City Commission Workshop Meeting

APPROVED: 12/5/2013 City Hall City of Eustis, Florida 10 North Grove Street Post Office Drawer 68 Eustis, FL 32727-0068 Meeting Minutes - Final* City Commission Workshop Tuesday, November 19, 2013 6:43PM City Hall Conference Room CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Muenzmay - 6:43 p.m. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF QUORUM AND PROPER NOTICE Present: 5- Linda Bob; Albert Eckian ; Michael Holland; Karen LeHeup-Smith; and Kress Muenzmay I. Workshop Item 13273 City Commission Discussion of Its Vision for Eustis and New City Manager Profile Mayor Muenzmay introduced Stan Austin, Eustis Area Manager of the Florida Small Business Development Center at UCF, to facilitate the workshop discussion regarding development of a profile for the new city manager. He encouraged everyone present to participate in the discussion. Stan Austin explained the analysis technique called SWOT which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. He recommended starting the discussion with the opportunities and threats. He further explained that once those are identified, then they will go back and prioritize them. II. Commission Discussion Mr. Austin asked the Commission to think about their vision for the future to assess the opportunities and threats. The following opportunities were identified: 1) Making the City waterfront the premier in Central Florida; 2) Housing - Old converted multi-family homes removed and replaced with both new housing and businesses; more single family homes, apartments, townhomes, condos; 3) Residential beautification; 4) Mixed use business/housing in downtown core; 5) Need a brand for City/Identity; 6) Ecotourism: Take advantage to move brand toward fisherman, birders, etc.; 7) College/technical school! other training facility to draw people and jobs; 8) Economic deve/opmenV Jobs - Live, work, school, play in Eustis; 9) Marketing - Develop strategic marketing plan to match vision/strategic plan; 8) Exploit already present large concentration of health care; 9) Fairgrounds to stay in Eustis, structure venue schedule; 10) Cultural events: plays, historic district, art, events; 11) Half of current town available for redevelopment; 12) Partner with Golden Triangle; and 13) Research other successful cities. The following threats were discussed: 1) Some apartments in wrong locations; 2) Private land to build on controlled by few people - Must buy into Vision; 3) Money- potentia/loss of penny sales tax - $1.5 million in 2015, loss of CRA funding- $350,000 in 2020; 4) Fairgrounds owned by County who is considering moving it, needs more room, flooding/drainage issues; 5) Development potential bigger than downtown; 6) Slow down traffic going through downtown; 7) Poor schools relative to neighbor cities; 8) Revisit strategic plan in light of opportunity priority; and 9) Unfunded mandates from the State, Federal and County governments. The Commission discussed the following comments/topics: 1) Amount of available space for development or redevelopment; 2) Conducting research on other towns of similar size that are doing it right; 3) Encouraging the public to buy local; 4) Enterprise zone sunsetting and no interest by City of Eustis, Florida Page 1 Printed on 1112112013 City Commission Workshop Meeting Minutes - Final November 19, 2013 State in renewing it; 5) Need to move away from being event only oriented; 6) Need to have business plan for long term - figure out where want to be in ten years and work backward on how to get there; and 7) Creating a self-sustaining community. The Commission discussed prioritizing the opportunities and threats, what attracts people to the other area cities, what makes the City's waterfront unique, how to market the City and targeting wealthy seniors in the 50 to 70 age bracket. The Commission prioritized the identified opportunities as follows: 1) Making the waterfront the premier spot in Central Florida; 2) Develop City brand/identity; strategic marketing plan targeting wealthy seniors in 50- 70 age bracket; researching other similarly sized successful cities; partnering with Golden Triangle; 3) Fairgrounds to stay in Eustis and be redeveloped as entertainment venue; marketing cultural events -plays, historic, district, art, other events; 4) Developing college/tech school or other training facility; exploiting already present large concentration of health care; economic development/jobs to encourage public to live, work, go to school and play in Eustis; and 5) Housing; space in current town available for redevelopment. The Commission prioritized the identified threats as follows: 1) Money; unfunded mandates from state, county and federal government; 2) Revisit strategic plan in light of opportunity priority; 3) Fairground owned by County; 4) Poor schools relative to neighbor cities; 5) Private land to build on controlled by few people - Must buy into Vision; 6) Development potential bigger than downtown; and 7) Slow down traffic going through downtown. Mr. Austin explained stated that the City will need to identify which of the opportunities and threats are strategic and which are tactical and identify what can be accomplished quickly. Mr. Austin distributed to the Commission a list of characteristics for a city manager and asked them each to select their top eight. Characteristics selected were as follows: Approachable, Charismatic, Committed, Ethical (3), Leader, Team builder (4), Visionary (3), Well spoken, Accountable, Communicative (2), Creative, Experienced (3), Positive, Confident (2), Intelligent, Hardworking, Honest, Resourceful, Analytical, Results oriented (2), Trustworthy, Brilliant, Diligent, Direct, Emotionally Strong, Organized and Productive. The top characteristics chosen were as follows: 1) Team builder; 2) Experienced; 3) Ethical; 4) Visionary; 5) Communicative; 6) Confident; and 7) Results Oriented. Mr. Austin reviewed the city manager profiles for various cities. He asked what other strengths the Commission wants for the new city manager noting that they also have to determine what weaknesses they can accept. The Commission discussed other attributes including the following: 1) able to speak with all ethnic groups; 2) intelligence (IQ) and street smarts/experience; 3) mutual respect; 4) can sell ideas; 5) experienced in team building and implementing the strategic plan - has documented proof,· 6) has contemporary (IT) skills; 7) ability to work with other cities/county/state/federal governments; and 8) resourceful/creative fund raiser and budget manager. The Commission discussed what weaknesses they could accept noting that it was difficult to identify those weaknesses without actually knowing an individual candidate's strengths. The Commission discussed the inability to hire someone to be both a good city manager and good in economic development/marketing and the likelihood they would have to hire two individuals. Mr. Austin recommended the Commission consider hiring a city manager with good administrative skills and then hire an economic development person separately. The Commission discussed the problems that arise due to change overs on the Commission following elections with Mr. Austin recommending that the City's strategic plan be presented to new Commissioners as soon as they are swam in. City of Eustis, Florida Page2 Printed on 1112112013 City Commission Workshop Meeting Minutes - Final November 19, 2013 lll. Public Input- None IV. Commission Direction The Commission requested that Mr. Austin meet with the Acting City Manager to discuss how the Commission should proceed further. V. Adjournment- 9:57 p.m. City Clerk *These minutes reflect the actions taken and portions of the discussion during the meeting. To review the entire discussion concerning any agenda item, go to www.eustis.org and click on the video for the meeting in question. A DVD of the entire meeting or CD of the entire audio recording or verbatim transcript of the meeting can be obtained from the office of the City Clerk for a fee. City of Eustis, Florida Page3 Printed on 1112112013