CITY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING - Sep 03, 2026

Good evening. Welcome to the September 3rd, 2026 City Commission meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order, and I will start with our invocation moment of silence and Pledge of Allegiance with Jen. Can you take us with that? Good evening. Let us begin this meeting by taking a brief moment of silence and reflection as our thoughts go out to the family of former Mayor Bob Hackworth. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic which stands one nation under God, individual, liberty, and justice for all. Okay, I just want to add to that. Our thoughts, continuing thoughts go to Gwen Hackworth, Maddie Hackworth, Bob's daughter, and Bobby Hackworth, his son, and of course he has three grandchildren too, so they're all dealing with a surprising loss pretty quick. So, okay, we're going to go to, we need to, we had Vice Mayor Walker and Commissioner DeGuard. We're not at the past Tuesday workshop, and I want to ask for a motion for excused absences, all for good reasons that they couldn't make it. So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, and we're going to go to presentations, and we have an artist recognition, Richard Logan, and I'm going to turn it to Nicole and Elizabeth. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission. Nicole Delfino, Strategy and Sustainability Manager here today to recognize the City Commission Chamber artist for this semi-annual display. So I'm actually going to pass it over to Elizabeth Brinko, the City's Art Consultant, to introduce the artist and go over a little details about the artwork here. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, staff. Thanks so much for the opportunity to introduce the artist for the current exhibition here in Dunedin City Hall running through December 2026. Artist Richard Logan has the distinction of being a featured artist in the Takatori Yaki Gallery in Fukuoka, Japan, Japan. Duncan McClellan Gallery, the Florida Craft Art Gallery, American Strategic Insurance, and Bright House Networks in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mr. Logan's works have been exhibited in galleries across the U.S. He has completed large-scale commissions for city buildings, including a commission in Dunedin City Hall, Caledisi Room, and numerous projects for local, private, and non-profit organizations. His work is collected throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Richard's pre-Columbian exhibit will be here in the City Hall until December 2026. And I emphasize that because on September 10th, from 6 to 7 30 p.m., an artist's talk with light refreshments will be here in the chamber. We'll talk with Richard about his inspiration, his process, along with learning more about him as a practicing artist. The public is very much invited to attend, and at this time, it's my pleasure to welcome artist Richard Logan. Thank you very much, and it's an honor to be here. I mean, this lovely building, the space that you've created for art is just fantastic. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself, or, and then we'll, we've got a few questions for you, too, so you don't have to say a lot. We've got some questions for you. Um, I, I've always loved art. Um, my parents told me I had to do something to make money, so actually, I got my degree in architecture, but then, uh, decided that wasn't what I wanted to do, and just started doing art, and so that's kind of what I've been doing. Are you making any money? Yes. A little, a little. I'm not, I'm not a starving artist. Yeah, okay. So, well, we've got a few questions for you. Um, I'm going to start over with, uh, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. You know, uh, the thing that I always find, uh, really interesting, you know, about the, the beautiful work that you all do, um, is, you, is your process, and can you kind of talk a little bit about your creative process? Oh, the creative process, it's, um, it, it's varied. I mean, where the inspiration comes from is, you never know. Um, these particular pieces, the process was kind of combining the concept of, of pre-Columbian art with nature, which, uh, that's all part of, of pre-Columbian civilizations. Um, the actual process is, it's a photograph that's transferred onto the metal, uh, and then I do etched glass over the top of it, and, um, that, that's kind of that process. But, I get bored and I work in a lot of different mediums, so, you know, it just kind of, kind of depends on what inspires me. Yeah, well, I, I think that's amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sandberg? So, I know most of the people in this room, when you walk away tonight, what do you want them to walk away, thinking of you, trying to understand you, and what you bring to us, what would you explain to the people behind you? Oh, wow. Um, you know, it, it, it's a matter of trying to bring, uh, these particular pieces, kind of a beauty and a vision of, of, of tying together, um, different civilizations with, with the present, um, and how we, we work together. Um, and, uh, just, you know, hopefully it inspires people to, to think about things differently. Didn't I see on your, uh, website, was it, uh, someone from ZZ Top? Yes. Actually, that piece was, uh, I, I was at an architectural salvage place. Yeah. And I saw this piece of wood, and, uh, I said, oh, there's a person with a beard. I like that. That was creative. Yeah, so, that, that, that, that's, that's where that come from. Okay. Uh, uh, Mr. Goh, any questions, or? Uh, yes, ma'am. Uh, of all the pictures that you have on excavator, pieces of art, I'm sorry, not pictures, uh, is there one that speaks to you a little more strongly, or is there a particular favorite that you have, and, and why? You mean of this, this series? Um, actually, probably, uh, the King Pakal, uh, just, just because, uh, and for the, which one is that? It's the one right in the middle. Okay. Um, that one is, uh, it, it's a little more involved, uh, the, the process. It's, it's what we call staged carved glass, um, and so, it, it's done in layers, so it's not just a, a, a, a plain etching, it, it's, it's, it's carved into the glass, so, um, and it's just, you know, kind of a, I like people, so that's, that, that's probably what, out of this series is the one that I like the most. Very good. Thank you. Mr. Degard. Thank you, Mayor. Is, is, is your work exclusively in pre-Columbian, or is this just a segment? No, this is just a series, um, I, a lot of my work has been, has dealt with music, or jazz, and people, um, I use music, uh, as, uh, when I, while I'm working, um, and, um, it, you know, as sometimes as inspiration for, for new pieces and new ideas. And is etch glass kind of a focus for you? Etch glass, uh, it, it's something that, it's, it's a focus. No, it's not, uh, I've done a lot of it, uh, but I also do cast glass, um, I do, uh, oil paintings, uh, I work in wood, um, I work in multiple mediums, so, um, this seems to be, um, a big portion of what I've been doing lately, is the etch glass, and that, that was thanks to, uh, Duncan McClellan, uh, he gave me the first residency to start adding glass to my work, so, that, that's where that came from. That takes a lot of discipline, uh, it's very painstaking. Yes. It's time consuming, and when you're working with glass, glasses, as you know, it breaks. Yeah, how much glass did you go through to get through these five pieces? Um, actually, I didn't break any. Oh, okay. This, this was a few, this was one of the few series that didn't break anything. You know, it, it's amazing with glass, I, I've, I've, uh, just barely touched it, and it's shattered, and I've dropped it, and you don't see any marks on it, so, you know, glass is kind of a, kind of amazing material, which you can't really, um, necessarily rely on. What were you hoping the, uh, viewer would feel when they saw this work? Um, I, I was hoping they would have some kind of reflection of, of, of, you know, um, pre-Columbian, uh, other, other civilizations, uh, and think about how it relates to our growth, and, and, uh, and how, how they, they dealt with nature, and that was a big part of their, their, their, um, living and philosophy, and, and how we should probably do this, and think about it the same. Speedo, thank you so much. Thank you. So, I'm thinking Commissioner Degard might want to, you know, be in your shop with you at this point, since, you know, he had multiple questions. Um, I'll just ask one. Um, so, this particular body of work, um, what was your true inspiration? Like, what inspired it? Um, gosh, uh, I was actually down in, in, in, uh, the Selby Gardens, and was taking the pictures, and, uh, that, that's where the, the, the photographs on the back came from. And, uh, it was just kind of watching the, the little creatures that move around within it, the, the lizards, um, the spiders, you know, the, the, the birds, and, and everything that move around within Selby Gardens. And so, that was kind of, kind of where it really came from. Oh, so. That's great. Well, um, Richard, we just want to thank you for sharing your art with the citizens of Dunedin in the citizens' house, so to speak. And, uh, it's very appreciated. Um, and, uh, thanks for all you do. I'm glad you decided not to do architecture. Decided to do art. Thank you. Well, thank you. And I want to thank you also for allowing me to be here. And let's get a picture with you up front here. Thank you very much. So, um, before we go to the next, um, uh, the next proclamation, I did want to kind of take a discretion for, for me as mayor. Uh, Claudia, could you stand up just for a minute? Claudia. Yeah. Yeah. Well, recently, this lady, I won't say the, what, what year, what birthday it was, had a birthday, and she does so much for our community. I missed the event, but it looked like a lot of fun. Just want to thank you and say happy birthday. So, yeah. Okay. We're going to go to National Constitutional Week Proclamation, September 17th through 23rd, 2026. I am going to turn that over to Vice Mayor. Well, thank you, Mayor. You know, it is, uh, it's truly an honor to be able to read this proclamation. And I just want to thank, uh, all the, the veteran community, the veteran organizations that showed up today to, to, to honor this. Um, I would like the Daughters of the American Revolution to come on up. So this is, uh, this is a, this is a pretty special year because we marked 250 years of the, of the Declaration of Independence. And, uh, what I want to do is just, you know, provide a real brief distinction between the drafting of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Um, interestingly, it was the Daughters of the American Revolution that petitioned Congress in 1955 to set aside this week. And ultimately, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into public law on August 2nd, 1956. And, uh, you know, I, one of the things that I enjoy about this is, is because, you know, like you, I have a, I have a passion for our heritage. I became a member of the Sons of the American Revolution this year. And, uh, I, you know, it's, it, it was truly a proud moment. Um, so with that said, I want to, uh, read this proclamation. National Constitution Week. Whereas September 17th, 2026, marks the 239th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. And whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate the occasion. And whereas throughout America's history, in times of turmoil and peace, liberty and oppression, our faith in the Constitution's promise of freedom and democracy has been a steadfast rock of national stability against the raging seas of political change. And whereas to this day, the Caledese chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution continues to encourage public awareness of the historic significance of this milestone in our nation's heritage. Now therefore I, Robert James Walker, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the mayor of the great city of Dunedin, Florida, and on behalf of the entire city commission, do hereby proclaim the period of September 17th to September 23rd, 2026 as National Constitution Week in Dunedin and urge all citizens to join with the Caledese chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution along with DHR chapters across America in honoring and recalling the importance of our rights under the Constitution by public display of our nation's flag during National Constitution Week. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. As the cornerstone of our freedoms, the Constitution of the United States of America was written to protect every American from the abuse of power by government. Without restraint, the excesses of political power would cause our republic to perish. This guardian of liberties established our republic as a self-governing nation dedicated to rule by law. Government would be the servant and not the master of the people. We laud the achievements of those courageous men who 250 years ago struggled to balance a limited government with the rights, privileges, and the responsibilities of American citizenship. We, the people, speaks volumes. Caledese chapter D.A.R. encourages our citizens to honor their staunch courage and wise counsel by studying this great document. On that note, we invite everyone to visit our display at the Dunedin Public Library this month. It'll be up during the whole month. And thank you for helping the Daughters of the American Revolution promote awareness of our nation's greatest document. And the Caledese chapter is proud to present you with the Constitution flag to fly over City Hall September 17th. Maybe, sit down. Give it a city flag. Thank you. Thank you. And we need to get a picture, and let's give you a hand. Oh, yeah. You want to hold up the flag, maybe? Yeah. That'd be good. That's great. Good idea, City Manager Framley. Yeah, she comes out as a good one. It wasn't just a good idea. It was. It's a great idea. Okay. That's not good. Yeah, different. No, no. Yeah. Commission? Oh, okay. I got the tall one tonight. You get the tall one. That's right. No, it's about time. Okay, perfect. You ready? Thank you. Very good. Thank you. All right. Next time, Commissioner Sandberg, you just have to have your heels on, maybe. You have to have your heels on next time. Well, you're here. Okay. Pretty good for wearing flats. Yeah, exactly. I know, so many thoughts. Okay, and our next one is a very important one, which is a day to remember proclamation. I'm going to turn that over to Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. Before I read this proclamation, I'm going to ask everyone in the room to just reflect on where they were on 9-11 when they discovered the tragedy we experienced that day. Just take a moment. Excellent. Thank you all. Whereas the unprovoked attacks on September 11, 2001, upon America by foreign terrorists have thrust the United States and other countries into a war it never envisioned militarily or diplomatically, whereas the challenges facing all civilized people of the world as they relate to war on terrorism will not end until those fanatics responsible are eliminated or brought to justice, and whereas America is fully committed to ensuring our freedoms remain unfettered and sovereign for all generations now and forever, and whereas world opinion needs to remain focused upon the eradication of these inhumane acts perpetuated around the globe, and whereas one way to accomplish this is to never forget that those innocent victims did not die in vain, and whereas America can fight back by reminding the world that the deaths of these people will always be remembered and that they will be forever loved, and whereas a noble and appropriate way to accomplish this is through the annual celebration of their living, and whereas this commemoration should be conducted each September 11 throughout the land to include the promotion of global peace and goodwill, the demonstration of America's resolve and perseverance to win the war on terrorism, the advancement of responsible citizenship, the encouragement of patriotism and love of country, and the poignant remembrance of those innocent victims who died September 11 as heroes, one and all. Now I, therefore, Tom Dugard, by the virtue of the authority vested in me from the mayor of the city of Dunedin, Florida, and on behalf of the entire city commission, do hereby issue this proclamation to memorialize those men, women, and children who lost their lives. Be it further proclaimed that this proclamation will be publicized for all to see and know that these citizens of Dunedin remember with eternal respect those whose lives were suddenly, without cause, pointlessly taken from them on September 11, 2001. May they forever rest in peace and abide in our memories. Thank you. We actually have two recipients of the proclamation. One is from the American Legion, Kelly, and the whole group, Kelly, if you want to come forward, and also our chief with all our first responders, and each of you feel comfortable making some comments. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner, City Manager, I want to thank you for this proclamation and taking the time to recognize this historic 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. We remember the 343 firefighters, along with the law enforcement officers, EMS personnel, and the first responders and civilians who lost their lives that day. On behalf of Dunedin Fire Rescue, we want to thank you for honoring their sacrifice and continuing to support the men and women who serve our community as well. We will never forget. We would also like to make sure that we invite everybody to join us here at City Hall on September 11th for a remembrance ceremony in the morning. So, thank you. What time is that going to be at, exactly? It starts at 840. 840? Okay. Thank you, Mayor Franey and Commissioners, for this proclamation. I accept it on behalf of the American Legion. This being the 25th anniversary, this definitely is something that we know that we can never, ever forget. We can never let this happen again to our land. We must remember that we are free, and we must support and think about the people that did sacrifice their lives for this, the first responders, the families that no longer are families, and just keep a memory and never let this pass. It's unfortunate. It's 25 years. Thank you. We want to do a picture with everybody, so maybe Kelly and Chief, you guys can be in the middle and then have your groups right there. And whatever Sue tells you to do, really. Thank you to the Legion and to our first responders. And yes, I'm sure most people in this room remember where they were that day, and it was a horrible day, and so we don't ever want to have a day like that again. Okay, we're going to go to citizen input. Is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda? Okay, David, name and address for the record in three minutes. I will, Mayor. Thank you. My name is David Ballard Geddes, Jr. I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. I frequently attend meetings at the Tampa Bay Water Authority, which is headquartered just up the street. This diagram is a pie chart displaying their capital outlay of annual expenses of what it costs to upkeep their yearly budget. The largest slice of the pie in this chart, two-thirds of their budget, pays interest rates to a bond debt paying perpetual interest to an ever-growing bond market, subjecting us to an ever-growing debt maintaining interest payments to a contrived bond market. Slowly and surely and ultimately, at some point in time, this ever-growing debt will place us in perpetual bondage for water access, claiming that water is now a privilege. The diagram shows there is very little capital outlay for other matters other than paying debt to such third-party invocations. If the bond market, as contrived and invoked, was held null and void, neutralized as based on the 14th Amendment, there would be ample amounts of money for other needs such as infrastructure. Now, should the city and the county governments be operating on the same principle, maintaining an ever-growing bond debt, neutralizing the interest rates to such contrived bond source would serve to free up money that could be used properly for library and parks and other infrastructure needs throughout the city. Thank you. Thank you, David. Anyone else in the audience wish to come forward and speak to an item that is not on the agenda? Okay. Seeing no one, I will close citizen input. I'm going to go to the consent agenda. And so we have 2A, approve the minutes for July 9th, 2026 regular meeting, July 21st, 2026 budget workshop. 2B is board and committee appointments, and we have one to Dunedin Causeway and Coastal Waterway Committee, and we have two to local planning agency. 2C, city of Dunedin and Ford Pinellas interlocal agreement for planning and mapping service and or special work project, or project work. 2D, award a bid number 26-2619 for the production well drilling services project to FTE Drilling USA, Inc. in the amount of $326,672.50 and approve First Amendment to the agreement. 2E, indemnification and hold harmless agreement for the use of City of Pinellas Park Fire Training Facility. 2F, after the fact ratification of an emergency purchase order issued to Guardian Equipment, Inc. for the emergency replacement of two 4,600-gallon sodium hypochlorite, which is bleach, tanks, and installation of the wastewater treatment plant in an amount not to exceed $95,985. Does anyone wish to pull anything off of the consent agenda? 2D, questions and clarification. Okay, anyone else? Anything else? Okay, so minus 2D, can I have a motion for the rest of the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Okay, and is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on any of the items that I just walked through? Okay, seeing no one, I'll close public input. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, and we have one pulled, which is the 2D on production well drilling services. So just a question or full? Just a couple of questions. I don't need a presentation. So questions and clarification. $326,000, is that it? No upgrades of electrical, fencing, lights? We're not going to have to come back to these people and tell them any more, right? This is for the actual drilling of the well. We do have to also bid out the above-ground pertinences like the piping and the electrical and the controls and instrumentation as well. So $326,000 plus. Any idea what we're looking at then? Another $300,000 to $400,000. Okay. I see there's also another well nearby. Will the proximity to these two have any effect on each other? I mean, are they drilling? Is one deeper than the other? But just make me... They are at the same depth. So the city that need... Oh, by the way, I'm Alex Gonzalez, city engineer. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, staff. I am the... So we have 29 wells throughout the city. All 29 do not run at the same time. We like to give some rest and others. We operate from about 12 to 16, 17 wells at a given time. These two wells in Amberley Park will not run at the same time unless it is a emergency. Okay. That's pretty much all I wanted to hear. I had a feeling there'd be more money and just want to make sure that they didn't impede on each other. So that's all I had, mayor. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else have questions about it? You don't mind? Sure. Go ahead. You had mentioned 29 wells and so this will be number 30? Correct. This is the 30th well. Okay. And what are some of the decisions that go into deciding whether or not we need a new well? So this well itself has spurred more from our need to have a resilient well field. As we found out during Hurricane Helene, Milton, we are a coastal city. Some wells do get submerged from storm surge and also some wells lose power. So we looked to ways to make our well field more resilient. We got with a consultant, WSP. They identified four well field sites on city-owned properties already that we can install a new well. We picked the Amberley Park because it is more high and dry. It is, Amberley Park is right behind our water plant, 50-odd feet above sea level. Also, it already has sufficient power. As Commissioner Sandberg already mentioned, there is a well across the park. Duke Energy also recently completed a power electrical grid hardening project in Amberley Park. There is that new above ground transformer. So the power supply there is more hardened to storms as well. And we already know there is a good location for the hydrogeological because we already have a well there as well. And you hear it all the time from the residents as soon as they see a new development, as soon as they see something new, more people coming in, oh my gosh, there's not enough water for us. What are we going to do? Is this any reflection on population increase? Is there any negative impact to the current underground water supply that we have? This well in itself is not to increase our capacity. It is not to increase our flow to the large room plant. It is only to provide a more resilient well field and to actually give portions of our aquifer a rest because we don't want to continually pump from one area. That's how a well goes dead and you can't pump from it anymore. So it's actually going to benefit our aquifer as a whole because we're giving some areas a rest. And because we're a coastal community and during the last hurricanes we had some of our wells get wet as you mentioned. Does that water intrusion into those wells, does that contaminate, does that ruin the well or can the well come back from something like that? I assume that it was wet because of salt water or something. I could be incorrect. I mean it's more of not necessarily the well being inundated because a lot of the electrical components is more of that where you lose power because of the water getting near those components. So it's also just when there's only we have about two or three that are really in those areas. So it's more like you said trying to move our wells locations farther away and farther up so we don't have those issues. It's not like the well was contaminated with seawater. It just, you know, it got near so we turned them off. All right. And again this will be number 30. Is there a maximum that we can have, want to have? So we have only four more well sites permitted through Swiftmud and this is going to take one of those away. It's going to be an official well site so after this we'll only have three more sites permitted to us. All right. Thank you. That's all I had in here. Commissioner Sandberger, Commissioner de Gard, well, Commissioner de Gard. I'm sorry, you already had your time. How do we measure the resource available in the aquifer? Is there pressure measurement and the recharge rate? I'd like to know about that as well. So when we have to go and get this permit for a well site, we do have to do a whole hydrogeological modeling of our aquifer that we draw from and then we work with Swiftmud to, which is the, where the Southwest Florida Water Management District and we work with them to come up with what our capacity is, what the well can produce, it's, you know, it's limits, so to speak. So that is done through Swiftmud and Swiftmud obviously looks as a whole entire region in the aquifer. So what is our status? Are we lowering our status capability? What is it? Do we measure that particular aspect? How much water is down there? That's a good question. I can only tell you that we are nowhere near our upper limits of our permit and we are nowhere near our upper limits that we can draw from. We want to keep our aquifer healthy and we don't want to draw too much at all. So adding this 30th well, like I said, is only to provide a relief to some of our other areas that we draw from. And the depth is of these wells? This one is proposed to be around 240 to 280 feet down. And how long does it take for water to charge into that aquifer? Do we know that? In other words, when it comes down, it is recharged by surface water, correct? Correct. Okay. And do we know the charge rate over time? I will have to get back to you on that one, Commissioner. I do not know the recharge rate off the top of that. Well, permits, one thing, and I get that, but also recharge rates something else altogether. So thank you very much. Vice Mayor, any questions? No, Mayor, I don't. Okay. I know the audience was really excited about this topic. I could tell. Why don't they go flush their toilet? Thank you, Steve, for pulling. Okay. All right. Can I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Whoa. Okay. Wait a minute. A lot was going on there. I'm going to take Commissioner Sandberg in second. You're picking that. You get second. He pulled it, so I'll give him the right to that. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passed unanimously. Okay. We will go to our action item. Thank you, Clay and Alex. I'm liking the purple Alex. I just have to say it. Yeah. Okay. Second reading of Ordinance 26-08, an ordinance amending the City of Dunedin Code of Ordinances to prohibit launching motorized watercraft from the Dunedin Causeway Beach to protect the shoreline, reduce negative environmental impacts, and reduce overall user safety. Jen, could you please read Ordinance 26-08 by title only? Yes. Ordinance 26-08, an ordinance to the City of Dunedin, Florida, amending the City of Dunedin Code of Ordinances to prohibit launching a motorized watercraft from the Dunedin Causeway Beach to protect the shoreline, reduce negative environmental impacts, and improve overall user safety, providing for applicability and severability, providing for conflict, providing for codification, and providing for an effective date. That was Ordinance 26-08, read by title only. Okay. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Motion and a second. And staff presentation, Tony and Nicole. Oh, so I'm sorry. You did say you wanted to kick it off? Yeah, if I may. Thank you very much, Mary. I appreciate that. And I wanted to just give you an overview and kind of establish the framework of where we are this evening in regards to Ordinance 26-08. This is second reading of the amendment, as the mayor mentioned, prohibiting motorized watercraft from launching or landing on the Dunedin Causeway Bridge. And I know staff is going to talk a little bit about this during the course of their presentation, but this has been a controversial subject. And so the first public hearing was we had many welcome visitors who gave you a lot of testimony regarding their position. You've had a lot of emails regarding this particular subject, and I know that as you go about your day, you've heard from your constituents as well. And so there's been a lot of input into this particular amendment to the Code of Ordinances, and not just during the course of the public hearings. So where this all began was on December 9th of 2025, the Dunedin Causeway and Coastal Waterway Committee submitted a memorandum to the City Commission and to myself, a City Manager, recommending that the City Commission act to prohibit launch and operation of motorized watercraft on the Dunedin Causeway. That memo is in your agenda package as Exhibit E. It was a very well-drafted memo in my opinion. But the rationale for that memo was stated, and I quote, this recommendation arises from documented safety hazards, environmental degradation, and conflicts between incompatible uses along this unique public coastal corridor. And I do want to point out that the Dunedin Causeway and Coastal Waterway Committee is a citizen group of residents of the City of Dunedin who are appointed by the City Commission and they act in an advisory capacity to the City Commission. So I think there is some misunderstanding as to the purpose of that committee. And in fact, making a recommendation as they did is part of their task and their charge by the City Commission. So in the evening period then, the county has been working with the city regarding some traffic circulation patterns on the Causeway and the county has been restoring the area to pre-hurricane conditions. and there was quite a bit of damage as you know on that portion of the Causeway. And so as reopening the Causeway became imminent it was time for us to take up and address the Dunedin Causeway and Coastal Waterway Committee's recommendation. And that was essentially what we didn't want to do is open the Causeway and have motorized watercraft there without addressing the committee's recommendation and then bringing it to the City Commission and then closing it down again for motorized watercraft. So it was a logical progression as to how we got here this evening. So staff did our research. We spoke to the Dunedin Causeway and Coastal Waterway Committee and on July 2nd of 2026 the City Commission provided consensus direction to staff after a presentation to move forward with an ordinance prohibiting motorized watercraft from launching or landing on the Causeway. It's important to note that this is an amendment to the Code of Ordinances and there is a very robust public hearing and public notification process that is excuse me incorporated within any sort of amendment to the Code of Ordinances. There are two publicly advertised public hearings. The first one was in July 23rd of 2026 and that was when the City Commission by a vote of 4-0 approved first reading of that ordinance. You heard a lot of testimony during the course of that ordinance from those who are in favor and those who are opposed to adoption of this ordinance. But again, I point out that the public hearing is very important and we have a number of people here this evening who I'm sure are going to speak to the City Commission but also what you hear from your constituents in the intervening period. You're not guided simply by a majority at the meeting versus a minority. You are guided by all the input that you receive from your constituents. So the first public hearing again was July 23rd of 2026 and that was publicly advertised in the Tampa Bay Times on July 5th of 2026. Tonight is a second public hearing and if the City Commission adopts this ordinance it would be effective immediately. This was publicly advertised on August 28th of 2026 as well. So publicly advertised second public hearing of this ordinance. You've heard a great deal. You've had a great deal of input from those who are proponents of the ban on most motorized watercraft and those who are not. And so I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to staff. They might repeat some of the information I just gave you. In fact, they probably will but I just wanted to be able to frame this for you this evening. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. Tony and Nicole. Good evening, Commission, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the public. Tony Mulkey, Parks and Recreation Director, City of Dunedin. We're here tonight for the second public hearing for this ordinance and I think City Manager characterized the main points in the process of how we got here so we'd like to briefly go through and just kind of refresh everybody's memory and the public that may not be as aware. Good evening. Again, I got some feedback. Nicole Delfino, Strategy and Sustainability Manager. We're just going to, again, briefly go over this presentation that was shared with you back in July but take a look at the causeway, the history of the background, what the current environment is, some of those benefits to the environment, what we've heard from from Pinellas County as well as really understanding the difference between the north and the south side as far as the county ordinance goes and then, of course, our recommendations and then any questions that you may have. So you've seen this a few times now but as far as the history of the Dunedin Causeway, it was built in 1963. It is open today for recreational activities from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. We have a number of key dates that we wanted to share even as far back as 1990 when the city commission tentatively banned launching at that point and then moving on from there, several studies that were conducted in regards to the causeway, the environmental impacts of the causeway in 2005, 2012, 2014 and then moving into 2019, we'll discuss this a little bit more on specifics in regards to the county ordinance which restricts usage on the north side and then, of course, as we all know, following the storms in 2024, pretty much the entire causeway was closed down but specifically the south side closed as far as any kind of launching or activity. In 2025, we heard from Pinellas County they came and presented to the commission on modifying the circulation of the causeway for safety concerns. They had presented in the past as well to address circulation so as to prevent interactions between pedestrians and vehicles and so that recommendation was made to modify the circulation which was done in 2025 and then in 2026 the Pinellas County completed, it is complete, the beach renourishment project for the causeway to help with the storm damage and the erosion that took place. All right, a brief overview of the current ordinance in Chapter 14 is the designation of different use areas along the causeway. The causeway is the gateway to Honeymoon Island and Caldese or Honeymoon and Caldese Island state parks. It's an active recreation space as well as a transportation corridor. The causeway is separated out as was mentioned the north side is managed slightly differently by the county as that is an area that has prohibited motorized watercraft for an extended time. On the south side the area is divided into three different sections. The furthest west is an area that is allowed for non-motorized watercraft launching, shore launching. The central section of the causeway beach is a non-watercraft area and then the west or excuse me, east section closest to the channel is the area that has been traditionally used for motorized watercraft use. Now this area is not a developed launch site or a boat ramp. It is from shore. It's about a thousand feet of shore launching and a thousand feet that is impacted by this proposed change. This is essentially just the graphic that's actually posted out there on the county signs on the north side of the road and this kind of just shows in a little different geographical form of the non-motorized watercraft, the no watercraft and the motorized watercraft zones. Again, just showing what the county ordinance is as far as that's applicable and posted out there on the north side of the causeway with attention on seagrass preservation. That's part of their decision making on prohibiting motorized watercraft through that area. And a lot of the discussion around this has been the benefits to the environment as the committees and other groups that have reached out amongst our Dunedin residents have brought forward the seagrass protection. But just the reduction in use helps with the turbidity of the water, shoreline scouring, bottom disturbance and has a lot of benefits from that reduced use that people have seen and kind of identified as a cause for wanting to make this change. Sure. In addition to that, we did want to share and attach to the agenda item are several letters of support of this ordinance banning the motorized launching. But that has come, obviously, as Jennifer had mentioned, from the Coastal and Causeway Waterway Committee and the memo that they had drafted to the commission. We have heard from Pinellas County with their support of moving forward with this as well as several local environmental groups and users of the area such as our Sailability Group and Wind Lasses as well as Tampa Bay Estuary and Sierra Club. In addition to that, another component of this piece was safety. As I mentioned before, the county changed the route as far as the causeway direction goes with concerns over safety. We did work with both Dineen Fire Rescue and the next slide talks about what the Pinellas County Sheriff findings but as far as calls for service to the causeway and of course as I think we're all very well aware that there have been two related jet ski deaths that have occurred in the last couple of years. And then again, this is a reference to what the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office put together as far as jet ski related incidents that have taken place on the causeway. We did want to look at the term and this applies to the same for the fire as well. Fire Department the term before the closure of the causeway so they looked back as far as January 1st 2022 all the way through at the time this data was pulled April 30th of 2026. The entire report there's just a screenshot of it here but as you can see pre-closure incidences are primarily related to vehicles that were not abiding by the wake zone and then post-closure primarily most of the incidences are in regards to illegal launching. This is just a snippet that was taken in our conversations with Pinellas County. Tom Washburn provided some feedback as far as agreeing that the city can take a position as far as restricting access and then also mentioning that the particular reason that they restricted access on the north side was due to sensitive environmental issues and then the constant having to refurbish the areas due to the degradation. I'm not going to read this entire county ordinance here but the highlighted or the underlined items are really just referencing this entire ordinance that the county has in reference to preserving the aquatic system and how important that is for our county and our environment. again this just goes into a little bit more detail as far as the concerns over activity that's affecting any of our aquatic preserve and we'll show you a little bit of I believe the next video or next slide is a map of the aquatic preserve. Clearly it encompasses most if not all of Pinellas County here and that was the ordinance that the county does have in place as far as protecting everything within that preserve. And for a little bit of information we've seen and heard for requests as far as information goes this is just for your information as far as available alternate launch locations should the causeway become unavailable. They range primarily for public launches but anywhere between two to three miles away from this location up to I want to say 12 or 13 miles is the furthest distance but a lot of different options for launching that can take place. And then lastly this is how we got to today. Jennifer talked a little bit about how important it was that this go through the proper process and advertising so we did present kind of an overview back over the summer as far as the direction that you provided us to take. The first reading took place July 23rd was properly advertised with seven days notice and then again for this meeting September 3rd we also had proper advertising. And lastly as we are here for the second reading staff recommends the city commission adopt ordinance 2608 to amend ordinance 1421 section 54 to 32 to prohibit launching of motorized watercraft along the Dunnean Causeway. Okay. Questions for staff starting with Commissioner Gao. No questions Mayor. Commissioner DeGuard. Thank you Mayor. I just want to be sure I understand the map that we're producing out of this process which is Exhibit A and I see that in the Exhibit A it still shows slow speed minimum wake area on the Exhibit A 26-21. Is that going to change? Is that going to stay the same? So I know we have a kind of a sister item that's next on the agenda addressing the map. I kind of preemptively we'll say that there's no substantive changes that are being made to the map. The map is referencing the water usage and we are not touching the water direction or the water usage identification. Tony shared some of those. Just to reiterate that's correct. This is strictly the shoreline activities. The waterway would require a different process that would have to be vetted by the state. It appears the map says that water access or boating is available for that area. So is that a conflict between the ordinance and this map? It doesn't conflict because it would prohibit the launching and landing of watercraft from the actual shoreline but the area would remain a no-wake zone. Available for boating? Correct. Okay. But it would have no launching ability from that location? That's correct. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have, Mayor. Okay. Vice Mayor, questions? Thank you, Mayor. I have my question really pertains to the enforcement of this. I'm kind of curious as to what kind of penalties would be involved with that. How does this get enforced exactly? So we did include an enforcement section of the staffing and essentially I know that the policy of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is the first interaction is a warning and in talking to Captain Harvey he's not going to move off of that. I think it's a directive of the sheriff. And so the first infraction if you will would be a warning and then I think it's a code 5 citation class 5 citation which is $93 if it's uncontested $138 so they would receive that class 5 violation. I've also spoken to Captain Harvey about if they encounter the sheriff's office encounter someone who has already been issued a citation a class 5 violation and they've come back and at that point there will be an option to trespass them from the causeway so that they wouldn't be allowed to return. Permanently? The trespass actually it's not usually permanent it's for a period of time maybe a year or something like that. I have no further questions. Can I just tack on because in here it also says about a fine of $500. How does that enter in? So that would be the municipal citation of the $500 and that would be something that we would discuss with the sheriff's office if that's something we're going to pursue a municipal citation. Would that be for actual people that have done it multiple times? I can see how it can be used in those terms yeah. Okay it'd be good to get that clarified so actually people would know. I think actually if I made mayor the citation is one thing but the trespassing is another. Gotcha. I get that. That's the bigger. Because what if you violate trespass? Well that would be a good question. I don't think that you'll be coming back. I think you're going to have a little visit to Hotel Penelope County Sheriff's Office Jail. Got it. Okay thank you. Okay any more questions? You're good? No further questions. Mr. Sandberg questions? Yeah I saw heads nodding back there so that they kind of answered Yeah they affirm that almost immediately so. Glad I'd ask. We don't by chance happen to have a current picture of the way it looks out there right now do we? I mean if not I can continue. No sir we didn't. We can send one to you under separate cover I did see one recently I just don't know how to get to it. I'm thinking that everybody in the audience could kind of what I'm going to talk about. So those if I drive out the causeway I take a left and go in by high and dry I can go so far and there's those giant concrete barriers are they going to stay if no matter what happens tonight? That's a follow-up discussion with the county. They have proposed naturalizing that shoreline a little bit to provide some resiliency but also accommodate more habitat. That's something they actually stepped up during this process and offered. So it would be a discussion to see what the access to that area would be. You know because if this could change the whole dynamic of that area tonight. I mean now we have cars coming through well it seems like people would be starting to relax and enjoy the causeway looking at the water. I mean I'm talking about families and all of a sudden we have cars going through there. Just something to consider and I that's why if we had a picture I was out there last weekend and you know I just I guess that's all I'm thinking is. Will we have if this is voted and it is enforced is there going to be new signage adequate signage so there will not be I didn't know I didn't understand. Will we have new signs? Yes we've worked with the county and actually put out some signs in the interim because the area is technically closed and we started to see an uptick of people trying to launch. Okay. So we did put signs at all the entries on the south side and then if this were to move forward we'd have to have some water facing signage as well for no landing of vessels and we need to figure out the installation on that but yes there would be. That's a great point for water facing I wondered about that. I want you to make sure for all of us in this room that there is no confusion in language or verbiage if the sheriff's office if the FWC engages with someone I just don't want either party to be uncomfortable where water you know the personal watercraft folks are trying to talk down the deputy or the warden and the warden's trying to say no I know what I'm talking about. I just want it to make sure for the fairness of both sides I mean can we all feel comfortable that every deputy that goes out there every person that might take their personal watercraft everyone will feel secure in understanding what's expected. So Commissioner if I may this has been a subject of discussion with Captain Harvey. Okay. That in terms of he has been in on the and he's the North District Commander for those of you in the audience. So the first question was enforcement how we enforce it and then the second question was how clearly we can enforce it and so I know that they have regular roll call and I don't know the technical name of that. I know that they have discussed this ordinance and that deputies were because the area is very clearly I mean in drafting this ordinance to say there's no landing or launching on the causeway is very clear. Is very clear. Well said. So I don't I think that enforcement will be relatively easy for the for the sheriff's office. This does not however prohibit anchoring offshore right and accessing the beach that would still be permitted and I think that people really don't understand that so but you cannot land on the beach neither can you launch. Okay. Now years ago I'm not the only one in this room we used to have bonfires on the causeway. Can you still have a bonfire on the causeway? That's restricted. Can I go out there and start a charcoal grill? Yes. Yes. I would love to bring my colleagues and I want all of you to give some consideration to doing away with grills as a whole because I've read about a recent couple of severe injuries where those coals were left and it was a young child that stepped in them and I want that to be some consideration tonight. I don't want to make this into a mess where we're amending what we're trying to do but if we can do that tonight I'd like to at least have each of you think about that going forward as we continue tonight. The other thing is we talked about horses. I was out there the other day and someone I know it was wrong the dog wasn't on a leash but the dog was in and out of that grass area. Do we have any way that we can post that? I think the guy was training his dog because he was throwing the stick and the dog was in the water. So Commissioner the dogs are prohibited from the beach. Okay. They are allowed on the trail but they're prohibited unless they're a service animal. Okay. And then my last, it was brought up during the last meeting about some potential runoff from pesticides maybe making that seagrass grow or die. Have we got proper clarification on what exactly was sprayed, who sprayed it, and if there was any long-term damage to the grass in that area? So any of our waterfront maintenance activities, we do have buffers and things where we do not spray within a certain area based on product guidelines. Okay. I can't tell you exactly what was sprayed out there, but the staff that does do the maintenance follows those. Perfect. Because would that have been one of our folks or would that have been Pinellas County? It would have been probably one of our folks on that level. That's all I had, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. I just have one question and I know Commissioner Gow has a follow-up. So I just want to make sure the county indicated that before they actually do the traffic pattern or anything, they're going to on the south side, they're going to show us a mock-up of what they want to do or what the results of the north side traffic flow have been, but they're not doing anything out there until they come to us and say, this is our thoughts on what we want to do. We want to get input from you. That is what they told us. That is, I want to make sure that it doesn't ever go through the cracks. Yes, that's our understanding, yes, that they're going to come and present us before they implement anything. Okay, good. All right. Because I'm going to be the crazy person out there saying stop. It starts before we see it and we get input from people. We'll be calling them tomorrow to remind them. Yeah, okay. That's good. That's my only question. I just want to make sure we didn't get lost on that one, but Commissioner Guy, you had a follow-up? Thank you. We do not want to see crazy mayor, so please take care of that. Dogs are not allowed on the causeway, but they are allowed on Honeymoon Island. They're allowed on the trail. It's probably Dog Beach. They're allowed on the trail. They're not allowed off the trail. But Honeymoon Island's a state park. Oh, yes. In the state park. Yeah, there is a dog beach within the state park. Okay. So if anybody who has their dogs on the causeway, there is a relief valve, right? It's half a mile down the road. I shouldn't use the word relief valve. Oh. Pardon the pun. And when we talk about landing, and they just can't land their jet skis on the beach, how close can they get? Are the residents, if this passes, and there is a jet ski that's 20 yards off the beach, are we going to start to get panic calls from residents? What's the expectation? So the one area there that was pointed out, this is a no-wake zone, so it would have to be kind of slow speed operations, but yes, they could occupy that area with a vessel. Right. So they can get within three feet of the shore? They can get pretty close. They can get pretty close. Okay. Very good. All right. And have we done any economic analysis, or do we know what the impact of the jet skis that they've had on our local businesses? I'm not aware. Whether it's Eddie's, whether it's the bait shop, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, the gas station? No. We have not done that analysis. We have heard from Glenn Stanky at the high and dry, which would be the one that would probably be most impacted, and he is in favor of the ban on motorized watercraft. But we have not done an in-depth analysis of the surrounding businesses. All right. Okay. And thank you, Mayor. That's all that I had. Thank you for allowing me. Anyone else have a follow-up? I don't want to... Okay. I do have one follow-up because you, you know, got me thinking. I guess the question is to the city attorney, is there enough clarity in there in terms of what, how close you can be to the shore, or is this going to be like, oh, my gosh, we're arguing about, you know, somebody being a foot off versus three feet off versus six feet off? I mean... So the point of the ordinance was to stop the launching, you know, so the coming on and going off of the shoreline. Right. And so that's what it's regulating, and I think that's very clear. As far as the waterway goes, this wasn't changing the regulations that currently exist in that waterway. So as long as you're not touching the shore, you're probably okay. But if you touch the shore, you're in violation. Okay. All right. Okay. And I guess to clarify, that would be the jet ski touching the shore, not the rider, right? So they can get off the jet ski and walk on shore, right? Yes. Sorry if that was being picky. Okay. Mayor, if I could also just real quick, since we were talking about this, there was a question with regard to amending the ordinance to include, to deal with the hot coals. So I did want to let you know that there already is something in the code that prohibits the disposal of hot coals unless it's in a designated area. So that already exists within your code. So that means grills are... Grilling is allowed, but the disposal of the coals is, can only be done in a designated area. Okay. Which puts a lot of responsibility on the person that's doing the grilling. Good. Thank you for clarifying that. Thank you. Okay. So if there's no other questions, we've got some, quite a few citizens that do want to talk. I just want to kind of restate what I said the last time and it went famously. So I hope it goes famously as well. You know, I probably have an equal amount of cards on each side of this issue, which makes it really important that, you know, the decorum of not clapping, not shouting out, not hooting, whatever. Because again, the whole purpose of that is not to intimidate who's ever talking and make them afraid to even get up here. Um, so it, you know, it's just about respect and respecting each other's opinion. And, you know, there's a lot of good opinions on both sides of this. So, uh, so we want to do that. So, and what I'm going to do is as I'm going to call a name and I'm going to call a name that's on deck so that, you know, so again, that person can be ready to come up and then it'll help the process move along well. So, uh, we are going to start, um, first speaker and it will be basically name, address and three minutes. And, uh, so David Geddes Jr. is first and Mark Clark is on deck. Hi, good evening. Thank you again. David Ballard Geddes Jr. I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. The newly proposed bridge, uh, that's to replace our existing bridge is to be much larger, longer than the bridge that we have in place today. It'll extend out past the point of where people are launching their jet skis today. So in effect, this jet ski arguments kind of moot, um, in relation to this newly developed bridge proposal, which ultimately is going to shorten the parking area that people use on the causeway itself. The new bridge will be nice because it will allow more water flow underneath that bridge to get behind Caledice Island and flush out the grass flats that are slowly dying because the causeway itself is congesting proper tidal flow. Now, here's the problem. I'm not a big fan of dredging, but that's all we've done out there. The intercoastal waterway is a dredge. They're pumping sand up and down on the beach from St. Pete all the way up, you know, to North Pinellas here. They're pumping sand from Cocoa Beach to St. Augustine. So in a sense, the causeway itself is a dredge. It's artificial. Now, in order to accommodate an ever growing population and people that move to Florida come for the water, we need to provide them a place to go to. So we need to reconfigure how we're going to design the causeway. I believe Tarpon Springs and the way they utilize cul-de-sacs that kind of stick out into Fred Howard Park, Sunset Beach is a cul-de-sac. Those were dredged. I think we could utilize that same concept here on the causeway and create one, possibly two cul-de-sacs out by where the bathhouse is that extend northward. Dredging, obviously, would be disruptive to the habitat. I've lived here my whole life, and it pains me to say this, but at the same time, we need to accommodate for what we're removing from the causeway with the building of a new bridge. We're going to need to recreate someplace else. Otherwise, we won't have the accommodations. We'll be taking away accommodations that are currently enjoyed by the residents today. So we need to replace that surface area that we're going to remove when building the new bridge and put that as cul-de-sacs as displayed at Sunset Beach and Tarpon, and Fred Howard Beach and Tarpon would be an example. So this is kind of a design that I kind of came up with just on the fly for a proposal. Thank you. Thank you, David. Appreciate your input. Okay, we have Mark Clark, and then on deck is going to be Eric Graves. Name and address for the record and three minutes. Mark Clark, 2013 Woodward Avenue, Dunedin, Florida. I would like to start by clearing up statements made at the last meeting by staff regarding the cost per square, per lineal foot that the Dunedin Causeway was the most expensive park in the Pinellas County system. That doesn't seem to be accurate. It's Fort DeSoto. Fort DeSoto is the most expensive park to maintain. And actually, the county is talking about seceding back to the state of Florida, several other parks, because the budget cuts could possibly be coming up. So Pinellas County, it's just too expensive to maintain some of these parks. Secondarily, according to Pinellas County and Swift Mud studies done every two years on seagrass, stormwater runoff is the number one cause of seagrass damage. Not personal watercraft launching on the causeway or anything like that. Number two is always prop scarring. That's always secondary. They do this study every two years. They do aerials. They do all kinds of stuff. Swift Mud actually goes out there and actually goes into the water and inspects the grass and looks at the health of the seagrass. So Dunedin, we have a lot of older subdivisions and there's a lot of stormwater runoff. I don't think there's anything you could do to prevent that. But it really has nothing to do with personal watercraft launching off that part of the causeway. And also, there's no study done that says that the seagrass is being damaged by the jet skis. It's just somebody's opinion that it looks better out there since the storms occurred back in 2024. There's no empirical data whatsoever. Of course, it depends on what time of year you look out there. If you visually look at it in the winter and in the spring, it looks pretty good because the water's clear. But once the rainy season starts, it does get turbid and kicked up. And you can't really see how much the seagrass is being damaged. This proposal, this proposed ordinance does not solve the main problem on the south side of the causeway. The area is congested with all different types of water enthusiasts, either launching from the beach or using the channel to gain golf access. This ordinance will not prohibit PWCs, as you just discussed, from going somewhere, launching, bringing their trailer and their car to the causeway, setting up camp, and anchoring their personal watercraft off the beach, and then using it as a launch area to go in and out. Not on the beach, but anchoring and then just enjoying the day going to and from the causeway, using that as a base camp. What do I have here? My suggestions would be to create a no-wake zone from the west side of the main drawbridge west to Hurricane Pass. That area is so congested with... Oh, I'm out of time? Yes. Wow. Thank you, Mark. Okay. All right, but that was my idea, is to make it a no-wake zone. Gotcha. Because that's the main problem out there. It's just congestion with paddleboarders, kayakers. I'm a kayaker, too, not just a personal watercraft user. And it's just a crazy space out there. And at low tide... Thank you. ...you've got a 50-foot wide area. I've got to keep it going, though. But I appreciate it. We appreciate it. Eric Graves and on deck will be Carol Horner. Eric Graves, 1413 Bayshore Boulevard, Unit 4 in Dunedin. And the first thing I'd like to say is just thanks for the approach that you've taken in this. It's kind of been exciting to just see the process, both sides of the equation, the input, the inclusiveness. So thank you for that. As I said before, and I'll make this very quick, I'm very much in support of the band. We've talked about the environmental issues. We've talked about safety issues. We've talked about the quality of life issues. And then also, you've got experts. You've got data that really support this approach. And the other thing for me, I'm out there all the time and my eyeballs. I know there's seasonality and all that, and I respect the previous opinion. But it is clear, since we have not had motorized vehicles launching at the causeway, the difference in how that area looks as far as seagrass, as far as the turbidness, the clarity of the water in the area. So I'm speaking for myself. My wife also said, Eric, say that you're speaking for me. And then also representing the paddling group of the Dunedin Boat Club as well in support of the band. And so thank you very much for the time. Thank you, Eric. Carol Horner is next. And Michelle Bernbaum is after that on deck. Carol Horner. I live 1660 Curlew Road, 1.3 miles to the causeway. And I love Dunedin. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. And you're Dunedin as well, Dunedin resident? Yes. Yeah, Dunedin, sorry. I own a jet ski. I used to launch there all the time. It was very convenient. I would go out during the week when it wasn't real busy. Since Helene has happened, that causeway has changed. I will not. I put my jet ski at a speckled trout in Palm Harbor, or no, Zona, and I launch there. I will not take it through that area. It is unsafe. The sandbars are unbelievable. And my neighbor has a boat in the back. We don't even take it up through there to go out Hurricane Pass. It's just too dangerous. That whole area has changed. And when I see a jet ski go through there, it scares the crap out of me. Because it's unsafe. People can go in and buy a jet ski and not know anything about the water and launch it. That's scary. That's dang scary. You got people paddle boarding, walking across the Caledese. Walking. That's how shallow we are. With a sandbar here and a sandbar there, it's only a matter of time. And it's nice because more people are going there. It's quieter. It's not so loud. You have a jet ski. Go out to the Gulf. What do you got to zip in through here for? I see it all the time. Even in Clearwater. And no wake zone. It should be a complete no wake zone through there. Because somebody's going to get hurt. It's just a matter of time. Whether it's high tide or low tide. I don't know when the last time you guys have been out there. But it's bad. It's real bad. So personally, the band is the best thing that can happen. And you can do the environmental. But I'm talking safety. But if you can go into Cycle Springs and buy a jet ski. And put it in the water. And not understand what that water sign says. To stay left. No wake. You know, minimum speed. People don't know that. I watch it all the time. I took a girl out that just bought a brand new jet ski. And said, you're not going on that water till I take you out. And show you what these signs mean. So you understand it. That's being responsible. Can't buy a car and just jump in it and drive it. You got to understand signs. And boaters get upset at jet skiers. For that reason. So if any doubt, you just go slow. But that area is too dangerous, people. It really is. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Thank you, Carol. You bet. Okay, Michelle is next. And on deck is Cleveland Laycock. Hi, Michelle Birnbaum, 330 Promenade, Dunedin. I guess the thing that I'd like to express to you is how much the damage and injury that can be sustained by our friends, families, and visitors here. And Dunedin hit very close to me. A very good friend of mine's adult daughter, who's an experienced paddleboard surf person here in Dunedin, goes very frequently. She's also someone who's also someone who can sail a real sailboat. Two weeks ago, someone on a skidoo knocked her off her board. She sustained bruises and cuts. Someone on shore saw how close he came and how much damage happened. They called the sheriff. The sheriff did nothing. Now, I've heard that you say, oh, we're going to give them warnings when they're irresponsible and dangerous on these waterways. But all it takes is one dangerous incident. She was an adult who could swim. She would retain consciousness. But it could be a child. It could be someone visiting us here. And you're trying to tell them that we are monitoring their safety along the causeway. We are not. You're allowing people to bring jet skis into the beach area where children are swimming, adults. Are you telling them that they cannot power their engines there? And you can't tell me that allowing people to drop anchors for their water craft is not going to cause damage to the natural environment. Now, looking at the maps that were put out, it was very confusing as to what the area of restriction actually was. It appeared that they would not be allowed in the beach area, the water. Those vehicles are going to be powered into that area and stop. They're going to come in to interact with children, adults, and people who think because they're restricted from that area, they do not have to worry about being injured. So I'm asking you to strongly consider this access. I mean, I understand not bringing trailers into the environment is a big step in the right direction. But I think you have to look at the broader issue of the safety of the people using that area. And I think when people hear about the ban from jet skis, they're going to assume they're not going to have to worry about being struck by jet skis in that area. So I strongly advise you to consider extending that area. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Okay. Next we have Cleveland Laycock. And then on deck will be Matt Norman. Name and address for the record in three minutes. Cleveland Laycock, 2306 Jones Drive, Fairway Estate. Good evening. I just wanted to show my support for the Causeway Committee and their decisions. I am currently on the Marina Advisory Committee and I understand the arduous task that goes into making some of these decisions. They are not knee-jerk reactions. We work hard on our committees to hear all sides of every viewpoint. We discuss them ad nauseum. We try to be as open and professional as possible. I have also found that the city commissioners and officials are always available and eager to listen. I am extremely appreciative of the Dunedin government after having lived in a city where the government was completely inadequate. I know a lot of people have passionate opinions on this, but please be secured in the thought that this has been thoroughly researched and discussed. And the general public has been given numerous opportunities to participate and voice their opinions. Those people who have spoken on either side of the issue have done so eloquently and with courtesy. If no one else does, let it be known that I truly appreciate this. This is not an easy decision. But in doing so, knowing the process, I support the decision of the city commission for the city of Dunedin. I have no dog in this fight. And once again, I want to point out the folks on these committees are volunteers. They do not get paid. They are not reimbursed. They do this out of their own free will and time because they want to help make Dunedin a better place. If you feel your voice is not being heard or your ideas are not being discussed, please feel free to join a committee. If I did it, anyone can. Come to the committee meetings. Voice your opinion. Come to the city commission meeting. Give your input. Question decisions. Give us your knowledge and experience. Talk to your commissioners. They are available. They listen. Thank you. Thank you, Cleveland. Okay. Next is Matt Norman. On deck will be Claudia Nabel. Name and address for the record in three minutes. Hi. Good evening, Mayor and commissioners. My name is Matt Norman. I live on 2373 Mangrum Drive in Fairway Estates in Dunedin, Florida. Again, my name is Matt Norman, and I spoke at the first reading in opposition to this ordinance. Tonight, rather than repeat the same arguments, I'd like to respond directly to what I heard from you. I heard legitimate concerns about public safety. I heard concerns about congestion, and I heard repeatedly that much of the demand for keeping this launch open was coming from people who don't live in Dunedin, while Dunedin residents live with the impacts. So I'd like to suggest a very different alternative. Don't restore the old unrestricted launch area. Instead, consider a dramatically smaller, permit-only launch area available exclusively to Dunedin residents if legally permissible. The previous area was large enough to accommodate dozens of trailers. Historical imagery, which you can go on Google Maps and see today, I reviewed, shows well over 32 truck and trailer combinations on one busy day alone with room for more. I'm proposing something completely different. Create a small area near the bridge with capacity for perhaps 10 to 15 trucks and trailers, roughly comparable to the scale of the main Dunedin Marino ramp lot. Require an annual resident permit. Charge a meaningful fee, $150, $200, even $300 if that's what responsible management requires. Tie the permit to the resident and vehicle. Cap the number of permits if necessary. Establish clear rules and make serious or repeat violations ground for losing the permit. Then make it a one-year pilot. Measure the parking. Measure the complaints. Measure enforcement incidents. Measure environmental conditions. And come back with actual results. That directly addresses the concerns I heard at the first reading. The regional jet ski destination goes away. The large crowds go away. Capacity is dramatically reduced. Users become identifiable and accountable. And Dunedin residents retain a small amount of unique public access opportunity that has existed here for decades. There is a middle ground. I respectfully ask you before final adoption to direct staff and the city attorney to evaluate whether a limited resident-only permit pilot could establish, could accomplish the goals you identified while preserving responsible access for your own residents. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Next is Claudia Nabel. And on deck will be Megan Colby. Hello, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Commissioners. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I don't have a lot to say. Claudia, your address, please. Name and address. Oh, my address. Right. Forgot that. My name is Claudia Nabel, 1094 Sumo Road, Dunedin. Been a resident in Dunedin since 1994. I love this town. It's a town for quality of life. And I'm going to keep on fighting for it. But the issue here right now is, well, there's a couple issues. I've had my personal negative experience with a lot of the personal watercraft jet skis, and safety is a major concern over here. Okay. The thing that I'm hearing, I mean, this is public. It's about we love, we welcome people. But there's other places that they can launch their jet skis from. If you're a Dunedin resident, I mean, having been on the Marine Advisory Board, issues were discussed also, that there's an opportunity that that would be limited to the Dunedin residents. You know, I guess what I'm saying is, what about the people that live in this phenomenal community? What are their rights? You know, why should people that may have watercraft, there's plenty of other places around here where they can launch from. Why does it have to be on the causeway? Okay. I mean, the hurricanes were horrible, but the resiliency that we've had, everything's come back, marine life, things that we should have been looking at before. And the hurricane forced us to look at this stuff and rethink things. And I think, for me, it's very frustrating that people that are, and they could say the same thing about me, are bullying us, that they want that causeway back. But what about the rest of us? What about the people that have been hit by jet skis? One of Dunedin residents that I know that swims every day and was hit by a jet ski while he was out there swimming off the causeway. It was a few jet skis that were doing their run over there. Anyway, what happened was one of the jet skiers told them, just to take off, don't stop, because one of them stopped. You know, I know there's only been two deaths, okay, in a couple of years, but that's two deaths too many. The last meeting that we had, the police and fire did have a lot of demographics, a lot of metrics about what's been going on. So what are we going to wait for more deaths to happen, wait for a kid to get hurt, or like you were talking about the kid with having coals on the beach and burning themselves? We have to stand up and fight for what's ours. That's all I have to say. And thank you for doing the great job in listening. Thank you, Claudia. Megan Colby is next, and on deck is, it's, boy, looks like Sean Scram? Oh, Spencer, sure. Okay, didn't look like it. Sean Spencer. Must have written that quick, but okay, that's on deck. Megan, name and address for the record. How are you? Megan Colby, 1269 Royal Oak Drive in Dunedin. Good evening, everyone. I'm here tonight not only to represent the Suncoast Sierra Club and our group's support of this ordinance, but also as a Dunedin resident. I would, I'm sorry. I'd like to once again thank the committee, the city committee's local organizations and all the Dunedin residents who have shared their comments on the proposed ordinance. I was here during the first reading, and while I'm grateful that you listened to and considered everyone's comments, I was also relieved that you chose to represent your constituents with your vote. I was out at the causeway just a couple weeks ago to take a look at the area that had recently reopened on the south side for people to walk on. It was very quiet there. The shorebirds were waiting. Just a few feet out, I could see the seagrass beds clearly. Someone was fishing nearby. The sand was very soft, and it seemed to be washed out a bit already from a recent rainstorm. I could just imagine how much more damage would be caused to the shoreline by backing in a trailer with a small boat or a personal watercraft. As a Sierra Club, we're going to be continuing to advocate for the addition of native plantings like mangroves, sea grapes, and native grasses along the causeway to create an even more resilient shoreline for water clarity and for our local wildlife. But with this new ordinance, we'll have a head start on the continued improvements. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, next is Sean Spencer, and on deck is Harry Matthews. Sean Spencer. Okay, well, let's have Harry Matthews come on up, and we'll leave that on deck for one more time. Name and address for the record. We'll go to you next. Just be ready. Okay. Harry Matthews, 646 Scotland Street, a member of the Causeway Committee and the Marine Advisory Committee, speaking on my own behalf. I want to say that, grudgingly, I think we're doing the right thing. I don't like it. I think a man came to the Causeway Committee and said, I've been launching my boat there for years, a small fishing boat, and I'm thinking the same thing. I've launched my little dinghy there sometimes. But because of a group that's overwhelmed us, we have to say we have to stop. I get it. I don't like it. I'm not against jet skis. I'm not against the jet ski groups. I'm just, it just got to the point where we can't manage it. The young man that just said, let's build a, you know, limited ramp and control it. That was one of the things I brought up at the committee was to say, hey, how about if we do permits or stickers or how do we do that with the city? I think with the timing that we have, there's no way to open this back up and then close it. We have to do what we're doing. But I would hope that we could be a little bit more creative maybe in the future and figure out some way to do both. How do we let the guy go fishing with his, you know, with his friends or his kids or the guy that lives in Fairway Estate, the jet ski. But when there's hundreds out there, it's just overwhelming. We can't do it. One of the things we could think about is the bridge when they, when the planning actually starts on the bridge or maybe before it starts. I know some of it's already started, but push forward and say, can we put a ramp there? Similar to something that's like at Bel Air Causeway. Some way that we can accommodate. There aren't enough ramps in Dunedin. We're struggling with that at Dunedin Marina now. How do we manage the overwhelming cry for the ramp? So when we rebuild the causeway, maybe we push to the county and the state and say, hey, listen, can we add, can we put a ramp in there someplace for a limited number of cars, but some cars to park? I missed the bonfires. They were great. Those were the days. But they're not here now. But we should be able to do something that accommodates those. Let me see what else. That's all I have. Thanks for your time. Thanks for listening. And thanks for your efforts. Thanks, Harry. Appreciate it. Yep. Okay. Sean Spencer and on deck will be Nancy Smith. Name and address for the record in three minutes. Sean Spencer, 4250 Woodfield Avenue, Holiday, Florida. So I'm not going to try to convince you guys to reopen the causeway. Your decision is already made. What I can tell you is how we're going to affect Dunedin. Our group has over a million strong enthusiasts. We're spreading the word to stay out at Dunedin. Don't go to your gas stations. Don't go to your hotels. Instead, we're moving our people to Pasco. They're excited for us. They're embracing us. And I really hope this, because it's hurting your money. That's what it boils down to is money. And we're taking a large portion of that out. Something to consider before we move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Appreciate your input. Okay. Nancy Smith is next. And on deck will be John Loebier. I think I'm close. On Helen Street. Okay. Nancy. Name and address for the record. Three minutes. Nancy Schmidt. 1380 Daffodil Place. Dunedin. Good evening, Mayor. Commissioners. Been here a few times. I am a member of the Causeway and Coastal Waterways Committee. And as you are aware, for a few years, the agenda of this committee had issues that were related to problems with jet skis. Jet ski activity on the causeway and the problems associated with it included traffic disruptions, need for police presence on the causeway and in the water almost every weekend, sale of merchandise, jet ski rentals. These are some of the things that we were constantly being, constantly dealing with. As a member of this committee, we worked with the city, we worked with the county, we worked with the police, we worked with FWC and neighboring community groups to try to remediate some of these issues. And it really was after a lot of consideration that we made this recommendation to the commission to prohibit the launching of motorized watercraft. It was not an easy decision to make. It was really a heavy decision to make. We're certainly very pleased with your support. And just a quick note, our decision had absolutely nothing to do with seagrass. I know that's come into this, but it was really related to a lot of problems that we're experiencing on the causeway because of the volume of the jet skis and the manpower that was being involved, taking care of these issues. I'd like to just point out, or for everybody, the attachments in the agenda tonight, I think, are noteworthy in that they show the various organizations that are supporting this recommendation. And I think that's important. Sailability, the Sierra Club, Tampa Bay Estuary Program, the Winlaces, the Dunedin Beach Civic Association, World to Arms Condominiums, and the Pinellas County. It says a lot when you have these various groups in support of this recommendation. And the support of these organizations, I think, validates this recommendation and the action by the city. I'd like to make one other observation, not related to this so much, but it's the activity on the causeway. I'm involved with Honeymoon Island, and I'm aware that in one year, they have had an increase of 500,000 visitors in one year. There is a tremendous amount of activity on that causeway, not just at Honeymoon with traffic, but more and more people enjoying the beach. Thank you, Nancy. Appreciate it. Thanks for the input, and thanks for all you do on the committee. Okay, next is John, I think it's Lobier, am I saying that? Lubier, okay. And on deck is Rita Foley. Name an address for the record. Yeah, hi, I'm John Lubier, 436 Helen Street, Dunedin, Florida. Navy veteran, been in Dunedin like 10 years. I feel that this decision was made before the hurricanes in 2024, because as soon as that causeway had any little bit of problems, closed it. The beach area where people use opened up quickly, which had boats, jet skis, other things piled up on the side. Now, the other side, they had barrels up before the concrete blocks, and they weren't there sometimes, and I had been down there. I had even launched down there a couple weeks after the hurricane. There was no damage. You know, there was some ruts, water ruts. That area wasn't overrun. The water didn't top over the causeway like it did down on that west-south side, putting boats up against the pine trees. I think this was all an excuse. The opportunity presented itself, and you closed it, and it's been closed. Now, let's just think if we closed the entire causeway, what would be the impact then? Environmental. Would there be more seagrasses? Would there be less accidents? What if there was no paddleboarders out there running in a boat channel? They sit in the boat channel. Like, they like it there. Don't ask me. There's thousands of places for people to go enjoy the water. On a paddleboard, sit at the beach, in the water. Much nicer than eating causeway. That's gravel, rock, muck. There's nothing pleasant about that. People like going there because they can pull their car up close. They get all their stuff right there. They're happy. Same thing with a jet skier or personal watercraft or the fishermen. They want to be able to bring their stuff up close. You know, yes, have a group of people. Have fun. Enjoy the waterway. That's pretty much what I got to say. Thank you, John. Certainly appreciate your input. Okay, Rita Foley, and that's the last card I have. Name and address for the record in three minutes. 432 Dunedin, 34698. Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Commissioners. My name is Rita Foley. I'm a Dunedin resident. I'm returning from July to also speak to this issue. Summarily, alternative sites for launching do exist, as they made clear. The post-hurricane halt has proved this, sparking a beautiful ecological and rebirth of our marine life. I do think that the jet ski community has regrettably suffered damage to their reputation as a whole because of repeated irresponsible actions on the part of a minority of jet ski owners, and that is unfortunate. However, these incidents, as documented in the Pinellas County Sheriff's reports, do show that there is a problem that existing ordinances and the current tools available to law enforcement have failed to mitigate. Families, kayakers, swimmers, paddleboarders, they cannot safely coexist in that narrow area with the high-speed watercraft. I would say please prioritize Dunedin's safety and environment and respectfully urge you to vote in favor of Ordinance 26-08. Thank you. Thank you, Rita. Okay. Is there anyone else in the audience that does wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Okay. Seeing no one, I will close the public input section of this, and I will ask my fellow commissioners, is there any follow-up questions at all that you needed to ask before we go into commission comments? Okay, so I will go to commission comments, starting with the maker of the motion, which is Commissioner Gao. Very good. You know, part of my opinion, part of this challenge is not something that happened two years ago, or as some resident speakers said, we even had it done before. I think this is a problem that started 100 years ago, and I think as Dunedin grew, Panemis County grew, Pasco grew, I think local governments, Dunedin included, really didn't anticipate the access to the water. We have very, very limited access to the water. And so had we thought we have had groups that have wanted a sailing center in Dunedin, where are you going to put it? We can't put it anywhere. Sailability is a wonderful organization that helps get disabled people out on the water. They've tried to get access to Dunedin and Marina. I think we finally have, but it's very limited. And so you've got wonderful organizations that are trying to get more people out on the water, and they can't. And I think a lot of that was just decision-making 50 and 60 years ago that could have done better in hindsight. For the people that live in Pasco County, I mentioned it on the first reading, they're driving all the way down to Dunedin to launch, and I'm wondering how many opportunities are they passing? And hopefully, if they were this vocal in Dunedin, they're also this vocal for all the municipalities and county governments in Pasco County to get access. I am going to repeat myself, I guess, a lot from the first reading, because I did kind of pour my soul out there. This really is a population problem, not just an increase in the population, but also the desire of the people that now live here. We have a much greater focus on the environment. We can sit and discuss that stormwater runoff is by far the bigger damage, whatever, to the seagrass. And I don't know that I can agree or disagree with that. There's certainly damage that comes from stormwater, and we are doing as much as we can to rectify that. If you remember what used to get poured out of the pipes at Weaver Park, you couldn't swim at Weaver Park. I don't know that you'd do it now, but it certainly smells and looks and is a lot healthier body of water today because of what we've done with our stormwater runoff, what we've done with our wastewater. And so we are learning. Again, there was a time when we felt we couldn't do any damage to the oceans. I was just reading an article today about 500,000 barrels of radioactive waste were dumped in the North Atlantic between 1950 and 1990 because they truly thought that was a good receptacle to get rid of radioactive waste. Yeah, guess what they're saying now, right? So we're all learning as we go. And so now that we know, what are we going to do about it? And with population growth, it's to the point where it's 10 pounds of mud in a five-pound bucket. Something's got to give. And as far as the, and I do like the idea of, let's not back it all the way around, but is there some middle ground? Can we do smaller, is there a smaller swath of land that we can use and kind of control it? One, the enforcement on that is going to be the big issue. We're going to have people screaming and hollering for better enforcement on the jet skis. We already have them screaming and hollering about e-bikes. We already have them screaming and hollering about speeders through neighborhoods. And it's like, what is the cost of law enforcement? What's the cost of living in a community? And hiring more law enforcement can't always be the answer. We are also getting hit hard on budget constraints. And there's Amendment 3 that's coming up that might eliminate our ability to have sheriff at all, because that's all paid through property taxes. So enforcement has to be taken into consideration. And the ability of not being able to enforce that, what do you do? We can come up with all kinds of reasons on why you couldn't do this because it's man-made, because of this. This isn't a solve-every-issue problem. Yes, if this votes through today and they're banned, that doesn't mean you're not going to get somebody that's going to try. Just as much as we have speed limits, and there's people who speed. There's people who drive recklessly. People are going to do what they're going to do. As far as that middle ground is concerned, I wholeheartedly agree with that. They're permitting, getting a license, and that's what we have a marina for. And so I said it on the first reading. I'll say it again today. We need to look at the ability to do that. On what does it look like? Do you have jet ski access to the ramp at the marina? What does that cost? What does enforcement look like? Because that would be a place that you'd do that. And so it's not like we're getting rid of jet skis. It's just we're focusing. So it's just no on the causeway, not no completely. We've got a place for them. But I certainly do appreciate everybody that came out tonight. It really is amazing. And especially if it's not just tonight, but you came for the first reading as well. That is crazy. I just love the democracy. I love people coming out. I love the emails that we got, but we also need to take into consideration the number of civic organizations that have signed the letter of saleability. So it's not just the emails we get. It's all the organizations in Duneen that have stepped up. Royal Steward Arms, the Civic Beach Civic Association, Sierra Club is coming out tonight in favor. So we have all these groups. So it's not just a resident thing. It's the group of residents. It's the total number of voices that are speaking out. And when a far majority of those people speaking out for the band are also Dunedin residents, just really, really puts us in a position. So those are my comments for tonight. I will be voting in favor of this. Thank you. Okay. Seconder of the motion, Vice Mayor, final comments. Thank you, Mayor. There's a slide that if you could pull it up, it's the overhead aerial, the one with the alternative launch locations. That one. Yep. I don't know if you can zoom in on the causeway there. But so, you know, this really, this is not necessarily against the jet skiers. And there were a couple of comments that were made with regards to, you know, there's a minority that exhibits worse behavior than others. Now, with that said, if you, you know, the one thing that I think is missing from this slide deck is a zoomed in picture of the overall area there on the causeway. This is really about two issues. Number one, safety. And number two, lack of infrastructure. And I wish Carol Horner had stuck around for this, but she was, she's absolutely right. Since the storms, first of all, let me just describe that area. And I know this area very well. I'm a captain on the Caledese Ferry. So I am out there. I have been out there on the best days and I've been out there on the worst days. And that area where the jet skis are launching from, the south side of the causeway, is very constricted. The channel, the channel there is narrow. And there's just not any room for error there. And you add into the mix, jet skiers who, you know, don't know the area, possibly have been drinking during the day. I will say that that is just a recipe for disaster. And we've already seen what can happen. Now, fast forward through the course of this, I started driving the ferry in 2022. After the hurricanes, I want to talk a little bit about how the topography changed. And it changed significantly. The sandbar to the north of Caledese is now extended almost, well, actually there's part of it at low tide that actually is in the channel itself. The sandbar to the west of High and Dry, that has expanded more to the west. Hurricane Pass has become so occluded, there's actually a channel marker that's sitting on the beach. So the area has just gotten more dangerous. And now, so you put into the mix the boaters who use the channel to go out to the Gulf or come in from the Gulf and go back to St. Joseph Sound or, you know, whichever marina they come from, they use that channel. And that is the designated channel. Take into account, launching these jet skis from a very constricted area of the causeway has now introduced just complete and utter chaos. And so it is a safety issue. And the other part of it is this lack of infrastructure. That area where they're launching the jet skis, there's no infrastructure there. That's just pure beach. And it's, you know, it's just the wrong place. And I do want to take, just kind of take exception to a comment that was made with regards to the impact to the environment. You know, I want to say Nancy Smith, you know, your recognition of the Dunedin groups that support this. You know, you are absolutely right. I, you know, this is the, these are the organizations that make up our water, our boating, our coastal community. And I, you know, I have a lot of respect for those groups. But the environment itself, I, there was a, there was a YouTube video that John Yacoris had put out. And he had done this thing where he had done a shot. He's the guy with the drones out there. And, you know, the funny thing about it is, is I never would have thought there are that many sharks in St. Joseph's Sound, but there are. But he made the point of showing the area during the period of time. It was before the hurricanes. The jet skis were launching from the causeway. And then he took an overhead video of this, you know, several years, well, after the hurricanes when the jet skis were not launching from there. And what you could see, and I get the idea that turbidity can be somewhat seasonal. But the fact is, without the jet skis, the turbidity goes down. So the water, the direct light that hits the seagrass is more prevalent. And of course, the point in this is, before I wrap up here, is though, is that from those videos, you could clearly see a more robust seagrass area. So, you know, I, again, this isn't about the jet skiers. This is about just doing the right thing for our community. Thank you. Okay. Final comments, Commissioner Sandberg. You know, if you're on one of our boards or committees, you know, I see you out here. You're on them because this is your specialty. This is what you understand. And you understand it a lot more than I do. And a lot of work went in for the groups to come up with these opinions. And I consider you to be the experts. I think there's probably very few operators of these personal watercraft that made it bad for everybody. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. But it just, you know, even from the last meeting, there was some of them that, you know, we're going to ride and that's what we do and we'll be back. And I appreciate all the time and energy that went into this. And I will support bringing it to an end tonight. So, thank you, Mayor. Final comments, Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. We have, on numerous occasions, found ourselves in a situation where we're trying to balance the rights of the collective versus the rights of the individual. And I think this is another example of that. We find ourselves not wanting to limit certain things because we enjoy the toys we have. Those jet skis are fun. And yet there's the rights of the collective to have a healthy sound, to have a place where they can walk down the trail and not hear the roar of a jet ski. Now, I need to keep us focused on the fact that we're not talking about what goes on in the sound. We're just talking about what goes on on the causeway and what can launch from it. What can go on in the sound, as I was reminded by our manager on a phone conversation while I was in England, we can't stop that. That's not where we are right now. But where we are is that we do and can control the launch from the causeway. And that's what we're proposing. And as one that used to protest when I was younger, I hate to see the rights of the individual hampered. It always bothers me. But then again, there's the rights of the collective and we'll have to weigh that. And I think in this particular instance, we find that the rights of the collective have to supersede the rights of the individual. It's just going to have to be that way for a number of reasons, not just one, not the seagrass, not just safety, but actually for a number of reasons. So I am in support of this. But before I conclude, I need to compliment the staff on doing an excellent job of presentation. I was sitting over there watching Nicole trying to figure out a way to expand that photo and I think she looked at Tony and he's going, I don't know. They've worked really hard on this. You did a great job. Excellent job. And also the Causeway Committee. They brought this forward in a very good package with cogent thinking. It makes it so much easier on us when we're hearing your thoughts come forward as the way they did. And even those that opposed this particular proposition, you did so in a fashion of respect and you did so and you brought honor to yourselves. So it's hard to vote against you when you do that. But in this particular case, the collective will have to be our guy. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Well, I'm not going to repeat. There's been a lot said that I agree with. For me, it kind of comes down to there's just a lot going on in that Causeway. And I was here when they actually decided to give that little space for launching a commission 25 years ago or whatever. So we've got to give them something, right? We were there too. We've got to give them something. And it made sense. And there's still a part of me that's like, oh. And I've got neighbors that are like, you should give them something. But I just think it comes down to, you know, a lot of the smaller craft, vehicles, jet skis. I know it's not all about jet skis, but those sales are way up. A lot more people have them. I just think there's a lot going on. There's a reason they call it the Wild Wild West out there. And I'm not sure that it's a fit to have that launching there. And your word infrastructure was a good one, Vice Mayor. There is an infrastructure. And, you know, it's not just the launching, but it's the trailers. I mean, it's not intended to be bringing in trailers to do that, in my opinion. I just think there's just too much going on. And when you look at safety and traffic, you know, that's part of it. And last meeting, what, a month ago, I'm sitting back and most of the people that spoke in favor or against demand were from somewhere else. And I'm thinking, well, we got lots of traffic of our own out there. We don't need to create a lot of things to create more traffic. And I respect your comments about, you know, that potentially we've, we certainly didn't set out to do this. I didn't. I knew the reason that it was made for that space to be given before, but I just think we've outgrown it. there's too much going on, there's too many safety issues, too many traffic issues that we're dealing with. I always like to say Dunedin likes to be everything to everyone. And I think this is just a situation where we just can't be. We have to say what's our primary focus out there, and we've got to stay with that. And so I also would add that, you know, there's not a lot of issues where the citizens are kind of loud and clear. This has kind of been loud and clear. Our residents and our committees have been loud and clear. And it's tough for a couple of the ones that really don't want the ban, and I get it, and I feel for you, but I have to say between emails and calls and the meetings, I mean, there has been a loud, outspoken, we don't want this anymore. And I've got to respect that because those are the people that put me up here. But I do respect, and I respect how, the ones that don't want the ban respectively did come out, just like Commissioner Drogard said. So I'm in favor of the ban. I think it's the right way to go. I think we continue to work with the county to make sure we have the proper places for people to launch. That's been a countywide problem for a long time, enough places to launch watercraft vehicles. But this isn't the place to solve it, and we can't solve it. And we certainly can't solve it for people in other counties, in other cities. So I'm in supportive of the ban, and I'll leave it at that. So we're going to do roll call vote. Commissioner Gow. Aye. Commissioner Sandbergen. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. And Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. And I do want to thank everyone here on both meetings. This one, in the last one, everybody's been very respectful. There's a lot of valid opinions on both sides. And this is what government should look like when people respect each other's opinion. And we'll keep trying to look for solutions. So, appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, I think we're going to take a break. City Commission of the City of Dineen, Florida amending Resolution 0717 by Adaption and Revised Exhibit A to provide a clearer and more readable map of the allowable operations of motorized watercraft around the Dineen Causeway, making findings, providing for reasons for such updated map and providing for an effective date thereof. First, I think I need to take a vote on putting it on since it's a start item. Can I have a motion to put it on? Okay, so I have Vice Mayor and Commissioner DeGuard. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passed unanimously. So, now we go to the item itself. Jen, can you please read Resolution 26-21 by title only? Would you have done such a nice job of it? Resolution 26-21, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Dunedin, Florida, amending Resolution 07-17 by adoption of a revised Exhibit A to provide a clearer, more readable map of the allowable operations of motorized watercraft around the Dunedin Causeway, making findings, providing for reasons for such revised map and providing for an effective date hereof. That was Resolution 26-21 read by title only. Okay, so we're going to go to staff presentation. Yes, I'm sorry, I looked right past that. Yes, okay, wait. Let's start over. Can I have a motion? So moved. So moved. Vice Mayor, yeah, we've got a long way to go, too. How come he got in there first? Well, he just was. I have Vice Mayor and I have Commissioner DeGuard as a second. And staff presentation is Nicole. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission. Nicole Delfino, Strategy and Sustainability Manager. Here to just review with you the resolution before you, 26-21. As displayed on the screen, is the original Exhibit A. Just give a little quick history here. On December 6, 2007, the Dunning City Commission adopted Resolution 07-17, which amended this Exhibit A, referencing Ordinance 54-32. Then again, in October 23rd of 2014, the Dunning City Commission adopted Ordinance 14-21, which amended the entirety of Chapter 54, which deals with Cosway usage, including the Exhibit A. However, at that time, there were no updates to the map made itself. So as we were looking at the accompanying ordinance, as far as where this map lives, Exhibit A, we wanted to, we noticed that there were some code references that were made that were outdated code. In addition to, as you can clearly see, it's very hard to read the designations and the outline. And so we are simply here before you today to update the map. And here is the proposed map. It's just a cleaner picture, same exact map, same designations. It does not alter any of the waterway usage designations, but simply provides for an updated, cleaner, and more legible map. It should be noted that it does not, again, change any of the water designations, and it does not pertain to the adjacent land use designations. The change to the map, beyond cleaning it up and making it more legible, include updating the legend to correct the cited ordinance number to the correct number, and then also the title bar, which updated the city's address, and the resolution number. Again, no substantive changes made to the map. itself, just providing for a cleaner, updated map as in Exhibit A in this ordinance. Okay. Questions for staff, and I forget which way. I think I'll go with Commissioner Gow. Thank you, Mayor. No questions. Okay. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. The only question I have is in the area that we're now talking about that we've focused on relative to the launch area and the fact that it is still foreboding, why didn't we consider possibly restoring that whole area there to the watercraft prohibited section? Why didn't we bring that down to the bridge? Now, I understand the bridge, I understand the marina, I understand all of that, but I don't understand that area, that city up there in the circle dots. Do we have treasure out there? I one would hope. To be quite frank with you, amending waterway designations is a much more complex process that would involve the state, the Florida Fish and Wildlife, making changes to those designations. This is set by them, and so this was referenced in our code, and again, this is why we wanted to just update it to make it clearer. Shh, did you have something to add, Senator? I would add that the timing just did not, well, the timing wasn't right because it would take us a period of time, a year minimum, to change the waterway designations, and by that time, this beach would be open and open to motorized watercraft. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor. I'm sorry, Mayor. It's something as a staff that we discussed. I mean, if this doesn't resolve the issue of that congestion, then we would certainly come back to you and ask for authorization to proceed with something further. Great. Okay. Questions for staff? Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. So maybe I'm missing something here, but the green hatch right to the west of the bridge there. Oh, never mind. I figured it out. Okay. The yellow hatched area, and this may be the picture, and this is a complete net, but you take a look at the legend and compare it to that area there. It looks different. It's not as distinct as for, you know, it's not consistent, my opinion. The yellow hatched area? Yes. Indicating motorized watercraft prohibited? Prohibited. Waterway? Yeah. Just... Is it because on the right hand side it appears like it's, the lines are on an angle? Yes. When you get to Causeway Boulevard, it appears that they're straight, so they need to be angled? Yes. That's it. It could certainly make that correction. Yeah, it's a small, small point. Anyway, that's all I've got. Thanks. It's kind of true for the red, though, isn't it? Is the red exactly what the legend is? If you tilt your head a little. Yeah, I was going to say you got to. Because it's funny, when I was looking at it, I saw the same thing. I said, these don't match the legend. So, if you're going to improve we will make those updates. Good catch. Good catch. Okay. All right. You're good now? Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen, questions? I'm going to one-up the vice mayor. Zip code's wrong. You've only got one zip code. That was hard. You know how many people looked at this? We actually just changed the zip code. I have no other questions, mayor. I have a question. So, explain to me. Okay. So, based on the legend, the dotted line is, I see the channel. So, the dotted line is what we own. So, there's that area where obviously, probably the concession area, right? By where it says Dunnean Causeway? Yes, ma'am. And so, that dotted area is where the concession area is so we own that. And we also own the waterway to the right up there? That's to the west? Yes. Yes. And we don't own anything up closer to the bridge? No. Not when it comes to the water. Okay. Yeah, I guess I'm getting confused with the causeway and the water. All right, I'm going to leave that alone. I'm good. Sure, go ahead. Because I'm not going to leave that alone. Okay, go. Those, the city-owned parcels just seem to be very random. Is there a history to that that we aren't aware of or? I think Jorge, our deputy city manager, may have some comments. We're not sure what the history is. We can... I always wondered myself and I've known about that. It's such a mishmash and basically the only usable area we have is a concession area. But it's always so kind of crazy, you know. So, it would be nice to know the history. We can, under separate cover, if you don't mind, we will look into the mishmash. You don't want to talk about it tonight and go for like a half hour talking about it? I completely agree. Is that okay with you, Commissioner Gowell? I'm good. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, is anyone in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Sure. Come on. Name and address in three minutes. Cleveland Lake Hawk, 2306 Jones Drive. Mr. Walker, you mentioned this earlier. I don't know if it's relative to this, but that shoaling in there is becoming, I don't know where this would be addressed, but I go through that channel several times a week and at low tide I just don't go anymore. And it's just a matter of time. And you're right, one of the cans is on the beach. I don't know if this represents it or this is where that's addressed, but it's going to cause, there's going to be an accident. I mean, there is. There may have already been one. Anyway, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, that could be something we want to get a better understanding of anyway, from our perspective. Not that we have the overview of that. Well, yeah, I think this tries to this as telling. This is intended to show a little different perspective, but just to show the areas along the causeway that are restricted and not restricted. But, you know, there, I would suggest maybe we have a workshop on just what our city's role is the waterway there. I know who's responsibility it is. It's the county's. But, I mean, it's gotten bad. Right, just getting an understanding of what's, what's and's moved and what's open and what's not. And what is our role in this? Yeah. I think that's, that would be a good thing to, thank you. And I know the last time I went for a ride with fire rescue, they said one of the reasons why they go out, they try and get out as frequently as they can because of the changing tides and the channels. And so if they're on emergency, they need to know where they can go and where they can't go. So it's shifting all the time. Well, the fire department's never taken me out on their boat, so congratulations. Chief. You've got to sit at the cool table. Okay, anyone else in the public wishing to come forward to speak on this issue? Okay, seeing no one, I will close public input and I will go to commission comments and I will start with maker of the motion, vice mayor. Thank you, mayor. I really don't have any additional comments on this. Obviously, this is a, we're seeking to fix, and make this more clear. So, thank you. And seconder of the motion, Commissioner Degard. I share my colleague's point of view. I think there are a few things that might need to be sanded off a little bit, but with those being done, I'm fully in support. Okay, Commissioner Gallo. I'm in support as well, because if anything, the new map isn't worse than the old map. Thank you, I think. So, there is progress. Thank you, I think. Okay, and Commissioner Sandberg, final comments? Well, I fully support this as long as the zip code is updated and correct. That's his hard no. And the legend follows the, or the map follows the legend. Okay, good. I thought you were calling Steve a legend. He is. Dare I say that there is some businesses that have the 34697? It's the post office. It's the post office. Okay, all right. I've seen it. I don't know about that, but we're going to find out, right? Okay. Under separate cover. Under separate cover. Yeah, under separate color. You can just check that out. Okay, we're going to do a roll call vote. Commissioner Sambergen. Aye. Commissioner Gow. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay, we are going to go to actually a very important matter here. So, 3C, Resolution 26-12, Established Tentative Millage Rate for Fiscal Year 2027, and Resolution 26-13, Established Tentative Operating Capital Budget for Fiscal Year 2027. So, I guess, Jen, we're going to do it one at a time. Is that what we're doing? Yes. Okay, so, can you please read Resolution 26-12 by title only? Resolution 26-12, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Dunedin, Florida, adopting the tentative millage rate for ad valorem tax revenue for fiscal year 2026-27 at a rate of 4.1345 mills, or $4.13 per thousand dollars of assessed property value, providing for a second and final public hearing date, and providing for an effective date. That was Resolution 26-12 read by title only. Okay, can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay, Vice Mayor and Commissioner Sandberg? Okay, okay, staff presentation, Les and Jean. So, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners. I'll kick it off. Okay, well, City Manager, you're just jumping in there every time. You're not on my script, so I'll allow you to speak, though. Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that very much. I'm very grateful. As previously mentioned by the City Attorney, this is a fiscal year 2027 operating capital budget. Across all funds, the budget is $138,000,845,566 across all funds. So this budget is actually a decrease from the fiscal year 2026 budget. Thank you. This is a balanced budget. As I've mentioned many, many times, we cannot by state statute adopt a deficit budget, and neither would we ever adopt a deficit budget. I don't think the City Commission would permit that. It's a balanced budget. It maintains service levels while decreasing operating expenditures in almost all funds in the budget. And one of the operating expenditures that does not decrease, for example, is building fund, because that's a very well-funded fund, so there was no necessity there. The budget is based, as Jennifer had said, upon a millage rate of 4.1345 mills. That's $4.13 for every $1,000 in value of the home. That millage rate has been the same, as Les will tell you, for the last 11 years. We have advertised this budget as a tax increase, however, and the reason for that is that our property values have increased between fiscal year 2026 and 2027, and so the budget needs to be approved by a supermajority, which is a four-to-one vote. Moving forward. As you know, the budget process starts in February, probably a little bit earlier with a strategic planning retreat, and then we move forward to two workshops and then two public hearings as well. So a great deal of work has gone into this budget. It's first of all developed by the departments, the department directors along with their senior staff. They then submit it to finance, and finance meets with me, and then we meet with the department as well to go over their budgets. before we present it to the city commission during workshops as we develop the budget. So sometimes I think it seems that first public hearing and then the second public hearing on December 17th, that there is not a lot of public input, but every single one of those is a public hearing and a public opportunity for the members of the public to address the city commission. So with that, Les is going to go back over some of this information, and he's going to do that in order to satisfy statute requirements as far as adopting our budget. So I'll turn it over to Les and Jean. Thank you. Thank you. Les Tyler, the finance director. I'm here with Jean, our budget manager. And as Jennifer mentioned, this is resolution 26-12, the tentative millage rate for 2027, and also resolution 26-13, establishing our tentative budget for 2027. We have a few adjustments since our last meeting, and we'll walk through those in a few minutes, but I have a few slides that I need to read to follow our trim guidance, and I'll go through those first. First, in accordance with Florida Statutes 200-0654C, the city of Dunedin is holding a public hearing this evening on the proposed millage rate and tentative budget for fiscal year 27. Prior to adoption, the city commission may elect to adjust the tentative millage rate or amend the tentative budget as it sees fit. Following adoption, staff will publicly announce the percentage at which the tentative millage rate exceeds the 2026 rollback rate. Staff will also state the date of the second and final public hearing when the final millage rate and the final fiscal year 27 budget will be adopted. A maximum millage rate of 4.1345 mills, or $4.13 per $1,000 in property value, was established through the adoption of resolution 26-11 on July 23, 2026. In accordance with trim, a millage rate of 4.1345 mills is 2.72% above the 2026 rollback rate, and the rollback rate is 4.0249 mills from growth in property tax value. The proposed millage rate, the avalorium taxes are budgeted at a 95% collection rate in our 27 budget, and that's the minimum required by Florida statute. At 4.1345 mills, our avalorium taxes are projected to generate $18,626,000 in the general fund, and the avalorium taxes will account for 38% of all general fund revenues for fiscal year 27. A little on the budget process. As Jennifer mentioned, our budget process at the staff level begins really in January, mid-January, we begin working with the department's, the finance department does, and we work through different versions of the budget and work with the city manager through fine-tuning the budget and making sure we bring a balanced budget proposed to your commission. The 27 budget was published on June 25, 2026. We had two budget workshops held on July 21st and August 4th. The meetings were nearly all-day workshops going over reach fund in detail, and the next section we'll walk through is a summary of changes since the August 4th budget workshop had been made based on commission direction and staff input. Starting with our revenue, I want to go with some of the highlights that have changed in our revenue since the last workshop. The most significant one is we had an increase of about $645,000, and that was with the addition of $750,000 for a state appropriation for the high-water rescue vehicle for the fire department and the Bayshore water main design, which is offset by a $104,000 decrease in FEMA revenue reimbursements for storm damage. In addition, we had a decrease in debt proceeds of $162,000 due to changes in our anticipated storm damage line-of-credit financing needs in 2027. Next, we move to the expenses, the changes since our last meeting in budget workshop two. We had a personnel cost increase of $40,945. That was due to some position reclasses that were approved in budget workshop number one by the city commission. Operating costs decreased by $80,000 due to bridge inspections were moved out to a future year, and we also had an increase in capital costs of $515,000, and that change was due mainly to an increase of $225,000 in the general fund for the high-water rescue vehicle for the fire department, and the city received a grant of $200,000 for that vehicle, a state appropriation. We had a $290,000 increase in the water-wastewater fund for a $50,000 increase in the Bay Shore water main project, and a $40,000 increase in that same fund in the wastewater bypass pump project, and also a $200,000 increase for the addition of a water project for the replacement of the bleach tank at the water plant. Debt service costs decreased by $102,000 due to changes in our anticipated storm damage for the line of credit needs. We reduced that by $63,000. We also had the removal of an Ortheos lease payment of $38,000. That was for the park's maintenance yard. That lease expired in early 26, and that lease of $38,000 should not have been in the proposed budget, and we took it out for the tentative budget. Next slide shows the impact by each fund, and it shows the revenue change, the expenditure change, and then the fund balance change. The largest change is the water wastewater fund, and that was due to the revenue increase for the Bayshore water main appropriation, state appropriation, and the others are fairly small amounts. Before we go to the next slide, I'd like to ask, we do have a follow-up memo in the staffing report. We only have one item in the follow-up memo regarding credit card fees, but ask the commission how they'd like to. So, questions on this one? I have one, but should I start? I have one. I've got a question. Okay, I'll start over here, Vice Mayor. Just, what, how much did the budget decrease from last year? Decrease from last year? About 11%. 156 million to 138 million. Overall, 11% decrease in total. 11%, okay. In total, yeah. Okay, that's great. Thank you. Anything on the follow-up memo at all? No, nothing on the follow-up memo. Okay. And I think, Commissioner Gao? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the exhibit, Les. On items C and D, for C, staff projects to start passing along fees in fiscal year 28 or 29. Is there a reason for the delay, or the community seems like far away. Yeah, we'd probably do it in 28. We're thinking we'd do the golf course first, assuming we get commission direction this evening, and we want to take our time to do that right, and also sort of look at what patterns may change with people paying, whether or not there's a big change from paying with cash, paying with different types of, you know, cash or check, manual checks. We'd like to do one or two a year, so the thought was we'd do golf course in 27, then probably do parks and rec in 28 more than likely. I think we could get that done in 28, and utility billing would be last for sure. We would not want to do utility billing until it's 40,000, fully implemented on Tyler Muniz, which is not now. They're just kind of beginning that process again, so we'd want that rolled out, all the kinks out of that, and they'll be moving to Tyler Payments when they do that, and then once that's fully moved over, we would look at, with commission direction and approval, having the utility billing be passed on, too. Okay, yeah, because speaking of utility billing, the verbiage in here does say, staff will consider possibly passing on credit, so that leaves some ambiguity there. Has that been decided, not decided? We don't know. Well, I think we'd like to do the golf course and the parks and rec and get those taken care of, and then when we address our next rate study for the water sewer fund and some of these funds, I think that's the time to address that, because we have the rate study baked in the rates, right? We have the credit card fees baked in the rates right now, so I think we want to, at that point, really talk to the, especially for the water sewer fund, which is by far the largest fund, we want to talk to the commission up front as we're doing that study and say, you know, how do we want to have that moving forward, and then if we are going to move forward, we're passing it on, we would make that adjustment in that next rate analysis. And then, I don't know, this probably isn't a question, but more of a comment, but is this right that people be paid by check at the golf course 6.8 percent? Yeah, yeah, over about a 10-month period, we looked at the volume, and it was about 3 percent cash, 6.8 check, and the rest was different types of credit cards. So that 6.8 is most likely the members, obviously. Yeah, true. Hey, but it's 2026. Thanks, really? Okay. All right. I can put my checkbook away. Can I just jump on to your... You probably wait until it's their turn before they get their checkbook out, and then they hold up the line. I'm sorry. Remember grocery shopping. I just wanted to jump on, because I had the same question. It just seemed... Maybe I'm just missing something, but it's 2026, and we're talking about 2029 for utility billing. That's three years from now. It seems like a pretty simple principle that most businesses are charging credit card fees, and we're not. And I just... I'm not sure I understand why this is so difficult, and why we want to drag it out versus do it. So we wanted to consider the impact on the users in terms of passing on the credit card fee, because... Like when I go to the restaurants now, and I go to the dry cleaner, and they just tell me, and I say, oh, okay. I guess I've got to do it. I don't have a choice, right? Right. It just seems like basic practice, and that's what the finance board was trying to tell us, like it's kind of standard practice. It is, but for water, waste, water, we just increased the fees, right? And we did not roll that into that increase in fees for them, obviously, or convey that to them in that manner. And so what we'd like to do is do these other ones first, because as Les said, you know, it's difficult to roll these out. You know, there's notification, all that type of thing. And then when we're doing the rate studies, we want to consider passing it on, let the end user know exactly what the impact of that is, what the impact is on the rates that they pay, and so on and so forth. Just consider it more comprehensively than in a vacuum like we can with the golf club, because the golf club, you know, they're a captured audience. They're going to come. They're going to, if they're public, they're going to pay their greens fees, and they're going to go out. They're not going to stop and say, oh, no, I'm not going to, you know, play. So it's a little bit easier, and we felt a little bit different than the utility. I'm not sure I agree, but I guess we'll talk further about it, so. But I get it. But I do understand we just hit them with some increases. Right. And this is included, and so it's kind of like, seriously, now you're going to charge me for credit cards? Right. I kind of get that. That's really what we were worried about. But I'm not sure that passed for Wreck-N-Parks, because it seems like we could do that quick. And also, I just want to mention, you know, we wanted to be transparent and just with the golf course and wanted to, you know, get consensus direction and move forward with the golf course. You know, we did this survey, and the survey is interesting because the survey, we surveyed 14 golf courses, and, you know, really only one of them is passing on the fee right now. I mean, all the rest of these are doing what we're doing now and absorbing the fee. So, you know, so we did talk to Largo, and we talked to Largo, and we talked to St. Pete, and they are discussing right now passing on the fee. They're having discussions like we are right now, but we did want to point that out. You know, we think it's, we don't see that impacting play, but we did want to point that out. I was surprised by that. I was surprised by that. I agree. Yeah, that does give you pause. I still think it's the right thing for us to do. But, and I guess my question, just when you're considering utility billing, also understand the positive spin that can be done by figuring it all out, and then either give them a rate reduction when it's not scheduled to show, it's just acknowledging to the residents, hey, because they've changed our format, we've reduced our, instead of the constant increase, it's like, hey, we backed it down, and you're not waiting for a rate study, you're not waiting for something. And if Tyler can handle it, and I assume Tyler can, they're big enough. Their system, ERP, is good enough. But, anyway, yeah, maybe for a further day, but I at least wanted stronger language there. Would you have a question? Okay, we've got a question over here, Vice Mayor, and then I don't, I don't think I got to Commissioner DeGuard or Commissioner Sandbergen yet, though. So, what don't we, Commissioner DeGuard, did you have a question? No? Commissioner Sandbergen, did you have anything? No, I'm good. Yeah, go ahead, Rob. Sorry. Yeah, just, I'm kind of, kind of lost the bubble on this. Is part of the tentative approval tonight, including agreeing to this memo? I think my thought is mainly tonight is to show you our plan, and we can move this plan around, we can definitely move this up at a quicker pace if the Commissioner wants us to, but we wanted to find out if, get consensus direction if you wanted us to move forward with the golf course, which would be our first one, and we would begin that process, and it'll take a few months to work through it, but, you know, focus on that one first. Yeah, because, you know, it drives me crazy that the businesses more and more are passing on the fee, and I would just, I would really want to see a little bit more of an accounting, what's the difference, what is it, what's the impact, what, you know. So, if we will, it seems to me like there needs to be more research on our follow-up letter here. So, we'll, the consensus direction to move forward with the golf club, right? And then we can, we can follow this up with a memo on these, answering these questions, as far as what the impact would be, and so on and so forth. So, and discuss it further. Okay, and I think Commissioner Sandberg, we did have something now. You know, it came up during one of the budget meetings. Why don't we go to our bank that we use every day? Why do we have to go to these other vendors? Yeah, it's not, you know, every, every ERP system, Tyler Muniz, for example, they've got two platforms you can use to process credit cards. Their own, which is called NIC, Tyler Payments, they call it now, and there's one other one you can use, but it's, it's, it's not, not a great option. So, you know, it's, it, they, they really, they really drive what your options are, as far as what, what, what, who your processor is, and, and, and who your transactions are. For the, for instance, the golf course has, the ERP systems, 4UP is the name of the software, but they have another processor that they're attached to named Phenix, so most of them have, have two different ones you work with, but, but they're all different, and, and they don't, they don't do business with everybody. In other words, it's only using one or two options. So if I walk in to play golf, and I'd hand my American Express, it's just not that simple. American Express deposits that amount of money into Wells Fargo for the city of Dunedin. I, I guess I, I don't understand the crop, the process of how, where that money, how that money moves around. Yeah, it's a big central, central clearinghouse through different, all these different credit card companies, how it, how it gets from one place to the other. But, but really, you're right, regardless of who your processor is, our processors are, you know, these different ones we have, we have four for the golf course. Right now, we've got it set up, the, we're absorbing the fee. We can change it to pass that on. There's some things we have to go through. We have to make sure we follow some legal requirements and some, and some public outreach as well. We'll work with our, our legal counsel on that to make sure we do that right. And, and you can't, you can't charge the surcharge on the debit card. You've got to be careful of that. You know, there's just, you've got to make sure you're set up properly. And, and most, most are set up to do that, but it's just making sure you get it set up right and roll it out properly. All right. Thanks, Mayor. So, just, sorry. Just to be clear, you're, you're looking for consensus direction for the staff to do more research and move towards. So, we're looking consensus direction to move forward on the golf course. We're recommending that we move forward on the golf course in order to, to kind of get that piece out of the way, if you will, so that we can concentrate on the others. We're also concerned because there is actually a tremendous amount of staff time involved in this. So, so, we've broken it down to component pieces that I think are manageable workload, especially given, you know, Amendment 3 and, and what we may be facing as far as, as reductions in staff. And so, yeah, it, it appears that there's additional research, additional questions. So, we'd like to move forward with the golf course and then maybe the other three back and talk a little bit more about that and answer your questions. Well, I would just say to you that the memo itself talks about staff will work with software company, blah, blah, blah. To start the process and see what steps need to be taken to pass on the charges. So, it would seem like there's a logical step. Right. And maybe you include us before you pull any triggers. Yeah, we'd like to take that step is what I'm saying. Yeah. I'm not ready to pull the trigger on the golf course. Right. So, basically, they'll get, they're just doing the research. Okay, just doing the research. They'll come back to us. That's what I'm asking for. Yes. All right. Yeah. Okay, then I'm, okay, I'm good. Okay. And, and then, and then you'll look at the rest of these and see, you know, you'll, at the same time. Because, again, I don't want to necessarily put off what seems like a, what most businesses would do. Ultimately, that decision will still be yours, obviously. We're not, we just want to do the research. Yeah. Okay. Everybody good with that? Okay. So, we'll, we'll move on. Okay. Next is our general fund update. And we, we've had some changes since the August 1st, August 4th, budget workshop number two. Uh, and we're looking at the revenues first. Uh, we had adjustments to insurance proceeds in fiscal year 26 and estimated debt proceeds for the line of credit in 2026. We also had an increase in 2026 for the intergovernmental revenue of 221,000 for FEMA and state Florida storm reimbursements. We added the state appropriation, uh, for the fire department, uh, ATV vehicle of 200,000. And we had a decrease in fiscal year 27 estimated to FEMA reimbursement and the decreased estimated line of credit amount needed in 2027 as well for the expense side. We had an increase in 2027, uh, for the purchase of the Sherp AT vehicle, we've mentioned before for $225,000, we had a net decrease for position reclasses and reallocation of certain positions to other funds. Uh, for example, uh, CRA staff, uh, for a few staff had higher percentages, uh, allocated to the CRA fund fund and less than the general fund and the grant specialist position. We, uh, uh, transferred the percentage, uh, from the general fund to some of that to the stormwater fund. We had a decrease in the budget for the bridge inspection by $30,000, uh, costs removed to a future year, uh, decreased parks and recreation rent for the orthos maintenance, uh, yard. I mentioned that, that, uh, for $38,000 that, uh, is no longer in place. That leaves. We had a decrease in a line of credit principal payment of $53,000 for storm line of credit due to final review of storm activity and anticipated FEMA reimbursement. And our general fund reserve, uh, in our tentative budget is 18.6% above our target of 15%. And moving to our long range plan, uh, as mentioned, uh, our reserve in 2027 is currently at 18.6% in the, in the 27 column in the fiscal year, 28, uh, year, the reserve is at eight, eight point 7% and under the 15% goal. And I'll, and the, and we have, uh, two, two highlighted yellow rows there and the, the bottom row is, is addressing the shortfall and the, and the, and the top row is not, but the shortfall amount that we do, that we do address is, has been reduced. It's now $5 million, $50,000, uh, a year, uh, in the, on the bottom there. And it was, uh, 5.3. So it reduced by 300,000 a year. Uh, the shortfall reduced mainly due to, we had received of the grant funding we mentioned for the rescue vehicle. We also have reductions in the bridge inspections that I mentioned at Ortheos, Ortheos lease that was taken out and also some personnel reductions, uh, for salary relocations that I mentioned that, that kind of contributed to that reduction. Uh, I want to mention that, you know, that during the budget development process, you know, we, we, we have these shortfalls that we look at and, you know, each year the city manager works with the finance team and the, and the, and all the departments of the city to bring a balanced budget to your commission, making sure we have a minimum reserve of 15% or more in the general fund. As discussed during both budget workshops, uh, staff with the direction of the city manager, we are working on the contingency plan, the 2027 contingency plan. And our, our goal and plan is to generate $3 million in annual savings beginning on January 1st, 2027 in that plan. And the proposed date of that meeting, uh, to present the draft to the commission is September 17th, uh, at 1230 PM. Uh, the plan will, uh, the plan will be to take information and input from the commission at that September 17th meeting, and then bring, bring back to the commission, the revised contingency plan based on those comments, uh, in October for your review and hopefully approval before the, uh, the vote in early November. Are there any questions at all in the general fund? I'm sorry. When did you say you were going to see the contingency plan? We're going to present the draft on September 17th. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The draft. 1230. 1230. Got it. Okay. Just want to make sure. Yep. So that concludes our general comments on the general fund and be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Questions, uh, starting with, I've totally lost track of where I'm starting. So vice mayor. Um, you know, I don't have any questions. Mr. Sandberg, questions? Just looking at the, uh, top line of the revenues, property taxes, you know, 26, 27, it went up 28. Is that taking into consideration amendment three failing? Uh, no, our, our, our assumptions, uh, in our current budget are, is do not assume that amendment three, uh, fails. Correct. Yeah. We're not, we're not, we're not projecting right now. All those, those losses. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. Thank you. That's all I had. But that's what the contingency plan will tell us. That's right. Right. Correct. If it does pass, this is what we're going to do. Right. So, so what we'll do, just to be really clear, um, as long as we're on the subject is, and we've consulted with the city attorney, is that if amendment three passes, we will amend this budget, right? Okay. According to the contingency plan, we'll bring it back to you and amend this budget. And we can do that. Yes. Okay. Okay. Do you have some questions? Sure. Go. Go. Les, on the, uh, reconciliation of changes to the fund balance, that page, uh, and you might've mentioned it, so I apologize if I'm asking you to repeat yourself, but under the revenues, we have a decrease in the FEMA anticipated reimbursement. What, why are we anticipating, uh, a reduction in a FEMA reimbursement? I'll let Jean cover that one. It, it was just due to a reconciliation of items we received already in fiscal year 26. So we were adjusting, um, we're increasing in 20, um, uh, estimate in 26, decreasing what we're estimated in 27 or even in future years. So we're, we're just trying to keep, um, the estimate realistic based on what we've already received. So there were some year end adjustments. Okay. So we haven't heard anything from FEMA as far as, uh, you're not going to get this. So we're still anticipating getting everything, but you never know. At this point, at this point, we're still hopeful. Yeah, that's right. There's no reason not to believe that. Yeah. And, uh, a decrease in the budget for bridge inspection, which bridge is that? It's general bridge inspections for the city. We have, but we had had it budgeted for 26 and we thought we might still need some budget in 27 and Clay can, uh, correct me. But I think the thought was we might have to go back and, and do some other, uh, work and it was not needed, but. Yeah. For some clarification, um, it is bridge inspections. However, it's mostly culverts, pipes. And when we, we did an inspection in 24, so we put it on a five year, we're, we're going to do another five year plan. So that way we can just shuffle that money over. Um, I think there was some money previously sort of sitting in for the one pedestrian bridge, um, or the way bridge, but we've, we've moved that too. Okay. So this won't impact the safety of any of our bridges. No. Because all that you hear is how our infrastructure is clumbling all over the country. And, and, and for, and also for, and also a little bit of definition, DOT does inspections on anything that has a span larger than 19 feet. Even if it's a city street, they're responsible for all bridge inspections for roadways with a span larger than 20 feet, that 20 feet are larger. Thank you. Um, and what is the parks rent for the Ortheos maintenance yard? I'm embarrassed. I'm asking this question, but where's the Ortheos? It was the, um, there was a maintenance yard behind where we had the art incubator and that lease terminated because now there's a parking garage being built there. I get pictures on that every day. All right. Um, thank you. Those are all my questions. Okay. Commissioner DeGart questions. Uh, my colleague did all mine. Thank you. Jeff. Okay. Okay. So I am going to open this up to public input. Does anyone in the audience wish to come forward and speak on the budget? Okay. Seeing no one, I will close public input and I will go to commission comments. Uh, start with the maker of the motion, which was vice mayor. Thank you, mayor. Just so I'm clear. And I'm sorry that I'm lagging behind the power curve here, but, um, are we talking about the millage or the budget right now? Millage. Millage. Yeah. First one, 20-12 is established tentative millage rate for fiscal year 2026. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um, yeah. So, uh, no, I'm, I'm, I'm in favor of the, uh, maintaining the millage rate. Um, you know, I think it's really important to point out that we have managed to maintain the millage rate at its current level since 2016. And that is not a lot of communities and municipalities can, can say that. And, um, I will also say that they're in light of, uh, amendment three and everything coming down the pike, it would be absolutely irresponsible to roll the millage back, uh, fiscally irresponsible. Um, not to suggest that we will, but I'm just saying that, uh, I am in favor of maintaining the millage rate. Okay. The seconder of the motion is commissioner Sandberg. No, I agree. I'm in favor of it. And I certainly appreciate all the hard work and hours that you put into it. I mean, to really be just handed to us delivered and can't say, uh, enough good about that. So thank you. Okay. Uh, commissioner Gow final comments. Yeah, this is causing me heartburn, heartburn. Um, some of the challenge, well, the challenge I have is that the residents are really hurting. I think the city, uh, regardless of what you hear on social media is really doing a great job and it's a great testament to the fact that we haven't increased the millage rate since 2016. Um, I think we do a good job on managing, um, our, our budget, but residents are getting beat up from everywhere. And nobody wants to give them any help at all. Uh, you know, and this is just me personally and I'm greatly infected by my property insurance, my health insurance, my car insurance, and they aren't getting relief from anybody about anything. We've seen what's happened to rents. Um, and so at some point as a society, as a community, we, somebody's got to give. And I, and I know a rollback wouldn't be the end all be all. The last time we really had a strong discussion on rollbacks, it was going to be, I can't remember last, was it $40 per resident and what they'd end up actually getting back. I, I, I know that's a drop in the bucket and I know a lot of residents may not really understand the property tax structure that when they write their taxes for property, uh, taxes, not all that money's going to Dunedin. So when they go, wait a minute, I'm going to get $40 back. Well, that's of your Dunedin portion paying. And so I get all that. So we need to do a lot more education, but I just not only personally, but for the rest of the community of really, really, um, uh, want to see some, some relief. So if we're going to go ahead and do this, we've really got to scream and holler at Tallahassee about what they're going to do about all these other things that are out of everybody's control. If you have a mortgage, you have to have mortgage insurance. You have a car, you have to have car. So these are things that you have to have. And the homeowner, the car owner has no leverage at all. Whatever the rate's going to be, I got to write that check or use my card depending on who's paying the fee. Um, and, and so I, I am in favor of this, but it's not without discussion because I don't know what's going to happen to us as a society. And I could go on and on about property taxes, but I can't cause I'm sitting up here. Um, but I just, I, I feel for everybody right now. And so I'm proud that we're not increasing, but it would have been nice to give a tip of the hat to the resident to go, here's your $40. Sorry, we bothered you. But me personally, uh, what I ended up paying to the city of Dunedin is a thousand dollars a year from my big tax. That's what Dunedin gets. And I think that's an investment. I get to live in Dunedin for a thousand dollars a year and get, get the green space that I have, get access to the water. Like I do community centers. There's so much, and so I'm, I willingly, uh, stroke that check for a thousand dollars, but it would be nice if it were $960, you know, uh, but anyway, um, I am in favor of the millage, but I just, I, I had, I had to say something. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, commissioner, first comment, excellent process. Um, we got to dig deep and learned, I learned a lot. I don't know about my colleagues, but I learned a lot. Um, I have shared, uh, my concerns regarding this budget only in as much as we are finding ourselves in exactly the position my colleague talked about, which is in the healthcare expense costs. Um, they are going up, they are taking away our wage increases to our employees, and that's just the bottom line there. Uh, I don't know what to do about it. I, uh, I'm famous for asking other people what they were going to do about it inside that meeting, as a matter of fact. Um, so I'm pleased with what we have with conditions, I guess, and it's conditions we don't control. So I will vote for this. Yeah, I'm in favor of the budget as well. I want to thank staff. I know that, um, our department heads, et cetera, did a lot of work on cutting things out of the budget before we even saw it, which is, you know, I've lived through a lot of commissions, as you guys know, and, um, on the staff side, and, um, you know, it's always better if staff is proactive and we don't have to be out here, you know, beating everything up out here and on the cameras. Um, and you brought us a budget that already had a lot of cuts and they weren't easy cuts and they weren't easy to get to. So it's appreciated. And, um, you know, clearly, you know, Les, Jean, you guys do an amazing job of, of just processing this in a way that, you know, it's good and it's, and it keeps us into the big picture. Um, I, I support it. Um, you know, property tax has issues and a lot of it is the inequities of the property tax and that is where the problem needs to be resolved. Um, but, um, in the meantime, we have the tax system and the formula that we have. And, um, and I think that, um, the investment, um, to our community is good and, uh, I support the budget. Uh, I think we probably, we're going to have a lot of work ahead to see if a minute, three passes, what that would look like. Um, I know it won't look pretty. Um, in the meantime, I think we work hard to try to, um, do as much as we can. Um, to, um, afford in an efficient way, the kind of quality of life items that our citizens have told us they want. And, uh, so, but I appreciate the hard work of this budget. It does show a lot of discipline from the staff perspective. So, okay. I'm, uh, so we got to do a roll call vote. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Commissioner Gow. And this is on the military, correct? Yeah, it is. Um, aye. Commissioner Sam Bergen. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. Mayor Franey. Aye. And motion passes unanimously. Yeah, sorry. I guess I drifted into the budget and the millage, but hard to do at this point. Okay. Um, okay. And, uh, we're going to have Jen, please read resolution 26-13 by title only, which does go to the heart of the budget. Resolution 26-13, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Dunedin, Florida, adopting the tentative operating and capital budget for the fiscal year commencing October 1, 2026 and ending September 30th, 2027, providing for a second and final public hearing date and providing for an effective date. That was resolution 26-13 read by title only. Okay. And, uh, can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Okay. Staff presentation. We've, we've finished our budget presentation. You don't have anything additional? No, no, no. I didn't think so. Okay, yeah. Okay, so. Out of ammunition, are you? We want to hear it again. We want to hear it again. Thank you. Yeah. This is where a city manager was supposed to jump in again and say, hey, I want to say something. Um, okay, so, well, uh, no presentation, but does anybody have any additional questions? Last time we decided the millage, this is clearly the budget and capital budget. Anybody have any additional questions? Starting with, or Commissioner Gow. I have no questions, ma'am. Commissioner Dugard. No questions, ma'am. No questions. Commissioner Sandberg. Nothing to add. And I don't have any either. Um, so, I'll open it to public input. Anyone in the audience wish to speak on this item, having to do with the operating capital budget for fiscal year 2027. Okay. Come on forward. Name, address, and, uh. Cleveland Laycock, 06 Jones. It's just amazing that everybody left, and this is really the most important issue tonight. Thank you. All the cameras left. So, thank you guys for putting all, uh, for keeping the millage rate the same. Thanks. And you're absolutely right. Thank you for that, Cleveland. Okay, anyone else in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Okay, uh, seeing no one else, I'll close public input. I will go to final comments, starting with maker of the motion, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, very, it's commendable that we were able to reduce the budget by 11%. That, again, testament to your due diligence in the work. Thank you. Commissioner Sandberg. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Second of the motion is Commissioner Dugard. Uh, I'm oftentimes in awe of all the moving parts that you have to deal with here in the city. And to keep them under a physical control system that you have is amazing to me. Now, by the way, when I listen to you answer questions every now and then, Les, I'm confused. Just so you know that, that glazed look that comes over me is a little bit of confusion. But, um, it's, it's just, you've made it a wind-up doll. It's incredible. I know there's been a lot of work in cutting this budget. The capital budget is well-managed. And you've just had a capital budget tsunami hit you in what we had to deal with with FEMA and those expenditures. I'm hoping that levels out and I'm able to understand it next year. Thank you, Les. Okay, Commissioner Gow. Uh, you know, for the residents in the audience or at home listening, uh, that think that we are just blowing through this in a matter of 20 minutes, uh, is not the case, right? This process starts in February and we've had several public meetings over this. Um, and one of those public workshops that we had, uh, there was a post on social media that said, Hey, they're discussing the budget right now. What do you think? And I actually got really excited that I might hear good, good content from our residents on, this is what we should be thinking and how we should be approaching things. But, you know, I was so disappointed that it was just, it seemed to be a bunch of keyboard warriors that just wanted to bitch and moan and complain without any real substance in their comments. And I thought, what a missed opportunity that is. When you look at our process that starts in February and the state of Florida and the state budget where they pass their, their budget in three days, it's given to them, read it, come back three days, have a vote. And when you talk about local government, when you talk about municipalities and the length of time and the transparency, we, we really try our best, uh, staff worked incredibly hard on this budget, 11% vice mayor. Absolutely. That that's astounding. And it's, and I know that didn't come easy. That came with a lot of sweat and some tears. Um, uh, and so I, I am in favor of it. I, I hope enough residents understand and appreciate what their city government does for them that, you know, just a circle back when you talk about your homeowner's insurance and car insurance, one, they make more money, the less money they pay out. So their, their physical responsibility is to save as much money. All that the city does is provide a service. So if it's local money being spent locally, you could be upset. With your city government, but it's your money being spent locally. Come talk to us. Um, and I hope I'm not smudging too far along the line of amendment three. Um, but I, I am in favor of this less. Thank you. Um, and your staff for working so incredibly hard and all the department heads. I know this was a collective, a collective, um, lifting. So thank you all very much for listening to the comments of an old man. All right. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Sandberg in final comments. So we talk about the price of labor, price of supplies, everything's going up. I've heard insurance going up, except one thing, not in, not in city taxes. Is that safe to say, isn't it? It's the same millage rate. I would say that we would, the rate at which we tax has not gone up. That's what I mean. Right. Yes. Say it again. So the rate at which we tax has not gone up. It's actually because of property values. Right. It does go up. Exactly. Well, because of property values. So yeah, job well done. Thank you. Okay. Um, I'm supporting this budget as well. Decrease of 11% is great. Again, that goes back to my comments earlier about the cuts. Um, commend all of you here for that. Um, I think it's going to be interesting as we move forward. What's the total parks and rec budget? Like 12 million? Yeah. About 12 million. 12, 12.5 million. Yes. Right. And you know, people look at that and they're like, oh my gosh, they've got a ton of money to cut. And what you don't realize is almost half of that is parks. Something every citizen, well, most citizens in this community have wanted us to have lots of parks and green space. And you have to take care of it. I was out walking out by the, um, the, um, one last is area where the boat club was destroyed. And of course, a couple of our parks workers were out there cleaning up. I mean, that's labor. It's labor. It's upkeep. And I think that's where, you know, as we continue to try to educate on what's in the budget and what's at stake, I think that's going to continue to be important. But I support the fact that in this budget right now, a lot of work was done to effectively reduce this budget, the 11%. It took a lot. And, uh, again, I'm, I'm supportive of it. Uh, so let's go to roll call vote. Commissioner Sandbergen. Aye. Commissioner Gow. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. And Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passed unanimously. Okay. So, Mayor, if I may, as you know, I very rarely, uh, ask all the department directors to attend the meeting, but they're all here this evening for the first, uh, public hearing of the budget. Um, and I know that Phyllis was not able to attend, so her staff is here. So thank you very much for coming. But, um, I guess some of them can go home now. Wherever Phyllis is, we appreciate her. That's right. Thanks for being here. I'm a good Monday, y'all. And, um, yeah, you guys are here later than usual, too. Yeah. Tony has to stay. Lori's stay. Lori's stay. There were a couple naps that were taken I was watching, but thanks, everybody. Have a good night. You guys don't want to stay for the marina rates? Mayor, Mayor, can we just, we just, we need to read one more slide, okay? Oh. Trim slide. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead. We have to. Sorry. In accordance with Florida's truth and millage trim laws, a notice of proposed tax increase and a budget summary advertisement will be published within 15 days of today's tentative budget hearing. A public hearing to adopt the final millage rate and budget will be held Tuesday, September, sorry, Thursday, September 17th at, uh, 6 p.m. at City Hall City Commission Chambers. Thank you. Okay. Let's go ahead and amend that slide for the record. Exactly. Okay. All right. Well, thank you both. And, um, are you also up here for the marina rates or who's doing that one? Yeah, I'm going to do that with, uh, and Lori's going to join me, I think, yeah. I was hoping you were. That's great. Okay. So we're going to go to Resolution 26-17, amending the marina user fees. Uh, Jen, can you please read, please read Resolution 26-17 by title only. It's Resolution 26-17, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Dunedin, Florida, establishing Dunedin marina user fees, including rates for use of boat slips pursuant to Section 86-76 and charges for use of boat ramp launches pursuant to Section 86-105 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Dunedin, repealing Resolution 25-29 in its entirety and providing for severability and providing for an effective date. That was Resolution 26-17, read by title only. Okay. The motion is to adopt Resolution 26-17, increasing the marina slip user fees by 7% effective October 1, 2026. So moved. Second. Finally. All right. I had to work at it. I'm a slip runner. Very good. Okay. Staff presentation, Les, Tony, and Lori. Okay. I'll kick it off. First off, this item is Resolution 26-17, and we're recommending an increase in marina slip user fees of 7% effective October 1, 2026. Some background on this item. In late 2022, the City of Dunedin did a very comprehensive rate study prepared by consultant Ralph Delis for the Dunedin marina to determine what rates the enterprise fund needed to be sustainable. The report was received by commission in January 23, and the study recommended a series of five 10% incremental rate increases, and rates had not been increased since 2015. The City Commission approved the initial 10% rate increase on March 9, 2023, and the rate changes have been a 10% increase took place on April 1, 2023. Another 10% increase took place on October 1, 2024. Another 10% increase took place on October 1, 2025. The next scheduled increase is before the commission today, with a proposed rate increase of 7% effective October 1, 2026. Staff has forecasted the financial needs of the marina enterprise fund, and we believe the 7% increase is necessary to keep the marina fund self-sustaining. The new revenue will directly cover daily operations, debt service, and vital capital improvements while maintaining our financial reserves in a healthy manner. I want to mention that the city received a $3 million state appropriation for fiscal year 26-27 to support hurricane repair and restoration at the Dunedin marina. These funds will assist the marina fund with the storm-related repairs to Dock A and Dock B, and will be very helpful with that project. But I also want to mention one item in our long-range plan, our forecast, that the forecast assumes that FEMA and the state will fully fund the cost to replace Dock A and B with modern floating docks. And our current budget in the marina fund is an estimated cost to have floating docks. The potential risk is if FEMA does not approve of paying for the mitigation cost of floating docks, the marina fund may have to cover more expenses than we currently have in our forecast, possibly. The impact would be if FEMA funding is denied for full cost of floating docks, the marina fund will face additional capital costs. To cover the price of those added costs, we would likely need to implement additional slip rate increases in future years. This is a complex project, and the scope of repairs may increase the cost of the project and may not all be eligible for FEMA reimbursements. I also want to mention in the staffing, in the exhibit, which is the last page, there's some reference to some slips. There's five slips that have a reference that the slip size has changed. And I want to point that out. There's an asterisk and a footnote at the bottom that we have five slips that changed, and they'll have a new rate in 2027 year because their slip size has changed, so their costs have changed. I want to mention that the rate study was done, that was done, was independent of any sort of the marina master plan increases. The study was just to maintain the infrastructure at the marina in the 2022 timeframe. Staff recommends approval of Resolution 26-17, and happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Okay. Questions? Vice Mayor? Yeah. Just want to confirm. So, it was, when we passed this in 2023, 2022, basically it was 10% in five increments, 10% every year for five years, right? Correct. And just to confirm, basically what you forecasted for this year is less than 10%, it's 7%. Correct. Okay. That's great. No further questions. Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen? Last night I had probably an hour and a half talk with a slip renter that I didn't even realize was a slip renter, and they made a comment how much they get for how little they pay, and that was really encouraging to hear somebody present it like that, and I won't say their name because I've known them a long time, but I didn't realize I had a boat. But 23, 24, 25, or whatever, that's, so we had the 10%, now 7, and that's because of that $3 million, is that why the percentage went up? Excuse me? So, we had five years of a 10% increase, is that correct? Well, we had, they proposed five years at 10%, but what we've done three years at 10%, and now we're recommending that we reduce that to 7% this year because we feel because of the, some of the, well, really the state appropriation as an example, this funding that came in that wasn't planned, so we're, we're, we're, we're, we're able to lower the rates. As long as FEMA fully reimburses us, we know we have a good plan. If they don't fully reimburses us, we may have to possibly, you know, look at, you know, adjusting the rates a little more in the future, but right now we, we think it's a good plan. So, are we geared, you feel real solid in the event of a delinquency. Do I understand we can go in and take possession with the salvage? We can actually take over a boat if it's severely delinquent. Is that right? Yes, that is correct. And then we would go ahead and sell it to recover our loss. Is that how, is that what we would do? Yes. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner, Lori Ferguson, Harbormaster. We've had to do that one time and actually auction off a boat. We did, okay. Other than that, we've been able to work our way through some situations at no cost to the marina and most of the time ending up recovering the funds. I'm going to ask you one, maybe two questions that don't have to do with this, but to have to do direct marina operations. In the event, now we're at September, so by this time next week we could be under hurricane warning. What is our, what kind of contingent plans do we have to get those boats out of there? We always recommend that if a boat can be trailered, that it be removed from the marina. And at that point, we'd open the ramp, obviously, to that owner. Yes. And as a matter of fact, under normal operating conditions, we close the ramp to the public. Right. And we allow our vessels to exit the marina. Okay. So we're geared, if that did. Yes. The larger vessels, however, it's very difficult for them to find a place for those vessels to go. With the condition of that, while it's under construction, some of those larger boats could be removed with a crane, but obviously right now we couldn't position a crane to get those boats out. Am I right? Well, the question becomes, if you lift them with a crane, where do you put them? If someone had prearranged hauling trailer. Yes. I mean, I don't see that happening. Okay. Very often, I don't hear about that happening, if they take it out to a haul-out spot. But when there is a named storm, everyone's doing the same thing. Okay. So it becomes very difficult. And there are no real hurricane holes around our coast. So when they decide to exit that marina, it's a question of what direction do you go? Yeah. Because the storm may be coming one direction now, and then it changes course, and they're heading right into it. Plus, once a storm is named, not named, but once we are under a hurricane warning, you cannot force a vessel to leave by water. Okay. No, it was just very encouraging to hear someone go on and on about how happy they were in the marina for the price they pay and what they get, and including Lori. I mean, so it was very encouraging to hear that from a citizen last night. So that's all I have. And you're probably spending way too much time walking by that marina, aren't you? At least twice a week. You do, I know. I do. Okay. Commissioner Agam. Questions? Yeah. Sorry, where am I? No, I'm just really, it speaks volumes that we're able to reduce the rate from 10 to 7. It just speaks well to, again, the management of the marina, and it's testament by at least one slip runner. The questions that I have is... Great question, though. That was a great question. Was it? I'm just kidding. It's getting late. It's up to me. Yes, it is getting late. Real quickly, the starred slips that are getting an increase. The, or new rates next year. Those slip runners know that. So those, they're getting the same increase, basically, as everything else. But the square footage of the slip has been reduced because of the design of the seawall cap. Right. So we've lost about four feet in those slips along that front seawall cap. And we don't have boats in there right now other than one. And he is aware of what his new rate will be. It's actually going to be less than his rate was before. So... Right, right. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner DeGardt, questions? Thank you, Mayor. I'm interested in the boat ramp launch annual and daily fee. I noticed that the annual fee has gone up substantially, but the daily fee is stable. Is there a reason for that? Or tell me what's going on there. So the boat launch fee hasn't changed at this time. What you're seeing is the resident versus non-resident. But it has stayed the same. And I think we're going to address that. We're going to revisit that when some other decisions have been made about the boat ramp. So the... Yeah, my point was exactly what you said, which is non-residents staying the same as a resident on daily. Oh, the daily. That went to... A few years ago, we put a kiosk out at the boat ramp. Okay. And the kiosk could not determine the difference between a resident and a non-resident. Oh, we ought to figure a way to do that with some partners. Exactly. We just had to put a flat fee on that. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I had, Mayor. So Finance Board reviewed this? Finance Board's aware of this and agrees with it? Yeah. Finance Board was aware of a 7% increase instead of 10%. We've discussed it a couple times with the Finance Board. Great. And then the assumption is we'll stay at 10% for next year, but we'll see kind of what we look like next year. Yeah, we'll see what we look like. If FEMA is going to reimburse us like we expect, we should be able to go 7% again, but we'll just have to evaluate next year and see where we're at. Okay. And do we have any live aboards anymore? One. One. Okay. And that person's grandfathered basically or? Yes. And owns Dunedin property. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. The boat ramp, I think, is its own Rubik's Cube, as they say, so to be figured out. I don't have any other questions, so I'll go to. Mayor, I'm sorry. I was going to ask one thing real quick. Sure. Of the less. Is there any way just the change in slip size, new rate, little asterisk? There's already a single asterisk and a double asterisk in this. Can we make it just a different symbol so it stands out a little more? A different symbol? Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah. We can change that. Just because it's clear. I just didn't want there to be any confusion on a single asterisk. Thank you. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Whatever our attorney says. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to open this up for public input. Anyone in the audience wish to come forward and speak on the Marina user fees? Okay. Cleveland. Okay. Name and address again for the record, though. Cleveland-Laycock-2306-Jones. So I am a slip runner, and I do want to thank Tony and Lori. They have given us all these numbers ahead of time, up for like 10 years. So we know what's coming as far as the price going up at the slip. That's just total transparency. I really do appreciate that. I am curious about, I'm on the advisory committee, so we're going to have the boat ramp the next. If you're really interested in that, come to that meeting because it should be very interesting. And the other thing is we did get the money allocated from the state, and I've been asking, Lori, but I understand you're working on the budget now. But that's quite a bit of money. So you were talking about FEMA tonight. So there's a little bit of gray area there, but I'm sure we'll talk about it in the advisory committee. But it is on everybody's mind because it is so much money. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Cleveland. We'll have you come every meeting. You've been very helpful. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else in the public wish to come forward and speak on this issue? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close public input. Go to final comments, starting with the maker of the motion. Commissioner DeGuard. It's the only one I got in tonight, by the way. Maker of the motion. Yeah. I think this is wonderful news that we're not having to go up 10%. Congratulations to everybody that got us here. I do think there are some things to work out, and we've got a couple interesting years ahead of us with what we're doing. And I thank finance. I thank Lori. I thank Tony for all you're doing. And I also thank the committee. They're doing a great job, too. That's all I have, Mayor. Okay. Secondary of the motion. Commissioner Sandbergen, final comments? You know, it's very, you've made this really smooth, and when somebody says, I can't believe I get all that for such a good price, makes it a lot, you know, pretty simple. So, good job. Thanks. How many beers did you buy this guy? Was it Wednesday? Of course. Vice Mayor, final comments? No, I, good job being able to reduce the 10% increase. What I would like, though, because it's been a while since we've had a marina update, I'm wondering kind of where the marina master plan is, what's the status of the pier, where are we at on the bulkheads? It's been a little bit of a time since we've last got an update, so that would be great. Thank you. Well, following in Commissioner Sandbergen's footsteps, I did talk to Chip down at the marina the other day, and he said they're ready to cap it off, and, you know, the east wall, and so I'm just trying to live up to your standard there. So, yeah, anyway. I'm trying to cut it down to, like, once every two weeks. Yeah, I was curious, too, how on time we are and with the pier. Do we still have a core of engineer issue with permitting, or are we? So, my understanding is we have one area. Fisheries left the plans are in their office, and we're looking for them to approve the plans, and then thereafter, Clay's going to talk to you about that. Actually, we received comments from fisheries on Wednesday. Oh, good. No, Tuesday. That was Tuesday. So, we're addressing those. We should have those back, hopefully, sometime next week. But how long it takes for them to respond to those comments, I do not know. Okay. So, one of the things that we do want to do is that we want to engage all of you a little bit more and start really putting some pressure, including our representative as well, Anna Polina Luna, to get this moved along. Okay. Because there's, so far as we know, there's really no standard or requirement for how long they have it and how long, you know, until they reply to us. So, we need a little bit more. Wait, so I guess I took my, you know, gap there for a minute. So, I thought the last one was fisheries, and we've heard from the fisheries. Yes, but they generated comments. They generated comments. Okay, okay. So, we're responding to those comments, and some of those are just more general statements that may have been in the application originally. So, once we resubmit, then they have, there's a real no clock that says they have to respond to us in a certain amount of time. We don't want another 30, 45 days. No, I agree. And then after that, how long is it until the permit is actually issued? I mean, you know. So, they're running for election right now, so I would think we can get a fast response from some of our federal. Somehow we keep the contractor engaged, right? Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. Yeah, just, and I'll just add one more thing to that. I don't, you probably saw the press release earlier, or last week, and I shared it with the city manager, but Safety Harbor has opened up their pier, and now, the caveat is, is that their scope of damage was far less than what ours was, and so, at least that's what allows me to sleep at night, and so, just keep us updated. Yeah, and Safety Harbor was ready for construction prior to the storms, and then held off their construction until our federal funding came in. Good. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Final comments? I think you hadn't done your final comments on marine rates, or had you? You had. Okay. So, Commissioner Gow, had you? I already had mine. Okay. So, we're good. I got everybody. Okay. So, and I'm in favor of them as well. I did want to say one kudo, because we really are great at beating up on the state, because they're forever getting in our business, but in this case, they actually helped us, and they gave us an appropriation, and that is appreciated, so, because it's very helpful, you know, based on the devastation of the storm, so. Okay. Roll call vote. Vice Mayor Walker. Aye. Commissioner Gow. Aye. Commissioner Sandbergen. Aye. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. And Mayor Franey. Aye, and that motion passes unanimously. Okay. We are going to go to the proposed agenda for September 17, 2026, commission meeting. Any additions or changes? Okay. Anybody else have any comments? Okay. So, do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Got one. All right. Second. Whoa. Okay. I have a motion, and I have a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passed unanimously. Okay. Great. Okay. So, okay. Well, we lost Cleveland now, so. What are we going to do? We still got Rita, though. We still got Rita back there, so. Okay. Commission discussion and comments, starting with Commissioner Gow. Oh, okay. He's got a long list. He does? I do have a long list. No. So, this is new for me, so bear with me, if you don't mind. But it is Suicide Awareness Month in September. And it's a time to recognize that suicide is not just a statistic. Behind every loss is a person, a family, and a community forever changed. In Pinellas County, we are fortunate to have organizations working every day to bring hope, education, connection, and support to those who are struggling. Speak Up for Mental Health is helping break the stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide, particularly among our youth, by teaching that it's okay to talk about mental health and okay to ask for help. Freeman Sound uses music, education, and community engagement to raise awareness and provide resources for suicide prevention and mental health. Team Chelsea Foundation reminds us that behind every family touched by suicide is a story of love, loss, and a determination to turn that loss into hope and support for others. NAMI of Pinellas County provides education, support, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness. The work helps remind us that mental health is health and that no one should have to navigate these challenges alone. And Zero Suicide Partners of Pinellas brings together organizations across our community with a shared mission to end suicide in Pinellas County through education, awareness, coordinated care, and community partnerships. These organizations demonstrate something very important. Suicide prevention is a community responsibility. It starts with conversation. It starts with asking, are you okay? It starts with listening without judgment and making sure people know that asking for help is a sign of strength and not weakness. This September, let's commit to looking out for one another. Let's speak up, reach out, make sure that no one who is struggling knows that there is help, that there's hope, and there are people who care. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for free confidential support available 24 hours a day. Let us stand together as a community because every life matters, every story matters, and every person deserves hope. I thought that I have suicide awareness buttons for everybody, and I've been giving them out, so now I don't have enough. So I do apologize. Mayor, Rob, and Steve, I'm sorry, ladies. I will get one to you. We'll get you up next week. And I'm sorry, Michelle. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Jeff. And you're absolutely right. There's way too much stigma, and that's what drives people from talking more about it and being there, and we all need to be better. So thank you. Okay, final comments. Let's see. We'll go to the vice mayor next, I guess. Don't worry about you down. No, it's a good cause. No, I think your words were beautiful, Jeff, and it takes a lot of courage, and I have tremendous admiration for you, sir. I'm glad to be back in town for the moment, and anyway, I don't really have a heck of a lot to add. PSTA, we're going to be doing our first public hearing next week on the budget and the millage. Same challenges, obviously, but, you know, that's why they pay us the big bucks. Thank you. Commissioner DeGuard. Thank you, Mayor. We have an extraordinary city. We have an extraordinary city because we have an extraordinary team. We enjoy the banter between ourselves up here only because we're very comfortable with each other, and that's created by a mayor that tends to forgive freely, and we appreciate that, and people who enjoy each other's company and respect each other's judgment. But we also have a staff that I think is really good. If you've worked with a good organization, you've come to expect it, but when you go out there and see some of the other systems, I just happened to have flown on an airline recently, and it was clear that their culture was not as positive as the culture I see here. There are a number of reasons for that, but I want to remind people that this staff is under a lot of pressure. They don't know what's going to happen on November 3rd, and they don't know what they're dealing with, but they still perform with grace and with professionalism. I'm very proud of them during this time. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Commissioner Sandbergen. Well, when I did the proclamation for the library, you know, I did highlight some of the interaction I've had down there, and it's just, you know, dealing with these little, you know, these kids, to watch them smile, and really makes you, you know, it's just, you really feel like you're doing something for them. Even if I'm reading a Dr. Seuss book, and at least, you know, spending time with them, it came up about the Dunedin Fire I did last week. I spent the day with them again, and if you guys want to do something that really makes people feel good, I went into all three stations with Chief Andoga, met with every fireman, every paramedic, sat one-on-one with me, and good people. We're good people, and when they start to relax and talk to you, then they talk to you as a friend, not a commissioner, but, you know, to hear what they go through, you know, and, you know, when you said, so tell me about what you guys do last night, and it's like, oh, let me tell them first, you know, and that's really, that's really a special time. Another thing is, you know, I sit on our spot for the Tampa Bay Regional Planning. There's a new, there's a new part of it, it's called the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Committee, and I was fortunate enough to be selected to be on that, and I got a lot of studying to do in the next few days, a lot of reading, and, but again, you know, because Dunedin has a seat, and I feel so honored and privileged to be there to represent the city, and can't say enough good, it's, we put in a lot of hours, and, you know, we all, we all get beat up, and it's time, there's times, you know, like Tom just said, and, you know, we're back together and be able to banter, sometimes only we understand what we're going through and what's being said, so I appreciate we're back together, it was a long time that we were apart, so, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Jeff. I admire you too. It takes courage and passion, which you have both. So, you know, it's part of what makes Dunedin special. I would say that we don't do a mental health proclamation that I recall. No, we need to do that, and now we need to, I think it was Commissioner Kynes, Vice Mayor Kynes, that at one time, you know, again, learning a little bit more about our county and mental health, specifically in our city, I think is important, and I think we can shed some light on some things as well. You know, people just, you know, you're talking, and then I'm looking at this thing that we all got, we all got one of these, and this is something our fire union did, and it's a teddy bear, pink, and it's holding the Dunedin Fire Department logo, and it was, they did it as a way to, I think they're raising money, I don't know, but they did it because one of our firefighters lost by drowning his two-year-old daughter. Two years old, was she two? I think two. And some of us went to the service, it was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. But, you know, got to be there. Life's tough, and life is not fair all the time, so. So, also just want to make sure we're constantly putting out there right now about the tax forum on September 15th, which there'll also be one on October 6th, and that's to help educate on the effects of Amendment 3, and I know our first one will be myself, Sheriff Galtieri will be here for the whole night, and he'll be actually at both of them, and then also former Senator Jeff Brandes, who, he was a senator, Republican senator at the state level, and now he runs a nonpartisan think tank, so he'll be here. So I think that, and we're going to have it at the health center, so we can provide lots of space for lots of people. It's a really important issue, and number one, our job is just to educate, and then everybody gets to vote. Everybody gets to vote what they feel, so. So, and then on a lighter note, I did want to add that today, in the afternoon, our Toronto Blue Jays beat the Cleveland Guardians, and they're a half game away from getting that third wild card spot, so the Tampa Bay Rays could have helped them, but right now they're losing by 4-0, so that's not good. But anyway, you know, keep going, keep going, Jays, and that's all I have. So, city clerk update. Nothing new to report, Mayor. City manager update. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So, I just wanted to make you aware that some of the retail establishments reached out to staff and requested that we do a limited sidewalk sale for them in September. As you know, sidewalk sales are prohibited in our code, and two years ago, we actually permitted a sidewalk sale. It would occur for a few hours, perhaps a Saturday and a Sunday, citywide. But we don't have the dates. We don't have the hours. It would be very limited, but I just wanted to let you know, because I know that September is usually small business month, and so they want to take advantage of that. Thank you, Mayor. I have one question. Weaver Park. So, you know, Facebook does what Facebook does, and started going on about Weaver Park Pier. And I know the cost is like $600,000, but what is the plan? I mean, are we, is there money coming from FEMA for that, or what's the... Glad you stayed, Tony. Thanks, Mayor. The park does have funding set aside, and it is for FEMA reimbursement. So, that's kind of with the crux of the steps that we have to go through. We had a couple different ideas on how to move forward, and our advisors have advised us that we have to go through a more formal process, and we're going to probably hit some of the same snags that we hit with the fishing pier. Okay. But it is in process to the best we can control it. Okay, great. Okay, I appreciate that. And looking at the hour, so city attorney update. Nothing to report. Okay. Anybody else have anything else? Okay. This meeting is adjourned.