City proposes outside permitting process study; commissioners debate workshop-first approach amid grease-trap code concerns

Development Services presented a proposal on July 28 for an independent, Lean-informed process study of the city's permitting operations and related departments, and commissioners debated whether to run in-house workshops first or hire the consultant to lead stakeholder engagement.

Tony Raimondo, Development Services, said the city had adopted an "open for business" resolution in 2012 that later stalled and that staff revisited the concept in 2024. Raimondo told commissioners the recommended consultant is Rothtellis (sometimes transcribed as Robtelis), which previously performed the city's building-fee study and has worked in other municipalities. He described a multi-phase engagement that would include document review, context analysis, process mapping, business-process analysis, recommended process improvements and a final report; he said the five core phases would take 12 to 16 weeks and that the base five-phase price is "just over a $100,000," while adding two optional implementation phases would raise the cost to about $140,000. Raimondo said, "Please understand this is coming out of the building fund. That fund remains robust."

Some commissioners favored launching a facilitated workshop (what Raimondo called Phase 6 when used after an initial analysis) early in the process to gather staff and business input before or alongside an outside consultant. Commissioner Britton said she "doesn't care for studies" alone and urged starting with a workshop that includes staff, businesses and commissioners to build internal buy-in; Raimondo and other commissioners replied that the consultant's phased approach can include stakeholder engagement during early phases and that a third party may elicit broader and more reliable feedback.

The session on permitting interleaved with a separate but related discussion about the city's oil and grease program for restaurants and other facilities. Mike Cannon, Utilities Engineering Manager, said permit reviewers use the current version of the Florida building code as a baseline and that the city has been holding facilities to higher standards in some cases to protect the wastewater treatment system. Brent Johnson, Utilities Director, confirmed staff is rewriting the FOG (fat, oil and grease) section and consolidating guidance in the utilities manual so applicants have one location for information. Johnson said the utility's higher requirements were intended to prevent problems at the wastewater plant and that staff had begun the rewrite; he said the consultant engaged on that rewrite had already started.

Commissioners asked that, in the interim, any staff direction requiring standards beyond the Florida Building Code be routed to senior utilities staff for review (Mike Cannon or Brent Johnson) before being communicated to applicants. One commissioner asked for an immediate process so developers would not be held to a higher-than-code standard without a supervisor review; staff said they would convene a meeting and report back, and the city attorney offered to meet with a commissioner to help define an interim resolution process.

No formal procurement decision was made at the work session. Raimondo said the agenda item would return for formal consideration after legal review; several commissioners expressed support for the full multi-phase study if it included workshops and strong implementation follow-through.