Board of County Commissioners on 2023-10-10 9:00 AM - Oct 10, 2023

Today is October 10th, 2023. I'll call our Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. We have a small but impactful agenda for today. We will begin with an invocation by Pastor Aaron Meehan from the Higher Purpose Pentecostal Church, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by Mr. Robbie Monroe, a combat army veteran. If you would all please stand. Pastor, good morning. Thank you so much. Thank you for, again, this opportunity to come and pray over this meeting and offer this invocation. Such an honor to be here. At the end of October, our church is celebrating 10 years in Martin County. My wife and I came with just a couple dollars in our pockets and a lot of prayers, but this community has so embraced us. This county and this city has been such a blessing to us, so I want to offer to you thank you. And I appreciate all the work that you do and everything that this wonderful board has done to support churches, small businesses, and the like. Today in my prayer, I'm going to pray specifically for this meeting, that God would bless this meeting. I see we got many exciting things to do today, and I'm sure business as well. I'm also going to pray for the peace of God over our community. As we know, a lot is going on in the world today, and it affects even the local hearts and minds of our citizens. So we're just going to pray for peace today over this meeting and over our citizens. If you could bow your heads. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to come together, to gather to improve our community and our county. We pray in Jesus' name that you would bless this meeting, allow there to be peace in this place, for you are said to be the prince of peace. So we pray that you would touch the hearts and minds of all who are here today, touch the hearts and minds of our city and our county, that Lord Jesus, we'd be able to trust that you have a plan and that you are in control. Bless everything that goes on today, every speaker, Lord God, every decision, the honor that's going out to these certain individuals. We pray that you would bless it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. If everybody would like to do the pledge, 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. Mr. Monroe, thank you so much for coming, honoring us this morning. It is sort of our way that we'd give you an opportunity to share a little bit about your illustrious background. Yes, sir. I went in the Army September 9th, 2001. I was in reception of basic training when 9-11 happened. We weren't allowed to see TV or anything like that, so it wasn't until after I got out of the Army I watched documentaries and saw what actually happened. Once I was done with basic training, my first duty assignment was Korea, where I spent a year at Camp Humphreys. Once I got back to the United States after my year there, I got stationed at Fort Carson, which is in Colorado Springs, where I was attached to Third Armored Cavalry Regiment. I deployed to Iraq twice with them. I was in Operation Iraqi Freedom 1 and 3. It was some of the craziest, wildest times of my life, but it was an honor to serve my country. I love it. I would have done it again 100 times over. And thank you all for having me here and listening to my story. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you. Let me tell you about the agenda. We have one additional item, consent number seven, adopt a proclamation declaring mobility week in Martin County, Florida. There are no consent polls. We have a couple of proclamations that we will take up before public comment in just a moment. Commissioner Smith. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I move approval of the agenda with the additional item of consent number seven with no consent polls. Thank you. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. We have a couple of proclamations. We'll start this morning before we get into the public proclamations with more of a private celebration to present a plaque in recognition and appreciation to Ms. Jennifer Manning upon the occasion of her retirement from service with the Martin County Board of County Commissioners. A couple of different people will make the presentation. Well-deserved presentation. Mr. Graham, you are recognized. Yes. Good morning, Commissioners. Matt Graham, Assistant County Administrator. Joining with me is Stephanie Murley. I am here to present a plaque of recognition and appreciation to Jennifer Manning upon the occasion of her retirement. Ms. Manning has been a county employee for 34 years, a journey that began as an account specialist in our utilities department in 1989 and saw her rise to the esteemed role of the director of the OMB division in 2018. That's our Office of Management and Budget Division. Ms. Manning is an extraordinary and dedicated budget professional and will be deeply missed. Ms. Manning's journey with us has been one of dedication, growth, and inspiring leadership. Her story is a testament to the power of hard work, resilience, and the pursuit of excellence. From her early days in the utilities department where she began as an account specialist in 1989, her diligence and commitment shown brightly to her time navigating a series of demanding budgeting positions across the county. Ms. Manning consistently demonstrated her unwavering dedication to her craft. In 2018, Ms. Manning's journey reached a pinnacle as she assumed the role of OMB director. Under her guidance, OMB transformed into a center of strategic financial management, innovation, and collaboration. Her visionary leadership and analytical acumen reshaped the way we approach budgeting, setting new standards for efficiency and effectiveness. Ms. Manning's impact extended beyond her professional achievements. She has been a mentor, a collaborator, a source of inspiration to her colleagues. Her willingness to share her knowledge, guide her peers, and foster a sense of unity has left an indelible mark on our organizational culture. Ms. Manning has successfully trained and prepared her staff to succeed her into her retirement. On behalf of the Board of County Commissioners, the Administration Department, the OMB Division, and the entire county, it is with great honor that we present you with this plaque in recognition and appreciation of your dedicated service to the county as you retire. Those are very nice words. I appreciate it. And it's 34 years and 10 months today. I want it to be exact. But it has been an incredible journey. And most, you know, the best thing about it, there's more positive than negative. So, which is, the positive outweighed the negative experiences. I have grown with the county quite a bit. I've had my family with the county. And, you know, it's been great. So I have no complaints. And one thing I wanted to first say thank you to the commissioners for, you know, taking care of me and making me feel welcome at all times. I also wanted to thank my previous administrator, Taryn Krizia, and my current administrator, Don Donaldson, because they've been excellent and they've been an impact in my life as well. I also want to thank my coworkers because of their intelligence and teamwork. And, you know, when you talked about changing the way we do things, we have a lot of talent in my department. And I really appreciate all my coworkers, whether it's in my department or outside of my department. But most of all, I would like to thank God, as well as my husband of 43 years, which he couldn't be here today because he had a service call. Yeah. But anyway, he also worked for the county and I was for 30 years. So I would like to thank him as well as my family, my wonderful family. I have my two boys here, well, men that also work for the county and they're somewhere around there. And it's great having them by my side all the time and close to me. So, you know, I am appreciative of all the things that, you know, has been happening in my life and in the county and my family county life as well. So thank you for all your well wishes. Thank you. Ms. Murley. Yes, I have a couple things to say. So if I go missing later, everybody knows where to start to look. So Jennifer hired me 12 years ago. And in that time, she shared valuable institutional knowledge, has ingrained debt slaying techniques, and has provided mentorship to the OMB team that resonates in the work that our department does every day. Jennifer has always been willing to accept that there may be different ways of coming to a solution. But if a solution involves an Excel pivot table, to her, that'll be the only right way. With an uncanny knack for inserting relevant metaphors into any situation, we will miss the camaraderie and humor that Jennifer brings, her tough love and support in our challenges, and her ability to recall an obscure dollar amount budgeted back in fiscal year 2014. Jennifer is leaving a formidable legacy that will be hard to follow. So I request from her the following with utmost sincerity. Without a fully documented recipe for brown stew and curry chicken, our Thanksgiving potlucks will never reach their full potential. it's true. That's all I have. Thank you very much. You will go missing. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Commissioner Smith. She actually stole part of what I was going to do. Jennifer's department is one of those departments that could go unseen, actually. It's kind of one of those very quiet little places over there. But if you ever had to have a department, if you ever had to have a group of people, a team that kept this place intact, it would be over there. And, you know, we expect everything to always be perfect in this building, and we expect incredible performance, and it never shines any clearer than on budget night when we're doing budget. And this crazy board up here, I'll speak for myself, we deliver changes to the budget. We ask for miracles. And within minutes, the team shows back up under Jennifer's leadership and comes back with exactly what we asked for. And it's accurate and it's precise. And you couldn't want and ask for anything better than that out of any county employee, but certainly out of any county department. And so, Jennifer, thank you for all the years I've got to work with you. Thank you for always having the numbers for me when I needed them. And additionally, I don't know if you'd ever, well, she says there is no recipe for the curry. Right. That's what she says. But if you love curry, you need to show up around Thanksgiving time, because it is absolutely the best curry in the world. And so hopefully you'll show back up and you'll bring a little taste of curry with you when you come. I'll have time on my hands, of course. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. Our budget is big. And if there's any department where you want the leaders to be accurate and to know the minutiae, it's our budgeting department. And I've gone to Jennifer so many times asking for the most arcane pieces of financial information. And if Jennifer doesn't have it on the tip of her tongue, it's at the tip of her finger. She's so, she knows everything there is to know about the most obscure parts of our budget. She's wonderful. And you're going to be missed so much. Thank you so much. Okay. A motion to deny the retirement. Or motion just to make sure that curry is provided. I second that. Jennifer, may I just add that, you know, quite often the hardest work that looks easy is done by professionals. You have been a remarkable leader of your team. As Doug said, you know, you craft a budget for months and months and months. You have it worked out. Yeah. You're hearing familiar voices. I'm going to bring them forward in a minute. You craft a budget with your team. And then you come to this room and we pull it apart and ask you to redo it with half an hour's notice. And you always have. We didn't mention that your department and you are multiple award winning for your talents. The county is as great as it is because of your efforts over the last three decades. We will miss you, but we thank you so much for your service to our community. And we'll end with Mr. Donaldson. Yes. Well, Jennifer, we started working together, I think, back when it was engineering or public services department, you know, and she still is. And from that time till today, she's always been assisting the county and solving problems. I think that's, and, you know, our budget is complicated. And what complicates government budgeting too is the fact that not all money can be spent the same way. We don't have one big pot of money. We have lots of little pots with lots of rules. And, and we are a fiscally conservative county. And Jennifer is a fiscal hawk, actually. If you, and if you think they are quiet, actually, it can be quite noisy over there. I've seen Kevin Abate screaming out of there a few times. That's not the department. No, it's, but I think there's, there's no better testament than the last few years where we've been freeing up reoccurring funds by paying off debt, finding ways to secure those things so that we can provide the least impact to our taxpayers as we move forward. And when you all give us direction, and Jennifer knows what we're trying to achieve, she looks out for it all year on with her staff. And I think that's also a great testament to you all allowing us to work with folks from within. It's that years of experience, uh, working with Taryn and her great problem solving ability. And, uh, and she's continued to bring that to the rest of her staff. So thank you so much, Jennifer, all you've done for us over the years. Now, Jennifer, let's do this. Let's have everyone meet the reason you're going to have a beautiful retirement. I saw some adorable little beautiful children come in. Why don't you have your family come up? We'll pose for a picture and then we'll continue. Yes. Here they are. She's like, nothing. Yes. Maybe not such a good idea this morning. They are scary. That was spoken by our former county administrator. We don't want you to retire, but that's a good reason to. Your husband will lose his job. Well, no, you can have one. You can have one of the kids superimpose him in. Jennifer's husband takes care of those twins twice a week by himself. Jennifer, God bless you and enjoy the well-earned days of not being here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. If you're a county employee, now's the time to depart. Oh, I love him. He's great. John Garwood? Yeah. I keep forgetting to tell you when I saw him on the agenda. Yeah. We're adjourned now? Yeah. End on a high note. We have two proclamations that will be presented by Ms. Martha Ann. Disability Employment Awareness Month. October 2023 is National Disability Awareness Month, and its purpose is to educate about disability employment issues and celebrate the many and varied contributions of America's workers with disabilities. The board urges all citizens to recognize this month by bringing together businesses and partners to break down the barriers faced by individuals with disabilities who are working or seeking employment, dedicating ourselves to the task of improving the quality of life for all. And today we have President and CEO of Helping People Succeed, Ms. Susie Hutchison. She's done this a couple times. Good morning, and thank you very much. Susie Hutchison, Helping People Succeed. I've talked to you many times. I feel like maybe we're seeing too much of each other some of the time, but I love being here at the county. I'd like to just say, too, that Jennifer was wonderful to work with from the not-for-profit side. I would call her and say, how do we get this through? How do we do this? And she would say, I don't have a clue. No, she didn't say that. But she was a lot of help to all of us. So today I just want to kind of thank you all for all that you do to help with disability employment, but also to remind everyone that disability really is a different ability. When you look at the world, we're all different. I couldn't do the things that you do, and I also wanted to be a famous dancer. Just didn't happen, you know, but I'm very happy where I am. So as we look for employees today, which is still very difficult in many cases, I really urge everyone to look at a person who has an ability, but look at them as having someone with a different ability. During this time, it still makes so much sense. So I want to just take a minute and read to you the number of businesses in Martin County. This is not all of them, but most of them, who have at least one person working for them. I'll start with the Martin County Clerk of the Court. We've had a gentleman named James Foster there for probably 50, I don't even know how long now, who has his own office and wears a suit and does great work for you all, for the county. The Martin County Schools, we have numerous people. Publix, which is our most visible place where people work. Winn-Dixie, Home Depot, Bonefish, TJ Maxx, Cleveland Clinic, Wendy's, Dunkin' Donuts, Bayer Furniture, Outback Steakhouse, Willoughby Golf Course, Cracker Barrel, Children's Museum of the Treasure Coast, New England Fish Market, Harbridge Yacht Club, Bell's Outlet, and the Pine School. What I'd like for you to realize in that number of businesses is the diversity in the businesses. It's not just one job that we can do. There are many jobs that we can do. Again, we're looking at the ability of the person. So I'd like to thank you. I'd like to thank you for the budget that you approved, which will allow us to continue to help people with disabilities find and keep jobs. I'd like to thank you for the ARPA dollars that we'll make a presentation on that help people that had different abilities, not necessarily disability, find jobs. And I also want to thank you for not just recognizing us, but also Safe Space and Volunteers in Medicine, two organizations that we use all the time and are critical to our ability to help people succeed. So thank you very much. We appreciate the work that you do, and we're very happy to be a part of it. Hey, Susie. Can you come back up for a sec? Mr. Chair, do you mind if I ask just a few questions? Thank you. How long have you been doing this? Oh, gosh. Tri-County Tech? Um, I was hired in 1975 as the executive secretary and took over the role as CEO in 1977. So I'm probably half dinosaur and half still really working hard at what I do. So I've been around a long time. And on average, or generally speaking, how many clients do you have working with you? In our whole area, not just Martin County, around 8,000. Some of those are on a one-time visit. Probably about 2,500 is a one-time visit unless they need other help. And then the rest is in both our children's area. We work a lot with folks with autism. We have an incredible program that is helping young adults with high-functioning autism who our IT person said were smarter than him but didn't have the social skills or the ability to interact. So we do that. And then, of course, employment is what we are so very, very proud of. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you for making me very old. Yeah, but you were 15 when you started. Yeah, well, not exactly. But thank you. And, again, thank you all. But thanks, Doug. Our next proclamation is declaring Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Martin County, Florida. Domestic violence transcends all ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic boundaries. And each year in the United States, more than 10 million women and men experience physical abuse by their intimate partners, with many experiencing repeat abuse. During October, in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the board urges all citizens to actively participate in the scheduled activities and programs sponsored by Safe Space, Inc., and to work toward the elimination of personal and institutional violence against adults and children. Today we have Jennifer Fox, Safe Space CEO. Good morning. So, as you know, I'm Jennifer Fox, the new CEO at Safe Space. I've been in this position for about three months, so I'm really looking forward to getting to know everybody and being able to work with the community. On behalf of Safe Space, I do want to thank you for recognizing October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This month especially, our team is working really hard to ensure that our community does recognize that domestic violence does not discriminate by demographics. This happens to people in all different income levels, ethnic backgrounds, et cetera. So this is happening in our communities, and we want to make sure people are understanding that. Just last year, we received over, it was about 4,500 crisis hotline calls, and we served 892 adults and children just on the Treasure Coast. So this is happening in our communities. We not only want our community to understand the issue of domestic violence, but also that the people who have been victimized by this crime understand that we are available, that Safe Space is here. So we are really looking at this as domestic violence is about power and control, right? We hear a little bit about the physical and the emotional abuse, but there's also things like the economic abuse, using children, isolation, housing safety. So Safe Space wants to come alongside our survivors and really help give them back that power and the control of their own lives, so giving them the tools in order to have independence and the ability to thrive. So, for example, we offer things like the Economic Justice Employment Program. We offer the Child Advocates as well as the Child Protection Investigations Team that works directly with the county welfare system. We also collaborate for trauma-informed counselors. And to combat things like the isolation, we've got our adult advocates. We really, really try to make as many referrals to community resources as possible. We have peer support groups. And then we also have the housing safety. So we've got the emergency shelter, of course, but for those who don't need shelter or don't want to go into shelter, we want to be able to offer other safety measures for them. So we have things like the Injunction for Protection Program, our attorneys who are on staff. We have the safety planning with things like camera doorbells, window locks, motion light sensors, things like that. So we want to make sure that people are as safe as possible. And oftentimes we see that witnesses to domestic violence are afraid to speak up or to get involved. They're not sure what to do. So we're asking that each one of us here today really do our best to learn more about the issue and to be able to talk about this and to speak up when needed. One way, though, that we can participate with our group, Safe Space is having our 12th annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes campaign. This is in Vero Beach. This will be Friday, October 27th at 5 p.m. But also please visit the website, right, safespacefl.org, to learn more about the issue, about us, and then our upcoming events. But we do thank you very much for your support and then for this proclamation today. Thank you. Everyone should know your fine work. I'm Marina Johnson, and I'm an outreach advocate for Safe Space. Good morning. Happy to be here. My name is Claudia, and I work as an outreach advocate for Martin County. I also support survivors on St. Lucie. And it's great to have this every year, and this is, I think, my third year coming. It makes a difference. Thank you. Good morning. I'm Brian Gardner. I'm a Safe Space board member. Fantastic. Okay. Thank you for that very much. Our next presentation proclamation is volunteers in medicine. Many of you have heard of volunteers in medicine or not familiar with the services that they offer, the individuals that are eligible for their treatments. Excuse me. So I wanted to give them an opportunity. I had the great pleasure of recently touring their facility, which, you know, if you're thinking, oh, volunteers in medicine, it's probably, you know, a budget type of operation for people that are struggling financially. It is a beautiful state-of-the-art facility where people that are in financial need of these services can go and be treated with respect and have top-notch care. And the reason I wanted the representatives to come today is that they have capacity. If you or someone you know or work with or live near needs these services, there's no reason in Martin County to go without these services. We know that if you let a small medical issue linger, it becomes a tremendous medical issue or fatal. And so when I asked them, assuming, oh, you must be at capacity, they said, no, as a matter of fact, we are always open for additional patients. I said, we need you to come to the commission so that everyone would have an opportunity to hear about your services. And without further ado, I would bring Dr. Jordan Bromberg up to share a little bit about the organization that is right here in your community that you might not have been aware of. Sir, welcome. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me and for seeing me back so soon again. So someone's going to have to help me with figuring out how I change the slides. Well, we have an expert, so as you just... Just say change the slide? Yeah, or something. Perfect. Slide. Thank you. So my name is Jordan Bromberg, and I'm the medical director of Volunteers in Medicine Clinic. I've been practicing internal medicine geriatrics on the Treasure Coast since 1988. About two and a half years ago, I retired. My last 23 years were working for Martin Health Cleveland Clinic. And that's something I didn't do all that well because my retirement lasted about two weeks. And then I was fortunate enough to be asked to take on the position of medical director at Volunteers in Medicine Clinic. I went to medical school in Albany, New York, and after that, I did my training in the United States Air Force. I spent seven years on active duty. And after that, I moved up to the Treasure Coast. With me today are my executive director, Mary Fields, who has been with this clinic from day one and really is the backbone of our clinic. And Mia Cruz, who does our community outreach. Can I have the next slide, please? So we were founded in 1995 by what was then Martin Memorial Hospital in conjunction with a group of local physicians who felt that quality health care should be available to all of our residents. In 2001, we became an independent 501c3 nonprofit organization. Can I have the next slide? So who are our patients? Our patients are Martin County residents who have no health insurance and earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level. That currently would be approximately $29,000 for an individual and give or take about $9,000 or $10,000 for each additional family member. These people are our neighbors. They work in lawn maintenance, construction, and roofing. There are our barbers, our cashiers, our waitstaff, just to name a few. May I have the next slide, please? Here's an idea of the demographics of our clinic. Basically, we see patients who are 18 to 65 because if you're under 18, most patients will get Medicaid, and if you're over 65, most will get Medicare. So our patients fall between that age group. Next slide, please. Here's a view of the ethnicity, which kind of mirrors that of Martin County. May I have the next slide? And as you can see, our patients live throughout the county. Here are the demographics. I'm sure that everybody has patients in their communities. Next slide, please. Talk a little bit about the funding and support. Obviously, we need to operate. Next slide, please. This is a slide showing our cash donations. We get about 10% from cash, from people just making donations to the clinic. 45% comes from special events. We have a gala every year. And Carson's tavern sponsors a golf tournament, and they have been gracious enough to make us the beneficiaries. And then we get 45% from grants, and we thank you for your help with that. Next slide, please. That's only a small portion of where we get things for the clinic. Most of what we get comes from in-kind donations. The hospital and its diagnostic services provide us with 54% of our in-kind donations. We get 17% from our volunteer services, and 29% of our donated medications. And I'd like to just spend a second on that because I think that's so important. People have read, it's been in the news over the past year, about the cost of insulin, patients not being able to afford their insulin. There are some bills that have been forwarded that would limit the cost of insulin to $35 a month, which is great. But for a lot of our patients, $35 a month is $35 that they're not putting towards food. And we get that for them for free. We are able to get medications for our patients at our clinic through the hard work of our medical assistants that I could not prescribe when I was in practice because insurance wouldn't pay for them. So we are able to get really top-notch care for all of our patients. Another example would be treating hepatitis C, which is fairly prevalent in our community. And the cost for a round of treatment for hepatitis C is between $25,000 and $30,000. And we are able to get that for free for our patients with a 95% cure rate. Can I have the next slide, please? So when you put that all together, it turns out that for every dollar that we get in cash donations, we give out $9 worth of care. And I think that's a pretty impressive return on investment. For a budget of a little bit over $1 million a year, we give out close to $10 million worth of health care. Can I have the next slide, please? This is one that really means the most to me, and I'll have the next slide if I could. This is one of my favorite sayings that shows up in our brochures. The treatment is free and the care is priceless. We provide everything in our clinic that you can get at any primary care clinic or primary care office with the best insurance. And it makes me really proud to say that I think we do it as well, if not better, than anybody else in the community, even if you have the best insurance. And I do hope that everybody here has some form of health insurance. I'd like you to try to imagine, if you didn't, where would you go to get your high blood pressure treated to prevent you from having a stroke or a heart attack? Who would treat your diabetes so that you didn't lose a leg or end up on dialysis? Who would find your cancer early enough to cure it? Who would replace your hip if you couldn't walk anymore? These are all things that we can do at our clinic. We, in the past year, we've had patients have open heart surgery, brain surgery, joint replacements, all at absolutely no cost to our patients. And honestly, I could stand up here and tell you for a long time all the great things that I think that we do, but sometimes our patients say it better than I can. So I'd just like to share an excerpt from a letter that we received from one of our patients. This was a woman who lost her health insurance and her job during the pandemic and had a lot of medical issues and really had nowhere else to turn but to us. And she said, I have experienced excellent medical care in the past and wasn't confident that a place that offered medical assistance for the economically challenged could provide any care resembling the level of medical proficiency I had in the past. I witnessed the staff and volunteers at every visit being so professional and sensitive to the needs of all their patients. They don't practice medicine for the organizational and managerial aspects. They do their work for the love of humanity. Can I have the next slide, please? So obviously we impact our patients, but we also impact our community. Can I have the next slide? We basically take care of our workforce that I mentioned. We keep our workforce healthy. Maybe you don't know, but you also partner with local colleges and medical schools. Every Wednesday morning I have a medical student from Florida State University College of Medicine who works with us. And our nurse practitioners have students from Florida Atlantic University School of Nursing practitioner. And teaching them really helps us learn and keeps us up to date as well. And it also helps us honor those who taught us. Next, please. So the impact on our health system. Obviously treating the conditions that I talked about. Keep our patients out of the emergency room. It helps reduce hospital readmissions. And I think we all know what the cost to our health care system is if these patients wouldn't be seeing us and would end up in the emergency room. You may have the next slide. This is one I shared with you two weeks ago, but I'll do it again. Winston Churchill said that healthy citizens are the greatest asset that any country can have. Next slide. So for those of you who haven't seen us, please come and visit us. Come see us in action. And we thank you for your help. And if anybody had any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. Doctor, thank you so much. Commissioner Smith. Again, thank you. Thank you. You know, when Dr. Voss came to us 20 years ago, Mary, whatever that was, he had this idea and had this partnership in mind of how we could collaborate and how we could be a bigger part of all this. What you all have turned this into and what his, I think, plan for us all was is nothing short of amazing. I don't know of other communities. Maybe every other community has one of these in their community. But if they don't, they should. It should be the model for certainly our state. It is absolutely remarkable what you all pull off and what you do. And thank you for retiring and thinking that that wasn't such a good idea because clearly just listening to you and the passion you have for what you do transfers to the clinic and to everything that goes on. So thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you coming back to see us. Okay, we're going to take public comment now. There's a couple of things to share with you in public comment. This first portion by, this first portion is general public comment. If you'd like to discuss something with us that's not an agended item, you're more than welcome to do that. Or if you'd like to discuss something with us that is an agended item that you're not going to be able to stay until the item is heard in the agenda, you can say it now. However, if you say something about an agenda item this morning, and when we get to that item, we don't allow you to do another three minutes during the item. If you are here for the purchase of the property for 714, after our public comment and commissioner comments, we're taking that agenda item first. So if you say, okay, I can't stay too long, but I can stay for the item, just let me know and I'll put your card aside for the time being. But you have three minutes to speak, which is a fair amount of time so that everyone will get an opportunity to have a multiple list here. At the 2 minute and 45 second point, you're going to hear a beep at the podium here. That doesn't mean to stop. That means you have 15 seconds to sort of finalize your thoughts so we don't just cut you off in mid-sentence, okay? And with that, our first request to speak for Ms. Belinda Galels. Familiar with your husband? A little bit. Good to see you. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Belinda Galels. I live in Palm City. I'm a concerned citizen. They've left now, but I would like to thank Dr. Bromberg. I'm very familiar with Dr. Bromberg. I'm very familiar with someone that he actually cured. I think they do great work there and the other organizations I would like to thank as well, but they're gone. And congratulations to Jennifer. So I did have a comment on 714. Do you want me to save that? No, you can. Well, I wanted to follow up, see what was going on with the purchase of that land in lieu of the apartment complex that was slated to go in there. I also am very concerned about this piece of land that is adjacent to tractor supply. I have emailed all the commissioners. I have emailed all the commissioners a couple of times. I got a response from, I think he's a county growth employee who told me. We're handling that. And we're handling that this week. Chairman, you and I discussed this. He said it was a sandhill crane sanctuary, but it's a swamp. It's literally a swamp that you would see maybe in a third world country. And with all the rain we've gotten, the mosquitoes are definitely proliferating there. You know we have some cases of malaria in the county. So this is really a safety and health concern issue. That's that. Additionally, I want to express that I continue to be saddened and downhearted by the change in our community. I attended a meeting last week with our state representatives and Senator Harrell, and I had to go down Salerno Road, which I have not been down in quite some time. And the earth on either side of the road is coming up. It's being developed. And I'm very upset that our county has very little green space left. If you see a lot that's green, it usually has a sold sign on it. And I certainly hope that this will stop at some point before we become, as other people have expressed their concern, counties south of us. Do we have to move to Sebastian to have another steward? Those are my comments. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mr. Mark Perry, Mr. Tom Pine. Oh, Tom, we'll take you, and then Mr. Perry will go after you. Please. You're on deck, Mr. Perry. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Excuse me. My name's Tom Pine. I live in the Jensen Beach area. The budget meetings of September 12th and 26th, 2023, were well-attend by local taxpayers, and county commissioners more or less did what the taxpayers wanted, no new tax increases. The trouble as I see it is none of the cuts are expected to last more than one year. So in reality, all this commission did was kick the can down the road till next year. As they kicked the can down the road, most of the short-term cuts were on the backs of the lowest-earning taxpayers in Martin County. And, of course, the lowest-wage earners also had the least amount of people speaking on their behalf. And this is how this commission has been spending our tax dollars all along. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. It's all about crowd size. A recent article in the New York Times, Facts of Interest, the proportion of people over the age of 65 living in poverty in the United States jumped to 14.1 percent last year from 10.7 in 21 and 9.5 in 2020. Later in this meeting, we will see once more exactly how this works. When the majority of our county commissioners vote yes to buy a parcel of land on 7-14 for one reason only, a group of local residents don't like the project. The parcel of land was originally bought for $2.1 million, and now we, the taxpayers, are going to be buying it for $4,023,000 plus $20,000 for closing costs. According to our Martin County Property Presenter's Office, fair market value for this property is $1,863,350. I guess some people would call this a good deal. Two issues that were raised during the public hearing, public comment, that caught some of the most attention were the amount of empty buses, Marty buses running on our roadways, and that our county government should get out of the business of running businesses that are not directly related to government operations. The businesses mentioned were the RV park at Phipps Park, the water park, the two mooring fields, and at least, but not least, the three restaurants. Cut our government spending was the theme of the meeting, and this would be the most obvious place to start. Stop using our tax dollars to build your dreams and wishes on our backs. We can't afford it any longer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pine. Mark Perry, you are next. I said thank you. Mr. Perry, you are next, followed by Christina Ardigio. Good morning, Commissioner. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. I didn't see you out of the lobby. Sorry. Just later on today, you're going to hear from public works on particularly the FY24 water quality projects update. And take good interest in this. I just want to applaud this because, you know, we're in the St. Lucie estuary watershed particularly, and we're tied in under the Northern Everglades and Estuaries Protection Plan for the three watersheds, Okeechobee, St. Lucie, and Caloosahatchee. But in our St. Lucie watershed, as you know, we established the total maximum daily load back in 2009 of nitrogen and phosphorus loadings. And what we wanted to do to reach that was implement a basin management action plan in 2013. In 15 years, we're supposed to meet that TM deal. And in order to do that, we have starting loads of nitrogen and phosphorus in the watershed of about 4 million pounds per year for nitrogen and almost like the 839,000 pounds of phosphorus per year. So, Martin County is a part of 21 entities that are trying to reduce, make those reductions to meet our TMDL. And what's exciting is these projects that you're going to hear about and updates, the reduction goal for Martin County was 78,000 pounds of total nitrogen and 32,000 pounds of total phosphorus. To date, as you'll see in the project update, 70,000 pounds of reduction have been done for nitrogen and 15,000 pounds in phosphorus. So, you're absolutely on track to do what we're supposed to do as our part of the reductions of these pollutants into the watershed of St. Lucie. So, thank you, thank you. I think we've got to get after the other entities in the picture here that encompass our watershed and 520,000 acres that we have to reduce their phosphorus and nitrogen to meet our TMDL. Unfortunately, it's not going to be met in the 15 years. They're going to push it down another five years down the road, which is unfortunate. One of the final things on the project you'll hear about is the seagrass restoration projects update. And part of that is we've been doing seagrass restoration since 2016, oyster restoration in the estuary since 2005. And Martin County is partnering with Florida Oceanographic to help expand the nursery, to do more seagrass restoration work, which is going to be great at zero local funds being expended and all this coming from grant funds. So, thank you and thank you, thank you. Let's get to work, keep on the pressure on, and let's get this estuary cleaned up. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate everything you're doing. Talk and tell the agenda of the grant for the docs. Got you. Thank you very much. How about Candice Cooney? Good morning. Hi, my name is Candice Cooney. I'm a pickleball player here in Martin County at Hal Padiochi Park. A couple months ago in July, our friend Sam Hopkins dropped to the ground of a heart attack and passed away in front of the 40 players there that day. It's still disturbing. I'm sure you can tell. At first, it was a very hot, humid morning. At first, everybody thought Sam was having a heat-related issue. So, we're running around getting ice packs, cold water, towels, things like that. A few minutes had passed before a nurse on the other court came over and realized Sam wasn't breathing. She immediately yelled for someone to call 911 to find an AED, and she started chest compression. By the time EMTs arrived, a good 10 or more minutes after Sam hit the ground, if you know anything about cardiac arrest, you know it was too late for Sam. It was so unfortunate that there was no AED there. I'm not saying it would have saved Sam's life, but it would have given us another opportunity to try and keep him alive until the EMTs got there. There are no AEDs at the pickleball courts in Martin County. There are in counties surrounding here, and they are attached to the gates around the pickleball courts so that they're quickly and easily accessible. A couple years ago, something similar happened. That gentleman survived. Pickleball players went to Parks and Recreation and were told they would not be buying or were supporting AEDs at the park. So, we decided we need an AED. We're not going to go through this again. So, we raised money. We raised over $5,000. We actually purchased three AEDs for Hal Patiochi, Justin Wilson, and Langford Park. Once we had the AEDs, I then contacted the head of Park and Recreation, hoping that because we weren't asking for any money, he would help us find a way to store the AEDs at the park. So, should it happen again, there's an AED there. Immediately, it was very clear that they were not going to allow us to attach them to the gates, and they weren't even going to work with us in finding a place to store them. I'm here today asking for your help and partnership in finding a way to store the AEDs that are already purchased at the park, should this ever happen again. We at least have an opportunity to try and save our friends' lives. Thank you. Ma'am, before you go, I would tell you that I have had the opportunity to work with some of the folks in your group. We are having a meeting with our legal department, Parks and Rec, and Fire Rescue to coordinate some solution to your vision. And I realize there's a lot more to it than just that, but let's partner, find a way. There has to be a solution for, we'll donate the, you know, whatever it is. We're willing to do anything to have these AEDs, and it's not just for use of pickleball players, right? Anybody at the park that's having an issue would have access to the AED. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We're working on it. Thank you. Okay. Our next request to speak for them is Ms. Amy Pritchett. Ms. Pritchett, good morning. Good to see you. Good morning, Commissioners. I am going to speak about the docks in Port Salerno because I'm not able to stay for the entire meeting. I'm just asking each of you to please consider approving the funding. Let's get the grant. It won't cost the county anything. Most of the time we're asking for things that cost money. This won't cost anybody anything. It's a grant that's available. Those docks need to be revitalized, refurbished, replaced. All the R's that I can think of. And the other thing I wanted to say was I'm aware of the purchase of the property in Palm City. What I didn't realize at the time was the actual value is far less than the price tag. So I'm wondering if there's a creative way, Jennifer Manning, if you're here, listen, to fund it but not pay $4 million because it's only worth $1.8 and change. Thank you. Thank you. Our next request to speak for them is Mr. Michael Serkis. Thank you. How about Mr. Kevin Eddy? Sir, good morning and welcome. Thank you very much. I'm a resident of Port Salerno, and I am very concerned with Mrs. Hurd's relationship with a developer. They've had dozens of meetings no one knows about. There's been hundreds of communications. We had a meeting last week. I asked you directly, just be honest with us. Sir, all I ask is that you speak to us collectively. Okay, I'm sorry. Thank you. Absolutely, sir. All I would like to know is what her plans were with this developer. Could she be more frank and honest with us? And we got no answer at all. Well, why I'm here today is a couple of the things she said where I see with the development. It seems like at some point a house was changed from being whatever it was to less than 850 square feet is only half a house. And also the parking requirements were relaxed. In someone's course of speaking, it was said, well, I voted against it. The other four commissioners voted for it. So I'm just curious if there's any truth to that and if there's any way we could reverse that, if that's true. That's all, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate your comments. Our next request to speak for him is Mr. Casey Cass. Mr. Cass, good morning. So I know everybody expected me to be here. Every time I come in here, something else happens that gives me a different direction in my thoughts and talks. But for those that don't know me, Stuart resident, own a business in Port Salerno, member of SOS, which is now well over 1,000 members. I came here to speak about the docs and ask for everybody to support pursuit of that grant. And that was it because I wanted to be the first one so I could get back to work. But since I'm here, I will tell you that two things happened that affected me in this meeting already. I'm not a public speaker, so I get choked up because I'm very passionate about things I talk about. But number one was that we had prayer. And I think that as our community is fighting through all kinds of issues, we have to remember that we all are fighting for a reason. We all believe in what we're fighting for. And it doesn't mean that everybody that opposes us is a villain, number one. Number two, the Pledge of Allegiance. And I think that we have to remember that we're all American citizens. We're all Floridians, and we're all citizens of Martin County. And I think that that impacted me because we really need to keep that into consideration. We're tearing things apart. We're tearing people apart. There's not a single commissioner up here that somebody doesn't have a complaint about. We really need to have some common goals. We really do. Lastly, the gentleman who said the Pledge of Allegiance mentioned the 4th, not the 4th Infantry Division. He mentioned Fort Carson, Colorado, where I was stationed. I was in the 4th Infantry Division. And our, my unit crest said, Fidelis et Veris. It's Latin for faithful and true. And that's what I'm asking of everybody here. Be faithful and true to what you believe. Take the politics out of it. And do what you believe, please. Please support the fishermen. Thank you. Thank you. Our next request to speak for him is Mr. John Snyder. Sir, welcome. My name is John Snyder. I've lived in Rocky Point for 40 years. I lived in for the same house for 38 years. I've coached Little League here in soccer for 14 years, been involved in a lot of the Port Salerno youth leagues for quite some time. My children grew up here. We had a family business here for 40 years. That's just a little history on me, just so you know. I'm a serious, long-time Salerno resident. It's hard to put into thoughts, hours of thoughts, into three minutes. But here's some highlights. First of all, thank you, Casey. My sentiment's exactly the commercial fishing docks. I've watched them deplete. I've watched them go away. Black seafood, which used to be where Corinthian Yacht Club is right now, used to be a thriving fisherman haven. Okay, that's gone. Our commercial fisherman area is dwindling, and I can't help but think that they're being pushed out by development. So, anyway, enough on that. Parking. I hate to see parking be put in just to serve a developer and not serve the community the way it should be, especially parking for the Salerno boat ramp by Broward Street. There is no parking. You can get a handful of cars in there. That could be more better utilized, that boat ramp, myself included. I find it real hard to get there, and now with Sandsprit Parks, which, by the way, used to be a campground, what used to be very well used is now, unfortunately, well, right now it's, you know, part of it is being not utilized the way it could be because of refurbishment, which is a great thing. So, anyway, if you could do anything for parking, it would be serving to the community to do some parking over there by that Salerno boat ramp. The parking, one of the suggested parking areas is the retention area on Commerce Street. I cannot believe that you guys have not driven down Commerce in a heavy rainstorm. We had a family business on Monroe Street, and I drove through there. I drove through three feet of water, and you're going to compact or change instead of making it bigger. You're going to try to make parking there, which will make flooding even worse. I know I've only got 15 seconds, and I don't have enough time to finish this, but, you know, you guys are our county commissioners. Sir, your time is up. Thanks. We got you. Thank you. Our next request to speak for him is Mr. Butch Olson, Jr. Okay. How about William Embry? Good morning, sir. Welcome. Yes. Any Google search of the history of Port Salerno, Florida, the first thing that comes up is commercial fishing. And by you guys today voting yes for the grant for the docks will ensure that that history keeps going. I've been living here for 50 years in Martin County, been selling fish in Martin County for 28 years. And when I first started, there was numerous places to sell fish. But for the past 17 years, myself and many other commercial fishermen have relied on the docks in Port Salerno for our families, our livelihood. And by voting yes today, you'll help ensure that that keeps going. So much of Martin County's history has been paved over. I mean, literally all you have left is the house or refuge as a historical site for anything. And like I said, that's that's mainly the history of Port Salerno. It's not apartments or mooring fields or more bars. It's commercial fishing. So try to help us keep it that way. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Very much. A last request to speak for him. And if you'd like to speak during general public comment, you can speak first and fill the form out afterwards is Mr. Michael Ashley. Michael Ashley may be in the lobby. I'll hold on to the form if Mr. Ashley comes back. OK, with that, we're going to try to move along. I know some of you are here to hear these specific agenda items, so we'll move along pretty quickly. We'll go to Commissioner Comments, and we'll start with you, Commissioner Smith. Commissioner Hetherington. You know what? I'll just mention the Stewart Beach hosted, I thought you probably would, a partnership with TDC and Sports Commission hosted the World Firefighter Championship. So there were over 300 firefighters from 17 countries competing. It was pretty amazing to see all those folks gathered on Stewart Beach. And I want to give a huge shout-out to the ladies of Martin County Fire Rescue who absolutely crushed it this weekend. I think they were third in their relay, but they were pretty amazing watching these fantastic servants of our community competing in the World Firefighter Challenges. So I think it's still going on maybe for a couple more days, no? No. No? All right. Well, it was a great event, and I think that we were fortunate to have hosted it. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Thank you for doing that. I was going to kind of speed us up and get us onto the agenda. But since you brought it up, you know, we took an opportunity last year to invest, and we had the regionals last year, and this year we had the world. And like you said, we had 17 countries represented. We had folks from the Ukraine back again this year. It was a really super, super event, and if you think of what we did converting the parking lot into a competition area out at the beach, really created a fantastic location for them to come and compete. So thanks for bringing that up, and congratulations to all the competitors. And you're right, our girls team, they are amazing. Our guys are good, too, but as you said, the women really stepped up and crushed a lot of the competition. So thank you for that, and thank you to the TDC for their support and all of the hotels that contribute to our bed tax that make that funding available for us to do these kind of events. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. Commissioner Hurd. I'm set. Mr. Donaldson. I'm all set. Ms. Elise Elder is filling in for our county attorney, Sarah Woods, who is on grandma duty, which is fantastic. Anything? All set. I'd like to wish you a happy birthday. Thank you. She reminded us this morning, 29 and holding. 29 and holding. Probably not that much off of 29. Mr. Chair, I just... Time's up. You gave it up. You forfeited. You had mentioned earlier something about the affair. I didn't know if you were going to bring that up. I see her working her way closer and closer to the front. For my commissioner comments, we had Ms. Casey Mullins come from the Fair Association a couple weeks ago, a couple meetings ago, to discuss something. She is under a time constraint. She did have a meeting with our legal department and spoke with our administration. She wanted to come forward and share some information that the board had asked for it to come back. As I understand it, the board is ready to hear what Ms. Mullins has to say. If you could please come forward. Thank you, board. I really appreciate your time here again. This is Casey Ingram-Mullen, Executive Director with the Martin County Fair. I've had the opportunity to speak with most of you about where the fair is today and the importance of our footprint and moving forward. And our footprint, I mean our total land mass. We have a real parking issue out there. And I have had two meetings with South Florida Water Management District just to see if they're willing to engage with the county. They absolutely are. There was 44 acres in my last presentation that was over to the west, contiguous to the fair property right now, that we're hoping that the county will discuss with South Florida Water Management District. And I'm here today to ask you that you can direct staff to have the conversation with South Florida Water Management District to see if we can work out whether it's a lease or they deed the property over the county. I'm not sure that's between the county and South Florida Water Management District to discuss. But if we were able to get that property for the fair, it would be tremendous. It's an absolute needed asset for the fair. The largest and oldest family event in the county. And with that, we have a lot of people that come out there. And we're estimating 5,000, maybe even more parking spaces. So I don't want to be where we are today with the fair where everybody is saying there's no parking, it's too small. We have the ability to start out right today and make sure that this fair is designed properly for generations to come, not just for today, not for tomorrow, but 50 years from now. So I'm hoping today that I can get the county board of commission support to direct staff to speak with South Florida Water Management District about that additional 44 acres. Thank you, ma'am. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman, I would move that we ask staff to come back with an agenda item when it's appropriate, when they're ready, that reflects both the discussion of additional land from the Water Management District to the county, as well as the impacts of that discussion and of that agreement to the lease option, as well as an update on the timeline and all the other stuff that's involved in the lease option. Commissioner Jenkins. I second that, but is that necessary for us to give staff direction to start communication with South Florida Water Management on finding out? So my understanding is that it will alter our current agreement that we have with the fair. It also is an opportunity to take all of Casey's ideas that she presented to us two weeks ago, whenever that was, and incorporate that into a new agreement, which really won't be a new agreement. It will be just a refurbished version of what we have today, and so that it is consistent, I think, is probably my word, probably with what the aspirations of the fair are relative to both the additional land acquisition, but also the future. But it would include staff engaging with South Florida Water Management to bring their wants and how that would be structured back to us with this. My hope would be that an agenda item comes back, that staff will present to us both the land issue, the lease option issue, and everything that's kind of wrapped up in a package that we will have some – two things should happen. One, we will have the opportunity to meet with our staff and understand the ins and outs of the agreement. Number two, it gives us the ability to have something to vote on, and not that Casey coming and asking for something isn't good enough, but it will give us a format, a formal format of something to vote on with a staff recommendation. I believe Commissioner Jenkins' question, and I think it's mine as well, is that today we're giving our traditional head nods, or in your case a motion, to staff to enter into an official conversation with South Florida Water Management District, because the fair association cannot – we would have to do it. Then come back with that information to an agenda item, or do you want to wait? Because waiting is not an option. Okay. The land's not going anywhere. It's sitting right – But the deal is. No. I was at the meeting. It's a time frame. That's correct. Thank you, Commissioner Camp. It's just a conversation. We're just asking for the conversation to happen. It needs to come through. That's exactly what my motion, Chair. I just want to make sure. Three times. Okay. That's what my motion was, is, but I want it in the form of an agenda that it comes back from legal with recommendations as to what we need to vote on, so we're not just hopping around and on the fly making decisions. That's fine. So he – so staff is going to engage with South Florida Water Management. We are going to have a memorandum of understanding between the two entities of how we are going to proceed with this. That's what I'm asking for. Yes, sir. Okay. Here we are. Commissioner Hurd. Second that motion. Yeah. We have a lease option agreement with the fair association. We've had it in place for at least five years now. The county has complied with all of our responsibilities in the agreement, and the fair association has not. And that's an agreement for 85 acres. And so I'm very reluctant to expand the scope and the size of the parcel when the initial steps toward compliance have not been met. As I met with Ms. Mullins and said, you know, we haven't seen your baby steps, and you're asking us to permit Mach 1. And I just – I'm reluctant to increase the size of the lease agreement, increase our responsibility when we haven't seen any compliance. Let me jump in for a moment. As your representative approved by the board several years ago to – it's in my district. Ms. Mullins is new to this conversation. However, I would disagree respectfully with some of my colleagues' comments. We have not lived up as the county to every portion. The original agreement was 100 acres. And then when we had a great opportunity with the Indian River State College to create the Indiantown High School, we shaved off 25 acres off of that. So that's not the original agreement. What – for the folks that are here and listening at home, what we're trying to do here is the fair association through fundraising efforts and trying to negotiate during the pandemic, which basically derailed almost everybody, I'm not holding them responsible for a lack of progress during a pandemic. I think that Jay Spicer before Ms. Mullins and the association in itself has worked diligently to move the ball down the field. The – they spent thousands, tens of thousands of dollars with professional engineers to lay out a footprint of what – not just the fair, but this agriplex. We're talking about history and heritage in Martin County. It's agricultural. It's maritime. We're not just talking about a carnival. We're talking about opportunities out there that will – there's a new business model. Ms. Mullins and her husband are professional business people. They're number crunchers. It's a new day with the fair association plan. If we – they came up with a very clever idea because if they have to now take their 100-acre footprint plan and make it 85 acres, they have to start from scratch. They have to raise all of that money again and do another engineering thing, and our deadline with the fair will expire. So what they cleverly came up with is they reached out to South Florida Water Management District, who has acreage available to us, I believe at no cost, to shift the entire original plan over and still use it. I went to a meeting with the South Florida Water Management District and Ms. Mullins, and they were interested. However, they do not negotiate with the fair association. They negotiate with the county. Ms. Mullins came, made a presentation of where she was going as the new director, and the board rightfully said, we can't make these decisions on the fly. We need you to come back. At that point, she already had an appointment with our legal department, sat down with legal, sat down with some of us. Obviously, you heard that she did. South Florida Water Management District wants to make a decision now. Yes, the land is not going anywhere, but the decision-making process, the door will close, and we won't do it. I agree with what Commissioner Smith said. This is a big deal. We need to do it. But I've been through the process in a front row seat, even when it was Mr. Spicer. They had diligently worked very carefully to move this thing along. It is not an easy process. So I would hope that we can at least get to three, which I'm pretty confident we were. We have a motion in a second, and I'm three, and I don't know what my other colleagues will do, but I think we owe it. Remember, we're not adversaries with the fair association. The fair association is us. That's our history. That's our future. This is way out by Indiantown Airport. They're on 11 acres now. Let's see what they can do. Let's give them the opportunity. I think Ms. Mullins deserves it. Commissioner Smith, you'll have the final word. All the reasons you just stated exactly the reason why I think restating and solidifying, if you will, the future of the agreement is so important. I'm ready to do it. I understand. Okay. Commissioner Hurd, you're going to get the final word. Yeah. I don't want clever. I want responsible, and I want accountable. So, Mr. Donaldson, what is your impression of what you're being asked to negotiate right now? I understand it. If I understand the motion correctly, I would be to go work with the water management district on allowing them to negotiate a transfer of an additional 44 acres to the county. Simultaneous with that, it sounds like under this motion that I would then, before accepting that property, work with the fair association to bring an agenda item that also deals with the current lease or actually lease option. And then there's a various number of provisions in the lease option that doesn't get converted to a lease until they're met. So, obviously, that is the approach, as I understand it, on the agenda as presented. I would agree with that. So, you're going to be acting as an advocate for the fair association? So, no, I would be acting as an advocate for the county to have additional property transferred from the water management district, from one public entity to another, and determine with the district whatever provisions they have onto it, with the idea that that property then would be, under the county's ownership, a potential addition to the lease option, which also means it's also an additional portion for the overall lease. I'm going to stop saying someone has the final word. Commissioner Smith. What it also does is it allows every board member sitting up here to say yes or no to the agreement and the contents of the agreement, which is everybody's right up here to do so. The other final point that I'll make, and it will be the final point, is the fact that the South Florida Water Management District also mentioned to us that they have hundreds, if not thousands, of acres adjacent, and the negotiation and the agreement would be that we would, the fair association, would create a trailhead for walking and biking and horseback riding on those 44 acres utilizing our parking, that the fair association will construct the restroom facilities and the trailhead so that our residents then can utilize that 44 acres to access 1,000 other acres of beautiful, clean nature, and I think it only takes three commissioners to give our administrator direction. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you very much. Okay, let's do this. I believe a majority of you are here for the, can you track down Ms. Manning, our recent retiree? Yes. And have her come down. We're going to do that, this is a very quick agenda item to hear the grant application request. So we're going to take Departmental No. 1, Office of Management and Budget items, which require board approval. That's where the DOC grant application is in, and that's a very quick process of going through those items. And then we will take Public Hearing No. 1, which is the 714 property, which will be a little longer than this item. Commissioner. Mr. Donaldson, you want to start it off? Yes, I can start it off. So this agenda item has a collection of items which require board approval. The tradition is to review them all individually and then approve them as a group. I think in this particular case, if you want, we could take the item in question out singularly and have a vote on that before you go on to the rest. That's a good idea. Thank you. And so this is a permission to apply for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Coastal Partnership Initiative on behalf of the Port Salerno Commercial Fishing Dock Authority, and Mr. Stokas has actually been the one for helping to prepare and work with staff on this. So why don't I turn it over to Mr. Stokas? Thank you. Good morning, Assistant Commissioner George Stokas. Yes, this is a 50-50 match grant offered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for Coastal Partnership Initiative. These money will be used to replace the existing commercial fishing docks, weigh station, and for submerged lands and uplands. The project is the match dollars that are being provided by the Port Salerno Dock Authority. It's $60,000. The request is for $60,000. And this is for our permission to apply. Thank you. We're going to take this item separately so the folks that are here waiting can go about their day. Any questions from the commission? Commissioner Hurd. What is Martin County paying? Zero. Who's preparing the application? I've already prepared the application. Thank you. We have three requests to speak for them. The first one is Mr. Butch Olson, Jr. Sir, welcome. Thank you, Commissioner. Butch Olson, for the record. So I just want to start by saying I spoke to you folks at the budget hearing, and I want to affirm something I said there. You folks have an incredibly difficult job, and, you know, you showed a lot of wisdom during the budget hearings. And as I said then, you don't get enough credit publicly for what you do. You had to balance a lot of issues, a lot of interests, and you did so while still maintaining minimal effects on the taxpayers' wallets. And I really just want to say thank you again for that. So, Commissioners, please support this grant application. Not only is it vital for our commercial fishermen, but it's really a big support of Port Salerno as a whole, present and future. So the Port Salerno Commercial Fishing Dock Authority brings in up to 2 million pounds of fish a year annually. So when you enjoy the delicious local caught seafood fish at local restaurants and markets, that's really a representation of the talent and hard work of our commercial fishermen and Port Salerno and our members. So, you know, I grew up in the commercial fishing industry. My father was a commercial fisherman. So I understand the challenges facing this industry. I also understand the passion that motivates our commercial fishermen. So your support today will just be an incredible, an absolutely incredible motivation to our commercial fishermen. So please support Port Salerno, please support the commercial fishermen, and please support this grant application. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I'll be happy to answer any questions. I don't think we'll have any questions for you. Thank you. Our next request to speak for him is Christina Ardigo. I had several different options in my head. Christina Ardigo. Welcome. Thank you, Commissioner, sir. Let me speak. So today I'm here for a talk about the grant for the docks, and I also have petitions from our community that was signed for our docks that I submitted about, what, about three weeks ago? I submitted about almost 800. I have another 387 here, and I will definitely be emailing those all to you as well as a hard copy, and you'll be getting an email. So I just want to say that our community supports our commercial docks. If you go to any restaurants, you have fresh seafood, you know, you're getting that from our docks. If you go into Port Salerno, you have our sign that says Historic Fisherman Village. So that is because we have our docks. So I'm here today to please, please say yes to this grant because that is our community, is our commercial docks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next request to speak for him is Michael Ashley. Okay. That's okay. How about Mr. Sean Ebersold? I saw you coming towards the front. I thought you were Michael Ashley. No. Sean Ebersold. Yes. Welcome. Well, it's an absolute pleasure to be here. As you mentioned, my name is Sean Ebersold. I am the money guy with the Treasure Coast Marine Industries Association of the Treasure Coast. So I just want you to know how much we support the Port Authority and the grant application. And it's not just for the heritage. It's not just for the seafood, although I do like fish tacos and things like that. But it's really for the jobs as well. So we are, as an association, completely behind them. Hopefully, you guys are too. So any questions? No? Thank you. You'll be okay. Thank you very much. Anyone else looking to address us on this topic? Seeing none, I'd come back to the board by saying I agree. Someone said that when you think of Port Salerno, you think of the fishing and the docks and the people that make a living down there. The Seafood Festival for many years highlighted that work. And you have my complete support for the grant is easy as far as I'm concerned, not asking us to do a lot of heavy lifting. From my perspective, it's a home run. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. During our budget discussion, there was a lot of discussion relative to what makes our community what it is and how we spend our money and how we address things that pop up during the course of the year. And I think one of the ways that our commission can certainly send a message to those involved in the various pieces that come to us. We just dealt with the fairgrounds. Now we have the commercial fishermen in Port Salerno. We had some of our nonprofits this morning talk about the things they do. They're all here at the county because there's a direct connection between what we do and what the folks that serve that part of our community that's addressing us on that issue do as well. And so if you want to send a message of support and if you want to send a message that we very much value a given industry, whether that's the fairgrounds industry or the commercial dock and commercial fishermen industry, you can support an agenda like this. And I believe that we have some others coming in the future. So with that, it is certainly my pleasure to make the motion to approve and give the direction to our staff to move forward. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. I was going to agree with that, and I was going to make a motion, so I'll second Commissioner Smith's motion. You can make it. I will second your motion, and I agree with your comments. Thank you. That being said, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation of approval, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. There are 11 more items on that agenda item, but we're going to hold off on those until a little bit later and give you all a chance. You're more than welcome to stay with us for the whole agenda, but if you are looking to depart, now is that time. Now we'll take public hearing. My colleagues are asking for our closed captioning break. We'll take a 10-minute closed captioning. You didn't ask it before. It's five minutes. It was a little stretch on the 10-30 break. We'll take a 10-minute break and be back. Mid-morning closed captioning break. It is October 10, 2023. We're continuing with our Board of County Commissioners meeting. We're going to take public hearing number one, a final approval of an as-is purchase contract and adoption of a resolution approving and accepting a warranty deed for the purchase of a six-plus-or-minus-acre parcel from Jams Properties, Inc. in Palm City. It'll be presented by Ms. Carla Segura and Mr. Jim Gordon. Both of you, I appreciate you being here. You are recognized. Good morning. Carla Segura, Real Property Manager. This request is for final approval of the as-is purchase contract for the Jams parcel in Palm City and adoption of a resolution approving and accepting a warranty deed and dedication of 25-foot along Southwest Martin Highway as right-of-way. On August 8, the Board directed staff to negotiate and sign a conditional contract with financing options and to bring it back to the Board for determination. The property is located within the Palm City CRA and on the north side of Southwest Martin Highway between Southwest Palm City School Avenue and Danforth Creek. Danforth Creek is a major drainage flowway for Palm City and Palm City Farms. This property has two active agreements on it at this time. One is for access for the residents of Oakbrook Estates at the Gardens, and this gives them access from Martin Highway down Newberry Court to the subdivision. There's also a two-story office building that is currently under a one-year lease, which will end on February 28, 2024. The lessee currently pays about $1,460 a month for that lease. The conditional contract, which was signed on August 31, has a 60-day inspection period for closing or 30 days after the Board approval. A $150,000 deposit is due and payable to the escrow agent within three days of Board's approval. Seller will pay all their property taxes that are due and payable at the time of closing, satisfactory due diligence reports for title, environmental, survey, and appraisals were all attached to the agenda item. In an abundance of caution, two appraisals were ordered pursuant to Florida Statute 125.355 with two notices of publication and a local publication. Since both appraisals came back sufficient, the purchase price and a simple majority vote is sufficient to approve this purchase. Staff has determined that the public purpose may include stormwater, recreation, and or CRA. Public involvement input will happen before final public purpose is determined. The recommended action is that the Board approve the as-is purchase contract for the parcel located on Southwest Martin Highway and adopt a resolution approving and accepting the warranty deed with designation of a 25-foot strip of right-of-way along the north side of Southwest Martin Highway and authorize the chairman to execute any and all documents necessary to complete the transaction and to approve a budget transfer from the general fund reserves and authorize the preparation of inter-fund loan documents to repay the general fund. The inter-fund term will be for five years. The funding source for repayment will be District 5 MSTU for years 1 and 2 and Palm City CRA revenue for years 3 through 5. If there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer them. Thank you very much. Mr. Donaldson. Just to clarify, so the proposal does include an inter-fund loan at 0% and with using district funds from this year at 433. Next year, in year FY25, we would look to increase the district contribution by $166,000. So we would have a $600,000 contribution, and the CRA would have $127,000. And then the CRA would take over all payments in $27,000 and $28,000 to do the final payoff. If the board wanted to have the general fund repaid this year, we would still request you authorize the transfer of the general fund, and then we would bring back a loan, a bank loan to refund the payment this year. We would still rely on the CRA and the district funds, and if we kept it within the existing funds, it would likely be a 10-year proposal. If you consider authorizing the district contribution to be increased next year, we could do it within six years. But the proposal here is a zero-interest interfund loan for a period of five years. Thank you very much. Questions for staff from the commission? Seeing none at this time, I have one request to speak form. If anyone else would like to address us on this topic, you can either come and speak first and fill the form out afterwards. Our request to speak form is Mr. Michael Serkis. Sir, good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Michael Serkis from Palm City. I'm coming today to tell you that I'm tired. I'm physically, I'm mentally drained watching the volume of construction that's gone on in our county over the last not that many years. I think a lot of people in the county are just exasperated watching it happen. It's mind-boggling. If I had $4 million in my pocket, I'll tell you right now, hand to God, I'd buy that land and just watch the grass grow. I'd put a park bench and an ashtray, and I'd welcome everybody I could to come and join me. I wouldn't do a damn thing. What's your donation? If I had that $4 million. Unfortunately, I don't, and the truth is neither do we as a commission, as a board. You guys just established two weeks ago your FY24 budget. This $4 million purchase wasn't in it. On top of that, you cut CRAs from a 75% to 65% reimbursement. You cut your FARBs so you're not even financing the budgeting to go toward some of your fixed assets already. We don't have it. We don't have $4 million. We haven't even gotten our property tax bills in the mail yet, and all 162,000 residents of Martin County are going to have to dip into their pocket for another $25 extra on top of that bill to make $4 million happen. We're going to borrow against the general reserve. Now, two years ago, I came from this board asking you guys to reduce the amount of money going to general reserves so we can get our outstanding debt per resident under $900. And I got a fantastic answer. I didn't realize we were self-insured and that general reserves need to be utilized or kept on hand to make sure if we do have an issue, we can respond to that quickly. But now we're going to buy a $4 million plot of land off of general reserves. We slashed the budgets. We're going to reimburse it with. We don't know what we're going to use it for yet. And it's inside the CRA, which is prime real estate intended for development. I don't like seeing development. That's its intention. Guys, this is a textbook example of irresponsible spending. I mean, we talk about the affordability crisis in the county. This is it. We are our own affordability crisis. We could talk about state and federal issues all we want. But the fact is, it starts at home. We've got to control our budget. This is the very first topic you're taking of an expenditure on your new fiscal year, and you're going to spend $4 million you didn't plan for. That is irresponsible, guys. We've got to get serious about our financing, our funding. We can't wait until July and then cut each other's throats like we did three months ago. That's foolish. We've got to start today. If we're going to get serious about getting our fiscal house in order, it's every day, every decision. And this is the first one. So let's see what we do. Anybody else? Seeing none. Back to the board. Allow me to jump in, if you don't mind, since I was part of this process. With all due respect to our member of the public that just spoke, gave us two directions. He started with, I'm frustrated with all of the development, and so I'm tired, and so is everyone else. This project that we're discussing on a six-acre vacant piece of property, for the folks that are not familiar, is 90 apartments, one, two, and three-bedroom apartments, with 123 parking spaces for 90 apartments. It is on the northwestern corner of Palm City School Avenue and Martin Highway. It is currently tree-lined. It's also adjacent to the east on Danforth Creek. It's in front of another neighborhood that uses their right-of-way on the six acres. So it's not genuinely six acres because there's a driveway easement that goes to the neighborhood in the back, and everything to the left of the driveway, if you were entering the neighborhood, is basically adjacent to or is Danforth Creek. Danforth Creek is an important exit flowway for all of Palm City Farms. Mr. Gordon led the initiative to have a multi-hundreds, thousands of dollars study done to figure out drainage and flooding issues all through the farms. And what we found is it starts way in the western portion of Palm City and Palm City Farms. It impacts all of the residents through that area, through swales and ditches, comes across to Canopy Creek, goes under the turnpike to Martin Downs, where it then crosses over into Lighthouse Point before it enters into, and a lot of that through Danforth Creek. I think if the residents and the ones that have come, look, we could have filled the room up again because I've had many calls from residents asking me, as a woman did this morning, what's happening with the project. And we sort of went into the quiet stage. My colleagues, and I appreciate them very much because, remember, I'm not the only one that represents Palm City and District 5. All five of us do. And three of my colleagues heard from their residents that this was something that they would prefer not to have. Those are the residents that were aware of this project. Some of them knew what it would look like. Some of them don't. And all due respect to the architect and to the applicant and the developer, they came forward and gave us an opportunity to stop some of that development that people are tired of. Those are the folks that knew about it. I don't believe a majority of Palm City residents or Martin County residents are familiar with what was going to take place on that property. I didn't originally come up with this idea of purchasing it. The residents that I represent reached out to me, and there weren't just 150 that lived across the street, even though their opinions count. They lived directly across the street from the project, or the people that lived behind it. There was 15 different HOAs that were involved in a process of asking my colleagues and myself to do something about this. Represent us. This project once built is forever. People are frustrated by some projects that they see being constructed or already constructed in Martin County. Some of them are city of steward approvals. There's one that I am also familiar and frustrated with, which is on U.S. One, four stories, multiple buildings, halfway towards, you know, just north of Salerno. People are like, how do you allow this to happen? This is enough. Throw them out. And, you know, don't you represent us? Well, we do. And this is an opportunity to have a project which, in my personal opinion, is not conducive with the look and feel of Palm City. I have approved and voted on many projects. Some people were happy. Some people were angry. So I'm not anti-development. And some people said, well, you're supporting, you know, you're always beating the drum for housing and affordable housing. This is housing and affordable housing. It's not officially affordable housing, but it's housing opportunities for people. Why would you stop this? Because I want to be clear. My opinion that we need more housing opportunities is not a blanket statement that we should put anything anywhere. We're here representing the public because that's what they wanted us to do. I've heard from many, many residents. I just recently spoke at Whispering Sound, and the first question they ask me is, what's happening with these apartments? I think that, and I'm very appreciative of the developer reaching out to our staff and for Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Woods who went and met. And then everyone said, well, you know, he paid $2.1 million, and now you're paying $4 million. And, you know, we heard a gentleman this morning say, well, if you go to the property appraiser's website, it's approximately $1.8 million. Well, a property appraiser's website is not market value. If that's the case, you know, any one of us can just pick houses off of her website and offer them that price. They paid $2.1 million. They were well on their way to approvals before the LPA would have been to the LPA by now. It would have been coming to us either this month or soon for approval. And my colleagues know that it was a by-right project, which means they were entitled to build it. And if we were to vote no for our own personal reasons or representing the residents without a legal, a true, strong legal reason for voting no, they could have potentially sued us. Now, some said, well, you're afraid of lawsuits. No, we're not, but I don't think any one of us would enter into a lawsuit that we basically knew we could not win. We have a legal department that was already advising us, you can't win that. So this option came up, and the funding, when you hear people say that everyone in Martin County will have to pay an additional fee on their taxes for that, not the case. MSTU funds are raised within the district. CRA fund, TIF funds are raised within the CRA boundary. If you live in Jensen or Hobes Sound or Stewart, you're not paying for this particular opportunity for the county to protect the residents of what they want. Look, obviously, there's going to be a difference of opinion, but I would tell you that the speakers that came and spoke against this, one of them, I'm surprised, he lives within walking distance of this project. We haven't even begun, and I know a lot of people discount this as not being a valid reason. 650 students walk past this, will walk past this project every single day to go to Palm City Elementary School. They said, well, that's the sheriff's responsibility. You should put more crossing guards out there. Well, that's easy to say if you live somewhere else and your kids are not crossing on a bike or on foot to this neighborhood. This is a great opportunity for us to do exactly what the local residents want. Some people said it'll open up a Pandora's box and you'll have to do this everywhere in the county then. Not necessarily. These pieces, this opportunity fell into place. It's a reasonable price. One appraisal came in at $4.5 million, the other at $4,050,000. That's not the website of the property appraiser. That's professionals. And then they said, well, you know, it's just a tree-lined, empty field. No, it has the very real soon possibility to be 90 apartments on the sidewalk. Now, look, there's something to be said for the CRA rules, and Commissioner Hurd will say that they've been relaxed from our regular countywide rules. I don't think anyone at the time when they put the CRA boundary all the way to Bury so that Stewart Fine Foods could be built there, that seemed like a very logical solution to a problem at the time 20 years ago, 15, 18 years ago. But there was an unintended consequence of changing the main street zoning concept of what Map Road, Bridge Road, Jensen Beach Boulevard, Osceola would truly look like a downtown main street. Martin Highway is not a downtown main street. And for the folks that figure, look, this is a Palm City issue that doesn't affect us if I live somewhere else in the county, it does. 90%, that's an exaggeration, a large percentage of people coming in and exiting Martin County come in on 95 in Palm City or the Turnpike in Palm City. They will drive down Martin Highway, and one of the first things they will see is a three-story building, light blue in color, from Newberry Court all the way to Palm City School Avenue, right on the sidewalk. I don't think that is putting us, with all due respect to the design, because I know they had to work within a parameter. And if you're the developer and you can have 90 apartments instead of 80 apartments and you're legally allowed to do that, you will. The two buildings are parallel to the sidewalk on Martin Highway. One is around the corner on Palm City School Road. You open your door, you step out onto your porch, you go down three steps, you're on the sidewalk of Martin Highway. Not a lot of room for buffering landscaping and trees and bushes. You're on the sidewalk. So one of the first things every resident and every visitor coming along Martin Highway into Palm City and into Martin County will see that. And they'll be like, is this the representation of what we think Martin County is? I don't believe so. And I hope today that my colleagues have seen emails of residents, either for or against, even though I have run into very, very few people that are opposed to this. Most people think this is exactly how the system should work. And what I would hope today is that at least two of my colleagues would represent the 26,000 people that live in Palm City and the rest of the county and support this decision. I want to thank the developer who's here. And I want to thank our staff. And I want to thank my colleagues who have supported this thus far. To me, today is a pivotal day in Martin County's history, especially in Palm City. It will be one of the most important decisions and initiatives that I will ever have taken part in. And I hope my colleagues feel the same way. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, this is precedent setting. There are proposals for incompatible, unpopular projects all over Martin County. River Light is experiencing criticisms, Barron's Landing. We will have proposals in Port Salerno that are going to be extremely unpopular with the neighbors there. Are we going to buy all of them? We can't afford to buy all of them. If you had money, Commissioner Campy, in your MSTU and in the TIF for the Palm City CRA, I could maybe support it. But you don't. And we have a policy that says that commissioners can't burden their successors with debt. And that's what the funding for this proposal proposes to do, is to burden for five years the commissioner from Palm City with the debt that you proposed to incur today. If you had a purpose for the acquisition of the property, it would make a difference, too. But you don't. Well, you don't know that to be a fact. I'll share it with you in a moment. Please continue. You commissioners created the regulations that permitted these incompatible developments. You relaxed the rules that protected the neighbor, that protects the neighborhoods. This can only happen in the CRAs. Only in the CRAs can you have incompatible dwelling units next to one another. Only in the CRAs can you put a four-story or a 40-foot-tall building, multifamily building next to a single-story home. Only in the CRAs can you opt-out of open space requirements. Only in the CRAs can you pay in lieu of protecting uplands. You commissioners voted to relax those rules. I didn't. Now we have a terrible regulatory problem. I'm not going to be supporting this. I agree with the speaker. It's irresponsible, and it's precedent-setting, and we can't afford to buy our way out of incompatible developments that you have sanctioned by your approval of the changing of the rules in the CRAs. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. So I supported this the first time around with the understanding that we were going to be borrowing the money, and the money that was going to be borrowed to purchase the property were going to be paid back with the CRA and your district funds. Where now I've got a lot of heartburn is taking money out of reserves to fund this. I can't see that I'm going to support that. If we're going to go get a mortgage like everybody else, we're going to go get a mortgage. And the reason I supported that was because I agree in part with what Commissioner Hurd just said. It's our fault. It's our fault. So when Treasure Coast Regional Planning did the update on the CRA plan, at least in my CRA, in my area, they analyzed every parcel and tried to think through all of the potential unintended consequences. I don't know. Again, I didn't analyze yours. I'm sorry. But somehow we've now allowed something that I agree with the residents that filled this room before. It's a project that is not good for the community. And so that's why I supported it. It's our fault. What I don't like is that we're taking potentially a multimillion-dollar taxpaying project off the slate. If you had a plan that you were going to put a small STA on it and we were going to do an RFQ for a housing project that met the community guidelines, that would be something that I could stick my teeth into and understand. If you're going to say, okay, we can't build 90 units, we can do X that enhances the community rather than detracts from the community, I'm all in. But, again, taking money out of reserves is a non-starter for me. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. So for me, a place to start, I think for me to start in my thoughts about this, we spent close to two years, the Regional Planning Council spent close to two years working with the community, coming up with a master plan, a set of codes that met the community's interests. One of the difficulties in any kind of an infill project is its design, how it fits, how it works, and how it comes together. And I've had this conversation with our staff, and I think sometimes what happens with any given project is a project comes forward, it's conceived to what the project wants to build. It may or may not fit the standards that we created. And I wish what would happen in every case is that before the project comes off of a piece of paper, that it would come to our staff, we'd work with the Regional Planning Council, and we'd get a better understanding with the project owner and our staff as to what the community interests are and what the plan really wanted to see happen. And whether it's in the CRA or it's outside of the CRA, it's the same consistent problem. It doesn't really matter where the property is located. A project comes before it. We had a speaker this morning talk to us about it. She said, stop, enough, don't build any more, don't do any more. Well, that train left the station in 1982 and 84 when the state decided to have land use and everybody got a land use and had an expectation of what their property was going to become, how you deal with it, what it looks like. I think that was the fatal flaw, if you will, of that concept back from the early 80s. What we've tried to do with the CRA, I believe, is lay out a set of standards and design concepts that will benefit all of the interests. What happens, though, sometimes is a project gets ahead of itself and it designs something, and it may be consistent with the plan, it may not be consistent with the plan, but it takes on its own life and it becomes what we have with us today. And then you have a project out in Palm City that the community decided they didn't like, they didn't want. I absolutely reject the idea that we didn't do a good job in putting the plan together. The plan is a solid plan and it's a good plan. The idea that four of us supported something and one didn't, that's why there's five of us up here. And we make those decisions every single day. Sometimes they're 5-0, sometimes they're 3-2, sometimes they're 4-1. And so we get to have different opinions on how we see that. But different, I think, than what occurred in the city over the last couple of years with the proliferation of the apartment buildings that did get built, this was a much more constructive process to help guide what would happen in the CRA versus letting what happened in the city happen. Now, is it perfect? It might not be. Would I encourage any project owner to work with our staff and work with the Regional Planning Council to come up with what fits and what's appropriate? Absolutely, I would. The model that I have always kind of had tucked in the back of my mind all these years is what West Palm Beach used to do years ago. Before a project ever saw the light of day, they came in and met with CRA staff and came up with a footprint, a design, and a general understanding for what that project could be and what it could look like. And from there, the project would go back out into the design world and make it try to fit that footprint. Again, is it perfect in every shape and form? No, it's not. But it's something that we still have a piece of this program missing for those that haven't used it before. I have no doubt that that project could have been designed. That would have met the desires of the community in Palm City. I still believe it could be. I don't know what Ed's plan is for the property. We haven't had that shared with us yet. Whether it's stormwater, whether it's a park, whether it's something if we are to acquire it, I guess that's something the five of us will decide long term. As towards the funding and Commissioner Jenkins' comments, my understanding was that we were going to set up a 0% interest loan through the county and that the CRA and the district would repay those funds. And now I'm getting shaking of the heads no. That's what the recommendation is. The alternate recommendation would be that you would use the general funds slowly for the closing so you could go ahead and purchase the property. And then we would bring back a bank loan for you to approve that would use the CRA and the district funds to pay it back. So one is a 0% interest, but you don't refill the general fund reserves for five years. The other method is it has interest payments, but you could refill the general fund, well, as soon as we get the bank loan. So it would be within a few months for us to acquire the loan. So we would just use the general fund to float it until we get the loan. And that's the alternate recommendation. So let me ask this so I understand completely. If we were to do an internal loan to ourselves from the general fund from reserves, right, over five years that would get replenished or six years that would get replenished through or could be replenished through the CRA and through the MSTU. Yes. In fact, we worked it out pretty precisely on how that would work. It would be because the Palm City CRA already has some obligations. We have to rely on the district MSTU for years one and two, and the CRA kicks in on years two, three, four, and five. So the district obligation could disappear after fiscal year 26, and then the CRA would be burdened with the entire payments in the last year. And that's all essentially a zero-interest inter-fund loan, but your general fund reserve would not be fully replenished for those five years. Again, the alternate recommendation is you would simply use the general fund as a means to go to closing to meet the obligations under the contract, and then we would refill the general fund with a loan, a bank loan, most likely, that would have interest charges, and we would still use the same revenue sources to pay it back, which would be the MSTU. But you wouldn't be able to do it in five years. It would take six to ten years based upon the revenues that we see. So currently in reserves we have, what, $15 million? $18 million. Our reserve policy was 10% of our? That's right, 10%, and that any time you used it that you would repay it within five years. And in our CIP reserve, how much do we have in reserve? There really isn't necessarily a reserve in the CIP other than you have projects that you're saving up for. So there are funds in the CIP that aren't being spent next year that are being saved up for a particular project. I guess what I'm trying to get to, if we were to go the first route and we use reserves to fund the project and we replenish the reserves after six years or over six years, The idea of our reserves primarily is for a hurricane or for some significant disaster that we would have to deal with, right? You have typically used them for an unintended consequence, which would be a natural disaster event when we draw it down for those. On occasion, you've used it for when the sheriff purchased his body cams. We drew from them to get the initial purchase, and then we would pay it back with the next budget year. So you have used it for typically, you know, things like that. And Jennifer could speak to other examples if you wanted to hear, but that's fine. I'm just framing the idea that if there were to be, if we were to use this, and the concern would be that we would have consumed $4 million of our $18 million in reserves. Yes. That's a general concern, right? In the rest of the budget, there are millions of dollars held aside or set aside for 2B projects to be built or to be done. And there is contingency in every one of those projects that if we were to have a $12, $15, $16 million hurricane crisis, we could respond to that. We're always going to respond to a hurricane disaster, and the tools available are your general fund, whatever you have in FARBs, and then you can always go and do bank loans, which has traditionally been done, and other bigger disasters to pay for. Generally speaking, Francis and Jean was about a $12 million hit when we had two back-to-back hurricanes, from what I remember. Is that right? Yeah, I think the overall cost was like $40 million, but the initial cash flow we were spending was about $12. My point is, it doesn't, if that's, I'm not, I mean, the idea of going and getting a bank loan on this thing is not one that I am thinking is the direction to go. If we're going to do it, we do it internally with 0% interest, and it doesn't cost anybody any more than what the $4 million was in its purchase. That's just my thought process, and Harold, I listen to you, and I'm not sure 100% where your thought process was going. Stacey, I was watching your head shake yes or no, and so I'm trying to glean from our board where we want to go, but that's my thinking anyway, that we are covered one way or the other. That's it, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Let me fill in some of the blanks for some of my colleagues. I heard someone say that they could really sink their teeth into and endorse if they knew exactly what the plan was. When this originally came up, there was a lot of suggestions. A lot of people came forward, said it should be this, it should be that, it should be this. Quite a few people kept saying dog park, dog park, dog park. And then as the process sort of played out, we started to realize that, you know, and I heard from my colleagues and others that were critical of this concept that, you know, taking a piece of property off the tax rolls, turning it into a park that would then require additional maintenance costs, not necessarily the right strategy. So with that in mind, I did have an opportunity to speak privately with some of our staff to discuss what could happen there. Now, like many of you, I think the most appropriate strategy would be to have a community meeting, a charrette, if you will, in Palm City to discuss and hear from not, you know, the louder minority voices or the quiet majority voices. Let's hear what the public genuinely wants. But laying out, okay, if it's a park, you understand that you've taken this property off the tax roll. You understand that there will be maintenance that goes along with it. Some people said preserve. Preserve is not nearly its highest and best use. Some people said it has no environmental benefit whatsoever. I would disagree. It is directly adjacent to Danforth Creek. Now, is it the Loxahatchee? No. But it does have that. Staff believed that it would also be an opportunity for us to have access to Danforth Creek on public property for the maintenance for the full length from the river all the way tucked back. So let's check that box. Public works access to Danforth Creek. I am not opposed. Two of my colleagues mentioned that maybe you could put something there that the community would embrace. History tells us that the original proposal for that property was 40, approximately 40, townhomes. Susan Kores is here. She's the head of our CRA and our Office of Community Development. And Jordan Pistorius were more involved in the early portions of that project than I was. But I know that the developer reached out to the neighbors behind, and people were okay with the 40 sort of cul-de-sac of townhomes with front porches that met the CRA requirements. But the developer and their investors figured, hmm, not really ideally what we'd want to do, and then it morphed into 90 apartments. So I think, and I have spent a lot of time speaking to my constituents, our constituents in Palm City, about what could and could not happen there. And a lot of them, all along Martin Highway, realize it's going to be something. It's not in a perfect world. It could be left alone to be exactly what it is, but it's going to be something. So to potentially ease my colleague Commissioner Jenkins' concern is, I agree, he started to almost say what the potential vision could be. Maintaining, obviously, Newbury Court, everything to the west of Newbury Court, right into Danforth, stays as is. Everything much closer to Martin Highway. I don't know if it's 50 feet, if it's 75 feet, if it's 100 feet of a re-landscaped buffer. And then behind it, really the meat and potatoes of what's left over on the property. I've had people reach out to me that are local doctors that say, I would purchase either an acre or more. Or I've used the example many times of Villa Flora, which is closer to the turnpike on the southern side of Martin Highway, next to the tire in 7-Eleven, as a Spanish-style two-story. It's got professional offices in it. It's got financial consultants and lawyers and doctors, which then benefits everyone that lives in the community, whereas if you're not renting an apartment, there's no benefit to an apartment complex across the street from where you live or in front of where you live. So I have no problem whatsoever committing today publicly that a large portion, two-and-a-half, three acres of the six, remembering some of the six, is not really in play, to be developed to the desires of the community with, if need be, approval of the board. In terms of the loan, internal inter-fund loan versus bank loan, all of the dollars that are in that loan fund are tax dollars that have already been paid by taxpayers to be in that fund. We've heard from Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Manning that there's plenty of money in the fund. Even during catastrophic back-to-back hurricanes, we weren't in it, but that was a long time ago. The difference between those two funds, and I had agreed back then because Commissioner Hetherington shook her head and so did Commissioner Jenkins, that the conversation was about a bank loan. And immediately following the agenda item, Ms. Manning came up to me, which is the reason I'm so sad that she's retiring, and she astutely said to me, bank loan is not the right strategy, you'll pay a fortune in interest. Who pays a fortune in interest? Not me, not Ed Campy, the taxpayers. So they're borrowing money from a bank so that the bank's investors and depositors will receive the profits of an interest rate versus borrowing the money internally. However, if that is a deal that is a deal-breaker for two of my colleagues, I would rather go back to the residence and say we had to do a bank loan that we'll have to pay interest on than my colleagues did not agree with me and you, and they're going to be building 90 apartments. Very astutely, the developer never stopped developing his project. The time, he did not freeze his project, he kept going potentially for a day like today where my colleagues, three of which said yes to a full room, and now as we worked through, my biggest hurdle was the appraisals. If those appraisals came in at $3 million, I would have been in trouble because, you know, fiscal responsibility would say you're doing something here. Now, I personally think that protecting the community forever from a project that everyone would shake their head and say who approved that versus these other financial things, but it didn't. They came in both above. And so I would hope that my colleagues would understand that as the district commissioner, knowing full well what the residents in my area are telling me, this purchase is the appropriate course of action. We will sell off a portion to be determined for another use that will keep a majority of the property on the tax roll. It'll have a public benefit, but we can protect it from being directly on the sidewalk. I don't know what Ms. Corris and her colleagues in community in the CRA would have to figure out to know in terms of what Commissioner Jenkins said about the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council came in there and went through and determined what each parcel could and could not be. I would assume that they did the same thing in Palm City, but no one knew that it would go all the way to its capacity. And I don't blame the developer if that was my property. Are you going to build 50 apartments or 90 if you could build 90 legally allowed? And to my other colleague on the end, with all due respect, Commissioner Hurd, you constantly say, I was at your town hall meeting. It wasn't me. It was the four other commissioners. It was the four others. First off, some of us weren't here then. There were other commissioners, so I don't want my colleagues, Commissioner Hetherington and Jenkins, to have to eat some of that. Secondly, with all due respect, I don't know if I would use how things are happening in Port Salerno and your representation of all of the residents as an example on what the rest of us should be doing. I am strongly representing my residents, your residents, that have asked that this not happen. And I can read tea leaves. I have no expectation of where this could potentially go. I would hope that my colleagues would see, as I do for you all, that if it's a district project, if you want it to be a bank loan and we pay the interest on it, we'll pay the interest on it. I already raised my MSTU funds during our budget process to have a little additional money. A history lesson on the MSTU funds, it used to be a percentage of all the tax collected. There were times when some of my colleagues had $2 million in their MSTU funds, and we stopped that from happening. I could stand with a straight face in Palm City and tell my residents that we're going to make my MSTU dollars next year a million dollars a year. They would respect that because they don't want this project to happen. And it's easy for people that live in, not you specifically, Commissioner Jenkins, but a woman from Hobesound who's been beating the drum that this is a terrible idea. I bet she wouldn't necessarily think it's a terrible idea if it was being built on the vacant property across the street from her home. This is easy for people to say, it's not my problem. And in terms of Riverlight and the Pandora's box, I've never had anyone reach out to me from Riverlight, the developers. I've heard about the project. I follow it in media and social media. If that's a legitimate project, every project should stand on its own. This project right here, right now in Palm City is not the appropriate project. And if my colleagues disagree, that's why there's five of us up here. But I will tell you, when this project comes out of the ground and people start setting their hair on fire, that how did this happen, I will clearly explain that I fought as hard as I could to stop it. And, well, you know, where did we borrow the money from? Or it sets a precedent. Or it's somebody else's responsibility because they approved watered-down CRA rules. I will be very clear to explain that I fought as hard as I could on their behalf to stop it. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I just want to add a thing to your thoughts and comments about what it could or should become. If none of that happens and it were to become an STA or it were to become water quality, I'd be okay with that. I appreciate that very much. I am, I, look, we spend millions of dollars dealing with stormwater projects and large projects and small projects, and there's never enough. There will never be enough water quality in this county to solve all the problems of 100 years ago. And so if that's where it ends up and if that's where your community thinks it's best positioned to do so, I'm perfectly okay with that. If you come up with another idea, your community comes up with another idea, if we are to purchase it, I'm okay with that conversation happening. I appreciate that. I, you know, today what the residents of the area think or don't think is not my concern at the very moment. I need one other commissioner to agree. Do you mind if I ask Harold? I'm just trying to understand where you were on the purchasing analysis. Can you share with me again what you agree with, disagree with, so I can help if I need to make a motion? And I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just trying to understand what you said. So I'm finding. So I supported it as presented that the people responsible for the encumbrance of this property are this CRA and the district commissioner. Where I have a problem with is people from Hope Sound paying the bill. Okay? So that's why. I've been the part of my success, which I'm not going to apologize for, is always having adequate reserves for myself personally and for my business for numerous reasons. That's just good business. Taking money out of reserves is not something I'm interested in. Now, taking money out of reserves as a bridge loan for a specific very short period of time to get into a mortgage like the rest of us would have to do, I think I can choke down. But, no. So, just so I'm clear. So you're okay with that. You're okay with doing more. Let me keep going, though. I'm not okay with taking this valuable piece of developable property developed correctly off the tax rolls. So, if part of a motion was made that said, and it could be vague, you know, we don't know whether it's two and a half acres, three and a half acres, we don't know what it is. But that the goal and objective of this move from this commission is to put a portion of this property back on the tax rolls through community meetings and workshops and whatever else that resulted in a RFQ or RST, whatever we call that. I'm good. I get it. And people need to understand that, yes, I agree with Commissioner Hurt. This is an unintended consequence of what our CRA codes allow. Should it have been caught earlier when we redid this? I have no idea. I wasn't involved in that process. Is it just from when the CRAs were started in the year 2000? I don't even know that. So, but I understand why we need to do what we need to do. Okay. So, can I try a motion and you tell me if I'm off base? Sure. Commissioner Smith, I would commit to 50% of the property being up for development. I don't think we ought to. I'm just saying. Up to 50%. Just hearing from Harold, let me try this, and if you agree, disagree. So, Mr. Donaldson, I would move that we acquire the property. We use our interfund loan program as a bridge to a mortgage or to a loan, to a bank loan that is repaid by the district MSTU funds and the CRA funds that have been discussed for the period of time that it's required to pay off that bank loan. And that the district commissioner work with the community as a whole, whether it's just Palm City or others, to craft a vision for the property that is appropriate as deemed with the commissioner and the community. And I'm not going to add a percentage if it's 20% or 60% or 85%. That's up to them to determine some portion of the property to come back perhaps as a – in another form, in another shape. I think that's perfect. I will second that. Commissioner Hetherington. So, I was going to keep fairly quiet, but what happens if that comes back? I mean, we're paying $4 million plus all sellers' expenses, and by all accounts, it's worth more than probably what the property appraiser has it, but I don't believe it's worth the $4 million. I mean, even in one of these appraisals, there's entrepreneurial profit, and we're paying, you know, permitting fees of the seller. So, when we put this out, just say for an RFQ or some kind of development to put it back on the tax rolls, it will not probably pencil out as far as we're not going to be whole. We get that, but at the same time, this condition, we can take the blame for allowing a condition that created this, right? That costs money, right? To Doug's point, if it sounds like we could actually do a meaningful, maybe small, couple-acre, three-acre STA or water improvement project, that has value, right? So, we know we're – I know in my heart that we're not going to be whole. No. I get it. How do we assure, then, that something will transpire? I mean, I heard you say the vision, you know, the community vision. Well, but I heard Commissioner Jenkins say, I want something to be developed, you know. I want something that is somewhat adequate to the highest and best use on this property to regenerate tax dollars. And I didn't hear in your motion that really – that's not at least the way I interpreted it. Maybe it polishes in order. I would hope that the District Commissioner, Ed, listened very carefully to everything all of us have said. I assume the public will listen to everything we have to say, that there is an expectation that something will come back to us for some kind of approval, decision, recommendation, whatever to do. To Harold's comment on the value of whether it is an STA or whether it's two units or a medical office or something else, right, you could make that same argument that East Fork Creek that we're building on U.S. 1 right now is 20 acres, 30 acres down there. If that were all developed out as apartment building, it's a heck of a lot more value than in real estate value. But the value to our community, the value to that neighborhood that has had traditional flooding problems and other related issues is significantly more in value, in intrinsic value to this community than ever would have been if that had been developed into apartment buildings for real estate value. And that may be a hard thing for any of us to ever get our heads wrapped around. But I said earlier in my comments that the millions of dollars we spend to clean up water in this county, I know the value of it. What's his name this morning? Mark Perry. Mark Perry was in here, praising the county on all the work we're doing. Keep on going. Keep on doing. There's never enough. He's right. There's never enough. It's never good enough. It's always more. And so, look, I'm honest. I would love to see something come back to go on the tax roll. As everybody would. But if it doesn't, and if someone came back and said the highest and best use for that for Martin County is a four-acre stormwater treatment pond, and here's how many millions of dollars worth of cleanup it'll provide the county, that's a hard thing to say no to. As East Fort Creek, and it's spectacular what's out there. Guys, whether it was you or not, but, you know. It was. Him. Him. That guy. George, I just, I hope the motion is direction to Ed, and not to Ed, but with Ed, to go out and find a better solution for the property. That's the goal. And whatever that solution comes back, then that'll be up to the five of us, again, as we talked this morning on another issue, to decide whether we like that, you know, with the fairgrounds or we didn't like the fairgrounds, whatever it comes back as. And I see this the same way. Thank you. Mr. Donaldson. I just wanted to make a statement and see if you understand or confer, and that is the purpose of this acquisition is for a public purpose, of which you all have stated in the past has had a variety of uses, but stormwater is one that we have specifically had identified. And after you've determined the use of that public purpose, the portion that is not necessary, you're contemplating putting back on the tax roll. So I just want to make sure that we are buying this for a public purpose and that, for the public record, and that the unused portion has the potential to be put back on the tax roll. Hopefully my motion encapsulated that. Yes. Did it not? Yes. No, I just want to hear Don confirm. As he was confirming with us, I'm confirming with him. I think the attorney's office is comfortable with the. She's not squirming too much over there? Yes. Thank you. Sarah may be rolling over wherever she is, but. No, thank you. Yes, we just wanted that clarified, so. Thank you. I appreciate that. To Commissioner Smith's point, that property that he's mentioning is on U.S. 1, very valuable piece of property. But when we hear from our residents, either in these meetings or elsewhere, that they're getting frustrated with the level of development, well, that means there's only a couple of things you can do to throttle back some of that development. Some of it is purchasing property that can stay in the county's hands for a multitude of reasons. This is a prime, I'm about to, this is a prime piece of property for Palm City, so any consideration from my colleagues is greatly appreciated. And with that, I dare to say I would entertain a motion. Oh, we have a motion. You have a second. So far. I'm in the twilight zone. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. I just wanted to clarify the motion. Did it include getting a bank loan? Yes. And an RFQ for this to come back? So let me explain, as I understand what staff's direction is to do, is that we will use the interfund loan, which will be using general fund to close the purchase agreement. We would bring back to you a loan transaction that would, a bank loan most likely, to refill the interfund loan, with the payment being from the MSTU and the CRA, as additionally specified. And then we are to have some planning with the district on the public purpose of the project. And then coincident with that, with any piece that's left over, we'd be looking to seek out projects that would be appropriate. Yes. Clear. Clear. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries three to two with Commissioner Hetherington and Heard dissenting. Thank you. Let's take our lunch break, and we will come back at 1.30. In our October 10, 2023, Board of County Commissioners meeting, we are now going to take Departmental No. 2 contracts that meet the threshold for board approval, $1 million or greater. There is one item that we will be discussing, and it will be presented by Ms. Christy Brotherton. Ms. Brotherton, good afternoon. You are recognized. Thank you. Good afternoon, Christy Brotherton. For the record, we have one contract for your consideration, which is a continuing services contract for plumbing services and repairs. This contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $1.5 million with a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to Eccles Plumbing and Air Conditioning and South Florida Plumbing and Electric, which is doing business as the plumbing company, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. That's fantastic. Well done. Move approval. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd to accept staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Ms. Manning, you have two choices. You can either go now, or we only have one other item other than yours. So if we take Mr. Male now, you could be the final agenda item of the day on your final day. I don't want to out. No, thank you. We're doing it now. Okay, then. We have the commissioners, right? I'm trying to be benevolent, which is... Yeah, I thought you were going to say, oh, you can retire now or, you know, do the agenda item, whatever. Probably in a posture, she could say, I don't... Yeah. Throw the thing at us. Yeah. We will continue now with Departmental No. 1, Office of Management and Budget Items, which require board approval. We heard No. 2 already. We have 11 others, and it will be presented beautifully by Ms. Jennifer Manning. At least hopefully, right? Good afternoon, Commissioner. It's Jennifer Manning, OMB Director. The first item, number one, is Human Services Requesting Permission to Apply for Funding from Florida Department of Children and Families for Mental Health Program. The program includes case management services, housing assistance, and treatment services. The grant amount is $400,000 and has no match. We'll skip over number two. Item number three is Permission to Apply for the U.S. Department of Transportation Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant. The amount is $1.8 million. The funds will be used for study design and engineering of pedestrian bike access across two high-speed Brightline rail lines. And they're looking to do two overpasses for east-to-west movement for households in Golden Gate and Port Salerno. There is no match required for this grant. Item number four is Permission to Apply for the FY24 Innovative Technologies for Pharmaceuticals Grant for Tropical Farms Advanced Wastewater Treatment Pilot Program. Through FDEP, the pilot project is designed to eliminate contaminants of emerging concerns in the wastewater, including pharmaceuticals. The grant amount is $800,000. It requires a $200,000 match, which is programmed in the utilities and solid waste CIP. Item number five is Permission to Accept a Small County Outreach Grant through FDOT for Construction and Construction Engineering Inspection. At the Northeast Jensen Beach Boulevard, County Road 723 Northeast Savannah Road to Indian River Drive, sorry, Revenue Road I created. Okay, the grant amount is up to 75%, which is $534,000. Item number six is Permission to Accept the FDOT Public Transportation Grant Agreement for Airfield Signage Replacement. The grant award is $80,000. It requires a $20,000 match, which is programmed in the airport enterprise funds. Item number seven is Permission to Accept another FDOT Public Transportation Grant Agreement for Building Number 29 and 30 Roof Replacement. The grant amount is $400,000, requires a $100,000 match, which is also programmed in the airport enterprise funds. Item number eight is Permission to Accept FY23 State Water Quality Assistance Grant for East Fork Creek Stormwater Treatment Area Phase 2. The grant amount is $600,000, requiring a $600,000 match, which is budgeted in the ecosystem of CIP. Item number eight is Permission to Accept the State Housing Initiative Partnership Funds for Low and Moderate Income Households, which will help them with housing rehabilitation, home demolition and replacement, as well as emergency repairs, down payment assistance, sewer and water hookups. The grant amount is $1.5 million. Item 10, Permission to Accept the Edward Byrne Memorial Assistance Grant for $29,000 to Offset the Cost for Martin County Sheriff's Officer's Traffic Unit. Item number 11 is another, this is for the E-911 program. It's a Permission to Accept the E-911 State Grant for GIS Repository. And the grant amount is $125,988, and it requires no match. Item number 12 is just a request an adjustment to the budget for the managing pocket mooring field. We're requesting to allocate $153,000 in anticipated revenue, as well as $153,000 in anticipated expense. We're estimated that the operational cost will only be about $95,350, and that concludes my presentation. Yes, it does. Thank you. All right. Give her a plaque. Oh, sorry. I already did. No plaque. Move approval of the remainder of the items. Is this your last meeting? Are you going to be at the next one? No, I think I may have another one. Good. Oh, then I take back all the kind things I said. Take it back. Until next time. Until next time, yeah. All right. So it's not as historic. Does someone want to second it? I do. I'll second it. Oh. Did you? I did, but that's okay. No, I will. I accept. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. One second, please. Why don't we go on to the next one? It's not for you, Jennifer. Oh, sorry. At lunch, I was at the intersection of Indian and U.S. Juan, and I was westbound, and I was the first person in line westbound, and I went through five, six cycles of the signal changing, and I never got a green light. Is there a number you can call when the lights are misfunctioning like that? A non-emergency light, I mean, a number that you can call? Jim, give your cell phone number for everybody to call. Oh, it's your number? Jim Gordon, Public Works Director. Our traffic division, we have technicians that are out in the field at all times during the day, and they would be the ones to reach out to. I will provide you with that number. I don't have it memorized. Okay. What about your cell? It's broken because I was in the same spot, not turning left, just I was in the right lane because I wanted to turn north on U.S. Juan, and I was backed up all the way to the railroad tracks, and it took five or six cycles for me to get out there. Finally, after sitting there for 15 minutes not moving, I turned right. I turned north also. So we'll look into it today and see what's going on. Thanks. Yep. Thank you so much. Okay. Good idea. Our next item is Departmental No. 3, the Fiscal Year 24 Water Quality Project Update. It will be presented by Mr. John Mayle. Mr. Mayle, good afternoon. You are recognized. Good afternoon, Chair, County Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity. Against John Mayle, I am your Ecosystem Division Manager, and I get to work with the best team in the county. That's the only reason I'm here. Just in the county? Okay. I'll let you say it. South Florida? Come on. State? There we go. Wait until we're done. Then you can comment on it. Works with the best people that are within earshot. Yeah, exactly. So this presentation was requested to provide an update on current water quality projects and I took a little liberty to contextualize that with, you know, just kind of a very high level, what is the problem, why would we care, and what we have done as a county to address it in the past. And it brings us to today and the current projects that we're working on. So I'll pose this as a question. Does anybody want to hazard a guess what the population of Florida was in 1923? 5,000. No, more than that. More than that. I'll give you a hint. You can round it to a million. A million. So in 2023, you probably all know what the population is. About 23 million. So the math is pretty easy. We've increased by 22 million in that 100 years, which equates to a little bit more than a Port St. Lucie every year for 100 years. That's a lot of people in an environment that was fairly inhospitable to that many people. So in the 20s and 30s, there were some significant tropical storm events that brought to light the need to provide some kind of massive drainage and flood protection project. And Congress in 1948 awarded a project that at the time was the largest infrastructure project in the nation to create thousands of miles of canals and levees and structures to provide that flood protection and make the land inhabitable for 3 million people at the time. Today, that same system, more or less, provides that same protection for over 8 million people. And to its credit, it does that very well. One of the unintended consequences, though, was the impact it would have on the ecosystem where it was built. And as early as 1948, they were already kind of identifying some of those concerns and problems, that the impact of that many people and that much drainage in the system would have on all manner of ecosystems. And here we are still working on that issue. At the end of the day, these discussions often result in a lot of finger pointing. But one of my favorite new phrases is, you know, what is the problem? I am the problem. Wherever you have humans, you have people eating. So you have produce and farms creating that. You have the consequences of eating that have to be managed. You have people living on permeable surfaces. I have a roof over my home. I have a driveway in my yard. My kids go to a school that have lots of impervious surfaces. They play on ball fields that require management. All of those things are opportunities for pollutants to be discharged into our surface waters and impact the most critical foundational element of any ecosystem, and that's water quality. So why do we care? I mean, I think that's a fairly obvious question to most of us, but it's worth identifying, I think, again, at least at a very high level. I've started coining the phrase, it's been a couple of years now, that we live in the Central Park of the Lower East Coast. A smart growth management philosophy or managed growth in our county, in contrast to what's happened in other parts of the Lower East Coast, have resulted in what really is a vestige of open space and green space in an otherwise highly urbanized area. And in that green space, we have incredible diversity of flora, fauna, geology. You know, you can catch largemouth bass, record largemouth bass on the shores of Lake Okeechobee, and on the other side of the county, catch sailfish that people travel from all over the world to embrace. You can see spoonbills. You can see alligators. We've got pine flatwoods, and we've got coral reef. It's really an incredible ecosystem that we have preserved, and it's certainly worth continuing to fight for. Another phrase I've started to use, it's a living museum of natural history right here in our backyard. So if we're going to be part of the problem, I think we're all vested in becoming part of the solution, too. So what has Martin County done for people to live in that ecosystem without hurting it or to even maybe be part of the solutions in that ecosystem? It's really proud for me to stand on the shoulders of people who have come before me and done incredible work, the board's support for over two decades in bringing about some incredible accomplishments in making our human interface with the ecosystem symbiotic. First off on the list is we've done, to date, 42 stormwater treatment projects. Largely those can be defined by the county going into neighborhoods that were developed before our current robust stormwater standards. Maybe they were built on agriculture drainage, which is insufficient for the impervious surfaces that a neighborhood would bring and also contributes pretty significantly to pollutants to the river and estuary. So those projects were geared towards going into those neighborhoods, retrofitting them to improve the conveyance, provide better level of service and flood protection, as well as significantly reducing the nutrients that those neighborhoods were discharging. We've done 42 of those. We've got a whole bunch more queued up that we'll talk about in a little bit. Collectively, we estimate that that's reduced 70,000 pounds of nitrogen and 15,000 pounds of phosphorus, treating 15,000 acres of the local basin with a commitment of over $150 million, which I know our division is very proud to advertise that we tend to set as an objective a minimum of 50% match dollars in federal and state funding. And our track record has met that. We're actually doing better than that now because there's a lot more money than there used to be. And then you can't talk about water quality without celebrating that the county has preserved, in partnership with the state, over 70,000 acres of natural lands, which provides reduced runoff. It provides aquifer recharge. It provides incredible habitat, recreation, and all those things. Another accomplishment is that the county, the board has directed staff to have an advanced and continuously updated integrated pest management plan that, in a nutshell, directs us to put the right plants in the right places and to use absolute minimum amounts of chemicals to take care of that vegetation. We have a fertilizer ordinance that we believe makes great sense. It helps encourage and educate the public on how to manage their lawns in a water quality-friendly way. Our septic-to-sewer program is leading the state in its aggressiveness and its accomplishment. Our utility section has done a remarkable job of making great progress on that. And we have eliminated 70 package wastewater treatment plants in the county. 59 of those were identified as significant pollutant contributors to the river. These are things to be celebrated. And on top of all that, each of you have, and as a board collectively, have written countless resolutions, letters, made visits to Tallahassee and Washington to advocate for funding for our local projects, funding for regional projects, and progress on those regional solutions that help to address the ecosystem problems of our drainage system. So what's next? Next, we've got eight projects that I want to touch on today. Many of these are recognized. Maybe some of them are new to you. And then it would take all day to talk about all the little things that the folks in the ecosystem team are working on, some stuff probably that goes beyond my ability to explain, frankly, but really cool stuff. So we'll start with coral gardens. This is an existing STA that is at the intersection of, if you were able to get through that light, Commissioner Hurd, and go a little bit further to canter, on your left, there's a couple of stormwater features there. One of them was built as a neighborhood retrofit about 15 years ago, I believe. And adjacent to it directly is a stormwater detention, dry detention facility that was built as a separate project for the Indian Street expansion. We identified an opportunity there to combine those two functions, and it's a clear case where the hole is greater than the sum of the parts. By combining those two and making them hydrologically connected and doing some excavation in the existing dry retention cell and then raising the weird increased storage in the existing stormwater treatment area, we're increasing our capacity from 8,000 or from 8 acre feet to 22 acre feet, and we're going to get a significant pollutant reduction benefit from that project. It also involves some new vegetation, and then it will be the first of hopefully a program of looking at our conveyance systems as an opportunity to provide water quality treatment. So the conveyance ditch that is immediately upstream of that STA, that is going to be in the footprint of this project, and we're going to start to implement some technologies in that substrate management and vegetation and contouring that will help to provide some pre-filtering within the conveyance system before it gets to the STA. You all have probably heard of the southwest prong manatee pocket, maybe more than you care to have heard about it. This was a five-year effort on a very particular land acquisition challenge. The project really had to happen in this spot, and staff were able to negotiate a very creative solution. However, creativity tends to be challenging in government bureaucracy, and so it required a momentous amount of energy and commitment from staff in lots of different departments to get this project to the point where it is, where we are nearly complete with design and hope to start construction within this fiscal year. This project is also going to almost be a showcase of different best management practice treatment training. Within a very small footprint, we're going to have a pond, if you will, a lake. There will be a diversion weir, a wetland, an upflow filter using kind of new technology for treating nutrients in a very small footprint and a whole bunch of exotic removal. It should be a very attractive place. We're looking for opportunities to create some recreational opportunity in that area. It's challenging because of how small the footprint is, but that's a project we're just about ready to see turning dirt on. It's exciting. The Cypress Creek Floodplain Restoration Project, we often focus a lot of our attention on the St. Lucie River, as we should, but we also have a historic, wild and scenic river in south of the county, the Loxahatchee, and the county has a remarkable record of leading in the restoration effort in that and advocacy for the CERP project and the design of the CERP project, and our staff, particularly Mike Houston, has come up with a lot of great ideas and seen projects through on this one. This is the next one, and what it's going to do is rehydrate a large historic Cypress floodplain that is transitioning from a Cypress floodplain because it no longer gets inundated nearly enough. At the same time, that will also help with the overall objective of the Loxahatchee to provide those minimum flows and levels in the dry season to keep that salinity barrier downstream where it ought to be so you don't have Cypress transitioning to mangroves. So this will be part of that solution, and that one is we've already got $1.5 million in grants. We're in the design phase, and there will be some logistics working with our co-owners of that property at the Water Management District that we're working through and with the state park. Our next project is, yes, sir, Mr. Donaldson. Yeah, I just wanted to say that that project, I'm convinced that if it wasn't our staff being involved in it, they wouldn't even consider permitting that for anybody else in the state. It's a very challenging construction project in the middle of a floodplain that's linked to a wild and singing river. It's pretty amazing that, one, the reception that Mike and John's staff have gotten to get it to this point. And it's really a great project, but it's not for the weak to even attempt it. So I just wanted to point that out. Thank you, County Administrator. Actually, as I was looking through this list this week, it occurred to me we don't do anything easy anymore. I don't know if we ever did easy stuff, but none of this is easy. So this project actually just acquired a new title because it's evolved so much. Originally, this project was our Hog Creek stormwater treatment area. Hog Creek has been identified and measured as probably our highest phosphorus contributor in the local basin. So we have for years been pursuing some kind of opportunity for a project in Hog Creek. And thanks to some really robust modeling effort that stormwater provided and some of our own analysis, we were able to kind of discern that there's an opportunity with the contours in this area to send some of this Hog Creek water to Map Creek, where we have capacity and we have opportunities for providing that treatment. In the Map Creek Preserve, which is kind of in the north center of that map, just south of Interstate 95, there's an area of disturbed upland which would be appropriate for the development of a stormwater treatment area. There's a significant drainage ditch that runs along the south side of that, that we have some opportunity for in conveyance ditch work to provide that water quality and capacity. And so this project has kind of evolved from Hog Creek up into Map Creek, but capturing and blending both basins. And then just recently, we've identified a potential opportunity to divert some Danforth Creek water into this as well to help alleviate some of the stage and duration of water levels in Danforth Creek. This is all in conceptual design at this point, but we're pretty excited about a significant project solving lots of problems. It'll now be called the Mayhoe Creek? No comment. Well, sort of like Soho, it's Mayhoe. That's why you make the big bucks. It's commissioners, the creativity you bring. Yeah, right. I'm not the one doing the presentation. Yeah. So the next project is a familiar name we talked about today. This would be phase two of the East Fork Creek stormwater treatment area. You've all probably seen the phase one project. It's very nearly complete. It's probably not fair to say we're on punch list items, but we're circling around that. And phase two is funded. The land has been worked out. It was a DOT right away that real property helped to get transferred to us. And the phase two is going to involve a 700-acre lake and our 700-foot-long lake. That's a big difference. And a 1,500-foot-long retention area that will help polish up the water before it continues down East Fork Creek through Mariner Sands and ultimately to the Manatee Pocket. Those numbers for nitrogen and phosphorus reduction are for the complete project. So this is really just finishing up. And like I said, it's funded and ready for construction. Will you interrupt or do you want to just please? No, let's make it a conversation. So, you know, earlier this year there was some local commentary of flooding in that neighborhood. And I brought this up this morning when we were talking about Palm City. Did that address or did this address dealing with a lot of that? This is modeled to demonstrate an improvement in flood protection to what extent. I mean, if you have a 15-inch rain, you're probably still going to have some challenges in that basin. But this does help. Thank you. And it certainly attenuates flows downstream with that much storage naturally. So the Kitching Creek Eastern Flowway project is one you've also heard about a fair bit. Another challenging land acquisition, fitting a lot into a small area, but desperately needed. And there's incredible benefits that could be achieved from this. The objective ecologically is to rehydrate hundreds of acres of old cypress between kind of south between Flora and Powerline Avenue in Jonathan Dickinson State Park. There used to be really three flowways that sheep flowed into Kitching Creek, the historic winding Kitching Creek that feeds. It's a major tributary to the North Fork of the Loxahatchee. That has really been confined to one central flowway. And so in the central flowway along Kitching Creek Road, which clearly has nothing to do with Kitching Creek, it's created a very flashy system in there that is challenging to provide the flood protection level that we'd like to in that area. So this solves two problems by diverting some of the water that would go to that central flowway over to the eastern flowway and rehydrates hundreds of acres of historic cypress. This is a project that's kind of new to Martin County. Frankly, it's new to everybody. And there's an increasing interest in having partners in seagrass restoration, so much so that a couple of years ago when I challenged our team to engage in an active seagrass restoration element. And in Martin County, several agencies are like, we'll help you with that, because they're looking for people that want to get into the water and work on this. So right off the bat, we got a quarter million dollar grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, which we've largely focused that on this first project, which is, I would call it a study. We have identified a whole bunch of different learning objectives in this project that are geared towards identifying what's suitable habitat for natural recruitment of seagrass. We've been doing water quality analysis. We've been doing sediment quality analysis. We've been doing surveys for clams in the sediment. We've been looking at the relationship that lingbia, which is a bacteria that we find everywhere we have seagrass meadows, we're finding this lingbia attaching to it. And we believe it's, I don't know if it's completely scientific to call it a parasitic relationship, but it's certainly not helpful. Staff have identified that it is contributing to hypoxia, which is building up hydrogen sulfide in the soil. And so they're looking at, they've discovered this, what's called a loosened clam that says there's a symbiotic bacteria attached to it that digests that sulfide and helps make the soil suitable again for seagrass. So they really have dove into this and come up with some really, really good thorough analysis of what kind of habitat do we need to have a healthy seagrass restoration. The next project was made possible by a grant from the FWC that was 100% funded, where we are going to take the Florida Oceanographic Society's existing ad hoc seagrass nursery and volunteer base, and we're going to industrialize that. The design's complete. We're ready to break ground on building them an industrial seagrass nursery to make the capacity for future projects as we get the train leaving the station on this. And then the last project, we became aware of a partner who had secured a large grant to do 100 acres of seagrass restoration, just seagrass plantings. And we were able to negotiate getting 20 acres of that 100 acres right here in Martin County. So we're in the process of identifying where that would be, and we're hoping that now we would be putting plants in the water in the spring of 2024. All of these were done with very minimal funding from the county. You might even just call it seed money. It's late in the day. I got it. The seagrass restoration effort has got everyone pretty excited. You know, one of the objections to us taking that on was, of course, why would you invest in this until the water quality is right? Well, we are optimistic enough in the progress of those solutions that we need to start learning how to do this well now so that when that day comes, which is within sight, we're ready to hit the ground running and maybe have already made some progress in this area. Commissioner Smith. Are you done? No. I'm sorry. I put you on that. It's okay. I can be. No. So the last one is just a comment about our water quality monitoring program. A few years ago, we were able to get out of the blocks with about $100,000 a year on doing some very targeted monitoring to identify to help us to create a better stormwater needs analysis. And so that data is helping us to really refine where we choose our next projects, where the low-hanging fruit is, where the best bang for our buck is, and also helping us to engineer the best solutions because there is no one-size-fits-all for water quality treatment. Every feature needs to be designed around the particular cocktail that is feeding that facility, even to the point where we're looking at older stormwater treatment areas and looking at their effectiveness, pulling some sediment sampling to see what's happened since they were built, what kinds of ways we could improve those to make them functioning again, and particularly in neighborhoods where we're doing aggressive septic to sewer conversion, that particular cocktail of drainage is going to change in its ingredients. And what do we need to do to prepare for that so that what's coming after the septic to sewer is the best fit for treating that particular pollutant load? One monitoring project that's very exciting is something we've been doing in Golden Gate to really prepare to document the empirical benefits of a septic to sewer program in a confined neighborhood. So we had the luxury of monitoring there for three years before the project, and fortunately we've had a remarkable connection rate, and we expect by the end of this year to have, for all intents and purposes, a complete connection to the system. And so then going forward we'll be able to monitor what happens with that runoff after that septic to sewer is completed. It's surprisingly probably going to be a benchmark for other communities. We did a deep dive at Don Donaldson's request into what people have done to study the empirical benefits for nutrient reduction with septic to sewer. And surprisingly there wasn't really good modeling or monitoring or science that definitively demonstrates that. And so this process, this effort that we're doing with utilities, it's thorough. We're using arc inlet modeling. The DEP is well aware of it. We expect to probably provide the benchmark for that analysis. So that's exciting. We're also, we've applied for a grant with the EPA. If we're unsuccessful with that, we've got one queued up ready to go to the DEP for an additional $500,000 with our $100,000 match to do a whole lot more sediment sampling out in the estuary to kind of try and understand what the effects of releases through the SAD are, how far does that transmit downstream, where do we have, you know, the most muck and what's persisting in that soil. And we're going to learn a whole lot about that. We're working with Harbor Branch on that. I'm excited about what we're going to learn from that and how that informs our advocacy and our future projects. And one last thing on the water quality monitoring, we're working with UF on a historic wetland mapping and to kind of capture in an empirical sense what the land use change has been in Martin County. And that will help to inform where we need to address problems and what we can do next. So with all that, just, I guess, another 30,000-foot conclusion, the county is remarkably proactive and has been a leader in addressing local issues while at the same time advocating and partnering with the state and the federal government to deal with the regional issues. We have a new lake schedule that we expect sometime here in the near future. Fortunately, it really appears that, for all intents and purposes, the Corps is implementing that schedule as much as possible. It's worth saying that had we been operating under the historic use of LORS, 2023 would have been another lost summer, almost certainly. And we really haven't had any discharges. It's right there, like we need the rain to stop. But we've probably passed the peak cyanobacteria period and have avoided another year, largely in part because they've been employing the principles that they've learned from the Lowson process with their flexibility of LORS. And then our public is just so much more aware. You know, I give credit to our team for the work they've been doing with Water Ambassadors, Be Floury and Now, but also just I think that culturally our community has embraced this concept and learned about these issues and challenges and what they can do to be a part of the solution. So I think the future is bright for us. That's all I have. Ending on a very high note. Commissioner Smith, your turn. You never cease to amaze. So can you go back to the prior slide? Nope, that one there. So one thing that just ended up, I start off on making some notes and things about what I'd like to say, and then you end up on another slide that kind of takes me in a different direction. For all the conversation that we had this morning about our CRA program and who voted for what, who didn't vote for what, what's interesting about the CRA program is some of these more difficult but also important projects find ourselves in the middle of our CRAs. And if it weren't for having, and I would argue, the program, the advocacy of our community groups that are within the CRA, really pushing for us to get it better, these things probably wouldn't have happened in the way that they are happening. Enough of that. Two other thoughts. One, I think I'll talk about the spending and the focus on staff. In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion about our budget and how we build our budget, how much we spend in our budget, how much we spend on our staff, to the presentation that we get from our staff. And I don't care if it's fire rescue. I don't care if it's the sheriff's department, which really isn't our staff, but it's staff of the county, to ecosystems, to our administrative budget staff this morning's discussion about retirement. We have incredible talent. And, John, you have, in your realm of what we do in this county and this community, have really stepped up and taken from what Gary Roderick and Paul Millar started with us 25 years ago, have taken those very early stormwater projects and package plant removals that we were ordered to take out, but we took them out anyway. Sometimes in my district they were somewhat controversial because they were in well-established neighborhoods, but they weren't functioning, they weren't doing their job, and they've been converted for years. And to the benefit of our community and to the water quality, it's a remarkable story. And I'm glad you kind of did a little bit of the historical overview of it all, which then leads me to the third part of my comments, that three or four years ago, maybe five years ago, I asked our staff back then to put a video together, a video, I guess, of what we had done and what we had accomplished. I think it's time to update it and redo it. I remember we had two speakers come in, which was really, for me, the inspiration to ask our staff to do that work in the first place. We had one individual come in from Palm City and said, hey, boy, that project in Palm City is great, it's fantastic what you've done, but you need to do a whole bunch more. And I don't think that individual knew at the time that there were some 30 at that time, 38, 40 projects worth, that had been done. And that's partly because we don't really do a great job of telling our story, which is what you're doing today. I would argue that this is probably some of the most comprehensive idea thinking, project thinking, implementation of all things water, and that's what I use at the state when we're talking about our hopeful lead to come this session, a statewide policy on all things water. But I would take what you just shared with us, John, I would envelop it into the story that we told three or four years ago. I would put video to it. I would put the physical sites. I mean, the images on the screen are great, but take some drones out there and do some drone footage so people can really get a sense of how big these things are, like the East Fork Creek project. It's not that you can't tell when you drive by and you just want to know how big it is, but it really is spectacular. The connections to Kitchen Creek and the capacity and the scale at which that project, those projects are, are spectacular. The upstream potential that it's in Harold's district that if we can tie all of those pieces together with some recent private land acquisition projects, it's just another world-class opportunity that you guys are working on. And I would share it with NACO. I mean, I chaired last year our Environment, Energy, and Land Use Committee for our National Association of Counties, and it's the committee for our National Association that deals with all of our environmental stuff. And I don't know that I've ever heard a presentation as comprehensive, as in-depth, as detailed as what you just gave on a national scale. There are projects, there is like a standalone something, but you just covered the full gamut of everything that you could ever probably want to deal with in all things water, and it's happening in this little county. And I think that's on national scale level. I really do. You have elevated this thing. You and your staff have elevated this thing to a gold standard that I would challenge anybody out there to do. And that's worth bragging about. And so I think if we can redo that video, Don, I think it's worth submitting to NACO and showing them what can be done if you have the right staff. If you pay for the right staff, you've got to equally have investment in your staff. There's another county in our general vicinity we talk about a lot that will go nameless, and I think one of the reasons why we're so much further ahead is because we have for decades invested in good staff. And that presentation, just like Jennifer's retirement this morning and just like every other presentation we get, is testament to why our budget is the way it is and what we fund and what we were able to accomplish. Good for you, John. I just, I, that was a home run in the seventh inning or the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series. Thank you, Commissioner. I have to, I have to, I'm very grateful for your remarks, but the credit all goes to the staff, as you know I'll say. I love football illustrations, if you would suffer me this. Don't talk about the Patriots. That's not worth it. Okay, I won't go there. There's a young man in San Francisco who is throwing pigskins, and he's had a remarkable story, but he was the last draft, right? He was Mr. Irrelevant was the name that goes to the last draft. If he were playing for, I'm going to use Chicago. Oh, George, where are you? No one would know his name, right? He's surrounded by all-stars in San Francisco, and that's truly my story. I'm surrounded by all-stars. Yeah, but, John, honestly, it's okay to take credit. But, like the quarterback, having all-stars surrounding him, you've still got to be an all-star. Tom Brady was one of the best, by far, all-time quarterbacks in history, but he also had some remarkable players, as you just said, play around him. But if you didn't have Tom Brady, it still wouldn't have happened. So it's okay to take credit, and you're way too modest sometimes. But brilliant stuff. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was your name again? Commissioner Hurd. Our ecosystem restoration department has indeed been a shining star for the last 20 or 30 years, a pioneering change to improve water quality. I mean, you know, 42 stormwater treatment projects, 70,000 acres of land and conservation. You know, these are enormous achievements. And now we understand that water quality is really, really complex, and you have a staff that understands it and is professional about studying it, and you have differences of opinion. We all do. We all think seagrasses are the most important. Muck dredging is the most important. Septic to sewer is the most important. All of those things are probably equally important. But the thing is, is that now you have such a mature staff that everybody's working on different components, trying to get the water right. And in recent years, the DEP has been our biggest, best partner. We're leveraging, you know, for every dollar that we spend, we get $5 from the DEP, or we get $10 from DEP. We get a lot of money from DEP for really innovative projects. And one of the reasons, the main reason, I think, that we have been so fortunate to receive those big DEP grants is because of John Mayle. Relationships matter. Design matters. Having projects ready to go when a grant becomes available matters. So good job. Great job, as a matter of fact. Your 15-year no-compete matters. I'm fine with that. Anyone else like to heap praise on Mr. Mayle? Mr. Donaldson. Mike, Don. The last slide on water quality monitoring, I think, is important, too, just to point out that when we started this 20-plus years ago, one of the first things that the county did was engage in some water quality monitoring with the Water Management District. And the Water Management District at the time only did it for, like, one year. And there was the St. Lucie Issues Team. They wanted to continue it, but it wasn't within their budget. So Martin County was the actual applicant under the St. Lucie Issues Team for a couple million dollars worth of monitoring. So the legislature appropriated it to Martin County. And then through an interlocal, we gave the money to the district to help do the modeling. And that was, if you remember, we had that monitoring is what came up with what we called the dirty dozen. You know, with Gary Roderick and he would take that around, the dirty dozen, which kind of started that level of sophistication of where are we going to invest in the streams that are the most polluted and how we track that. And that has actually continued on to this date and kind of got reinvigorated with John, too, and some of his staff of really pinpointing and updating that monitoring and using, again, using other people's money to do it is also brilliant. And you also see it in the coastal system. You know, our turtle monitoring has gone on for decades, even in there are some years when we didn't have to do it. We have these unbroken records, which wind up being used in things like LOSUM and other things where we have the data to support, one, the level of sophistication to deal with on the federal level of projects, but also in-house to continue to refine what we're doing. So I think it's just kind of the nerd engineer side of me is really one of the cool aspects I wanted to pull out. Thank you. Thank you, sir, very much. You and the team. My pleasure. Thank you. Good job. Okay. With that, I believe that was our... What? So now what? Yes. Let's sing a song. We're now at the end of our official agenda. I would take a 505 public comment from the public. Seeing no one interested in addressing us at this time, I would come back to the board. Commissioner Smith, anything? Commissioner Hetherington. Commissioner Jenkins. Commissioner Hurd. I'm set. Mr. Donaldson. Birthday girl, Elise Elder. You know people's birthdays. I know everything, and it's part of what I do. I didn't see any flowers. I didn't see the flowers. Did you get flowers today? That's... Oh, that's very sweet. Very nice. And so nice of Miss Woods to be out of town so you have the opportunity to have queen for the day. And we've had Monica sitting in with Layla today. Such a pleasure to have you. With that, I believe that will be the end of our meeting. I will tell you that our next commission meeting is Tuesday, October 24th, and we will see you then. Thank you.