All the TV programs and everything are available there, so you can just start to hunt them down by category or the things you need. But let's get to work together on our care plan, and that way we can enjoy our best lives. Thank you for joining us. I'm Joe Stachler. Thank you for joining our program today. I'd like to remind you that our senior information line is available to you at 321-473-7770. There you can get help and direction that can be helpful for your specific situation or circumstances. The work of helping seniors is very important, but we can't do it alone. That is why our sponsors here in Brevard County are so important. I'd like to thank our many area sponsors, businesses, and medical providers who support the mission of helping seniors that help us carry the cost of our media efforts. If you'd like to join us, either as a business partner or simply donate as an individual, we welcome your call at 321-473-7770. You're always welcome to visit our website at www.helpingseniorsofbrevard.org. Thanks so much for your help. It does make a difference. If you wish to speak to any item on the agenda or during the public comment portion of the meeting, please fill out a speaker card. Each person addressing the board shall have three minutes to complete his or her comments on each agenda item for which he or she has filled out a card. The chair has the discretion to determine or alter the time limits on any agenda item. The Board of County Commissioners requests that speakers appearing under the public comment section of the agenda limit their comments or presentations to matters relating to county business that are within the board's control, authority, and jurisdiction. And welcome to the August 26th meeting for the Board of County Commissioners. We have a quorum. I'll call the meeting to order. We have invocation today by Pastor Rodney T. Osborne. Rodney here? No? Okay. Let's do the Pledge of Allegiance. And that's me. Justice for all. Commissioners, we do not have minutes for approval this morning. We have two items before we get to consent. Senator Tom Wright is here today to present us with a check. And, Senator, you're recognized, sir. Good morning, everyone. It's good to be here always. It's a privilege for me to be down here in the great county of Brevard, which I've been several times already in the last few days. I'll be back again tomorrow. This is my favorite time of the year, bringing checks back to the district. We brought almost $500 million back to the district this year, so it's really been a good year. It's $6 million almost that we're bringing to you today. Each of these investments addresses a specific community need while working together to build things that are safer, healthier, and more sustainable within this county. First, we have the West Central Avenue Bridge Replacement, which is funded at just a little over $1.2 million. This bridge is a vital connection point, as you know, for residents and businesses. Replacing this aging structure will ensure safety and reliability for years to come. Next is the Indi-Atlantic Storm Drainage Improvements, funded at just a little over $1.7 million. And we know that the flooding concerns have affected neighborhoods here. This project will provide relief, reducing flood risks, and protecting property when heavy rains come into Brevard. Finally, and perhaps the most important one for our environment, is the Indian River Lagoon Countywide Sewer Connection Assistance, which is funded at just a little over $2.9 million. This is more about the infrastructure. It's about protecting one of Florida's natural treasures. And by expanding the sewer connections, we will significantly reduce nitrogen pollution, helping restore the health of the lagoon for future generations. So, together, these projects, as I said, are nearly $6 million. And that is a powerful statement of support from the state of Florida to Brevard County. So, I'm proud to have worked alongside you, and I'm looking forward to providing you with this big check here. And I think we'll have some commissioners come down and accept that. And also, I think Public Works. So, proud to present you with this check for $5,927,261. All right. A lot of people are involved to make this happen, so it's not just me. It's all about having to fight for their share of the funding. Of all the checks that we pass out here in the state, it represents only 20% of all the funding that was requested. So, it's a challenge to make sure you get the money that you need. All right, we ready? Go. Thank you again. Thank you. Appreciate it. Great start today, huh? Yes. Thank you again, Senator, for supporting Brevard County and the legislature. We appreciate you. All right. Commissioner Atkinson, you have a resolution this morning. I do. If I could have Laura McCarthy come on up with any guests that you might have with you. So, I'm going to read the resolution and then ask you for a couple of your thoughts. Whereas addiction is a complex and treatable disease, and with the right support, life recovery is possible. And whereas more than 20 million Americans are recovering from substance abuse disorder, which means that many of us are close to someone working to overcome mental and substance use disorders. Whereas by celebrating individuals on the road to recovery, we commit to helping prevent substance use disorder, supporting those who are still struggling, and providing people in recovery with the resources they need to live full and healthy lives. And whereas we thank peer recovery support professionals, counselors, addiction specialists, first responders, doctors, and family members who work tirelessly to help those who suffer from substance use disorder. And whereas we remain grateful for the efforts of the Brevard Recovery Fest, sponsored by area treatment centers, recovery support organizations, community businesses, dedicated to ending the stigma of addictions and mental health issues. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners hereby proclaim September 2025 as National Recovery Month, done, ordered, and adopted, in regular session on this 26th day of August 2025. And you want to make a motion, Commissioner? I would like to make a motion. Second. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Atkinson. I think Commissioner Delaney got there first. For a second. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Vice Chair Goodson. Yes. Commissioner Atkinson. Yes. Commissioner Altman. Yes. Chairman Feltner. Yes. And we'll show that pass as 5-0. Ma'am, you're recognized. Thank you. My name is Laura McCarthy. I'm the Executive Director and the Founder for the Brevard Recovery Fest, which is a local, nonprofit, community-driven outreach to create a platform for providers and recovery organizations so that Brevard County citizens can see that there is help and hope in the county. I am a woman in long-term recovery. I am a woman in long-term recovery. My recovery date is May 3rd, 1985. And by the grace of God and the community of people like this, I am here today to go from criminal to community leader. It is possible. Recovery is possible. And that is probably our biggest message is that you, too, can recover and there is hope. Behind me today, I have various organizations. We'll have over 100 vendors, sponsors, and donors at this event, which will happen at Melbourne Auditorium on Saturday, September 13th from 10 until 2 p.m. With me today, I have Palm Point Behavioral Health, which is one of our exclusive event sponsors. We had La Amistad, Palm Point, Central Florida Behavioral Hospital, and University Behavioral Center be one of our largest sponsors for this event this year. We also have Space Coast Recovery in the House, Recovery Connections of Central Florida, which is our only RCO recovery community organization in Brevard County, launching two new facilities, drop-in centers that are going to be opening very soon in Melbourne and in Titusville. We have Orlando Recovery Center, Live Well Behavioral Health, and, of course, our board members that are represented today, as well as Project Oasis, who works on our programs and most of our printed material. SAMHSA started the National Recovery Month back in 1989. SAMHSA stands for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the federal government. It is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance behavioral health of the nation and to improve the lines of individuals living with mental health and substance use disorders and their families. National Recovery Month was started in 1989 as a national observance held every September to promote and support new evidence-based treatment recovery practices. The nation's strong and proud recovery community and the dedication of service providers and communities who make recovery in all of its forms possible. I left my clinical work. I am a retired LMHC. That stands for Licensed Mental Health Counselor, MCAP, Master Certified Addictions Professional, in 2018 and felt like my service to the community was not done. I joined the Brevard Opioid Misuse Task Force under the Brevard Prevention Coalition, and at that time we did not have a recovery fest. In fact, it was Marion County that came over to us in 2021. Their heroin task force came over to our task force and said, what's wrong with you people in Brevard? Why don't you have a recovery fest? And we all looked at each other and said, I don't know. Why don't we have a recovery fest? We need one. And so what happened was that vision birthed into the Brevard Recovery Fest, which was housed under the Brevard Prevention Coalition its first year. At the end of that year, Stanley said to me, you got too big too fast, and you don't fit with my mission. You need to go create your own organization or get under another nonprofit. And I sought the community support, and at that time, Brevard Recovery Fest became its own 501c3 charitable organization with the IRS. By the way, I had my IRS designation within 30 days after they got off the phone and told me to take at least 120. I think they believe in our vision as well. This is our fourth year. We'll have over 100 vendor sponsors and donors. We have a free family fun day. We are tired of seeing death in our county. We were number one per capita in Florida for fentanyl poisonings until we believe our actions, which are many of our community partners, started distributing Narcan throughout the city, doing Narcan training within all cities in Brevard County. We have reduced ourselves to number five in fentanyl poisoning deaths in Brevard County and in the state of Florida. We continue to believe that our efforts in this county will continue to help people survive and thrive. We promote recovery. We believe it's possible. We know it's possible. We know treatment is possible. And with this kind of information, we hope to reach our county citizens and bring them hope and health. We, this year, launched a mental health event. By the way, the National Mental Health Month is in May. We launched our very first mental health event. It happened at the Space Coast Health Foundation. We had well over 200 people participate and 30 primary mental health vendors support that event. And, again, everything is free to the community. Oh, by the way, did I say it's free to the community? So free food, free fun, inflatables. Wings of Grace will do flight simulators. Brevard County Sheriff's Office will do their teen driving simulator. We'll also have the inflatables outside with face painting. We also have seven different mobile response units that we'll be showcasing, including Matthew's Hope Sleeper Bus, Daily Bread's mobile unit. HUG, which is Health Care Unity Group, as well as Curative Care, will be doing HIV, hepatitis C testing for free. We also have Daily Bread coming out and showcasing their mobile unit. So it's going to be a really fun day. We just encourage all the community. I did leave some cards. Please tell your friends and family, anyone that's struggling. There is hope and help in Brevard. September 13th, 10 to 2, Melbourne Auditorium. Thank you for, thank you, thank you, thank you, Commissioner Atkinson and Liz Atwood for this resolution. It means the world to us very, very much to be recognized by the commissioners. Thank you very much. You did a nice job. Commissioner Atkinson's going to come to present you with a resolution. Community? Please. All right, commissioners, we'll move on to consent. Is there anything anyone wants to take off of consent? I would like to pull F-18 authorization to utilize sole single source distributors and piggyback contracts for goods and services utilized by county departments and offices. Okay, how about we take that up a little bit later so we can give staff some time to get that together? Sure. Is that okay? Miniple to that? Yes. I think we've got some other easier things today. We could click off and maybe get people on their way. With that said, minus F-18, is there a motion for the rest of consent? Move to approve. All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Delaney for the rest of consent. Minus F-18, is there a second? Second. I have a second by Commissioner Atkinson. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney? Yes. Vice Chair Goodson? Yes. Commissioner Atkinson? Yes. Commissioner Altman? Yes. Chairman Feltner? Yes. We'll show that pass as 5-0. I made a note. Commissioner Delaney won't let me forget, right? Of course not. Okay. Okay. We have a few cards on the G portion of public comment, so we'll go to those. Mr. Panic, sir, you're recognized. And he does have some pictures for us, so. I'm going to show you a few pictures real quick before I begin. You might want to move the mic up. You're kind of tall, so we can hear you. All right. Yes? Yes. Okay. I'm going to show you a few pictures. I didn't know there was a problem in our county, but I took some pictures of this. It landed up on my street off of Industry Drive. Picture. And that's the side picture of it. This is off of Pineapple and US-1. There's that old building that always sits there, and there was about 11 piles. It's just some of the pictures. Sir? Yeah. And I took some pictures, and I saw that ever since January 1st, when I found out from the landfill, the landfill now commercial groundskeeper people have to pay so much for a ton. So a lot of the commercial entities, even small or big, have now found dump sites within the county. Any vacant land, they dump it. I found them throwing it over in the ditches that go into our interculture waterway system, and a lot of that gets washed out, and we're constantly cleaning the interculture waterway. You can go through all the ditches, and you could ask some of the road and bridge, because they'd clean out our ditches. And I'm sure Carl at the time was, I knew him really well. He used to, you know, mow the ditches out, and he saw a spare share of stuff. But the solution to this, to stop it from the epidemic, because a lot of the worst spot I've seen is about 80 piles that were on Turtle Mound and on John Rose Boulevard. That used to be an old AM FM radio station, and there's about 80. I let Amy know in road and bridge about it. She barcaded it up, and they stopped that. But there's the road and bridge, and the city have been pretty busy cleaning up these piles that the commercial entities leave behind for us to clean up. And the only thing I ask is maybe put extra personnel in those different within the county to, you know, maintain those. And I did think of a solution, maybe with the attorney's help here, the county's attorney, is that right now the landfill takes all debris. But if they contract it out, put it on a contract, a two-year contract, I mean, the guy that right next to Saarland does that. He bags it, and he sells it. He sells it to a landscaping, but the county could put it out for contract that, you know, that all this debris now goes to a piece of land, five acres, that the county has leased out to the guy that bid the contract. And he can mulch it, and he could sell it and do whatever he wants. And if he wants the pallet and metal, he can do that, too. So that takes a lot of liability away from the county and buying all those big mulching equipment that cost $9 million to $1 million a piece to run to mulch. I know that I talked to the county on one incident. A loader was loading these big trucks, and I asked him where those trucks are going. He said they're going to Georgia to the heating plant. They take 10 loads of mulched-up wood to their heating plant just over a state line on the right-hand side on I-95. You'll see it. There's a big heating plant, and they dump it there, and they use it for the heating plant. I don't know why we don't use something like that for ours, maybe save a lot of coal and everything else and fuel. And that's the only thing I have to say about that. If we stop it now, the epidemic is really – I'm just only interested in my business center, the Wickham Road Business Center. If I see piles, I let Amy know at Road and Bridge right away, and she takes care of it really quick at Road and Bridge. And they do a great job in our community, and I'm just letting the board know that this epidemic is going to happen all over Brevard County. And maybe within your board members, you can have a meeting and come to – you know, with the attorney and find out how they can contract that out for somebody to mulch all that stuff up instead of us mulch it, because we really have run out of space on that. And that's all I have to say about that. And we'll talk another day. We had a meeting, and I'm sorry that we missed that. Thank you. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. We had a meeting scheduled, and I'm sorry that we missed that. Yeah, no worries. I think you came earlier than I did. You're not alone. I think we see this throughout the county, and so we'll talk another day about some ideas. I'm interested in the business that you spoke about, doing the mulching there on Sarno as well. Any other comment for Mr. Panik? Commissioner? I was wondering – I totally understand what you're dealing with. We deal with it a lot in North Brevard as well. All kinds of dumping, not just landscape, but couches and all sorts of fun things. We should have couch amnesty. Right. But I wasn't sure if the board, if I could get support maybe for the county manager and the county attorney to possibly bring back some possible options, because this is an issue that I've been talking with them about for a few months now, along with our solid waste director, about possible solutions to – because I understand where the county is coming from, that our dumps are filling up too fast and so on, and that, of course, costs taxpayer dollars to build new dumps, but we also don't want our community to become the dump. So there's got to be some kind of middle. So I don't know if we could give it – ask for advisability or how that works. How about, Commissioner, you first meet with Tom Mulligan to discuss some options and see from that what we can bring back to the board. I think there's interest among the board. Thank you. That's my feeling today. Sir, I'll talk to you in the near future, okay? All right. All right. Thanks. I'm sorry, Commissioner Goodson. I'd like for Tom. Okay. All right. Tom, since you enacted the fee for private contractors to bring stuff to the – landscaping stuff to the landfill, have you seen a downturn in the number of people that might be dumping illegally somewhere else? We have not seen – we have not seen a downturn in the amount of vegetative material that's coming into our landfills. But you – of course, I know that once you did those charges, the local landscapers, mulching guys, whatever, they were up in arms on that, correct? There was a portion of them that, yes, were opposed to the idea. Right. Now, at Adamson Road, do you own the mulching equipment or is that a contract? No, that is under contract. And you mulch everything from trees to concrete? We mulch the vegetative material. We crush the concrete. Right. And you use it in the landfill, right? Correct. Do you own the crusher or is that a private contractor too? We crush it ourselves at the cocoa landfill using our compactors and our own equipment. We do have a contract for concrete crushing, which is up in Titusville, which is where we don't have equipment like that. Okay. Is there any way – and I know it's kind of quick, but I'll ask you. As far as illegal dumping, that's going to be a hard thing to stop because people do illegally dump everywhere. That would be – and you don't have the forces to maintain or to govern that or check it, right? Is that pretty much it? We do not. Okay. But then it falls on road and bridges to clean it up? That depends. Some can be code enforcement issues that end up on road and bridges responsibility. Some of it we do work with waste management to go clean up as well. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Okay. We'll go on to the next card. John Requia. Did I sing that right? Morning. Morning, sir. John Requia. I'm from Barefoot Bay. The issue we have at Barefoot Bay is significant with the water and sewer issue. It's becoming unsustainable for a lot of residents there. I realized the bond. I realized the bond deal. I realized the other deals that were made in 2013. It went from bad to worse to horrible. I realized none of you commissioners were there at that time, but we need it to be resolved now. An offer was made from Barefoot Bay through legal counsel about spreading the cost over southern Brevard County. That way the bond would be paid. It would be relief to the residents there and be little impact on the rest of the residents of southern Brevard County. That's the best offer I've seen on the table. We need something like that. We're paying $75 delivery fee for water and sewer to the meter plus usage in 2028. That will be $109. If you've got a family, I'm one person. I pay $110 a month. I moved to Barefoot Bay two years ago. I invested $305,000 to move in there. If I would have known what I was going to pay for water and sewer, as much as I like Barefoot Bay, I would not have done that. It's insane. I come from Baltimore. $100 every three months. Better water. Better sewer. More efficient. From Baltimore. So it needs to be resolved. I'm hoping you all will take it upon yourselves. Give some thought. Have some meetings. Get together on it. I know people just canceled their homeowner's insurance. I've talked to people that are limited income, that are cutting their groceries on the last week of the month. People are going to move. I've started a petition, which I will present in October, with probably a protest, to get as much recognition on the issue it needs to be focused on. There is a way to resolve it. I'm hoping that you all get together and work on that. We need it desperately. We're feeling the pain. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Bruce Amos. My name is Bruce Amos. I live at 901 Jacaranta Drive, Barefoot Bay. Good morning. I'm a resident of the Barefoot Bay Recreation District, the BBRD, located in Brevard County's District 3, and I am the chairman of the Board of Trustees. I'm here to speak about the BBRD's request to terminate a 2020 interlocal agreement between the BBRD and the county. It prohibits the district from increasing its annual assessment beyond the percent change in the CPI year over year, unless the district receives the express authorization from the Board of County Commissioners. BBRD residents elect five trustees to govern the district. BBRD residents also vote for one county commissioner to represent District 3, where Barefoot Bay is located. But BBRD and the county are separate, legally distinct governments. My statement is fundamentally about the importance of respecting the authority of a duly elected special district government under the state charter. However, former Commissioner John Tobiah inappropriately inserted himself in Barefoot Bay's affairs in the middle of COVID-19, when he threatened to call a referendum election to illegally take the district's authority authorized by statutes to collect its annual assessment on the county tax rolls, unless the district entered into this agreement, and that never expires. It was wrong for former Commissioner Tobiah to force BBRD to enter into this interlocal. If the residents of Barefoot Bay believe an assessment cap is necessary, they'll express it to the board they voted to represent them. Personally, I believe a cap can be a good idea, but it should be thoughtfully developed by BBRD's elected trustees in collaboration with Barefoot Bay's management and formerly included in the Barefoot Bay Policy Manual. That ensures transparency, accountability, and local control. If the interlocal remains in effect, the district will have to appear before this commission whenever the board determines it must exceed the cap during budget development. In doing so, this body, containing four officials never elected by the Barefoot Bay residents, will assume responsibility for critical local decisions serving as de facto trustees. Earlier this year, representatives met with Ms. Atkinson to present the BBRD's objection to the interlocal. A month later, she responded to the question at a town hall that the lawyers can hash it out. This commission should take swift action to accept BBRD's request to terminate the interlocal. If not, the trustees are prepared to exhaust all available legal remedies before litigation, including triggering the governmental conflict resolution procedures set out in Chapter 164 Florida statutes, which we are prepared to initiate at our next meeting. To close, this interlocal agreement does not benefit Brevard County in any way. It only adversely affects the Barefoot Bay Recreation District. Please do the right thing and approve a resolution to terminate the 2020 interlocal agreement between BBRD and the county. Thank you. Thank you, sir. That was our last comment card on the G section. I guess we're ready for Amanda. I was going to take that down with the J items. I thought we'd spend a little more time on that one, if you don't mind. We're going to go to H1. Good morning, commissioners. Item H1 is the adoption of the stormwater utility resolution, ratifying, confirming, and certifying the annual stormwater utility special assessment rule. The rate has not been changed. Questions for Amanda? No questions. Commissioners don't have any cards on this one. We're in discussion. Is there any discussion on the item? Move to approve. There's a motion by Commissioner Delaney. Have a second by Commissioner Allman. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney? Yes. Vice Chair Goodson? Yes. Commissioner Atkinson? Yes. Commissioner Altman? Yes. Chairman Feltner? Yes. We'll show that. Passes 5-0. Thank you, commissioners. Amanda on H2. Item H2 is a public interest determination for wetland impacts for a property in District 1 on 520, just west of Clear Lake. It's to impact 0.91 acres of wetlands. Questions for Amanda? Okay. I don't have any cards on this one either. We're in discussion. Is there any discussion on the item? Move to approve. I have a motion by Commissioner Delaney. Is there a second? Second. I have a second by Commissioner Allman. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney? Yes. Vice Chair Goodson? Yes. Commissioner Atkinson? Yes. Commissioner Altman? Yes. Chairman Feltner? Yes. We'll show that. Passes 5-0. Okay. See them getting in the box there. Chief on H3. Good morning. H3 is requesting the board adopt, ratify, confirm, and certify the non-ad valorem assessment role, which has been updated to reflect the rate adjustment as previously approved and authorized by the board in Resolution No. 25-048 on May 20th of 2025. Questions for Chief? Other questions? I don't have any cards on this one either, Commissioners. We're in discussion. Is there any discussion? Move to approve. I have a motion by Commissioner Delaney. Is there a second? Second. I have a second by Commissioner Altman. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney? Yes. Vice Chair Goodson? Yes. Commissioner Atkinson? Yes. Commissioner Altman? Yes. Chairman Feltner? Yes. And we'll show that. Passes 5-0. Colonel on H4. Good morning, Commissioners. Item H4 seeks board approval for the approval for a resolution for the adoption of the rate, schedule rates, and changes for hazardous materials, special operations team, stand-by response, fire prevention, and inspection rates for fiscal year 2025-2026. Proposed rates for hazmat and fire prevention rates and fee schedules are in accordance with the annual change in consumer price index, or 2.95%. The proposed standby response rates are in accordance with the most recent FEMA schedule and equipment rates. Chief and I are standing by for any questions you may have. Okay. Questions for staff? Any questions? I don't have any cards on this one either. Commissioners, we're in discussion. Is there discussion on the item? Move to approve. I have a motion by Commissioner Delaney. Is there a second? Second. Okay. I think Commissioner Atkinson beat you there. So I have a second by Commissioner Atkinson. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney? Yes. Vice Chair Goodson? Yes. Commissioner Atkinson? Yes. Commissioner Altman? Yes. Chairman Feltner? Yes. And we'll show that one. Passes 5-0. Commissioners, if you don't mind, let's go to maybe an easy one here that we could do real quick. Virginia, actually probably take care of the two Virginia items, if you don't mind real quick, Virginia. We're going to go to, I think let's do J-3 first and then J-2. A couple other people that maybe we could get out of here today. Let's do J-3 first. I think that's going to be the quicker one, I'm guessing here. Sorry, you caught me off guard. Sorry. I just... Good morning, Commissioners. J-3 is a petition for an administrative hearing regarding a consent order approved by Florida Department of Environmental Protection that allows excessive land application of biosolids within the watershed of the upper St. John's Basin. The consent order temporarily allows H&H liquid sludge disposal ink to land apply up to triple the legal rate to agriculture in the upper basin of the St. John's River, including the watershed of Lake Washington, which is the water supply for drinking water for about 170,000 Brevard County residents. Dawn, do we have the map? Thank you. The map shows that South Florida biosolids are hauled to Central Florida to protect the central... the Florida Everglades. St. Lucie, Indian River County, and Brevard County all adopted moratorium. So 73% of the state's hauled biosolids are deposited in our neighbor, Osceola County, and almost all of that is within the St. John's River Basin side of Osceola. So it drains into this Lake Washington watershed. The requested action is to authorize the county attorney's office and natural resources staff to submit a petition for an administrative hearing, including retroactive authorization, seeking the reversal or modification of the state's consent order, and authorize the county attorney's office and staff to participate in the administrative hearing process, including mediation. Any settlement agreement reached at mediation would be brought back to the board for final approval. And just a quick question for clarity, the board currently has a moratorium on spreading biosolids in Brevard. Correct. So this puts potentially us in conflict here, which I think we're going to rectify today. Commissioner Altman, for a question, sir. Yeah, a couple questions. One, when you say biosolids, I know that's a general term. Basically, what's in these biosolids that are being spread? Right. So this is partially dewatered sewage sludge. So it contains everything that comes out of the back end of a wastewater treatment plant. Sewage? Yes. Yeah. I have a question in your request for our approval. I'd like to, if possible, include any necessary engineering, expert witnesses, legal support. I know these, I assume this could possibly end up in a 120 administrative hearing. I know these hearings require a lot of expertise, presenting evidence and data to support your position. I'd like to include whatever necessary costs would be to get the ample legal support to present our case. I don't know if that's included in your recommendation or not. Morris, do you want to speak to that real quick for us? That was not included in the agenda item, which was hastily put together because we just got notice of this issue last week, which is why we went ahead and filed last week because it potentially, that was the deadline depending on how it's calculated. So we're asking for the retroactive authorization. But I think that's a great suggestion. That way we have the flexibility if we need it in the process. Okay. Well, I would include that in a motion to support. Okay, we'll take that as a friendly amendment, right? Okay. Other questions? Commissioner Delaney. So I just want to put it out there also that in biosolids, there's usually PFAS, right? Yes. So I know that what we're experiencing up in the North End with the St. John's is the water quality is turning out to be not great. The same, if not worse off than the Indian River Lagoon. And so this is really concerning to me that, you know, Lake Washington already has some issues. So just anything we can do to protect our water quality. Okay, Commissioner Goodson for a question, sir. At present time, you allow the sludge to be put on a certain no lower elevation than something, something, because the lower elevation you get, the more runoff you get into the St. John's River. So Osceola County is allowed to put it on the higher elevations, correct? The, there has to be, the latest state rule changes, say there has to be six inches of separation between the level where the biosolids are applied and the seasonal high water table, so the ground water table. And so I assume out, you know, in the Osceola and Orange County, they use it for fertilizer, correct? Correct. Okay. And that's still allowed today, right? Correct. There are state rules governing how much they are allowed to apply, and this would allow H&H to temporarily put down three times more than the state rules. And 73% of that comes out of Miami? 73%. Most of it comes out of South Florida, but when you look at the entire state combined of all the biosolids that are hauled, 73% ends up in Osceola. Thank you. Other questions? We're on questions. Okay. I don't have any cards on J3. We're in discussion. Is there any discussion on the item? Is there a motion for the item? Move to approve. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Delaney. I have a second by Commissioner Altman. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Vice Chair Goodson. Yes. Commissioner Atkinson. Yes. Commissioner Altman. Yes. Chairman Feltner. And let's just clarify that that, so that we all understand, that included the motion we discussed for any potential legal fees. Yes. Okay. And expert witness. And expert witness. And engineering cost. Engineering cost. Okay. All right. Okay. We're good on that. Okay. All right. Virginia J2. Sorry. Amanda on J2. To allow us to develop a county-wide surface water model framework that would leverage some coastal surge data, some NOAA data, and allow for early flood warning. There's a $100,000 match. We do have funds budgeted for modeling in our stormwater, with our stormwater assessment fees, and there's a potential $900,000 award. We're also asking to allow the county manager to execute future documents. Okay. Questions for Amanda. Are there questions for Amanda? I don't have cards on J2. We're in discussion. Is there any discussion on the item? Move to approve. I have a motion by Commissioner Delaney. Is there a second? I have a second by Commissioner Atkinson. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Vice Chair Goodson. Yes. Commissioner Atkinson. Yes. Commissioner Altman. Yes. Chairman Feltner. Yes. I'm going to show that one passes five through five zero. Thank you, Commissioners. Let's go to F-18 and get that one cleaned up. And Kathy. Kathy was staged. That's good. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. Item F-18 requests the board to authorize the county departments and offices and central services to utilize sole source and single source distributors when found through advertisement to be the only authorized source for the goods and services required by the county to authorize the county departments and central services to utilize piggyback contracts for goods and services utilized by county when it's found to be the most economical means to acquire such goods and services. And to authorize the county manager or designate to execute contracts results from approved single and sole source distributors and piggyback contracts subject to review and approval by the county attorney's office, risk management, and purchasing services. The attachment in today's item, there are two sections. One section is for sole source and single source, including original equipment manufacturers and sole source authorized distributors within that list of those categories. A number of departments, the board has approved standardization of equipment to their departments. This includes public works, central services, fire rescue, solid waste, and utility services department so that mechanics working on equipment needed to complete the work necessary are trained to ensure less downtime of equipment and supply of parts are necessary to keep the equipment running. Other items on the sole source include licenses for the county's financial system, SAP software, planning and development, Accela software and products, fire rescue training, fire suppression, repair, and engine parts for the helicopter at mosquito control, mosquito control chemicals, digital materials for library services, stormwater filters for county stormwater programs, traffic operation supplies, drawbridge maintenance, vacuum sewer, transportation system, transport systems, and telemetry equipment for utility services. The county also has several train air condition systems, which require train U.S. to keep warranty valid on these air condition systems. It's important to note that all sole source and single source requests received from departments are verified by a vendor and then advertised on the county's vendor platform, VendorLink, to make sure no other vendor can provide those services. This list is re-verified each year before presenting to the board. The other section of the purchasing is cooperative and intergovernmental cooperations. These include cooperatives with Brevard County Purchasing Cooperative, which Brevard County is one member. These include fencing, janitorial supplies, general contracting service, equipment rental, fuel plant, paint contractors, plumbing services, asbestos, mold, and lead-based paint remediation, chemical line for water-wastewater treatment facilities. The list also requests the approval for purchase through state of Florida cooperative contracts for such items as tires, tubes, and services, facilities, maintenance repair, floor materials, vehicles, library materials, lab equipment for utility. This list also includes cooperatives from other counties and municipalities. It's also important to note that all of Brevard County's solicitations are designed to allow other governments, such as us, and other agencies to piggyback our commodities as well. Okay, questions for Kathy? Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, Kathy. I mostly just wanted to pull this item for just to have more illumination into our process and whatnot. For the piggyback contracts, we turn to those when we've tried to go out for bidding, we haven't found an appropriate vendor, so then we look to things like a piggyback contract. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. You know, and we also belong to the purchasing co-op within the state, in the county, and that includes all municipalities, the school district, the Canaveral Port Authority, and eastern Florida. So we work as a group to put out solicitations because we are a larger group than just one person, you know, one agency. So we try to get the best price for the items that we need. Awesome. Thank you. And if there are no other questions, I'd be happy to move to approve. Commissioner Altman for a question. Thanks. And I apologize. I know we had the briefing. And a question I thought of just here today that triggered something. You had mentioned one of the companies. I won't mention what company, but it is a company that when you buy their equipment, you're stuck. You can't compete. You can't have other vendors. And some of their servicing maintenance expenses are exorbitantly high. I've had personal experience with that. Great a commitment, but there are now emerging technologies where I think people are realizing that they're more efficient, more accessible from supply chain, more vendors that provide those services. I'm wondering, in our procurement process, if we flag those companies that have those type of services and equipment that are not very amenable to being competitive, being nimble in terms of taking advantage of new technology, I'd like to see us come back and maybe, in our procurement process early on, flagging those and having a higher standard so that we're not buying ourselves and getting ourselves into that situation. It's exorbitantly expensive. No competition breeds high prices. And I would have mentioned that during our briefing, but I hadn't heard that name. And I'd like for us to maybe take a look at those technologies, those companies, those services, so we can assure that we're nimble. They should have a higher threshold to meet when you go with the procurement. Because once you use them, you're stuck. And I can talk to you further about that. Maybe we can talk about that in a future meeting. I have a follow-up question to that, if that's okay. Commissioner Delaney. With that being said, are there items that we could pull from this? Are we locked in if we pass this today? Or can we make changes after we do this? Or what's the process of that? If there's an item that you would like to be pulled from this list, we can pull it and come back to the board. I wasn't sure, Commissioner Altman, what you felt like was appropriate for today. I'm going through the spreadsheet. If I'm looking at the right document, I don't... Can I ask a question here while he's doing that, Commissioner? By virtue of us passing this today, that's not in any way a commitment that we are going to buy from these vendors over the course of the next year. It's just that if we do, they need to be on this list today. That's correct, sir. Is that fair? Or we have to come back to the board. Right. So we can amend this at any time. And I believe that the staff is constantly looking for, you know, a better deal out there that can be had. And I'll consider us in discussion at this point. I think we've moved on from questions. One of the things I think that's difficult when it comes to equipment, heavy equipment and that sort of thing is you want to stick with OEM, right? Because, you know, you might be able to buy a generic part for heavy equipment. You always have the problem of we've waited two weeks for this to come. It arrives. Now, I'm saying this as a car guy, okay? And there's just nothing more frustrating than it doesn't fit. And it was supposed to when I bought it online. And that's even worse because in the old days, maybe you would go somewhere and I could look at it and say, okay, that looks like the one I just pulled off. But now you get it in the mail and it arrives and it doesn't fit. And so it's an interesting thing. And more and more, I think, people who work on this kind of these items, even their own cars, whatever, they're probably sticking with OEM stuff more and more because the frustration of having it not fit, it just isn't worth it. So I understand that. And if you're buying, even if you're buying that through a wholesaler and you have two different wholesalers compete against each other, ultimately, if they're buying a differential from Ring Power or Volvo or something like that for this heavy equipment, it's the only one that makes it. So that's just the way that is. Does that sound fair? Yes. And we try to diversify our contracts. We have a great contract with air conditioning that do not include the warranty items of those that have those warranties. So we do try to diversify as much as possible to make sure that the citizens' taxpayer dollars are effectively used to purchase the goods and services that we need. I've learned this firsthand with the walking excavators. I'm sure we've all seen those in operation now. They're really important to keeping ditches clean in Brevard County. But they're exotic machines, and when something happens to them, there only is a part that fits it, only one manufacturer. So, okay, what do we want to do with this item today? All right, I have a motion by Commissioner Goodson. I have a second by Commissioner Atkinson. Clerk will call the roll. I have a question. I just want to have some discussion because I did go through the list, and one of the vendors that I saw that I know they're very good at creating sole source contracts, monopolies, lack of competition, they are listed here. I don't want to publicly talk about them until I have a chance of meeting with staff. And so what we're not – we can come back and address these individually in the future if we have a question. At any time that I understand. May I say something, too? The requested action for the piggybacks is if it is found to be the most economical means. So if we find that this is not the most economical means, we will not use this list. It's only used if it is the most economical means to procure those items. Yeah, I'm looking at one I don't think is the most economical, but having experience in working the construction. But we don't have to use these. But we'll get together. We can talk. I appreciate it. Okay. All right. I think we had a motion by Commissioner Goodson, a second by Commissioner Atkinson. Clerk will call the roll on F-18. Commissioner Delaney? Yes. Vice Chair Goodson? Yes. Commissioner Atkinson? Yes. Commissioner Altman? Yes. Chairman Feltner? Yes. And we will show that one passes 5-0. Thank you, Kathy. Commissioners, we will go to J-1. And Commissioner Delaney, this is your item. Thank you. So, as many of you know, the Speak Up Brevard program is something that is near and dear to my heart. It's something that I campaigned on. I have worked really hard over the past two years to try to breathe some life into this program. And unfortunately, after the first year, the policy kind of, I won't say that. I think that there are just ways that we can make it a little bit more citizen friendly. Also, certain things that we could tweak to give us a little bit more time as the commissioners to have with the staff recommendations. One of the things that I did this year was I tried to either call or meet with as many of the SEER submitters as I could. But it was a little rushed and hard between everything else that we're doing as commissioners to squeeze all of that in. And so, I was hoping that we could make some changes to the current policy. One of the things, this one's just like a little bit of feedback that I've gotten from the public. In Directive 3A, it says, as a courtesy. And I just feel like this program is citizen-centered and whatnot. It just, the tone of that isn't what I would think would be, you know, welcoming. And it's kind of unnecessary language. So, I would like to strike that. And then, I would like to have the submission time frame open 60 days. So, opening December 1st rather than January 1st. That way, people have a little bit more time through the holidays and whatnot to get their submissions in. And then, one thing that I thought was really great that we did this year, and I appreciate everybody's support on that, was the workshop. I thought that that was just incredible. The citizens loved it. I think all of us, you know, really appreciated that time. So, I would love to get that solidified in our policy that even after, you know, all of us are long gone from this board, hopefully we'll continue on with these workshops to continue that dialogue with our residents. Another change that I was hoping to make was that the county manager can just get rid of submissions that he doesn't feel are under the jurisdiction of the board or, like, not relevant. And so, I just really feel like we should have the opportunity as the board to see all of the submissions and to hear from the staff on all of those. And then, one of the other things that I would like to do is shorten the time frame that the staff has with the submissions because the old policy said that we had, or that the staff had 45 days, and then it was expanded to 90 days, and what that did was it cut the time that we had with the staff recommendations. And so, I'm hoping that we can find a middle ground there and switch it to 60 days. So, if anybody has any discussion or questions, I'd love to chat. Let's do questions first, and then we'll go cards and discussion, okay? Because we do have a few cards. Commissioners, are there questions for Commissioner Delaney on J-1? All right, let's go to the cards. Susan Connolly. Morning, Commissioners. My name is Susan Connolly. I reside at 3901 Dixie Highway in Palm Bay. From archival minutes for a regular meeting of the Brevard County Commission, just like we're having right now, only this one was in October 2010. Then, Commissioner Trudy Infantini asked Dr. Carolyn Fastow for her insights on how to improve the newly approved element of the county charter called Citizen's Process for advising the county commission. Dr. Fowles now stated, the design of the process is very important because it needs to be a process that is elicited from the population with volunteer efforts that can be very insightful into how to move it forward in these challenging times. We'll fast forward 15 years later, change the date of that meeting in 2010 to 2025, and change the names and faces of the Brevard County commissioners to each of you. We are at another moment in time that will determine the history of Brevard County. One thing is different today, and that is we have a more active citizenry, including the SEER Process Improvement Working Group, of which I'm a member of. This group consists of citizens with years of SEER submission experience that has helped us go beyond the submission of our own SEERs and see a larger perspective for the whole scope and intention of the Speak Up Brevard program. I want to just say at this moment, the SEER means Citizen Efficient and Effectiveness Recommendation. I think that's very important to understanding the purpose of this. Our group concluded that the SEER process designed to bring recommendations for efficiency and effectiveness was neither efficient nor effective itself. However, we also concluded that the SEER process could become efficient and effective with some revisions. And here you are today, 15 years later, doing exactly that. I am committed to staying engaged with the SEER Process Improvement Working Group and communicating with the county representatives and staffs until we achieve the results of an efficient and effective SEER process. I acknowledge each of you for your time that you have given to review and revise the policies of the Speak Up Brevard program to try to bring these new practices to fruition. Thank you. Thanks, Susan. And we had a very nice meeting in my office. I appreciate you coming. I think you're already staged. Elizabeth Blackford. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Elizabeth Blackford, a Palm Bay resident and a 2015 graduate of the Brevard County Citizens Academy. I have spoken to you previously to advocate for changes that I believe would make the Speak Up Brevard program more effective. And I'm pleased to see that some of those suggestions are included in the text of the proposed amendment before you. Residents want a regular opportunity to share their ideas and to be more involved in how their county operates. An involved citizenry takes ownership for the successes and failures it witnesses and is far more likely to support its elected officials. When people feel involved, they also are more likely to come up with solutions to shared problems. They just need to be asked. The program itself is sound, but the current process needs some tweaking to work effectively. And our ad hoc improvement group isn't going away. We're committed to changing this important tool residents have to participate in their government by making it less burdensome on county employees and by increasing the active engagement of participants in several ways. Thank you for listening. I hope you'll choose to vote in favor of this amendment soon so that next year's Speak Up Brevard session will be far more productive and satisfactory. Thank you. Sarah Hodge. I just want to thank all of you for allowing this to be brought up today and that, you know, we really appreciate your support for Speak Up Brevard because it's something that the citizens really, you know, need. And those two items that I gave you were comments from Commissioner Delaney's office. I sent you an email yesterday, and I don't know if you've seen it or read it yet, which had a lot of the points on two items, the consent agenda and the public records to be put on the Internet. And I've been trying to get public records on the Internet for almost 30 years because of that lawsuit with Florida Today from the school board for $30,000 for their public records. It was just absurd. And they, Florida Today paid it, went to court, won right away. And we, the taxpayers, paid both those lawsuits, you know, and the fees. But anyway, so, but that was just the beginning. But there's been so many times for so many people that I know, and they want the public records out there on the Internet to, and we realize you can't do them all. Just try to start and put as many as you can. But the, you know, I've had friends that they know they don't have the money, and they charge them absurd amounts, and they delay giving them to them until after the votes. And it's something that should never happen in open government. But anyway, my email had that yesterday. And then these are comments that we, my husband and I, support greatly for the two items that we're speaking about, the consent agenda and the public records. So just please consider it. And we aren't giving it up. We're going to be here until we go. It may not be long. But, you know, we're, this is something that means a lot to us, and we're very thankful for your consideration. Can I ask something from my own knowledge here, Sarah? Of you, real quick, yeah, just a follow-up here. Okay. You know, if there's three things that are not on the county's website today that you think should be there, what would those three things be? Three things on the website today. Okay. You say that there aren't records on the website. So just what items are you looking for to be there? Okay. Those are comments from Commissioner Delaney that I borrowed because I support every one of those. But I would have to research. Okay. All right. That's fair. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay. Commissioners, that was the last card. Discussion on the item. Discussion on the item. I did want to also mention, I forgot to mention it before, but part of my proposal is also to have a dedicated special meeting for the Speak Up Brevard program, for the SEER program. Just because this past session, or this past cycle, it was, you know, after a long, I believe it was like five-hour meeting, and we didn't really have, at that point, we didn't really have a whole lot of time to fully discuss the binder book. And I know that residents were really, you know, hoping that there would be a more something. And so I think that this program, to dedicate a meeting to it, is something that would be pretty cool. So I just wanted to add that. For clarity, you're talking in addition to a workshop. That would be a meeting for the Board of County Commissioners, not necessarily a workshop. Okay. When we make our vote to accept or deny the SEER requests. Okay. Commissioner Goodson, I see you're reaching for your mic. Yes. All right. Thank you, Chair. I just would like to read a statement I prepared for this. It's not long. The SEER's program is supposed to be for efficiency and effectiveness, not requests for goods or services. Given that we are a representative form of government, it's the job of each commissioner to hear from its district. Then that commissioner, after researching the impact to the county, can bring it before the Board to be heard. To say it's not, these changes mean we're against citizen input is a farce. Scheduling a meeting with your commissioner, emails, phone calls, you know, I don't see the need to add 30 more days for input from our staff because they have a job to do also. So, you're taking away from them what they're supposed to be doing. I don't see a need for a workshop or a special meeting. Each time we do something like that in nature, the staff is involved, and two things happen. We spend between $50,000 and $100,000 per meeting. Now, we can't, we have a hard enough time balancing our budget, but now we're going to spend more and do these things. Confusing. Furthermore, the program is set up to allow staff to have ample time to review. Staff are the best vetting input because they are the ones that know it legally and allow it financially attainable. They know it has been done before. They are the source. Therefore, they continue to have the full 90 days to vet them. The board still has the final vote, but if you prefer to hear from experts, we have staff first. I don't agree with any of the terms provided. I take it affront to the staff and their capabilities. Again, as a representative government, these should be making sure time is to see, write, or call their commissioner. Am I the only one that sees the redundancy in this? Now, I'd like to ask one question to our attorney or to the county manager. Can you start at the beginning of this and explain to me how it's evolved? Can somebody give me from the beginning of time to now? I'll take my best stab at it, but I don't have everything in front of me. In 2010, the Charter Review Commission took this recommendation up. It was passed by the voters in November of 2010. You heard one of the citizens come up and read minutes from a meeting that occurred after it was approved by the voters in November of 2010. And at that point, it was reemphasized that the purpose of this was, it's right in the name, efficiency and effectiveness, as it says in the Charter. And at the time, they were talking, the backdrop of this was the Great Recession. And there was a lot of focus on operational efficiency, strategic management, things to cut costs for the county. And there was an understanding that there was a lot of expertise in the county among the citizenry of people with the backgrounds to bring those kind of operational efficiencies and things like that to the attention of the county commission. I know at some point, policies were promulgated by, I believe Stockton-Whitten was the first county manager to bring forward policies that the board approved. Those have evolved over the years. Most recently, two years ago, this board revised the policies and made some changes because there has been, over the last couple years, a huge increase in the number of SEERS. So the board, in response to that, did extend the time for staff to respond to the SEER request from what had been 45 days up to the 95 days now, because we went from a trickle to, you know, dozens per year to review. So that's why that time was expanded. I don't know if that fully answers your question, sir. One chair, may I? Yes, sir. Okay, right now, you have 658,447 people in Brevard County. Last year, you had 77 submissions, 1%. I want everybody to be heard. I just want staff, since we employ staff, and they're the experts, to tell me what they can do or what they can't do. But 1%, 77 out of 658,000, I'm in agreement that we should keep it as is and not change anything. Okay, other discussion on the item. Are you, okay, do you want to let Commissioner Altman go first? Commissioner Zolini? Yes. Okay, all right. I, I, just, I'm debating where I even wanted to say anything, but I feel like I should share my opinions, I guess, for whatever it's worth. But, you know, this is nothing new in county government. I mean, over the years, the county, in its effort to have citizen input and involvement, have, we have developed quite extensive organization of advisory committees, planning and zoning, local land use planning, parks and recreation, libraries. It's sort of similar to a SEER, but it's focused specifically on a specific policy where we want to have a process by which ideas, review of policy goes before the committee, comes to the advisory committee, comes to the board. It's an interesting, an interesting process we have here. I definitely would want more time to kind of absorb any of these recommendations. It's something to think about how it fits in with our broader scheme of advisory committees. Can we improve that? I think it's worthwhile to discuss how we, as a policy body, get policy recommendations, input from the public, and then we direct that to the staff. It's a little concerning that we give too much, put too much burden on staff to have to respond directly from the public, have to evaluate their ideas, determine if they're good or bad, or if they're flawed. That puts staff in a really difficult situation. They have a difficult job as it is. They have statutory law they have to implement. They have federal law they have to implement. They have policy that we direct that they have to implement. And we have the budget that we, and all the requirements of grants and what have you. It's just a mammoth task, and we have a phenomenal staff that does it. I want to protect them. I definitely want to have a process by which ideas, change of policy, come before the policy body, which is us, and let that filter down. So it's a fascinating issue, something I want to review and talk to staff, and I appreciate your concern. I'm willing to hear from the public, because I think it is important. And I'll definitely hope that we can come back and talk more at length about this. Commissioner Atkinson. Okay. Commissioner Atkinson. I just wanted to point out that I've had a lot of citizens come into my office about various things. And when there's something that we agree we need to do something about, every time I've called on staff to answer some questions, they've always responded as quickly as they can. And so I feel pretty confident that if there are citizens who, in my district anyways, who need to talk about something or have an issue that they need to fix, they can come sit in my office. We can call staff together or get an answer for you when I can. But the process that we have right now, I'm interested, actually. Morris, would you mind defining what exactly the SEER is? So it comes from our charter, Section 2.9.10, which, again, was adopted in 2010. And it's short enough that I can read it. It's the Board of County Commissioners shall develop procedures that will provide a mechanism for an individual or an organized group of individuals to submit a formal written recommendation for the enhancement of the effectiveness and efficiency of county government to the county commission on an annual basis. The county commission's procedure shall include the following provisions, an annual filing date, the written recommendation shall be reviewed by the county commission, and following the review, the commission shall vote to either accept the recommendation, accept the recommendation with revisions, or reject the recommendation, and the county commission's final vote in consideration of the recommendation shall occur no later than 120 days after receipt of the written recommendation. So that's the requirement that's set forth in the charter. The policy is just the effort to implement that. Technically, there's no requirement for things like staff review, although long ago it was decided by the Board that it didn't make a lot of sense for them to receive these without staff having seen it and determined whether, you know, is this legal? Is it something that we can do? Is it something that's been considered? Is it something that we're already doing? But that's it in a nutshell. And, again, at the time I was here in 2010, the backdrop was the recession and recovery from the recession and cost-cutting. And the focus then was on the enhancement of effectiveness and efficiency. The last several years we've had dozens of recommendations of which, you know, very few have to do with cost-cutting and effectiveness and efficiency, but more of them are general policy or legislative requests and suggestions from citizens, requests for service, things like that, that are traditionally addressed to commission offices through direct contact with staff, or like we saw at our last meeting where we had a citizen talk about, you know, the size of his waistband and things like that, which you can receive those all year without a formalized process and, you know, the staff review and all of those things. If I can just make one observation, the idea that our county manager can't take out ones that we don't have jurisdiction over, I think, to me, doesn't sit well. I mean, I get e-mails and phone calls in my office all the time about people complaining about this or that, but we're county and we only have jurisdiction over some things. So who knows how many we might get. We are now making sure that people are much more aware of the SEER process, but if we get a whole bunch and we're talking about time for staff, tens of thousands of dollars to do this, shouldn't we have someone like the county manager to be able to say, hey, this one we have no jurisdiction over. Obviously, we need to get back to the person who sent that SEER in, but why would we want that to come in front of us if there's nothing that we can do about it? Mr. Chairman, may I address that briefly? Absolutely, sir. Because of the language and the charter amendment, those actually have to come to the board. Every recommendation, no matter how wild, you know, we've had some, like, that sound great, like banning a certain plaintiff's attorney from putting his advertisements on buses and television and things like that, that we obviously don't have control over, we can't do that. But that still came to the board. All the policy allows, when it allows the county manager to summarily reject, I think is the language for those, is that it doesn't go through the rigorous staff review process that others do. He kind of puts it to the side and says, I'm not going to sign this out, and we're not going to spend a lot of staff time on it. Ultimately, it is still in the stack that's delivered to the board, and that's because we have no choice in the matter. The charter language does say that they all shall go to the board for either acceptance, rejection, or acceptance with modifications within that 120 days. So we're still going to see it? You're still going to see it. It's just there's not going to be that rigorous evaluation by staff. Got it. Thank you. Okay. By the way, doesn't the Florida Bar have rules on attorney ads? A whole host of them. They have been steadily eroded over the years. Okay. If I could have some follow-up, if there's no more discussion. Commissioner Goodson, you had mentioned two cycles ago when I was part of this process as a citizen. I remember you distinctively looking at staff and almost exacerbatedly saying, can't you just meet with them talking about the citizens? And you were talking to staff. And so I'm just wondering, has your opinion changed on that? Commissioner, I have no idea what you're talking about, but if I'm guilty of any of your sins, I confess. But you represent District 1. You represent the people of District 1. Have you met with people in your office rather than imposing us to meet with 100 people? I meet with anyone who calls my office. Good. Have you had any proposals come before the board that's been passed and trying to change the efficiency and effectiveness of county government? This one. This one? This one. The answer to the question is... There's a whole working group of citizens from across the entire county. The answer to the question is... Let's do it one at a time. Okay. And so effectiveness and efficiency doesn't always mean money. It also means are we effectively serving our citizens? Are we effectively providing services? And so that doesn't always necessarily mean are we cutting the spending? So I think that all of those things are equally important. Okay. Commissioner Goodson, you have something you want to follow up on that? When we can't hardly balance the budget, we had a terrible time paying the firefighters, and that's going to come back again. We haven't even seen the sheriff's budget. But spending money for special meetings and workshops and all of that, when 77 people applied last year, does that mean there was 177 and we cut out 100? Or did everybody apply that wanted to apply? I don't understand how, you know, all these other governmental entities in Brevard County can have workshops prior to their meetings every two weeks and it not make them bankrupt if what you're saying is true. The school board has workshops before every meeting. The city of Titusville has workshops, presentation meetings before every meeting. Many other cities do the same thing. And that's honestly one of my frustrations on this board is that we have so little time to discuss policy and so little time to discuss the business of the board as the board. And not, you know, I think that that's part of the issue. I think that we, you know, more time together, more time working as a cohesive board will be helpful and will prove to show that there will, that will gain effectiveness and efficiency as well. Okay, I have a sort of technical question I was thinking of for staff. There's nothing that would preclude a commissioner from putting on the agenda any of the items submitted through the SEER process on, I guess, receiving the binder, if I remember that right. When we have it all printed out, I could go through there and I say, hey, I like this one. And I want to bring that before the board. There's nothing that precludes a commissioner from doing that by virtue of them submitting it through the website, et cetera. Does that process in any way hinder me in bringing something to the board? No. Okay. I think that's very interesting because I've, you know, since I've been a commissioner, I've brought several things to the board that started off with just a conversation. With a constituent, and not everything can be corrected by the commission board or it's not, as I think was mentioned earlier by Commissioner Atkinson, not always a county issue. And, but I brought multiple items before the board that weren't originally my idea. It started with a conversation with a constituent. So, I mean, that's still available to all of us too, right? Which, I'm not married to any one of these, any one of these things. The one, or I would say the two biggest ones would be the workshop and the special meeting for me personally. But I guess that's part of my frustration is that rather than us kind of working together at the time when we bring forward something, I'm being asked to bring forward policy time and time again and work on it totally by myself rather than as a board us coming to a consensus. And that's what I would really like to see happen is for all of us to kind of talk about this and find some middle ground here because this is something that's really important to me. It's really important to our, our citizens across the county. People are looking for a real something, a real engagement opportunity to where it's not just a checked box, to where it's, you know, real discussion and, and engagement with our residents as a group. That's the cool thing about this process is that we get to work together as one board with our residents to try to make our county better. And I don't think it's a waste. I don't think that it's, it's, it's frustrating because this is something that a citizen brought forward because they were, they were, um, being met with roadblocks to engagement. Um, you know, it's like the, the, um, uh, organizational chart that I brought up a few meetings ago. You know, that got brought up because a citizen came to me. They said, I've been trying to call this department and I haven't, you know, gotten a response back. You know, how many people even work in that department? And so that's where the organizational chart came from because I, you know, I, I was like, oh, well, I'm not sure. I didn't realize it was on page 99 of the budget book, you know? And so it's, as, as I was talking with the county manager about this, um, process, and he was the administrator of it last year, our previous county manager was the administrator of it the year prior. Um, one of the things that were said was, you know, sometimes the seers that come in aren't relevant or, you know, they, they're not something we can use. And I just want to bring up that even prior to the past two years, which that's really where the surgeon, uh, where the, um, increases have come of seers. Between 2011 and 2023, there have been 73 approved or approved with revisions, um, seers that have come before this board. And that was from the county's own slideshow. Like, these aren't my numbers. Um, I've heard from, from residents that, you know, they want to help make this process better. And honestly, there were a lot more really great ideas that the seer working group, um, came forward with, with improving, um, you know, the, the website, with improving, um, you know, some of the questions that are asked to make it more targeted, um, so that we can get those really quality seer, um, submissions. And, um, but, but really, truly, there are some really great ideas out there where, honestly, a workshop for this policy would be really cool because then they could share all of that with all of us. And, um, you know, if, if that's something that people are interested in hearing, I'd be happy to, to, um, stand behind a, uh, presentation from the group, um, so that they could share all of those ideas, uh, so that we could take those into account when we're updating, you know, if we end up updating this policy. And another thing is that, you know, no one is trying to say that our staff is not incredible. We have great staff. Um, one of my frustrations as a representative of the people of district one, um, a lot of the county processes that I'm seeing are, we put everything we have into staff. And when it comes to the citizens, it's like, sometimes it feels like it's the leftovers. And I'll give you an example. Our, our county newsletter, the one that's with the citizens, uh, or that's for the citizens, you have to click on Brevard County Communications Department. Then you have to click on a hyperlink when you get to that. Then it's this, you know, pretty, you know, simple, um, newsletter. You know, it has, it has some good information on it and whatnot, but then when you look internally at our staff one, this is really something that you want to read. I mean, it, it talked, it, it, it's colorful. It's got, um, QR codes. It's got, um, just all sorts of really great information. And I mean, it's, y'all can see it's really thick. And so my frustration is, is that this is what the citizens get and this is what staff gets. And I'm just looking for some kind of equalizer to, you know, ensure that our citizens are getting the same output. Um, you know, you mentioned the staff time, a thousand hours of staff time. And I understand that's extremely, you know, that's, it's a lot. Um, there's also a lot of staff time being put forward to our staff, like the ELI program, for instance, 4,608 hours. I'm not saying it's not a worthy cause. It definitely is. It's, you know, our leadership, um, it, it helps build our next leaders of tomorrow. But, um, I think that these things are equally important. Mr. Sherman. Commissioner Holman. I think these are important items. The discussion probably exceed our time that we have here today. I'd like to move the table this item to the next commission meeting. Give time to talk to staff. Second. Okay. So you're going to continue to work on it. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Altman to table to the next meeting. I have a second by Commissioner Delaney. Clerk will call the roll. Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Vice Chair Goodson. No. Commissioner Atkinson. Yes. Commissioner Altman. Yes. Chairman Feltner. Yes. And so we'll, we'll look forward to discussing that next meeting. Commissioners, we're going to go in board report. I have a couple items and I don't want to forget. And we did take care of F-18. That's good. Mr. County Manager. Sir. No report, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Mr. County Attorney. No report, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Commissioner Goodson. No. Thought you'd say that. Commissioner Altman. No report, Mr. Chairman. Okay. And Commissioner Delaney. I do have a report. Go ahead. Logan, if you wouldn't mind putting the slides up for me. I just wanted to announce that I am putting this up on my website. It's the organizational chart that I had mentioned with the FTEs. That way, if our citizens, you know, want a quick look at how many full-time equivalent employees we have working in all of our departments. It will be up on my sub-stack where you can find that, you know, on my sub-stack or through my Facebook page. And if you have any trouble, feel free to always email me. But I just wanted to make sure that that was out there and accessible for people who may want or need it. So, if you could go to the next one for me. So, one of the things that's going on in our state, there's a bill that was passed, SB 180. And I'm just curious, you know, for the board, where do we stand on this? There's, for people who don't know what this is, SB 180 dramatically reduces local control over land use and planting in Florida by restricting municipalities' ability to respond to growth, safeguard environments, or prepare for natural disasters. The law increases legal risks and tilts policy outcomes in favor of development, often at the expense of community resilience and local planning. And so, many counties and states, or I'm sorry, many counties and cities across the state are joining a lawsuit with the Thousand Friends of Florida. And I think that it's something worth looking into and getting advisability from our legal team, if they could bring that back for us as a board. Because I think that this is something, and I know we talked about it a little bit at our meeting where we updated our comp plan when I was talking about keeping in the floodplain protection language. This bill is what I was talking about, and I'm personally really proud of the cities and counties for pushing back against the state for this encroachment of our home rule. In the U.S., we are a country of bottom-up government, not top-down government, and I think that this bill is going to really harm our communities. I don't believe that this was the intended purpose of the bill. I think this is a horrible, unintended consequence. But I feel equally that it's important, me personally, where I stand on this, I feel like it's important that we push back against government that is trying to overrule our authority. So I didn't know if anybody had any thoughts about any of that, or if you would be with me with asking our attorney to look into this and possibly come back with some advisability. Well, let's take this apart, okay, in its pieces. And you reminded me of something with you bringing this up, so let me go there first. First, the legislative delegation meeting this year is a lot earlier. Is it in September? September 30th. Which one? September 30th, yeah, in this room. Okay. So before September 30th, as a board, I think we need to decide our legislative priorities. Are we going to discuss a tentative plan to talk about that on the 19th? Is it the 19th? Whatever the regular meeting date is, the 16th, I believe it is, or I think I spoke to everybody. Give you a heads up. Staff will bring, if you have anything to add, then put it on the agenda. Okay. So, Commissioner Delaney, I think, you know, we're going to have that discussion. So certainly you could have that item ready to discuss at that September meeting. So we can put it on our legislative priorities. I'll say personally that I don't think anybody here likes the idea of going around planning a zoning. So I think even throughout the state of Florida, most local governments feel that way. But the delegation meeting, I think, is the next important step. So you want to work on that item so that we have something? Okay. Mr. Chair, we've got good staff. They've already alerted me they're working on suggestions that we'll have in the agenda. Okay. Awesome. All right. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. I should have looked that way, knowing that they're working on that. But session is early this year and certainly should be mindful of that. Okay. Is that the rest of you? A couple little more things. All right. If that's okay. Yep. Go ahead. Um, I had my, uh, CFX meeting and I just want to do some, um, rumor control. Um, if, if you wouldn't mind, Logan, go into the next slide. Um, this, I'm going to say this loud and clear. CFX toll roads are not coming to Brevard County. Um, I have asked four times since I've been on this board, um, and they are so gracious and, um, kind with me and do a really great job over there. Um, but, um, um, but where their stances is as long as Brevard does not want a CFX toll road in Brevard County, we will not have tolls. Um, and, um, um, so I just want to say that loud and clear, um, and, uh, also they're going to be putting out a statement, uh, to speak on that as well. Um, and the last thing I wanted to talk about, which this is, uh, a really cool thing. I'm on the Eastern Central Florida Regional Planning Council. Um, and we just had our update on the MIR, um, the Military Installation Resilience Review. And this was, uh, over, I believe over a year process of, um, stakeholder meetings, citizen engagement, um, so on and so forth. And basically, they are looking into, um, planning for the future. What does that look like for our military installations? And what does that mean for us in Brevard County is, is that we have some pretty critical infrastructure that leads to and from these military installations. So, um, what that means for us is possible partnerships in the future to hopefully get some help in, in updating our infrastructure and whatnot. Um, so I just wanted to let everybody know that that has, has been completed. And, um, I would like to sometime in the near future. Bring them here for a presentation so that they can kind of show us as a board and the community, um, their findings. And if anybody is interested, uh, before that, there's all this information on the Eastern Central Florida Regional Planning Council's website. And, uh, that's it for my report today. Thank you. Okay. Very good. Question. Um, okay. Let's do a quick question from Commissioner Goodson. Commissioner, um, thank you for your report. But the only question I got for you, ma'am, do you have Sandra Sullivan on board with no tolls in Brevard County? I'm not sure what you're referring to. Sandra Sullivan, she's constantly saying there's going to be tolls. So have you convinced Sandra that there's not going to be toll roads in Brevard County? I'm not sure. But all I can tell you is what the actual organization is telling us. I understand they told me that too for a year or two years and Sandra was adamant. I just was curious if you had her, because then I would compliment you with roses. I'll work on that. All right. Okay. All right. Very good. Commissioner Atkinson. Um, very quickly, I just wanted to, um, thank the board for supporting the lease agreement for the old town hall in Melbourne Beach, um, the historic Williams building. Just a couple of things, what they do, engage with the community. They do book talks. Um, they have skill building from frontiersmen who come, um, archaeologists come and give presentations. They're really engaged in the community. So I think us allowing them to use that county building, um, was a very good idea. And I'm just thankful. Um, the other thing, uh, Logan, if you wouldn't mind, um, just Logan, if you can just go through the pictures and, and the videos, that'd be great. So on Thursday, um, August 21st, a wildfire broke out near Barefoot Bay in District 3. Approximately 15 acres were burned and 10 homes were evacuated. It was a pretty big deal. Maybe one of the biggest, uh, most intense brush fires we've seen. Um, the Red Cross was mobilized and responded quickly. Um, but because of the, we have such great BCFR, uh, fire rescue, um, the fire was quickly contained and nobody was hurt. No structures were damaged. And I just want to give a shout out and a thank you to every firefighter who was out there, every emergency crew who contained it, because I have friends and clients who live in Barefoot Bay and my phone was just ringing off the hook, um, but only for a really short time. So thank you very much to all of our firefighters in Brevard County. I get happy every day when I see it rain. Um, I'm sure, I'm sure you guys do too. Uh, okay, uh, commissioners, um, oh yeah, uh, just a housekeeping issue on one of these surprises here. We're going to, uh, put a picture in the lobby of Congressman Herodopoulos and direction to his office on the second floor. We're all okay without objection. Okay. Very good. Um, so finally, and we've been doing this each meeting, I'm going to give an intro here and, and, um, Logan will cue this up for, I missed the joke back there, Eddie. You can tell me later. Uh, commissioners today, we have our third installment of the space coast government television and Human Resources Recruitment and Employee Spotlight Campaign. Just as a reminder, these videos were put together through a summer internship program as part of an employee recruitment campaign, but they also serve a secondary purpose by recognizing the great work that goes on day in and day out by Brevard County government employees. Today's video features Juanita Jackson, Director of Housing and Human Services. My name is Juanita Denise Jackson. My position is Director of Brevard County Housing and Human Services, and I have been with the county for 25 years, the low income of Brevard. And so I enjoy working here because I have the opportunity to do what I have a passion for, which is helping those that need help. I get to oversee those programs that provide the services to the low income of Brevard so that they're able to stay in their homes, make sure that while they're in their homes, if there are any health or safety codes, we're able to come in, assess that, bring those codes up to par, make sure while they're in their homes that they have electricity and just all those bare necessities. I look forward to coming in. I look forward to being able to provide those services to Brevard County. I look forward to seeing my team members and seeing how I can assist them. So being able to come in and do those things is what keeps me coming back. Originally, when I graduated from college, my thought was I would go work for the government for a few years, get some experience, and then work for the private sector. What kept me here was the ability to grow and expand, all while still being able to provide and take care of my family. One of the best benefits with the county is the health benefits. And so when you're looking at how much you earn, you also have to look at how much the employee contribution is for health benefits. Because even in some locations or businesses, you may earn more, but if the health benefits cost you more, then your take home is really less. When you are sick or when you are injured, you don't want to have to think about how much is this going to cost. And so knowing that we have full coverage, it just gives you a peace of mind. One of the great benefits of the FRS system is called your highest five. So your salary that you're going to receive after you retire is based off of the highest five years of when you've worked with the county. Stay here long enough so that you're able to really fully see all of those benefits. If you want to try a different job, you have the opportunity to do that. If you want to promote up, you have the opportunity to do that. So I would just encourage anyone to come and take advantage of all the opportunities that are afforded to us here in Brevard County. Are you interested in a job like this? Apply today at www.brevardfl.gov. I guess the music can take us out. You look good there, Juanita. Yeah. I said you look good in that video. Yeah. All right. All right. We appreciate those. I think it's a nice way to end our meetings, too. With that, everyone, thank you very much today. Take care. The opinions expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast Government Television, or the program sponsor and are solely those of the presenter. The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast Government Television, and the program sponsor hereby expressly disclaim any and all responsibility or liability for any defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period.