CITY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING - Mar 06, 2025

everybody. We're going to call the March 6, 2025 City Commission meeting into order, and we're going to start our meeting with the invocation and pledge of allegiance. Jen? Let us begin this meeting by taking a brief moment of silence and reflection. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we don't have any presentations tonight, so I'm going to go right to Citizen Input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on a topic tonight that is not on the agenda? Come forward. If you can give your name, address, in three minutes. This is going to be very interesting, and I like the kilt. Okay, now. All right. Here we go. We can put this right here. All right. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Steve Carosi, 1858 San Mateo Drive. I'm the president of the new minor league football team here in Dunedin, the Dunedin Highlanders. Our season opener is this Saturday, and we're here because we want to make the Highlanders a deep part of this city. I love Dunedin. I've known this community since I was a little boy when I used to come down here to visit, and I moved down here in 2015, and I've loved it ever since, even more. I volunteer a lot over at the Dunedin High School, and when I had the opportunity to start up a team with my vice president and general manager, Andy Villamarzo, it was the Highlanders all the way because of the deep-rooted Scottish tradition here in Dunedin, and we want to get the community to jump on board with us. Our players come from all walks of life. Most of them are between 18 and 25. Some of them are in their 30s. One of our players is a former NFL standout player. I'll give you the name, Dominique Rogers Cromartie. He's our defensive back, so we want to have a great festive atmosphere over at the stadium. We've nicknamed it Freedom Field. We have a mascot named The Highlander, and we're going to have tents and vendors pre-game. We have the high school Scottish Highlander Band going to be at all our games, both the pipe and the marching band. We're also going to have dancers from the Davidson School of Highland Dance, so we're trying to tie in everything related to the Scottish heritage. One of our mottos is, wear your kilts, because that's the atmosphere we want. Wear your kilts. As you can see, I got my kilt on today. Always. Always. So, not to stray off topic too much, I show up to practice like this usually because I'm out and about making contact with the community, and the players thought I was Scottish. I'm not Scottish. I'm Hungarian by ancestry, but they thought I was Scottish. I'm like, no, guys, come on. So, I want to welcome all of you to come to our games. All I ask you to do is tell your friends, tell everybody you know, come see The Highlanders. Our tickets this season is $10 for adults. Students between the ages of 10 and 17 are $5. Children 9 and under are free. Come enjoy The Highlanders. Come one time. You won't be disappointed. I'm going to turn it over to one of our other administrate, ooh, I'm stumbling over my words, one of our other administrators. I'll just introduce him as Moose. Hi, Moose. Good evening, board. Good evening, mayor. Good evening, everyone. Yeah, my name is Moose Tariq, but I go by Moose, and I just wanted to kind of just kind of give a little backstory. I've been living here in Pinellas County around this area, Palm Harbor and Dunedin area since 2005, and I came back from Boston a couple years ago, and ever since I came back, I really wanted to just spend as much time as I could in my community, and I ran into Steve online, and I was able to kind of join this awesome new team in Dunedin, and I just feel like I am a strong advocate for community. This is another beautiful thing that we can have now in the city of Dunedin. It's a family-friendly event, of course, and on top of that, I mean, I feel like the only way that any, you know, society can succeed at the end of the day is, you know, when we all can help each other out. So, you know, this is not just always about us. This is about everyone who is supporting us and everyone else in the community. With that being said, we hope to see you in a couple of days on March 8th for our home opener. What's the time again? 5 p.m., but gates open at 4 p.m. Okay, good. Great. Thank you. It is a home game. Not to brag too much, but we opened our first-ever game last week in Ocala against the North Florida Warriors. They won the championship last year in a double-A, and they're actually in one poll ranked number two in the country. We soundingly defeated them last week. All right. What are you talking about? I like that. I say we. I don't play. I'm too old. But what I'm telling you, you're going to have a really great football on the field. Real quick, I'm going to turn it over to one of our player reps. His name is Mr. Hegel. Come on over. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having us tonight. I'm a player and representative. My name is Nathan Hegel. I grew up in Pinellas County since I was three years old. I've been a resident of Dunedin for the last 13 years. I also own a business, the studio Sauna and Coal Plunge in the Causeway Plaza. We've been open a year and a half, a member of the Chamber of Commerce. And my wife and I opened that business with the intent of community and providing a service for Dunedin. We really feel, us as a business, and then I can speak for the team that we are blessed to be a part of the city of Dunedin. We are very proud to be part of the city of Dunedin. And the more the merrier. It's more fun playing in front of a big crowd. And we have a great product on the field. These guys have been working really hard behind the scenes to put together a great atmosphere for families. And yeah, we just ask that for your support. And we promise to make it fun for you. Thanks for having us again. Thanks for being here. I have bad news. We didn't bring enough shirts. So we will drop off more shirts for you guys. Just need to know your sizes. We tried to guess on the commissioners and the mayor. So let's see if Moose got it right. I was going to say, it all comes down to Moose. It all comes down to Moose. It all comes down to Moose. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Oh yeah, that's my size. Here you go, Steve. We're passing down a helmet. No, it's an incentive. Um, not tonight, I don't think. Thank you. Oh, it is. It is. Just, just to clarify, it is not high school football. This is men's 11v11 tackle football. We are all over social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. Go on there, check it out. Um, we actually have one more thing we got to mention because we're all about surprises and fun. Uh, we have the beautiful voice of Katie Ducharme, who's going to be singing our national anthem at, at several of our games. So we always love to hear Katie sing. All right. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. And yeah, go get them. Yeah. That's awesome. Take it out. All right. That's so much fun. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, thank you, sir. Thank you. We're going to have you back when you win your first championship. Let's go get them. Okay. Uh, okay. We're going to go to our, well, let me ask, is there anybody else in the audience who wishes to speak on an item that is not on the agenda? And they did have four people. So we gave them a little leeway there. Okay. And seeing nobody else, we're going to go to our first action item. Our action item is Midtown Parking Garage Design Criteria Update. And we have, uh, we're going to start with a staff presentation by city manager, Jennifer Bramley. Yes. Good evening, mayor, uh, vice mayor and commissioners. Uh, typically Bob Ironsmith would be doing this presentation. Uh, Bob is sick tonight. He has been, he's got the bug, unfortunately. Yeah. And it's the first time in 30 years that he's missed his agenda item before the city commission. So we're hoping Bob gets better, uh, soon and makes a full recovery. Lots of fluids and rest, but, uh, you're stuck, stuck with a sloppy second here. So, uh, I'll get, I'm going to give you an overview. Uh, but first of all, if I may introduce, uh, your speakers this evening, uh, we have, uh, Jim Zulu from, uh, Timothy Haas Associates out of New Jersey. Yeah. He's going to be doing the presentation, which also features a really cool flyover. Uh, we have, uh, Jeffrey Antonacci. Did I say that right, Jeffrey? Yes. I can't believe I did. Wow. Okay. He's the lead engineer for infrastructure and consulting and engineering. And I believe Jerry Dubkowski also worked on the, uh, traffic management. Yes. Traffic circulation plan. And he's not able to be here, uh, with us this evening, um, either. And so, um, um, I'm going to actually, uh, I'm going to get right into it, mayor, if I may, with, with a design criteria package, uh, and what's before you this evening. It's your show. Okay. Thank you, mayor. Um, last October 3rd, third of 2024, uh, the city commissioner authorized THA. That's what we'll, uh, to prepare a design criteria package for the mid, uh, town parking garage. Uh, the design criteria package, it specifies the performance-based criteria for a public, uh, construction project. And by, uh, Florida statute, uh, design criteria package is, is required when, when we are, um, uh, uh, using this form of, of, uh, building, if you will, or building conveyance, which is design build. It also, uh, includes, uh, schematic layouts and conceptual design, which is really where we are, uh, tonight as far as the project goes. Uh, the design criteria package is necessary, as I said, uh, for RFQs for a design request, for qualifications for design build projects. Um, and as part of their engagement, uh, THA, which, uh, they have really impressed us with their work on this project. And I think you'll be pleased, uh, when you see the conceptual design in the flyover, but they have prepared the architectural elevations and dimensional facade concepts for city commission consideration. Uh, these concepts were reviewed by the architectural review committee, uh, last February, just a few weeks ago. Uh, and I think we'll talk a little bit more about that, uh, during the course of the presentation and some of the architectural review committee's comments. I want to be very clear about what it is, uh, staff is asking for this evening from the city commission. Uh, we're seeking your comments on the options. And one thing I want to bring to your attention, to all of your attentions is that we did, uh, work a little bit on the PowerPoint presentation this afternoon to shorten it, uh, to be a little bit more concise. Uh, it was 52, uh, slides and we've narrowed it down to 54, just kidding. Wrong direction, right? But it was so, so we didn't, um, add anything. Uh, we, we deleted it, but we are going to attach it to the agenda item as a version two, just to make sure that the public record is, is, um, is sound. Um, so staff is seeking from the city commission tonight comments on some of the images that you're going to see, um, and consensus direction to move forward with completion of the design criteria package. So there's just a little bit more to go. The conceptual designs are done, uh, and we need to complete, uh, THA needs to complete their work. Um, and then that should be done by the middle part of, of April. Uh, the, the traffic, uh, manage, or excuse me, traffic circulation in the area obviously is a critical point of the garage. And we knew that you would have plenty of questions. It's attached to your agenda item, uh, from, from infrastructure and consulting, uh, and engineering. And, um, and we will be here to answer your questions directly as well, since as I, as I said, that's very important. Just a little bit about the, the timeline moving forward then. Uh, as I said, THA will complete their work middle part of April. We're looking to advertise the RFQ, the request, uh, for qualifications by May of 2025. Um, and then we're looking for proposals June of 2025. We'll have a selection committee, uh, in place. Uh, hopefully that will be complete by July of 2025. We'll bring the award, the contract, which is the design build contract, which means the complete designs, um, to the city commission, uh, in August of 2025. And it's important. I wanted to, to, to kind of, um, uh, identify and articulate that timeline. Uh, tonight you're looking at the concepts. You're giving us general direction. You will again see the finished design, uh, before the city commission. Um, and it should reflect the comments that you have here tonight. Uh, we'll issue the notice to proceed in September of 2025 and look for substantial completion, um, by December of 2026. So ambitious, uh, timeline, but, um, uh, regardless it is, uh, on time so far. So, so with that, I'm going to hand it over the presentation over to Mr. Zulow, who will take it from here and, uh, and then we'll lead from one speaker to the next. We do have Carolyn Homer, who is pressing the forward button, but doesn't want any questions. So thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, Jennifer, you, you all can hear me. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. My name is Jim Zula. I'm the president of THA Consulting. We are a, uh, architectural and engineering firm that does specialize in, in parking facilities. I was here, uh, I believe last October, uh, when our contract was approved to do the design criteria package. As, uh, Ms. Bramley indicated, this is a package that then allows the, um, the city to take this and then solicit a design build team. We're at kind of a schematic design level. So the, the remaining, uh, design build team when selected would take it through construction documents. So this is, you know, a preliminary design. But, uh, when I was here, I heard loud and clear that aesthetics were very, very important to, uh, to Dunedin and, uh, our team, you know, embraced that, uh, situation. I, you know, I'll talk a little bit about the site as well, but we certainly rec, rep, you know, recognize the sensitivity to good design. This facility is going to live with your community for decades. So it needs to be very attractive. It needs to represent the character of Dunedin. To that point, we looked at my, um, the design team that worked on it. I think one of them is, uh, participating virtually, but they really enjoyed diving into your community. Um, they, uh, looked at various buildings throughout the, um, throughout the downtown and the area to get a sense of the architectural styles. And then we tried to, uh, incorporate those into some of the design. And the, and the PowerPoint is only down to 20 slides. So it's, uh, and I'll try to move much quicker. So this is an overview of the site, uh, functional design that we, we came up with. Um, and I think what's interesting about this site, it's this parallelogram and it provides on the, uh, you know, on each side opportunities for additional, you know, much larger than sidewalks, little plaza areas, landscape areas. And this, we understood was important in designing this facility. It just wasn't about, you know, creating a place for cars. It was helping to create a, you know, an active, vibrant place. And some of the, um, some of the renderings I think will, will communicate that. Obviously, if you're looking at this, you know, the main entry exit is on Douglas Avenue. And then we designed in a secondary exit off entry and exit off Scotland street for when you have events that Douglas have is closed that can, you know, the garage can still be utilized in function. Um, obviously it's right adjacent to Pinellas trail. And in that sense, you know, understanding the amount of people that use that trail biking, walking day in and day out, it really is kind of an intermodal hub where people can come park, you take their bikes, use the trail, go to the downtown, the downtown, uh, from the main elevator stair tower, which is in the Northwest corner is about a 250 feet from main street. So it's a little about approximately a minute walk thereabouts. There's another main, um, stair tower, not an elevator to the, uh, to the Southeast. So with that, um, again, we just tried to pick up and I'm not an architect. I'm a, I'm a planner and I don't want to speak with a lot of architecture talk, but again, our design team really looked in to some of the things that provide an inspiration. One was the craftsman, uh, architecture, the Mediterranean field, Floridian look, all those types of things. So, um, these were just some of the things that helped guide us. And to be brief, we basically have four options, but the one option I'm going to show you and, you know, kind of thorough detail around the different sites. The other options really have to do with hiding the ramp walls. So let me just briefly explain the, because of the, the, this garage, it has a short footprint. All the, um, the parked areas are ramped. So we were very conscious on hiding those ramped areas. So it really kind of improves the overall aesthetic and I'll speak to that. So this is the view from, um, Douglas and Honey. You see the main entryway there. You see kind of some of the architectural style and we'll, we'll talk a little more on when it goes around. Um, this is a view, right, looking directly across from, uh, Douglas Avenue is that you see the parking entryway. So when you pull in there, you are going straight up to circulate the garage. This facility is about grade level plus two or two and a half supported levels. The majority of the height is about 32 feet to the top of what we call the spandrel wall there. And then when I talk about the, um, the faux wall that hides the ramps, you have about another six feet, but then the elevator and stair are kind of, you know, a little bit higher as well. So again, this is, and, and this concept that you're looking at is consistent with all of the different options. It's just the different walls that we use to hide the ramped areas. That's different. So this is the view from Scotland street. And here you see the secondary entrance that would only be utilized during events in, in, in a more recent, um, in a more recent version, we've just pulled the protective bollards closer to the street. So people don't turn in there and realize they can't get in. So we want to, you know, make sure they know that and they don't make a turn in when they can't get in there. Um, so this is, uh, the wall, this faux wall that you see, uh, you can actually see the ramps behind it and that's designed to, to, to shield those. So this consists, and this option one, this is option one, which is probably the most ornate, um, ornate version where we tried to pull in a lot of different treatments that we, you know, thought were appropriate here. So you'll see, um, you know, a balcony, uh, component to it in the middle there. You'll see the, Bahamian shutters. You'll see the, we actually have a frame to carry vegetation up and then kind of these punched openings at the bottom part that look like, you know, windows. This is just another view of that same wall from Scotland with, but you can see by this triangular, this extra property on the site, you have this nice opportunity for hardscape, landscape, you know, whatever. And that again can come at the later levels of design. What you're seeing here is a schematic design level. When your team gets selected, the intent would be to say, assuming this is something you find desirable, that you want to carry this design forward. Um, this is the view from Scotland and Railroad Ave. This is a section of the facility where it is predominantly just a, a very attractive, uh, pre pre precast concrete. And you can see that where we invested time and energy in the facade enhancements were on either side. This is very simple, but I think very attractive, um, and faces, you know, that part of the, uh, of the town. Obviously we put some frame there where vegetation could potentially grow up the side of the wall as well to kind of break down the mass of the facility. And then this is the view of option one looking from Railroad Avenue East and Honey Lane. You can just see the, the, the entry to the main elevator stairs where you have that hip roof. So people come out into protection. And then again, it's a 250 foot, 300 foot walk to main street, like back this way. This is just another view of that plaza area with landscaping. And there's certainly, you know, a lot of opportunities for public art, you know, the, we've showed planners, but you could have sculptures, you could have even, you know, within the various punched openings there, you could have different types of art, um, art, you know, applications should that be desirable. But you can see here, the main difference in this option is those columns and the Juliet balcony look at the top. Uh, this is a picture of the site to give you a little sense of what this, uh, facility feels like within the context of the neighborhood. Uh, and that's that picture there. So, so very quickly, and I, these different options, and I apologize for if you got the large PowerPoint and had to try to peruse all these pages, but the, the main difference is where we try to hide the ramps. We just came up with different styles and different looks. And as it was said, this, this presentation was reviewed by the architectural review committee about a month ago and, um, you know, they had to come. So the first one, obviously, option one I've shown you, option two is just a little more, it, it basically removes the Juliet balconies. All the other options do just remove the Juliet balconies and have a different, uh, component. So this is the option two. It's just, you know, the, basically what's changed in this is the, uh, the Bahamian shutters are replacing the balconies all the way across the, and again, that the vegetation wall, some people like, some people don't, that can always be changed to whatever. That could be an art display. It could be a lot of different things. Um, because sometimes, you know, the landscaping and art has to be, you know, maintained. So that would be a decision that could come later. This is just a look from the, uh, honey, the, uh, honey lane side. Again, uh, not too much different. Now this, this is just a different version where we've put in columns to kind of break up the mass of this wall a little bit to look, make it look sectionalized, maybe a little more like a storefront in different sections. So again, I, I apologize if it's hard to distinguish the difference, but, um, that's what it is. And, um, so this is just a look, uh, from the other side as well, the honey, well, honey lane side, East honey lane. Uh, and now this is the option four and the, the difference here, the first three options had what we call as a faux wall. So that was a separate wall built adjacent to the structure, independent of the structure to, you know, create that look that you saw. This is where the wall becomes part of the structure. And the main difference, if you look in between the two, um, in the middle of the thing, you have a solid wall at the base there. Um, so those, uh, that's really the main difference here. This is a little cheaper, um, than the previous three versions because you're not building that separate wall, but you does have, um, a, a segment of it that is solid and you don't have that open air feel. But again, here we're showing a vegetation wall, but you could easily do, you know, an art, uh, display or something along that to kind of, you know, give, keep the vibrancy of, of that area and break up the mass of that wall. And that's, um, that's it. We do have a flyover that will show you, I believe it's option one. Do I need to do anything for that? You got that. The flyover just kind of gives you a fly around of the, of the rendering, uh, that was done. I didn't pick the music either. So the one thing too, I just mentioned, we did, you know, create some place for, uh, golf car parking. When you come in the main entrance off of Douglas, there's a section to the right, um, that was designated for, uh, golf carts and it good cause it doesn't put the golf car, you know, it's only about six or eight spaces, but it doesn't intermix them. There may be more that could park in here. Um, but there was a desire to have some golf cart parking as well. So I believe that's it. If there's any questions. Okay. I'm sorry about that. We're going to go to questions for staff and I will start with vice mayor. Thank you, mayor. Uh, you mentioned in the parking garage that there'd be a place for golf carts. Will there be a place for charging stations? Yeah. Well, in with Bob, we talked on Honeywell. They wanted to put the chargings. I believe that they wanted to put charging stations on Honeywell outside of the garage, but we did look also, so that is still in discussion because we know through the dream sustainability document that there's a, you know, a desire for more charging stations that are likely on Honey lane. So in the final design, that'll be determined how many, if and what they would go into the garage. I believe there was, you know, a question about whether that was the place they wanted the, uh, charging stations. Okay. Will there be golf cart parking on Honey as well? I'm sorry. What's golf cart parking on Honey lane as well? You know, I don't know. I mean, we, we just designed within the garage, so I don't, we don't know. And it just feels like you're pushing the charging stations off into a corner that we don't want to talk about, but okay. Thank you. Um, this one might be for the city manager on Scotland. Uh, currently we have signs on Edgewater Drive that don't allow right turns out of courtesy to the residents that live there. With this parking garage, will those signs still remain there or are we giving up on a residence? No, they would remain there. Thank you very much. Uh, that's, those are all my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Sandberg. I had some very specific questions on the currents, the current garage, uh, the current parking and into the future. Are we going to go that deep into it tonight without Bob? Okay. Sure. You can ask what you want. All right. There's about 11 to 12 diagonal spots on Honey. Will we save those or will those be removed? Those will stay. They will stay. Okay. Um, have we had any updates on the Casatina redevelopment? Because this is going to be big and affect what's going on behind them. Not that I know of. Okay. Uh, I live near that lot. There's almost every morning there's overnight RVs, uh, HOA ineligible vehicles, commercial vehicles. Do we have any thoughts of what we're going to do going forward with those type of vehicles? Well, they shouldn't be parked there overnight regardless. And you want to tattle on somebody, but okay. Right. Okay. And typically the sheriff's office will come and move them along, um, uh, knock on some windows and so on and so forth. So sorry guys. Yeah. Yeah. Renee's on it back there. Deputy Renee. Welcome to your new job. Yeah. Um, all right. Uh, and then, you know, I know that somebody recently came to me about, there was a, the parking garage on at the artisan was full and it created some kind of a jam where somebody was in there waiting for a spot and nobody else could move. Is there any way that like a game day, uh, event day, we could have someone, a volunteer, maybe traffic parking volunteer monitor what's going on in there. The, the lot is full. There's no more room. Kind of keep people moving to avoid, uh, confrontation. I guess this one got kind of confrontational. We, you know, it's interesting because in those, those lots, uh, a lot of the not-for-profit groups are, are charging to park in the lots if they're permitted to. Um, you would think that they would keep an accounting of, of how many are in, but it's hard to count how many are in, how many come out, especially if in this case, they wouldn't be coming off Douglas, they'd be coming off Scotland. Yeah. So, so there aren't any plans right now or programming in place to do something like that, but we can certainly entertain it. Okay. If I, if I could just add real quick, um, today, and it works out really well, you, you can install a parking occupancy monitoring system. I mean, where it, it'll count people coming in and out and not by level. I wouldn't recommend here, but with, with a sign outside that would say how many spaces are available in the garage as you drive by Scotland. So that may help people understand. Right. Typically you'll leave, like, you won't do the final count. You'll leave five or ten spaces and call it full at that point. So that won't, you know, people won't circulate through the garage, you know, looking for that last space if they know. Okay. And there's a few spots along Douglas. Will those be retained or will those be removed? They would be removed. Yes. Actually, if I may defer that to, to when we discuss traffic circulation. Okay. All right. Um, you know, I, we talked about the golf carts. I saw the picture, you know, the last few years we have really promoted golf cart usage. And after the hurricanes, we had several days without power, I know that we can't provide a golf cart charger for everyone, but I would be really interested in adequate outlets where people, because we're pushing them to become low speed vehicles and golf cart users. Well, then it kind of flew in our face during that, after the hurricanes, we had, you know, a week without power, something where our citizens, our residents can pull in and charge their golf cart while they're downtown. The other thing we run into is improper. I don't want to call it improper, but not stacking of golf carts when they come into a spot instead of one guy taking the whole spot. Maybe we could go to, maybe we could go three, you know, something going forward. We had signage, an explanation that, you know, this is golf cart parking, you know, and then where people sort of had an idea. Um, that's just, that was, that's from me. Uh, and you also just said something. Will that Scotland exit be closed just during regular business days? I believe that was the intent that the only time that the Scotland would be open is during, you know, events where, uh, Douglas was shut down for a parade or something. You know, after watching the Mardi Gras, after this, let's have one more. After watching the Mardi Gras, there's a lot of people down there. And I picture them standing on the top of that garage, leaning over that ledge. And I don't know if anybody's taking that into consideration, but it sounds like a great place to watch the Mardi Gras, whatever parades, but it also could be a little dangerous. My last thing, could you go to... Deputy Rene's taking note. Gee, does that just matter? You give her lots of work to do, right from the start. And it's a good view. Sir, can we go to, or can we go to slide number 12? And I pause if I didn't mention that the space count presently is 192 spaces. I don't know. I saw that. And I'm, I think it was number 12. It's the one that shows the Scotland Railroad intersection. That might be, that might be it, right? Just, you might want to go to the slideshow. It's like if you were standing on Scotland, looking up railroad, that's east. Scotland's back. So if you go back further. Okay. We're close. It would be... That one right there. That's the one I'm looking for. I live in that area, and that section of railroad is very rarely used and has very light traffic other than exiting the parking lot. I know my colleagues are going to go and probably think I'm nuts, but I'd like to see us get rid of that section of railroad avenue, and you'd enter on Honey and exit north on Honey. Eliminate that road and make that into green space. More grass, more benches, more shade, and more recovery for our citizens, and the walkers and the bicyclists off that trail. So that being said, I'll go ahead and pass my soapbox over, but I'd like to see that section eliminated. Okay. I will go to Commissioner Sandbergen. I'm sorry. Commissioner Walker. Yeah. Sorry. It's that kind of night. I shocked you though, didn't I? Thank you, Mayor. I'm not sure how to take that, but I'm going to go. It's because you didn't have a tie on tonight. That's the only reason. That's right. Switching it up. Okay. So just for clarification, are we being asked, are we going to be giving consent on various options and maybe modifications to those options? Is that what we're being asked to do? I think, yeah, look at the options and the schematic designs in particular. And Commissioner Sandbergen had a recommendation on the traffic circulation. We're going to talk about that a little bit in a moment, but just a general overview of move forward with these designs and make your comments and see what we can incorporate. Okay. Perfect. And then the, and just so I'm focusing these questions, we're going to do the traffic articulation. Yes. Next. After Mr. Zulu is finished. Yeah. All right. Great. Thank you for that. Probably for staff. Just, I think it's important if we baseline exactly what the parking situation currently is here in the city of Dunedin. And I know that we have identified the fact that we'll lose 60 spots with, uh, ocean optics, um, just rough number. So if you could provide, um, the, uh, the number of parking spots total or close to best estimate and how much we own and how much, uh, how much our lease cost is per, uh, per year. Yeah. And I, I think you're, you're asking just overall throughout downtown, the number of parking spaces. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So, so, um, we have, uh, parking spaces that are leased and I'll talk about that in just a moment, but we did do several traffic studies, maybe two, three traffic studies. I believe on surface parking, parking within the right of way. We have about 700. Um, we have, we've also, uh, uh, undertaken, uh, in the past three or four years, an effort to, to acquire, uh, offsite lots, remote lots. And we have remote lots now at the hospital for events at the hospital at Curtis, uh, um, fundamental, um, uh, gateway has been, uh, very helpful as far as providing additional parking for special events. Um, uh, the First Presbyterian Church has about a hundred parking spaces, uh, that they provide. That's, that's their own thing, but we're not really involved in that. Um, as far as the day-to-day parking, that's specifically for events. As far as the day-to-day parking goes, uh, in the periphery of downtown, uh, we have the justice lot at 228 Main Street and Broadway. That's 32 spaces. We pay $41,000, um, a year for that parking and that, uh, that agreement expires in, in 2028. And the reason why I talk about expiration of the agreement is that every time an agreement expires, um, it, it increases, the amount of lease increases, uh, uh, by quite a bit. So we also have the Bushnell lot, uh, that, that, uh, belongs to attorney Deborah Bushnell, and that's 34 spaces. An annual cost is 6,238. She actually donates that parking to the city, but we pay the taxes on a lot and that expires on July, uh, 31st of 2025. And we're very grateful to Ms. Bushnell for her donation of parking. Uh, we have the Ocean Optics, 380 Main Street, which is 41 parking spaces. And you know, that, that parking lot, it's 41 in the front, but you know, folks park, uh, in the, on the side, in the rear quite a bit, and that it's not covered under our lease. So, uh, that annual cost for that is $48,000. Uh, it's renewed monthly because they have a design review in, that they have submitted design review. So, um, that's going to go away in a little bit. First United Methodist Church, 411 Wood Street is 70 spaces. Uh, annual cost is 2,500 and that expires in 2027, September. The Monroe Street lot, uh, which is our, our, uh, the ground floor of, of, uh, the artisan parking area is 211. That annual cost is 113,000 and it will, uh, expire in, uh, uh, March 11th of 2036. And then Mies Materials, 601 Main Street, um, and that's 60, 60 parking spaces, annual cost is zero. Um, and that, as you recall, we tried to acquire that parking lot, but Mies was not, um, not, not for, well, they don't, the hospital district doesn't give up property. But I was going to say we've invested in that property. We have. Yes, we've been. To the tune of what? Like $200,000 to get the building off? I think it was. Building off? Two to $300,000. Okay, thank you. And, uh, that actually expires, um, on August of, uh, 2032. So, the parking, uh, studies that we did, that, um, they show that, that on, on a regular day, we actually have sufficient parking throughout, uh, throughout downtown area. You have to drive around a little bit for it sometimes. The ocean optics lot is the most, uh, used lot because it's the most convenient. Uh, we did windshield surveys and it was actually almost 100% occupied on our busier days, obviously, in downtown all the time. So, um, did that answer your question? Oh, yes, it most certainly did. Um, so it's, it's fair to say that we're spending probably in excess of $200,000 per year on the leases combined. And then our total is $210,000 for 448 spaces. And of course, when we reach that expiration date, I think it's also safe to say then that, you know, we would expect, uh, we'd expect that rate to go up. Absolutely. And the other issue with these lease lots is that we're not the captains of our own destiny because there is a termination clause in all of these. It's either 60 days or 90 days or six months or whatever it is, but they can terminate and we'll just lose that parking. And we are not in control of our own destiny. That's correct. Right. Thank you. That, that very detailed. Um, um, so, and this may be more when we start getting into the design build part of this, but, um, parking sensors, um, at what point do we start talking about those in terms of provisioning the, for parking, the parking sensors? Within the facility? Yeah. Well, I think certainly as you get into, you know, the next level of design, there's a bunch of systems. Now you can monitor, there are systems that can monitor every space and have the green light, red light. I don't know that you would need it in this size facility. Typically you see those in big airports or malls or things like that. But I think what would be very valuable here is a system that just senses the ins and outs and, and is able to calibrate the amount of people in the facility. So like we talked about, you could have a sign that is real time that to, and you can actually pull that up on your phone or systems that, so if you were coming to Dunedin, you can say, Oh, there's 75 spaces in, in this garage. That's where I'm going to go to park. And in some ways that will reduce, you know, having this type of parking asset reduces a lot of the cruising that you see downtown looking for that last on-street space or things like that. So that's, that type of system could easily, would be incorporated in the next phases of design. Yeah. Okay. That, yeah, that's, that, I think that the, the latter one that you mentioned was the one I was thinking of because that's already, that exists down Treasure Island in St. Pete Beach. Yeah. In terms of, let's see, so I think we've touched on golf carts and it looked to me like the rendering had a sufficient number of bike racks and could be easy to put into the plan. Yeah. We, we, we just put in a few, but obviously the site has a lot of additional area that could potentially accommodate more bikes, that type of thing. And I know that was something that we talked about during kind of the planning stages, but again, you know, once they get more of the site planning work done in the, in the next phases of design with the design build team, you can, there's a lot of areas for additional bike racks. Yeah. Last question for real. Yeah. The options that were presented, would it be correct to characterize those as from maybe more expensive to least expensive or is? I think the option one is likely the most expensive with two and three, very similar. The, the fourth one would be the more affordable because you're not building this separate wall. That said, when you select a design build, um, you know, a team, you could also ask for pricing on both. So at that time, you could really understand the real difference between, you know, those two options. Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, Commissioner Degard questions. Thank you, Mayor. Um, was there any consideration given to solar shading on the top deck? Uh, yes, we, we've, uh, you know, we talked about that, I think early on, um, and that's always, that's an option. There's, there's nothing, you know, when this, this garage would get designed and built, um, typically, and when we do it, we, we design a dish, you know, you don't even need that much more additional capacity to support a solar array. I think, you know, the consideration there is it'll probably, it'll add more height, um, to the, to the look of the facility. You'll likely see, you know, the array, but at any time, um, either with, with the construction of the garage or even after, um, you know, an array can be added to the facility. Okay. That's very good. Um, you know, there's an expression pretty as a parking lot. I think you've actually kind of kicked that one off to the side. I see a very nice rendering here that would be a good addition to the community. Um, I'd like to ask the manager to give me a little history. I'm too new on this to understand this whole project. You would please. Certainly. Thank you. Everybody get comfy. Just kidding. So, um, actually, I think that this project, um, uh, you would really have to go back to, um, the issue of, of paid parking. And I know that that's, that them's fighting words here, here in the city of Dunedin, but, um, you know, understanding that, that there is a parking issue, um, and our downtown is way more than the tumbleweed picture that, that, that, you know, we circulate. I know that's Bob's favorite picture. I think he has a big poster of it in his house. But anyway, so, so from where we started to where we are now, um, understanding that, that during our prime periods and the peak season, uh, folks have a really difficult time, uh, finding available parking, um, without circulating around or offsite or parking up the streets and residential areas and that type of a thing. So, um, we did, uh, the traffic studies that I was mentioning, and that was actually during the paid parking, um, whether or not we had availability of sufficient parking, uh, either, either, um, within the right of way, um, within the least lots and, and that type of a thing. And so, um, as I said, we, we did have, uh, adequate parking during, on a normal day, uh, but then you get into season and, and we, we need additional parking. And so, um, this particular lot, um, was, we, and it came to our attention that it was for sale. Uh, we were able to acquire it, uh, for 4 million. It's just over three quarters of an acre. Um, and at that time, uh, when we, we purchased this lot, you know, and there were, there were two things really. Number one was understanding its location, uh, it's in proximity to the downtown, which is, you know, there are pros and cons to that, but understanding that people can, can, you know, drive in park and, and access downtown readily. And I think that it would really be very, um, um, I think that the, the general population and the business owners in that area would certainly support it. And they did. And, you know, I remember when we purchased it, I reached out to several people, um, you know, given the purchase price and, uh, and there were members of the public, whether or not we should purchase it for parking purposes. And, and, um, everybody that I spoke to had said, yes, that, that we should. Um, and so obviously we did it. It w we intended at that point to, to place a parking garage on the site, um, understanding that, that if we were to, uh, just, you know, do a surface lot there, uh, we would have a whole lot less than, than the park number of parking spaces we have there, because it would have to come up to, to specifications. So, so I think that you actually have to, though, when you're talking about the need for the parking garage, there are two things. First of all, you talk about the need for parking in downtown, uh, within the CRA area. And then you talk about, you need to talk about our partners and our tax increment financing, which is, uh, in the CRA, which is the county. And so, um, we actually have a CRA master plan, uh, which has a checkup in the year 2025 and which sunsets in the year 2033. Um, we, uh, um, there was some, some, uh, dust up, if you will, um, about a year and a half ago where the county was actually decreasing their TIF. First of all, they decreased their TIF to the equivalent of what we, um, what, what our millage rate is, and then they were going to decrease it even more to 50%. And at that point, um, uh, we as a group, meaning, uh, you know, certainly city commission and staff, uh, approached the county and said, number one, we've issued debt to, to buy the parking lot. Uh, and number two, we're planning on building a parking garage. It's in our master plan moving forward. Um, you can't decrease your tax increment financing to 50%. Um, uh, we went back and forth a little bit. It went before the county commission and they agreed. We cannot decrease, uh, we've promised you, um, you know, the, the parking garage essentially, and, uh, you've issued the debt on the, on purchasing the property. Um, so, and the reason why that's important is that the additional parking garage is actually in our master plan in 2033. So, so the tax agreement financing that we realize from the county, as well as our own tax agreement finance, increment financing can only be used for capital improvements such as this. So our main capital improvement is, uh, the need for the parking garage or additional parking. Um, and it's also within our master plan. So, so if we were to go to the county, uh, in our 2025, um, checkup on the CRA and say, we're not going to build that parking garage, they're going to decrease their TIF. Um, so, um, because the TIF is necessary in order to construct the garage itself, that capital improvement. Um, so all of those things coalesce together to, to the project that you see before you, before you today, but it really was, you know, fundamentally to address the parking, um, issue that we have when downtown is, is, is hopping, if you will, and most certainly when it's hopping in season. And we still need a lot of those remote lots. There are still people that are parking at, at the hospital and walking downtown, even on Friday or Saturday night. So, so if we don't do this, we're going to be leaving money on the table. Yes. Okay. That's all I have. Okay. Um, I don't really have any additional questions. Just want to clarify. So 192 car places and eight golf cart places. The 192 includes the golf carts and, and the golf carts can park anywhere within the facility. So, you know, obviously if there's more, it doesn't mean that they, uh, but we did design a section that had narrower spaces so we could get, you know, more golf carts. They didn't, they don't need the typical nine foot. So. Okay. Okay. Um, okay. You wanted to go to traffic flow? You know what, uh, one thing though, may I want to correct what I say? Sure. I can't say, uh, with certainty that, that the county would decrease their TIF, because I don't know what they would do. But I'm actually likely they wouldn't. Yeah. Because I don't think it's an absolute. Right. I do think it might be, um, very likely in my mind. Tipping the scales on a partnership of what the expectation was set to be. Mm. Whether or not they would actually go as far as to reduce it and let us do something different. Mm. Yeah. That's, that's a, you know. Right. I, I feel it's very likely. Yeah. In the conversations we have with them, but obviously I can't say exactly what they're going to do. Right. Right. Yeah. I saw your face on that. So. Okay. No, that, that's fine. And I, I, I mean, obviously I do think it's clearly their expectations. Right. So there would be some explaining to do. Yeah. Okay. Um, so, uh, traffic flow. Yes. So this is Jeffrey Antonacci. Yes. Jeffrey, floor is yours. Thank you. Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Um, yep. Uh, as Jennifer mentioned, my name is Jeff Antonacci. And with us tonight also out of our office is Luke Hutchinson. And we are with infrastructure consulting and engineering. We are the traffic engineers on this project. And I want to thank all of you for allowing us to be part of this project and allowing us to present our ideas to you tonight. Um, we did an extensive traffic study to support our concept design. And that's what I'm going to present to you tonight. We only have one slide and you're looking at it. So, um, nice job, Jim, by the way, very impressive. And it's fantastic. Thank you. Um, let's start out with, um, access. We talked about access earlier. You mentioned it, I believe. Um, we're proposing two access points. The main access point will be off of Douglas. That's where the majority of the traffic is in this area. And that's where we want to keep it. A secondary access point will be, uh, will be opened up only when needed during high volume, short period events, such as parades, maybe a ball game. Um, that's what we're, that's what we're proposing with our design here to support that main access point on Douglas. We propose to keep the traffic moving by adding left turn lane, northbound and right turn lane, southbound to accommodate that left turn lane. We're going to need to shift that through lane, northbound into the existing parking, uh, lanes on the east side. Um, that will allow us to, uh, put in the left turn lane going into the main entrance. Similarly, southbound in order to make room for a right turn lane, a short right turn lane into the facility. Um, we're going to have to take, we're going to have to, uh, utilize the existing parking on that west side of Douglas as well. We're proposing to keep the parking spaces south of the, uh, access point into the garage on the west side. But we're, an idea that we had was maybe we make that a, um, uh, a shared ride, uh, facility, put three spaces in there for Uber or Lyft vehicles. That's something that can be just discussed there. Um, the nice thing we liked about this design is it's very efficient, it's very economical and it doesn't take up any concrete. It's basically, you're looking at a striping project. We're utilizing the pavement in between the curb lines. So we're not proposing any new curbing unless it needs it. Um, it also allows for left turn lanes, uh, a left turn movement into east honey lane and it allows a southbound left into the, uh, the little blue hideaway facility there, as needed. Um, that's our design. That's what we've come up with. And, um, open it up for questions. Okay. I'm going to start on this side with Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Um, so I, looking at this map, um, ingress and egress in Scotland during Douglas closures, parades, et cetera. I, I, assuming that you're, you're envisioning, okay, let's say you're going eastbound on Scotland and, uh, you're wanting to park in the garage, um, and, but Douglas is blocked off. I'm assuming the intent would be is, is the car would still have to enter the parking garage so they could turn in the event it was full that they would have to turn around or go through the parking garage to get out again. Is that correct? We are proposing to leave that secondary access point open only as an entrance. Um, we would close it down if, if we could and just have them exit off of Douglas after the event. Oh, I see. Well, yeah, and I was thinking of more of the, um, scenario where, uh, their parking lot's full, the parking garage is full. And so, but, and this goes back to the sensor question I was asking. Um, if, uh, I mean, you know, we, we have sensors says lot full, whatever. Um, it's going to be difficult for those cars to turn around without going into the parking garage because Douglas will be blocked. They, yeah, they would have to turn left on Douglas. Okay. All right. Um, yeah, and that makes sense. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that. Yes. And, um, it looks like there may be a way we could provide, extend that left turn lane down to accommodate that so people could turn directly into that left turn lane if that were the case. That way they wouldn't have to go out into the through lane to access the left turn lane then. Okay. At that point. Okay. So, um, and I meant to ask this question during the last presentation, but the parking spots on Railroad Avenue, those are, those are going to go away, right? Yeah. There aren't parking spots on Railroad now. Oh, yeah. It's probably a little too far south. It was. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay. It looks like it though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, that's all the questions I have. Great. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. Um, the traffic layout I see here is very good. Uh, however, I am concerned about pedestrian traffic because we're going to be tripling the number of available parking places and during events and things like that that are on Douglas and Maine. Um, did you do any studies on how pedestrian traffic was going to work from this facility? We have traffic numbers for pedestrians. Yes, we do. Um, crossing during the hour that we counted crossing, we showed 14 pedestrians and eight pedestrians and six bikes crossing West Honey Lane, north south. And we had, uh, zero pedestrians and six bikes crossing Scotland. Now that was just in the hour between noon and one when we counted. So, um, if there's an event, yeah, uh, probably going to be quite a bit more pedestrians moving about. Um, those can be accommodated. Um, maybe we talk about flashers. Maybe we talk about those if, if, if it gets to be a problem, but there's really not, there's really not a lot of traffic here. And so I don't really think that that would be as big an issue as you might think. Did you consider the prospects of us having to make adjustments at the Douglas main intersection because of this traffic at all? We did not, we did not extend our traffic. Okay. Far north. That's all I have, mayor. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, vice mayor. Thank you, mayor. Yeah. I just wanted to kind of continue the conversation that commissioner Walker was having about the Scotland entrance. And I know that you talked about if the lot's full, they can turn left onto Douglas. I'm more concerned about those times when Douglas is closed for parades and other events. And, and so they, unless I'm reading this wrong, there wouldn't be a way for them to exit onto Douglas to get out of the garage. And if, if Scotland is full, I mean, is there an alternative other than the cars have to go into the garage to turn around? The alternative would be, you could close down Scotland to through traffic if the lot was full, but that would take some policing. Right. And personnel to do that, I would think. Um, uh, to your point, we would hope that when people wanted to exit onto Douglas, that the parade would already be passed. So our assumption was that Douglas would be open when they would be wanting to, to exit the garage. Well, I'm, I'm just kind of also tagging on to Commissioner Sandberger's comments about how popular that rooftop is going to be for parade watchers. And that's going to be the first place they're going to go to, to get their spot, which involves getting a parking spot. So during parades, that's going to be the first thing that fills up. And so if, if we don't have anything that tells them it's, it's full and Scotland becomes a dead end street at Douglas. So they, no place for them to turn around. I'm just anticipating huge, a huge traffic problem there that's going to end up getting policed anyway. Before you go, I think, uh, the city manager. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, I think that that's an excellent point, both the rooftop and the traffic circulation in the area. And, uh, we're going to have to come up with, with a solution to that prior to the next step. So, you know, we have to go to RFQ, um, as staff. I mean, we can work with, with, with, uh, you know, our transportation planners, but there has to be some notice, um, farther to the west, even so that they can, they can go, you know, either way and knock it all the way up Scotland because Douglas will be closed for hours actually. So, uh, in some of those parades. So we, we need to address that. We need to develop a plan for all of you and, and convey it to you, uh, before we move forward. And maybe if that turns out to be the issue, maybe we do open up Scotland as an exit rather than on Douglas. So, uh, it seems to me that there needs to be some more, like, as you said, some additional studies done to address that. Okay. Uh, those are all the real concerns I have. Thank you. Thank you. And also the, the, I'm sorry, mayor, the rooftop issue, because that's a really great point. Yeah, that's where I would be the hotspot for sure. Um, okay. Uh, commissioner Sandbergen. No, it's, it's interesting. Uh, when your traffic study was done, obviously you weren't out there today at four o'clock because that main and Douglas was backed up to the stadium and those people are pulling out. And I love that pulling out. You got an option for a left turn. I mean, I live right there. This is a, this is gonna be a traffic nightmare. And I think one of the ways we could reduce that is to keep that Scotland gate open. We have to get those cars out of there. They can come out of there and make a right. If everyone wants to, I just, I, you know, I've, I've lived there for years and that is a busy part of town right there. Now coming south on Douglas, I see those left turn lanes. I think you referred to it into the blue buildings that left turn lane. Those are their sidewalk. Their, their driveways further south. Yes. So, you know, the, the, the way that matches up with the entry into that parking garage and then Scotland goes east, west, and then it, you pick it up across Douglas and you go south. So it causes a lot of traffic tie up right there and adding this. I mean, I, I am 100% behind this garage, but I am really concerned about the traffic nightmare. And, and, you know, today the Boston Red Sox were in town. That's why, you know, on July 8th, there's probably no traffic down there. But I just, we just, I really, it's your job. That's your profession. Sure. Make sure that when my neighbors come after me about, you know, the car sitting on their front yard with their radios on, that, that's, that's the concern in that area. Well, the, the comment about the Scotland trying to minimize that access point was to try to keep the traffic off of the side streets, off of Scotland. I know that live there. That was the intent. Yeah. Certainly in high volume, short period events like today at four. Yeah. Um, it would be advised probably to open that up. And that would be up to us as the city. So I would think as a city, and that would be worked through during the design process. Yes. Okay. Okay. Because my understanding is we're probably going to go to a public hearing. We're going to be getting comments from the public. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm getting ahead of you. No, that's okay. These are good. These are good comments. And Luke's taking notes. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good. Thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Good. Hey, so, uh, one question I had, because I'll go back to, um, Commissioner Sandbergen's comment about Railroad Ave. Um, and I never thought about it. So I have absolutely zero opinion about it. But, um, what's your gut reaction to not having Railroad Ave? I mean, do you, would you absolutely need to have the, well, it looks to me like it's, it looks to me like it's one way now. Is that the way it works? You come in and you exit to the south? Um, I don't think there's, I think you're correct. I don't think there's a lot of traffic there. I think we counted maybe 11 cars going in there during the hour, during the noon hour we were there. It looks like they go in and they park and they go in and they do business and they come back out. So, um, I'm not sure that that, if you want to make it two way, I think you're gonna have to widen it a little bit because now you've got angled parking there. So you may not have the width to make it two way. You're going to have to remove the wide, the angled parking to 90 degree parking so they can pull in and pull back out and go the opposite direction. So there might have to be some improvements made on it to make it two way. Could actually put more pressure on Douglas too though, but I was just going to carry on that. Yeah. I mean, as you know, you, you've set up a meeting with Ford Pinellas to talk about, uh, traffic circulation in that area with WIT. Um, and former Mayor Bojowski also met in that area. And I think that Railroad Ave, the way it is now is going to be, uh, a very important component moving forward. I thought about that. I wondered if that's kind of the thought. And we, I mentioned that about, you know, doing some things with the trail to make that congested area better. So there may be some competing interest there. So cool. Um, okay. I don't really have any other questions. Um, before I go to public comment, um, is there anything else city manager? I'm good. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to open it to public comment. Um, if anyone in the audience would like to come forward and speak to this issue, name, address in three minutes, and we will stick to the three minute rule here. We gave the football players a little leeway, but not, not on this. So, and name, address in three minutes. All right. Um, my name is Katie Ducharme-Persisi. Um, my address is 630 Athens Street in Dunedin. Um, my name is Katie Ducharme-Persisi, the chair of the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for allowing me to speak. And I'm here today to express the Chamber's full support for the parking garage project. Um, city and commission, you have obviously been working on this parking issue for 20 years now. Your efforts to expand parking continued in 2022 with the purchase of the Scotland Street lot intended for West End parking, a parking garage. That year during the CRA midterm review, the county reinforced the requirement to build a garage. In 2023, the city bought the ocean optics lot, but this was, this will reduce, uh, public parking. Throughout 2024, the commission has taken steps to move forward with the design and cost analysis. Currently, Dunedin CRA has attracted over 275 million in private investment and accounts for 12% of all visitors in Pinellas County, tying with St. Pete Beach for the fourth, for fourth place with 1.8 million visitors a year. With 88% of visitors relying on cars, this brings an estimated 625 vehicles from the outside of the county, uh, each year. As funding for public transportation remains limited, the need for parking is increasing, especially with the loss of the 60 spaces from ocean optics parking lot in the future. The CRA master plan and county agreement commit to building up to two parking garages with 76% of the community supporting a well-designed, secure facility. To address this need, we recommend that the commission move forward with detailed pricing and pack and design package for the parking garage, an estimated cost of $10 million and a lifespan of 75 years. The annual cost would be approximately $133,000 a year. Additionally, we urge the city to incorporate parking centers with an app for the garage and for the CRA. This technology will not only improve parking flow by directing vehicles to available spaces, but will also provide city staff with a concrete, with concrete data on parking usage and needs reducing, um, um, external result, reliance on external consultants. The most crucial parking shortages are Main Street and Douglas, Main Street and Broadway. Taking these steps will help to meet its parking challenges while supporting businesses, residents, and visitors. We strongly urge the commission to move forward with the design, package, and pricing on the Scotland Street parking garage. This is a necessary step to ensure Dunedin remains accessible, vibrant, and positioned for our future growth. Thank you. Ooh, 16 seconds to go. Thank you. Well done. You're setting a tone. Um, okay. Anyone else wish to come forward to speak on this issue? Okay. Name and address for the record and three minutes. Hi. Hello, Mayor and Commissioners. My name is Susan Elftman. I live at 1296 Inverness Drive. Excuse me. Here in Dunedin. Um, last October, the commission made a decision to spend some money for pursuing options for the design of this garage on this site on Douglas and Scotland Street. At the time I spoke to you to consider the implications of increasing the parking on this very small property by four times what's currently there. That lot currently holds approximately 45 to 50 spaces, and this current plan is for 192 parking spaces. That's a four-fold increase in the number of cars coming to this small property. Since then, the building has been designed. Um, it was originally intended at 175 spaces. It's gone to 192, and it still fundamentally misses the basic premise that it's in the wrong location, which I think we heard from the traffic analysis where we're trying to make things work and make things fit. We talk about preserving the charm of our city, but this building's function, its access, its scale are all directly in opposition to those goals. No matter what its exterior decoration looks like and how you attempt to hide what the function is. The first and most fundamental rule of good architectural design is that it is appropriate for the site that it sits on. And this small site, which by the way is a historic site in our city, it was the home of the original train station master's house. I'm not sure all of you are aware of that, but it has historic significance and it seems trite to put a parking garage on this property. We originally planned a large parking garage for this property right here outside of City Hall. And I wonder why have we abandoned that? As I understand that it could be wrong, but as I understand it, these funds could be used for a garage to be built on this property, still within the CRA, which with much better access to the property all the way around, and keeping it out of a heavy pedestrian zone, which is closed down, as we all know, for many street festivals, events, and parades. Please keep in mind that the Ocean Optics site will add even more congestion to this very small one block area approximately, in addition to the parking garage. So we're only exacerbating a problem. We're not relieving it when we have this property right here available for it. When you have to hide the function of a building, it's fundamentally wrong for the site. And when you have to do unnatural things to make people be able to access it and get in and out of it in certain conditions and put signs and things like that, it's fundamentally not a natural use of that site. So I urge you, please, do not move forward with the design of a parking garage on this historic site, and please begin to look at this lot right out here, readily available. Finally, I have one major point I want to make that I urge you all to think about. Do we want Dunedin, downtown Dunedin, this little core area, to be a place for cars, or do we want it to be a place for people? Thank you, Susan. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Does anyone else wish to come forward to speak on this issue? Okay. Name and address for the record in three minutes. Steve Beatty, 1050 Presswick Place, Dunedin. And I brought my boss, Marie, here tonight. So we own Lane's Lemonade. I'm very disappointed it's not represented in any of this. It's the red box car that was right off to the side. So speaking of that road there, we see someone almost killed daily in front of our place, because the cars drive through there, and they don't really realize. A lot of pedestrians walk through there, and they don't know that's not the trail. They actually think that road's the trail. So yeah, and as much as we need, we have to have something. It's not a fun situation, but me and my wife, we went to Winter Park two months ago to look at their situation. I would encourage you, and I've heard Sarasota too, but Winter Park has a similar situation where they built a garage and the architecture, and it really functions well in the downtown sector there. So I would encourage you to go over and take a look at that over in Winter Park. Their downtown is probably about twice the size of ours in length, but it sits at one end, almost kind of in a similar situation, and it's been very successful. The other item is this garage being built is going to affect Lane's Lemonade, and I'm still for it, because when the construction's going on, even though we have people come down the trail, it will affect us. But I'm still a huge proponent. There's just not a real choice in this city. I wish we were more advanced to where alternative transportation, but it's just not there yet. And unfortunately, if you go out on 580 on any of our events around four in the afternoon and start watching, you'll just see a string of traffic coming into Dunning and nothing going out. So if you look on Fridays or Saturdays, you'll just see it coming in. And sometimes at night, if we're going out and it's dark, you'll just see lights just one after another coming in. So it's an amazing problem we have here, but the downtown is such an important part of supporting our area. And I have friends that have homes down here, and there's a few that aren't for it, but they love the value of their home. And frankly, the value of their home is built upon our successful downtown. I'm also on the board of the Chamber, and I've studied a lot in those situations, and the solutions are very tough to come up with. But this is the ideal point in our business sector, and I think we can solve some of that going in and out, and we can make this much more. As far as the top wall, I've actually studied this before because you guys know I'm into a lot of the sustainability for hurricanes. Many places are raising that now to keep the wind off the cars, and they angle it in because, I hate to say it, times are different, snipers up there. So they've actually built the walls to where they're too high to climb, and they angle and block, they angle it in, so people can't get up over it. And then they prevent the problem where people are watching parades and all that. But it also protects in case of a hurricane the wind. So again, you know, even though we have Lane's Lemonade and as both Chamber and Lane's, we're for it. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Okay. Anyone else wish to come forward to speak on this issue? Okay. Seeing or hearing none? I would ask, maybe the city manager can answer that question about why not City Hall parking lot as a site. Well, first of all, we purchased that lot in particular for the parking garage. And when we were looking at conceptual designs for this particular building, the issue with that parking garage was that there's residential on this side and residential on that side. And it was the mass of the parking garage vis-a-vis the right-of-way and the residential and the city commission went in a different direction. Okay. So I think at this point we're ready for comments. And I think really what you're just asking for is some input on the exact design or any other thoughts or input on traffic flow to, you know. Yeah. And thank you, Mayor. I mean, we had some really good direction tonight, some really good comments and some things that we need to act on. But yeah, any additional comments? And if we're going the right direction, and which of those options, if you're comfortable with that. Okay. So I'll just give everybody a chance for final comments. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have any real comments on the design of the parking garage because I'm not in favor of this project, as isn't a surprise to anybody up here. Thank you, Mayor. My concerns are certainly with the road and the traffic, the congestion. I think those are a huge problem. We've heard comments tonight about, and thank you, Katie, for those comments. I talked about the number of tourists we have coming to our town. And right, I know that we've used the percentage previously. Ninety percent of them are coming by cars. And we have all of this car traffic because we do not offer them any alternative. They have to come by car. And as leaders of a government, business leaders, as a chamber, as an organization that supports business, we all kind of shrug our shoulders as though there's nothing we can do about it. And I just don't believe that. I would love for the chamber to be more focused on heads and beds and butts and seats, and not that they have to come by car. They should be advocates for small towns and businesses. And they should be talking with other chambers. They should be talking with other municipalities. They should be talking to the county about how to reduce the amount of car centricity in our towns. Building the parking garage, certainly if we are concerned at all about snipers, that would be a reason not to be a reason not to have it at all. I had a recent conversation actually with the city manager about proclamations and the concern about proclamations and the importance of proclamations. And it was about whenever the commission reads a proclamation, it means something. It's something that the commission stands on. And I had the privilege of reading. It March is Florida bike month. And I was able to read all kinds of valuable reasons why we need to be multimodal and diversify our transportation sector. I've got a few other notes. Negative impacts of parking garages, the high cost of building them. Maintaining parking garages is extremely expensive. As you've heard today, it's going to be $14 million and then it's over $100,000 a year. To maintain, it's an efficient land use. Parking garages take up valuable urban space that can be used for housing, business, green space, and generate more revenue and community benefit. Congestion costs, cars and traffic infrastructure leads to traffic congestions, costing cities billions annually on lost productivity, fuel waste, road maintenance. I'm glad that I don't have three-minute time limit. You've heard me talk about the health of communities. Sedentary lifestyle being car-centric. Reliance on cars contributes to less physical activity, increasing risks of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Air pollution. Parking garages concentrate vehicle emissions, leading to respiratory illnesses and worsening conditions like asthma. Accidents and injuries. Parking garages create safety hazards for pedestrians and cyclists due to poor visibility, distracted drivers, and tight driving spaces. The environment, heat island effect. Large concrete parking structures absorb and radiate heat, worsening urban heat issues. And I just want to remember that we just went through a very horrific hurricane season. It's kind of cost us millions of dollars and people have lost their homes. Just want to point that out. Carbon emissions, encouraging car dependency, increases greenhouse gas emissions, worsening climate change. Water runoff pollution. Parking garages contribute to stormwater runoff, contaminated with oil, rubber, heavy metals, and polluting waterways. Community, reduce social interaction. Car-centric infrastructure separates people, reducing spontaneous social encounters and weakening community bonds. What I did like about COVID was the number of people that bought bicycles. And bicycles not only gave them mental health and money to leave the homes, but it also made our community safer. As people rode down the street and waved to each other, we have a much better idea of who our neighbors are because they were getting out and walking and biking more. Uh, barriers to vibrant public spaces. Parking garages occupy space that can be used for housing, local businesses, or both. Uh, displacement and inequity. Prioritizing cars leads to displacing lower-income residents and making it harder for those without cars, equal access and opportunity. Uh, positive aspects of walkability, bicycles, and small-scale transportation. The economy. Uh, lower infrastructure costs. Maintaining bike lanes and sidewalks is significantly cheaper than building and repairing roads and parking garages. Increased property values. Walkable neighborhoods have a higher real estate value and desirability than those communities with parking garages. Health encourages physical activity. Walking and biking improves cardiovascular health, reduces obesity, and lower health care costs. Reduce air pollution exposure. Fewer cars means better air quality, leading to fewer respiratory diseases. Lower accident rates. Cities with more walkability and bikeable infrastructure see lower traffic-related fatalities. The environment. Lower carbon footprint. Biking and walking produce zero emissions, significantly reducing the environmental impact. Less noise pollution. Quieter streets. Improved urban livability and mental health and well-being. Seven more pages. You're not really going to do seven more pages, Art. Can I not? Well, we are commenting on the design. I mean, I, I know you're making a point. I just, you know, it's your time. Okay. And I, I, this combined with my historical comments on this, it, to me, it doesn't make any sense. It would make great sense if we said, Commissioner, we have busted our ass trying to make things smaller, slower, uh, more, more bike lanes. We want things more walkable. We've talked about our, our downtown being, uh, walkable, yet we're building a parking garage in the center of our downtown. It just doesn't make sense that if you, with a parking garage, you're limiting the people that come here to their cars. People aren't going to come down here because of all the car traffic. And so if you limit it to cars, you're actually limiting the number of customers in your own downtown. If you thought about smaller ways to get them here, then you could fit more people into your downtown with much more livable, uh, spaces. Uh, uh, and I could just go on and on and on and on. I don't know how we can complain about hurricanes and build parking garages. I don't know how we can complain about flooding and build parking garages. I don't know how we can complain about anything, our health, affordable housing, uh, childcare, college debt, and be willing to, to stay within our cars. A car is the most expensive, non-appreciating asset you will ever own. And it's got a useful life to it. At the end of that useful life, you buy another one. That is the dumbest thing our society has ever done. That money that you're putting towards your car could go to much better use. A lot of it spending time in our downtowns. And so, um, I'm done there. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Um, uh, and your passion. Commissioner Sandbergen. I guess I have a little bit different take on it. I, uh, I came out of the small business. I believe in the small business and I believe that this, the government can't run that business, but we can do everything to pave the way to success. And I think one time, right before I retired, I heard on TV, if you own a small business, you didn't build that. And I think that's not true. If you own a small business, you did. And as a city commissioner, I 100% stand behind the small businesses of this community. This gives them a place for their customers and their clients to park visitors to downtown, to the merchants, just to visit, to spend the day, park and ride to get on their bike on the trail. Their vehicle has a shaded spot to sit in. I think the architectural review committee did a nice job on this. I think the presentation was great. And, uh, I fully support a parking garage downtown Dunedin. And any specific, any other comments on the design? Are you good with the general concepts? I'm a real fan of the craftsman. I always have been. I think we can make that fit into that community. It doesn't look like an office building, but it sure doesn't look like a concrete structure at Tampa airport. So thank you. Thank you. So, um, go ahead. Mayor, if I, if I may, um, um, it, the design concept concepts in there are four, four of them, if I get consensus direction on, on one of them that all of you, you know, would support moving forward. Uh, uh, the architecture review committee said option one or option three. Um, but, but it would be helpful, you know, as far as direction for, for our, uh, for THA. I wasn't, I was a little bit more vague when I was talking about what we're looking for. Yeah. Uh, okay. Um, well, we'll do our final comments. And within that, if you can hone in on one, that's great. Otherwise we'll come back and just try to hone in on it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to go to Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I, I really do want to tag onto my colleague, uh, Commissioner Sandberg's, uh, comments. Um, so first of all, the numbers of, uh, people visiting Dunedin is significant and it's compelling. Um, when you start looking at the fact that the Dunedin encompasses 12% of the total visitors to Pinellas County, when you look at the fact that Dunedin is tied with St. Pete Beach for fourth place for visitors in the county, total of 1.8 million per year, uh, 88% of those use a car and, uh, Dunedin serves an estimated 625,000 cars per year from visitors who do not live or work in Pinellas County. Um, so when you, when you look at that, okay, that's significant. And the other thing that you, that has to be tied to that is, is that the economic engine for our downtown is our small business. And, um, you, you peel that back a little bit when you start thinking about the fact that those small businesses have to make their year during season and during high volume times of the year, because in those lesser volumes times of the year, it's really slow. And, you know, I, I think it is our job as commissioners to make sure that we're, we're maintaining the economic viability. We're supporting our small businesses. And so, um, I, I do want to just, uh, just talk about a couple of points, uh, the vice mayor was making, uh, specifically. I totally agree that, that there needs to be alternative modes of transportation in the city. So I, I am the, uh, commission liaison, the PSTA now. A couple of things we are working on. And one thing we're very excited about is ferry service to, to Dunedin. The other one is increasing the frequency of jolly trolleys. So those are all works in progress and, you know, we will continue those efforts, uh, to minimize the traffic flow. Um, one question I had with regards to the funding, um, I, I think I understand it, that basically CRA, um, CRA is going to go into the general fund from which the bid and proposal part of this gets funded, right? So the plan is, um, and the funding is split up, uh, 8.8 million in CRA, 1.2 million in penny for design, penny fund. So what we're going to do is, um, we'll, we'll issue debt to build the parking garage and that will be repaid by the CRA until 2033. And when the CRA sunsets, sunsets it, we'll have a restricted fund in the general fund to pay that debt. Mm-hmm. So the 1.5 million that, that the city's TIF generates will be dedicated to paying down that debt and to actually, I'd like to dedicate to maintenance, you know, in the CRA area, uh, even though it's sunsetted in perpetuity, but that would be a decision made by the commission at that time. Okay. Appreciate that. Um, and, uh, key takeaway on that is, is that, uh, you know, we budget for the CRA, we had to get, uh, the, the parking garage essentially approved by the county and, you know, our, our, our budget and our TIF get, some would get reduced if we did not take advantage of this program. And the fact is, is that all the money that's going into the garage, we can't use that money really for, for anything else. So, um, and you know, to me, this is a win-win. Um, I do, I'll just say, mention a couple of concerns. And I think that the resolution on this is really going to be about coming up with a plan. Uh, that area of Scotland and Douglas is, is pretty narrow. It's fairly congested. And we're, we're really going to have to take a look at that because, um, I am, you know, I, I think maybe we're going to have to have some indicator of the, of how full the lot is parking garage. Um, and then we're going to have to have some course of action in place so that we can limit traffic on Scotland when the garage gets full. That's, so I, I'm going to leave that up to the experts. Um, with that said, uh, I'm, I support option one. Uh, I think option one really, covers a lot of the aesthetics that we asked for back in March of, uh, last year. Uh, when, last time we discussed this. Um, so if I, my preference would be option one. Very good. Thank you. I'll show all the comments I have. Thank you. Okay. And, uh, Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. I think this is an excellent rendering. I think we've done as good as could be asked, um, relative to keeping the aesthetics of downtown with what we're seeing, uh, in the designs. So I also support option one. That being said, I also hear Susan's words and I understand your frustrations. Um, large projects like this don't have a one day lifespan. They have, in this case, it sounds like we've got about an eight year lifespan on this project. Started with our foray into paid parking. It was nice not to see a gate on these renderings so that we, we're not talking about paid parking here. The behavior of our visitors, our own residents, is that they are wedded to a four wheel beast. That's where we are right now. That's been an evolution that's gone on for the last hundred years, a little longer now. There's a picture. If you look at New York City on Easter Parade Day, where in 1903, there was one car and everything else was being drawn by a horse. Ten years later, that same picture had nothing but cars and one horse in it. Shows you the rate of change relative to the way we choose to get around. By the way, one of the reasons it was so advanced in New York is horses have a problem. They leave a mess. Our cars have a problem. They leave a mess. We just don't see it in the way we saw the mess of the horses left. So I share much of my colleague Jeff Gow's point of view on this. Are we in fact encouraging a behavior we don't wish to see, which is a three ton vehicle being driven into downtown and all the accompanying problems it presents? We don't have the power to change behavior. The behavior is there and it will be here for a while. I do think that if we could see into the future, I think transportation is going to be different soon. Because Jeff's also right, the most expensive piece of capital equipment a resident ever buys is a car. Just think of what your car insurance has done in the last 12 months. And it's going to get worse. So I think there's going to be a revolution in mobility. And I hope it's more to the liking of the vision that my colleague Jeff Gow has, because that's what I would like to see. But we're not there yet. And the reality is our customers, our residents, they're getting around in four wheel vehicles that sometimes leave a lot of carbon in the air. So I support this. It's location. I didn't get to pick it. I might have picked someplace else, but we're too far down that track. I think this is the location. I think option one is by far and away the more appealing. I just don't know the cost differential. So I'm a little shaky on that. But both option one and three are very appealing to me. So I will support those. But that being said, we should do everything we can to encourage the walkability of this town and look for every opportunity to do so. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. So, well, I'll start out, Vice Mayor. I mean, you have great respect for your passion on this. And you're not wrong. You're definitely not wrong. I mean, I've said this up here before. I come from my dad was a railroad guy. And he always taught me from day one, the worst thing that bill that ever happened in this country was the Eisenhower Highway Bill. And it set us in a track. And that was that. And we have gone way down that track. And to get back to mass transit, we got to go backwards. We had transit. You know, it's hard to go back. But would it be better for us? Absolutely. Especially environmentally. But I would also say, you know, we do have the trolley. And we have the freebie. And we have the tiki rides. And we have the trail. And we have lots of bikes and electric bikes and Uber and Lyft. And we're giving award after award for walkable cities. So we're not sitting here not trying to encourage those kind of behaviors. We are. We've invested money in creating and trying to change those behaviors. But, you know, I had a conversation with Janet Bowser with Bowsers down in Douglas. And she said, I hope you'll do this because there's times already when downtown's full. They're up in our neck of the woods. They're all over the place up there. People will find the place to park because they want to drive. They just want to. And I agree. I want us to change the behavior. Maybe we're rewarding it. But I also think we're just not there yet. And the reality is, you know, I don't want to build a garage. But I don't know the other option. Because I can tell you right now, and I've said it before, when Ocean Optics stops, we can't park there anymore, there will be a sound heard around the world in Dunedin. I mean, I personally, it's the most used one I go to. And I will park in just about any illegal way possible to not leave there without parking my car there. And I'm, but so again, there will be a big giant finger pointed at us about, why didn't you think about this? Why didn't you prepare for this? I just, I get it. It's not my favorite location. Bob Ironsmith looked at a lot of different locations. There were some definitely other ones I would have preferred. But this is what we got. And quite honestly, I'm grateful we have it. We have a very popular area there. Susan, I worry about it. I do worry about the congestion there. And I do agree. And I think Commissioner Walker, you've made some great comments about that. Just leave it to the experts. But again, we just got to be so careful we don't create a big log jam down there, and that we don't create a safety hazard for pedestrians who are walking by. So, I mean, we're getting 100 and, what, 184 spots plus eight golf hard spots. And we are giving up, what, about 50 to 55 on the site itself? Okay. And we're going to lose about 41, really more like 55 or 60 on ocean optics. Count a few more illegal ones. You know, so we're going to gain about, what, 60, 65 spots. But boy, doesn't look good for us if we don't have something. I like the job. I've always said it's got to look good. And I think that you made it look good. I like option one. My sense of these, they're not that different in price, but could be wrong. We'll see how that plays out. But I definitely am preferring one. And so that would be where I'd want to be. One other comment that occurred to me as two of my colleagues were talking about small business. We, in our retreat for the commission, which I know Rebecca doesn't like retreat, because that means like we're going away in the hiding. We're not. It's all public. It's all fully announced. But we had an economic analysis done by our financial advisors. And they were saying if there's any breaks that you can give to anybody in the economy right now, it's small business. They are such an economic driver. And in a lot of ways, they don't get as much TLC as they need at times. So I think, again, it's a nod to really one of the drivers of who Dunedin is. I support this. I do worry about the traffic flow. I don't want big long jams. So I'll just say that one more time. And I do think parking sensors are probably part of that equation. You know, nothing overly sophisticated, but the basics. So that's it. And so I guess I'd go to, I know, Vice Mayor, you don't really have a preference on the style. Or do you want to weigh in on that? I don't want to weigh in on the style. But I want at least 10 seconds to say from the comments of my colleagues, somehow it, I am taking it as being implied that I'm against small business. And that is not true. No, I believe me, I get I know that you're not. Okay. So Commissioner Sandberg, any preference on the options? Definitely option number one, and not at this moment. But I would like some explanation as to why I had some negative feedback on closing that section of railroad. I really would like an explanation of that. What do you mean negative feedback? I think they're going to look at everything. And there's some, there's potentially some competing interest with the Pinellas Trail. Okay, I didn't know. I didn't know that. Yeah, I just, I announced it at commission comments the other day. But again, it's not far enough along. So that's cool. Okay. All right. So I think you have your direction. Cool. Thank you very much. Good discussion. Thank you. But let me just say that as far as Railroad Ave, everything's on the, you know, everything's out there, right? Got it. Yes. So nothing's being shut down, Commissioner. Yeah, I don't want you to leave with that. Oh, I didn't mean to sound like that, but I was just. Yeah. Okay. All right. Great. Okay. That's it. Now we've closed that issue. We're going to go to our second item to be discuss City Commission's rules and procedures. I'm getting a sense. And I guess we'll take a break before we go there. I don't know if I gaveled us out, but I'm gaveling us back in. Okay. So we are on, um, to be discuss City Commission rules and procedure. And I will turn to Jennifer and Rebecca for staff presentation. Who's doing? Sure. Wait, is there a fight open? We actually really didn't coordinate who would be doing what. So if you want me to do a quick opener or Rebecca, you want to do it? Um, it's up to you. At the, just, there we go. At the December 6th meeting, when we discussed your rules and procedures, it was asked, um, with the new commissioners and just talk of some changes to, um, your rules and procedures to give it time and, and try to work out a few things. And we did, you'll see a few, um, recommendations, I guess, um, from what we've heard from you as red lines in this resolution. It is nothing that's permanent. It's just ideas to open kind of more of your discussion on how you want to move forward. And, um, and again, that was, it was requested to come back in March and here we are on time. So then we can come back with whatever changes that you, um, come to consensus to and bring you back a resolution at, um, at another meeting. Okay. Um, can you actually specifically review your recommendation? Sure. Absolutely. And so the, the discussion amongst the commission was, um, uh, to put more emphasis on that Thursday night meeting, uh, the one beginning at 6 p.m. Um, it is actually, um, uh, it's watched more the Thursday night meeting and, and, you know, more, it's more available to members of the public. Um, and right now all of your cosi-judicial hearings are on, um, and public hearings are on the Thursday night meeting. So the staff has access, uh, to the commission and the public input. Um, so in order to do that, we had to look at, uh, resolution 2402, uh, which is a resolution approving your rules of procedure. And you actually, as, as the city clerk had mentioned, you looked at that in December and said, well, you know, let's have, um, our freshman commissioners get their feet under them a little bit. And I think they're under you. Um, and, and, uh, and then, uh, staff makes some proposed changes to those rules of procedure to, to add that emphasis onto the Thursday night meeting. And so it was actually, when we looked at it, uh, Rebecca and I, it was actually easier than, than we thought in terms of what would have to be changed. So if you look at the red line ordinance, um, uh, which is this, uh, the second. By the way, thank you for providing this. You're welcome. Um, which is the second exhibit. Um, you know, and I'll talk about some changes that, that we, that would need to be made as far as a policy perspective. And it, that that's not within the resolution itself. Um, but so let me just go to the changes and then the kind of the rest is self-explanatory. So that you have under the types of meetings, um, what we've provided you with is that the work sessions then become standard workshops and a workshop then is always consensus direction. It is not action. It is not, um, um, um, formal votes of the city commission. And really the, the items that we bring to you are those items, um, that, that, uh, are, are the larger, larger scale items or items that we would don't want to proceed until we've heard you. Um, and, and you give us that direction to either proceed or change or, or, or whatever it is. And so, um, what we'd like to do is, is what I think would be helpful is that we will have that workshop on the first Tuesday, um, prior to the regularly scheduled city commission meeting on the Thursday of every month. Um, you know, and, and we're going to need a workshop no matter what, because you know, there, there are a lot of impactful projects that all of you see that we need direction on early on. Um, and that, that the workshop would begin at nine and end at 1230. So we would then do away with the second, or the, excuse me, the, the second workshop of the month, which is the third, uh, Tuesday of the month. So we would have one workshop and we would, we might have four items for you, but half an hour each and that type of a thing. Uh, we also would ask that you include the presentations and proclamations, which they're included now. Um, but I think that the ones like we had procurement month and, um, uh, you know, uh, Well, it was done so riveting, you know, it was so riveting by Commissioner Walker. Well, you know, the celebrating staff and stuff and things like that so that they can come to the Thursday or the Tuesday meeting and, and you, they can hear the, the proclamation, that type of thing. It's also not of great interest to, you know, the, the general citizenry of the, uh, of the city. In order to do that, um, to have that, that, that, uh, first Tuesday workshop, you have on your workshop right now, you have a consent agenda. That entire consent agenda would need to move to the Thursday. So, um, and, and what I'm asking for too, and it's in the body of the, which I just, if I may prior to eight years ago, when it got changed was always on the Thursday meetings. Yes. We're just reverting. Right. I mean, so I did not know that, but it's pretty standard. The two cities I've worked for previously had consent on the same night as their evening meeting. Um, but that said, what I am asking for is that we have a policy and, and it's, um, I wouldn't say it's unwritten. I don't know where it's written, but it might be in the minutes of a meeting at some point that anything that is, uh, $500,000 or less can be on consent. And these are budgeted items. When you adopt your budget every year, uh, then we start letting contracts and that type of thing. If it's $500,000 or less, it's on consent. If it's $501,000, then it's on, uh, action. It's an action item. What I'm asking you is that we raise that threshold to a million dollars. So anything at a million dollars or, or less would be on consent that's budgeted. Right. And the reason for that is that, you know, if we're purchasing widgets and, and that type of a thing that's already budgeted, um, it, it, you know, we're, we're going to need to approve more things as a block in order to move through the business of that Thursday night meeting and not be here at 1am. So, um, in that scenario than anything over a million dollars and would be an action item. So consent, as you know, is approved as a block. You might pull something off. And really what I've experienced is that typically you pull things off when you want to call them to the, to the attention of your constituents, um, or ask additional questions or, or that type of a thing. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. $999,000 and 99 cents. Yeah. Up to, up to all of you. It's just an optic. Yes. Yes. Yes. I've got it. Yes. So, um, but the point is that if we do that, anybody can still pull an item. Yes. If they, if they, and if something's highly sensitive, even if it's 200,000, you're not going to put it on consent if you know it's super highly sensitive of an issue. We do that now. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yes. So, um, we actually, just so you know, um, I did look at, we did examine the delegated authority as well. So delegated authority means, um, those items that are budgeted that I'm allowed to sign off on, uh, without coming to the commission. And that's right now at $50,000. Uh, I asked Les to look at last year what we had between $50,000 and $100,000 and it was only 17 items. So it's less than one a meeting. The juice ain't worth the squeeze. You know, we're fine with 50,000. So moving forward. Um, and then. It might be good for a decision basis. What's under 50, 50, that kind of thing. So we see what the decisions are. Thank you. So we can see the decisions inside the frequency areas. So we have an idea of what we're doing. We actually provide you with quarterly, um, the, the ones that the delegated authorities. So anything under $50,000, but we don't, we don't do it. The ordinal, I mean, that would be a lot of work commissioner to be honest with you. Yeah. So go ahead. And, but anything over $50,000, you're already seeing anyway, though you're, you're approving. I just wondered what the frequency was of those that we're seeing. Got it. Um, and then the other part is, is commission discussion and comments. So, uh, we do that on the Tuesday morning meeting, uh, Thursday evenings are just informational and, and, uh, the changes that we've made here would be, um, just to, to combine the two together, the mayor recognizes you have the floor. You might want to set a time limit. It's up to all of you. I was thinking maybe, you know, something like seven minutes or five or, or, you know, cause you're reporting on discussion items that you may have liaison items that you may have and all those sorts of things. And so, um, um, you may want to though, like I said, put a time limit on that, but we, you know, cause the typically on the Tuesday morning, it's, is that a question? Or is that a comment? Because that's the way that, that, you know, your rules of procedure dictate you, uh, behave. But in this case, you can do both. The floor is yours. Um, and that's only on Tuesdays. So, so no, that would be, um, the commission comments and discussion would be on Thursdays. Page six of nine. Yeah. Page six of nine. Now it's on Tuesdays. I'm recommending it be moved to Thursdays. Right. Because you're only meeting once a month on a Tuesday under this scenario. And the city managers update, the city attorneys and the city clerks update would all be moved to Thursday as well. Yes. They would remain in there. Yes. I mean, you know, a little history at one time, there was a commissioner that, that talked a lot during commission comments. And, and for some time, I think it was a rule that they had five minutes, five minutes for every commissioner. I mean, I personally, I, I think unless it becomes an issue, I'm good with not kind of pushing that envelope. I mean, it's really not been an issue. And there's only some, I mean, basically, and, and I don't know, um, Mr. Sandberg and, and commissioner to guard, and this was a policy we did before, which was if you have some issue of big substance that you're going to try to get on the agenda, um, during commission comments that you should email ahead of time to the mayor and to the city manager. So you kind of know and prepare people. Um, and, and I think it's a good practice, you know, but other than that, I mean, you can basically, I mean, you can bring up what you want. I think the rules are within this, which is that you can't, um, you know, we can have some consensus on a minor item, but not a major item and a little history for the major item. Um, because there's some verbiage we probably, we might want to add back in. But at one time when the former city manager was employment was drawn into question, it was done during commission comments. And I think there was some tightening language that got put in at that time because there was a, you know, it was a, it was a big brouhaha. And it was basically like, really, you want to call for the firing of the city manager during commission comments? And, uh, it didn't happen that night. Um, there was one commissioner that really, uh, pushed it to another, to a future meeting. But, but again, it made it super sensitive that, you know, it's not the time to bring up big issues and try to call everybody to vote on them. So, but it is a time where if you've got a concern and you think it ought to be put on the agenda for the future, you can bring it up. Um, or, um, you know, and in this case, you'll be able to make comments about your liaison position. So, so mayor, um, and the mayor had sense, the mayor. Yeah. You're asking your colleagues. I'm sorry, but no, I was asking you too. I mean, it's got to make sense for you guys too. So that's that. And, and the mayor had pointed this out earlier during agenda briefing. Um, I, we showed as, as it struck out here, but this no action may be taken upon any matter discussed during city commission comments, except by unanimous that needs to be moved up under city commission discussion and comments. And, and it's not struck out. It needs to be in the rules of procedure. Well, I think the problem is it becomes conflicting then though, Jennifer, because there's the first part says, um, commissioners may bring up any issues he or she would like to discuss with the commission. This could be simple items that they give consensus direction for, or if it's complex, the item should be added to a future agenda. So, I mean, inherent than that is you want to, I, we want to say it in a way that it's like, well, if it's something small that we all, but again, of course you could achieve that just by a vote of the commission. That's something small. Let's vote on it now. Let's have a consensus, but everybody has to be in agreement. Jen's looking confused over there. No, I'm just listening. I'm wondering, I'm trying to draw the distinction on whether or not you're having a discussion and you're going to just, if something comes up, give consensus direction for the city manager, as opposed to making a formal vote of the commission. Right. Well, additionally, there may be. Oh, microphone. I'll do better. So, to answer your question with regard to, you know, could you legally make a motion? You may be able to, but I would say that, you know, you would want to caution that. It depends on what the motion is, whether or not there's some specific, um, extraneous legal provision that would require a particular notice. Normally you can at a public meeting, but I would say that you're probably going to want background, or you're going to want staff to have an opportunity to look into whatever you're looking so they can provide you enough information so you can take that action. You would hope. Absolutely. So, I just want. But we're not restricted to that if we need to make a motion. Is that the case? Right. I thought we were restricted. I thought a motion, particularly if it had to do with some ordinances or anything like that, has to have public notice. So, that's why I say it depends if there's an extra legal issue. So, with an ordinance, you're going to have two readings. There's publication. There's notice. Um, yeah. There are, there are those items and then they're just your kind of normal garden variety administrative items. So, I guess the easiest thing, Jennifer, is to just put those lines back up. Yeah. We have full benefit. Yeah. Anything else? Do you just want it at the end then, or would you like it just below that future agenda, uh, um, before in addition? Um, whatever you guys think really, I guess. Uh, okay. Okay. Okay. That's it. Yeah. Actually, it was a lot more simple than we thought it would be. Well, I, I do bring up a question point. Yeah. Let me, uh, let me, let me go ahead and do some questions and thoughts. Um, questions on this side, Vice Mayor? Yeah. I really don't have any. So, thank you, Jennifer, Rebecca, for working so hard on this. Appreciate it. Uh, Commissioner Sandberg? No questions. Commissioner Walker? Well, um, I really don't have any questions, but I'm not clear what the discussion was in terms of the complexity of an issue and that sort of thing. So, under, um, commission comments before, there was the wording. Is it still there? Is it still in the strike? Is it struck out? It's shown the last sentence that's struck out. Yeah. No action. The very last three, three lines. No action may be taken upon any matter discussed during commission comments except by unanimous consent of the entire commission present at such regular meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that, and that, again, it goes back to really, to me, something that was never intended for that part of the meeting. Kind of the surprise attack, so to speak. Um, not judging the issue, just that it was a lot to put on that part of the meeting. Um, okay. So, Commissioner Dugard, you definitely have a question. Yeah. I, I, uh, I think where we bump into walls, at least I experience it to some extent, is in our considering, um, uh, normal agenda items. As we go through the process, our first slice is questions and comments are restricted at that time. We're not, uh, we're not supposed to do comments. And then our second slice is comments and we can't do questions at that time. I find that confining because oftentimes I find myself having a question inside that next phase that I'm inappropriate if I pose it. And so I'd like to propose that on, uh, five page five, the commission may ask questions and make comments in the first portion. And under nine, the commission may, um, ask follow-up questions and comments and make comments on the issue. Therefore, we won't run into that barrier of needing to ask a question later on in the agenda. Now, I do understand that parliamentary procedure is such, particularly if you're looking at this as a quasi judicial, which this is not. Quasi judicial is secondary. But the quasi judicial is restricted in those particular arenas as far as when questions and comments could be made. But this is not a quasi judicial part of the program. I mean, part of the agenda. So I'd like to be able to find ourselves making comments and questions and also under nine comments and questions. Wow. Look at you and your legal speak. Wow. You go. So you're talking, um, Commissioner, as, um. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump in though. Okay. I, I do have concerns over watching different meetings that if you mix the questions and comments in the beginning, it could really lengthen the meeting. It could, um, I just think it could get, it could, it could separate some issues. What I would rather do is, and I, I try to do it up here, but it's not really like baked in. Um, because like, you know, Jeff will say, hey, I got one more question. So the people closer to you are like, so I mean, um, maybe we just bake in, um, if anybody has a follow-up question. And then if no one does, because I don't want people to, I hate to do a second round unless we really need a second round. But if we need a second round, we do it. Or if one person just has a question, nobody else does. We, we do it that way. So we give that opportunity. We always consistently give the opportunity after the first round of questions is, does anybody have any additional question? And I, I agree with that. Um, I, I, my, you know, and great point, uh, Commissioner Dugard. Um, and I've thought about this quite a bit, because, you know, when I was new on the commission two short years ago, um, it, yeah, it, it was confusing to me and, you know, probably after having the benefit of being slapped down a couple of times for making a comment during question period, um, I did start to realize the, the fact that it, what it does is it injects an efficiency, and a framework. And, but, you know, Mayor, you've been extremely flexible in allowing us to do questions, you know, um, as they come up. But I would be, I, I would just support, you know, basically your comment for the most part, questions, comments. And additional questions. I'll just make it into what I do. Okay. And no one feels like they've got a, because I do, I, and I have felt that somewhat, where if you're close to me, you're like, hey, I got another question. Or if you catch my eye, but that's not really an effective way to do it, especially for you two, you know. And so, um, so I think if we bake it in, you know, and then nobody's got a question, great. If they do, well, then you've got the opportunity, and. If I could offer a counter view. Okay. Yeah. We are restricted. We do not have collegial conversations about issues we're to vote on because of sunshine. Therefore, the only conversational platform we have is this one. We do not have conversational platform under this restriction. We can't have a conversation about where my colleague is in any other forum. It's against the law. And so therefore, to make this questions and then comments and follow that. And by the way, yes, you have done an excellent job of keeping the door open for us. And I'm grateful for that. But we may not always have you as the chair. And I have to open the possibility that we might be restricted under this way of doing order. Right. And so that's, that's, I really feel confined a lot of times. And it's, I'm a dialectic. I like counterpoint and point. And that's just the way I think. So that's just my point of view. Okay. I mean, we, can I think about it? I mean, versus tonight, can I just think that through? I hope we all think about it. Yeah. Maybe we all think about it. Yeah. I mean, obviously we're a team here. I want to do what, what works. And so, and sometimes. I don't want to singularly drive the issue. Yeah. I'm just saying that's how I feel. And I appreciate that. And I want us to make a team decision as well. I mean, sometimes I think that, you know, the questions coming first too, we ask our questions and we get our presentation, we get our questions, we hear from the, the, the audience, the citizens. And, you know, that's when a lot of times that's when I like to make my comment, just because I like to hear what they say. But, but I get what you're saying, because we don't get a lot of time to talk. But anybody else want to add anything? And we can still, we can think about this. Yeah. At the risk of derailing this train, I'm going to say that there have been certain commissioners that have perfected the art of commenting while asking a question at the same time. That's true, too. That's true. I can't imagine who that would be. I don't know who he's talking about. Does he work? Killed a lot? There's really a really good example tonight. No, no. No, no. I actually include myself. All right. To help me self-regulate, I do like that separation. And I do like that you do call me out. But I do want to get clarification when you say baked in. Are you talking about baked in during the question time to look back? Or were you talking about that second round of questions, maybe before comments? Separating from comments, but a second round of questions before comments. Was that? Right. Right. Exactly. We'd all do a round. And then I'd say, and then I'd say, anyone have any additional questions that has occurred to you? No. And then if everybody says no, or somebody says yes, they can do it. And that'll open it up to. Because there are opportunities for the spark questions. Right. Well, yeah. No, I mean, you're, now you're talking about something different. He's talking about. I know. I know. It's a slippery slope. Right. Once you, once you hear the citizens, because you're not wrong, sometimes you really do, it triggers something in you. And what would be wrong? Because that's, we're obviously, I get, sometimes those secondary questions that I have come from here, listening to my colleagues, or they come from the residents in the chamber. So I hadn't thought about that. And then writer, they asked one question and now all of a sudden I've got five. Oh my God. But what about, what about, what about? Yeah. And, and so is. Yeah. You know. Is there a downside to asking questions? Well, I guess for, for me it is. Well, it, for me, I'm open. But, you know, obviously want to follow some good rules of parliamentary procedure, which is why I want to kind of think about it, talk to Jen a little bit. But, and I obviously want us to feel comfortable talking to each other. So I guess the question is, what do we bake into the process first versus make sure as the chair, I'm being flexible enough to recognize when, you know, certain people have different questions and they want to, you know, do it a little differently. I got to think about it, truthfully. Yeah. Because I, I also don't want to like, have, I, I don't think we've made any bad decisions at all. I don't want to put that kind of cloud over this discussion. And this is just a, it could simply be passed off as a personal preference on my part, but I am frustrated. But when I hear any one of you make a comment on something, and it is totally a different perspective, which has happened in this room, what happens to me a lot. And I go, well, I'd like to then know, dot, dot, dot. And I don't have that examination capability. I'm sitting here, we're at, and we're about ready to make a vote. And Jeff has just made another walk statement. But I, but I will say, I will say as someone who did it to our former mayor a lot and said, excuse me, I need to, I need to ask a question. And I, I literally, I've done it to probably each one, well, you, definitely you and traveling around where I've said, you know, I, I need to, I, you just said something and I need to understand where you're coming from before I can make a decision. I, I want to, I want to give us that latitude and it doesn't need to be placed on paper. I'm fine. And that's, I mean, it's, that's kind of my preference that we have that, you know, that you just, you know, you know, mayor, could I, do you mind if I ask a question to my colleague? And that's been generally what we're doing, but that is not what this practice says. No, you're right about it. It's, but it, yeah, but it's, uh, yeah. I, I would say, yeah, you know, as the mayor of our great city of Dunedin, I think that you should be empowered and afforded the opportunity to facilitate the discussion as is beneficial to the public and the commission. So I think you'd get a little leeway there. Well, I appreciate it. You know, I think, I certainly think that we've all appreciated, uh, the way you have run these meetings so far. You've been flexible and that's no, uh, negative comment on our previous administrations, but there were times when it was extremely rigid. If I say it for you, I've got to open it back up and I'm thinking, well, what's wrong with opening night? You know, so, but thank you for the way you run the meetings. So what about, um, thank you for that. You know, if, if, if Rob made a comment or, or Tom, um, are we allowed to converse amongst each other up here? No, no, you always go through the chair because otherwise it can unravel quickly. Just like even when the citizens or citizen input, it's really important. I've, well, I've seen it, it can unravel quick. Um, so it's just important to be recognized. That's, uh, from parliamentary, but, but, um, Commissioner Gardner, I do, I do get what you're saying about the desire to make sure we're, you know, hearing each other. Well, I'll give you the case. Um, I was a little, um, surprised in a vote recently, uh, and it had to do with, um, the freebie. Okay. And I, I did not expect one of my colleagues to vote against it. And I really wanted to, now I couldn't at that moment ask why because we were in the voting process. But had I understood that in his comments, I then would have wanted to go, okay, help me understand this a little bit better. And so I could understand your perspective. Now, yeah, we can't do that outside this room. This is the only place that kind of conversation can be held. And I really enjoy the collegial aspects of our team. But if I can't examine that, that gets hurt a little bit. Okay. No, sure enough, I'll, um, think, think about that a little bit more. But, uh, in the meantime, make sure I'm, you know, if you, if you have a moment where you feel like you really want to ask that question, just, just, you know, say may or may I, you know, can I, not sure what the right words are at the moment, but. Mother may I seems right. Um, so, uh, let's just, uh, let's talk about, so are we good with the, um, we would be having two regular meetings, the meeting on the first Thursday and a meeting on the third Thursday. We'd be having a workshop on the first Tuesday and we'd have no other workshop unless it was needed. We'd go from four to three meetings, which I'm just going to add based on our December meeting. When I went back pre 2016, we shot up 15 meetings in 2016. And what happened was, and we know, we, especially those of us who've been here, slowly Thursday became nothing. Like, I don't know how many times we'd come in here in 45 minutes, we're out the door. They just became, they became nothing or we canceled. We canceled most of them. So again, I think we can be just as efficient with our three meetings. And then I was going to say, Jennifer, should you add something in workshops in general, just saying at, you know, that we'd add them if needed or something versus having to call it a special meeting? Well, I, you know, really genuinely the plan was though, we had a lot of workshop items that we would ask for a special meeting. Okay. So that's good. So you're comfortable with that. Okay. Okay. So it would be the, be going from four meetings to three. Um, and then we, we would, is everybody okay with that? Let me start with that. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, we don't, uh, you know, if, if needed, we, we will, I'm sure we will schedule a special meeting, you know, which we already do. And we will continue to do, right? Just like we did for the Marina. Jennifer pointed out that we actually have standalone workshops incorporated within the rules of procedures now. So we would call one of those. Yeah. Okay. And as you're into thinking ahead, what is your timeframe as far as going to be Tuesday mornings or is it going to be a Wednesday night, Tuesday night? Well, I would actually might play a role, but right. Well, you know, the special meeting where we have an action item, uh, that would be in the evening, you know, so, um, cause typically, for example, we have, um, and I mentioned during the state of the city, so I can mention it now, you know, Coca-Cola, we're talking to Coca-Cola about a donation and we might need a special meeting for that, uh, cause we're on a time, you know, tight timeframe. So, um, uh, but if it were a workshop, I would, you know, workshop items that were legal in consensus direction. I would look for a Tuesday morning. Okay. And you think the, given that we have defined special meetings as one thing and workshops is another thing, calling something as special, does that trigger something in the residence? It's a special meeting as opposed to, oh, it's a workshop. We would just call it a standalone. Yeah. So you already have right now, you have your commission meetings, you have your workshop, you're now going to have workshops as opposed to work sessions, but you have standalone workshops. So if you had a workshop on, let's say, the first Tuesday and then you had something else come up and you felt like, okay, we really need to have another workshop, it would likely be probably that third Tuesday, depending on the timeliness of it. So we would be calling it a workshop. And we would call it a standalone workshop. As opposed to a special meeting. Correct. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that the residents, there was a distinction since we have two definitions. Yes. And in the workshop, there's no action taken, you know, and in the meeting, whether it was a special meeting or a regular meeting, you would be able to take action. Okay. It's not so much with this, but it's procedural. You know, we recently, we've all received emails about parking at the VFW, about power outages in certain parts of town. You know, and I know, Mayor, you've responded and copied us and that's great. But, you know, is that the way we should consistently do it? You would answer on behalf of all of us? Is it, what, what do you, what, what would you like us to do on? You know, specifically, let's talk about that truck or the trucks that have been parked at the, at the port, at the VFW. Yeah. Are you responding to that? Oh, I would suggest you have that conversation with city manager about those particular ones. There's a long history to those. Okay. Yeah. So, um, I don't respond to those. They only escalate. I'll tell you, Steve, I, here's what I do. I don't know that it's right or wrong, but typically I would let the mayor respond first. I'm betting he's going to come out soon. Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. I was, I was comfortable. He's going crazy back. Eating my popcorn. That's right. I don't know where I thought I was. Uh, I will let the mayor respond and then, uh, I respond separately because I don't want the residents to think that, you know, the mayor is the only one that responds. So I, I respond individually acknowledging, I know the mayor replied to you. I'm only doing this as a courtesy to let you know that I read it and saw it. And it's because 90% of those emails we get, we redirect to staff. And, and so, and which is what the mayor does. So I just go, I acknowledge that the mayor, you know, send it on. So good luck, whatever. Love Jeff, you know. Yeah. I mean, so it's really, it's whatever, what all we want, but I mean, I always appreciated when, um, and this is a free flowing conversation now. Yeah. Yeah. This is more what Tom likes. Um, anyway, um, I always appreciated the prior mayor and how she, and cause she really started that. I don't know that that was done prior. Um, but, and basically would respond very politely on behalf of everyone and forward it to the correct staff person. Now at the same time, um, and I would do it to, you know, so the mayor does it to everybody. And then, but that doesn't stop any one of an individual to say something, you know, themselves. And there was plenty of times that I did, I would still respond, you know, the mayor's already forwarded, but you know, obviously you care about your issue, whatever. And that's just a personal choice. But then there were times where you didn't, you just didn't need to, you know, you, because the manager would get five different emails saying the same thing. Hey, can somebody look into this? I mean, I, I, I get what you were saying. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, not to continue to date myself, but back in the day, like those things would come in with letters. Obviously they were more written letters and, and, um, the, uh, we, there was the one assistant to the whole commission and I mean, the commission barely saw them. They were just like getting the, you know, here's what we did to it and it's out the door. So, but because of email, we get inundated with it. I will say, um, and I think it's important to note, um, that, that all those emails, you know, folks have been writing to all of you individually instead of the city commission and, um, and you will, I'll get four requests to write back. But the, the, the important part is though, is that staff won't respond until we're asked directly by one of you to do so. And the reason for that is that, uh, I've actually experienced in the past having received an email like that responded and the commissioner was actually upset. It wasn't here. It's like, that's not how I wanted to respond. I didn't ask you to respond. So I'm, I'm talking about in an instance where somebody has written to the city commission, right? And, and they, they're looking for a response. Um, and Lindsay picks up on those and she'll send it to me and I will ask you, mayor, do you want a response? You know, commissioner Walker, do you want a response? Um, but, but, you know, it is important that you do forward those things respond, you know, regardless of, of, of, you know, the fact that we get four or five of them. Uh, there was one, for example, um, and it was in regards to the noise ordinance, long, long email, um, who was very upset at me for not responding. And I said, well, you sent it to the city commission. Uh, and, and some of them responded on, on their own behalf. And we had this, this huge discussion about why I didn't respond. And finally, this person got to the bottom of the email and said, oh, I just copied you. Right. Exactly. So, you know, that type of thing, you have to be, I think, I, I'm very sensitive about what you all want us to respond to and what you want to respond to. So as long as we're copying each other, you know, then, then, you know, and as you know, I will typically, when you ask me something, I will forward it to the appropriate staff person and copy you. So, you know, that I've, I've sent it on and you know who it, who it went to. So, I mean, it can be gray though. I mean, it can, and we just have to keep working towards it, you know, we get regular about some, it's a couple of the same people once I'm getting it, but yeah. And the one individual you were just talking about, I know the former mayor, since I was the blue Jay liaison, I got delegated, but there's a story there and you should talk to the city manager. So yeah, anyway, um, a long story. Yeah, you probably do. Um, okay. So, um, Jennifer, what else do we need to do with this? I think that we have good direction and I'm going to defer to the city clerk, but we need to now draft the ordinance. You need to adopt this rules of procedure. Okay. So I'm going to draft a new ordinance, a new resolution, sorry, and put it before you. So I'm thinking that, um, uh, we could, we should set a date of, uh, maybe June 1st to start this. Just start it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just to comment, there are two, two strings here. I don't want to lose track of, um, first of all. May 1st. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. May 1st. Okay. Starting May 1st. Yeah. Sorry. Consent agenda. Um, yeah, I, you know, the, because of the fact that we have the opportunity to pull any consent agenda item, I really, I really think that we can raise the threshold on that. So, you know, that's, that's my opinion. Um, the other thing in for delegation authority, uh, I, I think it needs to be raised. Okay. Yeah. So those are, those are my thoughts. Okay. And I don't know if they're, they're necessarily pert. Well, they are actually, because it does impact this. Yeah. I mean, Yeah. Go ahead. Commissioner Dugard. Um, I'm, I'm extremely comfortable with this in the form that it came or with some amendment, because we have a culture that is allowing us some latitude when we need it. I'm very grateful for that. So I'm not overly concerned about the written word in this case, as long as Rebecca doesn't chase me down the hall. Okay. And you're good with the consent agenda. I am good with the consent agenda. Let me just put something not to be discussed tonight, but to tee it up for perhaps the appropriate time in the future. When I look at, if I do a pie chart on our time, these meetings are fine within the context of how much time I'm seeing used around these meetings. And the issues are so weighty. I'm, I'm not overly concerned about these hours. What I am concerned about is the maybe perception I have about community engagement and how many hours I'm putting into community engagement and how much I can afford to put into community engagement, because many of these have costs associated with it. I'd like to tee that up in the future and have some more discussion around that particular issue. And, and you know, if I, if I may, I think part of, um, you know, when we had our, our, our workshop, um, um, slash retreat, um, you know, we all were craving for some discussion time among different, around different issues. And we just, you know, by relieving ourselves here, we may be able to build in a little bit of that so that we, you know, feel good about that. And we, we are able to talk about, you know, making sure we're building ourselves as a good team. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I, that retreat was the first one that I've done as a commissioner. And, um, in that format, we've done kind of something, but it's always been at city hall. Because I honestly felt that was the most open dialogue that we've, we've really possibly ever had the opportunity to do. So anyway, I, yeah, I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Well, we need to, if we need to, we'll come up, Rebecca's going to come up with a better word, but something similar to what we did, because, you know, maybe the, you know, we just might want to build in a little bit of time now, now and then nothing formalized a lot. I mean, we all have a lot of time commitments as it is, but I just, I think as Commissioner Dugard made that comment that, you know, maybe that, maybe there's some rationale to thinking about that. So, uh, and so are you both, I think you both said you were good with the whole thing. Okay. Um, so it would start May 1st. Um, so let me go ahead and do you want to, you have consensus? Do you need a vote or anything? Uh, no, consensus direction is good enough, right? So let me ask you one question, because we did say we were going to deal with this tonight. June 19th, we have a commission meeting. And June 19th, we cannot have a commission meeting that night. So do we have a recommendation on what to do with that particular commission meeting? Yeah. I, I checked with staff on, on any possible items, and we're okay to cancel that city commission meeting. Okay. You don't need to put it before or the week before or after. Okay. So you'll let us know. So we should consider it canceled on the calendar and you'll let us know if we need it. Okay. All right. Um, okay. Um, anything? Oh, we do need to do our agenda, don't we? But on, on that thing, anything else for the good of the order? Okay. Let's go to our, we have our, uh, we have the proposed agenda for the March 20th, 25th, 2025 commission meeting. I'm going to it so I can just look quickly at it here. That's pretty innocuous. Yeah. Anybody have anything, any changes or additions or? Um, Mayor, I just wanted to make note when I was kind of reviewing it right before the meeting, some of those titles for 2C and 2D, those titles have been changed. It just looks a little bit different because they are resolutions. Um, we, I did, they, we did ask that they put in the resolution number in the title. Again, it's not changing anything, but I don't want you each to see it and say that wasn't on the proposed agenda, but that, so those titles, um, now include the resolution numbers. Sounds good. And I just had a quick question. I see that, um, there's a proclam, uh, yeah, the proclamation for the Highland games. How are you, are we just on a rotation on those or how are you selecting them? Well, we're on a rotation and, um, and you know, there was a day that the mayor, the mayor read them all. The mayor just read them all. But then it got put on rotation, which I think is great because everybody has that opportunity. So basically in general, on a rotation, unless in like, for instance, Highland games, you know, because Jeff is liaison, we would have him, or if it was Blue Jay, we would have you, or I don't even care, is we would have, uh, we would have commissioner to guard. Um, so, uh, but, but yes, and, and actually, I have talked to Rebecca. We've talked about trying to create a little bit more formality with that. So it's not just, you know, just kind of having, looking out to see what the proclamations are and having a little bit more expectation about how we select them. So, but at this point, that's kind of how I do it. So yeah. And I mean, I know it's commissioner to guards turn next, but since he's lays on, he'll be after that. So, um, so I know he's waiting. He thinks he's going to, well, Hey, that's a very popular department. So you should want that. Oh yeah. Okay. So all in favor of the March 20th agenda. So moved second. All right. All in favor. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. There we go. Okay. And any other informational items or things for the good of the order? Oh, I'll say, I'm going to say this. No, I won't say that tonight. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Okay. Turn the mic off. That was.