Brevard County Board of County Commissioners on 2025-12-16 9:00 AM - Regular - Dec 16, 2025

If you wish to speak to any item on the agenda or during the public comment portion of the meeting, please fill out a speaker card. Each person addressing the board shall have three minutes to complete his or her comments on each agenda item for which he or she has filled out a card. The chair has the discretion to determine or alter the time limits on any agenda item. The Board of County Commissioners requests that speakers appearing under the public comment section of the agenda limit their comments or presentations to matters relating to county business that are within the board's control, authority, and jurisdiction. Thank you. I'd like to call the meeting. And whoever found the gobble, thank you. We had one here all along. I'd like to recognize Commissioner Delaney for the Pledge of Allegiance. I'd like to recognize Pastor Jan Carey from Trinity Lutheran Church for the invocation. Good morning. I draw my scripture reference from Romans 13. One, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Let us pray. God of all creation, we come before you today to honor you and praise you. You are worthy of praise. You are the source of all that is good. You are the source of all our blessings. Thank you for every gift that we have been given. We thank you for the opportunity to come and gather together this day, and we ask for your hand of blessing on this meeting. We ask that you would guide and direct this meeting so that it is full of wisdom, productivity, and respect for one another. Thank you for helping this commission to accomplish their work and their goals to the benefit of Brevard County and its citizens. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you. Pastor, did I get that right, Jan? Yes. Good. Thank you for being here this morning. Wonderful way to start the meeting. Okay, I don't think we have any minutes on the agenda that I could see. We do have a resolution, two resolutions. One is a resolution for National Homeless Persons Memorial Day by Commissioner Atkinson. If we have anybody from the Homeless Coalition, do you want to come on up? Better with or without my glasses. A resolution on behalf of the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners, designating December 21st, 2025, as National Homeless Persons Memorial Day. Whereas homelessness has caused or hastened the deaths of unsheltered or inadequately housed people in Brevard County, and whereas the spirit of the holiday season of giving provides an opportunity for affirmation and renewal regarding the commitment to end homelessness, and whereas December 21st, the first day of winter and the longest night of the year, has been designated National Homeless Persons Memorial Day by the National Coalition for the Homeless, whereas the Brevard County Continuum of Care, a wide-ranging regional body of organizations from all sectors and community advocates works every day to help people survive, rebuild their lives, and end homelessness. And whereas in this season of generosity and sharing, citizens of Brevard County are encouraged to commit themselves to promote compassion and concern for our unsheltered or inadequately housed neighbors. And whereas in remembering those who have died on our streets, in our emergency shelters, and in condemned or abandoned properties, from ailments directly related to homelessness, the cause of ending homelessness is kept urgent, as is the collective commitment to preventing such deaths in the future. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners designates December 21st, 2025, as Homeless Persons Memorial Day, in commemoration of those who have passed and those who currently are facing the perils of homelessness. Dunn ordered and adopted in regular session, the 16th day of December, 2025. Thank you so much for acknowledging that day. My name is Amber Carroll. I'm the Executive Director for the Brevard Homeless Coalition. We're the lead agency for the Continuum of Care for Brevard County. I've actually asked James Smith from my team to give us a few words. I'm Warner Council. My name is James Smith, and I'm the Coordinated Entry Manager for the Brevard Homeless Coalition. Joining me this morning are members of the Brevard Homeless Coalition, under the leadership and direction of Amber Carroll, the Executive Director, and several other members of the Brevard Continuum of Care. Thank you again for recognizing December 21st as National Homeless Persons Memorial Day. Your continued support matters deeply, not just to us, but to hundreds of men and women and families in our community who are struggling to survive without a safe place to call home. We are here today with a shared purpose to remember the lives lost, acknowledge the progress we are making, and bring solutions we can pursue together. Because the truth is simple, no one in Brevard County should die because they have nowhere safe to sleep. This year, we lost 78 of our neighbors, men and women who died without a safe place to sleep. 78 individuals, not statistics, but they were members of our community. Our 2025 point time count tells both challenge and meaningful progress. Progress that would not have been possible without your support and leadership throughout this year. Our 2025 data showed that unsheltered homelessness fell 5% and chronic homeless declined by 11%. Even with these decreases, we still have over 1,000 homeless individuals in our county, and Brevard County remains in the top 10 counties in Florida when it comes to homeless residents. We cannot accept this as normal, not when we have compassion, leadership, and talent to change the story. Through our collaborative efforts and works with the Brevard County Jail, we conducted over 300 surveys and found that 57% of individuals entering the jail reported that they were homeless at the time of booking. This tells an important story. Our law enforcement and first responders are carrying a heavy and increasingly burden as they respond to the ripples effects of homelessness in House Bill 1365. Many of our individuals are cycling between the streets and the justice system because they have a lack of a safe place to go. We all want the same thing, safer neighborhoods, healthier residents, and better parts of our county. We know the long-term solution is safe, affordable, and permanent housing, but we also need immediate practical tools to prevent more deaths like this year. We want to move forward together, but it takes all of us, nonprofits, city leaders, law enforcement, businesses, and neighbors, to build a community where no one dies because they do not have a safe place to sleep. And with that, our vision is clear, to have a housed and healthy Bavard by making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. In the month of December, we will hold four homeless memorial services to honor the lives of those who have passed this year. Those services are happening this week. We do have one service happening today at Matthew's Hope at 1 p.m. in the City of Cocoa, if you're able to make it up. We ask that you join us. For many of these individuals, this will be the only ceremony held in their name. In January, we will also be conducting our 2026 point-in-time count. As always, your participation truly makes a difference in our efforts. City Council, I'm sorry, not City Council. Here you are, the County Council. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your support that you've shown us over the years. And thank you for being our partners and helping us build a house and healthy Bavard. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion. I'll second. There's a motion and a second on the resolution. Yes. All in favor, second five is saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries are unanimous. Thank you. I think we have a picture. Okay. Thank you so much. And I know it's a serious, serious challenge we have as a community, as many communities across the country. We appreciate so much what you do and your dedication for those most in need. The next item is presentation and update from Parrish Medical Center. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for being here. Yes. Thank you. Good morning, commissioners. One month ago, you all made the mandatory appointments to the Parrish Medical Center Board of Directors. And I was somewhat ridiculed by the District 1 commissioner for not having spoken that day. So that's why I'm here to shed light on some of the conversation that unfortunately occurred that day and some of the difficult situations that some of you were put in. And on behalf of the residents of North Brevard, I apologize for the stress and strain that you were unfortunately and inappropriately put under. So this is my update to you. put together very carefully, rather long, and just to relieve your anxiety, I'm not going to go through the entire presentation. It was assembled by staff and myself last week. The District 1 commissioner did give me a call and asked me what was up with this presentation today. And I spent about 30 minutes in conversation with her describing that it was basically a summary of past presentations made by our organization to City Council that I would be using the majority of those slides mostly to educate the community about Brevard County's only public hospital and to recognize and reward the employees, volunteers, physicians, and others that work at and support our organization. But unfortunately, constant public bullying by the D1 commissioner against me has caused me to change my presentation this morning. We spoke last Wednesday, and as of yesterday, my intent was to come here and present to you the same presentation we have given to the City Council. But as early as yesterday, a mere five days after what I thought was a very positive conversation with the D1 commissioner. May I interrupt? Yes. This presentation is to the entire board of county commissioners. Yes. In due respect, please, let's keep it positive. Let's focus on the board as a whole because you, we're at a board of county commissioners. Sure. You're speaking to the county commissioner. It's not designed for one commissioner. So please keep it dedicated to our governing board here. Okay. We operate collectively as one unit. Okay. Background of Parrish Medical Center. This county's only public hospital established in 1953 by Florida statute. We are an independent special tax district of the state of Florida. This is the mission by law of the North Brevard County Hospital District doing business as Parrish Medical Center. We are the only public hospital in Brevard County. And for further education, there's a distinct difference between a public and a private hospital. All the other hospitals in Brevard County are what are considered to be private, not-for-profit. We are a public, not-for-profit hospital. Structured differently, governed differently, with different regulations, bureaucracies, while still providing health care services, it is done structurally different. And unlike every other public hospital in this state, we do not tax the citizens of our district. We were established back in 53 by the taxation of people that lived within a particular geographic area in and around the hospital. We have not taxed for the past 30 years. So in addition to not realizing tax monies from those that live in our district, we also are one of the lowest cost hospitals in the state. Those two things combined result in tens of millions of dollars in savings to the people that live within our community. Again, we are not structurally or governed or legislatively outlined and established the same as other private hospitals in Brevard. We are different and there is a difference in how we operate, our mission, and how we are funded. Let's get to the heart of the matter, the board appointments. This is the role that you have when it comes to Parish Medical Center. The appointment of six of our nine board of directors. The role of the board of county commissioners. This is our enabling legislation. All board members shall reside within our district. The district is basically Fay Boulevard in Port St. John north to the Volusia County line. This representation assures that the public is adequately represented. Some members are appointed by city council. Three members are appointed by the board of county commissioners of Brevard County. Not a single district commissioner by the entire board of county commissioners. Anyone asking you to do anything different is in violation of that law. It's the responsibility of the entire board, not one board member. And then there are members that are jointly appointed by the board of county commissioners of Brevard County and the city council of the city of Titusville. I happen to have a copy here of our enabling legislation if anyone feels compelled to take a look at it. To further ensure that the board of directors does what you have charged it to do and what the law has charged it to do through our enabling legislation, we're one of only about 60% of the hospitals in this country that conducts a board self-assessment. We bring an independent third party into our organization every two years and they go through an assessment of the performance of our board. So here you can see that it is a requirement of our bylaws. It's an issue of good governance, we strongly believe. How we compare to other boards, similar in size, on and on, we are different in some ways. We have more physicians on our board and we are more diverse than most hospital boards. Here are some of the scores within the assessment results as presented by the consultant. You can see continued progress in key areas that any board would want to have assessed. Additional results as well. Again, we are a public hospital and we are independent. Drastically different. And in fact, in addition to being one of the few public hospitals in the state of Florida, we're also one of the few independent hospitals, not just in the state, but in the entire country. Imagine the challenges of being independent and public and not taxing and being the low-cost provider. Again, zero taxes for the last 30 years, saving the citizens of our North Brevard tens of millions of dollars each and every year. Just a snapshot of some of the benefits that we have provided to people. As you know, North Brevard has a larger population of poverty, both for adults and children than other areas of Brevard County. And we're happy to show these contributions, especially the bottom line, over 10 years, $170 million worth of uncompensated care. Something surely you should be proud of on behalf of your public hospital. In addition, in 2021, the state of Florida passed a Uniform Special District Accountability Act statute mandating that Florida's independent special districts have conducted an independent review of its entire operations. I happen to have a copy of this as well. And it's also on our website if anybody cares to take a look at it. In this report, and I'll go through it quickly, the report was a complete assessment of our organization's performance. We're proud to present it. The individual, Brian Fuller, in the lower right, was the consultant from the state-mandated assessment of our organization, and we came through with flying colors as you would expect us to. Stellar performance after the pandemic. A $20 million financial turnaround after the pandemic. We are mission-driven. We have tremendous talent. We focus on quality. We are drastically more affordable than other providers, and we do not tax. Let me just go through this section here quickly, and the pandemic devastated us like it did many other hospitals, and we're happy to begin recruiting back many of the physicians that left us during the pandemic. Some 68 left or retired, and we're almost back to having fulfilled that staff. Really pleased with our Burrell College relationship. Tremendously pleased with the repairing of our relationship with Brevard County's largest health care provider, Health First. The relationship is going incredibly well. We are working collaboratively and cooperatively on behalf of the communities we serve, and that relationship brought us this, where in a real estate transaction, we acquired from Health First their cancer center in Titusville, and have now turned it and made it into our own parish health care center, which is focused primarily on cancer care. I won't go through the remainder of the presentation, Mr. Chairman, for interest of time, but I did want to just make sure that this commission sees the stellar and incredible awards that our organization has received on behalf of the communities we serve, provision of maternity care, OBGYN services, surgery, surgery, stroke, that the list goes on and on. And with that, I'll stop and see if there's any questions. First of all, I want to thank you for coming and presenting to the Board of Commissioners, and I wanted to keep this as positive as I could, and so I appreciate your being here, because I can understand your frustration. I happen to think that this is a wonderful hospital. I'd like for you to elaborate more on the awards that you've received, because there were some comments about the hospital. I'm blown away by the number of awards. I'm looking at the list that you have listed here. What are some of the highlights? I didn't want to cut you short on that. We gave you 15 minutes here this morning. As in any organization, there are various ways of determining success. There are some organizations that look at the financial performance of organizations and in hospitals. There are some that look at the mix of how many RNs you have compared to non-RNs, four-year RNs versus two-year RNs, the number of physicians and the specialties they have. Where we are very fortunate in obtaining awards are in the areas where we excel in. We excel in the provision of oncology services. We are the county's longest accredited hospital for cancer care by the Commission on Cancer Care, Brevard County's longest accredited hospital. We are the first and still only hospital in nation accredited by the Joint Commission for what is called integrated care, how we blend the physician practice care with the hospital care and when the patient is discharged back to the home with home care and other components of care in our community. They are all integrated by our care partners. It's called integrated care. It is to reduce redundancy, keep costs low, and prevent mistakes from happening. the only integrated care accredited hospital in the United States. We are stroke certified. We have certifications in orthopedics. Blue Cross has recognized us in orthopedics and women's care. Nationally, U.S. News and World Report for women's care. They state very clearly North Brevard would be a maternity desert if it wasn't for a parish medical center. Now, we've also learned the hard way that in this day and age of fast speed, that we have to be able to deliver the results of our results much quicker to accrediting bodies. So what we have learned, kind of the hard way, and some of it's my fault, is we have been a little slow when it comes to using technology to report our results. Many hospitals have gravitated towards what is called an EPIC electronic medical record. EPIC is the Cadillac medical record system in the United States. Health First has it, Orlando Health has it, Advent has it, Halifax and Daytona will still have it. It is not affordable for parish medical center. We cannot expend $40 to $50 million to acquire this system. But what the system does do is using AI and other electronic tools within the system, it makes sure that your data is scrubbed and your data is clean before it is reported to federal agencies. In a recent report by the Leapfrog Group specifically stated that hospitals that use AI and electronic technology have better reporting of their quality scores. It doesn't mean the quality is better, it means the reporting is better. So I hope my board members aren't watching right now. I plan to bring to the next board meeting a request for $7 million for our board to approve Parish Medical Center acquiring the Chevrolet of electronic medical records, not the Cadillac, called Meditech Expanse, and it will allow us to do through AI and other digital innovative tools the ability to scrub our data, clean the data up before it is then reported publicly. And that's certainly if the studies and the research are correct, propel us further towards earning and achieving even more awards in the area of safety and quality. Thank you. And thank you for coming today. I just want to clarify one thing and then I have just a couple questions. I just wanted to make sure that you are aware. My concern was not that you didn't speak. My concern was the influence of who was going to be appointed to the board. And but that being said, I want to definitely talk about some of the really good things that we had in our conversation. One of the things that we talked about was some of the struggles that all hospitals are going through. And I don't know if you would like to use this platform, if you could explain for the community about what's going on with maternity care and the need for doctors and this whole that really is a country we have in that in that respect. Sure. I think our conversation was a real positive one in terms of the needs of this county. Even though there are many hospitals in Brevard County, only three, only three provide obstetric services. And Parrish Medical Center is one of them. Viera Hospital, whatever direction it is, is the other, and certainly Holmes Regional does that as well. If there is any clinical area where all hospitals should work together on behalf of the larger Brevard County, I think it would be in the area of obstetrics. If you talk with the health department and Director Zonka, she will tell you the same thing where she continually struggles to find physicians, obstetric and gynecology physicians, to provide the services in the community. And we have an abundance. And with the closure of the Rockledge Hospital, there are now fewer hospitals that deliver more people coming to Parrish Medical Center to receive those services. And it is straining every organization in Brevard County. So if you are all inclined to kind of use your platform to bring kind of a kumbaya moment to all the health care providers, Commissioner and I think that would be a great place to do it. Yes. Thank you so much for that. And one other thing that we talked about that I thought was really great was there, I guess I'll start with one of the things that I really appreciate about Parrish Hospital is the amount of community outreach and how involved with the community you all are. And I really appreciate that. And I know the community does as well. Appreciate that. One of the things that I think that which we talked about would be great is finding a way to bridge the gap between, you know, while there, of course, there are people who are happy with the way things are going. There, of course, are some people that are not. And so I look forward to working with not only you but the community and whoever else I have to work with to make sure that we can make our North Brevard Hospital the best it can be. Appreciate that. I am. George, I want to thank you. I have to say when we were going through the trauma of having one of our hospitals close and it was my family's hospital and it was quite traumatic. You were here. I think you were the only CEO. I think you were here for every single discussion that we had related to that. And I want to personally thank you for your level of support and commitment and concern. Maybe give us a little briefing of how things are going and how we're adopting and how we're responding and what problems you foresee or what needs that we may have. I think with the help of a lot of people, Space Coast Health Foundation, Health First, there's been a lot of forced collaboration. I guess we didn't have time to think about the past and we overnight were forced to come together, collaborate, use our own community's resources to help people from another part of the county. We're all one. We all understand that. But when you're sized a certain way, you know, our emergency department was built for 22,000 patients per year. We're currently serving about 32,000 patients a year. And that ratio is probably no different than at Vieira Hospital or Palm Bay Hospital or Cape Canaveral or even homes. This county continues to grow, not evenly distributed, not economically even, and not commercially insured even. So there are pockets of disparity and there will always be kind of ups and downs within the community. But when the Rockledge Hospital closed, 15 years after I said it would, it wasn't a surprise to people. The abruptness was certainly a surprise, how the people were handled by Orlando Health was certainly a surprise. But again, health care people are strange people. You know, you can visit hospital emergency departments and they look disorganized in an organized way. Let there be an incident. Let there be a hurricane. Let there be a disaster. And it is lickety-split. People know what to do and they do it. And I think that's what triggered in the minds and hearts of people at all of Brevard's hospitals when the announcement of Rockledge Hospital's closure was made. Everybody went into disaster mode and clicked on and how do we take care of patients? And I give the leadership at Health First and Terry Ford who said nothing about money, who said nothing but anything that had to do with how do we take care of these people? And he led that charge. And Space Coast Health Foundation helped coordinate and organize and it was just, I won't say easy because I would hate to do it again, but because that's how hospital people are trained and conditioned, it fell into our wheelhouse and I think, and I appreciate the comments, I think it was a successful, rapid response to a very bad situation. As the County Commission Board and the health challenges that we face, all of our hospitals are facing, what do you see the single most important thing that we can do to help? You know, there's a lot of things, but I'm not limiting it to one, I'm sure. But in the roles you have, assure not just communication, but collaboration. Resources in this day and age are too scarce. And for competition, to spread those resources even further, for duplication of facilities in places where we don't need duplication, are a tremendous burden on the finances of people. Somebody has to pay for a new building. Somebody has to pay for all of these facilities that health care organizations want to plop up to make money. And all that does is increase prices. The prices in Brevard County are about to go through the roof. If you think health care costs are expensive now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because they're ready to go through the roof when Orlando Health opens up a new hospital in Brevard County. By far the most expensive hospital in Central Florida. And they will bring that expensiveness to Brevard County. You've got us, one of the least costly providers. You've got Health First, which does a very commendable job with operating four hospitals and how they do that very efficiently. But the market is about to unfortunately change with the entry of an Orlando based health care system. It's going to disrupt things drastically. So anything you can do in terms of collaborate, cooperate, communicate, all the C words, I think that's where you can play a critical role. Okay, thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you. And appearing. Not always the easiest thing to do and we appreciate you. Thank you. Okay. Okay, we'll move on. We have our consent agenda. Are there any items that we need to remove from consent? I would like to pull F1, F6, F9, and F11. 1, 6, 9, and 11. Okay. How do you want to do this? You want to pass the consent as a whole and then hear these items or hear these items first and then pass the consent. I'm going to look to you. Since you just got through. In the past, I think we had passed consent and then took each one of those items up separately. I suppose you could hear them and then well, let's go ahead and then do consent all at once, I suppose. Let's go ahead and hear those first and then case. If I may, sir, under board policy 97 adopted by the board when items are removed from consent, the board should address the approval of the remainder of the consent agenda and then address the pulled items separately after that. Perfect. Thank you, sir. That's what I was looking for. Okay, let's have a motion on the consent agenda. Move to approve. Is the motion on consent or a second? I'll second. Second. All those in favor are seconded by saying yay. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. I'm sorry, were there any cards on items that were not pulled from the consent agenda because those cards should be heard before the motion passed on the consent as a whole? Let's back up then. So F4 and F7 were the only two that were at cards that were not. That were not. Okay. So let's go ahead and hear public input or we can go ahead and hear the rest of the consent then, right? So what you typically do not, I'm sorry, sir, would be to hear those public comment cards on items that were not pulled. So I think I heard F4 and F7. Okay, let's do that. All right. And then take the vote on the consent items that were not pulled. Okay, got it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay. We have a public card on F4. Sandra Sullivan? So F4 and F5 are, we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for invoices to Meeks Plumbing, Sandra Sullivan, during these wet events and we, from what I've heard, we still dumped. We still dumped behind Sykes Creek and also Port St. John. And we have some laws coming up that are going to prevent or disallow legally doing that. And so this is more, you know, I know this is approval of these, but there's hundreds of thousands of dollars in pumping poop. And I kind of, one of my questions is I'd like to know where you took it because so many of our sewage plants were overcapacity. We have plants, you know, many plants, 137% to 184% overcapacity, which is why you were trucking sewage. But what are you doing for the future to ensure that you're not dumping with these plants that are at or over, near or at or overcapacity? So that was just it on that item. I do have other cards when we talk about them. Okay. So that was a good question. When we pump it, where do we take it? That's a good question. Have Eddie come up for your answers. What's that? Eddie will be coming up to answer the question. Good morning. Go ahead. With regard to the question and the circumstances related to that agenda item, that went to Sykes Creek. There was no discharging at Sykes Creek. Sykes Creek has two deep injection wells. So capacity-wise, the ability to discharge there in a permitted fashion was done. I have to say, too, I'm glad this item was pulled because I think it's an opportunity to really thank you and your department and the county. and their quick action and leadership to minimize to a very small amount how much was discharged. Other jurisdictions haven't been so successful, and we know we've had, say, significant discharges in these type of events. I won't name any because I'm sure there were a lot of extenuating circumstances, but some of those discharges even led to state legislation and increasing penalties. So it's good that you were on it. I guess that also highlights the importance of those deep well injections in terms of emergency and flooding and what have you. Yes, sir. My question, too, since we're on this, what we did was allowable underpermitting. That's a process that is provided for and there were no violations. Am I correct in that? Yes, sir. Okay. Good. Thanks. Katie? Thank you. Was it treated before we put it into the deep injection well? It is brought through the process of the plant. You might want to speak a little bit. I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And so you said it was brought through the process of the plant before it's discharged into the deep injection well. Awesome. Thank you. That leads to another question. In a real emergency because we talked about this. I mean, this goes to show you the challenges that we have when there's a, this was a localized event that went countywide and then like a major hurricane or very wet tropical storm where the whole region is being impacted. Is there ever a scenario, is that one of our, and we talked about protocols and emergency scenarios, is there ever a scenario where we would be allowed to deposit untreated? What happens when the untreated refuge, because of flooding is, sewage is, is overflowing, are we allowed to put that in the deep well untreated? Is there a certain amount we're allowed to do? Better there than in our water bodies? So when the, when the period of time of the governor given a state of emergency, we get a reprieve on the laws associated with that because the state views it as such an extreme circumstance that from a planning side it can't be achieved and they recognize that, but we still report it during that period. Okay. Okay, great. All right. Now we have F7 and Sandra Sullivan, again, I started to say Santa Sullivan. I'm sorry, but Sandra Sullivan. F7 is the Economic Development Commission by annual financial report. In past, we've seen where there's been the total report for the year as well, so I would have liked to have seen that. What is the Brevard County grant for 1.4 million dollars? And I don't see a dollar amount from Brevard County on here. And I just want to say, you know, now that we've done away with embeds, we still do have our economic development department. We have very good lobbyists that we pay, so we're essentially doing this twice. Salaries were like $290,000 to this entity. I'm just wondering what the value proposition is. I mean, recently, they came with a study for this regional sewage plant that was so unrealistic in the cost to do it, and as well, the location at Tyco, you can't put a sewage plant there because sewage plants are a bird attractant and destroys engines on aircraft. So that's like basic knowledge that they should have known. so we spent as a county $1.7 million or approved $1.71 million to second a study that was flawed to begin with. Does anyone want to respond to that to give a response? I don't have one, but maybe, why don't we do this? Let's have a response since the question was asked, but we can go ahead and go through these other items if you need a little more time. This is a good way of getting your steps up. Morning. Okay. So I'm sorry, sir, what was the question? Did you have a question? I could clarify it. Yeah, I can too. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. The question I think was, why did they pay for a study to put a regional sewer plant at Tyco when they should have known birds are affected or flock to poop and it burns airplanes? Well, the exact question of what was the $1.4 million for the Brevard County grant and then what is the value proposition of TDC when we have our own, not TDC, sorry, Economic Development Department. Sorry, you're wrong. This is for the Economic Development Commission financial report. So what is the benefit financially of going through and working with EDC when we have our own department, we have our own lobbyists and we can do everything internally? That's the question. So what is the $1.4 million Brevard County grant that's in that document? The $1.4 million grant is for the support that the Economic Development Commission of the Florida Space Coast provides the county. they talk to businesses, recruit for businesses in Brevard County. They support local businesses in Brevard County. They are armed for recruiting and retaining businesses in Brevard County. Matter of fact, this morning I was talking to a Houston group that has been in contact with EDC. They want to come to Brevard County. So they are and they talked to EDC yesterday. So EDC is very much involved in the retention and recruitment of businesses in Brevard County. And I agree with that. And I think the other thing to take into consideration if the EDC wasn't providing those services which are absolutely necessary if we're going to be relevant and competitive and bring in high quality, high paying, big on return employment. we would probably have to hire a lot of those staff members in-house. So it's not like we're spending money that we wouldn't necessarily have to spend. Yes. Thank you. I think that the question may have been about this $1.4 million. This is what was passed in our budget. This isn't an additional grant? That's correct. This is a grant that was passed in the county's the board's budget. And this has been a grant for several years now. It's not just the first time the grant has been put in the county's budget. Thank you. And I'm sorry, Chairman, just to elaborate a little more on the discussion. So a few things. On the sewer plan issue. On the sewer plan. And I might ask, too, there's a sewer plan almost abuts the Melbourne Regional Airport. They seem to manage to operate that. There is no, so there's a lot of effort going on simultaneously, not singular. So with regard to the study that's related to what we're calling the regional, that study is underway. We're making great progress. The benefit of that study is going to not only solidify our decision making, but provide a document, because whether it's state or federal level, they still want a level of due diligence, third party to provide that recommendation. As much as they want to believe in what I say because I work for the county, it's not sufficient. So we need that due diligence in order to go through that. We're looking at multiple efforts. Titusville is one of them, but it's not the solution or the approach yet. Again, I've been in contact with the leadership at Titusville Airport. The Byrd rule is not, as you said, Gainesville is another great example. You have to get FAA approval, which by the way, we've already gone through the first step in submitting that to the FAA for that consideration. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, those are the two items. We do have a card on F1, which is one of the items that was pulled from consent. So I think we'll hear that card when we have discussion on that of an item. Now, I think it's fine. We have a motion and order for the rest of the consent agenda. Yes, Mr. Chair. I'll make the motion then for the rest of it. Second. Motion by Peltner, second. By Delaney, all in favor say yay. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries unanimous. Thank you. Okay, let's go to F1. And Katie, do you want to say a few things? You want to invite up the public comment first? I was hoping that we could have staff present. Is that all right? Or would you rather have the public? It's up to you. Okay, staff would be great. Thank you. And then we'll have a public comment. Is this yours? All right. Morning, commissioners. So, F1 is requesting an immediate amendment to the Sorrell plan to increase the minimum cost share for septic upgrades from $0 to $6,000. This would allow and allow for retroactive reimbursement for early adopters of these nitrogen reducing septic systems. The Citizen Oversight Committee unanimously recommended this amendment for a one-year trial period considering the changes to the regulatory environment that has significantly expanded our residents' interest in this grant program. So, I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Okay. Thank you. So, what does that look like for residents who have gone through this program that now possibly have access to more of a rebate? What does that look like for them? So, we've included terms for a retroactive reimbursement. So, the board in the past, whenever there's been a change to the funding amount available for the septic upgrade program, has allowed for retroactive reimbursements. So, we do ask that they show their intent to have participated. And that they have complied with the other needs of the program, which includes a 65% nitrogen reduction standard. And do you know how, like, what the turnaround time would look like once they put in their application? What does that look like for people receiving the rebate? We typically, so concerning the application portion, we typically turn that around in one day. Wow. Then they have to go through the construction process, which can take a few months. Depends on the market variables. And then reimbursement takes a week or two. That's great. Thank you so much. Great. Sandra Sullivan, did you want to comment? Sandra Sullivan, rather than me coming up and down for each consent item, can I just go through all of them that I have here? Or just sit on the front of them. Yeah. Okay. So, F1, I was at the Sorrell meeting when this was discussed. First of all, I would like to say under the consent item, there were no supporting documentation on generally a lack of transparency on this issue. At the meeting, the board was generally in favor of a motion for option two. However, the director of natural resource pushed option three, and so they changed their minds to that. And I want to say that this item brings me heartburn because I don't think the lagoon tax is going to renew next year. And so what you have for dollars is what you have, what I think you're going to have for dollars. And so what this does is it takes the paraded funding that prioritizes as it is right now and prioritizes that money to closest to the lagoon. After all, what we voted for was cleaning up the lagoon. Not for septic systems anywhere in Brevard County being funded by the lagoon tax, right? So I do not in support of this. I think it's not what the voters voted for. I think there may even be a legal issue with that. And then secondly, if the state is not providing grant funding, it is taking all of the sorrel money to pay that $24,000 or whatever it is that the amount of money that is going. But this is not what the voters intended when they voted for the sorrel tax. And I think learning about this and learning that a septic system on the west side of I-95 is getting the same funding as next to the lagoon is going to really tick off some people. It's a betrayal. Okay. I think that's a very valid point. I think there's truth on both sides. I don't agree with the term betrayal. I think there's reasonableness on both sides and it was a reasonable decision to try to solve a very significant problem. But I think it's a valid debating item, issue of discussion. Okay. That's F-1. Is there any other discussion on F-1? Okay. All those in favor of passing F-1, say yay. Or aye. Which one? Aye. Aye. Aye. Say aye. Do you need a motion though, sir? We do need a motion. Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Second. Those in favor of saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Yes. We have actually three more. Yeah, we're going through. We're going one at a time. Okay. The next item is item F-6. They don't have any cards on F-6. We have no cards on F-6. Is there any discussion on F-6? Any questions? It was pulled. If possible, if Ms. Juanita can give us a report first, that would be great. Good morning, commissioners. Item F-6 is a request for the board to approve the state housing initiative partnership 2025-2026 Affordable Housing Committee incentive strategy evaluations and recommendation report. Approval of this report facilitates our continued receipt of our SHIP funding from Florida Housing Finance Corporation, which this year is about $2.4 million. The Brevard County Affordable Housing Advisory Committee at a public hearing on November 20th reviewed and unanimously approved the incentives report. report recommends staff to coordinate with our relevant county departments to further evaluate the feasibility in the following focus areas. Density flexibility, assess redwelling units and tiny homes, land bank inventory, parking and setback, reservation of county infrastructure. This report does not change land density or land development regulations. I love those tiny homes. Yes. Thank you. I was wondering about the public participation in this and could you share with us what that looked like if you know how many people participated or because usually you have like how many comments we've received and that kind of thing. So we did not receive any comments from the public. We did post a report to our website and we actually discussed it at the AHAC at two meetings and we had no public that were there present at either meeting but we did you know address it at length at two meetings with our AHAC and the AHAC members actually provided input. They emailed that in and we distributed amongst all the committee members. Would it be maybe we could keep working on trying to solicit public input into these things? I don't know if we could brainstorm some different ideas that because I know there are so many groups around the around the county that are focused on this program. So I would just love to see a more robust public input into this. I'm sure you would too. So I'd love to you know help or collaborate in any way that we can do that. Thank you. Okay great. Do we have a motion on this item? So moved. Is there a motion? I'll second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Same. Passes unanimously. Okay now we'll move to F9. Okay and this is one you pulled. We do have cards too so maybe we'll be heads. Let's go ahead and hear the cards then. We have three cards. This one pulled a lot of cards. First card is Mr. Palatux. Palatux. Did I say that right? Are they here? I don't think so. Kate Butler. Next item. Did you want to say a few things or just available? Okay good. And then Sandra Sullivan. So Sandra Sullivan. So first of all I think we're seeing just I'm going to get to my comment just a second with these consent items is we've normally seen these as agenda items for things that of this nature and I would encourage the county to go back to that. On F9 on the agreement on page two it says prior to any such future sale or lease of the property any such future buyer or leasee may demonstrate to the reasonable satisfaction of the North Brevard Economic Development District that it is appropriate financial and risk management plan. North Brevard Economic Development District no longer exists. This has been it's been terminated so that should be removed from the legal language of the agreement prior to an execution of that and I just while I'm up here I'll just say I did put a card in for F5 I spoke on F4 I just want to just say pertaining to that that this is regarding to another payment for emergency services to Meeks Plumbing there was $74,000 in trucking sewage for Sykes Creek and Sykes Creek was at 140 percent capacity utilization therefore I don't see how you could take the sewage there and and process it through that plant and by the way Sykes Creek has been is under consent orders for putting raw sewage down that deep injection well and polluting by the county by the tests that were done by Jacobs polluting the surface water the surrounding water and I would say that there are residents in that area that are on that have wells and if you're polluting surface water you're you're potentially harming human health I just say that if that's where they put those that by the statement that was where they they trucked that sewage so that's a concern. Okay that's all the cards that we have any questions discussions did you have anything else? I did want to say something but I'm trying to go first. Okay all right just to introduce this item this is a request that's coming from North American Properties which is a real estate developer two years ago the MBEZ board made a recommendation to the county commission to sell property in the Spaceport Commerce Park to the company which had a plan to build a building on the spec basis that is without a tenant already signed up. They had two conditions that they suggested be added to the deed one was a job creation requirement and the other was our typical clawback that we use which is that they had to do site preparation activities within two years. Now two years later they completed their site preparation activities they've spent over three million dollars in hard and soft costs to do that but they are running into what we're considering an unintended consequence with the second callback the one with the job creation that is clouding the title and making it difficult for them to find a lender to do the construction period financing. The lenders feel that that requirement reduces the pool of eligible candidates to lease the building. So they're coming today to request action to remove that amend that restriction. And I might add and I think everyone's briefed on this issue it's a very good request we've lost some opportunity from an economic development point of view in the meantime so I think it's a good request. That is correct. I should have mentioned that the EDC actually did a nice impact analysis to show the benefits of having this kind of a space available. We do lose a lot of deals because we don't have available industrial building space. And we're also thinking that because of the size of the building that they intend to build which is about 100,000 square feet at the park will probably attract the tenant that will create a number of jobs maybe 25, 50, even 100. Thank you. Thank you so much for presenting that. And I just wanted to bring some awareness to this item. This is I consider it a critical need in North Brevard having buildings ready for businesses to come into our community. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for developing that and joining our community. So I just wanted to highlight some good stuff going on in North Brevard, opportunity and yeah. So thank you all. With that I'd like to make a motion to approve. I'll second. Motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, like, carries, unanimous. Thank you so much. Okay. I think that's all the consent, right? No, we have 11. I have my notes right here. Okay. F11. We have no cards on that one. And Commissioner Delaney. Thank you. I just wanted to bring some sunshine onto this, onto this item because it has all of our, or not all, but a bunch of our audit reports. And I think that this is something of high public interest. And I don't know if maybe our county manager, or if somebody would be willing to talk about some of the changes that we're going through with our, with our audit situation going forward, if that's all right. Yes, Commissioner. Thank you. What you have in front of you, commissioners, is, are the audit reports from the last, this last calendar year. They've gone through the audit committee first before they're presented to you. And I got hands out our props to our audit committee. They're a pretty active group. They're pretty, they really go through it. They do ask some tough questions of the department and of the auditor. So it's a good process. In there, you have three different IT reports, information technology reports, monitor readiness, external, internal penetration. That's bad actors trying to get into the system. And then the library firewall. The library has its own network, so we have to test to make sure that we're protecting there. You have the 2025 half-cent sales tax, Save Our Indian River Lagoon report, which is done every year, and then the Solid Waste Capital Improvement Program funding. I'll point out there was only one finding on that one, and staff had had the corrections to the report even before the audit committee saw it. So they caught real up on it. So then what you also have attached is the audit plan for two different organizations this year. We're transitioning from RSM and CRI, which is private auditors, to the clerk's office. So you have RSM and CRI. They're going to be auditing the IT, the same thing, the penetration reports, making sure our firewall's up, how we handle credit cards, and then they're handling the Sorrel review again this year, because they've done it for a number of years. And then the clerk's office is just getting started with their, not comptroller, internal, what do you call it, internal general, auditor general. And they're going to be looking at purchasing cards through a few of the departments with the idea that they will transition to the full audit in fiscal year 26-27. And so what we're asking the board is just to acknowledge and approve all the audit reports and the audit plans. Okay. So in the meantime, if we decide that we would like something audited, we could still bring that up to the clerk at that point, or RSM, or? What you do is you bring it to the board, and the board, you know, tell us to instruct the clerk's audit, the clerk's office to do the audit. Great. Thank you. With that, I'd like to make a... Before you make a motion, I had one question. We talked about that in the past, and I brought up concern that we were using a government agency to provide services that are competitively selected. And I felt that we should have competitively selected that, and maybe when we go into the budget cycle, there's something that we should look at. I just, I believe in competition, and pulling it in-house, and hiring people without public notice in competition sort of violates that premise that I have, and we did have some discussion about that. Competition is always interesting, so I would definitely be interested in that conversation. Okay. Okay. Any other further discussion? If not, we'll have a motion on the agenda item? So moved. Does motion second? I'll second. Second it. In favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Now, I think we move on to item G, public comments. We have three public comment cards. Keith Edwards is our first one. Hello, county commissioners. First off, I'm very proud of my First Amendment rights, but with ladies in present, I will keep my tongue as straight as possible, out of due respect to them. First off, I rolled everything into my one public comment, not to waste your time. Parish Hospital, it's one star. When you put buildings over people's lives, it's wrong. They're understaffed. The staff is great people. The buildings are beautiful. The whole sixth floor up there has been empty. We've lost the veterans, and they're ridiculous. The last one, God bless Coach Greg's heart, he went in, gave him a few shots, and before he got home, he got his toe tag. People don't want to go to Parish. I, personally, I've been there. I've seen Parish. I've seen our veterans sit in the hall for two days before they could get a room. I've seen Vieira here. Beautiful hospital. Fantastic hospital. I cried when we lost Rockledge. That was a great hospital, well-staffed, good people. Canaveral. Our ladies, they want to go to Canaveral to have their children. Nobody wants to go to Parish. I lost my own daughter in Parish. So, I'm speaking from the heart. Now, a bigger issue is development in our flooding. North Brevard, I don't know how many pieces of equipment we have up there to work on our flooding. My tax dollars have been going south. When this was a cow pasture, I helped build the courthouse. Titusville, I've seen the county seat in Titusville. And North Brevard be the Pearl of Brevard. I've seen this place be developed. And then you want to pull the county seat and bring it down here. And then there was the talk about let's split the county. But God bless the parishes because we know where the county seat is and we know why. Now, the flooding is ridiculous. Our systems, freshwater, sewer water, stormwater, are all undermined. They're outdated. Our flood plan hasn't been updated since 1960 when it was rote. I've seen Stan Johnson, an excellent stormwater engineer, be disgraced and arrested for trying to bring it to the attention and get help. Now, we've got a lot of development coming and we're going to boom. If we're not prepared for it, we're going to be in worse shape. Now, when these floodwaters come in, we have septic tanks and drain fields that quit working. Where does that sewer water go? When our manholes overflow, where does it go? It goes in our ground table water. When it goes in our ground table water, we're drinking it. Water flows downhill. Now, we live up north. And if we don't fix our inner structure and we let all this development tie in to what we have now, we're not going to be able to help. It's just going to be even worse. We need some money to come. Our tax dollars needs to come up. $12 million on a parking lot and we've got people up there that are losing their homes, that are homeless. We're bailing water. We've got development and we turn a blind eye to it. You've got to build higher than the road level. That makes all the homes become retention ponds. Royal Oak is going to be a perfect example. Thank you. I wanted to give you time to finish your thought. Oh, I'm sorry? But those are, appreciate your time. If you were in mid-thought, go ahead and finish what you were about to say. Then we'll... We just need to get some real eyes up there. We need to get somebody that can handle it and know what they're talking about. We need to get our equipment fixed. We only got three pieces up there. A gradle, a spider, and one other one. I'm at a loss, but... We'll figure that out. We built you guys down here. Now, every good deed is not to deserve it. Thank you. Appreciate your input. Bramson? Is that you? Bramson? Branson. Branson. I left my glasses in my car, so I'm sorry. So did I, so I can't see anything. I feel your pain. Yes. Good morning. Happy holidays, Commissioner Brevard County. Mike Bramson, Brevard County Firefighters Union. Come to the podium today to basically give some opinions on advice and direction. As the public safety challenges continue in Brevard County from a lot of things that were already discussed today, coincidentally, I'd like to bring some support towards the commission on how we pursue for the future. The first thing I'd like to suggest, I'm going to bring in a couple of bullet points, is engaging the public on what they feel our health care should be, including pre-hospital. We know that this commission supports pre-hospital care. We spent a lot of time back and forth over this last year to get our pre-hospital services, i.e. the fire rescue, into a better place to move forward to allow services to get our citizens to the hospitals they need to get to. And I encourage that we continue to move forward with public opinion on the needs of the county and the cities, being that this board is in charge of the only emergent transport agency in Brevard County. As we continue, and as we have meetings like today, there's going to be incentive, taxes, fees, permits, zonings, committees, boards throughout the next year. I encourage that these remain very public, very open. And as you sit on the board, we support the continued conversation on what are the standard of care, what are the services. Primarily moving into new structures, new hospital systems, new people, emergent pediatric care. Please. We need to address that yesterday. 640,000 estimated people, depending on Google and AI, whatever you look at. 10th largest by population county out of 67 in the state of Florida, which is the third most populous state. And the biggest thing is you can't measure our geographic challenges to get people from where they are to where they need to be. So pediatric emergent care should be the hot topic. I'm looking at a slide right here about student athletes. We have EKGs. We have wonderful things in place. OB, absolutely. All these things are true. But there are certain levels of that care in Brevard County. There is nothing for us on the kids. Look to our neighbors, what they're going through, Orange County, St. Lucie County. If you watch their videos of their committee meetings, we can see the future of what our conversations will be. And most importantly, look to our local talent. If we're going to talk about pediatric care, there's pediatricians, there's people. Create incentives, create tax abatements, create whatever you have the power to do so to get those pediatric doctors into our community, into our hospitals to grow under care. So I just wanted to bring that little direction to you. I'm going to run out of time, but if I can get another 15 seconds, I'd like to create an example. Why this is important to the firefighters is when I became a paramedic 20-something years ago, they always ask why you want to be a firefighter, why you want to do anything. So I bring you an antidote on what is the most important part of the pediatric care. When you become a firefighter paramedic and you respond to a call, it is one of the very few jobs that someone has a bad day and a very level-headed, competent, loving mother will have their child incur an incident. And they will call 911. And then someone like me will show up. And that rational woman will hand a complete stranger their child and say, save the kid. And then when we get that child, the support services for getting that kid to definitive care because we drive pickup trucks with gear in it is scarce and complicated. So emergent pediatric care should be the hot topic along with everything else that's been discussed. I appreciate the extension. And once again, happy holidays. I think Mick Therrien earlier said the same thing. Absolutely. Yeah, that shows this is a problem. Thank you. Okay, Senator Sullivan. I'm one of Santa's helpers, Sandra Sullivan. Are you going to be jolly? I'm going to be very jolly. Okay, good. Santa's making the list and checking it twice. We're going to find out who's naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town. I can't sing. Oh, oh. Okay. I've got your top-ranked naughty list for the year. Naughty for giving $1.7 million to EDC tax-based Florida sewage plant study when you think they need more handouts than our firefighters. Two, naughty, you changed the EDC tax abatement referendum after it passed to 20 years for data centers. Don't think that's even legal. Naughty for not prioritizing funding our firefighters for two years, creating a public crisis that endangered and cost lives. Naughty for raising property taxes again while refusing to update developer impact fees that have not been updated in 25 years. Maybe you can use Colt to power a common-sense study on how infrastructure is paid without busting our tax cap. Naughty doubled and tripled density on the barrier island when we have a critical evacuation, deficiency of 61 hours and a cap 5, and changed the level of service to a variable for the developers. This will cost lives no matter. Naughty, with all the people flooded by rain and Brevard, you remove the density limitation on the floodplain, which will cause much more flooding and more lost homes. This coal is because you don't care about we the people. Naughty, $885 million lagoon tax where muck dredging, grass, clipping, marketing, etc. is not legal under the infrastructure surtax. Meanwhile, we ignore real infrastructure needs in Brevard as the county pumps millions of sewage into it without reporting it. Naughty, you tried to give away $7.2 million to Sarno land to Melbourne knowing it will cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars more for muck dredging because you absolutely have no shame. Naughty, you want to give $12.1 million for a 548 space parking garage for a developer's hotel which is supposed to be a 300 space parking garage, 90% for the people. Santa says the coal is because you're bad for prioritizing profit over public need. Merry Christmas. May you use these gifts to light up a much-needed fire in you to actually represent the people in 2026. And I'm going to add one last one. Naughty, because in doing what the lobbyists want when you should be making the decisions for we the people and so stop listening to the lobbyists. They don't control you. You should be doing what's best for the people. Is this real coal? Thank you, Santa. Sullivan. Okay. I think that was our last public card. Okay. I'd like to take about a 10-minute break. We'll be back at 1035. Petition to vacate a portion of the public utility and drainage easement Platt of Colony Park, Platt Book 118, and page 60, Merritt Island. Cheryl and Sean O'Brien. We have no cards. Motion to, I'd like to make a motion to approve. Second. It's a motion to approve. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Okay. We will go to Iowan. City of Melbourne's request to revise and restate the interlocal agreement governing the Old O'Galley Riverfront Community Redevelopment Agency. Okay. We have cards. I think Kathy. Yes. Okay, Kathy. Sorry. Good morning, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. This request that the Board of County Commissioners review the City of Melbourne's request to revise and restate the interlocal agreement between the county, the city, and the Old O'Galley Riverfront Community Redevelopment Agency and approve as submitted by the City of Melbourne or make revisions and authorize the Chair to execute the revised and restated interlocal agreement. I do want to point out that with the sunset of this CRA five years earlier, we will save approximately $1.8 million in general funding. Okay. Any questions? If not, we'll go. I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead. Can you read out for us what the, for the public, what the changes are, what they, what we're actually voting on today? What is it? There are some red line revisions that were not captured, which shows the, from the 2038 to the 2033. Also, they have committed to not increasing the debt service limit that was in the 2021 resolution of 6.835, so they're not going to change that. There was a typographical error in reference to 9A or Section 9A to 9B and the uniformity of language that has been added regarding the parking rates that the board asked for and, and to, to provide all the notice requirements. What about the, years that the public can have free parking and could you also tell us how much of our general fund are we putting into the CRA? Yes, they have committed to the first 15 years of free public parking for the 270 spaces. Also, in FY25-26, the county is contributing $346,536 of our general fund money to the CRA. They are contributing over 71%, so we're a minor part of that. We're like 29% of what goes into that CRA. The lion's share is from the city of Melbourne. And would it be fair to say that it would be about that amount for the next X amount of years that we'd be contributing? There could be, but the only caveat that I'd have to say is the growth in that area. As the property values grow, that money will continue to grow. Now, if our property taxes continue to decline, it could be that way. Thank you. The chair has asked me just to take over this one just for a few minutes. Any other questions by the board? Commissioner Goodson? No, I have no. So we'll go to the first card, which is Jenny Lamb, City of Melbourne, City Manager. Thank you, Commissioners. Jenny Lamb, City of Melbourne. I want to thank you for the opportunity to negotiate with your county staff for this interlocal agreement. The interlocal agreement as a whole helps realize the goal of the CRA. And right now, the goal, and not right now, but as was in our 2021 agreement, the goal of the CRA is for parking, additional parking in the form of a parking garage. So the version presented in your agenda package addresses the concerns brought up by both the commissioners at previous meetings and of your staff. And our city attorney will speak later and he can address the finer points of that agreement. But what I wanted to do today is I wanted to address some of the information that is out there in the public social media and such. And I just wanted to clarify that this revised interlocal agreement allows for either the city slash CRA to build the garage on our own or for the city CRA to enter into a private or a public-private partnership. It allows the option. And so if something falls through with the public-private partnership, our county, our city council has authorized staff to negotiate a public-private partnership. But if something were to fall through, the city would come in and build the garage because we know we need 270, 300 parking spots for downtown O'Goway. An independent analysis was determined, or an independent analysis was performed, and it determined the cost to construct a 300-space garage is approximately $10.5 million. There seems to be concern about the $10.5 and the $12 million. The difference in those as spelled out in the agreement is for ancillary costs, including legal costs, professional engineering design and consulting costs, engineering inspection and management costs, bonds, and so forth. That gets to the $12.075 million. An independent analysis was also performed to determine what it would cost to build a 542 to 548-space parking garage, and that would cost 20, the construction cost alone would be $20.25 million. The reason I give you these costs today is to show the CRA is not funding any additional parking that would be needed for the development. And so the revised interlocal agreement would be used only towards the capital contribution and those ancillary costs and the debt service for the 300 parking spaces. So we appreciate your consideration, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Board members, any questions? Our next card is Derek Gorse. Hello, sir. Hi there, folks. Thanks for the forum, and thanks for having me. I'm an artist and a business owner in O'Galley. I have an art gallery and a cool gift shop, lots of local flavor in there, and we even have an indoor mini-golf in my gallery, by the way, right now. I love EGAD. I love O'Galley. I first took classes there when my folks moved us down from Massachusetts, 10 years old, 1980, 1981, somewhere in there, started taking art classes, and O'Galley is so important in the county. It's essential as that place of expression. A smart friend of mine, you guys may know, J.C. Stivers, she and Jimmy, J.C. described O'Galley once as the soul of the county. Other parts of town might have more of this or that, but O'Galley, when you lead with art, it's a place where people can express themselves, make things, learn about their community more, connect with people. It's a great place for mental health expression, et cetera, et cetera. Through my art career, I've been able to travel the world a bit and see how good towns are done, see what they have in common. O'Galley has an opportunity to be really walkable. There aren't that many places in the county that have that, and I've learned and been able to see what makes a place walkable. 17 years I've been involved in O'Galley and on the EGAD board for a bunch of that. I chaired the board for a couple years, did my best to wrangle the cats during those years. I've come to be really grateful that the CRA for O'Galley for EGAD wasn't formed at a very opportune tax time, so we didn't have a lot of money to work with from the city. The reason I'm thankful for that is it put it all really on the shoulders of each business owner, each artist, each musician, to build the buzz ourselves and connect with people one moment at a time without fancy curbs some of the time, without fancy signs and all that. And I think that has given us the great result of it being really about the character and the connections and the personalities of the community. initially it was like just the artists expressing themselves, but you started to see more and more of the public engaging and bringing that energy. So, you know, one event, one mural, one happening at a time. All of that buzz we knew would progress to this moment where we are now. The number one need that we hear, the number one request, the number one pain point for businesses is parking, absolutely. So we're grateful that we attracted the right folks and you all and the city have been creative and expressed your own art of negotiation to work on this parking garage plan. We're excited to have it and we need it. I might park on the top floor every time just for, just to get a better view and remind myself of the path. Thanks a lot. Thank you, sir. Next speaker card is Jackie Haywood. Good morning. I'm coming to you as just a, I've, I'm a resident of Brevard County for the past 30 years and I have seen the growth and development of the Yolgali Arts District. The closing of businesses and the birth of new businesses. I feel that this parking garage is needed in this area to help the continued growth for the community. Being able to find parking is essential. I'm coming to you as a mother, a shopper, a passenger in a vehicle when my husband is driving around three, four times and he's like, okay, I'm done. We're leaving. There's no place to park. The parking just alleviates the stress. I think it will have an opportunity to open families to making more memories downtown with the events that they have, the lighting of the tree, the walking around for the mural to see all the different murals that the artists have done, the trick-or-treating events that they're having down there. There's just so many events that people aren't aware of because they just don't think about going there. I think allowing for the garage will open up not just for more businesses to be prosperous, but just for people to open up their eyes to see what's actually down there, like how thriving our community really is. There's just so much down there with the shops and the restaurants and the artists. And if you haven't taken time to go down there to see how much it's changed in the past 30 years, I've seen so much different things. And it's foot traffic that really needs to be available. And the only way to be available for foot traffic for families is to have parking. And there's so much that this community offers. But if we don't allow for simple things like that, when you go to the big cities and you go to events, you know, okay, we're paying for parking here. That takes away the stress of just even the beginning of like, where does our adventure start? Knowing that you can have that here in hometown, just other people coming in and being able to experience that, I think that's a win for everybody. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Carl Kaiserman. He resolved his issue, you wanted me to tell you. Lovely. Thank you. Our next speaker card is Anouk Jorda. Good morning. I came here on December 2nd. I want to echo what was said previously by the people before me, and also echo the voices of the artists that I've been interacting with working for BCA, Brevard Cultural Alliance. I've had the joy to meet several artists that grew up in Egad, that went to Egad Elementary School, and that want the best for these districts. They emphasize the fact that parking and walking around is immensely important. Also, restoring the flow, as I said previously, of the art districts going through the Fusiner. So, I know that the development of the parking is also connected to building the hotel, and I think that the parking and the hotel will add to the flow that needs to be restored, and that was left vacant by the Fusiner. Great visions for the hotel and the parking. Once you have food traffic, and then you create a hotel that creates an art vision for the whole district, then suddenly everything falls into place. I would picture that hotel almost like an art landmark in the middle of Egad, having maybe artists in residence, maybe, you know, curated shows, maybe something like I was mentioning last time at ACWA in Miami, where you have an art week, maybe sponsoring art festivals. There are no limits once this is put in place, but there is urgency, because I think Egad is kind of missing it, and it's been missing it since the Fusiner was closed. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Julie Kenny. Kennedy? Got it. Sorry. Sorry if my handwriting is a little off. Good morning. I think it is still morning, and thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak. I am Julie Kennedy. I'm the Vice Mayor for the City of Melbourne. And I'm just here to just express, to reiterate just what has been said before you. This parking garage is going to be a game changer for downtown a galley. I frequent downtown a galley, and sometimes I take an Uber there, because there is no place to park. If I had a place to park, I would go there even more often. And I think in bringing more people down, it would bring more businesses to the downtown a galley area, which would then increase the tax base, which then would get you, the county, more money, because that's what we want, right? We want more money so that we can balance our budget, we can put more money into roads, put more money into fixing the flooding problems, and all those other things. But I think this here is a way to bring more people down, more businesses, increase that tax base, and really be a benefit for the entire county, as well as downtown a galley. So I'm asking for you to support this project. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sandra Sullivan, and after that it will be Jennifer Dustin. Sandra Sullivan, one of the biggest things I have about this is a lack of transparency. But before I start, I just want to go to Mr. Jarn's friends coming up to speak. This is like classic, right out of the playbook of Boot Barker. Anyway, so last meeting, we had, we were talking, so the agreement is for 300, the 21, 20, 2021 agreement is for 300 parking spaces. But in the last meeting, they were like, we just want to secure just like, just say, it'll be this many parking spaces, 270. And there wasn't, and somebody said, you know, you know, how many spaces is it going to have? Oh, we don't know. Baloney. It's right on their website. So I went to their, their minutes, from their meeting and their documents. And so they're building a six-story, not a three-story, 548 parking space garage. Now, they don't, when you go there, they don't have an agreement in place yet on a public partnership. And in fact, the grant application, the CRA application is actually for the hotel and the parking garage, which is interesting. So I'm going to say this. You just got burned with $2.7 million on the Titusville Hall of Fame by entering into agreements when there wasn't even a design done. So this, of this $10.3 million for construction, the rest is to design it on the CRA. Now, you want to talk about save money because we have an infrastructure crisis. You could take that money, that money that would go to this CRA, $12.1 million, plus there's money in there. You could take that and reallocate that and close the CRA today. You want to save money? Close the CRA today. We have three CRAs that have no debt that can be closed today. You close the embeds. That's essentially a CRA. You talk about, oh, what's the future amount? Our property taxes are going up every year. The assessments are going up. So just this year, they got over a 13% increase in CRA monies. I'm going to say, yeah, the applicant MHH has applied for financial assistance for the proposed 160-room full-service hotel and adjacent 542-space joint-use parking facility in the O'Galley area of Melbourne, Florida. You know, it stinks. The lack of transparency that comes out of this commission, the statement of what has been redlined here, it's just, you guys are deplorable. You have no shame about even being honest about what the deal in place is. You know? It's just deplorable. Thank you. Next comment card, Jennifer Dustin. Good morning. I'm coming to you as a resident of Brevard County and of Melbourne. I just have to say that I love being able to go out and do things in the county and do things in my neighborhood. One of the reasons that I love living here is that there are lovely things to do. We have beautiful weather. We can walk around. And as Mr. Goris was saying, I have lived abroad for many years in different towns, different cities where it's nice to walk around. O'Galley does have the unique potential to be an amazing walkable area for us. When we have the hotel built and we have places for people to park, we're going to bring visitors here who are going to spend their hard-earned money. We're going to have our people that live here who are thriving with their own businesses in O'Galley and around who will spend their money and all of that money will trickle down. You have to have people to be able to shop in their neighborhoods and to be able to have their businesses thrive to support the locals that need different services and infrastructure. All of it rolls. With regards to having the parking garage, I can also speak to you from an O'Galley Rotary Club member. One of our major events that we have every year is the Rocky Water Brew Fest. And the Rocky Water Brew Fest brings in brewers from all over the state. We bring in about 4,000 to 5,000 people to come and participate in the event. And the tickets, all the ticket sales, all of the money that we make at that event goes to local charities. 100% of the net proceeds. That event alone, we have people come in and they don't have places to park. The people that are coming in the night before for the party, even the sponsors that we are trying to recruit, sometimes have to leave because they don't have anywhere to park. So they're discouraged from supporting the next year. It would be an awful shame for people to lose events like this and other events that could be had in O'Galley and around because of lack of parking. I know that there are a lot of people that want the money to go other places and those are valid, valid concerns. But you have to understand, and you will understand, that all the money that you spend and supporting people to make more money trickles down. You're able to spend that money to support all of the needs. We can't do everything all at once, but this is one thing that is an immediate need now, as you've seen from the businesses that are requiring it to stay open and for the people to have a place to go and a place to enjoy the city that they love spending time in. Thank you. Thank you. Our next card is Long Island Audit. I don't actually have a name on it. Good morning. Can you state your name? My name is Sean Paul Reyes. I'm an investigative journalist and activist and founder of Long Island Audit, Inc. I don't really... If the residents want a parking garage, that's fine. I just think the way it's going about and the details of it is a little murky, especially I heard them talking about they don't want to do 50 years that you guys wanted 50 years and now they're offering 15 years. But let me just get right into it. I'm here today to raise serious concerns regarding the proposed hotel and parking garage project, a joint project between the city of Melbourne and Brevard County and the broader issues of transparency, ethics, and public trust surrounding it. I've brought this matter up several times during the city of Melbourne council meetings and to the council directly and who is here today, sitting right behind me, and they have largely ignored my concerns. Let me be clear at the outset. This is not about personalities. It's about accountability, ethical governance, and the appearance of impropriety when public authority intersects with private interests. The public record reflects a close personal relationship between Mayor Paul Alfrey and the project developer, Mr. Larry Jarns, who I believe is also here, and I think it's interesting that everybody who supported the project happens to sit right next to Mr. Jarns, the developer. I wonder why. The relationship has included shared travel between Jarns and the mayor, business promotion, financial interactions. Mr. Chairman, Madam Chairman. Nobody's sitting next to Mr. Jarns. He's sitting by himself. In the vicinity, I'll say. So guilt by association, is that how you think? No, no, I'm pointing out things. It's just attacking people and their relationship. Sir, this is my public speaking time. Can you be quiet, please? No. Can you be quiet? I'm not being quiet. This is my public speaking time. Madam Chairman. I give you back the gavel. Chairman gave me the floor. Okay. Point of order. Well, this is my speaking time. Point of order. I just wanted to point out a fact that it was misrepresented. Okay. Well, that's not a fact. They've seen you in the vicinity of him. No. If you want to be an attorney. We'll get to that later. We'll get to that later. I just want to say we have to be really careful here. I understand that we don't want public attacks and things like that, but we are opening ourselves into a lawsuit here. Have you ever heard of the First Amendment? I'm just asking. You earlier told somebody, oh, don't direct anybody. Direct me. I have the floor. I have the floor. This is my time. I just want you to be factual. This is my time. Guess what? You need to be factual on the First Amendment, sir. You have freedom of speech in this country. I welcome you. I welcome you challenging facts. You're not here to be attracted against my time. Don't interrupt me. Do not interrupt me. You're interrupting me, chair. I have a right to do that. I'm the chair. So go ahead. Keep talking. Proceed. Now I lost my whole train of thought. Anyway, regardless of intent, these facts alone create the relationship between Mr. Johnson and I think maybe you. Let's look into that. Regardless of intent, these facts alone create a reasonable perception of preferential treatment in a project involving public approvals and public resources. What deepens that concern is despite the relationship, Mayor Alfrey has repeatedly voted and signed on governmental actions directly affecting Mr. Jarn's interest, including but not limited to zoning decisions, contracts tied to this very project. Ethical standards exist for precisely these situations. Recusal is not an admission of guilt. It is a safeguard meant to protect the public confidence. When recusal does not occur, the integrity of the process itself is put at risk. This project is not isolated. It appears connected to a broader pattern that warrants scrutiny. Based on the facts and records I've reviewed, it appears Mayor Alfrey is engaged in criminal activity. And I understand that these matters related to this conduct are currently under the review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I am stating facts that taken together raise legitimate concerns about overlapping personal relationships, public roles, and financial benefit. For example, the Mayor's Private Roofing Company received federally funded payments through Habitat for Humanity, an organization whose local director, Anna Terry Berry, is publicly documented as being friends with Mr. Jarns' wife, Jeanette Jarns. When public officials participate in decision-making, excuse me, I'm talking, Chairman, in decisions affecting close associates while their private businesses receive public or federally funded work through overlapping social networks, the public is entitled to question whether ethical boundaries are being respected. Because of this pattern, I want to be transparent myself. Your time is up. Your time is up. Stop interrupting me. I am not skeptical of only the relationship between Mr. Jarns and the Mayor, but also whether similar personal relationships and business relationships exist between each and every one of you. It's not an accusation. It's a statement of civic responsibility. Scrutiny is how public trust is preserved. We the people expect more than technical compliance with ethics rules. We expect leadership that is cautious, proactive, and protective of public trust. When officials fail to recuse themselves where ethical standards clearly call forth, the burden shifts to the public to demand transparency. I respectfully urge this board to ensure that all actions related to this project, past, present, and future, are handled with full disclosure, documented independence, and a commitment to restoring public confidence. Development should not come at the expense of integrity. Chairman, I will be emailing each of you with all the evidence and I've uncovered during my investigation. I will be following this matter closely and I hope you strongly investigate and reconsider this project in its current form. I prefer the 50 years, by the way. But, thank you. I challenge you to one thing. Go ahead. Whenever all these allegations are proven to be false and all these individuals are exonerated, I challenge you to come back here and to admit that you were wrong. What allegations is false? What allegations are false? I'm talking about when they are. How would you know? And then, if they are true, Have you investigated the allegations, sir? You're coming from a position of bias I assume you're not willing to accept that challenge. I mean, have you investigated the allegations, sir? Have you or not? If they're true, we'll find out. Has this body investigated the allegations? Okay. Your bias is very clear, Chairman. It's obvious you're not accepting that challenge. Your bias is very clear. All right. Next speaker, Adam Conley. Good morning, Board. Adam Conley, City Attorney for the City of Melbourne. First, I'll thank the Board for giving staff direction to further negotiations with the city staff at your December meeting. And I'll thank Mr. Richardson, Mr. Leisenfeld, and Ms. Wall for actively engaging with us on those additional negotiations. The version of the revised and restated interlocal agreement that you have before you today reflects those further negotiations. Again, I believe this version captures all of the minimum requirements that were part of this board's December 2nd motion, together with county staff's requested additional items from those negotiations over the past week and a half to, again, reincorporate the debt ceiling maximum, as well as further bolster the language about uniformity in parking rates and time frames as requested by county staff. Beyond that, I will reiterate some of the points that Ms. Lamb made. Again, the $10.5 to $12.075 million represents the CRAs and the city's contribution to either a capital project on the city and CRAs' own for approximately 300 parking spaces, or also the potential for a larger shared parking garage project through a public-private partnership. While city council has heard an unsolicited P3 proposal and has given staff direction to further negotiations on that, nothing is final yet. And so, again, both options are still available and feasible for the city. Additionally, again, to reiterate, $12.075 million represents what would be the city's contribution to that project. It does not, $12.075 million does not represent the county's investment or opportunity cost in the underlying project. As you heard from Ms. Wall, the county's opportunity cost and investment in the CRA funds is somewhere around 30% of the overall project funds. Additionally, I will correct any statements about CRA funds going to subsidize the hotel project. As this interlocal states, the only allowable expenditures is for capital, ancillary, and debt service costs for the parking garage project. The city is well aware that it cannot use CRA funds for economic incentives for any P3 hotel project and that any of those economic incentives would come from the city directly and not from the CRA. I'll answer any other questions you may have, but I thank you for your consideration on this item. Do we have any questions? Yes. In the actual agreement, it says, at the conclusion of the 10-year term described above, the city shall not be restricted in the use of revenue from paid public parking spaces for the parking garage project. Can you explain what that statement means? So again, in our previous negotiations, there were a back and forth on the time frame of free parking and a time frame for cost-restricted parking. The 10-year time frame that's referenced in that Section 9D goes back to language in Section 9C talking about how for that 10-year time frame, the city is agreeing to set parking rates at an annual amount for estimated and capture the capital maintenance reserves and annual maintenance costs that are associated with the parking garage project. And then in Section 9D, that's saying after that 10-year term is over, that underlying requirement goes away and the city will be able to set rates and use that parking of revenue for the purposes that city council sees fit. So after these 10 years, the city council... And technically, it's after 25, right? Because the first 15 years is the free period. But yes, after that 25-year period, then it's giving a future city council that freedom to set... To do whatever they want. Correct. Okay, thank you. If there isn't anything else, thank you for your time. I have a question related to that question. And that's after 10 years. But if both parties agreed, that could be changed in the future. Is that true? I mean, the interlocal agreement is certainly subject to amendment in the future. It could be improved, it could be adjusted, it could be changed in the future. What we're trying to get is an agreement so this good project can proceed. And the version that you have before you was approved by both the CRA and the city at its December 9th meeting. Okay. You're an attorney. Yes, sir. Do you see anything that's being done illegally here? So individual ethics issues of individual elected officials is not really within my purview, right? But to date, the city has gone through its public-private partnership process pursuant to floor statute and our own ordinances for application consideration and the review process so far. It hasn't been finalized yet. And so, again, right, each individual, both commissioner and council member, needs to consider financial conflicts of interest and other things and decide whether or not it's appropriate for them to vote. My question is the agreement, the legal documents that you reviewed, and you see no problem with them. I'm sorry, you're referring to this interlocal agreement? Oh, yeah. With regards to this interlocal agreement, right, we've been here at council meetings and commission meetings to negotiate, had those discussions and negotiations with county staff and are here for a review today, right? I think this version is in the best interest of all the interested parties and I certainly recommend approval of it. Okay. Thank you. Marcus Smith, the next speaker. Good morning, Commissioners. Marcus Smith, Melbourne City Councilman. So, I wanted to touch on something a little bit different. So, I'm retired military and I arrived here in Brevard County in 2010. And when I retired, you may know they give you an opportunity to leave and go to another city. But there's a reason why I chose to stay here and why I decided to run for office here. And that was because I saw the potential, I saw the quality of life. And so, as I think about this parking garage and I think about the opportunity that we have here to create all the different comments that we heard, I love what Derek Gore had to say and other artists. You know, being in the military, I've lived in several cities, seen several cities and we have an opportunity right now to show that O'Galley Arts District in Melbourne can really be a shining star and create this type of quality of life. And I also want to point something out that CRAs work when properly managed and executed. So, the primary objective of CRA and this CRA is to eliminate blight, stimulate economic growth, and improve living conditions in targeted areas. That's exactly what we're talking about here. So, with this parking garage and the hotel that can be built right here and just the type of catalyst of energy that it brings, it's going to be hard to sort of capture that. So, sometimes when we have these moments in life that, you know, we consider all the factors that are involved and there's been a lot of negotiations back and forth and I love what the city attorney just stated that we're looking at an agreement here that it could be a win-win for both sides. So, I would like to recommend that you all support this initiative and that as we continue to move forward and we look back from this moment here and we say, look at what we've done, look at what we've accomplished and now O'Galley Arts District and all of the tension and energy that was there before but look at what we've come and what we've done now. So, thank you. Thank you. Carl Kassermark? It's probably Carl Kaiserman, I think. Kaiserman. He left early and his issue was resolved. He asked me to pass that along. Okay, good. He left early and his issue was resolved. That's good news. Not that he left but his issue was resolved. Mark LaRusso. Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners. I'm just here to back clean up a little bit here just to let you know. Mr. Chairman, you mentioned Melbourne. Lift that up. And I tell everybody else to lift it up too. So, you mentioned Melbourne Regional Airport. It's Melbourne, Orlando International Airport. So, we have tens of thousands of jobs that are coming into that area. I'm the vice chairman of that board so I see what's in front of us. I see what's happened over our shoulders and I know that we're just bound to great things there. So, when I say that and I mean that we're going to get an influx of engineers, professionals, very high grade type of professionals. They're going to seek out places like Algalley. They're going to seek out places throughout your whole county. And I don't see this as giving something something to somebody. I see it as giving back to our constituency. This is what they've worked for. This is how hard they've worked. And I've represented this district from 2004 to 2012. I was convinced to come back again in 2018. I'm glad I did. I get to talk about this. And have represented Algalley those whole times. I also represent my district goes over to the beach side. and all of the property that is within the Melbourne border over beach side is 6,000 strong. Where do we go? We go to Algalley. It's just a standard of life. Either there or bunkies next door. Either one of the two. So all I'm asking is that you keep in mind for the future. Again, it was a good point that this agreement can be negotiated anytime, anywhere, with any amendment, positive or negative, whatever we look to see that happen. And I'm asking you once again to please consider passing this and please consider allowing the folks in Algalley to really shine as they've been trying to. One last thing I want to do. Mr. Gores is here and he spoke very eloquently about it. He's a fantastic artist. I'm sure you've seen him. He's world renowned. He puts on an art camp every year that sold out months ahead of time. Sold out for the summer. My two grandchildren go to it. They're right in line on the wait list. But also he offers scholarships to the less fortunate as well, too. That's the kind of core of people that are in downtown Algalley. That's the kind of core that has grown this CRA, this hometown, this Americana. We had a tree lighting event Friday. It was December 5th, I think it was. And there were thousands of people there, children and families and elderly like myself and that sort of thing. So anyway, again, five seconds left. Please, if you have any additional questions, any additional concerns, please, please reach out to us and ask us. We're here and we're here in force. So any questions for me? Any questions? I have questions for staff. Is it okay if I ask staff questions? Well, let's finish the public hearing and then I'll recognize you first. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Okay, that's all of our public cards. Commissioner Delaney. Thank you. I was wondering, Kathy, if you could tell me how much has Brevard County put into the CRA since this agreement? Since this agreement? Since the parking garage became the last project and that was all we were funding? I have through 2023, and we put in $1.2 million. A total of $3.9 million has been allocated to the fund, you know, the transport, the the CRA fund, $3.9 million. So approximately a little less than 31% has come from the city. Right. that's that's not what I was, I was just wondering how many dollars we've put in as a county into this project basically is what I'm trying to figure out is, well, do we have that number? No, all I have is through 2023 that we put in $1.2 million into the fund. With that, I would assume, and that was since what year? That is 2022-23. What we allocated by December 31st of 2022, that's how much we have put in, $1.2 million. Okay. So, board, if I could, I'd like to propose something because I have a lot of concerns about this, but I'd like to be able to vote for it. And what I would like to propose is this $1.8 million that about approximately that we are saving from ending the CRA early. I would like to see if I could get any support to allocate $1 million of that towards North Brevard stormwater projects and $800,000 of that towards North Merritt Island stormwater projects. obviously, you know, not all at once, but as that money comes in. And just so that, you know, we can make this project about the whole county. And with that, I would feel comfortable voting for this. Is that legal? To take money out of a community redevelopment agency? I wasn't going to take it out. I mean, this is money that was created as a result of the CRA that we created. I'm not advocating taking the money out. I'm saying that the years that would be, that we would be contributing, that we're now going early, that that money stays earmarked for stormwater projects in North Brevard and North Merritt Island. I think we'd have to wait until this ran its course. I mean, yeah, go ahead. If you want to make a motion, go ahead. I guess, Morris, would that be something that we could do? Not directly. There'd be a number of steps that would be required, obviously. It contravenes the existing interlocal agreement between this board and the city of Melbourne. That would have to be addressed, plus the board isn't operating currently as the CRA and doesn't have authority to make that decision at the moment. Conceivably, there are actions the board could take that could possibly get you there, but we'd have to look at that. Would it be amenable to say, to make a motion to approve this with that caveat of working towards earmarking those dollars? Is that something we could do? Can you bind a future board 13 years into the future with what they'll do with what will become general fund at that time? Not by that mechanism, no. It would have to be through the normal budget process. Commissioner, I would say to you that I would work with you to find, I believe, I think I said this once before, and I believe that there are future stormwater projects that can be done in North Brevard through Sorrel. Hold on. Sorrel has the stated goal, keep stormwater out of the lagoon. That's a good thing. But if also it benefits and prevents flooding in certain areas, that's a win-win for everybody. I think those things are in your future. There aren't projects today, but I would only say to you I'm willing to work with you toward that goal because I don't see any sort of conflict there. I think that's what Sorrel was there to do. It's just those projects aren't there today. Are you talking about the possibility of us as a board looking at our current plan and those dollars that we have now? I would do that with you. I think, again, I've talked to staff in natural resources and have asked this question before. And there are dollars in the bank today that just don't have a project attached to it. And I don't think it's in conflict with the plan. I just think it hasn't been identified. So I've already kind of laid the path for you there. I think we just need to move on to the next step of it. Commissioner Goodson. Mark, would you please come forward? Commissioner, stay out of District 2 and take care of your own problems. Now, I want you to listen to this so you get it one time, okay? Thank you so much. At my age, anything that's called black, that's great. Mark, can you tell the board, we did a $300,000, $400,000 study on North Maryland trying to understand the flooding, trying to get the residents to understand. And out of that study, we found out that over time, and I mean 40 years ago, it is a bowl. It is a bowl. We've even asked NASA to let us put water in their ditch, and they will not allow that. We've asked fine to allow us an outflow into the Indian River. They will not allow that. So if you're going to do something North Maryland, please explain to me what you'd do and how much money you'd need. Sir Commissioner, I believe you're specifically referring to the broad acres study that we did last year, and we had identified it to be about $20 million to address that one street, and we would be nominally actually resolving the street flooding, but really the properties themselves are the issue. And so as you had just laid out, we have spoken with NASA. There are significant, I'll say, hesitation with them opening up their property for us to look at possibly lessening that cost and where to put that water. The other thing that I just wanted to quickly mention, because I'm not necessarily prepared to go down the list today, but myself, working with natural resources and planning and development, as well as EOC, are preparing a brief for the board to discuss drainage on the 22nd of January, and I'll say that what frequently comes up in these meetings is our backlog. Right now, we're finalizing that, and I believe with inflation, we're looking at about $2.4 billion, but I will note, because I think it's been misunderstood, that includes other infrastructure, not just transportation, construction, and about $500 million of it is identified projects. I can't sit here right this second and say there's nothing else on Merritt Island we can do, because I wasn't prepared for that question, but we have a lot of irons in the fire throughout the county where we just have not had sufficient funding in order to be able to move from studies to actual designs or construction. So would it be safe to say, if you wanted to earmark this money that's coming from the CRA, and what was the number? Did anybody hear a number? 1.5. 1.5? 1.8. Okay, so it would take, at that rate, if there's any truth of your backlog, which I believe, you know, all that, the studies, and it seems like every time we turn around, we have to spend $300,000 on an environmental study before we can do a thing, anything. So, 20 years? Obviously, with the time value of money, that won't go as far as it will today, but we would be happy to work with the board if we had any additional funding. I understand. So, if you're going to help flooding in MEMS or North Merit Island, and you wanted to correct it next year, the simplest thing to do would be to raise taxes. Raise taxes. Then everybody gets, you get a fund of money, you get to correct every problem if you can. So, or we stay at a cap and we get nothing. Again, Commissioner, that's a board decision on whether or not it wants to raise taxes. We've presented that there are significant challenges with the funding that we have. I just saw today on the news that Orange County is going back for another cent transportation tax. Now, whether they get it or not, but if you look at those counties that surround us, they don't have a cap. They have taxes for flood water, for transportation, and they do quite well. I'm not promoting anything. I'm just saying we as the people, we're going to have to decide to have nothing or we're going to have to pay for it. Now, the minute you raise taxes, somebody says, I pay $2,000 of your taxes. So, I pull up their tax bill. And what they don't even recognize, $1,000 of that $2,000 goes where? School board. School board. Whether you have children or not, they get about 50% of your tax bill. Then after that, it's split out between mosquito control, fire and rescue, and just yada, yada, yada. He gets $3 or $4, $6 of each person to correct roads, bridges, infrastructure, and drainage. It takes a long time in today's market to buy a $2 million backhoe at $10 a tax bill. Thank you very much, Chair. Commissioner, I think what you're trying to say is, correct me if I'm wrong, nothing is for free, and we just can't make money appear out of thin air. So, Commissioner Feltner, did you? Oh, Commissioner Delaney. Thank you. Commissioner Goodson, I would love for you to take your own advice in that. And I... Advice are you giving? I'm waiting on it. For you to stay out of my district, that would be nice. Huh. I do drive. But second of all, what I would like to say is that... Nobody, let's be cordial. If I heard you correctly, Commissioner Feltner, what, I'd like to build on that a little bit. And because we do have a considerable amount of money sitting in our sorrel waiting on projects right now, and like I mentioned a couple meetings ago, I'm not advocating for stopping projects that are right there that were just on the cusp of, you know, getting ready to start or finish the planning for. But anything that isn't in motion, I would really appreciate support and advocating for those dollars to go towards our infrastructure. Can I say just real quick? Sure. Just yield me one second. I understand, and I specifically asked dollars that are not already committed that could be used for stormwater projects. Again, specifically, right, the first goal, keep it out of the river. Right. The ancillary benefit, though, is you got flood control. And I think those two things, in fact, I've got another item on here today where I'm going to mention something like that. And so I think when those two things can come together at the same time, then you've done a good project. That's my two cents. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Do we have any other discussions? If not, I would entertain a motion. I'm ready to make a motion to approve. There's a motion. If I could. And a second to approve. We're now, any discussion on the motion? Sure. I just want to kind of explain my vote real quick. I'm going to support this today. And the reason why I'm going to support it is because I'm acting in good faith, because I'm believing that our board is going to act in good faith and really focus on our stormwater infrastructure issues. This is, the county and the city has worked together. While I'm not super happy with the 15 years, it is what it is. I appreciate you going back down to the original amount that, you know, you brought us the six point whatever million that was in the original agreement. But I'm acting in good faith here, board. So with that, we can continue. Thank you. Any other discussion? I just want to say a few things. One, I started going to the O'Galley area, what is now the redevelopment district, in the 1950s. It's something very close to my heart. Apologize if I got a little defensive, but it's where I grew up. It's a special community. And I just want to thank those who are making it even more special and who came here today to speak and talk and the wonderful things that they are doing in our community. I've often said that in the public arena, sometimes no matter how positive something is, sometimes the more positive something is, the more negative. negative, it's like the law of physics. For every action, there's equal encounter, reaction. So the more good somebody does, it seems like this dark side, the more negative it draws. So it's not easy standing up here. It's not easy being a great artist. It's not easy running a business. It's not easy being a great elected official, making the community better. It's not easy being a really good developer who, what would we do without our developers? They provide communities. They provide housing. They provide neighborhoods and parks. And they're good developers. They're not all evil, just like in everything else. So I just, I support this wholeheartedly. I want to thank Commissioner Felton for his leadership on this matter where we share the O'Galley District. I want to thank the city and their good work and especially thank those in the community in O'Galley that are keeping it a very, very special place. It's special to my heart. Deeply special. And by the way, you know why they call it the Rocky Waters Brewfest? They call it Rocky Waters because O'Galley in French means Rocky Waters. Anyway, just a little note. I didn't know that. I know there's a couple of French speakers here today. They would know that. I'll say quickly in closing, I think the artists there and the local businesses that have moved in the restaurants, they are enjoying a renaissance and I think people, people are headed there. So I think your future is bright and I wish you luck. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is there any further debate? If not, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries unanimous. Thank you. Oh, okay. I hope one day you can say something positive. J1, use agreement for the Guardian of Adelaide program. Do we have cards on that, sir? I have to tell you, I've worked with Guardian of Adelaide quite a bit. You know, I'm sort of the unofficial courthouse liaison and I chair the public safety board. Thanks for leaving me on there. I think that makes a lot of sense. So a lot of work with getting them to a place where they've got a good facility and if there isn't other discussion on the item today, I'm ready to make a motion for this one. Okay. There's a second by Commissioner Atkinson. Okay. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries unanimously. Good job, ladies. Hope it's everything you dreamed. Okay. Thank you for what you guys do. Okay. I am J2 and I just want to thank all the people who are here for that sitting through this meeting so far. It is board discussion, January Sorrel workshop structure. First speaker is, would you like to say a few things, yes? I just want to, Mr. Chair, if you will indulge me and want to start with, I took the liberty of working on an agenda. I did have some concepts. When I proposed this, I have contacted some folks. They have agreed to participate in both workshops and I took the liberty of mocking up an agenda to be helpful today. And for your consideration, and pass those down, I had, I've been working on it the last few days also, so recent changes. First, let me say, let me say, I appreciate your work and your leadership on this. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. And I think you'll see there, try to, I got for the clerk to the board here, try to anticipate, first of all, we had some constraints, so I'll just introduce the item, if you will, Mr. Chair, if that's, if you're okay with that. So, first of all, we agree to a time certain we're going to leave at nine o'clock. I think that's in consideration for the municipal governments who are letting us use their facilities, so we need, we need to leave by nine o'clock. I've tried to, to leave time there for board discussion, also as much time as possible for public comments. Um, and then, of course, we have the, you know, we'll start off with natural resources, and then, um, Sorel Oversight Committee, um, presentation. I have Dr. DeFries there from national, from the NEP, and then, I'm going to take a quick break, and then we have some business community person, we have a municipal perspective, um, and a former mayor, and then, uh, gentleman from St. Walt, who happens to be on the St. John's River Water Management District member, but, um, he does a good job speaking on economic impact of, he operates, I think, uh, he sells boats or something like that, and he, he, he can speak very well on, uh, economic impact. That is, that is the agenda, um, Mr. Chair, that I worked on. Great job. Good job. Thank you. Um, all right, then I'll go to the cards. Yes, sir. Um, first speaker is Vince Lamb. Wow, it's still morning. Happy to be here. So, I'm Vince Lamb. I'm, uh, I'm speaking as a representative of the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition. It's a non-profit that was formed to, uh, to advocate for the lagoon. The health of the Indian River Lagoon hit a low point from 2014 to 2016 with a, with a brown algae tide bloom was prevalent, uh, unusual mortality events were experienced by multiple species, and a massive fish kill occurred in the spring of 2016. Brevard County stepped into action, encouraged by the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, and the Save Our Indian River Lagoon project plan was quickly developed. This went to a referendum, and more than 60% of the voters, uh, chose to tax themselves to restore the Indian River Lagoon. Nine years have passed, and we are entering the final year of the Save Our Indian River Lagoon plan. Much has been done to restore the lagoon, but the work is far from finished. In a November commission meeting, you authorized the two public workshops in January, starting a process that should lead to a referendum on the ballot next November. I support the suggested, uh, uh, presentations that Commissioner Feltner has offered, uh, to open the workshops. Providing a baseline of factual information from respected community leaders is a good start. The workshops, uh, will provide opportunities for people to suggest improvements in the future of the Save Our Indian River Lagoon program. Should soil place an emphasis on stormwater projects that can reduce flooding and also, uh, reduce the nutrient pollutants entering the lagoon? Covered that. Should, uh, should soil play a bigger role in removing the basic septic systems, uh, that, uh, that to fulfill the state mandate by 2030? Uh, what should be the, uh, the proposed, uh, Bowen Aquarium and Dwayne DeFreeze Coastal Conservation Hub? What can, what role can they play in the future of the soil program? Hopefully these issues and more will be addressed in these workshops. The Brevard County Commission is clearly the most important government entity that determines the future of the Indian River Lagoon. Uh, some of the problems that we face today can be attributed to past bad decisions or failures to act. The Save Our Indian River Lagoon plan owes its existence to the leadership of the 2016 board, especially Jim Barfield and Kurt Smith. You now have the opportunity to make a difference. Thanks to each of you for accepting this challenge. Well, thank you for your good work. Sandra Sullivan. Sandra Sullivan, Merry Christmas. So, ten years ago we did this tax. We had lost almost all of our seagrass meadows in the Indian River Lagoon. And in ten years, we haven't appreciably got much back. That is the foundation species of the Indian River Lagoon, of life in the lagoon. And so I'm going to talk about a concern that many people share, which is the sewage dumping, which Brevard County is not even reporting to pollution notices anymore, not since 2023, and is under present consent orders for a lack of reporting sewage dumping. You have an impending, talking about state legislation on septic systems, you have an impending state legislation on AWT, which we were promised under the tax that you would address. And that deadline, it becomes law, July of 2026, only a few months away. And yet, when you look at the AWT projects, it's less than 3%, even though that's when we voted for the lagoon tax, we were promised AWT plant upgrades. South Beach is about 30% through planning. It is, by old numbers, $18 million to do that project, I don't know what it would be now, of which Sorrel only funded $2.4 million. Now, Sorrel is supposed to be matching, on an equal basis, any state grants. We were promised that, but it's not. Now, I'm going to give you an example. Legal documents of grants from Florida DEP that require the county to match documents. And then Sorrel lies at their meetings. I'll give you an example. The Cove. The Cove got about one point, roughly around numbers, $1.2 million. It's supposed to be matched by Sorrel. There was only $130,000 matched, and I think that's actually for connections and isn't a match to the grant. And so they said, oh, let's delete that project from the Indian River Lagoon. But when you look on the Lagoon Sorrel map of their conversions to sewer, all the other properties to the north of it, all the way up to South Beaches, is on the planning to put it on sewer. So that project, which is a mile away from the plant, would actually allow those connections to all those other properties. But the county wanted to put an MSTU on the Cove for $3 million. Now, we have contingency fund. Anyway, that's just one of the things. We have a sewage crisis. We have an infrastructure crisis in Brevard County. And right now, they're writing the plan. And I'm asking you to direct Sorrel to put more money to AWT, which is what we were planned, what we were promised in this Sorrel tax that has not been delivered to We the People. And they're going to be coming back. That plan's being written. That plan is going to come back to the Sorrel board in January. It's going to be like before. You won't do anything because you never do anything. It'll come back and you'll go, oh, we should have given them direction before it came back to the county commission. And every year, I come up here and I ask you to do it, and you do nothing. Okay, that's our last card. I have a question for staff, if I may. Yes. I'm not sure exactly who this question is to. Maybe Jim. I am obviously very interested to see what the public has to say during these workshops, but I think it's important that we all understand that doing these workshops costs something. And I'm wondering how much, and did we plan for it? Do we have extra money sitting in a kitty somewhere? Or where does it come from? Let me make sure I get it right here. So, City of Titusville, we will be, I don't, I use the wrong term, I say filming it. We'll be taping it so we can broadcast it on SEG TV and our social media. It won't be broadcast live. We can do that for free. I work with City. City of Palm Bay, we have to hire a contractor because their contract for their city council meetings only allow for their city council meetings. We have found a vendor. It's somewhere in the $4,200 range to do the filming and the taping so we can do similar as Titusville. And it's somewhere in the $5,600, $5,800 range if we want to do the same as Titusville and broadcast it live on SEG TV. And we've spoken over, Jenny, we haven't got the final resolution, but we'll have the funds for it probably out of general government. Just a quick follow-up question. So, that's for the venue and the taping and that kind of thing. Are there any other costs associated with doing things like this? Well, you're going to have staff there. You have security there, the sheriff's deputy. So, I mean, the normal, whatever you would have to have a regular workshop will have those costs too. Any idea what that kind of number is? Not off the top of my head. No, I'm sorry. Thanks. Okay. I have a question. I think we'll need a motion. Well, she... Oh, yes. Commissioner. While I do appreciate this being brought forward, I have a little bit of concern because I see a lot of names that have, that are either on the Sorrel Board or have been on the Sorrel Board. So, there's a lot of focus on that. And then it leaves only time for 23 public comments. And when you say 23, so the hour and 15 minutes. How much are we allowed per comment? If we do three minutes. Three minutes, okay. If that were the case. Could I just say that that's sort of an estimate? So, I tried to kind of split this in half. So, the first half is presentations and the second half dedicated to public comment and board discussion. So, you know, I envision one of the things I think I would do in a motion here is, one, let Kathy Lively put this in the... I typed over one, okay. So, let's let Kathy Lively put this in the proper posture. And that's number one. Number two, I envision that we would do the same workshop in both places so that we have two different groups of people. We have North County and we have South County. So, they should hear the same information. Obviously, we're going to hear from different people, Palm Bay versus Tyusville, et cetera. But also, I think that these folks would, you know, there would be some communication where they get to... I'll just give you an example here. Frank Cattino, okay. He's a former mayor. And from the municipal perspective, and also, since he operates a charter boat, he's in the water every day. So, I thought he was a great person to talk on that. But I also know he will not talk that long. He just won't. And so, there's some opportunities in here to kind of move things up and make it, you know, keep it moving along. I went to something yesterday that was hosted by Representative Monique Miller. And it was at an FIT facility in Palm Bay. And she had several speakers from everything from the zoo to Florida Tech to St. John's. And each of the speakers were given eight minutes, I think, or maybe it was four minutes and they had eight slides, something. It moved along very, very fast. This is going to be a little bit slower paced. I was making mental notes as late as yesterday about the kind of flow that we'd want. And also, too, I don't list it here, but I imagine that, you know, a couple of questions by commissioners at the end of each of these. So, just a target goal, if we're taking a break by 7 o'clock, then I think as a board, we're in a pretty good place to leave time. Can I say one more thing on the comments? Certainly, we try to do three minutes. But it's not an uncommon thing sometimes where if you have 100 minutes to go and you've got, you know, 100 people that they've got to get up there and do their speech pretty quick. So, I think that would just be a flexibility of the chair at that point. I was just hoping that this would have been a little bit more focused on the input of the citizens that are paying this. And because a lot of – I feel like a lot of people are – one thing that the Sorrell group has done an exceptional job of is educating. And I feel like people are really educated in what's going on, how we got here, what they're doing, all of that, and the economical impacts, all of these things. And I was really looking forward to this being majority, you know, citizen input, and then us as a board having a considerable amount of time to really dive through this. And I want that, too, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind. I want that, too. I've tried to leave what in my mind there at least a half hour, maybe 40 minutes for board discussion for us at the end. But I'll tell you what, maybe a way we could get there is we just simply say for each of these that you have 10 minutes. Okay. Right? So, for each of the presentations, they have 10 minutes. And I don't think they probably would object with that. It's hard to sit up there and talk for 15 minutes, right? Right. And that would – maybe that would do a lot to keep us – maybe we, you know, once we have our bathroom break in the middle there, we've moved it up a little bit. Is that – Yeah, that sounds great. I also see this as a start. Yes. And I view it as a – we're educating the board, too. We don't want to go advocating for another tax increase until we've been educated and get some public. And so I think this is a great start. I understand what you're – and we're going to need probably more public input. And there will be a lot of public input, maybe unlimited, when we decide to – if we decide to put this on the ballot. But, heck, there may be unlimited public if we were to decide to not put on – but when we're deliberating, there's going to be a lot of input. But I think there's a pretty good balance. I appreciate what you're saying. But we'll get started with this one, and we'll see how well it goes. We might – Would the 10 minutes be okay that Commissioner Feltner proposed? Oh, yeah. I'm fine. Okay. I'm fine with that. So let me – can I just say real quick – let me wrap that up one more time. We'll give direction to Kathy Lively to take my draft there and make it look pretty. And then also the – we're going to let the folks know that they got 10 minutes. So we're going to put 10 minutes on there for each of the presenters, and we're going to let them know that in advance, right, so they can keep it to 10 minutes. And the extra time goes to – And then the extra time will just simply be for public comment and board discussion, however that shakes out. The only change I would make, and I'm willing to go later than 9 if we needed to. So I'm not – I'm not opposed to that myself. I just thought for the sake of the municipal governments, we're borrowing their facility. They're going to keep staff there. We talked about having – there's got to be security, so those kinds of things. But personally, I'm not opposed if it's an option that we go later or even make that change on the fly based on the number of people we have. I don't personally care. To be fair, Titus Spills meetings a lot of times go to 1 o'clock in the morning. So 10 p.m. is not too bad for them. I hear you. Okay. So that would be my motion, sir, those items. Are we good? Motion by – Second. Second by Commissioner Delaney. Any discussion? Yes, I see staff raising their hands. Technical question in the staging here. So if I understand the motion, you're inviting the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 folks on here for 10 minutes. We'll – because make sure I get so Kathy can do this properly, so we'll get it advertised. We'll invite the 6 folks to bring the presentation. And I just – sorry. And I put it out on video there so everyone can hear me. We'll need the presentation, you know, January 5th. So we're going to need it January 2nd or New Year's Eve, somewhere along that line, so we can get that properly put out on to Granicus. I agree. Can I just make one clarification, Mr. Chair? I did talk to all these folks, and they've committed, and one of the important things is I wanted to make sure that each of these were available for both of these, okay, so that we don't have different presentations. We have the same thing for – Palm Bay is going to get the same presentation that Titusville is going to get. So they've already said yes, but I think a formal email to them or something would be good. Yeah, and then you're all okay with us recording the meeting and then broadcasting it – excuse me, recording the workshop. I would love it to be live-streamed, but I understand the issues with that. Okay, good. Morse, were you raising your hand? Just for Jim. Just to get your attention. All right, okay, all right, any other further discussion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay, I'll – Introduce the next one if you want. For the grand finale here, our last item, public comments. Well, our last item is actually going to be reports, but J3, Tom Unrath? Unrath? Unrath. Unrath? Unrath is usually how we pronounce it in my family. Introduce. Do you want me to introduce the item, sir? Yeah, go ahead. I'll have Commissioner Feltner introduce. Hold on one second, Tom. I'll get right to it. I know we're getting to the end here. We're not going to make it by lunchtime, but this is for an area known as the 100-acre hollows. It is in my district. It's in District 4. It's on the corner of Vero Boulevard and Springs in Suntry area. This was originally utilities property, and it has graciously been run by Tom and Anita Unrath as the 100-acre hollows. But we're at a point now where we need to make this an EELS property, and that's what this proposes today. I want to say something because, just quickly, that stormwater has been something we've talked about a lot. And so I've talked with EELS folks and with the county and Natural Resources and everybody. Since this has some basins that were originally meant to – it was a wastewater – it was going to be a wastewater facility, I want to reserve the right of the county to send stormwater there if Vero Boulevard needs it in the future. We don't now, but if that happens – and the worst that's going to happen is you're going to have one of those basins be a wetland. But I also understand that it's of material that will percolate really quick. In fact, Jim Swan told me the other day that it's the ideal way to take care of stormwater, that it seeps down to the ground and does its thing. So with that, go to the parks. Okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Again, Tom Unrath. I live at 1170 Idaway. 100 Acre Hollows, just to say, is both a location and a group of people. There is a board of which I am the president that kind of keeps watch over and helps work with protecting the wildlife, restoring the habitat, and engaging the public in various ways. It is about a mile south, actually, of Vero Boulevard. And it's kind of tucked away in an area of – it's not actually even Suntree. It's on the north side of Suntree. But I could show you on a map rather than trying to explain it now. I want to say thank you on behalf of the board for allowing us to be here and for the notion that this could be set aside with an eel project. The fact that your predecessors allowed us to work with this and to do what we've been doing for the last 10 years has meant a lot to the community. Not just our community here in Brevard, but we've had visitors from all over Florida and even internationally that have come to see this and that keep up with it regularly. I could say on a weekly basis we're in communication with a woman who will send us notices from San Antonio, Texas, saying, hey, it's really looking great what you're doing up there. So it is an important piece of property. And speaking of floodwaters and so on, keeping it as it is will allow for – it's on a high spot right in this part of the county – that keeping it as it is would prevent water from flowing down into the Indian River Lagoon. It might carry pollutants of various sources, and so it's provided that kind of protection. And I want to say thank you for directing the EEL program to keep this in their portfolio of properties. I think it will mean a lot. I know there are a lot of people who have spoken about this over the years, and I'd really like to be able to tell, for instance, George Rosenfield. He's not recently turned 99. He's a World War II, Korean War veteran who was here and spoke back in 2010 to keep this as a place to set aside. He wanted and said so at the commission meeting to keep it in perpetuity as a place for just exactly what we're talking about. When I have a chance to see him probably later this week, I think he would be absolutely ecstatic to hear that it's moving into this EEL program. So thank you very much for your attention, especially, Commissioner Feltner, for bringing this up and putting it this way. I appreciate it greatly. Thank you, sir. Anita Unruh. Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for this opportunity to speak, and thank you for considering this. I'd like to thank Commissioners Smith, Infantini, Fisher, Barfield, and Andy Anderson, who's now in heaven, for not selling this land when we stood before them on July 7, 2015, and asked for them not to accept the bids for 200 more houses. And I want to thank you for considering this now 10 years later. It's not the same place it was as far as the wildlife and the vegetation as 10 years ago. It's a recovering prairie savanna, pinelands. I mean, now we have 30-foot pine trees out there, huge cabbage palms. The dog fennel came back. The native grasses came back. The saw palmettos. It really is a recovering area. And we, as the board, have been working on keeping this a wonderful place for the wildlife and for people to enjoy. We think it's worthy of being in the eel program. In 2015, the county estimated 300 gopher tortoises. Some of the first people that helped us were the Space Coast eco-geeks, four Brevard County science teachers. They had camera traps on the boroughs that lived there. They counted 299 boroughs. In 2020, we had a Florida Fish and Wildlife permit that has been ongoing. And we geolocated 407 active boroughs. In 2022, 467. In 2024, 481. And two weeks ago, Dr. Mark Bush's students in a field ecology class from the Florida Institute of Technology geolocated 540 active gopher tortoise boroughs. There is no area in Brevard County that I know of that has that many tortoises. And it's not just tortoises. There are other creatures, including 96 species of birds that we have documented on E-Bird, 16 species of native bees, white-tailed deer, bobcats, raccoons, armadillos, numerous commensal species that live in the boroughs, butterflies, dragonflies. I believe Jesus told people that love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. All of these creatures are my neighbors because I live adjacent to 100-acre hollows. In my yard, I have seen 37 species of birds that I have put on feeder watch. My son gave us a bird buddy with 31 species of birds that eat at that feeder. It's the one that has the camera. I've seen bobcats, red-shouldered hawks, and coopers hawks hunt in our habitat since 2020. And a course that I took at UF IFAS called Florida-Friendly Landscaping, I have planted native plants in my yard, so I have habitat that has extended the habitat of 100-acre hollows. Please consider this, and thank you so much. Thank you to Commissioner Feltner for believing in us. I want to thank Kurt Smith for believing in us 10 years ago so that we could try and save this property for the wildlife and for people to enjoy. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the Bible verse. So we probably could have used that, like, in the beginning, middle, throughout the meeting. Sandra Sullivan. Murphy. Is that Megan? So thank you for allowing me to speak. I get nervous, so please forgive me. My name is Megan Murphy, and when I was here last, I was here to support you in your effort to protect the Indian River Lagoon watershed and focus on stormwater best management practices. I introduced myself as a nurse and a century mom, so many of the issues you're discussing now impact me personally and the community that I live in. I want to thank you for your focus on constructive and positive dialogue. I think it's really important to let people speak. I also think it's important for everybody to respect each other's diversity of views. Today, I'm here to support your efforts to protect 100-acre hollows, because I believe that at one time it was a water treatment site or potential water treatment site. It is one of the very few untouched green spaces in our community. It is 114 acres that has been renaturalized, but it also connects to almost 400 acres of contiguous green space that functions as a wildlife corridor for many endangered species. We have so little natural landscape left in this area, particularly in District 4. It's more important than ever to leave this undeveloped property alone so that it can function as a natural ecosystem, protecting native habitat and contributing to the potential for clean water to help recharge the aquifer. If we were not to protect it, it could have significant negative impacts on traffic, stormwater, and ultimately negative impacts on the Indian River Lagoon watershed, which we are working hard in our community to talk about how individual homeowners can make a difference, and we're relying on you to look at that from a broader perspective. As you have heard here so eloquently described, there are hundreds of native species living here. Many of them are endangered. Ninety-six identified species of birds, 16 species of native bees, and ever-important, the gopher tortoise habitat with 540 identified active tortoise burrows. Youth groups come to this area to enjoy this native ecosystem, and honestly, there are restorative benefits to children just to spend time in nature. We need to remember those things when we're making these decisions about how our community is developed. Sun Tree really is a planned unit community that should have no more development there. We can't take any more traffic impact. There's nowhere to go. So we encourage you to support this proposal for protecting this land, and I believe that it should be an easy decision to protect this habitat in perpetuity with essentially no controversy. But what do I know? Okay. Well, one more cart. Christine Murray. Good morning. I'm Christine Murray, and I live in a subdivision alongside 100 Acre Hollows. 100 Acre Hollows is a very special place for all the surrounding neighborhoods. It's one of the very few untouched green spaces, especially in Sun Tree. It is more than just undeveloped property. It is a functioning natural ecosystem. There are hundreds of native species living there, as you have already heard from everybody. Many of them are endangered, 96 species of birds, 16 species of native bees, obviously all the gopher tortoises, which come and visit my backyard frequently, 540 active boroughs. Lots of homeschool groups come to 100 Acre Hollows for field trips to learn. It is open to the public every other Sunday for people to take a nature walk, enjoy a sunset in the hollows. If this is not protected, the surrounding neighborhoods and our community will be affected in many ways. Protection of 100 Acre Hollows ensures the land remains intact for future generations to enjoy. I encourage us to move forward with environmental protection for this land, not because it's easy, but because it's the right thing to do. If you guys haven't ever visited, we would love for you to come out and take a walk and enjoy the nature. Thank you. Okay, that was our last card. Bring it back to the board. I do. A quick close. Okay. Thanks, everybody who came to speak today and holding on. I know that was a long meeting. But, anyways, it's very hard to identify EELS properties in District 4. I think that, so, you know, with each district, there's advantages and there's disadvantages. So, my taxpayers, the people I represent, will pay the EELS bond referendum, but there won't be EELS properties in District 4. That's just the reality of it. And so, this is the one chance I think we got to get 100 acres that we'll never have again. So, with that, I'll make a motion. Second. Motion and second. Any debate? I will say, just quickly, first time I saw the 100 acre, it was breathtaking. My second thought was, God, we've got to save this. So, I appreciate your hard work on this. Thank you, sir. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. And if you go, go during the cool time of the year. That's my friendly advice. All right. I think Tom and Anita took me out there in July the first time, if I remember that. And that'll be burned into my memory forever. Good job. We've just got to get some wild turkeys out there. Yeah. Yeah. We'll move on to public comments. Do we have any public comments? We have no K cards. No public comments cards. Okay. Board reports. County manager. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to let the board know, you might have seen the email yesterday, Natural Resources got the letter out to DEP requesting a meeting for the Blue Origin permit, so I might make you aware of that. And then, just for the fun of it, I've got to say, go Hoosiers. Go Hoosiers. Come on. They might see the Buckeyes again. It's possible. Okay. I know our county manager has committed, if Indiana wins a national championship, he will sing the fight song for us. Right here in public meeting. If you put up with it, yes. Okay. County attorney. I have no report, Mr. Chairman. No report. Commission District 1. No report. District 2. I have the only request I have is for staff to research what effects, if the port sells the land on a large canal to an LNG plant, what effects will it have to Maryland? How are they going to route the trucks? And also, I'd like for staff to ask for a public meeting with Murray. If he's going to sell this land on the port, he needs to suffer the consequences with the public, too. So, those are my two requests. Thank you. Chair. Commissioner, this is just a thought, and I would be amenable to it. Just as we had a meeting with Parrish, given an update today, maybe it's time we have the port come and maybe speak to us in a public appearance. Think about it. I'm not in it. I don't care. It might be a good time. Yeah. Okay. District 3. Just really quickly, we don't often thank the security that we have in here, the deputies, but also the ones out there. I recently, personally, had an opportunity to meet them when I was a member of the public trying to get through some stuff. And, I mean, Joe out there is amazing. So, I just wanted to say thank you for all of your dedication, for your hard work, and especially to Kayla Alba, who's always smiling, right? Whether I'm here or in the Justice Center, Kayla has always got a smile on. And, obviously, we don't want to forget everybody else, but they particularly stand out to me. So, just thanks to everybody who looks out for us. Ditto. Ditto. Thank you so much. District 4? I'll do it real quick. I wanted to recognize Florida Tech's women's soccer wins Division II National Championship. Saw this in the paper, and my wife, having been a college athlete, pointed this out to me. I'll just read a couple things. The Panthers defeated Franklin Pierce 3-0 on Saturday at Colorado Springs, Colorado, claiming the NCAA Division II National Title. Goalkeeper Caitlin Sinkler was named tournament's most valuable player, having made 41 saves across six tournament games, including seven in the final. Melbourne native and Vera High grad Savannah Oxley, who earlier in the tournament became Florida Tech's all-time leader in games played, finishes her career with 81 games played for the Panthers. The Panthers made it into the title game by defeating last year's national champion. Congratulations to Florida Tech. That's great. Well done. That is awesome. As far as report, I have none other than to really wish a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah to the staff and the public and our board members. Thank you. Looking forward to having a great holiday and getting back with you after the first of the year. Ditto. Okay. The meeting's now adjourned. I get to use the gavel. Again. The opinions expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast Government Television, or the program sponsor and are solely those of the presenter. The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast Government Television, and the program sponsor hereby expressly disclaim any and all responsibility or liability for any defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period. Approval, et cetera. A city's dams flood homes and take property without due process of law. That's our Constitution. These are serious issues and involve St. Johns River Water Management District who approved these dams. So here's what I said. Here's the question. And the question to you is this, is that how can anyone legally construct a dam immediately downstream of homes already in one of your floodplain? How can you do that? The answer I got from the city was no answer at all. So I offer you, here's what I offer you. I'm going to offer you, I offer them $50. I'm going to offer anybody here $1,000. If you can get any PE who doesn't have dementia, come here and say that Stan Johnson, that's me, I'm wrong about this illegal activity in the city of Typesville. And so I'm asking you, anybody, you get a PE, anybody here, get a PE to put in writing that Stan Johnson is wrong is what he's saying about answering this question and do it. So what, the city didn't answer it, so where I told the city is this, you didn't answer this question. I want you to understand, this is an admission of guilt. It's an admission of guilt. Not answering this question, not having a PE to answer that question. So it's a big deal. And this is an issue of millions and millions of dollars right now. These homes flooded, properties flooded. It's quite obvious. So I'm looking for you guys, please get one of your PEs to answer that question. And here's what I promise you. He answers the question. He disputes me. It's going directly to the Florida Board of Professional Engineers. I'm not asking Mr. Register to answer this question. I'm asking you. And also, I gave you this. This also, it's a letter I sent to Mr. Register. And it has to do with this same thing I brought to you. So if there's any questions, I'd like to answer any of your questions. Thanks for coming. Okay. Please find a PE. I'll give you $1,000. Okay. Thank you. The next commenter is Ms. Ruth Amato. Hi. Thank you for hearing us earlier on item five. It's very much appreciated. North Brevard is definitely struggling with their water issues. They go hand in hand with the Atlantic Coastal Ridge. Pretty much what's happened there is what's happened in the Everglades. All of our water storage has been restored. And I freely admit I don't understand all the bureaucracy that goes with everything. But if something could be looked at in our area to be able to help us with flooding and recharging our aquifers so we could actually have, like, fire flow for our area, that would just be amazing. And many residents would be very appreciative of that. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Mr. Timothy Hodling. Good day. I've spoken to you before on my visions on the eelgrass situation, the submerged aquatic vegetation, the underwater gardens of the St. Johns River, and how y'all are faced with basically from Jacksonville to Astor with eutrophic river, with dead river, with no eelgrass. There's a few people that are fighting really hard. You know my opinion of Riley Thames. He walks on water. Dan Golderman, the same way, with fish and wildlife. I came with a different approach. Listening to the five-year plan, I was sort of like, I think the leadoff thing should have been fix the St. Johns River. Develop a plan. Have all of your experts focus on identification. That piece of paper you're looking is the front page of a 1992 Bassmaster magazine. There was an interview, a 12-page layout on the status of the environment of Florida and how you have to, like, keep the Yankees away and all of those sort of things. It came from a book that Leroy Wright had written talking about how he had interacted with the water management district and worked so hard. He and his efforts were part of the effort. It trickled down, as I understand it, with a legislature force, basically caused all of the purchases of all the muck farms around Lake Apopka, which is a real fascinating success story that y'all are rightfully proud of. But anyhow, I tried to get this to you, but your IT guys wouldn't let me electronically send it to you. It's a real interesting story. The thing that shocked me is you could put 1992 today and put it with today, and I don't know there's all that much difference. You've been working pretty much about trying to clean up the river so that we have eelgrass and supporting the bass fishing and all of that. I do.