Finance Committee - Budget Hearing - Meeting #6 - Aug 27, 2026

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the sixth and final full-day budget hearing to discuss the fiscal year 26-27 budget proposal. We'll start off with introductions to my left. Angela Moyer, Budget Office. Mike Weinstein, Mayor's Office. Philip Peterson, Councilor's Office. Brian Parks, Councilor's Office. Mary Stefopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Matt Large, Visiting Council Member. Matt Carlucci, at large. Try that again. Group four. Thank you. Good morning, Chris Miller, at large. Group five. Will Lane in District three. Good morning, and thank you all for the kind words and the prayers for my baby girl. She is home in a lot of pain, but she's recovering. This is Terrence Freeman, at large. Group one. Mike Gay, District two. Randy White, District 12. Nick Holland, at large. Group three. Ron Salem, Group two, at large. Good morning, Raw Eris, District 11. All right. Good morning, everyone. I did want to know, Council Member Diamond does have an approved excusal for part of the day, and it looks like Council Member Johnson is running late, but we do have quorum. For now, and we will require five for quorum at this point in time. Today, excuse me, so today, J.A. is going to get the first 90 minutes. They're going to discuss both budget and Cecil Field, and then after that, we will, I imagine we'll have a number of council members outside of finance here, where we will, I'll start off by giving a summary as to where we were at through the end of yesterday, and then entertain and debate any additional requests that we will then put into the finance substitute to go to committee this coming Tuesday. J.A., the way we're going to do this, just like the other independent authorities, we're going to have Mr. Peterson walk us through their auditor notes, and then if we have any questions, we will let you know and ask you any specific questions about the budget based on the auditor notes. So, with that, Mr. Peterson, I'll hand it off to you. Okay. That takes us to our handout on page three of the handout, similar to the other independent agencies. You'll see J.A.'s 25-26 budget, eight months of actuals, where they project to finish the current year, and then their proposed budget for 26-27. I think it would be helpful to just have that in front of you while we go through this handout. J.A. uses aircraft landing fees, terminal rental charges, concession fees, and other rental charges, including those for parking and rental car companies to cover their operating costs. Capital costs are covered by grants, customer facility charges, passenger facility charges, excess revenues from operations, and then debt. And then, obviously, they have the four airports that they operate at. Should be noted that the new parking garage is expected to open October of this year, Concourse B to open either in December or January, and then the hourly garage is expected to be completed or fixed, rather, June-July of next year. Within their operating revenues, they have $161.2 million budgeted for the upcoming year. That's an $11.5 million increase year over year. Within that, concessions budget at $27.1 million, up nearly $1 million due to mostly expected increased activity with the opening of Concourse B. That's in their retail and food and beverage lines. And then also $227,000 in fuel flowage fees based on higher sales at CECL. Within their fees and charges revenue line item, budget at $29.2 million. That's an increase of $1.4 million year over year. A lot of that is almost $700,000 in landing fees for signatory airlines. $290,000 in aircraft parking fees, $180,000 in operating permits for their ground handling services, and then another $140,000 in their landing fees for fixed-based operators. Space and facility rentals is increasing $9.8 million year over year. $5.9 million is within space rental for their signatory airlines, and then a little over $2 million in joint use space for the signatory airlines. $1.5 million in the rent-a-car ready return spaces and facility rentals due to additional car rental spaces being available once the new garage opens. This increase is partly offset by a decrease in the joint use space charged to non-signatory airlines to better align with the actuals they are experiencing while accounting for the anticipated rate increase. This parking is budgeted at $31.3 million. That's a decrease of a little over $900,000. $865,000 of that's in economy lots one and two, based on what they're seeing in actuals. Another $700,000 in the hourly garage due to ongoing repairs, and the fact that some may choose the new daily garage when it opens instead of the hourly garage. The decrease is partially offset by an increase in daily surface parking of $300,000 and $282,000 in the daily garage due to the new anticipated usage. Sale of utilities is increasing based on fuel sales at Herlong Recreational. Within the operating expenditures, a total budget of $104.1 million, an increase of $10 million year over year. Salaries are budgeted at $31.7 million. Increases are due to a combination of adding 40 new positions, mainly related to a concourse B. Various promotions that occurred during the year, a 4% pay increase, effective $10.1 of $26,000, and then an increase in overtime and double pay to better align with what they're seeing in this year. Benefits budgeted at $15.1 million. That's an increase of $2.3 year over year. Most of that's due to the 40 additional positions. Anticipated rate increases and their FRS pension contributions, and they're expecting their health insurance costs to increase by 10%. Services and supplies budgeted at $26.5 million. There are three large contracts within this line item. The aircraft, rescue, and firefighting contract with the city at $7.2 million. Parking operations and management at $4 million. And then their passenger assistance, mail and cargo handling, and ground operations contract at $1.7 million. The increase is due to IT support, temporary agency help with the opening of concourse B, and then mostly in parking operation and management with the additional parking spaces. The repairs and maintenance line at $14.6 million is decreasing due to terrazzo floor resurfacing. That was included in their 25-26 budget. That is not repeated this year. Promotion, advertising, and dues. Budget at $1.4 million. The increase is due to normal increases with the following items being added to the budget. $150,000 for the grand opening of concourse B, $15,000 for a leadership Florida program, $15,000 Jack's Chamber membership, and $10,000 for the Florida Airports Council membership. We do note that within the sponsorships activity, there are ticket packages for the Players' Championship, the Jaguars, Gator Bowl, Jumbo Shrimp, Jack's Iceman, as well as sponsorship activities such as the Jazz Festival. Registrations and travel is increasing $156,000, mostly within the airport operations area. And then cost of goods for sale going up $86,000. That's due to the increase in the price of fuel. Their utilities taxes and government fees increasing $1.2 million due to the electric and water increases at JEA, and then also increased demand related to the opening of concourse B. And then they have a $3 million operating contingency line that is excess revenues over expenditures to be able to address any negative variances that arise during the year. Non-operating revenues include passenger facility charges. This is a charge on each flight segment. The reduction is to better align with actuals. The customer facility charge revenue is a charge to each rental car user. This is increasing to align with what they're seeing in the current year. And then investment income has a pretty significant decrease of almost $3.4 million due to their available cash and what they've used towards the recent capital projects. Other revenue is decreasing $252,000. This is primarily attributable to lower projected timber sales at the various properties. And then debt service increasing $6.8 million due to the new debt that was taken out in May of this year related to concourse B. J.A.'s budget does include $41 million of net income before transfers, and that would result in $35.2 million being transferred to operating capital outlay and $5.9 million being transferred to their retained earnings. On page 9, you'll see their capital budget broken down by the various funding sources and then the five different areas at which their projects will occur. If you want to flip to page 13, you can see a more detailed outlook of those projects broken down by site and source. I'm just going to hit a couple of the high-level ones. Federal contributions, the $6.3 million, almost $5 million for milling and overlay of taxi lanes at Herlong, and then $1.2 million of milling and overlay of taxiways A and B at Jack's Executive at Craig. Tenant and other contributions, $10.3 million. $8 million of that is for a payload processing vehicle storage facility at Cecil, and then $1.3 million for a rocket motor test facility at Cecil. The customer facility charges, $3.3 million is for a rental car lane rehabilitation and extension to Owens Road at JIA, and then within operating capital outlay, $35.2 million is scattered amongst multiple projects at all of their facilities. On page 11, we have their employee incentive plan. The 26-27 budget has $451,500 budgeted for this. This is for all full-time and part-time employees employed at least 180 days and work a set number of hours prior to the payout. The maximum pay per qualified employee is $1,500, and it is awarded based on their operating margin percentage. The CEO is the only one who has a contract at JAA. We do not have any recommendations, but, however, I do want to make you aware that when the CIP bill comes up the second cycle in September, we will have a recommendation as it relates to that to correct the amounts planned for the Hangar 18-20 roof rehabilitation and the hot cargo apron reconstruction design and existing spaceport area enhancements projects. And the schedules are shown on the following pages. Pages 13 through 19 are the five-year CIP for JAA, and then pages 20 and 21 of your handout are their budget ordinance schedules. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. I'd also like to welcome Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boylan. I have the Council President, Nick Hallin, in the queue. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Peterson, page 9. You have a column, fiscal year 2526. Was that the approved budget for year 2 from last year? What is that budget? Through the Chair to Council President Hallin, that's the approved budget for 2526, year 1, if you will. So that would include the $10 million that we moved into Cecil Capital last year and the $2.6 million we moved into Cecil Spaceport last year? Through the Chair to Council President Hallin, that's correct. Okay. It's wonderful to see the investment going up both in Cecil Airport and Cecil Spaceport. Thank you. Mr. Chair, if I can have a few minutes before we have JAA come up? Absolutely. Okay. Great. I wanted to give a little detail of what's transpired since our last budget hearing, which was on August 15, 2025, a little over a year ago. Recall then that I actually built our own presentation with data from JAA and help from the auditors, where I showed that there was more investment for Craig than Cecil in the JAA Capital Plan and zero for the Cecil Spaceport. At the time, I noted they had over $350 million in cash, so I was trying to encourage them to spend more at Cecil to develop it into an aerospace hub. I don't know what their current cash levels are now, but fast forward to this past June. I think that was in a board meeting, and it's north of $400 million. But recall then we made three amendments, totaling about $12.6 from their retained earnings into their capital plan and about $500,000 from their retained earnings into a professional studies and consultant line. The goal of all three of those amendments was clearly, we stated it here, to accelerate investment at Cecil Field. Each of those amendments was approved in advance by OGC, and everyone was clear that we could move line items within their budget, but JAA did not have to spend it. We were all hoping that our three moves would encourage the airport to accelerate investment at Cecil, and I noted also in the meeting that we would be launching a J-bill, specifically to enumerate the role of Cecil Economic Development in the charter for JAA, and to require them to bring an economic development plan for Cecil, to create it into an aerospace hub to city council every year concurrent with the presentation of the budget. I'm really excited to see that today. But since then, since that August 15, 2025 budget hearing, a number of things have transpired, and I'd like to highlight five of them. The first one is in their September 29, 2025 meeting, about a month after our budget hearing, they passed a motion condemning city council for those budget moves. The quote that they put in the motion was, the council exceeded its delegated powers and infringed upon those of JAA by purporting to amend JAA's 2026 budget. OGC had been at that meeting, at that board meeting, and confirmed before the vote that our amendments had been entirely legal. In that same board meeting, item number two, JAA's board passed a resolution condemning the J-bill we had written as, quote, non-consensual. That J-bill passed this council 18 to 0, and then it went to Tallahassee and it passed 149 to 0, and it ended up being signed into law by the governor this past June. That's not non-consensual. Number three, fast forward to this July, July 16, 2026, and the J-bill is now law, and the board passed a resolution again condemning this council, condemning me specifically, condemning OGC, condemning Mr. Fackler specifically against all sorts of transgressions, and authorizing JAA to initiate a lawsuit against the city. That resolution named this council and its transgressions 19 times. So, number four, that resolution also authorized a draft lawsuit to sue and break from the city, which named this council over 100 times, it named me 33 times, and it named council members Arias, Lainan, and Salem in the same draft lawsuit. The most repeated transgression is that this council forced JAA to break federal law through those three amendments from last budget hearing. We know that's not true. No one forced anyone to do anything. But all of that, those four things are all old news. Here's the new news. Item number five, what no one knows is that JAA filed an ethics complaint against me with the Florida Ethics Commission in July. It was dismissed immediately for legal insufficiency, but in it, it alleges that I bullied members of this committee last year in the August 15, 2025 budget hearing to get my way with those three votes to invest in CECL, also against their wishes. Here's the quote. Councilman Howland used his position of influence to pressure city council into improperly amending JAA's 2026 budget. Councilman Lainan, you were in that meeting. I hope you didn't feel coerced by me, because I think everyone here can make up their own minds. As I said, that ethics complaint was dismissed, but here's my favorite line from the dismissal letter. And as I read it, note that I am the respondent in this. Quote, I love that line, and I still firmly believe it's in the public's best interest to accelerate investment at CECL and to take advantage of this unique and timely market opportunity to capitalize on the fast-growing aerospace economy and bring jobs to Jacksonville's families. So please, of my fellow council members, I ask for no retribution against JAA for any of this. They may have named this council and its members over 150 times in those five episodes. But we have not called for resignations. We have not made allegations of a toxic workplace. We have not set up an SIC, nor will we. If we're guilty of anything, it's persistence. We want to do the public will and create CECL Field into the aerospace hub that it needs to be. So as we review their budget today and their economic development plan, I hope we all keep laser-focused on giving JAA the means to deliver safe and efficient airport operations and at the same time accelerating investment at CECL Field to create an aerospace hub and a job growth engine for northeast Florida. I'm excited to finally see that first version of the plan to do that. Thank you for the privilege. Thank you, Mr. President. And I do not feel coerced to tell you well said on that. Council Member White. Yes, sir. I would like to ask the question if somebody from the JAA would like to respond what the President has said. If they do, fine. If they don't, fine, too. But I'd like to give them that opportunity if they want to respond to his comments. I will give the CEO the opportunity if he wants to. Again, it's not a requirement, but Council Member White did give you the opportunity if anyone wants to come to the podium to address that. If not, again, it is y'all's decision on if you want to respond. If no one wants to respond, let's go back to the budget at this point. So, I'll give it a pregnant pause there. I am taking it that there will not be a response, Council Member White. So, Mr. Jones, I'm going to open it up to budget questions. Thank you for being here this morning. I do not have anyone in the queue. Does anyone on the committee? Again, there are no recommendations to act on. There will be when we take the actual JAA bill up in committee two cycles from now, I believe. Mr. Jones, I do not have any questions, and neither do my colleagues. So, thank you for being here this morning. Next up on the agenda is the CECL presentation. Good morning. Actually, I'm going to have Steve to stand out. Good morning. Good morning, Chairman Lehman, members of the Finance Committee. My name is Tony Cunha. I'm the Chief Operating Officer for the Jacksonville Aviation Authority. I'm here today to brief you on the CECL Air and Spaceport Development Plan. But more importantly, I want to discuss what is actually required to undertake a large-scale aviation development at a public-use, federally-obligated airport such as CECL. But I also want to inform the committee, what is our plan over the next five to ten years to do so? So, first, let's talk about CECL. Let's talk about what's its mission. CECL is one of the premier industrial airports in the U.S. It has a primary focus of maintenance, repair, and overhaul activity. We have companies such as the Boeing Company, Flightstar, Northrop Grumman, and Mantec, who are doing large-scale, complex maintenance, repair, overhaul, and upgrade to aircraft such as the KC-46, the P-8, the F-18, and a wide variety of commercial service aircraft, both domestically and internationally. We also have Auto Aerospace, who will be forthcoming, who will build a next-generation corporate jet. We have aviation training and support, companies like LSI, TACAIR, and Hermes. What does LSI do? They do 3D kind of augmentation training for military for working on aircraft. Tactical Air Support has contracts with the Department of War to simulate air-to-air dogfighting with the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force. And we also have Hermes, a very interesting tenant out there. What Hermes does is they are developing the next-generation propulsion system for Mach 5 and above. Really amazing work. We have an education component with FSCJ, who's training A&Ps, pilots, and air traffic controllers. We also have RIDL. JFRD provides aircraft rescue and firefighting services to the same extent that we have at JIA. We have a government and military presence, as you can see. CECL is also, in my opinion, one of the most successful BRAC reuse cases in the program. Now, I will admit that is my opinion. But that is also the opinion of published academics who have studied this. It is the opinion of people who work in the federal government who study this material. And why is that? Well, it's pure data. Currently today, CECL is employing 3,000 direct jobs that are high-paying, high-skill jobs that create an annual salary of $70,000 a year. Those 3,000 jobs are creating 9,000 indirect jobs that have individual purchasing power of $250,000 a year. FDOT recently did a study of the economic impact of all airports in the state of Florida and listed CECL as having the highest per capita salary of any GA airport in the state of Florida. So what does this create? It creates $2.2 billion of economic impact for our community. It's the result of $600 million worth of capital investment in the facility since 1999 from the JAA and our partners with FDOT, FAA, and Space Florida. So what does economic development actually look like when the JAA is tasked with undertaking it? Well, it looks like the Boeing project. We invested $153 million combined of our capital and our debt-carrying capacity into this project. Today, depending on where they are in the phase of the program, they're creating somewhere between 350 and 500 jobs. They're eventually going to scale up to 800 jobs. Why do I tell you this? It's because our primary goal is to invest in aviation and airport infrastructure, runways, taxiways, hangars. The investment in those runways, those taxiways, those hangars generate the economic impact and the security that we're looking for within our community. So I'm going to say reciprocal relationship. As we put money into the infrastructure, that infrastructure is what allows companies like Boeing and LSI to come to Jacksonville and grow their presence. So when I was here last year, a persistent question was asked, which is, what is your plan for CECL? I have thought about that for the last year. That may mean that I need a hobby, but nonetheless, I have thought about it in great detail. So I want to share with you some of the planning studies that we've done at CECL. CECL is the most intentionally planned and developed airport that we have within our system. Here's a look at some of those plans. So in 1998, we did the strategic master plan, which was partnered with the city. We did the highest and best use analysis plan, and we did the CECL airport master plan. The value that that created for the organization, not only the city, is we were allowed to take the facility from a derelict BRAC base, converted into a compliant, functioning general aviation airport. We took 1.1 million square feet of hangar, shop, and office space, converted it to be leased, and then leased all that space out within that time. From 2010 to 2018, we did the spaceport conceptual plan, the east side roadway analysis, and the approach roads, stormwater, and floodplain analysis. During this period, we grew our footprint from 1.1 million square feet to around 1.6 to 1.7 million square feet of shop and office space for Flightstar, LSI, MANTEC. We undertook what was required for CECL to get a commercial launch license to start competing long-term in the commercial space industry. Then from 2018 through 2021, we did the non-aeronautical plan. We did the spaceport development plan and the airport space master plan. What did we do during that period? At that time, we started undertaking construction for Boeing because the entire west side of CECL, plus the additional hangars that we had built, had already been leased. We knew that the next logical step was on the east side of the runways. We undertook construction for Boeing. We also took what's called a non-aeronautical use plan. CECL is essentially a city within a city. So as CECL continues to grow, we need non-aeronautical support facilities, things like restaurants, gas stations, cleaners, hotels, anything that you would see outside of a functioning military base or large-scale airport. You're seeing that coming underway with the construction of the gate gas station. Granted, that's on the city side, but it is a start. We're making progress to get there. So now we end up where we are today. In 2023, we did the rocket motor test and feasibility study because there is a great demand in the state of Florida for rocket motor testing. We believe that CECL is well-positioned for that, and we're taking the steps to make that a reality. And we end up where we are here today, the comprehensive plan for CECL, which is what's required to take the next logical step to launch CECL's future. So in April of this year, we entered into a contract with Reynolds, Smith & Hills, RS&H to undertake the comprehensive development plan for the east side of CECL. Why did we choose RS&H? RS&H is widely recognized within our industry as a leader in comprehensive planning and engineering of large-scale industrial airports and commercial service airports. But more importantly, they have the engineering and regulatory expertise to help us navigate the hurdles with FAA that we will talk about. So what's the scope of the plan? First and foremost, we're doing a utility inventory for future requirements. When auto comes online, all the power that is feeding into CECL will be at max capacity. We will need to have additional power coming in there to operate those large-scale heavy industrial sites. We are working with JEA. JEA is well aware of that, and we're getting ahead of that, so we're not behind that schedule. Environmental inventory. That's one of the biggest hurdles we have to get over. If you're aware of CECL, CECL has a lot of environmental issues. We've successfully navigated it, but we also have wetlands, floodways, and floodplains that we have to overcome. Stakeholder interviews and input. This is extremely important. We took time to sit down with all of our stakeholders and all of our tenants at CECL and ask them a couple of basic questions. Where is your business going over the next five to ten years? Does CECL have the infrastructure in place today to meet that? If not, what infrastructure do they need? When do they need that infrastructure to come online? You can't go anywhere if you don't know where you need to go, forgive the pun. Land use plan. When you're doing large-scale development, you need to figure out how much property do you have and how much can actually be developed. You need a primary site plan, which is essentially how and where are you going to put the boxes inside that development scale. And a NEPA roadmap. We will talk extensively about NEPA. NEPA stands for the National Environmental Policy Act. Some of you may be aware of it, given your past lives. It is one of the most powerful pieces of federal legislation passed in the last 60 years. And for any federally obligated facility, such as an airport, a military base, or a federal institution, you have to navigate NEPA as a result of future development. It is a federal law. You cannot overcome it. Rough order of magnitude cost. How much is all this development going to cost? I will not have that number until October because of the detailed level of planning that we're doing. And last but not least, the implementation plan. So let's get started. This is the project area. It's approximately 3,000 acres. One of the questions I get a lot, both personally and professionally, is, you have all this property at CECL. Why aren't you doing more with it? It's a legitimate question. What people don't realize is much of this 3,000 acres of property is not actually developable for the reasons that we will go through. However, we have a very good plan to overcome those hurdles. First and foremost is what we call archaeological and historical sites. When CECL transitioned to the JAA through the BRAC process, they did something called an EIS, an Environmental Impact Statement. Through the EIS, these areas that are identified here, I love this technology, by the way, here, here, and here, are high probability historical and archaeological sites. Because of that, through NEPA, you cannot build on those sites. And full disclosure, we have not gone in there and snooped around because once you start snooping around, you might find things that are really historically significant. So we're taking that off the, for lack of a better term, the scale for future development. These areas here and here are future sites for rocket motor test stands. As I like to say, when you do rocket motor testing, you have to have what's called clear distances. Sometimes when you test a rocket, things go awry and they go boom. So you want to make sure that you don't have inhabited structures in that area. And then also, for obvious reasons, at the end of each runway, we have what are called RPZs, runway protection zones. I'm just setting the stage for it. We're going to show you the areas that we don't have. Now, this is the biggest hurdle that we have. Much of Cecil is actually wet, and much of Cecil, six to eight months out of the year, is actually underwater for two reasons. The area in the Burgundy-Hashmark area is what's called a floodway. A floodway allows floodwaters to go from higher elevations in the north, flow south to the west, and ultimately dumps into Black Creek. The Army Corps of Engineers, who has jurisdictional authority over floodways, floodplains, intercoastal waters, says you cannot develop in that area because essentially they look at it as a river. It's nature's way of moving floodwaters. Adjacent to a floodway, you have what's called a floodplain. The purpose of the floodplain is it acts as an overflow basin for the floodway, also to protect personal property and people. You can develop in a floodway. However, it is extremely difficult and costly to do so. If you look at this red line here, this is what we call Approach Road. This is the road that we built from 103rd down to the spaceport to not only open up future development for Boeing, but also to have vehicle connectivity to the spaceport. When we built that road through that floodplain area, we brought in 8,000 dump truck loads of dirt just to build a two-lane road. As a colleague of mine likes to say, we brought in enough dirt to cover the entire state of Rhode Island just to build that road. So for the development that we're doing, it's not the ideal site. Now, adjacent, you also have wetlands. You can develop in a wetland. As I like to say, if you could not develop in a wetland, the entire state of Florida that we know and love today would not be in existence. However, when you're developing wetlands, you have to, A, categorize that wetland. You have to determine what's the quality of that wetland, and you have to pay into a wetland mitigation bank, which is not a problem. It is fully allowed within law, but we have to go through that process. Now, we also have to look at auto. This is about 125 to 150 acres. Please don't quote me or rough or not. This is the auto site that we all know and love and are very excited. We have to take this off the plan. Auto will most likely start construction sometime in 2028. They plan to start actually working on aircraft around 2030. So what does that leave? It leaves 1,159 acres of future developable property for Cecil from the original 3,000 acres that we started with. So what does that look like? Well, it looks like this. The area to the north right here is auto. The most important element of this plan is this area right here. That is called Taxiway Echo. If you look through our capital project, we are in the process of designing that now. I'm estimating that project somewhere going to be in the neighborhood of $30 million. But in my world, we have something called enabling projects. That is the most important enabling project that we have to undertake to open up the property for future development to fully leverage the east side of Cecil. That taxiway will allow access to a 12,500-foot runway that we all know from auto. But more importantly, it will also open up this entire site right here for future development. Our strategy has been very intentional about developing Cecil. We want to ensure that this is the last, what I call, large-scale mega site. So we can do a couple things. A, we can allow Boeing to expand. B, we can attract another large operator that needs the assets that Cecil provides. However, the hurdle that I have to overcome in a perfect world, my boss, the CFO, and the board would give me the authority to start taking down that property on a speculative basis because the intent is to prepare that property for Boeing to expand or the next large aerospace operator. However, I have a federal hurdle that we have to navigate. It is called purpose in need. Back to NEPA. NEPA, which the FAA is bound by federal law to apply to, which makes us have to apply by it, has something called purpose in need. It is as simple as it states. The purpose. What are you ultimately trying to accomplish by taking this property down on a speculative basis? For us, it is to continue the pace of development at Cecil. Where it becomes tricky from a legal standpoint is what is that need? Legally, that need needs to be that you are trying to solve an immediate issue or problem in that moment, meaning you have to have someone that has either a letter of intent or a lease. They're ready to sign. They need to start developing. They will not let you do it on a speculative basis as it relates to taking down property and doing initial civil work. However, there's something called a programmatic environmental assessment. What a programmatic environmental assessment does is, A, it essentially gives us a shovel-ready site on a very large scale that we can market to large-scale aviation companies around the world. What the programmatic EA does is the FAA, with myself, colleagues, and others and engineers, says, Look, we know given the pace of development at this particular airport, there is a proven track record in history of large-scale aviation development. That development has come organically from the airport that you operate. It has also come from others outside the industry. We need to be able to position you to keep that level of development going. How do you do that? The programmatic EA is just that. What you do is you do a detailed level of diligence pre-planning to look at floodways, look at floodplains, look at wetlands. You maximize the available uplands that you have for development. You give the FAA this right here, which is essentially a conceptual site plan that you agree in a programmatic way, in a phase way, you're going to start taking property down. What is the benefit to JAA and what is the benefit to the city of Jacksonville? We essentially have a shovel-ready site. We haven't taken down timber, but we have a theoretically permitted site that the FAA has agreed, given the meets and bounds that you're going to operate in. These are where you can put the boxes, and this is the general orientation of the box. Then it allows us to work with Boeing in particular and say, okay, as you grow your presence at CECL or as we're at the Paris Airshow or meeting with operators, this is the program that we're going to put in place when. What is the benefit it creates? It cuts off about six to seven months of development time. We all understand that time kills deals. We need to be able to compete on a global scale that gives us a competitive advantage over operators in other states and around the world. The programmatic EA does that. However, we have short-term and mid-term opportunities that we also need to capitalize on, and how do we do that? Well, this is a 43-acre site that actually sits on what I refer to as the city side of the former base. What you're looking at here is the former barracks facility. The Jacksonville Aviation Authority has already had high-level preliminary conversations with the mayor's office about purchasing this property at fair market value. Why do we want to purchase this property? We want to delineate this property into two areas. The first area is for spaceport development. The second area is for traditional fixed-wing development. Let's talk about spaceport. Ultimately, what we want to do is we want to create a site or multiple sites on, theoretically, half of this parcel. The spaceport operators, they don't need to launch on a regular basis, but they support launch activity. They build satellites. They're in space logistics. They need a fixed presence. They want to be in Florida. Hypothetically, they don't need to be at the Cape, but they need to be at close proximity to either the Cape or a large complex that we have at Cecil. We will delineate half of this property as a space territory through Space Florida. That does a couple of advantages. It opens up those operators to unique financing structures that they may not ordinarily have. That debt can be tax-free. We can also work with Space Florida to get the money needed to build out that infrastructure, but because, as I showed earlier, because of where the spaceport is now and the constraints that we have with floodways and floodplains, it gives us upland-developable property that we can, A, market and build out to keep pace with demand. The second half of the property will be dedicated to what I call traditional aviation fixed-wing services. We would build that property out for the same thing, but for traditional aviation. These are companies that are doing engine work, components work, bench work, avionics work. They don't need direct access to the runway, but their prime contractor that they're working with, I keep going back to Boeing, has direct access to the runway. They need shop space that's in a close proximity to what we're doing. We will work with FDOT to build that facility and build that property out. The second piece of property that we would like to purchase, again, at fair market value, is eight acres across the street from Hermeus. Hermeus is an amazing company. They are developing propulsion systems right now that will take weapons and aircraft to Mach 5 and above. They have already demonstrated that their technology and their engineering can go from subsonic to supersonic. Now they need to make the next big leap, which is supersonic to hypersonic. In order to do that, this is their lease right here. What they want to do is they want to build out the infrastructure adjacent to the engine test cell to simulate kind of in-flight airflow at hypersonic speeds. They want to maximize that footprint. And I don't blame them. They don't want to use that footprint for admin, engineering, facilities, storage, things of that nature. But they need that space. They don't have enough space right now. So the next logical leap is to go across the street. We have the expertise, we have the capital, and we have the will to develop that property. You have the property. We would like to buy that property. To maximize that site on the benefit of Hermeus is, again, they can delineate their operations, but they can be in close proximity to each other because they don't want to separate those operations throughout either the base or the city. So now I've spent a lot of time talking about what we're going to do. I've spent a lot of time talking about why we need to do it. This is our plan of action and milestones, what we're actually going to do in the time frame that we're going to do it. First and foremost, the CECL Comprehensive Plan, the final report, will be given to us in October of this year, a couple of months. Still doing a lot of detailed planning. Interesting read if you're into those things. Taxiway Echo, I cannot stress this enough. This is the most important piece of architecture that we are going to build to unlock the future development of CECL on the east side. The design and the EA are already in process. We did that for a reason. We did not want the EA to hold up the design process, and we're running on parallel paths. We will start construction estimate in Q2 of 2028. The programmatic EA, which we discussed, I will start having conversations with the FAA in Q1 of 2027. That's about an 18 to 24-month process, I will tell you this. There was no way on God's green earth that I was going to stand in front of this body and talk about a programmatic EA with it not at least teeing it up with the FAA. I've teed it up with the FAA. It's going to be an uphill climb, but that's my job. I get paid to do those things. So they know it's coming, and they agree to the level of detailed planning that we have done. What I would ask of this body, one of the things that helps move the FAA in a certain direction is what I call unity of voice and unity of mission. As we get through this process, I or my colleagues may reach out to you and say, look, we need help from this body. We need help from the mayor's office so we can collectively speak as a voice to talk about what CECL is, what CECL has been, the need to have space for future development to keep pace with demand. They just like to see that unity. There's no harm in doing it. It may help them sway that. Again, it shows unity of what we're trying to do for a very unique facility. Payload processing facility. We didn't talk a lot about this. Sorry, I was playing with your screen too much. You gave me this technology. I'm going to start playing with it. So the payload processing facility, that is in our budget. The purpose of that, currently at the spaceport, we have a fabric hanger. Fabric hanger was always meant to be temporary. The payload processing facility, we will build a permanent hanger at the spaceport built to accommodate horizontal launch vehicles. We will also have adjacent to that facility what's called a payload processing facility that we will be able to scale that over time. The purpose of that is, as those vehicles and those payloads get prepared to launch, they get prepared there, they get on the vehicle, they go into space, they do what they're going to come, they land back, that payload is taken off, it's processed in there, and then put on a truck or some sort of traditional vehicle and taken to a research facility. You need that infrastructure to fully leverage the horizontal spaceport at CECL. Rocket motor test stands, we talked about that. Currently, the rocket motor test stands that we have in place right now at the spaceport is operationally restrictive. Meaning when we are doing rocket motor testing, we have to shut down certain parts of the airport to accommodate that rocket motor testing in case the rocket motor goes boom. We're going to move that facility over to the southwest side of the airport. The intent is so we can have a fully operational industrial airport where we're doing fixed wing activity, rotor wing activity, MRO activity, commercial space activity, rocket motor activity. It's the best use for that facility, and it's also in alignment for what we have to do operationally for the airport. Reentry license, some of you are very aware of that. That process is in motion right now. We are working with the FAA. We're going through all the environmental requirements to do that. We should have the reentry license by Q3 of 2028 and the land purchase. Ultimately, that is in your court. You are the property owner like any other land transaction. You guys will determine the pace at which you want to run. However, we are very interested in it. Whenever you're ready to enter in those conversations, we are more than willing to have that conversation with the city about the purchase. I think you understand why we want to purchase it. So who's our target audience? What is the benefit by doing all this? Our target audience is the U.S. Department of War, Space Florida, the Commercial Space Federation, Boeing, Embryer. And what I mean by that, by going through the programmatic EA, as the Jacksonville Aviation Authority's BD team, Jack's USA, our chief executive officer, board members, others are out there shopping Cecil. We have a site that is shovel ready. As I like to say, when we are meeting potential large-scale operators, one of the things I like to say is you need a runway that's 12,500 feet? I got that. You need direct access to that runway? I got that. You need a site that is shovel ready? By the way, I've got that. Here's your lease. Please sign. Let's execute. That's the benefit that it creates for us. It gives us a site that we can actually market. You can have all the property in the world, just like a housing development. If you don't have the infrastructure in place to actually execute the transaction of selling the lots, in this case, aeronautical development, what you have is a good idea. What we are giving you is a plan that we can actually execute on. So what is my ask of you? Anytime I give a presentation to a very distinguished body like this, I always have an ask. My ask of you is quite simple, that we continue to align the narrative of what Cecil is and what Cecil should be. There is no doubt in my mind that we have excellent alignment with the city of Jacksonville, Jackson, USA, and JAA about what Cecil is and what's required to fully leverage Cecil. We also have good alignment with our state delegation. We're having ongoing conversations with our state delegation about what's going on at Cecil and the need to continue to invest in Cecil. But as I like to say, we're not the kid that wants to eat all the chocolate bar. We are actually making a very good business case to them to show the return on investment through economic impact, job creation for the investment that they are in there. Why? Because they are competing with other state legislators for advocacy, awareness, and cash throughout the state. We want that advocacy, that awareness, and that cash to continue to come to Cecil to grow that asset. And last but not least, the federal delegation. This is the most important leg of the stool, in my opinion. In the last 18 months, we've really made an active push with our federal delegation partners, people that represent us in Congress, the two senators in the state of Florida. Why are we doing that? Because these federal elected officials sit on subcommittees and committees that allocate federal dollars and, dare I say, federal Department of Work contracts to do work that Boeing is doing. We want them to know that, A, Cecil has the infrastructure to do that. B, we have a very well-educated, well-positioned veteran workforce that can do the work. And the Jacksonville Aviation Authority has the will and the commitment to invest in Cecil to keep those contracts coming, to locally grow our economy, but more importantly, to position Cecil as a national asset, not just a local asset. So with that, Chairman Lehman, members of the committee, I have said a lot. I do appreciate your time. More importantly, I appreciate your interest in Cecil, the interest in the JAA, and thank you. Thank you, and that was a great presentation. We certainly thank you for the time you and the team put into that. And I think we can say that we've shown that we definitely want to collectively help support Cecil development. With that, a number of people in the queue. I have some questions as well. I'm going to start off with our council president, then I'll go to committee members. Thank you, Chair Landon. And, Tony, fantastic plan, amazing presentation. You nailed it. And when it comes to, you mentioned a minute ago, state delegation working to create a space strategy and that JAA is part of it. I'm actually the only non-state legislature that's part of that delegation. And we met last week and we're meeting at Kennedy Space Center next week. And what's really fundamentally important about that, the reason they're including me, is because Cecil figures very prominently in that state plan, the plan they're trying to build for both space and aerospace. And it comes up all the time. So that underscores the importance of Cecil, not just to the city of Jacksonville, but to the entire state and, frankly, to the nation in its aerospace plan. I also echo, like Chair Landon, your call for unity and collaboration, particularly with the FAA. It's really all I've ever asked for. I concluded last year's budget hearing with a, quote, new spirit of cooperation. And I think we're seeing that today, which is fantastic. Thank you. Two quick questions. You mentioned two parcels you want to acquire. Glad to help facilitate that deal if you think it's helpful to moving Cecil forward. Those two parcels, would you put them behind the airport security perimeter once you acquired them? Would they become part of Cecil Airport and Space Force? They would become part of the perimeter of Cecil. The level of security would depend on kind of what they're doing. So obviously the level of security you have on AOA is different. In my world, it's called Landside. But regardless, we would have a security perimeter around there. We would have appropriate Landside, roadway access, individual sites, et cetera. And then we would work with those operators who, depending on what they do and how they do it, would have their own security requirements. And I've spoken with Hermius and concur with your comments about how they want to expand their testing capabilities and how it would help them to have that other plot of land. So I'll do whatever it takes to help facilitate that deal. And I've already had discussions with Office of Economic Development. I did not know that. Thank you. Let's please get that one done. I agree with you on that. My last question, and then I'll stop taking everybody's time, is what is your plan? You mentioned the BD team when you showed the pictures from Farnborough. What is Cecil's, how big is the BD team? Do you have people waking up every day talking to aerospace defense companies, that kind of thing? The, I've got to do the head count. BD team's about 10, but they do for JA as a whole. We have a chief development officer that his primary role is to market all four properties. I'm also kind of doing some potential restructuring at Cecil to really unleash Matt. As I like to say, Matt is the face of Cecil. Thank you. I mean, I love him to death. You wind that guy up and he just goes. So where I'm going is, so you know, we are having ongoing regular conversations, our chief of BD, with site selectors. We work exceptionally closely with JAX USA. We don't have, and I don't mean this in a bad way, we don't have to market Cecil, meaning that people want to be at Cecil. We just need to keep that conversation going. We need to have the right people in place to do that. To me, Matt is key on that, as is Jay Cuneo. Jay is an absolute expert in large-scale land development. You put those two together, I absolutely have no fear that we will get to where we want to be. Couldn't agree more. Matt Pacino is an absolute asset to the city of Jacksonville and JAA. And if no one knows Matt, Matt is actually the Cecil Airport and Space Board Director and actually sits on the board of Space Florida. So we have a real in there as we continue to develop the statewide space strategy. And Tony, thank you. For the benefit of you and the members of the committee, just so you know, Duval County is number two behind Brevard in overall investment from Space Florida. So just so you know, that's where we're sitting at. That's the position that we have. So we're just positioning ourselves well for the future. Thank you, sir, for the plan. Thank you, sir. Council Vice President, you're in the queue. Did you have something to say? Oh, okay. Then I'll go to Council Member Freeman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And through the chair, Tony, correct? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you for the presentation. Very meaty presentation. They always tell me I eat an elephant one bite at a time. And you gave me about a thousand bites at one time. So I definitely have more comments than questions to make. Very agnostic. I wrote here, can't we just all get along, was my first thing that I wrote on the top of my page, all right? And was hoping to get in before the council president because my line of questioning is not coming from any of the rhetoric or the discussions in the past. It's coming solely off of my recent experience. And I'm sorry, everybody, you're blurred. There you go. So coming off of my recent experience in a site visit to CECL. And so I wanted to speak to it from an agnostic perspective and my takeaway from it. When I'm surrounded by other state representatives or state senators or other leaders, what I learned about the opportunities we have here in Jacksonville. I cannot speak to the intimate knowledge that some of my other colleagues have when it comes to recruiting companies. I can only speak to the timeline. So one of the questions that, and you hit on a lot of the things, which is great. They mentioned the tour that I was on. They were going to Miami, Homestead. They were coming to Jacksonville and they were going to Brevard, I believe. You kind of gave a road map of 2029 was the latest date that I saw something on there. One of my questions that I asked, one of the few questions I asked during that presentation was, who's our competition? How far ahead of us are they? Or how far behind are we? Because what I saw at that presentation were jobs and workforce. And I saw opportunities for our region that we are so intimately, and that's not the right term, but we are prepared for it. A priority of mine is going to be transportation, port, transportation, all things of that nature because of the advantage geographically we have as a city. And so when Mayo Clinic talked about doing scientific studies in zero gravity space and how cells react differently, i.e. if they're injecting, and again, this stuff hits home for someone like me, injecting a potential life-saving drug that in space multiplies at a greater rate, which then eats the cancer cells than it does here on Earth. But yet, when it comes back, which was the company you talked about that is working on landing, and we talked about the range and all of those things, and it seemed like Cecil seemed to be one of the best, in my opinion, locations outside of the site in New Mexico. I mean, following the Mayo footprint, they got one in Phoenix, one in Minnesota, and one here. So when I'm tying it to the medical tourism, which is something that's big here, they had it mapped out to about 46 minutes, and they're able to get some life-saving drugs that were just created in space. And I think the time, oh man, my brain is, I'm drunk, but it was a matter of minutes, I'm going to say, of being able to get from the, because the space station is going away. And I don't want to ramble, but I really want to put this in the atmosphere. You're going to have people that are not engaged at the local level in whatever kind of, you know, thumb wars and hand battles you're having. You mentioned administration and council. Just look at the last three years. And then you tell me that you feel truly that administration and council are going to do something that could expedite a process, all right? And so I love when God just starts transitioning us into places that we can still do good for people. And when we're talking about cancer treatment and life-saving things that can be done, I really implore and encourage you all to figure out this piece and to make something like this become a reality for our region, because it's not going to benefit just Jacksonville. It's going to benefit our state, it's going to benefit our country, and it's going to benefit our world, because cancer is just not isolated to Jacksonville. So that's all I really wanted to put on there. You talked about Boeing, amazing tour. They're going to be at the graduation of some class at FSCJ, and please, too many acronyms. By the way, if anybody heard BD, I ask. I'm like, what does BD mean? Business development. Okay, I'm the guy that will, I'm not afraid to ask you what an acronym means, because they all jump around in my head, all right? And I was so glad my daughter was here that I could share with the world so that people won't attack me sometimes when I don't quite make a lot of sense. But what I will say is this, one thing that Boeing said was they were going to try to hire everybody in that class, right? It was 25 of them. But the next thing I heard was there was a waiting list for FSCJ. And I think that number, I'm just going to say surpasses 50, and 70 kind of jumps out of my head. So I'm like, hold on, I got a waiting list. We're talking about Boeing and the great things. How can we feel that? Because we have people, just from the YES study that we did, and those dollars, 5.2 million, and I hope no one tries to take them, because those dollars are going to hit the street, ages 16 to 21, that they're employable. They didn't go to college, they're not in the military. It's a $300 million economic impact. I'm like, man, I hope somebody's trying to reach them and tell them about the program that FSCJ has. That's 70,000. So I'm done rambling. It's probably all I'm going to say the rest of the day. I volunteer my chair in case another council member comes. I'll swap out with them so they can get a chance to sit up here. But I wanted to share that aspect. And would you like for me to answer some of those questions? If you would, anything you want to add to it. But can you do it in small bites for me? I'm joking. Go ahead. I will. A lot to unpack there. Let's start with FSCJ. So if you, I believe you were at our last Aerospace Working Committee. One of the things that we discussed and that I proposed was, forgive my corny reference, developing a coalition of the willing. As many of you know, we cannot build that facility for them. However, I have reached out to different airports around the country. How they have been successful at doing this is a couple of ways. A, they can put the capital in. We can give them lease credits. I don't think they have the capital to do that. I think how this community can be successful at it is the council, FSCJ, our state delegation, the JAA, be willing to go to Tallahassee on a regular basis and start advocating for money through the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. One of the things that I hope we've demonstrated to this council today is we're really good at making business cases. I will absolutely, as will my team, make that business case to show the value that it creates for CECL and the need for that investment at the state. If the land purchase goes through, you've got an ideal location for them to do it. We're absolutely willing to work with them because that need aligns with the strategic vision that this organization has for CECL. Now, let's go back to commercial space. I agree wholeheartedly with you. In the conversation that I have with people that are far smarter than myself, when they do that drug research in what's called zero-degree environment, the crystallization of the drug, and I have no idea what that means, it determines the lifespan of that drug. You accelerate the lifespan of that drug from seven days to 21 days because of the crystal structures that occur in zero-degree environment. The hurdle we have to get over is how do we incentivize and how do we accelerate the development of horizontal space? Right now, the commercial space market ballpark, and don't quote me, is somewhere like $626 or $650 billion. Around 98% of that is vertical launch. Vertical launch really right now is kind of eating everything up. There are operators who are in the development of horizontal launch. We need to accelerate that for a couple of reasons, because the launch cadence of vertical launch is going to reach mass capacity here pretty soon. That alone, market forces will drive the acceleration of horizontal launch, and we're trying to be in parallel with that and put all the infrastructure in there. Mayo is right there. Mayo, as the researcher, will be a key partner in accelerating that. I hope that answers your question. Mr. Chair, thank you. Through the chair, great job. Thank you, sir. One thing that just piqued my ear is I was listening as I walked out, and a representative from Charlotte was asking another representative, we're going to do this. I mean, their competition for this is going to be big, and so I know we have a competitive advantage, and I just wanted to make sure that I at least went on record saying if anything that's dealing with the rift between council and JAA is going to slow down this, let's try to figure out a way to get beyond that, because I think we can really do a lot of good things for our world, so thank you. Water out of the bridge. Council Member Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the chair, Tony, I also thank you for the wonderful presentation. It's very helpful. I must say that I'm probably fortunate, maybe beside the council president, I'm very fortunate because of my other life, to know a lot more about CECL than I would otherwise if I were just doing this service here. So I'm going to go into a couple of details here, if you don't mind. And in this presentation, well, let me say, to go off of something that Council Member Freeman, past President Freeman, just said, I too just want to say whatever may have happened, okay, it's back there. Let's move on. Let's move on together. Let's find ways to get to yes together versus starting at no before we even find out what the question is. I'd rather we just do that. Let's put that behind us. Let's move forward together with these partners of the willing that you referred to and in this spirit of seeking unity. Absolutely. And anything I can do to help with that, anything this body, I'm sure, can do to help with that will happen because the potential is there, the possibilities are there, and I'm excited about those possibilities. And every time I go out there and meet with one of the tenants that's there to see what they're doing, like you mentioned Hermeus, I've been out there a number of times with Hermeus in my other position, and I'm so excited about this. My one question in regard to Hermeus was, I see on your slide, your action and milestone slide, you put the property purchase off to the right of that timeline past quarter three 2028. Was that intentional on the timeline? Because obviously, they would need phase two land way before that point. So this land, the acres that you spoke of across the road from Hermeus, I think that's Aviation Avenue. If you could speak to the timeline there, and I think that's Hillwood and the city that we're talking about regarding that property. Yes, the details of the city and the Hillwood relationship, I can't speak to, but as far as how it was presented, and you will appreciate this given your past life, I operate in a world of variables I can control and variables I can only influence. I put it in the right, just basically for formatting, because ultimately it's owned by the city. We are willing to engage in that conversation as soon as you want to. I just put it there because ultimately the city controls that property. We don't. Like any other real estate transaction, we're interested in buying it. So to answer your question, you guys set the timeline. Okay. Got it. And I see some heads nodding behind you there. So really look forward to that moving forward as one of the pieces of what you presented. Also, I just wanted to say, you mentioned Mayo, the medical research possibilities, the horizontal lift enhancements, the companies that are in that space, they're more in the startup part of the space aviation industry. But we're, CISO is in a great position to be able to welcome and treat those people, those companies special. They wouldn't get that in Cape Canaveral. They'd be at the end of the line. You all treat the tenants in a special way and they appreciate that and they see the expansion possibilities. And I think that is the right space for us to focus on with the stem cell research, you know, all the other medical research possibilities given we're a medical destination. So I think, and the aviation jobs, showing these young men and women, you have a high school diploma, okay, where are you going next? Let's expose them more to those aviation possibilities and the pipelines to get trained and certified and get those jobs associated with this expansion. So that's basically all I wanted to say. But mainly, I just want to thank you and I hope we can, instead of those companies going to Alabama, Texas, Cape Canaveral, New Mexico, wherever, let's bring them here, the ones that fit into the vision we have for CISO. So thank you very much, Dr. Salem. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. Thank you, Tony, for coming. I have some very basic questions. I'm not a space guy by any means. You mentioned the gate gas station outside CISO and the need for economic development in that area. I assume the land around there was all privately owned. Are we providing incentives to get restaurants and other things out there? Or are you trying to get those types of activities on CISO property itself? So to answer your question, yes, Jay Cuneo, our chief of business development, is working with Jack's USA and others to attract those non-aeronautical businesses, to your point. It's something that, I will tell you this, the need for a restaurant in the interior of CISO is great. If that is something that the city could help us out with and potentially either subsidize our operator or find someone that we have the old McDonald's space, that is very well needed. Our non-aeronautical plan is for property adjacent to First Coast Expressway at a 103rd, but that's going to come over time. What's the hurdle we've got to get over is if you guys could work with us to get an operator for a restaurant in the interior of the former base. I think that's the first hurdle, along with a gas station, and then that allows it to grow organically. You said you have an old McDonald's on the site? No, when it was a base, there was a McDonald's there on the base, and then for a while there was something called Ray's Rocket Diner. Ray's Rocket Diner ceased operations probably 10, maybe 15 years ago, but the space is there. I haven't been in it in years. I've got a bunch of cousins in the restaurant business. I'll have to mention it to them. Number two, in your presentation, I heard no mention of Holon from building autonomous vehicles. To your knowledge, are they still coming? Can you comment on that? So you're talking about launching autonomous vehicles from Holon? No, Holon, the company. Oh, Holon. That I don't know. I know that right now working with the FAA, FAA is doing some test sites in LAX and MCO Orlando to test how they're going to interact with the airspace once they do that, and they're going to deploy that elsewhere. No, I don't think you understand. Holon is the manufacturer of autonomous vehicles that I thought was coming to Cecil. No, yeah. They're not coming to Cecil. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that. Pardon me. No worries. I'm sorry I confused you. Number three, you're looking, the property you would buy for the city that you mentioned, would that come out of reserves, that purchase? It would come out of reserves or some sort of capital funding, depending where we are in our capital budget. I will defer to my brilliant CFO as far as the structure, but we have the capital to make that purchase. It's just a function of agreeing to terms, and then we may have to come back to the city, to the council, rather, to memorialize that, and then potentially do a capital budget amendment to give us the authority to buy it. But the transaction itself, as it relates to purchasing the property, is not a hurdle. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. All right. We've had a number of people get back in queue. I'm going to go to Council President, then Council Member Johnson. Thank you. I just wanted to kind of underscore what Tony said and several others around the queue. There's a vision for Cecil, and it's clear to me now that we all see the same thing. I mean, MRO, Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul, is the special sauce that Cecil offers right now. The vision is to make Cecil an aerospace and space MRO hub. In other words, like aerospace logistics town USA. And it's not just going from 3,000 jobs there now to 10,000 with multiple aerospace and space and defense companies there. It's also to build out basic and high-end retail, multifamily, single family. I mean, we're envisioning this wonderful aerospace hub, not only for Northeast Florida, but for the state and for the country. That's what Jacksonville has to offer. And it complements everything else that the state of Florida is doing in the space market right now. Space is coming to Florida. It's leaving Texas and California. Thanks. Dr. Johnson. My question, thank you, Mr. Chair, is about, and while I do appreciate the depth of this presentation, data centers. Obviously, we know that's something that has been talked about, and I don't know whether it's Cecil. And the reason I bring it up is because- Can you say it again, Sarmelo? Data centers? Oh, data centers, yes. I had a meeting. It's been a couple weeks ago. There was a group that was talking about doing, and they seem to be pretty robust, but they were talking about doing extraterrestrial data centers launching from Cecil. Obviously, there's nothing I can do about that. And I push them to you. Is that something that is being talked about? Since we do know that there's been a lot of talk, you know, as of lately about data centers and whether they're good or bad or what have you, but it also was a stream of revenue, and they've talked about bringing it to Cecil specifically. Is that something that you all are pursuing? And if so, is that also a stream of revenue? Extraterrestrial data centers. Yep. They would do the data centers on the moon, as I understand. They would launch the hardware vertically, assemble it on the moon, and then Cecil would have some receiving to get that data. We've had some conversations with them. Tony's opinion, I think that company is still kind of very early as it relates to developing that. But again, it goes back to what I was saying, the property purchased for the 43 acres. Potential sites could be there for receiving that data, but not getting too deep in the weeds. You would have to do signal testing to make sure that the transmission and reception of those signals that are coming from the moon, being processed there, don't interfere with NAV aids at Cecil. So there's a lot of hurdles to get over, and I think they're still early in the stage, but we are aware of it. But definitely a revenue source and something that is possibly being considered there. Possibly. Thank you. Councilman Boylan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the Chair, Tony, first of all, great presentation. Thank you very much for that. Perhaps this is a softball question. I'm interested in understanding how intricately familiar your board is with this process and what role they're playing in it, in terms of the overall vision. So the board is familiar with the overall processes that we need to do to get through this. As I said, we will have the final plan in October. The board has, certain board members have been briefed at kind of a high level of what's required. I would assume, not my call, ultimately my boss, that the plan would be briefed to the board in its entirety at a later date once we have the full plan. But to answer your question directly, the board is completely aware and supportive of the strategy that we have for Cecil, both on the short, mid, and long term. I'm hopeful that we can communicate back to them the kind of dialogue we're having today so they understand and appreciate that the council is full supportive of the vision you are putting forward. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Romero and then Carlucci, and then I'll wrap it up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Technology has failed once again. I don't have a question. I have basically a comment and a tremendous presentation. JAA should be commended for the success it's achieved thus far at BRAC property, the Cecil field. I heard you ask this morning for a voice of unity. And my commentary is very simple. Number one, that when policymaking becomes personal tax, then we end up with a dysfunctional family. And I think we've passed that. It's unfortunate because to me, in my opinion, it undermines the fact that this body, and I'm saying it as a sitting member, I'm saying it as someone that was on the outside, has always been very supportive of JAA and its efforts. And I believe that will continue. So I just want to make that remark. Thank you, sir. Council Member Matt Carlucci. Is it appropriate to ask about the regular airport now, or are we just sticking to the spaceport? The subject is Cecil, but you are the last speaker in the queue. I'll allow you to ask a question about one other airport. Yeah. There's this other airport we got out there on the north side. Really? We have another airport? I was unaware of that. Yeah. I like everything that's going on about the spaceport. I think that's all good, and I'm supportive of it, and how we got there was messy, but we're there, and that's good. I thought we've always been there. I went out to Cecil one time, and we were welcoming in some organization, some business that was talking about launching eventually in space rockets and so forth. I met the owner, and anyway, the airport, how close are we, or have we finished up the construction and the build-out out there on the third terminal, I guess it would be? Concourse B, the construction is going well. We will get what's called the Certificate of Ocracy on the 30th of December. Basically, building code will come in and say, yep, we can open it. We will actually do, don't quote me, my boss actually has the date, I think the 27th is the ribbon-cutting. The 27th of January, we're going to do the ribbon-cutting. The reason for the distance is think about the time. The concessionaires have to hire people up. They have to train them, and they have to train to the extent. We did not want to open up the concourse without the concessionaires being fully trained and operational. So the project is on time, on schedule, on budget, and it will open up. We've already had the conversations with American Airlines. American Airlines is adjusting their schedule. They will come in the evening of the 27th, launch on the 28th. I love our airport. It's such a great airport. It's clean. It's organized. It's easy to get around in. I just commend everything y'all do with our airport. The other question is, how many new flights do we have that are direct, that you don't have to stop in Atlanta or wherever, that go to, like, Boston or other destinations? So we have departing 100 flights a day. I mean, they're all direct. They're all direct to somewhere, and then from there, you would have to go somewhere else, if that answers your question. How many? I'm sorry, did you say? So what you're saying is, are you asking me, how many direct flights do we have that you don't have to connect? Yeah, I know you go to Boston. Yeah, we go to Boston. We go to Atlanta. We go to Charlotte. What I'm meaning is, we're an origin and destination airport. So every flight out of JIA goes direct to a particular location. It may not get you to your final location. Well, yeah, I got you. Yeah. I'm talking, normally, where I want to go to, I have to stop at Atlanta and then hop on another plane to get somewhere. Okay. But if I want to go to the Northeast or to Boston, it's wonderful. I love to go to Boston. Yeah. It's a direct flight. Yeah. So that's what I'm, that's what I was meaning. So if I want to go to somewhere, New York, or if I want to go to Vermont or something, you know, how many of those kind of direct flights to the West Coast and so forth? Yeah. So right now, we have one to the West Coast. I can get you the specific frequency per day going to every location. I don't have that number off the top of my head. I have the total number of flights that we do daily. Okay. Well, I was just curious. I know I can get to Atlanta a direct flight. Yeah. So easy. But at the end of the day, I really do appreciate our real airport. It's wonderful, and it accommodates our families very well. And the people out there are very friendly. So I just want to give you some positive feedback. I'm sure you get plenty of it. But I, for one, you know, in my retirement years with my two jobs, I do like to travel some. And we always enjoy our airport, and we always enjoy returning back to our airport. So thank you. Yeah. I mean, I will tee it up for the council. Under Mark's leadership with the construction of Concourse V, what you're going to see is the entire complex reflects the hospitality in the region of Northeast Florida with our concessions program, the architecture. It truly will be a generational piece of infrastructure for our community. I'm glad to hear that you appreciate it. All right. Thank you. My only other question was, could you just go over the auto timeline for me one more time? Because I think you had two separate dates for auto aerospace, when they're going to be done building their facility and when they're going to be starting to actually manufacture aircraft. Yeah. So we will, auto right now is anticipating starting construction around 28 timeframe, 2028. Their plan is to start manufacturing aircraft out of that facility around 2030. Okay. Great. All right. No one else in the queue. I thank you very much for your time and the presentation this morning, J.A. Thank you. All right. So next up, it is wrap-up day. So we covered, all right. So we covered a lot of ground yesterday, and I think we pretty much have a full council quorum here. So just to highlight what happened yesterday, I'm going to take it from the top here. So CIP, we reviewed all 14 council districts plus citywide projects. There are some relatively small offsetting changes, and our total CIP is pretty much flat to what the mayor proposed at this time. But we are slightly under in the most important category, that being debt-funded projects. So we are under, again, to me, the most important part of the CIP is what involves debt. And we did create some space in the CIP due to a reduction in the debt-funded projects. Jamesville and Johnson Park, there was a lot of discussion on the increase between last year and this year. We lost a million-dollar grant, plus the total project cost went up by $750,000. So year over year, it was a $1.75 million increase, which led to a lot of discussion between myself and others. The concern now that over the past couple of years, it's totaled $198 million now of downtown park investments. Daryl Joseph is going to come to finance on Tuesday. Council Member Gay and some others had some specific questions about what is the infrastructure piece and what is the aesthetic improvement piece of what that request is. So Mr. Joseph is going to circle back with us on Tuesday's finance meeting before we take up the CIP to vote out of committee and to the full council. Emerald Trail, I want to make it clear nothing was changed for the Emerald Trail. The only Emerald Trail segment was segment nine, which had no year-over-year cost increase. Ms. Sickler confirmed the total cost is still a good estimate. The discussion we had was more forward-looking about the JTA-managed and local option gas tax-funded segments, which are four, six, seven, and eight, as we explore potentially reprioritizing the list of LOTT-funded projects in effort of being led by our JTA council liaison, Council Member Diamond. Kids Hope Alliance. A lot of discussion on Kids Hope Alliance. Ultimately, no action was taken. There was a motion to reduce the contingency for programming by $5 million, which I would have supported. I pointed out that even if we reduced their proposed budget by $5 million, this coming year, 26-27, would still be the most money KHA has ever spent. And that's due to the fact that we rolled over an additional $5.2 million in the Youth Empowerment Committee funding to next year. We'll take up KHA again. That's Bill 2026-511 at the second Finance Committee meeting in September. I appreciate the new CEO reaching out to me, and I have a meeting with her next week to discuss some items. Then we did a number of Finance Committee wrap-up items. We approved four items that we tabled on day one. These were council-approved items in fiscal year 25-26 that were not funded in the mayor's proposal, and we funded these items at the same level as last year. We also added the Hogspen Creek study. If you were on finance last year, know this is a big topic of conversation, and I know that there was a desire that it had come in the budget. It was not, so this was added to it. The council president had an enhancement request, but he identified a funding source. So overall, two items were moved from the budget to be TDC-funded. And with this enhancement, the council president added plus $90,000 to essentially true up our Jacksonville Housing Authority employees that Council Member Boylan brought to our attention. Essentially, JHA did not fund the, and I'm going to mess it up here, basically the employee portion of the increase. Our employees had it. JHAs, who they have the same health care plan we have, did not. So with the movement of two items to TDC, we were able to do those two items, plus it freed up an additional $80,000. Let's see. We then, and then this is the long-winded part. We then rolled up everything into what we are calling the Public Safety Item Fund. And this has been a little complex, but just to walk through for those of you that have not been up here with Finance Committee, we previously removed this $26 million item with the intent of submitting it as separate legislation from the reserves. And at the same time, we extend the $26 million public safety trust that was created last year so it does not expire on September 30th, 2026. Discussing with the auditors, pulling money out of the reserves would have been suboptimal as it would impact our official 9-30-26 balance, limiting how much recapture dollars we could use next year to sweep to unfunded cash completion grants through my piece of legislation that was approved unanimously a few months ago. So this cash balance will be used with any difference needed coming from the reserves, greatly reducing the direct operating reserves amount needed this year to allow it to be used for next year. And as a reminder, JSO has a significant budget favorability this year, which will fall to the reserves. So we'll be close or potentially exceed even where we expected our 9-30-2026 reserve level to be. So after this is the last of six meetings, where are we now? As of right now, we are essentially flat to last year with the Finance Committee actions. So I don't know when the last time we've done that, but year over year, our budget is flat. And with what we have put in what we've called the Amendment 3 referendum bucket, this is the money, and I think it's primarily cultural council grants and public safety grants. If Amendment 3 fails, it automatically is above the line and approved. If Amendment 3 passes, it would then require two-thirds of a council vote to bring back above the line. So again, we're going to start entertaining some other items, but just want to reiterate the guiding principles that we've had as a Finance Committee. The council president, you've said it multiple times, is it core, is it duplicative, and do we have the cash? The things I've added, that given the revenue uncertainty, this is a year to preserve cash where we can. I've said the phrase, let's kind of stay on the plateau. We know we've been growing. Let's try to stay flat, because there's a chance that we may have to greatly reduce the cost in our budget, depending on what November 3rd brings us. So that has been my guiding principle as well. So the way I want to do this is we'll entertain committee members first, in case there are anything else that was not brought up through the Finance Committee process, and then council president and council vice president. Then I won't go by district council members, and then the at-larges, if that's okay with everyone. So, all right. I am going to recognize Council Member Freeman and then Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And great, great job. I really appreciate, again, your approach, your methodical approach, your apolitical approach of how you've gone through this process. And this is my 11th. I'm sure there are many in here that have done far more. But unfortunately, I was unable to physically be present for a discussion yesterday. Good parent slash bad parent, I was in the room with my daughter as she was recovering with, I think I sent you a picture, with it up watching it and enjoyed the conversation. The one thing that I just wanted to add to that is, in this budget, everyone's going to sting a little bit. And so, it's not lost on me on that, and I've shared that with many of those who I love and support their efforts in the children's services area. But I know they had an ask of coming back, I believe, what does 5 million look like? I wanted this body to know that I also requested that maybe they give me a breakdown of what does 4 years look like, 3 years, 2 years, 1 year? Because at the end of the day, I think, in some scenarios, there may be willingness or an opportunity for a compromise. And if it is, I wanted you all to have all the information up front, rather than send them back to try to figure out things later. So, I wanted to put that out there. That is my desire for those in that community, as well, if we can try to get to a point where it's not a budget night, where we, as 19, well, you all, as 19 individuals that love this city, make our kids think that we're fighting about them not being served, i.e. the AP exam. You know how many kids I had to sit down and say we were not trying to take that away? It was really trying to take away a football coach who was sitting in a class, and not one kid taking the AP exam once that class was over. I'm done. Thank you. Dr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I echo some of those sentiments of Councilman Freeman, but a really good process, very robust. My question, you were saying the process goes that the council president and vice president put in priorities, and then the district council members? Is it, help me understand that, like, does the finance committee? Us first. Us meaning the finance committee? Yes. Okay. So all the way down to you and no further. So, again, if you have something to bring up, we'll bring it up first. Okay. And then, again, I'm hoping, because the tone I've been trying to set, again, I have no enhancements. A lot of us up here have no enhancements. This is not the year for enhancements. But we want to entertain it, and I'm hoping that we also discuss what the funding source is as we have these potential amendments and enhancements to work through. And once the committee members, if there are, the process is still, though, based on a parliamentary procedure, looking at Mary, sorry, then the committee would need to take up the, or to sponsor the measure that's made by the non-committee members. Correct. And I missed one of my notes here. So once we get outside a finance committee, so if the council president has an idea that you think is the worst idea ever, if none of us have a motion, we will simply, actually, if the president's a motion. The president can make a motion. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. So, sorry. If the council vice president had something that we did not want to support, if there's silence, we move on. If you want to make the motion and get a second, we'll then discuss it. Gotcha. Okay. I wanted to make sure the process was clear. It was a little muddy there. Thank you. So, I got Carlucci, Peluso, and White in the queue. Council members, Carlucci and Peluso, do you have clarifying questions, or do you have items you want brought up right now? Because I would like to go within finance committee first, and then expand it outwards. Councilman Carlucci. I'm waiting my turn. I just hit the button. So, before I heard the rules, just to make sure I got in there somehow. You are top of the queue, but I fear you may be a little wild based on the order I put out. Councilmember White. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. Now, I thought I had identified some funds, what I want to use it for, but Mr. Peterson said I can't use my CBA funds. So, I'm really asking a question to see if I can get some advice. I'm requesting $64,737,000. And what that's for, what we give the Firefighters Union to rebuild that tower last year, that's the shortcomings. And a little history on that tower, there wasn't but three, I think, in the country 10 years ago. I think it's down to either one or two. It's an icon that everybody sees on their state 10. So, if you have some advice for me, like I said, I wanted to use CBA, but I couldn't. It's in Mr. Peluso's district. But that would be my request, 64,737. Council President, you just hopped in the queue. Did you have something specific? Well, I was just going to say that it's a public safety initiative. I think it's certainly one worthwhile. We just need to see, if possible, can we find a funding source for it? You know, my priority is possible, you know, is, if possible, to deliver a smaller budget than last year. And I think we owe it to the next president to do that in case Amendment 3 hits, and we're going to have to carve nearly $200 million out. So, I'd like this year to be the first time that we fully fund public safety, our infrastructure, core infrastructure, and all of our critical essential services while delivering a smaller budget than the year before, lesser spending than the year before. So, I admire what Councilman White just did. He's got an enhancement that's a public safety enhancement. He first looked at his CBA. He can't do that. So, if possible, let's see if we can find an offset. I don't know if there's anything out there that we could do it. That way, we're not further digging, you know, into the budget. I'm going to recognize Council Member Arias. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't sure you saw me. I was just doing this the entire time. So, yes, that was part of the enhancements we did last year, along with FOP. And we definitely supported it. So, I will tell you this. What was the ask, Council Member White? $64,737. Okay. To continue last year's efforts, I have roughly in my strategic dollars from previous years remaining roughly like $20,000. So, I could put $20,000 from my dollars. You guys just have to figure out the other $44,000 if that's the case. You're recognized. Could I maybe just put this on Mr. Peterson? Because if I've got some funds other than my CBA and let him come back, and if he finds something like that and I got in other funds, we maybe can get to that number. Yeah. And two things I want to point out. So, yesterday, what we approved was the recurring operations from four items we had funded last year. The tower was on that list, but as a non-recurring operation. So, I think because of that, we probably thought it had been completed. Did you have something? Mr. Peterson? Suggestion. We are open to suggestions. Suggestions. So, there is some debt savings still remaining in the current year. Bill would need to be passed out this year. So, we're talking one cycle or an in and out emergency, depending on when it could be filed. But that's an option. So, Council Member White, would you want to work to file that as separate legislation and we keep it outside the budget process? That'll be fine. Yes, sir. Okay. Great. I have no one else on the committee. Council Member Carlucci. Chair, I fully support this on the tower and I want to give a possible funding source. But the reason I support it is that is a local historic landmark and they have an obligation to keep that maintained. And so, that is one reason that they need to do that. The other, I'm not sure if this, but Council Member White, through the chair, you might check with historic preservation with Artemis or Aramis. Is his name Wells? I don't know if it would fall under the rehab program, but you might check because you might be eligible up to $100,000 on that. But that's worth a call anyway. But, most of all, if you could put the money together, I think it's necessary. I've been watching and looking at the tower. It needs repair. And the further it goes, you know, it's going to catch the eye of the landmark process. And it does need to be kept up. They've done a great job when they got it 20-some-odd years ago. And so, that's just another little nuance that is important. Thank you. Thank you. And I've said it before, my father trained on that tower, so it's very important to me as well. But then he became a CPA and told me to watch money very closely as well. So, with that, anyone else from the Finance Committee? Councilman Johnson. I did have requests, but I'm thinking some of them may come from our non-committee colleagues. I can wait until the end, if that pleases you, or jump in if it is necessary. I have about six items. The League of Cities and the Association of Counties, the Contingency, In the Word, Church, the PSG and CSG Grants, the Eviction Diversion Program from United Way, and the Supervisor of Elections. So, Mr. Chair, I don't mind waiting to give them the opportunity, because some of them may parallel. That is probably the most efficient way. I have a feeling those are going to come up from visiting council members. Council Vice President Carlucci, I will recognize you if you had anything that you wanted to bring up at this time. And it's not required to bring something up. Okay, great. No, I'll just briefly touch on, I think it was last week when y'all had the meeting and there was some discussion about a bill that I had filed and where that money's coming from. So, just to circle back on that, I'm not going to insert anything into this budget to, you know, jumble all the numbers around, but I'm working with Mr. Peterson and we'll figure it out after October. So, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you that. I think what we saw last week was the fund benefits of having to work within Sunshine Laws, right? Because it's like, well, we know there's something. It sounds like there's a couple people that were, but we did what was in the here and now as presented to us. So, I appreciate your understanding. Okay, Councilman Diamond. Yeah, I just wanted to follow on that, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. The spirit of that was to compare apples to apples. And likewise, I've got a bill that's going to introduce probably this week, similar idea, but for the next budget cycle based on trades and some stuff for junior achievement, all these things, you know, help, you know, fill these gaps. So, just that's more just FYI. And I do not think I've acknowledged Councilmember Diamond joining us here this morning. Good to see you. All right. So, we are through Finance Committee and the President and Vice President. So, I will call on District 1, Councilmember Amaro. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for diligence and leadership during this process. From my view, things went extremely efficiently. My ask this morning is for an enhancement in the CIP for District 1. One of the items is a traffic signal at University and Edenfield Road. Yesterday, when I reviewed the CIP plan, I thought it would be more efficient to address the safety concerns of that intersection if these dollars are moved up to an earlier year. Here we have the PD&E in 2728 at 240,000 and the construction of the traffic signal at 1.6 in 2829. The need for that traffic safety measure is urgent. There are approximately 40 townhomes coming online. There are two apartment complexes, two subdivisions that uses Traverse Edenfield back and forth, merging into a university. Now, don't have any crash daters or anything of that, but don't want to wait until there's something horrific that happens. After conversation with Mr. Peterson, it seems like a possible funding source for at least moving the PD&E up to this year would come from the public safety contingency. It's an ask for 240, if possible, moving the 1.6 to 2728, and that is my ask this morning. Thank you. Now, Council Member Mark, can you just go over the numbers with me? I thought I heard he was bringing two years from now, instead of two years from now, next year on the CIP dollar amount. What was that dollar amount? For the PD&E, it's 240,000, planning, design, engineering. So, Mr. Peterson, this would just be a CIP move up within the budget, correct? So, through the chair, it's two lines, or I guess it's one line within the CIP bumping up each year. So, there's 240,000 currently slated for 2728. Council Member Morrow would like to move to 2627, so we would also need a funding source. And then 1.6 million in 2829, he would like to move up to 2728 to be able to do the construction after PD&E is done. Okay, so there's no overall increase. The only thing is we'd be moving 240,000 of debt to next year instead of the year after, essentially. Okay. We got motion and second. Council Member Morrow, I meant to ask, is this your only request you are bringing to us today? Yeah, but if I sit here a little bit longer, I may come up with something else. Once your enhancements are approved, you are required to leave the dais. That's going to be the policy of the rest of the day. Okay, and I want to point out before we take this vote, what we are doing here is changing money between years. Okay, so again, there is no incremental impact to this. It's a district council member's desire that working with public works found a way to essentially accelerate a project. So, that's what we're approving here. All those in favor of the Morrow Amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. The amendment passes, and we have accelerated the timeline by one year. Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Johnson. I had a question about this, Mr. Chair, and I'm not sure whether it's probably going to go to public works, and this is just more for curiosity than anything. With them moving that up or us putting it in this year, does that mean that the project itself accelerates? And does public works have to do something extra to trigger something? Could you explain that process to me? Because this is kind of new for me seeing moving a CIP project into this space. Could you, Nina, would you, Ms. Sickler, would you mind just giving me an update? Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for bringing that up. Was this interesting for me at least? Good morning. Nina Sickler, Public Works. So this is a project that actually had been identified by the state legislature for money, and then unfortunately that money did not come through from the state. So we were excited to get started as soon as possible, and so we have a contract ready to design it if the council so desires that it get started sooner. Thank you. And, Ms. Sickler, if that happens, usually when stuff moves up, there's no need. It just automatically triggers your team to start working on it if the funds are put in there, correct? That is correct. Gotcha. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a lot of council members in the queue, but I assume you're just waiting for when we get to you. Is there anyone that is in the queue to speak to something other than the order I put out of district and at-large council members? Okay. Council Member Gay, I did not see you in the queue, so I'm going to skip you, and I'm also going to skip myself. District 3. District 4, I did not see past President Carrico here. District 5, I think we've already touched on. District 6, Mighty Mandarin. He is good. Let's see if we can make it three in a row. District 7. Thank you for recognizing me, Chair. So the enhancement that I'm going to be discussing is to give a couple more bucks to Alex Halston's shop. I actually tried to come in yesterday, and I missed most of his presentation, so when they walked off, I think because of the screen, it said one part of his budget, but I guess he was done, and I wanted to speak to it. So I'm looking to see if we can get $50,000, $25,000 for the city of Jacksonville to sponsor the Unity Classic. It will be its third year next year. The Unity Classic provides a major sporting event here in the city of Jacksonville, and the second one is it's on, I think we're on the seventh year of the Juneteenth celebration that Melanin Market puts out. The city of Jacksonville doesn't have a Juneteenth celebration, so it's a matter of making sure that we really put our mark on that event. And I was thinking about, as Council Member White had brought up that the fire station is in my district or the tower is in my district, I'm more than willing to use my CBA dollars to pay for that, Council Member White. So if we are willing to get some consensus here on the body that we could take money out of the CIP debt service repayment, do a dual one-cycle emergency for the $50,000, so that way it's, I think, a $14,000 less amount of dollars that would be coming out of that fund. So $50,000, it would not affect this upcoming budget, it would affect the current budget, obviously with the debt savings that we have, and then it could be used to provide the sponsorships for next year. So what I think I'm hearing is we don't need to take any action if there is consensus and head nodding on this. Correct. And I believe Mr. Peterson is tracking, so your CBA dollars from District 7 to help out the Firefighters Tower restoration, and then debt savings will be the source of this bill you file. Current year debt savings will be the source of the bill you file. That is correct. For the two sponsorships, that would be going to Alex Alston. I'm just trying to look to see if, you know, Council Member White in particular, would you be willing to help co-introduce this one-cycle emergency, and would we see maybe some consensus among the Finance Committee? Council Member White, you're recognized. Yes, sir. You're the numbers guy. If that makes sense to you, I'm certainly okay with it. I would argue we are all numbers people. Well, if we have a fire, call me. If I need to add 2 plus 2, I'm going to call you. But anyway, I'm fine with that. Yes, thanks. Chair, if I need to do some west side math, I can grab some, you know, maybe I can help the council member, you know, figure. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, it sounds like it's consensus. Let's get our decorum back there. Okay, so District 7, you will work with the auditors, and there's a couple-way swap here going on CBA dollars for the tower, and then Mr. Peterson and his shop will help you with the debt proceeds. And it sounds like you'll have consensus. I'll say the only caveat is I have not heard of those organizations. I will certainly do my research on them to make sure I agree with what they're all about, but I imagine you'll get consensus on this. Anything else, District 7? Other than the conversation we'll be having about JWJ, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing their presentation and making sure that we get a little more, you know, understanding of where those dollars are going. But it's an incredibly good project. I would ask that everyone kind of reach out to parks earlier before that conversation on Tuesday. Other than that, I'm okay right now. I'm here to be a friend of the finance committee. Friend of the finance committee. All right. And, again, just to go back to Jamesville and Johnson Park, there's not the appetite looking to kill the project. We're looking to see if we can minimize the $1.75 million year-over-year increase. I see Mr. Joseph out there. I know he's going to think about it, look at it, and come back to us on Tuesday. Understood, and I appreciate that. I'm just letting you know from my time working on this project over the past several years, it's about as well-engineered as it can get. It went from $12 million down to the number that it's at. And I think if need be, there's probably a few dollars that could be pieced together to help make sure that there's not much of a delta that's uncomfortable to this body. But we do need to make sure that this project gets done. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Council Member Paluso. I do not see our District 8 Council Member, so I will recognize our District 9 Council Member. Thank you, Chair. Good morning to everyone. Timing is so important. And right now, I do have a project. However, I am meeting with Chief Ledoux and Ryan from Traffic Engineering about it, so I don't have any numbers right now. So I don't know if there will be another opportunity for me to bring it before the committee so that we can see how it would fit in the CIP. Also, just based upon the parameters of deciding whether or not something should be an enhancement to this budget, most of my other items fit within my CBA, so I'm going to use my CBA dollars for those particular projects. But just like I said, I hope that after I have my meeting this afternoon, I will have some numbers and some more information so that I can present that project and possibly have it added to the CIP. All right, great. And like we've mentioned a couple times through this process, nothing is finalized until the fourth Tuesday of September. So, again, if you have something that doesn't get Finance Committee support, there is nothing preventing you from doing a floor amendment. Although, personally, I'd like to see a few less than last year, maybe go home at midnight instead of four. But you are able to do a floor amendment as well, and I'm sure we'll send out instructions ahead of final budget night on how to do that. Let's see. I do not see Ms. Pittman. Ms. Pittman, I would note for the record that the item we had yesterday that we added directly supports Council Member Pittman's district. Council Member – Dr. Johnson, go ahead. I know it's hard to tell with the NQ. I'm so sorry, Mr. Chair. Point of information, though, I'm just curious. Just so on the same page, because I'm hearing this a lot, especially if there are other things that come up. There's not a chance to come back to this committee per se to augment the budget, but we can do that on the two budget votes we have coming up. Can we get some clarification just so we are – I think for me and for my colleagues so that we can make sure that if it doesn't happen right now today, it can still happen. Correct, and I'll recognize you, Mr. Peterson, in a second, but, yeah, we will put out directions like we do every year on what the floor amendment process will be, and it's nearly always the final budget night because the first night, remember, is the tentative budget. We've got to lay it on the table, all that stuff. Mr. Peterson, anything to add? Through the chair. Now, you hit exactly on the point that I wanted to – the first council meeting in September where you're approving the tentative budget, the turnaround time for advertising, laying it on the table is so tight that changes there make it very, very difficult to get that – meet what will be required by state law. So, taking it to that second meeting in September is definitely preferable for additional changes. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. From District 11, Council Member Arias, you are recognized. All right. Thank you, Chair. First of all, thank you for the shout-out yesterday. I think we mentioned it was the third largest revenue generator for the city, and I think number one or number two of least asked in the CIP is what District 11 is, second to you, District 3. So, we're hand-in-hand on that part. However, unlike you, I will be asking for an enhancement, all right, and it's very simple. Every year, I champion the same organizations, and I look forward to hopefully having the support of all of you guys on finance today. So, in front of you, you have a packet. Today, we're going to go over FAC, Florida Association of Counties, and then I do think that Dr. Johnson will be talking about League of Cities at some point, but this goes hand-in-hand with just that. So, one of the biggest things with FAC is that, you know, we put a call to action to them last year when we were about to cut them, and we said, hey, we want you guys to come up here to Jacksonville, do a tour. There are 67 counties in Florida, and they're always doing tours in Hillsboro or in Orlando or different places all over Florida, but never in Jacksonville. And so, I said, look, you know, my team up here, we really want to see you guys. So, they committed to exploring that option, and with the work of Ms. Pittman and myself, we finally landed on September 16th of 2026, meaning next month, they're coming up here. 67 counties are coming to Jacksonville next month on the 16th of September to do a full tour in partnership with VisitJax. We're going to start at the Mayo Clinic and then go to JTA, then the Jaguar Stadium of the Future, then the Ritz Theater, and then on top of that, they're going to do other stops that are not listed here. Out of that, there's going to be 275 attendees, 415 room nights are going to be totaling $89,000, and $38,000 in total food and beverage. You're looking at about $120,000 in just local economic impact directly just for one day. All right, Mr. Peterson has the numbers. I'm not sure exactly what the membership cost is. I think it was like $140,000, Mr. Peterson, through the chair, Mr. Peterson, if you could correct me on that part, just so I can know exactly what we're looking at. Through the chair, just want to confirm, if it's just the Florida Association of Counties, that number is $110,915. Okay, and then what is the one for League of Cities? League of Cities is an additional $72,488. Okay, so you're looking at roughly $182,000 in between these two organizations, all right? My ask is that we bring them both on board. Now, while I represent Florida Association of Counties, Dr. Johnson represents League of Cities, we're both truly committed to these organizations. I understand the Amendment 3 and the reason why you guys decided to put this on the back murder, but you're looking at $172,000 out of a $2 billion budget. It doesn't even move the needle at all. But the impact that it does to our cities, to our city and our county, is far significant and far greater than that needle that we're talking about moving. So I ask you guys to please not only look into your heart, but also we asked them last year to come here, and they're already here. How bad would it look like if we just cut them out, and then they come next month with 66 other counties? So I just ask you guys to, at the very least, this year, fully honor both memberships for League of Cities and Association of Counties. And then next year, should Amendment 3 pass, we can then assess that and see if we remove them or not for next year. But for this year, I would just say let's keep them on board. That's my first request. If you guys want to have dialogue on that, let's have it. So first we would need a motion by a finance committee member. And I think my finance committee member is currently talking to somebody. All right, if I don't hear a motion, we're going to move on. We do have a motion and second. Council Member Johnson, and I apologize. It keeps on going in and out. Are you in the queue to speak to this? I had a question for the auditors, actually. I thought when we, or Ms. Peterson, when we talked, I thought we had a number of 239. I'm a little confused. Yes, through the chair to Council Member Johnson, you're correct. That number is 237-427. That also includes the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities. So it all needs to kind of run in tandem. And the funding source, if it pleases the chair, we do have that in that contingency because it was already budgeted in there. I mean, I do have information to share, but I believe, and Council Member White, I think, said it best, of a city our size. We, while I do certainly support the Association of Counties, and we're both a county and city government, the League of Cities could not even get close to bringing our convention here. And the reason being is because we just don't have the hotel space. But the beauty is, it's coming. It's coming. With the inclusion of the Four Seasons and other hotels that are coming to downtown, the opportunities are there. But what the League has done is try to expand so that we are, that home rule work, they have taken the lead on allowing us to partner with them so that we can keep a lot of the opportunities home. Additionally, when I think about the League of Cities, although we could not bring the full conference here, this year, we were able to, earlier this year, and I think former President Carrico wrote a letter, and the Vice President at the time, Howland, but now President Howland, sent over something, and I went to speak. We had the Institute for Municipal Elected Officials that were here this year, and they came and brought, of the newly elected members, I want to say 50 of them from around the state came, and they did that here because it's a little smaller, over at the Marriott in front of the Performing Arts Center. I tell you all that to say that specific event, kind of like what Councilman Arias is saying of the upcoming event, generated, I think it was a couple hundred thousand dollars from the numbers that I see, based on the amount of time that people were here and the work they were doing. But we need to be at the forefront of these organizations for advocacy, for work on the state level and on the federal level, because these groups are going in and helping us. They've even helped us secure funding, as I've shared. So the belief in what the work that the Councilman Arias and Councilwoman Pittman are doing on the Association of Counties, and of course the league with myself, now Councilwoman Clark Murray, former President Freeman, and former President Carrico, who have consistently been working to push things forward for Jacksonville. But we see that. The reason we have a higher value adjustment board fee so that the value adjustment application that hadn't been changed since the 80s could work is because it was one of the initiatives that we championed all the way through, and all of the 411 municipalities, cities, and villages from across this state got behind it, and now we have a change because Jacksonville is benefiting from it. I support it, and I hope, colleagues, you will vote to put this back in the budget so that we can take our rightful place as leaders in this state. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. I'm going to go Council President, then Councilmember Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So as I understand it, the motion on the table is to take $237,427 out of the public safety contingency to fund FAC, LOC, and national FAC and LOC. Is that right? Because the source of funding right now is the public safety fund. Correct, because from my understanding through the chair to the president, my understanding is that all of those, it's one contingency. Yes. So it would be coming from that, and so it would be for the League of Cities and Association of Counties dues on the federal and state levels. Well, while we're at it and there's a motion on the table, have we thought about another source of funding besides taking from the public safety fund? And I know you keep saying public safety fund. While I do understand it is titled that, that is just the title of it. We put those funds there, but it is not moving it away from public safety. And when I spoke with Mr. Peterson, since it was the place, it was in another one of those contingency buckets. Since it was a part of the contingency, it was the best place to pull it from since it was already included in the budget. So this is just re-putting it back there. So we did explore other possibilities, but even if it were to be a CBA or strategic initiatives, it doesn't exist. We don't have it there, or something else would need to be cut. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We already voted on this. We had a 30-minute debate already on this. Already. We already did it. We already did the work. We had this whole argument and five votes to cut this out of the budget. It makes no sense to simply have the same debate here over and over and over again in front of the same committee. So I'm voting no on everything that is trying to reintroduce something that we already had a debate on. It makes no sense at all. If the facts are the same, the players are the same, what are we doing here? If you want to bring it to the council as a whole, that's one thing. But to bring it back to Finance Committee to try and undo something we already debated for 30 minutes makes no sense. And just to be clear, we put all this stuff in. I lost a bunch of motions. Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council. It got through. We're spending money on all the chambers. Nobody even pushed back on the chambers. It's a black chamber, a Hispanic chamber. All these chambers are getting money. The Jacksonville chamber. This is one where we said no. All right. We've got to have some austerity. We have to say no to some stuff. All right. And the Florida Association of Counties is lobbying against the taxpayers of Jacksonville right now. So I'm a no. Any fiscal conservative should be a no and should be very unhappy that we're going to try and fund people who are actively trying to work against us. Dr. Johnson. And then we'll go to the amendment sponsor, Council Member Arias. Thank you. And that is absolutely untrue. I just wanted to say, Mr. Chair, that the Association of Counties or in the League of Cities, both of them, which I spoke to leadership on both levels, are not, we have to say that unequivocally, working against the taxpayers of Duval County. In fact, as I said earlier when we discussed it in the Finance Committee, if we are talking about the truth and they're working on educating people, then we should also move away from the auditor here who said that if Amendment 3 passes that we would have a $300 million hit. I guess that person is working against the taxpayers too since they're just telling the truth. So that's what this is about. Nevertheless, what we did say in committee, we're not re-litigating this or debating it. What we did say in committee that we would return to this, I do have it specifically noted here, that we'd return to it with additional data. I have data to share when the time comes. Councilman Arias has put out data, so now there's additional information, which does change the tenure of the debate. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Arias, and then I'll wrap it up, then we'll vote. All right. Thank you, Chair. The argument about them lobbying against Amendment 3, I will tell you this. Just like anybody, if you're fighting for dollars to protect your entity, you're going to fight for it, whatever the case is. And in this case, obviously, I don't know how they're lobbying for it and in what capacity, but I do understand that they probably don't want Amendment 3 to pass, obviously, just like many other nonprofits and organizations throughout our state of Florida. It is a fact. But the fact is also that the work that they do is instrumental to our city and to our state. I will tell you, if we had strategic dollars, and you guys cut this out of the budget, I would have used my strategic dollars for this purpose. But because we weren't giving these dollars this year, we have to try to fund them somewhere. So, through the Chair to Council President Howland, I would have definitely have used my strategic dollars, but because it was wiped out from day one, I'm kind of put in a position where we have no other choice to use the public, whatever the name of the fund is. And while it is public safety fund, I also want to make sure that it shouldn't just be titled for that because there's so many other initiatives like arts in our community that may not be related to public safety that I also want to help fund because they're part, they're the fabric of our community. That's what makes our community. It's not just infrastructure. I've said this before. It's not just hard dollars and infrastructure and roads. There's also people in our community, and we've got to fund people, right? So, if it is public safety fund, let's use it from there because at the end of the day, this is where my heart is at. So, I just ask you guys to support it. Biggest reason, they're coming September 16th. We will look terrible if we didn't fund both of these entities. Thank you. All right. So, I'll wrap it up here. It's beginning to look a lot like last year. However, I will point out last year what left finance had no chamber money, no Northeast Florida regional money, a couple other items, and then it ultimately got restored. So, I think it's going to fail finance, but again, last year it passed on a floor amendment on budget night. So, I am going to stick by my original vote on this, but if I was you, I think that's the route I would proceed, a budget night floor amendment. Ideally, with another funding source. Council Member White, you just popped in the queue. Yes, sir. I just want to make a mistake. I want to support it, and I am a conservative, but I'd rather Jacksonville look like Jacksonville, not Hooter Hill, and that's the reason I'm supporting it. I think a city that's big, we should be there. Thank you. All right. So, with that, all in favor of the areas of MSAI, any opposed, nay? Nay. Let's do a hand raise. All in favor, raise your hand. All opposed, hand raise. That amendment passes. Council Member Arias, I will recognize you because, or I'm sorry, fails. No, you're good. Keep it how you had it. Don't worry. Fails. All right. Sorry. There have been a lot of votes. Let's see. Council Member Arias, I will recognize you because you allude to the fact you had more than just that issue. Thank you. So, yes, the second one would be CSG, kind of to the same part that I was just talking about right now. Quality of life in our community. It's not just roads. It's not just JSO and firefighters and everything else. We also have people and people that matter. So, I'm just going to give you some off-the-top numbers. From there, you guys dissect it. Do what you guys want to do. And once again, if it fails, we'll bring it back as a floor amendment on council night. But you're looking at roughly 5,600 full-time employees that will be essentially wiped out of this. You're looking at roughly $143 million. That's what 5,600 employees equates to. $143 million, of which $130 million is for here downtown. We've had an emphasis on downtown growth, right? MoCA, the Symphony, MOSH, all these other organizations. And here we are providing dollars for CSGs. I'm only talking about CSG right now. And that's the one that matters the most to me because out of this, last year, there was 32 organizations that were impacted. This year, there's going to be 35. And if we cut this out, even if you bring it down to 50%, it's going to drastically affect them and how they operate. They have to start getting their budgets ready for the next year. And right now, the uncertainty of what's going to happen in November, really, they can't. And let's say Amendment 3 does pass in November. Fine. We cut it. The problem that I have is, just like I do with my business and with any other point in life is, if we're going to scale back, we have to do it in a way where it makes sense progressively to do it. Slow and steady. Not from one day to another. Cut it in half. So my approach and my suggestion to you all, if you guys are okay with it, would be, instead of 50%, let's scale it back to 75%. And then if Amendment 3 passes, then next year, you cut another 25%. But you can't just cold turkey things from one day to another. Otherwise, people's lives will be affected. We're talking about workforce here. I know all of us. I know I myself have championed workforce. Council Member Diamond just talked about a bill that he's going to introduce more than likely for workforce. Council Member Howland has helped me champion workforce. So has Joe Carlucci. So has all of you guys here. Arts is also workforce. Sure, it might not be mechanical, but it is workforce. And it is the fabric of our community. So I just ask you guys that please not only look into your art, but also look into like what makes the city flow. And that's the people of Jacksonville. So our arts community, they will be devastated by this if it gets reduced to 50%. So I just ask you guys to at least consider a 75% versus a 50%. Thank you. So the motion is if a finance committee member will carry a motion to increase it from 50%, which is where we're at currently, to 75%. Council Member Johnson, I will give you 30 seconds to get up here. I do not think you can move something from back there. Got to be sitting. And I'll second this one for discussion. Council President, I'll go to you first. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to clarify something. We didn't cut anything on this. During the process of the budget hearings, there's pretty much four levels from really good for someone who submitted a budget request to really bad. And the really good one is we don't do anything to it. We just approved it. The next one is we put it into the Amendment 3 contingency because that contingency is structured. So if Amendment 3 fails, that automatically funds at the full amount. The third one is that we have perhaps put it below the line, which then takes a two-thirds contingency, two-thirds vote to pull out eventually after the budget's approved. And then the fourth, the most bad, is that we've just cut the thing entirely. This is an Amendment 3 bucket. This is actually a really good place for Cultural Council and PSG to be. And the reason I say that is because if Amendment 3 does pass, and I think, you know, who knows what's going to happen, if Amendment 3 does pass, Cultural Council and PSG, unfortunately, are probably going to be victims of next year's $200 million cut. And we need to start doing that now and putting money into the reserves to prepare for that cut. So as much as I absolutely love the programs that we do through Cultural Council and PSG, it's just a fact of nature that we're going to need that money to fund public safety, core infrastructure, and critical services. And then PSG and Cultural Council are just outside of that. So the Amendment 3 bucket to be in is the second best place to be. I think 50% off was just to address those two in particular. If Amendment 3 fails, they're fully funded. No question. And it's automatic. Thanks. Two things. I discussed with the council auditors this morning, just to review the accounting with me, changing the percentage does not change our overall number as far as what our bottom line for expenditures is, correct? So whether it's 50, 75, 100, whatever, where we're at, where I briefed us, where we're at at the beginning, essentially flat year over year on expenditures, we are still there. I also did say on the record I would support 65% when we discussed this in finance, and no one made that motion. If a committee member was to come up with an amendment to make it 65%, I would be supportive of that again. So am I in the right posture? I forgot Mary has moved. Could I hand the gavel off? Okay. You recognize me? Mr. Chair, you recognize. I would make a motion to amend the 75% to 65% to bring public service grants and cultural grants to 65% instead of the 50% where they're at now. We have a motion in second. Any discussion? Yeah, it's hard for me to see which. Okay, we'll go first to Council President Allen. I'm sorry. I know you're for discussion. I'm so confused. We just had a motion. Can you tell me where we are? Because I thought we were discussing the motion that was on the floor, and you amended the motion? Yes, Mr. Chair, question. Through the vice chair to Council Member Johnson, what I said was after reviewing the accounting with the auditors was when we discussed this on day one. No, I get that part. I mean procedurally. Yes. We're amending the motion. Yes. I handed off the gavel through the vice chair. I handed off the gavel, and I amended it to 65%, which I was on the record that day saying I would support, but I could not get a motion for. And I also think 65% has the best chance of passing. I'm not debating what I'm trying to figure out where we are specifically, not what the procedure was to get us here. So I want to, Mr. Fopolis, I think, can answer where I'm going. I think she knows what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'll recognize Ms. Stefopolis. Thank you. Through the vice chair to Dr. Johnson. So the original motion that was made, I believe, was only with respect to CSG, the Cultural Services Grants. That was my understanding. So the original motion was to move, keep 75% above the line and only place 25% in the Amendment 3 contingency. The motion that the chair has made is to amend that motion to make it 65% above the line with the remainder staying in the contingency for both CSG and PSG. So he's added the public service grants into this as a component. Do you have a, thank you for that, through the chair to Ms. Fopolis, do you have a vote on the amended motion? So what you're, the posture you're in now is to take up the amendment proposed by Council Member Lane into the motion. If that passes, then there would be a need to be a motion on the amendment as amended, a second, and then a vote on that. Thank you. That's what I was trying to find out. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Phillip or Brian, could you explain to me what the chair said and his understanding is that there will be no additional spending right now? I mean, I, this, this moves us, I think 15% of Cultural Council, 15% of PSG together is about 2 million bucks. To me, I think this moves us 2 million further from flat, if I'm right. Through the chair, or through Council Member Miller to Council Member Howland, in the numbers that we showed you, that 23 million dollars doesn't include any of this, so it's like that is all getting budgeted, so it is still the flat number. Whether, if you moved all of it out of the referendum, you would still be there. So the referendum is not factored into whether we're flat or not. If you viewed that as not being approved, we're actually 8.3 million dollars actually less than flat. Yeah, okay, so this doesn't, you know, we're so flat, we're like $222,000 ahead of spending last year. This doesn't make it 2 million, 222,000? No, this would make it, in your view, if you're looking at it the way you are, we're actually 8 million dollars less than last year. Right. Is what this is right now, and you would just be moving to less than 8 million, I have the numbers right here. But, so this does not change whether or not you're flat or not. Whenever we're showing that information, the flat number where you're a couple hundred thousand dollars more does not factor, this does not play into that. Unless you actually cut this funding, then it would have played in, but you did not actually remove the funding. Understood. Okay, thank you. I recognize the chair for additional comments. Thank you, Vice Chair. And through the Vice Chair to Council President, Mr. Parks actually walked me through this at 7.30 this morning because I had the misunderstanding as well. And that's when I tweaked my notes at the beginning that right now, as far as what we've had outside the Amendment 3 bucket, we are essentially flat. If Amendment 3 was to pass, right away we get the kickstart by those funds no longer being part of our budget. So, we will start the downward descent, if you will, of where we need to be at the end of the following year. So, that's why I brought it up that this actually, this only changes the amount that would potentially not be there if Amendment 3 was to pass. Is there anyone else on the queue for this, this amendment? Okay, okay. We'll go next to Council Member Diamond, you recognize. All right, so, I feel like you all are living on another planet, and I mean this with respect, but the number should be 0%, all below the line and do one month of funding that gets us to November. That's what we should be doing. If three passes, look, I'll be gone. You all will have to deal with this budget, but the amount of money you're going to cut next year, and reorganizing next year is going to be off the chain if you don't do some smart stuff this year. This got us a method to get there, and this happened last year. We did a bunch of cuts, thoughtful cuts to a budget, which, frankly, we're just scratching the surface of what we should have been doing, but, you know, we did some, and then we put them all back on this day, and then on the floor on the big night. So, I mean, I'm going to vote no on all this stuff, but just, you've got to reality check how much stuff we have not touched. We have scratched this budget, scratched it. Any of the committee members on the amendment? Any of the committee members on the amendment? Okay, I just want to make sure. We'll go next to Past President Salem, you recognize. Oh, okay, you're on the queue. Okay? Okay, Past President Carlucci, you recognize. Okay, thank you. I forgot you were still in committee. I had asked for a motion for 65% because I felt that was the most reasonable compromise that was over 50%, and I get it. While we're trying to put some under the table, I get that, and I understand it in preparation in the event, Amendment 3 passes. The reason that I bumped it up a little is after my conversation with some of the not-for-profits that are funded by the Cultural Council, particularly one in about a two-minute walk from my house and in San Marco, which is Theater Jacks, and the San Marco merchants really depend on Theater Jacks attracting people to the merchants there and all the people that go to the plays and theaters that they put on. But that's just them. I can tell you that is compounded by all of the different organizations and not-for-profits that they fund. And so there's this kind of a sense of panic beyond just the not-for-profits that they fund. It goes beyond that. It goes to the merchants and the different retailers that are dependent on these not-for-profits, not just Theater Jacks, but all over this county. So the economic outreach and ripple effect that affects jobs is astounding. And so in talking to several of the vendors that they fund and to the community council, it seemed like 65% gave them a comfort level, and I just think that would be a good sweet spot for us to hit. It gives them a sense of comfort right now. And so I really support this. So I agree 75%. I'd be for 100%, frankly. But I agree with 75%, but I think if we back it up to 65%, that's going to be the sweet spot that we can get the votes for. That's just my thinking. I haven't spoken to anybody. That's just my gut instinct. I agree with the chair on that. So I would support 65%. And so just my persuasion to the committee. Thank you. Okay. We'll go next to Council President Howland. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I just want to say your argument for cultural council activities, we all share it. But make that argument around Amendment 3, if that's how you feel. What we're doing here is just trying to create a mechanism to be responsible in case Amendment 3 passes. Because we all know that cultural council, while important to us, is not a direct core service that the people of Jacksonville who pay taxes have made a contract with the local government to provide. So you can make that argument with Amendment 3, because we're just doing the responsible thing here. With regards to the 50% to 65%, I'm a little surprised that the cultural council is even arguing for going from 50% to 65%. Because, again, it's a great bucket to be in. I think they're going to likely get fully funded. On the other hand, if they're willing to see, okay, we understand what's going on. We're willing to go 50% to 65% and, you know, it's really up to us. But in negotiation with them, I'm willing to entertain that, particularly because it's a finance chair's motion. But more importantly, because I think it sends example to Kids Hope Alliance, that we weren't fighting kids yesterday. We were trying to determine a reasonable amount of growth in the revenue uncertainty environment that we're in. So I'm hoping, Councilman Freeman mentioned, he spoke with Kids Hope Alliance, that they're going to look for some kind of acceptable number that they can kind of live with as a challenge. I'm hoping that they're seeing what we're likely to do here for cultural council and PSG, and that they'll come to us with some kind of discount they're willing to live with, given the reality of budgeting today, given revenue uncertainty in November. Thanks. Thank you. We'll go next to Councilmember Gay, and then we'll go to Councilmember Arius after that. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I support the 65%, putting that above the line for, and not in the Amendment 3 bucket. We're only talking until November, and in November, it's 100% funded. So I don't see any issue with this. Actually, we probably could have took a whole bunch of other budgets and put in that Amendment 3 bucket just for a realization of what could happen. And so, you know, I don't see any problem with this. It's not getting cut. It's just got a potential pause on it that if something changes and Amendment 3 does pass, then we are already proactive. So I think it's responsible for what we're doing. Thank you. I am going to, because I announced it. We'll go to Councilmember Arius. You recognize. All right. Thank you. So, look, I could see and I could read the room, right? My ask was 75%, and the reason why is because, very simple, when you negotiate something, we say, okay, it doesn't mean in the middle. The middle of 50 and 100 is 75%, point blank. Like, 65 is just such a weird number that it just doesn't make sense to me. Zero is also, all right, we're not talking about zero right now. But I could read the room, and I would be okay with that. However, I do understand, and just for the narrative so that the media understands this, this is not a cut. Obviously, whatever happens in November, that's when the cut will potentially happen. But as Mr. Lennon just addressed it, and so did the auditors, this is really not going to affect our budget, whether we do 75% or 65%, because it hasn't been cut. So, if that's the case, why just not give them the 75%? Councilmember Gaye just said, with guarantee, the way he said it, and I don't believe that, is in November, they're going to get fully funded. We don't know that. Councilmember Howland, President Howland, just said, if. I don't want to go off of if. I don't want to have 5,600 full-time employees in our city going off of if. I don't want to have families affected off of if. $143 million of revenue off of if. $11 million of revenue towards our city off of if, all right? I'm asking you guys, very simple. If it doesn't affect the budget, go from 65% to 75%. Now, in November, if Amendment 3 passes, let's 100% figure this out for next year. No, not 100% cut. But that's 100% figure out for the following year. But I think, once again, my biggest thing is I want to make sure we protect the families in our city. Arts is a very critical part of our city core functions. I disagree with some of the speakers here today. It really is. All right. So, you guys vote on the 65 if you want. My proposal was still 75%. I will come back on council night for the additional 10% if that's the case. Maybe I could inspire other members of our city council. But I want you guys to just really think about this a little bit more. And I do appreciate the 65, at least, you know, olive tree extension. But see if you can go to 75. Thank you. Okay. We had a couple more added on to the queue. We'll go to past President Freeman. You recognize. For the first time. Thank you so much, Mr. Vice Chair. And I just wanted to, and I think I found myself, and I know where we're at in this conversation. But I want to go on record saying, again, in the very beginning of this process, I made the comment that I would have been willing, with a lot of help from others, to roll up my sleeves and just go through every organization. I truly believe that there are some organizations that are getting funded that they don't deserve it. And I believe that there are some organizations that are getting funded that deserve more. But that wasn't the prudent thing to do in this limited window that we have to submit a balanced budget. So with that being the case, then it is how can we move forward in a way that makes the most sense for this process, fair but not equal, across the board. And that's how I believe that Councilman Lane has landed where he has and how he's led us. And so I would like, I'm going to respect the wishes of the chair. My ask is to the community out there, all of you that have watched this process, you see how passionate we get as elected officials in fighting on your behalf. You see the sentiment and you see where a lot of people are at. Help us out. I mean, I saw yesterday so many vendors come in and it's almost a shame game. And it's like it shouldn't be that way. I don't think any individual up here is an evil person and they don't like kids. They got a tough responsibility. And it's going to be the same thing with the arts. So if you're okay with 65%, then say it. And let us move forward and then go with it. If you want 75% and it's needed, then say it. But then be willing to understand if you're following the sentiment that that might not be it. I just listen and then I let my gut come in. And my gut's telling me that it started at 50%. It climbed to 65% with a lot of debate, a lot of passionate discussion. And I think it's landed in a good place. I appreciate Councilman Arias fighting a good fight. I mean, that's what he always does and he's a champion for doing it. But I don't know if that I'm a short timer, but this short timer, if I were here on the next time this comes up to vote, I don't know if I'd vote for 75 based off of all of the discussions that I've heard up here with my colleagues. So I'm going to I'm going to support the chair and what they're asking and just move forward and just hope that you all out there are listening as well and kind of help us get through this tough process together. Thank you. We'll go next to Council Member Gay. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Vice here. To clarify, my statement is I did not guarantee just flat out guarantee that it will be funded 100%. I said if the Amendment 3 passes or does not pass, then it will be fully funded. We don't have to come back for any additional legislation. It's there and ready to move forward. I just don't, you know, looking at this, I don't feel that, you know, this budget goes into place October and then the vote's going to be in November. They're not going to burn up 65% of their money in that 30-day period, 45-day period, whatever it is. So I don't really see where, you know, it's a big, even at the 50%, I don't see where it's a big problem. But let's do 65 so they can, I guess, give their vendors more of a security that that's how much funds they will have to operate with for sure. And then the outcome of the Amendment 3 will point the compass in which way we've got to go on all of our finances. Thank you. Pass to President Salem. You recognize? Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. I was going to shut up on this, but I can't help myself. I met with these people, and they were comfortable with 50%. I think 50% for, what is it, 36 days, 33 days, or whatever it is, to November 3rd is very reasonable. I also agree with my colleague, Councilmember Diamond, that we could have done a lot more for Amendment 3 and did not. And I think we may regret that depending on what happens with that vote. So I think 50% is fine, and I would encourage us to vote on this and get this passed. We are spending way too much time on this particular issue. Let's vote. I mean, the committee vote. I feel like I'm at a council meeting because all these people are here. I will go back to Councilmember Marari. You should recognize. I'm going to, you know, oh, okay. You're off. You're on the queue. Okay. And then Councilmember Johnson, you're also on the queue. Okay. Seeing people on the queue but not on the queue. We're going to go to vote. All those in favor of, okay. He's asking. He's talking while I'm talking. I'm asking for a hand vote, so we'll do that. That'll save one step. All those in favor of the Leyden Amendment, please raise your hand. All those opposed, raise your hand. The amendment passes. We need that. We're serious. All right. Thank you. And thank you, Councilmember Arias. Oh, okay. I need a motion on the amendment as amended. We got a motion to say on the amendment as amended. Do you wish to speak, Councilmember Arias? Yep. You're recognized. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, colleagues, for that vote. Once again, we'll address it when the time comes. The last thing I want to talk about, and I'm not asking to fund it right now. I just want to have the conversation now. So, sorry. You got to vote. Councilmember Arias, if this is a new issue, we do got to vote on the amendment as amended. All those in favor of the amendment as amended, raise your hand. Any opposed, raise? The amendment passes. Councilmember Arias, you are recognized for enhancement number three. No, it's not enhancement number three. I'm not. I promise you. You've heard some constituents come up during council meetings talking about the Duval CAFICs, the TNR funding, how they've been underfunded. I don't know what the reality of it is. So, I'll just tell you right now that I'm doing some research. I'm going to have some meetings with the community to find out what's going on with our CAFIC issue. And as this conversation progress, I'll come back at some point. But right now, I just wanted to kind of put it out there in your radars that I'm having that conversation because supposedly they're underfunded by about $100,000 to $150,000. At some point throughout the year, I'll probably come back for something if that is in case the facts. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So, a couple of things that I heard that I wanted to address. First of all, I plan on being very consistent with anything that's already been through finance. And I did say when we talked about this, I'd supported the 65%. So, that is why I supported it now. The other thing I want to point out, even if Amendment 3 passes, this does not remove the funding right away. It would require then a two-thirds vote to bring above the line. I don't think there's going to be any appetite to do that. But I'm just saying that if Amendment 3 does pass, the money is still not going. It simply triggers now. It would be a two-thirds vote requirement to bring it back up above the line. And then to Council Member Arias, you know, as well as I do, one of the jobs of the chair is to try to find consensus. And I think we did a good job of finding what would get approved by the committee with that. I'm going to recognize Council Member Matt Carlucci. And then we are going to break for lunch. For all those Council Members that do not have enhancements, there is lunch in the green room. Council Member Carlucci. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's very unpredictable, but I don't think this will take too long. What I would like to do, that the Council and some of our Council Members and our Information Officer, Teresa Eichner, have been working on a, just around the corner, in the hallway here, a small City Council Museum. And the room is ready. It's painted. It's got a new floor. And it just needs to be built out. And I wanted to move $35,000 from the Council contingency for a line, I guess, that says City Council Museum, and the, up to that, I guess, for any furniture for perhaps a small seating area, some monitors that people could watch, history of the Great Fire, some interviews of some Council Members that have served decades ago, a small reception desk, perhaps, display cases, unless we're able to get those from some areas that they're looking at now where we could get them by donation, perhaps some track lighting, and a small introductory panel explaining the museum and its story and its purpose. But I'd just like to see if you're able to go ahead and move forward with this. There's already been some items donated to the museum. I've donated a few. And I don't think that's a big ask. And if somebody would at least make a motion in a second for you all to discuss, I'm just throwing it out there. So perhaps we could get this done by the end of this Council year before I leave and some of the other members of the Council who have contributed towards advancing this. Thank you. We've got to move in a second on this for discussion. I've got a number of questions. I'll recognize Council Member Diamond first. Oh, my gosh. I was hoping this wouldn't get seconded. This isn't personal to the introducer, but I can't think of a worse idea than a museum to the Jacksonville City Council, a pantheon to corruption, uselessness, and egos. Like, this is a terrible idea. And to use our city money to do it is even worse. People want to just, like, fork up their own money? Fine. But I just think that the people of Jacksonville are going to look at us and be like, what are you doing? You can't be serious about this. Does anyone want to get in a queue so I don't have to speak right after that? So Council Member Carlucci, so we're talking about $35,000. Have you talked to the auditors about any sort of alternative funding sources? Because, again, the things we have removed from the budget, I have a little concern with then adding budget for a city council museum. That's just my concern on the perception. Mr. Peterson, would this be CIP potentially? Because it is in our building? Through the chair, I don't know. First off, it doesn't hit the $100,000 threshold for CIP. I know that some dollars were appropriated in years past, but I don't remember that dollar amount, $75,000, $80,000 comes to mind, but that was probably three, four years ago. Council, you're recognized. We could even take it to $25,000. And I have to say, in a funny sort of way, there's a lot of truth to what Councilman Diamond is saying because the city council's history, predominantly pre-consolidation, does document. I mean, I know more about the corruption, and I have more of the corruption, pre-consolidation at my state farm office documented, and I don't plan to document, I don't plan to display a lot of that. But I can tell you a whole lot about it if you want to sit around and listen to stories. But so I have to agree with him on that. But I also happen to agree that there's a lot of our history of city government, and I really should say city government. It's not just city council, but it just happens to be the city council's idea, and it was stemmed a couple of years ago. Councilman Salem was a part of it. I don't know if he's still here. Yeah, there he is. But there's some pretty cool stuff that we have of city council minutes that were recorded with the most beautiful penmanship you will ever see in minutes' books dating back before 1900, and minutes that were taken right after the Great Fire. And I think it's a great educational tool, and it just opens up a little bit about how our city developed in its historical path. And so, yeah, all of our history is not so great. I'll be the first to admit that. But I will also say we have a lot of history to be damn proud of, because Jacksonville is a city that always bounces back. We are a city that always answers the call. We are a city that sometimes gets knocked down, but we always come back, always, and we always will. We are a great city, and we have a lot to be proud of as well. So, I went to Special Contingency Reserve, because I equate that to the once upon a time Special Council Reserve. And my feeling back in previous councils was the Special Council Reserve should always be reserved for money that did something for the whole county. So, that museum would be there for anybody who came from the whole county, from the school system, that might would want to walk through and just see a little bit about, you know, city government. So, that's why I went to the Contingency, thinking that's somewhat like what the old Special Council Reserve used to be, perhaps. But if there's a better funding source, I'll chip in a thousand bucks. Hell, I mean, I'll go out and raise it privately, but I just thought this would be a pretty easy ask. Thank you. I'm going to recognize Mr. Parks, and then I got something to say, then I'm going to go to Councilman Salem. Through the chair to the committee, I'll commit to working with Mr. Carlucci on possible funding sources. I do have an idea, but I don't want to commit to it, because I don't know that it's fully allowable use, but, and then either run a separate piece of legislation through, or come with a floor amendment, if that's what the committee wants to do. I'll recognize you, Councilman Carlucci. If that's what you would prefer, I'll do that. It's up to you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to foul up your process. So, again, my two concerns are, and this came up during the James Well and Johnson Park discussion, actually, yesterday. We're putting a significant amount of money into a park right next to City Hall, and this would be putting more money into City Hall. At the same time, we've already approved money for the Jacksonville History Center as well this year within the budget. So, that would be my concern. My desire would be that you work with the auditors. This is a great example of something that we should be talking about in December to see what our financial situation is and what we have to prepare for. But that would be my desire, to work with the auditors and see. Would you like me to come back with a separate piece of legislation? That would be my preference, yes. Okay. That's what I'll do, then. Councilman Salem, do you still wish to speak? Briefly. Thank you, Chair. Three years ago, you all may recall, we passed legislation that moved all those records in the basement over to the library for display and such. records that go back, I think, over 100 years, as I recall, having looked at them. So, I just wonder if maybe doing something at the library where all those records are might be something that Council Member Carlucci ought to consider with everything already moved over there. Just a thought. Thank you. Mr. Chair. I'm going to recognize Council Member Carlucci to respond first, and then Council Member Freeman. Thank you. So, at the library, a lot of those are up there. I've been up to see those records, and they're fantastic. The library's done a great job with a lot of those records, but they're almost like going to a library, and you have to try to find them. But the idea has been around, and you can speak to Ms. Eichner about this, about making this little room where the credit union used to be into that library, because school kids come through the city hall all the time, as well as visitors and so forth. And so, that was the idea, to put some things on display in a small area where they could see a lot. And she has already, I mean, she's been working on this, so I would like to bring it in for the intended use, which is the building just around the corner from us. Thank you. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and be brief. One, you kind of took my ideas well when we talk about collaboration. So, we talked about historical society. I remember meeting with them, as well. That was going to be my first question, is can there be some type of philanthropic effort where they're raising dollars, and then they're rotating items through? The second part is, I'm going to say what some may be thinking but aren't comfortable of saying. It seems like in today's society right now, anytime we talk about museums, be it the Smithsonian in D.C. or be it, you know, in Alabama when you're talking about burial sites, somehow it starts to become a controversial topic. It seems like that tenure, that tone is starting to calm a little bit, and I would hate for something like this, depending on, because you said pre-consolidation, which tells me that there's been some tough times in our city, and I do believe stories should be told and that history should not be erased. But it seems like we're setting ourselves up if we go down this lane of having some things presented that yet again will pit one side against the other. So my question would be, is how is it going to be determined what is displayed? Is there going to be some type of a group with it? So I'm not necessarily going to be in favor of this right now, because it takes me back to Confederate monument arguments and discussions and history being put in its rightful place, and I fear that that may not be your intention, but I have seen too many times groups come in and take a good idea that we have and turn it into something that can be very controversial. So that's just my take on it. I have no one in the queue, so I believe the path forward, Councilman Carlucci, again, I want to support these efforts, but just based on some of the things that we have removed from the budget, I'm sensitive to that as well. But I have no doubt we'll be able to work with the auditors, and like I said, I think this is a good December time frame item. With that, we are going to take a 30-minute break for lunch. It was. We did. We had a motion in second. So Councilmember Freeman, I believe you made the motion. Will you entertain withdrawing your motion? All right. We have a withdrawal of the motion, so we are going to have lunch. Minutes of Terrence Freeman's term on council. So before we cry about Terrence leaving us, I think we were through all the district council members. Councilmember Johnson is district 14, Councilmember Diamond, I'm pretty sure you do not have any other enhancements. And so council at-large district one, council member, or I'm sorry, your district two, council member group two at-large, Councilmember Salem, do you have anything for us? Thank you, Chair. I have a project. I have spoken to the auditors. I have a source of funding, and I will be introducing a one-cycle emergency very quickly here, and I would hope everybody would support it. It's for a very important project to me out in the Arlington area. Thank you. And I'll remind everyone, Councilmember Salem had a handout he passed around yesterday on that project. I have one today if you're interested. Okay. So if any members want to see that project, Council President, we've been to you. Councilmember Freeman, do you have anything for us to discuss? Enhancements. Okay. No enhancements. So I think we were done with enhancements. I did learn something, and I'm going to hand the gavel off for an amendment that actually reduces something we discussed. Never mind. Councilmember Diamond's going to make it. Just for the Chair's convenience, it's to move half of the funding for the Orlick into the out year? I just want to get it technically right, but that's correct. All right. So moved. Mr. Peterson. So it's operating, so I guess we can't move it to out years. So it would be reducing $750,000, and then we, either as a mayor or a council, would have to ensure the other $750,000 came back. Correct? Through the Chair. So $1.5 million is currently below the line as part of the budget. If you're grabbing it, so that will stay below the line until somebody does something with it. If you're going to reduce it, you need to then designate where that additional $750,000 is going. I was assuming the public safety contingency, but I would defer to the... I'll modify my amendment. And just so everybody knows, Dan Bean and the folks over at the Orlick, you know, agree to this already. But yeah, so I would move that we move $750,000 above the line, and then move the other $750,000 to the council contingency. Does that not work? Philip's making a face. I think you want to leave $750,000 below the line should it be needed by the Orlick at some point during the year, and then that $750,000 will go to the contingency. All right. So moved. That's why I'm a lawyer, not a CPA. Okay. We got a motion second. And again, I'll just reiterate, several people talked to the Orlick Association when we saw that, and they could not realistically spend that amount of money in one year. Our job next year will be to remember, if it does not come budgeted by the mayor, we will have to ensure that that $750,000 does make it to the budget. So we'll go back to this day to remind everyone that we made a promise for next year's budget that the $750,000 would have to be there. All those who have heard the amendment say aye. Aye. Any opposed say nay. Okay. The amendment passes. What else do we have to do? I'll note that Council Member Johnson is not here. And I know that Phillip and team, they're working on crunching the numbers. What I'd like Phillip, I got the Council President EQ. I'll call on him in a second. But if you could tell us basically an update of the spreadsheet we started off the day to tell us how we compare to last year plus the Amendment 3 referendum. And then also if we could talk about CIP, where we stand with CIP relative to the proposal as well. Council President, you're recognized. Mr. Chair, I just thought we were wrapping up. And I was just going to tell you, the Vice Chair, and all the members of the Finance Committee that I thought that these budget hearings, you did a fantastic job. I really think that this committee has performed remarkably well. And I just want to, I can't praise you enough. What a great job that you did leading it, Vice Chair did, and the entire committee did. Thank you for protecting the taxpayers of Jacksonville. Thank you, Council President. I'd also like to thank Council Member Salem for being here, pretty much every Finance Committee. I have relied greatly on a lot of Council Member Salem's advice and the way he leads the financial concerns of the city. So thank you for being here pretty much every council meeting and our honorary eighth member of the Finance Committee. So we appreciate your input as well. With that, Michael Boylan is also a good dude. So we will put that on the record as well. Mr. Peterson, are you ready to read off some numbers for us? Through the chair, yes, sir. So in comparison to last year, when you take the public safety contingency out, you are below last year's budget by $522,848. And then the public safety contingency balance as of today is $23,405,097. Great. And then the CIP, I don't need it to the penny, but I think, like we talked about this morning, we haven't added anything else today. So it's about $3 million less on debt-funded projects than what was originally proposed to us. Through the chair, it's about $2 million because you added Council Member Carlucci's San Jose project and Council Member Romero's traffic signal project today. But yes, it's still less than what came to you. Okay. Thank you. So again, let's just say that again. And first off, I said it when the budget was proposed to us. There are a lot of things to like. We had non-public safety headcount was down year over year and no use of the reserves. So and I was very vocal about that. We appreciate getting a budget handed to us like that. With our actions, we are slightly less than flat to last year. And with the Amendment 3 referendum contingency account, if Amendment 3 passes, we are now well less than what we are last year to give us the head start, knowing that we'll need to take out $200 million in the next budget year, $300 million the next budget year. And then CIP, again, we didn't make too many changes. We still have one loose end with Mr. Joseph is going to come talk to us more about James William Johnson Park. Again, the goal is not to cancel that project, but it's to understand the year over year cost increases and see if we can move in a direction to keep it flat like we did for the three other parks a couple years ago. With that, I mean, I feel good. Mr. Weinstein. Thank you. Well, two things. First, as everyone is saying, terrific process, terrific budget, council auditors, our staff, council, terrific process. But when we speak, we're going to say our budget is $26 million more than last year. You always say it's flat or less than flat. Our budget is $2 billion, $26 million. Last year, it was $2 billion, $21 or $23 million. You're listing expenditures differently, and you're putting a lot under the line and in reserves, but our budget is $23 million more than last year. Yeah, so it's how you define, you know, under, over, and what have you, but again, it's $2 billion, $26 million. And I completely agree with that by the way we define our budget. And it took me a couple years to get to this point. If this was a corporate world budget, we would be talking about a surplus budget. But because the top line number is what we go by in the government world, yes, the budget is $2.026 billion because that is the revenue number. Unlike last year, we did nothing to impact the revenue number. The focus this year was focusing on the expenditures to get us to a safe and prudent place with the unknown future revenue that we're looking to collect. So, and again, Mr. Weinstein, at the beginning of the process, I told you that my goal was to not surprise you and tell you ahead of time anything I had questions or concerns on. And I think I've kept that promise, and you have to me as well, so I certainly appreciate that. Phillip and Brian, was this the most ever 7.30 a.m. meetings you've had, or have you had more with previous finance chairs? Did I set the record? Okay, well, I told everyone, I told the council president this would be my all-in focus once he told me I would be finance chair. So I appreciate the early mornings. And also your staff, I mean, it's not just you two. I believe you have 18 employees in the audit staff. You see them cycling in and out. They come sit down here when we are reviewing their portions of the budget. So thank you for the staff as well. And Ms. Berche, thank you as well for everything you did to assist this. With that, before I recognize Council Member Freeman, he will be recognized last. Are there any other committee members that have anything else to say today before I hand it over? And I'm also going to give him the gavel so he can gavel us out and end his time in City Hall. Council President, you're recognized. I just want to say, Council Member-elect Monet Holder, give us a quick wave back there. Welcome. Thanks for being here today. Someone is calling the bat phone. That's all. I just wanted to make sure Monet was recognized. All right, with that, to gavel us out for the last time. Thank you so much. And what I wanted to share with each of you all was 2016 budget and every budget after that. Richard Clark, if he's watching, would call the finance chair on the very first day of the finance meeting, and that phone would ring. And I remember Gullifer sitting there laughing. And then the next thing I was going to do, and I could not find a container, but there used to be a big container with an Advil label on it because the budget was such a headache and it was such a big, cumbersome process to go through. So I'm kind of glad I didn't this year because the way it went, when we had moments of contention, we were still able to work through it. It's just a part of the sausage-making process. So thank you so much for that. I didn't know the phone still worked, and so I picked it up, called myself. My phone rang, and that's when you heard it ring earlier. It was not Will not paying attention. This guy was very focused in the process. So thank you so much for that. And you're actually going to allow me to gavel out. I am. Let's switch places. Yeah. No. I really don't blame you. We're going to reopen this budget. We're going to start over. No. No. I really wish I'd have had my mom and my family watch as well. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to serve. Councilmember Salem. I mean, this finance process, you were one of the first that I went through where it was just so structured and organized. Nick, again, let me walk in your neighborhood, which I couldn't get behind the closed gates without you bringing me in and introducing it. Randy, we came in together. You and Councilmember Gay, not knowing each other well when we started, and then watching how when you truly commit to serving our city and loving our city, it brings like-minded people together and how the relationship has been forged. Will, I don't know how to tell you this, but if you all don't know him, pray you get a chance to sit next to him in meetings because he says some of the funniest things you'll ever hear. All appropriate, right? But it's just you don't expect it coming out of that personality. I'm really going to miss that. Chris, I've known you for quite some time. Looking forward to your leadership continuing on in this process. And Rory, my brother from another mother, we started this journey together on the Jack's journey, and it comes to an end with this. And to the back, Ms. Monet, I did send you a text the night of. Congratulations. Congratulations, and I wish you the best as you continue to finish out my term. With that being said, no other questions, comments, or concerns. This meeting is adjourned.