CITY COMMISSION WORK SESSION - Mar 04, 2025

Good morning, and welcome to the March 4th, 2025 City Commission Work Session. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Sympathies to anybody that tried to get here in a car this morning, and all the roads are blocked off. But anyway, okay, we're going to start with our Pledge of Allegiance by Jen. I pledge allegiance to the states of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we are going to go ahead and start with our presentations. We have three of them today. First one is Paint Dunedin Purple for Alzheimer's, June 1st, 2024, and I'm going to turn that over to Commissioner Sandbergen. Good morning. Come on up. I see you in the back. I see you sitting all over. If you're wearing purple. Yes, come on. Thank you. And thank you so very much. I'm putting that right on, man. Nice touch. No, there's no visit, sir. Well, good morning and welcome. As a Dunedin resident for a long time, it's nice to see people take a stand in helping what they believe in. I know a few of you here, and I was warned to make sure I had a purple shirt, so lilac was the best I could do, Colleen. So I would like to go ahead and acknowledge this through a proclamation, and we'll all pose for pictures and allow you to speak, if you don't mind. Whereas nearly 7 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer's disease, a number projected to increase by 30% by 2030 among individuals age 65 and older. Whereas 11 million Americans provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, demonstrating the extraordinary dedication and compassion. And whereas the Alzheimer's Association is the largest non-profit funder of Alzheimer's research, having committed $360 million to over 1,000 groundbreaking research projects in 53 countries to advance treatment, prevention, and ultimately a cure. And whereas there is a vital need to raise awareness among Alzheimer's disease and to honor the caregivers and researchers who work in dedication and provide hopes for a future without Alzheimer's. And whereas the Alzheimer's Association invites residents of Dunedin to visit www.alz.org to learn more about Alzheimer's and to join us in the fight against this devastating disease by decorating their businesses with purple and to wear purple in an effort to raise awareness and funds to support vital research and programs as funded by the Alzheimer's Association. Now, I therefore, Stephen Sandbergen, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Mayor of Dunedin, and on behalf of this entire City Commission, do hereby proclaim March 8, 2025, as Paint Dunedin Purple Day for Alzheimer's, and encourage all citizens to support those whose lives have been affected by the disease, to be a source of encouragement and support to the family members who are caring for them with Alzheimer's, and to strengthen and increase our efforts to win the battle against Alzheimer's disease. Thank you and welcome to City Hall, and I'm anxious to hear more about it. All right. Well, I will start, but as you can see, this is our amazing Paint Dunedin Purple Committee filled with residents right here from Dunedin. So I'll get started really quick. I'm Kelly Strykars. I'm the VP of Development for the Florida Gulf Coast for the Alzheimer's Association, and we just want to say thank you so much for inviting us here today. We are so excited to celebrate our seventh year with you right here in Dunedin. What began with just one person has grown into a true community event with over 80 local businesses coming together to fight Alzheimer's and all other dementias. A huge thank you to the City of Dunedin and its residents. To date, the event has raised over $80,000 to support critical research, support groups, education, and programs for those affected by this devastating disease. Of course, like I said, none of this would be possible without these amazing people that are standing here with me today. And I've had such an, like, amazing time getting to know everyone and learning about their whys and learning about, like, what really is moving them to help us with this mission. So many of us are affected by this disease. People used to not like to talk about it. They didn't want to, you know, admit, you know, that this is something that they are facing every day. And we're here for our caregivers. We're here for our families. We're here for anybody who just wants to learn more and find out ways that they can help support and fight this disease. I went off script, but whatever. Now I want to introduce you to our chair of our 2025 Paint Unedin Purple, Patty. And I'm going to butcher your last name and say it. It's Brian. Brian. Okay. Why did I write it wrong? That's in my email. Okay. Who will share? Backup plan. She's going to share more about her why and about the Paint Unedin Purple event that is coming up on Saturday. So thank you. And thank you all. As Kelly mentioned, Alzheimer's disease affects so many. You could speak in the way. Just because for the camera, I mean, it's better. Thank you. So many individuals and certainly our population in Dunedin is, you look at it, is very high risk for future diagnosis. So thank you for allowing us to shift the day from June or the summer months where we have had Paint Unedin Purple historically. This year we are going into this on March 8th, which is Saturday. We feel as though we're going to make over five times the impression and five times the impact being able to serve our population that's here for our snowbirds, our spring breakers, that sadly are the most at risk for Alzheimer's. And, you know, as I, over Saturday, watched a family go to a baseball game, there was clearly a gentleman that was becoming a bit dim. You could tell that he was diagnosed. And behind him was his wife, his son, his grandson. And those are the ones that will be caring for him. So just by having, and they, I noticed them because they were taking a picture in front of the banner that's over Main Street now. So just that one family learned something more today than they knew before the game, and that's why we do this. So, again, thank you. We look forward to March 8th. We're already raising, we've already raised far more funds. We are almost at what we raised last year at completion of the event, going into the event due to this team reaching so many businesses. And we have had all of our awareness up for over two weeks. So we feel like we're really going to be able to make a great impact. Also, I mean, feel free, if you want to root me on, we have folks from our Blue Jays, the Blue Jays organization. They have been gracious enough to allow us to throw the first pitch. Us, meaning me. Got to get that worked out. Throw the first pitch. So anyone attending the game will be aware of our event. And then we have so many gracious sponsors and donors going into the event, we feel as though we're going to have a great success this year. So thank you very much, and thank you to the team and those that have supported us. And I have a proclamation I'll be glad to deliver. I saw my good friend from the Jays back there. I never met her until I got a police and I was together all the time. That's a joke. We work out in the same gym. Thank you for everything that you do. And thank you. And thank you. Thank you. There you go. Oh, yeah. We're doing a group picture here. Yeah, here we go. Everybody. Taking this off. And the proclamation is nicer if you open it up. We're going to need to really squeeze in. Yes, I do hope you do better on that first pitch than I did. Okay, our next proclamation isn't quite so colorful or interesting at all, right? It is National Procurement Month, and Commissioner Walker, let's try to make something exciting out of that. Well, in one way, can I have all of our procurement professionals come forward? That's all. This is all? This is it. They're different colors. This is all but mighty green. Well, Les, get up there, Les. There we go. Ultimately, he holds the ball, so. Well, this is absolutely a great day, and I will say this. Having spent most of my career in federal, state, or local procurement, I feel very honored to read this proclamation, National Procurement Month. Whereas, the public procurement profession plays a significant role in the efficiency and effectiveness of both government and business. Whereas, in addition to the purchase of goods and services, procurement adds value to the organization by performing such functions as executing, implementing, and administering contracts, developing strategic procurement strategies, and cultivating working relationships with suppliers and other departments within the organization. Whereas, the Office of Procurement Services at the City of Dunedin, Florida is committed to providing high caliber strategic logistical and operational support to all departments within the City of Dunedin. Whereas, procurement services and the City of Dunedin recognize, support, and practice the public procurement values and guiding principles of accountability, ethics, impartiality, professionalism, service, and transparency established by the National Institute for Public Procurement as fundamental tenets of the public procurement profession. Whereas, the National Institute for Governmental procurement has proclaimed this month of March as procurement month to expand further the awareness of the procurement professional's role to governmental officials, the general public, business, and corporate leaders. Now, therefore, I, Robert James Walker, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Mayor of the City of Dunedin, Florida, and on behalf of the entire City Commission, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2025 as procurement month at the City of Dunedin, Florida, and urge all citizens to join the City in recognizing the role of procurement and materials management profession within business, industry, and government. Thank you. So, my name is Tammy Winston-Spearman. I am your purchasing agent, and I want to thank the Mayor, the Commission, and our City Manager for honoring this day. This profession is very fulfilling, and I'd like to thank my buyer. Ms. Shawna Patrell, even though she's leaving us, she has taken advantage of one of the educational offerings that this profession nationally provides us by getting her certification as a buyer. I'm so proud of her. Thank you. So, where else can you be intricately involved in every department and every aspect of their business as they deliver goods and services to the citizenry other than procurement? So, I love what I do, and I'd like to thank you all again. Thank Mr. Tyler, Mr. Les, for hiring me. Manager, thank you guys. I have a proclamation for you. And so, when is procurement throwing out the first pitch? Right here. All right. Let's get a picture with the proclamation. Uh-oh. I didn't see it. I don't see it. Okay. You can hear two guards that way. I'm a little. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. For next year on procurement, maybe you can get a color going, a common color, excitement, you know. A color pen. That's the task, you know. Did I hear pink? I heard pink, okay. So, I work with the Blue Jays on first pitch. Okay. And our last proclamation, and I can't imagine why we picked Vice Mayor to do this one, Florida's Bicycle Month proclamation. March in Dunedin. It's wonderful. I need Kathy and the entire team to come up. We need to work on getting a bicyclist in here. What a wonderful proclamation this morning. Florida Bicycle Month. Whereas bicycling plays an important role in the lives of millions of U.S. citizens, residents, and visitors by providing means to travel to work, school, and parks, and is a popular form of recreation and exercise. Whereas bicycling helps encourage ecotourism and historical and environmental preservation through recognizing the importance of our nation's natural resources. Whereas bicycling promotes health and wellness, and is an important part of encouraging all citizens to develop habits of physical activity, to become or stay fit, avoid obesity, and reduce the risk of many chronic diseases and conditions. Whereas bicycle and pedestrian safety has been elevated to a critical priority of the U.S. Department of Transportation to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on our nation's roadways. Whereas the U.S. Department of Transportation, Ford Pinellas, and the City of Dunedin have adopted goals, objectives, and policies to develop a multimodal transportation system that supports transportation alternatives, including bicycling. Whereas the recognition of Florida's Bicycle Month will raise awareness of bicycling and ultimately promote physical activity and healthy lifestyles by elevating bicycling as a more widely accepted choice of transportation. Whereas the City of Dunedin residents and visitors encourage in bicycling as a viable and environmentally sound form of transportation and an excellent form of physical activity and recreation, and the City plans and recommends projects to make bicycling more accessible and promote comprehensive community education efforts aimed at improving bicycle safety. Now therefore, I, Jeff Gow, by the virtue of the authority vested in me by the Mayor of the City of Dunedin, and on behalf of the entire City Commission, do hereby proclaim March as Florida Bicycle Month in Dunedin, Florida, and encourage residents and visitors to celebrate bicycling as a sustainable and healthy form of transportation. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, City Manager. I am here with George Kinney and Frances Young Sharp, and without them I couldn't do what I do, so I always thank them for support. I have a couple little healthy tidbits that weren't in the proclamation. The health benefits of regular cycling include increased cardiovascular fitness, increased muscle strength, flexibility, and improved joint mobility, and decreases stress levels, which we all need. Also, bicyclists on a regular basis have a two-year longer life expectancy than the average person who doesn't bicycle. So, you know, get out there and enjoy the weather. So, thank you for the proclamation. In celebration of this year's Florida Bike Month, we will be celebrating it with our friends at Fort Pinelas, and FDOT will be at the Lori White Music Pavilion March 15th from 11 to 2. We will be talking to passerbyers on their experience traveling within the city, not just on the trail, but within the city, bicycling and walking, and we'll be looking for their vision for the future of any future facilities that they think may be a good fit for the city. And then we'll take all that information and we'll use it as part of our data gathering process for our multimodal transportation plan when we update that in a few months. So, we're working on that project right now. So, this is part of the, you know, get people excited about bicycling and walking within the city. So, all right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Got to come up with pictures. And I'm just going to reach over. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next part of our agenda is citizen input, and this is for anyone who wishes to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda today. So, is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak on a topic that's not on the agenda? Come forward. Okay. Seeing no one, we'll close that out. I'm going to go to the consent agenda. The consent agenda, we have board and committee appointments, and there's quite a few, probably about seven of those. We have award of a piggyback agreement for the repair of a 15-inch sanitary sewer in Bayshore Boulevard to Rowland LLC in the amount of $54,861. Are there any items that anyone wishes to pull from the consent agenda? Okay. Seeing no one, if I could have a motion on the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Okay. I have a second. Would anyone like to comment on anything on the consent agenda? If you would, you can come forward. Okay. Seeing no one, closing public input. And all in favor of the consent agenda, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Okay. We go to action items. First action item is Resolution 25-07, Fiscal Year 2025 Second Budget Amendment. Jen, could you please read Resolution 25-07 by title only? Resolution 2507, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Dunedin, Florida, amending the City's operating and capital budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024, and ending September 30, 2025, and providing for an effective date. That was Resolution 2507, read by title only. Okay. Could I have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen, Commissioner Walker, and we'll go to staff presentation. Les. Great. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Les Tyler, the Finance Director, and I'm here with Ashley Kemp, our Budget Manager. As mentioned, this item is Resolution 20-507, amending the fiscal year 2025 operating and capital budget. The total budget amendment in the staffing report includes an increase in appropriations of $47.4 million in various funds in fiscal year 2025. The purpose of this carry-forward budget amendment is to appropriate carry-forward encumbrances and project budgets from fiscal year 2024 into fiscal year 2025. The outstanding encumbrances result when purchase orders have been created in one fiscal year but have not been invoiced or shipped by September 30, 2024, year-end deadline. At the end of a fiscal year, encumbrances and funds that have been budgeted in the prior year are carried forward into the next fiscal year through a budget amendment, which is what we're discussing today. The encumbrances amounts items to be carried forward from 2024 to 2025. There's two sections. The first section is encumbrances that total $16.2 million, and the detail list is in attachment C in the staffing report. And there's also a carry-forward for project budgets, and those are projects that are not completed or started as of September 30, 2024 date, and those total $31.1 million in total in various funds. And the detail list of that is in attachment D in your staffing report. The impact on each fund balance by fund is shown on page 1 of the background section and also in attachment E of the staffing report, which is the last page in the staffing report. This shows the affected funds and the total impact on their respective fund balances. On the very last page, I wanted to mention that we do track the fund balances when we do these amendments, and all of the funds, with the exception of the Public Art Fund, the Stormwater Fund, and the Golf Operations Fund, all meet their estimated or exceed their target levels, with the exception of those three. The Public Art Fund did not bring in any revenue in 2024, so that estimated fund balance is slightly negative at the end of 2025. And also, the Stormwater Fund is under the reserve goal. The estimated available reserve in the document today at last page is $738,000 reserve, but we expected this in the 25 budget. In our 25 budget approved in September of last year, the estimate was $313,000, so the available fund balance is actually a little better than we had estimated back in September. And also, the Golf Operations Fund is slightly under the reserve goal. We estimated $226,000. We're at that now, and it's very close to our budget, which was $294,000. And our general fund, as you know, is our main operating fund and our discretionary fund. I want to mention that our estimates today, this is pre-audit. We're still going through a year in entries. Our audit begins at the end of this month, and will probably be completed sometime the end of April, I'm estimating. But our projected reserve goal at this time is 24.1%, or $10.5 million in the general fund. That's well above our target of 15%, and also it's better than our estimate in our September budget. We projected a reserve of 21.4%. So right now, with what we know with our current numbers and actuals in 24, we're going to be a little better off than we anticipated in the budget, which is good news. And that will be good as we move into the 26 budget cycle, which we're starting actually this week, working with departments. That includes our comments, and have it answer any questions. Thank you. Okay. Questions for staff? I'll start with Vice Mayor. Actually, I really don't have anything. Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen? No questions at all. Okay. Commissioner Walker? No questions. And Commissioner Degard? No questions. Unless I just have one, and that is everything in here, no surprises. We've seen this. We've approved this. This is just carryovers and encumbrances and technicalities. That's correct. That's correct. All these items were in the prior budget and just rolling into this year's budget. Exactly. Okay. I see it all over. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone in, I'll open it to public input, anyone in the audience that wishes to speak to the budget item? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close public input, and I will go to Commission comments, and the maker of the motion was Commissioner Sandbergen. Nothing to add, Mayor. Okay. Commissioner Walker? Nothing to add, Mayor. Thank you. Vice Mayor? Nothing. I'm good. Okay. And Commissioner Dugard. Gosh, you hate to break the trend, don't you? I just wish to compliment the team for putting this together so well. This is not a first. This happens regularly in our kind of budgeting system, and I find absolutely nothing but compliments for you and your team within it. Thank you. That's all I have. Yeah, and I'll just add my comment that even though we're riding higher than what we target for our reserves, I think we're just realizing slow, steady, stable budget when it comes to storms. This puts us in better stead than most cities, and God willing, I'm knocking on wood, we don't have any more, but we want to make sure we're keeping ourselves stabilized. Okay. Roll call vote. Commissioner Dugard. Aye. Vice Mayor Gow. Aye. Commissioner Walker. Aye. Commissioner Sanbury. Aye. Mayor Franey. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, we will move to 3B, which is Fiscal Year 2025 Vehicle Replacement Plan, Vehicle and Equipment Purchase of 24 Assets, totaling $1,855,467.82. And I will move to staff presentation by Sue Bartlett and Scott Catterson. Good morning. Sue Bartlett, Public Works. Okay, try to. Scott Catterson, Fleet Manager. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning, Commissioner. Good morning. Good morning. We also have the department directors that have associated assets included in this item available, should they be needed. Thank you very much. This agenda item is the annual replacement plan that we come before you each year with all the vehicles. It also includes any new assets, and we will tell you about any deferred assets. So in the packet that you have before you, there were 24 assets being affected, totaling $1,855,467.82. That is all funds combined. We have that detail for the budget impact outlined there in the section where it says budget impact by fund. And then there's a great amount of detail, and then there's a great amount of detail attached per vehicle in the packet as well. And this item includes all the budgeted assets for FY25, as well as previously deferred and budgeted in a previous year. So we bring it all transparently before you, even though you may have seen it before and approved it before, we want to make sure that you understand this is what our proposed plan is for this year. It does vary. It does vary. We take an annual look, Scott does, with all the directors, looking at very many variables, what we've planned to replace, what condition it is in, how many miles it has been used, if it's been damaged in this particular package. We have three items, I think, two items that were damaged in the storm that are being added, a van and a pump, sorry, I went out of order on my notes, a pump, yes, so that were damaged during the storm. And so those were being added and coordinated with risk and the funds that are affected. And so the package also includes any and all budget variances, and the transfer forms are included. And as you just saw, they will come before you again in a future date. Finance will bring them forward again for approval. But they have been reviewed by budget, and all the purchases have been reviewed by purchasing. There's also an attached memo from purchasing saying that we follow the proper purchasing processes for each of these assets. As well as Scott's memo is attached, which has a great amount of detail about what was deferred, what is included, and which assets are being replaced. This year, again, life cycle is part of that, but we don't just go by the life cycle. City is small. The vehicles are well taken care of and maintained. And so we've been able to extend the life of many of these vehicles or the expected life so that we have the most conservative expenditure of funds. The availability of some of the equipment in the vehicles, it's improving, but there are still some delays. And so we are still receiving assets that have been ordered two years ago. I think that's the oldest one still. So that is still occurring, and that will happen here, too. We are asking ahead of time for the permission to expend those funds and issue the POs so that the orders can be made, even sometimes even though they're a couple of years out. And that's really reduced in the number that have that delay now. So that's good news. One change to this year's program, all the vehicles are evaluated for the alternative fuels per our dream plan. And then the Community Development Department had three Nissan Frontier vehicles planned for replacement this year, FY25. But to facilitate our move forward in that Ready for 100 campaign, we, the Building Department, Community Development, sorry about that, has, has, is replacing five instead of three. So they're going to add two of those vehicles and put them on the same cycle so that we can have five Ford F-150s, all electric Lightning pickup trucks. So they're not hybrid. They're all electric. And then the infrastructure we're working out now as to where that will be placed and the details about that infrastructure. But it was planned also with this purchase. And the building fund will cover this purchase, and the budget amendment is in your package. They can, they have excess reserves at this time, so they can fund these ahead of schedule. We also are deferring 14 assets for future year replacement. That's outlined in Scott's memo, Exhibit A, from the, from Fleet. And the two additional assets that were approved by you in the budget were the Bronco. It's for the new position in wastewater for the environmental specialist and a CC closed circuit TV or camera van truck for stormwater inspections and the condition assessments that were also brought before you in the stormwater agenda item when we did the rate study and then also in the budget again. And then one Kubota for Parks and Rec and Sterling Links that was also budgeted and brought and approved then. And so the staff recommends, commission approved the purchase and the PO issues for all of these FY25 replacement and new vehicles and equipment for a total of $1,855,467.82 as detailed here at. Okay, so I'll go to questions and I'll start with Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. How much, I was looking for it and I didn't see it, but how much did we approve last year in terms of the dollar figure? Last year? Yeah, 2024. For the VOV, this is an annual. What we spent last year? Yeah. If I may, Commissioner Jorge can look that up if we can. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Jorge. Maybe we can come back to it in a moment, if that's okay. While Jorge madly looks it up. Okay. In terms of the replacement, I'm just, and just, this doesn't have to be a detailed review of the process, but how do we make the determinations on how, when a vehicle is replaced? Okay. How that process works is I schedule an in-person inspection of that vehicle. I go out and I look at that vehicle and I judge that vehicle based on reliability, safety, you know, it's cosmetics and all that, all those variables. And I make a determination that this vehicle can either be continued on in service safely or it needs to be replaced. There's also, so there's a very large chart that starts out with the purchase of the vehicles when they get purchased in that amount. And each year, Scott, and with finance associated, they project what the replacement might be. Actually, Scott started that when he got here, besides just a straight percentage, just what the replacement cost will be. And then each of the departments contribute a certain amount to the expected life cycle. So, at the expected life cycle, it is, comes up for this fiscal year as we look at it. Right. So, just to clarify that process. So, when we acquire a new asset, so if we acquire a new asset in 2025, we will estimate its useful life. That could be eight years, ten years, depending on the type of vehicle or equipment we buy. So, as that time approaches, when that estimated, remember, it's an estimate, comes up, let's say it was estimated at eight years, I will go out and physically inspect that with the department representative and say, well, this vehicle still has more useful life. So, we will defer or move that back into the next fiscal year where it will be inspected again to see yet if it needs to be replaced. So, yes, and during that time, also, it's evaluated. Does that still serve its purpose? The department can also initiate a change to a replacement cycle as well as a particular type of equipment. So, that is done individually by department as well as recommendations for what's available, like the lightnings, you know, versus what was available last year. Okay. Yeah. So, and two questions related to that. When we define useful life, is that the same time period that we use in the amortization of the assets? That's a good question. I am not sure. I'm just using pretty much industry standards as far as what it is. Whether or not that is the financial depreciation, I am not sure. Yes. Yes. We do use it for contribution. Right. Each department pays an internal service fund. Okay. It's amortized in the life of the asset. All right. Yeah, that makes sense. And then, you know, this is a little bit of a process question, but the inspection criteria, how, where, is there a national standard? Is there a standard involved here? Or how do you guys do that? No, there's no standard. It's just a process I felt we should initiate in order to make sure we are not replacing assets prematurely. So, we do have a, there is a standard. What we have is varied from that, from standards. It's a combination of what's recommended by industry, and then the fact that we have the city of Dunedin and the way that we maintain our vehicles, as well as work management. So, it's a combination of all those variables. So, what we have is a guideline that is not actually taken from an industry standard. It is a combination of that. Switching to alternative fuels. And, again, this question is related, basically, to the current price of purely electric, hybrid, conventional gas. How do we determine the price and cost trade-off on that? Because I understand our desire to, you know, hit the sustainability plan. But, you know, I, and when you brought up the Ford 150 electric vehicles, those are extremely expensive vehicles. They're not as expensive as you may think. They've come down quite a bit in price, and they are not much more than a regular right now. $45,000, right? $45,000, $47,000. So, they're getting, that gap is narrowing. But, to be honest with you, I mean, I have done analysis of electric versus gas. And even in the long term, with the reduced expenses, gasoline is still, in the long term, cheaper. It's more affordable. It's, but, again, so, that may not be in line with what the commission's goal is, which is to move to a more environmentally sustainable vehicle. You know, I support both. And I appreciate the correction on that, because my data is probably a couple years old with regards to that when I was looking at an electric Ford 150. So, if the price has come down, you know, I may go out and buy one now. But, with that said. We do carefully look at those alternative fuels just because it's available. It doesn't always meet our needs, especially, you know, for storms, different things. Because we have, we're not able to use all electric so that, but in this case, that was explored heavily. Yeah. Okay. Well, I appreciate that, too. Last question. When we make a decision to defer a replacement, is that process basically the same process that you outlined for the requirement or the need in any given fiscal year? It does follow the process again, but we actually are still working through a little bit of that process before it would just roll. If a PO is issued, it rolls over. But when you defer it, there's no PO issued. So, now we have to place it on a future year. So, it will impact future years. And that's the process. We had a little gap in there, but now we all understand it needs to just go back in the budget to be rebudgeted for an additional year. So, it does impact future year, and it does get re-evaluated annually then for the year that it's placed in. I'm sorry. One more question, because bringing up budget, where does this dollar figure fall in what's currently budgeted for 2025? Well, what was our bottom line? I put the pages in there. It will vary, definitely. I think it's less than we budgeted. Right, but we have two additional. I gave you the total to be transparent. In Scott's memo, it actually breaks out what we planned versus what we spent. Yes, and we are slightly under budget. But if you're looking at individual vehicles, some vehicles came in surprisingly under what we had budgeted. And that was kind of offset by some of the vehicles that came in a little bit over what was budgeted. What I try to do is every year when I, because budgeting in the future is pretty tough when you're trying to predict a vehicle that's going to be replaced in eight or ten years. But every year at the beginning of the year, and we're getting ready to do this for 2026, we go out and look at the contracts. We update the prices that we're charging the departments for. So right, a department pays for a vehicle now, so it has funds in the future to pay for it. It has the budget to do it. So each year we go in and we do, at the beginning of the year, we adjust the budget based on new prices. So that's where we're starting now for 2026 already. We're going to say, okay, so this vehicle is due in 2023, or 2026, 2027, 2028. We go out and see what that current vehicle is going for now, and we adjust as we go so that we don't run into these budget shortfalls. So on page two of Scott's, the second page of the memo, it has, again, we're tracking by vehicle and, you know, both the budget and the expenditure and the contribution. And so, for instance, down at the very bottom, those are two assets that were brought into this fiscal year early. They were projected in 27, and those are the message boards, and they got really beat up in the hurricane, but not enough that we would be able to get reimbursement, even though we'll try. And so the replacement cost is $22,475, but the available balance is only $18,116. So you see the difference there. So there's little adjustments at each individual asset, like FIRE, general fund there. The replacement cost, one of those vehicles had a greater balance than the actual replacement cost. So you just balance it each year. Yeah, and thanks. And sorry, one more question. So, yes, what I understand is that, basically, you are forward planning based on the ever-evolving price cost of the vehicles. Correct. And again, this is more related, but if you take a look at what's going on as effective today or last night, you know, this is going to be a significant issue in terms of price. And, but anyway, that's, those are all the questions I have. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, I have an answer to Commissioner Walker's question. Last year's fleet purchase was $1.7 million, well, $1,771,494. Okay. So about $100,000 less. Okay. Commissioner DeGuard, questions? Thank you, Mayor. First of all, compliments on a good presentation. Secondly, I'm interested in your calculations on the electric vehicles relative to maintenance over time. Can you explain how you calculated that inside this? Because we're seeing just the capital expenditure here. We can't see the overtime expenditures. So on the, on the existing vehicles we have, which are Nissan Leafs, I did do an exhaustive analysis that took into consideration the initial purchase price of the vehicle, the electric vehicle versus gas, the savings on gas, and the savings on, on, sorry, on maintenance. You're not usually this shy. What's that? You're not usually this shy. No. Just, just not close. Just the mic. Oh. He's not shy. Yeah, I didn't realize the microphone was so far away from my mouth. That's the, that's the process I, I used to do a analysis like that. So do you have? I understand that electric vehicles don't require the amount of maintenance, oil change, things like that. Did you do any calculations on what you're going to be able to save there? Oh, absolutely. That was included in my analysis on the Nissan Leafs. It's not that they don't need any maintenance. They still need tires. They still need brakes. Sure. They, they don't need oil changes. To be honest with you, the oil changes are not that expensive. We're not saving a ton of money on an oil change. And we get our parts at wholesale, no tax. When we do them in-house. So, you know, there's no transmission. But to be honest with you, these, even the gas cars, the transmissions are so reliable today. They come with a hundred thousand mile warranty. We're, we're not doing a lot with those either. First, the first fluid change on a transmission is at 100,000 miles. We're in a, what, 10 square mile city. Takes us a long time to get to 100,000 miles. So, the maintenance savings are, are, are there. Probably, and, and this is in my analysis on the Nissan Leafs, which I'm, you know, I can, I can bring to you is, there are some parts on a gas vehicle that are not on an electric vehicle. And I considered, okay, so suppose we have to replace these parts. I was very liberal, like, okay, let's say these parts fail. But, yeah, the, the, the bottom line is the electric vehicles right now, well, at least when I did this analysis, prices are coming down. We're slightly more expensive than the gas in the long term. Did your replacement schedule remain the same for both gas and electric? Um, well, the, actually, yes, because it's, uh, usually a passenger vehicle, I put in it 10 years. Um, I assume we can reasonably get 10 years out of a passenger vehicle. So, um, but, you know, I have an electric hybrid, or, uh, yeah, a hybrid vehicle over there in my shop. It's, uh, a 2008. So, we're still getting use out of that. It looks good. It's in good shape. Maintenance. It's flexible. Yeah. So, I put it in at 10. They pay it back at 10. And we look at it in 10 years. Um, and if a battery's taken care of, I think it will last 10 years easy. Do you have to make any provisions for charging stations? Yeah, yes, we do. So, we're looking at that right now. And there's a couple options open with these F-150 Lightning. So, I assume that's what you're talking about because we're getting five, uh, or we're asking for five. So, there's a couple options. The F-150 Lightning is a very versatile vehicle to charge. It can be, it can, it comes with a free cable, and it's got the internal software built into the vehicle to just plug it into a 110-volt outlet and charge it overnight. Um, so, no charging station is technically needed. All you need is outlets. Just standard 120-volt outdoor outlet. Um, and the other option is to go with a charging station. Now, Ford currently provides those charging stations free of charge for the actual station itself. However, there's some little hidden costs there. They charge you for the software, um, and items like that. So, we are examining those options. Thank you. That's all I have. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, during this process, is there any discussion with the department about those vehicles on, we purchased them for a specific reason. Does that reason still exist? Is this an option? Did the use of the vehicle change? Could we go to a smaller type of vehicle? Or the reason we bought it, it really isn't fitting the needs, so we might be able to go up? And do you have those discussions? Oh, absolutely. We've made several vehicle changes. Um, you know, a lot of vehicles that were passenger SUVs were trying to move over into the Ford Maverick, um, hybrid, which is standard hybrid. You don't even have to pay extra for it. Uh, but yes, we look at, um, and in fact, the expedition that's for the fire department on here is not being replaced by an expedition. It's, uh, going to be moved to a more affordable F-250, uh, which they feel is also more versatile for them. So, yes, we look at the type and, and make the adjustments in conjunction with the department. Okay, so we just don't automatically, same for same. No, we don't automatically do anything. I go out and I look at every single vehicle. Mm-hmm. And, um. I pride myself on that. Right. We don't also, we don't just wait until the replacement of the, you know, comes up. Uh, as soon as a department identifies there's a different need and a different function, we start working with them so that we can make the changes in the, in the, um, contribution and also finding out what those costs are. Okay. Now, is it, when we purchase these new vehicles every year, is there ever a time where we hold on to that older vehicle? Yes, sir, we do. Um, sometimes it makes sense to, uh, continue using that vehicle in a, a lesser role. Um, so when we replace, let's say, a fire engine, um, that replaced fire engine is then shifted down into a reserve role so that when, or if, the main fire engine, the primary fire engine is, is not in use. They still have that reserve vehicle to go to, and also sometimes equipment, this is more true with equipment than cars. Equipment can be repurposed to another department on occasion because if a department has a need and they were going to try and ask for, let's say, a skid steer, you know, a piece of construction equipment, and they were going to ask for it, um, and, uh, but they, they're like, well, it'd be nice to have one of these, but we really don't need one of these, and we don't have the budget for it, but if another department has a skid steer, and it's, let's say, 14 years old, and they're going to get rid of it, uh, we have repurposed that to that department that could probably use it, but not enough to justify buying a new one. So, you know, they save the money of, of not doing that, and we just continue to, to, to repair it over in fleet, um, as needed. We, um, in the, um, efficiency evaluation, one of the recommendations is establishing a process to evaluate low-use vehicles, um, so those reserves will be looked at, just to make sure there's an adequate amount, um, of course, for government, so it might not be to the commercial standard, but, um, I think we, we mentioned that the solid waste, it was 100% and 100% backup, and so we've been looking at each of those to determine what, what makes sense. Along with the tracking of the maintenance for those vehicles, and when they fall off the curve, or they become very expensive to maintain, so that's still a cost. Might not be a replacement cost, but it is still a cost, operating cost to the department, so, uh, that process will be actually outlined in writing to be followed, and also will go along with this replacement plan. And it'll be evaluated, um, for the right size of the fleet, um, we will always look throughout the city to see if there is another use or another department that, um, has a need for those pieces of equipment, but it has to weigh against the cost. Okay. And so, when that older vehicle is finally disposed of, if it's already been replaced physically, we don't then, again, get another one. So, we're, we're not, we're not expanding our fleet through this method, right? That's correct, and we, you know, during the, um, recommendation, part of that will be transparency for, uh, everyone to see what have we kept that's not on replacement, um, versus what we're having replaced. But, yes, we do not replace another one. I mean, there's no contribution, so there's no money to replace it, so those go back to the, the surplus goes back into the fund. Okay. When it's sold. Um, I'm just concerned with bloat, right, and, and expanding our fleet, and you guys sound like you're on top of it, and I'm not implying that the directors aren't, the departments aren't, right? We're all working together, we're a team. But is there a way for them to use that older vehicle? When we do keep them on, are they, is it truly because there's a need for that vehicle, or you look at that vehicle and go, it's still got some life, let's find a place for it? No, no, that's not the way it works. Again, we're not talking so much about vehicles as we are equipment. Vehicles are getting replaced. Okay. They're going off to auction. Right. We're talking about, mostly here, when we repurpose, we're repurposing equipment. Equipment. Okay. All right. Thank you for that clarification. And all my other questions may have been asked and answered, so I'm good. Okay, great. Commissioner Sandbergen. I just had a couple of, how many coal vehicles? Did we have damaged or destroyed during the hurricanes? This past year? So the number of vehicles was, I believe, five. Okay. Five, two in the first storm and three in the second storm. Three of those vehicles were damaged by trees falling on them, and two of the vehicles were damaged by floodwaters. Okay, were those vehicles deemed to be total losses? So they're included in this schedule that we are? No, not all those vehicles were total losses. Two of the vehicles that were hit by trees can be repaired by a body shop. So we've already undertaken having those repairs done. One of the vans that was at the emergency center that was struck by a tree is indeed a total loss, and that appears on here. So we are replacing that a little ahead of schedule, and we do hope to get some FEMA reimbursement for that, if possible. So we don't do our own body work, do we? No, we do not do body work. Okay. So on the vehicles, so we did have some that were total losses, am I correct? Yeah, that transit van in particular, and that pump. Right. And the pump, that's right, I forget about that. So do we file an insurance claim on those, or do we use it as trade? Teresa, HR risk, they handle that, and yes, all of the damaged vehicles both go to risk for evaluation whether or not they're covered by insurance, as well as through FEMA with finance to make sure that we're going to claim all that we can for reimbursement. So both. So on this list of vehicles, do we buy or do we lease, or do we ever consider leasing when we buy or buying when we lease? So, again, that's a finance decision, but we do have a program that's called Lease through Bank of America, but it is actually a purchase, a loan. It's just the way that they phrase that lease. So it gives us some advantages, like with solid waste, so that we don't actually start paying the loan back until we receive the vehicle, where as a government we issue a PO, you have to have the money there to issue the PO. So we're going to actually bring some of this back to you on that side of things, but primarily we pay outright. We do have a few vehicles that fire that have, like we're provided them by through the county, and so we're not paying for them, but we're paying them the maintenance. And so we're working out some of that now with replacement if they're not going to replace it. One of the engines? Generally, leasing, when you hold a vehicle for a long period of time, like the city of Dunedin does, is more expensive than a purchase. Okay. I noticed, you know, it's not like you can, you know, sit at your desk and say, you know, enter into a, not Carvana, but just for example. How do we come across? I've noticed, you know, different dealerships that are providing these vehicles. None were here in Pinellas. How do those, how did, how do we end up hooking up with those dealerships throughout the southeast? Primarily, we use the government contracts, ones that are approved, and then it dictates where the dealership is and who we work through. And just roughly, how many employees do we have that are using, that have personal usage on their vehicles, taking them home? It seems like that would bring them up a little quicker. I can only recall one. That would be building code, Joe. Yeah, we don't have that answer. It's a take-home vehicle, and I believe that's it. One. Is there more? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. If we can send you that number via separate email. Okay. Well, the fire vehicles are like, because they're on call. Right. So they're actually working. That's why I didn't consider the fire vehicles a take-home vehicle. Okay. Okay. That's good. That's good. But before we leave, just one more point of clarification, because you did ask if we do body work, and it came up in the context of the vehicles that were damaged, the passenger vehicles that were damaged by the trees in the hurricane, we don't do that kind of body work. We don't have a spray booth to repaint. But we do do body-type repair works on equipment. So the garbage trucks, we can re-body those. And the street sweeper, we will go in and tear out the items. But again, these are not cosmetic. They're not being refinished and paint. So just wanted to clarify that difference between what we send out and what we do in-house, because we do do a lot in-house. Fabrication. We visited you. Okay. The equipment, torn down, trucks. Yeah. That's all I needed. Thank you. Okay. So, Jennifer, could you get us, when you do the list of take-home vehicles, could you do it position, the list of position and take-home vehicles? Certainly. I think that would be actually good for us to look at again. It's been a while. So just a couple things from my perspective, and I think Vice Mayor had just a follow-up, a quick follow-up. So on the five Ford Lightning trucks, so three are replacement, two are going ahead of time. So anything of the five of them are going to auction. I mean, everything's going to auction. Correct. Yes, that's the plan, right? And again, we will consider other needs or requests that are in for those vehicles, especially since we're replacing them early. But yes, that is the current plan to go for surplus, but we will explore if somebody has a need for that vehicle. But again, since it's a vehicle, especially, then it does not get into the replacement cycle. That's correct. Because, you know, you all know that used to be a little bit of a shell game, and don't want to go back to those days. Okay. And my main question really is, when you look at the whole 1.8 million, is there anything in this that we haven't approved through a budget that would be a surprise? The only increases or decreases are when they went to market, some were lower, some were higher. But no surprises, nothing we haven't seen in some form in the budget to approve. The only thing you haven't seen, you're seeing now, are the two replacements that were damaged during the storm. Okay. Great. Good. Thank you. Okay. And I think, Vice Mayor, you had a quick follow-up? Yeah, real quick. I'm sorry after I said I was all done. But on the fire vehicles, I just happen to notice that you have highlighted, or you're acknowledging that they are cloth, 424 split bench with center armrests. Why that was highlighted? Why cloth, not leather? Not that I'm looking for an upgrade, but it's fire, and I don't know how dirty. On the detail? On the spec? Yeah, it's on the spec. Okay. I kind of missed your question. I couldn't quite hear it. But could you please repeat it? Which vehicle? Sure. Well, I'll take you there under D3. No, I'm sorry. 2D, or D2. It's fire department vehicles. D2. Exhibit D2. Yeah, it replaces vehicle 153. Is the fire chief here? No? I do know there's more of a fire question. With the fire department to spec out those particular F-series trucks. I'm not sure why it's highlighted. We can ask Chief Parks to give clarification. It's on the actual quotes. And maybe you can provide us an email on that, city manager? Yep. I was just curious because it's highlighted. Yes. I understand. We took the quotes that purchasing used for their quote and put them in the package. So I'm not sure why it's highlighted. I remember why it's highlighted. Because in the initial quote, it was omitted. And that's the second quote. And we just highlighted it, the marker to show that, yes, we did get the quote correct the second time around. The seats were not in the first quote? Correct. In fact, I'm glad somebody caught that. That would have been quite a surprise when it was delivered. There was quite a few items that were omitted in the first quote. I don't know about standing room only, but certainly there's no room for sitting. No place to sit. It's actually the type of seats. I mean, we had the wrong type of seats. I can't remember whether we had the buckets, which you don't want. They need a bench so they can have their computer there. That makes sense. That makes sense. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. I need a motion for approval of fiscal year 2025 vehicle equipment replacements and purchases from various funds and departments for a total expenditure of $1,855,467.82. So moved. Second. Okay. And I'll go to Commission comments. Maker of the motion, Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. So I, you know, this is obviously a very large dollar figure, but it is consistent with past years, with very little growth, actually, a lot less growth than I thought there would be. The other thing, and this is really to commend our finance folks, but, you know, we were able to approve a $5 million inter-fund loan from fleet to general fund for hurricane damage. And so, in my opinion, that is an indicator of a very well-managed budget. And I guess, finally, I had a couple of other questions. The aftermarket, and we don't have to find that figure now, but I'd just be curious as to what a typical year aftermarket, what do we get out of the auction. And that said, I have no further questions or comments. I was going to correct you, but that would have been more fun. Okay. Vice Mayor, comments? Thank you, Mayor. You guys do such a great job, and I really do appreciate it. Every year, you do your homework. Every year, you're able to answer all of our questions. The whole concept of, at the end of its life, you might get the new vehicle, but you find another place for that old one if we have room for it or a need for it, more importantly. And so, thank you. I know that I've had several discussions about going electric and have been told, no, we're not there yet. And that's not necessarily as a city, but the vehicles are too high, they're too expensive, they won't perform the way we need them to perform, especially on your higher-end vehicles like solid waste and things of that nature. And we're not just there yet. But the conversations I've had have led me to a comfort that you guys are on top of that. And so, that's why I really didn't have any questions about the Rangers. I mean, they're finding to a price. I know that they are still kind of fairly new to the market, six years, I think, maybe. And they were over $100,000 when they first came on the market. They were outrageously expensive. And it just shows with the economy of scale what will happen over time. And the fact that you guys, on your own, said, now we're ready. That's at a price point we can afford, the functionality of the vehicles will suit our needs. So, it's just fabulous. Wish we'd go, try and go more electric on some of our equipment, especially lawn motion, things of that nature. But I know that we abuse them a great deal. They're workhorses, and I understand the challenge of that. But just thank you for the work that you do. And other than that, in general, this is just a budget item, and you do it every year. And I know for anybody who is just looking at that dollar figure, that can be sticker shock. That is a lot of money. But it's the same money, relatively, that we spent last year over time. And I know the vehicles that we replace come and go and change. We might have a heavy year. We might have a light year. But the market value, you know, so it's well done. So, thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Before I continue comments, did I ask for public input? That's what I was wondering. Yeah, I don't think I did. And I know this is riveting, and everybody out there wants to comment on this. But is there anyone in the public wishes to comment on our vehicle replacement plan before we go any further? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing none. Okay. We'll move forward. But sorry about that. Okay. So, I'm going to go to Commissioner Sandbergen for final comments. Nothing else, Dad. Just keep up the good work. Watch out for the taxpayers' money. You know, I'm a real stickler of that. Keep up the good work. Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. As an owner of a Tesla, and having had that for five years, I have a little bit of insight into the world of electric vehicles. First of all, compliments to you for putting your feet in that water with me. We seldom talk about the negative externalities of combustion versus electric. And you can't calculate that on a spreadsheet. But there will be literally tons of carbon not going into the air because of this purchase over the next five years. That's important to remember. Yeah, I know the prices are still up there, but they're coming down, and they're coming down fast. I know that it's a culture change, too, because when you grow up around, you know, beautiful combustion engines that you work on and you love, it's tough to move to something that's totally different and doesn't make noise. So, I'm admiring you for going into this, and I support this. Thank you. And I just rode in that Tesla with you, and I'm thinking maybe I've got to buy something like that. It's pretty cool. Anyway, so, my comments are, first of all, I had the opportunity to go and do a kind of a site visit with Scott and his crew just recently, and very impressive. And for those out, I know this is a riveting subject, but Scott lives and breathes cars. And I can't think of a better person to be in charge of our fleet because he is into it, and we are seeing lots of benefits from that passion. And so, I want to thank you and your crew because they're all extremely impressive in how they are handling our fleet and thinking through what is smart to work on versus to send out versus to replace. The fact that you basically deferred 12, I think, 12 vehicles slash equipment, 14, is great. I mean, that's, you know, I can remember years from prior commissions where, you know, you just beat up on staff because they didn't defer anything. And, you know, but you're really looking at it. You're really thinking about it. You're really making those fiscally responsible calls on what we need to do and what we don't for the taxpayers' benefit. So, kudos on that. I have a lot of confidence in this, and that feels good. When you're sitting up here and you have confidence and you know these things are being looked at and the kind of detail I know they are, it feels good when you're sitting up here representing the citizens. And I'll also say, because I recently had a request, as you know, to send our process to a major regional organization. I'm not going to say who they are, but they are a major regional organization. They really didn't have any way they were thinking through replacing their vehicles. And so, again, kudos. So, basically, we've got motion, second, and voice vote. So, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that motion passes unanimously. Mayor, can I ask for clarification? Just on the item regarding the fire department fire rescue vehicle, do you still want to email on why it is we have a split bench and whether or not? Was the question answered? I'm fine with the answer that I think it's got. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Sure. So, just a take-home vehicle. Thank you. In detail. Thank you both. Thank you all very much. Okay. Next item is 3C, the proposed agenda for the March 18, 2025 work session. Anybody, any changes to that? Okay. So, if I could have a motion to approve the agenda from March 18, 2025? So moved. Second. Okay. And all in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And any opposed? And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. So, before we go into our main item of the day, and appreciate the patience that you've all had before we worked through other items, take a five-minute break, I think, and then we can be ready to give full attention to this historic item. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and get the meeting restarted. Okay. We have one workshop item, and that is Historic Preservation Ordinance Update and Certificate of Appropriateness, otherwise known as COA, Matrix Update. And we'll start with our staff presentation. George Francis Blair-Nighting from Kimberly Horn. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, Commissioner George Keeney on behalf of the Community Development Department. I'm going to very quickly turn it over to our dynamic duo over there, Blair-Nighting with Kim Lee Horn, who's been our lead consultant on this project, and, of course, our liaison to the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, Francis. I also want to really quickly thank Jen Cohen for all the work she's done on this, and I know our Historic Preservation Advisory Commission Chair is also in the audience, and I would be hesitant not to recognize Deborah Kynes. So, with that, I'm going to, like I said, very quickly turn it over to our group to kind of recap the last workshop meeting we had with the Commission and to provide some update on some of the questions that were asked. I would just ask the Commission to kind of keep in mind the three core changes or modifications that we're kind of suggesting here, and really those are two changes to the ordinance. That being the existing landmark designation process would be kind of parsed out to allow for both a structural designation and a site designation, so that's kind of one key issue. The second key issue is the introduction of historic districts. Obviously, that's the one that's probably going to gain most of the attention and discussion this afternoon. And finally, the resolution, as was mentioned by the mayor, to adjust our Certificate of Appropriateness positions, if you will, on who are making those approvals and in what situation. So, with that, I'm going to kind of turn it over to Blair and let them kind of walk you through this presentation, and then we're going to be happy to take any questions at the end. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having me again. I appreciate it. Thank you. So, today, if you remember, we were here on December 17th, and we were talking about the ordinance update, and there was some questions about what is a historic district? What does it really mean? There was some questions about some of the historic district regulations, and so we wanted to come back to you with some more information on that. And so, our topics of discussion today, just a quick refresher since the workshop, some more kind of leading items about historic districts and kind of giving you some more information. We also wanted to talk to you a little bit about preservation efforts in Charleston because resiliency kind of came up last time. And then you all asked for a frequently asked questions sheet, and so we came up with some of those, too. So, post-workshop, there was some concerns last time about the percentage of homeowners that needed to essentially consent to a historic district. We originally had 60%, and we understood the commission was very concerned about that. And so, what we ended up doing as a group, going back, analyzing it, and saying, you know what, why don't we update it to the 100% owner requirement? So, in order for the historic district, 100% of the owners have to consent. And then we also, there was some concerns about the Historic Preservation Committee being able to apply for a historic district. And so, what we did is we've removed that from the language as well, and we made sure that the city manager, under extraordinary circumstances, has the ability. So, there's two ways a historic district can be applied for, right? Not approved, applied for. 100% of the homeowners have to consent, or the city manager may apply under extraordinary circumstances. And so, you know, I'm sure the question is, what is an extraordinary circumstance? And really, we wanted the ability for the city manager to apply, again, just apply for a historic district, in the case that something extraordinary happens. And one example I could think of would be, if you have an entire block of homeowners that are grassroots, want this to happen, they want a historic district, but maybe there's a house right in the middle of that area that has been vacant for years, it's owned by an LLC, maybe there's some kind of issue with that. And so, maybe the city manager could say, hey, all of these other people are ready to move forward this historic district. This one house is in the middle. Historic districts really need to be contiguous. So, that may be an extraordinary circumstance. Jennifer, what were we thinking about another one? The only one I thought of much along the lines of that was, like, because of the hurricanes that have been recent, and the damage that they've caused. I know in some communities, when there's been a home that was damaged for the hurricane, some homeowners have walked away, and it's fallen to the bank or the mortgage company. And so, a bank or a mortgage company probably isn't going to initiate or sign a petition, but if the city manager was willing to submit the application, they may be fine with it going forward. It's just, they're not going to be the ones to be able to initiate it or to sign the petition. So, and again, that would, in that scenario, that's envisioning that the other property owners surrounding that are on board with that and want that to occur. Yep. And that's just the first step of a historic district, right? So, the first step is the application, the survey, accompanying documentation, and then it goes to the Historic Preservation Committee for recommendation. And then the last step is y'all. Y'all decide whether or not you agree that the historic district should be put in place. So, there is a process in place. So, even if the city manager, under extraordinary circumstances, did apply for the historic district, the Historic Preservation Committee would have to, and it's quasi-judicial, they have to take it under, they have to review all of the evidence, they have to take in public comment too, and then the city commission would have to vote as well. So, I just kind of want to put that out there, that there was some hesitation about the 60%, and so we made sure we cleared up that language for y'all. And then there was overall concerns about how the historic districts would affect the properties, and so I just have some information regarding that. Please do. I'm sorry. With regard to extraordinary circumstances, if the city manager were to submit an application under that, and when it goes through the process and it comes before this board or this commission, you would still have to determine whether or not there was an extraordinary circumstance. That would actually be a finding in approving or not approving the district. Yeah, good point. Thank you, Jennifer. Okay. So, what is a local historic district? Local historic districts, this is really just another tool in your toolbox of preservation tools. Right now, you have the landmark designation process, which is really great, but essentially, you don't have the ability to create historic districts, and so typically, most municipalities have both options, and so we wanted to make sure that we tried to give you an option, another tool for preservation in this city. And really, a historic district also is a puzzle, and I like to think of it like that, where not every single structure may be a landmark on its own, but together, it is a puzzle. It is a historic district. It is a culture. It's an architectural style, a whole block of them. And so, I think that kind of helps understand, like, well, why don't we all just do a bunch of landmarks? Well, they might not qualify on their own as a landmark, but together, it is a puzzle. And then, they do help protect neighborhood character by protecting demolition, protecting inappropriate alterations on the exterior. It really does create a more desirable place to live in a sense of place, and it's funny, because I was thinking about this this morning, and I went to the coffee shop across the street. What is it there? Tucro. Tucro. And every time I come here, I have to have coffee from there. And I thought about it, and I go, well, if this block wanted to become a historic district, I think it makes sense, right? But if not, you know, if we don't protect these, that really provides the character of Dunedin, in my opinion. And protection of these kind of character-defining structures and areas really is important, because somebody right now could tear that building down if they wanted to, if it's not a landmark. So, it really does try to discourage demolition, inappropriate alterations. They are typically based on a historic resources survey. So, you start with the historic resources survey, and we worked for many years to get as many properties surveyed as possible with as much money as we could find from the state. So, we, many grants and tried to do as many structures, because in order for a neighborhood to try to get a historic district in place, they need to have that historic resources survey completed. And it really takes into the historic context, the character, the culture of the area, the period of significance for the structures, and it lists contributing versus non-contributing structures. So, what is a contributing structure? A contributing structure usually is it contributes to the overall character, the age, the architectural style of the area, of the potential district. Non-contributing structures tend to be either built outside of that period of significance, which would be usually less than 50 years old, or they had really severe alterations from the original design of the building. Like, let's say maybe it was originally a one-story bungalow. They added a huge two-story front addition. That would alter the character of that building and probably make it non-contributing. So, that just kind of gives you an example of the difference between contributing and non-contributing to a historic district. So, once the citizens are supportive of the district, and usually, I don't know that I've ever seen it where it wasn't a citizen-led historic district. It's usually a grassroots approach. The neighborhood really forms a neighborhood group, and they come forward and say, Hey, you know, we really want to make this a historic district. Once that happens, they start working on the application. They need to start thinking about public outreach, and then design regulations. So, design regulations for a local historic district are really important because they let you know, like, what is appropriate alterations. Also, nowadays, with resiliency, design regulations are including resiliency efforts. What materials are appropriate for replacement? Can you raise your structure to accommodate flood? Things like that. And then, there were some questions about, really, what is the benefit of a historic district? One, I think, personally, from a planning perspective, the sense of place that a historic district creates is very important. But, economic reasons, we all are worried about money, you know, right? So, protecting the investments of the owners and residents that encourages better design. Educational benefits really shows the culture of the area. And, heritage tourism really is a money driver for many communities. And, historic districts tend to lead that. And then, also, enhanced business recruitment potential. So, I just have some quick bullets on, you know, over the last 35 years, Pittsburgh has added an average of 500 jobs and $18 million in salaries and wages every year for projects using federal historic tax credits. So, tax credits are very important to the rehabilitation of commercial properties. And, so, they've been able to create higher paying jobs, things like that. Property values in Raleigh between 2000 and 2008, single family residential property values increased 49% in historic districts. Which they, and then the historic districts saw an increase between 84% and 111%. So, the historic districts had the higher property values than the other districts, than the other single family residentials. And then, 2013, an international downtown association stated that the Savannah landmark districts is considered a high live-work downtown with 29% of all workers also residing there. Which I think is very important, right? We want to be a little bit more resilient. We want to be able to walk to work. We want to be able to, or at least live where we can go have dinner, things like that. Allowing cities to evolve since 2006, Nashville's historic districts have seen more than 445 million in investments. So, those are just kind of facts I wanted to put out there, just random, but wanted to show you there, it can be an economic driver for a municipality, for a city. And then, I think, Vice Mayor, you asked the question about, well, what happens outside of a historic district, properties outside of a historic district? And so, essentially, they do tend to increase in value as well. It's more of a spillover effect. So, for example, in Jacksonville, there's this very successful historic district, Riverside and Avondale. And right outside of that historic district is Murray Hill, and they are seeing a resurgence, too, because it's a spillover effect. It becomes that kind of sense of place where people want to be and people want to live. And the consistent styles bring people together, things like that. And then there were some questions last time I was here about modern materials. And I think preservation really is going a long way in that in recent years. They are accepting more modern materials when repairing. So, for example, if you, you know, your historic siding, you want to switch from wood to, like, a hardy product. They are making products that really do match, which is really great. And in this ordinance, you are able to replace your windows instead of keep them for hurricane resiliency. So, there are ways to work with the modern materials, especially if they're the historic materials really aren't available anymore. And this slide just kind of shows, like, you know, there are some very modern materials. You know, there's natural slate that, you know, you used to have these natural slate roofs, but now maybe you could go to, like, these asbestos shingles that maybe show the opposite. And then, so just there's many options to trying to modernize. And then I just wanted to point out one of the features in your, or the recommended ordinance would be, and it's already in the ordinance now, is COAs. If you're just repairing, so for a COA, even if you own a landmark, if you're just repairing, you don't need to have a COA. So, that's really important, right? So, if you're saying, like, oh, my door, I need to have it all repaired, that does not require a COA. So, it's not as burdensome on the homeowner as some historic districts can be. And then, just quickly about affordable housing, and I know some people are very interested in this. We do see a lot of more affordable options in historic districts. All the time are, like, ADUs in the garage apartments. Very, very normal situation. Also, there's schools that have been rehabbed into condos. So, it's kind of like a really win-win for everyone, that building that historic schools kept. But, you know, people are able to have a smaller footprint and not have to worry about yards, things like that. So, historic districts can offer affordable housing options, too. And then, I just kind of wanted to give a plug for Charleston. They're really doing a great job with resiliency. Their staff and their historic board, they call it their BAR, B-A-R. They're really working on getting the word out about resiliency and about adaptation action plans and things like that. And so, taking from them, if ever a historic district was put in place, that historic district could take from Charleston and really reuse some of that knowledge and incorporate it in their design regulations. And then, we just have some frequently asked questions that y'all asked super quick. I don't know that we really need to go through that. But, I think, you know, if everyone is supportive of some of these changes, we can have these frequently asked questions on the website. We can absolutely have them distributed. Not to put work into your hands. But, you know, maybe have them just in the flyers, things like that. So, yeah, we just had some frequently asked questions that are pretty normal. I know it was fast. We have a lot of people probably waiting to speak. But, I think the gist of it is the concern was there was 60% not enough to support the historic district. And so, that's why we went back with the 100% homeowner consent. And, I think, because it's typically a grassroots, it's usually never someone coming from the top down saying, we're going to do this historic district. It's usually a grassroots neighborhood effort because they really do need to have the buy-in from all of the homeowners. And I'm available for questions. Okay. Questions for staff. I'll start on my left with, I think I went over here last time. So, I'm going to go to Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. So, greatly appreciate the presentation. And, I think it answered a lot of questions for us from our last meeting on this topic. So, first question is the differentiation between historic landmarks and landmark sites. And, can you provide a little bit more information on that? Because, I think that's important in a couple of determinations that we're going to be making here shortly with regards to using, using as an example, the boat club. Yep. Thank you. So, before we looked at the ordinance, we knew that there were some issues that are lacking. When we looked at it, it really was apparent that you needed a differentiation between landmark site landmark. Because, you wanted to be able to landmark just a building, for example, maybe the city marina, right? That building is really an interesting mid-century modern structure. But, you don't want to, you know, designate the whole parcel. And, so, we tried to have, we separated them out. Landmark, landmark site. In order for, to give a more flexibility for the property owner. I think it really helps to differentiate the two. So, then, that way, all you really need is if you're just going to designate a building legal, like a sketch in legal, which surveyors are very, they're able to do that very quickly. And, then, that way you can just designate the actual building, if you want, instead of the entire site. So, that's why we, that's why we distinguish the two. Okay, yeah, and I'm picking on the boat club because this is, I believe, probably going to be the first thing that we consider if we go forward with the differentiation between landmark and landmark site. And, with that, and, you know, and just to lay the groundwork for the public, you know, the boat club is historically significant based on its 100-year history of really being ground central to all of the sailing activity. which really kind of helped put Dunedin on the map and provides a very historical context with regards to, you know, the industries that we're here in the day, the industries that persist to this day. So, I want to just make sure I lay that groundwork before we ask, I'm going to ask further questions on this. So, a couple of scenarios. Does there have to be an existing structure on the landmark or historically designated landmark site? So, yes, you need to be able to justify the landmark, right? So, if it's a landmark site's property, so you have to have a historic structure and you have to provide justification as why you, it meets the criteria in the code. And, what if the site is historically significant? Because that was where it all started. It's a valid point. And, I would have to look at how we wrote, or how it's actually existing now because it would be landmark. We didn't change much of the criteria. So, it's value as a significant reminder of cultural or archaeological heritage. Check, right? So, as long as it would meet the criteria, if there's not an actual building on it, I would say, yeah. Okay. And, there is a big plaque there right now. Mm-hmm. Okay. I appreciate that answer. If I could just add, Commissioner. So, I believe the way it's written, that flexibility is in there. So, if you want to simply designate a site, and that site has some historical significance and meets those criteria, you can designate that site absent the structure. Thank you. Next question is, how do other ordinances compare to what is proposed right now? So, Savannah, Charleston, how, what is, did we draw, did we draw content and requirements from those? Yes, sir. So, what we did as a team is we really tried to look at best practices. Because the bones of the ordinances here, but the historic district, that was new. And so, we tried to take St. Pete's great example. They're doing really great work in historic districts, city of Jacksonville. We tried to take really established ordinances that have been tested and try to incorporate that, but also make it valid for Dunedin. So, we did try to reuse other cities to look at, for sure. And does that apply to historical, the designation of historical districts as well? Yes. Next question. So, what are we defining, because this is, you know, still a little bit unclear to me, is what is the scope of a district? And I know you put some things in the slide deck, but I guess my question would be, does it have to be, you know, can it be, can it be a public area? So, interesting. So, the question is, it would have to meet the criteria, again, similar to your question. An actual, I would push you towards a landmark, right, instead of a historic district, if it was just one location, one parcel. So, I don't think there's anything precluding you from one. Jennifer, do you remember if we had, like, it would, one parcel versus, I think it is more than one parcel? For the district. For historic district, I can't remember. I believe so. Is it more than one? Let's see. I mean, because we could define, okay, let me just help you with an example here. Okay. Barrel Alley, where the breweries are. A lot of industry there is an example. The marina is an example. You know, you could even say the parcel that the Coca-Cola plant sits on has got a lot of historical significance. Anyway, so that, not all of those are public, obviously, but I'm just curious if, you know, would historical designation of a district, would that apply to those types of activities? So, yes. And if it is owned by the city, the city would have to agree to be within that district, right? Just like a homeowner would have to consent. And so, yes, absolutely, a public facility could be within a historic district. And then, just to maybe clarify some things, like, you can, within the application state, you know, there are 15 historic structures within this historic district. There are non-contributing structures within parcels. For example, there's a non-contributing garage that was built in 2000. That's non-contributing to the historic district. And then, you could clarify it to make sure that there's different regulations from contributing versus non-contributing. Okay. Thanks. And then, just back to the differentiation between the historic landmark and the landmark site. My understanding of how this, that one is written is, is that, let's just say on the historic landmark site, if a structure was to be rebuilt or, yeah, rebuilt, really, then there would have to be a certificate of appropriateness that would meet a standard from greater than 50 years ago, basically. So, same architectural style, same, you know, character, that sort of thing. Okay. So, that's many questions in one, I would say. Sorry. No, it's okay. I'm trying to package them all together. Yeah, you've got a bunch. I like it. Okay. So, historic landmark site would be a piece of property. You have maybe a historic structure on there, and then you have maybe a non-contributing structure on there. And you're saying, if I want to take down the non-contributing structure, you want to rebuild that. Is that where you're going with that? Yeah. Okay. That's an example. Yep. Okay. So, yes. So, typically, you would need a COA, and then there's actually standards in the COA language that talks about new construction, if it's a landmark site. So, typically, Secretary of Interior standards for rehabilitation or new construction. So, the new construction would have to complement the historic structure. Okay. Good. That's, and this is actually my last question. One question. Five in one. We'll see. We gave him a hard time during the break about, no, I got one more question. Oh, it's my last question. I got one more question. The Certificate of Appropriateness, I, yeah, I'm glad it was rewritten the way that it is. I was having personal experience with that, but this is really more, do you feel comfortable with, essentially, our delegation of the level of authority for some of the decisions that have to be made in the COA? I do. I do feel very comfortable. We analyzed it very thoroughly. And, really, the way it was before was way too much on y'all's plate, to be honest. And so, I think putting it more on staff and putting it more on the Historic Preservation Committee, who is supposed to have background in this subject, is really helpful for y'all. And it takes some things off of your plate. Yeah, and I would concur with that storm windows to the same size and specifications coming to the commission. Anyway. You're worried about fleet vehicles, not windows. Those are all the questions I have. Are you sure? No. Okay. Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I wish to show my appreciation to the committee and all your work and addressing some of my concerns that I was dealing with. A couple questions for you. As I understand it, and tell me if this is correct, the application process allows the mayor, I mean the manager, to, under, in extraordinary circumstances, to start the process. Is that what I heard? Yes, sir. But the decision is finally with the commission. Yes, sir. Is that correct? Okay. Just want to clear the air on that one. If you are currently a historic site and a district forms around you, how does that affect you? I can't see how it would change anything. Okay. Just want to be sure of that. Other than it would be including the design guidelines for the district. Good call, George. Thank you. Thank you, George. He's an honorary historic preservationist now. All right. If you were to move into a district, do you have the option to opt out of the district? Not if it is already established. But other municipalities do require that an affidavit is signed when you transfer the deed. So you know that you are in a historic district. And other municipalities also monitor the property appraiser's website. And they send out letters to other historic district committees do. You presented a lot of good history here on some communities I'm personally familiar with, Raleigh and others. And I'm aware of how this has benefited that community. However, as I look at it, if I was a homeowner and I was in an historic district and a prospective buyer were to have difficulty with the fact that they would be under the codicils of that historic district, that would be my only remaining concern, that some property owners might find themselves in a situation where they'd lose a customer. However, that counterbalances with the knowledge of what you gave me here in that it is oftentimes more attractive than deflective. No more questions. Thank you. You're good. You're good. Vice Mayor. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that makes comments on their questions. So thank you, Tom. Actually, very few questions because thank you for responding to the concerns we had before. And then between that and Commissioner Walker, I'm good. But is this, if this moves forward and becomes part of who we are, is this citywide or is this only focused on those phases that we've talked about? No. So good question. Are there neighborhoods in North Dunning that might look at this and go, hey, maybe yes. Good question. Yes. And I hadn't addressed that. You're right. Yes, absolutely. This is a citywide ordinance. So any neighborhood that qualifies to apply for a historic district could. Okay. And Commissioner Walker talked about the industry portion of our downtown. So it applies to the entire downtown as well? If there's some sections of our downtown? Yeah. If the entire, if there's sections of downtown and the property owners say, we want to designate, we want to take advantage of tax credit options, things like that. Yes. They could qualify. They have to apply. They have, it's quasi-judicial. It's a, it's a process. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. That's all that had me. Thank you. Okay. It's still freezing in here. Yes. I mean, it just is. So the air conditioning is actually operated remotely. And we have asked our facilities manager to turn it up. And I'm just waiting for confirmation that they have done so. Okay. But we have reached out to him twice. Okay. Some of us are shaking. Okay. All right. Commissioner Sandbergen. How long has this program been available? Historic districts? Yeah. Probably, you know, that, I should know that answer. So the act was in 1966. So maybe soon thereafter, the Historic Preservation Act started in 1966. So maybe. I mean, here in Duny. A local program? Oh. Oh. So the landmarks. I think, I think the ordinance. 2017. 2018. 2017. 2017. 2017, 2017, 2019. Yeah. The ordinance. It's dated back in 2018. But the whole movement of the Historic Preservation Program started in 2016. Okay. Any idea off the top of your head how many homes would be eligible in Dunedin? So I would say out of the group that we surveyed, I think it was almost 90% of that was contributing. If I may, Mayor. So the survey was downtown. It was two phases in downtown. Throughout the city, we don't have that figure. Yeah. Okay. How many homes currently participate? In the landmark process? Yes. There's approximately 25 landmark designations to date. Out of that eligible number. So it's only 25. Okay. And it's, it, I know earlier you talked about, so you think this really is beneficial for home, home sales around the Historic District? Yes, sir. So if I buy a house in the Historic District, I think Commissioner Dugard, maybe to make sure, and it's in the program, I can't remove it. I can't. No. Okay. All right. You know, we just came through some pretty hefty storms. So in the event of a partial damage or total damage, am I understanding that the expectation is to rebuild or repair and keep within the spirit of the historic look? I mean, that to me sounds pretty expensive. I mean, that, to replace with, like, something that looks like what was damaged. It's just something to. So, yeah, it sometimes can be, the materials can be more expensive, but they, I would say the modern materials really are coming a long way. And hardy board is used on most modern houses nowadays. So, and I think that's a very good comparison of, like, you would probably use hardy board on a new house anyway. Okay. Okay. No, that's good for right now. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to go back to the historic site because I had exactly the same thought process going on. So, let's just say we declare the boat club site as historic. Boat club's gone, okay, because we're debating that now, whether it can survive what just happened to the storm. So, it's gone. It's a site. Now what? What are we required to do? So, I mean. So, any exterior changes would need to be approved through a COA, right? So, like. And when you say that, you mean anything we're going to build new because it would be. Yep. Sites clean. Yep. So, anything we're going to do to build new would have to go through a COA and basically have to be, you know, look now. Well. Okay, go ahead. Excuse me, Mayor. What I would say is the landmark designation is going to say why it's historic, right? So, it's going to have the justification of why you're designating it. Is it a cultural site? So, I think when there is no structures on the parcel, you have a lot more leeway in terms of what you build back on there. But you would have to make sure that whatever you build and you'd have to, it would have to go through probably the HVAC to, I just call it the HVAC, the HPC, to make sure that whatever you do meets the Secretary of Interior standards for new construction. And so, that's a really tricky question and I think that it would be onerous on the applicant for the new building to prove that whatever they're building is context sensitive to that site. Right, so actually, I mean, my guess is if we had a clean slate and we had the designation, we declared it, that whether or not it was another boat club, a restaurant, whatever it was, we would want it to look like maybe the old boat club did. I mean, just like architectural. Not the same, you know what I mean. But just would have that, the spirit of. I think Commissioner Sandberg said spirit of and that's probably a good way to put it. I would say without looking at the reason, you know, the actual justification of the landmark justification, I would say yes. I would assume that whatever you build back on there should be appropriate for the period of significance of that site. Okay. The COA matrix changes, obviously, and we've been through these. They're literally to make it easier. Yes. On people that have declared their home versus in remembering what you and Claudia went through just to get your windows done or whatever. That was not good. So going back to, okay, so I live in a 1972 house, right? So I could declare it as historic, maybe. I don't, you know, it doesn't hit me as being historic, but if I did. And now I'm flooded, okay? And so if I get flooded again, I don't think I want to go through it again. But I'm just saying, what restrictions would I have, though? I mean, because obviously if I have declared the historic home, I've got to go through the COA, floods again, knock on wood, hopefully not. And then logic would tell you, okay, got to lift it up, got to rebuild a new structure. What am I going to do? What's the reality of my issue? Because I've declared myself as historic. Okay. So in the ordinance, there's already language about demolition, right? So you'd have to prove why you need to demolish the structure. And then if it is approved, which usually they go hand in hand, right, the COA for demolition and the COA for the new construction. So the COA for the new construction would need to, it's not mimic, right? That's not what the Secretary of Interior Standards for new construction require. It's really, it needs to be compatible with what it was. So you don't have to rebuild the exact structure exactly how it was. It just needs to be compatible to prove what it was before. And those, that language is already in your code. Okay. So, yeah, I get that. I mean, I don't look at my 1952 house as historic, but if I'm in a bungalow on Scotland, maybe I do. And so what you're saying is I get to tear it down and I rebuild to kind of a bungalow feel new building, new house, two story. Yes, ma'am. Right? Yes, ma'am. Or whatever. Okay. So, and just walk through me. If the city manager says there's an extraordinary situation, I need to step in, which I think she would do very lightly because she'd be in a heck of a lot of problem if she didn't, you know, she wouldn't weigh in easily on that. What would that process look like? So, yes, so if the city manager says I got to step in, there's something's going on, she would have to follow the application process just like anyone else and prove, have the survey done, have all of that, all of the application pieces together, submit that, staff would make the recommendation. And then she, the H-PAC would also make a recommendation to y'all. So it would follow that process. And then it would ultimately come to the city commission. City commission. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Okay. That's all my questions. So I'm going to go ahead and go to public input. I do have a couple of cards, but let me just ask anybody individually. Does anybody out want to, I'll call the two cards and I know I've got two of them, want to come forward to speak to this item. I'll take a couple of individuals and I'll go to a group card. So just come forward. Name, name and address for the record and three minutes. Deborah Kynes, 265 Edgewater Drive. And I do have a designated home, which was voluntary. I designated, we designated our home because it's our home place. I've raised my kids there. I'm raising my grandchildren there. I don't want to see it torn down. And that was my reasoning. I understand. I go through COAs. I understand that. But, again, it was voluntary. No one told me I had to designate my home. And I think there's a lot of misunderstanding. When you designate, it is a voluntary action. And I think I need to ask Blair, in what situation would I go over to someone else and say, you must designate your home involuntarily? The way the language is. Okay. We don't do questions. Okay. And former vice mayor actually knows that. But I do want to, I think that that is a primary question here. And I think it needs to be openly and honestly answered. I also want to say with the, and first of all, the landmark site was specifically done in this ordinance for the boat club, which is 100 years old. It's not 1950s. It is 100 years old. Because we did not have the facility to just do a building. And they had the pram shed on it. Jennifer said there is a non-conforming structure within that parcel. And she asked for us to wait. And that's why we put that third designation, the landmark site. That was specifically for the building of the boat club. I also want to talk about the 100% in a historic district. First of all, it's grassroots. Okay. A hundred percent. What does that mean? First of all, it means that maybe two, it would have to be more than one. So two homes come forward and say, we would like, we want to be a historic district. Well, they can do that. Or three. Okay, then the next house says, I don't want any part of this. I don't want to be designated. Those three homes can be designated. Then this house says, no, I don't want any part of it. The next house says, no, I don't want to be any part of it. Then you go to another pocket of three homes or two homes that say, but I do want to be a historic district. That's how 100% is going to go. So basically what you have is voluntary. You can wrap up there. Sorry. You have voluntary and then you have opt out. I don't want any part of it. And then you have, again, voluntary. That's how the 100% goes. And that's why it was put in there. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Anyone else wish to come forward to speak to this issue? Three minutes. Name and address for the record. Ryan Saunders, 250 Lynnhurst Street. I appreciate you having me back here. I was back here in December when this conversation came up. Language has improved. 100% definitely helps. But there's still some challenges with some of the arguments that were just made because of this extraordinary circumstances. We talked about three homes that want to be part of this, two homes that don't want to be because they are an LLC. They can't get a hold of the property owner. City manager can step in and now make this a historic district. That's one of my biggest challenges with this ordinance as it stands is extraordinary circumstances remains undefined. Two hurricanes in a row. An increase in home improvements as a result could be considered extraordinary in my books, right? So should the residents recovering be informed that the city is adopting language that aligns with extraordinary circumstances? So our block is now rebuilding. A couple of houses want to be historic. They start that grassroots campaign. City manager says these are all going to be demolished because of this hurricane. It's in extraordinary circumstances. Jennifer, I'm sure maybe that's not what your plans are, but this language stays in the books, and it goes on to the next city manager who may interpret it differently. That is such a huge, huge loophole that needs to be taken care of. So my question to the team here is, you know, can we live with this language of extraordinary circumstances? You need to make that decision now. The ordinance isn't free is my other big objection as well. The city has already spent at least $5,000 in grant money to Kimberly Horn. I saw an estimate on the e-comments of $120,000. It will be said by Kimberly Horn, the consultants that are here, that's grant money. Okay, that's great. That's state grant money. But could that money have gone somewhere else other than the consultants to do these surveys? Are we going to have more surveys coming up? Could that money have been spent to do preservation for Andrews Memorial Chapel? Could it have been spent to expand exhibits at the museum? Could it have been spent in better ways than putting this grant money to surveys of all these homes to understand, okay, they are all more than 50 years old, that 90 percent? I just felt like there's another opportunity to use that money. And I think it needs to be clear how much this program is going to cost the city, its residents, any time these COAs go through, any time these surveys go through. Are we taking money from something else and putting it somewhere else? And my third issue is we need to understand that in this ordinance, conforming and nonconforming will play a part if a historic district happens. Nonconforming houses will have to submit a COA if they're going to do something with their fence. So we can't say nonconformings are out of the picture and not responsible for this. And the modifications of this, of where we are today in the ordinance, really lacks these crucial definitions. It fails to serve the homeowners and benefits only those who really kind of profit from its complexity. So my question to the city council here, you talked about this in the last one, are you willing to go on record in support of keeping this program fully voluntary, getting rid of this loophole of extraordinary circumstances, and keep this on a per-home basis as it is. I think it's great for people that raise their hand and say, I want to be preservation, but I don't want this language to be misinterpreted years later and have this loophole in the language. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, I'm going to take the, if I could just ask everybody, we try not to clap, because people have differing views in here. We don't want anybody to feel intimidated, so I would appreciate that. I'm going to take you, Kim, and then I'll go to the first group one, which is going to be Lorraine Snipper. Okay. Hi, I'm Kim Beatty, 570 Walden Court, Dunedin. Thank you very much, everybody, for your time. My emphasis today is probably mostly on the boat club situation. This has been ongoing for about four or five years that we've been, and Ms. Kahn's actually referred to the fact that it was put on hold because of the pram shed being torn down and those situations there. You know, I have to report that we have done some significant studies with outside sources and reputable sources and found that the bones of the boat club are substantial for restoration. I've gotten this also from a structural engineer, how we could lift the boat club, elevate it. It can be insured once it's restored. So these type things enter into we need the designation because there's a possibility of some historic funds through the division of FEMA, not this year, but perhaps we can get in line. That we missed the deadline this year, which was back in January, so we would have to get in line for that, but we cannot do it without a designation. That would help us put the boat club back together. The thoughts are genuinely it will go to the club and they will decide what to do, but the options are to lift it, to elevate it. We have architects actually doing some drawings right now. It would look identical to the existing boat club as it sits right now. And like I said, after a thorough examination by reputable people, we found that it does have the bones and the structure to be able to restore it. It's been over 100 years since the club was started. It was built in 37, so it's not quite 100 years old yet, but the building itself. But as far as if we can help us either get to be a landmark or specific, how we want to handle this. But the comment was made to me in a meeting that it would be very undone-edon-ish to tear down an old building. So I'll kind of leave you with that thought. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, we do have a group one, and it's Lorraine Snipper. And it is, we've got, and the people, then she'll get to speak for 10 minutes. And the people that are on the waiver list, Stephen Snipper, or if you're here, could you? My husband, sitting right next to me. Sitting right next to me, sorry. Looking right back. And Richard Abington, see him over there. Deborah Flynn, just have her right for me. And Jenny English. Okay, you have the floor. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Do you want me to give my name and address? Yes, please, and then three minutes, or ten minutes, sorry. Lorraine Snipper, 245 Edgewater Drive, Dunedin. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. It's important for you to hear directly from your constituents how they feel about this proposed ordinance language. I appreciate the responses and calls that I received from this commission. I appreciate knowing that you're paying attention. This proposed ordinance language has really galvanized the residents of Dunedin that have been made aware of the process. Most, though, are still unaware of the process. And though there are some e-comments on the city website, the process to get into the e-comment system is very cumbersome, difficult to understand, which may explain why you don't have more comments, because people do really want to go on record. But, like me, they're not interested in, like, getting in front of a group. I would request on the record that letters and e-mails, as well as e-comments sent to the mayor or any of the commissioners on the subject of historic districts, either in opposition to or in support of, be made public record by providing a link to a compilation of such documents. This record, along with videos of meetings held by commissioners and committees, should provide a complete picture of the evolution of this process. I came prepared to go over as many onerous burdens contained in the proposed language before us as to their effects on the homeowners in historic districts, as my scant time would allow. But I'm confused, because I keep hearing that residents are being told that the ordinance was changed to be completely voluntary. Is this what the 100% approval clause is intended to address? Because as this document before you is written, the city manager still has unilateral power to apply for a historic district with defined boundaries. You, as commissioners, might say, well, we always have the authority to ultimately deny an application once we hear from the residents in the proposed district. But included in the ordinance is a clause that all pending or future permit applications will be suspended once an application is made by either the city manager or a resident in a proposed historic district until such time as the historic district is approved or denied, which could take months or even years, given the appeal process. And then the application can be made again a year from the date of final denial so that this is a specter hanging over all of the residents' heads in perpetuity. Why are we allowing any city manager to have unfettered authority over the historic district process? Extraordinary circumstances are not even defined in the document. This, in my opinion, is the most objectionable part of the proposed ordinance language. I still don't understand how historic districts benefit the residents of Dunedin as compared to voluntary landmark applications. The written word endures long beyond any noble intentions of the writers of this ordinance. So we must look only at the written word. There is no personal attack here. I have heard variously that we don't understand or so-and-so in the city government would never do X. Again, as it is currently written, there is immense authority given to a few that will stand in perpetuity if this goes forward. In my opinion, no one should have the authority to impose restrictions that currently don't exist on homeowners who bought their property, believing in the value of their property, and their future intentions within existing zoning and building codes. I, as a homeowner, avoid HOAs specifically for that reason. This ordinance is like an involuntary conservation easement. I don't even understand how this current language still exists on the page. There is a link in the e-comments for today's meeting from Chris Hall to an article about the dark side of historic preservation. This link is available to everyone. It hits close to home, describes the various scenarios that are indeed common, despite what any presentation to the contrary may illustrate. Therefore, I think a meaningful component of this legislation would be that anyone applying for historic district status, if this somehow has passed, or a historic landmark designation, would be completing an educational course on the restrictions to be observed once winning such a designation. Present the pros, but be transparent about presenting the cons in an objective manner. I urge this commission to reject any historic district language that presents any opportunity for one or a few to exert control over homeowners' rights outside of existing zoning laws and building codes. This ordinance, as written, pits neighbors against neighbors and the city against its residents. Dunedin is an eclectic mix of homes, with various neighborhoods having unique characteristics. I love my neighbors, and I love living in Dunedin. You cannot legislate pride. Keep the historic preservation process voluntary. Thank you. Thank you, Lorraine. Appreciate it. Please. That's okay in the back. Thank you for that. Okay. I'll go ahead and go to the next. We have one more group one, which is John Schein, and his list is Wendy Adams. If you could just raise your hand. Wendy Adams. I'm sorry. Okay. Brian Adams. Kathy Ballantyne. Okay. And Mary Ellen Tilly. I don't... Who's Mary Ellen? She was here? Yeah. That's fine. Okay. And name and address for the record, and you have 10 minutes. Sure. I guess we'll get the clerk to do that. Pass. It's half to one side and half to the other. Let's start at the time, and we need to... Actually, I probably need one of my own. You too. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to thank Kim Lee Horn for putting together a presentation. Name and address for the record, John. Sorry. Oh, my name is John Schein. Addresses are 217 Aberdeen and 466 Wood Street. Thank you. I'd like to thank Kim Lee Horn for a presentation. We're always delighted to see the presentation and a bias associated with a specific agenda in mind. The DDNA is an organization that stems from character overlay, and it's an organization that stands up for property rights. It stands up for the individual rights. And I'd like to help you understand one basic premise that you've kind of touched on but you haven't said. When you take your property and designate it historically, the reason you need a piece of paper when you sell it is because you have a deed restriction on that property. So you're forever modifying the deed, not the house, not the land, but the deed, the very piece of paper that shows ownership. And you're giving away a part of your ownership by putting a restriction on not only you, but everyone who owns that property after you. It's a very serious issue. And as you've demonstrated with your questions, when you make modifications, even as the city to your own land, to your own buildings, and it's a designated historic spot, you are greatly inhibited by what you can do. And you're further inhibited on a city property by the will and needs of the people themselves. So if you take a piece of waterfront and designate it historic, then one of the issues you're going to run into as the world changes is you may have to modify the waterfront itself. When we look at historic preservation in the city of Dunedin, I'd also like to, I think it's important to remind you that we live in Dunedin. Now the Kimley Horn, I've seen a lot of great Kimley Horn presentations. They rarely show a picture of Dunedin, and this was no exception. You do not live in Savannah. You do not live in Charleston. You do not live in Pittsburgh. Savannah and Charleston were settled in the 14 and 1500s, okay? They have their own unique issues and their unique concerns. The youngest house in Dunedin, I think, goes back to 1922. Modern Nails. Anyway, I'm not going to disagree with you. What is the number? Yeah, well, we can clarify that, but I just want to keep you on the facts. One of the things I haven't heard is how a historic property modifies the neighborhood, even just one, right? When a historic property is introduced to a neighborhood, that becomes a comp for everyone's value. That comp reflects a smaller property often, an older property often, and thus modifies the value of that property along with a deed restriction modifying the value of that property. By modifying the value of that property, it modifies all the value of all the properties around it. So, we all pay a price in a neighborhood that has a historically designated property. It also, my understanding is, and I didn't see this in the literature, but my understanding is that that designated historic property gets a discounted property tax rate. Well, when someone gets a property discount, that means the rest of us pay more taxes. We all pay more taxes, because that property isn't paying their fair share. When I moved into Dunedin, I walked into neighborhoods that were boarded up, boarded up, because of foreclosures and bankruptcies, okay? What a wonderful thing we have that we're now talking about making boarded up homes historic. My concern is blight. My concern is somebody taking and designating their home historic and then saying, well, I can't modify it. Too bad. Too bad code compliance. Too bad neighbors. I'm a historic district, and I've designated my historic district, my house, and this is how I've designated it. It creates buyer uncertainty. I think one of you folks mentioned that. It creates not only buyer uncertainty in the home with the deed restriction, but it creates buyer uncertainty in the buyer that's buying the home next door. When will my house be historically designated? What jeopardy does my deed have? When will I lose control of my own property? When will I not be able to designate my home to my children? This is one of the most unsuccessful programs probably in Dunedin's history, and it's not surprising to me that we've moved to districts. There's 25 properties that have been historically designated. Four are city-owned. Thirteen are owned by corporation trusts or investors. Okay? Thirteen are owned by investors. Thirteen are not primary residences. Two are the result of what I call code enforcement coercion. Two properties were forced to become historically preserved. One by city foreclosure and then sale, where the designation was made to be historic. The second was a code enforcement lien on a property where an international marine biologist was forced, based on concessions within the city code compliance, to historically designate their property. That leaves us to about, and I'm not going to work numbers, somewhere between 10 and 12 properties, two of them city commissioners that have been designated. Ten properties. Ten properties. Ten people out of 35,930. Ten houses out of 21,373. That leaves about 0.03% of the population has selected to be volunteer for this enforcement. 0.05% of homeowners have volunteered for this designation. What does that tell you? It was such a great idea. Where is everybody? Where are the historically preserved homes? What is happening here is that this is a failed ordinance. It's failed. If I got a 0.03% on my test, I failed it. The program itself has not been successful. So what is the answer? Let's create districts and just force people into the solution. And when you talk about saying, well, if an special exception was handed over to the city manager, with all due respect, I didn't vote for her, Jennifer, and I'm not going to vote for any other city manager. How is a non-elected official making decisions on my own deed restriction? Making decisions on my children's future? Making decisions on my home? I don't think that makes any sense to you, does it? As the DDNA, we ask you to reject this ordinance outright. It needs to go back to the drawing board. There needs to be some guardrails out there to protect the citizens. Not just the citizens who are going to be part of a district, but the citizens who are going to be part of a neighborhood with a historic property on it. You want to protect yourselves from the boat club and how you can actually develop it properly for the needs of the people. I want the same thing, but I want it for my home and I want it for my neighborhood. When you talk about the Historic Preservation Committee, it said, oh, we have 22 homes. They don't have 22 homes. First of all, homes are homes because people live in them. They're single-family residential homes that people live in. You've got 10 to 12 of those. The rest are investors. The rest are corporations. Thank you, John. I think I've said everything I need to say. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else in the audience wish to come forward to speak on this issue? Name and address for the record in three minutes. Allen Beach, 1366 North Lotus Drive. I am a member of the HPC. And I just want to say exactly what Debra said. Every single thing we're doing is voluntary. There is not a single home in the city of Dunedin that can be forced into this program. There's a lot of heartburn over the city manager being able to start the process, but that's all the city manager can do is start the process. Ultimately, our committee votes on it. Ultimately, every single historic property comes before this commission for a vote. There's a lot of public opportunities for hearings. There's a lot of public comments. But every single thing that is done is voluntary. We cannot force anybody into this program at all. So Debra used the word voluntary probably 10 times, and I feel like I could stand up here for another two minutes and say voluntary. So the fear-mongering of somebody will be forced into something is just not true. There's no basis for it. There's nothing in this ordinance that says you can be forced into anything. 100% voluntary. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to come forward? Sure. Come forward, name and address for the record in three minutes. Lee Weintraub, 241 President Street. I live in a designated landmark. So I suppose that makes me one of the 10. It's pretty good. I like it. I endorse, without reservation, the concept of adding historic districts as a tool in the city's toolbox to make the city a better place for people to live in, a better place for people to have better neighbors who take care of their property better. I think this is something that it's time. Thank you. Thank you, Lee. Is there anyone else in the audience that wishes to speak to this issue? Okay. Okay. So I'll close public input. And I will turn to my colleagues and see, and I think City Manager, I think we'll just kind of go ahead and give comments on our thoughts on it at this point. Yes. I think that's what you're kind of looking for? Yes. Would anyone like to start? That's great. Commissioner Walker. All right. Well, you know, I do love this discussion. And I'll tell you, I'm going to, you know, when I'm going to tell you a story. Some of you have heard it before, but I just want to, because it is, it was impactful in my thought process. When I was, geez, when I moved to San Diego, let's just say a long, long, long time ago, 30 years, maybe, I lived in a community, Coronado. And Coronado was, you know, the whole town should have been historically designated only because of the history of Coronado, first naval flight, and a whole community of basically Navy. And the homes were characteristically the Tudor style, quarter acre lots, just idyllic. You know, this is like seaside. And, you know, that's what it was 30 years ago. Well, fast forward, without any regulation, the community basically went from quarter acre lots to half of those quarter acre lots, and box homes, and on the teardown of the craftsman style homes, historic, also historic, and building these boxes on the property line. And so, you know, what that ended up doing was that over a 30-year period, it completely destroyed the character and the makeup of Coronado. And so, fast forward a few more years. It was interesting, when we first came to Dunedin, and we were driving around, you know, the first thing that both my wife and I said were, oh my God, this reminds us of Coronado 30 years ago. And so, with that said, what that has provided, at least me, is a baseline, or a, it was very impactful, because I've seen, personally, what lack of embracing our historical context, the lack of protecting our historical structures, has happened in communities. And I, you know, so we talk about 30 years from now, and you know, I just, you know, and you know, I just want to say one thing. You know, we designated our house as historic, purely voluntary. In fact, actually, it's still a pride point for me. I am very proud of our historic designation. And I'll be honest with you, I have, you know, we talk about property taxes and reduction. And that's not really true. Basically, what we are exempt from is any assessed value on any structural improvements on the house. Well, I can tell you right now, the structural improvement we made was storm windows. And why? Because we had the 100-year-old glass that was not going to withstand Milton. So, with that said, you know, so be it. The other thing, comps, I think just like everybody in this room, last five years, our property values have just continued to rise. And I don't, and we love our street. We absolutely love our street. So, that's, that's, that in part is intended to provide you a little bit of context on my very strong passion for this program. With that said, I do want to touch on a couple of things. First of all, the designation of historic districts, I do believe that we do need to take that back to the drawing board, just that part of it. And the reason I say that is, is because we went from 60% to 100%. And essentially, well, okay, if 100% has to, you know, approve this, it's kind of hard because that's almost an unattainable bar. So, at the end of the day, you know, the optic is such that, okay, so the city has the power, the current draft ordinance has the city manager, the ability, gives her the ability to do this designation, or to at least apply for it, and go through the process. I, there was a couple of comments with regards to the written word and, you know, looking forward five years when this commission's no longer sitting up here, and maybe we have a new city manager, yeah, I get that, I do. However, I don't want the concept of historic designation to die, because I do believe, and that's why I ask the questions about the public areas, I ask the area, about the businesses that we have here, because in my opinion, I see tremendous benefit to the business owner. But again, it's voluntary, as written. And, you know, I think that we all, if you take a look at what's happened over the last few years, you know, we've seen, we've seen truly landmark structures get torn down. And the Kellogg House, the Kellogg Mansion, there's a home over on Edgewater that's been there for close to 80 or 90 years, that, you know, where we have residents in this community that grew up in that house, and to have it torn down, and if you want to talk about lack of transparency, it got torn down between Christmas and New Year's. And I still don't know how that happened. That, so, and that, oh, that lot's still vacant, too, by the way. So, that's, you know, I just, I really don't want to see that, that personally. But, however, the optic right now, as the historical designation of the districts is written, I think it sets an unrealistic expectation. It's providing an optic. And I, honestly, for the benefit of all the, you know, everybody who embraces their property rights, and yes, you own that property, you have property rights, totally get it, but I think the juice in this case is not worth the squeeze. So, I would say this, and I, and the other thing I don't want to do in this, this is, is to hold up getting this ordinance passed, and I'll talk about that in just a minute. So, I would say that if we could get to a point where possibly we talk about areas of our, our downtown core as potential for district designation, I think that's a good discussion. But, okay, the reason I, well, so, in terms of, you know, this ordinance, the draft ordinance has been pushed through for, for almost, I don't know, Deborah, two, three, yeah. Well, the time has come where I do think we need to define, and it's, this, to me, was very simple, define between the landmark designation and the landmark site designation. And, you know, I, again, I, I mean, defender of the boat club, not just because I'm a member, but I truly believe in our maritime and sailing culture and history. And so, with that said, I, you know, the boat club, you know, the structure itself is, as Kim mentioned, is still under consideration in terms of how we're going to do it. But at the end of the day, I, I don't think the process is going to be all that different, whether it gets demolished and rebuilt or whether it gets, you know, restored. I, I think a lot of the same bits and pieces are going to go into that. So, anyway, um, you know, so I'm going to stop, I've already taken up too much time here. But I do want to, the, the only, only, uh, hesitation I have on the ordinance as it is, is the current scope of the designation of historic districts that provide some clarity. Well, actually, I'm a little confused. Um, and you said the unattainable of the, I was just between 60 and a hundred percent. Are you suggesting that it should be somewhere between that? Or are you, are you leaving it at a hundred? Because I was confused about that. I just want to make sure it's clear. Well, I think Jen is. And I, I don't know what the right answer here is, but what I do think is, is that, um, we, we can't have a majority of homeowners that live in a district just making a decision and a hundred percent's a majority, uh, whether you, it's the optic. So you think it should be something a little less? No, I, I, I think there needs to be another way. And I'm thinking that maybe the historic designation doesn't actually apply to the neighborhoods and residential property owners. I think this, this is why I was suggesting that maybe we put the districts in the downtown core, um, you know, for the, for the purposes of business and maybe maintain the percentage at a hundred percent. You mean CRA area or? CRA. Oh, CRA only. So it's. Well, it's. So it would be residential, some residential areas, but it's in the CRA. No, I would, I would actually, okay, not CRA, downtown core. Is there. So just so I understand, so you basically just want to limit the districts to a particular geographic area, the downtown core, but keep the hundred percent, but you don't want the hundred percent to be citywide. Yeah, I think we need to take that off the table. Okay. Um, who wants to go next? Thank you, mayor. Um, first of all, I wish to compliment council and the committee for coming back with a proposal that I think met my standards of, uh, avoiding involuntary compliance. Uh, that was my concern. We will face the issue up here of individual rights and communal rights over and over again. And that's what this is about. What are my rights as an individual that decides to be a part of a community? And what is the right of the community toward me as an individual? Well, that's what we're facing right now. I share my colleague's point of view that if you have a beautiful community and suddenly individuals decide that they're going to take it apart from consistency and history standpoints, that's not the way we want to be in a community. That's not where we want to be. I am comfortable with this particular proposition. I find it to have split the hair as well as it could be split. I recognize Deborah, a past commissioner, and her passion toward this. And, um, if I can't support this, I think she might disown me and I don't want that. Ryan, I understand your, are you still here? Yeah. I understand your perspective. Having things happen to you just doesn't feel good sometimes. And I think we've done the best we can to make sure that doesn't happen, that you can't be forced in this. The city manager can only initiate a process. The city manager cannot complete the process. In other words, she doesn't have the power. Power's in the commission. The power has to pass it. And if we see resistance, I assure you, we'll react to that. Because we don't want to make this, we want this to be something that builds harmony in the community, not disjointedness, not separatists. And so if you're part of a historic district, yeah, there's a few things we're going to ask you to do. But you're being a part of community when you do that. And I hope everyone here understands that. And I'm going to support this. Thank you. I think I'm going to leave this meeting today with more questions. And I know that my question time is gone. I'm not sure we're all going to get along up here because I'm hearing, I don't, I just, I have a lot of questions. And I, enough, I'm not looking at you. I'm looking at you when I talk, but they're not for you. And I have a lot of concerns. And I can see that we're going to probably split up, have some real split opinions up here. That's all I got to say. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. You know, some words that weren't used today. First, thank you very much for the presentation. Appreciate it. Thank you to the residents, for everybody who spoke up. But words that we typically use a lot up on the dais that weren't used at all that I heard were charm. Charm, character, sense of place. Those descriptives that are for a large part on why we all moved here. And so, how do you keep that sense of place? How do you keep that charm and that uniqueness? I try to define, I try to defend those as much as I can on the dais. And I think I am always in fear of losing those. And at what point we become just any town USA. I don't know at what point history begins, right? We've heard comments of we weren't born in the 1600s, 1700s. Well, I, you know, at what point can we say because we weren't born then, well, then there's no need for history in Dunedin. I think there's always room for history and to just kind of piggyback on Commissioner Walker to remind everybody that Kellogg Mansion was torn down and is also still a vacant lot. And I know whatever is built there will never meet the majesty of the mansion that was there. And as somebody that was born and raised here, you know, we hear all the time about being overdeveloped and too new. And I'll be the first one to say, well, tell me when you moved here. And I'll probably tell you that you wouldn't be unless we had development. So development is always going to be here. It's just a matter of what it looks like and how it fits and how it's part of the definition of who we are. I am struggling over the 100%. And I do like the idea of focusing on the downtown core. But if we look at our downtown core as an opportunity to become a historic district, why would we limit it to just commercial when we might have some neighborhoods, some streets that would like to be part of that? And so just as we have homeowners that want to have those rights, I also want to give those rights to those homeowners that want something different. Part of the challenge we had at the overlay, which was actually part of my challenge, which is when does the property rights of one owner impact the property rights of those next door? And when does one right supersede the other or override? And that is a long-time struggle for all of us. That was a struggle with the overlay. I think it's going to be a struggle with the historical districts, if we go that way. I'm wondering if, within the definition of non-conforming, well, under extraordinary circumstances, while I do understand why that's left the way it is, because the moment you start to define it, what are you excluding, what are you including? And then the debate gets so tied up in minutia. But is there a way to add examples, to leave it open, but to focus on, here's what our intent is. Here's our examples of what that extraordinary circumstance. So it's not just a blank canvas, but it's like, here's the intent of the ordinance and why it was written. I don't know if that could be included in ordinances. I don't know if that could be a thing, but that might calm some nerves. It seems to me that kind of wide openness is just the Wild West. And maybe we can corral that a little bit. I guess I'm on a Wild West theme with corral. But overall, I support historic homes. I support historic preservation, which certainly leads to historic districts. I don't know how many individual homes all of a sudden justified districts as far as, right, we've got a small number of homes. That doesn't mean that it's unsuccessful in my book, right? It just means that this is where we've come so far, because it's still relatively fresh and new. But I think it's certainly to preserve the sense of place in Dunedin. It's certainly a natural step. So that's where I am if I defined where I was. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. So first of all, I want to say, in the home of Disney World, where Walt Disney failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, and then he didn't. So many successful programs can seem to fail at first. I think we've made great headway with our program, so I just want to say that. I don't see myself having an historic home, but you know what I do see as historic in my neighborhood? My brick street. And I think most of my neighbors would die for that brick street. I get it that we're not Savannah. I get it that we're not St. Louis, where my brother lives in a historic district in St. Louis and loves it. It's an amazing, amazing neighborhood, and the property values are huge, hugely different than the ones that aren't. I get that we're not those places, but we are Dunedin. And we really are. It's in our new vision statement. And our vision statement was created by our citizens through a lot of public input. History is a part of our DNA. We love our history. We don't want to be that place destroyed. You know, like, who would have ever thought Fenway would go the way it was? And that was voluntary. We got lucky. Thank goodness. We got lucky. We are a community that values our history. We were settled around the 1850s. We were incorporated as a town in 1899. I was the centennial chair in, I was going to say 1899. 1999. That would make me really old. And it was a year of celebration for anybody who was here. And people came out of the woodwork, and it's so defined who we were because we love our history. I struggle with this. I've talked to some of you out there, many of you, because I do love this community. I get it. I look at, I've thought of this through the lens of myself. Like, what, you know, you have your home. It's your most precious ownership. You know, we live in times where we got to have resiliency. You know, I don't want people telling me what to do. But I also want to preserve the charm and our history of our community. So what is that reasonableness? I struggled with the 100%. My first words out of my mouth were 100%. It'll never happen. There's always going to be somebody. I guess that's their right. But then 99% of the other people are like, really? One person gets to block us from doing something amazing in this wonderful, charming, historic place? So I struggled with that for that reason. But I was convinced by Jen, hey, it makes it more palatable. It makes it more, it is voluntary. So let's do it. Let's do it. And I came to terms with that. I see this as a tool in the toolbox that's voluntary for our community. And if we don't put it in there, like, why wouldn't we want to have a tool for protecting our history? Especially if it's going to be completely voluntary. So I completely support that. I mean, I would support something less than 100%. But I get it. And I look at that through my lens. And maybe I wouldn't like it either. So maybe we're where we need to be with that. I know there's a lot of heartburn over the city manager. So as somebody who's been here 40 years and started to work for Dunedin as an employee in 1984, first of all, I don't know of any city manager that would overextend their judgment to something that wasn't a way extraordinarily obvious condition. I can't think of one city manager. And I can't think of one commission in 40 years that would be crazy enough to take that city manager. They'd probably fire the city manager if they were way out of line. They'd say, what are you doing? Why are you causing this in our community? I see extraordinary circumstances as not defined because it would hamstring us because who knows what that will be. But when it happens and when we see it, we will know it. And we will say, wow, I'm glad we have an off ramp. I'm glad we have an off ramp and that this and ultimately it will come to the commission. So I really do support that. I didn't really have a chance to. There was a person from Texas that I got in a conversation with a few months ago around the holidays and I wanted to talk to them. I'm still going to follow up because there was a situation in Texas where it had to do a couple blocks of homes that were historic and corporate America was coming in and there was a very similar off ramp to say, wait a minute, stop, because the whole community was outraged. When it happens, we'll know it and we'll get it at that time and we'll be glad we had an off ramp. I do not. And I've talked to a couple of you and some feel like, oh, you know, the city manager's got the plan all written out. She does not. Trust me, she does not. It's for a truly extraordinary circumstance that our commission, our city would just rise up and we want an off ramp. Anyway, I, there's a lot of benefits to this. I feel that it truly is as voluntary as you can get. It gives a tool for our toolbox and the city manager is completely to have an off ramp for the extreme of extremes. And I support this. And I think we should move forward, move it forward to LPA. We'll continue to have the conversation. And then, and at the end of the day, we'll decide what's best for all of us. So, um, for the community. So that's my comments. Um, city manager. Does anybody else have anything? Yeah. Let me, if you don't mind. Yeah. So first of all, it is important that we get this ordinance through. And, uh, the mayor brought up some really very good points. And again, with the emphasis of this being purely voluntary, um, I, I still believe that extraordinary circumstances does need to be a little bit better defined. But, uh, you know, extraordinary just by the very definition, you know, that's, that could be a very large definition. Um, but for me personally, because I know we're looking for consensus direction here. For me, it's more important to get this, this ordinance moving forward because it is so important to everything we do. Um, so anyway, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm in favor of this. Moving it to LPA. Okay. Do we have basic consensus on that? I mean. I concur. I, I'm just not ready to say that. I mean, I really have some serious questions and I have serious doubts. So I, I, I won't support it until I get a chance to work on those with us or with George, with Jennifer. So I, I won't agree to that. Okay. Well, I think there's four of us. So you do have consensus. But that's okay because I, I, I respect Commissioner Stambergen, but hopefully some of those issues as it moves forward, you'll continue to, to evolve. We will, Mayor. Yes. So do you need anything else from us? Nothing else. Thank you. Okay. Well, I, I do want to thank the public for coming and I sincerely hope you understand we all care about this. I do respect everybody's private property rights. We love this community trying to do the right thing up here. So, but thank you for coming. Okay. We're going to go to our informational items. Commission discussion. Do anybody, shall I go to the vice mayor first? Yes. Yes. Mayor, right. This is for possible upcoming items. Is that the discussion? It is. I didn't get anything from anybody. I'm sorry. I can't hear Commissioner. Okay. Let's just, yeah, let's just take a couple minute break for everybody to clean up. Exactly. But the mics could still be on, so. Oh, of course. The TV camera in the front is still on. No, I've made a couple of life alterings. One, I will never bring snacks in the period. Two, and if in the unlikely event that I do, I will not leave my mic open. I like it. I like it. Okay, we're gabbling back in, and we're going to go to commission discussion items. I didn't really get any emails on this, but does anyone have anything? Yes, ma'am, and I do apologize I wasn't able to email. I thought it was better not to email than to email late in me, but it's a pretty simple request. I want to see if, through the city manager, we can get on the agenda, George and Joey, to come before us and talk about zoning along some of our fixed-run corridors and more commercial, densely populated, like 580. What's the zoning on 580? I would like to look at the zoning so if FDOT comes back in the future, we're prepared to have better discussions as far as a more dense, more pedestrian-friendly type of, so we can add, it's all about affordable housing and things of that nature. Where does that fit? Not citywide, but along those corridors, Patricia 580 and other identified roads where it might be amenable. And just to have a discussion at a workshop level, not a Thursday night. Is everybody okay with doing that sometime in a future work session? Yeah. Future work session? Okay. Okay. Anybody else have any commission discussion items versus liaison items? I have, Jocelyn and I are setting up a meeting with the Blue Jays to have some in-depth conversations on, what's it called, yeah, Hometown USA dates and see what we can put together and we're going to have that discussion. We tried to set it up this week. We'll probably try again next week. Good. Thank you. That's great. Good. Anybody else? I have one item I need to bring forward. I don't know how many of you might have participated in the FLC legislative conference call on Monday, but it was a house of horrors on what the state may be doing to us from a revenue perspective. And I think that we, at the appropriate moment when staff thinks it's right, we need some direction on how we're going to operate, particularly as we're heading off to Tallahassee soon. Great comment. Great comment. Okay. Can we talk about what we just talked about during this meeting, or is it done now for the day? It wasn't working. You just have a comment to make? I mean, you're not reopening the matter. I'll just leave it at that so I can sit down with city staff there, because I've heard all specific things that I've gotten uncomfortable. Yeah, I think it's probably good. Okay. I'm going to go to City Clerk Update. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to, I think most of you met Angela, our new records manager, who started yesterday. So if I didn't get her around to you, we'll make sure that she's introduced to each of you. And just a shout out. So today, you know, she's taken on a huge challenge, so we're excited to have her on board. And then also, just a shout out, Tracy, who left to be a flight attendant, has been coming in, and I've contracted with her, too. And she's been working on some of the public records requests and the emails and such. And so I just wanted to do a shout out and thank her for being able to step up and help us out. So thank you. Thank you. City Manager Update. And I know you have one or two things, three things. Okay. Yes, three things. Sorry. I'm trying to hog the stage, aren't you? I'll be brief and brilliant. And everybody's hungry. I hear those tummies growling. First of all, the City Manager Update Report is attached to the agenda. And it is, you know, we reformatted it quite some time ago, and it really is effective. I hope that you're all able to look at it and anybody who's watching the meeting. Also, Exhibit B on the City Manager's Update, I wanted to call that one out specifically. And that is a letter from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. And if I may read the first paragraph, Dear Ms. Bennett, and that's Nan Bennett, our Director of Utilities and Engineering. On behalf of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, I am pleased to let you know that the City of Dunedin Advanced Water, excuse me, Wastewater Treatment Facility has been selected to receive a 2024 Wastewater Plant Operations and Excellence Award in recognition of outstanding treatment plant operation, maintenance, and compliance. Congratulations. And so we're very, very proud of the staff at the Wastewater Treatment Plant for their commitment to excellence in everything that they do. They are actually in Haines City today accepting the award. Otherwise, I'd ask them to come to this meeting. It was actually, we had to submit an application. It was very competitive. And so I'm just very proud of them. And again, I extend my thanks to them for all of their very hard work. And then the last thing, Mayor, and thank you for just this extra moment. I do want to comment on Sue Burness and her staff and Nicole Delfino, also in the City Manager's Office, on their work on State of the City. So the event itself, I think, I was looking at the pictures yesterday. It was very well received by all who watched it. It was a wonderful evening in our community. And none of that would have been possible without the staff who worked so hard on it. And Sue Burness and Nicole Delfino really led the charge. But there's so many, you know, of our employees that were involved in that, in logistics and just getting it all right. And, you know, I think it's so important that when we do a presentation like that, that we do it right. That the sound is right and the presentation is right. And that our guests here at City Hall are comfortable and made to feel welcome. And I think that we did all of those things as well as the stellar repartee between the mayor and myself. And so, and I actually, you know, we started planning that, I think it was in October. And with what subjects it would encompass and what it was we wanted to say. And, of course, staff working on it jumped way over that bar and set a new bar. Because the year before that was also excellent in our new City Hall. And so I just want to extend my thanks to them for doing exactly what it was I was hoping that we would be able to do that night. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I'm very grateful because I would have heard about it from the former mayor if we didn't raise the bar. So that's awesome. I thought it was a great night. Okay, so we have any questions for the City Manager? Lots. Lots of questions. Oh, I'll wait for comments. Okay. Uh-oh. City Attorney Update. I don't have a particular update. I just wanted to address the comment that was made with regard to FLC. So for any of you who aren't familiar, they do have Monday morning calls that you can listen. The FLC goes through the latest legislative changes that could affect local government. They'll also send updates. So I know Nicole will be probably coordinating with you all with regard to what the message needs to be for Dunning and for Tallahassee. But I would just also say, to the extent you can participate in those calls and you can look for, they'll blast out when a bill is going to committee. And if it's one that's important, that way you all can reach out on it. So if you ever have any questions of any of the pending legislation, feel free to reach out to me as well. Great. Okay. Commission comments. And I know that Commissioner Walker is dying to start. So go for it. I really do like your update. Oh, thank you. Again, staff puts it together. Yeah, I don't have anything. So happy Fat Tuesday. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I really do need to start the diet tomorrow. But anyway, I've been overeating. Okay. So Commissioner Dugard. I thought we just handled a very difficult situation. Issue, rather. Not situation. Um, and I was trying to read the gallery as they left. I think we've assuaged most of the concerns. Uh, I know that one of my colleagues still has more questions. They need to be answered. But I was pleased with both the staff and, uh, the commission as we approach that one. Thank you, Maria. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Vice Mayor. I really don't have anything. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Zandbergen. Oh, a couple things. Um, we'll all meet here at 6.30 this evening for the trolley, right? And then, you know, it's here. It's here. Yeah. So the trolley will be leaving from here. And I know that there's a different event. And there might be some folks leaving from there. But the trolley will be here. Yes. And then is the, uh. And going to there, right? Yeah. Are you? Yeah. So it must be like the Christmas parade, right? Start here. I think so. It starts here and then goes to the. The trolley goes, yeah. And ends up there. And waits. Yeah. And then, uh, I believe, is it this weekend that we're invited to the Mayor's Cup at Clearwater? It's March 8th. Is that this Saturday? It is. Yes. It is. Well, you know, it's $20 a car to park. And, uh, more than likely we'll consider Ubering. And maybe we can, uh, I don't want to ask you guys to ride share with me. But we can get Lindsay to try to coordinate what we want to do. Even if it was above or beyond an Uber. But at $20 a car, we can have a lot more fun if we all ride together. And arrive at a party bus. Yeah. The city. Yes. Okay. Okay. There we go. As long as it's not a historically designated party bus. No. Anything else? That's all I have. Okay. Well, so you'll laugh because I, so for a month, I, or maybe three weeks, some friends wanted to go to a game with us. And so they bought the tickets. We have the tickets in Dunedin for March 8th to go to the game with friends. And then I realized, oh, I got to be at the other split team. And so, so I think Peg is going with the friends and I'm going to, anyway. So we're losing control. Yeah. For, for, for my expert at my right on the Blue Jays, what is this split team thing yet? I know. Well, okay. Well, yeah, I'm going to, we'll talk about that another time because I'm trying to get it done. I do actually have a couple. Well, but I, but I won't ask about the parking on Saturday, if I may, because I don't think I've paid to park previously. Oh, that is. When the challenge game has been there. That is true. That we probably have passes. Yeah. They usually have reserved parking for us. Okay. So, yeah. We good. But all that we got are just tickets. Right. So can we, as a commission, get clarification? Yeah. So Jocelyn is here and Jory's going to be working with the Blue Jays, through the Blue Jays, and it's not really a Blue Jay deal, but we'll see, we'll reach out to Clearwater and, and just see what we can do. Yeah. Thank you. Cool. To, okay. Okay. So a couple of things. Congratulations to our wastewater plant. I just had a tour of that. Brian and Rodney, I'll tell you, amazing. And Nan, I mean, just amazing stuff going on there. We're in good hands. And I had a meeting yesterday with Duke Energy. We talked specifically about the Scotland poles. If you remember, they're putting 60, you know, concrete poles down Scotland, and we put a, we, we put a stop on it. And, and they came back with us for some alternatives that would move some of those structures to Douglas and underground. Um, however, um, there'd still have to be some overhead stuff on, on, uh, on, uh, Scott, on Broadway, sorry, on Broadway. And, um, and it would cost us an additional 1.9 million. Uh, we're not seeing that as an option, but just, I just wanted to let you all know that what we did say is that before you continue, we think it's important for you to meet with the neighbors so they understand what you're doing. They have some thought process and skin in the game. And, um, and so they're going to do that. And instead of coming to us first, um, you know, we'll, we'll know the date of when they're going to meet with, uh, with the neighbors and coordinating with the city manager on that. Um, so, uh, and we also talked about some of those types of projects in the future, getting way ahead of them with the commission and with the neighborhoods so that people know what's going on before things start popping up in the neighborhood. Um, the other thing is, um, uh, city manager, I was just talking yesterday because I am on forward. Pinellas now had a conversation with Witt, um, the executive director and, and the project that I think we've talked about in the past. Um, he wants to move forward. Nothing will happen that we don't agree with, but just, um, looking at, uh, doing something along the most busy part of the trail in our downtown and kind of scoping out how that might be done in a way that makes it safe. Um, it is potentially something that they would fund versus us, which is very attractive. Um, but I just want to let, let you know that that's, that's moving forward. Um, uh, I think that's it. And then, uh, commissioner Walker had one more item. Yeah. So, um, you know, I, I was reminded of this based on response back from representative Bearfield's office. Um, so I, uh, this is really more informational, but possibly something that we need to be cognizant of on a future agenda item. Um, so, uh, I think we all pretty much understand the status of Honeymoon Island, um, and they are still in the process of, uh, making repairs and the park is, uh, open in a limited capacity. Um, now the other component of this, you can't really speak about Honeymoon unless you talk about Caledese. And right now, based on the substantial damage from the storms, they are projecting that Caledese will not be open until April of 2026. And, uh, and that will be in a limited capacity. Um, so with that said, you know, when you take the two parks combined being the most visited park in the state of Florida, um, I, to me, this is, this, this, this at face value is unacceptable. And I, I really think, and I've, this is why I contacted the Rep, uh, Bearfield's office. Uh, I've also sent a letter to Senator Hooper and, um, also, uh, Rep Adam Anderson, um, to hopefully impart some measure of, uh, of, of fact finding with the state. Um, but I do think as a community, you know, we have a role in this and we may, I don't know how we tee up an agenda item or what, you know, what the, what the ultimate objective would be. But I think, uh, at least right now, we need, just need to be aware of this. Thank you. I'm, I'm so glad you brought it up. And, um, and I completely agree that we should be very, uh, I don't want to say aggressive, assertive about this, uh, including when we go to Tallahassee and who we meet with, including maybe the, maybe the department. Um, so, um, so maybe you can think about that, Jennifer, about how we might formulate a strategy. Yep. Okay. Okay. If there's nothing else for the good of the order, I'd like to thank everybody and, uh, meetings adjourned. See you tonight.