Village Community Development District No. 7 (2024-12-19)

Uh, district seven, uh, seven 19th board meeting. Um, I think let's go with roll call first President. Uh, you are president. Very good. We're all here. That's great. Okay, let's do pledge allegiance and then the Movement Silence, please. I pledge allegiance To the flag of the United States of America, the two republic for which you stand. One nation under God, individual with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. I appreciate the two people coming. Uh, I do, I really do. Um, let me get, let me just get this. We have, uh, oh, good. Everybody good? We're on. You are on. Okay. Okay. Anybody in the audience has anything to say? You could choose Line up. Morning, Leno, Arizona, 1634 Marigold Lane. Two things. Um, back in July, I had reported that the valve cover cap on our property or next to our property, so it is the, um, fire hydrant valve cover was raised up so that it was a trip hazard. And last month they came to fix it, but they made it worse. They made it higher. So I was hoping that somebody could come back and, and get it so that the concrete and the cap all flush with the lawn so that it's no longer a trip hazard. Yeah. Can I just by on that issue, she come over to me in the beginning of the meeting before the meeting and has a picture of it. It's kind of funny. It's not somebody gets hurt, but they raised it about six inches more than it was supposed to. So if we could have somebody jump on that. 'cause it looks like a quick fix. All right. So, uh, you know, Easy fix, we'll take care of it today. Okay. Did you want this? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That you take a look at that, Mr. Brown, you stay, it's, uh, no problem. Maybe somebody wrote it up wrong and they said raise it. I don't know. We'll get it resolved. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. And then the second issue is just curious if, um, you have heard back from, uh, Congressman Webster regarding the postal station. There was stuff in the minute, but Yeah. Mr. Brown, They wanted something filled out or they Yeah, they wanted, yeah. So the answer is yes. There was a response back and, um, Congressman Webster's office did acknowledge the request, and I believe they sent a form over for the chair to sign, uh, to do a formal congressional, uh, inquiry on that, uh, topic. So that will be signed by, uh, chairman today, and it'll be sent back to Congressman Webster's office. So we should receive some further correspondence back in the near future. But there was correspondence back from his office. We Thank You. Yeah. Which I did. Just signed it just about two seconds ago. Thanks so much. Yes. Thank you, Bruce. Bruce, would it be out of order for us to request a copy of the contract? Huh? The postal service Postal? Yes. Uh, I can certainly try. Uh, Yeah, It's good. I'd just like to see exactly the, uh, where word ology. Well, we can certainly make that request. Absolutely. No problem. That's a good idea. It's good to know what they changed, what's in it, especially when, when the, when our con constituents come to us, we know what the hell we're talking about. Yeah. Good idea. Thanks Bruce. We'll take care of it next Morning, everyone. My name is Keith Cruz, 2 7 3 3 Allen Dairy Lane. Um, I actually wanted to speak about the solar, but I see it's on here, so I'm assuming I I can speak later then. Yes. Okay. So then the only other thing I had is love them or Hay. I just wanted to point out that Gilbert WinDor, I dunno if you all know, passed away just recently. Yeah. And, uh, he's quite a controversial person, but still, I just wanted to make a comment that he is passing as noted. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else in the audience who would like to make any comments much? No. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, we'll close that part. Uh, next we have administrative of o for, uh, office of a newly elected for myself and Judy. Judy Ann. Yes. There's no Rise. Raise your right hand please. Do you hereby solemnly swear as a citizen of the state of Florida and the United States of America and are receiving the public funds that you'll uphold the Constitution in the state of Florida and the United States of America? I do. Congratulations. You don't have to uphold this. Thank, Thank you. Okay. Now we have, um, nominees for appointment for chair and, um, vice chair. Any, let's do chair first. Any nominations? Stay as is. You gotta do official. Okay. I would like to nominate Mr. Jerry Vicente for chair. I get a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Thanks for your first. Now I'd like to nominate chair, uh, vice chair, uh, Steve Black. I get a second. I second. Uh, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thanks for your vote of confidence. I appreciate it. Next we got appointment of, um, for, uh, PA and, and alternate and the IAC. Let's do PA first. I made it, um, public at our last Pwac meeting, not the last one, Friday at that. Um, after 12 years, seven years being alternate in five years being a primary, uh, I'm getting old. So I decide to sit back a little bit and, and, um, we, I asked Mr. L would he, uh, think about taking it and he said, no, let's move on for this time. So I went to, um, uh, I went to Ed and Ed said, uh, he would like to have it. So, um, I'd like to, uh, nominate, uh, ed, uh, to be, uh, the primary for PA second. Second. Now, I'll say later. Uh, all in favor? Aye. I about get second. You second. All in favor? A. Okay. Any opposed? None. Um, the alternate, uh, would like to keep Mr. Steve lap. So I nominate Steve lap for, um, alternate for Pwac. Second. You got a second? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Beautiful. Now only thing is, Bruce, I gotta say this is the first time in 12 years I'm doing this that we ever, and I have no problem. This is a good way, the best way of doing it. We never are nominated for PA or alternate. They would just volunteer. So would this be the procedure going moving forward? That's correct, yes, sir. Okay. Alright. That's, that's good to know. 'cause it has changed. Yes, sir. And now the, um, IAC um, Mr. Ed, um, Mr. Ed Coleman decided that he liked to give that up, but what's nice about Nice, what's good about, it's only, uh, every quarter. So it's four times a year. The meetings only four times a year. Anybody, uh, would like to volunteer? You know, the, to, uh, do the, uh, IAC uh, committee. This is the financial. That's financial. Yeah. Advisory committee. Finance. If nobody else wants it, I'll do it. Oh, thank you. That's nice here. Thank you. Okay, so, uh, do I get a second from your right, Judy in? Yes. Yes. All in favor? A Aye. Any opposed? We got it. Thank you. When's the next meeting? Is tomorrow. Tomorrow February? Yeah. Yeah, tomorrow. Tomorrow. Jennifer's looking up the date and we'll get you the exact date, time, and location. It's okay. I didn't think it was this month. I, it is at February 4th at Savannah Center at nine o'clock. Well, you put out emails, right? Reminding, right? Yeah. Jennifer emails go out. Yes, correct. Okay. So my mother tomorrow. Okay. Consent agenda. A motion to approve the consent agenda is a motion to approve all recommended actions. All matters on the consent agenda are considered routine or no discussion required unless desired by board supervisor or a members of the public. Okay? As we know, the consent agenda consists of approval of minutes, project wide invoice, and re. This is the resolution of travel expenses and policy for architect review committee. Uh, anybody got any questions? Any of them? Three items. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Okay, let's go to new business first. So, your first item on new business is for board consideration adoption of resolution 2 0 2 5 dash zero three, establishing participation in the multimodal Path discussion group. So, as you recall, you've seen this item before in the past. It came out of a recommendation originally from Project Wide Advisory Committee to create a charter or resolution to formalize the multimodal path discussion group. Uh, it was, uh, not adopted at the time, which was several months ago. And, um, it has been requested to place back on the agenda for all of the residential c dds. You, you had agreed to put it on your agenda for the discussion. And so I believe you were the last CDD to have this presented before you for, uh, discussion and consideration. Bruce, I got a question. Um, I was in the original one, we back you, you know, and it, it, it really worked good. We had from one through, uh, and them days, I think it was one to oh 12, I guess. Uh, and Todd was the managing them days and were, and that's how we got the, uh, all the di uh, delineators on it really improved. But at, at this point, I thought about that, this point. Um, how many districts said they didn't want to get involved? I know District five one through four. I think most of 'em are because they have a different process than we do, as you know, uh, they don't have, uh, a PA per se. Correct. They have a C that only handles amenities. Correct. So when they do maintenance, everything's gotta go to individual districts no matter what. In our case, as you know, I don't mean to give you a history on something you already know, but from five to 13, we got a whole different procedure. Right. We got PA, which really, um, is, I'm gonna get to my point in a second, which really does the job of the committee. It just doesn't involve one through four. Okay. Because technically if the committee wants to come out with any kind of changes or come up with any kind of decision changes, they gotta go through PA. All right. You know, they, because the individual districts, you know, so to me, what my point is, we may be duplicating efforts here. We already have a process for if I want to change something, me or any supervisor on this board wants to change something when, especially when it comes to safety, um, we just go to PA alright, or we bring it up at, at this meeting and our representative would go to Pwac. And the reason why we go to Pwac first, 'cause we want them as benefits to us to pay for them to pay for our, what we want because we only pay a percentage. The other option, of course, we got the option and Pwac says no, which you have in the passing. In some items we could pay for ourselves. Okay? District one through four don't have that option. So to have another committee, are we just duplicating an effort, a process that we already have? So everything you said is exactly correct. Um, I, I think that the, there is a duplication to a degree. Certainly everything you said is as far as if you want to change your multimodal pass, you would go through the, the project wide advisory committee, or you have the option to, um, we're just gonna pay it ourselves. 'cause we wanna do something different. Um, districts one through four own and maintain their own multimodal paths, as you said. So their boards must approve it and pay for those changes. Um, I think, you know, the, the multimodal path discussion group, um, there's always good in discussing safety type issues and those kind of things. But as you know, from discussions at Project wide committee, when it's been discussed at project wide, uh, and the reason that this charter is not being presented to project wide is, as you stated, they already do all that. We have discussions, we have presentations on safety issues, and we've said many, many times, including project wide, if there's any concerns, issues, safety concerns, you see a pothole or something wrong with the multimodal path or line of sight issue, bring those to district property management, they'll get it taken care of right away. So, um, ultimately, I believe districts 3 11 13 have opted to not participate in this group. Uh, I believe the others have, but ultimately it's, it's totally up to you as a board. I got a question. If, how does this safety idea that might get generated, um, up in districts one through four, how does that filter down or get to, you know, in front of PAC as, as maybe a consider, I mean, who are the attendees at PE for all the other districts that would pick up on that idea? It might be a darn good idea, you know, but how does that then get filtered? That's a great question. Typically you'll have several CD four, uh, supervisors in the audience or project wide. I know, uh, the CDD four chair is also the POA president. So he is not shy about going up to the podium and voicing his opinions on things and concerns. And, um, uh, there's also typically one or two other supervisors from other CDs between one and four that, that attend that meeting as well. Of course, it's a public meeting, so anybody from those c DDS can come and speak at project wide as well. And the, the multimodal thing is they're only gonna meet, what, three times a year? Something like that? Yes, sir. That's correct. Yeah. So it's not, it's not an over overburdensome participation, you know, it Has anything to do with safety. That was a good idea. I just wanna make sure that if it's only, it's only three times a year, it's good. But you gotta go every month. It could be just duplicating the efforts. Um, that I just put that out there. I, I'm not saying not to be involved. I'm not saying to be involved because I'm, I'm in the middle right now. It doesn't, you know, do I wanna go in the meetings every month? Probably not now. You know, uh, does somebody else on this board want to volunteer to go? That's great. So you want, let's, let's discuss if we wanna be part of it first, and then we gotta pick somebody or somebody to volunteer to go. So we want do, uh, do we get a consensus on that? We Go ahead. Clarification question. So the, the group gets together and discusses various things and then it goes to what? PAC or it goes into vapor space, or It goes back to this, to the, the representative at the, uh, at that, at that meeting would go back to their board and discuss it. Okay. Then obviously the process, you know, re revolves. So, but that's what would happen. If you're part of that, you'll get discussed and then you go back to a board. And of course, there's always one person on every board, especially from five to uh, 13, which is on PA. So obviously they would go whoever, like in this case it would be Ed and he would discuss it with us first, and we agreed Ed would go and represent us. And that's how it's done the process. So what do you think, but your opinion, you wanna be part of it? Or, or you, you know? Well, I, I don't see how it hurts anything. No. I'm just trying to understand how it really moves the ball. Well, they may come up with an idea that District five to 13 doesn't, and I have a good point, and it may be a good idea and we could run with that. Uh, obviously when that part of it, we're still gonna find out what it is anyway. And we, you know, it, the process will still get done. But, um, like I said, it's up to this board. I'm either here or there. My opinion is I just hope it ain't duplicate. It's only three times a year, then it may pay, which every month. I don't know, you know? But that, that's just my opinion. Just some thoughts for consideration as you talk is, as you know, at project wide, project wide had, when this charter was first presented to them as a group, they decided we don't need to participate in this. We already do this as, as, uh, chairman already kind of discussed does. But when the multimodal path discussion group was meeting was held, ultimately most of the district's representatives kind of went to it anyway that participated in PA CDs 5 50 13 just to kind of see what was happening. And they sat at the table for the most part. So I think it's a, by defacto there's an interest in what they're gonna discuss. So it seemed like, uh, district supervisors went anyway, whether they set a table or sat in the audience just to kind of listen in and see what residents were gonna bring up or what the, the group was gonna discuss. So, yeah, No, no. Just for consideration. Yeah, It is. And you only have three, three, uh, issues that didn't wanna go. So it's a shame that we, I think we all should go or shouldn't go. You know, I don't, you know, but I that's, that's either here or there. So a, when, when does it meet? Does it have a certain date? I believe the next meeting is in January 21st. January 21st. Yeah. I knew it was coming up soon. It's tomorrow. Okay, that's good. He's decided maybe he wants to get involved. That's good. I'm with you. I have no opinion one way or the other. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if the board wants to do it, I'll support it, but it, it, I think that it would be good to have someone there listening. But I think a lot of the problems in one through board donors is down here because we do not have the same type of road situation as Morris Boulevard. Yeah. Ed, I think we probably should participate. I mean, we can always be out later, but, and to see maybe how productive, how influential, uh, they might become with their ideas. It, I don't, it can't hurt us, but, you know, If it's something we want to attend, but having attended one one of their meetings and see absolutely nothing get accomplished, uh, they have no authority. No, No. And, and the, the last time they did it, they got a lot of agreement, which is why we got some of the things we got. And then there was a peak division about whether we should we strike Them. Yeah. That's when we had everybody was going that I was part of that one. Yeah. And I tell you, it worked. Uh, Julianne, I'll be honest with you, they did a lot of improvements. Yeah. And yeah, they did. That was, you know, but you know, it it, that's when they won through all the districts were part of it. Uh, yep. Yeah. Um, They did, they got a lot of good things. We got the reflectors Yeah. Things. Um, but then the striping just kind of, Well, two, well of course it was a district one through four. They did the process, which technically they don't have a PA position like Right. So they went and did it themselves. I think District four and two has it. Yes sir. Am I right? Correct. Yeah. District two. And, and they say it works great. Is it worth the money? That's another thing of course. Safety. You don't wanna debate if it's worth the money 'cause somebody gets hurt. Yeah. You know, that's the key worth the money. Yeah. Then it's worth the money. So, uh, okay. Let's get to the bottom of this. Yes or no? I don't care. Yeah, I think we should. Let's Go. I agree. Yes. Okay. Yes. Uh, should I get a, uh, a vote on it or? Yes sir. Please. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any, any opposed? Any? You get a second, but we, you know, I'll, there you go. I To uh, nominate the, we go to, uh, go to this meeting. I second that. That was great. Yeah. He's your friend. Well, I felt that one coming only because you're on something, you're on something, you're on something, you're on something. I'm on nothing. So it's like, okay. Alright. So it volunteer before they make me there. And if, if you don't, if you can't go with something, obviously I could be your or if you want. Alright. Okay, fine. We'll go and see how it, see how it rolls. Don't ever feel obligate. Something comes up just on, let the obviously, uh, Brittany know. Okay. Gotcha. Let's move on. Sounds good. Okay. Draft, uh oh, this is go legal fees. Yeah, I gotta talk about the legal fees. The legal fees for the last month was, 'cause obviously our lawyer was looking into, um, the solar, which he did a lot of work on, um, was 3,795 bucks. That's 3,795 and 85 cents. Um, any questions on that? Do I get a, uh, do we have two invoices or is that You? Do you have October and November? Yeah, That's the total. Yeah. So the 3000 is the total Yes. Correct. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any, uh, opposed? Thank you. That's approved. Let's go to the next one. It's a good one. Draft. Aye. Yes. I'm sorry. This is Wes. Just really quick and forgive me if you did it. Did you actually do a motion to approve resolution 2025 dash zero three? Uh, yes You did. Okay. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. Yes. You want me to do it again just in case? 'cause I think we did. Yeah. Did I think we did. You did one. I didn't recall hearing it, but, um, if, if there's any question, it can't hurt to do it twice. I didn't, yeah, Let's do it again. Did I get a motion to approve? Gimme a, you know why I don't think we actually did a motion? You, wes, you're paying attention. Yeah. Motion to approve the resolution to establish participation in the multimodal task discussion group. Get a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any, any opposed? Discussion? Beautiful. Thank you Wes. Thank you. No Discussion. You went to, okay, let's, we went to legal fees now. Draft requests for proposal RFP Scope Solar Street Lightning. Yes, sir. So this obviously was, uh, drafted and submitted electronically to the board for review and comment. I know that supervisor LAP provided comment back, uh, to the board and to the staff. There were several options that were proposed. Um, a full design build option, which would be a 20 plus year project, you know, full lifecycle essentially of the, uh, installation of solar and removal of the existing CCO poles and lights. There was an alternative to presented as well as a option to present something, um, outside of those two proposals. I don't know if, uh, You wanna walk through each of those or what your preference is to do it. Ultimately the goal here is to try to come up with a board direction on which option you'd like to finalize in an RFP and then put it out, uh, to bid. Alternatively, a question for the board, if you do come to that decision, is do you wanna share that with the other boards? 'cause as you know, the other boards are in similar positions with the, um, same lighting type situation that you have. I did wanna mention that district two, who only owns about 57 58 poles, did look into an option to hire an engineering firm to do a analysis of what it would cost to replace and the lifecycle costs, those kind of things. And, uh, that cost proposal was $22,000 to the engineering study and they declined to move forward with that for whatever that's worth. Um, so with that, so Bruce, just, I'm sorry, just on that issue. So, so far the only districts that really are pursuing this was district two and it seems like now they're level 'em out where they don't wanna pursue it anymore. Seems And so it's only us. Now I know at our last board fast board meeting I spoke to, uh, Mike ler about this. Uh, I think we discussed, this board discussed that once we get the final numbers, then we will give it, ask other districts if they wanna get involved. Am I correct about that? Is that where we went? Where we are. Okay. So in other words, we're gonna do all the work. It's gonna be on our dime, and then we're gonna ask the other districts if they want it. 'cause that would be beneficiary for us. 'cause it'd be cheaper. Okay. That's where we are. Yeah. That's what we talked about. Okay. Uh, am I right? You over? Yes, sir. So depending on how the RFP was crafted, it certainly could be crafted that if we put it out to bid that it could be scalable. That if other c DDS wish to do it, then potentially there would be a, um, you know, uh, another cost savings due to the, uh, increased participation larger numbers. Right. And obviously we have to go out the bid. 'cause if we don't go out the bid, we don't know what the numbers really are. Right. You know, so, uh, so technically we can't get information that people are going to ask until we go out the bid. So we gotta put the horse before the, uh, the horse's head, before the horse's butt. So the bottom line is we, we have Yeah, yeah. We can go out with the RFP, get the information we need, and if we decide we don't like it, we just simply do not execute. Exactly. That's that's Absolutely correct. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's, yeah. That's, uh, I just hope that the residents, and of course you, I know you got a couple questions, but that without, we have to go out the bid to find out if it's really feasible for the, for us to go this route. Uh, so, um, I I honestly, and not because I'm part of this board, I think it's nice, I think it's kind of, I don't understand why nobody else would wanna do this, you know? Yeah. The cost, there's an ease of just paying the seco. Yeah. And then the, okay, let's figure out what's best for the residents. And that's a little more effort and a little more work. And, you know, they're waiting patiently to see, I, I think, let me know when you think Bruce, and, and I think once we get the, the proposal in and we get the numbers now it's gonna be, we're gonna probably, this what I was thinking, we're gonna have to ask staff to give us how much LEC electricity or, uh, CCOs charges now, how much, how much, how much it would be forecast. I don't know, obviously what their raises have been every year. Right. And it's gonna be a lot of work to really get the oranges orange together. Yeah. So we could show the residents this is how much we're gonna save, or this is how much more it's gonna be for solar it we are gonna, and it's gonna be a long road to get that information and the staff's gonna have to work hard on this one. Um, I see that coming. Yeah. But it, it should, that's the way it needs to be. If we're gonna make an Informed decision. Yes. There's, there's gotta be a cost benefit analysis for repair. Yeah. There's, there's no getting around that. No, I think you're absolutely right. I think what you see with some of the other boards is, as you know, I'm sure Brittany has discussed the CCO grant that they received. So there's discussion of whether they're going to, uh, offset the increase for next fiscal year by using that grant. Um, so I think some of the boards are, I would doubt that seriously. So, so some of the boards are kind of holding back. Let's see what CCO does. I think, you know, part of the consideration has to be, right now you have existing CCO infrastructure, uh, CCO polls, SL lights, that that needs to be removed. Uh, whether that's a SECO cost or, uh, you know, is it seco come pick up your poles and go home kind of thing? Or, or is that, is that a district cost to remove that? Mm-hmm. Obviously if you're putting solar poles on raw ground with no infrastructure, that's a lot easier than, uh, retrofitting potentially. That's part of the RFP analysis process. Yeah. And when we get, it's a no Brainer if we go with this, CCO gets your falls out. And that may be very well may be the case. The trick with that though, is if Seco gets mad and takes them all out in 48 hours. Well I was, you would, you could write it up. I'm sure we could do something to, but you're right. You're, there's so many And if They just take the polls and they leave everything in the ground, what's the liability of that? Yeah. Yeah. I know. There's so much. That's why we have good lawyers, Wes, listen. Uh, but, and the other issue is, and and Bruce, I know we asked, I don't know if they ever came back to us and I forgot to ask, uh, Mike, er on this and maybe Westwood know, uh, is the government, let's say we did go with solar. Is the government gonna give us some kind of rebate or some kind of a grant because we went solar some, you know, is there one out there? I know they're gonna look Into it. I, I do think there's eligibility that we've looked at. Um, some of those are restricted to, um, other forms of government, like the counties, municipalities and some are restricted from C dds. I don't think that's the case, but that's certainly something that I know that Mr. Eckard and Mr. Brianis, the other CDs have started looking into. Yeah. That, that would obviously be part of the whole cost benefit analysis package that would really have to be done. Yeah. As well as the full lifecycle cost of, 'cause you know, right now if a pole falls over, as we've had many during the storm, or if a light goes out, seco maintains that puts the pole back up. It's their pole, their expense, uh, it's part of your lease cost. If the light goes out, they replace it. Same thing. Uh, you know, that all needs to be factored and that is included in the RFP for that. Right. Okay. So let's, let's get back to the hearts of the heart of this. Let's start, uh, looking at this, uh, proposal. What kind of changes you wanna make on it. Uh, you wanna go first, Steve? Sure. And I'd like you to explain why you wanna make them Take a look at the option of us buying everything direct purchase. Then we have to go through the issue of maintaining it or finding a contractor to maintain it, or contractors DURs. I, and I'm not sure that, uh, we want to put out the funds to buy all the equipment and to maintain it. I mean, I don't think we want to go out and buy bucket truck. Okay. So I I, when I read this, I didn't see that. I, what I saw was that if, if we can, if we're buying 700 poles, the tax savings could be considerable. Mm-hmm. If the vendor buys the pole, he's not getting the tax break no matter where he's putting the pole. Mm-hmm. So is it more cost effective to take the money from that, which would be in that agreement and say, okay, we're gonna pay this amount upfront, we're gonna buy the poles, but then all the maintenance, everything goes right back into the agreement. I don't foresee us doing the maintenance. I see that as an option to see. So if we're gonna save a hundred thousand dollars in taxes, but then it's gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars in maintenance, then it's mox next. But we won't know if we don't have Well, but the, what are you talking about with tax? Yeah. We don't Pay taxes. No. Let, let, let can Products for resale. Yeah. Let let I attorney, let I turn. I don't, That was my Question. No, no. Lemme tell you. We spoke, I spoke to, uh, uh, uh, Mike on this and I'll turn on Wes obviously go, Wes go. Yeah. I can touch base on it. So the, the second option is, um, a hybrid approach to the first one with the under. And the way it works direct purchase, um, is when a government enters into an agreement, and let's say it's an agreement for streetlights, and the agreement covers all sorts of tasks, the maintenance, the installation, and all of those things, but also covers the streetlights themselves when the CDD pays for that agreement, which, uh, would be the first option. The CDD, um, is just paying the contractor. And you're correct that there wouldn't be any taxes on the amount the, that the contractor charges you. But because the contractor would be purchasing the polls on the CD's behalf, the contractor is getting taxed on those polls because the contractor isn't entitled to an exemption from tax. So the CDD. So those taxes become part of the cost of that contract. What the second option does is it says, okay, you're gonna enter into that same agreement. You're gonna be afforded all those same services, except before the contractor, um, purchases the polls. It says to the district, here's my supplier for the polls, here's the cost of the polls, and I'm willing to do an amendment or a change order to my agreement to remove the cost of the polls in. So the, the, the amount that he's paying, which would include tax, would come out of the contract, and then the district would enter into a separate contract directly with the contractor's supplier, and the district would purchase those poles at the cost that the contractor paid. However, the district would not need to pay taxes. 'cause when the district pays for materials directly, it is tax exempt. So it's essentially giving the district the option of removing the taxes for the materials by virtue of change, ordering those materials out of the original contract and contracting directly with the supplier. The reason why it's an option is because there's also some staff work for that process to take place. So if, if you have a contract that is, um, you know, if, if the tax savings aren't that great, and the process of working with the contractor to create the change order and to set up the process by which you are, um, purchasing the materials directly, uh, isn't going to, if, if the transactional cost of doing that are equal to or greater than the, the tax savings, because the tax savings aren't that great, you may not want to do it. But if the tax savings are fairly high, then it probably makes sense to do it. So option two is just giving you that ability to essentially enter into the contract, same one as option one, but then removing the materials contracting directly with the material provider so that way you don't need to pay the sales tax on those materials. But the, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Yes. Uh, items bought for resale are not subject to taxation, But if the contractor buys it. So if your contractor needs to purchase the materials from a material provider, your contractor's paying taxes and he's gonna pass those taxes on to you. So the only, when you pay your co when you pay your contractor, you pay sales tax rather, you're exempt from sales tax on what you pay your contractor, but he's not exempt from sales tax on the stuff that he buys for you. So what, what you're doing is you're removing the contractor as a middleman so you can contract directly for the materials, and that way you're not paying the sales tax that the contractor would otherwise need to pass on to you. Yes. But goods purchased specifically for resale are not taxable. The, i i the way construction contracts work in Florida, in, in my experience with working with CDs, uh, and maybe because it's not re maybe this isn't part of that law, but in my experience, contractors are subject to sales tax on materials that they're purchasing for use of constructing, uh, capital projects along the lines of what we're discussing. Um, otherwise we would not be recommending this. I agree. If what you're saying is accurate, um, but in my experience, so I, I don't want to say you're wrong, but in my experience, general contractors do pay taxes on the materials that they purchase for projects that they install and for CDs or o other entities with whom they do business. Uh, I got, I got a question, would this be a one-off? Would it only be for the initial, uh, purchase and installation? Or would this be something that would carry on the amendment and that throughout the entire life cycle of this contract? So let me, so the, in order to take advantage of it, the, the material sales entity needs to agree that it'll sell to the district, uh, the materials at the same price that the, um, contractor was going to purchase them, just minus the sales tax. Yeah. So my guess is that it's gonna be for the bulk purchase upfront. Mm-hmm. But like, if you need to replace a light pole because of inflation and cost changing that you're not gonna be able to guarantee that you're gonna get the light for that initial cost. Okay. Yeah, because I would not want to kind of like, tie into for the entire lifecycle of this. I mean, the one off would be, would be fine, but I think we, wes, uh, just, uh, I know, I don't mean to coin you with this question, but, uh, it seems like the option two, if the, if the tax savings, it's bigger than what it cost to do the other option, and I think it would be, I I'm sure from hip, um, that's the only, uh, negative. It sounds like the positive is, is that it most likely will be the tax savings will be, uh, in, in our benefit to go with option two. Am I correct? Yes. And I think the, the key point about it is it's an option. So the, the district doesn't have any obligation to choose to go with that, um, second choice either. It's just an alternative. So if you get the prices, so I think the way this RFP is drafted, it's saying give us your full price where we may choose not to take advantage of direct purchase. Okay. But also tell us, you know, what your price is for your materials and, and sort of use as a board can then do the analysis of whether you want to take advantage of alternative number one or not. My comment was gonna be that if we don't ask the question, we don't have any way to, uh, evaluate the answer. It doesn't cost us anything to put it in there. And if it, if in fact it comes through that Steve's correct, yes. That there was no, no taxes, um, then it's, we don't do anything with that. We just go with one. But on the other hand, if Wes is correct that in Florida that's how that works, then we have the potential to save money. But again, what's the emotional cost? What's the extraneous cost? You know, if we wind up saving a buck, then it's, you know, we would not go with that. But because it's an auction Beautiful, It doesn't cost them anymore to create that contract because here's everything. And then this would be the price. I, I gotta assume the contractor, whoever responding on the RP pretty well knows Yes. What is right permissible and what isn't. I would think Correct. And They, that Steve was right then that would be kind of a moot point if They come back. But it doesn't cost us anything to put it in There. No, absolutely not. You get a, can you get a confirmation on that with Steve saying if, if it is or isn't? Well, Yeah, and, and I, I think maybe the, I don't know that when a contractor purchases materials for installation on a project, that the installation of those materials on the project are considered resale as opposed to like, uh, materials supplier who purchases their materials from, you know, a manufacturer and then them when the material supplier purchased those, those may not be subject to sales tax because they're reselling those materials sort of in the exact same, uh, condition that they were in. But when a contractor purchases materials with expectation that it's then gonna incorporate those materials into a project on behalf of a customer, uh, I, I think the distinction is that's not necessarily considered just resale of those materials. The CDD is gonna pay the contractor a fee for the project, the installation and everything else. And part of that project is the installation of the materials. So, um, like I said, I, I will make absolutely certain. Um, but um, in my experience, that's always been the case that general contractors are paying the sales tax on the materials that they're incorporating into the project that they're doing on a CD's behalf. Okay. So just to jump in, I know Ms. Shar wants to speak as your purchasing director, but we have done the direct purchase in the past. I'll give you a couple examples. Uh, for large capital projects where we've had to replace HPAC units at, uh, the recreation centers, we've done direct purchase on the equipment. Uh, typically those are long lead time. Also the, uh, advanced meter project, which we have underway. Uh, we hired a contractor to do all the installation work, but we're buying the meters direct from the manufacturer. Another example is the Nova Sports product for the sports courts resurfacing, we buy the product direct from the manufacturer, uh, to avoid the sales packs tax versus going through the reseller who would, uh, do that. Also, you'll, you'll typically pay markup when you're buying it through the manufacturer, but, but it is, I, I agree with, uh, your attorney's, uh, opinion that, that it is not resale. We've historically that tax will be embedded in there, but Ms. Shar can probably shed some better light on it. Good morning. Um, Melissa Shar purchasing. Yes. Uh, what Mr. Brown said is true. Those are some really good examples of where we do direct purchase. Um, you also have to take in the risk of, you know, direct purchasing too. We own that. You know, if it's in shipment mode and uh, the car got an accident or something, we, we have to take that liability that we own, that we need to pay to replace that equipment, whatever, um, that, so maybe more insurance that we need to get, um, where the contractor would be liable for everything. Storage, everything, um, turnkey, basically job. Uh, and then also what Mr. Uh, brown has stated is the markup. So if on the alternate side, if we go with the contractor to purchase the poles, they are gonna most likely put, I would say 10 to 20% markup on each pole. So we would be saving a direct purchase of taxes and that 10 to 20% markup as well. So there's two ways to, to weigh it out, but the markup made a difference too. You just bringing that up. Yeah, that is, that is almost, yeah. Be more than what the taxes would be. And we won't know if we don't specifically add that. Yes, yes. And I agree with that too. Not to remove it and to keep it in for just to find, you can't lose. But we have to disclose that that is a option that we're looking into for the contractors. Yep. And, um, as far as tax exempt for resale, that is true that we can do that, but I don't think in construction that it would come into play as far as maybe it might be legal to do that, but I don't know if you're gonna get a response from contractors, um, knowing that Oh, okay. We're gonna have to, I mean, they're gonna lose a lot of money, um, stating that they're gonna buy that for us with no taxes and that would only pay any markup. But we want to do everything else with it. So we'll see. So again, like, like, um, supervisor Rutherford said it's an option. So, you know, the, the, uh, the way the RFP is crafted is they have to bid on the poll, you know, all in, but they have the option to, to, to provide costs or not provide 'em on option one, whether we direct purchase the polls or not. 'cause some, as, as Ms. Shar said it, you know, it does cut into their overall profits and the overall, um, you know, project cost. So they would have to factor that in and back that out and, and typically they might get up somewhere else, but Uh mm-hmm. It's an option they can choose to bid or not bid, and then you have the information to make educated decisions on. Yeah. Okay. So I think we're up to do, uh, let's decide, do we stay where we go with option one and option two? Is that where we're at? I think so. Wanna make a decision On that. Okay. And there's also a question on option. Alright, so it was A B and C. Yeah. And on the next page it was also, uh, to remove it. Any other solution? A system that the proposal would like the district to consider. Mm-hmm. There may be things happening so fast that we don't know, and if we don't give them an option to offer us this third alternative, we won't know about that either. Great. So as long as we're getting the full design start, and then they can choose whether or not they want to add alternatives, it doesn't cost us anything to do that. Mm-hmm. And I think that, you know, again, things change so fast in this world that something might come up and they can say, okay, well we are just, this technology is, you know, different for this way. And so I would think that we would just leave it in. It doesn't cost us anything. Yeah. I, I think so too, because I don't have any idea, but I'm thinking the bulk of the cost in this thing is going to be the labor, not the material. Yeah. So I don't know if we're chasing, uh, you know, 10% of the cost, uh, in materials because it just seems to me this is incredibly labor intense when you think about all the things they have to do. And just our little experience with, uh, quantum where things got messed up alongside, there's gonna be that same issue with these poles coming out. Um, you know, trees and sidewalks and other kinds of, not sidewalks, you know, street. There's all kinds of things that are gonna be also In there. An RFP needs to be specific. Yeah. You know, don't, don't tell. Well, gee, we'd like to you tell us what you think we should have you, that that doesn't work in an RFP. We need to be specific to what we want. Now. If we want to do the option between, uh, being able to go and purchase or having them do it, it doesn't hurt to leave it in. Right. So that's fine. But to leave a blank slate in there and then work when that submission comes, then we're gonna have to decide, well, yeah, maybe that'll work. Or we're gonna have to run an engineering study to see if that'll be acceptable. No, I, that part I think needs to go out. RP needs to be specific what we want so the contractor can bid on. Why did you guys add, uh, alternate, alternate fee? I think it's be because of what you said. We don't know what is out there. There could be new innovative ways to do things. We do have a deviations and exceptions page, which is a standard form in all of our bids and RFPs that gives any contractor a option to change the scope and explain why they want to do that. Um, or a bid alternately, but they're taking a risk. 'cause usually we know exactly what we want. Um, and if they know no, no, we know what we want. We're just trying to figure out the best way to get that price down. So I, I think that I, I understand an RFP has to be specific, having written them for the Fed. Mm-hmm. God knows. Um, but I think that we don't know what other solutions have there. And giving them an opportunity to say, this is cutting edge. We may not wanna be on the bleeding edge and we just might say, thank you very much, but we'll go with what we know. I agree. I think being Pacific, I wrote too. You're right about that. You're really, you're right. But that's the problem. We don't know what we really want. See that's the problem. So we're looking for them to give us information. And you're right, we get too Pacific. We're gonna have less bids and that gives us less information. And that's not the purpose of what we're doing. Uh, I You're both right. You're both, you know. But I think at this point, because we don't know what the hell we want, I think we do want them to, to, Well, what we want is the best price for our clients. Yeah. And it, it might be staying with what we are. Yeah. And, and the RFP writer in me is looking at that, seeing going, what? Yeah. But then it's cutting. We're on, we're on the leading edge here. Yeah. You know, we Just don't wanna be in the bleeding edge. Yeah. We need information from them too. And that's what we're looking for. Yeah. So, yeah, Jerry, I was gonna say, I, I think this is gonna be a multi-step process when you send this RFP out, it's gonna come back, it's gonna create a lot more questions that we didn't know to ask or think about. Yes. And, and, and a revised RFP in my opinion, is gonna have to be constructed to get it better defined. I I just don't see how you can do this on one, uh, suite. Yeah. That's almost a given. Yeah. And then I had a couple other questions I wanted to bring up here, please. One of them, I read through it and I didn't see anything spelled out real clearly about software in, in my view, the world moves on software now everything is software driven and I don't see where anything's in here. And to be a little more specific, that one vendor that came in here, he talked about how these lights have timers on it. And we talked about daylight savings, daylight savings up, you know, coming up again as an issue. And I, I, I don't see where the software, I don't see anything real specific to say that you're gonna keep the software because, you know, software companies, they merge, they buy, they change. And this is a long term deal. It's not gonna stay flat for very long. So am I missing that? Uh, I did not see anything with software in there At, because I that, so that, that's a key component to this thing is that the software, the, the other one that, um, I didn't see anything on, and maybe it's premature, is what happens if this company that's warranting this stuff gets bought, sold, or goes out of business, where's who picks up the ball? That happens every day in this world, especially with software. I agree. Well, I'm not talking just the software software's one, but I'm talking all, all the, the rest of it, they, they install it all and then it turns out that, uh, the feds changed the rules or it turns out they did a bad install, they got bad component or something and they warranty it, but now they're gone. So who's gonna pick up that? I mean, we'll inherit those costs if we don't have any protection and I don't know how we can really protect about all that. Yeah. We could put a performance bond in there to help protect that and then also make sure that the actual agreement has language in there, which our legal team would look at before we executed that. Yeah. Yeah. We could. Yeah. Again, legal would look at that, uh, wrote that question down so we can highlight it. 'cause it is different than some of our other agreements. Now, again, with saying that, you know, getting the best price, now we're doing an RFP, so it's not about the best price, it's gonna be about the best value. So you could very well be paying, you know, get five people who submit and paying the fifth highest one for it. I totally understand that. And I'm not the proponent of take the cheapest bid because that's not the best bid necessarily. I get that. But we won't have any of that information if we don't ask the question. Now with doing the RFP, having a selection committee and they choose somebody, they choose someone who is the option submitting the option as the highest. I'll be bringing that back to you for intent to award. No intent to award. Because this is an RFP within saying it's a two phase process. Right. That would be more like an RFQ. We'd get qualifications and not pricing. Yeah. And I bring that to you and then want to get the most qualified, get the pricing with that. Because We don't, we don't want an RFP. Exactly. Exactly. I'm just saying as far as the two phase process, that that would not come into play. That was the one that the selection committee chose. Correct. And we would go, well, according to the criteria, which in here you are approving as well, the scoring Report. If they've met the criteria and they've met all of the other standards of any company that are also included and they can meet the bond, you know, all those things. That's, that's fine. I'm not looking at a second. RFP. This is what I, what his comment about, uh, uh, reverse review, uh, updated RFP. Mm-hmm. My question that brought up in my head is we used to have bidder's conferences. So once the RFP went out, we would schedule a meeting mm-hmm. For all potential bidders to come and ask all their questions. So everybody hears the same questions and everybody hears the same answers. Correct. Correct. And I'm gathering that that happens. That does happen. And we put on an addendum, um, where we have 'em written the questions and the answers, so they become a part of the RP If a scope were to change before a submittals were. So my question is, um, during this process, can we see their questions and answers to mm-hmm. It's probably not your normal, Typically. It's not. No. I Think That, uh, this board will have a member on that, uh, select committee. Not, no, not usually. We're Dealing with, well, we're dealing with strictly history seven items and we brought this board before and so this board shall have someone on that committee. Well, we haven't established that yet. We, no, we never established that yet. That's, yeah. Okay. I'm just, I just wanted to make sure that FIT conferences occur. They do. Yes. Uh, while we're waiting around in this evaluation criteria, got, I got a couple questions. The factor six and seven, we, it seems to me that we, there's 10 points associated with each of those, but they're not even mandatory. Is that, am I missing something There? Yeah, no, I, I brought that up too, and I had reviewed it because it's almost like if you don't, even though you don't have to bid on option two, you're gonna lose 10 points. Yeah. And, you know, so we're, we're trying to work that one out. Well, well, that was, as Shar said, that was noted. And we will adjust that. Okay. They'll be a, they'll, we need to do another refinement to go through and make sure on the, you know, the RFP to make sure we get a, a good clean copy or gets put out to bid. One other thing I do want to ask the board to consider and give us direction on, if we put this RFP out for X number of polls that District seven has, you'll, you'll get a price. We kind of talked about that economy of scale thing. If we were to share this with the other boards at their next meeting and ask them, are they interested in going in on this RFP upfront, you might get a much larger, uh, number of polls and districts participating and thus a larger economy of scale. So that, that would delay the RFP going out a little bit for the other boards to decide. But it also might yield larger savings if all of the CDD say, yes, we wanna all participate in this process. So just something to think about and you can give us direction on that. One Of my notes that I wrote on this is I didn't see anything in here that talked about scalability, that, um, 'cause I know when, um, we had the presentation, the question was asked if we had more districts with that change of price, and they said yes, but we haven't asked that. In here. We have not. So we are bidding this out or doing a RFP specifically for your district. So I can't promise them that any other pools are an option. If more people are interested, we would adjust the RFP and then put it up. Well, they another board if they wanted to, they could piggyback off of yours, but you're not gonna get original good pricing or low pricing with all of, you know, putting it out there with 2000, 10,000 Poles. I don't wanna lose my train of thought. What, what Bruce just said. Bruce, just clarify. Are you saying maybe we should go out to the other districts now and find out they wanna participate? So we, so we have a bigger number. Uh, is that prior we were thinking about going out first getting this done and then going, asking the rest of the other districts. Right. What you're telling me is maybe we should go ask them now. Yes, sir. So I think if you give us direction, you know, you want to go with, uh, you know, the full design build and option one or whatever the direction is and put it out to RFP, and I don't remember the number of polls District seven has right off hand, seven 700. Well, we have 50,000 polls out there. Some crazy number and some of the other, you know, when you look at all of them, that's a much bigger number that you might get a much larger economy scale discount versus kind of what Shar said, if you go out with your 700 polls and you get a price, the other district can piggyback at your price, but you'd lose that greater economy of scale. We're not gaining anything by them piggybacking on our price. We want to know what is the price is if we include them. That's right. Absolutely. So should we, should we, Yeah, I'm sorry. But should we put out an, uh, and lemme know if this is possible, get a, a, a number that we feel is close and they would bid on that higher number even, or maybe bid on both. Uh, how, you know, when you put out the proposal, because let's say all districts wanna get involved and there's, I don't know, um, 2000 poles. I don't know. Uh, you obviously, you're right, you would get a different price per pole if you went out with that many, uh, versus the small amount somehow. Should we word, uh, word the, uh, the proposal worded that way so they could bid that way? You know, you know what I'm saying? Is there any way Incremental pricing, you know, for the first 700, it's this Yes. From 700 to 1500, is that from exactly 15? At least it gives us an idea. I I mean, is it possible What could be possible Yes. Yes. To just do a range of poles? That might be, it might be a thought to do that. Well, not only that, but, you know, maybe we want to add a few more streetlights while we're doing this. Well, hopefully they may suggest that we don't need all 700. Right? Well, and again, we might not need all 700, but if, if we're talking about down the contract lane, you know, we have a storm, we need 20 more poles. Would it not behoove us now to buy 750 poles and have them available for those quick turnarounds rather than have them having to go find a Well, depending on the option, uh, that's up to the vendor To, I, I understand that. So, um, I would, I, my thought at the moment is let's figure out what we want so that they can revise what we've got in front of us. Mm-hmm. And then let them share it with the others after the revisions are done. So, okay, now we're change. We're good. This, I tell you, this meeting really had a great meeting. Um, so Bruce had a good idea, which we now agree with, saying, let's go, let's share it now, because before not wait until the proposal come back. Is that what You think? Well, and yeah. And we, if we make changes to this RFP right, then we still have to see it again. I mean, if we send you back to the office and say, take this out and add these five things, then they just have to rewrite the RFP. Mm-hmm. And then we approve that. So let's, let's get what we want. Mm-hmm. Because we may be by ourselves. Mm-hmm. And that's okay. Um, but once we have been clear about what we want, and we weren't very clear the last time, we were just all going, okay, that's, you know, let's figure this out. Um, which is what you do with new stuff. So let us define, let's, let's go through and make sure we have everything we want. And then, um, they can take it back, clean this up, and then it would come back to us, um, maybe in January, um, all cleaned up. And at that point in time, then that proposal that's been cleaned up, they could certainly take and share with the rest of the world, Add the incremental funding on the next revision. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. And I think it's important that the other districts know, know that we're doing this for information. If it doesn't benefit us individual districts, we're not gonna do it. If, if we get bid back, that make us all go, what? Yeah. Then we're not gonna approve that. Yeah. If we're not gonna, over time save money in all of our minds, we can't imagine that we won't save money. Yeah. Because that goes, that goes out of control. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, and yeah, you can wait for that grant, but we're not gonna see it. And if we see it for a week, then next month they'll change it anyway. So, um, but yeah, so we're, we're being proactive. Let us get this cleaned up to where we are happy with it so that we can go out with it, even if we're by ourselves. See, I can't see any other districts saying they don't wanna be involved in this because they're not getting obligated to buy anything until we get the information. Well, I, I, yeah. I, yeah. So again, okay. I got you. I got, I I this up. Let's go. Gotcha. I got a couple, couple items. Um, along, um, the lines of Darrell there. I don't see anything with battery disposals and whatever costs or environment environmental impact. Is that something, am I missing a point on that? Or, you know, it's the same thing. Like when you, when you need new tires, you're gonna pay a, a fee or a tax on tire disposal or hazardous materials. I, I, I don't know the, I don't know how that should be addressed or I think they would in the past with some experience in this. I think the, uh, the, uh, the contractors that get this proposal that do bid on it, it's gonna put that in there. They're gonna say how much it costs to, to, you know. Yeah. They're gonna put it in. I honestly read that don't happen. Yeah. I don't, I don't, we don't specifically ask for that as a item description in the pricing and Stuff like That. I agree with Mr. Va. I think they would roll that in, but I can definitely make a note of that. Yeah. So to, I think to that point, if you have a turnkey solution and a contractor providing the service, we're not disposing no. Of the batteries. That's the contractor's responsibility. So it would be built into The