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 comments 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. Good morning and welcome to the November 18th regular meeting and organizational meeting for the Board of County Commissioners. We have a quorum. I'll call the meeting to order. Today we have an invocation by Pastor Troy Countryman from Faith Vieira Lutheran Church. Thank you for being here this morning, sir. You're recognized. All right. Good morning and thanks for having me. It's again, I think it's the third time I've done this. It's a blessing. It's a privilege to to be here with you. And as Rob said, I'm not just here as a as a pastor of Faith Vieira, but as a husband, as a father, as a fellow citizen of Brevard County. And I appreciate you and your service and to our community. So let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, you are the one who rules and reigns over all things and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to your son, Jesus. And we thank you that in and through him, you've shown us mercy, you've shown us life, you've shown us light. You also gather us into communities. You establish rulers and officials for the welfare of all people and for the maintenance of order and justice. And so I pray that today you would bless these Brevard County commissioners, all those who gather here to serve as citizens in this community. Grant them the wisdom that comes from you, integrity of heart, courage to do what is right and just. And I pray that their decisions will promote peace, protect life and property and advance the common good according to your good and gracious will. Keep us always mindful that we are just stewards, caretakers of the life of the gifts that you have entrusted to us. And one day we will give an account before your judgment seat. So turn our hearts to fear, love and trust in you above all things, that we would serve our neighbors faithfully and live together in godliness and dignity. We pray this in the holy and precious name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you, sir, very much. Commissioner Atkinson for the pledge. I pledge allegiance. To God, indivisible for all. All right, commissioners, real quick. Commissioner Goodson, are you on the phone, sir? Is Tom there? Commissioner Goodson, can you hear us? Maybe he's got technical difficulties this morning. All right, we're going to go on to the selection. Nonetheless, we're going to ask for a motion to allow him. Okay, there he is. I'm here. All right, I need a motion for Commissioner Goodson to participate by phone. Make a motion. All right, motion by Commissioner Delaney, second by Commissioner Altman. Clerk will call the roll on that. All right, we're going to go on. Commissioner Delaney, yes. Chairman. Yes. Excuse me. That's okay. Commissioner Goodson. Yes. Commissioner Atkinson. Yes. Commissioner Altman. Yes. Commissioner Feltner. Yes. All right. Thank you for that. Commissioners, we'll go to the election of chairs. Is there a motion for it? There is a motion. I would like to make a motion for Commissioner Altman to be our new chair. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Atkinson for Commissioner Altman for chair. I have a second by Commissioner Delaney. Commissioner Altman, I assume you accept this willingly? I will. It would be a great honor. Okay. Thank you. All right. Clerk will call the roll for chair. Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Commissioner Goodson. Yes. Commissioner Atkinson. Yes. Commissioner Altman. Yes. Commissioner Feltner. Yes. Congratulations, sir. Thank you. Why don't you turn it on? It's your meeting, sir. I don't care. Okay. I'll stay right here for now. Okay. Okay. I think next order of business would be to have a motion for the vice chair. Chairman, I'd like to make the motion for Kim Atkinson to remain as vice chair. Okay. Motion for Representative Commissioner Atkinson, vice chair. Is there a second? I'll second. Second by? Commissioner. Oh. Yep. And motion second. Any discussion? Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Commissioner Goodson. Yes. Vice Chair Atkinson. Yes. Chair Altman. Yes. Commissioner Feltner. Yes. Very good. Okay. Congratulations. So, first I'd like to really commend the job that Representative Commissioner Feltner has done as chair. It's been a great joy working underneath him, and you did a wonderful job, and you served a great honor and dignity, and I'd like to present something to you before we proceed with the meeting. All right. What are you doing? Commissioner Feltner made this job look easy. It's not as easy as it looks. If you notice, I've already called two commissioners' representatives. Sorry. Twenty-one years. I'm getting the habit of being in another body, but it's just been a joy to work with this commission and the staff, and I'm really looking forward to serving them in this capacity as chairman. That said, first order of business is approval for the minutes for September 10th and October 2nd, September 23rd and May 20th. Motion by Commissioner Delaney. Second. Second by Atkinson. All those in favor, signify by saying yay. Yay. Yay. I don't think that calls for a roll call vote, does it? All those in favor, signify by saying yay. Okay. Next item, resolutions, awards, and presentations. E-1, resolution for Susan Jackson, Deputy Director of Public Works, District 4. I'd like for Susan to come up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Susan. First order of business. It's an honor for me to do this for you today. I have a resolution rightly recognizing the contributions Susan Jackson has made to this county. And after this, we'll vote on it, and then we'll present you with the resolution. Commissioner Goodson, I think, maybe mute, or maybe we can mute him. Yeah, that. All right. Whereas, Ms. Jackson has been providing exceptional guidance and leadership to the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners since June 27, 1998, and whereas Ms. Jackson graduated from Valencia College in 1985 with an associate's degree in land surveying, a bachelor's degree in legal studies from the University of Central Florida in 2007, and a master's degree in public administration in 2014, and whereas Ms. Jackson worked her way up in the private sector in various roles and capacities, including as a professional land surveyor and previously owning Jackson Land Surveying, Inc. prior to coming to work for the county in 1998 as the county surveyor. While at the county, Ms. Jackson excelled at being the county surveyor and was subsequently promoted to the Road and Bridge Program Manager in 2012, and later the Assistant Director, including Road and Bridge Program Manager, in 2019, working her way up to the Deputy Public Works Director prior to her retirement. And whereas Ms. Jackson's contributions have had a positive impact on public works throughout the county, including but not limited to effortlessly filling in for the Public Works Director in his or her absence, modernizing the survey program, and making the Road and Bridge Program more responsive, professional, and accountable over her tenure. She specifically led the county's highly successful resurfacing, preservation, and reconstruction paving program, significantly increasing the condition of county roads, oversaw and delivered on thousands of drainage, road, bridge, and other infrastructure maintenance tasks, repairs, and or replacement projects, as well as lead response efforts to hurricane and other natural disasters, and whereas Ms. Jackson served as a Brevard County Executive Leadership Institute adjunct lecturer and mentor for many years, and whereas Ms. Jackson has earned the admiration and respect of her staff and colleagues at the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners for her professionalism, dedication, skillful leadership, and hard work ethic, now therefore be it resolved that the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners do hereby extend to Susan Jackson our sincere appreciation for her outstanding public service from 27 June 1998 to November 18th, 2025, with an effective retirement date of February 6, 2026, and wish her a wonderful retirement, enjoying time with her friends and family, done, ordered, and adopted in regular session this 18th day of November, 2025, and with that, Mr. Chair, I will make a motion to approve. Second. Okay, motion, uh, second by Commissioner Delaney, um, any discussion? All in favor signify by saying yay? Aye. Yay. Motion carries unanimous. Susan? Commissioners, uh, county leadership, staff, and my friends and family, I am humbled and deeply grateful for this resolution, um, and the recognition. I stand before you today filled with mixed emotions, uh, so happy about the new chapter ahead, but a little sad to be leaving a place and people in a mission that has meant so much to me for more than, for almost three decades. As I reflect back over the years, uh, I can say without hesitation that serving the public and the employees that I've had the privilege to lead has been the greatest honor of my professional life. The journey, um, that has, uh, my journey has been shaped by all the people around me, uh, including county leadership, uh, and my colleagues across every department. I have had the benefit of their support, their wisdom, uh, and their unwavering commitment to public service. They are truly the heart and soul of this organization. To my friends and my family, I thank them for their encouragement and their understanding throughout my journey. Uh, their sacrifices were real, uh, and their love has been my foundation. What I hope remains, um, as I step, uh, away are the accomplishments that we have achieved together. To my public works family, I am so looking forward to the incredible things that you will continue to accomplish and do it better. But I do want to say one thing. I will be watching from the sidelines. And, and I, excuse me. Um, and yes, entering a service request when I spot a pothole or I happen to see construction debris in our gutters or those over-enthusiastic sprinklers that like to water our very expensive pavement, um, you will be receiving a service request from me. Um, but, uh, commissioners, thank you, um, truly from the bottom of my heart. Um, I will treasure this, um, recognition always. Thank you. Susan, it's been a great honor to have you serve the people of Brevard, and you represent, uh, county employees and citizenship in a very exemplary manner. And your skill, your commitment, your talent, your compassion is just, uh, a wonderful thing. And we're going to miss you greatly. Commissioner Felton, did you want to say? I just, uh, I've had the great pleasure of working with Susan, uh, since I was elected here. And, you know, I take advantage of my office being on this, uh, complex. So, I'm, I'm a regular, uh, over in the public works area. And Susan's always been incredibly gracious. Um, I have some, uh, empathy for the pickleballers of, um, district four, uh, because, uh, with, uh, the increased time that she's going to have to play pickleball, I'm sure she's going to shame a lot of, uh, people out there. So, take it easy on them. Okay? Thank you. Um, I just wanted to say thank you so much, Susan. Um, D1 is probably the, uh, most called district, I think. Um, we, we have so much. We have so much need in our community. And you just are always there with the answers to questions, with timelines, with organization. Um, I just really appreciate you as a new commissioner. You know, you were such a resource for us. And, um, I just thank you so much for your time and effort and your service to our community. Okay. Uh, we have a slight agenda change here. We're going to move up, uh, the presentation for the Indian River Lagoon Economic Impact, uh, update. Uh, Representative Atkinson. I mean, Commissioner Atkinson. Thank you, Chair. So, um, Valerie or Courtney, come on up. So, for everyone out there, I, um, am on the IRL NEP. And a presentation was given, um, and I thought we really should hear it here. So, I appreciate you coming to do this for us. And I think we're all going to be pretty excited to hear the difference that Brevard County makes, um, just in general, taking care of our, our environment. All right. Thank you. Give us a little time to clear the room back there. Give us a little time to clear the room back there. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Exciting morning for a lot of people. Okay. All right. The floor is yours. All right. Thank you, and good morning, Commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you this work. I'm Valerie Seidel with the Belmoral Group. Um, we led the team, uh, for Duane DeVries and the others at the NEP, updating the economic impact, uh, of the Lagoon. And I have with me Courtney Cortez, uh, Brevard County native and a senior economist, uh, with our firm who worked on this quite a bit. One of the things we did that was different with this economic update was really focus on the ecosystem services. And importantly, the Lagoon system includes over 900,000 acres of natural lands and ag lands that retain more than 100 billion gallons of floodwaters annually. So that's an important point. If that additional 100 billion gallons of floodwater had nowhere else to go, it would be going into, you know, our homes and streets and buildings. And so we really thought it was important this time to focus on some of those ecosystem services, including 50,000 acres of natural lands providing additional coastal protection, 360,000 acres of land providing water filtration and purification. And these lands and waters generate values that have true contribution to your local economy. So overall, uh, our modeling found that these ecosystem service values generate over $10 billion annually in value. I'll talk about a couple of them today, but that ranges from, um, over a billion dollars annually just in property value premiums that come from the, the additional values in your property sales to $250 million in coastal protection, $530 million in water quality and so forth. And so the way we look at these ecosystem services is we, we run models that estimate what would that, what would that protection have been or what that ecosystem service had been if that habitat was not there. And so, for example, with coastal protection, this is a little screenshot down near Tequesta right at the, the county line border there. And it's showing, for example, mangroves and oyster beds. And in this case, you know, we're finding that those mangroves and oyster beds and salt marsh and so forth across the lagoon, they're providing, um, they're removing exposure to coastal hazards that you wouldn't have if those natural processes were not intact. In other words, if that land was not preserved and conserved, you know, the, the coastal protection would not be there to the tune of about quarter billion dollars a year. And there are current NOAA funded projects in place right now that we estimate at about $8.4 million a year, just in coastal protection. Water filtration is similar. Um, and this map here, you can see the, the values ranging from, um, you know, $50,000 up to four and a half million dollars in different basins. And that's another 360,000 acres of different habitats that are providing water filtration and nutrient filtration. And that is, you know, work that you would otherwise have to replace with infrastructure, really expensive, um, treatment plants and so forth. So these are, um, these are important ecosystem services to the tune of more than half a billion dollars a year. And the projects underway now alone are expected to add another 38 million from a wildlife habitat perspective that people of Florida have, you know, consistently stated a preference for strong preservation of our environmental habitats for our wildlife and habitat connectivity. And we find that these, uh, these habitats across the lagoon generate more than a billion dollars a year in the public's willingness to pay. And that ranges greatly from $400,000 to, you know, $90 million by these sub-basins. And then finally, on the property values, when you're talking cold, hard cash, um, this still, you know, has an important value. So the way we look at these is we look at all of the sales transactions from the county property appraiser and DOR, and we hold constant statistically the value of those homes if you paved over the lagoon, basically. What would that house still be worth, you know, a three-bed, two-bath with pool, whatever, versus one that is close to the lagoon? And we're able to tease out statistically that in Brevard, being within 100 meters of lagoon, adds about $350,000, all other factors being equal. That varies greatly by location, of course. In Palm Beach, it's almost a million dollars for that, that same, um, value. So in Brevard specifically, uh, we end up with about $6.1 billion in property value premiums contributed by the lagoon. And that sounds like a lot of money, um, but if you, you know, think about it, the total just value right now is about $114 billion. So in the whole scheme of things, it's, it's a couple percent, but it's an important couple percent. And when we annualize it, that's contributing, you know, almost, uh, $400,000 annually to the local economy. And then we also looked at the NOAA-funded studies that are taking place right now. A number of principal investigators and programs within Brevard County are contributing to those. We looked across the different habitats, from salt marsh to oyster reefs, wetlands, and so forth, at all of these different projects, how much we expect them to cost over 10 years in current, uh, dollar values, and what we expect their, their benefits to, um, generate over the next 10 years. So, for example, the, the salt marsh project, uh, that was chosen is expected to have total costs of about $380,000, but total benefits of about $2.8 million. The two really big projects, um, in here in terms of benefits are both removing impoundments, um, at KSC and Begum, and you can see the, the benefits on those are huge, $55 and $30 million, really transformative projects, really expected to change the nature of the fisheries out there and the water quality, and that has a lot of public benefits. So, in terms of how these tease out across the different types of projects, you can see those benefit-cost ratios, meaning how many benefits you receive per dollar of cost. Anything over one is good. You've cleared your, you've cleared your threshold. Uh, you can see that the two there that I mentioned have really high BCRs. Even if you took those away, we would have an average of about 10, but all told, you end up with about a 24x return on investment. So, really good expenditure of, uh, public funds. And then lastly, we also included a, a more traditional, uh, economic impact study. So, this is your direct spending. You are margining out things that we don't produce locally, like when you buy a gallon of gas, you know, we don't make gas here. So, a lot of that leaves the area. And then that creates indirect jobs and indirect business expenditures. And when we have visitors, you also, um, received induced impacts. And when we look at the lagoon overall, uh, we end up with about $26.9 billion in total output. That's contributing about $15 billion to local GDP, um, including the 1.4 annualized of property value impacts. And supporting 128,000 jobs. So, really significant impact. And, uh, looking at that across the sectors there, you can see how this teases out across everything from the actual resource management to the recreational spending that's generated and the aerospace that depends on having this wide open space, uh, without development in it. And finally, for Brevard County specifically, um, we pulled some numbers here just to kind of drill down to this a little bit more. And you can see a big chunk, of course, of that aerospace Brevard benefits from. Um, um, and a big chunk of the recreation, recreational benefits also are generated in Brevard County to the tune of supporting, you know, more than 80,000 jobs. And totaling about $10.6 billion in annual economic values added to your local economy. Um, and that's generating, um, $637 million in state and local taxes, um, every year that contribute to support local services. All of this data is available in a dashboard that's publicly available. So, people can slice and dice it by their, you know, county, city, local area, by the sector that they're interested in, and so forth. And, you know, really providing a lot of transparency into where these numbers come from and whatever a particular audience may be interested in. Um, one small thing here I just wanted to mention. The natural resource management is particularly interesting because for the jobs that are generated in this area, see the indirect and the induced, for every job, we were able to identify, um, 440 directly funded resource management jobs. The modeling shows that those jobs generate another 600 jobs just by themselves. So, that may not sound like a lot, but if you compare that to some of the other sectors, each job may generate another 0.3, 0.4 jobs. Whereas these resource management jobs, we're showing they're generating more than one additional job. So, really a good investment of public monies. Uh, and that's all I have. Happy to take any questions. I know we blew through that pretty quickly, but thank you for your time. I do have more. I have a representative. Commissioner Atkinson. Thanks, Valerie. Um, when you were talking about the, the return on investment 24 times, that's an overall? Um, that was NOAA funded projects. Right. Yes. Would that be different in Brevard County? Would it be 24 times? If you were just, and this is just a guess, I know, but would it be? Yeah. So, so we did look at the, those projects went across, um, the lagoon. And, and so you can see we went, you know, across the different, we tried to capture all sections of the lagoon within those calculations. Having said that, you know, fish don't care where the county line is, right? So, when they have new fish passage area, they're, they're now generating benefits wherever they swim and are caught. So, um, so it would be safe to say that the overall numbers show Brevard captures a lot of the benefits from the lagoon. It would be more difficult to say that ecosystem service only went to Brevard County. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Thank you. Commissioner Delaney. I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind emailing this presentation to me. Sure. Would that be okay? Yeah, absolutely. And I'll echo that. Okay. Yeah. So we can have the electronic version of it. Okay. It would be very helpful. Yep. Okay. Thank you. This is very thorough. Thank you. And I know that, um, the economic impact is staggering. Of course, what's even more staggering than the economic impact are the spiritual components. You just can't replace what it is to have a beautiful lagoon, to see a mullet run, or to catch a fish with your child, or to see a sunset or sunrise. It has just, you really can't put a dollar value on that. But it's good to be able to objectively also communicate the fiscal impact. The question I had, did you evaluate the economic impact if we did not protect the lagoon? For example, repeated algae blooms, the smell, the health risk. I have a friend who nearly lost a leg from Vibrio in the lagoon. And that's a whole other area, isn't it, the economic impact of doing nothing. Mm-hmm. That's a great question and one we frequently get. So in this case, of course, we were looking at what is there. I would argue that one way to look at that is this is what you have to lose if you don't continue to make the investments. And we have looked at harmful algal blooms and their impacts both along the lagoon as well as down in the southwest Gulf Coast. And the impacts are massive. I mean, they can, you know, completely wipe out those annual values of your recreation in a given year or two or three because social media doesn't always recognize that something that happened here didn't happen in the next county or the next city. So I would encourage you to use these as values of what is at risk if you don't continue to make the appropriate investments. And the NEP has estimated that over 20 years, you know, we're probably looking at about a total expenditure of about $4 billion to truly restore to what people have been here a while may remember, you know, the lagoon being like. And that's the path that you would really need to continue to follow. So our numbers in here for, excuse me, for commercial fishing are extremely low and so low that we looked at them many times before we vetted them with a lot of people. And that's just where they are. But so we're showing now about $3 million annually in lagoon commercial fishery, lagoon wide. That's not Brevard. But, you know, 10 years ago, 20, well, more like 20 years ago, that was an order of magnitude, you know, larger than that. So that's what we've already seen in terms of economic impacts. Wow, that's an interesting point. Yeah. I know we used to be the saltwater, we used to be the speckled trout capital of the world, of the world records here in the lagoon. And we also used to leave the state of Florida in clam, as a clam fishery. Yeah, and those numbers have dropped off a cliff. The number for the wildlife habitat, the public's value, going, you know, back to your points about you can't really put a price on it. I mean, that billion dollars a year is genuinely represents a lower bound of what the public has indicated it's worth to them to have those lands available to them and to their children. Thank you so much, and I want to thank Commissioner Atkinson for getting this on the agenda. You're welcome, and I thank you guys for bringing it to our attention. Thank you. Appreciate it. Do we have any cards? Okay, this is for the next item. Okay. All right, our next item is the consent agenda. Do we have any items of the consent that any commissioner would like to remove? A motion would be in order for the consent agenda. Oh, is that for the consent? Consent, yeah. Okay. Okay, agenda consent on item F5. Okay. Okay, so other than F5, do we have a motion on the consent agenda? So, second. Motion by Commissioner Atkinson, second by Commissioner Delaney. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by saying yay. Yay. Carries unanimously. Now, Morris, speak up if something needs a roll call vote, and I don't. Yes, sir. We're not going to have anything where a roll call vote's required. Sometimes it adds clarity if we have a supermajority requirement, for example, so we may ask for one at that time, but it's at your discretion whether you choose to exercise a roll call vote. Good. Good. Thank you. Okay. We have a card for F5, Sandra Sullivan. And F5 is acknowledge the county municipal county redevelopment agency CRAFY 2025 annual budgets and amendments. You've done this before. Yes, but I'm a little. Good morning. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. So, the reason I wanted to talk about the CRAs is because of the increase in Brevard's budget. 2022, it was $1.8 billion. 2025, $2.8 billion. And so, when we look at real estate going up, the amount of property taxes being felt by people, and of course, this is something, a hot topic at our state. And so, both last year and this year, the state did legislation proposing to do away with all new debt in CRAs and to basically pay off CRAs and close them. So, I wanted to bring up the point we have three CRAs, is my understanding, that have no debt and can be closed now. And since a number of CRAs have been presented earlier this year, and there was a brief conversation about this topic, embeds is a tax increment. It was like a CRA, and these are a tax increment. So, I'll just use one, O'Galley Riverfront. Because of the increase in property values, they are bringing in almost 13% more of an increase in revenue just in one year. So, our taxes are going to CRAs when, fiscally, we should be looking at closing CRAs in order to get taxes down. And, so I just want to say here, property tax increases, I want taxes to be less that the people may have more, Calvin Coolidge. Smaller government, less taxes. That's the principle of being a fiscal conservative, right? And, so, I want to encourage you today, under this item, to have a genuine conversation about sunsetting the CRAs with no debt and encouraging maybe interlocal agreements with the remaining CRAs to pay down their debt but to work with them to not take on additional debt. And, then, we have, as of the last budget, we had a $2.2 billion deficit in transportation. We have a lot of issues with our fire department. We have sewage plants that we are still putting development on that are at capacity. We have dumps all the time. And, we're not being fiscally conservative. So, I hope you will discuss closing three CRAs. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your input. All right. I think that's the only card on the consent. We would be in order to have a motion on item F5. I have some discussion, if it's okay. Okay. Morris, I was wondering, what would it take to dissolve the CRAs that don't have debt? It's variable. It depends on whether they were created pre- or post-charter. It depends on the language and an interlocal agreement that was negotiated by the board for most of these CRAs sometime in the era between about 2017 and 2021. Several of them have interlocals. Some of them, the board gave over the right to terminate the CRAs other than the limitations that were put forth in the ILA. So, it would really depend on each one individually. And, I can't answer that as to all of them off the top of my head right now. But, we could pull that together. Okay. That would be great. Thank you. Okay. Any other discussion? Is there a motion to acknowledge the county municipal redevelopment agency's FY25-26 annual budgets and amendment? So moved. Moved by Commissioner Atkinson. Is there a second? I'll second. Second by Commissioner Feltner. Discussion. I'd like to say a few things. One of the points that was made about the CRAs producing more revenue is because property values have increased. That's part of it. But, one of the reasons that revenues have increased into the CRAs is because the CRAs are doing such a phenomenal job, fantastic job, revitalizing our downtown areas. So, and also, one reason our revenues are going up as a county is the fact that our downtown redevelopment and our CRAs are increasing the quality of life that we have here. So, people are paying more to live here. Businesses are coming here. It has been a complete and total success. So, I see this revenue increase as a positive, not a negative. I just get so much out of going to downtown Titusville, Cocoa, Melbourne, O'Galley, and the Merritt Island Redevelopment Agency. It has turned our county around. And so, I think it's a wonderful thing. Any other discussions? All in favor of F5, second by saying yay? Yay. Opposed? Carries unanimously. Okay. Now, we do have cards here for public comments. Item G, and our first is Robert Pickert. Pickert? Pickert? Did I say that right, Robert? Yeah, Pickert. Pickert. Well, good morning, Commissioners. I'm Bob Pickert, a longtime Brevard resident, Indian River Lagoon supporter, and EHS manager for Wakefield Biochar. I would like to propose a circular approach for managing dredge lagoon muck that would be good for the lagoon, good for the watershed, and good for Brevard's economy. In a word, biochar. Amending dewatered muck with biochar would transform the muck into a slow-release fertilizer and soil amendment. Replace or supplement the sorrel tax with a non-tax revenue from the sales within and beyond the watershed. Distribute a high-quality and permanent source of carbon to landscape soils that would reduce the flux of nutrients and other contaminants to the lagoon, and provide a way for Brevard residents and businesses to contribute directly to the restoration of the lagoon. The irony is that to get the muck out and stay the muck away, we need to embrace and enhance the muck. First, let me talk about biochar. Biochar is a powerful plant-based soil amendment produced by Woody Biomass in a high-temperature, low-oxygen environment through a process known as pyrolysis. This locks carbon into a lightweight and stable form with incredible surface area. Think activated carbon like the pitcher for your water pitcher in your refrigerator. That carbon remains stable in soils for hundreds of years. Biochar has impressive health benefits. It absorbs and retains water, making landscape soils more drought-resilient. It adsorbs nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, making them more bioavailable to plants and less leachable to surface and groundwater. It adsorbs and retains metals, such as arsenic and chromium, and organic contaminants, including the many emerging ubiquitous contaminants like PFOS. It provides the ideal habitat for beneficial microbes critical to soil health, increasing nutrient utilization, decreasing nutrient demand, and increasing microbial metabolism of a growing list of toxic chemicals. And it increases soil cation exchange capacity, making plants more salt-tolerant. There are more benefits, including the fact that biochar is carbon negative, often providing sellable carbon credits in voluntary carbon markets. I've distributed a biochar flyer from IFAS explaining some of the benefits of biochar, so you don't have to take my word for it. Pelletized biochar is a highly effective media for stormwater treatment and low-impact designs. To get a feel for how this could finance the sorrel programs, the sale of 2 million 1-cubic-foot bags for $45 each, the equivalent of 4 bags for every home and business in Brevard, Volusia, Indian River, and Martin Counties, would generate nearly $100 million of annual gross sales. Assuming 40% goes to retailers, the remaining 60% or $60 million would be applied to capital and operating costs and generate annual net non-tax revenues of $20 to $40 million. For sorrel programs, could that possibly be three minutes? Yeah. Go ahead. We'll let you finish your thought. We would also produce super sacks for commercial landscapers. The numbers will start out smaller but could get larger if distribution was extended beyond the watershed. Think taking market share from biosolids-based materials like milorganite. The owner of a popular nursery said that if Sally Scalera of the IFAS Brevard County Extension gave a dewatered muck biochar soil amendment, a favorable review in the Sunday paper, they would have over 100 customers asking for it Monday morning. Sally has responded to the idea enthusiastically, calling it fantastic. I brought some bags of biochar for you to play with, and I'll leave them here or work with you to distribute them. There are a variety of other powerful sources. I have a question, and we definitely want to hear the rest of your presentation. If you can give us a copy of that. The copy is hopefully they were distributed around, yes. It's really good. And I love the fact that I think you're the first person I've heard say we need to embrace the muck. And I think it's a great idea. And also it's ironic. We need to include in this economic impact the sale of muck. I hope that, you know, you picked a good day to be here. There's a lot of folks from our River Lagoon Committee, and I think it offers great, great promise. There's a lot of work to do to make this happen, but we're going to do a lot of work anyway, so we might as well make it count for the lagoon. The question I have for you is, did you come all the way from Valdossa? No, sir. I am a Brevard County resident, have been since 91. My wife was born and raised here. We've been here as a family ever since. Since our production facility is in Valdosta, Georgia, but I work remotely and get up to the plant to help with them, to do it. Because I saw the Valdosta. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's our operations there. And I'd love to talk to you more about that company and what we're doing and the source of our biochar materials and lots of other stuff I'd love to talk about. I love that. Now we get with my staff. Can I ask a quick question? Yes, Representative Feltoner. I'm Commissioner Feltoner. That's okay. Is the biochar a product of gasification? Is no? Well, when you pyrolyze, when you pyrolyze woody material, woody wastes, when you pyrolyze it, you do get a syngas, a synthetic gas, and that can be used as a source of gas for operating turbines, engines, whatever you want to do. You would capture that. You don't release it to the environment. Right. The carbon credits come from the fact that woody waste will deteriorate and decompose in the environment, generating methane and CO2. If you interrupt that and send it through a pyrolysis process, you capture those gases, and then you've now prevented those hydrocarbons from entering the atmosphere. And we get carbon credits associated with a lot of the biochar that we sell. The county, my point is we can do this and provide biochar for the county. I'd like to see the county have its own pyrolysis system, take storm debris and woody waste from the yard waste collection program, and produce our own biochar right here and use it for a dozen different things. And the syngas that we would capture from that, what would, I mean, if we were doing this at the municipal level, what would you suggest? I would say primarily feed it right back into the process because to the pyrolysis process, think incineration, but it's lower temperature, less oxygen. But feed it right back in. So it's a self-feeding kind of a – that's the source of your energy for driving that process. Okay. All right, sir. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Delaney. I really just have a comment. Hopefully we can also convince you to move that business to Brevard. Let's make it here. I love that. Let's make it here. Okay. Thank you very much. Very interesting. Vance Ahrens. Thank you, Chair. Honorable members of the Council and the citizens of Brevard County. My name is Vance Ahrens. I'm the president of the Progressive Democratic Caucus of Brevard County. I'm here today to draw attention to an atrocity that has befallen one of our citizens and to hopefully propose a resolution for this board. On February 15th, a 15-year-old boy was home asleep when more than a dozen mass soldiers broke into his home and took him away from his family. They threw this child into an adult prison known for its inhumane treatments. Over the following nine months, Muhammad has been subject to harsh, unsanitary conditions, has significant detrimental weight loss, and contracted scabies, and has been subjected to severe beatings. This child has been unjustly and illegally held in Israel without a complete trial or hearing, without direct contact to his family. The right to freedom and due process and protection of one's government are fundamental rights for all U.S. citizens. Muhammad is a boy from Palm Bay. He's a natural-born citizen of the United States, being held in a foreign prison under appalling conditions. This summer, he was planning on getting his driver's license, like any 16-year-old. Instead, he was being beaten in a prison in Israel. The State Department has stated there is no higher priority than the safety and security of our citizens abroad. The continued detention of a citizen, especially when that citizen is a minor and our neighbor, should be of profound concern to the citizens of Brevard and to this board. I think it's highly appropriate for this body to speak out against the inhumane treatment of one of our citizens. I have emailed each one of you a copy of the resolution for the county to formally demand the immediate release of Muhammad and return to his family, and to call on the U.S. State Department to ensure his safety and unhindered access to his family and U.S. counselor officials until his release. My contact information is in that email. I also do have a copy of that resolution here today with me. I look forward to working with you to help make this a formal resolution, and I thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you. Our next speaker, Joy Metzler. Did I say that right? Go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for hearing my comments today. I'm here speaking on behalf of the resolution that my friend Vance just spoke on. My name is Joy Metzler. I'm a Brevard County resident, and I'm an Air Force veteran. When I joined to serve in the military, I had one focus on my mind, the defense of my friends and my neighbors. And now, despite being out of the service, I find myself driven to speak up for one of our neighbors that has been kidnapped and detained illegally overseas by Israeli military forces. His name is Muhammad Ibrahim. He is one of our neighbors, and he is one of our children. His uncle owns a clothing store up the street on Route 1. Muhammad is a Palm Bay resident, and his cousin Saif, a resident of Tampa City, was just recently murdered by Israeli settlers in July of this year. Muhammad was kidnapped from his home when he was visiting family at 3 a.m. by masked Israeli soldiers in February 2025, zip-tied and blindfolded in front of his family. We have just passed the nine-month mark of him being held in captivity in a military prison. He was 15 when he was taken and turned 16 while in an Israeli prison cell when he should have been preparing to get his driver's permit and start preparing to graduate from high school. As the holidays approach in the U.S., we are acutely aware of the missing presence of Muhammad, an American child who should be at home in the U.S. with his family. Instead, he has been beaten, starved, and intentionally deprived of medical care. During this, his federal-level representatives have been silent on the fate of one of their own constituents. This upcoming Friday will be our sixth week standing on the intersection just outside this building, begging Representative Herodopoulos to show compassion for a child from his district. We know that a single phone call from the president could bring this boy home tomorrow, but still the State Department refuses to even issue a statement in support of a U.S. citizen. We urge you as a coalition of over 200 organizations comprised of faith groups, veterans groups, human rights and advocacy groups, and many, many more, local and national, to one, adopt the resolution that my comrade Vance has introduced to you, and two, in the absence of his federal representatives, to publicly call for his release and the full support of public efforts to secure his return home. We are praying for his safe return before the holidays, and the urgency we feel is real. His health is in grave danger, and your advocacy for him could mean the difference between life and death. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we hope to see this resolution passed in the future, and the full support of efforts to bring Muhammad home. Thank you. Our next speaker, Robin Anders. And then after Robin Anders, Judy Trendel. Oh, you can start walking here. Oh, you're already right here, so. Hi. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. Mine is more of a complaint than an ask. I guess it's an ask and a complaint. We live on Lee Hall Place in a cul-de-sac in Fort St. John, and our property has flooded severely five times since 2008. This last time, two weeks ago, the water was solid from my neighbor's house that's an acre away to the corner of our house. It looked like a lake to include half of the entire cul-de-sac. The next day, when I walked my dog to be able to get out, I had to go across my neighbor's front yard and down the other side of their driveway because my front was so full of water. The water came up this high on the fence, this high on the house. Luckily, we have a dirt-filled foundation, so there was no water intrusion into the house, but it was a mess. We were underwater completely in the backyard for a full week before it started to recede. The reason that we're holding so much water at the end of the street is because a neighbor of five houses up the street filled in their swale in the backyard. Our cul-de-sacs, all the houses have the swale behind them, and then it drains into the canal. Last year, in the summer, we got letters from the public works saying that they were going to come out and clear and redo all the swales on the north side of the street. We got another email saying, okay, we're going to start in two weeks. Never saw anything. The only thing that they did was they cleaned out the canals, which is great, but our water can't get to the canal. So, you know, I understand when you get a flood like we did, you know, this past Sunday, of course the water is going to raise, but everywhere else in Port St. John, the water came way up and went right back down by the next day. We held water in our driveway and the side yard, the entire half of the yard, if not three quarters. Our shed was underwater. Our motorhome was underwater. The fence, 90% of our wooden fencing was sitting underwater for a week and a half. That's unacceptable, you know, and it stinks, and the mosquitoes and the birds and the bird poop, it's just, we'd really like to get a resolution. Public Works Department came out years ago and said, yeah, that swale was filled in. All we need to do is clean it out and alleviate your problem. That's all we're asking is to have what was supposed to be there restored. And it's not the current neighbor that lives there. It was a previous owner. So, any questions? Thank you so much. Commissioner Delaney. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. I know that when we met, you know, we talked about some of this stuff, and I really appreciate you coming, because this is a problem we have all over North Brevard. One of the issues is that the culverts are the property owner's responsibility to upkeep, and pretty much it doesn't happen for the most part. So, you drive around North Brevard, and, you know, that's my district, so that's where I spend most of my time, but I'm sure that's happening in other districts as well. But that's one of the issues is that the culverts, you know, don't necessarily get maintained the way that they should be. And then in this particular situation, with the swale being filled in, there's nowhere for this water to go. And the issue is, is that the back of the properties, a lot of them are behind fences, but those are easements. And so, it's, there's some, you know, gray area as to how the county can come in and maintain our easements when it's behind a fence. So, I was hoping that we could, you know, talk about this, give some direction to staff, think about it, and bring back direction for staff at a later meeting. But just open up some kind of communication about this, because it's happening all over my district, and it's not just that the swale's been filled in or the culverts, you know, are full. It's also, there's massive sections in Port St. John, Titusville, you know, and some other areas, too, that don't even have any drainage system near the property. So, one of the issues that we had a couple weeks ago was, even if the property owners could get pumps, there was nowhere to pump the water, too, because they weren't close enough to any kind of drainage conveyance system. So, I just wanted to kind of throw all that out there. Can I say something about the swales? Yes, please. And that's probably just the beginning of it. Yes. Yes. See, if it's a hairy thing about, you know, how the county can come on to the easement because there's fences and stuff, but we got a letter in the summer of last year saying that they were going to do just that. And then when we called about it, then there was either no funding or this or that. And my husband's been calling roads and bridges probably three times this week. One time he got a message back, a voicemail, saying, oh, sorry you're holding water, and now they won't even answer or pick up the phone for his calls. So, you know, we're frustrated. We've been fighting with this since 2008. Sorry I went over my time. No, thank you for bringing us to your attention, your situation. It's a serious problem countywide, and it's one of the big challenges that we have. And so when we come up with some of these solutions, hopefully you can be there supporting us. That would be great. That would be absolutely great. So thank you for your time. Mr. Chair, sorry. Yes. Ma'am, Ms. Andrews, what was the name of the street? Lee Hall Place. Lee Hall Place. Two words. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Trudy Trendell, our next speaker. Good morning. I'm glad I'm following that lady, because what I have to say is important. And I'm going to get everybody's attention with this sentence. The Indian River Lagoon is not broken. Our Brevard County infrastructure is broken. Every resident sees the same challenges. Aging roads, stormwater systems that can't keep up with heavy rains, wastewater infrastructure that needs modernization, growing concerns about our environment and water quality. These issues affect our safety, our property values, our economic growth, and our daily quality of life. I'm proposing a dedicated 1% discretionary sales tax focused solely on infrastructure. This is not a general tax and not a blank check. Every dollar would be legally restricted to essential, tangible improvements, road upgrades, and resurfacing, stormwater and flood mitigation projects, wastewater and sewer modernization, environmental restoration, and water quality protection. This surtax would be shared fairly and proportionately between Brevard County and each municipality, ensuring that every community from the largest city to the smallest town has the resources to repair, maintain, and upgrade the systems we all rely on. This is how the Indian River Lagoon becomes healthy again. So why a sales tax? It works because it distributes the cost broadly, including visitors and non-residents users of our roads and waterways, reducing the burden on property owners and renters. And with a clear list of projects, citizen oversight, and annual reporting, residents will be able to see exactly where their money goes and what improvements are delivered. This is a future-focused plan. It supports public safety, protect our waterways, strengthens our infrastructure, and ensures that today's problems don't become tomorrow's crisis, which is already there. I'm asking us to invest wisely, transparently, and responsibly in the long-term health and resilience of our communities. A dedicated 1% infrastructure surtax gives us the tools to finally address what everyone knows must be fixed. And I hope you consider this. So that's all I have. Thanks, Judy. Judy, I think you bring up a very valid point. And I think it's going to be something that will be discussed in the future. It would have to be in the public forum. That's something the people of Brevard would have to step forward and support. I think every resident in Brevard County would vote yes. Even more, 2%. Well, we might find out. Okay, I think that's all our cards in the public comment. So we now go to – I got so enthralled in that presentation, I lost my way. H1, petition to vacate portions of three public utility easements in District 2. Pardon me? Okay. Good morning, board. This is a petition to vacate, as you mentioned, Chair, a portion of three public utility easements. It's in Glenhaven within District 2. These three obstructions, two buildings and a pool screen enclosure, were discovered in a new boundary survey while attempting to sell their home. It was constructed prior to them purchasing, but was not picked up on the original title exception. We have no issues with vacating it. Okay. Motion for approval be in order. Are there any cards? No cards? No cards. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. No move, Chair. Oh. Oh. We'll let Representative Goodson make that motion – I mean, Commissioner Goodson make that motion. He's a representative, too. Is there a second? Second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor, signify by saying yay. Aye. Aye. Yay. Motion carries. IH2, second and final public hearing adoption of amendments to Chapter 62, Article 4, Section 62-3316, on premise of science. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Yes, this is the second and final public hearing for amendments to Chapter 62, Article 9, Section 62-3316, entitled on-premises signs, and Chapter 62, Article 4, Table 1, entitled signs by type and zoning classification. This is in order to allow community development districts to have specified signage for parks within certain zoning classifications. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. If there's no questions. Motion and second. Any discussion? Are there any cards? No cards. All those in favor, signify by saying yay. Yay. Motion carries unanimously. Okay. We will move on to I am finished business. Do we have anything under? Nope. New business development and economic services group approval disbursement of educational impact fees. J1. Good morning, commissioners. Item J1, it is requested that the Board of County Commissioners authorize disbursement of educational impact fees in the amount of $9,903,325.44 to the Brevard County School Board in accordance with the interlocal agreement. And authorize the county manager to execute all necessary budget change requests to implement this disbursement. So moved. Is there a motion? Is there a second? I'll second. Second. Second. By Commissioner Feltner. Any discussion? Do we have any cards? Any cards? Anybody here from the school board? I think I see one. Susan M. Thank you for being here. All those in favor, signify by saying yay. Yay. Yay. Carries unanimous. We certainly appreciate our relationship with the school board. J2, approval, State of Florida, Department of Transportation, State Road, 405, Landscape Termination Agreements. Good morning again, Board. We are requesting approval to terminate three joint participation agreements with the Florida Department of Transportation. They were initiated back in 2002, 2003, and 2004, respectively. This requires the county to maintain a portion of a state road, specifically State Road 405 from State Road 407 to US 1. And the great thing about joint participation agreements is that they help fund and offset things like this when the board may want to do an aesthetic improvement. The downside, rather, is that in perpetuity, as long as these agreements are in place, we must maintain it. And back in 2019, it was determined that our vegetation was out of compliance, so we had to take it down due to a safety concern, and now it's going to cost us a million dollars to replace it. Again, this is a state road. There's no requirement for us to maintain it. And by getting out of these agreements, we'll be able to restore the existing landscape and use the District 1 MSTU funds for higher purposes. So moved. There's a motion and a second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? I have a couple things. I'm a big advocate of these beautification programs. We call them our transportation enhancement funds. Some of these monies come down from federal dollars. And I hope, as we move forward, we can figure out ways to maintain them in perpetuity. Obviously, you don't do them to be installed, to beautify, and then destroy them, take them out. So I'm hoping, as we move forward, we can look for funds to maintain, you know, some of our CRAs could maintain those. We had one in North Buford. That might have been a great revenue source. Can I say something about that? I drive 405 every day, and I really appreciate the beautification. Yes. Sir, you know, up there in North Brevard, there was a very serious accident where a family of four from Great Britain did a U-turn there on Columbia. And that's forgotten now. But it's very possible that they did not see the oncoming truck when they were making that U-turn because of the vegetation right there on Columbia. And I think we discussed that yesterday, and I brought that up in my briefing. So there's a place for some of these things and some of the intersections. Sometimes I shake my head because I don't understand putting a tree in the middle of the road and then forcing people to make a U-turn where they can't see around it. So I appreciate your thought on that. But some of these probably need to be removed from the roadway. Oh, I agree. Safety always is first. That's why we need to properly design them and properly maintain them. And we don't need to jeopardize compromise safety in doing that. If I can say, also, Chair, this one was a little bit of a tough one for me originally. Mark had brought this to me pretty early on after I got elected. And it was a little bit of a struggle because this is, you know, the road that goes into the space center. So, you know, of course, we want it to look, you know, really nice and for people to have a beautiful drive to the space center. But when I realized that it was taking from our maintenance funds, it's just we have so much need in the north end that I would love to look at other revenue streams to, you know, to make that possible. Maybe even, like you mentioned, the Titusville CRA. I don't know where those boundaries are. But maybe that's something they can help with. I know you see signs in a lot of places, including Brevard and other communities, where the private sector, private service clubs and businesses and what have you, adopt the medians. Maybe we can reach out to our private partners and get some support. It's something I'm personally interested in and will get involved in. And I think it's important for the aesthetic and the viability of our community. Commissioner Goodson, did I hear you? Did you have something? No, sir. Nothing at all. Okay. Thank you. I just want to be sure we're not missing you. Okay. Good. So, did we vote on that? I think we did not. Did we vote? I do know we have a motion and second. All in favor, signify by saying yay. Yay. Yay. Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Next item, J3, appointments of the North Brevard Hospital District Board members. And we do have three cards. Why don't we hear the cards first, if they'd like to be heard. Joseph Ashe, and then Shelby Love, and then Christopher Childs. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Joseph Ashe, and I am a cardiologist who practices in Titusville. For the last 30 years, I have cared for patients at the bedside and gained more than 20 years of experience in hospital and medical staff governance. I have chaired clinical departments at local hospitals and at Wustorf Rockledge. I coordinated medical staff quality as chair of the clinical quality committee. I was also president of the medical staff. My experience in medical governance is not easy to come by and is needed now because, sadly, Parrish has a quality problem. First, Parrish suffers from entrenched leadership. According to the American Hospital Association, Florida's hospital CEOs in general serve terms of four to seven years. Rarely do CEOs serve 10 years or more because orderly and timely succession encourages innovation. The current CEO at Parrish was hired in 2001, which is more than 24 years ago. Why has he been the CEO for so long? Well, could it be that the hospital board is stagnant and held back by institutional inertia? Well, of the nine board members, four have served more than 20 years, one of whom has served for almost 30 years. Three other members have served between 10 and 13 years, and the average board tenure at Parrish is 15.6 years. By contrast, many elected officials in Florida have term limits, and none of them serves 15 years in one office. The Parrish board does not have term limits, and only the county commission and the city council of Titusville can impose tenure discipline by encouraging healthy turnover and avoiding entrenchment. The CMS star ratings are the gold standard measure for quality care, and they show a serious downward trend for Parrish over the past eight years. Not calendar quarters, eight years. In 2018, Parrish had three CMS stars, which is considered an average score. In 2019 and 2020, Parrish got one star, which is considered poor. From 21 to 24, Parrish had a four-year run of two stars. Okay, improvement. But in 2025, Parrish fell back to one star, which puts Parrish in the bottom 5% nationally for quality. In Brevard County, we have three hospitals with four or five star ratings, but Parrish is the only hospital with a one-star rating. Before it closed in April, Rockledge Hospital actually had a five-star rating. Patients read about these ratings, and if the quality ratings for Parrish persist at these low levels, patients who have a choice to go elsewhere will take their business elsewhere, affecting Parrish's bottom line. In closing, 125 residents of North Brevard have signed a petition supporting my application to the Parrish board. They want new leadership, and many other residents in North Brevard agree with them. If appointed to seat four, I will fight for fresh ideas, which will support five-star medical care at Parrish, because our patients deserve better than one-star results. Thank you. Thank you. Our next card, Shelby Love. Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself to the board. I'm Shelby Love, and I applied for this position because I place a high value on public service. I previously served as a chairperson of another county board. I have a master's degree in public administration with a focus in health care and a desire to do the right thing for the residents of our community. Thank you. Thank you. Christopher Childs. Hello, board. My name is Christopher Childs, and I applied. I'm one of the candidates for this. I want to apply because I have over 20-plus years' experience in health care, and my daughter, Penelope, was born at Parrish Hospital. And with my 20-plus years' experience in health care, I was mostly a health care IT consultant. I worked for some of the top hospitals in the world, including Cedars-Sinai, Mount Sinai, NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. And the number four hospital in the world, Johns Hopkins. At some of these hospitals, I also worked at Wake Forest in North Carolina. And most of my experience with hospitals and ambulatory centers is focused on operations with the EMR and working across departments to get improvements, capital improvements, things like that. One of the projects I worked on, Wake Forest, was I was brought in specifically because they had switched from one EMR to another, and they were missing over a million dollars year over year for lab charges specifically. And so I was brought in to lead the team to figure out where these charges were, get this missing money. It was so big that they actually had the story in the local papers. And so I worked with lab staff, physicians, operations executives to figure out what the problem was. We figured out what we were doing wrong. We corrected it. I worked with the trainers to get training out there. I worked directly with lab staff and physicians to get that workflow implemented because it wouldn't work without that. So after all of this, we went through and I met with the executive staff and we went over the results and we were, not only did we get the revenue back on track, but we were trending up and we were capturing more charges than what we had lost from that year before. So I have extensive experience with working through multiple departments and getting people on the right track and getting things. So, you know, not just revenue, but patient safety, patient privacy, keeping all those things. And that's what some of the top hospitals do, like Johns Hopkins. They're not number one just because they have the top people. They got the top people because patient satisfaction and being trusted to take care of patients. So I learned that from, you know, being around all of those people. So, um, and, uh, let me, let me use my experience and usually I charge thousands of dollars, but today only you can get me for zero dollars. Thank you. Thank you. That's good to know. Thank you. Um, do we have anybody here from, uh, the hospital or the hospital district? I just, but, oh, there you are. Good, good. We got George. Okay, good. Thank you for being here. We may have some questions. It's good to have you here. Um, so this, there are two positions for the, uh, board, uh, yes. Oh, okay. I want me to introduce. Go ahead. Okay. Um, it is requested that the board review the eight applications for the North Brevard County Hospital District, uh, board of member seat four and member seat eight. Um, the North Brevard Hospital District is a special taxing district within the county. It was first created by House Bill 13, 1370 adopted by the Florida legislators in 1953 and was, uh, since revised to the current legislation in 2003. We have two seats that are available right now. It's member seat four, which is appointed by the board of county commissioners. The term will begin on January 1st for a four-year term and member seat eight, which is appointed by the board of county commissioners and subject to confirmation by the city council. There are five applicants for each seat. However, two applicants did not specify which seat that they wanted. So we put them in seat four and seat eight. The question I have, I know in a lot of these appointments, we have a ballot that we fill out, uh, as we did in the, uh, the EELS committee. I, I, I turn to the commission on their desire. How would they like to do this? Whether they'd want to have a ballot form or just a simple motion? I, um, I, uh. I have one vote for ballot. Okay. If I could speak on this, I, um, while I understand what the language says in the, um, in the, in the referendum, um, that of course this is a county board, um, but this is a hospital that affects my district. Um, and part of why I was elected was because, um, you know, while I can't discount the good things that are going on at parish and the community involvement and, um, all of that, there are people who feel like there are some improvements that can be done. And I feel like if leadership continues to be the same, and when I say leadership, I talk about the board. Um, when you have 20 plus years on, on a hospital, on a board, it's hard to necessarily see things with fresh eyes. And, um, I actually looked back over the past 10 years in the, our minutes and our, um, the videos where, um, it was the D one commissioner that put forward, you know, they're, they're the people that they wanted, you know, to, to be on this board. And it was always unanimously, um, accepted. And, um, so while I understand that might not be the will of the board, this go around, um, I'm proposing something different than what was brought to us in our agenda packet, which was basically a ballot. Um, I'm, I'm proposing more of a ranking system that was similar to what we did for Eels. I feel like it's a fair, um, situation. And, um, I'm also proposing that the top two candidates that we designate, um, if they're seat four or seat eight, um, I, I don't believe I've reached out to all the candidates. I don't believe that anybody has a problem if they're seat four or seat eight. I think that they just didn't know which one to put and didn't realize that they could put both. Um, so I, I printed these out and, um, each of us have one of these at our desks and I'm hoping that I could get board support to go ahead and, um, do it this way. Okay. Uh, any other discussion? I, I'd like to just chime in on something and lose some of the things said, um, this hospital, the Paris hospital is a countywide resource on a personal level. I can say that our family, uh, and I think we have wonderful hospitals in this county. We have, we made a conscious choice after reviewing all the hospitals in our county to have a, a very important procedure surgery done and we chose parish because we liked that hospital. We liked the team. We liked the surgeons and we could not have been more pleased with the service we got. So I know there's been some disparaging remarks about parish, but we literally chose parish and we live in South Brevard. Uh, we're in the Atlantic residents. And so, uh, we've chosen the other hospital for other needs, but it is a very important element of our healthcare delivery in Brevard County and it is countywide. It affects not only from the term of patients, the whole county and, um, and it also, uh, has employees from all over. So I, however we decide to choose this up to the commission, does any other commission have any opinions about how we do that? So you have a ballot. I gave everybody one if you want to look. Yeah. It should be in your papers. I, my pile of paperwork here. Okay, good. And if I could just say one more thing, um, uh, I, I totally agree and respect that this is a county board. One thing that I just want to make sure everybody's aware of is that this is also a special, a special taxing district and the people who would be imposed with those taxes would be residents of North Brevard if those were ever imposed, which to Mr. Mkhitaryan's, um, uh, work has never been done before. But that doesn't mean that won't ever be done. So just wanted to put that out there. Okay. We, we have before us, I, um, I call it a ballot. Is that what it is? Um, uh, uh, Commissioner Goodson, do you have this? He does not. Commissioner Goodson does not have that. Hmm. Nope. He's got a picture. No. Okay. Why don't we do this? Let's take a five minute recess and see if somehow we can get him a copy of this. I think it's time for a recess anyway. Um, five, 10 minutes. We'll come back at 1035. All the, uh, commission meeting back in session. Okay. We have before us a, um, a ballot that, um, Commissioner Delaney has handed out where we rank order each applicant. We also have what's coming to my attention and I have a question, Commissioner Delaney. We did have an original ballot that staff did more just as a discussion point. It wasn't anything they were advocating. But one thing that is different that I do, does raise a question is this doesn't delineate the seats. Right. How do you delineate the seats? So on the bottom, um, I wrote the top two candidates with the most points get appointed to seats four and eight, and then please specify which appointee will be in which seat in your motion. And, and I don't know if it really matters, but when you had somebody who made an application, almost all the applicants specifically applied for seat four or eight. So the, and there's a difference, I guess the most telling difference is one of the seats also appointed by the city council, Titusville. So I'm assuming that when you applied for seat eight, you wanted to, to be a part of that Titusville. I don't know if you, if these are people that lived in the city of Titusville, but I think we, we need to have a system where we know which seat we're voting on. When I talked to most of the, um, applicants, most of them were like, I just picked one. It wasn't that they were, um, saying, oh, I really wanted to go before Titusville or, um, that kind of thing. Interesting. But you didn't talk to all of the candidates? All but one. Okay. Okay. Is there any requirement on the seat eight that they live in Titusville? I mean, obviously if it requires. No. They all have to live within the boundary of the district. But not necessarily in the city. Right. Okay. Okay. This is literally up to us. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, um, if the board is comfortable with this process, I think we, we go ahead and rank order them. Is that okay with the board? Does that seem? Sure. Okay. Let's do that. Thank you, board. Let's go ahead and take another three minute break so we can fill out these, um, ballots. If that, if that going to be enough, I'm sure the boards have read. I've already gone through mine. Okay. So sometimes with rank choice, with rank preference, your first choice, you would put number one intuitively. But I guess on this form, is it intended to be your first choice, you give eight? Oh my gosh. I'm so glad. That's why we have a Cracker Jack attorney on our representing. I thought the opposite. That would be intuitive, but I think there's language at the bottom that suggests otherwise. So I just wanted to clarify, Commissioner Delaney, your intent is? The most points. The most points. So that's what I get for not reading your directions, Commissioner. Okay, so, Commissioner Goodson, I know you're listening. Most, the higher the rank, the higher the number is what you would prefer. Okay. You're great. I apologize. I might have a silly question, but does that mean that nobody can have the same number? Like there can't be two fives? There has to be. Another good question. Another good question. Thank you. Is that the answer? My intent was that you could pick one through eight for each candidate, because most likely we'll all have some different numbers, so. With a ranking, typically you can only put one number to one candidate. So if you use your number five, you can't use it again on someone else. You'd have someone who's last, which would be one, and somebody who's first would be eight. Each candidate has to have a different number. Has I got that right? Okay. Which, that's different than how we did it with Eels, Morris? Morris? That was different than how we did it with Eels, right? This whole thing is different, though. Right, but this is our choice. It's not necessarily, you know, how it has to be. I just want to make sure that that's known for the public, especially when this was historically over the past ten years a D1 appointed board. Please, commissioners, make sure there's a place to sign at the bottom and make sure everyone does that. But for sunshine purposes, we can't have secret ballots, so your name has to be on, and there will be an announcement about how everyone voted at the end of the process. Now, I think we pretty much have this. Now, the rank on the right-hand column, do we fill that out, or is that filled out independently by the... I put it there just for the ease of whoever was adding all the numbers up. Okay. Good. Okay. Do you need to sign these? Yes, please. Okay. You can print your name, sign it. We just need to know which belongs to whom. They'll go in the record, and... I'll take it. I was just going to fold it in half and send it down. Okay. I'll take it down. Somewhere I'll spill it. They don't have tops back there. Mr. Chair, can I make a suggestion? Just in the interest of everyone's waiting in the audience today, can we go to J4 while they're tallying that up, and we'll come back? Okay. It's a good idea. We can do that, and we'll go to J4. Okay. J4, Board of County Commissioners. Direction on the City of Melbourne requests to amend the interlocal agreement governing the Old O'Galley Riverfront Community Development Agency. And we'll interrupt that discussion once we hear the ballot tally, which I think will be really short, but let's go ahead and have staff. Do you want me to go? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. This is a request for the board to provide direction to staff regarding the proposed amendment submitted by the City of Melbourne to revise the interlocal agreement between the board, the City of Melbourne, and the Old O'Galley Community Redevelopment Agency. And this would give us authorization to staff to negotiate with the City of Melbourne's proposed amendments to the interlocal agreement, including establish the parameters the board is willing to negotiate with the City of Melbourne to revise the interlocal agreement adopted by the board on May 4th, 2021. Based on the parameters established by the board, revised interlocal agreement and the resolution will be brought back to the board for their consideration at a later date. Or provide other action as determined by the board. The highlights of the City's proposed amendments include provisions that the interlocal agreement authorize a public-private partnership consistent with state law and city code, increase the associated financing using the tax increment fund, which are currently capped at $6.835 million, the flexibility to use taxable or tax-exempt financing, and to authorize the City and the CRA to adopt a parking management plan and charge for parking, that such fees can be used to fund capital and annual expenses of the parking garage, and reduce or eliminate the requirements that 90% of the parking garage be reserved for public parking. I have a question. Go ahead. Aren't one of the changes also that it's going from a 50-year free parking for residents to a five-year and only during certain times? No, they're still going to, they're still recommending a restriction for the 50-year public parking. What they are recommending is doing a parking study, and after five years after the construction of the parking garage, that they can implement fees for parking in the garage. Right. So it opens the doors for paid parking from our citizens, even though we originally had a pretty good deal that was 50 years. You know, that seems like it's a little bit more of a benefit to the community than five. Thank you. We have, we have four cards, and before we go to the cards, I want to see, did we get our tally? Because I know people are here on the parish issue, and I want to be able to allow them to. Our first speaker is Kathy Elias, Elias, Elias, Elias, did I pronounce that right? Is she here? Is she, did she leave or is she coming back? Well, I see the mayor's here. Let's go ahead and hear from the mayor, but I think there's a little bit of deliberation over there. Okay. Go ahead, sir. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Are you guys ready? Yes. I will hear from the mayor then. Okay, thank you, sir. Real quick, I'd like to, I'm going to try to keep my comments short because we do have our city manager, our city attorney, and a couple others that can answer any of your questions. I kind of want to kind of take you back on this project. Back in 2021, I worked with then Commissioner Tobias and Zonka to kind of structure this where any money in the CRA would go to just the infrastructure would go to this project, and I actually appreciate that now. I appreciate what the commissioner said. Listen, the CRA money, I think we all feel similar that the CRA is a tool, but we want to make sure it's really focused on infrastructure. At least that's my belief. And what we did said all, any of that amount of money in 2021 was going to go strictly toward a parking garage. And we know what happened in 2021, 2022 with the escalation of prices, COVID, et cetera. But at this point, we have, from those actions, working with those commissioners at the time, we have a current savings of about $6.5 million toward this project. So there's nothing been going into any kind of street funds, nothing like that been for this project. What's interesting now when you talk about construction, I know all of y'all are fighting with it now, what you could have built something for five or six years ago, you can't build it for it now. And so, for example, our law enforcement center that we built at that time, we kind of look back now and said, you know, we built it for an estimated cost of about $35 million. Probably to build it now would be about $48 million. So, again, it's something that we've been trying to get moving on. The cost of building a parking garage is not what it was back then. But this is actually, by opinion, a great avenue for us to succeed in getting a downtown parking garage for O'Galley. And I'm sure I've seen some of you down in downtown O'Galley how many of the businesses that's growing up, it's our art district. And, again, I'm going to leave most of the questions that you have to our city attorney and city manager. One of the things when you talk about when I spoke to the commissioners back then was, you know, free parking. I like free parking. I don't like to go somewhere and pay for parking, especially when the taxpayer is already paid for the structure itself. My only concern is maintenance. We all know we have to maintain that structure. So that's my only concern. And I would say anything that comes before me now when it comes to parking cost, I'm never for it. Unless it's to pay to clean it, maintain it, pressure wash it, whatever. Because we still have a duty to our constituents to maintain our infrastructure and such. So, again, I appreciate all of you, your time on this and the consideration. And, again, this minor change is so we can finally get this project done in a manner, and you'll hear soon, at a cost savings to our residents. Okay? Well, thank you. Great. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. Now, our next speaker. But do we have a result? Do we have a tally? Do I get to, like, say the – You can draw the names. Do I don't get to do that? No. Yes. Good morning, commissioners. I was trying to get that to print. But we added up the scoring, and the highest-ranked applicant was Billy Fitzgerald. The second-highest-rated applicant was Melissa E. Lugo. Okay. I have a comment about this, if I may. I have some trouble when it comes to this, and I met with Ms. Melissa. Well, let's do this, then. Let's move this to the end of the meeting. I don't feel comfortable making a vote on this. Well, let's move it to the – Okay. Because we've already embarked upon the Melbourne issue, and let's get this out of the way so we can focus all of our attention on one thing. So, okay, good. If that's okay with the board, does that sound good? Okay. Let's just do that. Okay. Our next speaker, Sandra Sullivan. So, I first want to say we're not in the same fiscal position. We were in 2021. And Tobiah did not like CRAs. And, in fact, he campaigned on doing away with CRAs. This particular CRA has no debt. And we could exit this, and whether they keep the monies that they've received to date from the county or not, it could be structured. But we can, right now, we can stop and close the CRA, which is the will of our state legislators last year and this year are both trying to do that. But we have a lot of fiscal issues in the county. As I mentioned before, in February was noted $2.2 billion deficit for transportation, as much as the budget was projected at that time. We ended up with a budget of $2.8 billion. We have sewage treatment plants that we are still putting development on, which are at capacity. We have infrastructure needs, and we have commissioners talking about going to meetings, suggesting we do away with the 3% tax cap. So, while we just got a tax increase, this deal feels like driftwood all over again. Special interests. We're going to get money to special interests. And I'll say here, because of political connections. And I'm going to tell everybody who is listening in on this that my suggestion is that they email, if this passes, they email doge at mail.house.gov. I'm going to say it again. To everyone listening, we the people, if this commission passes this deal, to email doge at mail.house.gov. Brevard needs doge. We need an audit, and we need to look at wasteful spending, just as the state has come in into other counties and highlighted wasteful spending. Well, you're giving us tax increases, and you're talking about an increase from $6.8 million on around numbers to $12.1 million. A couple months ago, or a month ago, it was $10.5 million. Earlier this year, it was $8.7 million. I mean, they can't even get their numbers right. You have a controversy right now where TDC gave money. You know, $2.7 million to people that didn't perform. And I'll just say right now, there's a bad look on Brevard County. And I'm going to say, CRAs, the ones that you have that have no debt, should be closed out. And you want to talk about a blight and stuff and what they do. There's been a number of CRAs that have had FDLE investigations where monies went to fire and police and to mayor's pension fund, et cetera. And there's a lot of concern about CRAs. And I'm just going to say this. For the deal to change even to where it was free parking for the people, and now they want to charge us parking for maintenance. Oh, gee, this sounds just like Cocoa Beach Garage all over again, doesn't it? Okay, let me put it very simply. We the people are getting tax increases while you want to give money to we the money special interests. Not a good look. Please close the CRA. Kathy Elias, did she ever come back? Tell her we're waiting on her if she's still here. But you might want to hear this, Mary. I don't know if you want to hear this. I don't want you to miss the public comment. Okay, good. The next speaker is Adam Conley. Good morning, commissioners. I'm Adam Conley, city attorney for the city of Melbourne. I'm here also with Ms. Lamb, city manager of the city of Melbourne. Hopefully her speaker card is also in. Generally here to answer any questions that you have. I will echo some of the mayor's sentiments. As early as 2020, there's been interest from the private sector to partner with the city and the CRA for a shared parking facility within downtown O'Galley. The interlocal agreement that was entered into in May of 2021, for all of its good intentions, didn't necessarily contemplate or address the circumstance of the parking garage being developed through a public-private partnership. The existing interlocal agreement contains terms such as 90% of the parking has to be for public use, which would effectively eliminate any opportunity for a public-private partnership for a shared facility. The existing interlocal agreement also doesn't contemplate the increase in construction costs that we've experienced over the past four to five years. The maximum contribution that the CRA can make pursuant to the existing interlocal is capped at about $8.9 million between debt service as well as existing funds in the CRA trust fund. What was presented to city staff this July and was negotiated and revised in August, that's the version that Mr. Richardson-Leisenfeld presented to you in this. Again, happy to answer any specific questions. Again, we understand that there are some material changes to the terms that are being presented from city council's direction from July, including asking for the ability to charge for parking. I will note that the terms of the current proposal limit those fees to the amounts that are projected and necessary for annual capital reserves and annual maintenance. So it's not intended to be a significant revenue generator for the city or CRA. It's intended to capture and recover those necessary costs associated with those capital and annual maintenance costs. So, again, I think that goes to the underlying level of fees and revenues that are likely to be expected for that purpose. Beyond that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have, and thank you for your time and consideration on this item. Good question. Okay. Commissioner Delaney. With the parking fees, is that determination as simple as a council vote, that they could change that at any time? Likely, yes, right? We would, based on the parking study that we would do, that would likely go towards the fees. Also, with regards to projections for annual budgets for capital maintenance and other things, right? Where council just recently gave authorization for us to start working on comprehensive public-private partnership agreement for the project. And so, again, that will go to the proportionality of those capital and annual maintenance costs for a shared garage project. And so, you know, council will be making decisions on what those rates are, both in understanding what our underlying obligations are going to be on an annual budget basis for those capital reserves and those annual maintenance costs, as well as, you know, projections from those parking studies that may be done occasionally. So, I think, yes, council will ultimately make that decision on what those rates and charges are. Again, subject to the terms of the interlocal agreement saying the underlying limit and purpose is to, again, capture those underlying costs and not go beyond that. May I chair? Just to follow up to that. So, if, say, the council would like to, I don't know, have a new splash pad or a statue of so-and-so, could they say this could be a potential revenue stream, let's, you know, add a dollar to our parking rates and that could be dedicated funds to this project that we want to do in the city? Again, right, as proposed in the current proposal of the interlocal, it's Section 9C of the proposed interlocal. And, again, it speaks to eligible uses of public parking fees being for capital maintenance reserves and annual operational and maintenance obligations for the project. So, again, you know, there may be circumstances where there are improvements or other things made to the garage. If we were talking about somewhere else in the O'Galley CRA, that's probably not an eligible use of those parking fees. I just wanted to put that on the record to make sure. Thank you. Okay, we have another question. I mean, I want to mention something that I probably should have mentioned at the beginning. So, we're not giving final approval at this request today. What we're doing is giving staff some general guidelines, negotiating guidelines, some policy, general policy direction. So, that said, I just wanted it to be in that posture. Commissioner Atkinson. So, you talked about the parking fees. Originally, for 50 years, there weren't going to be any for residents, and now we're talking about changing that because of maintenance costs. How are we going to pay for those maintenance costs in the original agreement for 50 years with no – where were those maintenance costs going to originally come from? Theoretically, and I would probably defer to the city manager, right, theoretically come from other CRA revenues, and then as the CRA sunset, it would come from city general revenue funds, right? And that's where, you know, the city's proposal is going to the long-term feasibility of the project and recognizing that, you know, it may be more advantageous and equitable for users of the garage to cover some of those underlying capital reserve and annual costs rather than the taxpayers generally who may not utilize the garage. So, it's an attempt to be equitable with those capital reserve and annual maintenance costs. Thank you very much for your time. Our next speaker, Jenny Lamb, did you want to – Hello, I'm Jenny Lamb. I am the city of Melbourne city manager. And I don't want to duplicate what you've already heard from our city attorney, Adam Conley. But, you know, back in 2020, 2021, when the last interlocal agreement was modified, everybody agreed that the focus should be on parking and on a parking garage, and that is what we're still doing. So, the current interlocal agreement did not allow for a public-private partnership, and part of that is that 90% of the parking spaces were supposed to be public. But if we enter a public-private partnership and we have approximately 550 parking spaces, that would mean only – and we said we only wanted about 300, and that's what the need is for the community, that then we would not be – only 50 of those could be for the public-private partnership. So, that is one of the reasons that we want that change. Also, with the funding, yes, the funding has gone up – construction costs have gone up across the board. As city manager, I see it in almost every single construction project we have, whether it's a water – wastewater facility project, it's a road project, it's stormwater projects. The construction costs have gone up, and that is then a result of that. But I also think it's important to note that while the construction cost has gone up, part of what we are proposing and that we have spoken to your county manager and county attorney about is that the projections for the garage debt service repayment would allow us to sunset the CRA sooner than the current interlocal of 2038. And we respectfully request that it stays at 2038, but we're projecting that we could sunset about five years sooner with using the funding that we have already saved towards the parking garage, and we are seeing that the debt service repayment could be paid up to five years early. So we're looking at probably 2033 to be the date that we would be able to sunset the CRA. And you ask what the benefit is to the county. If we sunset, then your portion of the tax would come straight to the county after that point, and that would be five years earlier than our current interlocal. So I know that when this passed back in 2021, the feel of the commission at that time was, should we get rid of the CRA, should we not? That is when we came to the agreement that parking really should be the main focus, and to us, the changes that we're requesting keep that focus on parking and for maintenance of the parking. We did agree that we would not charge anything for up to five years, and then it would solely be for those maintenance costs. And we have experience with the parking garage, with our own City Hall parking garage, and we see that as it ages, those costs are starting to add up. And first, we just covered it under general fund, but it is something that adds up over time. Okay, do we have any questions? Okay, that is our last card. Ben will find the other speaker. So bring it to the board. I know I have my opinions, but I'll yield to you, Representative Feltner. No, I think I'd like to hear from the rest of you. Okay. So, go ahead. Well, I grew up in O'Galley. The mayor knows that. The mayor of O'Galley guys. And I literally grew up in O'Galley, and right in this downtown area, from 1957. So it's an area that I'm very passionate about. It's my home. And I am really excited about the CRA in O'Galley. O'Galley's been kind of the stepchild in Melbourne. And I remember even when we merged with Melbourne, we had our own city. And I spent a lot of time at the Civic Center, at the park, even had to go to the courthouse there once in a traffic violation. So I have a very interesting memory of that. It worked out okay. But this one, we had municipal judges. So it's home. My first check-in account, just everything. So I'm really excited about this area. O'Galley's finally getting its due attention. It's in such an incredible area. So I really am excited about a parking garage. I like it. I think it's necessary. It's always a game changer. I hope one day we get one in Cocoa. It's been wonderful having one in downtown Melbourne. So I wholeheartedly support this. On the parking fee, I can tell you I hate parking fees. I kind of rate the quality of communities based on whether they have public parking or not. It just drives me crazy to go to a downtown area. I go to park, and I've got to download the app. And then I can't remember my iCloud number. And I have to find that. And I spend all this time. And finally download the right app. And then I've got to enter it into the machine. I'm running around. And then even after you pay it, you don't know if it's been paid or not. And the more money you spend parking this less you can spend at the shops and the restaurants and the bars and whatever where you're going. So I like the idea of free parking. I like the idea of a public-private partnership. I think you can achieve more through public-private partnerships. Cordes, that balance between how many is public, how many is private in terms of parking spaces, probably I would let staff work on that and bring back to us some alternatives. So as far as policy direction, definitely support the CRA. I don't necessarily feel there needs to be a cap on the amount. I trust the city's abilities to bid at and work with a private developer to determine what size and what best and what cost. So I have no problem with raising those amounts. So private parking, I mean free parking, public-private partnership, yes. No bond restriction based on what the staff feels necessary when I say the staff of the city and the county. And as far as the sunset, I'm not in a rush to sunset. The O'Galley CRA depends on what the needs are there and if there's more economic development that can benefit. So I view this as a good thing and I'm looking forward to hearing what staff comes back with. Thank you. So I think that if this was primarily about the parking garage, we wouldn't even be here because that's what it originally was, was about the parking garage. So my direction to staff would be a little different, I think. I don't know about the 90 percent, maybe that's negotiable, but not by a lot in my opinion. I would also say that if people are paying to build it, they should get to park there for free for quite a while, at least as long as they've been paying taxes to build the thing. Maybe that's not 50 years. The bond council, I think, maybe should be the one who decides what the most economical way to proceed is, and I'm not crazy about going higher as far as the bond. So that's my two cents. I would have to agree with Commissioner Atkinson. I think that personally for me, I can't support this today, but I would be okay. I would feel much better about it if we negotiated a better deal for the residents in that area. Because like Commissioner Altman said, I mean, there's nothing more annoying than going to a parking garage and figuring out that system because they all have different ones. So I would definitely like to see staff, you know, try to negotiate hard on behalf of the residents that are paying for this and, you know, that they should be able to use it for free. Thank you. Well, the good news is we're not voting on the final plan today. We're voting to give direction to staff to go negotiate with the city of Melbourne and come back with a plan. So I have a motion that I will make. Hopefully you can support this. I would delegate the county manager, the county attorney, and our new chair, Chair Altman, to negotiate with the city. I'm going to take the city up on the idea that the CRA sunsets in 2033. I think that's a better deal for the county five years earlier. I want to see no differential in parking fees, whatever that is, down the road, whether that's five years or whatever the group collectively decides. So that means county residents, city residents, guests staying the night down there, people from out of town, one fee. Everybody drives in there, it's three bucks, whatever the case may be. And then, finally, all money collected in parking fees shall be used for the maintenance of the parking garage. So I can appreciate that you don't want to saddle your taxpayers with the maintenance of the garage. That's my motion. Yes. Is there a second? I have a friendly amendment. Okay. Would you consider free parking at least as long as it's going to take to build the thing and to allow the bond council to recommend the most economical way to proceed? Certainly the bond council. I think that's – I'm not a – I don't issue bonds, so the point's well taken. I think they'd have to do that. But as far as the length of time, I think that can be negotiated with Melbourne, and I think that ought to be attached to the 2033 sunset of the CRA. So I see those two as linked together. So does that mean you will agree they need free parking or not? I would want to see that in the final plan. How they get to 2033 sunset to me is the more important issue. Okay, so you're not going to accept that amendment of free parking at least as long as it's taken up. I don't know we give – I don't know we can give that direction today to staff. But I'll tell you what. I'll accept as an amendment that they'll negotiate that, and we'll see what comes back. So we can certainly suggest that. They have a position. They're going to suggest something else. So as far as the negotiating point, to make it easy, let's have that included in your amendment. Do you want to rephrase what she said as a part of your amendment? Okay, so I think I understand that what you're asking for is that the free parking be for as long as the CRA lasts. Is that right? As long as people have been taxed, yes. Okay, but does that mean until 2033? Okay, I would accept that as a friendly amendment. Are we clear on the motion then? Free parking clarity. Okay. Let me just start from the beginning. Delegate the county manager, county attorney, and the county commission chair, Altman, to negotiate with the city. All money collected in parking fees shall be used for the maintenance of the parking garage. The CRA sunsets in 2033. There will be no differential in parking fees, whether that's overnight stays, that's Brevard residents, that's out-of-town residents, that's city residents. No differential in parking fees. And that the free parking continues until the CRA is sunset in 2033. I have a question. So does that mean eight years of free parking, or does that mean 12 years of free parking? I guess the question is when does the parking garage construction begin? I don't think we're there yet. Well, then maybe we need to say a certain time frame after the parking garage is completed. How about we say eight years? You want to split that? So for eight years? Eight's not the same as 50. Right, that's what I was just about to say, that we're going from 50 years of free parking to eight. I understand. I really do get this dilemma. I look at the things that the county is saddled with today and that we don't have revenue to take care of. And so I don't want to set the city up for failure, certainly, in taking care of what is not just their asset but ours, right? Our taxpayers has helped pay for that, too. Right, but how many people from Scottsmoor are going to O'Galley? I can't answer that, Commissioner. I go to all kinds of different places across the state of Florida and have parked in garages. There have been a garage I parked in recently where on the weekends it's free. They only charge during the week. I think there's some ways that they could get there and we could bring something back to the board and debate that then. Isn't there also a stormwater change that's prompting this? Aren't they trying to get around some stormwater changes in regards to the construction of this building? I can't speak to that specifically. Perhaps the city could speak to that issue. Yes, right now the design, we are trying to accelerate the design portion of it to the stormwater rules change, and that site is almost 100% impervious now. And so we are trying to, we will still have stormwater treatment, but yes, we are trying to accelerate the design of that. So I personally feel like, I'm sorry, I personally feel like we are giving up a lot here. We're giving up stormwater changes. We're giving up many, many years of free parking. We're, I mean, we're allowing them to have more money to construct this thing that, you know, I'm not against a parking garage, but I just think that, you know, this deal needs to work for all parties, not, and it just feels really one-sided right now. Look, and keep in mind, we're, we're not making a final decision here. We're giving some general guidance, so we'll vote on something, but your input's important, your, all of our input's important, so when the staff has sticky items, so the main thing is getting the ball rolling, and I wouldn't be surprised if the staff would be reporting back to us in future meetings, kind of, kind of letting us know how things are going. But agreeing to a motion right now, that's what the staff said to use to go forward. That's true, that's true, it gives them some guidelines, but we're not going to negotiate it here. You know, I, I wanted to, and maybe I could ask the mayor that, to put an amendment in this, that in the event that the old O'Galley boundaries de-annex and recreates their municipality and separates from Melbourne, the garage would go with them. Oh, boy. Okay, we won't, I won't. You know, I'm an old O'Galley guy as well, and I will say, again, this is something that when you talk about the stormwater, when you build something, it's under the current codes, and that's what we're just doing right now, is keeping it under the current codes, that's all we're doing. We're not trying to change anything. Again, we've been working on this since about five years now, and again, when we talk about even Commissioners Tobias and Zonka, this was a, this was something that we worked out. Hey, we want all the money to go to this parking garage because it's that important. So, again, I hear everybody understand, I do not like paying for parking. I agree with that. My only issue is, how do we pay for the maintenance down the road? That is it. Again, it does test. And, by the way, Melbourne's done a wonderful job on this, too. We appreciate it. Yeah. And one thing about stormwater, parking garages are a heck of a lot better for stormwater off than expansive, sprawling parking lots. I have a question about that. In the design, there's different materials that could be used now, and I feel like every day it's becoming easier. And I'm a big fan of that, the survey services, because instead of paving, for example, the pavers, you can put the pavers in. I'm talking to the developers. That's something that we stress, that in the arts district, it's going to look like an arts hotel, that we use those kind of services, the bricks that take in the water as opposed to just blacktops. So, I kind of see the evolution of O'Galley now. If you go down there, a lot of that's happening now. It's definitely different, and it's the way to go. So, I absolutely hear every one of you. I agree with every one of you on making sure this is done right. But I do know the history and, you know, following the other commissioners and you. We'll get there. We'll get there. I'm sure we will. And, again, I appreciate each and every one of you, your comment, because I'm sitting there thinking about the 2033, and I'm giving a thumbs up, because I agree with that. We can sunset this faster. All the money is going to this parking garage. And, again, if we waited for the new codes, it may be an additional million dollars. And that's why when you build something, you try to build it under the current codes, not codes that may come out later. Okay? Any other questions? Thank you, sir. You know, on the parking, paid parking, I think there's variables in that. I know where there are parking attendants, I don't have half the heartburn. Like in Clement Plaza and Tallahassee, you go to park, there's always an attendant there. But that just makes it so much easier. But as we get into the negotiation, we can get into the nitty-gritty. But we want to hear your motion and try to follow us closely. We can separate the parking part to just be part of the negotiation, if you like. I see these as some minimums. Okay? So I wanted to put some minimums in there. So, one, I'll say again, delegate the county manager, county attorney, and the chair of the commission, Commissioner Altman, to negotiate with the city. All money collected in the future in parking fees shall be used for the maintenance of the parking garage. So we're not giving them a revenue stream. They're going to use the money to take care of the asset that we both jointly built. No differential in parking fees. So that is everyone pays the same in parking fees. Whether you're visiting Brevard, you live in Brevard, you're a city of Melbourne resident, whatever. You're doing business down there. And then I'm going to take them up on the 20-33 deadline. I think that's a good thing for the county. That's five years of TIF funding that comes back to us. So I think those are good things. So that would be my motion, then. Okay. Very good motion. Is there a second? Can I add a friendly amendment? Okay. Could we add in that in the spirit of the coming stormwater changes, that they do everything in their power to use as many LID construction practices as possible? Okay. I would accept that as a friendly amendment. I think the city is amenable to that also, right? So as much low-impact development practices as possible with a mind towards dealing with stormwater on site and modern-day practices there. Okay? Okay. That included. That's a good motion. And is there a second? Do I hear a second? Is Commissioner Goodson even still on the phone? Are you there, Commissioner Goodson? I'm here. I'm here. Okay. I'm here. Okay, good. A motion dies for like a second. I don't hear a second. All right. Does anyone have a motion that they would like to offer? Wow. So we need to give staff some direction. I think we're going to need to have a motion of some sort. If not, we'll need to table this item and have it heard at the next meeting. I make a motion to table. Okay. There's a motion to table. Is there a second? Second. We need to have a date certain. Can we table it to the next zoning meeting? Because it needs to be a regular scheduled meeting. I believe the next regular scheduled meeting is December 2nd. I think that would be ahead of your zoning. Okay. There's a motion to table to the next regular scheduled commission meeting, December 2nd. Notice no debate on the table, so I'll call the – I'll make this a roll call vote here. I'll let staff make the call the roll. This is to table to December 2nd. Yes. Commissioner Delaney. Yes. Commissioner Goodson. Yes. Vice Chair Atkinson. Yes. Chairman Altman. Yes. Commissioner Feltner. Yes. Okay. Motion carries unanimously. We will follow up with staff. We'll get some more information, and I'm certain – obviously some commissioners have more questions, so we'll get those answered. We really appreciate you being here, Mayor, and City Attorney, and City Manager. It's a great honor having you here, and we'll work this out. Okay. All right. So we will move on to J5, Legislative Intent, Staff Direction, Future Funding Needs for Restoring Health to the Indian River Lagoon, Municipal Support for the County Managing Dedicated Funds and Public Items. I had put this request on the agenda, and first of all – and this staff – it spells out the general direction we'd like to give to staff. But I'd like to start out pointing out that this is not a decision to put the Havson Infrastructure Sales Tax or whatever portion of a sales tax we choose to put on the ballot. It came to my attention that if we were to wait to do these things, the ministerial things that we need to do to offer this to the public to vote, if we were to wait to, for example, this spring, it would be too late. We wouldn't be able to provide the technical support and the information and the data necessary to make an educated decision, as well as the fact that staff can't do this without the direction from the board. It would put them in the position of looking like they were advocating for placing it back on the agenda. So this simply empowers staff to do the due diligence that needs to be done if we were to consider placing this very successful program back on the ballot and giving the public an opportunity to vote on it. I know Virginia is here. I'd like for her to make a few comments, too. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you said, this is a citizen request placed on the agenda by your office to start a multi-step process to consider renewing the Save Our Renewing River Lagoon sales tax. So just a quick walk through history. The 2016 referendum was a mandate from the voters to restore health, prosperity, and resilience to the lagoon, not just in good times but also through bad times, including heavy storms. However, this new program was harder than starting from zero and accelerating flight speed. In 2016, the lagoon was in a rapid downward spiral, getting worse and worse each year. From the 2011 super bloom to the 2012 brown tide to the 2013 unusual mortality events of dolphins, manatees, and pelicans to the worst fish kill in the recorded history of the lagoon. Before we could start making the lagoon better, we had to first slow down and reverse the rapid decline that was well underway. At the same time, we had to build a new program from scratch with good governance, transparency, accountability, accessibility, and flexibility. The collective wisdom of commissioners, the Citizen Oversight Committee, Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program Committee members, agencies, city, and county staff, non-governmental organizations, citizen scientists, volunteers, as well as countless academic and professional peers have all been integral to our success. Brevard's investment in the lagoon supports recreation, tourism, and real estate. It's helped to grow jobs and retain workforce talent. The tax has provided an opportunity to advance clean water technology businesses in Brevard. Dedicated local funds have made it possible to plan and implement challenging multi-year capital improvement projects and effectively compete to secure over $110 million in state and federal grants to modernize our infrastructure and attract venture capital. These investments inspire new solutions that accelerate innovation and advance human expertise in clean water technologies so that our workforce can lead Florida and perhaps the U.S. in scalable solutions, technology transfers, and be a beacon of local stewardship. Since 2016, we have overcome a global pandemic, supply chain issues, and skyrocketing inflation to complete 116 community projects and over 2,200 individual homeowner projects. We have reduced nitrogen pollution by over a million pounds. The annual value of the entire lagoon, as you heard this morning, has grown from an estimated $7.6 billion to nearly four times higher at $28.3 billion. For every $1 invested in lagoon restoration, the latest economic assessment indicates a $24 return on investment. We've gone from performance tracking using monthly grab samples at a few dozen locations to weekly mapping of water quality across the entire water body using satellite imagery. And now we are embarking on a model that will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to forecast future water quality conditions and facilitate preemptive response measures. The 2016 downward spiral has been replaced by a strong upward trajectory, evidenced by job growth, wage growth, tourism growth, property value growth, improved water clarity, better water quality, and encouraging seagrass and marine life recovery. But we are not done yet. Long-term success requires continued strategic investments dedicated to lowering the impact of development through implementing updated septic, stormwater, and wastewater regulations, embracing more Florida-friendly, lagoon-loyal lifestyles, all guided by decision science using timely data collected and analyzed for evidence-based adaptive management. We have built a good governance structure with intergovernmental collaborations, partnerships with businesses, NGOs, academics, and students. Our citizen oversight committee considers public input monthly. The Save Our New Mer Lagoon program is ready for whatever direction the board gives today, and staff are here to answer your questions. Thank you. Okay, good. That was a very, very formative and thorough update of the program. We have cards. First speaker is Craig Wallace. Chairman, board, thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. I'm with Craig Wallace, the chairman of the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition. We're a leading, independent, unifying voice, connecting community partners to restore the Indian River Lagoon. Our members and partner organizations strongly support funding for science-based efforts to restore the Brevard County portion of the Indian River Lagoon. In 2016, we assumed a leadership role in the efforts to pass the half-cent sales tax referendum for the Save R&D River Lagoon project plan, which Virginia just spoke about. This was approved by a majority of voters in every precinct of the county. Funding for this program expires in 26-2026, as you're aware. We are seeing some positive results from this work, as Virginia has just documented, but we have a long way to go before we have a full return of stabilizing seagrass to the lagoon. We are prepared to launch an effort similar to what we did in 2016, a renewal for the renewal of the sales tax in 2026. So today, we strongly encourage your vote on this agenda item to initiate the renewal planning process. As was explained, this is just to get the process started. This request includes the development of the ballot language associated ordinance items that you will need before considering the request to approve it, hopefully next year. Starting this process now will allow staff time to identify the needs, inform the citizens of the county about what the program would look like going forward, receive their input, which is critical, and be ready for the ballot referendum deadline in August. Brevard's unique Save R&D River Lagoon program has attracted matching state and federal grants and has just received the Brilliance Award from the East Coast Florida Regional Planning Council, a pretty significant award. So we're asking you simply, please vote to allow the staff to develop the plan to continue restoration of the Indian River Lagoon, which provides much more than what we had originally anticipated. You've heard all the numbers annually for annual local impact. And we thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Well, thank you for your service and your interest in protecting the lagoon. Are there any questions? Do we have any questions? Okay. Next speaker, Megan Murphy. Get my milk and rinse it out, but I sent it for me. I don't have any prepared remarks. I would introduce myself to say that I'm a Sun Tree mom. I'm a nurse, and I live in a community that is aging but has a good brand. I'm happy to hear that almost every topic that you've discussed today relates to stormwater, because I think it's one of the number one things that homeowners need to understand. These ladies that were here from the north end of the county. I live in the east central part of the county. We have so many issues related to erosion. The trees on the right-of-ways are opportunities to control stormwater and beautify our community. Flooding. All of those things impact individual homeowners, homeowners associations, the county at large. And then all of the economic development impacts and environmental impacts that you're talking about are these high-level pieces that you guys are dealing with. But as a homeowner, as a mom, as somebody who works in my community to help people understand, we need you to continue to stay focused on the impacts of stormwater, the environmental impacts, and the financial impacts that it has on every single one of us. And our tax dollars are important. We are paying for all of these things. So the idea that you would say we need to use these LID interventions when we're making a construction commitment, when we're going to be making community impact decisions, we need to communicate that to individual homeowners so that they know about the swales in their backyard, about rain gardens for stormwater mitigation, and then how to achieve those goals when we don't have access to large infrastructure, construction equipment, and those kinds of things. These are the public-private partnerships that we need you to continue to focus on. So thanks for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, Louis Continent? Continent? He had to leave. He had to leave. Okay. Sandra Sullivan? Sandra Sullivan. So the number one metric on whether the lagoon is succeeding in restoration or not is seagrass. And I've been posting about the FWC seagrass map, and it's kind of interesting because there isn't a whole lot of seagrass in Brevard County. You look at some of the surrounding counties, and they have seagrass. So we're the only county with a lagoon tax, and we have the worst degradation, we have the most manatee deaths, and we have by far almost most of the dolphin deaths in the Indian River Lagoon. So in 2010, the state made a legislative change to lay off 1,300 workers, this is according to MRC, and switch to broadcast spraying of herbicides. And so when I look at what the other counties around us did, is they stopped spraying. Brevard didn't. Although you did a year ago on our canals in our area. So I've read a lot of BOCC meetings, and I want to go back to this article in 2016 on legislators proposed tapping sales tax to remove muck. And Mr. Allman, you were a representative then, and along with Mayfield, you're both cited in this article as saying, Florida State Statute 212.055, the infrastructure surtax, does not allow for environmental muck dredging under the law, and that you're going to change this law. Well, when you look at the bill that's cited in here, it failed in appropriations. It didn't fail once. It failed twice. So when you look at the law now, it still does not allow muck dredging. So I've been going to the RAB meetings for Patrick's Space Force Base, Air Force Base, since 2018. And they did a remedial investigation study in early 2015 that prompted the idea of the muck tax. And that's what it was called. And that study, so they had a Florida DEP permit to dispose their AFFF firefighting to the river from Florida DEP. Now, in scientific studies, and even stated by Ms. Virginia at sorrel meetings, is that long-chain PFOS tend to bind organic molecules to sediment, especially high organic. And so the original plan that came out had a very high percentage of muck dredging, 66%. And pollution is not in there, even though it's in the CCMP. And I'm just going to wrap up, and I'm going to make a suggestion. My suggestion is, as an environmental advocate, in 2016, we really needed the lagoon tax. What I'm going to suggest to you now is, our critical need is infrastructure. And the sewage dumps and our infrastructure pipes that are 60 years old and the INI, that's what we need to address. This is an infrastructure surtax under Florida Statute 212. We should focus and change this intent to look at a one-cent sales tax, transportation, stormwater, and sewage and infrastructure. I think that would pass. This won't pass. People look at the lagoon, and they go, they think sorrel is an abysmal failure. Try it. Okay, thank you. For your input, Jenny Lamb, City Manager of Melbourne. Jenny Lamb, City of Melbourne, City Manager. I will keep this very brief. I just want to say that the City of Melbourne has been an active partner in many sorrel projects. We've worked very closely with your natural resources team and with Virginia. And it is also, it has been a long-standing priority of Melbourne City Council to support programs to fund, manage, protect, and restore the lagoon and contributing waters. And that's really all I wanted to say today is, we are supportive of any type of program, of this program. You know, if it's for this program to continue, that Melbourne City Council is supportive of that. Great. Thank you. It's been great having you a partner in that program. Okay, those are all our cards, and we're back on the agenda item. And I think what we're looking for is approval from the commission to allow staff to proceed. I know it was mentioned about the different things. Sandra, you mentioned that. That's certainly what we want to look. We don't want to pigeonhole the staff or any direction. We want to solicit public input. This is an effort, a planning process. We're not putting something solid on the agenda. We're beginning that process. So, any discussion? Yes. I'm sorry. I have an amendment, if you'd consider it, then maybe we could discuss the item further. Okay, let's discuss it, and then if there's some amendments, that's fine, too. Do you want to talk about your amendment now? I think it would be easier if we go to the amendment first. Okay, go ahead. It's my opinion, Mr. Chair, if you'd indulge me. I suggest, I like the idea of two workshops. We have a lot of meetings in this part of the county. I think one, and I'm proposing two evening workshops in January, one to be at Titusville City Council Chambers. I've already checked with the city. And then a second one at Palm Bay Council Chambers. In Titusville, we could do January, between January 5th and 9th, so a Monday even to the Friday. I don't think anybody wants to do it on Friday, but that's available to us, if we were to take it. In Palm Bay, and I've got other dates, but it looks like maybe the premium date would be January the 12th, and that's on Monday. I think a 5 p.m. to, you know, time certain we're walking out of there for the purpose of their staff and everybody else, 9 p.m. I think something like that would work, that would give the public the opportunity to come and speak. We can obviously talk to each other. We can have, you know, start with a presentation. So on number four in the agenda packet, where it says solicit input to be considered, this is my amendment specifically to that item. Oh, I think that's a good amendment. Definitely. So I'd accept that. I would, it would be better for my schedule if we could do the 5th or the 6th rather than the end of the week, but I could make whatever work. Do you have to decide on a date right now? Well, I think for the purpose of the cities that we need to give them some, I mean, they use their chambers, they have different events. This is what I got from them yesterday. So I think, you know, just as a guy who used to book space, I think we need to let them know and let our staff know. So that's... I'm worried 12th is okay on my staff. Same. Was it the other day? So the 12th would be Palm Bay if we're all open to that. I think that's the, I think that's the better day. Okay, Titusville, we could do anywhere from the 5th to the 9th. I heard 5th or 6th from Commissioner Delaney. These days are okay with me too. So that's three for 5th. Cool. Monday's usually good for me. So do you want me to restate what amendment and then we'll be back on the item? Absolutely. Do you want to do it that way, sir? Restate that amendment. We'll fold it into the... Okay. Very good. So I'm going to... My amendment is that we have a workshop in Titusville, Titusville City Chamber, Council Chambers, January 5th, 5 p.m. in Titusville. We have a second one in Palm Bay, Monday, January 12th at 5 p.m. I also, I think, 9 p.m. time certain, we leave. And that is, again, for the purpose of the cities, you know, their staff closing up, et cetera. That's my amendment. Okay. That amendment is accepted in the general motion that I will make. Mr. Chair, just to make sure, it's mostly me to understand. So the Board of County Commissioner is hosting a workshop with all five of you in public session, sort of like what we do in the Florida River. Yes. Right. Yes, same idea. I'm just trying to be sensitive to, I think we need to go to North County and we need to go to South County. And we have a lot of meetings in this facility here. I think that's superb. You know, when I first was elected in the 80s, we met. Yeah. We were traveling roadshow. Yep. Maybe not. It was kind of a good thing. Not to that extent, but I think this is good. That's why judges were originally circuit judges, because they used to ride the circuit. Oh, really? Yeah. Learn something every day. That's good. Okay. You have something, Commissioner Delaney? So when I talk to staff about this in my briefing, I think this is great that we're going forward to decide how we want to move forward. And all the public input, I love that. So thank you, Commissioner Feltner, for proposing those workshops. One of my concerns also is after the considerable amount of flooding that we've experienced this year, we have somewhere around $400 million in the Sorrel plan that's earmarked to get spent on certain projects and whatnot. And I just want to put it out there for the board to see if there's any consideration that maybe we could look at that and see what projects, how far along they are. I certainly wouldn't want to waste money as far as, like, if a project is almost permitted, let's just finish the thing and, you know, make sure that that process is solidified. So it could be a shovel-ready project, possibly for, you know, appropriations that we could go and fight for. But I think that it's really clear, in my mind at least, and for my residents that I've spoken to, that we need to make some changes and we need to start, like, yesterday. Between the state of our sewage plants and the stormwater situation and whatnot. And while I understand that, you know, a boat is moving in a direction, we could change that at any point to focus on the real infrastructure needs that we have right now, today. And there's this pot of money that's just sitting there. Could I say something on that, Mr. Chair? Yeah. Commissioner, on your behalf, I've asked about stormwater projects in the North County, and I think there's opportunity also. And I think there is money sitting there. I've had discussion with, short discussion with Virginia that is there. It isn't designed. But I think these two things can come together pretty nicely, which is stormwater and, you know, keeping nutrients out of the lagoon, right? Because keeping runoff from going into the lagoon. So really, one of the things that happens in some of these older areas that were built before 1985 really is that there just isn't stormwater retention. Right. And so I think there's some opportunity. I certainly would explore that with you. So I think that can be dark. Thank you. Okay. Is there any other discussion? I know it's been brought to my attention that some have advocated, including the St. John's Basin, in this overall lagoon. And I think that's worth looking at as well, because without a healthy St. John's Basin, we probably would never have a healthy lagoon either. Those two systems are so intricately tied. I kind of use the example of the Everglades and Florida Bay. And we're losing that floodplain. We've lost so much of that floodplain that needs to be restored. And that's another reason we're seeing some of the flooding. And it also has significant water quality impacts. So I would not be adverse to at least having us consider that. This is what this is about, engaging the public and looking at other issues. So this gives the public time to do that. If we were to wait, they wouldn't have the time to do it. Right. So that's sort of the intent. Okay. So I would entertain a motion to direct the staff to proceed in the process, given the five items that are listed in the agenda request. Approved legislative intent. And I'll just summarize. Direct staff to work with municipalities. Three, direct staff to work with municipalities. Three, to direct staff with municipalities and community-owned project plans that are most cost-effective. Select public input to be considered. Direct staff to develop ballot language. And I'll add a number six would be the amendment that Commissioner Felton included. Is there a motion to that effect? I have a question. Yes. So could we direct staff to look, if the board, of course, wishes, could we direct staff to look at the possibility of a 1% tax and to include transportation, kind of do it as a whole package so that we could address all of our infrastructure needs? Is there any discussion on that? Yeah. I like to keep things separate and simple. I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to hearing that on its own. But I think sticking it with this wouldn't be my preferred way of going forward. Commissioner Felton, I saw you. I just, my two cents is I think you can, I mean, the ballot language doesn't have to, you know, it's not an emergency, certainly. It helps to get it worked out soon. But we could certainly take that issue up specifically after the workshops. So that would be an opportunity for us all to discuss this together as a group over two evenings with the public. And then you could get the ballot language where you want it. Sounds good. Yeah. We want to listen to the public. So we don't know what may come out of those public hearings. So I'm going to make the motion that you just said. Okay. Mr. Chair. All right. There's a motion by Commissioner Atkinson. Is there a second? I'll second. Second by Commissioner Feltner. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying yay. Yay? Aye. Yay. Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Thank you. We will move forward. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. You still have the hospital issue. Yeah. Let's go back to J. There is a J6 on notice, too. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, that's J. I'm sorry. We apologize. That was my fault putting on that is the plates as we change over from Chairman that makes the clerk so she can pay all the bills for us. Okay. We'll work on that. So moved. Thank you. There's a motion. Is there a second? Okay. All in favor signify by saying aye. Yes. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. That carries unanimously. Aye. Thank you. Let's go back to the hospital issue J3. Okay. If I could, I don't mean to jump in front of everybody, but this is something that I feel really passionate about, it's something I campaigned on, it's something that I was elected to advocate on behalf of, and I had a conversation with Mr. McInerney, and of course he had mentioned to me that there were two people that he would like to see on this board, and those just so happened to be the two people that got appointed, or that won our tallies there. I'm sure you all have had those reach outs as well, not just from him, but from a particular lobbyist, and I'm just, I'm wondering, you know, how you guys came to your choice, and was it simply that, you know, that they said that these are the people we want, or was it that you looked through all the resumes and you said that that is, you know, these are the people that I think would do the best job, bring some diversity, bring some new and fresh ideas, because I just want to speak on behalf of a couple of people that, you know, I was hoping to have on this board, and one of them was Christopher Childs, and as he explained, his job for many, many years was going into hospitals, working with the staff, working with the boards and the leadership of these hospitals, I mean, this is a person who makes, who has made thousands of dollars, you know, providing these services, and he's here volunteering to do this job for free, that he could get paid, you know, many, many dollars, you know, to do this as a job, you know, and as a public hospital who does not assess a millage at this point, that, again, would be, the millage would be assessed on my residence, that I feel like somebody who is skilled and has the experience in the IT world would bring much value to this board, somebody who understands how to look into the systems and processes of a hospital and save a million dollars, I mean, that, that to me is a no-brainer, and I would think that a public hospital would want that type of expertise on their board, and then the other person that I was hoping was, um, the person named Kyle Mack, and, um, they have fire rescue background, and the thing about that is that that is a vital role, um, that's, I think, missing from the hospital board, is somebody that has the experience, um, of, you know, our, our, our wall times, as they call it, and the, the role that, um, EMS has on, uh, our hospitals, and I think that, you know, those two voices, those two, um, experiences would be pivotal to make this board, uh, more successful, to get better processes, and at the end of the day, have better outcomes for the patients of this hospital, and, um, you know, so I'm, I'm really curious as to, uh, another thing that I had mentioned to, um, you know, in my conversations that I've had with people about this, is that, um, you know, there are people who, they are awesome, um, with their people skills, and they do a great job raising money for, for, um, say, for the foundation of Parrish Hospital. Um, it's a different set of skills to run a hospital, and to make the policies and procedures that go into, into that, and they're, you know, one's more analytical, one's more, you know, you have, uh, um, they're different roles, and not saying that one is better than the other, it's just, you know, where do your skills and your, your, um, attributes, where can we use those the best, and not everybody who serves on a board is great at, you know, raising money, and, you know, vice versa. So, um, I'm extremely concerned that it would be like Mr. Leisenfeld going out, campaigning for a, um, commissioner. That would be the same situation. I, I feel like it's inappropriate. I feel like it's, um, it's not what should happen, because the board of directors is who, you know, uh, hires and fires the CEO, just like how we hire and fire the county manager, and it's, there's rules against that. I can't imagine us as a board being, uh, okay with our county manager going out and campaigning for, for candidates. Um, so with that being said, I, I, I really feel like my constituency deserves a reasoning as to why people that got chosen got chosen. Okay, and I think what we're going to need, and I can respond to that, but just to put this in the proper posture, we will need a motion by the board and a vote. Is that correct? I can make a motion. Morris? Yes, sir. Uh, as far as first would be probably a motion on our ballot that we filled out. Uh, I can tell you, um, uh, I don't think anyone has to justify why they voted. I trust everyone's on this board to, to do the right thing, and I think their motives are right, and I respect everyone's, everyone's, um, judgment. I can tell you from my point of view, what was important to me, I think continuity was important, consistency and stability. Uh, that's why I voted for incumbents. You know, we've had some really tough things happen. We've lost an entire hospital. Uh, we've had to restructure the way we provide emergency services to adjust for that. I know there's, there's a lot of healthcare challenges, and I, I think it's time for some continuity and stability. My experience to this hospital has been extremely positive, and I, that's why I support it. I can't, I can say it is, I think it's a wonderful facility, and that's why I voted the way I did. So you didn't get a message from a particular lobbyist? Well, I reached out to a number of people, but, um, I, I try not to make these decisions in the void. That's sad. I think it's fair for my constituency to hear from you guys. I, a lot of times I say these things, and I just get looked at with silence, and it's not right. My constituents, this is our hospital in District 1, and I understand people from all over the county use it, but the majority of people that this hospital serves is District 1, and we're the people who will be paying for it if the leadership decides to, um, impose a millage at some point. And I, it is not right for the public, this is for the public, to be met with silence. Okay, I think what we, we need is a motion. I would like to make a motion to appoint Kyle Mack and Christopher Childs to the, um, North Brevard Hospital District. Is there a second? Is there a second? Okay, that motion dies for lack of a second. I like it, for lack of a second. Is there a motion on the slate of appointments that we voted on? Do we have a motion? I'll make a motion to appoint... President Goodson, did I hear you? Yes, I'd like to make a motion to nominate Melissa Lugo and Billy Fitzgerald. May I ask Mr. Chair for some clarification to Mr. Goodson's motion? Okay. Commissioner Goodson, Melissa Lugo applied for seat four, and Billy Fitzgerald applied for seat eight. Would your motion be to appoint Ms. Fitzgerald to seat eight and Ms. Lugo to seat four? Yes, that is correct. Thank you, sir. Okay, Commissioner Goodson made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Second by, um, Commissioner Delaney. Commissioner Atkinson was the second. Oh, Commissioner Atkinson seconded the motion. Okay, sorry. Okay, is there any discussion on the motion? I have discussion. Yes. Um, I have to reiterate again that this is, this is the first time in ten years, in ten years, that the District 1 Commissioner has not had their say and their input in this process. The first time in ten years, and that's just as many years as I've looked back. I would, I would gamble to say that every year since its existence, the D1 appoint, has appointed the people that they saw fit. This is based off of two years of campaigning, knocking on 15,000 doors, speaking to even so many more people than that. And the input from the community is, we want you because we want something different going on. We want some new voices going on at this hospital. And so, I just want to make it really clear, by you all, the four of you, going against District 1 and their wishes, that's what you're doing right now. The entire community of District 1. And they made that perfectly clear when they elected me. This is, this is uncalled for. This is not the way it should be. You know, Commissioner Atkinson and Commissioner Altman, you all got to decide, you know, on your Melbourne Tillman board. And I personally, I'm sorry, I don't have a level of trust because of the silence that I've been met with on this board. I don't have a level of trust to know that you could even tell me one thing about any of these other applicants. Mr. Chair. Yes. Commissioner Delaney, every single one of these CVs I have in front of me has been highlighted with the notes by myself. Okay. I decided to pick the people I picked because of the research that I did, mostly using their CVs, to be fair. Yeah. I'm sorry. I just, I'm not buying that. Um, and I don't mean disrespect by saying that, but it's just, it's, it's very clear that we were told who wanted, who was wanted to be on this board. And, you know, obviously those two people won, but I think that it's imperative that the public knows that this happened and that, you know, all I can say is vote wisely. Thank you. Okay. Uh, any other discussion? Uh, seeing none, uh, let's make this a roll call vote. I'd like to have a step. Go ahead and call the roll. Commissioner Delaney. No. Commissioner Goodson. Yes. Vice Chair Atkinson. Yes. Chair Altman. Yes. Commissioner Feltner. Yes. Okay. By your motion, uh, so for one vote, the nominees are appointed. Okay, we have cards for K public comment. First one is Shane Murphy, Sandra Sullivan. After that, she's pretty close to up being up front, Richard Verber, and then Marcus Smith. Hello. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we hear you well. All right. Chair, commissioners, and community members, thank you for granting me the time to speak today. My name is Shane. I'm a resident of South Rivard here on behalf of Space Coast DSA. I'm here because a child from our community, 16-year-old American citizen Mohamed Ibrahim of Palm Bay, Florida, has been unjustly imprisoned abroad for nearly nine months. His family lives here, his friends live here, and this county has a responsibility to stand with the residents when their children are in danger. In February of this year, while visiting relatives in the West Bank, over 25 heavily armed Israeli soldiers entered his family's home at 3 a.m., tied his hands, blindfolded him, and took him from his bed. He was 15 years old. Since then, Mohamed has been held in an Israeli military prison. The same system extensively documented for severe abuses, torture, and routine violations of international law. For nine months, Mohamed's parents here in Florida have not been allowed a single phone call with their son. He has lost more than 25% of his body weight, developed scabies due to this condition, and has been denied adequate food and medical care. These are not abstract allegations. These are documented facts reported by human rights organizations, national news outlets, and members of Congress who have already sounded the alarm. Mohamed turned 16 years old inside Ofar prison, alone. That should never happen to any American child, and certainly not to one who comes from our own county. Right now, federal interventions have been slow and insufficient, despite public statements acknowledging that Mohamed should have never been arrested. The State Department has not secured his release. Hearings continue to be delayed, and Mohamed's health continue to decline. Every day that passes is another day that this child's life is put at risk. This is not a foreign policy debate. This is a local family in crisis. A Florida teenager, one of her own, is being starved, mistreated, and denied process. Our county has a moral duty to stand with his family and help bring their son home alive. Today, I'm asking the board to take two concrete steps. Issue a formal county resolution calling for the immediate release and safe return of Mohamed Ibrahim, affirming that Brevard County stands with all of its residents, including Palestinian American families, who deserve equal protections under U.S. law. Two, send a joint letter from this board to the White House, the State Department, and our congressional delegation, urging urgent intervention before it's too late. As elected leaders, you have the authority to stand with a local family. May I finish? I urge you to act urgently, decisively, and publicly. His life depends on you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, Sandra Sullivan. Sandra Sullivan. So you talked maybe about redirecting some of the lagoon tax to stormwater. So I want to just mention, so in 2010, the seagrass meadows were as good as 1943. In 2010, we started spraying herbicides. So there have been multiple seagrass planting projects, including one right here, cost analysis case studies, talking about a $5 million project in central IRL. There have been multiple projects at Samson Island and Satellite Beach. Guess what? Seagrass doesn't grow there. It keeps dying. Why? Because salinity is too low. And so recently, you know, there's a new project being built right now in Satellite Beach. They eradicated the wetlands. They made the retention pond smaller, and the developer said, we're going to improve the stormwater on the site. Well, when I dug into it with Florida Department of Transportation, guess where they put the stormwater? To the canal, to the Banana River. And that's what's going on. So I'm not going to go, and I'm just going to call the lagoon tax. We got mucked, okay? And in the new, in the lagoon plan as it is, there's over $1 billion in muck projects. Going back to the article dated December 1st, 2015, Mayfield told the Indian River Council Friday during the regular monthly meeting, it's actually a current program that can be used for infrastructure. We're just going to add mucking to what the tax can be used for. Unfortunately, the changes to that legislation, Florida Statute 212.055, failed. Now, I'm going to say it gets much worse. You had a $49 million muck project for O'Galley. Now, this project was originally $27 million for O'Galley North and South. It's currently budgeted in there for $165 million. Why? Because there's some real estate deal going on with Sarno Lands, according to Melbourne Council Minutes. So we're pumping muck 8.1 miles. Now, this is about to be approved and entered into a contract. And I'm asking you guys to bring this to an agenda item here, because you rejected the $49 million, and Natural Resources went out and rebid it on your request, reduced the muck by two-thirds, took out the interstitial clean-out, and then wrote the bid to say, we'll add these things back in as change orders. But it gets worse. A couple meetings ago, you guys approved piggybacking contracts. And Sallie Beach is 13 miles away. And so it's written into the grants by Brevard County, the intention to piggyback on this ridiculous O'Galley project, this Sallie Beach Indian Harbor project. So what's that going to be? $75 million more? $80 million more? You're talking pumping muck 10 miles to Palm Bay? Because why? Because there's some real estate deal going on? I mean, I don't even think, I think there's a big legal issue here that this muck dredging is not even legal. In the legume plan, there is a $250 million NASA Banana River project to muck, which is not yet funded. And I'm just going to say, this muck dredging for the PFAS contamination should be paid by the federal government. And we got mucked. We need to change the shift to infrastructure, to sewage, stormwater, roads, and key issues. Thank you. Next speaker, Richard Weber. Yes. Hi, y'all. Weber, I live in Cocoa, and I'm here to support the people speaking on behalf and the family of Muhammad Ibrahim. I hope that you all will follow through on that resolution. He is a native-born U.S. citizen. He has resided in Palm Bay, and I think he was visiting family in the West Bank when he was apprehended. He's not getting any justice there. He is being imprisoned in a very bad place. He is not getting any due process, and we need to get him home. So I'd appreciate if you all could make an effort to look at this and sign the resolution. Mike Herodopoulos is doing nothing. He's ostracated the family of the victim, who is a child, 16-year-old. And this is unconscionable. So I want to go over just a few things on the resolution, if I didn't lose it. But a couple of main points. Yeah, just speak out against a prolonged, inhumane detention of this child that should be back here. He shouldn't be in a prison in Israel without any justice and no due process. That's pretty much it. There's been reported of soldiers beating Muhammad, resulting in visible injury. Not to mention the scabies, which I'd already read about. The weight loss. But do what you can. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, we have one more speaker card. Marcus Smith. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Marcus Smith. I'm a city council member for the city of Melbourne. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. I want to highlight the important role of community redevelopment areas have played across Brevard County. Just as Commissioner Allman stated eloquently earlier, CRAs have proven themselves time and time again. Whether you look at downtown Melbourne, the O'Galley Arts District, Babcock Business District, affectionately known as Melbourne Midtown, Ococo Village, Rockledge, or Merritt Island, the pattern is the same. When we invest intentionally in a defined area, when we upgrade infrastructure, when we support small business growth, create public-private partnership opportunities, property values rise, blight decreases, private investment follows, we create safer streets, stronger businesses, and real community pride. Just like the project the parking garage discussed earlier in EGAD, CRAs can serve as a powerful catalyst for development. Melbourne's downtown CRA is a prime example. Since its inception, the tax base has grown more than six-fold. Those tax increment dollars have funded streetscapes, safety projects, facade programs, public amenities, and helped spark major private investments like Hotel Melby, the Highline Apartments, and numerous local businesses. That area looks and feels alive today because aligned vision with sustained place-based investment. But here's the reality we cannot ignore. Success has not reached every neighborhood. There are still pockets of Brevard County where the challenges are clear, but the tools for redevelopment have not been applied. South Melbourne is one of those places. This is an area steeped in history, full of potential position between downtown Melbourne and the beautiful Florida Tech campus. Yet, it carries aging commercial strips, deteriorating properties, and stubborn pockets of blight that sit just outside of CRA boundaries. This corridor is rich with opportunities located next to one of our strongest educational and economic anchors, but has not benefited from the focused reinvestment that CRAs provide. And sometimes, a little momentum is all it takes to turn a struggling corridor into a thriving one. Given the shifting legislative conditions, creating new CRAs may not be the easiest and most viable solution moving forward, but we cannot, but we can use the CRA playbook in non-CRA areas. This includes, like, targeted small business and facade improvement grants, zoning tools like integrated commercial edge district to promote mixed-use redevelopment, strategic infrastructure upgrades, and short-term code enforcement and beautification blitzes. Commissioners, blight does not respect boundary lines. Opportunity is not limited to areas with CRA designation. And if we want a stronger, more balanced, more competitive Brevard County, we must bring proven redevelopment strategies to neighborhoods that need them the most. I invite you to explore a framework that applies lessons learned from our most successful CRAs to South Melbourne and other overlooked corridors. A little momentum paired with intentional focus could turn today's neglected areas into tomorrow's engines of revenue and growth and community pride. Thank you for your time and your leadership. Thank you. Thank you for that input. Quick question. The present Melbourne downtown CRA, how far south does that go? What is the southern boundary? The southern boundary, it runs, it stops at university and runs along US-1. And then it goes up where we were at the American Legion, it goes up the street there, then it turns off and goes back towards downtown. So you're leaving off a major corridor of university up to Florida Tech, Florida Avenue, and some of those other areas where businesses could be developed. So there's no incentive for businesses in those areas. Okay. Can I clarify? Because I'm curious. So the American Legion post, that parcel is within the CRA? It is, but one of the things I just proposed at a recent city council is a business incentive grant because the American Legion is in other organizations like that. A facade program doesn't necessarily help because you have to have money and it has to be reimbursed. But if we can look at ways of doing incentivized activity, that's a slightly different way of looking at using some of those funds. So the American Legion has been stuck because of not having the upfront resources to do the facade program. And then the facade program is also just outside. But as you saw, being on the inside, there are things that we can do operationally where funds can be used in other ways. I thought the inside was nice. Yeah, well, that's because we put a lot of work and elbow grease into it. Okay, you decorated it very nice. That's right. Okay. That was very festive. All right. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you for that valuable input. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right. That concludes our meeting. We will go to board reports. County manager? No report, Mr. Chair. County attorney? I have no report other than to remind the board that we have an executive attorney client session following the meeting and that the chair has an announcement to make after reports in that regard. Thank you, sir. Okay. Commissioner, District 1? Yes. So I was able to host my first town hall meeting. I intended to do this a lot sooner, but time just didn't allow in my first year, and it went really well. It was well attended, and I just really thank the community that came out for it. And we used the Brevard Room in Titusville, which is a really great space. And one of the things that has been really important to me was getting our meetings more attended. And so one of the things that I highlighted was why speak at a meeting, how to speak, what do you do when you get there? You know, because for people that have never come, it's, you know, a lot to do. You don't know what to do. Do I sign up with a card? Or do I, you know, so I brought that education to the meeting, and it was a really great time. And I'm saying all that to segue into our community lost an amazing lady recently, Susan Connelly. And I'm going to try to say this all without tearing up. We lovingly called her the Speak Up Brevard ambassador. I always say that she was the angel I never knew I needed. You know, she popped into my life unexpectedly. And there was nobody that's as warm and sweet and kind as Susan, and she will be greatly missed. She had such a beautiful way of advocating on behalf of her community, not just in the county, but in Palm Bay. She was so kind and sweet, even when she disagreed with what was going on. And she deeply cared about this community and everybody in it, and she will be greatly missed. And so I just wanted to recognize her today. Why don't we stand for a moment of silence for Susan, a wonderful person. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay, District 2? No report. Okay, District 3? Yes, just short. I'm going to echo everything that Commissioner Delaney just said, but also add a few things. Susan was a joy to speak with, and as passionate as she was about many things, she listened. That was the thing about Susan, is that she listened, she digested, and then she came back with a solution, or at least an idea for people to think about. And I cherish that. You can come to me with all the problems in the world, but Susan came with some answers and some really important ideas. She wasn't just looking out for D3, where she lived, and Palm Bay, where she lived. She was looking out for everybody in Brevard County. She was, in my opinion, a phenomenal example of how residents can effectively engage with their local elected officials. And I just want to say she will be truly missed. District 4? Mr. Chair, I'll second all of those things. I remember I had a meeting with Susan, booked, and she was very kind. I needed to move it because I made a quick trip up north. And anyway, she was very accommodating. And we had a very wonderful conversation in my office about the process. And I was very sad and shocked when I heard of her accident and then subsequent passing. So she was a real lady and was always most kind, and it's most appreciated. Thank you, Commissioner, and I echo those comments. And she will be sorely missed. And one of the ladies that made all this worthwhile to work with. And I have no report on that. We'll show the meeting adjourned. I have something to read, though, before we adjourn it. We're not adjourning. Let me make that clear. Wait a second. Okay. All right. As authorized by Section 286.0118, Florida Statutes, the Brevard County Board of Commissioners will now commence an attorney-client session discussing litigation strategy and settlement negotiations. In the case of Watersmark Development Enterprises, LC, first Brevard County, Florida, case number 05-2014-CA-041947. Attending the attorney-client session will be the county commissioners, the county manager, the county attorney, our outside litigation counsel, Scott Dale, and a court reporter. The attorney-client session will be held in the county manager's office room on the third floor of this building. The estimated length of the session is one hour or less. I will now entertain a motion to temporarily adjourn and reconvene in the county commissioners' office. And you can stay. I'll make the motion. Second. And when would we? Five minutes? Three minutes? Sir, I'd suggest 1245 we start. I guess everybody, 10 minutes, go do what they've got to do. Okay, 1245. That's my suggestion. Okay, great. Thank you.