Commissioner Caldwell. He's on via teams. Commissioner Howington. Commissioner Lulee. Commissioner Santiago. Vice Mayor Harriet. Mayor Avila. I'm present. Here. All right. If we can please stand for the pledge, and I'll ask Commissioner Lulee to lead us in the pledge. So if you can please turn on your mic so I can, uh, there you go. Pledge allegiance to the flag, United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty, and justice. All right. We have two discussion items today. There'll be public comment after each discussion item. The first one is a discussion. Brief update on the TNR program. If I can please have Mr. Ron start the conversation. And your mic you just have to turn on. Your doesn't have a special. There you go. You'll just have to put it closer to yourself. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. TNR. We would like to propose to put it out there for bid for an organization to take over the TNR for the City Delta. That will alleviate give us time, my department, to concentrate more on code enforcement. It will alleviate one officer per day every time we have to make the trip going back and forth to the clinic and dropping them off to meet the volunteers on this. We are proposing, and I'm going to go straight down the list, all cats within the Deltona TNR program must be found within the boundaries of the city of Deltona. Citizen contact provider must establish a dedicated phone number and an email address to handle all citizen requests, inquiries related to TNR, provided it is expected to promptly respond to all citizen requests, inquiries, and must acknowledge requests within two business days. Provider must generate a written report of all the TNR activities undertaken and pursuant to the disagreement on the monthly basis given to city staff, as well as a presentation to the city commission on a quarterly basis. They should report to the commission on this subject. Any colonies not identified and administered under this agreement may be subject to enforcement as provided by applicable laws, regulations, or ordinances. No colonies may be formed within city home neighborhoods. No colonies may be formed within the vicinity of a restaurant or food establishment. Colonies should be formed within vacant lots. Provider must provide to the city a list of colonies that will be administered under this agreement within 30 days of the effective date. Mr. Commissioner Caldwell, can you please mute your mic until we continue? Mr. Ron finishes? Yes. Thank you. Continue, Mr. Ron. Provider shall spade and own a minimum of 130 cats each quarter. That's an average of 10 per week, which is pretty reasonable. We have two MOUs, one with Central Florida Community Pet Clinic and one with Spade and Save. We have an agreement with them for 15 cats per week at Central Florida Community Pet Clinic, 12 at Spade and Save per month. A probationary period agreement would be subject to a six-month probationary period during which the city would evaluate the provider's performance. If at the end of the probationary period the provider's performance shall not be satisfactory, the city may immediately terminate the agreement. The terms of the agreement shall be three years with two additional one-year renewal terms upon mutual written consent on both parties. Compensation. We have an annual budget of $60,000 that will be used for this, compensated quarterly. $5,000 allowance for the purchase of supplies during the first year of the agreement. We also want to put in their bonus incentives. Neutering more than the minimum per quarter, which is 130 cats, would be rewarded with additional payment per feral Deltona cat spayed and neutered, $10 per cat greater than 130 cats per quarter. The bonus is to begin after the six-month probationary period. Mr. Ron, excuse me. I'm going to ask the audience to please keep it down while we're trying to listen. I appreciate it. It's kind of hard to hear also when you have other people speaking up. Mr. Ron, if you can please speak up. No problem. Appreciate it. Thank you. An invoice indicating all spayed and neutered appointments shall be included within the provider's monthly report. The city acknowledges the providers engaged in the provision of animal welfare services and may provide the same or similar services to animals, not under disagreement. Procurement method, using the RFP, proposed proposal, and we may also award multiple vendors, not just one, if appropriate. Any questions? Any questions? Okay. Before we go to commissioners, is there any public comment for this section of the TNR program? Go ahead. Yes, Mayor. There are 11 people who want to speak. Okay. Lori Warnicke. Ms. Warnicke, if you can just push the speak button and I'll... Okay. Give me one minute. Go ahead. Okay. There we go. Good evening. Hope everyone's having a lovely evening. I really feel that what is in place right now is working the best. I don't see kittens running around squashed in the street. I don't see... There's been hundreds of cats that have been saved under this program, thousands of unborn kittens that we don't have to deal with. I live in a rural area of the city of Deltona. I've... The amount of people dumping cats has dropped substantially. I have not seen... I have six that have been dumped in my area in the last 20 years. I haven't seen any in the last five. So, I believe what is in place right now needs to stay in place because it's doing a good job. Thank you. City Clerk. Taylor Benning. And you can just leave your mic on if you want. If you can please push your request to speak and you can leave that on as well. It's the second button in the bottom. Yes. There you go. Okay. I live in DeBerry and I've worked in animal rescues for over 10 years. I've worked in shelters, rescues, and out in the field doing TNR. And I'm proud to be on the board of Not Their Fault Feline Foundation. In all my experience, I've personally seen that the only effective way forward is communication, cooperation, and compassion. Small nonprofit rescues like us have the heart to help but not the funding. And this is a career of passion. For many of us, we spend our own money on these animals. But I'm proud to say that our Feline Foundation is doing amazing. And that is because of the city of DeBerry and all the support and the help that we get. The equipment and funding means that we are able to get adoptable cats off the street, sterilize feral cats, and reduce the population. The community suffers under regulations that don't have everyone's best interests in mind, and especially if the systems in place discourage or punish volunteers and residents. For the residents who don't like not having cats around, an effective system means that they're happy to. And this also, not having a system increases the workload of the animal control who has to deal with it as well. We have some truly amazing people here who are ready and willing and very excited to help with cooperation from you guys. Thank you so much. Patricia Stevenson. Good evening. Patricia Stevenson. Thank you for bringing this back to the table. I know you had a workshop earlier, and I've taken the time to speak with many of you individually about how passionate I am about the TNR program. I've been doing TNR for over eight years. I've learned a lot, and your volunteers have a lot of knowledge to be able to run a program, and I'm glad that you're looking at procedures. I hope that they are best practice procedures, similar to what Volusia County has. Now, some of the things that I heard mentioned just now during the presentation that concern me would be limiting the number of cats that you're taking in. In order for TNR to be effective, you have to have 70% of your colony TNR'd, that is, neutered, in order to stabilize the population. If you're doing 40%, 50%, or even 20%, any lower numbers means that you're going to be paying this TNR cost for a longer period of time and not seeing the reward of a population decrease. As far as working with your non-profits, if you have procedures in place, your non-profits can follow those procedures. I'm confident that they could report to you the numbers. However, we don't create colonies. Colonies exist. So the part that you were discussing in the report there about not creating colonies near restaurants, not creating colonies in residential areas, nobody's creating colonies. Colonies are natural, and it's the way that cats have lived on our planet for thousands and thousands of years. So you can track the colonies, you can work with the feeders, and you can make sure that those colonies are stable. But there's no benefit to trying to relocate colonies, because once you remove that population of cats, then other cats are going to move in that are possibly not fixed or neutered, and they are going to reproduce, and you're going to be stuck in that cycle of constantly paying for cats to get TNR'd or neutered or euthanized, which is what we don't want. And you're not going to see the benefits. It is much more effective for your taxpayer dollars to do it aggressively, especially when you- Thank you, Ms. Patricia. Teresa Greeley. Good evening. My name is Teresa Greeley. About 10 years ago, we moved from the West Coast to the East Coast over here, and six years ago, we bought a home off Springwood Lane. And when we moved into that home, I had a colony of cats that lived across the street in the bushes. There was a piece of property that had bushes and trees on it. They sold that property, tore down all the trees and the bushes, and they started to camp out in my backyard. And Cody, excuse me, and her troop, she came and rescued every single one of those cats and has kept the population down. We managed to adopt a few out. I have adopted a couple of them, and I'm down to eight cats now, and my colony is stable, and there's no fighting. There's no marking of territories. You don't have the male cats spraying everywhere, and no kittens. So we managed to get them off, like, and within four days, they were able to do it, and I helped them trap some, too. But we got them, and I would be lost without these guys. These guys are good for the community. They're good for the cats, and it would be a shame to lose this program. Thank you. Heidi Herzberg. And as the speakers are coming up, just say your name, and you don't have to say your address, but it's your city for the record. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Heidi Herzberg, 556 Narodello Drive, Deltona, Florida. I'm very pleased to be here and glad that you're all considering to revamp the TNR program and to give it to a nonprofit, some sort of an organization that this is what they actually work in, and this is what they know the best practice is. So I just have a couple of questions and a couple of comments on here. In your provider agreement, you have a list of 130 cats each quarter, and your appointments equate to 216 appointments every quarter. So when you decide to go ahead and go forward with this and look at the – I know spay and save is pretty picky. If you don't put the 12 cats in per month, they will have a problem with that. And what you're doing when you're allowing 216 appointments and you're only wanting to do 130 cats, you're actually holding up surgery time at a clinic. So that is something that really needs to be addressed for the fairness of the clinic. That's number one. Number two, regarding administering, you mentioned that, Mr. Ron, you mentioned that you might want to do more than one nonprofit to do this. When – if you – let's say you choose two, who is going to be the coordinator between those two nonprofits in terms of if nonprofit A has 10 cats this week, nonprofit B has 15? Who is going to be doing the coordinating? Is that left to the nonprofits? Is that left to the city? Also, when we look at situations like feeding, the city is the only city that has a feeding ban. You've had a feeding ban for 25 years. And for 25 years, it's been a failure. So we have an issue with rogue feeders in the city. We have an issue with feeders that just dump and run. And those people are a problem. And we need to know how to address that with animal control. Do we provide you with names? Are you going to aggressively go after that? Because realistically, those feeders are the reasons you have a bunch of do not feed feral cat signs out there. And we want to control them as well. Is that good? Good? Keep going. Good. Thank you. Okay. Robin McClintick. City manager. Mayor, can we just quick make a point? The paperwork says the minimum is 130 cats a quarter. That's the minimum. It's not maximum, by any means. So I just want to correct a few statements. Thank you. Hi. I'm Robin. It's loud. City, please. I'm sorry. I'm Robin with Daverry. I live in Daverry. Hello. I'm with the Daverry TNR program. And I'm the project manager for Not Their Fault Feline Foundation. I also have the pleasure of meeting with about five of you myself with Patricia to discuss TNR. The reason that we need to get this program back on track is because none of your residents are happy. And none of your residents are currently trusting animal control for several reasons. The residents are not taking cats from other places. The city of Daverry, every other city around them, has a good TNR program. That is set in place. And Deltona is pretty much the only one that has a poop show. I hate to say it like that, but it's true. I believe that it needs to be run just like the other cities are, including the city of Daverry, which I am ahead of it. That is also working. We let the residents transport with appointments from us with what I take more than one rescue to fix what has happened here. It doesn't matter if you love cats or hate cats. TNR is the only way to control the population of the cat. Reproducing and having just so many cats everywhere. I also have the Petco over in Orange City that we use to get the cats out when they're friendly. The city of Daverry does pay the $45 that it costs to get the animals fixed on spa day. We provide the chips. We do the fecals. We do the snap testing. Like, that is not covered by anybody in the city. That comes from the rescue's money. And we recoup that when we also do TNRs. And all of that money goes back into our rescue and our foundation to help cats in need. And not just cats that need fixing. It's cats that also have medical conditions, that are missing tails, that are missing legs, that have gotten eaten and attacked by other dogs. It's everything. We do it all in the city of Daverry. And we do it with the help and the support of our city. And we do it with the help and support of our volunteers because we trust each other. And we work as a team and not against each other. And until this city works as a team, you're going to have cats everywhere. Thank you. Thanks. Jody Taylor. Hi, I'm Jody. I am hard at speaking. I am not a good speaker. But anyway. Ms. Taylor, city, please. I am with the city of Deltona. I am with Deltona. I am a resident. I am with the city of Deltona TNR program since probably 2015, 2016. Even when the program shut down, I was still trapping. I was the only one trapping, making my own appointments and spending my own money. I am a part of Feline for a Crew Rescue, which my best friend in Orlando is the president. She made me vice president. So even though I am with the rescue, donations are not there. They come out of my pocket. I do not have fancy nails. I have nothing fancy because everything goes to the cats. I have two cats right now that I've spent $1,200 on one, $1,500 on another. One is still not fixed because he can't breathe. And I think the street was champion that Rocco is from. Marshmallow has a mega colon. No one's going to adopt him. And I'm still trying to fix him. But first and foremost, I want to thank you for the program because not a lot of cities have it. So I am grateful for that. And I will continue to do what I can for these cats no matter what. I am in debt for these cats. And you know what? That's my choice. And I will continue to do so. And I just wish that homeowners would be responsible or we could do something with these homeowners that are abandoning and dumping these cats because they're the problem. It's not the cat's problem. They didn't choose to be out by lakes getting eaten, getting hit by cars and horrible people that are out here hurting the cats, poisoning them. And they're writing on social media and nothing is done about it. So it comes from the people. These cats didn't choose to be here. But I'm going to be here for them. Thank you. Cheryl Francisci. Hi. Cheryl Francisco. And I'm the president of Deltona, Florida. And I'm proud to say that I work with Robin in the DeBerry DT&R program. I'm new to it. And I think if every one of you were able to see what they do and how they take babies that have lost their mothers that are only a day or two old and you bottle feed them and you see them grow and achieve an adulthood and are adopted out, that every one of you would want this program. They just love you. The kittens will actually kiss on you because you're their mothers. They don't have a mother. They've lost their mother in somewhere in a tragic accident. My mother and I are foster failures. We have three of them now. We've taken one in. We were taking just one and now we have three because they're so loving and caring. They're just absolutely beautiful. And what a program would be to see, to have it taken away would be just a shame. And I really think if everyone had that opportunity to hold a baby that has no eyes open and still an umbilical cord and to take a bottle and feed it like a human child and watch them nourish and grow, that you would just, it's just an amazing thing to see. Thank you. Tim Blodgett. I think it's quick, ain't it? Okay. This is wonderful. Mr. Blodgett, what city? I know what city, but for the record. I'm not going to tell you. Timberlake Avenue, Deltona. I look out here and I see tons of volunteers. Over a million dollars worth of potential volunteers to help this all kick off in the start. It appears Deltona has been a little bit late or tardy on getting the program kicked off. Great idea kicking it off. I think it's a pretty decent, generous amount. I would suggest for startup costs, you might want to kick in another 40, 30 to 50,000 bucks because they will need startup materials and make sure you use the public because they are an invaluable resource. Some other advantages of the program, since I'm one of the taxpayers here who's going to be paying for this, is coyotes have been moving into the area and cats are one of their food sources. So we're all going to be doing ourselves a favor. And if we can get it under control, like the one lady said, get it under 70%, we can be doing ourselves a favor by reducing the possibility of rabies. I don't think we've had rabies in this area in like the last eight to ten years, but it does occur here. And usually with the raccoons, we've also got bears coming up. And with all the development we've got going on, we're going to be having critters crawling out of the woods, including cats. The only thing about the measures that I think is unreasonable is trying to control where a colony is created. At one point in time, I had 72 cats in my house. They go where they want. Thank you, sir. See you. Kathy Bryan. Good evening, Kathy Bryan, Deltona. I don't have a problem with this, but I do have a few questions. I'm glad somebody did say something about the colonies being formed within city home neighborhoods and restaurant or food establishments. Why? Oh, food. They're going to naturally progress to those areas. We have some in our area as well. My other question is, if something is liability, will the city have any kind of liability if something happens to the cat during the spaying or neutering procedure? And then get education out to the public about, number one, feeding cats. I know there's people that are going to do it no matter what, but I'd rather the cats eat the rats, not necessarily the birds, but nature is what it is. But, you know, as we slowly get the colonies down, that's going to help. And also get the education out to the public on how to get in touch with the program if they see spot cats. I know, like I said, we've got several ferales in our neighborhood. I have no idea where they came from. They're just there. And I know I have neighbors who feed them. So that's it. Thank you. Courtney Cross Burgos. Good evening. Courtney Deltona. I hate when I have to go after a cat because we usually have the same things, basically. I also think that the volunteers are doing a really good job. I think we need to get with them on the people that are feeding not the colonies, you know, because that's one of the biggest things I hear people complain about when they're pre-feeding other cats, that raccoons come and now bears and such. So I think we need to work more hand-in-hand with them because they're the ones that know where the colonies are and what's going on. And I hope that instead of using outside companies or nonprofits, we do go with the ones that we already have in the city that have been working so hard for us. No other speakers, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Commissioner Avila-Vasquez, you are up next. Thank you, Mayor. So, first of all, I just want to make a comment that I would have liked to have a copy of the TNR procedures that we're supposed to have. There was nothing attached to our agenda so that I can look and see what the city's supposed to be doing as far as procedures wise and what we're trying to farm out. I was a little disappointed in that when I do my homeworks during the weekend for my meetings, I had nothing. The other thing I want to say, a question I want to ask, these nonprofit organizations, does that mean that if we don't go with this that you guys are proposing, that we have the option of choosing to work with these nonprofits that are coming and speak in front of us? The option is going to be there for any of the nonprofits, organizations that deal with TNR to submit so they can be part of the program for TNR. I mean, I would prefer the locals, but it's going to be out there on the request for proposal program. Okay. I have not met with these nonprofits, so I have no idea what their requirements are or what their fees are and stuff like that. But I can tell you that I was just elected when we started with the TNR program. And when we first started, this program was working perfectly. We used to receive reports, and I know, Danny, that you were not part of it. But I can tell you that we used to receive reports from the departments as the locations, the feeders, all the volunteers. We had names. We knew who they were. And all of a sudden, that just fell between the cracks. And I can tell you that it was all because of personal reasons between volunteers and staff. And that needs to stop. We need to start working together instead of separating and pushing each other away. Staff gets paid for this. Volunteers don't. So we need to work with them and help them put it together. And I know that a lot of people in this room don't like cats. I know that for a fact. I don't have cats. But I don't want to see them being tortured either. I don't want to see them being abused or put to death just because somebody doesn't want them in their backyard. I see them crossing my yard all the time. And you've been to my house. It's all woods. The other question I have is, let's see where, I lost it here. So if we go with one of these options that you're giving us, you know the city's still going to be receiving complaints. So how are we going to handle that? If we're already paying somebody to take care of this, how are we also going to be using our staff to follow up on the complaints about what's being done and what's not being done by these clinics? And we'll reach out first to the organization that's going to be doing our TNR. I mean, if the stuff is not being corrected, then animal control could come in and assist. We definitely want to help. There we go. Does that answer your question, Commissioner? So we're going to be paying somebody, but we're also going to be using our staff to help them do the job that we're paying them to do. That's correct. I mean, we're still going to do animal control out there. If it assists them in accomplishing all that we need to, of course, we will definitely help. So this organization or the company that you're looking at is just to spade and neuter? They'll be in charge of the spade and neuter, and pretty much the list that we have here that I just mentioned, these are the things we're going to put in the contract with that organization. They're going to be out there looking and picking up cats and dogs? That's correct. So as we get the complaints, it's going to be a mutual thing because most of the time we get the complaints of this is where I have a whole bunch of cats in front of my property. That resident needs to be willing to accept our help by coming onto the property so we can provide traps to trap and, you know, so we can trap, you know, be part of the program. We'll trap him. We'll bring him to the surgery, return him back to that same location. But, yes, it's a mutual thing. We will be providing the complaints. I mean, I'm sure they will be getting complaints. It's all going to work in one big group. I have another question, and I can't find out where I wrote it. Okay, I'll think about it. I'll call you somebody else. Commissioner Lully. Thank you, Mayor. When I first started looking into this after I was elected, I think the biggest issue of all is that the current ordinance is written is, I mean, in my opinion, it's not very much of an ordinance. It's very open-ended. It talks about a pie. I mean, no one's ever read it. It's literally a single paragraph. I think the Commissioner Vila-Vasquez's point, I'm not sure that there's a lot to have measured against because it very much deferred. The city manager can deem things not enforceable. It very much, I think, put the ball in the city manager's court. And I think when we've had, what's the number eight? Seven. Seven, eight, seven. Seven in five years. We've had seven city managers since 2020 when it looks like this was implemented. All seven are going to probably have a different interpretation of what their authority is under this because, again, if nobody's read it, very much there aren't really measurable objectives. So I'm definitely in support of creating it because it's not just the RFP that would be put out. I mean, we're going to have to have a full-on ordinance for this because the one now does not authorize anything like this. It authorizes a pilot program. I mean, it even says things like fully operational for a number of years. I'm kind of blown away that that would even pass legal muster without a specific number, so that's a little confusing. But I'm in support of anything that gives us a program with actual manageable objectives to measure against because I think that's the only way to determine if a program is successful. And, again, I think the biggest weakness so far has been the, and maybe the folks in the audience would be, there's been inconsistency because we've had seven city managers who may have different views, and there hasn't really been anything in the ordinance. And I think it's our job as the commission. We're the legislative body for the city. We're the policymakers. So I think it's our job to create that policy, and then the city manager and his staff then have the responsibility of meeting the requirements of what policy we set. So I think that's really important. Another point, I know it kind of was brought up, but there was a question about limiting the number of cats. The way I interpreted this specific document, which, of course, is not final and a subject to change, it looked like there was a minimum that they needed to take in, and there was an incentive bonus provided to take in additional cats. So to me, it seemed like that was a minimum as opposed to a maximum, and there very much is incentive to handle more cats. There was a question I heard that came up about liability. That would be a question I have in general for any sort of a program. I'm going to assume that the clinic probably has. Ms. Stevenson, I can hear you over here, please. Thank you. I imagine the clinic has a waiver of some sort like it does when, you know, I bring a dog, my dog, to there, and it's kind of, like, shocking. It's like, well, we're not responsible for death or injury, which is really sad. But I imagine there might be something like that. But I'd be interested in hearing that, too, because we did hear that in the commentary, and I think that would be something important to establish if we needed to within the ordinance. So in summary, I'm just looking forward to actually having a measurable policy put in place. Appreciate everyone coming out tonight. It is a – I love animals. The other night, Friday night, driving down 44, this little raccoon family runs out in front of me. I slammed on the brakes. I had some behind me. I'm in my new electric truck, and I came to a complete stop because I couldn't fathom, you know, causing injury to an animal. So I feel you and hear you, and thank you for coming out tonight. We'll go with the city manager and then the city attorney, and then we'll follow up with Commissioner Santiago and Commissioner Harrington, and then Vice Mayor. So thank you for those questions, Commissioner. Commissioner, definitely on – in ordinance, we will take direction from the body on whatever you all want to see in your code. We have looked at different jurisdictions across the state, and really the – there's a wide range of what cities and counties prescribe in their code. There are very successful programs that have very simple codes that simply authorize a program and provide for implementation through, you know, a designated department. There are cities that have extensive provisions. I would recommend not being too prescriptive and extensive in your code because it provides a lack of flexibility as, you know, the needs of your community and your TNR program develop. But I definitely agree that providing for a pilot program is not really the right fit at this time. So, you know, we'll take direction from the body on what you all want to see. And as far as the liability, definitely in the agreement with the provider for the TNR program, we would include the city's standard insurance language indemnity to make sure that, you know, the city is protected and there was – you know, we had all of our T's crossed and I's dotted. City manager. No, go ahead. Okay. Commissioner Santiago. Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick overview. I met with a group – some of the group behind me. And Charlene, Rory, Robin, and they educated me. So thank you very much. Thank you. And it's about time we do a TNR program. I mean, with the information that they provided with the Alley Cat allies, they've had – it's been a while. We should be looking into Volusia County also, their program. They also do the city of DeBerry, if you can take a look at that. And if we can include in that RFP to do some educational, social media educational programs that our community can look and understand how the TNR program works. What else? And the $60,000 annually, the compensation. Was that typically what you've been accustomed to that we've paid or it's just a number that we – No, this is the budget I have for TNR at this fiscal year, $60,000. So it's just going to roll – okay. Right. All right. Awesome. That's all the questions I had. And just a quick thank you to the ladies and the volunteers. Thank you so much. All right. We're going to go to Commissioner Howington. I do apologize. When there's somebody on virtual, I usually go to them first. So the next round of questions, I'll go to Commissioner Caldwell first. So Commissioner Howington and then Vice Mayor after Commissioner Caldwell. Thank you. So I've heard a lot of great feedback. I would like us to look into the Volusia County procedures and potentially what's happening in DeVarie. It sounds like it's working really well. Additionally, kind of to Mr. Blodgett's point, I would like us to be very aggressive when we come at this this year, when we launch this new program so that we can get ahead of the game and really start to work on those colonies and kind of bring them into check. I'd love to see the education program like Ms. Bryan had mentioned. Now, as far as the RFP that's going to go out, will that be posted on DemandStar for all of the people in the audience so that they know how to find that RFP? I'm not sure, but I think that's what it's called. I think Doc will have that information. Is that correct, DemandStar? Okay. So we'll make sure that it gets out to the appropriate parties so that they know. Okay. Thank you. Do we know about when that RFP might go out? Well, I'm going to start working that after this meeting. If y'all give me the go-ahead to start working on this. Okay. And then what is the plan to deal with the current unauthorized colonies that have appeared and have become colonies? Because as we've heard the vacuum effect, if we go in and clear out those colonies, they're going to potentially come back. And I know that there's some specific ones that people have a concern with. So how are we going to handle that situation? Well, once we have the organization that is going to fall, I'm going to ask for their assistance in this. Could they have the professionals? And what's the best practices, best route to take to address that issue? Part of the commissioners is when I arrived, I asked Danny and the staff about the TNR program. Where are the colonies and who's the volunteers? They had a meeting that seemed to end with, we're not saying who we're volunteering, who are the volunteers, and where the colonies are. I believe a statement was made at one point, the whole city's a colony. So we've had a TNR program that's certainly gone off the wire. And our objective is to have some kind of structure and organization here. I know the question has been or statement has been made about the restaurants and other places we can't force. Well, if the feeding would stop in the inner city in some of the house areas, the cats will go somewhere else. If the people stop feeding 15 or 20 cats, because there's no food, the cats will go to where there's food. So the issue that we have at City Hall is a lot more than people in the audience have called to complain about the program itself, because we take dogs out of the neighborhoods, but we're not taking the cats out. If anything, we're bringing the cats back in. So as much as I appreciate the overall general idea of the program, the question becomes how far do we go with this until we have success? That's our objective here, and Danny and my staff and myself working on this, is let's give it a shot. The groups insist that this is a successful program. Cats apparently don't join up with other colonies, but we still have to have a handle somewhere in the city. We can't just say, well, someone's feeding 50 cats in their backyard, so I guess she stays. That's a neighborhood cat area. Those neighbors around there don't necessarily like that. We have a restaurant well-known in our city that's very hot about this because their whole back area smells like pee, cat pee. Well, I know it's a restaurant. Cats like to hang out at the restaurant, but the program here basically encourages them. I'm going to say this one time. We try to keep some type of decorum here. If people are talking and we're not able to respect their conversations, I will ask you to leave. It's that simple. One warning is all you'll get. We'd like to say if there's a colony there, it's being taken care of, and we're good. But we can't, as I'm getting some underlying thoughts here of, the colony's there, what are we going to do? That means the entire city is a colony, and it can't be that way. We have to have specific places. Those cats, if they're not going to those areas, then people are illegally feeding. We have illegally feeding, and our city is not allowed. You can only have five animals at your house. If someone has 25 in their backyard, is that five? Because I'm pretty sure the neighbor's going to call me and say they have 30 cats. Well, no, they're outside cats, but they're not in the program. So if the commission's decision is that feeding can be done anywhere, where I guess then the program is an outside organization will come to us and say, here's the city, and here's all of our colonies, which will cover the entire city. And I get cats are going to go where they go, and people are going to feed illegally, but if this program's successful, clearly there's got to be places that the cats go to and not the entire city of Deltona. That's an issue I have a little bit with this. But if we can have a group that's going to come in and is really going to have this structured, all right, let's give it a shot, which is what we've been working on and what we're asking the commission to approve to put this out and see where we can go with it. But to go back to a question earlier by Commissioner Villavasquez, and I'll just really quick, was we're expecting the group to come in to do a lot of the work, the heavy lifting. Our staff should be focusing on code enforcement, and that's why we already made a change to the structure so eight or ten people on staff are not chasing a brown dog all day. Two people are chasing a brown dog. The others are focusing on code enforcement. So we expect the group that gets contracted here for up to $60,000 or even more per year, that may be $30,000 for the spay and neutering. I mean, that's another $30,000 potential that could go towards helping pay for the food from our volunteers so they're not putting up their own money because we spent this past year $30,000, give or take, for spay and neutering. So we budget $75,000, but we don't spend that much. But then the volunteers are out putting their own money into the program. Well, if this is done by an outside organization, they could still pay for the spay and neutering, and they would have extra funds to help pay for the food so the volunteers aren't putting their money into it. So we're just hoping that, commission, if there's any suggestions you have besides what we have down here, anything else you'd like to stick into the RFP, if you're interested in going this way, and hopefully we can find an organization that's really going to run with the ball and put it to where we hope and expect it to be. So I am glad to see the extra bonuses for the extra cats. That is helpful because that really is how we'll get control of the population. And I know from my meeting, we discussed that if we can really go at this aggressively, that these colonies can be brought in to check and start to dwindle within three to five years, which would hopefully be the goal if we can actually achieve this. So if we bring in somebody to manage this program, they'd be operating essentially with autonomy to do the program as they see fit, or is this going to be under very strict guidelines? Because I've heard the concerns in the past that volunteers have had concerns about working with city staff. And I want to make sure that we don't run into that issue. I don't think the staff has ever stopped a successful program. But when people are doing whatever they want, and the staff says that's not an area to have a colony, and a person's not even part of the program, they just decide to feed a bunch of cats because word got out you could drop. I was at church. That is not a colony outside the back patio in the parking lot. I have pictures, actually, from this past week plus other weeks of people stopping by. At one point, it was just a bag of food, ripped open, thrown out, and the car just kept driving. Okay, well, that's illegal. It's not. And literally this past weekend, you can see the buckets of water they're taking out. There's a turkey, a cat, and a raccoon standing literally five feet away from each other waiting for them to be serviced. I have other pictures that actually have seven raccoons and three cats all waiting for someone to drop the food off. It's not a colony. It's off a sax, and it's illegal. So, does that continue as a colony? Because someone somewhere, and it's not anyone out in the back room here, is illegally feeding in that area. So, I'd love to get a handle on it, but it can't just be anybody doing anything. And people, I don't think anybody in the audience, because they came from Daytona, argued with me to the point that you just can't stop people from feeding, so that's the way it is. Well, then we don't have a TNR program, because there's no organization to it. We're hoping we have it, and I appreciate the people that are here to support it, but it can't be a free-for-all. Well, that's why I asked the question, because I was just wondering, will we allow them to run the process based on what we would expect a successful program to run as? And then if we do have situations like that, I'm assuming code would come in and help with those unauthorized colonies outside of the program. As long as the group, whoever we choose, appreciates the understanding that it's an unauthorized colony and doesn't say, eh, yes. They would have 100% support for whatever we need. But it would not be that they're in charge, but then we're doing all the hands-on work. It's going back to Commissioner Villavasco's question is, no, we're expecting them to actually run with the ball, and we're there to support it. The reason we're paying the money out is so that they can take care of the expenses. For us to continue running it, then we should just keep doing what we're doing. So, no, they would have the autonomy to run with the ball, but certainly part of what we're putting in here also is monthly reports. Where are the colonies and how many cats are in the colonies? They have to have some kind of control of that. And then every quarter come in to talk to the commission, a little 10-minute overview of where we are, because if it's successful, we're all going to do very well. And hopefully they have that success. Thank you. Commissioner Caldwell, did you have any comments, questions, concerns? Yes. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Call ahead, please. Our question is, if we move forward with this program, is it going to be that they have to register the people that are involved in this, whichever nonprofit we decide to go with, or both nonprofits or two nonprofits? Will there be a registry program? So we know who's feeding and who's not feeding, who's TNRing. And the second part of that is, is what is the follow-up to that with the rogue feeders? How are we going to implement that? Let me answer the second question first. The rogue feeders, as we get the complaints, we definitely are addressing them. I believe you had submitted one recently, and we've been keeping an eye on that same location. It's a popular location for rogue feeding, and that's not that far from that restaurant we keep talking about. We definitely need it. We definitely will address it once we find that person. If we haven't done that so far, an issue of fine. They shouldn't be doing it. We've got signs out in that location. To me, I was not advised that this is an approved colony, so that's why that location, we have a whole bunch of no feeding signs. First question. Commissioner, can you say, can you repeat that first question? He's asking if we'd get a list of the volunteers and colonies. Yeah, I mean, that should be all included. Yes, absolutely, Commissioner. This question is for legal, and what is our procedure for, in this case that Danny's talking about, where we were sent a picture with a license plate of a vehicle? Is there anything we can do to enforce it at that level? Commissioner, that photo, we couldn't read the vehicle tag because we have access to run vehicle tags with owner's information, but unfortunately, that photo was blurred. We couldn't tell what the tag information had. So if we have a legible license plate or a tag number, what would the procedure be from there? If we've warned it before, the next step would be issued a citation, a civil citation. So they'd be given one warning and then a civil citation? Correct. And then a fine? That citation would be the fine, which if they want to contest it, they would go in front of a county court, in front of a judge. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Vice Mayor, here we go. Thank you, Mayor. I'm excited to see how excited you guys are. That is very helpful. A couple of things. I think that this, the contract notes is a good start. I think that we need to say no new colonies. There should be no new colonies. We have the registered colonies. We have the colonies that we know of, but we shouldn't be creating new colonies. So where it says no colonies may be formed within city home neighborhoods and no colonies may be formed. We're just new colonies. Is that? Well, part of it is they're illegally feeding now, according to our ordinances, but you go back to the neighbor concept. Yeah. If you're the neighbor and you're calling city halls asking why does she have so many cats, it's kind of a catch-22. And I think that it may have been Mayor Herzberg, but somebody specifically mentioned the rogue colonies, and I think that that's critically important, as some of the other commissioners have recognized as well. In order for this to work, we have to have control over the program, and the provider that we select has to have that control over the program. Some of the other things I'd like to see in here is that if we do incorporate some language regarding the vicinity of restaurants or food establishments, I'd like to see that more well-defined so that it can be enforceable. So the MOU for spay and neuter, I'm not exactly sure how that all works, but I want to make sure that we're not excluding providers that have a different plan. As long as we're getting animals spayed, then I don't know that we need to stipulate who they take the cats to. So the compensation amount, I understand and appreciate the $60,000, and that's what we're spending currently on the program. I don't think that that's enough. I think that we all recognize that that's not a sufficient amount, and so I would like to understand, and part of the RFP process is them submitting what they think they can do the program for. I would like to hear from the providers on what they would need in order to successfully run this program. If we are talking about getting aggressive with this in the first year, which I agree that we should, I think that they should also provide what the incentive amount per cat would be for them to put in the extra resources. Honestly, to me, $10 a cat doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot, so I'm not sure that I would really go above and beyond for $10 a cat. Some of the other things, the provider's monthly report, I'd really like to see that that includes the address that it was trapped or picked up, where they were taken for the spay or neuter, and then whether that cat was released or adopted. And I'd like it to specifically allow the nonprofit or the provider to adopt out cats so that they can augment their own costs. I think it also needs to ensure that there's a monitoring component of the registered colonies so that we can meet the 70%. I think that that's critical. I've talked at the last workshop, I mentioned that, and I've talked with the city manager a couple times and with Danny Ron about this a couple times, that we have to be able to monitor and make sure that these colonies are actually being TNR'd. And then, again, I can't stress the importance of us addressing rogue feeders and taking that very seriously, and I think that in order to do that, we have to sit down with our community partners, with staff, and in a better setting with a better outcome than the last attempt so that we can put together a list of actual approved, registered, use whatever word we want to use, but the feeders that exist so that we can enforce those. So, and other than that, yes, I'm in favor of proceeding with this process. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Ron questioned, what cities have we pursued, let me turn on your mic, what cities have we pursued to look at what they've been doing, cities, counties? What cities? Well, DeBerry's a good example. You know, this is where the source is at, and that's who's, as of right now, willing to, organizations that's willing to come here and help. We've looked at other locations. Port Orange, we're constantly talking to Volusia County. I mean, they come to them, the residents come to them for the surgeries. Yeah, so if we can put it on them so they can handle all that, we'll be fine with that. Have you looked into Palm Beach County? Because I know when we had the situation with when we were doing our animal control stuff, that was a very good place to look to get a better idea and understanding of. I have not reached out to them, but I definitely could reach out and figure out. Okay. You know, we had a, I had some folks from a commercial location call me sometime, and this is how you can tell the difference between rogue feeders and people that know what they're doing. I spoke to somebody who's in the audience actually today, and they went in and pretty much cleaned it up, and, you know, they fixed some of the issues because whoever is going there to feed was leaving that place a mess. And it was cleaned up. She sent me pictures. You know, I haven't heard any more complaints since Ms. Schinkle took care of it. But I think it's important to make sure that we don't have, we need to take control of the rogue feeders and make sure that that's something that gets taken care of. And what will help, once we have the organization step in, we will have a list of who's actually feeding. Because the information I get when we knock on doors, knock on car windows, hey, I'm part of TNR. How do I verify if you are part of TNR? Yes. Yes, the ones that stand out are the ones that just open up a bag of cat food and just leave the mess there. Those, we know, those are rogue feeders. I know a lot of the volunteers that are feeders. They do so discreetly, we don't get complaints. You know, and, yeah, we've dealt, you know, we've been working with them for years. Like I said, I got a lot of complaints from that plaza. I don't know if she's still doing it or not, obviously, but I haven't received any calls, so thank you. Obviously, whatever you did was working. I don't think anybody on this dais doesn't want to see a TNR program continue, right? I think the complaints have always been, for anybody, it doesn't matter who it is, to sit here and say that our TNR program was successful, it's just, that's not true. That's not factual. You can't determine something being successful when there's no structure. And whatever it was, the paragraph, like Commissioner Lully says that we had on the books, there's nothing there to measure it. This right here is a good start, right? We can structure something, and how do you know if something is successful? Well, we have certain things that we have to meet, certain goals, certain objectives. Obviously, you know, we're never going to solve the problem 100%. We'll still get calls here and there, but we'll actually see probably less calls coming in, less complaints coming in. Those are verifiable goals that we can have. Structure. We don't have structure right now when it comes to whatever it was that we had that seemed to only be a pilot program that never went anywhere. I will 100% support this with actual measurable structure, and I want to make sure we have measurable boundaries, right? To the city manager's point, we don't want to have, and I'll address this with the statement that's been said about our city staff continuously, right? When you are telling a volunteer, hey, this is already outside of your parameters, we still have to abide by our ordinances, and they're yelling at our staff, that's unacceptable. Because at the end of the day, you know, nobody wants to put a cat to sleep or any of that. But we have to make sure that we have a good working relationship. That needs to be something that has to be said up front. Any disrespect or anything like that, that should not be tolerated on anybody. City staff shouldn't be doing to volunteers, obviously, and volunteers should not be doing it to our city staff. But as long as you can come up, and I'm looking at Zach because usually they're the ones that construct these ordinances, measurable structures with measurable boundaries, things that allow us to be able to see how well we're doing in these programs and how effective they are, 100%, I have no issue. But if we're going to have whatever it was that we used to have and pretend that we're all happy and nothing, you know, we're okay with things not changing, then no, obviously. And as I've been mulling this over in my head, what I would suggest, and if you all are okay with this direction, I would suggest that in the code of ordinances, we authorize the program, say that a program shall exist, and that measurable policies shall be enacted by the city commission via resolution. That way, if those need to be updated, it is a quicker process. You all can do that, you know, in a matter of weeks versus an ordinance on two readings, you know, that could run you the difference between two weeks versus 90 days. So I would suggest that if you all are okay with that direction. Yeah, the only other thing I will say, and then I'll go to Commissioner Lully and then Commissioner Vasquez is, and this is not towards the volunteers because they sure as heck know this, but staff and myself, I've seen it with my own eyes. I look out the window and we have people dumping the cats literally right there. You just fed a coyote. I'm sorry to say that. I mean, I don't know why anybody would drop off a cat at the preserve. It makes no sense. And number one, you're endangering whatever scrub jays we have there. But that's the only other thing I would say is, which is very important to what a lot of us are talking about, which is the education portion, putting stuff out there, the to-dos and not-to-dos, and definitely making sure that whoever we end up picking is very well-versed, which it seems like these folks here are, on the to-dos and not-to-dos. So, Commissioner Lully. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with all of that. Some of the things that have just been said and appreciate City Attorney bringing this up. Regarding how to structure it, I just wanted to make sure that we go in the right order. So, if that's ordinance, resolution, RFP, or if it doesn't matter, I just want to make sure that we go in the right order because I don't want to issue an RFP and the ordinance will say if the city manager finds it contrary to the, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I want to just make sure we're doing it right in the right order. So, that would be my only request in regards to that. But I think we've had a lot of great conversation here this evening. Thank you. Commissioner Avila Vasquez. Thank you, Mayor. So, Mayor, I just want you to know that in the beginning we did get reports. When we started this program, we did get reports. We have policies and procedures. I have no idea what happened to them. I tried looking in my files and my folders to find them, and I got rid of a lot of old stuff from the early 20s, but we had them. There's no way that you can put a program together without putting the policies and the procedures on how to do it out there. So, again, I don't know what happened to them. The questions I have, Danny, I know that at one time the city had a program with Halifax where residents used to bring their animals here, and Halifax would pick them up, and for a $25 fee, you know, they were able to get their animals fixed, and then they would bring them back here again, and, you know, residents would come pick them up. And I know that was a very successful program. Staff is looking into working with Halifax Humane Society. They have a Redinger Clinic and also our local clinic that we use for the spayed and neuter for the cats in D-Berry, and staff is looking into that. Okay, because I remember it was a two animal per family at that time, and it was, I mean, I remember because my friend came and they turned her away. They couldn't take any more. That's how, you know, good it was. So if, how is it going to happen when the city starts working with the nonprofit? Are you guys going to get together and create these new procedures, these policies with our legal department? Yes. Being that there's none that exists right now? So then you will be working with the city policies, and they will help you put it together with their knowledge that they have as far as, you know, with the TNR programs and stuff like that? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. That way we are on the same page. If anybody has questions with staff, we can answer those questions that, you know, what TNR is actually doing for us. All right. Thank you. And just to piggyback off that point, we will definitely work with your staff on establishing the correct policies. And I think procedurally to Commissioner Lilly's question, the RFP can be issued, I think, ASAP. And we can, in the meantime, work on getting the ordinance properly noticed. The ordinance can, you know, be heard on first and second reading prior to the RFP actually, you know, being awarded. And likely the resolution would come after the RFP once, to your point, Commissioner, we've had the opportunity to work with the selected entity so that if there are any additional procedures that need to be put in place that, you know, between, you know, legal and your staff and any other experts hadn't been thought of, those can all be included as one cohesive piece. Only one last thing I would like to add before we go to the next discussion item is when I brought up the Palm Beach County piece, the reason I brought it up, I know they, I know we do something very similar, but it's not the same. The county does once a month, they call it the spay bus over there, or the spay and neuter bus. And a lot of folks go there, and they get their animals spayed and neutered for a very nominal fee. They have to show, obviously, a driver's license. I know I've seen some of those around the expert car carers. I guess they partner with some clinic. I know we did it sometime last year, something similar that ended up being a little bit expensive, if I'm not mistaken. It's the local shock clinic. That's what we did. Okay. So if we can look at something like that, just for not necessarily for, you know, feral cats or just for residents in general, because what ends up happening is residents get tired of their animals, and they have no common sense, and they just dump them out in the wild to fend for themselves. And the last thing is, when we're putting out that material, legal, can we make sure we include the state statute that kind of indicates that if you do any of that, you will be charged and arrested for animal abuse? Okay. All right. Mayor, Mayor, can I interrupt? Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner Powell. I'm on the board. I'm not sure if you're receiving it. But I want to be clear in our RFP, when we designate a registered site, a designated site, that we have a list of that registered feeder, as opposed to the entire roster feeding at all sites around the city. Understood. So Zach is shaking his head, so he understood that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So we're going to go ahead and move to the next discussion. Adam, you guys have all the direction you need to go to the next step, right? Okay. Next discussion item is regarding the commission travel policy, and we'll start off with the city manager. Thank you. All right, Mayor, this is something we've been talking about for a number of months. It was requested by the commission to add it to a workshop. What you have in front of you, I believe, that was attached to the agenda, is the established commission policy for travel from July 1st, 2013. So the request to bring it back for you guys to have a discussion is tonight. Any adjustments or changes you'd like to make to the current policy is up for discussion. We'll start off with public comment first, and then we'll go to Commissioner Caldwell afterwards. Mayor, you have two people who want to speak. Matthew Borgans. Mr. Borgans, when you get up there, just push the little button, and I will – you'll see the mic turn green, okay? There you go. Good evening. Looking over the policy, I see that we're trying to put a lot of things into a travel policy that doesn't pertain to travel. So you added – This is just a correction. This is the current travel policy. This isn't a new one. This isn't the new one that was posted online for this? This is 2013. Okay, because it was – the one that was attached to tonight's meeting was talking about – it looked like an updated one from the ones that had been up there from before. No. So it's not the one that's on the agenda? Yeah, so this is – yes, it is, exactly. Okay, so the one that's on the agenda, right. It's currently in place. So this isn't a new one we're discussing tonight. This is currently in place. Just – So – Still says fax machine on it, yes. Right, yeah, it says fax – okay. Can we start his time again? Yes, absolutely. I just want to correct that. We're not changing anything yet. This is currently what's in place. Okay, so just when you look at the policies, you know, you have to – there's the Florida statute policy. The Florida statute has a statute already in place. It tells you exactly what's going on in there. So you can – it goes in there, it talks about per diem, what's allowed for per diem. It goes in there, it talks about everything in place. So then you add in there, and you can put in there the amount for the conferences. Instead of saying three conferences a year, you can go and put the dollar amount. So there already is something in there, and it tells you per the statute, it says for city officials and cities there. So it's already in place at there, and it's referenced in all of our policies that we have for travel. So then we start adding things on there that's not in place. So then we start making it more complicated. So the simpler we make it, the easier it is to understand. And then we start adding, you know, the extra expenses in there. And that's, you know, where things start making it complicated. So, you know, I've had – I've written policies for over 20 years, and then, you know, I've reached out to two commissioners. One reached back out to me. And so I have experienced writing policies, and just looking at this policy here, it goes back and forth. It references the statute, and then it says we're not following that statute. And then it goes back to that statute, and then it says not to reference that statute. And so there's a lot of back and forth on our original policy saying we reference it, then saying we don't reference it. So with you updating the new policies, you should stick to what the Florida statute is and then follow that and then add to it where you want to add to it. So that's kind of my going back and forth with it is if you have a Florida statute, follow a Florida statute, and then add to it where we want to add to it for Deltona. And same thing with the forms. The forms need to be standardized and kept up to date because adding the numbers, adding the different fixed items on there can't be adjusted. So then whoever does forms has to change them every year versus it being changed. Thank you, sir. Yep. Kathy Bryan. Kathy Bryan. Excuse me. Kathy Bryan, Deltona. Just number one, understand there was a reason for the current travel policy. It would have been taking – people were taking advantage of travel. So a policy was put into place, number one. Number two, and I'm basing this off of what I saw of the example that was pulled up by – written up by – when the whole thing started. But out of state, I still think you need commission approval, period, full stop. Overnight, more than one night, commission approval. If you are – you don't need to be paid for an overnight hotel unless you're going more than 50 miles out of your way. Some people say even more. But people – the original had said 30 miles. I'm not talking about the current policy. I'm talking about the one that was written up by Doc. People drive more than that back and forth to work four days a week for 12-hour shifts. So give me a break. I've been to conferences out at Disney, went back home, went back the next morning. And I think that it's good. Bring back info. If you're going to go on a trip, you know, unless it's like an education thing because you're a new commissioner, bring back what you learned that's going to help the city. Why are you going on this trip? What did you do while you were there? Reimbursement by the GSA per diem. That way you always have something to follow. And if you do stay – I know that we don't pay for alcohol, weed, or other entertainment. That's all I have for now. I'm sure I'll have more. Commissioner Caldwell? Oh, I'm sorry. City Clerk, is there any? Somebody else? No, sir. That's it. Thank you. Commissioner Caldwell? Yes. I think under the current policy being sufficient as it is, you know, if we were to set a price on per commissioner for travel, you know, we'd be constantly back and forth updating it over the years with the consumer price index changes and things like that, whereas now, you know, the city pays for whatever the cost is at the time. So I don't think we need to set a price. I know there's been some discussion about that. But other than the cost for food and stuff like that, obviously, it needs to be increased and updated on a yearly basis based on a CPI, a consumer price index, I think would be sufficient. That's all I have to say about it. Thank you, Commissioner Lully. Unfortunately, that doesn't come out through here for some reason. It does? Okay. You just taught me something new. There you go. Commissioner Howington, you're next. Thank you. I was just going to say that looking at the current policy, you know, I think that we can potentially just work with what we have as framework and then make some adjustments, one being the per diem rates. We probably should be looking at that. I just looked it up. The federal rate is $68 for meals for a day. And for Florida, GSA recommends $80 for the state of Florida. So, I would say that we probably should look at that to get that more in alignment with what the current rates are within GSA. And then I don't know what anybody else thinks about having a flat rate for travel. I know that I believe in the budget we have $6,000 per commissioner. I think that that's high, especially if we're trying to stay within the state because I agree with Commissioner Caldwell, and I believe Kathy Bryan had mentioned that out-of-state travel should be commissioner approved. But I would like to see a lower rate around $4,000 or $5,000 because I think I've spent $850-ish, and I'm not sure how much everybody else has spent, but $6,000 seems like a lot of money. Additionally, kind of looking through the policy, there's a section in B that talks about long-distance phone calls. It could probably be stricken because we obviously have cell phones now, so that can come out. And then as well as Section D, the section that has the fax machines listed. I think we could probably strike that whole section. Other than that, that was kind of the comments that I had, so I didn't see anything else too concerning. But I think having this as a framework, it's been working for so long that I don't know why we would want to go away from it completely. Thank you. I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Harriet, but I just want to add really quick, Vice Mayor. Zach, you can push here. Sorry, I know you're – oh, do it again. I turned your request off. Oh, I think I hit it accidentally. No, no, it was me. I hit the wrong – so here's a question. Why are we just not following the state statute? This is why we get ourselves into trouble. Why are we not – So the state provides guidelines for its own agencies, which many cities and counties do follow. However, it is within local authority to provide a different but not inconsistent – not otherwise inconsistent policy. So it is certainly your discretion as a body if you all want to just, you know, refer – defer to the state statute or if you all want to provide a different process or policy for yourselves. Many local governments – I think someone mentioned GSA. Many local governments, you know, just defer to whatever the GSA rate is at the time. So it's all up to you. All right. I'll go to Vice Mayor Harriet, then Commissioner Vasquez, and if nobody else comes, then I'll go again for my questions. And then Commissioner Santiago. Thank you, Mayor. For simplicity's sake, I think we should either follow the staff policy for the per diem amounts or the GSA rate. GSA rate is really not that hard. You punch in the zip code for the location that you're traveling to, and you print out the paper, and it tells you what the rates are. Submit that with your travel package. It's not very difficult at all. In terms of the in-state, out-of-state, I don't think that that's been effective at all. I don't think we've had commissioners that have gone to conferences and learned as much as they could have because the process is burdensome and cumbersome. And, quite frankly, they don't feel like they know what the process is or they don't want to deal with the hassle that comes with the process. I think that, to Commissioner Howington's point, $4,000, $5,000 should be sufficient. I don't see that we would need much more than that. But also, to your point, what ends up happening is you've spent $800. I don't know what I've spent, but it's probably far less than that. I don't know what anybody else has spent, but that's going to be the tit for tat. That's going to be the self-policing that takes place amongst us is who can keep their travel policy the lowest or who can justify their travel policy with the most information. I think that coming back and providing some sort of report is greatly beneficial, but this policy is extremely cumbersome. I think we're just doing ourselves a disservice by having a cumbersome travel policy. Let's make it easy. You get a budget. You stay within your budget. If you don't stay within your budget, then you have to come back to the commission and ask for more budget. And if the commission doesn't think that it's been well spent, then you don't get more budget. But that's where I'm at on this. I think we need to get to the point where commissioners are feeling more comfortable traveling to conferences to learn about things, to educate themselves on current practices, best practices. I mean, it's constantly said that we're not reinventing the wheel. There are people that have come across every scenario or every problem that we currently have. We just need to learn from them. And you do that by gathering at conferences and networking at conferences and learning about what they did and how they did it and what they could do better and what they would recommend the next person in their shoes do. So I think we need to promote this. I think we need to make it easier. And, yeah, so GSA rate for per diem amounts. I definitely think that there's got to be some sort of paperwork to track it, obviously, to get, you know, for submission, for reimbursement. And then a dollar amount cap I think would be ideal with the – regardless of whether you're going in-state or out-of-state, I'd like to understand where somebody went. And I think that's simple enough. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner Avila-Vasquez. Thank you, Mayor. So I agree with the commissioners that have spoken to use this, the same policy that we've been using, with the exception of increasing the meal allowance because everything has gone up. The commission annual expenses, I agree also to reduce it. I can tell you that I haven't gotten an expense check for more than $200. Maybe $120 for my travel for a month and other expenses. Conference and education, going back to the – staying in a hotel. Sometimes it's – the conferences I've been to is sometimes it's just a night. And only because these conferences, the session starts sometimes 7.30 in the morning, 8 o'clock. And most of the ones I've gone to is either in Jacksonville or at the very end of Orlando. So it's kind of hard to travel to these conferences in the morning with all the traffic and stuff. So I don't think allowing a commissioner to stay overnight for a conference to attend early in the morning is a bad thing. But other than that, I think everything else falls into place. I know that the conferences I have gone to is mostly about AHAC. I haven't gone out of that topic. So, yeah, I think this is a good policy to follow with the changes that some of the commissioners have made. Thank you. Commissioner Santiago. Thank you, Mayor. Yep. I also agree with that statement, Commissioner Vasquez, about, you know, if you've got to have – if that be there at 7 o'clock in the morning, leave the night before. And, again, it needs to be simplified. This is just too old, 2013, that we've – the per diem needs to be updated. We should probably, like Vice Mayor stated, go with the GSA rate. I truly believe that we should just have – I think 6,000 is a lot, maybe go down to 5,000. I think that was a good idea. What else? Conferences limit to three in-state. I – honestly, you know, we're all adults here. I don't think we need permission slips from us to attend these meetings. I think as professionals, you know, we are expected to exercise judgment in certain situations, and we should be able to come back and give an update if you attend a conference and give us information about that and be responsible for your actions, right? I know there's some other information that needs to be removed, especially the fax machine. But other than that, I think simplifying it, updating the per diem, giving an amount like $5,000 not to exceed, and coming back on your conferences to give an update. I think that's all that needs to be done, then we can move forward. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Santiago. I think we should completely get rid of Section D because the whole fax machine, obviously, situation is kind of – it's beyond me. And then providing postage, that all has to do with the way things used to get done. And then supplies for your fax machine, that whole section should be crossed out. That's my opinion. I agree with the commissioners. Maybe we just do a flat fee. You know, I'm okay with $4,000 or $5,000, preferably $4,000, but that's at the request of the general or the entire commissioner, the majority. Other than that, somewhere in here, and I can't seem to find it, there was even something about dry cleaning. I mean, that stuff should all be removed because technically, I mean, I pay for my own dry cleaning, so whatever. Those are my suggestions. I don't know what – Commissioner Lully. Sorry, did you go on before? No? Okay. Go ahead. No, thank you, Mayor. No, you sound like we were all – and I personally – I don't really have that much of a dog in the fight other than I guess I'm a taxpayer, I guess, because I haven't traveled and really with my work schedule don't plan to travel on behalf of the city. No judgment on anyone who does. I guess when we're – well, it seems like everyone sort of – it sounded like agreeing with the flat amount, whether it's $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, somewhere in that vicinity. Does that mean that it's – are we saying then that we would eliminate the cap on three in-state conferences by putting that in place? Is that what we're all agreeing to? Yeah. Okay. Did you want to elaborate either illegal or – sorry, go ahead. Yeah, and that is what I have understood. If that is not correct, please tell me. But, yeah, I have understood there would be no cap on in-state or out-of-state travel as long as you stay within the allocated dollar amount, which sounds like it's $4,000 or $5,000 at this point. All right. We'll go to the city manager, and then if Commissioner Lawley is done, then we'll keep going down the roster. Correct. I was going to say generally the same thing. If your limit is five, then it doesn't matter how many conferences you go to as long as you stay within five. And then the question just becomes out-of-state if that matters or not because if your limit is five, whether you went to Atlanta or you went to Key West, does that matter much anymore if you have one set established number? You look at the old information with no numbers, going out-of-state, you can go to Alaska. It might cost $20,000 back then. You know, three conferences so that you don't go to 10 because there's no number. So if you put a number, I think it really changes that section heavily. Commissioner Lawley, are you done with your portion? Commissioner Howington, you're next, and then followed by Commissioner Vazquez. Thank you. Based on kind of what we've just discussed, it sounds like we could probably remove Section B, if everybody agrees, because if we're just dealing with a flat rate, then really the only thing that we need to keep in there would be Item C, which would be items not eligible. So B and then I think D would be stricken as well, and that would help to minimize kind of the restrictions and guidelines. I would like to see that number closer to $4,000. That is consistent with what we had in the budget this year, but it was as a giant pool. So, you know, and if somebody needs more than that or if we deem that there is a conference or something, then it can come back to us and we can all agree whether or not it's worth it or not. And maybe somebody else would want to donate their funds or something. So I think based on what I heard, just eliminating Section B and D, and then I recommend the $4,000, and that's all I have. Thank you. And just if I may, on B, there is a mention of the membership fees and the reimbursements for the League of Cities dinners. Would you all still like that to be included somewhere in the policy? That should probably have a separate policy because that has nothing really to do with travel. Those are memberships. Understood. Separate from the actual travel policy because that's not travel. That's just something that we do as part of our regular course of business. Oh, and then make sure, I think it's already in here, but I think I've heard a couple people mention the reports. Please make sure that the report section stays within the policy. And is there anything that we want to do just to make sure, because I've heard about past situations not with this commission. No, not alcohol, but just to ensure that people attend the actual event. Do we want to have something? Maybe that's just satisfied with the report requirement. Is that good? That's a great point, by the way. We'll ask for video cameras of the hotel. I mean. See what's going on there. Hold on, Vice Mayor, hold on. Sorry, thank you, Mayor. And let's not, we're not skipping over your commission or Avila Vascos. Not for nothing. Most of the time you go to these conferences, you get a little certificate, and it's silly, but it is for that exact purpose that you sat through the thing. Whether it's a participation or whether it's something more, it shows that you were there. All right. Commissioner Howington, you're done, right? Commissioner Villavasquez, you're next. Yes. So, you mentioned, Zach, something about the policy with the three local events to attend, seminars, training, or whatever, and the out-of-state. So, out-of-state, it's not part of the local, right? Because out-of-state has to come in for the commission for approval, whereas the locals, it's just a matter of requesting every commissioner to request that they would like to attend that training or seminar locally and just have to sign up. So, my understanding of the discussion so far, and certainly if I have misapprehended, let me know. My understanding of the discussion so far is that as a body, you all want to eliminate the restriction on in-state versus out-of-state and just move to a cap of dollar amount. So, if you want to attend 15 local or 15 out-of-state, as long as it's within the $4,000 cap, you are welcome to do so without additional authorization other than providing the report back to the commission after your travel. If that is not the case, I mean, let me know, and we'll take whatever direction is requested. So, if I'm going out-of-state and I go over my $4,000 and I'm already out-of-state, how do I get the other additional funds approved that I'm already spending? How do I cannot? My understanding is that the city has a travel authorization policy, so you would go through a pre-authorization through an administrative process, and maybe the manager could speak more to that process. Yeah, I think anything over it, you'd have to reimburse and pay for yourself. Anything over $4,000? Yeah, that's what we originally said, $6,000 in our budget meeting. Staff was recommending $6,000 just so we have it. If you do go National League of Cities in Salt Lake City this year, usually between the conference, hotel stay, and flight, you could be at $2,500 to $3,000, depending on the place itself. So, that could knock you out pretty good compared to League of Cities, which may be down the street in a month or so from now. So, $4,000 is a little tight. I might recommend $5,000 or $6,000. Some of you won't use a dime of it, and others may use more of it and maybe even pay yourself the difference if you want to even go above that. But if you want to go with $4,000, if that's a consensus, we'll put $4,000. I'm going to, if everybody can turn on their mics really quick, I want to just, so we're not driving everyone crazy, and Commissioner Vila, you still have, that's because you still have your time. But I want to make sure we're giving the correct direction. How much are we agreeing that we want that limit to be? Commissioner Santiago? $4,000. Commissioner Howington? $4,000 with the caveat that if we want to do something like an out-of-state conference, that that's something we would know about in advance, and we could bring it before the commission to discuss that. Okay, so anything over the limit would have to come? Yeah, we could just go ahead and anticipate that, and we can make accommodations for it as needed. Okay, Vice Mayor, did I not turn you on? Okay. I support the same thing Commissioner Howington did. Okay, Commissioner Vila-Vascoz. I got you. Yes, I support the same. Commissioner Lully? $4,000, and if you guys are nice to me, I'll donate mine. Okay, $4,000. So you guys, Commissioner Caldwell? Sorry, thank you. Just so we're clear, so out-of-state travel would come back to the commission? No, if you're going over your limit, that would come back before the commission. Could somebody please explain to me the benefit for any of us traveling out-of-state? Yeah. Give me just one minute, Commissioner Caldwell. Let me finish with Commissioner Vasquez, and I promise you, you will be the very next person on. Okay? Commissioner Vila-Vasquez, you are finishing on. Okay, so I guess it goes back to the same question. If you use your full budget on one trip out-of-state, is that it for the year? So it doesn't come back to the commission for approval at all because you've already used your funds, correct? So I guess that's a yes and no. So if you've used your $4,000 and you do not wish to travel anymore or travel and have the city provide reimbursement, the answer would be no, it does not come back to the commission other than providing the report. If you do wish to travel further and have the city provide reimbursement, then it would need to come to the commission for authorization. So that's somewhat of the nuance. After the $4,000? Correct. Okay. And before traveling, I just want to make sure that's added, too. Are you done? Yes. Okay. Commissioner Caldwell, and then we'll go to Commissioner Howington. Yeah, I'm not sure of the out-of-state travel who would benefit as far as the commissioners. You know, all our information and all our requests go through county, then state. You know, there's no reason for us to be going to the federal level for these conferences. I don't believe so any of them. So I have an issue with out-of-state travel not coming before the commission because I'd like to see an explanation of the benefit of that travel and also get a report at the follow-up of that travel. So, and that's all I have to say, and I'm fine with the $4,000, but I don't want it to include out-of-state travel. So if I can just add something, I know Zach wants to say something. So, and I'll speak for myself, right, at the risk of starting controversy again. So every year, around December, January, it depends. It usually falls whether it's a presidential year or not. The U.S. Conference of Mayors hosts their annual winter conference. Just so you know, we got contacts from our federal lobbyists through there that are currently helping us with our, and the city manager can tell me if I'm wrong or if I'm misstating something. They're currently helping us with the $33 million that is currently at the Army Corps of Engineers. It's past the Senate. It's past the House. And it's waiting for the president to sign, but it's still stuck at the Army Corps of Engineers budgetary process. Some of those contacts we were able to get through that U.S. Conference of Mayors. So that's one benefit. And as the city manager stated, the National League of Cities also has different events that they do for commissioners, mayors, everyone in different parts of the United States. So, I mean, I don't tend to go to those specifically, but. But as a board of seven, I mean, I would like to, prior to this travel, I'd like to have some input on what the city of Deltona is looking for. So to be able to put input into your discussions or any other commissioner that would be going, discussions that they'll be having out of these out-of-state travel. You might be talking about two different things. I think it's the request for money. Commissioner's correct that it should be a goal setting by the commission on where are we going, what are we asking for, for projects. The other part is it's conferences that you're going to. National League of Cities was in Tampa this past year during Milton. And so that was canceled because the hotels were flooded. This next year, this fall, it's in Salt Lake City. The year after is Nashville, Houston, and then Columbus, Ohio, which is surprisingly a great place for a conference, Columbus. So they will always be out of state or usually out of state for maybe seven to ten years at a time. So if you're going to the national conferences where you're meeting up with other elected officials from across the country and talking about some hot items, most likely it will be out of the state of Florida other than Orlando or Tampa, and Tampa is over at this point. So you would have, if you're asking for out-of-state to go to the out-of-state conference, it will be almost every year if you want to go to the national conference for commissioners and mayors. But I think the two topics are. The other one is if we're asking for money from the feds, that would be a different conversation and possibly a different conference itself that we're talking about. Okay. I don't know if this would work for a solution for that situation or not, but maybe what we could do is if one of us is traveling out of state for some city business, we should be aware. We should at least know what's happening. I know, Doc, you've been giving us updates when you're traveling, and that's actually, I think, worked out wonderfully. And so maybe that would be helpful. And then if somebody does have a concern about why specific travel is taking place, we could ask the question, not specifically to stop the travel, but just to ask for kind of the why, to understand, yeah, what is the benefit to the city? Because obviously we want to believe that, you know, we are policing ourselves and that what we do is in the best interest of the city. So maybe we just make sure that people know and are aware. And then that might also help with some of the transparency as far as when we're asked questions about who's where or what's happening, we know and we're not left in the dark. So I don't know how anybody feels about that at all. Maybe that's something that we talk about at the commission procedures where procedurally, it's if you're planning on going out of state or whatnot, then you mention it as part of your commissioner report, the meeting or prior to. Just as a courtesy. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Vice Mayor Harriet, thank Commissioner Lully, thank Commissioner Santiago, thank Commissioner Vance. This should go without saying, and it was kind of a joke earlier, but the alcohol is not. I do think that there should be some prohibited items that the city is just not going to be paying for. I don't think it's appropriate for taxpayers to pay for alcohol on a night out. So making sure that that stays in, that's a big one. But, yeah, that's all I've got. Commissioner Lully. Thank you. I'll make this quick because, Ken, I don't really have a whole lot in this fight. No, I just want to emphasize, you know, for example, one of the – I go actually quite a bit of conferences for work, but, you know, like the International Bridge Tunnel and Turnpike Association that I've been to before, it's one of our more expensive conferences that we go to. Last time I went to it, it was in Seattle. But some years, you know, it's local, like the Technology Summit is next May in Orlando. So I think it just depends on the year, you know, about where it might be. I'm not, you know, married to in-state versus out-of-state when it comes to a conference like that because that just is at the discretion of the organization who's putting it on. So I do agree with the points I heard about briefing the commission before, you know, going away. Maybe, I don't know, I think for any of them. I mean, I don't see what would be harming. Because for me, to me, there's not a difference if you go to IBTTA in Seattle or in Orlando. You know, you're at IBTTA and it's $2,000 for admission and, you know, one has a $500 plane ticket attached to it, the other doesn't. And then I think it's at, I mean, if we have the $4,000 cap, I mean, that's each commissioner. Each commissioner just has to make a business decision the way that we do. I mean, when I went to IBTTA, that's a substantial cost for a small business consulting firm with lower margins. So I think that's just a decision that each commissioner would make. And if you're going to go to Seattle and that's, you know, three quarters of your budget, you know, I think we've all made it clear here tonight that we're looking to have that number low. So we can probably gauge how one might vote on trying to increase that if someone has spent all their budget. So I'm not, you know, married to that. And again, I think it's a different conversation when we're talking about meeting with, you know, legislators or dignitaries. I think it's different than this particular bit about the conferences. So that's just what I wanted to say on that. Thank you. Commissioner Avila Vasquez. Hold on. Thank you, Mayor. Oh, turn down. So, you know, we're saying we're not doing this, but we're going to do that. And it all comes out to the same thing. What we're saying is they're still going to come to the commission for permission on the travel. So what if the one commission says, well, I don't think that falls under the procedures. I mean, I don't believe that conference or whatever you're going to, it's going to benefit the city. I don't know. It's just that it just doesn't make any sense. It's a travel policy. It's a travel question. And it should be staying under the travel policy, not under commission meeting policies. It has nothing to do with the commission meeting. So I still believe it should be under the travel policy. And if it has to be under the $4,000 budget and that's a one-time deal, then that's how it's going to be. And like I think it was Commissioner Lawley said, you have to be, you know, understand what your limits are. And if you go over those limits, then where do we go from there? Come back to the commission to give us a raise for another trip? So, Commissioner, I believe to answer your first question, my understanding is that the intent is for the notification requirement to remain under this policy. But for it to be for notification purposes only, not as a requisite to travel. I think certainly if you were to come before your colleagues and say, I will be traveling to ABC conference and six of your colleagues raise concerns, I mean, that's your choice as an elected official, whether you want to continue. And then as far as your question regarding the $4,000, my understanding is that it would be, again, to Commissioner Lawley's point about a business decision, if there's travel that you would like to engage in beyond the $4,000 limit, that would be something that would have to come before the commission and require permission from your colleagues in order to do so. Okay, the travel out-of-state policy states on the travel policy, correct? The out-of-state. What he's trying to say is any out-of-state policy, if it's within their limit, they just have to notify the reasons why we're traveling outside of the state. And if it's over their limit, then they either don't get reimbursed or the commission will have to approve a reimbursement. I got your answer. I'll just have to think about it. Thank you. Quick question, Commissioner. How are you notifying each other? Traditionally, through our executive assistants, usually we send out emails to say there's an upcoming conference, anybody interested, and we usually let people know who's going or not going. Commissioner. Okay, and if you don't, put out the... Hold on, hold on. Go ahead, Commissioner. The conferences that you're referring to, Doc, they're not out-of-state. No, you're referring to all of them have to be notarized, right? No, she's only talking about out-of-state ones. Yeah, but the other ones, you're noticing during the meeting, commissioners. Every time you go, you're noticing is what I've heard everybody say. No, only out-of-state. Only out-of-state. Only out-of-state. Okay. Commissioner, you're... Okay. Commissioner Vila-Vascoa, or Vice Mayor Harriet, you're next. I think the intent for me is to take away some of these formal procedures and processes. Look, the self-policing is going to come with a $4,000 limit. It is my intent that if there is any traveling being done, I would make it very abundantly clear to all of the commissioners, whether it's travel in-state or out-of-state, what I'm doing, because quite frankly, it's more in hopes of, hey, somebody should join me. This is, I find great benefit in this conference, and I think somebody else would too. So, it's not a gotcha. It's not a here, you know, attempt to, you know, put somebody in a bind or anything of the sorts. It's a notification of, hey, I find, I think there's going to be great value in this, and you know, maybe somebody else would too, and they might want to consider joining. So, I think that's the ultimate goal here, right? Like, at the end of the day, and to Commissioner Lully's point with your example of traveling to these other conferences, this year, the professional organization conference might be here in Florida, but next year, it could be in Seattle. Next year, it could be in New Orleans, the National Hurricane Conference and the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference. It bounces around, and all of these conferences, while, you know, we attend them professionally, they also have a ton of activities and programming for elected officials. I mean, there's great benefit for all of, you know, to everybody on the dais to attend some of these things. And the benefit to go into these out-of-state conferences is because Florida's not the only one that gets hurricanes. Florida's not the only ones that have bridges and roads and whatnot. You know, there are a lot of things, a lot of land planning things that are done. Colorado Springs is an example that I have run across recently that some of the way that they do land planning is extremely interesting and seems very functional and that we can take a lot of things to learn from them. And it's, you know, you don't just go to Colorado Springs to talk to a land planner there. You go to a conference and you meet with their land planner that's at the conference, or you meet with their elected officials that are at the conference, and you find out why they're doing things and, you know, how they're doing them and what they ran into, the hurdles that they ran into and whatnot. Quick point of order. I don't mean to cut you off. We've got six minutes left, so. All right. I'm done. I think there's a lot of value to this. I think the $4,000 limit is the self-policing measure that we're all talking about. Commissioner Howington. Yeah. And to add on to that, that's a great point about sharing the information. It probably would be good for us to have a list of conferences that are out there that we would be eligible to go to that might benefit the community because there are flooding, hurricane conferences, things like that, that I'm not tracking those so I wouldn't know on a day-to-day basis what's coming up. But it might be helpful for all of us to know, hey, maybe one of us can go. Maybe not everybody, but maybe two people can go. And then the community still benefits. But the $4,000 is kind of, you know, if you want to take 10 trips to Orlando for conferences, you might be able to do that for $4,000, where if somebody goes out of state, you may only get two conferences or maybe even only one depending on the cost. So it does boil down to being a business decision and how we want to move forward with how we spend our money. The only thing, if I can add, and if the commissioner agrees, not only with this, with any policy, can we revisit our policies at least every three years or so often? Because 2013, what is that, 10 years, 13 years, 12 years, almost 13 years, can we just make it a habit of revisiting all of our policies every so many years? Commissioner Santiago, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mayor. I'll make it quick. Just to reiterate, Commissioner Howington and Vice Mayor, yeah, let's make it easy. Why are we making it so difficult? This is a travel policy, $4,000. You can, next commission meeting, you can follow up and say, I attended this event. This is how much it cost. This is what I got out of it. I think it's very important. We are elected officials. We have high standards that we have to. We have to be transparent, right? I don't think we need a permission slip from that dais to tell us if we got to go to a conference. I think we're adults, and we know if this is going to benefit our city, then do it. And when you come back, you provide a report. But this about, is it in state? Is it out of state? Who cares? You have $4,000. You are accountable for that $4,000, and you're going to provide a report when you get back. It's simple as that. Let's not make it so difficult. Thank you, Mayor. All right. We have three minutes left. We're going to go to city manager comments. Mayor, I'm not sure if I had my hand up there. I can't. It's not on the screen for some reason, but we have three minutes. Go ahead, Commissioner Caldwell. I just want to reiterate, we know when we're traveling to these conferences, they're usually set a year in advance, if not six months. I don't understand what the issue is with not bringing up a discussion in a meeting prior to the travel, and the other side of that is whatever policy we do set in place, I would like some type of acknowledgement that we understand what that policy is, whether we sign a policy or whatever procedure needs to be done for us to acknowledge that we are aware of what that policy is. That's all I have. Thank you. And that, City Manager, what are we doing, our policies for the commission? Are you guys going to have us? Yes, correct. That should be, and I'm not going to talk about it now because it's not on the agenda, and we've got two minutes left, but we need to have some type of training. I think I talked to you about this before for anybody who's elected newly so we can go through these things. So, City Manager, you're up next. Just want to clarify for this also. This would not include, as far as we understand, League of Cities dinners, city forums, basically meetings. I think we know when we see it. If you're going to a conference and you're sitting in class and they're teaching you, that's a little different than a meeting by any commissioners in the land or some other special meeting, just in case there's any confusion. I know at one point it was asked of what's considered a conference. So, I think we know when we see it. Just want to clarify that. Thank you, Mayor. That's it. All right. Meetings adjourned.