City Commission on 2025-03-03 6:30 PM - Mar 03, 2025

Commissioner Vila-Vasquez, Commissioner Colwell, here. Commissioner Howington, here. Commissioner Lully, here. Commissioner Santiago, here. Vice Mayor Harriet, present. Mayor Vila, here. This time I would like to call on Commissioner Colwell to do the invocation and honor of a veteran if he has one. That's the pledge. All right, this time we're going to go ahead and presentations, awards, and reports. We have Proclamation Government Finance Professionals Week, March 17th through the 21st. We have a motion and a second. I make a motion. Motion by Vice Mayor Harriet. Second. Second by Commissioner Santiago. Motion passes six to zero. This time we're going to go to Deltona Community Events. The PIO wants to present the community events. Okay, I didn't see anyone on here for the proclamation. Who's going to receive it so we can present it? Okay. We can go down there and present it. Vice Mayor, would you like to read the proclamation? Sure, I'd love to. Is there anybody else from our finance department here today? No hurry, no hurry. Take your time. All right. Whereas Government Finance Professionals Week recognizes government finance professionals throughout the state of Florida and the services that they provide, and whereas this Government Finance Professionals Week, sponsored by the FGFOA, and all of its member governmental organizations is a week-long series of activities aimed at recognizing government finance professionals and the vital services that they provide to our state and our community, and whereas the City of Deltona recognizes that effective financial management is essential for maintaining the vital services it provides to its residents, and whereas the City of Deltona is committed to responsible— Excuse me, Vice Mayor. Excuse me, guys. In the back, we're trying to run a meeting. Excuse me. We're trying to hear. Go ahead. —whereas the City of Deltona's finance professionals' diligence and proficiency are evident by a solid track record of successful audits and recognized excellence in financial reporting and budget presentation, and whereas the City wishes to acknowledge the efforts and dedication of its finance staff. Now, therefore, we, the Mayor and City Commission of Deltona, Florida, do hereby proclaim March 17th through 25th of 2025 as Government Finance Professionals Week. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Kat, can we get a picture with everybody? Let's get one more picture. Let's get one more picture with you guys. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, ladies. All right, Joyce. I apologize about that. That was a presentation, and I put it in as if it was a consent thing, so. All right. Now we're going to go ahead and move to consent agenda. Oh, sorry. Community events. That's right. Sorry. Thank you, ladies. We have several events going on in the month of March that I wanted to make sure everybody is aware of. The first one, if you guys have the slides back there, if you could pop it on the screen. The first one is the 5K Warrior Run. It's a 5K obstacle course. Tons of fun. We did this event last year, but this year it's bigger and better. There's mud. I think the computer's frozen up. There's mud. There's water. A lot of fun. So there's still time to sign up. It's this Saturday, 8 a.m. at Dewey. I recommend this. If you'd like to run 5Ks, this is a really fun event to do. We have our amphitheater concert series that is also this Saturday night. It's at the amphitheater free event. The band is the Lightning Rods. They do folk, blues, rock, a little bit of everything. So it's a free event. If you haven't been to one of those concerts, they're a lot of fun. We have our Bruise and Bites event at the center. That is the second Friday of every month. So it's the 14th. The comedian this month is Mark Evans. Tickets are only $8 if you buy them in advance. We have another free event on the 21st. It's our Friday night movie in the park. This month is Wicked. So if you didn't get a chance to see that in the theater last year, this is a great movie. Bring a chair. Bring a blanket. We have free popcorn, free lemonade. So that's a lot of fun. This is an event that's actually next month, but I want to mention it because it's the first time that the city has done a Celtic Fest. So it's everything Celtic, dancing, music, just a ton of fun. There's going to be lots of stuff there for the kids as well. Petting zoo, bounce houses. So this is going to be a really fun event. So this is going to be at Dewey on the April 5th from 2 in the afternoon to 7 o'clock at night. And then after that event, we're going to do another movie in the park, Brave. So that will be a nice family-friendly event. And then I want to mention some events for veterans that are coming up this month. So the first one is on the 21st at Veterans Memorial. We are doing Veterans Memorial Park. We are doing a Veterans Meet and Greet. And this is being organized by the American Legion with Vemus help. There's going to be a DJ playing music. They're going to be cooking out hamburgers and hot dogs. So it's just a great—you don't have to be a member of any organization. It's just a great way for veterans to kind of meet each other within the community. And then there's a couple of events that are actually going on in Daytona Beach, but they're for veterans. So I really think it's important for the veterans to know about it. One is on the 20th. It's at Mainland High School. And they are doing free dental services for veterans. You do have to sign up ahead of time, though. So just know you have to do that. But they're doing cleanings and exams and fillings and anything that you might need. And then on the 21st and 22nd, also in Daytona, at the Ocean Center, is the Volusia County Veterans Services Stand Up—Stand Down for Veterans Event. And lots of services. They're going to do health screenings. They're going to have employment resources there if you need to know more about VA benefits. So that's going on—those last two events are going on in Daytona. But there's a lot of great stuff going on in the city this month, as well as some services for veterans, you know, in different parts of the county. So that's what we have going on this month. Thank you. Can you tell us really quick where the residents can find out? Because I know the PowerPoint wasn't working. All that information is on our website. Perfect. Thank you so much. All right. At this time, we're going to go to consent agenda. Commissioner Santiago, you're on the board. Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to make a motion to approve all items on the consent agenda as submitted. Second. It's a motion by Commissioner Santiago and a second by Vice Mayor Harriet. Commissioner Colwell, you're on the board as well? I thought I was on before, but— Oh, no. I want to pull items pulled. You want to—can you say that again? I want four items to be pulled for discussion. Okay. Does the commissioner that made the motion—do you want to amend your motion? No, I do not. Okay. So just so no, and if it fails, then we can pull it. Commissioner Howington, you're on the board as well? I want to pull two items as well. Okay. Commissioner Santiago, again, do you want to amend your motion? I want to keep the—we can speak after the motion has been placed. Okay. You need to have your microphone, please. Can I do an order and get an attorney's opinion on this? Do they have to pull or— Can you—Commissioner Colwell, to be clear, you're asking if you can pull an item? From consent? Correct. So it is been the practice of this city in recent past that a commissioner may request an item to be pulled for discussion. So this would be the same instance, the motion, but there's any motion in the second? There's a motion. I mean, there's a motion in the second to pass the consent agenda. Technically, you're having a discussion about it now. This isn't really a Robert's Rules of Orders question. It's more a practice question. And as practice, you all, as a body, have elected to pull items when you request them. No one's had to vote to have items pulled. If one commissioner wants an item pulled, they've been pulled. So there was a meeting a few meetings ago. In the past, we've done this, so this would apply again at this point? So this certainly is standard practice for this commission in recent past, to have your items pulled. How do we get through this then? Just because you have a motion in the second on the table doesn't—okay. So you all are—the motion in the second is to approve all of these items. If a commissioner does not want to approve all of these items as a body and wants to pull them for discussion, it is reasonable to pull them for discussion, since that has been your past practice, regardless of the motion in the second. It could stand if you all wanted it to stand for the items that aren't pulled, but you do have a right to discuss items. I mean, these are public items that involve public funds that you all are stewards of. So based on your past practice, certainly you have the right to pull your items, although it is not a Robert's Rules analysis. It's more of a you have a practice that you can pull items from consent as you individually see fit. So again, I'd like to reiterate, I'd like to pull items D, E, F, and I. Would you be willing to amend that, Commissioner Santiago, one more time? I want to keep the motion. D, E, F, and I. And then if it fails, then we can pull those. How does that work? Because I know we're trying to follow Robert's Rules, and I know that we have a past practice. I just want us to be consistent moving forward so we don't have these issues moving forward. Yeah. So you don't have to follow Robert's Rules. Robert's Rules is a guide for this body. And just because you have a motion and a second, this is a consent agenda that moves all of these items forward. And all of these items obviously have to do with, you know, money and policies, and they have a lot of other impacts, larger impacts. And because as a body, your past practice has been, if one person wants to pull an item, it gets pulled, and then there's a discussion. So just because procedurally there's a motion and a second that does not mean all those items get passed. The items that have been requested to be pulled do need to be pulled for discussion, regardless of the motion and a second. Got it. That does not impact the request to pull. Thank you. What were your items? D, E, F, and I. D, E, F, and I. And I. Commissioner Howington, what were yours? E and I. D as in David, E as in Edward? E. Oh, E as in Edward, that's right. And I. E and I. Got it. Yes. Okay. Commissioner Santiago, can you please amend your motion? Can you please amend your motion, because we have to pull items to approve all except D, E, F, and I. And Vice Mayor Harriet, can you retract your second? I'll retract my motion. Okay. I move to approve it, and we can discuss D, E, F, and I. Thank you. Is there a second? Well, we're approving. This motion is to approve all items. Minus. Minus D, E, F, and I. Okay. Second. Okay. There's a motion, and then there is a second. Can we please vote? And then we'll do public comment on each of the individual items pulled. Motion passes six to zero. There is no, there is right now, no, it's on the agenda. There is no public comment until we pull them individually. All right. We're going to start. We're trying to run a business meeting, Ms. White. Ms. White. Ms. White. Ms. White. Ms. White, can you please? Okay, violate it. I'll do that. Ms. White. All right. All right. Let's go to Section D. request for approval resolution number 2025-36, Everglades Equipment Group, purchase of two replacement stormwater John Deere mowers and two replacement John Deere gator in the amount of $75,466.68, mowers at $26,062.10 each, gators $11,671.24 each. Combined total, the quote from John Deere, Everglades Equipment Group is based on the source well grounds maintenance contract. Go ahead, Commissioner Kowal. So, I have two agendas, one that I was given originally and the one that was put on my desk here earlier today. I want to clarify, in D, are these replacement stormwater John Deere mowers? Ms. Yes, sir. So, those are for cleaning retention ponds or— Excuse me, we're—we're—you're being too loud in the back. I'm sorry. We're trying to run this meeting. If you really want to have a conversation that bad, please go outside and have a conversation. So, these are for the purpose of cleaning stormwater ditches, um, retentions? Yes, sir, in addition to the right-of-ways where we have swales and so forth. Yes, sir. Okay. If we're doing this ourselves, why are we contracting—and I'm going to refer back to E here. I'm sorry, I have a wrong. It was F. Mowing. F. Um, we're contracting with Sea Level Development, LLC, to necessary stormwater open ditches and canal mowing. Correct. Is that the same thing? That is—that is for the canals that we cannot do because we do not have a menzie any longer. Well, don't we have a menzie in here? We do. We're purchasing one, but we still have to have a contractor until we get the menzie in service here. What is the expected time frame on the menzie? Probably six months. Six months. Okay. And this contract for Sea Level is for how long? It's for a year, and it would be—they would be assigned work as the stormwater team determines which ditches and canals need to be done. We don't necessarily just spend all $89,000 in the purchase order. Can we do a six-month contract until—and extend it if the menzie doesn't come in? Certainly. I think we can do that. That's all I have. Okay. Is there any public comment on this item? No. I've got—I've got a comment. Go ahead. The $89,000, is that for—is that—how did you guys come up with that? Is that for what we expect a year's worth of ditch cleaning to cost? With Sea Level, yes, sir. We went out for a bid with that, with purchasing, and I believe there were three vendors that—excuse me—submitted bids. Theirs was the lowest, most responsive bid, based on what we anticipated from prior contractors. That was put together based off of a list of all of the ditches and canals that need to be done. And we're talking about not just the swales and stuff that a regular lawnmower can get, but a ditch or canal that the menzie would have to be used for. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Is that—and this might be a question for Robin or John—is this is just a purchase order, so if we get the menzie in in six months, can we cancel the purchase order? Yes. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Commissioner Howington? I was simply going to ask, can we please go in order? I know that these three items kind of flow together, but it's getting kind of confusing. We need to go back to D and start with D and then move on. That was D. That is D. Well, the $89,000 is F. So it was—we were bouncing around. People are having a hard time following. So if we could go back to D, that would be great. I'd like to make a motion to approve item D on the consent agenda as presented. There's a motion by Vice Mayor and a second by Commissioner Howington. And did you say, Sarah, there was—was there any public comment? I apologize. Not on D. Okay. Please vote. Motion passes 6-0. All right. This time we're going to go ahead and move to Section E. Request for approval of Resolution No. 2025-37, Menzies USA Sales Purchase of a Replacement Menzies Muck Walking Excavator M426—I'm sorry, 425X. An amount of $549,227.74. Menzies USA Sales in Lakeland, Florida is a sole source authorized distributor for the Menzies Muck Walking Excavator for Sales, Parts, and Service. Vice Mayor Harriet and then Commissioner Howington. For the purpose of discussion, I'd like to make a motion to approve this item. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Harriet and a second by Commissioner Colwell. And Commissioner Howington. Just a question about the useful life. How long do we typically get for a lifespan of this equipment for $550,000? I'm just trying to kind of— The last one was approximately 15 years of age. Okay. So that's a significant amount of time. Right. Okay. I was hoping you weren't going to say like five or something. No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. That was the only question I had. Commissioner Lully, then Vice Mayor Harriet. Thank you, Mayor. Just because it was pulled, and I'm curious, do we have staff already who are, let's say licensed, but let's say whatever the term would be, trained, licensed to operate this? We do, but this does include training. And, of course, we do have staff that had operated the one that was taken out of service in, I want to say 2012, but I know that that's a way for— Okay. No, that's good. Thank you. Vice Mayor Harriet. So I also wanted to make the comment that during budget, when this was approved, the estimate was somewhere in the ballpark of $100,000. I think that was before the next item went out for procurement. And so in addition to this having like a payback period of roughly five and a half, six years, the other part of that is that, personally, I'm hoping that we can increase the rotation in which we mow ditches in these ditches and canals. We can maintain them in a—we can increase that service interval. So— Is there any public comment, sir? On E. Go ahead, Ms. White. Maybe so. Okay, mine was also just clarification purposes. It was asked for, it was denied, then it was approved mid-2024. Why are we almost mid-2025 and it's not purchased? Like, why did it take so long for the Menzzi purchase request to come in if we budgeted it for in mid-2024? That's also going to be a difference in cost. So that's a problem I think we need to have a better process is once we approve it in the budget, it needs to get done. Like, we shouldn't be bringing this in 2025 for something that was approved in 2024. Additionally, the one that was left irreparable, is that the one that was 15 years old? Can somebody clarify that? Because I thought we bought one since then. Does nobody know? How many—do we have more than one Menzzi? Just, you know? Well, that's helpful. Okay. I guess I'm not going to get answers, so it'd be pointless to keep going. Debbie Mize, please. It's not on Debbie Mize, Deltona. It's not—I was—wanted to discuss Resolution 29, the purchasing policy. We're not on that one just yet, ma'am. I know, but she just called me. We apologize about that. She'll call you back up when that one comes up. Okay. Motion passes six to zero. This time, we're going to go ahead and go to request F, approval of Resolution No. 2025-40, Contracted Sea Level Development LLC for the as-necessary stormwater, open ditch, and canal mowing in the amount of $89,600. And we have Commissioner Howington and then Vice Mayor Harriet. So, I just wanted to ask some general questions. This was actually brought up to me about a month and a half ago when I was contacted by the owner of Sea Level. And they had told me that they were actually awarded this bid on September 11th of last year. And what I'm trying to figure out is, why did it take so long? If the bid was awarded in September of 2024, why did it take so long to get before the commission? That falls on me. Got away from me. But we also only contract with our vendors, typically for this type of mowing, twice a year, the spring and the fall. So, our prior vendor was just finishing up the fall mowing season with the hurricane. And then, of course, now we'll get this new vendor on for the spring mowing season. Okay. And so, we will intend to have this done before hurricane season starts? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you so much. Vice Mayor Harriet. Thank you, Mayor. Just to reiterate my last comment, I also hope that we can use this, the purchase of the Menzee plus this contract to increase our service interval on maintaining these canals and ditches. I think that'll help. I know Commissioner Howington's district floods quite a bit as well, and certainly District 1. And 6. And 6. So, all of our districts. There's areas in all of them. So, I hope that we can also use this contract to increase that, begin to increase our service interval. Thank you. Is there any public comment on? I'll make a motion to approve. Motion by Bicep. Second by? Lully. Commissioner Lully. Commissioner Lully. Commissioner Lully, sorry. All right. Can we please vote? The motion passes 6-0. I've got to remind myself to ask Joyce for one of those earpieces that Nick has or Commissioner Lully has. All right. We are in Item I, Request for Approval Resolution No. 2025-29, Purchasing Policy. And Commissioner Howington, you're on the board. I have concerns about this. I know that staff sat down with each of us individually. We have requested to have a policy workshop. And before we move forward with approving policies, I would like us to sit down as a body and discuss them. Specifically, I do have concerns with increasing the city manager's limit from the $25,000 to $100,000. And the reason being is that that has been our threshold for a long time. I would think that maybe we might want to be a little bit more conservative and maybe start out with a $50,000 increase. Simply because, yes, we have incurred higher prices and things like that. But that's a lot of money to just go out the door. All of us were elected to watch out for residents' funds and how we spend taxpayer money. We were elected to do that. We shouldn't be abdicating our duties to city staff or to the city manager. We need to keep and retain some of that control within our body. If we need to have some sort of executive order for emergency management, then that's something we can do. But I think at this point in time, it should be tabled until we have that workshop where we can all discuss together as a body and figure out what do we agree to. What do we want to give up as far as what we have control over for our residents? I can make a motion. Point of order. We're going through the list. Commissioner Caldwell. Commissioner Howington, do you want to finish? I'd like to make a motion to table this resolution until after we have the policy workshop. There's a motion by Commissioner Howington. Second. Second by Commissioner Caldwell. Continuing discussion, Vice Mayor Harriet. Then Commissioner Santiago. Then Commissioner Lilly. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Howington, I couldn't agree more with your points. The only piece that I would just disagree with you on is that the city manager can't spend money that isn't allocated in the budget. And so we do have that visibility in allocating and approving the budget. So even though we're not approving each individual purchase, we are approving each individual line item in the budget for that purchase to be made. So for me, this is below the county manager's spending threshold. This is in line with many cities within Volusia County. And on top of that, it still has to be approved in the budget before he can spend it. So this to me is increasing operational efficiency. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Santiago, then Commissioner Lilly. Thank you, Mayor. And yes, I understand, Commissioner Howington. We do an annual budget. We approve it every year. And whatever is in this budget, that's the only thing that the city manager can approve. It's been already approved. So all he's doing is executing what we already approved. So I appreciate, staff, for all the updates bringing up some of the policies that we had were so old they were antiquated, everything with papers. I do want to say that we are the biggest city. And, you know, we should be setting an example. And this right here brings it up to par, still under the Volusia County manager's authority. And I think it's a great presentation, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Commissioner Lilly, then Commissioner Corwell. Thank you, Mayor. John, I see you there patiently waiting to answer questions. Hopefully you can answer some of mine. Can you give us a breakdown of the history of the purchasing policy for the city? I believe the current one is from 2021. Is that correct? That is correct, sir. And there have been very few updates to it since basically the city was incorporated in 95. In terms of thresholds and everything else. For the most part, this policy, other than the thresholds, just cleaned up the format. We worked with legal, NIGP, National Institute of Government Purchasing, GFOA, Government Finance Officers Association, best practices, and just updated it 100%. I used, you know, local other agencies, Seminole County, for example, City of Port Orange. And then we looked at thresholds throughout the state. So for a city the size of Deltona, with over 100,000 population, our thresholds are still on the low end of some of those organizations. So at $100,000, as was stated previously, being able to purchase stuff in an efficient manner, this policy allows for that. It clearly spells out that the thresholds are only on items that were budgeted. One of the things, the examples that I think that could be said is, if a vehicle was in an accident, that vehicle would still have to come before the city commission for approval because it wasn't in the vehicle replacement policy. You know, so we have to bring that insurance proceeds and the budget amendment before y'all for approval because it wasn't in the line item budget. And that's what I just want to be very clear at, and I promised this to y'all when I talked about the budget process a couple of meetings ago, is you will see the capital outlay and the CIP in absolute detail. If it's not on there, we're buying this vehicle, it's not going to be purchased. As I stated to all of y'all last week, yes, I do report to the city manager and the deputy city manager, but I'm your financial watchdog. If it's not in the budget, it stops within my office and all the ladies that you saw before you this evening. We're here for y'all and the citizens of Deltona. What was the number—so was it lowered that—the number that you're proposing to go to $100,000, which is $25,000 now, was it previously higher before 2021? No, sir. So it's always been $25,000? Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, and that's—that $100,000, to be, I guess, a little bit more clear, that's for the sealed bid solicitation level. So until something exceeds $100,000 for a construction item, we would just go after three written quotes. So it's being able to expedite things that were approved during the budget process. The example I used, the pavilion that's in the budget for $75,000. October 1st, the budget was approved. We get the three quotes, and we can potentially have a notice to proceed within one to three months, versus if we take it out for a solicitation, like some of the items we talked about this evening, where we had to go out and receive quotes and sealed bids, that can take six to eight months or longer. So this is just a means by which to expedite the getting the goods and services that are necessary—absolutely needed for this budget. So, question. We had item F on our consent agenda, which was the mowing for $89,600. So if this policy passed, that particular item would no longer come before us. As far as the purchase order level, we still would have approved it last summer. Is that my— You would have approved it, yes, sir, as part of the budget process. Okay. And as long as it was detailed in the budget for having a contractor for doing ditch mowing clearing, then yes, sir, that could have been approved by the city manager. Let's say that that had come in at—let's say it was budgeted for $80,000 and it came in at $99,900. Would that then have to come back before us? Yes, sir, because it exceeded 5%. Okay. So, you know, so there's still caveats to it that because it exceeded 5%, you know, even though it's under $100,000, we were only budgeted at $80,000. When we talked, you know, I call them the acronyms because it's all the different standards, right? This—would you say this is standard for what the—let me say the industry? Is this a standard for a city of our size, do you think? Absolutely. And it's still on the low end when we spoke with legal, you know, there was potential for more, but I didn't want to go for more. I believe this—for this level of government, more than adequate. We're not in Orlando. We're not in Jacksonville. We are a—on the high-end, medium-tiered local government. Okay. Thank you. That's what I got for now. Appreciate it. Commissioner Caldwell? I don't think the question is whether we approve it in the budget or not. That's, you know, our opportunity to see what you're spending money on. I think our problem is what you're spending the $100,000 on, who it's going to, and the fact that it doesn't come back before us. So we have no idea. You could be spending it on somebody's brother out here that we don't know. So we will never see that again once this gets approved. The other issues I have with this is on page 7 under the graph where it says $5,000 to $100,000 city manager, and then there's an asterisk after that. So that gives the city manager or a designee of himself to authorize these funds. Is that correct? That would be correct if he designates someone which is typically the finance director. So if we approve furniture for the finance department, we'll just throw it out there, the finance department, at $40,000, then they could technically go buy two desks at $20,000 apiece. I'm sorry, let's go $75,000 because that's a bad example. So they could go buy two desks for $75,000. We wouldn't see that again. Is that correct? The answer would be yes, but I think that would be a gross negligence to the use of public funds. It wasn't a question. And again, that's where I believe my role as your finance director, that if a purchase order like that came through, Kate would come in and ask me about it, and I would look at it and say this just does not make prudent sense, and I would take it to the city manager for review. That would not get an automatic pass. Well, as I just met you, and the city manager's new to the team, as well as a lot of people out here, so trust to me is a big issue. And we haven't earned that yet. We've had a lot of issues in the past with overspending. Sorry, I can't hear you, sir. Can we please take care of that? So anyhow, back to my point, trust is a big issue for me. We've had a lot of, in the past, overspending, stuff going out that we didn't see. Even at $25,000, I'm under the understanding that a previous city manager would spend $24,999 five times to get it accomplished what he wanted to get accomplished. And that's illegal, too. That's illegal, too. I agree with you, sir. I have to earn your trust. This is why I believe it needs to go to a workshop. You're good, Mr. Commissioner. Okay. Commissioner Howington, then Commissioner Lully. I have been made aware that one of the reasons that we've stayed at $25,000 for so many years is because there were problems prior to 2010. That is a concern. You said that we are comparing ourselves to other areas, specifically counties, larger cities, Port Orange, and things like that. Did you happen to look at what the tenure is of the city manager in those locations or the county manager? Because we've had an excessive turnover rate within the city of Deltona. And while Doc seems competent, what happens if the next person isn't? Once we cross this threshold, we've sort of gone to a place that we might not be able to come back from. So, to echo Commissioner Caldwell, how do we get to a point to where we feel confident in the decisions that are being made on our behalf for the residents? That is my concern. And until we can sit down and really talk this out as a body, I don't feel confident handing over $100,000 because the way it's written within the budget is just one singular line item. It doesn't have detail. It doesn't have vendors. We don't have all of that information. We can't guarantee that the money is being handled frugally. And I think we can admit we have a problem following policy in this community. We've had multiple people here on the dais make a comment that they haven't read policies, that they don't understand them, they don't comprehend them, they don't even read things that they sign. We had the city manager admit that he didn't know about policies that existed. And now we're looking at giving these people $100,000 of spending allowance. That is a concern to me. We need to sit down and have that workshop. Residents, we're not doing this. This is not a show. We're not applauding or booing or any of that. Commissioner Lally, could you please remove Mr. Sosa from the City Hall, please? Have a good day, Mr. Sosa. Am I good? Okay. Commissioner Hall, can you bring up something at the start that I thought was interesting? And I will say, and I know you keep asking for a workshop, and one of the things I think that makes it difficult for this is that we can't really kind of have like a back and forth. So, I'm curious if, is the only sticking point, can I, I'm going to ask you a question, sorry, we're going to go off Robert Sewell's. You can't hear me? Yeah, sorry, it's like blaring in my ears. I got about to turn my Sosa. So, is your only sticking point, I guess Commissioner Caldwell as well, is the only sticking point that $100,000 number in the policy? I'm just curious. At this point, I would say yes, the $25,000 is definitely a sticking point. I mean, I would like to know what everybody else's feelings are on all the changes. However, I could modify a motion and pull the $100,000. That's where I was, you mentioned the number of $50,000. And I'm curious if this were modified to lower that $100,000 to $50,000 for just staff level approval and then the $50,000 plus still comes for the commission, if that would be something that would be a compromise that would be willing to be accepted tonight. And I'm not saying you can't have your workshop, but that's just, I'm just curious. Right. The workshop's already in the books. We've already requested that. Okay. So I would hope that that would not stop. Just want to point of order, clarification. Are you referring to my motion at the last meeting for a workshop? We had two. One was travel and then one was to look at the rest of the policies. The, the, just want to clarify, I think we should, should make that motion again tonight because that motion was regarding commission policies for us. So I think it would be prudent for us to make sure that that is included in the motion for these policies. Just bring that up during commissioner comments, if you don't mind. Okay. Or it could be part of the motion for this also. So again, sorry, we're going off Robert's rules. If you, and if the seconder would, would agree, I'm wondering if you would want to amend your motion to allow up to 50 as an incremental step. And then we'll have that workshop and then the rest could be adopted. Sure. I would be okay with doing that. If commissioner Caldwell would be okay with it. Would you reduce it down to 50, which would account for inflation? All you, all you, all you could do right now is retract your second and then you guys can discuss. All right. Commissioner Howington, would you retract your motion? I'll retract my motion. Okay. Commissioner Caldwell, what would be your, your requests? And please make sure you speak tonight. Is this for the residents? I want the asterisk removed, allowing a city manager or a designee of himself to authorize these funds to you. So just for clarification, you don't want, you, you don't want the asterisks. You want it to say. Nobody but the city manager. I'm sorry? Nobody but the city manager. Correct. I think that would be an issue. Go ahead. Through the mayor, if I may. We did have extensive conversations with finance about this. You have done an exemplary job of talking about the history of the city. And there have been moments in the city that have had a gap in leadership. And this would allow that to be covered. So say, for example, the current city manager made a policy that designated the deputy city manager or the finance director in their absence. Then if they were absent, for whatever reason, that person could step in. So just if you want, we could clarify that, you know, it says in their absence. But I just wanted to put that out there. Based on that history, it might be prudent to have a designee in the absence of the manager. That would work for me. Okay. So now we're at a motion again. Is there anybody that would like? I'll make a motion. The finance director wanted to say something? Mayor, there's two things on that. I understand the city manager's threshold. But the other part of that was raising the requirement for going out for a solicitation to $100,000 as well. They can be different. They don't have to be the same. So are you wanting to allow us to still have the solicitation level at $100,000? Just anything over $50,000 that's not per the policy would come back to the commission for approval. I'm fine with that. Yes. So at this time, we'll entertain a motion. Okay. I'll make the motion. Let's see. I move to approve Resolution No. 2025-29 Purchasing Policy Manual with an adjustment to the city manager's threshold from $100,000 to $50,000. We are not including the asterisk. We're not including the asterisk. Okay. You're going to rewrite that to a designee? Could you add to your motion and change the asterisk to state city manager will designate a person that is authorized to approve any exempt purchase in their absence? You can just say, as stated by the city attorney, if you don't want to restate that whole thing. As stated by the city attorney, I'll amend the motion. I'll second that. There's a motion by Commissioner Howington, a second by Commissioner Colwell. And is there any—go ahead, Vice Mayor Harry, and then we'll do public comment. Okay. I just wanted to clarify, we're just increasing the—we're decreasing the $100,000 and one cents— Purchasing power. To $50,000 and one cents, and then maintaining the $100,000 on the solicitation. Correct. Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much. All right. Public comment, please. Debbie Mize, please. Welcome back. Debbie Mize of Deltona. I still disagree with the $50,000. I think that opens the door for abuse and corruption. There's still no transparency. You guys don't get to see it, and it just gets handed off and done. And you guys have already proved that you don't listen to us. We can't trust you. And as an ex-county employee, we always had to sign and read the county policies and make sure—and we signed off saying we read it, we understood it. And we already know that you guys don't do that. Kathy Bryan, please. Excuse me. A little staticky. Okay. Kathy Bryan, Deltona. You know, the finance director, I get what he's saying about the previous manager spending $24,99, but, you know, you could have the same thing happen at $100,000 where somebody's spending $999,099.99. But when we talk about being the biggest city, resident-wise, yes. But I don't think we're the biggest city financially, simply because our tax base is primarily residential again. And so, yes, your residents are concerned when you give large amounts of money to spend. It goes through the budget, maybe, but what's to say it gets used in what it was budgeted? And you're right. The citizens have seen too much money get moved around, probably inappropriately and misplaced. I do agree with balancing out a little bit due to inflation. I probably would have only gone $35,000, but, again, I really feel like you guys need to have a say in more stuff than you do. So I realize you need money to be able to do what you need to do. The other thing is, as far as having a designee, I would like to see somebody who's consistently the designee and that person to be approved by the commission, and maybe a substitute just in case. If that person's no longer working here, then you choose another one. So that way, everybody knows who's doing what. So thank you. Robert Bryant, please. Brian Deltono. I lived through Jane Shine. I lived through Mr. Cooper. I can go all the way back to Beringer, even. I can remember almost every single manager we've had. The reason why we've had this spending limit is because of the shuffling of money that Jane Shine did. Transportation money. They literally took money out of paving the roads and put it somewhere else without ever bringing it to y'all commissioners. We had to look for it for a few months to be able to find that money. Oh, you know where it went? Went to Parks and Recs. No vote, no nothing. Now, it was said that he can only do things on the budget or that are included in the budget. And yet, it's funny. Cooper took and did things that were never in the budget, up to $25,000. This comes down to trust, period, full stop. Now, we've asked for accountability for the last 10 years. Have we seen accountability? No, we haven't. We've asked for the stormwater maintenance to be put on the website when it gets started, when they're in the middle of it, what streets they're doing, what canals they're doing. Has it ever gotten there? No, never has. We had a manager that would give out weekly and monthly spreadsheets. He was supposed to be putting them onto the website. It never got put on the website at all. Why are we hiding so much? What are you scared of? Most of what you spend, we normally don't have a problem with. But at the end of the day, we don't trust you because we're 90% residential, less than 8% commercial tax base. Jacksonville, Gainesville, oh, that's right, that's reversed. Orlando, that's reversed. So, it's one thing for businesses to care whether y'all spend their money or not. But when it comes to our money, and 90% of everything you have in here is our money. I don't trust him because I've only known him for eight months now. I'm sorry. I have a higher threshold before I trust people. That goes the same with you, especially after the debacle that we had last week. He's been gaveling away tonight. But when his lawyer made a personal attack against me, he couldn't even lift a finger. Really? I smell a lawsuit coming your way real soon like. Here's the problem with this whole thing, though. There's no accountability. None of y'all want to answer e-mails except for maybe one or two, maybe three. I don't email you that very many times. But at the end of the day, when you don't answer us, that shows you don't care. That's what it boils down to. You don't care. You put a great show on television, but that's all it goes to. Pictures are nothing. What have you done in two years? What have you actually done? Can you pinpoint a major project that you've pushed through here? No, you can't. You know why? Because none have been done. Even stuff that was already on the books by John Peters, a lot of that hasn't even been done yet. You want us to trust you. And you go ahead and smirk. It's funny to you. Everything's been a joke to you ever since you got elected. Shame on you. Catherine Gallagher, please. Hi. Catherine Gallagher, Deltona. Yeah, I just want to say, like, it's not time yet to increase the threshold there. However, the residents, it's important for them to see the line items that are coming up at 25 and above. We want to see it. And I appreciate that you've, you know, discussed the intent that it would be against the budget. But right here in your line on him, it says the policy applies to procurement of supplies, services, and construction, irrespective of the source. That means that could be anything. So, as far as I'm concerned, the city manager hasn't been here enough to show that he can be trusted to follow anything. You'll remember he was complicit in the travel policy debacle. So, let's give it some time before we increase it. It's really important to us. It really is. Thank you. Commissioner 007. All right. So, are you saying here on record today that there can't, hasn't, and won't be any spending outside of line items that have been approved on a budget? Because I think we've already had a couple examples shown that I recall, too, being here, and especially under Cooper, that occurred quite often. So, it can occur, and he won't technically always be here. So, this will apply to anybody moving forward as well. I believe the concern is the fact we have a shit history. I mean, that's basically what everybody's coming up here and saying, mostly of not doing the right thing, playing games with the dog and pony show, smoke and mirrors, where you make it look like it's one thing, but it's not, not being transparent, often sliding things in that weren't previously budgeted. And we have seen, currently even, that not following the basic policies already established occurs. I would, and perhaps others, I have a suggestion, would support this and feel a little bit more comfortable if we actually did something that we've never done before, and that is put protections in place, something I've yelled for for 10 years. Because, currently, what happens if they violate it? Nothing, right? Right. Because there's nothing built in saying what happens if you decide to do it, even though you're not supposed to do it. So, I have an answer for your question, Commissioner Howington. Building the trust starts with accountability and putting consequences should someone not follow it. Because, currently, 90% of our policies have no consequence for breaking it. We just saw that debacle go down. Obviously, that's why it's broken so often. It's like, well, ask for forgiveness later, because there's real no consequence if I break the rule. The loophole mentioned as an example a few times, like signing 12499 to stay under the 25. That did happen quite often. If there was a consequence for doing that, though, I bet you it probably wouldn't happen, because there's a follow-through of what would occur should you do it. So, I'm asking you to take the time here while you're discussing it, if you don't want to push it to another meeting and you want to approve it tonight, to go ahead and add that consequence in there, that protection of if you break it, this is what's going to occur. And I think people would maybe feel a little bit more confident in allowing it to slightly increase, because, frankly, I'm even iffy on the 50K, because we do know the history and we do know how the games are played and we do know how easy it is for it to happen and nothing be done about it, because, frankly, you have no power to do nothing about it. It's not written in there. Let's see. I would also hope that before you guys make this decision that you've actually looked back since he's only been here eight months and he couldn't give you, like, a real his version of the next budget, right, because we're supposed to change it to zero base this year, right? It's supposed to be zeroed out and grow up, not like we've normally done it. So, this year you're going to get a different type of budget as well. So, you're not even sure at this point how that's going to look. Is it going to be really detailed in those line items or not? You don't know. But you're about to change a policy that's going to affect that. So, again, I think you should look at that, the fact that, not for nothing, I'm going to put it out there, I did the research, sorry, but your previous city's drowning and huge deficits, right? And they're facing major cutbacks. That was under that supervision. So, if we've learned anything from the past, we need to look at the past and not continue to make the same mistakes. Like, there's an opportunity here. Put in some protections. Thank you. Virgil Ford. Due to Mr. Sosa's untimely removal from his proceedings, I've been asked to convey this to you all. And this comes from a city policy. And he's also referencing, there are 25 items that are exempt from commission approval, and those are right here. Those are right here. That's in your city policy. Thank you. That ends public comment. Thank you. Joyce, we have a motion and a second. Can we please vote? Motion not to table, correct? That's correct. Motion passes 6-0. This time we're going to move to ordinances and public hearing. If I'm mistaken, Section A has been pulled, correct, for a lack of notice? Yes. Okay. So, we're going to go ahead and move. Excuse me, Mayor. In order to preserve the published notice in the newspaper, we would like to open the hearing and have this deferred to a date certain in order to allow the property posting notice to be cured without incurring additional costs for the applicant. I'd like to make a motion to continue this item to the 18th. Yes, to the March 18th meeting. Second. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Harriet and a second by Commissioner Santiago. Commissioner Colwell, you're on the—okay. All right. Would we need a public comment on this one since we're just moving it? I just want to get clarification. You do not need to open public comment at this time. Could you go ahead and read the motion so we can vote since it's public hearing? Yes, so this is a resolution of the City of Deltona, Florida, approving the final plot for Phase I of the Vinland Reserve RPUD for a 126-lot single-family townhouse subdivision on plus or minus 20.3 acres of property located east of Peach Creek Drive within the City of Deltona, providing for conditions, conflicts, severability, and an effective date. And the motion on the floor is for continuance to March 18th. March 18th. Okay. Now we can go ahead and vote. The motion to continue to March 18th passes. All right. At this time, we're going to go ahead and move to B, public hearing request for approval of Ordinance No. 15-2025, establishing Chapter 43 of the City of Deltona, Code of Ordinances, Public Camping at First Reading. Thank you so much, Mayor. This is the City's Ordinance No. 15-2025. I'll read the ordinance title, and then I'll just describe it. Um, this is an ordinance of the City of Deltona, Florida, establishing Chapter 43, Public Camping, of the General Ordinances to prohibit public camping or sleeping within city buildings, properties, and rights of way, and to create the public camping or sleeping complaint process. This is an ordinance, um, that follows action taken by the Florida legislature, um, for counties and municipalities to authorize or otherwise allow public camping or sleeping at public buildings, on public grounds, property, or right-of-ways, with the exception of very particular circumstances, such as those designated for recreational use for recreational camping. Um, this particular Florida statute shifts the burden to cities and counties to—where we have to proactively avoid violations of the law, um, otherwise we can be subject, uh, to violations that could include attorney's fees and costs that could shift to the city. So, uh, this ordinance, um, was drafted in conjunction with that of Volusia County. So, Volusia County passed a very similar ordinance. This, uh, hues very closely to their ordinance, um, and was based on recommendations made by the Volusia County County Attorney. Uh, this also was provided to general counsel for the sheriff's office, um, and to ensure that it met their—their requirements as well. So, uh, this ordinance does meet all those requirements. It does meet the requirements under Florida statute, um, and I'm happy to discuss further, but that's the—that's the gist of it. Okay. Just for clarification, before we go to commissioners and to the public comment, this is just us taking what the state is telling us and pretty much putting it into an ordinance, correct? Essentially? So, not exactly. Okay. Um, every municipality and county, um, can determine how they want to enforce public camping— Got it. —uh, violations. So, this ordinance, if you go to Exhibit A—so, if you flip through the ordinance, go past the signature page, go to Exhibit A, and you go down to the bottom of the page where it says Section 43-4, Violation Penalties. So, this provides that code enforcement officers and law enforcement officers are authorized to enforce the section, and it provides the enforcement. The first violation will be no less than a $50 fine. The penalty for a second violation will be no less than a $100 fine. And the penalty for all subsequent violations shall be no less than a $200 fine. So, I don't mean to interrupt you. So, essentially, we're making this enforceable for law enforcement? Correct. And code enforcement. Yes, ma'am. Of course. That's all I need to know. Thank you. Uh, is there anybody that wants to make a motion or a second or conversation? I'll make a motion. I'll second. I hear bear approve, um, ordinance number 15-2025 at first reading to establish Chapter 43 of the City of Deltona Code of Ordinance Public Camping. This is a second by Vice Mayor Harriet with a motion by Commissioner Santiago. Is there any public comment on this one? Dana McCool, please. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, Commission, I would ask the city commission, the legal, the staffing, what the plan is for homelessness and how to deal with it. Because if you look at this ordinance and you've read, which I'm going to guess you've maybe read the state statute that actually goes along with this, each of you have read this. Because the city doesn't have a plan for homelessness. The city doesn't have a plan. We do not have a plan. We've asked for one for six years. The city doesn't have a plan. So, I will tell you this right now. This only applies to also public property. Now, I just want you to ask yourself what private property might be open to camping homelessness if we approach this gung-ho. Because we do have homeless camps here that we still refuse to address right here in Deltona. So, what are we doing as a community for the homeless population? There are a couple things. You're either going to leave them alone and leave them in their camps where they are. You're going to pony up this money that, and you're going to make sure that that money is protected from being messed with out of the community block grant funding money. Because we have people that serve the homeless here in our community. So, you don't get your cake and eat it, too. You have to one or the other here. I know that code enforcement is familiar with where these homeless camps are. But I'm asking if you are, again, familiar with our homeless population, where they hang out, who feeds them, and what is going to happen to them. Because the onus is going to come down on the city. The county's not going to spend any more money. They say that they spend enough money on this. We have a first-step shelter. We don't have enough beds to service the homeless and close-to-homeless population, which is about to get even worse now because there's nothing coming down from the state. No more money coming in from the Fed for these programs. I'm telling you to brace yourself. The Deltona is rife with that right now, homelessness. Either that or you have multiple families living together. There are going to be a lot of near-homeless situations that you're going to need to address as a city. So, remember this. This says public property, not private property. And the city does not have provided to anyone what a, where are you sending for social services? Can anybody answer me that? I mean, I know that there's a couple of people within the city, but what are you doing about social services? Who's hitting your social services here in the city? Who's doing the health forums? Who's doing the public health forums? Who's doing that? Anybody? Anybody representing anybody with domestic violence here? Anybody getting calls up there? You taking care of people? Domestic violence? In the middle of the night? Any of you designees? Anybody know who to get anybody in touch with? I don't see any affirmations. No nodding of the head. So, no. This is a new commission, and you guys need to do more than politicking. Okay? This is about when you take care of your residents, that means all residents, not just the ones that are signing your Facebook page or glorifying you or patting you on the back. It means the people that you don't know about also. Not everybody in Deltona has money. Not everybody lives in a nice neighborhood. Some people do live in tents here. It's your responsibility to take care of every single resident. So, I'm going to keep bringing this up until I hear what your plan is to take care of our vulnerable population, our children that's not eating, our domestic violence victims, because there's a lot of them. I haven't heard it brought up with any of the sheriffs at any of the comp staff meetings either by anyone. I want it brought up. I don't want anyone on this diet to forget about our social services and our community. It's as important as the other stuff that you're doing here. And it's going to be more important, because you know why? Your state and your federal government has taken away all the money that used to satisfy this. It's going to come out of these people, and you need to take care of them. Thank you. Kathy Bryan, please. I couldn't quit touching it, whether it's in my mouth range or not. So, let me ask you, is it possible to discuss how, whether that is the most viable way to enforce that rule, is to charge somebody $50 and then $100 and $150? What are you going to do when they can't pay it because they're living in a tent and they don't have any money? Then what? They go to jail. So, then they're going to be living on taxpayer dollars anyways. They'll have a bed and three squares. Right? So, I'm with Dana. I don't want to see us become like a San Francisco or some of the places in the Northwest where people are living everywhere on the streets with needles and their waste and the unsanitary conditions. But I do believe you can give them a place where it's okay to stay and they feel comfortable and they don't feel hassled. And you give them a chance for that and then maybe, not everybody, some of them can work on getting themselves ahead. Not everybody out there wants to. But the mental health services in this country aren't. And if you think about how many people out there are a paycheck away from losing their home and everything they have, it's pretty bad. So, I suggest, I think we really should discuss what we can do to enforce it and where we can give them a place to go other than to charge them money they don't have, if you think about it. And every time we bring up something about giving them a place to go or a shelter or otherwise being primarily a residential community, it's not in my backyard. NIMBYism to the max. Oh, it's going to bring this, this, and this. Well, we've already got this, that, and the other. So, I think we, you know, this is another opportunity for our city to be maybe a little bit progressive in what we do. The other thing is, is we're responsible for the city property who's taking care of any of the county property. Are we responsible for that as well? Or is the county going to help us with any kind of enforcement, et cetera? You guys want to, the state wants to set up this? I wish they would set up ordinance for other things like noise, et cetera. But we're more worried about people in tents. I don't see them. So, think about it. Thank you. That ends public comment. Okay. This is the first reading, right? There's a motion. And Commissioner Lully, go ahead. I just wanted to clarify with the city attorneys, if I might. And I lost my thing, so I'm going to have a hard time hearing you. I think the Kathy static issue may be the same thing with me. This is just to make sure we don't get sued. Is that, like, the basis of what this is? This ordinance is specifically to comply with state statute. If we do not have an ordinance that addresses this, we can be subject to violations of the new law as a city. And those actions can be brought by residents, they can be brought by businesses, and they can be joined by the attorney general. And they can come after the city for fees and attorney's fees. So, this ordinance addresses and meets the needs of the statutory requirements of the new state statute, which is Section 125, Spot 0231. Does that answer your question? Yes, and so, like, is your—when you are going through—when we're proposing these things, are you—you guys are just, like, you review the state law and figure out what we need to do in order to comply? Is that kind of how it works? So, that's a complicated question. The short answer is yes. However, communities have addressed this in a variety of ways. Could we not comply with the state statute and risk the litigation? We could. But there's a lot of different ways to implement the ordinance. This ordinance is in keeping with that of Volusia County. I would say it's a fairly moderate, reasonable approach in that it's fines and not arrests. And so—and again, because Volusia County Sheriff enforces county—County as well as Deltona, there will be continuity. Right? So, if someone is right outside the city limits, Volusia County Sheriff, they're inside city limits, Volusia County Sheriff. So, that's part of the reason we wanted to work with the county. And so, our ordinance was not radically different. But this ordinance protects the city from litigation that could come from that statute. And this ordinance does—it does provide—it provides a statutorily required process. And I would say it's a fairly moderate process. Okay. Thank you. All right. Before we go to vote, maybe for the second hearing, if we can get—I think one of the residents brought up a good point. If they're homeless, we can't continue to fine them. So, for the second hearing, if we can just get some other ideas of how we're going to address that, you know, unless it's already in there and I didn't see it. We're happy to work with the city manager. Sure. So, just so you know, in the ordinance, the second—so, you know, I was reading that part about the fines. If you continue on at the top of page two of Exhibit A, it says a warning notice may be issued in lieu of a fine. So, there is an option for the officer, the responding officer, whether it be code enforcement or law enforcement, to provide a warning. And, in addition, the law enforcement officer or designated city official can issue a trespass warning or any other penalty that would be already outlined in Chapter 810 of Florida statutes. The trespass warning is limited to city property, though. So, there is already a provision. So, if it is that type of situation, they can use their professional discretion at the time to just do a warning notice. Got it. Can we please vote, Joyce? Motion passes. Six to zero. This time, we're going to go to public hearing—C, public hearing request for approval of ordinance number 16-2025, amending Chapter 2, Article V, to update the sections related to the debt policy, budget policy, and purchasing policy at first reading. I'll read the title, and then I'll hand it over to John. Sure. This is ordinance number 16-2025, an ordinance of the City of Deltona, Florida, amending Article 4, financial policies of Chapter 2, administration of the General Ordinances to be termed Article 4, finance, establishing Division 2, budget, and Division 3, purchasing of Article 4, finance of Chapter 2, administration of the General Ordinances, repealing and relocating the provisions of Article X—I'm sorry, Article 10, bidding preference for local vendors of Chapter 2, administration of the General Ordinances to newly created Division 3, purchasing of Article 4, finance of Chapter 2, administration of the General Ordinances, conflicts, codification, severability, and an effective date. Mayor, real quick, point of order. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. What's the point of order? The screen is broken, and it's not—it's showing everybody's votes before the vote is completed. So, I'd like to make sure that everybody's okay with us just taking that off the screen for tonight so that we can all vote unanimously. And then, um, Joyce, go. She went to that, to take it off the screen. If we can then just do, um, I mean, it would be the same as doing a verbal vote, but we can vote here, and then if you guys can just read what the motion was, and let the residents know so we know who voted how for transparency. And then I'd also like to make the motion to approve this item as presented. Okay, motion by Vice Mayor to approve as presented. I second that. Second by Commissioner Lodley. Mayor, Commission, good evening again. First of all, I think that the next—this item brings a level of transparency that's not currently in our Code of Ordinances. Number one, as it was stated, it changes this article simply to finance, so it's all-encompassing. Division one, which is an existing policy regarding debt, is simply renumbering, so it falls within the same numeration. As other articles, the division number two, budget. In our charter and our current Code of Ordinances, we had nothing in here related to, you know, the process of the budget. It was a policy at the administrative level approved back in 2008 that we've been following, so this actually codifies the process for the annual budget. Specifically, the process for annual estimates, how the city manager is to bring it for you and what's to be included within it. The adoption of the annual budget. It has to be done by a resolution. The process for amending the annual budget. It talks about, you know, what the city manager's level of authority is at the fund level, but it clearly spells out that the city manager or staff has no authority to transfer a line-item budget from the general fund to a capital project account in another fund. That leaves it at the city commission level only, so that brings a level of transparency. It also talks about the lapse at the end of the fiscal year. If it's a capital item, then it allows for, and budgeted, it allows for it to be moved into the next fiscal year automatically, but all other appropriations lapse at 930. So that means if in finance I have $500 remaining in a postage or operating supply, it falls into fund balance. It does not flow into the next fiscal year. Division number three, purchasing, clearly spells out that the city commission would approve a purchasing policy by resolution, which I did this evening. We did not have that before. And then finally, this city has a really good local preference policy that was already in the code of ordinances, but I personally didn't know where it was, so it puts it in the finance section. So it puts everything related to finance within the one article of the codes. Other than that, these proposed amendments provide for a more efficient debt budget and appropriations and purchasing process consistent with state law for all of our financial processes. Thank you. Okay, there's a motion. There's a second. Is there any public comment? Commissioner 007? Actually, it was more for clarification, some of which he just provided, so thank you for that. There used to be links on the agendas where I could see more in depth the explanations and maybe things that were changed and not changed, and those are gone. You've really got to dig and look to try to find anything now, so I'm not sure why. I did notice just now I checked it's not just this agenda item. It ended up being all of them, so I don't know why we no longer add the links with our agendas, but maybe something that you guys can bring back. I did have a couple more questions that weren't in there, but since it's the first reading and I didn't get answers to any other things, I'm not going to go through it. But I do like that it's posed as for more accountability, so that's great to hear, and I can see, based on what you stated, that it would bring about that. My only concern is we didn't even follow our consent agenda process that's actually in here, so any type of process changes, I feel like you should provide a little bit more information than what was provided to the residents online. Thank you. That ends public comment. Please go through. Please vote. Motion passed, 6-0. All right, this time we're going to move to D, public hearing request for approval of ordinance number 18-2025, amending chapter 68, article 2, to update the sections related to customer deposits at first reading. Would you like to read it before we go to commissioners? I'd like to make a motion, motion to approve this item. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Harriet and a second by Commissioner Caldwell. Could you please read it? This is ordinance number 18-2025, an ordinance of the City of Deltona, Florida, amending section 68-58, customer deposits of article 2, water and wastewater utility rate ordinance of chapter 68, water, wastewater and utilities of the general ordinances, to update customer deposit and creditworthiness requirements, providing for conflicts, codification, severability and an effective date. Please note that creditworthiness was misspelled, but we will correct it for second reading. It is not a substantive amendment, so we will not need to re-advertise. Okay. Is there any public comment? Please vote. Motion passed, 6-0. All right, we're going to go to section E, public hearing request for approval of ordinance number 13-2024, amending the City's Land Development Code sections 110-300 to 110-320, article 3, article 3, establishment of clear classifications, and official zoning map of chapter 110, zoning at first reading. Vice Mayor Harriet? I'd like to make a motion to approve this. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Harriet to approve. I'll second. There's a second by Commissioner Howington. The title into the record, this is ordinance number 13-2024, an ordinance of the City of Deltona, Florida, amending sections 110-300 to 110-320 of article 3, establishment of classifications and official zoning map, to include zoning regulation updates of the Land Development Code of the City of Deltona, providing for conflicts, codification, severability and an effective date. Thank you. Vice Mayor Harriet, and then we'll go to public comment if there's any. The only comment that I want to make is this is part of the Land Development Code update. Sorry, could staff in the back please see you guys what to do, but. Yeah. Okay, go ahead, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to thank staff and highlight for everybody that this is the first ordinance, per se, that it's being updated as part of the Land Development Code that everybody has been asking for for a long time. So I wanted to thank staff so much for your diligent work on this. Commissioners, thank you guys for, you know, all of us working together to get this sent home. This is one of many. I know we've got more, and I look forward to continuing to make these updates to the Land Development Code. Is there any public comment? All right, can we please vote? Motion passed, 6-0. All right, we're going to go ahead and go into F, public hearing request for approval of ordinance number 04-2025, amending the Zoning Code, Chapter 74, Administration, 74 Administration to include review procedures, eliminating review durations, and update public noticing requirements, amending Chapters 75, 106, and 110 by removing procedures, regulations in Chapter 74 of the Land Development Code of the City of Deltona, first reading. Vice Mayor. Ordinance number 04-2025, an ordinance of the City of Deltona, Florida, amending the Zoning Code, Chapter 74, Administration, to include review procedures, eliminating review durations, and updating public noticing requirements, amending Chapters 75, 106, and 110 by removing procedures regulated in Chapter 74 of the Land Development Code of the City of Deltona, providing for conflicts, codification, severability, and an effective date. Vice Mayor Harriott. I'd like to make a motion to approve this item. I'll second. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Harriott and a second by Commissioner Arlington. And, Mayor, if you don't mind, in addition to the thanks that I just provided on the last item, I'd also like to thank the P&Z staff or P&Z appointees boards. This is—all of these are items that go before them to get polished before they come to us, so they play a crucial role in us getting these completed. Commissioner Akoa? Yeah, I want to caution us, moving forward, the final site plan application, we've all been asking to see that in the end, including the thing with Aloha states. You made me amend my motion to see the final site plan, did you not? So this would not come before us again. Correct. I'm not okay with that. All right. Is there any public comment? Dana McCool, please. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commission. I would like to also bring up the wording regarding—and I ask for this as a commissioner, I hope that it's followed through with—when it comes to our quasi-judicial meetings here, as far as our moving forward, we had a very stringent, stupidly so, regulation regarding people speaking with standing. With standing, there is no state requirement with what that means, with standing. With standing means different things in different communities, right, when we come in for development. With standing could be people have children that live further than 300 yards from a proposed zoning that would affect them and their school bus stop. With standing could mean somebody that lives within a one-mile radius of this, whose life is going to be affected by a major amendment for a zoning coming through in a quasi-judicial meeting. So I would like to understand, and I would like for the public's interest to be protected, regarding that with standing. It is too restrictive, as it is written now. I believe it's 300 feet, if I'm not mistaken, on most of them, which is stupid, for lack of a better word that would describe that, which is stupid. Please do the research. We have a great legal team right here to tell you what the requirement for standing is. Standing affects more people than just 300 feet. So I would like the commission to entertain that as you move through when people come up here to speak. We have people that have been adversely affected by a water quality issue, have issue with our cup as it pertains to development moving forward, have issue with school bus stops or lack of sidewalk or lack of protective measures for children coming in for development. And you are not allowed to take that into consideration when we are having a hearing on development. So with that being said, I would like to understand on a case-by-case, or I would like for there to be discussion on behalf of the public regarding standing. It is too restrictive, and I'm asking that you understand what state statute, what state law says about that. There is not hardwired. Go back. It was sold to us for a long time by our last legal teams that this was a requirement, and it's not. Standing means what you say it means as it pertains to a particular development. I think 300 feet is written, but Deltona is different in the way that we develop it, or the way that we develop it, and what our requirements are, and how this affects the public. So, again, please take that into consideration as you move through the actual verbiage coming through here as to what your public needs to be protected from. Thank you. That is public comment. Please vote. I was going to do, just— Go ahead. Go ahead. Just one little thing. I know Deltona's east side has huge properties. 300 feet regarding certain properties that are hundreds of acres is a—may need to be adjusted just a little bit. That's all I got to say. Lori, District 6, which has lots of big areas. Thank you. Commissioner Lully, you were on the board. I didn't see it. Sorry. Thank you. No, it's okay, Mayor. Thank you. On both of those topics, actually, I do have a question for the legal team. Can we confirm, is that correct and accurate to say that we can set the boundary for who has standing for a land use change? So you could certainly expand the radius and expand the radius for notification to neighboring property owners. That is all within your discretion as the city commission. Is it possible for the—let's say the planning department, can they set like a custom range per application, or do we need to set an actual number? You would need to set an actual standard so that you are treating applicants equally. You could potentially scale that based on the impact, the size of the development, just like we've been talking about with the, you know, plats over 100 lots versus over 200 lots. Um, but I would caution you not to, uh, provide too broad of discretion to staff in setting that. Okay. Um, so I definitely think that's an important point, um, and I'll be talking about some commissioner comments that maybe, uh, is related, but I think that's an important point for us to consider going forward. Um, I know I've heard concerns from Mount Myway, which is, I think, one of the more rural, I'd say rural districts with some of the larger, um, lands where 300 feet does not reach a, a, a broad swath at all. Um, and certainly we, I think we can also look at, um, other means and methods maybe of notifying, um, impacted parties, um, outside of that as well. Um, so that was point one. Point two, um, I wanted to, um, follow up on my colleague's, um, statement about the, um, final plat approval. The way I read it, it's, it says final site plan, which is different than final plat, right? For, for what would, would give the planning director approval. We're not, approving this doesn't take our power away to vote on final plats. Correct. Correct. The commission approves the final plat. The final site plan is, um, administrative. Can you, can you give us an, uh, can you give us an explanation of the difference between a final site plan and a final plat? Final, final site plan has already been through the process with the commission, whether it's a rezone, um, final plat is, um, procedural process in which they're legally subdividing the property. So the item we heard last meeting, Aloha State Department, that was a final plat? Correct. That was a final plat and they're working on their final site plan as we speak, which will go to the staff level. So approving this would not take away our power to review the final plat for that? Correct. Okay. I think that answers my concerns. Thank you. And commissioner, just, um, just to rehash on what you said about notifying the public, a big change in chapter 74 is we're requiring applicants to do a public participation plan meeting before a public hearing, um, before they come for a public hearing. So it's a new requirement. They have to, I think there's, they present a summary or. They'll present a summary and it will be in your, in the staff report. Correct. Okay. Terrific. Thank you. Vice mayor, Harriet. Jordan. Uh, or maybe this is a better question for Zach. Um, is there the ability to require infrastructure to be completed prior to the final plat being brought before the commission? So a final plat is just the way that you are legally subdividing lots, that you are cutting up the rights of ways, the, the property boundaries. Um, and normally you can, in most jurisdictions, you can plat a property without even beginning your site development process and some jurisdictions actually require a, uh, a preliminary plat be completed before they'll issue any site work permits. Um, so I'm trying to find a way to prevent what is happening in, uh, some of the developments over in district five and six, where, um, there are concerns with the infrastructure that is being put into place and then requesting final plat before that infrastructure is approved and signed off on. So is this the. Just a point of order. I think a final plat is only, or typically it's just a zoning situation. Correct. So final plat is ministerial. Um, I understand the concern, um, frankly, the concerns with infrastructure design is addressed in permitting, um, as far as the site development permit and with site plans. Okay. Um, it is just the practice that some developers begin their infrastructure site work prior to a final plat approval because we require a performance bond for the, the site infrastructure. Okay. That's essentially the developer buying down the cost of their bond by actually starting the work of their infrastructure. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, would there be any interest in continuing your discussion regarding the 300 feet and increasing that? Can do that during commission or comments. Is that not part of the chapter? Because I don't think that's part. Are we, are we trying to amend that right now? I mean, you, you all can certainly provide that direction. Um, I'll let Jordan speak. I just, just want to state that, um, each certified letter that we do send out does have a cost associated with it. And right now I believe it's over $9 for a certified letter. And you have to send it out certified? Because that's what we, that's, because that's what we said we have to do. And Jordan, I want to clarify, is that passed on to the applicant? Can we pass it on? No. That's the city. Is that, um, what's kind of the average cost for notifying? $9. Well, I understand per resident, but like how many residents, like some of the projects that were, were, that are coming before us now, what is, what's that total cost? What is the average cost? We can pull that information and provide that to you for a second reading. Because if we're talking, if we're talking 10 or 15 people and it jumps up to 20, then I don't, I think it's prudent to spend the money now than it is to spend the money later. Yeah. And you could certainly, um, exp, if you provide direction to expand the radius, we could also change the, the process so that the cost is passed on to the applicant, um, through your cost recovery as, uh, you know, many of our other consultant fees are. Okay. Okay. I'll add it to my commission comments. Thank you. Can we please, uh, Mr. Mayor, if we may, if you would like us to amend this, that's before you, we, we could have that discussion and you could, this is your first reading, right? Yeah. This is the first reading. So we could make the changes. Um, we can make the changes before the second reading. Do you? I think we, we should have, I, I would prefer us to have a workshop before we have the second reading if possible. And that's what I was going to bring up. Or one of them was, uh, just because we, we need to somewhat determine the perimeters. I love the idea of charging this back to the, to the developer. Um, but you know, I, I want to make sure we stay, you know, within reasonable parameters as well, because there's a lot of good points. You know, maybe the child, you know, plays at a park and it's affecting them. And let's say they play at West Crowe Park, but they live five miles away and there's a new development going in. Well, it's not going to affect them directly, but indirectly it does affect them, right? So we, we really, we, we should have a good parameter and a good discussion on how we want to move forward, uh, with, with certain developments. And I, and I think that would be the right move. I'm just one of six, uh, one of seven. So, so certainly what we could do in the absence of a motion, uh, you know, a direction to amend that tonight is when we come back for second reading in order not to delay the progress, we could provide some sample radiuses, you know, going from three, five, a thousand feet and what that looks like on a map. And then at second reading, you can provide that direction and we'll, we'll fill that in. And just, just to address, I know we, I want to make, be clear, this is about notification. Standing is separate. I mean, yes, these people who get these notifications will have standing, but the Supreme Court does provide other guidance for standing, which is a party who can demonstrate that they will be impacted differently than the rest of the city has standing. So say, for example, there's a school that's a thousand feet away from a development and that the school district wants to come in and they say, well, this property is going to dynamite all day while the children have class. We have standing and we should be allowed to comment under quasi judicial. They would have standing as they are being impacted differently than the rest of the city because they're a thousand feet in front of the development that's doing the dynamiting. So just because you don't receive the notice does not mean you don't have standing to speak during quasi judicial. That is the distinction. You have to be impacted separately and uniquely in a way that the rest of the city is not. And that definitely would often expand beyond the 300 feet. So that includes District 5, which we're locked in the middle of all these other districts and no X-12 through these districts in the development moment? Can you—I can't hear that question. That includes District 5, where we have standing and the entire residence because we have to drive through all these districts to get out of this town? We're landlocked. So the party would need to have a different impact than the rest of the city. So I would say because we're carved up into districts, if it impacts an entire district, then an individual resident does not have something that's different, right? They all have that. That's everybody. The difference would be—the dynamite is a good example, right? The closer you are, the more—if your business is during the day, the more impact you have. I mean, yes, we are all impacted by development. We are all impacted by flooding, correct. But that's a universal impact. So the short answer is, in the whole district, would the whole district have standing? No, unless they could demonstrate in some demonstrable way that their impact was different than the rest of the other people in the larger population. So they could try to demonstrate it. They could come up and say, here's why it's different for me. Thank you. Go ahead, Jess. Five to one, Caldwell against. Motion passes five to one. This time we're going to go into G, public hearing request for approval of ordinance number 14-2024, amending section 110-810 of Article 3 of Chapter 110, Zoning of the Land Development Code at first reading. Commissioner Caldwell. I will let the motion approve. Commissioner Caldwell, I'd like to have a motion to approve. I'll second. There's a second by Commissioner Howington. Can you please read the request? Yes, sir, this is. It's a motion to approve. Commissioner Lalli Shibichi to this one. This is ordinance number 14-2024, an ordinance of the City of Deltona, Florida, amending section 110-810 of Article 8, driveway expansion residential of the Land Development Code of the City of Deltona, to include updated design standards and permit requirements, providing for conflicts, codification, severability, and an effective date. Is there any public comment? Motion passes six-zero. Okay. Okay. This time we're going to go ahead and enter into action items. 9-8, consideration of appointments of re-appointments or re-appointments of four members and four alternates to the Planning and Zoning Board. Excuse me. At this time, I'll go ahead and go down the list of who each commissioner wants to appoint or the commissioners that are up for an appointment or re-appointment. We'll start off with Commissioner Santiago. Yes, I move to appoint Tara DeRico to the Planning and Zoning Advisory Board. There's a motion by Emma Santiago or Commissioner Santiago to appoint Ms. DeRico. Second. There's a second by Commissioner Howington or Vice Mayor Harriet. You guys are so quickly— That probably won't happen often. You guys are so quick at— I guess so. It's the— All right. Just for curiosity, is there any public comment on these? No. No? Okay. Can we go ahead and vote? Motion passes six-zero. Okay. At this time, Commissioner Colwell, you're up for your choice? I would like to keep Andrea Cardio. Okay. And also— There's a motion? A motion, yes. Okay. We're going to work first on the main ones, and then we'll go to alternates. All right. All right. There's a motion by Commissioner Colwell to keep Andrea Cardio. I'll second that. There's a second by Commissioner Lully. Please vote. Motion passes six-zero. Motion passes six-zero. At this time, we go to Commissioner of District 1, Vice Mayor Harriet. Who is your nominee? I move to make a motion to appoint David Stewart to Planning and Zoning. All right. Second. There's a motion by Vice Mayor Harriet and a second by Commissioner Lully. Can we please vote? Motion passes six-zero. Okay. And at this time, I have my pick, and I pick Pat Northey to be on the Planning and Zoning Board, or I make a motion to appoint Pat Northey to the Planning and Zoning Board. Second. Second by Commissioner Santiago. Please vote. Motion passes six-zero. Okay. Are we doing the alternates the same way? The alternates are by Commissioner of District 1. Okay. Well, I'd like to hand over the gavel, and I would like to make the first nominee. I would like to appoint Larry French as an alternate to the Planning and Zoning Board. We have a second. I'll second that, yeah. Sorry. We have a— We have a— Sorry. Larry French. Second by Commissioner Lully. Pass it back, Mayor. Motion passes six-zero. All right. Anybody else want to get— Okay. Commissioner Caldwell, and then— Oh, yeah. I'll motion to reappoint Lori Warnicke. Okay. Second. Motion by Commissioner Lully, and a second by Vice Mayor Harriet. Motion passes six-zero. I'd like to make a motion for the third alternate. I know Tara was an alternate— Oh. Yes. I was getting right to you. Commissioner Caldwell goes first. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Caldwell, I apologize. I would like to make a motion to reappoint Jeffrey Zlatos as an alternate. Second. So, motion by Commissioner Caldwell, second by Commissioner Lully. Motion passes six-zero. Okay. Commissioner Santiago, you were next. Yep. Just like to make a motion for the last alternate. I know Tara was an alternate for Karen. I don't have her last name from Trinity Christian Academy. Oh, yes. No, I'll second. No, I'll second. So, there's a motion by Commissioner Santiago to appoint Ms. Karen Nair, and a second by Commissioner Howington. Motion passes six-zero. Okay. This time, we're going to go to City Attorney Commons. I'd like to—real quick, I'd like to ask if staff can distribute an updated PNZ member list with contact information as soon as they get a chance. City Attorney Commons. City Attorney Commons. City Attorney Commons. Thank you so much. I do have three comments tonight. The first is with respect to a letter from the Florida—State of Florida Commission on Ethics that I sent to you all. This is with respect to a question that was posed by Commissioner Caldwell in November and with respect to Commissioner Santiago. The State Commission on Ethics, as you all have been provided, provided a very comprehensive nine-page document that provides a very detailed analysis of the work of Commissioner Santiago and that of her spouse, including in his role as a county commissioner. And it provides a very clear roadmap for under the current situation, as it lies today, or as it lied as the date of this letter, when potentially a conflict could occur. I'm happy to discuss this more fully, but in short, with respect to the county, items that come before the City Council that are related to the county, Commissioner Santiago can vote on them, as long as there is not a special private gain or loss to her husband, which is very unlikely in his role as a county commissioner, based on the previous items that have come before us. So it does, again, provide a detailed analysis with respect to that. It also provides analysis that if her husband has been fully paid for consulting services at a time that a former client presents a matter to the City Commission, then the Commissioner Santiago will not have a voting conflict as long as her husband has completed his work and has been fully compensated. That would, that would apply in any of his capacities, individually or as a member of the business Maximus. Additionally, there is some detailed analysis about if he provides consulting under the nonprofit in which he is employed. Because the Commissioner Santiago has no affiliation with that nonprofit, she is not going to be in violation of Section 112-—I'm sorry, Spot 3137A, if that entity consults with clients on matters that come before the city, whether it be the city commission, city staff, or subordinate city board. So that's limited to his work through the nonprofit that he works for. And then there is a very detailed analysis, and candidly, this is the bulk of the letter. So it's first three and a half, four pages. So the short answer to the question that Commissioner Caldwell asked was with respect to voting conflict. The company Maximus, any work that's been done in the past and has been fully paid for, if a client comes forward, they—the Commissioner Santiago can vote. There is no conflict. Maximus cannot represent any clients who are also bringing a project to the city. So here's an example. Let's say the client is the Apple Store. If they represent the Apple Store in Deland, but not in Deltona, and the Apple Store brings a project to Deltona, Maximus could not represent them. That would present a conflict. It's a more complicated analysis than that, but that's the short summary. I'm happy to discuss more in depth with any of you, or if you want to talk about anything specifically. But based on that meeting and the questions, that's sort of the summation of this nine-page document. It does provide a very helpful roadmap, and we're very grateful for the Florida Commission on Ethics, because they really put a lot of time. They came back and asked us a lot of additional questions. So we worked very closely with them to make sure that this was thorough, complete, and really analyzed every possible permutation to ensure transparency and to ensure that, you know, everything here has been done above board. So we're very grateful to them. The next update is with respect to the noise ordinance. So I know there's been a lot of conversation in the last few weeks about the noise ordinance, the City of Deltona's noise ordinance, and the enforceability of it. But so I will say this. Code enforcement of the city does an excellent job enforcing the noise ordinance. So, Doc, great job to code enforcement. They are—they have been implementing it and enforcing it, and they will continue to do so. So that is a definite benefit to the residents. But there is a difference of opinion in the enforceability with respect to the sheriff's office enforcing the ordinance. And we've been working with the general counsel for the sheriff's department, and we've come to, I think, a reasonable position. We, you know, we're still new, and we can't speak to what's happened in the past. And the general counsel, we had a very good conversation with him, and he said, you know, in his history there, it has not been enforced. That does not mean forever. I do not—we don't have history. We've not been able to piece that together. Although, candidly, I don't know that that's super relevant. What is relevant is that it's enforceable moving forward. So we've been working with them to try to find a solution. So we have a few solutions, and we wanted to bring them to you and talk to you. The way it's currently written—now, our co-enforcement officers have latitude, and they have enforced it, and they've, you know, they've given penalties, and they've given violations, citations, fines, which is all appropriate. The sheriff's department views it as criminal misdemeanor enforcement. And that presents—that has presented a challenge in that it's their position that we would need an assistant state attorney or a prosecutor—we could hire our own criminal prosecutor—to prosecute it under this current iteration. And certainly, this is at your discretion. If you all want to keep a noise violation as a criminal misdemeanor, you're welcome to. I do think it would probably be more appropriate to shift it to a fine or maybe an escalating fine. First violation is X dollars. Second violation is Y dollars. Third violation is Z. And then anything beyond that, the code officer or police officer would have the discretion to refer to the special magistrate, and they could enforce further penalties at their discretion, at their professional discretion. So that would be what we would recommend. We can keep it the way it is. But we have looked at some other governments who have similar land mass and similar population, you know, fairly—fairly heavy residential and fairly spread out with a lot of natural land. And the fines, the escalating fines, seem to be fairly common practice for areas with comparable geographical areas and comparable-ish populations. So our recommendation is for you to direct us to draft a new ordinance, just an amendment to the NORD's ordinance, wherein we put in the escalating fines. We can propose them, and then at the first reading, you can, you know, change them if you don't like them. But we would probably do $150, $250, and then maybe $500 to really make it stick on the third violation. And then anything beyond would be at the discretion of the officer to send to the special magistrate. We also—the way that our code is written, so the part in the code where it talks about, which is Section 1-15, it's essentially a catch-all for violations and punishments of violations. So if a violation of the code doesn't have a punishment that is specified—and many of them do, but there are many others that don't—it automatically kicks it back to Section 115, which basically, again, our code officers enforce with great fidelity, and they do an excellent job, but it's the sheriff's office's position that it would be a criminal misdemeanor. And we would recommend that you all give us direction to work with the state attorney and potentially investigate the cost of hiring our own criminal prosecutor so that other violations—not noise, but the other violations that kick to this misdemeanor penalty, that they are prosecuted either by ASAs or a prosecutor—and I would say just whatever's the most cost-effective. Now, I will say this. In the last few years, statewide, there has been a crunch on assistant state attorney's budgets, and so one of the things that they have done—and they do excellent work, and we're grateful for their service—has been basically to say, if you want us to enforce your ordinances and bring misdemeanors, you need to compensate us because we don't have enough resources and we don't have enough attorneys and this ties up our attorney's time. So it's not uncommon, and I would say it is sort of spreading throughout the state. And again, it's up to us. We could have our own or we could use the ASA. I genuinely would say whatever's more cost-effective, and we can just run the numbers on both, and we can present it to you all so you can make a decision. So we're asking for direction on two things. One, we would request that you would direct us to amend the noise ordinance to change it from its current penalty to escalating fine, and then the special magistrate, as I laid out. And two, if you would direct us to explore the cost of having the assistant—I'm sorry, having the state attorney assign an ASA to us and the cost of that versus—and the cost of a criminal prosecutor of our own for those misdemeanor violations under Section 1-115. Okay. I'll say—if you all want to make a motion, I'll say number one is amending the noise violation. We can address that first. I was going to do—I was going to have Joyce do, as stated, do a verbal vote for all of us. That way we— Beautiful. And I know Joyce will probably strangle me later. I'll make a motion by Commissioner Powell. I'll say a second. And a second by Commissioner Howington. This side I can hear a little bit better. It's this side. No, no, no, no. Joyce, we'll go back and watch the tape, and we'll write it up for you. So, Joyce, the motion is, one, to amend the noise ordinance, and two, to give them also direction to reach out to the state attorney's office. You want both of them together? That was part of the— Explore. She has the term explore, which I think gives— Well, no, we can approve. Okay. Could, or we could bring it back as an ordinance with first reading, and at first reading, you can amend. So, if we put escalating fines, and you don't like the amounts, at first reading, you guys can say, this is too high, or this is too low. And I told you the amounts we're going to put in first reading, so if you're like, Gemma, that's crazy. 150 is too high. It should be 50. You could tell me now, and we'll change it for first reading. So, the—that is going to be coming to you next month for first reading. We've been working with the planning and zoning staff on amending your Chapter 22 businesses to include additional information on the rental property without running afoul of the state's preemption on the matter. So, we can—you know, you can certainly designate a property as a repeat violator, you know, designate a nuisance, in essence, through the code process, which you would be able to do currently, even without the—the—the—a registration process for—for rental properties, you would still be able to do that based on the property itself. Well, yeah, I understand some of the initial volume of John Hill, and it just gets— Even with Airbnbs, to your point? Yeah. Even with Airbnbs, you know, how do we resolve that? Okay. So, in the—in the citation, if you tie it to the property, and we can work with code enforcement, that would certainly be a code enforcement action, likely, rather than a sheriff office violation. The sheriff, I think, rarely deals with violations to a property. However, we can definitely thread that needle. I think that's what you originally had asked for. Yeah, we understand it to be escalating fines. I just want to clarify, you want it to be tied to the property, not the human. Correct. Who's in residence. Okay. Very good. Can you do a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Caldwell? Yes. Commissioner Howington? Yes. Commissioner Lowley? Yes. Commissioner Santiago? Yes. Marriott? Yes. Mayor Villa? Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Did you have a third? Yes. So, then the second thing is, if you would direct us to come back to you with a cost for working with the state attorney and or working with our own criminal prosecutor. That was included in that? That was those two motions at once. Beautiful. I love that. Yes. The fine, right? So, the way that we had envisioned structuring it—and we can bring it back to you as two different—I mean, we can bring it as the fine goes to the person and the property, which would certainly be a hammer. The concept is that the first three are just to the person. And then, either if they're unpaid or if there's additional, then it can be referred to the magistrate at the discretion. I would imagine a scenario like that would be there's a party at night, and they come out one time, first ticket. They come out the second time, second ticket. Third time, third ticket. They come out against 4 a.m. and they say, you're going to the magistrate, and you owe us $900 in fines. The sheriff. So, under the new ordinance— Yeah, under the new ordinance—so, we had a very good, productive conversation with the sheriff's attorney about this type of amendment. And if it was addressed this way, they would enforce it once code of enforcement is off-duty. Okay, so we do have a third item. So, the third item is there have been some questions from the commissioners and the public about city auto coverage. Now, this is tricky. This is candidly the purview of a risk manager, but our risk manager is excellent but still in training. So, we're going to handle this. But just a caveat, that's not a real attorney function, so we are not insurance experts. Staff did an excellent job reaching out to our insurance provider, and they spoke with the agent at the Florida League of Cities FMIT, who's our current insurance provider. And that person provided an answer, which—I'll summarize it. It's a more detailed answer, but the summary is, regardless of who is in the vehicle, the city, which is the designated member, has coverage as long as no exclusions apply. And then they basically say, in summary, there is coverage for a passenger in a city-owned vehicle that is not an employee. It's much more complicated than that with respect to the claim and PIP and uninsured motorists. However, when you—I mean, we said, what really can you answer these questions? And that is the answer. So, I don't know if that addresses it. I'm happy to provide as much detail as I can, but that's the short answer. If we can make sure we just send that over to the resident that wanted that information, please. Or send it to one of us, and one of us will—or maybe all of us will send it at one time to the resident. Send it to everybody. So— And, Mayor, one of our city rules, of course, is nobody can drive a city vehicle unless you're a city employee. Absolutely flat. So that's not a question. I mean, would it be helpful for us to just give them the coverage? Like, do they want the DEC page? We could do that. We want to—certainly, transparency is the goal and the key here. And the insurance document is a public document. So, if you would like, we can just provide the whole policy, including the DEC page. So, for example, if we ever got sued, the attorney on the other side would send us a demand letter that says, under this case law, you have to provide us your full policy, not just your DEC page. Not just the cover. They get the whole thing, whole king caboodle. We could do that, and candidly, in the interest of transparency, there have been a lot of questions. We're happy to facilitate that, if that would be helpful. We can send it to you all. I think that would be good. Okay. And then you can just send it out to them directly. Can we post that on the PRR portal? So, everybody has a—in a repository that they can go and look? Sure. Now, one caveat I will mention is our policy does change, typically changes year to year. Yeah. So, this would be our current FMIT policy. I understand. Okay. Somebody would have to request for a new copy of it. This would—this would be purely because commissioners requested for it to be— Would it be easier to just post it on the website? That way it could be updated annually when it is updated and changed? My only challenge with that is that we've more or less gotten everybody accustomed to looking at the portal for public records requests. So, if we change it now and just post that item to the Facebook—or, sorry, to the website, then it might get lost in translation, just trying to be consistent. So, who's the requester? Uh, Gail? You are. Okay. For the sake of posting, I'll be the requester. I don't have a problem with that. Oh, got it. Got it. But that way we don't—it's not up to us to try to remember everybody, because this has been asked for not just this meeting, but— Multiple. Previous meetings. So, if we could get that uploaded to the public records request portal, I think that would just be the cleanest and easiest way to disseminate that to everybody. Judge. Through the mayor, if I may. Yes. If we look with a manager, and I will say this, our policy changes every year. I understand the position of the PR, and that's a good one, but I will say this. One—probably the people that look for this the most are other attorneys who are mad. So, what I would recommend that we do, and the manager is on board with this, is we, in our website, potentially under risk. So, it would go through risk, and it would just have a link that says, cities, full insurance policy, and then it would be updated annually. And then risk would just send it to IT. As soon as we get it from the carrier, it goes online. And then everyone would know where to go. Because, honestly, the lawyers are not going to look on public records requests. No, they're not. And that's not—that was never my intent of that, was I'm seriously not concerned about other attorneys. They know how to get that kind of stuff. But this is just to address the transparency fact of the request has been made by the public report numerous times, and this is where they know to go to find that document. So— Yeah, and I think certainly for this, we can throw it there as well, because we will need to give IT a time—a chance to build this new little page. But I do think for the future, it'll be, for the residents, certainly provide very clear transparency. It's almost like posting our, you know, annual financials or our audit report. So, it's something that they'll just learn. This is where we go every year. We get the new policy, and we can see the coverages. I love it. That was your third item, right? Yes, Mayor. No further items. Sorry to take so much time. All right. City Manager, do you have any comments? Yes, Mayor. I'll just be much shorter. Just a reminder, Item 8A Vineland Reserve has been moved to March 18th, and depending on a potential agreement with the lower states, that may be another consideration for that meeting the 18th. So, that's it. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. We need to add, Joyce, to the— Just so that everybody knows, someone did ask for the auto policy. It has been on the website. It's been out there since February 3rd on the portal. The staff is phenomenal, and I stand by that. Yeah, a month ago. A month ago. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Joyce. Thank you, Joyce. All right. So, just because the City Manager's been telling me how we're trying to make sure we're consistent with city agendas as well as the attorney, I'm going to do the—down the list as I usually do. Moving forward, if you have commissioner comments, it's kind of like when you're going to do like that. Just request to speak, and then we'll do it that way, because sometimes we'll go down and usually the commissioner calls and there's nothing, but maybe one day he does. That way we, you know, I guess to be more efficient. We'll start with Commissioner Santiago of District 2. For comments. Yes. Yeah, really quick. Comments, requests, reports. Really quick, I just had a few items. Um, this past week we did—I was a judge at Discovery Elementary, um, for their Black History Month Door Decoration Contest, along with Mike Williams and Cassie Landron. I just want to say thank you to the principal Mertz and Joely Torres for leading this wonderful initiative. Um, also attended the West Volusia Youth Baseball Opening Ceremony to kick off the season. Um, I think I did a lot better throwing the first ball than Sheriff Chitwood and Mayor Avila. Definitely better. Um, and of course, if y'all, uh, next year, if you didn't go to the Wildlife—Wildlife Festival at Lyonia Preserve, please, uh, make sure you do next year. It's a great—great, uh, event. Lots of learning opportunities for the kids and our community. Um, also wanted to mention part of the community, um, events that, um, the Deltona Rotary—Rotary of Deltona, um, Orange City and DeBerry's having a Pat and Ed Northe 5K-10K River Run, Saturday, April 12th. Um, I have a flyer that I'll give to the city clerk, and just as information, it's a great event, and some of the proceeds—the proceeds go to benefit our local youth and scholarship program right here in our city. So, um, here's the flyer, and that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Howington? Okay. So, I have to address an issue that came up on Friday where I was notified that our meeting on the 18th was being canceled, and staff decided to hold a special meeting. So, I've prepared a statement because this is something I have a major concern with, especially with what we've been seeing recently. Lately, I find myself questioning who's truly in charge of our city and this commission. More and more, it seems to me, and many residents, the city staff rather than the elected commission are making decisions. Recently, I was informed that staff decided to schedule a special meeting for the commission due to their own mistake. However, my reading of our charter is clear. Special meetings are to be called by the mayor, or in his absence, the vice mayor, or at the request of a majority of the commissioners. That means a commissioner must request the meeting and direct staff to poll the commission via the city manager. Not that staff can unilaterally decide to hold a special meeting to correct their own errors. I'm increasingly hearing that city staff and the city manager are making decisions that should be left to this commission. Let me be clear. The city manager and the attorneys work for us. Seven of us, the elected body of this city, not the other way around. We set policy. We do not simply rubber stamp decisions made by staff. I believe it's time to establish a formal procedure allowing each commissioner to place at least one item on the agenda per meeting. This ensures we are setting the direction for progress in our city and demonstrating to residents that we are working for them, not merely functioning at the direction and discretion of city staff. I would like that to be added to the workshop that we can discuss that for pertaining to the meetings and how we do the agendas. The decision to hold our regular meetings should rest the commission, not staff. We have regularly scheduled meeting. We had a regularly scheduled meeting on the 18th of this month. Yet I was told that staff has determined that there is nothing on the agenda. That is simply not the case. We have lots of work to do. And I was notified as of an email at 515 this evening that that meeting is back on the calendar. So to my knowledge, at this point in time, Vice Mayor Harriet had made a motion to review our city travel policy within 30 days. And this commission voted and agreed on that. The 30 days expires on March 19th. It is my understanding that the full commission voted on this and expected to have this item brought forth in 30 days. By canceling the meeting, that would not happen. Commissioner Caldwell previously tabled a final plat for the Aloha Estates project. That project was going to offer a path to resolution concerning the derelict property in Deltona that many of our residents have been concerned with. And that was requested to be done at the next meeting. This is the next meeting. So the 18th would be the following meeting after that where we need to see that. Negative impact on our city's image with the derelict property. This item should move forward at our next regularly scheduled commission meeting as well. Three days should have been more than enough time for our city attorneys to reach an agreement with the developer as directed by this commission. Additionally, I requested information and quotes on impact fees about two months ago. I have yet to receive a response on that. This is another item that must be addressed as soon as possible as developers seem to be in a mad rush to bring forward projects. The commission has requested at least three workshops that have yet to be scheduled. For city staff to cancel meetings when the commission still has work to do is deeply concerning. This does not align with the will of this commission. As expressed at our last meeting, our city must move forward, not be stalled by unnecessary delays. We have work to do. To say we have nothing for the agenda is inaccurate. We have lots of work to do. And every time we stall, projects get further and further behind. We have asked for many things. And I, frankly, would rather come into work on a Monday night where we are regularly scheduled to be here and have been for months rather than give up a Saturday, as I'm sure many of our residents would as well. So please use our time wisely. We all have jobs. We have places to be. And we have determined to spend time here devoting our time to the city. And when you take away our meetings without our permission, you take away the ability for the residents to speak to us. You take away our ability to deal with projects that need to be moved along. People are complaining that we're not dealing with hurricane issues and flooding. That's not true. We have plenty of projects in the works. I believe myself and another commissioner, I'm not sure who, has asked to have those projects brought forth so that we can present them to the residents. We have work to do. To say we have no meeting agenda items is inaccurate, and we need to be very careful how we move forward in saying those things. We as a body need to decide when we meet. We understand that you create the agenda, but you need to take us seriously when we ask for agenda items. I asked for a simple discussion, which ended up leading us to a quasi-judicial hearing, and it was extremely embarrassing for the city. However, when I asked multiple times to get that item on the agenda, I was ignored, and I do not appreciate that. Now, that brings me to my next topic. I believe that we need a workshop for annual review process for our charter members. I believe the former commission had asked us to do a review on the manager after 90 days, which I don't believe has happened at this time. And looking at our review process, we have a review process that probably isn't best standards, so I would like to look at either the ICMA or potentially some other reviews done within either Seminole County or things like that. I have some documentation that I can share, so I'd like to have a workshop on that and then also to discuss how we want to move forward with the review process. I don't know if we need to have a consent on that or not. So, for as far as the scheduling of the workshops and amending the scope of the policy workshop, we would need a consensus and direction from the body. Can we do – Joyce, can we do a verbal vote, please? And then I would need a – we don't need a motion for that because we're just doing a consent. Yeah. Can you restate specifically what you're asking for? She's asking for – I would like to have a workshop for the charter member review process and documentation that we use for the review. Okay. Can you disseminate that information you have through the city manager? Absolutely. And just to give credit where credit is due, Terry Ellis actually brought this to my attention. So – and she has brought it before the commission in the past. So, my next item is I don't know if we have a succession plan, but I would like to know if we have a succession plan. And if not, we should consider creating one for the city. At which level? For city staff. I would say down to all director levels, we need to have a succession plan in place. And if we don't, start to work towards one. I would just caution us to work a little – just thread lightly. I mean, I would understand the city manager, maybe the deputy, but everybody else works under the city manager. So, I don't know if technically that would be trying to direct staff. So, I would leave it at maybe city manager. I don't know from there. City attorneys can – This would be – this would fall under the city manager. He should have a succession plan for his employees. So, the – That is not something that we would direct. Okay. Through the mayor. The commission may and can set policy. So, you could establish a policy that requires the city manager to have a succession plan for X-level directors or whatever – however you felt was appropriate to set a policy. Although, Mayor, you are correct, we do have to tread lightly as the charter is very clear that the commission sets policy full stop. And we could add that to the policy meeting, the policy workshop that we've already requested. Okay. Another one would be the CBDG disaster relief fund that we have within the city. I would like to know – the county has transformed 386 and they're using some of those funds for mitigation efforts. I'd like to know if we can utilize some of our funds for mitigation here within the city so we don't have to get approval from the county. So, if somebody could follow up on that, I would appreciate it. And then I would also like to add that when we do our policy workshops that we do add consequences to policy violations so that that's wrapped up. And I believe that's all I have for this evening. If I may, through the mayor. With respect to Aloha States, just to bring you up to speed, just so you know, it's been 10 working days since the last meeting. And the agreement that we're drafting is effectively an agreement that would normally be drafted by a bank. It's a – it is complicated. It is not a standard city agreement. It is not something that we do all the time. Effectively, the concept is that we're creating a surety, a fiduciary, to hold this money. It involves a cost estimator. There's a lot of decisions and negotiation about who picks the cost estimator, who pays for the cost estimator, who picks the fiduciary. Is there a surety? Who pays for the fiduciary? So, there's a – it's a fairly negotiated – a complex negotiation just to determine the basic terms. We then have to paper it. They have to agree in concept and principle and in language. So, we have provided their attorney the agreement, as discussed to this point. And she did email us today saying that she would redline. And then she met earlier with the city attorney's office about the agreement. So, I just want to be very clear. We are working on it. It is a complicated, tri-party agreement, where effectively the fiduciary is going to act as a construction manager, or where there will be draws that are made to this fiduciary that they have to be – have the authority and proficiency and skill to approve those draws. So, that couldn't be something an attorney would do. It would be like an engineering firm or someone who's in the business of general construction or supervising construction. So, just to be very clear, the solution we think is a very good, elegant solution, but it is a complicated solution. It involves two different properties. It involves a third party who's buying, you know, effectively one of the projects. So, there's a lot of moving parts. And we have – we've been working as quickly as we can with the other parties. But we just want to be very clear. It's a – it's a – it's a tricky one. It's like a – it's a pretty sticky wicket. So, we're – we should hopefully be able to get something done with the attorney who's here tonight. But we just wanted to let you know that we're – we have a – I apologize for speaking of – Yeah, we're getting close to – this can come up at a regular – where there's more residents than it's advertised. It's inappropriate to do that now. Yeah. So, we'll – this should be good for the next meeting, for the 18th, we believe. Yeah, so, we – we're close on it. We just want you to know that it's – this isn't just like a contract to buy a car. It was a tricky – it was a tricky one. But I think – I think we're feeling pretty good at this point. Okay. I appreciate that answer to my question specifically because, you know, when the meeting was canceled or when I was notified that the meeting was being canceled, that was a concern because that would have then put us two meetings out when the request was to have it at the next meeting, which is tonight. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, of course. I just want to be clear, though. This is the type of deal that we could put everything out. And if the other party – it's three parties. So, if the two other parties don't come to the table or don't play ball or we can't agree on what we think is fair or good for the city, it can jam up a negotiation like this. It's been productive. I just want to be clear that a lot of times when you have a deal like this, it can take longer. And we've had a good relationship and it's been productive. I just want to be transparent. We can put it out there and then be in the wind or just be arguing. Okay. You're coming up next. We're getting lost into an argument that we're going to go ahead and move forward. Commissioner Colwell, you're up next. Well, we're doing that for the next commission meeting. That way you don't think I'm zoning. Just to be clear, I believe my motion was to come to agreement before it came back to us. Was it not? Yes. Yes. Looking at the previous meeting, there was not a deferral to a date certain. Certainly, we understood the intent was to get this done as quickly as possible and that's, you know, why we've been working collaboratively with the other side on this. And if there is not an agreement reached, then it does not come back to the commission? Correct. Yes, correct. All right. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Lully. Thank you, Mayor. I have, first of all, I appreciate the update on the noise ordinance issue. You saved me one item. So, appreciate that. So, I have, in the four months I've been here, I think one of the biggest things I've heard is people who are concerned about land use changes, particularly in my district. I mean, we have citizens who, there may even be one here tonight, who, you know, they come to every meeting and they really do live with great concern about severely increased density affecting their way of life. And so, I think I would like to look at taking some action on that in my district. So, I'm going to read a very succinct item that I would like to get commission consensus for, and then I can elaborate, but I want to give Joyce something succinct. So, I would like commission consensus to proceed with allowing me to work with planning staff to create a zoning overlay in District 6, that the working title is the Keep Deltona Wild Overlay District, specifically targeted at areas with lower than typical density for the district. And or containing Keystone Wildlife habitat and or containing strategic areas for stormwater or floodplain management, with a goal to define, preserve, and protect critical conservation and sociological resources. So, I'd like to ask for commission consensus on that tonight. Obviously, this is not approving anything. This is just approving myself and to work with the planning staff, legal staff, and we had a pre-meeting about this, to look at identifying this. I have a few areas that I've identified in my district already. The Fishhawk area, an area that I would define as being between Enterprise Osteen Road and Reed-Ellis Road, and then the Collins Road area. So, I would like the commission consensus to proceed with working on that with staff, and then certainly it'll be brought back before the commission to actually vote on and decide. We're not deciding it tonight. We're just moving forward to let me work with staff on a hundred of my constituents who've written me recently. Okay. If you could. If you don't move. Yes. I'm going to read it again. I asked for commission consensus to proceed with me working with planning staff to create a zoning overlay in District 6 with a working title I'm using of Keep Deltona Wild Overlay District, specifically targeted at areas with lower than typical density for the district and or containing Keystone Wildlife Habitat and or containing strategic areas for stormwater or floodplain management with a goal to define, preserve, and protect critical conservation and sociological resources. So, we wouldn't actually, we're not voting on the actual overlay tonight. We're just allowing me to proceed with working with staff to, um, that's correct. So, I have no issue. If I can just add, right, I want to make sure we're not stepping into the JPA, right, because as you know, because you've been part of the email chain, and we've been very careful not to respond at the same time. But we're working with other county councilmen to have a very needed meeting about the future of the JPA with Osteen residents and some Deltona leaders. So I just, I want to make sure that we don't start trying to mitigate something that involves the county as well as the city, because I don't think we would even have jurisdiction to do that. Uh, to work with staff, I have no issue with you or anyone trying to better their districts. So, um, can we? Commissioner O'Reilly, I've had the opportunity to get to know, uh, some of your residents off of Collins Road, and phenomenal folks you've got in your district over there. Um, they've expressed some concern, uh, as well as to agricultural use along that. So if you don't mind, would you, uh, be able to add agricultural use to, to that as well, not just wildlife value? Yes. And you know what? I got to admit, Jessica wrote me a little sticky note and had agricultural on it. And then the sticky note blew way off my laptop and I forgot to put it in there. So yes. Yeah. So I would say then, um, I don't want to. Just include agricultural. Including, yes. So what I already said, Joyce, plus agricultural use. Absolutely. Can we do a verbal consensus first? Commissioner Caldwell. Yes. Commissioner Howington. Yes. Commissioner Lully. Yes. Commissioner Santiago. Yes. Anything else? Yeah. One other, uh, point to that and I'll, um, I'm going to give the caveat of legal can decide what's appropriate. Um, I would like to ask for a commissioner consensus to bring to us, um, for the zoning and progress at the next available opportunity. Um, and again, I would, uh, caveat that on your professional opinion on what needs to be done at this stage when, as we're discussing this. Yes. Would that be a zoning in progress? Uh, we can, uh, work, work on something for a zoning in progress. Okay. The difficulty in declaring a zoning in progress at this moment is because overlay districts are geographic in nature. Mm-hmm. We would need to first define. Okay. The geography before we could effectively declare the zoning in progress. Okay. Uh, however, we will take that conversation offline and bring back something as quickly as possible. If we may, would it be okay if we work with you and Jordan now that you're going to be planning and we can discuss that in those meetings? I think that falls underneath the consensus that we just made you. Yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and, um, one other thing I wanted to bring up. Um, if we could get an update and certainly if any consensus on this, um, let me know, um, let me know, um, an update on our FEMA reimbursements going back two and a half years. Um, so Ian, Nicole, and then what's Milton? Milton's one of my powers out for a week. I should remember Milton. Um, and then I'm flooded all the times. So if we could get an update on the FEMA reimbursement, we just haven't heard about it. I mean, it's two and a half years for one of them. So if we can get an update on that and do I need consensus for that to request the update or can we just get that? You don't need, you don't need consensus. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Uh, Vice Mayor Harriet and try to stay within time so I get a chance. I'm going to try to be very quick, but I do have a, uh, quite a few things tonight. You're the new commissioner of district report. Oh, this is not going to be the standard. Uh, so first off, I had the pleasure of, um, attending science night at Friendship Elementary School. It was absolutely phenomenal. Um, there was the, uh, uh, Ponce Inlet Lighthouse that was there with the display to show you about light and how the mirrors and all that bend light and, and how, um, you know, that works for the lighthouse as well as the, um, oh my gosh. And it's, I'm blanking on the name, but they, this is, this is all the other list, not the details. Um, but then they had a, um, planetarium there, like a, a blow up planetarium where all the kids could sit inside and you could literally zoom through the universe and see planets and stars and galaxies and all that kind of stuff. It was, it was absolutely wonderful. So, um, if there's anybody in, in, uh, that's known for Friendship Elementary School and has the opportunity to go to that in the future, absolutely phenomenal event. Would definitely recommend it, especially for the commissioners to see, um, really kind of what our residents are getting, their, their education that our, our, uh, residents are getting. Um, a couple of requests. I'd like to get consensus, um, from the commission to ask staff to bring back a policy prohibiting smoking in parks. Um, this is something that I know that a couple of us have been, uh, communicating with some residents as well as some, uh, nonprofits within the, the county. Would that include vaping? Absolutely. But I, I think, um, but I'd like to ask the commission for consensus to ask staff to bring back a draft policy and work with all of us to get that pushed through. So if I could. Joyce, can we get a simple? All in favor? That would be lovely. Aye. Aye. Aye. Yes. All opposed? Okay. You have your answer. Thank you. Um, and then, uh, Commissioner Lully, thank you for the Collins road. Perfect. Um, I think that I know that they will be very appreciative of that. I also wanted to thank you for the video that you did on D Ranch. Um, that, that highlights really a gem that we have in the city that showcases the multiple ecosystems, the diversity of ecosystems that we have, not just on the D Ranch property, but surrounding that property, um, and, and the importance of why we need to protect it. Thank you very much for doing that and thanks staff for putting that video together. Um, and then I'd like to get, um, kind of piggybacking on that as the reason for the next request. Consensus for staff to investigate options to protect upland ecosystems as part of the zoning and progress for the, uh, drainage chapter of our land development code. Uh, the reason for doing that within the, the drainage chapter is because by preserving those upland ecosystems, we are essentially preventing runoff from becoming drainage, you know, necessary for drainage systems. So we can, instead of adding infrastructure or developing infrastructure to address runoff and drainage, we can prevent the, the need for it. So if I can get consensus for staff to explore those options, I know there's, uh, agencies within the city or sorry, within the state that already have something similar. So. Okay. All opposed. Thank you. All right. Um, and then one that we briefly touched on earlier today on the agenda, I'd like to get consensus to bring back at second reading item F, uh, to include options to expand the notification radius, um, what that would look like at different distances as well as, um, passing those costs on to applicants. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right. Last item. For the record, it was, uh, Vice Mayor Harriet who opposed it. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Go ahead. For the record, I, I supported my own consensus item. Um, the, the last item I have is I've been in, you know, having, uh, meetings and discussions with county staff, our, um, county commissioner that represents the, the city of Deltona. Hmm? Councilman. I'm sorry. Councilman that represents district five, which city of Deltona falls under. And, um, the, the topic of these meetings, while we have a lot of flooding related to hurricanes, we have one, one intersection that floods, whether it's a hurricane or an afternoon shower. Um, yeah, or just even if there's just a dark cloud that comes over the city. So I would like to get, uh, consensus. And, um, if it's okay with you, mayor, I'd like to ask the, um, yeah, county councilman, if he doesn't mind giving us a kind of an overview, but we're just, we've been discussing Lake Helen Osteen and L camp intersection that interchange. It's right on the edge of district five and district one. And literally, literally if a dark cloud, you know, crosses a city, it floods. So if he can be brief though, cause you know how politicians are. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman brief and council members. And I think what, what Harriet is, uh, I call you Harriet commissioner. What he's referencing is, uh, we, we've had a few meetings and I think, uh, I've coordinated him with staff specific to his district, Lake Helen Osteen and L camp, which is a county and a city road that intersect. And like you said, every time it rains and that doesn't have to require a hurricane, it just floods that area and just impedes the traffic significantly. So, um, the reason for, I think the commissioner is asking for this is that we're reopening the three, eight, six, uh, funding is if you recall, there was a first wave of funding that went through and, uh, to, as a Deltona resident and representative to my disappointment, we didn't have anything there for Deltona, um, and other cities. It wasn't just you guys that didn't have any projects in there. Um, so we directed our staff to have another opening, very short one that's coming up for some low hanging fruit projects. Um, the bigger projects that you're doing, your, uh, basin studies and other things like that, that's still going to be monies available for that. But this is going to be some, I would call them quick hit projects, low hanging fruits. Um, I certainly believe that's one and there may be others. So I I'm available to any of you in your district to assist and you have a competent staff. But, um, I think what I can lend to that is bringing our county folks to help guide, uh, you through that process. So I'm certainly, uh, um, uh, excited and anxious to see requests from Deltona come in, not just for these low hanging fruit projects, but some of these bigger projects. Uh, the biggest recipient was Orange City in the last wave, which was, I believe $20 million. Don't hold me to the exact number. And that was Orange City. So just imagine what I'd like to see happen in Deltona, which would be much more significant than that. Um, I'll, I'll leave with this to our council. Um, I have friends on the council. Uh, I, I, they want to help me, they want to help Deltona, but I need to ask you all to help yourselves so that I could help you. And Mayor, if I can just have a little bit of latitude, cause I just feel like the blood is blowing a little bit. But to, to the council, you know, I served here. I've had my days with what you all dealt with today, which you all have dealt with for several months. I've had my, uh, Mr. Bellick. My Mr. Bellick was Mr. Bellow. Believe it or not, it was with a B. The gentleman that often did similar things and we dealt with it. So, um, I encourage you all to continue doing the work. We have people there that have different backgrounds. I mean, you clearly see that different expertise, use it, debate, focus on the city. We often see many people that are, uh, sometimes agitators that try to drum up the community to agitate you. But if you really look at the chambers, they don't come out. We have a hundred thousand people here. You have the same agitators. Stay focused. Sorry to digress there, Mr. Mayor, but I'm here to help you from the county, but I need you guys to partner with me. I'm happy to take a call from any of you to help out in the same project. So happy to do that, Harriet, and let me know what you need. If you can stay there for just a minute. Thank you very much, Councilman. So you need the consensus? Yes. Can you repeat it one more time? I'd like to ask for the commission's consensus for staff to work on what that project would look like and work with county staff as well to see what's needed for that location. Come up with a budget and a plan for a solution and see if we can't get that included in the… All right. I think… Yeah, there's just some road paving happening there. This won't be specific to the stormwater. And if I may, through the mayor, the manager and I just spoke. We are grateful. The county has been incredible to work with. They're super collaborative and helpful. So, if there are other projects in your districts that you want to move forward to them, please do so. And we will be standing by to jump on that. Because they… Their staff is incredible. Their attorneys are incredible. And we're ready to… You know, we love to build. So… Okay. If I can add one other thing about the builder. Just to add to that, I believe Doc has a list for District 4 as well that I've provided. Yeah. I was going to add to that, Mr. Mayor. Okay. And just… Let's not get out of… Just for clarity, the project doesn't have to be shovel-ready today. The county will accept applications or funding requests for conceptual stuff. So, I know you have a very competent outside engineer that can look at these things and come up with stuff. So, we can have two and three. It's going to open up, I think, in about three weeks, and then there'll be a short window. So, reach out to me. I can help you. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Aye. Okay. So, David, can you come back, please? I got one more thing. So… Oh, you still have one more thing? No, I'm just kidding. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it. That's all I have for me. So, Councilman Santiago and I had a meeting as well to talk about an intersection. And I would like to get consensus from this dais, specifically about… We had some flooding by Osteen Elementary. It's within District 6 or just on the outskirts or whatever. But there is… As you know, sometimes we need the full information from all the parties involved. And technically, a lot of the issues that flooding has to be with the way the school has been designed and how schools are not… They're exempt from state statutes when it comes to engineering and some development. So, I am asking for consensus to be able to schedule some type of meeting between the school board. There's three entities. The school board, the county, and the city. I don't know if you wanted to add something to that. Yeah. I'm familiar with that location. I visited that right after the hurricanes. And there's a pond, I think, that you were referencing that's on the school board property. And I think that pond certainly would need to be looked at. And the county engineer, excuse me, the county public works director was there too. So, he's ready to help. I think a tri-party meeting with the mines would certainly be very sufficient to try to address that issue. I think that pond probably needs to be redone to a different standard. Okay. So, would you like consensus? Consensus. To work with staff, staff to work with the county and the school board? Correct. And respectfully, I mean, I know I'm the mayor of all the districts, but if Commissioner Lully, that's your district, if you want to take over that, I have no issue with that as well. So, I just wanted to make sure we're having opportunities that we don't miss it. You know? Absolutely. Yeah, I think it ties into some other issues that I'm working with. The elementary school is technically unincorporated, but surrounding it, we know we've rezone. Correct. Not us, but others have rezoned, and now we have, you know, hundreds of new residents dealing with flooding issues. So, I'm happy to help. Yeah. Because what is happening is, even though that part is unincorporated, it's pushing to incorporate it to Altona. So, that was that. So, can I get consensus? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. Thank you, David. Fun fact, I believe that school was actually moved to its current location because of flooding flooding at its previous location. So, a couple of things, because I got only a couple of minutes. So, I am so happy to see Altona vibes be used by, and I will get you before I adjourn. Altona vibes be used by someone other than me. Honestly, that started off as in your corner when Commissioner Lully used to help me with those videos. I saw someone else. I was like, I didn't do Daltona vibes because I saw the logo, and then I saw he was in it. I was like, great. I mean, commissioners, vice mayor, use it. That's a great way to communicate with the residents. I know sometimes people are like, oh, you know, videos, pictures. It doesn't matter. It's still communication. Some people might not like it. Some might criticize it. At the end of the day, it's still a form of communication. Okay? So, thank you for using that. It's at everyone's, obviously, disposal. I mean, I didn't create it, but I just wanted to say that. For clarification, I know the former commissioner has mentioned a couple of times things about domestic violence. There are things that some of us don't talk about. I personally helped an organization, or supported—not helped, let me rephrase that, supported an organization that opened, just like some of us on this dais have been there, because I've seen them, that do domestic violence for women. And they are actually—they opened an organization here in the city of Daltona. So, we might not always show everything, and I think those are one of those aspects that, out of respect for the people that are suffering through that, we probably won't say out loud. I mean, I personally know, for example, you know, if you have two kids over a certain age, they can't take you anywhere. So, you know, a lot of us are aware, and a lot of us are doing things. We just don't—you know, when it comes to very sensitive topics, we might not talk about it in public. So, that's—I wanted to make sure we brought that up. I did send an email, and I'm hoping we can have some type of discussion, or at least the city manager is aware and is prepared, so the governor has started a Florida Doge, essentially. Essentially, it was meant for universities, but now it includes to audit waste and abuse from municipalities, which I think it's great, because if they find it, then, you know, we get told if there's nothing, then nothing happens. But if we can please figure that out, I email—I forwarded that email to you guys, and then I also have a worksheet that I can forward that I received from the governor's office, which everyone should have received it, but— We did not. Well, I can get it to the city manager, and he can forward it to all of you. So, that's—that's important. And do you want to say something, Zach? Yeah, I just wanted to say that, you know, we are in receipt of the email. We've read the executive order. The order on its face does not provide any additional oversight other than what the governor and the state government can currently provide, which is looking at publicly available records and through the—through the Office of the Auditor, perform an audit if requested or found to be warranted. We are certainly going to stay abreast of this as things develop, and I'm sure Florida League of Cities and the Association of Mayors will have their own opinions and guidance as well that will come out. Perfect. Thank you. I got three more things, and I promise you're fast. It's—this is very important to me, and I'm going to challenge everybody on this dais, and I'm sorry if something, you know—I have the Mayor's Fitness Challenge coming up this Saturday. It's fun. The residents actually don't talk about politics. Let's go and have some fun. You know, I know this is not the escape room that some of us wanted, but— Not yet. It'll be fun, you know, and we get to mingle. We—we—last time we had over 100 people show up for the Mayor's Fitness Challenge, so let's—let's try to get more involved like that in the community. That was that. The last two things I'm going to ask for are actually workshops. I think the Commission needs a workshop on specifically development, right? I—I've been told by multiple people that we keep pushing away plats that are ceremonial, and we're going to get the city sued. Now, if a—if a plat isn't—if it doesn't comply with city—with what we're requesting, yes, it doesn't need to be approved 100 percent. But we need to make sure that we're all aware, right? Because we—we—we don't know. We're not developers. Or at least, you know, I'm not a developer. I know Caldwell kind of mingles on that sometimes. And Commissioner—Commissioner Lully deals with another different portion of it. But I think it'll be very beneficial. At least it gives us some knowledge, you know, and—and it gives us some—something to help us get some guidance on. The last thing is—and I'm going to ask for consensus on this—I would like for between the PNZ—or sorry, between Jordan and the city manager, to look at some areas for a potential downtown Deltona overlay so that at some point when some of these areas are identified, it could come before the Commission. I've been mayor going on three years—it'll be in November. We've been talking about it, and nothing gets done. I've seen the enthusiasm of commissioners on this dais right now as well, the enthusiasm of some of the residents. You're always going to have some that are not—you know, that don't want to see it. But we have the potential of the industrial park. There's over 200 and some acres there. That can be one of those places that we can also look at to maybe reshape that because, I mean, we're losing—we're losing space and our residents really—a lot of them are requesting stuff that essentially we can't do. So if I can get consensus from the Commission, not for any type of approval, but to identify, maybe include John Cox in that, identify who's the development director, certain areas that would help kind of bring into fruition a downtown Deltona, that would be great, so. Explore all areas. Yes, correctly. Yes, yes. So all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you so much. City Manager? Might I recommend, Mayor and Commissioners, for all these workshops that may be doing all day Saturday, rather than two hours, two hours, two hours, two hours, two hours, several different days. That'll be offered to the Commission. I have no issue with that personally. I love it. Yeah. In the correction of the March 10th meeting was—it was the actually mayor—the staff went to the mayor. The mayor is the one that technically called that meeting. When I was asked, I said staff called it because we had a developer who—because it's staff's fault of posting the property. It was certainly our responsibility. They were very upset. They were expected to be on tonight's agenda. So the closest, easiest time we can have was the 10th. So the recommendation was to call the Commissioners, let's see if we have a quorum. We did have a quorum at that moment. We no longer have a quorum. So the developer was called today to say it's being pushed to the next meeting, which would be the 18th. So it was actually not staff that made that decision in the end. But I'd also like to point out to the mayor and commissioners that many things that are asked about can certainly be asked about during the day to the staff. You know, we're here all day, nights, weekends, holidays, most of us. So I don't know if it's necessarily always correct to wait to the meeting to ask us questions that we can have the answer to you a lot earlier, especially with backup, rather than just waiting to the meeting. But that's it. Thank you. I have something to say to that. Okay. Because when I asked you that specifically today— Hold on, hold on. I will recognize you right now. But keep in mind, we've gone through the process. We're not going to do this back and forth. Okay, point of order. Out of respect. What's your point of order? I asked you that question point-blank, and you told me staff made that decision. That's correct. And I found out it was not staff. It was—the department head talked to the mayor, got the permission. I believe also the clerk's office is aware of that. I just said in general, because it wasn't—if a developer is upset that we missed something, it's not coming from any commissioners. The staff is bringing it to the commission, saying, okay, we need to do something. It's an emergency situation. We can't wait for a commissioner to come to us. So we brought it to the commission. Staff actually brought it to the mayor, who then—he was the one that technically called it. My position to you was, well, it was called by staff, because obviously the commissioner doesn't know that there's an issue with a developer. So it would have to come from us, which was my point to you. We're kind of in the same boat. Commissioner calls and asks, can we have a meeting? Staff says, we've got an emergency situation. Commissioners, do we have a quorum to have a meeting? You're saying that's absolutely incorrect and we can't do that. It kind of handcuffs us a little bit. My point is, in the end, it is correct that it was the mayor. I didn't know you were going to bring it up tonight, because once I found out about that, I could have said to you, if you're going to bring it up tonight, just so you know— Well, I bring up a lot of things and never get a response. So that's why I'm bringing it up now. Okay. All right. All right. Meetings adjourned.