Board of County Commissioners on 2024-03-05 9:00 AM - Mar 05, 2024

All right, welcome to our March 5th, 2024, Board of County Commission meeting. Mr. Donaldson puts a dollar in the jar for that. Attorney Woods, leave the room. All right, we're going to start with an invocation by Hank Brighton-Cam, followed by the pledge, Alan Hurt. So please stand. Good morning. It's a wonderful day to be alive in Martin County, Florida, USA. A great place to make home, to do business, to vacation at, to return home to, to brag about, and to continue to make even better things happen. And so that is this commission's intent at this meeting this fine morning, to simply continue to make good things happen for Martin County. May each commission member be blessed with prudence, diligence, and tenacity in preparation, respect, patience with, and understanding for others, wisdom to discern, fidelity to mission, ethical integrity, and the joy and honor of service and vision. We, the people, place our confidence in this honorable commission for this noble endeavor. We say this in the name of every good thing, peace, harmony, and kindness, to name a few. All the best for Martin County, Florida, USA, on this fine day. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yes, sir. My name is Alan Hurt. I was 22 years in the U.S. Army, 13 of it overseas. I've lived in Germany, Greece, and Turkey, as well as the United States. During my overseas time, I picked up a couple of languages. I picked up a wife. And quite frankly, it was an amazing experience. It was my honor to serve in the military. I will tell you the one thing that has remained with me after all these years, more than all of the memories, and I have such amazing memories of everything I did and everything I've seen and done, was the type and the level of the soldiers and the sailors and the airmen that we have in the military. I don't believe the average American knows how good our armed forces are, and it's because of the level of the young men and women that serve. They are disciplined. They are educated. They are motivated. And they do just an amazing job. And to serve with them for 22 years was truly my honor. It was something that I will never forget, more than anything. And I tell everybody, you want a good employee, hire a veteran. These guys, even the people that only serve for one term, two years, three years, four years, they know what it means to get up. They know what it means to go to work. They know what it means to be responsible. From the day one, we put tremendous responsibility on these young men and women. We hold them accountable, and they respond. Do all of them respond? No, there's not 100% anywhere. You know what? 95%, 98% of the people that serve in the military come out. They say the experience was good, and it was. So basically, that's my story in a nutshell. It was a great opportunity. I loved it. Do it again if I could. We're lucky to have you. Okay. With that, our presets, very first thing, before we do anything, Ms. Jenny Fields, our property appraiser, will be giving us a brief discussion about homestead exemption and potability, portability. We have 905 comment. At 1030, we have a presentation of the draft evaluation and appraisal report on the comprehensive growth management plan. And 505, we have public comment. We have no consent polls. So with that, we can take a Commissioner Smith. Mr. Chairman, I move approval of the agenda with the presets as listed by the chairman, and no consent polls. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. Is that what the line is for? No. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Fields, thank you so much. I had the opportunity to host our property appraiser, Ms. Fields, at an event in Palm City, and she shared such important information that many of us in the crowd was not necessarily completely aware of the opportunities as they were. And so I asked her if she would be willing to come and share some of that information with not just all of us here, but the folks that are sitting behind her, but also hopefully watching. And then I also wanted to, as she said I could, offer the invitation for any homeowners association, any associations, groups, to have Ms. Fields, our property appraiser, come and speak to your associations because there is, you think you know how it all works out, but there are opportunities that might be left on the table that are timely. And so I'm so appreciative that you came this morning because even with just the information that, especially if you've moved recently, downsized, upsized, Ms. Fields has information that is very valuable. So good morning. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you so much for having me here today. I'm thrilled. Anyone who's actually come and listened to me talk, they know I love to talk. So especially if it's a topic that I'm passionate about, which is my office, and really it comes down to educating buyers and sellers because, you know, they buy the biggest asset they're ever going to own, and it's just remarkable how little they know about the property tax system. So any chance, any opportunity, I can get out and talk to you and talk to homeowners association and realtors, and our outreach is just very broad, and the whole key comes down to education. So with that, I'm really going to focus this morning on buyers and sellers. Of all the topics I discussed, this is my favorite one. But before I kind of dive into buyers and sellers, I really think everyone needs to understand what a date of assessment is. Department of Revenue says that all Florida property appraisers have a date of assessment they have to value property by, okay? And that date of assessment is January 1. Well, what does that mean to me? A lot of times we get the question, well, how's the market looking, Jenny? What's happening today? And things like that. Well, if you knew our date of assessment was January 1, we don't even look at anything that happens after January 1. We're always looking backwards. And what I mean by that is our date of assessment means the valuation, whether you qualify for exemptions, anything that has to do with that taxes is based on a snapshot on January 1. So the bill, the tax bill that goes out 11 months later is based on 11 months prior. So the bill you're going to be paying in November of 2024 is based on a snapshot or a picture of what that property looked like on January 1, two months ago. So it's hard to kind of wrap your head around that. And that goes for value and exemption. So if you're going to qualify for any exemptions for 2024, you would have to qualify on January 1. So with that, I would like to talk about all the buyers that occurred last year. So anybody who purchased a home in 2023, it's important to understand at your closing, the closing agents and the mortgage payment and everything that was derived at that closing was not based on the 2023 tax bill because they didn't even have it yet. You know, if you closed in the middle of the year, the tax bill wasn't even issued until November. So at all closings, it's based on the prior year taxes. So anyone who purchased in 23, they would have used the 2022 taxes. A lot of times that's hard to understand, too. So now that's the reason for that is because when you purchase the property in the middle of 2023, you were not an owner on January 1, which is the date of assessment of 23. So in August of 23 last year, when the new buyer got the trim notice or the tax bill, it didn't probably look very different from what the closing was based on, which was the 2022. And mainly it's because you are buying it from a seller who did qualify on January 1. So typically, in a normal scenario, all the buyers last year inherited whatever was there on January 1, which is the seller's exemptions. It's the seller's save our homes benefit. Everything that the seller had, you got the benefit of it. And so in November 2023, a couple months ago, when you got your tax bill, it probably didn't look a whole lot different than what you were surfing for on Zillow when you were looking to buy that house. And it didn't look any different in August when you got the trim notice. However, now, January 1, 24, it's your year. Now you qualify because you owned it on January 1. So now last Friday, March 1, was your deadline to file for your homestead exemption because now the seller has taken all their benefits with them and they've ported it to the panhandle where they now have retired. OK, so what happens is, even though the deadline was last Friday, please, if you qualified, if you purchased last year, still come into the office. We can do a late file application. So we don't want you to miss the opportunity of claiming your homestead. But just know this is going to be your year. In August, when you get your trim notice, you might have owned that property now a year and a half. And in August, in a few months, you're going to get the trim notice that is going to be your first glimpse, first glimpse of what your taxes are going to be. And that is going to be based on your sale price. A lot of times we get that phone call. You cannot possibly raise me 60 percent. Well, we didn't. It's because you purchased from somebody who had the Save Our Homes benefit for 30 years and they had a Save Our Homes benefit that was $500,000, which resets to market value because they've taken that port now to the panhandle. That's a hard thing to explain when everyone gets their trim notice in August. Now, the second thing I want to communicate is for anyone who purchased today, anyone who's purchasing right now in 2024, remember the date of assessment. You don't qualify because you're purchasing after January 1. So I know you're probably thinking at the closing, the realtor and the title company, they're all telling you, get in and file for your homestead. Well, yeah, you would be pre-filing for 25 because you don't even qualify for 24. So come in a couple months, you're a new buyer, when you get that trim notice, know that the proposed taxes you see on that trim notice, they're not yours. You're inheriting them. And the best thing I can tell you right now is so crucial, pull up the tax estimator on our website, estimate your own taxes. Put in your sale price. It won't be exact, but it's going to be a heck of a lot better than you using the 2023 taxes, which is based on an owner who had a Save Our Homes benefit that is actually coming off this year, next year when you file. So estimate, estimate, estimate. And then, again, your deadline to file for homestead, you can obviously pre-file. You can do it online on our website or come into our office. But your deadline will not be until next March, March 1, 2025, if you purchased in 24. So estimate your taxes. And the last thing I'd love to just really stress to anyone looking to buy a home. Number one, do not go buy any tax you see displayed anywhere on a website because they are not going to be your taxes. Not because we're trying to raise your value. It's because if you don't realize who you're buying it from, they could be a total and permanent disability veteran who doesn't even pay taxes. And you're going to be thinking, well, this is great. All I have is non ad valorem. No, because he's taking that with him. So number one, estimate. Just don't go buy any online. And actually, there's legislation right now that's actually rushing very quickly through the House and the Senate in that it's going to prevent Zillow, Realty.com. Any online websites will no longer be allowed to list prior year taxes, and instead it's going to link them to the Department of Revenue tax calculator. And then you will be basing your taxes off of your sale price. So just know that's – and that's the main reason because it's so misguided when people look at that and assume that's what their escrow payment is going to be. And then the next thing, do not go buy taxes in prior years. Again, they're not correct. They are not correct. They were correct for the seller, not for you. And then lastly, just estimate your own taxes. Our website is www.pa.martin.fl.us, and it's right under Quick Links. If you need help, we have a live chat. You can just ask us. We have 20 operators on that live chat all day, every day, or you can just give us a call. We're happy to walk you through it. But those are just – I hope I didn't go over my 10 minutes. I know I talk fast, but – so thank you. Thank you. We've got some lights. We've got some lights. Commissioner Smith. Yay. Great job. I don't think – I know I couldn't do all of that in that quick a time. So, Jenny, we had a speaker a couple weeks that I had called you a couple weeks ago that had come up and talked about his taxes being increased, like, by 100%. And you and I talked about that, and I think that he had purchased the home maybe seven years prior or some timeline like that, and he never homesteaded. And so what happens to someone's tax bill when you don't homestead, and how does the appraisal process happen, and how does someone go from what – the value, I think, was in the low 200s and went maybe to, like, 500 or 450? How does that happen? Okay. So, in the state of Florida, pretty much every property is capped. You have an assessment limitation that you're going to benefit from. If you're homesteaded, your assessed value can't increase any more than 3%. If you're not homesteaded, say you're a vacant land or a commercial shopping center, you're capped at 10%, meaning your assessed value can't go up any more than 10%. However, that 10% cap does not apply to school levies. So any tax bill value that goes to your school levies listed on your tax bill, that will be full market value. But with that being said, even though you have a property, and let's say you don't have homestead exemption, you're still benefiting from a cap. And so what happens often is people will come in because they're like – they hear homestead exemption, it's going to save you money, get in there and file. Well, this has been their summer home. They've been Michigan residents for 20 years, and now they're going to come in and they're going to file. Homestead exemption is only a $50,000 exemption, and if you're coming from out of state, your market and your assessed are going to match in that first year. And in the first year you file for homestead, that 10% limitation gets restored. It has to reset to full market value. So if you're sitting on a summer home that was always your second home, and your 10% cap benefit is $400,000 because it's been your summer home, it's been your second home, that's been subject to that 10% cap. The year you come in to file for homestead is now your base year for homestead. It doesn't continue with the 10% cap. Whatever you have not been paying taxes on in that 10% gets restored to market value, and that's where you're starting. So they're seeing an increase going, wait a second, I thought this was supposed to be a reduction. Well, yeah, but we've actually had people rescind their homestead application, which you can do. You have to do it in writing if you get your trim notice, but mainly it's because they don't realize it is a reset. That is another legislation bill that's looking to kind of go through right now. We don't know. It might be in a property tax package. But basically it'll say that from the time for your summer home that you file for homestead, it might be that cap is where you start with your homestead. They're trying to get that passed. But as of right now, it's not, and it will reset if you've had that home for a while. And the last quick question, and I think you touched on it a little bit, but the portability issue. So effectively, if you are capped and you sell your home, and let's say the value of it is $800,000, but you've had it homesteaded for 20 years, you take that difference with you, right, to wherever you're going, anywhere in the state, all 67 counties it applies to. Your example is the panhandle, I think. What happens to the house after that? Okay, so when you can port that nugget of savings that you're sitting on, that you've had and you're not paying taxes, it's just floating around out there, and you go to move, when you go and file for your new homestead exemption, that property appraiser and our office would look at the values. What is the last market value that was placed on your property here in Martin County, and what is the market value they're applying in that county in the panhandle? If you're going to a higher-valued home, you are going to be able to take the entire nugget of savings with you. If you're downsizing to a lower-valued home, then it's a proportionate amount. But what happens is if that seller goes and takes their Save Our Homes benefit, the buyer who bought that property in their first year that they file for homestead, their market and they're assessed as going to equal each other, and it will be based off the sale price that they paid, not what was there in the prior year. It will reset, and by law, like right now, we're studying the 23 market, because that's what we're going to use to put the 2024 values out there. So everything that's occurring, the values we place on the property, the market values we place in 2024, will be based on all the sales that occurred in 23. So the sale prices, all of that, will reflect that. So again, if you purchased in 23, that guy who moved to the panhandle, he took that with him, and in 24, you are starting over. Your market and your assessed are going to match, and they are going to be based on your sale price. And hence, I think why some people come in and say, my taxes went off the chart. Well, they did, but they reset. The majority, 99% of the time, it's because they're a new homeowner, and they didn't realize that they were looking at the prior year taxes, and that person, now that cap came off, and now they're starting over, and they don't realize it's based off your sale price. Because 99% of the time, they'll call and go, how could you increase my value, you know, 60%? Well, we didn't. It was the cap came off. You're looking at taxes, and it's not that. And, you know, we have that conversation a lot, a lot. So I have a question before I get to Commissioner Haring. How long do you have, let's say you're going to sell a house, and you're going to build another house. Let's say that house is going to take over a year to build. How long do you have to board? You only have three years, okay, and three years from the time, yeah, you don't want to be not deciding and then wait two years and then decide to build a home. You're going to miss your window. So if you are going to build a home, I would say get on it right after you leave, you know, or rent somewhere, but get on it because it's three years from the year you sell or move. Commissioner Harington. Thank you, Jenny. I've heard this before. It's great information. I would add some of the things I've heard before. If you are widowed or divorced, what should you do to check on your homestead because there are a lot of people that miss that opportunity or they haven't filed it in the right name. Okay, so two different, widow and widower. There is an exemption for both widows and widowers. It's a $5,000 exemption, so it equates to about $100 a year if you are a widower or widower on January 1st. So if you are, please come in. It's so easy to file. And, you know, if you remarry, you have to let us know because then the exemption now comes up. Divorce is a whole different animal. And lately we're hearing a lot more or we're seeing a lot more in marriage settlement agreements where they're actually listing the Save Our Homes benefit as an asset because think about that. If you're the one staying in the home and your Save Our Homes nugget of savings is $400,000, that's a huge benefit for whoever's going to stay in the home. Are you both going to leave? But just know in order to – you can designate that Save Our Homes where it goes 50-50, but there is a form that has to be filed. It has to be filed by both parties, and both parties have to agree to abandon the home. For example, let's say – well, I don't like to use me. I love my husband. But anyway, so let's just say, you know, Mary stayed in the home and John left, okay, and John moved to another county, and he wants to file for homestead. If Mary stays in the house, she didn't abandon the home, so technically he gets nothing. So you really have to know the timeline and what's happening, and you have to have that conversation. The only way he can get 50% is if she willingly comes into our office and relinquishes, abandons the homestead, which means now she has to start over. She will file a brand-new homestead application admitting that she's abandoned it, and now we can split it and take 50-50. We just had this last week, and a gentleman was very upset because, you know, I said, you're going to need to talk to your ex-wife, and nobody wants to have that conversation. So, again, it's just one of those things where it's kind of tricky on – but it is a huge savings right now, and who gets it and where you're going. And so be in contact with us, and we can walk you through that process. I don't know if that answered your question. Okay. Commissioner Speth. Sarah's – I forgot to ask this in the sequence. Oh, Sarah, you want to go first? I'm okay. So, Sewell's point, and I'm sure there's other parts of town that are kind of experiencing this, has gone through a series of teardowns and rebuilds. So whether it's the same – well, maybe it's a different answer – whether it's the same family or a new purchaser, and I'm guessing in most cases it's a new purchaser that's tearing down and building new. What happens with homestead on that? Well, it depends. If they're buying it, and let's say they bought it right now, it's going to reset to market anyway. And if they're remodeling and it's an extensive remodel, it would probably go on as a capital improvement. They're not protected by the cap. So let's say they're going through the remodel, but it's not CO. They don't have their final until next year, okay? Then it wouldn't go on until the prior year. But any new construction, any capital improvements, major – and I'm not talking windows or doors or roof. That's typical maintenance. That's covered by your cap. But if you're doing anything extensive like what you're saying where you gut it and tear it, it's going to be a capital improvement, and that's not subject to the cap. It will go on at full market value in the first year. Okay. So there have been a few homes in Souls Point. So let's just – I'm not hypothetically. Literally, they have. So somebody tears all the way down to the foundation, down to the – or down to the floor level. There's no walls, no nothing left, and they build new. Does the portability – or does it – do you get to take that old value with you? And let's say – so let's say you had a million-dollar home. You tear the million-dollar home down, and you build a new million-dollar home. What happens? Well, any time – the statute say any time you remove property, you're supposed to recognize that in the assessed value. So let's say you are moving temporarily. That's still your primary home. You let us know. You file an affidavit that my intent is to stay here. But you're going to go rent somewhere while you're rebuilding. In that year that that house is demoed, we're going to take that off. You know, it's going to come down off your assessed value. So only the proportionate amount of assessed value that's attributable to your land would remain. And so then you build the new house. It would go on as new. And it resets at whatever the value of the new house is. Right. Whatever additional value attributable to that new construction would be added to the value above the cap. But that proportionate amount for the land and whatever was left, the dock or pool or whatever, that would still have the cap proportionate to that amount of the market value. That's typically how it would work. Commissioner Hurd. Terrific presentation, as always. Commissioners, we need to do this every year because every time I hear Ms. Fields talk, it's so informative. Thank you. It's terrific. So I'm sure that people also would like to visit you in person. And where do they do that? Our office is at 3473 Southeast Willoughby Boulevard. We're suite 101. You can contact on my website. Anytime that you say contact Jenny or schedule a speaker, it always comes to me. I'm happy to return any phone call. Yeah. My direct line is 772-288-5618. You can call me. Every presentation I do, they get my direct line. But we have a great team of professionals at the office that are, you know, willing to sit down and kind of go through this whole process. Anybody who wants us to come talk, if you click schedule a speaker, there's a whole list of topics. This was just one topic, believe it or not. We have all kinds of topics to discuss. But it affects everyone from, you know, so really it's kind of how do we gauge our outreach. And right now we're actually reaching out to churches because it wasn't until I was sitting in my church going, I could really have information for all these people sitting here. So that was just another outreach initiative. We're trying to reach people to kind of get them before they sign on the dotted line, how to, you know, teach them everything they need to know as an owner or a potential owner. Thank you. Great. One last follow on to Sarah. So when we do reorg in November, that would give people time before January 1st to figure out what they need to do and get time? When you say what in November? When we do reorganization, when our board does reorg, would that be a good time for you to come in every year? It kind of just depends. November, it's kind of the tax bills have gone out. I can come in and talk. It really doesn't matter. I can, you know, it's going to apply every year. I just wonder if there was a set time, like Sarah said, if you came in every single year. Maybe in July when the numbers come out. I think, well, I was just going to say, we have, everything we do is repetitive over the year. So certain times of the year, I really, we really hammered the outreach on tangible personal property because as a business owner, you need to know that's coming up April 1st. Right now, it's homestead exemption. Come July, it's going to be the millage rate and how to understand your trim notice, which I'm all about. So it's going to be that. And then come November, it's going to be the taxes due or VAB and explaining. So really, it kind of just depends when you want us to come that we're going to have an important topic for that time of year. Sounds like five times a year. I know. I'll do it. Well, Ms. Fields, I just wanted to say. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Excellent job. Okay. And with that, we're going to move on to proclamations. We have three today. We have Irish American Heritage Month. Yay, Irish. Procurement Professional Day and Food or Flood Awareness Week. Good morning, commissioners. The Irish first came to Spanish La Florida in the 1500s, first as missionaries and mercenary soldiers, and then as planters, traders, businessmen, doctors, and administrators. And three of the Spanish governors of La Florida were actually Irish military officers. Irish Americans since America's inception have provided leadership and service to Florida and our nation. March is recognized as Irish American Heritage Month, and all are encouraged to celebrate this cultural heritage and their many valuable contributions. And here to accept, we have Ray Lynch, who is the national secretary and immediate past Florida state president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Wow. Getting somewhere in the world. I'd like to just take a second to thank the Martin County Commissioners for joining the governor and 73 other municipalities across the state in claiming March 24th is Irish American Heritage Month. Like the lovely lady said, my name is Ray Lynch. I'm the national secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. We have Hibernians in every state. Across the state of Florida, we have 15 divisions with just a little less than 800 Hibernians across the state. So, I thank you for all Hibernians, but especially the ones in Florida. Thank you very much. Thank you. You do. I know. I know. Good to see you, buddy. Next, we have a proclamation declaring Procurement Month and Procurement Professionals Day in Martin County. The public procurement profession plays a significant role in the efficiency and effectiveness of both government and business. Martin County's procurement professionals are committed to providing high-caliber strategic, logistical, and operational supports for all departments within the organization. In recognition of March as Procurement Month and March 13th, 2024, as Procurement Professionals Day, the board recognizes the role of the purchasing and materials management profession within business, industry, and government, and here to accept, along with a lot of folks, we have Christy Brotherton, who's our Chief Procurement Officer. Bring the team up. Bring the team up. Good morning. My name is Christy Brotherton. I am your Chief Procurement Officer. I've prepared a few words, so please bear with me. It's with immense gratitude that I accept this proclamation on behalf of the Purchasing Division of Martin County, declaring March as Procurement Month and March 13th as Procurement Professionals Day. This recognition not only honors our tireless efforts, but acknowledges the vital role procurement plays in the success of our county. While you see me every other Tuesday, we have a lot of very important individuals acting behind the scenes. I would like to introduce them. We've got Seth McConaughey, Tasha Sapp, Autumn Bryan, Deborah Gerwin, Morgan Brigham, and Katie Fulks. We also are under the leadership of Assistant County Administrator Matthew Graham, hiding in the corner. You can come out. There he is, everybody. There he is. Each member of our Purchasing Division embodies professionalism, expertise, and dedication. It is their commitment to excellence that drives our division forward. For those of you that don't know what purchasing does, we shoulder a significant responsibility, processing approximately 100 formal solicitations annually, overseeing selection committee meetings, and coordinating pre-bid meetings. Additionally, we diligently administer over 400 contracts annually, monitoring expenditures, and administer the pre-card program on behalf of the BOCC, processing approximately 650 transactions each month. The oversight extends to the approval of around 700 purchase orders monthly, fixed asset inventory control, and the management of surplus auctions. And furthermore, they conduct invaluable in-house trainings throughout the year, ensuring that the county staff are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills for procurement functions. I'm proud to share that all of our purchasing staff hold professional procurement certifications and designations, demonstrating their commitment to ongoing professional development and education. This ensures that we stay abreast of the latest best practices and standards in procurement. I want to extend a special thanks to County Attorney Woods and her staff for unwavering support in ensuring that the procurement processes comply with the law in every aspect. Their guidance and expertise are invaluable in navigating complex legal matters, which feel like they change every day. Furthermore, I express my gratitude to Assistant County Administrator Matt Graham. His leadership not only sets a high standard for our team, but also motivates us to exceed expectations in every task we undertake. His unwavering support fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation within our division, driving us to achieve our goals and serve Martin County with distinction. And thank you to County Administrator Donaldson and Assistant County Administrator Stokas for their continued support of our division. And last but not least, I want to thank the Commission for their trust in our division to uphold fair, open, and competitive procurement practices. It's an honor to serve our community in this capacity, and we remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity and transparency. So in closing, I extend my deepest appreciation to the board for this proclamation, and let us continue working together to ensure the prosperity and well-being of Martin County. Thank you. That was a beautiful speech. I feel like we should give you an award or something. All right, let's have everybody scoot together. Here's the organizer. That was very nice. And our final proclamation today is designating March 4th through 10th, 2024, as Flood Awareness Week in Martin County, Florida. Martin County has experienced severe weather in the past in the form of extreme rainfall and tropical events, resulting in flooding in both coastal and riverine areas. This flooding has caused damage and flood losses to homes and buildings in all areas, whether they are high-risk, special flood hazard areas, or low-to-moderate-risk flood zones. During Flood Awareness Week, again, March 4th through the 10th, the board encourages residents to increase their knowledge of how to protect themselves and their property from flooding. And here to accept, we have Christine Madsen, who is the Engineering Permit Manager with our Public Works Department. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. The Martin County Public Works Department is joining a statewide effort to educate residents about the importance of flood awareness and the benefits of flood insurance. Flooding is one of the most common and expensive natural disasters that occur in the United States. Just one inch of flood water can cause up to $25,000 in damages. We encourage residents to become flood-ready by being prepared and understanding the risks of flooding in our community. We ask residents to have an emergency plan and a disaster supply kit ready in case of an evacuation and to obtain flood insurance to protect their homes and property. During Flood Awareness Week, residents can learn about the different flood-related topics, features on the county's social media pages, or by visiting the county's website. We also have flood awareness displays set up here in the administrative center lobby at the Blake Library and the Building Department. So, please stop by and take a look. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now we are going to move on to public comment. Please limit your comments to three minutes. At two minutes, 45 seconds, you will hear a tone, and that only means to wrap up your comments. And there's a good chance I'm going to mispronounce your name. So, when you get to the podium, please state your name. And that's it. Oh, I'm sorry. And Don's going to do his thing first. Which I was prepared, even on their way up. So, since we are in election season, politicking is prohibited, which is defined as advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office, either partisan or nonpartisan. This includes the use of words, dates, signs, props, and or wearing apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group of persons. Thank you. Okay. Our first person is Peter Urich, and that will be followed by Ted Gilbert. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Peter Urich, and I am the president of the Mooring Safety Harbor Homeowners Association of 162 households. Our neighborhood, located at southeast Loxahashi River Road and Island Way in South Martin County, consists of many seasoned citizens as well as young families with small children. I am here to present to you a petition with 186 signatures, with a couple more while I was in travel today at my house, and more to come from surrounding neighborhoods, that was signed to express deep concern regarding a young man's recovery center located directly on the west side of our neighborhood. 18890 Southeast Jupiter Road appears to be a large and beautiful single-family home located on 2.5 acres with all upscale amenities. This is a one-lane, about 20 feet wide, dead-end, privately maintained road located about 3.5 miles north of Indiantown Road in Jupiter. Many of the Mooring's residents walk along Jupiter Road. Walkers were impressed to see the year-and-a-half-long construction improvements. Little did we know that the home was to be sold to a business that houses young men with drug and alcohol issues. The nearest Martin County Fire Rescue Station is in Tequesta, and response times are limited. This subject property is on a dead-end street with no turnabout for a fire truck. Just last week, there was a car accident in the Moorings. It took 20 minutes for emergency vehicles to arrive. Martin County Code No. 3.75D states, A recovery facility shall not be located within 10 miles of another such facility. The same company runs a home at 18083 Southeast Federal Highway in Tequesta, 6.1 miles away via County Line Road. Mooring Safety Harbor residents are not opposed to young men receiving treatment at a rehab facility. However, we believe this type of business would have greater impact and better serve Martin County if located in more of a business district. This would allow family members undisturbed access to loved ones located at the facility while not disturbing the quiet enjoyment of the Moorings Safety Harbor neighborhood. I believe it is wronged and unfair a voyage to try to convince this board to enact zoning changes favorable to its business model. We, the homeowners of the Moorings and surrounding communities, respectfully request that Martin County deny the voyage's request for reasonable accommodation. Thank you very much. I dropped off a packet with the sheriff that has the great. Thank you. Questions? Do I? No? We can't do that. We can't do that. Hang in there. Don't leave. I shall. Thank you. Ted Gilbert is followed by Barbara Urich. Urich. I'm sorry. Morning. Morning. Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen of the Martin County Board of County Commissioners. Today, I stand before you to address a topic of utmost importance, the placement of a drug rehabilitation facility at 18890 Southeast Jupiter River Road. This matter has garnered significant attention in the Moorings and adjacent developments as we grapple with the challenge of providing crucial support to individuals battling addiction, while also being a community of victims still healing ourselves following the tragic 2016 double murder of our neighbors just seven houses away from this business that has moved in. This shook our community to its core. As we strive to provide essential support to those battling addiction, we must also prioritize the safety and mental well-being of our residents. Drug addiction knows no boundaries. It affects individuals from all walks of life, tearing apart families and devastating communities. While rehabilitation facilities offer hope for those seeking recovery, their location demands careful consideration. The disastrous outcome that presents itself when gaps in our current laws allow private, for-profit businesses to decide to locate a treatment facility in a residential neighborhood that itself is still recovering is on full display. We must balance the rights of individuals seeking treatment with the unique and legitimate concerns of our neighborhood. For example, the communities surrounding the proposed location are located in a distinctly underserved portion of Martin County. It's Martin County with a Jupiter address severed from the rest of the county by 11,500 acres of Jonathan Dickinson State Park. The proposed location of the rehabilitation facilities in such a unique location raises critical questions that must be explored. Given the location, are emergency services equipped to handle a high-risk population that resides in a sheltered area away from emergency medical and police infrastructure that would be required to ensure everyone's safety? Other questions that need to be answered. Why are these businesses not required to obtain licenses through our county or to go through a vetting process at a local level? What about the workers and patients themselves that work at these facilities? Is there any screening for a history of violent or sexual crimes that takes place? Psychological issues that might lead to either? The lack of regulations only puts well-intentioned facilities at a disadvantage and also breeds uncertainty and conflict within our communities. We must demand clarity and accountability from our governing bodies. How are these locations of these facilities determined? Do current laws consider proximity to schools, parks, past sites of tragedies that have scarred our community? What safeguards are in place to protect both our current residents and those on their healing journey? In closing, I urge this esteemed board to consider any means possible to stop the approval of the reasonable assessment and work to institute common-sense laws and regulations that prioritize the well-being of our residents while upholding the principles of compassion and dignity for all individuals seeking rehabilitation. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. And Ms. Yurick will be followed by Peter Ciccoli. Good morning. My name is Barbara Yurick, and I live in the Moorings. I'm here this morning to speak about concerns regarding the voyage recovery for substance abuse's application for reasonable accommodation. The ADA and the FHA aim to ensure disabled people can live in housing by making reasonable modifications, such as wheelchair ramps or handrails or a potty park for your service animal. Nowhere can I find that increasing the number of residents from 5 to 14 to be considered a reasonable modification. The request must be necessary to afford the recovering substance abuser an equal opportunity to enjoy and use the home. The application submitted does not discuss this at all. Perfect timing on an article in the Palm Beach Post just last week. Hopefully you read it. The article states, Studies find that out-of-state visitors who come to Florida for addiction treatment have the highest risk of overdose deaths. The article also states, Stop sending your children and your loved ones to South Florida because we're sending them back to you in body bags. Now, a study by Pennsylvania State University shows the chances of dying from drug overdose are 63% higher for out-of-state visitors in Florida than they are visitors from any other state. At this recovery home, the patients are not incarcerated, which means they are free to leave anytime they want to. The application states that the patients aren't allowed cell phones, no vehicles, there's no therapy provided at the recovery home, and the young men are in active recovery. They're not recovered, they're in active recovery. It also states that frequently four out of six patients will experience emotional fallout after hours of therapy and not uncommon to be emotionally distraught and vulnerable. Wow, that's 66.6%. Now increase that number to 10 patients, and now we have six or seven distraught patients that are free to leave their property and wander through our quaint little community on a three-and-a-half-mile hike while he attempts to calm down and not relapse. I hope one of those six to seven distraught patients doesn't walk past my garage like Austin Harreff did. The Voyage website states that every Sunday they encourage all the residents to have a family feast. Great. Now we have 10 patients inviting their whole family to come commute into our tiny little neighborhood. If each patient only invites two family members, now we have a dinner party of 34 or more every Sunday in our little neighborhood. Martin County can deny a reasonable accommodation request where the increased density of the patient census poses a direct threat to the safety or the health of others or poses a direct threat of physical damage to the property of others, which treatment cannot be reduced or eliminated by other reasonable accommodations. They do not disclose any scientific studies, legal cases, or present no meaningful evidence to support the request for the reasonable accommodation. Just 14 is better than 5. We, the homeowners of the Warrings and surrounding communities, respectfully request that Martin County deny the Voyage's request for reasonable accommodation from 5. Your time is up. Thank you. Peter Ciccoli is followed by Diane Meyer. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Peter Ciccoli. I'm a Palm City business owner, homeowner, and president-elect of the Palm City Chamber. I'm here today to request your support for the Newfield Parks Master Plan. Like many things related to Newfield, this is an exciting plan. As you're aware, Mattamy Homes is building Newfield, and they've proven themselves to be a great corporate citizen, investing in and supporting our community so much, in fact, they were named the Palm City Chamber of Commerce 2023 Business of the Year. More than 70% of Newfield's 3,400 acres will be open space conservation. The Parks Master Plan will protect and conserve more than 2,400 acres. This will include playing fields, as well as natural lands, a trail network totaling more than 50 miles. All of this will be open and available for the public to use, whether you plan to be a future resident of Newfield or not. The trail network that Mattamy Homes is creating is uniquely designed to accommodate hiking, biking, and horseback riding. Newfield is a great example of what's possible when you combine sound planning principles with a commitment to conservation and community. Please support this excellent addition to our community. Thank you for your time. Diane Meyer, followed by Kayla Shea. Commissioner, Diane Meyer. I want to make two technical considerations on two agenda items, which would be most appreciative for transparency and closing some loopholes. First is R and P1 text amendments to the comp plan. With respect to the draft of the Evaluation and Appraisal Review, the EAR, conducted by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, where the Commission is being asked to change the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan, this resolution must describe and specifically identify all amendments to the comp plan and link each of these changes to the modified state statutes or requirements. Otherwise, the Martin County commissioners are essentially writing a blank check to the comp plan that allows staff and their developers to make changes as they see fit. The second one is agenda item CNST-8. I'm not sure if this is conservation or recreation. It's Palmar East Subdivision Future Land Use Map Change. I recommend voting against this until the agenda language proposed and the resolution language proposed is corrected to read public conservation only with explicit definitions of what outdoor recreation means and what enforcement means. The agenda item is to start the process to change the comprehensive plan to designate the property public conservation only. I'm told by administrative aid that no off-road vehicles are allowed on public conservation land. However, the agenda language states that the future land use map states land use consistent with open space and recreation. The problem is what's the meaning of outdoor recreation? Target shooting, practice of shooting the gun, alligator hunting and any animal that moves being shot at, driving quads, all-terrain vehicles, driving swamp buggies, automatic gunfire, bombs, unpermitted structures, motorcycles, bulldozers, heavy equipment, earth-moving vehicles, all these activities destroying the fragile and sensitive conservation area must be specifically delineated and defined as not permitted. The county is too familiar with the destruction of sensitive pristine lands in Palmar West, the unincorporated drainage of uplands and wetlands. By not defining outdoor recreation is leaving the door open for unscrupulous attorneys who will say all of the above are permitted in outdoor recreation. Since the Sheriff's Department is not patrolling Palmar West because it's onerous, what mechanism and safeguard will there be for enforcement? I urge you to tighten the language and make it consistent and specific. Spell out what is permitted and not permitted, and is there any enforcement? Thanks. Kyla will be followed by Megan Shirley. Morning. Morning. My name is Kyla Shea. I'm the longtime president of Trailside Homeowners Association. Let's talk about Palmar. I see that Palmar East is addressed, the Nine Gems property. Like with Diane, we're concerned with the wording. The description says open space and recreation. We experience the version of recreation daily. We experience that Sheriff's Department and Public Works aren't patrolling. Otherwise, you'd know about the bombed-out Baruch car with windows that are shot out that's been on Pratt-Whitney for the last eight days. It's a wonderful reminder of what we get to endure daily. That's great. You're going to do something about Palmar East. What about Palmar North? Our most recent home sale in Trailside was for $4.3 million. Mrs. Fields went through and described how property taxes are assessed. The most recent lot that sold was for $675,000. We're still abandoned. We're still alone. We're still waiting. And Trailside as a whole demands a private meeting again to be updated on the status of Palmar. Thank you for your time. Ms. Shirley will be followed by Shiree. Excuse me. I told you I'd do it. We'll be followed by Mr. Tom Pine. Pine, I got that. Good morning. My name is Megan Shiree. I am the Director of Marketing and External Affairs for the Boys and Girls Club of Martin County, and I'm also the Vice President of the Palm City Chamber of Commerce. I'm here today to speak in support of the Newfield Parks Master Plan. We've had the opportunity to team with Mattamy Homes, which is making Knight Kiplinger's vision for Newfield a reality on several initiatives. We appreciate the company's commitment to our community. That commitment is reflected at Newfield Farm, where our club members took part in planting and growing vegetables. It was a fun educational experience for our kids. Taking part in agricultural activities upholds the emphasis that we place on the club's nutrition and healthy choices. The experience at Newfield Farm also complements the gardening work that our members are already doing at our Hope Sound and Indiantown Clubs. Hopefully, you've had the chance to enjoy the meals that our members create and cater through our food truck, known as Fork in the Road. You may have even tasted these meals from Fork in the Road at the monthly Newfield Farm Green Market, where we have been featured. The food our members create is delicious and often incorporates vegetables that they have grown themselves. As we often say, the Fork in the Road team does everything. Grow the vegetables, create the menu, cook and soothe the food, except for drive the truck. They're not old enough to drive the truck just yet. Most relevant to today's agenda items are the thousands of acres of conservation land being protected at Newfield. We have been looking forward to the official opening of the trail network that Mattamy is creating at Newfield ever since we attended the dedication of the Kicklinger Conservancy last year. This will be an amazing benefit to the entire public. Please vote in support of this item. Thank you. Mr. Pine will be followed by Mr. Paul Owens. My name is Tom Pine. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. In today's consent agenda, this county commission will approve $15,319,958.60 spent between February 5th and February 12th of 2024 while then identifying the names of the payees or the purpose of the payments. This is the same consent agenda that this county commission used to hide from either taxpayers millions of dollars in cost overruns of our county golf course. What is being hidden today in the consent that might be of interest to the taxpayers of Martin County? At the last county commission meeting, this board approved a proposal to add a half cent to the sales tax to buy conservation land. Because there is so much distrust of our county government, if this tax increases for land conservation passes in the November general election, there will be an oversight community comprising of the Martin County Taxpayers Association, the Martin County Realtors Association, the Tourist Development Board. At the same meeting, our county government gave us another loud and clear example why we don't trust our local government. It was the slimy way that senior staff gave our county government an easy out to approve a land designation change at the park on Park Drive in Port Salerno. Senior staff had a seawall erected at that location prior to the land even being approved for a marine waterfront commercial, which made it impossible for any alternative to even be considered. What did you expect? Senior staff don't work for the taxpayers of Martin County. They work for the big spenders of our county commission. As we as a county go into more and more business ventures, is that why more local residents are being kicked to the curb? Because now it's all about making money instead of serving the community? Sad. Another tree car accident on Indian River Drive in the Jensen Beach area. I believe it's at least the fourth tree car accident since the beautification project was completed. Just like the redoing of Dixie Highway on the Port Salerno area, after the beautification, accidents go up. That's scary because Jensen Beach Boulevard is slated for beautification real soon. It seems beautification is more important than safety in Martin County. What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own. Thank you. Mr. Owens will be followed by Barry Scherber. Oh, absolutely. I'll put this aside. Mr. Barry Scherber. So they're going to have an evaluation of the comprehensive growth management plan. So far, I've evaluated it in my time. And most of what you have approved hasn't even come to fruition. I mean, it's just ideas. But already, I can tell you that as a quality of life in Martin County, who's benefiting from all these additional amendments that you all are passing? My quality of life hasn't gotten any better from it. I know this. When I go to park downtown, I know that I have to go so far, I need an Uber to get back downtown. That's not helping me any. And what about, what, we're going to have parking meters downtown? That's not helping my way of life or anybody else's way of life that's a citizen of this area. Traffic is worse. Drivers are worse. We don't need to import more bad drivers. We've got plenty of our own. I hear people talking about accidents. I cannot believe the amount of accidents that I've seen in the last two months. Ridiculous accidents. It's like these people have no clue about which end of a car even to get into the drive. It's crazy. Waiting. Doctors. Shortage of doctors. Police. Firemen. Crossing guards. They're short of crossing guards. So schools are overcrowded. They're going to get worse. Not better. These kids deserve a good education. They don't need to be stuffed into classrooms with a shortage of teachers. We don't need more building. We need a better quality of life here. And having all this new building is not really going to help. So that's all I have to say. And I think with all the amendments you all are making, and pretty soon we can take the word management out of comprehensive planning. Thank you. Here we have Linda Smith, followed by Belinda Giles. Good morning. Linda Smith, Jupiter, Florida, representing the Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group, including members and supporters in Martin County. I've given you a copy of these comments as well. I wasn't sure if I'd stay long enough to be able to read them, but I appreciate your time. Speaking on the NRP-1 draft evaluation and appraisal report on the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan, I hope you've all read the 341 pages of Treasure Coast Regional Council's evaluation, and more importantly, digested the information from, quite frankly, I have fairly poorly advertised two workshops and one survey of residents. Participation in these workshops and surveys was something around, what, 0.01% or something? Anyway, you can do the math. None of the surveyed were under the age of 18, yet they will be the ones that will have to live with your decisions. 91% say redevelopment, not new development, on vacant lands. This should tell you not to approve any amendments on vacant lands. 73% say redevelopment needs to take place along the commercial corridors. This should tell you there should be no development outside of the urban boundary. 87% said the development to develop living shorelines. And just as an aside, you need to procure and guarantee funding for the Indian River C-23 and C-24 reservoir projects. Currently, the Florida Senate budget is considering defunding these. Everyone should be writing letters to their senators right now. Staff, I know you're underpaid and overworked, and I know you must do what your bosses tell you to do. But you know from your education and experience that sometimes this council is asking you to do something that is not in good planning. You don't need to tell them what they want to hear. You need to tell them what they need to hear. Don't propose blank checks. The CEO of a company is only as good as the information they receive from their staff. Each amendment needs to describe the purpose. What are the good and what are the bad? Take off the glossy, rosy glasses that the developers often provide. Commissioners should not be initiating amendments without disclosure of specific subjects and specific language. Words matter. As far as Palmar, Palmar needs help. It is being destroyed. Please tighten this language and provide enforcement. Provide funding for enforcement. Because without funding, there will be no enforcement. And I thank you for your time. Belinda Galels is my last speaker for him, so if anybody else would like to speak. Good morning. Belinda Galels. I live in Palm City 35 years now. It's not my first time up here. I did want to thank you for your service all these years. But I, like all the people that have spoken so far, are concerned about what is happening in this county. I'm concerned about the apartments, the condos, the townhouses, everywhere. And there seems to be no regard for leaving, oh, here's a pasture. What could we put here? Everyone has expressed frustration with traffic. If you look at the sheriff's Facebook page, which I'm looking at every day now, and there have been 140 accidents already this year, and we are just on the 5th of March. Look at these consequences and realize at some point they're going to affect you or a member of your family. Think about what you're doing. Also, on the Facebook page of the sheriff's department, you'll see we have a lot more serious crime here. The more people you have coming in, and you all have built it so they will come. We had a disgusting case of child pornography on there where one of the people arrested worked in a high school. The judge sentenced these guys to 1,600 years because the crime was so hideous. These are the type of people that are coming to our county. Open up your eyes. People here are frustrated. You have heard them this morning. Yesterday, we had helicopters going around the area to capture people fleeing that are fleeing because they don't have licenses. So when they steal a car and they come up here, they don't have a license. They get caught. They flee. So that was a tremendous amount of manpower from the sheriff's department trying to catch these guys. You can get the daily updates yourself, and maybe that will help you wake up a little bit. I do thank you for the service that you've provided us, but you all have been here a long time now, and it's not supposed to be a vocation. It's supposed to be a service, and my time is up, and I think some of you should think about your time being up. Thank you. Okay. With that, we'll move on to Commissioner Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So a couple things, and I'll start here because I think the folks here in the front would probably benefit from hearing some of this. Ms. Woods, could you share with us about this men's housing, how and what laws govern Laura Clyde, whoever? But this is not, unfortunately, the first go-around with all of this. I have a few in my neighborhood, but there are some federal laws that supersede anything that we have here, and I think it's just important that both our attorney and growth management folks share with you, unfortunately, what we have to deal with, and then when they're done, I'll share with you maybe some ideas about how we federally can fix or address some of it. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Clyde Doolin with the Growth Management Department. We have received an application from a firm or from the facility mentioned here today at the meeting. They are requesting a reasonable accommodation to the land development regulations in Martin County, and I'm not going to go into the specifics of that because it's under review right now. This is not the first reasonable accommodation. We've probably processed maybe six of them over the time that I can remember regulations being adopted to permit this review. As you mentioned, Commissioner, federal and state law protecting the rights of the disabled must be recognized, and sometimes that means an accommodation must be made in our local zoning regulations. When we are finished with our review, it will be scheduled for a presentation before a special magistrate. It will not be coming before the board of county commissioners for your review or your vote. It will be done by a special magistrate, and that could then be further reviewed, but we haven't gotten to that point yet, so I'll stop there and be happy to answer any questions I can. I would also ask, just again for the public's benefit, some years back, I don't know how long ago exactly, maybe 10 years plus or minus, the federal government decided that alcoholism, drug abuse was a disability that, I say forced it, put it into the American with Disabilities Act, and that is a very, very hard federal policy to go and correct and change, and we have tried for years. The state of Florida is probably one of the premier destinations for these types of facilities. The state of Florida has tried. Our association of counties have tried. There have been multiple lawsuits that have lost and very expensive lawsuits that have lost because of ADA, and it's not that we ever gave up, it's just we have our hands tied behind our back and our ankles tied, and the federal government has put us in this spot for whatever reason. Is that fairly accurate? Yes, sir. I just would like to add that I don't know if we need to go into it in the meeting, but our office, the county attorney's office, as well as growth management, is happy to meet with the citizens that are concerned. It's a very complicated process, and to put it simply, our hands are severely tied over what we can do because of the requirements of law. But, again, we're happy to inform so that you know that it isn't just a discretionary decision that can be made by the board. It goes to a special master. There's a very formal process that we have to go through, and it's not our process. It's the one that's dictated by law. Next comment, if that's okay with you folks, I would ask you to reach out to our county's attorney office, and please take an opportunity to meet with her and understand further what we deal with or what we have to deal with. To the comments about Palmar, Palmar has been on my prioritization list for years, both for the complete acquisition, but also the management and the process by which everybody seemed, or not everybody, some people seemed to understand because they live there, what we're going through with Palmar. I would say this much about it over the last few years. Our board has fully committed. Our staff has fully committed, and we have done our best to put ourselves back in a position to be at least a voice on the board of Palmar, and to make decisions and to get the right people working for us for the best interests of our residents in Martin County and in Palm Beach County. The enforcement side still continues to be an issue, as you have pointed out to us, and we are constantly working on ways to improve upon that and make that better. Downtown Stewart was mentioned by one of our folks. We do not control downtown Stewart. We do not control parking meters. We do not control parking. We do not control hours of operation. The City of Stewart's limits are completely within their comprehensive plan, and the rules and the laws that operate within downtown Stewart fall wholly under the five members that are elected to the City Commission in Stewart. Relative to the approval of apartments, we've had some apartment approvals in Martin County, but I would say the fair share of what most people see these days are in the city limits, and we have no control and we have no say and no governance whatsoever over the rules of what the City of Stewart does. Those are things that you need to talk to the City about. C-23 and C-24, immediately following us receiving Martin County, receiving from our legislative aid, the language that was being discussed about defunding most, if not all, of the Everglades funding from the state level, myself and others went to Tallahassee to meet with our legislative delegation and others that had their hand involved to make sure that they understood, at least from our perspective, the importance of Everglades restoration, the funding strategy, the partnership between the Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers, because sometimes in Tallahassee, even though I think most of the folks that we met with fully understood, there are a lion's share of them that do not, because that's not their discipline, it's not their focus, and so we took every effort to make sure that we at least told our side of the story and our success story that we have had here in Martin County relative to Everglades restoration, and that it may not be the perfect cake mix, but there are times where the district does part of the work, there's times where the Army Corps of Engineers does part of the work, but together we have significantly escalated the amount of work and the success of the projects that we have been funding now, or I say we, we, the community, the 16 counties that make up the Water Management District and the Army Corps of, the Army Corps, have made significant strides relative to fixing what has been broken for over 100 years. With that, Mr. Chairman, I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Camping. Thank you. I cannot let some of the public comments that we heard this morning go by. I had also had received several emails from the residents that live there, and I was surprised by them because that was the first that I had heard of the issue. Understanding now that it doesn't come to us, this is reminiscent back to the sober home days of several years ago that everybody was frustrated about, and there were some out in Palm City as well. I don't know what strategy or tactics were used, but most of them found their way out of the county. I know that, you know, look, I'm not a lawyer, and I know that it's being reviewed, but since it's not going to come to me, I thought the content and tone of the emails and the content and tone of this morning's comments were exactly the way it's supposed to happen. They were understanding of, you know, the need for rehabilitation and recovery. This is, I'm so disappointed that this ugly issue of people taking advantage of not just the local residents, but in many cases the people that are in these facilities. I remember speaking back then, if you travel or live anywhere else in the United States, you'll hear, do you or a loved one have a problem with an addiction? Contact the Addiction Help Hotline, and what they do is they take folks from Minnesota and Michigan and Ohio, these freezing cold states, and they say, come to Florida. And then what you find is either people that have addicts that have family members that love them, that have the financial wherewithal, they send them down, or they have insurance. And when the insurance runs out, now remember, there's no money in cure. There's money in treatment. So they'll run the treatment process, and I don't know this place, but I know the type of place. And the money is there. Now, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not an expert on this, but to me, reasonable accommodation, I thought one of the points were if the house is meant for four to five people, and now they want to make it 15, that doesn't, in my personal opinion, doesn't sound like a reasonable accommodation. That sounds like an accommodation for a business to maximize profit in a certain square footage. The worst part, and when I read these emails at home on my phone, the shocking part was this is the neighborhood where the husband and wife were murdered in their garage. That's as insulting to me that any business would think let's, you know, they have the whole entire state, country, county to look in. They put it seven doors away where someone who was obviously had mental issues and addicted to everything didn't even live in that neighborhood, ran into the neighborhood and murdered two people that were simply in their garage in the most horrific murder that could possibly happen, and then also attacked the neighbor across the street, if I remember correctly, was trying to help them. And now someone seven doors away is going to put one of these facilities? That is an abomination. So I get that there's some legal problem, that maybe there's some way to do this, but, I mean, I don't know what the board can do, but if you're protesting or rallying or anything else, count me in. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I would add, certainly I would take your communication to us today and copy that to our senators and to our congressional member. They are the ones that have the power to fix and address what has been done in D.C., and it's not easy, and there hasn't been a want or a desire, I wouldn't say necessarily on our delegation, but there has not been a want or desire to fix this nationally. This has been going on, whether it was sober homes, whether it's an addiction home, whatever you want to call it. It's going into a residential neighborhood and putting a facility that does not belong there, but that has got to come from D.C. We can keep communicating it to them. We can keep working with them. Palm Beach County did an excellent job eight to ten years ago and really drilled into every single detail. And, finally, with a lot of the sober homes, they went after the taxes and they went after the revenue, and that was the only way to stop certain types of homes from happening. It was going after the financial side of it. But please do reach out to them. Share your emails with them and see if we can't make some headway. There's certainly plenty of statewide support for doing it. I would contact David Ahrenberg. He led the charge in Palm Beach County. I don't know what his current title is. He's a special prosecutor or something like that. His name is David Ahrenberg. I'm sure you can find him. He's an expert on how to handle these kind of scenarios. Okay. With that, we'll go to Commissioner Comments. That was mine. You're done. Commissioner Hetherington. Commissioner Smith covered some of my comments on parking meters and City of Stewart. That is completely, wholly out of our jurisdiction. And that's all I have for this morning. Thank you. Commissioner Campy. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. In response to the charges about Palmar from the Trailside residents, you're absolutely right. We do have ordinances in place, laws in place to protect you and to prevent the illegal activities that are occurring in Palmar right now and endangering you. And we just need to enforce them. And I promise you that I'll do everything possible to make sure that we do robust enforcement of all the illegal activities that are happening in Palmar now. It's a disgrace. Thanks. I echo those comments, plus Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Campy's. And I apologize for missing last meeting. I thank Commissioner Hetherington for covering for me, but I definitely was not ready for prime time. So with that, county administrator. Okay. Okay. So it is very close to our 1030 closed captioning break. So I think we will take 10 minutes at this point and come back at 1035. Thanks. We're back. We have our – can you hear me? We have our 1030 preset presentation of draft evaluation and appraisal report on the comprehensive growth management plan by Mr. Clyde Doolin. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Clyde Doolin. I'm the comprehensive planning administrator. With me is Dana Little with the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, and we're happy to present the evaluation and appraisal report where we have considered and listed changes in state statute. As you know, this is required every seven years by statute that we do an evaluation of our comprehensive growth management plan. A lot of it will just be housekeeping, but there will be some policy decisions and potential changes that you may be considering in the future at future public hearings. Today, we're only asking that you receive the report, approve the report, and initiate the resolution attached to the board item. And with that, I'll let Dana take it away. Good morning, Mr. Chair and commissioners. My name is Dana Little. I'm the urban design director from the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. Thank you for having us. And also behind me is Tom Lanahan, our executive director. To be clear, this morning we're just presenting the report of the public outreach effort relative to the evaluation and appraisal review. That process, the EAR, is still ongoing, and we are also working with growth management on the analysis of some of the chapters within the comprehensive plan in comparing them to state statute changes that have occurred. What I'm going to present to you today, and I confess there's a number of slides, so I will move through it quickly, is the effort that we've undergone in outreaching with the community and trying to explain what the process is and emphasize that we are not bringing forth any comprehensive plan changes today. Today is just presenting the outreach effort that we've gone through. We were engaged by Martin County, the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council was, in May of last year, to specifically at the time do this outreach component. The Growth Management Department is reviewing the Florida statute changes to growth management policies. As part of this, we conducted interviews. We had a workshop on August 29th of last year. We actually had a public survey that was launched on September 1st and was live through the end of December. We had a second workshop in January of this year, and we presented this same effort to the LPA in February. What I'd like to do is kind of go through with some details, some of this information. I'll move through some of it more quickly because you're familiar with a lot of the issues. But I do want to take a bit of time to go through the survey results. I know that it's in your package, but it was alluded to earlier today in some of the comments, and I think it's interesting to look at. The EAR process, the evaluation and appraisal review, is required by the state for every local government at least every seven years to review their comprehensive plan chapters and policies relative to statutory changes that have occurred during that period. In addition, local governments, and I'm quoting here, shall comprehensively evaluate and, as necessary, update comprehensive plans to reflect changes in local conditions. And I'm pointing that out because through our interview process and through the workshops, we heard a lot of local condition issues. You're familiar with all of them, I'm sure. I don't think that we're ready to, we or the county is ready to make any decisions on those local issues yet. The primary focus right now is to get through some of the statutory changes. But it was very important to put on record what we heard through the interview and public workshop process. So, as I mentioned, updating the comp plan as needed to state statutes over the last seven years. This includes a review of all 19 chapters of the comprehensive plan. Identify areas within the comprehensive plan where updates might be needed. And I emphasize might. One example is references to Indiantown as one of the CRAs in Martin County. Clearly, that's not the case anymore. That's a housekeeping item that needs to get fixed. You'll recall that in December of last year, this body notified the county's intent to develop the year process and any potential changes. We're going through the process right now, the matrix of statutory changes, to identify those changes in law that may or may not result in changes to the comprehensive plan. And if there are any changes or recommendations to change the comprehensive plan, those will follow their own required public hearing processes. So right now, after completing this public outreach effort to hopefully have educated folks in the community about what this process is and maybe demystify it a little bit, as each of the chapters, if they have changes, they will come before this board and the LPA, of course, and go through the regular public hearing process. Now, sometimes, you know, there are many years through the last seven, there have not been really significant legislative changes. Last year was different. Last year, there were a handful of significant changes, two of which I want to touch on. I think you're all familiar with Senate Bill 102, the Live Local Act. We have, through our outreach, through our interview process, through the public input survey, tried to educate folks on what this is, and they need to be paying attention to it. We don't yet know, in any of our communities, in fact, within the Regional Planning Council's region, what the implications are, but we know what the intent is. And the intent, as you know, is to create a housing strategy for affordable housing that basically preempts local government's control over height and density if minimum thresholds of zoning, excuse me, minimum thresholds of affordable housing are met. We understand that this is being reviewed again at the state, and we're not sure what the changes will be, if there are any, but fundamentally, it allows for affordable housing projects to be built within multifamily, mixed-use, commercial, and industrial-zoned areas without the requirement of the standard review process. There's also House Bill 1379, which is a septic-to-sewer bill. And it's an act that's requiring much higher level of environmental protection relative to existing septic tanks or new septic tanks, septic systems, and requires a 10-year plan for the county to put in place a septic sewer master plan. It changes a lot of the shalls to musts in the existing language. And as the implications of this bill are better understood and the potential impacts are better understood, they'll be discussed as staff brings this through the public hearing process. As I mentioned, we did 30, 31, 32 interviews throughout the process. These were one-on-one interviews. And I want to go through some of the key things, some of the categories, if you will, that we heard repeatedly. Repeatedly, those were conducted July through September of last year. And, again, I just want to highlight some of the key issues that may or may not be addressed initially in the year process, but, again, warrant further attention. Western lands, not a surprise. Strategies for maintaining rural and agricultural character. Methods to reduce sprawl. Understanding that there may be underlying development rights in what are considered rural lands. What are the strategies to try to control that? We know that some strategies are in place right now, but this may warrant further discussion. It was brought up many times through the interview process. Resiliency in a lot of different capacities was brought up, be it climate change and the effects of climate change or sea level rise and the impact to coastal areas. Heat gain. And, in fact, I bring this up because I found it fascinating. But within that resiliency umbrella was the notion of food scarcity and, you know, what's happening with affordable housing and the ability for folks to live close to work, et cetera. So resiliency through our experience through this process was a large umbrella that connects to a lot of other things. Growth and development trends. I think you heard a little bit about that this morning from one of the public speakers. Where should new growth go? And what are strategies to direct growth to certain locations that make sense? It was brought up that one of the survey questions was, you know, do you support redevelopment occurring along some of the major corridors as opposed to other rural areas? And the answer was yes. But also, what are the impacts potentially of Senate Bill 102, the Live Local Act, to growth? And one of the things we discussed, are there ways to not address Senate Bill 102 but maybe tailor some of those impacts and focus them in certain areas? Transportation and mobility was an issue that was brought up repeatedly. How do we improve our existing system of mobility? Traffic and congestion is something that you all, as elected officials, hear about multiple times daily, I'm sure. And we hear it at every single workshop and presentation we go to. What are ways that, if you agree that there's going to be continued growth, not unbridled growth, but continued growth, ways that we can try to mitigate some of the mobility issues through greater connectivity, through land uses, through increasing, you know, emphasis on some of the transit infrastructure that exists today? Tied into that, of course, is affordable housing. And, you know, what are different ways to increase the inventory? How do we maintain a multi-generational county? That was brought up over and again. You know, my kids have gone to college. There's nowhere for them to live if I want them to come back. And then, of course, the recent legislation, we had a lot of discussions about that. On August 29th of last year, we had our first workshop. We had nearly 100 attendees. And I won't read all of this to you, but I'll hit a couple of the high points. This is some of what we heard from those in attendance. Number one, limit the amount of new affordable housing. We have enough. Number two, provide more affordable housing and workforce housing. We don't have enough. So there was almost an equal split on many of these issues. Concerns about, you know, permitting new septics, new septic systems, incent, you know, septic to sewer conversions. Overall concerns about growth and congestion. Western lands we discussed. I thought that this was germane. We need to maintain and protect marine industries and working waterfronts. And I thought that was very good to get into the mix. And also there was a discussion at this workshop about requiring green infrastructure or implementing what's called low-impact development strategies. And there's a whole host of research and best practices on that. And Jim Moyer, who's on the LPA, has participated heavily in this and has a lot of experience on that. The following day, we launched our survey. And that was live until December 31st. We received, over those few months, over 600 responses. We thought that was good, but we've heard that maybe that wasn't so good. But nevertheless, it was a lot of information to go through. And if you'll indulge me, I thought I'd go through those 23 questions quickly so that they're on the record and what the answers are. For those that participated, you know, the first question is, what is your age? Almost 50% were over 64, and 11.5% were between 35 and 44. 87% of those that participated identify as white Caucasian, and then another 8 or 9% preferred not to say. The majority of those that participated, and I thought this was good to know, 96% lived in Martin County, or continued to live in Martin County, and only 4% from outside. We didn't police it and say you can only be Martin County residents, but it was good to see that the majority, the vast majority are residents. We identified the zip codes from where the results came from, and the majority came from Palm City and Port Salerno, some from Jensen Beach, and we've got more detailed information in the backup in terms of the exact number of responses from what zip code. 44.5% of those that responded work in Martin County. The majority, 55%, do not, but that could easily reflect the retirement population within the county. What are the things you like about Martin County? Now, we had five or six questions that were open-ended, where we asked folks to just feel free to write their thoughts, and those are included in the backup as well. And if you have time, they're worth going through. I think they're very interesting. But in order to try to present them in some succinct way, we created these word clouds, where the words that were used most frequently are the ones that show up in this cloud. Just to give you a sense of the tenor of the answer of those questions. So the small-town feel, controlled community, the parks, the beaches, low development height, those are things that those that responded liked the most about the county. And as I said, you can go through all of those responses in detail in the backup. How well does Martin County accommodate those young adults who want to return home to live and work and raise a family? 23% said the county accommodates them very well or to a level of excellence. Nearly 40% were on the opposite end, and about 40% were kind of indifferent. So you can see it's almost an equal split, three ways. But clearly, I think that if you include the poor rating through the middle ground rating, there's work to be done there. And we heard that a lot through the surveys and the interviews. What are the three most important areas the county should focus on to accommodate the return of young adults? Number one is employment opportunities, 52.3%. Number two is quality of primary and secondary education, which is 48.5%. And number three is a variety of housing options, including those that are affordable. So there you have it, the top three things that probably need to be focused on to try to keep the younger generations in the county. What are your thoughts on the availability of affordable housing in Martin County? 11.5% said the county has more affordable housing than is needed. Almost 36% said the county has enough affordable housing. And the majority, 52, almost 53%, said there's not enough affordable housing. So if you combine the 11.5% and the 35.8%, again, there's almost an equal split in terms of is there enough or is there not. If you feel there is not enough affordable housing in the county, do you have any thoughts on appropriate solutions? Build more. Don't build any more. Stop growth. We need more apartments. It needs to be more cost affordable. You know, we want to see more young folks, et cetera. And, again, those answers are elucidated greater in the backup. Here's where we ask about the Live Local Act, which enables the development of affordable housing on commercial and industrial properties, provided the new development meets certain affordability standards. Are you familiar with this legislation? Nearly right down the middle, half said yes and half said no. And, hopefully, through this process, we've informed folks that this is out there and it's something they should pay attention to. Number 12 is if yes, do you think this new legislation, how do you think this new legislation will affect Martin County? And, it's going to make it more busy, too much development, more building, we'll see more restaurants, more shops. So, you know, again, this was kind of equally split. How often do you use the following transportation modes in Martin County? Personal vehicle, 94.3%. Said frequently. Notice the green is frequently, the red is never at the bottom. 91.5% of those that responded to the survey said that they never use Marty. Almost 45% said that they sometimes walk. Now, that could be for recreation or for, you know, getting to a destination. 35% said they never bike. And, basically, almost 30% said they sometimes do. 52.6% said they never use rideshare. And, 70%, almost 73% said they don't use other modes. This may not be surprising. But, what I find interesting is that the next question of which of the following transportation choices, not including a personal vehicle, are important in your community. Marty, 32.4% said it's very important. And, then another 36% said it was somewhat important. So, that's a swing of almost 70%. Walking, 53% said that walking is very important. And, 35, almost 36% said it's somewhat important. Again, while I may not be doing it today, I see the value and importance of it in the future. And, we should try to provide facilities for that. Biking, almost 90%. Rideshare, this was shocking to me. Nearly 49% said rideshare is somewhat important going forward. And, other personal modes, I think that could be sort of a nebulous thing. What does that actually mean? But, still, it's a swing from what the existing conditions are. At least, we thought that was a positive. Do you feel Martin County should encourage the redevelopment of existing built sites over the new development of the vacant lands? 91.5% said yes. That's what you heard this morning. Should Martin County encourage redevelopment of strategic locations along its primary commercial corridors, i.e., US-1, Dixie Highway, Map Road, where it's happening already? 74% said yes. 26.5% said no. And, what is an appropriate type of redevelopment? And, this focused a lot on uses, industry, marine, manufacturing, medical. Again, if you look at the backup, you'll see the answers in much greater detail. Would you support locating small, limited commercial uses in proximity to residential uses to minimize and or shorten travel distances? 41% said no. 50% said yes in some places. And, 9.5% said yes emphatically. And, I think that that's a fair, I would assume, I'm reading that is that context matters. In some locations, it makes sense. In some locations, it doesn't make sense to drop commercial into a strictly residential environment, especially if it's an existing one. As a coastal community within a coastal state, should Martin County revisit the issues of shoreline treatment and protection within the comp plan, i.e., living shorelines, consistency in regulations, seawall heights and locations, etc. This raised a good discussion during the second workshop. 87% said yes. 13% said no. And, when we asked, well, why would you say no? Because, well, we don't want to do any harm. We don't want to go backwards. And, you know, the idea is that if you try to address some of these issues in the comprehensive plan going forward, the idea is to improve the conditions, not to make them worse. So, depending on which side of that coin you're on, I can see how folks responded differently. How concerned are you about the impacts of climate change in Martin County? Nearly 60% are very concerned or concerned, and nearly 30% are not concerned at all or slightly concerned. Do you feel that the issues of resiliency and climate change should be further discussed within Martin County? I don't know, said 11%. 26% said no. And 63% said yes. We're almost there. What industries or businesses do you feel the county should expand or attract to enhance economic development? Again, marine industry, small businesses, trades, boat, mechanical, manufacturing. There's an emphasis on sort of light industrial manufacturing and marine industry. And, finally, are there other issues that should be discussed during the EAR process? So, that's the summary of the survey that closed at the end of last year. As I said, on January 18th, we had our second workshop where we presented those survey results. That was not as well attended, and we heard about that at the workshop. There were concerns about the advertising. We can discuss that if you'd like. We had approximately 50 attendees. And we heard a lot of the same comments. Issues of the URBIS service boundary is sacred. It's currently being eroded. You know, the Martin difference comes from the comprehensive plan. First, do no harm. And, as I said, there were concerns that, quote, no one knew about the second workshop. Just to that point, I just want to say that the workshop, and we can always do better. The workshop was advertised in the newspaper. There was the information on the county's website on the front page and on the growth management page. There was newspaper articles, and so I think we went through the normal protocols for advertising. I think we feel comfortable in that. I will tell you, though, between the second workshop and the LPA presentation, we went through all of the sign-in sheets and contacted directly all the individuals that participated in workshop number one and workshop number two, assuming that their information was legible. And if it wasn't entirely legible, we did a little bit of research to try to get to it. But there was like three or four, I think, that we weren't able to reach. But overall, we reached out to over 100 folks, I think, directly to make sure that they knew about the LPA meeting and the Board of County Commissioners meeting. So what you have in your package today is our outreach report that goes over all of the information that I had. Notice that we're not here to recommend any comprehensive plan changes. Any changes, should they occur, will come in the future, and we'll be duly notified and be part of the public process. And we're here to get any input you have today and answer any questions, if I can. Thank you very much. Commissioner Harington. This might be a question for Clyde. But can you give a general overview of what the timeline is for this process, what other public input will be provided, and the public hearings coming up and opportunities for people to participate? Certainly. Assuming the Board adopts the resolution attached to this agenda item, we can begin work on making presentations to the local planning agency for various chapters that we've identified will need to do changes on. And for each of those chapters, there will be three public hearings. There will be a public hearing before the local planning agency. There will be a transmittal public hearing here with the Board of County Commissioners. Then there will be an adoption hearing before the Board of County Commissioners. In between the transmittal and the adoption, the items go off to the state of Florida and to all of the state agencies and surrounding municipalities for their review, input, and comment. Each of those chapters will, like I said, be three advertised public hearings where the members of the public can provide public comment on each chapter and can participate in each public hearing with public comment here at the podium. So the timeline, which you asked about, we need to have all of the chapters transmitted to the state of Florida before December 1, 2024, before the end of this year. Commissioner Smith. Dana, as always, great work. I always very much value what the regional planning, the approach the regional planning council takes, I think, to a process like this. There's been decades worth of public outreach and involvement throughout our region, certainly outside of our region as well, and I think you all do amazing work. One thing I would ask on the survey portion, the last 23 slides, plus or minus, whatever there were, is that something that can be sent out to organizations? Is it a canned kind of a, here are 23 questions we'd like your membership to fill out and respond to? Could we resend the survey? Yeah. I don't see why not. Because what I'm thinking, and I would love, I would really like to know, what do the Martin County Realtors Association think about a lot of those questions? When it gets into affordable housing, when it gets into commercial where it should be and where it shouldn't be, what the corridors should look like, if you were to target a group that had probably more one-on-one involvement with people who buy, sell, live, move in this community, it's probably the Realtors Association that have probably the most diverse understanding of what people are thinking, because every single day they're dealing with homeowners making a decision to come or go or stay. All of the chambers, I would send it out to all of the chambers. I think the business community, it would be super important to get their feedback. You may have had Realtors, you may have had business folks in the meeting, but I think a more diverse cross-section, if you will, of when you put up like the, what types of businesses do people think ought to be here? I don't suspect that we would see necessarily dramatically different answers, but it may reinforce the idea that the marine industries is important, that high-tech is important, that research is important, that medical is important. And to that point, I would also engage, because it played a couple of your slides, the marine industries played a significant response in the scale of the cloud routine. The marine industries is going through a 50-year reset in our county. There are companies that are merging together that are looking for the next 20 years, next 25 or 30 years of what is that industry going to look like. And there are some really interesting, exciting mergers that are happening. And from a business that plays probably one of the most significant roles in our community relative to employment and culture, I think it would be important to reach out to that group and really try to get them, the marine industries, to drill into their membership so that we can get what are their needs, what are they looking for, what is important to them moving on into the future. Those are just some thoughts. I think the content is great. I think it helps us, it will help us form some ideas and some looking inward as to what can we do to do a better job. I forget where the email was or maybe it was from Lucido on the one issue that certainly is something I would like to see looked at, this commercial street and private road application of how you can enter into a neighborhood. A project that could have gone completely different than where it's going to go today because of Live Local, our comp plan and our rules bound that idea up, which could have been, I think, a really fantastic opportunity for a project that's close to I-95 that would have been very different than where it's going to end up because of Live Local. And had our rules allowed for it to been more comprehensive in terms of its strategy of what will be built on that site, we will now miss that opportunity because our rules didn't allow it to happen. And a state law that is usurping basically our ability to do anything with it, if they apply Live Local, we will end up with something very different that people will not be necessarily happy about. And given the response to the thing, 50 percent will be and 50 percent won't be, but at the end of the day what we will hear, I'm sure, is that people won't be happy. Anyway, thank you. I thought it was great. Thank you very much. Commissioner Campy. Thank you very much. And sort of piggybacking on what Commissioner Smith just said, if you're going to potentially send out the survey again to groups, I would add the three high schools. It would be interesting to see what, you know, you had 0, 18, and under. IRSC. And then if you could, I know that you guys, there was some feedback that if you were primarily using any of the social media platforms, some older people don't have social media platforms, which I get, but young people definitely have social media platforms, but you can't use Facebook for them. You'd have to use Instagram and X, which... I'm well aware, yes. Yeah, so I think if you put them out there, and especially if it was sort of like a clickbait type of thing about, you know, what's your future look like in Martin County, and then, you know, I don't know if you're going to get them to go through all 23 questions or 25 questions, but especially the high schools, they have civic groups, they have student government, they have debate groups. I think that would be a nice opportunity for them. And then IRSC, because, I mean, that's our only secondary education, but even maybe Project Lyft, because not everyone that goes to high school is going off to college. It would be interesting to hear from young people that are absolutely going to go into the workforce, hopefully locally. Several years ago, I had a local business owner that was very surprised. He wanted to relocate a big company here, and he's very surprised. He had two school-aged children of his own, and he couldn't comprehend that there just wasn't more action for it. And so we did a sort of a morning seminar, and we invited six kids from each of the local high schools, but also the Pine School that had graduated from there. They were in either in the workforce or about midway through college. And to your results, the first one for them was housing, and the second one, which was a close second, was jobs, because there was a lot more talk about being able to come back and get jobs versus there was talk to come back and get housing, which he was very surprised by. And then I've always said that I use it as an expression that Martin County's biggest export is our talented young people. I have three in my own family, so I can give you personal experience. One was very interested in staying and living and working where she grew up, and the other two had no interest in that. So it's just anecdotal, but even in my own life, I experienced the same things. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I know that you're not done yet. I appreciate what you've done thus far. As the year process starts to rev up, I think more people will start to pay more attention to it. So I think if you were looking to increase your survey results in terms of the 100 at the first meeting and 50 at the second, I mean, I've been to your presentations. It's not for a lack of fantastic presentation and outreach. Some people are just either. I think there's plenty of people that didn't know, but there's plenty of people that don't see it as their thing. It's just, you know, not something that they're necessarily interested in participating in. The survey would probably be the best result. Thank you. Thank you. Even approaching some large employers in the county, I think, is probably a good. The hospital, the school district. The school board especially, yeah, for sure. All right, Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, what I hear from all residents is stop overdevelopment, stop harming our quality of life, stop weakening our comprehensive plan. Residents have relied upon our comprehensive plan in order to protect our quality of life for the last 32 years, 33 years. And residents want to be assured that we're not, you're not going to propose weakening our comprehensive plan. But there's nothing in this entire agenda item that makes any indication that you're going to honor that request. To your point, this was intended to gain public input, and I think that's what we've done. This, as I said before, and as Clyde has mentioned, and as we've mentioned in each of the workshops multiple times, this was not, this outreach effort was not an effort to make recommendations to change the comprehensive plan. But you are making recommendations that we go into the plan and change every chapter. What? Forgive me. Nobody knows what those recommendations are going to be. Forgive me, Commissioner. And there's an awful lot of, a lack of confidence that you're actually going to be recommending changes that will continue to improve our quality of life. We'll have to see, because there are no recommended changes in the presentation that I just made to you. There's no recommended changes in your agenda package. And as we are also working with growth management and Clyde, we don't even know yet what changes may or may not be necessary due to the statutory changes that have occurred over the last seven years. We're parsing through all of that right now. The residents I've talked to say, understand that we have to comply with Florida law. So there have been changes in the last seven years that we have to incorporate into the comprehensive plan. And the people I talk to say, we will honor, we will comply with the law, but we will not change anything else. We still want to have the same protections. You know, people are very concerned about the suburbination, the urbanization of Western Martin County. They're very concerned that there are going to be changes proposed that weaken those protections, that further erode them. And we've heard that in Martin County, its character is completely changing as we make these paper cuts into our comprehensive plan. You know, I hear from people every day, I've lived here, you know, I'm in my 70s. I've lived here for the last 50 years, and I'm moving. And that's heartbreaking. So what I'm hearing from all residents is stop weakening our comprehensive plan. And I think, and I agree, that's what we presented to you this morning. Thanks. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. And when I hear Commissioner Hurd's comments, and I hear the same thing, but I think it deserves over and over and over, because we even had some speakers this morning allude to things going on within the city that have absolutely nothing to do with the county. And so much of what people are upset about is happening within the city. And I just, however we enforce the idea that there are two entirely separate governments, two entirely sets of different rules, that the protections and the concepts in which our comp plan and land development regulations are have nothing to do with the city. And maybe, Dana, maybe it helps in one of the opening slides, whatever presentation that ever gets made, here is the city and every street that surrounds it and forms the boundary of the city, and here is unincorporated Martin County. Just there is a complete, I think, frustration but lack of understanding as to where the city boundaries are and what is allowed, and I can't tell you how many times, if we all hear, I'm sure we do, stop doing this, stop doing that. There is a belief by a lot of people that we have control over the school board and we have control over the city. There is a complete disconnect of understanding that that is not so. We control and oversee unincorporated Martin County. And sure, there is a lot of criticism and there can be for what goes on in unincorporated Martin County, but the city is a different animal altogether. And how we define that and share that with people and make that, if we are trying to educate people through the process by what you are doing, which is great, through the questions and how, what do people think about things, I would spend a fair amount of time every single presentation drilling into the fact that here is the box and we're outside of that box because there is a lack of understanding. And even to the extent that so many people think that once you get on the Roosevelt Bridge and go north, you're in Jensen. Well, it used to be, but, you know, a third of Jensen Beach is now the city of Stewart or has been for over 20 years. And now you're seeing it develop to what the city wanted it to develop into without us having absolutely no say in what happens up there. Anyway, thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, we forced Indiantown into becoming a municipality, so buckle up, because their goals and objectives are not going to, it's going to be the same thing. So, and that was avoidable, but here we are. That leads into my next question. Does not, do not all comprehensive plans in all of the state have to go through the ear process? So, therefore, would City of Stewart and Village of Indiantown would also be doing this ear process? Yes, that's correct. They will also be having public hearings and opportunities to input? Is that? Correct me if I'm wrong, and maybe someone will. Will, it's optional. It's not a mandate, I don't believe. Didn't they take the requirement to have to do the ear out like six or seven years ago? Yeah, that's correct. Each community, whether it be county or city, can choose to send a letter to the state of Florida that says, we don't have any changes that we need to make. We're all in compliance with state statute. But each community must look at their plan and consider whether they need to do an evaluation and appraisal of it. And one of the changes in statute in 2023, in fact, says that the chairman of the county commission has to, you know, sign and certify that if there's not going to be any evaluation and appraisal report and there's not going to be any year amendments, that the chairman is putting his name to the fact that, nope, everything's in compliance. And so they've ramped up the intensity and the pressure on communities to make sure that our comp plans, whether it be city or county, are in compliance with state statute. I wish I had known that a few months ago. Excuse me, Commissioner. Well, you are having one, so it doesn't make a difference. Excuse me, Commissioner Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. Just one more thing, each community is on a different timetable, so not everybody follows the same schedule. It depends on your own community and the schedule you're on. So we have to do it every seven years. City of Stewart has to do it every seven years, but they don't necessarily coincide with one another. All right. And with that, I see no other comments. So Mr. Owens has been waiting patiently. Please come up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and commissioners, and I've appreciated the conversation this morning. Paul Owens, 1,000 Friends of Florida. We're a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to protecting the environment, quality of life, and economy in Martin County and throughout our state from what Mr. Little referred to as perhaps unbridled growth. For decades, we've been active in this county, the home of our late co-founder, Nat Reed. We are proud of our role in helping to develop this county's comprehensive plan, which we consider the foundation for the Martin County difference, the county's commitment to protecting its environment and quality of life. But that commitment has increasingly come under challenge in recent years. The current evaluation and appraisal report process for the comp plan creates both risk and opportunity, risk that short-sighted changes could weaken the plan's environmental and quality of life protections and opportunity to reaffirm and strengthen those protections while addressing community concerns or emerging threats to environmentally and fiscally sustainable growth. We believe the first imperative in this process, and you saw it in one of the bullet points from January, is to do no harm to the comp plan. But we hope county leaders also seize the opportunity to improve it. Recognizing today that the recommended changes are yet to come, we advocate some practical proposals for strengthening the community planning process through the comp plan from our 1,000 Friends of Florida model property rights element, which you can find at our website, 1000FOF.org. Those proposals include a requirement that developers meet with affected neighbors before submitting their applications to get an early start on identifying and resolving conflicts, a requirement that development applications and any revisions to them be made available to local officials and the public for review 10 days before they're voted on so that decisions are made with full understanding of their details and impacts and a requirement that any comp plan amendments or rezonings earn a majority plus one to be enacted because permanent changes to a community's landscape and character should be subject to a higher standard of approval. So thank you all for the opportunity to address you this morning in your service to this community. All right. So this action for the board is to? Initiate the plan amendments and adopt the attached resolution and adopt the attached evaluation appraisal report. Okay. Before we do that, is there any other public comment? That's what you want to do. Good morning. For the record, my name is Morris Crady, senior partner with Aceto and Associates, and I did submit a letter for the record that talks about one of my clients that has property on Canter Highway, and in order to access this property, he has to go through a commercial land use. So I'm asking, there's an internal policy with county staff that you can't utilize a road that's built in a commercial land use to access a residential property, even though it's built to county standards and it's maintained by a legal entity other than the county. Their only exception is when the road is a public road, and I don't think a road going through a commercial property to one residential property needs to be a public road that's maintained by the public. And I know this has also come up. I don't represent any Live Local clients, but I know it's also come up in the context of Live Local, so I would like you at least to direct staff to, as they peruse these other changes to the comp plan, some type of way to blend infrastructure when you're dealing with residential properties next to commercial properties and allow them access. And it's common in the CRA, it's done quite frequently, so it just needs to be a policy there that would allow that to occur and not just prohibit use of a private road to a commercial property that is perfectly capable of providing access to residential properties. And on a personal note, you know, I was here on April 1, 1982, when the comprehensive plan was originally adopted. I've been working with it for 30 years or 40 years now, and I tell you that the plan in 1982 and 1990 when it was updated was a 30-year growth plan. It had a plan for growth over the 30 years. Well, it's been almost 40 years, and there's not been another 30-year plan created. So that's why a lot of what's happening is a reaction to applicants' proposals to try to meet the requirements of the comprehensive plan. And so the state requires that you have a 15- and 30-year plan, and if you don't plan for the next 15 or 30 years, someone else is going to do it for you, whether it be the courts or the state or private individuals. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, to Morris' point, and I hope that everybody in the room or everybody watching us takes this away, whatever we do with any fixes, changes, corrections to the comp plan, they should be changes and direction that this board, our community, want to make that we're not pushing ourselves into the state making them for us. And this Live Local Act is just that. It is intended to take away local involvement, local say, and do something that our residents may not otherwise want. And so if there are changes that will help us create or at least let us have the say that someone who's going to take a piece of property that is zoned appropriately or has land use that's appropriate, I would much rather the five of us have the say than someone from Tallahassee dictating to us what is going to happen with that piece of property and having no say. And that may be hard to swallow, but at least you can hold us accountable and not Tallahassee waving their magic wand and saying this is the way it's going to be. So, Morris, I agree. And the project we looked at that you were referencing, I thought was a unique opportunity to do something interesting in the more affordable, if you want to call it that, housing discussion, but also how do you mix that with commercial and how do you make it a destination for maybe younger people that would have, and to Dana's surveys would have a better opportunity to come back here and be maybe in a community that they could start to work and afford in, but also have direct access to commercial activities that you don't physically have to go back out and get on the road and go do something six miles away. So, anyway, thank you. Okay. Looking for a motion or something. Move staff's recommendation. Staff recommendation is on the screen. Moves that the board. Do you mind if I'm coming to it? I would move staff's recommendation with the addition to the recommendation that the Regional Planning Council does do some additional outreach to those groups, organizations that both Ed and I and others talked about just to get a little bit broader, Dana, cross-section of information. I don't know that it will be dramatically different, but I think it would be important to get direct feedback. Because as Ed, I think it was Ed who said it, you know, how many people really want to go to the Blake Library on a Wednesday night or a Tuesday night and sit there for a couple hours? And if you can take a survey at home or as part of your day because you have interest or because you're a chamber member or you're a hospital member or you're a community member, we might just get some really interesting additional information. So I would ask that as part of the motion that we do the recommended action, but that we also ask the Regional Planning Council to do one more round of virtual online surveying. My motion. Mike, are you coming to speak or what are you doing? No, I was in the parking lot and I found someone's social security card and I thought you might want to do an announcement just so they have somebody. Don Lee Bryant, whoever that might be. Donald Lee Bryant. Donald Lee Bryant, you have lost your social security card. Please come retrieve it from our bailiff. All right. With that, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one. Commissioner Hurd dissenting. Thank you, members of the board. Thank you. Moving on to public hearing number two, fund balance adjustment that are necessary for fiscal year. Sounds like a quick and easy agenda item. Stephanie Murley, I don't see her. Oh, I'm sorry. I checked the wrong check. Yes, please go for it. Public hearing number one. Public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending Chapter 47 courts, Article 8, additional court cost in criminal cases. Melissa. Petrick. There we go. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for hearing me. This should be relatively quick. This is an amendment I'm presenting to the board so that the board would amend Section 47.154 of Chapter 47 of the Martin County Code. This matter, just so the commissioners are aware, was published on February 23rd of 2024. There is currently a Florida statute, which is Section 939.185, that allows, by ordinance, that we enact court costs of $65 against those who plead guilty to certain criminal charges. We have that ordinance in place. The amendment here is merely to ensure that our ordinance mimics what the state statute says, and specifically the changes would be that in imposing of these court costs, it would just state that the court shall order a person to pay the additional court cost, and if the person is determined to be indigent, the clerk shall defer payment of this cost. Like I've said, that's what the state statute requires, and this is merely here to make sure the statute is in compliance with our county ordinance. And with that. Commissioner Smith. Moist House, recommendation. Second. Motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. Oh, public comment. I'm sorry. Any public comment? I see no public comment. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay, now we'll do public hearing number two. Ms. Stephanie, fund balance adjustment that are necessary for fiscal year 2024. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Stephanie Murley, Director of OMB, here to present our fund balance adjustments that are necessary for fiscal year 2024. Fund balance is really just a routine annual adjustment to the current year's budget due to planned expenditures that were not made, expenditures that were less than planned, revenues anticipated that were collected and more revenues that were collected and more revenues that were collected than planned from the previous fiscal year. Adjusting the fund balances allows projects which were planned but not completed to have the funding available to continue and is a sound fiscal practice as the budget will reflect an actual number rather than an estimate. What fund balance does is just reappropriates the funding in the line items that they were and anything left over goes into our reserve. This is a public hearing, so all notice requirements have been made in accordance with the law and Florida statutes. A little noteworthy comments for FY24, with this fund balance, we have been able to fully replenish our disaster recovery fund for the replenishment of expenditures made during the post-hurricane Nicole recovery efforts. And this fund balance also establishes multiple fixed asset replacement budgets for the parks and recreation fee-generating facilities that were revenues that were collected over the expenditures. And with that, unless you have any questions, I believe public comment is required, but otherwise, this is a really big accounting entry. Okay. Do we have any public comment? Seeing none. To the board. Motion to accept staff's recommendation. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Now we will move on to Department Quasi-Judicial No. 1, Request Approval for the Newfield Parks Master Plan and Conservation Open Space Easements by Elizabeth Nagel. Nagel? Nagel? Nagel. So, Commissioner Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney, this is a quasi-judicial proceeding. Great. Okay. All that is going to testify, please stand and raise your 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 do we have any interveners? There are no interveners in this. No interveners. Okay. Have all the proper paperwork been turned in to the clerk? A copy of my work history and agenda item as Exhibit 1. That's quite lengthy. Quite the thing. And do we have an ex parte, Commissioner Hurd? If I have any, they've been filed. Chair Campy? That's safe. If I have any, they've been filed. And if I have any, they've been filed? If any, they've been filed. You'll have to get back to him. I'll get back to Commissioner. We will have to get back to Commissioner Smith. Okay. All right. Okay. Proceed. Okay. Good morning. He's coming. Wait. Wait. Any ex parte? If they are, they're filed. There we go. Okay. Good morning. Elizabeth Nagel, Development Review Administrator. We're here this morning to talk about the Newfield Parks Master Plan and Conservation Easements. Some background on Newfield, formerly known as Pineland Prairie, is a 3,400-acre development located generally west of the Florida Turnpike, north of Southwest Martin Highway, south of the C-23 Canal. On August 18, 2018, CPA 1804 and 1803 were adopted. 1804 created the mixed-use village land use specific to the Newfield development. 1803 assigned the mixed-use village land use to the 3,400-acre Newfield development. On September 11 of the same year, Ordinance 1083 created Article 11, Land Development Regulations, Planned Mixed-Use Village, which is the form-based code consistent with the MUV land use. On December 15, 2020, a development agreement was entered between the Master Developer and Martin County BOCC. The agreement ensured counties' level of service needs are met in the project through the timing, location, and specification of facilities and services to meet or exceed the level of service standards. Level of service standards including libraries, open space conservation, fire rescue, water, and wastewater, and parks, among others. Facilities and amenities that are considered towards the level of service do have to be open for all Martin County residents. And there is an impact-free credit to the developer in return for the facilities that are open to the public. So today we're talking about the parks level of service that was adopted as part of this development agreement. The parks section in the agreement calls for the level of service to be met by implementing a parks master plan. The plan is meant to provide a general outline of parks facilities and includes Category A, Parks and Recreation, and Category B, open space conservation level of service standards through both active and passive recreation facilities. For example, it could be multi-purpose fields. There also could be an open space trailhead that I believe we heard mentioned earlier today in the public comment. The parks master plan is to be approved prior to issuance of the 150th building permit. There are no current permits in right now, so we are here ahead of time to make sure we get this adopted. The master plan before you today gives an overall view of the parks. It's not designed to be specific to the scope or type of facilities. The final site plans will be necessary for the individual park areas, including the trailheads, with collaboration with county staff and the developer. Also before you today are conservation open space easements. Two preserve area management plans were approved in 2020 with the development agreement for areas outside the primary urban service district boundary. Both the development agreement and Article 11 requires conservation easements to be approved to guarantee preservation of all open space and conservation areas outside the PUSD prior to issuance of the 50th building permit. So there are three easements, PAMP 1 conservation easement for wetlands and native upland habitat, PAMP 2 conservation easement for wetlands and native upland habitat, and an open space easement for the open space outside of wetland and native upland habitat within the PAMP 2 area. The applicant is also here to make a presentation. The recommendation to the board is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including staff report as Exhibit 1. Move the board adopt a resolution to approve the park's master plan for the new field development. And move that the board adopt a resolution accepting and approving three conservation easements covering PAMP 1, PAMP 2, and the PAMP 2 open space area. Happy to answer any questions. The applicant's presentation may answer some of those questions, but happy to. Commissioner Hurd. How are the conservation easements guaranteed? I don't understand the question. Lily Seldar, Deputy County Attorney. There are easements that are recorded over the property, and they will be in place in perpetuity until they are released by the county. So they'll be... Who guarantees their perpetuity? The county. They're recorded and they're given to the county. So the county, the board of county commissioners, would have to release those in order for the conservation easements to be removed from the property. But they run with the land and they're attached to the land. So the board of county commissioners, simple majority, can remove them? I believe it's in the master plan as well. It'll be in the plans. But yeah, the board of county commissioners would be able to release them, I believe. I ask this because there are problems to the south of us on this very thing. There are conservation easements on voter-approved lands that are instead being developed. I don't think for this conservation easement, we have a third party, like a nonprofit, that guarantees it with it. Right. But we can hear from the applicant if they have further, but that's... Okay. I'm interested to find out because we hear promises of perpetuity and we see reversals all the time so that they're very, very fluid. They're not perpetual. And I'm very concerned that there are 2,400 acres here that have a development reservation. Ms. Marcello, you are up. Good morning, commissioners. Marcella Cambler, principal of Marcella Cambler and Associates and planner for Mattamy Homes. Do you want me to answer that question first? There are multiple levels, and I know this has been your concern throughout this entire process. As following Mr. Kiplinger's footsteps, Mattamy is attempting to establish every available tool to us at this point to make this guaranteed in perpetuity. One of them is the easement. We're establishing a conservancy on top of that as well. And on top of that, there's also a community development district. So there's multiple entities that would have to agree. The board of county commissioners would have to agree. Those, the board of the conservancy would have to agree. The board of the CDD would have to agree. And now within this preservation area, we're also establishing elements like an STA where the water management district would have to agree. Or we are establishing a tortoise bank where the Florida Wildlife Conservation Agency would have to agree. So there are so many agencies that are participating in several elements that it wouldn't just be a clean sweep from a 3-2 vote that could get rid of all of this. I'm not going to say that someone in 50 years or 20 or 5 is not going to try, but it would just be a very complicated thing. And if you have any ideas of how it can be tighter, we're open to it. It's, it's been the intent continuously to just make it as airtight as possible. Thanks. Commissioner Smith. Sarah Woods and I had a conversation the other day and it pops up every, I don't know, year, every couple of years. There is a like question and, and there have been, at least in my years of doing this, there have been two, maybe three runs at converting a golf course in North River Shores to something other than a golf course. And that has been met with our resistance and our commitment to that neighborhood that that will never happen. And maybe Sarah could just take one second and explain why that exists and how that exists and the legal challenges that come along with it. And I, I, I haven't researched it as, as it would apply to this development, but in the case in North River Shores, there was a transfer of density that was used and the language in that restrictive covenant, which runs with the land much as a conservation easement does. And it's irrevocable. And I know that everything is always possible to be undone, but there's never in this county in the over 20 years that I've been here, 23 years that, that anything has been met with at all going forward. I think there also could be a legal challenge to that. And in this case as well, I think these conservation easements and Ms. Elder may be able to clarify, but they're, the conservation easements are intertwined with the, the development approvals. And so I think you're talking about a very complicated and complex process that would be difficult at best to undo. And Commissioner Smith's right. It's similar to what happened. I think it was in the late sixties, early seventies with the Pine Lake golf course, which continues to exist and has never been undone. Thank you. Thank you. So with me here today are Jason Corp, who is the acquisition manager for Mattamy Homes, and also Ike Grumpler, who's a local consultant. Like me, participated in the visioning process with Knight Kiplinger since the beginning. And I think we're happy to, to report to that, um, Mattamy has maintained Knight Kiplinger's, um, vision, vision and consultant team to ensure that that vision is implemented as originally thought out. And just before I start, a shout out to your growth management department. What a pleasure it is to work with them always. So this is one step forward in the implementation of this idea that Knight had that 70% of these 3,400 acres would be preserved, open, and publicly accessible in perpetuity. As the staff mentioned, there's a couple of PAMs already in place. There's the, the conservation easement with the Kiplinger Conservancy. There's a CDD. There's a number of different layers that, um, will guarantee, or hope, this open and public in perpetuity. Um, the staff showed you the master plan that was approved at the time of adoption. And, um, you know, within that master plan, there are a series of parks and greens and open space. And each of those will be reviewed by this board when we bring each of the neighborhood plans forward for approval. We are not here today to talk about any of those internal parks or open spaces. Those you will get a chance to see every time we bring a neighborhood plan in front of you. We're here to have you consider the adoption of a master plan, as required by a development, as a great developer agreement and staff mentioned for the 2,400 acres that are now open and will remain open. And I, I just want to add, um, if not for this vision, if not for this new land use amendment, all of this 2,400 acres was slated to be, um, developed or could have been developed as five acre ranch hats. So, it's completely stripped of development. And what we want to do now is establish the general parameters as to what could happen where within these 2,400 acres. The, there's a chapter in your land development regulations that states, um, how the different areas inside the neighborhood can be developed, at what density, at what intensity, with what kinds of uses. And there are two sections or, or two areas outlined in the land development regulations as well that are called the T1 and T2 zones. And it's specifically coding for open space, which is pretty unique to Martin County's code. In T2 areas, we can do, um, athletic fields and active recreation and have farming and have buildings that support farming or that active recreation. And, and again, the buildings would be so long as they're inside the urban service boundary. We can't just go putting buildings outside the urban service boundary. And then there are areas within those 2,400 acres that are under what is known as the T1 zone. And in that T1 zone, what we can do and the impacts, um, can still be publicly accessible, but it's very limited. It's more in the forms of trails and boardwalks and, and, um, much more light access and, uh, and recreation still public. So just to go over a few of the principles that are embedded in the master plan that we are asking you to consider adopting today. As staff mentioned, we are required to, as we develop Newfield, meet the county's level of service in many different categories. Um, one of the things that I am the most proud of with Newfield is the fact that by implementing this project, we are not only meeting the county's level of services, we're exceeding them. Um, we are taking Martin County to a, uh, a level of service when it comes to public open space and recreation space that is the highest actually in the state. And we're incredibly proud of that. Um, with all the development that is being proposed in Newfield at build out, there would have been a requirement to provide a minimum of 30 acres of active park land. Um, that, um, that, that would fulfill the level of service for the entirety of the development, just with the first master plan that this commission approved back in, I think it was March of 2020 inside that neighborhood plan, we satisfied 11 of those 30 acres. Um, a lot of the remainder will be in other neighborhoods, but we will greatly exceed that minimum requirement. Um, as far as open space or conservation lands, again, at build out new field would have been required to provide 160 acres of open space or conservation, according to the level of service and what is being provided is 2,400 acres. Again, this all reflects in the county's level of service and availability of, um, these types of services for the entirety of the community. You know, when we, when we started creating this master plan, we looked at some general principles. I think we referenced first, you know, what would have Frederick Lowell Almstead, uh, you know, the, the, the America's father of, of the creation of parks would have done, you know, he followed seven principles to design parks and open space. And those were that open space and parks are great, but they had to build community. They had to contribute to building community. Um, they had to respect the local landscape. Uh, they had to be such that the people using them could enjoy the local scenery. They had to integrate built elements into the park plan. They had to be used also to define the developed space, which, you know, if you can see in the plan of new field, we are completely compressing and surrounding the developed area. Uh, they would be such that they increase property values for the community as a whole. They had to elevate the lives of citizens and they had to be accessible to all, which was also Knight Kiplinger's initial tenant. Um, this master plan, again, it's general because we will have individual site plans for each element that comes in to these 2,400 acres. Uh, it's intended to elevate the level of service. I mean, to comply and elevate the level of service within Martin County to provide indoor and outdoor recreation, SEPTED, SEPTED design, uh, to provide environmental stewardship programs, educational opportunities, flood control and water cleanup, uh, to be a case study for green infrastructure, to allow for public-private partnerships for development or operations of recreation areas should the county, uh, want to participate with Mattamy, to foster tourism, uh, really focused on wildlife and habitat preservation, to allow for urban farming and, yes, job creation as it relates to the amount of recreation that is going to be provided. Um, I, um, I, um, I'm not going to go over the conditions of the developer's agreement because staff did that. I just want to show you, um, with the caveat that these few images are not included in your master plan. These are part of, um, the exhibits that Mattamy is working on right now to start to implement this plan. This first image that you're seeing here is the new field trails and recreation plan. What you can see in all those, like, mustard color and beige and, um, and purple lines are all of the trails that are being proposed throughout the entirety of the project. The trails will not only be in the 2,400 acres, but will enter and connect through the, through the neighborhoods. Now, we are right now in the process of getting three trailheads, um, approved. We have been working with staff on the design of very light imprint, uh, parking areas, a little bit of, um, shell cover to allow some parks to pull in and then start to access some of these trails. I think some of you participated in the sort of ribbon cutting ceremony of our first trail. But, um, it is Mattamy's intention to have, just as they had the farm before they had the development and they had the conservation easement before they had the development, to have the trails and public access before development come in. Again, trying to make true to the promise that this will be a benefit to the community as a whole. Uh, there is a list in this document of the type of activities that, that, um, are envisioned to happen within these 2,400 acres. Um, you can see a small map in the bottom. When this green area encounters developed area, there's opportunities to, to do small, uh, kayak launches and, and boat ramp, uh, launches. And, um, this is being developed so that you can use those in between the neighborhoods and also in the lakes, um, in the, in the public areas, in, in the green areas. So these are some examples of the type of architecture and, um, and character that we would, uh, consider for this type of use. There's all sorts of things. I just put a couple of images of the ones that I thought were the most interesting. Again, when development encounters natural open space, there's ideas to do, um, spiritual labyrinths in places where you can just, um, go and have a very complete and different experience with, uh, with nature and the environment. Um, there is, uh, the idea to also fairly soon come with, um, an adventure course and other amenities, um, for the community to be able to use out there, um, within this open space. Again, none of this is being approved under this master plan. I'm just showing you the types of activities that could be proposed, prior site plan development, and, uh, and, um, staff approval as we move forward. Activities for all ages. There will be a ton of trails for, uh, bicyclists throughout the 2,400 acres. But if you don't want your little ones to venture and maybe meet, you know, an alligator out there, uh, there will be closer to the developed areas also some of these, um, activity areas. So amenities for all ages is what is being proposed. Um, there, um, just across the street from what is going to be, um, Newfield Town Square, uh, there's a proposal to do four multi-use, multi-purpose fields. We have been working already with, with staff. I think it is before the 150th, um, permit. We need to have a temporary field, but instead, Madame has decided we're not just going to do a temporary field. Let's do the four fields ahead of time, and we believe that those are going to be available before development comes as well. So with that, um, I'm happy to answer any questions. I think this is a very exciting, um, opportunity for the county and for all the residents. Again, this area is five times larger than the largest park currently in Martin County, and we believe the activities, um, will just be incredibly complimentary. So thank you. Commissioner Smith. Thanks, Marcella. Um, something I haven't talked to you about, but I've certainly, um, brought it up to the Regional Planning Council. Uh, it's one of my priorities for this year, um, both as chair of the Regional Planning Council, but also here at the county. Um, we've had two presentations over the last year at the Regional Planning Council, one at our joint meeting and one last month or the month, no, two months ago, rather, about the wildlife corridor program that the state of Florida has embarked on. Um, and what I found most interesting in all of that is that for all intents and purposes, the Treasure Coast from Indian River to northern Palm Beach is excluded. There are no missing gaps. There are no links. There are no anything. It's all, generally speaking, the West Coast and some of Central Florida, some of North Central Florida. And so what I've asked the Regional Planning Council to do with us, uh, is to put on a summit of a wildlife corridor discussion, um, that clearly it was intended, at least in my thought process, that all of what you all have done with the 2,400 acres, what we're doing with some other projects, and what we've done with land acquisition, what we did with C44, what we're doing with Palmar, all of those components could get worked into a long-range strategy of how do we finish connecting all the dots, um, by what the private sector is doing, what the governmental sector is doing, um, what the agricultural sector is doing, um, that we can somehow, uh, put all those together and, and come up with a really incredibly super plan. And if it's not to be, uh, because if it's not wanted to be part of the other statewide plan, then we'll have our own plan for, uh, the Treasure Coast and certainly, uh, up through Indian River, maybe into Brevard. But I, I think with everything that we're doing on the East Coast, it, it is absolutely imperative that we recognize the works of what you all are doing, um, and what others are doing. Um, there was a huge land acquisition in, in, in Harold's district, um, that could have been six to 800 homes, and probably hardly more than the people in this room even know that that doesn't exist anymore because it was, uh, it was acquired and, and put into private ownership that has absolutely zero intentions of developing it with homes. And so there are a lot of things like that. If there is a formalized way to include of all what you are doing, what Knight Kiplinger has done, what Mattamy is going to do, and coalesce that into an overall, um, strategy that the public can understand what more we're doing than whatever gets talked about, I think that would be great. And so, uh, I probably should have had that conversation with you before you came to the podium. I'm not asking you to do anything today other than to recognize, um, that it is important to us as a community, certainly to me, um, and we will be doing probably April, May-ish sometime, uh, at the Regional Planning Council, some kind of a summit that pulls all those ideas together. No, I think, I think that's fantastic. I mean, I'm sure Mattamy would like to participate. They've been an incredible steward. I did not mention, just responding to your question, um, last month, we got an inspection by Florida Wildlife, um, we, we think we're very close to having the first established, uh, tortoise bank in Martin County, and it's going to be also in this land. I didn't know tortoises had density, but they do. It's interesting. Um, so that's also very exciting, but yes, I'm sure, yes, density chases me through life. Anyways. T and D, tortoise density. There you go. Commissioner Campy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Campbell, from the first time I had a chance to meet with Knight Kiplinger, I remember he was talking about this family property that they've had for a long time and what his vision was, and the word vision comes up all the time, uh, because he really had a very clear, defined vision of what he wanted, and it was a little different than what most people were thinking about, especially in Florida. There would be no golf courses. There would be no gated communities. He was going to, which we can see here on this slide, going to make sure that, uh, a massive majority of it was left untouched, and that it would also not exclusively be for the folks that lived there, that it would be very well publicized, that it was open for everyone. And, um, what's nice about the process, and it's been long, what's it, five or six years, seven years? We started in 2017, so yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, um, with that in mind, it's nice to see it starting to really happen. And I know that when he was, you know, a lot of people were surprised that he was not, he and Ann, and I guess the family, weren't going to develop this personally or within the family. Uh, and I know he was very concerned about finding an appropriate partner, because the partner would have to really, uh, not only embrace, but actually accomplish, execute his vision. We call it night vision. And I remember the first time when they were announcing who the partner was going to be in Mattamy Homes, that, um, that we said they would, you know, those of us that approved the project with your assistant, our growth management department, and all the other departments of the county, and the commissioners that approved it, and the residents that really endorsed it, which, you know, in Martin County is a remarkable feat. Knight and Ann and you and your team with Mr. Crumpler and Stacey Ranieri and everybody else, they went around, and how many presentations did you do? A hundred? We reached out to 10,000 people, but yeah. So, you know, and now I use that as an example for other, uh, developers and applicants that come forward to call it the Kiplinger process. And because of that, so I know that by selecting Mattamy, um, there was still, until you actually did it, there was still concern that they would embrace the same vision that he had. And it, it's, I've been out to the trails. I was out there recently, uh, they had some of the kids from, um, Citrus Grove Elementary School were planting trees. They have a green market once a month, uh, that is very unique. So, Mattamy was the perfect partner for the Kiplingers to, uh, to sort of bring this dream of nights to, uh, to fruition. But the beneficiaries, the beneficiaries will not just be people that live in Newfield, but all Martin County residents. I encourage them to already come out and see some of the trails and the things that are happening in the green market. Um, so job well done. And I know we have to take public comment, but it's, you know, I, as, as well as the fact that the bragging rights of this is in district five, um, I'll make a motion gladly to accept, uh, staff's recommendation of your proposal after public comment. And just, I want to add one thing. Mr. Kiplinger and Dan are still heavily involved. They're not here today, but they check everything. I know, you know, that's which is, we don't want them to. For sure. It is amazing to watch this. Absolutely. Uh, with that, do we have any public comment? Seeing none, we had a motion by commissioner Campy and I heard something. Yep. You can't second your own motion. Okay. Seconded by commissioner Smith. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. And with that, it's lunchtime. So we'll see everybody back at one 30. Back in action. Department number one, office of management and budget items that require board approval. Ms. Stephanie Murley. Good afternoon. We have two items on the department one OMB item today. Um, our first item is a permission to accept the federal transit administration section 5307 formula grant. This is a grant award of 1.1 million to provide operating and capital assistance funds to the Marty, um, system. This grant includes $400,000 for the purchase of a bus, a grant match of 508,000 is required, which will be matched with another public transportation block grant, as well as the transit division operating budget, which is already budgeted. The second item is a permission to accept the FDOT South County line road bridge replacement project. Um, we are getting an award for $3 million for funding the construction of the bridge replacement. It requires a, a match of approximately $3.2 million, which is already budgeted within the bridge maintenance CIP. Um, and we just need a CIP revision to recognize those grant revenues that were unanticipated. And that's all of approval. Hey, we have a motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner Hetherington. All in favor. Aye. All opposed motion carries unanimously. Contract contracts that meet the threshold for board approval over or a million dollars or greater. Christy Brotherton. Excellent speech this morning. Very well done. Very well done. We don't have a mouse down here. Okay. Um, Christy Brotherton, chief procurement officer. I have one item for your consideration today, which is a continuing services contract for aviation planning services. Uh, this contract has a maximum not to exceed value of $3 million and a maximum not to exceed term of five years. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to environmental science associates corporation and Hoyle Tanner and associates. And staff is recommending that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. Cool. Second. Motion by commissioner Smith seconded by commissioner Hetherington. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Department number three discussion for the board to provide direction on next steps for the Palm City property purchase in October 2023. Mr. Donaldson and Stephanie Murley. Thank you, Stephanie, for hanging around on this one. She wanted to walk away and come back. I don't blame her. No. In dramatic effect. Yes. Dramatic effect. She's coming back. Coming back. Okay. So the, this is to talk about the property that we acquired in, in Palm City, uh, this last year, um, and, uh, which we purchased for $4 million and $28,000. The board, uh, directed staff to, um, look at any public purposes that we might need for this property. And also we did a, uh, a, a bridge loan, if you will, from, uh, reserves. Um, and then we were directed to consider a bank loan. Uh, the third item was to, uh, you know, look at future uses of the property. So since that time, um, two things have happened. One that are significant. One is public works has had in the CIP for a number of years, the improvement of Danforth Creek, uh, in the vicinity of this property. Uh, it shows up on our, uh, studies in terms of some restrictions that we need to clean out. And so this, having a portion of this property to provide access for Danforth Creek, um, uh, would be valuable. They don't need a lot of it, but there's a triangular piece that is to the west of the entrance road that's already there. Uh, and, and in proportional to what we already spent, um, acreage, uh, unit cost, it, uh, values at $800,000. Um, so that, those funds, uh, uh, uh, we would use from, uh, our, our, some fund balance in public works, um, to, to pay for that. And, uh, it would not affect our, our current year operations. The, the other piece of it was the, the district funds has, uh, $250,000 that we were going to use on the down payment no matter what for the loan. And, uh, uh, and with a bank loan, uh, currently at four and a half percent, uh, we'd be looking at in excess of, I think, $500,000 or so in, in interest charges over the life of the loan. I know there's a desire also to look, to be, to look at the, um, millage rates this year and keep all millage rates flat. There, um, we were close on the district millage on whether to be able to keep that flat to be able to pay for the, um, payment and interest charges on a bank loan. Um, it's also significant to note that we, uh, we took $4 million out of the, uh, fund balance, or from, uh, general fund reserves. Um, the $800,000, uh, plus the, uh, $250,000, uh, will go back into the general fund reserves. And then, uh, the clerk had done a good job this last year with, um, uh, our investments in terms of, uh, uh, what we do with what we have in our, in our reserves. And Stephanie in your item earlier was able to put back a couple of million dollars into those, uh, general fund reserves. So we have, and she also mentioned hurricane reserves, which is, we have a separate fund now that's kind of dealing with, uh, capital projects or parks, public works, types of repairs. Um, so we were able to reimburse that largely with FEMA reimbursements that we finally got in and some other funds. So that leaves you about a million dollars short on the general fund reserves. And so that's why, um, uh, the first item was, should we continue with a bank loan? And staff's, uh, apprisal was that, uh, it would make more sense just to continue this with, uh, just an interfund loan. Since we, our deficit in the general fund reserve is now significantly reduced. The other concept is, is that there's been discussion with the district, uh, uh, about putting this back on the market. And if you were to sell this, depending upon the bank loan, you may have penalties if you pay it off early and those types of things. So given the fact that, um, um, depending upon the loan we get, it would be simpler to do an interfund loan. So the, the policy discussion on this is twofold. One is, would you accept switching to go from a bank loan to an interfund loan? And then the second piece of that is historically for the last, um, 10 years or so, you've been doing interfund loans at 0%. And that's what's presented in here. Although if the board wanted to change that policy, you could, you could, uh, charge a nominal percent of something similar to what, um, uh, SRF does, which is around 2%. So that's, so that's the first, uh, uh, policy discussion is simply, that was the main point of this item was to look at, one, accepting, uh, the use of a portion of the property by public works and allow them to, uh, purchase that piece from the, uh, essentially from the, uh, the CRA and the district. Uh, and then the second piece was to allow us to go to an interfund loan. And if you consider that, then what's the, um, interest rate. And, uh, and then finally, the other item to consider was, um, the final disposition of the property and how we resolve, um, what is to be done with the remaining property. Um, it's been suggested from, uh, some, uh, expressed interest of, of members of the business community that they would like to see some, like an opportunity to build some, uh, um, commercial office space or something to that nature there. And so, um, what, the only way we could see of doing that and still retain the, the original purpose was to limit the scale and intensity of what was going on there was by a deed restriction. And we've had some conversations with, um, um, um, uh, our, uh, legal counsel that has helped us with, uh, um, real estate matters in the past. And it's, it, it is within the board's purview to have a deed restriction that would essentially limit the type of activities that could go on there, whether you could limit the number of stories, the number of square foot. You could even limit to the type of development. Let's say it's only commercial and no residential. I'm not asking you to, uh, actually come up with that today, but the idea was that if you are willing to consider that, staff would bring back at a future agenda item, a recommendation of what the, or it's specific, those restrictions on there, since I don't have, um, the actual deed restrictions for you to approve today, but we would bring that back, uh, if that was, uh, okay. So, so that's the, the, uh, um, the general overview. Again, we're looking at, uh, first, I think the most important thing for us to, to, to establish is whether or not we continue, uh, going out for a bank loan or authorize the internal loan. Uh, uh, uh, uh, we are recommending that we go to an internal loan, again, for two reasons. One, that we've been able to put some, the, the amount of deficit that's in the general fund reserves has now been reduced to one million, while the, the, the CRA and the district still owe the amount that was borrowed. Um, uh, uh, the, uh, the other reason was is that if there is an inclination or approval to put this back on the market, this likely would be a temporary loan at best anyway. So, that's, um, that concludes my remarks, and Stephanie's here to help with any, uh, analysis on, on, on, on loans or rates if we need to, uh, and then, uh, myself and Ms. Woods can talk to deed restrictions if, uh, if that, uh, the purview of the board. Commissioner Campy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Donaldson. It was very difficult to sit there quietly and hear that whole presentation, but I appreciate you very much, and Ms. Woods and Ms. Murley, we have had, uh, colleagues, we have had plenty of meetings about this behind the scenes with staff. I wanted to first say thank you to the folks that help us, uh, put this deal together in the first place. I'm sure some of you had heard from the same people that I had that this, the, uh, just to bring folks, to remind them what we were talking about here. Um, it's a six-acre piece of property on Martin Highway, uh, right next door to Palm City Elementary School and also, uh, adjacent to Palm City School Avenue, which in the city, in the old school configuration was a somewhat, uh, much less used entrance and exit to the school site. Most of the traffic for school, Palm City Elementary School came down 34th Street, but when they built a new school, they eliminated all, um, vehicular traffic on 34th Street to the school site, except for teachers and buses and all of the students biking, walking, or riding in the car with their parents have to use Palm City School Avenue. The second thing is, is it's six acres, but if you, can you bring up the picture of the site that shows, I guess, the parcel that the Public Works was interested in? Uh, that. Okay. So now, the six acres is all encompassed to the right here, where it says 1.7 acres in that green section, and then you see Southwest Newberry Court. The Newberry Court and everything to the west of it, that green shaded area, counts as the density calculation, but really nothing could have been used there, uh, or done there for the development. Most of it would have had to happen on the site to the east. And also, if you see right above where it says 1.17 acres, there's a little house there in that corner. That little corner part is not part of the property. So imagine, if you will, for the, my colleagues know this, but for those folks maybe watching at home, along the bottom of the screen is Southwest Martin Highway. And so, if you see right to the left of where there's a tree at the entrance of Southwest Newberry Court, the three-story, the first of the three three-story apartment buildings would start 14 feet off the sidewalk. It would be 30 to 35 feet tall. It would come directly heading east and stop sort of where that dashed line comes down the center, dividing that center portion in half is the first building. Then to the right of that building, to the corner of Palm City School Avenue, is the second three-story building. Then you turn the corner, there was a, you know, just north of the building on Martin Highway is a swimming pool and clubhouse. And then the third of the three-story buildings aiming east, facing east, would be there. So as you know in the CRAs that you have to build close to the road, so the concept of a landscape buffer or anything like that would have been minimal. You actually would have opened your door if you had one of those apartments. You would have opened your front door, stepped out onto the porch, walked down a couple of steps, and been standing on the sidewalk on Martin Highway. So I really appreciate that we were able to stop that. Now people say, why did you do that? Well, it was legally allowable. So there wasn't much in our discretion to stop that kind of project. Now, would that have been compatible with the local area? No, there's nothing at all similar to that. Not just here, nearly anywhere in all of Palm City, that would have been the first time something like that would have happened. And then some folks said to me, well, you know, you're supposed to be, you know, a big proponent for affordable housing, and you're eliminating 90 apartments. These were not affordable housing units. These were going to be market rate units. There were going to be 123 parking spaces for 90 apartments, one, two, and three-bedroom apartments. So I don't have to convince my colleagues, hopefully, that this wouldn't have been our best work. Now, some people said, well, you just gave money to the developer. You just gave him a free. They paid $2.1 million. They probably, they didn't share with us exactly what they had spent to date, but you can imagine bringing a 90-unit apartment project through our development process. It's got a price tag. I was ballparking between a half a million to six or $700,000 to bring it forward. So then we had it appraised. Three of you agreed with me to at least enter into the negotiations, which I very much appreciate. We did. It appraised for $4.5 million in one appraisal and $4,050,000 in another. It came back to the board for the final, and we were able to still maintain a majority to purchase it. That day, we started to talk about, you know, how would you fund it? And my friend and colleague, Commissioner Jenkins, was pretty adamant about making sure it was going to be a bank loan. I did not want to get too deep into a debate with him at the time because all along, my intention as the district commissioner was that we would not hold on to this property. You don't spend $4 million to make it a dog park, even though people, we need a dog park, but that wouldn't have made fiscal financial sense. Lots of residents reached out to me and said, just leave it alone. Just leave it exactly the way that it is. And I didn't think that made fiscal sense either. If it was already our property, maybe, but you can't spend that kind of money. And then it also, if it's, if it was a governmental use, it's off the tax roll forever. So I did not want to at that time negotiate, you know, of the negotiation show, all of my cards up front. But the goal there was to get the property into our ownership. And then the second phase, which is what we're doing now, is to put it back out. I will share with you all that several people prior to that whole experience and many more afterwards have reached out to me and said, I like a piece. I have a great idea. I have this. Can I get a, can I get a percentage? Can I get the whole thing? But as you well know, this has to follow the governmental process of request for proposal. And I told all of those people that, you know, some were probably not in a financial situation to do it, but several are. And I told them, please, you know, follow along with the process. And when we get to an RFP, please include, you know, your bids in the RFP process. Now, to what Mr. Donaldson said about deed restrictions, you know, a lot of people would say, well, you know, how do you stop this from happening again? You know, how do you make sure that the person that buys it doesn't build 70 apartments? Or something that the community at large would also not feel is compatible. And then Ms. Woods and her legal team said that could be accomplished through deed restrictions. Short of changing the zoning, it is still within the CRA, but making sure that it's now that we have it in our ownership that we could have a little more say. We would all like to have that ability to have a little more say on what would be developed, you know, truly in this portion of Palm City, in the heart of Palm City. And I heard a quote yesterday, the CRA had a development presentation at the Blake Library, which I thought was very well done. And the gentleman that was making the presentation said, you, we can't eliminate development, but we can guide it. And I thought that was clever. So now here we have our opportunity to guide development here. Five of us up here, including our staff, there's all sorts of like, it should be this or it should be that. To Commissioner Jenkins point about the financing, I would hope that we can, based on what we heard Mr. Donaldson say, and understanding now that there's no intention of trying to hang on to the property for any extended period of time. If anything, it's the opposite of that. I appreciate staff bringing it forward today, because we're trying to move along as quickly as possible to get it back out there, if you will. So an interfund loan is the smartest for several reasons. It's obviously internal, as Mr. Donaldson said, if we do engage a on the street bank, a retail bank, there's a lot of strings attached. If we end up keeping the money for six months or three or four months or whatever, how long the process would take to close, why would we want to just, you know, penalize ourselves with fees if we didn't need to? I hope you hearing from our staff and me that our ultimate goal is to, as quickly as possible, put this out as an RFP. I went to the NAC with Susan Corris and Jordan Pistorius to address the NAC board, because currently they are our partners in this, because some of the funding would have come from the CRA funds in Palm City, as well as all of my district funds. My goal is that, as I said to them, is that we never put our hand in the pocket of the NAC for the funding, because if we turn this the way I'm hoping, they are there in the funding for years three, four, and five, and the district funds were for one and two. So hopefully that will work. In terms of the restrictions, I believe that commercial is appropriate. The only restrictions that we're talking about, and Mr. Donaldson said that maybe we'd have to come back, but that's delaying. Hopefully you guys can see it clear to that we would have, as my suggestions, no more than two stories, and back it off from some of the current CRA requirements that would put it back up on the sidewalk. I'd like to back it off the road, off of Martin Highway a bit. I think that it does not need to be residential at this particular point in time. I think the commercial value of the property is more appealing to the folks that have reached out to me. No one, if I have eight people that have engaged me, none of them said they wanted to put residential on it. They all had unique business goals in mind. When I met with the CRA and the NAC board in Palm City, they had originally said, well, maybe we can make a list of the things that we would like to have there. And I said that that would be a very narrow kind of structure to, I said, it needs to be the opposite of that. We need to discuss the things we wouldn't want there and let the market dictate, the free market dictate what someone thinks would work with the criteria. Now, obviously, you can't really see it in this picture, but all of those white-roofed buildings to the right upper corner, that's a self-storage and some industrial, but directly behind that, just on the top of that picture, is Palm City Elementary School. Residential leaves you open to who lives there. You're within 100 feet, I mean, less than, you know, 100 feet of the property of a school. I would hope that my colleagues would agree that a commercial endeavor would be the way to go. And then in terms of, what else did I have to tell you? The Interfund loan, hopefully won't even, as Mr. Donaldson said, it won't be a long-term loan. The money that the public works is looking to use, and then the district funds that I have in there currently would be the first sort of bite at it. The other thing, and this is, I asked if I was allowed to mention it publicly, and I am, but it's not a done deal. There's folks that own the property that's tree-lined in between the shopping center to the west and that green box to the east. There is, that is actually, a portion of that is a developable piece of property that the owner has struggled to come up with anything that would be palatable and was hopefully still interested in potentially donating it to the county, just to say, look, let me get this off my ledger sheet and work that out. So that's, I know it was very short, my response, but I hope that I can answer your questions and that we can move forward on this, hopefully today. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, first of all, the $4 million appraisal, was that for the existing raw land, or was that for the developed project? It was, the appraisers knew of the entitlements with the property, but obviously doesn't include any actual construction on it. It was a, but it did, they did consider the zoning and the current market value of that land and its development. potential at $4 million. Four and a half million. Highest and best use, yes. Also, the stormwater piece, what's the size of it? 1.17 acres. Okay. Also, if this isn't in the CIP, if this wasn't programmed for purchase and you're going to instead be using $800,000 from Public Works, what is not being done? This funding actually came from interest earned from the market investments that the clerk's office does. Okay. That's countywide. So every taxpayer is paying that? It's the franchise fee, the stormwater infrastructure franchise fee. Okay. Hurricane reserves, countywide? $10 million. So every taxpayer is paying for that. General fund reserves, every taxpayer is paying for that. This isn't just coming out of the Palm City taxpayers' pockets. We also have an informal policy of no indebtedness on our successors, on our possible successors. And we also have, we know that we're going to be pressured to have no new taxes this year. So what's the MSTU from this past year? So with the $250,000 down payment, there's $600,000 available for carryover. And then we would have to levy the same $370,000 that District 5 is currently levying. So what is this? It was, first of all, $6,000 plus $370,000? Yes. $250,000 plus $6,000 plus $370,000. So there's $600,000 that's already in the, was in, was in, unspent? Yes. And three, were you getting the $370,000? The $370,000 is currently what District 5 levies, the $370,000. And so the annual TIF is? The annual TIF is going to be approximately $600,000. And it's going to pay for three years? Yes. If you, two and a half years from now, you still own the property. It's 1.8. And yeah, I, I have, I have real difficulty with an interfund loan because it's, it may, it's making everyone in the county pay for it. And we're depleting reserves in order to do this when it wasn't a, an anticipated expenditure. It was a spur of the moment expenditure that taxpayers are going to be, be on the hook for five years for. Yeah. I, I, I'm, I'm not going to be able to support that. If you had, if you had sufficient MSTU funds and if you had sufficient TIF funds, you know, I, I'd be, I'd be supportive, but this is not the case. This is a project that's being financed on the backs of the county-wide taxpayers. Of course. Okay. So we're taking $800,000 out of our $4 million purchase, leaving 3.2. Are you envisioning being able to off this property with the deed restrictions and the amount of acreage that's been reduced and recover 3.2? Is that a question? It is. Yes. For a couple of reasons. One. And when. Okay. How long? Well, some of that depends on you all. First, to answer your second question first, would we be able to sell the remaining property for approximately 3.2 million, give or take, there's a little bit extra there or less. The parcel that's been removed was the most detrimental portion of the property for anyone else. Nothing could have happened to the west of Newberry Court. It's, you can't see it there in the picture, but to the left of that green is Danforth Creek. But it had value for density. It had value for density. However, we're not making this a dog park or, or, you know, something. The value of Palm City, centrally located Palm City property, the meat and potatoes of the four acres, the most valuable portion of the four acres, is still there. And so you've knocked down, you've, for $800,000, no one else would have had a value, had any use of the property except for density increase, except for public works, because they're going to use it as access to Danforth. No one else really could have done anything there. And to, with all due respect to my colleague, she is looking at a scenario that we don't have this conversation today, that we don't put out an RFP, that we leave it alone. And, you know, I respect her opinion and her mindset. She did not support the conversation to even negotiate a contract. She did not support the purchased. So that being said, if we did follow along with my colleague's strategy, they would be building 90 apartments right now. Right now, that would have 90 apartments. And so then, not only the district commissioner, but everybody else would have to, this room would be filled up with people, whether I brought them or not, saying, what are you doing? Most of the speakers this morning said, stop it. Enough. It does, it's not compatible. You're destroying the feel of our community. There's nothing like this anywhere in Palm City. I, with the help of staff and some local residents, crafted a plan that took basically a four approved project, 90 apartments, off the drawing board to our, you know, most of my residents, probably our residents, didn't realize this was going to happen. But had they, we would have had nothing but screaming and yelling. So I appreciate my colleagues that backed this decision. It's not on the backs of all taxpayers, because you heard from Ms. Murley, the first two years are coming from district funds. In the last three years, if it even went that long, are coming from the CRA, the Palm City CRA. That's not everybody. But that being said, with the $800,000 to purchase this, I mean, give me a week, and I will go through every land purchase that the county has made throughout the entire county, and shown how much money the Palm City and District 5 residents, taxpayers, chipped in to buy property in Hobe Sound, Port Salerno, New Monrovia, Jensen Beach, Tropical Farms. I don't ever think of it that way. Everyone in the county should look at this and say, okay, that worked. I see this as one of the higher achievements that I will have accomplished in my political career is to not only stop those 90 apartments from being built right there, but then put the property back out to something that the community can embrace. And there's a lot of different ways. I don't want to share with you what the folks, all recognizable names, local folks, would love to have an opportunity to build there. It will be, it will go from something that was a blight, in my opinion, on the landscape in Palm City to something that everyone will be like, this really is an enhancement for the community. One of the things that I've always factor in is storage units, assisted living facilities, and apartments only benefit the people that actually use them. If you're not storing stuff, it is no value to you. If you're not putting a relative into an assisted living facility, there's no value to the general community. And if you're not living in one of those apartments, there's no value versus retail space, restaurants, doctor's offices, professional office space, benefits everyone. I think this is a tight plan. I would very much hope to find support from at least two of my colleagues to move this forward, because it's doing what I said I would do, which is stop the apartments and put the property back out onto the tax rolls at really no dramatic financial detriment to our taxpayers. Sure heard. Yeah, this project could not have been built, would not have complied with the unincorporated regulations. It only is complies, it only works inside the CRAs. And that's because these, the commission majorities over the years have weakened the regulations in CRAs to allow a 90 unit apartment building to be built. You've increased densities, you've decreased compatibility, you've decreased open spaces, you've decreased setbacks, you forced the buildings to be placed right on the road. I voted against every one of those things in order to protect neighborhoods like this. This is one of the problems with the CRAs is that the regulations are just so different there than they are in unincorporated. And that's why you have a proposal for a 90 unit apartment building, because it's allowable. But I voted against every one of those. Well, if you ask Wawa and Hope Sound, directly the opposite happened to them. So Commissioner Smith? Yeah, I don't, unless staff's done an analysis on what could have been built here when it was in its former configuration of life. I don't know the answer to that, whether it could have been more or lesser and different. Ed, the only, I said the only, a couple of things I just want to share with you in terms of how I think about something like this. We had 150, 120 people, whatever it was, show up one day to support you to purchase this piece of property. I was supporting them. Okay. Either way. Regardless, we listened to the community that showed up, a lot of recognizable faces and a lot of people that are fully involved in the community. But there were different opinions that were shared, lots of them. And so what I'm concerned about is somewhat the approach that you're thinking is that somehow in your mind, we've already defined what the end use should be for this. And I think an opportunity that we're missing with the community at large that showed up is to work with them to have them tell us what they think ought to be there. I think it is an incredible opportunity to take a prime piece of real estate in the middle of the old Palm City CRA. And like you said, there are maybe some really great potential uses. I just think, I think for this particular type of property, not going back out to the community and engaging them in the discussion to start forming the parameters of what something like this could look like is a missed opportunity. And what you would be giving the 150, 200 people that showed up here the opportunity to participate in is having your community actually help you define what it should be. Um, and whether or not the design kept it up to the street front or not, if it was the right use and it was the right location, maybe that is the right thing to do. We don't know and we won't know. Um, the other piece of this, I think, is that no matter how narrowly we design the covenants, let's say, I mean, let's say the assumption here is that someone's going to bid $3.2 million to buy this, right? I mean, that's kind of where you're taking us on this. What if somebody comes in and offers you six and it's not exactly what you want? And, and, and, and I don't want to pick on any particular retail outlet, but let's say it's a retail outlet that seems to be trying to locate itself in every kind of community. What if they offer you 10? Because quite frankly, to them, it's four acres in the prime heart of, of a very urbanized community that for that particular use would be prime time. I, I just, I, I think, I, I, I think the possibility could be very real that that happens that someone says, look, 10 million bucks for a piece of property in the middle of Palm city for what my intended use for it is nothing great for paying back the taxpayers. Fantastic. But it may not be the use that you have in your mind that is exactly what it wants to be. I think the power of going and having, having a night where we bring in some people to help us, the other, the other component of this, and we've done this multiple different times with projects that I've been involved in over the years, the commercial real estate folks in Martin County will have a definition of what they think should go there. Absolutely. They'll know what they think will fit there and how much they're going to pay for it. But that also doesn't for a second say that somebody is willing to do something outside of what they would ever think of. I mean, Harold just mentioned an example in Hope Sound. Never crossed my mind that someone would come in and tear down a bank building and build a Wawa on the corner. I mean, but it's altogether possible. So I just, I, I think the, I'm supportive of the financing mechanism, Ed, to get us, you, where we need to get with our internal loan. I, I heard about after the last presentation we had how much interest we were looking at, and that never came up in the conversation. And I think had it, we wouldn't even be having this conversation today if we'd known it was going to be $600,000 to $800,000 in interest over the course of the loan. And I think, I think I was supportive, but I went along with helping you try to get to your goal on this thing. But I, I, I would have, I would have supported an internal loan because I know we would have figured out how to pay it back and it would all worked out. So I'm okay with that. I I'm okay with the structure of the financing piece of it. I just think as much engagement as you had from your community, it would be super cool because at the end of the day, what I think you're going to want, even though in those 200 people, 150 people, whatever there were, maybe there were six ideas that popped up or five ideas, right? There's going to be winners and losers on the idea. The people who want to the dog park, it's not going to be a dog park. But if you gave them the opportunity to sit at a table with six other people and say, I want a dog park. And the other five people don't want a dog park, but they think it ought to be this. And all of those things come together. And a consensus is built from the community. This is what we'd like to see happen. Then I think it's a home run. I think you get the best of all worlds. You get complete community involvement, you get complete buy-in and sure, there are going to be people that want to dog park that aren't going to get a dog park. Fair enough. So that I'm, you know, and I'm, I'm just suggesting that you might want to do that. Thank you. Well, think about how you're going to put that into a motion while Mr. Campy talks. Well, I can do a motion. Um, I appreciate that, Doug. Uh, I did not, after we got the, uh, approval from, and yes, Commissioner Smith, you were supportive of this decision, uh, this mind, this concept from the beginning. And I appreciate you for that very much. Um, because I think, you know, I keep saying 90 apartments because that's what it was going to be. And I brought Ms. Corris up because I remember you telling me something that, that the unincorporated or the CRA did not increase the density. Is that true? CRAs did not increase density past 15 acres, uh, 15 units an acre throughout. We don't have any densities past that. So making it a CRA or those rules didn't necessarily make it go from fewer units to 90. It could always have been 90. That's correct. Okay. It just brought it to the street and all the other things. That's correct. And, you know, obviously I'm a big, you know, historically lifelong proponent of the CRAs. Commissioner, uh, Jenkins, as I've mentioned in the past, I think his political career started in his frustration on what was happening on bridge road. One of the reasons I had even thought about coming back was how all of a sudden map road, the wheels just fell off and we had brought our residents right to the big, you know, to the tipping point of having something start. And then it was like, no, we're not doing it. So that's why two of us are sitting up here for the most part now. However, to me, a CRA is a main street, uh, vibe map road, bridge road, Jensen beach Boulevard, you know, Osceola main street. Martin highway is not a main street. It's not designed to be a main street, but, uh, through the history of, and I was not here when the CRA boundary was stretched all the way from map road down because this project you see to the left was originally steward fine foods that was done by my predecessor, uh, back in, in 2000 or 2003 or four. And at the time I would have agreed that that was a smart, uh, strategy to bring a much needed supermarket to Palm city when there was only one. So that's why, and the concept, and I don't want to get into a tit for tat with my colleague. We're trying very hard to be collegial, uh, and cordial to each other, but throwing down some of those things make it difficult to make it sound like this is our fault. And she voted no on all of those things, because if I were to go there, I would say that things happening in Port Salerno are all over the place. So let's all focus our attention on these individual projects and not try to beat each other up over it. I understand the complete, you know, difference of opinion, but this wasn't my fault or commissioner Smith's fault or my colleagues to the left here who were newer than the, the three of us. This is what I was dealing with at the time. And I think we've created a strategy that works commissioner Smith. I had not been quiet or silent with the colleagues and my constituents in the district. Lots of people afterwards came up and gave all sorts of suggestions. And the reason I sort of steered clear of a, of a charrette or a more formalized process is there was no, um, there was no uniformed response. There was no consensus. I interrupt. Yes. That is the process. The process is you take, you take the most divergent ideas and you, you take the vision of those divergent ideas and you start to mash them together. And what it also does is, is people sitting at one table that aren't having the same conversation at another table, and they're having an entirely different conversation in the table next to them. When presentations are made with what they come up with, some people at the other table go, I never thought about that. That never crossed my mind. And so I'm not saying it's perfect yet. I just think given how much attention this has and given the opportunity, I just, it would be, it would be well worth, I think, and healthy for the community to, to participate in a way that you end up with, they end up with a consensus that most people will be okay with. But that, that's just me. I appreciate it. Let me just, and before you go to Commissioner, just finalize my thought. I'm not opposed to that. We got some feedback from the NAC board members. I've gotten feedback. What I would request, humbly request of my colleagues that are interested in participating, hopefully two of you, would be that we follow the funding recommendation from our staff, knowing in your minds that this is a very fluid, moving process, and that the concept of keeping it separate from additional internal funds to go to a bank loan, and then forcing us to pay 25, 30, 50, whatever the number could potentially be, I'm estimating, is not in the best, our best strategy. And two, that, and this is a motion, if you put it out there, a motion that we accept staff's recommendation for the funding mechanism, and two, that we allow, and I will participate with Ms. Chorus's help, and the NAC to have an evening at the Palm City Chamber very quickly to invite everyone to participate in a brainstorming session, but so that we're also on a parallel track, not wasting time, to allow a RFP to hit the street, because there's a long, right? Okay. It's a process. The only reason I say that is, is that if somebody comes forward with the financing and a vision of what could happen there, then we bring that to the community and say, what about this? Because instead of the community saying, this is what we would like, now go find someone to do it, this is someone that's saying, I would do this here. Thank you. That you have the ability to say no. Well, that's the RFP process. Okay. Commissioner Hetherington. What I heard, this was not my original comment, but what I heard Mr. Donaldson say was, put it back out to market. What I just heard you say was, put out an RFP. That's the only way you can put it out to market. You just can't, we can't put this on surplus as take out the, so you're going to take, the stormwater piece is going to be included in the parcel, and you're not going to market this as real property or put it out on surplus. You're going to put an RFP together? And I, Mr. Donaldson can jump in. I think state law requires if we're going to sell the property that we would put it out for bid. We wouldn't, if we put it on the surplus list. You would auction it? No, we could ask for a request for proposal. We would, the preliminary discussions that I've had was that we would have an idea of what the deed restrictions would be, and then put it out for a request for proposal. This was done back in the day with the Gershbein property where, what's it called, Renar River Place is. I don't know if it's River Place anymore, but if you remember in, at the north end of Jensen, we did a request for proposal. The RFP kind of outlined what the county was looking for, and then we received the proposals. We only received one, but again, then that would be up to the board. It would come back to the board to decide which one. We have put property up for, it's similar to a bid, but it allows you a little more discretion if the board wants to look at what they want to do. It also allows you to reject it if you don't think the price was bid too low. Yeah. You know, so that... That's why we crafted it that way. Commissioner Hetherington, Susan Cores, Office of Community Development. I just wanted to add that statutorily, any disposition of property in the CRA has to go through an RFP process. No, I never was, you know, I appreciate Commissioner Campy's efforts, and he did it, you know, with good intent, I think, on behalf of his residents. I just, I never supported the Interfund loan. I was adamantly against doing it. I understand that there's cost, but there's, you know, there's cost sometimes to having this unconventional way to guide the free market. So I think that that process that you're describing is not like remarketing the property. It's going to take a considerable amount of time, and I would be against, continue, I would still stay with my original intent. I would not agree with providing an Interfund loan for the property. And I, what kind of timeline are you thinking for this? Are you talking to me? I was, I was looking at Sarah Woods, but if you have an answer. Well, I could offer my, my answer, two things to your comments. One, if, as Mr. Donaldson said, we haven't done it in the past, but if you, if it makes you more comfortable, and I need it to happen, I can use district funds while I am the district commissioner to pay a interest rate to the Interfund. So it's not zero, you know, it's not a zero percent interest Interfund loan. If you are comfortable with a couple of percentage points would make you feel more comfortable, and I need your support, then I would put that on the table. Two, Commissioner Smith's idea of the Charette and going through the process, in my mind, is an excellent idea. But I see, like in the old fashioned movies, the calendar pages falling away. That's what I see versus my idea was to move this pretty quickly. I have a huge advantage. I know people that are waiting for a bid to hit the street that will come forward with ideas that are really great. And I think, you know, yes, there would be a little bit of a leadership push for the community. I feel comfortable enough with the groups that have reached out to me after the fact that say, okay, we wanted to do this. My only concern, and Commissioner Smith, that is traditionally the way we've done a lot of things, bring the community together, see what we want. I don't see this, one, because of the financing and the speed that we're looking to move at. And two, this is not one of, it's not like Jock Layton Park or Charlie Layton Park. This is, as Commissioner Hurd said, something that came up. We crafted a strategy that could work to guide what we want our community to look like under this current set of circumstances and move it quickly. Each of you come with a different sort of decision and mindset that I'm trying to appeal and work with each of you so that I can get a couple of you to agree. It would be so much easier if I sat up here by myself. But that being said, I'm confident. And remember, I'm stopping those apartments. You'll hear from the same constituents. It wouldn't have just been yelling at me about the apartments. They would have yelled at you guys too. So you can take as much credit as you would prefer that this was a project that stopped it. I'm done. I yield my time back. I'm going to speak now. So where I got excited about making sure that it was encumbered by the Palm City folks and not, you know, was because it was going to be a $4 million. In my mind, we're talking about a $4 million dog park. We're talking about a $4 million property hold. We're talking about, if you are actively pursuing recouping at least the 3.2, we've justified the eight, it doesn't, I'm going to rescind my thing that it doesn't make sense to go out and pay closing costs and interest and all this other stuff. If it is a short term thing, we have the, they bring us back an idea of what deed restrictions are going to be, whether that is through, through staff or whether that's through public input. And this is fast track to, because this is a very desirable piece of property. I don't think it would take long. So I would support. Thank you. Great. I promise. So I commit to making this as fast as the government allows. But when we were first talking, we had no idea. This is going to be a long-term hold. And I'm going, no, my Hope Sound folks are not, or Indiantown folks are not going to pay for your dog park. I agree with that. I just couldn't mention it to you at that time. I was trying to negotiate piece by piece. To speed this along, where this conversation is going, I'm supportive of. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Let's try another couple angles on, on how you get where you want to get. We did a project down in Lake Worth for the Regional Planning Council a year ago. There was a historic site. There was a lot. There was a parking lot. And there were a couple other things. It was a really tight, tight site. And there was a ton of opposition to just selling it off and redeveloping it and doing its thing. And the RPC went down there and they worked with the community and they worked with them and they worked with them. And they came up with some spectacular concepts of how to deal with what would otherwise have potentially even eliminated the historic site altogether and or been something that nobody wanted. They are the best at what they do. They have incredible amounts of resources and talent. They're financial guys that they use that come in and do analysis on what is highest and best. What is the, what are the economics of the site is really world-class stuff. And not that that should make a difference, Ed, I don't think. But I think from the actual end use, because another thing you're going to want to do, I would think, and I know it may take some more time, but there's an iterative process for doing request for qualifications. Do they in fact even have the capability, the developer, whoever it is, to pull off and do what you're wanting to do? Yes. And well, yes. Not even a question about it. And that may be, but you're going to put this thing out to bid. Right. And if there's six people that you know that are going to bid on it and the seventh person outbids them, well, we have the choice. I just wanted to enter, we were talking about a request for proposal. So that would, it wouldn't be, you wouldn't be bound to take the lowest money. I mean, the highest money bid. You would be able, you would look at it as a whole. Let's use the opposite spectrum. And I have no idea. And maybe they've already told you what they're willing to pay you for it. But let's say the goal is to recoup the 3.2 million. Okay. Let's say five of the bids come in at 299, 300, or 3 million. And a seventh one comes in at 3.3. And the others are $300,000 short of what the payback price is. But you don't know the seventh person. Who are we going to pick? Or are we going to, are we going to be forced with the decision at that point? Well, we would know who the seventh person is because they'd have to follow the criteria of the bid, just like if we knew none of them. There would be criteria for which to compare each of the proposals to see which, and that again, would be up to the board to decide. I just, I, I, again, that's going to put us in a bind because the other thing that's going to happen, and this will happen, and this wasn't dissimilar to the property down in Hope Sound that was the fire station, right? We went into that with the best of intentions and an individual bought it and we didn't like the outcome. And that put us in a real bind. And of course, the next door neighbor wanted to buy it and his bid wasn't enough for something to get him where he needed to be. And it went to the other person. So I'm just, if I get it, if some complicated, if some of this stuff can be done up front and you can eliminate as much of the conflict, which we talked about with the fire station, that perhaps we should have done a better job of eliminating the conflicts. That's just, that's it. Isn't that what we're talking about? Having minimum standards of what we're looking for on this property. If somebody comes in with another 90 unit apartment building, they're going to get bounce. I don't care whether they got 10 million or not, right? I get that. Yeah. But like the fire station, they wanted to put a water purification company in, but our zoning said, no, you can do this in this box because we didn't do, pre-do the zoning. We didn't change the zoning. We should have changed it. Anyway. And we are doing that this time with the deed restrictions. Okay. Commissioner Hurt. Yeah. Commissioner Campy, I completely concur with you that the 90 unit apartment was a disastrous proposal. No one would want that in their CRA. So I wish you the best. I hope that the perfect plan, uh, lands in your lap and it may, I hope it does. I appreciate that. Thank you. Could you repeat your, uh, my motion is that we would allow, uh, the look, we're in an interfund loan temporarily right now, which was part of the original motion that said to allow staff to do this while we were out there looking for the financing. What I did not want to say at the time is we didn't need to be looking for long-term financing because there are people right behind the original purchase that want to step in. Motion. Yes. The motion is that we, uh, leave the funding mechanism in place that is currently set and that we put out an RFP after some, um, deed restrictions are put in place to answer your questions about how do you stop it from doing that again. My only caveat of the deed restrictions is that we don't make it so restrictive that we eliminate potential users that would have paid for it. Or to many of my colleagues points, if you restrict it to the point where it doesn't have the value, I'm not going to get 3.2 million. My restrictions are more front side back setbacks, height restrictions, and non-residential. That leaves it open enough that anyone that wants to participate can participate. To Commissioner Smith's point, what if we don't like it? Well, hopefully there'll be two or three. Would they qualify to actually be able to pull off their deal? If the people that I know that are involved, and maybe it'll be somebody else that has a better idea. But all of you know who I'm talking about. They can easily afford the property and what they're looking to do. Is this still a motion? Yes. That's it. Leave the funding mechanism in place and put out an RFP, RFP with the deed restrictions. End of motion. Who's going to create the deed restrictions? And we'll come back to you at our next meeting, at the meeting after that one. I was just going to make sure that it was, it's clear the RFP and would be developed by, you're directing us to develop that RFP and the proposed deed restrictions, and then it would come back to the board for authorization. Do you need to do some NAC outreach? I have already, and I will. Like what Doug has asked? I did that, and we'll do it again. I have my key person right there. Okay. You happy with that? I'm on the edge, honestly. Okay. I was trying to talk more to win you over, and Harold doesn't want me to talk anymore. Mr. Donaldson. I was just going to clarify the beginning of the motion, which was leave the funding in place, which is the first two bullets of the item, which allows us to transfer the other ownership that would, that would more specifically define what leave the funding in place means, if you all are okay with those first two bullets. I'm supporting that because we are actively moving forward to disperse this property. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we have a motion. That doesn't bode well for me if you have to pass the gap. And I'll second the motion. Okay. So any other discussion? We have a motion on the floor then by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Jenkins. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Motion carries three to two with Commissioner Hetherington and her dissenting. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Jenkins. The other two commissioners, I don't remember what their names are, but they're dead to me. I'm only kidding. I appreciate your nice comment. Okay. With that, we have reached the end of our meeting. Do we have any 505, 245 public comment? Keith Burbank. Any comments? Seeing none, our next meeting is March 12th. I have to come forward to make the comment. Missed the Paul Marr discussion? I was on consent. Oh, that means it was? It was approved on our first motion this morning. With no discussion. Okay. With that, our next meeting is March 12th, 2024. We are adjourned.