Board of County Commissioners on 2023-08-08 9:00 AM - Aug 08, 2023

I'd like to welcome you all and call the meeting to order. Today is August 8th, 2023. We are going to begin our Board of County Commissioners meeting. I know that there's many people that are in the lobby. We're probably going to have to close those doors simply because there is a time delay with the televisions that are outside in the lobby. It's a couple of seconds time delay, so if we could just close the doors, I'll make sure. Can you hear me in the lobby? If you could someone give me a thumbs up if you can hear us in the lobby. If there's vacant seats, help yourself to any vacant seat. There's no more saving seats. The meeting has begun. If there's a vacant seat, please take a seat. If you have a vacant seat next to you, can you just raise your hand if you have a vacant seat next to you? I appreciate that you're all here. We're going to work our way through this early morning agenda items quickly. If this is your first time here, we have a couple of things we do before we get to the actual agenda items. We're going to start this morning with an invocation from Father Christian Anderson from St. Mary's Episcopal Church, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance that will be led this morning by Brindle Serrano, a veteran services officer who served in the United States Air Force. Then we'll ask her to share a little bit of her life experiences with us. Then we have two awards that we'll be giving out, and then we're going to take departmental number 10, which I believe a majority of you are here for. And departmental number 10 is request for a direction regarding an unsolicited offer to purchase property in Palm City. And so we will take that immediately following a couple of the details that we do at the beginning of every meeting. So with that, if you would all please stand for an invocation, if you are able, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Father, welcome. Friends, let us pray. God of all creation, Father God of the Word, we thank you for bringing us here together as you have given us a great responsibility to be leaders of community. You have always called us to be in community, which is not easy. It means we have to love one another. You call us to love our enemies. First and foremost, you call us to love you and then to love our neighbors. Help us today to find that love for our neighbor. Help us today to love those who you call us to love, which are... Is that my timer? No. No timer on God. So God, where were we? Yo, we are following your Word. God, you said for us to call and to care for those who are marginalized, for those who are lost, for those who are isolated, for the widow, for the orphan, for the imprisoned. Put your bleeding heart within our heart so we have your wisdom and not our own, to have faith in the way that you call us to create your heaven here on earth. And all of God's children said, Amen. Thank you. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, individual, and justice. Thank you so much. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? My name is Brendel Serrano. I proudly served... Speak right into the mic. Okay, sorry. My name is Brendel Serrano. I proudly served in the United States Air Force as a histopathology technician. During my service, I had the honor and privilege of laying those who made the ultimate sacrifice to rest. Memorial Day has never been the same. After my military service, I served as a veteran service officer for St. Lucie County VLCC for five years, and I'm excited to continue my career here and impact the lives of many veterans of Martin County. Thank you so much, and we appreciate your service then and now. And that freed up two seats in the front row, so if there's anybody that still would like to sit down or come forward, we have a couple of seats right in the front. So I'd like to call the meeting to order and discuss the agenda. We have a couple of additional items. Consent agenda number 12, adopt a proclamation commending Quinn Andrew Sanderson upon the achievement of his Eagle Scout. Department number 10, as I mentioned, request for direction regarding an unsolicited offer to purchase property. There are no consent agenda polls, and there was one request by staff for a withdrawn item. Consent agenda number five, adopt a resolution approving and accepting a revised and restated public purpose lease for Hal Patiochi Outdoor Center, LLC. And with that, Commissioner Smith. Approval of the agenda, consent agenda with the two additional items of consent item 12 and 10, and the request withdrawal of item consent number five. Thank you very much. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith to accept the agenda as presented, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. We have two proclamations. One is a NACO awards presentation by be accepted by Jennifer Salas and Michelle Miller. Good morning, Commissioners. This year, I'm going to kick this off. The county won two National Association of Counties Achievement Awards. The Martin County Library System won for outreach to underserved communities and the Office of Human Services won for the Martin County Community Action Coalition, or MCAC, prevention outreach. So today, we have Library Director Jennifer Salas here with her team, and as well as Human Services Administrator Michelle Miller, we're going to go second. And they'll share a bit about their awards and the programs that garnered this recognition. Thank you. Ms. Salas, good morning and welcome. Good morning. Jen Salas, Library Director. Good morning, Commissioners. Before I talk just very briefly about the programs that make up this award, I wanted to introduce some of the library staff that made this award possible. So we have Becky Sheilk, our Family Literacy Outreach Specialist, Ricky Donnelly, our Electronic Resources Coordinator, Darlene Encomio, our Literacy Education and Outreach Manager, and Richard Riley, our Deputy Library Director. Somebody came in right behind you. We have Lacey Latour, our Teen Library Specialist. So these amazing staff are the ones that really should be given credit for this award. I simply helped support them. But some of the programs that were part of this were our barbershop books, where we bring books and literacy to local barbershops in our community, teach the barbers about literacy, and outfit them with libraries within their shops for local families. Our Thousand Black Girl Books Book Clubs, which promote diverse authors in after-school centers in Indiantown, Hobestown, and East Stewart. And we encourage those girls to become leaders within their communities. Our library locker holds pickup system. It brings our entire library collection to the East Stewart community right outside the 10th Street Community Center. And this allows the patrons who may not be able to come to our libraries access our collection. Our Teen Community Service Award. This is a newer program that we have that we are able to give teens in our community volunteer hours when they don't have the transportation or time to come into our buildings to volunteer. So there's a focus each month that they get to do community service. They learn about different topics each month, and then they give back to the community by doing a service project. So sometimes it's making dog and cat toys for the Humane Society residents. And other times it's working with Love and Hope in Action, La Jolla, to give gratitude and encouragement cards to our homeless population. And then finally, our Little Free Libraries. This was a service project that our staff did recently at a staff development day where we created Little Free Libraries and decorated and painted them to go at three of our beaches, Hobestown, Jensen, and Stewart. And we have our library board of trustees that volunteer to keep those up to date with books that are donated to our collection. So thank you to all of our wonderful staff for making this award possible. And thank you for recognizing us. Thank you very much. Next is Michelle Miller. Ms. Miller, good morning. I'll ask our team to come up. They're here, probably in the back there. Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for having us. And we're very honored to be here today to receive this NACO award and be recognized for the amazing work that this coalition does. So let me introduce our team. We have Joanna Green. She's our prevention supervisor. Mr. Donald Davis, who is our coordinator for prevention. And Holly Ford and Jackie Rivera are also our prevention outreach coordinators. So together they work really hard with the youth in our community to bring prevention activities with the main goal to reduce underage drinking and underage drug use. So we know that it's working because the data is showing that in our community specifically, the numbers of teens that are involved in those activities are reducing. We monitor that each year. And they do this in a variety of very innovative ways. So they go out into the community. They present their information to teens through their activities. So whether that's bowling or whether that's video games or whether that's just going out into the community and providing information at fairs and festivals on, you know, the dangers, not only the dangers of underage drinking and drug use, but also there's other activities that are very pro-social and other things that you can do that are just as more entertaining and much more beneficial for your health. They work really hard. They make contact with, we call it 12 sectors in our community. So it's everything from the business community to our faith-based community. And they work very well by collaborating and partnering with our whole community. So I just want to, like Jen, say that all the honors should go to them. They do all the hard work. And thank you for recognizing us. And we thank NACO for this award. Thank you very much. We brought it with you just to show you the award. We'll be hanging in our office if you want to come see it. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Okay. Let's get right into it. I know there's a tremendous amount of people that are standing in the lobby as well. So we'll move through the item quickly. We start now with a request to speak. This is your opportunity to speak to us on an agended item or on an item that is of concern to you. We allow each of our residents, no matter how many people are here or not, three minutes to speak. There are forms that the bailiff who's right here in the front or in the back that you can fill out and that you can fill out and that's your request to speak. If you are here for department number 10, the discussion of purchasing the property in Palm City, let us know. There are people, believe it or not, that are here for other reasons. If I call your name and you're here for something else, just let me know. What we're going to do on a day like today, I'll call two names. I'll call the first name and then perhaps I'll call the second name, which is sort of like the on deck. If the second person can come forward, it'll speed up the process of bringing people forward. If I call your name and you have decided that you've heard the people before you have said the same thing that you were going to, you can say, I agree, I disagree. You don't have to use your three minutes completely. We'd actually encourage you to make, as you can see how many people are here, to be concise. At the two minute and 45 second point, you're going to hear a tone when you come here to the front. That doesn't mean you have to stop. That means you have 15 seconds left, sort of finalize your thoughts so we don't just cut you off. Some people would like to speak longer than three minutes. Obviously, on a day like today, we're not going to allow that. It's not fair to the folks behind you. So if I call your name, like I said, and this is not your topic, just let me know. I will put your card aside. The final thing I would say is if you speak this morning during general public comment on an item that we're going to hear later, you do not get another opportunity to speak later at that point. So if you want to speak this morning, you can't have two bites of the apple. With that, we will start with our, I see her in the audience. She is one of our newest elected school board members, Ms. Amy Pritchett, followed by Mr. Tom Pine. Ms. Pritchett, good morning and welcome. Thank you. Thanks to all of you. I'm here specifically for the Palm City issue. I have a family member who lives in Palm City as well as many neighbors and friends who I've acquired over the years, and I'd like you to listen to them and support their efforts to not have this building take place, to maybe the county purchase it and use it for something else other than apartments. That is my main thing that I wanted to talk about. I saw an agenda item about the sewers. It's a lot of money that we're going to be spending in Port Salerno for these, and I was hoping that maybe instead of the district funds being used to keep fishermen from fishing on the docks and building there some type of bar or something, maybe those funds could be used to mitigate some of the money that the residents are going to be spent. With the waste management issue, I see there's a 4% increase. I would ask that instead of doing it all at once, if we can't get rid of it entirely, is to put it over a couple of years. The last time I was here speaking about that, one of the commissioners had suggested instead of doing it all at once, maybe lay it out over a few years because the sticker shock is 4% may not seem a lot, but it is a lot to people on a fixed income, so I would ask that you do that, and my time is up. Thank you. Mr. Tom Pine is next, followed by Christina Ardigo. Mr. Pine, good morning. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I've lived in Martin County for over 50 years. At the July 11th, 2020 county commissioning meeting, I misspoke when I accused Martin County commissioners of using the consent agenda improperly. I was wrong. This was the first time in several years, county commissioners did not use the consent agenda in a nefarious spending way. While it didn't last long, today's consent agenda total is $37,115,832.63. Hidden in today's consent agenda is a contract for $500,000 for emergency pump and general rental repair. This item does not belong in the consent agenda because it is not a routine expenditure. One more reason we cannot trust our local government. Are there any other counties in the state of Florida that set up a scheme like Martin County where individual residents are forced to pay for all the infrastructure for their sewer in their neighborhoods? I know St. Lucie County and the city of Port St. Lucie don't. They both charge individual taxpayers for their direct hookup costs only. In fact, the city of Port St. Lucie rates went into effect October 1st of 2022 and are still in effect today. Full hookup is $6,116, spread over 20 monthly payments or spread over 120 payments of $5,222 for a total cost of $6,000. The city of Stewart hookup costs $5,000 paid in full or $6,000 over 10 years. If you don't hook up the sewers in the first year available, the cost rises to $8,000. Back to Martin County, I know two projects moving forward with sewers. The first one, as I have heard, the cost is $10,000. The second one, Port Salona area, the cost is $9,877 paid up front or paid over 20 years of $6,250,000 a year. Total cost, $12,411,000. In Martin County, there's no telling how much your sewer hook will cost because it's all based on how much grant money we can be obtained for each individual project. At the rate things are going, the neck hookups in Martin County could be much higher. That's what poor planning looks like to me. Millions and millions of our tax dollars that the majority of our county commissioners spent on their dreams and wishes had nothing to do with government operations should have been used for things like sewer infrastructure or a fire training facility. Instead, it was stolen to flee to fill these dreams and wishes on the taxpayers' back. Sick greed got us to this point. Sad. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Our next request to speak for him is, oh, hello, and following you is going to be Andrea Dixon. Good morning and welcome. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Christina Artigo and I've lived in Martin County my whole life, 53 years. I'm six generations of the Treasure Coast. I bought my commercial and residential property on Salerno Road because I love the CRA plans for the historic Port Salerno that the community came together to help design. Residents of Port Salerno are committed to protecting the heritage and uniqueness of our small fishing community. Residents have circulated petitions which have been signed by more than 440 plus for the CRA development as well as 700 plus for the docks of Port Salerno the residents and supporters have distributed. I will have more in the next two weeks. I have uploaded these and I did send these an email to you guys yesterday. The community stands by our commercial fishermen and the dock authority, which is a lifeblood for many in this community. They're an important economic engine for this area and only deserve our respect and our thanks. It is only the commercial docks on the Treasure Coast. The community is concerned about the attempts of James Corey Crowley to overturn the long established CRA, which is a vision by our community and this community and the guides any development which takes place here. The community is not in line with Corey. He wants to change the plans on this view as we as a community are aware of him trying to get taxpayer dollars of Martin County residents for his vision outside of the CRA. Protecting unique character and heritage of our community in the commercial fishing industry is important to our community as well as staying in line with the CRA plans that were developed by the community. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I also have copies I emailed you guys. Can I leave these with you? Not copies, but the originals. And I have more coming. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Our next request is Andrea Dixon. Ms. Dixon, are you fine with general comment now? Okay, thank you. And you're going to be followed by Chandler Josie. Good morning. Good morning. I live in Morris Hill community of Jensen Beach on the northern end of Martin County. Doug Smith is my county representative. And I've had this conversation with him, but I'm bringing it to you because I've sent emails and I'm so sick and tired of driving along Savannah Road and the homeowners on Barber Drive, Cherry Drive, and Highline Drive use the easement to dump their yard debris over their privacy fence. And we have to look at it. We keep our yards clean. We keep our homes neat. And I even watched as the yard man that worked on the yard take it off of his truck and dump it behind the house. And he said, oh, Michael told me to dump it there. Had I known to call the sheriff's department, I would have. But then I'm thinking, why waste their time? Waste management is not going to pick it up, but y'all want to do a 4% increase on our garbage bills for stuff that they're dumping behind the yards and they're paying somebody that they don't want to pay them to take it to the dump. I'm tired of it. I sent an email. I included pictures. I'm going to give you the pictures that I took. It was on July 24th. And it's all of them along that way. If you drive through there, you won't want to look at that on your way home. Our neighborhood is clean. It's old and new houses. My home is 63 years old. There are new homes coming in the area. People drive through there to get to Indian River Drive to get to St. Lucie County. That's kind of slowed down because 25 miles an hour on Indian River Drive going into Fort Pierce. Thank you, Department of Transportation, for that. But it's a beautiful neighborhood. And it's being, to find the words to describe how it looks is just, it's hard because they just take it for granted. Put it in the front. Call waste management. They'll come pick it up. Pay the guy that's cutting your trees to come pick it up. Do something, but stop dumping it over the fence to make it look like we don't care about how we live. In our area. It's not waste management's job to come through there and pick it up. They couldn't even come through to cut because all of the yard debris. Oh, a guy's getting a screening done in his pool, so all the old screening and everything, he dumped it behind the fence. It's ridiculous. But you want a 4% increase for waste management, and they won't comply with the rules, so they have waste management come pick it up. It sits there for a month, two months at a time. Then I have to email Mr. Smith, send him pictures. Then they have to figure out, well, is waste management going to pick it up, or is the county going to pick it up? It's time to have all of those homeowners on Barber, Highline, and Cherry Drive. Learn what the rules are. Put it in the front, or pay the guy that's cutting your trees to take it with him when he leaves. Thank you, ma'am. We hear you. Our next request to speak for Ms. Chandler Josie, followed by Mary Grace Haluska. Chandler, sir, good morning. Mary Grace, if you could come forward. We have a couple of empty seats we're going to maintain here so that the next person can come up. Sir, good morning. Good morning. I'm speaking on behalf of the Porcelain and New Monrovia wastewater assessment. Thank you, commissioners, for all that you do for our community. There are times when concerns outweigh compliments. It's worth mentioning that though the balance of both can teeter either way at any given time, as a member of the community, I do respect and appreciate the tremendous weight that you bear on behalf of all that you represent. This prepared statement may be categorized as a concern, but it is also a compliment because of the faith I have that you will consider our voices on this matter. My neighbors and I have articulated our concerns not for the project, but the expense of the project. We understood the need for the improvement. As a matter of fact, we welcomed improvement. We understand the urgency of the improvement as well. The major concern is the homeowner's financial responsibility for the project. Many in our community are decades old, multi-generational, debt-free homeowners that have contributed faithfully to this county for years and are now enjoying the well-deserved retirement with a fixed income. Homeowners, debt-free, community pillar homeowners. In our community, if one is having difficulty, we are all having difficulty. And that is our shared concern about the affordability and proposed tax lien assessment associated with this project. The major issues are funds and time. It is my understanding that there are additional funds that are available for consideration that will help defray the previously communicated per homeowner assessment. It is these additional funds we ask for you as our representatives to consider the inquiry that has already been researched and confirmed as available for this project and make them applicable to this project. The funds have been located. The points of contact have been established. It is only a matter of a local government official applying for the said funds. Why not use what is available if it is available? If time is the issue, is it not worth the consideration if it is for the betterment of your constituents, those that you represent? If time is the issue, then I ask why was it more time given between notification of the funding proposal and the consideration of the homeowner's obligation that has frantically rallied our neighbors to work within an abbreviated time to plead in the voice of our community for reconsideration and additional funding? If time is the issue, why was there not more time allotted to seek additional funds? The improvement to my property that I cannot afford is not an improvement to my property. It is only an enhancement to the county. Martin County is growing. This is understood. We want to be a part of the growth, not just lost in the overgrowth. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mary Grace Haluska is next, followed by Nancy Brownie. And Nancy, if you are here, we have a seat in the front to make it easier for the transition. Miss, good morning and welcome. Good morning. I really don't have anything that I usually speak from my heart. So excuse me. So my name is Mary Grace Haluska, and I'm a lifelong multi-general resident of Port Salerno. I went to Port Salerno Elementary with Miss Brogan was my vice principal. So my family has been here a very long time. I'm very distraught by what's going on currently in Port Salerno. First, I have to say, though, thank you for the people who on the board who have helped with the Wojcac Park improvements. We really appreciate that. But currently there is workings that are happening where we have a process with an NAC and a CRA, and that's being circumvented by a certain person and being allowed by the commissioner. I find it completely inappropriate that there was a special meeting that was supposed to be, that was held in a public place, but it wasn't publicly announced. And our commissioner was there and it was specifically geared toward this, towards this gentleman, Corey Crowley. Um, none of the residents who were speaking or who have spoke were made aware of this. I was only made aware of it in the, in the morning and I'm a working person and I still made sure to show up to let the rest of my neighbors know what was going on. Um, Port Salerno is small, but we are a community. We all love each other. I grew up with all of these people who were here speaking today and we deeply, deeply care. And it seems like we're being, again, our concerns are being heard on deaf ears and it's super frustrating. Um, I don't know what else to do except keep showing up and keep writing emails and that's what we're going to do. Um, but I appreciate you all very much and I look forward to working and making Port Salerno better. So thank you guys so much. Thank you, ma'am. Our next speaker is Nancy Brownie followed by Ms. Carmenini. Good morning. Good morning. Um, my name's Nancy Brownie. I thank you for the time today. Um, I'm here today as a concerned citizen of Port Salerno. I have been honored and privileged to be born and raised here. Um, my father was born and raised here. Um, my grandfather was born in Fort Pierce who later moved here and my great grandfather started the commercial house of fishing in Port Salerno. I'm here today and praying and I know they're smiling down from above and it's not us against you. We want to come together and work. We know growth is inevitable, but the way we grow is we want to take care of our Port Salerno citizens first. We would like funds that have been fighting for for the last three years to go to them before we start worrying about parking for development who a man who is not, does not really care about the fishermen's town. So I ask that, you know, as I'm here, um, that we do not allow or agree with Crawley and everything he's supporting and what Commissioner Hurd is, um, signing up for. Um, we do support the commercial fishermen and we also, uh, the sewer project that people need financially, the money, um, not to be overlooked for the basic needs of our local citizens. So I thank you for your time and I ask that you prayfully consider what you're doing with this town and what you will be known for saving our town or ruining it. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome. One moment, please. You're going to be followed by Ms. Carol Gebhardt. Thank you. My name is Helene Carmanini. I've, I've lived in Oakbrook Estates for the past 19 years. There are only two reasons to squash the 9G project, Hidden Oaks and Palm City Elementary. In other words, children, again, children. This location is the absolute worst in the history of the worst. I ask you, have you ever been on Martin County Highway during school hours when the kids are arriving and departing school? You can only truly understand how wrong this project is. Uh, if you have not been on Martin Highway during this time of day, you should not be making any kind of decision if you have not been there during this time of day. I go to work every single day when the kids are arriving and departing school. Twice a day, I am stuck in that 20 miles per hour school zone. And every single day, someone is passing me, speeding in the school zone. And I mean, again, every single day. There's a reason I'm going 20 miles per hour. Hello. The drivers are clueless or just don't care. Again, every single day, careless drivers. The cops stop, come out maybe two, three times a year to give out tickets. And that's about it. Can you imagine what it would be, what it would be, ugh, can you imagine what it would be like to get a phone call when your child was just hit by a car while either going or coming home from school and is in the ER? I certainly don't wish that upon anyone, but I can relate to getting that phone call. Let me tell you, it was terrifying. My son was on his bike after leaving Hidden Oaks on the sidewalk, riding home on his bike when a car came out and knocked him down on Martin Highway, heading home right where the 90 apartments would be. He had a small concussion, but was fine. But you know this happened before, and it will certainly happen again and again and again. With 200 plus cars on Martin Highway, if we add that 90, do you think the statistics will go up or down? Ask yourselves that. And who will be blamed when the statistics go up? You will be. This is not a place for more traffic, more people, more careless drivers. This is not the right location. And if you can't see it, then you should not be representing the community, the people here. You are our vote. You represent, and delay from outside. You are our vote. You represent the people of Palm City, all of you, whether one person showed up to this meeting or 1,000. This is our town, our kids, our family, and I'm not talking about our home values decreasing, which they will. How would you like that to happen to your home value? Ask yourselves that. You are taking our retirement money away from us. What gives you that right? But I am here to talk about the safety of our children, our future, and doing whatever it takes to make these kids have a future. The project will be beyond a dangerous situation, and I went around discussing... Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you, ma'am. Can you leave... Ma'am, your time is up. Can you leave that document on the table there for me? Thank you very much. Our next request to speak for Ms. Carol Gebhardt, followed by Joel Gebhardt. Good morning, ma'am, and welcome. Good morning. Location, location, location is what I've heard my entire life, and this is not the location for the six-acre concrete canyon. It does not fit the neighborhood of Palm City. Martin Highway is a traffic nightmare and speedway. Few obey the 20 mile per hour school zone or the 35 mile an hour road speed. I've talked with the Sheriff's Department, and while many agree with me about these apartments, their response is, we enforce the rules. It's the commissioners that permit the growth. That's each one of you. Your decision on this property will affect the Sheriff's Department. Don't let us down. Purchase this property for us. The developer claims this is a three-story apartment, but by time he puts his architectural design to the roof, it will be four stories. The reason I say this is because at the first meeting, he mentioned how the roof line where Hurricanes is, just to the west, has architectural peaks, which makes the roof line look higher, and this is why he feels he can build up to three stories. Then, by time he puts his three stories and his architectural on it, it will be now four stories. Commissioners, be careful. Don't trust his plans. No apartments ever. Purchase this property for us. Another major issue, flooding. Previous commissioners had foresight by the way they put in developments along Martin Highway from Palm City School Avenue east to the Veterans Bridge. Communities were built with large swales, berms, or green grass 50 to 100 feet wide from the sidewalk with grass and trees to help with water retention and avoid flooding to this community. Homes were built beyond these green spaces. This proposed six-acre concrete canyon is being built right up against the sidewalk with non-existent water retention. Why would you allow flooding and additional Danforth Creek issues? Previous commission board set a precedent to preserve our community, not destroy it. They passed the torch to you to be the guardians of that torch. Don't blow out the light of hope, tranquility, and preservation for this wonderful community, for a developer here today leaving his chaos in our neighborhood to deal with, and gone tomorrow. Stand with each of us who voted for you on... Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Gebhardt, you are followed by Elaine Moore. Sir, good morning. Thank you. You just heard from my better half. Carol and I have lived here now in Danforth for five years. Prior to that, we lived in Miami, having moved there in 1967, so it's been a long time. Back then, Miami was a sleepy little city, nothing like it is now. The big talk at that time was the build of a road called the Road to Nowhere. It was Kendall Drive from US 1 straight west out to 177th Avenue, 10 and a half miles cut right through farmland. It was a very nice drive. You could stop on either side, you could you pick signs, little vegetable stands, and that was it. That was then. Today, there isn't a square inch of land on either side of the Road to Nowhere, Kendall Drive that hasn't been built. Baptist Hospital West Campus is out there. What used to be a 10-minute ride now is 90 minutes because there's traffic signals every 200 yards. It's a nightmare. Look at Martin Highway here. From Martin Highway out to Allapada Road, that's going to be, that is a Kendall Drive. That's what's happening. The growth is already going on. In the five years we've been here, there has been uncomfortable growth and traffic and traffic and traffic. Look at Canter and Indian. You got Cleveland Health. You got a four-story apartment across the street. You got Costco. Look at the Turnpike in Martin. You got Wawa, Tractor Supply, other stores coming in. These are all projects that have been approved by commissioners. Martin Highway to Map Road for sale signs, sold signs, build to suit. It's becoming a nightmare. Look at Monterey Road. It's not just traffic during the snowbird season. It's year-round now. Across from Danforth, there's an environmentally sensitive piece of property. It's our buffer from flooding. This is a desirable city in which to live. Do we want to be in Miami? Fort Lauderdale? How about Fort Pierce? No. Every poll taken, this is a desirable place to live. When you come over the bridge, the Veterans Bridge headed west, there's a nice monument on the side. It says, Old Palm City. Do we have to put an addendum to that, the city gone amok? I hope not. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time. Miss Elaine Moore is followed by Missy Campbell. Good morning. I'm Elaine Moore, Martin County resident, graduated of Martin County High School. My mother was born here, graduated from Stewart High School. I'm here to speak on behalf of the fishermen in Port Salerno, who I support 100%. I would like to know why our NAC spent six or seven years working on a project for us that was shot down by one person. I have a paragraph here I'd like to read in a letter that I take exception with that was written by Corey Crowley. There is rampant drug and alcohol use amongst the fishermen on the docks, but I believe the residents in the community are willing to look past this as they are in fact fishermen. So let's be honest, it's not unexpected, though it is expressly prohibited in their lease as well. Do you guys realize that there's a boardwalk that walks through our, whoops, I'm sorry, our fishing area? It starts at the bar, Pirate's Loft. It ends at the south end of our platform down there. People stop there and drink, smoke their dough before they go on the road, go into the next bar. It's not all fishermen. I take exception to this paragraph. My guys work hard. They go to work. They come home. They drink a beer on their boat. That's up to them. It's not illegal. We don't wear badges. We don't enforce the law, but we don't put up with their crap. And all I want to say is I'm in favor of the fishermen and not in favor of any of the the rumors I'm hearing about development in Port Salerno. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Missy Campbell is next, followed by Mona Salisbury. Missy Campbell, put you aside. Miss Mona Salisbury is going to be followed by Christy Leon. Lie in, I apologize. Ma'am, welcome. Thank you. Good morning and thank you for hearing us. I'm Mona Salisbury and this is my granddaughter, Charlotte. She's the baby of three. We live in Palm City and have been here for over 20 years. My daughter and her beautiful family followed us and live in Danforth. I've had the pleasure of walking the grandchildren to school and driving them. And with the new school, the traffic pattern is very different and rather dangerous. I have waited in line on Martin Highway to turn left in and I've seen the traffic reduced to one lane at drop off and pick up time heading east. That is very dangerous at 20 miles an hour. It is very difficult for residents. And if you add additional housing in Palm City at the corner of Schoolhouse Lane and Martin Highway, I fear for their sake. Even now, I have been very concerned about the safety of the children who ride their bikes, who walk, who use scooters and all sorts of other devices. It really is rather dangerous. And adding 90 more units, 90 units and 90 cars will make it much more so dangerous. So please help us preserve Palm City and help the future Palm City resident who will be going to school there too. Thank you so much for your consideration. Please, commissioners, for Bunny's sake, buy the property. Thank you. You'll be next. Madam, good morning. Welcome. Good morning. I'm Christy Lyon. I agree with what most everyone has already said. One of the suggestions, I come from Whispering Sound. Thank goodness we have a traffic light. For most everybody else, they do not have traffic lights. To add another 90 apartments, that's not 90 cars. That's probably 180 cars because you figure you've got at least two people living in at least each apartment. For the school children, I also agree. They're in danger. The sheriffs hardly ever monitor our streets. The speeding is absolutely ridiculous. 35 miles an hour means 45 miles an hour or greater. I've had people pass me on the right when I'm trying to make a left into Publix. It's dangerous. I've got a service dog that I have to protect. I have my elderly mother that I have to protect. To add the 90 apartments, perhaps you could put in a park. We have multiple children, I'm sure, who would enjoy a park right there between their schools. The school zones are not protected. The school zones are not listened to. The speeding that goes on up there is absolutely ridiculous. Please do not put in 90 apartments. Think about something else that could be useful on that lease of land. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Our next speaker is Missy Campbell, followed by Miss Diane Bates. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Missy Campbell. I'm a Palm City resident and a concerned citizen of Martin County for 49 years. I would like to discuss the property on the corner of Martin Highway and Palm City School Avenue. Currently, this very small piece of land has a proposed 90-unit apartment complex slated to be built. It's very concerning to many Palm City residents due to the proximity to Palm City Elementary and Hidden Oaks Middle School. I personally have participated in a couple of housing solutions summits, and we all know that there is a huge need for workforce housing in Martin County and in Palm City. The problem is these apartments are not affordable or accessible. They're beautiful and very high-end. I wouldn't be able to afford to live there. And the parking area will exit directly onto Newberry Court. This means that cars would be traveling across the sidewalk where our children are riding their bikes, scooters, and walking to school at Hidden Oaks and at Palm City Elementary. The intersection of Palm City Elementary School Avenue and Martin Highway is adjacent to this piece of property, and it serves as the main entrance to the new building for Palm City Elementary. I believe that it's crucial to be proactive instead of reactive to a very serious traffic concern for our children. I'd like to request that Martin County purchase this property for a more efficient community-friendly project. As I stated, I believe that we can prevent a horrible and even disastrous incident now before it's a possibility of even occurring. The project is needed in Martin County and even in Palm City, but just not at this location. Please consider it, consider purchasing the property to save our children. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're outside and you'd like to sit down, we do have a couple of seats here in the front for two or three seats if someone would like to come in. Ms. Bates, good morning. You are followed by Mr. David Gonzalez. I'm Diane Bates. I'm a 21-year resident of Palm City. I'm here to talk about the apartments like everyone else. My concerns are many, but I think first and foremost, 90 units is easily 180 people, maybe 180 cars. There are 123 parking spots that are allotted for these apartments. Where is everyone going to park? There's no street parking. Are they going to spill over into the new Palm City Elementary? Are they going to spill into the shopping plaza to the other side of it? That's going to create more chaos for our business owners. As they try to exit these apartments, there's not a light. There's a light at Barry Avenue and there's a light at Palm City Elementary, Danforth. So they will cut across Martin Highway as the Palm City car line backs up onto Martin Highway. Kids are walking, biking, scootering. So as they're trying to come across, what is the answer? You can't put another 200 cars on that road at that time of the day. People need to go to work. This is what's going to happen. I invite you to come out. I am happy to meet you there, and we can watch it when school starts. You would be surprised how many cars travel on that road. Everyone uses it to get across our fantastic bridge, which is wonderful, but it's too many people, too many cars. I am not a no-growth person. I think we need growth for our society to prosper, but this is just the wrong fit. It's not the right place. It's too much in a little tiny place. It's like you're trying to put the glass slipper on the wrong princess. It doesn't fit. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez, we don't allow, unless you've had, you can't show those. The third time I've been to this commission meeting, you said you were going to get back to me. Ed, folks, he is our Palm City Commissioner. The biggest problem with the traffic and growth is the non-enforcement of the zoning code and laws. Okay, this is about the zoning code and laws. There are now a dozen commercial operations running on residential property. This is the most egregious example of that. They already have a judgment against the magistrate. I'm requesting that this commission issue a cease and desist order against Four Seasons Landscaping. They are my neighbor. They're slamming those dump trucks at five o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the afternoon. They are running a commercial landfill distribution center and they have as many as 40 commercial dumpsters. The reason why you see so much traffic going up and down 714 is because his zone doesn't have, is not enforcing the zoning. Everybody's coming to Martin County and Palm City because Palm City is soft on enforcing this zoning. I need an answer from this commission as to whether or not you're going to stop this, okay, so that I understand what my next course of action is with this commission. Please enforce the law. This is a law. You can make plenty of political and patriotic speeches at breakfasts and luncheons and dinners. This county is blowing wide open and like the gentleman from Miami, I came from down there. It's all here now. You, you have a tough job. Just enforce the rules of law that are already in place. And I need a written answer from this commission as to what you're going to do about this. Okay. Because now this is affecting the value of my real estate. All right. I've already had several buyers on my property that want to know what the hell is going on here. I want a written response before you reelect these people. You really have to consider what's going on. Sir, please address us. Okay. Well, they need to know. I hear you. All right. They need to know. Please address us. Ed, this is your turf. This is insane what's going on. And nobody has addressed it. And you're well aware of it. And Stacy, I was really nice. You told me you were going to call him back. I haven't heard anything. We got you. You know who the players are. It's not a good political potato for you, but it's the right thing to do. So bring your economic council together and come up with a solution to address the exploding commercial operations that are taking place on residential properties. Thank you. Our next request to speak form is Robert Schaefer, followed by Chuck Smith. Robert, there he is. Hello, sir. Right in the front, followed by Chuck Smith. Good morning. I'm not going to repeat everything that everybody said about the 90 apartment units. I've been a voter and a member of this community for 17 years. And my wife is a teacher at Hidden Oaks. And I've not been to any of these type of meetings before. But I can tell you that the conversation in our community is strongly, strongly against the development of that land for 90 apartment buildings. We do strongly support anything else, whether it's a water retention pond, a park. But the voters of our community do not support this. And I can speak for the teachers, the firefighters, the lawyers, and everybody else in our neighborhood and neighborhoods that we do not support this for all the reasons already mentioned. And that's all I got to say. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chuck Smith. Chuck Smith is followed by Jacqueline McCree. McCree. Yes, good morning. My name is Chuck Smith. And I'm involved with off-leash dog parks in Martin County. We're called Parkin' Fur Park of Martin County. We're a legitimate nonprofit organization. We have one on Central Parkway and we have one on Baker Road and Jensen. And it's our goal to have these particular parks all around Martin County. And they are free to all the people that use it. What we'd like to say is that the piece of land in Palm City that we're all talking about, we'd love to be involved with that and be part of that for our off-leash dog park. We have quite a bit of money stashed away that we've been raising over the last 10 years for a cause like this. And we would appreciate the opportunity. We've worked with Tietralese, Haddock, campy, campy again. And we would really, really like to enjoy being part of this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chuck. Ms. McCree, you're next, followed by Samantha Frazier. Good morning and welcome. Hi, Jackie McCree. I live in Berry Grove in Palm City. So we all know what we're talking about here. I'm not going to go over the traffic is ridiculous. That's been bought in ad nauseum. Also, what is doing with all these buildings is that we're not able to support the schools. The schools are getting crowded. And one of the biggest things is the hospitals. I mean, has anybody tried to get an appointment at Cleveland Clinic? It's absurd because they don't have enough staff. They can't keep staff. So it's not just the traffic, which is horrendous. People running red lights, which is unbelievable. It's going to get worse on Thursday when the buses start running. You can't even travel from point A to point B without almost getting in an accident every five minutes. So between the pattern of the roads, the school systems are going to be ridiculous and getting teachers and the hospital is nothing. The infrastructure that we have in place is not being supported by any of these things. And we are just I don't think anybody wants to be another Broward County. I know I don't. This is not why I live here. I've lived in Martin County a long time. Nobody wants it. So stop. Just stop. Do what we hired you for, because I know this sounds this sounds rough, but we voted you in and we can vote you out. So stick with us. Stick with us. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Samantha Frazier, followed by Mr. George Sanders. Ma'am, good morning and welcome. Good morning, everybody. My name is Samantha Posnack Frazier. I've been a resident of Martin County for about a decade. I left Palm Beach County because I love the appeal of Martin County. And I am frankly appalled at the 90 apartment buildings that are being proposed to be put into our small town. I have a lot of the same feelings as everybody who spoke before me and everybody who's currently sitting and standing behind me. People have power. You know how we feel. We oppose this. Give back to the community. Put in a park. Put in a splash pad. Give the kids who are walking to school a safe place to play and hang out. Value their safety. If one of your children got hit by a car, how would you feel? Could I call you up if my child got hit by a car and have you come and cover my medical bills because you put in a 90 apartment building? There's too many cars already as it is. And also one of my neighbors who's outside who didn't have the time to speak. She also brought up a great point. Are you going to increase funding to the schools for the additional children? What about for additional crossing guards? Additional safety at the schools? Public schools are always at risk. You guys know what the right decision is. I'm looking at each and every one of you. So do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. George Sanders is our next speaker, followed by Katie LeMay. Mr. Sanders, good morning. Good morning to all of you. Quite the turnout, huh? My name is George Sanders, and I'm speaking to you as the president of the Palm City Elementary PTA. Not only that, as a board member of both the Preserve and Master Hammock Creek HOAs, and as a concerned resident and parent, just like many of the folks here today. Thank you for hearing us on this important matter. It will be brief. The development of 90 apartment units in its currently planned location is a bad fit for Palm City. Martin Highway between Newberry Road and Palm City School Ave is heavily traveled for our children at not one but two of our awesome public schools. The front entrances of the apartments are projected to abut Palm City School Ave and Martin Highway with little to no buffer. Palm City School Ave is the main interest, as many of you know, for PCE and experience heavy car line traffic several times a day through most of the year. As well, most of the students who walk, bike, or ride their scooters to PCE and Hidden Oaks do so along the sidewalks of Martin Highway. Placing hundreds of occupants into this already busy space onto these sidewalks is not good for those children, those occupants, or our community. The added vehicle traffic on Newberry Road creates an increased and unnecessary risk for our children crossing that roadway as well. You've heard it, but in short, all of these risks, all of the risk that this development creates for our children far exceeds any benefits. While the safety of our children and our adult residents is a primary concern. As you have heard, there are other reasons that this development is the wrong fit for Palm City. It is therefore our sincere request that the county vote yes on the proposal to purchase this land and find an alternative use that better suits our needs. This is a real opportunity, regardless of how we have gotten here. This is a real opportunity for each one of us to get it right. Please vote yes and do the right thing, and we thank you. Thank you, sir. Ms. Katie LeMay is next, followed by Fran Kaminsky. Ms. LeMay, good morning. Good morning. My name is Katie LeMay. This is my son, Zion, one of my three children that attend Palm City Elementary and Hidden Oaks Middle School. We're Danforth residents, and we just moved up here three years ago. We moved up here because it's a safe, small community, and we'd like to keep it that way. We would like you to oppose building the 90 units on the land across the street from Danforth. We are in support of almost anything else as well, a dog park or a park for the children since they probably can no longer use a wildcat playground. We could make a walking path or a retention pond, something that would beautify our community. We don't really see any benefit to having these 90 residences, just cons, lots of cons. So we'd appreciate your vote against building the 90 units. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. One second, sir. You are going to be followed by Kerry Slazak. Hi, my name is Fran Kaminsky. I live in Danforth. I have one child. We drive to school on our bikes and skateboards and things like that. We go across Martin Highway. I don't know if you guys have looked at it lately, but there are people that run the red lights. There are people that speed. There's already been people hit in that crosswalk, which is amazing. I was coming back from school, looking down the sidewalk. I saw a woman get hit by, she was on a bike. She got hit by a car coming out of another driveway just down the street. There are constantly people running the red light, even with traffic people there. Traffic guards are there. They're holding up their stop things and people are going around them. And that's even coming out of Danforth. Okay. The light that is there, it, it, it lets people in Danforth have the illusion that they can go to the left even when people are in the crosswalk. I have been missed by cars by feet doing 30 miles an hour. Okay. This is the problem. A lot of people use their bikes and their scooters to get there and that helps reduce the traffic. So you should be thankful that we're there. Okay. We are going to get somebody killed. And that's just not hyperbole. Okay. And I know people like to use their kids as props these days. This is real because I've almost been killed on that road. You put that apartment there. I don't know how they're even going to get out. I really don't because it's going to be completely blocked. Go there on a rain day. That's the gem. Do your traffic study on a rain day and you'll see that that Martin Highway is completely blocked. So I don't know even now, I don't know when you did your traffic study, but it sure wasn't when the new school went up. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Harry Slazak is followed by Grace Grindler. Good morning. Brought the group with you. It took us a little bit to get here. I'm Corey Slazak. I have lived in Martin County for about three years now and just closed on my dream home in Danforth about a month ago and then found out that this 90 unit was in the process and was super disappointed. So I think everyone has spoken and made some very valid points. So I just ask that you please don't allow the 90 units to go in and make me sad. That's basically it. My dream home would definitely no longer be my dream home. I moved from Palm Beach County. I know what the traffic can be like. So just please don't, please don't let that go in. Thank you. Ms. Grace Grindler is followed by Maderna Redding. I apologize. Hard to read the handwriting. Is Grace Grindler. Come on up, Grace. Come on up. Grace Grindler. Yeah. We have about six seats in here, open seats. If anyone that's standing outside would like to sit down in seven seconds, you're going to hear this and you can come sit down inside. Hi there. My name is Grace Grindler. I'm a resident of Danforth. We moved here to the Treasure Coast to Martin County because we love this area for our children. We have two children, one who is at Palm City Elementary, one who's going to go to Palm City Elementary, one who's starting Hidden Oaks in the fall. We love the community because it's a pedestrian friendly community where they can walk to school. They can ride their bicycles. And just since the moving of the new Palm City entrance to the elementary school recently, there's just been so much congestion coming out of our community. It's not the best crossing. They've added extra crossing guards, which has been wonderful. And we're afraid that with the new development, with the 90 unit building, it is just going to not be good for our children. And so we're begging you today to please say no to this development. You know, we would love a park or something. Just, just not this. It's not a great fit. So we really appreciate your time and we really hope that you say no to this. Thank you very much. Thank you. I apologize. I, I know you as Clay. I hear everyone call you Clay. Okay. Clay is very much easier. Followed by R.C. Harrell. How are you all? Morning. Um, first and foremost, and there's so many things to address. It's not just the 90 unit. There is another problem that really doesn't have as much to do with you all, which is called SB 102. This is huge. And a lot of people are not aware that this was pushed through. I think it was early April, maybe somewhere in that time span, affordable housing contract, where they will eventually take power out of the local people and the local commissioners. This is huge. Laws are made to be broken, challenged or removed. That's number one. Number two, more. Yes, there will be more. There will be much higher taxes, many more accidents. You're already out of control. Homeowners will quadruple. So will accidents. We had three accidents with children on bikes. I live in down fourth right across from this disaster proposed and they were on bikes. I think it's Oak Ridge coming out of Oak Ridge and this apartment building. This would be such a mess that it is a fire hazard. If there was an emergency called and they have six acres of land, I think. How did they do the, I think it's a mandatory reservoir for water. Isn't that somewhere in there? So all this being said, but also all of Martin County, it's fine for some progress, but it needs to make sense and it needs to be channeled to each community solely. We don't just run in or we wind up Port St. Lucie. St. Lucie County has the highest taxes of any other county in New York state on New York state. Listen to me. You can tell where I'm from in Florida and I came here in 84. So, um, they have the highest of any other county in Florida. Why excessive overgrowth, people went bankrupt, things went down the tubes and where did it wind up? The taxpayer crime tripled. This is not what we want in Martin County. Many of us, I worked in Fort Lauderdale, my husband worked in Boca. We drove 95 with profanity so that we could live in a beautiful area that our children were safe, that our homes were safe. Every bit of money we put into it was building equity. This is what we stand by. So we realize we've got a lot to fight here, but we can fight it with your help. Thank you, ma'am, very much. Thank you. Thank you. Our next request to speak form is R.C. Harrell followed by Craig Newicki. Sir, good morning and welcome. Thank you. Hello, I'm R.C. and I live in Oak Brook Estates. I'd like to say right off the bat that I do not, I do not like this thought of a three-story building apartment complex and 2,600 square foot clubhouse practically in my front lawn. I speak for my parents and probably most parents in Oak Brook and Danforth alike when I state that we moved here to have a short, safe walking route to school to move away from this. This fits perfectly like 10 miles away somewhere else. I already have to practically have eyes in the back of my head to cross the Newberry-Martin Highway and now I'll have a massive blind spot. Point is, this blind spot won't sit well for us bikers, not to mention the mass of humanity every day. This apartment is going to cause lots of traffic. Also, Palm City Elementary School, which will be this apartment's neighbor, was recently constructed towards the same road, to face the same road as this institution. Carline is a solid wall that will run straight through the front of the property, rendering it near impossible for the people who live in the apartment to move to and fro in the morning. Luckily, as you may know, we've been provided with a solution. The JAMS property has offered to sell the land to the county for four million dollars. We have to act now and with good reason. This apartment property is running right, actually, yeah, this apartment property is running right through our neighborhood in the school zone. That'll probably cause issues, not to mention noise pollution, waste pollution, and site pollution. This does not fit the look and the codes of Old Palm City. It doesn't fit here, both functionally and site-wise. So please answer our plea and do the right thing to save Old Palm City. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the future of America right there. Craig, I do not envy you to follow him. You know what they say about following smart children. Do the best you can. I was just going to say that. I don't want to follow him. My name is Craig Nowicki. I'm a Palm City resident. I live in Danforth. We are here to express our intense opposition to this terrible proposed project of 90 apartments on four acres of land, not six acres of land. The other two are a road and some brush on the other side. In addition to the hazards it will bring to our elementary and middle school kids, it will overcrowd an already too busy highway, lower our property values, and be a detriment to the environment. On top of all this, it does not fit. This doesn't fit. It doesn't look like anything else in Palm City. This eyesore and monstrosity would look nothing like anything else in the area. We believe in property rights, but we also believe the residents of Palm City should, without a doubt, have a say about what gets built in our town, Palm City. This disaster will be a big dump dropped right in the middle of our town and we don't want it. What we do want is for the county to acquire this land at a very reasonable price. This plot of land should be a place that is a benefit to Palm City residents, not a curse or a burden. If this tragedy gets built, it will most certainly be the beginning of the end of Palm City, as we know, and it will open Pandora's box. I don't like paying taxes because way too much of my money gets wasted and I'm never in favor of tax increase. But the more I learn and see in Martin County, the more I realize I'd be willing to endure a tax increase for one purpose, the public acquisition of lands. We're aware that the county cannot purchase every last vacant parcel of land, but it can reinvest in its residents with our money by acquiring lands like this one right in the middle of single family residential communities and public schools to maintain the charm and feel of this unique county. If you're here and you're against these 90 apartments and you want this property acquired by the county, please stand up. If you're outside, please safely move towards the glass. All right. Buy the property, acquire the land, don't do this to us. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next request to speak for Ms. Samantha Capaldo followed by Jane Landrum. That's okay. Ms. Capaldo, welcome. You are followed by Ms. Jane Landrum. I'm just gonna find it. Hi again. I think we've heard a lot of great arguments for traffic today. Obviously, traffic is an issue there. We all know that that road is already failing in multiple spots. We can't guarantee what, you know, bare minimum 180 cars is gonna do. But I have another concern about putting an apartment complex right there in front of the school. And that's drugs, alcohol and tobacco, all of which aren't even allowed within that vicinity of the school. And we all know we're here today to talk about property owners rights versus residents rights. And right now is the opportunity that we have to stop that, to protect the children from people who would be rightfully allowed, even though it is against the law, to drink and drive right there or smoke their drugs or their cigarettes right there. And it can waft right to the school because that school is for sure less than 100 feet from those apartment complexes. That's to say nothing of the huge opportunity that I think Martin County has here. You have a huge opportunity. You can either make money or you can lose money. We all know that's what everything is really down to. We can buy the land, lease it. I already heard one person who's willing to put something on it, something that would better the community. And I bet would still at least help us offset some of the costs of buying that land. But I also want to ask you too, that we know what it'll cost. We know how expensive it is to buy the land. But how expensive will it be? How expensive will it be to fix and reconfigure the roads after construction to accommodate their new traffic patterns? How expensive will it be to defend a lawsuit from one of us in here today when something inevitably goes wrong there? How expensive will it be to enforce the traffic tickets to curb the obvious parking problem already mentioned at this location? How expensive will it be to bury the child who got hit by a car or the one who was in the wrong place at the wrong time simply just walking to and from school? I urge you to please choose your expensive. Please take this opportunity to show your residents that our community is worth it, our kids are worth it, and we are worth it. Thank you. Thank you. Landrum, good morning. One moment, please. Ladies and gentlemen, what we're going to do is I have three more requests to speak forms. We're going to hear the agenda item. It'll be presented by Mr. Donaldson. It's basically a proposal that's coming to us for conversation. So we should be wrapping this entire conversation up within the next 20 to 25 minutes is my goal. We have four, three more. After Ms. Landrum, we have three more requests to speak forms and then the board will take it up as our action item. I understand. So that's the goal. Thank you. Ms. Landrum, please. You're followed by Gail Goldie. My name is Jane Landrum. I'm a Palm City resident, have been for some time. I'm active in the Palm City, Old Palm City NAC. You've heard it all. I just want to stand in support of making sure that the project does not have approval from here. And I encourage anyone in the community sitting behind me. It's very important. You will know about some of these things coming down the pike if you do attend the NAC meetings. They're very informative for the whole surrounding areas. And thank you very much for your service and contemplation and your ear for listening to our residents. Palm City is a very, very special place. And I know I was told one time by somebody on this board that we can't afford to buy all, keep all green space. We can't afford that. But we have to try to keep as much as we can right now because it will be gone. And once everything is built out that's going to be coming all along down Map Road, you're going to understand what congestion is by letting developers just do what what they can do because that's the way the law is. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Our next request to speak form is Ms. Gail Goldie, followed by Mr. John McAuliffe. Good morning, ma'am. Good morning. Gail Goldie Stewart. First, I'd like to thank the commission for all that you do that is for in favor of our residents. And I want to applaud the Palm City residents who are showing up to oppose and offer their support for their land, for the purchase of this land. I'm not a Palm City resident, but I support their opposition. Palm City residents opposed the Costco and there was no Costco. The city commission, the city commission disregarded the safety of the children at the high school. It's despicable that we're having that Costco go in there. It's not your decision. I understand that. But I think all of the residents who were here, and I thank them for showing up, and I hope that they will continue to show up and not just for one special point that they're interested in. We're all residents of the county, whether you're a city resident or a county resident, and every piece of property and every decision that is made by the commissioners in the city and the county are important to each and every one of us. And I would like to also point out that, you know, we have a lot of things going on. This is just not the first thing that is going to be coming before us with this SB 102. And I understand that the commissioner's hands are tied on a lot of issues, but we have a budget that is coming up and that budget needs to be reviewed. And I hope that the residents take the time to review the budget because it affects each and every one of us. We all got, uh, for the residents, we just got the, uh, assessment for the, uh, waste management, the, uh, additional 400 and I think it was 441 additional dollars. Um, that to me is, you know, you add that to your tax bill, your taxes are affected by that. I don't know where the people are going to come up with this that are on it limited income. So there's a lot going on and I would really appreciate the residents showing up again and thank you for the commissioners for listening to us. Thank you, ma'am. Our next request to speak form is John McAuliffe and our final request to speak form. And that's not an, that's not a push to have more people speak, uh, is Ms. Joanne Black. Mr. McAuliffe, you are recognized. Good morning, commissioners. A lot of friendly faces today. So more projects and more developments should be part of our expectations. What makes Martin County unique is we usually make sure we have the right projects and the right places, the right times, 90 units, 15 feet off the road, where 625 kids go to school. It's not one of those projects. We've heard from social media newsletters claiming those that are against three, three story buildings, inconsistent with the existing character of the area were NIMBYs. But I'd remind them that Palm City recently supported 4200 homes in a beautifully designed Newfield community that was right in our backyard. That was the right project in the right spot at the right time. What we're contemplating today is cramming 90 units in a footprint of about four acres between a bunch of kids riding their bikes to school and the eco sensitive Danforth Creek. That's what they do in Broward County. That's what they do in Palm Beach County. That's what they do in Dade County. That's not what we do here. This is the wrong project in the wrong place at the wrong time. To be fair, let's look at what works. Pick any well-planned residential area in Palm City. Whispering Sound, Hammer Creek, The Meadows, Monarch, Martin Downs Country Club, Pine Ridge Condos, Sawgrass Villas, Coquina Cove Apartments. They're so well designed, beautifully positioned off the road with landscape protecting them from view. It's hard to determine what lies behind the palm trees and the shrubbery when you drive by. Those are the right projects in the right locations built at the right time and they're located throughout the entire county and part of what makes it so special to live here. Someone mentioned this purchase would be unprecedented but it has successfully been done several times before to benefit the communities where those purchases are made. Today the board now has another chance to do something to benefit 26,000 residents of another district. With MSTU and CRA funds allocated to Palm City for the benefit of Palm City, empowering the residents of Palm City to decide how to use land purchased for Palm City on a transaction that doesn't impact anyone outside of Palm City just like we've done before. I ask you to prove the purchase of this parcel for something better than what was proposed for today. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ms. Joanne Black, you will be our last public speaker before we take the item up. Welcome. Hi. Yes, my name is Joanne Black and I live in the Evergreen Club. I've lived in there over 25 years. When I moved into the Evergreen Club, Becker Road was nothing but dirt. Nothing built there. Now it has turned into a small town just on Becker Road and they're still building and they will continue to build because that's what St. Lucie County wants to do. That is not what we want in Martin County. That is not what we want in Palm City. I'm watching my Evergreen Club because of not having enough land for animals that they're coming in to my community now. So I have bobcats, wild boars, eastern back rattlesnakes. So like I said last time, I feel like I'm turning into Jurassic Park. If you turn everything into concrete, there is no place for the animals to go. So they will go in your yard. They will attack your dog, your cat, your child, yourself going to get your mail. I've seen it. This is not wise. Now you're going to put apartment complex in a place that doesn't have room for this. You can't keep building and building and building. Sorry to say because Ron DeSantis thinks this is wonderful to keep building up Florida. I believe in growth in the proper areas, but you keep putting things in the improper area. Why did I vote for each and every one of you several times? Because I felt each and every one of you heard us listen to us. You made us feel comfortable voting for you. I don't want to get to a point that I feel I'm no longer heard in my own community. So I thank you for your time and I hope you'll make the right decision and not let this go forward in building this complex on Martin Downs. Thank you. Thank you very much. And with that, let's take up the first off. I want to thank everybody for coming. This is you in action. The five of us represent you. We need to hear from you. And this morning we did. Mr. Donaldson, let's take up agenda item departmental number 10. If you could explain to us why we're here this morning. Yes, commissioners. I received a letter on July 24th from JMSC Properties, Inc. It was simply a letter regarding an unsolicited proposal from them to Martin County to offer to sell their property this 6.09 acre parcel as the subject of any comments this morning. That is, has a proposed 90 residential apartment unit complex. It's been in the process for approximately a year. The government term of art for this is a buy right application. The applicant is not seeing any amendments or changes or alter or special provisions within the code. And it is then the board's obligation and staffs to simply review it to see if it complies with the general codes and ordinances of the county. Subject to that, that approval is more regulatory in nature than judicial in nature in terms of your approval of that project. Because it is an ongoing application, we just need to be careful that the, any conversation regarding the purchase be kept at essentially an arm's length and not to confuse the review of the application with the offer of purchase. The purchase price that's been offered is $4 million. The offer expires tomorrow in terms of the contract or the offer letter. What we're asking you today is to respond or give staff direction on how it is we are to respond to this offer for sale of the property. In the agenda item, I did mention that if we were to purchase, the county would need to find a, to determine a public purpose by which you want to do, buy this property and ultimately you don't have to decide the total project. Most times when we have a project that we've, or land that we've acquired, there would be some sort of public involvement process in the future to determine what we might build there, how it might be used. Um, in this particular case, um, the project, uh, uh, the property, uh, the board could consider a number of public uses should they decide to, to purchase it. Um, in terms of how a property like this could be purchased, we have very limited options at this time. As you know, we went through our budget process just recently. Um, we had a number of, um, capital improvement projects and others that we reduced to try to minimize the amount of tax increase required to pay for the budget as it is. So that leaves, uh, very few alternatives in the agenda item. I did mention that the, um, the CRA, um, community redevelopment, uh, agents area, uh, which, uh, Palm city, this project happens to be located within the CRA, uh, uh, uh, can be a source of funding. However, the CRA, uh, has already obligated much of its funding into the future to pay for existing projects that have either been constructed or are now under consideration. The, um, uh, the district, each of you has a, um, an MSTU, which you preside over, um, that can also be used as a source of funds for, um, local projects, um, that, um, uh, the, the, uh, district five has, uh, uh, MSTU funds that could be spent on this. I think the, the proposed, um, funding for district five, uh, uh, uh, in the current budget is approximately, uh, $370,000 for, uh, for, um, um, this next fiscal year, uh, of which I believe approximately 250,000 is available for, um, loan proceeds. But the, um, uh, just in terms of annual reoccurring revenue, the purchase price of $4 million, um, the board would require a funding source to, to borrow against, if you will. Um, um, and the only sources of funds that we have at this time would be for, um, either going to a bank loan and, uh, do traditional borrowing like anybody else, or you'd have to borrow from your general fund reserves, uh, which, um, under your, your policy would be required to be paid back within five years, um, um, um, in, in which case, um, um, you, the payback, um, uh, would come through future taxes, um, uh, is, is typically how we've done repayment to, um, maintain your general fund reserves. Those general fund reserves are typically used for, um, disaster, uh, funding and, and other types of funding. So I think, you know, if, if you're to consider it that the, the, uh, in the future, if you were to use this for, um, stormwater or something else, there may be other funds that would be available, um, such as franchise fees or, but again, that would compete from, from other projects. Um, so at this point in time, um, the, the, the principal issue of a purchase, um, uh, would have to come from initially from general fund reserves, uh, with a payment back plan, uh, of, uh, if, if district funds were to be used, um, it could be temporarily used to, uh, repay the loan until such time as the CRA funds have, um, have been utilized. It's been, uh, one other issue is the board's policy has been that if district funds are used to pay for a particular, um, loan, it's usually doesn't extend beyond the term of, of, of the commissioner. So there would be some policy decisions on, on the board to consider if it were to go beyond the term, then you would need, um, again, a pledge of CRA funds to continue to make that payment, um, uh, beyond the term of a, uh, of a typical, um, office. So, uh, certainly have, uh, a few other descriptions in the, in the agenda item, but just simply the summary is that, um, that the only available funding that we have right now to use it would be to either go for a traditional bank loan, in which case we would have to pledge, um, um, sales tax or some other fund in the, in the, in our current funding. And if we did that, those currently funds that are obligated, we would have to replace them with something else. So, or make a budget change. If you were to use district funds, um, we would, um, uh, you'd have to develop how, how long you want to pay that back, uh, whether it's, uh, um, 15 or 20 years, uh, or less depending upon how much is, is actually available to, to put down on the project. But the general fund would only be a temporary loan, um, that we would, uh, have to, uh, restore in the next, within five years. Is that it? That's it. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Smith, we'll lead off with you. Yes, sir. Just a quick question, Don, in that, all of that, um, just for options. So we, we, as we're processing everything that we're hearing, if you were to do a bank loan, can you use general fund reserves to pay, um, the bank loan? No, you'd have to pledge. So we would have to pledge, um, and, uh, a funding source that under law you're allowed to pledge, which would be, typically would be, uh, like our, our state revenue sharing sales tax. You've pledged things like gas tax, but it has to be spent. You, you could use the general fund, I guess, as a, an initial down payment. But I, I guess what I'm thinking is, instead of having, it, one of the methodologies would be that you would take $4 million and take it out of general fund reserve today and pay for it tomorrow, and you'd be done. Yes. But if you were doing a bank loan, the bank loan is going to have X amount of payment a month over the next 15, 12 years, whatever term of the bank loan you would get. So you wouldn't be writing a check for $4 million tomorrow. You'd be writing a check for $250,000 or $150,000 or whatever it was for the next four years or 15 years or whatever the bank loan was for. That's correct. You just pay the closing costs plus whatever initial payments are required. Just, just as options as we process the thing. Yes. Thank you. Before my giving as the chair, I give my colleagues an opportunity to speak first, but I'm also in the district, so we'll start with Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. Over the last, let's say, 22 years, this board majority has approved seven community redevelopment areas. Palm City is one of them. And they also have approved different regulations in the CRAs like Palm City. They're weaker than the regulations in the rest of the county. This wouldn't be allowed in the rest of the county, except in the CRAs, because it's inherently incompatible, which goes against our laws elsewhere. We require tiering. We require compatibility. We have debt. We have extra protections. This commission majority has voted to weaken those protections in the CRAs. In fact, some people talked about the building right on the road. That's a requirement in the CRA. This is a political solution to a regulatory problem. I certainly understand that you don't want a 90-unit apartment building next to you. It's not, it's not compatible, but it is legal because this commission majority made it legal. I voted against every one of those proposals to weaken our protections, to make, it's, it's, it's the, this is, this new urbanism is the latest overdevelopment snake oil. And this commission majority made it possible. We have pending two really lousy developments in Port Salerno, which I represent, but they're legal. We're going to buy that too. This is, it's, it's, it's a political solution to a regulatory problem. And it's going to, it's what, are we going to buy the two projects in, in Port Salerno next week? We're going to buy Barron's Landing? That's a proposal for 275 units in the old golf world. So we have, we have a problem here that is buying this property is not going to fix because the problem is the regulations have been weakened so that these, these kinds of projects are not only possible, they're inevitable. Done? Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else? Let me, oh, sorry. Commissioner Jenkins. How long has this property been zoned for this density? I, I couldn't answer that question off my head. I can. But we could get someone from gross management to, to answer that question for you. Although I, I caution again, the, too much discussion on the zoning issues and others simply because it's an active application and, and, and how we deal with the. It's hard to have a discussion on that. Yep. I agree. And defend something that was just said that, Mayor, not be. Okay. Let me jump in. This came to our attention. Well, let me give a very brief history lesson on the site itself without getting into the project. The CRA, as you've heard from my colleagues, say the community redevelopment area. It's normally a main street kind of a concept. Jensen Beach Boulevard, Map Road, Bridge Road, Downtown Stewart. That's what a CRA is. It's your traditional hometown main street. Okay. Many of you, if you've been here for a long time, you remember back in the day when there was only one Publix. It was on Martin Downs Boulevard. It was very large. But how many people remember that there wasn't a parking space to be had and the store was mobbed? The history in Palm City is that at the time, the county commissioner reached out to the folks at Publix and said, you know, you always had a plan that when this store reached its capacity, you would build another store. At the time, I don't, I can't quote the public response, but it was basically like, we're okay with this one. They were supposed to build a secondary store when the, when the population and the growth reached that point. It did reach that point. How many of you are familiar with Stewart Fine Foods? It used to be right here. It's now called Fresh Market. Joe Mazzocchi, Palm City resident, superstar in Martin County, one of the most generous people you'd ever meet, ran a very successful independent grocery store right here next door. The commissioner at the time spoke to Mr. Mazzocchi, who lived in Palm City, and said, what can we do to help you put one of your successful stores in Palm City? They found a site on the corner of Berry Avenue and Martin Highway. It wasn't zoned appropriately to have a grocery store there. So they got creative at the time, let's call it 20 years ago, 18 years ago. I'm just ballparking. They redesigned that. So the CRA in Palm City that basically was Mapp Road, the way to bring an additional supermarket and ease that burden on residents was to stretch the CRA boundary past the post office all the way down Martin Highway to the location that's now Hurricane Wings, Townie Tavern. If you're not here that long ago, it did become a Stewart Fine Foods. And then Publix built their second store behind the post office. And the gigantic corporation that is Publix competed against the two-store Stewart Fine Foods. And Joe Mazzocchi, and I'm friends with him, went completely bankrupt. We as communities, like what are we going to do? We got this big shopping center here now. We get a store out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to come. Milam's, they take a chance. They probably had 5, 10 stores. They take a chance. Come down, fill that space. Doesn't work for them either. We all know Publix is a very, you know, excellent operation, very big competitor. Didn't work. For many years, that site sat empty, except for the smaller tenants in the front. Then the board at the time, as my colleague says, the majority at that time, we worked with a local business owner, Mary Freeman, who owns Awareness Technologies. Now she's a very private person, so I don't want to get into too much of the conversations that she and I had. But there was a big push from St. Lucie and Port St. Lucie County to take those 150 jobs at the time and lure her and the company up to St. Lucie County. As your local commissioner and my colleagues at the time who were sitting here, we couldn't allow that to happen. So we redesigned and reorganized that zoning and those land uses there on that site to allow her to bring her building there. She was originally going to completely relocate into that spot, but she was so pleased with how the process went, she expanded her business, hired an additional 75 people, many of them that live in Palm City, and basically breathed new life into that. So when you hear this talk about the CRA and shame on us and how did this happen, it was based on a very reasonable, legitimate at the time strategy. Flash forward to now. That site has been available there for a long time. To be honest with you, for several years, I would drive by it. I'm your neighbor. I would drive by it and think, how do we protect this space? How do we not allow this pristine, it's, it's, look, it's not Yosemite, but it's a beautiful piece of property in Palm City and we want to keep it. I worked with the owner at the time who owned the property for a very long time. There was no dollars available for a purchase at that point. So we tried to get creative and land swap. County has surplus property elsewhere in Palm City. He could do something else and we could trade two acres for one of his. It's six acres, but as some of the speakers said this morning, remember how that original property started. One person owned the front and the back, which is now Oak Brook. They sold off the back for Oak Brook. They kept the six acres in the front, but they did the driveway through as an easement and everything to the left of the driveway, right to Danforth Creek. Let's all, we're not land planners here. The driveway and everything to the left towards Danforth Creek is not buildable, but it still counts as the two acres. The CRA, it doesn't weaken the zoning. It's meant for main streets. Like I said, it goes from 10 units to the acre. It makes it 15 units to the acre. So even if it wasn't part of the CRA, instead of being 90 units, it would have been 60 units. And most of you would be here today upset with 60 units. So that's how it happened. When you hear all this craziness, that's how it happened. The price. I have a couple of points. I'm going to try to be concise, but this is very important, obviously, to a lot of us. The price is $4 million. And like you, when I first heard that number, I was like, oh man, $4 million. But let's break it down. The people paid $2.1 million for the property. Okay. This is public information. They've probably, and now I'm guessing because they're not going to tell me, you know, it's expensive to do projects. Even if you were building something on your own home, they're building a 90 unit apartment complex on this property. They've been at it. They've started their initial process too much. Am I going further than I should be going? As long as we're not, Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney, as long as we're not talking about the application and what they're seeking, we're okay. They're not going to go there. If I say something you don't like, you just interrupt me. My county attorney and on both sides, I got it in stereo. So with that in mind, $2.1 million, I'm guessing, I'm just making an actual guess. They've probably already spent at a minimum, a half a million dollars, $2.6 million. Now they're asking for $4 million. That's $666,000 an acre, right on Martin Highway, pretty valuable piece of property, obviously. And there's other properties. You can go on Zillow and look anywhere else. There are other properties available right now in Palm City that are going for nearly a million dollars an acre, okay? If you were to invest in this project and you were about to build 90 apartments, which you've heard many of our staff say are legally permissible, and I know that's a hard concept for a lot of my friends and neighbors to comprehend. They say to us, not just on this project, on any project, just stop them. Just say no. There was a previous majority a couple of years ago that had that mindset. I get the mindset. You figure like, hey, we're going to stop this. They voted no on projects that were legally allowed to be built. And you know what happened? The developers left this room, went to the courthouse, sued the county, which is you, and won. So now they've paid the legal fees and the project was still built. Sometimes it was enhanced because there was delays. We all understand that if we were here today discussing building 90 apartments, we would probably, even if all of you said exactly what you said, legally we would probably have to build it. It's by right. So what are our options? We could ask them to change their minds and do something else. I've heard it all. A lot of the suggestions were very valid. Some of them were crazy. Use eminent domain to just take the property away from them. That's not an option. You wouldn't want that to be an option in America where the government could just say, no thanks. So I started to think, what is our only option? Suggestions were made. This room was filled about a year ago for the NAC meeting. Volunteers sit up here. And the developer came and made a presentation. And I'm telling you, the room was as filled as it is now. The people lost their minds. I spoke. I'm a resident of Palm City. I'm allowed to speak. I said, it's a very nice project. It's the wrong location. And they moved forward with it, which is exactly their right. So I am appreciative of the developer and the owner of the property. They heard you. They got the emails. They're represented by local council, who I'm very appreciative, assisted in a process where our staff was able to meet with them at their invitation to hear of an offer. They didn't say six million when they heard it was the county. They didn't say 10 million. Four millions, you know, if you're in the business, it's a reasonable number. How it works, and I'm an expert now. I've spoken to all sorts of developers, people that do this for a living. You pay by door. You pay for the land cost by door. $35,000 to $50,000, $60,000, depending on where it is. $4 million is $45,000 a door. I've asked a lot of people. They said that's a reasonable number. So that's where we are today. Now, all of the arguments that we heard, it's very close to a school, absolutely true. Two years ago, the car line, and if you're a Palm City family, the car line went down 34th Street from the gate of Palm City Elementary School all the way to Map Road, and that's a long road. Most people got on the car line at least an hour ahead of time. They've redone the school. If you haven't noticed, they built a new school, and the reason you're seeing that traffic currently on Martin Highway is they've switched the car line pattern to be on Palm City School Avenue, and it will be that forever. However, the reason it's congested now is last year, excuse me, this year when they started for spring break, the Palm City original building was still in place. That has since been torn down, and they're in the process of creating a snaking car line that will be on that property. All of the cars will then stack on the Palm City Elementary School property. Maybe it'll be on Palm City School Avenue, but it won't be out on Martin Highway. It's not going to be done by this Thursday when school starts, but in the very short future, that will be done. So for your concern about how is this going to work, that's the case. The case about traffic safety is the biggest issue that my colleagues and I take everywhere in the county. People speed. They go through red lights. They go through stop signs. They don't care about school zones. They road rage. It's happening everywhere. Martin Highway, we have a dozen crossing guards, a dozen. They have big signs, like you heard. They're holding up big signs. We can control the traffic signals. Cars still race through. They're doing 50 miles an hour in the 35. We put sheriff's deputies out there. It's like fishing in a barrel. And then, of course, the people are furious that they got tickets. So that is a real situation. In terms of the buildings being built on the road, I think it's important to understand the urgency of today's plan if I could have someone put the dock camera on for that piece of paper that someone left here. I've asked. I'm allowed to show this. It's a public record. I'm not bashing the project. I'm just trying to show you what we're talking about. That's on Martin Highway. It's a very pretty project. Listen, let me finish. Somewhere else, not on Martin Highway. It doesn't blend with what we're trying to do. Am I crossing the line? Let's take the picture off. I don't think it was the picture. Look, if this conversation was happening in Hobes, Sound, Jensen, Port Salerno, City of Stewart, or anywhere else, I would be sitting up here and I would be listening like my colleagues are. I'm happy that the community came out. We all represent all of you. I'm your district commissioner, but all five of us represent all of you. I needed, and there's another very interesting point to Florida politics that most people are not aware of. We are not allowed to speak to each other. The Sunshine Law makes it illegal for the commissioners to speak to each other any other time outside of this meeting, a public meeting. I have no idea what my colleagues are going to do today. You can't have Mr. Donaldson speak to the five of us and then come into my office and say, well, Commissioner Smith's going to do this. Commissioner Hurd's going to do that. That's illegal also. So I have no idea what they're thinking. I have heard from you, my residents. Now, if there's big issues happening in Jensen Beach that are specific to Jensen Beach, I will eventually hear about them, but the first person to hear about them is Commissioner Smith. Until those people show up here, like the woman this morning that said, I don't like my neighbors throwing their trash over their fence and we have to look at it. That's the first I've ever heard of that. If it was happening in Palm City, I would have known about it. And then I'd have to bring it forward to let my colleagues hear about it. I'm probably putting them on the spot today, but all five of us represent all of you. So now we get into, you know, it's a good idea. I've heard it's a political idea. We're elected officials. Everything we do has a tinge of politics to it. That's just how it works. Okay. We need three votes to make something happen. You voted us in, we represent you. So now how do you pay for it? That's the big question. You heard Mr. Donaldson give you a lot of initials and different things that you're probably not familiar with. As far as I'm concerned, there's three ways to pay for it. The county could pick it up as a full county expense and the county as a whole pays for it. The two options that we have that I think are valid is MSTU funds, municipal service taxing units. We call it commissioner funds, discretionary funds. It's ebbed in flow over the last several decades. It used to be a percentage. It can be a dollar amount. I just recently at our budget hearing raised mine in District 5 from $270,000 a year to $370,000 a year because I knew this day was coming. Okay. Now I would disagree with what I heard from Mr. Donaldson that I only have a couple hundred thousand dollars available to me at this moment. I have heard that that's different. So that's not a conversation for today, but there's money that's raised in the district that must be spent in the district for the benefit of the district. As far as I'm concerned, this project is exactly the definition of that money. The other way, now the concept of the CRA shouldn't have dragged all the way down to Berry Avenue. Today, that's good news because had it stopped at the post office, I couldn't use our CRA funding to help purchase this property if that's the decision that my colleagues and I go today. CRA uses a TIF fund, and I don't want to get too deep into the weeds. Certain money that's raised as a percentage of the increase in taxes within the CRA boundary is, again, reinvested into that boundary. This property is in that boundary. As Mr. Donaldson said, commissioners can't into the future commit the dollars. If I'm out of office, I can't commit to my successor to say, well, for the next six years, you don't have any money, the guy before you spent it. That being said, I have at least one more year, so I have this amount coming in, what I have already on the bank, on the balance sheet, and then next year's money. And then the CRA, we can commit into the future. We finished Map Road with CRA dollars, and we pledged them into the future to pay for the project so it didn't drag out for two years, and you drove through a construction zone for two years, similar to west of the Turnpike. Nobody wants that, especially in your town. So that's what we did. So there's one more year of those funds being committed, and then they'll be flexible. We're also used some of them, if you look between the Palm City Fire Station and Dr. Sintel's office, we're enhancing a park there. That's not going to be a building. I know there's a lot of talk that it's going to be more construction. It's a park. It's going to be an enhanced park right there in the middle of your Main Street. Okay, so I believe those two sources are the proper sources. Now, do we have to borrow the money originally from the county's general reserve? Yes. Mr. Donaldson and I had a conversation. I believe it's in this agenda item. We're talking about 2% interest. I am not interested in an out-of-on-the-street-bank loan at 7% interest. If it was a couple of years ago and the interest rates were low, then we could. But I believe that I think that my colleagues should support humbly request that they would support that decision, and then we could pay it back. That way, the people that live in Palm City are using their tax dollars in their district to pay for something that obviously is what is wanted. Now, I give credit to the people that wanted to build those apartments. They're legally allowed to. They bought the property. They're doing everything right. But does that mean that the community just, we tie our hands behind our backs and we just say, there it is? I'm telling you, I've voted for projects up and down. People have been happy or unhappy. I'll use Sawgrass Villas as an example. It runs front to back. It's landscaped across the front. You've got to zigzag through their entrance to get in there. That's the kind of projects we want. The final thing that I'll say before I throw it back to my colleagues is this. You're hearing a lot of people talk about development and that everything is overrun and the traffic. I believe, in my opinion, that every parcel of property that is not developed is in play. It could be a parcel that's been in someone's family for generations and the husband and wife sit across the kitchen table and they're like, what should we do with this parcel? Because you know what's happening? Those records are public and developers and smart business people and corporations are reaching out to those landowners and saying, would you sell your property? No, we won't. Would you sell it for a million? No. How about two? How about three? And eventually, everyone gets to a number that they say, I'll sell. Some of the property is held in portfolios by big corporations and they're sitting around conference room tables discussing what can we do with the property. Now, you only heard one mention today and we're not going to get into it now, but later today, we have an agenda item to discuss Senate Bill 102 or the Live Local law. It's a law now. Many of you are unfamiliar with it. Make yourselves familiar with it. Tallahassee has decided what will and will not happen in every community in Florida. They will decide. 1,100 people a day approximately move to Florida every day. In Tallahassee, they're going to figure out where these people go. My final point is I've been known and I've been out pushing on affordable housing, essential housing, workforce housing, whatever you want to call it. There's a lack. There's a lack for young people that want to go off to college and live here or graduate high school and live in the communities that they grew up in. We don't have it. There's also a lack for husbands and wives that raised the family in a big house and would sell that big house, but there's nowhere else for them to move smaller. They're not going to go into a nursing home, so we don't have it. We don't have enough, not just in Palm City, everywhere. So when people try to say that I'm a hypocrite now and if I thought I was supporting affordable housing and now I'm not, that's not a blanket statement that we should approve every single thing that we look at. This is a perfect example where you put the little weights into the scale, traffic, children's safety, close to Danforth, right on the road, not really appropriate for the look and feel of Palm City. And as far as I'm concerned, it tips the scale. The only logical option we have, the only legal option we have, is to purchase the property. It's what I tell residents when I say, if you don't like what's happening next door to you, buy the property. We are trying, hopefully, to buy that property. And it would never have happened today if it wasn't for all of you showing up. Now I also hear about the Costco. I think the Costco, 50% of the population wanted the Costco, especially where it was, but they didn't say anything. They didn't want to fight with their neighbors. This is not Costco. This is a specific project right next to an elementary school, right on the road that is basically one of the main entrances to our community, not just Palm City, all of Martin County. You get off the turnpike, you get off the 95, you're driving right past a three-story building on the sidewalk. Look gorgeous somewhere else. The developer was nice enough to put up an offer that's reasonable. They heard us. They heard the residents of Palm City and its reasonable offer. Is it expensive? Of course it is. Isn't everything lately expensive? It's a fair deal and it's the right thing to do because, like you heard, if we don't protect green open space today, there's none for tomorrow. Today is a historic day for us, up or down. And that's all I have. Thank you. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is that you approved the weakening of regulations to allow this in the first place. What happens the next time this is an application comes in at another location? Two things. Are you going to buy that too? I didn't approve the CRA extension, so that part's not exactly accurate. And then one of the main concerns was if you do it now in Palm City, do you have to do it again? This does not set a precedent. You used, excuse me, sir, Commissioner Hurd, you used district funds, a half a million dollars, to buy property that you added to Maggie's hammock, which we applauded you for. That was using government money to purchase private property for the benefit of extending a park, keeping it from being developed into something else, and to the benefit of your residents in your district. Commissioner Jenkins spent $1.5 million to buy the ham property. He had been working on that for decades. He got grant money from the federal government. The community rallied similar to today, and he was able to purchase that property, which today could have been a neighborhood and now is protected forever. And we applauded Commissioner Jenkins. We literally clapped for him because it was something that he had been working on well before he was even a commissioner. So when I say this is not the first time this has ever happened, it hasn't, it's not. And each time that it has happened, we've applauded because, yes, it's the right thing. Now, is this potentially dangerous that some other developer could come forward and say, buy ours? If this was a $6 million deal, we're not here today. It couldn't have been done. If there's a piece of property on the river somewhere that someone paid $7 million for, and now they want $10 million for, it doesn't work. And if a project comes forward and the community comes forward and says, look, this is what needs to happen, we want you to represent us, then we'll take that up. And I will sit here honestly and fairly and listen and see, does it make sense? I'm telling you after really thinking about this for quite a long time, this makes sense. I hope you agree. Commissioner? I wasn't finished. I apologize. Yeah. So I certainly approve you using district funds, MSTU funds, and TIF funds in order to purchase property in your district. So, but we are going to have to fix this problem, this underlying problem somewhere down the road. And I see that Jennifer is, Manning is in the room. Can you, so I want to find out from our CFO, how much MSTU is available, how much TIF funding is available? Okay. As the commissioner mentioned, Jennifer Manning, OMB director, as Commissioner Campy mentioned, that he has increased his MSU to accommodate $250,000 going towards a loan for the next couple of years. And once he has an interest fund loan for a CRA project, so he's going to relieve those funds. Once those funds in 2025 will be the final payment for one. It'll relieve the $250,000 in the CRA to pay for the, the, in the fund loan. But it'll be over a 20 year period. Yeah. But we do have a policy that says that we can't burden our successors with, with our debt. Yes. He would use the CRA funding. How much CRA funding is, is available? He's going to relieve, um, $250,000 in 2026. No, it'll be before then. Yeah. The last payment is 2025. So in 2026, we would use the CRA funding. And then there's only two, there's two, $250,000 a year? No, there's more, but there's a, an outstanding, uh, loan that the CRA has. And I don't have, um, the, the payoff. It's probably another five years or so that will relieve more funding. That's not accurate numbers. Yes. Well, I, it's close, but it's not accurate. Whatever the numbers are, we need to have those numbers because we have policies in place that keep us from burdening our successors with our debt. And I'm only mentioning the money that's committed right now because, um, this year we did an interim loan for two year period and for 500,000. And then we have a debt service that we're paying. So. Mr. Donaldson, do you have the numbers? Just to be clear that the, the CRA funds, you can burden for multiple years. It's the district funds that would be the interim funding. And so the, the, the outline is, is that we would use the district funds for a couple of years until the, this debt, uh, service is paid off. That's currently obligating CRA funds. Then the CRA would pick up the obligation for the remaining years and that you can obligate. And how much is available and how long are we talking about obligating? So what we're saying is that we know that there is at least $250,000 available from the district for the next couple years and there will be a minimum of 250,000, perhaps more from the CRA for the remaining terms. As long as you agree that a, a, if you, that we, the agenda item mentioned 2%, um, then that would obligate to, for 20 years. If you didn't charge any interest, then I think the obligation is roughly 16 years. So, um. I think it's, I'd like to hear from Ms. Corris. I see her coming in. But anyway, that's the, that's the, uh, the, it's certainly the, the funds that we know that are immediately available. Um, if you, the other thing to point out is that any action today is not a final action that we were requesting. It would simply to authorize staff to negotiate a contract. If we were going to move forward on this, come back with specific loan documents that are meet all of the board's, um, um, policies and directions and then come back with a agenda item that would authorize the closing on the property. So that's, so we're, so today's action direction is not to, to, um, to authorize you to, to execute a sale and actually purchase the property. It's a, it's to, uh, authorize staff to negotiate a contract that we would bring back for the final purchase and sale agreement. Thank you. Ms. Corris, can you state your name and your title for the record? And then I have a couple of questions for you, please. Susan Corris, manager, office of community development. Thank you. Now, without getting too deep into the TIF funding and things like that, Palm City CRA, the old Palm City CRA, not including what is already encumbered. What does that CRA bring in each year? I know it fluctuates. What's the average? It does fluctuate. The average for the past two years for projects would be about 400,000, 450. Okay. So now we have used that money very successfully in the, along map road. We've, we've encumbered it into the future for how many more years? So there's a $236,000 debt service payment that I believe run, ran for 10 years. We have four more years. Okay. And so we all, go ahead. We also have an interfund loan payment of $260,000 and that's over in 2025 as Ms. Manning indicated. And then we've borrowed $250,000 for the next two years to pay for Palm City Place. And I think that's for Palm City Place. Yeah. So, so for projects, all of that money would be encumbered. When you say for projects, what is the other money that's brought in for? So there's, when we receive TIF funding, that pays for all of our operations. So in a CRA, for example, TIF funds pay for salaries. They pay for office space. It pays for all of the operations of a CRA as a dependent special district of the county. Each of the six contribute for? Correct. Okay. So there is a couple of hundred thousand each year available after 2024. Yes. Actually 25. After 2025. Okay. Thank you. And then in terms of the MSTU money, which we can't necessarily encumber into the future, this money that I have put in for 370. So if we had some funds, we could prime the pump with potentially a half a million dollars, I believe. But as Mr. Donaldson said, today's conversation is for my colleagues to decide if it's even something that we will continue in the future. I would say that what the use of the property will be is another issue that some people have. Today is about acquiring the property. In the future, we'll have the opportunity. Every, there's got to be 10 different proposals that I've heard. A lot of them have a lot of validity to them. That is something that we'll take up after the fact. What my goal is today is to acquire the property and to push the stop button on the development from continuing to go forward. Then once we have the ability to take a breath, then we can figure out what the property should look like. Mr. Donaldson will come forward with Mrs. Manning's suggestion on how do we pay for it. Today is the goal where we decide, are we, are we protecting this piece of property or we not? That's it. That's it. As far as I'm concerned, it's that simple. Commissioner Hetherington, you're next. The hard thing deciding today is because we don't have all the facts on the table. I certainly appreciate, you know, all the Palm City residents showing up and voicing their opinions and being willing to, you know, first and foremost, tax yourself 22% in order to start acquiring and protecting. It happens all the time that we acquire land, protect it, preserve it. So I'm certainly not opposed to that. The general fund borrowing concerns me because Jensen Beach, you know, will be in here and in the future asking us to buy the land. And I don't think that we can afford to continue to loan ourselves the money to do it. So we've talked about some strategies. I also, you know, I sat up here last week, two weeks ago at the budget hearing and completely defended no tax increases. And it's hard for me to pass along to my constituents if they are going to have to pay for this in a different district. So, you know, I'm cautious about if it can be paid for, the CRA. One thing we did not talk about is a public-private partnership. If there are nonprofits that want to participate, and I've heard no one consider a public-private partnership. If there are CRA funds and district funds, which I totally agree with you using district funds, and a public-private partnership, there are nonprofits. Secondly, if we were to proceed, then, you know, I disagree respectfully with the chairman that we, as a government, don't pay for property like a developer pays for a property. We don't pay by door. You know, we can pay what the appraised value is. We do the proper environmental due diligence. That's legally the only way I know that we can pay. I just don't think that we pay like a private sector real estate developer by door. So, we would have to have an appraisal. I think we'd have to do it appropriately. And then one thing I heard you mention SB 102, and I just want to put this out there because say we do purchase the property. That goes into our inventory lands, which we know the state has started to preempt us from making local decisions. The state has said they want more housing, right? That's why they passed the Senate Bill 102, the Live Local Act. So, just for consideration for the residents that think that if the county buys this, that it will be protected, that will go into our inventory. And the state has said that the county is going to produce that inventory list to them. And based on what the Senate Bill 102, Live Local Act requires us to look at these parcels and to maybe, may require us, but certainly consider to develop that into affordable housing. So, what you protect today, just so you know, is not protected based on the way the Senate Bill 102 and the Live Local Acts, because every public land is included into our inventory and can be assessed and looked at, and we can be forced to build affordable housing tomorrow. So, just be cautious of that. And those are my, those are my comments for now. Thank you very much. Commissioner Smith. Maybe to Commissioner Hetherington's thought process. The only thing I'm curious about, none of us, I don't think, know clear enough yet with Senate Bill 102, what all the rules are and how it's all going to work. I'd be curious to know, Sarah, if you've done any research on it or know that if it's put into conservation, can it be pulled, can, can this inventory requirement that they have required us to do, if it's land-used conservation, any property is land-used conservation, can that be pulled out and said that ought to be up for review? Or is it strictly land that's held by counties and cities that are not put into a land use category that is conservation? Mr. Chair, George Stokas, Assistant County Administrator. First of all, you know, there's a lot of, we're going to get to this in the next time, there's a lot of gray area with that. It's our initial reading that conservation land, once it's been identified and preserved, it cannot be brought out and used for affordable housing. What is available is all the, we have about a hundred and something other tracks ranging from sizes of 0.1 acres to a couple acres that this board reviews every three years. Then that list is created. You have two, two properties currently on the roll or the roster, I guess, for affordable housing that is being advertised on our website in accordance with the Live Local Act. And those are the properties that have to be considered and advertised as of staff's understanding at this point. You know, it's a little bit confusing, but that's... That's fine. I was just curious. So just a couple other things just for clarity. And I think, and just so I'm clear, if you were to be able to pledge that $250,000, that's 16 years worth of pledge, correct? If my math is right? Well, it would be less because once the loan that has only four years left on it is paid off, all of the CRA money can go into it because most of the CRA projects are done. So I just, but it's not like a couple of years. It's a long term. It's either eight or 16 depending upon the CRA. Long term loan. Yes. You know, it's interesting too. We had a room filled like this probably 18 years ago, 17 years ago with a affordable housing project that was a federal project up in Jensen that no one wanted. And we couldn't talk about because we're not allowed to talk about affordable housing in a federally authorized project. Had there been an opportunity to acquire that land, we would have filled the room the same way today as we did back then. And people would have bought the land because nobody wanted it. It was, it was, but as it's turned out, I don't think I've ever heard really of a significant, if any, complaints relative to those housing units that are there. But we would have had the same conversation we're having today relative to this project, whether it's the right place, the wrong place, and so on and so forth. I think what's important to get off of, because you can easily get distracted in a conversation up here about, I, all of us can. When a commissioner makes a comment about what happened in the past, what happened today, who's responsible for this, that's deflecting away from the issue at hand, I think. And the issue at hand is, do the five of us want to entertain the idea of acquiring six acres of land in Palm City for some purpose that's public benefit, for the benefit of the community? I mean, I think that's, it's that simple. It comes down to do the five, or do three of us out of the five. I just need two of you. Okay. Do, do two others agree with the Lord, master over here, that the benevolent one, he tells us all the time, that that's a good idea. So for me, as I'm processing all the conversation and listening to you all in Palm City and others that have spoke, my colleagues that have spoke also, there will be other projects that will come forward that will want to be purchased by neighborhoods, because I don't want that next door to me. And we hear almost every agenda item, because 90% or 100% of what's left in Martin County inside the urban service area is next to a neighborhood that nobody wants developed. Um, so how do we deal with that? Uh, it's going to be more difficult as we move through time, um, and weeks, months, years, but immediately, um, because nobody wants anybody else to move here. And that's been that, first of all, that line has been used ever since I've been up here and probably long before I was here that we'd like to Martin County the way it was in 1980 versus today. We are going to have to, as a community, and you have all set the stage here, and so has your commissioner, to have to have a broader discussion of how do we acquire land. Whether it's inside the urban service boundary, outside the urban service boundary, whether it's ag land, whether it's infill land, whether it's commercial land, whether it's land that is going to be decided for us by Senate Bill 102 or other bills that are going to pass as time moves on with the legislature, we are going to need a funding source to acquire land in Martin County in a much greater capacity than trying to figure out how in Ed's district we cobble together $250,000, whether it's for 16 years or eight years, whatever the story may be. So whatever the decision gets voted on today that we try to figure out what to do with this, when you all leave today, understand good or bad, whether whatever the response is or whatever the vote is, this is not the last parcel that is going to be problematic for you in Palm City. I mean, forget Jensen, forget Hope Sound, forget Stewart for a minute, just for a second. There will be other parcels that will come forward that people will say, well, we did it with that parcel. Let's do it again. Well, where is the funding source? Ed's tapping out already and then some, right? We will tap out in our districts if we were to use district funds, and if you were lucky enough to have a CRA, I have two of them in my district. Those are probably going to get tapped out very quickly because there's just not millions of dollars in some pot sitting somewhere to go acquire this stuff. So we're going to have to, my thought process, and we've talked about this before, we were going to have to have a long-term funding source discussion that you all, we are going to need your help to support. And that means probably having a sales tax because there is no other large funding source, revenue source, that's large enough to acquire four, 10, 15 million dollar parcels. This year we had how much new revenue? 16 million in new revenue countywide? Yes. 16 million in new revenue countywide. Way more. It was 21. 21. I'm sorry. Okay. It's going up as the seconds go by. 21 million. Okay. Half of that, and this is not anything towards our sheriff whatsoever, half of that got consumed by our sheriff, if not more so. I'm sorry. 16 million out of the 21 million went to our sheriff. How much does that leave? Not much. And this is one project, one parcel of all the other things that we have to deal with as a county. So somewhere along the line, if you all want us to do more of this, which is your choice, you are the voters, you are who put us here, and we are listening very clearly, we need a long-term funding source, and it has to be in the millions of dollars because of what's at stake or what's at scale here. So that conversation has to follow. I just don't know how you have this conversation without it. I'm willing to support this idea with the knowledge that this one parcel doesn't stand by itself as an acquisition because it's not going to be good enough for you. I can assure you, I can just, I've been here long enough to know, everybody's next door parcel is an awful parcel. Nobody wants a development. I don't care what the development is. I don't care if it's apartment complex or it's 150 single-family homes next door to their house. They don't, you all don't want it. So, Ed, I'm willing to support, I'm not so sure that the formula, I mean, I guess what we're going to have to do, Mr. Donaldson, at this point in time, if this motion were to pass, you'd have to do general fund at this point? Yes. And, um, or a bank loan. Or a bank loan. And I'm, and I'm not opposed. Look, a bank loan may sound awful. We have borrowed money to do various projects in the county before. Um, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm hesitant to go into reserves because of hurricanes and we will consume, if we have a bad hurricane, this is not a threat, it's honest to God real, we will consume every single dollar that's in those reserves and then some, if we have a Francis, a Jean, uh, an Ian or that kind of a storm. That's why we have those reserves for us, Commissioner Donaldson, Mr. Donaldson pointed out earlier. So, I'm hesitant to go there, which is why I asked the question, can we use reserves to pay, um, a bank loan? And it wouldn't be such a dramatic hit to the reserves account, even though we may have to pledge them, but it wouldn't be taking those dollars out? Commissioner, just consider the, the reserves is just a temporary fund. I understand. You would have to replenish them, um, uh, and certainly, you know, within five years is your policy. Um, and I'm suggesting that we would want to do it probably within two. So, you would be taking your first tax revenues that generated next year and pledging it towards refilling the fund is really what, so, unless you did a bank loan. I'm, I'm just having conversation because as I said, we can't talk about this stuff outside of the room. So, those are my thoughts, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. So, I completely agree with everything that Commissioner Smith said, except for the fact that we need hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, when I first heard this, um, agenda item before I thoroughly, um, studied it, um, it's, I, was completely aghast. This is not an environmentally sensitive targeted piece of property that we so desperately need to acquire in Martin County. You know, Palmar Properties and Canopus and all of the, all of the stuff. And I, I kind of really was not going to support it because it would diminish that. Um, and so, we do need to seriously have some sort of funding source that we can do something substantive. Um, I do worry. I personally have two projects coming up within the next 12 months in Hope Sound that are going to have the exact same amount of people in the room. Um, there are actually two commercial properties that the county owning those properties would absolutely make no sense at all for any reason. Um, so, you know, it's, uh, I, I get it. If we're going to use MST, um, funds and we're going to use TIF funds, um, I will, I always try to support my fellow commissioners in their endeavors. Um, and, and we'll do this. I'm, I'm, I agree with Stacy that details need, it would be nice to have more details on exactly what we're doing before we do it. I'm sensitive. Yes. Ms. Corris. Uh, just in regards to process commissioner, I'd like to mention two other points, a couple of other points. Uh, CRA funds are always allocated because statutorily we need to do that and they need to be allocated according to the CRA, the community redevelopment plan, uh, that was actually talked about a little bit earlier this morning. Um, and that those things need to go through the process, which would be CRA board and, and that process. I'll come to that meeting with some of my neighbors. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. So my understanding of what Mr. Donaldson just said was that if, if you borrow from general fund, it has to be replenished in two years and neither the MSTU or the CRA has the funding to be able to repay that debt in two years. It's, it's technically it's within five commissioner is my recommendation. Okay. We don't, the MSTU and the, um, TIF don't have enough funding to pay it back in five. No question to that point, Mr. Donaldson. If I made my MSTU funds from two 70 to three 70 this year, what's the maximum I could make it? You can't raise it. Not this year, next year. You do whatever you want. I'm saying, is there a route? Yeah, we would have to check to make sure. All right. Find out. I don't want to commit because I'd be willing to invest on behalf of my residents in district five. I'll make it $750,000. Our residents, I could go door to door and explain that we used these dollars, their tax dollars within their district to purchase those six acres, because if we don't purchase it today, it is gone forever. And we're not talking about a commercial piece of property on us one that's been scraped bare. This is an untouched piece of property. I disagree with that. It has no environmental impact. It is adjacent to Danforth Creek that floods. If you go to this property right now, based on the rain that we had yesterday, you'd be standing potentially in knee deep water on most of those acres. Where does that water go when it's 90 apartments and 123 parking spaces? It's also right next door to an elementary school, not near an elementary school. Those kids, 625 kids and their parents will bike, walk, scooter and drive right past those apartments right on the sidewalk. This is a perfect storm. When someone said Pandora's box, this is Pandora's box. We do not want to open it today. That's my opinion. And opening this conversation today is not Pandora's box. 90 apartments on the road, beautiful apartments by wonderful people don't belong to be there. Commissioner Smith, and then we got to get to the point of wrapping it up. I'm sure you want to. No, there's not a vote that we can have that what I'm going to ask for, but we have got to commit this board, whether it's majority or three of us or whatever, have to commit to figuring out a long range acquisition program because there's just no, there's no way we can have this single conversation on one single piece of property without creating a conversation countywide for a whole host of different reasons. And so I just hope, and I'm going to make a motion for you, Mr. Chair, if that's okay, unless you want one. No, I'm happy to have you make a motion. But my hope is that the commitment from our board is that we come back very quickly because time is of the essence for that conversation relative to timing for an election cycle on ballot language of stuff that we commit to it. So I'm going to move that we direct administration, however, Don, administrator, and legal to prepare a offer to the property owner and that we use, because I think we have to, I don't think there's any faster way because you're not going to get to the CRA and get the commitments from them. Susan just pointed out which he's right, um, that we use reserves, um, to acquire the parcel, but as a temporary measure until other funds can be, um, directed to, um, backfill or to pledge a repayment of the $4 million. Thank you very much. Commissioner Hetherington. A, I think we should also make a motion that we actually go into a land acquisition study and, um, potential sales tax. I think that we should decide that today that we need a long-term strategy and commit to it. I like everything you said, except for the fact that I would rather it be, um, bank loan. I do not like the idea of general fund reserves because next year during the budget hearing, you're going to come back and you're going to say, we're going to raise taxes 6% and I'm, I'm not going to support that. And that's exactly what's going to happen if we don't finance it over a longer period of time. So that's almost a tipping point to me where I would support it except for we need a longer term financing mechanism. And when the budget is presented next year and there's a 6, 7% tax increase because we have to backfill the reserves, I'm not going to support the budget. So how about this? Let me modify my motion to give administration the authority to make the offer, um, and the whatever legal documents that have to go along with that offer and accept it. It's already been offered. Well, no, it hasn't been offered by us. We, we, we're accepting an unsolicited offer. That's the point today. Not, you would not be able to accept an unsolicited offer today. If you're, if you notice on the recommended action, um, there's a process statutorily we have to go through to acquire property. So we'd have to have executed contract. I do want to, to caution the board, not caution, just let you know that we have to get two appraisals. And if you, um, two appraisals for the, the property, you can go above and beyond the appraised value. I, I don't have any idea what the appraisal would be. We have not obviously at this early stage, we would not have obtained appraisals. Um, but once you get the two appraisals, if you're above the average of the two appraisals, it takes an extraordinary vote, which means four votes to, that's. So in my, in my, my motion, the intent of my motion, and if I'm not saying it right, is to author or to give staff the authorization to, to contractually work with the applicant or the. They have suggested language, right? Yeah. To a, uh, authorized staff to negotiate and sign a purchase and sale agreement contingent upon board approval at a future meeting. Rain and appraisal and authorized to have to develop a funding solution with terms you. Okay. So effectively item two would be my motion. Um, huh? A, B, and C. A, well, item two is A, B, and C. Um, but that when this comes back, so Sarah, you'll have to bring this back to us with a approval. So what we come back with is we'll have the two appraisals. We'll have a, uh, uh, for successful and having a purchase and sale agreement signed by the, um, seller and one signed by your county administrator. Um, it would come to you for your approval, which would have all the funding approval. Then. That was my next question. Yes. So in that, in that agenda item, then you will lay out for us either various options or a option on how to fund the four million, whether it's, it's combination of MSTU and CRA funds or not, or just a bank loan. Cause I think it would be helpful, honestly, is if we had two or three funding choices, maybe a bank loan looks like the best, but today we can't really answer that cause we don't have it sitting in front of us and we don't know. So that's correct. We will come back with funding, but that motion gives you enough direction to come back to us with an approval, um, agenda item that we can approve. Yes. Okay. That's my motion. Thank you very much. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. I, I, I completely support your, your motivation here. I, I, I, I'm empathetic, but I cannot support using general fund reserves and I don't think we need to. I think that the, that the, uh, motion can say utilizing CRA and district five funds period. I don't want to get into borrowing from general fund because it's a terrible precedent. Sorry. I don't, I don't disagree. I, that's why I asked if there were options that will be brought back to us so that we will have various things to look at and make a decision. Yeah. But this also, this, this says, says that you can use general fund reserves. We need those general fund reserves. But, but again, I don't, in my motion, I'm not wanting to limit staff's ability to come to us with two or three options that say, if you do this, this happens. If you do this, this, and this, this is what happens. May I make a language, uh, suggestion for the motion maker? Leave it for 90 days or six months so that if it is a bank loan that we don't create a window that is so small that we can't get the money. If we have to borrow it to close the deal for whatever you feel comfortable, 90 days, it can, if it doesn't have to come out of the general fund at all, terrific. If it does, whatever our staff says it can be borrowed for a finite amount of time, we'll do a, we'll do a bank loan. That's what I'm saying. So, but I don't want to take it off the table because then if, if we realize the deal needs to be done very quickly, then it's not going to be enough time. The motion is not to limit. But I want to make sure these, my colleagues, agree with you. My motion is to give them all the flexibility they need to come back to us with two or three or one that works. Recommendations that we can vote on independent of each other so that we have actual numbers, what a payoff looks like, how many years that payoff is. Understood. If it involves the CRA or doesn't involve the CRA and what you have to do, Susan, if the master plan has to be changed to reflect the acquisition of the land, I don't know, but all those things that would come back in a future agenda. This is just merely giving you the ability to enter into a contract negotiation with the applicant, right? Thank you. That's correct. I just want to make sure that my additional colleagues feel comfortable enough that they can support and participate because your community is watching and listening. I want everyone to participate at a comfort level that you feel is appropriate. I'm committing as the district commissioner for at least the next year that we will craft something that is, is appropriate and make you have a comfort level that you can participate in supporting this today. Commissioner Hetherington. So we're coming back with a direction. I think you heard though a couple commissioners say they don't want them from the general fund reserve. So it's coming back with options. It will be the, um, the best solution. So then we can decide and, but I think you've heard that most of us don't want general fund reserves to be used at all or for the longterm. Okay. Then we're going to have to replenish. I agree with you completely. It won't be used for the longterm commissioner Jenkins, but it can be used as a bridge. It would, it would have to, I'm not a banking expert, but I see a banking expert in the room. We're not going to be able to pull this off. It would have to be a short term. And if we can do it without using it terrific, but if it needs to be used, I'm committing that at the next time this pops up, if they say, well, look, it's going to be three years of the general reserves. I agree that that's not the way to go. And then in regards to before Mr. Donaldson, who will have the final word, hopefully before a vote, the concept of a longterm a hundred million dollar funding source next year, there will be a referendum for a half a cent sales tax. And if you've heard me talk about it, the concept there is for purchasing large swaths of environmentally sensitive conservation land. I agree with that. However, a portion of that money should be used to purchase socially sensitive invite in the communities property. There's your longterm funding source. If there's a piece of property in any of your districts that is rises to the level of something like this and you get this level of support, then it is. We in Palm city have voted for sawgrass villas, a three story, uh, storage facility, Magnolia Ridge, Pineland Prairie. We're not opposed. We get it. This just doesn't work right there. If it was 42 townhomes, like it was originally suggested. And I understand why the development changed their mind. Nobody's here. It would have been 42 townhomes. It's this specific thing. Don Donaldson, it's all you. I was just going to suggest that I, uh, to see it's, uh, I've interpreted as amended to include options that limit or eliminate the need for general fund. Yes, I would agree. That's a good, uh, okay. So we have a motion by commissioner Smith. Are you going to amend your motion to that? Which I will second. Seconded by commissioner Jenkins. Which I was against this agenda item to begin with and I just seconded it. So yeah, there we go. Well, this is exactly how the political government system in America is supposed to work. Our citizens came forward. They requested of us. We listened, we thought it through, and we decided. We have a motion by commissioner, commissioner Smith as, as the language has presented. Seconded by commissioner Jenkins. Although. Seriously? Commissioner Hurd. Just a question. Because we are not allowed to raise our budget in September, our final budget. Is this going to be resolved before the final budget hearing? Um, I, I don't know if it will be reserved before the final budget hearing, but it will have to be done in a way that does not affect your budget because we're borrowing against using existing funds or. But we're also talking about spending an additional four million dollars. Hence the loan issue. Yes. I'm sorry. I, I really support you, Ed, but I, I'm not, I can't support the motion. That's your prerogative. With that in mind, we have a motion by commissioner Smith. Seconded by commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries four to one with commissioner Hurd dissenting. Thank you very much. Yes. And with that, we will take our lunch break. We blew through the, um, closed captioning. We'll return at 1 30 for the remainder of our agenda. Thank you very much. In commissioner's meeting, we have, uh, several things on the agenda for this afternoon. We're going to take, um, public hearing number one, a public hearing and final assessment resolution for the Port Salerno New Monrovia wastewater municipal service benefit unit discussion. It'll be presented by Mr. David Duncan and Mr. Sam Emerson, who I do see is here. Commissioner Smith. After this, can you take, um, commissioner comments before I head out of here? Yes, sir. Gentlemen, please come take your seats. Forgive me just a moment. I'm waiting for Phil Keithley. Absolutely. Then make your commissioner comments. Yeah. Would you like to make your commissioner comments now, Commissioner Smith? There he is. And our friend, Mr. Phil Keithley is here as well. Mr. Keithley, I'm going to jump you right into the process. We have residents waiting that have been here all morning. I appreciate the folks from this area that have been here. We appreciate you. Gentlemen, um, welcome back. Why don't you share with us what's happened since the last time we were here? Commissioners, good afternoon. I'm going to go through a short presentation and then we'll move into questions. This is a continuation of the public hearing held on June 20th for the proposed Port Salerno New Monrovia wastewater municipal service benefit unit. In 2015, the board directed staff to acquire the services of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute to perform a study on the effects of septic tank discharges into the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon, specifically related to nitrogen and phosphorus loadings. The final report suggests significant contributions of nitrogen and phosphorus to the St. Lucie Estuary watershed, primarily from on-site sewage treatment and disposal systems or septic tanks. Groundwater nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations were significantly higher in the residential community survey. As the board is aware, the utilities department has been working towards design and construction of a wastewater collection system for Port Salerno New Monrovia for many years. As part of that endeavor, the Florida legislature approved a $500,000 grant and the FDEP, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, awarded an $8 million grant in 2022. Subsequent to the public hearing initiated on June 20th, staff was able to obtain another $2 million as an amendment to the original $8 million state grant for a new total of $10 million. Another $2.2 million was budgeted from state revenue sharing funds, as well as franchise fees and utility contributions for an additional $2.1 million, which totals $14.84 million in contributions, reducing the accessible costs for the benefited properties within this proposed municipal services benefit unit. The proposed assessment includes 939 properties at a total of 963 equivalent residential connections. As indicated on this slide, the total project cost is $24,352,621. So now, with the $10 million in a state grant, $500,000 from a legislative appropriations grant, and state revenue sharing with local contributions of $4,340.77, I'm sorry, $77, the amount of accessible costs is now reduced to $9,511,844. Therefore, that sum is divided by 963 equivalent residential connections for an estimated prepayment amount of $9,877 per connection, and that equates to an annual payment of $620.56 per unit amortized over a 20-year period at a 1.34% interest rate plus standard fees. Therefore, that sum, excuse me, this slide is intended to give the board, we're going to have to go back, excuse me a minute, Donna, can you help us out? There's a slide missing. Thank you, Donna. There you go. That one right there. There we go. Thank you. This slide is intended to give the board an understanding of the 50-50 state grant match requirements as it relates to the original $8 million grant, dollar grant staff presented to this body at the June 20th hearing, and now with the additional $2 million for a total of $10 million in state grant funding. Looking at the bottom line, far right, you can see that with the new $10 million grant, we are very close to the required 50-50 match at $10.48 million. They would not be able to accept any additional state grant funds to help buy down the accessible cost of this proposed MSBU. Martin County Utility serves approximately 36,000 water customers, and the average residential customer uses approximately 6,000 gallons per month. The wastewater rate per 1,000 gallons is $4.82, plus a base charge of $19.73. The average residential wastewater customer pays approximately $48.65 per month. With the approval of the final assessment resolution today, the department anticipates commencing construction in October of 2023 and estimates a 23-month construction phase with completion in August of 2025. Lump-sum payments of the assessment by property owners would be due by August 15th, 2024, and any payments not received by that date would be shown on the annual property tax bill in November 2024. Staff recommends that the board adopt the final assessment resolution to create the Port Salerno-New Monrovia Wastewater Municipal Service Benefit Unit, and the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute any documents related to this request. Good afternoon, Sam Amberson Utilities and Solid Waste Department Director. Thank you and good afternoon, Commissioners. We did also reach out once again. Phil and I, along with John Mayo, made a phone call the end of last week to Angela Connect with the DEP. She's in charge of the Division of Water Restoration Assistance, so she is the director of that department managing these grant funds. We reached out to Herb. We were informed of some additional grants, availability, water quality grant, also Indian River Lagoon grant, and we heard that there was no match required. So we asked that specific question of Herb. A couple of questions, actually. We asked her, can we apply for the Indian River Lagoon grant that requires no match and use that as a local match toward the existing grant? The answer to that was no. We can't use DEP funds that they provide, along with additional DEP funds, to serve as a local match. So as Phil mentioned, we've reached our match requirements. We really can't utilize any additional funds for the existing 10 million dollar grant. We did ask another question, and that was, what about a scenario where we amend this current grant, give that back, and we apply for 20 million dollars on the Indian River Lagoon grant without a match. She said that's not advisable. You've already got the money. The governor wants this money spent. It's already been allocated, and they're tracking it as already being spent funds, if you will. So we tried to find some scenarios where we could utilize additional funds. If we wanted to try that route, she suggested that it does not require a grant, I mean a local match, but those that provide a match are much higher ranked, and the likelihood of getting funding for additional like 20 million dollars to cover the entire cost of the project was very unlikely. So I just mentioned that, that we did attempt to reach out and find some other alternatives, other grant funding, and it was recommended that we keep our current grant with the local match that's already been allocated. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Sam. Phil, isn't NEP money or a portion of NEP money federal? Say that again? Isn't NEP National Estuary Program funding, isn't a portion or most of it federal? Yes. So why does DEP have, what do they have to do with NEP program money? Well, we're not utilizing NEP program money. Oh, I thought that's what you said. No, no, I'm sorry. It was Indian River Lagoon. That is Indian River. Well, yes, it's for the five counties. There was, I think, one. Oh, there was a separate legislative fund that they set up for the Indian River Lagoon. One hundred million for the five counties. Okay, got it. It's not any, it's not Indian River Lagoon program money. It's the fund that the legislature set up for the hundred million that they put in. That's correct. And so they're not treating that as separate funding? That's considered all still one pot of money from DEP? That's my understanding, yes. Just to apply to the five counties that border the IRL. I would think that they would want to spend that money on as much as possible, as quickly as possible, but okay, if they said no, no is no. One other nuance to that, she indicated or stated that this new IRL money or the water quality money is going to require mandatory connection to the system. So when I went through the questions that are asked on the application, there's a question or statement that says, it quotes the Florida statute that these customers, if we were successful at that kind of grant, that grant, they would be required to connect within 365 days. And so we struggled internally with how would we make that happen? So I don't know how we would accomplish a requirement and a grant agreement that they connect within 365 days that we would have to enforce and actually go on private property and physically make a connection. So I would imagine that our legislators, staffs are watching this, but this is something we should probably, if you haven't already done, communicate to them, like here's like a real world attempt to use those funds, and maybe it's not working the way that they kind of anticipated that those would work, because it was touted as being 100 million for Indian River Lagoon that was going to go directly towards things like this. And it's not necessarily that easy. If it were add on money, that'd be fantastic. So I have to imagine that others are going to run into the same problem, and maybe they won't be able to spend the money as they thought they were going to spend it. I would expect so. I think it's going to be kind of a hurry up and wait and see what one of these grant agreements look like for another community. Those are generally posted on the website once they're executed, and see what those provisions actually are in the written grant agreement. So, Don, I don't know who communicates with whose staff, but this is something that Sarah maybe ought to be checking with our delegation staff on to see how this actually gets implemented, and are they watching, listening, and understanding that maybe they need to come back next year and do something differently with how it's applied? We agree, Commissioner. In fact, we've already talked about this internally about also attempting to work with the DEP on the scenario. As we've talked to the residents, we quote the statute about connecting within a year, but the actual enforcement of it is through the health department, and the health department does not require you to connect unless your tank has failed. So that's a legitimate purpose, so that's a legitimate purpose, a way to handle it. We think that meets the intent of the law, and that way someone may not have to, may not, you know, but if you're simply, if it is truly mandated, the ability to enter a private property without some sort of ownership interest, meaning an easement or a temporary construction easement, and as we all know, most of those in the government, those aren't acquired, they're either acquired voluntarily, or you have to use condemnation powers to do that, and we've never used something like that for that. So it would be, I think there are provisions of this that on paper sound good, like on those future grant agreements, but in practicality, have some serious private property rights implications that I don't think it's something that we want to do, especially when most of the people are connecting anyway, and there's always going to be a handful of folks who just, for whatever reason, have a new system, or simply just don't want to connect, and, you know, that, I think, is just part of the, of human distribution of facts. And material. Yes. Commissioner Hetherington. I just, one, I would think that that, because last meeting you mentioned, because I thought it was not mandatory at all unless your septic tank failed, but you mentioned there was a provision that you do require, you are assessed immediately, and you do require the residents to, to connect within a certain period of time. I would think in the, in the eyes. That's for the hundred million. That's a policy that last, last meeting we stated that was a Martin County policy, which I think, at least I was surprised that, that your septic, I thought your septic tank had to fail if you're connecting. So I would think in the eyes of the state, that would be considered a mandatory connection policy. That is our, our belief. Now, I think, you know, there's a difference between our ability to make somebody pay, which I think is, you know, where it goes. You can charge for the, the, the facility and the infrastructures that there, but actually making the physical connection is a, is also a separate piece. So we believe our policy meets the guidelines or the intent of the mandatory language, but that's, that's why we need further discussion with the DEP. If they're more forcefully enforcing that provision in future grant applications, it needs further discussion because having the ability to assess or charge a property, a benefited property under state law is one thing. Having to actually, the authority to enter private property and make a physical connection is a separate and distinct issue. Well, they need to clarify that rule, but which of the grants require a mandatory connection, the IRL or the water quality? The ones that are currently available online to apply online is the water quality grant and also an IRL grant, the one we spoke of, the $100 million. So what I understand, because we just had a meeting with a bunch of DEP folks, there's two pots of money. There's the IRL grant, which applies only to the five counties on the Indian River Lagoon that has $100 million. And then there's the water quality improvement grant, which has $200 million in, which is eligible to the entire state. However, you still could apply if you are in the Indian River Lagoon. One does not require, so the grant that we currently have requires a match. The other one does not require a match. And it sounded, my interpretation of the conversation was they could be combined. You could apply, and the portal is only open until August 31st. So I don't know how in the world the state's going to spend all of this money. That's $300 million. But my interpretation was that you could combine the grant we already have with additional grant funds, and they're two separate pots of money. Right. And we asked that specific question, and Angela tells us that the grant we have requires a 50% local match. Any additional DEP funding that's available would not be considered local funds. So if we applied for, let's just say, a $4 million grant from the Indian, the water quality improvement grant, no, the IRL, then we could use that in addition for this or any other project, because that includes design, permitting. They want to see you use the bulk of it in construction, but we could use that in addition. I think the issue that was promulgated is we just either give up the grants that require the match and start over, and go for an entirely new grant, which is one of the options today, and simply turn that money back into the state and then try to get one of these other grants and then not proceed forward with a project until you have a grant contract, and then you have to re-bid it depending upon what you have in pricing. And the other key piece of it was is that when you compete after these other grants throughout Brevard County has a big sales tax initiative to match this. I think they're generating over $100 million alone for their program. They're going to award it based upon who has the highest matches and is shovel ready. I have some more questions, but I think you were partially finished. Were you done with your presentation? Yes, sir. Thank you. Do you want to keep going or do you want to hold? Commissioner Hurd? Yeah, just for clarity for the match, presumably the DEP requires a match so that the local government has skin in the game, makes an investment, and that's why they require 50%. It can't be 60%. It's got to be 50% because they want us to have skin in the game. They want us to have an investment. So we also have water quality requirements at both the state and the federal level. So if we abandon this project, what happens to those requirements? They don't go away. So, Commissioner, John Mayell, before he's not here this week, but he had some – there was a recent bill passed by the state that if you're located within an impaired basin that is within an impaired water, which the St. Lucie estuary is, you'll have 10 years to hook a certain category of properties less than an acre, which this area all applies for, to get hooked up to sewer. The alternative is that the septic systems could be replaced with what they called advanced wastewater type of system, and our presentations on those to date have been running around $25,000. And I think, as I recall, too, they have to be operated by your utility. So the issue is that there are methods that you might be able to avoid having to go to a municipal unified system that relies on, you know, pipes and pumping and have an on-site system. But that on-site system, I believe, still has to be managed by a utility, and those systems are fairly expensive. So – and we have 10 years to do that. So I think the issue is that if we did not do this project today, we'd have 10 years to get it done. And it might be much more expensive. Yes. And we'd be handling the entire cost. We don't know. I mean, we've got $14 million worth of grants here in hand, and I don't know how many more millions of dollars are available down the road. It looks to me like everything has requirements attached. Yeah, one other nuance of the current grants that we have, the 50-50 match cannot include monies spent, for example, engineering that we spent for this project, anything that was spent prior to the grant agreement being fully executed. And so that comes out of the match, and also the capital facilities charges cannot be utilized as match in our current grants. They're changing that, my understanding, reading through the new applications and talking to Angela at the DEP, that they're going to be revising those restrictions. Is that just rulemaking or legislation? I don't know. Commissioner, heard anything further? Nope. I'm going to go to public comment now. I have a couple of requests to speak forms. If you haven't yet to fill one out but would like to, you have a couple of options. You can speak first and fill it out afterwards and give it to our ballot, who's waving his hand right there. Or if you don't want to speak, obviously you don't have to. You'll hear a tone. You'll have three minutes to address this on the topic. At the two minutes and 45-second point, you're going to hear a tone that tells you you have 15 seconds to sort of wrap up your comments so we don't cut you off, which I think would be rude. So we are going to start with Ms. Jamie Taylor. Ms. Taylor, how are you? Welcome. I'm glad you stuck with us all day. I appreciate your patience. Actually, I apologize. I had to leave for a little bit. That's okay. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. Most of us in this area, you know, work. So unfortunately, we couldn't have the numbers that Palm City had because a lot of us in that area, you know, work. But anyway, I'm Jamie Roll Taylor. I grew up here in Port Salerno. I moved back to take care of my parents. And so I brought my three girls with me. And so when I came back, I sort of had my hands full. So I didn't think that I was going to get involved at all. But I have since gotten involved. And so when I came back and I saw that a lot of these projects were sort of in play, I'm all for it. We need it. Our environment means a lot to us. If you guys know a little bit of history about New Monrovia, there was a microwave plant there many, many years ago before I was gray, right? There you go. Back then, there was a lot of waste. And there was monies at that time to be spent on infrastructure. And New Monrovia never got that infrastructure. I don't know what happened. I don't know why. I feel like that project should have happened then. But it didn't. So we're here at this stage now. And I grew up in a community where we worked hard. We own our homes. I don't know. I'm more of a dialogue type person. But has anybody up here ever lived on a low income, you know, house, on a fixed income? It's hard, okay? And especially when you're raising three girls on your own, okay? So I understand this may not be large to you guys, but it's a hardship for many. And you're talking about putting liens on people's homes that they've worked hard for to sort of keep in their family and provide generational wealth for their kids. So I'm asking that we actually find grants that can completely fund this project because I feel like they're out there. My God, how much did we hear about the infrastructure monies that was coming to us in Congress? I mean, this is what it's about. And we want to protect our environment. But at the cost of putting people in jeopardy and at risk of losing their homes, not only are we paying for the cost of this project, we're also paying for the cost to connect. So it's not just one cost. We're dealing with multiple costs. So I'm just asking if you guys can sympathize and if you can't empathize, that would be great so that you understand, you know, the position that many people in the area are in. Okay? Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate your comments. Our next request to speak for Ms. Mr. Steve English. Mr. English, welcome back. Good morning, Commissioner. It's afternoon now. I appreciate your time. I probably won't be as cordial as Jamie was. Bear with me. I wish I was here standing to support this project. But the cost is too much, so I'm not. The way it stands is just too high of a cost to everybody. So we need to either abandon it as it is or put it on hold again until we can find some more funding. Without the funding, there's just no way any of us are going to support this. The question was asked, we had the informative meeting, and the question was asked how Port St. Lucie could provide the same service for $5,000. And here in Martin County, it was almost three times that. It's about $13,000 what we're looking at right now from best we can gist per person. The answer that was given was kind of insulting and inappropriate. It was, if you don't like what we are doing here in Martin County, move to Port St. Lucie. We thought that was highly inappropriate for an informative meeting with us, and it aggravated a bunch of people. So this meeting was less informative than the first one, but we did glean from it that it's going to be about $13,000 approximately out of each person's pocket to do this. And that's still too much. We understand that it's a 50-50 match. And what I don't understand is I'd add one plus two. If it's a $24 million project, how come the match is only $10.5 million? It should be $12 million. So that doesn't make sense. There's another $1.5 million somewhere, according to just dummies. Dummies. So that's one of the things that doesn't add up to us, so we know there's more funding there. We've got a project in Salerno now on the waterfront, on Park Drive. It's going to cost those residents somewhere between $5,000 and $7,000 to connect to sewer and have it. They've got CRA funding and other stuff, too. We don't have any of that. None of that's been given to us. We're going to try and get that. We have an NAC meeting, which we're going to try and move some funding around to see if we can't port to this project. But if you approve it today, I'm afraid we'll never get another nickel. So if you approve it today, we're stuck with what we've got. We know if it's approved today that this is the funding. This is what we're going to have. And we're never going to add to it. So I urge you today not to – it doesn't have to be done today. I want to leave you with one more number, too, 12 million gallons. That's how much raw sewage just dumped into the Indy River Lagoon south of Palm Beach County three weeks ago from a sewage treatment plant, 12 million gallons. That's not counting Fort Pierce. They're sitting right on the Indy River Lagoon. Vero Beach here. All these treatment plants dump raw sewage into the river one way or another from a failure, a storm, or whatever. So there may not be the ultimate answer. But what that says is the immediate necessity is not there. So I urge you, commissioners, don't pass this as it stands. Put it on hold. Find more funding. The $20 million, if we have to do away with what we've got and try for that, I think we're better off. And I thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Our next request to speak for Ms. Celia Smith. Good afternoon and welcome back. Thank you. It has been a long day, hasn't it? Thank you so much for your time, for everything that you do. I am a longtime resident of Jensen Beach. I totally agree with Andrea Dixon. I go there weekly for my mom. Never see the garbage all the time, but never knew where it was coming from. I found it out today. So thank you for that. I just want to say thank you all for going the way to find the extra $2 million. We really appreciate that. I stand in agreement with Chandler Josie, who spoke earlier this morning, Jamie Rowe-Taylor as Mrs. English, and also we'll hear from Jennifer Dodson, Cody Kemp, and anyone else that comes up in the New Monrovia. I know you like the way I say her name. Anyone else that comes up from the area. I went to the last meeting, and surprisingly different things, because as far as the 50% grant thing didn't come out until the last meeting that we had, that question was brought up. So that's one thing I kind of didn't like about the meetings. We hear some things in one meeting, and you don't get them all. First of all, I want to say numbers is power. I do know that. I worked for the school district for 35 years, and numbers is in power. We had numbers here this morning, but, of course, Palm City was a very lengthy thing, so some people are not able to be here today. But I do not – I am not in silence. I stand. My voice will be heard. Those voices were here today to be heard, but some of them could not come back. I myself am retired from giving 35 years to Martin County, and I don't want to go back to work. I'm going to be 65 years old next month. So if I have to go and deal in this where my mortgage has went up due to a homeowner's insurance, I still have a mortgage. Taxes now, you're saying, is going up from the waste management. Now I have to look at other taxes that are going to be add-on with this project here of the sewer. Yes, we need it, and then I found out, and I mean, I've got to come out $3,000 because my septic is in the back of my yard. So all these different added-on things that we're hearing, we cannot be compared to Golden Gate. That came up in the last meeting. Golden Gate is rental. We're almost single-family. We have elderlies in our area that live on a fixed income, and I guess I could say I'm not elderly, but my income is fixed. So I ask that you really look, and I'm not going to go into any other detail because I say I'm sure Jennifer is coming behind us, and we support her, and we support this, and if the project hasn't been put on hold, however it may be, and that was the question that was asked. And I thank God there was a young lady that I met from Golden Gate, and this lady really laid it out on the line because there were some things that was kind of like smooth, and she brought things out that actually helped out. But if all the information should be given at one time, we shouldn't have to be going back and forth. So thank you for your time. Ma'am, thank you very much. I have one final request to speak for me. If anybody else would like to address us, now is the time to tell us. You can come forward and speak and fill the form out afterwards. Sir, are you standing up to come this way? Okay. You can come up first. I'm saving this one. You look very familiar, sir. I think you've got some ears in your community. I thank you for your time. I know all of you all either in a professional way or on a personal level, and I consider some of you my very best of friends. I want you to know that you're in a bad position today, and it's not because of you. It's because of your predecessors, okay? They got you here. Talking about a history lesson, real quick, I am a third-generation resident of New Monrovia, okay? For the most part, that little section there off of Cove Road, let's face it. I've got to tell you, it was known as the black section or the colored section. We were short-changed in those days. I hate to bring that up, but that's the truth. How in the world if we're a historic community and we still don't have the basic thing? In the 30s, our census population here in Martin County was like a little over 5,000. In the 60s, it was like 16,000. In the 70s, it was 28,000. In the 90s, it was just over 100,000. As of 2020, we're pushing about 160,000. These residents are New Monrovia. They stuck with Martin County before it was even Martin County. They were some of the most hardworking, dedicated, law-abiding citizens that you will ever see. They helped to build Martin County, but because we're low in numbers, even as we stand now, Martin County only have a population, a black population of about 5%, so we're not threatening to you in any way. And that has not served us well because what happened in the 60s, I remember my dad lobbying Commissioner Jack Sanderson to try to get a light for the train on Cove Road. It went on deaf ears until, guess what? A lady from Miles Grant got killed. Wasn't a person of color. They put a light there. In the 60s, okay, we were there, and we were lobbying, at the time, Commissioner Doc Myers, just to try to get some paved roads. But across, on Salerno Road, they had dead-end streets, paved, dead-end streets. Wasn't right, but you know, we just got shortchanged. I'm just telling you like it is. And in the 70s, we lobbied Commissioner Elmira Ganey to finally get some water, and we kind of got that water. I think Commissioner Hurd was coming in on the same time. And here we stand today, 2023, and we still don't have sewer. I mean, that's a sin and a shame. That's our most basic thing. Now, I'm all for it. I can pay for it. But you know what? A lot of those people on fixed income. We got, I'll give you a quick example. We got a lady that's like 90 years old. She owned like five different pieces of property. Three of them are rentals, and some of them are single-family lots. She's told that's going to come at her. Man, if you think people can, you know, I heard your budget hearings the other day. You're saying it's not sustainable. Do you think this is sustainable? So I think you need to put it on hold until we can do something. Everybody, these people can't afford this. If you think they can afford this, then you must be smoking some. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. I have our last request to speak for him. Anybody else? Our last request to speak for him is Ms. Jennifer Dotson Cody Kemp. Ms. Kemp, welcome back. Welcome back. Well, I really don't know where to start. I'm so just thrown back by all of the different pieces of information that have been piecemealed out to us. First of all, thank you so much for going back to the well. Thanks for your staff to going back and getting an additional $2 million. It's wonderful when you go back, you think the well is dry and there's more water. But I will tell you, after the June 20th meeting, we mobilized. We got out there. We sent emails. We made phone calls. And went to work researching a new grant, finding some additional money. June 30th, I gave the information to Commissioner Hurst. Me and Hurst had a call. And as of last week, no one had reached out to this administration yet. So I know there was a meeting held last August, or August 2nd, last Wednesday. That's a whole 45 days kind of gone. Secondly, this whole 50% match thing, if that had come out the first meeting on June 20th, we probably might not even be here at this point, because we were almost at 50% at that time. The $2 million basically kind of put us up there. Matching what? So is the county matching anything? Because it's like the people are being held responsible for the match. All of us are paying for the match. Because all of this funding is state grants, $10.5 million from state grants, state revenue sharing. Maybe this utility contribution, is that from the county? It sounds like it's coming from the utility department. I don't feel like the county, there's money here. The county has money. They came up with $4 million this morning to buy a piece of land for Palm City. So there's money. There's money here. We can find it. I'm sure we can all work together and find it. A couple other things I want to mention is the fees. When I was looking at your slide and all the extra fees, the 2.5%, 2.75% GSM fees, 4% for early discount fees. I'm not sure why that's a fee if it's an early discount. The 2% tax collector fee. That's an additional $2,500 that's being added on to the cost if you have to pay it over time, which most of us are. I'd also like to revisit the opportunity to have the water company take this out, put it on the bill, just like St. Lucie County does, on a monthly basis. I know you say you don't want to be a collections agency, but you already are. If I don't pay my water bill, my water bill gets cut off. You are a collections agency. So that alleviates the liens that are being put on our homes if we have to go the tax route. And I know we were trying to figure out what these liens actually mean. Are they the same kind of liens that, you know, a construction lien, you know, where it keeps you from unable to access your equity, can't sell your house? You know, is that kind of lien where people can come in and buy tax certificates and take ownership of people's properties? So I got 15 seconds left. Look, we're going to fight for the legacy. I understand that the bid is expiring now or in the next 10 days because we got a 60-day extension. That's not today from the 20th. But we got to find some way to preserve the legacy of this neighborhood. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to make a comment at this time? Coming back to the board, Commissioner Hetherington, you had your light on. I still do. So, George, it's not that we would use ARPA funds, but does this neighborhood even, would that be in an ARPA-designated area? Not for ARPA funds, but is it in, would it have qualified for ARPA funds? New Monroe, well, New Monrovia, Port Salerno is in what you call, what is a qualified census tract. So I can't speak to water funds, but ARPA related to the entire county. It would depend on what the federal profile was. There are certain grants when you are in the qualified census tract, there is a no-match requirement. But, however, I think what staff was saying to you earlier is even in those cases, the federal entity and sometimes the state entity will weight points. Based on a point system, they'll give more points for those municipalities that have local match dollars. Okay. Now, I understand. I just wanted to know if it was eligible because, you know, at the Indian River Lagoon Council board, which we represent five counties, now we have gotten EPA funds that are being directed specifically for census tract areas. There's all that federal dollars. Again, I wouldn't imagine that that would be eligible for a grant, but there might be some small monies, you know, that that board could discuss for connections. Every little bit helps. Listen, what Jamie Roll says, I sympathize and empathize. Now is probably not the time that people can bear all this burden. And there's $300 million worth of grants. I get it. If we apply for additional grants for this project, we might not get a grant for the next project. But I don't think every project is painted equally. In Lighthouse Point in Palm City, when I lived there, we had our assessment years and years ago. Everybody in Lighthouse Point wanted to build their three-bedroom to five-bedroom houses. They had a lot of incentive to, I don't remember what it was, pay, connect. Not every neighborhood is, I think, created equally, and I think that we owe it to go out and just, we have until August 31st to apply for some of these portals. I wouldn't mind pushing off the bid. I know that Centerline will probably not reapply. You know what? The risk is that it may be higher. It may be competitive. Maybe there are more contractors that are less busy. There probably will be more busy. But I would be willing to go and search for other funding options for this particular project. Thank you, Commissioner. Staff? So, Mr. Chair, I apologize. You know, the order of the board items, the next item, if we're the next one up, we do have what's called community development block grant, as well as state housing initiative program money, and that those individuals that are income qualified, there's a, there's, the community development block grant dollars are federal dollars that are handed through to the state of Florida, and that's where the federal subsidy comes in, and that is where your qualified census track and your income eligible, that's, that's the, what the, the feds will call the prescriptive element as it relates to income, income eligibility, and those who are, would have a hard time affording the connection. So that, that would be the federal answer, Commissioner. So I apologize I didn't bring that up in my last answer, but we have that program available, and we also have some other programs available for those who are, I hate to, my wife usually and my mom will hit me when I say, those who are senior, you know, so we have those programs available, and we can present that in the next board item if those folks want to stick around and see that. And, George, I think that there are other programs that we have not explored, like the EPA and some of those dollars that we just haven't, because we, it hasn't been high on our radar or necessary. Thank you. Gentlemen, you had an opportunity to hear from some of our public speakers this morning, this afternoon, excuse me, any feedback or response and reply to what you've heard. I have some questions for you, but I wanted to give you an opportunity while you still hear those comments in your head. I can't think of any additional comments or clarifications at this point. Okay, thank you. I have some questions. The concept of adding the cost of this new service to a monthly bill versus a lien. Can you explain why that's not an option, or is it an option that you just need us to tell you it needs to be an option? I haven't explored that, other than the cost would be the same over a 20-year period. If that's the period that you choose, I think the annual cost would be the same. It depends on the interest charges. There are some other fees you saw in here for the tax collector and others. Those could be eliminated, and it would be whatever amount we could borrow that money, whether it was a bank loan or what have you. I think you mentioned someone earlier, interest rates are around the 7% value. We would need to finance that. The lien that is there, I had always assumed that the way this lien worked is that it stayed with the house and not with the owner. But I've heard both at the last meeting, through some public comments, and today, can you explain the type of lien that you're speaking of? Is it like a construction lien? Is it something where just the bill is attached to the address so that if a resident has it for three years and then they sell it, do they have to pay that lien off as part of the closing costs, or does the cost stay with the house? My understanding, it can be paid off if the house sells, or it can be transferred to a new owner. I think that depends on the buyer and the seller. But I would defer to legal as far as how it constitutes a lien. We call it an assessment. It runs with the land. It does not have to be paid off when you purchase. Now, someone might require that to be paid off if they want to buy the property, but it's a non-ad valorem assessment for a benefit to the property, and it runs with the land, not the person. So it's not like a tax lien or, well, a federal tax lien or a contractor's lien. It's a different thing that's imposed by the operation of Florida law, which is why we're having these public hearings and doing it that way. But it's added on to the tax bill so that it's a means of affordability and collection. Thank you. Does it hinder in any way a person's ability to get a second mortgage or refinance their home? I mean, if it's with the land. I'm not a real estate agent or a professional. I don't think so. I mean, if the assessment's on the piece of property, it's just part of the – that would be factored in, in my opinion, factored in when you were doing your purchase and sale agreement. You would understand that there's that amount of money that's still there. So I – Commissioner, I think it would – in the loan, it would apply to the extent that when you're looking at somebody's ability to pay and you look at what the typical tax bill would be against their income, it would affect your ability to borrow based upon it is a tax obligation to your income, but it's not a – that's what it would show up as. Thank you. So it would show that the $620 annually would have to be part of what you would use, your debt-to-income ratios and the rest of it. Yes. Thank you. Next question. I see it down here. Annual payment includes a 2% tax collector fee, a 4% early discount. I don't know what that means either. Does that mean you're collecting 4% for people that are going to get an early discount? Yeah, so the commissioner, the tax – if you pay your taxes early, your total bill gets discounted by 4%. So you know when you get your bill in October, November, then you have a certain time period that if you pay, you're going to – you pay 4% off your total bill. So that's included in there because – so if you pay your tax bill early, you won't pay that 4%. If you don't – if you wait to pay until – when is it, April or so, March, then you're going to – your property taxes won't include that 4% discount. But so the presumption is you have to – when we're collecting these funds, you have to base it upon what is the likely amount that you're actually going to receive. And most people pay for – pay – with a mortgage, they pay early, and that 4% is included. The tax collector's fee is automatic. We all pay that. And sometimes you see some of that come back to the board in terms of revenues from the tax collector. So 6% is all related to our tax collector and how we collect funds from property. And 2.75% GSM? That's the cost for our – all of the financial folks that – the outside consultants that we use to pay. We pay them also annually to keep all the rolls and to make sure who – if somebody pays early, that it gets removed from the rolls properly. So they're a part of assuring that the assessment roll is created legally, and they also maintain the rolls throughout the life of the program to the very end to ensure that nobody is – if anybody pays it off early, that it gets removed and that all of the debts are paid. We've heard folks say – and I need someone to verify – that other counties don't charge these fees. I think the question about Port St. Lucie was, you know, they started their sewer program after the fires in the mid-90s. And so there was a vast public investment from them in building and using some special districts to create – to build the infrastructure. So they – over 20 years ago, they built all that infrastructure. They did not make anybody hook up at the time. They still have an ongoing program that – so a lot of people have the infrastructure in their front yard that they can pay to hook up. Of course, that cost for that infrastructure at the time seemed a lot, but it was certainly a lot cheaper it is than it is today. So $19.90 are a lot cheaper than $20, $23. I appreciate that. My question is, does Port St. Lucie or St. Lucie County charge these fees? Well, I think in any time there's a special – using a non-advalorium assessment process, the tax collector fee and the discount fee are – they just go with non-advalorium assessments. The same thing happens if you use a solar energy type of conversion where you can – some of the other providers do non-advalorium assessments. So if that – that's just part of any non-advalorium assessment that that 6 percent is always going to be included. The – how you treat the fees for, you know, managing the overall cost to manage the assessment roles. I think most communities use an outside firm because it's more efficient. Some people will try to do it internally with staff to maintain roles, which means you have to – you would pay for it with your internal staff somehow. It just seems to me that some of these are costs of doing business for us. I still have more points, but Commissioner Smith wants to jump in. I just – I'm just going to tag on to what Don was saying just to – and I don't know the answer to this, but Port St. Lucie may have decided to pay those fees internally. I'm saying. I don't know. I don't know that answer, but if they're not charging them, they may just have decided that they're going to pay the fees internally. In business. And not pass that on. I don't know. I think some of their programs are not – they're not using the non-advalorem assessment program, as was suggested. They're putting it on the utility bill so that when you put it on your utility bill, you're not using the tax collector as your agent. You're using your utility staff to manage the collection side of things. So it's just a different form of business tool, and the non-advalorem assessment is – it's a powerful tool, obviously, for an MSBU, and especially financing larger projects. Thank you. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I'm going to move that we postpone the project and that we pursue vigorously understanding monthly payments, additional state and federal grants. This project is an enormous – of enormous importance to me. I agree with Mr. Anderson that this neighborhood is underserved. So – and it's unusual in that there are very few renters. It's people living in the homes that they've been paying mortgages on for decades, and now they own them. Thank you. I had a couple more points that if this is going to come back, I'd like to address for this and others. I appreciate that. I personally, since we're jumping right to the end here, I am in favor of adding it to the monthly bill instead of the liens. It separates it out. It makes it a monthly – it's a smaller thing that can be handled. It eliminates a lot of these percentages. It doesn't just push them back onto us. It changes them. So that's my personal opinion. I'm also – I have some very serious concerns about people that own multiple lots, a single house, but they have a large side yard because it's really three lots. They're not talking about the 9,000 or the 3,000 or whatever, or 13. They're talking times three. I have an issue with that. And I also have an issue with lots that don't have houses on them. If you owned a lot and you don't have a house, how are we charging you for the septic? I get – and, Mr. – I want to say this. It's important, and I would hope that some of the folks that speak today – Mr. Keithley has been at this for a really long time. Mr. Emerson is newer to us, but he's from the city of Stewart. They have a professional team. I have worked with them in multiple neighborhoods, sometimes where people were desperate to have these services and wanted them at any cost. We've had meetings where people were willing to come forward and put the money up front because they're so desperate to have them, and they're far down the line. But on the other hand, I don't want to sit up here and be part of a situation where we're going to put people in absolute financial distress. I want septic to sue, or we all do, but when we hear about that, we start to think about unintended consequences. Some of the folks that talked today or that couldn't, and I apologize that they were – you know, people work and came, and then we had a whole long meeting of something else. I agree. So, like I said this morning, we represent you. We have to hear you. Our staff has to hear you. These guys did an excellent job. They squeezed basically a stone and found another $2 million. I am concerned when they say in their professional opinion it might be tricky, but as Commissioner Hurd said, I'm not opposed to rolling the dice for more money because if you can't pay $12 and you can't pay $9 and you've got to get to a number that people say we could do. The final thing I would say, and the comment came about this morning, is I'm willing to use all of my district funds, not the CRA because you're not in the CRA necessarily, or if you can, good for you, use it. I'm going to increase the district funds because the district will pay those advantages for the district, and I would hope that my colleagues will look at that and not say that we put the Palm City bill on you all. That money will have to be found within the district, and I would hope that whether it's – you know, I don't spend other commissioners' money, but we heard you, and that Commissioner Hurd – this is your district, correct? You have the ability within the district to knock some of this down by getting creative in the financing within MSTU and CRA TIF. Show these residents that live in the district that this money can come from them. So Jensen and Palm City and everybody else will chip in. It's how it's appropriate. Because the next group, as we said this morning, Palm City will be next, and whoever is next on the list – how many communities is on the list? The Coral Gardens and Rocky Point. They're coming. You know, this is a very – I like what Commissioner Hetherington said. Every community has to be looked at individually, and what is the exact circumstances. And my friend Anthony said that it's your turn and that you haven't been given the opportunities that others have. I would like to believe that that is not true. Probably true. Probably true, and your voices are being heard on behalf of all the other residents that couldn't come and be here today. I'd entertain a second for Commissioner Hurd. Thank you. We have a second. It's frustrating for our staff because I know they've dealt up the perfect opportunity for you all, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It worked hard. It definitely worked hard. And, you know, I'm concerned because I want people to know there's no one working harder to make that number as low as possible than these gentlemen and their team. But if it doesn't work, then it's our responsibility, the five of us, to ask them to continue to look. And if there's more funds available, these are the guys, and our other staff will find it. So anything further? Gentlemen, anything further? No, sir. I'm sure this has just been perfect for you, this whole agenda item. We understand your concerns, and we'll march forward with you. And I'm sure they're your concerns. I don't want people to think that you two are stone-cold killers, that you get this, that you get it, and you'll continue to try. But last comment, understand that by postponing this, this deal is off the table. The contract and the on-the-table money. Right. There's a contract later on the agenda under Department 2, which will need to be withdrawn. Correct. And the residents are looking at this wide-eyed and open-minded to understand that we're sending these gentlemen and their team to go back out and find more money, but we're giving this money, we're taking it off the table for the time being. And the grant money, right? Well, we'll let the grant ride a little while longer while we search for additional funds or new money to replace this grant. Whatever that takes, we'll search that out. I know you will. Commissioner Smith, you're getting the final word. And it just, I think with your cautionary suggestions, having replaced a drain field earlier this summer, it's twice the cost to what you're seeing. Yes. And no financing. And no financing. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd to postpone and sort of look again. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay, so let's, while you're sitting there, let's take that other item and just have it. He said it was Department 2. Public hearing number two. Public hearing to consider adoption of a final assessment resolution for fiscal year 2024 solid waste assessment and certification of the special assessment roll to the tax collector. Mr. Emerson. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. Again, for the record, Sam Emerson, Utilities and Solid Waste Department Director. The Board of County Commissioners is required to adopt the final assessment resolution for fiscal year 2024 single-family solid waste assessment rates. On July 11, 2023, the Board adopted the initial assessment resolution for the FY24 solid waste assessment. A notice of public hearing had been published and mailed by first-class mail to each property owner proposed to be assessed, notifying such property owner of the opportunity to be heard at this hearing. The Solid Waste Municipal Service Benefit Unit provides services to approximately 48,983 residential units in the county. On January 12, 2021, the Board approved a new franchise agreement with waste management, allowing for an annual CPI rate adjustments ranging from a minimum of 2% to a maximum of 4%. The single-family dwelling unit rate for FY24 for the solid waste MSBU services by waste management is proposed to be $421.65, and that is comprised of $286.68 for collection, $108.15 for disposal cost, and $26.82 for administrative cost. The change in the amount assessed in the prior year of $405.55 is due to an increase in the solid waste collection rate and in the amount of solid waste generated per household. Chris Traber, the County Special Assessment Counsel, has reviewed the resolution and the agenda summary and confirmed that the form of each is proper. If I could refer to a computation table, this is the table we prepare each year that shows the prior three years of assessments for the solid waste MSBU. You'll see this rate is proposed on an annual basis of $421.65. This is an annual increase of $16.10. This equates to an additional or an increase in cost of $7.74 per pickup, $0.32 per week, or $1.34 per month. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Questions for Mr. Emerson? Anyone from the public looking to address us on this topic? So say it again, $16 per year increase? $16.10 per year, $1.34 per month. Okay. Move approval. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins for staff's recommendation. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Thank you. Thank you. Let's take up the item that we've been pushing back. I think, is it 9.30 yet? It's 9.30. Good point where? What item is that? Department three. Departmental number three, a 9.30 a.m. preset affordable housing. Before we do that, can we do that? Oh, yes. You want to make your commissioner comment? I'm going to bump up against 3 o'clock shortly. Yes, sir. Commissioner Smith. So if we had had commissioner comments this morning, I was going to share with you what I'm going to share with you now. Last week was a really big week, and there was actually a day last week that was a really big day in Martin County for education. So in Jensen Beach, the school board did the ribbon-cutting for the new Jensen Beach Elementary School, which was fantastic. We left there and went out to Indiantown. Indiantown did its official opening or ribbon-cutting, I guess, if you will, for the new Indiantown High School, and then Palm City Elementary, I think you also had that afternoon, correct? Ribbon-cutting then. Ribbon-cutting for that as well. And so as part of all of that great stuff that was going on, I don't know if you did the ceremony at Palm City Elementary for the Masons. But the Masons of Martin County and the Acacia Lodge did a cornerstone laying for Jensen Beach Elementary, and apparently they also did one for Palm City Elementary. And it's been shared with me that I need to bring this ask to the board, because apparently I don't have the ability to do this, that I ask you if you would be interested in allowing us, at least for the two new fire stations in Jensen Beach, to also do a cornerstone ceremony laying of the cornerstone for our two new fire stations. And so that is my ask of you, that if you all are in agreement with that, we do have a meeting set up tomorrow, which was why it was important to get this discussed today, to meet with the fire chief and the Acacia Lodge folks and discuss the particulars. They asked me the same thing. It's a very solemn ceremony. They do it at schools. I was at Citrus Grove Elementary a long time ago. Yeah. And they do it at, and the school district does it on their buildings. We haven't really done it at the county. They had asked, made that same request of me. I am not opposed to it. I think it's a solemn ceremony. It's steeped in tradition, and it's a nice little touch. They put a time capsule into the cornerstone, and I don't see it as any kind of a negative. So I would back Commissioner Smith's suggestion. I agree. So I would, just because I'm sure I'll be asked in the future if there was a motion to direct staff to do so, I would move that we allow our fire stations the ability to do cornerstones with the Acacia Lodge and the Masons. Thank you very much. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith as stated, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Very much. Thank you for that. Okay, appreciate it. We have a couple of our staff, and I know some professionals behind them that have been working on this issue. It's housing, but then also we're going to hear a live local, correct? Correct. Mr. Stokas, Ms. Miller, you are recognized. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Assistant County Administrator George Stokas for our preset this morning. With me today is our Health and Human Services Director, Michelle Miller. Behind her is our new housing coordinator, Julie Stilettos. Stilettos. I got the name wrong. And then, of course, Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, represented by Mr. Tom Lanahan. This is one of your regular updates for affordable housing. In 2022, this body recognized that access to affordable housing was an issue that required staff's attention. You've requested we periodically update you as to where we are at. Before you on the screen is the goals that were set up by this body for home ownership. We're going to give you a brief, quick update as to where we're at with each of these, and then we're going to go into our state and federal partners, and then Mr. Lanahan will follow it up with the recent passage of the Live Local Act. I will say with the Live Local Act, again, there is a lot of interpretation. We are not lawyers. They will get challenged, I'm sure, in court. I'm sure there will be different interpretations, but we will update you as to where we believe we're following the law. And that's why Ms. Elder is here, I think, as well. So, for home ownership, development of a community land trust, I'm happy to report through the efforts of Mr. Jenkins and his folks. We have been invited to attend the first meeting of the Martin County Community Land Trust. It is either this week or next week. I apologize and I remember. The 24th. It's the 24th. It's two weeks away from now. Beautiful. The growth management staff is also working on inclusion of tiny homes into the comprehensive plan. That can, by all means, be further included. However, we have determined there are certain areas where those homes are allowed. We presented that at the previous update. Staff has done its best job to prioritize capital improvement projects that assist with home ownership. And we are still working and moving forward with our neighborhood revitalization programs. Finally, we are still continuing to monitor for public-private partnership opportunities that's being primarily done right now through the American Rescue Plan Act dollars. I am happy to report it does seem that some of our not-for-profit partners have closed in on some properties within the city of Stewart and are going to be making those available probably with some tiny home component, as well as using a local manufacturer from Palm City. As far as affordable rentals, Ms. Miller has been very busy with her staff. We're looking to continue a sustained rental subsidy program for income-eligible populations, also as an effort because of the cost of the average home being so high and not able to be eligible under some programs. Ms. Miller is going to present to you some of a new program that we have applied for through a regional partner. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Ms. Miller. Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm going to start out this afternoon by just going over what some of our funding is for our overall housing programs, and we'll break it down for you into which each program is. So the first one is our state housing initiative partnership, our SHIP funds, and this is our strategies for our 2003 to 2026 local housing assistance plan. And these are the uses that the SHIP funds can be used for and the amounts that go with each strategy. Owner-occupied rehabilitation, which is primarily our most popular, emergency repair, purchase assistance with or without rehab, sewer and drinking water hookups, disaster repair mitigation, demolition and reconstruction, special needs housing, and then finally we're going to be going to the AHAC in September and asking for a change to the LHAP to add a rental strategy. So here you'll see what some of the income qualifications are for the SHIP program. It starts at 30% of our AMI, which is $84,800, and it goes up to 120% of the AMI. So these numbers are for a family of four. Special needs population are a requirement and a set-aside that we have to meet for each fiscal year. This slide shows the funding that we currently have. So we are allowed to have three funding years open at one time. So in the green you'll see these are the amounts that we have open right now and are pending closing. So hopefully within the next few meetings from now you'll be getting some closeout reports that these years will be closed out, and as soon as they are then we'll be getting those allocations in yellow, the $1.5 million and the $1.8 million. And one of the reasons why we wanted to add the rental strategy was because the amount that we're getting for $23, $24,000 and the $1.8 million is significantly higher than we've ever got. So we felt like this is a good time to add rental assistance as a strategy. The next funding source that we have is our Community Development Block Grant, and you'll see here what some of the housing assistance are allowable under this grant. It has to be in unincorporated parts of the county as opposed to SHIP, which could be any part of Martin County. It will allow for, again, sewer water hookups, owner-occupied rehabilitation, and demo and reconstruction. And oftentimes we will use those two funds together, so someone can use SHIP funds and funds from Community Development Block Grant. If they have maybe a teardown rehab that would cost more than $165,000, they could layer those two funding sources together. And then again you'll see the numbers for qualification here, which mirror the SHIP qualifications for income-eligible individuals based on a household of four. For both SHIP and CDBG, there are some repayments required. They differ depending on the strategy. Some of them are grants, for instance, emergency rehab or disaster rehab in SHIP. Those are grants and not eligible for rehab, I mean repayment. And, Mr. Chair, just to add and opine, because we have been, staff as well as you, we've been active in the four-county coalition on housing. I mean, one of the legislative acts from that group is the differentiation between average median income, which is just monies that's received in, whether it's through mail or whether there's no difference as to how the money is received versus average wage. That's going to be an ask because there is a big difference between income and wage, especially in Martin County. And our other county partners have agreed to put that on their legislative ask for these type of grants, both federally as well as state. Thank you. Thank you for that. And then this is the new program that George mentioned that we're looking at providing some rent relief for Martin County seniors. So this would allow from HUD dollars, so these are federal funds, that would allow for a monthly rental assistance, a security deposit up to two months' rent, a utility deposit, and electric, gas, or water and trash deposits. The requirements for this would be 62 years of age or older, residing or working in Martin County, but the units would have to be located in Martin County, must have gross annual incomes at or below 60% of that AMI, and the applicants will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. So what happens in this case, and you'll see on the next slide, these are our allocations. So how this works is that the renter would only have to pay 30% of their income, whatever that is, including utilities, to whatever their rent is. We use a calculation called rent reasonableness, which basically you take the average rents in Martin County, and that gives us a starting point of what types of rents we're looking at, and then say the person has a rent of $1,000, they would only pay 30% of that, including whatever their utilities are, and then the grant would pay the rest. And that would be allocated until those funds are expended, and we are part of the St. Lucie Consortium, and that is who administrates this for us. And that concludes our presentation. Thank you very much. Questions for staff from the commission? Questions from the public for staff? Seeing none, we appreciate that update very much. Thank you, Chair. Our next presentation will be by Mr. Tom Lanahan in regards to Senate Bill 1. I'm sorry. One second. If you would like to come forward as we reset the desk, just again state your name for the record, please. Sorry, Jamie Roll-Taylor. I just had a quick question because I know a lot of people are looking into assistance. Am I looking at the right person? I'm so sorry. Yes. It's hard because I see the back of the head. That's what she looks like from the front. I'm like, we need to turn this a little bit. I know you guys don't want to see my backside either. But anyway, I know once we do get the sewer set up, which we desperately want, I don't want anybody to think we don't, there are going to be a lot of individuals who will need assistance hooking up. So when do they sort of submit or what's the process? So once the project has been completed and it's ready for the hookups, then that's when they can apply. Okay. So they shouldn't be contacting you ahead of time? No, not yet. Not until the project has been completed. Okay. All righty. I'll let them know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Miller, for all that you're doing. Mr. Lanahan, thanks for sticking with us all day. You're going to offer up some very important information. It's been an informative day. So, yes, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. Tom Lanahan, Executive Director, Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. This is my second visit here on the Live Local Act. Last time I was here, it was not in effect yet. It is in effect now. It started July 1, 2023. And last time I did this, I'd like to start off with this is the statement of legislative intent that is in the statutes. And it's the intent of this act to articulate a state housing strategy that will carry the state towards the goal of ensuring that each Floridian has safe, decent, and affordable housing. This strategy must involve state and local governments working in partnership with communities and the private sector and must involve financial as well as regulatory commitment to accomplish this goal. So, you know, when someone's writing legislation, they put out there, okay, what's our intent on this? And then all the detail is supposed to achieve that intent. I think as we look into this and then as we try to apply it and then as we have a discussion about, you know, potentially what are some changes that communities would like to see in the act, it's important to keep this as kind of a guidestone of what the state's intent was when they did this, and hopefully that works. Okay, so focusing, there's a lot of features to this. I'm going to touch on primarily the local government authority-related aspects of it and then a little bit on the funding and such. So there are a couple different types of preemption in there. There's a current program that existed before this law that was actually not a preemption, but it was an option for you where you could approve affordable housing on existing commercial or industrial zoned property without having to change the land use, without having to change the zoning. That was an option for local governments to use. The next type of activity in there is that you would have to authorize multifamily and mixed-use residential in commercial or mixed-use zoning if at least 40 percent of the units are affordable. Another key preemption is no rent control is allowed. And then there's also a property tax exemption for affordable housing that has a mandatory program. If they meet the requirements, they get the exemption, and then an optional program that you could adopt if you wanted to. And then we'll cover some other aspects of interest, some revisions to the state housing strategy, funding. Are people taking advantage of this new program yet or not? And then, like I mentioned earlier, feedback to the legislature. So the voluntary program, and this was already in statute, again, if it's affordable, if you've got 10 percent of the units meeting the affordable requirement, that's between 30 and 120 percent of AMI. And these numbers are ever so slightly old. The AMI is actually $8,400 now. Okay, big whoop. Right, move, $300. And then the low end of that range is around $24,000 plus or minus, and the high end is $101,760 for a family of four. Again, this is not a preemption. It's a flexible option for you, and cities have this same authority. Now to the stuff that came in with the Live Local Act. The county must, this is a preemption, authorize multifamily and mixed-use residential in commercial or industrial or mixed-use zoning. If at least 40 percent of the units are affordable, you may not require a land-use or zoning change or a comp plan amendment. You may not require a special exception, any of the, you know, conditional use, all the different ways that we label those sorts of public hearing requirements. You may not restrict the density below the highest allowable density on any unincorporated land in the county where residential development is allowed. It's anywhere in the county. You may not restrict the height below the highest currently allowed height for commercial or residential development within the county, within the jurisdiction of the county, so again, unincorporated, within one mile of the proposed development or three stories, whichever is higher. The project would have to be administratively approved without action by the Board of County Commissioners. Can you say that one again? Yes, it would. Sure, it would have to be administratively approved. That means it does not have to go to the Board of County Commissioners or your Planning Commission for a public hearing or any sort of a hearing or action. The county's chief zoning officer, however that is couched, would be the person that would do those approvals. So that would be a staff-level approval. Now, it has to meet all of the other requirements of your codes. This isn't a blanket wiping out of setbacks in parking and landscaping and access and drainage and water and sewer hookups and all those other things that you require in your land development regulations. They would still have to meet. This just addresses the density limitations and the height limitations. Let's see if I covered everything in there. Yep, and then the county is also charged to consider, whatever that may mean, and I'll throw my hand over to your attorney, consider reduced parking requirement if the development is within half of a mile of a major transit stop. That's something that you all get to define. And the stop is accessible to the development. So I would take that as, you know, you've got a stop on one side of the interstate, a development on the other side. Yeah, it's within a half a mile, but, you know, without a helicopter, you can't get to the stop. So that probably wouldn't count. So accessible would need to be proven there. Have to meet all the other state and local laws. So, again, it doesn't exempt someone from water management district permitting or some of those other sorts of things. This provision is in effect for 10 years, starting this past July. And then, again, there's an identical set of provisions in the correct section of statute that governs city actions. Again, continuing on some of the other issues, no rent control allowed. It's my understanding there was only one county in the state that actually had a rent control regimen. It was up in the center part of the state, so that's now illegal. And then property tax exemption, an optional program, which you can put your hand up if you want to do that, 50 dwelling units, 20 percent of them have to be affordable. And then depending on how much is affordable, you get some different exemptions. The mandatory program, so this would be in effect now, if they have at least 70 affordable dwelling units, and they're renting to folks making between 80 to 120 percent of that AMI that we talked about, 75 percent of that value is exempt. If they rent them to the lower income category, then they can get 100 percent exemption on the value of those units. And that lasts until 2059, so that's obviously much longer than the 10 years of the zoning provision. To stop you for a moment, that means that the certain school, certain taxes, taxes will still be collected, school tax, fined, Children's Services Council. It just means that our ad valorem taxes. Yes, that's my understanding. There's some thin slicing of who the exemptions are in that. But, yes, I believe it is just the county. Just on the units that are affordable or on the whole project? I believe it is on the affordable units. So, just to be clear, the county won't be collecting our ad valorem taxes, 100 percent of it, until the year 2059, if they meet the criteria for affordable on those units. Yes. No tax collected for those units. I think that's one of the ones that really is like a punch in the face, because they're still going to be using services, even though they might be affordable units. They just, we won't be collecting any of the taxes for them. Correct. So, that's those provisions. Some changes in the state housing strategy were also included in the bill. There is, you know, again, that statement of intent. I won't read it again at you. And then, really, a charge for putting in incentives, innovative solutions. You know, this is calling for what the Regional Planning Council, in some ways, would say is, you know, good community design. You want accessibility, a mix of incomes, maximize your land use efficiency, promote infill, things like that, accessory dwelling units, things of that nature. They're going to start to restrict state funding for housing to places that have incentives in place, probably, you know, trying to maximize use of the state money. They encourage interlocal agreements and, you know, infill and minimizing sprawl. And then, you know, I think this is a good provision that a housing available to the state's workforce should prioritize proximity to where the work is. It is, you know, looking at the total cost of housing, the cost of the unit, whether that be the mortgage payment or the rent, the cost of the transportation, and then how much money you can earn in your job. Those three things together are really what drives affordability of a house or lodging of some kind. Trying to preserve housing stock, recognize unique housing needs so that, you know, different groups may have particular housing needs, whether that be accessibility or proximity to health care, things of that nature. The Schimberg Center at UF is charged with developing statewide data on housing needs. And then OPAGA, which is the audit agency inside the state, is to study program effectiveness in other states and in Florida and report back annually to the legislature on is it working, how is it being used, that sort of thing, which obviously is what gets used to tee up changes for the future. Briefly touching on funding, these are all statewide dollars, so obviously 67 counties, everybody doesn't get $150 million. That's divided up across the state. So you have a whole series of different funding amounts here, which are very significant increases over what's been typical. And then I want to mention specifically the Hometown Hero program, which started last year, and that was restricted to first responders, you know, police, fire, those sorts of things, those sorts of careers. Now it is any full-time employee of a Florida-based company with a household income of up to 150 percent of the state or local median can access down payment assistance starting at $10,000 and going up to $35,000, which is a way to help address an issue that's been cropping up as rents have gone up. The ability to rent, save some money, put a down payment together, and buy a house is precluded when every dollar you have coming in goes towards that rent that keeps going up. So this is a way to help folks achieve that down payment a little easier. And then you can use infrastructure funding from the Job Growth Grant Fund towards infrastructure that supports affordable housing, which is a totally new idea there. And so utilization of this, it's my understanding of this information is, when did I have to give you this presentation? Over a week ago, I guess? So this information is a week-ish old, so my apologies if it's out of date. I don't think it is radically out of date. So is anybody using this? So unincorporated Martin County, it's my understanding that Barron Landings, a.k.a. the Golf World property, may be coming in with an application to utilize this, or they already have. No one has applied in Stewart yet. No one has applied in Indiantown yet utilizing these provisions. But we do hear rumors of, and I'll put this in quotation marks, threats, where a developer will say, you know, give me what I want, or get out of the way on what I want, or I'm going to bring in one of these Live Local Act projects. I don't know of specific instances, but I've heard about it. I've heard about it in other jurisdictions as well. And then the last thing I want to mention to you all, I mentioned this way at the beginning, and George actually brought it up as well, feedback to the legislature. We have heard consistently from different legislators that they are interested in feedback on implementation of these big ideas. There's a lot of ideas in this bill. And, you know, this is an opportunity to hopefully, you know, address some of the maybe unintended consequences or particular concerns or get some clarification on some issues that are not as crystal clear. You know, when folks are at the state level and they're writing legislation about how development regulations get applied in a local government, they don't do that every day. And so there are potentially things in there, they may use words or terms of art that mean one thing to us and something else to them. So, you know, there's opportunities hopefully to make some improvements there. And then some other, and this is my opportunity, I guess, to throw in something that I believe in. And the first is, I think that industrial land should be removed from the mandatory category. I think there are, there's precious little industrial land. That's where our workplaces are. That's where our development opportunities are. And we really should be very cautious in putting housing into those areas. You can keep it as in the optional approval. There are scenarios that, you know, can be imagined where that would be okay. But that's going to be very, very tricky to do. And so we want to have, you know, the local zoning authority, local land use and site plan authority there before, you know, mandating it where we're taking land off out of the inventory and potentially making it harder for existing industries to do business. People move in next door and they're like, what's all this noise? What's all this smoke? Well, it's been there for 50 years. You know, what's the problem? Well, now somebody lives there. Uh, so that, that, you know, that's potentially something that I'd like to see, um, uh, the state, uh, undertake, um, reconsider area median income standard, uh, and or the 120% AMI as quote unquote affordable. Um, you're, you're getting into market territory there. Uh, and then, you know, maybe taking up whatever the, um, four county task force, uh, it comes up with as, um, recommendations. And I think that is my last slide. Is that my last slide? Oh, this is the table of incomes. If anybody is, um, uh, is interested, I already shared the number, so I'll just, I'll hold that if, if we need it. So I'm happy to answer any questions to the extent that I can. Um, I have, um, uh, Elise over here to, uh, pull me away from the cliff if I start to make legal opinions. Uh, and then, you know, because this is, this wasn't written by the regional planning council. This was written by the state legislature. So I'm doing my best with my experience to try and interpret this for you and highlight some things. Um, there's a few other stuff, things I didn't talk about that, you know, have some relevancy. But, um, again, I'm happy to answer your questions. Mr. Lanahan, thank you very much. Appreciate it. It's probably going to do something quarterly as this becomes, progresses. Uh, questions from my colleagues. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, um, we do have an application and that's for Barron Landings, which is a request for 275, uh, units. I don't know how many of those are affordable, presumably more than 70. Um, so, and I do know that, that, um, it will be approved administrative, administratively. So we don't get to have a public hearing. And I also know that depending upon, uh, the conditions that the affordable units will be tax exempt. Um, so I know that we are not allowed, that we're not going to be the decision makers. However, I think it's imperative that we have a presentation before staff approves, uh, any of these live local projects so that the, uh, our residents can understand, uh, what's being approved, how it's being approved, why it's being approved. There's no prohibition against having a presentation, letting people know what's happening to us, what's being forced upon us. I made that same, uh, suggestion and got an interesting response that unless we, we don't have the authority to make an applicant do that, there might be no advantage for an applicant to do that if they're not responsible for doing it. You can have a staff presentation. I was just going to say, the only thing we can do is ask our staff. Sure. To make an application, uh, a presentation of something, but we can't, it's going to be handled at a different level. So I think it's, it's a brand new territory for us. I think it's important. I agree with you, Commissioner Hurd, but an applicant would not necessarily have to participate at all if they didn't want to. Don't need, don't need them. I was going to say, I can't imagine that they would want to. So you can hear from staff and we can have a little powwow, but that's all it is. It's a little presentation, but better than no presentation. So, um, I had one request to speak for Mary Gavin. That was at nine 30 this morning. You're still here though. I mean, and I still have it. I mean, I hear your voice. Good morning. Mary Gavin. Welcome. Commissioners and staff. I hope you're all hanging in there. Um, I don't remember what I was going to say. Um, but contrary to popular belief, I do, I, I don't play pickleball all day and I don't golf. Um, so we do work sometimes and it would be appreciated if when you do have an agenda change, you would let people know in advance because I could have gotten a lot done this morning. But anyway, with all that said, just a request. Um, but, but I really wanted to comment on is I, I know that this is a new bill. And, and, and I know that you're intimately familiar with the needs for affordable housing in Martin County. I think we all are quite frankly. And, you know, I think we all have to remember that we, we have to be willing to big, to give up what we are for what we could become. And there's always going to be a loophole. There's always going to be a way to block it. Um, and I think there are a lot more questions and there are answers at this point, but the bottom line is that, that there is a severe need for affordable housing in Martin County and nobody wants it in their backyard. But eventually we're all going to run into the obstacles of not having anywhere for our teachers or our service workers to live. And then I think we're going to start to lose population. And what I really wanted to share with you is keep in mind the history lesson that we should all be learning from what happened in California back in the eighties. And I have a family East coast, West coast rivalry. We haven't shot each other yet, but we think about it occasionally. I have a, a wonderfully successful brother out in California who can afford what's going on there. And we talk about this frequently because he's very politically involved. And what happened in California in the eighties is very similar to what's happening right now in Florida. And what's happening in Florida is we're having an influx of how many people every day? I don't, 1100 a day. It is now. And this, this is, I mean, almost categorically identical to what happened in California. The other thing that happened in California is that the local commissions and the state did, they were blocking a lot of the approvals for affordable housing. And if you go back, you, you know, you could, there are now documents and white papers and so on and so forth that have been written on this. And I believe this is why we now have one or two. I believe that I'm not saying I'm in love with it, but I believe that the state is trying to avoid becoming California. And I would suggest that you all go back and look at what happened there before you make too many judgments on this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Certainly. Glad you could hang around. A great morning. Luckily we did those agenda changes so you could see all the different parts. But it was great. Honestly, thank you. Your time is up. Anybody else like to address us on this topic? Seeing none. I know her so I could be a little more familiar. It's not like I'm being disrespectful to a stranger. I'm being disrespectful to a friend. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's our presentation. All right. You two go. Thank you. We only have about 27 other items. What I'd like to do is address a couple of the, knock some of the people that are sitting in the room, just come and tell me your agenda item again. I'm going to do a freestyle. Wait. You thought this morning was freestyle. Wait and you see this. Yes. Just tell me the agenda item. I know what you're here for. I just don't know what the item is called. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Ken De La Torre with Design and Tenement Consultants. And we are agent for the applicant. What's your agenda item? DBQJ1 and 2. Okay. Thank you. DBQJ1 and J2. That's how we're going to do this. We're just going to pick people out of the crowd, work front to back. So if you're in the back, you might want to move closer to the front. Knock some of these. I like, you know, I get that there's applicants here with paid professional staff. Our staff, please sit down. I don't think our staff for that agenda item is here yet. I believe they're probably on their way. Okay. They work right over there. They can come in. Go ahead. The boss is here. Ask me some questions. Here they come. There they are. Okay. I'll announce the item while they're here, and we can go through some of the questions. This next agenda item is DPQJ1, request for approval of the showcase planned unit development phase 2 final site plan. It'll be presented by Mr. Brian Elam. And it's quasi-judicial, so I will ask my colleagues if they've had any ex parte communications. Commissioner Hurd. I do, and they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. I do, and they've been filed. I have some, and they've been filed as well. We'll ask Commissioner Jenkins when he comes back. Let the record also show that Commissioner Smith had to depart and will not be here for the rest of the meeting. Anyone that's going to be offering testimony, if you could stand to be sworn in. Raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Mr. Elam, do you have a copy of the agenda item in your work history? I do. Let the record show that it's been submitted. Are there any return receipt requests, return receipt notifications necessary? Not required. Thank you. Any interveners? No interveners. Thank you. Mr. Elam, I apologize for dropping you right into the hot seat, but we're trying to move the meeting along, and I appreciate your indulgence. You may begin. You are recognized. Thank you. For the record, Brian Elam, speak into the microphone as much as you can, please. For the record, Brian Elam, principal planner with growth management. This is a request by Tamarack Land Salerno Reserve LLC for approval of the Phase 2 final site plan for the Showcase PUD. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. The Showcase project received PUD zoning and master site plan approval on July 14, 2020. The project proposed two phases. Phase 1 consists of 79 single-family homes in Phase 2, 88, two-story townhomes for a total of 167 residential housing units on approximately 47 acres for a gross density for the entire project of 3 1⁄2 units per acre. The project site is located between Southeast Cove Road and Southeast Salerno Road in Stewart. Phase 2 of the Showcase PUD project includes 88, two-story townhome units and the associated infrastructure on approximately 10 3⁄4 acres of the total 47.11-acre site. The main access for the Phase 2 is located on the north side of Southeast Cove Road, where Southeast Traybell Circle intersects approximately four-tenths of a mile east of Southwest Canter Highway. Outlined in green is the Phase 2 portion of the project. Development overlay for other proposed projects in the area are shown. Future land use for Phase 2, or for the entire project, is low density. Here's the approved Showcase PUD revised master site plan approved December 2022, and the revised and approved phasing plan approved in December 2021. Phase 1 consists of all the excavation for the project, the construction of the Spine Road to include driveway connections to Cove and Salerno Road, as well as improvements to Salerno Road and all other improvements required for Phase 1. This application is for the Phase 2 portion, the 88 townhome units in this area here. Development review staff have found the application to be in compliance with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan, as detailed in the staff report. This application is not required to be heard before the LPA, as it has a previously approved master site plan. It only requires one public meeting. Staff recommends approval of the Phase 2 final site plan, as detailed in the staff report, for the Showcase PUD project. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board approve the Phase 2 final site plan for the Showcase PUD project. And that concludes the presentation. Thank you, sir, very much, concise. Questions for Mr. Elam? I have an observation. He needs to divulge his ex-partes. I know. That was coming up. Commissioner Jenkins, do you have any ex-parte communications? I don't believe I do, but if I do, they've been filed. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hurd. Any questions for staff? Applicants, opportunity to make a presentation. Now you get to tell us who you are and why and where you work. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Ken Delatore with Design Entitlement Consultants, the agent for the applicant, Tamarack Land. We just wanted to take this opportunity to thank staff for their diligent efforts working with our team. They did an excellent presentation. So our team is here to answer any questions you may have in an effort not to be redundant with their presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Questions for the applicant? Seeing none. Anyone from the public looking to address us on this specific item? Also seeing none, comes back to the board. I'll move staff's recommendation. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington, seconded by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries four to zero with Commissioner Smith absent. While you're staying in that seat, the next portion of this, the sister, the companion item, is DPQJ-2. Request plat approval for the Showcase Plan Unit Development Phase 2, C140-013. We have to do the whole thing again. Commissioner Hurd, do you have any ex parte communications? I do, and they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins? If I do, they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington? I do, and they've been filed. I also have them, and they've been filed. Anyone that's going to be offering testimony, please stand to be sworn in. Raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Any interveners? No interveners. Do you have a copy of your work history and the agenda item? You for Exhibit 1. Thank you very much. You are still recognized. Thank you. This is a request by Tamarack Lands Salerno Reserve LLC for approval of the Phase 2 Plat for the Showcase PUD. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities exemption. Showcase PUD received master site plan approval on July 14, 2020. The Phase 2 final site plan was just heard before this board in the previous agenda item and approved 4 to 0. Development is located between Southeast Cove Road and Southeast Salerno Road in Stewart, with the main entrance for Phase 2 located 4 tenths of a mile east of Southwest Kenner Highway on the north side of Southeast Cove Road. Phase 2 plat is consistent with the Phase 2 final site plan, which is an 88-lot residential subdivision consisting of 16 buildings. The approximate area of the Phase 2 plat is 10 and three-quarters acres. Development review staff have found the application to be in compliance with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report. Review is not required by the LPA as it has a previously approved master site plan. It only requires one public meeting. Staff recommends approval of the Phase 2 plat as detailed in the staff report for the Showcase PUD project. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board approve the Phase 2 plat for the Showcase PUD project, including the contract for construction of required improvements and infrastructure. And that concludes the presentation. Appreciate that very much. Questions from commissioners for staff? Seeing none. Applicant. Presentation. Just come and say that you don't have one, please. He shook his head no. Again, Ken Delatore for the record. No presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Questions for the applicant and his compelling presentation? Seeing none. Any members of the public looking to address us on this? Also seeing none, we are back to the board. Staff's recommendation. Second. Thank you very much. It's like a deja vu. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington for staff's recommendation. Could fail. Could fail. Stay right there. Could be a tie, which in tie is a no. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington for staff's recommendation. Seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. Four to zero with Commissioner Smith. Now you may depart. We're now going to take public hearing number three, legislative public hearing to consider adoption of comprehensive plan amendment CPA 22-04 Manatee Southwest Prong STA. It was supposed to be presented by Ms. Daphne Schwab, but she's not feeling well, so it'll be presented by pinch hitter Clyde Doolin. Mr. Doolin, welcome. Thanks for sitting in. Thank you, members of the board. For the record, I am Clyde Doolin, the comprehensive planning administrator. This is a proposed comprehensive plan amendment that was initiated by the board, so the staff presentation will be the applicant presentation as well. This is a small-scale future land use map amendment, a very small-scale future land use map amendment. It involves .99 acres that currently has the CRA neighborhood future land use designation, and it involves another .99 acres approximately that is a right-of-way that was abandoned by the board of county commissioners in the Port Salerno community redevelopment area. I'll go to the map quickly to show you where we are. This is Cove Road, the yellow line. The railroad tracks and Dixie Highway are to the east, and this is Driftwood Avenue to the west. The areas outlined in red on this map are right-of-way, and this spot and this spot are the three parcels that have the CRA neighborhood future land use designation currently. The proposed amendment changes the three parcels with the CRA neighborhood to CRA center, and the abandoned right-of-way would also receive the CRA center future land use designation with this proposed amendment. The local planning agency heard this amendment and voted 3-0 to recommend approval. Staff recommends approval, and with that, I will show you the checks will change on the map. So, to visualize it, this parcel, this parcel, and this parcel have the CRA neighborhood currently. They are separated from the other CRA neighborhood properties by right-of-way. They are proposed to have the same color of, I guess you could say, pink that's on this represented by CRA center, and this areas that are outlined in red that are right-of-way, that have been abandoned, and are surrounded by the same property owner, would also receive the CRA center future land use, and the proposed land use change would look as it does here, where my cursor is. With that, I'll cease the staff presentation. Staff recommends approval of this proposed future land use map amendment. The advertisements have been made in the newspaper. Letters to the surrounding property owners have been made and signs posted. This is a small-scale amendment. This is the final action. Thank you. Ms. Corris, anything to add? The CRA is supportive. Duly noted. Questions for Mr. Doolin? Seeing none. Anyone from the public looking to address us on this topic? Also seeing none. Back to the board. Move staff's recommendation. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries four to zero, with Commissioner Smith absent. Following up, the sister agenda item is a public hearing quasi-judicial number one. Public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending Article 12, Redevelopment Code, Division 6, Port Salerno Community Redevelopment Code, Land Development Regulations, Martin County Code, CPA 22-04, Manatee Southwest Prong, STA. It will be, again, presented by Mr. Doolin. If you have any ex parte communications, Commissioner Hurd? I don't have any, and they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins? I don't think I have any. If I do, they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington? If any, they've been filed. Mine as well. I don't believe I have any, but they, we've filed that. If you're going to be offering testimony in this case, in this agenda item, please stand to be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Do you have a work history and the agenda item? I do. Thank you. No one's intervening, I would assume? No one intervening. Correct. And no return receipts are necessary? Or are they? No. They are. No. They were turned in on the LPA, I believe. That's correct. Thank you. Mr. Doolin, please continue. The same piece of property as you discussed or considered in the past hearing is the subject of this proposed change to the land development regulations and specifically to an exhibit of the land development regulations that shows the zoning subdistricts that are being proposed for change. The changes are from the, allow me to go to the right page, 301. This is the exhibit PS2 of the regulating plan that's proposed for amendment. And as you can see, the area circled is the same area that we were just talking about. Let's go to 302. And the proposed changes from the detached subdistrict to the corridor subdistrict on the same properties that we were just looking at. The major difference is the number of units per acre that's permitted. Instead of 10, it would be 15 units per acre. The corridor subdistrict implements the CRA Center Future Land Use designation that the board just voted on. I don't think I need to go into further detail except to say the staff recommends approval and the local planning agency also recommended approval. Thank you. And you as the applicant? Recommend, would ask the board to approve this proposed amendment to the land development regulations. You agree with staff? We do. Okay. Any questions for the applicant or staff? Seeing none. I was going to ask you to switch seats, go to the podium, but anyone from the public looking to address us on this topic? Seeing none. Back to the board. I'll move staff's recommendation. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries 4 to 0 with Commissioner Smith absent. Thank you very much. Thank you. Both of you. Appreciate it. Our next agenda item is public hearing quasi-judicial number two, public hearing to consider an amendment to the Martin County Zoning Atlas to change the zoning district classification for the Maureen T. Atkin LE property from A2 Agricultural to AR5A Agricultural Ranchette, A084-001. It will be presented by Ms. Allison Rozek, and it is quasi-judicial, so let me ask again. Commissioner Hetherington, do you have any ex parte communications? If any, they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins? If any, they've been filed. Commissioner Hurd? I don't have any, and they've been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Anyone that's going to be offering testimony, please stand. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? You have your work history and a copy of the agenda item. I do, thank you. Thank you. Are there any interveners? No interveners. Are there any need for return receipts? Yes, and I believe they've been turned in. They've been turned in at the LPA. Thank you very much. Ms. Rozek, you are recognized. Please begin. Good afternoon, Chairman, County Board Commissioners. I'm Allison Rozek, Principal Planner in the Growth Management Department. A copy of the agenda item. My work history has been submitted for the file. The owner of the property today for the rezoning is Maureen T. Atkins, L.E., and the agent is Fox Mikulski Bush Robinson, whose representative, Tyson Waters, is here today with us. The 19.73 acres is located at 11301 Southwest Fox Brown Road, just east of Southwest Fox Brown Road, in close proximity to Indiantown. The site's current future land use designation is Agricultural Ranchette. The comp plan specifies a density of one unit per five gross acres shall be permitted within the areas designated with an Agricultural Ranchette future land use. The property is currently zoned A2 Agricultural, which is an old zoning category and consistent with its land use, making this mandatory rezoning. The request is to rezone to AR5A Agricultural Ranchette, allowing one residential unit per five acres. There are two standard zoning districts that are available for you to implement the Ag Ranchette land use, AR5A and AR10A. There is an additional option of a planned unit development. The two Agricultural Ranchette zoning districts permit the same exact uses, except for one. Fishing and hunting camps are not allowed in AR10A, but are in AR5. But it's important to note that without a rezoning today, fishing and hunting camps have already and continue to be allowed under the property's current zoning classification. The development standards are the same in both the AR5A and AR10A district, except that the AR5 allows one unit per five acres, whereas AR10 allows one per ten acres. The Martin County Comp Plan requires certain factors be considered. We considered these factors and concluded that AR5A is consistent with our plan and all our regulations. The density is consistent and provides an appropriate transition between the small farms and single-family homes adjacent to the site and the Indian Town's cluster development pattern in close proximity. Staff found the proposed rezoning complies with the comprehensive plan and that the certificate of public facilities exemption is appropriate for this zoning change. The local planning agency required public hearing was held on July 20th, and the LPA considered the matter, recommended the board approve the rezoning request. Staff is recommending that the board move to receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and a move to adopt the resolution to change the zoning district classification for the Maureen T. at Geetkins LE property from A to Agricultural to AR-5A Agricultural Ranchette, including a Certificate of Public Facilities Exemption. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions for Ms. Rosek? Seeing none. Applicant's opportunity to make a presentation. Tyson Waters from the law firm of Fox McCluskey here on behalf of the applicant, and we agree with the staff's recommendation, and I'm here for any questions. Thank you very much. Questions for the applicant's representative? Seeing none at this time. Anyone from the public looking to address us here? Commissioner Jenkins. Move to approve staff's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Jenkins to accept staff's recommendation of approval, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries 4 to 0 with Commissioner Smith absent. What we're going to do is take a 10-minute break for closed captioning, and we will be back at 3.50. And what we're going to do, Mr. Daugherty, are your members of law enforcement? They're gone, correct? So you'll have to wait. We're going to take departmental number 6. When we come back. Thank you. I'm just saying. We are back from our mid-afternoon break for closed captioning. It is still August 8, 2023. We're going to take up agenda item departmental number 6, commercial and industrial land use analysis. It will be presented in tandem, but I will be introducing Ms. Samantha Lovelady. Good afternoon, Board. Samantha Lovelady with Martin County Growth Management for the record. The purpose of this land use analysis is to determine the developed and vacant acreage of commercial and industrial lands in Martin County. According to Goal 4.10 and Goal 4.11 of the Comprehensive Plan, the county must provide for adequate and appropriate sites for commercial and industrial uses. This report updates the county's 2016 report with new information regarding commercial and industrial future land use designation to achieve these goals. The prior report focused only on unincorporated portion of Martin County. For this report, the incorporated areas are included in the analysis to provide an overview of where the developed and vacant commercial and industrial lands exist. The report is made up of three parts. Part one is the amount of acreage developed as commercial or industrial uses by jurisdiction. Part two is the inventory of vacant commercial and industrial parcels. And part three is an analysis to help guide the county's land use balance of commercial and industrial land necessary to accommodate the projected population. Staff is recommending that the board approve the study. In doing so, the study can be used as data and analysis for the evaluation approval report process, which is required by state statute. And with that, I'd like to introduce David Farmer. And he is a consultant with Metro Forecasting Models, and he is the author of this study. Good afternoon, commissioners. Again, for the record, my name is David Farmer with Metro Forecasting Models. May I proceed? Yes, please. You are recognized. So our firm, Metro Forecasting, only works for local governments to study long-range planning and land use issues. My background is professional engineering and planning, as well as I have a master's in public administration with an emphasis focus on policies that lead to fiscal neutrality. My partner, Dr. Paul Van Buskirk, invented the interactive growth model, which is the backbone of the majority of the work that we do. We'll skip that one. So as Ms. Lovelady was saying, the purpose of this was to update the 2016 study and this time look at all of the incorporated areas, as well as the unincorporated, to get more of a full picture. It was created with Martin County parcel data, and we analyzed it spatially and looked at aerial photos and even satellite imagery to help understand what's developed and what's not. So table one diving right into the report, it's interesting to point out that in January of this year, there was almost 18 million square feet of developed commercial space in Martin County. What's also interesting, I think, is that with Stewart's population is only about 10% of the county, they have 38% of the supply. And that was when we first started studying it back in 2019, 2020, we thought it was very interesting that Stewart has such a concentration of commercial. And after looking at the surrounding area, it became sort of obvious or apparent that a lot of places, a lot of people outside of Stewart actually get their needs met in Stewart. We think over time that actually might change as the population grows around the outside of Stewart and can support more commercial space. So we looked at your future land use designations for a commercial and industrial, and these parcels had to be served or adjacent to water and sewer services and not located on any road segments that had concurrency constraints. So unincorporated Martin County comprises about 57% of all of the vacant commercial acreage. And here you can see in table three, there's a breakdown of that. I'm happy to answer any questions about that table. Something different that we did from the 2016 report is that we recognized, and this is unfortunately, it's before the Live Local Act, and so we were dealing with before that period of time, we designated some of the commercial zonings allow either residential or commercial uses. And so in those cases, we actually took some of the land and said, well, some of that land invariably is going to be used as residential. So let's back that out so we don't overstate the amount of vacant lands, right? So that's the purpose of that. Certainly all this land could have been developed commercially, but certainly a portion of it could also have been developed residentially. So we're trying to be conservative in the approach, if you will. Those parcels that had a category C zoning were deemed not to, at the time, not to allow any residential development, and so we didn't assign any residential development to that. The next thing we looked at was, you know, in aggregate, aggregate information is very interesting, but what's more interesting is when we break it down by size, right? So now we can say how many acres are in total, but how many are more than five acres? So if you have that really important employer that comes to town or some business you want to attract, it's important to know how many large parcels you have so that you can, how many people can you accommodate that come to that table? Like a quick, real quick example from Collier County is Uline, the office equipment maker came to Collier County, Collier County doesn't have a huge demand for office supplies, it just happens to be a nice strategic location, much like Martin County, and they chewed up 65 acres with 915,000 square feet in one fell swoop. If Collier County didn't have that land, Uline would not have existed inside of Collier County. So I want you to keep those kinds of things in mind. When we look at future commercial acreage, and we're looking at trying to estimate, forecast what the need might be, one way to do it is to look at a population basis, and so we looked at, used Bieber and looked over the next 15 years, and found that the general population growth according to Bieber was about 10%, and you can read the table for yourself. In the end, if we use a population approach, it means we need about another 124 acres. The good news is, you have about 549 in the unincorporated county. So from that standpoint, you have several, a multiple of these 15-year periods of commercial property. Any questions? Now switching gears to industrial lands. So Martin County has developed about over a million, 1.2 million square feet since 2020. That's just very interesting, I think. Again, Stewart has only 10% of the population of the county, but it has 11% of the industrial space. Indiantown has 22%. Thought that was interesting. And by the way, that 22%, we segregated FPL and pulled them out because they're the 600-pound gorilla, you know? They're going to skew any data. So we pulled them out, not to try to obscure anything, but just so that we didn't want them in there to skew the data in a certain direction. Again, looking now at the vacant lands, so we see that Martin County overall has about 3,600 acres, and that's interesting, but we want to be honest, and so we also looked at the uplands, right? Taking out the wetlands, you still have over 3,000 acres of vacant industrial land in Martin County. Again, looking at the parcel sizes to know where you can accommodate things, unincorporated Martin County has 28 parcels that are more than five acres, and those 28 parcels comprise over 1,500 acres. We see also Indian Town has quite a selection of 19 parcels over five acres, totaling 1,803. Again, if we take a population approach, we find that another 108 acres would be needed over the next 15 years. Using, again, just the metric of the unincorporated vacant industrial lands, that's 1,500, it shows that you have more than enough. Population isn't the only approach you can take. You could also take absorption over the last few years. We covered that in the report as well, and that can provide some different analysis as well. So as the county continues to grow, it's going to be necessary to have reliable data on your population growth and your industrial needs. We feel that you should be looking at updating this thing, especially with the Live Local Act, probably on the order of at least every two years, just to keep your finger on the pulse, because now we can see these other lands can be appropriated for uses that weren't contemplated when this study was initiated. We also would like to point out some very minor but nerdy changes between the 2016 report and this report. When we're doing the very detailed GIS analysis, we notice a particular issue in the parcel data that, in GIS terms, it's called stacking. And what that meant, if you read the report, is that if you have, say, a one-acre condominium development, and you have 10 units in that condominium, then every one of those units reports one acre. So if you add all the acres from those 10 condominiums, you get 10 acres, but they're really sitting on one acre in total. We were able to pull that out, clean that front, and so now you have the real essence of what's been developed in Martin County. I'm happy to answer any questions. Fantastic. I appreciate that. Questions for Mr. Farmer or Ms. Lovelady? We have two requests to speak forms. The first one is Mr. Ted Estolfi from the Economic Council. Thank you for the record. I'm Ted Estolfi, CEO of the Economic Council. I just first of all wanted to thank staff for giving the opportunity to comment on the plan and the study, give some input, and for listening to us, and Mr. Farmer, you as well. Appreciate that. You know, as Mr. Farmer pointed out, it's very population-driven. I had some exceptions to that, and I think when you get to the conclusion, and it is a valid way to do it, don't get me wrong, there are multiple ways to do this, and when you look at history, it really did match up with population growth as far as the demand for commercial and industrial, but as we move forward and we're seeing new product come online and seeing increased demand, it does change a little bit, and we want to be, in my opinion, more like Collier County, have some property available for those contributory businesses like Uline that don't sell in the community but actually bring money in from their sales outside Martin County into our community. So that's where we're kind of looking at the forward-looking. So I do really appreciate the changes that were made from the first edition and the conclusions that were made recognizing all the different factors that are in play here, particularly Senate Bill 102. So I just wanted to say that. So thank you for that. Thank you very much. Our next request to speak for Ms. Joan Goodrich with the BDB. And she's not here, so she's asked me to speak for her. Yeah, I appreciate that so much. So I'll do my preemptive statement that I'm representing. No, we're not going to allow that. Okay, good. Because then everyone's going to want that. Fine. You can just... I'll let her submit her comments. Let me ask you a question. If you were going to say something else, what would it be? So Joan just wanted to point out that there are more demand-driven factors going into this. She's seeing a lot of demand for about 4 million square feet of industrial space. It's more of an opportunity analysis that she did, and she makes a comment that based on their commercial real estate statistics, she's showing a 3.2% vacancy rate in office space right now, so we don't have a ton of office space available. And the industrial space is about 2.5% vacancy rate. So we have very low vacancy rates in those two uses right now. So those are her key points. Thank you. Thank you. You did a better job representing her than yourself. Commissioner Hurd, wait, before you go. Joan, one second. No, this is a question for Mr. Farmer. Oh, never mind. Where is AgTech in here? It's not called AgTech. It's 1,700 acres. Oh, right. We'll show you. So if you look over here, you have right to the right of the North Arrow, this is vacant commercial. So AgTech has 200 acres of commercial, and then if you look at the industrial, there's 700 acres of industrial, so it's split up. I thought it was 1,700 acres. It is. There's also 817 acres that have to be agricultural. So you've got the 200 of commercial, 700 of industrial, and 817 for agriculture. How do you do that? It all has the same future land use. It's a requirement in the AgTech policies and the comp plan. Okay. So only 900 is available for commercial or industrial development? That's correct. Right, so staff sent me the approval, and I went through, and I dissected the various pieces of it. And so there's about, my recollection is about 200 acres for, I think there's a hotel included and some other ancillary commercial. And then there's the absolute industrial and then the absolute ag. And so how could I call ag industrial? So I pulled that out. And while it's AgTech, if you have an actual commercial entitlement, I said, well, that actually goes over in the commercial category. And that way, we get down to just the net of the available industrial. I didn't remember that we gave three different land uses on the parcel. Yeah, it's one future land use, but as part of that. Yeah, so this isn't making a bit of sense to me. It's the three different uses, which would be industrial uses, commercial uses, and then agricultural uses. Those were laid out in the policies that were adopted. Okay. So nice and simple, it's included. It's in there. Well, some of it is. Well, the agricultural is not, but the rest of it's in there. Yeah, if you look at this piece, the commercial is on 714, and then the industrial is on top of that. Okay. In the north. Thank you. Any other questions? No. Anyone else? Anyone from the public other than the two speakers already? Seeing none. I would entertain a motion to approve this presentation. I'll make a motion to approve this presentation. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Jenkins to approve this presentation, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries four to zero with Commissioner Smith absent. Thank you, Commissioner. My pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. Thank you very much for your efforts to help us and safe travels home. Pleasure. Thank you. We're going to take our 1045 a.m. preset derelict vessel presentation. Mr. Dardy, good morning. I shouldn't do that because then people that are following at home are going to think they had a fast-forwarding on their DVR. It is officially 4.08. We appreciate your patience. Good morning, Commissioners. Jeff Dardy with the building department. I have with me Dave Colondo, who's coming in here. And this is a presentation that the board requested for information on the derelict vessel program. We did have a couple deputies, but they had to leave. But we have the information, and we'll follow up with any questions you may have. In the presentation, you'll see several pictures. These are actual real pictures of cases in Martin County. These are not stock photos. And at the end of the presentation, Dave will go into some more of some specific examples, and then certainly we'll be answering any questions you have. The overall objective of the derelict vessel is obviously to keep our waterways safe, navigable, no damage to the environment, and a better quality of life maintained by Martin County. The program is predominantly driven by the legislatures, by, excuse me, statutes associated with law enforcement. So unlike code enforcement, we have our own ordinances. These are actually state ones that we follow through, and the sheriff or law enforcement takes the lead. Just an overview, the program has one FTE, which is Dave here. A typical case takes 30 days. The building department had it transferred over in late 2015. From then, we've had about 221 derelict cases, and a little bit under half we bring into compliance. The other end up being destroyed and disposed of. And our most common vessel is about a 30-foot fiberglass tall vessel. What actually is a derelict vessel is defined in statute 823, and where it defines it as wrecked junk or substantially dismantled, the statute goes on to really describe those three words in a lot more detail than we were going to put here. But two other areas that are really not as thoughtful in your mind as derelict is you could have a very, very good-shaped vessel, but it is docked or moored at a location that the owner did not approve that mooring. So it's considered derelict by not having permission to moor there, nothing to do with the status or the shape of the boat, condition of the boat. Same as if a boat got washed up on someone else's property or grounded or beached somewhere. It becomes derelict only because of the location, not necessarily because of the status of the boat. These are out of the statute. There's another statute that has enabled law enforcement to do a little bit more as a vessel at risk, and that's where they see a vessel that may become derelict. We want to take action ahead of time, preempt it from becoming derelict. And you can see here several areas that aren't quite there yet, but it allows law enforcement to take action. They could actually have a boat moored very closely to some island that really needs to be moved. They have the authority to move it without asking the owner and re-anchor it or those types of things. So vessels that aren't quite taking on water and disposing of it, the pump may be bad or propulsion. So that's defined in that vessel. The actual enforcement, this is directly out of a different statute, 327. We're going to have four or five statutes. It talks about fish and wildlife being in charge, but the reality, you get down to it, it says any law enforcement officer may enforce these rules. In Martin County, the sheriff takes that lead. There is a process to follow. Again, another statute. Law enforcement identifies a vessel as derelict. It is tagged as derelict, and they make the effort to contact the owner. That is all on law enforcement. During the process, Dave will go out and locate that tagged vessel so that we can prepare for our part if it does get through the full process. The 21 days notice is when it's tagged, nothing can be done for 21 days. That's a copy of the notice we put on, the statutory requirement. We update ones being updated now for the proper information associated with any changes to the statute. It goes in the information where the boat is and who to contact and all those things. And you can see here is a typical boat that has been tagged. It will stay there 21 days, and afterwards the sheriff will make a determination that it's run a full 21-day process of the tagging and notification. And then they will let us know if there's no response in the 21 days, then we will, as an agent, remove the vessel and destroy it, or the second option is it could be used in our artificial reef program. Many of these would not be appropriate. First of all, you're not allowed to use, I think, a fiberglass haul in an artificial reef. Our majority are fiberglass hauls, so there's really not an option. Don't confuse this with abandoned property that gives you a lot more options. This is specific for derelict vessels. The next step is once the sheriff does go through the 21-day notice process, tries to notify the owner, owner does not ask for a hearing or anything of that nature, they will say they've concluded the investigation. The attorney for the sheriff sends us a letter, examples, as you see there, and we at that point arrange for the removal and the destruction of that vessel through our continuing services contractors. How do we pay for this and fund this? Ordinance 756 has a local option that registers vessels, and a small portion of that is put towards this program. We regularly apply for grants from the Florida Inland Navigation District and get grants there. We have received a private grant before Jupiter Narrows. They wanted their waterway areas clean and sent us some money to help do that. You potentially could have restitution through the judicial system. We typically do not have that success because many of the people with derelict vessels do not have any assets. In larger ones, the federal government will come in, and the federal pollution program, Endeavor, is one of the vessels that had that. We'll have some pictures later, and Dave can explain that. And the Fish and Wildlife Commission has actually engaged us in some activity associated with this and helped out. But by and large, it's a local thing, too. You get into larger ones. At this point, I'll let Dave explain these and what they were and that type of thing and be ready to answer any questions you may have. All right. Good afternoon, Commissioners. This is a vessel that was out at Pandarvis Park Cove area there in Palm City, a sailboat. And it went through the process. The only thing that could be tagged was the actual mast. And a lot of times on sailboats, when they hit bottom, they still have a mast. If they have a mast, that's still sticking out. Our vendor removed it, and that's just a picture of it being removed. What they do when they remove it, they'll go through, and they'll make sure any hazardous materials out of it, batteries, fuels, oils, paints, anything that the landfill won't accept. And they'll cut the keel off, and then they'll trailer it out there. They'll trailer it out to the landfill where it'll be destroyed. This is actually recent fire damaged boats. We had three of them over at the Harbridge in the city of Stewart at that marina. There was two 45-foot sport fishermen and a 38-foot sailboat. And even though I observed this, our vendor was involved, and they were able to remove all three vessels. They were all sunk because of the water that was put on them. They were burnt down to the gunwales during the fire. But they raised them all and had them all out of there in six days and hauled them back to their yard. This vessel is the Endeavor. This occurred in 2015. I think this was my fourth case after coming over from the sheriff's office. And this was a cargo relief vessel that was going to go to Haiti. And it was way overloaded, and it went down on the crossroads. It had bags of rice, beans, clothing, and 55-gallon drums of diesel. Everything got contaminated. The Coast Guard had come in and removed the four Haitians nationals from the vessel. They took over the project, and I worked with FWC on this. The Coast Guard brought in, they started tapping into the Federal Pollution Fund, and they brought in some big outfits like Titan Group and SWS. They had to remove and decargo all the hazardous cargo. They used Sandspread Park as an offload site and then trucked it all away. We got involved in this vessel after they had it raised and towed to American Custom Yachts, and then we took it over, and Martin County did the destruction on it. The federal government paid out of their Federal Pollution Fund $600,000 is what they were charged, and what they took out of their fund to remove it. And we paid $25,000 to destroy it, which reimbursed us for that amount on that specific vessel. This is the largest vessel Martin County has ever removed, and it was actually a barge, and FWC, the state FWC DV coordinator, Phil Horning, contacted me from Tallahassee and said they would pay 75% of the cost. Background on this thing was after the 0405 hurricanes, we had a contractor come up from Hollywood to remove pilings. They had a crane on it at one time. After they pulled out, they left the barge. They took their crane off. They left the barge there, and over time, it sank. This was in 2017, and the state, through their grant program, was going to pay 75% also, and we were going to pay this 25%. We had to put it out. Our contractor couldn't do it, so we put it out for specific bid and brought in a big outfit called TSI, and it was three-quarters submerged. It weighed over 400,000 pounds with silt and mud and everything else. It was a 90-foot barge. They brought in track hoe after track hoe, big 110,000-pound machines, and using tow cables that they kept breaking until they finally were able to break it loose, the suction, and they pulled it to the shoreline, and then they used the track hoe from the back, and they held it in place, and they just chopped it up, and then they shredded it all up on, put it on the property. That property is owned by Martin County underneath the Arundel Shop Bridge, and then the contractor cleaned it all up after they did this removal. The scrap, the metal scrap, went out to Indian Town Scrap Yard. I would add, too, the sheriff, when you look at our statistics, which we had earlier, the sheriff will tag a number of vessels that may be considered derelict vessels at risk. They actually don't get to us if they come into compliance before they switch from derelict vessel at risk to an actual derelict vessel. So that's kind of the difference. One of the major things I think makes our program very successful is Dave having been in law enforcement, works hand-in-hand because they go out and tag boats together. They get longitude and latitude on it so that when we actually have to pull the vessel at that time, the contractor knows where the vessel is, we know the status, and we're ready to go immediately. And one additional thing, Fine called us the other day for the Florida Inland Immigration District and saw the presentation and the agenda and asked that we come to their board meetings in September on Hutchinson Island and make the presentation because they felt it really outlined the program well, and we actually have one of the most successful of the 12 counties in their jurisdiction. With that, we'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much, both of you. Questions for staff? Mr. Donaldson. Mike. Just going to echo Jeff's comments in that we're really proud that Martin County has a really good derelict vessel program. There's a lot of counties that struggle with this, and one of the key areas is how you actually go through that process of tagging and working with law enforcement. That's such a critical partnership with the Sheriff's Department to make it happen, and we've been doing it for a long time. Dave's been doing a great job. So I just wanted to congratulate you all on continuing to be really a model in the state for derelict vessel review. So thank you. Great job. Thanks. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I know that in the other code enforcements, Mr. Colondo, that you've been doing, your name comes up quite a bit, and I appreciate your professionalism and how you – I think it's one of the hardest jobs that county employees do because you have no idea what you're showing up at, you know. So your background in law enforcement is probably helpful, but code enforcement is a very challenging job. It's a very dangerous job, so I appreciate what you've done. Thank you. So thank you. Mr. Daugherty, you're staying, correct, for a code enforcement presentation departmental – oh, see, change seats. Speaking of code enforcement, presentations departmental number four. With me changing chairs is now John Colondo. This is an overview of code enforcement. Another name I hear quite a bit, so good for you, the two of you. And one of the main differences is in code enforcement, we're enforcing more ordinances that the county has established, as opposed to derelict vessel, which is what the state has established. So that's probably the main difference. Day one, we're more involved in this. Again, we'll go through this, and John will look at some pictures at the end and give you the same kind of analysis that Dave did. Our objective is to get everyone educated and in compliance with our codes and rules to make the best environment we have for the citizens of the county. Many of the common complaints are the normal high grass, broken windows, abandoned vehicles, and damaged fences and those types of things. Some we do, some we do not. We'll get into that a little bit more. The actual chapter of the Florida statutes is 162 that outlines the procedures. That's just the processes, the actual enforcement, whether it be grass or what have you, we set through our ordinances. One thing in particular is how do we go before a hearing. They give you three options with a local enforcement board, a special magistrate, or actual civil action through the court system. Martin County historically did have an enforcement board they switched over to on the magistrate 10-so years ago, and so that's where we are today with a special magistrate. The chapter establishes, you know, the timelines and the fees and those types of things and allows for foreclosure and some money judgments and those type of legal things. We don't generally go that direction, but we try to enforce everything we can and bring it into compliance. How are our cases open? We are open to any kind of contact. We often have them come in through the request for service online. We'll get those numbers in a little bit. We can get calls in from the public or calls in internal. Some employee can be somewhere and say, hey, I saw this. But most common is our inspectors are out inspecting, and they see code enforcements themselves, either doing neighborhood enforcements or looking at expired permits or whatever and run into similar situations in whatever neighborhood they are in. Pathways to connect, this is just where if we get the request for service online, they go online and they can connect through two different ways of request for service or go to the building department and click through to code enforcement and always the phone call. A lot of issues have come up, questions about complaints, anonymous complaints, no anonymous complaints. It's in the statute specifically that we cannot act on an anonymous complaint except in an imminent destruction of some habitat-sensitive resources or threat to public health, those types of things. Oddly enough, it's in 162.06, and then in 162.21, it's the exact same verbiage. I don't know why, but it is in there twice in two different areas of the same statute about the anonymous complaints. One thing that was in the original bill that said they wanted anonymous if people felt threatened or retaliation from the person they complained about, that was removed from the bill, so we cannot use that. How does the process go? First inspection, code enforcement has five days to get out and respond. They make every attempt to talk or meet with the occupant of the property. Many times the occupant is not the owner of the property, so we've got to discern who's responsible for what, let them know. No one there. We stick a door tag on and notice of a visit. This is the type of form of the information we leave so that people can call and get in contact with us to see what the issue is. Once there is a violation, code enforcement will research the owner. We have two options. Use the tax collector's information or the property appraiser's. We choose the property appraiser's website. If we have a notice of a violation, it's mailed to the property owner and allows for reasonable time to correct the violation. What actually is reasonable time, statute calls for 30 days. Exceptions can be to that for a couple reasons there. Repeat violation, health, emergency, irreparable, reversible harm. This is a type of letter we send out, notice of violation. It's not crystal clear because we didn't want to call anyone out, just give you an example of what we do. If they come to a thing, they get due process as in any hearing. They get notice of the hearing. They get an opportunity to be heard. And then, of course, they go before a magistrate to be the judge of the matter. A notice to appear is given to them. If there is an issue to appear, it's sent out certified mail. If it is not returned receipt, we post it on the property as well as here at this building. We have the option of here or the courthouse. We find it better here because we are here for the hearings, and the courthouse really not many people go through and get in and out, so it's better here. This is just another sample of a notice that gets sent out. Again, it's just to let you know that we do, in a formal manner, adhere to that. The hearing itself is a quasi-judicial. Burden of proof relies on us. There's fees associated with the actual process. The fines are set through statute, maximums, what they can be per day, per violation, and those types of things. Ultimately, the special magistrate that we hire sets the order and the compliance date for what needs to happen. If it's out of compliance, the fine starts to tick. Once it's in compliance, a lien is placed on the property until the fine is actually paid. After 20 years, if it is not paid, it goes away by statute. However, the county can go through the judicial process and enforce it through civil action. However, you cannot do that against a homesteaded property. Each of the people that are found to be out of compliance and have a lien have the option to come before this board and ask for a lien reduction, and the county board can do it at a regularly scheduled meeting as they see appropriate. Other issues that we kind of get phone calls for that we don't regulate, septic tanks, historically trees on the roads and sidewalks. However, we recently modified our ordinance in the last month to work jointly with public works to eliminate the overlap. We get loud noises Saturday night, what have you. That's the sheriff, car tags, or obviously the tax collector. They specifically in the statute say this does not pertain to enforcement of the Florida Building Code because that has requirements such as they have to get a permit, which is not a local ordinance. It's a state statute. So there is some differentiation for how far we go. Some statistics for last year. You can see how many requests for service that would be coming in through the computer. We had almost 5,000 code enforcement actions. It's about 823 per investigator, so they are very busy. We had 63 compliance orders through the magistrate, 30 fine reductions coming for the board, typically at 10% of the face value is what is seeked and received. We have 4,100 code enforcement lien searches. When someone buys a property, they ask for a title work from the title company to issue the title insurance. They will in turn ask us for a code enforcement. Are there any on the property? We had 4,100 requests there last year. And the busy real estate market transferring back and forth will continue to get them. So that does take some time. And we had 10 unsafe structures. If we look here now, John can take over some of these actual live, not live, but real cases. Good afternoon. This was a property off of Locks Road. The guy had a double-wide trailer. He tore out half of it. During the hurricane season. And then started to rebuild it without a permit. So we obviously asked him to either permit it or remove. That was a long battle with him on that. Looks like legitimate construction. Yeah. He thought so. And the sad thing was, is during this time, he had kids in the house during hurricane season. So it did get removed. I think we have. Nope. That was, yes, on the right. I'm sorry. The second one, this was a shed that somebody decided to turn into living space. And, obviously, it caught fire. And that was a county removal. We went in and removed that one and left it like that. Um, this was, uh, one prior to me. However, uh, it was a hoarding house. And, um, it was off of, uh, uh, Green. Or it was Mr. Green off a boat ramp. Sorry. And, uh, we removed, I believe, seven cars and two trailers beyond all the other stuff. And I believe the bill on that one was, uh, like $11,000 for the removal. And that's how we left it afterwards. Um, and this was a nice rehab property. Um, that was, uh, the back end of the property, um, where the pool was. There was actually a raccoon living inside who moved out because it was so bad. But the human stayed. Um, this one was kind of neat because, um, we buy ugly houses kind of, they came in and they rehabbed the property. If Martin County would have, uh, demoed that property, it would have been a vacant lot. And then most likely people would have just been dumping there. So the rehab on there, I think was, um, definitely worth it. Now you have people that, you know, bought the property and are taking care of it. I think it was a better option. With that, we'd be glad to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. Questions. Mr. Colando, how long have you been doing this? Well, um, I've been here in Martin County for eight years. Uh, I also worked for Port St. Lucie. I was there for 10 years. 18 years. Full head of hair when you started. Uh, like Fabio. Well, it's a challenging job. I, uh, I know all of us get, uh, calls and we normally speak to Mr. Daugherty and then he sends you out there to do our, our work for us. I'm happy to do it. The two of you do, uh, excellent work and I appreciate it. I know a lot of people that I've heard from in Palm City, uh, speak very highly of you. I appreciate it. That you're fair. Um, Mr. Daugherty, I don't know if you were here this morning, but we had a resident who's been here before speaking about Palm City farms and the commercial activity on residentially zoned properties. Can you off the top of your head or with your team, give us some kind of a concept on how the system works? You know, people can make complaints, you know, that's going to be something that we'll have to address this, you know, in the near future. But any advice you can share any part of understanding those concerns that people have due to the nature of the process adjudication. Um, if we get a call or a complaint and, uh, staff goes out, we're not entitled to enter their property without their permission. So oftentimes if it's on the back of five acres or behind the house, we may have very limited, almost impossible evidence to gather. Uh, we can't take pictures that someone else took. We have to go out and take them ourselves. If the person complaining is the next door neighbor allows us to enter their property and take pictures, that's of advantage. But if it's someone two or three houses away, sometimes it's very, very difficult to either gather that information. In one particular case, I know we had, um, the sheriff was in a helicopter looking for criminal activity or following up who gave us the information. So fortunate we were able to get videos from the sheriff's activities. Short of that, we would not have been able to enter. So that's one of the huge challenges we have, uh, gathering that information, not being out of one of their property. And I'd let John follow up on any of that. Yeah. You know, as he said, well, you know, the burden of proof is on us. Um, and, uh, there are some people out in that area that do not want code enforcement or any government entity or personnel on their property. So it does make it a little rough some days. Okay. That's one thing. If you could contact my office, we're going to have to follow up on that. Do we fly drones? Do you guys use any drone technology? Uh, I believe that is not, uh, able to be done through code enforcement. I think it's prohibited. Um. Okay. Just asking. Yeah. And then sometimes you do have the ability to go out up with the helicopter, the sheriff's helicopter, correct? Correct. Okay. Any other questions? Anyone from the public looking to address? Seeing none. Thank you very much for your presentations. Thank you. Okay. We'll jump back to departmental number one. Office of Management and Budget Items, which require board approval. There are 18 of them. They'll be presented by Ms. Jennifer Manning. Ms. Manning, before you start, I just wanted to publicly apologize if this morning during our very long agenda item, while we were talking about where the funding comes and everything else, if I was in any way disrespectful to you or your team, that was not my intention. I am very fond of you personally, and I think professionally you're as good as it gets. So, please accept my apology if I hurt you. I didn't mean to say that the numbers that you were presenting were not accurate. I was thinking of that number in my head that I had heard about the CRA number being $400,000. You were speaking about the money that was left over from the $400,000, and I was misunderstanding that you were saying $250,000. That's not what I meant. So, I apologize. Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. It's Jennifer Manning, OMB Director. The first item on the agenda is permission to apply for the FY23 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistant Grant. This is a request from the Sheriff's Office. If the grant is awarded, it will be $29,051. The funds will be used to offset the cost of equipment in the Traffic Department. The second item is permission to apply for funding through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for the Eastern Flowway Kitchen Creek Project. The requested amount of $500,000, requiring a $500,000 match, which is programmed in the CIP plan. Third item is permission. The Human Services Department is requesting permission to apply for the FY22 Edward Byrne Memorial Grant. The funding is expected to be $70,370. The funds will be utilized to support the case management staff for mental health programs. Item number four is permission. The Public Works Department is requesting permission to apply for the Inflation Reduction Act Urban and Community Forestry Grant in the amount of $4.3 million. There is no local match that is required for this. The funding will be used to launch a tree planting initiative on the public property in the disadvantaged census tract. The benefits will include carbon emissions, reduction in carbon emissions. It will increase the shade, enhance the historic byways, as well as combatting the negative effects of stormwater runoff. Coolest grant application ever. Carly and Todd are doing a great job. And also it goes to the disadvantaged census tracts, which I also just love. And it helps our environment a lot. Okay. The next item is permission to accept the Florida Department of State of Library and Information Services. The grant funding for FY2023. The grant award is $88,833. The funds will be utilized for a full-time library specialist, equipment, books, and materials. And there is no match required. Item number six is permission to accept FDOT Public Transportation Grant Amendment Number Two for Airport Operations Center and Airfield Electric Fault. The amendment number two adds $22,575, requiring a $4,515 match to install additional 4x4 steel members and hangers to support the soffits. Of course, that's above me. Item number seven is permission to accept the amendment number two for FY23, a mosquito control agreement from the state of Florida. The amendment increases the grant amount by $9,822, and this will help to purchase chemicals. Item number eight is permission to accept the year number four of the Center of Disease Control Drug-Free Communities Grant. The funding is utilized by the Martin County Action Coalition Workgroup, and they focus on youth substance prevention. The year four is $125,000. The total grant for the six-year period is $611,000, and there is no match required. Item number nine is permission to accept a community services block grant in the amount of $100,584. This is for fiscal year 2024 to provide services to targeted residents in Martin County. Item number 10 is permission to accept the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Development Block Grant for FY21 and 22. The amount of the grant is $750,000. It does not require a match. It supports the housing rehabs, demolition of housing, replacement, and replacement of some housing for projects in the qualified area for qualified Martin County residents, if you will. Item number 11 is permission to accept a grant amendment number one from FDEP for additional $2 million, and that was mentioned earlier today for the Salernum on Norovia vacuum sewer project. The additional $2 million will help to lower the principal amount of the assessment to residents by approximately $2,000 per parcel. Item number 12, the Public Works Department is requesting a budget resolution to allocate unanticipated contribution for the County Road A1A to Monterey Road for the resurfacing project, and this is due to a utility conflict. The change order is $87,540. The City of Stewart agrees to pay $39,542 of that change order, and we're requesting approval of a budget resolution as well as a CIP amendment. Item number 13, staff is requesting a CIP amendment to the Constitutional Office's building. This is a request that we had earlier this year. The clerk of the court requested a renovation of a bathroom, and she has additional renovations that she wants to include, which is like the staff work area conference room. She wants to have an ADA compliance area, a carpet replacement, and this amount will cost approximately $61,000. That budget is, there's enough funding in our fixed asset replacement building CIP, so we're just asking to amend the CIP sheet to accommodate that. The next few items will be adjustment to the fiscal year budget FY 2023, and the first one is the staff is asking for the board to approve a resolution to increase the sail for splash water park budget, and of course, this is the second time this year we've requested this increase from the board there for the sail for splash. They've been very successful, and so we're requesting approval of a resolution of $289,000 with a corresponding expense for sail for splash. Item number 15 is a request for funds for inmate medical for Martin County Sheriff's Office. During this fiscal year, we had our long-time provider of inmate services give us a 30-day notice, and they withdrew from the program. The sheriff was able to engage another contractor. Unfortunately, it is a lot more expensive, and there's funding available in our medical services fund, and we're requesting $750,000 to cover the rest of the fiscal year. So that's just to cover through September 30th? Yeah, yeah, and that's why we had, you know, we mentioned it in our budget presentation for the workshop that it was about $1.6 million. What's the FY24 budget? Yeah, it's like... We had to increase the budget almost to $2 million. Almost $2 million, yes. So, and we can certainly present on this later, but we're working with the sheriff. We're also looking at other communities on how addressing inmate medical is, because once they become incarcerated, they become our responsibility, and that's, and how we can do it cheaper is something that St. Lucie County is struggling with. Henning River has just recently started a new experiment with another provider. So we're working with them to see how we may share our experiences and, one, find a cheaper solution, and, two, see if we can get the state to either contribute or change some of the laws to allow us to access other funds. Okay. Item number 16, Information Technology Department is requesting transfer from reserve in the amount of $22,459, and this is due to a contractor while performing an underground directional billing. They had an accident there with their fiber optic cabling, and this is at Southwest Citrus Boulevard and Martin Highway, and we're requesting those funds to repair those lines. And why isn't the contractor paying the bill? Yeah. The contractor will, because usually we file it through our insurance, they go after the contractor, and once those funds come in, we'll put it back into the coffers. Okay. All right. Item number 17, Request for Funds for Broadband Again. This is another contractor error. This is along Northeast Dixie Highway in Jensen Beach, and this expense is $10,675, and the funds are coming from the broadband reserves. Final item is a request for funding. This is the General Services Department. The Vehicle Maintenance Division, because of all the increase in costs of repairs and maintenance, we are requesting transfer from reserves when we need it. There is approximately $300,000 in reserves that we are anticipating that we're going to use some of those funds, so we're asking the board to approve a transfer from reserves when it's needed. And that concludes my presentation. Ms. Manning, thank you very much. Any other questions for Ms. Manning? Move approval of Department 1. Thank you. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation of approval. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries 4-0, with Commissioner Smith absent. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Our next agenda item is Departmental No. 2, contracts that meet the threshold for board approval $1 million or greater. There are four of them. They'll be presented by Ms. Christy Brotherton. And Commissioner Hetherington will make us an announcement now. Mr. Chair, can you separate out A-1, and we will vote on that separately. I have a conflict as an employee of Ferreira, and although not the lowest bidder, I must abstain and have filed my Form 8-B with the clerk. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll take that one first, and then we will take them up the rest. Okay. Good afternoon. Christy Brotherton, Chief Procurement Officer. Before we start, Commissioners, I have a couple housekeeping items for two of the items under this agenda. Based on public hearing 1, the Board's direction to postpone the Port Salerno-New Monrovia project. With that being said, I need to withdraw items A-2 and B-1, which are both associated with that project. Item A-2 is for the Port Salerno-New Monrovia Vacuum Sewer Collection System and Neighborhood Restoration Project. This is for the construction. Based on your direction, we will have to reject all the bids and cancel the solicitation, and we will go back out to bid at a later date and time at your direction. So I just wanted everyone to understand this is now done. We're releasing the contract under this bid. The same goes for item B-1, which is construction engineering services for Port Salerno-New Monrovia Vacuum Sewer System. This was for, again, the construction engineering services. Same thing. We'll reject the bids and go back out. Move to withdraw A-2 and B-1. Okay. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd to withdraw A-2 and B-1. It was seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries four to zero, with Commissioner Smith absent. Okay. And then moving on to item A-1. This is for East Fork Creek Box Culvert Replacement Project. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is Sunshine Land Design in the amount of $2,053,294.49. Move that the board approve the revised CIP sheet to recognize the allocated American Rescue Plan Act Clean Water Stormwater Funding. And move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Move approval of A-1. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd for A-1. Seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries three to zero, with Commissioner Smith absent and Commissioner Hetherington abstaining. Thank you. And then moving on to item number three, which is our continuing services contract for our financial auditing services. This contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $1,500,000, with a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to MSLPA and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. Move approval of A-3. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation of approval for A-3. Seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. That motion carries four to zero, with Commissioner Smith absent. Thank you. Ms. Brotherton, thank you very much. Our next agenda item is departmental number seven, request adoption of the Martin County Library System 2024 through 2026 long-range services plan. It will be presented by award winner Jennifer Salas. Ms. Salas, good afternoon. You are recognized. Good afternoon, Commissioner. It's Jen Salas, library director. So we are currently wrapping up a three-year long-range services plan that we had to focus on aging adults. And we were very successful with working with our assisted living facilities as well as starting a homebound delivery program where our couriers on their routes to our library branches will stop at people's homes who physically cannot leave their homes to get to our libraries. It's starting slowly, but as word spreads, we think it will take off. And we're moving on to our next plan that will start in October. That will have a focus on the neurodivergent population. If you're not familiar with that population, it's a variety of different categories, including autism spectrum disorder, reading disabilities like dyslexia. It could include social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health conditions. So we are going to be working with this population side by side with our staff to identify the services that would be relevant to them. But we're preparing to create sensory-friendly spaces as well as sensory-friendly kits that can be used within our buildings to be more welcoming to this population. So staff's recommendation is to adopt the 2024-2026 long-range services plan. So moved. Second. Concise. That was the Redis Digest version. Yes. Thank you. What? That's why we lower. Putting a lot of pressure on the next two agenda items. That was a motion to accept staff's recommendation by Commissioner Hurd. Seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries four to zero. Thanks. Thank you very much. Our next agenda item, Departmental No. 8, request approval to place a county-owned parcel on the board-approved surplus list for disposition by the auction contractor. It will be presented by Ms. Carla Segura. Ms. Segura, welcome. You are recognized. Ms. Segura, Real Property Manager. The Utilities Department did a property analysis and sent a recommendation to Real Property to add one of their vacant parcels located in Windermere. On Windermere Drive in Jensen Beach on Windermere Drive in Jensen Beach to the county surplus list. The parcel is located at 2230 Northwest Windermere. It's part of the pine subdivision and in their planning process is when they decided to donate this property as a well site. It's about a quarter of an acre. Staff has verified all the information with the Pineapple Plantation Property Owners Association and everything will be vetted through them. They will have association fees, assessments, and restrictions will go with the property. If approved to be placed on the surplus property list, staff will update the county website and process the sale according to Florida Statute 125.35 and 27406 and move to the auction process through the county-approved auctioneer. We ask that the board authorize staff to place this vacant parcel on the county surplus list and process the sale in a manner to maximize the return to the county. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Move approval. Second. Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. This motion to accept staff's recommendation was approved by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries four to zero. Ms. Segura, thank you. Someone will be joining you now. It says here that this next agenda item, Departmental No. 9, Consideration and Approval of the Medical Examiner Ground Lease and Memorandum of the Lease. It will be presented by Ms. Kimberly LeVee and Carla Segura. Here they are. Good morning. Afternoon. Yes, afternoon. Carla Segura, Real Property Manager. This request is for approval of a ground lease and memorandum of lease for the new medical examiner facility to be built in St. Lucie County between the District Board of Trustees of Indian River State College and Martin Indian, Okeechobee, and St. Lucie Counties. The arrangements to the lease were set forth in the interlocal agreement, which was signed by all parties on November 7, 2022. The need for the facility is to serve the residents of the counties as set forth in Florida Statute 406.085. The facility will provide autopsy and laboratory facilities. The District Board of Trustees for Indian River State College owns approximately 50 acres on Kirby Loop Road, and they have agreed to lease two acres to the counties for construction of the facility. The lease terms agreed by the counties is 40 years with one additional 40-year renewal period at $1 a year. The physical impact for the divisions of cost for construction, repair, replacement, and maintenance of the facilities shall be calculated as set forth in the interlocal agreement with Martin County, having 22.42% of the cost. Funds have been contributed to the fund balance to cover the cost, and if expenditures are required before the end of FY23, a recommendation will be required to approve a transfer from the general fund. St. Lucie County also issues a monthly medical examiner briefing that they provide to the counties as an update. The recommendation is for the board to accept and approve the ground lease and memorandum of lease and authorize the chairman to execute any and all documents related to this transaction. If there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer. Questions? I have a comment. If you, when you have conversations with whoever else in the other communities that you're putting this together, I've been making a request, repeated request, that during this conversation that the building potentially be named in honor of the medical examiner that worked in that building for 20 years, Dr. Roger Middleman. And every time we have a conversation about it, I would like to continue to make that request. He was a Martin County resident. He oversaw many very high-profile cases, worked in that facility, and so at least as a memorial and an honor to him since he worked in the old building for most of his career, that now that we build a new one, that hopefully everyone will agree that it should be named after him, Dr. Roger Middleman. So with that, I'll entertain a motion. Move approval. Thank you very much. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation of approval, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries four to zero. Now, if I'm not mistaken, we have reached the end of our agenda. Midnight. You know, it's interesting because we always talk about 5.05, end-of-the-day public comment, and we're only a couple of minutes off of that. We could sit quietly for five minutes until we get to that point. I think most of our staff would be glad to see this meeting end. I know I am. With that in mind, I would take any public comment at the end of the day. Seeing none, we turn it back to County Commissioner comments. Commissioner Hetherington. Two requests maybe at our next meeting. Seeing a Sandsprit boat ramp update and the 714-710 realignment progress with Okeechobee County. With the meeting, yes. Excellent suggestions. Agreed. Commissioner Jenkins. Good. Commissioner Hurd. I'm set. I am also set. Mr. Donaldson, end-of-the-day sage wisdom for us. Yes, my comments are ended. Ms. Woods. Thank you. With that, our next commission meeting is Tuesday, August 22, 2023. Yes. I just realized school's starting on Thursday, so I'd like to wish everybody a very successful start to their school year and be safe in your travels and watch for crossing guards and students crossing. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And with that, the meeting is ended. Thank you. Totally. Thank you.