okay hello morning good morning welcome to our march 12 2024 board accounting commission meeting if we could all stand for uh anil singh we'll be giving our invocation followed by the pledge of allegiance by maurice skip ritchie and mr ritchie when you're done with your spiel please stay up because we're going to do our proclamation at the same time so kind of a two for one kind of thing good morning thank you for inviting me let's join together in heart mind and spirit creator of the universe author of all life from whom we receive breath and blessing thank you for our beautiful planet our great nation our state of florida and our beloved martin county thank you gracious one for the leaders administrators and first responders gathered here today thanks to all who dedicate their time talent and resources to making martin county a great place to live and on this day we give special thanks to all of those who have risked and given their lives in service to our nation may we always be grateful for the sacrifice they and their families have made this morning we ask for your presence your wisdom and compassion as we discuss and decide on the matters before us today may these decisions express our highest ideals and aspirations and may they reflect and express your steadfast love for all from those who dwell in island mansions to those who survive under our bridges from those who dine in steakhouses to those who subsist in soup kitchens from those who travel by yacht to those who travel by bicycle and on foot give us the eyes oh loving one to see everyone as yours and as ours may we glorify you by upholding the sacred trust you have placed in all of us amen amen please join us in the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands chairman jenkins skip wanted to say just a few comments about his career before we do the proclamation absolutely absolutely please do i was asked to say a couple words about the day that i got the word wounded which is a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of an interesting story i flew helicopters the uh uh uh uh huey affectionately known as a huey everybody who's seen films of the vietnam era has seen that helicopter uh we were on a mission that day resupplying some troops who had gotten into trouble of trouble in a valley north of my base camp and the weather was really bad and the only way into that valley was through a gap in the ridgeline which because the cloud cover was so low so we were going in and out of that valley through this ridgeline for hours and hours no real problems it got to the end of the day we did our final trip in with supplies pulled some people out and last trip out of there I was going we were very low because of the cloud cover I was very low and all of a sudden the sky opened up tracers everywhere explosions what had happened is the Viet Cong had been triangling us all day because we were going over the same spot so they had moved into position to open up with everything they had they hit us with 50 caliber plus smaller arms tracers were going off incendiary rounds were hitting the helicopter armor piercing rounds I didn't find out till just about a year ago that there was 79 holes in my helicopter which is one of the reasons I'm still around is the durability of the Huey but anyway a 50 caliber round hit me on my chest protector which they also called the chicken plate blew a six inch hole uh in the chest protector but it was a glancing blow and it went it glanced off the chest protector and went across my bicep and took out my bicep so I couldn't fly the helicopter uh but my co-pilot was in good shape and he got us back to a camp where I was able to get some um emergency care the um the when uh when we were hit with all these ammunitions all my instruments went dead everything on the instrument panel went dead so I thought we had lost our engine so I dropped the power and went into auto rotation figuring I was going to crash into the woods uh wasn't looking forward to try and escape and evade with uh only one arm working um but uh I turned it looked I saw one instrument still was showing that I had power to the engine so I pulled the power back in with my left hand which was still working good and off we went and flew out of there and got back to where we get some help so um that's pretty much my story and uh thank you very much for listening thank you thank you sir remarkable story all right next to start off we have a proclamation declaring vietnam war veterans day in martin county florida many of the brave men and women who served in vietnam came home to a welcome unbefitting their dedicated service remembrances on vietnam war veterans day are to ensure that this never happens again and that our returning troops from current and future conflicts receive the full honor and respect that their noble and selfless service merits the board offers this remembrance on march 29th 2024 to those veterans and their families as a commitment that they shall not be forgotten but held in esteem for their service to their country and our nation and here to accept we have um mr ritchie who you just heard from helicopter pilot in vietnam ms nancy john who is a vietnam service member spouse as well as chapter 1041 vietnam veterans of america so commissioners miss uh nancy john will also uh as was noted will be receiving this proclamation uh sometimes an often forgotten population is the the the survivors of of combat veterans uh many combat veterans say that the battle doesn't really truly begin until they get home and she has a really compelling story that she wants to to share with you her husband jeffrey john a combat infantryman a hero good morning thank you i'm here now you can pull the mic down a little bit there you go okay uh first of all i want to thank dan for all his help that he's given me since i lost my husband and all the servicemen that are in the room today i thank you all for your wonderful service and a heart well welcome home men i feel humbled and honor to have this chance to speak for the soldiers family the moms and dads husbands wives children extended family and friends who loved and worked with our wounded soldiers i'm nancy john i lost my wounded husband three months ago and honestly how can you say a death is beautiful but he was in the hospice care down in west palm beach in the va hospital a hospice center and they loved on him took care of him and i could never have get gotten a better gift to let my husband go home to the lord than that going through the process of grieving i found myself not only reflecting on my life as a wife parent grandfather a grandmother and now i'm a great-grandmother i also reflected on my journey as a soldier's wife whose husband was in combat our separating our homecomings our journey and recovering his death and now my recovering i can only tell you my story i speak for all the spouses who walked in my shoes i was a new bride when jeff my husband was sent to vietnam as an infantry man humping as he said his m60 machine gun boots on the ground army man under the marines one thing jeff and i promised was to be open and honest in our relationship we promised to write often as as often as possible and share our days he shared his his complicated day so i could feel i was with him and i shared mine jeff would say that he felt my presence throughout the day and i also felt his i brought the letters that he sent over the course of the time he was a nom i never read them again and he also asked me 20 years ago if i had them and we both said we lived it once we're not going to live it again whether i ever look at them again i'll never know but right now i'm blessed to have them i'm going to share i'm not going to share his military experiences or his injuries this talk is not about about him or the service is about all the surviving family members jeff was literally dropped off in the jungle during his and during the monsoon season in the northern part of vietnam quan trie knew the dmz he never saw a base camp the entire time he was in the jungle he was there when i was there when jeff got jungle rot having boots on the ground for three straight months i was there during night watch in the rain and having leeches crawling under his uniform and that swarming under the brim of his hat to stay dry the most impossible part was not moving because the enemy was all around and any movement could be the life for the soldiers he was guarding i was there when the red cross called and said he was missing in action there was a lot of gunfire but they did not know where he was i was there the morning i got a note from jeff saying that he was alive and he woke up he said i woke up i know i'm underground i have no idea where i am but i have a purple heart on my shirt i was there when i called the red cross to inform them that my husband was alive this was weeks months later please i begged them please find him i was there when he finally made it home in a stretcher and he had thumbs up a big grin on his face i was there through the hospital stay and the lengthy recovery at home i was there sadly to witness the reaction of his homecoming the vietnamese war soldiers were rejected and it made me sick i was there when i became a protective wife and tried to shield him i was there when jeff refused to watch any news and by the way i was there for all that time watching the night news as they flashed the casualties across the screen and tell you where those casualties occurred i was there for 55 years living with a man who buried the war in his mind and had ptsd and believe me every day was not the best it wasn't easy i was there when he appreciated all the little things in life that he took for granted and he decided to mentally take off his soldier uniform and put on the armor of god i was there when jeff took off that uniform and i watched him give back the things that really mattered men women young old boys girls knowledgeable people and people physically mentally and spiritually broken he didn't care he left such an impact on all the men and women that he touched he always wanted to help and now i think reflecting on this i think he needed to help he needed to give back what he took maybe in vietnam i was there at the end watching him suffer jeff would say to the doctors i'm being tortured please help me get out of the pain i was asked when he asked the doctors to let him stand up so he could hug him and say please let me watch you sign me into hospice care i want one thing i want to fall asleep and i want to wake up in heaven i was there walking behind jeff as they wheeled him out of his hospice room to the awaiting hearst with a beautiful american flag draped over his his body this brave soldier this brave husband this great dad this great pop-up this great uncle friend and child of god lived a full life and a godly life i've been through the thick and the thin the ups and the downs of life with jeff when i got married i took jeff's last name i won't change my name because he's dead i will always remain nancy john jeff is my combat wounded husband vet with a lot of hidden scars now i realize i'm not just a widow i'm more than that i stand here today strong and to tell you i am a combat wounded wife with my hidden scars our soldiers were buried with their scars but there are many many people probably in the millions of family members who are living with their scars still please continue to pray for all the family members and all the children that have lived with their dads who have been suffering since they came back god bless you and thank you for letting me speak you want to go ahead and do the boys and girls club or just go do proclamations okay let's do the other proclamations second we have a proclamation declaring government finance professionals week in martin county florida the florida government government government jeez finance officers association is a professional association that serves more than 3 300 professionals from state county and city governments school districts colleges and universities special districts and private firms in observance of government finance professionals week march 18th through the 22nd the board would like to extend our appreciation to our government finance professionals here in martin county for their commitment and hard work and here to accept we have stephanie murley who's the director of the office of management and budget and jamie robertson who is chief operating officer of finance with the clerk of the circuit court and comptroller's office good morning commissioners thank you for this opportunity i'm deeply honored and grateful to accept this proclamation on behalf of all the dedicated government finance professionals who tirelessly serve our community together the office of management and budget team and the clerk finance team have exemplified financial excellence in our reporting efforts it is with immense pride that i share our recent achievement of the fgfoa triple crown this prestigious recognition acknowledges our commitment to excellence with the omb team receiving a national award for our budget book and the clerk finance team earning two awards for the annual financial report in the popular annual financial report for martin county i extend my heartfelt gratitude to all those who have contributed to these accomplishments your dedication and hard work have not gone unnoticed and it is a privilege to celebrate our collective success as financial professionals serving our community thank you once again for this honor and let us continue our pursuit of excellence in service to martin county thank you so much for acknowledging our service and i'll be quick because you'll see enough of me but i just want to extend my great thanks to the board of county commissioners and our county administration as well as my omb team of 11 we're small but mighty we manage compliance about of about 85 million grant dollars over hundreds of funds um 25 years waiting on our 26th year notification for our award-winning budget document you know i must mention um we provide the financial support over 13 departments and i would like to just commend our utility staff for recently boosting the county's credit rating due to exceptional debt management practices and a strong fiscal policy so we thank you very much for for for this um recognition we're behind the scenes and it's nice to have a little shine once in a while thank you we're gonna have to stagger a little bit i think all right everybody keep smiling one two three hold on all right get ready squat again one two three okay now go to the gym thank you our next proclamation is a proclamation declaring surveyors and mappers week in martin county florida surveyors and mappers are counted among the founding leaders of our country and were instrumental in the formation of the layout of property boundaries in the united states that provide our citizens the enjoyment of property ownership in recognition of march 17 through the 23rd 2024 as surveyors and mappers week the board would like to acknowledge the men and women of this profession for their diligence in meeting the continuing needs of our communities and here to accept we have marla moore who's the treasurer of the florida surveying and mapping societies indian river chapter a pleasant morning to you all it is with great pleasure that i receive this formal recognition for the surveyors and mappers week as the current treasurer of one of our local chapters of the florida and surveying mapping society an organization that diligently contributes to the standards of our profession i am deeply grateful for this opportunity within the surveying community one of our primary goals is to monitor proposed legislations and rule changes that affect our profession another area is to promote the encouragement for future youth into our profession through several scholarship funds within the high school and colleges as well as well as facilitating certified surveying technician programs we also host educational seminars and offered and offer paid internships to youth who have interest in surveying where they gain the skills and success and to be successful and thrive we know and understand the value of promoting our noble profession and paving the way for those behind us on behalf of the surveyors and mappers thank you for this acknowledgement as we continue to strive for excellence as geospatial professionals thank you and our final proclamation this morning is declaring autism awareness and acceptance month in martin county florida autism spectrum spectrum disorder or asd is present in one in 36 children occurs in all races ethnicities genders and socioeconomic groups and is considered considered considered a lifelong developmental disability the community organization socially synced strives to empower and encourage autism advocates to continue their tireless advocacy efforts in raising awareness and educating the public about asd in acknowledging april as autism awareness and acceptance month the board encourages citizens to work to accept include support and connect those with those who experience the world differently and here to accept we have katrina doyle with socially synced good morning everyone and thank you for having me my name is katrina doyle and i'm the executive director of a non-profit called socially synced we are a group of dedicated parents and professionals who are committed to serving the neurodiverse population of the treasure coasts socially synced was founded by diana macchia another martin county resident and passionate disability advocate because of diana and all of the advocates who have been on this journey before me we are here honoring the autism awareness and acceptance proclamation for martin county florida for april 2024 i often ask parents and advocates who is their why because we all tend to have one my son bentley is my why he is a rough and tumble typical seven-year-old boy he is amazing a bit of a daredevil and he is incredibly silly bentley is also autistic non-speaking and learning to use a speech generating device autism spectrum disorder affects individuals differently and bentley is profoundly impacted by the challenges associated with it he struggles not only with verbal communication but also all social interactions sometimes self-injurious behaviors elopement and how he interprets sensory information while these challenges challenges affect him greatly they also impact our family but we are learning how to help bentley live in a world that can sometimes be overwhelming to him while he has many differences from children his age he is also very much the same and he is deeply loved by many in this room bentley may be the reason why i stand before you and advocate for autism awareness and acceptance but autism spectrum disorder impacts one in 36 children across the united states it occurs in all races ethnicities genders and socioeconomic groups an autism spectrum diagnosis is lifelong and autistic children grow up to become autistic adults our community lacks inclusive opportunities for people on the spectrum socially synced plans to change that i hope this proclamation inspires all of us in this room and travels with you when you go to everyday places like the grocery store and to your next community event i hope you think about it when you drop your kids off at school and i hope one in 36 rings in your head when you sign them up for camp i hope it makes you wonder how we as a community could open doors for those who experience the world differently this proclamation is meant to help us recognize that autism affects individuals and families differently but together we can work to accept our differences include others support one another and connect with the community around us we are recognizing april 2024 as autism awareness and acceptance month but we could actually do it all year thank you hey we're going to go to proclamation number one and recognize the boys and girls club youth of the year candidates uh yes commissioners we have megan shirey and jomar zaliga zalaya sorry here with the boys and girls club to speak to this item i tried we're getting there halfway good morning the boys and girls club of martin county's annual youth of the year event recognizes incredible achievements of some of the most distinct and inspiring members youth of the year candidates are celebrated for their academic discipline spirit of good citizenship community and record of volunteerism commitment to healthy choices and avoiding vaping drugs and other dangerous patterns exhibiting leadership and support to their peers and pursuing education training or career paths that they will continue to make this a better world while the boys and girls club is proud of and thankful for the more of the 600 children in the four clubs we see daily and more than the 6 000 children that we impact throughout all of our programs the youth of the year candidates have earned this special honor i would like to introduce you to the boys and girls clubs of martin county 2024 youth of the year jomar zaliga good morning everyone this so my name is jomar zaliga i have been going to the boys and girls club for about nine to ten years now so i was a little kid and the boys and girls club has helped me in so many ways for the first reason it has allowed me to get over my shyness so when i first entered those big blue doors of the boys and girls club i did not know the world of opportunities the future held for me i went from this little kid that didn't know anything and always being shy to introduce myself to a social butterfly now here that stands in front of you the boys and girls club has also helped me become a role model to all the youth by all because of all these opportunities i am the captain of the peer forward team at martin county high school because of the boys and girls club this allows me to help other seniors apply to college and if they do not want to go to college we help them define and create their post-secondary plans i have also been able to travel the country to places like atlanta and washington dc through the boys and girls club's exploration tours during these trips i was able to see sites and tour colleges that i would have never imagined about the boys and girls club created an impact so big in my life it even helped me create my future career in the medical field with a concentration in orthopedic surgery the main reason why i chose this field of study is to continue helping others experience impact influence these are the three pillars of leadership boys and girls club have taught me now my goal is to teach it to the younger generation one kid at a time thank you joe joe where are you going to college what was that where are you going to college i want to go to the university of miami and i found out in april best luck jamming congratulations i'll have to do uh vote on the agenda okay so we're going to backtrack a little bit we got a little ahead of ourselves so i just need to go through uh we have a 905 preset uh public comment we're a little past that 10 30 preset office of management budget requires uh board approval and then 505 public comment which we will be way early on that we have an additional item consent number eight adoption of a proclamation commending rafael angel costello the the rio rio upon the achievement of eagle scout which is amazing um then uh we have no uh consent uh consent polls we have a request to withdraw by staff office management budget items which require board approval item 4a only uh is withdrawn by staff with that i'd like a commissioner smith mr chairman move approval of the agenda with the additional item of consent number eight and also the request to withdraw uh item department number one item 4a from that department number one second okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner campi all in favor aye any dissenting no we passed unanimously with stacy with commissioner hetherington absent so four four zero right okay comment so now do we want to do okay we will do public comment uh so you get three minutes after two minutes and 45 seconds um you'll hear a tone that just means for you to wrap up and uh after i get done mispronouncing your name when you get to the podium if you would actually pronounce your name correctly that would be um wonderful we're going to start with davin and here's the first one bozinski followed by gary bozinski this is a little boy while davin's coming up uh just uh this is for the audience and those um speaking since we are in an election season politicking is prohibited which is defined as advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for a public office either partisan or non-partisan this includes the use of words date signs props and or wearing apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group of persons thank you hi good morning speak right into the microphone hi i'm davin bozinski this month in school we're studying government thank you commissioners for letting me see how martin count he government works and for allowing me to be involved in preparing to speak to you about voyage recovery i was told not to speak as a nimby that's an acronym for not in my backyard so i'm not because this isn't in my backyard my friend alex lives across the street from me it's in his backyard my brother and i are able to ride bikes down our street my chair my parents chose where to live not because it's easy for them to get to no it's because it's not there used to be hardly any cars on our street because there's nowhere to go unless you live here that's not the case anymore now there's a whole bunch of cars they're all trying to get to that place and now it's his backyard i hear that there are only five people that they're trying to see the owner wants to up that to 14 that's in one house there's only 19 people that live on our whole street i've learned that florida ranks third on the country for the most people that are killed as pedestrians my little brother and i are pedestrians on our street every day and in florida if we were hit while we were on our bikes well we wouldn't even be counted as pedestrians how many more kids parents brothers sisters need that to get killed on our streets why is florida so bad in class we are taught that government starts at a local level today now this is local you can help make things better for us neighborhoods are not places for businesses is to get a lot of traffic some people like to live in a city where there should be businesses but if you would rather live in a neighborhood away from all that there should be rules in place to protect you so i'm not here to say nimby instead i'll say h-a-y an acronym for how about yours is that what you want for your kids thank you thank you thank you okay dr gary badinsky followed by john dial tough act to follow i wouldn't even attempt to mr chairman members of the commission i respectfully thank you for hearing me today regarding the application for variants by voyage recovery i'm a founding member of a veteran owned business here in stewart and we seek to promote boating safety and initiated a not-for-profit arm whose biggest goal is to seek grants for veterans to get aided in training to be captains and crew i'm also an interventional cardiologist who was brought here by the west palm beach va to start their interventional cardiology program i have over 15 years of service to our veterans my wife is the medical director of va community-based outreach clinic here in stewart we are very sympathetic to patients with substance abuse histories or trying to get their life back they've been wronged by one profit seeker and they shouldn't be wronged by another by jamming them into an overcrowded single-family home and in no way should any business of any kind especially an overcrowded addiction unit be jammed into a single family neighborhood we chose to live in the moorings and in martin county for a reason the moorings is a quiet unpretentious ungated neighborhood where families can and do come together in each other's homes yards and recreational areas the excellence of the martin county sheriff's office is well known was not a small part of our attraction to this area yet even with that the response time to a three-car accident two streets behind us a few weeks ago had a result in a 40 minute response time i can tell you with patients like these violence elopement larceny will happen it's only a matter of time and this particular site is a business 415 yards down a one lane 11 foot wide dead-end road there's not even a room for a fire truck to turn around in spite of the idyllic country setting displayed on their website there are neighbors on three sides of this business it stands a ball toss away from our front yard the ground upon which it stands is owned residential and agriculture and even though the commission says their hands are tied due to federal regulations that's a little bit disingenuous first it's not the role of the federal government to enforce codes second the business owner and asking for variance by this commission knows that you are indeed the ones that have to act there's no science behind their claim saying that this will benefit their addicts the only thing that is going to benefit is their bottom line ordinances are already in place allowing rehab facilities to be in such close proximity to others a branch of their own business 7.5 miles away serenity house 3.7 jupiter rehab 3.9 sandy pines 4.1 all within the restricted radius i yield to john dial to complete my thoughts morning commissioners i'm john dial some of you've seen me here before and i'm a resident martin county and i'm a veteran owner and co-founder of at the helm training uh with dr big basinski who by the way his wife is our doctor here at the local va um we're also part of the national safe voting uh council you know you need to vote no if you can on this because as dr basinski saying these issues can't be deflected to a federal ada regulation although i would advocate that the uh dangerous placement of a business with higher unusual needs of emergency vehicle ingress and egress on the street is at least an osha violation what's the purpose i mean that's what we really got to ask ourselves what's the purpose of having zoning and and ordinances set by the county to be only dictated to do by federal government you know loopholes right that's that's what it comes down to well i think we're going to have one at the beginning up of rocky point but you know what i'm not against that one so much if that's what that is because it is in an area that had an alf in there before but the commission has a chance to avoid a messier and pop is possibly tragic meeting down the road by merely acting now in a way this business was infiltrated into the neighborhood is pretty suspect the recent history of the parcel is a single family home sold recently and the new owner undertook a lot of renovations and put in bedrooms and a play court and then he put a higher than three times asking price on that property it's sold immediately i think you ought to follow the money on it right i mean it's the way it goes but it's not easy and why not the license was issued for boyd's recovery which is apparently held in the name of bws recovery llc but the variance petition that was filed in the name of vrh3 llc but who owns it it's a guy who used to trade on the stock floor in new york for a large firm and must like living in boca at home better than he does up in martin county right he has a ba in business and he opens and runs marinas wow maybe i need to get to know him a little better i don't know i guess i missed that part about the passion training experience for health care and addiction he lives in what i can figure about 41 miles from the facility and dr basinski's house i've been there it's a nice house nice neighborhood it's less than a boat's length from his house about 80 feet 80 meters or so so uh you know dr basinski's young children are students at benjamin's high school they've chosen to live in that closer not to the school but in palm beach county there's over 5 000 veterans that will lose their doctor if they move out of palm beach county or into palm beach county and out of martin she's my doctor i'm a vietnam after veteran as well and i hope we just don't lose our doctor along with our sanity please vote no on this mr donelson your light was on no okay thomas on spot good morning commissioners my name is thomas on spot i am a south florida native my wife and i have owned the property directly next to the voyage property for 27 years the voyage reasonable accommodation request references the oxford house 13 times suggesting that the oxford house is anything like voyage is like comparing apples to watermelons the oxford house is a non-per-profit where recovering tenants equally split all household finances therefore increasing the number of tenants reduces the financial burden on each occupant additionally there's no term for an oxford house tenant their seniority in the residence actually rewards them with single occupant bedrooms oxford house locations are chosen such that the tenants integrate integrate into the community and the neighborhoods around them act as role models the four million dollar voyage house is clearly for profit requiring the owner to increase occupancy to bolster the return on his investment since the patient's family and or insurance company is paying for treatment room board for a predetermined amount of time there's limited incentive for the patient to remain clean additionally the patients are shuttled by staff members to and from the location for treatment clearly not the same as void as oxford house one would imagine that with the resources employed by voyage somebody would have proofread their application the obvious cut and paste errors of having two paragraph fives proves their document is nothing more than boilerplate voyage claims to be certified by the florida association of recovery residences licensed by the dcf however no supporting documentation is included with the submission and not readily available on their website it begs the question why did they spend four million dollars on a home that they knew could only qualify for five patients let alone steps away from a heinous double murder i question the safety and compliance to the martin county building codes for the structures locating at one eight eight nine zero southeast jupiter road the structure violates the north setback by 10 feet an undocumented structure violates the south setback by eight feet and a massive undocumented lanai roof was added to the west side of the structure between may and december of 2023 the structure increased by two bedrooms two and a half bathrooms a detached two-car garage and violations that i've already mentioned all performed under owner builder permit the property was listed and sold within seven weeks of closing the permit thus violating the state building codes for owner builder compliance which is one year no persons requiring the services nope sorry three times up thank you thank you thank you thank you arnold miriam md did i get that right good morning uh ladies and gentlemen my name is dr arnold miriam i'm am a neurologist and psychiatrist with over 30 years of experience as chairman of the department of psychiatry at one of the albert einstein college of medicine affiliated hospitals among my my portfolio of duties was oversight over an inpatient and outpatient drug abuse uh program so i'm very familiar with the population and the uh risks inherent in uh treating this population um and i want to use my um and i want to use my time to help you decide what are the risks and benefits of um allowing the um uh facility to exceed the current five unrelated person limit on housing there um first i want to impress upon you that that um drug addiction is once um established a virtually lifelong condition that's why alcoholics anonymous talks about um uh alcoholism in recovery in perpetuity um and that's because there are brain changes as a result of the uh action of um drugs of abuse on the neural system um um because of this fact people in um this sober living facility will be experiencing drug cravings and be vulnerable to uh further episodes of drug abuse it's an expected part of drug abuse treatment um drug dealers are aware of the um relapse rate and attempt to sell their wares to people in um in um recovery and it's virtually impossible to keep drugs out of such facilities i couldn't do it at my facility prisons are unable to keep drugs of abuse out of the prisons to think that drugs of abuse will not be uh available to people in a suburban um sober house is foolishness so there will be um overdoses with potentially lethal consequences and there will be a demand for emergency vehicles to arrive and as has been described the facility on a one lane rural road is not amenable to that um there i have to stop i believe yeah your time is up thank you thank you next up carmely hassel greetings martin county commissioner and magistrate it is a privilege as a martin county resident to speak before you with my concerns for our community in regard to voyage recovery at 18890 southeast jupiter road my name is carmely hassel and i am a homeowner of 19001 southeast castle road our property borders voyage recovery pretty extensively um we purchased our home in the summer of 2016 two weeks after closing on our house austin harrop a young man struggling from drug abuse violently murdered two moorings residents we drive past outrigger multiple times a day with that reminder it has truly had a lasting effect on our community our family was hesitant to move forward but what were the chances of that happening again slim to none then now our community feels like the odds of that happening again are high especially knowing the fact that these patients are free to leave the home and treatment whenever they want no one is forcing them to be there with that being said this past november our house was part of a break in part of a string of break-ins in our community 90 000 in damage later our house still sitting vacant and now voyage recovery has moved in this raises a lot of concerns they actually have two livestock gates one of which is wide open into our property safety is a major concern for me as i'm a young mother of three raising children how did martin county approve of voyage recovery to open a business and our residential agricultural neighborhood no one in in the surrounding area was notified i ask that you please look into this matter more deeply rather than just their request for occupancy and i'd like to end my statement in prayer jeremiah 29 11 for i know the plans i have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future thank you for your time thank you and our last um speaker form is mr tom pine so if anybody else wants to speak please uh let us know good morning commissioners my name is tom pine i've been a resident of martin county for over 50 years once again this county commission will use the consent agenda to approve nine million nine hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and twenty seven dollars and twelve cents in expenditures from the taxpayers in martin county between february 5th and february 24th of 2024 without identifying the payees or the purpose of the payments the consent they used as used by this government is often used to hide questionable expenditures of our tax dollars such as things as the as the million dollars in cost overruns at our county golf course or the sweetheart deal that martin county chamber of commerce got for renting our jensen beast community center to use as they see fit i would like to take this time to bring attention to a retired hospital administrator a centurion and a local activist miss grace lynn for the inspiration behind the oscar-animated film the abcs of book banning the 27-minute film feature features lynn speaking near the beginning and near the end with comments from students and authors of banned books in between free is not freedom fear is not liberty fear is control lynn says in a loud voice near the end of her school board speech i felt like i was really it was a really life-changing experience a local 16 year old from south fork high school said of his prep preparation in the documentary it made me think more about how i could become more involved in the community and less of an observer check with google to see where it's playing today the the abcs of book banning our sidewalks are once again under attack not only from golf carts but now even more dangerous motorized bicycles can travel speeds of 35 miles an hour and higher it's not unusual to see a bike riding along with cars 35 miles an hour traffic gets backed up the bike rider moves to over to the sidewalks no big deal unless you're one walking on the sidewalk then it's quite a startling event to say the least i don't have any thoughts on how to fix it so i guess we'll just have to wait till some prominent guy gets hit then we'll then it'll be discussed thank you for your time thank you hey we have one more speaker kathy lauder good morning my name is kathy lawler i am a resident of 79 48 southeast peach way i am here to support the other speakers for the voyage house community or what they're going to do there our neighborhood island country estates was late to notice so we're going to get together with everybody else but i urge the commissioners to really think about what's being asked here i heard several concerning things this morning one of which was this is not a local matter it's now a federal matter i don't agree with that i think uh the commissioner should look into this a little bit farther um it will we are concerned about uh these people walking the neighborhood many of us are out walking our dogs riding our bikes enjoying our community i have no way of defending myself my sister is handicapped she has no way of defending herself if somebody gets in and our community is a series of basically dead-end streets where there is no way out so if somebody does get out they are roaming our community and they are able to hide and there's really only one way in one way out some people think that's very safe i used to think that was safe until i heard about this development that's going to go in uh at the house there several of our residents are here today uh i just wanted to put put them in there's about eight of us that came today late to the party i am sure that all 38 homes in our little community that back up right on this property when everybody finds out they are going to be against it too so i really thank you all for listening and i urge everybody for checking into it a little bit further because it's not what it seems thank you for your time okay with that that ends our public comment and we are going to move now on to proclamation three acknowledgement of those citizens who have participated in class of 63 of the martin county cares program before the residents of the moorings leave we're going to do this quick thing and then we're going to at least i will be making some comments on what you said this morning tomorrow mr chair i'm pleased uh george stoke assistant county minister i am pleased to welcome some representatives of our most recent cares class number 63 believe it or not these folks spent six days with us learning more about how we use taxpayer funds to manage programs and projects benefiting residents visitors the environment and our community upon completion of this program they they now have joined nearly 3 000 other residents who have had first-hand knowledge of the structure and function of martin county government at this time i'd like to welcome you down to the wealth so we can take a picture but i'd like to read the names of the participants that have joined us in the audience and ask those participants to come up into the well and join us for a picture so i'll begin by reading some of those names miss penny bernson miss dixie yeager miss brenda brand and miss gina bronsweiger if you could all please come to the front into the well we have a velvet room ready we'll do a couple three but he's smiling thanks you guys thank you thank you mr chair so move on to commissioner comments and let's just uh cut right to the chase with uh commissioner campy because i'm sure he's gonna thank you is miss elder here going to try to throw uh i'm just here just in case anybody needs me to explain the process so i'm just here to answer questions about the county process and what the board can and can't do that's all that's fine nothing like having your lawyer listen to every word that you're about to say um yeah no i get it i'm not i'm not mad about that but i'm speaking personally uh you all came last week to our meeting and you had been very diligent about sending very heartfelt and very well crafted emails to us some of the best emails that i've ever read about someone having issues um the moorings is for those folks that might not be familiar but i'm sure the neighbors are very familiar uh is the neighborhood where john stevens 59 years old michelle mishkan 53 years old were murdered uh in their garage and their neighbor jeff fisher came to their aid and was also severely injured no one would want that to happen in your neighborhood it's it's horrific that was in 2016 affects the entire neighborhood affects the surrounding neighbors can you imagine then that an organization would decide to pick a house in that neighborhood to put a for lack of a better term a sober home a rehab you know residence it's illegally at this particular point allowed to have up to five residents neighbors have been you know since the last meeting have sent additional emails came again and we're not talking about a place that's right around the corner this is as far south in martin county as you could potentially get and they've rallied their neighbors up to our meeting two weeks in a row and because of that because it's such a serious issue their neighborhood is probably slowly beginning to heal and then this travesty is thrust upon them and they've been fair they said look we're not opposed to rehab we're not opposed to treatment they have some of the smartest neighbors that we got your uh information that the the doctors that live in there have sent and they've addressed it in every facet which i think is remarkable that you really thought it through now we have had this issue in the past as i've mentioned at the last meeting and we have worked carefully to minimize those um adverse effects of these these facilities and they sort of got it got quiet for several years we didn't hear much about it uh and i don't know what took place that those facilities basically picked up and left there was a couple in my district that i'm familiar with that are no longer there so that gives me some kind of hope that there's some kind of avenue that can um that can be affected now i get the ada rules and our lawyers are here and they're going to tell you you know it's a federal issue and i get that however it's not if they have five and they're legally allowed five i don't think it's a discriminatory uh on our behalf i'm not a lawyer but i don't see it as discriminatory if a facility already exists and has five then we've met our requirement for ada i don't see why we would owe the owner of a for-profit business the opportunity to nearly triple how many people can live here now just think in regular terms 14 people anyone your family living in a home 14 people what that would mean now make them where they don't know each other they're all in some stage of recovery not recovered recovering they could be three days into their their journey of recovery when i'm hearing the speakers talk this morning and last week i can't help but imagine when my wife and our family bought our home we've recently moved i could not imagine after going through all of the details and the research and the due diligence to understand why i bought the house and where i bought it because you know what they say in real estate location location location you're on this idyllic quiet street you're living some people have lived there for decades and now magically someone just decides we're going to disrupt your harmony on your biggest investment you'll probably make in your entire life and we're going to in my opinion ruin it there's there's so many possible negative things that could happen maybe they won't but they could that could happen in any neighborhood with regular folks so i don't understand uh and i know this is going to go to a special magistrate decision and not the five of us but what i would request of our staff is that i don't understand that if they're looking for a variance that means they're did you put your light on oh that if they're looking for a variance uh some kind of special accommodation i think it's called a reasonable accommodation i don't believe it's a reasonable accommodation i don't they are already allowed to have people there they have the neighbors have the county has met their requirements to support an ada compliance by allowing four or five people to live there why would we triple the possibility of a problem so what i would ask respectfully of our staff is as we have done in the past utilize all of our resources legally utilities department the building department the growth management department the legal department we've heard the residents that have obviously well researched um bring up concerns from growth management for legal if they are within the radius of another facility our legal department needs to review that on our behalf of these are our residents i would tell you the folks that are paying thousands of dollars their family members or their insurance company with all due respect to them they're not our residents these are our residents so they need to know that every opportunity the whole the whole function of martin county government needs to be reviewing this because if it was any one of us up here if it was my street i'd be just as angry as these folks are and young man you did a remarkable job this morning and i wish you were here under different circumstances and i'm assuming in the future we'll be celebrating you as we have others today and i'm sad that you have to go through this and i hear what you're saying about you and your younger brother you should of course be allowed to ride your bike and walk around in your neighborhood and ma'am you shouldn't have to figure out how to defend yourself as you're getting into your car john and michelle were in their garage now i get that that's a weird set of circumstance but this breaks my heart that the neighborhood has to go through just several years later another horror show and with that i yield back mr smith i think before i speak and i don't know that you could really say much more than ed shared with us but i think it would be important for at least to at least go through the process so that everybody understands what footing we're on and then i'll have comments after elise of course elise elder deputy county attorney so the county has a reasonable accommodation procedures in its general ordinance this is done in accordance with the american disabilities act the federal fair housing act this enables anybody to apply fill out an application and ask for a reasonable accommodation from having to comply with a code or regulation something within the county it's not a guarantee that you're going to get that accommodation but anybody can apply for that the county takes that application it goes through our growth management department they make sure the application is complete once the application is complete they will set a hearing in front of an independent hearing officer staff does a staff report they don't recommend they don't participate in the decision making process but they do a staff report for the hearing officer and then once the hearing is noticed there is a quasi judicial hearing that will occur in front of the hearing officer it is the burden of the applicant to establish standing to establish that they need this accommodation to establish it's reasonable based on the evidence presented in that hearing the hearing officer is well versed in this area law this area law is federal regulations but there's also a long line of case law that establishes when you have to give a reasonable accommodation so the hearing officer hears all the evidence prevent presented and then makes a decision based on the evidence prevent presented so it doesn't go before the board of county commissioners i've spoken to a lot of residents and i know we've had a lot of public comment the best way for you to participate in the hearing is to do written public comment and staff will provide all of that to the hearing officer um during the hearing so that's that's the best way to participate of course you're welcome to say to do this but this the hearing officer won't hear this it has to be the evidence presented at the hearing um that he has to evaluate so that's the overall process thank you lisa i just i i think it's always important to try to frame the conversation um because some of it seems it's incredibly obvious that it shouldn't be this way um but it is and unfortunately whether our hands are tied or not there are certain things we must and have to do um what i would share with you all and i shared with i think some of you last meeting about this um this is yet another opportunity and young man you did do an amazing job and and you are going to be part of what i'm going to ask for next i will get our staff or we will get our staff to get a recording of all of the public comment that was given here today um and we will send it to our federal delegation meaning our two state senators and our congressmen there is also a florida delegation that meets on a regular basis in dc and we will copy the florida delegation on your comments your parents comments your friends neighbors comments because there is and there is always an opportunity to address something that doesn't work and shouldn't work and you all coming here today and being part of that process is super important but i have a funny feeling it's going to take a lot more because i know this has gone on in other counties and it's gone on in other jurisdictions to no avail but it is time to impress upon the florida delegation who is the third largest delegation in the country they have the power and they have the ability to pass laws in congress that no other state other than texas and california can get done on their own by the sheer amount of votes that florida has we are that powerful of a state to address fixing what's wrong and however we got however they got to where they got i don't i wasn't part of that conversation i don't remember that actual conversation going on but it is time to move mountains in dc and get them to fix it and stop it because if it's not your neighborhood it's somebody else's neighborhood and it's another neighborhood and it's obscene what they're doing to you it's not fair and and it doesn't really i i would imagine all four of us up here would tell you we probably don't care what the ada laws say because of what it's doing to you sure they have rights but so do you fight they got to stand up and fight and so the best way i know to do this is to take the conversation to dc and have it with our delegation of florida certainly with our local delegation but i've met multiple times with rubio i've met multiple times with scott and our congressman and they will listen and if there is an avenue if there is a i have no doubt there is a way to carve out something that changes what they have done and it's incumbent upon us up here to convey that message to them but we need your help clearly you're here today for the second time but we'll need your help in dc i would encourage all of you young man you as well because you are really good at how old are you how old 10 you're remarkable at 10 i would encourage all of you to send your comments to that delegation to our to our treasure coast delegation to start with as a starting point but we will copy the entire florida delegation on your comments because it's all videoed and it's all recorded and regardless of what the magistrate does or doesn't do because the laws and the rules by which that individual has to work within we can do our own campaign outside of that process which will have to happen because even if they get five members in the house the same concerns are going to exist those concerns are not going to change from the doctors that spoke this morning and from the conditions that will exist if there's five or fourteen it doesn't matter it'll only take one to mess it all up so uh i hope you'll work with us i suspect that you will um and we will do everything within our power on our end to help i can assure you that i don't mean to set that conversation aside but i have a few other comments and i know we have other commissioners that want to speak um today uh was probably one of the most sobering public comment moments i think for me in my 24 years of doing this miss john and i wish you were still here today that was a remarkable speech comment that she gave us all this morning no matter what's going on in our lives no matter what we're dealing with i don't know how anybody can quite compete with that story other than other veterans family members um i'm glad she came i hope everybody gets to hear her comments if you weren't here i hope you get to watch them um very hard to hear though and very very moving in many many different ways autism month um to the family that got up and spoke on on behalf of autism um a lot of the inspiration behind my hope that this board could fund special olympics last year in our budget was exactly what her comments were all about and she said it to the tee her hope and and dreams for both her child and others are to have access to things that others would otherwise not have and at least in some small way our beginning to fund uh a special olympics program in a more robust way here from martin county side of things um may help her family some and certainly others in the autism world um those are my comments mr chair i thank you for all the time okay thank you thank you commissioner hurt yeah returning to uh voyage recovery can these neighbors be interveners in the special magistrate hearing um there's nothing in our code that allows for interveners in this and because of the federal law and the american disabilities act no they can't be and there's not even public comment at these hearings that's why the written public comment will be submitted okay so once again i'll repeat written public comment please submit those to the magistrate uh for his review it will make a difference and i'm sure that we're all sensitive to uh addiction treatment it's absolutely vital but as uh dr merriam said relapses occur they will occur and it's absolutely incompatible that these relapses occur in your neighborhood so rest assured that we will do everything that we can to uh protect uh this neighborhood and your neighbors and to me uh this is you all are my constituents in my district and the fortunate part of being the chair is you get to go last and i don't think i could expand on any more of uh commissioner campy with with my other commissioner's comments um and and i can assure you we are here unanimously for you and we'll do everything in our power commissioner smith uh just a final comment to what miss eldor said about uh the participation process please copy uh the legal department i think it's probably the best i think if there were a single point of of contact i would copy all of your written correspondence everything that you generate to miss elder if if that's the right person um because that way collectively we can assemble all of that and send it to dc to our delegation to prep them for what's coming to them even if they can't speak at the meeting they can be at the meeting correct it's public it's a public meeting anybody can attend the meeting we don't build a room up yes we don't have it scheduled yet but once we do um if you call we can give you that information and my email address is e e l d e r at martin.fl.us one more time e e l d e r at martin.fl.us okay um mr donelson no i'll reserve my comments at the end of the day thank you cool and with that uh we are very close to our 10 30 mandatory um closed captioning breaks we will take 10 minutes thank you we are on we are back with our 10 30 preset uh department number one office of management bud uh and budget items that require board approval we have four items and uh second appearance of the day miss stephanie murley good morning commissioner stephanie murley director of the office of management and budget here to present the omb item the first item is a permission to apply for the fy 21 federal transit administration bus and bus facilities formula grant program funds the requested grant award is for 121 430 to purchase a fixed route bus service um there is no grant match required the second item is a permission to apply for the 2024 waterways assistance program grant for the replacement of the charlie leaton park boat ramp the requested grant award is for seven hundred thousand dollars to fund a portion of the construction costs to replace the existing boat ramp at charlie leaton park there is a seven hundred thousand dollar grant match required which is budgeted within the parks and recreation department's capital improvement plan budget item number three is a permission to apply for the fiscal year 2025 alternative water supply project funding the utilities and solid waste department is requesting a grant award of three million and forty seven thousand dollars for the construction of the north water treatment plant floridan well martin county is required to have a 50 project match which is budgeted within the utilities and solid waste capital improvement plan number four is adjustments to the fiscal year 2024 budget um we have withdrawn item a so item b is um the allocation of funds for fy 2024 salary adjustments the fy 24 adopted budget included salary adjustments based on the teamsters contract this funding is placed in reserves in the fy 24 adopted budget and this item just request the approval to transfer those funds into the various departments um to adjust their budgets and last not but not least i have our on bond council here we are authorizing the lease purchase financing for the acquisition of fire equipment um the county prepared and advertised a request for proposal for a tax-exempt non-bank qualified master lease purchase agreement for an amount not to exceed 2.5 million to purchase on one custom pumper and one custom 75 foot ladder truck the county received six responses to the rfp which was reviewed by our financial advisors and bond council staff has reviewed and concurs with the financial advisor's recommendation that the bank of america's proposal for lease purchase financing the equipment is the most advantageous the proposed indicative interest rate is 3.9228 percent for seven years to be replayed repaid over seven years um in the amount of four hundred and seven thousand four hundred ten dollars from ambulance fees and that is all of my items today okay do i hear a motion at elena well oh i'm sorry i didn't say so just in are you ready yeah um stephanie in the motion process um does duane need to do are we doing any kind of presentation at all or they're just here if we had questions we can do a presentation if you'd like but they're just here for questions if needed i want to take away like if you had this wonderful presentation prepared that i would move uh staff's recommendation uh with the exception of item 4b uh which was polled uh or continued to a later date 4a 4a i'm all right second 4a or 4b okay okay sorry it's okay okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner heard all in favor aye aye um motion passes 4-0 with commissioner heatherington absent now we need to take a break again for five minutes yes five minutes five minutes and uh to sign some documents and we will be back thank you thank you everybody are just agreement h123-024 including a revised master phasing plan and phase 2a final site plan being presented by mr brian elam good morning commissioner elisa elder deputy county attorney this is a quasi-judicial proceeding right i'm sorry commissioner can't be neglected to remind me okay uh for all for everybody that is going to be testifying please stand and raise your hand and be sworn in raise your right hands do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth do we have any interveners no interveners in this hearing interveners okay has all the proper paperwork been turned in i have a copy of the agenda item in my work history there we go to turn in for exhibit one and copy of the applicant's uh resumes to turn in is exhibit two okay and now we need to ask for ex parte do you have any if i do they're filed if i do they've been filed if i have any they've been filed if i have any they've been filed if i have any they've been filed okay and with that i think we got it right you got it okay please thank you chairman commissioners uh for the record brian elam principal planner with growth management department this is a request by lucido and associates on behalf of discovery hope sound investors llc requesting approval of the second amendment to the discovery pud zoning agreement which includes a revised master site plan phasing plan and phase 2a final site plan included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation the proposed amendment relocates the 18 golf cottages from the main golf and lake clubhouse track to the short course clubhouse tract and revises the phasing plan to consolidate the road and lot development that were previously within phases 4a and 5 and incorporates them into phase 2a there are a few changes to the exhibit f special conditions section of this proposed amendment paragraph 14 has been modified to tie the completion of the traffic signal for the project entrance prior to the issuance of the 20th certificate of occupancy for residential unit in phase 2a paragraph 20 has been added and authorizes the temporary use of septic tanks for golf related structures in accordance with the applicable standards provided in policy 10.2a.8.9 of the martin county comprehensive growth management plan all temporary wells and septic tank systems must be removed and all structures connected to water and sewer no later than december 23rd 2026 and paragraph 21 and exhibit h have been added exhibit h is a typical lot landscape plan that exceeds the minimum tree and native landscape requirements and ensures perimeter lot landscape areas are designed to create a corridor of native planting between lots and other areas paragraph 21 requires a letter from the atlantic fields architectural review board documenting compliance with the typical lot guidelines be submitted with a building permit application here's an aerial discovery pud with the development overlay you can see the row 23 golf club in the northwest atlantic ridge preserve existing agricultural production to the east and to the west a large agricultural ranch and fronting bridge road is the polo club this is the proposed revised master site plan there's not many changes uh other than the golf cottages being moved from one track to another um the preserve area and all the remains the same and the lots are relatively unchanged uh with a minimum half acre uh requirement being satisfied there's a blow up of the the southern portion and the northern phase 2a this is the proposed phase 2a final site plan it includes the construction of roads utilities and drainage improvements for all 317 single-family lots adjoining common areas and future development tracks including construction of a traffic signal at the project's main entrance on bridge road and construction of a public access road from bridge road to the existing equestrian and staging area that are to be dedicated to the atlantic ridge preserve state park review this application by the local planning agency is not required development reuse staff have reviewed this application and find it to comply with the comprehensive growth management plan and all applicable land development regulations and staff recommends approval staff recommends the board move to receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report is exhibit one move the board approve the second amendment to the discovery pud zoning agreement including the revised master and phasing plans and move the board approve the discovery pud phase 2a final site plan and move the board receive and file the copy of resumes for the applicant as exhibit two and that concludes the presentation happy to answer any questions any questions for staff seeing none applicant good morning commissioners for the record bob rains land use attorney with the gunster law firm here on behalf of the applicant we appreciate your time this morning we appreciate staff's time and effort on this project as mr elam said we uh we have a staff recommendation of approval we've reviewed and received that staff report and certainly agree with the comments the conclusions and the recommendations in that report i would like to have mr crady come up and make a short presentation and of course i'll ask him a few questions before and after and then we'll be glad to answer any questions you might have so uh mr crady can you state your name for the record please yes morris crady and have you been sworn in sir i have and can you give us a brief uh history of your education and work yes experience please i'm senior partner with the cedar and association associates um also uh certified with the american institute of certified planners and been performing land planning services in martin county for over 40 years okay and you can can you identify the document i've handed you sir that's my resume and is that current and accurate yes i'd like just for the record to reflect that that's one of the documents that was handed in as part of applicants exhibits that mr elam uh submitted into the record uh and you prepared can you tell us what your role in this project was yes i coordinated the uh final site plan and pud amendment process with our development team and through the martin county development review process and you prepared the presentation you're about to show us yes all right thank you sir thank you i just have a brief presentation just to give you a little bit of history um um again you know where the project site is located this is looking towards the east um we're about a mile um east of the i-95 and surrounded by the atlantic ridge state park on these two sides agricultural land on the west side and this is the the grove golf course which is about 225 acres the entire site's about 1530 acres and this is what the uh the approved master plan looks like from a rendering perspective again this is the habitat restoration area that's being restored phase 1b has been approved phase 1b authorized the construction of almost 200 acres of lakes 125 acre habitat restoration area and as you as you know it's uh all of our our water come is coming from agricultural um runoff from the hope st lucie conservancy district uh we're we're taking all of that water using it to irrigate the golf course we're also treating um water for about 3 000 acres of other agricultural lands all before any water is discharged into the south fork of the st lucie which which is in this area uh the the the changes to the master plan are minimal we are relocating the golf cottages as mentioned by brian um we combined all of the residential phases into a single phase phase 2a um and and the the changes that we're making are all to be consistent with the plat that that hopefully will come before you next month and that will allow us to close on about 80 lots that are ready to be closed on uh the phase 2 final site plan includes the construction and donation of the public access road that that's going to be dedicated to the state park and includes the donation of the equestrian facilities to atlantic ridge preserve state park i should also mention that phase 1b also included the the donation of the of the hope sound train station to the hope sound or martin county historical society um and we're also going phase 2a include the construction of a traffic signal on bridge road so the the public access road that's being constructed and authorized by phase 2a is in this location um it's about a mile long road and this is the uh equestrian facilities that are being donated to the state park and this will serve as the base for um equestrian trails um bicycle trails and also pedestrian access to the to the park system um and then the uh the again the habitat restoration area is in this area and uh we're looking to to hopefully uh complete the the site work within a couple years and um it's probably take that long to to get under construction for the first home will be about two to three years out so with that understanding i'll be glad to answer any questions commissioner smith morris thank you can you go back uh in your presentation i forget if your first slide showed it or not um the two sites that you had next to each other or the two images let's see i don't know if i had two images you might be talking about one of brian's slides it was brian's slide can you can you pull up sure i just think it's worth noting that for the many years that we have been talking about this property and what will become of it when we were dealing with it all becoming um polo okay great uh sort of great um what you can't see under the green and i thought that there was another image that was clear that's all rope row ag right underneath of that green there there are no wetlands there are there is nothing there at today's point correct correct and i and i and i think what would be helpful and well actually you can see it on the right hand slide yeah you can see it so if you zoom in there's a lot 50 acre i mean 20 acre lots and the roads that were previously approved for the pull down a little bit more brian and come down a little bit no sorry to the top of the page there you go thank you so all of that former um pasture land or whatever that actually was um once a long time ago was what you see the mosaics of wetlands that are in those um jelly bean shape sort of ideas and one of the things that we talked about 15 years ago or so in the polo field idea came about was to get this reconnected the northern piece of this to the wetland system and so um i understand it but can you share a little bit about how it's going to how it's going to reconnect and what will achieve for the atlantic ridge yeah the my understanding is that this this the system you can see where it was cut off um was was moving water from the uh east to the west into the south fork of the st lucie river but it has been backed up uh by the agricultural operations that have occurred on the site so that water actually has been backing up to the east and flooding the pine flatwoods with your mouse just to draw with the mouse to show yeah well you can see yeah if you can just right but if people don't talk about yeah yeah are you driving or he's he's dark great yeah so the the historical flow of water went through here into the the south fork of the st lucie river so that that was a that was a natural wetland system that moved water to the from the east to the west so that's what's being restored to because what's what's been happening is that water has been bunching up here and and affecting the pine flatwoods and the trail systems out there so that will restore that flow of water uh and how large roughly is that area it's 125 acres of land that's currently and will the perimeter ditch be removed or is it staying there will be a perimeter ditch just to control the elevations that's still being great and then you also touched on the hope sound conservancy district and the water use that it will be dealing with can you explain that a little bit yes the the water that uh hope st lucie control district controls is starts on the actual the west side of the turnpike and moves um and you know darren can probably speak better to the head than i can but um if i say anything wrong darren our our engineer he'll he'll speak up i'm sure um but that but there's there's millions of gallons of water right now that flows directly into the south fork of the st lucie into into the st lucie river we'll be like in the in the other golf course under rural lifestyle we'll be diverting that water into 200 acres of lakes on this project and also uh that water includes runoff from about 3 000 acres of agricultural lands that again we'll be taking into our lake system and treating it through our stormwater treatment areas prior to any discharge into the south fork of the st lucie and the and the the discharge is through a canal system here that eventually manders its way into the south fork so so there'll be there'll be 10 times the treatment that that currently runs off the land under the agricultural operations under this revised plan so for decades if i'm if i can paraphrase for you that water has not been treated for decades correct and so with grove 23 and discovery we're capturing 3 000 you said plus acres of ag runoff that otherwise would not have been cleaned correct and also the consumption of water for the courses i assume is in the millions of gallons per day yes so i i just i when we talk about these things i just i that part of the story just i don't think should get lost on anyone especially where the lake is discharging these days and people are obviously very concerned about how much water is going to the estuary and in this case the water that would normally have been going to the estuary through uh rural fallow ag without any treatment whatsoever is getting treated correct yeah thank you something or pull a comment um any questions for the applicant okay than that thank you is that for this item that would be great timing ma'am is this for this item or 505 she's in our purse okay all right and not seeing any other public comment um i'll take a motion commissioner smith move sass a recommendation for approval second okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor oh i'm sorry commissioner heard yeah i'm not going to be supporting the motion this is a very very urban suburban development that's completely incompatible and inappropriate with its neighboring uh uses commissioner speth morris can you come back up please sorry what is the overall density of this project and how many acres do you know off the top of your head were oh it's it's uh 317 units on 1530 acres this is one unit per five acres and the other the other acreage that was put into conservation that's 800 acres in order to get the bump from one unit per 20 acres to one unit per five acres they had to dedicate 800 acres of agricultural land which is the becker tree farm and remove all units off of that land and and and include it as agricultural conservation area in perpetuity so the density is comparable to palm city farms which is one to five well it's well if you take into consideration the 800 acres it's about one unit per seven and a half acres of land so about one palm city farms one one for five yeah so it's greater than what exists out there and would you in your professional opinion would you consider that suburban or urban no not at all it's rule that's thank you absolutely yep show the plat and see how rural it looks okay once again we had a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor aye all opposed opposed motion carries three to one with commissioner hetherington absent okay now for the birthday girl happy birthday to you miss department two uh contracts that meet the threshold of uh board approval one million or greater presented by christy brotherington and it is her birthday today bring her family out this is your surprise party i'm good thank you christy brotherton chief procurement officer i have one item for your consideration today uh it's the martin county fire rescue burn building and staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder one call florida and the amount of one million seven hundred forty eight thousand twenty two dollars and move that the board approve the revised cip sheet to fund the bid award and last move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request and that concludes this item commissioner campy thank you miss brotherton appreciate it i know that our members of our fire administration is here i just wanted to uh say i appreciate the fact that we're continuing with what has been a multi-year promise we had made the commission majority had made two members of our fire rescue and then also members of our community by originally uh replacing and rehabbing very old out of date well past their functional use uh fire stations which i think we have completed and then the final uh large capital uh improvement was the fire training facility for residents that are not familiar we did not have one in our county and our personnel and our equipment would drive up to fort pierce for the most part to train taking our members out of um local service and taking our equipment up into uh through a county to an additional county to do this i think this is a great step in the right direction the final step of the training facility i know we're going to be at a ribbon cutting soon for the training building and now for the fire tower i think this is another uh step in the right direction for our our men and women of fire rescue to be trained in the latest and most up-to-date training with equipment and techniques to not only protect our residents but to protect themselves which i think is paramount so i happily make the motion to accept public do we huh do we have any public comment on this item seeing none commissioner smith oh okay okay we have a motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner smith all in favor aye all opposed opposed motion passes three to one with commissioner hetherington absent thank you thank you and our last item department number three transit development plan tdp major update progress report by jeffrey widener of marlin engineering and jessica mckay of kittleston and associates and our lovely beth beltran good morning i'm beth beltran mpo administrator i'm here to introduce the martin county transit development plan also known as the tdp this is a required document that's uh required by the state of florida in order for the county to get transit funds i am here with lucene martins who has been the project manager or is the project manager of the tdp we have been working very closely with ash beecher the transit administrator for martin county as well as the general planning consultant for the mpo jeff widener from marlin engineering and their sub consultant um kittleson and associates and jessica mackie is here from kittleson um the purpose of the the mpo was asked requested by the county to about 18 months ago or so to fund and develop this plan this work effort we've been doing a lot in the last 18 months working very closely working very hard to get a lot of public input as part of this project and we're very excited to give you the update this morning on this and with that i will pass it over to jeff widener thank you beth and i just want to recognize jessica mackie here with kittleson associates a major sub on this project um first of all just an outline of our presentation for today uh beth just mentioned um the purpose of a tdp a transportation development plan it's required by the state of florida to receive the operating block grant there are 30 transits in the state of florida and the state of florida wants to see a business plan and its requirement is a 10-year business plan and every five years each of the transits receiving the funds must do a major update the scope of work um you know project management and public outreach have been happening throughout the process we just closed our survey on the at the end of february we got 732 responses but we've gone through the baseline conditions report that report is in your agenda package and along with the performance assessment and the transit demand analysis we've completed and now we're starting to game the 10-year business plan with potential improvements and a 10-year financial plan that'll identify the fixed budget and unfunded needs for an aspirational plan just a quick refresher your system has five routes it's a pretty much linear system a long us one but also has a connection or a lifeline to the village of indiantown community five routes one two three four the one route one dominates your ridership it is the us one route 35 minute headway headway headway being the time between buses uh 6 a.m to 8 a.m route two it's 35 minutes within indiantown but every two hours back and forth to the morgade library to indiantown route three is a loop around the stewart area route four is a relatively new route it's in its fourth year now um and it goes down to south stewart and hobe sound 20 express is a route that connects to the va hospital in west palm beach and it's an express route and it must have at least a five mile segment of line hall with no stops to be called an express route uh what's been happening in the last five years so you you know in in looking back we're going to see the before and after effects of covid um covid was very detrimental to transit across the country uh looking here on the left we see marty in the blue histogram so in 16 17 18 and 19 marty ridership was going up in the background is the state of florida trends and here are the national trends compared to marty the united states reached its highest transit ridership in 2014 and starting in 2014 almost all transits across the board were going down in the country and there's been a lot of speculation about the cause of that um one of the things that probably had an impact was the evolution of transportation network companies as uber and lyft were evolving uh perhaps people that had the opportunity were switching from public transit to that type of um trip making uh then covet hit and it was pretty detrimental to the entire system marty did not shut down but your ridership went down people were apprehensive about getting on transit um here we're showing um all the way out to fiscal year 23 um you know marty has been growing in leaps um since covid um from 21 to 22 there was a 27 increase and a 16 increase up to 107 000 in fy fiscal year 23. so part of the td process is to take a look at your peers so we did an assessment of all the transits in florida across the country we came up with five systems to compare to um this is a table of marty and the five systems with five different metrics so looking at service area marty is a fairly constrained system again it's linear uh 65 square miles while the others are much higher except for napa county california service population very similar to indian river bay county um somewhat similar to napa county and then call your county and st lucy county which is your neighbor to the north um the marty system has the lowest operating cost a little bit over three million and then we're looking at the costs for the other agencies um passenger trips uh the lowest passenger trips uh compared to your peers um indian river go line is the gold standard for the state of florida they get more riders per population than any other system in the state they have ridership compared to counties with three and four times the population of indian river and then the operating expense your operating expense is very high um in fiscal year 23 it did go down to 26 dollars and 70 cents per rider uh during the transit efficiency study which we did prior to the tdp uh we got direction from you all to focus on ridership ridership ridership you know getting more riders is going to bring this cost down so why is indian river doing so well um first of all the accessibility to the community 92 percent of indian river um residents live within three quarters of a mile you're at 58 percent here in martin county uh it's a fair free system uh marty is a monday through friday system and indian river has weekend service um you know one of the base um transit rider cohorts is the working class of service workers hotels or restaurants hospitals um they need service seven days a week or at least six days a week but the systems focus on their trip generators they have a centralized hub um it's very well marketed uh the efficiencies of the route it's coordinated with the transit transportation disadvantage program you have a separate system for transportation disadvantage and for marty uh physical barriers um they have a very good grid network for the most part in indian river county and they have more flexibility with their resources public involvement um is one of your directives um we reallocated resources and we scheduled uh six public outreach events one in each commission district we did two in commission district three because village of indiantown and hobsound are so far apart we did not do traditional we're going to be here come to meet us we located ourselves in places where we could intercept um people going to the library parents going to pick up their children at aftercare centers uh the jamming at jensen event and it was really um a lot of fun and an opportunity to get to talk to a mix of people uh jamming jensen we talked to a lot of snowbirds and people from out of town they talked a lot about regional transit connections um the folks in underserved communities like golden gate and out in indiantown we were surprised they didn't know a lot about the system they knew the buses went through their neighborhood and went by the bus stop but they didn't know where they were going to end up um predominantly spanish-speaking populations we had four people that were bilingual and we got a number of surveys in spanish overall we got 732 people to take the survey 26 had said they have used the system and 74 they said they did not so we asked users what would you like to see to make marty better number one 29 was saturday service and sunday at 16 so weekend service sort of dominated their request or their needs um followed by later service again span of service more hours per day and more days per week then followed by new routes more benches and better sidewalk connections at the bottom as the non-users why you didn't use marty um we heard 33 says just faster to go buy a car um considering the level of auto ownership in the community that was kind of low but you know they also indicated they don't know where it goes or it doesn't go where they want to go and it's inconvenient um we had a stakeholder committee that included the social services agencies um public works the city of stewart and um we asked those folks and they were part of the process we had three meetings with them and we asked them to prioritize and give us um some guidance on what objectives we should be looking at for improvements um added stops was at 39 percent more frequency weekend service and earlier and later service so in order to improve ridership we looked at three types of improvements service types improving the existing service mostly looking at span of service hours of the day with days of the week and then bus stop infrastructure one thing we did do um in addition to the scope is we actually contacted the micro transit agencies i'm going to call them transportation network companies is the term tnc is used in the industry and we had an hour-long conversation with circuit uber via and freebie they have some very interesting services where they can support and supplement transit services with first mile last mile and micro mobility or micro transit which are smaller vehicles that can penetrate into your community and connect to a fixed bus route instead of running fixed buses through neighborhoods and then we developed a new vision and goal basically a 2014 tdp in 2019 was the same we created an extended statement that said safe efficient convenient public transportation and is well understood by the public we heard from a number of people that they don't know how the system operates and where they can end up and how to use the system with that i'm going to have jessica come up and talk about the transit gap analysis and some of the recommendations we're thinking of morning so the transit gap analysis brings together technical data that was reviewed from the baseline conditions as well as a trip hotspot analysis that we conducted the areas in yellow shown on this slide are areas that lie outside the quarter mile a quarter of a mile from an existing bus stop that also have a demand for transit so these areas might have areas that have a high proportion of transit development transit dependent populations like folks who are lower income older adults or zero car households or other areas that have a concentration of trip generators and those are shown as the red dots on this map you'll see that most of these red dots are within the existing service area boundary which is a great thing marty's covering a lot of trip generators however there are a few that lie outside of the areas outside of areas such as those in palm city southeast cove road the barrier island and port salerno and those areas you'll see that they're yellow on the map so moving on to planning strategies the planning strategies we developed are based on feedback from outreach and the transit gap analysis and we we started to develop four different strategies that we grouped into scenarios the first scenario is the low cost one where where we identified improvements that could be made in the short term the second one is based on the need to have more weekend service and later service so we were looking at different ways where we could increase the span of service the third one is adding bus stops and we strategically based them based on the transit gap analysis and feedback that we received during outreach and the last one is our more aspirational network where we explore increasing connectivity and creating an intermodal hub and steward and as an update we estimated costs and ridership numbers for several of these strategies and that feeds into how they will be ranked the the rankings will be based on objectives that we've drafted like efficiency which is measured in the change in cost per rider whether the service will target underserved communities etc so for scenario one that's our low cost scenario we know today that the buses the bus schedules are not coordinated within marty or that or connecting systems in st lucie or palm beach the riders today are having long transfer times to their connecting bus so we think it's a high priority need to improve transfer timings through a comprehensive operational analysis study targeted marketing campaign based on the outreach we heard from people on the ground that many folks were not aware that marty exists they didn't know where the buses go so we think a targeted marketing campaign that leverages south florida commuter services would help get the word out about service and improve ridership scenario one also includes four potential route improvements that are cost neutral and that could also increase ridership the first one is extending route two to the robert morgate library from the robert morgate library to the walmart and stewart so you'll see that as the green dotted line right here the second one involves route four route three the route currently uses two vehicles and some of the segments like along southeast monterey road are unproductive so we think splitting the route into two routes two one-way routes would better serve a number of important destinations like the cleveland hospital the social services on palm beach road the fresh market shopping center the golden gate cra walmart the health department the high school there are several developments along counter highway and several more that have no service today so we think this will expand the service area also in the bottom loop we've added service to the walmart here and this would provide better connections to other routes since it's already a transfer connection so that's another enhancement the third route improvement is to route 20x we heard from folks that they'd like to have access to tri-rail 20 route 20x has the potential to extend its terminus from the va hospital to the tri-rail station in mangonia and then this fourth improvement is for route four right now there's limited stops and limited crossing opportunities along us-1 so we think converting it to a flex route would more effectively service this area this service area and if you aren't familiar with how flex route operates it's essentially like a normal fixed route but it allows deviations within specified zones along along the route where riders can call in a day before to book a pickup within the service area and by the way route two already has this feature within the indiantown service area an added bonus is that flex routes are not required to provide ada paratransit service so there may be potential cost savings there scenario two is based on the need for more hours of service especially on weekends today there's no weekend service for all the routes and we know that there's a big need there are some options we could extend marty's existing service to operate on saturday and sunday today marty's cost per trip is 2670 per trip on weekdays so that cost might actually be higher on weekends since there's less ridership on saturdays and sundays generally with transit agencies we could also explore transportation networking companies and the service area within routes one two three and four broward county transit they've implemented a program that's like a taxi partnership and they reported a cost of 1535 per trip in january of last year if you want a more enhanced experience we could explore micro transit with branded vehicles where riders can make real-time trip requests with the smartphone app and because of the it's a more enhanced service it would cost a little more so we're looking at roughly 15 50 per trip and right now we're working with the transit administrator and grants manager on the timing and mechanisms to fund a potential pilot program for this so on this slide we have um some success stories about micro transit um throughout south florida and one of the highlights is pompano beach they actually were able to get their cost per rider to two dollars and 28 cents so there's a number of uh case studies to look at and to learn from so we included this this is actually from a presentation that circuit did um jeff could you did you want to cover this slide funding solutions well again you know we had discussions with a number of these different vendors and freebie was one of the vendors it's a miami-dade grown company and um you know they're very proactive in working with the dot understanding how to use the service development program and um they also have a very unique approach to economic development they allow the restaurants and the commercial properties that people will be searching for and then connect you to freebie and have an economic development trip that advertising is free on their app uh all of their vehicles are electric and they have different levels of vehicle types uh right now the vehicle on the left and and you know they're very good at branding um but they're they're providing free connections for tri-rail service in broward county and basically you get off the train you scan a qr code in a tri-rail branded vehicle tesla will come and pick you up and take you to your job we have an employee that does it every single day going back and forth lots of different services and a lot of competing companies one of our policy recommendations is going to do some sort of a competitive bid to fit the bill on some of the recommendations we're making and jeff is that is the radius of that three miles from the train i believe it's five miles but it might be three miles but it's zonal so um so our third scenario is adding bus stops there's a major need for adding bus stops we've identified 40 potential locations that include the cane center la jaya house of hope the cleveland clinic the north and south one the public's at canter crossing and then there's several locations along us one that you'll see as the yellow dots on this map we also want safe access to these bus stops and obviously the downside to having more bus stops is that the bus schedule would need to be reassessed but we think that increasing access to people and jobs is well worth the trade-off the fourth scenarios are aspirational network with a hub so we envision having an intermodal center located in stewart in proximity to the the bright line location bright line station with time transfers since the time of the prior tdp um transit efficiency study and throughout route outreach done through this for this tdp we heard from folks that they'd like to see service to the beach so we have we developed the jensen beach trolley alignment that's shown as the purple u-shape that connects from the treasure coast mall to the intermodal center that we proposed here the canter highway route is this orange one and so there's currently no service along that roadway but there's several transit generators like public schools there's a mobile home park an upcoming costco the cleveland clinic and several multi-family developments we also identified five potential transportation networking company zones in stewart palm city port salerno jensen and rio and indiantown and the benefits to this approach would be enhanced safety because there's a lack of safe crosswalks sidewalks in many areas it's a first mile last mile solution and it could be cost effective and actually increase ridership throughout the system as well because um go line actually experienced that increase in their fixed ridership once they implemented tnc zones so if we did this through microtransit again we're looking at 15 50 per trip and other policy and capital improvements we've identified they include exploring a fear for a fair free policy to increase ridership which which would address the concerns for empty buses potentially adding bus shelters throughout the county especially in areas like golden gate working with the county to identify mid-block crossing locations potentially using smaller transit vehicles and we have some technology needs like replacing the trip spark hardware on buses and potentially implementing automatic passenger accounts and so the next steps jeff so just looking at um line item three this is sort of been what's driving the schedule since before the holidays uh the green dots were our public outreach events and then in february we went to your three well we went to the mpo's three advisory boards and the policy board and we are here today meet to meet with you in the beginning of um what is it the middle of march already or it's the 11th right or the 12th but now we are gaming the implementation plan we had a very productive meeting yesterday and we're lining up a 10-year plan with the elements of uh low no all the way up to aspirational identifying the funding needs to implement some of these efforts um we plan on sharpening our pencils and working with ash and beth's team in the next two weeks to finalize that plan in the meantime we are putting together a bulk of the document right now and in early april we'll have uh the plan to ash and his staff and to beth uh their review and it'll be in the agenda package for your april 20 i keep saying your i'm thinking i'm at the mpo i apologize but at the mpo's uh meetings and then the early uh may meeting of the policy board and then we're coming back to you all for final document approval and transmittal to the dot uh the dot has the plan needs to be approved by december 31st you're way ahead of the game um we'll probably get some comments from dot but it must be approved by the 31st to get your five hundred thousand dollars from dot july 1 of 25 and with that we'll respond to any questions and answers any questions questions this is the second time that most of us have heard this so it's for the public that's probably why commissioner camp he just can't help himself so go for it i saw and only heard the words palm city mentioned once or twice um i know you know how i feel about this palm city is the largest community in the county 26 000 residents and um still no bus loop it's i think it's some of what could be driving the conversation to increase ridership would be some kind of a loop just even if you wanted to do a test loop i know that if it doesn't get part of this plan it won't necessarily do that i've also asked my friendly colleagues up in indian river county like their philosophy and feeling about their system and they're very bullish on it um i had asked them but i i prefer to do it through you know ash and and beth about perhaps having a field trip for the commissioners individually of course to go up and meet with their ride their system speak to their people see what's what because you know if you said to me hey there's a place in you know in oklahoma city that had a similar bus system that was great i would say okay well i don't really know how that relates to us but we always consider indian river our sister county population demographic logistically it's our sister county and if they are the premier system in the state of florida i can practically see them from my house so with that in mind i think we should really just try to duplicate as best we can what they're doing if it's i believe and i've mentioned this to you when we were out at the library i think it's probably um a situation where it might take you know potentially years to change the public's habit like when you say it's easier to get in the car i know that um having grown up in a community where the bus was what the kids rode you know it was sort of fun and it was the bus that took you to the beach or to the mall or to the movies and as you were growing up that's just everyone knew that that's what you would do i don't think we have that here uh especially in palm city where my kids grew up uh you know and i think also in florida kids get their permits at 15 and can have driver's licenses at 16 years old where i grew up you didn't get your license till you were 17 so you were sort of independent without a car so you had really no choice but to ride the bus i think um it's probably sort of the norm here that when kids turn 15 or 16 the parents start considering a car for them and you're not going to pump your bus system up you know um the marketing we have our staff is i would match them against anybody but it's a it's an uphill battle but i think um i would strongly recommend we just duplicate and copy uh what do they say uh imitation is the highest form of flattery let's imitate what they're doing in indian river county uh i bet you know even if we got half of their ridership what are they over 1.1 million and we're 90 100 000 if we got half we'd be it would be a huge success so you can count me in for a trip if you want to speak to your counterparts in indian river i'd like to go and see firsthand what they're doing that maybe we could do thank you do you need a motion for this do you need any action on this item or um yeah just be clear on um what what you need from them to be able to move ahead for the final draft so your agenda package included the the baseline conditions report um the 10-year transit demand report and got it for you i make a motion that we move that the board approve the marty baseline existing conditions summary and transit demand gap analysis report tdp goals with objectives and the tdp draft scenarios second okay we have a motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner heard i don't think we get any public comment we have any public comment if none um all in favor say aye aye motion passes unanimously with commissioner hetherington absent thank you very much okay we have reached the end of our agenda and we are at our 505 uh public comment with one public comment sheet which is lovely woman right here this yes ma'am if you could pronounce your name that'd be what uh mr chairman and commissioners what's your name ma'am my name is you get you get pa mayor and i'm here from the uh steward west community and like many of you i look back on a lifetime of community involvement my last job was on the beautification committee in sugarloaf key where i had to work on restoration after the hurricane irma planted trees along our uh sugarloaf boulevard and i deputized the installation of dog waste collection stations to another person um i want to thank uh in particular commissioner heard and in absence uh commissioner hetherington you excuse excuse me um we wrote you letters uh under my and my husband's name uh to express our concern and i thank you for responding or acknowledging receipt of the letter it's very important to us um it's regarding the development proposal for a parcel adjacent to our steward west community uh and the proposal is by the revive church uh i want to establish that steward west is a very diverse community um families family constellations uh we are of many faiths many religions many people are lifelong uh very dedicated practitioners of their faith and i'm here to establish religion is not the issue the issue is size and every time i look at the website of revive their program offerings have expanded and that is wonderful for them um the for instance the preliminary projection is for a 45 000 uh person or 45 000 square foot building uh but during a recent uh presentation by revive uh it was stated that no they are already considering 50 000 and i think you're all well familiar with the extremely challenging little corner that is my time up 15 seconds 15 seconds okay in conclusion the proposed enterprise has already outgrown the proposed uh location and so i'm here to emphasize the size the traffic situation we're on the cusp of a lot of economic development now you're out of time yeah and a church is not economic development it doesn't generate income for all of us thank you very much for listening to me i really appreciate you thank you ma'am thank you okay thank you before we adjourn do we have any other comments from commissioners or oh our county administrator if you all i'll i can finish this out um one thing uh um you gave us permission to work with indian town to provide building services for a month and they were um at uh looking to contract with services for with port st lucie that's not working out with them and they would like to continue uh to develop a service with martin county so i would like to ask your permission to continue to operate as we are until we uh and then we bring back a interlocal agreement on how we can provide that service to them and i just need your permission to continue that service until i can bring back an agenda item that will fully describe an interlocal agreement for what services building services probably they would basically be processing their uh building permits uh for structural permits out of our building department and they're paying for this service yes commissioner smith moved that we ask the administrator and legal department to prepare the appropriate uh interlocal agreement uh and the continuation of the interim policy uh until that agreement can come back to us for the provision of building department services to indiantown thank you it doesn't um i mean we have the capacity additional capacity to handle their things it's not going to uh hinder or impinge our residents correct that's correct and i think to be fair also the county had provided similar services to sewell's point in the past and we've had other contracts with some of our uh municipal providers or interim service to the city of sewer um and the interlocal when we bring it back would fully describe how we could do that with impact without impacting the services we're providing they would certainly have to pay for it there's some certain thing we've started drafting it already but um i wouldn't be asking for this if i didn't think that we could actually provide the service for them understood just knowing that sewell's point and city of steward is not nearly as um large or of what i know what indiantown has on the horizon that's not quiet sleepy unincorporated indiantown i i i they're our residents i appreciate that but some of the projects that they have going out there especially in capacity to our building department are are massive uh i'll take you at uh your professional recommendation and second commissioner smith's motion commissioner heard yeah that was my concern also is that sewell's point wasn't proposing terra lago which is 4 000 homes yes and so to be clear you know they like that's we need to be very very careful about how we proceed the uh the current amount of um of building permit activity out there is not at that level i think as they grow they will reabsorb and take over the program but at the current level it is it is not significant if we get a water plant to build before that so i don't i don't know we're not anticipating this agreement would be a permanent um um service um it would be reviewed uh and then as they have the um capacity to hire and and fully utilize full-time staff as opposed to part-time it would make sense for them to transition but for the time being um as you said um it would uh we can handle um that service good okay we get a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner campy all in favor aye all opposed motion passes unanimously except for commissioner hetherington or four zero commissioner hetherington absent and i do have a few other minor comments but i can so sorry just wanted to say we had a uh a county picnic on uh saturday it was a great um success in my mind uh a lot of things for our families and our kids face painting and and various activities and the uh lost river outdoor center was a great uh provider in kayaks and people were able to do bicycle riding and uh canoeing and and and visiting uh one of our really beautiful facilities and on the north fork of the saint lucie so um just want to thank all the staff that that came and those that uh helped put it together and our hr department so thanks very nice all right and with that our next meeting is i would like to wish my friend and colleague uh tomorrow's his birthday commissioner smith happy birthday birthday no it never slides by uh the elder statesman yeah okay with that our next meeting is april 9th 2024 and we are adjourned in that case happy easter everybody