Good morning.

I would like to call this meeting of the twebury twenty-seventh.

Excuse me.

February seventeenth, twenty twenty-six regular city commission meeting to order, and please join me in turning off your cell phones.

I was at a performance the other day, and somebody's cell phone went off.

So just a reminder.

Okay, uh, first we will have the invocation by City Auditor and Clerk Greeks.

And our vice mayor will lead us in the pledge.

Moved by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

And we will vote, please.

Thank you.

I was going to invite him up as soon as I got there.

I've been in those seats quite a lot in the opportunity.

This just goes to show what an eager beaver Justin is.

Okay.

And Mary Benzel, the general manager of the Van Weazel.

And so it is with sincere appreciation that we can commend Justin Gomleck for his outstanding service to the city and his exceptional dedication to accessibility at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.

Justin has served the city for over three years as the manager of education and community engagement for the Van Wezel, during which time he has become a respected role model within his department.

He is known for the care, integrity, and passion he brings to his work by demonstrating his commitment to both public service and the transformative power of the arts.

Justin's nomination for this commendation reflects his leadership as one of the city's strongest allies on the Americans with Disabilities Act.

He truly cares about ensuring that individuals of all abilities can enjoy and participate in theater.

His work extends beyond accessibility requirements and reflects a genuine desire to create welcoming, inclusive experiences for all patrons.

One of Justin's most impactful contributions has been introducing relaxed performances at the Van Wezel.

These performances accommodate flexible audience expectations, enabling individuals with sensory sensitivities to engage with live theater in a comfortable, supportive environment.

Audience members are free to use fidget tools, move as needed, or take breaks without judgment.

Justin is also working to establish a quiet room where patrons can decompress if needed, further enhancing the venue's accessibility.

In addition, the Van Wezel now offers accessible dance classes in partnership with Revolution's Dance, expanding opportunities for creative expression and participation for individuals of varying abilities.

Justin also booked Revolutions Dance for a school time performance for local students, highlighting how everyone can be involved in the arts.

Through his leadership, compassion, and innovative approach, Justin has strengthened the city's commitment to accessibility and has made the Van Weasel a more welcoming space for the entire community.

Thank you, Justin Gomlack, for embodying the city's values of integrity, accountability, teamwork, and respect.

You serve the City of Sarasota with excellence and pride.

Thank you very much, Justin.

And your certificate.

And would you like to say a few words?

Put me on the spot, Madam Mayor.

Just a few.

No, I I can't do this alone.

I have an incredible team that works with me, Mia Strickland and Margaret Lindsay, and of course, an amazing leader in Mary Bensell.

The whole of the Van Wazel really I feel the support of everybody in every department.

And I just want to publicly thank my coworkers, my boss, and my team.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Mary.

And I really I'm so I'm so absolutely proud of Justin.

Just so you know, Justin was a Broadway dancer.

He performed in over 10 productions on Broadway, and he brings that expertise to us.

And one of the things he does, which I'm going to avow myself of when I retire, which I'm sure will be fairly soon, will be his golden groupers performers that they learn how to dance all the different steps from the current Broadway shows we bring in.

And Justin has a humanity that reaches beyond most people.

And I'm so proud of you.

And I can't it can't not be said that our Van Wazel Foundation, which is now called the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, has supported this program to over a half a million dollars every year.

Um one year when we were in trouble of losing the education program before you got here, um we worked to raise like a million dollars to keep it alive because education is important, not just for kids.

I mean, I have a teaching degree myself, but it's also important to develop audiences for the future, and Justin also I'm so threat thrilled he has a summer camp, uh Madam Mayor, for technical theater.

It's not just for actors, because we have all sorts of people that work in our arts forums, and uh this is I think our third year, and I'm just so darn proud of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Somebody else already.

You're the only guy.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Okay, we have reached the time in our agenda when we uh get citizens' input concerning city topics, and if uh Ms.

Griggs will read the uh pledge of public conduct.

Thank you, Mayor.

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

We will direct all commerce issues, we will not engage in personal attacks.

Thank you.

And four people have signed up to speak.

Martin Hyde, Stephen Martin Nucci, Henry Kowadi, and Trevor Falk.

And if you'll come up and when it's your turn, introduce yourself, are you city resident, and are you representing yourself or another entity.

Okay, that's perfect.

Okay.

Exchange is not proper.

And Martin Hyde will start off.

Good morning, I'm Martin Hyde.

I uh I uh don't live in the city.

Um I was gonna do a uh good news, bad news thing uh on a uh on another item, but uh not wishing to uh to spoil the good news on that item uh and because there's so much more bad news, um I thought I'd split my comments.

Um firstly the item uh I'll uh comment on later was to have been presented by a 20-year employee who'd risen to uh HR director in uh our city, but to use the PC term, she's now been let go.

A report was commissioned into her department and practices, uh the result of which was her being forced out.

So far as I can tell, the main complaint was that HR sided with management when complaints were made against management.

So it rather begs the question of uh whose idea this report was, how much taxpayer money was wasted to create a report in a state which is a right to work state, so you didn't need a report to let someone go.

Um with a predetermined outcome.

That's something I've made a public record request for, so we'll come back to that another day.

On the uh question of uh city manager, we are about to have our third interim manager in sixteen months.

Um might hope that uh this one has better eye sight than the last one, just as a reminder.

Look, these are the bathrooms that were signed off on in City Hall, less than a hundred feet from the city manager's office, costing six hundred thousand taxpayer dollars.

Now that wasn't me.

Back to where we were.

So, like I said, hopefully they'll put their contact lenses in.

The um question of finalists for the uh full-time city manager position, though.

Might I suggest that rather than reading self-serving letters explaining past employment issues, that you contact those employers themselves, who in one case voted seven to zero to accept the resignation of one of your finalists for the other side of the story.

The phrase, don't California my Florida is a popular one for good reason.

Importing someone from one of their most crime-ridden cities might therefore not be the way to go.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Um Mr.

Martinucci.

Okay.

Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, and everyone.

I am speaking today concerning the noise ordinance revisions.

The current noise ordinance allows for extremely high noise decibel levels with different restricted hours and days.

The plainly audible noise criteria is only enforceable when exceeding a distance of 100 feet.

Benchmarking Sarasota against cities with comparable sizes, structure, and long-term goals would be a more appropriate approach as opposed to adopting Miami's guidelines.

Sarasota is not Miami, nor is it striving to emulate Miami's sound environment.

Our noise ordinance should reflect the character of our community and the quality of life that we seek to maintain.

Residential quiet hours should extend from 10 p.m.

to 7 a.m., including noise from schools to allow residents restorative sleep, essential to physical and mental well-being.

At the December 1st meeting, it was noted that the originally intended evening noise restriction begin at 10 p.m.

However, due to lack of enforcement, the standard was reduced.

Sarasota Municipal Code 20-2 protects residents from excessive noise that can affect their quality of life.

Distance guidelines should be based upon the minimum spacing permitted between residential structures, both current and anticipated.

RSF for residential zoning allows a minimum distance of 12 feet between houses.

However, the current noise ordinance only becomes enforceable at 100 feet.

The City of Orlando has three different zone area designations.

Their multi-use area distance is 50 feet, and their residential area distance is 15 feet, both having enforceable hours from 10 p.m.

to 7 a.m.

seven days a week.

Winter Park, Pensacola, West Lake, and Jupiter have distances of 50 feet.

The Florida Vehicle Noise Statute 3163045 prohibits plainly audible music from a distance of 25 feet.

Why would state law prevent a stationary or moving vehicle from being heard 25 feet away, but the city allows residential noise from a hundred feet away?

This does not make any sense.

The average property lot measures 50 feet by 100 feet deep with front porches typically less than 25 feet away from the next house.

Different residential noise zones need to be established with plainly audible source distances ranging from 15 to 25 feet.

Lastly, the Sarasota County schools continue to generate excessive noise that negatively impacts the community.

The sound ordinance laws cannot be enforced because the schools are exempt.

Communication and oversight standards need to be established between the city and the schools, especially as they continue to expand within the city limits.

Thank you for all of your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Mr.

Kawadi.

All right, very good.

Morning, Mayor, uh Vice Mayor, uh, Commissioners, uh, City Administration.

Uh my name is Henry Kowani.

I'm here to represent myself.

I spoke to you all uh two weeks ago at the regular commission uh meeting and addressed questions related to uh the city zoning ordinance and the barriers that it presents for home elevation projects.

At the end of that uh commission meeting during the commissioner discussion section, uh Commissioner Alpert said um you know to said to the uh city administrator we should look into this.

Um I don't know what the issues are, so I thought I'd come back and spend a couple minutes telling you what the uh what the issues are that I'm addressing here.

First of all, it's important to understand what home elevation is.

Um you have an existing house at grade.

Um day construction starts, an army of uh people will show up with shovels and they'll start digging around your house, digging tunnels under the house.

Um to view the slab from below and position um uh hydraulic jacks under the house.

Um they'll raise the house up to about four and a half feet, pour footings, and then eventually once those set raise the house to the final height.

The house on the right there, I believe went up uh 12 feet.

It was one of the houses I discussed last time.

Um what what what issues does this raise?

First one is that setbacks.

You're raising an existing property.

The house exists on the ground.

Uh it is uh where it is.

Um the left side panel here is the site plan for my property.

My house was built in the late 1940s.

It is four feet off the uh property line.

Uh the setback requirement now is eight feet, right?

So the existing footprint of the house is within the setback, and so we'll need a variance to raise that property.

But there's a second issue.

If you look at the uh the top right picture there, that's actually a front door over the arch.

Um when that house is at grade, you open the front door and you can walk outside.

Um the house gets elevated up and it's 10 feet off the ground, you need to have a staircase to get down to the ground level.

Um when you build that staircase, even if your house is within the it was set back far enough from the street, um, that staircase may need to be in the setback.

Second issue is daylight plane.

If you have a single-story house, you're probably fine with the daylight plane.

If you have a two-story house, when you raise it up, you'll probably pierce the daylight plane.

The higher up you go, the more the encroachment into the daylight plane will be.

And the third issue, and this one is quite important, uh, is the building coverage restriction on the barrier islands.

Uh the building coverage restriction is 35%.

The building can't cover more than 35% of the lot, and the Board of Adjustment is not authorized to grant variances to that.

If you look at the house in the middle there, you'll see that there's a door.

When that house is at grade, you can open the door, go outside, enjoy your yard.

Once that house is up in the air, you can't do that unless you have a balcony.

Um balconies under the city code count as building coverage.

And so when you add a balcony at the back of your house, you'll probably throw yourself over the 35% limit.

Thank you, Figured, for your information, Mr.

Kowadi.

And Trevor Falk.

Should I hear, here?

All right.

Oh, actually, I got these.

But you guys haven't too.

I gave them out, but uh it's cool.

I'll start here.

All right.

Hi, Commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

It's been a little while since I've been in here since the um embarrassing failure of the ad hoc tree board a few years ago.

I'm here to talk about the excessive vehicle noise.

Uh I'm not the only one who came here to talk about excessive noise.

Steve showed up as well.

Um I'm here to talk about the undeniable right to silence versus the privilege to make excessive noise in the intersection of those two points that we call living downtown.

I have an article right here.

Uh I guess I can put it over there, maybe.

So in this article, it's from 2024, uh from not the Herald Tribune, but from some other one.

Talks about the new strict car noise ordinance that we were going to be implementing in July of 2024.

This article here, no quotes from the city commission.

There is a quote from a police officer in there talking about how there will be an education campaign first before we get into enforcing the vehicle noise ordinance.

Um I'm curious, how did the city and the agency tasked with enforcing the ordinance?

It's the police, right?

The city police.

They enforced this ordinance.

How did they get out the word as part of the information campaign for this new strict car noise ordinance?

Were there signs or flyers?

Were there FDOT signs along some of the uh most frequently used roads for loud drivers?

And I want to clarify this isn't about loud car stereos.

I hear loud car stereos when they drive past my house on Laurel Street, approximately 25 feet from my house.

Technically, this is a violation of this ordinance, but it's so infrequent that it's not an issue.

The issue here is an intentional excessive engine and exhaust noise from cars, trucks, and motorcycles driven by commuters and recreational drivers.

The article that I gave mentions the information campaign will come first, followed by enforcement.

Has this enforcement begun or are we still in the information campaign phase?

I also gave the uh ordinance here.

I printed it out.

The Florida State um it's it says the 25 feet plainly audible.

I can hear vehicle noises inside of my house with my windows closed, right?

This is too loud according to this law.

I can hear vehicle noise on my back patio in Laurel Park gardening.

That's too loud.

That's a violation of this ordinance.

Where am I hearing it?

Inside my house.

When I walk in bike downtown to Main Street, when I'm dining al fresco on Main Street, when I'm grabbing a coffee outside OA, when I'm relaxing at Bayfront Park, you hear engine noise, intentional excessive engine noise.

Where is it happening?

Ringling Bridge, the roundabout, south long Bayfront Drive and Mound Street, Washington Boulevard between Mound and Fruitville, and along Fruitville, east and west between Washington and Tammyami.

That's where this is happening.

You can put signs up, you can put police officers, you can enforce this.

I propose taking the ordinance a step further and setting up zones, like Steve said.

We can have zones.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Falk.

And we have one more person who signed up.

Camilla Cherry, will you come down and speak?

And introduce yourself if you're city resident and if you're representing yourself.

Thank you for coming.

Hi, my name is Kamala Cherry.

I'm a native of Sarasota.

Been here all my life.

And I'm in addition to what he's talking about regarding the North's audience, but I'm representing Newtown.

We have had someone in our community going parking on various streets, then calling downtown to the Sarasota Police Department, complaining about disturbance of the peace and North Ordinance.

But from her residence at 1339, Veronica Allen Street or Avenue, whatever her the name of it is, in Sarasota, and the location she's complaining about is 2745 North Osbury Avenue.

She cannot hear the noise from her residence.

She's parking on streets behind that establishment.

She's parking by churches surrounding that establishment and calling downtown, filing false police reports in regards to noise ordinance.

Because her reports that she's saying that is disturbing of the pieces leading to the police offices.

It's having them come out and aggravate residents, business um owners, uh patrons at the establishment because their presence makes people feel uncomfortable instead of feeling comfortable because they abuse their uniform.

So my thing with him as far as the noise ordinance.

I understand if he's they're going down a highway, you can't, you'd have there's no control of that.

You can't control that in those areas.

But if someone is parked outside of your residence and disturbing you, then that's something that's understandable.

That's something that the law needs to check.

Downtown.

We've been known for the arts, fine dining, and beautiful beaches.

That's why people from up north have moved to Sarasota to make this their home.

Now that they've come here, they want to change how we live here.

Those were the main attractions for people to move here.

That's why people are retiring here.

Fine dining arts and our beautiful beaches.

Once they get here and become residents, they want to change how we live.

So our hours of happiness are on the weekends.

When we don't have to get up and go to work the next day.

I'll be 59 in May.

So the young people need to be able to enjoy.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Cherry, for coming.

Next up is we've got approval approval of the minutes, and we've got uh minutes from several different occasions to approve.

First is the uh special Sarasota City Commission meeting of January 5th.

Move approval.

Second.

Uh moved by Commissioner A.

Hern Koch, seconded by the Vice Mayor.

Uh can we have your vote, please?

And it was approved unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Next up is the whoops.

Joint meeting.

Okay.

Uh thanks.

Uh minutes of the special joint meeting of the convocation of governments of the Sarasota Board of County Commissioners, the city commissions of cities of North Portsarasota, the City Council of City of Venice, and the town commission of the town of Longboat Key, and the school board of January 16th.

I was going to say move approval of the minutes from the special convocation of governments January 16, 2026.

Second.

Motion to approve by Commissioner Ahern Koch, seconded by the Vice Mayor.

Can we have your votes, please?

Passed unanimously.

Thank you very much.

And finally, the minutes of the regular Sarasota City Commission meeting of January 20th.

Move approval.

Second.

Motion to approve by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

May we have your votes, please.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Passed unanimously.

Thank you all very much.

We are now at uh under board actions item 5.1 is a report of the general employees defined benefit pension plan board of trustees, their annual report.

And chair of that group is Ryan Chaptalane, and he is joining us.

And I am Anthony Fair, the senior pension analyst in the city auditor and clerk's office.

Thank you both.

Ms.

Rob Ms.

Martin couldn't be here this morning, so Mr.

Fairer is filling in.

Thank you both.

So if you'd like to deliver your report, we'd be able to accept it.

We'll do.

Thank you for having us.

Good morning again, Ryan Chapterlane, Chair of the General Employees Pension Plan, the certified public pension trustee.

First, just want to recognize Ms.

Griggs's uh staff, the pension administration staff under her leadership.

They helped to administer uh the retirement plans, all retirement plans within the organization.

Uh Deb Martin, Anthony Ferrer, Peter Gottlieb, Ben Laurie Boyer, all are extremely competent, credentialed, and their customer service, I believe is a real asset to all the uh employees and retirees uh within this organization.

So uh this board of trustees was created uh by the City of Saraso Ordinance uh Section 24-98 upon the establishment of the General Employees Defined Benefit Pension Plan in accordance with Chapter 24, Article 2 of the Sarasota City Code 1986.

The board consists of the city auditor and clerk, the finance director, four members of the plan, and a trustee who is a legal resident of the city and appointed by the city commission.

Duties and responsibilities of this board, which serves as the named fiduciary administrator of the plan, include interpreting the provisions of the plan, receiving and processing all applications for benefits and approved retirement calculations, distribute to members' information concerning the plan and a summary plan description as required by law, authorize all payments from the fund, make recommendations regarding any changes in the provisions of the plan, permit actuarial studies and valuations, engage with a qualified consultant to evaluate investment performance and make recommendations, and contract with a certified public accountant to perform annual audits.

The plan, as many of you know, was closed to new participants about 15 years ago.

And as of January 31st, 2026, there are 64 active members in the plan, uh zero unvested members, eleven vested members with deferred benefits, and roughly 400 retirees or beneficiaries receiving benefits.

And with that, we'll conclude our presentation and entertain any questions.

Thank you, Commissioners.

Any questions?

None.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much for your presentation.

Really appreciate it.

I know.

I thought you were poised.

I was, but no, it's okay.

I don't have any questions if you want to comment to thank them for their great work.

Okay.

Well, um, so I'd appreciate a motion from someone.

Yep, I have a motion, Mayor.

Um move to accept the general employees defined benefit pension plan report.

Second.

Okay, moved by the vice mayor to accept the general employees defined pension benefit plan board report and seconded by Commissioner Batti.

Uh any discussion?

No.

Yeah.

Commissioner Aherncott.

This is the moment to say thank you to them for their work.

Um I've attended, you know, I try to attend the meetings, and they are really technical and complicated.

It's an area and a field that you don't just sort of pick up.

And they really have to study their materials and understand what they're doing.

It's a really important role.

Um, you know, they they have big decisions to make.

So I really thank everybody on the board for um doing such great work.

It's it's not an easy step in and understand it right away kind of thing.

You think our acronyms are bad, man?

Those are really difficult.

So thank you all.

And and I would note that they are protecting the futures of over 300 retirees and their beneficiaries.

So and there are close to a hundred active members who anticipate being covered by this retirement plan.

So uh with that, uh can we have a vote to accept?

And that's your vote?

Yes, yes.

It passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Uh we are now at consent agenda number one.

Are there any items to be pulled?

Yes, Mayor.

I if I am saying this correctly.

Um, Commissioner Ulrich and Commissioner Ahern Cospull item 6.3.

And Commissioner Org is also pulling item 6.5, and that is all I am aware of.

Correct.

Okay.

So may I have a motion for the balance of the items moved?

Approval of the balance of the consent one items.

Second.

Okay, move by Commissioner Aaron Koch, seconded by Commissioner Batti to uh approve the balance of the items under uh consent agenda number one, that would be excluded numbers three and five.

Uh may I have your votes, please.

Is that your vote?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Passes unanimously.

Item 6.3 um before we ask uh for a presentation, maybe um either one of you if you want to indicate why you wanted to pull it.

I wanted to pull it uh because we've waited so long for it and I just couldn't have it on consent.

And I do have a few questions.

Yeah, and the same.

Okay.

So if you would like to make a presentation, uh thank you.

Uh good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner's Jerry Fogel, Parks of Recreation.

I have with me Miss Christine Johnson, the president of Big Waters Land Trust.

Uh we are here today to hopefully have you approve the fundraising agreement between the city and Big Waters Land Trust to improve the nature park.

I know that this has been quite some time, uh, Vice Mayor.

I do apologize that uh we were not able to get this before you much, much sooner.

I do apologize for that.

Um it's no fault of Ms.

Christine Johnson and Big Waters uh Land Trust.

Uh they did everything they were supposed to do.

This is just uh something that uh happened, and uh I can accept responsibility for that.

Uh but really and truly I also want to take some time to sincerely thank Ms.

Johnson and Big Waters Land Trust, uh their board for their patience and understanding and just a willingness to move this forward and support it, even though it didn't move as quickly as we would have liked to hope uh that moved uh and get it approved.

So but I do want to thank them so much for this, uh their support uh on this item.

We have, as you know, because you approved it, we have uh a really special uh partnership with Big Waters Land Trust.

Um obviously they have a conservation easement over the entire Bobby Jones property, uh, and that includes the golf course in the nature park.

Uh and this fundraising agreement will just go to Strifton or our already strong partnership in terms of just enhancing the incredibly valuable uh piece of land, Bobby Jones uh piece of property.

Uh it's probably one of the most important properties the city has, in my humble opinion, uh as far as environmental uh for the residents, for wildlife, um, and and so forth and so on.

I mean it is incredibly important in so many ways.

Uh so with that being said, I do have a short presentation to show.

It is some of the uh amenities, if you will, that we're looking to construct at Bobby Jones Nature Park.

Um these are some of the amenities that Ms.

Johnson and uh uh the Big Waters Land Trust are looking to uh fundraise for uh per per naming rights is what we're trying to accomplish here.

Uh so the first uh on the screen right there is the wetland discovery pavilion.

Um just that is a few years uh from now as far as the growth of the trees and plants.

And this is the Peninsula Nature Vista, and keep in mind uh these are conceptual uh designs uh in nature, so um they hopefully will be much better once we get them constructed.

And this is the Marsh Discovery Overlook.

And I wish I could take the credit for the really uh creative cool names, but I can't.

Uh that was Ms.

Johnson that uh gave me some of those names to to rename some of the amenities.

And then the nature immersion walkway.

How cool is that?

Wish I had thought of that.

And then the landscape uh panorama point, which is just a really cool uh relaxing atmosphere, as you could see, uh, which is the nature park is supposed to uh be.

And then this is the feathered friend sanctuary.

Um looking forward to having this.

And if you can't really tell the uh canopy structure is a leaf, uh so they're really cool features for the nature park.

And this is just a view of the feathered friend sanctuary, um, you know, just to come out, relax, enjoy the nature, um, and just de-stress, right?

I mean, that's what the park is for.

And if you haven't had the time, and I know commissioners, you are very, very busy, but if you get some time, uh stop out by the nature park.

Uh I'm telling you, your heart rate will go way down, blood pressure will go way down.

Uh is so relaxing when you when you leave there, I'm telling you, it just makes for a very relaxing day.

Um we have installed uh you know over a hundred trees, and we're looking to install about two hundred trees uh as you enter the nature park.

So that construction work is ongoing.

We're looking to install 15,000 uh basically shrubs and and grasses.

Uh that work is ongoing right now.

Uh and then we'll have some connection to the A Street, uh, which has been a very, very uh uh supportive item.

Uh so we'll have that too.

And then the second phase, if you will, that would be the hard structures uh for the boardwalk, uh, the pavilion, uh, bird blind and things of that nature.

Uh so that's coming up too.

So with that being said, I will we'll take questions.

Thank you.

Uh questions.

Commissioner Ahern Kotch.

Thank you.

Uh it has been a long time coming, so thank you so much.

This is really good to finally see this, and thank you for your work and your patience.

Uh uh with everybody involved.

Um I thought I remembered reading in here, oh, here it is, right here.

Um, that it's uh 307 acres, Bobby Jones is 307 acres.

Um, the whole thing, the that's the golf and the nature park.

That's an approximate, yeah, Commissioner.

Okay, because that's a higher number than I ever heard before, so I was curious about that number.

That's I I think that includes remember the portion that we were going to uh work with the county to take take on for the regional playground.

Oh, that includes that.

That is that portion, and then there was some stormwater area that they were uh that was going to include in that too.

I think all I think we included all that in the acreage.

Oh, but we do have that playground piece back, right?

Yes, we do.

Okay, so it's the stormwater, the um right of way for the stormwater area.

Yes, it's that's what that is.

Got back included, yeah, in the acreage.

Okay, that's all right, that's where that number came from.

Okay, thank you.

Um the three and a half million, why three and a half million, why not six and a half million?

I'm very happy with that, but I'll let uh three and a half million is what we think we can do in the time period that we believe we can make this happen.

Um I think uh there's always an opportunity to take a minor bite at the apple.

Um but we don't want to take too big of a of a bite.

Um so we want to make sure that the community is what we believe is going to be in supportive of this.

Okay.

Um so we'll when we're when we are successful, uh we can look and see if we can do more.

But this is uh a huge project.

A lot of it is trees, a lot of it is um plants.

Um to make it a little bit more inviting for not only humans but also for our our uh animal friends.

And commissioner, just really quickly to to uh uh uh support what Ms.

Johnson said is so the project is about three and a half million dollars, there's a shortfall to actually complete and build out the park.

There's a shortfall to actually complete and build out the park.

And that's where Ms.

Johnson is coming in at is to uh address the shortfall.

So we're about three and a half million dollars uh gap to be able to build the rest of the park out.

So that's where the three and a half million dollars came from.

Okay, so it's the shortfall.

All right.

It's uh so your potential is potentially ten and a half million, I mean, right?

It could be.

Our agreement right now is for three and a half.

Okay.

What if you get a big check for 10 and a half million?

I think that would all we would all celebrate and party.

And that would go to the nature park.

Of course.

Okay.

Just making sure.

No, no, no.

We are bound by the the laws governing not-for-profits.

When a donor says this is my money to go towards this, it must go towards that.

Okay.

Okay.

And what is the total spend on this the nature part that you're looking at, Mr.

Fogel?

Well, right now we've spent about 1.7, so we're probably a little bit 5.2, something of that nature when it's all said and done.

Okay.

All right.

And then I read in here that there's an administration fee of 10 percent.

Is that standard or where did that number come from?

It's quite standard.

Um if we were uh working with the federal government, it would be 20 percent.

Okay.

Um working with other not-for-profits, it's usually five, but working with governments and other types like the city, it's 10 per 10 to 15 to 20.

10 to 15 to 20.

Okay.

I mean, I've noticed that when we talk about um C D BG funds or ship funds or home funds or some of the other funds that we when we use them, we use them X amount for this, this, this, and then it's usually about 10 percent for administration.

Uh but I didn't know in if this land of uh parks and land preservation if it was the same percentage was standard, but apparently on the low side of the standard.

Correct.

For working with governments, correct.

Okay.

And then um the on the city's responsibilities, it says the city shall apply uh for grants that only municipalities are eligible for.

What what is an example of of grants that only municipalities are eligible for?

Some state grants.

Um I'm trying to think what the name of it is, but it is a state grant under the Department of Environmental Protection for uh parks, and I cannot think of what the formal name is, but there's an example.

And it's just for municipalities, not counties.

Oh, for counties as well.

Oh, because I when he said only municipalities, I thought counties too.

Okay, all right.

But not-for-profits are not able to apply.

I see.

So government bodies maybe should be the better word than just municipalities.

All right.

Okay, good.

Um then I think those were all of my questions uh on this.

Thank you so much.

Uh I really appreciate your great work on this, and I really, really look forward to this park continuing to grow and develop and just be a beautiful amenity for our region.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um so first of all, I want to thank both of you and everybody who has been involved in this for your diligence and for just hanging in there.

Uh congratulations.

Uh this did take longer than anybody thought it would.

Sometimes, however, when there's a delay like this, unplanned, other unplanned benefits surface that we didn't even anticipate as we were planning it.

Is did anything like that happen during this delay?

Any unplanned positive benefits that wouldn't have surfaced otherwise?

Well, I I think uh Vice Mayor, one of the things is that we are almost done with the construction of this, uh, the construction design.

So if and when Ms.

Johnson is able to uh fundraise for the different amenities, we can go out and and get them constructed because we already have the design done instead of if we have done this earlier, if we would have to wait to get the construction design work done, which takes about nine months to a year.

So I mean that that if there's a benefit, that's a that's a benefit.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh, this question is for Ms.

Johnson.

I know you've received over the past few years some smaller checks that have been restricted for the use at Bobby Jones Nature Park.

So how do those fold in to the big naming checks?

Correct.

You are absolutely correct.

We've received a few small donations, five figures in total.

They are still on our balance sheet in a restricted fund for this purpose, and they will be sent over as soon as this starts to work.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Did you mind?

Okay, I I just had one quick one.

I guess it's primarily from Ms.

Johnson.

I had a discussion recently with Mr.

Fogle about microforests.

So my eyes lit up when I saw the list of naming opportunities, that there was a microforest naming opportunity.

But my question has to do with the various naming opportunities, because if you add all those numbers up, that's a significant figure.

So I'm wondering maybe what is the timetable.

We've got this agreement was for three and a half million, but do you anticipate some of those naming things coming after the date that's in the three and a half million agreement?

One would hope.

The reason why we have a lot more naming opportunities if you were to total them up, they of course exceed the three and a half million.

And that is to give variance, that is to give options and choices to our philanthropists here in the Sarasota region.

We want to make sure that we have plenty of opportunities for people who want to be charitable, who are philanthropic, to choose what is most important to them.

I want to be clear, what someone is naming, they are not paying for.

So they are paying for, if you will, their philanthropy is going towards a naming right.

But it's not a one-to-one.

And that is typical how a fundraising campaign for a capital happens in the not-for-profit world.

You have a lot more naming opportunities than you have need for the dollars.

And again, like I said, it is to give the philanthropist choice.

Um and that all of those funds go in.

The things that we're going to work on is what's going to be the next phase for the city's construction.

When we get to a certain amount of money, those construction things will happen.

And those are irrespective of the naming opportunities.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Anything else?

Uh then may I have a motion to approve the fundraising agreement between the City of Sarasota and Big Waters Land Trust for improvements to the nature park and uh authorizing the mayor and city auditor and clerk to execute it?

So motion.

Second.

Second.

Okay.

It was moved by the vice mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Kotch to approve.

Is there any discussion?

No?

No.

Okay, so let's vote.

Jeez, please.

Sorry.

Passed unanimously, thank you very much.

And then the other item that was pulled is the 6.5 authorizing the mayor and city auditor and clerk to execute an agreement between the city and Sequoia Construction Group for Lyft Station number two improvements.

And I believe I'd like a brief presentation, and then I have one question.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Vern Hall Utilities Director, and with me is Scott Woodard, General Manager of Operations.

And he will take you through a brief slide presentation.

And then if you will allow and indulge me, I will take you on a tour through the SCADA system.

And I'll explain what that is.

So good morning.

I am Scott Woodard, General Manager of Utilities.

We have a brief presentation to walk you through what a lift station is, why we rehabilitate them, and what a typical rehabilitation involves.

So Lyft station is a critical component of our wastewater collection system.

Main lines receive wastewater flow from multiple homes.

And they carry the wastewater via gravity.

They rely on continuous downward slope to flow.

So when it reaches a point that it's no longer feasible to continue to excavate deeper, we install a lift station.

What the lift station does is it pumps the wastewater back uphill so that it can start the gravity process all over again.

And if you look at the figure on the right, you'll see that the lift stations comprised of a wet well, pumps, piping, fittings, and control systems.

The pipe on the right is the gravity main, which brings the wastewater into the wet well as indicated by the blue directional flow arrows.

So the wastewater flows into the wet well, the wet well begins to fill up.

Once the wet well reaches a predetermination level, the level sensor will send a signal to the control panel, which will turn on the pump and begin to pump the wastewater down.

And the wastewater is then pumped up and out of the lift station through the force main on the left side of the diagram.

Once the wastewater reaches a preset off limit, the level sensor will send the signal control panel to shut the pump off.

And it completes this cycle over and over to maintain that wastewater level between the on and off set points.

So why do we rehabilitate our lift stations?

Well, to upgrade our aging infrastructure, address structural issues, and prevent potential system failures or spills.

So if you look at the photo on the top left of the lift station wet well, you can see that that uh concrete in the wet well has degraded over time.

And without rehabilitation, eventually infiltration will start to seep in through those walls and can cause structural failure.

So the photo at the bottom is of a rehabilitated wet well with uh the concrete uh restored and the service life extended.

So another reason that we rehabilitate lift stations is to uh perform safety improvements.

So in these photos at the top, you can't see the pumps because they're submersibles and they're below the level of the wastewater, but these pumps are in the bottom of the wet well.

So in that configuration, the mechanic would have to physically enter into that confined space to work on those pumps or remove those pumps.

So after the rehabilitation at the bottom, you can see that there are rails installed on the walls.

Those rails are connected to the pumps so that those pumps can be removed from above ground, and then the maintenance activities can be performed above ground, greatly reducing risk to those mechanics.

And then finally we rehabilitate lift stations to enhance system performance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

To enhance system performance and provide technological upgrades such as SCADA, which is our supervisory control and data acquisition hardware and software, and that enables remote monitoring and control of our lift stations.

And Vern will talk more about that in a moment.

Then what does the lift station rehabilitation entail?

Well, typical lift station rehabilitation involves key upgrades, including uh wet well coating and upgrades to the wet well.

That's when we apply the protective coating, uh replace internal components such as base elbows, piping, guide rails, and brackets, as you can see in the top left photo.

It's a recently completed wet well rehabilitation.

Um we also perform mechanical upgrades where we replace pumps, uh, install new discharge piping, valves, and check valves, and the photo on the top right is an example of configuration, new valves and check valves above ground.

Next, we'll perform electrical system replacements where we'll install uh new controllers, wiring, and control panels.

The bottom left photo is of a newly installed control panel.

Then we'll move on to site appearance and aesthetics, uh, which could involve landscaping, concrete pads, fencing, building painting, things of that nature, which create a cleaner, safer, and more functional site.

And then finally, we move on to our technology upgrades, such as adding SCADA if they're not already installed at the station.

And with that, Vern has a brief demonstration demonstration of our SCADA.

Okay, don't need to go.

Okay.

Vice Mayor, you will probably recognize a couple of these screens because this is a scaled down version of what you saw in my office.

So what you're looking at right now is the SCADA system that monitors the lift stations, our drinking water wells from the downtown RO well field and our pump stations and booster stations.

So let's click on lift station 30, which is out on St.

Armand's.

Not a lot of excitement here, as you can see, but let's open this up.

And that's the wet well level.

And I'm going to add flow.

So I've got this set for about an hour.

Let's go down to a half an hour.

Turn.

Yes.

Get a little bit more in the microphone, thanks.

I'm sorry.

So this is Lift Station 30 out on St.

Armand's.

And I've pulled up the wet well status, which is the level, and the flow meter, which indicates the pump runtimes.

And as you can see, the green line goes up.

That's your wet well status.

That's the wet well level rising.

And then the little black line comes on.

That shows that the pump is running.

And you'll see the green line goes down, and then the pump shuts off.

And that's what these things do all day, every day.

Rain, shine, hurricanes, Christmas Eve, they don't care.

This is what we have to do.

So in a nutshell, that's what happens at a lift station.

And that's why we need to rehab them because they never stop.

And the bad things happen if they do stop.

And we don't really want that.

All right, this guy's not going to cooperate with me here.

That would be an alarm.

We get those occasionally that just lets everybody know, hey, something happening.

You might want to look take a look at it.

Now if you'll indulge with me, we'll take a step through to the other side.

And you'll also recognize this page, Vice Mayor.

This is the drinking water distribution system.

And each one of these little blue numbers is a pressure node that helps us identify what's going on system wide.

So if we, for instance, have a big main break, one of these or more of these numbers are going to turn red, and they will make a similar sound like you just heard.

So let's go back out to lift station 30.

And this just shows system pressure.

That's for 30 minutes.

I can go for four hours.

I can go for four days and on and on and on.

So you can see the system pressure is pretty consistent.

But these are all tools that just help us know what's going on out there 24-7.

And this is monitored at the water plant because those guys are staffed 24 hours, and a lot of the work they do is inside the control room.

And we have on call personnel that have laptops similar to this one.

So if something's going on at a lift station, they can pull it up and see what's going on.

So without belaboring the point, I'll uh turn it over to you all if you have any questions.

Commissioner's question.

Vice Mayor.

I do have one.

Thank you for that.

Sort of nerdy, but um very interesting.

Um we're talking about existing lift station number two.

And making improvements to it.

Uh in your narrative, you put that it is in very close proximity to Sarasota Bay.

So I wonder if there are any aspects to the work that will be done that are specific to the lift station's proximity to Sarasota Bay.

Yes, ma'am.

The the intent is to raise the station and install additional backup power for that station so that in the event of an issue it's not going to overflow into the bay.

That's that's the intent.

Um we're also we will install generator connections so that in some sort of a catastrophe, if the backup power and the main power is down, we can bring a portable generator to the site and connect that up and make the station run.

Great, thank you.

That's my only question.

Any other questions, Commissioners?

I have a sort of a quick one.

Um obviously we have a lot of lift stations, and as you explained, we do need to occasionally rehab, upgrade them.

Do you have a predetermined schedule that you anticipate which list station will be rehab next?

And but so the the second part of that question is about how many years between rehabbing.

Well, uh we do have the five-year CIP list, and we have a series of lift stations identified in there.

Um I can say that every one of our lift stations in the last 13 years have gone through rehabs, with the exception of stations like List Station 2, List Station 10, List Station 16.

Now list station 16 did go through a rehab a few years ago, so it's off the list.

But we have the standard rehabs, the type that Scott talked about, and then we have the type that we're going to do at List Station 2, which is sort of completely changed that.

We're going from a wet well, dry well to a wet well function, so that's more nerdy stuff, but that will improve the function of that station.

So those items 16, 2, and 10 were in separate CIP items so that we could address those because they would take more than just your standard rehab.

It's a complete redesign and sort of reconfiguration.

But each year we do eight, ten liftations.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um anything else, then uh I will entertain a motion to authorize us to uh execute the agreement between the city and Sequoia Construction Group.

So move.

Second.

Okay, move by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner A.

Harry Kach, and may we have your votes, please.

And it is unanimously passed.

Thank you very much.

Madam Mayor.

If I may, what you just saw is an example of what I like to call invisible government.

No one sees it.

The only thing you see is a road blocked, a lane block once in a while, and you say, what it's gone, you know, I have to sit in traffic for a minute.

It's what the community runs on, whether it's water, wastewater, uh, you know, all the things in government that don't make any noise until they break.

Uh but they do work, as Vern said, 24 hours a day, regardless of the temperature, regardless of the rain, and there's people there to service them and keeping them running, and you never hear about it.

People pay their water bill, they don't even think about it.

But you know, it it's incredible.

One of the reasons I kind of get a kick out of public service is no one knows that the community is running on all of this unseen infrastructure, whether it's what these guys talked about or streets or even your parks.

You know, you see the people out there working on them, but you don't really think about it.

And you know, uh I appreciate what those folks do every day picking up the garbage, it just goes on and on and uh keeps me juiced up in uh public service.

Sure.

Um I have one more comment.

Um so I would encourage each of you commissioners, if you haven't been to Mr.

Hall's office, sorry, uh, make an appointment and get over there and see all the data that he has right there all the time.

I uh based on what Mr.

Bullock said, I just did want to make a comment.

Um that presentation to me demonstrated why we pay more for the sewer part of our water bills than the water part.

So thank you for all you're doing.

Okay, thank you very much.

And we are now at consent agenda number two.

Um are there any items to be pulled?

I am not aware of any items to be pulled, but I do have one public comment on 7.3, so I'm not sure if the commission will like to go ahead and allow the public comment before we go into everything.

I did request polling 7.4.

You did.

I'm so sorry.

Wait, wait.

Okay, so you want to pull 7.4.

Okay.

And this is a comment.

Do we want to accept a comment on 7.3?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So Martin Hyde.

And then after that, Mayor, I'll read the um titles.

Well, obviously, I remain Martin.

I still don't live in the city.

Um just just a quick one, because uh yeah, we talked about this lots of times.

It's the nature of consent agendas is to pass expense without question.

So for the appearance, at least of good housekeeping.

I was drawn to this Chevy pickup replacement, four years ahead of schedule.

Due according to the backup material to damage caused to it when parked, which presumably was covered by insurance.

The uh fairly obvious questions, which obviously none of you were gonna ask, are is this a want or a need?

What are the tasks a new vehicle can perform that the current vehicle can't?

Why the insurance isn't repairing the damage to the current vehicle?

Uh whose idea this was and and then finally, why the city plans on spending $71,000 uh for a truck.

I I I took the liberty of taking a couple of pictures of what you can get for $71,000.

That's just on the the uh the price point they're suggesting.

Quite a fancy off-road vehicle there.

And then the AI um consideration.

A $71,000 truck represents a high trim, specialized or heavily optioned model.

Just get back here.

So my position on this is fairly obvious.

Is some kind of special addition with go faster stripes and chroned exhaust, exactly what taxpayers and commissioners think is a good use in a year when your budget is underwater.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Um Ms.

Griggs, will you read the titles, please?

Thank you, Mayor.

Oh, and let's get this back up.

Resolution 26R 3378, 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 several ability if any of the parts hereof are declared invalid, providing for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Resolution number 26R3379, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, that provide for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A, provide 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 3380, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, amending the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, provide for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit A, provide for servability if any of the parts here wrote are declared invalid, provided for reading by title only and providing an effective date.

Ordinance number 26-5589, an ordinance of the City of Sarasota, Florida to rezon a portion of that certain parcel, a real property totaling approximately 4.49, plus minus acres located at Southwest Corner of 21st Street and North Osborne Avenue with a street address of 1790 21st Street from the residential multiple family to RMF-2 Zone District to the Governmental G Zone District, approving site plan application number 25-sp to allow the replacement of an existing plus-minus 21,197 square foot multi-purpose building with a new plus-minus 21,760 square foot multi-purpose building, a covered play area in a multi-purpose athletic field.

All as more particularly set forth herein and affirming planning board approval of major conditional use, application 25-CU-01 to allow community service uses, providing for reading by title only and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Ms.

Griggs.

May I have a motion to adopt the balance of consent agenda number two?

So moved.

Second.

Moved by Commissioner Kaj, seconded by the Vice Mayor to approve the balance of consent to.

And I believe we need a roll call vote.

Yes, and also please hit your buttons.

Ahern Kutch?

Yes.

Alpert?

Yes.

That's he?

Yes.

Ulrich?

Yes.

Yes.

And that was approved unanimously.

So Commissioner Ahern Koch asked that item 7.4 be pulled.

Just for an express vote on this item.

Okay.

Thank you.

Do you want a presentation?

No, I don't need a presentation.

Just uh I would move approval of the second reading of proposed ordinance number 26-5589.

Second.

Move by Commissioner A.

Harry Kodge, seconded by the Vice Mayor to approve item number 7.4.

May we have your votes, please?

And I believe we need a roll call.

Yes, Mayor.

I'm sorry.

Albert?

Yes.

That's he?

Yes.

Yes.

Trice.

Aaron Kotch.

Yes.

What's the point?

Pass unanimously.

Okay.

Commissioner.

Yeah, I just I'm trying to figure out what's the point of voting the same way of voting on that separately.

Because it's an ordinance and uh ordinances, in my opinion, should have an express vote as opposed to being lumped in with contracts or budget amendments or something else that's more ministerial.

It's an ordinance, and so I think it's important to have an express vote, not only for us but for the applicant and for the community to know that it there is a actual vote on this item.

It's important for the process.

Okay.

So voted.

So we have unfinished business and I'm going to call upon interim human resources director Anderson to make the presentation, and this is uh regarding the charter official evaluations that the commissioners recently completed.

And is Ms.

Anderson here.

There she is.

Good morning.

Good morning, um Dominique Anderson, uh General Manager of HR and also acting director at the moment.

Um I am just called to um fill in.

I have received the um our team has uploaded the charter official um performance evaluations, so I'm here to just you know go over those and answer any questions that I might be able to.

Oh brother, thank you.

But first we do have uh Martin Hyde has signed up to speak.

Mr.

Hyde?

Well, you know, again, obviously Martin Hyde.

I um excuse me.

Um excuse me, I didn't know.

Um this is the good news, Bob.

Let me say that uh our city clerk, Shayla Griggs, is in my opinion the best example of a public servant.

Honest, cheerful, efficient, and not that she'd likely want the job or thank me for saying it.

But a better candidate to be our city manager, I could not imagine.

Uh Clark Shaler implements policy instead of trying to create it, which is exactly what a city manager is supposed to do and what they consistently fail to do.

I'd like to take this opportunity not only to thank her but to ask her for consideration to returning the public access computer to her office.

We had one for many years, and it served as a valuable asset to citizens wanting to review public record without having to navigate a complex website.

I think it arguably aids efficiency by reducing public records requests.

The uh city attorney is in my view.

You ready?

Excellent.

Uh notwithstanding.

Um I'd repeat my previous comments over many years, the consideration to bring legal in-house would save over a million dollars a year, which would go some way to covering the deficit that you're currently running.

That said, congratulations.

You actually have two charter officials that can do their job.

Thank you, Mr.

Hyde.

Um Ms.

Anderson, would you return and do commissioners have any questions?

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

I really appreciated the opportunity to prepare an evaluation for the city attorney and the auditor and clerk.

And I also greatly valued their own self-evaluations.

Over the years, I have found self-evaluations are frequently more critical.

And have a greater informed look into what can be done for the future.

So our city attorney and our auditor and clerk did both of that.

They looked at themselves very critically, and they planned good goals for the immediate future.

And so I'd like us to utilize the same format next year, because it not only was good for me as an evaluator, but when I was being evaluated, it was a really good format.

So at the end of this, I'm going to make a motion to use the same format next year.

That's it.

Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Yes, thank you.

I um in the last eight or nine years that I've been doing this, I felt found this one um the best one so far.

Um exactly just that as opposed to like these little bubbles where you give them a grade or you put fair, medium, good, whatever.

Um it was always very difficult to do.

So this process that we we've done this year, I thought was also very, very helpful in understanding their role, what they do outside of what we see, the self-evaluation, I agree, is also a critical.

It's a moment to reflect upon your own job and how you do, and then their interactions with us as well.

So I think we finally hit on a winning uh way to do this uh evaluation process of the charter officials.

So I would um agree that this is something that we should uh adopt uh going forward.

Okay, thank you for that.

Uh Commissioner Batti.

Uh yes, uh, thank you.

Um I just wanted to uh echo the sentiments of uh Mr.

Hyde in complimenting both our city auditor and clerk and uh city attorney on the jobs that they do um so well for the city and the residents of the city and uh also to echo the sentiments of the commissioners as well in the implementation of the self-evaluation.

Um it was great to see, you know, uh and get a sort of an in-depth look as to what uh both departments and soon our city managers will when they come on board, what they do, what they think of the job that they do and uh as opposed to how we actually see it, a lot of things we don't know or didn't know, um, particularly when it comes to our city attorney um bringing in experts to basically give us more information um things that we're not experts at when it comes to these legal matters as it pertains to the city and basically trying to get us to uh be more contemporary and modern in how we we we approach things.

Um I felt that you know very important and helps like streamline what it is you know we do and uh what it is you do and makes your job a lot easier.

Um what was it with workday, I think, or something like that, but you would what what is the name of the software that you use?

Zakia Zakia, yes.

Yeah, yes, exactly.

Um, I thought that was uh uh a very very valuable tool and uh implementation and to how the city um were were run.

And uh thank you again, Mrs.

Griggs, for the work that you and your department you know continue to do for the city.

You're very responsive and uh very efficient at your job and everyone in your department, and we can't thank you all enough.

And uh thank you uh to the commission for again implementing that self-evaluation into the process of uh how we we do our jobs and evaluating.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Albert, did you have anything you wanted to say?

I didn't, I didn't press the question.

Well, we're going to round two, and I wanted to check with you round one.

So, Commissioner A.

Kotch.

Yeah, I had two questions for the commissioners here.

Um uh Vice Mayor Ulrich.

In your um narrative here for uh the city auditor and clerk.

You wrote in here, she takes care to make each oath special.

What did you mean by that?

Oath.

People who are in the audience might be here for the first time coming to the table.

And I've had people say to me, I felt like I was the only well, it was special to them.

Okay.

Thank you.

I didn't know that.

And it was what Ms.

Griggs did while administering the oath that made them feel special.

And I think a lot of that, excuse me, Mayor, if you don't mind me.

I think a lot of that too is also the advisory board members when they come in to see me individually.

I think I do I I make that very personal.

Okay, I make try to make them feel like it's a good thing, is it a special thing?

So a lot of people do feedback on that because I do do that with every every person that comes in and gets an oath.

I I do unless there's something happening, Laura will cover me, but for the most part, I try to make sure I do every person that comes and does their oath for advisory board members.

So that's just another aspect of your role that um was brought to my attention was it's not just the oath you administer here where everybody stands up in a clump.

Um it's the actual individual advisory board oaths, and I think that that's um that's reminding me of you know another one of your roles.

And then uh Mayor, I had a question for you when you referenced um uh Miss Griggs as being the longest serving charter official, you mean amongst the ones we have here.

Okay.

I um okay.

That was it.

Just wanted to get clarity on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So it we have two things ahead of us.

One would be accepting the completed evaluations and then also discussing Ms.

Griggs' compensation.

So I wanted to ask Ms.

Anderson what would be the process of negotiating her compensation, discussing it among ourselves.

Sure.

Um what probably the next steps if the commission decides that we should look into the compensation?

That's something our team can look into.

And then also if um Ms.

Griggs already had a recommendation, we can consider that as well.

But if the commission would like, uh my team can go back and we can review that and then bring that uh to a future meeting if you'd like.

Okay.

So Commissioner?

And so my recommendation is to have two motions, one to accept and the other is to proceed um with evaluate investigating uh compensation.

It'll be very difficult for you because we have a unique situation where our clerk and our auditor are combined into one office.

And so I caution you to not come back with inaccurate information on that matter.

Okay.

Okay, so first then I I guess are we finished with Ms.

Anderson for now?

So we we can excuse you from the table.

Thank you very much.

And uh I guess I'm looking for a motion to accept the completed evaluations.

So move.

Second.

Okay, moved by the vice mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch to accept the completed evaluations for the city auditor and clerk and for the city attorney.

And is there any discussion?

I mean, I guess not.

Oh, wait, Commissioner Batti.

Did you want to vote or discuss?

Uh no, I'm I I was gonna say something before she left, but that's that's okay.

Um, you know, just regarding uh the discussion on Mrs.

Griggs uh compensation.

That'll be the next motion.

Okay.

Okay.

So are we going to vote on the motion on the table?

Yes, and it was ex they were accepted unanimously the completed evaluations.

Thank you.

So a motion concerning uh uh Ms.

Griggs compensation.

I would think that maybe I mean I see we have a choice between turning it over to Ms.

Anderson to investigate without direction, or we could turn it over to Ms.

Anderson with the direction to increase compensation.

So we could direct Ms.

Anderson and staff to investigate compensation for similar for charter officials who have similar responsibilities, including talking to Ms.

Griggs and come back to us with a recommendation.

Okay, I don't think there are any similar that's the problem.

Um you gotta do what you gotta do.

Okay, is there a second to second?

Oh, I was gonna speak to that as well.

Okay, well, let's get this.

Okay, second.

Okay, sec motion by actually a motion.

There wasn't really a motion.

I was gonna come back to that because I was like, oh, let's let's read state debt.

That's going to be a motion because it wasn't very clear.

All right.

I move um to give direction to human resources to evaluate compensation for city auditor and clerks or others who have like responsibilities, including talking to the Ms.

Griggs and coming back to us with a recommendation for salary.

Okay, second.

Wait, uh Ms.

Commissioner Batti, I believe, had already said.

Oh, fine.

So motion by uh Vice Mayor seconded by Commissioner Battee to direct uh Ms.

Anderson and staff to investigate uh other government officials with similar responsibilities to our auditor and clerk, and also to discuss with Ms.

Griggs to come back with a recomm salary recommendation.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

And so I think also they should include um comparing to comparing Ms.

Griggs's salary to the other charter officials' salaries in our city.

When you make salary recommendations, you don't just look at others around the state, you look at others in your own house and what they're currently receiving.

And so to me that'd be an important part of it.

Okay.

I agree.

Okay.

And um Commissioner Batti is the second, or did you want to make a case?

Yeah, I just uh wholeheartedly uh agree and echo um the statements made and in the sentiments of uh a vice mayor.

Um this is long overdue and um it's about being made whole as it is, you know, basically given a raise.

But um I come from we say give our damn money.

Did you I did, yeah.

Yeah, I I have an issue with the the way the motion is worded, um comparing her to other um people who do the same role because I'm not so sure there are other um charter officials who do all the same things that she does.

I think that there are charter officials, and we saw that in the backup material that we had in her evaluation that in I'm gonna make this up sort of in Bradton the um similar position does this A, B, and C.

And in Venice they do A, B, C, and G.

And then in Palmetto they do F H and A.

Whereas she does A B C D E F G H or S.

So that's that's where you'll you'll get a turn.

So um I I think it's gonna be difficult to compare her to other ones who do the same role without cobbling that together.

And so maybe compare her to other uh charter officials who do the same role, but also weigh in the things that no other charter official in any other city does that she does as well.

And there are I can come off the top of my head ten things that she does that no other charter official does.

So can we include language that makes it clear that we're going to include those items in her consideration for compensation?

Mr.

Bullet wants to weigh in here if you if I may, Mayor.

Uh when Ms.

Anderson and her team do the evaluation, probably the first step is to sit down with Ms.

Griggs, understand the span of authority that she has and responsibility she has, and then that sets the framework within which you do a compensation uh uh comparison is okay, so uh community A does as much as Ms.

A.

Ahern Koch said, you know, this things and and uh so but you start with that span of responsibility that the city has placed on our our auditor and clerk, and then you essentially look for what others are doing, and sometimes you have to add them all up to to get to where you are.

This would be done in close cooperation with Ms.

Griggs so that we get it right, and she certainly would have input through throughout the way.

So I mean that's a normal way you do a a compensation study.

Frankly that this is true in a lot of jobs.

Uh you just heard Vern Hall talk about water and wastewater.

Well, he's also now over facilities.

So you know it's not unusual to have a span of control that doesn't fit a very rigid uh title.

Commissioner Vice Mayor.

So the concerns expressed by Commissioner Ahern Koch will be a part of the analysis, and that there is nobody who does the same thing will be written into the report, and that in and of itself is very telling.

Okay, can I just respond?

Uh I just wanted to add um there are part of this, I'm assuming part of the study will also include what city auditors are getting.

So I hope it doesn't end up being additive.

The clerk from that city plus the auditor from that city and their salaries together, and that's what we'll offer Ms.

Griggs.

Maybe not.

But yeah.

No, we'll we'll I think I think we have a clear understanding of what is required, and we'll just make sure that everything that we can provide is provided so you all can talk that out.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, no, that that was it.

I just wanted to make sure that um uh because over time the her office has taken on roles that are not traditional for a city auditor and clerk to take on, but it's and many people of the public have no idea the the the depth of responsibility and never see it, and sometimes we don't even either.

Um so I just wanted to make sure it all comes to light that we can have a fair analysis of the responsibilities in the role and and the work that is required and expected so that we can have fair compensation.

So after Commissioner Batti, we can call the question.

Yeah, no, I you know, I was just gonna say I think that is all part of the same hole.

Um, you know, you know, speaking to the commissioner's point uh about the responsibilities of of our city auditor and clerk, you know, that that uh go beyond that of a lot a lot of city auditors and clerks and and other municipalities or what have you.

Um but also you know, being uh creating that kind of you know equilibrium, if you will, um as per the charter officials and so on.

So I think that it's all a part of the the the same equation and and that's how it should be um evaluated.

So call the question.

Uh do I need to repeat the motion?

I don't think so.

So thank you.

Okay, so that's unanimously agreed to uh direct um human resources director Anderson and her staff to do a salary evaluation and come back with a recommendation to us.

Uh thank you.

Now I believe I have another motion.

Move to approve the same format use this year for the 2026 year.

Second.

Okay.

Um I just had a question, the same format which includes self-evaluation by the charter officials.

Absolutely.

But I was part of it that that was that was intended to be part of it.

Yes.

Okay.

So um so motion by uh the vice mayor seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Uh is there discussion?

Uh just a comment that I think everybody appreciated the format we use this year, and let's keep it.

I agree.

I just wanted to add that having that self-evaluation is also valuable.

I don't expect either of you to be going anywhere, but it gives us a better feel for what the job entails.

So thank you.

The January February seventeenth City Commission meeting is back in session.

And we have reached legislative public hearings.

Item ten point one is the public hearing regarding proposed resolution number twenty six R dash three three six nine electing to use the uniform method of collecting ad valorum assessments.

Um may I before we do that, can I minister the open?

Oh, yes, please special.

Anyone who plays speaking at any public hearing held today, please stay and take this over.

Thank you.

And then I'll go ahead and read the title.

Thank you.

Resolution number 26R 3369.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, electing to use the uniform method of collecting non-advalorum assessments for more than one year levied in the South Puenciata Park neighborhood of the city to fund street light services and facilities.

Saving a need for such levy, providing for the mailing of this resolution, and providing for the mailing.

I'm sorry, providing for the mailing of this resolution and providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I will call upon Chief Transportation Planner Corales, Public Works Director Patel, and City Engineer Kameh to make a presentation and Mayor, we also have special counsel appearing by Zoom.

Uh Chris Rowe, I believe he's on Zoom right now.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

And do we have anybody signed up to speak?

No, Mayor, not as a right now.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Good morning, Commissioners.

Mayor.

My name is Albion Mary Carales, Chief Transportation Planner.

Um Nick Patel, Public Works Director.

So today you have before you the resolution for the intent to use the uniform method of collecting non-advalorum assessment for the South Point Stadia Park neighborhood.

And this is for their street lighting district.

Approval of this resolution preserves the city's ability to use the annual property tax bill as a future collection method for this assessment.

Just a little bit of background.

As you may know already, uh back in October of last year, uh we brought before you a lot of documentation of support to establish um to start it looking at the process and the legal process to establish a district.

Um at that meeting, you authorize staff to begin evaluating the feasibility of this district.

And since then we've done a couple of things.

Today we have this action and it's limited to considering the this resolution.

Um you will see that um section three in the resolution.

There's a point of clarification, there's a scripturus error.

Section three item item C actually for this one of the resolution.

It said the deadline is January 1st.

And although the statutory deadline is January 1st, um city staff did receive from um the property appraiser and tax collector consent for us to extend the deadline to March 1st.

Um today's action um again preserves that city ability to use the property tax bill as future collection method.

It satisfies the statutory notice notice requirements, and also uh keeps the option open for us to do this district in the future.

What it does not do is create the district, bill anybody for it, or pick a methodology or assessment, methodology rate or assessment.

So this will not result in property owners getting billed.

One thing to mention is that once we once and if we move forward, um commission and staff needs to figure out how to pull um the community into getting this approved and move forward for you to evaluate on whether um this is feasible or not.

Uh with us, just like um our city attorney mentioned is also Chris Rowe.

He is with Bryant Miller and Olive law firm, and he's available to answer any questions regarding the process.

And we, of course, are available to answer any questions regarding the project.

Um, before before we go to Chris's um you know additional presentation for it um wanted to mention that at a later date once we have the cost for the lighting district and once we once we reached out to the community about it, uh we'll have a public meeting.

We'll come back to the commission to decide how much support do we need from the community.

Um bare minimum 60 percent, and it can be up to 75 percent, and we'll come back at a later date uh to get city commission's direction as to how much support we need for for the special district, and uh that is forthcoming.

Just want to clarify that on the table.

Um with that, I'll turn it over to Chris to share some additional insights.

Thank you.

Yeah, yes, sir.

Thank you very much, and good morning, Mayor and City Commission members.

I'm Chris Rowe.

I'm with the law firm Bryant Miller Olive, which serves as the city's bond council.

Uh my areas of focus within the firm included assisting cities with uh establishing special assessment programs.

In fact, I helped Sarasota um adopt its assessment program for the uh St.

Armand's parking garage project in 2015.

And uh during that time I prepared the city's assessment procedure ordinance, which is uh uh currently codified in the city code, it basically lays out the procedure that the city will follow in order to impose an assessment to fund capital improvements or essential services.

This resolution is part of the process described in the city code.

It's also required by statute, as Alby mentioned, the um uh there's a distinction in the Florida statutes between imposing the assessment to fund the improvement or service, and then once it's imposed, how you go about collecting the charge.

And there's a couple different ways you can collect it.

One, you can direct bill the affected property owners, we remit send a bill to them and say your property has been assessed, please remit payment.

Or you can include the charge as a line item on the property tax bill mailed every November by the county tax collector.

That second collection system known as the uniform method uh is in widespread use throughout the state.

It tends to be very uh efficient, economical, and advantageous because you basically turn over the collection and enforcement responsibility to the county tax collector.

The statute and your city code provide that if you want to be able to use that collection system, you have to adopt a resolution expressing your intent to do so, typically the calendar year before collection begins.

There is an exception in the statute in the city code that says with the consent of the property appraiser and tax collector, the resolution can instead be adopted by March 1st, hence its consideration and presentation for you today.

This resolution, as I'll be noted, does not in and of itself impose any assessment.

In fact, there are a whole series of additional steps required by the city code that must be followed by the city commission in order to let the assessment.

These include notice to affected property owners by mailing and also publication of a public hearing to consider the assessment, the methodology, the benefits conveyed by the project, et cetera.

And then a public hearing.

Typically, those steps unfold um uh prior to September 15th of the year in which collection will begin, often commencing the process some sometime in May, June time frame.

This resolution, if it's adopted today, again, does not impose any assessment.

It just serves the to comply with the statutory prerequisite of announcing to the tax collector, the property appraiser, and the public that if you take the steps later to actually impose the assessment for the street lighting, that you may use the tax bill collection method for collecting the annual payments.

Very, very short.

Uh and uh as I'll be noted, glad to answer any questions you might have about it or the process that the city would follow later to actually levy the assessment.

Thank you very much.

Uh and with no uh sign no one signed up to public from the public to speak, we're open to commissioner questions.

And Commissioner Ahern Kotch is first on the list.

Thank you.

Um thank you for your presentation.

Uh I have I think just three questions.

One is an um section three, I think it was.

Yeah, section three B, um, where it says the city hereby determines that the levy of such special assessment is needed to fund the cost of providing the street light services and facilities to the assessed assessment area.

Um on the next agenda item, that same description, it's quite detailed about what the funds will be spent on.

And so maybe this is a legal question.

Um if you compare the two um the one for St.

Armand's is much more broad or in specific.

You know, it's lighting, it's switch cabinets, it's communication, and this one it's a little vague.

Uh are we okay with this sort of very simple description of what it can be spent on?

Or Chris, did you hear that as the drafter?

Can you speak to that?

Yes, I did.

And the the statute, which requires this resolution, uh merely states that the resolution includes a uh a general description of the services or improvements that will be funded with the proceeds of the assessment.

So sometimes it makes sense to keep the description very general, as is the case in the street lighting resolution.

Other times where additional detail and information is available concerning the project, we we add that detail.

Um either approach is legally sufficient.

It just so happens in this particular case, we kept the definite the description of the street lighting facilities and services relatively general, and we went into a slightly more detail for the for the undergrounding project.

Okay.

I was just curious because I can imagine this is going to involve, you know, uh digging up of of the area and you know the street lights and you know this says street light services and facilities to the assessment area.

Like does would it include landscaping afterwards or you know, if there are sidewalks that need to be re redone because of it, and um and repair and all of the other things.

So I'll expand to that.

The street lighting specifically.

FPL is going to handle the whole project on the undergrounding, the city is going to be doing the infrastructure side of it.

So that's the difference.

Okay.

So you know, with the lighting district, FPNL will handle all that landscape and including sidewalks or whatever if it's destroyed by the street lights.

Okay.

Okay.

So we're happy with that language then.

All right.

Um and then the uh choice, so I guess this is for um uh the um attorney on Zoom.

Um our choice is the city does a direct assessment or it's on the property tax bill.

Um are we making that choice right now with this resolution, or do we still have the choice to make later on?

You will have the option later on during the levy process to specify which collection method you want to use.

Adoption of this resolution just serves as a a placeholder to allow you to choose tax bill collection later during the process, if that's the commission's desire.

Thank you very much.

And my last question has to do with um, and I think I know the answer to this, I just wanted to be 100% sure.

Um we do have several really worrisome bills right now that are going through Tallahassee and everything from complete elimination of property taxes to impacting it in some way, shape, or form.

Since this is a direct assessment and it's a non-advilorum assessment, if let's just say property taxes are completely eliminated, that does not impact this, does it?

That's right.

I'm not aware of any provision in any of the pending bills or proposals at the state legislature that would impact the city's ability to impose a non-advilarm special assessment, which is distinct from property taxes.

You can collect them in the same way on the property tax bill, but the charge itself is bound by a completely different set of laws.

Okay, so it's like the storm water assessment or any of those others.

It it wouldn't be impacted at all.

That's right.

Okay.

Those are my three questions.

Thank you.

Questions of the commissioners?

I had one.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Vice Mayor, thank you.

Um during your presentation, you mentioned that you'd want 60 to 70% community support, and that there'd be community workshops, etc.

Do I recall that even before you came forward and got approval to begin work on this, the community was taking commissioners, at least me, around the neighborhood, to say, look how dark this is.

So wasn't the initiative at the encouragement of the neighborhood?

Um That is correct.

However, the reason that the Commission would have to decide after and the community as well is because we don't know the cost associated with it.

And once we know a real cost and we present to the community as well as the city commission, then that'll stir up additional discussions to decide on how much support people are willing to participate for to move the lighting district forward.

Gotcha.

So some people who in theory supported it may not support it when they find out how much it will cost them.

That could be.

That could be.

Right.

Thank you.

Okay.

I I have uh a question for the attorney, and actually this has to do with uh the correction to the uh the resolution and it's on section 3C.

Are you asking us to change where it says January 1st?

Are we changing to March 1st?

To March 1st.

But I also notice that on the other issue, it says March 1st, 2026.

So should we be adding the year, or is this just in general, we've got to let them know by March 1st of some year?

Yes, ma'am.

I think for consistency's sake, I would recommend changing Section 3C to uh refer to March 1, 2026 instead of January 1.

Just clarifying that the date upon which we're the city is making its intention known to potentially use the taxable collection method occurred prior to the March 1 deadline.

Okay, good thank you.

And at some point in the near future, um you all are going to give us the list of these are the next steps and that need to proceed with this.

Yes, okay.

That's correct.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Um I guess we need then a motion to uh adopt the resolution.

A mayor, I'll move to adopt resolution number 26R-369 with a change to section three subsection C to read March 1st, 2026.

Second.

Okay, move by uh Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner A.

Hern Koch.

Is there any discussion?

Okay, then let's vote.

Do we need a roll call?

Also, yes.

Betty?

Yes.

All right?

Yes.

Price.

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Alpert.

Yes.

Thank you.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

And I guess you're going to stay in place for the next item, uh 10.2.

And I need to ask Ms.

Griggs to read the title.

Okay.

Thank you.

Resolution number 26R 3374.

A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sarasota, Florida, electing to use a uniform method of collecting non-advalorum assessments levied by more than one year within area of areas of the city, including St.

Armor's Key and the incorporated area of LEDO Key to fund capital improvements associated with the undergrounding of electrical communications and other utilities.

Stating a need for such levy, providing for the mailing of this resolution, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

And so I will call upon public works director Patel's Chief Transportation Planner Corrales and Chief City Engineer Kamiya, if he chooses to make a presentation.

All right.

Again, I'll be Marie Crow, this Chief Transportation Planner.

So this is the that second resolution for the intent to use the uniform method of collecting non-advalorum assessment for the St.

Armand's Key and LEDO key undergrounding area.

So again, just for the record, the approval of this resolution preserves the city's ability to use the annual property tax bill as a future collection method for this assessment.

Back in October 20th, you also received a lot of documented support to do this undergrounding assessment.

At that meeting, Commission also directed staff to move forward.

Since then we did the resolution, uh prepared the legal description, and we also released a request for qualifications for the St.

Armand's and Lido Key undergrounding program.

Now I will note that this is out on the streets and there's a cone of silence.

So if you have any questions related to that RFQ, our government government affairs director is here if she is able to answer any questions for you.

So the action that you're taking, again, that preserves the city's ability to use the property tax bill as a future collection method, satisfies statutory notice requirements, and keeps the option open if the district ultimately moves forward.

What it does not do is it creates the undergrounding district, approve the engineering scope that I mentioned, approve any bond issuance, uh methodology or rates, or impose any assessment or result in any billing whatsoever to the property owners.

Chris Rowe is also available to answer any questions regarding um the assessment and the process.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner A.

Hern Koch.

Thank you.

Um I think this is for the council as well.

Um I noticed on this one there's a statement.

I don't think it's in the other one.

I'm not a thousand percent sure, but I don't think it is that says such non-advalorum assessment to fund the project may be levied within all or a portion of the assessment area.

Can you clarify that statement and why it's there and in this one?

And maybe I missed it, but uh not in the other one.

Yes, ma'am, it is in fact included in the other one.

It's at the tail end of section three paragraph A.

It basically the assessment area.

If you look uh on a map of the area, in fact, I think there are maps included in the agenda package.

It it shows a basically the boundary around a given uh designated area within your city within which you may impose the assessments.

Almost invariably there's some parcels of property within the area that will not be subject to an assessment.

For instance, um there was conversation earlier in the agenda about lift stations.

You may have a small parcel of property that is technically within the boundaries of the assessment area, but it houses a lift station.

That lift station won't be subject to the special assessment for undergrounding or for street lighting, it doesn't receive a benefit, so you wouldn't assess them.

Likewise, the the rights of way or the roadways, sometimes those are designated as their own parcels.

They are technically within the boundaries of the assessment area, but they won't be subject to the assessment.

So that that that statement in both resolution is just merely meant to clarify that just because a parcel is strictly within the boundaries of the area doesn't mean it will ultimately be subject to an assessment.

That is a decision the city commission will make later in the process as to whether or not any are expressly exempted.

Thank you very much.

And it would you imagine something like this being uh the way the St.

Armand's um parking garage was where it was a little bit complicated with how your distance from the garage and and it was measured if you were closer that you got more of a benefit than if you were further away, and and or is this a simple, straightforward assessment?

Um and how will that be calculated?

Yeah, yes, ma'am.

What you're referencing is referred to as the apportionment methodology for the assessment.

Um we we talked earlier about how special assessments are distinct from property taxes.

One of the ways that they're distinct from advalum property taxes is the formula for calculating advalorum taxes is set by state law.

Cities don't have any ability to deviate from that process.

They have to follow the statutory requirements for determining their millet rate.

Special assessments, that's not the case.

There is no state law that mandates how the cost of a project or service is allocated among the benefit of properties.

That determination is left to the city to make at the local level.

The city can choose whatever system it finds to be fair and reasonable on the whole for the community and isn't bound by any statutory requirement or any um uh methodology chosen by a city elsewhere for the same type of service improvement.

You you can choose the system that makes the most sense for your community, so long as you determine it is fair and reasonable on the whole.

Oftentimes, and especially with something that involves um large-scale public improvement project, rather than trying to develop the apportionment methodology in-house, relying on staff input, you would engage a methodology consultant.

That is somebody who's experienced in special assessment matters and cost allocation will come in and basically review your project, review the area that's going to be subject to the assessment, review the different types of systems that are available for allocating the costs, and then he or she will make a recommendation to you as to what they think would work the best for your community.

That may be a very simple, straightforward methodology, and they'll offer support for why that works and why it's fair and reasonable in this circumstance.

Sometimes a methodology can be pretty involved, pretty complicated.

It has a whole series of considerations it takes into effect in its attempt to make the methodology, quote, fair and reasonable, which is the standard, the requirement under Florida law.

I don't know what the methodology consultant you ultimately select will recommend as the apportionment methodology.

Simpler is typically better, all other things being equal, because it's easier not only for the commission to understand, but also easier for the affected um members of the community who are paying the assessment to understand and and hopefully embrace.

But I won't I won't know what that is, what system it is.

I've seen three or four different systems utilized for utility undergrounding in the state of Florida, ranging the gamut from relatively simple and straightforward to complicated.

Even the complicated uh the complication is in an attempt to make it fair and reasonable to each individual property owner, but it does make it a little bit more difficult to um administer and explain to the public.

So we won't know that until the methodology consultant is engaged in making a recommendation.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Those are my questions.

Okay, thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Like the South Poinsettia Park matter that immediately preceded this.

Was this originally strongly supported in the community?

In the immediate community?

Yes, it was.

Yes.

I thought so.

And so the action we'll be taking now is the same that we'll be taking for South Point Setia Park, right?

To get the details so we can tell people within the boundaries of this area how much they'd have to pay.

And some whose early support were early supporters may or may lot not any longer support it once they know the dollars and cents of it.

That's correct.

And what we'll do is ahead of them making that decision, there will be a uh a GIS website where each person can click on the property and determine the cost associated for this assessment.

For their property.

For their specific property.

Oh, great.

Can you show that to us?

That'd be that will be something that the consultant will develop.

Yeah.

Yes.

And other communities have done this where you type in your address or your neighbor's address if you want to know.

And it shows you the assessment and gives you some basic information about it.

All of that is information to allow the community to say, yes, uh, I'm in favor of this, or okay, now that I know what it costs, uh uh I'm not.

So they'll weigh the cost benefits, and then you'll get to decide how you assess the uh how you determine the um agreement of the community um and what level of agreement you need uh in order to move the project forward.

All of that is uh as a result of much of the study and work that is in the RFP that's going out or is out on the street now.

Got it.

Thank you.

No more questions, so I will call the public close the public hearing and ask for a motion concerning the adoption of this resolution.

Move to adopt resolution number 26R-3374.

Second.

Move by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none, I guess we need a roll call vote in addition to correct the mechanical.

Thank you.

Ulrich?

Yes, yes.

Ann Kotch?

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

That's he.

Yes.

And they passed unanimously.

Thank you all very much.

And it is time next on the agenda is a quasi-judicial public hearing, and I'm going to ask uh Ms.

Griggs to administer the oath to those who may just be arriving.

Has there is there anyone here who has not received their oath?

Okay.

So okay.

So I'll open the public hearing.

And it is on the site application 24-sp17 and major conditional use application 24-CU-03, and call upon the city attorney to explain the process.

Thank you, Mayor.

Deputy City Attorney Sham Z has been handling this matter, so I'll hand it off to him.

Thank you.

As you know, this is a quasi judicial hearing.

A quasi judicial hearing is a slightly more formal hearing than a legislative public hearing.

There are parties to a quasi judicial hearing.

The parties include the applicant, the city, and anyone who has applied for and achieved effective person status under the city's criteria in the zoning code.

Parties may proffance, testimony, expert testimony, and documentary evidence.

Parties have the opportunity to cross-examine opposing parties and to present a closing or rebuttal argument.

The decision of the city commission in the Kawasia Judicial Hearing must be based on the competent substantial evidence in the record, and the Commission must apply the appropriate standards of review in the zoning code relating to the type of approval requested.

So at the beginning of the public hearing, Commission members must state if they've had any ex parte communications in this matter.

That is contact with any parties outside of the public hearing today.

So at this time we will ask the commissioners if they've had any expart a communications.

Commissioner Petit with you.

None.

None.

I did a site visit with staff.

Okay.

None.

Commissioner Ahern Gotch, does that site visit in any way affect your ability to be impartial and base your decision today on the evidence presented today?

It does not.

Thank you.

Okay.

Trying to see where we are.

So I think we will talk about time limits.

Real quick.

Okay.

So the um time limits requested on this matter.

Uh the applicant has requested 20 minutes.

Staff has requested 20 minutes, any affected persons five minutes, and then members of the public uh three minutes, and then a 10 minute rebuttal if necessary by the applicant and city of 10 minutes each.

Do we have any affected persons?

No.

We do not.

Okay.

So I guess we're at the stage where I would be calling upon Mr.

Freeman.

Friedman is agent for light share behavioral wellness and recovery to make a presentation.

Great.

Thank you very much.

First of all, introduce everybody here.

Joel Freeman, Friedman Consulting, and I have been sworn.

Darren Autry architect.

I have been sworn.

Chris Kolb, civil engineer, I have been sworn.

Shawnee Roby, President and CEO of Light Share Behavioral Wellness.

I've been sworn.

And Phil Smith is in the audience if any questions come up for him.

So if I can have the overhead, this is the site.

It's at 1452 10th Street.

We've got two applications before you today.

It's a site plan application 24 SP 17.

And because the property is zone G, we have a conditional use application 24 CU03.

And before I get into the prior, I'd like Shawnee to just talk a little bit about Light Share.

Sure.

Make sure you talk to him.

Absolutely.

Are you able to hear me?

Yes.

Okay, wonderful.

So Light Sharpen handle while we're recovering.

Sure.

Thank you.

Okay, yeah, absolutely.

Are you able to hear me?

There you go.

Perfect.

Okay.

We've been around for over 50 years.

We serve the most vulnerable in our community.

So those who are suffering with mental health disorders as well as substance use disorders.

We see people regardless of their ability to pay.

So we are we serve them on an inpatient crisis basis as well as outpatient.

We provide medication, life-saving medication assistant treatments for them.

They're able to see psychiatrists.

So just kind of all the full gamut of services.

We work very, very closely with our community partners in order to do the work that we do.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, if I can have the overhead again, you know the location.

This is a railroad right of way, 10th Street.

That's central.

Access will remain the same location off of 10th Street.

The land use is designated as urban mixed use, but the zoning around the area, there's industrial to the north, office park to the south, which is the Channel 40 headquarters, industrial to the east, and then across the railroad, we've got industrial and also downtown edge, which is the pines.

So this is going to allow for the expansion or the addition of a 14,235 square foot new building.

And the this is replacing some existing modular type structures.

Okay.

So this light gray structure here is the existing facility.

The roof will appear from the street to be of the same construction as the existing building.

The style will be the same.

Very, very similar.

This, of course, is a flat roof with the air conditioner units on it.

The mansert is high enough to hide those units.

The existing building had Dutch hip roofs on it.

So slightly different style, but it also had all of its mechanical equipment on top of the roofs, which are visible from the streets.

So the light gray here is the parking that is existing to remain.

This piece here is a fire truck turnaround that was required by the fire department.

That's the only new asphalt.

So this is a plan of the interior of both the existing and the new.

So these are the existing patient rooms here and here.

These are the proposed new patient rooms, effectively doubling the capacity of the facility.

The kitchen needed to be expanded as part of the project due to the increased bed count.

And the light green and dark green represent the offices spaces within the building.

All other spaces are support spaces.

Okay, great.

Okay, so the community workshop was held.

No one from the public did show the initial transportation concurrency review completed by staff showed the results to be de minimis.

There are two code sections that we have to look at when we're approving this.

First is the section 4506 for site plans, and then section 4906 for conditional use.

I'll run quickly through.

Obviously, the staff report is very complete.

They went through all the requirements as well.

We're totally acceptable of we totally accept their review.

First, whether the proposed design layout are in keeping with the intent and standards of the development regulations.

Because if you remember I showed you the zoning map, the nearest most restrictive zoning district is office park.

So that is the zone district that we use when we laid out the plan regarding setbacks and building coverage and that type of thing.

So therefore we are considered consistent with the plan.

All the information was provided that was necessary, otherwise we wouldn't be here before you.

Next one is whether we will uh are we preserving or impacting any city, state, or federally designated historic scenic or archaeological or culture resources.

We're not again the next one is it's compatible with the adjacent residential area.

There is no adjacent residential area, so we aren't impacting anybody.

The next one is will it have the inverse adverse impacts on the livability or usability of nearby land because of noise, fume, smoke, and everything, and again, this is uh very compact internal development.

It's not going to have any negative impacts on anyone anywhere.

Um whether the transportation system is capable of of supporting the use.

Again, we were deemed a minimus.

We're not changing the access.

It's pretty pretty low intensity use as far as transportation goes.

And was the minimum off-street parking provided?

It was.

We actually provide a little bit extra.

Um whether the applications preserved again, that's that's the whole same thing.

So I think you can see that really this is pretty much consistent with the plan, with the zoning code regulations.

It's been around for a long time.

It provides a tremendously important service to our community.

So we're here to answer any questions you might have and get you out of here before lunch, maybe thank you.

Um so I'll call upon development review planner Glens to make a presentation.

We'll come back if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Devin Glands, and I am a planner with development services, and I have been sworn.

So this is a site plan with a major conditional use for a subject property that is approximately 2.96 acres in size.

The property is located at 1451 10th Street and has a future land use classification of urban mixed use and is zoned within the governmental or G Zone District.

The property is owned by the City of Sarasota and is leased to Light Share Behavioral Wellness and Recovery.

The property to the south is owned office park or OP.

The properties to the north and west are zoned industrial.

The property to the east is also zoned industrial.

The property currently has an existing 21,349 square foot residential treatment facility with 30 treatment beds.

The property proposes the demolition of two existing modular buildings and the expansion of an approximately 13,235 square foot building addition to allow for 34 additional treatment beds as well as approximately 1,000 uh square feet building addition for a total expansion of approximately 14,235 square feet.

The building height is proposed at 35 feet and 47 parking spaces are proposed.

The proposed expansion is intended to provide for additional office space, 34 additional treatment beds for a total of 64 treatment beds and a larger kitchen.

The proposed expansion is compliant with all G Zone District and OP zone district development standards.

There is a total of 78 trees on site at the time of the tree survey, and 19 are proposed to be removed.

All other landscape and buffer requirements have been met.

Of those that would be removed, 15 are live oak, two cabbage palm, one laurel oak, and one clean palm.

All of the 19 trees require mitigation.

Mitigation is proposed with 27 three-inch caliper trees, 35-inch caliper trees, and three palms exceeding minimum mitigation requirements.

There are a total of 15 grand trees on the property, and five grand trees are proposed to be removed.

Four in poor condition and one in moderate condition.

An initial transportation concurrency analysis was completed, which determined the proposed site plan was de minimis, and all comments have been addressed.

A community workshop was held on April 16, 2024, and no one from the public was in attendance.

At the December 10th, 2025 regular meeting, the planning board voted unanimously to recommend approval of the proposed site plan and major conditional use to the city commission.

Thank you.

Do I have do you have any questions?

Okay.

So first, we do not have any uh affected persons, and we do not have any other persons signed up to speak.

So I'm I'm going to ask if there's any rebuttal and assume that there's none.

Okay.

So we call for commissioner questions.

And I see Kathy Kelly Ulrit is first on the first up.

Thank you.

Um thanks for your good work.

So on our agenda request under administration's recommendation.

It says the it is referencing the planning board action.

And it says the planning board recommends the city commission approve site plan 24, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and major conditional use 24, blah, blah, blah.

So my question is, what are the conditions that were in the staff report that were approved by the planning board?

So let me just pull that up.

So I would say it's just based off the um applicable standards for review, so they're pretty um standard regarding just the motion.

Um page 20.

So referring to just the standards for review was what they meant.

They weren't any other conditions that were imposed at the planning board level that we need to include in our motion.

No, I I don't believe so, no.

Can you confirm that, Mr.

Shansey?

If I recall, I'm sorry, my computer's freezing up here.

But if I recall, I thought there was a condition about um just that that their lease needed to be updated before pulling up building permit.

And that will be discussed in the new and the new um the new agenda.

So it doesn't need to be added into the motion today.

Okay.

So it wasn't specifically added by planning board, it was already in our um in the recommended motion motions to the are you looking at page 21 of 197?

Yep.

I I believe there were three three items there.

So it's referencing the existing uh lease will need to be updated and approved by city commission prior to issuance of the building permit.

Um that will be discussed later.

And then um subject to the site the site plan and all related development plans for the proposed project to be in climate or to be in compliance.

Um of course kind of summarizing everything that's here.

And then um the issuance of the development permit um by the city of Sarasota does not in any way create any right on the part of the applicant to attain a permit.

And so then the last part, the real part of my question is do any of these items one through three on page 21 of 197 to be folded in to the motion that we make and approve.

No.

Okay.

Because they will be addressed at some later point.

Yes, so the specifically the the lease will be addressed later on.

Um we have it a con as a condition under the new business.

It's your next agenda item.

Yeah.

Oh, well, that's a good answer.

So I'll be more concise.

Thank you.

I think that says it all.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Commissioner A.

Hearn Kotch has questions.

Yes, I do.

Ms.

Christie, you can probably stay.

Um my question doesn't have so much to do with this specific um site plan, but it it does a little bit.

Um currently, right now, so where the new edition is being proposed, um, it's going to replace the modular pieces that are there.

The activity that's happening there now, is that just office space or are there humans living there?

Um for the record, Alison Christie, general manager of development services.

I think the applicant could probably answer that question.

Okay, can you stay though?

Because my follow-up question has to do with that.

And then I have my second question has to do with the trees.

Surprise.

So Mr.

Smith, I guess we'll need you as well.

I'll let Shawnee answer the one question for you.

Okay.

Okay.

So the first question was about if there are occupants in the in the existing modular.

Living there.

No, there are not.

So we are not currently, we used to, but we are not currently um seeing anyone are providing services in those buildings at the moment.

No, but I mean, were your were there people you know sleeping there before?

There were not.

Okay.

No, we were providing outpatient medication assistant treatment services out of that building.

And I saw in your new plan there will be people living and sleeping there.

Yes.

Okay.

So then that leads to my next question, Ms.

Christie.

Is that when we were out there doing our site visit, and this is not affecting my ability to be a partial impartial.

Actually leaning to the fence.

Now that there are going to be humans living here, are we going to need to address that?

Is that an issue?

Because there are zero setbacks for that use.

And now there are humans here.

We can look into that a little bit more.

I mean, I think to clarify, there were always people living on site, just not in that portion of the site.

But the separation of that distance is not big.

I mean, if you put on the overhead, if you can just show the overhead of the overall the picture with it with it.

Would you like an action?

No, no, no, no.

The one with the uh picture.

It's like that one, yes, Mr.

Freeman.

Thank you.

So if you see right there to the left, those rectangles, the brown and white rectangles, those are contiguous to the property line.

And I don't know the setback between that property line and the humans that are going to be living there, and if that's something we're going to need to address with that user.

Because I know that there is requirements about activity and industrial use and what can happen there, and that is an active area.

And it has to be, I think, a hundred feet set back from the property line if it's if there are but I don't know if that has to do with residential or if it has to do with uh in um G zone.

I I'm not I'm unclear on that.

Can you repeat the 100-foot setback is so um north of us where we have the U.S.

recycling?

Because the U.S.

recycling, their activities, Ms.

Panica determined um a while ago that their activities had to be set back a hundred feet from the property line.

And the the use of the U.S.

recycling included their activities.

So those pie the pile of concrete and all of that, right?

And so I'm curious if in this situation here, because we're going to have humans there now, if we don't need to address CMEX's activities and make them push back a hundred feet.

We'll have to look into that a little bit more since their use is not changing.

Actually, neither use is changing.

One is expanding.

I'm not sure what is being triggered by this change, but we can look into that and whether that setback would apply.

Yeah, I think that would be important.

Um I I know it's not the same, the concrete dust and the actual rocks, but I don't know that it's not the same.

So this doesn't impact this applicant, but their neighbors maybe.

And I I just want to make sure that it's a safe.

I I fully support the expansion and what they're doing.

I want to make sure it's a safe expansion for the folks who are going to be living there, if that makes sense.

Yes, yeah, we'll look into that.

So I guess we could just get back to that one.

Um my next question has to do with trees.

And on of the site plan L1, I believe.

And of the report in our backup material.

Um there's I'm confused.

So it's trees.

Trees 36 and 37.

And in the backup material, it says 37.

It's on page 99 of 197.

It says it's um in poor condition.

And then on the site plan, it has 37 in good condition.

Bill Smith, landscape architect for the record, uh have been sworn.

So tree number 36.

37.

37 is in moderate condition.

Yeah, moderate conditions.

Yes, you can moderate conditions okay, because in the backup material it says poor.

It's in moderate condition.

It's in moderate condition.

Okay.

So the site plan uh supersedes the backup material.

Yes.

Okay.

And uh tree 36 is in poor condition in your report, and it's consistent in the site plan and in the backup material.

But I'm curious why it has to be removed since there is no building.

Um, because there are other trees in poor condition that are not going to be removed.

Why can't we just leave that tree?

So that particular tree has got really large surface roots.

Right, I saw that.

And those roots actually have to be cut to put in an emergency access.

Turn around for the fire truck, and so that's going to compromise the trees.

And so therefore we're removing and replacing.

Okay.

I didn't know that it was the turnaround that was necessitating that.

I wasn't sure.

And that was the only spot that it can go with.

Because it's quite a lovely tree.

And even though it may be in poor condition, I would gander that it has many, many, many decades still left to stand if it could just stand there.

Understood.

Agreed.

Okay.

That's it.

Those are my questions.

Thank you.

Um I just had a quick one.

Uh it was mentioned that the building will be 35 feet in height, and it's one story.

So I was just curious how that 35 feet is used in a one-story building.

Darren Autry, architect, I've been sworn.

I'm sorry.

Please restate your question.

Uh it we were told that it's a 35-foot tall building and it's one story, so I was just wondering how that 35 feet of vertical height is being used in uh one story building.

Okay.

Yes.

The code allows you to go to 35 feet for the story.

We're not using 35 feet.

So it's not a 35 foot tall building?

No, ma'am.

The roof deck is a okay.

So it's the correct information is it's a 19 point 19 foot four-inch tall building.

Okay, that that basically answers my question.

Then thank you.

Which is a reasonable height for a one-story building.

Thank you.

Any other questions, Commissioners?

Then I will close the public hearing.

And uh thank you very much.

And I will ask for a motion.

Mayor, I have a motion.

Um move to approve site plan 24-sp17 and major conditional use 24-CU-03, subject to the conditions in the staff report.

Second.

Okay, motion made by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Batte.

Um is there any discussion?

Okay, so we will vote in addition to there will be a roll call vote.

Thank you, Mayor.

Trice?

Yes.

Aaron Kotch?

Yes.

Albert?

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Ulrich.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

And we are staying staying on the same general topic because our next item is new business, which will have to do with the lease agreement.

And business district manager Ryan is joining us at the Jayus at the end.

Um are there anyone signed up to speak?

So Ms.

Ryan, will you make a presentation?

Sure.

Um, as you just heard, um, one of the conditions to the plan that you just approved was to amend um first, I'm sorry, Julie Ryan, Business District Manager, Economic Development and Real Estate for the record, um, is to also um amend the lease agreement to include the uh addition um to it.

So in looking at the original lease, it was um dated back in 1991.

So what we did was um issue this third amendment um as well as restated the lease.

Um so we updated the language, none of the terms or conditions changed and added to the exhibit the addition that you just approved.

And with that, I will answer any questions.

Okay, and no one signed up to speak.

Okay, so Commissioner A.

Her and Kotch questions?

Yes, a question, maybe slash comment.

Um can we please whoever needs to fix this, fix this once and for all.

Please, I've pointed this out so many times.

Under the definition of the city manager, city manager shall mean the city manager of the city of Sarasota or his designee.

Can we please change that to their designee or designee, please?

Just remove the pronoun.

I'm sorry I say that out loud, but I pointed it out eight hundred million times.

Can we please change that?

We can.

While we're updating this.

Yes.

That's the one item gonna ask for.

Because we may even have a female city manager.

So it's about time.

Since nineteen ninety one.

Forty percent chance.

Okay.

Um so no, I don't see any other questions for Ms.

Ryan.

Um, so thank you very much.

And um, may I have a motion.

Um, Mayor, I move to authorize the mayor and city auditor and clerk to execute the third addendum and restated lease agreement between the City of Sarasota and Light Share Behavioral Wellness and Recovery Inc.

Second.

Motion by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Ahern Koch.

Um, is there any discussion?

Seeing none, call the question.

And it's unanimously passed by all.

Thank you very much.

Um, and our it's I'm I'm looking at the clock, and it appears to be five minutes to noon.

And I think we're going to have a couple of presentations on the next item.

So I'm going to suggest that we break for lunch and come back at one o'clock.

Wonderful, thank you.

Welcome back to the uh February.

I keep wanting to say January.

February seventeenth, twenty twenty-six regular city commission meeting, and when we broke for lunch, we were about to start in under new business item uh twelve point two.

And providing guidelines for the reserves creation funding use and replenishment.

And I will call upon City Auditor and Clerk Griggs to read the title.

A resolution of the city commission of the city of Sarasota, Florida.

Establishing a natural disaster collection reserve financial policy within the Solo Waste Fund, providing guidelines for the reserves creation, funding use and replenishment.

And now I will invite the gentleman to come down.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners.

For the record, I'm Nick Patel, Public Works Director, and joined here with me today virtually is Todd Chikarski, General Manager of Public Services.

He's under the weather, so he's joined us virtually.

So this item focuses on establishing a dedicated natural disaster collection reserve with the solid waste funds.

The intent is to secure the city.

The intent is to ensure the city can respond quickly to major storm events, maintain essential services, and manage debris costs reasonably without disrupting normal operations or relying on emergency general fund assistance.

This approach preserves general fund capacity, reduces physical risk, and avoid shifting from storm-related costs to broader tax base.

The purpose of this item is to establish a restricted reserve specifically for post-disaster debris collection.

The objectives are to protect operational stability, ensure timely contractor mobilization and payment, improve FEMA and state reimbursement compliance, and align the city with the best regional practices.

So over the five years, debris costs have high have been highly volatile.

Between 2021 and 2025, the city spent approximately $1.2 million on debris contracts.

In 2025 alone expenditure total about $8.6 million, representing roughly about $77 percent of the total.

It's important to note that these charts reflect when the city paid the debris contractor.

The storm impacts occurred in 2024.

Hurricane Ian added an additional $2.5 million across two fiscal years.

Other years experience minimal or no debris activity.

And you'll see in some of there where those minimal uh debris activity that was tied to red tide.

The key events is that debris costs are unpredictable, event-driven, and financially disruptive without advanced planning.

So several external pressures continue to drive debris cost upwards, including inflation in fuel, labor and equipment, limited local disposal capacity, longer haul distances, and rising tipping fees.

At the same time, FEMA staying reimbursement can take 12 to 36 months.

This requires the city to front cash, significant cash regardless of whether the it's ultimately uh reimbursed in eligibility.

Thank you.

The Solid Waste Fund currently maintains 90-day operating reserve of approximately $3.9 million.

The reserve is appropriate for routine operation, but is not designated to absorb disaster scale debris cost.

There's currently no dedicated debris reserve, which means major storm events must compete directly with operating cash and capital needs.

So staff uh did some research based on peer coast over jurisdiction typically and what we notice is that typically they maintain a separate disaster or debris reserve in addition to the operating reserve.

The city of Sarasota currently does not.

Um the the research we did was with Sarasota County, Hillsburg County, and town of Longbow Key, all treat storm debris as a distinct financial exposure.

They have a defined reserve target, uh clear and activation triggers, and required replenishment timelines.

The proposal before you is aligned with the City of Sarasota with the best practices, and it's also scaled appropriately to the city's size and risk profile.

Staff evaluated multiple scenarios, including moderate storm events, Hurricane Ian scaled events, and multi-event, multi-event storm seasons.

The analysis incorporated inflation, longer haul distances, and appropriate contingency.

The goal was to size the reserve capable of supporting a major hurricane scale event, not just routine cleanup.

So, based on an analysis, staff recommends a reserve target of $5 million.

The amount is sufficient to cover the cash flow for a major debris event and a typical 25% local share under FEMA 7525 reimbursement structure, including ineligible cost.

When combined with existing 90-day operating reserve, it provides adequate liquidity without over-accumulating funds.

The reserve would be built over seven years, requiring an annual set aside of approximately 714,000 or about 4.6 percent of the solid waste operations.

For a typical residential customer, this equates to a $3.63 monthly increase, bringing the monthly rate from $35.05 to $38.68.

This funded entirely within solid waste enterprise and the and any FEMA and state reimbursement would replenish the reserve first, minimizing long-term rate impacts.

The reserve would be restricted and only used under clear defined conditions.

Activation would require local, state, and federal disaster declarations, or a city manager determination of public safety or access risk.

The city manager may authorize emergency spending, but must report back to City Commission within 30 days.

Any draws on the reserve must be replenished within the five fiscal years.

So you have three options outlined in the agenda material.

Option A, five million over seven years, lowest rate impact, option B, faster build, and higher customer cost, and option C, a hybrid approach with added administrative complexity.

Staff recommends option A as the most balanced and affordable solution, offering natural disaster preparedness, rate stability, and administrative simplicity.

So staff recommends establishing the natural disaster collection reserve with the solid waste fund with a $5 million target to be built over seven years.

The draft motion before you includes the reserve structure activation criteria, replenishment requirements, and associated rate adjustment effective June 1st of 2026.

The recurrent fiscal impact is the annual $714,000 set aside.

The benefits include protecting the 90-day operating reserve, reducing the need for emergency general fund transfers, enabling faster contractor mobilization, and improving FEMA reimbursement outcomes.

This approach strends the financial resiliency while maintaining service continuity.

The reserve positions the city to respond quickly and effectively to extreme weather events, clear roads clear roads faster, protect essential public services, and manage financial risk responsibly.

It demonstrates proactive planning fiscal stewardship to residents, businesses, and external partners.

If approved, staff will coordinate a comprehensive community outreach effort, including mailed informational flyer, digital communication, social media outreach, as well as neighborhood meetings ahead of the June 1st effective date.

Thank you for a consideration.

If approved today, staff will proceed with the required public advertisement and return to the City Commission at its second meeting in March for consideration for the solid waste rate adjustment targeting an effective date of June 1st of 2026.

We're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any requests to speak?

Then Commissioner questions.

Commissioner Aher and Kutch.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

And for being so quick with this, this is something we discussed during budget.

And so I in government time that was pretty quick turnaround.

Is the $5 million you think a sufficient goal, seeing as though that the average cost per hurricane is about 2.2.87 million?

Five million would put us just under if where there were two hurricane or two events, a red tide and a hurricane in one year or something.

And along that same question, uh you probably don't remember this or know this, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

In 2018 was when we had the big red tide impact.

Do you know the cost of what that was?

Because that was a that I think that was a real indication of when you have a major red tide outbreak, what it really costs, because that was that was big.

Yes.

So to answer the red tide question, I don't have that information with me, but um, if we go back to the slides, I can go to the chart to address your question about the hurricanes.

Yep.

Let's see.

Oops.

Right.

So when we evaluated um the hurricane analysis, I think we looked at um last year, if you look at it over five years, 77% of it was 2024.

That's a huge amount.

I mean, we had approximately four four major storms, and I would say one unnamed storm that cost some of the damage across the city.

Um this is over five years.

But then what we looked at was Hurricane EA was scaled relatively to what we're looking at, the five million.

The five million should cover Hurricanean kind of related storm.

Um but sure, I mean you can you can you can based on this chart, you can do a multi-year storm storm season, but based on the trends over the five years, I think five million is sufficient to cover what what we need for a major storm event.

Okay.

Okay.

Um thank you.

And to just one more thing.

To address the red tide issue.

Um luckily DEP had a grant uh and and they provided the grant to the county for and and to the city as well to where we could get reimbursed for those costs, but again, the intent would was to get the cash flow in advance, utilizing this reserve and then getting reimbursement from DEP in Sarasota County for the red tide events, and that's how it's set up for future events as well.

Okay.

And FEMA reimbursement.

What is our what is our expected FEMA reimbursement from 2024 and what have we gotten so far?

So we've got 7 million up front.

Um that was based on the debris, and then the remaining costs were working through that at this point.

So if you would mind me jumping in, Commissioner, um, I know our new emergency management manager has been almost working solely on those applications.

So I have that data uh on my desk, and I'll be happy to share that with you.

Um I was not prepared to do a presentation.

She will be doing a presentation to explain the entire process and what we can expect uh probably on the next commission meeting.

So stay tuned, but I can get you a preview, all of your preview of those numbers as they were given to me last week.

And and is that just for storm debris removal or is that for other items as well, the FEMA That's for everything FEMA related.

And remember, there's a whole pile of expenses that haven't even been expensed yet.

We're in we're working on the parks and the damage right now, and it's a reimbursement program.

So it's a reimbursement program.

So uh as Pat said, um Ms.

Engel will be prepared because we thought it would be good for the Commission to say, here's where we are, here's what's coming, and here's the process.

And one thing you can be sure of uh it will move at the speed of government worse than you've seen.

So um the $7 million that we got, and I I if I recall correctly, it was pretty shortly after all of that.

Um was that because um we had the funds in the reserves to expend and um they were already expended in the reimbursement was there, or or why was that reimbursement so timely?

Yeah, I think Kelly can probably answer that.

And while she's coming up here with the accurate answer, I will hypothesize that FEMA understood the magnitude of the impact to the West Coast, and I think they got proactive.

So it and I asked that question because um it's my understanding that if we do something like this, we are prepared and we have a little savings account for, and I wouldn't call it little, uh we have a five million dollar savings account for storm debris removal during emergencies, that if we expend it and we do everything in the right way, our reimbursement is going to be much faster.

Is that correct?

I mean, all things considered.

Sorry, introduce yourself, please.

My name is Kelly Strickland, I'm director of financial administration.

And to um Mr.

Bullock's point, that was an advance from FEMA, the seven million.

It was an advance.

It wasn't a reimbursement.

The savings that we had was our general fund fund balance, of which um we are at the end of uh March will be presenting those financial statements for you.

But to date we have spent about 18 million.

At the time we received the seven million, we hadn't spent it.

Um probably we had incurred the cost, but we haven't actually spent it out the door yet.

It was in advance.

So our savings account, our reserves are what we used for the debris removal at that time.

So if we we use all those reserves from our the the money from our um reserves for the debris removal and we're just waiting for a reimbursement what why did I am confused on why we got a $7 million advance.

Wouldn't that have been a reimbursement?

I'm confused.

Well I I I believe it was one of the rare cases where FEMA understood the magnitude to the whole string of communities and did a series of reimbursements to various communities just knowing what they were facing.

Okay so it was a reimbursement or it was at that time they were they offered us an advance and they also were offering various loans to governments if they didn't have the reserves we were fortunate enough that we did have reserves that we could pay for it.

Okay so it was a seven million dollar advance.

Advance okay in advance of us asking for a reimbursement okay and we spent about 18 million you said yes so we should get about 11 million back.

It's not a hundred percent reimbursement remember that's right 75 percent yes okay and and then it has to go through first we have to complete all the work okay then file for the reimbursement and then it will go through a series of reviews which will take time and then they'll begin to pay as those um I think you'll hear when when Rachel comes in shortly she'll talk about being able to um ask for reimbursement as the job progresses instead of waiting until the very end.

So for example we let a contract for I'm not sure the amount but perhaps over 10 million dollars for repairs instead of waiting for every single thing to be finished she's trying to uh uh re get approval to allow us to invoice as we go so when this piece gets done we can invoice and invoice and invoice so that's kind of the the FEMA plan we we've done uh Rachel has been a huge Rachel Engel has been a huge help because she understands the FEMA process better than we've ever understood it in the past she marshaled a whole bunch of resources as soon as she got here staff resources to get our reimbursements in the best order we could and we have um you know we're we're now waiting for some of that money which she'll be able to give you an update on when she gets here.

And just add Ms Strickland one we just got a check for one of the storms which which one was that it was it Ian or Irma?

I think it was Irma you're talking five years.

So that's why the presentation that she's going to give is going to go through the entire process and expectation set.

So you know the the the advance was sort of a one-off deal I've never seen that before in 25 years.

And the reality is it's got to go through both internal checks, FEMA checks, and then state level checks and then it will come back when there is funding available and that's if we qualify.

So like I said I know Rachel is putting together that uh Miss Engel is putting together that presentation it will be very informative and answer a lot of the the specific questions that you have but she has been fantastic excellent addition to our team.

Excellent and it's 75 percent is the maximum or does it ever go up to 85 percent?

As far as I know it's it's it's 75 percent in the state and then the idea is in in the old FEMA it would be 75 percent from FEMA, 12 and a half percent from the state, and then we would pay 12 and a half percent.

So as it still officially stands now, we're on the hook for 12 and a half percent of our overall costs the state would be for 12 and a half percent and FEMA for 75 percent.

Okay but none of that is guaranteed except for us being on the hook except for us being on the hook.

And just just if I can just remind us the whole purpose of this presentation is so you you saw the impacts of all the storms on the general fund and in fact as you know because you did it you had to increase the millage this notion is to accumulate while well it takes time accumulate enough funds that we can handle most of the events without digging so deep into our general fund reserves excellent thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Batti.

Thank you Mayor um a lot of this is like projected or whatever.

One of the questions that uh that posed to you uh Mr.

Bullock some time ago um and in your presentation you spoke of um cost of travel you know and and and so on you know get into to various sites how does that factor in um when a number of these these these designated sites like say the site on 10th Street um or near 12th Street or whatever um Marion Anderson those those properties might possibly be up for sale could possibly be utilized in some other capacity.

Um how does that how does that work?

Should we have to find other sites, you know, maybe outside the the boundaries of the city or or what have you, particularly when you talk about cost of travel and and and so on.

Just uh I'll just say we're on the hunt for sites all the time.

Um we will lose sites, and there's a reasonable chance we'll gain at least access, temporary access to a few sites, and some of those sites we had temporary access to because we we paid the owner to let us to let us use them for a period of time.

So uh the ideal ones are close to the biggest area where the waste is generated over time, it's likely we'll be finding sites that are a little further away.

But for our use, it doesn't matter to us if they're in the city or the county or where they are, as long as we we're close and we can get access to them and they allow us to operate.

Okay.

And to to add to Mr.

Bullock's point is that um if the site if there's as development happens and sites, we we lose sites within the city.

If they got a hull further out of the city, it costs more money to um to get the debris out to the landfill.

So ultimately it's really important logistical standpoint to have sites within the city, but um, as sites get sold, you know, we we should have to be real creative to find sites within the city to to have those locations.

Okay.

Uh those are my questions, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs.

Dell.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so Mr.

Patel, it sounds like this is pretty common practice for municipalities and counties to have reserve funds like this so they don't have to dip into the reserves and end up increasing their millage.

Is that right?

That is correct, yes.

Um the back side of our agenda, and also in your presentation, you mentioned that there would be a clear policy framework governing activation of this reserve.

And that's listed on page five of 73 in our backup materials, uh and it's written into the ordinance.

Could you put that page up and just briefly go over those three criteria that are allow activation of this?

Yes.

Oh, here what I did.

Sorry.

That's fine.

The last page of the uh the ordinance resolution.

I mean, we do want to be cautious and very careful about using this money.

So just go over one through three, please.

Sure.

So um the three criteria is to activate pre-event or post-event debris monitoring and disposal contract.

That's that's the first step.

The second step is to issue task work orders and emergency purchase order consistent with the applicable purchasing requirements, and typically the emergency purchase orders would come to the City Commission as outlined in the City Code, and then draw upon the reserve to fund eligible storm debris activity.

So those are three clear criteria for for that uh reserve fund, and that also helps expedite with the paperwork for FEMA because it's it's set in stone, it's our policy, and we can quickly see how much we draw from that account to get reimbursement from FEMA.

Great.

Thank you for that.

And then on page four of the ordinance, section two, subsection three, it says that the reserve account shall be evaluated every three years, and that the city commission would be provided a written summary.

My question is, wouldn't that account be reviewed annually during the budget process, in addition to the detailed every three-year report?

Yes.

Every year uh we'd be working with the finance department to ensure that the that we're meeting those targets and um and then three-year will be a more comprehensive um presentation to the City Commission.

Separate and apart from the budget process.

That's correct.

So that's a double whammy.

Okay, those are let me see if I have another question.

Those are let me see if I have another question.

So I think when you and I talked about this, I asked, how much more can we expect of our residents to pay?

We change the millage, we increased it, now we're increasing this.

If we don't build this reserve and get this money in this way, how do we end how does the city end up paying for emergency expenditures that come as a result of weather events?

You'll pay through your general fund.

That's the only other place.

And this whole intent, and and this, you know, let's not overlook, this does hit your solid waste ratepayers.

You know, it's it's the equivalent of a 10 percent increase.

So without that, if we had another event, we would draw down the general fund, which also has an impact on the citizens just through millage.

And um so by segmenting, I'm not a big fan of segmenting your revenues, but when you have an enterprise fund that has specific criteria for expenses, by giving them some reserve, it eases the impact on our general fund.

And remember, our general fund is really what we rely on for everything.

So if we have the ability to move this specialized debris removal out of the general fund, one we can maintain a better reserve, and two, we can cover other expenses better without drawing us down quite so far like we did this last time.

Yes, that makes good sense to me.

Uh just one last comment.

Um I thought your backup materials were very thorough, and I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

Uh Commissioner Alpert.

My question is should we be so lucky to not really use the reserve all that much and we get to five million and you know it's five million this year or next year.

What what do we do then?

Do we just cut back the rate uh that we're asking people to pay, but then they'd have to raise it again once we start using it?

What's the plan for that?

Yes, so that there's a couple of things.

Every three years when we present, we'll we'll provide that summary and what the ratepayer impact would be or a reduction into that.

And also if there's any surplus, it would go into the operating solid waste operating funds that that we have right now reserved.

That's like $3.9 million.

So there's multiple options, and we can at the regardless of the options, it would be the City Commission's uh, you know uh direction on that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I have a couple of questions.

First of all, let me understand all properties pay a solid waste user fee.

Is that true?

That is correct.

Okay.

So the cost will, in effect, be shared among everybody in the community.

Yeah, that includes residential and commercial properties both that pay that fee.

But yeah.

But everybody will share in the cost.

That's correct.

Okay.

Um then something that uh the vice mayor sort of brought up.

Um obviously there's always a possibility that we would have inadequate funding.

Part of this plan is to avoid that.

But with inadequate funding, doesn't that really just mean we would be slowing down the recovery process?

So if we if we couldn't pay to get everything done, it would just take longer.

We'd spread it out over more years, right?

When the debris hits the street, we're going to pick it up as quickly as we can.

And if without this fund, we would bring to you probably a series of budget amendments to move money from the general fund reserve into the enter into the solid waste enterprise fund to pay whatever cost we were accumulating.

But I seem to remember in 2024, there were some municipalities that were running short on cash.

So the contractors were saying, we're going to go to Sarasota or other places that can pay us.

So didn't their recovery get slowed down?

Yes, we learned a lot about contractors in 2024.

Um having the money and them knowing we have the money, whether it's official or not, it helps.

It helps knowing it's there.

And you know, what what was really uh interesting was to watch the competitiveness between municipalities to try to keep their contractors.

And so at least you know this may help a little bit contractor knows there's a dedicated fund.

Okay.

And to add to to that to that question was that um the state had a standard fee to to haul these these items and our existing contract were not close to that.

So other municipalities were increasing their fees for for uh for their you know for the debris pickup so that's what caused some of the competitiveness because you know that we had to increase the increase the rates to be competitive so that people they would stay in the city of Sarasota during that time.

So as far as our regular general fund reserves we would be staying with the the guidelines of how much we should have in general fund reserves and this would be over and above that we wouldn't be saying oh well we can reduce general fund reserves because we have the emergency no the general fund reserve target which is between 17 and 25 percent I believe now would stay right right where it is we just wouldn't have to dig so deep into it because we would have this reserve fund here.

And for most storms this will be adequate.

We'll have the exception but that that's why you have a rebuild in the every three year report to the Commission to say here's where we are we think we should you know do this or that or we're we don't need to collect any more whatever that is on the three year cycle you all get to see it and uh make a determination.

And and now as far as implementation we obviously expect some reimbursements from FEMA or otherwise from past storms and I'm assuming that they will go into general fund reserves because that's what use them and it would only be future that would have the in and out of this emergency.

That's right that what we have application for now is either all or almost all uh uh out of the general fund reserves so uh great um so yeah those those were my questions and I see Commissioner Aherncotch has second round questions.

Yes I do.

Um the help me to understand uh the how this is going to be billed so in on page nine of seventy three um it says the customer impact is three dollars and sixty three cents per month consistent across customer classes under the adopted rate structure the typical residential bill would increase from $35.05 to $38.68 to be incorporated into the next solid waste rate adjustment subject to the City Commission approval and then if you go to page 25 of 73 um this is where I need help understanding this is the you have under there the solid waste is highlighted and it said there are commercial 1,727 government zero hydrant zero multifamily $125 and then single family $13,348 for a total of 16,396 homes that are served by solid waste but only 825 multifamily that is that is correct yes and that's that's account holders so like multifamily could be multiple it's just the amount of accounts that they hold.

So if you have a condo and there are 300 units in there is that one or three hundred it depends on how many um how many service requests if if we have one account I mean if they have one receptacle or two receptacles it's based on the amount of receptacles.

So like a one of a hundred people would have one receptacle and a condo of two hundred people would have two receptacles and that would be two accounts.

That's correct.

Got it.

So it's not per person it's per account per account that's correct.

There we go okay got it now I understand that thank you because I thought there's no way there are only 825 people living in contacts okay I don't see any more questions so thank you very much Mr.

Patel and I'll ask for a motion.

I have a motion mayor move to adopt proposed resolution 26R-3372.

Move by Vice Mayor, seconded by Commissioner Alpert to approve Resolution 26R-3372.

And do just oh, do you want to speak to the good idea?

Okay.

Any other discussion?

I can speak to the next one.

Okay.

Yeah, this was something I think that Mr.

Bullock brought us as an idea when we were sort of flailing about during our budget season, and I thank him for that.

I'm glad to see that everybody is supportive of this.

I think it's a really good idea.

Okay.

So we'll vote.

Also to because this is a resolution I'm going to do roll call as well.

Please hit your buttons.

Aaron Crotch?

Yes.

Alpert?

Yes.

Betty?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And it passed unanimously.

Thank you very much to all.

Thank you, Mr.

Patel and Mr.

Bullock.

And we are now to the third item under new business, which again will involve Mr.

Patel, and I will get to the correct page.

Okay.

This is a presentation and discussion of stormwater management in the City of Sarasota.

It will be an executive summary, an annual Sarasota County stormwater utility update and technical reference on governance, authority, and basin-based systems.

So Mr.

Patel, City Engineer Kamiya, and Mr.

Swa from Stephen M.

Swa Engineering and Consultant C and Scott Woodman from Sarasota County Stormwater Department will make a presentation.

And I'm counting five people.

Okay.

It's up to you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners.

For the record, I'm Nick Patel, Director of Public Works, joining here with me today.

R.

Ben Quartermain, the director of the stormwater for Sarasota County.

Good afternoon.

Scott Woodman, Stormwater Engineering.

Steve Swaw, independent contractor.

Sajikami, city engineer.

So today's presentation is intended to establish a shared understanding of how stormwater is managed in the City of Sarasota, specifically who is responsible for what, why stormwater believes behaves regionally rather than jurisdictional.

What expectations are reasonable under the existing city and county's interlocal framework?

And particularly as it relates to the current uh interlocal agreement.

This is an executive level overview.

This is not just intended to be a technical deep dive.

The second presentation includes an agenda backup, uh serves as technical reference.

The material provides detailed historical context, uh legal authority, watershed and basin flow dynamics, infrastructure inventory, funding limitations, and long-term planning consideration for reference during and after today's meeting.

We'll begin the cities with the city's overview, followed by Sarasota County's required annual stormwater update at the end of the presentation.

So there are four objectives for today's discussion is first to clearly confirm roles and accountability under long long-standing city-county interlocal agreement.

The second is to explain why stormwater management is basin-based and why flooding impacts routinely cross jurisdictional boundaries.

Third, to provide a consistent reference point for both city and county leadership, and finally to determine what items before you today are informational versus those that may require future policy direction.

At this point, I'll turn it over to Mr.

Swat to walk through the next several slides.

Thanks, Nick, and um City Commission.

I appreciate the opportunity to come speak about one of my favorite subjects.

Um appreciate administration and staff, my fellow engineers here.

Um participating in the discussion.

I wanted to start with a brief overview of the history of why.

It's on the closer.

Why the city and the county are kind of interlinked when it talks when you talk about stormwater.

About a hundred years ago, about 1926, actually, a drainage district was established as a means to drain the swamp, as it were.

It was an obsession with Florida a hundred years ago, not just the Everglades, but everywhere to dig canals to drain the land so that it could be used for economic development, primarily agriculture at the time.

This map is actually from that era from the Sarasota Fruit and Drainage District.

It's one of the mechanisms that the state had set up for entities to be able to tax and make improvements.

There was water control districts, flood control districts, water management districts were set up under this as well.

The Sarasota Fruitville Drainage District basically straightened and deepened the natural waterways of Whitaker Bayou, Hudson Bayou, and Philippi Creek, but beyond that, it extended the canals well inland to connect the big swamp areas so that they could be used for growing vegetables, as is the case in the soury fields or citrus or run cattle.

Next slide.

By 1961, however, the Sarasota Fruitville Drainage District had dissolved and its assets were transferred to Sarasota County.

So all of the canals that were dug by the Sarasu Sarasu Fruitville Drainage District, including those in the City of Sarasota, were owned by the city of Sarasota County.

The red arrows indicate that in addition, water enters the city portion of the canals from Sarasota, and it exits in places back into Sarasota County.

So the canals kind of just traverse both jurisdictions.

How we got here, this is an area from 1948, so the system had been in place for nearly 20 years.

The main low area landmarks that were originally identified, little camp sawgrass, which is also referred to now as Bobby Jones, big camp sawgrass, which is now the celery fields, and Tatum sawgrass, which now is full of homes, are identified on this map.

The shaded area is the City of Sarasota boundary.

The orange lines are the watershed lines for Whitaker and Hudson Bayou, and the blue line represents the larger watershed line for uh Philippi Creek.

And at that time, most of the city was either urban or suburban with some open space.

Sarasota County, the unincorporated portion back in 1948 was mainly agriculture.

Fast forward to 1974, the city was uh uh still urbanizing, some open space remained.

The county had had seen more and more suburban development with some agriculture and open space remaining.

Next.

By 2001, um, and I and I should have said before uh back in 1874 there were no stormwater regulations per se.

The water management district did not regulate development back then, and um uh as a matter of fact, the um the goal was just to drain, just to get it into the canals.

Uh no uh provisions for treating the water or trying to attenuate it.

By 2001, that had changed the regulations had been in place since 1984.

By this time, Sarasota County had set up a stormwater environmental utility, and there was an interlocal agreement in place between the county and the city.

And uh at this time the city was pretty much uh built out.

The county was mostly uh suburban and urban with some open space remaining.

And then in 2018, um the stormwater program also uh, because of some severe, if you all remember red tide events that we had in 2018-19, also refocused on water quality, um, putting in a lot of um uh projects like the several fields that kind of did double duty.

One of the major improvements in the area was Sarasota County upgrading their wastewater treatment plant in Philippi Creek to meet advanced wastewater treatment standards.

The city's plant had already met those standards for decades, and actually is one of the highest.

I I consider it the gold standard for reducing nutrients in the in the state of Florida.

Um that's where we are today.

Um go ahead, Nick.

And I just wanted to give a quick overview on the stormwater utility.

So these would be the highlights of the utility.

Um it was created in 19 uh 89.

It's a dependent it's a dependent special district, and it provides an annual source of revenue.

This is independent of the general fund and millage rates.

It was set up with an assessment that all properties that benefit from the stormwater system contribute to.

And it was set up to address flooding and water quality resulting from rainfall.

As an ad like I mentioned, it's a non-advilorum enterprise fund.

The use of revenue generated from the stormwater utility is specifically limited to the manage of stormwater from rainfall.

Funds are not used to address other issues such as navigation, sea level rise, or storm surge.

The annual revenue is now around $30 million a year.

And there are two types of assessments that are allowed through the utility.

One is a service assessment that's typically for services that are countywide, like routine maintenance or regulatory or planning.

And it also provides for a second time of type of assessment called a stormwater improvement assessment.

Those were typically used for large capital improvement projects like the celery fields, for example, or what's referred to as the levy project.

Where a certain area specifically benefits the assessments were allocated to that geographical area or watershed.

That is still provided for in the ordinance.

It has not been used probably for uh over well over a decade.

Uh it was uh employed for all the watersheds to do stormwater improvements, and those were bonded over a period of 20 years, and those bonds are now long paid off.

And then finally, I wanted to talk about the interlocal agreement and and just briefly what the obligations are of Sarasota County and what the obligations are under the agreement for the City of Sarasota.

Um in a nutshell, uh Sarasota County's obligations under the interlocal agreement are all stormwater management under the total and complete control of Sarasota County, including planning, maintenance, repair, capital improvements, uh the national pollutant discharge elimination system permit.

That's a federal permit for water quality that's required, reimbursement to the city for one full-time position for regulatory plan review and inspection, and a presentation annually to the city commission of the stormwater program.

The city's obligations under the local agreement include providing information pertinent to that NPDS permit uh relative to the city, providing necessary personnel to review all development projects within the city to ensure compliance with the city's regulations.

Um the city uh there is a I should mention there is a there is has been a difference between the regulations between the county and the city.

The county has used a hundred-year design storm for several decades.

The city has used 25 years, but I think has just recently gone to the hundred year as well.

Um for regulatory purposes.

Uh also to provide and report uh listing of building permits and certain certificates of occupancy uh for a specified period if requested by Sarasota County.

And finally, um it's permitted to provide input a regularly to advise the capital improvement program.

So this um this last one is basically city staff and county staff working closely together on planning and capital improvement projects for stormwater in the city, and I think that's a real important one too.

With that, I'll turn it back over to turn it over to Saji.

Thanks, Steve.

Uh this slide we wanted to just kind of summarize.

So you know, we talked about the environmental utility and we talked about um assessments for it.

So I wanted to summarize what that means to the city.

And so over the this is a five-year look at how much uh stormwater uh environmental utility assessments have been collected throughout the city, and so that's a total of nineteen million dollars.

And you can see that over time it has increased a little bit, just kind of showing the increase in impervious area, um, and then just the increase of of the needs over the time of that.

So that has slowly increased.

Um Steve kind of touched on it a little bit, um, but just kind of want to reiterate, these are enterprise funds, which means as you guys were talking about a little bit earlier.

It's got designated uses, can't be used for everything, specifically stormwater items.

Those items could be operational and maintaining in um operational maintenance in nature, um, could be you know capital and nature, but needs to be for stormwater purposes.

Um does not fund things like um navigation or non-stormwater capital projects can't be used for that.

Um the um other part that was um maybe mentioned a little bit earlier as well that um currently this assessment government properties are not assessed within within the city or or anywhere within the county for uh stormwater utility uh assessments.

Um and so kind of the purpose of showing these is just to kind of let everybody know kind of transparency um and then just to help the understanding of money that is yes generated locally, does go to a regional look and the funding supports the county stormwater operations throughout the city and the county um specifically there are locations within the county that um Steve touched on, including the city that are county-owned facilities that per this agreement they maintain.

Um maybe the big um kind of key takeaway with this slide is that these funds support basin-wide uh Steve mentioned watershed, uh watersheds and sometimes basins are used interchangeably.

Basically is geography, and so those funds go towards that, not necessarily looking at a city by city or county by county location, you know, governance um total area.

This slide just kind of wanted to uh mention again the the watershed and and the basin look at it.

It's more stormwater, or it is stormwater flows, it is geography, think of elevations, think of the lay of the land.

Stormwater doesn't necessarily know city limits or county lines like um we kind of type kind of divide up.

Um but and unless um unless you're government folks, you you maybe don't know where those are either.

Um so stormwater doesn't either.

Um so the interlocal agreement uh operational responsibility aligning with the physics.

And you may remember your Earth Science 101 class where you talk about the the water cycle, right?

Like that class didn't talk about uh city limits or um county lines.

Uh Sarasota County operates and maintains the regional system um through the utility that uh Steve kind of shared up about to totally rehash, but to just kind of mention Steve mentioned some of these too, but city's role in that coordination planning, helping set up priorities, uh reviewing uh development for compliance.

Uh we do have a staff person that is funded through this that when development and or applications come in, they review it for stormwater items and then coordinate with the county on those.

And so the part of that is partnering on projects and then advocating for the community needs.

So the kind of the benefits for the the structure of that is it it avoids fragmented maintenance, avoids looking at things in different pieces, um, ensures technical consistency, looking at what is the actual flow, and then allows for funding to be spent where it's technically best needed.

And so it just allows accountability, efficiency, and better outcomes for the residents.

So as you've seen, stormwater challenges and the solution needed to address them are basin-wide and extend beyond jurisdictional boundaries under the city and county interlocal agreements are sort of county holds operational responsibility for regional stormwater system, including planning, maintenance, and capital improvements, and the city's role is complementary where we provide coordination, technical review, permitting, and partnership to ensure the projects align with our community priorities and regulatory requirements.

Funding decisions must reflect legal limitations, basin level benefit, and measurable outcomes to ensure accountability and system performance.

Together, this governance structure aligns authority with responsibility and supports informed policy decision, transparency and consistent public understanding.

So to summarize the current interlocal agreement framework is clear.

Sarasota County owns and operates the key drainage assets and is responsible for maintenance and long-term upgrades.

The city serves as a coordinated and regulatory partner and continued collaboration between the city and county is essential to deliver this reliable basin level stormwater performance for our residents.

At this time, I invite uh Mr.

Quartermain, Sarasota County Stormwater Director to provide county's annual update following his presentation.

We'll be happy to take any questions.

Good afternoon.

Nice to see you.

Um I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time post the 24th season, but just to catch you up, um the uh the county commission saw the need for um renewed uh emphasis on stormwater.

They created a a stormwater division this past year, um of which I was hired as a director.

Um not only a uh lifetime resident of Sarasota County, but I'm also a city resident as well.

Um I have spent my career uh doing design of stormwater in and around the area, both for Sarasota County as well as the private sector.

Um I'm really excited about working with Nick and I appreciate your um your uh commitment to our program and and the staff that you've provided with Sachi and Andrew and Nick.

They've been fantastic to work with, so I appreciate that.

Um what we've done is we've looked at the county commission has looked at increasing our level of service for maintenance.

What that means is that we've increased both our inspection frequencies but also our maintenance frequencies.

Where you most see it is either in roadside uh ditches or canals where we've had an increased presence with um with equipment operators and inspectors to ensure that our systems are maintained and working um efficiently.

In addition to our increased level of service, we've also developed the sediment management and abatement program to ensure that we're managing sediments so that they aren't causing issues during these type of storm events in the future.

Um to that end.

We've um we've recently are under construction with the dredge of Philippi Creek, which affects a good chunk of your residents here in the city.

Um that initial phase of construction uh started um in December, it's gonna go through June of this year, effectively uh dredging about 60,000 yards of material from Tuttle to Beneva along Philippi Creek.

Phase two of that project will look to re-establish Philippi Creek as what we've noted to be in the basically the late 70s, early 80s is our goal to get the the creek back to that condition.

Um addition, uh we were um blessed with uh some significant federal monies of which Stormwater Department received over 100 million dollars in resilient SRQ funding.

Um that funding includes projects, St.

Armand's, uh Hudson, and Whitaker that we are developing the grant um scopes for now, and we'll be going for a call for services later this year for all three of those projects.

Um as part of the interlocal agreement, we have some information to share with you.

Scott is gonna go through a couple of slides to show you what we've been doing this past year to ensure that our department is transparent and that you know what we're doing and when we're doing it.

Thank you, Ben.

Can you move ahead?

Yeah.

This first slide, I just wanted to let you be aware that we've got uh we are partnering very close with the city and our work, our engineering group, our operations group.

We work monthly with the city, we meet with them and and have a great relationship started, and we hope to continue that through as we work forward on a lot of our projects that have been mentioned already.

We also have tools that are resources that are available to both uh anyone in the public, but also shared by our by the city staff that give information to our assets, the stormwater facilities that are in place now that are in the intricate network network of our stormwater facilities.

And this is an example of a map which you can go to.

It's it's a GIS-based map.

Again, it's available to anyone uh regardless of your employment.

You could be with uh just anyone in the citizens can even go to these maps and take a look at it.

Be informed and see how our infrastructure works.

Um it contains various different elements in here, stormwater infrastructure assets like open channels, water bodies, repair points, these are locations we've typically been to recently to do some repairing work to give more information to the public, uh, roadside ditches, and then our annual inspection cycles to let you know kind of in your area when we're targeted to come out there and do our cycle work to do the maintenance.

Next.

This is another um available uh ARCIS-based map system that's helpful in giving information.

This one is related to our water atlas and and reflects the arms data stations, which are our automatic um automated rainfall monitoring system in Sarasota County.

We're also linked together with USGS and Swift MUD sites that you can go in and click on any of these active sites and find readily available information in a near real-time standard of water elevations, rainfall amounts, uh, and other types of information that's available that if you want to know what's going on in your area and see how it's been affected by the recent rainfall events, you can find that.

And the data is usually available up to two years.

Next.

This is a third map system that's available for all of our residents as well.

It addresses the maintenance program in Sarasota County for stormwater facilities.

It's it's broken down into two parts: a planned and a completed.

And if you look on the screen, you can see on the upper right-hand corner, the one that's highlighted right now is the planned ones.

And then we have completed ones that you can open up and look at.

It has a toggle-down system in here so you can click away and get down to the nitty-gritty of what we have done out there to investigate what type of work has been done in your area and to what effect.

Um just as a uh a precursor, though, for planned work, it's usually in the planned cycle work.

It may not be programmed for the next month.

It might take a little bit of time for that to come into play.

Next, please.

This slide is kind of a brief summary of the work we've completed in the last year.

That's the last calendar year for 2025 in the city.

As you can see, we've we've idle itemized several of the amounts of the maintained and inspected work we've done for various types of assets that are in the city.

Uh you can see here we've done pipe inspections, road ditch inspections, and maintenance uh of quite a bit of distance.

There are linear and distance here, both by miles and feet, linear feet, to give you kind of a feel of the magnitude of how many facilities we have in our infrastructure within the city as well.

And we do a we have done quite a good job this year.

We did a little catch-up work early still at the beginning of 2025 from the 2024 season, it was about an additional 10% work, but we got through that pretty good, kept on par and really completed our work well this year.

This last slide is really something that uh Ben just covered on about some of the upcoming projects we have on tap for the resilient SRQ monies, the Hudson Bayou dredging project, as well as the Whitaker Bayou dredging project are both on tap.

Those are our higher priority ones right now, and then follow behind with St.

Armin's resiliency project are all going to be receiving those kind of funds in the near future.

And with that, we're open for any questions.

Okay.

Um I'm assuming there were no requests to speak.

So Commissioner questions?

Uh Commissioner Aher and Kotch.

Well, thank you very much.

It's a long time coming.

I really appreciate the report.

But before I get into this, I also want to thank you all for responding to the and by you all I mean the county.

For responding to the request to uh clear out Hog Creek.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you for that.

That was amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Flowing and trickling and moving and I can't thank you enough for that.

Um just to go back to that last bit of information that you were sharing with us about the upgrades in the city.

That was specifically to the city.

Let me get there.

Um The in-house slope and travel way mowing.

Can you explain to me what that is?

So we have two different types of methodologies to clean and clear canals.

One is in-house Menzi type work where you see the it looks like a spider.

It's a big walking excavator that the county has a fleet of.

The other uh methodology is contract work.

So some of the canals within the city don't have proper right-of-way to maintain with the large equipment.

So it's contracted work.

Local contractors that have smaller pieces of equipment.

So that's what those the city slope and travel way mowing is um contracted labor.

Okay.

Um just writing this down.

Um I like that you said clean and clear, because there are some I've had a lot of input for from some of the neighbors in Bayou Oaks, and I've spoken with city staff uh a lot about this about um sometimes it's very steep and very deep, and the grass that grows there is thick and uh sharp.

And often what I've seen happen in the past is that they get cut along the ditches, but it doesn't get cleared.

And so all of that thick glass just when it rains actually comes together and blocks you know where it's supposed to be going.

Um that was in the past, but now it's clean and clear.

So the um part of the issue in the past is maybe the frequency of when it was done.

And the commission um has allowed us to increase the frequency of those um those events.

So what you may have seen is that it it might have been a quarterly or a uh six times a year where we're increasing those frequencies.

Do you know what you're increasing it to?

So the city slope and travel way, I believe, is between eight and twelve, depending on the system and the county is the county crews will be the same between eight and twelve.

Eight and twelve, what uh I'm sorry, eight and twelve times a year.

Oh okay.

And that would include Whitaker by you?

Correct.

Wow, okay.

That's great.

And that's clean and clear.

Yep.

Wonderful.

Okay.

Very, very good.

Um then I had a question for you on the numbers that you gave us earlier on, I believe that was under Mr.

Patel's presentation, maybe not.

Uh about how much the amount that's collected from the City of Sarasota.

Yes, it's on page 14 of 87.

And it starts within 2021 about 3 million, and in 2025, 4.5 million.

Um are all of those funds, and I know this is a regional basin and all of that, but are all of those funds reinvested back into the city's maintenance, or is it I mean is it tracked?

Is it uh do we know in 2022 that you know 3.6 million was uh for maintenance and clearing and clean and clear?

So certainly the difference and the increase here is in 22 the the methodology in with which the money is collected was modified.

So that's uh that's why you see this um the change and also just growth in general.

Um but what we have is we track all of our work orders in cartographic work order system so we can generate reports on exactly how much we're doing within the city versus you know relative to the entire county.

Um the city work is a little bit different than the developed county in that it's sometimes older infrastructure and um sometimes developed without stormwater infrastructure initially.

Uh while we don't I don't have we so we have a very specific way to to track what work we're doing within the city.

And is that do we have that?

Can we track that in 2021 and 2022 or is that new?

Um so the answer is yes, whether or not I don't know when we change the cartograph versus the old system, but it's still available.

And I can provide that.

We could provide that for you.

Oh, that would be great.

That would be really great because we do get a lot of citizens saying, you know, my storm ditch, my drainage ditch, my, you know, and I don't know what to tell them, you know.

Yeah, so we're driven by uh the primary criteria is uh NPDES permit, which dictates how much maintenance we are to do to different types of systems.

And so on an annual basis, we submit that permit um to the state and federally and um and which the city is assigning on that on that permit, and that shows we have to to report how much work we're doing in each types of systems.

So we could provide um that summary with that permit, but also within um our work order system as well.

Okay.

And then um, you know, these are amounts that I I hope we can track back to being reinvested into the city.

Um still we flooded in 2024, of course.

Um what does that tell us?

Well, it tells you in 24 that we had rainfall that was significantly more than even the county's level of service.

When you start talking about 17 inches and 30 hours across the 52 square mile watershed of Philippi Creek, it was a significant rainfall event.

There's it some sometimes between a 500 and even a thousand year storm events.

So yes, the we can do a better job of maintenance, we can always do a better job of maintenance.

But if we get 17 inches of rain in 30 hours, it's still going to be a problem.

People are still gonna have some flooding issues, regardless of how well we maintain the system.

Right.

So it seems like with the maps and the tracking and and the rainfall and looking at what's planned, uh we can I feel like we're we were able to at least assess it and plan better and understand priorities about what needs to be upgraded and fixed and and sometimes a simple fix can really save the day as far as flooding goes.

Doesn't have to be complicated or expensive.

And I I assume all of that information is in those maps or the the your tracking that one and the citizen can see that.

Yeah, that that was the goal of of that one map is transparency so that you can you can go to this website, it's SCGov.net forward slash stormwater.

Okay.

All right.

Um those are my questions for the moment.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh thank you very much for being here today.

Uh Mr.

Quartermain and Mr.

Woodman, you're sort of used to being under the radar, and suddenly 20 24 hit us, and lo and behold, you're not anymore.

Uh thank you for not being under the radar because we need you to be right here in front of us and being transparent in all you do.

We appreciate it.

Also, um sort of used to being under the radar is Eileen Normile, former city commissioner, who the commission recently appointed to the county stormwater committee.

I think Mr.

Swall, you're on that as well as citizen residents and I'm sorry.

Well, right, I'm on the three here to be transparent today.

I have a few questions.

On page 11 of 87, just confirm uh in 1989 a dependent special district was established, and uh for one reason was to provide an annual source of revenue.

And since then we've had an annual source of revenue.

Can somebody tell me how that revenue is collected from me, uh city citizen?

It's a line item on your tax bill.

Thank you.

And everybody has that, all citizens.

Um page uh 12 of 87, it talks about the county's annual report to the city.

We're sort of catching up here on the annual reporting, right?

Um well, I've only been here for seven months, so as far as I'm concerned, it's more on schedule.

Perfect.

That's how we like it to be.

Thank you.

Um page 14 of 87.

I think I heard one of you say that funds that are generated from me, a city resident, may be used in other parts of the county as well if they're used only for the purposes of this account, stormwater programming, correct?

So, yes, the the stormwater environmental utility is an enterprise fund.

We have very specific um means or means and methods to spend that money, and then the county and the city have an interlocal agreement that defines again how we spend that money within the city.

Great.

And I think uh Commissioner Ahern Koch also already asked, uh I'd really appreciate the accounting from previous years, and if you could get that to us, it would be great.

Sure.

And then on page 16 of 87, it talks about um responsibilities, who is responsible for what this statement is a little confusing to me.

Operational responsibility resides with Sarasota County under the interlocal framework.

To me, even if there wasn't an interlocal agreement, because you can't stop water flowing.

I mean, you'd have to build a really high wall to keep the water that doesn't start in the city.

Do you know where I'm going with this?

So that's why water control districts were formed throughout Florida in the last 50 years is because of that issue specifically.

But you'd be surprised in some neighboring counties where there are different municipalities along a canal that have very different means and methods and also level of service for maintenance.

And so you can go along the canal.

I'm not gonna name the county, but you can go along the canal and part of it's pristine, and then you cross the municipal boundary, and it's all grown up in um so the interlocal agreement between the city and county just cements the fact that we're in a partnership together.

We understand that that water crosses these municipal boundaries, and we've decided together to set these level of service criteria to ensure that we're both managing it, because it runs from the county to the city, back to the county, some cases back and forth a couple of times.

So we just want to make sure that um that we that both the city and the county understand what that level of service goals are and that we meet that.

What makes so much sense?

Coordination of services canals that are owned by the county that are in the city, uh coordination of services makes so much good sense.

And then my last question uh regarding page 23 of 87.

Uh there's a very uh thorough listing of uh completed maintenance from 2025.

Do you have that kind of listing from previous years?

I'm sure.

Um could you get that to us too?

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Appreciate you very much.

Thank you.

Uh hey, Commissioner Batti, you're up next.

Thank you, Mr.

Quarterman.

Uh I just wanted to say thank you so very much for you know what the county does.

I I live on Whitaker Bayou.

I'm right on Winnaka Bayou, so and I know that you all do um everything to maintain it, and uh me and my neighbors thank you for that.

But this is a question you know from my neighbor or what have you, you know, he's like uh uh a native of Sarasota, you know, always lived on the water, a boater um and a contractor and so on.

That's that's what he does, that's his vocation.

But he's always getting on me, you know, about um about uh we have storms uh and this was just posing this question to Mr.

Bullock about the runoff that comes from you know the county uh and he'll drag me out of my house and like he calls me coyote, so he's like, hey coyote, look at this, you know.

Look at this runoff, you know, this coming from the from out east, you know, in into the water, because you see this white film on top of the water, you know, at the storms and whatnot.

How does how does that well, how do you all maintain that how I mean, what can I say to him, you know, to get him off my back.

So um there's a couple of things that the city has done recently.

The city has increased the design standards that um talked about from a 25-year storm to a hundred-year storm.

Effectively, what that means is that more stormwater would be managed on site before it's discharged into Whitaker.

Um but also in addition to increasing the maintenance or mowing and maintenance of those canals, um, we were also provided the real the resilient SRQ grant um within Whitaker is um ten million dollars, in addition to the Army Corps funding.

So, what we're looking to do is to improve the hydraulics of the canal, basically removing the sediment.

Similar to what we're doing in Philby Creek right now, dredging out Whitaker Bayou to make it drain much faster and more efficiently.

Okay.

So that those are so we're gonna increase operations and maintenance, increasing the frequency of mowing, but also from a capital perspective, um, dredging Whitaker Bayou to ensure that that it's uh draining more efficiently.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

I think that's that those are my questions, man.

Okay, can you uh if you're back?

Yeah, that's you know, I give them that explanation.

Yeah, I had a question just to for clarification.

We were saying that you were saying that uh storm water is the stuff that's caused by rainfall.

It's not sea level rise, it's not the other things, it's rainfall.

So besides where the rain actually comes down, I'm guessing it's also flowing from elsewhere.

So it's also not going to respect county lines.

We've got situations where it the rain is falling in Manatee County and it comes down to Sarasota County, and if we were not a coastal county so that the water went into the bay or the Gulf, it would be flowing to some other county.

So do you have any kind of arrangement with Manatee County regarding the water that's coming from there?

To a degree, there's a small piece of inner um connection between Manatee and Sarasota County, but not to the extent that there is between the county and the city of Sarasota.

Brayton River is a is a watershed in eastern Sarasota County that we share with Manatee County, but to the extent that there's an impact from the runoff.

Thank you.

And I was looking at the projects and the investments that you've been making.

And I mean, until recently, until everything that happened in 2024, there were concerns about inadequate maintenance.

So obviously there's a lot of maintenance requirements that have been built up and you are addressing.

But besides maintenance, I'm wondering about plans for upgrading and then ultimately some redesign modernizations.

I hate to say it, you know, this is 2026, and I look at dirt drainage ditches, and I a little bit confused that we're still there.

It wasn't that maintenance wasn't being done.

It wasn't being done often enough.

And that's and we've increased the frequency of that.

Some of the some of the ditches and a lot of the ditches, depending on the type of year, may be brown and may be not that we don't want them to be dirt, but there's going to be periods of time where they're gonna look dead.

And there's good chunks of these systems that and Whitaker Bayou is a good example where some of these areas are really steep and deep.

And we don't have the ability to make them wider.

So our goal is to manage that sediment so that there isn't as much erosion potential from big storms.

And that's part of the program that we're putting together, the SMAP program, to address just what what your concern is is that in those areas that look that are or that are just dirt that we've addressed that um with different types of coverage or improvements to ensure that that's not the case.

Because I was wondering uh any thought sometime in the future, having say permeable concrete type of thing so that it won't have as much sediment, there won't be um plant debris that accumulates and rots and clogs stuff up.

Yeah, I mean it's a it's a you know it's a double-edged sword though, because there are good chunks of there are portions of our system that we have concrete canals and they look just they look like concrete canals.

And so there's an aesthetic to that as well, and uh and a nature function to that as well.

So we we want to manage to the extent that we can greenery and and manage it, but but when we when it's needed, we can do that as well.

We can so yeah, so that that ultimately is the question.

Uh we appreciate all the effort on catching up with deferred maintenance and improving that, but then wondering sometime in the future, will there be an effort for upgrades, improvements, and redesign?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Um and I think that was those were my questions, and Commissioner Ahern Koch has some more questions.

Just a couple of our questions.

Um one is while I have you here, can I get a report about the Hull Creek and that whole what what you all cleaned out under there?

Uh the last I heard is that we we got our crews out there and we cleared it out, got rid of the some debris that was in there and some of the vegetation that was built up and opened it back up, so it's should be flowing well right now.

Okay.

And uh I've heard good good information back on it, so um I'm pleased to say that it's it was done very well.

It it it looks great, especially on the west side.

On the east side, that part of it could use a little maintenance as well.

Okay.

I can follow up with the we can follow up with that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um and then for Whitaker Bayou, what Commissioner Bettee was saying, um, I too live along the Whitaker Bayou and get a lot of uh questions about it, not to the extent that he doesn't have it.

Somebody dragging out of me out of my house.

But um I did actually have questions the other the other day.

Um and one of the questions was exactly what he said about um before the water gets into the Whitaker Bayou after we dredge.

Are there plans to help to filter water before it goes into the Whitaker Bayou and then putting us right back in this position again in a very short period of time?

Uh uh working with somebody like the Sarasota Bay Estuary or with the City of Sarasota, bioswales and you know, things like that.

There is there's certainly opportunities within both Whitaker and Hudson.

Um I was talking to Ryan at the estuary program regarding living shorelines, for instance.

Right.

And and how uh at in the Hudson, for instance, we could carry on a living shoreline right out to the bay, quite frankly.

Um absolutely those the scopes for both Whitaker and Hudson include those type of opportunities as well.

Like we're doing right now with uh MLK Park.

Right.

Yeah, it's a nice start to what uh hopefully will continue to be a living shoreline there.

Uh and just to speak to that, we had that um you know the report from the Sarasota the Bay Park and comparing the living shore line with the you know the seawalled one, and uh the living shoreline looked like not uh almost nothing happened, right?

So we keep seeing that and I hope we continue to make progress along those lines.

Um then you know I would say anything that the you know the city has or any of these organizations have with programs that help filter water before it actually goes into the bayous, which goes into the bay, those are always you know um uh a good use of coordinating uh many entities to help the overall health of the bay and and and our bayous, our waterways.

Um you know the draft of the dredge for the Whitaker Bayou?

Four feet.

Thank you.

He knew the answer.

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Um and then my last question has to do with flooding and our roads.

Um our roads flooding.

And so sometimes they have the same thing to do with each other.

So if our waterways are not flowing the way they should, then it backs up onto our roads.

With the foreseen improvements in our waterways, our storm water management, will that lower the need to raise our roads, or we do we still need to think about that in coordination with these efforts?

So um our goal is we have a level of service based on the roadway type.

So in a hundred-year storm event, for instance, 10 inches and 24 hours, uh we want to evacuation routes clear.

And there's a scale down to residential streets.

We allow for 12 inches on a residential street, and where that comes from is an emergency vehicle can traverse a residential street um with up to 12 inches of water in it.

Our goal is to ensure that there's no flooding, but in certain in certain circumstances the there will be there could potentially be um flooding on some streets.

But we um are planning so that the duration of period of time is four to six hours after a storm, and that um that we can get emergency vehicles in and out safely.

That's the goal.

I I understand that.

And I just I'm gonna throw this out there that you know I I always think about how the you know the evacuation routes are zero water for zero amount of time, but the neighborhood streets are 12 inches for 24 hours.

And that's you can't report it until it's 12 inches standing for 24 hours, which is an awful lot at the crust of the road.

Um if we can think about those standards because that's an awful high bar to reach just to get a road addressed.

Um the logic to me says if I can't get from my house to Fruitville Road, I'm not evacuating.

And my road is gonna flood, and it did first.

So thank you for taking my comments into consideration.

I appreciate that.

Can I touch on one thing and I want to plug your rain check program?

This is a new program that Sarasota County started just last year.

It would address even I think some of the road flooding.

What it is is existing residents can get up to a $5,000 rebate for putting in pervious pavers, uh cistern, rain gardens, things that would hold more runoff on their property and not let it run into the street.

And so a lot of the communities that are older in the city are ideal for this program because they don't really have any other way to manage stormwater.

Can you give information about that?

Get that to us, get it to the city, put it on our website.

Yeah, be great.

Tell your friends, tell your neighbors.

It's actually on the website, ma'am.

Do you know where it is on the website?

I can give that to you right now.

Thank you.

Let's share that information.

Or or possibly we will put it in the next issue of city news.

Great, thank you.

Thank you for that.

Commissioner Patti.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um now I want to ask, does this also include like the the frequency of maintaining or cleaning the uh the I don't know, what do you call those in the streets with the catch basinlets?

Yeah, yeah.

Because I know like last last year, or was it last year?

The first storm.

This the thunderstorm that hit the no name.

Yeah, that hit in uh you know, right there downtown where but you can see where it was just all blocked up or what have you.

So um we we've been meeting with several groups, C CNA and a couple other neighborhood groups.

We identified um some stormwater systems that were impacted that needed to be cleaned out.

And so um we've got routes and inspections, but we also have 311.

So if your residents have any issues with needs or maintenance stormwater needs, they see branches in a pipe or in a they can go on 311.

Well, you can either call or go online.

And if you're online, you can upload pictures, request an inspection or service.

Um we've got 72 hours to come out and inspect, and our goal is to service it within a week.

Um we had uh we had some uh systems on Leonard Breed, for instance, that that uh a resident called in with some pictures and we turned around and had it maintained within 10 days.

So um while we're on an inspection cycle, 311 works great if you need some service.

Okay.

Uh excellent.

Thank you for that.

And one last question.

I know this may be out in the left field, but whatever at you just because I'm um on the boiler the bay.

And one of the things that um, you know, when Bill Waddell was there always talking about uh, you know, try to mitigate, you know, runoff into the waterways, and they did so with the trenches with uh with the mulch or whatever.

Is that something an idea that could be used to to try and help, you know, throughout the city and the county or what have you?

Yeah, I designed that.

Oh, okay.

Oh wow, wow, wow.

So thank you for that.

Um yeah, it's it's a very um passive way to reduce in particular in particular nitrate, which is a soluble form of nitrogen that's instant food for red tide and other algae.

So um yeah, there's several applications, and uh Sarasota County is currently looking at all kinds of groundwater studies to find out our septic tanks, particularly source of nitrate or is reclaimed water if it's not AWT is fertilizer, so we can identify areas where those kind of um we call them denitrification barriers can be used.

But that was uh one of the first ones installed was at Bay Park.

Okay.

Uh excellent.

Uh, that helps yeah, that like the baffle box, is it?

Yeah, yeah, that helps denatizes water before uh you know, yeah, there's actually so the water is intercepted by the boxes and it's diverted into uh a lateral trench that runs around around the lagoon that's filled with nothing more than wood chips or even you could do it with with sawdust we found.

So a carbon source underwater doesn't decompose, so it's there for a long time.

But that's critical along with nitrate and the water to kind of create an aerobic environment to attract the the natural type of bacteria that completes the nitrogen cycle and puts the nitrone n nitrate back in the atmosphere, which is almost everything we breathe.

And then it you know runs into that, then hits the soil and then it's pretty much filtered before the waterways, right?

Exactly.

Okay.

All right.

Very cost-effective way to get rid of nitrogen.

Excellent.

Uh well, thank you, Mayor.

And thank you, you all very much really appreciate it.

Thank you.

So I have a quick question for Mr.