I'll call our Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. We have a busy agenda today, so we'll jump right into it. We are going to have first our invocation by Reverend Neal Singh from the Trinity United Methodist Church of Jensen Beach, followed by an American hero, United States Air Force veteran Jennifer Bolton, will lead us in the pledge, so if you would all please stand. Good morning, Reverend. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for inviting me, especially on the 22nd anniversary of our September 11th attacks. I was born and raised in New York City. My mother was working in downtown Manhattan that day, and she saw United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower. She also witnessed the towers collapsing, and then she walked five miles home. She was 64 years old at the time, and thank God she is now 86. As Americans, we were all affected by what happened that day, personally and historically, so in remembrance of those events, let's join together in mind, heart, and spirit. Creator of all things, author of all life, bestower of every blessing, thank you for gathering us together. Thank you for the life we share here in Martin County. In this moment, we remember the tragedy of September 11th, 2001. We remember the lives lost and the lives given while saving others. But even as we mark this somber moment, we turn our hearts to the good we find in you. Be close to those who remain in mourning, close to parents who lost children, to children who lost parents, and to all who lost friends and co-workers and loved ones. And protect our sons and our daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers and friends in uniform, who every day venture selflessly into harm's way to protect us. Grant your divine wisdom to our esteemed leaders, especially our leaders gathered here, and remind them of the ideals and values that unite us all. That they might lead us in ways that foster liberty, justice, and peace in our county, in this nation, and around the world. And finally, we ask you to touch the hearts of those who still seek our destruction. Banish from the world the darkness that allows hatred and violence to fester and explode. May we all walk instead in the light of your love. May your justice rain down upon all the earth. May your peace flourish in every land. And may your kindness, compassion, and mercy wash over all of us like an ever-flowing stream. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You stay. Mrs. Bolton, thank you very much. What we normally like to do is just give you an opportunity to share a little bit about who you are and your military service and what you're doing these days, if you don't mind. Oh, no problem. My name is Jennifer Bolton. I served in the United States Navy, not Air Force. Oh, go Navy. Back in 1988, I was lucky enough to be stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And then I moved up, and I was stationed at a little place called CIMPAC Fleet, which is the highest command of the Navy at the time. I know it's changed names since then. And I was an assistant to actually the highest civilian, taking care of all the bases and putting officers in their housing. And then he retired, and I moved with Admiral Larson up to pretty much, it's called CIMPAC, and it's an all-Core Marine Corps station, but all the four stars from the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, all are stationed there. So I was an assistant to Admiral Larson, and I was in charge of foreign dignitaries coming into the island. So back in 88, 89, Hawaii wasn't that populated at that time. So I pretty much, I met Vice President Quayle. I was his driver. I met the president of Papua New Guinea, the general of Thailand. So I was pretty much the tour guide with the Admiral's Barge. So I know pretty much the Arizona Memorial by the back of my hand. So I was very young at that time because I went in at 18. I served six years, and then I retired. From then, I moved to New Orleans and was really active with the Naval Reserve. And then got divorced, moved to Pensacola, and I pursued my master's degree at University of West Florida, got a finance degree. And then I opened my own branch of Ameriprise Financial Advisors, and then I was able to retire very early. And then I got remarried to my husband now, who is also a Navy veteran. He's the ROTC commander now at Centennial High School. So he's molding the future. And I raised two children here in Martin County, where we both retired. And it's been great living in Palm City and raising our kids. And Ed knows because our sons are best friends. That's right. Well, that's an illustrious career packed into, well, when you start really young, I guess you can have that many successes before you're even an old person. So thank you so much for your service. I apologize for saying Air Force. That's what the paper said. That's fine. And, you know, my heart's with the Navy. And I see another fellow Navy guy back there. Go Navy. And so thank you so much. I appreciate everything you do. And tell your husband we thank what he's doing as well. Neither of you have stopped. Yes. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Jennifer Ball. Nobody sees the ovation. They're always leaving. Okay. Let me talk to you about the agenda. We have one additional item, a consent agenda, approval of a partial release of a utility easement as a condition for post-approval of the Tuscawilla PUD replat. Public hearing number seven, public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending Chapter 9, Animal Section 9.1 and Section 9.87, General Ordinances, Martin County Code. There are no consent polls, and we have one withdrawal. It is DPQJ-3, variants to allow issuance of a building permit on a lot not fronting an open road. Applicant did not send notices to the proper adjoining homeowners. So that item will be heard at a later date. And at that point, Commissioner Smith, you are recognized. Mr. Chairman, thank you. We move approval of the agenda with the two additional items of Consent 19, Public Hearing Number 7, and the withdrawal of DPQJ-3. Thank you very much. I will second. Thank you. We have a motion to accept the agenda as presented by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. And now, before we take public comment, it is customary that we do a little bit of honoring some of our individuals and groups in our community, and we will start this morning with a proclamation declaring Constitution Week in Martin County, Florida. It will be presented very well by Ms. Laura Beaupre. Ms. Beaupre, you are recognized. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioners. Our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution on September 17, 1787, setting the framework for the foundation of our nation's prosperity and liberties. This historic document is of essential importance to our nation and represents the timeless and enduring truths that inform the basic institutions of the American Republic. The board recognizes Constitution Week from September 17 through the 23rd and encourages all citizens to study the Constitution and reflect on the privilege of being an American with all the rights and responsibilities that privilege involves. And here to accept, we have Amy Pinder, who is the regent with the Halpatioke chapter of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution. Thank you very much for acknowledging this important week in September. We appreciate it. Commissioner Campy, thank you for including us in the 9-11 ceremony last night. My pleasure. It was very moving. So thank you all very much. Our next proclamation is declaring Hunger Action Month in Martin County, Florida. Hunger and poverty remain issues of grave concern in the United States, the state of Florida, the Treasure Coast, and in Martin County, with 30,311 family households in Martin County unable to afford the basic costs of living. Martin County is committed to taking steps to raise awareness about the need to combat hunger in every part of our county and to provide additional resources that citizens of Martin County need. To that end, the board is recognizing October as Hunger Action Month in Martin County, and here we have to accept is Lucy Delgado with the Treasure Coast Food Bank. Good morning. My name is Lucy Delgado. On behalf of Treasure Coast Food Bank, President and CEO Judy Cruz, our dedicated staff and volunteers, and Board of Directors, I would like to thank you for proclaiming September as Hunger Action Month. As a member of the Feeding America Network of food banks, Treasure Coast Food Bank is leading the fight against hunger in our community by securing millions of meals and providing them to people facing hunger. We are proud to partner with more than 300 local food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other emergency food providers throughout Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, and Okeechobee counties. Throughout the month of September, Treasure Coast Food Bank will be hosting many events that include our annual Outlaw Hunger Comedy Show and third annual Outlaw Hunger 5K. For more information on all these events and more, please visit our website at stophunger.org forward slash ham. Thank you again for your continued support in the fight against hunger. Laura Beaupre left before I could say thank you. Okay. We're at the public comment portion of our meeting. Several of the names I recognize, some I do not. How we work public comment is I will call your name. You'll come to the podium. You'll have three minutes to state to address us on any topic that you would like. If it is a topic that will be an agenda item later in the day and you speak about it during public general comment in the morning, you are not allowed to come and speak about it for a second time. If I call your name and you would prefer to speak at the agenda item, just let me know, and we'll hold your form until that time. You'll have three minutes, and at the two-minute and 45-second point, you'll hear a tone here at the podium. That doesn't mean to stop. It just gives you sort of an alert that you'll have 15 seconds to finalize your thoughts so we don't just cut you off in mid-sentence, and that seems to work well. And so this morning we will begin with Casey, and I'm going with Niffin. Good morning and welcome, from the Florida Oceanographic Society. Thank you for the opportunity to make a public comment today. My name is Casey Darling-Niffin. I am the advocacy coordinator at Florida Oceanographic Society. I want to start by thanking this board and county staff for continuing to advocate for environmental restoration, water quality, infrastructure improvements, and home rule in the 2024 legislative priorities. I am looking forward to seeing those. I'm also looking forward to the upcoming presentation on home rule, and Florida Oceanographic Society will continue to support and appreciate Martin County protecting our local environment locally. I'm sure we are all breathing a sigh of relief today as Hurricane Lee makes its north trek and does not impact our coast. It is a good reminder to all of us that as climate change continues to impact our coastal ecosystems, that it's imperative that it's imperative that we work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Increased frequency and severity of hurricanes will only move us further from our water quality goals in the county and in the state, and as well as our restoration goals. Additionally, excess carbon in our atmosphere is already contributing to ocean acidification and destructive ocean heat waves, as we've seen this summer. I wanted to just share my appreciation for the presentations today regarding energy efficiency and all that the county is doing in that regard. And I also want to make this board aware of an opportunity to expand distributed solar through an initiative by applying for a grant through the EPA called Solar for All. This program would provide funding to increase community and residential solar, which would help residents and our coastal ecosystems alike. I'm happy to send more information about that program if anybody would like to see more. We also appreciate your commitment to septic and sewer conversions within the county, and we hope that everyone, all residents, have every opportunity to connect so that they can all do their part to protect our waterways. Finally, estuaries week is coming up next week, so I hope each of you get to take a moment out of your day to enjoy our beautiful estuaries, and I hope that you will potentially come out and help us in our cleanup efforts during the international coastal cleanup this weekend. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it, and have a great day. Thank you so much. Our next request to speak form is Mr. Tom Pine. Mr. Pine, good morning and welcome. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. Today I'm asking everyone watching this meeting to take a couple of minutes and look up the definition of the consent agenda. It clearly states all items in the consent agenda are routine. In today's consent agenda, this commission will approve, without public discussion or explanation, adoption employee classification and pay grade ranging from $14.35 an hour for a bridge tender to $110,809 per hour for assistant county administrator. Our local government has lost their moral compass, and because of that we are degrading into a banana republic where our county commissioners change the rules as they see fit. I went to the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council meeting at the Blake Lowry Barrier, where our comp plan is going through a review as required by law every seven years. The general consensus was don't change the comp plan. Get rid of the people that can't alter in the comp plan to suit the developers. Pro-growth crowds like to point out that the county commissioners can't just vote no on projects that come before them because the county would just get sued. I believe most everyone understands that. But as a slow-growth advocate, my complaint is always the same. Stop altering the comp plan for every project that comes before the board. From my perspective, some of the worst violations of the comp plan over the past few years are the Michael Jordan golf course and the housing project that was built on Pratt-Whitney Road, where, of course, the project started by clear-cutting the entire project and then the initial approval of a public shopping center right across the street. I was disappointed by the county staff that were in attendance, the two senior staff in particular, because they're the ones that always work with the developers to change whatever they want. Changed. Talk about the fox watching the hen house. I see more sewers being run in the Rio area on Dixie Highway, although I haven't heard a word about it at commission meetings or anywhere else for that matter. Sir, I only can assume any meetings regarding sewers in Martin County are secret because it's much easier to control the message. The only sewers that have been proved publicly cost $12,000 per lot. How much are the sewers in Rio area on Dixie Highway? What's the price tag per lot there? Or is that a secret, too? Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Our next request to speak form. Most people are used to reading him, but today they'll get to hear him. Mr. Gilsmart. Mr. Smart, welcome. Vaguely. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Gilsmart, and I'm here in my role as a policy director for Friends of the Everglades. We're headquartered right down the road here in Sewell's Point, founded in 1969 by Marjory Stoneman Douglas. I wanted to touch on the fact you're going to be discussing later on today, your legislative priorities, and we wanted to get a couple issues on your radar screen to the extent they may not be. It has to do specifically with wetlands protections and fertilizer ordinances. The first issue, wetlands protections. Martin County is known throughout the state for its sensible and forward-looking policies to protect wetlands, but as you may have seen, everything seems to be kind of going in the opposite direction. The U.S. Supreme Court a few weeks ago issued what's being called the Sackett case. It's a landmark case that pulls back on wetlands protections, essentially saying that wetlands that do not have a continuous surface connection to other wetlands, to navigable waters of the United States, will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act. Unfortunately, this leaves a lot of wetlands unprotected at the federal level, and others seem to be using this as a springboard to weakening them sort of closer to home. The state of North Carolina recently, the legislature there, passed a measure saying that if the feds aren't protecting it, the state's not going to protect it. And then here in Florida, Manatee County drastically reduced the buffer zones they had been requiring around wetlands areas. We are pretty sure there's going to be some sort of legislative attempt this year to weaken wetlands protections, either at the state level or at the local level, which may involve preemption. Again, Martin County's wetlands protections are known for being very, very forward-looking. You're seen as a model around the state, really. We would ask that you defend that position, defend that ordinance, and don't give in to the whispers that we can take some of these protections away. It's not that big of a deal. It'll be a big deal. The ramifications could be huge. That's number one. Number two, we also wanted to talk about fertilizer ordinances. You may have seen, you may recall, that the legislature in the last session snuck through a measure authorizing IFAS to do a study as to whether strong fertilizer ordinances, you have one with summer blackout periods, are effective. That study is going to come back within the next couple months. It's only going to be a review of literature. It's not going to be a real thorough study, but we expect it's going to say that such ordinances are not effective, and we expect that's going to be a legislative springboard to some sort of preemption ordinance. In fact, we are hearing there will be a preemption bill on fertilizer ordinances this year. This goes to what you guys are going to be talking about shortly, the issue of home rule. We would ask that you defend the fertilizer ordinance you have, but even if that isn't as much of a motivating factor for you, the fact that the state seems poised to take this decision out of your hands is something that ought to be on your radar screen, so we certainly hope you're paying attention to that. Thank you very much. Mr. Smart, thank you for bringing that forward for us. Our next request to speak for him is Mr. Tom Quint. Okay, thank you. Our next request to speak for him is Mr. Brett Waddell. Mr. Waddell, it's good to see you. Well, I can see you, so good for you. Good morning. Good morning. Commissioners, how are you? I'm here about agenda item 23-1147. It's a move by your solid waste department to dissolve franchises and to add a fee to landfill loads in containers. I'm representing Freedom Waste even though it's no longer my company, but the problem is St. Lucie County trash. The majority of building in St. Lucie County is now happening within three miles, maybe four miles, of your landfill. It costs well over $2 a mile to drive a truck. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to bring St. Lucie County trash to Martin County than it is to take St. Lucie County trash that other 13 miles to St. Lucie County. All right, so staff looked at the problem and decided, well, instead of solving the problem, let's just make it more expensive. Well, that doesn't work. The problem needs to be solved. I'm sure that none of you drive 40 miles an hour down Sewell's Point Road because Sewell's Point's made it very plain that at 36 miles an hour you're going to get a ticket. All right, they made a policy and they stuck to it. Martin County needs to make that policy that what comes into the Martin County, and I'm going to say landfill, but it's not a landfill. It's a transfer station. And as the gentleman said earlier, you have two foxes in charge of that hen house. You've got waste management that gets paid to haul off all excess trash, and you have Coastal hauling company that gets paid to recycle all that trash. Now, you know, if you're a businessman, would you prefer to take, like Coastal does, 66% of 100 tons or 66% of 50 tons, right? They love more trash. They don't have a problem with more trash. The more trash, the better. As a matter of fact, I noticed in your budget hearing you're going to try to approve $2.2 million to give them a nicer place to recycle the trash. Now, are they going to be recycling St. Lucie County trash or Martin County trash? I'm asking the commission to please table this. I don't have the perfect solution. I'm asking you to table it, and let's rediscuss this thing and see if we can't come up with a more equitable solution other than just raising the price. God bless you all. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Our next request to speak for Ms. Carrie Burgess. Wait to the item? Thank you. Michelle, would you like to wait to the item as well? Okay. With that, we are at the end of the forms that I have. If anybody else would like to address us during general public comment, now is the time. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board. And Commissioner Hurd, we will start with you this morning. Good morning. Just one thing, Commissioners, I expect that you've been visited by members of the organization called Martin County Forever. They are seeking input from Martin County residents about the feasibility of having a referendum in order to purchase conservation lands on the 2024 general election ballot. And I'm very interested in continuing to sound out residents and find out if they're supportive of a referendum to purchase conservation lands. And I would just ask that we allow our legal department to confer with them to create possible referenda language and also ordinance language. Are you looking for head shakes? Yep. Thanks. That's it. That's it. Commissioner Hurd, that's all? Yes. Commissioner Jenkins. I'm good. Thank you. Okay. Welcome back. Commissioner Hetherington. We have a brief update sometime today on Sandsprit Park. Looks like one of the boat ramps is nearing completion. Mr. Donaldson. Yes. I know we had planned to have a presentation, I think, next meeting on the updates. But I can certainly give you one verbally at the end of the – I didn't realize it was on next week's – Next – the following agenda, yes. Not next week, but – 26th. The 26th, yeah. Do you have anything brief to share? Well, I can – yeah. Well, as we've – so the boat ramp, we're nearly complete with the main boat ramp. The boat ramp to the west has been delayed because there is a FP&L power line that serves Rocky Point that is apparently under a portion of the boat ramp that has halted construction at that location. I know FP&L was going to meet with them and then the hurricane disrupted that inspection, but they're still working to resolve whether it needs to be relocated or whether it's deep enough that they can continue on with the structure as is. And I think by the next meeting, we'll have an update on what's actually going to happen. Thank you. That's all I have. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You usually do the announcements of individuals in our community or in our state that passed away. So I'm assuming you're going to do Jimmy Buffett this morning for us? I leave that to you. I just – it's interesting the effect that individuals have on our state, on our community. And the passing of Jimmy Buffett has certainly been a big deal, I think, for a lot of people. So it was a sad day losing him last weekend and always enjoy his music and all the things he did for the state of Florida. So really that's all I have this morning. And when you're ready to do our 930, I will. Thank you very much. I was surprised when we heard that Jimmy Buffett had died. I guess what we could take from that for everyone is he died of skin cancer. Now it was a rare version of skin cancer. But when most people think, I don't need sunscreen, I'm okay. One of my closest friends growing up, father had a small mark on his chest in New York, not in Florida, not in the Sunshine State. Had a small mark. Went to a doctor a couple times, said, nah, it's nothing. You don't have to worry about it. Moved to Florida where doctors are probably a little more tuned in on looking at those marks on your body and realized that it was actually a pretty aggressive skin cancer. And by the time he had seen the doctor in Florida, he waited a couple of years and died from that skin cancer. So it's one of those cancers that most people think, ah, it's not really a thing. Jimmy Buffett would be, he was a young man, not, you know, not to the point where. So whether it's you personally, my kids are always saying to me and we, you know, put sunscreen on, put sunscreen on. So if anything, I would say that that would be the, Jimmy Buffett would want us to know, or his family at least would want us to know that, you know, if you're taking anything beyond the scope of his music, if you're taking anything from his untimely passing, it would be to take skin cancer and the battle with the sun a lot more seriously than some of us do. Mr. Donaldson. Nothing right now. Thank you. Ms. Woods. Thank you. We'll jump right into it then. Our first agenda item, 934. We have a preset, a special guest. Those of us as commissioners are very well aware of her. One of our commissioners has a lot of professional experience and a professional relationship with her. So I would let Commissioner Smith do our introduction. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So over the past 20-plus years or so, I've had the privilege of working with Ginger Delegal in a couple different capacities at the Florida Association of Counties. I have had the opportunity to work with four of our executive directors over those 20-plus years. They all had their own unique, interesting characteristics and talent, but I will share with you this, and I loved working with all of them. Ginger is by far one of the smartest people I know. She is also organizationally, structure-wise, incredibly insightful and really sort of forward-thinking in terms of organization, where we are today as an organization, where we're going in the future. And it's really a pleasure to get to be part of FAC and to get to work for Ginger in her capacity as executive director of our association. She has built a remarkable team of folks that work on our behalf as counties of all 67 of us. She works tirelessly. She is here, and she is all over the great state of Florida every week. And if you've traveled over the course of this state, it is a big state to cover. I had the opportunity when I was president of the association to travel with Ginger. Our executive director at the time was going through some illness. And Craig and Mosteller, who's our communications director, and other talents traveled across the state to all of our different news media outlets. It's a big state. It's a lot of work to do that, but it was a lot of fun doing it. And we are so fortunate, I think, as a county but also as a state to have Ginger as our executive director leading the association of counties. And so, with that, Mr. Chair, I would turn it over to Ginger. Mr. Dalek, I'll welcome. Thanks for visiting us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. It is my pleasure to be here today. A little bit, by the way, of background. I think it's important for folks to know who they are listening to and who they're getting ready to engage in a conversation with. I am a transplant, generally from the state of Georgia. I have been in Florida, however, now for upwards of 30 years, all of that time in the bubble that is Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida, in terms of homestead. I'm a lawyer by trade, came out of law school, and was hired by a boutique law firm here in the state of Florida. I think you've probably heard of them, Neighbors Giblin and Nickerson. I was with them for 10 years and wanted to broaden a little bit outside of just the public finance realm in terms of local government in Florida. And the opportunity to apply for the position of general counsel at the Florida Association of Counties was available. I applied, got the job, and here I am 20 years later. This was the three- to five-year career plan. 20 years later now as executive director. So that's a little bit about my background. We are going to be talking about home rule and preemption. So it will be fairly obvious to you, I believe, but I do want to let you know I am a card-carrying member of the club of home rule, just to be clear and put that out there. Do I think we always get it right at the local government level? Of course not. Do I think that this state and the diversity that we have enjoyed in the last 50 to 60 years in terms of our growth, our population, where our citizens are coming from, not just all around the world, but even within this country, that diversity demands dialogue. And that dialogue begins at the local government level and with our partners at the state and federal government as well. So quick personal aside, Commissioner Smith, thank you for that introduction. Incredibly kind. You're going to make me cry already this week. Yes, I do that. My first concert was Jimmy Buffett at age 15, front row seats with a cousin who gave them to me. And believe it or not, it was actually in Georgia. So Jimmy Buffett had come to Augusta, Georgia, which is where I grew up. If you play golf, there's a little golf tournament there. And front row seats with my cousin who decided that the little kid was going to get to go with him that evening. So Jimmy Buffett when I was 15. There you go. It's pretty cool that your parents let you go at 15. Yeah, it's very cool. And that, like, the little kid got to go with the big-time cousin anyway. Can I interrupt for one other second, Ginger? One other thing you touched on with your background introduction, and it's an important piece of your background that I didn't know until probably six meetings ago or so. We are part of Martin County's investments in our Florida Local Government Investment Trust organization. And an interesting little nuance to Ginger's background, when she worked for Neighbors Giblin, she worked for Bob Neighbors and helped put together the organizational structure of what has become, many years later, a very strong, very vibrant investment strategy policy for local government in the state of Florida. And it's a cool little thing, but it's a challenging structure sometimes because we have lots of masters to serve in terms of how we invest and which direction we go. But it's great to know that the underpinnings of that creation of that organization are with Ginger. And, again, it's just one of those added little benefits that we have with her as our executive director. There you go. Thank you. So what I'd like to talk with you all about this morning, a couple of things. I want to talk generally about preemptions and home rule just as global concepts to begin with. We'll then talk about Florida specifically and home rule and where it came from in the state of Florida, why it grew up in the 1960s in this state, how it ended up in our Constitution, and how it plays out today. I want to talk about the rise of preemption. If you take nothing else away from this conversation this morning, it is the following. That preemption and what is happening with home rule is not a Florida-specific issue. This is going on all around the country. And the scholarship and the academic work is only starting to catch up with what we thought in our office and also with our partners at the Florida League of Cities was just a Florida phenomenon. It is not. It is going on nationally. And I'm going to point to some of that national scholarship for you this morning. And as a follow-up, if anybody wants some of the citations and that kind of thing, I'm happy to give them to you by way of email. But I don't have them in the PowerPoint. And then I'm going to weave in some Florida examples, obviously, of preemptions going back to the beginning of time, if you will, but then also most recently in the last couple of years with preemptions that have come through the legislative process. So at its core, what is preemption? Well, this is my definition, so we're clear. But in terms of just sort of lay language, I think preemption is really just a conflict resolution mechanism in the governmental space. We butt heads all the time in this federalist system over who has what authority over certain functions and duties. We see this in Florida all the time in emergency management with hurricanes. The feds show up. The state shows up. We think that statutorily the counties are really at the top of that chain of command whenever declarations of emergency come out. But who is really in charge of what sometimes, particularly after the storm and in the immediate aftermath, can sort of they get interwoven together and we start stepping on each other's toes. And preemption is how you solve those conflicts between the feds and the state and the locals, all declaring, I have authority over this piece of this emergency. We saw this play out most clearly years ago in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill because it was a new disaster for Florida. We know storms. We can do those. We do those really well, and we have figured out where these conflicts come together, who is in charge of what, generally speaking. But when it came to the oil spill, everyone was staring at each other, not knowing what to do because, in fact, there were all of these overlapping authorities. And preemption comes in to solve those conflicts of when there is governmental power that is butting up against each other. So what is home rule, though? So home rule is – these are some of the definitions that you will find in treatises and scholarly articles. It is a state constitutional approach to local government authority within this federalist system where we have all of these shared powers. It was a movement throughout the 20th century that was in contrast to what at the time was called Dillon's rule, which was, in fact, just a political philosophy that played out in the court system, that everything is top-down directed, state-directed down to the locals. Cities, counties, school boards couldn't do anything unless they were directed specifically by the state legislature to do something. That was Dillon's rule. The transfer of certain state powers to local entities in matters of local concern is also one way that home rule has been described. It is not complete autonomy. However, there are boundaries. There are legal boundaries by the federal constitution, by the state constitution, as well as other bookends that come into play. Home rule generally offers local communities more control over internal affairs, alleviating the need for state legislation on local matters. Put a pin in that one because I'm going to come back to it in terms of the 1968 and what happened in Florida. And generally speaking, the ideas of local community and a local community being able to determine its own forward path, these are ideas that are consistent with traditional American ideals of self-governance and independence. I like to point this out. The red line on this graph is public confidence in local government. The blue is public confidence in state government. The black is public confidence in the federal government. The Gallup poll has been doing this for many decades. This graph just shows you 2008 to the end of 2022. You all are obviously on the red line. The public still has the most confidence in your local decision making over the state and over the federal government in terms of their own lives and their own affairs. Again, do we always get it perfect? No. Do we always get it right? No. But there's a lot of confidence in the decisions that you all are making. So 1968 is the year that Home Rule became a part of our Constitution here in the state of Florida. The scholars in Florida have identified three motivating factors for why this became a part of our Constitution. The high growth of the state, it has clearly not stopped since the 1950s, 1960s. We're now the third largest state in this country and the fastest growing state in the country. Folks are still wanting to come here every single day. I don't think that's going to stop. The diversity of that new population, where our citizens were coming from in the 50s and 60s were dramatically different than those that had already been here for generation after generation. Again, since the 1960s, this has continued and our diversity in this state has only continued to increase as well. So that was a second motivating factor for the movement behind Home Rule in Florida. And then not to be forgotten, when I said put a pin in it, is legislative efficiency. And the state legislature got on board with this movement in the 1960s to help itself. And I don't mean that in a negative, selfish way. But if you look at this slide, in 1965, so only a couple of years before the amendment was adopted by the citizens of Florida, there were over 1,100 local bills in the legislature that passed. Those are pieces of legislation that have to make their way through the entire legislative process that only impact one county, one city, one jurisdiction. So almost 1,200 local bills. The same year, there were only 586 general bills, which are the ones that we find in the Florida statutes, which is by and large what the legislature does now. The impact of the 1968 constitutional amendment granting Home Rule to cities and counties in the state of Florida was immediate. In 1972, so remember, we voted in November of 68, so really we're talking 1969. At the time, the legislature was only meeting every other year. So in 1972, there were only 292 local bills that passed. Legislative efficiency was a tremendous part of the Home Rule movement in Florida. Everything you did and changed had to go through the entirety of the legislative process. And think about that today. If we had not made that change at the time, where we would be in terms of moving this state forward and not grinding to a halt whenever it comes to government. Home Rule in Florida was granted to counties, both charter and non-charter counties, and to municipalities, but not to school boards or other special districts. School districts and other special districts created by law are still what we would call Dillon's Rule local governmental entities. Everything that they do needs some form of authority from the state, but not so much with counties or municipalities. So somewhere around 2014, 2016, in the office, just in Tallahassee, as staff, we started talking about preemptions. So getting back to this topic, and we were seeing bills being filed that were true head-scratchers to us. And what do I mean by that? I mean that they were specifically preempting your authority to legislate in specific subject matter areas at the local level on matters that we were not aware were actual problems in the state. So ideas are in search of problems, solutions in search of problems, sort of the phrasing that we started to use. We thought it was just a blip on the radar screen. Turns out it's not. And this is where I get back to the national movement. And here's where the scholars around 2018, 2019, 2020, they started to identify preemptions all around the country during COVID. I don't know whether they were bored because they were all at home or whatever, but the number of articles coming out of, like, Columbia and Harvard and Texas A&M just went through the roof on preemptions during COVID. They have so eloquently and technically defined preemptions in this country as old preemptions and new ones. This is not my language. I generally speak pretty plainly, but this is actually theirs. And we'll talk about these new preemptions in just a second. And the other thing that they've identified is what really came home to us is that it isn't just Florida-specific. This is going on all around the country. And we'll talk about where they think that is coming from. So old preemptions, what were they? Around 2010 is when the scholars are saying on a national level that we shifted from the world of old to new in preemptions. So the old preemptions generally played out in the court system. There are whole bodies of case law in the state of Florida, for example, that are in this space of trying to determine when a county or a municipality did something in the past. Did it conflict with general law? Was it preempted to the state? All of those arguments and debate generally played out in the courts. And we ended up with entire bodies of law that actually helped shape what we knew were our bookends and our boundaries on our local government authority. Most often there were two questions that were raised in these lawsuits, whether the local laws or ordinances conflicted with or frustrated the purpose of the state law, or whether the state law so occupied the field that there was no room for local ordinances to operate. Let me give you an example. So back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, there was a debate among the investor-owned electric utilities of whether non-charter counties could enter into an electric utility franchise and, most importantly, impose a franchise fee on those electric utilities. And the investor-owned electrics said, you know what, you're a non-charter county. We don't see anything in the statutory scheme that gives you authority to enter into these franchise agreements with us and certainly not to impose this franchise fee. So that played out in the courts. And the question was whether the regulatory scheme under the Public Service Commission with investor-owned electric utilities so occupied the field that there was no place for non-charter counties to operate. And the answer was no. And the answer was also very clearly the court coming forward and saying non-charter counties have home rule authority, not exactly like charter counties, but pretty darn close to it. And so that's where these debates played out. You wouldn't find in bills the words express preemption. You find those words now. And that started around 2014-ish in the state of Florida. And so that's also where in Florida things really started to change, where you're finding these declarations from the state. We are wholly occupying this field now. You are expressly preempted from operating in this field unless we tell you that you can do it. So that was new. Again, 2010, it starts to expand. The scholars tell us in Florida, just a couple of statistics for you. 2013, there were 12 bills that were preemptive in nature that were filed. Two of those passed. 2016, 54 bills. 21 passed. 2019, 63 bills. 14 passed. And while there are many who would say 2023 may have been one of the worst years, depending on your perspective, for preemptions, there were actually only 38 bills that were filed and 18 of which passed. However, if you look back to the 2000s, there are a couple. It's like weight loss. You go up and you go down. If you weigh yourself every day but you're looking for the trend line over time, it's the same thing. The trend line is continuing to go up. So, yes, there was a blip downward in terms of the numbers last year. But overall, in the last 20 years, the number of preemption bills in Florida is on an upward trajectory. What is new also about the new preemptions? It isn't just the words expressly preempted. What the scholars are saying, and this, again, is their words, is that these new preemptions are an aggressive form of intentional, extensive, proactive preemption of local lawmaking authority. So, let's go back to last year. There was a bill that was filed that did not pass that would have expressly preempted your ability to enact ordinances or adopt any resolutions, policies, procedures related basically to all things water. So, water pollution, water quality, water quantity, all of that was preempted to the state, period, and no other regulatory scheme put in place. So, your power was stripped from being able to regulate storm water, any flood control, any of those other things, water quality, fertilizer, all stripped, but nothing else put into place. Intentional, aggressive, sweeping, and deregulatory in nature. I've put the new preemptions into sort of two categories. One, substantive, meaning the subject matter area. So, think gun control. Think the water bill I've just explained. Think about vacation rentals. Think about taxes. Home-based businesses. Pieces of the Live Local Act from last year had subject matter preemptions in them over your ability to do certain things at the local level. And then the second category is what I call structural, and these are preemptions that impact our form of government at the local level. So, think term limits for county commissioners. That bill has now been refiled. It is for eight years. This time, it is for a joint resolution. Should it stay that way, which it might not, we're hearing, then it would go on the ballot. However, the school boards last year were moved from a 12-year term limit that was enacted in 2022, taken down to eight years in 2023, and now they also have a requirement for school board elections to be partisan in nature statewide. These are structural issues on our form of government at the local level. So, subject matter preemptions and then how government actually functions as well are where we're seeing them in Florida. The scholars have also said that these new preemptions are deregulatory and sweeping, just like the water preemption bill I pointed out from last year, where the legislation preempts local authority from regulating in a particular field without any replacement being put into the state law. For example, back in 2017, there was a bill filed that did not pass that expressly preempted to the state all local authority over the regulation of matters relating to commerce, trade, or labor. Well, you can ask Sarah. There's very little that you do that does not impact commerce. Now, we think business and just private enterprise, but that isn't how the United States Supreme Court has defined that term. It is almost everything. And so, it was a little bit of a Death Star bill, if you will, really seeking to preempt everything that you do. And there was no regulatory scheme that was put in place behind it. So, preempting your ability, but then nothing else put into place in terms of how these matters would play out. I will tell you that there was a bill that actually passed in the state of Texas, was just signed into law, went into effect at the beginning of September, that basically does this very same thing. There are municipalities in Texas that are challenging it in the court system. They have won at the trial court level under their state constitution, but the state has already indicated that it will appeal. So, back to this isn't just Florida-specific stuff. This actually passed in Texas this year and is currently being challenged in the courts. Second characteristic of the new preemptions, partisan and ideological. Back to my phrase of solutions in search of problems. And what the scholars have identified is that many of these bills, yes, are partisan, but it is highly likely that there are going to be more of them in states where there is a, they call it the trifecta of power, where both chambers of a legislature and the governor's office is of the same party. It doesn't matter whether it's an R or a D trifecta. So, this is just a raw partisan power issue in those states that have a trifecta that are D's are having preemptions of these new varieties as well. So, it isn't just an R versus D, but highly partisan and power related. They're punitive. You all may remember a couple of years ago the gun control preemption bill that was passed that had provisions in the bill on certain votes that if you took certain votes as an individual county commissioner in favor of an ordinance that violated the preemption, then you could be removed from office and personal fines levied against you for your individual vote. That's punitive. That also is going on all around the country as well. And the last characteristic that really has started to come out since about 20, 21, 22 in the scholarship, and again, we thought it was just us, is that these preemptions are hasty. They've identified, scholars have identified many of these preemptions being passed in state legislative bodies in the last 48 hours of legislative sessions. What does that tell me? That tells me that these are not open for deliberation and collaboration in terms of ideas. So here's one scholar out of Iowa who says, no mistaking that the home rule movement, broadly speaking, made substantial progress in many states during the 20th century. Like many reform movements, the push for home rule attained just enough success to lose its momentum. By the late decades of the 20th century, home rule seemed to many to be a victory already won rather than an ongoing fight. So I've had some conversations with some of these authors of these articles, and I will make you wait till the end for me to tell you when I ask them, how do we meet this moment in history of what their answer is? So just pause there. But I have talked to several of them. Why else is this happening? Well, the scholars are telling us that diversity at the local level is making it more difficult for local leaders to speak with a united voice in state capitals. Our communities are changing, and especially in this state, every single day. And certainly from season to season, there are components and aspects of our community that are dramatically different than they may have even been this time last year. And that may be going on in Martin, but it might not be going on in Okaloosa or Okeechobee. And so to be able to speak with one voice then in terms of the message, it gets a little muddy and is not quite as clear. Finances. So this is another one that we were experiencing personally and that the scholars have identified. We live in a rich country. Yes, we have some hunger problems and we have homelessness issues in our communities, no question about it. However, we have a lot of money in this country. And we, at the local level, advocate at the state level and the federal level, rightfully so, for projects for our communities, for grants for programs and services that we want to roll out to our citizens or that our citizens are demanding, or we want to harden our communities in Florida for storm resiliency purposes, all legitimate public purposes, all even if you want to go there moral and ethical, but we are asking for more and more money and we are getting more and more appropriations around the country as local governments. And why do I say that we were experiencing this? Our director of public policy, Davin Suggs, who many of you know, talks all the time that in the waning days of legislative sessions in the last couple of years, he will be in a legislator's office, you know, pounding them, lobbying on a preemption bill, will turn around and there are contract lobbyists that are there to ask for local appropriations. And the legislator will literally turn to Davin and say, so what do you want me to do? You want me to help my community or do you want me to help you on this philosophical issue? So we are asking for a lot of money. Think about this for a second. When we give grants as governmental entities, it is not such a far stretch to think that perhaps if we're giving out money, and particularly if it is taxpayer dollars, that those grants might come with some strings attached. And so appropriations. So if the federal government, if the state government is giving us billions of dollars for resiliency projects, for example, they might want to have something to say about how we spend it. That's what this is about in terms of the connection of seeking and getting more and more appropriations from the state and the feds, and then these policy preemptions coming along with them. State governments over time have also increased their capacity for being able to provide programs and services and to be able to regulate certain activities that at one time may have been very localized in nature. The scholars have also said that our globalization of our economy weakens the ties of many businesses and some workers to their local communities. So think about when you hear uniformity arguments coming from certain industry sectors that it is too difficult for them to do business in Florida if they have to adhere to 67 different processes and then add 400 and something municipalities on top of that, that Florida is just not a competitive place for us. I don't think history is bearing that out to necessarily be true, but it is an argument that is heard in the state capitol a lot. Next, the scholars have identified that the states now are in competition with each other. You all may remember Governor Scott when he threw down to Governor Perry in Texas and said, I am coming for your businesses and I want them here in Florida. We are competing with each other as states. This also gets back to the uniformity arguments of having a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme for new industry sectors to be able to more seamlessly enter your state and do business. So the challenge, the question is whether we can view this conflict and this issue any differently. I don't think, even though the media in particular tries to make these issues in some of these states sort of a red state, blue city issue, you know, well, we're the state and we've got these super liberal, you know, local laboratory, large municipalities that are trying to do all these new things and we don't think that's right for our state. I think that's a red herring. I think there's much more going on here, particularly since the data and the research is showing that it doesn't matter in those states whether it's a D or an R that has this trifecta of power. So I think that's the wrong issue. The media likes to portray it that way. I think it's an easy storyline. I don't think it tells the real story. Deliberation. If we could find a way to bring deliberation back to the process of state legislative work in terms of working with us at the local level, I think this would go a long way. We have specific ideas that we have been pitching to the legislature that do not in any way infringe upon their authority to enact preemptions, but really cook deliberation into the legislative process. Again, I mean, this is the third time I've said it. We don't always get it perfectly right at the local level. There is room for dialogue and discussion with these issues. Some of them are, in fact, very real issues, and we do, in fact, want as a state to get ahead of certain things. But if it isn't yet a problem in our state, having a statewide preemption with a one-size-fits-all bill that is passed in the last 48 hours of the third largest state in the country is probably not the best way to do it. And so discussion, deliberation, is there a real problem that we're trying to solve? Let me give you a quick example of real problems that make their way to Tallahassee and how talking to each other and being deliberative can actually find solutions. There was a bill that was filed a couple of years ago that would have preempted your authority over all regulatory matters related to cemeteries. Well, I'm a little skeptical. So I see this bill, and I'm like, there has to be a story. Please go find me, the local government in the state of Florida, that has upset some family. Well, as it turns out, that wasn't the situation at all. What happened was Miami-Dade County, and I'm pointing them out specifically not to put them in the hot seat, but they came through, obviously, Hurricane Andrew in 1993, local building codes, and the state building code after that hardened this entire state. There are, in fact, in Miami-Dade some special building code requirements. One of them at the time, a couple of years ago, was about exterior doors, and those doors needed to be manufactured in such a way that met the local building code in Miami-Dade County. Well, the staff in Miami-Dade had a list of those manufacturers. This door manufacturer was not on the list. What's the connection to cemeteries? The door manufacturer makes bronze doors for mausoleums. I don't think it's going anywhere in a hurricane or not very far. So the point of this is it was a real problem. They were having difficulty getting to the right people in Miami-Dade County to have a deliberate discussion at the local level about why this manufacturer was not on the list. However, the solution was a statewide preemption for all cities and counties' regulatory matters over cemeteries. We found out the story. We intervened. Got this lobbyist that was representing the door manufacturer to the right staff person in Miami-Dade. The problem was solved. The bill was withdrawn. That's a real problem that we were able to solve. You can address that. Addressing ideas is a little more difficult with a one-size-fits-all problem. So deliberation. Collaboration. There are a lot of smart people at the state and the local levels. And I don't mean this in a touchy-feely, if we could just all get in the same room together and talk. I don't mean it that way. But I do mean that I believe that there are some procedures that the legislature could put into place on how bills move their way through the system that would, again, just like deliberation, but bake this collaboration into the system as well. So a cooling-off period for express preemptions, for example. We have it for the budget. Let's have it for express preemptions also in the state legislative process. Let's make express preemption bills go through those substantive committees in the House and the Senate where that is their expertise. We're not talking supermajority vote requirements. That'd be great. We're talking sort of low-hanging fruit of things that would allow notice, not only to you all as local lawmakers, but to your communities, because it matters to the people who live here these laws that get passed. And then inclusion, speaking of citizens, is that perhaps the citizens should, in fact, in Florida have something to say about how they are governed and who they are governed by. And this, in my mind, is getting to these form-of-government preemptions that we are finding. Last year's term limit bill for county commissioners, regardless of what you think about that issue, came forward as just a standalone substantive bill without a constitutional amendment floating with it. It is my opinion that the people of this state should have something to say about that issue. And so that's what I'm talking about there. So back to when I said I've called these scholars and those who would call me back because they just think I'm this crazy lady from Florida. The ones that would call me back, my question was always, okay, I've read your work. This is obviously going on around the country. What's the next move? How do we meet this moment in our country? They've all told me I don't know, so it's not super helpful. Here is the final quote back to our professor from Iowa. He's writing in 2021 and he says, as of this moment, 2021, the seeds of the next shift in the political tension between state and local government power are not yet visible. And Dillon's rule has regained much of its stature as the prevailing doctrine of state and local relations. You know, what's amazing, first off, thank you so much. What's amazing is many of us up here at least have had the opportunity to hear you present in the past, either just quickly or more formally. You took a very difficult, complex topic for us and our staff, but for the members of the public that are here and watching, and really boiled it down in such a way that I think it really defined it. And I think everyone is smarter for having heard you make that presentation. And while you were speaking, I'm thinking, we have to make this a YouTube video. We have to put this on our website. We need to have to have the opportunity for more people to hear this. So I hope you would give us permission to share that information because I see behind you, you know, obviously the people that are in this room are here either for a specific reason or if they're members of our public, they're interested. And I see a lot of head shaking behind you. So good for you and thank you so much. You're a very smart person that is able to – I know plenty of smart people, but they can't communicate in such a way that everyone else can understand what they're saying, and you just gave a master class on it. So thank you so much. And I'm shocked, but Commissioner Smith would like to address this topic. Never heard such a thing either, Mr. Chairman. Shocking, isn't it? Shocking. So one of the things that I harp on, Ginger, all the time about, and I think it goes to the core of why we are an organization, is how do we bring value to our members? How do we as an organization make sure that we are doing work for our 67 counties that is meaningful and has value? And I hope, just listening to Ginger's 45-plus minutes worth of stuff, it is the tip of the iceberg of the talent and the work that the Association of Counties does on a daily basis that very rarely would anybody generally get to see. But this goes to exactly why we exist, why we pay dues to FAC. We do have a brilliant staff. We have brilliant leadership. And I think most importantly, I said this earlier about Ginger, the forward thinking about all of this. It's not just a how do we make a decision today and we move on. It's really trying to understand what are the impacts, what is associated with what's going on. Ginger also plays, at the National Association of Counties level, a super important role. She meets with executive directors from around the country, and we're having this dialogue nationally as well because you have to. To understand what's happening in Florida, you have to understand what's happening in the rest of the country. And so, again, I appreciate all of the effort that Ginger does personally for the Association, but I hope you all at least can take a slice away of some of the work and the effort that they're doing on our behalf. So, Ginger, again, thank you very much. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, my response is abandon hope, all ye who enter. So, Ginger, what's the feeling of what's the justification in Tallahassee for among legislators to preempt? So, it depends, Mr. Chairman, if I could, on the preemption itself. So, what we're finding is are some of the arguments that identify that we have new industry groups that are wanting to do business in Florida, and they are being successful in arguing that one rule or one regulatory scheme makes the most sense for that business to be successful. The other thing that we are hearing a lot of is stories from other parts of the country that legislators want to get ahead of. And so, they want to preempt in a positive way so that we're not actually having to solve a problem, but we're preventing a problem. Now, from my perspective, I think some of those problems that have been identified as ones that they want to prevent are ones that I would find very difficult in this state to actually ever become real problems. And so, that's a second one. A third one is this power issue. We have very smart people and good people in the legislature, and we don't have a balance right now in the state of Florida of ideas. And so, it's just sort of the laws of physics. And somebody tells you an idea that seems like a good idea whenever you hear it, and you even look at it on paper and think, well, this would be great. Let's do it this way. Then, you know, let's ban – let's prohibit local governments from ever being able to ban the retail sale of helium balloons. And you may snicker, but that's actually an issue that never came to fruition, and I have a whole story about that one as well, but trying to prevent that from ever being a problem. But now you have a power structure that is so one-sided in terms of partisan politics, and the state runs on partisan politics, that what seems like a good idea, just through the laws of physics, you don't run into any friction until you get to the finish, all the way through the tape. So, good idea, good idea, good idea, good idea. There is no balance. And so, for example, we – you know, there is an unfunded mandates provision in the Constitution that requires a supermajority vote in both the House and the Senate before an unfunded mandate that is passed along to you all at the local level becomes effective. So, there were years where us and the League of Cities and individual counties and individual cities were extraordinarily successful in the legislative process of locking down a particular coalition because they had enough votes that it prevented that supermajority from coming into play. That isn't the case anymore. It's just a numbers game. And so, there aren't even enough people if you can lock down a whole coalition or an entire caucus to get over – to get under those supermajority votes. And so, it's just the laws of physics. I mean, you know, I mean, I'm a mom of three daughters. I mean, I generally think I know what's best for them. Is that always right? No. But there's no friction whenever they were little between me and instituting, like, this is dinner, this is what you're eating. Well, now, you know, they are 25, 23, and 21, and it doesn't work that way. There's friction, and I run into conflict. And so, it is power that what seems like a good idea and we're going to prevent a problem, then it just runs all the way through the tape because there isn't any countervailing force that has power to stop it. And that's where this trifecta and why the scholars are identifying that, and not as a D or an R issue, but it's just power, and it's just physics, and there not being conflict and friction in the game of ideas. Let's consider SB 102. There are three projects in my district that have applied to use SB 102. So, one of the provisions of SB 102 is that there's a property tax exemption, which is either 75% or 100%, and it expires in 2059. So, when the legislators were deliberating the impacts of this preemption, tell me about the conversations that they had about how local governments were going to pay for the services that these units will require. I don't recall that being a part of the public discussion. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Would you say that the SB 102 or the Live Local is one of the most dramatic, damaging, egregious pieces of legislation to come out of Tallahassee? I would say it depends on your community. On ours, it is. Yeah. It depends on your community. Obviously, you can envision certain parts of the state where they don't feel that way. So, that is, it depends on its impacts in your community. We had a brief little press conference when it first came out, and just correct me and maybe educate the folks that are listening. That passed in the Senate on day one of the session, correct? Day one. And if I'm not mistaken, it passed unanimously. All the Republicans and all the Democrats voted for that. That never happens on something, you know, and I said that a one-size-fits-all approach is the wrong strategy. Because like you said, in Jacksonville or Tampa or New Orleans, Orlando or Miami, that might be terrific. And it meant nothing. It was not even a blip on their radar screen because it's just business as usual. For us, in Stewart, it is probably the most, I mean, Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Hurd have been up here for a long time. And I've been here for a while. Commissioner Jenkins has been here. And then now, I don't, I can't remember. And I've been following along for the 20 years that I'm living in Florida. This is the worst thing that's happened for us. So, the other word that I would use for some of these massive pieces of legislation is log rolling. And so, we generally think of log rolling in constitutional amendments or think snowballing that as it starts to roll, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And as the snowball or the log rolls down the hill, it picks up some good stuff along with the bad stuff. And this gets back to some of the proposals that we have talked to legislative leaders about in terms of the process for these bills. And that one of the ideas that we have, in fact, put forward is for preemptions to be standalone bills in order to prevent this sort of log rolling where you have good stuff that travels along with some detrimental stuff depending on your community. And those two things then come together in the same legislation. And so, when I talk about power, I'm not trying to skirt the issue. But let's just talk humans. So, legislators are sent to Tallahassee to represent their communities. I would not want to be one. And I've been on record. I could never do what y'all do, by the way. My calling in life is to support you and to help you. But I cannot be you. I can't imagine that they have a whole lot of fun right now. What do I mean by that? So, you take the Live Local Act, and depending on your community and the preemptions that were in there and the impacts that that would have on your community, to vote no, however, then means that all of the projects and programs and substantive bills, not just money, but even ideas that this community wants brought forward by your legislative leaders, find their way into desk drawers. And so, that's where the power really, when there is no conflict or no opportunity for the real conflict of ideas, where things get dicey. Because if I am that legislator, I, frankly, would not want to have to make the choice between knowing that all of my community priorities are not going to happen in order to vote my conscience on a massive log-rolled piece of legislation that has good and bad in it. That's the choice that, when there is no conflict in the world of ideas, that is presented to them. And that's not easy. I think that sums that situation up perfectly, because our local representatives at the state level and at the House level are good people. And I think they were frustrated by the fact that if they voted that way, all of the other things that we were looking for, I mean, and that was not even a secret. That wasn't a whisper. That was just the way it was. Because word came all the way back down here for the little bit of, you know, huffing and puffing that we did about our community, we were told, be quiet. So, I can imagine what it must be if you're up in Tallahassee. Commissioner Smith, then Commissioner Hetherington, and then we'll have to move on. We have the Special Olympics, and then we have, I'm going to bring forward for the folks that are here for public hearing number seven, the Chapter 9, we're going to do that. We have a preset for the Special Olympics, and then we're going to take Chapter 9. Commissioner Smith, would you like the last word? I'll be brief. Commissioner Hetherington, you go first. Commissioner Smith will get the last word. And just piggybacks, I think that you just described that dynamic of having to make that choice just perfectly, and I know it comes up, and I think that's where you're in your last light, it comes to inclusion. That's where, you know, it comes to residents, which is very difficult for residents to understand what's happening, particularly up in Tallahassee. And the cooling off period, to me, is such a very good tactical tool because it gives our citizens time to be included. So I think, you know, that's, I don't even see why legislators would not want that, you know, but that is probably one of the best strategies is the cooling off period and inclusion of our residents because it takes a while, you know, for local residents to get up to speed to what's happening up there. And also for them to know that they may weigh in on a statewide issue that doesn't necessarily impact their county, per se. They may want to talk to other legislators from other parts of the state to put their input in. So I thought your presentation was fabulous and very impactful. Thank you for being here. Commissioner Smith. So I'd say this much, Ed. You know, in terms of trying to pick out, was 102 the most egregious one way or the other towards us? I think they're all, I think what Ginger tried to frame for us, they all have an impact. And that's why we have 67 counties. That's why we have 67 different ideas because every community has a very different perspective of itself relative to everybody else in the state. And I was thinking of the example a few years ago when Ginger was talking about the want to have a one-size-fits-all when they preempted us on gas pump numbers. It might seem silly, but we had in our ordinance the ability to limit the amount of gas pumps that a franchise or a company could do. And to Ginger's example where business, there was a large business that wanted to come into Florida. This is, God, probably 15 years ago. Their opening comment to us, because I can remember sitting in those hearings 15 or so years ago, were that we want to build hundreds of these facilities. And why would we want to deal with 67 counties in 417 cities to get approvals? Because every single one of them has a different way of doing business. We need a one-size-fits-all ability to be able to go and do what we want, where we want, as quickly as possible. And ultimately, that's what ended up happening relative to that one single issue as far as that kind of business. But that's what's happening relative to all of these. So I would argue is, you know, as much as Senate Bill 102 is going to impact us, as much as it could, would, might, these other things that are happening are just as difficult for us to deal with. Because when you have a room full of people and they're wondering, why are the five people up there doing what they're doing? Some of it is, you know, and it's getting worse. I mean, if it continues on the trail, and we had some speakers this morning, got up and spoke about issues relative to water and so on, that's where things are heading because there's interference that business or whoever doesn't want to have relative to local government and the structure that we operate under. Anyway, again, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate it. Final point would be I'd like to thank and acknowledge Ms. Powers for having heard Ms. Delegal make this presentation and invite her to come to, for all of us to hear it. So, Ms. Powers, thank you very much. Safe travels back to Tallahassee. We're going to take a 10-minute closed captioning break that we must take, and then we will come back for the presentation for the Special Olympics of Florida and then Public Hearing No. 7, Chapter 9. Thank you very much for your patience, everyone. Back for our September 12, 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. We are back from our mid-morning closed captioning break. And we're going to take, and I apologize, we're running a little bit behind on presets, Departmental No. 3, a consideration and approval of a grant agreement for Special Olympics of Florida, Inc. It will be presented this morning by Mr. George Stokas. Mr. Stokas, I see you. You are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning. We're here today because this body had asked staff to bring back an item in relation to a grant request from the Special Olympics of Florida. The grant requested is $85,000, and that is going to be used to increase patrons utilizing services offered by Special Olympics. Currently, there are approximately 400 individuals with intellectual and development disabilities, also known as IDD, in Martin County. But the Special Olympics of Florida, through their calculations, estimate there could be as many as 4,800. Attached to this document is the grant agreement, the grant application, all the associated documentation for your review. It is the staff, the staff position is proposed to be office. The office will be in the city of Port St. Lucie. However, the Special Olympics of Florida has indicated to me that that position will be operating in Martin County and will be remotely working in Martin County before use of one-year agreement or request. They are proposing to increase the number of athletes by 20% per year and number of coaches to a number of 10, increasing the number of variety of competitions, health and wellness trainings, health screenings, and other opportunities as provided by Special Olympics of Florida. And with that, Mr. Chair, I'm also assisted by representatives of health and, or excuse me, human services, Michelle Miller, Parks and Rec, Mr. Abate, and I believe there are some folks from Special Olympics in the audience. And with that, I hope I was brief but brilliant. I'm more happy to answer any questions or comments. Thank you very much. We have a question or comment from Commissioner Hurd, but then I'd also like to give the members of the representatives from the Special Olympics an opportunity to speak as well. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, what performance measures are in place in order to assure compliance? How do we measure progress and success? And how do we guarantee that the $85,000 contribution is dedicated to Martin County residents? So it is my understanding, Commissioner, that each of this agencies will submit a quarterly report. Those reports are reviewed by our human services staff. It would be using for staff. And then the metrics for success are dedicated or stipulated here on the board item. With the, obviously, the increased number of athletes by 20 percent, we would need to establish a baseline. And then increasing the number of coaches by 10. As for how do you ascertain whether or not this is all 100 percent going to Martin County, it would have to be that individuals working in Martin County, that they're helping at the Martin County fields. They're also signing an agreement and a contract, and they're breaking down time and so on and so forth. And then you can also see here that they're going to be conducting marketing outreach, social media outreach, conducting town halls and meetings, and conducting bimonthly outreach at group homes and adult daycares. So that's how we would measure grant compliance. And what kind of experience do we have measuring these things? We have quite extensive experience measuring compliance with grants. I know Health and Human Services, I don't know the total number of grants that we have under Human Services. Ms. Michelle Miller may know that total number, but we require all of our grants and aides that deal. We divide grants and aides into two categories. Those that deal with humans go for with Ms. Michelle Miller. And those that are more contract-based or performance-based go through my office. It is our proposal that this will go through Ms. Miller's office. So, Ms. Miller, do you want to opine on how you're experiencing this? Yes, I'm Michelle Miller, Human Services. So, we request a quarterly report from all of the grantors, and then we review them to make sure that they have provided the services that they had set out to provide. It's been a procedure in our office probably for the last two years or so, and we do review them quarterly to make sure there's no discrepancies. And if there are? Then we bring it to administration's attention. And often, it hasn't happened, but if it were, then we would call in a meeting with them to discuss how they can make sure that they meet the deliverables of the grant. And it is a year-by-year increment, so if they weren't meeting them, then they wouldn't be eligible the next year. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Anyone from the Special Olympics? Sir, thank you. Appreciate your patience. No, thank you for reviewing this. It's been a process, and I appreciate all of you for your dedication and work on this. I should have introduced myself, huh? You guys have seen me a few times. But Adam Grahams, I am a regional director with the Special Olympics. I oversee Martin County all the way up through Polk County. And we have found that it's our most success comes when we can work collaboratively, as was spoken to earlier, collaboratively and with inclusion as it pertains to local governments, schools, and all of us coming together and figuring out the best way we can service this community, whether it's through our health. A lot of people know us for our sports, but it's through our health initiatives, our leadership initiatives, and working with those in the IDD community to make them feel like they're included, like everyone else within sports programs. Thank you. Let me ask you just a couple of clarifying questions. Can you give us a little bit of, you just mentioned there, I think most people think Special Olympics. They think what you said, the sports. Can you tell us about the reach here in Martin County? I remember when you were here originally, you guys shared some information that I found informative. Can you talk about how many people are participating, how many, the percentage that do, the percentage that could? Yeah, so, great. Thank you for, you know, asking about that. So we are, right now, currently, we call it 438 athletes. That means within the last three years, an individual has gotten a physical or signed up for our program. So we track them. You were kind of asking our tracking procedures, too. We track number of athletes based on that they are within our system. They fall off out of our system when their medical has expired, and they need a new medical every three years. So we base it on the fact that 3% to 4% of all communities have some form of IDD just based on national numbers. So based on the percentage of individuals living in Martin County, that would break down to about the 4,000, and we're about 400. A lot of our numbers, so overall in the state, we are up to about 60,000 athletes we service. A lot of our numbers fell off, and especially in our rural communities post-COVID in 2019. So we really are trying to make grassroots efforts in our each county that we found we aren't bouncing back as quickly. And so we're trying to make more grassroots efforts to figure out how do we get into the community? How do we work with interagency councils? How do we work with other nonprofits that service the same, you know, group of individuals we do so that we can make sure the opportunities that we present at no cost to any individual within our programs, that that is available to anyone within the county that would fall within the group that we service? Thank you very much. Questions for Special Olympics? Your public speaker? One. Thank you, sir. Hey, thank you so much. We have one request to speak form, making sure this is D3. Yes, it is. Ms. Gail Goldie. Ms. Goldie, good morning and welcome. Good morning, commissioners. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this subject. Gail Goldie, and I am a resident of Stewart, and I would just like to say that I am a proponent and I do support the Special Olympics. However, I support the Special Olympics through my own personal contributions to the Special Olympics. And I would also like to say that I had a daughter that graduated college back in the 90s, and she worked for 12 years with the ARC in New Jersey. So I'm very familiar with a lot of the programs that are out there for the physically, mentally, physically disabled. But I'd like to say that putting in an $85,000 a year position that becomes a staff position that the Martin County taxpayers are paying for really, really is upsetting. Because I think that that should really be paid for by personal contributions through the generous residents of Martin County. An $85,000 staff position totally dedicated to the Special Olympics is a local charity and part of a national not-for-profit group. While a very worthy charity, it needs to be funded by charitable contributions, and they need to hire their own employees. I am assuming that this is based on a grant, and we all know what happens with grants. They have to be matched or funded in part by the taxpayer dollars. So in addition to that, what happens after, if we say yes to this and we put a staff person on for the Special Olympics, what happens when another non-profit comes before you and says they would like you to put on a staff position for, let's just say, the breast cancer for all the things that they do? How about all the other programs that are out there for non-profits? So I'd like you to really seriously consider this and understand that as far as a taxpayer goes, $85,000, as far as I'm concerned, should be trimmed from that. But I see it is an agenda, it is an item for the parks and rec. They have already included that in their budget request. So I know there will be another meeting later today regarding the budget, which I don't believe I'll be able to attend. But I would request that you really, really review this. And as I said, I am a proponent, and I do support the Special Olympics. Thank you very much. Anyone else in the public looking to speak on this topic, sir? Speak and fill out the form when you're done. Welcome. My name is Jim Fithian. I'm from Palm City. I worked with the disabled for two years when I went to school, college. And what I did was I lived with eight boys, Down syndrome, in a home at the Melmark Place, which was in Pennsylvania. I did this for two years. It was a tremendous experience for me and hopefully for the kids. My sister ended up doing the same thing for two years while she went to college. So basically I lived there from Friday night to Sunday night with these disabled. It was, like I said, a great experience. The Melmark home was also fantastic. And so we were involved. I was involved in Special Olympics. And, again, it was great. Who would argue against that Special Olympics? I certainly wouldn't. The only thing I say about it, I think that there's room for us to do something for the program. But I would like to see more along with some of the questions that Sarah was asking. And I'm not so sure that I like the idea of it going towards another position. I would like to see the money go more towards the things that the kids want, shirts for the Special Olympics, football, whatever the particular sport is. I would take the kids to Phillies games, the Philadelphia Phillies. And that money was provided. That was directly provided for the children. So I guess all I'm saying is I'd like to see a closer review of where the money is going. I'm not so sure I like the idea that it's going towards an administrative position rather than somehow directing the money directly to the kids that are involved in the program. And then volunteers usually are the ones that attend the activities of Special Olympics instead of creating another layer, which every year they'll come back, and it'll be $95,000 a year after that. I'd like to see it go to the kids. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Commissioner Smith? Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chairman. I see this, and when the original ask came to us, you know, I try to weigh my decisions against who is it serving, why is it serving, and how do we do what we do. So we spend millions of dollars in our parks department to give access to kids, adults, all sorts of individuals in our community. And when I thought about this and thought about how we ought to do this, my thought really became, do we have a part of our community that has equal access, and do we have the representation for that access to make sure that if I had a child that had special needs, would I be as equally worked into the system as any other child in Martin County that we provide millions of dollars worth of services for? And I think the challenge for us is that we probably don't, and I think this is a great start to help a segment of our population that otherwise wouldn't have the access or the ability to have the access or even the knowledge set to have that access. And a lot of other things come with this, and so I am completely supportive of what we're trying to accomplish here. I think it's a great start, and with that, I would move approval. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. I would just say that a couple questions on the measuring. That to me is, in addition to the $85,000, that's staff time, so we have to, there's a quantitative cost to measuring these. $85,000 is probably a drop in the bucket of our budget. I looked at, you know, the form 990 that, you know, this organization had to submit for this small donation. It's a very large organization, and $85,000, I think, could be raised in probably since the time that you were here last. We could have raised that $85,000 in the private sector immediately. I think between the five of us, it's $17,000 each commissioner. I mean, I would go raise the $17,000 in the next couple weeks. I wholly support Special Olympics. I think the mission is incredible. I do not like having a staff person in the city of Port St. Lucie that's going to be dedicated to Martin County, number one. And number two, Ingle & Valkers, I worked with a real estate company. Special Olympics is the charity of choice. Every year, we were out at, you know, the beach, the games. And there's just so much opportunity in the private sector, and you don't have all of this measurement. It's a better place for it. And I think that your time spent just even in these meetings here, you probably could have raised ten times the amount of money that you're asking for us. I just think it's just that the mission is great. It's probably not a taxpayer, especially in these, you know, in this particular year with the budget. Some of your people that you even serve are being taxed out of their homes, you know, and they're having a hard time with their insurance. So I support you 100%. I will attend your functions. I will help you raise money. I will be your biggest advocate. I just think this particular position that you've asked for, it is not the right place for it, and it's not the right time for it. Thank you. Okay. Just for some history here, when this originally was brought to us, the request was much larger and it was different. There was a request for a permanent employee within our parks, one of our county employees, to be hired or transferred over to become a specific Special Olympics employee that would become a county employee. And that concept didn't really work for me because then it's our employee. And then, like you said, all of the add-ons that would continue to increase. Then there's the conversation. And then there was a lot about transportation. A lot of other communities offer transportation, which we don't have a bus fleet. We do not have the ability to use our existing bus fleet from Parks and Rec to then include the transportation for Special Olympics. And so then it morphed into, well, maybe we could offer it through grants and aids after that it was, because we've been at this for over a year, if I'm not mistaken. Then we made it go through a very specific vetting process that all of the requests from all different not-for-profits and other organizations come in. Now, some people would say, well, you know, I don't like the county's vetting process. I don't believe in the people that do the work. I don't trust them. I do. That vetting process is always evolving. It's always improving. But I think it works very well. Actually, a lot of our departments, and especially in finance, win awards, statewide and national awards for this. Then there's the issue of, well, if we give them the money, how do we genuinely know that it's being used in the capacity that it was intended? Two ways of looking at that. Three, I guess. One is, you know, if you trust the people that you're giving the money to and they've proven themselves to be worthy, then there's a certain level of trust that people will do the right thing. Now, maybe that sounds naive, but I still personally believe that that's part of it. Two, there are metrics. Commissioner Hurd asked questions on, you know, how do we know, and we don't just let people, hey, you know, you look nice, we're going to let you do it. We have. This is, as far as I'm concerned, is a test. Now, the concept, and we heard one of the speakers say, well, I have an issue with the employee versus giving the $85,000, in this particular case, directly to tangible benefit for the participants. Or why isn't it just volunteers? Because volunteer organizations cannot run exclusively on volunteers. I don't think there are really a lot that do that. But at some point, someone has to be involved. And then the $85,000, hey, you know, why would we do that? They could raise the money, and Commissioner Hetherington said, and I agree, we're fundraisers. We're involved in helping people raise funds. This is a percentage of, I'm sure, a multimillion-dollar budget that, you know, that is raised for Special Olympics. I remember with the Humane Society, people were annoyed that we were using taxpayer dollars to assist the Humane Society. Well, we're not paying the full bill for the Special Olympics, probably not even the employee. What speaks to me is the fact that there was 400 people participating in the program here in Martin County out of a potential 4,000. We're scratching the surface. We have somehow impacted, with what we're up to in our county, 10% of this, as far as I'm concerned, an underserved, fully worthy constituency. The arc of Martin County has done a remarkable job. I've been there many times. I appreciate the fact that people say, hey, I support these organizations. Well, support is money. And, yes, 85,000, I think they've done exactly, in the history of this whole process, what we have asked them to do. The original request was too large. It was too complicated for us. It didn't work personally for me. Then we went to transportation. Then we went, can we issue a grant to see if this will work? I think Mr. Stokas would agree with me that the first year or the first couple of years of someone coming into our grants and aids process is when they're under the most scrutiny to see if it genuinely will work. I am willing, as a representative of the community, understanding this constituency group is underserved by us. They don't ask for much. I think 85,000, in my personal opinion, is a legitimate investment in Special Olympics, which has a long track record of success. I think Commissioner Hurd's initial question helped me. There is a matrix that we can follow. We know how many people are currently participating in their programs, which is not just a one-day athletic event. There's a lot of services that they offer. We know who's involved today. We have our baseline. A year from now, I'd like to see what that number is. At 85,000, I'm not voting on a decade worth of 85,000. I'm voting on a year. And so I'm in favor of it. And I will be voting such. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, Mr. Abate, can you answer a couple questions? One is, do we host Special Olympics programs and competitions? Kevin Abate, for the record, Parks Director. Yes, Commissioner Hurd, we do. We currently host the swim practices at Sailfish Splash Water Park for the program. And they, of course, use other county parks that are open to the public. Have we ever declined to host a Special Olympics program or competition? Not to my knowledge, no. When we do host these programs and competitions, are there ever in-kind contributions that we make? Typically, we do a permit with any agency not-for-profit, and they get the not-for-profit rate. It's usually what we charge them, which is half the rate of anyone else off the street who's in the private sector. And what other advantages do we provide them for hosting their events? I mean, the advantage, well, the not-for-profit rate is on our fee schedule. That is, and of course, great customer service by the Parks Department. So we do contribute to the Special Olympics significantly at present. Special Olympics is, like any organization that comes to the Parks Department, we have 100 not-for-profits that use our assets. We treat them all the same. Well, to be clear, I think it might have gotten lost in translation there. You're not donating the facilities and the services of Parks and Rec to the Special Olympics. They're paying for them. They're paying at a discounted rate for not-for-profits like every other not-for-profit. And I'm assuming that these events are not exclusive to Martin County residents, but a majority of the people competing here in Martin County are Martin County residents competing and utilizing their park and rec infrastructure. But that being said, even at the half, at the discounted rate for not-for-profits, to utilize the facility annually or for big events is thousands of dollars, correct? It depends how much they use them, but it's fairly inexpensive. We don't really charge that much money for these events at the water park, especially on the competition side for these swim meets, for example. Fifty percent of what you would charge a private? Correct, yes. So it's not a donation. And I get Commissioner Hurd's point, and I understand that we are being generous. It's not the first day Special Olympics ever showed up and asked for something, but they pay. It's not a donation. And they're required to provide insurance and other liabilities and those assurities. I think we can call the question here. It's going to boil down to how people genuinely see this as an issue. That's why there's five of us. If the issues were cut and dry, there'd be one person sitting up here, preferably me, that would just handle the questions one at a time. But since there's five, let's see what's going to happen. I think we've presented it through the process fairly. I thought the public speakers made salient points, but it's where do you come from and what do you want to do? So with that, I'd entertain a motion up or down. I apologize. You have a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Second. And it now has a second with Commissioner Jenkins. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries three to two with Commissioners Hetherington and Hurd dissenting. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, we're going to take public hearing number seven. It is public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending Chapter 9, Animal Section 9.1, and Section 9.87, General Ordinances, Martin County Code. Good morning, ma'am. Welcome. Good morning, Commissioners. Melissa Petrick, Senior Assistant, County Attorney. And just so that the Commission is aware, this matter was published in the Stewart News on September 1, 2023. So it's been duly noticed. On October, I'm sorry, August 23, 2023, after an attorney-client session regarding pending litigation, it was regarding PAWS, JJBCR, LLC, doing business as the Noble Paw versus Martin County. The board directed the county attorney to bring forth language, amending Chapter 9 of the county ordinances, which would address various terms and to authorize preexisting pet stores, which were in existence prior to July 1, 2022, to continue in their operations. As a result, the county attorney's office is presenting amendments to Section 9.1. This deletes the term hobby breeder, as that term was inapplicable to, as related to Chapter 9. It amends the definition of kennels, and this definition actually mirrors the land development regulation, which is a definition underneath Article 3, Division 1, Section 3.3. The amendment also, this also amends the term for pet stores to provide further clarity as to these commercial retail businesses that are open to the public and to also add a term called letter of preexisting status. This is hereby a letter from the county that memorializes that a pet store has supplied sufficient documentation to show that that pet store was established and actively operating on June 30, 2022, in regards to the selling of cats or dogs. We're also presenting amendments to Section 9.87.a.19, various subsections, and I'll briefly go through those subsections. Subsection A will clarify that pet stores are prohibited from selling cats, dogs, or rabbits. The section does continue to authorize pet stores to work with animal shelters and nonprofit organizations for adoptions. Subsection B addresses letters of preexisting status issued to those pet stores that allows those preexisting pet stores to continue in the sale of cats or dogs. Subsection C prohibits a preexisting pet store from opening any additional stores that sell cats or dogs, and it also limits the square footage to that store to no more than 5,000 square feet. Subsection D states that a preexisting pet store that fails to stay open and operating for 24 consecutive months will be subject to losing its preexisting status. Subsection E allows for a store to sell its business, but that new purchaser must, in fact, obtain an amended letter of preexisting status from the county. The failure of that new purchaser to do so is grounds for that store to, for that business to lose its status as a preexisting pet store. Subsection F states that any pet store established on or after July 1st of 2022 is not authorized to obtain a letter of preexisting status. So that is our amendment that we have presented to the board, and we are asking that the board adopt this amendment. Thank you very much. Thank you. Questions for Ms. Pedrick. We have two, at this point, two request-to-speak forms from members of the public. If anyone else would like to address us on this topic, you can speak and fill out the form afterwards. We will begin with Ms. Carrie Burgess. Ms. Burgess, good morning. Good morning. I'm Carrie Burgess, and I'm a Palm City resident. I appreciate the review of the ordinance changes. I'm a little concerned with the changes in grandfathering in the stores as far as the exceptions, and maybe I'm just not interpreting properly, but there's three points that sort of change the spirit of the original ordinance that I understood. The first is exempting the agriculturally zoned land, which would allow, in my opinion, the store to expand. And so I think these three points really allow the stores to expand based on the current ordinance. The second is increasing the square footage of the store to 5,000 square foot, which would be an expansion. And the third is allowing the owners to transfer, assign, or sell. And I don't know, I mean, today when we heard the review, it sounds like they could sell it if someone had a prior letter, but there's only two that are going to have the prior letter, so they could sell to one or the other. So I'm not clear on that. But my understanding was that it was transfer, assign, or sell the business, which would mean that the operation could stay open into perpetuity. Again, that's not the spirit of the original ordinance that was adopted. So, you know, either further clarification or perhaps sending it back to the Animal Care and Control Oversight Board, but getting it back to the original idea of the, you know, pet store restrictions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next request to speak for Ms. Michelle Leibowitz. Good morning. I'm Michelle Leibowitz, a 20-year Palm City resident, and I'm here also to speak on behalf of the PH7 revisions that have come through. And I just ask that you please diligently review the original plan as it has been set, and then please vigorously defend the ordinance to help protect the animals. What I heard, I'm a little confused, too. It didn't sound like what I thought the revisions were going to be, and a lot of the expansion wording was concerning to me because they are kind of small stores now. They're going to expand. But I'm more concerned about the animals. I really just want to protect the animals, and I would like to know that Martin County is a shining example of protecting animals in Florida. So thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else looking to speak to us on this topic? Ms. Petrie, a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. We are currently in two individual active litigations, correct? Yes. So the information and the questioning that we're giving you since this is a public meeting would potentially hamper your ability to continue to negotiate or litigate our positions, correct? There is open litigation with both cases. This is in furtherance of potentially resolving those. However, the matters are fully opened, and so, yes, litigation is still pending. Okay. So if you or Ms. Woods thinks that any of my questions might be a little touchy, just let me know. Sure. Not a lawyer. To me, 24-month lapse in business seems like a long time. Is that a specific number, or is that up for negotiation? That was a number thought up by the county attorney's office. I have been a small business owner. I think given the opportunity to close or to pause business for two years is – did I cross the line already? No, no, no. I just want to be able to speak. Well, you're – I give you – you don't have to put your light on. It blinks on my board here. It makes me nervous. When you need to jump in, you're perfectly allowed to jump in. That's what she's doing. Yeah, I don't – I think if we want to – if you're asking for our collective opinions, individual opinions collectively in public, I think that's dramatically too long. I think having had leases, retail leases, six months, if you don't know what you're doing six months later, you shouldn't get to wait two years. The new purchaser letter, or the letter – can you say that again, what your criteria is for a new purchaser? So the new purchaser would have to provide business tax receipt, showing that that store was open and operating on – essentially it's the week of June 27th of 2022. Because I don't want a pet store that essentially opened 10 years ago and said, hey, I was in existence prior to June 30th of 2022. So it would have to be their business tax receipt that shows that that was in effect on June 30th of 2022. Proof of their sales, that they were actively engaged in selling these animals. And – sorry, there was a third one – copies of the lease. So the lease agreements of an existing pet store, which does show their current square footage in there, and usually the lease agreements that I am familiar with, that I've reviewed, tends to have certain clauses in there. Usually at least they have to give six months notice. And if I may address the 24-month thing, time frame, there is something called like a lemon law for pets. And there's a time frame in which somebody has a right to return a pet. And I believe that's one year. So in the thought process, as you are considering up there, I'm just asking you to consider that one-year parameter underneath the pet lemon law. But this letter of pre-existing status would be issued by the county administrator or his designee. And then that way, an existing pet store, a pet store that was existing on June 30th of 2022, obtains this letter. We don't do permits up here in terms of pet ordinances. And that letter provides them the right to continue in selling of cats and dogs. When a new owner comes in, whether a current pet store sells it to their child, to their parent, to a separate entity, that person would have to come in and obtain an amended letter showing that they have the right to continue in the sale of cats and dogs. I hope that answers your question. I'm not sure. I have just a couple more questions before I turn it over to my colleagues. I don't completely understand that, based on your explanation, and I apologize. So you're saying that you would have had to have been in not just a pet store, a pet store that was selling dogs, cats, or rabbits prior to June of 2022. Correct. Dogs and cats. Dogs and cats. There's only two places that exist, the two that we are speaking of. So to the public speaker's point, one could sell the store to the other, but they were already in business, so they could consolidate their businesses. But there's only two. So if you didn't have that letter ahead of time, it's not like you could pick somebody from Chicago or anywhere else and they could move here and open up a new, take over the store. Right? Correct. No new letters of preexisting status will be issued to any pet stores to sell cats and dogs from July 1st of 2022 on. So correct. Only two pet stores remain. Nobody new can come to town. Okay. So that's a weird kind of language kind of vibe to say they can only be one of the two that exist. Okay. I'm not, whatever, I'm not a lawyer, so however you structure that language, I want the civilians and the lay people to understand that we're dealing with two stores and we're only dealing with two stores. Correct. And there will be two letters of preexisting, those two pet stores, I already have that documentation. Okay. The lease, I have their business records, and I have the business tax receipts. And those two stores, that will be submitted to Mr. Donaldson, and then from him I get this letter of preexisting status. So only those two pet stores in Martin County get those letters that say they can continue in the sale, which they have been during this litigation. Thank you. My next question was to your comment there that, and no disrespect to the owners of the store, I don't know them personally, leaving that alone. They could sell within the family. Sure. They could, you know, they could structure ownership, maybe not even sell. They could structure ownership to how, what is the definition of family? Is it the immediate family? Is it a cousin? Could it be cousins? No, too much. I need to jump in here. There's nothing in the ordinance that talks about selling to family. There would be two letters of preexistence, and just like I'll analogize to a preexisting use, if you've got a, under zoning, if you've got a use that was in existence, you can continue to have that use. You're not prohibited from, so this ordinance allows you to transfer it to anybody. The two, you can transfer to anybody. I think Ms. Petrick was meant as an example, not as a limitation. Yeah. Sure, sure. So, but then your point is, is that these are legal business entities, so with that in mind, they could sell it to anyone else that they want. Correct. And is that the tightest, is that the language that we're looking for? I thought the goal here, in my opinion, would have been to allow these individuals that are currently doing this to have the opportunity to continue doing it as part of our whole process. If they have the ability to, when they want to tap out for whatever their rationale is, they could then sell it on, so these stores could exist as business entities forever. We're not granting an individual's right to sell these pets. We're granting a business entity that can be transferred to anyone else the opportunity to continue to sell pets, these particular pets, forever. If I may say, the lawsuits were filed by corporations. These are corporations that we're talking about without getting into the legalities of pending litigation. You're asking about our wording. It is to address issues that were raised in the litigation regarding certain rights. That's about as far as I want to go. I appreciate that. As a lawyer, I don't know if you know the definition, and I don't off the top of my head. To me, the definition of grandfathering something in would allow the people that are currently doing it the ability to ride it out until it's done. This particular option would allow that to not grandfather. It's the reason when the concept of grandfathering was initially discussed when we had this original conversation, before your time, I believe. So I appreciate you coming in to pick up the ball. It was on fire, but I appreciate you catching it. To me, that's a monopoly. We're issuing two monopolies permanently as one of these possible strategies. My last point, and then I'll share it with my colleagues. What is the current square footage of these two locations? One is 1,260 square feet. The other one is 2,400 square feet. But we're going to allow them to nearly quadruple or double in size. The theory was the double. If, let's say, one of these stores is in a – they're in regular shopping centers. If that shopping center catches fire, now that store has to relocate. Or if the shopping center increases their rent to the extent that nobody can pay it, and they have to leave or they're forced to leave. If the square footage is kept to the same exact amount, I don't know if – Say them again, 1,240. 1,260. And the other one is 2,400. Putting in my two cents, I think going to 5,000 is too generous. It allows for expansion. I think on 1,260, I would make that 1,500 so that we're not narrowing them down, that they have to have the exact same square footage. I think 1,500. I've had a retail store, 1,500's legitimate size space. I've been to both of these existing businesses. They look very nice. You know, whether you agree or disagree, from a business point of view, they look very nice. And then on the 2,400, I would add another couple hundred just to give them the flexibility that they're not locked in. But I don't want to have it be a situation where we're going to allow for the enhancement of what we're doing here. And with that, Commissioner Hurd, I believe you were the next light on. Yeah. I agree with several of your comments. The first is that I thought we were grandfathering in two businesses, not perpetuating those two businesses forever. So I object to that, the transfer assignment or sales of the business subject. I had no idea that that was contemplated. I thought that this was allowing these two pet shop owners to continue with their businesses for as long as they were able to continue. And also, the expansion of the businesses is also, it seems to be excessive. Okay. Do you need to jump to the front of the line? Mr. Donaldson. I just want to caution the board about the intent of this, which is we realize that there are two shops in existence today. That is, our lawsuit is still able to continue operation pending resolution of the lawsuit or perhaps this amendment. I think it's important to note that I think what the legal staff has presented is something that would be, if we're looking to resolve this, we have our best shot at it. I think the concern over a corporation or an entity owning a grandfather provision, we have a number of zoning-type properties in the county, which they have been that way for generations. You can sell and continue to perpetuate that use. It gets demolished by storm or something like that, and then it has to be brought into a conforming use at that time, or if you're redeveloping the site in some way. So I think this is being treated. Instead, they're not being singled out and treated especially differently than other provisions. And I think if we, my only caution is, is it's up to the board that if we make it too specially provided, it may completely eliminate the intent of the action today. I just would like to reiterate that. This amendment comes out of the context of the two federal challenges, which raised both state and federal challenges. So there's a number of those issues that we're attempting to address. The increase in square footage, again, is a maximum. It was meant as a maximum. And again, as Ms. Petrick explained, it was meant to address and to not, to address possibilities, but to still provide a reasonable limitation for a business that's in existence. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. Corporation is a recognized entity, and that's who we're dealing with. We're not dealing with personal. Correct. So I pushed my light because you mired us down so far into the being able to sell to an outside entity. So that's actually, that's very, you did a good job clarifying that. The one thing that was brought up, I forgot her name, was the ag, and I think you need to clarify that. You've clarified it with me, and that falls under one of our previous agenda items of preemption. So can you clarify why we cannot enforce on agricultural land? A pet store, by definition, is a commercial retail establishment open to the business. Whether we include the language in there about ag or we don't, at the end of the day, you cannot open up a commercial retail establishment. It's there merely for clarity. It doesn't give or take away any new rights. There is case law out there, excuse me, that addresses animals, not just necessarily farm animals, but all animals are considered now farm products. I don't have the case in front of me, and I apologize for not having the citation, but there is a ruling out of the 4th DCA, which does govern us, and it says dogs, actually it says, I believe it was bearded dragons, birds could be considered farm products, the way the statute is written. So in regards to ag land, it's there merely to clarify, to further and resolve this lawsuit. However, at no point in time, and that's been our position, have you ever been allowed to open up a commercial retail establishment out in ag land? And I hope that answers that question. However, you can have, you are permitted to have an agricultural operation in ag land, and since dogs and cats are considered ag products, people can sell puppies and cats, as well as all other kinds of animals, in ag land. It's a distinction that's probably only evident to some of us, but it's the idea is you're not opening a commercial store, but you are allowed to do those sales. So I think the idea was to make clear we are not talking about ag. We are preempted in that area by the Florida legislature. So it was to make clear we never were regulating in ag, and we're making clear this ordinance does not. It was meant as clarification not to change anything that was already in effect years ago. Commissioner Smith. That was my question as well on the ag issue. I just wanted to make sure it was perfectly clear to everybody what we could and couldn't do with ag. Commissioner Hurd. Does anybody besides me feel like another executive session might be beneficial for us? No. I do not. No. I guess the word is I'm not opposed. But this is our public executive session now where we're hashing this out publicly. Some of the situation, and I do appreciate the fact that we're looking to work towards negotiating a settlement. And, you know, one of the issues all along, I mean, to me it breaks into two particular categories. One is the issue of selling these animals and where do they come from. Where does the retail supply come from? Now, that's a debatable issue. Some of us feel like we know what that answer is. Some people will disagree. I didn't like the fact that we were, you know, look like or had the appearance that we were trying to be hostile towards businesses. I was a small business, so the concept of giving them some kind of grandfathering in, to me the whole idea of grandfathering is I was doing something before the law existed. And just because you put the law in, I should be given the opportunity to continue to do that as long as I continue to do that, not as long as anyone that I deem appropriate should continue to do that. The square footage issue, I think, yes, I get your point, and I wouldn't want to restrict someone, hey, you're in a 1,260 square foot footprint. That's all you get. That, to me, seems restrictive and punitive. So, but I don't need to go from 1,260 to 5,000. I think that there's somewhere that we could do that. The new owner, I think we get that. I think other than they could transfer the business in perpetuity, I don't think we're going to see, like, they could sell it off to some gigantic pet operation. The 24-month lease, I get your point about a lemon law for pets, like cars. But in my mind, if you purchased a pet, and I'm not saying from these two specific businesses, but if you purchased a pet and then, you know, six months later it developed some medical issues, but the store has gone out of business, good luck with a one-year lemon law. The store is legally out of business. Like anything, you buy a sofa from a store that goes out of business. I don't care if you have legal protection for up to 12 months. It's done. So 24 months is too long, but if, you know, if my colleagues want to negotiate, I thought that this was our public negotiation as your clients, and you represent us as our legal. We're giving you what the five of us, at least three of us, will collectively say we want you to negotiate. I didn't see this as us giving up. I see this as negotiating to a reasonable settlement that we don't continue to hemorrhage money in a situation where we might not win. That's just my opinion. I'm stopping. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I would move staff's recommendation. I think that there are, I think we, in my opinion, we've probably stepped way over the boundary in terms of what our staff has already negotiated in terms to get us to the point at which we are at, and that concerns me. So I am moving staff's recommendation. I would agree, and I will second it. Commissioner Jenkins. Is reducing it to 12 months unreasonable? I don't think so. Okay. But I'm not at the motion maker or the seconder. I'm trying to get my point across. Let me clean the way so you can see them. Okay. And reducing the square footage from, I think we, for one, have to treat everybody equal, making two different. Yeah, I agree. But making that 3,000 is something that I would be comfortable with. Um, so if those two changes were made by the motioner and the seconder, I would support it. So would I. We got lights. Commissioner Hetherington. I hesitate to make any changes because, you know, we've had executive sessions. We, you know, county legal staff has really fleshed this out and spent a lot of time. I think this is how we got into this to start with is when we originally considered the ordinance, there was the, um, the committee and animal care and control had presented one set of facts and it included grandfathering and included a year long. And then it got changed to not grandfathering and six months. So I, that, that's specifically why I hesitate changing. I humbly take your county attorney's direction. I mean, I, I hate the fact that people abuse, um, the sale of, of animals or in any way, you know, don't treat animals humanely, but this is now a legal issue. And I would certainly defer to our county legal staff commissioner Smith, um, either one, our county attorney or assistant attorney. Um, this, what we have before us today, you have reached an agreement with, or a tentative agreement with the two parties, correct? The terms on the square footage were discussed and the terms on the, um, the 24 months. Actually, I opposed, and I believe councils never objected to it. If I guess what I'm asking, maybe a simpler way to ask this, if we were to modify what you have brought us today, does that jeopardize the position we're in? It could have a small effect. However, I'm not precluded from then filing additional motions to seek that the case be dismissed based upon mootness. Um, so I could still go forward. I can still look at to resolve it. I believe it would resolve the case, um, because it still provides for these two pet stores, the heart of the negotiations, which is the grandfathering in. And that was the heart of the discussion and the heart of the settlement is to be grandfathered in. Um, their claims in the lawsuit are not based upon square footage and they're not based upon, um, how long their pet shop could last for it. Um, so I, I don't believe it would be fatal to the settlements. I am conversations. I, I, I, what we had an executive session. I, I thought was very clear our, where our position was, where we were. Um, I think my conversations I've had with our attorney, um, are very clear and I am super hesitant to change where we are given the fact of the circumstances that we were in. So I'm, I'm. Ms. Woods. I appreciate the support from Commissioner Hetherington and from Commissioner Smith in order to, um, bring this forward. Um, I do not believe that the two modifications, uh, are fatal. I, I, I think if, if the will of the board is that by making these, what I consider to be minor adjustments, I think we will, we will go forward and, um, I would not feel that it was fatal. Okay. Hearing that and relying solely on our attorney's comments and no one else's. And if this fails, it'll come back to our attorney's office. I understand. Which comes with its own peril. Uh, I will, uh, I would modify my amendment. And I think Harold, you said, or my motion to say 3,000 square feet, you said. And what was the other? 12 months. 12 months. Second. I'll second. Well, we already have a second. So does the seconder agree? Would you have any additional comments? Okay. With that being said, first off, let me clarify that I have the utmost respect and ability for our legal team. I thought you were asking some of the things that were on this agenda were not discussed in the executive session. I don't remember square footage. I don't remember the months of business. But the rest of the theme, like you said, Ms. Petrick, um, if our attorney said, this is what it has to be, then I would hear it and accept. But if you're asking us for opinions, then that's what this was. And I think we've crafted something that we would, you're still, like you said, we're not hamstringing you to go to the negotiation with nothing. It's not a negotiation, right? I mean, this is. Everything is a negotiation until you sign on the dotted line. It's a negotiation. This is a public hearing for amending the ordinance. What you're doing is. Oh, yeah, but we. All right. I'll leave it alone. I would not characterize it as a negotiation. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for the amended staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously with our thanks. Okay, before we break, I'd like to take one more item for folks that have been waiting. It's public hearing number four, amendment to the Martin County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 151, Solid Waste. It'll be presented by Mr. Sam Emerson and Mr. Greg Schumer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Sam Emerson, Utilities and Solid Waste Department. The item, as you said, is a public hearing to amend the Martin County Code of Ordinances, Chapter 151, related to solid waste. The county's ordinance hasn't been amended since 1998, and we've changed some of our solid waste business operations since then, and we wanted to do some housekeeping to clean that up and bring that more current to our current operations. The proposed changes would improve efficiency of the county's solid waste management program and reduce the regulatory burdens imposed on the companies that collect construction and demolition debris and roll-off containers. Under the Solid Waste Ordinance, a waste hauling company must submit a non-exclusive franchise approved by the county. In addition to that, must pay an annual fee of $7,500. We wanted to modify that, and with the proposed ordinance, haulers collecting C&D debris would no longer have to obtain a non-exclusive franchise for roll-off services and would not have to pay the $7,500 annual fee. What we're proposing is a surcharge equivalent to 5% on that category of roll-off containers. They'll pay the regular tipping fee, and then there'll be a 5% surcharge on top of that for any roll-off containers, and we will collect that fee at the scale house as opposed to tracking down vendors and trying to get agreements executed and collecting checks from those haulers. We think the surcharge will be more equitable across the board, and particularly for some of the smaller companies that only have a few containers, run a small business. We think it's much more equitable. They'll be paying based on the number of tons that come across the scale, not an annual fee to all of the haulers. The Waste Management Agreement, which is an exclusive franchise agreement, contains a 5% surcharge there, a franchise fee, and they will continue to pay that in accordance with that franchise agreement. We've estimated that the proposed amendments would not have a negative impact on revenue. It's revenue neutral, or there may be some additional revenue because we will be collecting fees from some out-of-county operators. We have some in Port St. Lucie. As you heard this morning, it's closer to our facility than it is St. Lucie County, and so we will be collecting on those as well. So that concludes our presentation. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them. Thank you. Before we go any further, Commissioner Jenkins. So just literally sitting here listening to you, even having the conversation yesterday, it didn't cross my mind, I have a conflict. This then opens. I have roll-off containers in my fleet. This then opens up me to being able to have a benefit from this. So I am going to, and I just talked to our attorney, have to recuse myself from this. Not that we would, our particular company would ever do it. It's not in my business plan, but it then gives me the ability to. So I need to recuse myself from that, and I will be filing the appropriate documents, which, by the way, I've never done before. So, or had to. So, but, anyway, that's that. Thank you very much. So that would preclude you. He can participate in the conversation, not vote, or he should steer clear of everything, correct? Our recommendation is also that we, that Commissioner Jenkins not participate in any way. So he will. I have no problem with that. I wish we could have more people. Under the Florida ethics law. Or other issues. I don't have a fleet. I don't have any of these things. I would always get to participate. Commissioner Hurd, you have your light on? If there is no public comment, I'll move to, move staff's recommendations for approval. Not for this one. I don't have any public comment for this one. I have plenty of public comment requests, but not for this, correct? Is anyone here for public comment on this item? Thank you. We'll start with Commissioner Hetherington. I don't have a lot of comment, but I, because I met with staff, and I think you sufficiently described it. As I mentioned to staff, I did run into someone who has a business that, you know, utilizes this system. That was prior to the time you had a group meeting, and you discussed all this with the companies, and you said that that particular business wasn't in favor. Your explanation seemed logical, but what did confuse me a little bit was this morning Mr. Waddell's comments about those coming over the county line and how that would impact. In my mind, this might be a better option, but I'm not sure I understood his comments, and I'm not sure if he's here still. But, again, I don't know if I understood, and maybe you can enlighten me on what his concern was of people coming from St. Lucie County. I didn't fully understand his concern. I know it was expressed, and Greg's here to clarify this if I speak incorrectly. But it was raised up a question that they didn't have a concern with what we were proposing, but we should extend it to dump trailers, which are not currently addressed in the current ordinance, doesn't address dump trailers as a franchise or a non-exclusive franchise operation. So we didn't include that. We only included roll-offs, which is addressed in the current franchise. So that was my understanding of his concern. Now, as far as waste coming from out of county, if we were operating in a landfill, I may have some issues because of capacity over time. But the fact that it's being processed, that material is being processed, we want our vendors to be successful and profitable. Our C&D processor, they're doing a fantastic job. And if there's an option that we can collect those franchise fees from some out-of-county operations that benefits them, I think that's a good business plan. Okay. Okay. So do landfills normally prohibit other counties from utilizing them if it wasn't a transfer station? Some do. Some charge an additional fee, a higher rate for out-of-county. Well, as a capacity, you're going to get to a point where you can't take anymore, so why would you take it from another county? Right. But this is not the case. That's not the case. Mr. Donaldson. I was just going to say that there's nothing that prohibits somebody from South County going to Palm Beach County, or if you happen to have been providing service in Martin County and had a client in any river from offing to disposing at their landfill. So there's nothing that prohibits you from using any of our regional facilities. So I think this particular ordinance is really adapting to the current business process. It's much more business friendly, and it also reduces staff time from trying to chase down and regulate our vendors. So I think that's why staff has proposed this. There was a time when we were much smaller and we were trying to protect our local folks. At this point, there are so many different vendors out there that are getting away with it, so to speak, and this way actually levels the playing field. Apparently it makes sense. I just was confused by the comments. Thank you. Anything further? Commissioner Hetherington? No. Commissioner Smith? Just a couple points. I think all of us must have had the same conversation. So just for the record, you met with the haulers or most of the haulers? Yes, Greg and Tom met with the haulers, I think, a couple of weeks ago. There were seven in attendance. They completed a sign-in sheet with their business name, their representative, and also they checked the box whether they support the proposed changes to the ordinance. Six out of seven agreed with the proposed changes. So I thought that was important for everybody to hear and understand relative to the industry that's using it. And then secondarily to that, the one thought or concept I had, and I don't know but down the road that it was service, but we might want to think about getting tag readers in place to understand exactly who's using our landfill and who's not. If there ever comes a time when we have to understand capacity and if we reach that point, and let's say 40% of our capacity is coming from out of county and we don't have enough capacity for our in-county people, it would be good to understand, I think, for data collection what that looks like in the future. It may all balance out and everybody may be taking each other's waste, whatever. But I just, you know, during the hurricanes back in Francis and Jean, we created a system where we actually, every single pickup of every pile of debris was calculated for a tag, and then GPS was brought in, and we know exactly where every single pickup happens GPS-wise. And when they're going to the transfer sites that we end up creating after a hurricane, we know exactly for our FEMA reimbursements who's doing what and why and where. Otherwise, we don't get reimbursed. And so somewhere along the line in my mind, it would be good to know exactly who's coming to the facility, what they're doing, how much capacity is expected of us to maintain. Because at some point, you're probably going to come to us with a request to increase something, and it would be good to know where all that's coming from. But that's just a commentary for the future. It's not asking to do. Are you recusing yourself from this one? I don't have any dumpsters. So I would move. Did we already have a motion? No. Yeah. Second. Commissioner Hurd. That's true. I do remember it now. It was so long ago. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The motion carries 4 to 0, with Commissioner Jenkins recusing himself. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's squeeze one more in. It's a very fast one. B and C, number one, Business Development Board appointment. That's Donna Gordon. You are recognized. And Mr. Quint, I apologize. I know you've been here all morning, but we're going to have to see you after the lunch break. I can't squeeze yours in. It'll take too long. But I thought about it. I tried my best. Go, Navy. We go from 12 to 1.30. We'll be back at 1.30 from our lunch break. Ms. Gordon, you are recognized. Donna Gordon for administration. Business Development Board. Mr. Reginald Benjamin Lovelace received one vote. Mr. Edward Weinberg received four votes. Move Mr. Weinberg. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's, not for staff's recommendation, for reappointment to Mr. Edward Weinberg. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. It is now 12.03. We will take our lunch break and be back at 1.30. Thank you very much. Okay, we are back from our lunch break to continue our September 12, 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. Ms. Woods, you had something you'd like to share? Yes. For the record, I just want to make clear that the previous agenda public hearing on PH-4, amendment to the Martin County Code of Ordinance, Chapter 151, Solid Waste, that Commissioner Jenkins has filed his Form 8-B for voting conflict with the clerk as required by Florida law. Thank you very much. We will now take public hearing number one, public hearing on a proposed Trico settlement for Peter Smith v. Martin County and the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Heather Dayen, Director of H.R. Risk. Today, I'm here before you to conduct a public hearing on a proposed Trico settlement, Peter Smith v. Martin County and the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection. In accordance with the procedure for Trico settlements established by the Board of County Commissioners, any member of the public or any member of the board may comment on the proposed settlement. The case arose when Mr. Smith was riding his bicycle on Jensen Beach Boulevard's shared path when he hit a bollard and fell off his bike. Mr. Smith sustained injuries and filed a personal injury lawsuit against Martin County and the State of Florida. A global negotiated settlement was reached and Trico is paying $15,000 on behalf of Martin County and the State of Florida is paying $15,000. It is the recommendation of Trico and our outside counsel, Gary Dundas, that this settlement is in the best interest of the county. The recommendation is, one, move that the board conduct a public hearing and receive public comment on the proposed settlement by any member of the public and any member of the Board of County Commissioners, and two, move that the board directs staff to notify Trico that the settlement procedures have been completed and the settlement should be finalized. This concludes my presentation. Excellent presentation. Thank you. Questions for Ms. Dane? Anyone from the public looking to address us on this topic? Seeing none comes back to the board. I will move staff's recommendation. Nope, you just hear it, right? Oh. We only... Just comments. Oh, okay. Just comments. We're taking, we're accepting any public comment, and there is none. Perfect. We appreciate your presentation. Thank you very much. Feels like I'm out of here as quick. Yep. Public hearing number two, approve the State Housing Initiative Partnership SHIP program reports and transmittal to the state. Good morning. It will be presented this afternoon by Ms. Michelle Miller. Happy birthday, Ms. Miller. Thank you. Happy birthday. Thank you. So we are here today regarding approval, requesting approval for the State Housing Initiative Partnership. Our program reports and transmittal to the state, which are due every September. This year we are, this, today I'm requesting approval for 2018 and 19, 19 and 20, and 20 and 21 annual reports. So I'm asking for your approval to move that we can submit these to Florida Housing for approval. Now you'd like a motion. I believe so. I wasn't sure if she was done. I'll move staff recommendation. Thank you. Anyone from the public looking to address us on this agenda item? Seeing none. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Now, public hearing number three. And this is a request? Wait, I have to announce the item. I'm sorry. Public hearing number three, approve the State Housing Initiative Partnership Affordable Housing Incentive Strategies Report by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, AHAC. It'll be presented by Ms. Michelle Miller. Ms. Miller, you are recognized. Thank you. This is a request for you to approve the State Housing Initiative Partnership, our Incentive Strategies Report. This is recommended by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee each year. And if approved, then it also gets forwarded to Florida Housing annually. So I recommend your approval. You do recommend it. I mean, ask for it. You're right. We do it. Can I move to approve them? You're allowed. Okay. Good. Second. Well, you can. Would you like to? I did. I would like to, yes. Thank you so much. This side? Okay. Anyone from the public looking to please come forward. This is public hearing number two. This is three. Number three is what I meant to say. Yes. And I have that for you, my system. Please come forward. I have a five for you. That's a, I want to speak with that. Okay. I don't have a three, so you'll have to fill out a form. I did. I did. Well, okay. Well, I'll find another one. So good afternoon, commissioners, and thank you. I do want to just address this. I'm on that committee, and I did object to one section, and I just want you to hear my reasons why. And that was on the flexible densities. I do think that, and I know that some of this is in the comprehensive plan, but I think that some of it was altered in years past. Anyway, I don't believe that we should, in the high-density areas where there's supposed to be 10 units, approve 15 units. In the medium-density area where there's supposed to be 8 units, approve 10 units. And then there's a provision that says in the community development areas, and this is for affordable housing, if a parcel of land is an acre or less, if a builder builds 800 square feet units, that only counts as half the density. So if it's a high-density area, instead of having the 10, you'd have 15, but if they build 800 or less, you've got 30. Instead of 8, you have 10, but if they build 800 or less, you have 20. And I just think that that's wrong. And I think it's a shell game in the comprehensive plan. Whoever added that, or however that got in there, I think it was wrong, and it's a wrong policy. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you very much. Ma'am, state your name for the record, please. Oh, sorry. I'm Linda Fithian, and I am a resident of Palm City. Thank you. Anyone else looking to address us on this topic? Seeing none, back to the board. Did we already do this? Yes, we did. We have a motion by Commissioner Jenkins, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you. Our next agenda item is public hearing number five, a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of a comprehensive plan amendment, CPA 23-05, 6900 Southeast Ridgeway Terrace. It'll be presented by Mr. Clyde Doolin. Mr. Doolin, good afternoon. You are recognized. Good afternoon, members of the board. I am presenting on behalf of Carolyn Grinwald, who cannot be here today. This is a small-scale future land use map amendment, 0.65-acre parcel. It was formerly the Hoogstown Fire Station 33. It fronts U.S. Highway 1 and the corner of Ridgeway and U.S. 1. The local planning agency considered this and voted 4-0 to recommend approval. I'm going to slide down to the maps just to give you an idea of where we are and what it looks like. So this is a map, an aerial photo showing the location. This is Publix to the south. This is the Ridgeway Mobile Home Park to the east. This is Ridgeway Terrace where it intersects with U.S. 1. This is formerly the Massey-Yardley auto dealer. It is now the home of Broward Motorsports. And this is Osprey farther to the south, just to orient you. This is, as I said, formerly a Martin County fire station. The property was disposed of and sold. And this is the future land use designation on the property. It has a mobile home future land use designation, which was nothing inconsistent about having the fire station on that, however, it does leave the property available only for mobile home development and residential uses. This is the proposed future land use designation, general commercial. As you can see, there's general commercial to the south and to the north and a parcel across the street. Most of the parcels here that you see that are in red that are medium density residential and low density residential on the west side of the Federal Highway are part of the MacArthur Golf Club, and they are controlled under Preserved Area Management Plan. Just this general commercial parcel and one other right here are not part of the MacArthur Golf Club. So based upon the criteria for staff to make recommendations, it met three of the criteria. And as you can see, it is compatible with the existing land use designations to the north and to the south, and staff recommends approval of this proposed future land use map amendment. If there are any questions, I'll be happy to try and answer them. Thank you very much. Questions for staff from the commission? We have two requests to speak forms. The first one is Mr. Tom Quint. Thank you, sir, for your patience. I appreciate you coming back. I'm Tom Quint, 6940 Southeast Ridgeway. I'm against the rezoning of it. From what I know, there's been no traffic study done on Ridgeway itself, which is just a small little entrance road to our development. People live, I live three doors down from the fire station. I miss the fire station. Those were our heroes. They were there. We needed them. They were there. They watched over the whole neighborhood. But now that they left, it's zoned whatever it's zoned that the people bought it for. It should stay that way because that's what we bought into in our area when we bought the houses there. So right now, when I go to back out of my driveway, the cars that are coming off of US-1, I can't even, as soon as I go to back out, there's a car coming off of US-1. You know, so I pull back in. And it's how much traffic is on this road. And then another car's coming, another car. And then I go to back out because it's clear, and then there's a car coming out of Ridgeway. It's the only way in and out to US-1. There's no way you can put commercial on that piece of land. It won't work at all. OK? Since the fire department's moved out, there's been crime just rising because they kind of looked over the place. And they were there. You saw the fire trucks. The police department was there. So I don't know if anybody's ever reached out to Sheriff Snyder to make sure if he knows why crime's going up. But I can tell you it's because of all this commercial coming in. We just had a Publix built. We had a Dollar General built. It's just endless how much traffic is there. We got, like he said, a motorcycle place. They go up and down. Every time somebody comes and test drives a motorcycle or a side-by-side or a Jeep or whatever they're selling there, they come down my street up and down to test drive it. But it's right there. So there's no way. Now, when you pull out of Ridgeway also, they're saying that, you know, staff is saying that the car's going to be coming in off of US-1, go through, whether it's a drive-through from McDonald's or whatever it's going to be. They go through and they drive back out. Well, they can't go left when they leave. You can only go right. You can't go across US-1. So all the cars that want to go left are going to come down my street again to go out the back way to come around Osprey. Now, you approve Publix. I've complained and complained and complained about how much stuff that's not being addressed with the Publix. It's right, I mean, within a throwing distance from my house. You know, they have generators, trash compactors, lighting all over the place. My backyard's lit up like the 4th of July. It's crazy. So I'm asking you not to, you know, to check with Sheriff Snyder to check to see if there's crime is going up. I got burglarized. I got my police report where I just got burglarized. And he said, thank you very much for reporting it because he's trying to connect all the red dots. Sir, your time is up. It's happening. Okay. So thank you, sir. All right. The sheriff's going to be here later this afternoon. I'll hang on to your request to speak form and I'll mention it to him. Our next request to speak form is Ms. Linda Fithian. Why is this your legislative priorities? Yeah. There you go. He is. I'm the big guns in. Thank you. Time's up. Good afternoon. My name is Linda Fithian. Again, I live in Palm City. And when I saw this come up on the agenda, to me, it's like, okay, another entity bought a piece of property with a zoning of mobile housing. And now because they bought that piece of property, they want to change the zoning. If I was a resident that lived in the mobile park that I had bought knowing that that whole area was zoned for mobile housing, I would be very upset in regards to this. So even though there are general commercial on either side of that, I would not want that parcel that was originally zoned for mobile homes to be changed. I don't, it's, it's, there's a lot of people coming in here into Martin County. They buy a piece of property that's zoned one way, and then they want it all zoned for them the way they want it so that they can build whatever they want. And there's, there's no consideration for the people who live there and who have lived there for a long time and bought their property the way it was zoned as, um, for mobile homes. So that's basically what I wanted to say. I, I disagree with it and I don't think you should approve it. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Anyone else from the public looking to address us on this topic? Seeing none back to the board. Mr. Doolin, can I ask you a question? This was the fire station property. This was. It was zoned mobile homes? Yes. Not institutional? No. So you could have a fire station on mobile home zoning based on what you said? Yes. Who sold it? We did? Yes. Just Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney for the, for the record, this is a future land use map amendment, not a rezoning. So we're here to consider a legislative public hearing on the future land use map amendment. I just want to make sure everybody understands that. We do. Can you explain the difference for the members of the public? Sure. So a legislative public hearing is a policy decision made by the board. Um, whereas a rezoning is a quasi judicial proceeding or rezoning is based on the competent, substantial evidence presented to the board during the public hearing for a legislative public hearing. It's policy. It's, um, the policy that the board wants to make. They're not governed by any evidence presented at this hearing. It's what policy they see they want to do. And if they want to change the future land use map, um, designation for this piece of property, it's, it's not about zoning and it's not about a particular use. No, you had your chance. That's how it works. I appreciate it. Um, are you the applicant? I don't see, and it's not in any of my information, sir, please come and make your presentation on behalf of the applicant. I was wondering who the applicant was. Good afternoon. Uh, thank you for having me. Mike McCarty, McCarty and Associates land planning and design address 309 Southeast Osceola Street, Stewart, Florida, three, four, nine, nine, four, uh, representing the owner of this property. Yes, he did purchase this at auction from the county. Uh, you, the board of county commissioners deemed that this parcel was no longer a needed asset of the county. This is a, uh, old fire station. And I believe it was number 33, correct me if I'm wrong, but, uh, it served its purpose for a number of decades and was deemed, uh, that it had served its purpose and no longer was needed. Um, I subsequently a new fire station was brought online in the last year or so, um, in the area to take over this, this service area, uh, that this, uh, station previously provided. Um, when, when the county deems a piece of property surplus and they decide that it's no longer, uh, needed as a public asset to serve a purpose for the county, um, the private sector has the opportunity to purchase it at auction. And that's exactly what my client did. Um, the property is improved. It does have the old fire station, uh, you know, CBS construction of basically a building that has a roll-up door on the front and the back. It is appropriate to be reused in some commercial capacity. You'll see from the land use map that's before you that, uh, commercial land use designation is appropriate. Um, it is compatible with the surrounding uses. Um, it's a small parcel. We're not anticipating on doing anything here of significant, uh, impact that will negatively affect the area. Um, I, I did hear some, some comments though regarding, uh, that people are against this and, uh, I find that quite peculiar. I mean, previously this was a fire station. I spoke to a gentleman that called and he was opposed to it and said he'd rather see it turn into mobile homes. And I said, well, did you have a problem or any issue with the fire station that, you know, existed there for some decades with fire trucks and sirens all times of the night? And he didn't have a problem with it because it had a, uh, a purpose for the community. It was a benefit to the community. He didn't mind that. However, this is going to be a very passive, uh, use in this building, most likely be a commercial tenant, low impact. It's appropriate at the corner of Ridgeway and U S highway one and along this corridor. If you have any concerns, I'm happy to try to answer them, but this is pretty straightforward. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. So if we left this, um, mobile home future land use, this, any use on this property would be a nonconforming use, correct? And its previous use was a fire station. So, uh, how could, uh, how would that work? So conceivably you could rehab the building for residential use, or you could demo the building and you could put in mobile homes, uh, if you left the land use as it is, but the, uh, structure is not a mobile home and doesn't really qualify as a, as a fit with the mobile home future land use designation. Obviously mobile home future land use is not appropriate for this piece of property on U S one. So I don't see that we have a choice. And obviously your recommendation that it's general commercial is what it shows us. So I, I mean, there may be some folks that don't want it, but how can it not be? That's my understanding or my point. Commissioner Hurd. The quandary is that the mobile home land use is the only one that's compatible with the entire mobile home community that's behind it. Mobile home use on bordering U S I agree. It's it, that's, that's, that's an oddity, but the, but the fact remains that mobile home is consistent with the mobile home, uh, development. It's a big development sandwiched in between two general commercial pieces of property. Well, you would, I would say, I would say that the general, that the commercial general portions are incompatible with the mobile home use rather than the other way around. I don't think that the, the mobile home uses have to find fit in with the general commercial uses. We had our public comment portion of the agenda item already. Um, it's a weird, it's for such a small piece of property. It's, it's a quandary. Um, I can't imagine someone living in a mobile home directly on U S one. That's why I'm surprised that it was never zoned institutional for our use as a fire station. Um, I don't remember the specifics, uh, of the auction and the surplusing of the property, but Mr. McCarty is not wrong. He bought it at auction from us, from the County. And so I don't know what the, what would have been thought of back then. I, you know, I get that there's mobile homes behind it, but the concept of, you know, extending those mobile home lots to the corner of U S one and Ridgeway doesn't make sense to me either. Um, and we sold the property. So we've given up our ability to say it should be this or should be that I, you know, if there were some other options, but to, you know, it's either change it to what the owner of the property now thinks it should be, or is looking to have it be versus running mobile homes right up onto U S one is those are two weird options. Commissioner Smith. Clyde. I don't know if you remember maybe in your research when, when you looked into this, I, I thought when we did publics or we dealt with publics, were those lots out front part of the original, I don't know if it was PUD of heritage Ridge, but they were, and they were, they were not mobile home in the beginning. The public's location where my cursor is to right now on the map was general commercial previously. There was a hotel there and, uh, and restaurant that was there previous to the hurricanes in 2004 and they were in the hotel was damaged and destroyed by the hurricane. But was, but even prior to that, when heritage Ridge was conceived, were those out parcels not carved out of heritage Ridge? Uh, Paul Schilling, growth management director. Uh, there are a number of parcels outside of heritage Ridge, which were always anticipated as part of it. I don't think this is one of them. So you, so I'm just curious, uh, for example, the dollar general store, that's a commercial component of the, uh, heritage Ridge, uh, plan. It was yes, which is, but this approximately a thousand feet North, but heritage Ridge was built in the sixties, seventies, sixties and seventies, I believe in that mobile and that restaurant hotel that got torn down after the hurricanes. It was, I think originally Howard Johnson's or something. What was it? Days in, even before days in, it wasn't hard. I was too, I'm too young. Harold used to walk there barefoot in the snow. I just, I just, I seem to remember somewhere along the line that land use out on us one was always anticipated to be something other than mobile home. That's my understanding as well. Commissioner. It's rare that we're at a loss. What? Nothing. Well, it comes back to the board. So let's just recap. Can I ask a question? Of course. When this property was sold, was there any condition of it was sold knowing that it was zoned mobile home and that there was some, I believe there was no condition on the sale. I'm sure the property owner could have looked and found out it was, uh, had a mobile home future land use designation, but we wouldn't have conditioned any kind of change with the sale, any change of that future land use designation with the sale of the property, even though we're selling them a nonconforming use. There's no, there was no condition in the sale. I'm 99% sure that that would not have happened. That's correct. Cause we can't do that. Yeah. I'm Mike McCarty. Uh, I'm pretty sure this was auctioned through Elliot Paul. I believe he's the auctioneer that handles the surplus lands. If I'm, if I'm correct. And it's, it's buyer beware. You're buying, you're buying as is and with the zoning and the existing conditions and nonconformities and all. Um, I will state that I was consulted during the, uh, leading up to that auction. Um, the prospect purchaser at that time, uh, questioned what I thought would be the highest and best use. And I said, well, it certainly would make logical sense from a planning perspective that this be a, uh, commercial general corner, uh, given the uses surrounding it, the nature of, of the use that was existing. There was a, a fire station of high intensity traffic, uh, trip generation. Um, and then it had a, a building that could conform to the commercial zoning designation of general commercial. Um, with that said, he did acquire the property at auction for, I believe a million point one with the intention and understanding of, of changing it to zone, to zone it to commercial and the land use to commercial as well, uh, for reuse. And I believe it's the best, uh, interest of the County to approve the land use and the zoning designation. It puts this property back on the tax roll, uh, at its highest and best use. Is that the price? Was it a million one? I don't have that knowledge. I'm sorry. It was 900 and something, but yeah. What are our options? Well, the board needs, the board needs to make a motion of some type, whether to approve it or not approve it or an alternative motion. Well, as your chair, I'm interested in the motion. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, this is, you know, we're not going to please, uh, you know, anybody with our decision today, but this was auctioned off and the, um, buyer should have known that the underlying land use was mobile home. It's not our obligation to, to, we, we can't promise that we will, uh, change it to general commercial to conform with the, the, the, uh, neighboring, neighboring uses, but he had to know that the existing land use was, was mobile home and all of those units behind it were mobile home. And that was the expectation was that mobile home usage was going to be the only allowed use on that parcel. So I moved to deny. We have a motion. You have a motion. It's about to fail for the lack of a second, which would now it does fail for the lack of a second, which means I will entertain a different motion. Only a couple of options here. One would be to second the motion that said deny, which didn't happen. The other would be to make a motion to approve with a second. Commissioner Smith. We'll make a motion. And I think for all those listening and watching, um, this is land use, there's no site planning, there's no zoning involved, and it'll be a whole separate hearing, multiple hearings to consider whatever goes there, uh, in the future. Um, whether it's a reuse, whether it's a tear down, they'll still have to go through a mirror to just go. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, may I just please a couple of things, um, that just came to mind. In fact, one is what the existing mobile home land use, the, as the, uh, commissioner Jenkins pointed out, we had a legal nonconformity with respect to the fire station. That's no longer on the property. So what we're in effect left with is a mobile home land use with mobile home zoning with a commercial building that for all intents and purposes can't be utilized for a commercial business. Um, so that's that part. The other part is should the property be successful in the general commercial and be the existing building be retrofitted that may or may not trigger, uh, a development review final site plan. So there, and if it does, it may be a minor development, so it may not necessarily come back to this board. That was, but for, but for zoning, you would have to, we'll not have to come back for a companion zoning. Yes, sir. The next public hearing, I believe. Yes. So I, I, you know, it's, it's, we don't get to talk about what could happen there, what can be used there in this portion of the hearing because it's, does it conform to the surrounding land uses and is it compatible? Correct. So I guess the, the question for you all, if you rendered your opinion, it's compatible. Yes, sir. The ask is compatible. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Yes. But this is the hearing where you have more discretion. The next hearing would be based on confidence, substantial evidence presented at the hearing. And to be clear, that next hearing is next. Correct. Not in the future, shortly. If we get to that point, the, the, the agenda item would be moot if we don't get past this, correct? Correct. Correct. Okay. Commissioner Smith, did you do something there? I was going to, then it just kind of went sideways a little bit, but I will move staff's recommendation to keep us out of a massive lawsuit that I foresee in the future. Why? Um, I will second it. Okay. We have a motion by commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation, seconded by commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. I missed you on, on what? Oh, um, opposed. The motion carries three to two with commissioners Campy and Hurd dissenting. Thank you very much. Our next agenda item, public hearing quasi-judicial number one, public hearing to consider adoption of an amendment to the Martin County Zoning Atlas to change the zoning classification for CPA 23-05, 6900 Southeast Ridgeway Terrace. It'll be presented by Mr. Dooland. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before we begin, Commissioner. Oh yes, I apologize. It's a quasi-judicial proceeding. It's a quasi-judicial, so I will ask my colleagues if they've had any ex parte communications. Commissioner Hurd? I have none and they've been filed. Commissioner Jenkins? None and they've been filed. I have none and they've been filed. Commissioner Hetherington? None and they've been filed. Commissioner Smith? None and if I have any, they're filed. Thank you. Are there any, uh, interveners? No interveners. Anyone that'll be offering any testimony, would you 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? Are there any return receipts that are necessary? And if, if so, where are they? There are. Uh, good afternoon. Mike McCarty, McCarty and Associates, Land Planning and Design. Those return receipts were previously submitted at the previous hearing at the PNZ. Local planning agency. LPC? LPA? Thank you. And Mr. Dooland, either yours or Ms. Grunwald's, um, copy of the, of the agenda item and a copy of your work history? They have been turned into the clerk. Thank you very much. I think we're ready to begin. We are. Thank you. Mr. Dooland, you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. This is a, uh, quasi-judicial public hearing to consider the appropriate zoning district for the subject property that you just considered, a 0.65-acre parcel at the corner of Ridgeway and U.S. Highway 1. Uh, the existing zoning is RT for residential trailer. The applicant has proposed, uh, the GC, General Commercial Zoning District. I'm going to show you the maps. Well, let me show you, first of all, the General Commercial Future Land Use designation, which you just voted upon in the last public hearing, can be implemented with, by one of two standard zoning districts. One is community commercial. The other is general commercial, general commercial being the more intense of the two. In your package, in the, the agenda item, there is a permitted use schedule, and you can choose from between these two zoning districts and decide on which is the most appropriate. The applicant has requested the GC, which is highlighted. The permitted use schedule shows a substantially similar number of type of uses throughout, uh, and the uses are listed on the left, and the P in the matrix show, means that it's permitted in that zoning district. So as you can see, places of worship are permitted, post offices, protective and emergency services. You could have another fire station there. Um, public libraries, the commercial uses are also listed. Um, commercial amusements indoor, for instance, are not permitted in CC. They are permitted in GC. So you have a, uh, you can see there the list of permitted uses that are available. Flea markets are permitted GC, not in CC. Um, I'll get down to the map and show you the existing zoning in a second. But as you can see, the development standards for the two zoning districts are very similar. Minimum lot size is the same. Uh, minimum lot width is the same. Maximum building coverage for the GC is 60% and 50% for the CC. Max height is different. Minimum open space is different. Setbacks are the same for both the CC and GC. We've evaluated it based upon the standards and, uh, found that it complies. Uh, where is the map? There we are. I just went right by it. Why did she do that? Okay. This is the zoning atlas and the colors depicted on the zoning atlas. The red depicts the GC general commercial that is located to the north and the south of the property. The brown depicts the RT or residential trailer. As you can see, there's GC, um, GC on the west side and R3A on the west side. The rest of the land around that is in the MacArthur, um, golf club. So those are, this is the existing zoning atlas. And this is the proposed color for the proposed GC zoning district on the subject site outlined in teal. With that, I'll, uh, end the staff presentation and be happy to answer any questions. Mr. Doolin, thank you. Questions for staff from the commission. Seeing none, the applicants the opportunity to make a presentation. Good afternoon. Mike McCarty, McCarty and associates land planning and design, uh, representing the owner been sworn in. Um, as previously stated, we provided our, uh, return receipt, affidavit to staff. Uh, we also advertise the appropriate signage on the site as per, um, the land development regulation and notice requirements. Um, the, it's real straightforward. I mean, to the north, you've got general commercial zoning, a very large commercial track, high intensity, uh, lots of parking, a lot of square footage, tens of thousands of square feet of general commercial use. Same to the south. This is a small postage stamp on a corner. We're talking a very, very small piece. Um, it is on the corner. And so therefore it's appropriate that it has a general commercial zoning designation. We're trying to put a tenant in this building, get it occupied, generate some tax base for the county. If you have any questions. Thank you. Mr. McCarty questions from the commission for the applicants representative. Seeing none at this time, we have one request to speak formed by Mr. Tom Quint. Sir, welcome back. Uh, Tom Quint 6940 Southeast Ridgeway. Um, Mr. Smith, I'm sorry, but you were wrong earlier when you're talking about Heritage Ridge, because we're a Ridgeway. Okay. So you're talking about Heritage Ridge. And then the guy over here brings up Dollar General. It's on a street and nobody lives on. Okay. Publix was built address the comments generally to all of us. No, I understand. You're right. But just speak generally to all of us. You can say exactly what you're saying. Just don't single out commissioners. Well, I'm just saying it was right, but I apologize for the confusion. All right. So it's the Dollar General was built like a year ago, whatever on a street that nobody lives on. Okay. Publix was built on Osprey. Nobody lives on. There's no driveways, no nothing. Okay. This is a totally different animal. This has got houses within three, 300 feet, 200 feet. You got houses right there. Now, another thing you guys were wrong on in general was that you can build a concrete structure home in Ridgeway. And no, I don't know if anybody knows that here or not, but there's homes in Ridgeway or concrete homes. This fire station could be lived in as a concrete home. Well, you can roll your eyes, but I'm just telling you, you guys got a decision to make and I'm trying to give you the facts. Absolutely. Okay. Right. So the staff, all they want to do is take the red and the red and connect the dots. They just want to put that little force of red right there. It's a whole different animal. This is all kids playing, kicking their ball out in the driveway. You got so much traffic going down. There's only one way in the garbage company, uh, UPS, Amazon, all the people that live there, all the guys coming in to do the AC repair work. Everybody comes on that street, Martin County, uh, water dishes right behind me. They come up and down that street all day. That's the only way they can get out. So there's no right. When you leave there, you can't make a left turn. They're going to come down my street to go out the back way by Publix. It's not going to work. I'm telling you, it's a big disaster. This is a very unique little thing. You guys need to know that it could be used as a concrete house building right there, or they could build two houses on there if they want. Okay. The commercial zone that's on the, that you're looking at right here to the north is a motorcycle dealership. They don't even use the whole parking lots empty. I don't know what commissioner is in charge of my district, but just drive by there within the next week and look, they don't use it. They have two lunch wagon trucks that sit out there. All they do is run their stuff up and down the street, but they don't use that whole parking area. So it doesn't really impact us, but this is going to impact majorly. I'm not going to get on my driveway. The kids aren't going to be able to kick the ball in the street. They're not going to ride their bikes up and down the street. You're making a big mistake. This is a whole different animal. Okay. You need to really look at that and look at the zoning is open to concrete buildings. And that is a concrete building. They can live in it. I've been on it. I've been over 200,000 on that place. So I was going to live in it because I wanted that to stay the way it is. They have a fuel tank right now, 500 gallons sitting there, not inspected by anybody. The counties just washed their hands and walked away. It's right next to the drainage ditch. Nobody's doing nothing. Sir, your time is up. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your comments. When you're done, Mr. Fiffey, and if you could fill out a form. I did for the last time as well. I don't have them here. My wife gave it to the sheriff, whoever you're supposed to give it to. My name is Jim Fiffey, and I live in Palm City. There are, I guess, 800 residents who live in this particular trailer park. I'll bet you if you took a vote, not that you would or should, but if you took a vote, probably be 800 people would say they didn't want this, and you all just voted for it. I don't get it. The gentleman that came here took his time. Most of the people are at work today. They don't have time for this. I'm retired. But I'll tell you what, I live in Palm City, nice development, probably nicer than the development that we're talking about. But these people deserve representation, and they didn't get it, okay? This one gentleman came today to discuss with you what this was going to mean. You had said, I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to do that. It sounds to me like there's fear involved. Winston Churchill wouldn't have done what he did in World War II if he was concerned about fear, okay, of a lawsuit. I think that you should take a stand sometimes on these requests. The guy knew he paid a million dollars for that piece of property knowing what he was allowed to do and not do. And you just opened a door for him, okay, to change it. That's why they were here. If they didn't have to request that you would change it, they didn't need to be here. They had just done it. So I don't get it. It's very disappointing. And I think it's a shame that those 800 rep, those people that live there have been misrepresented today. Very sad. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Anyone else looking to address us on this topic, please come forward. And you'll fill out a form too, please. Thank you again, Linda Fithian in Palm City. So I just wanted to point out in the public hearing agenda, all the attachments that went with it included a live local excerpt. So why they put this live local excerpt in there for this piece of property means that when you zone something commercial, they can put affordable housing on here. It's a 0.65 acre lot. So if it's considered medium density or high density, whatever it's considered, these people could now have 15 to 30 units of affordable housing on here, no matter what the person here says they're going to do with it. You don't know that because you just zoned it, or you're going to try to zone it general commercial. So I'm appalled. Okay, because when people buy a piece of property zoned the way it's zoned, just because they bought it, and they want to put something else on it doesn't mean that it should be done for the residents who have owned the property for years. I don't know anybody that that lives there. I only met this gentleman today. So I have no personal anything. I just think it's a very big injustice. And I think we need to start standing for injustices and start saying no. Thank you. Thank you. You want to go first or second? No. No. I would defer to Commissioner Heather. Commissioner Heatherington. So based on the residents' comments that Mr. Quint, I would like to suspend this particular item. Table. Table it. And then I would like to make a motion to reconsider the Public hearing. That we just had? Yes. Public hearing number four. Five. Public hearing number five. Public hearing number five. Okay, let's take it. Let's break it down. Let us know what we need to do. Well, first off, we're suspending this specific agenda. Commissioner Heatherington wants to table this, so we need a motion to table it, and a second, and then a motion for reconsideration, and a second, and that goes that route. I'll make a motion to table. Motion to table. We have a motion by Commissioner Heatherington to table PHQJ-1. Seconded by Commissioner Heard. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Now, you want to make a motion. I would like to make a motion to reconsider. Public hearing number five. Public hearing number five. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Heatherington to reconsider the previous decision for public hearing number five. Seconded by Commissioner Heard. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. So now I'm not familiar with what we should be doing. So under your rules of procedure, what you just voted on was to, you agreed to reconsider the vote. It has the effect of suspending the action until we can go back. Once the majority vote is done, it will have the effect of suspending all action that the original vote would have required until the reconsideration is acted upon by the board at the same or subsequent meeting which should have specified the time to reconsider would be. So we need to re... So if the procedures provide at the meeting, this meeting, as long as the board says we're going to reconsider this maybe at a time certain to give the public notice, then we can reconvene at that time? I don't have the rules of procedure in front of me. It'll make it confusing. The provision is a majority vote. Well, let's see. Until the... It suspends it until the reconsideration is acted upon by the board at the same or subsequent meeting which should be specified at the time the... Oh, the motion to reconsideration is made. Oh, so we didn't do that. If the motion to reconsider is not, it can't be. If the vote to be reconsidered required particular notice, such notice is required before the reconsideration can be acted upon. So the notice was given at this meeting, if they revote today, we would be all right. The question would be, in your motion, Commissioner, did you intend to reconsider the vote? I would motion to reconsider it today. Today. So I believe... Do we need to recess, Ms. Elder, to...? I think we can vote on that. Okay. And then are we going to do it the next item? Is there a time frame? I get to make that. Well, we have lights on. So I would assume when I heard Commissioner Hetherington ask to reconsider it, I think as appropriate to the applicant and to her staff and to reconsider it right now unless you needed time. I don't know what... I haven't conferred with anyone. So if it's going to be discussed right this minute, then I don't think you need to... We're in the same... We're in the same hour. Right. We have the same people here. But if it's going to get postponed, then that's a whole other story. But let me take a light from Commissioner Jenkins. I would prefer to table it to another meeting so I can get more comfortable with the action that I took. The vote... We voted to reconsider, but the date upon which the new action would be taken. You're asking for it to be another meeting. Okay. That would require re-notification. It would, but the... I believe the statute passed for the... that we can open a public here, continue it to a date certain, and then you wouldn't have to re-notice, I believe. So the next meeting would be... If the board didn't want to do it today, you could do it right now if you would like. But if the board doesn't want to do it today, we can... Commissioner Heather and 10 did a motion to reconsideration. We can reopen public hearing number four. The board can... Five, I'm sorry. The board can continue that hearing for a date certain, and that would preclude... Then the applicant would not have to re-notice it and send all the property owner's notice and re-advertise in the paper. If we did a date certain today, if it's not reconsidered today. Okay. May I make a suggestion? Sure. It seems that this has become a complicated item. I think, sir, I think even from the applicant's point of view and his representative, that maybe there is some kind of consideration between the... We're represented by one resident here, not many, but one. But he made a compelling argument. And it seems like there is confusion amongst some of the commissioners. If I were the applicant, if I would give you a humble recommendation, Mr. McCarty, I would potentially try to renegotiate this with the people that have issue and come up with something that might potentially work. The weird angle for me is that you're... The person you're representing purchased the property from the county. So we're sort of in the mix here. But I mean, you could continue to push this issue today, which is your prerogative, I believe, to an outcome you might not be happy with, which is our prerogative versus maybe going back out and trying to come up with something that the gentlemen and others that might come could support versus taking it on the chin today, potentially. One second. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. Motions for reconsideration are extremely rare, but not unheard of. We've done this before, and it's the prerogative of any commissioner voting in the majority to at the same meeting or at the next meeting to make a motion to reconsider their vote on an agended item. And that's exactly what Commissioner Hetherington did right now, because she wanted to reconsider her vote on public hearing number five. So I think it's perfectly okay to vote on it today at your prerogative. Or if you want to postpone it, perhaps you can postpone it for one more meeting, but no more than that. It has to be voted on immediately. The motion for consideration has to be voted on immediately, but you can continue the actual public hearing to another date, certainly it could be two weeks. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. If you're voting on it, if you, if you open the public hearing, then you're taking the matter up and then you can table it, I believe. I'm going to, I'm fine whether we reconsider it today or the next meeting on the 26th. I think it's your preference. So let's, let's, um, I'll motion to reconsider it, uh, date certain September of 26th. Okay. Commissioner Smith. So to the applicant, um, I'm going to give you an opportunity to speak. I assume the applicant still, if, if this were to be reversed, I guess, if you want to call that, if the decision is reversed, there's nothing that precludes the applicant from coming back with a, another ask at some time in the future. Right. Let me make sure I understand the question. So the, the question is right now the, the motion for reconsideration has had the effect of suspending all action. And then the board can, um, continue the matter to a date certain, which would be what I'm hearing from, uh, Commissioner Hetherington would be to continue it to the 26th. If at that hearing, just for the sake of argument, the board votes, no, yes, they could always come back later, always, and ask for something else. It doesn't preclude anything. I'm just, you're correct. I'm just hearing that information with the public and the applicant. Yes. Yes. Because there's some options here. Sure. One is for the applicant to say, no, I'm not interested and I'll take my vote and I'll go home. The other is to continue if that is the motion that is ultimately made and come back at another date. I suspect the room will be full. So to the applicant, I just prepare yourself for what that looks like, um, because this will generate its own life at this point. And then you'll have to consider what your options are. And I think to even the motion makers for whether it's continued or it's dealt with today, I, that's all part of this. Um, and so it, it, it, my, my sense is whatever direction it takes, it'll just get harder. Mr. McCarty, you do not have to speak, but I'm giving you the opportunity to speak. I appreciate that. Thank you. I've, could I ask the board some questions? May I, I'll, I'll decide as you're asking. Okay. When, so when the board decided that this piece of property should be auctioned, it's obvious that if that's the case, your intent is for it to have some future use, right. And to be sold to the public. Correct. I mean, that, that would be a logical assumption based on that. I think that's fair. So my question to the board, and I'm, I'm here to hear what do you feel would be the appropriate use of this property? One second, sir. I, we heard you hold on one second. You lit the board up. We'll start with our attorney. Sarah Woods County attorney for the record. This property was not, was sold as is for is. There was no representation for this. So I would respectfully disagree with your statements completely. Um, I do not believe the board, um, indicated that when they put it on the surplus list, any kind of particular use for it. So that would be inappropriate. Also from a legal standpoint, we wouldn't have been able to do that in the first place. So I think factually, this was sold as is with the current land uses in place. There was no representation or promise in any way, shape or form. I would, because this matter is being continued, I would caution the board since this is, and I'm going to defer to our land use expert about questioning the board about what they think. Correct. Yeah. I don't believe that's appropriate. Yes, sir. So I wouldn't recommend the question and answer dialogue. We're in the motion consideration aspect. So that's kind of where, what motion we're talking about. I think we already closed the quasi judicial tabled it. So my next question to you was what part, what agenda item are we in? So right now, I think you've tabled the quasi judicial Commissioner Hetherington did a motion to reconsideration. That's what's up for discussion before the... We voted. They voted on that? Yeah. Okay. So then we have... She did not specify, however, the... Right. So then it... Right. We did vote, but then Ms. Woods talked about... Now we're talking time. We need to re-vote in my, to, to not only the, the reconsideration passed, but there also needs to be a specified date, whether at the current meeting or I think we did that, but just for clarity sake, for the record. The next step would be to reopen the public hearing and then either discuss it or continue it to a date certain. So we need to reopen public hearing number five and then you can decide if the board wants to address it today or if they want to continue it to a date certain and we have to put the date and time certain on the record. Understood. So, um, we have lights. Do you want to do, let's do that first. I would entertain a motion to reopen... PH5. Public hearing number five. So moved. We... We did. We did to, to reconsider. So now we're reopening public hearing number five. It's... We already have it. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? So now we have reopened public hearing number five. Let me just clarify. We have options now that we've heard from our, from our legal team. We can have a conversation now and a vote now. We can have a conversation to discuss a date certain into the future which Commissioner Hetherington has already specified should be on the 26th which is our next immediate meeting. That's where we stand right now. I think we owe it to the applicant at least to have some type of a conversation just not to get into the details of it unless the board would say we're hearing it right now. My suggestion to you, the applicant, is you wouldn't want to do that. Commissioner Hetherington. My reconsideration is basically simply looking at this map and how very, very close this parcel is to the neighboring mobile home. Very, very close. So the more I'm looking at this map, it's very tough to see, you know, interaction with commercial going in and out of there. Just to reiterate, either we're going to talk about it today or we're going to continue it. I'd rather not have a public hearing today and then table it. We've reopened the public hearing. It's reopened, but I think the decision first should be whether we're going to hear it today and have a conversation or we're going to just table it and then have a conversation later but not have conversations twice would be the best preference. I'm prepared to vote today, but if the district commissioner would like more information, then I'm happy to you. Commissioner Jenkins. Commissioner would like for himself to be a little more familiar and talk to our legal department for one, but also it gives, obviously it's going to fail, right? Just hearing. So it gives him the opportunity to do whatever he can do on his end to protect his client's interests. All right. For two weeks. I don't think that's asking too much. That would be my preference. Okay. I, I, I, if there's ever been an agenda item that, that standing on the fence is, is a, for me is this one. And you know what? Getting two weeks to understand it and feel better about it myself. I, I, that's the way I personally would feel about it. Thank you. I would reiterate my recommendation is that I believe nearly every agenda item can be a yes or a no. It can pass or fail. I would engage your neighbors. I would engage the gentleman that's here as you know, but then go up and down the street. It's going to be something, sir. It's going to be something. Uh, for me, the, the thing that makes this sort of very unique is the very small size of the property. However, it's fronting us one, but that being said to the back portion of the parcel is a fence and then a residential house. I think that you, the best way to go is to engage the neighbors, your immediate constituency right there and say, what could work here? What could not? Mr. McCarty, one of the things that sticks in my head is when we were questioning the auction and head shaped. Okay. Final comment. Perfectly. Okay. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what I'm saying. That's so I'll, I, I can monitor my words. Yes, I can. Um, it was an auction where the property was purchased as is with no expectation of a zoning change. Your person purchased it, understanding that something would happen. There's some heavy lifting that gets involved in making something happen to make the other folks that are affected come on board. If I were you, I would take the two weeks and, and engage your neighbors to come up with some recommendation that everyone can embrace. They'll have to understand that it's a commercial, you know, it's a us one corner, but the argument that you're driving directly into a residential neighborhood with very few exits out with, with houses directly right there requires a little more effort than submitting an application to the County and hoping for the best. It's a cautionary tale for anyone that thinks they can come and just look, we could barely get a second or a motion. So, I mean, it's, this is not, it's unique because it's very challenging set of circumstances that your owner and you, you're an expert, you know how to do this, can address. But I would take that as a suggestion, not entertain a motion to when we will be hearing this again. Not a motion, not a motion back on the 26th. Is that a motion? It was a motion to bring it back on the 26th. Okay. At nine o'clock or a time thereafter, so we designate exactly the time. And we just want to make sure that the applicant can be there because if for some reason they can't be there and then it has to be postponed again, then you're going to have to provide the proper notice. So that's the only thing I would say before the board votes. Does the 26th work for you as the applicant? Can we set a time? I'll make it the first, it'll be the morning preset. You have a dentist appointment at 830. They never go well anyway. I know. Well, I mean, needless to say, I'm pretty sure you were kidding. I get that you're not kidding about the dentist appointment, but I'm thinking a rescheduling would be appropriate of the dentist appointment. I can do that. I mean, if I was your, if I was paying you, I don't know if dentist appointment carries as much. We shouldn't even be discussing it. This is Petticoat Junction. But look, the system, we call it making sausage. The system, they're a public comment that asked to have this be, this is exactly what you would want. Mr. Quint, you've been here all day. You're doing your thing. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington for the 26th of September, immediately following whatever the opening, you know, public comment. It'll be the first agenda item on the 26th. As the chairman, that's what I can give you. It was seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We're going to see you Tuesday morning, September 26th. Thank you, members of the board. Thank you. I bet you didn't think it was going to go like that. I never can tell. Hey, that's why we're all up here. Okay. The fiscal budget, we're not doing that. Thank you. Public hearing quasi-judicial number one is off. Let's go to, nobody's going to want to be next. Departmental quasi-judicial number one. Request plat approval for a preserve at park. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Can we reopen it, reopen the quasi-judicial so we can set that to a date certain as well? Otherwise, they will have to notice that. You only suspended it, so you need to reopen it. Reopen it. Reopen the quasi-judicial. I got it. Continue to a date certain. I got it. Move that we, yeah, sorry. PHQJ1. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd to reopen public hearing quasi-judicial number one. Seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. We are reopened. I would now entertain a motion. Continue the item until September 26th, shortly after 9 30-ish. Immediately following public hearing number five. Right. Which might not be public hearing number five on the 26th, but you know what we mean. Correct. That was made by, that motion was made by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Is this an old lighter? Thank God. That being said, Mr. McCarty, have a great rest of the day. Our next agenda item is departmental public, departmental public hearing quasi-judicial number one, request for plat approval for the preserve at Park Trace Planned Unit Development V038-04. It'll be presented by, you ready? Mr. Brian Elam, and it's quasi-judicial. So Commissioner Smith, do you have any ex-parte communications? Commissioner Hetherington? If any, they've been filed. I don't have any, that's been filed. Commissioner Jenkins? If I have any, they've been filed. Commissioner Hurd? I don't have any, they've been filed. Anyone looking to make public comment, please, not public comment, anyone looking to participate in the hearing, please stand to be sworn in. Raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Are there return receipts that are needed? No. Do you have a copy of your work history and the agenda item, Mr. Elam? Are there any intervenors? No intervenors. Okay. Look at that. Mr. Elam, you, good afternoon. You are recognized. Chairman, commissioners, for the record, Brian Elam, principal planner with growth management. This is a request by D.R. Horton for plat approval of the Preservant Park Trace planned unit development. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities exemption. Preservant Park Trace PUD zoning agreement master final site plan were approved on September 28, 2021. The project includes 114 single-family lots on approximately 97 acres and is located on the south side of Southeast Cove Road directly across from the intersection of Southeast Willoughby Boulevard. There were minor technical revisions required to the approved master final site plan, and so this agenda item includes the First Amendment. It's an excerpt of the title page for the plat. It includes seven pages. We have an aerial view of the site being developed in the approved master's final site plan. For Article 10 of the Martin County Land Development Regulations, plat applications require a view and recommendation by the county administrator with final action being provided by the Board of County Commissioners in a public meeting. Review of this application by the LPA is not required. Development review staff have found the application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan is detailed in the staff report. Staff approves this application and we move that the Board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as Exhibit 1. Move that the Board approve the Preservant Park Trace PUD plat including the contract for construction of required improvements in infrastructure. I move that the Board approve the first amendment to the Preservant Park Trace PUD updating the master final site plan. And that concludes the presentation. Sir, thank you very much. Questions for staff from the commission? Seeing none. Mr. Crady, good afternoon. You're representing the applicant, I assume. Yes, good afternoon. For the record, my name is Morris Crady. I'm senior partner with the CEDO and Associates and I'm here on behalf of the applicant and the owner. And as you can see from the aerial where we've been under construction for over a year now and following all the codes and requirements and taking care of our neighbors. And with that understanding, I'll be glad to answer any questions. But we're obviously in support of staff's recommendation of approval. Questions for the applicant's representative? Seeing none. Anyone from the public looking to address us on this item? This is departmental quasi-judicial number one. Seeing none. Back to the Board. I'm sorry. That's right. Thank you. Seconded. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Our next agenda item is departmental quasi-judicial number two, a request for Platt approval for Sago Bluff H148-003. It'll be presented again by Mr. Brian Elam. It's quasi-judicial, so let's begin the process. Do you have any ex parte communications, Commissioner Smith? I do not. If I have any, they're filed. Commissioner Hetherington? I do not and they're filed. Commissioner Jenkins? I do not and they've been filed. Commissioner Harris? I do not and they've been filed. I do not and that's been filed. Anyone that's going to be offering any testimony, please stand to be sworn in. Raise your right hand. Do you... You don't have to. 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? Do you have a copy of your work history and the agenda item? I do. Are there any return receipts necessary? No return receipts are necessary. No intervenors. Thank you. Mr. Elam, the floor is yours. Again, Chairman, for the record, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with Growth Management. This is a request by John T. Dolan for plat approval of the Segal Bluff development included with this application as a request for a certificate of public facilities exemption. Segal Bluff project received final site plan approval on September 30th, 2021. The site consists of a 10-lot mixed-use subdivision and associated infrastructure improvements on approximately 1.62-acre parcel located on the south side of Northeast Dixie Highway between Northeast Segal Drive and Northeast Hillcrest Lane within the Ryo community redevelopment area. There's an aerial of the property location and a screenshot of the plat. A review by the local planning agency is not required per article 10. Staff has reviewed this application and found that it complies with all the regulations in the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report and staff recommends approval of this application. 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 Segal Bluff plat including the contract of construction of required improvements in infrastructure. That concludes the presentation. Thank you very much. Questions for Mr. Elam? Seeing none. Sarah, welcome. Good afternoon. Mike McCarty, McCarty and Associates Land Planning and Design representing the applicant. Here for any questions you may have. This is very straightforward. We've already received site plan approval some time ago and this is the subsequent plat. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Questions for the applicant's representative? Seeing none, I have one request to speak form so far. It's by Ms. Julie Priest. Ms. Priest, good afternoon and welcome back. Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the board and staff. Let me start with a little history. The Ryo Civic Club was created, oh, I am here representing the Ryo Civic Club. The Ryo Civic Club was created in 1950, 73 years ago to improve conditions in Ryo. An FDOT landscape beautification grant was awarded to the Ryo Civic Club over 20 years ago when Commissioner Wilcox was our district commissioner. The Dixie Highway right-of-way on this parcel contains the landscaping that was installed as part of that grant. This vacant parcel is located across the street from Jensen Beach Bowl and is just west of Lankford Landing. We anticipate that the Sago Bluff lots will draw similar quality residences. Lots in Ryo's older subdivisions are platted at 25 foot wide and starting at 25 foot wide and Sago Bluff has 10 lots that range from 64 feet to 100 feet, over 100 feet in frontage and 72 feet to over 100 feet in depth. There are fewer than a handful of vacant residential lots on the market in Ryo. And the Ryo Civic Club welcomes this opportunity for 10 residential lots and this investment in Ryo. We also welcome the 804 additional sidewalk linear feet for what that are associated with this project. This plat was presented to the Ryo CRA and we ask for your favorable consideration. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else looking to address us on this topic? Seeing none. Back to the board. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation of approval, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Gentlemen, thank you. Mr. McCarty, thank you. Okay, we have a three o'clock preset, departmental number four, the 2024 state and federal legislative programs. It'll be presented by Ms. Sarah Powers, but what I'd like to do is take our closed captioning break now for 10 minutes and we'll pick it up when we come back. Thank you very much. Our mid-afternoon closed captioning break to continue our September 12, 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. We have a three o'clock preset. We're a little bit, a couple of minutes behind that. Departmental number four, the 2024 state and federal legislative programs. It'll be presented by Ms. Sarah Powers. Ms. Powers, you are recognized. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Hi. Oh, Kim LaVie stepping into this. Your administrative services manager. I'm here with Ms. Powers, who will actually present the legislative programs for the state and the federal in 2024. They're both for consideration today. I just wanted to give special thanks to John Mail, who is not here today. He's a large part of the the legislative team, and we wanted to make sure that we said thank you to him for helping us put this presentation together. Also, just also throwing this out there, our communications divisions put together the two packets you have in front of you. They spent a lot of time putting everything together, and I just wanted to say thank you to Martha Ann and Courtney both. Ms. Powers? It's on the record now. Thank you. I want to make sure we got that on the record. It is. So, as Kim said, these are our state and federal legislative priorities. They might look a little familiar because they're pretty much the exact same from last year, except for appropriations, which we'll get into. Oops. Okay. So, we'll go ahead and start with our first ask is the Besse Creek capacity improvements. We'll be requesting seven million dollars, and Representative Overdorf will be handling that for us. This project replaces three culverts in Martin Downs. Basically, it's going to turn them into bridges to improve flow, reduce flooding, and improve water quality downstream from those. So, that's project number one. Number two, we have County Road 714 realignment with 710. That is a request for five point one million dollars, and Representative Overdorf will be handling that one as well. This is going to be a collaborative effort with Okeechobee County as well. So, we're going to request that Representative Kaylee Tuck and Senator Albritton also join the team on this because they are where the road aligns. It's actually in Okeechobee County, and it's also two different FDOT districts. So, we'll ask that we all work together to get this done. Next, we have the Kitching Creek Eastern Flowway restoration. This, sorry, for 1.5 million dollar ask, Representative John Snyder will be handling that for us as it is in Hope Sound. This project will help restore the connection to the drainage basin and rehydrate wetlands and reduce seasonal flooding. And our next is actually a repeat from last year. We're asking five million. Last year, we were appropriated one million for this project, but we're asking for the remaining five to make sure the project comes to fruition. So, that's a five million dollar ask. Representative Snyder will be handling that for us. And that is the fire, sorry, I didn't introduce the project, the Martin County Fire Rescue Public Safety Training Tower. And that's a facility out there. And our last appropriation is for the Martin County Sheriff's Office Mental Health Housing Pod. And that's a five million dollar request for startup money. May I stop you there? I'm sure you're well versed on it, but there is someone more well versed than you that we are pleased, very pleased to have here with us. So, why don't we hear directly from the boss on why this is an important ask for Martin County? I agree. I have fans. Sheriff? With his fan club. Thank you, Chairman. I think I've been invited to come back at five. I'm hoping I don't get booze at five instead of again. That's how the day goes. You all have had a long day. You're gonna have a long night, I think. So, I'll be very brief. First of all, uh, our major is here with us. Uh, I appreciate her being here today and some of my other staff, and we'll be back later tonight. Uh, I think, uh, Ms. Power said it best. We're, we really would love to get started on conceptual. We've more than conceptualized what we want to do. What we need now is a study, uh, to tell us exactly how much it would cost, what the layout might look like. Uh, I think this ask is a, is a fair ask. I'm not sure what the legislature's appetite will be, but I think it's the right move right now is to try to draw down some state dollars and see if they would buy into the, to our, I think what's now become our collective belief in this community, I think in this board, that we do something more than what we're doing now with, with people who have mental illness who run afoul of the law and create an environment where they can go and begin to recompensate. They come in and they immediately become, they begin to decompensate. And we believe, I believe very strongly. And I was, I was talking to, uh, uh, the administrator Donaldson a moment ago. I think it's become the, the human justice, human rights issue of our day. There's so much mental illness in our, in our community and in the country that to have a place where someone who is mentally ill run afoul of the law to begin the healing process only makes sense. And it's the right thing to do. And I think this ask is a step in the right direction. I would completely agree. Commissioner Smith. Sheriff. Good afternoon. Afternoon, Commissioner. Um, I really should have met with you prior to this because I might ask some questions that seem, um, why didn't you ask me before on those questions, but I don't think it's not that you can't answer them. Have you had, have you and your staff had a conversation with leadership in Tallahassee as to what that appetite is for doing this? I mean, do we have a, do we have a sense at all? Yes. I, I, well, I had one conversation with the local rep with, uh, with the, uh, majority, the deputy majority leader of the Florida house who's in leadership. And I, I'm not sure that we would be able to swing this big of an ask as, as seed money or whatever we want to refer to it as, but there is an appetite. Yes. Mental illness is hot and yes. So the answer is, I do think we would find a receptive ears. So I'm not making the, I'm not suggesting that we change the ask. I'm just thinking, I'm trying to think down the road a little bit. How do we set ourselves up for the much bigger ask that will come? If we get this, if we are to receive this, then there is the much bigger ask of how do we build it or how do we fund building it? Right. And so when I was talking to our staff about this and the other appropriation staff, how do we position ourselves? How do we position you or how do you position it with us? That the ask is of state significance, that it sets the mold or the template for the state to follow for whether these are going to be regional facilities or they're going to be county by county. I, you know, I don't know if there are, I can't imagine that every one of the 67 counties doesn't have the same issue that we are having. I would assume it's across the platform. That's the exact right question commissioner. And we were talking, I was talking with the administrator, our county administrator. So our, our, without, without getting into the weeds, you have such a long day. We have to make a decision somewhere along the line. Some of that decision will be impacted by what we feel the appetite for the house is, the feedback we get from house staff and, uh, and appropriations. If we went to the state and try to pitch this as a regional facility where we would draw, uh, critical inmates or inmates with trouble or mental illness from, it would be Okeechobee County, Indian River, St. Lucian Martin. That's our region. That's where our state attorney's over. And that, that region makes sense. If we were to do that, I think there would be a much bigger appetite in Tallahassee to fund us for a regional. The problem with that would be, it would depend on how much they would be willing to give us. And that's going to be a policy decision for you all. At some point, if the money was so good, we, we could do a regional and, and it would work. We could make it work. The problem we would have to, we would have to deal with is we would, we would, we don't want because they put in some good money for the next 20 years for the people of Martin County to bear the whole cost. So we would need buy-in from those sheriffs. We would need commitments, uh, not just commitments. We'd need contracts, MOUs stating that they would put in manpower. No matter what, you can't fund a whole regional, uh, facility with manpower based on Martin County tax base. So if the upfront money was right, or the seat, the money from the state was right, and we could get buy-in from the other three sheriffs, the regional concept might work. I think the biggest thing about the regional concept is it would be much more desirable in Tallahassee. We just have to make sure it's practical. And I, and I only, I only kind of throw that out there with how we all know how Tallahassee looks at things and how they view ideas. And, um, I don't know if we're the only, you're the only jurisdiction that's asking the question, can we have one? Can we design one? Can we put one together? I'm just suggesting that maybe as a parallel track out there, we start a conversation to say, you know, should it be, remember how the old trauma centers were? Trauma centers, we used to have trauma, uh, trauma districts. And there was a time where Martin County was never going to get a trauma hospital because of the cost and the scale at which those things operate. And so we used to go south for trauma or we went eventually to the north because of just the demographics and how things worked. But it was because of the overhead and the scale at which those facilities operate at. And so it just got me thinking about this going, okay, if, if, if the number was what we talked about before in the presentation a couple months ago as to the, the build number, the cost number, does it start to get to a legislative ask to where someone's going to say at some point, how do we consolidate these things statewide like the trauma care districts? And if the state is going to be on the hook for some portion of it, does it make sense to have that conversation? The other thing that I don't remember from the presentation, although I, I think it was in there, I'm not sure. Is it your anticipation or does the model that you showed us, I think it was the Texas one or whatever was the super nice one that you presented? Dallas. Dallas. Did it have its own medical facility built in? It did. And that also got me thinking, that's where I started to think about like the trauma care centers, that if you've, if, if there's a medical center, the amount of staff, the discipline of staff that you would have to have to deal with that versus taking them to a Cleveland clinic if that's what the alternative was. Again, does that get on a scalable picture that it starts looking like, is it, and maybe it's not Indian River, but it makes sense if that's the judicial, you know, the judicial district. I just, just for thought, it wasn't to take it off track of where you are. I'll ask, I'll, and I'll help you up there, whatever direction you want to go in. I'm just thinking how they are going to respond to the ask. And are we, are, is it capable, are we capable and flexible enough if we have to move in a direction to go in that kind of a direction? I'm a hundred percent. Yes, I'm very flexible. I think one of the questions, and you're right on target. You can mind reader. I have chafed at the fact that in the almost 12 years I've been sheriff, every time we have to arrest an inmate and there's a little boo-boo on their head. We have to go to Martin Memorial and you all, the taxpayers have to pay the bill. Dade County, which is where I was used to, had its own prison ward. So the ultimate, the ultimate would be to have our own ward where not major trauma, but inmates that come in injured or they have to be viewed for X amount of hours because they're so intoxicated. If we could have that model, I guarantee you we could draw a huge interest from St. Lucie and from Indian River if they could bring people here. But it would be a big lift where I don't want, and just so that I don't forget, I would love to go to those trauma centers and see how thrilled they are when Martin County people come flying in there. I don't know that it works out financially for them. And that's why I keep not wanting to stick the taxpayers in Martin County in the out years with the burden that they may come someday come to resent. I just, I apologize for not having that idea prior to it. I just, it just got me thinking at some point I would think the legislature is going to say, okay, we haven't asked from the central part of Florida. We haven't asked from the northeast central part of Florida, wherever. What is the statewide policy and how do we allocate the dollars that are, that are going to be needed to fund it? Because if it is the kind of money we talked about, you know, I don't, I don't know where other than the legislature that comes from, but with the big, the big problem and I'm done, the big problem the legislature will encounter is the same, is the same fears that I, that I move forward here. And that is, they may help us with the initial cost that makes it very, very desirable. But what happened five, 10, 15 years from now, when we're bringing in mentally ill people from Indian River County at the expense of Martin County, if we could work it out at two levels, so float down the track, two tracks, track one, get sufficient funding from the state that it makes sense. Track two is get an understanding from the contributing sheriff's offices that yes, from now on, we will put X amount of employees in there and an X amount of dollars. It has to be able to fund itself in the out years. Thank you. Thank you. But in the meantime, the original vision is a pod on your, on the jail property that you can fit. You had mentioned this to us in the past, and I've heard at a taxpayer's lunch where you and your team had made a presentation of the necessity of it. Do you want to share any of that for some people that are paying attention today that didn't get an opportunity? They hear what you're saying, but they might not know the dramatic catastrophe you're dealing with. Well, in a reader's digest, because your time is valuable, we encounter people all the time that the main problem they have is mental illness. They're not necessarily criminals. You know, as we speak, we're bringing a carload of people who went, who went through our county this morning. Saturday, they hit, they hit one of our, uh, one of our people that live in this county, broke into the car and stole their money that they just taken out of the bank. We followed them today up into another county and we got them. So they're coming back. But, but those are hardcore criminals. They woke up this morning, designed, with a design in mind to go steal. Mentally ill people on that hand just woke up this morning. They had no design, no desire to be a criminal. They just woke up and maybe they're not taking their medication. Maybe they're living, you know, on a couch at their mother's house. You kind of let them back in and she can't get out to get their meds. So they're off their meds. They have an episode. They run out in the yard. Next thing you know, they're in the neighbor's yard. They're trespassing. The neighbor goes out and they push the neighbor or hit the neighbor or a lot worse. So they've committed a crime. I, I, my staff are not, uh, are not psychologists. We can't go out and go, oh, you're mentally ill, so we're not going to charge you. It doesn't work that way. They've committed a battery. So therefore we have to, we have to arrest them. That person gets the same exact treatment as the juggers, which is the nickname we use for these bank, uh, people that steal from people who went to the bank. That juggers is going to come in today to, to our jail, the major's jail. I'm sorry, the captain's jail, the major's behind me. You like the promotion? So the juggers are going to come in today through our salary port, fingerprint, photograph. Their clothes are going to be taken from them. They're going to be given inmate clothing. They're going to go through assessment and then they're going into the pod. The person who woke up that did what I said earlier, who woke up, didn't have their meds and, and attacked their neighbor because they're mentally ill. There was no real criminal intent. They're just, they're just mentally ill. They're going to come in and do the same thing. They're going to the same salary port, the same loud doors, the same gray walls, the noise. They're, they're going to have their clothes taken from them. They're going to be given an orange jumpsuit. They're still not well. We might have to fight with them. She might have to put them in a restraining chair. It's a horrible situation. Then what do I do with them? I put them in with regular inmates? No, I can't. So I lose all the space where they go so I can protect them. And then I move other people that have been classified misdemeanor felonies. We don't like them together. So I got to put them together. So I make room for that, that decompensated mentally ill person. And that is in a reader's digest, what they have to do 24 hours a day. Can you tell us the percentage of inmates that come in like that? It varies between 25 and 30%. If you come visit our jail, the highlight of the day is when the nurse's cart comes around and they get their psychotropic drugs. What's our percentage now? 32%. Last time I was here, it was 25. We out of 10 inmates are diagnosed with mental illness and are being treated in our jail. They don't belong there. That's it. They don't belong there. I agree. And then that percentage, it's not like a few and far between situation where you say, well, you can sort of adjust. That's why the pod, you know, those of us that got to hear the presentation a couple of times, I think, you know, and you're an expert at it and your department is obviously an expert at it. The public needs to hear this. The general public needs to hear. I mean, I think people have a concept that there's mental illness and involved in corrections and law enforcement, but not to 32%. Well, Commissioner Smith, last time I was here, encouraged me to go out in the public and share. So we have another, I think we're going to be at Harry and the Natives any day now at a chamber event. Are we, Commissioner? And we're going to present there. I'll go anywhere. Anybody wants to talk about it, I'll go. I have a venue for you coming up, Dish with the Commission. So thank you. Yeah, that's copyrighted. Anyway, anything, any other questions, comments for the sheriff? Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. We appreciate it. I won't be back today. Yeah, please come back. Please come back for everything else other than that. Or you can just stay for the afternoon. Yeah. Commissioner Hetherington, we have number, we have more. I don't have a question for the sheriff, but I do have a question while we're on the appropriations requests. Okay. So the county, and I probably would have told me this if I had met with you, county road 714 realignment. So again, we're making a legislative appropriation request. And we've talked about this at MPO, all the different scenarios, but wasn't it, wasn't it DOT funded? So for the alignment? So if I'm going to ask this. Let the expert. And I didn't, I, you would have explained that if we would have met in private, but I didn't get to meet with you. So. Jim Gordon, public works director. The project is funded for design, but there's no funding currently for construction. So this is the projected construction cost. So would this accelerate? Having asked, asking for an appropriation for a DOT project, would it accelerate the project or how would that work? The commissioners, that's what we're hoping is that we'll accelerate it. The other complicating factor is that it's in two districts. And so, um, um, the two counties have made it a priority and the two DOTs are, um, looking for the county's cooperation and how it will be operated because they're ultimately two county roads that intersect the state road. Um, and our goal is to get the DOT to fund it with the counties continuing to operate it. So, um, and because of this line between the two, um, DOT districts, neither one of them jumping to the lead saying it's mine, you know, the hot potato is really in the two counties lap. And so we're advocating a, a state appropriation that will actually go through the DOT, uh, that will come, uh, most likely to, uh, either to the deal, one of the DOTs to, to actually construct, uh, or if, uh, need be the Martin County would be the, the lead on getting it constructed. So it'll be there, uh, that that's the, that's the way we see it. So we think it's important that, um, that we get the legislature to, to take the, to, to appropriate the funds because neither district wants to give up their funds. They would be like, they would rather the other district, you know, district four to give up the funds or the other district. And so this way we can put a fine point to that, you know, Tallahassee is, is committed to funding this and, uh, and to get it done, to get it moved into one district or the other, or to Martin County. Either way, we'll get it done. Okay. So it makes more sense because either way, we're going to push one of the DOT districts, leverage them through this appropriation. I, I think that we could add some, because it wasn't at the alignment spot, but as you know, there was a fatality again on 710 this weekend. It was more towards Tommy Clements, but the DOT's vision zero is everything that they're promoting now. So I would put those words in there somewhere for just constantly hammer on safety of residents and somehow aligning the DOT's vision zero policy. That's all for me. Commissioner Smith. On that topic, we had a very similar conversation. And, and I think Don, if the way you explained it, have we, have we had any kind of communication with FDOT that they are in agreement with us asking for a line item for this kind of a thing? We have had preliminary conversations with DOT district four. Um, and the, um, really what it comes down to is when a project comes to the board, to the MPO board, the MPO is really a long range planning function. So they're looking at five and 10 years out for projects. It sounds like all the parties would like to accelerate this faster than 10 years out, but right now it doesn't have funding all the way out to, to, you know, the 10 year threshold. The only reason I asked that and the way Don said it, I think he answered it. I just want to make sure in the past line item FDOT requests are sometimes met with not, um, happy endings because FDOT has a budget process and they build their budget around a strategic plan and blah, blah, blah. And so when I asked our guys, you weren't there, but when we had our conversation, I just, I just make sure we're not running a foul of their process that they're supporting us in the ask and not at the end of the day, angry at us because we went around them and went through the legislature to get funding for something. Otherwise they would have funded if it had gone through the proper process. I just, so we had a preliminary meeting with them. We have another meeting with them next week. So, um, we'll continue the dialogue. And, and if, and, and on our end, if we need to be communicating with whoever at the, at the state level FDOT and so on, more than happy to do so, Stacy's a hundred percent on right with the zero, um, um, vision zero issue. And my conversation was that I know we only have so much space in our bullet pointed thing. Um, but that's why words matter and, and things are important that we put in there and maybe like right at the very top, you know, vision zero, you know, absolutely imperative. Um, did you have anything else? Cause I had a couple other comments, but I didn't want to step in front of you on anything else. No, I'm done. Yeah. Um, and just some of the other, it was, it was minor critiquing from my discussions commissioners with, with them. Um, all I would try to make sure that we do with these asks, cause in the last few years, our, um, appropriation asks have been whittled down to if we had three or four, we've been getting one. And so that we make sure that we communicate it in such a way that there is a state compelling interest, which is kind of the conversation we just have with the sheriff's department on why would this, why would this project be important to the state? And does this mean on a statewide basis that the state's getting something for the money they're investing into it so it doesn't get vetoed? Or if there's a way to get it through an agency funded through the appropriate agency, which was back to FDOT with your question, if that's the right place to take it, great. Um, because we have, we have been, um, nixed a lot in the last five, six years or so on our request. And so just trying to make sure that we can be as successful as, as possible. Also on this one, the graphic for me was a little, the number one, the Bessie Creek, um, one was a little confusing cause it doesn't really kind of show what the projects are going to be. Um, and it's really as much about a water quality project as it is fixing, you know, the way you get from point A to point B. Um, Kitchen Creek, the same thing on the, on the flowway restoration in the explanation. It's a very complex final result if this is all successful. But at the end of the day, the state's interest is we are getting more fresh water to Jonathan Dickinson Park and to the Loxahatchee, which is a wild and scenic, um, waterway. And so I think we should also make sure we touch on those comments because those are state components. Those are state things of interest. It's not a Martin County centric project that's only benefiting Martin County from state dollars. Um, lastly on the fire rescue training tower, um, another thought I, I asked him whether it goes in the background, uh, information or it goes up front. If you all recall when we did the original scoping of this, one of the major issues relative to having a training facility or two, at least as I recall, one was keeping our staff in county in service and reducing the overhead costs of taking them to Indian River State College for their training out of county because they were still on duty when they went out of county to go do those training times. The ability for us to bring in out of county staff training here, which starts to take it to a more regional discussion and starts to give a state compelling reason why you would have it. And the third reason, um, more centric to Martin County, but clearly, uh, for the region, um, if we were to have the training facility in Martin County, our ISO rating, uh, we have the potential to lower this, the, the, uh, the ISO rating number by having it in the county, which to all of our taxpayer rate payers and probably one of the largest conversations going on in the community, relative to the state, our insurance rates. And if we can help in some shape, form, or fashion lower residential because we have a training facility and a tower in Martin County, that's a benefit to the state and certainly to our residents. I know it was a lot, but valid. I'm going to allow it. Thank you. Okay. Please continue on page seven. So these are just our priorities, our policy statements, what, uh, what we support, uh, all the same from last year. I think there was just a few years and technicalities. Um, so obviously one of our priorities would be conservation, land acquisition, subject to sewer conversion, uh, continuing to go after grants, um, through, um, the state, uh, supporting biosolids pilot project, uh, coral reef funding, um, the Indian river lagoon estuary program, Loxahatchee river press preservation initiative. Uh, we've put in a policy about home rule and unfunded mandates, what we support and what we will oppose, um, water quality again, and, um, our human services, uh, fully supporting ship and, um, the Sadowski fund, um, economic growth, making sure that, um, we keep visit Florida fully funded, opposed, um, any changes to bed tax, um, and then our infrastructure and recreation and transportation section, um, just continuing to support grants for our historic preservation and, um, to, to continue to support the five-year work plan for DOT. So that is our state priorities. One second, please. Okie dokie. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. Um, Gil Smart from the Friends of the Everglades came to, to, uh, visit us this morning and also added that we asked that we add in, uh, protections for the wetlands at the state level as a result of the uh, Supreme Court, uh, decision and also ask that we want, that we weigh in on the preemption bill for fertilizer ordinances. Those are both excellent suggestions. Absolutely. Incorporate them. I took note of those as well, so we'll go back to staff and see how we incorporate those somewhere in here. Terrific. Thanks. Commissioner Smith, is this in new light? Yes. Very well. Back to septic and sewer. Here are two thoughts that I, I also shared with our staff, uh, and I shared at the 16 county coalition meeting the other day. In light of the conversation that we had with New Monrovia, um, uh, a thought I've had kind of thinking about how can we position ourselves and how can other communities throughout the state position themselves in a way where we have fiscally constrained neighborhoods or census tracts. Um, I've talked to our whole delegation. Um, I've talked to our whole delegation about it. Uh, they were very receptive to the idea about language getting created to add into the granting process for septic to sewer that if there was a way to define, um, fiscally constrained, um, uh, census tracts, um, that that might be very helpful for us, uh, and, and certainly in other parts of the state where neighborhoods just can't afford to do the cost at which we can get these projects to or, or whatever. So this thought I, I share with all of you to think about if that's something we want to look at. And then the other idea was one of the issues that was, that came up during that conversation was that we had received, um, X amount of million dollars from the state from DEP in grants, but that we weren't able to layer on the Indian River Lagoon grant funding because you could either have one or you could have the other. You couldn't have both. And when I talked to our delegation about it, I said, look, the goal should be to get as many septic tanks as quickly as possible off the septic system world and into a sewer line, uh, connection. If we are going to get challenged by whether they're fiscally constrained neighborhoods or just difficult projects to pull off, yet all this money is getting allocated through various programs, why couldn't we layer on top if it were appropriate, if it made sense? If the project was, had a direct connection to the Indian River Lagoon or the outfalls did, uh, that would be affected by those septic tanks, is there not a, a, a correlation between layering those things? At the end of the day, all of that money needs to get committed and go to what it was entitled to go to, which was converting people off of septic tanks. And us turning back money and then trying to go back for new money seems incredibly counter, um, intuitive to me, um, and risky that we don't, we don't maybe get what we thought we were going to try to get. So that was another idea for the septic sewer conversion program. Um, there seemed to be at the 16 county coalition, um, some general consensus that both of those ideas were, um, worthy pursuing. Um, and so at least I would share with our staff that it's something we could at least ask around the horn to see what people are thinking about that kind of a thought. I would just add on the septic to sewer because I, I sometimes get miss, um, mixed signals on whether or not you can combine the pots of money. And from the presentation that we received at Indian River Lagoon Council from Adam Blaylock, he did a fantastic presentation from the DEP. I would ask that we invite him to come and do that presentation here because I anticipate that they will have similar funding this next cycle. And I think we'll be asking similar questions. So even though this cycle was kind of going into the session, I anticipate it'll have the same result the next. So I would invite him to come and do that presentation. He had also some very interesting things to share about some of their initiatives for septic tanks into 2030. So I, I think he would, he would did a fabulous presentation and, and he would be a great person to present. I will allow it. Please continue. Um, unless there's any questions on that we're done with the state. So we'll go to the federal ask for questions. Just continue. Okay. Continue on continuing to our federal, um, booklet as you will. Um, it's exactly the same as last year. So, um, again, just, and it's very similar to the state, obviously water. Um, we're going to support SERP, uh, the WERDA Act, um, continue to support passage of that. Um, the Indian River Lagoon South restoration projects, um, beach restoration and management. Oh, sorry. I wasn't going through it. And, um, the Resilient Reefs Act, um, you know, requesting that we continue that fund. And again, with back to conservative, uh, conservation land acquisition, which is also a state priority. Commissioner Smith. Uh, just a couple of follow-ups on this as well. At NACO, earlier this summer, uh, we were successful in getting all four of our federal, um, policy languages inserted into NACO's policy language at the Environmental Energy and Land Use Committee. They have been adopted. Um, and one of them on there, um, is, uh, pertinent to Senator Rubio's legislation that he has in to modify the, uh, Stafford Act, which is what controls the dredging and mining industry and would allow offshore sand sourcing, um, to be able to help Southeast Florida, uh, relative to getting alternative sand sources. Um, we are okay here relative to our sand sourcing, uh, but the further south you go, uh, the much more complicated the, the volumes of sand become. And so, I think it would be really super helpful for us to, I, I don't know if it actually gets put into our language in here, um, but if we can add that somewhere, I think that would be super helpful. Would you like all of them added or just this, the sand? Well, the, one of them was, uh, the resource, uh, Water Resource Development Act. Uh, the other was the sand source. Uh, the third was, um, uh, the C and SF, um, long range of funding and planning strategy, which if you don't all know what that is, it is like SERP 2. Uh, it is what created SERP in the first place, but, uh, a lot of the infrastructure, a lot of the structures are at their capacity and they are projected to start failing relative to different levels of water, um, in the next six years, plus or minus, uh, which will exasperate problems that of projects that we were building today. And so, we're trying to get that back on the platform again, up north, uh, up in DC. And then the fourth one, what am I missing? Uh, I'll have to go back and look. It's been, it's been, it was, it was, it was consistent with what we're doing. Um, but I, I just, I think that's it. Okay. So we'll just add the, for sure, add the sand one then. Uh, it might've been, um, the Resilient Reefs Act might've been part of that. Yeah, I think it was. And just to let you all know too, and talking to Joanna Walzak the other day and others, um, because of the water temperatures we've seen this summer, uh, we are experiencing exponential bleaching again, uh, and failure out on the reefs. Not that we have overcome what has been going on for the last seven or eight years, um, but it is exasperating, um, the complexity of what's happening out there. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further up? So close. Commissioner Hetherington. I think that'd be an interesting, speaking of the bleaching, some, an interesting presentation at some point in the future. They did one at AWRA. It was very, very interesting. So I think it would be a interesting presentation on the, the coral reefs and the bleaching and the effect of the water temperature. And so Joanna is the, one of the finest coral reef experts in the country, if not in the whole coral reef world. So with Noah, uh, DEP, but she'll come at a moment's notice if we want her to come to a presentation, which would be great. Absolutely. Anything further? Nope. When, so with those changes, um, that we discussed, um, just ask that you change it from considered to adopted and we can go ahead and make those changes and then publish it. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith to adopt, formally adopt with the changes that were discussed, both the state and federal, uh, legislative programs for 2024. It was second by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Ladies, thank you so much. Thank you. Our next agenda item, departmental number one, office of management and budget items which require board approval. Believe it or not, there are 18 of them and they'll be presented by Ms. Jennifer Manning. Ms. Manning, good afternoon and welcome. Hey, good afternoon, commissioners. Jennifer Manning, OMB director. The first item on the agenda is permission to apply and accept the state division of library, uh, information services annual grant. And that is for $77,132. The funds will be used to, um, uh, use for free library services through Martin, for Martin County residents. And the budget resolution will come back to the board once we find, once they finalize the grant. Second items is permission to apply to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission habitat, habitat management assistant grant for $15,000. The funds will be used to enhance the gopher tortoise, I should say, gopher tortoise habitat at the Hal Patioke Regional Park, and there is no match required. The next item is also similar. It's permission to apply for funding through, oh, did I miss? Okay, went too fast. Sorry. Permission to apply to the Florida Fish and Wildlife, again, conservation for, to enhance the gopher tortoise habitat at the Map Creek Preserves. That is also for $15,000, and there is no match required. Item number four is permission to apply for the, to the Florida Inland Navigation District, which is also known as fine for the derelict vessel removal funds. They fund up to 75%. This ask is for $32,546.25. There's a match required for $10,848.75, and that's available in the derelict vessel fund, removal fund program. Item number five is permission to apply for the Resilient Florida Implementation Grant through FDEP, which is Florida Department of Environmental Protection for Jensen Beach Causeway. Uh, just want to mention that this project is not currently identified in the CIP. The project consists of a replacement of approximately 1.75 linear feet of damaged seawall, which was damaged during Hurricane Nicole. The fund that, funds that are asking for is $375,000, and it also requires a $375,000 match, which will be funded, um, to the coastal, um, coastal, um, coastal CIP funds. And we're hoping that we can request those funds from FEMA, so that will go back into the coastal fund. Item number six is also permission to apply for the 2025 Resilient Implementation Program Grant for Mangrove Island Shoreline Stabilization, and this is also not identified in our CIP for a 24. Um, they, um, the Mangrove Island within the Okeechobee Waterway downstream of S80 Lock has been severely degraded by erosion, boat wakes, and dredging on both sides. So that's also a grant that they were asking for, uh, in the amount of $750,000. Uh, there's a match of $750,000 that is anticipated through FINE, which is Florida Inland Navigation District. The project scope will include, um, uh, assessments, design, permitting, and construction. Item number seven, and these are all public, um, I must, you know, give kudos to, uh, public, uh, public, uh, works department because they are applying for a lot of grants that are very effective, okay? So we hope they get all of them. Anyway, um, number seven is permission to apply for the FY25 Resilient Florida Implementation Grants through FBDP for the Stewart Causeway Shoreline. This project is also not identified in the CIP. The project consists of replacement of 2,500 linear feet of rip-wrapped shoreline and the area behind the existing seawall, which is eroded and damaged during Hurricane Nicole. So the amount they're requesting is $200,000, which requires a $200,000 match, which is in the coastal, uh, uh, coastal capital. And we're anticipating grants, hopefully reimbursement from FEMA because this is due to Hurricane Nicole. Item number eight is permission to apply for the FY24 Florida Department of Environmental Protection Innovative Technology, uh, grant for algae bloom, for algae bloom. And, um, this grant, uh, amount is $304,000. It does not require a match. The funding will be used to, um, evaluate the performance of the Green Water Solutions Nanobubble Ozone technology to reduce blue algae. Item number nine, uh, is Ecosystem Restoration Management Division is requesting permission to apply for FY24 FDEP Innovative Technology grant. Again, this is for the, uh, Martin County Seagrass Restoration. The grant amount is, the request is $400,000. The match is $100,000. And, uh, and in that will, that's program in the ecosystem CIP. Can somebody just explain this magic to me? We're vacuuming the bad stuff off and leaving the good stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Jim Gorton, Public Works Director. So, um, an area that you see a lot of this algae is right near the crossroads and the sandbars over that way. And what happens is the algae outcompetes the seagrass. So there's seagrass that grows up, but once it starts, um, extending above the surface of the sand, the algae overtakes it and, and it really causes the seagrass to die back off. Um, so if you, if you go out there today, you'll see a viscous substance on a lot of those seagrass beds. And what it is, is that algae. So what we want to do is very similar to the way we handled the, um, uh, harmful algae blooms when we had the lake releases where we actually vacuumed the material off the surface. This one, the vacuum will go below the water, uh, at a very low rate. We're not going to, um, vacuum it very hard. Otherwise you risk damaging the seagrass itself, but, um, we'll remove that material so that the seagrass will have the opportunity to actually grow past, you know, a couple of inches is the max you can get before that algae really out competes it. Um, it's, it's a pretty, uh, the ecosystems group has some photos of, of what we're dealing with out there. And it's, it's pretty nasty looking what, what's happening out there. And it's unfortunate because we do have a lot of it starting to grow in that area, but it just can't get past that juvenile stage. Thanks. Yep. Okay. Item number 10 is permission to apply for the Indian River Lagoon water improvement grant for the Palm City Farm Stormwater STA. The grant request is for $3.3 million, $450,000. It requires a $1 million match. That is program in FY24, Map Road, Hog Creek, CIP. The funds will be used to construct a 20 acre STA, and that will help to reduce the nutrient and pop, uh, polluants, what do you say? Pollutants, uh, the surface water in, at St. Lucie Estuary. Item number 11 is permission to apply for the Indian River Lagoon water improvements grant for this is for Golden Gate, stormwater treatment area. And the purpose of the project is to pioneer a new method for removing nutrients from the underperforming stormwater treatment area. And it will also help with the TMDL, which is a total maximum daily load. And the grant amount requested is $400,000. And it requires a $100,000 match, which is also a program. Item number 12 is permission to accept the Federal Aviation Administration Bipartisan Inter-Infrastructure Law grant for, oh, sorry. Let me look at this. Law, the, the, the, the, the, uh, B-I-P-B-artisan Infrastructure Law, B-I-L, grant number X-Y-Z, for the Martin County Airport Automated Weather, um, System. This grant covers, uh, 95 percent of the, the new installation, which has, um, the use of lights has, um, last built in 2006. The amount of the grant is $335,000, which represents 90 percent of the funding. The remaining of the funding will come from FD, the FTA, as FDOT, as well as the Enterprise Fund. Okay. Item number 13, um, the Friends of Martin County Library has contributed $50,000 to be used at the Hoke Library, um, to use, to develop the outdoor space. Uh, staff is requesting approval of a budget resolution to allocate those funds. Item number 14 is requests for funds for Selfish Splash Water Park. There is a reserve of $462,000 that is in, in, in the fund, and we would like to use those, utilize those monies for repairs and maintenance, as well as, um, mechanical and aquatic pool equipment. And these repairs are necessary to continue to, to maintain the facility. Item number 15, uh, we, the clerk collects, um, fines for, um, substance abuse, and that's placed in our fund, and in the county's funds, and those, for, for drug abuse, and the drug, we use those funds for either grant match, and we've done in the past, in 2018, we use it as a grant match for a BJA grant, which is a Bureau of Justice Assistance grant. Those funds are no longer needed for that. Our human services is requesting to utilize those funds, uh, for, to buy drug supplies for the drug lab, and, you know, as needed. And currently, there is $108,000 available, so we just want to move it out of reserve so that we can utilize those monies when necessary. Item number 16, uh, requesting a budget funds for the supervisor for elections, um, due to the increase in costs and mailing that is mandated by the state. She's requesting $65,000 from reserve for contingency to cover those unanticipated expenses. She's also, um, requesting approval of a budget transfer of grant funds that she received from prior year of $15,100. Item number 17 is a budget resolution to accept additional funding for the E911 grant, and that is for the, the, um, to upgrade the E911 VESTA next generation core, uh, system. The amount of the grant is $912,000, and that there is no match required in that. So we just need to do a resolution to allocate those funds. The final item is a request to approve a budget resolution to amend the emergency medical system trust funding grant. We wanted to amend, use the, move the FY22 funds into the FY23, um, funding so that we have, we only use one funding source, and that was approved by the Florida Department of Health. And that concludes my presentation. It's too long. Ms. Manning, thank you very much. Uh, the presentation. Move approval with special recognition for public works and ecosystem restoration management. My goodness, lots and lots of great applications. And lots of money. Okay. Thank you for putting that all together. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, uh, for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Ms. Manning. Our next departmental agenda item is department number two, contracts that meet the threshold for board approval, $1 million or greater. There are six of them, and they'll be presented by Ms. Christy Brotherton. Ms. Brotherton, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Christy Brotherton for the record. Uh, I have six items for your consideration. The first one is a contract award for the Golden Gate Neighborhood Resurfacing Project. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is M&M Asphalt Maintenance, doing business as all county paving, in the amount of $2,443,127.87. Move that the board approve the revised CIP sheet to fund the bid award, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Uh, the next item we have is a contract award for the County Road 714 Martin Highway Resurfacing Project. This is for the section of roadway between State Road 710 and Fox Brown Road. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is, again, M&M Asphalt Maintenance, doing business as all county paving, in the amount of $1,844,973.18. One moment, please. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Just curious, so when you say 710 to Fox Brown Road, that includes the corner we were just talking about relative to the state legislative ask? I will defer to Public Works. George Zama, Public Works Deputy Director. Yes, that does include the current intersection. Uh, we don't know when the, um, new realignment project would occur, so we just went ahead and, and awarded the project to the full limits of all the way to 710. Thank you. Okay. Um, so move that the board approve the revised CIP sheet to fund the bid award. And three, move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Uh, the next item is a continuing services contract for civil engineering services for our community redevelopment areas. Uh, this contract has a maximum not to exceed value of $4 million with a maximum not to exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to four vendors, which is CPH, DDEC, CapTech Engineering, and GAI Consultants. Um, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. The next item is another continuing services contract. This is for our right of way landscape and mowing contract. It has a maximum not to exceed value of $9 million with a maximum not to exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to main guy environmental care doing business as main guide landscape services, uh, which includes the base bid and bid alternate and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Next, we have another continuing services contract. This is for chemicals for water and wastewater treatment with a maximum not to exceed contract value of $14 million and a maximum not to exceed term of five years. Uh, staff is recommending that the board award the contract to 11 vendors, which are air gas specialty products, allied universal corporation, amaya solutions, Brentag mid south, Florida chemical supply, Matheson tri gas, Odyssey manufacturing, Shreve chemical company, sulfuric acid trading company, Tanner industries and Univar solutions, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And last but not least, we have a change order request for the Southeast Dixie Highway resurfacing project. Uh, this is the section of roadway between Monterey Road and 5th Street and Stewart. Uh, staff is recommending that the board approve change order number two to the contractor JW Cheatham in the amount of $124,352.60, move that the board approve the revised CIP sheet to fund the change order and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute any and all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. Thank you very much. Questions for Ms. Brotherton? Move approval of department two. Thank you very much. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Ms. Brotherton, our thanks. Okay, getting down to the nitty gritty. Departmental number five, a presentation of energy management and savings program summary by Mr. Sean Donahue. Mr. Donahue, good afternoon. Welcome. You are recognized. Thank you, sir. So general services, part of our task is to, is to maintain buildings, obviously make them comfortable and make, keep the lights on, keep the air on. But the other side of it is saving money, finding efficiencies in our systems, uh, saving as much electricity or water, utilities as we possibly can. Uh, so this is a presentation on things that we've done in the past, over the past 15 years or so, uh, as well as the follow-up to, uh, you know, some night, some discussion items that we had at the, um, at the budget workshop. So, so here's some topics. Uh, again, just following up on some, some of the energy savings projects and operational savings projects we've had in the past. Uh, we'll talk about the energy manager FTE position that our department, uh, requested. Uh, we'll, we'll talk a little bit about some facility facts, uh, how we're monitoring and inspecting our facilities, uh, again, on the savings projects in detail, and we'll get back to that FTE request. So just some facility facts. Uh, the county owns about 2, 2.1 million square feet of, uh, facilities. Uh, that's, that's huge. Uh, 236,000 or 56,000 is just a whole complex alone. Uh, this facility here, 73,000. We have some big buildings. We have some small buildings, old, new. Uh, they all cost money in different ways. Uh, some newer buildings can cost a little bit more than older buildings and just the way the HVAC systems work. Uh, and we're responsible for maintaining the majority of that. Our electrical expenses over the last year have been about 4.8 million dollars. So any percentage that we can save on that is, is significant numbers. Uh, in comparison, there's an APPA, that's American Physical Plant Association, um, cost per square foot of electricity. Uh, we're about 2.28 million dollars per square foot. Uh, typical schools, this is all for schools, uh, is about 2.16 million dollars or dollars per square foot. HVAC costs are about 40 percent of any building's electrical expense. So that, that's significant. That's 1.9 million of our 4.8 million spent last year. Any savings on that is huge. Uh, just, just as a sense of how many electric or HVAC systems we have, uh, about 850, um, HVAC systems. And these are up in the ceilings and closets or back of house. You'll never see them. Hopefully you'll never know that they're down. Sometimes that happens. But HVACs, uh, are complex units. Uh, there's tens, there's tens of tens, uh, of devices, sensors, motors, uh, things that happen. We monitor that with five people, five HVAC technicians plus our partners that train. So it's a lot of work. Uh, things can go south. Uh, a lot of things add up fairly quickly and it can cost the county a considerable amount of money. Uh, so again, we, we've got a big job, but we take it on and it's, and it's fun to do because we can find savings, uh, in a lot of different places. Um, more on inspections and being proactive, uh, with our maintenance and inspection procedures. Uh, we can save significant amount of money, uh, 10 to 50 or 5 to 20% annually just by doing our proactive inspections and staying on top of these things. Why do I say that? Uh, every time we do an inspection, um, you know, we have to fix something. You guys providing us with FARB, fixed asset, uh, replacement budget funding, CIP, uh, funding for replacement projects that, that only saves us money. It costs money, but in the long run, if we don't, if we stay away from deferred maintenance, if we stay away from some of these older systems, we're going to end up saving a lot of money down the road. So let's talk about the, uh, the past projects. Uh, we've done a lot of energy, uh, work over the last 15 years. We started in 2007. Uh, our latest one was 2021 and you can see them listed here. These are the projected savings over the life of these projects. Uh, the first one, the jail project with FPL, that's completed. That was done in 2007. Uh, and it's done. Um, that saved about a million dollars just on its own. Uh, you can see the projected savings over the cost of these projects is about $20 million of savings for the county. Those are big numbers. These are kind of a snapshot of where we are to date. Again, some of the projects are done. Some of the the projects are, are just new in their life. Uh, and they're, they'll, it'll take some time, 16 years or, uh, for the, uh, the train general services project that's nearing its end, 14 years for the other, uh, train jail project. Um, and that's just started. So, but we, we have a, you know, there's, there's some relationships here on, uh, the CO2 savings and, and things like that of, of how much we saved over the life of these projects. And it's pretty significant. Uh, there's still more to do. Like I said, there's some older projects. Uh, some have termed out like the jail stuff that we've done that back in 2007. Um, those are old. Uh, we could re-approach that and we could take a look at things the way, you know, the newer technologies and newer savings techniques. Sir. Commissioner Smith. What's the difference, but what's, so your total energy savings to date, total non-energy savings. I don't know what that is. Non-energy savings is operational savings. So if we, if we replace systems before they're, they're expired and we don't have the budget for it, um, because it's, it's, we're borrowing against future energy savings to pay for that, that's operational savings. And I failed to mention before, these projects are all supported by Florida statute. They are budget neutral projects. They're required to be budget neutral by statute. So when we sign up with train and they guarantee these projects, they have to work. They have to work or the train pays for it. Uh, and they're, they're in the game. They've got skin in the game to make sure these things work. So again, replacing an old HVAC system, an old chiller system and replacing it with newer technology, it creates the savings to pay for itself over time. So if I'm reading it correct, the project, total project cost was close to 30 million, right? Yes. But the total savings is 26 million. That's to date. Date. Yeah. Let me, let me flip back one slide. These are projected savings over the life of all these projects. So you see, I don't want to glass over that for the public. Cause if you're not looking at the actual numbers, you're just listening to the presentation. That's a big number. It is. It is saved $30 million. Huh? Yeah. Saved $30 million. 20 million, but it's 20. Go back to it. Oh, projected to save another. Yeah. Over the, over the 15 years, 16 years lifespan of these projects, they're definitely worth it. And like I said, there's still more to do. I think we can talk about that a little bit later. Just some, some real detailed, uh, if we want to dive into the weeds a little bit, if not, we can, we can skim right over these. The 2007 project, uh, it was a good first step into it, a $2.4 million project. Uh, we saved about 3 million or it saved about a million dollars in, uh, in, uh, expenses, uh, with just replacing plumbing systems and rooftop units. Uh, again, some of those units are older and out of date now. So we'll have to take another look at those. Uh, this was a larger of the, of the five projects, uh, 4.6 million cost. Um, but we did a lot. We did, we did, I think 20 different buildings. We put, uh, train controls, 26 different buildings. We did train controls all throughout. So we have, you know, high end, um, technical, uh, maintenance systems that we can keep track of these things better. Uh, we saved, uh, you know, some operational savings by replacing, um, the, uh, courthouse office building, uh, air handlers or chillers with, uh, chilled water systems. Those are very efficient systems. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. Uh, so that was a good project. Sports lighting project. We did, uh, I think 20 different parks, uh, plus the Hulk compound. Uh, that was, uh, back before these lighting systems had LED. So there may be another opportunity to look at these systems again. These are older, new at the time, older now, old metal halide, uh, lighting systems. Um, each one of those bulbs can be 1500 Watts. We can probably knock that down to 500 now, uh, just doing LEDs. So I think it's worth taking another look at those. Uh, the jailed chilled water system. Uh, that was, like I said this before, chilled water is a very efficient system. Uh, it lasts longer. Uh, it's easier to maintain, uh, and, and it can provide a lot of benefit. Um, and, and this, this, uh, project was, uh, was a very good one to do for the County. It's a nice complex. It's a nice campus. Uh, we can attach more buildings to it as we grow. Uh, the new pod could come in and attach to this plant. The central energy plant is what it's called, uh, fairly easily. Um, and there's, uh, we also have a plan, uh, in our current CIP to attach the public safety complex to our plant. We can look at this as an energy savings project and maybe offset that CIP money, uh, by paying for, for future energy savings. Okay. And then the health department is a, is a pretty neat project. This is a, a thermal energy storage project. Uh, it's basically a battery, uh, very simple, uh, way to save money. Uh, the night rebates or the night, uh, rates for FPL are much cheaper than they are in a day. So we make our chilled water. We make ice at night, uh, you know, with, with the cheaper rates. And then we burn that ice. We run the water through the building. Uh, that's colder, uh, throughout the day and it's a simple way to save money. So it was a nice little project, nice little package. So future projects. Uh, I see a lot of water conservation we could do. I see a lot of building envelope, uh, issues that we have throughout the County. Uh, again, LED lighting, uh, throughout the parks, throughout the parking lots, um, the public safety complex, putting that onto the chiller plant at the jail. Uh, we've got some other projects, uh, at the Cummings library. That's a perfect candidate for converting that system over to a possibly a energy safe energy storage, uh, uh, system like at the, at the health department. Uh, there's, there's ways to save that money and offset these future operational costs. And I think we can, we can take a look at that. We can come back, uh, at some future date with, um, you know, an energy, uh, audit and see where, where we can save money, what makes best sense and try to tick some of these off as we go. Okay. So let me address the, uh, the energy manager project or the FTE. Um, I'll pull that back. I know there wasn't an appetite to do that, but I think I can prove to you in a future date that, that this will save money, uh, using a resource like this. Uh, there's a lot of HBAC components out there. There's a lot of lighting control systems out there that need some constant, you know, handholding and fixing. Uh, and I think we could focus on that. I'd like to come back and maybe show you a little bit more data in a year or two, uh, and see if that's worth, uh, you're looking at again, but for now we'll pull it back. No problem. Accepted. Thank you. Is that everything? Questions for Mr. Donahue? The comment is that I'm already convinced that we could use. You have a light? Oh, sorry. Commissioner Hetherington. I just want to comment that you did a really great job presenting on a very complicated, uh, subject matter. We should have heard. And I would just like to observe that you've already convinced me that, that, uh, a full-time, uh, energy manager would be a great idea. I would have voted too, but you withdrew it. So it's too late now. Damn. Next year. Anybody, anybody else? Let me ask you on that question. He doesn't have his light on. I just, I just motioned to the light. Thank you. Commissioner Smith, your light. Sorry. Um, at what stage, uh, how much more has to get shown to us to convince us that we should have someone full-time doing this? Three votes. Um, I, I mean, I, what you just presented and, and that's why I wanted to slow you down just a tad to show and tell us exactly how much we have saved. We have saved millions. Correct. In contracts and, and redoing systems that are much better systems and their financing is incredibly creative and so on. Well, I think, I think that the board instinct was right. Um, the first time when you saw that, saw the request, um, we, we can try to train some in-house staff a little bit more and take advantage of the current resources we have. Uh, I think it may elevate our staff. Uh, so I'd like to try that. I mean, it was a great idea. Um, there are, you know, professionally trained energy managers out there, uh, but maybe we can build this in-house and do it in a different way. Fair enough. I just, uh, at, at the risk of how much that will cost us to not do it, I, I, I, I would say don't wait a year. I would say come back in six months and say, look, here we are and here's what the numbers look like. I just, anyway, Harold's shaking his head like he's heard enough. Nevermind. We appreciate you looking into your own team and deciding that you could do without it this year. That's, uh, not a bad theme. Thank you very much. Um, but we appreciate everything that you're doing and with your team, who's with that? Who's that behind you there? No behind, behind Mr. Tani. Why don't you, uh, acknowledge one of your team members there? A great mentor, Kevin Landry. Uh, ever since I've gotten here, he's taught me so much about the county. He's got great instincts by the way. He's one of our superstars. He's wherever we put him, he succeeds. Great team. We just keep trying to put him somewhere else and it just keep working. Good to see you, Kevin. Okay. Thank you very much. We are sort of staying right on budget on time. Departmental number six update on the septic to sewer program, service availability and connections. It'll be presented by Jeremy Covey and Sam Emerson. We like to call them number one in the number two business. Well, you got a whole team. Good afternoon. Sam, I love what you've done with your hair. Sam's over there. No, no. Oh, me. That's teasing. Some, not all of them are winners. Uh, good afternoon. Uh, for the record, uh, Jeremy Covey with Martin County Utilities, deputy director. Who's this? Yep. And, uh, with me, I have David Duncan, project manager, um, in charge of the grinder program and also Christine Papke with a self or solar energy loan fund. Um, today we're going to provide a brief update on the septic to sewer program along with how self has helped us out with that program. Terrific. Uh, there we go. Um, this slide to date, uh, Martin County Utilities have provided sewer service to approximately 2,900 parcels, um, both developed and undeveloped parcels, um, utilizing two different systems. The first system is a low pressure system that, um, includes small diameter force mains in the right of ways and grinder stations at each home. The second system, which are larger systems is the vacuum system, which has a vacuum building, gravity piping in the right of the way and a receiving pit for every two to four homes. And when the customer would like to connect to the pit, they would connect a gravity lateral from their house to the pit and they would be connected. Um, as you can see, the majority of the neighborhood, 16 to 18 completed to date are mostly grinders. The reason for this is the grinders do not have an assessment associated with them and generally are smaller and easier to construct anywhere between two and eight months. We can have one of those constructed. Um, currently we have one project under construction, the Rio central project, uh, to serve 241 parcels. We also have another project out there, the Rio East neighborhood to serve 376 parcels that currently is out to bid. We have eight upcoming projects programmed for the next three to four years, four of them utilizing grinders and four of them utilizing vacuum for a total of approximately 4,600 parcels. This slide has a lot of information on it, but, uh, recaps where we currently are with the separate sewer program. Um, two items I'd like to point out. First of all, the connected to date, we're at 49% connection rate. That's a combination of the actual vacuum systems as well as the, uh, grinder program. And that will be increasing over the next six months to 12 months. Um, Golden Gate's been online for about six months now. So that connection rate is increasing by the day. The other item I'd like to point out is currently we are projecting to have service available to 7,774 parcels, um, by 2027, which will get us over 75% of our goal of, uh, 10,000 tanks in 10 years. And now for the next half of the presentation, I'm going to turn it over to Christine for the South portion. Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to join you. Um, solar and energy loan fund is a, um, non-profit, small non-profit organization to assist people, um, that are unable to afford, uh, home repairs, uh, to sustain their homes and, um, provides windows, air conditioners, roofs, handicap adaptations. We are, uh, we have programs for veterans, single moms, uh, handicapped and, um, the solar to energy septic to sewer program, uh, has assisted 146 homes and $997,000 so far. So a million dollars. Um, the, thank you. Um, the clients have the option for a 10 year zero down loan, which is an $85 a month payment on their Martin County utility bill. It's a quick approval process. Um, generally I process a loan within 24 hours. Um, and I've been very, very happy. And since we started the program with Martin County and since 2020, um, is there another one? Nope. That's it. We can go back. That's it. No. Anything else? No. And that kind of concludes the update. It's a quick update. Yes, they're quick. Terrific. Thank you very much. Yeah. Um, well, lights. We got lights. Commissioner Hurd. I see your light. Yeah. How do you, how do you, uh, inform people about the self program? Uh, for the record, David Duncan, project manager. Um, when, when the customers, when we finish an area and we send out a mailing to let the folks know that we're ready to go, we include that information in our FAQ sheet, which gives them the options to either pay up front. It also discloses that they have a 365 day window to pay at the lower rate. Um, it also tell, uh, lets them know if they have an incentive for grants, which we currently have now, which help offset the cost. And then also gives them the information for self. Uh, once we actually go on site and meet with the folks, I send them all the self information, uh, via the internet, or I can provide them paper documentation. And it's easy as just clicking and following the links, which are attached to the Martin County website. So it's a, it's a very quick process for them to access all that information. Okay, great. Thanks. Mr. Donaldson. Yeah, I think this is a, been a really novel program. I think we're the only county or municipality in the state that's actually pulled this off. Um, and self was really a huge partner in this. And I think it started ultimately with Sam's connect to protect program. And initially, the board was looking to put aside about $200,000 a year to try to help people hook up to, um, sewer at a, uh, with this program now, 200,000 at $8,000 per cost per unit. You know, you were looking at, you know, you know, 10 to 40 projects a year is most that we could do. So, um, and of course you're not a bank. We're not a bank. We don't have this infinite supply of money just to keep loaning folks, uh, funds. And so self really became our, our business partner early in this. And, uh, and so the utility is the billing entity, which is a unique piece of this as well. That's why it took us about two years, um, to, to get the agreement in place. But ultimately, um, we're still able to get some grants at about $1,000 to help these folks hook up and then grant then self went out, had to change their policies to be able to allow, get their, um, donors and, and, and financers to allow septic to sewer to become part of their program, which they were successful in doing. And, um, pretty amazing already up to a million dollars worth of, of loans that obviously we couldn't set aside a million dollars to do all these hookups. And it's, uh, and it's a, it's been really, um, I think a really notable service. I think your presentation was, was fine, but very, I only want to say that it's, uh, it's significant and, uh, in, in, I believe in the state of Florida and probably in the country and what we're doing with, um, with a program for somebody to, to basically have, um, no money down and, uh, have, uh, the other unique portion. I always point out Sam was, uh, uh, was that we handled everything soup to nuts. That's disconnecting their old sewer and hooking up the, the grinder system. All of that was, uh, handled by, uh, contractors that Sam's group had bid out. So it's, uh, been a pretty phenomenal program. I think that, uh, that, you know, sharing with other, you know, communities when we showed it to them, people are pretty amazed at what we've been able to pull off. So kudos to, to our utilities group itself. Excellent. I appreciate it. And every chance that there are folks can hear the information. And so if they want to, they can contact 772-221-1434, correct? That would be. Yeah, that's the Martin County utilities phone number. That's the sewer phone number. Or they can, they can go to www.martin.fl.us backslash septic to sewer to get additional information. Apply today. Oh, there's the phone number 468-1818. You don't have to have a sewer pipe though. That's 468-1818. Any other questions? Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. We have reached the end of our official agenda for the first portion of our day. And I'm not so sure we have. Did we do DPQJ-3? It was, it was withdrawn. Okay. Okay. Yes. Lack of note of proper notification. So with that in mind, our budget hearing will start at 5.05. Do you want to do a round of commissioner comments now? Yes? Good. Everybody? I'm set. So we will adjourn for the time being and come back and start our budget hearing at 5.05. Good evening and welcome. We are continuing our, we are continuing our September 12, 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. It is 5.06. The budget presentation is an agenda item of our traditional day's meeting. It is 5.06. Anyone that was interested in giving end of the day general comment for 5.05 public comment. If you've submitted a slip already, let me know. If you haven't and you'd like to make public comment separate of the budget hearing, if you do make a public, general public comment, and it is on the topic of the budget, when we get into the budget, you are not able to speak again on the same topic. So if you have a general comment having nothing to do with the budget, we would hear from you now. If you have a budget comment that you would like to make now, you can. But when we get into the details of the budget and you think of something else you would like to say, you won't be able to then. So your choice. Anyone looking to make either a general commission comment. Sir, please, now is that your form for this? Terrific. Please state your name for the record. Hi, my name is James Campo, and thank you for having me tonight. I'm limited in my time. I just wanted to praise Stacey Hetherington for being a tough mother, and she has had a great reputation of being able to say no to the kids. And tonight is budget time, and you might have to say no. And I want to praise you for your courage, Stacey. Thank you so much for all you do for us. That's too late. And compliments. I've got to let you have the compliment. Anyone else? General comments. Sir, please state your name for the record, sir. Corey Crowley. They complained that I was talking. Can you hear me well? Yes. Okay. So I'm well known, but I'm not known very well. And so I wanted to give you guys a little bit of introduction about some of my past. And so maybe, and it's going to relate to what I'm going to talk about. So I graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in mathematics. I have a degree in, master's degree in statistics. I worked in Melbourne for Harris on rockets, and I went to work for Rider Systems in Miami for the executives, giving analysis like the one I'm about to give you here now. And I wanted to give you a little bit of background so that you took what I'm about to say a little bit more seriously. So the CRA, the point of the CRA is a separate point from the general fund. And what I mean by that is that it's an investment fund. The concept is that we make investments. And so all of our monies should be considered as an investment. That is not the way things are looked at necessarily right now. We have a capital program that gives money to businesses to paint their buildings. We have, we invest in bike racks and sidewalks and things like that for improvements. But the proper way to look at a CRA is on return on investment, is that we spend $5 million and that how much are we going to return because they're going to increase the tax base. And so the way the money should be spent, the first pass of the money should always be on the idea of commercial interests. And the reason for that is because when you get the commercial tax base, as Mr. Stokes made a good point when he was presenting his innovation hub, that's not protected under the Save Our Homes Act. Those increases can be significant and permanent, and they can defer the costs for the tax base, for the residential tax base. So the commercial interest where it's available should be looked at as an ROI, a return on investment. Another thing that's very important is metrics. And so one of the metrics that corporations may use, like how much money are you going to spend on marketing, how much money, what's your cost of sales, et cetera. But a very, very important metric, and one you can look at across all the industries, is the percentage of your overhead as a percentage of your business. And the CRA isn't a revenue stream like a Circle K would be or a series of car washes. It gets a TIF fund. It's just there's no effort involved. This gets hit with, in 2024, $5 million. Now, on the other side, you can be like a United Way or you can be a nonprofit where you're spending the money on the other side, where you have a daily operation. Maybe you're a charity. Maybe you're handing out Meals on Wheels. The point is, the overhead for the CRA is 14%. It should be 7%. $700,000 to manage capital investments is, there's no good way of looking at that. It's just too much money. Thank you. Anyone else looking to make a general comment before we begin? Seeing none. All of the other cards that I have, then, will be budget-related. Thank you. Okay. Our next agenda item, 505, first fiscal year, 2023-2024, public budget hearing, public hearing number six. It'll be presented by several of our staff members, but it'll be teed up by Ms. Jennifer Manning. Ms. Manning, you are recognized. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Jennifer Manning, OMB Director. As you mentioned earlier, it's the first, there's two public hearings. This is the first public hearing. And it's a formal process where the board has to take action as required by Florida statutes. And the first important issue is to discuss, should it shall be the percent of increase in the millage over the rollback rate and the specific purposes for which ad valorem revenues are being increased? We are required to adopt a tentative budget and resolutions for each taxing authority, millage rates, and each corresponding budget is included in your package, as well as other county funds that do not have millages. There are resolutions based upon those budgets tend to be approved during the budget workshops. The rollback rate may be higher, therefore, the proposed millage may decrease in the millage over the rollback rate. And just to explain the rollback rate again, it's a rate that would generate prior year revenues, which is ad valorem revenues, less allowances for new construction and additions. So, this slide represents the rollback rate for each taxing authority, and I won't read them all because we will be reading them when we do the resolutions at the end of this presentation. But I would just say, for example, the BOCC, which is the countywide taxing authority, the rollback, the request, the tentative millage is 6.7615. The rollback rate is 5.9551, which represents a 13.54% increase. The fire rescue MSCU, for example, is, for the request, is 2.7002. The rollback rate is 2.3895, which is a 13% increase. The next slide shows that we have two 10-milk caps. One is for the countywide taxing authority, and that is within the state statute. So, we are at the 10 mils, and we're costing 6.7615%. And for the rest of the MSCUs, which includes fire, parks, road, storm order, and the commission districts, as well as the special district, they have a cap of a 10 mil, and we are at 3.4662. This is just to recap post-workshop adjustments during the workshop on July 17th. The board discussed the budget. We came to a conclusion that we could reduce certain areas, $5.8 million, such as the sheriff operating budget, the parks capital improvement plan, parts of that. We produced public CIP, public building CIP, the sheriff building CIP, as well as using fund balance to maximize our opportunities. So, we switched out Advilorum with anticipated fund balance. So, moving forward, we're looking at the Advilorum impact as of today. So, county-wide Advilorum impact is $28.4 million, and parks, fire, parks, storm order, and district, other districts, MSCUs, is $9.8 million. That's a total of $38.2 million increase. Of that, the CIP, which was tentatively approved in April, as well as in July, we made some reductions that I mentioned earlier, and so the impact to Advilorum is $6.8 million. We reduced the parks by $1,250,000, public building by $200,000, which was their FARB. We also did law enforcement, $620,000, and, of course, we also replaced anticipated funds. So, looking back on the purpose, the reason why we're increasing Advilorum, and this is just based on the county-wide Advilorum related to the constitutional officers and judicial. So, as you can see, the sheriff, originally, he started with $16.3 million, and he reduced $769,000. So, his new ask is $15,600,000, roughly, supervisor for election, $379,000, tax collectors, $305,000, the clerk of the court, $290,000, property appraiser, $153,000, we have inmate care contract, which increased $1.6 million, and mental health court that was requested by judicial, which is $450,000, and then our E-911 program, which is $419,000. That totals 19.2 of the impact. Then, when we look at the county-wide impact, which is just the board itself, we have technology increase for $1.2 million. We have the CRA, which is the county's portion, as well as the city's portion, which is $1.9 million, and the property insurance, which increased at $765,000. And then we have the FRS impact, which is an unfunded mandate, which is $725,000. So, that totals $4.6 million. And I just want to note that although the departments had increases, it did not impact the ad valorem, the new ad valorem that we generated. We use reoccurring funds from paying off debt service, as well as increase in revenue projections for park and rec fees, as well as charges for services, and revenue sharing. This slide is a new slide that we looked at, a five-year average, and this is just based on our adopted, and this is only county-wide. It's based on our adopted millage for county-wide. And I looked at the areas, the main areas that use county-wide funds, and that was the sheriff. We have the other constitutional officers, like the supervisor for election, tax collector, property appraiser, and judicial. Then I also looked at the health and medical services, as well as the board section. So, when you look at the five-year outlook, the average that the sheriff asked for all those adopted millages was 49%. And then the average for the other constitutional was 11%, and 5% for medical services, and the board itself represents 35%. And in seeing that, I allocated those percentages based on our increase. So, for the county-wide ad valorem, we generated $22.2 million, roughly. And then I used the percentage to say 49% of $22 million would be $10 million, $10.1 million. Then I looked at the other constitutionals, 11% would generate. They can ask up to $2.4 million. Medical services, $1.2 million, roughly. And then the county, the BOCC, would be $7.7 million. So, that would be, if we had to divvy up the money, the increase between those four areas, that's what it would be. The next column shows the ask, whatever their request for budget. So, for the sheriff, he requested $15.6 million, roughly. And those include having to pay for salaries, which was $8.3 million. His FRS impact was $2.3 million. His health insurance was $1 million. And then he had new positions that represented $1.4 million. As far as the other constitutional officers are concerned, which includes medical, the mental health courts, which was $450,000 plus E911. And then the other constitutional officers, they could have asked up to $2.4 million. Their request ended up being roughly $2 million. And as you look at the health and medical services area, they could ask for roughly $2 million. And they asked for $1.6 million. And that's for inmate medical. So, when we look at the county, the BOCC, and we have to bear in mind we already reduced $5.8 million of the budget. So, when you look at that, the capital, we're asking for $9.2 million, roughly. The capital improvement represents $4.6 million. The county and city CRA is $1.9 million. The technology represents $1.1 million. And the property insurance, $765,000. And FRS impact, $725,000. Then we move on to the next slide. And this just has to do with MSU requests, the reason for their requests. And then you have fire rescue, their contract, as well as their FTE. We added several FTEs to their fleet. I shouldn't say fleet, but to their human resources. And so, it's $4.4 million. Then they have an FRS impact, which is $2 million, similar to the sheriff. It's unfunded mandates that we have no control over. And then the CRA related to the fire rescue portion is $403,000. The other MSUs had cost of doing business, like fuels, supplies, and equipment of $182,000. And then you have the urban canopy tree audit, which is $80,000. You have the streetlights and other, you know, contracted maintenance of $236,000. And then the mowing and landscaping, that's based on the contract costs or additional mowing and landscaping added to the work. And that's $272,000. So, that represents $7.6 million. So, overall, those items represent the $32 million that we asked for, the $38 million. So, when we look at the overall millage for the board, countywide, last year, it was, for FY23, it was $6.5559. We're requesting $6.7615. That represents 3.136% increase. The MSCU was $3.4078. And we're requesting $3.4662, which is 1.712% increase. So, the total millage overall for countywide that does not include the commission districts or the special district A is a 2.649% increase. And, in summary, when you look at the taxable values, for FY23, it was $28.1 billion, and for FY24, it was $31.2 billion, but $0.7 billion. And then, the ad-run request is $244.9 million, and for FY24, it was $283.1 million. The total budget for FY23 was $558.559 million, and the request for FY24 is $600 and roughly $40 million, if you will. And the positions in FY23 for the board, all the board positions was $1,100. For FY23, it's $11.37, and most of those positions are fee-based. There was very few ad-run impact on those. The constitutional officers had $752, and their request in $768. The total millage rate, again, for FY23 is $9.9637, and FY24 is $10.2277. And this chart just shows that we are below the millage rate in the countywide based on 21. 21 was higher than the current millage rate at this point. And, of course, in 23, we reduced our millage because we only asked for what we really need to provide the services for our constituents. So, looking again, the total countywide millage, excluding the commission district, is increased of 2.649%. With that, the tentative budget hearing, the resolutions for the tentative budget has to be read in full, does not have to be read in full, but you must state the taxing authority, the rollback rate, the percent of increase or decrease over the rollback rate, and the millage to be levied. This slide just gives you the timeline of when we need to finish our trim notices and get our millage adopted. And with that, I will entertain any questions. Ms. Manning, thank you very much. Ms. Manning, why, you might have explained this before, streetlights, how does that compare to the 236,000 increase in streetlight maintenance? How does that compare to last year? It seems like, that seems like a big increase. Was there something specific? Stephanie Murley, budget financial manager. I think a lot of it had to do with the 12% increase in the FPL rates, as well as new fixtures, such as Palm City Place. Jim Gorton and George Zama might be able to explain a little bit more regarding that, but I know a large portion of that was the FPL rate increase of 12%. I see them coming in now. So, that's just the maintenance. So, those are only county streetlights. So, does DOT maintain their own streetlights and DOT roads? Yes, because we do get a reimbursement, because even though we might run out first, we get a reimbursement. Commissioner, it depends. If the streetlights were installed at the request of the county as a road enhancement project on US-1 and others, the county maintains them or pays the electricity to maintain them. So, a large portion of the streetlights, we actually do maintain even on the DOT roadways. Mr. Gordon, the question was the increase in street lamps. And how it compares to last year and why it seems so high. So, there's a couple of factors working there. The number one is electricity has gone up, and they're big consumers of electricity. But the other thing is the volume of streetlights. So, we picked up a lot of the US-1 streetlights. So, we're maintaining far more streetlights than we have in the past. We're absorbing it with the staff we have, but we have to pay for the parts and materials and the repairs to all those streetlights. But we're maintaining them instead of DOT because we request them be installed? Is that where? Correct. And we also have agreements with DOT to maintain pretty much if there's a light in Martin County that isn't an FPL light, we're maintaining it now going forward this year, going forward. In the past, DOT had maintenance contractors. Martin County had maintenance contractors and FPL did. So, from this year forward, Martin County is maintaining the streetlights other than the ones that are FPL-centric, the standard FPL lights, the cobra heads that are on the FPL poles. But we have a contract with DOT that they're paying us per light, and also the signalized intersections, they're also paying their portion of the cost for maintenance for us to maintain them. So, we're maintaining them with our staff as opposed to them maintaining them with a contractor. I didn't remember discussing that before, and it seems high, so thank you. That's all. Any other questions for staff? Okay. I do see in the back of the room we had requested the largest portion of the potential increase. The requested increase is for the sheriff's office, and the sheriff has been here a couple of times to make a presentation to us on where and how those numbers add up with his people. So, I see he's back there. I think before we jump into public comment, we would allow the sheriff an opportunity to present the numbers as they are, so we all have a better understanding of where they are. Sir, welcome. We appreciate you coming back to see us. I know you have your team with you, your financial team. Kevin's coming. Good. Ms. Manning, just to bring you up to speed, sir, Ms. Manning has gone through the proposed budget as it stands to explain the different sections and the potential requests, the revenue that you had already offered up from where we were at our initial budget hearing, our workshop, excuse me, to today. So, we just wanted to give you an opportunity with Mr. Youngblood to present what your challenges are and why the numbers are where they are. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Commissioners. It's always a pleasure to be here. I say this every time, and I think it's important to say it again. You have a tremendously difficult job. You are appropriators. You have a sacred trust with the community to be thoughtful with every tax dollar. And I stand before you, and it's a very humbling experience to ask for this kind of money. I didn't do it lightly. And our process is this, and I want to be faithful to your time and to the audience's time. Everybody has, they want to say something. And so, I'll be as brief as I can and then be completely available for questions. Our budget process started months ago. We sat down, and Kevin, our CFO, our chief operating officer, finance officer, hands out a budget packet to all the division commanders. And their directive is to make a request beginning with this year. We don't go back. We do, we literally do a zero-based budget. We start off from scratch. We don't just take last year's numbers and add to it. So, he gives out the packets, and then every commander gets with their lieutenants, they get with their sergeants, and they begin to put together a comprehensive budget. Their initial request, and we looked at every request, and nobody was asking for anything that was outlandish or that wouldn't further public safety. And that first request came in at $110 million they asked for. We want to work on those numbers. Obviously, we didn't. We weren't going to come in with that kind of a number. And we looked at every single budget sheet, and we said, do we have to have this to maintain our razor-like edge that we currently have within the community and with our law enforcement efforts? And we got down to $101,604,000. Since then, we've reduced it at your request. We've backed off on some of the hiring and took another $769 million off. And I think I did the numbers a little backwards, but it was initially, when we came to you, that was $769,000 more than it is now. I think the primary question that should be foremost on everybody's mind, in your minds especially, is do we need this much to fulfill our task? Well, the answer is yes and no. It just depends what you want from law enforcement in your community. Today, using technology that we don't talk about openly, but you all have had privilege to see, using that technology, we got onto a car with criminals from Palm Beach County. Saturday of this past week, they came into our county. They followed someone home from a bank, broke into their car, and stole X amount of money that they had just taken out of a bank. They had the audacity to come back to our county today, at which time we picked them back up again. Now, that's a needle in a haystack. That kind of ability does not happen on the cheap. That was a very expensive operation. We picked them up. We put probably a dozen detectives into surveillance mode. We got a helicopter airborne. We worked with our partner community, our partner law enforcement agencies to the north of us. And right now, they're in my jail. And we got $7,000 back for the victim who had had her money stolen. They hit again today. So the question is, could we have gotten through today and answered basic 911 calls and worked a traffic crash, gone to a school and found a child who got on the wrong bus? Could we have put a couple of our motors on the road and slowed traffic down? The answer is yes. But without the kind of funding that we have in this budget, I would not have had the personnel who had the stick-to-it-ness and professionalism to monitor a complex case like this. I probably wouldn't have had the aviation fuel to do what we did, a long-term aerial surveillance so that my ground units didn't get burned or observed by the suspects. And so the money that you see here represented, that the people behind me have to decide through their support or not support of this budget, is that what you want in Martin County? Do you want a sophisticated, progressive, aggressive law enforcement effort? Or do you just want us to answer calls for service and go home? Write reports. You could go all over. I think Commissioner Heddington, you had your car broken into. It's public record, so I'm not revealing. Oh, in Orange County. And they wrote a report? They wrote a report. Said, ma'am, have a nice day. God bless you. Don't come back here if you don't want to get your car broken into. In Martin County, we would have turned over every leave, not because the name's Heddington. We would have even done it for Commissioner Campy. I don't have a car. But we probably would have caught them because of our abilities. Our clearance rates are high. They're much higher than the average. The other thing that we have, there's a, unlike a salesperson who at the end of the year gets graded on how many widgets they sold or she sold, a lot of what we do is so intangible. What is public safety worth? I mean, I can't answer that question for you. You're the policymakers and the appropriators. But what is our reputation worth? If I had $100 for every person who's come up to me and said, we moved to Martin County because it's a safe community. They don't come up to me and say, we love your county because you have great storm drainage. And I appreciate that we do. They don't come up to me and say, we moved to your county because of the beach. Over, and of course, I'm a cop, so I draw that comment. I get that. Oh, make note of that. All the time, I can be buying McIntosh apples and Publix and have someone come up to me and say, Sheriff, we moved here because of this county, because of the safety of this county. And I'm going to bring it for a landing here in a second. I've had people point their finger at me and say, I moved here because of the way you do business. We don't want to be California. We don't want to be the county that your car was broken into. We want to be Martin County, where if your car gets broken into, your bicycle gets stolen, you have a hit and run. So many of these crimes are things that in other counties are just white noise. They are just white noise. Nobody is going to investigate that. If you have a hit and run in most counties, unless it's served up on a platter, the car wrecks down the block, they're not going to get them. Now, I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but I go all over the state. I'm part of the Florida Sheriff's Association. I know how other counties can be. We are outliers in the way we treat property crimes. As a result, we have almost no crimes against persons. Nobody in this room is going to go home today and have somebody jump out on their front yard and rip their purse off their arm or knock them down and take their wallet. They're just not going to happen because we have a reputation. Because when people get off at this exit and get caught, they tell their friends, don't go. They're crazy in Martin County. They'll put you in jail and they'll keep you there and then you're going to go to prison. So I'll kind of close where I started. It's not an academic question. It's not a rhetorical question. It's a truly substantive question. What kind of public safety do you want? Since the word got out that we may be getting this raise, today we had six people come into the sheriff's office with already certified from other law enforcement agencies that want to work for us. We have a problem hiring. This money, this raise for our deputies, which is a substantial part of the increase, 85% of the budget is personnel services. It's paying for their salaries, their overtime, their health benefits. The word is getting out. We're going to be able to fill our vacancies. We do have to compete with Palm Beach County. I know we all hate to hear that. I wish I didn't have to say it. The answer could be, well, go work in Palm Beach County. Well, that's exactly what they're doing. They're driving through this county to go to Palm Beach County and work. This raise that's in here will stop that. It will help us retain good people. And we have to be competitive. I love firefighters. We have to be competitive with our brother firefighters. They got a 12% raise. It would be unthinkable for me to tell my people, well, you're not worth as much as a firefighter. And I'm not comparing who's more valuable. But until you've stopped the car at 3 o'clock in the morning with tinted windows and don't know how many people are in the car, let alone who's driving, and the hackles on your neck are going up, until you've walked up on that car, it's hard to picture what these deputies are doing. By God's grace, we've never lost one in the line of duty. So that's my thought, and I'll close with this, just a couple numbers. Part of my budget increase, $2.2 million, is the FRS increase. No matter what you tell me, I've got to pay that. That's like you can't shave that off. Our health insurance went up $712 million, and we have 17 new positions. We have not added a road patrol zone in almost 20 years. 20 years. That's a long time, and certainly not since I've been sheriff. We have not added, back in 06, 08, when the economy crumbled, we had a hiring freeze, and we've never recovered from that. When the state mandated that I have SROs in every school, I have not recovered from that yet. Do you realize that within the Martin County Sheriff's Office, I run a 31-person police department for the school board? That's bigger than the average city police department in the state of Florida. We have never fully recovered from having to lose those positions. This will move us in the right direction. These positions that we've asked for will staff new zones and give us the ability to keep functioning at the level we're functioning. So that's kind of an overview. I feel the heat behind me. I've done what you do. I've sat in Tallahassee as an appropriator and had to pass funding bills. This is not a fun job that you have, but I will ask this on your behalf to the people that are sitting behind me. Think about, and I've got my back to you, but I have to because of the mic. I'm sorry. But this is for us, back here. This is for me. I pay taxes. I live here. Think about the feeling you get when you go out to your car after shopping at the mall, and we're holding on to that mall. We're fighting to keep our mall from going like other malls. We pour resources in there. Think about how you feel when you go to your car and it's not broken into you. Think about how you feel when you go home at the end of the day and your car, your home is not broken into you. That's what we have. That's what we offer. That's what we do. And I wish it wasn't so expensive, but we have an expensive industry. There's no other way to do it but to use taxpayer dollars, and however you vote, whatever you do, whatever's said after I sit down, I appreciate what you do up here, and I wouldn't want your job. So I'll stop there if you have a question. Sir, you didn't mention you have another large responsibility, and I'm not sure if this room is a little more tuned in to what happens in the community, but can you speak about your responsibility for the jail? Yes, we manage for the people of Martin County. I'm the chief corrections officer. We manage a 700-bed jail seven days a week, 365 days a year. We have an average jail population, sometimes up around 500 people. We are responsible, you bikes. When I say we, we are all responsible for their health care, for their teeth, for the babies they have, for the addictions they withdraw from, from the 30-something percent of them that are on psychotropic drugs. It's a big lift. In addition to that, of course, I mentioned the school resource officers. We have three helicopters, 700-and-something square miles of land. I have six Marine Patrol boats that work day and night to keep our waterways safe. We have a full standalone forensic investigative unit. We don't lean on FDLE to do our work so we can get right to it. We are a full standalone sheriff's office and operate 100 percent. We have an FBI nationally accredited SWAT team. God forbid if we needed it, we can call them out. You have been very gracious with your funding. I am a fully funded law enforcement agency. I appreciate that. Mental health has become, you were here earlier today, discussed mental health. Can you explain a little bit, while we have the audience, can you explain a little bit of what you're up against with mental health and then how does that affect your budget? People ask me all the time, what is the number one challenge I have? And they expect me to say car burglaries or, you know, internet crime. The number one challenge we have today is mental health and the spinoffs. That would be drug dependency, underemployment or unemployment, mental health constantly around the clock. We are responding to calls for service for people that are deeply mentally disturbed. We have talked about more services with some kind of mental health pod. But, you know, that remains to be seen down the road. But because of the level of mental health issues, because of the crises we see in our homes, we go from one domestic – that's our number one call. Mental health, domestic violence, child abuse, child neglect. Society is more frail today than it's ever been. And that is not hyperbole. It's not a political statement. It just is. And there's nobody else. There's nobody else. 24 hours a day, if you have a problem, you don't know what to do, you call 911. One of my deputies will show up and do their very best to right the situation. But that challenge of mental health is only getting worse. Thank you. Questions from some of my colleagues for the sheriff. Sir, let me ask you a final question then. You've made your budget proposal. You're coming in at about $101 million. It's a $16 million increase over last year. We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to sit down with you and your team and hear specifically in a much more detail than you gave today. So the biggest chunk, if we're going to do what I'm assuming everyone here is looking for, is a budget neutral. There's no way to do that without a substantial. And I'm not saying I will necessarily go that route, but so everyone can hear. Out of the $16 million increase, I know you've fine-tuned it several times. Just what portion of that do you think you could potentially give up and not necessarily impact what you just told us? Well, we would have to eliminate the positions we've asked for. I mean, I don't do the math in my head nearly as good as him. I'm much better at burglaries and robberies. He does adding and subtracting. That's what we want you to do. But I believe that with any substantial cut, much past personnel, we have to go into the raises. And, yeah, I'm hoping you don't ask me to do that. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I think, first of all, Sheriff, thank you for being here and explaining that side of the story. I think, first to Ed's numbers, I think in fairness, and I have this conversation every time we have a budget conversation, we had $22 million roughly in new revenue this year, right? Of that, if we are roughly 50-50 of the budget, you're 50% of the, not the budget, of the ad valorem side of the budget, you would have had roughly $11 million, we would have had $11 million somewhere, give or take, in very average numbers. So, in fairness, the increase above that new revenue would have been really $5 million. It would not have been $16 million. I mean, the number is $16 million, but it's not like it's a $16 million on top of what revenue we saw coming in this year, just in fairness. And I think it should go, I mean, I think your question of us and our community is one that's spot on. But there's never a person I talk to relative to our budget, relative to anything, that goes without saying that we live in a ridiculously safe place. And there's a reason for that. And the reason is, as you just laid out for us, I think, very eloquently in terms of how you do what you do. And I think the question for all of us, and Ed's question, you know, what would you cut back on if you had to cut back on, and I think that also comes down to are we, as a community, willing to give up something that is what everybody covets to live here? And I do. I say it to people all the time. We have to live in one of the safest counties in the state of Florida, bar none. Am I willing to trade that title? Am I willing to trade or risk that? No. And I said to you, I've said to your predecessor, every year I have sat here, the sheriff is a constitutionally elected officer. He or she, in our case it's he, has the right to go to the legislature, to the governor and cabinet. If we were to say, no, it's too much, we're not accepting that. I can't imagine this board, and I cannot imagine our community saying we are going to go at odds over what the sheriff is requesting. I just, I can't see that. Because at some point in time, you would say what you just said, something is going to have to give. And I don't know how we explain that to the community if the community is the recipient of what has to give. In other words, something bends. Having the mall in my district, the two areas that for decades have been at least concerns for our northern part of the county have been the mall and the beach. And I think through your efforts personally, I say personally through your leadership as sheriff, those have significantly changed in your tenure. Our beach is a much safer place than it's ever been. And for those of you who don't go to the beach, those of you who don't access our beach, it was problematic years ago. There were periods of the time of year where break-ins were a regular occurrence. We have, both our staff and the sheriff's staff, the sheriff's commitment to us as a board, as us to a district, have stepped up that to a level to where it's really hard to do something in our public beaches and get away with it. We have licensed readers in every one of our beach access points. Not everyone, but our two big, large public access points. And I believe that the first week we had them installed, we had a murderer out there that occurred. And as a result of having those cameras in place, that person was apprehended. And that probably wouldn't have happened. We might not have ever known who that was. So, as I look at our budget and I look at where the increases are and I look at the importance of where we place our values as a community on that budget, between fire rescue and between our sheriff's department, they have got to be, in terms of public safety as a whole, have got to be our primary concern. I would never second guess the sheriff's decision and opinion in his business. As you said, you're the robbery and the other guy and you're the finance guy, Kevin, and probably vice versa wouldn't want to happen. But we are incredibly fortunate to have you. Your leadership, your team, you have really revolutionized the sheriff's department in Martin County. And the sheriff is incredibly, I think, even with what he said, he is still incredibly modest at what he has said and what he does over there, or what they all do, what the staff does over there. There are things that we do in this county that other counties don't do that make this a much safer place. And as he said, there is a cost to that. And so I will never second guess that. I just, the performance and the ability to live in a place that we live is second to none. And whether I made a choice to live here for that purpose or not, I don't think I actually did because I didn't know you back then. But I wouldn't want to live in any other community as a result. So thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, commission. Okay, anything else? Sheriff, thank you very much. Thank you, chair. We'll take it from here. God bless you. Mr. Donaldson, the sheriff in his presentation spoke of the increase that a majority of the board also offered to our fire rescue personnel. Our chief was not in, is out of town and was not able to come and give that same presentation that was given to us. But in his absence, you are able to. I will just tee it off by saying, if you didn't hear what I was saying as the sheriff was departing, he mentioned that he was looking for parity within his personnel with the increase that the firefighters received, the firefighter union. And we, every three years, and Mr. Donaldson, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, every three years or so we negotiate our contract with the firefighters union. The sheriff negotiates with his team the PBA contract and then gives it to us complete. The firefighter contract, that union contract, is negotiated by our staff at the leadership of Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Woods, our county attorney. And then it comes to the five of us. And when they originally came, they said they were looking for a 12% increase. Now, that number is a shocking number. When you hear it, I was shocked when I heard it. It is not a number that we had ever really given as an increase. Normally, they're 1%, 2%, 3% over three years, and that's how it worked. I've never received a 12% increase in my salary. I'm sure many of you have not either. However, having heard that, and now today, and I appreciate so much you all coming here, I look out and see a majority of the faces. I know I'm friendly with most of you. So I appreciate most of the time when we do the budget, there's not a single person here. So this will be an exercise for all of us. That negotiation was then sort of brought forward to discuss the issue that if you're a business owner, you've been hearing, is recruitment and retention. And we were suffering in both categories. Now, in certain areas, if you lost someone, and I always use Parks and Rec as an example, no disrespect to Parks and Rec employees, could be any of our other employees. If you lose someone in one of our other areas, for the most part, it's not a catastrophic, it's not a punch to the budget. But we are spending, and I'm not an expert on this, but I've had the opportunity, as my colleagues have, to hear from our fire rescue personnel on this. There are two things that are happening. And again, to the sheriff's point about Palm Beach County, and a lot of people say to me, don't compare us with Palm Beach County. It's a separate situation. However, they are immediately to our south, and if you're in a fire rescue, you work a 24-hour shift. We have folks, a lot of you I see are from Palm City, we have neighbors that work as fire rescue in Miami-Dade or Broward or Orlando, because it's not like the rest of us, where you have to commute back and forth to your home every night. You're staying there. So the area in which you can work is much larger, because you're going to sleep overnight there. But all that being said, our biggest competition is directly south of us in Palm Beach County. Now, some of you are either fire rescue, retired fire rescue, or no fire rescue neighbors or friends. They're looking for over 350 people in Palm Beach County. Our entire department is 350 people. So they're offering, and this is not my words, this is the chief said, they call it dropping your gear. So if you were a brand-new potential recruit, a hire at the fire rescue department, you can, and I'm ballparking the numbers, Palm Beach County is offering approximately to a $20,000 increase from what we are offering here. Correct, Mr. Donaldson? That's correct. So if you had a son or daughter or a future son-in-law or a daughter-in-law, and they were looking to go into fire rescue, and they say, hey, should I work here in Martin County or should I work in Palm Beach County? You're going to make $20,000 more going down to Palm Beach County. That, if you were a, and then the training. So that's just new. So that's the recruitment side of it. The chief also explained that normally when we open up positions, because if you do it purely on retirement or people leaving to move somewhere else, it's one or two here and there. But every once in a while, we'll add a chunk of extra positions. And he said that normally if we were filling 20 positions, 400 or 500 people would apply. Correct? That's correct. Lately, they've been getting 100, 125 people, because they're probably interviewing and applying elsewhere. Out of the 120 that they get, some of them are not physically capable of working here. They're not, you know, academically capable of working here. The other thing to remember, I grew up up north in a volunteer fire department community where you had fire fighters. We don't have that in Martin County. Every one of our personnel is either an EMT or a paramedic, because a majority of our calls are medical. We don't have high-rise buildings. We actually, we have had fire, actual fire calls been increasing quite a bit lately. But a majority of our calls are medical calls. So you'd want to have an EMT at the, that's our bare bones medical issue, or paramedic. So, and we're trying to hire paramedics. Out of the 120 that apply, 50 get excluded. We're down to 70, and then they're going to do the interviews. And when they did the interviews, I think he said 40 or 50 showed up for the interviews. Even though they had a scheduled interview, 20 or 30 just didn't show. So now we're trying to fill 20 positions from 50 positions, from 50 applicants. Now, I'm not a fire rescue expert. I'm assuming most of you are not either. But that's not really where you're going to call the best and the brightest. Because God forbid you or a loved one have a medical emergency, you don't want someone that was just okay. So our criteria is very high. So they come and they say, we need a 12% increase, which will take that $20,000 difference and bring it down to about a $7,000 difference. You still could make $7,000 more going to Palm Beach County. We're hoping that brand-new fire stations, which we've worked very hard to build, a training facility, properly staffing the departments with the proper personnel. Because remember, the calls are the calls. They've had a huge increase in the percentage of calls over the last several years. A lot of it has to do with the huge increase in assisted living facilities that we have. They also respond to every call for the full length of 95 in the turnpike from the southern border to the northern border. Some counties don't have that. So that's the information that I am fortunate enough, my colleagues are fortunate enough, to sit down and hear. So when they came and said, this is what we're looking for, because if we don't have the number of personnel, they had started into mandatory overtime. You work your shift. It's 8 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday. You're supposed to go home. Your captain, your battalion chief will say, we're a little short on the staffing, on the minimum staffing. You can't go home. We need you to stay. Now, if you're young and you're trying to start a family, that's all overtime. And a lot of you know what that means. A lot of you have followed our firefighter budget. Overtime is millions and millions of dollars. So you're either going to pay it in personnel up front or you're going to pay it in overtime. And we've been trying to balance that out for years. All of a sudden, you can have, you know, and good for them because they work the time. You can have individuals making well over $100,000 a year because they're pumping in maybe $50,000 a year in overtime because there's plenty of overtime to be had. So when we talk about that 12%, that's where I was coming from. I assume that my colleagues that voted for it as well because just like the sheriff, those are things that all of us, I'm assuming you here and us and everyone that I know, are not willing to sacrifice. We can't sacrifice fire rescue and we can't sacrifice police protection. Those are – I always say that the first dollar that you're going to pay in taxes, you want it to be that. So when you hear that 12% number and then you know that the sheriff is going to be looking for that with his personnel as well, that's where we are. I don't need you to explain it any further than that, I don't think, unless I missed something. No, I think it's important to note that this last year we did have a lot of increase in call loads. Our overtime had gone over $3 million. We did add roughly 20 positions in in the middle of the year. Our overtime budget is now reduced. Now they're just coming on board under $500,000, and it's dropping because we're able to fill those positions. So it is significant the – we are also losing firefighters in like year three or before they get to their fifth year because they are getting recruited by our counties to the south. And that's just the nature of the beast is that we've been losing them. And I believe with your contract we've stopped that, at least for now. It is a challenge for all of us dealing with the public safety, you know, wages. But it's also if you don't have them, they're a critical part of our workforce. And we're hopefully that this inflation is going to level off and we won't have to deal with this for some time again. But this year has been particularly rough on that portion. Okay. As the chair, the final question I'll ask, and I hope you understand this is for your edification and information. If we were to reach the goal that I'm assuming everyone here is talking about, budget neutral, Mr. Donaldson, what is the dollar amounts? Now we're not going to say specifically where the dollars are coming from yet, but let us all know what the goal is. To eliminate the 2.64% increase. Is it 2.64? To eliminate the 2.64% increase and bring us to budget neutral, what will we need to shave off the budget as it's presented today? $7,950,000. $7,950,000. Two or three weeks ago or several meetings ago when we were having our workshop, the number was four, what was the budget? The increase? Was going to be. Like 4.2. 4.2. So we went from 4.2 to 2.6. What did we shave off then to get to that? 5.8. So we shaved nearly $6 million and we'll need another approximate $8 million. The biggest portion of that increase is the sheriff and fire rescue. You heard me ask the sheriff. I didn't want to, but I know you're here for a reason. What will you cut, sheriff? You heard what he said. His 85% of his budget's personnel. See, he was just starting to recruit. He has overtime issues as well. So even if he's not volunteering to come back and say, here's another $2 or $3 million, we would have to find $8 million from the rest of our budget. If we left the sheriff and fire rescue whole, the only other way to shave out $8 million is to what? I know that if we're going to roll our sleeves up, and a couple of years ago when we were trying to reach a million here and a million there, we gave it back that night. This is the first of two hearings. Two weeks from now we have another one. There's two options, well, three, because you're going to give us your suggestions. The first option is your suggestions. The second option is our suggestions. The third option is we leave it to our administrator and staff to say, two weeks from now, come back and show us what an $8 million reduction looks like. Now, I don't want to sound like the doom and gloom guy, but there will be, because Mr. Donaldson and I had this meeting earlier, I asked him that question on your behalf. I'm a Republican like most of you. I would love that you were at home watching television tonight. I would love that this was a neutral budget, that we weren't going to get into it. But we can, and if this is the will, then we will. I have no problem. Left to my own devices, I'll cut $25 million, but it would be the things that I don't think we need, and other people would lose their minds over. So all of you could do the same thing if it was just taking out the red pen, but then there's other people that would come and say, how dare you, because there's a constituency nearly for every dollar. So with that, any other questions or comments from my colleagues? Let's jump right into it. This is how the system works. Some of you are here for the first time. You're going to come to the podium. You'll state your name for the record. There's a little box up there that'll say three minutes. You're given three minutes. Sometimes other municipalities, when the room is full, they narrow it down to one minute. We're not going to do that. Three minutes. At the two minute and 45 second point, you're going to hear a tone. That doesn't mean you need to stop. It just means that you have 15 seconds to sort of finalize your thoughts. If you want to get up and say, I don't want any increase, and sit back down, we're perfectly okay with that as well, because I have about 30 request-to-speak forms. I see a staff, old light, thank you, with, and then what I'll do, since there's two empty or a couple of empty chairs in the front row, what normally speeds the process up is I'll call two names at a time. If you are the second name that I call, like the on deck, please come forward and sit in one of these seats. That really speeds the process along. Our first request-to-speak form is Richard McCauley, followed by Bonnie Villat. Villat? Villat? I don't know how that L works with the rest of it. Sir, good evening and welcome. Mr. McCauley, Pope South Florida. After listening to the sheriff, I could really come up with some ideas where you could trim some things. But the idea that you guys will decide some big list of charities that you're going to give my money to is repugnant to me, and especially in light of what the sheriff just said and what you just said, you really ought to find some better ways. For example, require every, I think you did that, but require every department to come up with a specific number, one, two, or three percent, and hold them to it. And thanks a lot for hearing me. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Ma'am, I apologize if you could state your name for the record. I'm guessing I'm the only Bonnie in the room. You live on Palmetto? Yes, Bonnie Flint. Flint? That's an N? It looks like an A. I apologize. Frank Titidikus, you are next, sir. Frank is still here? Oh, there he is. Hi, Frank. You're next. Ma'am, welcome. Thank you. And thank you for giving me just a moment. I won't take my full three minutes. I am concerned the direction things are going. I think we've got to play ball with the rest of the country. Cutbacks need to happen, need to come from somewhere, and it probably needs to be shared across the board. How we can raise taxes to this amount with insurance rates going cuckoo and with inflation still not under control. I think we really need to take more of a lead. One thing that occurred to me as I was sitting there hearing about ambulance services and the fire rescue. Years ago, I'm from a suburb in Connecticut, a wealthy suburb that runs their volunteer ambulance service staffed by EMT kids out of high school who have gained national attention. Maybe it's something we need to start here as an add-on, not to take over the whole county, but as an add-on. Anyway, please be creative, and I think we all need to tighten our belts. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Frank, you are next, followed by Jerry Jackson. Thank you for the opportunity to address you. I'm here today representing the Martin County Taxpayers Association and also myself as a taxpayer. Instead of confronting and prioritizing what the needs of the county are, the county commission is often given in to whichever squeaky wheel is turning at any particular moment during a commission meeting. If a group is organized and demands a park or a baseball field upgrade, then the commission has and will throw established plans overboard to appease those wearing the appropriate t-shirt. When challenged, the commission always presents a good reason to go along with the crowd, even though it may not be in the taxpayer's best interest. The recent compensation increase with public utilities, and I'm certainly sympathetic with the sheriff. We live in a very safe county, but it's unsustainable. So we need to take a look at new paradigms. Is there other ways that we can deliver these services without 16% increases across the board over a period of time? Recent commission actions underline how wrong the direction is that we're taking. The promise to pay millions to a developer and not to develop a lawfully entitled project is eye-opening. We do not adequately maintain our parks, yet we appease a few. The commission wants to stop a Palm City project that will pay millions to new revenue to the county and create one more park in addition to the 72 that we already have. The state of Florida has provided millions in grants for conversion for septic to sewer, and the Board of County Commissioner decided time ago that each neighborhood would pay its own way in the conversion process. However, two recent neighborhood conversions paid almost $2,000 more than what it would cost for the new, or that would have been in the Porcelain or New Morovia conversion. Yet despite this difference, the commission scrapped the project because the homeowners there complained about the cost. Martin County is one of the highest tax counties in the state. Much of that's the result of trying to deliver a level of service that does not fit with the county of our size and population. Maybe we need to rethink our service levels. The present trajectory that we're on is unsustainable because of the past pending decisions. And when you stop and think about it, taxpayers are facing double-digit increases in insurance, electric, gas, and food. And as a result of that, at some point, you know, we need to rethink what we're doing. Our economy is going to be in a recession, tax revenues will fall, and if we can't pay our bills now without a huge tax increase, what happens when the valuations and the revenues fall? Thank you. Thank you, sir. Sir, one second. Our next request to speak for him is Michael Serkis. Hi, I'm Jerry Jackson. Property owner in Martin County since 1990, so quite a while. Taxed enough already is what I would say. And, you know, I'm encouraged to hear, Commissioner Campy, you say that you're looking for a neutral budget. That's super encouraging. All I can tell you is everybody is experiencing increases across the board. She mentioned it, food, electric, insurance. It keeps going. It could go on and on. But taxes is one place where you can control, where you can actually hold back. And that's what I would ask because I'll tell you, it's getting to the point where every time you turn around, it's getting more expensive just to exist. Forget about luxuries and extras. It's just plain existence. And Martin County is becoming very expensive. And so if you can do anything to lower this or at least keep neutral budget, the residents of Martin County would be very, very thankful. I will applaud Commissioner, I'm sorry, Sheriff Snyder for his presentation. But his budget increases is too much. And I understand the level of service that he offers is second to none. And Martin County is a very safe place because of it. But we have got to find a way to bring that budget down because it's just too high. And I appreciate the job he does and his deputies. And there's no question about it. It's fantastic. The other thing I would mention, and I don't know if this is changing or not, but fire rescue happens, at least as far as I can tell, having a pumper truck chase the ambulance to about every dang call. And it seems to me like a huge expense that's completely unnecessary. If there's ways to cut the fire rescues, actual expenditures, I think they need to find a way to do it. As far as people going to other counties, I'm telling you right now, Martin County is the place where firefighters and sheriffs want to work. And they just need to hold still because the people will come. They'll get the applicants. They'll fill the positions. The retirement is second to none. And apparently the FRS, the Florida Retirement System, is mandatory by the state of Florida. I think that needs to be questioned by our governor. But it's like the retirement for sheriffs, and it needs to be there because the sheriffs are putting their lives on the line, is fantastic. But the retirement of the firefighters is second to none either. And that's something I think that they should seriously look at. It sounds like it's unionized, hands off. I don't know, one of those things, but any place where we can cut expenditures, I would also say, you know, it's out of my time. We've got 15 more seconds. Okay. Landscape. Any place where the county's putting in new trees and new landscape that's going to require vegetation and trimming and so forth, we just need to cut it back. I know we're talking about small things, but any place that we could cut expense in order to keep our neutral budget, I'm for it. Thank you. Thank you. After Mr. Serkis, it'll be Patrick McDonough. Thank you. Good evening. Mike Serkis, Palm City. I know some of you guys can see this. I know you've all read this. It's the 2014 tentative budget, a little over 650-some-odd pages. Each page is about a million dollars worth of expenditures. I know it took me as a layman about 15-man hours to go through it all. I actually ended up about 14 pages of questions that I have about the expenditures in this budget. And I'm actually going to give you something that wasn't in this packet. And this actually comes off of what the sheriff said earlier today. His starting budget currently is $88 million. And 85% of that is in personnel. That is $74.8 million. For a 4% raise on $74.8 million, that is $2.992 million. So with a $16 million increase requested, some people might wonder where the other $12.6 million are going. I'll be honest, that's not my big concern today. My concern is why an idiot like me is the one asking the question. Inside your budget, there's a line item. There are 3.3 FTEs. And the line item is a 25% salary increase. But in the budget, it says no significant change. 25% is pretty significant change. Now, it's only $71,000 across 3.3 people. Let's call four because I don't want to divide a person in half. But that's still quite a significant number. And to call that insignificant is quite concerning to me. This isn't the only one. Like I said, there's 14 pages in here. I'd be glad to go through every single one if you'd like. But I think I've made the point. We need to be asking significant questions. We need to be asking substantive questions. Because for 10 years, I've been coming in front of this board. Not all of you have been here. And I don't place this all at your feet because there's 160,000 residents that come in front of you every day begging for all kinds of expenditures, all kinds of new bells and whistles. And the 7-17 meeting made it very clear. We got Gucci belts being financed by the bank with Walmart pants. We can't afford this. And it's going to get worse. And I'll tell you, my family's been here for 60 years. I don't know if I'm going to keep my house. I built it with my own two hands. I have no idea if I'm going to keep it. Because every year, I'm trying to find new and creative ways to sell crap in my house so I can afford my property tax bill. I got horses I've been burying in that land for 15 years. Horses have been buried there for 40 years. Horses I learned to ride on. And I probably won't be able to raise my kids on that land much longer. Because all we do is spend, spend, spend. And at one point, we've got to stop that expenditure. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McDonough, you are next followed by Patty Marchese. Good afternoon. Excuse me. Good afternoon. My name's Pat McDonough. I live in Hobesound, the Eaglewood development. I'm here this evening to address you commissioners and my fellow citizens on behalf of myself, but also the residents of my community. I'm president of the Eaglewood HOA. And they asked me would I please attend the meeting and sort of express just the situation that people in my neighborhood feel they're experiencing. Most of the items were already mentioned. The property insurance, 52% is low as an increase. I see it every day on the neighbor's page. I don't know if any of you look at those pages or belong. Person after person is saying, I can't afford to own a home anymore. And someone else mentioned inflation. We all know about that at the grocery store, at the gas pumps, et cetera. Additionally, we have the problem of a looming recession, possibly, that everybody is talking about. And there's great apprehension. There's great worry. My point is I understand the whole process you go through here, and I've read your online presentation, and it's very, very well done, I believe. It's very well thought out, and I understand the importance of all of the expenditures. I'm just saying it's not the time. It's really not the time for this raise, and I'm here to petition you to find a way to not have that happen, because it's become a real catch-22. I hear, well, because of inflation, that's why it's $5, $6 for a dozen eggs. Okay, and then I find out, I go to a meeting like this. Well, because things are going up, we have to tax you more. And if you just sit back and think about it, how can it happen? How can the average citizen keep up with it? And I don't think my community is doing well in that area. So I'm asking you to find a way. I'm not questioning the sheriff. I'm not questioning the fire department. I'm not questioning the departments in general of Martin County. What I'm saying is it's not the time. So somehow they have to get together. You have to get together with them and say it's not the time. We've got to find a better way. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I thought you called my name. What is your name? McClendon. I didn't, but you're standing right there. Let's save some time. What's your first name, sir? Monty McClendon. Thank you. You're next. I'm against the tax increase. I was born and raised in Florida. I moved up here from Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County is much more expensive than Martin County for houses and everything else. I am a licensed electrical and air conditioning contractor. I know the difference between expenses in Palm Beach County in here. We don't need an increase here, and I like to keep a little Mayberry, I call it. So I want to keep it that way. Thank you. Thank you. After Patty is Mr. Richard Geisinger. Ms. Marchese, good evening. Hello. My name is Patty Marchese. I'm a resident of Martin County, a homeowner and a taxpayer. First of all, I'm shocked that we have to be here. We elect Republicans to uphold our conservative values of less government, more freedom, and lower taxes. As you know, everybody else said it before me, but I'm going to say it again. Homeowner's insurance in Florida is triple the national rate. Auto insurance, highest, always in the top three highest, and just recently this year is number one. Inflation is out of control. Food, gas, interest rates are high. Just not a time to raise taxes. And here are, these are figures taken from the Board of County Commission website. From 2017 to 2023, the Martin County population increased by 4.69%. In the same seven-year period, the Martin County budget increase was 42.8%. According to the current budget request, the county is seeking $80,826,925, which is a 14.4% increase over the previous year. This type of increase is not sustainable. In addition, an additional $31 million has come to Martin County due to increased property value and new construction. It's time to go back and come up with a budget with no increase. People are struggling to stay in their homes. It's never a good time to raise taxes, but this is the absolute worst time. I personally cannot support any commissioner that votes to raise our taxes here in Martin County in this current economic environment. Thank you. Mr. Geisinger, good evening. You are followed by Darlene Van Ryper. Hi, this is Richard Geisinger. Thanks for hearing me tonight. I think Patty and I are using the same number, so if I repeat them, you'll know why. This kind of feels like a 2006-2007 discussion I had with the County Commission at that time. And if you remember back then, real estate values were skyrocketing, providing additional income for the county. And instead of pulling back on expenditures, the county found additional areas to spend the money, which is easy to do, as we all know. We all know what happened in 2008-2009. Values plummeted, and the county was desperate to make ends meet due to their increased spending. Today, however, we have somewhat of a different situation. Although the real estate values have shot up once again, providing the county with additional income, the total cost for many residents has forced some to sell their homes and cut back on the necessities of life. The average cost of property insurance in Florida, which has already been mentioned, has shot up over 40 percent in the last year, according to the Insurance Information Institute. This is three times the national average. Additionally, the typical American household now spends an additional $8,500 annually for the same goods and services as they did in prior years, according to Moody Analytics. This is equivalent to an $8,500 tax increase. These increased costs have forced some homeowners to drop the wind coverage on their homes just to be able to live within their budgets. Of course, this is only doable if you don't have a mortgage on your house, right? According to the numbers pulled from the county budget website, and again, we look at the last seven years together because that's what was on the site. The county's adopted budgets have increased, as Patty said, 42.8 percent during the previous seven years. Now, this is not adjusted for inflation. It probably cuts that in half. But let me say that again, 42.8 percent at the same time, the population, same period of time, the population increased 4.7 percent. That relationship can't continue down that path, or we're going to be not able to, any of us who live here. At that same time, the total taxable values for real estate and taxable entities increased roughly 12 percent per year. So we're having this increase in real estate values, which provides more money, and on top of that, we're increasing our budgets a lot more than 12 percent. As stated many times before, this disparity between population growth and county spending is not sustainable. If this continues, the county will become a county just for the elite, those who can't afford whatever increases that are implemented. So in closing, I respectfully request the county reconsider their budget proposal. Please act like it's your money. Ask yourself how you would handle this if it was your personal household budget. Most residents on fixed incomes have had to make tough choices in the past few years. Richard, your time is up. They have had to cut back on nearly every expenses. Please make the same. Thank you, sir. Ms. Van Riper, you are next, followed by Glenn Schmidt. Hi, Darlene Van Riper with the Martin County Taxpayers Association, your 73-year-old taxpayer watchdog organization. As was said by a presenter this morning, there is still a lot of confidence in local government, but it is waning. There have been too many frivolous expenditures approved, giving money to nonprofits. Did you not just this morning pass $85,000 to Special Olympics? It's an international organization. Why are we giving them money? Funding empty Marty buses. And I've been told the buses cost nothing, and the buses don't cost us, but the gas, the bus drivers, the pension, everything else costs us. Empty Marty buses. Building extravagant county-owned clubhouses that went way over budget. Tossing standard approval measures out the window in order to ram through a waste management contract, which costs us $40 million more over eight years. Purchasing land having no conservation value simply to keep it from being developed. The sheriff wanting a budget increase of 16 to 18 percent. These are just some of the most egregious examples. The citizens of Martin County are hurting. As you are well aware, inflation has affected the cost of many food items by 20 percent. Property insurance has skyrocketed. There may be a recession looming. It's time to be conservative with our fiscal decisions. We all know how it works. A department head will ask for more than they need in order to get a negotiated amount that they feel they can live with. I challenge you to take another look. There are further cuts that can be made, certainly. A rainy day may be just around the corner. The average median income in Martin County is $84,000. I ask you to think of those on the low side of that statistic. Those who cannot pick up a second job because they're on fixed incomes or because the jobs just won't be there in the case of a recession. There is more that can be done. And I know, and we all in this room know, that every one of you is up to this task. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Schmidt, good evening. You are going to be followed by Jim Fithian. Come on down. Good evening. Glenn Schmidt. I'm here with my wife, Laura. We are presidents of Palm City, your hometown. Glad to see you. Good to see you. Well, I think you're hearing that there are no outliers on this issue of budget increases. So, Mr. Campy, you have set the first reasonable response to this reaction forward that I have heard this evening. So, what is it? Budget neutral? No. You need to go in the other direction. You suggested a $25 million reduction in budget, and I think that's where we need to go back to the drawing board. You are all capable of this. You are absolutely capable. There are efficiencies in all of the high technology that Sheriff Snyder has promoted that say, we catch bad guys with less people. That's what the technology does. So, we need people, of course. We need people in every department. But the number of pet projects, as a Palm City resident, looking at the increase in our world-famous tax, low and competitive tax rates, ends the story. That's it for history. You know, our low millage rate is the reason people move here to retire. My wife is a nurse, now in management with Cleveland Clinic. I'm a salesman. I sell real estate. We raised our family here, and we're here to retire, not be priced out of our own home. And that's the reality of this. So, if I have a minute and 34 seconds, I'm going to try and put this in the average person's view, and I'm hoping that that's something that everybody feels strongly about. So, we get our tax bill. We look at our millage rates. We look at where we were just last year, not even 12 months ago, and where we will be on the proposed taxes. That's comparing on your bill, column three to column eight. And now, it gets egregious, because this is where the money is falling and being stripped away from homeowners. Line by line, general operations, increase on my home of 169%. I'm good at math. Really good at math. District 5, MSTU. Small number, looks insignificant, increase of 201%. School board by local board. I moved my family with three little kids here for the best schools in the state, public schools in the state of Florida, and I was able to pull all three kids out of private school in Miami. So, I'm a big public school fan. That's why people come here. There are a lot of reasons people don't come here. 15 seconds. Are you kidding me? Line by line, increases of 162%, 159%, 164%, 164%, on and on and on. This is real money. This is money I owe you guys. Sir, your time is up. So, thank you. You're doing the right thing. In direction, $25 million cut, and I hope it was... Thank you, sir. Sir, before you begin, we've had you all day. After you, Mr. Fithian, will be Ms. Sheila Donovan. My name is Jim Fithian. I live in Palm City. When we look at the budget, I would really hope that we would not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe, like many others in the room, that there's a lot of room for cuts. There's no question in my mind that there is, and I think you all do a good job, will do a good job in addressing that, especially after this audience tonight. But I am a total believer in law enforcement. I've been beat up in Hawaii when I was with my wife and my daughter, and the police were terrible. And in fact, I was able to identify the individual that beat... It was more than one. I guess I'm kind of proud. It was three. Three people beat me up as we were driving home. And the police reaction was, uh, not appropriate at all. And when I pointed out in a gigantic crowd on the beach, this is at night, middle of the night, and they were like, are you going to stay to do anything about it? And I said, well, we'll be here another week. So the bottom line is, I know good law enforcement and I know bad law enforcement. I think we all do. We have got a super, super sheriff that I don't know that we really appreciate to the point. When my wife or my grandchildren go out, I'm not worrying about it. I feel pretty darn good with this police force that we have. And I think they deserve this increase. I really do. Now, I'm probably going against the grain here. But if there's one service that we do not want to shortchange, it's this service. They deserve, and this is another thing, trust. I believe, I know him. I don't know him personally. But I can tell you I have a trust factor with this guy. That he's asking for what he really needs. And I don't want the department to, in any way, reduce the level of service that we have. What's going on in the world right now should indicate to every one of us, we need these guys. I don't want them to leave. I want them to stay. And I don't think they're coming after us because they think they can take advantage. I truly don't. Now, the rest of the budget, serious concerns. And I think that there's a lot of room for cuts. But I do not believe that our law enforcement should be cut. I'm not for defunding the police. And look at what happened throughout the country when they defunded the departments. Now, we're just asking for funding. But I don't want to lose our super guys that we have because I want the safety to continue. And that is a big part of why we are what we are in Martin County. So just all please keep that in mind. We've got it really good. We don't want it to get worse. Thank you, sir. Donovan, good evening. You are going to be followed by Luca Cesario. Hi, I'm Sheila Donovan. I live in unincorporated Martin County. And like everybody else, I've had an increase in my homeowner's insurance, my car insurance, price of groceries, gas. Everything is going up, honestly. I don't know if I'm going to be able to stay in my home. I would hope so. But maybe if we did some things like sell the $10 million country club, I don't understand why we have a $10 million country club. We've got two restaurants. We're not a restaurant company. We have a splash water park. Oh, it's nice and it's fun. Why? That takes a lot of people, a lot of money. Marty buses. I mean, I don't drive a lot anymore. I'm retired, thankfully. But I don't see people on those buses other than the bus driver. Nonprofits. I like to give tax dollars to nonprofits. My dollars, not tax dollars. I don't think tax dollars should be going to nonprofits. And this morning, $85,000 for some Special Olympics person that, to my understanding, they don't even have to answer to anyone. And FPNL rate increase for the county, well, yeah, I'm paying that increase as well. So maybe if we sold the country club, the restaurants, the splash water park, the Marty buses, maybe we could put that money to work for the Sheriff's Department. Thank you. Hi. One second, please. I've just got to announce the next person. After Luca, it will be Gail Goldie. So, I actually moved here from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, last year out of necessity. I found out my girlfriend was pregnant. She's American. Dropped everything. Drove down here. Got married. Living here now. Going through immigration. Purchased a property here. Run a business. I really think that, you know, I moved here coming from a place where high taxation, and I've seen the results of high taxation pricing people out of their own homes and communities back at home. I think it's a terrible thing to happen. I have friends that are in their 40s, you know, still can't afford a home just as a result of where I'm from. Here, for example, I had a clean slate where I could possibly move. We looked all over the state. We settled in Martin County because my wife's family is closer to this area, Jupiter in particular. She grew up in Jupiter. I have to say, to start, Martin County is a bit more affordable, housing-wise, compared to a lot of other counties, hence one of the reasons we settled on this place. The property I purchased, the intention was to run a home business. While it's become to run a home business, initially it was to run a full-out business. I can't exactly do that. But I just want to say that I think someone moving into the state from out of state, out of country, you know, I've seen from the previous owners that are now in Arizona, they had a homestead exemption that was significant. And I've seen, just on my own property, a 320% increase in property tax from the previous homeowner. And if this increase goes to the next budget increase, it's 380%. Now, I don't want to get into my personal finances and all that, but I'll say that we have to take into consideration all these new people that are moving to Florida, and I don't think you should be punishing people that have been here for, you know, decades. I think that people like me that want to have the privilege to move to a new place should take that initial brunt on them to pay that tax increase, you know, not having a homestead exemption. I think you guys should take that into consideration when looking at statistics, how many people are moving to our county from out of state that don't have that homestead exemption, because I think that's a more significant amount than you would initially think. Sorry, I'm a little bit nervous. You're doing fine. But, yeah, how I feel about it is that I think, going back to what a lot of other people said, it's like, you know, if you make this a business-friendly place, I think it's up to individuals to donate to just causes. You know, if you make this a business-friendly place, a family-friendly place, you know, someone such as myself with a young family moving here, you know, as you're more successful in your business, you can slowly start to delegate funds to places. You feel are fit, and I think that's the best way forward. So I'm not in favor of the budget increase for those reasons. I think people moving from out of state should be considered, you know, in that way. Your time is up. Thank you. Welcome. Ms. Goldie, after you, it will be Ms. Julia Sansevier. Dale Goldie, Stewart, Florida resident, Martin County resident since 1986. Having reviewed the 2024 Martin County tentative budget, there are several areas and items that the taxpayers of Martin County should be aware of. Local governments are responsible for the day-to-day activities of the community, not running local businesses. The backbone of our community and our county are small businesses and the taxpayers. The county should be making pathways into one's town to enhance business that are already established and to attract new businesses so that both will add to the tax base. Somehow, the wires are crossed in Martin County. For many years now, the county has taken up the mantle to hire county workers and to run local businesses on the county taxpayer-owned properties. We have Sailfish Water Park, which at this point should be leased out to a business entity who might include items that would entice locals to the water park more than just six months out of the year. We have two, I repeat, two beach cafes, one at Stewart Beach and one at Jensen Beach. Again, these should be leased out to restauranteers who are interested in acquiring and running a local restaurant. We have a most recent and very expensive sandwich shop called Sailfish Sands, located at the Martin County Golf Course. Again, you need to have someone in the county government to negotiate a lease for an individual or group interested in promoting a successful venture on that location. Last but not least, the mooring fields. And I'm sure that many of the county residents have no idea that we have mooring fields. The mooring field in Jensen Beach. Let's get back to running the government for the people of the county. If our commissioners and administrators have a desire to be entrepreneurs, step up and do it. Don't take it to the taxpayers. Parks and Rec Employee. An $85,000 staff position on the agenda today, which was approved for the Special Olympics, which is a local charity and part of a national not-for-profit group. While a very worthy charity, it needs to be funded by charitable contributions and hire their own employees, not funded by taxpayer dollars. We each have special not-for-profits that we support. Does every not-for-profit that comes before you, are they going to get an employee on staff at $85,000 a year? That would be, I noticed on my way walking in here, I see that there's, I think it's two parking spaces out there for the support for one of the local charities. And I know that our commission does donate to that. So that's basically what I have to say. I would also, one other thing, the proposed budget includes a 12% increase for the county administrator and the county attorney. Your time is up. Thank you. Julia, you are next. Julia, you are next. Followed by Sherry Way. Ms. Anne Sevier, good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you all. I know all of you, and I think you're all doing a really good job, and I want you to keep doing that job. But I can't support anyone who makes this county unaffordable. I don't have much more to add to what everybody has said. My husband and I are sitting back there going, boy, these are smart people. You have done your research. Thank you for speaking up. We are a Republican county, I thought. That usually doesn't mean tax and spend. That's the other guys. So I would think that if we could keep the status quo from the graphs, it showed that there was a lot lower in tax revenue and a lot less spent just a couple of years ago. And a couple of years ago in 2020, three years now, the house prices started to soar, and they haven't come back down yet. So with all that revenue from house sales, my goodness, there's certainly a big pot piled up there. And one of the things that the young Canadian said is, yes, when you come here and buy property, there's a reassessment, re-evaluation of the property, and that's an appraisal issue. That's something that could be looked at so it doesn't affect the next person so negatively. Because I am a realtor, if you didn't know that, I am a realtor, like Glenn Schmidt, and we're just trying to make a living, and it's not easy when the next person comes and they look at what their taxes will be, and they pull back from buying. We're creating a vacuum here of not being able to sustain our living, the living here. The living is just, the living ain't easy anymore, you know? And so when people move here, they move here because of the low cost of taxes. That's what they say, our millage rate is so nice and low, and I always brag and go, yeah, to the north and south of us, it's a nightmare. You want to be in Martin County. So I second and third everything everybody came up here to say, and I just want to add that from a standpoint of taxes on real estate, you sure should have a whole lot of money there, and you can do the line item and switch things around. And if there was anything, I would say, Sheriff Snyder did make a great presentation. I would say, I like to be safe, but I am sure we could keep that down, and you could find a way and not raise anything else. Thank you so much. Thank you. Ms. Way, you are our last request to speak for him, if any. Glenn Schmidt, that was you, Glenn. If anyone else, I was just about to say before Glenn cheered everyone on, if you are interested in addressing us, you can come forward, make your comment, and fill one of these forms out afterwards. Ms. Way. Thank you. I'd like to thank every one of you up there on the commission for hearing me today. After hearing what everybody else has said, I'm glad I'm the last because I don't have anything else to say because everything has been said. Except for that I want to just say this. I am a widow. I've been a widow now for five years. I moved down here in 2019 because this place has some roots. I remember my husband driving me down here and taking me through downtown Stewart. I live in Stewart at Kingswood. And showing me that the theater there and every place else, he wanted to buy the theater and make a church out of it. And he almost did, but then one of our other people did for a season. So, you know, I'm really proud to be a resident here in Martin County. But I am a widow. I'm on Social Security. He didn't leave a lot. We were a ministry couple who just gave everything. And so I don't have much in the bank, but I also have two part-time jobs. And I'm really grateful that I am capable of working these two part-time jobs on top of Social Security because, as I understand it, the median income is $84,000. And the poverty level is right now just a little under $12,000. Well, I am just a little bit above poverty level with my two part-time jobs. And so I would like to have you take into consideration that these businesses that the county is running should go to the private sector, take into consideration that there are a lot of people in my age group, and I am over 74, that, well, barely over 74, but I'm getting there, that will not be able to afford to live here. And like I said, this place here is, it's home to me because it has some roots. My mother-in-law was here for many, many, many years, and she was one of the pillars of the community when she was alive. And so I really don't want to have to move. But I do come from Polk County, and I do appreciate what the sheriff said, but Sheriff Brady Judd works in his budget, and he's one of the best. So I know if he can do it, so can Sheriff Snyder and the Martin County Sheriff Department. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma'am. I'm Pamela Galena. I lived on off of Gomez and Hope Sound. So back in the day, I started flying helicopters. And I used to fly on a lot of helicopters with the cops. And there's one thing about our helicopters that we have that I love, is that I've been in a helicopter where someone has robbed someone's home, and we went after him. We circled. Yes, I was shot at, but so be it. I was out there having fun. No one ever said that. I might have to give you more than three minutes. So I'm very much with what the sheriff is saying, because I've been in safety. I worked with the federal government, and I gave all those boys their check rides down in Broward County. But I agree. I don't understand why we have a golf course. We have things that I cannot do. I cannot go out and do all these things any longer. That's why I'm no longer flying. But I do like Schneider. I think he's excellent. And so, yeah, let's get rid of a lot of this. I'm single. I barely make my home. I bought my home at $200,000 for a tax base, and I redid the whole house. It was a foreclosure. And now it's up so high, I'm going, oh, my God, and I've only been there since 2015. But I did come up here. I've been in Florida now since 1985. And, guys, it's hard. And this is crazy. I don't understand why a police department or anyone else gets a 16% raise. That's what I'm not understanding. But, yes, I do support our police force 100%. But, again, we need to cut it down. So maybe they get 5% like we all get if we get that. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. I'm going to need you to – one second, sir. Ma'am, I'm going to need you to fill out a form. We'll get them to you. Sir, welcome. Thank you. My name is Art Schwartz. I live in Martin County. I bought a property here in 2004 with my wife as originally an investment, and we moved here permanently in 2000. We love – we love the area. We love the fact that we're safe and the fact that it's still affordable, still affordable. But these increases seem to be a little bit just too much to handle. Now, with respect to the businesses that the town or the county is in, there is one that you just don't take advantage of. And I give credit to my wife, Susan, because every time we're at a traffic light, we're watching people, probably from other counties, running red lights, and nobody does anything about it. I mean, this is a revenue stream if I ever saw one, if our police really wanted some money. So it's just one of those kind of things where, you know, I'm not coming to complain about the tax rate. I'm talking about, hey, how can we make some money without having to invest a lot more? And this is just something that's right out there for everybody. I mean, there's cameras. I don't know if there's a law against them at this point. But for God's sakes, running red lights, people making illegal turns, and nobody does anything about it. So that was my comment, and it's just something that perhaps we could think about as far as generating some additional revenue with not a lot of additional expense. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Sir, I'm also going to need you to fill out one of those request-to-speak forms. Ma'am, you're up. Thank you. Please state your name for the record. My name is Roz DeGraff, and I live in Sewell's Point. So I'm here in Martin County, and they do a real good job with revenue on traffic going through Sewell's Point. So you might want to check with them. Like a 200-foot length. I'm not going to go into numbers. But anyway, what I do have here kind of supports what Julia was speaking about. I am also a real estate agent in Martin County. And the median sales price, and this was as of Q2 this year, in the past four years, and I have a couple copies of these. I'll be happy to share them with you. It says the red line shows the trend over the last four years. But if you take the last three years once COVID started through here, there's been a total increase in the median sales price of 60% in the last four years, bringing the average for 2023 for single-family homes to $585,000 average. This indicates an average depreciation year-over-year of 3.4%, which is a very stable line. Okay? So just wanted to share that with you. You're going to have all that new revenue coming in. I'm hoping that you're not going to tax the rest of us and hit us again on top of that. So I have these to share. Thank you very much. Sir, welcome. Please state your name for the record. Yes, Larry Witherup of Stewart. I've lived in Palm Beach County since 1980. In 2017, I moved into Martin County, worked out at Pratt & Whitney my whole career. A couple things, and I've been through a lot of budget meetings, believe me, for billion-dollar programs. And one of the things that I noted here, a couple things just came to my mind. In the meeting, the $85,000 position, I'm really struggling with that because I never thought that it was the government's job to take my money and figure out who they wanted to donate it to. So I'm really struggling with that. Hopefully, I'll get over it. The sheriff's presentation was very good. I give him credit. He does an outstanding job. But he's just like everybody else who's coming up for a budget. I mean, let's face it. He's doing a good job with the 2023 budget, right? He did a good job with it. So to come forward with an 18 percent, I think it's 18.8 percent increase, I don't know where it all goes. I mean, we can't say that if he doesn't get 18 percent more than he got in 2023 that he's not going to do as well as he did in 2023. So I think we've got to take that into account and put some restrictions on it and look at going beyond budget neutral to a reduction overall. Thank you. Not that I'm challenging you to speak, but I want to make sure everyone that took the time to be here had an opportunity to share their thoughts. Ma'am, are you getting up to speak? Okay. With that in mind, I think we'll draw to the end. We need to take a – someone, believe it or not, everything that was said, someone's typing it into our closed captioning service. So it's 7 p.m. Let's take a 10-minute break for closed captioning, please. Okay. We are back from our evening closed captioning break to continue our September 12, 2023 budget agenda item, our public hearing for the budget, first of two. We've taken public comment. We are now back to the commission and staff to hear – to take into consideration what we've heard and begin the process. I just have a question. Certainly. Commissioner Hetherington, question. I just thought it would be helpful because someone asked me during the break, you know, Ms. Manning, we're talking about – most of the residents were here talking about their millage increase. But there were a couple of questions on what goes into the budget as a whole. There's other revenue sources. I wonder if you could just give a brief synopsis because I know we've been here a long time on what other revenue sources make up the budget as a whole. Okay. So if I'm talking about a general fund, for example, the general fund also has half-cent sales tax, revenue sharing. It has fees from the – what is it that – the helicopter for fire rescue that comes into the general fund. It was paid out of the general fund. We have the tax collector return fees to us as well and the other constitutional small amounts of fees that come in. We have various revenues like animal control fees. We have franchise fees that come into the fund. And so there are different revenue sources that hit the fund, you know, alcohol licenses and so forth. So – and those are major. Again, I just was posed that question, and I don't think people – it's difficult for people to understand what comprises the actual budget number when they see the $600 and $1 million opposed to the millage rate and how the revenue is calculated based on that. So that's – I think that's the more broad question. So if you look at the total of the $275 million proposed in the budget, which is – comes out of your tax bill, the remaining $300-plus million is coming from other sources. Like, so the utility is a fee. We – you know, people pay their water bill, their sewer bill, and all of those funds can only be spent on water and sewer activities, and – which you approve that budget as well. That is not on your tax bill. It comes in the form of a utility bill. The – so the building department is also fee-supported, so their revenues are coming from people filing for building permits and getting their reviews done. And so you also approve their budget, and then they have some money that exceeds where they're going to spend on staff, and that's in their reserves. And they're only allowed to keep a certain percentage of the reserves, and so if – so each area has different funds. So in public works, for instance, has a lot of – they get gas tax money. We have grants from DOT. So that's the other thing is all of the grants that we received are also appropriated within your budget, so that roughly half of your budget is coming from, you know, your property tax. The other half is coming from these other fees, grants, and then some of it is actually money that we've carried over that we're saving for projects into the future. So you – in your CIP, you may have a project that is expecting to spend, let's say, in the coastal budget, a $10 million project at the inlet in a couple years. There's a certain amount in that CIP that is sitting in the bank waiting for that expenditure in two years. So that shows up in there. So you reappropriate that also every year. So that $600 million has all of those multiple pieces. And one of the challenges, I think, for most people to understand is that it is not all one pot of money that you're able to move money between. Utilities funds cannot be spent on a road, and a road fund can't be spent on a utility, or a road fund can't be spent on a sheriff's deputy. You know, there are each one of those funding sources. The analogy I use is, like, they're a flavor, but they can't be mixed often with anything. Your general fund is the most spendable of all the funds in terms you can spend it on all those different areas. But it's also the money that – it has the most competition, as you will, between public safety eating up. But it's usually the biggest lion's share of that. And I think the only other thing, as long as I have the mic just to point out, is that when you look at the budget from last year, I think it's important that we pointed out during our budget hearing was that all of the departments, there were increases. But we were able to pay for those increases with – by paying off debt. And so the debt we paid off freed up reoccurring funds in your ad valorem. And because of the state revenue sharing, which is part of the state sales tax that comes back to us, you know, that paid for all of the increases in libraries and your other departments. And I think, you know, one of the challenges is government has been asked to act like – more like a business. And in one area that we've actually acted quite a bit like a business, which is in your parks and rec, that particular department budget actually came in with a zero increase because of the revenue that they're generating from their business activity. So I know that's maybe a philosophical issue that some of our constituents have in terms of, you know, should we operate in a business. But in this particular case, in the parks department, they're actually more than paying for themselves for this current year. So that's just a quick overview, and we can go into the various nuances. So much like the federal budget, when you start looking at how you want to do cuts, if you decide that public safety you set aside, then the only place you have to look is your capital budget, and there's not much new revenue in there. But you can always cut other revenues out of that. And then you're looking at your existing departments that, again, didn't ask for any new money, and so you're looking at cutting services. Thanks. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, first of all, I just want to say to set the – to establish how this began. And the biggest driver for this bloated budget, and it is indeed a bloated budget, was the Board of County Commissioners' negotiations with the firefighters. And four commissioners approved a contract giving the firefighters a 12% increase in salary for the first year. I voted against it, and then the sheriff came in, and with a Me Too request or demand for 12% increases for the sheriff's department. And that's understandable. And so right – because of that one action, approving the contract, that was guaranteed them contractually $5 million. And the sheriff's Me Too reciprocity guaranteed the sheriff $15 million contractually. So that's $20 million that is going – that was approved by contract. So if we start taking away $20 million, the sheriff's department isn't going to take a decrease, and neither are the firefighters, because contractually they are entitled to those increases because of what – the action that this board took, this majority board took, by approving the firefighter contract. So instead, if you start talking about taking away $20 million out of this budget, you're going to decimate the other departments, including, for example, the Teamsters, who are some of our lowest paid and hardest working employees. You know how much of an increase they're going to get this year? Three percent. You're going to decimate our parks department, our libraries, our road department, our stormwater department, you know, every other department, because where the biggest increases are coming are not going to take any decreases. So I am not – I am not – I have absolutely zero interest in decimating the rest of our budget. It is – it's – I begrudgingly approved this budget back in July, and I will begrudgingly approve it again simply because where the budget cuts need to be taken can't be taken because they're promised through contracts. So I'm not – I don't want to carve up the budget. If you all want to carve up the budget, that's, you know, that's your business. But we've already had this hearing. We've talked about it. You should have known the consequences when you approved that contract in the first place. We should have seen the writing on the wall. Who was first? I was. Commissioner Hetherington. I was just – time and time again, we heard it – we heard it tonight. You know, no one really – no one wants a millage increase. But time and time again, we've heard about level of service. And what I heard from basically in this room, but what I hear every single day is there's a value placed on public safety. And fire rescue and public safety. And it's an expensive item in our budget. And I don't believe any of us wanted to give that percentage increase. But I think that if we looked at the numbers, if we're losing people, then we're paying for a less level of service. So I think it was said earlier by the sheriff, by many residents, it comes down to level of service and priorities. And I believe Commissioner Campy said each one of us can sit up here and start cutting and we would disagree on probably where and what, what kind of level of service. Me personally, public safety would be my number one, fire rescue, public safety. The sheriff was spot on when I was in Orange County in my car with my kids. We went kayaking in a place just like Jonathan Dickinson. We came out. My car window was smashed. Everything in my car was gone. Probably very safe, secure. Go in one gate. You pay for a state park. They could care less. They wrote a report. You know, within six minutes, someone had my credit card at Target. Six minutes. No one followed up. You know, I called and called. We have a high level of service. I think the chief did a great job of explaining how every one of our, many of our fire rescue, they're trained medical professionals, too. It's, it's a different day and age. Parks and Rec. I'm a fourth generation native. We grew up here. Parks and Rec. We used to have riding arenas. I remember at Big Mound Park. We would build fences, you know, the kids, everybody. Not that I expect that we would still do that today, nor would legal let us. But my philosophical view is that I'm okay with a simple playground for my kids, you know, to take them to the park and pathways. But I personally, and I've heard it from many residents, I want a high level of public safety. I want good drainage. But the fact is we can't have it all. It's a level of service. The reason I didn't support the budget is because what some of the residents said is it's, we cannot pass this on in this year. I believe that there's more room because people are getting hit 50% in homeowners insurance. 50% most people have had a raise in homeowners insurance. We have retired seniors, and I'll say I have parents that are retired. They won't be able to afford to live here in many years. I don't know if I'll be able to afford to live here in many years. People that have been here for generations are moving to Georgia and North Carolina, and we're losing all of our locals. And it's sad to me. You heard a couple of the realtors stand up and talk about all the people that walk away because of the taxes. And a real true story in my neighborhood. Now, everybody wants to maintain their home, so they're hanging on by, like, the skin of their teeth right now. And it doesn't affect everybody. It affects, like, but a lot of our people that have been here for many, many years, and some that spoke that just bought homes. There's a neighbor in my development. We've been hit by homeowners insurance increases by about 50% property taxes. She's paid it all. She's a senior citizen, 84 years old, you know, widowed for the last 20-some-odd years. She's done everything that she's supposed to do. She's been living, because her air conditioning went out, for two months in 100-degree heat. Maybe three months now, with no air conditioning, because she's paying all of these things that she's supposed to pay first. So she's up, you know, in her house with fans. And it's just, she's probably going to lose her home. And I'm sure that's just one real story. But there's many, many, and I just, I will support the fire rescue and the sheriff contract, because we're going to spend the money for less level of service if the people keep leaving. So I believe that there's additional room for cuts. I can't see passing it on, because people will start losing their homes. And I sympathize with that. So that's, it's, to me, it's just a philosophical question. We might have to defer some of the things for another year. And that's just how I personally feel. Thank you very much. Commissioner Smith. So I suppose a lot of the same. I think, I think the opening statement of setting the stage for where this conversation is going, on what the majority does and doesn't do, I think you have to couple that with, you'd have to sit through every presentation, I think, of what we listen to and what we have to make decisions on and decide if for our community, if the values that we place on our community are important, then how do you address that? For every discussion that we're having right now, there is a constituency for those discussions that believe what they want us to do is as important as the group that showed up tonight. Every constituency, bar none. I was just writing things down as Don was talking and others. Coastal. Don brought up coastal and dredging the inlet. There was a year where the inlet, there are multiple years, we have got ourselves into a position when the inlet is filling in. And there was a constituency in this county that demands that that inlet be maintained and it's safe and it's navigable. Ed, and I'm not picking on him, but Ed will remind us every time we talk about it, he doesn't have a boat. It doesn't affect Ed. I don't have a boat. Ed doesn't have a boat. It doesn't affect Ed. We have an entire industry in Martin County that survives off the inlet. An enormous industry. Maybe it affects, you know, maybe 90% of Martin County never uses the inlet. And so if you were to use that equation, maybe 10% does, 90% doesn't. Why are we spending the money on 10% of the people that use the inlet? It's part of what makes Martin County Martin County. Stacey just mentioned the Parks Department. Over the last 10 years or 12 years, I think Kevin Abate has been here, we have turned the Parks Department not into what it used to be, but into a Parks Department that not only delivers a remarkable level of service with what we do give them, but he has now a handful of operations that are running that are plowing money back into the Parks Department that we don't have to raise the Parks Department's budget because it's making enough money that they're sustaining themselves. There is a debate, absolutely, should we be in the golf course business or should we not? If you all were to come back here from four years ago or five years ago, this room was filled with people that were accusing the board of selling off the golf course and turning it into a condo development. And there were board members that thought that that was a reasonable idea. Why did we need to own a failing golf course that was costing us money? It's now turned the corner where it is making money. It is very successful. They have done a remarkable job, and we have a constituency base that treats it as if it was a park-like amenity for the group of individuals that use it. Should it be privatized? Certainly could be. Absolutely could be. So the philosophical question to me anyway, are we providing residents with a level of service, as it's used up here in the conversation, and are the constituents that are using it, do they view that as an asset of Martin County for a reason that they live here? I will guarantee you there are hundreds of individuals in Martin County that view the golf course as an asset and a reason to be here. Some people don't like it. Fair enough. A lot of people don't like how much we spend on re-nourishing beaches. Fair enough. We spend millions of dollars re-nourishing our beach. It's NASA. It's a piece of infrastructure. It's no different than resurfacing I-95. Why do we resurface I-95? The Florida Department of Transportation and the federal government won't allow it to go below a certain level of standard for safety, and for all sorts of other reasons. Well, we're not resurfacing it. No, we're not resurfacing it. Say this. I just want to make sure everyone wants to say this. We're not doing that. And so all of the different things we do, all the different things we fund, there is a purpose and there is a reason behind it. Could we decide to be out of the business of doing it? Sure we could. There were years, and when I first started doing this, the county commission MSTUs funded by and large the resurfacing, we'll use this analogy, of the roads in Martin County in our districts. We had county commissioners that absolutely would not spend a dime resurfacing roads in their district. They didn't believe in it. I don't want to spend money in Hope Sound on roads. It wasn't Commissioner Jenkins, but it was another commissioner down there. We changed that policy, and we went to a system of resurfacing our roads that was based upon pavement condition. Every single road in Martin County got an allocation of a condition assigned to it, and we maintained them to a standard to where everybody is treated the same because they're all county residents that use all of our county infrastructure on our roads. Again, Jen Salas in the room with our libraries. How many do we have, Jen? Six? We don't have to have six libraries, right? How many counties actually have a county library in every district that they serve? Jen, I don't know. Maybe they all do. Maybe every county does, but I can assure you that Hendry County doesn't have probably a library in every single district. But we have a constituency in Martin County that places a ridiculously high value on our library system. Okay? We fund a great system to the best of our ability, and thanks to Jen, we run a great system. So the priority we placed on our fire rescue and on our sheriff's department, again, it's a philosophical difference. Do we believe, and these are real issues, should we be paying $3 million a year in overtime for fire rescue, or should we staff the department adequately and get rid of the overtime and not have the overhead costs that we carry for the overtime? It's philosophical. We can run overtime. We can run our staff into the ground. The sheriff's department will tell you, the sheriff didn't say this earlier, and it's not that he didn't want to. I think he was just, as he was explaining why his budget is the way it is. The sheriff's department is getting to or was getting to the point where people were refusing to do overtime. What do you do? And whether we like it or not, we absolutely compete. I say compete. We're in the market basket of Palm Beach and Broward and Dade. We will never be able to get to the level and the values at which they are compensated down there, but we've got to be somewhat competitive. And it's a real problem. We do lose staff, a lot of staff, down south. But those are value decisions. Do you give, do you, do you, so we placed a lot of comments tonight were interesting. My property values have increased. My tax bill is X and I don't want it to go up. Fair enough. I think all five of us heard that. But how did the values get where they are? Why are they the way they are? Because of the assets that we have. And I would argue in, in, in, in, in many cases, if we didn't have the parks department, we have. If we didn't have the library department, we have. If we didn't have the coastal department, we have. If we didn't have the fire rescue sheriff's department, we have. You would not see the types of values and you wouldn't see the strength of which this county is valued at. The people that want to move to this county, and we hear every single, it's always fascinating to me. Everybody starts off by when they moved here. I moved here 15 years ago. I moved here 27 years ago. We had an individual that, that came up, you know, a couple of hearings ago and said, I want to move, but this, this, and this. And so how do we, how do we, how do we balance all of this out and how do, how do we do this? And where do you place, where, where do you place the dollars and what is the right thing to do? Um, I, I'm not, I'm not trying to accuse the other four individuals. I'll just speak for myself in, in terms of where I place that value. We, some like to blame others up here for why we are, or where we are. No, the reason we are where we are is because our community as a whole demands us to be there. Yes, we had a room of 100 people tonight, no question. Absolutely, we had 100 people showed up. Fantastic. There's 159,000 other people that live here that we represent, and they all have their interests. Um, I, I'll, I'll call out another thing, and this is, I, I think a part of how I make a decision or how I think about making a decision. And it was pointed out tonight. We, we are in the process of acquiring a, a piece of property out in Palm City that, um, a huge constituency of Palm City turned out to support. Whether I thought it was a good idea or a bad idea, the 200 people that were in this room and out in the lobby, or how many yet? I don't know, roughly 200, right? Does their vote not count? If it was two people that showed up or 20 people showed up, I might debate that that is a different story. You get 200 people during the day that show up and say, I want you to do something. I'm your voters. I'm your taxpayers. I want you to do it. It doesn't matter at that point what your personal opinion is. They have rights too, just like every, the 100 that showed up tonight, as equally important as the 100 that showed up tonight were the 200 that showed up for that item. And I, and I think we made the right decision for our community because that's what they wanted us to do and expected us to do. And we took their direction. How can you, I, I, I, I'd like to almost say, how can you say, or how can we say that that was the wrong decision? Because then if we were saying that, we're saying, no, those 200 people were wrong. No, they weren't. It's their community. It's important to them. So I say all of this because it's a difficult thing to get to. If you were to try it, and as Sarah had said, whether we agree about how we got here or not, and I don't agree with that, it doesn't really matter. The choices are fairly narrow in terms of what we're really operating here or operating with. And so if you're not to touch public safety, and you're to hold them that harmless, if you will, to take $16 million or whatever the number would be out of the rest of the budget, you would dramatically change everybody's expectation of what this county is. And that's, those are choices. We did it, we did it during the recession. We laid off 90 people, Don? We didn't lay them off. It was voluntary separation. Voluntary separation. Sorry, wrong words. Voluntary separation. 90? Yeah, roughly 90 to 100. We eliminated positions. And when you get to the kind of number we're talking about, that's the type of impact that happens. And so I'll use Jen as a perfect, for instance. Jen, we cut back, what, five days a week? We cut back libraries. People were furious that we cut. They understood at the time, but they were furious that we did that. So I'm curious to see what everybody else has to say, but that's where I stand. Thank you very much. Okay, so we've heard. I have one other thing. I'm sorry. I just, I was looking. I think one other theme that popped up tonight, and I wish the 100 people were back in the room, and hopefully they went home, and hopefully they're watching what we're all saying. I would say at least one out of two that got up and spoke, if not 50% of the people, touched on things that were hurting people financially at home, right? Would you all agree, or the people that are still left in the room, property insurance, uniformly across the board is something that's hurting everybody? Our state has not solved that problem. That's not a Martin County issue. It's an issue for all of us, but it is something the legislature has to grapple with and the governor has to grapple with. And the fixes that they went into special session for last year, I don't know anybody that has told me that those fixes were dramatically indicative of reductions in insurance. And so I would say as concerned, and rightfully so, as people are about our budget, we have got to transfer, not transfer, we have got to communicate the insurance industry louder and stronger to our state. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. I agree with everything that's said, including Commissioner Hurd's comments. What started this is definitely the negotiation with Fire Rescue. What she left out was, we didn't have a choice. Didn't have a choice. I run a business that has 100, actually, I don't run it anymore. My kids run it, 120 employees. I have a rotating door of the bottom 20 people in my company for the exact same reasons that Fire Rescue couldn't draw in good candidates and retain them. Same thing. This employee inflation is unsustainable. It will bankrupt everybody. We get it. We didn't have a choice, right? Are we going to pay overtime, like Doug was saying, or are we going to actually staff our system properly? And yes, the sheriff has a me too, right? So these are things that we did not have a choice. These are business decisions, just like me trying to retain my high-end or high-level employees to retain them and attract them to my business. Because I've got to pay them, and I've got to pay them more than anybody else is willing to pay them, right? And we have somebody down south that's got deeper pockets than us, you know? And it's literally a 10-minute drive, you know, from the center of the county. That's a fact that we've got to do. I would love to have a zero balance or a zero thing, like we've been talking about all day. I don't see how we get there. Commissioner Hetherington, you had thrown out a number our last meeting under 2%, right? How far are we away from that? Is that attainable? Seven million. That's to zero. That's to zero. You, I had asked you what it would take for you to support the budget, and you said anything under 2, or under 2 is what you said, right? Yes. And then I asked Jennifer what that number would be. No? Support it, but. Okay. Well, you know, it would be great if we were all on the same page. It would be great if we all agreed if we're going to cut something where we're going to cut it. Let me be honest, then. When we make those decisions, again, I philosophically don't agree when we're raising people's taxes and we're adding things that I, again, don't agree. I'm not saying it's not Special Olympics. It's not a valuable service to the community, but I feel like you can't pass that on to the taxpayers. And that is just philosophically what I believe. I don't believe that it's sometimes, we may agree or disagree that, you know, in-house striping companies, and Sean did an excellent job on the FTE, and next year I might be convinced that that's going to save the county money, the energy efficiency, but I, every person we add increases FRS, and those are things that we know we can't control. So, I don't necessarily agree, me, you know, and philosophically in some of the people that I have conversations with and represent. Again, Doug said every constituency is different. So, I've heard, you've heard people that just want simple parks, and they don't want elaborate landscaping, and they don't want, you know, of course they want the streetlights, but they don't want us to maintain them. So, it's, that's just about the kind of level of service you expect, and how we may agree or approach or disagree. But, I'm not sure that we would all five agree on how we spend everybody's money, just like every household may not. I just think it's a hard, hard year, and when people start losing their houses, which they are going to do, then we are going to have to do something in my own kind. We're always talking about affordable housing, and what's not affordable is the people that have lived here forever cannot afford taxes, insurance. It's not all our fault. It's, you know, Doug said it's the state. There are a lot of different factors, but I'm sympathetic to do whatever I can with the dollars that I'm entrusted to of the taxpayers. I guess I'm asking you, what can you do? What is your suggestion? Where do we go from? I would then defer that to Don. If there's, you know, you present a budget, you know, departments present, and I could go through and strike some of the things you want, but you vote, you know, again, I don't think $85,000 at a time is a way to clip at it, but that to me is the responsibility of the department heads and administration to bring a budget, and if I ask or if you ask to please bring a budget that is something that is palatable within a certain number, then I leave that to the administration's discretion. What's the number? I think that we can't sustain a 2.67. I think we need a neutral budget this year. So take off $8 million plus the $4 million for Ed's purchase in Palm City, so knock off $12 million and you can support it? I'll support a neutral budget. Okay, then what do you propose striking? Again, we pay a lot of money to our department heads and our county administrator to come with a budget. So if you want me to start going through the budget, Michael Serkis spent 15 hours. I'm not saying that all of Michael Serkis' comments were appropriate, but it has too big of an impact. So I won't support a 2.67% increase. You know where I stand on it. If you can get down to a flat with no millage increase, I'll support the budget. First off, I appreciate Mr. Serkis going through the budget and doing this. Our staff did respond to every one of his issues. Some of them there were debatable. Some of them I think he would agree have been answered to his questions were legitimate. Maybe some he would disagree with. There's not $8 million there. I hear, and today was just a weird timing in terms of the $85,000 for the Special Olympics that was a year-long conversation of where that should or should not go. I mean, I have no problem. I was in the majority on that decision. If it's a symbolic situation, I would make a motion. I would pass the gavel and make a motion to reconsider that. If that's, if it's, it's a, I get it, you know, under a different set of circumstances, we had the ability to meet with those people, understand what they're doing, hear what they're asking. To me, it was a matter of using very small amount of our money to address a un, you know, a lower serviced constituency of the 4,000 people that are special needs in the community. They only have 400 people that participate. This one position, they sat down with me for well over an hour a couple of different times and explained how that would exactly benefit our constituencies. The thing for me is if you don't play golf, you don't care about the golf course. If you don't have a boat, you don't care about boat ramps. If you don't, you know, whatever your pickleball versus tennis is a huge issue for us now. They come to blows in parks because they don't want any more tennis courts. They only want pickleball courts. If you play, if your kids play soccer, lacrosse, football, whatever the, baseball, there is a constituency group for that. Those, those parks, look, I agree that the golf course restaurant should be managed by a private entity. We, Commissioner Hetherington and I, were on that. It was originally, because that's what we had asked. Only one person applied to run it. It was before it was even constructed and finished, so they probably didn't exactly understand what they were getting themselves into. Hitting bays and the restaurant is different than just opening up a restaurant. The people that ran it, even though I will give them credit, the food and the service was first rate. However, they weren't paying their rent, so we had to pull the plug on them. After a lot of, our staff did a remarkable job of trying to negotiate them, to mentor them into some kind of way that they could keep doing it. But if they can't afford to pay the rent in November, December, and January, they certainly can't afford to pay the rent in June, July, and August. So we rolled them. And we put in place, for the time being, our county parks and rec staff that have a track record of being able to deliver on what we ask of them. In terms of having a municipal golf course in the first place, Commissioner Smith's right. Back when that was an issue, we've had a commercial, we've had a community golf course for decades and decades and decades. And then it was deemed that the clubhouse needed to be torn down. There was mold issues. It was old. I was in an office at the time. And we reconstructed it. It went from the Taj Mahal to something else, to something else, to something else. Because the two snack bars, I think the county, we could be in the snack bar business. We shouldn't be in the restaurant business. That's my personal opinion. Some of us disagreed with that. We're letting them sort of have a test run with it to keep it going, just to get people back in. Because even the couple of weeks that it was closed, people were losing their minds. I can do whatever we want with the budget. I hear my colleagues. I don't have animosity towards any of my colleagues. I liked what Commissioner Jenkins said, that he agreed with everything, even what Commissioner Hurd said. The chief with the fire rescue was here explaining the set of circumstances that they were in. And I said to him, you're not happy about a 12% increase. He's like, no, I'm not. But, I mean, any one of our constituents could have sat in on those meetings. And at the end of the meeting, when they lay out exactly, it could be this or this. The overtime, which has been something that we've been dealing with since I'm a commissioner. A couple of times we would go with these safer grants where we would put in 10, 15, 20 people at a time. Because what won't happen is people still call 911. There was a woman that said we should go back to EMS volunteers right out of high school. Never would work here. I mean, I happened to be recently at an event where someone had a relatively minor injury. He had a knee replacement and it popped open weeks after surgery. And he was where we were, was deep in a neighborhood. And I believe fire rescue responded pretty quickly. And this was not a life-threatening situation that we were in, but it felt like a long time. And for that gentleman, it was a long time. And so I don't believe, and I wouldn't want to participate in the decreasing of the level of service. That's the first thing that people expect. You call 911. If it's a criminal emergency, you expect really fast. The cops have to show up. The sheriff's deputies really fast. It could be a matter of life and death. If you call 911 for fire rescue, it has to be responded to really fast. They have to have the proper gear, the proper training, the proper personnel. There was someone that said about, well, you know, we're tired of seeing the engine follow the rescue. That's a conversation and a debate that's been going on in Martin County for 20 years. All you have to do, if that's something, my dad was the first one, why does the engine have to follow the rescue? Ask them. There's a very logical reason why the engine follows the rescue to an emergency call. Not every single time, but it's actually an economic advantage and a medical advantage to have that. It's a cheaper way of doing business versus having a separate rescue. And it's a long story, we don't need to get into it tonight, but Commissioner Hurd was not in favor of the budget for fire rescue, that negotiation. We sat in there, she was not in favor of it from the very beginning. I was not in favor of a 12% increase either, but when they laid out to me, as one of your representatives, they convinced me. Rightly next to the main entrance to Palm City Elementary School, 650 kids go in and out of that street. I got emails and calls from people that said, who cares about those kids going to Palm City Elementary School? That's a sheriff's issue. Not really. If they built those new apartments right on the sidewalk in Palm City, people would have lost their minds. I tried to create a situation because it's accurate. It's a buy right. The developer was allowed to build there. That doesn't mean that we just close our eyes and let them. I'm a property rights advocate. We didn't try to take the property away from them. We didn't try to backdoor them. They came forward and offered up a proposal for us to purchase the property, and it came before the board, and thankfully, my colleagues, not all, but the majority of my colleagues, agreed to do it. It's not going to necessarily be a park. I told people specifically that all we were trying to do was acquire the property first, and then we would reach out to the community as a whole in Palm City and say, what should it be? There are advantages. We could sell it back to the private sector and turn it into something that would be much more palatable for the community. Originally, it was going to be 40 townhomes. No one had a problem with 40 townhomes. It's when it switched over to 90 apartments with 123 parking spaces that it became a problem. Now it's like a rally cry, and people are furious at me for doing that. That's exactly how the system should work. The residents saw a problem. They came to their elected official, lots of them, to several of us, and said, we don't want this. And we came up with an idea to correct it. It's $4 million. Now we're not going to get into it tonight. The appraisals have come in both above $4 million. Okay? So that being said, we're addressing the issue so that when the majority of the residents who have no idea that that was coming their way, they wouldn't have known until the trees were bulldozed down and the buildings start to be built would people lose their mind. And at that point, it would have been too late. We're going to fund it through one way or the other, even temporarily, within the district. Jensen Beach residents, Stewart residents, Hobesound residents, Golden Gate residents will not be paying. The Palm City residents, which will benefit or suffer the consequences of that project, we will pay. I personally, and obviously I'm part of it, I think is a remarkable plan. I think that's exactly how the system is supposed to work. Now tonight, with the budget, back to this, I don't know. You heard what I said. I did not commit to cutting $25 million out of the budget. You know, there's a certain point where, where do you stop? Okay, now I get, I have a 40-year-old wooden house with an old roof and old windows. My insurance is $8,600. It's like a punch in the face. I get it. So, to Commissioner Hetherington's point, if it's a zero increase, then it's easy to say, and I get it, and I respect Commissioner Hetherington, she's my friend. Don, figure it out. But part of us, it's our responsibility because we represent the public. Because if Don comes forward with a budget that he and our leadership say, we cut out $8 million, here it is. The five of us are going to look at it and be like, well, I don't want that thing to be cut, and I don't want that to be cut. It would almost have to be a workshop process. Several times I have sat up here for budgets, and Commissioner Hurd would say, I'm not supporting the budget. And we would say, fine, what would you cut? And we literally start cutting the budget. Now, those were much more achievable numbers than we're at now because we've already done this once for $6 million. But you don't know the $6 million. You're just looking at the $8 million. So when you start shaving and shaving and shaving the muscle off of this person, what are you going to start cutting? So I'm willing to do that. I also understand and appreciate the hard work that our staff has put into creating this budget with a 2.6% increase. I think a lot of the information, and I respect people that come, but a lot of what you heard in public comment would have to be taken with a grain of salt because not everything that you heard tonight is accurate in every single instance. People are passionate about their opinions. But the five of us have to look at the bigger picture. Commissioner Smith said it. If 500 people or 1,000 people came tonight, there's still 159,000 other people. I am very respectful of people that are financially struggling. My family and I, we're not wealthy. We're not poor, but we're not wealthy. When we did not cancel the New Monrovia septic to sewer project, we asked our staff to go back to the drawing board because the room was filled that day with people that just literally $1,000, which it would have been $500 a year for 20 years on their taxes. They said they couldn't pay it. I couldn't with a straight face look at people and say, well, we don't care. You're going to pay the $9,000 anyway. The other problem was it wasn't $9,000 per house. If you had a house with two empty lots next to it, you paid $9,000, $9,000, and $9,000. If you had a house with a brand-new septic system that you just put in, you were still paying $9,000. And $9,000 doesn't get you hooked up. You still had to pay $2,000 or $3,000 more. I represent the public. So does our board. Unanimously, we said we can't do it. So tonight, as the chair, my only extra duty above any of my colleagues is to sort of facilitate a conversation. We all get a chance to put our two cents in. We need to facilitate the conversation. If the conversation is that we're expecting it to go back to our staff for them to shave, what I said to the sheriff, and I am a huge fan of the sheriff and his department, because if anything really were to go terrible, we would all automatically look and say, you know, all the things you see on television, criminals racing into stores and filling their arms and just walking right out. It actually happened. Didn't it just recently happen in Dick's Sporting Goods and Jensen? Didn't that happen? Am I making that up? It did. It did. It did, right? So, I mean, we're not immune to that, but everyone is singing the sheriff's hashtag wrong exit. I love that. He's got thousands of followers on his Facebook page. Those two things are very important to me, but I would shave them. I think the sheriff understood when he stood here. He was, like he said, he was an appropriator. If you're not familiar, he was a state rep before he was this job, and so I think he would get it. He did already give us $700,000 off of the budget, but I agree with my final comment, as I agree with Commissioner Hurd. It can't come all from the other two departments, and from what I heard, we can't even necessarily start shaving off from fire rescue because they're a separate funding source, correct? The fire rescue has its own MSTU, but when you look at the overall millage, you can cut. I mean, there isn't really you have contractual obligations, but I'm just saying that the MSTUs affect ultimately the property tax. So when you look at all of them, so the general fund in looking at the sheriff, which is a part of what we talked about, the fire rescue MSTU is also an ad valorem tax. So it's part of that bottom line of that 2.607% includes them. Okay. So if you go to zero, then if you, again, if you don't include them, then it comes off of your other county departments to make up for that increase. And I don't see, I get that we have a contractual agreement, but their entire budget is not the contractual agreement. That's correct. So if the appetite of my colleagues is to get to a zero, then I think you have to look at everything, not leave a couple of the largest and take it out of the rest of the departments, because I'm just guessing you'd have to disband departments to get to the number that we're talking. So if that's the will of the board, then that's what it is. And look, hard decisions on behalf of the public, that's why people voted us to be up here. Commissioner Hurd, you're next. Yeah, my impression is that Commissioner Hetherington is not going to support any budget tonight. So that means that we have to, we can start hacking or we can adopt this one. And if you have, don't have a super majority, in other words, if only three commissioners vote for it, then what do you have to reduce off of the budget by law? So for the general fund. This is way more complicated than you think it is. This is going to become real ugly real fast. Yeah, so if we're relying on a 3-2 budget for the general fund, we have to remove $18 million. All right, start. Anybody want to remove $18 million from his budget? Just a question of clarification. What's the, you showed me a sheet. Yes. It says $7.9, that one, what's the dollar amount? So that is to get you to a millage rate that would be the same as last year's millage rate. And so, and that could be a combination of the general fund being a negative millage increase, you know, while the general, while the MSTUs were increased. So you can, but ultimately that $8 million out of ad valorem taxes would get you to the millage overall on your tax base would be the same as it was last year. If you were, which would be a zero millage increase. Now, it would still be above the rollback. So when you do your resolutions, you're still going to have a percent over the rollback. Now, if you said, I want to, based upon the state and the rules by which it requires a majority vote, because of the percent over rollback, you need for the general fund four votes to approve the general fund, which includes the sheriff's budget, for anything that we have presented so far requires a four-of-one vote. Now, interestingly enough, the fire rescue MSTU, which is an increase, only requires a three-two vote. So if you were said, I wanted to get, and it was, if there was a difference of opinion on how the budget was being put together, and if only we could ever get three of you to agree on whatever combination that is, you would have to remove $18 million out of the general fund in order to get to a three-two vote. So that simply just adds the complexity in terms of, ultimately, even for you to get rid of $8 million, you need four people, four commissioners, to agree that you agreed on the holistic view of all that $8 million. If any one of you disagree, then you have to keep going to $18 million. Okay, just a clarification, and then we're going to Commissioner Hetherington. To get to a 0% increase over last year, $8 million. That's correct. And then you would need how many votes to do that? Four. But we've heard that a neutral budget would bring votes. Commissioner Hetherington. Okay, I'll be brief and just clarify. I just heard the same $8 million. We've become a very, you know, I'm not trying to be difficult. I respect everything staff put into it. I respect all my colleagues. I'm really not trying to be difficult. But philosophically, it is the way that I, and I truly believe that this is not the year to do this to people, and there are people hanging on by a thread. So, again, I'm not trying to be difficult. I think we could cut to $7 million. If you all want to vote on the rollback rates and the staff wants to go back and see, I will not support the current 2.67. If you all want to come back on September 26th, you want to vote on the rollback rate, and you think there's more that can be done, and on September 26th you present that, I will be happy to support the budget. You're saying rollback rate, that's a miscommunication, correct? We're not talking about the rollback rate. We're talking about a constant. Zero percent millage. That's a constant. Not a rollback. That's different. So, we just heard Commissioner Hetherington. Say go ahead and vote. One more thing. Again, I wanted to say that it was just... Is that what you just said? One second. One at a time. We have people. One at a time. Please, Commissioner Hetherington. Let me take a second. Again, I started to say it's, you know, every commissioner is right, but it's become somewhat of a selfish society. Yes, we need boat ramps. Yes, we need pickleball. It has to be cut. I think, you know, I don't care if there's 500 people in for pickleball and 200 for boat ramps. Like, everybody has to understand that the cuts should come equally. Because no one, I mean, regardless if you want pickleball or landscaping, no one wants tax increases, nor can they sustain them. So, I'm happy to say to constituents, okay, less pickleball, less boat ramps, less this, if we could, and I'll stop. Tell us where, you've said the same thing like 10 times. But you're asking me to go in line by line. Where do you want to focus on? Across the board. Give us some direction. So, you want me to go through. Do you want to go to the sheriff? You want the sheriff, you want to diminish the sheriff's. If you could go back on September 26th and ask every department, and if that includes the sheriff, it includes the sheriff. But we have seven, it's only seven million. It's seven million. We can probably break the logjam by reading the resolutions and see if we get enough votes to adopt the budget, because I don't think we're making any progress here. Well, I want to be careful. Yeah. I want to be careful about the philosophical beliefs. Philosophically, I don't think any of us are looking for any increase. I agree with what we're hearing. The residents would appreciate zero increase. We heard it. Now, obviously, we didn't hear it from 160,000 people, but most people, if you say, would you like to pay more or the same, they'll say the same. We heard some people tonight say less. I get that. I want to pay less. Everybody does. But getting what we're having, if Commissioner Hetherington is saying that philosophically she believes that's the case, then I believe Sarah does, and so does Commissioner Jenkins, and so does Commissioner Smith. I know I certainly do, so I don't want to participate in a situation where we look like some of us are not agreeing or understanding what the residents are thinking, and some of us do. All in, all out. Commissioner Smith. Suggestion. So, how long before our final hearing? What is it? Two weeks. Two weeks, right? I think, to be fair, if you were to say, if we were to give Don direction tonight to go back in the next two weeks, figure out how to come up with $8 million out of the existing budget, right? We have to read the resolutions. Huh? We would have to read the resolutions. No, no, no, no, no. Hang on. If we read the resolutions tonight, as they are presented, but the direction we give Don is to come back at the final hearing with $8 million worth of reductions. We can still reduce. Yes. We can't increase, right? Yes, you're correct. I think part of that has to be that the constituencies that are impacted by those reductions have to be notified. I don't think we can just do this in a vacuum and say, Don, show up on whatever night, what was the date? The 26th. The 26th of September with $8 million in reductions, and we'll support that because the 100 people that showed up tonight may come back in two weeks and show up again, which is fine. But if we don't notify, let's say it's the pickleball group. And this past season, every week I heard about there's not enough pickleball and we need more pickleball courts. And as a matter of fact, do away with all the tennis courts, and we don't care how much that costs. We want our pickleball. End of story. All right. There is no debate, right? I think you need to inform the pickleball people they're not going to get new courts. And I don't mean to be like how that sounds really, but I think you have to do that because I think if we're going to have this debate, which is fine, I think the constituency that's going to be impacted needs to be able to come and voice their opinion, just as everybody did tonight. Because they were informed tonight and the alarm was sounded that there was going to be a tax increase, so come and defend a non-tax increase. Because in prior years, we get one or two people show up to our public hearings, and I don't recall 100 people showing up to a budget hearing for, I don't know, 15 years, 18 years, something like that. So my suggestion would be that we give, because nobody's tonight going to offer up $8 million in cuts. I just don't see that happening. We give Don direction to at least come back with a proposed reduction of what that looks like, of what $8 million looks like. And it may involve the sheriff. It may involve capital improvements. It may involve all sorts of things. Just make sure that we publicly tell the public what we're doing so that everybody gets to come and defend their position in front of us, as tonight was presented. Because tonight was very much a focus on the increase in the budget, property insurance, food cost going up, the cost of living, right? I didn't see anybody here about pickleball. No, there wasn't a constituency group in here about pickleball. But I will guarantee you there's at least 100 that will show up if you tell them we're going to defund pickleball. I'm just guaranteed. So to be fair to everyone in this debate, and we'll see where it all falls down. One thing I was thinking and processing in this, and I think this should all be on the table. We did this during the recession. I'll give up my MSTU. That's $300,000 right there. If everybody else is willing to give up their MSTUs, I'll give up my MSTU. That's $300,000. And that's where it's got to start. It's got to start there. And whatever you were going to do for your constituents with your district dollars, that goes out the window. Ed, I don't know about your plan. Maybe you've got a better plan. But I just that's the kind of conversation we have to have. And fair enough, we do. So I am more than happy to start reading the resolutions that are before us. We have one more light. But I would follow that, or I will do it ahead of time. I would make a motion that we ask of the administrator to bring back on the 26th a proposed reduction of $8 million that we can talk about, that can at least be discussed. Because tonight we can't talk about it because we don't have anything to really base it on. Like, which department gets 10% of a cut, 2% of a cut? You know, does 2% put this department out of business? Does 10% take this department out of business? I think we need to know that and have that analysis to be able to make a decision. We have lots of lights now. Commissioner Heard. We're required by law to have two hearings. And this is the first one. And we have to read resolutions about taxing authorities. And that your proposal doesn't fulfill that obligation. Because, for example, I presume that the cuts are going to be taken out of countywide MSTU for stormwater and road maintenance, which is $13 million, parks, which is $3.8 million. So it doesn't do us a bit of good to read these resolutions, to adopt these resolutions, and then to come back and change them. So I don't think that that's – so then are we going to read them as they are and then lower them? Well, you may lower them. But at least Don would give you options to say if you took $800,000 out of the parks budget, you took $2.3 million out of roads and stormwater, you took $6 million out of this budget, that gets you to your $8 million. And if you don't – and, Sarah, if four of us don't agree with that and we say, no, we can't do that, we're not going to do that, then you can get to the number that we are at tonight with four votes. We're not going to get five, apparently, but you could certainly get to four. And even if we got halfway there, you're still not going to get five votes. That's not going to happen. So your proposal is to adopt the budget that's presented tonight? With the caveat, and I will make – if you want the motion ahead of time so you feel confident that I'm going to make the motion, but make the motion that we direct the staff to come back with $8 million worth of reductions to be voted on in the final hearing. Is that a motion? Let's hear from everybody and then make it. Sure, I'm trying. Please. Are you done, Commissioner Hurd? More than done? Commissioner Jenkins. So my question to Commissioner Heddington, is this something you're going to support? No. I'm not supporting the 2.67. No. So the theory of adopting where we're at tonight and revisiting it with the understanding that we're going to try to get – at that point – I'm asking for an effort. I'm not – I'm asking for an effort for the next – yes. Are you going to support the theory that Doug just threw out there? I will support – I'm not supporting – I might not support the resolutions as presented. I support the theory that we're going to adopt. I'm not voting for the county-wide millage. I understand what you're saying. But what he's giving direction is – the way I understood it was you're going to read each sheet. I may agree with some or disagree as long as you have the proper amount of votes. Don was given direction to look at the overall budget for the next budget hearing to see if he could trim $7 million. And whether you can or not, I don't know. Is that what I heard you saying? Yes. And I'll just make one final comment. It makes more sense to me to do this when we have these conversations, when we align our priorities at the beginning of the year than have this very frustrating process during the middle of the budget. So it might make sense to have a strategic plan and set out our priorities and have a fiscal impact when we pick our commission priorities at the beginning of the year so that way staff has the appropriate direction to take it through that year. I see your point. The only problem with that – and we hear that not from you, Commissioner Hetherington. I respect you. We hear that. But I don't understand, like, when we do the capital improvement plans in May, we don't know what's going to be – what the climate's going to be in September. I understand this process. It's a weird process. I think most of the people in this room, hopefully the people watching, know the five of us are not allowed to speak to each other outside of this room. So my point is, is that if this looks frustrating to people and they're like, what are they doing? Why are they arguing? How come they haven't worked this out already? We're not allowed to. This is the workshop. This is the – we had a workshop and there was some controversy or some conflict. And then we came to this event. I would have assumed during that time in between the workshop and tonight you had made your wishes perfectly clear that there would have been some, you know, rolling the sleeves up. And I get that our budget people are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. You didn't know tonight that we would still be here. I agree with – look, between Commissioner Hurd and Commissioner Smith, they've been at this a long time. I've never seen anyone here for the budget. It always used to blow my mind. And sometimes one person would show up, they would make a public comment, and leave. We've had people here, the room filled with people when we're deciding $3,000. And we would do a $600 million budget and crickets. You know how many emails and phone calls we would get after we approved the budget with an increase, with a decrease, flat? Zero. I get 150 emails on something minor. But this had always been a process that worked. I, as the chair, is my responsibility to foster a give-and-take of conversation and opinions. I think we're doing that at a respectful level. Commissioner Hetherington has brought forward a suggestion. Look, and she says philosophically – I think philosophically we don't agree on everything, but no one wants to do this. It's just a matter of how much pain are we willing to absorb in the process of doing it. I think Commissioner Smith's idea of let's run through these – because we have to. And now I think staff, whether they like it or not, have been given pretty clear direction on what is the situation. I prefer a – as Commissioner Jenkins was asking Commissioner Hetherington, will you support something going forward? I think that's a reasonable question. If we get to the point two weeks from now, you can't be like, well, I don't approve it anyway. I mean, obviously that's your prerogative, and I know you didn't say that. I'm just saying that, you know, that starts to be weird. No one wants an increase. We don't want to give you one. It's just a matter of how far will people go in the process. We'll go to staff first and then to you, Commissioner Smith. I do have a slight technical modification prior to reading the resolutions based on board direction today. It's a reduction based on the position that Sean Donahue had come. So there is a reduction in the countywide millage rate to 6.7573, which brings the overall countywide millage rate increase to 2.607 percent. And Commissioner Smith has those resolutions to read. Ms. Donahue, congratulations. You were the first portion of the step in the right direction. We just need that to happen, you know, 200 more times. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I just want to give you two examples, and then I'll make the motion for the ask of Don. Two things that came to us over the course of this year that we were pressured to accelerate, increase, do whatever humanly possible to make them happy happen. One was the boat ramps at Sandsport Park, and then the second one, I just lost it. But there was another issue that came forward that wasn't really in our radar screen, built into our radar screen, and we reacted to the public's request of us to do so. And that's why sometimes in the best of intentions and aligning what you think ought to happen in the beginning of the year and what happens in September relative to your budget just don't always align. With that, I would move. One more point to your suggestion. I would also give direction that we don't cut a dollar that jeopardizes a grant. You know what I'm saying? Let me make my motion, then you can. I'm just saying that you don't want to give a dollar up that costs you $2 to give up. So I would make a motion that we ask the administrator and staff to come back with recommendations, not mandates, not whatever, but recommendations that achieve a 0% increase over last year's budget, which would effectively be $7.98 million. Last year's millage. Last year's millage. I'm sorry. Which would effectively be $7.98 million. $7,950,000. You got one back already. Hmm? That's Sean's person. Go ahead. That's a motion? That's my motion prior to making these motions. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith. I think we've all heard it. Everyone clear on that motion at this point? Seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. With that, understanding that we will come back in two weeks with options? Huh? Nothing. You have the copies. I would move the first taxing authority, which is Board of County Commissioners, County-wide rollback rate is 5.9551 percentage increase over the rollback rate is 13.47. The tentative millage rate would be set at 6.7573. Second. Okay. Is that a motion? Do I have a paper package? That's a motion. Okay. A paper package of this because I can't read this screen. Thank you. I can read it, but I've got to go like that. Well, he's going to read them. I can make it bigger. You want me to make it bigger? That's fine. I just want to know what he's going to do. Commissioner Smith will read them. How it works, Commissioner Smith will read through approximately 25 of these, and then someone else will second it. I will call what? 34, apparently. 34 of these. It's really exciting. I have no more iced tea left. Very exciting. I will, someone will second it. I will announce the vote, and we'll move on. Let's, and it's 836. So we had one. It was, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Okay. I would move taxing authority, Board of County Commissioners, item B, Board of County Commissioners, countywide, fund total $268,231,550. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. I'd move item C, which is taxing authority, District 1, MSTU, rollback rate 0.0718, percentage of increase over the rollback rate, a motion of 0.56, tentative millage rate to be set at 0.0714. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. I would move item D, as in David, taxing authority, District 1, MSTU, fund total $337,958. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The motion carries unanimously. I move item E, as in Edward, taxing authority, District 2, MSTU, rollback rate 0.0898, percentage of increase over the rollback rate, a reduction of 1.11%, tentative millage rate to be set at 0.0888. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The motion carries unanimously. Don't leave. This is the most exciting part. Commissioner Smith. Move item F, which is taxing authority, District 2, MSTU, fund total $215,000. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. He's kidding. He's kidding. Yeah. This is paint drawing here, bud. Yeah, this is paint. Very, very exciting. They're my ride back to Palm City. I don't have a car. Oh, man. We still get a public comment. You're not allowed to make more than three public comments in one day. Joke. Commissioner Smith, please continue. I move item G, which is taxing authority, District 3, MSTU, rollback rate 0.0419, percentage of increase over the rollback rate, a reduction of 3.58%. Tentative millage rate to be set at 0.0404. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item H, taxing authority, District 3, MSTU, fund total $208,000. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item I, taxing authority, District 4, MSTU, rollback rate 0.0570, percentage of increase over the rollback rate is a reduction of 0.70. Tentative millage rate to be set at 0.0566. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item J, which is taxing authority, District 4, MSTU, fund total $214,390. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item K, which is District 5, MSTU, rollback rate is 0.0606. Percentage of increase over the rollback rate is 33.5%. Tentative millage rate to be set at 0.0809. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move item L, as in Larry, taxing authority, 5, MSTU, fund total $370,000. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item M, which is special taxing authority, which is Special District A-61, Hutchinson Island, MSTU. Rollback rate is 0.1995. Percentage of increase over the rollback rate is a reduction of 0.80. Millage rate, tentative millage rate to be set at 0.1979. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item N, as in Nancy, taxing authority, Special District A-61, Hutchinson Island, MSTU. Fund total $392,100. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed, the motion carries unanimously. Move item O, in Oscar, taxing authority, fire rescue, MSTU. Unincorporated rollback rate, 2.3895. Percentage of increase over the rollback rate, 13.00. Tentative millage rate to be set at 2.7002. Not a second. Second. 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. Move item Q, taxing authority, fire rescue, MSTU, unincorporated, $71,305,530. Second. 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. Move item Q, taxing authority, countywide MSTU, unincorporated, stormwater, and road maintenance rollback rate, 0.5384. Percentage of increase over the rollback rate, 11.78. Tentative millage rate to be set at 0.6018. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. No. Are you opposed? The motion, let me restate that. The motion passes four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item R, taxing authority, countywide MSTU, unincorporated, stormwater, and road maintenance, $12,716,658. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item S, ma'am, taxing authority, MSTU Parks, Recreation, rollback rate, 0.1672. Percentage of increase over the rollback rate, a reduction of 1.79. Tentative millage rate to be set at 0.1642. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Aye. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item T as in Tom, taxing authority, MSTU Parks and Recreation, fund total, $3,778,543. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item U, non-taxing fund, general unincorporated fund, fund total, $6,741,249. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move item V, non-taxing fund building and permitting, fund total, $10,182,000, even. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item W, non- Excuse me? Let me restate that. That last motion carries five zero unanimously. Move item W, non-taxing fund, impact fees, fund total, $6,233,000. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move item X, non-taxing fund, special revenue, fund total, $27,769,840. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move item Y, non-taxing fund grants, fund total, $828,862. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Aye. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item Z, as in zebra, non-taxing fund, other debt service, fund total, $8,523,977. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move item AA, non-taxing fund, other capital projects, fund total, $13,299,371. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item BB, non-taxing fund, utilities enterprise, fund total, $110,025,342. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Move item CC, non-taxing fund, utilities enterprise, fund total, $46,314,044. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item DD, non-taxing fund, airport enterprise, fund total, $2,533,252. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Opposed? No, for all the fun we used to have, we used to call it Don Donaldson. Yes, I would do. We're having no fun. This is no fun today. That motion passes unanimously. What am I supposed to do? Nothing. We used to do. I was reminiscing about when we actually had fun. Yeah. I know. Move item Eddie Edward. There we go. High school. I know an Eddie Edward. Non-taxing fund, golf course enterprise, fund total, $2,300,000. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Move item Freddy Fred. Non-taxing fund, internal service funds, fund total, $38,352,259. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. I don't know what to come up with for two Gs. Greta Garbo. Greta Garbo. Wow. Very good. Move item double G. Greta Garbo. Non-taxing fund, trust, fund total, $80,000. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Move item double H. Non-taxing fund. You got one for that? Hugh Hefner. Hugh Hefner. Harry Hamlin. Come on. Harry Hamlin's much better. You got another one? Yes. Okay. That's the last one. That's the last one. So make it good. I got nothing left. You got nothing? That's it? All right. Move double H. A non-taxing fund, community redevelopment area, trust, fund total, $8,726,377. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carried unanimously. Commissioner Smith, thank you for doing that. You're welcome. Commissioner Hurd, Commissioner Jenkins, Commissioner Hetherington, thank you. Let's just be clear before we go to closing public comment. To reiterate Commissioner Smith's motion, we, by law, had to adopt these resolutions today. We adopted them with the numbers as presented before the meeting began, before the conversation. They're not real-time documents. Commissioner Smith's motion to staff, which passed unanimously, was to come back with a variation to bring the budget in at a 0% increase over last year's millage. So I don't want people to think we approved everything they heard today and that some commissioners voted one way or the other. This is a to-be-continued conversation, please. With that in mind, I would take 505 public comment at 849. Before you come to the podium, state your name for the record. I'll need you to fill out another form, but I'm pretty sure. And you win the prize for being here all day. Okay. My name is Jim Fithian from Palm City. Just a thought. I'm not sure if it's possible. But I've been in positions like this before at a company, and sometimes there's low-hanging fruit on negotiated contracts already. So you can go back. I don't know if you can, but we could. As a goodwill gesture, we would go back to a vendor, especially the multimillion-dollar ones, where you go back to the vendor and say, hey, look, we've got a problem. We've been dealing with you for a number of years. We'd like to deal with you for a number of years in the future. Can you discount the negotiated price by 5%? And you get a lot of those, and it adds up pretty quick. So it's just a thought. I don't know if it's possible in the contracts that you guys have. But you'd be amazed. They want to stay with you. They want to work with you into the future. And a lot of times, if you get with the owner or the guy in charge of purchasing, you can renegotiate a contract that doesn't hurt them. A lot of times, the buffer is in there anyway. You know, there's some – they can take a little bit, 3% to 5% off of the price, knowing that in the future you might be able to – does that work at all, or am I totally off base with that? We appreciate your comments. Okay. We'll take them under advisement. Sounds like at least a conversation. Okay. Thank you, sir. All right, thanks. Miss, my Palm City people still in the house, all three. Good evening. Thank you, commissioners. I just wanted to say I really appreciate that you listened to everyone today. It was a long day, and I'm so happy that you heard people's comments. So I just wanted to thank you all very much. Thank you. I don't recognize you. Please state your name for the record. My name is Linda Fithian, and I'm a resident of Palm City. Thank you. And you've been here all day. Thank you. Come on now. Got to kick it off. Line HH, Howard Hughes, eccentric billionaire. There you go. You guys got logjammed on $8 million. That's what you're stuck at is $8 million out of $650 million. The sheriff's looking for a $16 million increase, predicated almost exclusively on a 12% salary raise. That 12% salary raise is about $9 million. So if you give the sheriff $12 million instead of $16 million, he still has $2.5 million pocket change to do something special with. He can kick the other $4 million to a future date, eliminate your $4 million land purchase, and you have $8 million in your pocket. Now, by all means, I think that land needs to be acquired in some way, shape, or form. We don't have the money. That's a reality situation. The school board, on the other hand, has several supplemental taxes that have been supported, one for personnel and another for infrastructure purposes. You also have a 501c3 environmental study center that exclusively looks at water currently. We have a lot of upland. We have a lot of dry wilderness, a lot of dry environment in the county that doesn't get talked about in the environmental study center. I think there's an opportunity you guys could work with the school district, maybe on land acquisition in that manner. Maybe there's some MSTU dollars from the local to help kick in that way. But Martin County can't swallow a whole $4 million pill. But you can get $8 million out of your orange still. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else looking to address us? We'll go to Commissioner Cummins. Commissioner Hurd. Commissioner Jenkins. No. I'm done. Commissioner Smith. Mr. Donaldson. Don't you. No, you don't. Let's put your microphone on. Ms. Woods. Let me just thank our staff. I know that the process leading up to today is arduous. All of our staff, especially our budget preparers and all that do that work, do not take this as some type of a sign of that we are unhappy or unappreciative with your efforts. It just means that you'll continue to put your noses to the grindstone. And to all our staff, we appreciate you very much. Our next commission meeting is September 26th. And with that, at 8.53 p.m., we bid you good night.