question, one question that involves two things.

So when the city manager was speaking earlier about uh some of this, would the parking department, because we can make an argument that it takes cars off out of parking spots, um and or the SPD because maybe people take the bay runner to have dinner and a couple of glasses of wine and back.

Maybe those are two sources of uh funds buckets?

If that's a question, we we can look at whatever the what what I would suggest if the commission wants to give us that direction, then we would we wouldn't start with the answer, would start with the question and say what are the beneficiaries of of this service, and are there any funding sources that we haven't tapped?

And then see what that turns up.

Okay, thank you.

Those are my questions.

Great.

Thank you.

So thank you very much for your presentation.

Um your excuse.

And I believe that we have possibility of two separate motions that uh we might make.

Okay, one motion would be to approve the interlocal agreement, and the other motion would be to direct the interim city manager to do some sort of study.

So I'm enable two separate motions, so whoever wants to make one motion, um go ahead.

I'll move to accept the interlocal agreement.

Okay, it's moved by uh Commissioner Alpert and seconded by Commissioner Batti to uh accept the interlocal agreement.

Do we have any discussion?

Oh, any discussion of that motion.

I think we've discussed it on please vote.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

That motion uh passes unanimously.

Is there uh a motion to direct the interim city manager to do something in this arena?

I mean, I would move that we direct the city manager to do some uh research with and work with staff to figure out uh new funding sources for the uh bay runner.

So it's moved by Commissioner Ahern Koch and seconded by Commissioner Battee to direct the interim city manager to start a study regarding uh alternate funding sources.

Yes.

So uh any discussion.

Please vote.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

And that ends consent uh agenda number one, and you look like you're ready for a break.

Okay, we'll take a ten minute break.

It's ten ten by that clock, so ten twenty.

Thank you.

Okay, we are resuming the November seventeenth regular meeting of the City Commission.

And we are now at consent agenda number two.

Ms.

Griggs, have any items been pulled?

Yes, Mayor.

I have a couple items.

Item number seven point two has been pulled by Commissioner Ahern Koch and Vice Mayor Ulrich.

And let me just make sure.

And then also seven point eight has been pulled by Commissioner Ahern Cotch.

And I think that's all.

Right, and then we'll do we'll go through balance and all that.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Just be patient with me, everybody.

Have a lot of them today.

So resolution number 26 R 3360, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024, by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A, providing for severability if any of the parts here of are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3361, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024 by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A, providing for severability if any of the parts hereof are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3363.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024, by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in Exhibit A, providing for serverability if any of the parts hereof are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3364.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024, by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in Exhibit A.

Providing for servability if any of the parts here of are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R65.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budgets for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025 by appropriating funds for the appropriation or reappropriation of expenditures that were budgeted or available to be budgeted in the previous fiscal year in the amounts identified in exhibit A, providing for servability if any of the parts here are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3366, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024 by providing for supplemental appropriations, any amounts identified in exhibit A, providing for severality if any of the parts hereof are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R 3367.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A, providing for severability if any of the parts here of are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Article 2, definitions and rules of construction to modify definition of dwelling unit and protect the tree and delete definition of commercial parking lots.

Article 3, decision making and administrative bodies to remove the city commission and planning board authority to approve and review subdivision plates consistent with state statute.

Article 4, development review procedures to establish the ability for the historic preservation board to grant variances and adjustments to the maximum density when a locally designated historic structure is relocated to a different zoning lot, and modify subdivision plates standards, Article 6, zone districts to modify building zone standards in downtown zone districts, eliminate stories requirement in single family zones, modify development standards in downtown zone districts, modify landscape plan requirements and amend staging plan requirements.

Article 7, regulation of general applicability to modify pool and pool cage setbacks, clarify bicycle standards, clarify that parking is prohibited in waterfront setbacks, modify a recommended street list, clarify grant tree permit requirements, clarify tree protection standards during an emergency, modify plant material and installation standards, clarify window sign permit requirements and standards and and modify how height of structures less than 30 inches are measured within the waterfront setback.

Article 8, enforcement proceedings and penalties to add certain agreements to be enforced by code enforcement for several of the parts hereof, providing for reading by title only, and providing for ineffective date.

Thank you.

It'll probably take less time to pass that one link than read it.

And again, state your name and whether or not you're a city resident.

You ducked that last time.

I don't duck it.

I uh I moved out of the uh city to look after my dear mother.

Um quite the pig you think.

In any event.

Notwithstanding that.

Uh in the uh the movie Scarface, there's a uh a famous scene where Tony Montana takes bags of cash to a middleman to uh obfuscate where the money came from.

Now, because the money laundering was of course illegal.

You have six items in uh in front of you, which total seven point six million dollars.

All moving money from one fund to another.

Uh specific highlights include moving three hundred thousand dollars to Bobby Jones with the explanation that because they did less badly than expected, their costs increased requiring more taxpayer dollars, which makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Um another three hundred and forty thousand dollars from the tax incremental funds meant for the Bay project, apparently to pay architect fees to an architectural firm in Italy for a supposed performing art center, which you don't have the money to build.

Uh you know that, but you're still squandering money on it.

1.286 million in quote you're gonna love this.

Uh surplus construction funds to an equipment replacement fund.

Uh yeah, I'd love to know what surplus money looks like.

Is it the same color?

Um because it's taxpayers' money.

Um might it not be better to give surplus money to citizens who can't buy groceries?

Um hundred and eight thousand dollars from a solid waste and water fund.

You guys have got more funds than Bernie Madoff, to uh a fleet and liability fund to cover yet more losses on liabilities.

And then finally, 1.519 million described as unencumbered balances this time, also known as overcharged taxpayers' money, to further cover the deficit in this year's budget.

It's a shell game being played by staff, condoned by city management to confuse you as to what's going on.

Tony Montana, if you recall, got busted by the feds as it was a setup.

The five of you, though, will likely pass this financial shell game, and because of that, it'll happen again and again.

Forgive me.

You are either being duped by your staff, or you're complicit in trying to dupe taxpayers.

There really isn't an option C here.

Um you really need to do your jobs, or you need to resign so we can find people who will.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Um we will uh need to prove the balance.

Yeah.

So I need a motion to adopt the balance of consent agenda number two, which would be excluding items number two, three, six, and eight.

Second.

That was at the same time, so who wants to take it?

Okay.

So I uh motion by Commissioner Batti, seconded by the Vice Mayor.

Um may I have your votes, please.

Um vote it will also be roll call.

Aher Katsch.

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Yes.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Um item number two was pulled by Commissioner Ahern Kotch and also by Commissioner Ulric, Vice Mayor, oh Rick.

Perhaps Commissioner Ahern Kotch wants to start with her reasoning.

Um maybe we can have a short presentation on this one.

Okay.

So what we're doing in this um budget amendment is we have two funds.

We have uh construction fund for the SPAC of where we have a budget currently for the Renzo Piana phase one, which is the concept design.

And we also have a fund called the City Bay Tax Increment Financing.

And if you recall, we have two Bay TIF financing funds.

One is the joint TIFF with the county, the the other is strictly the city funding.

So what this budget amendment does is it prepares a transfer, as Mr.

Hyde said, from the city Bay TIFF fund to the SPAC construction fund.

And it is covering the remaining cost of the Renzo Piana costs.

It also is paying for a city performed revenue study for future TIFF dollars, and also a potential for any revenues from ticket sales.

So that is the makeup of the $340,000.

Any questions?

Okay.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you.

Hold on a second.

So when I read this, Ms.

Strickland, I wondered why is the city paying this money to Renzo Piano without contribution from the SPAF?

That is our 50 percent portion of it.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

The original budget in the construction fund was 2.2.

And this is the final payment to get the city up to its 50 percent of that.

Thank you.

Commissioner A.

Hernkaj?

Yeah.

Um didn't the city have an agreement that we would pay that that it would be paid later on and not up front, the the concept design.

They pay the they pay it first and then we pay them back as we as we can.

But didn't we have an agreement with them that we would pay it way later on in the future and not up not this?

It was a verbal agreement.

Right.

But for accounting purposes, we do have a receivable or a payable on our books at the end of each fiscal year.

I'm pretty sure that came before the commission, and we changed it uh from paying it later, paying it later on to paying it up front.

I'm pretty sure that came before the commission maybe six months ago, something like that.

I'm not aware of it, but we can certainly look at it.

I believe it's our understanding that the uh foundation pays a they invoice us, Kelly, is that correct?

Right.

And then when we get that invoice, we pay it from available funds, or we do a budget transfer, which is what you see in front of you here to make those funds available.

And and this completes the concept design phase of this project.

There we go.

Jennifer Jorgensen, Director of Governmental Affairs.

So um, Commissioner Aherncotch, there was a letter that was done um when former city manager Marlon Brown was here between Tanya, the CEO of the foundation, and Marlin that basically said they were going to front the the foundation would front the costs of the concept design and that we would use the 50 percent from the cities would get um paid back in future um um future designs with the Renzo piano.

But the foundation did approach us and ask us if we could um repay that 50 percent ahead of that agreed upon letter.

So I think that's the letter you are referring to in the city decided to pay that back early.

Yes.

Upon their request.

Exactly.

Okay, yes.

Are there other questions?

Okay, I I do have one.

I wanted clarification that this payment will enable us to get the information to learn what the anticipated cost of constructing the uh performing arts center would be.

And we the city really does not at this point have any other um uh we're not on the hook for anything else, we're not on the hook for building it until we see how much it's going to cost.

So this can be the make or break uh answer that we're looking for.

Is that correct?

Yes, um, Mayor.

So the way that the design architect agreement is done with Renzo Piano, is there are it there is a termination for convenience clause in there, so really the city can terminate that agreement at any time.

Additionally, there are breaks within that agreement that basically say there's different design phases.

So before the architect can move on to the second design phase, there has to be an approval by the city and the foundation to move forward with the next design phase.

So they cannot spend any additional money or agree to anything until we tell them they can move forward.

The concept design phase, which is this phase one, um, at the end of the concept design, they will have a concept design within a budget that they will bring in front of the city commission.

That implementation agreement then comes along to be approved by the city commission before any additional work can be done.

But but we should learn from this how much it will potentially cost.

How much it will cost and also let's call it the program.

So square footage dedicated to all the elements of the facility.

So basically, without this completing this task, we're operating in the dark.

We are, and we don't.

There's been a lot of pieces of work done here.

The concept design draws everything together done to date and presents it as sort of one report into here's the concept and here's the budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

And uh round two.

Just one more question.

Sure.

What has the city paid up to this point?

How much have we paid for this concept design that we don't have?

With this budget amendment, there's 155 of this 340.

It will bring us to a total of 1.1.

1.1 million dollars.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions from the commission?

Thank you for your and I I'm assuming that you're going to stay for another one.

So can I have a motion on this item regarding the uh transfer of $340,705 from the TIFF fund to the Performing Arts Center Construction Fund.

Motion to approve proposed resolution number 26R at 33.

Okay.

Moved by uh Commissioner Alpert, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Um discussion.

May I have your vote, please?

Also roll call.

Alpert.

Yes.

That's E.

Yes.

All right.

Yes.

Trice?

Yes.

In her and clutch.

No.

Okay.

Um is that your vote?

So it is passed 4 to 1.

Thank you very much.

Should I go on to the others or you gave me a public comment for one that we've already passed?

Um actually the one on there is one L's pool, so if you want to wait for that one.

Oh, okay.

I thought we okay.

I'm confusing numbers.

Okay, thank you.

Um three.

Uh Commissioner Vice Mayor has pulled that one.

I have um no need for a presentation.

I do have a question or two.

Um why was unclassified administration chosen as the department from which to take the funds.

Unclassified administration during the budget presentation is one of the departments that we present to you.

And it's it is uh funds that don't have a home in any other specific department.

So it's not strictly a planning issue.

It's not strictly a financial administration, it's not strictly a police issue.

It's it's something that really pertains to the city as a whole.

So during if you'll look back in your budget book, there is um a page specifically for unclassified administration.

It's just it doesn't have a home anywhere else.

I got you.

Um so let's back up a little bit.

And for the record, would you give a brief explanation as to what this agenda item is all about?

I will.

Um back last year on August 19th, we purchased the property across the street um 1544 and 1591st Street.

Um the total cost of that was 7.1 million dollars.

We had a portion of that payment out of our affordable housing trust fund.

The difference we did not have at the moment in that particular fund, and we were under the impression that the city was going to enter into donation agreements with other entities.

However, we found that that's not in the best interest of the city.

So what we did at the time we purchased it is the general fund loan the money to the affordable housing trust fund.

Now, as we get to another year in and we see that those those donation agreements are not going to go through in this form for the land, that we need to make sure that we pay the general fund back.

And what this is just strictly a budget amendment to get the accounts receivable from the general fund and the accounts payable from the affordable housing trust fund off of the general ledger.

So it's just moving money around.

It is.

So my notes to sell it.

It actually is the shortest move of money you will ever see.

Um it writes off the the what was entered as a uh as Kelly said, a loan is no longer a loan.

But the money doesn't really it stays in the general fund.

It doesn't move over and sit in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

It stays in the general fund, but it's it severs the relationship of having that as a loan and a due to the general fund.

It basically writes it off and keeps the money where it is.

Right.

So as I was reading this, you know, I take notes to remind remind myself what I was reading, and here are my notes to self.

Loan transfer from general fund that was expected to be repaid.

It's no longer likely to be repaid.

Was that a hasty decision to make this loan?

I know.

That was what we that was what we were directed to do.

All right.

I'm not quite settled with this, but I don't know how I don't know what to ask.

May I help with maybe it's in uh contained within the sort of run down.

So the the city moved quickly to acquire the property, was a a few million dollars short.

Um that money was taken with commission approval was taken from the general fund with the hope that it that a portion of it would be repaid back.

When we began to enter into negotiations for the repayment of that, we found the conditions of the repayment placed constraints on the deal which would likely encumber us or prevent us perhaps from negotiating the best deal we could in a public-private partnership.

So in meeting with the three foundations, we I went over all of that with them.

They understood it and determined that this was not the time to move forward with that many encumbrances on the property, uh which would perhaps constrain the commission uh from negotiations with a private developer in a partnership.

So we put that on we we stopped that.

The uh foundation said there's still some interest in a band of affordable housing that they might be willing to talk to us about.

So that made this the likelihood of getting this money back in the near term does that made it very unlikely.

In fact, it's not going to happen.

So this budget amendment recognizes that and no longer says this is a loan, it just says that money went over there to buy the property.

And there is a small other piece of this sort of at the bottom of your memo, which takes a smaller amount of money, $315,000 for other services as we move to acquire the missing piece and also to do some analysis and to secure some real estate expertise to help us move this project forward.

Thank you.

So just to wind this up on my part, um we know that public-private partnerships, including partnerships with uh nonprofits and foundations, end up being pretty good ways to provide workforce and affordable housing.

Um I, for one, I'm counting on this ending up as a really good thing for the city and for the people.

Okay.

That's it.

Thank you.

Uh any additional questions on this item.

Okay.

Um may I have a motion regarding resolution 26R-3363?

Move to approve 26R-3363.

Second.

Okay.

It can be Commissioner Batti.

Motion by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Um I guess no discussion is needed.

And may we have your votes, please.

Betty?

Yes.

Yes.

Price?

Yes.

Aaron Cotton?

Yes.

Albert.

Yes.

Is that your vote?

The motion passes unanimously.

Um, Commissioner.

Vice Mayor asked that that be pulled.

I did.

Bobby Jones golf course.

Um again, here are my notes to self.

426,000 increased revenue, 300,000 increased expenses.

That leaves 126,000.

Where is that going?

It just stays in fund balance.

So for governmental accounting, you have to have enough budget for your expenditures.

But if your revenues exceed your budget, that's fine.

Because this unlike the other uh budget amendments we've talked about, there is no transferring of funding in this fund.

This is a special as it this is an enterprise fund.

So this budget amendment is specifically increasing our expenditures.

It's a good story because we made money in the Bobby Jones.

We made much more than we thought.

And you know, when you make money, you have to spend a little money.

So we had to make our expenditures right.

So the amount we needed was 300,000.

And it's this is a budget, and you have to keep budget from actual staff righted.

This is the budget.

So you know, when you make more, you sell more.

So this is good news.

Bobby Jones is making more money than we thought it would.

It is very good news.

Good.

Thank you.

That's my only question.

Thank you.

Are there other questions for Ms.

Strickland on this?

Okay, hearing none, uh may I have a motion regarding resolution 26R-3366.

Move approval of resolution number 26R-3366.

Second.

Okay.

The motion made by Commissioner Ahern Koch, uh seconded by the Vice Mayor.

May I have your votes, please?

And I believe it's going to be roll call.

Thank you, Mayor.

Ori?

Yes.

Rice.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Alpert.

Yes.

Betty.

Yes.

Okay.

The motion passes unanimously.

And now we are at uh 7-8, 7.8, and we actually do have uh public comment on that.

Um so Taylor D.

Pietro, if you'd like to come down and once you are seated, tell us uh your name, whether or not your city resident, uh who you if you are representing someone, and whether or not you're being paid to appear today.

Hello.

Um as you said, my name is Taylor Di Pietro.

Um I'm representing uh Orange Pineapple LLC.

I am being paid to be here, and I'm not a resident of the city.

Thank you.

Um I am in support of ordinance 25-5583, particularly the amendment to Section IV 810, as this will allow for the relocation of the McAlpin House to a property more suitable for its preservation.

Um we appreciate the City Commission considering this amendment, and we appreciate staff uh recommending it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um this was pulled by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Yes.

You're good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you again.

Yes, I have um a question for the city manager.

Um in our executive summary, it says per direction of interim city manager item number 21 has been removed from the proposed zoning text amendments.

The conflict will be addressed in the city code, not in the zoning code in the future.

And um in the update from last time to this time, 15 was removed and now 21.

And I was curious if the interim city manager would like to comment on that.

Sure.

So I believe that provision uh which was would have been in the zoning code, would have had the uh director of development services appoint the building official.

I believe that that's correct.

Here's my experience.

Building officials by state statute are extremely powerful individuals, especially in the time of an emergency when there's a lot of damage to homes and so on.

And I believe the city manager needs to have the appointment authority left to the city manager, and I don't believe it should be left to a department director, nor do I think it should be somehow incorporated into the zoning code.

The city charter is clear.

The city manager appoints every department head and every employee, and I don't believe you should deviate from that.

And it it comes from a personal experience where after a storm, there was a building official who made some decisions that were questionable, and I understood the importance of making sure your building official is operating at the highest level that they can, and that responsibility should reside with, I believe, with the city manager.

And will that be back for discussion or it's just being done administratively?

It can be done administratively.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I just did want to clarify that the uh agenda request form has two numbered lists.

The first list of 23 items is not what we are agreeing to today.

Instead, there's now a list of 21 items that have been renumbered.

So the deletion of 15 and 21 from the initial list doesn't mean that number 15 and 21 on the new list are deleted.

So we're just voting on the new 1 to 21 today.

Correct.

So since there's no more discussion, may I have a motion regarding uh the second reading of proposed ordinance 25-5583.

Move approval of proposed ordinance number 21-5583, which include Say it again?

255.

25553, which includes items 1 through 21.

Is there a second?

Okay.

Moved by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Uh may I have your votes and I believe we also have a roll call on that.

Thank you.

Price?

Yes.

I'm sorry, Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Alpert.

Yes.

That's he?

Yes.

Ulrich.

Yes.

Okay.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

And motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

And we are now at unfinished business.

And to some extent, my favorite item which is the search update on the search for the new city manager.

I'm not even going to lie.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this point, every adjustment has been made to the brochure.

I am hopeful that it will be actually out today.

Once I have the final, I will forward it to you all so you can have.

But we are hoping that it will be advertised today, and then that will be three weeks, it will be advertised as of today, hopefully.

So just be hopeful that we get some good candidates.

And um but thank you all for all your comments, suggestions, and um we're just glad we can move this forward.

So I'm pretty sure the interim city manager is smiling.

I don't know if Mr.

Um Pulsek has any other comments.

Yeah, just to note this does keep us on track with the timelines we've been discussing for being ready in January.

Okay.

And that's all the update I have.

Any questions from the commissioners?

One comment.

Thank you again.

Thanks for the question.

No problem.

Thank you.

Um I did have a question uh to your knowledge.

What is the target date that is on the uh uh advertisement in terms of when they want uh applications in by?

Well, it will I can let me pull that up.

Sorry.

Because I don't want to say the wrong thing here.

Um see.

I believe the target date to have first review of resumes is December the twelfth.

Okay.

I I'm not gonna I don't want to put you on the spot, but is there any indication of when we should plan to make ourselves available for the tasks that we will be involved in?

I was there around that time frame, but we'll we'll work with you all's calendars and I'll get with um Christina and Brianna and I am and I have Alexia work with you all to make sure we get things scheduled.

Um I'm hoping that you all's calendars are up to date, so if you plan on being out for the holidays, please make sure it's up to date so we can make sure that we can schedule things with you all accordingly.

So um but I I can't give you an exact time frame, but we are anticipating to have our first review of resumes December 12th.

So that is the anticipated time frame, and then we can review from there.

When you say we the December 12th is when you anticipate maybe we will get copies of the resolution.

Yeah, right.

So just so we can adjust our calendars accordingly.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions?

Um do we need to nothing need to be done on that?

Okay, I was gonna say we can uh uh accept and appreciate your report.

Thank you.

Just to be clear for the record, though, that'll come before City Commission agenda in January and you'll take official action at that city commission meeting.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um we're moving along to legislative public hearings.

And 10.1 was removed.

And uh we've got 10 point two, and I did not expect to be this far along at 11 o'clock this morning.

Um Ms.

Griggs, will you um is read the oath or issue the oath?

Yes, thank you.

Anyone who plans to speak at this public hearing or any public hearing today, please stand take oath.

All right.

Do you swear or affirm that the evidence or factual representations which you are about to give or present to this commission during any public hearing held this 17th day of November 2025 are truthful?

Yes.

All right.

Thank you very much.

So I will open the public hearing on proposed ordinance number 26-5586.

Okay.

5585.

That's you still have one.

Okay, I'm still looking at the Okay, great.

Thank you.

Let me on the let me read that then.

I I'm maybe my pages were out of order.

Uh okay.

Public hearing on proposed ordinance number 26-5585.

All right.

Thank you.

Um Mayor, I'm gonna go ahead and read that res that ordinance.

Ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida, I'm sorry, ordinance number 26-5585.

An ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the Sarasota City Code Chapter 29.6, amending definitions, application process, and requirements creating section 29.6-8.

Special events lasting more than 96 hours, creating section 29.6-9 pertaining to litter and special events, creating section 29.6-10 pertaining to city co-sponsored events, creating section 29.6-11 pertaining to security deposits, creating section 29.6-12 pertaining to identification and liability insurance, creating section 29.6-13 pertaining to nonprofit special event permit status.

Amending in Sarasota City Code, Chapter 22, Section 22, and Section 223 pertaining to special events.

The leading chapter 23, Section 23.5 pertaining to commercial vending during special events.

Amending the Sarasota City Code Chapter 30, Section 21, and Section 23 pertaining to right-of-way usage permits for special events.

Amending the Sarasota City Code, Chapter 33, Section 121, pertaining to valley parking and special events, providing for the repeal of ordinances in conflict, providing for the servability of the parts here up if declared invalid or unforeseeable forceable, providing for a reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, then thank you.

I am going to call upon Director of Governmental Affairs Jorgensen, Manager of Special Events Wormley, and Special Events Supervisor Benson to make a presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners.

Jennifer Jorgensen, Director of Governmental Affairs.

This team has been working on updating our special event ordinances for three years maybe.

And we are here today with our first reading of the special event ordinances.

I'm going to turn it over to Mr.

Wormley and Ms.

Benson in a moment to go over the presentation.

Within the presentation, we'll be talking about the ordinances that we are proposing changing today as well as an ordin or a change we are making to the sound permit.

We'll go over this in the presentation, but I do want to make a um clarification regarding the sound permit itself.

Anything related to sound for special events does not exist within the special event ordinance.

So you won't see any um specific ordinance changes within the special event ordinance as it relates to sound and special events.

There is a separate sound ordinance that the city attorney is currently working on, and within that sound ordinance, it does give an exception to the current levels for special events.

There is a sound permit that we do issue along with our special event permit.

Um and we are proposing today to lower the decibel level within that sound permit.

Um but I just want to make clear the sound ordinance is not what we are discussing today.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms.

Benson and Mr.

Wormley to go through the presentations and then we'll answer any questions that you may have.

Good morning.

Lori Benson, Office of Special Events.

So just a little introduction about special events.

So a special event is any organized activity occurring on city owned property or within city maintained right-of-ways for which the organizer requests the use of city services above and beyond the ordinary use or requires a commercial vending permit.

The issuance of a special event permit is codified in chapter 29.6 of City of Sarasota Municipal Code.

And the Office of Special Events is proposing the following changes to the code, and the red line document is attached in the agenda packet.

The purpose of the ordinance changes include clarify defined terms and simplify the application process, codify current processes, create additional standards and restrictions to improve events in downtown.

And 2025 special event permits by the numbers.

We just wanted to give you a little overview kind of of what we handle in our office.

So the total amount of special event permits citywide.

We issued 89 permits.

And then special event permits with a right-of-way closure that included both alcohol and sound.

Citywide, there were 28 in the downtown core, there were 21, and 10 of those were uh city co-sponsored or fee waved events.

Special event permits with a right-of-way closure, but without alcohol and sound both, there were 25 citywide, 10 of those in the downtown core, and seven of those were city co-sponsored or fee waved events.

And then special event multi-day right-of-way closure, so more than one day of a street closure with both alcohol and sound.

There were five citywide, three in the downtown core, and one of those was a city co-sponsored or fee waived event.

And then special event multi-day right-of-way closures without alcohol and sound.

There were 19 total, five in the downtown core, and then two of those were uh city co-sponsored or fee waved events.

And then how we kind of started the process.

So we started with on April 8th, 2024, we came in front of the city commission and had a workshop to kind of go over what we wanted to do and get your feedback.

May 7th, 2024, we presented at the DID meeting and answered any questions that they had.

August 27, 2024, we had a public input session conducted on Zoom.

And again, we're available to present our proposed changes and answer any questions.

May 14th, 2025, we met with four residents from the downtown area to discuss their concerns with special events.

July 8th, 2025, again presented at the DID meeting.

July 9th, 2025, presented at the DISCA meeting and were available for questions.

On July 31st of 2025, we emailed our red line versions to all of our event organizers, everyone who had provided any kind of comment, and also everyone who attended the public workshop and uh asked for two weeks to provide their their feedback to all of our red line changes.

August 28, 2025, um met with the C CNA board members presented there as well.

I do want to point out that after, particularly after our public input session and after we met with the four residents downtown, we did change some of the restrictions that we had and increased those based on the feedback that we got from both our event organizers, businesses, residents, and everyone there.

So then on to so our actual proposed ordinance changes.

So section 29.6-1 under definitions, define event organizer and use consistently throughout the ordinance, remove special event requests and replace with application, define permitted area, define recurring special event, add state-owned right-of-ways with Department of Transportation approval to the special event definition and clarify permit application term and use it consistently throughout the ordinance.

And just really quick to add on to why we did the definition of event organizer.

So prior to us having that definition in the ordinance, um, there were basically two terms if you looked on the special event permit.

There was a reference to the applicant itself, and then there was a reference to a sponsor of the event.

And having two though, and those a lot of times could be two different individuals.

And so we just really wanted to clarify we are going to be asking for one name on an application, and that is the event organizer as it's defined in the new ordinance.

And when that person becomes the event organizer, they are becoming responsible for all of the legal requirements in that permit.

They are becoming responsible for all the indemnifications, the liabilities, the insurance requirements.

So there is no confusion now on who is actually the organizer of that event and who is liable for that event and anything as related to that event.

And section uh 29.6-3 permit application, clarify permit application term and use it consistently throughout the ordinance, codify submission date of special event permit application and late fees, and adding commercial vending permit requirements as part of special event permit applications.

And on the just to clarify the commercial vending permit, the reason why we are adding that is that currently exists within the with the zoning code, not within special events.

And so one of the things that we're trying to do is make it a little bit easier to go through the special event permitting process where you don't have to go, the event organizer doesn't have to go to multiple departments.

So what we are doing is taking the commercial vending permit application process and issuance process out of the development or the zoning ordinance and moving it into special events.

So our application will now be changed and it will be asking the event organizer, will you be doing a commercial need a commercial vending permit?

If they answer yes to that, there will be requirements for them that you'll see in the new ordinance that they have to provide certain information to the office of special events.

When they receive their special event permit signed off on by the city, it will include a commercial vending permit as well with requirements, um liability requirements and regulations of what they have to do.

So that'll now be part of the special event permit.

Section 29.6-5, excuse me, standards for approving with or without conditions or denying a special event permit, subsection A.

An application for special event permit may be denied on any of the following grounds.

So we've clarified permit application term to use it consistently throughout the ordinance.

Application was submitted less than 60 days prior to the event date or less than 90 days, and event organizer did not pay the late fee.

Event organizer has not paid the permit fee 61 days prior to the event or has not provided the liability insurance certificate 31 days in advance.

Commercial vending permit did not identify the name and location of each vendor five days in advance.

Applicant has been convicted of a felony, a crime of dishonesty, or found in violation of a city ordinance within the last two years.

And then subsection B, additional standards, restrictions, and requirements for special event permits for events in St.

Armand Circle Park.

Add public right-of-ways on St.

Armand's Key in addition to St.

Armand Circle Park.

Add that the city manager can approve closure of lanes on traffic of traffic on St.

Armand Circle.

No special event permit will be issued for more than 96 hours in St.

Armand Circle Park.

And just a quick clarification on the St.

Armand's Key.

The reason why we're adding that restriction in there is currently the ordinance reads that there is a list of restrictions that apply just to St.

Armand's Park, but there are times that we do get special event requests for some of the arteries that come off of the circle.

And we wanted to make sure that those were also needed to follow the restrictions of that St.

Armand's ordinance.

So we just broadened it to include the park and then also St.

Armand's Key.

And we did work with the City Attorney's Office to make sure that St.

Armand's Key was a properly defined term.

Subsection D, additional standards, restrictions, and requirements for special event permits.

This is a new subsection to add standards and restrictions for all special events.

Main Street from Orange Avenue to Gulfstream Avenue, no more than one special event permit per month.

And then within the downtown core and Central Avenue between First Street and Pineapple Avenue, any special event with a sound permit or temporary alcohol permit, no permit on consecutive weeks or weekends, including events on Main Street from Orange to Gulfstream, no more than two permits per month, and no right-of-way closure for more than one day.

Continuing on with subsection D, no more than two special event permits per month at JD Hamill Park and Gulfstream Avenue and no consecutive weeks and weekends.

No more than four special event permits annually for Bayfront Park and no consecutive weeks and weekends.

No street closures on Main Street Monday through Friday before 5 p.m.

except for legal holiday or with city manager approval.

Continuing with subsection D, the provisions of subsection D will not apply to City Co-sponsored events.

No special event activities excluding teardowns shall take place after 11 p.m.

And no special event permit at Bobby Jones Golf Club and Nature Park, except for events organized by the management company contracted with the city.

Section 29.6-5 subsection E, a recurring special event is subject to specific requirements except with approval of the city manager.

Same location, same day of the week, same time of day.

All recurring dates must be listed on special event permit application.

Event must be of the same type and purpose and or purpose, and special event permit fee applies to each date of the recurring event.

And then section 29.6-5, subsection F, if event requires a temporary alcohol permit, event organizer must show proof.

Subsection G, if application is denied, the city is not responsible for any reimbursement of event organizer costs.

And then section 29.6-8, a special event for more than 96 hours.

If an event will extend for more than 96 hours, this section includes requirements they must follow that the event organizer must follow, which include city commission approval.

Application must be received by the city auditors and clerk's office five months in advance of event date.

City Commission public hearing at least 90 days prior to the event.

And written notice shall be mailed to all properties within 500 feet of the event location at the expense of the event organizer.

And no event over 96 hours will be allowed in St.

Armand Circle Park.

Section 29.6-9 litter, the event organizer must clean up the permitted area, and if the event organizer does not comply, the city may contract to clean the area and charge the event organizer.

Section 29.6-10, City Co-sponsored events, codifies the City Co-sponsored event process, must support the vision, mission, and values of the city, must be a nonprofit, and must be free and open to the public and limited to two events per year by each event organizer.

We have two proposals that we are asking to be made to this before the motion is made today.

The first is is when we originally did this, we asked that the city co-sponsor must be a nonprofit.

However, we do have one exception to that currently, which is Fresh Fridays is put on by the DID, which is a dependent special district of the city.

And we don't want to exclude them from this, so we would like to add a nonprofit or a dependent district with that of the city of Sarasota.

So we aren't excluding the DID from that.

The other one then also is the limit of two events per year.

So that was one again when we put these in place.

Fresh Fridays is not currently considered a city co-sponsored event on the resolution, so we weren't thinking about Fresh Fridays, but they do get all of their fees waived for all of their events.

So when we bring back the resolution for a city co-sponsored, we are going to recommend that Fresh Fridays gets put on that resolution since all their fees are waived.

If we did that and we kept in the two events per year, they currently have nine events per year.

So we're just putting it out there that we can either remove that restriction of two events per year, and then the Fresh Fridays event would be allowed to have all nine on the resolution as a city co-sponsored, or if we keep it on there, then when that resolution comes in front of the city commission for approval, only two of their events would be able to be waived via this ordinance.

So those are just two things we wanted to point out as we consider the actual language of the change.

Section 29.6-11 codifies the security deposit process.

Section 29.6-12 codifies the event organizers requirements regarding indemnification and liability insurance.

And section 29.6-13, a nonprofit special event permit status.

If event organizer is a nonprofit entity and seeking a special benefit, it establishes requirements of showing uh documentation.

And just to clarify, these were all processes the city, the Office of Special Events was already doing.

It just wasn't codified in the ordinance.

So we wanted to make sure that it was actually stated in the ordinance.

And updates to other ordinances, section 30-21, right-of-way usage permits for special events that are 72 hours or less, updated event organizers for consistency, and it clarifies that the right-of-way usage permit is issued by the engineering department and not the office of special events.

Clarifies if recurring special event is applying for a right-of-way usage permit, the event organizer only has to complete the notice requirement and mail requirement for the initial application unless there is a material change to the application.

And updates to other ordinances continued.

So section 30-23, right-of-way usage permits for special events more than 72 hours, updated event organizers for consistency.

Section 33-121, valet parking permit requirement, correcting valet parking permit requirement from two days to 72 hours.

And section 22-22 permits, adding or designated city department to the existing Office of Special Events Department throughout the section regarding who may issue park permits.

And I know there's been some questions on who issues park permits.

So again, just to clarify, the Office of Special Events does issue the park permits.

If you are going to have a special event within a park, you need both a special event permit and a park permit, but both of those do come through the Office of Special Events currently.

The change to add or designated city department, because parks and recreation, the Department of Parks and Recreation manages the parks.

There has been some talk that in the future, potentially the Office of Parks and Rec would issue those park permits.

So we, since we're making the ordinance changes now anyways, we just added that general statement, which would allow the Department of Parks and Rec to issue those in the future if that's the direction we go in.

But currently, the Office of Special Events does issue both of those permits.

Section 23-3.5 commercial vending during special events.

Commercial vending permits had been located in the Development Services Department ordinances.

This would move it to the Office of Special Events and will be issued as a part of their special event permit if applicable.

And then the special sound permit um ordinances or the special event permit ordinances do not address sound restrictions, sound limits, or special sound permits.

Chapter 20 of the City Code refers to the sound regulations.

Section 20-7 exemptions states the requirements of Chapter 20 Sound Ordinance does not apply to the listed activities.

Section 20-720 exempts road festivals, parades, fireworks displays, and special events for which an appropriate permit has been obtained.

Section 20-721 exempt festivals or events occurring on public parks or beaches where are permitted or approved by the city.

The Office of Special Events issues a special sound permit for any special event event that receives a special event permit or a park permit.

And the Office of Special Events is updating the special sound permit from 100 decibels to 85 decibels.

The Bay Park, Bayfront Park, Pain Park, Ken Thompson Park, and Robarts Arena, Sarasota Fairgrounds will remain at 100 decibels.

And if Chapter 20 is updated, the city manager has the authority to make any applicable changes to the special sound permit.

And then this is our team.

And also we did want to mention we do have ways to notify people about special events.

So we do list all of our special events on the city calendar under city events.

We send a list over to the DID for all events in the DID boundary.

And we are working with IT to come up with a special event newsletter similar to the city newsletter where people can sign up and that way they can be informed of all special events, road closures, so that they can have some pre-planning like has been discussed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So and the lunch break will end at 1 o'clock.

So if anyone does not want to stay around for the public comment and leave now and come back at 1 o'clock, you know, just fair warning, you have that option.

The other thing is I believe some people who have signed up to speak probably arrived after the uh oath was given.

So anybody who wishes to speak on this or the quasi-judicial hearing, would you like to um if you'd stand and take the oath now if you haven't already?

Thank you, Mayor.

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth today at this public hearing?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I will call up the first five people for comment on uh the sound ordinance uh amendments.

Uh Jim Lample, Peter Blandon, David Lowe, Martin Hyde, and John Simon.

And when you come, if you would state your name, whether or not you're a city resident, uh, whether you are uh representing another entity and whether or not you are being paid to represent them.

Um we'll start with Jim Lample.

If you don't mind, we you have a sequence that you want to go on.

Okay.

So um John Simon.

Okay, so we are starting with John Simon then.

Thank you.

Um I I want to thank the city staff and the uh commissioners for working on this.

It's a it's an important issue that affects us personally.

Um let me remind the Commission at the outset that Section 20-2 of the uh municipal code provides that it is public policy of the City of Sarasota that every person will be free from unreasonable and excessive noise that might affect the quiet enjoyment of their property.

Um there are a number of uh difficult issues in this uh ordinance, but there are four, in our view, I believe, key issues.

First, there are too many events, they are too loud, there is unregulated base, and they run too long.

So I previously provided the Commission with a list of six events over nine days that perfect that uh uh personally affected the unit that I have at 1350 Main Street.

And I I want to point out along the lines of too many events, that there's nothing in this ordinance that would change that.

Those six events could still occur and affect my unit in it was within a five-week time frame, and this ordinance would not change that.

Mayor Trice has actually put forward what we think is a helpful suggestion in terms of dividing the downtown area into into areas so that we could have uh less impact on any given building uh as a result of cumulative events.

Second of all, uh too loud.

Uh the events are very loud, and and people in my building leave.

Uh I had to leave my ho my unit five times last year for special events.

Um we are suggesting the the or the sound permit, first of all, that the ordinance itself has no sound restrictions.

And we would suggest putting sound restrictions in this ordinance.

The way it is set up now, I believe that the sound restrictions would remain in administrative discretion and would not be built into the ordinance itself.

We are suggesting a lowering of the decibel level to 85 decibels.

And the proposed sound permit would measure that a hundred feet from the uh activity from the event, which would actually potentially result in a louder sound than what we actually have today, we believe.

Now also the biggest problem is unregulated base, and there is no restriction in in the proposed ordinance and the sound ordinance and anywhere of regulated base.

And the base is a critical element.

When you're sitting in your building and these events occur, you thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

And it's very distracting, and it's very disturbing, and it can even affect your health.

Finally, there is uh some of these events have run till midnight.

The proposed ordinance reduces that to 11 o'clock, but we believe that 10 o'clock, which is when Fresh Fridays ends, when the events at the Bay end, is a more reasonable exception.

And we would like to see that reduced.

We have an issue of uh consent, as I think we've discussed with the Commissioners.

I live at 1350 Main, we have 140 unit owners, and our unit owners get the same level of consent that of the T-shirt shop on Main Street gets that closed and is not affected by the noise.

That is a significant issue.

But if we can lower the sound level, we can lower the base and lower the impact of the number of units on our building, then the consent issue is uh is a lesser issue.

Uh finally, we are we're dealing, we're primarily interested in events that have amplified sound.

And uh there are other events that don't have amplified sound.

That's that are of lesser concern.

But uh Linda Sloan has pointed out in an email to the Commission that there are some issues related to those events that are less impactful but still significant.

And uh I would suggest there's a number of sort of small issues in this ordinance that are important but less significant than the four I've been discussing, and we'd love to have an opportunity to sit down with uh this the Commission staff, city staff and the city attorney and go over those issues.

And I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And I'm going to assume you have someone you want to go second.

Mr.

Blanton.

Okay.

Peter Blanton, City Resident.

I don't represent anybody but myself and barely that.

And I'm not paid by myself.

So I want to reiterate a couple comments that Mr.

Simon said.

So you heard twice this morning that the special sound permit, which is part of the special events application, reduces the sound levels from a h it will reduce the sound levels from 100 decibels to 85.

But that's not really correct.

So in the current ordinance, it's 100 decibels without any limitation to the distance from the source.

So you can be close to the source and measure the sound.

Under what's proposed here and was conveniently not said by staff is that they suggest that you step back a hundred feet.

So if you step back a hundred feet, eighty-five decibels ten feet away is 105 decibels approximately.

So that's worse than what we have now.

And in the major parks, they keep it 100 decibels, but they again say you can't measure any closer than 100 feet.

So what is 100 decibels 10 feet away?

It's 120 decibels.

I mean it's so for them to say it's a lot less is not quite true.

And there's no precedent for stepping back a hundred feet in in the State of Florida.

It doesn't happen.

I don't know where that number came from.

Basically, they either measure sound close to the source or at the nearest property line.

And that's really important because uh Mayor Trice's comments, which I uh happen to like uh a lot, talked about enforcement.

Well, how do you enforce something a hundred feet away?

How do you measure a hundred feet away?

It's not so obvious.

I sent a a memo to everybody about that.

It's uh it's not easy to measure that uh during uh you know an evening block party.

It's very easy to be close to the sound source, or it's very easy to have the uh measurement take place in the nearest property line.

And so if you're assessing a fine, I would suggest first it's a warning, then it's a material fine, and then if you still can't get the sound down, you have a two-year suspension of applying for a new permit.

But you if you're standing on a property line, it's it's not really up to debate.

Uh if you try to assess a fine a hundred feet away, it's up to debate.

Um anyway, I took way too much time on that topic.

But I basically want to reiterate Mr.

Simon's uh comments that we do like Mayor Trice's uh suggestions that are up on the city's website in her letter to uh Mr.

Bullock and uh uh uh Jennifer Dergenson.

Um I think yeah, she's getting to the heart of the issue with her first point about a granular map.

There's just too many events and they're too closely bunched together.

Um I do like her suggestion of possibly including City Coast-sponsored events into her limitation of a number of events per month, but they should get first priority over commercial events.

Uh penalties.

I've already discussed that, but I think uh we need to have penalties.

And we need to be careful about name changes.

And as some of you are aware, the bars, restaurants, now a men's clothing store, other commercial operators, they use a small merchant group to get these permits and pay rates reserved for nonprofits.

Um I don't I think when we go forward we should not have that, and we should have nonprofits pay substantially higher rate than for I'm sorry, we should have four profits but substantially higher rate.

Um the two-thirds uh approval, I mean that's as silly the way it stands now, and looking at linear feed, I think goes a long way in terms of you know making it more reasonable.

Um the base sound.

This is critical.

I think and thank you, Mayor Trice, for bringing this up.

I always lose my wallet.

Um it's in the city sound ordinance as we speak.

It was in the pr uh what Bob Fournier presented in January of this year.

It will be in.

I'm talking about DBC Bay Sound.

It's already regulated, and it will be in what you see in December.

We should have it in this document.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Blanton.

And Mr.

Lample.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Commissioners, for giving us the time to give us to give you some feedback.

We have no argument with the receiver.

Name city resident representing the represent.

Jim Lample, downtown resident, not paid.

Representing yourself and the jewel?

And the jewel, thank you.

Oh, how things have changed.

I moved downtown about 15 years ago.

It's a walking community.

We go to the bank, Whole Foods, so many restaurants, of course, the barbershop, clothing shops, art galleries, the local bookstore, art fairs, meeting lots of people on the street.

I've met many of you on the street.

That wouldn't happen if it wasn't a walking community.

And of course, by walking, I can come to many of these city hall meetings.

Other than a few city-sponsored events back then, like parades and New Year's Eve and Denise's chalk festival on Pineapple.

There was only really Thunder by the Bay, what I call a kick-ass Harley rally, which pulled in thousands of loud motorcycles for two and three days and took over downtown.

Anyone who was here would remember that.

It grew larger every year, and they proudly suggested they were very, very, very successful.

But at the end, after the 16th or 17th year, they closed off up to seven streets for this event.

It got so big that the mayor at the time suggested that they do a survey, and the survey contradiction contradicted what the director or the sponsor had always said that everyone loves this motorcycle rally.

Well it wasn't true.

The results of the survey from all the businesses downtown were over, as I recall, over 80 percent didn't want it at all.

So with that result, Thunder by the Bay moved out of downtown.

They went to Lakewood Ranch, and then subsequently they went to the county fairgrounds, if anyone remembers that.

And they're doing much better there because they can control the ticket sales.

So it's a good bet that a new survey of special events, not counting the city events, might show similar results.

But now we have even more events than we had before.

The second point I want to make will be on the Elmo.

And if you've picked up your email this morning, you would see that we uh see if I can bring this up.

Okay.

There was a contingency of city leaders a few weeks ago that made a trip to Del Ray Beach, and some of you on the commission recused yourself because of the possible violation of sunshine laws.

So I used to work in Delray, so I thought that's curious.

I'm going to look it up and see what the best practices for Delray Beach are.

And if you can pull yours up, you can follow along with me.

This will only take a minute because it's only 12 pages.

This was promulgated two years ago.

You can tell by the signature at the bottom of the document.

And one of the first things that they mention, and I'll read it.

The City of Delray recognizes the special events, provide opportunities, promote community welfare, improve the quality of life for citizens and visitors, and build a sense of community.

Okay.

As you go down, you'll see that the purpose of similar to our purpose, but it's to preserve the city's character while protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens, businesses, and visitors.

Further down, and this is what's important.

They talk about impact events.

By definition, anything that requires a low a road closure, aside from city-sponsored events, requires a city commission hearing.

It is not administrative approval.

It's not even staff approval.

Road closures are considered an impact event.

And I would dare say that that's what we should be looking at.

I think that the Delray Beach ordinance has gotten it right.

I think it's one of the best practices.

I don't know why we've gone astray and we are trimming around the edges of what we had was a old flawed document from 2014.

So I would appreciate your consideration, starting with the Delray template and for uh the attorneys also to look at it.

And it's a clean document.

It's only 12 pages and not 30.

It's easily administrated.

And it's simpler.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Lowe?

Yes, Mayor.

Uh David Lowe, uh city resident, and unfortunately not being paid.

Uh let me try to representing disk good at the I am not representing DISC.

Uh there are too many moving parts on this to get our board together.

It's uh hard enough.

So let me just speak on my own today.

Um let me start with something familiar.

You pull up to a red light in your car.

The car next to you has the base turned up loud.

You can feel it through your own car window, your car almost shakes.

You want to move, but you cannot.

You sit there and wait for the light to change.

It's uncomfortable, but it only lasts a minute.

I think we've all experienced it.

Now picture that same situation, except this uh metaphoric car is not beside you at a red light.

It's parked a stone's throw under beneath your condo in the downtown with a sign open, open till eleven with a flashing beer and wine available here sign in the window.

Same kind of base.

Put yourself in the shoes of a person living right above this car.

And I think some of us can't imagine what it would be like to live at 1350 or the mark on occasions with some of these events.

Imagine that pounding stretched across the entire evening or several days, as it was during the Cinco de Mayo event.

That is happening now.

It's not one thing, and then the car, but the car comes back another weekend, and sometimes, in the case Mr.

Simon talked about it, six times within a month.

And this all administratively approved with basically no input from the people who absorb the impact.

This is why I appreciate Mayor Trice's idea to divide the downtown into smaller zones.

The rough map the mayor showed gives us a chance to spread activity across more areas instead of stacking it under the same condos again and again.

The mayor said we should share the wealth.

If planned well, events do bring benefits.

Those benefits should reach more of the town.

And the same goes for the inconvenience and trade-offs that come with them.

We should not expect the same residents to shoulder these events unduly month after month.

As the mayor suggests, limiting special events to one per month across the DTC and DTB zoning districts is worth considering.

Gives residents a break and encourages organizers to look at other areas that are growing and becoming more appealing.

Noise also affects how people see our downtown long term.

Developers look at it, buyers look at it, purchasers and realtors aware of noise issues, and if they see often events happen, how late they run, how loud they are, their interests will drop.

The press coverage of today's meeting is a Google search away to potential purchasers.

So a discussion focused only on downtown vibrancy is far too simplistic.

This is what's at stake as you update the downtown special events ordinance, where events can take place, how often they should happen, how late they can run, what access disruptions make sense, and most important, and my eyes glaze over an understanding all this, that we've got to get the sound, whatever ordinance it is or regulation, get it under control and get the base being an important component of that along with enforcement.

There is a balance to strike.

The mayor's ideas along with the work that has already been done, and I don't want to underestimate the work that has been done by uh Ms.

Jorgensen and her staff, it's commendable.

We welcome events without but we can't overlook all stakeholders, the people who live there, the people consider buying and staying.

The businesses operate here, and the developers with new units to market.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Lowe.

Mr.

Hyde.

Well, there's something for uh everyone to hate uh here coming.

Um when I first visited uh New York, I was on uh honeymoon with the uh the first of uh my wives um and and and you know, about four o'clock, the uh the sound people leaning on their horns.

I went to the window.

I assumed there was a massive accident.

Nothing.

Just gridlock.

And it went on until uh eight p.m.

I think one can reasonably say that's the nature of a big city, and let me say I hated it.

Hate it.

That said, I I agree with Mr.

Lowe.

What we need here is is some balance.

Um first thing that you know people keep talking about decibels.

Let's just put that in perspective so people understand.

One hundred decibels.

Now, every ten decibels higher or lower is double the sound performance.

So, right, ninety is twice eighty, a hundred is twice uh ninety.

So a hundred is a rock concert, it's power tools, and and by any metric it creates hearing damage potentially within fifteen minutes.

That's a s that's a science as far as that concerned.

Eighty-five decibels, which is the mooted maximum uh potential here, um or at least suggested that by these guys, is about the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

I remember my mother running around with that, that drove me nuts too.

But but obviously we've got to have some sound.

Coming back down, sixty-five is normal conversation.

So you've got to put these numbers into some degree of uh perspective.

Seventy-five is the sound of a toilet flushing.

Um it's not reasonable, guys, to expect no people.

It is a downtown call.

Um city's been here a lot longer, and possibly not than you've been alive, but then certainly um you know, terms of condos at 1350 Maine or or whatever, remember that was when it was a car park.

So there is an element here, and I'll qualify this to the airport complaint, you know.

Uh planes landing left, right, and center.

But the airport was there first.

Um one has to be mindful of that, and and one has to qualify everything with the truth, which is the people chose to move into those buildings.

Um level, it's not reasonable to expect it to be like a scene from Cocoon at nine o'clock at night.

That's just not reasonable.

What I came up with a couple of points that I think you know I would like to see.

One is adequate notice to a uh affected parties.

You know, they keep talking about the city website and mailers and all that sort of stuff, but you know, that's that's available.

That's not the same as actively proffered.

So I I would like to make an active effort to give the chance for people to get out of Dodge if they feel like they uh they they really need to.

Absolutely limit it to 11 p.m.

I like to get a bit earlier, but absolutely 11 p.m.

except for New Year's Eve, obviously, except for New Year's Eve.

Eleven's late enough.

You know, my mother always said nothing good happens after midnight.

You know, she she she was right about that.

So eleven, I think is uh is reasonable.

You limit this maximum sound, and I understand it's a difficult science and enforcement is difficult, but eighty decibels, unless you're terribly hard of hearing, gives you the ambient sound of uh of the mood, the movement.

Um if you've got, as I presume they do in these condos, double, triple glazing or whatever else, i you can probably just about manage that for a few hours.

But but but a hundred decibels, the reason that's on for the parks is because that's okay in a park.

Because, you know, but but eighty in an urban sett- Oh, uh a hundred in an urban setting is is is not reasonable.

And then just because, you know, I always touch on fiscal things.

I I notice that you give waivers for the vast majority of these events.

I don't think that's fair on all the city residents.

I mean, these things cost money, they cost money to police, they cost money to clear up.

Um I don't know that I would be offering it.

Yes, sure.

I think you can have some discretion of the city manager.

I I don't think that First Fridays is terribly likely to cost you an awful lot of money, and I don't suppose they have a tremendous revenue.

So I I I think you could waive it there.

But to arbitrarily and universally waive it when there are potentially substantial and significant uh significant costs, I think is something uh that you could look at.

So a balance.

I don't like noise.

Clearly these guys don't like noise.

They're living a nightmare that you and I aren't living.

Um perhaps in the middle is uh is what I'd be recommending.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I we have two more people to make comments.

Um John Harshman and John Bordeaux.

Mr.

Harshman.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor, and congratulations.

This is the first time I've seen you, and um Vice Mayor, congratulations as well.

And commissioners.

Uh my name is uh John Harshman and I'm a 52-year resident of the City of Sarasota.

Um I've owned uh two commercial buildings downtown uh since 1998, and I manage three other buildings.

Those buildings um have a total of nine tenants in them, and all of them are either retail or office, and I represent um all those properties here today.

Um all my tenants tell me that um they love the parades, they love the farmers market, first Fridays is great, but generally the other events don't really have a uh positive impact for them.

In fact, the street closures for them are problematic.

Um I'm a little bit late to this game here for talking about the um uh uh ordinance, um, because the first that I heard about it was when the DID was going to look at it at their um and I saw it on their last agenda.

I'm I'm notified um judiciously from you all whenever there's a special exception, a uh rezone, a conditional use permit for any property within 500 feet of my properties, and I really appreciate that.

That lets me know what's going on.

But events impact all of my properties and not getting a notice that you guys are going to review this, I think was kind of missing a whole lot of input from a lot of different people in a lot of different um constituents.

And it also conflicts with the the um the second to last whereas in in the ordinance that that states um after seeking input from citizens and members of the community.

Well, clearly members of the community were not reached out to and and we didn't have the opportunity to really um uh comment.

Uh I was also surprised when I uh looked at the ordinance and there was no backup information showing um a a matrix of best practices from five or six other communities around the state that that shows how they deal with the sound, how they deal with a number of of events, um what type of events do they have.

And it's not that we have to be like some other community, but it is good to see what other communities do that work, have been tested, sometimes tested legally, and from there we can use that as a basis for us going forward, and maybe we can reduce some of the arguments that we have about some of the things.

Um I did look at the ordinance from from a commercial property owner perspective, and one of the uh there were two comments that I I had, and one was um the litter and the cleanup after the events, particularly the the uh um uh events with music and al and alcohol outside.

Um when they're very successful, which some of them are, people will park five and six blocks away and then walk to the events.

When they leave the events, sometimes they leave some of their event materials along the way.

In fact, often they do, and some of it is is not very pleasant to clean up.

Um so I would ask that the cleanup area for the event, the responsibility of the event uh organizers is extended out three or four, maybe five blocks, depending on the on the size of the event.

Um the other thing is that um occasionally we've had damage to our properties from event patrons.

And it doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen.

And when it does happen, we fix it right away, and we would like to have some kind of an easy, simple way that we could apply to the city, show them pictures of what happened, show them the event.

Many of the properties have security cameras that we often have the people on on on camera that are doing it, so that we can get reimbursed quickly without having to go through a long drawn-out process.

And with that, thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Mr.

Bordeaux.

Good morning and Mayor and Vice Mayor, congratulations on your new positions and best of luck.

My name is John Bordeaux.

I'm a full-time downtown resident.

I'm here representing myself and uh I'm not being paid by anyone.

Okay.

The uh to be clear, what we're concerned about here now are the late night 100 decibel until midnight block parties and not the art fairs and farmers market.

Okay.

Although this revision to the ordinance is an improvement over the current version, there are still significant concerns with these block parties, as indicated in the numerous emails you have received.

I know that because I have been copied on most of them.

Because of those concerns, I believe that this revised ordinance is not ready for prime time.

What is needed is a face-to-face workshop to iron out these those differences.

Ms.

Jordanson conducted a Zoom workshop in the past, but only a handful of people participated.

We need a face-to-face workshop.

On the positive side, we like the concept of event organizer, the entity who is responsible for conducting the special event, who retains the liability if there are any issues with the event.

The event organizers responsible for securing the temporary alcohol permit, the temporary sound permit, the street closure approval, conducting the special event, tear down and cleanup after the special event.

An event organizer should be permitted to conduct one special event per year.

However, there are numerous aspects that we are concerned with.

For example, there are significantly too many downtown events.

There are significantly too many special events, the block parties I'm referring to.

In one year period from July 24 to July 25, there were 31 special events covering 36 street closures.

See this graphic.

Okay.

One special event per month in downtown should be considered, and that includes not only Maine, but lemon, pineapple, palm, and gulf stream.

Additionally, there should be only one event per quarter at Hamill Park.

Also, all events, all events should be only for one and street closures for one night, unlike what happened in the uh Cinco de Mayo in May, where uh 1300 block of Maine was closed for three days.

Events should conclude at 10 p.m.

and teardown concluded by midnight, similar to Fresh Fridays.

No one seems to object to that.

The ordinance revision calls for sound limit of 85 decibels measured at 100 feet.

As mentioned before, it should be pointed out that the sound goes up significantly when you get closer to the source.

The 85 decibels should be measured closer to the source.

Also, is there any science to the 85, or should it even be lower?

Also, the sound should be part of the sound ordinance, which it currently isn't.

All special events that require street closure, serve alcohol, or require a sound special sound permit should be should require approval by the City Commission, as done in other Florida cities and not administratively approved.

Affected residents, this is interesting to me.

Affected residents in St.

Armands are notified of a special event the day the special event application is submitted.

Why aren't the downtown residents similarly notified?

In fact, we're never notified, as was just discussed.

I guess we're second-class citizens compared to St.

Ormond's.

The current process for street closure approval allows for condominiums of only one vote, which is in conflict with the municipal codes.

Here's the example.

Okay.

I still have a minute.

Okay.

This is a for the L.

Melvin's Day of the Dead.

And here's the street closure approval list.

And on it, it has the 140 units at the 1350 main condominium, votes no for street closure.

And the Little Dreamers, the tiny little shop that sells children's t-shirts, voted yes.

So little dreamers offset the entire 140 residences at the 1350 main.

Okay, that just isn't right.

I don't know what the answer is to that, but it's certainly what it's done now isn't right.

Okay.

The other uh next item is has this special has the social events team conducted a survey of downtown businesses and restaurants?

Okay?

If so, what are the results?

If not, they should.

How does the revised special events ordinance compare to other Florida cities, like was discussed with Del Ray?

As I mentioned earlier, we need a face-to-face workshop to resolve these differences.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Bordeaux.

Um looking at the clock, it's a few minutes before noon.

And as I said, we will take a lunch break at this point and come back at one o'clock where we when we can begin commissioner questions.

Okay, the November seventeenth uh regular city commission meeting is back in session.

And at this point, we were ready to start well, we're working on um the legislative public hearing regarding the special events, and we were about to ask questions of staff on that proposed ordinance.

Um waiting for somebody to buzz in that they want.

So right now you have Commissioner Aaron Cos and Commissioner Ulrich in.

I know this is a lot, and there it's it's you know been going over many years, and thank you to the community and the businesses and everybody who's weighed in on this.

Um I don't know, Mr.

Bullock or Ms.

Jorgensen, um, which is the best way.

Um there are big picture issues that I think were brought up and that we've been talked about and been receiving information about.

And then there are little tiny details which can be worked out or spoken about at another time.

Uh Mayor, and I'm not sure if you want to weigh in.

Um, I'm happy to I have like 10 big picture issues.

Uh and I can, you know, things that I think that we heard again and again from the community and you all even brought up like this is what we thought, and um if we should just focus on those, or did you want to make some presentation or response to things that were said?

So great question.

There were um some items that were said that we want to clarify or provide some response to.

So we can do that on our own, or as it relates to questions that that you ask.

If you're okay, we can mayor, if you're okay with it, we can kind of present some of the things we heard just to give some clarification.

Okay, and and would it make sense to pass out the email that I sent to you that commenters had referred to.

Everybody's referencing that I have no idea what they're talking about.

Um let's see.

I I know I made enough copies, so I gave you the wrong thing.

Sorry.

I can pass it out.

Oh, okay.

Here, here's the whole pile, I think.

Wait, still giving you the wrong thing.

Yeah.

Is it just one page?

Yeah, it's just one page.

Okay.

Um so if you want to begin while Perfect.

We're passing out my email.

So a couple of clarifications that we do um want to start with, and Ms.

Benson and Mr.

Wormley can can jump in.

Um a few clarifications on doing some research against other cities.

So we apologize we didn't have a slide in there, but we have done comparables to other cities.

Um and Mr.

Wormley has some specifics, so we'll start with that.

I want to be clear that um one of the big things that kept coming up is city commission approval.

And in looking at other cities, there are certain special events that require city commission approval, but not all applications or permits require city commission approval.

Specifically the Delray Beach that was brought up.

Delray Beach only requires City Commission approval if there are three events um that take place for those special events.

So the the biggest in the and the um the biggest one is if the event is going to be over 3,500 people, then it would require city commission approval.

We don't have that requirement currently, and we don't have that requirement in our proposed.

We barely have city um events right now that are over the 35, um, but that is one that they do have that uh requirement that city commission approves it if the attendance is going to be over 3500.

Another statement was regarding Delray Beach is that it has to be approved if it's on a city right-away.

Within their um their policy, it is not all city right-aways that have to be approved by city commission.

So within their policy, they have a list of specific roadways that if the special event takes place on that roadway, then it does require city commission approval.

Um state roads, similar to like 41 here in the city.

There are only two city streets in those requirements that have to be approved by city commission.

So again, it's not a closure of all right aways that have to be approved by city commission.

We have done some other city um comparisons, and there are um some cities, larger cities like Orlando, Tampa, that absolutely do require city commission approval if it's going to close down a road or if it's a major event.

Some cities define what a major event is, and some cities did not.

Um we tended not to like to put a lot of um uh statements into an ordinance that isn't clear because then you get confusion about okay, what is considered a major event or not a major event.

Um and again, Jim can go over some very specifics on city commission approval, but I wanted to just make those statements because Delray Beach was brought up a couple times.

One other quick clarification on Delray Beach, and we did run into this with some other cities.

A lot of their special events um are policy-based and not ordinance-based, and that is a good clarification to make.

Our city commission or our special event permits and the issuance of permits are actually within our ordinance itself, which requires if any of that needs to be changed, obviously it's got to come in front of City Commission.

Delray Beach has a special event ordinance, but if you look at it, it's very, very small.

It basically just has three components to it.

There's some definitions.

It basically talks about the noise ordinance, that they can there's an exemption to special events in their noise ordinance, so they do talk about that.

And it also basically says that all special events are dictated by their policy.

And so this the um Delray Beach that was shown earlier is actually it's a policy, it's not an ordinance, and that policy can be updated by city manager.

Um so our ordinances are a little bit more restrictive than some of these other locations in that they're actually an ordinance and not just a policy.

The city does have a city um special event guidebook or or that goes into a little more detail than what our city ordinances does.

Um so it's similar to Delray Beach in that sense, but we really like that most of our restrictions are an ordinance because again, that is not administratively approved, that's city commission approved.

So I'll stop talking and Jim can go over some of the um differences that we've seen with other cities.

Yeah, just uh um Jim Wormley, um special events manager.

Um couple of the uh cities that um talking about uh Venice, uh that's definitely commission approved, but that's uh just one time.

Um and then the uh event can reoccur as long as there's no significant changes.

If there are, then it has to go back to US City Commission for approval.

Otherwise, every year it's just administratively done once it's uh approved.

Uh Fort Myers, um, it's like us, it's uh administratively um uh reviewed and approved, so through departmental review process, and um so is uh City of Clearwater.

Uh St.

Pete, uh they have a application process that happens four times per year.

Um so people uh put in their application, but then the city commission um does um finalize that uh with their approval.

Um Naples has a combination of city administration and council um uh approval um with um the city council needing uh to be part of it if there's a street closing, off-site parking, amplified entertainment, uh co-sponsorship and uh attendance of 1,500 or more and fireworks.

Uh Tampa is administratively done unless there's a street closure.

Um Delray Beach, we already talked about that one.

Um Orlando is definitely uh City Commission approval.

Um that's just their process that every one of their events uh goes through uh commission approval.

Um in Volusia County uh Daytona area, basically uh only needed commission approval if there was alcohol involved on the beaches or there's a beach closure stuff.

So um we have other ones, but uh those are kind of the ones that we did in Florida.

But uh each uh community is different, and I think uh uh each one you know is gonna you know use it's what's best for them.

So I mean you you can take it away with but it I think we have a little bit of a combination as well because we do have um co-sponsorship events that are on uh resolution right now, so we feel like those are pretty much uh a commission approved.

Um so everything else is administratively done.

And then Mayor, if you want from going off of your list, I think the next biggest conversation is the locations of special events, and we can kind of put a map up and talk about what our current proposed restrictions would do, and then we can talk through um the email that you had stated as well.

So I will put that.

None of this counts as my time.

No.

We can make believe it's rebuttal.

We'll just start over.

Both of them.

Well, and and actually if this would help start with our map.

I have my map.

Here, we can start with your map.

Oh, you have it?

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

She says she's got it.

So I want to first talk about the restrictions that we have in the proposed ordinance.

Um again, the reason why we put um the restrictions in as far as the number of events was again based on conversations that we did have with residents to try to again make sure that there wasn't an event every single weekend over and over in the exact same place.

So the proposed ordinances that we currently have does a limitation on the first limitation is on Main Street.

And it goes Main Street from Orange all the way down to Gulf Stream.

So that entire stretch of Main Street, you can only have one special event a month.

And you cannot have consecutive special events on that strip.

And that means if you have one on the last weekend in November, you can't have one on the first weekend of December on that entire main street right away.

So that's the first um restriction.

Proposed, thank you.

And that is not include city joint sponsored.

Currently we are excluding city co-sponsored events from these restrictions.

I have just what's proposed by Mayor Trice, or that's what's proposed by you all.

By us.

The current um ordinances in front of you.

The second restriction that's in the proposed ordinances that we have brought forward is within the downtown core, which is that entire bluish green area, including, and Laurie, can you point to it, including um that goes from first to pineapple, right?

First to pineapple, yes.

It's basically the right-of-way that runs along five points.

And the reason why we wanted to include that in these restrictions is because it's not part of downtown core.

But what we were afraid of is if somebody couldn't have an event within downtown core, they would just move their event to that little spot in central.

And we didn't want to restrict them, or we didn't want to push events to that location where you can easily have events.

So we included that part of the right-of-way.

So the restriction is is in that whole area, you can only have two events that have alcohol and sound, two events a month.

They cannot be consecutive weeks or weekends.

So within that whole entire blue space plus that section of Central Avenue, you can't have one on a one weekend in the very next weekend.

Additionally, you can't have consecutive events within that green area and Lower Main.

Because again, we didn't want people to get around the ordinance by saying we're going to have our event on Main Street and then because that's our one a month, and then two weekends we're gonna have it, or the next weekend we're gonna have it in downtown core.

So you cannot have back to back in those two spaces.

I have a question on that.

I just have a question on that.

So I think we spoke about this before, Ms.

Jorgensen.

Explain to me again the logic of doing the downtown core because properties can go from DTE or DTNE to downtown core zoning district if they rezone.

Does that expand that or contract will this district expand or contract if somebody does a rezone?

Or is when you say downtown core, is that more of a um I know you're referencing the zoning code, but is it more of a uh uh theoretical name or that's defined by that, or is it literally everything that's zoned downtown core?

Because then it's subject to change at this table from one week to the next.

So I'm going to let the attorney um reference that because we are defining it as it's defined in the code.

And I'm gonna let Joe explain what that does as far as changing it.

So it it would be DTC zoning, which would change if if the commission changed.

Yeah, I think that's uh I that's not very stable.

I mean, I don't think it's a very stable thing for a residents to have in their mind that it's a certain area and then some rezone happens and then it something is included in that zone and people are confused.

Um I would just base it on something else than the zoning, which you know can change.

I think that's safer.

Now I do want to address the map that I have up there is actually the one um that the Mayor Trice has sent that breaks up the downtown core into seven locations.

Um and I'll read what you had sent, Mayor.

Granular map of downtown core to limit the number of events being held in each area.

The rough map I texted contains seven areas, pure guesswork on the seven areas.

Perhaps the limit can be one event per area per month, possibly even including city co-sponsored events in the count.

This will spread the wealth reducing the distribution disruption of people living in the most popular areas of downtown and building foot traffic to businesses and other areas.

Um we can definitely look at that when we go back and relook at the definition.

Um I know Ms.

Benson also mentioned um looking at maybe the definition of the DID, what the DID location is as well.

The one thing that I'll point out, Mayor, is that if we look at the map and the seven areas, one of the risks of that is is you potentially could have more than two special events in that entire downtown core within a month.

Because if you do one per area per month, or one per area per month, you could have multiple areas that have events at the same time.

So you're actually expanding the number of events in the entire downtown core a little bit more than than our current restriction.

Can you say that again?

I'm not sure I'm grasping that.

If you break them up into seven, and again, we can look at this because I think the mayor was just throwing something out there, we can absolutely look at it.

But if it's per one per section per month, you could actually have one in this section up here, and you could have one in this section at the same month.

And one in this section at the same month.

So now you have three events in the downtown core in a month when we're restricting it to two.

Maybe it could be not consecutive.

Right.

And we can work on some language that looks at different areas because I think, Mayor, to your point, you're just trying to make sure one condo building doesn't have them.

Um I do want to say with the restrictions that we have with the downtown core, you wouldn't be able to have a special event in front of the same condo unit weekend after weekend, because we do have the non-consecutive.

If they're in downtown core, they could have two in the same month in front of their location.

But that is the most that they could have is two.

I think you can find some wording to get around that to not let that happen.

To not let um two in the same month in front of the same um location.

So that's the directive from the commission is to just spread that out more than just two a month is what I'm hearing, correct?

Meaning we don't want two special events per month in front of the same residential location.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

And and try to encourage uh organizers to go to the uh eastern end of downtown.

I mean, I'm sure those folks at Astor and Lynx and businesses there would love to have something vital vitalizing their area.

Yeah.

If I may, I um I was thinking on your map there, you had it uh cut off at 301 or I think it was orange to 301.

I would even stop it at Osprey and then do Osprey n East.

Um just because that seems to be a little bit of a like um a less activated area and also less residences too.

So that's why I wanted to leave it to them.

They know where the best places to draw the map.

If if we decide that that is something we want done.

Okay.

Um Mayor, if you don't mind me asking.

Yeah, I know we're like a little bit all over the place.

I don't even know whose time it is right now.

Yeah, I'm confused.

Actually, this was a continuation of the presentation by the special events uh folks uh based on the comments.

Uh and if you have any more, you can give it to us.

Otherwise we can start the official uh question period.

Thank you.

We can so there's two things.

We can um address the other three uh questions that you had if you want us to, Mayor.

And then I wanted to talk the sound permit as well.

Do you want to wait to address yours with your questions?

Yeah, why don't you do sound permit because that's one of the most crucial items.

Is that agreed?

Yeah.

And all the questions.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, okay.

So for the sound permit, we've had a lot of conversation about the sound permit existing in ordinance or not existing in ordinance.

So again, we've all said the special event ordinance doesn't refer to sound or the sound permit.

Um so you do have to go to chapter 20, which is the sound ordinance that first says special events are exempt from any sound um ordinance.

We do issue a special sound permit to try to control the decibel levels.

It's not required in the ordinance that special events issues the sound permit, but we do do that just to make sure that the sound for special events doesn't get um out of hand.

So prior, the special sound permit stated that if you're issued a special sound permit, your sound cannot exceed 100 decibels.

It did not dictate DBA or DBC, DBC being the base that everybody has concerns about.

Um the current sound ordinance does state the difference between DBA and DBC in your normal sound, not attached to special events.

And what it says is that there can't be a five decibel difference between the sound um amplified sound.

Again, not tied to special events.

So what we didn't propose that in the current sound permit that we have in front of you because we knew the city attorney's office was re-looking at the sound ordinance and potentially getting a sound study.

And so we didn't want to put something in the special event permit that may change when the special event ordinance comes into play.

However, hearing that the base is such a um important topic, what we could do with the current sound permit is mirror the five decibel difference that is currently in the sound ordinance.

So we could say for the locations exempting the parks, we would keep it at the 85 decibel for DBA and 90 decibel for DBC, which would be that base.

And that mirrors the sound difference between the DBA and DBC and the current sound ordinance.

Do we want to hold the questions now till quick?

Okay.

And so we'll do questions now, and Commissioner Ahern Koch hearts our 10 minutes.

Okay.

So the the big picture items that I think that were mentioned that I think you tried to touch on.

So this is what I jotted down, um, and I'll try to get to as many of them as possible.

Um in general, the c the comments were more input, which I think we will get that from businesses downtown and from residents is number one.

Number two, uh hard end time.

An end time has got an end time to the noise.

So you know, if the end time is at 10 p.m.

or 11 p.m., it's got to include the cleanup.

It's gotta include the breakdown of the stage, the loading of the truck, the beep beep beep.

I mean the noise has to stop at a certain point in time.

And if we say it's 11 and the event goes until 11 and they don't have to break down anything, fine.

If the the stop time is 11 and they need two hours to break down their stage, they gotta back it up to 9 p.m.

and start ending the event at 9 and break down your stage.

So I think the end time is something that's under that's something else that we can I want to talk about.

Um the cleaning the litter and expanding that blocks from the actual ground zero of the event.

Um I I think we experience that a lot with uh with our events that people do trail, they drink the rest of their, you know, soda or whatever, and then three blocks later they'll they'll do something with their cup.

Um the number of events street closures and consecutive days is also something that we have should have more discussion about.

We already talked about the DTC zone.

Um street closures and notification and sign off.

That was brought up as well.

Um that kicking off commission approval or not.

So street closures and then also signing off from the residents about street closures.

How does how do we handle that when you have the shop who's one you know, one street closure, yes or no, and then a whole condo that's 140.

I don't even know how we could get 140 people to sign off on something.

I'm just putting that out there is what I heard were the major things.

Um that there's an event notice that actually the city does to the area businesses and residents if it's a question of cost, we the city has so I want them to answer.

I'm gonna these are the questions I'm asking.

So uh I just want them answered.

So these are questions.

Okay, maybe a couple at a time so they can.

Well, I want to make sure I get them on record before my 10 minutes or 20 minutes runs up.

Um with the event notice to the area businesses and residents, I know with the city we made the applicant now pay for notification, maybe the city could make the um person who's doing the event, the event organizer pay for that.

Um there's was questions asked about clarity on parks versus right-of-ways versus streets.

And I don't know what any road road event is.

That was in one of your slides.

It was uh a road event.

Um I think it was on page nine of your slides.

And then there was questions about fees and waiver of fees, and maybe discussion could be had about that.

And then damages to area businesses.

Um I don't know if we have some have had any discussion about that, if there is to put that language that should any business claim within X number of days that their business or their location was damaged by the event.

And you can figure out legally how we define all these things that you know that the the event organizer has to cover that or pay for it or I don't know what.

We talked about the amplified versus non-amplified, the decibel level measuring, and then that distance is also something that was brought up.

So the the hard part for the distance is when we were measuring at the property line, if you have a rooftop event, you can't it measures nothing.

So that's where that, you know, I get the hundred feet away is a is a hard, difficult thing for some of us to understand what that means.

It does probably make it louder decibel-wise, but then also it was thrown out there property line uh or at the point of the noise, but then if it's a rooftop, then how do you do that one?

And then safety was brought up.

And you um Ms.

Dorkinson, you were talking about some some city commission sign-off on certain cases.

Um somebody brought up the idea of if it's there's alcohol and the attendance is beyond a certain point.

So those are the main big things.

And I was just wondering if you had any thoughts that that were brought up by the public and the businesses and stuff on any of those.

Sure.

So we I can just kind of go down the list.

Please.

And um Ms.

Venson and Mr.

Roomley can jump in as well.

I'll start with the hard end time.

Yes.

So I want to be really clear when it comes to the setup and tear down.

So we do not currently have a restriction on how long somebody can set up and tear down.

So if their event ends at 11 p.m., it could take two hours for them to tear down to the event.

I want to be very clear though that the sound permit is only in play for the actual event time.

So there if if their event time is 7 p.m.

to 11 p.m., their sound permit, which allows them to go to 85 decibels, only goes to 11 p.m.

So the teardown time, if it takes them another two hours to tear down, they now have to follow the sound ordinance, the regular sound ordinance.

So the 65 decibels, the 75 decibels, whatever it falls into.

So I want to make that really clear because the majority of the concern that we've heard from residents is the sound of teardown.

But the sound can be the same sound of a car driving by at midnight.

We do have some events where it does take hours to tear down.

And so if if the teardown has to be within the actual special event permit, it really lessens the time of that event.

We can use Fresh Fridays as an example.

Their time ends at 10.

If it it takes them two hours, two hours, they'd have to end their event at 8 p.m.

So it does put a quite a restriction on the event organizers.

So that's um, you know, what I would say.

Well, maybe there could be some other trigger or something that comes into play because you know, if you're a resident in your downtown and you're saying, okay, there's going to be an event this weekend um and the end time is 11 p.m., all right, I can I can go to bed at 11 or I can, you know, enjoy my my um tea outside on my balcony and have a a reasonable amount of peace and quiet before I go to bed.

And if it's like beep beep, beep beep clamoring of stage breaking down, the leaf blower, the you know, the noise of people uh, you know, taking down an event.

If if if that's a significant and we've heard stories where that that goes until 2 a.m.

sometimes to break down an event.

Um I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that that is also that's an issue is the is the breakdown of the event.

Um you know the people who set up stages and do these kinds of things, they're professionals.

They know how long it takes down.

They know the truck coming in and the clanging of putting the stage and the metal and the you know the scaffolding or whatever they use and the loading in the amplifiers, they know how long it takes, they know what it takes.

And so maybe there's some solution to that.

Yeah, I would s the only thing I would caution against is I we don't want to hold our event organizers to a higher standard than anybody else on the street is held to.

And that's why I say I think the restriction is the sound permit, because that sound permit does not extend past the time of the event.

So if that event ends at 11 p.m., that is when their sound permit ends.

And so any of the beeping or the the teardown, if they're going over, if the event organizer is going over the sound um violence or violence, the violation number in the current ordinance, they can get a they can get cited for that, just like if a business who had nothing to do with an event um has a delivery coming and they have a a truck backing up, it would be the same um they'd be held to the same standard, basically.

Right.

I I hear you.

It's just that it um, you know, uh what are you gonna say to them?

Stop.

You you you can't take down your event and your stage because the street has to open and you know you're not gonna stop them from doing it, and yet the residents are there held captive with the noise of breaking down the event.

Perhaps you want to go to another issue because you've got less than two minutes.

Well, I have a second round too, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

This is an important one.

I think this is one of the most important ones is to make sure that, you know, there is some level of surety if you live downtown that an event's gonna stop.

I mean, the big noise is gonna stop at a certain time of night.

Um so that was one of the the big ones that I thought was very important.

Okay.

Um the litter was another one.

Um and we can re-look at um whatever the city commission wants us to re-look at as far as that ordinance.

Again, our only comment to that is is there's a lot uh more normally our events happen on the weekends.

There's a lot of activity in downtown on the weekends, and you never know if that litter, if it's outside of the site permit area.

You don't know if that litter is from an event attendee or if it's just from somebody who went to a bar that night.

And so again, holding an event organizer liable for something that's technically outside of their control because we do issue a site permit area when they have that special event.

That site permit area is where their liability lies, it's where their insurance lies.

So extending litter control outside of that would be a little bit hard to determine if the litter came from the event or from just downtown um people walking from resident to resident.

You have time for one more answer.

I'm gonna um skip the two-thirds because that's I think a longer one.

Um we can go to the event notice.

So, Commissioner, as far as the notices go, I know there was a um statement that the St.

Armands gets notice for all their events.

We want to be very clear.

The notice is written into ordinance that the residents association receives the notice, and then they are responsible for getting it out to everybody else.

So we don't send a notice to every single resident or every single business at St.

Armand's.

It's really just one um association.

So similarly, we send all notices to the DID to then distribute out to their you know businesses if they want that.

We have it on the website, and as Lori said before, we are going to start um a newsletter as well that would go to anybody who signs up for that newsletter.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayor.

Oh, that's me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um I took a lot of notes as people were speaking and sort of compared them to my own notes that I made before this meeting.

One item that repeats over and over again for me is the eighty-five decibel limit and the no regulation of base.

Sound travels further than other sound than higher sound.

So if we regulate it, we shouldn't regulate it at a louder decibel level, but a softer.

Uh if we allow 85 decibels for other sounds, we should maybe think about 65 for the base.

And everybody talks about my example is if you're in your car with the windows shut and the car next to you is playing their music, you don't hear the melody.

You hear the boom, boom, boom, over and over again.

Um so I would regulate the base.

I also think 85 decibels is too loud.

I wish we'd had 85 decibels playing in this room the whole period of time that we've been talking.

We'd all be bothered by it.

Even if it was playing in the commission office the whole time we've been talking with the louder base, we'd all be bothered about it.

So to me, we should consider something less than 85 and have the base regulated lower than that at a lower decibel level.

The other thing that I've been wondering about is the fee waivers.

Now I know that's not on our agenda today, but I would like it to be on our agenda another time.

How many times do we waive the fees for events?

What does that mean?

Do you want to make that as a question?

What does that mean?

I'm gonna actually turn it over to Ms.

Vincent to be able to.

So based on the direction today and how the ordinances go, we will be bringing back the city co-sponsored resolution and our fee resolution because those will both have to change depending on your direction uh with the ordinances.

So currently there's 15 uh city co-sponsored events on a resolution, and there's an additional nine fresh Fridays that are treated as a city co-sponsored um based on the commission meeting where the Fresh Fridays was approved.

Um so they get all of their fees waived.

So they don't pay for our special event fees, and then our city departments provide in-kind services.

So they are not given money, but they are given services in kind.

So they receive their SPD services at no cost to them, public work services at no cost, and our fees are waived as well.

So those are on the the 15 are on the resolution, and when we bring that back, we'll have all the data and numbers and and who gets those services and and weigh in on a discussion on what needs to be on the list and what doesn't.

Thank you.

Um and when was the last time the special events ordinance was amended?

I believe it was when Fresh Fridays came about, they amended the ordinance to include the independent special district um, I believe, Joe.

Is that yeah, I'm just looking at that.

Is that I mean I think the most substantive changes happen in 2014.

There may have been some minor ones since then, but I think 2014 was the last time there were major changes throughout the ordinance.

And so you think were there fewer residents living downtown at that time than there are now?

That's an easy question, right?

Yes, fewer.

So right now we're trying to find the balance with so many more residents, and it's different than the balance was then.

No more questions right now, Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Alpert.

All right.

On page six.

It talks about the security deposit and the application fee.

And it says the application fee and security deposit is non-refundable.

Is the security deposit also supposed to be non-refundable or just refundable or just the application fee?

Where are you on page six?

Um it is D.

The security deposit is refundable.

Okay.

I mean, there are maybe wouldn't get that security deposit back, but in most cases that would be refundable.

Okay, because it the way it reads, it's not clear, so you might want to just clarify that that is because that looks like it is non-refundable as well as the application fee, at least the way I read it.

We did look at putting in refundable security deposit, but again, there are instances where they don't get that back, depending on how the event goes.

So we didn't want to put that in.

Yeah.

Um I guess refundable under certain circumstances.

You know, it's like, you know, if if if you didn't like use it because you damaged something.

Um then my next question, I hate the way this sh shows up is on page nine of thirty three at number seven.

Um what I wanted to say, this is the 96 hour restriction on St.

Armand's Circle Park.

Um, you know, somewhere else in the ordinance for everywhere else for over 96 hours, there has to be commission approval.

And, you know, I I think that should be, you know, why isn't that applied there?

We should should be applying that to make it the same and make it flexible.

Just you know, the city commission has to approve it, so it's not necessarily like gonna be something that the people don't want.

All right.

And then page 10 of 33, number A.

I wasn't clear what that meant.

So this is referring specifically to um the restrictions within the downtown core.

If you have both um or if you have a temporary alcohol permit or a sound permit, then these restrictions apply.

And A basically says no special event that has a alcohol and or a sound permit, no more than two in the downtown core, but they can't be consecutive weeks or weekends.

So if you have one on November 1st, you have to wait till November 14th.

Additionally, um, Commissioner, we added that main street, lower the main street from Orange to Gulf Stream.

Meaning because that's not within the downtown core, we wanted to make sure that location also couldn't be consecutive weeks or weekends with the downtown core restrictions.

Because we didn't want again somebody to have a event in Lower Main, and then the very next weekend have one in the downtown core because the two per month isn't restricted in downtown core.

Say that again.

And you no event in Lower Maine is Lower Main's not downtown core.

Right.

It's not inside the downtown core definition.

Now, if we do what Commissioner Ahern Codge said and re-look at the definition and not use downtown core and kind of have a different definition, we could combine all those into one, and we wouldn't need that that different segmentation of of orange, or I'm sorry, of Maine.

Okay.

So we can come back with a cleaner definition of that.

That may make more sense.

All right, that would be helpful.

All right, on the same page, number B.

And I have Yeah, when I open my note and it goes over it, you know, it's not working well.

But anyway.

It says the Office of Special Events should not issue more than two special events permits per month.

And so my question was that does that mean two in the downtown or two citywide within downtown core.

And it only refers to events that have a temporary alcohol permit and or or a sound permit.

And the reason why we wanted to differentiate that is because we don't have the concerns with the art shows.

So we didn't want the art shows to exactly and be you know restricted.

Okay and on number four my question was what events do we have there now?

At the Bayfront.

What page?

Same page 10 of 33 number four.

It says the Office of Special Events should not issue more than four special event permits annually for events to be held at the Bayfront park provided they can't be held on consecutive weekends.

So do we know what events we have now on the Bayfront park?

We currently have the Fourth of July fireworks, the New Year's Eve fireworks, the holiday boat parade of lights, and the Suncoast boat show.

So there's four now there.

So is that so if we restrict it to those four then there's no opportunity for another event to be proposed.

You could have two more because the city co-sponsored are exempt and two of the four are city co-sponsored so you could have two additional there.

Okay.

That's the same one.

Okay.

All right to go to page 12 of 33 um number C at the end again that talks about the 96 hours uh St.

Armand's so I just said not understand why there's no flexibility on that.

Okay.

Um page 13 of 33 number D Why are we limiting um city co-sponsored events to two per year per organizer?

Like what why do we care who the organizer is if the city wants to co-sponsor it.

So when we had put that in there it was just to make sure that one event organizer wasn't the beneficiary of all the city co-sponsored events because that event organizer doesn't have to pay any fees when they become a city co-sponsored event.

Now those all have to be approved by the city commission.

So truthfully we could remove that restriction and the city commission would just approve that and we talked about removing that at the very beginning so we didn't inadvertently harm like the did who applies for the fresh will apply for the fresh Fridays.

Yeah I I I just think yeah I think that's a mistake to to leave that in there.

And then page 21 I just didn't know um chapter 23 why we were removing that whole section commercial vending oh the commercial vending is being removed only from that section of the ordinance which is the um zoning or the development services.

So so right now they'd have to go to the development services.

Now it'll be incorporated into the special event permit.

Okay.

Those are all my questions for the moment thank you.

Commissioner Batti.

First of all thank you mayor.

Thank you all for your presentation and uh I think you did a pretty good job with the working on this I mean this special events ordinance and I think is very thorough to be honest.

What was do you know what like on a normal day or evening what the decimal sound is downtown.

So was it like 65 or something like that.

Some time ago um we so we have some equipment that we can take downtown it's pretty accurate and stuff but I wouldn't say it's like the certified that the police department uses um we took uh different readings around different points of the uh city so like Maine and Lemon and uh places like the Boulevard of the arts and just all over so um uh and did this around lunchtime and uh got decibel readings anywhere from eighty to eighty five uh from an ambience standpoint so uh you had traffic people walking by and whatever was going on in the background some places had music going on so uh typically around noontime it was about eighty eighty five with traffic and uh people moving around is what we had okay eighty eighty five during the day all right we because one of the things that that and we spoke about this you know um quite a bit I remember uh Cinco de Mayo last year or what have you and I myself as much as I I have no problem with the events downtown whatsoever I think that's what downtown

So uh typically around noontime it was about eighty, eighty-five with traffic and uh people moving around is what we had.

Okay, eighty, eighty-five during the day.

All right, we because one of the things that that and we spoke about this, you know, um quite a bit.

I remember uh Cinco de Mayo last year or what have you, and I myself, as much as I I have no problem with events downtown whatsoever.

I think that's what downtown is for.

Um the comparison to Del Ray Um is like apples and oranges, to be honest with you.

Um that that was overkill, you know, with those five events, you know, um in that area or what have you.

And I I totally like sympathize and empathize with with the residents down there and and we spoke about this.

Um I'm trying to understand and maybe you can help me with this.

You know, a commissioner says something about uh events go until eleven o'clock and they should be breaking down at eleven o'clock or be broken down by eleven o'clock.

Can you explain to me like the reality of something like that happening?

Being able to break that, you know, to have an event, you know, till eleven and then breaking it down by eleven.

So we wouldn't be able to have an event if if the event had to be broken down by eleven from at least what we see with most of our um events right now, they'd probably have to stop by eight.

Um now we have had the discussion with the Office of Special Events on some of these events, have massive stages.

You know, and we've been trying to work with our um event organizers to kind of tone down how much they have to set up and tear down so they can get it done quicker.

But even with some of the smaller stages, such as Fresh Fridays, they still take um an hour or two to break down.

Exactly.

I mean, I think it's only logical and realistic.

I mean and you know, I heard that uh vice mayor say about 85, what did you say, 85 or 65 decibels like in this room or say in the man city manager's office?

Let me tell you.

But what can be done in terms of base because it travels or what have you, as the vice mayor said.

Um is there any way that it can be like these speakers or whatever can be elevated, you know, off the ground, or or some type of padding, you know, so that the so that it doesn't travel is is is there anything that can be done regarding it?

Um we've had that discussion, uh we did our research and talked to uh again, we one of our big mottos is you know, be a good neighbor uh with all the organizers and um we talk to these guys and say, hey, you know, uh this is what we learn if you can raise those speakers off uh the ground that helps with the uh vibration that's you know traveling through the ground up into the buildings and whatnot.

Still, you know, we didn't really have um uh a maximum or minimum or whatever it is on the um the base level and stuff.

So some there's very few events that have that kind of base, but um um just to say I'm gonna tell you that uh probably the ones that we probably complain about, there's probably one or two that happened during the year, and they're probably base levels, probably twenty to thirty over um you know what's currently allowed.

So if you're allowing a hundred, which we don't really anymore.

We practice the good neighbor, and everybody's being really good about being between eighty-five and ninety, so we've been proactive about that.

Uh, but then you still have some of these uh entertainers that you know like to put the base down um and do it over, and we've had the conversations with them.

Um some comply um for a little bit and they go back up, so it just kind of up and down.

So um, you know, that's something that I think we can probably control a little bit better in the future, but uh as it stands now, you know, um, you know, uh we don't do anything with the base outside of you know just recommending um lowering the levels and asking them to raise the uh speakers off the ground.

Okay.

Um, you know, one of the things and speaking to an engineer um when it comes to the development and building of these buildings is you know the beams, you know, it hits the beams and it travels, travels or what have you.

And what I think we fail um as a city is to require uh particularly developers that are building in the urban core of the city to build with staggered beams where they don't where that sound doesn't travel.

And this was presented to me by an engineer that you can build that way to help mitigate sound.

Um, because I I never had an issue with uh Thunder on the Bay and whatnot.

I thought it was an economic driver, you know, to the city.

Um when you talk about street closures.

Do we do we have any idea um of like the expense when it comes to city co-sponsored events?

Um how much we we we really you know um spin on on these things or whatever when you talk about like say the holiday parade or um something that's just an average event going on downtown.

We have it, we just don't have the city co-sponsored figures with us today.

Um but when we bring that back, so as Ms.

Benson said, we plan on bringing the resolution for city co-sponsored approval back um to a city commission meeting in January.

And when we do that, we always bring the cost plus of what the cost is to the city from everywhere from the SPD costs to the city commit to the um engineering costs, um and so we'll have that when we bring that back for approval.

Additionally, we're gonna be bringing back the resolution for all of our fees.

So in addition to the city co-sponsored, um we're also going to relook at the fees that are in resolution right now for all of these applications.

So for profit, nonprofit, how those fees are figured right now.

I think there's a little bit of a misnomer that um people apply as a nonprofit because their fees are less, and that's not a hundred percent accurate with how the resolution is written, but when we bring that resolution back, we can go over exactly how those fees are figured.

Okay.

All right.

And and uh we also spoke um at length about how special events permits are sort of distributed, you know, particularly like if you say do the the pineapple drop, you know, and you did it last year.

How does anyone have the opportunity to to do that or have the you know that event for themselves if that same person is allowed to just continue to they get to put in their permit first and we're not before everyone else.

Is there any way uh around that or is there anything that can be done about that or I mean how does it work?

So you're referring to the ordinance that's in there already.

This is not one of the proposed, it's an ordinance that's already in there that basically says if an event organizer has done an event year after year, um their requirement or their timeline to put their application in for the previous year is 37.

74.

74 days.

Whereas if you've never done that event, you can put it in 364.

So some an event organizer who's done an event over and over gets a 10-day benefit.

No, again, Ms.

Benson and Mr.

Wormley can speak to this, but not many of our event organizers, if any of them take advantage of that timeline.

So truthfully, anybody can put their application in.

And and and and what's considered like over and over again, like you said, is it like two consecutive years?

Is it like 10 years or I mean what what is that?

Once you have the event one time, you get the benefit.

So if you have an art show this weekend, then you can apply for that for next year for the same weekend.

Um it has to be kind of similar, you know, the same event.

It can't be a completely different event or anything like that.

Okay.

Uh I yield, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I've got some questions.

Um I'm gonna start with the sound, which again is seems to be the biggest issue for everybody.

Uh and I'm a little bit confused.

A couple of issues.

One, we are expecting a proposed sound ordinance amendment shortly.

Yes, that'll be on the uh agenda for December 1st City Commission meeting.

Okay.

So where my confusion is, is it even feasible to enforce uh different sound regulations for special events that are different from the city's sound ordinance.

Is it I I I don't want to say is it enforceable, but you know, does that put onus on SPD to know, oh well if it's a special event I'm enforcing this, but if it's not if it's just regular, I'm not.

So could you fill us in about the difference?

So I'll let the city attorney answer the legal questions.

As far as the special event goes, um the sound ordinance excludes special events.

So there is no there is no there's nothing in the sound ordinance that has to be followed as it pertains to special events.

We then have the special event permit that basically limits the sound for an event that has a special event permit to currently the 100 decibels.

And we're proposing the 85.

So it's not technically a conflict with the sound ordinance since special events doesn't have to follow the sound ordinance right now.

All they have to follow is what's in the sound the special the sound permit.

So if I had a special event, I can totally ignore the city's sound ordinance?

For the time of the special event.

So if the special event permit says your special event goes from 7 p.m.

to 11 p.m., the sound ordinance doesn't apply to the special event.

The sound permit now applies to the special event, which is a hundred decibels.

Uh okay.

So if I apply for a special event sound permit, and suppose it's denied, does that mean that there's no sound ordinance impeding me at all?

Because I don't have to follow the city sound ordinance.

I don't have to follow the special events permit because I didn't get it.

So I will let the city attorney say that.

Well, I think you you have to get a special event sound permit to be exempted from the regular uh sound code.

But we don't have that anywhere in the special event ordinance.

So here the let me try to explain how it works.

Um so basically uh you know we have a sound code, we have uh you know decibel limits uh based upon the time of day.

And if you have a special event, you may get a permit to be allowed to exceed those uh those limits.

But if you don't get it as part of your special event, then you can't exceed it.

Okay.

And and then also whoever it was said that the s city's sound ordinance does regulate the base, the low frequency sound.

So by default, shouldn't we be able to include that in the special event?

Yes, and that and that's something we actually talked about in the break was uh, you know, previously uh we were talking about just the DBA and that's where and and Jennifer did mention that um a little bit earlier was why don't we you know mirror the the the sound code by having the um DBC be five decibels greater than the DBA?

So for instance, you know, in the sound code, you know, between the hours of 10 p.m.

and 6 a.m.

Uh the sound cannot exceed um 65 uh DBA or 70 DBC.

So, you know, if it is part of the sound uh special event sound uh permit, you know, we're currently it's allowed to be a hundred decibels.

Uh uh if we're going from 100 um DBA to 85 DBA, then then maybe or maybe we should also include the DBC, in which case it would be 90 DBC if if we're being consistent, you know, with the the sound code.

So that's so I think that's what um Jennifer was then recommending was okay, we're hearing a lot about what why isn't DBC regulated?

Okay, well if we if we're gonna be consistent with the code, you know, um it would be 85 dBA 90 dBC.

Okay.

But then but then there's also been some some other contrary statements by like uh Vicemair Ulrich mentioned well actually it should be um even lower.

So that's that's part of the conversation uh of the policy decision.

Um of course, when the sound ordinance comes back, you can decide, well, hey, for special events, let's actually set a number in the ordinance.

Now typ that hasn't been done in the past because there's a lot more flexibility with doing it administratively.

You don't have to come back to the commission every time you uh you want to tweak it.

So I think what's being proposed, you know, as part of all these changes with this ordinance is something that's administrative, which is just saying typically we've we've um allowed uh an increase in sound with the special events from you know your your typical 65 decibels to a hundred.

And actually let's rain it in a little bit down to 85, and then if you want to have the the base included, then 85 and 90 if you want to be consistent.

Or you could even go lower with the base.

That's a policy.

Mr.

Polzek?

Yeah, and just to add on to what Joe said to you back to your first question in in the code, it is section 20-6 subsection A that creates exceptions to the general sound code by permit.

So that's what they're talking about today is those 20-6A permit.

So I'm I'm wondering, you know what we're doing in the sound permit is adjusting the hours at which uh a higher sound level is permitted and the amount uh that the additional sound, and I'm even wondering whether sp putting in specific numbers at this point saying something like, you know, 10 dBA and 10 DBC greater than is in the sound ordinance and extend the time to XYZ time, whatever.

So maybe you to rely on the sound ordinance rather than a separate set of numbers in the in the special permit.

Just a thought.

So that you know you don't have to come back every time.

It's a it's a once we change the sound ordinance, it automatically would affect the special events.

But just a thought.

Um I had a couple of other questions.

It didn't seem to be consistent with some of the things.

Sometimes it was either alcohol permit or uh sound uh permit variation, and sometimes it was and or so wasn't consistent.

I would think that either or would be adequate for the additional requirements.

I think it was the presenter myself who wasn't consistent.

Well, no, even in in the document.

Okay, we'll look through that because originally we had proposed it as an and so the restrictions would apply to any event that you you had to have both the temporary alcohol and the sound.

Um but it we changed it to or so because just because you don't have a temporary alcohol, you may still have a sound permit, and we wanted to make sure the restrictions still applied to them.

So we'll review and make sure it's consistent throughout.

Yeah.

So I would think and or as opposed to and um I had uh I'm running out of time.

Okay, just just to throw out the thought on the map that I put out there.

Um hypothetical when we have uh New Year's Eve.

I suspect you don't get a whole lot of complaints about the noise because people say it only happens once a year.

So that's why the map the granular map so that yeah, even if the noise is unbearable for an evening if we spread the events throughout the city rather than the people in 1350 Maine getting hit all the time, that that might help a little bit with making the sound more acceptable to people and get the people at Astor and Lynx used to downtown noise.

Um so that was the thought on that.

And my time is over, so second round goes to uh Commissioner Alpert.

My question is what was the reaction of the event organizers to this ordinance when you met with them?

Did this seem reasonable to them that they could live with it?

I don't think they love it, but they understand if that makes sense.

So even though like currently the sound permit that we issue is at 100, but for the past year we have asked them to keep it between 85 and 90, and they are mostly compliant with that to try to, you know, to get used to that, right?

Because a hundred is very loud.

So in order to is 85 enough, right?

We wanted to kind of have a test for that, and it seems to be going really well really well with that.

I don't think that they you know really enjoy the 11 p.m.

shutdown, but to be fair, that's a handful, probably five or less events per year that go until midnight anyway.

them to keep it between 85 and 90 and they are mostly compliant with that to try to you know to get used to that right because 100 is very loud so in order to is 85 enough right we wanted to kind of have a test for that and it seems to be going really well really well with that I don't think that they you know really enjoy the 11 p.m shutdown but to be fair that's a handful probably five or less events per year that go until midnight anyway so really the majority of the events um fall below that time anyway so they're they're open they understand the the challenges and they're willing to work with us um I think it'll be you know important with the restrictions if they stand as they are to note that you know they would need to get their application in early to be the one to set that you know non-consecutive weekend or to be one of the two so they understand that and they're willing to work with us on that.

Okay.

And just wanted to clarify you you said um because I think this has been asked a couple of times that you will put the base level in this ordinance as well when you go review it.

Yes we can do that.

Okay.

Now remind me, because I know I read this and I don't remember um which way I read it but the restriction on the number of events does that include art shows or is it just for amplifies sound and or alcohol events?

It's amplified sound and alcohol.

So those yeah so those other events don't don't count and are there really more events than we used to have?

We used to have thunder by the bay we used to have a boat parade it just it doesn't seem to me like there is more events.

I mean statistically there may be I don't know.

We have this chart so this goes back to I think it's 18 oh that's really small.

How far does it go back to it goes back to fiscal year 1819 we had 90 events and in 24 25 we had 84.

And the grand that was hurricane a little hurricane related we probably would have been right about the same so it's been pretty consistently with you know with the exception of our our COVID times it's been pretty consistent around the you know between 80 to 90 events per year.

Okay.

And some will fall off and new ones come in so it's pretty cyclical.

With the restrictions as they are we would lose um we would have lost four events in the last fiscal year and two events currently for this fiscal year but we are not very far into the application process for this year.

Yeah that was going to be my my next question was you know are we going to lose events because of these restrictions that have already been occurring?

Yes we could if you don't exempt city co-sponsored and you have those included we'd lose um eight up to eight maybe more but if we um if we don't include don't include city co-sponsored uh last year we would have lost four four events so we still would lose four like and what four would those be?

Uh it I couldn't tell you names if they would be the ones the alcohol and sound and I just went based on the dates.

So it's possible that they could pick another date but not everybody is flexible with that.

So they may or may not be able to find another date that's not a consecutive weekend.

So it just depends on how flexible the organizers are okay because that's that's concerning to me I you know I still mourn the loss of Thunder by the Bay and the boat parade um going through I loved Thunder by the Bay.

I you know I'm sorry I know a lot of people hated it but I thought it was a great event and looked forward to it every year.

So I don't you know I don't relish chasing even more events out of the downtown.

Some people and my other question is I think actually that's I think that's that's it.

Oh if the decibel level is 85 at the source the further you move away from it it's going to be less than 85 is that correct that's correct.

Okay thank you.

And Commissioner I want to clarify the restrictions that you had stated um that are just temporary alcohol um or the sound permit that only applies to the restrictions in downtown core.

The restrictions that we're proposing on Main Street which is just one event that's any event and the restrictions in JD Hamill and Bayfront are any event.

Those aren't restricted to the temporary alcohol in the in the so if there's an art show then there's not another event.

Right.

Commission uh Vice Mayor Ulrich Thank you mayor.

In July of this year you emailed two event organizers what a draft of this how many responses did you get I think maybe seven seven um seven or eight.

And so you said they weren't too happy with it, but they understand.

That was more uh we didn't get a lot of response from the event organizers.

Um that was more the residents and that were on the email chain.

I see, okay.

Um, have there been many situations where an event organizer circumvented and got around the application process?

If they were denied one year, say they had their cousin Susie who owns the share apply for the event the next year.

Has that happened very often?

No.

Okay.

And so you're confident that you've anticipated ways that people could circumvent the rules and accounted for them in in this ordinance.

Is that correct?

Okay.

One more question.

Uh going back to the decibel level, not talking about the level itself, but from where you measure the sound.

If you measured it from the source, you wouldn't have to get out a tape measure or anything like that.

And I'm pretty sure that amplifiers can be set to a certain decibel level.

And you can even adjust the treble and the base to different levels.

Did you consider that measuring from the amplifier itself?

So we did.

However, without I'm putting Joe on the spot.

Without a sound study, it's really difficult to know because there when we looked at other city ordinances, they didn't not very many, if any of them explained where the sound measurement would come from.

We found one at Del Ray Beach in their sound ordinance, they do talk about measuring 100 feet from the source.

Now that's not specific to special events.

If I remember right, it's just their sound ordinance in general.

They talked about 100 feet from the source.

The reason why we put 100 feet in there wasn't to make it worse than it currently is.

I know that that was a statement at the DIS earlier.

Um in full transparency, the way that it currently works is if we have a special event and if somebody calls in a complaint, the level is measured at the point of the complaint.

It's not measured at the property lines.

And so if we are if the decibel level at the special event is 120, and the person calls in from a condo unit on the fourth floor, that is where the SPD is going to do the measurement, and that could be 85 because you're that far away.

So when we put the 100 feet in, we were trying to help the situation to say we want it 100 feet from the source because up in the condo unit where you're doing the measurement, it's definitely going to be lower up there.

However, we didn't want to do it right in front of the speaker.

We didn't think 85 at the front of the speaker was fair because as you some of these um permitted areas in downtown extend blocks out.

The permit area goes blocks out.

So if it's 85 right in front of the speaker, you could go a block and a half away and you're only going to be at 45.

And so we were trying to come up with what we felt was a fair um balance to what's happening now to what our event organizers could do.

And so do you have do you feel like you'd have a better understanding of the decibel level as well as from where you should measure the sound if you had information from a sound expert?

Yes.

Thank you.

Is that it?

Or I'm done.

Okay.

So next up is Commissioner Aaron Kotch.

Thank you.

Um just going on off of that point with the hundred feet.

Uh where did the hundred feet come from?

Is that like a standard thing from somewhere else or really no standard for that that we found?

So uh we just like Jenny said, we're trying to do what we could to reduce the amount of sound that somebody's complaining from their building, you know, X amount of feet away.

So um that was just kind of an arbitrary number that we came up with.

I I just worry about that being an arbitrary number and another arbitrary measurement, Lily.

Uh this is this is what I'd suggest then.

Uh you know, I think the way it stood originally was um with our with our sound code is you measure from where the complaint is and where on the complainant's property, you know is closest to the the sound source.

So you know that's kind of the status quo.

And then you know, the exceptions uh for special events, we're we're just kind of following that status quo except you know, put in a uh a different number out there instead of 65, saying 100.

So you know.

Then the next step was staff was saying, well, let's let's reduce the the sound a little bit.

So it went from 100 to 85.

So I I think it and then as people have pointed out, well, once you add a hundred feet, now you're adding a new dimension to this.

And when you add that, well now actually you're increasing the sound.

So that's not what it was intended.

So I think the the clearest most transparent way to to to do this to r reduce the the amount of sound um in an unambiguous way is just to simply say we're gonna keep following the same rules as always of where we're measuring, which is from where the person is complaining about it, and we're simply going to reduce it from our top number from 100 to 85.

And I think that would you know clearly reduce it using all the same standards that that we're currently using.

Just say, okay.

Or w I mean is it reasonable to say you could measure it from the closest impacted residence or business?

I mean, if it's in the middle of um street intersection, you go, okay, it's in the middle of there, the closest one is here.

Let's measure from here.

What's that?

Where a human would likely be standing or living or having a coffee.

Just go to the closest, you know, business or residence.

I mean, is that a fair thing to say?

I don't know.

I'm just throwing it out there.

Anyway, I ha I had a whole bunch of other questions that I was hoping that we could get to if you wouldn't mind continuing on that list.

The one that you had earlier.

Yes, please.

Um whether it applies to parks right away as property.

So um I did see a resident had asked that, and it the ordinance does specify um that it's parks, it it's any city owned property.

And so a park is a city-owned property, so you don't have to um specifically call that out on what on when that applies.

Okay, so it's different from a right of way, because a right of way is not an ownership, it's just a right of way.

Okay.

Right, right.

All right.

So you're clear on that one then, okay?

Um you talked about the fee waivers, and I think we answered that.

We'll be bringing that back on what that looks like.

Um damage to area businesses.

Again, I think this might be a legal conversation.

Um I would only say that I wouldn't want to inadvertently hold a event organizer to um to a different standard than any other business in the area.

I think it would be very hard to understand if a damage if a business was damaged based on a special event or just somebody being downtown.

Um we haven't had a lot of businesses call us with complaints, if any, of any damage whatsoever.

So that was new to us.

We do not we have not gotten um complaints like that.

We have gotten complaints about the area being cleaned up, and that was one of the suggestions that came to us at a couple of the town halls that we've had.

Um, and that is why we added the litter ordinance in there.

And then and citizen brought up uh in addition to litter on streets and sidewalks, but also what about waterways and impact of parks and parking in parks, uh parking on right-of-ways where you shouldn't be parking and it damages the grass or the trees, roots, and all those expanded conversation about the damage that's done outside of the Trevor Burrus.

So the special event ordinance it doesn't take any other city ordinance or rules or laws or state laws or county laws or anything off the table.

You still have to um answer to every single law and ordinance that's out there.

So those things are already covered in other city statutes and other state statutes and in county ordinances, and so those would still apply.

Okay.

Um is that made clear to the event organizer?

It might even be an ordinance, and I can't remember that off the top of my head, but if it's not, Commissioner, um the special event permit that they sign will make sure, again, I believe it's in there that all other laws apply, but we'll make sure that's in there.

Okay.

So I do have more questions, but I can't.

There's one more round.

Uh Commissioner Batti, did you have anything for this round?

Uh no, no.

Okay.

I I have a couple of things.

Uh first of all, on um you had two.

Okay.

Page five.

Um the definitions.

Event organizer means the person who is applying.

Now, is that a natural person or can that be a corporation or an LLC?

And the reason for my question is if it's a LLC and they break the rules, then they can change their name and a different LLC will come in the following year.

So person is actually defined in the ordinance where it specifically says a person means the state or any agency or institution, a municipality, political subdivision, public or private corporation, individual partnership, association, or other entity.

So the event organizer could just change its name every year and break the rules every year and not have any penalties enforced.

Technically, yes.

I think there's a lot to starting up a whole new legal entity, so I'm not sure that they would do that, but technically the way this is written, it is just the event organizer who is who's held liable.

So if it's the event organizer is ABC company this year and they go out and start a different LLC and it's ABC company the next year, then that would be a different event organizer.

So one of the things that I mentioned to you, I guess in our uh doorway conversation is besides the event organizer, which could be a corporation, usually there is an individual who's actually managing the event.

Is there any way to put that individual also on the application or the permit?

So that individual whose business is to manage events could be penalized if they break the rules.

Yes.

So and we can talk to the city attorney if there is an easier way to do it, because that technically is how the ordinance is now, and that causes confusion because we have both an applicant and we have a sponsor.

So we have two um different names that potentially could be on the special event permit now.

The applicant could be an LLC and the sponsor could be um the on-site contact, it could be the the organ, you know, the restaurant who um is sponsoring it, but the nonprofit is the one who's putting their name in.

And when we have those two different entities that are on the permit, there's always a question of who is liable then, who needs to submit the insurance, who's going to pay um if something goes wrong.

And we wanted to make sure we narrowed it down to one legal entity because that person needs to understand if they are the ones who mess up, they're the ones who are liable for it.

But we're you're going back and forth in your language between what could be a corporate entity and that person understanding that they could be liable.

That corporate entity if they change their name or their legal organization.

Okay individual manager and the legal entity.

Meaning that they both would be on the hook.

Okay.

So that's enforceable.

Yeah, I I think joint and several liabilities.

Okay.

So that that can be in in there.

Each entity is 100 percent liable separately.

Okay.

So, you know, then a lot of times it would come down to who actually has money.

You know, so if one person's broke, you know, you can't screen blood from a turnip, you can get 100 percent from the other one.

Yeah, I I was more concerned about an individual deciding, yes, I will follow the rules because if the penalty is I may not hold any more events, yeah, then that's my business is I'm forfeiting, you know.

So that was the thing.

And I just have 56 seconds and I wanted to talk about uh the point that was brought up when you have a multi-unit residence, or for that matter, a mixed-use building uh somehow enabling uh multiple residents or both the businesses and the residents to weigh in on the decisions and you know I had said made a suggestion about uh length of the building, you know.

But the other one is would individuals in that building have standing to bring the thing before the um city commission.

So one place it was well, if five people sign a petition within a certain deadline, uh they can bring it to the city commission to get commission approval.

Well, if I live in a building with 200 other people and the manager of the building signed the approval, can I and other people in other buildings petition the city commission, or am I stuck based on what the manager of the building said?

Well, that's a long conversation.

Basically the way the way it is now for um special events and uh involving street closures, you know, under 72 hours, you know, so we're getting into a little subset is they have to get signatures of two-thirds of impacted property representatives.

And you know, this is something that's that um a lot of downtown people brought up uh from the condo saying this is you know inherently unfair.

Um and and actually it's something that you know at first it was kind of attacked like staff has this ridiculous interpretation, but it it's actually just uh whether you like the interpretation or not, it's something that the the city has um this commission has um talked about on half a dozen times before.

But basically what it is is that each property is given one vote.

So if you have a condominium with 250 residents, they get there's just one vote.

And if there's ice cream shot next door, they get one vote.

If there's a single family residential next door, they get one vote.

So it's it's by property parcel number.

Um whether whether that right or wrong.

And and actually this this came up many years ago, and there was uh uh I don't know how many commissioners here were there or not.

May maybe a couple, I say a couple, but um, you know, it's come up a couple different times and and and it kind of devolved into uh a couple different arguments.

One one was people say, hey, one person wouldn't vote, I'm a resident, I should get one vote, and it should count just as much as you know the single family or or the ice cream shop or whatever.

Um and and you know part of that is uh flip it another way, one condo could control all special events downtown.

So that that was kind of the other side of the coin.

And um so you know that's uh but when it came to the city attorney, they said, well, what do you what are your thoughts on the legality of the whole voting system?

And you know, after hours and hours of meeting, I think um City Attorney Fournier who just said, well, you you don't have to count anyone's vote, you know.

You can dispense with voting altogether and decide, hey, we're not taking anyone's vote.

Um we're we're gonna either allow it or you could ban all special events.

So you have complete authority over Can you speak more to them?

So you have complete authority over special events, whether you want to make it more onerous on on the event organizers, whether you want to say no special events ever, so you you have complete authority.

But the way it is now is for one little uh niche is is the votes are counted by property parcel number.

So, you know, that that's the case that a lot of the condo owners don't like is they just get one vote.

And and I can say last time it came up too, then they said, well, maybe we should give every individual condo unit owner a vote.

And then it came out, well, a lot of people are snowbirds, so they have to be physically present here.

What if they're in New York?

Do they still get their vote?

Do we count the vote?

Or if we do count the votes, does the condominium get one collective vote for all 250 residents and they get to vote, and if majority rules, you know, then you know, one hundred and let's say there's 250 residents, 126 vote yes and you know, uh uh a hundred and twenty-four vote no, do we get all 250 votes?

And you know, so it started kind of getting into well, it was just a lot.

So I I think you're in the same situation here, is but but yeah, the basic facts on the ground are it's it's one vote per parcel.

Well, again, we're thinking from back from the single family home era and the fire department to my knowledge doesn't go by parcel, it goes by linear feet.

So that was my thought, so that a building that's a hundred linear feet long, its vote is ten times the value of a building that's ten linear feet long.

So, you know, at least there's some accommodation of you know, a larger building theoretically would have more people, more businesses than a smaller building was.

But my other question really was if I am in a building where the manager decides for all of us, do I have standing as an individual to come before the city to say, you know, I I don't agree, because you had one where five people come through within a same certain time period that they can bring it to the city commission.

But if I'm in a building of 200 other people and my manager signs, do I have standing?

I believe that those are for events longer than 72 hours.

Because that's when the mailers go out and and we haven't actually ever had that happen.

And it would be good to test the process if it ever does.

But yes, if if it goes out to people within the 500 feet and if five people respond then they and I believe that that goes to individual residents if it's the mailers.

So e each individual resident could be part of that response.

And my time is up but now that my time and then my my my mind went blank.

It was just a follow on to that piece of question.

Okay.

So we are on the next round and uh Commissioner Alpert.

Okay.

In in talking about whether I guess the the best way to do the the um sound the the DBA and the DBC and what that should be it would seem to me the best way is to use your suggestions for now and if you know we get if and when we get a sound expert and there's a difference we can always tweak this.

So you know I I I think we don't want to wait for for that.

And and I know you're not sound experts, but isn't there some technology now?

Somebody was telling you there's some technology that can help contain the sound into a certain area so it doesn't necessarily bleed all over the place or not?

Do you know you've never heard I'll ask the sound expert when we get on it.

So all right.

And and I and um going back to I do remember the conversation because we did have this come up years ago about having everybody vote.

There's you know um wouldn't there also be an issue with trying to get a hold of everybody, getting everybody to vote or not vote.

Yeah because I know in in my condo and we have mostly year-round residents when we're trying to get a vote of the you know certain number of residents that we need to get a vote from to be able to move forward with a material change for example it it takes phone call after phone call to get the people to vote.

So I don't know you know I just think that would be an awfully onerous restriction.

And let's see the the definition the definition of a person that involves all legal entities, I mean that's a normal definition legal definition of a person isn't it?

And it it don't you think that um to to worry about if somebody's going to be changing their corporate name that we're that it hasn't happened.

We haven't had it that hasn't been an issue so it it don't you think this seems like a problem we're trying to solve that is not a problem.

We we do work with them very closely so I think if they were that we would know because we were we do work with the same people so I think that we could I don't know come to Jen and ask how we stop that from happening if it does.

But it hasn't happened.

It hasn't been happening.

This is not a big rampant issue.

So I think we've got more issues to worry about than that.

Thanks here I said it is still small enough that we could say who it is.

Yeah we know ever most of them.

So and I think to Joe's point if it becomes an issue it's something we can address within the permit itself because that is a legal document and if we need to add legal language that holds um other individuals responsible we could do that as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um Commissioner Aaron Kodge just a point of clarification this is um my third time speaking not my fourth.

Correct.

Yes.

Okay.

Just wanted to make sure um okay on page eight the three items 11, 12 and 13.

Um a little concerned about those being um not enforceable, too vague you know there are alternate locations available where the event may reasonably be located without creating the type or degree of potential adverse effects it is anticipated that would, you know so those three 11, 12 and 13, I'm just concerned about I I get their intent, I just don't know if the language in there is strong enough to be enforced or to be you know that's that's one of the things I think is difficult is, you know, enforcement we hear all the time.

I just don't know if the language in there is strong enough to be enforced or to be, you know, that's that's one of the things that I think is difficult is you know uh enforcement we hear all the time.

Page.

Uh eight.

Well, I think w with those three, um they've been in there for you know over ten years.

So they're not new.

Um, I think there are situations where something just doesn't fit a certain area.

And is it definable enough like the user activity intended by the applicant, I guess it would be the event organizer, right, instead of the word applicant, um would present an unreasonable danger to health and safety, health or safety of the applicant, uh event organizer, um, government employee or the general public.

Um I'm just concerned what you know, unreasonable danger to the health and safety.

You know, is that loosely defined by this one or that one?

I'm just raising as a concern.

Uh and same with the other two, um 11 and 12.

And I I have a question about something that was mentioned earlier about um needing this the special events permit for amplified sound and alcohol or one or the other.

Is it both or one or the other?

Well, specifically on um page 10.

Sorry, nine rolling over into 10.

Um we use the word or however sorry, sorry.

We use the word and sound permit and approval for the sale consumption and possession of alcohol beverages.

But to the mayor's point, we need to go through and make sure that's consistent throughout.

So we will do that before we come back.

But the intent is alcohol and amplified sound or amplif amplified sound and or alcohol.

Laura, you better answer it before I mess it up again.

Well, I I think for the the specifically here for the downtown core, the intent is for them to have both in order to fall under the restrictions.

Because you may have we had uh like an art festival with like low ambient noise, but they do get a sound permit, so we wouldn't want that event to you know, count in the two and then restrict another event from happening because they did have a sound permit.

So we we did have that as both alcohol and sound, specifically for those restrictions in the downtown core.

There may be other areas that yeah, and in other areas or.

Yeah.

So I think that's something we talked about beforehand that it there was a method to it.

My time.

Okay.

Okay.

Um Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh so we all knew this was going to be a tough one before we came into this room.

Um yet the commission has not given you any specific direction to make changes.

We've talked about a lot of possible changes.

Do you have a whole list there of things that you feel you're gonna change before rec second reading?

Yes.

And um I wonder how this would work then if we just let it proceed to second reading, or if we continue this.

It's more the terminology of what we do here today.

I'm trying to find an ending point.

And it's not gonna be passing this ordinance today, right?

I'm not gonna vote yes for something I don't know what is what it is.

Okay.

Well, I I I was going to we're probably going to take a break soon, and before we took the break, I was going to suggest that we had two choices, either to approve on first reading with a list of amendments we wanted, or to send it back to the uh special events group to come back with a new ordinance incorporating our comments.

But I was going to have a break before we come back to make a motion to either send it back to them or else have a motion to approve with specific amendments.

So did you have more questions on your round?

I do not.

Okay.

And um Commissioner Batti.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I wanted to ask um.

Sorry, I'm peppermint.

Whatever.

Yeah.

Um you have any like uh numbers on like the people that attend these events or anything like that.