CITY COMMISSION WORK SESSION - Mar 18, 2025

Good morning, and welcome to March 18, 2025, City Commission work session. I'd like to call the meeting to order. We'll start with Pledge of Allegiance. Jen, please lead us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible. Okay. Hopefully everybody had a great St. Patty's Day and it's good to be here. We're good? Come on. It's a little bit of a joke. I guess it wasn't really. Okay. And it was a walk-off home run for Toronto Blue Jays yesterday over the Yankees. Yep. Okay. So we don't have any presentations, so we're going to go to citizen input. Does anyone in the audience wish to speak on a topic that is not on the agenda? Seeing no one, we'll continue. So we're going to go to our consent agenda. So on consent agenda, we have approval of the minutes for the 1-21-2025 work session, January 23rd regular meeting, February 4th work session, February 6th regular meeting. We have board and committee appointments for historic preservation. Looks like that's the only one today. So anyone wish to pull anything from the consent agenda? Okay. Seeing no one, I will take a motion to approve consent agenda. So moved. Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. So we're going to go to action items. We have... Mayor. I'm sorry, but did you do public comment on the consent agenda item? Oh, sorry. Does anyone wish to speak on the consent agenda? And if you do, you come forward now. Okay. Seeing no one, we'll move forward. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the catch. Okay. We're going to go to miscellaneous consulting services contract renewal and name change amendments. And I'm going to go for staff presentation, George and Clay and et cetera. The whole world's coming up. Okay. We've got a full team today. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Les Tyler, the Finance Director. We've got a few of us here that are going to briefly go over this item. And I'm going to start by making a few comments. And I'm going to turn it over to Tammy Spearman, our purchasing agent, to go over a few items with your commission. This item is a miscellaneous consulting contract renewal for consulting contracts for engineering architecture, landscape architecture, survey and planning services. And we're requesting an additional two-year period for these contracts. We'd like to go over some brief background and kind of remind the commission of the types of solicitations that we do. And we've got five or six slides to go through that. And that will basically cover the different types of solicitations we can do and how this particular contract falls under those categories. I'll turn it over to Tammy Spearman, our purchasing agent, who's beside me in just a few minutes. And then after that, I'll turn it over to Clay Watkins, our Assistant Director of Utilities and City Engineering, and also George Kinney, our Director of Community Development. And they'll mention a few areas where they use these contracts and the types of services they use these contracts on. There's 27 contracts in the staffing today. They're all for different types of areas that Tammy will talk about. And I also want to mention that in this amendment, we've added the federal language to these contracts, which is in case we have future storms with FEMA or other federal contracts, we've got the federal terms in these contracts moving forward. I'll turn it over to Tammy now to go over some of the slides and the solicitations information. Thank you. Tammy, could you move the mic over and make sure it's on so we can hear you? Thank you. Okay. Okay. So can you hear me? Okay. Going to the formal types of solicitation that the city has, we start with an ITB, which is known as an invitation to a bid. Now, this is a formal solicitation containing detailed specifications for a desired good of services that the city is soliciting for. The vendors will respond with a quoted price on the bid sheet that's included in the solicitation document. Bids are then tabulated by purchasing and compared to each other. And award is recommended for the lowest responsible bidder. The low bid, the responsive bid is the bid that responded to the scope of work or scope of service, I mean scope of work services that we solicited for. And responsible is that they're, you know, financially responsible to enter into a contract. So unlike the next solicitation that I'm going to present, the request for proposal, there is no negotiation. It's apples to apples. It is what it is. Lowest responsible bidder, that's who we recommend for award. The next solicitation type is an RFP, which is the request for proposal. And this is another form of solicitation that the city includes a general scope of work that addresses the particular need that the city has. Vendors will respond with a detailed proposal on how they will best meet what we are soliciting, why the city should choose them, and the cost that would be involved. So then again, there again, unlike the ITB, RFP does not look, I mean does not look, lock the, I'm sorry, lock the submitter into a specific price. You can negotiate, you can negotiate price, you can negotiate scope. The RFP committee, a committee is formed before we put the bid out on the street, the RFP on the street. They will look at each proposal, and they will score the proposal based on criteria that was in the solicitation. And then the highest scored proposal will be recommended for award. The RFQ. Now, the RFQ is different than the RFP, and the RFQ is what we have before you today. This is a formal solicitation. The RFQ adheres to the Consulted Competitive Negotiation Act, which is commonly known as CCNA by the statute, Florida State Statute 287-055. It sets forth detailed procedure on how to conduct this type of solicitation. And it's normally done for professional architects, engineers, landscape architects, land surveys, contractors such as that. Now, unlike the RFP or ITB, cost is not involved in this solicitation up front. When we originally solicit for a list of qualified consultants, they do not submit price. This is solely awarded or recommended for award based on qualifications of the consultant. Qualifications of the project team, the firm, project team's experience working with projects and services of similar nature that might be needed by the city, applicable project references, references from other government, the location of the firm, and the quality of the firm submittal. So what we have before you today is the RFQ that was awarded by commission on March 18, 2018. It has seven disciplines, I mean seven divisions, divisions of specialty, which is the roadway drainage, construction, engineering, inspection services, hydrogeological services, architect services, planning services, and just miscellaneous services. Within each division, there are qualifications or what the city might be looking for, like in Division I for roadway drainage. That could be roadway design, stormwater drainage, bridge and structural inspection and design, seawall repair design, all of what we are dealing with right now. So, yes. Great. Thank you, Tammy. I'll turn it over to Clay and George for a few minutes to go over some examples. Yep, so just in general, the utilities, excuse me, Clayton Watkins, City Assistant Detective Director of Utilities and City Engineer. So, in general, we use these contracts pretty much on a daily basis for work such as survey, geotechnical engineering, our designs for any projects, and then if it's a very large project, we can also use them for inspections or stuff that's maybe outside of our staff's expertise, such as maybe bridge inspections and whatnot. These GEC contracts allow us to get to a contract and a task order quickly. We don't have to go through the entire six months process as long as the design costs meet the CCNA number. Generally speaking, we've used this. We've had this conversation a lot when we talked about, you know, preventing tasks for the marina and getting the seawalls done. But in general tasks, we use these every day for, and utilities-wise, for getting, you know, designs for lift stations, water, sewer projects, any of those types of tasks that are asked of us for design work is where we use these for. Thank you, Clay. And George Kinney on behalf of the Community Development Department. I'd like to mention that we are always represented in the selection process when it goes down with Wes and his team, so they do a great job of including the other departments in that selection process. As you can imagine, Commission, the primary use for us is the planning services or Division VI. We mostly use those consultants either for peer review for such things as, for instance, like traffic impact statements come in with design review. If we want to peer review that, we'll pull a consultant from that list. We also use them quite extensively for business plan initiatives, budget both estimating and both implementation as well, if we don't have the resources to accomplish the project in-house. So that, in a nutshell, is how we are involved with the process and the consulting list. Okay. So we'll go to questions, and I will start with the Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. It might be, I don't know, George or Matt, I guess. What is the difference between this list and just going out to bid on a project? Why do we have this list? Why do we? To save time. Generally speaking, we can issue, you know, give us some, depending on the cost and if we need to, you know, if it's above $50,000, we have to get the approval from the Commission here. So, you know, it could take us anywhere from maybe two months at the long end to get a contract going, where if not, if we have to go through this whole solicitation process, it's approximately six-month process. And it might have been said somewhere in the presentation, but to go back to the ITB, where they have to put down some prices, but then later on those prices are negotiated, what's the purpose of them putting dollars to their services if that can be? So a lot of it also goes back to the previously mentioned CCNA, the consultant negotiations. So when it comes to a consultant's doing work for us, that's when we don't, so when we, anytime we solicit or ask for consultants, we do not, we pick them based on qualifications, not cost. And Tammy, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the ITB cost, that more relates to construction contract, obtaining construction costs and bids. So there's a separation between getting a contractor to do the work and a consultant to help us do work. Can I interject? Yes, go ahead. Ann Bennett, Director of Utilities and Engineering, is left to Jorge and I to talk about all the old stuff. I would have been around a long time. So basically, it is Florida law that you do not select these specific services for engineering, landscape, architecture, and these things based on low bid. It is based on qualifications. It's been determined by the legislature, and it's a fact that you get the best product if you do it on qualifications, not solely on price. And so we don't go straight to price. We follow the CCNA, whatever that is, and it changes over time. It changed as recently as the last session in 2024 as far as the amounts and things. But we follow that, and we get qualified consultants to do these designs to make sure that we have good, solid designs because saving money on design usually costs you a lot of money in construction if you don't have the best qualified design. So that's the big difference is the state law. Thank you, Nan. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, that's all my questions. Hey, Dave. Commissioner Sandbergen. Going through, like, Division I, 3, 4, 5, versus a couple years ago when this was done, have there been any changes, any additions, new contractors, new companies coming in? No. Okay. They have not. And I can tell that there's been a lot of work and a lot of time put into this. Is there any overlap, like, in Division I? Hold on one second. Excuse me. Commissioner Sandberg and Jorge. Good morning, Jorge. Good morning. Jorge Quintas, Deputy City Manager. Let me clarify. There have been additions. I think in 2021 we added some traffic engineering services. We went out for a specific RFQ related to those services. And with respect to your question, throughout the course of time we have firms that get gobbled up. There's mergers and stuff. So we'll have name changes, companies that get absorbed into another. So I think some of those are included in this action item that you had before you today. And then, you know, once we did that solicitation back in 2018, we then come back, or we came back to the commission at that time with individual contracts for each one of those firms, and those got executed. Those are the ones that we then issue task assignments against. And each of those contracts have set hourly rates. They can adjust those yearly. But then when we negotiate those fees, it's based on hourly rates that they had in their contract that we awarded. So that's how we select the work, and based on the expertise and the scope that we're asking for. Okay. Is there any overlaps? You know, I see that some of the, I see that there's some contractors that are in more than one division. Yeah, depending on the size of the firm and the expertise, sometimes they'll have different divisions within that company itself that specialize either in geotechnical or structural or bridge inspections or CEI services. So based on the division and the type of work that we're soliciting, we'll go to that specific firm to ask for those services. And we also look at past performance, too. There may be a firm on the list that hasn't performed so well lately, so we may not go to that one. Okay. Thank you, Jorge. That's it. Okay. Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. So, you know, I were to offer an analogy to this. This is basically our preferred vendors list, right? We call it our short list. We call it short list, but yeah, you could call it that. But like Clay said, the great advantage of having these is saving time. I would actually, sorry, I would call it our pre-qualified vendors list. Pre-qualified. Yeah. I have to come to the mic if you're going to do that. Name an address for the record. In Stream World, we'll hear you. Morning, Kansas 401 Finway. So, I actually forgot the question on the way up. So, basically, the advantage of utilizing this and why we're bringing it before you is, as Clay mentions, if we go out and nothing precludes us from doing so, if there's a specific project that maybe has a lot of complexity, we may want to go out for a specific RFP for that type of work. But the advantage in doing this and the day-to-day occurrences of the tasks that we assign is you've already gone through that elaborate procurement process in the past. You did that one time for all these firms. So, then it allows you to bypass that six-month period where you advertise, you have a selection committee, you pick the firm, you come back and you negotiate, and then we come back to the commission to award the contract. In this case, all that's occurred. All we're doing now is issuing a task assignment against that contract that's already been approved by the commission. May I add something, Commissioner? Go ahead. So, one of the things that I want to make clear, though, this doesn't mean that we have got to use any one of these firms or that we've committed any expenditures to any of these firms. In fact, we can choose to go out to bid any time we want, except for the RFQ, for the architectural services for that division. An example of that is the bulkhead wall for the marina. Remember the discussion we had? We'd like to use Kimley-Horn to do the design for the construction because they're on our continuing services. We could go out to RFQ for that, but it would take longer. And you all agreed that we should go to Kimley-Horn, and they were on our continuing services contract. So, just an example. Yeah, that just took care of my second and third questions. Oh, good. So, thank you very much. Happy to be of service. And last question, then. In terms of the qualifications that these companies have to meet, is this criteria documented anywhere, or how does that get shaped when it goes out for sexually bid? Well, the project manager and the department, they get together and decide what it is that they need. The different departments get together and decide what they might need. The qualifications are included in that original solicitation. Okay. Yep. Sorry. One more question. Sure. Yeah. You're fine. It was when you got to the 15th. One more question. We were just kidding you, right? It's all good. It's all good. It's your floor. At what point will we have another on-ramp for new companies or? In 2027. This that we're asking you to approve is for two years. Before that two-year period, we will solicit again. And we'll probably start that in 26 because it's a big project. Okay. All right. Thank you. Those are all the questions I have. Thank you. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. I think my colleagues have done a good job of asking all the questions I had, less one. And I just want to be sure I understand. If time is not of the essence and we issue an RFP, anyone can submit for that RFP. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Okay. I had a couple things. So kind of going back to things that I think the other commissioners touched on. So are we, I mean, we're going to be nine years before we go back out. So are we disadvantaging people that we should not be waiting nine years to make sure they get included in a chance to compete? Because that's a long time in business world. This is a pretty good representation of the companies that are out there. There could be some. And that's why we're going to back out to solicit within the next year for a new qualification list, pre-qualification list. And like she said, Tammy said, I think it is a good list of a lot of the firms that are out there that do this type of work, a pretty comprehensive list. And also, as Jennifer mentioned, we do go out. In other words, we don't, in lots of cases, we'll go out for a full RFQ or a full RFP, whatever it is, or a bid, depending on it, or use the RFQ. We'll go out a lot anyway, so we feel like that, you know, we are, you know, testing the market that way, too. So let me help, too. So I'm assuming that leading up to this presentation, if there was a company out there in some area that you're like, man, we're leaving them off, and they're good, and they've been calling us. I mean, I don't hear from anybody. You could say, okay, we'll go out for this, we're going to go out and bid this area, because we are missing something by not having this group pre-qualified. And I see Jorge is coming forward, so. Mayor, following up on Commissioner Degard's question, you know, we always go out to bid, and it doesn't preclude anyone from bidding, including firms that are on this list. But what it also doesn't preclude is a lot of these firms work with each other over the years, so it doesn't preclude one of these selected firms to approach a firm that may not be on the list and have them as a sub-consultant to them. So you could achieve hiring a firm that's not on the GEC list if one of the GEC firms works with them as a sub-consultant. So I get that. But I guess what I'm saying, it's nine years. So if you've got a company that just, you know, like they're new in the area or something, but they have a great track record, and, you know, that's a long time to wait, and they may have some extra expertise. And I understand what you're saying, but typically you do go to pre-qualified lists, because why wouldn't you? So you'd be leaving somebody out for nine years. Well, for example, we did do that, because, you know, over time, you do this enough. You work with folks across many firms, and a lot of times they switch firms, right? And we don't always work with firms. We work with folks that have been good PMs and have produced well for the city in the past. So I believe back in 2021, we had a situation where several employees from different firms had left the firms that were on the GEC list. In this case, it was for traffic engineering services. So we did a specialized solicitation back in 21 to then be able to bring in some additional firms, because we knew that we had a good track record with those employees. They just weren't on our list anymore. So we can do that in specific cases. Again, as Les mentioned, this is a very cumbersome process. It takes a lot of staff time. The last time we did this, I believe we had about 30-plus submitting firms that we had to call through and shortlist. So even though this will go out in 27, the process will begin in 26. But we could always do as we did in 21 and do a specific solicitation if there's services that we're seeing that we have a gap for. For a specific division. Yep. That's listed. I got you. Okay. So my other question is, I mean, this has always kind of just interested me, because I totally get qualifications. You know, you want the most qualified. But I always hesitate about how we truly keep them honest in what they're charging us. So in every contract, there's an hourly rate list that they submit at the time? Or how do we keep them honest? Like Jorge said, they do submit a rate list. Like all the ones that we're looking at today submitted an updated rate list. Most of them did not submit another rate list. So that's the starting point of the negotiations. The beauty of this, aside from the time involved in contracting within a CCNA, is the time involved. It's also the negotiation. You know, you can have a base and negotiate whatever the project is, your scope of work. And to add to that, then as we're negotiating the contract, we are looking at the hours, the total hours that they give us that takes the task. And then we can say, you know, no, that doesn't take 40 hours. This takes 20. And we negotiate the hours spent to do the work. Okay. Thanks, Clay. And Nan? Nan Bennett. This is like multiple answers, all right? Yeah. Okay. So there's multiple steps in actually getting them to do the work. The first step is getting them pre-qualified and having them on this list. The next step that the CCNA dictates is that we begin negotiating with a firm the scope and the cost of that work. And if we can successfully negotiate, then we initiate a contract. Nothing says we have to. If we can't successfully get to a scope that we think is right, a number of hours, a fair price, we thank them for their time, and we walk away and we move on to the next pre-qualified person and try to negotiate with the scope and fee. And there's been many times in my career when I've said, thank you very much. This isn't what we need. And I move on to the next one on the list. We have 27 firms on this list. We're not short of selection. We have a lot of firms that can do the work. If somebody's charging too much for it, if we look at their individual rates or we look at their lump sum fee and we think that's not fair based on our experience, we'll thank them very much and move on to the next consultant. So we don't go anywhere. So you've dealt with this law for a long time. How old's the law, the state law? 80s. My entire career. CCNA. It is unique to Florida, too. At the very bottom, it'll say the first year. He's got a copy of the law that I handed him. The first year that's on it. The first year says, the first year on this is 73. Okay. Before my career. So, I mean, if you were in charge at the state, would you keep this law or would you do it a little differently? No, I think it's important. I mean, yes. So you like it. You wouldn't adjust this law. No, because the design is about somewhere 10, 20 percent, if you count construction and stuff, of a project. You have to have a good, solid design or else the constructed project, which is the other 80 percent of the cost, you're going to pay for it one way or the other. If you have a deficient design, it's going to get caught in construction and you're going to have a lot of change orders and problems or a deficient project. So, no, I think it's important to not go low bid on the design aspect of this. Yeah, and that's not really my question. Okay. Obviously, I'm not in favor of going, you know, we all know the space shift that's a low bid space shift and blows up. So, but is there a better way to get to that where you've got qualifications and cost, you know, as the priority? And Jorge's going to help. Mayor, yeah, and maybe Jen can elaborate, but if I'm starting to date myself. But I think that this law was the result of reaction to complaints about collusion over the years. So this was developed in response to how to better approach the solicitation and the award of work to professional firms and the like. So that's my recollection of what it generated. You know, there's always maybe some things that you could tweak in the law that would help. As Nan mentioned, back in 24, there were adjustments made to the amount of the construction contract portion of the work. And then, therefore, by default, that dictates the percentage of the dollar amount that you can award for the professional services to get to that point. So they do make adjustments throughout the course of time as they see areas for improvement. But my recollection was the whole impetus for the law was in response to complaints about collusion. Thank you. And the architects, engineers, they're very involved in lobbying within this. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, there was an article recently. I don't know if you guys saw it in the paper. And the implication was that local government is not as tight on procurement. Personally, I took offense to that. And that state and federal are much tighter. And I would wonder what you all think about that indicator. No. We're much more tighter and we're much more conscious state and local governments, in my opinion, having worked for state and local government and the state, well, not state, local government. Local government is very rigid. They have a set. They have their set of regulations. They follow the state statute. They have their charter. And Les can attest to our conversations about, you know, what we should do. How do we justify this? How do I present this to you guys? And also, we have our attorney, too. And as I mentioned, because Jennifer, you know, Cohen, is very involved in the procurement process. I mean, much of our work is shared or ran through her office and reviewed. So they're a big part of our team, too. I just want to mention that. Yeah, she did. Yeah, Jen, can you add to this? Did you see the article? I did not see the article. I'll share it. But I would say that there, I mean, the regulations right now that are out there on procurement, there are many that affect the state. But we follow most of those. And most of them govern local governments as well. This CCNA is part of the procurement process that's required by both state and local. The construction, the regulations regarding construction and the notifications that you have to do, the bonding that you have to do, all of that, those same regulations apply to us as the state. So I think, and normally local governments also put an additional layer in, which is they have their ordinances where they may have procurement restrictions. Some even have it in their charter. And then oftentimes you adopt policies that will restrict, you know, for instance, spending authority. What contracts do you as a board have to see? So I think that local government is very rigorous in its procurement process. Thank you. And I'll share that article with both of you because it did irritate me because I think we are pretty rigid and we are pretty strong. And it's a big area. And if anything, we get criticized because it takes us long. But it takes us long because we're protecting taxpayer dollars. So, sorry, I kind of went off on this item because it's a big item and it goes right to the heart of it. Is there a question in there? Yeah, sorry. Okay, yeah. Good one. That was good. That was good. Okay. Okay, that's all my questions and a little editorial comment. Okay, there we go. Okay. All right, we're going to go open this to the public. Is there anyone in the, or let me ask this because we kind of talked about this. Anybody else have any follow-up questions? Okay, so we're good. I do have one. Go ahead. Mayor, just, I don't know if it fits in these divisions or what it is, but given the topic that we're going to discuss later in this, today's session about solar panels and electrical, is there a need to have a division that is focused on energy or electrical or something like that? Is there something that we're missing that going forward might be very beneficial? I mean, some of these firms will have some of those aspects, but at the same time, this sort of goes back to what Jorge was saying. If it's a specific item and a niche and stuff like that, we may need to go out for an RFQ at that point in time. There are some specifically in Divisions 1 and 4 that are very large nation and internationally wide companies that we could look and see what they have inside of there. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Is there anyone in the public wishing to come forward to speak to this issue? Okay. Seeing no one, I will close public input, and I will ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Third. Okay. I have a motion. I have a second. And I will ask for commission comments. And starting with Commissioner Sandberg, Sandberg, and making the motion. I think I was glad to hear about in 2027, there may be some new companies. I think a lot has changed in the last few years. Another thing that I noticed, I know of some of those companies. I know some of them personally, large companies and small. And I noticed some local vendors. And that's always important to try to keep it close and give everybody a bite at the apple, especially the local contractors and companies. So it took a lot of work. It gives it a lot and put a lot into it. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. I think this is a great program because having had experience with this at the federal level, the Fed does exactly the same thing, only they have a whole different agency that runs it. That's the General Services Administration. So, you know, so I think that's good. The other thing that I just really, this is more for the community and the residents. But this, the procurement process at any government level is extremely arduous and it's extremely bureaucratic. And it makes it difficult for us to make some decisions in a timely manner. So this does allow us, this is the closest thing to Agile that we have in terms of getting to a vendor quickly. And so I think that's great. The only comment that I would offer up is perhaps we might want to think about shortening the period between on-ramps. And my colleague, my colleague, Vice Mayor, brought up a really good point with regards to, you know, just taking a look at what we're going to be talking about here later, solar. You know, I think there's more we can be doing there. So anyway, yeah, thanks for the presentation. Very well done. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. I only have two points to make. First of all, I think this is a good business-like process. I think it allows us to have an ongoing relationship with some providers that we need to keep that kind of relationship with. Only concern is, and that's my second point, is that it appears to some providers that it's a barrier. And I'd like to make sure that that doesn't dissuade people that are qualified from responding to requests for proposals from time to time. We might want to look at how many people outside the qualified list are applying to see if the barrier is too high. That's all I have. That's all I have. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, you just look at the title of this, 3A, Miscellaneous Consulting Services, ended up being quite a robust conversation. Really, really healthy and good, not just for us as a commission, but for the community when they hear this. I'm certainly in favor of this. It's something that we've always done and continue to do. I do share the concerns about the timing on the on-ramp, not just for upcoming current issues such as solar, but also new vendors that might want to bite at the apple. But other than that, yeah, I'm good, Mayor. Mayor, may I ask a question? Sure. A clarification. Staff may understand, but I don't. What's the on-ramp? For me, it's the year's difference. Rebidding. Yeah. Rebidding it all. Got it. Okay, thank you. Sorry, we were speaking commission speak. Sorry about that. Maybe staff understood it, like I said, but I didn't. Well, we understand our own speak, so, you know. Yeah, mostly. It's like twins that speak differently than you. You good? I'm good. Yes, ma'am. Yes, and I'll agree with the on-ramp comments and double down. No, I mean, obviously, nine years before rebidding, and I don't know what the typical is for a community, but I agree with that. I think this was a great conversation, healthy conversation, and obviously I'm very supportive of this, but I appreciate it. I think procurement is hard for the community to always understand, but it means something, and I think to the extent they understand the rules that we do follow and the care we do take and how we kind of keep the businesses honest while we spend their money. We spend a lot of money on consulting services. I think it's good. It's good to talk it through. But I am very supportive, and I'll go to a voice vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, and that motion passes unanimously. Okay, next item is, thank you, everyone. Good job, George. Okay, 3B, award of bid 25-2503, fiscal year 25 mil, an overlay on various street locations to Gator Grading and Paving LLC of Palmetto, Florida, in the amount of $1,281,850.15. And we'll turn to Clay for presentation. Sorry, I moved on you. Good morning. And Clay Watkins, Assistant Utilities Director and City Engineer. Sorry, good morning, Mayor and Vice Mayor and Commissioners. We're here today for the award of the fiscal year 25 mil and overlay contract to Gator Paving from Palmetto, Florida in the amount of $1,281,850.15 for the paving of Bass Boulevard, Ohio Avenue, Winding Brook Way, Manor Drive West, Marjohn Avenue, Manor Drive South, Jones Street, Jackmar Road, Summit Drive, Valley Drive, Meadow Lane, Brayer Circle, excuse me, Briar, Lexington Street, Loudoun Avenue, Coach Lightway, Peggy Ray Drive, Dixon Court, Austin Court, Sarah Court, Haley Lane, and Michelle Circle. As you can see in this map, showing above you, this map was presented to you in your agenda package. The only difference is we actually added, we put the street names on there for a little bit more clarity for you. Let me zoom in a little bit, too, so you can see a little bit more. Sorry. So this item was competitively bid. We had seven people, seven contractors submitted with prices ranges between the award amount of $1.2 million and up to $1.4 million. Staff had reviewed Gator's qualification and the price, and we are recommending approval of the item bid 25-2503 to Gator Paving. Questions for staff? We'll start with Commissioner Walker. So, and I asked this question during my agenda review yesterday, but I just want to, for clarification, so how are these areas and these streets prioritized and selected? So this list was based off of what we used Agile Assets in 2016 and 2017 to create this list, and then the end of last year we came in front of you for some new software that is RMT that has amounted to some of our vehicles. We didn't quite have enough information from when that was installed in September to get this, so we just used the end of the list from the Agile Asset list. Okay. And I don't know if you have the information in front of you, but there is one area, and this was brought up to me by one of our residents, Edgewood Terrace. Is that, you can get back to me on that if you don't have that information. That's just off Union, right? Yes. Yeah, I'll have to get back. Let's take a look, and we'll get back to you on that one. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, because with the new system we have using the RMT, it's mounted to a lot of our vehicles, including our meter reader vehicles, so they circle each street several times a month, so that will help us recognize those informations, and we'll also take a look at that then for next year. Okay. All right. That's all the questions I have. Okay. Commissioner Dugard. I'm really pleased with where we are. I think I'm going to pass. Okay. Thank you. Great. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mayor. The total price tag on this is $1.2 million, $1.3 million. Do we know what the price is in total per linear feet? So, we would have to look at the breakdown of that total cost, because there's a lot of items that are included in this, between maintenance of traffic, mobility. We're also doing some curb work along there, which is the next item that we'll talk about. There's a lot of factors. But if we were looking at an overall number per linear foot, I would have to get back with you on that one. And do you know what the trend line is for how much we, what the cost is per year on repaving? So, we budget the $1.5 million each year, and the next item we'll talk about, you know, a little bit, some additional work that we added to this contract. All right. Oh, yeah. We got the change coming up. Next item. And I guess, letter B, the anti-human trafficking affidavit. Do you know by experience, is there a lot of human trafficking that occurs in road construction? I can't speak to that question, but what I can tell you is that last year, there was a change in the law that this is now a requirement on all contracts. So, you'll see it with all of the CCNA contracts that were just approved in the last action item, and then you'll see it with regard to construction contracts as well. Wow. I certainly hope they flush out, because I think we're all against human trafficking. So, you know, go stay to Florida. Wonderful. That's all that I have. Thank you. Commissioner Sandberg? I just want to make sure I understood. So, these, the choice that I see on this map, due to the condition of these roads? Okay. Yes. Roughly what we do is they did a condition assessment of the roads. So, what we do is generally we come through a little half inch of asphalt off and put another layer down. Similar to, like, last year we did Beltrese. The road is sort of close to you and similar to a good reference. Okay. When the old is being taken up, the new is being put down, do they take into consideration some type of sloping to help the water, the drainage, you know, after what we just went through last year? Is there a consideration? I mean, I'm assuming it's not just flat. Is it pinch and roll? We ensure that when the, as the contractor comes back and puts back that level, they'll make sure that they stay with the consistent 2% slope from the crown of road down to the curb. That's just, that's the industry standard is 2%. Okay. And why Gator, why weren't they a Division I roadway contractor on the first presentation? Because they are a contractor. The first presentation is for consultants to do design work. Anytime we do construction and contractor, that is bid out every time and that is based on the price. And are there still communities that have private roads in Dunedin? Do you know of any, you don't have to say their name, but can you think of any off the top of your head? Yes, we do have some. Okay. And if they came to the city now to take over their streets, their maintenance, is it too late for that? Or is that something that could be considered going forward? I would prefer. I would, so, so a private street would have to be essentially dedicated to the public and there would be a process. But first of all, it has to meet all the requirements of a public right of way, including the infrastructure within the private roadway. No, I guess that's it then. Thank you, Clay. Okay. But, you know, that still wouldn't guarantee that we'd accept it. That's correct. It would be a city commission decision. But it wouldn't even be a discussion until that happened. That's right. Yes. Okay. Okay. And we're still using the software to do this? We, we started using a software this past year. We started, they were mounted on the vehicles in September. A different software. Okay. Yeah. This, this, this new software sort of sits on the vehicle and actually scans and understands the vibrations and also takes some photos as it goes down the road. Okay. So within the efficiency study, there was a comment about changing how we do this. So I wanted to understand, is this the new way we do this? Or is this another, is there another change coming on how we do this? This is how, um, we propose to do this going forward as, as, um, as you're aware, mayor. Um, when I first arrived at the city, we, we didn't have this. It was a kind of a subjective process where we had different folks go out and assess a roadway and you didn't get any consistency in that way because one person could judge it one way versus another. So we utilize, uh, agile assets, which, um, is fun, fundamentally based on what it's called PCI and pavement condition index. And so there's set parameters on, on how you rate a roadway. And so to, um, vice mayor Gow's question that the budget was set based on trying to stay at an average PCI that matched pretty much what the state and other agencies do. There's a point on a deterioration curve for asphalt where it's the point of no return and you want to get to a, so basically if you get to a certain PCI, it starts to take this exponential drop. So by doing these projects, you're pretty much just extending the service life of the road before it tanks off. Um, at some point, if it drops off, it's better not to touch it and just program it in for a complete reconstruction. So we try to get to it before then. Um, so the comment that was made in the efficiency study was, well, you're small in a city that you may want to just look at, uh, doing it yourself. Well, um, I've known Harry Lord for a long time and when that, that comment popped up, I said, well, I'm going to respectfully disagree because when I got here, that's exactly what we were doing and we were spending a hundred thousand dollars a year. We couldn't even get a contractor to come and bid on our projects because it wasn't worth their trouble. So to me, the software, even though there's an expense associated with it, it allows us to look at our roadway network, program the funding that we should be applying towards it so that we don't end up spending good money after bad and spending more money to reconstruct the road because we're getting to it before it fails. So in that regard, I respectfully disagreed with his assessment. Um, and so this is the software that we're using moving forward because that's the only mechanism I can see where we can demonstrate to the commission, this is the condition of our roadway. This is why we need to spend what we're spending. Uh, as opposed to just an arbitrary methodology that as people come and go and retire, then you lose that institutional knowledge and you don't have the same consistent rating for the roadways. This software takes that subjectivity out and it just tells you, here's the system. This is where we think you should spend your dollars. And then what staff does is it looks at that in comparison to an upcoming capital project. And if it says you need to go do this road next year, but we know we're doing a waterline project, we'll defer it because the last thing we want to do is pave a road and then come back and cut it to put in a waterline. So that's where staff comes in is it looks at the software, what it's recommending, and then we'll defer projects based on what we know is coming up in the next year. Good answer. So stay right there because my last question is, are we staying ahead of our, our streets and roads or are we, are we just behind? I mean, are we spending enough to stay ahead of our- I'd like to see what this new software tells us. I think we're kind of at, at par. Last couple of years, I'd say we were in a bit of, of trouble. This year is unique. If you recall last year, we came with you to the commission with an award recommendation and then the companion item that followed it was actually a change order to reduce roadways because we were over budget. But in this year's budget or in this year's program, because of the favorable bidding that we got, we were able to then, and the next item will be a companion change order where we're actually adding some additional curb work because we had some very favorable pricing on concrete curb replacement. So it, it tends to ebb and flow with the cost of petroleum and, and what the bids are right now. I think we're at par. We, if you said during the budget process, we should cut it to a million dollars, I'll be up here telling you that I think that's a very unwise decision. Short-sighted? Yes. So if anything, we should probably look in the, in the next few years to increase that, just to stay at par with what the cost of petroleum is. But again, that fluctuates, so we, we might be okay. But I'd like to see what this new software tells us this year. Cool. Okay. Okay. Great. Follow-up. Did you have a follow-up? If you don't mind. Okay. Just if I'm reading the tabulation sheet correctly, but we're using, or it's going to be about 1.5 inches of asphalt is about the average height or whatever. Yes. So what they'll do is they'll come through with a milling machine and take off the first inch and a half, which is generally the wearing course of asphalt, and they'll put another inch and a half right back in place. And when it comes to the wear and tear of the roads, what are some of the primary factors that go into, into that for the roads? Generally speaking, your wear and tear on the, on the, on the top course is, is, is truck traffic has more effect than, than vehicle or a number of cars on it, or, and the other factor is the base underneath the, the, the item. That will show up in other, that'll be, if we get the base problem, that'll be a whole another project. Okay. And truck traffic is, the roads just don't like trucks, or is it more just the weight of the vehicle? It's, it's the weight of the vehicles. Again, when you design pavement, you don't even take into consideration of traffic, you don't, consideration of a, a personal vehicle, you only do it off of the number of trips you think a truck will have on it. You don't even consider vehicles. Okay. So if we had less, less car traffic on the roads, that would lengthen the life of, of roads, reduce the cost. Again, when you design pavement, you don't, the, the, the trap, the, a passenger vehicle's not in the equation for your design and vehicles, and pavement. But with, but with the software we have and the monitoring, right, if you had a, a road that had no cars on it. Yeah. No, no traffic on anything is, it would, yes, yes, and in essence, in a way, yes, you can maybe say that. That's just a plug for more bicycling and walking. Thank you. Yeah, exactly. Um, because it, it affects your taxpayer money. So for the residents that are thinking other ways, I'm trying to save you some money. Um, and also that goes to the price of asphalt, right? We talked about petroleum and, but I'm getting away. I know, I know, I was waiting for it, I was waiting for it. But, okay, but to further the, the, the questions, does weather play a role in it? And what I'm talking about is the increase in our storms and the severity of the storms. And do our hurricanes play any role into wear and tear? Should we be concerned about that? The, the only way that weather plays wear and tear into your road is, again, back to the base. Your base, your base layer that put, that's underneath the asphalt is wet, or if it's sitting in water for a long time, that'll affect it. But generally speaking, asphalt itself is probably not too affected by it. Because it's, it's, it's set to, it's, it's only as strong as this base that's underneath it. And if that gets inundated with water, then you could have a problem. Okay. And then the other problem is also if there's any other activities such as, you know, if there's any reason to have to dig up such as water main breaks up, that that could start to maybe play an effect into it also. So some of our neighborhoods that were truly negatively impacted by the storms, are we seeing anything right now today that goes, oh, this is a result of the hurricanes that- Nothing right now. ... water getting underneath. We would have to, we can go back and look at that, the trending the software to see where it's, it's looking at. So that's something we, something we will be looking at for next year. And back to the weight of vehicles and the onset of, of, uh, more and more EV cars. Um, and I, I'm sure it's too early to tell, but are we seeing anything along those lines that the more people that have EVs and the weight of EVs is having a negative impact on the quality of the roads? Are, are we able to see that yet or it's just too soon? There's not enough out there to really measure? I don't know. Yeah, Vice Mayor, I guess to Clay's earlier comment, um, a lot of the wear and tear we see on, on roadways, whether they're collectors, arterials, or, or subdivision roadways are based on the weight and the frequency of the vehicles, right? For example, solid waste vehicles are very heavy. They start, they stop, they start, they stop. You know, that, that push and drag on, on the asphalt, um, creates wear and tear over time. Obviously, EVs are, are heavier than a conventional vehicle, um, it probably, I don't know, to the extent where it would be equivalent to, um, a heavy, uh, truck, but, um, the bigger issue is not so much, I think, uh, the weight of the EVs, it's a fair distribution of how costs are assessed, right? Because our payment program is funded, uh, two-thirds by the penny for Pinellas and one-third by gas tax. Well, EVs don't pay gas tax, so we need to start to figure out how you levy some type of a fee for an EV usage of a roadway because it is causing impact to the roadway network, but yet they're not paying gas tax. So, you know, that's more, I think, a state-level type decision on how that might be assessed. So I don't know that it's so much the weight, but it's, it's, and fair, equitable distribution of impacts that all vehicles are causing to a roadway and how that should be assessed. Oh, and I can't disagree with that, and we know that, we know that those conversations are happening and, and, and EVs will have to catch up and pay their fair share. My focus wasn't necessarily on, on the, the source of the funds. It was just the frequency of having to do this and the, in the cost, in the cost of roads, right? It's not just making the road, it's the repaving and the repaving and the upkeep and the maintenance on it. But I'll save those for comments before I get called on the carpet. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. And I know Commissioner Stambergen also had a follow-up. From time to time, we get concerns from citizens with speed of traffic in their community. I noticed that there's a charge for three speed humps. Can you tell me maybe where those will be placed? Oh, yeah, they're being reinstalled, stalled on Jack Maher. Okay. They're already there today. They're already there? Yes. And how about, is there any consideration for adding any new ones at this time? Not in this program. Okay. That's all I had, Mayor. Thank you. Great. Any, uh, follow-ups over here? Uh, Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, we have a number of, uh, streets under construction, particularly the Skinner Boulevard. Are we monitoring the streets close to that because they're detours to see how the wear and tear is working on those streets? Yeah. The, the software we have will pick up every road that any of the nine vehicles that the city has currently on there. One of those vehicles, or two of those vehicles, well, I'm sorry, one of those vehicles is with engineering staff. So if we see a hole in an area, we can ask somebody like, hey, if you're going to a site, make sure you drive this road so we can start picking up more data on it. Okay. Thank you. Great. Commissioner? Okay. I'm good, too. Uh, go to public input. Does anybody in the audience wish to speak on this issue? If you want to, you can come forward. Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close public input and I'll ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Commissioner Walker and Vice Mayor Gow. So we'll go to commission comments and I'll start with maker of the motion, Commissioner Walker. Thank you, Mayor. I, I have no further comments on this. Well, I do actually. Just, um, I, it's a, it's a great program. Um, I, I think, uh, our ability to lean forward is, as a result of the software that we're, uh, using and is, is really providing us economies of scale. And so anyway, I, I think it's great. Thank you. Okay. And Vice Mayor? Seconder? Thank you, Mayor. This is certainly part of the budget that, that needs to continue. So, um, for anybody who thinks that I may be against this, I'm, I'm certainly not. But I am all for reducing the cost of it and improving the quality of life for our community. So, um, and I'm not just trying to push bicycling and pedestrians wherever I can within agendas, although, uh, that might not be a bad idea. You're not? But, but, but, but this plays a specific role, right? And it really, it's one of the factors that talk, that brings us right to it. That if we reduce, it's not just putting money in your pocket. If I can get you out of a car, um, but we're saving you as a taxpayer money. If we can reduce the wear and tear on our roads, that's less. If we can reduce the number of people in cars, especially combustion cars, then that is going to increase the supply of oil, which is going to reduce the cost of asphalt. And so, it all leads to itself for a better budget, uh, saving taxpayer money, a higher quality of life. I mean, it just, it goes on and on and on. Uh, so what I am for this, just continuing to plant seeds. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Sandberg. I have nothing else to add, Mayor. Okay. Commissioner Degard. Thank you, Mayor. The services we provide are near invisible to our constituents. Um, they are, I, I doubt anyone turns on their spigot and goes, oh, that's a city service that's coming to me, or flushes their toilet thinking the same. However, roads fall into a different category. There's something the citizenry sees very quickly when it's in disrepair. I've been in other communities where, um, there's been a daily pothole report in the newspaper because so many potholes are, uh, problematic. Um, in fact, some cities have started putting plates over roads because they can't get to their potholes quick enough. I'm glad to see we have a sufficient budget. I'm glad to see we're on schedule relative to repair here. So, this pleases me a lot. I'm in support. Okay, great. You know, my only comment and kind of similar to Commissioner Degard. I mean, this is a basic infrastructure. Our number one job is to make sure our infrastructure is up and, uh, and we're keeping up with it and, uh, appreciate the comments you made, uh, Jorge. Um, so I'm in support, obviously. So, um, okay. So, voice vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. We're going to go to 3C, which is approval of change order number one for an increase of $100,240 plus 45 additional contract days to the prior award of bid number 25-2503 fiscal year 25 mil and overlay on various street locations to Gator Grading and Paving LLC of Palmetto, Florida. And we will go to, uh, staff presentation by Clay. All right. Good. Mayor and Commission, Clay Watkins, Assistant Utilities Director and City Engineer. Um, before you, we have the approval, the request for the approval of a change order one to the fiscal year 25 milling and overlay contract, um, in the amount of $200,240 and with an additional 45 days of the contract. Um, upon review of the bid tabulations from the lowest bidder, city staff, um, realized an opportunity to enhance the project and take advantage of a good cost for the, for valley gutter and expand the replacement of the, of the gutter along additional streets. Um, so with that, we're adding, there's a total number of, excuse me, a total length of 2,956 linear feet of removal of and replacement of valley gutter will happen across the project. Um, the vast majority of that, uh, 2000, 1,292 feet will happen on Jack Mar when 1,547, um, will happen on valley and summit. Um, so generally speaking, the way we, we handle this, this program is as we're, we see the roads that come out that we need to do the repaving on. We also go it out and take a look at the condition of the, the curbing along that road. Um, if there's any areas that have show dips in the curb, we just sort of, we just sort of would just replace that area, just that dip and then let the rest of it sort of go. Um, with the great price that we were able to get on, on valley gutter in this, we were able to look at spanning instead of just doing a gap here and go down the road, a hundred feet. We were able to get one, we were able to look back at it and get more of a one continuous area of replacement to help the life of the curb and the roadway. Um, and then, and then, and then you keep moving forward and get a better product. So with that, um, we ask for your approval for the change order one. Okay. Great. Um, questions for staff? Uh, start with vice mayor. No questions, mayor. Okay. Commissioner Sandbergen. I have no questions, mayor. Uh, commissioner Walker. Uh, just to confirm, I think, uh, stated that it was a one, the budget was 1.5 million in actuals coming in about that, right? Yeah. So what we did is we, we looked at that number and it was, I don't want to say, I mean, it was a great number that we got for curbs. We'd want to take advantage. We looked for some other areas, um, throughout the city did, but it was a little bit more cost effective to just take the improvements in the roads we were already working at. But yeah, we wanted to get a little closer to that. Again, give us some little, some more room too if something happens. Got it. Okay. Thank you. No further questions. Commissioner DeGuard. No questions. Okay. I'm going to open it to public input. Anyone in the audience wish to speak to this issue? If you could come forward. Okay. Seeing no one, I will close public input. Um, before I ask for a motion, it was a good comment by Commissioner Walker. So the total then to Gator Grading and Paving LLC is 1 million 482 090.15. So I'll ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Walker and Dow. Okay. So commission comments starting with, uh, Commissioner Walker. Uh, no, no additional comments. Okay. Uh, Vice Mayor. No additional comments. Uh, Commissioner Sandbergen. No, just a good job looking out with the city's money. Thank you. Okay. And Commissioner DeGuard. No comments. Okay. I have no additional comments. So, uh, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. We'll go to 3D. 3D will be the award. Award the construction of bid number 25-2507. Ranchwood Drive South and Hitching Post Lane Water Main and Under Drain Replacement Project to Evolution Catering or Contracting. I was going to say catering. That doesn't work. Contracting, Inc. of Colorado, Florida in the amount of $614,675.55. That makes sense. And we will go to, I believe, Alex for presentation. Alex. Good morning. Uh, good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, uh, Commission and Staff. I'm, uh, I'm Alex Gonzalez, Project Engineer. And I'm here today to present the recommendation to award, uh, the construction of bid 25-2507, Ranchwood Drive South and Hitching Post Lane Water Main and Under Drain Replacement Project to Evolution Contracting, Inc. of Clearwater, Florida in the amount of $614,675.55. Uh, the purpose of this project is, uh, the existing water main on Ranchwood Drive South is, um, has experienced four breaks in the last five years. It's the original water main from the, uh, development. So, uh, most of those require emergency repairs, which can be quite costly and cumbersome to the community when that happens. So, the last break occurred in 2023. So, it's, it's time to, uh, look at the replacement. Uh, this was a CIP program, so it's been in the docket for a while. Um, and so, uh, and also for Hitching Post Lane, which is one street just one block north, uh, that is a, also a four-inch water main. So, we're going to upsize both of those to six inches. In doing so, we'll improve infrastructure integrity, fire protection, and water quality in this area. Um, as mentioned, uh, the, the old water mains are four-inch. They're too small. They're going to be, uh, upsized to the new standard, uh, six-inch PVC, uh, water mains. And also, uh, about 926 feet of, uh, six-inch underdrain on Ranchwood Drive, which will help improve the stormwater drainage in the area as well. And, uh, to help out our Transportation Department for there's no, uh, road failures because of, uh, the water sweeping into the road base. As such, staff hereby recommends award, uh, award a bid 25-2507 for the Ranchwood Drive South and Hitching Post Lane water main and underdrain replacement project to Evolution Contracting, Inc. of Clearwater, Florida, in the amount of $614,675.55 as presented today. Okay. Good. So, I'm going to go to questions and we'll start on Commissioner Walker's side this time. Oh, I, uh, I, I don't have any questions on this. So, thank you. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. Um, so you're increasing the pipe size from four to six inches. Is that what I heard? That is correct. Okay. Um, how does that affect the, uh, feeder pipes that are feeding that? I mean, are they six inch or are you, what are we doing there? Yes. The feeder pipes that go into it, which is off over cash is, um, it is larger than four inches. I don't know the exact size off the top of my head. It's probably six inch or eight inch. Um, but, uh, six inches is the, um, it is the new, uh, lower end because we are also adding in two fire hydrants, one on hitching post and one on Ranchwood Drive South. And a, uh, and just for your knowledge, a, to go into a fire hydrant, the line has to be six inches. Okay. Uh, that's all I have. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Really, $675.55. Really, we couldn't get any rounding in there. I'm an engineer. I gotta be exact. And we appreciate that. Uh, when it comes to, uh, water main breaks and, and replacing lines, and we've got an aging infrastructure, does that create, does that new piping create pressure in weaker areas, older parts? Does that help cause further breaks down the road? I mean, I'm just asking the question. Uh, it, it does not. The, um, the integrity pipe mainly comes down to the age of the infrastructure. So, for instance, um, this one specifically here in Ranchwoods, it is the, um, it's the, it's the original, uh, installed during the development in the 60s, I think. Um, so I don't, I don't know, I don't know the exact date. Late 60s, early 70s. Yeah. So, so the average lifespan of the pipe is about 50, 60 years old. And, uh, the PVC pipe that we're putting in has a average lifespan around 80 years. So, so age is usually the main contributing factor to water main failures. Okay. And we're going from four inches to six inches. And what's the size of the, the lateral lines? The lateral lines going to your home are typically one inch. One inch. Okay. And so does increasing from four to six, what does that do to the pressure in the pipe? Am I, am I going to have a loss of pressure in my kitchen sink? You are, uh, it, it might seem, um, contradictory, but because you are increasing the pipe size, it does not decrease pressure. Yeah. The pressure in the system is the pressure in the system. Like our whole system operates under one variable pressures depending on, you know, height and elevation, but the system has, the pressure is always the same. Wow. It affects the volume. Yes. Of water that we can deliver. Primarily for fire protection. Okay. To answer the previous question, the line on overcache is a 12 inch diameter water main. Okay. Uh, that's all that I have. Thank you. Commissioner Sandberg. Just out of curiosity, what is that pipe made out of that's being replaced? It's 50 years old. It is cast iron. Cast iron. So does it rust through? Is that what happens to them after a while? Cast is a very brittle material. Okay. Um, subsequently in the water main designs, they, they switched to something called ductile iron, which had more ductility and it doesn't crack as easily. Um, it, it's, it does, it has a coating to keep it from rusting, but it does get, it's very brittle and with temperature changes and stuff. Okay. As a matter of fact, we experienced that on Virginia this weekend. Uh, cast iron, brittle and, and cracking. Yeah, it's been, obviously it lasted a long time, but I, I, I'm glad we're fixing it. Um, what's the length of time on a project like this? Uh, I'll have to get back to you on the exact length of this project. Uh, off the top of my head. Um, it is between six and eight months. And will this involve, uh, damage to roads or people's lawns? This project is completely in the public right away. Uh, it is going in front of people's homes. Uh, but it is, uh, but everything will be too restored to its previous condition or better. And that includes, uh, new sidewalks. That includes, uh, brand new sod. And a lot of people will get brand new driveways. So that's usually everybody's favorite part of these projects. Okay. Good. Thank you for making it for clarifying that. That's all I had. Thanks. Okay. Uh, well, my question is for, uh, water main and under drain replacement. Like, how are we doing? Are we behind? Ahead? Are we good? I mean, how are we doing? Are we keeping pace? Uh, we are doing good. Uh, we are keeping pace. Uh, there is a, uh, you might have noticed that a few, I've been up here a few times doing water main projects. I got probably two more to, uh, give to you soon, but, uh, we are keeping pace and, uh, we're, we're not deficient and are, uh, keeping up with our potable water infrastructure. And then this was an opportunity that we worked with public services to take an area where we were, no, we need to do work and they needed some help or they knew they had a project. So we were able to combine them into one instead of two separate projects. Right. With the under drain. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I don't have any other questions. Um, I'll open it to public input. Does anyone in the audience wish to come forward to speak on this issue? Seeing no one, I'll close public input. I'll ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Give that to, give that to Tom. Okay. Uh, and commission comments, starting with maker of the motion, Mr. Sandbergen. No, I have nothing to add. I mean, if it needs to be done, I'm glad we're helping these folks out. Thank you. And commissioner to guard. I'm glad to hear that we are on schedule relative to replacement. Thanks for what you do. And I'll go to Mr. Walker. Uh, no. Final comments. No additional comments. Okay. And vice mayor. Yeah. Thanks. Just because it was mentioned. Uh, was the Virginia this weekend. And I talked with the residents just last night that says, thank you so much for how quickly you responded and got it done. And it was very little interruption for their family. So kudos to the staff. Thank you very much. That was the water crews that worked 24 seven. And regardless when the emergencies happen, they're out there. Okay. Well, my final comment is, and I've said this before, 35 plus years ago, it was a crisis on water and wastewater before we built the new plants. It was a crisis under the ground as well. And, um, and it's in the commission at that time and other commissions made it a priority to keep our infrastructure up. And, um, it's really important because I always say to me, it's the number one job we do up here is protecting our infrastructure. So, um, okay. So, uh, all in favor of the motion. Aye. Aye. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. And we're going to go to proposed agenda for April 1st, 2025 work session. Are there any changes? We have approval of minutes, boards and committees, Microsoft software, administration building window replacement project of wastewater and grant seeking policy. Any additions, solutions? We're good. Okay. Um, can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Uh, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. And that motion passes unanimously. Okay. We are going to take a short break and then we'll come back for solar feasibility. Okay. We're going to gavel back in and we are going to go to our workshop item on solar feasibility study. And, uh, I didn't know, city manager, city manager. Did you want to? It was actually city business. Okay. Good to know. Thank you. I thought I heard Bowsers coming. No, I'm just kidding. No, no, no. Did you want to lead into this at all? No, I'll hand it to you. Okay. So we'll go right to Natalie, um, for staff presentation. Wonderful. Thank you. Uh, good morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioner, city manager, Natalie Gass. Sustainability program manager for the city. And with me today is Saul Haroon, uh, our consultant from McKim and Creed. He's the director of renewables and joining us via zoom today. Uh, we're going to be reviewing the municipal solar feasibility study that is brought before you this morning. Um, I do want to know as we go through this process of the presentation, would you like to ask questions throughout or at the end? Um, well, are there some natural, you know, stop points? Um, I mean, I'm not thinking of any natural stop points, but do you see any? Yeah. I mean, we'll talk about the, the background of our clean energy goals, ready for 100, uh, some of the work that we've been doing, and then we'll get into the study. So, I mean, maybe there's like a little stopping point after that. Yeah. So why don't you kind of, you know, if you think there's a couple of natural stop points, let's do that. Just checking. That way everybody kind of stays up with it. Don't you think that's the best? There is a lot of information here, and if you might. There is. I mean, the study is like huge. So, um, yeah. So why don't you, if there's a natural stop point, just stop and I'll, I'll circle everybody to get a chance to ask questions. Great. Okay. Go ahead. We'll review a background of our clean energy goals, ready for 100. Uh, we'll then go into the scope of the study, the solar feasibility study. We'll discuss the energy audits that went into the study, um, as well as doing a, a deep dive case study into the library. There were 16 facilities reviewed. And if you look at the, uh, the, uh, agenda item attached, this has 460 plus pages. Um, very thorough and comprehensive study. But we want to make sure that we really just take one building and run through the process of how it was analyzed, what the recommendations are. From there, we'll go into a little bit larger, um, view of all of the facilities and those overall recommendations and the next steps. So to begin with ready for 100, that is our clean energy goals. Yes. All right. Is the public seeing the slides? Because we're not seeing the slides here. But you're not seeing the slides. They're not over there. Okay. I just want to make sure we're. We have slides. Sol's over here. Okay. So the public. Are you able, what are you? Okay. We're seeing them now. You're seeing the slides. Okay. Great. I mean, we love seeing the consultant, but yeah. Okay. Yes. He'll chime in, uh, when we go through. The public is, no, the public, I think, the public's seeing the slides, right? The public should be seeing the slides. Okay. Yeah. So we're good. So our Ready for 100 clean energy goals. These were really a development of the advocacy work of Sierra Club, as well as our committee on environmental quality and sustainability and other members of the community that rallied for the city to set these goals. Uh, in December of 2018, the city commission, uh, approved a set list of goals, which is converting to a hundred percent clean renewable energy for municipal operations by 2035, and then expanding that community wide, which would compass anything in our city limits, uh, to 2050. We do have members of those organizations and groups and members of the public here with us today that were part of that process. Um, and all of that information for those clean energy goals got wrapped up into DREAM, which is Dunedin's resilient environmental action master plan. This was the city's first sustainability action plan. It was a plan written by the community for the community. We did not have a consultant that came on board to do this. This was all community workshops, community writing teams. We relied on the expertise of, um, local experts, organizations. And then we took that information and reviewed it alongside the sustainability action plans of other cities in our area, in our region, to kind of make sure that we were on track. There are 10 focus areas, 150 action items in DREAM. And the way it's broken down are there's three levels of action. So we have city operations with 50 action items there. Basically what we're doing, uh, internally as a municipality, our work. We have community collaboration, which is any way the city is partnering with an external organization, a business, school, a group, or program. And then citizen engagement, those are 50 action items that are recommended for individuals to, uh, to do either in their home or their workplace. And this kind of sets the stage for how we view solar in terms of level of, um, action and showing sustainable action comes on various levels of responsibility. Included in DREAM at that time was a general roadmap for our clean energy goals. Looking at different key dates and kind of an estimation of where we should be at certain touch points throughout this, uh, period as we move towards those goals. Looking at the progress for both the 2035 municipal goal and the 2050 community-wide goal. Um, kind of a breakdown here. We installed solar on our emergency operations center and water treatment plant in 2020. We subscribed to the Duke Energy Clean Energy Connection Program in 2022. And that is all the offsite solar that Duke is building throughout the state of Florida. We installed solar on this building, City Hall, in 2023. And then from 23 to 2024, we completed building energy audits and worked through the solar feasibility study, which is the main, uh, presentation that will be before you. Our current fleet has five electric vehicles and two hybrids with the proposed new EVs on the way that were part of the vehicle replacement plan. That would bring it up to nine EVs and two hybrids. So that's on the municipal side for the community-wide goal. This is all about promoting solar and installation on a, an individual property level for homeowners and businesses. In 2019, the city created a solar rebate program where residents are incentivized and business owners are incentivized to install solar on their property, on their rooftop. Um, we have awarded over 154 and counting rebates to Dunedin residents for their work, uh, of installing solar on their home. And that's at a rate of 25 cents per watt up to $2,500 based on their system size. For this goal, we've also worked in a partnership with Solar United Neighbors on multiple Pinellas solar co-ops, either partnering or even co-sponsoring them. Solar United Neighbors is a local, um, well, they have a, a national group, but they have a, a local charter, which basically looks at, uh, consumer protection for solar installations, as well as getting a reduced rate. Um, they'll get maybe 200 people in the area in Pinellas County who are interested in going solar, walk them through the process, vet out solar companies, um, and create a little bit more protection for those projects. On this list here as well is the Clean Energy Connection subscription, simply because the, a community-wide goal is going to be heavily tied to working with Duke Energy as they are our utility provider. So the more that we recommend clean energy projects, um, and are encouraging and pushing them to move forward in cleaning the grid by installing large-scale solar, that helps our larger goal as well. From an EV public charging standpoint, we have 12 level 2 EV chargers in Dunedin that are managed by the city. And then there are two fast chargers that were actually just updated. They are located at the library. Those are managed by Duke Energy. And we're looking at, uh, possibly adding two more, just confirming location and feasibility. So progress on different levels. We have two different time scales and two different, um, scales of size for projects, municipal versus community. What that looks like is solar on all of these different levels. So you have large-scale solar that Duke Energy has been building out throughout the state of Florida. In the middle of the, of the slide, you have photos of our rooftop solar here at our city facilities, emergency operations center, our water treatment plant, and city hall. And then on the right hand of the slide, looking at our rebates, our co-ops, which is really promoting solar at the individual level. With all of that background and kind of understanding of where we've come from, what we've been working on, we can go into our energy audits and solar feasibility study. This study was completed with McKim and Creed, which I wanted to kind of touch on, uh, Vice Mayor, your comment of solar being incorporated into that list of, uh, the consulting service contracts. Um, and McKim and Creed was on the list. So if you look that they were pulled from the list, uh, they completed a solar feasibility study for the city of Clearwater as well. Um, so I was able to review that and felt confident in them completing this study for us here in Dunedin. Uh, Sol Haroon is the project manager from McKim and Creed. He is the director of renewables at McKim and Creed. Has a very vast background, uh, works as an instructor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Has many, uh, certifications and credentials and, um, has been an excellent, uh, educator and person to walk through this with. I will say our 15-minute weekly check-ins usually go quite over. I think the instructor in him is, um, you know, gives me lots of homework to learn and keep exploring, which is excellent. So the scope of this study was reviewing 16 facilities. We selected our largest facilities from our library, community centers, fire stations, and then our larger public works and utilities, uh, buildings as well. The original budget for this study was $100,000. And our facilities team actually contacted Duke Energy and said, you know, we're going to be completing this study looking at energy efficiency, energy audits, and solar. Uh, Duke came back and said, we actually have a program for you at no cost. So they came out and completed assessments, which I'll touch on in just a minute. McKim and Creed completed the solar side of the study, and, um, that brought the total cost down, allowing us to save $48,804 from what was originally budgeted. So Duke Energy sent out a business advisor, uh, on site, and he met with myself and some members of our facilities team, because they had to allow us access into, uh, different maintenance rooms to look at the HVAC and all of the equipment. We went through and counted all the lights and all the windows and looked at the existing equipment, the conditions. And then what they did is they pulled all that information and provided reports for each facility on their recommendations, uh, equipment replacement ideas, and then recommendations for Duke Energy incentives that we would be eligible for. And that will kind of shape how we build out our, uh, our facilities plan in terms of energy efficiency. And all of that work was completed, um, at no cost to the city. It was part of their, um, their program that they offer. Those energy audits were then, uh, sent to McKim and Creed, where they did a much more deep dive analysis into the, all of our facilities. Uh, the 16 on the list, looking at our, you know, general building information with the goals of installing rooftop solar. They looked at our financial metrics and then did an analysis of mechanical, electrical, and structural to see the viability for installing solar. And finally, uh, looked at the utility rates and bills to round out the financial analysis to look at energy bill savings and different tariffs. All of that work kind of is broken into, um, it comes down to really analyzing these three components. The structural viability, the electrical connection, and the financial viability of installing solar on the buildings. While we don't have time to review all 16 facilities, uh, we are going to use the library as that case study and walk you through the process of what was completed, um, in order to do the analysis and come to these recommendations. So I am going to turn it over to Saul to kind of talk on the, the technical side and the process of the study. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you for that warm introduction. Um, a pleasure to meet you all here virtually, uh, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, and, uh, members of the general public. Um, so what Natalie has outlined, uh, is a result over quite a period of time with our 15 minute check-ins and review of all the data, um, that we have received here at Mickam and Creed. So I must say it was quite, quite good understanding the buildings, understanding, um, not only what we can do from a solar perspective, but really kind of overall understanding the goals of what the city is trying to do and really keeping that in perspective. Um, because it's not just about putting solar. It's really about meeting your overall goals for resiliency, for, um, carbon neutral and the like. So what, as Natalie mentioned, what we did is, uh, with all the data that we received, we looked at the, uh, structural viability, uh, the electrical connections and the financial viability for each of those buildings. And, and really kind of understood what each building is about and keeping in perspective what it is that we're really trying to achieve. Um, so Natalie, go onto the, uh, slide on the library. Uh, I'm not seeing the slides at my end. Oh, there we are. Okay. Yeah. So starting with the library, um, and by the way, feel free to jump in with any questions at any point. Are there any questions, uh, at this point, uh, with what Natalie has shared so far? So anybody, anybody have any questions so far? Nope. I think you can continue. Great. Thank you. Fantastic. Um, so what we're going to do is just show how the overall process was and get into some details with the library, which sits kind of in the middle of the pack in terms of feasibility. It's certainly very feasible. Um, it's not necessarily the best building, but it's one of the largest ones and one of the, uh, you know, larger consumers of electricity. So it's a good representative from all around. Um, and then we do have the tables that you will see in which we've summarized all 16 buildings, 17 meters and the like. Um, okay. So the slide you're seeing right there is showing the overall process. Essentially what we did is go into various buildings, uh, gather the data that we needed, such as looking at the structural integrity of the roof, uh, the electrical room, seeing what can house the electrical system right there. And then a key part is getting the utility data. So what you're seeing there in the middle is a snapshot of your consumption. So we took a representative year, uh, 2023 in this case, and looked at, uh, all the data, uh, the consumption, I should say, the energy consumption throughout that year. So, of course, keeping in mind that certain months have greater consumption, certain months have less and so on. And then extracted all of that into a table that you see on the right side. On the top, what you see is the utility tariff from Duke Energy. Um, so essentially there are four different tariffs that the city is using right now. Um, there's, uh, which we'll get into a little bit more detail. And so we took that in account, um, looked, extracted, the consumption and extrapolated what's called an 8760 file, which is an hour by hour breakdown of what that energy consumption looks like throughout the year. Uh, so this will be really key in doing the solar analysis and mating, you know, marrying the solar generation with the, uh, consumption. So keep in mind, solar, as you know, only runs during the day, um, when the sun is shining, and consumption can be obviously throughout the day and throughout the night. There's often a base consumption in the evenings or, or you actually can even increase sometimes in the evenings. Uh, and certainly during the night, there's a base consumption. So when we're trying to achieve what's called net zero or offsetting your energy, it's really throughout the entire month and the entire year. So there are times where your consumption may exceed, uh, what is being produced obviously at night, but there are other times where you'll be able to kind of, uh, have greater consumption and use the magic of what's called net metering in order to feed that back into the grid. Now we're trying to avoid, um, trying to feed too much back into the grid. And you'll see where that comes into play later on here as well. It's important to not oversize. We don't really want to spend more money than necessary, uh, in terms of creating a solar system here. So we want to kind of do what's called right sizing. So much like when you're doing an HVAC system, uh, you would be doing something called right sizing, making sure that you, you're meeting the heating and cooling systems appropriately. So it's really important. And that comes with experience, really understanding the right system size. Okay. Moving on to the next one, uh, next slide. That's what you're seeing right there is the structural and electrical. So what we did is looked at, uh, we got the blueprints, the drawing sets, um, architectural, mechanical, electrical, and so on of each of the buildings. Um, as Natalie will, uh, let you know that that in itself is quite an interesting process, making sure that we've got the correct ones, um, and making sure we've got the latest ones as well. And some of these buildings have gone through additions, have gone through changes, and so, and so on. So it's really important to make sure we, uh, take that into account too. So we looked at the structural integrity. We looked at what the rooftop conditions are like. In some cases, the buildings will have a change of rooftop as well. Um, so that's factored in too. Um, and then we looked at the electrical system. So what you're seeing on the right side there, um, is the single line diagram. That's essentially how the electrical system is, you know, all the, how, uh, all the conductors and wires come into the building, come into what's called a panel board, a distribution system, and, uh, how it's then, uh, propagated throughout the building. So it's really important that we understand where are we connecting solar. So to summarize, we want to make sure that the roof can sustain that solar array, the racking system. And we want to make sure electrically we can feed back into the electrical system, uh, the current, because we really want to minimize enhancements or changes to the electrical system, because that's just going to incur costs. So for, in fact, throughout all of these, we were able to ensure that the electrical system, the switch gear, the panel board, the main distribution, what they call the MDP main distribution panel board, is able to, does allow backfeeding of that solar, uh, power from the inverters. And also make sure that there's room and placement for the inverters as well. Uh, so that, that was, that was quite heartening and really good to see that we are not incurring, uh, changes to the electrical system. And for the most part, we're not really incurring changes to the roof system. Now, bear in mind, some of these roofs are a little bit old, so they are due for replacement. And Natalie can touch upon that as well. Okay. Moving on to the next side. What you're seeing there is a rooftop assessment, um, of putting the maximum amount of solar, uh, on a particular roof. Like in this case, the library. So it's, imagine just propagating, plastering the entire roof with solar, solar PV module, solar array. That is generally not, generally not a good way to go about doing this. So we did this as kind of a boundary case to show what would happen if you put the maximum amount of solar. Obviously we don't want to do that, but we wanted to see what can the roof sustain? What, how much could you generate? And this would be extremely net positive. In this case, I believe if we had, um, plastered the entire roof with solar, we would have been at a hundred and twenty percent offset. So we don't really want to produce more energy than we are consuming, um, because the utility will typically give you, um, at a wholesale rate. The, it will compensate you, I should say, for that additional energy. At something called a wholesale rate, which is lower than the tariff rate. So it's really not a good thing to do. Now, having said that in mind, keeping that in mind, having said that, there is one reason why you might want to put more, uh, solar than what the building is consuming. And that's if you had a battery system. And a battery system is an entirely different process. We did keep that in mind. We didn't do a battery analysis. At that time, uh, the city was not considering batteries, but, uh, due to resiliency considerations, that may be something you might want to look in the future as well. So putting in a battery would then allow you, a battery system, then allow you to gather the additional energy that you're creating and provide resiliency at, in other words, provide renewable energy at times when the sun is not shining as well. You know, whether it's in the evenings or the night and so on. What we tried to do here is offset to around 90 to 95% of the total load consumption rather than a full hundred percent. So this allows some variability, allows you to connect, can keep connecting to the grid, of course. Uh, I believe the state of Florida does require you to always be grid connected. So we're not trying to, um, grid defect. We're not trying to disconnect from the grid or anything whatsoever. We really want to work harmoniously with the utility and make sure, uh, we're not putting a burden or anything on the utility by generating more energy. Now, I don't mean burden in the sense, but what I should really say is we really want to be good neighbors with the utility, work cooperative with them and say, Hey, look, we will still be, uh, you know, um, uh, getting energy from you guys, especially at night and the evenings and so on. Um, but we want to be a good citizen, uh, working with the utility to make sure we're not, um, straining the grid in any sense whatsoever. Okay. Moving on to the next slide. So this, so you have something like what is on the left side is 376 kilowatt DC. Then when you right size it, you get something like what's on the right side there to 290 kilowatt DC. So you can see it becomes a reduction and that gives us, I believe 95% offset in this particular case. So that, that's good. It, it, uh, we were able to achieve a right side system. Then go onto the next side. And what you see there is, um, how that consumption mirrors, uh, or other, how does the generation work in conjunction with the consumption? So you can see there are times throughout the year where you may end up generating a little bit more, um, throughout certain months, certainly spring months. And during other months, you may actually not be able to generate quite as much. And that's just the natural effect of what is happening with solar. So keep in mind, um, solar generation is really dependent on two things. It's dependent on the amount of sunlight hitting the PV modules, uh, which of course during summer you would have more, which is true. But it's also dependent on temperature. As your temperature goes higher, your efficiency of the PV modules does decrease a little bit. And so that's what's reflected in this graph of the astute among the astute observers amongst you will see that, well, you're producing more during spring and less during summer. Does that seem counterintuitive? No, not necessarily because yes, you have more sunshine during the summer months, keeping in mind the rain and clouds and so on, of course, but you also have higher temperatures as well. So it's a combination of shading, I mean, cloud cover, the true amount of sunlight in PV modules, as well as the temperature. So we use professional grade software, uh, Helioscope in this particular case, to really look at the climate conditions, the weather patterns and so on. Program all of that into the software and get a result of something like this. So in orange, a yellow orange, you see right here, um, you'll see the solar generation and in blue, you see the actual consumption. And those cons- that consumption is derived from actual consumption values, uh, from the bills that we were able to gather, that Natalie and I were able to gather. So we're, we are looking at real data, real production. Okay. All right. So moving on to the next one. All right. So this is now what's called an electrical single line diagram. Um, and this is just a representative of what it could look like. Now, we're not, you know, we can do the full engineering, but that was not the purpose of this study. But we wanted to show that when you do finally engage, if you decide to go with this particular building or any building, we want to show what that electrical process would look like. So this is a representative single line diagram, not necessarily the very final one, of course. Um, and then on the right side, you have the consumption versus the generation. So in, in this case, uh, yellow is the actual consumption. Um, the whole circle represents consumption, I should say, the, the donut shape. And then the blue is the generation. So what you're seeing here is 95% offset. So just to keep that in mind, that donut is the full circle is the full consumption of 400, uh, you know, 496, uh, megawatt hours per year. And then we were able to offset 95, which is the target we're looking at between 90 to 95% offset throughout the year. And that also becomes more cost effective as well, because we, you know, the analysis is not just, this is not just about putting the best possible engineering system, but you really want to make it cost effective as well. So that's the sweet spot that you, we typically have found from experience is if you go too, too much, it's great, but then you get a point of diminishing returns. And all of you guys are familiar with that notion too, is you want to make sure you hit a sweet spot. There's a curve somewhere where you optimize the system. Too much is not good. Too little, you know, the Goldilocks and the three bears, you just want to make sure you hit it just right as well. Um, and we did consider that throughout all of this. The next one is now a lot of numbers there. Don't, don't panic. Um, what you're seeing there on the left side is the original bill. So this is, uh, derived from actual values and what that cost is. Uh, Natalie, if you want to zoom in to the left side there, um, on the left bill, if you can, great, fantastic. Okay. So the total charges in this case work out to be like $63,000 per year. And you can see there's an energy portion to this, which is kilowatt hours. And this demand portion to this, which is, you know, kilowatts, your power. Um, all of that is explained in the report. Perhaps we went a little bit overboard. Um, but you know, I like educating our clients as well. Uh, I do teach at Georgia Tech as well. Um, so one of my passions is to make sure that you really understand what it is you're trying to do here. What is it that you're getting? So we do go into a fair amount of detail about understanding your bill structure in the report as well. And on the right side, Natalie, if you want to zoom in right there, um, on the top right, you see, if you were to remain with the same tariff, the schedule, uh, which is the utility, uh, billing structure, that bill would have reduced down to $18,735 by putting solar in. Okay. And this accounts for the net metering and all that good stuff too. Now, there's a caveat in all of this. When you do go with solar, what the utility requires is you to change the tariff structure to get to a time of use as well. And, uh, time of use can work in favor in some cases and in other cases it does not. Now, when you do put in solar, obviously you're generating solar power when the electricity is the most expensive. So the time of use can actually work in your favor as well. So we did keep that in mind too. We're not just blindly putting in solar. We really want to make sure, uh, we comply by the rules of the utility, Duke Energy, um, you know, Florida in this case. So your annual savings highlighted in yellow there is $43,000. So that's what you're saving. Okay. Now there's also, uh, electricity escalation. What we have noticed is that bills are going up. Um, hurricane resiliency, utilities have to keep on enhancing the infrastructure, transmission, upgrades, you know, transformers, upgrades, all that. So that's good stuff. So we took in account an escalation for that, uh, electricity. We took in account time value of money as well. You guys are familiar with that too, based on your discount rate of 5% in this case. We also take in account that your solar is going to slightly degrade every year. It's around 0.5% in the worst case. In reality, we've actually found a little bit better, more like 0.3% every year. But, you know, you want to take boundary cases where it makes sense. You want to be really conservative in your assessment. Don't be too optimistic. Really look at that, uh, you know, worst case scenario per se, within reason, of course. And all of that is taken in account. And then we, you'll see the cashflow models that should, that account for energy escalation prices, solar degradation, 0.5% worst case per year, as well as your discount rate, the time value of money. So it is a real financial assessment that hopefully would make any accountant happy as well. Um, looking at the next slide. This is a really cool one to understand throughout a 24-hour period. In this case, let's say, you know, June or so, is what does your generation potentially look like? And what does your demand or your energy consumption look like? So what you're seeing right here is a power curve. And energy is the area underneath that power curve, right? You, you pay in kilowatt hours on your bill. And what you see here is a sunshiny day, excuse me, where in the case of no clouds, that you would get production starting, uh, somewhat in the morning, very little, of course, and then heating around, hitting peak around solar noon. So there's a great window, I'd say, between 9am to around 3pm, where you kind of generate the most, uh, of your solar. So the green is your solar production. Now, what's in dark blue, if you follow that curve in dark blue, is your consumption. And the dark blue is what your consumption pattern looks like in the case of no solar whatsoever. When you do put the solar array, obviously that consumption is affected. The power curve, the demand curve, as they call it, is effective, uh, is affected. And then that's what's shown in the light blue. So spend a little bit of time on understanding that. And when we do the models, we don't just account for sunshiny days, you know, what we call blue sky days. We account for real weather patterns. You're going to have days where there are clouds. You're going to have days when there's a fair amount of rain and so on. So all of that is accounted for. I'm just showing you one example over a 24 hour period, when, when the sun is shining, when it's a clear blue sky, what it looks like. So obviously when it's a cloudy day, you're not going to be able to offset quite as much. And that is accounted for in the models as well. Okay. Any questions so far? All right. Keep going. All right. Uh, moving on to the next one. This is a summary of the financial analysis. And if you were to do a cash purchase, and in this case, you know, we did something like, we actually considered various options here. The lower cost of around $2 a watt, which is realistic, but maybe a little bit optimistic, to a very conservative figure of $3.50 per watt DC. Don't worry too much about what those numbers are. They are explained quite a bit in the report. And that green value on the left side, the green in the graph on the left, represents what your cost is, including O and M, because you do have to pay a little bit for your operations and maintenance per year. That's generally quite nominal, we have found. But then you're going to incur, between year 15 and 16, you're going to incur an additional cost for some of the inverter replacements as well. And so your avoided utility cost is every year you're avoiding your utility cost, meaning you've got savings. So remember that electricity savings, the energy savings that we saw on your bill, which actually is going to go up every year. So your savings go up every year as well, because of the escalation too. And so that's what this blue curve is showing. It's a cumulative avoided utility cost. At some point, that's going to intercept the curve. The green curve and the blue curve are going to intercept. And that's a very, very important point. And that is what's called simple payback. At some point, you're going to make enough money to offset your original deployment, your original cost that you incurred at the very beginning. And that becomes your payback period. And you can see that's occurring around year 12 or so. So in general, we found some of the buildings were under 10 years payback, which is generally pretty good or is decent. And some were hovering around the 10 to 12 years. And I think the worst case was around 17 or 18 years. On the right side, and Natalie, if you zoom into that, you'll see on the right side that chart. These are the financial metrics we typically look at. Something called internal rate of return, net present value, levelized cost of electricity and payback period. Those are kind of your four important financial metrics. Ask any financial person and they'll tell you that's what they kind of look at. And so, of course, net present value is a really important one. You want that to be above zero. And internal rate of return is effectively the discount, is the rate, the interest rate or discount rate, in which the net present value is set to zero. So you want to make sure that IRR value there is above your hurdle rate or your discount rate. So sorry to geek out on all this financial stuff. But since your discount or hurdle rate is 5%, you want to make sure that that value is above 5%. If a project exceeds your hurdle rate, it is generally positive, net positive. It is something you might want to consider. The closer that value becomes to 10% and higher, the better it is. You know, anything above 5% is generally considered pretty good if that's your discount rate. And then the payback period, as you can see in this case, is 12 years. There were a few buildings that were below 10 years, and you'll see that in the summary later on, too. So in this case, the net payments, $583,000 or half a million dollars at $2 a watt for this particular system. We also consider, so we consider four scenarios to really be thorough. One is the $2 a watt with no financial incentives. $2 a watt with some financial incentives, something called the Direct Pay of the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA. And then $3.50 a watt, which is on the higher side, especially if you're doing, you know, I should say, you know, if you're doing penetrations and doing more metal in the racking, such as what's on the City Hall, that will drive up your cost. So racking, metal racking and so on, that is penetrating the roof, does drive up the cost. So we consider that, too. $3.50 per watt is somewhat on the higher side. But we really want to see what happens when you consider the higher price, too. And we also consider $3.50 with and without incentives. So really, to summarize, four scenarios. The lower cost, with and without incentives, and the higher cost, with and without incentives. And this is what's called a turnkey all-in cost. What that includes is all your hardware equipment, including the PV modules, the inverters, all that good stuff. Also the labor to integrate into the existing electrical system, the switchgear, as well as the engineering as well. So we're actually quite familiar with all of this. We've, you know, worked on many commercial systems. We've talked with, we don't do the actual installation ourselves. We're an engineering firm. But we work in conjunction with a lot of clients who want to do financial analysis. So in the report, it describes some of this breakdown of what does a solar system cost breakdown look like, typically. Again, keep in mind, this is commercial and industrial, not residential. That's a whole different market. And not utility scale, which is another different market as well. So system sizes that we're looking at, in your case, are anywhere from 20 kilowatts, which is generally quite small from commercial, to around 286 to 300 kilowatt DC, which is on the, you know, decent size for a commercial system. In the case of this library, I think we were looking at 200 and, what was it, 286 kilowatt thereabouts? Nope, 200, 290 kilowatt DC. So it's a pretty decent system size here. Okay. So this table summarizes what we just talked about. $2 a watt without incentives, $2 a watt with that federal incentives, the IRA. Keep that in mind. We're hoping it will continue to still be in play this year. There are cities that have an advantage of that, like Buncombe County, Asheville. We worked with them. And the $3.50 a watt without incentives and $3.50 with incentives. That's kind of on the higher side. And that was, I believe, the cost of the city hall PV array with a lot of its racking to be more hurricane resilient, what they call category three, category five, category three, four, and five hurricane resiliency, which is on wind speed and the like. You can see here a complete summary in yellow of the things that any financial person would really be interested in. What's my internal rate of return? First of all, it better clear 5%. If it doesn't, I'm not interested. And you can see here that at $2 a watt, 7.8% clears it comfortably. At $2 a watt with the 30% IRA, 11% is fantastic. It's decent, quite good. However, at $3.50 a watt, this project is not financially feasible. It is, you'd be underwater. Perhaps a bad term of phrase right there. But you'd be at 3.3% right there, which is not a project I would consider. But with the incentives of 30% IRA, you'd be at 5.9%, which is okay. I mean, yes, 14.5-year payback, not great, but not too bad either. So this is what we're kind of looking at. So do study this table a little bit more. Okay, and going on to the next one. Yeah, I think we kind of covered that well. You can see, by the way, one last thing is the electrical bill savings over a 20 over 30-year period is shown right there, too. And that does take into account your O&M costs. Every year you've got some amount of $5,000, $10,000, or whatever that you're putting on that to just kind of inspect and make sure the system is good, too. So we did consider several things here. There's a lot crammed into here. So forgive me if we're throwing a lot of numbers here, but there's a tremendous amount here. So obviously there's your initial cost up front. Any incentives may or may not be there. That's considered here, too. Your escalation, your energy escalation rate. Let's be realistic. Prices increase every year. There's an inflation as well, 2% in this particular case, which is reasonable. There's also energy degradation. Your PV system is not going to last forever. We have found systems are lasting, you know, 30 years plus and so on. They're warrantied typically for 20, 25 years as well. And you've got degradation of around 0.5% too. So that's realistic and that's what we're finding out there. And then the next one is a full cash flow analysis. A lot of gory details here, but if you want to go into to see what is your O&M cost every year, what's your upfront cost, what's your electricity bill savings, and what's your overall cash flow. And you, in this case, you can see 12 year plus payback. All right. Next one. So here's a summary. I threw a lot out there. It's going to take some time to digest. Hopefully I didn't give anybody indigestion so far. I've got some Tums on handy if anybody needs it. So the recommendation analysis is, you can see in green, is recommended. The lower cost on the left side is $2 a watt. And without incentives, pretty much because the cost of solar has really come down quite a bit over the last five. I've been doing this around 15 years. I've really seen the cost come down quite a bit. So on the left side, and Natalie, zoom in there a little bit. On the left side, the recommendations, you can see PV recommended without incentives and with incentives at $2 a watt. Now let's go to the higher cost of $3.50 a watt. At that point, without incentives, only two buildings really I would recommend. And that's the Gulf Club Pro Shop and the Fleet Meter A as well. If you are able to secure the incentives, which we think you will be able to do so, then pretty much all those buildings on the right, you can see it even at the higher cost, are now recommended. Okay. Except at the bottom, there are three that don't make sense. The solid waste, the fire station, and so on at the higher cost. We also looked at roof conditions, so those were the next table, the next fields over, scroll to the right. And then finally on the right side, you'll see a summary sorted by the best IRR to the worst IRR. So you're getting at 13.3% IRR, which in anybody's book is fantastic, even without, you know, the incentives, I should say. And so we kind of made a heat map here. So what's in green and yellow is pretty good when it's in orange and red. It's still clearing, as you can see, the discount rate of 5%, but then it becomes kind of like, okay, well, maybe, but if I only had to pick a few buildings, these are the ones I would want to pick from a financial perspective. And again, what's also summarized in the report is the structural analysis and the electrical analysis as well. Okay, let's take a breath. There's a lot of stuff right there. So to summarize all of that, we want to really make sure PV systems are right sized. Don't want to oversize them. You know, Goldilocks and the Three Bears just want to be right there in the middle, right sized. We also want to make sure we play well with Duke Energy Florida. Consider the change in tariff as well to the time of use that can occur when you go with solar. We looked at $2 a watt. All the systems are financially feasible with and without incentives at $2 a watt. As we consider the higher cost of $3.50 a watt, which can happen when you're using more penetrations, more metal on the roofing, a more robust racking system to ensure your category, not only just category three resistant, but potentially category four and even category five. Category five is quite extreme and so on. A lot of them are not financially feasible at the higher cost of $3.50 a watt DC without incentives. But once incentives of 30% direct pay are thrown in, many of them thus do become. So what is the reality? It's somewhere in between. You know, what's our favorite expression in engineering? It depends when you consider all the factors at play. So when you're at the boundary conditions, lower costs are $2 a watt. In fact, we're actually finding costs are even lower than $2 a watt quite often. But let's pick, you know, a round number. $2 a watt is quite decent. To the higher cost of $3.50 a watt is really quite a bit higher. So you kind of have now a summary of all of that. What you're seeing here is a PV cost breakdown is the PV modules and are actually, you know, 25%. They used to be quite a bit more, but cost of PV modules have come down, including American-made. In Georgia, we have Hanwha Q cells. We have factories here that have American-made PV modules, too. And more are being constructed throughout the U.S. And then the installation of labor does account for a fair amount, which is understandable. So you can see everything is kind of broken down here, typical what it would look like. All right, moving on to the next one. Summarizing here is what each of these 16 buildings would look like. And again, we're not trying to pepper the entire roof. We're trying to right size. So you see the community center. Oh, yeah, the second sheet right here. You see the solid waste, the fleet services, fire station, fleet, fire station number 61, and fire station number 60 as well. So, yes, we did account for the slopes of the roof. We did account for shading of the roofs. In some cases, there are tall trees nearby. We really want to avoid cutting down trees or anything like that. So the software does account for actual shading. It does account for the slope of the roof, whether it's north-facing, south-facing. All of those things are going to affect production. It does account for weather patterns, temperature variations throughout the day. So, again, these are pretty sophisticated software to do all of this stuff. Next one. Okay. So the next steps. Go on to the next one, Natalie. Okay. Is you really want to review, spend some quality time with this report. You know, review what you feel comfortable with. Look at where the roof replacements are going on. Look at the category three, four, five of the various buildings. Then isolate or determine which are your top three or four or five candidates. Then you do want to develop the RFPs for actual, you know, installation, integration firms that will do all of this. And we've described that process. I kind of threw in that as well in the report, what you should look for. You want to be a discerning client. You want to make sure you ask the right questions for these firms as you are developing your RFPs as well. And then look at the energy production and see how that it's in the line where you are net zero, getting close to net zero. How are you in alignment with your goals as well? Okay. Next one. Yeah, I'll take it. I appreciate that, Saul, for all of the information and explaining really the whole process of the analysis and the technical aspect, everything that went into it. It's a very complex study that thoroughly reviews all of these facilities. And so in partnering with that, we have to look at our roof replacement plan. And having just completed the library and working through the community center in Hale, those are our next best steps for installing solar as they have just received new roofs that we can work on installing solar. So the next steps will be developing those RFPs for those projects. And then as we align the roof replacement plan, we can go back to this study and see, you know, what is the recommended size, the design, what are the financial metrics that go behind this. So we have an understanding before we even get to that point. So we're really prepared as we move forward. And I do want to mention as well, similar to our roof replacement plan, solar is very similar. It's not just a one time put it on the building. It's similar that, you know, it's 25, 30 years and it has to be replaced. So part of this is also creating a financial plan that allows us to really fund and put money towards a future project where once we have solar, we need to think about the next time it needs to be replaced, similar to how we view our roofs. And those compare together. So the three that we'll be focusing on developing RFPs, again, are the library, the community center and hail as those roofs have been either completed or going to be completed soon. And then also utilizing the energy audits that were mentioned earlier from Duke Energy, where we can take the technical recommendations, the equipment replacements and look at different Duke incentive programs to increase our energy efficiency at buildings, maybe while we're waiting on a roof replacement or a solar project on the others. And then finally, the communication aspect. So we've been communicating our energy production in the city manager's monthly update. But we really want to take a much broader view and bring it to the public where we are working through implementing the strategic planning dashboard with that public facing view where we can showcase, you know, this is how much solar we have. This is our annual generation. And then we can speak to the progress that we're making and then also have very clear status of where we are in alignment with our clean energy goals. I know this is a lot of information. And we weren't sure of what level, the 30,000 view or closer, but we really wanted to go through all of the technical aspects of the study, explain the amount of time and effort and complexity of it to understand that this is a very solid document that we didn't have before we installed solar on our previous buildings. We have a very thorough process now that we can use going forward. And so really just receiving comments and consensus direction from commission in order to utilize these studies and audits as we move forward on continued projects. Okay. We're going to go to questions for staff. And I think it's my turn to start over here. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Natalie, you just mentioned that we have a lot more information now than we did with what we have done in the past. And so by looking at that, is there anything that we would have changed on what we did, how we did it, the number of panels, et cetera? Or were we pleasantly surprised and said, hey, it was a shot in the dark, but look what we did. So the buildings that have solar on them, the emergency operations center, water treatment plant, and city hall were not included in this study because we were looking at future projects and having a plan forward. So I don't have a specific of this is where we hit the mark. I'm sure we would have, you know, looked at things differently knowing all that is in this study and understanding what are the requirements and understanding also our hurricane rating if we're trying to meet something that can increase the costs as well on certain projects. Okay. So if our overall goal is 100% and the buildings that we have on solar weren't part of the study, at the end of all this, will we have reached 100%? After completing solar on all of the buildings? Right. No. So the city won't be able to reach its 2035 municipal clean energy goal by simply installing solar on our own buildings, to be very clear. We, that's why we're working with Duke Energy on the Clean Energy Connection Program. We are subscribing to solar to receive credits for what we cannot produce on site. It's really a combination of energy efficiency work to reduce our consumption, installing right-sized solar on our facilities, and then also working with off-site options or credits to achieve our goal. And I noticed that parking lots were not part of your conversation. So is there a reason why we didn't consider parking structures? In the study, which Saul can speak to, is, you know, there are options for, and it's even, you know, cited in the study of, you know, this could be a good location where we could install a system over the parking structure. But again, if we're looking at our meters and right-sizing solar to meet that 90 to 95% load consumption instead of oversizing, we have to think about our total consumption as a city. And then when you compare that to an actual on-site project for each building and the energy that it produces. So where we can install solar on the majority of our facilities, although that can't cover our total energy use as a city, we can explore options in the future for, you know, solar through a parking area. But I think the first step is looking at our facilities while we have a subscription to Duke Energy for the off-site solar. Okay. You did lose me on all that. Oh. Sorry. No, no. It's not your fault. It's a really complicated issue. Yeah. But it seems to me if our goal is 100%, then the goal should be 100%. And while we're striving for anything less than that, that's where you're losing me. I don't think, if I may, Mayor, I don't think we're striving for anything less. I think we're saying that there are a number of different methods that we have to apply in order to get there. And we're not sure if those methods are going to get us there, but there are many different ways that we can achieve. And if you think about projects going forward, we want to have financially stable projects. And have, you know, as we move forward, we need to, and this whole process of doing this study is making sure that we are financially making good decisions on the projects that we have, which will allow us to then explore more options in the future. We can't really look at 100%. We need to build upon what we have. And then with financially sound decisions, because if we're spending, if we're overspending on all of our solar projects, it won't work that we keep adding solar. I mean, we have to do this kind of step by step over time as we reach our goal. Even though the cost of power through Duke goes up every year. Right. Okay. I don't know. I just look at what we're doing at our church, for example, which is just wonderful, but I'll save that for comments. The Duke Energy connection, they're in agreement we have with them. How is that working? Are we... That's a good question. Are they holding up their end of the bargain? So we will have a complete year. So they... When we subscribed, they were still building out all of these solar fields throughout the state of Florida. Those projects have since been completed, and we will have a full year of energy data from that. I tried very hard to get it before this meeting, but Duke sends all of that information and their reports in April. So I am happy to report back on the status of that program and how it fits into our overall clean energy goals. But I just don't have the metrics at this time. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And our rebate out to our members. I know this isn't on... This is on us by 2035, 2050 for residents. Well, as a community. As a community. How is our rebate? Are we hopefully running out of money every year that we have budgeted? We run out of money every year. Do we? Okay. So that demand... So the community is doing well, right? They are progressing. Okay. Good. So that hasn't plateaued. Oh, it's not kind of part of this, but where are we with the price of batteries? I mean, he had mentioned batteries, but from... And I haven't really studied it up to date. And I know at one point, batteries were still just too expensive for us to even consider. Is that... They're still expensive. There's scenarios where it can make sense. But I don't have specific pricing on batteries. I can do more research and come back and report on batteries. But really, it was looking about offsetting solar on our facilities without batteries at this time, just due to costs. But I don't have exact costs. That makes sense. And I would ask you to, yeah, go ahead and do the research. I don't know that you need to come back to us. Okay. Yeah. We don't need a presentation on it. But we should always be kind of aware and where it fits in. So all of a sudden, without us asking, you can say, hey, I think now's the time for batteries. Right. All of a sudden, it's part of a budget conversation. Where it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's all that I have right now. Thank you. Commissioner Sandbergen. Is there a lifespan or a life expectancy on a solar panel? For the whole system? Let's break it down. Just one panel. One panel. Just so I can understand. Sol, do you have an answer for panel by panel? Sure. Certainly. 30 years is what we're seeing right now. So the production guarantee is to around 80% between 25 to 30 years. Okay. And I know it's come up a couple times about Duke. Have we obtained every incentive and everything available from Duke as of today? Is there anything more we can get from them? There's more rebates that we can go after as we switch out equipment and make upgrades. They have ongoing programs. Okay. Yeah. And it came up about the incentive for our residents. How much money does that start out each year? And you just said it was used up. It generally ranges from $50,000 to $75,000 depending on what's budgeted each year. But since 2019 when it was initiated, it has run out every single year. So we are rebating sometimes between $50,000 and $75,000 a year? Mm-hmm. And did you say there's 154 participants right now? So over since it started in 2019 to this day, and I didn't check today. We may have had more. Yeah. That's why I put 154 plus as when I pulled the data. That's how many awards have been completed. And those people have received rebates or incentives. Okay. Can we go to screen number 34 or 39? 34 and… Right there. 34. Okay. Wait. One more to the right. I think it was… Yeah, that one. PV system cost breakdown. Is that the library or is that just an example? This is an example. This is a generic example of a 100 kilowatt system at the rate of $2 per watt. Okay. They're currently… There's solar at the library, at the Hale Center, and at the community center. No. Not currently. Those would be next steps for doing those projects next. Okay. As the roofs have just been replaced. Okay. I'm good, Mayor. That's for right now. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Walker. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, great presentation. And there is a lot to digest here. So if I could go back to the yearly bill slide. Do you want this one? Like the estimated bills going forward or the actual bills? Actually, this is good. Just one question I had was, I was having a hard time getting to how the calculation for dollar per watt direct current. Because I know it's a factor of power output and the cost of the system. You're just trying to get an understanding of where that comes from. Yeah. I mean, how do you kind of judge that by these charts that have been provided? Sol, if you want to speak to that item of where that dollar per watt comes from. Okay. So just to clarify, there are a few things going on here. One is the, on the top, those are prices, the costing of the system. So in the solar industry, it's very conventional typical to give prices in terms of the dollar per watt DC of the actual solar array. So for example, if you have a hundred kilowatt array DC at $2 a watt, that would cost you $200,000. And that $2 a watt is your upfront cost. It's not your cost of energy. It's your capex or your capital expenditure of what it would cost you to install that all in. And the price breakdown of that is shown, was shown in one of the previous charts that Natalie had showing where that $2 a watt comes from. It comes from the pricing of the PV module, the inverter, the installation of the engineering, the permitting, all of that good stuff. Right. I'm going to try to find it. Hold on. No problem. 30. Was it somewhere near the end or whatever installation cost or? Right. So that is a capex cost. The initial pricing. I think, I think I've got the presentation here too. I think that was, you had that on slide number. I think the title had yearly bill in it. So yeah, the installation cost breakdown. It's slide number 34. I believe it is. Slide number 34. Okay. Okay. Go to the next one. And that's, that's the cost. That's the $2 a watt on the, you know, slightly optimistic side. And the $3.50 would just bump up the prices of all of that, particularly the racking and balance the system. So that's the capex cost. And then there's an operational cost, which is typically relatively small. And that's the cost per year of cleaning the modules if required, just inspecting them, all that good stuff. Okay. And then finally, there's the actual cost of electricity and what you're offsetting. And so that's what the cash flow shows is actually, if you look at the, I think it's slide number, the bills in fact, and we can look at, I think it's slide number 24. Yeah. Or yeah, I think that one, that's the cash flow. So look at 24. Yeah. So to 24. Yeah. There, that one. So that's the cost of, on the left is business as usual. If you don't do anything on one year, your total cost of electricity, which is cost per kilowatt hour is what you're paying kilowatt hour will be in this case in the library $63,000, which consists of energy costs, demand costs. And where that comes from is the tariff. It is basically the utility will publish a breakdown of how they bill you, how they charge you. They will charge you things like your energy usage, your demand costs, your incidental fees, recovery costs, all of those sorts of stuff. And then we feed that tariff that they give us that is available to everyone. It's published on their website into the actual consumption that we got from your bills and then project that out. And then that value of $63,000 in the bottom there is going to go up every year. So there's an escalation cost as well. So to kind of summarize all the dollar values here, there are a lot of different dollar values everywhere here. One is your capex cost. That's your cost to install the system, which we took on one, on the lower side, at $2 a watt DC. The DC just refers to the solar PV array. And then up to $3.50 a watt DC. And that's derived from actually looking at costing in the industry right now. So we've done like an inventory of how much the systems that we've seen being installed out there can vary anywhere from actually $1.75 even for commercial systems. But in Florida, it tends to be a little bit more expensive because you want a little bit more robustness against hurricanes and so on, of course. So it can vary anywhere from $2 a watt to $3.50 a watt for a commercial system of that size. So that's your capex cost. Then there's your bill cost, which is in kilowatt hours. And that's what this is showing right here. A lot of this is described in a lot of painstaking detail in the report. So it's the marriage of all of these values together, which gives you your cash flow diagram. And if you go to the cash flow diagram, and I think that is one you've had. Where was the cash flow? Yeah, I have to go back. Yeah, there it is. Estimated cash flow library. So project costs on the left side, that's the $2 a watt for DC. So if it's a 240 kilowatt system DC, that works out to be, in this case, $2 a watt, $580,000. So that's the cost you incur from day one. Then you have your O&M costs, which is pretty nominal. It's just paying somebody to go off the spec. There are no loose wires. Everything's okay. Look at the electrical room. So that's a few hours of work, typically, per year, let's say. Typically, we find you don't even have to wash them, because there's a certain angle for the PV module. So they are typically self-cleaning. Then you have your electrical bill savings, and there you go, your $43,000. And Sol? Yeah, I'm tracking. I think you answered my question, so I just want to move on here. So the other thing, with regard to site, it looks to me as if the payback, the sweet spot for the payback period is 10 to 12 years. Or less. Or less. Yeah. Now, if it's less, I mean, it appeared to me from one of those graphs that the system kind of degrades after that payback period. Is that interpreted incorrectly? So the system will, it degrades every year, but a small percentage, until you get closer usually to year 25. And then you pass. Yeah. Okay. I got it. Okay. Thanks. Back to the construction of this. And I know that the materials have gotten much better. In terms of just the disposal of some of the exotic metals or any other hazardous materials that are in it, what's the industry trend been on that? Are we using less exotic metals and hazardous materials in the construction of those panels? I see Sol nodding his head. Yeah, I don't know if you want to make a quick comment in regards to that. Yeah. The good news is modern day modules are actually quite straightforward. The three main materials are silicon, glass, and aluminum. So they no longer really have any exotic materials. There are some thin film materials that are used on certain PV modules, but we are recommending the standard silicon modules. Right. And the recycling, there is recycling being set up here in the United States for recycling of PV modules. Okay. So, and just batteries are getting that way too. Lead acid batteries, as you know, which have been around for a hundred years, are 97% recycled within the US. And we're finding lithium is getting that way too, especially because a lot of EVs, a lot of electric vehicles. So you're going to have 10 years from now, a lot of EV batteries. And the costing of the batteries, by the way, just to throw that in, we found last year was a turning point. We found costing, just like solar hit that turning point, I would say around five years ago or so, even before COVID. Batteries are now hitting that turning point of last year, and this year we're going to see a lot of movement. So last year was a really good year for batteries, but we found prices have come down quite a bit. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Those are all the questions I have. Okay. Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. This is going to be one of those where I'll have difficulty between questions and comments. You'll have to excuse me on that. I'm with interest noting that there is a wholesale and a tariff rate for electricity. Do we know what that differential is? The rate at which we're paying Duke for purchasing electricity is around 12. It ranges from like 11 cents a kilowatt hour to 13 cents, depending on. That's what we're paying. That's what we're paying them. I don't have the exact number for how much we would receive back in terms of like net metering any excess. And by the way, I'm opening up the door into a whole different set of calculations. I do realize that. But if we're going to make an intelligent decision about solar, you've got to also ask the question about batteries and how that's working. And with a drop in the cost of batteries, sometimes the cheaper system is one with batteries as opposed to one without. And so I don't see any calculations here that shows us that option. But batteries allow a system, a building if you will, to not have to have electrical generation backup. And that in and of itself is a huge savings and allows the system to be freestanding without using carbon. All right. All right. Like I said, I'm going to have difficulty with this on a number of fronts. Have we done an inflation calculator to see what the additional cost of electricity will be in the future? So if you're looking at this slide here, there is an assumption of a five percent rate increase for a three percent. This is each year a five five percent. And that breakdown is a three percent electricity rate increase with a two percent inflation rate increase. And so I'll took that from kind of how things have been leaning over time and apply those assumptions to that 30 year look at this cash flow. Okay. There's been a recent increase with our rates because of storm damage. What is that? What was the percentage of that increase? I can look into it. Okay. I think that's important because if we continue to experience storms, five percent is woefully low. Sorry about the comment. It's okay. No, I mean, I think it's helpful. What has been our experience with City Hall relative to these kind of charts that we could show what our savings would be or has been relative to being without solar voltaic? So this, for the 2024 calendar year, we're looking at about $17,200 in electricity savings Okay. for the system. But I don't have a full analysis calculation outside of that. Yeah. I understand why. You're future oriented and we want you to be future oriented, but one of the best ways to do it. Yes. We know we have to look back and see how did these projects that we currently have, how did they shake out? What was, what went well? What didn't? What can we improve for future? So we're doing that analysis really internally. It was not part of this overall study. Okay. Do we know what the percentage of generation of solar, coal, nuclear, and natural gas is for Duke Energy at this time? It's low. It's low. I mean, the clean energy is low. It's very low. I don't have a percentage, but it is low currently. Okay. All right. Those are all I have at this time. Okay. Great. I have a couple. So just to clarify for me. So the roof replacements being kind of a key. So it's better to do it right after a roof replacement versus with a roof replacement? It's, it can, it depends. So you can install solar after or with, it can depend on timeline. With this time around, you're probably thinking library, community center, hail, why weren't those coupled? It was based on what was budgeted and kind of the severity of those roofs needing to get replaced where they couldn't wait for us to go out to bid and do an RFP for solar. So those will come after. But the goal is that going forward, those are married together and they're happening at the same time. Because overall, you'd actually get a cost saving to do it together. Yeah. And it usually, it's just a lot more efficient because you have the roofer working with the solar installer and making sure everything aligns. The timing of it just didn't align exactly this time around. But going forward, we have all this information. So, so Mayor, just to add on to that. And it's not really a matter of just the bid process. It's the fact that, that that's not budgeted in this fiscal year. So it's a whole nother budget year. So that was another question I had is when we do this, where were those, where were those dollars come from? Where were the capital dollars come from? It really depends on what, it depends on what structure we're addressing. If it's a general fund item, like the library's general fund, community center's general fund, it would be, have to be general fund money. So the plan is... It looks like all three that you're suggesting to start with are general fund buildings. Yeah. So the plan is get your consensus direction today, whatever that may be. And then we would look at that as part of the fiscal year 2026 budget. And look at all the projects together. Which is pretty strapped capital wise. It is. It is. Yes. I just want to understand that. But on the other hand, I get it. This is an investment in future savings. So if we... So I think fleet was up there as one, fleet building. And there's been discussion about replacing fleet building. So I assume part of the process that you guys are looking at is what buildings would actually be up for replacement, because obviously we wouldn't want to do it. And I mean, I guess this is... So let's just say we did it on a building that we later decided, hey, we're going to demolish this building. Can you replace the... Can you reuse the panels in any way? Or is that... You can work... If you kind of know that's going to... That will be happening, you can work that into the contract with the solar installer, where they can come in and remove them from the roof. As you do the work to either fix the roof, replace the building, whatever that may be. And then they come back and reinstall them. I don't know how that would... I mean, there would be a financial impact because you're not producing energy at that time. Yeah, you don't have downtime. Right. So there would be an impact. It's better if you can line it up with just after replacing a roof or right alongside. I don't think that would be the preferred option to put it on, take it off, put it back on with construction timelines. Okay. When the solar system would hit its useful life, is it then cheaper to replace them versus install a whole new system? Or would you be installing a whole new system again? So when you install the system, you would be installing the entire size of the system at that time. So they would all be degrading at the same time. As mentioned, you know, you may need to replace something here and there if it's broken. But generally, it should all be moving in the same direction, which would then lead you to needing to replace the entire system at one time, instead of kind of picking panel by panel. The other key piece is also budgeting for inverter replacements about halfway through that 30-year span. I guess my question is, would some, you know, do you have some benefit when you're replacing it that you've already got the structural pieces within the roof, or is that all that has to be changed out? That's a good question. I don't see that, because you've already laid that groundwork. I would assume that it would maybe be less of that cost, but it may be an increase in cost depending on, you know, how things increase over time. Okay. So that's kind of an unknown. It's kind of an unknown. And our rebate program is $2,500 per... Up to $2,500. Up to $2,500 per resident. And how far into the year are we running out of that money? It's usually a few months. I will say there was a delay. So every October 1st, as our fiscal year renews, we open that program again for applications. There was... Usually it's run out by now, but with the hurricanes, there's been more of a focus to... So early. We run out way early. Yeah, it's a few months. I mean... Okay. So I'm going to ask a question to Commissioner Gao. What is your church doing that is driving some of your thought process? Well, we went with a kind of a carport concept, only it doesn't... The PV panels themselves are the roof of the carport. So we don't have a roof and then the solar panels. And so what that does is that allows us to generate energy directly from the top, but also, and I'm going to use the wrong term on this, but they're bi-directional, for lack of a better term. So it also draws energy off the reflection of the asphalt. And so you're generating energy from two directions instead of just one down. And so it creates shade for parking. But if it rains, you've got slots between the panels, so it's not going to keep you completely dry. But that's the benefit that I see is that bi-directional. So it can reduce the number... Does that also give you guys excess over and above what the building needs? Like, would that be kind of what you guys are calling oversized or...? Well, I think we are oversized as a church, right? The system is going to generate 130% of our current... But that oversize plays into the number of panels that you then have. If you know that going in, then it's just a matter of how many panels. So it could be that you reduce the number of panels because of the bi-directional. And to my understanding, you can have bi-directional panels on a roof, depending on the reflectivity of the roof material. That makes sense. Okay, good. Thank you. I don't have any more... I don't think I do. So... And I'm not sure I fully understand it yet, because obviously what you seem to be, we want to right size versus oversize with the potential of hitting our 100% goal. So that's a good question. And I know we've kind of gone back and forth. And really to clarify, our Ready for 100 clean energy goals is this large goal that is going to be met through a means of various ways of getting there. This solar feasibility study was solely looking at our own individual future projects for our own municipal buildings. This is not a complete Ready for 100 plan of getting us to 100% of our goal. It's a large chunk of that plan. But this doesn't touch on all of those key components of off-site solar, energy credits, energy efficiency. It doesn't go all into that as the... This isn't the Ready for 100 plan. This is a component of it. So let me just make sure I understand, too. So basically, in your head, staff's head, we're going to have a hard enough job getting to make sure we're providing electric to our own facilities without trying to worry about the bigger number right now. Just getting the capital money to get our buildings taken care of is the priority. And we can already see if we've got three general fund capital buildings that we need capital for versus trying to go too far right now. Would that be a fair... Yeah, and it doesn't make sense to have a complete plan for 2024, 2025 when the steps to get there are going to change over. I mean, we have to take step after step to get to that goal. And the financials change over that time period. The technology changes. So I think it would be short-sighted to say, we have everything we need. We've got everything, the 100% plan. This is a portion of the plan, but it still allows flexibility as we move over time towards those goals and can incorporate different means of getting there. Maybe that means we are going to explore looking at those panels over parking areas. But our first step really needs to be looking at our buildings. And that's what this study does. Great. And I did want to start with great presentation. I agree. And I think Commissioner Walker said it as well. So, okay, I think we're going to go to, unless anybody has a quick follow-up, I'll go to the public. Just a... Sure. One of the questions that I did not ask, I know that in terms of the feasibility of the system, for lack of a better concept, you do want to look at your alternating current to direct current ratios, too. What's a typical industry standard for that? Natalie, I can answer that. So, typically, the DC to AC ratio, the DC is what's on the PV modules, to the AC, which is the inverter output, is anywhere from 110% to 150%. So, typically, we aim for around 125%. Okay. And really, I wouldn't be too worried about that, because it's really the inverter output that really matters, and we're making sure that you get the proper amount of power and energy that's coming out of the inverters. Yeah. No, I get that. No, thanks. That answers the question. Anyone else have a quick follow-up? Okay. So, we will go to the public. Is anyone from the public want to speak to this issue? You can come forward. Name and address for the record. And three minutes. Hi, Alan. Am I on now? Yes, you are. Better? Okay. Great. Great. All right. He just comes straight out of the air. You never know he's going to be there. He just pushes the button. Okay. So, I've got two and a half minutes. Yes, sir. This is a problem, having two and a half minutes to address this issue. If I've got two and a half minutes, I'd better have two and a half hours. And this is a frustration. The Sierra Club has three, Suncoast Chapter Sierra Club has three members with professional solar experience to draw upon as a resource. Natalie mentioned earlier that for these first three projects that the city did, we didn't have any guidance. The city had a resource on the Committee for Inventable Quality that was largely ignored, which had, and that resource had a lot of this knowledge. I would ask Mr. Haroon what he thinks about the financial feasibility of $5 a watt solar or $7 a watt solar, financially feasible at $5 or $7 a watt? Yeah. We don't ask questions back and forth now, but you can answer it afterwards. I think we probably all know the answer, though. Okay. I just want to, I just don't have enough time to go into a lot of things that I think could be addressed. But we would like, the Sierra Club would like to follow up this meeting, for instance, on this right-sizing issue. When I started doing what I do with solar power about 10 years ago, I also believed about that right-sizing issue. But about six years ago or so, when the cost of solar started to come down and the cost of energy started going up, it occurred to me that we need to look at that again, and I would like, I think we can show that by analysis that having a system size for 100 percent and potentially having to get reimbursed at the wholesale rate is not the heartburn that it was 10 years ago. So that's because, and this is just rhetoric, but we made a, the city made a ready-for-100 percent commitment, not a ready-for-90 to 95 percent commitment. And I think this is one issue that we could hit pretty hard, and one-hour meetings is not sufficient to do these, to hit these issues either with the city. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. Name and address for the record, three minutes. Hi. Yes, hi. Mary Schoonover, 35 Edgewater Drive, Dunedin, Florida. I would like to cede my time to Mr. Brand. Well, actually, that's not how we're going to do it, because that isn't kind of the rule and procedure. So, yeah, sorry. Like, if you have five people here, someone can get 10 minutes. But I understand why you thought you could, but yeah, that's the way I understood it. But that's all right. So I'm a former member of the Committee for Environmental Quality and Sustainability, and I definitely would like to hear what Mr. Brand has to say. And I believe you would as well, because it doesn't just speak to looking into the past. It speaks into looking at the present and into the future. There's a lot of value added in our community. We know that we have 37 boards and committees, and that is the opportunity for, you know, one person to be on 37, or each person to be on a lot of boards and committees. We need the input of the talent that we have here in this city. It is done for free as volunteers, and we're very willing to do it. However, we need to be allowed at the table. And I think that we're on the right path, having our own sustainability manager in the city manager's office, I think, is exactly what the Committee for Environmental Quality and Sustainability always has wanted. We feel that it's very necessary to be looking at these things proactively rather than going back and repeating history, because you know where that leads the people to. So I just want to encourage more of this maybe in another workshop setting, which would be fine. I think that the public deserves to know, and anyone that can tune in to the website will be able to see exactly how the sausage is made. So thank you for allowing us to participate, and I think this study has gone a long way to show that alternative power is something that is considered valuable and forward-thinking, and it does make good financial feasibility. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. I appreciate it. Anyone else in the audience wish to come forward to speak to this issue? Okay. Seeing or hearing none, I am understanding. I'm just going to ask you, Alan, your main issue is the right sizing versus expanding. Okay. I just want to make sure the Commission understands your biggest issue with the study overall. So, okay, good. Okay. So I'm going to bring it back to Commission comments. We're basically just giving you kind of consensus direction, right, Jennifer? So I guess within that, we'll start on Commissioner Walker's side to just give your thoughts on this. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, like I said, this excellent study. I mean, this really gave us a lot to think about. I also want to thank the Sierra Club and the Committee for Environmental Quality for weighing in on this very important topic. I personally have learned a tremendous amount about solar power through this process, and I think we are better for it. And so I greatly appreciate that, and thank you. So are you in favor of kind of moving forward with this as we approach the budget? Yes. Okay, great. Okay, Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, Natalie, great job. Great direction. This is where we need to go. What worries me about what I've just been listening to is that every other city commission and municipality is going to do it the same way we are. I did not see anything about tons of carbon being thrown in the air by what we're doing right now. Didn't see that negative externality measured anywhere. That's a cost, and we're not calculating it. You throw that into the picture, if there had been a carbon tax in this country 20 years ago, we would have solar everywhere. But nobody wants to charge that. What we're doing is just plain blind eye moving forward because we are afraid that what we've done has been wrong. And we're right. What we've done has been wrong. And we're going to experience larger storms. And with the majority of households in this community being lower than 30 feet of elevation, we should be totally solar. And we should really be asking our residents to do it. We should be asking the whole country to do it. Now, I'm not unbiased about this. I'm very biased about this. I have solar on my roof. I drive an electric car just so I feel personally like I'm doing something. I congratulate the city for moving. Let's move faster. Thank you, Commissioner. Vice Mayor. Almost need a hanky for that last one. That's wonderful. Thank you, Commissioner. We need that advocacy. Certainly, why wouldn't I want this to move forward? But I do want to echo Commissioner Degard's comments. You know, I'm very excited. If you notice that when we voted on this was December of 2018. And I was elected in November. And so this was actually my very first meeting. I was able to vote for the Ready for 100. And so I felt at that point I could kind of, that was my campaign. So it's like, hey, I'm all done with my campaign. But I'm happy with what the city has done so far. Maybe it speaks to Alan's comments. But, yeah, I understand that we have to take things in increments and bytes to reach that level of where we want to be. But if we don't know where that level we want to be is, then how do we know how close or how far we are from that? So it would have been nicer to see some other ways that we possibly can get there. I can certainly see why we might want to go roofs first. But I always feel like that's kind of our limitation as opposed to, no, we want to get to 100%. How are we going to get there? And then there's incremental stages on how we're going to get there. And so I wish I would have seen that. And I'm not saying that our church is the way to go. There's a billion different ways to do this. But the fact that we're moving it all is fabulous. Again, back to Commissioner DeGarde, I share the same feeling and concern about carbon emissions and sea level rise and climate change and storms. And we all seem to at least be on board generically with or generally on the tie between climate change and our storms, but we're still very hesitant to understand why we're having this sea level rise and the climate change to begin with and to make. So we're willing to throw a whole bunch of money at rebuilding, but not on what's creating it in the first place. And so I wish we would have more focus on that. But in general, yes, and Natalie, you're amazing. So thank you for what you do to the city, for the city, and thank you for this presentation. It was great. So thank you very much. Mr. Sandberg. We're going to wear this out. Thank you. I congratulated you. That was very well presented. I mean, I realize it's important. It's the direction we're going. I just ask that you make this very clear so I can't speak for anybody else, but that I understand we have the correct sizing. You know, when someone comes up to me on the street and says, we spent a lot of money, when is it going to break even? When is it going to start to pay off? And those are the things only you can answer and bring to us. And I would be, you know, obviously then I would support it as long as I felt comfortable with it and to be able to talk to the public. And, you know, because there are people that will be skeptical putting that much money up front when it would be recovered. And that's all I ask from you is to make sure that myself, and I'm sure I can speak for everybody, fully understand what we would be doing, what it would cost, and how it would pay off for us. So thank you, Natalie. So I'm going to start with my competitive comment, which is, I have the most tree cover on my street. I have yet to hear anybody say you should chop down some of that stuff to get solar. And I did not say that I had solar. You did not. And I'll let you all know. No, there's a funny part about what Jeff and I. But, yeah, and actually sometimes it's aggravating because paver work. But that being said, I'm a big fan with this. I, great presentation, Natalie, soul. I mean, it was, you know, sometimes I thought I might doze off, but it was so good. I mean, it was just the best I've seen where you kind of drilled in and made sure we understood each piece of the presentation. So very appreciated on that. I thank you to Committee on Environmental Quality, Sierra Club, for your investment over time on all of this, your passion. I am in favor of the plan. I think that I understand the right sizing versus, you know, getting more towards the 100% goal. But, you know, as we just said, we're going to have some tough calls just getting these buildings in check. And I do believe we should try to do that. It's a good investment. We're seeing that. It can be a great investment in our future. I also think to the extent we might be able to increase our rebate, not the amount, but, you know, just so we're not running out of it so early in the year, that would be awesome. I think we should at least look at that. I mean, I know it's got a lot of competing interests, but, you know, if we really believe in it, that's another piece of it. So, and again, I think if we're going to be committed in the long term with this, you know, we may need to think about this when we try to set the path for the next level of Penny for Pinellas money and how that might help some of the capital making this really seemingly very good investment in our future actually happen. So I'm in favor of moving this forward, though, at this time, though. So I think you probably have what you need, right? We do. Okay, great. Thank you. And Mayor, if I may? Sure. I just want to thank Alan and Mary for hanging out with you through that whole thing. Just because as long as that presentation was, they did not see it. So they got the pleasure of just staring at Saul and... Well, they saw it on that side, didn't they? Yes. Oh, was it over there? They did. It was over there, yeah. Oh, okay. I kept looking that way going, oh, those poor people in the gallery. It was just, no, he got to see both. Actually, we didn't even get to see both. We didn't get to see both. Right. Yeah. Then, never mind. Okay. Rosanna, Rosanna data. Okay. Anyway, thank you on that. Okay. We've got about six minutes to go. Informational items. And I know we're going to commission discussion. Commissioner Walker requested to discuss Calvary Sea Island State Park response. So I'm going to turn that over to you, Commissioner. All right. Thank you, Mayor. So I sent around a letter late last week, subsequently updated on Sunday. This is the draft letter as it currently exists. So just to paraphrase and summarize on this, essentially, Honeymoon is open in a limited capacity, I believe, 250 cars per day. Caldisi, they're thinking that probably it can be opened up limited capacity by probably the first early May. What that means is for Caldisi, basically, that means the restrooms and the facilities have been restored to allow visitors to visit. The thing that concerns me on this was is the initial timeline that was provided was Caldisi would not be open until the summer of 2026. And when you start looking at the ripple effect of the impact of visitors not being able to visit two of the most visited parks in the state of Florida, you know, you start seeing that ripple effect impact our businesses, impact our tourism. And so it's my feeling, and I've talked to a lot of people about this, it's my feeling that basically we can do better. And I believe that with the right prioritization of getting the parks fully reopened, you know, we will, you know, we can minimize the damage. Additionally, I have gotten the Chamber of Commerce on board with this, as well as visit St. Pete Clearwater. They have offered to sign the letter with the commission. I do want to be clear to my colleagues that this is a City of Dunedin commission letter. The intent would be that it goes out on the City of Dunedin letterhead and essentially be signed in whole by whatever the commission decides today on this letter by the mayor, president of the Chamber of Commerce, and the president of Visit St. Pete Clearwater. So that's the background. Okay. So thoughts on the letter? Anybody want to, I mean, could I just say something? I saw your first letter. I know you edited some because of some Chamber comments, which I thought were good. I loved the comment about the 1.5 million visitors per year. I actually preferred your letter over the other one. But, I mean, I'm not going to get in the way of it at this point. I just thought your letter kept it centrally focused on what the issue was, and that usually is better when you're talking to the legislative committee. So, I would, you know, I know exactly what you're referring to. My thought was since that topic, you know, adding the downtown and the marina, the waterfront, to the letter, all it does is solidify the message that's already been delivered. But, anyway, yeah, I'm going to obviously embrace whatever the commission decides here. Okay. Any other thoughts on the letter? Go ahead, Steve. Who specifically would this go to, Rob? So, my thought was is that we mail up the letter in advance for our visit to Tallahassee next week. We take copies with us. And I don't know. I've seen the FLC agenda. But do we have meetings set up with any of our elected officials, state? So, we're actually going to be joining with a delegation up there. Okay. So, I think that there are some meetings that are set up as a group. Nicole sent an email yesterday about that. So, I can forward to all of you what we have planned so far, but it was more in terms of joining the delegation from Pinellas. So, I think there would be benefit to maybe getting additional time with Senator Hooper, Rep. Bearfield, Rep. Adam Anderson, because they all have a paddle in this fight. And so, anyway, I would hope, I think the end goal would be is that we would be, we would press the state to accelerate the timeline through more expeditious funding and contracting. Okay. So, that's. And can this also go to the Department of Environmental Protection and Oprah Parks? And should this also go to the governor's office? It would be my thought. And, you know, when it comes to who signs the letters, I don't know that there's a correct method or not. I mean, one letter and everybody signs, or three letters go out. One from the city, one from St. Pete Clearwater, one from the Dunning Chamber. I don't know what volume matters. Ooh, we've got three letters. You know, I don't know how they view that. Yeah, so I failed to mention. And the reason that I did reach out to the chamber and I did reach out to visit St. Pete. And that does make sense. That you did. Clearwater. Was because I felt that, okay, the letters, letters powerful coming from the city and the commission, but it's even more powerful when you start, when it's signed off by the economically impacted organizations. So, yeah, no, great point, Vice Mayor. Okay, so you think the three signatures are better than three individually signed? Letters. I do. Okay. All right, okay. One letter. Okay. Commissioner Degard, did you have anything else? I do. I need to also make the commission aware that I am on Friends of the Island Parks Board, and I've been watching this particular issue with disappointment for a long time in as much as there it does not feel like a sense of urgency from the state on restoration of Honeymoon and Caledese, respectively. And I felt that this would be a good topic for our trip to Tallahassee. I compliment Commissioner Walker for putting this forward and moving on it. However, I wish to put a cautionary note in the air, if you will. Governments tend to react to things like this, and I will be honest, I've been confused about the best possible stimulus to get the best possible response. However, I will sign this document if the whole commission agrees to it, if my signature will bring any weight to it whatsoever. I would love to hear the reaction from our delegation and from our representatives in Tallahassee is what the best next step is for us to move the ball. Those are my thoughts. So, may I write what Nicole wrote regarding the meetings? Sure. Go ahead, and then I'll make my comments. And I just wrote an email back to her saying set up individual meetings, if that's still the question. It says, for next week's trip to Tallahassee, we will work through the Suncoast League of Cities for group legislator meetings and via our lobbyist for Dunedin legislative meetings. So, there may be a few instances where we interact with our delegation more than once. There is no need for you to set meetings. We will take care of scheduling. So, I'm going to send an email saying we'd like to meet Senator Hooper and Representatives Burfield and Anderson. Make sure we get those in. Okay. Sounds good. One thing. And in the interest of full disclosure, I am also on the board of Friends of the Island. Okay. I'm a lifetime member. Does that count? Yeah. Should we get them to sign the letter? Would that add weight? Or encourage Friends of the Island Parks to send their own letter? They would really need to have a meeting in order to do that. Yeah, you know what? I did think about that. And here's a thought. What I'm going to do, pending the outcome of this discussion, I'm going to send it out to the Friends of the Island board. We have our board meeting tonight. So, we can talk about how I, my original thought was is that we would, they, we could give them copies of the letter and they can use it where they think we would be able to influence. That was my thought. And that's not a bad thought, especially if from their perspective, they'd have their own perspective, which might be a little different than ours, which would be nice. So, they can see it through different lenses. So, I just want to add, first of all, great job bringing this forward. I mean, I, it's, it's a huge issue and we want them to have a sense of urgency about it. I'm just, for me, if you and Jennifer agree with whatever letter you send, I'm good with that. I just, and I didn't reread the other letter because I couldn't follow it. It wasn't a striking ad. I just know yours was friendly and strong and I just want to make sure this one matches that. So, other than that, whatever you guys decide, I'm good. I think it's a great idea. I think it's timely. I think we should, in a, in a, you know, I had, you know, again, friendly but strong. And I think it's, it's well time for us to go up there and have that letter in hand. So, any other, everybody good? So, go forward. Well done. Thank you, Rob. Thank you very much. Okay. I didn't get any other issues for commission discussion. I'll go to City Clerk's update. Mayor, thank you. I don't have anything today. City Manager update. So, the City Manager's update report for March of 2025 is attached on your agenda. Okay. I did notice we're almost back up to 45 vacancies, by the way. So, I don't know what that means. So, I'll let you interpret that at some point. City Attorney update. No update at this time. Okay. Did anybody have questions of either City Manager or City Attorney? So, no. Okay. And then, Commission comments. I will start with, I don't know which side, but Vice Mayor. No comments, Mayor. Commissioner Sandbergen. When I leave here today, I'm going to meet with the Jays about the 4th of July hometown. Good. I see my Jocelyn just left, and her and I are going, we'll have some answers later on today. Perfect. Great. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Walker. No, I don't have any additional comments. Okay. Thank you. And Commissioner Dugard. Thank you, Mayor. Mine will only take 45 minutes. I really appreciated the presentation on the solar feasibility study today. And I know we spent a lot of time on it. It's existential. I don't think many people see it that way. And as we continue to look at these issues from a cost-benefit ratio, we need to show the full cost of what we're doing. We're not doing that. That absence of the analysis of negative externalities, the tons of carbon going into the air every day, has to be a part of that discussion. To omit it is not a full cost analysis. Point made. But I wish to compliment the staff for the presentation today. I thought it was excellent. On the point of Cala, D.C. Island and honeymoon, I honestly feel as though we're walking on eggshells here. I know I am. Because the people making the decisions tend to be very sensitive to input. That's the only reason I haven't done exactly what my colleagues have done here. And I'm kind of ashamed of myself for outdoing it. That's an issue. And it's an intergovernmental issue. And I understand how we feel when we're being criticized. And we react defensively. And I suspect that this state will do the same. So we need to go forward with this communication in the best possible spirit we can. As a collaborator and supporter. That's all I have. Thank you. Yeah, and I will say, I think, Commissioner Walker, you've made calls to our representatives on this. I mean, this isn't like, there's not blindsiding here or whatever. No. Because I do understand what you mean, Commissioner Degard. But I know you've done some groundwork here. Yeah, I've called all the staffs. And the one thing, you know, I would hope, and I don't think this would be the case, but I would hope that this letter wouldn't be interpreted in the spirit in which it's intended. This is not intended to poke anybody in the eye. It's intended to bring visibility to the fact that those parks are huge economic drivers, not only for Dunedin, but Pinellas County and the state of Florida. So I just want to make sure that's front and foremost in terms of the talking point. Right, and, you know, I'd add to that. I mean, the city manager and I and Vince Gizzi had a meeting with, you know, the parks, the head of the, you know, our parks local leader. And we also had the regional, I think it was the regional guy, wasn't it, Jennifer? It was the regional director. And very good discussion. But, again, you know, they're kind of, you know, they're doing the best they can with what their communication is with their bosses. So, yeah, I think if we approach it from kind of an awareness and also how big this really is to our community in terms of economic impact, I think, you know, we can probably keep it on track. And I would hope that, I'm sorry for interrupting, that if we focus on the economic portion of it, that is speaking to their language. Yeah, right. And so I think they'll hear that. If we just save our trees, they might not hear that. But if it's like, listen, you know, anyway. Well, actually, I think that's a good first line. We here at U-State economic development and economic impact is everything. So here we go. So the only other things I had to add was congratulations to Jason and everybody involved in the St. Pat's celebration. It was fun. I spent most of the day down there. It was a good time. I slept in the next day. Anyway, it was good, and it was great to see really all ages out. Who else was there? Anybody else was there? I was there. Yeah. But it was, yeah. I mean, and really, you just saw a lot of all ages, which is great. Then, you know, I mean, the only other thing we've talked about it is I'm very, really excited about the majority of us being able to go up to Tallahassee. And, you know, I think we can have some impact by having so many of us up there. So it should be a good time up there. So anyway, go ahead. Do we have anything upcoming, updates on the marina or anything? I don't want to get into it now. I was getting late. But anything on the calendar? No. We have a marine advisory committee on Monday, this upcoming Monday, the 24th. And, you know, we're progressing through, according to the last meeting that we had, moving forward. I noticed you had June in your update. So that's good. Okay. Good. All right. Well, anything else for the good of the order? Okay. Meeting adjourned.