Board of County Commissioners on 2023-11-07 9:00 AM - Nov 07, 2023

7th, 2023, Board of County Commissioners meeting to order. We have a lot of exciting things on the agenda this morning, a lot of celebrations and recognitions that we'll do before we jump into the traditional agenda. We'd like to start this morning with an invocation from Pastor Jim Harp from the Stewart Alliance Church, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by our friend Lou Jones, if you'd all please stand. Good morning, Pastor. Good morning. Good morning. Let's pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth and right here in Martin County as it is being done in heaven. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity this morning to gather together and welcome you, God, into this meeting, into this time, into this place. Lord, we lay before you the agenda for today. We thank you for the celebrations and the rejoicings and the things that bring that joy and life to us. Lord, we thank you for those opportunities and we pray for your wisdom and direction for the business and the work to be done later on. So, God, thank you for the freedom that we have to come together and serve you and serve others. Thank you for these leaders that you placed over us. Lord, we ask your blessing upon them, their families, and all that surrounds them. Lord, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones, good morning. When you're done, if you could stay and share a little bit of your life with us. Okay. This is my life. 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. Thank you, sir. Let me brag on you just for a moment before you give us your career. You are a Navy combat veteran. You're the president of the Vietnam Veterans of America in Martin County, and you're also the vice chair of the Veterans Council of Martin County. Anyone that's a veteran or knows veterans knows your face and name very well. You've been at this a long time. Why don't you share? No, that's a compliment to you. Why don't you share a little bit about your service with us? Well, I joined the Navy straight out of high school. I wasn't ready for college. After a few years in the Navy, I decided maybe college was a better choice. But the first place they sent me was Europe, which was a nice cruise. And I got back and they told me that we're going to Vietnam. I said, what the hell is that? Where is it? Never heard of it. Because this was back in the mid-60s, so it was just starting up. And anyway, we spent some time over there. I spent two years over there. And despite what they show in the movies, it's not that much fun being shot at. It can be serious, you know. But, you know, so, you know, when we got back, of course, we had a lot of issues because everybody didn't like the politics. Well, when we were over there, no one knew anything about the politics or give a damn about politics. We're all trying to keep each other safe and alive and able to go back home. But my service time was very educational for our 19, 20-year-old. I got to see parts of the world that I didn't know anything about. And for those who have never been overseas, if you don't have a good appreciation of this country, you will when you go overseas. You see how the other people live? I saw what they considered middle class over there. We consider dirt poor here in the United States. You know, in Italy, I was in a public restroom. It was my first big country I went to. And I was in the restroom. And I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing in their sink. So, because you can't really tell. And these women came in and squatted on a hole in the floor. And I thought, where the hell am I anyway? So, I thought I was in the wrong spot. So, anyway, that was an eye-opening experience for me. So, pardon me, I got a phone call here. Didn't get those overseas either. But anyway, yeah, it was a good experience. Not one I want to relive. But I learned a lot from it. And if nothing else, gained a greater appreciation of this country, as I wish most people would. But I got back and I decided that that was the time to go to college. And I realized that I should have done that beforehand. But in any event, it was a very, very good experience for me. And I'm glad we all made it back. I'm glad the guys that did make it back made it back. Of course, many of us, we've lost a lot of friends from problems that we had over there. Some self-inflicted. And too many from things like Agent Orange and Agent Blue and Agent Purple and all these other colors. And it goes on right now. There were officially around 3 million of us over there. And we're losing an average of 200 a day through various reasons. So, it feels good to be one of the last left, last man standing, so to speak. But anyway, we appreciate your recognition of the veterans. It's usually, you know, it's gotten better over the years. But when we got back, the recognition wasn't that great. So, again, I want to thank you all for everything you do. Thank you, sir, very much. We appreciate your service. Okay. We have one additional item, excuse me, one additional item, departmental number four, a bright line request for a proposal. There are no consent agenda polls. We have a couple of proclamations that we'll be giving out this morning, very well-deserved proclamations. Here is Ms. Laura Beaupre, who will explain them all to us. And with that, Ms. Beaupre, you are recognized. Do you want to do the agenda? Yeah, let's do that first. Why not? Oh, I didn't even see you already have your light on. Commissioner Smith. I would move approval of the agenda with the additional item of department item four, which is the bright line request. And there are no polls. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith to accept the agenda as presented, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Now, Ms. Beaupre. Good morning, Commissioners. For our first proclamation today, we have a proclamation declaring Veterans Day in Martin County, Florida. For more than 200 years, individuals from all walks of life have taken up arms and sworn an oath to support and defend the principles upon which our country was founded. The contributions and sacrifices of the men and women who served in the armed forces have been vital in maintaining our freedom and way of life enjoyed by the people of the United States. In recognition of Veterans Day, November 11th, the board calls upon all citizens to honor the contributions of current and former members of the U.S. Armed Forces. And here to accept, along with a lot of folks, we have Dan McHenry, who is our Senior Veteran Services Officer. Thank you, Ms. Laura. Board, can we have all the Martin County veterans come up front in the well? We're going to receive this Veterans Day proclamation. Coming before you are all the veterans who work for Martin County. Yeah, dress tall over the back. Absolutely. Absolutely. Scooch, Gordon, on this side. Everybody's fresh. Scooch. Scrunch. For your service. One, two, three. Just keep smiling for me. There they are, everybody. Thank you. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. Our next proclamation is honoring Nurses Practitioners Week in Martin County, Florida. Hi there. Hi. How are you? Good to see you. Nurse practitioners play a critical role as trusted providers of health care for patients in our Treasure Coast community. Patients depend on the more than 355,000 licensed nurse practitioners in the United States, 21,000 in the state of Florida and nearly 1,800 on the Treasure Coast to diagnose, manage, and treat their chronic and acute health care conditions. In recognition of nurse practitioners, Martin County is proud to recognize and honor the contributions these professionals make each day on behalf of the health and well-being of citizens in our community. And here to accept, we have Terry Pender with the Nurse Practitioner Council of the Treasure Coast. Thank you. I appreciate this time in front of the board to just let everybody know that during Nurse Practitioner Week, we recognize heroes in health care. In 1965, Drs. Loretta Ford and Henry Silver developed the first nurse practitioner program. And almost 60 years later, more than 1,800 nurse practitioners are improving the health and lives of thousands of our Treasure Coast neighbors every day. Nurse practitioners are leading the way in providing high-quality, cost-effective care and helping to solve our nation's pressing access to health care challenges. Each year, patients turn to NPs in over 1 billion visits like McDonald's, primary care, acute care settings, specialty and long-term care across every health care setting, including here locally in volunteer-staffed clinics such as the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic and the HANDS Clinic. Serving our own neighbors with the least access to health care in our community. As clinicians who blend clinical expertise and with an added emphasis on disease prevention and health management, nurse practitioners bring a comprehensive perspective to health care. Patients choose nurse practitioners for their providers over and over. And this year, the NP role was named as the number one job that helps people, according to U.S. News and World Report. Nurse practitioners are consistently ranked among the highest trusted professions. So thank you to this commission for taking the time to honor the health care heroes working in our community and recognizing the critical role of NPs by taking part in the annual National Nurse Practitioner Week celebration. Thank you again. We appreciate your recognition of the impact we make in the community. Thank you. Our next proclamation is declaring Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month in Martin County, Florida. In the United States, there are currently over 6.7 million reported cases of Alzheimer's disease. And in Florida, approximately 580,000 people age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's disease. It is critical that Alzheimer's families coping with the disease are safe with well-being, dignity, and quality of life preserved through services and resources accessible to all. The board urges the citizens of Martin County to learn more about Alzheimer's disease, attend educational events, and seek out help in local drug trials during Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month. And here to accept, we have Michael Jessup, President and CEO with Alzheimer's Community Care. Thank you, Honorable Chair and other esteemed members of the Martin County Commissioners. My name is Michael Jessup. I'm the CEO and President of Alzheimer's Community Care. With me are board member David Dangerfield and Bianca Soler. I talk about this organization almost on a daily basis, and I am in front of people. And I think what makes us so special is we always hear about pillars of various organizations. And I talk about Alzheimer's Community Care as three triangles. And what I like to highlight about those three triangles and what I think makes us so special is that if you look at our mission statement, there's two words, hope and help, that resonate in the mission statement. And I think all of us, whether sick or not sick, hope and help are two vital words for our daily lives. But when you're dealing with a dementia or an Alzheimer's patient, those are really, really important. You're always looking for the help. You're always looking for the hope. And another word is in our vision statement, which is safe haven. And for all of us, home is where we like to be. It's that comfort level of knowing our loved ones are around you. And I think that's one of the greatest aspects of this organization is that our day centers provide that home atmosphere for those that we're taking care of. The second triangle deals with the patient, the families, and then Alzheimer's Community Care. And I've always said that I think the families are the most important aspect of anything dealing with life, especially with those that are sick. I think sometimes as patients we probably get the best care, the best doctors, the best nurses, the best everything. But the people that tend to be forgotten in the entire process is the family. And one of the reasons I took this job was the aspect of the family that is so important in what we do. Because without the family, the patient would really have anyone, would have no one. And then what goes for unknown about Alzheimer's and dementia is that most of the time, the caretaker, which is usually a family member, dies before the actual patient. The mental, the physical strain of taking care of the patient just ultimately takes a toll on the individual, and they tend to pass before. One of the things about our day centers is it gives those caretakers a respite of being able to relax, get a breath while keeping their loved ones at home. They come to the day center during the day. They still get to go home at night. And I think the third triangle is the local and state governments, which provide us with so much help, the corporate partnerships that we have and the individual partnerships. And you put those three triangles together, and you truly have a partnership that makes a difference in the quality of life of all the dementia and Alzheimer's patients and anyone with a neurocognitive disorder in Martin County and all our other fellow Floridians. I think one aspect that is forgotten about what we do is our ID locator. One of the counties below you and a county above you lost two citizens this year. And if they had had an ID locator on, they probably would still be alive today because one of the biggest problems with Alzheimer's patients and dementia patients is they wander. They walk away. The one in St. Lucie County was found on 95 four hours later. The one in Palm Beach County was found two blocks from their house in a car succumbing to heat. They had had an ID locator bracelet on. They probably would still be here today. So we talk about our day centers, and we talk about our nurse navigation and how we help everybody in a quality of life. But I think one of the biggest things is the ID locator where we can track you, we can find your loved one, and make sure they're back home and taken care of. Thank you again. We're very grateful for making this Alzheimer Awareness Month. We're just trying to make a difference in the quality of life for the families and the patients here in Martin County. So thank you again. Our next proclamation is recognizing the 23rd annual Bible Reading Marathon in Martin County, Florida. The year 1990 was proclaimed by a joint congressional resolution and presidential proclamation as International Year of Bible Reading, and Bible Reading Week has been celebrated annually thereafter. Further, the Bible is a fundamental part of the American heritage and serves as the foundation of our laws, our national character, and our system of values. In recognition of Bible Reading Week, the 23rd annual Bible Reading Marathon, a 90-hour continuous read-through of the entire Bible, will be held November 11th through the 15th at the Bandshell in Memorial Park. And here to accept the proclamation, we have Pastor Joanne Rodriguez and Dr. Julie Bjornsson step into Grace and New Life Ministries. Good morning, Chairman and Council and Commissioners. I just want to thank you first for your acknowledgement and support of the 23rd Bible Reading Marathon. Pastor Donna and Jean started this 23 years ago, and it is quite amazing that this event takes place. And what we do is we actually start reading the Bible on November 11th at 6 p.m. And around the clock, we have people that come from all over Martin County, the Treasure Coast, and even Florida, and they volunteer to read for 365 15-minute time slots so we can read continuously the Word of God over, it takes about five days. And so when I first heard, my husband and I, Pastor Donna and Jean, passed the baton on to my husband and I six years ago, and I was like, this is quite an interesting event. But what I've noticed, and I want to thank the county for their support and acknowledgement, is that during this time of year, we see it brings so much hope to the community. We see encouragement. We see connections of family, business owners, churches that come out, and people stream in and out throughout this week to read their 15 minutes. People come as groups, as church groups, as business groups, as family members, children, adults. And so we've had as young as seven-year-olds come up to read and as old as in their 90s come up to read. And there's something about this event that brings a connection. When we say we're doing it again this year and we call for people to come out and read, is that there's an excitement and there's a connection and a hope and a love that comes out of this event. And so I just want to thank you for acknowledging it as Bible Reading Week. I want to thank you for there's many testimonies that we're able to bring and talk to people and bring hope to their lives and change their lives during this week of just simply going out there and reading the Bible and being a part of a community. So I want to thank you for the many experiences that we have encountered over just the six years and for 23 years that our county actually supports it. And we even have people that come out that have graduated and had their graduation at the bandshell decades ago. And they have memories of that bandshell and the park and the community and they share it and they share it with those that come out. And so it's really a wonderful week and I just want to thank you for your support and encouragement with it and acknowledgement of it. God bless you all. And I hope everyone signs up to come out and read. My turn to brag about the Bible. Mine's a little more serious. And if I don't stumble, it'll take two minutes and 58 seconds. Can you hear me now? Okay. Julie B. Ornson, Stewart, Florida. Good morning, Commissioners. Each year we have come to encourage reading the Bible. Until October 7th, the Bible Marathon was just an important annual event. Now the Bible becomes God's gift to us to know the future. How to resist evil, escape judgment, and coming destruction, and why Israel is the center of world conflict. The sudden Hamas armed terrorist massacre on unarmed, peaceful Israel of babies, children, women, and elderly brutally killing over 1,300, injuring more, and with probable torture of hostages shocked the world. And it will get worse, and it's coming here to America as terrorists pour through our open borders. Israel's response is a just bore, though they are caught in the global pro-Hamas anti-Semitic outcry for civilian protection, who unfortunately Hamas is using as human shields with military bunkers under hospitals, schools, and mosques. God wants us to know our enemy, Satan. He is against God in a spiritual battle to stop God's prophetic promises. Satan is working through radical Islam, Hamas, UFO, alien encounters, the reappearance of giants and fallen angels, and the prophesied return of extreme lawlessness of the days of Noah. God's wrath is against Satan, not mankind. The Bible says the only way to resist evil is by the power of Jesus' name. Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection took back our spiritual heritage on earth, lost to Satan in the garden. Jesus opened the way to escape the coming total destruction, so none should perish but have eternal life. Bible history reveals Israel's conflict with Islam, one covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac's lineage received God's blessing. Islam says Ishmael was the son of promise, not Isaac. God's covenant has three promises, the land, promised to the seed of Abraham, the lineage, promised to the Jewish people. Authority belongs to God. Islam's mandate, take the land, destroy the people, and total dominate of the planet. Allah Akbar means our God is greater. Hamas' spirit of hatred entered through Ishmael's birth and lineage. Hamas hates all that belongs to God. The hatred unites all three radical Islamic groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, all funded by Iran. We are close to the end of God's prophetic timeline. Total destruction will happen, according to the Bible, yet God wants none to perish. Better to die with Christ and enjoy the coming millennial kingdom than to be lost without God's mercy for eternity. Accepting Jesus avoids the coming wrath. Make sure your name is written in the book of life. God blesses those who bless Israel. At Jesus' return, He will destroy all nations gathered against Israel, claiming the right to the Abrahamic covenant when all looks lost. The land, Jesus is the seed. The lineage, Jesus is Jewish. The kingdom, Jesus is God. We have two choices, doom and gloom war track or the biblical gospel track. If you're hungry to know what is unfolding in the world today, the Bible is the answer. Find a church that teaches Bible prophecy. Thank you for your help. We now have a special treat. Our tax collector, Ms. Ruth Petruszewski, is here with a big announcement. Big. Good morning. We brought you a big check today because we wanted to be the reason to put a smile on your face. Obviously, the cardboard check isn't real. We wired you the money last Wednesday morning. This budget year, we thought it would relieve some stress. This budget year, we earned $5,882,842.41, which was distributed to all of the taxing authorities. Your share was $5,652,640.91. And I wanted to give these two ladies are, this is my main finance manager, and this is one of the other finance women. I wanted to give my staff the appreciation they deserve and let them know how valuable they are and realize the tangible impact their hard work makes on our county. The last three years, the volume of immigration has presented a real challenge. The transactions are long, detailed processing, and it slows our wait time down. Many immigrants don't speak a word of English or a word of Spanish, so we have to hook up to the language link to figure out what they even need. And we have to do constant training. There's so many different countries, different documents, and the new technology makes it harder and harder to detect the fraudulent documents. And the laws are constantly changing. And on top of that, the rising costs of everything and inflation, but we've stayed focused, disciplined, organized, and we keep looking for efficiencies. If we can shave one minute off of a process and we have 60 cashiers, that drops our wait time for an hour. So we keep working as hard as we can, and we continue on practicing continuing improvement. So if our new county administrator, Don Donaldson, and our chair would come, accept the check that's not real, and we'll get a picture. Thank you, Ruth. Hey, Ruth. It's another reason why we have the best constitutionals in the state of Florida. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. You guys do great work. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, actually. This one's right in Commissioner Smith's wheelhouse. Proclamation number two is a presentation of Martin County Fire Rescue Combat Challenge Team Awards from the 2023 World Firefighter Challenge. If you're not familiar, we had the World Firefighter Challenge at the Stewart Beach up in Jensen the last couple of weekends ago, and Martin County personnel, some of them you'll get to meet today, are the best in the world, so we're so happy to have them here. Good morning. Joe Labosco, District Chief with Fire Rescue. I wanted to first start off by thanking the commission and county leadership for your time this morning and for your continued support. Today I stand before you with great pride to acknowledge the remarkable achievements of our Martin County Fire Rescue Combat Challenge Team. The team recently competed in the 2023 World Firefighter Combat Challenge, which was held right here in our backyard at Stewart Beach. The World Firefighter Combat Challenge is not just any competition. It is the ultimate test of strength, endurance, and unwavering dedication. It is where firefighters from around the world come together to demonstrate their exceptional skills and to compete against one another on a public stage. In total, there was over 20 countries represented with a total of 350 firefighters competing over the week-long event. I want to take a moment to reflect on the dedication and hard work that our team has put into preparing for this event. This process began well over a year ago with countless hours of training, which entailed traveling to various sites across the county to practice. In addition, the individuals standing before you today had to travel across the country to participate in qualifying races just to be able to compete at the World Challenge. Their success did not come easily, and it is a testament to the steadfast determination of our firefighters. In all, we had a total of 19 firefighters representing the Martin County Fire Rescue who competed throughout the week in both individual and team relay races. Standing before you this morning are six firefighters whose accomplishments earned them the highest recognition amongst the competition. I will now read you some of the results. For team relays, third place, female fire department showdown, Melissa Riley, Hannah Abel, Hannah Helton, Samantha Grimm, and Shayna DeWitt. Third place, 40 and under female tandem, Hannah Helton and Hannah Abel. Third place, fire department female relay, Melissa Riley, Hannah Abel, Hannah Helton, Samantha Grimm, and Carol Giofrida. On a side note, the female fire department showdown team placed first at nationals, which was back in September, and they were the very first female relay team to officially hold this title. For the individual races, female under 40, Hannah Abel, 16th place, Samantha Grimm, 17th place. Male, 40 to 44 year age, Josh Heilman, 7th place. Also, we had three members earn the distinction of Lion's Den. Lion's Den is an elite group of athletes who finish under a specified time, according to their gender and age. Josh Heilman, Lion's Den, with a time of 1 minute and 56 seconds. Wow, that's awesome. Samantha Grimm, Lion's Den, with a time of 2 minutes and 55 seconds. And Hannah Abel, Lion's Den, with a time of 2 minutes and 58 seconds. On behalf of our entire fire rescue family, I want to express our heartfelt gratitude to each member of the Martin County Fire Rescue Combat Challenge Team. Your hard work, courage, and dedication are truly remarkable, and we are fortunate to have such dedicated professionals amongst us. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Sorry, I said this before once, on the verge of being a HIPAA sort of thing. I've got to be careful how I say this, but wasn't one of your competitors just recently a mom recently? Still competing. Congratulations. That's absolutely, I was going to say, and that feeds right into one tough mom. Congratulations. You guys did an amazing job. Fantastic. Congratulations. Thank you. Turn around and let everybody see you. Thank you so much. And then the last thing we'll discuss before we take public comment, I promise, is the United Way presentation of the top 10 most generous workplaces in Martin County. After the picture. You didn't do one of your selfies. What's up with that? See? I paid attention the other day. I'm like going to be. I just said I was going to do it, and they were like, no, pictures. Sorry. Okay. We are so excited to present to the county. And George, do you have the plaque? Do you have it? Ah, Don. Thank you, Don. Introduce yourself, Miss. Carol Howard-Dietz with the United Way of Martin County. We are so excited that the Martin County employees ranked number five in our top, most generous employers in the community. So we want to thank everyone, the employees of Martin County, Don, for your support, and the whole entire teams and commissioners. Thank you for allowing us to be here to present this today. Don. Okay. Thank you very much. Now, on with the meeting. Public comment. The, this morning is general public comment. I have several requests to speak forms. If you would like to speak to a specific agenda item that will be coming up a little later this morning, and I have your slip, you can save it, and I can save it, and you can speak for that agenda item. If you want to speak for an agenda item but you cannot stay, you can tell me, and I can bring your form to the front. However, if you speak in the morning during the general public comment, you're not allowed to speak again for the same topic during the agenda item. We allow three minutes. At the two-minute-and-45-second point, you're going to hear a tone. That doesn't mean to stop speaking. It just means that you have 15 seconds to sort of finalize your thoughts so we don't shut the microphone off on you mid-sentence. And with that, I have two for general, I believe, and if you're one of these other ones, let me know. But the first one is Megan Davis. Good morning and welcome. Good morning. Thank you for having me, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Megan Davis. I'm a quarter-of-a-century resident of Martin County, and what used to take me 10 minutes takes me 20 to 30 because traffic is so bad now, and I am not in the profession of traffic control or anything, but I do have some suggestions. I did send an email, but having never won a popularity contest in my life, I didn't get any responses. My concern is red lights and traffic circles. We have too many red lights that people are running, and you can actually watch them gunning for it, okay? We no longer have traffic lights. I'm sorry, traffic cameras, and I'm not sure why that is, but there's a really easy solution. I'm from one of those S-hole African countries. We have traffic circles everywhere. You cannot run a red light if there isn't one. They naturally slow people down. If there's an electricity outage, it doesn't impact a traffic circle at all. If there's a hurricane, it doesn't impact the traffic circle at all, and it is a natural traffic calming device. So I'm here to ask, please, that all these places where lights are going in, that we just stop, take a deep breath, and put in a traffic circle. And they can be humongous and really still do their job. So I'm here to please let me be on the road less time. My job is I drive, drive, drive. I actually had to hire a driver so that I can work while he drives. So that is my request today is that we do something about the horrendous traffic, and it is related to development. We're overdeveloping. We're developing way too fast. We're not taking care of traffic issues before we develop. I don't think we have enough firefighters. I know we don't have enough deputies out there. Can we, you know, put the cart before the horse? No, we don't want to do that. That's what we're doing now. We want to put the horse before the cart. Thank you for your time. Thank you, ma'am. Our next request to speak for him is Mr. Tom Pine. Mr. Pine, good morning. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I live in Jensen Beach, Florida. Once again, the consent agenda will be used to approve $26,262,828.39 in expenditures between October 10th and October 22nd, 2023, without identifying the purpose of the payments or the payees. At the last county commission meeting, the consent agenda was $1.2 million a day. This time around, it's a whopping $1.8 million a day. No wonder why our taxes are so high. So much of our governing is done behind closed doors. Sad. The budget meetings only a few weeks ago. The taxpayers that spoke were loud and clear. Stopped violating our comprehensive growth management plan. And they kept the county government out of businesses that aren't related to government operations, such as the three restaurants, the two mooring fields, the water park, the massive RV park. This is not how democracy works. Today, this county government will continue to ignore the wishes of the taxpayers in Martin County by amending the Christ Fellowship Church Plan Unit development along Pratt & Whitney Road and destroy more agricultural land for another rural lifestyle development off South Bridge Road. At the last county commission meeting, there was a presentation about safety on our roadways in Martin County. One of the more dangerous roads is Dixie Highway and the Golden Gate area. There was lots of back and forth between our county commissioners as to why. I spoke about this very area when the redesign and construction of the roadway was completed, and I pointed out the main problems of the redesign as I saw them, and today those problems have shown their deadly tale. First and foremost, the redesign is much prettier. That's always going to be front and center in Martin County because pretty are always outwinds over safety in Martin County. The biggest problem is no turn lanes. The old roadway had a center turn lane which accommodated all business and side streets and kept the turning vehicles out of traffic lanes, which is the number one thing to do for safety. I also questioned putting the crosswalks in the middle of the street instead of at the corner of the road, which has been the standard for decades. I remember grade school, cross at the corner and not in between. Jensen Beach Boulevard east of Savannah Road is getting close to being redone. Is the county going to make that road more dangerous too? What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bob Brown and John, are you waiting for the agenda item which will be? Thank you very much. Appreciate that. The last, before we take Commissioner comments, Dewey from our Stewart Air Show is here to give us some information and update on this weekend's exciting air show. Dewey, thanks for your patience. Good morning, Commissioners. I'll make this short and to the point. First of all, like I say, thank you for your time and continued support. We're about 48 hours away from aircraft arriving and 72 hours to our kickoff event Friday night for our 34th year of the Stewart Air Show. Everybody's question has been answered. The weather looks amazing this weekend, so you can go ahead and continue to buy your tickets. This show falls on Veterans Day weekend as we have for many years, and one of the biggest things that we would like to let everybody know is that Thursday morning, the Vietnam Traveling Exhibit Memorial Wall will be arriving on site. Martin County Sheriff's Department and Aviation and Traffic Unit veteran rider groups will be escorting that from Canada to Monterey at 930, arriving on site, and Martin County Fire and Rescue is also involved. So if you're out and about and interested to see it come by, it is open to the public all weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, to say thank you to our veterans and their sacrifices. This year's performance list is growing and decreasing at the same time. So we do have confirmed the F-16, the F-22, the U.S. Navy F-18, and for the first time, the C-17, the KC-135 refueling demo. Gates open on Friday at 4.30 with the National Anthem starting at 5, and air show will start roughly around 5.15. Saturday and Sunday, gates open at 9, National Anthem will start at 11.30, and we will start flying at 12. So everything is scheduled to end roughly around 5 this year. Tickets still on sale, and I will leave it open for questions. Thank you so much, Dewey. Questions? Thank you, and I hope to see you on the field. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good luck. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Smith. Two things. Just a – and this probably happens to all of us, and sometimes you never know exactly what's going to happen or what will be said, but a gentleman approached me last night in public, and it was late, and he wanted to share with me that he had a code enforcement issue that he was dealing with, and I thought for a split second that the question it was going to be, what can you do to fix it and make it go away? And quite to the contrary, he wanted to thank me for our staff and thank us for the process that we have that allowed him for a bunch of health issues and a bunch of reasons why he got into the code enforcement violation in the first place that happened over quite a few years. It was reduced significantly in the process with our magistrate, and he was just incredibly appreciative and thanked us as a commission, as a staff, for working through it with him and understanding his difficulties that he had to deal with. So just one of those nice things to hear from someone, and sometimes you get the look in public, and you're not really quite sure what's going to come from the look. So, but he was incredibly gracious and very sincere, and it was really nice to hear. Second thing, last week, and thank you, Commissioner Campy, for carving out some time. We laid two cornerstones with the Acacia Lodge of Stewart, the masons of our community. It's a great ceremony that is performed. We had masons from all over the state of Florida, their grand marshal, do the process. We did the island, and we did out on Britt Road our two new stations and laid our two cornerstones. And so thank you for everybody's participation and involvement. It's quite an event, and it's quite a storyline and quite a history that they have in doing cornerstones for our special buildings in our community. And with that, Mr. Chair, I will turn it back to you. Commissioner Hetherington. All set this morning. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. I do have a few things that I'm going to talk about at the end of the meeting, not to, with a room full of people, to slow things down. Okay. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, just a question. I was inquiring about the Martin Cares class. There are two that are scheduled for 2024. One is in January. One is in March. That's the Citizens Academy. It's very popular. It's extremely valuable. Those classes are both full. We should add another one. I would agree. That's three. How did we do that? You just did. Excellent. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. Is that how easy that is, Don? Nothing to it. Do you want a motion for that, or was that good enough? Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. I just have one. Along with the Veterans Day recognitions, the Palm City Chamber of Commerce this Saturday morning is having its annual 5K. It starts in Jock Layton Park at the corner of Martin Highway and MAP, diagonal from the Palm City Post Office. I believe it starts at 7 a.m., but you can check the Palm City Chamber website. They run over the Veterans Memorial Bridge and back. And if you participate in the run, there's a registration fee. But if you participate in the run, you get a free ticket to the air show, which basically eliminates the registration fee as a value. So, or if for nothing else, you can come and see me try to run that 5K over the bridge. Very easy in my car. We'll see what it's like. And when I say run it, I mean that in quotes. I'll be running that race. My kids dared me. You can't let your kids try to dare you out of something. So, if you see an ambulance on the bridge Saturday morning, that will be me. Can I? Yes, sir. Can I send my, because I didn't realize I had staff here to back me up, so I reminded you, sir. Huh? I would have reminded you. Okay. You've already yielded your time. Now, let me do this one item. The next item, I'll wait until the end of the day. But, so, as you know, for a very long time, I've been working on a potable water project in an underserved community in Hope Sound. I've gained a lot of traction with the help of newly elected Town Commissioner Marshall Fields, and we're really making some progress on it. So, what we've kind of concluded is the only way we're going to be able to fund this project is through an appropriation. We toured John Schneider out there. He's going to carry the torch for us, but I need to ask my fellow commissioners to add that to our list of requests. And do you want me to read this? No? Okay. That's pretty much it. It's a very small, in the relative of what we do on a grandiose scale. It's a very small project, but it's extremely needed. We just got the results of the health department well testing. There was only two wells that tested clean. You know, so it's been a long time coming. It's vitally needed, and I need a little help lobbying Tallahassee in the future. But does that kind of – did I cover it? I will allow it. Yeah. The recommendation is to authorize staff to submit a legislative appropriation for the Gomez Neighborhood Petway Area Potable Water Connections Project with an approximate cost of $2.13 million. That's your motion? That would be my motion for discussion. Thank you. Second for discussion. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Harold, thank you. So, to piggyback on that, I talked with our staff at the Association of Counties last week for some clarity. As part of our legislative program, we have language that we have included in there, and we have also included it with our Association of Counties staff, language that talks about additional grant flexibility relative to fiscally constrained neighborhoods. And so we have the word flexibility built into language at the Association of Counties, but we are also kind of beefing that up with some background language that will also add language that would probably assist you and Representative Snyder and our staff in going after some additional funds. There's a little strange dynamic with this particular project. It's served by South Martin Regional outside of their actual boundary, and it limits them and kind of makes it complicated for us. So that's kind of why we went through the appropriations direction under John's recommendation. Do you want to speak to this? Commissioner Hetherington. I think just that particular scenario just reminds me of a very recent scenario we had in Monterey subdivision in my district, which was served by City of Stewart Utilities. It was a fiscally constrained neighborhood. We were able to get that almost 100% funded, if I'm not mistaken. Right, Dawn? And by some of the DEP and SRF funds, and there were some particular programs that many neighborhoods would not have qualified for, but even down to the connection. So I – and that was an intricate process where we had to work with the City of Stewart. So I would just recommend, you know, some of those folks that had put that together, too, in addition, maybe as part of the solution. Appreciate it. We have a motion by Commissioner Jenkins, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else you don't want to discuss? No. Fantastic. With that – oh, I apologize. We've got lights. Commissioner Smith. Just to tag on to Commissioner Hurd's request and comment about CARES, for those in the audience that don't necessarily know what CARES is, it's our Citizens Academy. It's six weeks, right? Is that – Once a week. Once a week for six weeks. And you go through every department, every component of what the county does. And if you really want to understand the ins and outs and why, how, and what we do, I would encourage anybody in the room, if you haven't taken it, to sign up. Thank you to Commissioner Hurd for getting us a third one this year. I think we've done over 2,500, maybe 2,600 residents of Martin County over the last 20 years have gone through that program. It's really fantastic, and you'll really learn a lot about what we do if you want to take the time. And it's free. Mr. Donaldson. Yes, sir. Thank you. We have one other item regarding the museum for our New Monrovia one-room schoolhouse. There's a grant that's come available. The application is due before we could get an agenda item, so we're requesting that you authorize staff to submit a grant application for a Florida Black History Museum concept for the one-room schoolhouse. And so I'm making that request, along with Commissioner Hurd, to authorize staff to submit that grant application. So moved. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, as stated by Mr. Donaldson, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Thanks. Okay, a bit of housekeeping. I'm going to take agenda item public hearing number two first, a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of a comprehensive plan amendment, CPA 22-0295 Riverside, PUD Pulte, I-925, because there's a large contingent of the public here. I appreciate your patience for waiting through the beginning of our meeting. We're going to take this item now so you can hear it without using it more of your day than necessary. Good morning. I'm Daphne Schaub, senior planner, and I'm here to present the 95 Riverside PD, Pulte, I-95. This proposed amendment is on Southwest Lost River and has been a commercial PUD where there is some development already has taken place. The proposed flume amendment is to change 12.402 acres from general commercial to commercial office residential, allowing 10 units per acre. The north of the property is currently commercial office residential, and low density. There is also some marine waterfront commercial. South is the Southwest Lost River Road and General Commercial, and east is the Scanner Highway, General Commercial, and low-density residential, and to the west is General Commercial. The zoning atlas shows that the commercial office residential to the north, low-density residential, south is 95 Riverside PUD, and east is multifamily and general commercial, right in here, and then west is the 95 Riverside PUD commercial. The future land use designation that is proposed is allocated to accessible sites adjacent to major thoroughfares and serves as transitional use, separating more intense commercial uses from residential. Maximum density is 10 residential units per acre. Of course, the live local Florida statute would permit 15 units per acre. Maximum building height for the proposed is 30 feet. Minimum open space is 40%, as opposed to the current, which is 20%, and the maximum building coverage is 40%, as opposed to the existing 60%. Staff recommends approval. The proposed land use designation is allocated to accessible sites to major thoroughfares, serves as a transitional use, separating more intensive commercial uses from residential. Office and residential, office and residential development, may be allocated along the outer fringe of core commercial areas. It meets 13 out of 13 criteria that discourages urban sprawl, and meets 8 out of the 8 additional criteria that discourages the proliferation of urban sprawl. It already contains all the necessary infrastructure, such as water and sewer provisions, and is located well within the PUSD. It provides effective transition between the general commercial uses to the west and south, and the low and medium residential uses to the east and north. And that ends my presentation. Do you have any questions? Thank you, ma'am. Questions from the Commission for Staff? None at this time. Applicants, opportunity to present. Good morning. For the record, Bob Raines. I'm a land use attorney with the Gunster Law Firm, and I'm here this morning on behalf of the applicant. I would like to begin this morning by stating for the record that I have with me the proof of the notices to the surrounding property owners with respect to this land use amendment, and I'm turning those in to the clerk at this time. Thank you. Duly noted. Commissioners, we've received and reviewed the staff report, and pleased to state that we agree with the comments, the conclusions, and the recommendations in that staff report. In a moment, I'm going to have Todd Troxell come up, or Mike Houston, excuse me. Mike, I think, is going to come up, but one of the planners from HJA to come up and make a short presentation to just add a little bit more to Daphne's excellent presentation. But I think it's important to understand what we're asking for here, and Todd will show that a little bit, as did Daphne's presentation. We're asking for a less intense land use than what's currently there. So that's quite unusual, typically, in Martin County. So, you know, it'll be less intense from a development perspective, and it'll be less intense from a traffic perspective. So with that, let me ask Mike Houston to come up, give a short presentation, and we'll just close up with a couple of concluding remarks. Good morning. Good morning. Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Mike Houston with HJA Design Studio. So this is the first part of a discussion about a project and an infill project that we'll be talking about in just a few minutes. But before we begin with that, we've got to change the land use. So we've been in process working with staff for quite some time. This application is about a two-year process. And as staff has, I think, done a very good job of describing what the comp plan amendment is, this is a natural transition over to – from commercial general to core. And do you have the – that'd be great. On the bottom, Mike, lower right. Oh, there we go. Turned it into – Yep. No, go down the bottom. Sure, there we go. Good deal. Thank you. So here's the property. Any of you that have been in Martin County for a long time know this has sat vacant for 37 years. This project was approved as a PUD in 1987. It had a little sales center on it. It has a lake in the back. It has some vegetation that's scattered around. But mostly it's just vacant. And it is surrounded by three, four major commercial pieces that were part of the PUD originally. So one of the questions always on land use is, is it an appropriate transition? And is it an appropriate use to your neighbor? You can see here the core land use is consistent with the property to the north, which is also a townhome property. And then the existing general commercial are the existing commercial uses that are there today. A couple of key things about core is that it is a transitional use. When you read the definition of the comp plan, between more intense commercial areas and residential. And this certainly falls in as an appropriate transition. Have there been significant changes in the surrounding area over the last 37 years? Yes, there have. Looting construction of I-95, which probably was related somewhat to the development, the PUD. It's consistent with the compatible existing surrounding land use designations. And as staff walked you through the different policies, one of those policies deals with changes that have happened in the area. You need to be able to say affirmatively that one of these four items is true. And staff, and we believe the first two, past changes and land designations in general area, make the proposed use logical and consistent. And growth in the area in terms of development of vacant land, redevelopment availability of public services all through the character. This is a classic infill site. For 37 years it sat there, and we don't have many of these sites in the county. One of the ones that our client, Pulte, did down the street, which is in the seat of Stewart, was another example of a classic infill. And it's been very successful. So we meet two of those. Urban sprawl is one of the indicators that we talk about. This is inside the urban service area. It complies with all 13 sprawl criteria. It does not encourage sprawl. It discourages it. And then also the eight criteria that are related to that, and all of those are consistent as well. It's in the primary service boundary, permits infill development, opportunity for further diversification of housing options, which is an issue at Martin County. There's no doubt about that. We have housing challenges, and fee simple housing is not always available. The comp plan talks a lot about infill, talks a lot about using our public infrastructure. This is a perfect example of how that would be best used. And as you all know, the core uses typically have less impact on the environment. We'll talk about that in just a second. And then the level of service capacity for core land use designation is sufficient. So this is kind of a key chart, and it will be my last item, is commercial general, which is what it is today. Core is what we're proposing on the right. The minimum open space on commercial is 20%. The minimum open space on core is 40%. Maximum building coverage on commercial is 60%. Maximum building coverage on core is 40%. The maximum building height is 40%. And the maximum in core is 30%. So we're asking for less intensive land use designation, and I would think an appropriate land use designation. And we are happy to answer any questions, and we appreciate the work we've had with staff. And before we conclude, if I could just ask Ms. Schraub, would you mind putting up your last slide on your presentation, please? I just asked her to put this up. I think this is an excellent slide. I think this did a good job of summarizing the benefits of why this land use is appropriate and why it is a better land use designation for this piece of property. So I would ask you to accept staff's recommendation for the reasons outlined on this presentation right here on this slide. And with that, we'll be glad to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Questions from the commission for the applicant? Seeing none at this time. We'll take public comment now. I only have two. If there's any of you that would like to speak to what you've just heard, you can speak first and fill the form out afterwards. I see staff got a light. Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. I just want to make a point of clarification. There was some discussion about the Live Local Act. This is a PUD zoning agreement. It's an agreement between the applicant and the county. Whether Live Local applies is a gray area. So I just wanted to put that on the record to clarify. It's the county's position. That Live Local most likely will not apply. So I just wanted to clarify that for the record. Thank you. Okay. Our first request to speak for him is Mr. Bob Brown. Mr. Brown, good morning and welcome. How are you? For the record, Bob Brown. I live in Lost River Plantation. I am the vice president of the HOA. First off, I would like to discuss the staff recommendation. I was there on 10-19, okay? And the thing that bothers me and our residents is that it says here in this letter, which I did send you all an email with the same thing. It says here that O'Rourke Engineering Planning stated that the maximum PM peak hour impact is assumed to be 31 directional trips. Well, assumed by Webster's Dictionary means taken on or adopted, sometimes falsely, adopted as a basis of reasoning or expected. Well, if you did a traffic study, you only did PM, where's the AM, where's all day? And it does not say this in the finding of compliance by the recommendations of that committee that day. So the traffic division of the Public Works finds the application in compliance. You only did PM, but happened all day. I think that that's a major problem. The second thing is we, and I'd like to put this in the record. Thank you. We got the traffic crashes from Martin County Sheriff's Office. From September of 2021 to September of 22, there were 84 crashes at Lost River Road and Canter Highway. From September of 2022 to September of 23, there were 79 crashes, a two-year total of 163, which equates to one crash for every four days. Now, they say they're not going to put a lot of traffic on that road. Well, they need to go there at 5 o'clock in the afternoon when traffic's backed up all the way back on Canter Highway, both directions, and in the morning when you're trying to get out to get on Canter Highway to get to I-95. So I don't know where this traffic study is that just has a PM. We've never seen it, and I think it's an incomplete traffic study. And we would like to have you as a commission not approve this and leave it commercial the way it is. And I would also like to put in the record, which I did send you, two of these petition signatures. I sent you guys this email, and that could go in the record also. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next request to speak for Ms. John Kazanjan. Kaz. Kazanjan. Kazanjan. Kazanjan. Kazanjan. I call you Kazanjan. Mr. Vice Chair, Commissioners. John Kazanjan, President of the Lash River Association, HOA. You heard, Bob, I'm not going to be redundant about the traffic. Everybody knows about the traffic coming out of Lash River. It backs up. We have 250 residents back there. And when I moved there in 2010, it wasn't fully developed. The wife and I, a brief history of the wife and I, we lived down in Palm Beach County, moved up here in 2010. The reason why we moved down here, we lost our baby girl. She was 16 years old in a traffic crash in PGA National. So she wanted to move to Martin County. So she found, my wife found this little paradise called Lash River. And we settled in there. And we did our due diligence. We checked the zoning. And the zoning was residential in the back, up front was commercial. And it was going to stay like that, as far as we knew. So since then, now the project is trying to develop another hundred residents, townhomes, which anybody knows Lash River, there's only one way in and one way out. Now, I wasn't going to be here today because my wife is at home, in bed, dying of cancer. And I told her, I said, I'm not going. I'm going to stay with you. And she said, John, you have to do your duty, and whatever influence you have, you need to convince those commissioners that this is our quality of life. And we moved up here. And do not try and do whatever you can to not let this project become into Lash River. And so I'm asking you all, please, this is just going to create havoc for everybody in Lash River. Remember anybody leaving Martin County, going into 95. Don't forget, Keener Highway is the gateway into Martin County. You should see it in the morning now or at night trying to get off 95 because of that intersection. And if you're going to add another hundred residents, it's just going to be, listen, what's going to happen? They're going to develop it. They're going to be here for two years, and then they're going to leave. And they're going to leave us with all the problems, what comes with it. Because you know why? There's only one way in and one way out. Bob gave you the stats on the accidents. There have been fatalities there, all right? We don't need any more. And you all can control that. So I ask you, please do not accept staff's recommendations. This is one time. We do not need to be like Pine Beach County. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else looking to address us, now's the time. You can address us and fill the form out afterwards. Seeing none, we can come back to the applicant and staff. Yes, I'd like to make a few comments and have Ms. Rourke come up. You know, I thought the use of the word assume was interesting for a couple of reasons. One, I think they're assuming nothing's ever going to happen there, and something is going to happen there. And if it's commercial and if you're worried about traffic, then I think you should be more concerned about what traffic is going to be generated as a commercial use, which is much more intense and going to be throughout the day. Also, they assume that we didn't do a complete traffic study, which is incorrect. And I'll have Ms. Rourke come up and explain. There she is. She moved on me. And explain what the traffic study was and give a little bit more detail on that. Thank you, sir. Good morning. Susan O'Rourke, O'Rourke Engineering and Planning. For the record, I'm just going to do a brief traffic tutorial. We have to do a number of studies that are intended to address the subject at hand. This is a land use plan amendment. It looks at a worst-case scenario, and then we look at the actual site, which is what the gentleman had cited. Martin County requires that you take your worst-case impact, which is a directional impact. So whether it's the morning, the afternoon, whatever that number is, you have to take that number and plug it in to whatever other number that Martin County has come up with as the worst-case directional number. That's the methodology that the county uses. But all of the daily numbers, all of the AM numbers, they're all included in the analysis. Everything's been evaluated. We, on our own, evaluated the intersection itself for the AM and the PM peak hour. And as you may know, with signals, typically, the county and the state, they favor the main line. They're trying to get people on 76 to move more freely. So people on the side streets do experience a little delay, and it's delay by design. So there is a little bit of queuing in that area, but it clears each time the intersections will operate at acceptable levels of service. And so that's what our findings were, and that's what we presented, and that's why staff has made the recommendation that they did. Thank you. Questions for the traffic engineer? Did you want me to clarify as soon? No, I was just seeing if any of my colleagues had questions specifically. And my last comment, just to address Ms. Elder's comments. She and I rarely disagree, and I have the utmost respect for it, but I respectfully disagree. I believe that this is a potential site for Senate Bill 102, and I don't say that as a threat. I just – I didn't bring it up, but I did want to clarify. I mean, it's got a commercial – a general commercial land use designation on it. It's a PUD that's zoned for commercial, and I am somewhat familiar with, I think, one of the cases she may be citing, but I think there may be some distinctions. And, I mean, I'm not saying she's wrong, but I do think there's a possibility that this could be a Senate Bill 102 site if it's not something else. So I just maybe put my two cents worth in on that. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. And just for clarity, for those that may or may not know what you're talking about, what is that? Yeah, so Senate Bill 102 was put into effect by the legislature last year, which the legislature is trying to address the affordable housing issues. And one of the ways that they did it is they sort of preempted the county, you guys, on some of the items that you can do. In other words, you can do now an affordable housing project as long – or I should say an apartment project or a rental project as long as you do 40 percent affordable housing under the state guidelines for affordable housing without having to get the property re-zoned from either commercial or industrial. And so those – and on top of that, it doesn't even come before you, the board, for an approval. It's an administrative approval. And it also allows, as Ms. Schaub, I think, pointed out, you can go to the maximum density allowed in the county, which would be 15 units per acre, and you can go to the highest height that's within a mile of the property, which I think there's a four-story hotel just right down the street, and there's some other four-story buildings within that mile. So it's a really streamlined process. It doesn't require rezoning. It doesn't require board approval. And basically allows a maximum density as long as you're doing 40 percent. And I think our numbers – we kind of did a test on that. I think we came up with about 188 units. Potentially – could potentially be there. That's, you know, just back-in-the-envelope kind of numbers right now. So I don't want to – but I do believe that it could possibly be a Senate Bill 102. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes. I think the reason why the applicant and even our attorney's office and our staff are having this conversation – oops, sorry. It's not a tool that's used as a threat. It's more of a conversation that all of our residents need to understand what the legislature did last year, basically usurping our authority to have this kind of a hearing on a parcel that is commercial or industrial. And the conundrum it gives us as a commission – and I met with an applicant the other day on swapping some industrial around. The concern from everybody is when you start moving things around and you start opening or changing what exists, the conundrum we are in is that, just as Bob said, if an applicant chooses to go and use the Senate Bill or the state's new designation, which they have taken away our ability to govern on that issue, you may end up with something that you don't really want at all. And we have no say over it. Absolutely zero. You wouldn't be here today if the applicant said, you know what, we're scrapping this plan. And this isn't a threat. It's not meant to be that. It's just trying to make sure everybody understands the dynamics at which we have to deal. And it's almost like there's a little bit of chess going on. Do we make a decision that could be in the better interest of a community, or do we let it go somehow and see where the chips fall and you end up with something you don't want at all? And for me, at least, as one of five of us, I struggle with that. It's what the legislature has put us in this bind over. There is some discussion that there's going to be some adjustments made to it this year at the legislative session, which I would encourage all of you to engage in. But it is this constant overstepping, if you will, of the state of our ability to do things at the local level that are making it harder and harder to try to work with you as the community to make sure that we give you the best of what something can be. And I'm trying to be as fair in that conversation, and if there's more Bob or our growth management department wants to say about that, but it's not good, and the options for us are not good. And, at least, I wasn't part of the discussion that you and Bob were part of, but it's currently commercially zoned. It has a PUD zoning agreement, so there's commercial uses in the PUD zoning agreement, so it is unclear because the statute specifically says commercial or industrial zoning. This is PUD zoning, so me and Bob debate this all the time. I respect him, too, but we have differing opinions. And I think the point is it is a potential. I mean, you know, and look, it's a PUD right now. It could get rezoned to something else, too, and it's got a land use. Again, I think the key point is it's got a general commercial land use, which is important. But the point being, it is potential, and I heard some people snicker when you say don't use it as a threat. I'm telling you, I get calls on this at least two or three times a week. And the other comment I wanted to make, too, is I heard the one gentleman talk about, you know, developers are going to come up and leave and all that. You know, I'm a Martin County resident. I've been a Martin County resident here for 27, 28 years now. So, you know, I'm in town, and I'm bringing projects in I think exist. And the irony of it is it's my firm and my partner that did this whole 95 Riverside and did the River Glen projects and these projects that these people live in. We got those approved also. And we had some of the same discussions about what was going to happen during those hearings. And, you know, yeah, the people built their house up and left town, too, eventually. It's, you know, I've lived here for 20 years. It doesn't come to fruition. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, is there a live local application currently being considered by growth management in the area? Let our staff respond. Elise Elder, we've only had pre-applications, I believe, at this point, not an official application submitted. At the Golf World site? I think that was a pre-app. I don't think we have the application yet. All right. Also, is there an approved site plan on this site? Yes, there is. It's expired. And is it a general commercial application? Paul Schelling, Growth Management Director. Commissioner, there is an approval, I believe, for 100-plus thousand square foot of commercial uses on this site. However, the PUD zoning agreement timetable has expired, of course. But there is an approval for a commercial on this site. Commissioner Smith. The intent of the legislature was to approve and create a structure for affordable housing. That was the intent. And they went, in my opinion, way further than they should have gone. But the legislature's intent is to give way and to take away local government's ability to say no to affordable housing and to make it streamlined. I think this is my opinion. I'm not an attorney, and I've not had any attorneys advise me, and probably my attorney's going to say I should have advised you. But my sense is we go to court on this, we lose, because that was the intent of the legislature to force local government to do what they don't want to do, which is, again, I go back to the conundrum of this whole thing. Commissioner Hurd is right. What I have heard, we had an application or at least a conversation with another applicant in the general neighborhood last year. For a host of reasons, that project, under the sort of the understanding of Martin County, didn't move forward. Live local came along, and they pulled away from what they were proposing. And now they're proposing a live local, which is the Senate Bill 102, which is affordable housing, on that same property. So, you know, sometimes we just have to be very careful with what we think or we understand both the law to be but also what people will take advantage of. Okay. I'll jump in. I wasn't really contemplating the live local as much on this specific location as I was the existing, even though expired, approval, which I had the opportunity to take a look at. The site plan, although now expired, but it sort of laid out what it could potentially have been there. In our agenda item, I did notice something that said 150,000 or 148,000 square feet of commercial and a 10,000 square foot restaurant. So when I had heard originally about what this new possible use would be versus what could potentially be there, in my personal opinion, 98 apartments, 98 townhomes was less obtrusive, whatever word you'd want to use, from what is basically allowed to be there on 12 acres. To give some perspective, if it's 148,000 square feet of commercial, the Publix that they built in Palm City behind the Palm City post office is 27,000 square feet, the Publix. Multiply that by multiple stores. The location off a canner, which I get, you know, I've been to the Cracker Barrel, I've been to the McDonald's, the gas station, I have friends that live in. Your neighborhood's been back there. And I went driving through there recently again to get a different kind of a feel because all the times I've ever been there, I wasn't thinking about what if this was developed. But the last time I was there, I was. We're having these challenges, we as a board and we as a community, everywhere. I've been quoted several times, and I still stand by the quote, that every parcel of property that's vacant or underused, even if it's not vacant, is in play. As commissioners, as staff, you know, you heard our staff just mention a pre-application. That process means before someone even files an actual application where they start writing checks to have things reviewed, they just come up with ideas, and they can go to our staff and say, what do you think about this, pre-application? I have people, and I'm assuming my colleagues feel the same way, reach out to me everywhere. My wife and I had inherited a piece of property from his grandparents. It's five acres in Palm City. We're thinking about doing something with it. We're thinking about this. And, of course, when they come to you, everything is a great idea. Everything is needed. We either need the housing, we need the retail, we need the office space, we need the hotels, we need especially, which makes my mind crazy, we need storage facilities, we need car washes, we need assisted living facilities. That's all I hear. And it's a great idea, and ours will be different than everybody else's. So I am, you know, of course, understand, and more so lately than ever before, the idea of trying to leave what is there alone. But, I mean, that's not how it works. People have property rights. People have either been paying taxes on property for a long time, vacant, or not. So for me, as one of your representatives, it's what could end up going there. The live local thing puts a whole new spin on it. And then deciding, and, you know, and I think, you know, look, you're getting a front row class lesson on live local. Most people, I'm sure, if I asked you to raise your hands, most people have no idea what live local is. It passed and became law in July. And Commissioner Smith is not wrong. The intention out of Tallahassee was to really ram this concept down every county's throat. Now, we had a press conference right here, right in front of this podium, when we first heard that this bill was even being considered in Tallahassee at the beginning of this year. Several of us were there. And then within a couple of days, word came down from Tallahassee that I should keep my mouth shut. And it was pre-legislative session, and the first day of the legislature, the Senate passed it on the first day unanimously. Now, think, all of the Republicans and all of the Democrats in the Senate voted for it. When does that happen? So this is something, and then, of course, it passed through on the House, and the governor signed it, and it became law. And what you heard is that if someone has a piece of property in a certain zoning category, they can build much, much more than we would ever allow. It's like a one-size-fits-all approach to solving a housing issue in Florida. Well, what works in Jacksonville and Tampa and Miami and West Palm or Point St. Lucie doesn't work here. But we don't have that choice anymore. And then so you're figuring, well, all right, well, we'll just speak to our commissioners. We'll show up at a meeting like we are today, and we will lobby to not allow that to happen. Well, the problem is, is there won't be any meeting. The way the law is now in place is there's no meeting. There's no LPA meeting for you to go to like some of you did. There's no commission meeting for you to go to. It's just handled at the staff level. So now one of the most powerful decision-makers in Martin County is sitting right there, and you don't even know who he is. And you didn't get a chance, and he likes it that way. And you did not get a chance to vote for him. You did not get a chance to hear him or her say to you, this is what our vision is of Martin County. This is what we think it should be. And all of a sudden, that's how it's going to be. So, I mean, I would tell you, and I haven't been at this a super long time, but long enough to realize it's probably the most influential and catastrophic, potentially catastrophic, decisions to come out of Tallahassee for Martin County. So I don't want to get into if our legal representative is correct or if their legal representative is correct, because when it gets dished out in court, it's very expensive. And Commissioner Smith is right. If we gamble today and say we're not going to do it, two things will happen. I think I was talking to a colleague of mine, not a commissioner, a county employee, that said basically there's three options on the table today for you, for you, because we represent you. And you represent, I'm assuming, everybody else in your community. Most people leave it alone or build something most people like leave it alone. However, the only way you can officially leave it alone, and I don't think it'll be financially an option for you all as an HOA. I was my HOA president for eight years, is to buy it. I have some very recent experience in that in Palm City. And that's got a lot of issues and strings attached to trying to pull that off as well. So the three options are stick with general commercial, which if you saw that little spreadsheet and maybe it went by twice, the applicant had a presentation and we had a presentation, that's really consequential. Thirty feet versus forty feet is a big difference. Forty percent. Can you go to that slide again so I'm not just trying to guess? That one. There was the other one that showed that. No, on the bottom here, the last three on the bottom. Building height, forty versus thirty. That's a big difference. In terms of hotels or office buildings or townhomes or whatever, that's a third, that's an extra floor. That's something that you can see from everywhere versus if it's a little low. It's above the tree line for the most part. Twenty percent open space versus forty percent open space. That means how much of the property can they cover up with parking lots and buildings? That's double. And then finally, maximum building coverage, sixty versus forty. That's a pretty big difference. So if you left it alone and we did nothing today, they could probably come back with some version of that. Could be a full-blown shopping center right across from the gas station or the townhomes. Or we say no and we just let it fly and we just gamble that Ms. Elder and our legal department is correct or the staff is correct. However, you'll end up with twice the project. Yeah, well, we're representing everyone in the county. It gets a little more complicated than that. I understand. Please, we do not do a back and forth. I completely understand why you're here. We get it. So this becomes the challenge then, you know. And also the other problem, and I'll leave it at this, is I don't know. I know that the applicant had reached out to the neighborhood a couple of times, spoke to you, some of you either individually or officially a couple of times, some good and some not as good, or you didn't want to meet. However, with that in mind, when I get an opportunity to see, this portion forces us to just make a decision exclusively on the merits of the words and the presentation that you just saw. We're not supposed to and can't make a determination on what could potentially happen there, what it would look like, what benefits you would have as existing residents versus what could happen there. We can't even put up as an example what the expired plan used to look like. I saw it. It's a lot. It's a lot. And so to me, my final comment is this. Even before anything is built, all of you have spoken about multitude of accidents, which we just had a presentation last meeting, is happening everywhere. Fifty-one fatalities last year in Martin County. And we know why. You know, some of you are experts. We know why. People go through the woman that came earlier and said, how about a roundabout versus a red light? I, you know, you've been at the red light. You've stopped at a red light as it's turning red, and you see the guy next to you or the woman next to you. They have no intention of stopping. And what my wife is probably tired of seeing me do, I go like this, red, red, red, red, and the cars just race right through the intersection. I know who Breonna Cooper is. I know lots we can name off 100 people that have been killed here. So for me, the issue is bigger than what we're going to decide today. Canter Highway and Lost River is a big intersection. Even if you're coming over from Hal Patiochi and coming the other way, I've done that a million times with the kids at the park. It's a very difficult intersection. It's a state road, so we don't have as much, and I see our traffic guy is here. Thank you. We don't have as much influence to push around and handle that road. Commissioner Hetherington at South River, is that what it's called? South River, further up Canter, closer to the fire station, their residents fill this entire room just for a light. Heritage Ridge, Whispering Sound, Danforth, and all of us have the same thing. That's the real issue for today, is if you can't get out of your neighborhood to make the right to get onto the on-ramp, to get onto 95, then we need to reconfigure that. We need to have you come back and bring FDOT probably to the MPO, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, because if nothing happens, you still have an issue that needs to be addressed. Some of what could happen if a project were to proceed, which is when the woman said this morning that we're putting the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse, well, any changes to that intersection are going to be unbelievably expensive. And I think that it would not be a bad idea that whoever is the ending use of that 12 acres participates in what that redesign of that intersection has to look like. And I think they would. Most of the time we can extract some of those kind of things. But we need to address your intersection no matter what. You heard the traffic engineers say that they, and I've heard this before on Martin Highway, they want you to wait on the side streets so that the main drag can go flowing much easier and quicker. But they're still, you know, in terms of extending the left turn lanes, the right turn lanes, the on ramps, the deceleration lanes, we can work on that as well. Everybody's light is on. We'll start left to right to left. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I think that this proposed land use provides for more compatible and less intense development than the existing land use does. So I'm going to recommend staff's recommendation. Okay. Commissioner Hetherington. I suppose I have a different perspective then because, first of all, we're talking a lot about live local, which is not part of this necessarily discussion, although it is the elephant in the room in every conversation now. So I do believe that, you know, we could, the county, if necessarily, could defend a commercial PED against a live local. But my concern is that if we continue to take commercial off and put residential on every piece of commercial, then where are we going to put commercial when we need it? I mean, there's only so many. And I get it. It doesn't jive with some of your comments, though, because you're concerned, the residents are concerned about traffic and the intersection. And, you know, I do fear that the commercial development may not suit some of your desires to have less traffic. But I do believe that there are planning mechanisms in place and commercial. And I spoke with applicants, and I think that they, you know, we're not talking about the project right now, but they have a very, you know, nice plan for that. But, again, every time we take off commercial property and we put residential on, those residents have to transverse down Cantor Highway, up Salerno or Cove or wherever they go to shop, eat, go to work. And I feel like if their retail, their offices, and I don't believe any of the residences here would like any of that if that was proposed either. But, oh, sorry. But, and again, I shared this with the applicant. I just feel like we can't continue in Martin County to take our commercial and put residential on every piece. So, while I rather like the proposed project, again, that we're not talking about right now, and I don't like the mechanism of continuing to take off commercial and put residential on it. Okay. Commissioner Smith. So some of Commissioner Campi's comments. Canner, some years ago, probably 10, 12 years ago, we did a joint developers agreement with, I think, six or seven developers along Cantor Highway to do some improvements to I-95 and Cantor that weren't yet in FDOT's long-range plan. And a lot of those improvements got done. There's the expansion of 95 that's going to happen at some point through Martin County that will affect that interchange. Ed's right. But I think also something else we have to understand that the legislature also stepped in some years ago and took away concurrency from us and took away our ability to get the horse before the cart and put the cart before the horse in an effort just to speed things up. And all these things pile up on top of us in the midst of making decisions that, to you, the public, it doesn't look right and it doesn't make an awful lot of sense. To us, there's, in many cases, in the application of the law, there are a lot of things we have no say over in terms of what has happened because the legislature has stepped in for us, which is a big concern in the direction that it has been going for the last 10 or 12 years because every session there is a chipping away of our authority to make decisions and have say over what occurs out there. I would add this, too. And the debate and discussion is interesting because in most cases over all the years I've been doing this, if this were in the reverse and an applicant was coming in for their 100,000-plus square foot of commercial, in almost every case of every project we've ever seen come before us, there's opposition to the commercial because they don't want it and they'd rather see it be residential. You know, it just, so I guess it depends what the application of the use is. And we have said in multiple cases through the years that, you know, you kind of wish that all the commercial, if there were to be commercial, had got built first and then the residential would follow because once the residential gets in and is built, as in your case, they don't want the commercial or they don't now want the residential to be built on that last piece of property. So it just makes it a really hard discussion for us, but the legislature has absolutely complicated it, and I am very concerned. And for those of you who said take the risk, taking a risk for me on your behalf, in every case that decisions were made up here that whether I was in the majority or I wasn't, the risks we took and lost, the outcome was worse because ultimately the court saw it differently and gave the advantage to the project and not us. And I can cite probably two or three that happened over the last 15-plus years that cost us a fortune going through the litigation and we lost and we got more density or we got more improvements that we didn't ask for in the first place. And I know that's hard for everybody to swallow and everybody to understand, but this also isn't the end of this process if this land use designation moves forward today. There is a further on process that will happen where the details of what can happen and what can't happen. So in this conversation it gets lost because we can't use that as the decision-making, but they are the follow-on conversations where you get to the details. There's a motion on the floor. Second. Okay. Anything else from staff? No, sir. We have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Hurd for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hetherington dissenting. Now what I would ask all of you to do is our immediate next agenda item is basically the project. Please stay and hear what the project is because you have a lot of opportunity to participate in what the look and pull of this is, if you prefer. We do need to take a 10-minute closed captioning break and we'll be back at 11 o'clock. Mid-morning break, we are going to continue with our November 7th, 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. We just took out of sequence public hearing number two, so to finalize that, we're going to take public hearing quasi-judicial number one, request for approval of the Ninth Amendment to the 95 Riverside Plan Unit Development PUD zoning agreement, including Revised Master Phasing Plan and Phase 4 Final Site Plan N027-013. It'll be presented by Ms. Elizabeth Noggle, and since it's quasi-judicial, let me ask my colleagues, do you have any ex parte communications, Commissioner Smith? I do. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington? I do, and they've been filed. Thank you very much. Commissioner Jenkins? I do, they've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Hurd? I do, and they've been filed. I also have some, and they've been filed. Anyone that will be offering any testimony, would you please stand to be sworn in? Raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Return receipts that need to be submitted. Mr. Raines, return receipts. Good morning for the record. Once again, Bob Raines here on behalf of the applicant. Our proof of notices were turned in at the LPA for this meeting. Thank you very much. I'd like for the record to reflect so. Is there anyone intervening? No interveners. Ms. Noggle, do you have a copy of your work history and a copy of the agenda item? I do. I also have the applicant's resume as an additional exhibit. Okay. Let the record state that that's been submitted, and with that, Ms. Noggle, you are recognized. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. Elizabeth Noggle, Development Review Administrator. We are here to talk about the 95 Riverside PUD. This is a request for the Ninth Amendment to the PUD, including a revised master phasing plan for 95 Riverside PUD and a Phase 4 final site plan to construct 98 fee-simple townhomes. The overall PUD is located northwest of 95 and Canter Highway Interchange, shown on the left. The right image is Phase 4, which is located at 7439 Lost River Road. The zoning is PUD, and the future land use is now commercial office residential. A little site history, the 95 Riverside PUD was originally approved in 1987 for approximately 201,000 square feet of office, retail, gas station, and hotel use. A portion of southwest Lost River Road was also constructed to Canter Highway, and the PUD has McDonald's, Cracker Barrel, restaurant, gas station, and hotel, which were all constructed in Phases 1 through 3. The latest approval for the subject site was Phase 4 through 6 for approximately 148,900 square feet of office use and 10,000 square feet of restaurant use. The proposal before you is to combine Phases 4 to 6 into one Phase 4 to construct 98 townhome dwellings. The existing vacant welcome center, which was constructed in Phase 1, would be demolished as part of this project. The existing wet detention pond would remain with slight modifications and improvements, and the site would use the existing access point off of southwest Lost River Road, which was always intended for these phases, and it has been partially constructed in a previous phase. There is an existing preserve on site, which is amended to include current language. There's no size modification proposed. This is the overall master plan. I've labeled 95 in Canter Highway to orient ourselves, and McDonald's in the Chevron, the Cracker Barrel, and the Marriott Hotel, and in the darker shading is the Phase 4 final site plan. And this is a closer image of the 98 townhomes. Staff has worked with the applicant over the course of the application on public benefits, and the applicant will go into more detail, but I'll briefly describe. The public benefits proposed before you include a $30,000 donation to the fire department, $85,000 donation to public works towards the milling and resurfacing of Lost River Road, and the replanting of three landscape medians within the road with native plant material. Pedestrian light poles are also proposed along the Phase 4 property frontage. In 2003, there was a right-of-way abandonment that was approved by the board for where the terminus of Lost River Road is that connected to St. Lucie River. As part of that abandonment, the developer had to provide alternative access to the waterway, and they gave an exchange parcel, which is highlighted here in red, which is just east of the property, so just oriented right north of Cantor Highway, along the St. Lucie River, and that's highlighted here in red. So as part of the public benefits, this project, the applicants proposing exotic removal and maintenance and perpetuity of the county parcel. As part of that right-of-way abandonment, there was a vehicular access easement granted to include two parking spaces that exist on site today adjacent to the now vacant Welcome Center. That easement remains, and as part of this proposal, there will be still public access and public parking spaces. And to expand on that, the applicant is proposing a lakeside pavilion with some environmental educational signage, nesting poles and benches along a public path that leads from those parking spaces to the county parcel and around the lake. And the applicant has some other images to show you for that. And with that, the development review staff has reviewed the application and finds it in compliance with all applicable regulations, and the comprehensive growth management plan is detailed in the attached staff report and recommends approval. A public hearing was held before the local planning agency on October 9th, 2023. The LPA recommended approval 330, with the suggested condition that the vehicular access public area include a sign stating the area is open for public use. Recommended action is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and all attachments, including the staff report, as Exhibit 1. Move that the board approve the 9th Amendment to the 95 Riverside PUD zoning agreement, including a revised master phasing plan and an amended PAMP. And move that the board adopt a resolution approving the Phase 4 final site plan for 95 Riverside PUD project. Thank you. Ms. Nogel, thank you very much. Questions for staff from the commission? Seeing none, applicants, opportunity. Good morning, commissioners. Once again, for the record, Bob Rains with the Gunster Law Firm here on behalf of the applicant. Second, again, we have received the staff report, and we agree with the comments and the conclusions and the recommendations in that staff report. We have our development team here today that will be glad to answer any questions, but I am going to ask Mr. Troxell and Mr. Houston to come up and just give a brief presentation regarding this project. And then, as I said, we have our other development team members here, traffic, engineering, if you have any questions, and environmental also, if you have any questions for them. So at this point, let me ask Mike and Todd to come up. We'll just do this quickly. Sure. And let's do Mr. Houston first. You've been sworn in, Mr. Houston. I have. And can you give a brief description, sir, of your background, your education, and your professional experience? Sure. I'm a registered landscape architect and certified planner. I've been practicing for over 40 years, most of that time in Martin County, but all over different parts of the world. Okay. And can you just identify the paper that I'm handing you, sir? This is my resume. Okay. And is that complete and accurate? It is. And that, just like for the record to reflect that that was part of the package that Ms. Noggle turned in for us just a moment ago. And, Mr. Troxell, could you come up for a second, sir? Have you been sworn in? Yes, I have. And can you give us a quick educational background and your resume, sir? Sure. I graduated from West Virginia University, and I've been working with Michael Houston for 15 years now as a landscape architect and planner. Well, you went to West Virginia, sir. You're obviously very intelligent and a professional and an expert. So I think that speaks for itself, qualification-wise. Why would that be, Mr. Rasmussen? Almost heaven. There's a couple of us in here, actually, that did that. So can you describe the paper, sir? Am I showing you? Yes, this is my resume. Okay. And that's complete and accurate? That's correct. And I also would like for the record to reflect that that was part of the package that Ms. Noggle turned in for us. Gentlemen? Very good. Good morning with the mouse. Can you board? The mouse would be great. Thank you. So, again, thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Michael Houston with HGA Design Studio, LSU graduate. We come to you today, and the presentations are going to be brief. The project took two years to design. The application was submitted in May of 2022, 18 months till today. And what happens during that process is challenging because development today, particularly as a PUD, requires public benefits. It requires you to address issues in the community. And working with staff and our team, what we have today for you is a project that we think does that, and we're proud of it. Todd will be talking about the details, and I'm just going to give you kind of a quick overview. So we've already talked about the property. You know, one of the things that's unique about this is for 37 years it's remained commercial. It's on a secondary access road, but it was always, Lost River Road was always intended to handle the traffic for this property, which is the most significant part of the PUD. One of the other things I just wanted to mention to you as well is that the site plan that Todd will talk about, you can see River Glen in the north side of this, in the upper part of it. This is almost like an extension of that project. When you look at their layout, and Liz's presentation showed it at the plat, it's very consistent with what we're proposing on this project. The overall site was almost 25 acres. It's been there a long time for the commercial uses for all of us that have been here a long time. Base 1 and 3B, as Liz had said, was developed. Chevron gas station, McDonald's, the Cracker Barrel, and the Marriott Hotel. I'm not a great fan of how the Chevron looks, and one of the things we do when we come into a project is try to make things look better, function better. And I think what we're going to show you is going to help do that. To the north, 30-foot buffer yard. This property is not part of this project, but it was part of the overall PUD, and so Pulte has agreed to clear out what has been 30 or 37 years of neglect. Pretty much everything in there is exotics, because it is a swale. It is taking water over towards the river, and that will be part of the beginning of one of the benefits of the project. River Glen community is two-story townhomes. It's a nice community. To the east is the South Fork of the St. Lucie River, which is unique to actually have an opportunity to be on this very neat part of the river. The county has a .33-acre riverfront parcel there that our improvements will help access. There are two existing access points onto the site, and the site contains the existing lake that was dug near the sales center, the existing office, which was part of the Phase 1 development. So here is the approved plan. We talked about it earlier on the land use amendment. You can see there is a lot of parking, a lot of buildings, and when you add in the coloring, you can begin to see that almost three-quarters of these buildings are three stories. They are offices and restaurants, and that when we look at the parking, there's 650 required parking spaces. That's a lot of paving. That's what was approved and was designed for this roadway. Generates 1,878 daily trips, and Susan will talk about that, but we also have that in our presentation. All right. This is our proposed revised master plan, which includes 98 single-family townhome units for a gross density of 7.9 dwelling units per acre. We're providing a total of 56% open space. All townhome buildings are two-story and include garages and driveways for parking. The proposed use building height and number of units is compatible with the existing River Glen community to the north. Our proposed development generates 696 daily trips, which is a 63% reduction in daily trips from the current approved master plan. We're providing two biodetention ponds fully planted with native vegetation. We're proposing a half-acre lake as well as a quarter-acre expansion to the existing lake. Both lakes will include transitional and littoral plantings. We are providing 22 additional on-street parking spaces, as well as providing bike racks dispersed throughout the community, providing a pool area, picnic area, along a lake trail with benches. As Michael mentioned, we are proposing to remove exotics from the existing Phase 3B landscape buffer and replace those exotics with native vegetation. We're providing additional trees, as well as preserving 45 existing native trees on site, which include the mature live oaks adjacent to the Lost River Road. As part of a previous approved condition established in Resolution 3813, we are providing two public parking spaces, which this has been talked about, along with a six-foot sidewall connection to the Martin County Riverfront parcel. We saw this as an opportunity to expand on the potential amenities which could be available in this area and utilized by the public. We're providing a lakeside pavilion with two picnic tables, bike rack and environmental signage, a four-foot trail with benches along the backside of the lake, two Osprey nesting poles, and that's an example of one, as well as providing bollard lighting along the entire sidewalk and lake trail. Talk a little bit about our public benefits. The lake area amenities available to the public. I just reviewed that with you in the previous slide. Landscape and lighting improvements to southwest Lost River Road. You know, currently the medians along this road are bare. You know, lighting's an issue, especially on the north side of the roadway along the existing sidewalk. So the first thing we're doing is we're proposing landscaping, installation, and continued maintenance of all three existing medians. We're providing ten pedestrian light poles adjacent to the existing north side sidewalk. And then we thought this would be a really cool idea to provide landscape lighting to uplight the existing mature oaks along this roadway. Essentially, we see this part of the road as a gateway, and, you know, we believe that these items that we're proposing essentially will help beautify and also add safety to the roadway. Exotic removal and continued maintenance of the Martin County Riverfront parcel. The $30,000 donation to the fire department, which could be utilized for traffic preemption or other life-saving options. And $85,000 donation to Martin County Public Works, which should be used towards the milling and resurfacing on Lost River Road. We did, we had an open house meeting, which was held on October 5th at Christ Fellowship Church. The meeting was from 5 to 7 p.m. and was held to discuss the details of the project with the surrounding community. An invite letter was mailed out to all property owners within 1,000 feet of the site. Just lastly, I'd like to just say, you know, I'm very proud to be part of this project. And as Michael said, our team's been working on it for over two years now. And I'd also like to thank staff. All their input during the review process has really helped make this a better project. So thank you. Thank you very much. Just a couple of quick questions from Mr. Houston, real quick. Mr. Houston, again, you've been sworn in. Michael Houston, for the record. And you can, can you stay for the record, sir, that you're familiar with the rules and the regulations of the Martin County Land Development Code and the policies of the Comprehensive Plan? Yes, I am. And in your professional opinion, does this project meet those requirements? Yes, it does. Thank you. That concludes our presentation. Again, we have our other professionals here if you have any other questions. But we're not going to call anybody else at this time. One second. Yes, sir. Commissioner Smith. Mike, can you come up just a second? When I had the opportunity to review the project with your staff and the applicant, it's a little detail, but it's one that I'm just curious about. So the six-foot sidewalk that accesses the public parcel and the four-foot trail, was there a reason why it was limited to six and four? Six because of the parking being adjacent to it and four because it's more of a natural trail. Can we go to, can we go to the site plan that shows that? There. Yeah. And so from someone who uses sidewalks and when people act, I would just, I would prefer it to be a little bit bigger. I think if you have three people, if there's two people walking together and you're passing someone on a sidewalk, then somebody has to step off the sidewalk. If it's really intended to be, you know, there's two parking spots. One's handicapped. One is not. So really it's for the neighborhood. And my suggestion would be for the community's benefit that you make that bigger and you make the four-foot trail. And I understand the natural part, Mike, of the trail. But if people, if we actually want them to use it, I think it would be better if it were a little bit wider and a little bit more defined. That's just my opinion. And then the other question I had on the lighting on Lost River Road, you have it on the north side? We do. Is there anything on the south side existing? There is. It's part of the gas station in McDonald's. Does that show on the site plan? It does not show on the site plan, but that's why I was mentioning. Todd, can you, Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd. Sorry. I can't. Sorry. That's why I was mentioning that the north side in particular is extremely dark at night. And that's the only side that has an existing sidewalk. Okay. So the north component will have the uplighting on the oak trees and it will have the overhead lighting. Is that right? No. Pedestrian light poles. Oh, okay. On which? I'm sorry. I lost that. Yeah. Along the north sidewalk of Lost River Road, there's going to be ten pedestrian light poles. And then we're going to be uplighting the existing oak trees along that as well. Okay. And then the median, does that get uplighting or no? No, it does not. Okay. And then three medians are, you can't see the third one, but it's the first one coming to the interchange, the next one. Yeah. Let me get to that quick. So it's those three. That's correct. Yep. The first one at the intersection, second one past our project entrance, and then the third one is past the Cracker Barrel entrance. And the dotted line that frames the north side of the Chevron is, what's that? You mean like? That island, that whole, yeah. Yeah. That's just dry retention right there, and then this is just the edge of their landscape strip. Okay, but that's not part of this site plan at all? No, no. And neither is the one further to the west? That's correct. It's part of the overall PED, but not part of this 12.4 acre site. Okay. And last question. There was some discussion, a lot of discussion this morning previous to this. The access, or I guess the leaving of Lost River Road onto Kanner. Do we know with our engineering department, are there further improvements to Kanner that FDOT will be making when they do the expansion of 95 that will impact or improve the access? We'll start with our person. State your name for the record, please. Luke Lamer, Traffic Engineering Administrator for Public Works. Were you sworn in? Yes. Thank you. So the Department of Transportation has their I-95 master plan that they're currently undergoing, and we actually just had a meeting with them. We are giving them some data to help their planning study. So at this current moment, I do not know if there are any improvements planned for Kanner. The I-95 master plan, we'll look at that. That's when those recommendations will be made. Okay. So how do we as a board direct either you, because this really isn't an applicant issue. It's much more of our dealing with FDOT. How do we make sure that there will be improvements relative to the access or the, what's the other word of access, egress, from Kanner out on, or from Lost River out onto Kanner? So as part of this development application, the applicant submits a traffic impact analysis, and this is the analysis that goes into more detail than the application you heard prior. So this one there is more detail shown. They do intersection analyses. They do concurrency analysis. And technically, so for egress, there is a dedicated left turn lane and then a shared through right turn lane. Or sorry, actually this graphic is incorrect. The left turn lane is a shared through. So when vehicles, basically when an intersection handles 100 vehicles turning left, that's when you have a dedicated turn lane. So the intersection currently has adequate capacity for the current use and the proposed uses. But we can look at this further for signal timing enhancements or any TSMNO enhancements in the area. So I don't know how old the image is, but I just went through the other day, and I thought, see, what you're saying is the exit left, there's a, can you put that up? There's a dedicated left and a dedicated right? Dedicated left and there's a shared through right. Sorry. Oh, the doc now? I don't know how that works, sorry. I got you. Okay. So that's a current image taken this morning of the intersection. Okay. And do we know that there are improvements that FDOT can make or we will make with FDOT that will improve the exiting for them? I'll just jump in. So they do look at, FDOT will look at Susan O'Rourke, for the record. What I would recommend is at this point that when we go through the process, the DOT will look at all of the intersections, and they have been looking at them for years. But sometimes what they're looking at is different than what we're looking at. And they're looking at their entire stretch of roadway, and they're looking at all the interchanges. So the more information that we can give them to help them in the process, the better it will be. This is a situation where you could have left turn phasing, a fairly simple fix at that intersection because there's a left turn lane on both of the minor approaches. So that is something that could be implemented. Staff could run it. Your staff could look at the signal timing. You don't have to wait for the DOT to do that. There are some things that you can recommend that you guys can look at and be ready when the DOT comes through with the funding to go ahead and implement it. And, Susan, is there anything else relative to physical capacity? Are there two lanes coming out to the right that would improve exiting towards 95? The whole thing with the interchange, and we were part of that agreement, we put together those people who paid for the improvements. And there's a lot of different things that can be looked at. And I think it's a timing issue right now that where you exit to the ramp to go northbound or you exit to go southbound, all of that's pretty close together and affects the timing at the intersection of Lost River. But overall, Lost River functions pretty well. And it's operating at level of service C, and I know nobody wants to hear that, but the approaches are timed to be level of service E and F, which is why they're experiencing that, because it's designed that way. But overall, the system is functioning fairly well, and the issue with the accidents, I think, is being looked at because that is a very high number. Well, and one of the things that seems to complicate that, and we knew that with that bike lane that's in there under 95, but people will be in the second lane from the right, and they know that there's a pausing that goes on, whether there's trucks or something taking the right lane. And so people race past in the middle lane to get to 95 going southbound, and you have that confluence of the bike lane there, and you have the right-hand turn lane either going north or going southbound, and something has to get fixed there. And then you throw this in, and is there something that needs to get – that's why I keep asking the question. So my only point of this is that, Luke, I'm glad that you said that we're already looking at it, but something out of this has to address it more formally with FDOT, that the improvements that we can make today need to get made, but that the long-term improvements with the expansion of that intersection need absolutely be considered, and we need to – I think the residents need to be able to see that and understand how that's going to benefit them, if that makes sense. Mr. Chairman, I'd just like for the record to reflect that Ms. O'Rourke's resume was one of those two that was turned in. She was also sworn in, right? Yes. Also sworn in, correct. Sworn in, sworn in. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's just fine. No, I appreciate it. I think – you know, I know the residents from the last agenda item left frustrated, but if they can benefit at all from their participation today, I wish they would have stayed to see some of the positive advantages that the project will offer them. Hopefully we can – they'll watch it during a previous – future viewing of this meeting, because these were the things that although we don't necessarily take them into consideration when we're making those specific changes by law, it is obviously as human beings calculated into what was being presented. And so for us as commissioners, we had the opportunity to see some of these. You know, the entranceway – well, for people that are not familiar, you come off of Kanner, you make the right or the left into Lost River Road, and then you go past a gas station, and then the McDonald's on the left, and then you loop around for the Cracker Barrel and the hotel before they enter their residential communities. I believe – so basically the intersection and immediately as you get on to Lost River is the entrance of their neighborhood, de facto, is their entrance. And all the things that are being presented on behalf of this project will obviously aesthetically benefit them. And I just wish they would have had an opportunity to hear that versus 150,000 square feet of commercial space that could have been three-story office buildings and a 10,000-square-foot restaurant, I don't think would have, in my personal opinion, lent any kind of a upscale feel for what they already have. This is – and obviously I voted this way – is a better opportunity and situation for them. So that being said, it's a public hearing. Anyone from the public looking to address us on this? Seeing none. Commissioner Smith. Yeah. I don't know if that's in response to my question. Yeah. We're fine with the six-foot. We would just like it not to be concrete, just be a natural shell. That's fine, Mike. I just – I think it makes it a better experience for people. It's going to be a great space back there. Absolutely. Okay. Any other comments from our staff? Any other comments from the applicants, representatives, or the applicant? Back to the board. Commissioner Smith. I would move approval of the PUD, the changes to the PUD, the agreement relative to the sidewalk conditions in the depiction that we see before us, and also the notation, both for the public but also for our staff, that we follow up with FDOT to maximize the improvements to the intersection between Lost River Road and Canter, to make it as safe as possible, and to give our staff direction that whatever changes can be made ahead of schedule can be made, that aren't within necessarily FDOT's purview, if there are timing issues on the signalization, but also that we work with FDOT to address whatever safety concerns we can. Well said. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington has her light on. I was going to say, like I mentioned in the previous hearing, I do believe that we have to make a concerted effort to maintain some commercial space. But with that being said, I think this is a, you know, quality project, put together really well. Pulte has a reputation of doing what they say they're going to do in Martin County and being very reliable at what they do, and I think that they will do their hardest to work with the neighbors in the area. So with that, I'm going to support the actual project. Thank you. We have a motion for staff's recommendation and the other items that Commissioner Smith mentioned. Seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Let's do this. We still have some time. Let's go back to, thank you very much, everybody, for all of that. We appreciate it. We're going to go back to public hearing number one, legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of a comprehensive plan amendment, CPA 22-11, Three Lakes Golf Club. It will be presented by Mr. Clyde Doolin. Again, we'll give these previous agenda item folks an opportunity to depart and allow the next agenda item folks to enter. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Clyde Doolin. I'm the comprehensive planning administrator for the growth management department. Yes, you are. Have at it. Thank you. This is a legislative public hearing. This is the second of three public hearings that have to be done for this proposed amendment. The first one was Thursday last week. The local planning agency considered this future land use map amendment and voted 3-2 in favor of the staff recommendation to approve. The future land use change is for 1,216 acres on property at the intersection of Bridge Road and Cantor Highway. I'll scroll down to a photo so you can see it. The area highlighted in red here on the aerial photograph is the site of the Three Lakes property. As I said, 1,216 acres. It straddles Cantor Highway. It's north of Bridge Road and at the intersection of Bridge and Cantor Highway. The proposal is to change from agricultural, one unit per 20 acres, to rural lifestyle, one unit per 20 acres. The existing land use, agriculture, has a minimum 50% open space. The proposed land use has a minimum 70% open space. There is an existing golf course that is under construction based on the existing AG-20A zoning district, and that would continue as a part of this proposed future land use designation and be permitted. Golf courses are permitted on both the existing and the proposed future land use designations. And as I said, there's no change in the density that's proposed with this. It just changes some of the permitted uses within the future land use designation, allowing more clubhouse space, more recreational facilities, et cetera, like that. So because of the fact that there's no change in density and there's very comparable use to the existing land use and the surrounding land uses, staff is recommending approval of this proposed land use map amendment. This is a transmittal hearing. If the board votes to approve, it will be transmitted off to the state land planning agency and the other state agencies and come back for a final adoption at a future date. And with that, I'll close out my presentation and be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, sir, very much. Questions for Mr. Doolin? Seeing none. One second. Commissioner Hurd. I do. Um, what is, does, are these properties subject to the ag exemption? At present? Yeah. Uh, I believe if there's a, if they're underway with golf course construction, there's no more agriculture and they probably will at some point, if they haven't already, lose their ag tax classification. What's the provision under rural lifestyle for, uh, ag exemptions? They would have to apply to the property appraiser's office and meet the necessary criteria. But even though they put, for example, Discovery puts 317 homes and all kind of other stuff on their property, are they still, uh, eligible for an ag exemption? Probably not, but I'm not going to speak on behalf of the property appraiser. Has anybody ever asked that question? Well, they do have equestrian facilities there that would possibly qualify, but the development overall is a residential type of use. It wouldn't qualify. Okay, so on this one, which is 1,216 acres, what's eligible for the ag exemption? Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. The county doesn't participate in the evaluation of the ag exemption. It's completely through the property appraiser's office, so that's not an evaluation that we would make. It's, it's, it's, um, Florida law provides for ag classification based on the property appraiser's evaluation. And, in fact, there's case law that talks about zoning not even sometimes coming into it. It's the use of the property and based on the criteria in the statute. So it would, it, their help, each one is based on a one-on-one, um, evaluation based on the application. But in my experience, um, single family houses wouldn't qualify unless it was associated with the ag, which this wouldn't in that case. So, so only the platted lots where there is a single residential, uh, dwelling unit would qualify? No, wouldn't. Would, I'm not saying that. I'm saying the part, if a piece of property meets the statutory definition of bona fide ag, then the, the property appraiser, in her discretion, can grant an ag classification. But the county doesn't have a say or a role in that in any way. It's a separate statutory provision. And for this project, how many golf cottages are allowable? And how many, uh, I don't know what we call congregate housing? Um. How much do we, do we allow? Golf cottages, uh, one per hole up to a maximum of 54. Okay. Uh, congregate housing is, um, six beds, uh, equivalent to one residence. And so if you approve for every six beds of, of, uh, dormitory housing, it reduces the density or the reduces the single family residence by one. And, and I never did understand this. It's, um, six units per 100 acres, but I don't understand. Um, is that six beds or is that? Six beds. How many, and how many buildings? It, it doesn't specify how you arrange the buildings or how many beds per building. So for 1,216 acres, it would be 72 beds? Yes. But that would reduce the number of residential units from 60 to 48. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Raines. For the record, Bob Raines here on behalf of the applicant. Um, obviously we agree with the staff's recommendation. Uh, I'd like to have, and I would also like to state for the record that we had the return, the proof of notices for our return receipts were turned in at the LPA meeting. Thank you. On, uh, on Thursday. Uh, with that, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Crady. He can come up and give you a little bit more information as to why we think this land use is appropriate for this particular piece of property. And we'll be glad to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Mr. Crady, you are recognized. Thank you. Good morning, uh, again, for the record, Morris Crady, senior partner with Lucido and Associates. And I'll just run through a quick PowerPoint. I think you pretty much know where the property's located. Just a little more detail. We're adjacent to South Florida Gateway PUD in this location. And the county's 30-acre site is located, um, in this location. So we are adjacent to the freestanding urban service district, um, which is a requirement of rural lifestyle. This is a more recent aerial showing the construction activity of our west golf course that's been approved. Um, and you can see also some development occurring. This is a 2023 aerial, I think, earlier this year. Um, the, in, the industrial construction that's going on at South Florida Gateway PUD. And, of course, this is, uh, we're adjacent to the canal, or, um, uh, we have met with these individuals, um, previous when we were doing the, the by right golf course. Uh, the existing, uh, project is two 18-hole golf courses out there on 1,216 acres. We're using an existing home as the founder's residence in a temporary event center. We are approved for 14 golf cottages. And parking on the west coast, and all this was approved under the existing AG20, um, zoning. And also the, uh, the agricultural land use would allow for us to apply for a utility waiver, uh, which increased our septic tank allowance from 2,000 gallons to 5,000 gallons per day. So the existing facility, uh, is utilizing the, the septic tanks to, um, allow for water and, uh, wastewater treatment. This is a rendering of the approved, uh, golf course, uh, facilities that are under construction, the west course and the south course, practice facility in this location, clubhouse and cottages in this location. So all this was approved under the AG20A zoning district. And, um, at that time, uh, we, we were proposing well in septic tanks. The existing site data is, as on the screen here, we, the two golf courses consume about 514 acres. We have about 140 acres of lakes, 130 acres of preserve area. And currently our total open space is 97%. Uh, we're, none of the, uh, original project features are changing. We're still taking, uh, all of our agriculture or all of our irrigation water from the St. Lucie canal and we're storing it on site on the existing lakes, uh, to irrigate the golf course and all the landscape areas. We're ultimately, uh, going to be diverting up to 4.5 million gallons per day from the St. Lucie canal that would normally be discharged into the South fork of the St. Lucie river. We'll be, we're currently holding that water on site in our lakes, letting it filter through the groundwater, uh, which protects the aquifer and, and, and also the wetlands on site. We are not digging any irrigation wells on site in order to irrigate the golf course and the current facility and has no residential units. We're a per pure golf and country club experience. Uh, we have native landscape buffer along bridge road and Kenner highway. We've literally relocated thousands of trees to, uh, the perimeter of the site to, to, to provide a, a, a, uh, attractive native buffer as you drive along Kenner highway and also bridge road. We're set back 250 feet from the canal. That is, um, there is a, a buffer of native vegetation and trees along the canal that we're not, we can't disrupt. And that's, that's, uh, that provides some level of comfort for the people on the other side of the canal. And that was one of the things they were concerned with that we were not taking out any of that native vegetation. Uh, we're, all of the preserve areas are being managed now under the existing approvals in accordance with the PAMP and as I explained before, uh, the hunting that has gone out there for decades will no longer be, um, uh, on site. We're doing everything we can to enhance wildlife habitat. It's hunting for birdies. Exactly. And eagles and eagles, but, uh, only on the golf course, not real eagles, golf eagles. Better make sure you clarify that. Um, so that, why are we doing the land use amendment? The main reason is so we can, we can, we can not do septic tanks. We can tie into the water and sewer facilities that are adjacent to the property. Uh, it eliminates the need for the utility waiver. Uh, it will allow for additional, uh, development on site, but all that, all that has to be done as part of a future PUD application. The application does meet two of the four criteria in the comprehensive plan for staff to recommend approval. They've acknowledged that we meet those two criteria complies with all of the 13 criteria in Florida statues under section 163 that discourages the proliferation of urban sprawl. And we're complying with, uh, uh, section 163 by providing four of eight design elements that discourage urban sprawl. Uh, so we, we, we meet the criteria for allocating, um, the land use for rural lifestyle, the minimum 1,000 acres where we're more than 70% open space. We're adjacent to the urban service district. Uh, we comply with all the service standards for mandatory facilities. We've submitted economic analysis and we've also submitted a PUD master plan and phase one of that PUD will be the existing project basically. So phase two and three will be before you under a PUD application, hopefully within the next few months. And, and, and that will have to be approved concurrently with the adoption of the rural lifestyle land use amendment. So you can make sure that we're meeting all of the criteria that's built into those policies. And with that understanding, I'll be glad to answer any questions. Thank you very much. Any questions from the commission for the applicants representative? Seeing none, any members from the public looking to address us on this topic? Also none at this time, commissioner Smith, chairman without seeing no one from the public and no further questions from the board, I would move staff's recommendation. Second. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. I'm not going to support the motion. This is, it doesn't meet this proposed amendment doesn't meet any of the criteria for a future land use amendment. It encourages proliferation of urban sprawl. It's classic urban sprawl. And every proposal and every amendment that comes before us expands the projects. I don't see any foreseeable limitations on this land use. Every proposal that's coming before us is eliminating those. So I'm not going to be supporting this. Thank you very much. Commissioner Smith. Morris, can you come back up for a minute, please? I think as an opportunity and every time I've had the opportunity to talk about this and other projects related to this land use idea, and if you just even look at this graphic with the amount of blue that's on there, maybe you and our staff could work together collectively to come up with, I don't know if the analysis is the right word, or the data that collectively pulls together all of the water features that are going to be built, the spatialness of it all. This one is how many acres you said? 1,200 acres. No, no, many of the water. 140 currently, 140 acres of lakes. And I think just for the general public's information, when we talk about how much it costs us to build any kind of a water project at all, we get into the millions of dollars very quickly in terms of how much it costs to build a significant water feature that cleans up water coming from the St. Lucie Canal. So I just ask you, with all the analysis you and your staff have done for the application side of all of this, if we could collectively pull that together with the handful of projects that we have, and at some point if we can do a presentation with our staff to show the capacity of what that really means to us. In terms of the removal of nitrogen and what's in any other contaminants? And the scale at which it is. You know, we throw around numbers like it's 128 acres. Okay, well, what's 128 acres? And at a presentation the other morning, we were talking about it, and maybe what we do is we take, like, you know, the size of the city of Stewart or something that everybody kind of generally understands how big Stewart is. And if you can take that visual and start plugging in a graph that shows just from these three or four projects alone, the capacity of stormwater work that's being achieved that we're not doing, that you all are doing, makes up X the size of the city of Stewart. That way, graphically, people could understand and see it. Okay. And I think that would be very helpful. Come back for the PUD, we'll have something like that. Yeah. Just as a, with all the cool charts that you pull together for us, that would be a great graphic, I think, to be able to share with us. Thank you. And the financial part of it. We just finished a wonderful project down close to Hope Sound. What did that cost? And what does that accomplish versus what is this accomplishing? There's a monetary value to what we're doing here. Sure. So it would be, if nothing else, interesting to see the numbers. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. The motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hurd to say. Before they leave? Hey, Bob, just before you leave, to all, to the folks that are involved, it's been a lot of work getting to where we are today, and I just want to tell you how much I appreciate all of your efforts. We had a meeting with some folks in the school board and our chamber the other morning just explaining the benefits of some of this, and again, it's an opportunity for us that's significant. So, again, to all involved, thank you very much. Well, we thank you, and we thank your staff for, you know, giving us an opportunity to bring what we think will be a great opportunity to the county. Thank you. Thank you. Trying to knock some of these out prior to the lunch, let's go to public hearing quasi-judicial number two, request for Florida Power and Light Company for a major final site plan approval for the Fawn Solar Facility Project F110-004. It is quasi-judicial, so let me ask my colleagues. Commissioner Hurd, do you have any ex parte communications? If I do, they've been filed. Thank you, Commissioner Jenkins. If I do, they've been filed. Thank you, Commissioner Hetherington. If any, they've been filed. Commissioner Smith. I'm sure I do, and I'm sure they're filed. I feel the same way if I have any that have been filed. Anyone that's going to be offering testimony, if you could please stand to be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? No interveners. And do you have a copy of your work history and the agenda being submitted? Thank you. And with that, sir, you are recognized to proceed. Thank you, Chairman. Commissioners, for the record, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with Growth Management. Copy of the agenda item. My work history have been filed. This is an application for a major development final site plan. Florida Power and Light Company is proposing the construction of an unmanned 74.5 megawatt solar facility, a solar farm on approximately 660 acres of agricultural land located on the north side of Southwest Citrus Boulevard, approximately five miles east of the community of Indiantown at 16364 Southwest Citrus Boulevard in Palm City. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. The project site contains no natural wetlands or native habitat and will not require water or sewer services. The future land use is agricultural with an A2 agricultural district, zoning district. The surrounding properties have the same future land use and zoning district designation. The property to the east is farmland. To the west is owned by South Florida Water Management District. And to the north is the Whitetail FPL solar facility. Solar farms are permitted use in the A2 agricultural district, and the property has an existing driveway connection to Citrus Boulevard. The development itself is set back a minimum of 590 feet from Citrus Boulevard. Development review staff have found the application to comply with all applicable regulations, and the comprehensive growth management plan is detailed in the staff report. This application was heard last Thursday. It was voted 4-0 in favor and recommending this project. Staff recommends approval of the major development final site plan as detailed in the staff report for the FPL Fawn solar facility. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board approve the final site plan for the FPL Fawn solar facility project. That concludes the presentation. Thank you very much, sir. Questions for staff? Seeing none. Applicant? Good morning. Thank you for your patience. No problem. For the record, my name is Dennis Murphy. I'm from Culpepper Interpenning with offices in Fort Pearson Stewart. We're here today representing Florida Power and Light on what I think is a fairly straightforward type project. The Fawn solar site is located out off of Citrus Boulevard, about halfway between 95 and Indiantown, and immediately south, this is pointed out, of the existing whitetail solar. This is actually completing out the rectangle on the property. We have a short PowerPoint presentation that we can give to you, but I think you've already seen it, so you pretty much know what it is. Commissioner Smith, would you like to see the PowerPoint? No. I didn't think so, but I had to say that. No, no, thanks for your offering. Julie noted that there was a PowerPoint. Yes. Okay. And in consideration of the hour, we respectfully request that you approve us. We've got no problem with the conditions in the staff report, and if you have any questions, I'm here, as well as representatives from FP&L. Thank you. Questions for the applicant? It's quasi-judicial. I understand. I was going to go ahead. No, I have none. Thank you. Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. For the record, I just want to make sure that the notices were turned in at the LPA meeting. Yes, the notices were turned in at the LPA meeting. I'm sorry for the record. They were turned in, and all the information was out and provided at that meeting. I think it's part of the file. Yep. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any members of the public looking to address this on this topic? Any members of the public interested in seeing the PowerPoint? Seeing none. Commissioner Smith, back to you. PowerPoint? Would you? No, no, no. PowerPoint? PowerPoint? Point. Oh, FPL PowerPoint, Florida Power and Light Point. Right. Got it. I give you points for creating. Crying hard. So, Mr. Chairman, I would move staff's recommendation and just a side comment, the continuation of some really great projects in Martin County. We really appreciate your support. I agree. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Aye. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Look forward to your next project or storage facility, whatever you have. Storage. We could do one more. You want a break for lunch? Thank you. It's time for lunch. We're going to take a lunch break. We'll be back. I would have stayed, just for the record, until 1.30. We'll be back at 1.30 for our lunch break. Your Honor. Okay. We are back from our lunch break. We are continuing with our December 7, 2023 Board of County Commissioners meeting. We're going to take up agenda item DPQJ1, request approval for a second amendment to the High Point Plan Unit Development PUD zoning agreement, including revised master site plan, revised phasing plan, amended preserve area management plan, and phase two final site plan, C148-013. And it will be presented by Ms. Allison Rozek. Rozek. Rozek. Yes. Thank you. Welcome. Oh, it's quasi-judicial. Commissioner Hurd, have you had any? I have. They've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins. They've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. They've been filed. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. They've been filed. Mine have also been filed. Anyone that will be offering any testimony, if you would please stand and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Do you have a copy of your work history and the agenda item? Fantastic. Is anyone going to intervene? Is there a copy of the return receipts that are? None required. None required. Good to know. There was that momentary panic look on Tyson's face. Just a split second, but it was. With that, you are recognized to begin. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Campy and County Commissioners. Thank you for your time today to hear this agenda item. I'm Allison Rozek, a principal planner in the Growth Management Department and coordinator for the Second Amendment to the High Point PUD and the High Point Phase II Final Site Plan. The High Point Second Amendment includes a revised master plan, a revised phasing plan, a revised special conditions, and an amended PAMP, as well as a Phase II Final Site Plan. A copy of the agenda item and my work history has been submitted for the record. Property owners of the land in the High Point PUD include Christ Fellowship Church, Inc., Pulte Home Company, LLC, Camp Velour, LLC, and the High Point Property Owners Association. Pulte Home Company, LLC is the applicant for this item, and Coulter and Hearing is the agent. Prior approvals for the High Point PUD include adoption of the approximately 321-acre PUD in April 2021, with an adopted master site plan proposed to be carried over in two phases. The approximate 175-acre Phase I Final Site Plan was adopted in September of 2021. All of Phase I, including the 94 single-family homes and the associated infrastructure, has been constructed to date. During the Platt approval of Phase I, PUD Amendment 1 was approved in May of 2022 for data consistency. Before you today is the Second Amendment to the High Point PUD and the Phase II Final Site Plan for approximately 145 acres of the High Point PUD. The overall reasoning for the Second Amendment to the High Point PUD is to adjust the sizes of the lakes, littorals, open space areas, and residential lots, which will accommodate a new open area track, make data changes to preserves and native landscape areas for consistency. The master site plan has been updated to illustrate the building footprint of the new amenity center on Phase II, make changes to the preserve and native landscape areas for consistency, and to make changes to the sizes of lakes, littorals, residential lots, and open space areas. They created an open space area track gained by reducing the total residential lot sizing, created an additional open space area track gained by discontinuing an RV boat storage resident amenity, and added a new pedestrian connection between the PUD and the high school at Bulldog Way. The Phase II Final Site Plan proposes to construct 190 single-family homes, construct an associated amenity center to serve the residents of both Phase I and Phase II, make improvements to the Bulldog Way, complete an equestrian trail along southwest Whitney Road, and construct a pedestrian connection between the high school and the PUD. Staff found that the proposed second PUD amendment complies with the Martin County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan and all land use regulations and ordinances. According to Article 10, Development Review Procedures, a public review and hearing at the local planning agency meeting is not required for a PUD amendment. Therefore, this file did not go before the LPA. Staff is recommending approval and recommends the following actions. Move that the board receive and file the agenda item and all attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1. Move that the board approve the second amendment to the high point PUD, including a revised master plan, revised phasing plan, and amended PAMP. Move that the board adopt the resolution approving the Phase II final site plan for the high point PUD. That's all I have today, and I would be happy to answer any questions. Nice job. Staff's light is on. Yes. Elise Elder, W. County Attorney. There is an error in the PUD amendment that I just want to clarify for the board to vote on. So in Exhibit F, the special conditions, Paragraph 2C, Little Roman numeral 4, the size of an internal sign in that paragraph says 84 by 48, and it should be 144 by 84. This was already approved by the board. It was just carried over incorrectly. So with that correction is what we're asking for. I noticed that, yeah. Well, it needs to be a... I tell you, last night I'm like, I don't know what we're going to do. Well, Mr. Waters didn't want me to change the size of his sign, so I said I would make the correction on the record. I will allow it for more meetings. Okay. Any questions for staff? That's two blushes there, Tyson. Applicant's presentation. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Leah Heinzelman with Kotler & Hearing, and I have been sworn in. We're here on behalf of the applicant as the site planners and landscape architects. Huge thank you to staff for a great presentation. And really, there's not much more that needs to be said. So this is the second phase of an already approved master plan. We've already got phase one almost complete. So with that, we'll take any questions you all may have for us. Thank you very much. Questions for the applicant? Seeing none. Before public comment? It's more like general comment. Okay. Commentary from Commissioner Smith. Can you go... Do you have anywhere in your slide the site plan itself? Or does the applicant have, like, do you have any kind of a... Did you have any kind of an applicant's presentation? I just wanted to... Yeah. How do I get to it? To show the amenities section. We do. We do not have a presentation. Maybe it won't be worth trying to show it. Second amendment to high point agreement. What are you trying to show? He wants to see how wide the sidewalks are. No, well... That was Harold's joke. I'm stealing. That's great, Harold. Thank you. So appreciate the support on that. It's camaraderie. It's congeniality. Page two final? Congeniality. Sure. Page 930. 940s are also... 940. 930. 940. 3. 930. 3. There we go. So this doesn't really show the detail at all. I don't know if you can zoom in on the amenities area. But it was really to give... Kudos. Kudos. Maybe it'll show up a little bit. The graphic that we saw, at least in our meetings, it's not often that we see the amenity section as nice as this one is, at least as it was illustrated. I think for the residents, certainly for those in phase one, but phase two, to have this kind of a facility built as an amenity is a really nice thing. And one thing that came up in the conversation, and this is more for our staff and something maybe, I don't know how we amend this or work on this, but it's when an amenity actually gets approved or when it should be approved. And I think as it stands now, it would have to be approved at your first building permit. Do you mean the CO? CO. Yeah. We've changed that. So it's a 20-month timeline to make the recreational amenities. So it doesn't interfere with any certificates of occupancy for homes. But that's for phase two, correct? That's correct. So could we have done something at the end of phase one? Yeah. Normally, the phases work out, so the amenities are in phase one. That is correct. I just, and I only raise that, and it doesn't have to get solved today. This isn't something, but I think it's worth having a conversation. I remember in the past, we used to struggle a lot with amenities not getting done when a first phase or a second phase or a third phase was getting done. And then by the time it got to the second or third phase, everybody was like, well, it's not appropriate to do it anymore or something, whatever the example might have been. Anyway, I just, for staff's purposes, I would love to see this come back at some point in time, not this, but the idea of when we do the amenities and when it gets built into the phasing. So, A, that it doesn't hamper the first phase, but that it comes following the first phase if there is to be a second, third phase, so that, like, this one now won't come towards the end of this phase, correct, or within 20 months? Yeah, 20 months, correct. Just as a conversation for later. Yeah, when these applications came in, they were almost concurrent, so we thought that the phase two was going to catch up to phase one quicker than it did. And it's not just criticism, it's just more of a timing on, in our policy side of this as to when things do happen and what triggers that to happen. Does that make sense, Don? Yes, Commissioner, it does make sense. Great answer. Sure. Thank you. That was a pandemic. And what district, whose district is this in? Listen to that. It's close. It's a very gray area. I have $5 riding on this. We have a bet going on here. So, if there isn't any public comment. No, we need to find out whose district it is. I can't get my thing to work. Anybody know? My thing is. Oh, wait a minute. Here it goes. It hurts, but I could be wrong. No. I'd have to look at the maps, to be honest with you. Is there anyone from the public looking to address us on this topic? Or to know which district it is? I know whose district it is in. No, that's what I meant. Anybody can address the... You know, you could easily go to, like, the county map, and it would tell you in two seconds. Hold on, Matt. I don't have it. Do you want my iPad? Yeah, go ahead. Anyway, pending all that, I would move staff's recommendation with the change on Tyson's signage that Ms. Elder has pointed out to us in the PD language change. I will second it. Is it one of those Fox, Joaquin, one of those signs? I may know it. Well, I don't think it's that name anymore. No, what's the name now? Waters, Waters. Oh, no. Just keep it up. I'm a no now. I'm a no. I'm a no. Oops, I think he's narrowing in on it. I see colors. Yeah, it's using her iPad. You know, if you went to our map and put in the address, it would show you... District 3, baby. Five bucks. I can't have verification from the person doing that. I need to have an... We'll settle it afterwards. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. I was a yes, but Tyson insulted me, so I'm a no. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. He's right. Florida Club is... Yeah. So is Fox? Right across the... No. Yes. Used to be. South Fork from District 4? No. 3. Where's South Fork High School, Mr. Donaldson? Yes, it is. South Fork High School is in District 3 now? Been in District. Yeah. I think there's the dispute. I'm going to have to annex. I won $5, that's all I can... Where's the red flag? Is it a challenge flag? Flag on the play. Instant review. Okay. Ms. Merle. Hi. Today's your first day. Yeah. Not yet. Let's really give you the opportunity to have it, soak it all in. Our next agenda item is Departmental No. 1, Office of Management and Budget Items, which require board approval. There are five items, and it'll be presented for the first time in her official capacity, right? Yes. Ms. Stephanie Merle. Welcome. Thank you, Commissioner. First day of a 35-year career. Yes. I'm already 12 in, though. Yeah, those don't count. Okay. Hit the reset button. Stephanie Merle, Budget Office. The first item we have up today is the permission to apply for a Section 319 grant from FDEP. Ecosystem Restoration and Management is requesting for $720,000 for the Southwest Prong Manatee Pocket Water Quality Retrofit. This will consist of a treatment train involving a wet detention pond, diversion weir structures, and enhanced vegetated channels, also for wetland restoration. There's a grant match of $480,000 that's already budgeted in the Manatee Prong CIP project budget. The second item up is the permission to accept the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resilience Infrastructure Grant for Cypress Creek restoration. It's for $750,000, and it will provide funds to complete the construction of a water control structure and other improvements to rehydrate the floodplain of Cypress Creek. It requires a match of $750,000, which is budgeted in the Cypress Creek Capital Improvement Plan project budget and for past expenditures that have already been incurred for this project. The third item is a permission to accept FDEP Beach Management Funding Assistance Program for the Martin County 2022 Hurricane Ian and Nicole recovery projects. It's for $1,358,787 for Bathtub Beach and Sailfish Point Renourishment and the MacArthur Dune Project. There is no cash match required. The fourth item is the permission to accept the Florida Division of Emergency Management EOC Uninterruptible Power Supply. It's for the replacement of the UPS for $750,000, and it ensures continuous electrical power to the data center serving Martin County's EOC. There's a cash match of $250,000, which was already budgeted with our technology improvement program. One second, please. Mr. Donaldson. I was just going to say our Congressman Brian Mast was instrumental in getting that appropriation. Appropriation is very helpful with sort of a last-minute request last year, and we finally tracked it through to getting it through to the state. So it's a big deal for us. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Mast. And our last item is just a request for funds for the Martin County Sheriff's Office from the Federal Equitable Sharing Fund, which is essentially the net proceeds of asset forfeiture earmarked for law enforcement agencies. The Sheriff's Office would like to use these funds to purchase some ballistic shields in the amount of $11,145, and we are recommending a budget transfer from those reserves to rim it to the Sheriff, and that's all I have. Thank you very much. Questions for Ms. Murley? Commissioner Smith. There are none. Move approval. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Your first item was a unanimous decision. Thank you. Thank you. Our next agenda item is Departmental No. 2, contracts that meet the threshold for board approval, $1 million or greater, and it will be presented by Palm City's own Ms. Christy Brotherton, unless that's in your district now. Not yet. Good afternoon. Christy Brotherton with Purchasing Division. The first item for your consideration today is our contract for Building 17 renovation for the Reach Center. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, All-Site Construction, in the amount of $2,820,803. This is for the base bid only. Move that the board approve the revised CIP sheet to fund the bid award, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. The next item is a continuing services contract for motor and pump repair. This contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $1,500,000, with a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidders, which is Dunright Pumped, Incorporated, Trip Electric Motors, Incorporated, and THC Orlando Service Center, Incorporated, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And last, we have a contract for Southwest Waterside Way and State Road 76 Canter Highway Roadway Construction. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is C.W. Roberts Contracting, in the amount of $4,272,540.79, move that the board approve the revised CIP sheet to fund the bid award, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. Thank you. Commissioner Hurd. What's the funding source of debt service repayment for the last one? $4.7 million. A variety of funding sources. We have some impact fees, gas tax, and state revenue sharing dedicated to that debt service. Okay. Thanks. Any questions? Any additional questions for staff? Seeing none, back to the board. Commissioner Smith. Staff's recommendation. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith for the staff's recommendation, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Stokas, before we begin with you, why don't we just take Ms. Gordon. We have a couple of board and committee. Board and committee number one, board of zoning adjustment appointments. Has everyone turned in their voting sheets? Gordon, welcome. You are recognized. Donna Gordon, court for administration. Board of zoning adjustment. One person, the incumbent, Mack Ross, received three votes. Mrs. Mary Gavin received two votes. Move approval of Mack Ross. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Our next agenda item is board and committee number two, industrial development authority appointment. Ms. Kelly A. Lehman received three votes. Mr. Jacob Bynum received two votes. Move approval of Kelly Lehman. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Our last item, B and C number three, Treasure Coast Health Council appointment. Dr. Tina White received four votes. Dr. Nicole Wojno received one vote. Move approval of Dr. Tina White. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Ms. Gordon, you made fast work of that. Thank you. Thank you. The remainder of the meeting will become the George, Mr. George Stokas show. We're going to start with the Martin County, Departmental No. 3, Martin County Centennial Celebration Status Update. Mr. Stokas, good afternoon. You are recognized. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. George Stokas, Assistant County Administrator. Coming before you, seeking some advice and counsel. A number of months ago, this body had assigned Commissioner Smith to spearhead the effort for the centennial celebration. As a part of that, we held a couple of public meetings, some staff meetings. I personally have met with all the constitutional officers except for the sheriff. And we have come up with kind of a litany of items that I need some direction on as far as to how the board would like to move forward with celebrating the centennial of Martin County, which will be in May of 2025. The official date, depending on how you want to look at it, is either May 30th, when the House and Senate signed the bill, or later on in August, when Governor Martin, who we are so aptly named after, signed the bill. In your agenda item, as I'm bringing up on your screen, what we tried to provide is a line item list of all the various ideas that we have received as it relates to how we celebrate the centennial. One of the first things we do is we create a centennial website. It is martin100.com. The website is fully mobile responsive design as well as ADA compliant. The site will feature or does feature an emblem request form for not-for-profits and community organizations, some social media hashtag and campaign items. Events, an event listing, event submission form, very similar to what you see with our tourism department, as well as an image gallery of featuring photos from the Martin County Library System Digital History Initiative, National State Archives, Martin County Office of Tourism, as well as other community resources. And I want to thank especially our clerk and comptroller, Ms. Carolyn Timmons, for providing us some of those pictures and some assistance. We also have a history page that details the community history information. And the site design was built and funded out of an ongoing website, our web support retainer contract. So that is now complete. It is ready to go live. We, in order, what, as a group, it was basically mentioned or we wanted to decide that we would conduct a process similar to our supervisor of election for who gets the, Ms. Vicki Davis, who gets the vote out. She has volunteered, but we would like to hold a contest with high school art students to design an official 100-year logo. Once that contest has occurred, we do need some funds necessary to convert that logo from whatever it comes in as to whatever it can be digitally. So if it comes in as a watercolor and we needed to convert it into, say, a digital graphic, this is the highest cost that it would cost for us to convert that. There was also discussion about each district displaying some type of banner somewhere in those districts. So the total cost for the banners is $56,000. That would be divided amongst all five of you. We would be able to do a per-district cost if that's something that you as you're representing your district would like to decide on. There was also a plaque for both the 25 and the 75-year anniversaries of Martin County on the historic courthouse. I don't know what happened to 50. Maybe I haven't found it yet. Maybe it fell off. We're still looking for it. But we generalized the cost for a simple plaque around $6,000. There was also a lot of discussion from various not-for-profits, the Historic Society or Historic Preservation Board, about the creation of a book. The price that's listed there includes the – it's about a 100-page book that would identify the history and the various communities and works within the county. It costs about $8,000 to put together the book and then about $5,000 to buy the books, books necessary to sell copies. So this item could be cost-neutral. And then ultimately, a lot of the groups were talking about a celebratory event that would be held by the Historic Courthouse, the Gazebo Park, as well as the Veterans Memorial Park, as well as shutting down Ocean Avenue. Similar to what the same type of area we see for Arts Fest, maybe a little bit more elongated, going eastward towards the Wells Fargo Bank. As you can see, there's a line item for what we believe are most of the major items that include an event planner, tents, food trucks, artists, musicians, various art projects, potential plein air, drone show, some special expos. So that brings the event total, as we estimated, at $220,745. So for all the things presented to you, if the board wanted to do every single thing listed, we're estimating a budget of approximately $298,000. If you wanted to do this without the event, as presented, it's $21,432,000, plus your district funds, if you wanted to do the banners. And with that, Mr. Chair, I try to be brief and brilliant. I'm ready for any of your input suggestions, comments, and anything you want to direct me on. Thank you very much for your efforts. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I could get behind a plaque and maybe banners. That's it. I just got a bunch of emails, maybe you commissioners did too, about taxpayers being very sensitive about taxing them. So I'm loathe to spend money on our 100th birthday. Commissioner Jenkins. So what would the Historic Society's role be in this, potentially? Well, if you wanted to transfer this from being a staff perspective project, we do have a Historic Preservation Board. That is separate than the Historic Preservation Society. That's, I believe, an independent 501c3 that's in the city of Stewart that runs the feed museum. The Historic Preservation does have a – they also have a budget. But whatever you were to approve here today, you'd have to roll into their budget moving forward. Now, they do have some funds available that are already budgeted for Historic Preservationist of the Year. They do – I think they do two or three events in the month of May. But they do advertise one event each day in the month of May, which is Historic Preservation Month. So you would be transferring basically funds and, we'll say, decision-making power to that board as it relates to the anniversary. Was that as clear as mud? Sorry. Are you asking about the Historical Society? Yeah. So the Historical Society different than Historic Preservation Board? Correct. I apologize. So the Historic Society is the – is one of the not-for-profits that we did get input from. They're their own independent 501c3, no different than, like, the Martin County Arts Council, whereas the Historic Preservation Board is a board that is – has – is what? Just our volunteer advisory board. Right. But they do have a budget and decision-making power. So they have a budget of approximately, I want to say, about $15,000 a year. But that is to buy plaques for houses. Then they do their Historic Preservationist of the Year type of event. I was just thinking the Historic Preservation folks, whatever organization, would have an interest in doing some type of celebratory thing for this. I'm not quite as far – I understand we need to be conscious to the taxpayer, but at the same time, this is 100 years. So if those folks had some interest in doing something that we could participate in, that financially a little bit, maybe not $220,000, but – So when I did discuss some of this with Mr. Mortel at the City of Stewart, I had asked some questions as to how did the city celebrate its 100-year anniversary, which I believe was in 2014. And it may not have been Mortel. It might have been – actually, now I think about it, it might have been Manager Dias at the time. I believe that the City of Stewart had its – they had an independent volunteer organization, and it might have been the Historical Society that volunteered to do fundraising, and it was non-governmental. You know, the city – I'm trying to – I'm going to refer to legal counsel. I don't know what – the city's involvement was not fiduciary, and it wasn't – there was no control. They kind of were like, yay, celebrate 100, is lacking for words here. Ms. Woods. Sarah Woods, Martin County attorney. I just wanted to clarify, the Historic – Historical Society is the Elliott. And the House of Refuge. And they are a nonprofit which have a lot of Martin County – Martin County-centric displays, and I don't know whether we've reached out to them, but – I apologize. Yes, Mr. Chair, we have reached out to them. Mr. Steele, I was also thinking of the ladies that represent the group that's in the feed, store. I must begin their name. Stuart Heritage. That's Main Street. Yeah. There we go. Stuart Heritage. Okay. Yeah. We reached out to both of them. Commissioner Hetherington. Oh, I kind of agree with your sentiment. It's – and I agree. I agree with my plaques, Harold, and – but I – well, both, actually, in some ways. Plaques, banners. I think the book is great if someone's willing to put it together, which I thought we discussed that they had some people that would be willing to put it together, and it was somewhat neutral, and some pomp and circumstance, I think, is certainly warranted. I think the drone show and the – maybe the Corning Expo is probably a little over the top, although the Corning is beautiful, but maybe better for Arts Fest. I agree. Any word from our representative? Commissioner Smith. So I think the – just to talk to the Corning Expo, I think that was to coordinate with Arts Fest. A lot of this was to coincide with Arts Fest and sort of the work that they're already putting on. It all – it really just comes down to does the county want to create an event for its 100th anniversary, or do we just want to mark the day and put a plaque up and have a nice day and go? And I'm not saying – I mean, one is dramatically different than the other, right? But at the end of the day, if those are – and there's probably some in between that. But if it's really to mark the event, then that's a whole different discussion to have than what we've been having to create, whether it was like a 4th of July celebration that the city does, if we were going to do a 100th anniversary like that. The idea of a drone show was not to compete necessarily with the city of Stewart on their fireworks. It was to have something entirely different that would be memorable and would mark the event, and you could do it anywhere that you have limitations on fireworks that you can't. Other than the drones, you'd have to get FAA approval given its proximity to the airport. And whether or not that's in conflict or not, I guess George would have to decide or get that figured out with the FAA. If this is not the direction you all want to go, that's why we're having, I guess, the conversation and give us direction where you want to go. But this is kind of a, as George said, the various inputs and various ideas have come together to do an event, if you will, of the 100th. And it started off as do we do a year-long event, and every month is there something that goes on that marks the year, or do we narrow that down to really either a week-long event or a couple-day event? And so I think most of the people that we've talked to have said to sustain a year-long event would be incredibly difficult. To do more of a 4th of July type event where you have basically the focus of a day and an evening would be easier to do, although it's expensive to do it. Thank you. There are a couple of things on this list that I think would be nice. Palm City celebrated its 100th anniversary a couple years back, and to Commissioner Hurd's point, I think a plaque is nice that's forever. The book is interesting. I think that's a nice keepsake that people would like to have, I'm sure. Is Sandy Thurlow involved? Yes, Mr. Chair, the book is, instead of having staff do all of it, we've kind of reached out to the community, a lot of public input, so that committee is Ms. Turrell with the Martin County Arts Council, Sandy Thurlow, as well as Ms. Julie Priest, and I'm sure we'll include Mr. Steele as well when we get to there. So Thurlow and Turrell. And Priest. Yes, no. Oh. He was doing a run. I was doing a thing. Commissioner Smith, I only have two meetings left. Okay. So, on the book idea, that went around a little bit in the idea, and just so the books that Sandy Thurlow has produced through the last couple decades, the book industry has changed dramatically. So the cost is really the layout, the design of getting a book designed. The printing cost, you can order 10, you can order 100. And versus in the old days when Sandy used to do her Sewell's point book, you order 10,000 because that was a run. Versus now, you order 100 or 20 or 50. I think that's it. So, and the other idea was to take all of our districts, and even within those districts, to take our historically recognizable communities and highlight over the last 100 years what has made Salerno Salerno, what has made Golden Gate, Golden Gate, what has made Jensen, Jensen, and so on and so forth, and to get the community to submit, whether they be maps, whether they be photos of historical significance that have got us to where we are today, and that's what the book effectively would be. It would be marking 100 years of progress from 1925 to 2025. I agree with you on the book. I think the book is a nice idea. I like the idea that each of the districts and all of the municipalities would participate. I think that whatever it costs, we could front that money for whatever it costs, but that book could be a valuable item that people would want to own. So I think I agree that it would end up being cost neutral because you could sell it, basically, for what it would cost. Commissioner Smith's right. You don't have to do 10,000 books up front, and then we're sitting on a truck full of books that we didn't want to sell. You can order them in shorter runs, the plaque, the books, the banners. I've done banners. Not every district has the ability to put banners up, do we? Who doesn't? I have banners. I use banners. Yeah, I know. I have banners. Everybody has banners. Yeah, but when I did the banners in Palm City, they were, you know, $3,000, $4,000. Well, times five. $20,000. I don't know how you get to $56,000. I don't know either. Whatever the banners are, I don't believe it's $56,000. We'll come with a much more approximate cost for your banners. Yeah, I'm just saying so that it doesn't look like people get in sticker shock. The rest of it, you know, I'm torn because I agree that the 100th anniversary of the county is something that you might want to acknowledge. I, you know, would see maybe, to Commissioner Smith's point, like a traditional, especially since we're celebrating the history of our county, a traditional kind of fourth, not on the Fourth of July, but a Fourth of July, like in your mind, you think of like that Fourth of July community event, maybe a parade that culminates in Memorial Park like the Memorial Day parade does, except then turn it into like a little more of a day kind of an event, much more grassroots than this. And I'll tell you, I don't know if it's appropriate or if you're legally allowed to, but I think we could probably come up with, each of us could come up with one or two sponsors that, for the opportunity to sponsor and put their name out to celebrate the community, we could easily raise $100,000 in the private sector versus $300,000 from us. I wouldn't be very cautious about that. So I'd want to communicate with our attorney's office on that, just the optics sometimes. And, Commissioner, I agree that that's possible. I prefaced it by saying if it's an issue, then it can't be, but I don't know. I could look into it. We might also want to find a nonprofit partner. That would be the easiest way, in my opinion, to have one of our nonprofits. That's why my light's on. I wanted to restate for it. I thought the county government putting on an event, something we don't do, not that we couldn't, but at the same time we have a number of not-for-profit organizations that their first part of their name is historic that I would think they would have a vested interest in planning, if they want to do an event, planning it and doing the whole thing, that could come to us with a proposal that potentially we could justify to the taxpayers that is something that we are willing to assist and invest in. Right. But for the county to do it ourselves, I'm... Okay. I understand. That's just me. Well, to defend it, not that he needs defending, but for Commissioner Smith, we asked him to do this. That's true, yeah. So, I mean, we're changing our tune now because I guess when we asked him to do it, there wasn't a price tag attached. But he did what we requested of him, and I agree. If it's the Historical Society or the Historic Preservation Board who does an annual Historic Preservation Month and does a beautiful job of scavenger hunts and all sorts of clever things, Commissioner Smith should still be our representative, whoever that group is, and maybe that's the way we raise the funds. And I assume many people in our community would want to participate financially at that level. So what we could do is the courthouse plaque and the districts could do the banners, and then the rest of the celebratory event could be through that arm, that not-for-profit arm, and then the money being raised, it's not taxpayer dollars, and we still get the event. Commissioner Smith, you were next. And the only final thing I would share with you on events and the coordination of events, most of our organizations that do, like ArtsFest, it's a year-long program, and clearly we have that kind of time. But the dollars, this is like an event budget. This is a typical event in Martin County is probably $250,000, $300,000 to do a scaled event of this size, which is why in many cases they're so risky for the nonprofits, because if it rains or if there's something else going on, all that money is out, and recovering it is incredibly difficult. It's not dissimilar to the folks that were here this morning, which is a much larger budget, but the air show. We have seen three disastrous years happen for various reasons, not any in control of the air show, but you put those kind of large events at risk. And so my only hesitancy, we can ask. We can certainly go to the nonprofits and ask them, but we would be asking any one of our nonprofits to take on another scaled event as large, if not larger, in both volunteer time and energy as any of the events that they themselves put on today. And I don't know that, like I don't know that the arts, and I'm using the Arts Council, because Arts Fest is a very recognizable event, right? And it's the same location. For instance, I don't know that the Arts Council would take on this event, do the fundraising, do the man hours required to do it, and Arts Fest at the same time. I just don't know that'll happen. So we'll ask. I don't think it should be the Arts Council. Well, no, I'm using them as an example, whether it was the Historical Society, whether it's the Arts Council, whether it's the VNA. I'm just saying, scaling up to put on another large event. But this is why we have this, to get some guidance. And we'll go back out and ask people what they want, and we'll come back. I would prefer, honestly, now that we have commentary from you all, instead of even trying to cast, like, let's just do a plaque and so on today, I would much rather go back to our folks and say, this is where we are, this is the information we have, what do you all think? And is anybody, or collaboratively, do any multiple groups want to participate and step into putting on another? Mr. Donaldson. My only comment was just related to the book. I know the Sebastian Inlet District and Jupiter Inlet District both had those books put together. They did a nice job. I was just suggesting that perhaps we could at least see what the investment is to get the layout done with Ms. Thurlow and then bring that back to you as a phase project. But I think any other comments, we'll just wait for further direction. But that was something I was just suggesting that we would include. The book idea is probably the longest timeline. It's assembling the images. And what we've talked about is limited text, because you don't have to go into storytelling, per se. The images will tell their own story. But literally... It's a pictorial history. It's a pictorial history. Thank you. I'm here for you. I know. Thank you. I appreciate that. Are you done? Yeah. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, we have the, and I don't know which society it is, the Historic Preservation Society, or maybe it's the other one, does a month-long historic focus on historic things in Martin County. How about next year we make that month, 100th anniversary historic memory month, so that instead of just having these, so it's themed. Every day, whether you're at the College Schoolhouse or you're at the Stewart Main Street or wherever you are, have it be themed toward the centennial. I like that. That would be a whole month long of celebrations. There must be an echo in here. That's what I said. That's a very good idea. Thank you. I'm here for you. I appreciate that. There must be an echo. Commissioner Smith. And this will be an echo. So that idea absolutely has been shopped around, that whatever was created, sort of the footprint, if you will, or the outline of the 100th anniversary would be something that any organization could tag on to and use in whatever event structure they have for the coming year. And as with everything, that takes work and effort on the nonprofit's behalf. And so we didn't limit. We didn't say you have to or you should, but the framework would be out there for them to do on their own if that's what the interest is. But we'll come back with a little bit more definition, probably, hopefully, before the first of the year so that whatever we do, we can work. And I would also say that I've talked to Heidi Rich, and Heidi did all of Sandy Thurlow's books on the architectural side of the layout and the component. She would work with Sandy again on sort of the design of the whole idea. So we have incredible experience on the book side if that's the direction you all support and want to go. And I think the cost really is having somebody like Heidi do all that prep work, which is a tremendous amount of work. But with Sandy's guidance, I think it would be really cool. Very good. Mr. Stokas. Mr. Chair, just to wrap it up, the book cost is in the – that is the book cost. It is $8,000 from Ms. Rich based on the proposal she gave us to put together the book. I had five – excuse me, seven – I had approximately $5,000 for the seed money to purchase the first run of books. How many books? I don't recall. Are you talking like 200 or are you talking 3,000? I don't recall. Off the top of my head, I think it was around a few hundred books. It wasn't a huge number like that. I think it was less than 1,000 books. So that is the book cost. And we've reached out to Ms. Rich, and that is the number that she's given us. As far as the centennial, we do have a timeline based on Commissioner Hurd's comments that that would happen beginning next year. It would actually be in 2025. It would be the actual centennial. We don't turn 100 until – we don't officially turn 100 until May 30th of 2025. But we wanted to get ahead – because next year is 2024. We wanted to get ahead to allow the not-for-profits to do exactly what Commissioner Hurd said, which was prepare for – to actually make all of their events in 2025. Centennial events, which goes to the logo conversion, which would be your official logo. It is a long way out, but Commissioner Smith is absolutely correct. I mean, we're – I don't want to say we're behind the eight ball, but these not-for-profits, they need a year. And it does take a long time to put a book together. So – but I did hear from the board, and it sounds like you want me to go back and further – further identify the cost for the plaques, further identify the cost for the banners, and then – and as well as move further – further come back with you by the first of next year, or just thereafter on the finalized book cost with further details. I just want to make sure I'm working on what the five of you want me working on. So to be clear, then, that everything in the yellow box is not on the table. I apologize. I forgot – I also – my note is I am to go back and reach out to various not-for-profits and see if they would be interested in running an event similar to the one that we have here. Well, they don't have to necessarily run that event. Well, they can run an event, yeah. But it won't be us. That's my – you want me to go to a not-for-profit? Mm-hmm. Yes, that could perhaps solicit community contributions. Well, no, I appreciate that. I just want to be clear for the members of our public that will send emails saying, how are you going to spend $300,000 of taxpayer money? Commissioner Hurd's not wrong when she says they're not really an appetite for this, but this is exactly what we had asked originally for Commissioner Smith to do. Plus, you make the most salient point is this. This is 2025. It's not something that's happening next spring or next summer. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. We'll end this item, and we will pick up our next item, Departmental No. 4, Brightline Request for Proposal. It will be presented by Mr. George Stokas. Yes, good afternoon, Mr. Chair. George Stokas, Assistant County Administrator for the record. I am before you today because on October 26th of 2023, Brightline Trains of Florida transmitted a request for proposals to county administration and the City of Stewart regarding a potential station location in Martin County. I, as staff, am requesting direction on the following points. One, I would like to have the board provide me direction or permission to submit a potential station proposal to Brightline, as well as a BCC determination of potential station locations. Currently, we are anticipating to propose the courthouse parking lot located on Flagler Drive that is across the street from the City of Stewart baseball fields, as well as our courthouse. And the second location would be the Martin County Fairgrounds. I am also seeking direction and permission to allocate up to $125,000 from General Reserves for the purposes of creating conceptual drawings of proposed station locations, collecting and analyzing economic, demographic, commuter, and rail design data as it relates to the Brightline requirements that are set forth in their request for proposals, developing reports, graphics, and tables for a proposal to Brightline. I am looking to use the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council to do that because they have assisted with all the municipalities to the south of us and those Brightline stations, as well as money to communicate Martin County's position with interested stakeholders and affected communities as we move forward for this process. The process being, if you give me permission today, we would go ahead and enlist these professional services. Brightline has communicated, and I have requested for an appointment for the county to meet with Brightline on November 29, 2023, to answer questions as it relates to a proposal. Staff's intent is to return back before this body at the first meeting in December to bring you back our two draft proposals for the Brightline station. And at that point, I'll have a lot more details as to what it's going to look like, what are the requirements, and so the commuter data, as well as any type of train passenger data at that time. I don't have that at this time, though. However, I do want to mention to the board that we are required, through the Brightline settlement agreement, to pay 50% of the construction of a station, as well as Brightline is obligated for up to $1 million for the pedestrian crossover at some point in Martin County. So, and with that, I'm looking forward to any type of direction, motion, or action you'd like me to. I'm more than happy answering questions. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your efforts there. Questions for Mr. Stokas? Any, yes, as a matter of fact, we have one request to speak for him. Very familiar name is Joan Goodridge from the Business Development Board of Martin County. Ms. Goodridge, it's good to see you. Welcome. Good afternoon. Joan Goodridge with the Business Development Board, your economic development team here, to support this item, requesting your investment in this potential long-term infrastructure item that could help strengthen our economy and build our community's vibrancy. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Goodridge, before you depart, just one note. I know recently you've announced your 2023 Business Award winners. Recipients. And I just thought it was interesting to note that you give out eight categories. That's correct. And four of the eight were businesses based in Palm City. Just goes to show you. How did we know? It's really the business excellence hub of Martin County. So thank you so much for that. Absolutely. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Whatever the direction of the, wherever the direction of the board on this item goes, I think my discussions with the city, and I'm sure you've all had them as well, is that we put forth the most unified front that we can in support of the city's application on their end of what they're doing, but that we work, our staffs, and we work as collaboratively as possible because our friends at the north clearly are trying to compete with us on all levels. And I think for the purposes of our community and ridership, it would be important for us to make sure that we do the very most we can with the city to set a unified front. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I'm very interested in creating a compelling case for a station being located in Martin County. I think both are good locations. I think that in order to be compelling, most compelling, that we have to consider who's making the biggest contribution. And there's no question but that the city's local sponsorship for a federal grant to fund bridge is a substantial contribution, and no one is going to beat that. And there are, I like the idea that there are already parking spaces in downtown Stewart, so that money doesn't have to be re-spent. So I think that we can make a really, really compelling case for locating the station here. And I also think that on the Treasure Coast, that Martin County residents would be most likely to ride the train. So I think that we have some real, real good foundations upon which to build our case. And so, you know, full speed ahead, you know, create a case. Mr. Donaldson. I'm glad Commissioner Smith brought up the city of Stewart. I think it's important to emphasize, and maybe we should include it in the recommendation, that we're planning the city of Stewart as a joint application collaborating with the city. So it would be, including in your action, is to approve your administration to work collaboratively with the city staff on a joint application for the city's project. The fair grant would be our own independent one, but that one I think it's important that we recognize that it is a joint application. Thank you. Thank you. I had said all along when the conversation about the rail service in general was coming that, and when we negotiated our settlement with Brightline, that a station, you know, as it stands currently, we're getting all of the inconveniences of a train service through our community and all the ups and downs that that would bring without the benefit. The station is the benefit. And I agree with what Commissioner Hurd said, that our demographic is the appropriate demographic, even logistically. You know, for those of us that are interested in riding the train and you'd have to drive all the way to Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, to get on the train to head to Fort Lauderdale or Miami at that point or the other stops, it makes sense to stay in the vehicle. If it was located considerably further north and you were thinking about riding it to Orlando and you had to drive, you know, 50 miles to get to the station, you'll drive the rest of the way to just go to your destination. So I think logistically we are right on the right spot north to south. The demographic is there. We do already have the spots. I do understand that our friendly neighbors are going to be as competitive to get it as well as an effort to build their economic revitalization of some of their downtown areas. We already have that. So we wouldn't be relying on a Brightline station to sort of revive an area. We are already thriving in our downtown Stewart. And the collaboration between the city and the county makes perfect sense. Commissioner Smith. I move staff's request with the side note that our collaboration and the application be joint with the city of Stewart to the extent 100% feasible by both parties. Mr. Stokas, thanks for your efforts. We look forward to you delivering us an award-winning, approved by Brightline proposal. And with that, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. No pressure. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? Let our friends at Brightline know they got a unanimous decision. Thank you. Our dear friends at the Brightline. And with that, I believe we have reached the end of our official agenda. I know there's some things that have to take place. I'll take a 505 public comment. Anyone looking to address us on a general topic, speak now. Seeing none. Back to the board. We'll start with you, Commissioner Smith. And Joan just left, and maybe she'd pop back in. I assume you all have been advised, as I was last week, that the BDB, Joan is retiring as executive director from the BDB. And what I would ask staff to do is to come back to us at some date in the future, some point in the future, with an agenda item that talks about what options we have, what they have as options, and what does the future hold for us in terms of how the BDB and we move forward with the BDB. Commissioner Jenkins. As the BDB liaison, we are workshopping that very soon. We've had a couple of meetings to discuss exactly what you're saying. I ask you give us some time to do that, and then that, what you're asking for, I think, is in process already. My only thought is that it would be just as you're going through the process that we'd be able to give some input so that at least our, it doesn't, whatever's going to move forward, whatever's going to happen, doesn't happen, and then we get just the response as to what's going on. I completely agree, and I will make sure that happens. Thank you. And just so that everybody understands what that looks like, hopefully that's an agenda item, Don, that has, like, back up to whatever you all have decided or looked at, and that way we can understand what is the next generation of the BDB. Yep. That's it. That's all I got. Commissioner Hetherington. I'm all set. Commissioner Jenkins. Okay. Should we run through the rest of us first? Sure. Commissioner Hurd. I'm set. I just wanted to remind folks to run with me this Saturday morning at Jock Layton Park as we, the Palm City Chamber of Commerce 5K over the Veterans Memorial Bridge and back, hopefully and back, this Saturday Veterans Day, and then also to remind folks that we are so fortunate in our community to have one of the premier air shows in the state of Florida, if not in the southeast, here in our town this weekend. Please take advantage of it and come by and see it. I'll also have the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, a replica of the one that they have in Washington, D.C. I've seen it. It is very moving, and it is definitely something worthwhile. If you haven't seen the original or the traveling one, come by and see it. Commissioner Jenkins. So I need my LPA representative. I would like to make a change, and to do that, I need your support. Mr. Bob Thornton will be taking my seat at the dais with our LPA. I guess I didn't do that right because I'm getting the ah. You just need to also have board approval to remove the current member. Okay. I'd like board approval to remove my current member. Are you making a motion? I am. Okay. And to approve the appointment of Bob Thornton to that position. Who's your current member? Blake Kapp. We're making two different motions, correct? Or can it be one? One. Okay. Second. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Jenkins, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? That's it. Okay. Mr. Donaldson? Yeah, just two things real quick. One, you know, we got the top ten generous workplaces from United Way. And just to everybody in our staff, this is the time of year we look to renew our pledges. I know I'll be doing that. Carol Hortz-Dietz is really a great leader in the world of United Way and has done a great job for us. And I hope those maybe encourage those who are not part of that annual contribution to think about it and look into it. Because I think it's a great – they do a great job for us. Top five, actually. Yes. But the other thing was, just for the public certification, you know, the check that we receive from our tax collector is – it is an important – but just to remind everybody that we actually do budget for that. And we do – we take it – we do budget the fact that we know our tax collector does a good job and brings in – so I want to thank Ruth for her continued efforts. But we do actually rely on that on our given budget. And if it came in under, I would be sweating. So anyway – but anyway, again, I thank you – thank her for that and her continued strength in her operation and being able to bring in revenue. But like I said, we do – we do – and that's fees and all sorts of, you know, other services that she offers in her department, correct? That's right. I mean, she's gone beyond just doing what is statutorily required by a tax collector and providing services that – whether it's, you know, registration fees for guns and – ESA pre-tracks. ESA pre-tracks, right, and a whole host of other things, including doing a good enough job that people drive up from Palm Beach County and others to use the service because they can't get appointments down there. And so we do benefit from her efficiencies, and I think it's important. I'm just letting you know we've actually become to rely upon them, so that's all. She has a remarkable staff. Those of us that come from – old life? Those of us that come from other areas where when you were going to do something at the DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicles, you planned on doing it the whole day. I've been to several of the offices, but the individuals on the staff at Palm City, it's a delight to work, to go there. They're super friendly. It's a very – just easy process to do so many different things. So I encourage our residents to visit the tax collector's office, especially if you're not a TSA pre-check. I can't imagine how you'd travel these days through the TSA without it. With that, our next commission meeting is Tuesday, November 21st, and we will see you all then.