hey it's two minutes until
how else would you do it because how you pay that rent no but i never see
anybody there except those parties
emily he's drunk with power i know yes he is there are some nights and is
the way i value my life
so
good evening everyone welcome to eustis city hall this is a regular city
commission meeting of the eustis city commission it is 6 p.m thursday
september the 8th 2022 at this time if you'd like to join us
for a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance please stand
amen please join me in the pledge of
allegiance i pledge allegiance the flag of the united states
of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god
indivisible with liberty and justice for all
thank you
go ahead and call our meeting to order christina sarah foreign president proper
note has been given yes thank you so much tom agenda updates yes uh two
things uh one the presentation on the budget and the millage scheduled
under 3.1 uh it makes more sense to do that at the time of the item and so we'd
like to do that just prior to 6.1 if that's okay absolutely
and then the other item i would like to take an opportunity to introduce the
artists who are exhibiting at city hall currently so i'd like to invite up wanda
pedrosa and vidal torres please come on up introduce yourselves
right here to the microphone in the center there folks
okay thank you hi good evening my name is juan de
pedosa i'm nated from puerto rico
but i'm a resident of eustis uh it's gonna be our fifth year
fifth year and we are artists and hand crafters and
we will we love to share all our knowledge with the
community in eustace that's why we came and offered
to display our art um also in celebration of the hispanic
heritage month that is from september to october
so i hope you enjoy our art and i don't know
you want to say something else [Laughter]
your artwork is absolutely your artwork is absolutely beautiful we thank you for
sharing it with us and we look forward to hopefully showcasing you all some
more throughout the year yes and we're looking forward to keep working with you
uh and the theory of justice thank
[Applause]
we do appreciate
that you give us the opportunity to be here
and to share with the city of eustis
our art in appreciation
we we like to give you
the poster of the
exhibit we are one all right thank you so much
we appreciate that
thank you so much it's really nice
very nice
george there okay do we all give george a quarter
this is like a cruise ship you at the end you can come up and pick them up and
buy them three two one three
two one thank you thank you george thank you
all so much
all right moving on down next we have approval of minutes we have on our
agenda tonight the june 28 2022 city commission budget workshop the june 30th
2022 city commission budget workshop and the august 18 2022 city commission
cemetery workshop looking for approval for the approval of
the june 28 june 30th august 18th minutes thank you ma'am
thank you sir any further discussion not hearing any roll call please vice
mayor lee aye commissioner lahoop smith aye commissioner cobb aye commissioner
hawkins aye mayor holland aye next we have presentations which we have moved
over to the uh further down in the agenda so now we
come down to audience to be heard if you'd like to speak to the commission
about something that's not on the agenda this is your opportunity you get three
minutes please give us your name when you come forward
tom anybody yes i have a card from cindy newton all right hi cindy
good evening cindy newton i'm in unincorporated
lake county district four and i just wanted to thank mayor holland
for sitting in on the panel for the recent double acp part 3
citizens town hall meeting on lake county's population explosion
it was an excellent meeting it went so well the
sitting there listening and having input and just observing
various leaders from not only the county but
several municipalities
and they had such a unity in
thoughts and
direction for the area and it was
uplifting it was encouraging and greatly appreciate it i just want to thank you
thank you i appreciate that
okay uh gail isaac thomas
scale good evening
hi sasha hello how are you i just want to stand before you this
evening and say how much i appreciate it
being the volunteer for the cr east town
east used to cra rep for
three almost three and a half years but anyway
i just want to tell you all thank you i appreciate everything that
was done during my time as a representative
and pray and hope that things continue to improve
in east town and i also want to say congratulations
commissioner thank you to another year thank you thank you thank you gail thank
you for your service anybody else tom so um we received a
card uh from gessner harris but she is not here
yet and she is on her way so i don't know what the will of the commission is
um
let's see where we are when guest new gets here i have a card from yolanda
taylor miss yolanda come on to the microphone how are you
good thank you for allowing me to still submit
yolanda taylor good evening commission board i'm
actually here as a regular resident in east town 806 liberty street
actually stood before the board and we talked about bears
we talked about bears and i know we discussed a few things as far as signs
and trash cans and things of that nature and i'm aware that some of the
commissioning board also is aware of a safety issue as far as bears are
concerned with chasing individuals in the community
i am know
for sure that the individual that got chased by the bear
actually lives next door to a relative of mine that has two little babies
and also next to a very close relative of mine who has
seven babies in that home so now are we not dealing with trash but we're also
dealing with safety okay
i understand that the residents had the opportunity to contact animal control
and wildlife and they were given keys or excuse me locks for their trash can
currently we have approximately two individuals in the neighborhood who have
these locks so my next question is whether or not is that the
possible direction that we should take if we should just be contacting wildlife
to make sure that we not only have the locks for the can
but we're looking at a safety issue and usually when we're dealing with safety
with animals they come out with capture to capture
so i don't know exactly where we are or where to go with that
yeah and again we understand animals are going to be here right they're
everywhere i don't like lizards if i could call somebody to get every
lizard i would please just take them away
i don't like lizards but i mean there's nothing i can do about it okay um
however when we are now dealing with safety and especially when the bears
come out when it's still daylight okay and we have little babies
and the little babies are starting to chase humans
okay all right um
yeah so i just wanted to revisit that again for sure
um i know and i have faith that we will be able to get some level of assistance
i do believe and am aware that we may be receiving
assistance just wanted to bring that to the board again in attention okay all
right thank you i can maybe give a little update on
that um and so the commission had said
contact waste management waste management
does have a program they said the only municipality that's
participating right now is mount dora waste management will go out and buy the
bear proof cans
they [Music]
well i'm sorry waste management will buy them on behalf of the city the city will
pay for those cans the city can then determine how to
distribute those cans mount dora chooses to pass that cost
along to the customer so mount dora pays for a bear proof can
if a customer requests it mount dora charges the customer for the cost of
that cam in talking to jose at waste management
the cost of the can right now is about 250 dollars for a bear proof can
now commissioner hawkins recently was in touch with some folks from
fish and wildlife they have
kind of like a strap or buckle solution they i contacted waste management and
said do you have any experience with these straps or buckles does it make it
difficult for you to pick up trash and waste management said we have no
experience with what fish and wildlife is talking about
and so where commissioner hawkins and i left it was maybe we need to get
waste management operations folks with fish and wildlife
to see if this is a viable solution and it's something that's workable and
allows waste management to continue to pick up the trash
and so we can do that i think waste management would be i'm
sorry i think fish and wildlife would be asking us
to bear the cost of those those straps and buckles and i
think it's a reasonable cost and it's whether we pass that on to the
customer is something that we would have to talk about
so i think it's it would be cost effective
we just don't quite know yet if it's something that waste management can work
with if waste management can't you pick up the trash they're not going to allow
that to be used um and so
at this point i think we just have to do a little bit more work on it yeah i
think that um that that is
something that uh fish and wildlife said they would they
would make for us if we wanted it but that being said if it was something
that we we could do we would have to get the word out to
every resident there that
they would have to make sure on the day of trash pickup that they unbuckle
their their trash cans because if not it may not get picked up and then
you know there'll be complaints about them so we
just need to we got to take the steps to get
everything done and then when the time comes you and i will go out and we'll
walk the neighborhood and we'll tell everybody what they need to do
okay all right thank you willy thank you tom
so uh yolanda submitted another card on another issue i don't know what the will
of the commission is go ahead real quick come on
thank you again yolanda taylor
this time i'm actually here for the east town community redevelopment
incorporated i'm actually here to briefly discuss
code enforcement at the last meeting there were a few
concerns as far as code enforcement is concerned i had the opportunity to speak
with mr eric martin to just to educate myself because that's what we want to do
we want to be able to educate and have a better understanding
and some of the findings that i found out were eyebrow raising so i need you
guys's help and direction on that and see how is it
that we can proceed from here just to give an example some of the
questions as far as how is it that we decide the sliding scale of
between the two 25 dollars to the 250 dollars of fees
that is that are applied based on infraction there isn't necessarily a
standard scale this is just something based on from
what i was told what we may decide
that particular fee is so my eyebrow razor is shouldn't we
possibly have something in place that is a
sliding scale based on the infraction if it's something that's um
you know detrimental if it's safety then of course it gets a higher end if it's
something that's level is grass it may fall within a certain bracket where it
may be on the level end that's not necessarily something that's in place
now my next concern was about finding out the information as far as code
enforcement liens and issues that we have in the community
right now currently the only way that we can find it out is just by going and
looking on the board not everyone is posted nor is it anywhere else
researchable for the community to find out so my position here is to see
how is it that we can come up with a better way to one educate
our residents whether that's through the organization so we can learn a little
bit more as far as the processes and coming up with a better way as far as
how is it that we are notified of the infractions and how the fees are applied
and how we determine how much is applied per
infraction versus it just being based off emotion today you know i feel
like it's going to be 75 a day tomorrow it might be 250 today there's not
anything that's concrete as far as a guide
so that's an issue especially in the in the area
where can somebody please get that from me
um in the area where we are losing land we're losing property
and it's our job to make sure that we make sure our residents know what's
going on and i'm in that position to help to do so okay
i'm going to ask you to schedule a meeting with tom and with mike okay and
sit down and talk to them when i was on the code enforcement board we had some
set fees and i believe that code enforcement
board does have set fees of what when they when somebody comes in front of
them and willie you were on it prior to coming on the commission there
there is uh that document that shows them a sliding scale so
if you will get with those gentlemen let them sit down with you and meet with you
because i have i have concerns with code enforcement as well yeah and we want to
be able to help to make sure that we all know what's going on correct okay if
you'll just schedule a meeting with tom and with mike they can sit down with you
and go over that and get you an answer all right thank you
okay thank you so much ms gessner i saw you walk in and i know you've got a card
in already you want to come up ma'am
how are you tonight fine good later vice mayor commissioners
i just came up i would like to make a maybe suggestion
recently we rented the building out at carver park the
garden room and in renting the building they were
having a football game and for the football game we gave to the
cheerleaders we bought uniforms and all that
but when you're renting the building
it is my suggestion if they would rope off
the parking lot for the people that are renting the building
if the building is not being rented it's open for free parking
but if you have paid 50 an hour to rent a building and you
get there and there's no parking it's kind of embarrassing
we had people from far as the bahamas and they came in here elderly people
could not even drop the food off we were trying to park side the streets going in
a ditch to bring the food in and it's just a suggestion in the future
that if you're renting the building i understand why they didn't want to rent
it now because that's probably why but if we're bringing revenue in by renting
the building i could not see not letting us rent the building which we
really did appreciate yes ma'am and that's a lot of us yes yes you have our
condolences for the loss in your family and we're sorry if it embarrassed you in
any way all right thank you ma'am we'll take it under advisement thank you
anybody else tom um
dorothy stevenson miss dorothy
i forgot to say there's an overflow parking which we were told that's down
there if they would take a sign maybe and put overflow parking
they told us to use that but i think they can
use that gotcha thank you ma'am hello miss dorothy good evening board members
i'm dorothy stevenson liberty street
first of all i would like to thank my mayor for taking
making sure i was okay doing my surgery thank you so much you're welcome and uh
grand opening was awesome thank you for that also and
i just want to address again i want gail to know
how much we appreciate the service that you did
for us while you was on the board
you know you did all that you could and knew how
to do and i want to thank you publicly for doing what you did
and you know we are community
and if love is supposed to be a community and
if we show each other love and respect that's all we can do and i just want to
say thank you all thank you and
the issues about the bear and pardon bears too so i'm a part of all the
issues that's going on so everything that you're here listening to
is a part of me also and i want to thank and hope we all have
listeners thank you thank you
anybody else tom that's all i have as far as cards thank you anybody else like
to address the commission on anything that's not on the agenda this evening
not seen anything we're going to go ahead down to the consent agenda there
are three items on the consent agenda this evening is there anything anybody
would like pooled for discussion
not hearing i'm looking for a motion to accept the consent agenda
thank you ma'am thank you ma'am any further discussion
not hearing any roll call please vice mayor lee aye commissioner hope smith
aye commissioner cobb aye commissioner hawkins aye mayor holland aye madam
attorney thank you mr mayor um mr shepard will now present on the
tentative millage levy of the ad valorem taxes and the tentative budget for the
city of eustis thank you ma'am mayor
members of commission mike shepard finance director
i'd like to first thank you all for your participation in
this whole process and i have
nellie harnish and joy mackenzie who have done a lot of
work in getting this thing put together so
it's been a pleasure
how does this work
we're getting close to the end of it we have this meeting
and one more meeting to to meet for reading the budget and the tentative
millage and we'll be doing that and then we will
advertise we have to advertise that on the 19th which is a sunday paper
it'll be in the daily commercial and uh that's required by law
uh after the
next thursday or two thursdays from now we will be
certifying by the 27th we have to certify to the property appraiser what
the millage will be and
the adoptive budget will be distributed in october 1
will have a new budget
these are a list of the major funds uh that we have the biggest two are uh have
to do with general fund water and sewer water and sewers made up of three or
four different
separate funds but combined uh the methodology it
will be this is how all of it will be presented you'll have two years of
history uh you'll have the adopted budget from
last year you'll have the projected budget for this year and then the
proposed this gives you a list of
where we started from and the different uh
things that we discussed and and changes that we made to the budget to
get to where the bottom line where we're at right now
and each of the funds that had a anything changing is listed there
these are some of the big items that we
had going through the
life and health insurance we got a 20 or two percent decrease
which is unheard of
the cola we were able to do a four percent
and then uh we also did a longevity which goes a half a percent per year up
to four years two percent max this will get us help get us closer to
what the other cities are doing so we're competitive and we're going to be in a
position maybe next year to be over the fifteen dollars an hour which
goes into effects on uh thinking 26 25. the other items uh
you know we we look at the the state revenues they make projections
we use what we are gathering now
combine the two to get get the estimates for revenues
uh these are some of the things that uh
general liability insurance 10 was budgeted uh
the fire pension decreased a little bit uh from four one nine eight to four two
nine four it's i'm sorry i just skipped a line
three nine two three eight three uh
small decrease and the police pension increased a little
uh a total of uh 4198-4294 for a slight increase of 10 000
we have a we're going to get three new officers resource officers so uh
but in order to do that the school board is paying uh 246 000 or no 226 thousand
246 is going to be our approximate cost but we get we through that we'll get
more information on the students that are in there
and i already said that
this is just a summary of all the budget changes and
start with a beginning balance revenues expenditures less reserves that
are required and we get to unbalance
for the end of 9 30 23.
this is just a representation pie chart for
the revenues that we're going to be receiving from all those funds
this will be the budgeted expenditures that we're going
to have from there
this is for the general fund it just shows the revenues that we have where it
came from expenditures and where they can where they're going
we were proposing 7581
for the millage rate the taxable value
that we have is
anyway that
we're proposing 7581 the
and it did go up a little bit from that time that this was made
then the the rollback rate 7.0064
and the maximum that we could do is 8.8 and again we're proposing 7581 would be
i think the ninth year that we've done that
this one here i've highlighted the ones that i'm going
to show you in the next screen this shows us
as far as the millage rate we're dead last
but uh so out of the 14 we're 14. however if you look at the functional
millage rate we're number two out of the
the four other ones that we're comparing ourselves to
they have the pretty much the same uh taxable
valuations and uh these are the other things they
have that show the village rate the transfers to the general fund we over
here we show what the uh millage rate would be needed to to cover
that and then if they have a fire sentence assessment fee
that millage rate is include so they're all added together
and we're we're number two uh right behind lady lake
this one here shows the per capita uh and as far as that goes uh the the
the number of citizens we have compared to the expenditure we have for the
general fund we're still number one and uh
goes to various leesburg and mount dora after that
the uh this is a description of how the
it's the millage rate would be applied to a home
if it's 150 000 you subtract 50 000 for homestead exemption
then you divide that amount 100 000 by 1000 whatever it comes out to be
divided by a thousand and then you multiply that by our
7.581 that gives you the taxable value
the uh hours of seven five seven hundred fifty
eight dollars and ten cents for every hundred thousand dollars
annual taxes and the rollback would be 700.64
which gives you a savings it would give the individual would get a savings of 57
dollars and 46 cents and that divided by 12
is about a cup of coffee the
the millage reduction while it may be it's a little bit for
money into the customer prop pockets
but it means a lot to the city on the services we we provide because we have
police fire uh public works
uh development services legal and what have you
so all the administration so i think it's a good value
if you if you look at it uh these this is uh one mill would equal
one million three hundred twenty thousand
uh this this is a breakdown of the uh
percentage for each of the uh the budget items that we're looking at
and uh
okay this uh gives you the taxable values
over the last 10 years so you see the values have started
really going up uh and an oh i think it was 08 they they've
held to the bottom of the barrel
so we're just we're getting above that and
hopefully it'll continue i'm sorry there was supposed to been one
more in there um
but that's
okay austin
okay well no i'm sorry there was a there was a per
capita i put that in there that was earlier
so if there's uh if there's any questions
uh i'll be happy to answer them um
most of you all of you have been involved with the whole process so
if anyone wants a copy of this a hard copy of this so i'll get it to you in a
pdf or if anyone in the audience would like
one we'll give it to them and again
i want to thank all of you tom has been
instrumental in it and uh
so is natalie harness and again joy mackenzie
thank you any questions of life from the commission
i'm not hearing anything mike thank you madam attorney back to
you ma'am thank you mr mayor we'll start with resolution number 22-61
a resolution by the city commission of the city of eustis lake county florida
adopting the tentative millage levy of ad valorem taxes for the city of eustis
lake county for the fiscal year of 2022 2023 providing for an effective date
yes are there any additional questions from the commission from mr shepherd
okay is there anyone in the the only thing i want to mention for the millage
rate is the uh rollback rate this the millage
rate that we're adopting is going to be 8.2 percent higher than the rollback
rate to make that clear
other than that the
first we're staying at this will cover us and we'll have a little bit left over
hopefully at the end of the year anything further commission is there
anyone in the audience i would like to speak on resolution number 22-61
okay seeing none public comment is closed
commissioners before us we have resolution number 22-61 what's the will
of our commission
mr mayor i moved for approval of resolution number 22-61 thank you ma'am
i said thank you sir any further discussion
not hearing any roll call please vice mayor lee aye commissioner lahoop smith
aye commissioner cobb aye commissioner hawkins aye mayor holland hi
next we have resolution number 22-62 a resolution by the city commission of the
city of eustis lake county florida adopting the tentative budget for the
fiscal year 2021 through 2022 and providing for an effective date does the
commission have any questions for mr shepard on this i just 23. it's 22 23
sorry yeah i'm sorry all right well we'll correct that yeah i thought so
22-2021 2020. sorry 2022 2023. we'll correct
that on the resolution okay
no additional questions or comments is there anyone in the audience that would
like to speak to this
saying none public comment is closed measures before us we have resolution
number 22-63 or 62 what's the will of our commission
mr mayor i mean for approval of resolution number 22-62
thank you ma'am hi second thank you sir any further discussion
not hearing any roll call please vice mayor lee
hi commissioner the hope smith aye
commissioner cobb hi commissioner hawkins
mayor holland aye thank you thank you mike thank you and please tell your team
upstairs thank you so much for all their hard work i'll see you in two weeks
thank you sir madam attorney thank you so much if i
i'm sorry if i could point out each of you has a binder of the tentative budget
that was just approved on uh with the resolution
this is tentative as of the approval on the 22nd you will then get an adopted
budget and so
it should look uh practically exactly the same but you will get a second
version of that once you approve it thank you
now we're coming down to other business first one is discussion of downtown and
east town redevelopment agency board representative positions tom you want to
lead us with that one sure i don't have a formal presentation
this is something that we had instituted a few
years ago periodically we review
the um the need for the position
i think with the resignation of gail isaac thomas the thought was maybe it's
time to review this and so you have the staff report giving
some background and i will
turn it over to commission to see what your thoughts are on this thank you vice
mayor
i i'm in my opinion i think that we should eliminate the positions there's
no voting um anybody can come up and speak to us at any time
um i don't see the value in it and i would
like to propose that we just eliminate those positions and if anybody has
something to do they come up to say they come up as usual as they usually do and
present it okay because if they they have no voting power if we're not going
to do that then i think that there's no point in us having two people assigned
and giving up time and have no clout so okay
karen um
well i liked having the position i
i agreed that it didn't need to have voting power but i liked having
community
members up with us
and it gave people another
source of someone to go to with their concerns
so i'd like to see it stay on
i agree it doesn't need to be a voting position
but i like to have them up here with input
really um
i um i agree with karen i i think it's
important for the community to have uh
uh us say so uh to be involved uh i think in the last couple of months
there have been been positions available to come up and
we haven't had people that wanted to fill them
i think it's a stepping stone just like the code enforcement board
was a stepping stone for you and i i think it's a stepping stone to
you know to something bigger
although i don't agree that they should have voting power
because i think that only belongs to people that were voted on by the
majority of the uh people in the city
but i think it's important that
that the community has to say so and the community has the opportunity to be
involved uh
you know as much as possible so i think we should keep it
man well i see both sides i mean you know i
again i agree with you guys as well that i don't think it should be a voting
position because that's an elected position
by the residents of eustis so i i see that but
i see the same side of it as emily does that everybody always has an opinion no
one's ever not allowed to come before us
and you're also allowed to approach us at any time you know you're
allowed to approach us at any time and yes it is hard enough to get volunteers
it's very hard you know not everybody wants to take time out
you know everyone's got a busy schedule
but i also see if you want to use this for a stepping stone as well i see that
too so it's never been a case of not having
a voice because everyone's always always has a voice again
but there is no voting power to it so you know what i'm saying you can come to
us at any time always
but you can't vote so it's going to really
determine you know whether you want to
i guess i hate i hate to use the word waste of time because that's not it it's
just taking time out of your busy schedule
you know so um
yeah it it it it's it's a difficult call and it's a tough call
but um again i i'm a firm believer and again
like everybody else you know that that voting situation needs to be an elected
official so um
you know i i think it's it's important you know gail was on it
for two or three years and
and there were people that went to her and they talked to her about
things in the community and then before they came to us and and i i just
think that this is it's important to have that connection with the with
the community and you know and we'd like to think that
they they everyone would come up and talk to us
but a lot of people would probably go talk to a community member before they
would come and talk to us
i agree but we are part of the community yeah i am used as i am one we are one
so i understand that too so i you know i never really understood the separation i
really never understood it we are one use this i never understood
the separation the east and west i never but that was part of the original cra
set up so but that was done god two thousand
uh no it was um i can't i can't remember because you
know much that stuff i've read yeah it was um
2018 is when we created the two community
positions the cra was created that's what i'm
saying yeah i mean technically it's always been one cra okay when we created
the two community positions that's when we
center street and center street extended was kind of the line to make sure that
we had representation we did i mean again technically it's
always been one cra at one point we did the plan for downtown separate
from the plan for east town but it was always one cra
so so
the cra committee the the newly formed committee commission a committee
um or the little advisory situation to me
that's where that's another opportunity for the community to
to to speak to i didn't see in my recollection a lot of um
a lot of people going to it also to me means that it's less likely maybe we
need to be able to be able to speak to the community but it puts like another
person there and i would rather them come to me and
talk as a commissioner elected commissioner they would come
and voice and let me know what their concerns are they always can come up
here and talk but also i want to have that kind of interaction
rather than a person in the middle but
you know i'm that's just a suggestion on my part but that does concern me and i
don't like um the idea that we're not approachable
that's what it sounds like to me i think sometimes we're not approachable uh but
i i don't think that please don't do that yeah i mean that that was
yeah i i don't think that having um
having uh you know members from the community
hurts us in any way uh he doesn't hurt us no no he doesn't
have us so
uh i think that you know uh input from every source uh you know every avenue
that we have only helps us so again i think we should
i'm torn too because i can see both sides
my recommendation would be to because it's what what's these four year
terms they're four year terms and they're staggered
maybe bring them back to one year and rotate it constantly
holy moly that's making staff look for somebody every
year people apply for it well people apply
for it yeah they apply
i i would rather see somebody stay on
for four years because that gives them a
feel of of how it works and
you know i know all of us are new up here at one time and you just don't know
you don't know until you know and
it's a learning process i think if you put someone up here for just a year now
they can apply again i'm sure but um you put someone up here for
a year they're just gonna figure it out and it'll be time to go
well if they're going to be here then they should have
i think more input than what what they've had in the past i mean
we're saying you can't vote so what are they here for they
they come up they say what they what has to be said or people come up and they
talk to us about it present their side of it sometimes
i think it's more taking it back to the community where they are
so i guess to me it just seems like
there's nothing no clout in it nothing no meat to it at all and they're just a
representative they're sitting here and that's it and they have no
real input or are
how to do anything or be affecting anything we do it we do it no matter
what i think you said that you know that the most important word was represented
uh they represent the people
and so do we really yeah but
i think it gives the community that feel that one of us
is actually up there and we we have a
we have input
i just think that that is important that we not
close down another avenue to connect with the
community and if we do that i still say that they
should have more input and more
um buy into it than they have well i agree
there should be there should be more input but i don't think that should be
uh voting input i i think that should be that should be delegated to people that
are elected but uh but i agree i think there should
be a little bit more say so
do we do two years mate you know kind of halfway
i'm just if keep in mind you know the way the process is done
they apply but we as a we as a commission get final
say so who sits on that cra board i mean i think it's in the questioning that we
would do of the candidates that come forward
and hope we get more than one i mean when when evan died
we had to beg to get somebody from the west side
um you know and i think several of us went to laurie at genie's and begged her
if she would come on this floor so um do they have a job description
[Music]
there are some requirements that so the state statute has some requirements for
people sitting on a cra board the city also has some requirements
we when we advertise it it goes out like a job description so it includes those
state requirements and if you um
if you refer to the um the staff report there's kind of some bullet points
and so there there is again i don't know if i would call it a
job description but there is a description of what we're looking for in
those representatives yes there was and when i did read now that you said i did
read the staff report and what they had said in here was um
they talked about
background if you will or knowledgeable in
finance what else was it tom
it's development architecture redevelopment planning land planning
finance experience experience in um
affordably priced housing
those types of things which is probably something that
the majority of us don't have
oh i beg to differ with that brother i said the majority
that i say i'd like to think that we've learned a
lot
well let's say this so now that if we're going to talk about
the we have the other one that that for the
the other one that the volunteer yeah the other volunteer
so keep one or the other
well we we were just we just had the committee just for the three acres
correct the three blocks well and we need to decide well that was
another decision we haven't come to a decision whether we want to keep that
group together or not exactly and that was another decision that we needed to
make as well i don't think it's it's we can't really discuss it tonight no no
but it was just but i think the whole thing needs to come
back to us and us decide which direction because that committee i think is
important too yeah i agree because it gives us a broad range of the of our
whole community um you know so
and and if we're going to do this i think that we need to
come up with
what is what are they supposed to be doing about technically like a job
description description of what it is that they are supposed to be doing but
as it is there's nothing and i and if and if
we're going to do this i think that we need to know what we know that we know
that we know we need to know yes and maybe if that's statutorily what
you had discussed about the statutory that has to be in there but then we can
come up with a because that's tough what what he does what you just it is
that statutory we have to get in there so maybe
you know yeah
i think it's worth a a further conversation because i i think we need
to find out from staff is through the need for that full board that or that
full group that we had that was meeting um and then uh really we need to
redefine that list of priorities because
willie's right oh no but i don't know did you say that was statutorily done
the um so the statues don't want to get in
trouble no you know the statute
talks about new members have to reside in or be engaged in business
in the cra uh and then i i believe it's more
um not not a requirement but it is suggested
that they have experience in architecture finance construction land
use sustainability and or redevelopment alternatively new
members will also qualify who have professional and or residential
experience within affordable housing
and if we have to do that there should be some definite training that's not
there
there are so annually
at the florida redevelopment association conference they have training sessions
um related to cra and that's something that
we can certainly uh have the um
community reps engage in some of that professional development
that's a great idea as an in-person or zoom or just a class
or they are back to in-person though for example this year fra is in daytona and
it's coming up in october and they are in person
that makes more sense i've always felt a sense of yeah nobody not really knowing
what you why you're here or that there are times
it's just so nothing to it and to me if we're going
to have them that they should be more valued than they valuable than they are
and maybe they would have a better understanding of what
we know and what we've learned in you at least you and i 18 months you know what
i'm saying so um it might be
i think we could also get lynn up here with the league of cities i mean coming
from orlando and she could do a course and i think it would be good for this
commission to actually sit in the same course
um so um i think what i would like to suggest to to us as a commission is
let's put this off to our next meeting bring it back re-advertise it so we can
talk more in public with it and also let's go ahead and and talk about that
other committee that we have and see if we want to sunset that
committee um and to make this stronger or what we want to do or keep both of
them even and i on my list for reports later in the meeting was to look at
calendars to to schedule the next meeting because it's been some time
so we do need to take a look at that and schedule the next meeting nana are you
okay with that plan absolutely are you okay
yeah karen are you okay
okay we'll we'll we'll go ahead and let you
reschedule that continue okay
yeah then we come down to oh gosh the next
one's a hard one city commission compensation
bill howe director of human resources at the last commission meeting
commission discussed the possibility of increasing compensation for the city
commission staff was directed to gather information from the other jurisdictions
in lake county i provided you that information for each of the 13
jurisdictions in summary the compensation for city
commissioners ranges from a low of twenty four hundred
dollars annually to twelve thousand dollars annually and as a reminder city
commissioners and used to earn fifty four hundred dollars annually
mayor's compensations vary throughout the county from six thousand dollars to
fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty eight dollars
um our eustace mayor earns sixty four hundred dollars annually with
regard to paid health benefits two jurisdictions in lake
county provide paid health benefits we do not in the city of eustis
the last increase in compensation to the eustace commission
occurred in 1989 33 years ago
it's recommending the commission advise staff if there should be any increases
or what
am i okay now mike to go forward [Laughter]
he was fixing to become a ranger again
staff is looking for a direction if there's any changes in compensation for
the commission staff would also recommend you consider tying future
increases to some
term that you don't bring back every 33 years for consideration
but whether that be the compensation granted i'll be dancing whether that
compensation be granted to other city employees consumer price index or
population that's done in a couple of the other cities so be happy to answer
any questions anybody got any questions of bill
so is this is something like this usually determined by the commission
itself yes
at school board level and county commission level it is done by the state
legislature by the size of your county we're the only ones that get stuck with
deciding our own pay it's embarrassing it is
lovely well you haven't done it in 33 years
there's reasons [Laughter]
hence the reason to consider timing to employee compensation that's addressed
every year but that's your calling yeah i uh
i'm sure i'm not alone up here but but i look at the pay
and there's only two
commissioners two two localities uh
that make more than what i pay out
as a city commissioner yeah
so we already started out in the hope
it's kind of like the cemetery i would at least like to break even yeah and i
haven't broken even since i've sat in this jail
and you know at the at the last meeting i was like
whatever but that was until i saw it in paper and i'm like yeah
yeah when you emailed it i couldn't believe it it was what but it
wasn't whatever i'm like what the but
well i mean we i'll just give you a good
example so and i'm not picking on anybody we look at fruitland park and
their population is just a little over nine thousand and they're making twelve
thousand dollars and we're at twenty three
six basically and we're at fifty four hundred you know
how far out of whack that is
and by no stretch am i suggesting 12 000 please understand me clearly
but i just look at that and then you look at somebody like
montverd montford yes 1700 they're this big
and there's 1700 people and they're at six thousand dollars look
at the mayors mm-hmm leesburg's not that much bigger than us
their commissioners are making 11 364. they're mayors making almost 16 000. and
they have all the benefits every benefit medical eye dental
and retire frs they also have frs
so i'm sure there will be
there will be some that would say uh
you know they're voting on enriching themselves
i see facebook tomorrow but i think i continue as a commissioner
sitting right here tonight i don't care what you say this
ain't right fix it i tell you
this ain't right
[Laughter]
we're gonna have to give direction to staff so i did look at the four percent
i think it was 216 dollars for the whole year
so see i i don't know how we give
direction to staff to i i don't know how we do it let your conscience be your
guide bill you're going to leave this to me
absolutely no problem i'll take care of it
no i mean you know i don't i don't just teasing with you i don't know well when
you look at leesburg and with groveland somehow we should be in the middle
you see that groveland is and that's just shut up thousands they just shot up
in that population that just shot up that's that's true that population that
just happened with the annexations they've been at 9
000 a year there for a long time and do you know if
these have been incremental no i do not know on all of them
i know claremont for example
they pass the doorness that your commission wages are tied to consumer
price index that's they've got that by ordinance
personally i tell you the heartburn with that is i know we've been a position
where we haven't been able to give staff consumer price index increases
so
you know for me to various ties there's to population
changes
i'm willing to leave it in the hands of bill to be honest with you
i suggest the city attorney weigh in on it
i don't want to lose the non-full-time employee that reports to you through the
city manager if you two want to work on it i'm perfectly fine with it
if you're comfortable we'll we'll look at the numbers we'll come up
with something reasonable i would recommend
moving although it's not much moving into the future i think rather
than coming back and looking like the percentage
increases are very big periodically i think we sh we should tie
it uh in the future to um the what the
other employees are getting again i know annually it doesn't come to a lot dollar
wise um but it puts you in a position where
you don't have to you don't have to look at significant increases periodically
you just do the incremental increases annually if that makes sense
um so i would recommend that moving into the future
and we i will work with bill we'll come up
with something reasonable and it will need to come back to you
potentially in the form of a budget approval meaning you you might not have
to approve this specifically you would approve it as
part of a budget or a budget amendment uh depending on
how the timing i don't
might do can we include it can we
we approved a tentative budget tonight but we have to approve a final budget on
the 22nd we approved the final budget in two
weeks on thursday what i would recommend is once it's decided we amend the budget
via resolution after 10-1 oh with the resolution
anytime you change the resolution you're putting into a budget
you have to have another resolution to do that
it would only require one reading not two
okay so under that scenario we would leave the final adopted budget the same
as what you approved tonight and then we would bring back to you an amendment
after the fact after october first okay yeah
the only other alternative would be to do it
no thank you okay we will bring something back to you all right and
you're okay with john and bill working on it
emily karen absolutely don't care do you
no pressure
all right thank you both yes all right then come down to life 15.
yeah so this is really just a technicality um
we have to place the order because of lead time and it's it's a significant
expense it is budgeted in the budget the tentative budget that you just approved
but we can't place the order because the money isn't there yet and it isn't there
until october 1st and so basically we're just asking for
consensus are you okay with us placing the order and then the actual purchase
documentation will have to come back to you once the budget is approved um so
are you okay with us placing the order is basically what we're asking these are
so important uh to us that we have to go ahead and get any cheaper
part of the issue is there's a significant price increase coming up so
if we waited to october 1 it would cost more
mike how long is it going to take to get these once we place an order
okay yeah get the get him ordered
wow all right
thank y'all i think that's what we needed okay thank
you all right coming down to future agenda
item and reports karen anything to report any future agenda items i am
done i mean i'm good you're not done yeah you got a few
months left okay [Laughter]
any future agenda items or anything to report i don't have any future agenda
items but i do have i just have one question for
is he still here rick pappas pop smurf you're here no he left it never mind i
just that's okay i'm just going to ask him for an island update that's all okay
okay but um uh uh
i would like to say that i will be attending
on tuesday next week on tuesday september 13th at noon at the lake
county historical museum they will be the unveiling of the mary
mcleod bethune smaller statue just like the one that we
went to daytona and looked at and just for those of you who don't know her i
would just feel just i'd like to read a little something
um uh dr mary mcleod bethune was an
american educator philanthropist humanitarian womanist and a civil rights
activist dr bethune founded the national council of negro women in 1935 with
florida's headquarters located in lake county's city of claremont
she also established the journal afro-american women's journal she
presided as president for a myriad of african-american women's organizations
including the national association for colored women and the national youth
administration's negro division dr bethune was also appointed as a
national advisor to president franklin d roosevelt who she worked with to create
the federal council on colored affairs also known as the black cabinet so just
in case you didn't know there's a little little education about mary mcleod
bethune so at noon on the 13th if you'd like to
join us um that original big statue that they unveiled in daytona was the most
stunning thing i've ever seen in my entire life i i it was the most
beautiful thing ever and we i enjoyed going so um i will be there for that
also too um well i'll let you you want to talk about the 911 one yeah okay i'll
let you discuss that and then um i'm in the process of looking at something for
the city of eustis um just looking some information on america in bloom
and the city of tavares currently has it now and you have like little chapters
and lake county has a chapter and so it's just another way to beautify our
city and um there are some things through waste management we can guess to
some beautify uh different islands and different
things around the city so i'm going to be working on that as well so beautiful
i'm a little busy thank you really
okay you want to follow that go ahead i'll follow all that
absolutely not you know the the the last week and a
half i've spent at the high school painting the
bathrooms in the concession stands um
so we read i redid those uh
but uh in the next probably month or so we're actually going to
do the concession stand itself uh the interior yep so
if anyone wants to come out and help paint i'll pick a weekend
perfect funding is a real problem with our high school sports as you know
lake county and school system does not do much anymore to support that willie
and i have talked a little bit man about maybe trying to do something like
bulldog night like they're doing umatilla it's hearing
30 000 instantly into the sports programs that
used to size minimum um so i would like to see us as a commission maybe work
with um the um athletic director and the high
school to try to put together something like that that became an annual event
for us uh here in the city of eustis i think
we'd have to hold it at the fairgrounds um but i think it's something that would
be kind of cool yeah the uh the umatilla boosters holds it at the um
and it is an adult event there are adult things that happen there
and so um children are not involved because there's raising of a lot of
money right and there's adult things there so um it's a huge event it's a
wonderful event all the community matilla comes out for it
everybody you've come with me before it's amazing
and um so yes i'll i'll be more than happy to assist in that okay let's do it
sounds good i also the new announcer for the high school football games that does
the announcing he is um with a radio station out of orlando and he is willing
to help us with that as well okay so we'll get working on that
anything else willie nope that's it vice mayor
well i was very happy to participate and to
watch the events of the misuse this contest we were on there it was really
awesome and um
and fun to watch especially the little ones little tiny ones and their
attention span so it was it was a nice event i didn't get to stay as long as i
would have liked to yesterday but it was very interesting at advent hospital with
their new robotics uh program and and the equipment that
they bought i i was very impressed with that
and um other than that i'm looking forward to
the 13th and the 9 11 event that's it beautiful thank you
tom yeah a few items um we're going to have
a presentation for you um
gunster uh who has done some legal work for us
related to um some growth items
they're going to be doing a presentation uh at an upcoming commission meeting i
believe we've got them scheduled for september 22nd
also i had emailed the commission about a
community development district discussion uh we we're tentatively going
to try to do a presentation on october 6th for that
that is your first commission meeting in october
lake uh lake community action agency
has been working on our uh housing rehab program
uh commissioner hawkins and i uh toured uh i think three homes
and uh were satisfied there was one home that had some unfinished items that they
got right on and so uh i want to ask uh is there
consensus uh to move forward um not reopening the
application process but there are still homes
in the queue that have applied and that we had put on hold is it okay to move to
the next say three or four homes because we've been kind of taking them
in blocks of three or four does anybody have an issue moving
forward with the next three or four homes
we saw funds left we do have it's like 111
eight something like that yeah i think that i think that assumed
that all the homes on the list were going to move through the program
yeah yeah i i have to say you know that
uh tim has done a pretty good job of
cleaning things up so yeah okay
man you're okay with moving forward how many moving
of our forward let's do it we're going to do increments
of four i think that's what we discussed can they
karen you okay
okay um
there was um i one of the commissioners uh it may have been commissioner cobb
had asked about taking a look at
residential densities and potentially a new future land use category
and i want to know if the commission would like to try to schedule a workshop
on that this i would envision this would not be
a five o'clock before a six o'clock
commission type workshop this would probably be a standalone
potentially even a saturday workshop what is the commission's
interest in scheduling something like that
we have some cleanup work that needs to be done
so we need to get on that willie are you okay with it oh yeah
is it maybe i'll start looking at calendars and and try to email and see
if we could come up with a viable date okay
um just a couple more fdot uh we have a meeting tomorrow 9 30 a.m we have
advertised it as a city commission meeting so that you can all attend and
participate um
that is uh with the secretary of district 5 to talk about projects and
maintenance in the area i do want to mention that
there may be a need to go out into the field at some point
we will need to adjourn the meeting and then have just one commissioner go out
into the field because the logistics of carrying on a
commission meeting out in the field is going to be very difficult
and so if if we do need to adjourn and do some field work i just wanted to
throw out that it will have to adjourn the meeting and have one commissioner do
that and so that's tomorrow at 9 30 a.m
and then the cra review committee we have a couple of outstanding items i
know we need to talk more about mode own program
we need to talk a little bit more about some of the priorities that were
established during public input and so we do need to schedule that
i think in the past we had done tuesday evening meetings for that group
or we could look at an off thursday a non-commission thursday
but i just want to make sure that the commission is interested in scheduling
the next meeting again i'll take a look at calendars and
i'll get that scheduled but i'll probably be looking at either a tuesday
or an off thursday okay and i think that's everything i
have wow all right thank you madam attorney i have no report smith thank
you so much i appreciate it um a couple of things that i have um
for the commission itself um is tom's contract calls for a six-month review
and believe it or not it's time for that review
what i would like to do is ask bill howell to reach out and set up a meeting
with each commissioner along with bill and with tom
let you all sit and talk with tom about what your expectations are and what
we've seen so far with his performance bill will combine that and bring it back
to us as a full commission um and we'll go from that and then we're going to
have to take a look at the way we further review tom a little bit later on
down the road if that's okay the annual review because i will say um i've looked
at the review paperwork in the past and i had even talked to bill about it you
know and it it needs some work yeah it needs some work it needs to be updated
so um when you get a call from bill or an email from bill that's what he is
scheduling with you um so um please go in be honest and it'll keep us
moving forward in a good way manner i hope so all right
this coming sunday is the 21st anniversary of 9 11.
lake county is having a service at 8 o'clock in the morning
at the historic courthouse in downtown
tavares it is open to the public we would love
to have everyone there then there are a couple more events
going around so please check the uh facebook and check the newspapers there
are many things that are advertised nan myself and tom were able to attend
first baptist life point uh last sunday they celebrated their 103rd anniversary
or birthday and they celebrated being debt-free which is tremendous they paid
off a debt of 1.8 million dollars in a matter of five years
and that is from them relocating from orange avenue out further
so it's paid off every bit of their debt so they're looking forward to partnering
with our community and doing some really great things in the community as we move
forward also just wanted to say
thank you to our events and tourism staff they
went to a conference and they won five awards at that conference they're doing
i'm very proud of them they've done a tremendous job
with representing eustis and first fridays and our events have really
changed over the last couple months i'm very
proud of that that's about all i've got please come
out and support the events as they go on craig's got some great events coming up
with parks and recreation for toddlers
so come out and be a part of those events i want to thank our staff for all
that they do y'all work tirelessly for us y'all are truthfully the face of the
city so thank you for all your hard work thank you for being with us tonight and
we are i just had one quick thing i meant to say go ahead hit that camera
i just i i just really wanted to say thanks
to the finance staff
going through this the when we went through our workshops and i think we
must have had three or four i will tell you that helps us
tremendously i know it's a lot of work but when we go line item by light on him
it really helps us know what we're spending our money on
and you'd be surprised the people out in the community that come to us and say
where's the money going where's this where's that and we have
we have a good indication no we don't know how many pencils we're buying but
at least we know what we're spending on office supplies and different
departments and so it's a lot of work and
i'm a numbers person so i will tell you i really enjoy that process i know it's
daunting but i just want to say thank you
one quick reminder too tomorrow is the league of cities luncheon and uh sheriff
grinnell is doing that presentation at lunch tomorrow so if anybody can make it
on the city commission we'd appreciate you being here that is all we have for
this evening we're adjourned were you gonna come here