board of county commission meeting um let's all stand and we're going to start with an implication by pastor aaron mehan and our pledge of allegiance by valerie reuter good morning thank you so much you got my name correct did i yeah yeah most people uh don't get that correct the first time so that was wonderful i usually mess them up so this is yeah yeah maybe that's because he and i just discussed exactly how to pronounce yes yes some people call it me hand me ham but you said me and i appreciate that uh it's of course a new year and uh i understand this is the first commissioner's meeting of the year all the christmas lights are being put away and uh so we're coming today with fresh uh vision the book of proverbs says uh without vision the people perish of course that uh is speaking of spiritual leaders but it can be extended to city officials uh county commissioners so today in my own vocation i'm just going to pray for that fresh vision that can bring a fresh passion to this work that you do because it's ever so important and we certainly thank you for your efforts and the efforts you're going to give to us in 2024 so if we could just bow our heads right now and let's pray thank you jesus for this opportunity to come together to better our county our citizens lives we thank you god for this opportunity to discuss these things we pray that you would bless this meeting give us fresh vision lord bless us lord god as we try to better ourselves and our environment lord we pray for fresh passion for this year that we can put in greater effort lord jesus into all of these things we're going to discuss we pray for the peace of god to come over this group lord and that every public statement lord god would be covered with that and that we can do things decently and in order in the name of jesus i pray amen amen thank you thank you 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 good morning thank you for having me here today um to tell you a little bit about my story while i was in the military um i grew up in new hampshire um all the way up in the cold where we have snow thank god you don't have it down here um i've always had a really great respect for i've always had a really good respect for law enforcement and our military for them putting themselves first for everybody else i had many many family members that were in the military and when i went to the map station i went for a friend i didn't go for myself it was kind of a fluke that i joined the military i was sitting waiting and one of the recruiters just came up to me and says hey you want to take a test while you're waiting i said sure why not i had a 13-day delayed enlistment and i was headed to basic training oh so i had basic training in san antonio texas then i followed that with a seven month tech school in biloxi mississippi i'd rather not go back there i entered into the career of ground radio and telephone communications so we were known as the ground rats while at my tech school i was a member of our drill team so i got to march in the mardi gras parade representing our military base in new orleans my first duty station was in homestead florida just south of here i was in a 726 mobile tech unit and i was only there for about a month when saddam hussein actually invaded kuwait when he did that that was the start of desert shield i was one of the members that were left back at our duty station because i was so new and we had a skeleton crew we were responsible for making all of the communication for all the deployed members to their families so that they could talk and know that they were safe so we ran those radios it wasn't like we had cell phones back then uh saudi arabia was our our target area to protect and that's why we were immediately deployed over there i got over in november of 1989 1990 i apologize and um when i got over there a lot of the men you know saw me as a tiny young lady that couldn't pull my weight i want to tell you that i matched the guys one to one for filling those sandbags and building bunkers we had 12 hour shifts when our when our equipment was up and running all we had to do was visit and and make sure everything kept running we had a lot of down time where we got to know our fellow soldiers really well we were the main communications between the satellite communications team and the air crew to know when to launch missiles to intercept those scuds in january of 1991 the saudi arabian um declared desert storm or the americans declared desert storm we had many scud attacks we had scuds that would explode over top of our heads and we were hit with shrapnel we had the dormitories that was the most devastating um impact to the military where a lot of soldiers had had met their end luckily we had the patriot missiles that were stationed right beside us so those were pretty amazing to have made you feel a little bit safer but what was really scary was i got my chemical warfare training live during our first gut attack i was pretty nervous but i managed to learn how to work in in a hurry in tech in tough situations know how to keep my cool it's easier than doing this presentation i came back to the states in 1991 in april we were the cleanup crew for all of our equipment that we had for our base we kept what was salvageable we shipped it back it took a long time to get all that sand out what was really interesting is during my time over in saudi arabia during those 12-hour shifts i actually met my husband so i say we kind of had a stormy romance when we got back about a month after we got back we got married in miami in dade county just south of here i had some medical difficulties when i was in the military so i did leave the military with an honorable medical discharge not long after we got back um moved to where my husband was stationed he was in lowry air force base in colorado many moves later we went to montana arizona colorado and i kept begging to come back to florida 32 years later here i am in martin county we moved in november of 2022 and we bought a house in december in port st lucie in january of 2023 i joined martin county board of county commissioners and i am proud to say that i'm a member of the information technology systems department and i really enjoy working here and i appreciate all of you and all of the public that has joined us today thank you thank you that was wonderful um just a little announcement uh you notice we are missing one of our uh folks up here that uh commissioner hetherington is not feeling well today so we uh we hope that she uh feels better soon all right so um we have 505 uh public comment 905 yeah thank you and uh 505 which we have a short agenda today i suspect that'll be a little earlier and um we have no agenda polls so with that yes sir approval of the agenda with the uh consent uh and uh the adoption of the well the two presentations of proclamations second okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor aye motion passes unanimously four to zero thank you um before we get started um our supervisor of elections vicki davis would like to have a moment to talk about some changes to precincts and whatever else welcome good morning happy happy new year to everyone um thank you for the opportunity i think each of you have a packet and doug with your motion consent agenda was approved is that correct thank you for the approval of two precinct changes good morning laura um the two precinct changes that you had before you today we added precinct 16 which is martin county fairgrounds for our golden gate voters back online the building itself has been renovated so um we're able to come back the other change is a change for precinct 23 which was christ fellowship we're not able to utilize that space any longer so we have moved those voters now that you've approved it they will be moved to the former knights of columbus building on gains so um those are the two changes there but i did want to give you a little bit of an update you have in your packet and i don't know if we can bring it up for those that are here as well to see where we are in this election just put it right down on that yeah oh yes i've got it right on no right on the center of that white piece of paper right there oh on the yeah you got it there you go see right there and then i want to put very high tech um so before you you have the dates for the upcoming elections this year as you know we have three major elections the first one is march the 19th which is the presidential preference election throughout the state of florida it's being held on a super tuesday this year as it has in the past the really important dates are february the 20th for this upcoming election that's when the books close books close statutorily 29 days prior to each election that's the last day that a voter can or a resident can either register to vote as a newly registered voter or make a party change and we start early voting february 8th through march the 9th or vote by mail i'm sorry ballots are going to be mailed on february the 8th march the 9th through the 16th is early voting in three locations for the two primaries which is our office on martin luther king and hope sound library and the indiantown library for those outer lying communities you can see the date for the primary election which is august the 20th and then of course the general election is november the 5th the upcoming primary presidential primary i wanted to share with you the ballot it's a short ballot we one of the main reasons i wanted to be here today is to start educating our voters because this election is only going to be for registered republican voters so that's why the february 20th date is very important florida is a closed primary state so the democratic party for the state of florida only introduced turned in one name that was qualified for the ballot who is our current president joe biden so there's no election for those who are registered with the democratic party or those who are registered with no party affiliation or one of our minor parties so that is one ballot style we do have a another little election taking place and laura if you don't mind um the town of sewell's point is going to have a special election to fill a vacancy they did have one of their commissioners resign so we coordinated the dates so that they could also be on this ballot so for those who are registered with the republican party when they go in to vote this is for precinct 10 only town of sewell's point they will receive that combined ballot style that you have in front of you for those that are yeah that that's that one um and then if you'll put the other one back up laura this one is for those in the town of sewell's point who are registered as no party affiliates or with a or as a democrat or or one of the minor parties so we have those basic three ballot styles for the upcoming election um i want to thank commissioner heard uh commissioner hetherington for serving on our canvassing board this election cycle um it's it's a big job and you all always volunteer to come back so thank you we have orientation on friday at noon it's open to the public anyone can attend any of our canvassing meetings and i just want to in closing um thank sarah and her department for everything that you do for our elections office don everything that you do um thank you all for our budget i know it was a little bit higher this year but we do have those three major elections and if i can answer any questions if anyone has one i'm happy to do so i sure heard first of all we got pins and i know you can't see it but they're wonderful they're very colorful and they say i voted in martin county and there's a sailfish and rising sun and in the ocean it's beautiful designed by kiri where was the student south fork high school an 11th grader at south fork high school so that will be the sticker throughout the election cycle but we wanted you to have one of the pens thank you and also um lots and lots of people like to um vote by mail so what's the deadline if people voted by mail last time are they automatically renewed do they have to reapply and also do they have to apply for each election right now you don't have to apply for each election but all all of the requests to vote by mail ended on december 31st of 2022 so if a voter does want to vote by mail they do have to either call in or go to our website martinvotes.gov okay and request it's real important because a lot of our voters love to vote absentee yeah thanks and we only have about a little over 6 000 requests in the system right now normally we would have about 18 000 right i just follow up so all of them expired vicky and if you if you if you were registered before to vote by mail you have to come in now between now and february 20th you either have uh no you can still request until 10 days 12 days before election day to request a vote by mail ballot for this upcoming election you can call go online and request for all three elections this year if you choose to do so okay so the the february 20th date is for party changes and to register vote only correct that's not to vote correct no that's not for voting by mail but everybody has to make a request for vote by mail yes if they choose to vote by mail we do have the three ways which is another big change um talking about the three ways to vote vote by mail vote early vote on election day now according to the last election bill that was adopted in the legislature which starts today um we'll see what happens with elections during session but if a voter wants to receive a ballot over the counter when early voting begins according to florida statute they have to have an emergency reason for us to issue them a ballot because the intent is you're there in person you should be able to vote early so so that's another change you can't walk in and get an absentee or a correct not when early voting begins yes okay is there something that qualifies emergency not really but you have to fill out a form you have to have like a doctor's note or something no no you fill out an affidavit but your point was that if you show up at the office during early voting and say i don't want to vote right this minute five feet away from where i'm standing i want to take a ballot home with me you can't unless you fill out an emergency form i see the point that you would maybe go and just vote get it over with it yeah maybe like go home and think about it well go home and think about it then come back and vote in person i think that's the intent good well not opposed to that well thank you so much again happy new year everything you've done everything you all do for miss davis there's so much controversy in in communities throughout the united states for the last decade and we never have that here and that's thanks to you and your remarkable i have a great team so thank you very much you've done an excellent job because i know communities where it doesn't go that well it really fractures the community and we do not have that here no so thank you thank you for that well this is year 20 for me so um we've been doing this quite a long time but i have a an excellent team i think all of you know kiri anderson here she's assistant assistant chief deputy and um then of course debbie dent who is chief chief deputy who's been in the office 34 years yes so so we have a great team thank you for all of your support i appreciate it all right and all of your staff if i can just take one more minute to thank your staff like laura from mctv and the whole mctv team like i said the legal department don's team general services um we have partnerships the sheriff's department i was looking around uh the room earlier and and we just really have strong partnerships throughout the county and that makes the difference to commissioner campy so thank you thank you all right so we have two proclamations um the second one we've got to adopt uh before we present but um the first one is arbor day and i got accolades for pronouncing the reverend's name right and i'm about to mess that up rosita arstoff is going to be the recipient for arbor day anyway good morning commissioners arbor day was first observed in 1872 in nebraska and 151 years later is now observed throughout the nation and world trees support our environment improve physical health and help support our economy and martin county takes pride in being environmentally sustainable and is proactive in encouraging residents to do the same in recognition of arbor day in florida on friday january 19th the board wishes to express its appreciation to the garden club of stewart for spreading awareness of arbor day and for ongoing events that continue to enhance and beautify our community and as you mentioned here we're here to accept we have rosita arstoff who is president of the garden club of stewart i should probably go to the immediate past chair considering considering considering the current chair is a landscaper he'll put it in the nursery and probably get 50 bucks for that plan that's good news good news for us uh good morning for more than 85 years the garden club of stewart has been actively involved with the planting upkeep and preservation of trees our early tree related projects included planting trees at the oil entrance to stewart in the medium of us1 in memorial park and along ocean boulevard to name a few our related activities continue today at the other bond property on hibiscus street at house of refuge and a hospice on indian street this year we are also providing 250 florida slash pine seedlings to members of the boys and girls club to plant throughout the county through the penny pines program we also provide funding directed to the reforestation of osceola national forest in northeast florida throughout the state and across the nation our affiliated garden clubs of the florida federation of garden clubs and the national garden clubs promote arbor day by informing the public of the necessity and value of conserving this elemental natural resource on behalf of the garden club of estour i thank the commission for recognizing us with this proclamation this little baby here is a hamelia pattens commonly known as firebush and you know that uh firebush is a sun loving shrub or the small tree up up to it grows up to 15 feet tall which bloom throughout the year and is practically bulletproof once established firebush may be pruned to any desired height hummingbirds and butterflies such as the zebra long wing and gold fritter literally love firebush firebush firebush firebush is a wonderful wildlife plant and one of the most prettiest native plants florida has to offer and he knows all about that because so here you go oh good picture yeah yes have your team come up the firebush there you go in the next proclamation that i that we have we need to adopt uh recognition of human trafficking awareness month in martin county second we have a motion by commissioner campby seconded by commissioner heard all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously with commissioner hetherington absent human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery in which human beings are controlled abused and exploited for profit through labor and sex and child sex trafficking is the fastest growing crime in the world children have become the primary target of traffickers and predators as reported by the florida state alliance and human trafficking florida faith alliance is providing awareness videos and curriculum for children of all ages and for teachers to join the sweep of awareness in martin county in observance of january as human trafficking awareness month the board cars calls upon all residents to support the elimination of human trafficking and help empower citizens to recognize the signs turn in tips and save lives and here to accept along with a lot of folks we have lynn barletta who is ceo of florida faith alliance and visionary and visionary school of the arts thank you commissioner chair jenkins and all of our martin county commissioners florida faith alliance is here to unite our community to fight child trafficking and my husband tony is going to read the names of those who've come to stand with us beginning with our wonderful chief chief deputy john budenseek from the martin county sheriff's office and as i say your name i'd like you to please stand in support of this so thank you so much uh deputy fenton is here with us joe katribon the president of the stewart martin county chamber of commerce martin county school board chair jen russell martin county school board member amy pritchett dr michelle libman and rob gluckman ceo of the treasure coast urgent care the families of students who starred and you will be seeing the video soon in the video business owner jim ridden and his son james james will be don't take the bait with the fish in front of him business owner from the mobile shredding don connolly and her four children starred in the video we have liz murdo whose children also starred in the video grandchildren excuse me florida faith alliance board chair president denise stalliker now i have some other people in the community who are supporting florida faith alliance sitting in the back colonel chuck winn retired u.s army florida faith alliance supporter and a prayer warrior for the group we have human trafficking survivor trafficked as a child jeannie robertson gina kent council member town of ocean breeze jay jenkins florida faith alliance board member janette hauck florida faith alliance supporter pastors elaine and richard racicott florida faith alliance board members and donna saletti a supporter of florida faith alliance we are very proud for these people to be here to support us and we thank you for allowing us to be in front of you today and maria and sarah jane gates realtors are they here they're here oh i'm sorry i missed one sarah jane gates and maria horowitz who are supporters and realtors for florida faith alliance so thank you for that now since the pandemic as we said child trafficking is the fastest growing crime in the entire world america is the biggest buyer of sex in the world florida is number three in the nation for hotline calls and human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar market the demand for younger and younger children is increasing as child porn increases in younger ages and violence kidnapping a child off the street is not as prevalent as it used to be and now 80 percent over 80 percent of all prosecutions involve online recruitment sex trafficking is in every state and every community this horror is happening right here in martin county sexting and sextortion is the fastest growing gateway to trafficking and according to homeland security recruiters the same age as our own children are in every school starting these rings in the treasure coast four teachers have been arrested over the past year including for sexting two students excuse me two teachers in martin county there have been eight arrests in martin county concerning child porn child molestation sexting and pedophilia which are all gateways to trafficking four of the men arrested had child porn as young as infants and one of these men was a jensen beach high school janitor the man named daniel rhodes was arrested on in the treasure coast for running a trafficking hotel ring about a year ago and he is facing manslaughter charges as well every child is at risk and protecting our children is crucial to our community and our state florida faith alliance is working with martin county schools and we've created a very powerful anti-trafficking awareness video for students and teachers called don't take the bait with a focus on educated education we are working with school boards to get these videos in every school across 67 counties this video was just featured on channel 12 in a documentary in december and we're going to go ahead and play the trailer now this awareness video is to educate you we want you to be equipped and above all don't take the bait hi my name is hannah connelly i am a graduate from martin county high school and founder of the first human trafficking awareness club at my school i am here to equip you and give you the tools needed to be protected from predators and traffickers it is so important to know that all children and teens are at risk and for your sake and the sake of your friends this may save a life did you know that the average age of girls victimized in trafficking is between 12 and 14 years old and for a boy it is 11 florida is the number three state in the nation for reported cases of human trafficking so who is the trafficker it could be a boyfriend a gang an online friend a neighbor or even a family member if you have full access to social media that means that social media has full access to you youtube and many other apps can be used to look through your phone into your home and contact you dating apps are a large platform that traffickers tend to use 150 000 brand new escort ads are posted online every day children are bought and sold through these dating apps constantly these are the top gains that traffickers use a trafficker will take up to two years to convince a child that they are the same age and want to be a friend sexting while still a minor is illegal the reason it's illegal is that these images may be intercepted by or distributed to someone other than who it was originally sent to compromising the privacy and safety of the original sender someone could begin threatening you that if you don't send more graphic pictures of yourself and your body then they will expose you at school to your family and all over social media sexting and sextortion is the fastest growing gateway to trafficking sexting and sextortion doesn't just happen locally in our communities these crimes can extend not only to other counties but also other states but just remember this don't take the bait what would it take to bait you if you have a dream you're gonna promise to make it happen maybe you want to hear i'm proud of you maybe you'd like someone to say you're beautiful the predator will promise to take you wherever you want to go so the important thing is don't take the bait the important thing to remember is don't take the bait hey if someone wants to show you porn, don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Good morning, Commissioners, and thank you, Tony and Lynn. You really highlight the issue at hand here. We like to think of, in our wanting to be naive, we like to think of human trafficking as people smuggled across our borders, be it the maritime borders or the Mexican border, but this is not the case. We currently have a room with five detectives sitting in there right now as we speak going through child pornography cases. Those cases can be worked until the cows come home. They can work them all day, every day, and never get caught up. They crack computers on a regular basis with thousands and thousands of images of underage children. Every single one of those images represents a trafficked child, and so we appreciate you, Commissioners. I know you've stood behind us. You've funded our budget. You're part of the fight with us. We thank you, Tony and Lynn, for kind of highlighting this issue and making this month a time when we can actually pay attention to what's going on with human trafficking. Thank you. And we do need funding for the videos, and we are seeking sponsorships. FFA has also worked with Toby Overdorf, our Florida State House representatives. There are bills coming up, actually bills I introduced to Toby personally, that will deal with child porn and stop porn companies from showing images to underage children, which is a national rising epidemic. So, as I said, we are at a crisis. It's crucial to bring awareness to every child, equip every parent, every teacher, every citizen, and Florida Faith Alliance is committed to bringing that awareness through presenter teams that we have trained, and we also didn't mention Dwight and Susan Haven are back there as presenters. They're here, they're here, ready to go, ready to go into churches, synagogues, schools, businesses, organizations for community presentations. Obviously, we have set up liaisons, and Detective Fenton has been my liaison for, what, nine years, eight years, something like that. What's amazing about that is we turned in a tip before the pandemic that resulted in a bust where the home here in Martin County was connected to Lake Worth, and that was connected to Indytown. There were four homes altogether servicing hundreds of men. So, one tip came in from one awareness training, which was the tipping point. So, we believe that an anti-trafficking campaign can be launched in our community. We believe that other communities can also do this through awareness and presentations and published material and social media. We can cross party lines, racial lines, cultural lines, political lines. Let's do this now, and let's do it in January, which is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Hosea 4-5 says, my people perish for lack of knowledge. Proverbs 31-8 says, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and ensure justice for those being crushed. And we want to empower you county commissioners to take a lead role to end this travesty. And our call to action is in every county for four counties. It's a four-county spread in the Treasury and Gold Coast to support and attend our free awareness presentation, which actually is this Thursday at Starstruck. And Jennifer was not able to be here because she was sick today, but at Starstruck at 7 p.m. And we also have another presentation at the Fenn Center, January 11th at 7 p.m. You all have invitations there. You also have the sponsorship packet. I just want to say that together we can unite, we can fight, and we can send a loud and clear message to say, not on our watch. Thank you so much. Thank you. Lynn. Oh, no, we've got a crowd, but we really do want everybody in the picture, so here we come. It's important to show. Yep, we're going to have everybody go in the well. Better for room. Get people in here. Why don't you bring them? Harold, bring them in here. There's more room. That's what they're doing. Well, they were going to land up. Oh, there. Everybody's going to have to scoot in. Get everybody. Come on, Tony. Come on, get in there. Come on, get in there. Hi, Dwight. Hi. Tony, you've got to count now. One, two, three. Don't say the same. One, two, three. One, two, three. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Keep smiling. Thank you. Keep going. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Thank you. Thank you. I need. I'll preserve it. I'll go to the one that holds your phone. Have you lost Zoom? Yeah. How are you? I can never remember how to do it. How do I do your job? Excellent. Go to the photos. Go to the photos. You are. You look beautiful. Thank you. I took a bunch. Yes, in my opinion. Oh. All photos? Oh, all photos. Okay. Thanks. I never heard of that. Hi, good morning. Don't you look pretty shit. Select the pictures? Good to see you. Thank you. Here, turn it out. How do I do it? Here, you air drop. First select. You're young. You air drop. You're young. You air drop. You air drop. Hi. How cool did you do that? Mwah. Mwah. I see you. No, no, no. Come back with the mic. Excuse me. What? I see you. No, I went right there at the mic where Tony is. Thank you. Harold, I got a question. Do you have questions? Yeah, I do. We have some questions, huh? Yeah, no, if they can all kind of sit around. Questions, everyone. Should we say talk? Sorry. They were very nice. They have some questions. Yes. So, Lynn, you said you have legislation put in this year with Toby, correct? Yes, and the name of the bill and the number of the bill will be coming out over the next three weeks. My understanding, I spoke to Ashley Moody personally, and they're making that bill very strong. And what it is, it's an anti-child porn bill to require anybody under the age of 18 to issue a state ID and then giving parents the right to sue these websites if they don't take adequate measures. In Louisiana, all but one porn website pulled out, and they just about shut down. So that's fantastic. One thing I was just thinking as you were playing the video, which was absolutely spectacular, and all the people that participated was great. Maybe, and this is something to talk to Toby about, but maybe that should become a requirement for all schools in Florida to show that. Yes. I mean, I just, you went through the effort to produce it, make it. It tells a pretty quick story, and if it was, if the idea is to get it into our schools, why not get it into all 67-county schools? Yes. Yes. We actually are working on that, and the State Alliance to End Human Trafficking has seen the trailer, and I believe there's something in the works there. But in the meantime, Martin County is our pilot, and we will continue from there. Great. We'll talk to our delegation about it, but I think there should be a way to get that done, I would imagine. And we need funding for it. We don't want to overcharge schools, because if you do, there's a lot of schools that can't show it. It's got to go into every school. Right. So we're looking for backing, funding, corporate, and anybody that does that, there's a whole sponsorship packet there. Your name is in scrolling credits. You're behind that video. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, one more thing. Oh, yes. Say this again. Tell people where it is. So Starstruck is hosting an awareness presentation this Thursday at 7 p.m. That's on Canter Highway and Central Boulevard. And I will be doing a full-scale, one-hour presentation that is completely packed with equipping tools for parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens. You will learn things you never knew before. Great. Awesome. And you'll duplicate that at the Fenn Center the following week? We will have the Fenn Center, the county commissioner's got us the Fenn Center for free, and that will be our largest presentation, and that will be January 18th, and also at 7 p.m., and then Indian River Community Shores, also at 7 p.m., and we are working on a location to get in Palm Beach County. Excellent. Great. Thank you for everything you guys are doing. Thanks. Great presentation and very disturbing all at the same time. Okay. We'll wait a second for everybody to... Security barriers back up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Next up is our public comment. For those not familiar, you have three minutes. At 2 minutes and 45 seconds, you'll hear a tone that basically is asking you to wrap it up within the next 15 seconds. First up, Michael Serkis, followed by Linda Smith. Good morning, everybody. Michael Serkis, Palm City. I'm going to quickly realign here from the 2024 budget. I highlighted it. This is page nine, the fifth paragraph, first line. It says, The board remains committed to addressing the challenges posed by aging infrastructure and facilities, which is a really awesome goal. I mean, the reality is we have aging infrastructure and facilities here in the county that is struggling to be kept up with. Unfortunately, it seems that our actions do not match our words. In the last 2024 budget, we greatly reduced some of our FARBs. We eliminated a few, even reduced the TIF funding from 75% to 65% going back into our CRAs. And almost immediately since then, only in three months since this budget's been proposed, we've made a $4 million land acquisition in Palm City that wasn't in our 2024 budget. We've committed $3 to $5 million to a train station that wasn't in our budget, hoping that we get 80% covered up by grants. And later on today, you guys are going to be seeing a presentation for a $2.5 million land acquisition in Indiantown, also not in the budget. Later on today, you're also going to do one other thing. You're going to present your priorities. Now, I want to give you one more thing to consider before you present your individual priorities. In the fiscal year 2018, that was the first year, seven years ago, that this board, as a collective unit, approved a budget. Your FY18 budget had a typical household tax bill of $1,787.94. Seven years later, the most recent budget, passed unanimously by this board, had a typical household tax bill of $4,366.06. In seven years, the typical household in Martin County's tax bill has gone up 144%. That's two and a half times. I understand we all have individual priorities, and I appreciate the reality and the pragmatism of that. But we absolutely must get away from our individual priorities and start prioritizing the fiscal stability of our county. We are not in a position to sustain the heavy expenditures year over year over year, the sustained growth year over year over year in our expenditures. It's not something we can afford. Please take into consideration as you have your priorities. Thank you. Glenda Smith is followed by Tom Haas. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Linda Smith, Jupiter, Florida. I'm the executive committee chair of the Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group, which represents Martin, St. Lucy. Can you speak more into the microphone, ma'am? Sorry. I represent members in Martin, St. Lucy, Palm Beach, and Okeechobee. So that's one reason I'm here. Members and supporters. I came up from Jupiter to congratulate this commission and Martin County on moving forward on your resolution today to purchase 252 acres of vacant land in Palm Heights, Palmar, for conservation purposes. That in itself was worth the drive to come up here just to say thank you. I appreciate it. Then I saw on the agenda the discussion of the 2024 priorities. So I checked those out. And I want to thank Commissioner Jenkins for his support of acquiring environmentally sensitive lands and restoring the northern tributaries of the Loxahatchee River, the wild and scenic Loxahatchee River, dear to everyone in Jupiter, and also southeast Florida. Commissioner Hurd, thank you for your support of completion of the Indian River Lagoon South plan. Again, acquisition of natural lands. And I have to say stopping gunfire in the Palmar area is kind of a no-brainer, and Palm Beach County commissioners are also working to try to keep bullets on the property where it was fired instead of going into someone else's yard and possibly damaging someone. As a retired architect and a USGBC lead professional, bless you for your support of green building. We need more of that. And also stopping overdevelopment in Martin County is a big deal. Also, Commissioner, and I apologize if I mispronounce your name, Commissioner Kempe, septic and sewer conversion is critical to water quality, as you know, and everyone knows, hopefully, in our region. I may not stick around to hear Commissioner Smith's comments, but I'll watch them on YouTube, which is a wonderful thing to be able to do when you're trying to cover a lot of areas. I am reasonably confident that you will be including environmental issues in your priorities later. I encourage you all to please follow through with your environmental priorities and hold to your resolve and wish you all a happy new year. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Haas, followed by Mr. Tom Pine. Morning. Can you hear that? My name is Tom Haas. I've been here since 1962 over on Linda Drive, so I can stand with the gentleman there on what taxes used to be. One of the things I want to bring up is there's a federal program out there under HUD. Julie, who is Martin County Human Resources in charge of the housing program, there's been a program out there to assist seniors in paying their bills and paying their rent. I spoke with Julie last week, two weeks ago, actually, and the money's run out. The HUD money has run out, so there's nothing there yet, and I just want to make the commissioners aware of it and see if they can make some phone calls, get together, and see what they can do to push this money so we get it for our seniors. It's an excellent program. The other thing is the seawall that was just built over on bathtub, someday people are going to learn you can't mess with Mother Nature. Mother Nature's going to do what it's going to do. Along with that, they're putting in 14 feet of sand, is what I've been told, along that seawall to make more of a beach. I'm just wondering, in that program, is anybody taking into consideration the spawning cycle of some of our most elaborate fish that we have in the IRL? We have sheep's head, snook, drum, trout, bonefish, and tarpon, to mention a few. Those that I have mentioned all start spawning from now until May and June. We're going to be dredging out of the Sailfish Flats area, which is a big spawning area for some of these fish. Bonefish have recently come to this area pretty thick and heavy. It's been an economic driver, as we all know, down towards Key West for fly fishermen. It's starting in this area. However, if we're going to be pulling all the sand out of there and disturbing that area year after year, we're going to lose a lot of our spawning fish. I hear a lot about environment, mangroves, but nobody worries about, I haven't heard anybody mention the sand and the spawning areas for these fish. So I would like that to be looked at and taken into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pine will be followed by Mr. Jeff Whitman, district. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. Today is the first county commission meeting of the 2024 year, and we will hear from our county commissioners what their dreams and wishes are for the coming year. So as a Martin County taxpayer, I would like to share my dreams for what I should, for what I think should be done in 2024. First and foremost, I would like to see our county government stop using the consent agenda as a way to circumvent Florida's open sunshine laws and use it as it was intended to be used, pay routine expenditures only. It should not be used to approve contracts that are not routine in nature, or the millions in cost overruns for the county golf course, or the special deal the Martin County Chamber of Commerce got when they were given the sweetheart deal, sweetheart rental agreement for the Jensen Beach Community Center, just to name some of the most obvious ones. Martin County currently operates several businesses that should be in the private sector, three restaurants, two mooring fields, a water park, and a massive RV park. This is more like a banana republic than a democracy. The city of Stewart owns a major restaurant and a mooring field in the St. Lucie River, and both of these businesses are operated by the private sector, as they should be. The hideous Christmas display in Rio prompted me to check the price of the Christmas display in downtown Jensen Beach area, and it was shocking. It cost the taxpayers of Martin County $41,329.64 for the tree, and that includes $3,300 for shipping. Now you have to add 50 man hours or so for county employees to assemble and decorate the tree, take it down after the holiday. I assumed it was a new tree since it was reported that it was two feet taller than the tree last year, but a local businessman assured me that it was the same tree as last year. I didn't realize artificial trees can grow. Martin County commissioners should join the Palm Beach County commissioners in supporting a Florida state bullet law. Discharging of firearms in residential areas would penalize gun owners who discharge firearms in primary residential areas if the bullet doesn't remain within the boundaries of the property where the gun was fired. What you permit, what you promote, what you allow, you encourage, what you condone, you own. We want our sidewalks back in downtown Jensen Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Jeff Whitman, District 3 resident, I might add, followed by Amy Pritchett. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Jeff Whitman, Hope Sound. I wish all of you a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year. I come to you today to speak about the Florida Panther and ask you to acquire more land to protect them. Growing up on Jupiter Island, Panther sightings were not uncommon. Panthers would swim over to the island to gorge themselves on raccoons, which were gorging themselves on turtle eggs. The town manager, James Spurgeon, told me that they were coming over and eating Nat Reed's ducks. The amazing thing is the Panthers are still here. I've seen three. The range of a male Panther is 50 square miles or more, and a male Panther was killed by a car on the B line in 2019. Jackie Thurlow Lippish, the FWC, and FDOT were trying to get an underground tunnel for them to cross safely, but it would have cost millions of dollars, so it never got built. So the state is aware that there are panthers in Martin County. Martin County is the last vestige of panther habitat in southeast Florida. They come from Dupree into the Corbett area, cross the B line, and go into Hungryland Slough, a.k.a. Palmar. From there, they come to establish tunnels under I-95 and the Turnpike. I've driven through them, and then they either go into Jonathan Dickinson or the Atlantic Ridge. Sometimes they come into Hope Sound. A game camera recently caught a panther on the Loxalusi Preserve, but you would have to talk to Greg Braun about that. The Florida panther has been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1967, and it is very close to extinction. I urge you to acquire as much panther habitat as you can. Florida Forever has $300 million available for acquisition. Florida Communities Trust has $91 million. I close in a quote from Janine Mason. Protecting panthers in Martin County indirectly conserves other threatened and endangered wildlife. It is beyond important to ensure that there are areas that will be protected in perpetuity. If they disappear, the system begins to crumble. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jeff. I'll note that I saw one in the federal thing just south of my home about eight months ago. I got a glimpse of one. And when I was growing up, we had a black one that always was on our street in front of our house. So it's kind of interesting. He has them now as a pet. No. We didn't have any cats around back then either because they, yeah, between the coyotes. And, by the way, we have a whole new group of coyotes in our scrub reserve that have shown up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amy. Good morning, Commissioners. Happy New Year. I'll be very brief. Several weeks ago, I attended our Neighborhood Advisory Committee meeting, and we overwhelmingly asked that the monies in the purses be diverted to New Monrovia to help it establish a much better place in the community because it's been severely neglected. And I'm just asking that we continue to allow the residents of the Neighborhood Advisory Committee to let all of you know where we want the money spent, what we want our little community to look like, and I just fully support what they're doing, and I appreciate you listening and your time. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. All right. Now we're on to, oh, do we have any other public comment? Seeing none. Maybe. Need to fill out a form when you get a minute. Would you like me to fill it up? Go ahead first, and then you can do it afterwards. Good morning. Can everybody hear me? Yeah, we can. My name is Michael Bell. People call me Mike Bell. I live here in Tequesta. We've been here since 1999. In those years, we've had a peaceful, quiet existence, nice, healthy existence, raising three daughters that went from Hope Sound Elementary all the way through to South Fork High School, all graduates. We have had a neighbor issue for years. We've spoken to the chairman here on multiple occasions. I have a package here that I'd like to give to each and every one of the members of the commission. And my hope is, with over 200 years, my hope is, with over 200 years of knowledge that you all have, that you can see by reading what I've asked for, and that is to add additional information to the noise ordinances that we currently have that allow the police officers and code enforcement agents to find and prevent individuals' neighbors from destroying the peace and quiet of their existence. It's very serious when somebody can ultimately, make noise, stay hidden, and disappear without any harm at all to them, but harm to those people that they're inflicting on. The noise ordinances currently, it's impossible for code enforcement when the noise issues happen from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. in an attempt to keep up neighbor or neighbors. We all know that code enforcement doesn't go out at 1 a.m. in the morning. So who do you call? You call the police. Police come out. They can't do anything either. It's not against the law. We need some help, and please, I'm asking you to look at what I've left you in your packages. Feel free to call me. I have offered up sound. If you need to hear sound that generates the noises, whether it's from an air compressor that is able to run all night long or whether it's wind chimes. Your time's up. Yeah. All right, thank you. Please see if you can help. All right, do we have any other public comment? Seeing none, moving to commissioners. Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome. Happy New Year. Some of us on Saturday, Amy, got to attend the kickoff and the new location for SPAM at the Martin County new offices, school board new offices. First and foremost, the facility is fantastic. You've all done an amazing job just as a rehab of the old Stuart News. But probably the most impactful thing for me from that whole move was the idea that the school board decided to free up some space in the old printing, I guess, the printing section of the building. And if you haven't been there, it's 5,000 square feet, Amy, I think, probably a 24-foot clear ceiling. Now SPAM, which was kind of located in a rough shack at one point out at South Fork and then moved over to the fairgrounds for a short little stint with no air conditioning. It was pointed out a few times. It's in this fantastic location immediately, like as if you were in this room, that wall over to your right or my left is SPAM. And it's an amazing facility. They have the competition field set up that when they get their new project for the year that they're going to compete, there is a size requirement of that competition space that's already mapped out. It's already built in the location. They have a machine shop set up, and they have amazing and have had amazing experts help them understand how to build their project. I think one of the asks that they talked about this year was that they really need to get some more machinists and people that understand how to use a bridge port, how to use a lathe, how to do the things that, you know, is definitely a talent that is gained over years and years of experience. But we have great manufacturing in Martin County that if anybody is interested and you want to participate with SPAM, they have won the national and international competitions twice, I think, Amy, right? Say that it's a robotics team. Sorry, the robotics team, SPAM. And something I told somebody the other day right after the Macy's Day Parade, because it's been now a handful, it's been 2012, I think, they were in the Macy's Day Parade. They led off on Thanksgiving Day at their parade. It's been an amazing accomplishment. And I think what you all have done, Amy, with the school board and partnering to get that facility in a really super space is like one of the best things the school board has done. Of all the things you've done, I think it's one of the most amazing best things you've done for the kids that participate and all their mentors that help. So, anyway, congratulations on that for the public. And I don't know if, I guess the public can go in and see if there's, Amy, can you come up just for a quick second? Because you can't hear. I'm sorry. I just. I will email you who they can contact and tours can be, can be provided. I just would like to say that Mike Dieter Lizzie was the real conduit to all of this. We, we obviously bought in, but Michael was instrumental. He, he worked with them for several years to get this through. And Stacy and James Jones are amazing people. They've been doing it for 27 years. So, I will furnish you with, with the contact information. And I can give you one email address if you want me to. Or, or if anybody's watching and listening, if you want to, I think you could just reach out to any general school board office member. Yes. And we'd be happy to provide that for you. But also, if you go on FRC 180, Martin County, you'll get to their website and all the contact information will be there. And so, the unveil on, because I had to leave early, but the unveil is, was Saturday, right? For the new project for this year, the competition. Yes. And you can see that online as well. They'll show it to you. And they have six weeks, right? I think. Six weeks to build, to build the new product. And then they start competing all over Florida. And then, Houston, Texas, I believe, is the last stop where they'll compete for the big prize. But they're just really dedicated. And we were so happy that they were able to do what they did in the short amount of time and get it, get it on the ground. And I think they said, during the presentation, there's 3,000 schools worldwide that compete for this. Yes. And that day, they had a video that was broadcast internationally. And that was their kickoff. So, all of those competing were watching at the same time. Fantastic. Well, I take that back. At the same time, we all saw it. But it was different time zones all around the world. And it was quite spectacular. And Dean Kamen, who is the starter of this whole thing, how many years ago, is still active. And they're just doing a great job. So, I'm really proud that they're there. And thank you for recognizing it. Yeah. But I've got to give kudos to Mike. Fair enough. But it still takes three to vote on something to make something happen. We were unanimous in that. And Lee Roberts is also very – she's a fanatic with spam. So, it's very cool. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sure, thank you for all the time. Thank you. All right. Commissioner Campy. I'm set. Commissioner Hurd. Happy New Year. Yeah. And Happy New Year for me, Mr. Administrator. No, I have something at the end of the meeting to talk about Indiantown solid, the biosolids. Oh, okay. Good. Okay. Public hearing number one. Public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending Article I, Regulation of Mooring Fields, Chapter 8, Anchoring and Mooring. Melissa Petrick. There we go. Thank you. Good morning. Melissa Petrick, Senior Assistant County Attorney. Kevin Abate, Parks and Recreation Director. Just before we start, this matter was published on December 29th of 2023. So, as the board is aware, we currently have two mooring fields. One is located up in Jensen Beach, and the other one is located in Manatee Pocket. We have a harbormaster that is in control of these mooring fields. When people come in, they would sign a lease, and they can tether up to a ball. As the law is written right now, law enforcement has the authority to remove people that are in a mooring field that are not supposed to be there. The Florida statute, by definition, does state that the county is authorized to enact an ordinance that allows the county to pass an ordinance regarding inside that mooring field. So, today, I have before you an amendment to Chapter 8 that would grant the harbormaster or his or her designee the power and permission to have an unauthorized vessel towed from the mooring field. And that would be either a vessel that is in violation of their written agreement of the mooring field or a vessel that has or floating structure that has come into the mooring field and is refusing to leave. So, there would be two instances. One would be a vessel that's there and is not authorized to be there. And then the other part is where there is an emergency situation where a vessel is in there and is in potential of causing grave death, injury, or great property damage that we would be allowed to have that vessel towed out. So, it just all the ordinance does, as is presented before you. So, we've included certain definitions and in Section 8.1 is a floating structure that is language verbatim taken from the Florida statutes and just also covers in there that this ordinance would cover Jensen Beach and the Manatee Pocket mooring fields. And then, in addition, we have, in definitions, the mooring field agreement, and that is regarding the actual written agreement that a vessel operator or owner enters into with the county to tether up to a ball. And then, as you see in Sections 8.2 and 8.3, 8.2 pertains to Jensen Beach. 8.3 is to Manatee Pocket, and that lays out exactly what I just said, is the authority for the harbormaster to have a vessel towed from within the actual mooring field itself. Any questions? Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Not so much a question on this specific change, but it is tangential to the entire conversation, and it's something I reached out to one of our lobbyists that I worked with probably 15 years ago when we created the pilot program that actually helped start Jensen and the mooring field and the process of the state allowing mooring fields even to begin with, because there wasn't really any vehicle to get us from A to B. We were fortunate to be selected as one of the pilot program locations. There were five, I believe, around the state that had various complexities to them, from small counties to large counties. Miami-Dade, I believe, was one. Pinellas area was another. Anyway, there was to have been a follow-on after the passage of that legislation that created the ability to have a pilot program. There was supposed to be a two- or three-year study as to what were the impacts, what were the implications, what would actually happen when you had mooring fields. The industry wanted it. Everybody wanted to know. Everybody wanted to see what that would mean and what that would look like. Unfortunately, that follow-up kind of never really happened. We have the Jensen Beach mooring field. Now we have the Manatee Pocket mooring field. I've received a couple calls. Maybe some of you do or don't. It depends where you are relative to the mooring field, I guess, if you get calls. We still have problems, and this was part of the discussion relative to the pilot itself. How far out from the mooring field itself does it regulate? So in Jensen, it was really the southwest pocket, if you will, of the causeway. The mooring field in Salerno, in Manatee Pocket, is the area that's described basically with the footprint that makes up the mooring field. Now we have this issue where if somebody is purposely or unpurposely, whatever, leaving their vessel and they won't move it, we're making a change to fix that. The problem is we have areas around the mooring fields, and Stuart has one as well, as was mentioned earlier, that there is no regulation, I guess, if you will, because the study never really came back. The legislature decided what to do with it, what happens outside of the mooring field. So in Palm City, in Ed's district, you have people that are mooring outside of Stuart, outside of Andaris Park, and also in front of the residences across from the Roosevelt Bridge. In Rio, sometimes we get them on the Rio, the north side of the St. Lucie River. And in Jensen, just this past storm that we had, there were six or seven moored south of Jensen. So I talked to our lobbyist and said, can you poke around and find out is there any appetite to expand the definition of where you can and where you can't? Could we add that you can't moor within 1,000 feet outside of a mooring field? Like if you're in Palm City and there's one in Stuart, you can't moor 1,000 feet or 1,500 feet outside because now you're off of people's residences. And the gentleman here who spoke about the noise and other things, there are things that go on on boats that people don't particularly care for out in their backyard in the river that are across from the mooring field. So I say all that just that maybe we can get Sarah to look into and work with our delegation and also our lobby team up there to further probe that is there an appetite, is there a want, is there the ability to expand the language, to expand the protection, if you will, of the mooring field by some distance that would enable us to enforce mooring outside of the mooring field. So if I may, Section 327.4109 is the Florida statute, and it says that it's illegal for a vessel cannot anchor or moor within such that the nearest approach of the approached or mooring vessel is within 100 feet outward from the marked boundary of a public mooring field. So ultimately, a vessel is not supposed to be within 100 feet. However, at the county level, we are preempted. Law enforcement can go out there and remove the boats. The statute as written only allows us to regulate inside the mooring field, not even outside. Which is what was supposed to come back after three years. What were those impacts? What did the industry, what did the boating world think of what we were doing in the first place? And did it create, or not create, but does it also allow sort of the ability to step outside, if you will, of what the intent was? And it always existed, even before the pilot program, it existed. But now that we have mooring fields, and we have the ability to make sure that they're insured, make sure that they're on a ball that is anchored into the ground, that you don't, we just had a boat lose anchor like three weeks ago in one of the storms in Jensen. And it raised all sorts of havoc up there. But that's the idea, like how do we stop that from happening, for property damage and other things? And this is also attempting to, within the mooring field, you can't just drop an anchor inside the mooring field and I'm not leaving. Correct. Anyway, so hopefully if you're agreeable, we can, I mean, I say you, the commission is agreeable, we can get Sarah Powers to start talking to our delegation and get with Missy and see if we can't further that conversation. Mr. Donaldson, you got anything to add to that? Or you want to stay out of it? I'm going to stay out of it. And with that, I'd move, I know that was a long-winded add-on, but approval of staff's recommendation. Okay. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, thanks for this amendment. It's greatly needed, and I hope that it will fix a problem that exists. Thank you. Second. Okay. All right. Any public? Not seeing any. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Especially with Commissioner Hetherington absent. Are you all acceptable or agreeable to having staff research that? Sure. Absolutely. If there's something more we can add on? Great. Thank you. So we'll add that to our, I will interpret that as it's an investigation to see if there's an appetite on what can, if the amendment can go from 100 feet. Yep. I talked to her a week and a half ago, and she was going to reach out to the industry, both locally and statewide to see what the thought is. Okay. We'll take that on and report back. Thank you. Okay. Now the question is, is do we go into our next, or do we take our 1030 break? It's fast. It's fast? Okay. Let's take up our next item, which is a quasi-judicial request for a variance to allow the issuance of a building permit on a legal lot of record that does not front an open road but has access via an easement, Mr. Tom Walker. With that, we need to swear in everybody that... Okay. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? He just wanted you to stand to be sworn in if you were going to say anything. Well, just in case. Just in case. Yeah. Maybe... Yes. Yes, he is the opposite. Okay. Sir, we need to swear you in. So, Leela, can you do it again, please? Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Okay. And as far as any... Ex parte. Ex parte. I don't know. I can't remember that. If I do, they've been filed. I said hello to the applicant. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Okay. And all the proper paperwork in your resume and all of that stuff has been... Yes, I have a copy of the agenda item summary, my work history, and along with the copy of the return receipts that were provided by the applicant that I'd like to submit for the record as Exhibit 1. Did I forget anything? You're good. Is there any intervenors? No, this isn't the type of hearing that requires intervenors or... I knew that, but he made me ask it. Anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry. It was. You can resign if it becomes too burdensome. Go ahead. Okay. Good morning, Commissioners. Tom Walker, County Surveyor for the record. Today, we have a request from Jean Grande Engineering Planning on behalf of Mr. Barry Michael for our variance to allow building permits on a parcel that does not front an open road. According to Section 4.843K1C, Land Development Regulations, the Board of County Commissioners may grant a variance that allows a building permit on a lot not fronting an open road, provided that the Board determines the following. One, it is a legal lot of record. Two, the lot has legal access to an open road that is A, reasonable and practical. B, in general conformity to the style and character of the neighborhood. And C, established by record easement no more than 1,320 feet long. And three, the variance does not create an undue burden on the county's provision of public safety or public services. Staff's analysis concluded that it meets these requirements, as the subject lot is a legal lot of record currently recorded in Official Records Book 3063, page 572. The lot has reasonable and practical access to an open road, being Southwest Canter Highway, approximately 200 feet south of Southwest Cove Road. That access is currently shown on the map in red. The subject lot is shown in yellow. And it is in general conformity with the character of the surrounding neighborhood. Access to the lot is established by an easement that does not exceed 1,320 feet, according to the Platte of St. Lucie Inlet Farms, recorded in Platte Book 1, page 98, public records of Palm Beach, now Martin County, Florida. And lastly, use of the access, which is located where a public right-of-way was intended to exist for access purposes, would not place an undue burden on the county's provision of public safety or services. The Board of County Commissioners has asked to be advised as to whether a parcel associated with the variance request is within the urban service district boundary, and if the parcel is located within Palmar or Palm Beach Heights subdivision. The subject parcel is located within the primary urban service district, but is not near Palmar or the Palm Beach Heights subdivisions. And staff's recommendation is, one, move that the Board receive and file the agenda item summary and all of its attachments for the record as Exhibit 1, and two, move that the Board grant the variance and adopt the resolution to allow the issuance of a building permit on certain parcel identified as Exhibit A. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? Any comments from the applicant? Commissioner Smith. If there is no public comment, because I think we need to ask for that as well, I will move staff's recommendation. Is there any public comment on this item? Commissioner Hurd. Just a comment. What a beautiful lot. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously with Commissioner Hetherington absent. Best of luck. Yes. It's very nice. Tom Walker, excellent job. You were awesome. All right. With that, we're going to take our 10-30, 10-minute closed captioning break. See you in 10 or so minutes. We are back with Department No. 1, Offices of Management and Budget items which require board approval. Ms. Stephanie Murley. We have four items. Good morning, Commissioner. Stephanie Murley, Director of OMB. Four simple items today. The first one is permission to accept the FDOT airfield signage replacement grant amendment. This is a grant we already have on hand. This amendment is just correcting the scope of the design, which would change the signage from land side to air side. Our second item is a permission to accept the public transportation grant agreement for the public transit block grant program. This is a grant agreement for the amount of $383,861 to provide operating assistance for the Martin County Public Bus Service, MARTI. There is a 50-match requirement of the same amount, and that is already budgeted in our transit FY24 operating budget. The next item is a permission to accept the FDOT local agency program or LAP agreement on behalf of the City of Stewart for the Riverside Park neighborhood improvements. It's in the amount of $1.5 million estimated for concrete sidewalks, a northbound turn lane onto Maple Street, drainage improvements, and other items for the Riverside Park neighborhood. This is, again, a City of Stewart agreement, and Martin County is just doing this on behalf of the city. The second part of that same item is the interlocal between us and the City of Stewart in order to do those services on their behalf. And the last item is a request to approve a budget resolution for the state FY24 allocation for the Federal Highway Administration funds for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO. This is just to accept the state funds in the amount of $150,963. And that's all we have today. Okay. Commissioner Smith. I think it would be helpful just for the general person watching. What is a LAP agreement? Why do we do this, and why does the city not do it, and what is the purpose of it? I mean, that just might be helpful to explain all that. Sure. The LAP stands for Local Agency Program or Projects. And what it is, is it allows the DOT to, the county can act as an agent on behalf of the DOT in order to become LAP certified. You have to, your engineers have to have certain certifications, and the county has to be able to demonstrate an ability to follow federal and state procurement rules and inspection. There's a whole slew of things. So what it allows the DOT to do is to, they can award us grants or funds, and the county can build a project to DOT specifications without the DOT having to manage the project. So in the case of a city of Stewart project who may receive a state grant for a transportation project, the choice is either, since the city is not LAP certified, the DOT would have to manage it with their, and they have limited resources, or in this case, it allows the county to manage it on behalf of the city. And we've had an agreement with the city to do that for them. And through the LAP, through the agreement with the city, the county receives some, the cost for us to manage it is included in the project. So that's just a short, is that what you're looking for, Commissioner? Yeah, I just think it's helpful. We talk in sometimes simple terms of what it is. I think an example of like a LAP project, wasn't A1A resurfacing through the city this year a LAP agreement? Yes, and one of the larger LAP projects the county did, which was an I-95 interchange project years ago that we did at Canter at I-95. So it does allow the county to even do fairly large projects depending upon whether we want to or not. The DOT has encouraged us to get LAP certified years ago, and our success at it, and Ms. Brotherington is sitting on the sideline, was a big part of us getting through. Continuously, we did such a good job of it. We've been, at the end of the year, DOT at times has had extra funds and shoveled funds towards us because of staff's ability to do a good job with the LAP program. And in some cases, it also allows us to expedite the timeline that we would do it much sooner. If we're on EFDOT's timeline, it would be five years under EFDOT and maybe two years with the county doing it. Thank you very much. That's what that was meant to explain. And with that, I would move staff's recommendation. Any other questions? We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously, with Commissioner Hetherington absent. Next, contracts that meet the threshold for board approval, $1 million or greater, by Christy Brotherton. Good morning. City Zone. Good morning. Christy Brotherton, Chief Procurement Officer. I have one item for your consideration today. It is a continuing services contract for stormwater pipelining for our cured-in-place pipe projects. This contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $3,800,000 and a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the two lowest responsive and responsible bidders, which is Timothy Rose Contracting and New Pipe, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. Okay. That was easy. Any questions? No staff's recommendation. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously, with Commissioner Hetherington absent. Next up, Mr. Donaldson, to discuss our 2024 priorities of the board of county commissioners. Yes, commissioners. We received from three commissioners printed the priorities. In addition, Commissioner Hetherington has provided her a list of priorities, and Commissioner Smith is prepared to elicit his priorities for... A song. I heard he wrote a song. In song. That would be... That would not be happening. An interpretive dance. That will also not be happening. Spoils for it. Yeah. Any of those would be most entertaining, but we'll move on with the fact... For you. For all of us. For all of you. Yes. That's how you get them done. Yeah. That's it. Anyway, it's been a procedure or policy for the last few years that you present your priorities. It's an opportunity for you to discuss amongst yourselves if the benefit of which ones are collectively your highest priorities that would help administration, or in some cases you identify them all as equally. But in any case, it's beneficial for staff and your administration to understand collectively what is your highest priorities. There are some... I think acquisition has been a theme for many of you all for many years. And certainly, on today's agenda, the acquisition of the 250 acres is significant. It's also important to note on that particular project that that is using half-sales tax that we collected many years ago through...that the voters had voted on. It was very limited on how you could spend that money, and which is the reason why we still have it. And for...and so that property is being acquired with funds that were, again, collected from half-cent sales tax over a decade ago for land acquisition. And with that, I'll turn it over to you all to review the list, and staff is here to prepare to talk about any that you've proposed on lists or those that you've had on previous years. Well, let's start with Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of my policies I've already shared with you earlier, which is kind of why I didn't get them put in in a written form, but I have them organized in some shape or form, and some of them are also repeats from last year and prior years. But this year, I'd like to start with our fiscal policy. I asked Don or Sarah the last two meetings ago when we had our fiscal policy approval every year that we do that, could we come back and amend it at some point in the future? And the answer was yes, if we chose to. So I have two fiscal policies that I would like us to explore. One I've talked about for literally 15 years is some form of a resolution agreement with the sheriff relative to new revenues and how we disperse those revenues, how we share those revenues. I talked about it during our budget process. Effectively, the sheriff has about 50 percent of our tax bill, and we have about 50 percent. And what I'd like to see us do is create an agreement with the sheriff that would recognize and memorialize what, if you will, that any new revenue be split between 50-50 because it's roughly 50 percent of the bill between the sheriff's department and ours, and then leave it up to both the Board of County Commissioners on our 50 percent as to whether we want to reduce it down to zero or reduce it to some other number and for the sheriff to do the same. And then this year, I think the example was we had $22 million in new revenue, which would have effectively been about $11 million for the county side of the bill and $11 million for the sheriff's side. We ended up going down to $3 million, did we use, or $6 million in new revenue? $6 million. $6 million. And the sheriff chose to keep the $11 million and some additional. And the purpose for that, and this is not a measuring stick, if you will. It's just for the public to understand and so that we can define to the public with their tax bill so that they further understand the sheriff has his constitutional right to apply to us or to submit to us his budget, and if we choose to reject it, he can go to the governor and cabinet and get it approved, which I don't think has ever happened here. It's happened in other counties, but not here. And then we have our budget, and really, in my mind, those two need to be completely publicly understood that they're separate. And what we do with the revenue that we see on our side is clearly up to the five of us, and what the sheriff decides to do with his revenue or additional revenue, if that's what he so asks for, that's up to him. And I fully support and have fully supported his request all these years, so it's not a tool to say no. It's a question or it's just a tool that everybody fully understands. So that's one of the fiscal policies. The other, Commissioner Campy brought up probably a year and a half ago, the idea of allocating 25 percent, and I pushed him or pushed us on that to go to 50 percent of any and all new revenue generated from the rural lifestyle projects go to land acquisition or to a land acquisition program. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a state statute or a rule that allows us to bind those dollars infinitum. It would have to be a resolution that we would probably have to re-adopt every year with our fiscal policy, but it is a fiscal policy that we could do by resolution every year that said we are going to take whatever revenues are generated from those projects and take 50 percent of it and put it towards land acquisition. And it was a great idea. I just, I think instead of 25, we need to make it 50. It should produce significant amounts of revenue for the county to be in a very strong, positive position with the state to match dollars to go acquire more Palmar, more other lands that we would like to acquire, and so on. So that's my second fiscal policy. I also have Palmar back on my list again. This is probably the fifth, sixth, seventh year that Palmar has been on my list. In reaction to Palmar, in reaction to the presentations that we've had with our staff and both here at the Regional Planning Council, there is a group out there that has called or has created this state idea about a wildlife corridor that is kind of being acquired, if you will, or managed. Unfortunately, Martin County was left out of that mapping, if you will. It's not that maybe we're not eligible at all because it's not really an eligibility issue. But I think we ought to establish our own wildlife corridor with all the acquisitions we have done and work with some of our projects that we have worked with recently to formalize and literally put on a map specific wildlife corridors, even to the speaker's point this morning, relative to the panther habitat and so on. That's something I think we ought to put on a map that is understood and designated and created. From last year, I don't think, I don't remember if we did it or not this past year. And, Commissioner Jenkins, if it's on your list, I apologize, but maybe it'll support your list. I really would like this year to create a historic champion tree ordinance that would define what a champion historic tree is and what kind of financial, whether it's impact fee credits or something that we give, that we create some form of incentive for both single-family homes and or development to protect our historic trees in Martin County. I have two last ones, and they're tag-ons from prior issues. There is a, our staff is working with, and there is a movement to create a coral reef restoration strategy and plan with the state, and I would like Martin County to position itself to be a recipient of one of these upland or on-land nursery and research programs in Martin County. We are very well-suited to be in that position, and John Mayle, if he hasn't talked to you all about it, is perfectly willing and wanting to brief you all on what that might look like. And lastly, you have before you, Don has presented a letter that he'll be talking about later, but I'm kind of stealing his thunder right now, is that we adopt a biosolids agreement or at least ask staff to move in that direction with Indiantown for the transformation of our biosolids into significantly less harmful waste in our rural lands, and that would do my list for this year. Okay. Do you want us to respond to his choices? No, I think we can do it as it comes to us. Do you want to do Stacy's, or do you have Stacy? I do, did we pass out Stacy's, you have them, so I can read them off. Go ahead. Commissioner Campy, do you have a list? I have it. Yeah, I just want to, Commissioner Campy, do you have your list? Thank you. I thought Don was going to read it. I am going to read it. I just want to make sure he had it before I started. Thank you. So the first priority was fund and complete Golden Gate El Camino Trail, immediately ascertain new grant opportunities to fund phase two of the project. So I know phase one has been worked on. That's certainly a high priority of Commissioner Hetherington is getting that project completed. The other is complete San Spirit Park boat ramp renovations, including reviewing parking challenges, realigning the crosswalk into the park, adding a sidewalk for a safer pedestrian crossing. The third item was to continue to review procurement procedures, particularly on septic to sewer projects to ensure meeting the goals of the board's prioritized septic to sewer program. And then the number four item is reduce or maintain current taxes, no due taxes, no increases. So that would be a zero millage increase goal. Explore county's options regarding enforcement of vaping and smoking ordinances. I know this is something that Commissioner Hetherington has been speaking about since she's been elected. All right. I guess it's my turn. Um, my first on the list is our housing. Um, as we've talked about before, um, there are some folks, including myself, that have now officially, uh, set up, um, the Martin County Community Land Trust, um, just as an update to that, the, the phase that we're in right now, we've got all the legal stuff done. Um, we are working on moving property deeds from the Banner Lake Club and, um, and they actually own a couple of residents to, uh, be titled into the land trust. Um, the next step is working on the four acres. The county, um, currently owns next to the Banner Lake Club as being part of this. There is some things that we need to do at a county level prior to that because the, there's a lot of, um, road easements and there's, it's very contrived that need to be abandoned. Um, so that is a project that I'm, uh, about ready to undertake. And then, then I will be coming to the board and asking for the board to, um, move that property into the, the land trust. And again, this, uh, land trust is a stepping stone for, um, it's intended to be a county-wide, uh, community land trust. Uh, there was, uh, Banner Lake Club, uh, board had done such a great job in getting this started that the Banner Lake community and the Hopestown area is the first stepping stone of getting up on our feet and running. And then we will, um, once that happens, immediately be, uh, expanding that, um, um, to wherever it's needed in, uh, throughout the entire county. Um, also, um, with that, uh, is to support, um, all the rest of the affordable housing workforce needs that we have in this county, which is, uh, which is a huge, um, undertaking that, um, that Commissioner Campy, I'm sure, is on his list that I am fully supportive. Um, my next item is, um, building on the success and continuing efforts to enhance customer service in every department of our county government. Um, we've done a very good job in that regard. I've gotten, since I've been elected, um, with, obviously, the help of, of my board members, um, positive comments on the experience, um, people have in, have had going through the processes, different processes throughout the county, or through the county system. Unfortunately, right now, we are challenged with some staffing issues, which are making that customer service. Don and I recently had a conversation about this, um, which is making, uh, the appearance of our customer service, um, be, um, a challenge to our folks that are trying to get through the system. Um, I think we can do a better job in explaining truthfully the challenges that we have. Um, we have, um, I think a four-month backlog in engineering, you know, and when somebody's, when somebody's trying to get that done and, and somebody says that, I'm sorry, but it's going to be four months before we can even look at your plans. Um, it's, it's, it's, so we are doing everything we can do, uh, with some outside help trying to get that backlog caught up. But, again, that diminishes the appearance of our, of our customer service, and we, we need to maybe have, um, Martha Ann and her group kind of maybe do a little public outreach on every business. My business, my business, every business has staffing challenges, um, which, again, adversely affect their customer services. So, anyway. Okay, moving on. Um, continuing and support the momentum we have developed and expand what we have gained, garnered in our CRAs. Um, that has been on my priority list since the day I was elected. Um, I think we've done a wonderful job. Um, we have a lot of our, a few of our CRAs, um, Hope Sound included, that are moving into the second phase of a major project that, um, I would like to see that momentum continue. And these are, these are issues that have plagued these communities that were platted in the 20s when, I guess, the engineers didn't realize that water flows downhill. And, um, we're trying to correct, um, a lot of those things with, um, with our CRA projects to, to support our communities for, uh, better quality of life and, um, attract, um, um, business too. So, uh, four is providing and supporting and acquiring environmentally sensitive lands, uh, Palmar, and, uh, supporting the efforts with the Loxalusie group. I believe I've heard pretty much everybody is on the same page of that. Um, I'm very happy that we were presented with this opportunity. We will be talking about later with the, uh, with regard to the Palmar, you know, um, reiterate, uh, Doug says it quite often is, is we have a lot of environmentally sensitive lands that we, as Martin County, um, put in that category. That's not on anybody else's radar and nobody else are going to help us to acquire them. So it's, it's up to us and our citizens to identify these areas and, um, understand, um, you know, I, again, being the South County guy, um, a lot of focus and well-deserved focus is on the, the, um, the river and the, um, estuary up here. But the Loxalusie is also in Martin County and is impaired and needs our help, right? And, um, but the majority of our citizenry, citizens are up here, not down there. So, uh, it's maybe District 3 doing a little better job in, in, um, publicizing what we've got going on down South environmentally would be something that I could also take on now that I just thought about that. Okay. Number five is restore the tributaries of Loxahatchee by reconnecting historic sloughs through the wetland system and provide flood protection. So this is, um, this, this one is, is really about the Eastern Flowway that I've been working with, um, with the environmental folks in the county. Um, since I've been elected, I'm amazed, um, at, I've, the knowledge that I've garnered by going through this is, it's actually pretty amazing. And, and I've said this before, I may not be in the landscape business if, if 40 years ago, I would have really understand what this was all about. Because it is so fascinating to, to, to see what Mother Nature had, how man impaired it, and what we've got to do, and man and nature itself impaired, and what we've got to do to, um, to bring back. I mean, we, we, we have a, a very large cypress head, um, that's in Jonathan Dixon Park that was dry during the 100-inch flood that we had. You know, and, and to think about that, it's, it's just, it's crazy. But, um, you know, and it was some man-made, um, man-made things that caused that. And also a lot of nature just grew in and, and, and did it. So, anyway, it was just, um, I'm, I'm fascinated by working with John May on his team. So, I think I've said enough. So, Mr. Campi, it's your turn. No, it's not. I'm number five. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, then. And my priorities, um, Mr. Donaldson asked us to, uh, put them in order, if there is an order. And there is an order with mine. And my number one priority is to stop overdevelopment in Martin County. And it, well, it's because I missed, I, I wasn't aware that I was, uh, ranking them at the time. Um, but this is what I hear from every resident in Martin County is stop, stop, stop. It's harming us, it's destroying our brand, it's making it very, very expensive to live here, um, and we need to, to, uh, to listen to our residents and to abide by their pleas and to stop the overdevelopment in Martin County. We can do it. We're the only ones who have the ability to do it. Um, that also, uh, impacts, uh, the acquisition of the, uh, natural lands component for, uh, Indian River Lagoon South. It makes those properties so expensive and, and impedes or makes impossible our ability to complete the Indian River Lagoon South program, which is the only way that we're going to get, uh, better water quality in the Indian River Lagoon and the, uh, St. Lucie Estuary. Uh, Port Salerno CRA is, uh, experiencing some bumps right now. There's a lot of disagreement, uh, arguments over prioritization. Um, we need to fix those because it's harming Port Salerno and it will continue to harm Port Salerno if we can't get on a united front. There are improvements that are absolutely essential in Port Salerno and we need to identify those and execute them. Um, or otherwise Port Salerno, uh, will not be the, the wonderful, it has the potential to be the best CRA in South Florida. It has, it has those qualities already and we need to build upon those, um, stop gunfire and all illegal activity in Palomar. I think we're all aware that it's the wild west there. It's, they're harming the wetlands, they're harming structures, they're illegal structures. It's, it's, it's a, it's a mess and it needs to be fixed because it's, it's, it's the, it's the best vestige of Everglades, uh, in South Florida and the owners and visitors are destroying it. And, uh, lastly is green building. We are building, designing two very, very important infrastructure pieces right now and that is the public works building and also our clinic. And we need to make every effort that we use the best green building, uh, procedures that we know about because we need to lead by example. If we show the private sector, uh, how superior green building can be for all of us, they'll follow. And those are my priorities. Okay. Commissioner Campy. Thank you very much. Uh, appreciate this, that we do this. And when we talk about the fact that these are quote unquote, our priorities, I think they're priorities that we have on behalf of the constituents. I have, um, broadband connectivity at my house. So these are not my personal, um, wish list. This is on behalf of the constituents, correct broadband, which doesn't sound like a big issue for most residents in the county, in the country. But if you don't have internet access, it's, it's tremendous. And there is a large, dark zone of, um, uh, lack of interconnectivity, uh, or connectivity, uh, with broadband. And I know Mr. Stokas has been helping me really continue to push, but years are passing. And I run into residents that I have explained that this is a statewide priority, that there's a lot of funding involved, um, for this, they call it the digital divide. So I put these in, in order, um, so to speak, I guess, similar to what Commissioner Hurd said. Um, so that is one that I'd like to see happen in 2024, simply because as more people, the pandemic really shined a light on the fact that there was really inconsistent, um, coverage even in our own county. The tricky part being that a lot of the funds at the statewide level are, are for rural counties and Martin County doesn't officially sort of count with the, as a rural, you know, really financially struggling county. However, if you're in Palm City Farms, even if you're on a beautiful, um, piece of property and you don't have the internet, it's, it's a big deal. That's okay. Secondly, begin construction, uh, of the projects to correct Palm City Farms drainage and flooding issues. You know, Mr. Gordon and his team, um, has been working, we've been out there for many years now. We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a study, um, and that price tag surprises some people, but I don't think everyone understood that this issue is completely interconnected. It starts in Western Martin County. It works its way through the farms, which is a very complicated process because a lot of folks out there, uh, have, have manipulated the system, uh, if they want water on their property, they've done things to increase that level of water. If they don't, they're big on blocking. We have to work to have the neighbors, uh, be more neighborly. Uh, I've been to several meetings that got very, very heated, uh, nearly violent, uh, with people arguing with each other on, you know, what they should and should not have. That issue then comes across, uh, Martin Highway into Canopy Creek, and then it crosses the Turnpike and heads into Martin Downs Country Club that has issues. And some of this is Mr. Donaldson, even back from your original days in engineering, uh, some of the fixes are, uh, are easier to understand and actually could be done. But if it's, it's a unique system that's all connected. So if you do something in Western Martin County, it will have an impact positively or negatively in Eastern Palm City. So then you have Martin Downs, the whole community of Martin Downs, and then it crosses over towards, uh, Lighthouse Point and, and, you know, east of Map Road. So it affects nearly every resident, even to the point with, um, recently Danforth changing some of their drainage, um, direction from the Piper's Landing outfall and switching it back to go the other way. All of these decisions that will benefit a specific neighborhood, we have to also make sure that it doesn't cause a problem for someone upstream or downstream. Construct and open a dog park in Palm City. Now there was some conversation, um, about the fact that the property that was purchased along Martin Highway was going to be a dog park. It won't be, uh, it really was never, some people wanted that as a, as a possibility, but it was not really on the possibilities list. But there is a couple of other locations, uh, one in particular that I'm not going to mention at this moment, because it has some strings attached, uh, would work out very well. I think I'm going to be looking to our legal department, uh, and our, um, Parks and Rec, uh, Public Works. Uh, we have a spot that I think would be the most logical, least expensive option. There is a couple of roadblocks that would need to be circumvented, but I feel confident that through negotiations we could do that. Um, and, um, I think it's just a nice amenity. I don't have a dog, uh, so it's not like I'm looking to make this a personal benefit for me. But I know one of the things I hear consistently from residents, which doesn't sound like a big deal for a lot of people, especially if you don't have pets. But that being said, I think we could add that into our inventory of, um, amenities and benefits for our residents. And finally, begin construction on the septic to sewer conversion project. I know that, um, through really no fault of our own, our system, our procedures have worked very well, but we're chasing, um, an ever-increasing price tag. Uh, we have done a remarkable job, not just in Palm City, but in New Monrovia and Golden Gate and other areas to get the grant money that is readily available at the state level for communities that have sort of talked the talk and, and walked the walk. It's one thing to ask for money, but, you know, obviously the appropriators in Tallahassee and Washington look to see if we're deserving of that money. You can't just ask for it. You'd have to prove that you're ready to have it. And we have done that. However, as we wait to get these grants situated, the price tag continues to escalate. So we're constantly playing catch up. I think the other thing in regards to, um, and this is more of a policy decision on how we do this, I think that to create a more fair process, if you have built a brand new home in, I'll just use, uh, Old Palm City as an example, both east and west sides of Map Road. And then I would also say that it continues south of Martin Highway, uh, to a lot of the neighborhoods that are along the river. Um, if you built a brand new home and have a brand new septic system, and then we are somehow able to bring these services in, I think we need to create some kind of a policy that would allow, uh, you the ability to either use your system or get a credit. I can't imagine building a new home or replacing an outdated system, uh, with a brand new one only to then have the county show up and say, Hey, by the way, we're running sewer now and you will repay for everything. The other point that I think is important to mention is, and the, it really came to light in new Monrovia. If someone historically owns two or three or four lots connected lots, but their home is only on one and the other three are vacant. When the county comes to say that we're ready to do the system, you're responsible for paying for each of the lots, even if there's not homes. And I think that for many, and we're not talking multi-million dollar home, you know, land barons, we're talking folks that might've inherited these lots from grandparents. So I know that the system is all the, the prices are divided out based on the lots, but I think we go from presenting a great option, both environmentally and, you know, societally to our residents to then creating a situation that most people, uh, would not be financially able to handle if I had four lots, but my house is on one and the other three are vacant. I can't have my $10,000 as a round number times four. Uh, I think we create as much hardship as we do benefit. And those are them. And in regards, since I'll circle back to my colleagues now, um, I've obviously had the chance to review them and, and Doug's, a lot of his are year after year because it's a multi-year process to get some of these gigantic strategies accomplished. I didn't read any that I disagreed with on any of my colleagues. Uh, some of them I wholeheartedly, uh, would beat the drum with and others. And, and the reason my list looks the way that it does is in my mind, I was focusing specifically in the district, but when you look at some of the more countywide issues, um, you can count on my support for them. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, just, uh, after now hearing the explanations and so on, I agree with Ed on a lot of what he said, but just a couple I'd like to kind of highlight, I think that are important. Um, one, I, I think I would start with Harold's reconnecting his historic flows in South County. Um, there have been some, we have done some amazing things down South. There have been some private acquisitions that have facilitated some astronomical amazing opportunities for us in South County. Um, and some folks that really don't want any notoriety for, for doing what they've done. Um, but it has presented us, I think, and Harold with the opportunity to do literally some historic, historic restoration and connections. So to the extent that we can, we can really dive in to that, those are game changers. You know, some of these things are, you know, Palmar's a long-term big project that can take years, but Harold's stuff could, in a couple of years, we could, we could do some amazing historic changes, um, that would really change the game in South County. Um, you know, I think to Sarah's point of stopover development, I, I think we as the county, uh, need to work harder relative to explaining to our public the difference between city approvals of development and county approvals of development. I ran into a, a good old friend the other night, uh, at dinner, and the first thing he came up to me and started talking to me about was, you know, what are we going to do about all these apartments in the city of Stewart? And I said, I don't know, you got to go talk to your city officials about that. That's not us. And he's been here for 50 years and, and completely understands the dynamics. But to the general public that sees what's happening on US 1 or sees what's happening within the city, there's just not a, a great understanding of who's responsible. And ultimately, we take a lot of the blame for what is happening. Um, and then, uh, you know, to, to Harold's or to, to Ed's conversation and others on the subject to sewer. I agree with a lot of Ed's comments on, on the sewer program itself. I, I think there's more we can do relative to how we establish lots and connections. And if there are three or four lots that are owned by somebody, how can, you know, can we do like a unity of title or something that puts those four lots into one lot so they're charged one ERC versus four? Uh, and if somebody ever wanted to develop one of those other three lots, they'd have to break up the unity of title and develop it as a single parcel. I mean, that's just one thing that kind of came of mind when Ed was talking about that, that what could we as a policy do that would require someone to do something that would protect them but also protect us financially. Um, additionally, I've talked to Sarah, Sarah Powers about this, the, the, the funding, um, that we applied for and we didn't get, uh, at the state level for Indian River Lagoon money. I've talked to Don and staff about this. I don't, I, you know, it'd be interesting to know from our delegation, uh, was there ever a conversation or strategy that this year's, last year's funding would go specifically to the northern counties in, in, in the lagoon region? Um, because they are the most imperiled and they are the ones that really needed the most immediate financial cash flow to start changing the dynamics of the northern part of the lagoon. Um, and if that's so, that's fine because that's really kind of how that money should have gone. But can we put language into legislation this year that would say, look, if 100 million last year was allocated to the northern part of the lagoon, can the following year the 100 million be allocated to the southern part? And then back and forth. Is there, is there some kind of strategy that can be put into legislation that we would then be able to understand, okay, it's our turn this year to be in that mix to apply for so that we can put money back in New Monrovia and make it more affordable for them versus what we ended up with, with this year. And so, um, I, I, I agree with everybody's comments and, and, and, and, and priorities. I, I think it clearly defines this board and Martin County's, um, desire for the future. And I'm really happy to hear everybody's ideas. Great. Um, as you noticed the champion tree ordinance thing dropped off my thing because I just got so frustrated with it because of the litigation that was, um, we're being preempted of. And to be honest with you, I have not gotten an update on that, where that litigation has got to be resolved by this point, um, one way or the other to where we can actually, I just wonder though, from your knowledge of what was, what did happen, right? Can we not put an incentive program in it? It doesn't, it doesn't impact your ability to develop or not develop or trim or not trim. It just says to a private owner. And, and, and I ran into the owner actually over in Rio that, that did save this fantastic Oak tree that's in their backyard the other day, like a month ago. And she introduced herself and said who she was. And I said, you're the owner of that house that built. And we were all hoping that you wouldn't cut the Oak tree down and you didn't. And that was great, but there had been like an impact fee credit or something given them if they weren't of that mindset that I don't think that'll tap into legislation. I think it just gives us an incentive at the development review or the building permit side of things to say, look, on your property, this is really cool tree. If you are inclined, we're not saying you can't do it, but if you're inclined to save it and you can, you can design your house around it. Right. We'll give you an impact for that. No, I completely agree with you. And I will put that rewarding people. It's different than, you know, right. It's right. I'll put that back on my, cause that is something that I was passionate about that I need to get repassioned about. Um, the other thing is we need to be the second in line to sign an agreement with the biosolids folks out in Indian town. Obviously, Indian town is going to be first. So I thoroughly support that. The rural lifestyle, um, tax, um, thing was a conversation that we really had some momentum on that kind of died. I think that needs to come back as an agenda item. I think some studies need to be done on that. Uh, I think, you know, giving commissioner Campy credit for, for, uh, coming up with that idea. Um, I want to talk about it potentially a lot of money. Absolutely. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. To that point, when we talked about the rural lifestyle and I know that it was controversial and there was a lot of benefits to it and there was, you know, obviously some things that frightened people. We all have heard and, and I think in most cases when people say development doesn't pay for itself, you know, it would be hard for individual homes or small scale neighborhoods to necessarily pay for themselves. But I think there's a couple of opportunities where something like Atlantic Fields, which is an anomaly in all development nationwide. Most communities would have been desperately thrilled to get an opportunity for the Discovery Land Company to consider their community or their county for one of the projects. You know, Mr. Donaldson and I, when we first talked about Atlantic Fields, we were trying to calculate 317 homes would be the equivalent of 317 of these specific homes would be the equivalent. I think we came up with about 7,000 regular homes. So, I mean, think about that. And this particular neighborhood as the example is probably, I would guarantee it was not anyone's first home. It's their second, it's their third, it's their fourth home. So, they're not going to be putting a tremendous burden on the schools or parks or the beaches in Hope Sound at the end of Bridge Road. I think that is one of those examples and there are very few, this is a unicorn that would bring in so much money compared to what it would genuinely, the impact it would have. My only concern, and maybe we can work it out in the language, Commissioner Smith, is that when I had originally said 25 percent, I mean, obviously, if it could be 50 percent, that sounds terrific, but maybe the language needs to be a minimum of 25 percent up to 50, because I don't want to hamstring the budgetary process of what we don't know will come in the future. And that, yes, those dollars that I've equated the project as finding, and look, I know that the applicant was, had, you know, professionals that crunched the numbers to say it would generate X amount of dollars for the county side and the school district side. It's multi-millions of dollars. I equate it to finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground every year, because for the small footprint of the county-wide acreage, this, I think, would it be fair to say could bring in $20 to $25 million a year? I believe that was the estimate for the one project. Okay. So this one project, 20, let's just say conservatively, $20 million. If we created that funding stream, and the reason it originally came up was the Loxalusi Initiative folks were here looking just for our support, never mind money. So if we could put a percentage of that towards what was about on every single one of your priority lists, at least having a sort of a consistent funding stream for that, I still believe, though, that some of that other money could go to infrastructure projects. If you need to have lights on Bridge Road to make it a much safer road, if we could do something on Tommy Clemens that we could push in some money. I mean, each of us have a list of things that we, if we only had the funds. Now, the nice part to some of the public comment that we've heard is that this project doesn't exist today. This $20 million doesn't exist today. So instead of taxing existing residents additional funds to pay for things that need to be done or people wish to be done, this is a funding, now you add in Apogee, now you add in the ranch, now you add in rolling sands. All of a sudden, a handful of projects can be a literal financial game changer without a tremendous detrimental impact on the folks that live here already. So I would be willing to do like a minimum of 25% and it could be up to, but I'm leery of taking 50% of those funds considering we have no idea what would show up in the future if there's coral reef opportunities or other projects. And we could also, you know, I think you're right, Commissioner Smith, that I don't know how you would craft that language that it would probably have to be renewed each year. But once it's in for two or three years, it would be interesting for a board of new people that are sitting up here to say, well, we're going to strip the money out of that program that's, you know, purchasing Palmar properties or working on Loxahatchee interconnectivity or creating other open spaces. And I still believe that I get the whole initiative that's going to come before the voters. But I still believe that if there are properties of merit within the already developed communities that can be purchased, even if it just meant it wasn't going to be developed on top of people that already live somewhere, whether it's in Port Salerno or Golden Gate, if there's some properties that can be purchased with an existing fund that people already knew about ahead of time, we shouldn't take those opportunities off the drawing board either. Thank you. Okay. There was one other priority I had that I didn't put on because it's well underway. And that's the potable water for the Petway community, which is 120 some odd homes that have the yuckiest brownest well water you could ever imagine. But we are, we are making great strides with the help of Marshall Fields and the, uh, the, uh, SMRU board, which is the, uh, commissioners on Jupiter Island, uh, of actually bringing that project to fruition. Yes, sir. Just, just one more. And it always prompts a conversation. Um, Ed, I think to your point, I was going to include in my 50% that we take the other 50% and allocate that towards capital improvements. Um, and the reason I say that is because there was a, there was a lot of conversation during last year's budget about, you know, where we ended up with our budget on our side of the 50%. You know, there's an argument to be said that the way that Indian River County funds its capital, they have chosen, I don't know, 15, 18 years ago to go the sales tax route, whether we go that route or not, I don't know yet. But at the end of the day, if we were able to take, let's say just, on the most conservative side, there was 20 million total, right? You take 10 million or 50% of it for land acquisition. Now you've got a real number. You can go to the state for matching dollars with the state. You take the other 10 million and you plow that into our capital program that helps us to start to reduce our ad valorem budget significantly. Even though this is ad valorem generated, it's new revenue that otherwise wouldn't be there had we not done this program. And I think you could start to really significantly chip away at reducing the ad valorem requirements on all the other taxpayers if, in fact, you had this as a year-to-year because we can't do it. And I agree with you. I mean, good luck to somebody who wants to undo it, you know, in the future that, you know, we have two very large tracts of land that are under stress for acquisition. And they're in the hundreds of millions to get us there. And the only way you get there is really us significantly sending a message to the state that we are, again, your partner, just like we did with C44. We went to the head of the list for the construction of C44 because we put up the money to go buy the land first. And then we went to the state and the federal government to be our partner. So anyway, I agree with what you said, Ed. I just, it's an amazing opportunity for us. And it was what, you know, it was always in the back of my mind from the time you brought it up that that was probably the most significant benefit we could have seen from those projects. I appreciate that. The nuance in your comments was originally you had said 50% of all rural lifestyle. So when, well, Atlantic fields could generate 20, that creates 10. Yeah, I'm being the most exerted. No, but I'm saying all rural lifestyles could, you know, when you put all of the bigger rural lifestyle projects together, 50% of that is too much. No, because at the end of the day, Ed, it's 10 million a year. The most conservative. No, but that's Atlantic fields. I know, I know. I'm just saying the most conservative, right? Let's say you got to 20 million, right? We're still 200 million worth of acquisition. That's 10 years worth of taking those dollars and acquiring those lands that people want us to go get. You know, I'm not opposed. I just want to make sure Don or his successor will be like, oh man, we've locked this in and we can't now do the... Well, you can't lock it in. No, I mean, even temporarily. Well, I... He's not going anywhere soon, hopefully. I think staff needs to come to talk to each one of us and we need to have... Don wants all the money to be available. We need to have a agenda item and have a serious conversation about it and move on. Okay. Are we done? Department four, application of a resolution approving and accepting a special warranty deed for the acquisition of environmentally sensitive vacant land in Indian town. Ms. Carla Segura. Morning. Carla Segura, real property manager. This is a request for the adoption of a resolution approving and accepting a special warranty deed for the acquisition of 245 vacant lots within Palm Beach Heights, totaling approximately 252 acres. In 2021, the board designated Palmar land acquisitions as a priority and authorized staff to negotiate prices for the acquisition of individually owned lots within Palmar and submit negotiated purchase agreements to the board for consideration. Staff negotiated a $2,500,000 purchase price for the purchase of these parcels within Palm Beach Heights, Palmar. Ecosystem Division approved the use of conservation funds and impact fee funds for the purchase. We request that the board adopt a resolution approving and accepting a special warranty deed from DC Saxon LLC and authorize the chairman to execute any and all documents necessary to complete this transaction. If there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer. Commissioner Smith. Certainly in all the years that I've been involved in priorities that we've had about acquiring Palmar, this is one of the more exciting opportunities for us. And I wholeheartedly support it and move staff's recommendation. Commissioner Hurt. Second. And also, Donna, can you put on the page 282 on our monitors? This is a map of the properties that we're proposing to acquire. And I don't know if residents, I'm sure that most residents assume that we're buying an aggregated piece of property that's 252 acres. And that's just not the way that it works in Palmar. It's been one of the challenges with Palmar is that these lots are so small and they're all over the place and it's hard to find the owners and it's just as expensive to acquire. We have costs for the acquisition of each one. So staff, fantastic job of, of finding these properties and finding a willing seller. I think John had a lot to do with that in Carlin. Commissioner Smith. To Commissioner Hurd's comments, she's absolutely right. And I think if you were to show the next layer of map that what are these contiguous to, it now starts to look a lot more favorable to the county's ownership than it has in the past. Good. So could you second? Okay. So we have a, we have any, okay. We have a, uh, motion by Commissioner Smith seconded by Commissioner, uh, heard all in favor. Aye. Enthusiastically. Aye. Um, and, uh, all opposed motion carries unanimously with unfortunately commissioner Hetherington being absent because I knew this is important to her also. Uh, Mr. Donaldson. I just wanted to thank Ms. Seguro for her hard work in finding this, her, it wasn't for her efforts. We wouldn't be here. And of course, John and the team, but, uh, Carla has been, uh, instrumental for a number of these acquisitions for a number of years. And, uh, I think it's, uh, really cool. You're able to get this one done. Thank you so much. Happy New Year. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. How come it doesn't say public comment at the end of my, oh yeah, it does. Okay. Uh, five Oh five public comment. Nobody going once, going twice, gone. Uh, any commissioner comments? Everybody. Okay. I have a commissioner comment. Imagine that. I couldn't resist this morning. I didn't say anything. Um, there was a comment this morning about us getting on board with, I guess, Palm Beach County's, uh, effort for legislation to, um, prohibit shooting a gun on your property that you cannot effectively control the path of the bullet. So, um, in residential areas, shooting a gun and then having no concept of where the bullet might land, you know, it's an odd thing. But even when I lived in New York on Long Island, which is not rural people for the new year's Eve would fire guns off into the air just for the hell of it. In my neighborhood, we didn't have fireworks. So it's not like you were hearing fireworks, but people would fire guns into the sky at night, uh, 12 o'clock having no concept of where those bullets would land. So I can imagine now, thankfully we're not having, uh, this is not a, a big problem, but I thought that the comments that were made, and I know that we hear about Palomar all the time. I can't imagine living with my family somewhere where there's the possibility, uh, and there were some buildings that were struck by random, you know, stray bullets. Uh, we'd hope that they were stray, but even when we were talking many, many years ago about a shooting range out in Palm City Farms that was on 4,000 acres, uh, there was concern from neighbors, uh, or when we built our own sheriff's shooting range, there was a lot of thought and, uh, engineering design to make sure that there was really not a possibility of stray bullets. So if there is some legislation that's happening, uh, in the county to the south of us, or an effort to do that, I think, uh, I personally would not be opposed to us, uh, participating in that. Agreed. It's already illegal. I understand, but if they're working on... It's two acres or... It's one in 1.25 acres. You have to have a proper backstop. You cannot, in that, I understand, it already says that the lead cannot leave the property. I'm, I'm kind of wondering why this, and, and, and I shouldn't even say that because I haven't, I'm just, have people talking to me, so I need to... I think it's raising, I think it's raising awareness, Harold, that that wasn't such a good idea because people use that probably as, we've been told, as an example, in Palomar that I'm, I'm on my acreage and I can do what I want. Right. And, and I, you know, clearly we've had instances where bullets have left that... Without a back, without a backstop. So, it clearly states that you have to have a proper backstop. And if they're out there and if they happen to be standing on their quarter acre, for one, that's illegal, and two, they don't have a proper backstop. So, I, I just, well, I'd like to know more about it. Me too. I want to be clear that if you, I'm all in favor of legal gun ownership and the people ability to have that. I don't think the people that are using appropriate gun safety techniques or have created a situation where they're, those are not the folks that we're worried about. I just think that if there's people that are taking advantage of a system and taking advantage of proper gun ownership, proper gun usage, to then think that they could do whatever they want, those are the groups. People that are law-abiding gun owners are, you know, fantastic. They are also hurt by the fact that if someone else is skirting the rules, breaking the law, taking advantage of a system that might have a loophole. So, all I would ask is that we hear more about what's happening. It's not meant to restrict people's gun ownership or gun usage. It's meant to protect the people that are victims of those folks that are just taking advantage. Maybe we can have our legal department brief us on what the law actually states and what's legal and illegal and what this new effort is pushing. With that, I already asked for public. Oh, I'm sorry. Go for it. Whenever you're done, Commissioner, it's just part of my comments. We have Cedron Technologies. It asked us for a letter of support, and I think I've passed out to you all just a rough draft with some that were, and I'll read essentially the most important part, which was, Martin County supports environmentally sustainable and cost-effective ways of disposing our biosolid products. If Cedron Process Facility in Newtown effectively processes Class B biosolids at prices that are competitive with current disposal methods, Martin County would have an interest in sending Class B biosolids from both the wastewater treatment plants of their facilities. This is a non-binding letter meant to share Martin County's interest in support for Cedron Technologies' proposed regional biosolids processing facility. What's most important about the Cedron proposed project that they're working with Indian Town to construct is that it would process biosolids where none of it would be disposed of on agricultural property or any property. It would be solely used for creation of aqueous ammonia, which would be used for a professional use in fertilizer only, where it is, and then the remaining biosolids could be used used to generate heat in any number of energy facilities. And then finally, the water, whatever water is produced, which is clean, would be recycled back into the, through the Indian Town's processing facility wastewater treatment plant. So ultimately, you would have a beneficial reuse of that, of the water. So from that standpoint, we all have been supportive. As I understand it, certainly the board has been supporting of alternate uses of biosolids. And I think it's important that, so anyway, staff is asking for concurrence from the board that we can complete this draft. It needs some edits still for the chairman to sign. And then also, if you all do support that, I just wanted to let you know that there is an interest for our utilities director and Commissioner Smith and I to actually go visit one of these facilities to bring back to you all the evidence that it is all that it says it is, and would want your concurrence that we could embark on that. Seattle. Seattle. No. So that, I just want to be fully informed, all of you, that some of the activities, and so the most important piece, though, is this letter, and if you all can agree to that, and then just your concurrence on our investigation program. I agree to all of that, and would also, I do try to attend all the Indiantown Commission meetings I can. I sat through their not very long presentation, which was actually very interesting, and I was just wondering if maybe next time they're in town, we could ask them to come and do that here. It was literally a 10-minute thing. It's actually very interesting technology and all that. So, Commissioner Smith. Yeah, every time we have this conversation, it bears putting some appreciation to the individual who started this with me probably seven years ago, which was a former employee. Gary Roderick came to me and said, we have a crisis on our hands, and you, Commissioner Smith, have to fix it. I said, great, Gary. I really appreciate all of that. But also to Mike Buscia, when I was chair of the Regional Planning Council seven years ago as well, Mike allowed us to do a summit that really kicked off this whole idea of how to deal with the biosolids issue on a statewide level. From that, Senator Mayfield really took and championed our cause at the state level, brought in Sedron and Janicki Industries, and really, from the state level, kicked off this idea of embodying language in legislation that would support innovative technologies, which is really what Sedron does and what this is all about. And so, to those three individuals, we are where we are today because of them. It's taken seven years to get to this point, and thankfully, Indiantown has stepped up in a major way to be the facilitator of the first one of these processing facilities in the state. And it's super, super exciting that we're actually hitting that point. So with that, I would move that we allow staff to present this letter with the chairman's signature to Indiantown and to Sedron. And you all travel, or you all? Yeah, and travel if you wish. Second. Plus, trust but verify. So you're asking permission to go to the site to visit to determine. How are you going to verify that this process works as advertised? So I think that's where it's important, having Sam Anemerson with us, and one is to actually visit the site and get all the technical data, to have an opportunity to talk to those who are actually using it. There's some large, I guess, agricultural facilities to see the end product, to learn who's using it firsthand. And then also independently, we plan to verify from the state of Washington their reports that they received from them and to get other sources to verify that it is actually working. I think what's interesting about the proposal for Sedron, and that does reduce some of the risks to both us, the state of Florida, and Indiantown, is they're looking to invest in this plant without any public investment at this time, that they're really looking for a commitment that if they are cost-neutral that we would be willing to purchase this product. But even if it's cost-neutral, we want to make sure that what we're buying isn't just another form of disposal that doesn't meet our objectives, which is keeping nutrients out of the estuary and out of our land. So I think it still requires, again, that multi-point investigation. But the goal of this is to actually be environmentally responsible with our biosolids and with our wastewater treatment. And then number two is that it's done in an economical way that doesn't cost our ratepayers anything. One of Indiantown's big concerns is obviously the impact of that facility on their roads and their neighborhood and smells and everything else. And the presenter showed aerials of this facility they're talking about going to visit is actually in a very, very high, densely populated area. So the technology is clean. So, you know, it's amazing. So I wish you all luck. So with that, we have a... Oh, did they vote? I'm sorry. Not yet. Okay. Sorry. That's what I'm working on. Apologize. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? This motion carries unanimously, which, again, I think Commissioner Hetherington also would have liked to have voted on this one. So with her absent. And with that, we have reached the end of our agenda. I... And, oh, I forgot about the most important people on the arm. Miss Woods. I normally don't have comments, but for a while now, I've been seeing on various media platforms some false statements regarding our Board of County Commissioners not following ethics rules of voting on contracts that either benefit their employers or their businesses. This and failing to abstain, these are patently false statements. The county and through my office as well as the administration have a very long-established, well-ingrained process of reviewing everything that is put on the Board's agenda to vote on to ensure that there's no conflicts of interest. If there are, we make sure that the proper documents are filed. We coordinate with all of the Commissioner's aides. It's a very ingrained process in this organization. And I guess for me, I feel like for members of the public, they need to know that that's there, that these statements are false. And if the people that are saying these things or writing these things had even made a cursory review of our minutes and our agendas, you would see on when it's appropriate, you have commissioners abstaining and stating the basis and filing their forms. And I just want to make that clear, that if you're reading these things in a variety of platforms, they are not true. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. And I would add just a little bit of a follow-on to that, that if you feel that you think that some one of us hasn't done something that we're to file, by all means, contact the attorney's office and get the minutes, get the records, because it is all documented, it is all incredibly clear, both on the dais when an individual has to claim a conflict, but we are required by state law and by state ethics rules to do just that. And anybody that wishes to view any of that can certainly reach out to the attorney's office for that verification. All right. With that, our next meeting is January 23rd, and we are adjourned.