right at this time we're going to go ahead and go ahead and get started with the special commission meeting for monday june 23rd 2025 if i can please have the city clerk call the roll commissioner vila vazquez present commissioner colwell here commissioner howington here commissioner loli here commissioner santiago here vicer harriet present maravilla here all right at this time if i can please have commissioner howington lead us in the pledge of allegiance okay additions and deletions i also have one yes thank you so i just want to make sure that this meeting that we're having today as it goes forward that we all have a little bit of respect towards each other up here on the dais we don't always vote the same way that you vote but i think that we owe each other a respect of how we choose to vote that's how we feel that's how we feel is the right way to go and to be attacked here at the dais because we choose not to vote with how other people here at the dais votes i think it's unprofessional so i'm just requesting that we respect each other's votes as i respect everybody else's thank you commissioner santiago yes i would like to do a deletion on the agenda with the overwhelming positive community support for doc uh i move to delete 5a there's a motion to delete section 5a second second by commissioner by vice mayor harriet please do a verbal vote commissioner viva suez no commissioner colo no commissioner howington no commissioner lowley commissioner santiago yes vice mayor harriet maravilla yes the deletion fails all right let's go ahead and move to uh section 5a if i can please have the city attorney read the section yes mr mayor um this is section 5a a request for a vote of no confidence for the city manager this item was requested at the regular city commission meeting held on june 16th 2025 okay does anybody on the dais want to start uh commissioner colwell you actually did the motion so yeah for me the lack of information that i get to be able to perform my duties as a city commissioner is um just getting out there i'm requesting stuff that are coming up on budgeted items through public records request and i'm getting denials um no no information available no records exist these are simple requests of where the money is going there seems to be a lot of money being hidden in the budget for projects that we're not being we're not able to vote on um i'm gonna use example the golden book i think it's a great idea beautiful idea how are you going to implement the policies and procedures to enforce it now this should have been a topic of topic of uh conversation the city manager the deputy city manager and our finance director was out of town several weeks ago for three days there was no notice sent to any commissioner that i know of unless anybody else heard anything that the office would be vacated for those three days and the succession of who's in charge um was not listed again i feel like we're not certain commissioners up here are not getting the same information other commissioners are getting i feel like the money's being hidden and i'm asking questions and i'm not getting results commissioner howington and then commissioner lully thank you mayor i'm going to keep this short the city manager's role is to implement policy not to create it obstruct it or reprimand the commission for doing its job i have submitted a formal evaluation detailing serious concerns that i have including poor communication and repeated oversteps of authority when a manager cannot perform their duties or respect the boundaries of their role confidence in their leadership is no longer justified a vote of no confidence is both appropriate and necessary it took me almost six months to get the financial details i was told i couldn't have it because the name of the accounting software was protected then it became the erp or data within the line item detail was not able to be shared i even asked for read-only access couldn't even get that when i asked you specifically if you were going to withhold the data you never responded to me from may 22nd until i received the actual information the only person i heard from was robin and jonathan those are concerns and to go back to halifax crossings the commission voted to table to a date certain upon the completion of litigation and you said that while you understood it was the intent of the commission we couldn't be date certain because we didn't list a specific date so then we were forced to hear a quasi-judicial hearing based on the applicant's request which apparently superseded the commission's will to table said item until the completion of litigation so for those reasons i will be voting for the no confidence commissioner lally then commissioner vila vasquez and please hold your votes until after we hear public comment thank you mayor and i'd like to ask you just for a little latitude here um as i go through this um this is a very uh when this first came up a week ago i i didn't i didn't understand really the the gravity of it and a week of thinking even um on the way here you know thinking i might um you know vote a certain way and and and really trying to go over what the the best step is for this commission in this body who has seen um seven seven city managers um in in recent years which certainly is not tenable and i think does contribute to the um overall issues that we might see in the city um as i really pondered more the gravity of this situation um you know i was i'm and some of this i'm hearing uh for the first time i didn't know um what you know the issues that commissioner caldwell has faced and i appreciate him sharing those um and i've gained a tremendous amount of respect from serving within the last um seven months or so and i think he's a terrific commissioner i think actually everyone up here um even though we disagree i think has something to offer this city um i've known a little bit more about commissioner howlington's because i've seen it a little bit more public i think she and commissioner call may be of a different approach a different style and so i've seen you know television comments i've seen comments on social media and i absolutely 100 respect her for that and respect everyone's approach to doing this job um again as i thought even literally in the breaks between our workshops and now um it's really difficult but i i i'd like to sort of and i'm not a sports person but so hopefully this metaphor is right i'm gonna throw an audible is that a word um i'm wondering if this body would entertain something that i think accomplishes what you're asking for but is not quite as um uh severe and and and i'll go into that and and by the way i respect every the way everyone wants to vote on this and i respect everyone's opinion i i've been thinking about this and i'm wondering if this would be an opportunity for us to have a commission work session not up here like this where um where we're in this really formal setting where we'd have an opportunity to go through the performance reviews that we've that we've just um i believe and maybe i'll hear from folks um that i know i've conducted and that i've submitted and that i don't believe have been processed yet where we'd be able to go through that have a discussion about these issues in a less formal setting uh where we can really um you know for lack of a better term hash this out um i have i have experienced um frustrations over the last seven months so i understand where um everyone is coming from um maybe other people have not experienced frustrations and that's okay too we all have our different perceptions and the way that we operate here but i would like to ask the body if the body would be willing to go through this commission work session off-site fully open to you know it's by laws as sunshine requires have these discussions work through these discussions um and and proceed from there and the reason why i say that is because and and we'll have an opportunity when i when i've looked into this sometimes a a request like this is the next step for termination or or a separation and if that's what what the body desires then that's again that's the body's um that's that's that's you're right but if that's not your intention i think that there is a better way to go through this and actually get something out of it versus restarting us from scratch and again in respect of every single person up here's experience and i believe you and and and i'll leave it there um but i just wanted to kind of open you know my my dialogue with that put that out there for the body um and see if that was if you were looking for a solution that might be a way to move forward without hitting the reset button so i'll leave it there for now as something for this body to ponder and i would be curious to everyone's thoughts um this is just something that i again up until five minutes ago was thinking about and i wanted to offer the body thank you commissioner evilly vasquez thank you mayor so if anybody gets a chance later on when it's made public my evaluation of the commissioner of the city manager i'm sorry you know i gave him credit where credit is due my comments my negative comments my low ratings were on his interaction with myself as a commissioner every everything else he got uh rated and he deserved what i gave him which was a good rating and i know that there's a lot of people here that i've never seen before here to support him i receive a lot of emails from people i receive a lot of phone calls and i have a lot of respect for all of you who reach out to me but i also want you to understand that i was elected by the residents of my district to to stick up for them and to do what's best for them so it has nothing to do with him being a good city manager with his staff or being out there doing what he was hired to do with the city to me personally is the lack of communication with me the lack of sharing information with me um i can tell you one of my biggest issues was when i came to city hall to see him and i was told he's not around and nobody can tell me where he was only to find out that as it was stated before out in a training session i had no idea who was running our city that was the biggest mistake ever made you do not leave a city without letting the commissioners know who is running the city we have glenn who has ran the city and for those of you who don't know chief schneider runs the city when this city is in a state of an emergency so chief schneider should have been the other person assigned and as i went for more information i found that it was an assistant of a director of another department who was running our city who i never met i have no idea who that person is it took me a while to make this decision because this is not new for me it's going back but when this happened that broke the camel's back i understand when you tell me i'm going away you can reach me by phone but if we have an emergency who signs those forms an assistant or director that we don't even know i was in conversation with a person at one of the fire department's events halfway through the conversation i find out this person is our new hr director at one time when the city hire new directors for departments they were brought here and officially professionally introduced to us commissioners this doesn't happen anymore recently i sent out an email asking our administrators who is webster because i read this email where the person identified themselves as being responsible for a department or to communicate with whoever sent out these emails for that department i had no idea who webster other than barnaby but then i find out that he's the assistant to a director in one of our departments so this is where i find disrespect for at least myself as a commissioner i am not speaking on behalf of other commissioners i'm speaking on behalf of myself doc was hired to run the city but he does not own the city i again we're here and i have to disagree with commissioner powinton so i have the old policies before again they were revised without even bringing them to the commission for approval the operating guidelines for effective commission operations you know what's on the first number one the city commission is responsible for setting the policies that's the first number one this is what we have been at least for the past 25 years that we've been living here this is what the city's been running on then there is another email i know i spoke with the um attorneys on this but i i just can't find where we can come to a meeting to an agreement this goes back to november 2020 it was a request approval of resolution number 2020-71 to adopt a temporary personnel policy and procedures manual it was submitted by former city manager john peters motion by commissioner ramo second by vice mayor bradford to approve resolution number 2020-71 to adopt a temporary personnel policy and procedure manual as presented and authorized the acting city manager to sign any documents in the same uh um verbiage that we do but that approval was to bring policies policies from the um staff to the commission to look at because out of a former city commission a city manager he understood our policy for the uh employees that it should come to commission for approval never seen them this was on limbo because of the changes unfortunately but this was never approved it's still out there to come to us once those policies have been updated it has never come back to us the procedures for the commission for me to do my job was updated by my staff so i'm being told by my staff how do i need to do my job up here on the dais before it was came brought to us for approval so again i am not questioning his job as a city manager i am not here to say that he's doing a bad job out there in public or with his directors i can never tell you because i would not authorized to ask directors how they feel about their city manager so far i've gotten no complaints my complaint and my issue is as a city as a commissioner i feel that i am not taken into consideration to share as the last meeting right here in pure uh presence of everyone they spoke about somebody here stopped being in conversation with restaurants these huge restaurants the mayor brought it up the vice mayor approved you know uh approved the conversation i didn't know anything about these restaurants so how do other commissioners up here know about all these future plans for the city just a handful there's seven of us up here and then when it comes to us with less information and we have to deal with a little bit that we have and we have to make a decision with a little bit of information that we're given then we're attacked because we didn't make the same decision that everybody else has made here well i'm sorry i only present one district three and what my commission my residents want me to vote on that's what i do because believe it or not i speak to some of my residents about issues that are coming up to vote this was one of them and you know what one of my residents said why are you asking me that's your job that's what i elected you for i expect you to do what's right for my for our city again it's not questioning his job as a city manager of what he's doing in the city is questioning the way that i feel being disrespected as a commissioner but not being involved in everything that other commissioners are involved by not sharing information that other commissioners are involved and by following the last policy about how commissioners should run the city up here that includes a travel policy by the way so let's just make sure because i see faces you have never seen before but i have to work with i am not coming out about his job that he's doing as a city manager it's about my position here as a commissioner of seven who he reports to so if you ever run it all if you ever been a manager and run it just think of what i'm talking about it's very disrespectful thank you vice mayor harriet thank you mayor so this the there's a lot of information that's been given today that um i'm not don't know anything about but i want to start with clearing something up the my comments about restaurants that are coming to the city regarding the halifax crossing that did not come from any meeting with staff that came from meetings with the applicant with other landowners that that own land within the activity center and so that's right there that's got we can't hold that against our city manager or staff that's not something that i'm not sure that they were even aware of those were private conversations regarding that project with an applicant there was um and then i'd like to ask everybody uh some specific questions on on the things that they mentioned if that's okay and if and you don't feel comfortable sharing the details then so be it but um commissioner caldwell you had mentioned that there was information that you requested that was you were told doesn't exist commissioner make sure you use your mind please on the 28th of may i requested any and all records showing the itemized cost of moving deltona water customer service to city hall and moving code enforcement back to water department on june 2nd they replied no records exist on june 2nd i requested any and all expenditures for the last two months um regarding robin hayes john mckinney and mayor avila as i knew he traveled to tallhassian no records exist on june 17th i requested any all expenditures for the city manager deputy city manager finance director and all finance staff on the last three months to include but not limited to the staff time equipment supply trucks rentals moving expenses of any kind and any funds drawn off purchase orders for all city renovations and our facility improvements reply was request is too broad so yes i am not getting information mr mayor if i may can i ask mr carl were these public records requests or did you request them as a commissioner commissioner please make sure to use your request to them as public records requests yes i do want to just flag two things when you make requests as a public records request all public records requests are treated the same whether they come from a commissioner or a member of the public certainly you have the right to meet with and talk to the city manager and request information from him when you follow the public records request path you have to be treated like everyone else that's the city's policy and practice which means that uh you get the same exact same handling and if there's a charge you get the same charge as long as it's not for a meeting right so one thing that's an important thing to note cities do not have an obligation under the law to answer requests for information a public records request is for a record that exists if a record does not exist and you get an answer that says no records exist no records responsive to this request exist it means that the specific thing you're looking for does not exist as a public record and the city is under no obligation to create that record which would be a request for information now we get these all the time from the citizens i want a spreadsheet showing this if that spreadsheet doesn't exist in the day that they requested um that that's then there's no responsive record so i just want to be clear that as a commissioner certainly you can go to the manager and ask whatever you want but when you go through the public records request channel you are treated the same and i will say we do frankly often have to say no records that are responsive there are no records responsive to this request i'm not saying i mean for our office yes but also as a you know we've talked to the clerk and say if a record does not exist you are under no obligation to create that record and you should not because you've now created a public record that didn't already exist so certainly that's a question i think for the clerk but i just wanted to flag for you probably a better path would just be directly to ask i've had that conversation with doc and i've asked him what the estimated cost was on the move from the water department to city hall and vice versa and surely they have that estimated cost before they proceed do they not i was made around i was waiting so i can answer all these at one time but we still have two more doc i would suggest yeah that's one i would suggest uh to to hold off okay i'm glad they're on the city manager's radar to address um commissioner howington you you had made a uh mention that the city manager has has proceeded with things that were outside of his authority is it are you okay sharing with us what what he's done outside of his authority well usurping our power when halifax crossings was put back on the agenda against our will i think is a pretty good example we tabled that item and he decided that he would move forward with it at the applicant's request so i'm sure i can sit here and come up with more examples but that right now is probably the most critical in my mind okay thank you i i also have that as another item that i'd like to address when i agreed to table that item it was never under the impression with the date to be unknown until the lawsuit was settled it was under the impression that we had just received a lawsuit that day and i think quite frankly we all needed to know more information about it that was so when i when my vote for tabling the halifax crossing was to bring it back when we had more information about the lawsuit that was served that day so i i understand what your perspective is but i would also like to provide my perspective and the intent behind my vote was to gather more information and then bring it back and also i i i'm glad that we followed the process that we have followed for at least one other if not two other applicants within the last two months if if we start changing up the process on applicants and their ability to request additional rehearings then you know legal is not my field of expertise by any means but that just sounds like we're we're asking for litigation and and i am look i am all for standing up for what we believe in and i have no problems if that means that we face those kinds of challenges as long as we face those challenges knowing that with reasonable certainty we are in the right place legally can i respond i have one more so another one would be when the mayor traveled to washington dc that was a commission decision that commission decision was never given to us somebody let him take keys to a car somebody let him charge for a room commissioner howington with all due respect that that item is you asked you asked specifically and i'm answering i appreciate the response but that that item has been addressed to ad nauseum yes yeah um commissioner will have asked was you mentioned that commission policies were changed by the city manager do you do you know what when those policies were changed because i don't remember like you i don't remember voting on them either that was my point till this day we are still running under old travel policies and old commission policies because no new policies have come to us but yet the new policy for travel was followed and i hate i know that you don't want it to be mentioned but it was followed for washington dc trip a new policy that never came to the city for commission okay there's a policy out there for commission the way we um should be um the decorum policy i've never seen it i've never approved it have you no i haven't that was my point my my understanding and my recollection is that both the travel policy and the decorum policy have been on previous agendas and at the request of a commissioner they were tabled with an unknown date certain but they were being followed without being approved what what part was being followed the new com the new policies that were written that never came to us for approval we're being followed are you referencing the travel on reference travel on reference every other policy that has been put out there that has never come to us and i don't think this is you know i mean this is not a jury thing up here yeah absolutely for some reason you you know you're coming back and forth asking questions this is these are my opinions this is what i mentioned again it has nothing to do and anybody can go back and see my evaluations of him i gave him a good rating except for the commission uh and and interaction with commissions so these are my this is my opinion and i don't think that i should be going into details of of with you anyway and i i respect that i just this is a this is something that is extremely serious that we're accusing him of and these aren't things that i've experienced and and so that's why i just was asking for additional details from you guys that's why i made it very clear that it's only certain commissioners i didn't say that it was all commissioners there's there at the end of the at the end of the day there are things that uh i that doc and i are absolutely have been working on getting on the same page with um i feel like there are some commissioners up here ironically that are in favor of this vote of no confidence that from my perspective it feels like they're getting everything that they've been asked for um the city manager and it's my understanding that that staff has been directed that when they reply to one commissioner they copy all the other commissioners and there's there are a lot of times where i see that the requests that are getting a replied to are consistently for commissioners that i quite frankly they're just there's a lot of requests that um that look like they're being addressed from the commissioners excuse me sorry if i can hear you up here the rest of the people can hear and we we're trying to get a conversation done so please it just it really appears that the commissioners that are supporting this um vote of no confidence are commissioners that do get a majority of their requests fulfilled um and put on the agenda um commissioner lilly i thought that your your kind of olive branch was phenomenal idea i i think that that's a great way that's a i think that that's a productive place to take this conversation um i think by by doing what's been proposed today uh with a vote of no confidence it it doesn't um it doesn't affect the city manager nearly as much as it tar and feathers the city and and we've been we're at a point where we've had a city manager for a year i have heard from other agencies state agencies that we have not had very good relationships with in the past that were extremely positive and have had absolutely nothing but the best things to say about our city manager and and this is coming it's i'll be honest with you it's from st john's water management district and she had no idea that i was even a city commissioner it was just a conversation that got started and was extremely positive about the working relationship between their agency and the city of deltona with doc and you know we've heard from a ton of community leaders over the last few days i've talked to a lot of neighbors and the absolute support for doc is overwhelming you know the the a good city manager responds only to the commissioners he does everything that the commissioners ask for i'm not looking for good this city deserves a great city manager a great city manager builds consensus among the community a great city manager tells quite frankly tells us me included when our requests aren't following the proper channels when that request can't be he can't fill that request or just sometimes no i'm looking for a great city manager that has a vision for our city that can see farther than next week that can see farther than next month and i i have to tell you i have uh i have the utmost confidence and uh doc docherty as a city manager of deltona i do think that i do think that um commissioner lullies i think that your uh suggestion would would take us and kind of i think it would fulfill the need for some of that that discussion that we have we really need to have and not just with doc but amongst the seven of us right because i think a lot of the dysfunction that we're seeing is not between this body and the city manager a lot of the dysfunction is between the seven of us i mean you got seven personalities you go judging everybody else you know this is about point of order can we please let each of us finish commissioner real vascos that that wasn't intended to be a negative it really it wasn't intended to be intended to be a negative um but i i'll just i'll just end it with this that the absolute outpouring of support from this community as a whole from staff that enjoys coming to work every day from our fellow elected that support him and in turn support our community has really solidified my position on this issue in supporting our city manager with voting not for this item commissioner santiago then commissioner caldwell then commissioner vila vasquez then commissioner halilton thank you mayor doc you have been a phenomenal city manager for this city you've done amazing work since you started since day one and it's been just full force ahead i can't even there's so many accomplishments that you have done for this city just going to name a few employee-friendly atmosphere i've never seen the employees so happy with you i i hear it all the time excuse me commissioner santiago if i do one more outburst the officers in the back that's watching you is going to have you removed from from city from from the place go ahead commissioner santiago thank you mayor you've reduced it outside interference that disrupted the city employees work daily work you've done so many things at city hall that are positive you've addressed concerns that have come up you've implemented many processes especially the zero base budget something that we've asked for you've updated the travel policy and the city purchasing policy and what we're we're we're in one year just one year right i know as we were getting ready to hire city manager we didn't have a finance director a planning director a deputy city manager an hr director economic development director a building official you did that you have an amazing team behind you and you promoted other um positions as well and and also something that i've never seen when i was working here is you've got a grant writer and now you hear the projects that we're doing guess what they're getting grants they're getting funded something that seven city managers didn't do in the past five years he's getting them done community events sir you have placed deltona amazingly with community events the amphitheater this celtic festival um santa's mailbox we've we've had deltona university which has been phenomenal for the citizens you've been involved in any situation that the city has whether it's flooding whether it's um street anything that we've asked for you you're doing city of deltona is very lucky to have a a man like dr dardy thank you for everything you do for this city doc i appreciate it very much and i know a lot of people in this audience do as well you have a lot of support i know uh sheriff chitwood sent in a letter of support as well so thank you sir commissioner caldwell then commissioner vila vascuas and commissioner halinton i think that's great for you that you get all the information down there at the end um i want to touch see how you become the uh this became an interrogation and you seem to be the uh the lead counsel here when these the project at halifax was brought back to the commission right after the initial tabling was it presented to the city clerk 11 days prior to the regular meeting is there a policy section three agenda i you know i it's not my intent to remove doc from office um it's more of a corrective action that i think needs to be taken to you know make it fair for all of us up here um we're all not getting the same information she speaks of several grants that we've gotten is that what you said and those grants are because i'm not aware of them he hasn't told he had he hasn't told me he hasn't told me the problem is we're not getting information all of us um and it needs to change that's all i have to say commissioner of the last west then commissioner howington and commissioner santiago thank you mayor again my um actions here today is um about my interactions with the city manager i have nothing to say of his um performance with outside of the city and stuff but i can tell you that a lot of stuff and i wasn't mentioning it but since you brought it up commissioner santiago employee atmosphere i love i love city staff and i will never throw any of them under the bus so my mouth will be shot um updated travel policy it wasn't up to him to update that it was up to us grants you see a former um senior staff sitting around they got those grants not the city manager they got those grants community events parks and recs always has community events for our residents deltona university we already had that it wasn't deltona university but we had that it was by a former um employee that worked here came from daytona state college we had that already that he improved them absolutely hats off to him but all that stuff already existed so let's be real about this flooding we still have flooding we still have flooding right now we were discussing the school on doyle still getting flooded so that's that's something that's still and i'm not blaming him for it absolutely not under no conditions am i blaming him for it but that's something that we still need to work on so it's not like it has been resolved flooding has not been resolved so again i agree with uh commissioner lally maybe you know we can uh take this a step further absolutely i'm not here to um or even like commissioner uh steve said we're not here to try to get a bit of of the city manager we're not here for that but there comes a time that a city that a manager of any department has to address staff and let them know hey there's rules that you have to follow you can't just do some things on your own without bringing it to us because when i residents come to me when you when everybody sits here who gets yelled at it's us and sometimes i got both of us got yelled at here by richard bell one day for ten thousand dollar bill and we're looking at each other we had no idea what the heck he was talking about how to do some questioning and then find out what it was about things like that i mean we should be aware of and we're not so again these are my personal reasons why i'm doing this i don't have a problem going with your suggestion commissioner at all but this needs to be addressed thank you excuse me commissioner howington then commissioner santiago then vice mayor harriet then we'll go to uh the city manager i just want to make it very clear that when i am referring to what's happening similar to commissioner vila vasquez the issues that i have are specifically within the with the interactions with myself primarily as well as what i'm seeing with other commissioners if you look at the review i believe i actually gave you some fairly high ratings for how you work with community concerns and things like that there are areas where you excel and i 100 recognize that and i applaud you for that however there is some communication issues i'm not saying i'm not perfect i'm sure i'm hardly to blame as well but when we look at this there are issues just like the others i'm not looking to remove you that was not the intent the intent is to bring this back together because obviously people aren't getting the same information or feeling as if they are informed i felt rather blindsided with the workshop where we did the delt the deltona keep deltona wild and then we had the overlay i felt completely out of the loop on that because i didn't know what that overlay was i expressed that during the workshop there was an instance when we were in gainesville for training and commissioner santiago had mentioned um asking about an amount for the purchasing policy which i knew nothing about and then lo and behold like a week or two later whatever the time frame was we were presented with the purchasing policy which made me think whether it was true or not that one commissioner knew of a policy that was coming down the pipeline that i was unaware of so you know i understand having seven managers is a challenge we all have different personalities different expectations different asks and so i can't even imagine what it's like to be in your position but from my perspective that's where i am responding that's all i've got commissioner santiago thank you mayor so as i'm listening to everybody speak um and um i heard commissioner lully come up with um a suggestion and i think um if we could move to do that and just put this vote of no confidence um to rest and maybe come together so we can um like you said um maybe it's a time to heal maybe it's something that we need to hash out with the city manager but um i think that's a great suggestion and we should move forward to doing that thank you mayor vice mayor harriet commissioner lully and caldwell and then we will after that get to the city manager please if this is just a regular action action item is there anything that prevents me from making a motion no you can make a motion we still have public comment and listen to uh the city manager i was just going to make a motion to uh proceed with the record the suggested uh workshop he can still make a motion we just we we can't vote until we have public comment and also uh we have commissioner lully and then we also have the city manager that that was your idea so if you wanted to make that motion i'd be more than welcome to and we who else is on the we have other commissioners on the board still okay um i would like to um i would like to make a motion to um conduct a commission work session in which the items that would fall under this vote of no confidence that have been expressed tonight would be discussed the logistics and specifics of the date time and location are to be finalized and working with the city attorney's office to be held under sunshine laws and other applicable statutes off-site and recognizing that some members of the commission have expressed frustration with communication and other issues there's a motion by commissioner lally second second by vice mayor harriet commissioner lally you were up next on the board did you still want to talk um yes if i may and then i was going to ask a couple questions over to the charter officers if that's okay and i guess that might segue over to the city manager correct um and i just want to make sure before we vote and i vote i just wanted to make sure that because i think the answer to these determines how we proceed with that um mr city manager are you um are you willing to accept all performance reviews that have been uh that from each member of the commission for this year not all of them have been put in at this time but i accept them at all i review them go through the details okay that every year is and i've done that for 30 years of my career so yes it's very important to understand what the commissioners are looking for and it certainly is different seven different personalities going different directions but yes i always take it to heart and make sure that we're better from the evaluation yes and would you be willing to participate in a work session with us to um discuss some of the things that have been brought up tonight i would have no problem with that but i'd also like to respond to all those points that were brought up tonight so there are answers to these questions but no i'd have absolutely no issue with we've had retreats and many other governments i've been in retreats work and i support that 100 yes thank you and then just quickly for the city attorneys um the conclusion of the vote of no confidence tonight and i'm asking this because there have been instances with city managers in the city where bad things have happened you know criminal type of things before my time does the conclusion of this tonight preclude a future um vote of no confidence if there there is something that comes up that's dire or egregious no not at all um this isn't like a double jeopardy situation you all can do this every meeting if you'd like we would certainly urge you to put it on the agenda uh obviously it's important for the public to be noticed um because this is a consequential vote um and while a regular meeting agenda notice is sufficient you can add items when there is an item that's a important item it is recommended by the ago to give the public notice so they can be aware if it's if it's a controversial topic um but no you're you're welcome to as a body you can do this whenever whenever you see fit thank you and just one other comment mayor if i may um i want to thank everyone for sharing their their feedback tonight um that's not easy to do i understand completely with with the frustrations that you've expressed and i respect that um and i i thank you for bringing this to the attention of the commission because i think we're you know we're in the middle of hurricane season we have you know ballistic missiles being fired at our troops in middle east this is this is a a crazy world and i think if we can we can work together to move forward on this um if the intent of course was not to terminate then i i i would very much like to do that with all of you and again i i completely understand where everyone has come from tonight and i agree that there are um there is room for improvement and i believe that we all deserve i believe the respect that you're asking for and i think in listening to everyone i think that there is a lack of whether it's just perceived or not there's a lack i think of trust maybe um amongst um certain commissioners and again i completely understand that um and so to regain that trust um i think would be important and i know we have other items tonight as well that i think are on that same topic and you know i think i'm willing to um you know support a lot of those based on that that that lack of trust that's been expressed tonight until we have that that work that work session um to get more into the meat of this so again i really appreciate everyone's input and thank you mayor okay we'll go to city manager and then we'll go to public comment all right thank you mayor uh i'm going to try to respond to some of these statements and then i then i have a statement i'd like to make myself uh real quick some of the grants that was questioned like grants uh l cam roadway elevation which was on the commission's docket of just a couple months ago uh catalina boulevard roadway elevation again so we have traffic moving during storms that was on the commission's docket a few a couple months ago as we all know just recently city hall generator came through for about 750 000 to keep the city hall running at any time not just during storms actually in the last agenda is another 265 000 for the critical asset comprehensive vulnerability assessment let's not forget the 900 000 all brought to the commission for providence maturity uh gleason basin studies and certainly the 22 million dollars that staff received for the fisher border plan so question about what grants there's uh there's the answer there um no we have not changed the commission's guidelines travel policy or the guidelines that has been asked since i got here we've discussed it uh certainly your your policies are updated as far as i'm concerned working with the clerk when it came to the guidelines of running meetings and things we suggested let's set up uh you know some new options it's unfortunate i apologize to the commission that when people come to the microphone and say you're trying to cut the time down four minutes two minutes or some other issues we put that was not the commission's decision that was a recommendation from staff to say if you're going to look at your guidelines here's some options now we haven't had that workshop so no guidelines have been changed but when we have that workshop in the next i believe a few weeks next month the commission will just look at their guidelines i'm taking away my recommendations that was just something from from 30 years of experience working in many different communities the travel policy as a reminder to everybody i changed the employees travel policy the employees work 100 under the city manager so we have our own travel policy it wasn't until a couple weeks after the mayor got back from uh dc that it became evident and everyone else found out also including commissioners that there was a another policy that belonged to the commissioners so whatever he did on his trip was not approved by the city manager i don't approve trips for the commissioners but certainly i don't believe we were aware at the time that he may have needed permission and i don't believe anyone on commission knew that that policy existed until after he returned so uh to say that the city manager was at fault for allowing him to do something against policy nobody knew that policy existed uh in reference to tallahassee i did tell you commissioner calwell three hotel stays in a tank of gas but it was under i believe the uh uh executive assistants who normally book your hotels when you go to conferences and things uh if you ask for my credit card or someone else's looking for information back to what the attorney said if there's not a document under mine that there's no document but i did say and by the way it's on the governor's desk we're hoping if he does sign and i'll mention this in a moment he does sign the state budget we will be receiving three million so the the three of us that went and used the hotel and one tank of gas for 500 or less we may be looking at three million dollars uh but that's not hidden information it's out there it was just if you ask the wrong question this is what i want and that's not in that area you're not going to get that that information restaurants the commissioners have all gone on their own uh flights to go meet different people about trying to bring restaurants to the city we have not had any secret meetings at city hall talking about what restaurants are coming or not coming so the fact that the last meeting somebody did mention why don't we know about all these restaurants coming i i don't know about all these restaurants coming if they're coming some of you commissioners are doing your own economic development trying to find contacts and talking to people in other towns to come which is certainly encouraged but there is no information that anybody's missing in reference to restaurants and i believe vice mayor had mentioned that that was something that he was doing it was not not here uh by the city or city staff the uh personnel policy is under the city manager's purview the city council sets policies city-wide big policies but again zero not there's not one employee that works under the commissioners that work under me directly so the city manager has has responsibilities and one of them is making sure we have our personnel policy in place they may have tried to do something in 2020 but that's not uh that is no relative or relativity to this thing here so we changed personnel policies to be more updated but it's not something that needs to come to the to the commission staff will attest i have an absolute mantra what goes to one goes to all and department heads will all say it they've heard me say that staff meetings if i'm having a conversation with a commissioner about a pothole out in front of their friend's business it's on the street okay yeah we'll take care of it that's it that we should there's a pole in the street we don't take care of personal parking lots we will not do that this city is the first place that i've actually had somebody on the commission direct me or ask me to go get rid of a ticket for their friends i will not do that i talked about that during my interview stood at that microphone and said i will not take care of friends i don't do that at all that's not my ethics so therefore we don't take care of special deals but as far as going to one goes to all there's there's why why would we not want to make sure everybody's informed now if there's a time that use an example that i believe was was it the purchasing policy that was just mentioned here i mentioned the commissioner caldwell about the grant that we received that the general about the generator he was sitting in the office we're having a conversation i said oh by the way tonight i'm sending out an email yeah he found out about the generator quickly not that it's an issue i'm just saying use an example there are times that a commissioner stops by in city hall we're finishing up a project we might myself or staff might whisper and say something about it but we didn't move on it we didn't ask them for their opinion on how we should do it's it just happened to be a conversation of just in passing but commissioners you get one everybody gets the same halifax i think i could speak a little bit for the city attorneys because that was a conversation that we had technically if you're going to table an option you have to give a date certain when you table an option and say it's going to happen sometime when the court case is closed that's not a date certain therefore we basically said to these developers we're going to table you and we're going to get back to you yeah we can't say yeah it's got to be a date certain i know it was discussed at the table the word state certain commissioner call certainly said it but it was not defined other than during the conversation when the court case is over that's not a date certain so for us to bring that item back to the commission for review that's basically to keep us out of a lawsuit liability wise that wasn't circumventing the will of the commission as it's been said several times tonight it is good government so that the citizens don't have to pay for a major lawsuit because we made a decision without actually a date certain so and just for the record i was already told that apparently uh these developers that i'm in bed with which i don't know things like that actually led to apparently they're paying for my children's college education now i have two children left in college my wife and i and they both attend the united states military academy at west point west point is free and not only that but they're paid as soldiers to go west point so when we deal with rumors and innuendo in a city apparently people believe that developers are paying for my kids to go to a free college and 30 years i have never taken money for anything like that so that's never happening uh going out of town and leaving the place in a lurch we were in orlando we could be back in a moment's notice and not only in in fact actually we spend most of the time on the telephone or emailing with commissioners and staff alike it's not an enjoyable conference when you go and you spend a whole time instead of learning you're out in the lobby talking to staff and talking to the commissioner so i didn't feel that anybody left the city in a lurch and an emergency happened or here i think the implications sound like we all went out of state somewhere and and nobody was here so uh we were good golden book clearly budgeted approved by the former commission we came in half of it half the budget that we put in for it's happened our budget i'm not quite sure what did we put money to enforce the policies they literally are the city's policies so i'm not sure putting the golden book out that there was a a disadvantage if we're not enforcing a policy well they're the city policy it's the city rules so i think we should uh you know let people know what the rules are and it's helped drastically a lot of citizens are calling now they know how to take care of their property but they're also pointing the finger at the at their neighbors now that they understand um let me see whether they're scribbling around here is different topics were coming up so uh financial uh policies yes commissioner uh uh howington has been asking and she has received information back and forth from the staff of exactly what they're looking for and i believe 900 pages were printed out for the commissioners of financial information uh before this was going to become a topic here tonight but there was other uh information and reports that were given to her and if you need more detail i believe our deputy deputy clerk can stand up before i go into what i'd like to do is make a statement since i understood that this was going to be happening i do want to make one more point before i move on to that mayor please 3782 that's 3782 3782 emails have come to city hall from the sitting commission with questions you know looking for answers information back and forth in the time that the commission's been up here this isn't the whole 12 months i've been here some have been here eight months some have been here 12 months three 3782 emails and staff has responded to i would say as many as we possibly could if not all of them so if something slips through the crack and certainly things can but that's that's an enormous amount of emails when you consider that we also have a full-time job all of us do all the staff but we respond all day every day to a whole lot of emails now just like to say a few things there's no question i knew deltona was going to be a challenge when i started here one year ago i am the seventh city manager since 2020 and let me say that again i am the seventh person to sit in this chair in the last five years possibly the 16th out of the last 30 years every day in my first month in deltona someone asked me if i either knew how bad deltona was or how long i plan on staying one city manager in a region said his guilty pleasure was working out his fitness center listening to deltona city council meetings because of the dysfunction that was going on that's what i'm hearing my first week when i got here so it's not an easy job to reorganize a city that's been broken for so long due to rumors innuendo and many times just lies this city runs literally at 100 miles an hour 10 different directions nights weekends holidays it does not stop i believe i've proven my to make myself available to the commission overall at any time nights weekends holidays 24 7. i take calls take emails that's it managing the city of deltona is not a job or a career it literally is a way of life if you aren't willing to dedicate every minute of your life to this job living in an unhealthy stressful atmosphere then a manager in this seat will not be successful even in this type of atmosphere our deltona staff is greatly resilient for some reason people believe in conspiracies they believe there's always something going on in our local government since i am new most of the executive staff is new and even half the commission has changed over in the past year how can you have conspiracies there's no deep state in deltona because the employees have not stayed here long enough to create such an atmosphere our great employees come to work and then they go home to their families there are no conspiracies although i walked into the city with bad reputation i'm very proud that over the past year my staff and i have significantly changed that negative reputation in the region to be more positive i filled the numerous open positions in the city leadership with great professional talent that i promoted up as well as brought in some from the outside and their direction for me was simple there will be excellent in everything we do and everything should be bigger and better we've been able to assemble an excellent team one capable of executing the vision and goals set by this commission through stable leadership and the much needed increase in employee pay we also now have a city staff that's finally feeling secured valued and happy to come to work for our residents in a short time deltona has changed from being a place nobody wanted to apply to to becoming an employer of choice i'm extremely proud of what our staff has done in a very short time to bring structure and professional government to deltona and believe as a staff we've been very successful and what are some of the projects we've done this past year well we've reduced the tax millage in my first year with them and with the implementation of a zero-based budget will greatly reduce the tax millage again this year i believe our next topic tonight is going to be our audit review and a review i think the residents will be proud to hear because of our staff's financial decisions in addition our great city staff has received nearly 30 million dollars in grant money this past year with three million more coming in for two significant water projects assuming the governor signs the bill that's sitting on his desk and we don't get vetoed out again that's 30 million dollars in grant money brought to deltona this year our activities include moving the water payments to city hall so all the services are in one place something should have probably been done decades ago we updated the city purchasing policy the employees personnel policies as well as many miscellaneous policies many of them coming through the commission by the way that are related to the commission's actions created a much utilized golden book which by the way again was in the budget and came under budget when it came to printing and delivering we also started deltona university to teach our residents about their government much more detailed i believe in something that was done a few years ago we added an expanded city festival such as the celtic fest the egg haunt mlk fest and assisted this past weekend's juneteenth festival we also added regular amphitheater concerts and regular movies in the park we're planning the redesign of city parks right now including a pickleball complex several rubber walking trails and the expansion of the veterans museum all coming in the future to the city commission for their approval this summer we started a free summer camp program at various summer parks to keep our latchkey kids busy and out of trouble again that was in a budget approved by the commission we're planning for new fire stations and making sure our firefighter paramedics have the equipment needed to better serve our residents that's coming as you heard in the next couple of weeks uh for discussion we fully migrated our phone system and call center to the cloud adding functionality such as customer callbacks so we're more efficient with the residents we expanded fire fiber optic cables to several city buildings and parks across the city with a mix of city and grant funding for better connectivity for the future as technology grows we brought the cra back in of reporting compliance with the county and state requirements we presented various public workshops to support the creation of the long-term range community deltona vision 2050 plan staff has been dealing with the new starbucks a new dairy queen a new chipotle and a new culver's restaurant coming to deltona as well as several business parks that include areas of more retail culver's yes we made scores of key updates to land development code from expanding driveway code as requested by commissioner caldwell to implementing home-based business code again for the future as home businesses are becoming uh large staff launched new online platforms and interactive resources to improve transparency and access the planning information staff requested the zoning in progress for stormwater and expanded at this last meeting to address stormwater management and drainage issues staffs in a final stage of completing the citywide comprehensive plan updates staffs working with a consultant develop a conservation-based overlay that will protect undisturbed natural lands as requested by commissioner lully and approved by the commission the rhode island extension study is underway to relieve congestion at graves avenue and highland boulevard intersection through our housing department nearly two million dollars in federal and state funds were distributed to infrastructure initiatives and low-income residents to assist with neighborhood stabilization and affordable housing in preparation for future storms staff has performed citywide stormwater pipelining rehabilitation and buried emergency stormwater piping for easy hookup during any future storms the city bought two sandbag machines to pre-fill bags for residents to easily receive bags as needed this uses fewer staff and makes us more efficient during storms we are in the design and engineering phase of raising elk ham boulevard catalina boulevard so the traffic is no longer interrupted during storms both paid for by grants i mentioned earlier the 700 000 grant for the city hall generator so that we can always run services for our citizens we're finishing the installation of 35 000 water meters installed installed ahead of schedule and under budget even our wastewater plants are more efficient since we increased capacity by 50 percent this past year and of course we stay true to having an open door speak and meet with residents and community groups at any time i could add hundreds more projects to the shortlist but it does give everyone an idea of how our staff has made great positive changes in the past 12 months i didn't come to deltona for a temporary stay i came to deltona into to create it into a professionally structured government to be a model government in volusia county with an attempt to discredit me like the many city managers before me it's no wonder that things fall through the cracks why did the city receive a notice from the irs that there was almost a one million dollar charge against the city of deltona well because we've had seven city managers in the past five years and by the way during my administration we've ended the irs issue at no cost to the city why hasn't the city considered updating impact fees in the past five years as it's been asked by the commission because deltona has had seven city managers in the past five years and by the way the staff is directed by the commission on april 7th to bid out the impact fee study as you know there are strict rules around the impact fees which does not allow us just to use old information so in the three-month period the norm for such a study to be bid out the topic was asked for by the commission the specs were put together the bid was advertised we had to wait for submissions the submissions are analyzed and the bid award will be brought to the commission actually in the next few weeks so the commission asked for staff to move forward on an impact fee study a couple of months ago and it is being awarded in July again because of the stability of the current staff issues dropped before us are now getting done another example is when commissioner colwell asked about updating the right-of-way ordinance i wasn't aware of it but apparently he was working with the former city attorney on the issue no problem with me but when she was ousted the request was dropped i picked it up when he told me about it just a few weeks ago and our new city attorneys are in the process of completing the request for commission's review after bringing it to my attention it is now in progress and will be done it's clear that instability and leadership brings chaos to a city and good government takes a break but as i stated earlier our current currently stable staff is getting the work done and now a few people are attempting to push out another city manager i was hired into a contentious atmosphere over the past year and i was willing to make unpopular decisions which i thought was the right choice for the city as it's taught at delta university i have a distinct job that is not overseen by the city commission by charter and law the city manager is to manage the city as they see fit without interference by the city commission when the city commission implements a new ordinance or a major city policy then it is a city manager's job to work with the staff and implement that major decision but as you know it's not easy for staff to satisfy the commissioner's requests when there appears to be very different desires threading the needle to satisfy everyone equally is a challenge in itself but i feel the staff has done an exceptional job in keeping so many different plates spinning at the same time so besides the mayor and city commission i understand that i work for a hundred thousand deltona residents to lead i always focus on what's right not what is popular in many instances i have to choose the harder right over the easier wrong to bring structure to our organization in an era of social media i do my best to know the difference between what is important and what is temporary fodder for the moment i believe i've shown this ability needed to bring calm to the city of deltona as well as a determination to move forward move the city forward to becoming a more respected leader in the region in fact i do truly believe it is a great time to be in deltona but in closing mayor i'm just proud to say that a number of the employees have asked me to speak this evening in favor of my leadership but with concern for them being negatively affected by offering their support i ask them not to speak but i do greatly appreciate their support and friendship thank you mayor thank you we'll go ahead and go to public comment please glenn whitcomb please obviously doc i apologize i didn't listen to you um good evening mayor vice mayor commission city manager city attorney our residents that are behind me here um and staff my name is glenn whitcomb i am a resident and also an employee of the city of deltona i've worked here for many years in different categories different seats here um but i would like to speak in support of our city manager doc since his arrival about a year ago june the 10th 2024 to be exact um he's made some positive changes both for the residents and employees alike he's willing to step up and make those changes or make these changes for the city to make things better for everyone the morale of the employees has greatly improved and employees want to come to work and do the best that they can i witnessed that in my department i spread what doc spreads uh as far as positivity goes and uh our employees i we in fact there are some here tonight um we do support doc um as i said the morale of the employees is greatly improved uh our employees do want to come to work and do the best that they can do doc has reinforced accountability stability and independent thinking of employees and department heads he encourages us to strive for excellence in everything that we do and to think outside the box on all issues doc has stated that he wants the best employees working in deltona he wants people that are hard-working honest and prideful in the work that they perform he wants to bring he wants us to bring our a game every day not just once in a while but every day good enough is not good enough anymore as he always says he wants us to come to him with solutions thank you glenn patricia northy please rob trometta please i think uh miss northy was called first did you still want to speak miss northy and i want to apologize is i believe you asked me and i might have given you the anchor well i know i gave you the incorrect reference so i apologize you have the two two minutes all right my my name is pat northy and i resided 2310 carson lane deltona i am your former district 5 county council member having served from 1993 through 2004 and 2007 through 2014. i have lived in deltona since 1973 my husband and i raised our two sons here where they attended volusia county schools and went to former mayor john's daycare center as youngsters at the age of three and five i have been involved in this community and have served the city since the mid 1980s and my sons were scouts and i was active in the pta i served on the deltona msd board beginning 1987 serving for five years which preceded the incorporation of our city in 1996. i have been engaged in the lifeblood of deltona for a very long time with few exceptions i have served longer than some of you have been alive i have made it a rule not to appear before you on matters of your elected business although i have served on several committees that make recommendations to you all i currently serve on the pnc board i fought in the corporation wars on the side of incorporating and when that vote was settled i sat in a cigarette smoked filled chamber of commerce board room and worked on a ballot for a new mayor and commission and on a rainy new year's eve in 1995 a ceremoniously turned the keys over to the city and our new mayor john massards because we began the role of building a city i remember telling the press that the earth moved that night in volusia county we plans for such greatness unfortunately we are almost 30 years later and greatness never materialized we never moved a damn thing we've been through a series of professional managers staff turnover and i can't count the number of strategic plans i participated in too many to count and many were not done anything not much to show for 30 years except for a city that has lurched from one year to the next election didn't matter who the manager was who was sitting on the days the outcomes were always the same so let me fast forward to monday night i don't think i have ever been as embarrassed as i was for my city and for my professional and for the professional management that is the heart of our form of government watching the opening of that meeting we have gone through seven managers in five years some thank you can she finish up real quick you told me four minutes she's reading as fast as she can i i had that in in the text we miss miss northy that's i take full responsibility that was my fault i do apologize for that kill the agenda item work the work session and do your duty on policy making thank you miss northy i stopped it i excuse me excuse me one more outburst and you're gone we we want to hear every single one of you but we need to keep order in this chamber excuse me we need to keep order in this chamber ma'am if you give one more outburst you're going to be gone can you please remove her rob trombetta please rob trombetta deltona uh i didn't have anything prepared for this but what i would like to say is is um i think there's there's a disconnect there's a disconnect between emma what emma's pointed out what doc's pointed out and what the person what's happening on the dais and i don't know it appears to me that doc does work for the commissioners i mean that's you know you guys are the bosses you guys can hire and fire bottom line is is doc you've obviously done something to piss these people off and they're good people every one of these people up here are trying to do their best even the ones i disagree with adamantly they're trying to do their best and i don't understand why it's your responsibility to try to work with these people it's you got a four to three negative vote so four of these people thought that they wanted they wanted to do a vote of no confidence it may not turn out that way but four to three so you got the problem not them you got to take care of your relationships not then did you call any of these people and sit on with them and talk with them this last last week and say wow what's going on how can i change i heard all the good things you did but i didn't hear one apology saying if i've done something if i've offended if i've not done the right thing please tell me come to my office please share with me and i will try to change you are not mother theresa so solve the problem because you're talented you can do the job but not if you don't hate you eventually you're going to have five people vote against you and i want to see that happen david stewart please commissioners staff uh everyone here uh thank you thanks for the opportunity to speak my name is david stewart um and i have my wife here and my three incredible children and i have to say commissioners i was disappointed and shocked at the last meeting we watched it as a family all four plus hours of it riveting um and uh i was disappointed i was embarrassed um we can't make decisions of this magnitude based on a feeling or making evaluations based on personal interactions but approving of actual performance this aggressive approach creates uncertainty and negatively impacts public perception of our beautiful city doc um recently the the hierarchy of of the city of atona was posted online and i as a citizen at the top of that uh want to share and highlight some things that i'm thankful for number one uh communication your videos online response to emails and questions in person thank you for communicating clearly and effectively the the vision for this city for being transparent sharing information in an effective uh matter like the golden book utilizing print i've been able to use that with neighbors who don't have access to social media or use smartphones video and social media clarity and accessibility breaking down complex information into bites uh pieces bite-sized pieces for a wide range of residents i want to thank you for your consistency with over one year i appreciate your commitment and focus to making deltona a great place to live work and play by maintaining regular progress updates on city projects showing steady and strong leadership and dependability maintaining focus and the city's long-term goals i want to highlight another c kilts just kidding i know that starts with a k but community we're actively creating opportunities for residents to share their input through public forums town hall surveys uh active events and all of these things while we may not agree on 100 of every decision i want to thank you for your strong leadership cj mr mayor commission thank you for allowing me to speak my name is cj for those of you who don't know me uh i'm the fcf steward for local 2913 deltona professional firefighters um i'm here representing 84 uh operations personnel uh and to say that we actually support our city manager um to think that he's only been in a year and then hear the list of everything that he's done i definitely hear your sympathy here i think you're going uh dealing with communication wise it sounds like it's more communication issues than anything but he's done a ton and to think that it's only been a year that he's been able to think about when he started and when you guys first came on the dais we had nobody working here we for every major role in the city we had a deficit and so within a year he was able to fill those seats and create a crew to direct the ship and go forward and think remember the captain doesn't steer the ship on his own he has a crew and he was able to build that curve and i think that's a magnificent thing you know he's been able to get grants in my 16 years being here i don't think we've ever gotten that much money my 16 years being here i don't think morale has ever been as high as it is amongst not only the fire department but city-wide and i feel comfortable saying that not just the fire department but 100 of the city employees have a high morale thanks to his leadership and doc we support you 100 we appreciate everything you've done and i think we're excited for the future i think bringing this vote forward tonight kind of pulls the rug out from everybody that's worked so hard to move things forward and it gives them doubt for moving forward and everything they've worked so hard to do i think uh commissioner lowly's decision great idea work together figure out where your uh faults are together because we all you all have different personalities and so does he and honestly in the corporate world when you think about it it's all about personalities and we got to work through it and i encourage you guys to do that and i really hope you do and uh again thank you doc victoria sustar uh first of all i want to thank commissioner santiago she has done a wonderful job for her area i want to suggest to you guys to have meets more often get together every two weeks none of you know what each other is doing and that's wrong you should all know what each other is doing i want to thank you so much for cleaning up my neighborhood i want to thank you so much for the book that you sent out i thank you for caring i've been here since 1999 and it used to be pristine it used to be beautiful and now there's trucks rvs boats all over the place that are not supposed to be there and they need to be cleaned up too and i really want to thank you and i hope you stay forever because you're the only one that has ever done anything since 1999 except for there's a john and he's passed away but you're the only other one that's done anything and i thank you so much and i want to apologize for my clap earlier because all this was so negative and then one came out joyful and that's why you got excited because you were joyful and i want to thank you for trying to bring in good stuff to deltona to make deltona a city to make town we don't have to go to sanford or altamont springs or the land for restaurants we can find our restaurants here and i want to thank you so very much for all you've done and i really recommend you guys get together because this has been a mess thank you kathy bryan good evening kathy bryan deltona apparently the manager is not the messiah nor is he the devil incarnate trust and communication go hand in hand and obviously there's been a severe severe breakdown and that's not just between the manager and the commission but the residences as well and i know as much as you guys hate to have us you know you keep wanting to push us aside we do have good ideas etc and honestly it's also about optics and optics unfortunately you know it's what people see and from all that we could see you were going out and around the commission for things there is no excuse for not knowing policy if you start a new job what's one of the first things you're going to do on orientation you're going to read all the policies you're going to read the rules you're going to learn how to do the job so there's there's not an excuse for not knowing that um just like we you know we have our golden books to go by the rules so um i understand where that came from i'd like to thank commissioner lully for the idea to do that i mean that's probably the most brilliant thing ever make sure residents are included and are allowed to speak freely on that um i hear from a lot of people that you know the responsiveness to the public and all that you're getting done it seems to me like what you guys need to do at this work session is to work on how communications are going to get better between you guys and him and you guys and him and us because there's a lot of things that are going on you just spilled out hundreds of stuff that's been going on but we don't hear about it necessarily through normal channels thank you thank you courtney crossbergos again um i agree with kathy and i i was going to say something totally different when i signed up but with the way everything's turned i want to thank nick for coming up with that idea i think that's the way to go um you all got an email from me so you all know how i feel about this at this point even though the mayor is the only one that answered me but in any case um i think it would be detrimental to our city to lose doc at this point we need to play the hand that we were dealt we need to work together all of you it was the same thing with the last commission there was so much infighting and you need to put personal agenda aside and work for the city because i do believe that you care you do but it's too much petty stuff going on it's just nuts and i do think doc needs to communicate a little better that's the thing that he and i have had um but it's not all one-sided when you can't communicate with somebody it's usually both sides are not listening and so i don't think that's only on him i think it's on you too and i think that you need to remember you're his boss so if he's doing something that he shouldn't or you don't want him to you need to direct him differently you need to hold him accountable that's what we have checks and balances for and you also have to remember that you guys were elected by us and you need to start listening to us and like kathy said make us more aware there's a lot of great things that that have been done that i come to these meetings and i still don't know about it i read the pages i read your website and it was a lot of stuff that i don't know about so you guys need to get better about keeping us informed of all the great things going on thank you matthew shaw all right good evening commission city manager mayor matthew shaw deltona i was a part of the first graduating class of deltona university and it was great i learned a lot about deltona but let me uh begin by saying thank you commissioner at least the ones that were here for making a great decision on bringing the city manager in but now some of you want to reverse that decision and really i want to ask why um no one here said that doc is failing due to poor employee morale or widespread public complaints in fact even commissioner vila vasquez acknowledged that from what she's seen and heard he's doing a great job commissioner loli the motion you made very wise appreciate that but what i'm hearing instead are personal frustrations i counted how many eyes was it a lot of eyes i i i nobody said anything about the constituents it was all i i heard you're usurping our power right so this feels more like a power struggle than a performance issue and that's troubling because it puts the stability of our city at risk over personality conflicts and not performance i'm also deeply concerned about the proposal to reduce the city manager's spending authority from fifty thousand dollars to twenty five thousand dollars that's a different topic okay all right okay so all right i don't say that so i think this is a waste of time energy and a lot of taxpayers dollars to put the city in a tailspin when you hear all the accomplishments that doc has done so a lot of times we're thinking is it more just about a power thing or is it about the city getting better employees came up here to back up doc i think that says a lot thank you david santiago thank you mayor commissioner can i sit back here resident david santiago also the probably the old timer along with pat even though she's got a few years on me but i sit back here and i reflect back to november when most of you got sworn in and it was a very proud moment in this room a lot of excitement about which way this commission was going to take us and a lot of positivity i'd ask all of you to reflect back on that day and let's see if we can turn back the time and start working together from that day forward um i'm saddened to see the the infighting that's happening it's not good for anyone um i've been here 35 years i've had the opportunity to work with every city manager that's come through here every single one and uh doc i have to say this you're probably the second best because fritz bearing was the best you got a long way to go there um and and none of them were perfect including fritz bearing um but i think matt shaw probably his comments regarding there may be some just power struggles that are happening and all i ask is um let's just get back to the basics guys you know as elected officials we're going to lose sometimes we're not going to get everything we want when we advocate up there and i've talked to many of you and i said when you take your laws move on to the next subject learn from what just happened try to get better work with the staff and try to come back another day but don't take the issue out on each other um i'm just more advocating for peace healing nick your commissioner sorry your suggestion is a good one maybe to just kind of have a off-site meeting like you said and and just start out as a healing process i think the community does not want to see the city manager go away i think these issues that i've seen and heard are fixable and i encourage you all not only to fix this fix each other please it's good for the community and remember the unspoken majority that doesn't often come to this room you represent them and there are 99 996 of them thank you thank you elbert bryan it's hard to follow the ethically challenged um you know i've been doing this a long time and he's right i've seen a lot of managers come and go but i've also seen a lot a lot of commissioners come and go some of them couldn't even stay up there for their whole term they got so frustrated with the system and with what they have to deal with up there you know i've always made this not about a person but about a position when i address the mayor addressing mr mayor when i address the commissioner it's a commissioner but what i've seen the last two meetings here it's been personal we don't need a lawyer up on the dais we don't need to be cross-examined all other of the people we don't need to think that you know everything because you don't at the end of the day what this truly comes down to to me is the fact that we have a lack of communication sometimes from him we have a lack of communication sometimes from you everybody knows that for the last 12 years i've asked for one big thing to have an open transparent government and you know i've never seen it i don't think i ever will because there's always something that we can't talk about why what is such a big deal about having open and transparent government is it really that hard i don't think it is now i've communicated with him a couple times to email other times i've emailed him never heard a word back but i can say the same thing for all of you up there and it's a shame what this should have been about tonight is you not him but i also didn't need the 30 minutes of his tirade thank you lindsey brionis lindsey brionis franklin tennessee deltona florida it hurts hearing a lot of negative things about you constantly doesn't it it hurts and it sucks a lot of the attacks that some of you guys have been getting i've gotten for the last year and a half some by the very people up here on this dais i hope you will take the constructive criticism that everybody up here whether they like you or not i hope you listen i really do and i hope you as a dais actually listen to the constituents because for the last couple months it's been god-awful the actions that have been taking place for the last two years on this dais forced me and my family to leave and a lot of it had to do with you a lot of it so i wanted to tell you thank you for forcing me to do better forcing me to work harder and forcing me to get out because i no longer have to deal with the conniption that is going on with the city in my new area somebody actually posted a video of one of the commission meetings from last week not last week the last one that was just had and all i could do was sit there and shake my head you guys have got to stop fighting with each other and you guys have actually got to work together because people are tired i wish you guys the best of luck i wish you the best of luck take care of yourselves been a great 40 years take care that is public comment all right at this time everyone has spoken at least twice we're going to go ahead and vote if i can please just for lack of clarity can i please have you uh reconfirm the motion and go ahead jim this is a motion and commissioner loli you can stop me anytime um this is a motion to conduct an off-site publicly noticed sunshine work session in which the items that fall under the vote of no confidence and the and the evaluation evaluations will be addressed the logistics will be finalized the legal part will be finalized with us we're not going to book the conference room for you but we will work with the manager and his staff to ensure that it is set up certainly in accordance with sunshine with working uh in recognizing that some of that some commissioners you got to say this last part in acknowledging that that some commissioners have recognized um issues that they would like to address within that workshop to move us forward okay so there was a motion by commissioner lilly seconded by vice mayor harriet if we can please vote and i'm sorry joyce i know that's a whole a lot of stuff this this is not for a vote of no confidence just for the ones that are reading it that's i don't think she can type that fast i'm sorry yes so motion passes seven to zero for the for the workshop all right let's go all right we're going to go ahead and move over to section 6a which is uh fiscal year 2024 audit discussion we'll please have our presenters come to the podium can we give everybody a moment to leave that was here would the commission be okay with like a two-minute break yes okay let's go ahead and take about a two-minute break please we're going to get started in about a minute so if pio can time it please all right let's go ahead and get started back with the commission meeting the special commission meeting please the presenters can start coming up to the podium or i'm sorry go ahead mr mckinley mayor commission good evening uh this evening i have the pleasure of introducing um tim westgate and laurie walker your auditors with purpose gray they're going to be presenting this evening the audit results for the fiscal year ending september 30th 2024 good evening mayor uh vice mayor commissioners thank you for the opportunity to present tonight we did attempt a few weeks ago but that meeting was delayed so we're joining you this evening appreciate the opportunity to present and serve as your auditors just on reintroductions real quick my name is tim westgate audit partner with purvis gray laurie walker is the supervisor on your audit engagement just touching quickly this is the final step in the audit process for the year ended september 30th 2024 and it does meet your external financial reporting requirements that fall under florida statute rules of the florida auditor general the secondary bond market in which you participate your florida dep loan and audit requirements under that as well as your federal and state grant requirements so this external audit meets those requirements i do like to highlight besides those requirements the city does choose to participate in the gfoa that's the government finance officers association certificate of achievements and excellence in financial reporting and under that the city goes and goes above and beyond just those legal requirements for an audit and financial reporting under the statutes and whatnot that i mentioned and in the spirit of transparency and additional disclosure they participate participate in the program to receive that award the city has received it for many years in in the past and we anticipate this year's will as well so we commend your leadership and management's effort in receiving that award what you mainly want to hear from your auditors though is the results of the audit so not to run through the entire 200 and some page document so just touching on the highlights and an opportunity for questions that you may have the main report that we issue is the auditor's report on the financial statements and the notes in that report it has various reminders such as the financial statements themselves are the responsibility of management our responsibility is to provide an opinion on those financial statements based on our audit very pleased to say that we issued an unmodified opinion that is a clean opinion highest level of assurance that you can have on audited external financial statements as part of our audit that second bullet point on there that second section on there we conducted the audit in accordance with government auditing standards and as part of those requirements it requires that we look at internal control for the purpose of designing our audit but not for providing an opinion on internal control so as we're designing our audit we look at internal control related to financial reporting and if we encountered items that we determined to be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies or if we encountered items that were would be non-compliance with contracts statutes grant agreements that would be material to the financial statements we would report those to you pleased to say it is a clean report that does not have reported items such as material weaknesses in it so again commend your leadership as commission and the city as a whole some additional reports that fall under the florida statutes is a compliance with the florida statute 218-415 and that is compliance with the statute of investment of public funds that as well is a clean report there were no non-compliance issues in that final letter that is in the package is the management letter that is required under rules of the florida auditor general and it would talk about items such as deteriorating financial condition or financial emergencies those being cases where the city wouldn't be able to make payroll wouldn't be able to pay their bonds as they come due or just years of deteriorating and decline the letter would report those such items pleased to say there are no such items in those letters outside of the requirements of florida statutes the city does receive federal awards federal grants and of course when you accept those funds they come with additional strings and compliance requirements along with them as part of the audit requirement you exceeded the threshold and a federal single audit was required through that process and a risk assessment we identify what your major programs are for the year in this case we looked at the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds as well as disaster grant public assistance as part of selecting those major programs we look at the compliance requirements and make sure that you complied pleased to say it is a clean opinion as well an unmodified opinion that the city did comply with those requirements so i'd like to commend the city effort in that as well a few things that we'd like to touch on each year is just talking about significant events and financial highlights just to continue those discussions like to point out that each of these major funds these are some of the major funds of the city each had a positive increase in fund balance in fund balance total fund balance of the general fund landing at 778 million that is following 10 years 10 or more years of an increase in fund balance this has been a significant discussion that we've had for many years in meeting the recommendations of the government finance officers association not just in your ability to meet cash flows but your ability to plan for and be prepared for future future projects or should you encounter any pandemics anything like that hurricanes of course we're in florida being more likely in our area so we encourage you to continue those efforts of continuing to increase your fund balance and maintain those positive positions sorry been a long evening without water next page still major funds the water and sewer fund also had an increase a positive increase in that position and maintains a strong working capital so we again we commend your efforts and the good management of that fund employee retirement fund is the last fund area that we're going to touch on that had an increase in that position of 7.8 million with a ending balance of 52 million that is a funded position of 86 percent just for comparison the funding position in the prior year was about 75.8 so you had a you know a pretty significant increase a good investment performance was the largest driver behind that with the investment decision so a very strong uh funding position for that fund so i feel guilty thank you thank you um i do appreciate that so there is kindness for sure in the world other audit matters to talk about i wanted to follow up as mentioned this evening the irs form 1095c filings those were the filings related to certain health benefit information that was delinquent in filing by the city during the 23 audit it was noted that the irs notice has been received that was reported as a non-compliance material non-compliance in last year's report so just following up on that please to that working with the assistance of an outside specialist attorney as well as your attorney group all of that was able to be resolved and that liability of course was reversed and is not recorded in the current year we do have some recommendations that fall below that threshold being findings significant deficiencies material weaknesses but still items that we think the city could benefit from overall and we've discussed these with management already as well one being the period and closing routine we are a little bit later in the process in presenting of course you had turnover within the department leading to that loss of institutional knowledge the time that was required to redevelop procedures and issue the financial statements so we encourage the city to continue in those efforts in refining that financial reporting process to get back on the timely cycle again pleased to say everything ended up just took everything ended up with a clean report just took longer to get there and gather that information new accounting standard coming was implemented during the year related to accounting changes and error corrections so you will see a disclosure in there where funds changed from major to non-major that is just related to the adoption of the new standard nothing alarming in that regard last item just to touch on as part of the financial statement audit we do look at internal control related to it not that that is the focus of our financial audit but in the world we're in that is very likely for many entities to be a significant financial risk if you had such things such as ransomware attacks and whatnot so with that we have the recommendation as well as a recommendation of our own as well as related to the florida cyber security act that the city have an it risk assessment program put in place so we do recommend and that has been discussed with management so that doesn't directly relate to our audit but just something we came across during the audit process that we thought would be worthwhile of communicating so with that i do want to quickly thank the city for the opportunity uh city staff uh very cooperative throughout the process mrs hayes mr mckinney finance department particularly who has to put up with us when we say show us this explain that we do get very good cooperation and communication in the process so with that i will invite any questions that you have related to the audit yeah um since somebody's on the board i'd like to ask a couple questions um did you guys notice any discrepancies as far as audit adjustments is that what you're do you recall audit adjustments yeah i don't think there were audit adjustments there were some change in disclosures just to make sure things were clear but that's you know nothing nothing unusual okay i guess that was my routine was is that anything out of the norm right any any reason to make any of you believe that someone's offering the books for the city there is not we would report that would be in the reports and that would also not allow us to qualify to get a one and only audit from the fed correct yeah we probably would have walked away we would be done rightfully so right we'd leave before that time i think we do not not here not here i'm just saying that that that does really happen um there are audits we walk away from i think my biggest question and biggest concern uh that i've gone from from residents um that said mayor they're going to do a presentation can you ask is the city in in any financial uh problems trouble constraints should we as a diocese be concerned that we're going to go bankrupt in the next 10 years i don't know whatever is the norm for that question right so if i may i certainly uh recognize that question uh obviously don't have the crystal ball sure of course and there is a deficit that happens in in accounting in accounting world and with an audit we tend to be historians so we're telling you you know what we're agreeing to september 30th 24 and looking backwards uh based on that information however we would be looking for deteriorating financial conditions if we saw trends that are heading in that direction um just one because it's the right thing to do two as well uh rules of the florida auditor general would require that we tell you about that um and there's nothing like that in the reports so you don't see any trends there is not okay right as well the state of florida run similar trends they sort of follow our trail and uh input your financial results and they would as well highlight trends and you'd be getting letters thank you now i got two commissions commissioner howington and then commissioner santiago thank you mayor so obviously we wouldn't be a going concern at that point given that we are financially stable at this point in time right um yes for sure but even before that they would start waving the flag long before long before that right so there's been some discussion and i did meet with you a couple weeks i appreciate that thank you thank you thank you for meeting with me um can you please help our residents understand the difference between say a forensic audit a compliance audit and a financial audit sure will if i jump into was that absolutely yep sorry to interrupt the floor we discussed that a little bit uh as well but just for the uh audience as a whole you know individuals who may be listening audits means a lot of different things to a lot of different people if the irs is showing up at my door for an audit i'm going to panic like that is not but that's not what we're doing here uh the audit term that is used here is related to financial reporting and it is strictly related to your financial statements so it does not include a forensic audit a forensic audit would typically have a particular area that you are addressing or after your particular clues and with that guidance you are trying to target something that has been flagged or identified and you are after that in a particular area a compliance audit of course you're looking and there is some compliance elements like the investment one that i mentioned there are some pieces in there a compliance audit as well is directed more towards compliance with a person particular set of criteria this finance this audit is related to your external financial reporting requirements and it is strictly set for the reporting that the city is required to do under generally accepted accounting principles which is put out by the gasby government accounting standards they tell you how should things be reported what is the acceptable criteria and that applies to all entities within the united all governmental entities within the united states so this audit looks through a method of sampling and analytics looking at internal control for designing our audit but again that's not the main goal ultimately our goal is to report to the state of florida to the florida auditor general those bond agencies and whatnot that i mentioned that we agree that the financial statements truly represent what happened for that year ended september 30th 2024 and it doesn't go beyond that so that is the goal of that audit so uh could be a very long discussion a whole semester or more in a classroom i'm trying to bring it down which i know you're familiar with many are familiar with for many years but trying to bring it back into that realm so just because we do have a forensic audit and a compliance audit on the agenda tonight if we want to ensure that finances are being spent the way that we expect them to per policy ordinance would this audit have been sufficient to determine that based on areas of concern identified by the commission this audit would have identified it would um in the realm of reasonable and material um so the reasonable and material that material concept is that an outside user would be influenced in their decision making so the opinion behind it is that in all material respects the financial statements are truly presented so that is um from that perspective if an outside bond investor in the city's bonds if they if the financial statement said something different and they would change their decision because they were misled because the information wasn't correct that would be material if um and i hate to like speak down of it but if somebody is stealing pencils from the supply cabinet and you know taking them home and it's not used for business purpose the bond holder's not going to be influenced by that um so what that material threshold uh accounting and the audit standards haven't defined that um sort of one of those you know when you see it as bad as that sounds um but it is in that realm that materially speaking uh they do uh fairly present the question that you're posing and what is our materiality threshold in general i know it it varies but just kind of in general what is that threshold material uh that's that's hard to identify offhand um and lori perhaps you can help me out with it in framing it a little bit um you each of those funds that i presented each one is its own entity per se and each one has its own materiality so the general fund doesn't have the same materiality as the pension fund so it's different in each of those categories um we as a firm uh tend to be more conservative and use a lower threshold uh florida auditor general we've seen in some realm is as high as five percent of fund balance of an entity uh we as a firm tend to use a much lower threshold so is it fair to say that spending between 25 to 50 thousand dollars probably is not considered material in the general fund in the general fund that would not that would not i i would not anticipate that would meet a realm of an individual transaction of swaying materiality that probably would not be highlighted because it wouldn't be within that materiality threshold if if there was a single transaction right um an aggregate it would still be looked at right thank you commissioner santiago thank you mayor really quick i just wanted to ask you at deltona how does it match up with other peer cities in which regard fund balance revenue production just i mean overall overall in in in receiving that the award and and and just the whole thing just okay um just going off the cuff uh just going to run with a little bit uh the the participation in the in the award program is optional um and i would not i would venture that less than 50 percent if you were to count small cities way less than 50 percent of cities in the state of florida participate in it um so it is going above and beyond um the no journal entry uh is very unique uh no audit adjustments that the trend of no audit findings absent your irs compliance that is very unique does not happen a lot you do currently have a strong in my personal view this is an audit opinion you do have a strong team in place at the time with a lot of experience you did utilize a an external professional firm milestone as well to help put the financial statements together uh which is commendable uh for the city to make such decision especially during the transition to use their outside expertise to so beyond us and beyond the city there was another entity involved in helping put the financial reporting package together which further led to not having adjustments i mean i believe they should receive credit as well as part of your process so the city is putting extra pieces in place to ensure that transition was a smooth transition thank you very much and with that said thank you to our finance director and the team and the city manager for um going above and like you said going above and beyond thank you uh is there any other no all right thank you guys very much thank you all right at this time we're going to enter into new business 7a if i can please have the city attorney read the requests yes mr mayor this is a request for approval to amend the procurement policies and procedures to reduce the spending authority to anything over 25 000 for any department must come back to the commission for approval okay at this time i'll entertain a motion so we can begin the discussion microphone please make a motion to approve i'll second that there's a motion by commissioner caldwell second by commissioner lully and we have commissioner caldwell you're on the i i feel it in our duly elected responsibility up here to know what the money is being spent on in all departments whether it's budgeted or not um you know as we were just told up here anything under 25 000 dollars usually doesn't show up on an average audit um so this is my request to see anything over or under 25 over 25 000 for any department coming back to the commission commissioner santiago then commissioner howington thank you mayor um like i've previously said and we said it at 50 000 in our previous um commission meeting with the size of this city we're the largest city in volusia county um the norm is typically for this size city is 100 000 i believe in in decreasing it to 25 000 is just going to hinder the process of our employees it's going to take more time you know it does take it does take time i've been there i've worked in the purchasing department you have to wait you have to put the paper together um submit it for an agenda item it's just going to hinder the process at 25 000. i think we should just leave it alone keep it the same thank you commissioner howington thank you mayor we operated under 25 000 for the past 30 years our next agenda item is specifically to determine whether or not we would like to have a forensic and compliance audit and after the no confidence agenda item that we just had i think that it's fair to say that we have a lot of trust issues going on at this particular juncture so while i understand we just made this change given the questions that have arisen and until we have a comfort level i i think the 25 000 mark that's been in play for 30 years until we can get a better comfort level is sufficient thank you vice mayor harriet um question on the procedural process the process around this uh motion is this amending the purchasing policy that has we approved a few months ago or is this going to be a standalone item separate to that policy procedurally because the uh procurement policy the purchasing policy was adopted via resolution and staff will need some additional time to go through that guide and make all the edits that would need to come back to you but tonight you can make a motion to amend that policy and have it be effective immediately it will just need to be formalized via resolution and an update of the the formal document okay so is that is that is the motion that was made tonight clear to accomplish that goal to make sure that that it's effective as the motioner wants it effective but it's also we also update update their resolution hold on commissioner please remember you have to use the mic this is my intention to update the policy tonight yeah okay i just wanted to make sure that we're not doing this outside of updating the policy if this is going to take place tonight then i want to make sure that this also triggers an update of the actual policy resolution as well um that that being said like one of my fellow commissioner said that the policy has been for the last 25 years almost 25 000 um i understand i understand all the points made i i i get it um but thank you mayor all right city manager just for clarity uh there's difference 25 from 50 going back down to 25 but part of that was and i believe i heard it just want to correct anything that's already been budgeted that we already discussed in september october comes back a couple weeks later to ask for permission again so everything budgeted no matter what is coming back that's correct the comment please david soza all right i wasn't sure i was going to make it tonight so one thing i do have an issue with is currently with your agendas you don't provide the links anymore to anything that's in the discussion i have an issue with that because then i have to go and look for it i'm talking about about this item right here because i can't research it correctly okay so i'm having an issue you guys put this out there but you put no information with it i have to go back and look for it now one thing i do have an issue with is the procurement policy in general i'm having to go from my head from a couple months ago when you passed it i think it was on page eight nine ten or eleven you have about 22 exceptions to your policy where the city manager can spend over a hundred thousand without even having to come back to you guys and then there's also an exception in there that if he didn't want to come back to you guys but he can't then he'd go to the attorneys or he could go to the mayor to get it signed that was in that policy i have a question when did the mayor get more power than you seven or you six left that was in that policy the policy in itself was bad it should have never been passed in the first place given him more money it doesn't matter because probably within those 22 exceptions he doesn't have to come back to you anyways so i think you need to go and revisit the whole policy read it i understand it's formed two pages but it's something you do have to go and do rob trombetta robert trombetta deltona uh i just i would just ask that uh in light of what we've just all been through some of this seems to be part of this whole struggle uh between the different sides of of the issues and i think uh i i would like you not to do this keep it at 25 i would say keep it at 50 and go through your process of your your kumbaya process which i hope is successful and then uh then come back and deal with this i think this just perpetuates this this nitpick little thing i mean 25 50 000 when you're talking 100 million my goodness and a lot of things cost a lot of money when you're dealing with the city i don't know i mean we're not talking about pencils here we're talking about equipment stuff that costs you know big bucks and uh and then just add i would say just if you have concerns i mean you see what they eventually you're going to see what they spend and just say well what was this 37 000 for or 45 000 for i mean but let's just put all of this i believe little checks and little extra checks because you don't trust people on the side and let's just try to start all over again i know kathy bryan so my wallet understands the cost of things these day but you know we're at a point here i know we've got we've got the budget coming up we're going to be making people unhappy when we start talking about that instead of why don't we split it down the middle 37 5 if you're talking about 50 000 how many departments do we have seven eight whatever so you reduce it by close to 100 000 i realize that's a pittance but sometimes it's the little things that make a difference and then relook at your policy on the exceptions etc but maybe you don't have to go one or the other thank you elbert bryan the reason why we had a limit originally was checks and balances it's always been about checks and balances doesn't matter whether it's in the budget or not you are supposed to be checking on his balance um we lived through jane shine she thought that a two million dollar project that was in the budget she could spend that two million dollars and it didn't matter what it was on that's why this 25 000 limit was all about because we had managers in the past that took advantage of you the commission maybe not you personally but i lived through that i watched it i was here we watched money go out the door so fast that we couldn't account for it that's why i became such a budget hawk that's why i have all the budget books for the last 12 years sitting in my room i know when people change things where they're not supposed to be i've seen it too many times the problem when you take and change it for nilly willy reasons you you do stuff that are so knee-jerked that it becomes a problem that's why this is coming back now because y'all have a problem the communication up there to here and from there to here that's a problem and it's showing so bad it's embarrassing when he talks about changing personnel policy because under his purview that's all fine and dandy except for the fact that in 2021 it was passed by resolution in order to change that personnel policy you have to change it again by resolution and that means y'all voted on it 2021 the personnel policy that's the same with this it was changed by resolution originally it was changed recently by resolution and now we're bringing it back because y'all got scared you got wet feet what a shame tara diargo hey good evening everyone just i just wanted to i i thought i heard if it's an item that's in the budget and has been budgeted and the budget was approved but then when that item actually comes where the money is being spent it would come back up in front of the commission okay so maybe just think about that right because just to me and and obviously you all are privy to probably more information than what i know and experience or experiencing things i may not realize that just seems duplicative like if it's i could see if it's changing if the amount's changing or if the intent or if what it's being spent on is changing absolutely that should go up and back it up in front of you all but if it's the exact same it just seems like it's duplicative to bring it back up to approve something that's exactly the same that you already approved um so that's all i wanted to say thank you all that ends public comment i'm gonna go to commissioner santiago vice mayor harriet and if nobody else is on we'll go ahead for a vote i was going to show you the budget book that's approved currently i don't think i have one you don't have one do you no that's okay that's okay so the budget book yeah it's about this big and it's we approve it and everything's in there in writing of what has been approved and all we're asking is for the city manager to get the items that we we approved processed up to fifty thousand lowering it to twenty five thousand dollars is just going to be a repetitive waste of time i understand we want transparency i'm the first one that wants transparency here but we also need to no this is a repetitive it's just going to be repetitive and it's going to be a waste of time but that's all i needed to say thank you vice mayor then city manager thank you mayor um on our first item this morning i thought we did a phenomenal job of coming to consensus together and i'd like to see if that would be possible on this item we heard up quite a few suggestions from our neighbors i think that there's an opportunity here to bring the policy back and look at multiple components of the policy um with individual components the threshold is just one component of it there are also the exceptions that are called out in it as well as the component of budgeted items not coming back to the commission so i think that uh it might be a better option for us to uh bring the policy back uh or revisions of the the policy and other aspects of the policy rather than just the one um the one component the threshold city manager and then i'll i got something thank you mayor just for context just want to remind everybody the neighboring towns are at 75 100 and 125 thousand dollars that's why they would staff originally brought it to you in february and said we'd like to go to 100 but then it was dropped down to 50 and now we're going back down to 25 so again other towns are 75 100 uh in comparison and another just example to go off with just for clarity uh like the golden book uh was originally budgeted at 60 000 it came in at 28 000 this would be bringing the golden book back to the commission because it's over 25 000 even if it's half the price of what we originally budgeted for so just for context that's that's what we're talking about all right before and i excuse me with my voice uh before we move to the vote um just because somebody made a comment on it and i know that they weren't trying to start controversy they just saw it and they they thought it was curious uh one of those exemptions for the city attorneys does that contradict language because i believe that section where it says that the the mayor can sign something was excuse me what was was added because there was a situation that marcia literally two weeks or something like that before commission meaning they needed us to sign something for um one of the emergency management things and i was adamant about not signing it because there's a policy that says i need permission from this dais correct is that what the because if if there's a mix up there we need to clean that up that that needs to happen obviously we can't have contradicting things yes uh we can certainly double check that language in the policy i believe the intent is specifically related related to emergency purchases and items related to female where the mayor is generally the signatory on behalf of the city and not the city manager um but we can i believe that was the case that day because i i ended up having marsha send me an email stating that it was okay for me to sign that document because i the last thing i wanted was to be grilled for the commission for doing something that i explicitly told her and i had several people there that i was not allowed to sign that and she said well if you don't sign it we're going to lose this today so that that's where that came from so let's go ahead and um can we please vote the motion passes four to three all right we're going to go to section 7b if i can please have the city attorney read the approval request yes mr mayor this is a request for approval of a forensic audit and a compliance audit at the direction of the city commission okay at this time i'll entertain a motion to begin discussion i'd like to make a motion go ahead commissioner howlington like to make a motion to approve a forensic audit and a compliance audit the auditors would report directly to the city commission and have complete unfettered access to city records as necessary to complete the audits second there's a motion by commissioner howington second by commissioner lully commissioner howlington you're on the board uh i hit that for the motion all right commissioner santiago then vice mayor harriet how much is this a forensic audit compliance audit how much is it going to cost the city does anybody know about a hundred thousand eighty to a hundred thousand dollars that came from the uh state of florida from the what is it the l lga the legislative action committee yeah before we move to make that decision i think it's best that we bring it back just to make sure what the amount is um go ahead if you can i did a um forensic audit roughly well 2017 it was a very small scoped item and it was close to a hundred thousand dollars um from what i've heard this evening this is a much larger scope of what's potentially being asked to be done so just based on prior experience it would be far greater than a hundred thousand dollars more than a hundred thousand yes ma'am okay thank you if i may um i just want to flag procedurally that due to the the budget amount and the the threshold this would likely need to have direction from the commission as to a scope that would be put out for rfp that rfp would have to be evaluated and brought back to the commission for a final action um so you could potentially vote to move forward tonight but there would be multiple steps i was going to ask you that i have one more question though please um to our auditors that are here really quick your question um the city you just reported um seconds ago that we are above and above um above and beyond our legal requirements um as far as auditing sanders the deficiencies would you recommend for us to do this audit forensic audit can you please make sure your microphone's on there we go uh tim westgate with purvis gray um i'll re-echo what we've recommended to the city in the past is that you consider an internal auditor i would venture that if you were to go down the forensic audit realm you would have to identify your scope and i would venture that each scope is probably a hundred thousand dollars um so if you're looking at just revenues in a particular fund and you have some idea there that could be a hundred thousand if you're looking at expenditures in the fund or if you're looking at if you're looking at uh expense reimbursements if that was your scope that's another hundred thousand you know so it's in your realm it would not be i couldn't imagine a citywide um i mean i can't i don't know who would propose on something like that with a very identified scope i mean you'd have to identify what the scope is again nothing came to our attention that would lead us to believe that anything is going to be you know come out of that process that would be material nothing material would come out of that process but it could exist of course i recommend you know reread the engagement letters reread the auditor's report fraud could happen we're not saying it didn't happen i'm also not saying it did we have no indication of fraud occurring uh fraud is a complex area where you involve collusion and other aspects i do echo what was mentioned earlier you do have an entirely new team in place a new leadership team uh fraud has been thrown around at the city for many many years uh seems a little outside the concept that fraud would be can could have existed you know would have existed with the old team and then a new team came in and they picked up the fraud and ran with it uh i just don't see it at this time but we'll re-repeat uh a recommendation of considering an internal auditor which would report to the commission but just to make sure as that's a position uh you know that is a position and over time the city uh could recommend what what what do you want to be looked at uh we do see it uh time to time when there is it is a just to be sure uh we do see it in cities where there is dissension between uh you know commissions and management and that is a extra layer in there that's optional and just to make sure you didn't see anything that's concerning that we should spend like you said could be depending on the fund or the scope of work it could go 100 000 500 000 up to a million dollars possibly a recent one that i conducted was related to some fire fees somewhere and it was just the fire fees and just looking at the process of how it was collected and how the tracking the reporting process and the fee was about 50 000 just to look at that one single element one item thank you so much vice mayor harriet thank you mayor um there's a question for legal uh with the last item that was just passed and the uh item the purchasing threshold reduced to 25 000 does that mean that we're pretty much regardless from what i'm hearing anything would this be included in that so if this comes back at a hundred thousand dollars or five hundred thousand dollars that this would then have to come back to the commission yes that's correct and the the direction where i at least i have understood is that these auditors would report directly to the commission um you know in receiving their scope and in their reporting so they would come back regardless of the other amount all right i also want to clarify the process in which this is going to happen we approve this today this gets voted on today if it is approved then a scope would have to come back to the commission to agree on exactly what is being looked at and then from there i'm guessing it would be put out to an rfp and then those bids would come back and this commission would be the selection would would we be the selection committee or would there be a firm recommended by staff the intent is that this is the commission they report to the commission let's let's do one at a time guys let legal answer that please so either way regardless if it is approved tonight there's at least two more times where this would have to come back to the commission yes that's correct thank you sir all right commissioner vila vasquez and then we'll go to public comment thank you mayor um have a first thank you um i remember last time that we um had the audit of the irs issue was in place and one of my questions about that was you only audit financial stuff but you do not audit policies that the policy the way things are done are being followed um and and the work is being done according to the policies and procedures am i correct um so i just wanted to point that out my question to commissioner dory is would you consider um you know our auditor's suggestion about doing an in-house audit instead which would be less expensive for the city what i would like to see is i'd like to see an initial audit given the fact that residents have had so many concerns over the years and then follow that up with an internal auditor on staff once we have a clean starting point thank you all right we're going to go to public comment please david sosa should i wait for the mayor to get back that's not all right one of the things i think needs to be identified has been said scope and term once again i was looking at the links there's no information provided so it's really hard to speak intelligently on this when there's no data out there um i know for a fact it's probably going to cost well over the 80 000 because emma your husband when he was a state rep was trying to get an audit of our water department unfortunately he failed to get that and the city went ahead at the time and did that it did cost 200 000 for what was supposed to be an audit for the water department but it ended up just being a study and it was a waste of 200 000 i think we need to keep it at an audit and not veer off to a study so uh the cost will be more i think i'm not sure if i'm correct but the folks that do the auditing here do you kind of look at more cash ins versus cash outs as opposed to going to itemized listings to make sure that things are spent where they need to be spent i think that's an issue we need to have um i think part of the problem is nobody trusts you guys nobody trusts him all right an issue came back with the purchasing policy which was brought up a couple times was under james chang there was money going here money going there nobody knew where it was going unfortunately i think we're back to that same thing now because there's no transparency i know dory you've been asking for figures from up there for a while i don't know if you got them yet have you did you finally get them thank you good all right way to go all right now i knew grants are out there i don't know if you can get them but we need to look at that um and i think when we look at fraud we need to define fraud is fraud you taking money is it him taking money or is it just management misspending money i think that's where we need to define fraud there needs to be a definition of it like i did a public record request for the mayor's travel expense in march i got no records found i did it for this gentleman here and guess what his travel expenses were under his credit card so to me that's fraud elbert brian oh my there's a reason why we uh have asked for this audit for quite a few years now and i mean quite a few years it's not about fraud it's not about anything criminal as far as we know it's about keeping books that actually make sense when i did a prr for rhode island money i have three years of audit books that show it under the center when i got the prr they said no no the money is under the rhode island fund so i got curious i went to the uh electronic digital uh budget books oh well wouldn't you know it's there but the paper books that we got show it not there and actually show that it's under the center for purchasing land so how could we actually change that without it ever being voted on again that's why we want an audit another reason why we want an audit is because we had the center we lived through the center over budgeted and it was crazy we said it was going to be for this thing and then it was for that and then it was for this and about two million of that money should have never been spent on it but it was so when we say a forensic on it we want every number counted i want every department counted i want every penny accounted for from 2022 2023 fiscal year 23 24 fiscal year 24 25 fiscal year it has nothing to do with him it has to do with the fact that he said earlier we've gone through seven managers in five years we've gone through how many different financial people now four in six years give it to us please jody lee you know this audit i think almost everybody up there except for i believe miss san diego i think everybody ran on it at one point in time well we should have an audit in the city everybody said it he just keeps getting put on the back and back back i'm not saying he's stealing money i think the money being spent is a little out of hand i mean i know a couple a couple city managers ago there was i believe a hundred thousand dollars taken out of the emergency uh it was supposed to be for emergency services for the sheriff's department to buy some furniture for two officers it was a hundred grand it never got spent but it got moved into the general fund and that's illegal if anybody doesn't know that it got taken out for impact fees for emergency services put a general fund the budget amendment not too long ago i believe our city manager put that money back in there which is a good thing but perfect the other our audit company they never found that that was money taken out not by him prior one of the many managers been here but that was a thing that was found he fixed the situation but it was never brought up and that is illegal it went to our general fund these are things that need to be found our money spending is out of control everybody's been crying about the water department you don't think the water department needs an audit how do you get a bill one day and all these different problems with the water billing and everything else these are things that need to be looked into and i agree everybody ran on audit maybe it's finally we get one thank you carolyn hickerson no it just seems like a lot of i gotcha kind of stuff and i don't like it um if you do everything you're probably looking at a million dollars that's a lot of money if you just want just a little bit i mean probably looking at 250 000 and you're supposed to be the budget girl that's a lot of money i don't like it i would like the in-house maybe audit but i don't want to spend out 250 000 to a million dollars for a gotcha i'm gonna do it elizabeth chavez before miss chavez starts just so the public knows i i have a sick daughter and miss vasquez has a sick relative as well so if you see us go back and forth it's either a voice or we're tending to our family so just fyi um i remember um that you guys had a meeting and then you had a break for like 20 minutes and there was about um what was i think 1 million or 1 billion that was something you had added to the original budget and then you just you know you just were able to take it out i've heard that we have a healthy economy in our city and i think that an audit is something that i've even asked for up at this podium years ago as well that is probably coming okay i have a couple questions and i'll go to vice vice mayor harriet um does anybody in staff recall how much the audit that we did on delton and water cost us 200 000 you said commissioner of investors one thousand okay two hundred thousand dollars and that's just on one department so um i know because i was part of that committee and i know you were on the diets at the time so uh what what was this disparity that was found in that in that audit i think maybe mr whitcomb can answer that or or maybe phyllis as well as anyone i mean if you can't answer now that's fine i don't want to put you guys on the spot but i'd like at least an answer by the next time this comes back up because um if my memory serves me right the disparity that was found was extremely so minimal that it was literally a waste of two hundred thousand dollars i'm not saying we but my biggest thing that i've ran on is an operational audit completely different we have auditors here saying that we're in good financial strains operational audit 100 i've always i've always run i've always literally requested that fortunately even with the past commission i never got it i have a very good question for uh not that anybody else's wasn't but maybe the auditors can answer this and i'm sorry we keep picking on you but uh since you're here we're going to take advantage of you um would would it be more cost effective to have this commission send a letter to the florida doge team and request that they audit us would that be more cost effective than spending a hundred thousand dollars on each department cost wise being doge being new i don't know what it would look like or what they may choose to charge the city for uh oig i believe with the state of florida um they could come in uh and with legislature direction do their own audit uh typically they will more likely come in if they're really called in and they'll just send the bill to whatever city or entity had requested that if they even choose to come at all um so they theoretically uh may do it but if they follow the model of the oig they would send a bill for the work that they're doing so as far as staying i asked for the trouble i stayed around this evening of my own choice really because i do serve at the pleasure of the commission just wanted to be available because my my question is i saw for example i i i saw this on the on obviously on our agenda and uh i reached out to a couple of uh county commissioner in lake county and asked them because i know lake county was i believe the first county in the state that asked for that um i he hasn't responded on the cost but the assumption is is because the the state is trying to get that up and running it would be a lot cheaper than us trying to audit every single department in in in the city right um and i think that they would probably just because they're probably trying to find something they would find something right um do you think that would be a more effective route to go so it might be a route uh might be a route to go a lot of the the questions that seem to come up and another gentleman use similar language that the question might be more about efficiencies and effectiveness of the spending more than accuracy of the spending uh you know the financial statement on it is focused on the accuracy um and does not talk about effectiveness and efficiency doge or something like that that is the goal of that type of project because that would essentially look at operation as well which i believe commissioner vila used a different name for it um which is like our policies and procedures so okay that's just a point that maybe uh commissioner howington if you're willing to to consider that instead of the other uh after we go through vice mayor and commissioner vila vasquez that that's something that i would like us to consider as well uh vice mayor harriet then commissioner vila vasquez thank you mayor um with all the conversation we've had with hearing from the residents um i think that uh that this will address is the first step to addressing a lot of a lot of concerns that we consistently hear from our neighbors um but to that end i would would i'm very interested to hear what uh the the next conversation is that we have regarding the scope and then after that the budget uh one of the things that i will have challenges with is if this comes back and it is exceedingly costly to the point where we're we're giving up uh park improvements fire station improvements you know we're talking about miles of sidewalk that that we're giving up in order to do something like this so that being said i i think that i've heard all of our neighbors and and absolutely support this being a step the to um kind of build that trust so thank you mayor commissioner vila vasquez thank you mayor so i just wanted to clarify that that audit that audit water audit that was done was not requested by the commission it was requested by a self-made organization that accused the water department of fraud and i think that's how it came about you say you were in the and some of the people in the audience were also on that committee so that did not come from the commissioner request but the expense did just wanted to put it out there okay so nobody else on the board um we already have public comment um can we go ahead and and vote on the motion and this still has to come before us twice correct go ahead i don't think commissioner answered vice mayor's question i think we can hash all that out during the scope the first thing is to get the commitment to move forward with an audit please use your mic uh vice mayor sorry thank you mayor i i would like it if we could put a time frame on it 90 days 120 days whatever we think is appropriate but that that way i just know personally that when you give direction open-ended we are inviting things to follow through absolutely how long would it take to do an rfp get the scope set for us all of that because that's the question that i'm going to have to direct towards the city manager given that he's going to be in charge of doing that yes sir um once i have a scope two to three weeks to put the rfp package together then something of this magnitude we would want to put it out there for no less than 30 days then based on the number of respondents for example i just got the insurance rfp it's a box this thick of everything so that that's two weeks for us to review it before we then meet as an evaluation committee and something like this then you're also going to want to have um one-on-one um you know evaluations with them where the firms come and give a you know a presentation to the evaluation committee then it's talking about who's on the evaluation committee so then every one of those if it's the commission would also have to be um publicly noticed because you're the commission you know so you're looking in my opinion based on something like this on a normal auditor rfp is three months you're probably looking at at least five months because of the complexities um once i get the scope from the commission maybe it's better to do this step by step i was just going to say would it be better to do a date certain tiered approach saying that we would like to have the scope within 30 days the rfp within another 30 days that would put us at 60 days then would you prefer that i think that that is reasonable i do want to flag that i believe that the commission would need to provide direction on the scope so likely we would need to have a workshop discussion where that perhaps based on kind of a skeleton draft the commission can provide that direction and then give staff additional time to refine and put that together before it goes out on the street so your first step may be scheduling a workshop sorry i think maybe 45 days to schedule a workshop and get commission input initial commission input and then i think it might be best to instead of trying to identify all the future dates we just work one one step at a time oh we could initially start it with 120 but that we need to start with the scope and the rfp process in a tiered stage how how would you recommend that we word that mr mayor if i may um just so you know so finance has indicated that because you know we have all these budget workshops coming up and obviously we're deep in budget season uh they prefer to do this workshop at the end of august and ideally you all could come to the workshop with the list of what you want so again if this is going to answer to you and be yours you need to take ownership and give that list because it's yours so i would urge you to take this time put together your list bring it to the workshop and i mean ideally then we could put it all together into the rfp and then staff could i mean john i don't speak for you but then i mean absolutely i mean just as a point of reference when we're doing a normal audit which is tim said very high level it takes six months from the start of you know interim to completion of field work and all of the reports so just to do the work for a normal city audit is six months anything faster than that will require a significant and i'll do whatever i'm asked to do i promise but that's a significant staff time just from finance because everything on this will come from finance contracts expenditures revenues policies you know travel policies purchasing policies then we're changing the policy so then you know we've got to look at all the different dates that the policy changed because that pendulum switched every time the policy changed so if we go back to 2022 there's been significant changes in policies and procedures during that time so i can absolutely get before you a firm to do the audit within no more than five months no questions asked so now we're looking you know november that's a hundred and fifty days in place then you've got to give some time because if we do ask for it to be completed and i'm just saying this in 90 days or less now you're talking about they're starting it in november and we're in the middle of doing our normal audit in december through the end of february so these fine individuals behind me can come in and do the you know the field work you know so there's only so many people in finance and that's all i'm asking is for consideration i'll do anything to ask bar none but it's a significant ask so how would you recommend that we do the date certain on that i think the best motion is likely a motion to have a workshop regarding the a workshop to generate the scope for an rfp to procure in and a forensic audit and compliance audit that will respond to the city commission have that workshop posted at the end of august and for the award of the rfp to come before the commission within as soon as reasonably possible to be no later than five months from the date of the workshop i would have meant that to be the date the scope is finalized because the hope is that at the workshop you finalize but you all may say we want this to come back to a meeting we want to vote we want i mean there could be a host of so i should i would say from finalization and i love demand star so i have no problem pulling down data of similar scopes of audits like this so that that could be provided um to assist the commission in narrowing the scope i'm i'm okay with amending it to that as zach stated with jim i'm fine with that with the second okay motion passes six to one can i get a motion to extend the meeting so moved can i get a second second how long do you want to extend the meeting commissioner uh let's do 20 minutes all right simple vote say aye aye aye anybody opposed okay we're going to go ahead and get started with section 7c if i can please have the city attorney this is a long one so hopefully you've been rested go ahead yes mr mayor this is ordinance number 29-2025 an ordinance of the city of deltona florida providing for imposition of a temporary moratorium on issuance of development orders and permits and on the processing of development applications city code tax amendments rezonings comprehensive plan taxed and land use plan amendments for development of residential dwelling units within the city exempting specified development providing for waivers providing for vested rights providing for appeals providing for exhaustion of administrative remedies providing for a term not to exceed nine months unless extended by the city commission as provided by law providing for conflicts severability and an effective date all right jordan um can i get a motion at this time uh so we can start conversation i'd like to make a motion hold on let's i hear my move to approve ordinance number 29-2025 at first reading now you can make your second commissioner uh calwell with the mic on please second i'm going to make your practice um go ahead uh jordan thank you mayor good evening commissioners mayor um tonight we are presenting ordinance 29-2025 which proposes a temporary moratorium on certain residential development activities within the city of deltona the proposed duration is up to nine months and is intended to give the city time to evaluate and address infrastructure and policy concerns related to continued residential growth this slide frames the approach so what is the problem we're trying to identify how is this moratorium connected to it and what do we hope to solve during this pause during this moratorium to be legally defensible a moratorium must um meet a two-pronged test number one it should serve a legitimate public interest such as protecting infrastructure and number two it must be proportional and limited in scope and time i'm now going to turn it over to um legal and we'll go over some laws and judicial decisions thank you so the next few slides will just be an overview of some relevant law and um judicial decisions that you may hear mentioned in tonight's discussion either amongst each other staff or from the public so the first is the bert j harris property private property rights protection act most people call this the bert harris act and this is a statutory scheme that provides a right for recovery and compensation to any property owner damaged by a specific action of a governmental entity that has inordinately burdened an existing use of real property or a vested right to a specific use of real property so under the statute inordinate burden or inordinately burdened means that an action of one or more governmental entities has directly restricted or limited the use of a real property such that the property owner is permanently unable to attain reasonable investment-backed expectation for the existing use of the real property or a vested right to a specific use of that real property with respect to the real property as a whole or that the property owner is left with existing or vested uses that are unreasonable such that the property owner bears permanently a disproportionate share of a burden imposed for the pub for the good of the public which in fairness should be borne by the public at large the act further goes on to state that temporary impacts to a real property in effect for one year or less do not constitute an inordinate burden so i will repeat that again a temporary impact for a term less than one year is not considered an inordinate burden under the act and that is very important as we move forward with this discussion and as you all have already provided direction for this to be a term of nine months or a term not to exceed nine months you are well within that threshold for this not providing in providing for action under the burt harris scheme the next slide here is first english evangelical lutheran church versus los angeles county this is a supreme court case out of california that informs the case law regarding takings in a temporary situation so in the facts of this case in 1957 a church purchased land on which it operated a campground and retreat the campground was located alongside the canyon which housed a dry river bed for the banks of mill creek in 1978 a storm dropped 11 inches of water and throughout the watershed which caused a raging river to sweep through this canyon and swept away buildings at both the church's site and throughout the area causing great damage as a direct result of the flood los angeles county adopted an interim ordinance that prohibited the construction of any building in the interim flood protection areas including the church's property the church filed suit and upon review at the supreme court level the court held that the land orders owners were entitled to damages for the temporary taking um so this just uh provides a some relevant case law regards to temporary deprivation of land use and um the the stand for the proposition that compensation may be due under certain circumstances when all use of it of land is deprived even for a temporary period the next um piece here as well is a 2002 informal attorney general opinion issued by assistant attorney general jocelyn wilson this was an inquiry that came from the city of cape coral who which was seeking guidance on the imposition of a temporary moratorium ordinance for their city the question posed was whether during the inaction period at the time between public notice first reading second reading and final adoption whether applications for development could be held could be stayed during that implementation period and that was answered in the negative that the city could not hold the intake of applications until the final adoption hearing of the the ordinance that just is some additional guidance for you all additional case law for you all tonight which will bring us into deltona's proposed moratorium so now we will discuss what this moratorium will look like so the purpose and scope of the moratorium the moratorium targets new residential development applications including rezonings and plan amendments for residential unit for residential uses excuse me the pause will allow the city to analyze capacity and service impacts for growth and recommend adjustments where needed in terms of legal authority the action is fully within the city's authority under the florida constitution in chapters 163 and 166 which allow municipalities to regulate land use in the interest of public health safety and welfare what is the stated basis for this moratorium the city has seen significant residential development pressure in recent years public infrastructure such as roads utilities and emergency services is struggling to keep pace and this moratorium will provide time to evaluate and ensure that development aligns with community needs and infrastructure capacity what are the goals during this moratorium staff will continue to conduct a city-wide infrastructure assessment staff will continue to update land use policies and zoning to ensure smart and sustainable growth and staff will continue to explore policies for infill development infrastructure funding and future growth management now this moratorium does include exemptions which is in the ordinance in front of you the moratorium does not apply to commercial industrial officer school projects projects on city-owned or cra-owned land projects with approved site plans are applied prior to june 30th and any approval or permits related to prior entitlements and specific projects identified in exhibit a of the ordinance and at your seat is there's an updated exhibit a the only change is at the bottom there's a little asterisk for option b which is for halifax and it's option b is continued upon the second reading and adoption of ordinance number 14-2025 so with this moratorium the commission may adjust the nine month duration they can consider exemptions for infill residential or mixed use projects and they can provide direction for any changes or clarifications before a second reading the planning and zoning board met earlier today at 4 30 and during their special meeting they reviewed ordinance 29-2025 the board voted four to three to reckon recommend approval of the ordinance with the inclusion of the three key refinements number one except exempt infill residential development for single-family homes to allow continued investment and underutilized lots within established neighborhoods number two exempt mixed-use developments that include fewer than six residential units per acre and contain less than 30 percent residential use in the overall project to support low impact economically balanced growth and number three add a provision for automatic sunset of the moratorium in the event that senate bill 180 is signed into law by the governor to safeguard the city against retroactive invalidation and legal exposure that brings us into um just a final slide on legislative risk um senate bill 180 as uh you are all aware this has passed the state legislature and is now pending signature um or action by the governor in the event that it is passed into law it would have a statewide impact including deltona that would prohibit a new local development restrictions with a retroactive date of october august 1st 2024 and moving forward to october 1st 2027 so this would serve to invalidate the moratorium should it be enacted and the risk to the city is that impacted parties can seek to invalidate these local ordinances that are contrary to the intent of sb 180 and if successful they could recover attorney's fees and costs this is just making you all aware of the potential this is not intended to scare you in any way this is just ensuring that you are all aware of the risk should this legislation come and become enacted then staff recommends the city commission hold a public hearing on ordinance number 29-2025 and provide any changes or direction to staff for second reading thank you and i will also add that you all should have um updated copies of the ordinance that includes the recommendations by the planning and zoning board so if you all choose to adopt those recommendations as provided they're highlighted in yellow you all could move forward with those um or choose to move forward with any other uh adjustments that you would like thank you we have commissioner howington vice mayor harriet and commissioner cole thank you mayor great presentation thank you for putting it together so quickly i think you guys did great with that um one thing that i didn't hear mentioned that i heard mentioned in our previous meeting was that if 180 does go into place and becomes law july 1st that we have a 14 day basically like a cooling off period if somebody does bring a lawsuit against us to make a determination is has that changed no so the way it works it's it's the same as we discussed last time the way it works is um a resident or business owner uh if they notify us um that it's a violation of of senate bill 180 we would then have 14 days from the date of their notification to withdraw our action in this case it would be a moratorium but it can be to withdraw any of the actions comprehensive plan amendments land development regulations but in this case the moratorium um we also would need to do a notice of intent to repeal and uh and then we would need to repeal within the 14 days so that's still in place we can pass this ordinance and if um a resident or business owner does provide that notice we would have the opportunity to invalidate um and then they would not be able to get attorney's fees so if we have that option in place then having the automatic sunset of this based on 180 passing on july 1st would almost be negated because we do have some protection built into the legislation correct for us to act within a timely manner that's a decision you all would need to make you would need to take affirmative steps and so we would need to schedule a special meeting bring the item and you all would need to vote um so i it does give an out a good out but that it's it would require affirmative action and relatively quick affirmative action um as far as acreage density for infill lots what was the what was the final decision on that because i thought that it was one home per acre so the lower the density the projects would not be impacted did that get picked up or how did that so um as currently drafted there is um that is not defined so you all can define that tonight if you want to define the infill as um being that one unit per acre density or if you'd like to define it by a minimum lot size or both those are all options available to you tonight okay and as far as info i'm i'm gonna leave that up to you know i'd like to hear other people's input but i did not have an intent to change the motion for mixed use at this time but i'll reserve that to hear what everybody has to say that's all i have for right this moment but i may come back with additional questions if i'm gonna amend the motion vice mayor harriet commissioner caldwell then commissioner lulley thank you mayor um i'd like to ask the motioner which copy of the ordinance was intended to be motioned the original copy or the copy that was recommended by by pnc the amended sorry the amended the copy as we're seeing yeah recommended into account yes with the exception of i do not intend to include the 180 sunset as i just stated so that would be removed okay so i i don't um let me start with i do's so this commission has worked diligently over the last few months to address a lot of the concerns um that have been brought to us by residents and observed by ourselves i think we've done a phenomenal job doing that in fact we we're actively working on stormwater updates to the land development code we've changed a lot of the land development code with stricter requirements to me this feels very rushed i don't know that i would prefer a much more measured approach that didn't negatively impact some of our residents that are here in this room today i feel like it's being rushed for a specific reason and i'm not going to restate that reason i but i think that that's i don't think that that's appropriate i don't think that that moves the city in the the forward direction we saw flooding in 2022 hurricane ian that impacted 180-ish possibly more homes we don't as far as i understand the city doesn't have a complete number on it but it's possibly more than 180 with no significant stormwater changes between 22 and 2024 with hurricane milton with in hurricane milton that number was reduced to the teens i understand that a lot of the flooding that was that did exist in milton was related to bad development that the city is our is actively pursuing um remedies for with those developers we've taken action on a couple of the other the ones that we're able to take action on i think that this is this is not a measured approach this does not fit the best interest of the city um i think we've already taken a lot of steps there's the reality of it also is we've got this residential project list in front of us and impact fees are paid at the point that building permits are pulled and the reality is that we don't have a lot of developments that are at the point where permits for vertical construction will be pulled and i'm not sure that it's reasonable or it's the risk is there to for the developers to get to that point so we're protecting this the city against something that i don't think is that great of a risk at this moment um i do want to explicitly highlight how important these mitigation measures are for stormwater for flooding where we've got the um zoning in progress for the stormwater chapter of the land development code you know we're making a lot of strides public works uh presented a bunch of projects that are being currently worked on for stormwater related uh you know stormwater related projects so i i just think that this is this isn't a measured way to proceed and it it puts us at an increasingly risky position that i don't know that we need to take at this point point of order can i make a motion to extend the meeting we would have to retract your current motion because there's a motion on the floor correct is that the way choice yeah there's a motion on the floor you just retract your motion you can make it again afterwards okay i'll retract the motion and i'm making a motion to extend the meeting for an additional hour hopefully we don't go that long yeah i don't that's not the intent but you know can i speak mayor yes please thank you so last meeting we spent three hours on this same topic three hours today we should have known already what we spoke about and what we were going to vote this should have been very simple we knew what we were going to vote on pnz didn't even take half an hour to make a decision that's right they went through the whole thing within half an hour boom bam they made it they voted so now we're going back again to telling the stories from the beginning to the end you know i have to go home i have a sick mom at home so you know let's let's let's get this over and done with i mean it's ridiculous commissioner bela vasquez would you prefer 30 minutes i prefer to make a motion and get this over and done with let's make a motion we already know what we want let's just make the motion all right i'll make the motion and so let's uh if it's okay with the commission let's listen to public comment and then we can just vote well i'd still like to make a motion to extend it for 30 minutes just to make sure that we don't have any legal issues sir second can you please use your mic second it there's a motion by commissioner howington to extend the meeting 30 minutes there's a second by commissioner colwell can we please do uh just do a roll call vote commissioner vila vasquez till 10 32 yes commissioner colwell yes fisher howington yes commissioner lilly yes commissioner santiago yes harriet no mayor vila yeah okay i'll make the motion i move to let's let's not make this mockery let's do it the right way go ahead i hereby move to approve ordinance number 29-2025 at first reading from the one proposed by planning and zoning with the removal of the sunset at 100 if senate bill 180 passes so remove that keep infill lots and mixed use so yes that's so just remove the senate bill 180 commissioner uh there's a motion by commissioner howington is there a second i'll second for second by commissioner colwell thank you for using your mic can we please go to public comment and i know that other commissioners want to speak so let's listen to public comment and then i'm going to have to show you your guys speeches i'm sorry but i everybody here we got to respect everybody's time so public comment please larry french larry french uh 2520 arson street i've been a resident here for many years and i've spoken and written and posted for many years about this topic or the need for this topic because the root cause of it is the way we do our development regardless of whatever you decide or whether we have a moratorium or not we've got to fix the flaws that our development process has staff has mentioned about how they're working on making changes and those changes to some of the code that we have that's flawed it's going to take three to six weeks or more to get some of those things done and your exhibit a clearly shows you hundreds and hundreds of homes that are already in the process that are not going to be corrected in any way in the practices that are used for clearing land destroying habitat causing elevation changes that could create flooding so regardless of what you do what we've got to do in our planning and zoning and our comp plan and in our land development code is we've got to utilize proven ecological design development practices instead of letting the plan for the development dictate how the land is used you need to let the land dictate how the plan has put together for the design instead of clear cutting and wiping away everything that's already there those things need to be kept in consideration because for decades eons they have regulated our water our water quality our wildlife and created the environment that brought many of us here so we've got to use what we know it's been done and utilized in other communities and put these things into practice we've got to stop letting them clear cut we've got to start using materials that are ecological thank you table audit good evening tim logic deltona uh i'm not much time so i'm going to get into this um i was kind of hoping to hear something about how to protect the people who are moving into these areas i heard the term flood protection zone that would be great some way to percolate the ground and find out that they're not living in a flood zone we could probably figure something like that out if we had the answers from the teresa basin study but instead what we got here on page five six and seven they talk about infill residential development i suppose those are people who find a plot of land but a house on it that's great they're not going to do much damage but then we get into mixed use development in other words m pods the scourge of deltona the things that go on forever ruining the ground and causing floods to your neighbors and yourself so we're going to protect those and we're going to protect all the ones that have already been improved as they just mentioned in exhibit a and we're going to protect anybody who gets them approved up until a week from now gee i sure am glad the developers have been protected with this ordinance this ordinance is basically what i call a hollywood ordinance it's lights camera and no action congratulations eliza chavez i say yes to the moratorium i say yes to moratorium because i think it does give some um time for some upgraded things that they were saying in the in the great presentation that the gentleman gave and i think that it also gives us some safety in our city um to look at the infrastructure i really hate to hear that at the 4 30 pm meeting that it is acknowledged that developers are coming in and doing the stormwater however way they fit and it's causing issues this is a safety issue for deltona and i remember going to four meetings three out of the four where everybody was concerned about safety not just crossing a road and they're not being no ada there and somebody getting hit and dying i'm talking about other safeties these are infrastructures these are roads these are like he was saying um the safety measures for traffic um you know it used to take me 15 minutes to get to the land and now it takes me 34 from deltona to the land and that's just from my house off of normandy trying to get to um kentucky or whatever where i have to go on to 41 15 it take it could take me 20 minutes and then we're talking about not not doing moratorium i understand you're doing a motion i really hope that you guys say yes to this moratorium robin french robin french 2520 arceline street deltona i've been a resident here in deltona for 43 years temporary loss of use what about permanent loss of use because that's what my property is impact fees what about the impact to current residents we've lost the ability to grow our food i've lost my garden on my fruit trees we can only utilize half of our property luckily my house was undamaged but that's because my husband's smart and knows how to build it our property is underwater we lived on a seasonal pond that has turned into a raging mud hole yes it's receded somewhat and what is left resembles a moonscape not the park that it was prior to in you were originally pumping off of elkham to keep it clear into our lake this last time around we were told i weren't but i could see pump stations so i'm sorry i know how it works lake tiny to lake angela to lake elizabeth 34 years of work and love destroyed for blind greed and that's all i can see is blind greed not only with the developers but with our city past commissions and managers who have allowed it flood pulling acreage next to me i stopped counting after 50 lots of filter they popped their house right on top of mine and i'm still flooded four years after am now is the time to change we can't wait any longer terry ellis diane anthony um all right i realize the moratorium is not perfect but at this point it's all we've got and it's better than nothing um i do i have watched for years in not only deltona but other central florida cities where the developers come in and they're not asking to just make a profit they're a ask they constantly ask to rezone to small small lots and zero lot lines to make as much profit as possible because i saw in those uh slides saying preventing them from making a profit no they're making a huge profit at our expense and the zoning does rules do need to be changed and if this is continues and everyone and i even saw a video of a commissioner recently saying a moratorium would be devastating to deltona because we could get sued well at what point do residents of deltona start getting the right to sue the city because their properties are ruined due to the decisions of the zoning and in favor of the developers and um i think everyone here knows what the residents of deltona want and constantly going what about the tax dollars that development will bring again is not making up for the destruction quality of life makes a huge difference and uh when they say this is what the people voted for it is not people nobody campaigns in this city going i'm campaigning on the fact that i'm going to rezone all larger lots to lots as small as possible and approve every single development and subdivision that comes along because they know they would not get voted in if they said that um i really encourage you to please change the trajectory of deltona and thank you kathy bryan i have mixed feelings about this just because of the way the state's been working lately and i say for everybody who wants this moratorium and does not appreciate what's happening move it up from just the city go to the state because unfortunately we're bound by the state laws but to do a moratorium or to not um we really do need to take a pause to work on ways for smarter development that benefits the entire city and not just the developer um again i've said this before i've heard other people say tonight you do not have to rezone to increase density i say it's buyer beware you bought the property under a zone it's a gamble and they're used to winning so they don't like it when they lose well we have every right to not rezone um is it more expensive to fix all the problems that we have i think like lastly i was just kind of saying versus the lawsuits i mean why why does this person have property rights but i don't i'm going to start burning on my yard and blowing the smoke on all my neighbors and see how far that gets me right um the pressure of development is not only putting pressure on the roads and traffic but the schools too i don't give a crap what the school board says they're full of it our schools are overcrowded um infill lots i agree it is it's not a big deal but the impuds honestly there's so much density in those things and so much worse on our infrastructure so if you go ahead with the moratorium you better have a good plan in place so it doesn't fall off the map again thanks david zosa first of all i'm going to say i'm in support of the moratorium barring we exclude commercial which you did and infill lots i know on the infill lots you say you could get an exemption or a waiver but also in your language it said it would cost the resident 1500 and then it would have to be voted on that's nonsense infill lots need to be taken out um now what we do need to do is address basically public safety and flooding two main issues right here and i think the moratorium should give you enough time to do that now like i said before there was a moratorium placed before for nine months that should have had some work on that our folks over here should be reviewing already or since day one when they got hired and have made changes to them now i know emma you talked about uh we don't want to do a moratorium because we're afraid of ticking off the state and we might not get three million dollars which we might not get anyways in case you know the government vetoes it like he has in the past that's chump change it's table scraps you got 950 million dollars sitting in transform three three what is it 386 or whatever it is your husband's in charge of that i've asked a couple of the county council members why isn't beltona getting their money he says you guys have given them nothing so it's not their fault you're not getting money it's your fault for not providing them opportunity to do things as far as class action lawsuits if 180 passes who cares sue the state you're going to have people like orange county who has rural boundaries that might be impacted you have alceola county you have other municipalities that currently have moratoriums do a class action lawsuit against the state and just to get to the mixed use if the mixed use in here if i'm reading it correctly it says it must be 70 commercial 30 residential is that how i'm reading that in this packet if so i'm okay with that if not then i oppose it all right in the interest of time i'm going to go through the ones that are here to speak one more time commissioner caldwell then commissioner lully then commissioner santiago yeah i just want to state it i don't think the uh intent of this motion is to do other anything other than um have a chance to address our impact fees and our stormwater issues with that being said could i get a quick overview of the time frame needed to change our impact fees certainly so there is out on the street right now in rfp to select a company that would conduct the impact fee study which is a special purpose study that has to use current data and be conducted specifically for the purpose of impact fees so we could not use for instance the theresa basin study some of that data may be helpful to the firm conducting the impact fee study but that study alone would not provide the basis for impact fees a typical timeline depending obviously on the data available and the complexity of the calculations needed to be done by the selected firm could range anywhere from three to six months um in conducting their study this is of course ballpark whatever firm is selected would have you know an agreed upon timeline in their their own metrics by statute um there has to be a 90 day phase in of an impact fee so from the date that the gavel hits on second reading and the impact fee ordinance is adopted there must be a 90 day phase in period before the um in the new impact fee schedule becomes active that is so there's some public notice requirements that have to occur within those 90 days but that is a statutorily prescribed timeline so we're probably looking at close to nine months to a year for the process but i would say that's accurate my second question is um on infill lots um is there any way to um handle the commercial builders as opposed to the private residents so i would caution you on distinguishing between ownership types by providing for an exemption from the application of the moratorium essentially the commission is stating that this type of development does not provide the same impacts as the other residential developments so by distinguishing by ownership type that argument doesn't quite track um because you're distinguishing this by development type not by ownership type understand um one last question to the uh the motion later would you consider removing the mixed use development from this motion i would remove mixed use okay did the person that made the second agree with that motion yes commissioner lowley uh in the sake of time i'll make this quick um i think at the second reading i'll have more to say on the infill but i wanted to flag for the family in the audience tonight that as presented tonight this motion would not affect your um plans to construct a home on your residential estate one parcel on prescott boulevard thank you just just for clarification is there a lot more than an acre an acre or more yes in residential estate one it would be one uh minimum one unit per acre okay commissioner santiago thank you thank you mayor really quick on for the attorneys how much would it cost the city of deltona residents would we sue the state so if we sue the state and this is uh ballpark very rough um and we we spoke with two of the firms that have done work uh for the city before litigation for the city before um ballpark is two hundred to six hundred thousand um it's their opinion that uh the case presumably we would end up joining with other governments um so hopefully some of that cost could be uh shared however that's not a given uh they also their opinion is that you you don't have to do that by the way uh but but you can you can elect to do that their opinion is that even if we prevail they'll it'll be appealed um and that the supreme court would take it up so it will it will go all the way um which could push us up to the higher end of the cost um and again we may we may want to team up with other people but other governments might not be perfectly aligned with us so we would have to make sure we found the right partner who had our same interest in our same track thank you very much just really quick um do um i agree with the vice mayor how this is not in the best interest of the city um we're doing lots of things right now that are moving forward especially with the impact fee studies um so i just wanted to make those little quick notes before i know it's almost time thank you i just want to make a comment um i thought pnz had three great compromises i was going to vote for it with the compromises pnz did makes use and fill lots out and the third point of sb 180 we just removed two of the compromises i mean if we're gonna if we're gonna you know do it this way that's that's great so let's vote i'm not going to support this by removing the provisions that pnz recommended so can we please vote motion passes for three is there any city manager comments no um i mentioned sorry hold on hold on yeah that's what i'm talking about oh i mentioned actually a request to pull that item from the agenda uh 30 years have been putting festivals on in five different communities i've heard the feedback here in deltona i've taken under advisement and we'll change the policy to allow political vendors at the festival so no need to follow through on that item do we need to make a motion to pull it from the agenda he's ceding to it so there's no motion yeah so i just want that on record so that nobody comes back and says we didn't do something bob stayed all night for the city manager any comments not at this time thank you