Board of County Commissioners on 2024-10-22 9:00 AM - Oct 22, 2024

Uh, we're going to begin with a invocation, uh, from Pastor Jim Harp of Stewart Alliance Church, followed by a pledge of allegiance, uh, led by David Yankwit, uh, U.S. Army veteran. Thank you. Please stand. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Uh, join with me in a posture of prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning and we thank you. I thank you once again for the privilege of being here today to be able to pray and, uh, Lord, just to seek your will and your presence and knowing your presence is here, but to seek your will and direction in this meeting today and all the things on the agenda, Lord, we thank you that your word teaches us that you care about these things. Uh, Jesus was often praying and his disciples saw that and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. And he began what we refer to today as the Lord's prayer, uh, with these words, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so God, we ask for your will to be done. Uh, your word tells us that there's a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof is separation from your ways and your peace and your direction. So father, we know that what's best is your ways and your ways are higher than ours and your thoughts are higher than ours. So Lord, we thank you for that. And as I always pray, Lord, I ask your blessing, uh, especially upon these that you have put in leadership over us in this County, Lord bless them, bless their families, bless them as they go about their lives and all the things that, uh, go on behind the scenes that we don't know about, or would you give them strength and courage and wisdom and direction. And so God, we thank you that you care about all these things because you love us and you care for us. And I pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Ladies and gentlemen, border County commissioners, distinguished members, guests, fellow veterans. My name is David Yanquit and I'm a proud husband and father of four sons, David, who's nine Dean, who's seven, Dominic, who's four and Dwight, who's two months old. And I'm honored to be here with you today. I joined the United States army as an infantryman in August of 2007 and served until Christmas 2009. Back then when the wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan, the army was handing out two year and four months contract for an infantryman and a $20,000 shipping bonus. So I took it and I felt like I was the richest 19 year old kid alive. I always knew I was going to join the army. It was definitely a calling, but it came very true on 9-11. I don't come from a military family, but once 9-11 happened, I knew one day I would wear the uniform of this great country and like all who served, carry the torch of freedom and pass it to the next generation. I also knew the army was very excited for me to join as I would periodically receive responses to the thank you for your letter, for your interest letters from the recruiting office and reminding me that I was way too young. Apparently there were requirements and being 14 wasn't one of them. When I was finally of age, I tried college for about a year to see if I wanted to become an officer. And at that point where the wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and at its height, I thought I'd better enlist now before the war ends. I went through basic and infantry training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and upon completion, I received orders to Fort Hood, Texas, where they were standing up a brigade to deploy. I was assigned to the recon platoon of the 1st Battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, the Blue Spaders, same unit as Captain America. Joining the army and going to a few states west didn't seem like seeing the world, but nonetheless, I was excited to get to my unit. See, upon graduation of infantry school, the time from graduation to deployment was about two weeks to a year. Either your unit was deployed or headed back home, but you could expect to be in country within that timeline. It would be about seven to eight months past graduation before we deployed. During the train up, I was fortunate enough to attend and graduate from Air Assault School at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where I learned about helicopters, jumping out of them, equipment, and sling load operations. About two weeks before we were scheduled to ship out to Sadr City, Iraq, our orders changed to go to the Kunar province of Afghanistan. I didn't know much about Afghanistan as our focus was Iraq, but I will soon learn quickly about combat operations. When we deployed in July of 2008, it wasn't too long until we heard about the Battle of Wanat and how the Sky Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne got overrun and the loss of nine American heroes and others were very wounded. Knowing we were replacing that unit and the gravity of the tragic event, we will only come to understand the true meaning of loss when it becomes our turn in the fight. While in the recon unit, our battalion pulled half of the platoon, two squads, and created a personal security detail, and the other half will remain in the mountains. I switched to the detail and became a machine gunner for the battalion command sergeant major and his vehicle attachment. Our task was to escort the leadership to several meetings with village elders, meetings with company commanders, observe the battle space, do air assault missions on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and to figure out enemy movements in and out of the region. During the deployment, our security platoon had completed hundreds of combat patrols, numerous air assault missions, and defeated countless enemy engagements. While all that is important, nothing will replace those who we lost or were wounded, either in our element or in the Blue Spaders as a whole. Staff Sergeant Rogers, my squad leader, or one of my great friends, Sergeant Dawson, will always be honored and remembered and serve as a reminder to live a life worthy of their sacrifice. We left Afghanistan in June of 2009, and I will tell you it was an uneasy feeling, readjusting from sustained combat, seeing family, reuniting with guys who were wounded, and then the beginning of new chapters as people either re-enlisted and went to a new unit, were discharged, or stayed, or stayed, was a whirlwind of emotions, excuse me. I decided not to re-enlist as I had enough of war. It was time to see what else life had for me. Little did I know I would meet my future wife within a few weeks of being home. I started at Indian River State College and graduated with my associate's degree and went on to FAU for my bachelor's in political science. I have two master's degrees, one from George Washington University and another from the University of Nebraska, both in the field of political science. I was a civics and U.S. history teacher in Martin County School District at Murray Middle and South Fork High School for eight years, and now I'm in my third year at IRSE teaching American government and international relations. My very first class teaching is in the first classroom I was as an IRSE student. Even though veterans like me are happy to stay in the shadows and out of the spotlight, we are also happy to shine the light on others who do so much for our community. I would like to thank Martin County Veterans Services for the amazing and selfless work they do on behalf of our veteran community. The knowledge, expertise, compassion, and dedication to the mission, which is the veteran and their success, is second to none, and to Brindell and Jeff and team, thank you. You make the difference, and Martin County and its veterans are better because of you. And thank you for what you have done for me and my family. Recognizing that Veterans Day is a few weeks away, I appreciate the honor to share a little bit of my story, honor the lives of others, appreciate the service, and remember the sacrifice. It was an honor to speak to you and be with you all today. Thank you, and God bless. That was awesome, by the way. It really was. We should end on that note. Yeah. Okay, we're done. All right, today we have 9.05 public comment, which is five minutes ago, but we'll get to it eventually. We have at 12 p.m. a private attorney-client session, and at 5.05 we have public comment once again. Additional items, Department 6 request for private attorney-client session considering the case of be a man by land, LLC versus South Florida Water Management District, ETAL, whatever that means, case number 2023-CA-000052. And then we have a consent agenda poll, pulled by me for the first time. Yeah. Consent number eight, request for approval of a deed of agricultural easement from Becker B14 Groves Limited as a condition of the approved Discovery Planned Unit Development, PUD, zoning agreement for the Discovery Project. I felt that this was a serious enough issue that we needed to have it out in the public. Okay. And with that, can I get a – I'm sorry, Commissioner Smith. Chairman, good morning. Move approval of the agenda with the additional item of Department Item Number 6 for the private attorney-client session and with the addition of consent – or with the consent poll of Item 8. Second. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. We are going to skip down to proclamation number two. Mr. Gordon is going to do a presentation for a retiring employee, present a plaque of recognition and appreciation to Norm Vander Heiden. Oops. Upon the occasion of his retirement from service within Martin County Board of County Commissioners, I've had the pleasure of working with Norm, and he's an amazing guy. The best quote ever. We're meeting with a constituent, and he goes, ma'am, I can't make water go uphill. I will never forget that as long as I live. But anyway, he's a great guy. I'm guessing that's why Channel 5 is here today. Yeah, that's it. Great job, John. Jim Gordon, Public Works Director. With me, I have Norm Vander Heiden. So, Norm has been with the Public Works Department for nearly 31 years. He served as a heavy equipment operator, road maintenance supervisor, stormwater inspector, and engineering inspector. He even fills in for us as a bridge tender when we're in a pinch at the Hope Sound Bridge. He was a volunteer firefighter out of Station 33 and a Navy veteran. Norm has a knack for implementing new programs and performed critical roles in development of our Vector Truck Sweeper Program and CCTV Stormwater Inspection Program, all of which are essential water quality improvement programs that we have, and they're born out of his input and constant refinement. His unique combination of technical skills, common sense, and will to succeed have served him well in his career. Customer service has been a consistent focus throughout Norm's career, and in his role as our lead stormwater inspector for the county, he meets with the public on a daily basis to review their concerns and develop solutions. Since the advent of the online request for service system in 2006, Norm has investigated, responded to, and closed out over 5,000 requests for service. That's more than most departments during that time frame. One of the inspections in Palm City during a flood event resulted in Norm saving a child who was swept downstream in a flooded creek. That gained local and regional media attention. While not one for notoriety, he represented himself, Public Works, and the county well that day. In closing, I wanted to highlight the critical role that Norm plays in the county. I was in the EOC during Hurricane Milton when we started receiving information about tornadoes touching down in the county. First out west in undeveloped areas, and then in Hobesound and Port Salerno where homes were impacted. Norm was the first person I called from the EOC to inspect the damage, develop a response, and to lead a crew to remove the down poles and debris to clear the way for emergency services. He quickly coordinated a loader crew and mobilized to the area to remove the debris. He and the crew were actively working on US-1 when the second tornado went by about a quarter mile south of where they were working. They worked until dark that day and every day that week to restore access and begin their recovery process for our residents. After working dusk till dawn multiple days, helping our citizens recover, Norm volunteered to go to a co-worker's home to help him because he lost his roof during the second tornado. This just speaks to Norm's character and willingness to help others, which has been a constant throughout his career. So please join me in congratulating Norm for a successful career and to wish him well in his future endeavors. Well, I just have a few words before I read the plaque, and that is Norm's, you can hear, his service to our nation and his service to Martin County is one consistent thing about Norm is he has a big heart. He's a caring human being, and he loves Martin County and all those that he works for and the citizens, and that's what I'm most proud of working with him. Now, Mark used to say, don't let Norm get bored. You know, a bored dorm is a dangerous dorm. But anyway, and I know for, but in all the times, you know, that's, I think, speaks to the character of your employees, and Norm is exemplary of that, and that is truly reflects the best of all of us. And I'm going to miss you greatly working in our organization. There's big shoes to fill. So you and a handful of others have really led the way in our public works and our service to our community, and it's been my pleasure to work with you for this many years. And so in grateful recognition of 30 years of dedicated public service to Martin County Board of County Commissioners and the citizens of Martin County, presented this 22nd day of October 24. Thank you, Norm. Thank you. Mayor Campy. Norm, you look young and very fit. Motion to deny your retirement. Is it because they work you too hard? Because we could work out like a part-time thing for you. I mean, I think you're, with all kidding aside, you are a classic example of what makes Martin County great and the quiet, steady, professional leadership of our staff. And when I talk about, you know, the five of us, we are the public faces or leadership. It's the men and women like you that are in the trenches that make Martin County so wonderful, make our residents so pleased and safe. So God bless you and your future, and we will miss you very much. I'm also friends with Norm's wife, and I know for a fact that Norm, she will keep Norm busy, trust me. He probably will wish she had a part-time job. Exactly, yeah. He'll be working harder at home, trust me. Okay. Is his wife here? Is that her in the back? What, the holding up the phone video? Yeah. Why don't she come forward for a picture? Norm, why don't you bring your wife forward so we can congratulate her and thank her? Come on, Sue. We know it's not one person that does all this work. Here she is, everybody. Get a picture, get a picture. Much better. All right. You change your mind, doors always open. If you have the pleasure of following them on Facebook, they do more traveling and canoeing and you name it activities than anybody's ever seen. Okay. So back to, we're going to do our proclamations now. Laura is going to read them and I'm going to stand down. Good morning, commissioners. First, we have a proclamation declaring Paralegal Day in Martin County, Florida. Paralegals are known for their integrity and professionalism as they support essential services, legal research, real estate matters, and other facets of law practice. October 23rd is recognized as Paralegal Day and the board would like to take this opportunity 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 Mandy Johns, who is a real property professional under the Public Works Department. Come on up, Mandy. Good morning. October 23rd is recognized as National Paralegal Day in the U.S. and in Florida as well. Paralegal Day has provided an opportunity to recognize and appreciate the work of all paralegals in our state and the nation. A paralegal is an essential part of an attorney's administrative team, and as the need for attorneys continues to grow, skilled paralegals are increasingly in demand. The Florida Bar currently has around 4,700 registered paralegals who assist 107,000 Florida Bar authorized attorneys. Paralegals and legal assistants are largely considered the backbone of every law firm and fulfill critical roles within the legal community. From conducting research, drafting pleadings, contracts, and more, these legal professionals are fundamental in supporting attorneys. Here at Martin County, we, Real Property Paralegals, are responsible for creating, implementing, and managing leases of county property, as well as county property leases of outside properties. We are responsible for obtaining easements and providing easements for drainage, utilities, access, maintenance, and many other needs. We are also responsible for acquiring new property needed for county purchases, as well as disposing of surplus property and maintaining the list of surplus properties. We are lucky enough to be able to work with most of the departments within the county on a regular basis to help them complete their plans when it comes to real property. As we celebrate National Paralegal Day this year, we are reminded that paralegals are a growing force within the legal field, and we hope that you'll take a moment to sincerely thank these hardworking individuals who are responsible gatekeepers for the legal profession. Our second proclamation is a proclamation declaring National Disability Employment Awareness Month in Martin County, Florida. October 2024 is the 79th anniversary of National Disability Awareness Month, and its purpose is to educate about disability employment issues and celebrate the many and varied contributions of America's workers with disabilities. The board urges all citizens to recognize this month by bringing together businesses and partners to break down the barriers faced by individuals with disabilities who are working or seeking employment, helping improve the quality of life for all. And here to accept, we have Glenna Paris, who is the gift planning officer for Helping People Succeed. You look so different. I know. It's the hair. I changed the hair. Unfortunately, Glenna was not able to make it today, but good morning. My name is Shannon Wilson, and I am the director of Successful Futures at Helping People Succeed. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Board of County Commissioners for this proclamation in recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. The purpose of this month is to celebrate the contributions of people with disabilities to the workplace and the economy. This year's theme is access to good jobs for all. Good jobs change lives, and all workers, including disabled workers, deserve the opportunity to prepare for, obtain, and succeed in them. Helping People Succeed is proud to partner with businesses and organizations in Martin County to provide training and employment opportunities for our community members with disabilities. Our goal is to help the individuals we serve to find real jobs for competitive wages in an integrated environment. We strongly believe that everyone who wants to work should be able to, and with your support as well as the support of the residents of Martin County, we are able to continue working to make that a reality. Thank you again. Laura, you're doing a very good job. And our final proclamation today is a proclamation declaring Bible Reading Marathon Week in Martin County, Florida. The year 1990 was proclaimed by a joint congressional resolution and presidential proclamation as International Year of Bible Reading, and Bible Reading Week has been celebrated annually thereafter. In recognition of Bible Reading Week, the 24th annual Bible Reading Marathon will be held November 4th through the 8th at the Bandshell in Memorial Park and feature a 90-hour continuous read-through of the entire Bible. And here to accept, we have pastors, Eddie and Joanne Rodriguez, as well as Dr. Julie Bjornsson. They're with Step Into Grace and New Life Ministries. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. We just want to thank you first for, once again, giving us this proclamation. It means so much to the people in the community each year as we gather, and this is our 24th year. And I do want to let you know that this is the longest-running Bible Reading Marathon in our nation. And it brings so much hope and peace to the community as people come from all over the county and beyond to come out and read. They fill, it's pretty miraculous, they fill 365 15-minute time slots to read through the Bible day and night, rain or shine. And so when we're out there, we get so many just wonderful responses from families come out, business people come out, ministries, churches, people connect that normally wouldn't be able to connect. And it just is a wonderful week as we proclaim God's word over our nation. And it began with Pastor Donna and Jean Hilton to begin this, to read the Bible over our nation as protection over our nation. So I just want to thank you for this week, and we invite everyone to come out and be a part of this week. You can give us a call at 561-670-0469. We have flyers out. And we just welcome everybody. Everyone is welcome. And we're out there with love and peace and just looking forward to this year and all the community that it touches in a special way. Thank you. You want to talk about that? I'd just like to say that I am completely 100% in agreement with my wife. Smart man. Dr. Julie, please. So I'll tell them we need night readers. Okay. I'm Dr. Julie Bjornsson from Port Salerno. I survived the tornado. Good morning, commissioners. This is my 24th time to thank you for our Bible Reading Marathon proclamation. To me, this is really important. And I share this all across the county that our commissioners have given us such a wonderful proclamation. The marathon began 24 years ago, 9-11-2001. Right after that, our church was directed to read the Bible to protect us from terrorist attack. And we've been really well protected, other than the tornado. 9-11 was sudden and unexpected, bringing people back to churches and the Bible, the foundation of our nation's constitution, government, and education. And many presidents understood that without the morals and ethics taught in the Bible, our nation's self-government would fail. But today, Bible truths and God's authority are under extreme attack. Nationally, lawlessness is replacing our constitutional authority. And spiritually, liberal rewrites and copyright limitations of the Bible undermine foundational doctrines. Throughout the Bible, God's love is freely available to all who will accept it. The entire Bible is a record of God's extremes that he has gone to in order to avoid the destiny of our fallen Edenic state. Yet, what is our response? No, God, I want to love you. I don't want to love you. I'll do it my way. But when humans fail to respond, God has three alternatives. He can indulge it, allowing our human rebellion. Or he can force us to obey, which removes our free will. But that leaves the only real choice. The only way is to withdraw himself. Whether we realize it or not, our existence of God is necessary for our continued existence. Just as an orchestra with many talented musicians requires a conductor, our existence depends on God. The Bible says in Colossians 1.16, all things were created by him and for him. All things are held together. But what would it be like if God left us alone? We know about physical death. The body dies and we're separated from the soul. But there is a spiritual death when the soul, by choice, is separated from God. Ultimately, it's our choice. It is up to us to choose everlasting life or everlasting death, which is spiritual separation from God. And it's final. We have to choose or refuse. Do we have the ability to even imagine what everlasting death without God really involves? I don't think so. The real you is not a finite body. God wants you to know you are eternal. Whether you're saved or not or you believe in Satan or not, the important question is, where are you going to spend the rest of your life? In the presence of God or force him to withdraw himself? We all physically die, but spiritual death is a conscious choice. Make sure of your destiny. Father God provided his son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from the darkness of this world. His gift is eternal life. It's free. Just believe and renew your citizenship in heaven. To help choose life, God provided two gifts to resist evil. His written word, the Bible, which we try to share every year. And it's been preserved over 2,000 years and through the death of many martyrs and the Holy Spirit who withholds evil on earth and leads us into all truth. Please consider signing up to read 15 minutes this year for God's protection over Mountain County and our nation. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is public comment. Please limit your comments to three minutes. After two minutes, 45 seconds, you'll hear a tone that just simply says to, you have 15 seconds to wrap your comments up. And I believe Mr. Donaldson has a prepared statement. Yes, sir. Since we are in election season, politicking is prohibited, which is defined as advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office, either partisan or nonpartisan. This includes the use of words, dates, signs, props, and or wearing apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group of persons. Thank you. Okay. Our first public speaker form is John Dial, followed by Patel, last name. And Neil. Morning, commissioners. How are you? Morning. First, I want to thank the county on that response for the hurricane and the tornadoes. The guys that are cleaning up in the street, like Norm, those guys in trenches are unbelievably good. Second thing is I've been reading the newspaper and started getting the Treasure Coast paper again. And a lot of the sentiments are concerned about making RAS decisions on agenda items right now with a new commission coming in. I kind of support that. The last part of this is I've got good friends in yellow here and they're pretty persuasive. I would like the commission to take a long, hard look on whether or not we're going to want a station in Stewart and every aspect of that and lay it out before the public. Let's don't rush into anything. I don't think we have to. If you're going to take a station, you can take it today. You can take it tomorrow. You can take it next year. If they want to go to Fort Pierce and they talk about the distance between the cities that they want to run, all I'm asking is just give that a good look and a public read on it and let's see what the financial responsibility is. Thank you for your time. Neil Patel. And maybe pronounce it correctly when you get up there. Thank you. My name is Anju Patel. Good morning to all. I'm here to support the Brightline Station. I have been a resident of Martin County since over two decades and my husband has been paying taxes diligently. And this is a time when I want a station in my town in Stewart and it makes sense. It's for my children, for the future generations. And just the fact that there is stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Aventura, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Orlando, and now Stewart. Stewart will be on the road map just by the fact that we have a train station. And people will be connected to big towns and also to the world. And just the way the other towns, these important towns that I just mentioned that has the stations will also be connected to Stewart. It is important for the citizens of Stewart and the businesses. And I strongly support the station. And I know I will get the station. Thank you. All right. We're Richard Olson followed by Steve Vital. Vital. Vital. Good morning. Good morning. I don't have much to say because I think you've heard everything. You know about the city's Stewart and their issues. You know about the Brightline, you know, the good, the bad. The good is it's easy. It's a simple station where it's supposed to be. All I want to show, I'm not sure what the protocol is, but here's a plaque that basically says, you know, Brightline, the Stewart City Hall city commissioners didn't do it right. And hopefully two weeks from now, you will vote Brightline in. And this plaque will be on the wall of the new, what I call the Martin County Brightline Station. It's no longer the Stewart Brightline Station. It should be the Martin County. And it's basically showing that you five are the ones that brought it to us. So I'm not sure if I give this to you or to give it to you. Thank you. Thank you. And again, if you could pronounce your name correctly. And then you're followed by Sherlyn Thompson, maybe. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Steven Vital. I live at Knolls Road in Soles Point. I own the old Colorado Inn in downtown Stewart. I've been fighting for tourism for a large portion of my life. I am a former member of the tourism board for this county. And it's no secret that tourism is the lifeblood of the Florida economy. What happened at the City of Stewart meeting last Tuesday was a disgrace, in my opinion, the way that the gentleman from Brightline, the vice president, was treated. He was rudely approached from the dais while he was sitting in the audience and basically told to go to Fort Pierce. This Brightline station has been in the works for 40 years. People have been working on it. You have all spent countless, probably thousands of hours working on this. And we're going to allow a few rookies to come in at the last minute and take this away from our town, from our county. We need this station not only for our tourism-based economy, but for the lifestyle of its residents. I have to go pick my daughter up tonight who's traveling from St. Louis to come visit us. And I would love to just go drive down to the station at downtown Stewart and pick her up instead of wasting my entire evening late at night going down to pick her up at the airport. It's not rocket science. We always knew on the tourism board that most of the people came from millions of people are visiting us from the Miami area and the Orlando area. If we don't have this station, we're going to lose a lot. People will not be able to come here. This is the new artery that's being developed through this train station in South Florida, and it's eventually going to go over to Tampa, as we all know. Sometimes when you have a younger sibling that's misbehaving, you need to reprimand them and you need to correct the situation. And it's time for you all to take decisive action. This is the time for action. I disagree with the first gentleman who spoke that. You need to take your time. This has been analyzed for 40 years. This is the time to exercise leadership, okay, and take the bull by the horn and do what needs to be done. We have to seize the moments. All the stars are lined up. There is a grant with $50 million that's available if you make the application in December. Why would anybody pass that up and allow that to go to another town? We've all paid our federal taxes on that. That would be insane. The time is now. Please exercise leadership that I know you will and do the right thing. Thank you for your time. Cheryl Thompson followed by Raj Patel. Hi, everybody. My name is Sherry Lee. Somebody else filled out my card. A different person. Sorry about that. This might not be you, then. It's me. Cheryl Ann Thompson. It's me. That's very different than Cheryl. I have a stage name. Oh, okay. Also known as Sherry Lee. I'm Sherry Lee. I struggle enough without anybody. I know. I'm sorry. My friend is very sorry. Whoever you are, go ahead. Whoever I am, thanks for everything you have done in the past to get Brightline to come to Martin County. What you did in 2018, I think it was with that lawsuit and the settlement, you had the foresight to make sure we had a station. The city is a bit of an embarrassment to all of us right now. We just want our station. I feel like we've worked on this for a long, long time. We know the deal. We know what's involved. We have the federal money. If you guys could just assure the residents and the businesses that we're going to get the station, assure Brightline that you're going to do the deal, get it under contract, and then put a back door in for Stuart to come in and join us in six months when they get their heads out of their butts. If they do, we don't know what they're thinking. We thought we had some people convinced that it was a good idea, and they made a good deal, and that's gone off the rails, pardon the pun. So see if you can get this done for us. We support it. I think you can see that, and we appreciate your efforts. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Patel is followed by Sam Hay. Good morning, County Commissioners. My name is Raj Patel. I filled out her form. Uh-oh. It's all your fault. I'm two decades plus Martin County resident and a taxpayer for both Martin County and for the city of Stuart, same amount of years. It's been six weeks, and the Brightline has weighed on my mind daily, sometimes more than once in an hour, and the minds of all my friends and family, I'm sure, on your minds as well, and I'm pretty sure of that. It's taking a toll. Please put this to rest. The city commission, as you all know, has failed the people. We all showed up en masse, ten times more people than there are here because they're tired. So anyone to say that we should look at it and take our time and look at it more carefully makes no sense. We're going to lose it. Obviously, you've seen that the city didn't address it. It's a monumentous juncture in all our lives to have a station here. They stalled. Their intentions are only known to themselves. Nobody else knows their true intentions. All we know is they've made us a laughingstock of the entire Florida state. We've read it in the newspapers. We've seen it on TV. It's very, very embarrassing. So please put this to rest. Get us the train stop so we can all reap the benefits. We all know what the economic benefits are, the safety benefits of not having to drive on I-95 and get rear-ended or side-swiped. You all know it. The train will help intermodal transport, which is the benefit of each resident, each business owner. That's the backbone of this economy. So please, for the generations to come, when you guys, as city commissioners, plan and planners plan, you don't plan for today. You plan for 20, 30, 50 years down the line. So the time has come. Make it happen. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hay is followed by Angela Ratanella, which is probably wrong. Good morning. I'm Sam Hay. I live in Port Salerno. I see on your agenda for today's meeting there are several proposals for substantial changes to our comprehensive plan. Considering the history of the current county commission, the prospect for any further changes to the comp plan is unavoidably suspect. The recent election results for both Martin County and the City of Stewart commissions indicate that the majority of us feel we've had more than enough of excessive development. I urge you now to reject any changes which would continue this trend of overdevelopment. Given the unambiguous results of last month's elections, it would be inappropriate for this lame duck commission to make any questionable changes to our comprehensive plan. Because these proposed changes are apparently quite complicated, I don't understand them all, I believe that at the very least they should be properly presented to the public and that sufficient time be given for full public scrutiny. Any effort to rush through these changes would look a lot like our governor's ham-handed plan to bulldoze a major portion of Jonathan Dickinson's state park to build golf courses. And we know how well that sneaky attempt was received by the people of Martin County. The obvious question here is who stands to benefit from these changes? In the case of Martin County, it's not citizens who wish for the opportunity to live in a location unspoiled by nerve-wracking traffic, increased levels of crime, and rampant development. We are again faced with the inevitable question of follow the money. Who typically benefits from weakening the comp plan? It's developers who seek to maximize their profits at the expense of our environment and our quality of life. Let's put a halt to this disastrous trend now. You commissioners were elected to represent the will of the county's citizens. If you vote to approve developer-friendly changes to weaken our comp plan, you are certainly not representing the will of the people. The people of Martin County have spoken. Please respect our voice. What's the rush to make changes in the comp plan anyway? Is it just to satisfy the wishes of often unscrupulous developers before a new commission can be seated? Angela Rantanella, please. It's followed by Terry Kogel. Hi, good morning. I'm Angela Rantanella. Very nicely done. Standing here feels awkward, but I can get over that. What may happen to Martin County if you pass these amendments to change the comprehensive plan? I cannot and will not get over that. All of these people come before you. They send you emails, and all of them are asking the same thing, to please wait to vote on these changes until the new board of commissioners are seated. Yet there's a big push forward to get this done fast. There's no new laws that are commanding this to be done, and there are many other items on the agenda as well. It makes me wonder why couldn't it wait? Why not wait? I really don't have the answer. All I know is these people count on you to hear their concerns and act accordingly. And why so many changes? We believe this plan is designed to protect us from overdevelopment and should not be changed at all. I don't know anyone who's asking for the contrary. No one. We all like the special nature of Martin, want to keep it that way. So why wouldn't you? Please wait to vote on these. Thank you. Terry Kogel, followed by Dottie Lancey. Good morning, commissioners. I've been to the disaster area three times delivering supplies and emptying out two houses of debris. I would like to thank commissioners Hetherington, excuse me, Campy, and our newly elected CAP for your concern in reaching out to help our residents who have lost so much. The commissioner, however, the commissioner from the district that was severely affected by the tornadoes has never appeared and shows her true colors and all of them are dark. If there is a recall petition going around and I would like to be the first one to sign. Ms. Dottie Lancey, followed by Walter Loya, maybe. Morning, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you again. Again, I wanted to do this without notes because I wanted to speak to you on a personal level. But since I'm not as eloquent as I wish I were, I do have a couple notes here. But I'm here because I think it's very, very important and I'm going to ask you for a special favor. Please, find it in your hearts and in your consciences to table the vote on changes to the comp plan until the new board is seated next month. I know you all love this county as well as I do. We all love it and we're very grateful to be living in a, excuse me, a beautiful, beautiful part of Florida. And the reason that we do live in this beautiful part of Florida and it's different from most of the areas here in the state is because the former commissioners had the foresight and they had the selflessness to preserve our natural resources. Recent elections have shown what the people want. They aren't happy with the direction in which the present government has taken. And so I'm asking you today to do the right thing, to represent the wishes of the voters. Please do the right thing today and table any vote on the comp plan. For some of you, it's your last chance to do and show the people that you really, really care about our beautiful Martin County. Thank you, Walter, followed by Bonnie Moser. Morning, commissioners. My name is Walter Lloyd. So our new commissioners over at the city referred to as rookies, they were voted in by the taxpayers and should be regarded as such. Voters spoke in the last election. They spoke loudly. It wasn't even close. It was a landslide. So when it comes to the comprehensive growth management plan, the ear doesn't force changes, as we heard before, was so eloquently put. The number one thing from the workshop that was held for this subject, the number one thing that your constituents asked for, the priority, was that we protect and preserve our comprehensive plan with no changes. Voters have spoken loud, resulting in a lame duck commission, some of you, and it appears that part of this constituent is pushing an unwanted agenda. At least three of you can still make a difference to hold off and let the new commission have input on these issues in a fashion that represents the taxpayers, and that would be before any transmittal to the state. So, in my opinion, that also goes for Brightline. I don't think you should be making any decisions on Brightline before your new commissioners have an opportunity to weigh in on it, simply because they were voted in with such emphasis. Thank you. Bonnie is followed by Mr. Tom Pine. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Bonnie Moser. I live on southeast 10th Street in Stewart, Florida. I'm here today to talk to you about the Brightline. I emailed you all yesterday, and what I have gathered from the last few meetings that I have sacrificed time to attend at the Stewart City Commission is that I'm not confident that they are going to make this decision. It seems like they're just going to keep kicking the can down the road and using excuses to do so. I want to talk to you about a few things in terms of the Brightline. I'm a mother of two. Our families traveled in Europe and Africa extensively, and we love rail travel. It's easy for families. I don't have to worry about potty breaks or, you know, when we're going to stop to feed the kids. We get to be together as a family. But it's not also convenient. As a mother, it's safe. I work as an urban designer in the transportation field, and I want to talk to you about some statistics. From 2018 to 2023 in Florida, there were 20,346 roadway fatalities in our state. There were only 297 railway fatalities. We have a study that says from 2001 to 2009, for every billion passenger miles traveled in the United States, there were 7.28 car deaths. There were only 0.43 train deaths. Rail travel is safe, and in South Florida, where we all, I'm sure, know somebody who has died in a traffic accident, having another alternative of transportation is important. The Brightline is also an economical decision for the county. You all, I'm sure, know our county capital improvement plan. We spend $39 million annually to maintain and improve our roadways. But you drive on our roads just like I do. You know that not only are our streets not safe, but they're congested. And the conventional measures that we are taking with the Florida DOT and transportation, they're not solving either of those problems. Providing an alternative transportation mode like rail travel, that can help. I also want to talk about Brightline being a one-time cost. So we've had lots of numbers thrown around. We know that there are grants in the mix. But a lot of things, something people aren't talking about is that we're on the hook to build the station. We are not on the hook to maintain or operate the station. And that is a big deal. The Sun Rail has 16 stations up in Orlando. It costs about $3.8 million annually per station to operate and maintain. The Tri-Rail, I'm not sure how many stops it has, but I did the math, and it averages out to about $7.2 million per station. If you do the math on that over the long term of the lease, us just paying for the station, that's a good deal. We don't have to worry about maintaining and operating. And last, I just want to talk to you about folks are saying don't rush, don't rush. In the design and planning field, we have something called analysis paralysis, and it's when local governments mull over things and do new studies and have new meetings over and over and over again. Somebody mentioned before, we've been talking about this for 40 years. We've always wanted to restore rail to Stewart, Florida, and I'm asking you to please do that for us. Thank you. Mr. Tom Pine is followed by Steve Adams. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I'd like to first thank the board for having the speakers on in the rear of the chamber this morning. Shock, surprise, and thank you are in order after the repaving of Jensen Beach Boulevard for leaving the old-fashioned center turn lane. Instead of the death trap that was used to replace the center turn lane on Dixie Highway in the Porcelona area, I feel it's a rare event in Martin County when safety comes before beautification, as in the Porcelona area. I can't believe what I'm hearing, that Three Lakes Golf Club, one of the largest projects that was approved by violating the Martin County Growth Planning Plan, are now coming back to the table and have the galls ask us to pay for a bridge to go over Canter Highway, connect their two properties. Where does the greed end? Now on the destruction of the Martin County Growth Management Plan. Didn't we just pay the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council $100,000 to survey Martin County residents on their priorities for growth management policies? And if I recall correctly, the number one answer was to protect and preserve our Martin County Growth Management Plan. So once again, we will watch our elected officials do exactly the opposite of what the people said during the $100,000 survey. I can only go guess it was some kind of thank you to your friends at the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, because you sure don't seem to care about any of the work they do. Add to this the questionable use of the consent agenda, and this is a result of the voter turnout range of 30 percent range for local elections. Democrats, democracy is dying in Martin County. To have a healthy democracy is essential that the electric shows up to vote on a regular basis, or we end up right where we are today, watching the death of the Martin County difference. Voting couldn't be any easier than it is today, so why is turnout of 30 percent the norm? Is it that 70 percent of the voters have no faith in our local government? That's scary. This is the month that our governor said that counties throughout the state would have places for homeless people to pitch their tents, have toilets and water available. Can somebody please post the location of these facilities on the county's website, or is our county government just waiting for the Sheriff's Department to lock up anybody that's homeless to show our real Christian values? What you permit, you promote, what you allow, you encourage, what you condone, you own. Thank you. Steve Adams, followed by Charles Geary. Geary. Geary. Good morning. Steve Adams, Palm City. So I'll let go of some of the previous speakers about the proposed changes to the comprehensive plan. Please push that back and allow the new commission to look at that, and I'd say deny it, because what's made Martin County great and attractive is less development and it's quiet. So there's a lot of people in Martin County who want to keep it that way, which leads me to last night. I went to visit a friend in Port St. Lucie. I turned on the Martin Highway to head to I-95, and it was completely stopped west of Citrus, completely stopped, impassable. There was some sort of an accident, who knows what. But the tow truck couldn't even get, the tow truck flatbed couldn't even get to the scene because everybody was stopped. And we all eventually turned around, which allowed the tow truck to eventually get there. But there's not even a shoulder. This commission jokingly referred to the project between the turnpike and Citrus, that it's taken the state so many years to complete that. And you, in your own words, said it would take 25 years for them to build something, more lanes in the highway from Citrus out to I-95. 25 years. This commission has put the cart before the horse many times in approving developments and either bending, breaking, or literally rewriting laws or rules to promote this development. It's out of control. There's a lot of people in Martin County who are telling you this, and I please urge you to take a step back and look at it. That also includes Brightline. Take a step back. Fiscal responsibility, none of the people who are supporting Brightline say that we're throwing good money into a bad company that's hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars. Let's take a step back. The grants are not granted. They're there, but they're not granted. If they're granted, that's a different story, but they're not. So please, I urge you to take a step back, look at everything. Fiscal responsibility is very important. And let's get our infrastructure built to support what's going on. As far as Ashley Capital going out there by I-95, they're coming onto a two-lane highway that has no other emergency access. How do you do that? I don't know. Thank you. Charles. Morning, commission. Followed by Christopher Vatale. My name is Chuck Geary. I'm a local, fourth generation. Grew up riding my bicycle in downtown Stewart. I can remember when I could ride right down Flagler Avenue and no cars, very few cars. I could ride my bicycle into the post office arcade, and it was full of cobwebs. You know, we've come a long way, and the merchants and the commission worked together. The city commission worked together, passed laws and zoning ordinances, and they had a nice revitalization. And like a lot of these guys, I was shocked to see what has happened over there at the city in the last couple of weeks. They've abandoned the merchants. They've abandoned the revitalization plans. And they've abandoned the train station that we've all worked so hard for. It is now on your plate. I agree with Mr. Vatale and some of these other people that say it's not going to happen. We need adults to get involved. This is like Thanksgiving dinner where you've got the kids' table and the adult table. This issue is now on the adult table, and we're looking for leadership here. The Stewart-Martin County Chamber is composed of many people and merchants and voters. Many of them are downtown. We got together. We passed a resolution. We formed a subcommittee. We want to see this thing happen. We're here to help. Our goal is we passed a unanimous resolution in favor of this Bright Line station. Our goal is to support, encourage, and facilitate this station. We're asking you to consider us a resource, call us to help you, and let's just get this job done. Thank you. Christopher Vatale, followed by Nancy Turrell, which is my last form. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Christopher Vatale. I live on Alamanda Way in Stewart. I work with my family business at the Old Colorado Inn doing management. So I just want to speak, kind of echoing what a lot of people have said today, supporting the proposed Bright Line station. And I agree that the time to act is now. This has been, you know, being pushed off by the city. And I think that would be a huge mistake to continue pushing this off. The people have worked really hard to secure the station here in Stewart. It was already, you know, it was already secured, and now it's kind of being taken away. So most of us, I think, in Martin County want the station at the end of the day, regardless of, you know, the little numbers that we can nitpick. At the end of the day, people want the station. The train runs through 32 times a day. That's not going to stop. It would be crazy for us to let the train go through 32 times a day through Martin County and not take advantage of the benefit of a station. Um, Stewart and this county as a whole were built on train service. Um, that's our heritage. I think it would be, um, a great way to honor the heritage of this area by bringing back train service, which the, um, the community has really worked hard to fight for over the past few decades. Um, I also think that, um, there's a lot of talk about, um, um, wanting to limit, um, you know, overdevelopment, overgrowth of this area. I'm not against that. I, but I don't think that Brightline is, um, I don't think that having a train station in Martin County or in Stewart is pushing us towards, you know, this crazy overdevelopment turning into Miami. It's an asset to help, um, our downtown Stewart to, to flourish and to continue bringing in the, um, visitors that the businesses depend on without, without business in downtown Stewart. It's going to go back to what it was a few decades ago when there was, there was no business. There was nothing. Um, that's one of the treasures of Martin County is downtown Stewart. That's why many people love to live here is having this really quaint walkable downtown with beautiful restaurants and shops and all these things. And having the train will help to, to aid that, um, especially in a time when our economy is, is, is really, you know, making it difficult to, for these businesses to survive. Um, but also, you know, not only that, but also the, um, the benefit that residents and visitors will have to just be able to use the train, whether or not it, you know, regardless of the businesses, it would be great for families and, um, residents here to be able to utilize other, um, travel, you know, avenues rather than just the, the highways, which are really dangerous. So, um, yeah, I just hope that the, the commission will be able to, um, make a decision on, um, moving this along as soon as possible. Thank you. Nancy, take us home. I will try. Nancy Turrell, uh, resident of city of the Stewart, 229 Southeast coconut, and also the long serving, longstanding executive director of Martin arts, which is Martin County's local arts agency. I'm here today to express my support of the updates to chapter 16 of the County's comprehensive plan, which is the history arts and cultural element of the plan, historic preservation element of plan. I appreciate and wanted to say today that I appreciate the County's ongoing support for arts and culture in this community, both the commissioners, staff, and your partners at the regional planning council who have worked on these updates for you. Um, you have been a continued partner in helping us make sure that Martin County is a vibrant community that people love to live in, work in, and play in. Uh, being a vibrant community has allowed us as we've been working all of the years that I've been doing this on, uh, measuring economic impact of arts and culture in the community. We've continued to expand that impact. The most recent study said the nonprofit arts community has a $31 million annual economic impact. And that's really the tip of the iceberg because that is just the nonprofit arts and cultural community. It's not counting the frame shops and the videographers and all the small businesses and entrepreneurs that are part of that creative sector economy. So I appreciate your support. I look forward to continuing to work with everyone here to continue to achieve these goals, uh, both through the comprehensive plan and all the other efforts. And I did just want to take a moment to say thank you to commissioner Jenkins and Smith for your long standing service to this community. Thank you. All right. That is my last, uh, public speaker form and I'm going to go a little bit off script here and I'm going to go to, uh, we did not have, um, a bright line discussion on our agenda. Um, nor were we planning to talk about it. Uh, but at the same time, I would like to ask our County administrator to give us a, I don't know if update is the right word, but, uh, let's call it an update. An update is what it is. Yes, sir. Commissioner, um, at your last meeting year, the board authorized staff to continue negotiations with our, our partners, which was bright line and the city of Stewart, uh, and also provided the alternatives of staff to, uh, uh, uh, negotiate, uh, independently if necessary with bright line. We continue to, um, uh, uh, work with bright line on, um, a potential station. Um, the city of Stewart, as you know, had a discussion and it certainly appears that they are not a partner at this time. Um, and so moving forward in discussions with our County attorney, uh, there would be one action that we would need today that would help us continue those negotiations and that is our original concept included the, um, the city of Stewart being the, um, the property manager or property, uh, leaseholder. Um, the, if we are to, uh, have a, uh, uh, uh, negotiation continue on with the County. And I, we are also, um, keeping the door open for the city of Stewart. I think we're still desiring to have a three party agreement, but in conversations with bright line, it is also, um, unfortunately that we do have a competitor, um, to our North and they are still seriously considering that and, um, in that, that particular option. So, um, in order for the County to be the, a landlord independent of the city of Stewart, uh, we would need to, uh, issue an RFP to allow for, um, uh, a transportation, uh, lease, uh, for high speed rail. Um, and we would like to, in an according to a state statutes, the County has different rules than the, than the city. It would be fairly simple for us to, we've had some discussions with bright lane about this. Um, and, uh, and it would be my recommendation that we would authorize the RFP to include not only the location that was, uh, in the original, uh, RFP, which would be downtown, but also the property that the County owns across from the airport. So that would give us two sites to work with, um, including that. So that, that, that is really the simple update. Certainly there's been discussions about what bright line was willing to, uh, amend with the city Stewart that we would look to include. Um, there also is the issue of the grant. Um, so we would be, um, um, uh, should we be successful? Uh, ultimately we would request the board authorization to submit, um, um, uh, grant application, uh, to the federal rail administration for, um, uh, station improvements. Um, at this point in time, uh, our original proposal that the County has, the staff has not been, uh, does not feel the need to make any other amendments to what are the board has already previously provided limits to. Um, and so we would continue negotiations with, uh, bright line, um, as directed by the board. And, um, uh, with the only caveat that the County, um, in order to be a landlord, I'd need that one authorization to do an RFP. And if that's, uh, the will of the board, uh, um, I can help clarify that motion. Should you all want to continue proceeding as a potential landlord? I still, um, uh, provide a direction as previously, um, that we would, uh, um, continue to allow the city of Stewart should they want to participate to, to come in. Thank you. Mr. Hurd. I want to proceed. I do too. Mr. Smith. Go ahead. I do too. And, uh, with that, I, uh, I think time is of the essence from what I understand about the granting process, California's, um, sense of urgency to consume every dollar the federal government has relative to rail, uh, Texas follows right behind that. Um, if we don't move now, we will miss that opportunity. Um, so I would make a motion that we authorize the administrator and attorney, uh, to formalize negotiations with Brightline, uh, to go to RFP, uh, for, uh, a service provider for high speed rail. Uh, it's up to the rest of the board. I would limit it strictly to our Stewart site, uh, as much as I find the fairgrounds site an interesting site and it has its pros to it. Um, I think the importance of putting a station back in downtown services us and our community and our merchants and our folks in downtown, probably the best of any site that could service. Um, so I would limit my motion unless the refuse say, no, let's open it up. Uh, Brightline wasn't interested in the fairgrounds. I don't need, I don't think we need to confuse it with that. Um, and I think we need to expeditiously move forward and not miss the opportunity for this grant cycle because once it closes, we will be out and California will go after all of it. And from, from what I understand, um, this grant cycle, uh, because our request would be one of the smallest requests, even though $50 million is a lot of money, uh, it would also fare very well given, um, the position, a bright line currently, uh, and that it's not a billion dollar request. It's a $50 million request. And that would be my motion. I personally would prefer as many options open as we can to ensure that we get a train station. So they may not be interested in the fairgrounds today, but they may be interested in the fairgrounds tomorrow. So I, if they're not interested, they're not interested. It's not going to happen. But, um, I just, uh, Harold, my only, my, my, look, and that's why I prefaced my comments by saying it, the, the will of the board. Um, I just don't want to complicate. I don't want to bog us down. I don't want to, I don't want to missed this current grant cycle we're in. But if, if that's your inclination and others, I'm, I'm fine. But my preference is downtown Stewart. Okay. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. Um, really interesting set of circumstances over the last several years. Um, I have been up here for a while and have watched city of Stewart commission meetings very infrequently having my own meetings to worry about. I have watched every minute of each of the meetings since the new board has sat, um, giving them, um, some leeway, the new members. It is an odd set of circumstances that you would have an election day and less than one week later, six days later, new commissioners are sitting up there being asked to make monumental decisions that have long, long, um, repercussions. So I'll give them that. I sit up here and sometimes my colleagues and I disagree. Sometimes the meeting looks like it can get off the rails a little bit. Their meetings have gotten quite off the rails. Uh, I give the members of the public a lot of credit for coming that first day. I was very surprised at how many people showed up wearing yellow, uh, or in support of the train. I thought that, you know, I hadn't even heard that much of a groundswell of support prior. Uh, I was very surprised by the level of really passionate support for it, uh, and pretty consistent, not just downtown business owners, people from all over. A lot of very well-known Martin County residents participated in supporting that. And their meetings are crazy. They started four o'clock and they go until people are asleep. It's like midnight. And for the residents that stayed, you know, three, four, five hours, I know they have a small chamber. So a lot of those people that supported it stood outside in the heat and then worked their way into the lobby and then worked their way into the chambers to still speak on behalf of what they wanted. To me, that's, that says something. Um, I appreciate what we did a couple of weeks ago where we said, you know, there was, there was talk that we should then leave Stewart out and just go it alone, the County and Brightline. But we didn't. We said, let's keep our partners in there. Uh, and Brightline reached out to their commissioners. Their city staff had worked hard. I know that one of their commissioners was sitting in meetings, um, that basically looked like they were going to be promising. And then at the last minute, we're not. So as far as I'm concerned, they've had their opportunity to negotiate. Uh, they don't want it, you know, uh, as far as I can tell the commissioners, a couple of majority, there were two that were passionate for it. There was three that were obviously not interested. One who was teetering. That being said, I, I have no problem having it come back to us, excluding the city at this particular point in the negotiation to commissioner Smith's point about the city of Stewart location, the original location that does make sense to me. However, looking at negotiations, I would definitely want to keep the fairgrounds as an option simply because if you think about it, if we are able to negotiate a fair settlement and agreement with Brightline to put it right back there and exclude the city and their checkbook, they're getting everything that we were offering originally without any level of participation, either through negotiation or financially. I'm not interested in rewarding them for the last several meetings that they had by giving them the exact train station location that they were issuing. There are disadvantages of moving it from downtown as well as of course the advantages, but if the location just up the road is, it's not like we're saying, Hey, maybe you put it in Hobes Sound or Indian town. It's, it's close by. And then it brings new advantages for the people and the businesses that are located in that specific section of our community. The bottom line is, is that, you know, even today when you're listening to the speakers that are speaking for and against some of the speakers that are speaking against, so they don't like the traffic, they don't like congestion, they don't like these things. Well, I think a train service gives you a little bit of an alleviate some of those issues. All of them, of course not. I think a lot of people that are concerned about what the train station will bring and the negative comments that I hear in opposition to it, that it'll, you know, increase crime. I don't know if people completely understand the level of service that Brightline operates at. It's not, you know, which it's also a disadvantage. If it was a commuter line, more people could potentially commute back and forth to West Palm Beach. But that's where you're going to get the people that are coming back and forth that everyone seems to be afraid of. Um, I think that it would be a benefit to our community personally, and what I had said since the very beginning is that, and I was part of the 2018 negotiations, and this is my final comment, sir. We're going to have 32 trains completely bisecting the county from north to south every single day. So we're getting all of the inconvenience of the service with no benefit of the service. So a station, in my mind, would bring that. I would second Commissioner Smith's motion, as long as he adds back in the fact that the city of, uh, that the fairground or any other potential location, should one be identified elsewhere, could be at least part of the conversation. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. Sure. Um, I agree with many of the comments, but, uh, Mr. Donaldson, your direction would be in, in addition to the RFP, which I agree, although my personal preference is that it makes more sense in downtown Stewart. I think that, um, to negotiate that we need options. So, um, would we be able to simultaneously apply for grants? Because I believe that, that we are really, that the grants hinge upon this, um, station becoming a reality. So could we submit the RFP and apply for grants at the same time? I, I, I think it's important. I believe the county can submit. However, we do need an agreement for in a station with, uh, with Brightline to be successful in getting the grant. So I think, um, authorization to prepare and, and, and, uh, and have the grant submittal be, be ready to go. But I think, um, certainly before the deadline of the grant, we have to have an agreement in place. Does that need to be part of this motion? Um, it does not, um, uh, today, um, uh, but it can be. It's, uh, it's your choice. Okay. Back to the motioner, Commissioner Smith. I, I, I don't, I, I don't want to keep the conversation going on with the site. However, I, I think that has to be determined like tomorrow by Brightline. I think they have to say we're in, we're out because I think all of the timelines that hinge upon the decision-making, um, if we waffle around on this thing and we study it and we look at it and ultimately at the end of the day, I, you know, I, I can understand the idea that let's offer up any location. But if you stood at the 40,000 foot level on this decision and you looked at it and you said, where does it absolutely make the right best sense to have it's in downtown? That's where it was historically. That is what created Stewart historically. It's what brought commerce to Stewart historically. I remember this really cool story about Whitaker boats, the first Hemi marine engines that Chrysler ever made were shipped to Stewart for Whitaker boats as a prototype to put into their boat. And the president of Chrysler came and delivered them. I mean, there's just some really amazing things that happened historically in downtown Stewart. Do I think Chrysler is going to deliver engines on Brightline? No, probably not. But do I think it, it, it, does it signalize to the rail system, to the state, to, to everybody that has interest in this, that Stewart really is one of the most iconic destinations in the state of Florida? Yeah, it does. I think. Every night that my wife and I have dinner in downtown Stewart, we have lunch in downtown Stewart, probably four out of five days a week. You watch what goes on, you, you look at the, what has transpired over the last 30 years. It's nothing short of amazing of what really has happened in downtown Stewart. 30 years ago, it was a very different place 40 years ago. And so adding this piece to, to it, I think is the most important thing we could do as a county commission. I'll include it in my motion because I know it's important to some of you on the dais. I just, just the sense of urgency for Don and Sarah has to be immediate. I think we also, and I think that's what I heard you say is, does it, does the grant application hinge upon the timeline? I would apply with Brightline as quickly as possible, or at least put the application in if we can do it at the same time. If it hinges upon having that agreement on the site, even more so that we have that sense of urgency. So I would include that in my motion that the dual track run, if that is the right language for that, for the grant process. Do you have that, or do you want him to restate his motion? I'm okay with the motion. It would be the clerk. If she's all right with it, then we're fine. I need it restated. That we, we direct the county administrator and an attorney to finalize negotiations with Brightline relative, I'm sorry, finalize negotiations with Brightline, but also to issue an RFP for the downtown site, as well as any, any other site or just the fairgrounds? Just the fairgrounds is fine with me. Yeah, me too. Okay. Just the fairgrounds. So the negotiations that are entered into would give us the option of having a conversation with Brightline about downtown Stewart, fairgrounds site, and that coincidental coterminous to that, we work with Brightline to apply to the federal government for the, I forget what the grant is called. It's, um, it's a, it's a rail, uh, rail improvement grant. Uh, I don't recall the title. Whichever one that is, uh, for the maximum, uh, allows us to apply for this station. Seconder agrees. Okay. Commissioner Hurd. Two quick questions. One is, um, the city of Stewart has legal obligations that are not extinguished. Isn't that correct? Uh, there is the possibility of that, yes, Commissioner. And secondly, can, if we can put together an agreement with Brightline, um, will we have time in between November 12th, which is our next meeting, and the deadline for the, uh, grant to prepare a successful grant, a potentially successful grant? Yes. Okay. Okay. With that, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right. On that high note, um, we're going to take our 10.30, uh, closed captioning break. Uh, we'll be back in about 10 minutes. All right. Welcome back to our, uh, uh, commission meeting. Uh, and we are, we left off with, uh, County, uh, sorry, Commissioner Comments. Commissioner Smith. I'm all set. Commissioner Campy, whatever your name is. All set. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, it's been 13 days since, uh, Hurricane Milton unevenly impacted our county. And by unevenly, I say, I say that because every other storm that we've had has pretty much impacted county, us countywide. Um, and this storm did not do that. Um, it was, the impacts were very, very localized. Um, people were prepared for a hurricane. They were not prepared for tornadoes. And the tornadoes were the thing that devastated parts of our community. As I, as I said, very, very unevenly. District four was really, really hard hit. Um, and it's, it's, uh, heart wrenching to hear firsthand the residents talking about sitting there on Wednesday afternoon, sitting safely in their houses. And with no warning, their front doors are sucked out, their front windows are sucked out, their back windows are sucked out, their glass shards flying everywhere, their roof is lifted off. And it's unbelievable that we had no fatalities. There were lots of people who were subject to, to, uh, storms of broken glass in their homes. Um, the people in, uh, Manatee Lakes, New Monrovia, Port Salerno, uh, the preserve Mariner Sands and Rocky Point were especially hard hit. And I know that, that countywide, um, many of us feel that this storm is over. And for those residents, it's just beginning. Um, their neighborhoods are in complete disarray. Uh, they've been, they've been heavily, uh, destroyed. And I want those residents to know that they are our top priority and that we will not rest until their neighborhoods are completely recovered. And it's going to be a long recovery. You know, it's going to take, a lot of the homes were destroyed and a lot of them, but I don't know, I think they're beyond repair, but know that the county will be, uh, right there doing everything that we can to make sure that, uh, recovery is, is, is efficient and fast and complete. And also I want to thank our first responders, um, by all accounts, they did a terrific job and are continuing to do a terrific job. And also emergencies like this really shows Martin County's best side. Uh, we respond very, very well to emergencies and, and support our neighborhoods and our neighbors and our friends and family. Um, so it's, um, I, I want to thank all the residents for their support. Um, it was a, it was a terrific response. Thank you. Okay. Do you have something? I do. I had, uh, and I think I need to follow on on that. Um, uh, and I think we'll be giving a, um, uh, you know, some updates to the board in the coming, uh, meetings. But, uh, you know, tomorrow I know, uh, our representative Overdorf and, um, and Brian Mass and others are having some, have been reaching out in the local community and, um, and Commissioner Hurd and I've had some discussions of sort of an ad hoc committee, nothing official at this point, other than we're meeting to, to discuss how we get people moved back in. And, uh, Commissioner Jenkins will join that committee after he's out of office because it involves, you know, potentially how we deal with land trusts and because we have three different types of folks there, those that were fully insured and had incomes to rebuild and you see them out there with dumpsters doing it. You have those that are partially insured, whether their insurance may only cover a portion of the damage, um, that will maybe need some assistance. And then you have those who are completely uninsured, but own the property and, and how do we deal with that? And so I think we're going to try to see how we work with our nonprofits, um, our, our local folks and, uh, and how we can get, keep the Newman, Rovia, Dixie Park and other areas in our community that want to remain there. How can they remain there without being, um, financially displaced? And so those are, I think that's important for the citizens there to know that we, we have not given up and, uh, we're going to keep, uh, looking for some creative solutions to, uh, help people stay where they, where they were. Commissioner Smith. I, I hope, and maybe we can get this at, at our last meeting, but it would be good to get sort of an update relative to the storm as a whole. Um, I've had a lot of conversations with folks about an idea that we've been talking about for years relative to how we shelter and, and what we do in our sheltering program. Uh, it costs the school board, uh, and the state a fortune, uh, when we shut down our schools and, and unfortunately or fortunately, I guess they're not as well used as they used to be because prior to probably Francis and Jean, we had much different building standards. And since all that time has happened, um, people have learned through codes and whatnot, but houses are better than they ever were, but still, um, the sheltering expense is, is astronomical. And hopefully we can have the conversation or you all can have the conversation about, um, centralizing a location, uh, that would be able to handle all of our needs in one centralized spot that would be both cost affordable. It would keep us from shutting down our schools, um, a day in advance, two days in advance, and then going through the incredibly expensive cost of cleaning our schools to get them back up and operational as quickly as possible. So hopefully that's something you'll put on your agenda. Um, maybe we can get an update, um, in our November meeting as to what was the, what was the financial implication. Uh, I've talked to, um, uh, Superintendent Mayne about it, uh, and some of the school board members as well. Um, and, and they're certainly interested in the conversation. So, um, as y'all move forward, hopefully we can keep that, um, on our radar screen as well as all the efforts which go into a storm recovery. Um, I applaud and Norm this morning, I think, you know, just hearing that story this morning of, of what his level of, of attention to what we do during the storms and all the fire rescue, all the sheriff's department is what makes us special and different. And thank you for all of that. Yeah. So I think I just have to thank Michael Mayne, our superintendent for, uh, being part of the incident command group who did a really good job of working collectively on making decisions on schools and, and sheltering and getting that school open right away for, for back in business. And, of course, Sarah Snyder was a great, uh, uh, assistance in our chief chantilly. So there is a whole host of folks that I think I can't do it all right now. Um, but, um, um, we'll bring that out as an agenda item and also give you an update on, um, financially what we see the landscape is for this disaster response, uh, as well as how we're working with FEMA and how the state of Florida for, to get our maximum reimbursement. I do have one other thing I want to read into the record that was sort of the, uh, and, you know, it's a, it's, it's a, um, not transitioning from a positive to a, um, a, just a statement. And I just want to just regarding, um, um, some of the comments that were made in the city of Stewart meeting about transparency. And, uh, just real briefly, I just want to take a moment to address serious accusations by made by commissioner Reed at the recent city of Stewart meeting. Mr. Reed spoke about a lack of transparency, closed door meetings, question staff integrity, and suggested that proper procedures such as the Florida sunshine law are not being followed regarding bright line. While we respect open dialogue is essential that communications be based on accurate information. It is disappointing that these statements have been made publicly and do not reflect the facts unfounded claims. Do not only under, uh, undermine the hard work staff, but also erode the trust within the community. We all serve our staff takes pride in upholding the highest standards of integrity. I assure you that our team is fully committed to following all established rules, guidelines and best practices in every aspect of our work. Everything we do is in compliance with the sunshine law and our public records law, which we have a whole division now devoted to that. Our goal is, and always will be, to maintain full transparency and ensure that all operations are conducted with the us most professionalism. And we welcome the opportunity to clarify processes or provide additional information as needed. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And I'm good. Um, so I'd like to do our consent poll now. Um, Peter Walden is going to do that for us. And then the applicant is going to give us a, uh, update on the, um, state of the other public benefits that, um, is part of the PD agreement. Uh, good morning, commissioners, Peter Walden, deputy growth management director, uh, before you this morning is a request to have a deed of agricultural easement placed on 846 acres of the Becker B14 Grove limited partnership property. Uh, this was done in conjunction with the discovery land companies application to develop under the rural lifestyle land use. Uh, one of the keystones for that land use is that if you want to increase density over the existing agricultural one unit per 20 acres, you must set aside, uh, one acre for every two acres inside the PUD, the planned unit development. And that has to be set aside in either a conservation or agricultural easement. And that was done through the planned unit development agreement agreed to last year. And, uh, so today that they've come forward to ask for the, uh, approval of the agricultural easement, including a third party conservation, Florida. So there's a lot of, uh, safety measures built into this easement. It's not just between the County and, uh, the developer. There is a third party involved that makes it safer and it's designed to go on for perpetuity. And, um, I'll be glad to answer any questions that you might have regarding it. And the third party, um, was put in place because of what happened in Palm Beach County with their agricultural easements that only had two parties. And then Palm Beach County years later decided, uh, to not do that. So we now have three parties. Um, so the likelihood of that property ever becoming anything other than an agricultural entity is, uh, never going to happen. Commissioner Smith. Um, that's a really good thing. Um, we did a very similar, although it wasn't a private nonprofit, I say private, it wasn't a nonprofit, but when we did Allapata, uh, that was a three-way agreement between the federal government, the state government and us. And it was a very rare agreement that I don't know has really been, um, replicated since. Um, but the specific reason why Steve Fry way back when, and everybody who worked on that said to do that was for that very reason that we're doing that with this. So, um, great stuff. Good. I mean, when you think about it, this is prime property that is right along the I-95 corridor, which could potentially in, uh, 20, 30 years have thousands of homes or a campus of IBM or, or something. Now we have taken that completely off the, off the, uh, plate and, um, and, uh, Commissioner Hart. Yeah. Uh, one question and I'm on page 108 or page three of 28 and it's, it's an ag easement and improvements include man-made improvements include fountains, pools, including swimming pools, tennis courts, irrigation facilities, and patios. And I wonder why those things are included in an agricultural easement. They don't sound like agricultural uses to me. Okay. So these, uh, fountains and pools are sometimes, uh, well, swimming pools, tennis courts. Let me see. And this, I think this is taken out of context a little bit. So these are, I believe. So yeah, um, these are not anything that has any habit, habitable residential components. I'm not sure why the swimming pools are in there, but, um, don't, um, get any help with this one. So some of, yeah, Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. So this was, uh, drafted by Conservation Florida. We participated heavily in it. Some of the things for the improvements are things that are already existing on the property. Um, I don't know that there's a swimming pool on the property, but, um, Conservation Florida is the one that was instrumental in including that. Um, we can certainly take that out if that's a concern and move forward with the easement without that, if that's the board's desire. That would be my preference. Yeah. Everything else is basically doing, to do with agricultural uses and that type of thing. So the pools and the, including the swimming pools would be the only questionable item why that would be needed. Well, we're one of the grantees. So I think it's important that if we have a true agricultural easement, that it be not, that it not include those man-made structures. We can have that removed. That's the board's desire. We are a guarantee. In that case, I move that we exclude, uh, or that we, that the, uh, inclusions not include fountains, pools, including swimming pools, tennis courts, irrigation facilities, and patios. Oh, can you take fountains out of that? Because fountains need to be. And irrigation facilities might be, uh, agriculture related too, so. Okay. Can we? I'd be comfortable with swimming pools and tennis courts. Fountains? Patios? Patio is just a patio. What does it have to do with agriculture? There's an existing patio on their, on their office facility. I'm sure that has something. Yeah, I think that relates to the existing nursery operations that are out there. There are offices that have patios for outdoor, you know, for lunch or whatever. That's just part of the existing operation. Let's let Mr. Melchory comment on this and see. Good morning. Bring us some clarity here. My probably, yes, we do not have swimming pools or things like that, and we certainly have no objection to have that language taken out. Irrigation, yes, obviously we're a tree farm. We have to keep irrigation in. And there is a patio on some of the, the, our office building. And we do have a patio associated with our maintenance area where our guys take breaks and things like that, so. And the fountain has to be in the lakes for water quality. So that's just to variate the, uh, the lake. Then, then remove swimming pools and tennis courts. Absolutely fine with that. There we go. Excellent. Look at how easy that was. Okay. So you are amending your, can you restate your. Sure. I will move, approve, move staff's recommendation, um, that we approve the, uh, deed of agricultural easement from Becker B-14, uh, to Conservation Florida and Martin County, uh, excluding and eliminating the, uh, language on improvements to not include swimming pools and tennis courts. Perfect. Yes. Okay. I'll wait to. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. So we're going to allow Mr. McCrory to. I would draw my second. We're going to allow Mr. McCrory to give us an update on the other, um, uh, public benefits that are required under the PED. I appreciate that. And my apologies. I, for the clarification on the pools, I truthfully. And truthfully, that's something we missed and it shouldn't have been in there. Yeah, I missed it for sure. Um, as you know, that part of our PED agreement, there was several public benefits that were, um, incorporated into the contract. Just want to give you a quick update on where they stand. Um, there was four principal public benefits. Obviously, the first one is the conservation easement or the ag easement that's sitting in front of you today that hopefully you will prove we'll get amended and get that recorded. Um, the second one is the relocation of the Hobestown, Hobestown, old Hobestown train station down to, um, some property back into Hobestown. Um, if you have come by the property recently or in the last three months, you've noticed that it's sitting on a trailer. Uh, we are awaiting FPL and, um, AT&T to grant us the permits to actually transport it down there. Um, AT&T, we got kind of hung up on a strike, so we lost about 60 days there. And obviously, FPL, with their storm recoveries, it's been a little bit difficult getting them scheduled, but, um, we're actively trying to get that done. And as soon as it's scheduled, um, they can hook a tractor trailer up to the trailer and take it away. Um, the other public, or one of the other public benefits was the granting of the existing facilities to, or existing barn facilities over to the state park, um, for public benefit and public use. Uh, so far, that requires two agreements, one from South Florida Water Management District and one from DEP through their acquisitions and acquisition and restoration council. We have received approval from South Florida for the transaction. Uh, we originally scheduled to go in front of ARC back on October 13th, obviously because of the storms that was canceled. Um, that meeting is now scheduled for November 1st. Um, so we'll be in Tallahassee November 1st. Um, we've got no indications from ARC other than they're pleased with the agreement. We're going to move forward there. The east west, or the east access road that connects bridge road to that facility is done. Um, so basically once we get approval from ARC, we'll go through the formal closing process and we'll be able to go ahead and, um, dedicate that land, or that land to the park. Um, the last is the habitat restoration area, the 124 acres in the northeast portion of the property that is basically going through the earthwork process right now. I would hope to have that pretty well wrapped up by first quarter, um, then getting into the plantings and basically all of that stuff. Um, so I'm by the end of first quarter, beginning of second quarter, that should be done. And that's really the almost complete the four biggest public benefits that we have. Thank you so much. Happy to answer any other questions or update you on anything else. Commissioner Hetherington. I wanted to say that I had an opportunity to, um, ride by and I saw the train station is ready to be lifted. And you had a number of public benefits on your project and every single one of them you have committed and you have, you have completed and held true to your word and committed to those benefits. As I drove by and I saw the train station ready to move, you wouldn't know that your development was even taking place riding by. You committed to rural lifestyle. You committed to that. And I thank you for all the public benefits and for doing what you said you were going to do. Thank you. With that, we have a motion by Commissioner Hurd. And that was my second. And seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. Uh, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And thank you, Rick. Appreciate it. Okay. Now, public hearing number one, legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report ear based comprehensive plan amendment 24-04 chapter four, future land use element, a text amendment, Mr. Clyde Doolin. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Clyde Doolin. I'm the comprehensive planning administrator. And before we launch into chapter four, I'd like to do some housekeeping or cover a couple of introductory subjects and comments with you. As you may know, as you may remember, the ear process, the creation of an evaluation and appraisal report, started in 2023. Uh, we presented it to the board for approval on March 5 of 2024. And, uh, we received this letter from the Department of Commerce, the state land planning agency, which notified us that we had to do all of our transmittals before November 27, 2024. Uh, this is an entirely, uh, a process that is entirely driven by state statute. We do this every seven years. We did it in 2008 and nine. We did it in 2000, um, seven, 16, 17, and, uh, we're doing it again now. Um, and as you can see, the, the state land planning agency has given us a date of November 27, 2024 to send all of these amendments up and they must all go at once in one package, all of the items together. So I wanted to cover that quickly just so that everybody understands the, uh, the why. And the, the timeframe for this also on November, uh, I'm sorry, on March 5, 2023, the board asked the, uh, Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, which did our year outreach for additional public comment or additional, uh, survey work, uh, to reach out to some of the community, uh, entities like the school district and chamber of commerce and someone like that. Uh, and on, um, um, we attached it as a supplemental to the first public hearing, uh, there is additional evaluation and appraisal, uh, public input summary, uh, it's on page 465 of your agenda package, uh, it was directed by the board to be done and the, uh, regional planning council staff did that and we thank them very much for it. Uh, it, uh, it, uh, reflects, uh, additional community input, uh, moving on, uh, to the overall agenda, uh, public hearings one through five are, um, are items that are new or they provide new info, uh, and public hearings six through 16. Uh, you have seen previously in September, uh, and voted on each of them, uh, you began the public hearings in September for items, uh, public hearings six through 16 and, uh, we'll be happy to do a full presentation on those if you want or if you need, uh, or if an abbreviated presentation or no presentation is necessary, we'll be happy to, uh, to, uh, not do that if, if that's not needed. Uh, you have additional public comment and agency comments and so on that came in. After our agenda packages were finished and they are on the dais for you, I wanted to put that into the record, um, so that everyone knows that they, it has been done, has been put into, um, into place. Getting into chapter four, uh, the, um, this is the future land use element and, um, Nikki Van Vano has referred to this as the heart of the conference plan. Before we get into that, could you give the public an idea of how many public hearings that this is, uh, uh, uh, experienced up to this point because, um, uh, I'm hearing that this is our first meeting to talk about this? Certainly. Um, since March five, uh, each of these items, uh, in public hearings one through 16 has been presented to the local planning agency. They, they have voted on each and every one of them, uh, and then this is the second public hearing, um, as I said, for public hearings six through 16, they began in September. The board, uh, looked at each of these items, um, in September 10 and September 24, those six through 16 and, uh, voted on them and considered them. Um, a few chapters like chapter four, chapter 14 have not been seen before. This is your first, uh, look at them here today, uh, but this is just the transmittal hearing is just, there are three basic sets of hearings. There's the LPA, there's the transmittal hearing, and then there's a final adoption that will not occur until next year. This is not the final adoption on any of these. Um, the actions taken here today are merely to make changes that the board directs and then to transmit it to the state land planning agency and all of the state agencies like the DEP and the DOT and, uh, it will come back. We will get a 60 days after we will get what's called an objections, recommendations, and comments report from those state agencies. We will have to address any objections in that report. The board can make additional changes that were not made here today or directed here today. And, um, the board has final approval for final adoption. Uh, I don't expect the ORC report until probably January, early in January, and so we probably won't be scheduling a public hearing until February, uh, to present these items, uh, items six through six, one through 16, uh, uh, will be presented again to the board for final adoption. Okay. So just for clarity, the reason why we're having this today, uh, and not in December with a new board is because we have a deadline of November 27th, right? Correct. So any change, you need a couple of whatever's to get that done, right? So there's that. And two is that if a new commission comes along and decides that they don't want to adopt what we decide today, they have full right to do that. So the hysteria that somehow Doug and I on our way out the door are trying to alter negatively impact our comprehensive plan is nonsense. Thank you. You don't need to answer that. All right. So go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I'm going to go into the staff report for chapter four and go through it because this has some of the more substantive changes of any changes in any chapter being presented to you here today. And what I want to lead off with is on the first page of the staff report is, uh, a quote from Florida statutes, uh, 163-3191, a local government's shall, it's not optional, shall comprehensively evaluate and as necessary update comprehensive plans to reflect changes in local conditions. That's not specifically making a required change in one spot or another like there are other sections we'll cite today. But that is, um, the requirement of Florida statute that we look at other issues and some of those will be presented in this staff report for chapter four here today. Moving into the staff report and into the issues, um, there are 10 items I want to go over with you here today in chapter four. Uh, number one is tabular data in tables 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, and, uh, these are regular just updates. This is just, you know, updating the, uh, number of, uh, acres that are in each future land use designation, number of acres in each, um, tax district that the, the, uh, property appraiser has. There's nothing but a basic update to information here. This is an example, uh, example of something that our own plan requires to be updated regularly. Uh, a partial control number is added to policy 4.7A14, which allows, uh, the extension of water and sewer to a, a property that Martin County acquired, uh, next to the solid waste transfer and recycling facility. Uh, there is a plan, there's a plan policy that already permits water and sewer to extend to the solid waste and transfer facility out on, uh, uh, Bush Street and, uh, this additional nine acre parcel was acquired. We discussed this in one of our other presentations on September 24, I believe, and this is just an internal consistency change in chapter four so that it matches what's in the other chapters. Now, item three is text proposed for section 4-1B, uh, dealing with a composite wetland map. Again, we discussed this in chapter, uh, nine in a previous presentation, and this is just for consistency with chapter nine. Uh, a minor text change for consistency, uh, is also proposed in 4-2A, and that's for consistency with chapter eight, coastal management element, um, policy change to 4, 4.5C1 recognizes the United States Department of Agricultural Natural Resources Conservation Service soil data, which is regularly updated and available on the web. It's being recognized in addition to the 1981 soil survey, which we have referenced since 1982. Uh, we're not taking away the 1981, we're just referencing this additional, more up-to-date data for soil, uh, use, and we use soil data whenever we do future land use map amendments and so on like that. Objective 4, um, 4.5E and Policy 4.5E2, Barrier Island Development Restrictions. This is a change, uh, recognized in chapter four for consistency with chapter eight, dealing with flood, uh, exposure to flood risk and tidal inundation. Chapter 163-3177 requires us to go to 10 and 20-year minimum planning periods. There are numerous sections in chapter four, uh, that are going to change it from a 15-year to a 20-year planning period, and this is a case in many other chapters that, uh, will be considered here today and have been considered in September. Uh, along with that, uh, let me go to, uh, the page because I wanted to recognize that our future land use map, this is a 742, our future land use series, um, actually makes reference to a planning period, and we, and we update this with every year, uh, we've bumped it out, you know, from 2005 to 2020, uh, from 2000 to 2015 and so on like that, and we're proposing to bump out the future land use map planning period to 2024, consistent with that 20-year, uh, planning period that's required in Florida statutes. We would normally have just said bump it out to 20-40, but the, uh, statute moves us to 20-45. Um, that's number seven, uh, that's pretty minor. Number eight in the, uh, presentation, eight, nine, and ten are where the real meaty, uh, material is and where, um, we'll be happy to get into any discussion with you. Um, staff is proposing and recommending a change. Uh, this is a local conditions subject, uh, that would allow the blending of, uh, sharing of infrastructure between two different future land use designations. Uh, presently, residential and commercial future land use designations have to have their own infrastructure on their own separate land use designations. Um, but we have circumstances where one property owner is proposing a unified development that incorporates two different future land use designations, like residential and medium dense, I'm sorry, medium density residential and commercial, and a lot of times the topography of the land really doesn't lend itself well to having storm water in two different places for two different types of development. The habitat is located in one place and not in the other, and it's best to do the 25% native upland habitat where the habitat is and where it's of the best quality. So, um, this is a staff recommendation to allow the blending or, or the, the sharing of infrastructure on two different land use designations, just residential and commercial, does not extend to industrial, uh, because plan policies pretty much discourage having industrial and residential in close proximity to each other. So, the proposed changes would be to 4.9 A3 and 4.10 B5. Moving on to number nine, disconnecting planning periods from residential capacity analysis. Our plan policies, uh, in two specific areas, section 4.2 A9 and policy 4.1 D6 require 10 and 15 year planning periods, uh, and require our residential capacity analysis to look at, uh, consider those two planning periods. And there's language in there that requires that when there's insufficient capacity in the primary and set or secondary for the projected population growth for the 15 year planning period, uh, the, uh, expansion of residential capacity shall commence. Uh, we also have other policies in our plan, you know, specifically in objective 4.7 that, uh, require criteria to be met for any expansion of the primary urban service district. And we're suggesting that maybe this one should also have to comply with those, you know, any proposal that or any expansion necessary as a requirement of this should also comply with other policies in the plan. Um, and the staff report has additional analysis on 4.7 A7, which lists those eight criteria, but staff is recommending a piece of text that doesn't take away any of the other language, but simply would say, oh, I don't like that. Uh, Martin County shall not make residential capacity analysis the sole determining factor for amending the urban service districts. All decisions to amend the urban service districts shall be consistent with goal 4.7 and supporting policies. Uh, it doesn't take away anything. It adds to the requirement to comply with all plan policies. So that's number nine in staff report of substantive changes. And the last item is eliminating dependence on the decennial census in the residential capacity analysis methodology. Not only does Florida statute require us to look at local conditions, but our own plan policy in chapter one preamble requires that every five years staff shall analyze previous projections to determine the accuracy of the methodology and improve on it for future projections. We've worked with the decennial census in our residential capacity analysis on a number of occasions now. And as you know, we only get it once every 10 years. And so in between those 10 years, the data gets pretty stale. And, uh, so we would recommend not using the decennial census. Uh, we would recommend instead using, um, EDR and Bieber, which are state agencies that provide very high quality data for projecting population and projecting growth. And, um, we have, that's available to us annually, if not more often from those state agencies for total housing units, we would recommend using the, uh, housing unit count that the property appraiser has. That too is more up to date than the decennial census. And it would allow us to have, uh, more up to date data. Uh, along with that, uh, there is a subject in the residential capacity analysis called excess vacant housing. That is a statistic and a number that is only available through the decennial census. There is no other source that we have to get that data. And that is the adding in of vacant housing units, not vacant land, not vacant lots, not site plans that haven't been approved, but actual housing units that have been no longer are not being lived in. And in 2013, this was put into the capacity analysis because we had, we were still coming out of the worst recession since the great depression. And, um, the justification for that is, was found actually written into ordinance 938 and I'm highlighting it on the screen. And it talked about how the 2010 census and the great recession made it clear that we had a lot of excess vacant units. We had houses where people walked away, turned them over the bank, let the yard grow over and let the pool go green. We don't have that in 2024 today. And especially in our post COVID housing, uh, economy, uh, this is not an issue. So staff would recommend removing this particular portion from the, uh, residential capacity analysis. And, uh, with that, I will end the staff presentation on, uh, chapter four and be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I'm starting on page seven of 84 to 28. Um, I'm looking at the, the, um, existing land use tables and I'm looking from the difference from 2009, um, which is, uh, undeveloped acreage, which is let's call it 70,000 acres to 2024, where there are 13,000 acres. So that means that in the last 15 years, 57,000 acres have developed. No, ma'am. What does that mean? It's really difficult to explain the, the property appraisers, um, DOR codes, Department of Revenue codes. Um, they have their own rhyme and their own reason for doing so. It's for taxation purposes. Uh, we're required to list, uh, certain data, the Department of Community Department of Commerce, the state land planning agency has. Um, these, this is just a data update based upon property appraiser data. It does not reflect the development of, uh, of land as we do development every day. And we, we do reviews of development every day. So in 2009, were the property appraisers, uh, statistics used also? Yes. Then there's still a 57,000 acre swing from the same data source. Okay. Um, estimated wetland acreage in 2017 was 39,000. In 2024 was 37,500. So that means that in, um, seven acres, seven years, 1,500 acres of wetlands disappeared when we know allow no impacts to wetlands? No, the, we do the best we can with wetland acreage. We do remote sensing data. And as we discussed in one of the items earlier on here in this presentation, we're not using, we're, we're deemphasizing the use of, uh, the composite wetlands map and that data that goes into figure nine one. Uh, and for the very reasons identified in this staff report, that is remote sensing data that is taken from high altitude aerial photography, uh, national wetlands inventory data that is not sufficient or, or I'm sorry, not equivalent to data obtained on the ground with onsite delineations and consistent with state statute. So this is a best available remote sensing data that we use. It's not equivalent to onsite delineation. Did we use the same data source for our, uh, estimates in 2009, 2017 and 2024? Yes. So between 2009 and 2017, um, 350 wetland acres disappeared using the same data, we estimate that from 2017 to 2024, 1500 acres disappeared. As I said, the data is remote sensing. It's not something you can compare to the onsite delineations in site, in site planning. It's unfortunately the best we have available. I'd like to have better data for this kind of, uh, analysis, but it's, it's another reason why you have to take all data and, uh, in these, in this long range planning as with a grain of salt. This is the data that you're presenting. This is the only data I have to rely upon. It's the only data we have to rely on. But it's not accurate. It's not even close to being accurate. And yet it's in our comprehensive plan. Um, I'm on the residential capacity determination before Martin County shall not make residential capacity analysis. The sole determining factor for amending the urban service districts, all this, all decisions to amend urban service districts shall be policy decisions consistent with goal 4.7 and supporting policies. Now I'll read 4.7 to see what we're going to rely upon. Do you have any number commissioner? Yeah, it's 40 of 84 or 261. And it says, okay, this is what we're replacing the residential capacity analysis with to regulate urban sprawl by directing growth in a timely and efficient manner to, to areas with urban public facilities and services where they are programmed to be available at the levels of service adopted in this plan. That's what we're replacing empirical data with. Uh, no, ma'am. That's 4.7. Uh, allow me to scroll down 4.7. Uh, no, that's not the right spot. 4.7 is describing, uh, a great many things about the primary urban service district. I'm going to get down to the policy where we're adding in the requirement to comply with 4.7 a seven and the requirement to comply with all of these criteria one through eight. How do you demonstrate that reasonable capacity doesn't exist? We have, we have a reliable, uh, methodology right now, but we're giving that up. I don't know how you demonstrate that the, how do you, how do you demonstrate that the land affected is suitable for urban uses? How do you demonstrate that reasonable capacity doesn't exist on suitable land? It's, these are criteria that we consider whenever we have a, uh, proposed expansion of the primary urban service district, and we're simply requiring that they also be considered in addition to the residential capacity analysis. We're adding to the requirements. No, we're not. We're subtracting. And also on page, I don't know what it is, 265 or 44 of 84. These are just some illustrations of exceptions to, um, development being required to be inside the urban service boundary. We have parcel numbers and, and, and things like development on the parcels described in that certain deed recorded in official records book 2571 page 1350 of the public records. Nobody knows what that is. I certainly don't. So you make these exceptions and then you just, uh, don't describe them except by number. And then shared infrastructure on residential and commercial development. You know, we, we don't allow that now, uh, because we have stated, uh, in every way possible that commercial and residential uses are incompatible. And yet now we're accepting that they can share infrastructure. We, this, this, this is the most significant chapter in the comprehensive plan. It's, it's where our strategies and our methodologies are laid out specifically to determine how we can grow in the future. And we are amending those right out of there. That's it. Commissioner Smith. I was going to make the comment earlier relative to, I think, what transpired with the agricultural, uh, acreage numbers. Some 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, there was a significant shift in the state of Florida on how, uh, property appraisers viewed agricultural exemptions. I don't know if all of you were here at the time, but we started getting calls from people on canter highway, uh, that had enjoyed their agricultural exemption for decades. And if they had a 20 acre or maybe it was a 40 acre parcel on canter, all of a sudden 10% of it was, um, agriculturally exempt and the rest was now taxable. And their beef was that I've had this generationally in agricultural exemption. And now you're forcing me to pay taxes on it because it's not active agriculture. And what happened was, and this isn't criticism, it's just, I, there, there, I don't know that there was ever a full explanation of what happened, but by region in our County, we started reassessing what was active ag and what was not active ag. And so that one parcel, which now perhaps has a very large box being built on it as a somewhat, as a result of these kinds of decisions in policy, um, had a few trees, um, that were still considered to be active agriculture on their 20 or 40 acres. I forget which was the final number. And it went from hundreds of dollars in taxes to tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and they were sold. And so through no fault of anybody up here or anything else, what was once classified as active agriculture no longer is agriculture pieces, itty bitty pieces of it are, uh, but not the total number which I suspect would have a significant, um, impact relative to the codes and how the property appraiser codes various aspects of our parcels all over Martin County on that one issue. And on the last issue that was commented on, um, I would say this much, um, the parcel, at least that I understand could have, would have shared a residential and commercial access point would have had a site plan, um, on canter that really might have been a, a, a pretty kind of cool, interesting site plan through reviewed, uh, when Senate bill 102, I think it was affordable housing was it 102, um, came in to be, uh, because we didn't allow the sharing of land uses. Um, and we were basically denying them the ability to do a mix of uses across the two land uses because they couldn't share the same access point is now going to be, uh, the recipient of a Senate bill 102 affordable housing project. And so sometimes you have to, um, be careful of what you ask for because you might actually get it. If I may follow up on that. Thank you, commissioner, for the very good description on the agricultural issue and the property appraisers codes. I, you're more aware of the, some of that than I am on the sharing of land uses issue. Uh, uh, I put a, on a graphic on the screen, uh, for everybody to, to help illustrate. Um, I didn't, I intentionally have not identified anybody's property. Um, but this is a large right of way that provides access. This is a much more limited app right away that provides access and to upgrade the right of way here where my cursor is on the right hand side to provide access to a residential development on this property would impact a lot of other residential property owners. Uh, whereas, if you, if, if we were allowed to, uh, provide access through the general commercial, which is the purple and the red is the medium density residential from a major thoroughfare, it wouldn't impact other property owners, residential property owners on the east side of the, uh, proposed residential development that you see. And what I have illustrated here is one property ownership outlined and two different land use designations within that property ownership. And, um, it, it's an example of a site where I know most of the habitat is back here on the eastern end in the, in the, um, residential area and where you don't want the access going through the habitat anyway. Um, and where, um, it allows staff to work with the applicant to come up with a design that has less impact on habitat and less impact on surrounding residential areas. And for those of you who are not familiar with Senate Bill 102, for those in the community that were not happy with all the apartment units that were built in the city of Stewart over the last six or seven years, um, these kinds of decisions are what force you in the direction of getting what we will end up with. And so I think for Martin County to have better control over its future and what land uses and zoning produce, I think it's a really good idea to be able to give our staff the best tool possible. The other thing I was going to say, um, just before, um, we went into commissioner discussion on this item, uh, do not ever retire Clyde. Okay. I, I, I don't know that everybody watching or listening truly appreciate the amount of knowledge and the amount of, of, um, historical knowledge and understanding of all of this process that you have. And you rattled through some stuff that was incredibly complex and complicated as if you like just had it all right here. And so, uh, for all my years of doing this, I thank you for your ability to do that. Thank you. So I have maybe a little answer to the wetland thing. Uh, just my experience working with, uh, Michael, you stood with our environmental things. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, Paul. Um, but, uh, Banner Lake at one point was considered a wetland. Well, we did a study and it's mostly a lake, which then that would diminish the acreage of a wetland. And all of that stuff, uh, we now, um, that goes all the way up to, uh, Poinciana Gardens. All of those wetlands have been actually delineated in the acreage is actually accurate. So I'm sure that that has, and I, you know, I don't know for a fact, but I'm, it's logical that that would alter the numbers from a guess to a more accurate number. Right. So that's, that's a perfect example that's applicable both in past data and in present data, uh, of how the, the remote sensing is going to treat the lake and the wetland around it all as one. I tell you what, um, uh, all of my experiences with, uh, with that's been one of my most rewarding one is, is working with, uh, those guys and understanding nature and hydrology. And I've gotten really a lot out of it and I really appreciate it. So with that, um, any further questions, Commissioner Campy? I just want to reiterate, reiterate the point that Mr. Doolin made originally to hopefully alleviate some fears of residents that either think the process is moving too quickly or look, I listened to my colleague, Commissioner Hurd, and, um, she brings up valid points that in her research has made her feel that that is the right way it's happening. But I also listened to my professional staff. Mr. Doolin, you didn't do this by yourself, did you? Oh, Lord, no. Give us a little taste of how many people are involved. For all of these chapters, I, I, my thanks goes out to the public works staff, the utilities department staff, to a host of people in the growth management department, Maria and Joan collecting public comment, um, you know, Elise Elder, all of my comp planning staff, emergency services, emergency services, utility. Yeah, I know the list goes on and on. If I tried to name everybody, I'd leave somebody out. The whole county pretty much. So, and the reason I ask that is not to grandstand. It's that I hear my colleague, Commissioner Hurd. I hear what she says. It sounds legitimate. It's her, it's her opinion based on her research and those that have assisted in her creating the opinion that she has. The thing that I have heard consistently in the emails is, is wait until the new commissioners get here. As Commissioner Jenkins said, um, who is voluntarily did not run for reelection. They will be seated on November 19th. This will be, needs to be submitted about a week later, give or take a couple of days, which would make it a very difficult process, as well as the fact that I know that their orientation to become new commissioners has already begun. And it's basically, you know, the expression of drinking, uh, taking a drink of water from a fire hose. They're having to be brought up to speed on every topic. This is a, is a very complicated process, as you've heard. So for them and they're in, in, uh, orientation to have to then be brought up to speed on this so that on their first inaugural day would have to vote so that it could get there the following 10 days would be Herculean. And I don't think would be fair. The rest of us have had over a year to have conversation with staff, public experts, whatever the case may be. The point I'm trying to make, and I hopefully will, is that when it comes back from Tallahassee in January, and then you have a chance to review their comments, whether they say, we agree with everything that you've written, or we have concerns, it'll then come back one more time, uh, in potentially February for a final, uh, adoption by the board, the new board, constituted board at that point. Commissioner Hurd will still be here. Commissioner Hetherington will still be here. I will still be here. And we'll have commissioner, uh, elect uh, elect Capps and commissioner elect Vargas that will have a couple of months to at least take in this portion. So if what commissioner Hurd has said today is proven to be factual or she can convince two other commissioners, the new ones that ran on a policy, I watched them campaign, that they were going to be much more, um, conservative in their decision making. That's the backstop for all of this. So I don't want people through October, November, uh, potentially into December and January to be like, they've destroyed the comprehensive plan. They've ruined Martin County. The concerns that the residents have that this might be rushed or that commissioner Hurd is right and all of our staff that's brought this forward is wrong. Those two new commissioners will have an opportunity to digest it here from the public and then vote against it if they so choose. So today is not us all jumping off a cliff. That cliff is actually located in February. Thank you. So with that in mind, I will make a motion to accept staff's recommendation for this specific agenda item, knowing that the new commissioners will see it in February. Okay. Uh, we do have one public comment card, uh, Gigi Dubé. Thank you. I know, I know this process has made it hard for a lot of us to be civil and, and I, I appreciate everything you said today about opportunities that we have. Um, I'm, uh, Geraldine Janko Dubé. I'm with the Treasured Lands Foundation. Um, one of the things that we look at as an indicator of our natural systems, the systems, the systems that we love about Florida, in particular about Martin County are the wetlands. And, um, in reviewing what is being changed here, um, and the references are being made to the 1985 National Wetlands Inventory, the data satellite classifications, the soil classifications, um, all of the studies that the county has done between 2001 and 2017. And, and you referenced in the staff report that it was very, uh, important to note that it's not an actual indication of the location of wetlands as required by Florida statutes. So that makes me concerned that this may not go far enough in identifying wetlands that have not been identified yet. But in the future, the, uh, environmental department of Martin County may find our viable wetlands and they don't meet what may be the state criteria is. Um, in the incidents where something like that would occur, how does the language address it? Um, and that's what my question was, because I'm not understanding that it would. Thank you. I can do it. You want to respond? Sure. Uh, the data that we were referring to in item three in the staff report and in the chapter is, as I said, remote sensing data. You fly over the surface of the earth with a plane and you take pictures and you make educated guesses off of that. That's professional environmentalists make educated guesses on where the wetlands are, what is a wetland and what is not. Um, and that's used because you can't go on people's property and identify the wetlands on each and every property in the 365 square miles that is Martin County. Um, what we do require with each and every final site plan with building permits, with excavation and field permits is an identification of any wetlands and a delineation by an environmental professional in compliance with state statute. And you really can't compare the remote sensing data that you get from flying overhead with the data or the specific analysis that gets surveyed in on a site with an environmental professional walking it, looking at the plants, looking at the hydrology and so on like that. This remote sensing data is just used for planning purposes for giving us an idea of, well, it might be there. Got it. Okay. With that, anything else? We have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hurd dissenting. Thank you. Can you do your next one in 13 minutes? Oh, it's not you. Okay. Public hearing number two. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report. Based comprehensive plan amendment 24-02. Overall goals definitions. A text amendment. Jenna. Nobby. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Jenna Nobby. I'm a senior planner with the Growth Management Department. This is chapter two of the comp plan that is proposed for amendment as part of this year process. And I will walk you through some of the proposed changes in the staff report here. So with the comp plan, one of the biggest foundations with it is internal consistency between all of the chapters. And in chapter two, some of the proposed changes are cross-references to other chapters for that internal consistency. So policy 2.2A2 is being revised with reference to chapter nine regarding the exceptions for altering wetlands. There's a new policy proposed for consistency with chapter nine as well. It's policy 2.2A7. This is regarding the exceptions to wetland buffer zone provisions. Policy 2.2C9.1 is being revised to reference policy 8.1C1 in chapter eight. Policy 2.2C9 is being revised to include a sentence about stormwater design and the consideration of tidal inundation and sea level rise impacts. This is consistent with the proposed resiliency text in chapter eight. Objective 2.2F is proposed for addition also with this reference to resiliency planning that's outlined in chapter eight. Policy 2.4C1 is being revised to change this planning period time frame that we've referenced before from 15 years to 20 years. And then moving into the definitions section of chapter two, there are a few definitions that are proposed for revision to be consistent with either state statute or coming up to speed with, for example, the village of Indiantown being incorporated. And lastly, we have a couple definitions. The definition for housing units and actual use is being proposed for deletion. This is consistent with the proposed changes in chapter four, as you just heard, and chapter one as well. The definition for seasonal housing or seasonal population housing is proposed for revision, also consistent with changes in chapter four and one. And the definition for vacant seasonal housing units is proposed for deletion consistent with the changes in chapter four and one. In addition to that, we have some miscellaneous grammar and housekeeping changes that are proposed in this chapter. So that concludes staff's presentation on chapter two. We recommend approval to transmit this chapter to the state of Florida land planning agency, and we're available for any questions. We did that in three minutes. All right. Any questions for that? We have any public? No. I'm saying none. Commissioner Campy. Would you and Mr. Doolin classify these basically housekeeping and administrative kind of changes? Yes. Nothing, no dramatic changes in this particular chapter, correct? Correct. Thank you. No, that was a question. I don't want to steal everyone's thunder. Commissioner Hetherington. Pending public comment, I will make a motion for staff's recommendation of approval to transmit. Okay. I'll ask again for public comment since you want me to, but we didn't see any the first time around. So we have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Public hearing number three. You did a great job, by the way. Thank you. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report year-based comprehensive plan amendment 24-01 preamble, a text amendment. Thank you, commissioners. Jen and Abbey, senior planner with the growth management department. This is chapter one of the comprehensive plan. This item was before you at the September 10th meeting. And because of the proposed changes for internal consistency with chapter four and chapter two, this item was returned to the local planning agency on October 3rd. And so in your staff report on page three, the changes that have been proposed in this chapter since you last saw it are highlighted in this gray section. So everything else from when you last saw it is the same. But in section 1.7b, housing unit demand projection, there's proposed revisions to be consistent with chapter four. And the same with section 1.7c, residential capacity calculations, also proposed to be consistent with chapter four. So if you have any other questions, we're available, but we recommend approval to transmit this to the state land planning agency. Two minutes. Good. Good. All right. Any questions for staff? Seeing none. Any public comment? Seeing none. Back to the board. Same set of circumstances as the last agenda item, correct? Very administrative housekeeping? Yes, sir. Yes. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. We're on a roll. Legislative public hearing, public hearing number four. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report year. Based comprehensive plan amendment 24-5, transportation element, a text amendment. Samantha Lovelady, Lisa Wixer. No? Oh. And PWD staff. PWD. What is PWD? Public works department staff. Okay. And it's just Samantha. Just me. She can handle it. Hopefully be joined by someone. So on, you have seen this chapter in October, September 10th. And we're back again on October 22nd. And the only changes that have been made are what's in red, since you last saw it. So actually, let's go down to the supplemental where we did. Here are the changes. So, um, they were revising the purpose of section 5.6 point A relating to future pathway needs. And that is on 962. P.D. PWD guy. Hi. Hello. Do you want to take up? This is Mike. Yeah. I'm Mike Corzelka, the county engineer. She was doing a great job, by the way. She's doing a great job. Don't mess it up now. Yeah. Don't screw it up. Well, to be honest, I came downstairs, and I realized I forgot my jacket, so I went past it. Oh. It requires a certain level of... So, um, the, this is the changes to, um, 5.6 point A, and this gives you, um, future pathway needs. Do you want to take over or do you want me to... I can take over. You can run that part. Okay. Um, in 5.6 point A, these, these are the comments that were all brought up at the last commission meeting that we're going to run through here. The changes have been made since the last commission meeting. Um, in, uh, 5.6 point A, we've added in about the, um, the guidelines for developing the future public non-motorized pathway needs and mitigation strategies for safer facilities. Basically, we're, um, adding in the fact for mitigation. Then following further down in the, in the section, we've, uh, identified the following table, which is provided to introduce the level of stress concept and to recognize that the adequacy of a pathway is not determined by the number of cyclists and pedestrian carriers shows the general characteristics of pathway users. These level of traffic stress can be established once realistic levels of stress targets are evaluated and established as set forth in policy 5.4 A 11. And with that, yeah, there you go. Um, we've moved in to add all this language about the stress stuff. Existing or proposed facilities can be evaluated based on the crash surveillance report and the context classification described in section 5.2 B by using the methodologies established in the FDOT's multimodal qualitative level of service manual. The following strategies can be implemented to reduce the level of stress and increase safety for cyclists, providing continuous separated or shared pathways, providing seven foot buffered pathway adjacent to travelway where posted speeds are less than 40 miles an hour, providing a rigid barrier between the pathway and the travelway where posted speeds are 40 mile an hour or greater, or where the pathway is on a bridge longer than one quarter mile. The following strategies can be implemented to reduce the stress level and increase safety for pedestrians, providing continuous pathways, providing a horizontal separation between the pathway and the travelway where posted speeds are greater than 30. So those are all the mitigation strategies that we can deal with for pathways. So that's all added in there. We also added in the policy 5.4 A 11, which is enhanced bicycles and pedestrian safety along bridges and major arterials. The county shall develop standards and encourage the state to develop standards that increase the safety of bicycles and pedestrians along bridges and major arterials, which may include providing a rigid barrier between the facility and the travelway where the posted speed is 40 miles an hour or greater or the bridge is longer than a quarter mile. And the final thing that we changed from last time was we removed the references to the high-speed ferry to Fort Pierce that was originally part of the regional waterways plan. So those are the changes that we've made since the last time you all saw this. Commissioner Smith. Yeah, I think it's great that given the conversation we had yesterday at the MPO meeting relative to Mr. Dr. Drummond that passed away on the Sewell's Point Bridge that the pathways conversation and the sort of memorializing in our comp plan, the idea that there need to be separation and better safety measures relative to cyclists and pedestrians is important to our comp plan. So thank you for that. And I'm sure his family will be most appreciative. In addition, hopefully you all will work with the legislature to see that the legislature follows through with some changes to, when I say you all, I'm thinking you all, to work with our delegation and whatnot on just this very specific topic to see if we can't at least get some pilot projects done and looked at. We also had a really interesting, I thought a fantastic presentation at the Regional Planning Council the other day. And Tom, hopefully at some point you'll bring that presentation on the trails in Florida to the Commission. There was once an idea, not only with the Greenways Trail and the continuation of that in Jonathan Dickinson along Route 1 down to Hope Sound, but also through the Atlantic Ridge to maybe really create something special for a trail. So hopefully that presentation can come back to the Commission for their ability to see that. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I'm still concerned about our quality level of service. Generally targets maintain LOSD during peak season, peak hour, peak direction is the lowest tolerable level of service. Man, I think that's a really pitiful goal because it's called unstable flow. Why on earth is that our acceptable standard? Why don't we at least aim for something that's better? And also I feel like during peak season, peak hour, peak direction, that we're way below a D. So I don't... What would you propose? Good heavens, what about a B? What about a C? B is reasonably free flow. C is stable flow. Shouldn't that be our goal? Rather than saying, okay, we're going to live with D, which is approaching unstable flow. I feel like that's the kind of traffic I'm in pretty much every day. And in this state, that's okay. I suspect that Mr. Donaldson has an answer for you. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The level of service D has been the county's level of service for, I think for since the original comp plan. And so one of the challenges you have is that I think one of the first examples that when I was county engineer of a level of service D, of meeting level service D was Dixie Highway through Port Salerno. And in order to achieve even maintaining D, it was to four lane it. And in that particular section, the community said they did not want to four lane the road. So we constrained it to a more urban section. So the cost to go to a level service C or B, you would have basically unrestricted, you could travel through the county quite easily. And the cost to provide those multi-lane urban expressways, etc. So for instance, in Jensen Beach, when they looked at, do we keep US 1 to an eight lane road? And DOT suggested that if we wanted to meet our level of service D, we should have two or four lanes that actually fly over Jensen Beach Boulevard. And you had this sort of kind of mini urban expressway in which we said no. So that's the challenge, Commissioner, is I think the level of service D works. Um, and if you make free, two free flowing of traffic, you, um, um, the, the costs are enormous. And it is, it indeed is the standard. The city of Stewart, of course, has adopted a level of service on US 1 that is like, um, well, they call it like D plus 50 or it's a, it's a level of service ethics. Basically, they, they said that there will no, there's going to be no traffic improvements to US 1 because doing so would require the acquisition of properties and adding additional lanes. So it is a complicated, um, um, consideration in terms of, um, uh, I think, I think what is probably more strategic is which roads are you going to allow for a higher level of service and which roads you are not. And I think that's where we've gotten into, um, constrained roadway concept, which is in the comp plan, which is Dixie highway through Salerno, um, and other roadways we've talked about. You just simply, we're going to, um, keep the neighborhood character the same, but the travel time will be longer. And that's, I know it's a very long winded answer, but, uh, the, the main point is that level service D has been our standard since, um, um, from the beginning of the comp plan. And it is one of the areas that we struggle with meeting that balance between making improvements and keeping the look feel of the community, um, without overly accommodating vehicles. Well, I'm sure that D looked a whole lot different in 1982 than it does in 2024. Everything did. Um, and also we've created transportation concurrency exception areas, and that's for those areas where you want to constrain the roads. I do, you know, okay, allow us that option, but just to say, yeah, well, we're just going to be miserable and in traffic because that's our goal is kind of a, um, uh, a poor way to lead. Um, I'm looking at policy 5.4 a three, and I don't know which one I'm looking at. I don't know if I'm looking at the old one or the new one, frankly. It says, well, I got 974 or 27 of 34. It says include bicycle lanes on new resurfaced county arterials and collectors. Is, did you, Mr. Gazelka, did you add some clarifying language on that? Or is it, is, are we going to include bicycle lanes on county arterials and collectors? We did not add any additional language on it. No. Um, anybody feel like adding bike lanes on county ulterior, uh, arterials and collectors is a good idea. We have a lot of collectors that, that have bike lanes on them now. And, uh, cause collectors are just, that's what they are. They're, they're the collector roads or the residences and moving people. I just have issues with safety of bicycle lanes on roads, like arterials, like canter and U S one and roads like that. I don't think that there, and also policy 5.5 a three plan for a regional public transit authority. Can you amplify that a bit? That's been in the, um, in the plan also for a number of years in terms of looking at, um, the efficiencies of running, uh, a transit operation to either, um, expand our role beyond, or be partner to either Palm Beach County or St. Lucie Indian River in terms of, um, it, it spoke to, um, a goal of looking at the efficiency of delivering transit through a perhaps larger management. It's, it's been there for some time. It, it was just called transportation before. Now we've actually renamed it transit. Gotcha. Yeah. Not a fan of that strategy either. Um, and non policy 5.5 a nine strive to expand the fixed route, public transit system. Uh, the County shall strive to expand or add to the existing fixed routes. Um, blah, blah. And I think that we're trying to diversify transit. And I wonder if this ties our hands somewhat by just expanding fixed routes when I think there's been a lot of discussion about finding alternatives to fixed route planning. May I jump in with you? Yeah. I don't disagree with Commissioner Hurd. Um, if we are going to be looking at hybrid versions of offering transit services, then maybe you don't want to take this language out, but you would want to add something that gives you a little more of a broad definition of what that public transit might be. If it's, um, Lyft and Ubers or free ride or whatever the case may be. Um, if we're going to try to discuss traffic increases and change our level of service from D, you have to have some of these other options. Maybe just strive to expand the public transit system rather than fixed route. Yes. I think that doesn't tie your hands and then also leaves open the possibility of a, of a new hybrid version or a new option that may be, especially considering we're not doing this every year, who knows what two or three years from now would mean. I know that many communities and I'm not recommending that we do, but many communities picked up those little scooters or city bikes that you could leave around. So there's no language in here that would encourage that. And lastly, uh, policy 5.12 a three deep in the channel and manatee pocket. Um, can I get some clarification on 5.5 a nine? Yep. So you're just wanting to take out fixed route this statement here. I think, um, they said that if you look at the starting census, it said strive to expand the public transit system. So you eliminate the word fixed route. Okay. I don't want to limit us to expanding the fixed route. And lastly, deep in the channel in the manatee pocket. And do you have a page number for that? It's the, it's, well, it says 981 or 34 of 34. It's the last, uh, policy in the transportation element. There you go. Why do we want to deep in the channel and the manatee pocket? Um, I, I, it's okay. Yeah. It was coming to rescue. Well, we're ahead. I got it now. It just took me a while to read it and get to it. So this, this really speaks more to the maintenance dredging that we've done in the past. We need to continue to do dredging in there because the sedimentation that occurs in the channel, um, it's particularly susceptible to, um, shoaling in areas where it gets too shallow for the existing uses, especially some of the uses that are deeper into the pocket. When we get that shoaling and, and sedimentation that occurs in there, uh, over time, we're going to have to dredge it again. Um, it's not something we could just do once. We have to plan and budget for maintenance dredging in the future. Well, then that's what the language should say is, is, uh, maintain a channel in the manatee pocket rather than deepen the channel in the manatee pocket. It says consider deepening. I just don't want this to become a priority based upon this language. And I can see it becoming a priority based upon this language. Um, this, this speaks to the marine services route. So what, where the, the large, we have several industries in Martin County where they, um, build very large custom yachts and where they launch those yachts is on the very South end of the manatee pocket. And we don't want to get into a position where our homegrown businesses aren't able to launch those, um, vessels, um, through that area. That really is the only place they can put them in is, is, um, the area. Can we not just change the beginning of that sense? The county shall maintain the channel in the channel in manatee pocket to enable deeper draft vessels to access local marinas and services. It's helpful. Sure. You got it. I got it. You got it. You're winning and winning and winning. There's your day. You got everything you want. It's Christmas morning. No, I didn't. Like I still got some, I'm still stuck on D. As a favor to my friend and colleague, Commissioner Hurd, I will make the motion to accept staff's new language based on her insightful, uh, comments. Commissioner Smith was going to do that apparently, but. Well, I was going to, I wanted to add a while ago, um, some comments. I, you know, I, I, back to this level of service D issue. Um, I would argue that over the last 20 plus years, relative to level of service, Veterans Memorial Bridge has been added. Cove Road was four lane, or it was supposed to have been four lane by now. It is in the PD and E stage as we speak. Monterey out here was four lane. A1A north of Indian street to Monterey was four lane. Canter Highway was expanded all to give us capacity to keep us moving versus being in complete gridlock, which we would have been and were already entering into at the time at which those roads were modified. People kind of tend to forget what Monterey looked like when it was a two lane road, but it was a very different stretch between here and A1A, um, some years ago. Is that a second? Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Campy, which I forgot until now. Um, and seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Any public comment? Oh, any public comment? Mr. Pine looked like he wanted to make a comment, but no. All right. Um, motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hurd, dissenting because of road D grade. Actually, I don't disagree with you, but you're at the door. Um, I would give a recommendation that Jenna Nobby do the rest of the chapters because when she does them, they take minutes. They're unanimous and they take minutes. Let her do the rest of them. Thanks. You're doing great. I hate to slow down or stop our momentum because we're doing very well here, but it is a quarter after 12 and probably lunchtime, so. It's not. Well, we have to do Executive Senate. Oh, darn it. We're paying a court report. Oh, lunch. Oh, lunch. Okay. Bite your hands. Go. All right. So we're going to let Sarah say what she needs to say. Thank you, Commissioner. Sarah Woods, County Attorney. Um, I've asked to meet with the Board of County Commissioners and the County Administrator in a private attorney-client session in accordance with Section 286.011 sub-Paren Florida Statutes to obtain advice related to settlement negotiations or strategy related to litigation expenditures in the case of BMM Byland LLC versus South Florida Water Management District et al. Case number 2023, C-A-000052. In the background, plaintiff, BMM Byland filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Martin County against the County South Florida Water Management District, Florida Fish and Game Conservation Commission, and the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida seeking vehicular access to be a man's properties located within the Palm Beach Heights unplanted subdivision. The case is before Judge Michael J. McNicholas. The lawsuit seeks vehicular access to plaintiff's properties through three easements recorded in the 1960s but never accepted by the county. Plaintiff's complaint alleges inverse condemnation injunctions and declarations as to easements and their validity on June 23rd. The court granted plaintiff's emergency motion for a preliminary injunction thereby preventing any of the defendants from restricting vehicular access through one of the alleged easement areas to the east section of Palmar. A mediation was held on June 20th, 2024, with all parties settled with all parties present with settlement negotiations occurring. The mediation was continued and held on September 3rd, 2024. I am asking that the Board agree to meet with Don Donaldson County Administrator, Sarah Woods County Attorney, Sebastian Poprowski, Senior Assistant County Attorney in a private attorney client session for approximately one hour or less in accordance with the 286.0118 Florida statute for a strategy session regarding litigation expenditures concerning the case of BMN Byland LLC versus South Florida Water Management District at L, case number 2023 CA 000052. And I'm asking for a motion for that. So moved. Okay, we have motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries 4 to 0 with Commissioner Smith exited stage left, so I don't know where. The Board of County Commissioners, well, thank you. The Board of County Commissioners will now meet privately in an attorney client session in accordance with Section 286.011 subparagraph 8 Florida statute of statutes in order to provide advice to the county attorney regarding pending litigation to which the county is presently a party before the court or administrative agency, specifically the case of BMN Byland LLC versus South Florida Water Management District at all, case number 2023 CA 000052. The session is expected to last approximately one hour or less. The people attending this session will be Commissioners Harold Jenkins, Chairman Ed Campy, Doug Smith, Sarah Hurd, and Stacey Hetherington, County Administrator Don Donaldson, Sebastian Poprowski, Senior Assistant County Attorney, and myself, Sarah Woods, County Attorney. We are now in recess. Okay, but we're coming back. We will be back. We will be back. Then we'll adjourn. We'll go break for lunch. Okay. Okay. Okay. We are back. Done with our executive session. Executive session. Yes. Chairman of the Board, please announce that the meeting of the Board of County Commissioners is now reopened to the public in the attorney client session in the case of BMN Byland LLC versus South Florida Water Management District et al. Case number 2023 CA 000052 is now terminated. What she said. So we're back in session, and we are going to take a break for lunch, and we're going to, when do we want to come back? 2.30. 2.30. Long day left. Two, yeah. So how about a compromise of 2.15? Sure. Okay. 2.15 it is. Thank you. All right. Welcome back to our commission meeting. We are on public hearing number five, legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment 24-14 capital improvement element, a text amendment. Jenna, take it away. Good afternoon, commissioners. Jenna Navi, senior planner with the growth management department. This is chapter 14 of the comprehensive plan as part of this year process. And to continue with the topic of internal consistency, we have some levels of service standards that have been revised in this chapter. And these changes are consistent with chapters 1, 5, 10, 11, and 13 of the comp plan. Then we have throughout this chapter, there has been some revisions for an emphasis on potable water systems to differentiate these from the stormwater management and conveyance systems that are written about in this chapter. And then additionally, proposed change number eight, the requirement for the level of service standards for public transportation is removed from policy 14.1c4, 14.1c6, and from section 14.5d, because the county does not have a level of service standard for public transit. And additionally, Florida statute preempts local governments from using public transit for concurrency systems. So that is removed for the sake of internal consistency. And then additionally, policy 14.1c5 in two places has the word mandatory stricken. And this is because for public facilities, the county no longer classifies them into the mandatory or non-mandatory category, because impact fees are collected at the time of building permit all at one time. Additionally, wanted to, it's page two. So this paren four right here, this proposed language, it says the lowest floor of a building inside a special flood hazard area shall be at least two feet above the 100 year flood elevation. And I have Amy Eason here with me. This is our environmental engineer, sorry, environmental resource engineer. There we go. And so this two feet metric here is in response to a standard that was issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, for establishing the base flood elevations. And this is related to people being able to obtain a federally backed mortgage. So this two feet is in compliance with federal standards that were issued. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? No, I think you said it. Okay, great. And then also wanted to clarify for the record here on this same page, when this PDF was rendered with the agenda packet, some of the formatting got a little bit wonky. So I'd like to just provide a side-by-side this paren four right here and then this paren B that is proposed to be stricken. You can see it appears that this language would be underlined, but in our actual file here, this whole section is proposed to be stricken. And then additionally, this language up here in paren four that I just read, the federal flood insurance rate maps is staying as it is, that's not being stricken. So I just wanted to clarify if this amendment is translated or transmitted, I'm sorry, this image here with these two paragraphs is how the language would be reflected. And so this section here just got a little bit messed up. But that concludes staff's presentation of chapter 14. We recommend approval to transmit to the state land planning agency and we are available for any questions you may have. Sure heard. Yeah, I'm on page 994 or 7 of 24 and it's about policy 14.1 a four state and federal arterial and collector roads level went from level of service c to level of service d. Is that because the state and fed changed their level of service? This change is consistent with section 5.2 b3 of chapter 5. So this change was reflected in chapter 5 and because it's mentioned here in chapter 14, we're reflecting that language accordingly. So it's it's not just our roads, it's it's state federal and local roads. So this language here, yes, it's this paren b right here that's being stricken is essentially covered here in this sentence for all other roads. Yeah, we're striking level of service c in b and c. I mean in the notes it says that the level of standards related are just to state and federal roadways. Yeah, but we're striking level c. Yeah, to be consistent. Okay, and this is for fire rescue. Seven a and b advanced life support responses are going from six minutes 90 percent of the time in urban areas to eight minutes 90 percent of the time in urban urban areas and 15 minutes 90 percent of the time in rural areas to 20 minutes 90 percent of the time in rural areas. Why? My name is Chad Chanchule, Fire Chief, Martin County Fire Rescue. So to answer your question, really what you're looking at is old language. This was not updated for about 15 years on the fire rescue side. In there you see where it would reference basic life support and that will be trucks that don't have paramedics. Those trucks don't exist today. So what you see now, we're trying to clean the language where it's fire rescue response. So that's for medical and suppression, and it's all in one. The eight minutes 90 percent of the time in the urban service area, why that number is eight minutes is if we hit eight minutes or go over, it means we have a problem. And it means that either we have to turn on another truck or build another station. What we do in the urban service district for our response times, we average six and a half minutes. That hasn't changed. That's staying that way. As far as your rural areas, it's 20 minutes because that's what it always has been. For ALS, that's all we have is ALS. We don't have BLS. Our response times outside the urban service district, western Palm City, Indian town, you're 20 minutes to get out there plus. So that right there has always been like that. We just removed all the BLS from this language. We're trying to make it easier to read. But we're not telling you our level of service is eight minutes. What we're saying is if we hit eight minutes, we're telling you we have a problem. We are six and a half minutes inside the urban service district. I don't understand. The numbers are going from six to eight and from 15 to 20. So what I'm trying to get you to understand is the six minutes were for BLS trucks. They don't exist. And why the language was created 15 years ago, I didn't author the language. I can't tell you why. I don't know why they did it like that. But it doesn't make sense. So we wanted to clean this up to where it's accurate to what the fire service is actually providing today. There's a misunderstanding. We are not increasing as far as time wise for the level of service. The level of service is very efficient right now. But you have to put triggers in the comp plan that if we hit eight minutes inside the urban service district, we have a problem. So that's why those numbers are in there. If I put six minutes in here, it means I'm not going to meet that standard. The only way I can meet that standard is if you want to build another station, or if you want to have more trucks on the road, then we can lower that standard towards six minutes flat. But I need more people, more trucks and more fire stations. So I'm trying to give you a realistic number. So tell me how many times over eight minutes does the advanced life support have to hit over eight minutes in order to require the county to build a new fire station? So 90% of the time, I need to be hitting under that mark. If I am not meeting that benchmark, then that's when we have a problem. And that's when we need to start having a different different conversation about fire stations. In fact, right now, we're in a study where they're looking at Western Palm City, Western Palm City is an issue for us right now. And they're doing a study as far as a needs analysis on future fire stations. That's going to be presented to the board. My understanding is in December. And then you're going to see where the true data is coming from. And then you're going to see there's a true need where we need to build another fire station and have firefighters to complement that station as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, okay. With that, do we have any public comment? Seeing none. Oh, Commissioner Smith, I'm sorry. No, it's just following public comment. Okay. No public comment. You have someone coming up. I'm Geraldine Janko Dubé. I'm speaking as a citizen. With fire rescue being, having a threshold of 20 minutes now for areas that are outside of the urban service district, all of these developments that we are currently approving for rural lifestyle, what are the thresholds that you're addressing to assure these people that they have advanced life support? I mean, 20 minutes, that's not survivable. I'm very concerned, you know, how all of this is addressed within the comp plan and given the rural lifestyle amendments with these, you know, 1,000 unit developments. It's not 1,000 unit developments in there right next to the urban service boundary and tell the people in western Martin County out by the lake that 20, yes, that's where the problem is right there. Anyway, staff light. Yes, Elise Elder, deputy county attorney. Just for clarification purposes, the eight minutes and the 20 minutes are not new. Those are existing thresholds that are in the comp plan, so we're not changing those. They're just getting rid of the BLS. Got it. Commissioner Smith. Second. Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one. Commissioner Hurd dissenting. Thank you. Okay. Public hearing number six. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment 24-3, intergovernmental coordinating element, a text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Thank you, members of the board. With me is Stephanie from the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. This is a chapter that you have seen previously. It was presented to you in September. I believe it was September 10th, and the Board of County Commissioners voted to continue it to this meeting and considered all of our full presentation. We can be happy to go back into it and do another presentation or cover any issues that you have, but our staff recommendation is for approval. Mr. Hurt. Same questions I had on September 10th. I'm on, I don't know what page it is, six of 17 maybe is the makeup of the MPO. Was that changed? It was. Okay. It's now five. Okay. It's going on there. And also the coordination of utility services policy 3.1 E4 is the interlocal between SMRU and Martin County expires in January of 2025. Has that been noted? I believe that's been added as well. Okay. Is there going to be a resolution to this interlocal before January 2025? Okay. Thanks. We can revisit that in before adoption. Commissioner Campy. Mr. Doolin, just the same question. The changes that you're making in this chapter, are they just administrative and housekeeping, or are there anything in your opinion that is consequential? No, there is no substantive changes in this. Thank you. So, there are some, but in these books, my concern is when people said that there were so many chapters that we would be reviewing that there'd be no time. Many of the chapters had purely just like changing village of Indian town and some of these other things. So it wasn't like you were turning 17 chapters inside out. Correct. Most of the text in this chapter remains unchanged. Thank you. Motion to accept staff's presentation. Do we have any public comment? Seeing none. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Public hearing number seven, legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment 24-6 housing element, a text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll highlight one subject that was discussed at the previous, the board previously considered this amendment also. And this one subject that I believe was, yes, 6.3C. Staff had proposed a different piece of text and striking most of this, but at board direction, we instead just altered this enough to be consistent internally with Section 4.2A9 and Chapter 4. And that was the piece of board direction we we took from the last public hearing. Perfect. Do we have any public comment? Seeing none. Back to the board. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith and then a very quiet second by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one. Commissioner Hurd dissenting. Public hearing number eight, legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment 24-07 recreation element, text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are no changes from the last presentation. What was made and we have no additional items to discuss? This is, this chapter has fewer changes than all the others. Any questions for Mr. Doolin? Commissioner Hurd? The comment, because of Section 7.3, which says the county will encourage planned unit development to provide active parkland based on current levels of service. I hate planned unit development, so I'm not going to support this. Hate is such a strong word. Yes. Not for how the way I feel about PUD. At least she didn't say despise. It could be worse. Anyway, any public comment? Seeing none. Do you have a public comment? Oh. Did you fill out a thing from the last one? Because I've got the next one you're up for is 11. Yay, Jay. Right? I just had a question because this is Geraldine Janko-Dubay on behalf of the Treasured Lands. This entire section was addressed and really not much in the way of anything was rewritten. But the question was when Martin County is negotiating agreements with PUDs regarding parkland and recreation, why are managed recreation sites that provide a range of fields, courts, and picnic areas, why aren't they providing also more passive recreation areas such as trailways or just hiking in environmental natural areas? Why is that left out of the definition of recreation for the county? There's no prohibition, members of the board, from having trails and passive recreation in any of the parks, whether they be active or passive. Okay. Move staff's recommendation. Second. Any public comment? You did. I did that already. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Four to one. Commissioner Hurd dissenting because she doesn't like PUDs. Anyway, she hates them. Public hearing number nine. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report. Based comprehensive plan amendment 24-08, Coastal Management Element, a text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me is Amy Eason, our coastal engineer. And we have no additional changes to Chapter 8 to present or discuss. This has been previously considered by the board. And staff recommends approval. With that, any public comment? Seeing none. Any questions for Mr. Doolin? Seeing none. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Public hearing number 10. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report-based comprehensive plan amendment 24-09, Conservation and Open Space Element, a text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Again, this has been presented to the board. We have, I don't believe we have any changes additional to this. And staff recommends approval. What do you have with you? Oh, I'm sorry. Sean McCarthy, principal planner with the Environmental Division of the Growth Management Department. He's here to assist with any questions on wetlands, composite wetlands map, etc. Questions for staff? Did I ask for public? Do we have any public comment? Seeing none. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed? Opposed. I did the one went through these before. Motion carries four to one. Commissioner Hurd dissenting. Public hearing number 11. Legislative public hearing to consider transmissional transmittal of evaluation appraisal report-based comprehensive plan amendment 24-10, Chapter 10, Sanitary Sewer Services Element, a text amendment. Ms. Lovelady. Good afternoon. Samantha Lovelady with Growth Management. I'm here with Leo Rapetti from the Utilities Department, Technical Services Administrator, if I recall correctly. And we have no changes to Chapter 10 since you last saw this, except for we're requesting one change. And that is, it was actually brought up by a member of the chair of the public. And we think that woman, that lady, um, had a, had a good suggestion. Um, the sentence here says the foregoing does not apply to areas designated as a rural area of, rural area of opportunity. We are not one of those areas. So that was probably copied in from statute. And we're just recommending taking that one, one sentence out. Um, other than that, um, other than that, it's exactly the way you've seen it before. And staff recommends approval. Okay. Any questions for staff? Seeing none. Any public comment? Seeing none. I think she's standing up with the removal of the- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. She's coming. Economic opportunity. Oops. I'm sorry. She's coming up. Ms. Lovelady Jankotubeh is speaking on behalf of the guardians. Uh, the guardians had sent a letter and they asked questions regarding the wastewater treatment systems. And they noted that they're designed to treat, treat pathogens and they have minimal effects on nutrient concentrations, which are a leading cause of deterioration of waters in Martin County. The guardians would like an explanation of why the current level of service of a hundred GPD gallons per day for both residential and non-residential purposes is being increased to 195 GPD. Uh, Leroy Petty with, uh, Martin County Utilities. I can address that. Uh, we actually changed from 195 gallons per day per equivalent residential connection to, uh, I'm sorry, from, uh, 100 gallons per day per capita, uh, per person, uh, to 195 gallons per day per ERC, equivalent residential connection within the commercial, industrial, non-residential world. Uh, there's, uh, it's a whole lot easier to look at the numbers based on, uh, gallons per equivalent residential connection since there are no residents, uh, associated with that. So, uh, the 195 gallons a day is also in our master plan for our water and wastewater, uh, element. Probably at the end of the day is less, right? So anyway. All right. So let's just be clear. If you had a hundred gallons per day per person, and you have a family of six, that residential equivalent unit could have 600 gallons. Uh, correct. And now they can have 195 for the entire household. Well, there's also other residents that have, uh, one person in the household. So it works out to, uh, an equivalent residential connection is 195 gallons per day per household for wastewater flows. Instead of a hundred per person. Uh, you got it. Yes. Yes. 95 per household instead of a hundred per person. Okay. Yeah. Any other public comment? Um, seeing none back to the board. Moose dash recommendation. Oh, we have a motion by commissioner heard, uh, seconded by commissioner Smith. All in favor, all opposed motion carries unanimously. Thank you. All right. Public hearing number 12. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment 24 dash 11, chapter 11, portable water, potable water services element, 10 year water supply facilities work plan, a text amendment, Ms. Lovelady. Good afternoon, Samantha Lovelady with the growth management department. Um, we have chapter chapter 11, which is the potable water services element in the 10 year water supply facilities work plan. Excuse me. I have Ann Murray, who's the county hydrogeologist here, um, with me and nothing, again, nothing's changed in this chapter. Um, since the last time you saw it, um, I do want to, um, point out an additional change that we have. And so it's to 11 dash one, which is areas currently served by regional utilities. And this is currently what the figure looks like. And this piece down here where this line is, that is not within the secondary urban service district. And so we are proposing to, um, move the line up there. And same thing with, um, 11 two, and you'll see we're requesting to move that. And those, we think this is just a scrivener here. So with that, uh, staff recommends approval of CPA 2411. Commissioner Hurd. This isn't related to that, to this element. Whose, whose utility is serving ranch and Apogee or three lakes? Martin County utilities. Okay. And discovery is being served by SMRU. That's correct. All right. Thanks. For sure. Okay. Miss Dubay. I do have a one for this one. 11. The last one. We did one of it. Oh, we're on 12. Nevermind. No, it's, it's 11. This is pH 12. We're on 12. It's chapter 11, but pH 12. My fault. Yeah. Completely. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's hard to follow the numbers. We were going so fast too. Okay. Methodically. Okay. With that, do we have any public comment? Oh, Commissioner Hurd. Light was on or is that old? Yeah. I'm way behind the recommendation with the additional change to the South Fork High School secondary boundary, not secondary, but boundary. Yeah. It's taking a piece out of the secondary. That's not supposed to be in there. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by. Second. Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Public hearing number 13, legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report-based comprehensive plan. Amendment 24-12. Chapter 12, solid and hazardous waste, a text amendment. Ms. Lovelady. Good afternoon. Samantha Lovelady with growth management. And I'm here with Sam Emerson, the utilities director. And nothing has changed about this chapter since you saw it previously. And with that, staff recommends approval. We can go through any changes, by the way, if you don't want to. Any questions for staff? Seeing none. Any public comment? Seeing none. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. You're listed in the next one here. Where are you going? Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and an appraisal report-based? We told her earlier we want agenda to approve each other. Oh. Base comprehensive plan amendment 24-13. Okay. Chapter 13, drainage and natural groundwater aquifer recharge element. It says, Samantha Lovelady, right here on my piece of paper. Okay. Sorry about that. Samantha Lovelady, growth management department. And this is Amy Eason, our coastal engineer. And has anything changed since we left? Yeah, there's one change similar to the capital improvement element for the two feet above for setting finished floors because of HUD. And it's to be consistent. Okay. So that was the only change. Okay. Any questions for staff? Any public comment? Oh, yes, you do. I'm sorry. Thank you. 113. It's pump PH. They don't match. Might as well just stay here. I'm building Jenko Dubay on behalf of the treasured lands and the guardians of Martin County. Um, in the staff report under section 13.3, uh, groundwater and aquifer recharge policy 13.4 states, Martin County should give the highest priority to projects that reduce harmful impacts on the St. Lucie river, specifically the St. Lucie estuary. The language should include not only those areas within those estuaries, but also areas that are discharging into the Loxahatchee river. Uh, the Loxahatchee river pollutant reduction has its own plan boundaries and that is in the south area of the county. Um, it, uh, shouldn't be also the county's job to monitor the pollutants, although that is the only way to confirm compliance, but rather written so that the burden of compliance should be the responsibility of those contributing to the pollutants to stop polluting and prevent the problem by monitoring and the language should reflect the policy in those terms. Uh, additionally, policy 13.2 a 11, uh, should incorporate the concept of preventing saltwater inclusion into estuary environments. Um, this would require analysis of minimum base flows and seasonal adjusted basis. Um, the, these are the flows that must be protected in order to preserve our freshwater water that we need the potable water for people. Um, it seems also, um, that there should be some language included that would reference the guidelines that South Florida water management has already written, um, in order for Martin County to acknowledge that they exist. Thank you. So actually I do agree about the Loxahachie watershed. Um, some folks in the northern part of the county forget that we actually have two rivers in this county. How hard would it be to add that language to include not only the St. Lucie estuary, but the Loxahachie watershed? Um, I'll, I'll review it, but I remember having some Lox language somewhere else. So I'll, I'll just take a look and see if I've, I've covered it elsewhere, but I remember adding locks in there because I'm very familiar with that pollutant reduction plan down there. We would need at least elder deputy county attorney. We would need definitive language from the board to put something in there, um, or provide the, uh, coastal engineer with discretion on that issue. Well, I don't mind the discretion part, but I would simply think that where it says St. Lucie river estuary slash Loxahachie river. We can add that language and then make sure it's not consistent with something else in the policy. If the board would like that, give them the description or, or can we give Dr. Eason some time until, you know, an hour from now, two hours from now so that she can review this and see if she can find the locks language. We can, we could table this hearing if you want until later on today and see if she can find the language and come back to the board. That is also an option. Yes. That is. That's actually important. I would really like to do that. All right. I'll, I'll, let me review it and make sure because I do remember adding locks language in here. Um, and it could be because of the background information, making sure that all of our reduction plans are in place and I'll, I'll review that part. Okay. Okay. We move to table later on today. Move to table chapter 13. Second. I'll be back. Okay. Okay. Um, we have a motion to table chapter 13 for a little bit, uh, from, uh, Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion carries unanimously. So I'm going to draw a circle around that so I don't come back to it. Anyway. Okay. Public hearing number 15. Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive comprehensive plan amendment 24-16 arts and culture historic preservation, uh, text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Uh, we have no changes from your, our past presentation on September 10. Um, and staff recommends approval of, uh, transmitting this chapter to the state land planning agency. Who are you with? Terribly sorry. Stephanie with the treasure coast regional planning council is with me. She did actually the work on this. Oh. Who's staff light is this? I think it's an old light. It's an old light. Old light. Okay. Okay. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, any public comment? Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor. Aye. All opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Public hearing number 16, which actually talks about seven. Why couldn't you guys line the number? Legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of evaluation and appraisal report based comprehensive plan amendment 24-17 public school facility element, uh, text amendment. Mr. Doolin. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Uh, again, this is the same, uh, text that was presented to the board on September, uh, the 10th. Um, with me is Stephanie from the treasure coast regional planning council. Um, I, we, uh, we want to thank the, uh, staff at the, uh, school district for, uh, actually doing a lot of the work on this and providing a lot of the data analysis. Staff recommends approval of the propose of transmitting this chapter to the state land planning agency and all of the state agencies. Okay. Chair, pending any public comment, I'll move staff's recommendation of approval. Okay. Any public comment on this? Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Public hearing number 17. Legislative public hearing to consider adoption of a ordinance for comprehensive plan amendment 24-23 Three Lakes Golf Club, a text amendment. Uh, Mr. Doolin. Uh, thank you, Mr. Uh, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Uh, this is a proposed text amendment. Uh, you have already, uh, considered this for transmittal, and it is coming back today for adoption. Uh, I believe you have on your, on the dais some public comment or not public comment, but, um, agency comments that came in. Um, we have no agency comments that, um, that would be the basis of a challenge for this proposed amendment. Um, we had to update the Church and Coast Regional Planning Council comments because they initially gave us their draft comments, and then they gave us the comments after they actually, the council actually voted on this. So that's what's one of the things on your, on your, uh, on the dais there. I believe also there's FWC and DEP comments also, uh, but none would form the basis of a challenge. Um, this is a proposed text change that, uh, does not change the, most of the rural lifestyle text. I'll go to three, three thousand and fifteen. Um, the proposed text change is entirely within the, uh, uh, shaded text right there. Um, it would, uh, allow a maximum of 324 bedrooms, which is already the maximum that would be permitted. Uh, if you did six times 20, uh, six times, uh, six bedrooms times 54 golf cottages, it would be 324 either way. Um, they're just, they're just putting in the numbers. Um, it limits it to one or two stories, and instead of being limited to six bedrooms per cottage, it's, um, between two and 12 bedrooms per cottage. Um, since this would be located within a thousand acre minimum piece of property, it would not have any effect, uh, on the surrounding property owners, and it would not have any real effect, uh, in chain terms of public facility provision. Uh, so staff recommends approval of this, uh, adoption of this proposed text change. Okay, any questions for staff? Mr. Campy. Uh, based on the fact that Mr. Doolin said that it really does not increase the number that had been approved, uh, originally, it's just giving the, the owners a flexibility to go from two unit, uh, cottages, two bedroom cottages to 12 bedroom, and any variation thereof maintaining the same total number of bedrooms. I agree with staff's recommendation, and I make the motion to approve. We have any public comment on this item? Seeing none, we have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? She went with the late late. Did she? Yeah, she went with the late late. Yeah, I'm not going to support this. It doesn't meet any of the criteria for a com plan amendment. It's urban sprawl on steroids. It's conspicuous consumption. It's preposterous that it doesn't count toward their densities, and 12 bedroom units completely outside the urban service boundary hardly qualifies as rural lifestyle. I'll let it go. So we had a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner, um, Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner, uh, heard dissenting. Thank you, members of the board. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Okay. Department quasi-judicial number one. Request approval of the first amendment to the Three Lakes Golf Course Golf Club Plan Unit Development Zoning Agreement B 1150-008, including a revised measure and phasing plan and phase three final site plan, Mr. Elam. Anybody that will be testifying, please stand 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? We have, uh, have you turned in all your proper paperwork to the proper person? I have a copy of my work history and the agenda item for exhibit one. Okay. Do we have any ex parte, Commissioner Smith? I do, and they're filed. I do, and they've been filed. I do, they've been filed. I do, they've been filed. I have none, and they've been filed. Okay. I think that's it. Please proceed. Thank you, uh, Chairman. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Uh, for the record, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with the Growth Management Department. This is an application by Lucido and Associates on behalf of Three Lakes Golf Club LLC for approval of the First Amendment to the Three Lakes Golf Club PUD zoning agreement, including revised master and phasing plans and phase three final site plan. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. The property is approximately 1,217 acres and is located west and east of Canter Highway, approximately 2.4 miles southwest of Interstate 95. at 11104 Apogee Drive in Stewart. The property has a rural lifestyle future land use and Three Lakes Golf Club planned unit development zoning agreement. The revised master site plan documents the changes that are consistent with the phase three final site plan and revised phasing plan that are part of this First Amendment application. Revisions to the master site plan include expand and revise golf course lake configurations. Relocate golf cottages from phase two into phase three. Revise golf cottage design, access, and parking in phases one, two, and three. Revise golf club amenities, including access and parking. Changing the tunnel under Canter Highway with a bridge over Canter Highway. Remove the gated entrance at southwest Apogee Way and associated turn lane improvements. Add Healy pad per FAA and FDOT permitting requirements and move the employee housing facilities from phase three to phase four. Revisions to the phasing plan include moving the construction of the employee housing and supportive infrastructure to phase four. Adding CO sub-phase descriptions detailing the building permit and construction elements to be completed and updating the phasing summaries to be consistent with the proposed changes. The Three Lakes Golf Club received major final site plan approval to construct two golf courses and related amenities on approximately 1217 acre property in September 2022. In June 2023-23, the site plan was revised to add 14 golf cottages and a golf club house. Upon the approval of the future land use amendment from agricultural to rural lifestyle and the Three Lakes Golf Club planned unit development zoning agreement, including master and phasing plans approved on February 20th, 2024, these previously approved developments were incorporated into the PUD as phase one and are shown here in green. Phase two identified by the tan shading including included eight golf cottages, north golf course, performance center, east maintenance building and golf training center. The blue shading identifies the areas of proposed construction shown on the phase three final site plan that is included with this first amendment. I'm just going to go briefly over some of the changes. The phase three final site plan includes 39 cottage buildings with six bedrooms each. The phase one cottage buildings, I wish this were much clearer and larger, remain unchanged, and the quantities remain unchanged. It's 14 cottages of two or four bedrooms. They're located here, golf cottage pod A and golf cottage pod B, with a total of 40 bedrooms. The phase two cottage approvals consisted of eight cottages and 24 bedrooms that were identified on the phase two final site plan and phasing plan as golf cottage pod C and D. They were located right here where this area is blue now and this tan area here. The five golf cottage buildings that were in golf cottage pod C location here have been removed and this approximate two acre will become native landscape and tree protection area. And the three golf cottages that were located down here for the phase two have also been removed and replaced with one six bedroom cottage identified on these proposed plans as a pool spa cottage pod. In total the cottage count for this project is 54 and bedroom count is 280 which is within the threshold allowed by the rural lifestyle future land use which allows 54 cottages and 324 bedrooms. The river club which on the previous approval was located up here in this area has been removed and been replaced with the standard boat dock access. Additional lakes have been added 3A and 3B which I believe are here and here. I just want to point them out because they're they're in phase one and predominantly all the work for this proposal is the third phase which is highlighted with blue. So the river club was removed the additional lakes 3A and B have been added in the phase one area. The tunnel bridge which was here or the tunnel which was here has been uh is proposed as a bridge now the gated entrance which was located here off canter highway has been removed uh along with the associated turn lane improvements and the hilly pad has been added over here and then what was and now the phasing plan has four phases and the the housing has been moved to phase four. I think that yes. So review of this application by the local planning agency is not required and development review staff have found the three lakes golf club LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations in the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report. Staff recommends approval of this application and move that the board receive and file the agenda item and all its attachments uh as in the staff report is exhibit one and move that the board approve the first amendment to the three lakes golf club PUD zoning agreement including revised master and phasing plans and adopt a resolution to approve the phase three final site plan for the three lakes golf club PUD project that concludes the presentation be happy to answer any questions any questions for staff seeing none applicant good afternoon commissioners for the record bob rains land use attorney with the gunster law firm here on behalf of the applicant today we appreciate the opportunity to present this amendment to you uh we know it's been a long day um we are pleased to state that we have received and reviewed the staff report and we agree with the uh comments the conclusions and the recommendations in that staff report if i could begin our uh presentation commissioner jenkins with i'd like to just ask staff a couple of quick questions if i could and then i'll bring in mr crady for some testimony in a short presentation uh mr elam you said you had been sworn in is that correct sir yes and you turned in your resume also i believe for the record yes and you're the project coordinator for this project correct yes and so as part of that or section f and section g of the staff report are those your responsibility yes and if i could sir just read section f is a determination of compliance with the comprehensive growth management plan requirements is that correct yes and the findings of compliance in that staff report state that staff has reviewed this application and finds that it complies with the ldr as detailed within the report and the staff recommends approval of this development application as consistent with the guidelines and the standards of the applicable comprehensive goals policy objectives and policies as implemented in the ldrs is that correct correct yes sir and is that still your recommendation yes and then also on section g determination of compliance with the land use the site designs standards the zoning and procedural requirements also your responsibility yes review and the findings of compliance their state staff has reviewed this application and finds that it complies with the ldrs as detailed within the report staff recommends approval of this development application is consistent with the guidelines and the standards of the applicable comprehensive goals objectives and policies as implemented in the ldrs is that a correct reading sir yes sir man is that still your recommendation and yes it is okay thank you sir i appreciate it i'd like at this time to have mr crady come up make a short presentation uh i do have some questions for him before he begins though mr crady if you'll introduce yourself for the record yeah morris crady senior planner with lucido and associates and have you been sworn senior partner i'm just and you've been sworn in yes i have and uh can you give us a brief description sir of your education and work yes i'm a 35 year member of the american institute of certified planners i work for the first 10 years of my career with martin county uh community development department now growth management department and i've been doing land planning in martin county continuously since april 1st 1982 and can you describe the paper that i'm handing you sir yes that's my resume and is it current yes it is okay i'd like to submit this as applicants exhibit number one thank you sir and mr crady okay thank you okay uh of course i appreciate the work that brian's done i think he gave a very comprehensive uh overview of the project i'm going to dig into a little more detail um with the colored rendering just to kind of give this is to show you the this is the approved plan as approved last year um up to date and uh just going from north to south this is this is golf cottages this is the river club that we're removing so there will be increased tree preservation and native plant vet uh preservation in this area we had a racket club here that we're relocating down into the south end of the property i'll go over that in a moment that also leads to the uh preservation of additional native trees um the kenna house is located in this location and and there is an amendment to remove the five cottages here in favor of tree protection and go over that in a little more detail in a moment the pool and spa club has always been here the clubhouse which is under construction we have cottages on either side of the clubhouse that are under construction um and then further south we have additional cottages the east maintenance or the uh west maintenance facility and this is the was a future short course that's part of phase three i'll show you that in a moment and then of course the tunnel um and on the other side the employee housing hasn't changed um and none of these facilities have really changed um i do want i did update the aerial though just to show what is adjacent to us this is south florida gateway industrial park is now uh several buildings have been completed there is a signalized intersection here and this uh we're extending that this this road and which we named southwest phipps place and in honor of mr phipps this is where his house was located um and this is where we're putting the helipad on this lake the employee housing is still in the same location um the east the the east maintenance facility was approved with the with phase two in the north course which is under construction was approved with phase two and this to dig a little more in in a large version of it um all of these facilities again that we're going with the standard dock no no marina or or um or boat facilities although there may be a boat there in the future for the use by the residents or the um the members and guests uh there are no homes for sale on this property so these are all golf cottages uh that that are owned and operated by the club uh they're not for sale or for lease uh the the kenneth house this is the area along hole three that that uh where the um uh we remove five cottages in favor of saving some significant trees in that location uh the we course is a is a is a course for children it's uh it's a practice facility for children that is adjacent to the pool and spa club which is part of the phase three final site plan that hasn't changed uh the clubhouse again under construction maintenance facilities is completed uh these are the additional golf cottages in phase three or or at least the original golf cottages in phase three but we did relocate the racket club that was in the north part of the of the of the project to this location so it can interact with the short course or there's a 12 hole short course that's being built in this location and the racket ball the racket club and the clubhouse for that facility will all be contained in this area and then if you're looking at the the east side of the road again this is the south florida industrial park martin county future operations center is also located here and this is all industrial property within the freestanding urban service district the helipad again located on the on the lake adjacent to phipps place and then we slightly modified the east clubhouse we did add a service and emergency access connection to um to kenner highway in this location and just you know as you can see uh one of the next slides will show a blow up of the kenner highway frontage but i wanted to note that that the vegetation that in the right-of-way is really limited to our frontage at this location uh the the uh there is really no landscape or or vegetation within the dot right-of-way north of this and this is about a quarter mile between our property in in south florida gateway industrial park uh this is a blow up of the canter highway frontage just showing uh where the the road is built that the road is built actually a little to the west of the right-of-way and this there was never really a lot of vegetation in this location but this this is where we installed the water and sewer lines that have been constructed now within this right-of-way that runs along our property line uh to the best of our ability we've saved as many of the oaks and trees uh while we while that construction was underway within the right-of-way but you can see the majority of of all the vegetation is located on the east side of of the actual paved road and that continues all the way down to our frontage as you can see here all of the uh the vegetation on the other side is really on our property already and what i did the other day was stand in the middle of canter highway and take a picture of the vegetation looking north towards the industrial park and this vegetation except for a few trees is entirely on our site that's all being saved it's all part of a native buffer that that that is retained on our property and we've been supplementing that buffer as well uh this the majority of all this vegetation is on is within the right-of-way and you can see some of these the some of these pines and are over 70 feet tall and then that we have additional vegetation that we're putting on the other side on our property so there'll be there'll be a significant uh buffer on both sides of the highway you can see this is all going to be native landscape this is all native landscape this is all native landscape and we're doing native landscaping along bridge road uh the entrance the main entrance is under construction it looks wide open there but we are installing additional native vegetation so that all you'll see going by the site is the the road going into the project there's no big sign there or anything like that trying to maintain the rural character so that was looking north this is looking south going towards indiantown again all of this vegetation is on our property it's not in the right-of-way and all that's being saved as part of our our site design this this this is within the right-of-way so uh and and again the uh going back to the previous picture you can see the property line pretty clearly right here is the silt fence that was installed along our property boundary and this is the disturbance caused by the the water and sewer installation so um i understand that there's a there's a concern with going from tunnel to a bridge and and our engineers spent almost a year going back and forth with dot and we do have our fdot expert here today if you have any questions of him um but we at the end of the day that the road is a state road we have to meet dot standards and requirements um uh their main concern was was public safety early on in our discussions they made it clear that they do not consider an at-grade crossing that would cause a stop in the road a safe alternative um they were looking for an alternative that minimized disruption of the canter highway traffic i think all of us including martin county in in apogee was concerned with the protection of the existing canopy of native trees along uh within the right-of-way and adjacent to the right-of-way and and also one of the things that we we found out when we were looking at the main entrance that was eliminated on the east side of canter highway we were told by dot that those turn lanes and the drainage for those turn lanes um at the main entrance on canter highway would have resulted in removing a large portion of those trees another um concern that we had in in developing our current plan um the the tunnel uh was a engineering uh exercise with dot and our experts uh they did a lot of groundwater table um analysis soil conditions drainage had to be looked at they were concerned with hydrostatic pressure the which similar to a empty pool the the uh the the groundwater table um causing the tunnel to somehow buckle and and affect the the safety of the traveling public on canter highway so they were very conservative in their approach that they wanted us to excavate 35 feet below the existing grade which is deeper than we can dig a lake in martin county and and in order to to offset uh the the ballast and and the alternative to that was to raise the road elevation rather than going 35 feet underground because that led to other environmental concerns uh engineering concerns they're concerned with the the maintenance and operation of of pumps and generators um all that kind of had to be analyzed and and they led us into a position where they felt the safest alternative for crossing a state road in this case was was a bridge a bridge that could handle not not only our pedestrian traffic and um and golf carts but also also suitable for emergency access vehicles for for for um vehicular use so that bridge is a dot standard bridge that that will allow full access from one side of the street to the other and and the problem the only way we could we could really work out a way to construct it was by raising the elevation where the tunnel was going and by raising that elevation it eliminated the concern with the hydrostatic pressure but it also required the removal of virtually all of the native vegetation within the existing dot right of way all of that would have to we'd have to raise the where the tunnel was going and then transition approximately 1700 feet on either side of the tunnel which would have wiped out those 70 foot tall pine trees and and that was a concern by apogee i know that was a concern by martin county and we're and and everything that we're doing is trying to uh preserve that those trees it also required a temporary bypass road during construction of the tunnel which would have further impacted the the trees within the right of way and in turn lane and drainage requirements i i i went over that we did remove an entrance there because of the impact on the on the tree canopy and the tunnel allows or the uh the bridge allows us to remove that main entrance on canter highway and the construction timeline again they're worried about the the impact to the traveling public um the the construction timeline would have meant for a tunnel would have meant that that road would have been in disrepair for over for approximately 24 months um we can build a bridge without impacting that right of those trees in the right of way and that will that will allow construction in less than 12 months and the impact on the traveling public is just a few weeks not months at all so all that was considered and that's why we we chose the bridge approach um and this would allow us to to to enter the the property off a bridge road as the main entrance and allow continuous access without constructing any main entrance or or in or um or having to remove the vegetation within the right of way uh and while the bridge is under construction members will be using a service and delivery entrance that's been constructed in this location uh there's less trees in this area and we did add another service and emergency access on the other side of the road but that that does not affect these enormous tree canopy that's that's apparent here um again that's that's the canopy of trees that we're looking to preserve and this you know this pine tree alone i think is about 90 feet and so we tried to to lay in a uh a bridge design that that showed how that canopy could be protected the the bridge is 32 feet wide uh dot required that we build the bridge so that it doesn't interrupt the future four laning of the road so the span itself is 170 feet so that dot can come in and there is no immediate plan to four lane d uh state road 76 it isn't warranted now it may be decades before that happens and so we're uh and and it is this the height was also a consideration i did talk to um uh foundry the the the industrial developer to the north and um we're proposing the same height as the the turnpike overpass and the i-95 overpass so it doesn't affect commerce it doesn't affect any of the uh the activity on kenner highway that's currently in place so you know we're the owners are you know understand the concern with with with the bridge and they are going to extra mile to create some architectural design but i'm almost thinking it should probably look like it's been there for a long time rather than than kind of create a um a an attraction but we are willing and and to work with dot and reduce the the view corridor along kenner highway by planting vegetation along both sides of the tree along the approach on both sides of the bridge uh approach going north and south so that that is what what where we are today with an enhanced landscaping um i'll just go over the really quick the the other elements that i think um brian mentioned well uh everything in green is phase one in blue is the phase three final site plan improvements including the relocation of cottages here uh the uh short course and cottage and amenities in this location the east clubhouse and connection of a emergency access service drive to kenner in this location and the helipad and the employee housing is moved into a future phase um so this is the kenner house and and and this is looking off i think the third hole um it's is that runs along the kenner house and we have proposed to put cottages in this location uh five cottages and about a two or three acre site there um and it was um lynn connelly actually um made it a point to uh to to focus on preserving those trees because there are some very ancient pines and oaks in this area and if you just look at this this canopy of this tree right here uh this is that tree right here and this is where the cottages were going and that tree has about a 46 inch diameter at breast height um a very uh a champion pine i would call it so so all of this vegetation here and in the other locations where the racquetball club was located where the um the the river club was located you know we're all relocated to to save the existing native trees and and that's that's part of what uh apogee is all about at least on this side of the road the um as as you probably know the the the property on the east side of the road was was heavily impacted through to um by the previous owner and didn't have the the wonderful vegetation so we're still meeting all of our original public benefits the native landscaping along bridge road we've located thousands of native trees uh we've managed the preserve areas in accordance with the pamp we're enhancing wildlife and prohibiting hunting on the property which has occurred for decades uh we created a the the wildlife corridor along the saint lisa canal by removing exotic plants and planting trees within a 200 foot wide uh uh core right of way that will be maintained by us we have permission to maintain that free of exotic vegetation and when i say us i'm speaking of apogee of course um we're exceeding the minimum open space required by rural lifestyle by over 312 acres we're at 95 open space mainly because we have no homes on this site there are no homes for sale there's no home sites we're able to to create 95 open space because of that and we've increased the the acreage of of lakes which holds more water um by um building additional lakes in phase one and also the lakes in phase three that are part of the short course um we're we're opening up the golf course for three golf outings during the peak golf season that's still done and we did donate thirty thousand dollars to the to martin county for protection of orchid species that was found in the bridge road public right away that's more or less where our where our turn lanes are going along bridge road that money's been paid and that as far as i know that money has been used by the county for that effort this is just a depiction of some of these photos i think you've seen before but it shows the care that was taken in the design of the west golf course working around existing trees that could not be otherwise relocated all throughout the west golf course these scenes are visible this is an example of just a couple of large trees we located to the 250 foot core right of way there is a berm outside the 250 feet that prevents any of our storm water from entering the canal so we're completely isolated from the canal and there is no discharge of our golf course water into directly into the canal this is an example of the some of the native buffers we build along the perimeter of the site relocating everything from saw palm meadow to cabbage palms oaks and pines and again working around cabbage palm hammocks working around oak trees trying to carve in a course that that really emphasizes the unique natural characteristics of the site but on the other side of the course on the other side of the road i should say which is about 700 acres where we have the north and south course this is a view from and this was taken last week just to show you the um the progress on the south course this is the um standing at at one of the tees along the the driving range which is a 360 degree driving range looking at the performance center and behind the performance center there there is bridge road so that that that is a view from the um uh looking south towards bridge road this is another view from that same uh area looking again south towards bridge road the the the um the performance center is over here and you can see barely that this little lake uh which has been constructed between uh the golf course and bridge road which is basically uh this location um so we're always standing here taking pictures first of the performance center and then of uh this this this view and again all this is um being re-vegetated and and and planted with native vegetation except when you get into the site uh you know the the one thing about just going back to this previous view this may look like it's uh we took out a lot of vegetation but that happened to be the area where there was hundreds if not a thousand small pine trees and and oaks that were planted by the previous owner and managed uh for hunting pheasants and quail so we were able to to take all those trees and relocate them because they weren't too large to relocate so that that opened up that area and and i can tell you we've been storing a lot of water during the this rainy season that has prevented um additional discharge into the saint lucie canal and so with that understanding i'll be glad to answer any questions that we do have our fdot expert here and our engineers and environmental planners if you have any questions and just a couple questions for you mr crady you're familiar with the martin county land development regulations and the comprehensive plan yes i am and you reviewed this project and worked on this project correct yes i have and in your professional opinion does this project meet the requirements of the comprehensive plan and the land development regulations it does thank you as mr crady said that concludes our presentation we'll be happy to answer any questions we have our team here those thank you commissioner hetherington i have a couple questions for mr crady so firstly you mentioned um that the some of the public benefits were on bridge road for enhanced landscaping so i happened to drive by there um a couple weeks ago and the large structure that is on bridge road is that plant are you planning on completely camouflaging that and landscaping that so that you would not see that from the road that that structures the guard house yes yeah except for the you know the the little bit of pavement that the road that goes in there you may get a peak when you go home by but you have to stop to see it and you won't see it while you're driving as you're driving by but there will be a peak you know where the road is we have to have access to it because i had forgotten all of your public but many of your public benefits really stem off of bridge road protections yes so the fact that you should not be able to see that entrance at all with landscape from bridge road okay okay yes i'm i'm very much aware of that and i've been having okay i know there's a a slide in here of a large version let me just see if i can get to that you just have to scroll the wheel you know how to do that really yes yeah you're right it's technology the mouse it is brand new wait i'm going the wrong way there i just want to get back to the the the that shows the uh yeah this one yeah so so i understand so so we're going we're going to tighten this up so it's very clear that the only thing that you'll be able to see is the access going into there but we do have a landscape island right here that will prevent few the view of the of the guard house so there is an island there that's been designed so and and um and there is no signage you know we're trying to make this as discreet as possible right so the next question and you went over this somewhat in your presentation why the sudden departure from a tunnel to an overpass over canter highway so all the protections are on bridge road and now there's a proposed from the tunnel there'll be an overpass that crosses from one side of the property on canter highway you mentioned in your presentation preserving the rural character and when we approved this there was a tunnel that's not what i had in mind for preserving the rural integrity of this corridor so now it feels like we're being asked to change directions and there are no protections for canter highway there are only protections for bridge road and in your presentation you kept referring to they they said that there's this disruption in traffic they said the construction time who are you referring to as they 100 dot and i think you know that's the difference between bridge road and canter highway it's a dot road it's it's used for you know major commerce you know they have they had a very much a concern with the tunnel and and they're creating a situation where it was not constructible and they feel a bridge is the safest alternative for crossing the road um are they here to to speak to this we do have the dot expert that met with the dot dot you keep saying that they are saying the dot is the dot here to answer questions on what they would like no we have no work many times with the mpo and the dot does not take orders from us can you put that picture of that the uh overpass back up let me see where is the scroll yeah so if the dot is asking you to do these things in lieu of a tunnel when you submitted the application you submitted under the premises that the dot was going to approve the tunnel correct yeah it was a requirement and the dot denied approving the tunnel they didn't deny it they just made it to the point where we would have to raise the elevation of the road in order to construct it which would have impacted the vegetation all that vegetation along there would have to have been wiped out and an overpass doesn't doesn't disturb the vegetation correct except for where it's crossing the road and who is going to be in charge of the architectural design of the overpass well again this is what we've submitted and we even had to work hard to get you submitted to whom the dot it's it's they're they they permit you've already submitted this to the dot yes we've been working with them for the past 18 months well first on the on the tunnel let me stop you there because i was always under the impression that you were doing a tunnel and by the way i also have to say the project is actually a beautiful project the the trees that they've done i was out on a tour earlier in the year they've done a really amazing job inside the property and i was under the impression because oh we're having a hard time with dot but guess what we sit up here every meeting and we always have a hard time with dot i've been working with dot for six years to get a traffic signal on canter highway have not been able to get that traffic signal so it's always difficult so you're saying it was difficult to get a tunnel so then you changed without anyone speaking to to anyone about doing an overpass i just discovered this almost three weeks ago and i discovered it because i was just flipping through agenda items and i pointed it out to mr donaldson and i asked him and then of course you and i were in touch that's when i realized that we were going to propose an overpass over canter highway i apologize i should have came to you sooner there's no doubt so if the dot is dictating what's happening why aren't they here to answer questions i i don't i don't recall the dot ever attending a private you know application but we do have the the individual that met with dot we did bring him here so that he could he could share some of their comments i would love to hear them it's you want to introduce yeah commissioner we'll be glad to bring that up that gentleman's randy cropp and i would like to ask him to come up and uh i will qualify him also as an expert for your questions uh sir can you please introduce yourself randy randy cropp conan graham contractor martin county resident and have you been sworn in sir yes and can you give us a brief uh background on your history your education and work history 47 years of doing bridge water marine construction in palm beach martin st lucie broward dade indian river counties from bridges to to you name it water control structures to everything that uh from murphy construction to to now conan graham for the last 20 years and been in martin county as a resident for now 30 years 31 years and can you uh identify the documents that i'm showing you right now sir yes sir that's fine and that's your resume and is that an up-to-date resume yes sir i'd like to submit that as applicants exhibit two and he's all yours commissioner i would just like you to walk us through because as mr crady just said that you've been working on this for 16 months or so on this overpass tell us how you know a little bit about the tunnel working with dot their comments on the tunnel and how we have gone to present an overpass okay so i started so i am a member of apogee so i joined there i'm a member jupiter hills and apogee both so i i'm very kind of um attached to what they do out there and want to see make sure they do the right thing because i'm paying the i'm paying the bill so how we got there i joined the club and found out they were going to do a tunnel met with them and i said guys first of all the dot and a tunnel the only one of the only tunnels they have is the kenny tunnel down in lauderdale and they have more than enough problems with the kenny tunnel so i meet with them and i talk about the tunnel met with down in lauderdale met with uh steve braun secretary chris karras district four met with all of them talked about this issue a tunnel requires fire suppression systems requires air ventilation systems requires massive amounts of dirt to be moved to raise it because we were going to have to create to build a pool because that's what you're building here you would have to put about an eight to ten foot slab down as as they said 20 feet deep to hold this thing from popping up on you the dot doesn't like something that's not normal they hate it as a matter of fact and the reason they hate it even more now is because of what happened down at fit after they had that accident at fit with the fiu oh somebody must be after they had that accident down there they went absolutely crazy on anything that was a that was a design problem so when i met with them when did that occur five five years five years ago yeah about five years ago and they just don't like it so they want things that are standard so i met with them and we discussed the issue you were going to have to raise the road about six or seven feet so and stacy i got you i want every tree left out there that's possible because i want to hide the golf course jupiter hills did the same thing and i have to compliment sir she i think it's the only time i've ever heard miss heard say or commissioner heard say you know people should do things like jupiter hills we we came and we donated land to do things we had the um teaching center done and things like that it's the first time i've seen i was afraid of the vote that you would give and she voted for it because we were doing the right thing and i think we've got to do the right thing in anything we do if we don't we're apogee's wrong and i'm wrong and i can't stand up here and tell you that that what they're doing is wrong so anyway i met with them on the tunnel it raised at six feet it was going to destroy with dot on the tunnel i met with dot on the tunnel i met with dot on the tunnel and the bridge both we had a pre-meeting down there they were randy you know what you're getting into here you're getting into a just a big bag of worms because they had the howard kenney tunnel under district force um purview and that tunnel is a mess down there randy were you on the consult on their consulting team when they presented the original site plan no ma'am or the pud agreement no ma'am so but i i assume that someone consulted with dot on presenting a tunnel as part of the the project i did i went over that when i first met with them i said guys they would like to do the tunnel i'm sorry just to clarify we did have a previous engineer that had that didn't meet with dot but we were led to believe that a tunnel was doable i don't know if they met with dot but that engineer no longer i understand because we were led to believe also that a tunnel was doable so what what gives you the impression did dot tell you that they would permit a concrete overpass yes i i mean we've met with dot several times and have developed plans after they just kind of pooh-poohed the tunnel idea and said you just really don't know what you're messing with and they're right because dot is already committed to approve this overpass they have i've gotten a lease agreement from them and i should have any why wouldn't we present that today if it's if it's well it's not done yet it'll be done hopefully next week so is is the dot then going to dictate architectural standards no ma'am the only thing that the dot will dictate is they like standards but that doesn't mean that you can't adjust some architectural features that is correct so what are their minimum specifications dot since they're not here to answer the question for an overpass over canter highway which may or may not be in a widening plan down the road they require a minimum distance over top of the roadway which they're raising canter highway eventually quote quote they don't know when so they require a 16 foot six inch clearance they require 155 minimum clearance from any obstruction to make sure that they have a 36 32 foot clearance from their right away on each side of the white stripe for today and for the future so that's why the bridge is 155 feet long thanks randy thanks for the grilling morris i have a couple couple final questions yes so we we work with dot every day up here and it is not easy to get anything approved through there so what would have been i think essential as a part of this change is that dot would be here to say whether they are going to permit or not permit this i think this is a complete game changer it changes everything the bridge like and i think it makes a statement too that that the applicant while they were um it was part of rural lifestyle and the main portion of rural lifestyle was to protect that corridor i don't see how you do this with an overpass it just it makes a statement an overpass makes a statement and the statement i think that it's making is that the applicant has shifted its focus off of what's best for our community and this this bridge has no imagination even if you've been working on this for eight 18 months you've got a concrete overpass over a rural road why not make it something that's rural looking has no imagination it has no character if if that's what you're going to present why not create something that is more architecturally fitting with the area well again our goal was it was trees versus tunnel and and you know we wanted to save the canopy trees at all costs it wasn't possible with the tunnel and so you know again i've seen these types of of um bridges over rural roads and the older they look the more appropriate they look i mean i would even look at making this look like it's been there for a hundred years how could we ensure that dot would approve something like that a rural looking bridge i don't know what this well we know where they'll prove this one i've heard this described as you know and actually i had um by the way i've spoken to many people in indiantown that are not fans of driving down canter highway and seeing this but but i know that there's been a description of this myopic looking bridge with landscaping and and whatnot how does that get done with dot i'm still are you talking about this bridge who is going to make sure that the architectural standards of this bridge are in character with the canter corridor because all the protections right now are on bridge road all the public benefits are on bridge road and canter highway is not protected in any way so if the dot is going to require a concrete overpass and if this board approves a concrete overpass who is going to be in charge of the architectural design of the bridge you know this this is the the final design i mean the the dot bridge yeah the the the first bridge they didn't even want these the feature along the the what do you call those features along the top uh just standard standard yeah they just wanted a concrete slab we we had to fight to even add that those elements on top of the bridge so there is no more architectural control no that's what you're getting not me can you can you can paint it or again my position is it should look old like it's been there a while and there's some way we can make it look look you know more seasoned that's the cons that's it that's allowed or i i don't think it should be painted white or or anything else i think it's just it you know the trees were the priority and and that to me maintains the rural character i don't think the bridge detracts from the rural character as long as the trees are preserved and we're doing not only preservation of trees in the right of way but i showed you we have buffers along both sides of this road all the way up and down our frontage that that end a quarter mile away when you get past our project to the north so i think it it is consistent with the rural character in my opinion but that's all i have thank you commissioner smith and morris morris just uh just to clarify just a few maybe what i heard stacy asking whose bridge will it be the ot's the ot will own the bridge right can you speak to that can you speak of that yeah it's an it'll be an apogee owned bridge they have to supply a bond to the d.o.t for maintenance and that bond has to be done every year or the d.o.t can tell them to take it out the d.o.t you often have to supply a removal bond which they have to give every year to the d.o.t the bond will be for two years it'll be renewed every two years or the d.o.t can tell them to take it out because i think i thought you said in your presentation that the the um the approval of the easement was already granted the it hasn't been granted so right now they're drawing up the easement as we speak today and we're paying we pay apt i say we and it's probably we but apogee has to pay the d.o.t a fee for that easement i just just for the clarity purposes because the next question i think answers hopefully a little bit of stacy's question so it's your bridge you're paying for it yes sir apogee is um d.o.t is grant will grant an easement i would assume um uh that is consistent with their design structural design standards and all the other requirements so the the span distance the height distance all that will be built into the easement yes sir and so from d.o.t's perspective i would imagine the design of the bridge on the technical side has to meet the structural span requirements the uh uh the strength requirements of what you know it's not just a golf cart bridge it is a something d.o.t standard yes sir it is right so architecturally on on on the bridge there may be some room for some enhancements or not as long as it meets the structural engineering capacity load requirements easement requirements and so on yes sir correct and i'm and i'm and i shouldn't even say this because i can imagine where this could go but um sort of like the new bridge in downtown miami i i have to imagine that that that is not a standard necessarily f dot bridge um yeah that's 150 million dollar lawsuit right now between the engineers and the but that's correct and a billion dollars worth of construction and a billion dollars worth of construction okay i just thought it was important even for the public listening to this conversation who controls what with what happens out there for all intents and purposes it's f dot it's there right away they have the final say over what happens over there right away yes sir um are you getting is it is it an aerial easement that you're getting is that what it isn't so they're in between a lease agreement and an easement right now down down at the law firms down there the lawyers with the d.o.t and but we are getting a ground because they want a ground easement for the part that's on their land and an aerial easement for the part that's flying over canter so to your comment about the the uh the looks that railing that we proposed cost like five times as much as the original railing no question and i'm sure for their standards a jersey barrier style edge would suffice their standards oh yeah because they use them i mean that's the roosevelt bridges for instance you know right okay and we built the big john monahan bridge too so i know where that is in relation to this bridge because i built that one thank you sir okay do we have any other questions for the applicant commissioner campy i wanted to give my colleague the opportunity to go first would you like no thanks i appreciate what i've heard thus far i have been involved in the conversations and i remember when they talked about the applicant talked about well we're gonna have a bridge or a tunnel over canter this is several years ago when the project was just being discussed as the whole entire project i said that's gonna be a challenge just based on where we are who we are as a community that was going to be a challenge i think there's several misinterpretations i know some because i've had conversations with residents and friends and family members about the concept most people when they think of the word tunnel they think you're driving down canter highway and everything is exactly the same same grade same elevation and you're going to go underneath it and it will have no real effect whatsoever on the traveling public car truck boat trailer doesn't make a difference but what really we're talking about is building a hill the tunnel is nearly at grade or 50 50 if you will and i'm not a structural engineer but i've seen cart tunnels they have one at martin downs country club the road if you come in the entrance of martin downs my parents live in the front there you come up over a big incline and then you come over the other side because basically the carts are going underneath almost that great in florida you can't dig down like you said if you emptied your swimming pool it would pop out of the ground so the concept of a tunnel was there but when i asked questions like commissioner hetherington was of the applicant and their and their consultants the tunnel idea for me goes off the off the possibilities because mr crady mentioned it briefly in his presentation you would have to build a bypass road so now if you're the traveling public you're going to drive towards this site you're going to make sort of a turn you know to bypass and you're going to leave the straight shot of canner and now whatever direction you're going to have to like bypass so all of the landscaping some people care about the landscaping some people don't all of that would have to go away i'm just talking about traveling logistics you know convenience of the traveling public especially if you're driving an 18 wheeler or you're pulling a big boat on a trailer or a school bus you're going to have to make this big sort of curve and come around and come back around to get back to the road that's during the construction then once the tunnel if it were to be left a tunnel you're now driving on a relatively flat level road you're going to start to come up an incline i don't know how far out from the actual tunnel maybe half a mile and now you're coming and now your 18 wheeler is coming higher and higher and higher so now instead of being at what was normal grade of canner you're up six feet above the road and you're really up there and then you're coming down the other side to me on a on a day in day out basis that's more of a noticeable change to the roadway landscape there so that to me knocks the vision in my mind of a tunnel so my next question to the to the consultants for the applicant was why anything at all why not just have an entrance and you know cross canner highway it's not us1 it's not 95 of the turnpike i mean it's it's a busy road but i if i'm in a car and i'm at the property and i want to go on to the other side of the property across canner i don't understand why i can't just drive across and i asked the applicant consultants that and they said fdot doesn't allow it and i get the concept you don't want to have you know maybe it's easy for most of us to sort of get across but if someone doesn't do it properly you're not going to have a traffic light you're not going to have uh stop signs you're not going to stop traffic so the easiest of options and the least expensive option for the applicant would have been just across directly across um so now we're back to the overpass the bridge now to commissioner heatherington's point there's a lot of different ways you could go that route in my mind it was the opposite instead of making it more ornate or more noticeable or more architecturally pleasing i would do the opposite i would make it less noticeable i would make it where you're just passing over it's a it's a utility type uh roadway for the property owner to go from look it's not like he's got 50 acres on one side of the road and he's going to his other 50 it's 1217 acres you're going from approximately 700 acres to your other 700 acres or give or take there's a color that disney is famous for disney green it's like disappearing green i would keep this thing as simple as possible and i would make it disappear i would just landscape and these guys already have shown slide slide after slide after slide of how they would how they have stuck consistently to their their landscaping mindset not only do they have the wherewithal to completely plant a ton of brand new landscaping they've gone out of their way to try to save legacy landscaping as mr crady called champion pine trees and champion oaks and all the rest of it i've had the opportunity to visit the site and they are very specific about we could have gone this direction but we would have had to take all these existing legacy trees out we we went different so if you landscape this up and yes for a while it'll be a conversation there was some misinformation there was only be clearance of 12 feet i think if you're meeting the height requirements of the turnpike in 95 that basically covers all bases boats uh construction tractor trailers 18 wheelers everybody it's that's not going to be an issue um i would make it uh where you'd have to come from one side to the other it would be like you said very little inconvenience for the traveling public during the construction phase very little inconvenience for the traveling public during its life you're giving it the ability to widen even though i can't imagine fdot will widen canter highway to or towards indiantown for decades uh we sit on the npo and we discuss like the 2050 plan and i haven't heard anything about this until we discuss this so in my opinion i would make the span and make it uh disappear and make it as uh you know you're not looking for bridges in madison county here we're not looking for the quote-unquote rural lifestyle bridge that would be a covered bridge i'd make it a utilitarian thing where people that were driving back and forth from indiantown or heading west into martin county they wouldn't barely remember that this was something that they went under uh the concept like the expert was saying about a tunnel with lighting and ventilation and fire suppression that's way more than it's necessary and the last thing i would say is that less than a quarter mile up the road is when you were at 96 street and you're heading towards this location there is a industrial park that's been built that is pretty close to the road so it's not like you're out in the middle of nowhere anymore my final point is why would we even give the applicant this opportunity because they're utilizing 1217 acres for golf course and open space 95 open space and even if you took the golf course out of that equation you know 85 rural natural open space protected forever yet still remaining on the tax rolls no houses they're going to do this we're passing we're looking at um hopefully passing a uh an opportunity for martin county to have money to acquire additional lands we didn't have to acquire these 1200 acres and as a matter of fact they'll continue to pay us for a long long time so um i'm not opposed to giving an applicant something that they've requested to make their uh business opportunity more efficient for them i don't see it i think there's always concern for something new but i don't see this as uh elevating to the point where it would be a catastrophe in the least thank you sir okay my comment is that uh i was a little taken back because i didn't know about it until the last minute um i did meet with the applicant understand the logic uh 1750 feet on either side of the proposed tunnel uh that's 3500 feet on both sides of the road that's 7 000 feet of natural um mostly native champion tree 60 foot tall pine trees um really not excited about disturbing that you want to talk about changing the the uh the view uh the rule whatever of of uh what we're all used to canter highway being um that would do it um i agree with commissioner campy um i actually did that back uh that disney back of the house tour and they talked about that green and it is actually pretty amazing that once you paint something uh that particular shade of green your eye just goes away um so i'm not going to dictate what color you paint your bridge but uh commissioner heathington yeah i i just want to take a little walk down memory lane here that we actually had an applicant someone here this morning and they did a very nice job of uh we presenting that they had had started this with a pud and they did exactly what they promised on bridge road and that was discovery that's how this whole rural lifestyle started is that discovery and in bridge road wanted to have a rural type development and i pleaded with them to come in and come in as a one-off complan amendment project as it went on the the idea and the concept of rural lifestyle and i feel like mr jenkins you might feel differently if this bridge was going across bridge road where you went up and down and i feel like a lot of constituents might feel differently if they had to drive under to hope sound this bridge every single day and commissioner campy said okay well it's not really a big deal people from from western martin county and indiantown they're gonna get used to it i beg to differ we started this process with rural lifestyle i advocated against doing it saying just bring your project off a bridge road forward bring that project and we will vote on it but that was transmitted rural lifestyle was transmitted by commissioner campy commissioner jenkins and commissioner smith i voted no on rural lifestyle actually you voted to transmit rural lifestyle to send that to the state and then that came back from the state and after many many changes in the original rural lifestyle it included everywhere in martin county you could build a rural lifestyle project on the lake okeechobee boundary according to the original rural lifestyle that's why i didn't support it because i didn't like the concept of it but i did however like the concept of atlantic fields and uh just now just or discovery atlantic fields and i have a feeling that if that they had proposed building a bridge or an overpass across bridge road that there would have been absolute absolute mayhem from the residents of hope sound and they would have never gotten anywhere so fast forward we come back and you they did a great job of changing it the community worked on rural lifestyle very hard including this applicant and commissioner jenkins you were a staunch supporter of that you fought for that and i was an absolute no on rural lifestyle have discovery i want to see that project build on bridge road send them back come back and have them put a project in on their own you sat up here on this dais and you argued on behalf of your residents in hope sound and you advocated that this was the right thing for them this was i had no plan on supporting it you were so passionate about your comments on behalf of your residents in hope sound but that was the right thing for them that i thought if he's that passionate about his residents then i'm going to support this because what the assurances were in rural lifestyle is that we would have several opportunities to review things like this we would have to approve the land use we would have to then approve a pud that would get That would get transmitted, and it would get sent back. And we had assurances, and this was part of the process that we got to discuss PUDs when they come before us. And you changed my mind on the fact that you were advocating for your residents in Hope Sound. And right now, I don't feel like you're advocating for residents. I drove up and down this rural road every day to school. You know what? If there are residents in Bridge Road that advocated for that original project, they are not here now. And you completely had my, based on advocating for your residents, I supported that. And this is not advocating for our residents. I like the project. They should build the original tunnel. I don't care if it inconveniences drivers. They never presented the fact that it was going to inconvenience drivers for 18 months when they presented this project originally. I mean, please think of what you're doing. This is forever. Okay, thanks for dragging me through the mud in my second to my last meeting. Anyway, Commissioner Campy. With all due respect. No, absolutely not. That wasn't respectful at all. Go ahead. Okay. I don't think we're getting a little off track here. The concept, we can go down memory lane with the, yes, I voted to transmit the rural lifestyle amendment to allow our state agencies and other agencies to take a look at it. And then when it came back, I was never a fan of the rural lifestyle because like you just said, I believe, I voted no on the rural lifestyle. Sir, with your hand gestures, appreciate it. The history, the record is very clear. The concept of the individual projects is what I voted on. I talked about the three Ps. I need to know the place. I need to know the project. I need to know the people. What, Commissioner Hetherington, with all due respect to you, I will grant you that, is vote on whether or not you think that the applicant should be allowed to build a bridge across Canter. Don't start going into the whole history of rural lifestyle and whatever. Your opinion is your opinion. To start, you know, disparaging Commissioner Jenkins, that's how he and I see it, that is not necessary. Just the decision at hand is do you believe that there should be a bridge over Canter Highway at this location, which is the applicant is asking for. The concept that you're willing to say that the tunnel is a great strategy, but the bridge is not, when the applicant and our staff is saying that the catastrophic effect to destroying and eliminating all of this existing landscaping is not really the right strategy. In my opinion, what we have up here is five commissioners that bring a unique perspective and life experience to make decisions one at a time. That's why the agenda items are not all bundled together. If you disagree that this bridge shouldn't be built, you can make your comments and vote no. But to run the rest of us through, for some reason, I don't see it. I try very carefully, even with my colleague, Commissioner Hurd. I always try to understand her perspective. I might disagree with it, but I'm always trying to be as respectful of her opinion, even if it disagrees with mine. You and I have not had the occasion to have that happen as much. But that being said, the five of us will make a determination, and if three say yes, it's a yes. To somehow browbeat us into agreeing with you is not necessarily the way to go. Staff has made their opinion. The applicant comes forward. This is what they're talking about. We can get into the small details, but at one point, it needs to be, are we doing this or not? And to move that process along, I will accept, I'll make a motion to accept staff's application to allow this to move forward so that we don't have to get up here and beat each other up too much more. Okay. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I'm not going to support the motion. This is classic urban sprawl. It's inconsistent and incompatible with all the adjacent agricultural uses. A helipad is not compatible in this area. A dormitory for 70 employees. Employees is not. There are 48 cottages so far proposed with 262 bedrooms, which leaves an average of 6,770 square feet each for a cottage that doesn't even count toward densities. There's a 19,000 square foot spa, a 30,000 square foot clubhouse, another 33,000 square foot clubhouse, a bridge instead of a tunnel. These uses are too incompatible with all the adjacent land uses. Okay. Any other questions? Any other public comment? We didn't take any public comment yet. Huh? You didn't take any public comment yet. I'm doing it now. Yeah. Ms. Dubay. You didn't put anything about the grid. And I found your other things, and I apologize. It was underneath all my papers. You don't need to apologize. I know it was well intended. Geraldine Janko Dubay, I'm speaking on behalf of the Loxalusi Steering Committee. We had an opportunity to meet sometime back with the developer of this project, and I don't know what is steering this 32-foot-wide bridge at this time, but it appears to me there would be a huge expense connected with building a bridge of that size, and by having that kind of an expense, maybe there's other things that have to happen with the development to have to compensate for that cost. And I'm saying all of this because originally when we met with the developer, we were under the impression that the tunnel or whatever it was to accommodate was for the purpose of pedestrians and golf carts. This bridge is apparently also for vehicle transportation, and that's a huge difference. And I don't know that the Loxalusi, would have been favorable at the time if we had known that there would be a change from a golf cart pedestrian tunnel to now a vehicle bridge, and that's what I have to say. Thank you. Okay. With that, any other public comment? Seeing none, we have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries three to two, Commissioner Hurd and Hetherington dissenting. Okay. And we are going to take a 10-minute break. All right. Welcome back. We are going back to public hearing number 14. Apparently we have some options. Take it away, Ms. Lovelady. Good afternoon. Samantha Lovelady with the Martin County Growth Management Department, and this is Amy Eastman, the coastal engineer. And we do have three options for you regarding the Loxalusi River. We do have policy 13.1D2 that is already in the plan, and it states that criteria for water quality. The county shall limit and increase in volume and degradation of water quality. The county shall work with the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to implement appropriate criteria in compliance with total maximum daily load, NPDES, and all other adopted state water quality requirements. So that's already in the plan. Or we can add policy 13.1D5, which is a reduction of discharges. In order to aid in the restoration of Martin County's major waterways, the county shall coordinate with the appropriate regulatory agencies to develop programs and policies to address sediment and nutrient loads and freshwater discharges. So... Can you hold a minute? Sure. Absolutely. We make a recommendation that we add policy 13.1D5. Do you want to hear the third option before we... Do you want to hear the third option? Okay. Okay. So... Scroll in down. All the way at the end. So we do have a sub-element in here for the St. Lucie River. It starts... And it's the same sub-element that she was quoting, but it was specifically for the St. Lucie River, whereas with that river estuary, we want to reduce freshwater, whereas the locks, we want to increase freshwater. So there's two different ways of looking at this. The one that you were mentioning to go ahead and approve, you know, is similar to what we typically do for water quality anyways, is we don't want to see any degradation. We want to see pre versus post. It's already in there for all waterways within Martin County. This would give another option just to address Loxahatchee River, and then later, if we need to add more goals and amendment, we could do this. So this is the third option. Okay. So this is the third option, is adding a sub-element for the Loxahatchee River with a goal, objective, and a policy. You might want to scroll because the policy would be... Yeah. So it's taken that same policy but switching it more towards the Loxahatchee River versus what the St. Lucie is, but it's the same sort of wordage that the other policy was mentioning. I kind of like this. Sure. Me too. Well, because it specifically calls out the Loxahatchee River. And then we could later, as you know, you have a capital improvement about to occur with the Stormwater Master Plan. It's something that was, we're developing the Stormwater Master Plan. We could take a closer look at the Lox and add its own sub-element and then be specific to the Lox. So we can go ahead and do that. Cool. Move to add goal 13.1 and policy 13.1A. Second. And you want that as a sub-element, correct? Yes, please. All right. Mr. Schmidt. Fry's on the side. And just for the sake of causing just a little bit more havoc. Huh? Yes. Indian River Lagoon. We've got a sub-element. We've got... The Indian River Lagoon is within the St. Lucie estuary element. There's a lot of references to the lagoon and things that need to happen with the lagoon. I'm just... We're calling out specific things and whether it's combined or not, but I wouldn't do it at this point. I wouldn't because the portions of the locks that are in Martin County are just the Northwest Fork and the North Fork, so it's not like we have the whole entire river that goes out. We just have those two specific. I appreciate it. I just... I'm calling out specific water bodies and... Yes. Indian River Lagoon should... Okay. You done? Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. Oh, we have any public comment on this? Seeing none. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Now that we need a motion for the actual thing, right? We left it out. Transmit them all. You just added that or did you make it for the whole thing? We added it for the whole thing. We added it for Chapter 13. Yeah. But that's not what you said. Okay. So, do you need a motion to transmit? Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Did you? You didn't... No. No. I just added language. One second. I don't think... I got it. We didn't vote for it. Not for the whole thing. Right. Make a motion. No, I just meant... Commissioner Hurd's motion was to add this language into the chapter, but we did not vote on the chapter. So, I'll make a motion to accept public hearing number 14 as staffs recommended with the initial language that Commissioner Hurd had previously motioned for. You understand? Okay. You want the sub-element 13.6. Yes. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Campy. Second. We have a second by Commissioner Hurd. Oh, wait a minute. I'm sorry. No. That's coming in. Oh. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. We don't need any further motions on your amendments. We're good. Okay. Yeah. I was just meaning to transmit the chapter. So, do you have anything to say? Apparently not. Question, Commissioner? No. No. Oh. So, we... Are you 100% clear on that? Yes. Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. We voted for each individual chapter to transmit it. So, we're going to transmit it as one package, but you voted to transmit each one. in the past, but that's okay. I must be wrong. All righty. Mr. Chair, before we move on, I think it's important that we acknowledge the work of our growth management staff, our legal staff, the other departments that participated, Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. As everyone knows, you know, the year in years past was monumental. This year, a lot of it was handled in-house by our staff with a little assistance from the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. and it was remarkable work, so I thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Mr. John Sennett. He's coming. I don't know where. Okay. Department quasi-judicial number two, request approval for the First Amendment to the Ranch Plan Unit Development Zoning Agreement S-239-005, including a revised master site plan and revised phasing plan. And Mr. Sennett is going to handle this for us and would everybody rise and be torn in? That's planned. 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? All the appropriate paperwork to the appropriate. Yes, I'm turning a copy of my work history and the agenda item to be filed in season 1K. Is there any interview? Entrepreneurs for this type of hearing? Do we have any experts? Hey, Mr. Smith. I do and all have been filed. I do and they've been filed. I do and they've been filed, I think. No, they've been filed. I don't know. I don't and they've been filed. I don't and they've been filed. And that's it. Yes, that's it for now. Take it away. I'm John Sennett, Senior Planner with Growth Management. This is a request by Urban Design Studio and Tyson Waters on behalf of JWA Ranch for approval of the first amendment to the Ranch PUD zoning agreement, including a revised master site plan and revised phasing plan. The proposed amendment includes minor changes to the site configuration, a provision clarifying tree protection standards outside of designated preserve areas, and a provision regulating lake depth. The Ranch PUD consists of approximately 3,902 acres to be developed consistent with the rural lifestyle future land use. Included is a request for deferral public facilities reservation. The Ranch PUD is located in central Martin County near the intersection of southwest Canter Highway and southwest Bridge Road. The site includes approximately 3,460 acres on the south side of Canter Highway and approximately 442 acres on the north side of Canter Highway adjacent to the St. Lucie Canal. The Ranch PUD zoning agreement was approved in April of this year. The site is located adjacent to the Three Lakes PUD and it's also located adjacent to land having the Ag 20A zoning and the A2 agricultural zoning. The Ranch PUD will be developed consistent with the underlying rural lifestyle future land use designation. The proposed first amendment to the Ranch PUD modifies Exhibit F special conditions to clarify tree protection standards outside of designated preserve areas and to add a provision which would allow excavation of lakes to a depth of 40 feet in accordance with the requirements of Article 4, Division 8, Martin County Land Development Regulations. The revised master site plan and revised phasing plan included with this application reflect changes in the size and location of the lakes, reflect infrastructure adjustments, modifications to the phasing boundaries. With this application there are no changes to the access points along Southwest Canter Highway or Bridge Road. There's no proposed increase in number of residential units and there's no reduction in the total wetland or upland preserve area. The revised master site plan still provides approximately 3,536 acres of open space or 91% of the site area. This is an example sheet from the proposed revised master site plan. It continues to reflect the uses which were approved as part of the original PUD agreement including bona fide agriculture, 175 single family lots, two 18-hole golf courses, short course, range house and training center, golf practice facilities, clubhouse, golf cottages, recreational and accessory uses, residential multi-slip docking facility, maintenance facilities and supporting infrastructure. This is an example sheet from the revised phasing plan just reflecting the modifications to the phase boundaries. Pursuing to Article 10, Table 10.5F9, Martin County Land Development Regulations, review of this application is not required by the local planning agency. Development review staff have found the JWA Ranch application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report. Staff recommendation is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as Exhibit 1 and move that the board approve the first amendment to the ranch PUD zoning agreement including the revised master site plan and revised phasing plan. I'm here for any questions. Any questions for staff? Commissioner Hurt. Yeah, Article 4, Division 8, which is excavation and filling and mining, limits the depth of mining to 20 feet and yet this proposes to excavate to a depth of 40 feet. Why the change? Can we get that? Sure. There's been recent revisions to Article 4 regarding lake depth and it's been approved now to go to 40 feet as long as the geotechnical work is approved. Is it approved countywide or is it approved on a case-by-case basis? It's approved on a case-by-case basis. It's approved for mines and through a PUD you can do it for a site development where no fill leaves the site. And what's been done, what kind of data analysis has been done in order to allow us to make an exception in this case? That will be done through the final site plan approval process which has just been submitted so public works will determine compliance. So you're making a recommendation for approval before the data analysis is presented to us? We're asking for approval to allow it if it meets the criteria designated by Article 4. Okay. Thank you. Other questions for staff? Mr. Waters. Excuse me. Good afternoon. Tyson Waters on behalf of the applicant and the Ranch PUD. We are moving forward with our first, our final site plan for Phase 1. As is often the case, as you move forward with a detailed final site plan, you start knowing some cleanup that's necessary for the master site plan to become compatible with the final site plan. So that's this amendment in front of you today is to try and clean those up. We're adjusting some phasing lines, reconfiguring and consolidating some lakes and relocating some infrastructure and improvements a little bit again so that we mirror the final site plan which hopefully will be in front of you in the next few weeks. And with that, we're not changing intensity. We're not changing density. We're not changing uses. We're not changing the wetlands or upland preserve areas. And I think staff gave a very good overview presentation and we support and agree with staff's recommendation and would ask for your approval as well. And we're here for any questions that you may have. Mr. Campy. I haven't even had the light on you. I'm just quick. Quite. A couple of things. One, I agree with what Mr. Waters said. By the way, it took 50 years for you to get here. Happy birthday to you, sir. 50th birthday. Shouldn't go unnoticed that you worked on your birthday. Good for you. That being said, I thought as staff was going through the presentation that it makes logical sense that as, you know, you can't submit a grand vision on day one and expect it to be exactly the same, you know, months and months or years later. It makes logical sense that as you, as the project progresses, there would be some incremental changes necessary. So, barring public comment, I would make a motion to accept staff's recommendation and continue my support for this project. I think this is a remarkable opportunity for Martin County as a whole to have this level of project, this size of project, this caliber of project in Martin County. I'm happy to have it. Commissioner Hetherington. I thought you would reiterate some of your public benefits. If I remember, would the applicant talk about the public benefits? Tom McNicholas for the record, speaking on behalf of JWA Ranch. We are moving forward with the public benefits. I may miss a few of them because we have several. We've already been planning meetings with South Fork High School to do the off-site golf course for them to redo that. They have drainage issues. We're working through that with the school district now. We started on Banner Lake as of yesterday. So, yesterday, Banner Lake is underway, and then IFAS as well is moving to this site. We've donated 20-plus acres to them, and that will be happening over the next phases and process over the next year or so. So, IFAS University of Florida will be moving to the site with bona fide ag on the site and 91% open space. Other public benefits included $25 million in ad valorem a year. You know, I don't want to leave that one off the table. It's quite significant, but those are some of the biggest public benefits, some of them that are not in the PUD. Mr. Backs also donated about 120 trees to Hidden Oaks Middle School ball fields. Those were installed about five months ago. All of them have survived, and Hidden Oaks ball field has been better for it. So, those are all moving on and going well. I've got a public comment. Okay. Any other questions for the applicant? That's not for this. Do we have any public comment on this item? Second. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I'm not going to be supporting the motion. This project is wholly inside the Indian River Lagoon South SIRP natural lands component footprint. It's extremely important for the health of our rivers. It's incompatible. It's inconsistent with all the surrounding agricultural uses, and it is classic urban sprawl. Okay. With that, we have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Opposed. Motion carries four to one with Commissioner Hurd dissenting. Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you. Moving on to department number one, Office of Management and Budget items, which require board approval. Apparently, there's three, and Ms. Stephanie Murley will be leading the charge. Good afternoon, Commissioner. Stephanie Murley here to present just three items on OMB today. Our first item is a permission to accept the Emergency Management Performance, or EMPG, grant. Our Emergency Management Division is requesting the acceptance of $67,274. to enhance planning projects, provide for technology, equipment, and supplies, and programs to meet mandates, and also for funding for training and planning to enhance emergency management. This is a grant that we get annually, and there is no match required. A second item is a permission to accept the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, drone replacement program. Our Fire Rescue Department is requesting the acceptance of a grant award of $25,000 to cover the replacement cost of a drone previously purchased that needs to meet the minimum security standards based on the Florida Administrative Code, and there is no match required for this grant either. And my last item is a permission to accept the Florida Department of State Division of Library and Information Services Annual State Aid to Libraries grant. This is an annual grant we receive. The library department is requesting the acceptance of $76,270 for managing and coordinating free library services to Martin County residents. The funds will be used to upgrade Ideal Lab equipment, supplement funds for temporary staff, and to continue funding a full-time library specialist position. There is no match required for this grant. And that is it. Okay. Commissioner Smith. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. General Services, Department 3, permission to construct, to use construction management at-risk delivery method for the Larry Massing building future expansion. Mr. Sean Donahue. Thank you. Sean Donahue, General Services Director. Yeah, this is a request to use a C-MAR, the C-M at-risk method for this project. It's a perfect opportunity for the project since it has, you know, it's an existing building. We'll be working in and around staff. We'll try to keep the building. We will keep the building open the entire time. The contractor can help us coordinate the logistics, the phasing, and everything with this project. So it's ideal for this type of delivery method, and this will be our first foray into the project or into this method of construction. Commissioner Hetherington. Yes. I was going to say that we've been talking so long about using this construction management at-risk, and I'm happy to see it, and this is a very important building named after a very important iconic figure in Martin County, so I'll be happy to make a motion for this item. And I would be happy to second that. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Public Works, permission to use construction management at-risk delivery method for the Sand Dune Cafe building project. Mr. Zama. Yes. Good afternoon. George Zama, Public Works Deputy Director. CMR is the theme today, this afternoon. We are also, Public Works is working with the Parks Department. We often team up on the major capital improvement projects, and Parks was currently working on the design of the Sand Dune Cafe, and due to the complexity of the projects and this new delivery method, it makes sense to proceed with the construction management at risk. Just a little bit of a background, the Sand Dune Cafe, what's being proposed is a 3,000 square foot commercial kitchen and dining building, and along with access improvements and associated site work, everyone's pretty familiar with the Seaside Cafe. This building would be upwards of 10 feet above the parking lot elevation, so there is some access improvements. It's right adjacent to the ocean, there's coastal construction line permitting, and the foundation can get pretty robust, so I think bringing in a contractor at this point in time can help value engineer the project and help steer us in the right direction. So with that, staff is pursuant to Section 17.5 of the Martin County Purchasing Manual. We are also seeking, requesting to the Board's permission to use the construction management at risk delivery method for this project, as well as adopt a revised CIP sheet to reflect funding for the project. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I think this is a terrific project. It's one of our finest assets on the beach. It's one of our most beloved assets on the beach, and like so many of our contracts, we didn't supervise the contract very well, and it was a facility that was run into the ground. So I'm delighted that we are going to, once again, refresh this terrific location. I'll take that as a motion. So moved. Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Now, star of the show, Department No. 5, Water Quality Conditions and Project Updates, Mr. John Mayo. Where is he? I thought everybody was hanging around to watch my presentation. We've been here all day waiting for you. I'm opening up a folder that, is it this one, Donna? Yep. I'm going to get this started because it takes just a second to load. So thank you for the opportunity to give you an update on water quality efforts and projects that are upcoming and some of our accomplishments at Martin County. Again, my name is John Mayo. I am the Environmental Resource Administrator. I have the pleasure of working with an incredible team and representing them today and all the great work that they do. So normally I would spend some time contextualizing our problems. I can probably abbreviate that somewhat today. But basically, when human beings decide to live in paradise... Could you open the whole thing before Commissioner Campy has a stroke? There we go. For people that watch at home, when you have it smaller, it's hard to see what you're doing. Donna took care of that. Donna, thank you, Donna. I wouldn't have known how to do it. So typically when people decide they want to live in paradise, it can be a challenge to not deplete that paradise that you live in. So to summarize it in a really obtuse way, humans move in, they need roofs, they need transportation, they eat, so they need food and they need to deal with the waste from that. All of those things are opportunities to either deplete paradise or to balance our enjoyment of it with smart and efficient ways of managing that. One of our major concerns, in every region where you have people living on the landscape, you've got to have responsible management to make sure that you keep that in balance. We have the unique misfortune of having to not only deal with our own, but to have to deal with lake discharges that come from other basins. So that problem is a problem we commonly talk about. I want to feature a new tool that we have to help us with this issue. And Donna, if you could help me get to the video part of this. I'm asking for technological challenges here. I think it's going to work. So what you're looking at is a graphic illustration of the output of a model that we worked with one of our partners to create. What this does is it takes the salinity measuring from 27 different salinity meters throughout the river estuary and the near shore reef. And it created a model so that we could turn out on and off certain freshwater inflows. We could set those at different levels. We could run this thing and it would tell us the inundation of fresh water into the St. Lucie River estuary lagoon and even on the near shore reef. I'll just run it. This is front. This is an actual discharge event from Lake Okeechobee in March of this year. This is a two week period. And what you see is the yellow is the fresh water coming from the South Fork or from the St. Lucie Canal. The blue is ocean water and everything in between is some gradient of salinity. You can see where the as the this is about a 1500 cubic foot per second lake discharge with no local basin runoff. So it's a great example of of how the lake in and of itself impacts our ecology here. So you can see how the yellow kind of moves its way down. The actually no this is the wrong one. I'm sorry. This is actually showing the recovery. There's there's another one in that folder Donna. I apologize for the awkwardness of this. I tried to do something cool and that was probably outside my wheelhouse. Here it is. So this is the discharge event. So it really are it really demonstrates graphically how the the salinity from the fresh water moves through the river and estuary and and how even with tide cycles that you kind of see that surging from the inlet. It doesn't really do much to exchange that water up into the St. Lucie River. You get some exchange right in the inlet and then and going north in the lagoon. But it doesn't do much to to exchange down that up into the middle estuary where we have salinity issues. I don't have to keep running that. Let me switch back to this and I'm going to go full screen. Am I doing this right Donna? That's smart. So we monitor salinity because it's a great proxy. It's easy to measure. It mixes very well with the water and you get a really consistent result. But salinity is not the only thing we're concerned about. It's something we're concerned about because it impacts it creates harmful and and mortal situations for the oyster beds and for the seagrass and even the coral reef that are even probably the most sensitive to salinity changes. But it's a good proxy for other things we're concerned about like nitrogen, phosphorus, turbidity. And in this picture here this is from that event that we just showed the graphic modeling of. You can see the dark water from the St. Lucie River as it contrasts with the Indian River Lagoon water that's you know much cleaner. And then in the next photo you can see where the plume. Again this is just lake water. There's no basin runoff during this time period. How it blankets and chokes out the near shore Florida reef track. That's we are the proud hosts of the northern terminus of that. There's some obvious challenges with having turbidity in and of itself. All of these ecosystems depend on photosynthesis or sunlight penetration through the water. And this obviously it doesn't help that. Not to mention all the other pollutants that come with it. So so that's that's the lake discharges. Who cares? I don't have to probably preach to the choir about the value of water quality and preserving our delicate and incredibly valuable ecosystems in Martin County. But just as a reminder we have everything from near shore coral reef to Lake Okeechobee. Some some native uplands that are exact excellent examples of the remnant domain from South Florida's sand pines and flat woods. We have the most biodiverse estuary in America. We have the Loxahatchee River Commissioner Jenkins that is a federally designated scenic wild and scenic river. It's got incredible ecological value economic value quality of life value and everything in between. And I don't think there's a lot of places on earth that can claim the value that we have in our natural resources. So again I know I'm preaching to the choir but there may be some folks tuned in that are new to this. So how has Martin County done its part in in addressing these issues? I'm proud to say that that this board and this county that citizens have set a standard for world-class protection of their resources. Nobody is satisfied with where we're at but what we have accomplished is remarkable. We've built 43 stormwater treatment projects to date. A stormwater treatment area is when we go into a neighborhood that was built before our current drainage standards and a lot of times they were built on ag drainage so the drainage really isn't sufficient and it doesn't do anything to help with water quality. And the county finds grant dollars. We design projects and build things to retrofit that drainage to improve the conveyance to store the water and to provide water quality treatment before it gets to our surface waters. Those projects have reduced over 70,000 pounds of nitrogen and 15,000 pounds of phosphorus and I'm proud to tell you today that two weeks ago and maybe just a little bit more than two weeks ago we sent in our annual report for the basin management action plan to the DEP and we for the first time were able to articulate that we've met 100 percent of our load allocation reductions for Martin County as a stakeholder. Does that mean we're done? There's a few more slides here so the short of that is no. We've also spent over 150 million dollars largely with state and federal grants. At least 50 percent of that was from state and federal grants to complete these projects and to acquire conservation land. We participated in the acquisition of over 70,000 acres of conservation land largely in western Martin County that provides not only does it provide aqua free charge it provides the natural area storage and treatment of rainfall and stormwater. It also keeps the problem from getting worse and forcing us to do other projects to address those new concerns. So what else have we done? This board a few years ago directed staff to develop an integrated pest management plan which is a which is a really deliberate and intentional way for staff to develop ways to use herbicides and pesticides in the most responsible way possible to meet the objectives of our level of service but also to reduce the amount of pollutants to the water to as little as possible and to use the most responsible chemicals. We have a fertilizer ordinance that's been long-standing and well known. We've trained in partnership with UF thousands of local citizens in what our water issues are and how they can be part of the solution as homeowners and as people who live on the landscape. My number there on septic to sewers is not quite right. It kind of split the difference. There's 6,000 septic to sewer conversions that have been made available with infrastructure thanks to the board's commitment to that program and I'm told as of today about 3,000 connections have been made to that. The remaining 4,000 units that were identified in the connect to protect plan are in some stage of design permitting funding and construction. We're well on our way to achieving that really honorable object objective. This board has taken a very active role in advocacy at the state and federal table and making sure that our interests were protected, making sure that regional projects that will help solve these problems are funded, that they're passed in word of bills. This board has been at the table for state policy to make sure that policies that could be harmful to the objectives of cleaning our water were avoided and policies that were needed were enacted and this board gave us incredible support for your staff in the loathsome process which as you all know August 12th we were pleased to have a record of decision filed with the Corps of Engineers and we now operate under the loathsome schedule. I think the easiest way to celebrate that is we most certainly if you ask anybody involved including the colonel or or the executive director of water management district had we been operating under lures in the traditional sense we most certainly would have had another lost summer in 2024 and nobody's talking about it because it didn't happen. I think sometimes success is is silent so if I could preach for just a second on that we we really do have something to celebrate in loathsome. It will substantially reduce discharges. When we get on calls now with the Corps of Engineers on a weekly basis to talk about current conditions and make recommendations they don't even have the option to consider sending water to the St. Lucie River unless it gets to 17 feet or more depending on the time of year. Huge huge success without spending a dollar on infrastructure. So what else is your staff working on? Something here's a list of projects that are either in some stage of construction design or permitting. The first one that you're probably going to see some actual construction work on is East Fork Creek Phase 2. This project is one we've been working on since I've been at the county. It was East Fork Creek Phase 1. Some of the challenges that this project had forced it to kind of become East Fork Phase 2. We did another part of this thing first. We finished last year. This one's now ready to go. We've got a construction contract awarded. We're working out some of the final details and that should be under construction hopefully next month. It involves about a 700 foot linear lake right but it's in an old DOT right away that that they gave to us to build this project. It's between Mariner Sands and Heritage Ridge and then there's a shallow man-made wetland that will further polish the water before it goes through Mariner Sands and then into the Manatee Pocket. Again that project starts here very shortly. The next project you'll actually see some construction on probably this dry season is the Manatee Pocket. You guys are probably familiar with this project because you approved about a dozen different board items on some really complicated land deals that we had to get through to get this one done. The land was at no cost to the county and the project has substantial grant funding in it and this project is going to involve a small pond with a larger wetland restoration on on the tailwater. It's going to look great. It's maximizing a very small area to provide some water quality treatment right at the tailwater of the of this creek that empties into Manatee Pocket. Another project we're working on in design phase, this is kind of an exciting one where it's a good example of how the hole is greater than the sum of its parts. We have an existing stormwater treatment area just north of the fire station on Canter by Indian Street and adjacent to it is a dry detention cell that was built as part of the Indian Street Bridge project. That dry detention cell is underutilized in its current form. We are designing a project where we would combine those two. We would connect them together and we'd do some excavation in the dry detention, make that a wet cell, and we'd make some improvements to the existing stormwater treatment area to increase the capacity there and the nutrient reduction benefits. Another exciting aspect of this project that we're eager to see is this will be our first channel enhancement project. So the the half a mile of ditch that is immediately upstream of coral gardens is going to be the first project where we implement some innovative channel enhancement. It'll turn the ditch into more of a natural stream function and it should reduce maintenance. It should increase the nutrient reduction just in the conveyance system. We don't have to acquire any land. It falls within the footprint. It was one of the low-hanging fruits for that project for that concept. John. Yes sir. Just pause there for one second. For those of you who remember this project when it started, there was a March storm that we had where we got like 10 inches in the morning and it was like three feet of water out on canter like instantaneously. And what we discovered with that I think post that storm was that this whole system had not been maintained pre this, pre even the first phase of this. And I think I know that that led to a lot of this connection and other connections to it. And it's just interesting to see now this is like the third iteration of making it better. But this is a really cool project that today doesn't do what it did after we had that storm, which was really something. And I drove through it that day. It was amazing like in three hours how much water there was in there. That the one we had all the flower farm or the not the flower farm, but we had the all the pots from the landscape nursery. Yeah, they're all all strewn out. The other project too before this, the Mariner Sands, that one also had problems in the past. We've gone through several iterations there. We had some homes flooded due to DOT failing to maintain the ditch. And that was the first time I remember we had an excavator in the bottom of the ditch. DOT had attempted with a crew. They had like 12 people out there trying to clear the ditch. And we had one of our operators get in there. And in about 30 minutes, he did what they did in a day. So we sent him packing and finished the job for him. Good times, good times. It was good times, actually. It was impressive. Again, we showed him how to get it done. You and all your engineering friends around the room were all excited. Thank you for that point, Commissioner Smith. And actually, it reminds me that in all of these projects, we have multiple benefit purposes in them that we try to balance. And our primary inspiration is water quality. But we always try to improve some conveyance, provide some additional level of service and flood protection. And then the aesthetic benefit. These tend to be park-like features that when people hear that someone's going to build a stormwater treatment area in their neighborhood, they don't tend to get excited. But when they see them, they're like, oh, that's what this is? Why didn't you tell us it was a park? So all those things help to make it easier to build additional ones. In fact, I regularly get contacts from realtors asking where we're building the next ones. I don't know why, but they do. This is a really cool project that I think only Mike Houston would try to take on. Mike had identified that there was an old Cypress floodplain on a tributary to the north fork of the Loxahatchee that was transitioning. It had dried out from channelization of the Cypress Creek and had identified really that the SERP projects that would be being built upstream of that would probably attenuate flows and maybe exacerbate the dehydrating of this floodplain. And so he's been working with Tetra Tech to design a project to restore this. It's going to involve probably a really long, low-head weir system that will stage some water above ground during high-flow events, but also it'll stage the water table, which Cypress sometimes don't care so much if they get it from below the ground or above the ground. And we hope to sustain a really historic and beautiful Cypress floodplain through that. This project is an interesting one. It's very conceptual at this point. It involves trying to address a large phosphorus loading that comes from Hog Creek. That's always been one of our largest phosphorus contributors to the St. Lucie River. And the Map Creek, it flows through the northern part of this. That has some opportunities for us to achieve some water quality benefits as well. So we have been for a couple of years looking at is there a way for us to engineer a solution that meets both those needs, or what are some innovative ways we could try to address this. There's not a lot of contour back here, so maintaining the level of service on flood protection while doing some water quality projects. It's an engineering challenge, and so we're kind of slow walking this. There's some exciting ideas that are being kicked around. There's one that I'm really looking forward to bringing to you in the near future that could be a couple million dollar projects where we have very little county money involved, and we achieve several really cool benefits. I'm going to keep my powder dry on that one for a second. Kitchen Creek Eastern Flowway is another one that's just really complicated. We discovered another Cypress floodplain that was transitioning because it wasn't getting adequate water. And at the same time, we knew that another portion of this, the central flowway, had way too much water. It was a very flashy system. So we're trying to provide some relief to the central flowway while getting the water where it needs to go. We've engineered kind of a project for that, but we're looking for ways to maximize the benefits and seeing if there's other objectives we can achieve at the same time before we bring that one to full design. I'll add that we have 20 acres that we need to acquire to make that work, and that is a very complicated acquisition that we could use some outside help. You can't get it done in the next two weeks. That's not going to get done. I mean, we've been working on this for four years. So, but anyway, just throwing it out there for our friends that help us acquire environmentally valuable land for the county. Commissioner Smith. And it's one of my favorite projects, and it goes back to its beginning, and I would, it would be remiss at least if we're going to remind folks of how we got from A to B to C. Um, this goes back to Titilios, um, and the mulch plant that used to be on that property, and what it took to get us from mulch plant to Kitchen Creek restoration. Um, it just, it was, it was a Herculean effort, and it just continues on today, Harold. But, um, but the project, all these projects have their own, their own story and their own life. But, um, I think this, John, I don't know how many more slides you have. Do you know how many? Just a couple. Um, I think you ought to start off every commission meeting with this presentation, because it would explain a lot to residents that come up and perhaps suggest that we don't do enough. Um, I, I, I don't know of too many more counties that could pull off what you all pull off. So the beginning of the meeting at the beginning of the meeting for public comment, but anyway, go ahead. Um, thank you for that, commissioner. Yeah, the Kitchen Creek before and after is pretty remarkable. Um, that, that's a project the county should be very proud of. And, um, uh, hopefully we were able to, to keep moving downstream with that one and provide additional better. I, I've been here six years. I don't think we've done an easy one yet, um, chair. So, um, that, you know, we're not surprised that it's hard and we're not dissuaded by it. Uh, this was a really exciting one. Um, this is, uh, largely in the monitoring stage. Now we decided a couple of years ago that, um, it was time to start developing the science of estuary restoration. Um, you've heard the adage that a watched pot never, or a watched pot never boils. I have that right. Um, and you know, if you sit there and stare at it, you can start to be convinced that it's never going to boil. But if you have a thermometer in the pot and you can see that the temperature is rising, you can see there's a trajectory that, yeah, actually this is probably going to boil. We have the privilege of watching things like Everglades restoration and being closely attuned to the project progress and all the things that are happening with at the state level and with FDACs and local contributions to water quality. We get to look at the thermometer and we see that we're going to get there. Um, so, so we're probably a little more hopeful than most that don't have the thermometer to watch. And to that end, um, it's, it's, uh, your ERD's conviction that we don't want to be figuring this out when we're done with the water quality effort. We want to know how to do it and be running. Um, and so we, we were able to tap into several different grant sources to do a whole, uh, menagerie of different, uh, approaches to learning as much as we can from getting 15 acres of seagrass planting for free through a grant from the DEP. Um, that was kind of, that's the blunt force planting approach and we'll just keep an eye on it and we'll see, um, which ones do better, which areas do better. We'll learn things about what the habitat requirements are from how those perform. We did a, um, a, uh, a grant with FWC to, um, build an industrialized version of FOS is back of the house nursery so that we would have the nursery stock when we get into full estuary restoration mode. Um, we wouldn't want to be looking around for that seagrass when we're ready to put it in the ground. Um, and then, uh, we did a whole bunch of, uh, small experiments with an EPA grant where, uh, a couple of them, for example, where we were removing lingbia from seagrass meadows to see how those meadows responded. We were, we've experimented with some different technologies. We've been out there removing it by hand, um, which isn't a terribly efficient way, but it gives us a benchmark to see how that seagrass responds. One of the things we've noticed as we spent more time looking at, um, our seagrass meadows is that wherever we have them, we have this, uh, filamentous bacteria that we call lingbia and trying to understand the relationship that that has and how damaging it is. And, um, so there's been a bunch of different experiments with that. Um, we're analyzing it in the lab, trying to do some source tracking of the nutrients that feed it. Um, but one of the ones that's, that's pretty exciting today, if, if this meeting were tomorrow, I probably would have brought my microscope and hooked it up. Dono would have really had a headache on this one and showed you some, can I say clam porn? They, we, we worked with, um, we worked with the Florida shellfish company at FOS and we collected some native clam species that live in the soil. And we, you know, we're hearing and beginning to believe that, um, where the real estuary restoration science is, is getting the soil habitat right. And so we discovered, um, that there's a clam that has this, um, symbiotic bacteria that helps to digest hydrogen sulfide, which is a consequence of hypoxia, where you, where you have, uh, low DO levels in the seagrass meadows. And, uh, we decided maybe it'd be a good idea to propagate these things, farm raise them and introduce them with our, our restoration efforts. And, um, tomorrow we will be taking a group out to FOS and, and they'll be in real time showing us how that works. So the, the contractor out there has, has got kind of refined the, the propagation method. And he's, he's been successfully, it sounds like in vitro fertilization to me. They, they take some of the sperm, some of the eggs from the males and females and mix together, and they're, they're growing new clams that will be available to us to throw out in the soil as an amendment to, um, help get the habitat right, um, for those seagrass meadows. That's a really nerdy thing, but, um, it's, I think it's pretty cool. We also are, um, finalizing a, um, uh, grant agreement that we've been awarded from EPA to expand our water quality monitoring program fivefold. Um, the, the, the, the board gives us a hundred thousand dollars a year to work with. And, um, we're, we are going to ramp it up a little bit with an extra 500,000 from the EPA to, to answer some questions that we've been challenged to answer and that nobody really else has answered, um, for us. And so we're partnering with some universities and some NGOs to, to do some, uh, sediment sampling in our STAs in the, in the river and canals to do some additional source tracking to understand better how the land use changes have happened over the years in, in, in the County and to give us more information about targeting new projects, um, so that we make the right decisions about where to spend future dollars on, uh, and water quality improvement efforts. And I saved this for last. It is certainly not least. Um, and it's something I think that, um, you know, we're just not, we're hearing enough about, um, and that's progress on Everglades restoration. You've probably heard that, you know, we're spending more than we ever have projects are moving forward. You've seen drew Barlett cutting ribbons and turning shovels. Um, we have been significant beneficiaries of, of progress in this, um, much more so than other areas. I think it's largely attributed attributed to the board's active advocacy, um, and our, our County's involvement in these issues to the extent that we've reached in our own pockets to help make these things happen. And to that end, uh, the Indian river lagoon South component of SERP, which is a suite of projects that helps to address the regional water storage and treatment, um, that helps the St. Lucie river and Indian river lagoon are every one of those things is in some stage of construction. Um, it, all the infrastructure projects a couple of weeks ago, um, the Corps of Engineers awarded two noteworthy contracts. Um, they were funded through the bipartisan infrastructure bill, um, from a year and a half ago, two years ago. Um, there was a billion dollars infused into SERP from fed from a federal funding source. It was outside of their normal budget, which right now is running $450 million a year. That billion dollars was allocated to the projects that they could move forward. Um, I'm going to highlight two of those. One of them is the SEP EAA A2 reservoir or the EAA reservoir as we know it. Um, $3 billion was awarded on a contract to build the EAA reservoir a couple of weeks ago. It's the single largest contract that Jacksonville has ever awarded. It's the largest contract in America for the, uh, the Corps of Engineers this year. Um, and it builds the reservoir that's going to store lots of lake water that will relieve discharges significantly for us. Another contract that's just as exciting, if you ask me, is, uh, they awarded the construction contract for the C23-24 North Reservoir, which is a storage reservoir in western St. Lucie County that will store 30,000 acre feet of water. It will feed water to the C23-24 stormwater treatment area that the Corps is finishing up, uh, next year. It's been under construction for a couple of years. And then if you remember last year, the South Florida Water Management District, in an effort to keep up with the feds and their spending and their cost share agreement, took over construction of the C23-24 South Reservoir, which is another 30,000 acre feet of storage. Um, and that contract has been awarded for construction. So every reservoir, including the C25, um, and every STA in the IRL South, uh, suite of projects is in construction. Um, it's going to take a couple of years, but, but they're in construction and they're not going to stop. They've been funded. Um, and we're going to, we're going to realize the benefits from that. Um, those, it's a, it's really a remarkable thing. Uh, and, and to think that the EAA reservoir is funded for construction is, um, is remarkable. Um, and then some of you will remember that in the IRL South project implementation report, it included a thing called natural lands that identified the potential for 90,000 acres of natural area storage and treatment. Um, two years ago in the word of bill, uh, Congress authorized a post authorization change report that raised the cost limits because originally it was passed in 2007. Things cost a little bit more now. Um, that also codified the natural lands and the estuary restoration elements of IRL South. That project partnership agreement is in the final stages of being worked out between the district and the Corps of Engineers. It looks like the Corps of Engineers will probably take the 8 million cubic yard muck removal project for the St. Lucie River and an estuary and, uh, the state will end up with the, on the cost share agreement, the, the natural lands component. It's timely. Should the voters approve our, uh, our conservation sales tax initiative, we would be able to leverage, um, heavily that program and, and provide, um, seed dollars that, that I would expect we would have a significant, um, partnership with, uh, the state in because it also leverages those federal dollars and the cost share. Um, and like I said, that, uh, you know, we, we talk about, um, Everglades restoration. I think we sometimes get frustrated with the lack of progress. It truly is an example where it, we don't really realize the benefits until it's complete. IRL South is a great example of that. All of the projects we've been building, um, have been dealing with the, the, the issues, the watershed challenges. Once those are fixed, then you can go into the estuary and actually do the restoration. And that's when we'll see the benefit. It's like, you don't serve a cake before you've got it frosted, right? It doesn't taste very good when you're just putting the ingredients together, but you serve the thing once it's frosted. And, and the, uh, the, the 8 million cubic yards of muck removal is really the frosting on our cake. And that's when, you know, if we stay the course, um, we, we should be realizing those benefits sooner than later. I think that's all I have. Commissioner Smith. This isn't going to sound right, but I'm going to say it because it's really, it's, it's, it's very positive. 24 years ago, when I started doing this, there was a guy here named Gary and Paul, or two guys here named Gary and Paul. And they came to us and really created the vision for what you just saw. Um, they carried it out for, I don't know, six, seven, eight years or so, whatever that was. Um, but they were the seed work for creating this amazing slew of projects that John just laid out. But as good as they were, John, you have elevated this stuff to a whole nother game. And, um, you know, we talk about our staff all the time and the amazing work they do. Um, it is, it is remarkable what you and your team have pulled off and are continuing to do. Um, don't ever leave. That would be really terrible for us. Um, keep doing what you're doing. Uh, it is, you know, until the last maybe month or two with the rains we've had, it was the best. I think the lagoon, at least up in Jensen has looked in the 30 years I've been there. Um, and I'm sure the rest of you have seen other parts of your neighborhood look really super too. So I tell everybody now, and, and, and it is hard for people to see this stuff because some of the stuff is so far away or so hard to like put your, your hands on. You don't, you can't see it, but I'd say not only do we see the horizon, but we, we, we are really close to the horizon of getting this stuff done. And so great work, John, fantastic presentation. Keep doing it. Come back and do it again soon and in all seriousness and do it in the morning. So all the people that are in the chambers can hear it. Yeah, true. I kind of like to end on a happy note. Yeah, but it would set the tone for the rest of the meeting. This morning we had 50 or 60 people in here who would have enjoyed this presentation. And I can't believe you've only been, been here for six years, John. You've done a remarkable job in six years and your predecessors were all really, really special too. So it's, it's, uh, you have all, Paul and Gary and Deb, all there, they were all huge shoes to fill and you did it. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you and Mike. I really have. This isn't a going away song for you. Okay. Do you still have your no compete contract in place? I do. I think he goes, I think he's holding it. All right. Someday when he lays it on my desk, I know it's been enough. Well, we have reached the end of our agenda, I believe. And we have one public comment form. Mr. Mr. Joe Cosgrove. I don't even know if I'm in the right place. I have a question, maybe more than anything about safety. I happen to be a bicyclist. I ride a lot, the streets, sidewalks of the city and the county. And it's been my experience in the last several years. There seems to be more motorized vehicles on the sidewalks than there are human powered pedestrians and bicycles as such. I almost got run over the other night by a motorized scooter in the middle of the night with no light on it. And I have lights and stuff. But Mike, I don't know if I'm in the right place. I've been to the sheriff. I've spoken to the corporal in the traffic division, prized him in a situation. I've spoken to officers on the street, not the city, but in the county offices. And I know there's a lot more serious problems. I happen to be evicted. I've been run over on my bicycle before and I lived in Port St. Lucie. And I don't want to get run over again, if I can help it. The situation is getting to be biblical proportions. I see at least 50 percent of the vehicles on the sidewalks are motorized. We're like almost in a minority. And they're prohibited according to Florida statute. And I was just hoping if there was some way, somehow this could be brought to the law enforcement agencies through the commission, maybe to try to, you know, if possible, I know they have more important things to do. However, safety to me is a big thing, too, especially when it's mine. So with that being said, that's why I'm here. One of the reasons, another reason is there's been a lot of construction up and down Route 1. They've tore up the sidewalks. I've put in conduit underneath and such. And many places where they would put, I call them manhole covers. They're probably inspection covers. They're more of a rectangular, probably a vinyl top. They dig a hole, they stick it around. I guess it's where they make connections or something. Well, what happens when they leave that construction site, the hole they put in it is usually bigger than the item they put in it. So it leaves a gap all the way around it, which a foot can go in, a bicycle tire. Back in summertime, there was a major problem at the corner of Route 1 and Monterey, which the city did have someone come out and repair, that type of issue. Well, and that is like, I reported three or four of them that are in that situation. I've been in contact with the city and a private contractor that's supposed to make these repairs. They're supposed to put asphalt in there to fill in those gaps till they can put concrete. But in the heat and the summer and such, that asphalt, what would you call it? It melts. It sinks down. You know, it goes down. Sir, your time is up. All right. Mr. Camp, he's got you. In regards to the motorized vehicles, I completely agree with you. What's happening when they're in the road, you know, if you're driving a car and you look to your left and you see someone on a bicycle, you, as a seasoned, experienced driver, you sort of have an understanding of how long it would take that bike to get to you, except if it's an electric bike and he's doing 20, 25 miles an hour. But in terms of them riding on the sidewalk, I'd like to, I'm sure all five of us could tell the same story, have, maybe we can send a letter from the commission to the sheriff's office reiterating that because this gentleman is exactly, exactly right. In Palm City on Map Road, it is every single day, kids and grownups, they're riding stand-up scooters that are electric, that are very fast. They're riding like a little, I saw a sheriff's deputy pull over someone on Martin Highway. It was two teenage kids, young teenage, riding a go-kart in the road on Martin Highway. And she had pulled them over because at first, I'm like, who's she pulling over? I don't see anything. And then as I got closer, in front of her, her vehicle was two kids in a go-kart, like a little low, buzzy. Those things are super fast. And right by the patio, a couple of, I guess, three or four weeks ago, I was talking to some people and I just stepped backward. I could hear it because it had like a loud muffler on it. But had I taken an extra step back, he would have absolutely run me over on the sidewalk. So I completely agree with you, sir. And then in regards to the rim around it, that's our head of public works right there, Mr. Gordon. He said a majority of that is the city of Stewart, potentially. So we'll know to do that on hours, but you'll probably have to speak to somebody at the city of Stewart for some of those as well. But in terms of your first comment, we'll send a letter from the five of us to the sheriff to say, you know, you're not the only one. So thank you for coming. You did come to the right place. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Gary Heeler. Heeler. Heeler. Erler. Erler. Erler. Erler. Call him the ice cream man. You're running out of time to get that right. He'll see you on the street. We're good with that. And I appreciate everything you've done, sir. Gary Erler, for the record, Port Salerno. Sorry, I didn't speak at 9.05 and I waited till the end. Something that's come up in our NAC meeting was the design standards that are throughout all the, they're going through all the NACs and into the CRAs. The one thing that I've noticed attending a couple NAC meetings, it's a 48 page report. When they did the, when they presented it to the NAC, a lot of the text was left out of it. I guess what examples I'm trying to make is page 14, 18, 26, 30, 39, 43, and 46, and I've probably missed one or two, all list design standards from one to four stories. It's one to three stories, 40 foot max. I know as well as you do, someone will challenge that. It'll be a be a man by land type deal. And we're going to have four stories in our CRAs if it's not taken out of the text before you approve the design standards whenever it comes back. So I ask you to please look at that. It's also my understanding that the county is looking to remove the appeal process for the design standards. Normally you go before the NAC and then the CRA and then you guys say, yeah, you can go ahead and do that, whether it's a bigger structure or anything exceeding 450 square feet. Um, you know, you want to put a metal building, you have whatever it is, and they're going to take away that appeal process inside the CRA. I hope that never goes away. Um, I don't think anybody knows anything about that. Our lawyer. Well, it, it was mentioned that it was mentioned at Port Salernos once, once the design standards go in, no, I understand. Um, it's public knowledge that this commission is in the favor of a, of a train station. Just thought of this this morning as I was watching, like I said, I couldn't make nine Oh five. I made sure I came back. Um, what, what was started as an update on bright line became an RFP and now applying for grants. So my question to you as a commission is what is your cap? Is it still the 15 million minus the grants? I mean, if, if, if the County's on the hook by itself, no matter where it is, there's still a cost factor. So what is the cap? And if there is please trans transmit that to the public since it went from an update to an RFP applying for grants, not on the agenda. The public feels it's already blowing up social media. I could tell you it's already blowing up, you know, County looking for bright line. My three minutes is up. I understand. Thank you. Oh, by the way, off the record. Thank you all for what you've done for Port Salerno. Thank you. Thank you. All right. With that commissioner comments, commissioner Smith. I'm done. Um, there is something for me. I did not pull this cause I pulled one already for my whole career. Um, but, uh, on the consent agenda was the, uh, approval of the interlocal agreement, uh, with, uh, um, Jupiter Island SMRU for the potable water project. I've been working on for quite a while, um, in the petway community. Um, I just wanted to publicly thank, um, um, commissioner fields, Marshall fields for helping me drag this field field. Yeah. Oh, okay. Um, I've been calling in that for quite a while. Oops. Anyway, he helped me drag it across the, um, finish line and, um, and, um, uh, John Schneider and the, our legislators got us at least half of the money we were looking for. And, uh, Stuart Trent has been, uh, wonderful. And we are going to begin that project on Kingsway, uh, a portion of that project on Kingsway, which is the easiest part of it that should be done by, um, uh, Christmas. And, uh, I, I, I keep bringing this up. If you literally looked at the water that's coming out of the faucet in these people's homes, um, you'd understand my exuberance of this project to getting to the, uh, thing. So we're actually going to try to make up the difference, hopefully, uh, um, of what we need by private, private funds. Um, and, uh, obviously we'll be applying, encouraging the next commission to be applying for some additional grants. So anyway, and I'll be standing over there instead of over here. So, so anyway, thank you. I'm all set. Okay. And I talked to, um, representative Oberdorf this morning, and he told me that there is a meeting tomorrow at the Port Salerno civic center starting at 10 o'clock and it's a bunch, it's going to be state and federal agencies doing, um, toward disaster recovery stuff. So any, any residents, you know, it's, it's, it's at the civic center because that was the area that was most impacted by the tornadoes. So if you have some ongoing questions, needs, that would be a good place for you to go tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Yeah, we'll have representatives of the county there. Um, and, uh, the state will be there. Um, the feds are invited. We expect them to be there, but, um, uh, insurance, um, uh, we'll be able to discuss with them how we're dealing with debris, um, and, uh, pick up. And of course, debris on private property is, is, is how we do. We do have a plan for how to deal with that to those who need help. And, uh, um, so yes, that'll be a tomorrow, uh, at the civic center. Uh, FEMA also has their disaster recovery center at the fairgrounds, which is also providing the individual assistance. But one of the things that we're interested in finding out is those who are falling through the cracks and haven't gotten any help yet. So that's a big part of what that outreach is for and, and helping people with insurance and how they deal with insurance. So Toby, I know, and, and our representatives, uh, Snyder as well, will be having, helping to get the, uh, insurance commissioner and their staff there to help people with, um, those tough questions. Commissioner Campion. To your point about debris on private property, I had someone reach out to me from Palm City Farms that had a lot of debris on their property. And I guess word is going around, hopefully, that we'll help some people there because otherwise they're going to put it all out on the street. And I told them not to do that. No, that's exactly what they need to do. No, I'm talking mountains of stuff. That's what you do. We cannot enter private property. Even with permission? Uh, not, not, unless we declare it a, uh, health and safety emergency. And that would be for structures that have collapsed. So we do not, um, we don't go on to home, undamaged homes and clear people's property. The only problem is, is these people are large landowners on Citrus Boulevard. That's fine. I mean, that's, it's what we do. You know, that's part of what happens. Uh, if it's not in the right of way, um, we will not get paid. We will not get any federal funds if we don't, if it's. Okay. And that's why when you said the other parts, it just made me think of it. Oh, no. So it's a, and Jim is here to clarify, but it's a disaster debris pickup is complicated in the fact that, um, the expectation is that you're working on public property, uh, which is our right of ways. Um, we do provide a normal service in our, our pickup. Not everybody has a, uh, uh, uh, a pickup like ours, but if you have a vacant lot that did not have a house on it, that is not eligible. If it's a home, yes, it is eligible. So those are the, some of the issues of, if you want to, um, address them. Obviously, if there's a big pile in the, in the street that was next to a vacant lot, um, we'll deal with it. Um, but the idea is, is that we're serving, uh, residential properties, not, um, vacant or, uh, uh, you know, um, silver culture areas that just want to clear their property and put it at the street. It's got to be for residences. Right. Uh, Jim Gordon, public works director. So the, um, I think the, um, I think I've got that same, uh, resident, 8251 citrus, um, has, yep, has a large amount of debris. So we can't enter into it under the FEMA program. However, other agencies may be able to, and we're trying to get a division of forestry to meet with them because they might be able to do a right of entry project where they might be able to help them out. So that's ongoing right now is to see if they have the ability to move that material. If they, if any volunteer organization can bring that material out to us, then we're allowed to pick it up under our FEMA program. So, and FEMA is here. Uh, I was just meeting with them for the last couple of hours and they're looking at everything that's happening right now and they're, they're monitoring what's, what's going on. They're happy with where we're at right now. Um, but they, they definitely have some guardrails that we have to stay within. And, uh, we're familiar with what those are and, uh, you know, we want to make sure we don't jeopardize our reimbursement because this is millions of dollars. Yeah. We're, we're looking at an excess of three million and debris pickup alone. And if you, um, uh, just, just to give you a magnitude of how small this event was, that's, uh, we're, we're currently at three to $5 million of, um, of costs. Um, and, um, and while everybody is here to help, if you don't follow the rules that 3 million or 5 million could be on the backs of our taxpayer. So that's, that's why we, we, we, we're very careful about how we do it. We're being fast about it, but, but we're also very knowledgeable and know, know what we're doing. Mr. Smith. Jim, thank you for being here because now I just prompted the question. So do we have a schedule as to, is it waste management doing it? Is it us doing it? Um, cause I haven't noticed like on Sewell's point, I haven't noticed any of that debris moving away yet. Um, so it's, it's a combination thereof. So, um, tomorrow we have a, um, debris management contractor who's measuring in trucks tomorrow. Um, so we're going to have contracted services picking up material. We also have our internal crews. We have a public works crews and a utilities crew that's working on that stuff to supplement the contractor and to really bridge the gap between when the event happened and when the contractor gets here. So, uh, both of those things are happening. And then finally, if it's normal yard waste, less than 10 cubic yards, which is essentially, um, three, uh, refrigerators kind of in size, um, then it'll be picked up under the waste management contract. So, uh, small piles generally will be picked up by waste management. If they're vegetation, uh, larger piles will be put into our program and we're tracking those. We, the residents have been putting the information into our request for service system. We've been mapping out where all of those are so that we can be efficient in the way that we use our resources to pick that material up. So the answer is really all three. It could be any of those three. Um, but if it's a small pile, it's going to be waste management. It just won't be quite as fast as they normally have because they're pretty fast. They usually pick up on Wednesdays, but it might be two Wednesdays by the time they get there. They did bring in waste, did bring in additional resources. They normally have 12, uh, clamshell trucks right now. They're running 15 in Martin County. Same everywhere. Yep. So they're all over the place, picking up those smaller piles, but the bigger piles that we see in some of the areas that were harder hit, like citrus Boulevard or, um, country place off of citrus Boulevard is just incredible. How many beautiful, uh, pine trees and Oak trees have been destroyed out there. Um, uh, hundreds and hundreds of cubic yards of debris is, is out there. Um, and then obviously the areas in town as well that were damaged. So, so we're going to be picking up starting tomorrow after the trucks get measured in. So the FEMA program requires you to determine what the cubic yardage volume of each truck is so that we can determine how much material they have in each load. And that's, what's happening tomorrow is they're measuring all of those and then they're going to put them out on the road. So you'll see them in, uh, three or four different spots, the hardest hit spots. And then we're going to move out from those spots thereafter. So it could be still a week or two in Sewell's point or Jensen or any place up North. Yeah, it's definitely, I would say let's, let's plan on being several weeks. And then if we exceed those expectations, then, then that's what we'll do. But, uh, I just want to, um, you know, it is a countywide impact, although certain areas are harder hit. And I think it's appropriate for us to focus in those harder areas so that they have room to move more debris out. Because right now we've got a situation in some neighborhoods where their entire right of way is full and they can't put anything else out. So we have to get that material out so they can bring the next load to us. So that's what we're going to do over the next couple of weeks. And then we're going to radiate out from there. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah, I was just going to, to reiterate that, repeat that. We always have a debris removal emergency contract signed, ready to go. We're ready to go. We don't have to, you have to do anything. We just activate our contract and that hasn't been activated yet. But I have to say that Martin County, your department has been on the job ever since the storm came through. There's been so, there's so much debris that's on the right of way, but there's been so much that's been removed already. It's astonishing. And I think you said that our county has removed more debris than any other county in Florida. Well, we were, I haven't looked in the last couple of days, but we were ahead of most of the other counties with in-house resources. And that's with Martin County, it'd be it, trucks and employees. Terrific, John. Why don't you hold Norm's retirement off till the end of the year? I would if I could. Yes, probably can. I do have one business item for you all that I'm requesting, and that is the schedule of commission meetings for the new year. And so for at least three of you to consider for me would be that we have two meetings in December. And that first meeting in December also happens to coincide with the ecosystem restoration task force meeting and some fact training. So I'm asking that if with your permission, that during the reorg, we will not propose to have a December 3rd meeting and just have one meeting in December, if you all agree with that. Sounds good to me. No. Very well, I'll allow it. Thank you, sir. Stifling the public participation. Okay. That's all I needed. Okay. With that, we're adjourned.