Board of County Commissioners on 2025-02-25 9:00 AM - Feb 25, 2025

February 25th, Board of County Commissioners meeting. I'll call this meeting to order. First of all, we are going to, please join me for a moment of silence, and then we're going to be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by a group of veterans, Scott Bruhn, who's a Marine, John Colando, who's an Army vet, Jim Walton, who is an Army vet, Jamila Gully, who's a Navy vet, Chris Counselor, Navy, and retired Coast Guard, and so please join us for a moment of silence, followed by the people who are leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Thank you. Now, veterans, please come to the podium. 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. Ms. Gully, I presume? Yes. Good morning, Board. Good morning. Good morning. Um, I am Jamila Gully. Um, I was in the Navy, and I was volunteered to tell you guys just a little story. All right? So, um, I did join the Navy right out of high school. It was about 1999, long time ago. Um, so I was in the delayed entry program to study for the ASVAB to make sure that I could join. Um, and, um, so I passed that, and I found myself at my first duty station at about the year 2000, right about March or so, which was fun. Um, so, um, just in the Navy, generally, when you're about E3 and below, you're referred to by your rank. So, um, so it goes, um, not everybody gets to be a seaman. Um, uh, aerated, um, entries are known as airmen, and engineering types are firemen. So, I was a fireman. Um, it's important just for the story that you guys know that I suffer a little bit from motion sickness. So, Navy, motion sickness. Keep that in mind. So, we were on our first, um, first workups for our ship, and I, well, since I joined. And the motion sickness was not great. And I had forgotten to take my medication, so I was running around with a pack of crackers, saltines. And my division officer came by, looked at us, sees me with the crackers, never remembered my name, always called me fireman. So, he sees me, fireman cracker. That is who I am. All the way up through, even when I got my actual E4 rank, I was known as GSM3 cracker to him. So, to this day, I don't think he ever remembered my name, but that's fine. Um, I have been here with Martin County, uh, as a building support technician. For about three years, since, yeah, since about 2022. And I've been enjoying my time here, so thank you. Excellent. Glad to have you. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. You're welcome. Who's next? Good morning. Good morning. How's everybody today? Great. I was a Marine. I was, uh, I joined in 83, got honorably discharged in 87. I served in six different countries. Uh, that's about it. That's it. Boiled it right there. That's a Marine's talk. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. That's it. Thank you. Uh, we, our agenda doesn't tell us that we're going to have a preset, but we're going to start out taking things a little bit out of order. We're going to start with item, uh, department three. Um, yeah, that's, that's coming. Um, let's see. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Is there a second? Yes. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. There's one proclamation and that is a proclamation declaring two on one awareness week, awareness month. Ms. Bopray. Good morning, commissioners. Tens of thousands of people reach out to two on one helpline each year. Two on one is that central access number where individuals and families, people of all ages and walks of life can find life-saving crisis support, guidance, and hope. Two on one's caring staff listen to each and every person to provide available resource options and to help them strategize and problem solve. In recognition of February as two on one awareness month, the board urges all citizens to be aware that if they are overwhelmed and in crisis or just need to talk, two on one is available any time of the day or night. And here to accept, we have Chad Adcock, who is community outreach representative, along with a lovely board member. Would you like to join us? Very few people have to duck under the TVs. Yes. Thank you, commissioners and staff. I want to continue to thank you for the support that you've always shown to the critical work that we do at two one one. And I just want to kind of give you a couple of little things really quick. And then I'm here with Kathleen Hillman. She's one of our board members and a Martin County resident. So I'm a Martin County resident, too, and have been for a long time, 2008. So it's been going back. I guess I can consider this my home now. Yes, you can. Um, I'll start with a couple of statistics and then I'll finish with a story and then let Kathleen share if she'd like to. Uh, some people have the misconception that at two one one, we may only take a few calls a day and we just got our numbers for the previous year and we've taken approximately 200,000 calls in the last year. And of those calls, about 3% of that is are from Martin County residents, which if my quick math comes to about 6,000 calls a year come from Martin County residents. And so I would like that number to be a lot higher, um, not because I want the need to be stronger, but because I know the needs are there and that more people need to be aware of the services that are available to them. So the types of calls that we're seeing are the, I'm sure the types of, uh, concerns that you deal with on a daily basis, mental health concerns, um, housing concerns, utility concerns. Those are the top three substance abuse as well. Um, and then, you know, we're getting all types of calls, not just for, uh, assessment and referral, but also for information. And sometimes people just call just because they need somebody to talk to. Um, they need some counseling and someone to talk to right now. And then lastly, I'll tell you a quick story. This is actually a true story. Uh, one of the callers that we received in the last quarter was from an elderly gentleman. I'll call him Lawrence in his seventies, um, was feeling sad and lonely and he called our resource center specialist and spoke with Jamie and, uh, she started listening to what he had to say, which is the most important thing that they do in the office. They listen, um, and they hear whatever it is that you have to say. So she listened and asked more questions and learned that Lawrence was living alone as a lot of seniors are in this area. Um, and that he was no longer able to drive to his appointments. And if you've ever had a loved one or someone that you cared for that went through that, you know, how difficult that is. Um, we have our, our keys in our pockets that allow us to get in our car and travel wherever we want to. When you lose that as an adult, it's very challenging. And Lawrence was facing that. So, uh, Jamie listened, she referred him to several agencies to get him assistance to his appointments, his medical appointments, his, um, to go get his groceries and whatever he needed. And she also got him signed up for my favorite program that we do, the sunshine daily check-in calls, uh, where anybody over the age of 60 can get a free daily check-in call to make sure that they're doing okay. I wish they would lower it to like 45 so I could get one of those calls too, but, um, one day we'll get there. And, and, uh, you know, Lawrence is excited now because he, he gets that daily check-in call and he knows that if he's struggling anytime between those calls, he can still call back for free and speak to somebody in the office to be able to just listen. Um, so that's what I would encourage everyone to do. And I'll turn it over to Kathleen. If she wants to say anything, uh, if you are struggling with anything, whatever your storm might be, you know, anybody that's hearing my voice call two one one, it's free, it's available 24 seven, 365 days. So thank you again, commissioners. And I just want to thank you all for your support very much. Um, as a person who had a son who's no longer with us, I wish two on one had been around at the time to help him and they weren't, which got me involved in two on one. He was depressed all the time and wouldn't go for help. So I thank you for your help. And I thank two on one for calling my mother every day to make sure she's still alive and kicking ornery and she gets on the phone and talks to her for 30 minutes every time. I'm sure she makes them crazy, but I'm very grateful for that. So thank you for your support of two on one. It means so much to us and me personally. So thank you very much, commissioners and staff. Thank you. Thank you. Have a blessed day. Have a blessed day. Have a blessed day. Six. Sure. Yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah, I promise I won't chop your head off. One, two, three. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, now we'll take up public comments. The first speaker I have is Lawrence Lieb, followed by Jeff Orter. Thank you, commissioner. Morning. Good morning, everybody. I'm here to speak on some Section 2 Fork River Estates issues. I was here back three or four weeks ago, I guess. So I wrote down my thoughts. My name is Lawrence Lieb, and I'm a property owner in Fork River Estates Section 2. In 1979, an HOA was formed in our community and was dissolved in 1987. In 2007 to 2008, an association was illegally reinstated by Ronald Joseph French, known as Joe French, to sign over our property rights to Martin County in order to facilitate Section 2 to get on county water and sewer due to an issue with a maladjusted wear in the Traybell retention pond. I have in my possession two statements signed and notarized by landowners in our community whose names were forged on the HOA reinstatement by Joe French. More recently, Joe French tried to sell our buffer strip to Marion Broom, a swindler. The Martin County Sheriff and Mr. Broom had Mr. Broom sign the land back to us in 2022. Now, two SFHUC, South Fork Homeowners Utility members, are once again trying to re-estate our HOA behind our backs to facilitate the signing of the right-of-way to allow for water and sewer line repairs. We are in agreement to that only if the county includes taking over our roads, which are private, which was undisclosed to us by various realtors when we bought into the community, state law says that an HOA can only be formed with a 66 percent majority of all balloted votes. I have a petition with 33 of 52 homeowners voting no on HOA reinstatement, zero voting yes, and 19 unable to contact so far. The people want another, zero people want another HOA doing business for our community. We are, however, in favor of a county ballot as long as the road issue is addressed with the water and sewer transition. Thank you very much. And I have some papers here if you all would like copies. I don't have the copies, though. So I can get them copied and maybe get them to you, Sarah. Okay. If you want me to. Sure. It's everything I said, the sign, notarized documents, so forth. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Jeff, order is next, followed by Samantha Suffich. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Yesterday afternoon, I live on Old St. Lucie Boulevard. I'm north of the flight pattern by the water. I'm very fortunate to have bought this home eight years ago, and I love the home. And I've not really had problems with the airport in the past. Unfortunately, things have gotten really bad, and I need to share with you what's going on, because I don't think anybody knows. Yesterday afternoon, a jet flew over our house. It was 100 feet over our house. It banked hard. We're north of the flight path, but they banked hard over our house and shook our house. And that was preceded by a plane that woke me up at midnight, a plane that woke me up at 1.40 in the morning, a jet that blew by at 5 a.m., two additional jets that blew by before 7 a.m., and two prop planes. There were 4,858 non-exempt violations in 2024. That's more than 13 a night, more than five times the number of violations that happened when I moved into my home. And these violations are much worse, because a lot of them are jets, and they're low-flying. We can't sleep. Light comes into our house and into our bedroom on our second floor, because the flights now have no—they fly so low that the lights are like lighting our home up like it's a daylight. The sound is unbelievable day and night. Because the jets are flying so low, we have black pollution not only all over our house and our cars and our boats, but in our lungs. It's become like we're living next to a major airport. I tried to work through ANAC. I went to the ANAC meeting, but unfortunately, ANAC has become a farce. In July, I went there, and they didn't have enough people for a quorum. I went in the fall and pointed out that there was no signage at all for their curfew violations. And only then did the airport in the winter say, oh, well, we're going to do signs based on your recommendations. But I question, why do I even have to recommend putting signs up if, indeed, the airport has the intention of being a good community airport? The golf course next to it, unfortunately, had all the shrubs and bushes around the runway and around the perimeter of the golf course taken down. This was a problem because it stopped the sound barrier that existed. So now I can hear all the things that are going on in the airport. But what's worse is there's a thing called the 65 dB DNL. It is a regulation put out by the FAA to ensure that people can live within the airport. I pointed this out at the last ANAC meeting, and they didn't know what it was. And John Chickie defended the testing of the airport, but not recognizing that what I was describing was not airport or an airport sound, but a barrier around the airport. The 65 dB DNL is a circumference around the airport to make sure people can live there. I know I'm running out of time, so I'll share with you that the FAA has to be contacted. We had six near misses in terms of accidents, three sonic booms from the airport show. We've had touch and goes that are eight and ten times rather than the three that are there. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Samantha Suffage is next, followed by Tom Pine. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. My name is Samantha Suffage. I am here today on behalf of Martin County Healthy Start Coalition to discuss an urgent need in our community, ensuring that we have access to local maternity care as our birth rates continue to increase. As you know, Cleveland Clinic Martin North is closing its labor and delivery unit on April 1st. This means that families in Martin County will have to travel to Port St. Lucie or Jupiter to give birth, despite the fact that our county's birth rate is increasing. Without a local solution, we risk overburdening our regional health care system, decreasing the health and safety for mothers and babies, and creating unnecessary barriers to care for families who deserve to give birth close to home. Maternity care is a fundamental part of a strong community infrastructure. The health of mothers and infants directly impacts our economy, workforce, and overall quality of life. Communities with accessible maternity services see better birth outcomes, healthier families, and a stronger local support system. Recognizing this need, Representative Overdorf and Senator Harrell have appropriated $2 million of state funding to help establish a new maternity care center in Martin County. To move forward efficiently, we need to identify a suitable location as soon as possible. Today, I'm here to request that Martin County Healthy Start Coalition enter into an agreement with the county to formally discuss the option of leasing a portion of unused county-owned land that is adjacent to Cleveland Clinic Martin South Hospital for this project. This location would provide convenient access to families, keep maternity care within our community, and ensure that we are prepared to support the growing number of births in Martin County. This is an opportunity for collaboration between a public and private partnership, and to address a proactive planning to ensure that Martin County remains a place where families can grow and thrive with the health care resources they need right here at home. So, I respectfully ask for your support in moving forward with this conversation. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Commissioner Campy. Ms. Suffish, thank you very much. You're obviously bringing forward an issue that's very important to the community. I've been following, actually, with you and following along with Dr. Singh at the hospital. I've watched the City of Stewart Commission meetings where he came and presented. I watched Stephen Layton's Facebook Live with Dr. Singh, and I know that it will take a collaboration. I know that one party won't be able to handle it, and I have had the opportunity to read what you had sent, and I agree. The county can't stand back and watch it happen in front of us. If there's an active role that the county government can be playing, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but we have two folks over here, Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Woods. She'll help us figure out how we legally do it. He'll help us figure out how we actually do it. And to have you and your organization, who have been doing this for years, it's not something that we can just hope goes away. Maybe it won't, and I'll tell you, since it's sort of popped up, the residents that I've spoken to are really – it's probably their number one issue. So I appreciate you coming forward, and you have, at least from my perspective, support to engage our staff in a possible solution. Including working with Representative Overdorf in – Absolutely. Senator Harrell. I have had a conversation with Senator Harrell. This is a – you know, even since what happened out in Indiantown with community health, she is – this is – you know, her late husband was a OB-GYN. She's got – really has the heart for this. And with Representative Overdorf and Snyder, I think you're well on your way. So I would hope that my colleagues, which I'm sure they would, and our staff can be partners with you. Thank you. I agree. Thanks. Thanks. Next up is Tom Pine, and Mr. Pine is the last request-to-speak form that I have. If you wish to address us, please fill out a form and give it to the bailiff. Morning, Mr. Pine. Morning, Commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I live in the Jensen Beach area. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. The definition of the consent agenda is a tool used to streamline meetings, meeting procedures by collecting routine, non-conversial items, controversial items, into a group whereby all are passed in a single motion and vote. The word here is routine contracts for new – the key word here is routine. Contracts for new projects are not routine. The county government spends millions and millions of our tax dollars in the consent agenda in a misleading way. Many of the contracts for work throughout the county and special deals for their friends at the Chamber of Commerce are not routine expenditures. A couple of meetings ago, we, the taxpayers of Martin County, got a good lesson on how the good old boys in Martin County get major financial edge whenever our county government sells county-owned property. Will we ever get an update on the pending land sale in Palm City that the county bought in order to stop a development that was unpopular with local residents on State Road 714? Or will it be hidden in the consent agenda? One of the newly elected commissioners spoke at their last meeting about a visit to the volunteers in medicine and was thankful and impressed by their work. He also talked about how high the threshold was to receive service, unlike the Community Redevelopment Agency that gives out $20,000 grants like popcorn. I was recently given a different look at the Community Redevelopment Agency while I was at the last county commission meeting. I was told they don't do any financial checks because most of the business owners and landowners couldn't qualify for financial aid. They're too wealthy already. So the scheme continues to give the wealthier among us our tax dollars to encourage them to clean up their properties as the rich get richer and the working class foots the bill. What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own. Thank you for your time. Thank you. We'll move on to public comments. Commissioner Hetherington, do you have any public comments or commissioner comments? I regretfully I had to miss yesterday's NPO due to some health reasons, but I just wanted to chime in on one of the conversations that you talked about, and that was maybe two. There was some commentary on the 710 Alapada, 609 traffic signal, and that is in the list of priorities. I know Carmine and Mayor DiPaolo had a good suggestion. I think that might be a long-term suggestion, and that suggestion was to take 609 and align it with Martin Luther King and have a four-way signal there or a signal. I think that's a great suggestion. I think that is probably more along the lines of when the 710 gets widened because that's going to take some time. But in the meantime, that stretch of the road, that intersection is highly dangerous, and I suggest my input, since I wasn't there yesterday, is to keep that on the highest priority of the NPO to see if we can get that intersection signalized. Because I've seen, and I travel at intersection a lot, I've seen seven cars traveling eastbound passing while people are waiting to turn left onto 609, and 609 cars are trying to go turn onto 710 eastbound. It's a really dangerous road. So my input, based on yesterday's NPO meeting, was that we prioritize that as we have in our list of priorities and try to get that signalized intersection, because realistically, the widening is going to be, at best, maybe five years, if not 7 to 10. And I don't think that that stretch of the road can wait 7 to 10 years for a signalized intersection without a major fatality. So that was my... More fatalities. More fatalities. And that intersection is really dangerous. So that was my input from yesterday's NPO, as well as thanking the board for Fisherman's Cove sidewalks. They've been asking for a long time. Also a very dangerous stretch of pedestrian. There's many, many bus stops. So I thank you for moving that project forward yesterday. That's all I have. Commissioner Campy. I'm fine. Commissioner Camps. Good morning to everyone. And I want to begin by thanking staff for all the hard work they do to prepare our agendas and documents for these meetings. This is... These are the documents for this meeting, which are kind of typical. There are so many of them that they don't fit in one binder. And it's like they have to write a book every two weeks. And I appreciate it. Thank you very much. I want to mention a few things that I've been involved with in the last two weeks. On the 13th, I got to speak at the Hobsown Chamber Breakfast, which was a highlight for me. It's a group that I've been involved with for many years. And I was able to give an overview of issues that will be affecting District 3 and countywide issues as well. That was fun. And that same afternoon, we took a Parks and Rec tour with Kevin Abate and Kevin Kerwin of several of our parks. And that was very enlightening. On the 15th, we attended the Economic Council Installation Dinner at the Reach Center at Witham Field. The Reach Center is going to be a training place for aviation workers. And it was interesting to see their plans that they're laying out for the remodeling of that building. And the way they will be able to help as a feeder for jobs at Witham Field in the coming days. On the 18th, I got to tour the Kane Center with Karen Ripper, who runs the place. And that's also called the Council of Aging. And it's amazing to see the work that they do with our seniors. And providing preventative care that keeps our seniors out of hospitals and emergency rooms. That was, to me, the big takeaway from that encounter was learning how they actually saved the county a bunch of money. Because if all of these seniors were constantly running to the hospitals and the ER, our tab for that would rise exponentially. So good work to those good folks. And then on the 20th, we had the State of the County Address at New Hope Fellowship. And excellent job by Chair Hurd and county staff. That was a very impressive and very funny video that was shown. That event seems to have a sort of a comic flair to it. And it was a fun event. And the purpose of that event, of course, is to show the county's accomplishments in the last year. And then late this last week, I had the privilege of being involved in some little league opening ceremonies. The first one was at Martin County North at Howe Patioke Park on Friday evening. I couldn't believe how many parents and kids were there. It's interesting to see what our residents are involved in and what they're passionate about. And it's been many years since we had kids small enough to be involved in that kind of thing. And it was just neat to see those folks' investment in our young baseball players. And then on Saturday morning, we did the same thing in Hope Sound. The opening ceremonies for Hope Sound Little League at Reed Park in Hope Sound. And that was a lot of fun as well. Well, let's see, I also wanted to mention yesterday we had an MPO visioning event at Hope Sound Civic Center. It was Vision 2050, I believe it's called. And I would just like to brag on the MPO folks. That was a very well put together event and exercise. There were these placard stations that explained the various MPO initiatives. And there were these little boxes beside the placards where the participants were given five $20 bills to drop in boxes into things that you thought were a higher priority for transportation in the coming days. And it was a fun exercise and very enlightening and a great learning experience. And it was very, very well done. So I'll end with one positive, another positive note. And that is that the traffic light at Constitution Boulevard and US 1 in Hope Sound has, they have begun work on that. And that will be coming very soon. And I want to thank current commissioners and prior commissioners who were involved in making that happen. That's something that really needs to occur in Hope Sound. And we're very excited to get a new traffic light. So that's all I have. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. Yes, that's really hard to follow because he has a huge list. I was at some of those events. So I will defer to Commissioner Capps to also include me in some of those. But I did visit volunteers in medicine, and their motto is everyone should have access to quality health care. I was very impressed. My family has medical background, and so I understand what it takes to run a clinic and be a physician anywhere today. I also went to the Loggerhead Marine Life Center, which promotes conservation of ocean ecosystems with special focus on threatened, endangered sea turtles through research, rehabilitation, and educational programs. They currently, when I was there, had 45 turtles that they were nursing back to health. Really, they should have 25. Some will remain with them, and others will be released. It's a wonderful program. I also went on to Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center on Hutchison Island. That's 57 acres, marine life ecosystems with interactive exhibits and aquarium, inspiring through education and research. And, you know, these two localities, they really resonate deeply with most of the citizens of Martin County, especially those that love the beach area and the water. And so there's potential for development of another center on Hutchison Island, which is in the works presently. In addition to that, we are going to be raising the Jensen Beach bathrooms and the facilities, making them brand new and better than ever, and we'll keep you posted on that. The other thing that I had the pleasure and the excitement to do was K-9 with Martin County Sheriff's Department. I'm telling you, they are rock stars, and they have handlers that are Olympic status. And we went through, we watched them go through their training exercises, commands, jumping, vehicle search, suspect apprehension. And one of those spectacular canines is called Cain, like short for Hurricane, like, you know, University of Miami, it's all about the U. Anyway, they were featured, he was featured this past week apprehending a suspect in Hobe Sound, and he understands French. So that is one good dog. But I was at the NPO meeting yesterday, and I'm familiar with the intersection that Commissioner Hetherington referred to, MLK Boulevard, 609 and 710. I think it's much needed there. There have been too many fatalities in the area, and Mayor DiPaolo said this would be with developer participation as that area is growing leaps and bounds. So that's what I did just this past week. Thank you. In addition to studying the books, too. So, Mr. Donaldson. Yes, Commissioner. Last meeting, we had an issue regarding road opening, and we're prepared to give you an update on our road opening process, and in particular what happened regarding a mango terrace, and I can do that now or at the end of the meeting. Your choice. It works now, right? Yes. So, I think it's important to note that, you know, properties have been created throughout Martin County's history and throughout the time the state of Florida was formed, and how that property was created for legal sale has changed throughout the laws of Florida. And so it's important to note that a property created in 1900 or one that created in 2025 still contains rights, and they retain those rights in perpetuity. And so it's important to note that when a property may have a lot boundary, a road, a paper road in the case that may not be open, there are rights that go with it. And I think these road openings really hit at the heart of some of the both property rights and the right of government to ensure that there are proper facilities prior to giving a building permit. So that's just, you know, a very high-level overview, but it's important to note that there are regulatory prominence regarding this, and there's very minimal legislative, if you will, part of this process when people are coming for approval. So I'm going to ask staff just to give a brief update on the road opening process and what they're looking for so that they can ensure that when monitors like this come before you, I can tell you that there's no fast rule you can say that every road opening is going to proceed like this, because depending upon when the property was created, what the circumstances in condition when they're there, that's why I think it's important that while the public might think that this is more of a regulatory and why does it come to the board, it's the board of county commissioners or our elected officials' opportunity to look to ensure that all options were considered for staff and to represent the public at large in the event that staff missed something, et cetera. So you play an important role. Sometimes these come before you, and it seems like there's very little choice. Some other ones on other circumstances, there is more than one way to solve the puzzle. So, and I think in Mango Terrace, there was really very limited means to actually address the property rights in that particular case, but in all circumstances, that's not the case. So let our county engineer and deputy county attorney speak to the issue. Thank you. Good morning, commissioners. For the record, I'm Michael Griselka, county engineer. It's a very straightforward process to open roads based on the existing platted rights of ways. We do require the applicants to come forward and bring, construct the road to current county standards and to current county right-of-way widths when available. We, typically, there's a lot of roads, especially in Palm City Farms and some of the older, early 1900s plats. They're all platted as 30-foot rights aways. Today, our minimum right-of-way width is 50 feet with curb and gutter, 60 feet with swales. So we do require those people to, where it's feasible, where they actually own the property, to donate the additional right-of-way so that they can then construct the road to current county standards. We have, like Mango Terrace, there's places where we just don't, they don't own the property, they don't have the right to be able to bring it up to a standard, so therefore that variance is in the code. There's a variance procedure in the code that the board can then grant that variance to allow that road to be built in the current, today's, substandard right-of-way widths. But like I said, majority of the time, most of the property owners have the ability to donate the right-of-way, and then it becomes just a straightforward of a road design and road construction-type project to open up those existing lots of record. So I can say situations like Mango Terrace, when a property is platted in the 1950s, the road was also platted in the 1950s, so the entitlement to use the road occurred in the 50s. It's not like this board is granting them an entitlement to use the road. So since the 50s, the standards for the roads have changed, and it went from 30-foot right-of-way to 50-foot right-of-way requirement, and that's why that provision was included in our code to address these situations, because you can't take that entitlement away. You have to accommodate it. So if a property owner shows that there is a platted right-of-way and a platted property prior to 1972, the board grants the variance. So there's not a lot of discretion, and in Mango Terrace, it was even less discretion, because the right-of-way was platted in the 50s all the way across, but to the east, it was abandoned by the county. So in Mango Terrace's situation, Skyline was the only way to access that property, and it was an entitlement they had. This board did not grant an entitlement. You just allowed them to build the road a little bit narrower in one spot. So that's kind of the background of why Mango Terrace was less discretion, as opposed to a different property which owns the right-of-way and owns the property on either side and can expand the road. Commissioner Hetherington. In that case, why was the property owner not required to submit any plans? They went first for the variance, and there's no plans on the property. You want to address that one? Because they only asked for the variance, they did not come in for an actual road opening permit at that particular time. They wanted to make sure that they could get the variance then to be able to build the road. It's not a requirement to put the both together. They're two separate processes. That's why I didn't support it. It seemed like the process was going opposite the way it should. It should be plans then ask for a variance. I think the reason is because it costs a lot of money to design and do that for the road. So you want to make sure you have the variance. I think Mango Terrace was a little different also because in addition to the variance, the county engineer requested you open the road. That's when the plans come in, and that was just a request by the county. That wasn't the request by the applicant. So that's where you would have already had a road built and reviewed the plan. So it was kind of a mixture of two things. I think it's important to understand that the platted lot, in the way it was created, has all the entitlements to build a home under the zoning that's there. And so the only thing that the right goes with the property, not the property owner. They're requesting the variance so that the property can gain access. They have the right of access. They want to be able to build a road so that then all the other entitlements, which is it's eligible for a building permit only if it has a road in front of it that meets the county standard. It has all the abilities to get a road except that it wasn't built yet. Under a modern subdivision, we don't allow the entitlement of the property, the plat, if you will, until there's a guarantee that the road will be built. In 1972, the state of Florida decided, you know what, allowing subdivisions to be created without infrastructure to support them was a change. In the past, a property owner with their lawyer and their planners could draw it up and just simply record it with the courts, and there was no involvement of your local government. So after 1972, obviously that creates a lot of chaos in terms of when things get constructed. And so that entitlement is there. They're asking for their property right to be able to complete, you know, to get a building permit. In this case, they can't get a building permit until the infrastructure is there. The lot can get infrastructure by virtue of the plat, but they first have to go to get a broad opening. And in that particular case in this area, they needed a variance from this board in order to get a road opening. If they did not need a variance from the board and they could just follow the straight road opening process, you wouldn't necessarily see it. So I think the challenge here is that it really gets to the fundamental of that property right that was granted in 1950 in this case, or it could have been a 1920s plaque, whatever it is. And then our rules are regarding the zoning in terms of the lot size. That's still in place. If the lot was too small, you might have to use multiple lots to get a building house. So the current zoning is still a fraud, but the entitlement to build a home, the only thing they're missing is the actual constructed road. So this granting of a road opening or a variance goes with the property, not the property owner. So what they ultimately say they're going to do, we can't hold them accountable. It's about the property right. Mr. Campy. Thank you, Mr. Griselka. I appreciate it. We had an opportunity to speak. And when I asked to have this conversation this morning, I was one of the people that did vote for it. And the picture was painted that, you know, here's a landowner, an applicant who would really like to build a home. And they needed a little bit of an accommodation from bring it down from 50 feet to 30 and that these lots were basically, if not necessarily landlocked, but you couldn't do what they wanted to. And then I thought, all right, you know, it made sense. And, you know, three of us obviously voted for it. And then very quickly afterwards, almost insultingly, in my opinion, an ad was placed on Zillow promoting the property that it could be much bigger than it was. It wasn't just a couple of houses for a couple of folks that were trying to, you know, live the American dream. It made it sound like it was a business transaction that none of that – and I saw the ad. I read it. None of that seemed to be discussed at the meeting. You had mentioned to me that you didn't feel that that ad really told the exact story, that there still can only be what's legally allowed there versus what they were saying, what they were marketing that the property could be used for. Can you explain that? Yeah, that's correct. They apparently have some marketing items out there talking about multifamily and townhomes or what have you. But currently under the current zoning, none of that's allowed. I mean, it's single-family homes only, and they've got eight platted lots down there that, in order to build the road, will actually only allow them to have six or seven left because they'll have to accommodate drainage and roundabout or turn around down there for fire rescue and everybody else. So, I mean, if they decide to – someone purchases and wants to do a multifamily project, they have to come back in front of you with a land use change, with a zoning change, because they're not allowed. Under the current zoning, the only thing they're allowed to do on that property are single-family homes. Okay. That's helpful and a bit reassuring compared to, hey, we're just looking for a little bit of an accommodation versus, hey, we're going to market this whole kind of big business opportunity. And your point at the end there about, hey, if someone purchases the property, they should really strongly do their due diligence to realize that it's not – just because you read it in a Zillow ad doesn't mean that that's what you'll get to be able to do. Because I'll tell you, depending on how soon it comes back to us, I won't forget how this transpired. So, at the very least, barring, you know, some kind of catastrophe, I'll be here for the next three and a half years, so – and I won't forget. Thank you. Who's building the road? They have not come in with an application to actually build the road as of yet. There was an implication that the county was going to be responsible for building the road? No, ma'am. Okay. So, we taught from time to time change our rules, and those rules then apply to everyone. We can't pick and choose when our more strict rules apply. They apply as soon as they become one of our rules, correct? Yes, that's correct. So, the rule back when these were platted were 30 feet of right-of-way was acceptable. It then became necessary to reserve 50 feet of right-of-way. So, how do we determine – when we pick and choose which rule we're going to follow, what are we relying upon? I think it's important that when the plat is created, that locks in sort of an entitlement that stays there forever. So, if you're creating a new subdivision, you're not going to be able to create it without the exact right-of-way width. So, what happens is that in these pre-1972 plats, they were legally created. They have all the rights of a property. Our simple rule since 1972 was that it now needed to be open to county standard, and that county standard has evolved in terms of drainage requirements, pavement thickness, all these other things. The right-of-way, though, is an impediment. In that end of itself, we can't prohibit the property right, if you will, of that property. So, we've accommodated right-of-way with variances to allow certain property rights to be able to be continued without a taking. And there is a code provision in the LDRs to allow for the variances for platted right-of-ways prior to 1972 for that reason. Mr. Hampe, let's close this out. Yes, thank you. Just to your comment, Commissioner Hurd, and I understand what you're saying, that when you change a rule, the rule should sort of be the rule. However, I think without a mechanism that would allow a property owner, a resident, to come forward with a unique set of circumstances, that's why the five of us are here. First, there has to be a mechanism where someone can come and present to the government. The staff would review it first. If it gets through that staff analysis, then we're the backstop that would say, and the reason there's five of us, is to see if you can convince three people that your set of circumstances would require a possibility of a change. There's been many cases. In this particular case, it feels like it didn't. And I think some of it was just the actions after the fact. Had that not taken place, it would have remained quiet. You know, obviously there are some existing neighbors that are upset by what's happening, but unless you own the property that's in question, you're going to have something happening on the property that somebody else owns that you might not like, but it's still allowable. In this particular case, if your scenario was correct, that once a rule is changed, it's never then varied from that point, then you could just put a book or granite tablets in front here or a computer terminal where people just look it up. It says no, it's no. That's not how it would really work. There has to be opportunities for certain circumstances that the three of five, if not more, would say we agree. And so I don't think the system or the process was wrong. I just think that how it was taken up by the owner of the property after the fact so quickly to say, okay, well, I'm not going to do what I originally was my intention. Now I'm going to completely just make it a business transaction. I felt a little kind of taken advantage of. Okay. Thank you. End of comments. Ms. Woods. We're. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, then we will, uh, the next order is approval of the consent agenda. I'll move, uh, approval of the consent agenda. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. Now we will take up department three out of order, which is to consider a resolution approving a conveyance of property and acceptance of property pursuant to section one. One 25.38 in accordance with Palmar settlement agreement. Morning commissioners. Mr. Poprowski. Mr. Capps, do you want to make a comment first? Okay. I'm before you today seeking, uh, authorization of a property exchange pursuant to a settlement land exchange and purchase agreement in the case of be a man by land versus the county, South Florida water management district, FWC and TIF. Uh, that settlement agreement was approved by the board in November of last year, uh, per section one 25 Florida statutes. Uh, the county is required to publish notice of any land swap for two weeks, um, and pursuant to section one 39 Florida statute requires that the board prove any transfer, um, of property for public purposes. As part of this swap, as part of this swap, which is contemplated by that settlement agreement, um, the county would be transferring ownership of 559 acres. Those acres are, uh, divided between lands that the county owns solely, that South Florida water management owns solely, and acres that are owned jointly. As you know, most of the acreage is owned jointly with the water management district. But we do, excuse me, we do own some solely, and so do they, uh, in return, uh, these are properties or parcels in the northern chimney area. In return, we would be receiving approximately 1,100 acres in the middle and eastern portions of Walmart from, uh, property that is currently owned by be a man. Uh, and those would also be transferred to us in proportionate ownership, so we would receive some solely. South Florida water management would receive some solely. The majority would, of those 1,100 acres would come to us as jointly. And, um, I do have a breakdown of those if you would like, uh, further information, but I'm here and I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have. Questions? Commissioner Hetherington. Uh, is this the last step in this process? Uh, no, Commissioner. Uh, this, the settlement agreement contemplates, um, five transfers that extend, uh, into 2026, whereby after this, we continue to purchase portions of land owned by, uh, be a man by land. And, um, per the settlement agreement, of course, we can do anything, uh, sooner. I think the last contemplated date is February of 2026. And we'd be coming before you, or I'd be coming before you for any lands that we're purchasing, because that also needs board approval, uh, when we'd be buying land. This completes the swap, but there's other additional properties. This, this would take care of all of the properties that we're swapping. Correct. The swap is, is one of the first transfers. There's no other swaps besides this one. Okay. I'll move approval, and I'd love to see this done as soon as possible. Can, can I have a book? Commissioner Vargas. Yeah. Was there any, uh, was there any cash transacted in addition to the swaps for the settlement? Uh, as part of this first transaction, the South Florida Water Management District purchased 45 acres of land, uh, which the Water Management District paid, uh, be a man for. So there was, uh, it was, uh, to the tune of $800-some thousand dollars, I believe. That was, but again, that was not county monies. Any further questions? Is there a second? Second. Any further discussions? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for your time. We will move on to public hearing, uh, number one, which is fund balance adjustments that are necessary for fiscal year 2025. Ms. Murley. Good morning, Commissioner. Stephanie Murley. I'm director of OMB here to just give you a little presentation of public hearing one, um, adjustments that are necessary for fiscal year 2025 or our fund balance adjustment. Um, this is something that we do annually. Fund balance is any funds that remained at the end of the fiscal year. So this would be fiscal year 24 that ended on September 30th, 2024. It includes ongoing project budgets, cost savings in the departments, and any revenue collections over anticipated. The amount that we're presenting to you today is the difference between the estimated fund balance that we did during budget development for fiscal year 25 back in June 2024, and the fully accounted closure of the fiscal year, which was at the beginning of this month, February, 2025. Fund balance is not a new tax levy or assessment, but rather a carry forward of the previous year's funds that we've already collected. So adjusting fund balances is considered a best management practice by the government finance officers association and is included in our annually adopted fiscal policy. Um, what fund balance does is it ensures an accurate depiction of fiscal health and adjusts our budget to align with our current on-hand resources. It assists in long-term budget planning. It promotes fiscal stability and manages risk, and it secures the county reserves per our reserve policy. This is a public hearing, and there was an advertisement requirement as a fund balance is considered a budget amendment to the FY25 adopted budget. It was published in the Stewart News on Friday, February 21st, and it's consistent with Florida State Statutes Section 129.06, Section 2. And a little bit of fund balance highlights. In this year's fund balance, I want to highlight, again, our parks revenue-generating facilities that had revenues over their expenditures that have allowed them to allocate for fixed asset replacement budgets. Many of the parks' revenue-generating facilities have been able to save for future maintenance of those facilities without any burden on the taxpayer dollars. More highlights involve the replenishment of our restricted reserves amongst multiple funds. We were able to replenish the disaster recovery fund after Hurricane Milton, which is currently at $1.8 million year-to-date expenses due to the tornado outbreak. And we were able to fund the remainder of the funding request that was asked for and directed by the board for the Transportation Disadvantage Program back in the FY25 budget workshop. And with that, I just wanted to give a little overview of this really big accounting entry, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Ms. Burley? I was at the county coalition meeting in Okeechobee on Friday, and commissioners there were talking about, they were astonished that they were still wrangling with FEMA reimbursements for hurricanes that were two years ago. And I see in hours that we have FEMA reimbursements for Irma and Matthew, which were, Irma was in 2017. Yeah, it takes a long time to settle out these FEMA accounts. Yes, we keep those in reserve as pending reimbursements. We don't count them or use them towards anything until we see the dollars in hand. Sure. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, quick question. So, Ms. Burley, these particular figures here on the page with all of the facilities, is that net or gross? That was just a one-year snapshot of their net profits. They've accumulated a lot of cash over the years. So, this is just a quick snapshot of what their net profit was for that fiscal year that we were able to bring forward. So, for example, the Seaside Cafe has been operating for now, I think, three years. And so, it has accumulated year over year about $300,000 to $500,000 in order for Mr. Abate and his team in order to reinvest back into that Seaside Cafe. Yes, which I understand he told me that he's going to be using these funds and others to shift to be able to have a new cafe, new facilities there. As a budget director and county resident, I enjoy that. Yes, you do. And you're district one. Yes, I am. Commissioner Capps. You may have already covered this, but I wanted to make sure. I think a large component of the fund balance has to do with how, when we're doing budgets, we can only budget, like, is it 90% or 95% of revenue sources? Correct. So, the amount here is that extra 5% that we will typically collect ends up rolling into our fund balance that we roll forward into a restricted reserve. And I would tend to think that's a very large part of the fund balance, right? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions? I'll make a motion to approve. Public comment. Any public comment? Is there any public comment? Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We will now move on to ear amendments. Legislative to public hearing number two. Legislative public hearing to consider adoption of evaluation and appraisal report ear-based comprehensive plan amendment number 2401 preamble, which is a text amendment. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Clyde Doolin. And before Jenna gets started, I'd like to make a little introduction to all of the next seven board items that you'll be taking up. Uh, these are, uh, every seven years, uh, the, uh, the county must review its comprehensive growth management plan. It's a requirement of Florida statutes. Uh, the evaluation and appraisal report was done to, in order to accomplish that review. And that report was presented, well, that began in August of 2023, and it ended with a report being presented to the board in March of 2024. Uh, and at that point, the board voted to initiate these ear-based comprehensive plan amendments that are required by Florida statutes. Uh, the public hearings today, uh, the seven public hearings, will begin and are scheduled to conclude on March 25. Final action will not be taken today on these public hearings. And on March 11, uh, seven more public hearings will begin, and they will also conclude on March 25. Uh, the public hearings scheduled for March 25 will complete the ear cycle that occurs every seven years. These plan amendments are not changing the urban service boundary, changing the four-story height limit, disregarding the protection of wildlife, wetland areas, and natural habitat, and they are not changing agricultural land. Uh, these plan amendments do make changes required by Florida statutes. Uh, they address local issues, such as acknowledging the village of Indiantown is not an unincorporated area anymore, and they make basic housekeeping changes to keep the plan up to date. Failure to adopt, failure to adopt these amendments within 180 days of the objection, of the objections, recommendations, and comments report, which was issued on December 30, will cause the plan amendments to be considered withdrawn, and we'll have to start over. Additionally, failure to adopt the amendments pursuant to Chapter 163-3184 will be a failure to comply with another section of Florida statute, and it will prevent the board from initiating or adopting plan amendments in the future. Um, and with that, um, I'll turn it over to Ms. Nobby to, uh, present Chapter 1. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. My name is Jenna Nobby. I'm a senior planner with the Growth Management Department, and as Clyde mentioned, this is a request to consider adoption of CPA 24-01, a text amendment to Chapter 1 preamble of the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan as part of the year-based process. This amendment was transmitted to the State of Florida and the State Land Planning Agency to be reviewed, and the state did not issue any comments specific to the proposed changes for Chapter 1. However, just a brief overview of what these changes are, uh, contemplating. Section 1.7B, Housing Unit Demand Projection, and Section 1.7C, Residential Capacity Calculations, are both being revised to reflect changes that are also proposed in Chapter 4, Future Land Use Element, to be internally consistent with one another. Chapter 4 will be coming before you on March 25th. Additionally, Section 1.7B and, uh, 1.7C are also being revised to, uh, reference that the Village of Indiantown has been incorporated, and there is also, uh, in 1.7C, uh, there's a change proposed for the existing 15-year planning period to now specify a 20-year planning period, and this change is consistent with Section 163.3177 of Florida statute. There are also a few sections that are being renumbered for accuracy and section references being updated accordingly. So, that concludes the overview of the proposed changes for Chapter 1, and staff recommends that the Board continue this public hearing to March 25th, 2025, at 9 a.m. or as soon after as the matter may be heard in Chambers at the Martin County Administrative Building, and we are available for any questions that you may have. Questions? Commissioner Vargas. Thank you. Um, are we strengthening or weakening our protection of our lands in Martin County? There, there is a big course that says we are just not. Uh, I would say neither. We are simply making technical changes necessary for, uh, to comply with Florida statutes and recognize changes in local circumstances. Okay. So, there are technical changes. Why is, why is this change needed? I mean, what's so important for that? Could we just let it be and say, okay, we've reviewed it. I understand you have to do this every seven years. Well, some of the changes, like acknowledging a 10- and 20-year planning period as a minimum, is a requirement of Florida statutes. If we don't change the words in the plan to reflect a 20-year planning period, we'll not be in compliance with Florida statutes. Uh, another change that Ms. Nabi mentioned is recognizing the Village of Indiantown. It's no longer an unincorporated area. It is now incorporated as its own municipality. So, our plan is not, shall we say, accurate if we continue to ignore that. Okay. So, with these changes, is it easier for development to occur, or is it more difficult for it to occur? I would say neither. Because there's a big fear about moving out the boundary, and there's a lot, a lot of people very upset about these ear changes, the amendments. So, we need to reassure our citizens that we are doing everything that is in their best interest. And as Clyde mentioned in his introduction, these proposed amendments do not contemplate any movement of any boundaries. Okay. And that would be all of those that are going to be presented today. Is that correct? That's correct. And in the future, I understand there are two more hearings for this. Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you. Commissioner Kapps. On the issue of making needed changes because of changes in state law and because of changes in current conditions, there's the issue of what the state requires us to do as far as updates are concerned. There's another issue that is always looming out there, and it has to do with legal defensibility. Like, if you have a comp plan that has old, antiquated, irrelevant things in it, it becomes more fodder for attorneys to claim that we're not paying attention and that they're in it, and it gives them more ammo in their lawsuits when they do sue the county. Is that a true thought? At least, Elder Deputy County Attorney, it could. If you have antiquated methodologies, it could give somebody some armor, so it is good to update things that might be outdated. Right, for legal defensibility purposes, so I think that's something that ought to be remembered. Did the legislature take away our ability to do a 15-year planning period for residential capacity calculations, or did they just require us to do a 20-year? 20, the latter. So we are allowed to do a 15-year planning horizon. Why are we not? We can, if that's the pleasure of the board. We can do 5, 10, 15, as many as you want. It's a whole lot easier and more accurate to do a 15-year planning than a 20-year planning. We will also have to do a 20. Okay, and add the 20 in. I'm not going to support this because of the changes that are included in 1.7B and in 1.7C. That's including removing the 15-year planning period and replacing it with a 20-year planning period. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, can that be amended? Chairwoman. Sure. Heard. At this hearing. If the board desires, when we bring it back on March 25th, we can include a 15-year planning period, certainly. That's something that can be added. Commissioner Campy. I'm not opposed to that. Commissioner Hurd, you said that there were certain changes that would facilitate you not being able to vote for it. What are your other issues? Housing unit demand projection and residential capacity calculations have been changed, and in my opinion, they've been weakened. There are requirements that have been removed. I understand removing Indiantown, but that's a practical matter and a legal matter, but removing the other things is unnecessary. It's just this is making a choice about how we do residential capacity and how we calculate housing unit demand. Commissioner Vargas. How could we word this, and I have to defer to both of you, so that this would be palatable and workable? My understanding is that we do have still buildable space within the urban service boundary. We still do have homes that are not occupied, so therefore we do not need to build out further. Is that what I'm understanding correctly? I think, if I may, the proposed changes to the calculation or the proposed methodology changes are intended to take away the excess vacant housing unit calculation that is part of the methodology. It still calculates vacant lots, vacant empty lots all over Martin County as part of this proposed change. It just takes away the counting of residential units that were occupied and are maybe temporarily unoccupied. Ms. Elder. And just for clarification, the changes that you're referring to, Commissioner, heard in 1.7 B and C, those are contingent upon the board approving changes in Chapter 4. If the board doesn't approve the changes in Chapter 4, that language likely would revert back. I'm not going to be approving the changes in Chapter 4. I understand. So, can we eliminate, I'm sorry, Commissioner. Commissioner Vargas. Thank you so much. Can we eliminate that particular language as Commissioner Hurd has referred to? We can strike that. If the board desires, yeah, we do not have to make these changes. These are suggested by staff. If the board determines they don't want to make the Chapter 4 changes or the changes in Chapter 1, we will revise the ordinance according to the will of the board. So, it's up to the board in their vote. But the Chapter 4 doesn't come back to the board until March 25th. So, and that's when I think staff is going to explain the whole change. But you will have this ordinance back on the 25th. So, you'll be able to make either adopt or not adopt it depending on what you do on Chapter 4. I think Chapter 4 is going first in the scheme of things. So, you will be able to determine a final, you know, final vote on this. This is, today's just talking about it and then we're going to continue it. Commissioner Campy. This is our opportunity for the five of us to hear each other's opinions as well as have the opportunity to all be with staff at the same time. So, I appreciate your concerns, Commissioner Hurd. But when you say you won't be able to support the Chapter because of this and this, I would like, if you were willing, for you to expand on your concerns. And then I'd like to hear from staff, because maybe I will agree with you. Maybe I don't have the opportunity to know your perspective ahead of time. I would like that when we get to the point of either voting them up or down, or instead of voting them down, work together collaboratively with our staff, hear what staff has to say, and maybe we will agree on approving these chapters. I don't know if we send the proper message to the public if these are going to be split votes. You know, and so I know you've been here for a long time, have a very definitive opinion of what should happen. The concept of having a 15-year plan instead of only a 20 makes sense to me, so I'm one for one with you. What are your other issues that I can hear? I then would like to hear from staff. I do agree when staff says, as to Ms. Commissioner Vargas' question, are you weakening, are you expanding, are you watering down? And when Mr. Doolin says, I don't believe we're doing, we're not making it stronger or weaker, it's just, you know, wordsmithing and corrections. And in some of the emails that we received, some people said, I understand you're doing some tweaking and you're doing some wholesale just destroying of the plan. I don't believe that that's the case. But if you have suggestions, instead of just saying, I won't vote for it, let's hear them. Maybe we agree with you and we can change it and all vote yes. I think that they're tied to Chapter 4. Let's do Chapter 4 first. What do you have to do them in order? It wasn't noticed, so we can't really have a public hearing on Chapter 4 today. I'm not sure if we can bring it back before the next board meeting, what the days, but. But like you said, Ms. Elder, that if Chapter 4 doesn't go a certain way, it would make some of these changes today sort of moot. That being said, we're practicing today then if we're going to wait to see what happens in 4. But maybe 4 lives and 1 stays as it is. I just want this to be more of a productive process than just some people won and some people, quote, unquote, lost. Chapter 4 is, in my opinion, the most important chapter of the comprehensive plan. It's the future land use chapter. And it determines how we determine residential capacity analysis and how we plan for the future. If we're required to expand, where we're going to expand, all those things. It's our map for how we are going to grow in the future and where we're going to grow. And it all is hinged on residential capacity analysis and housing unit demand projection. That's how we're going to determine if residential, if adequate residential capacity exists for 15 years or if we need, if there's, if it doesn't, then we have to start planning for the future. So this preamble contains some of the changes that are proposed in Chapter 4 and they're changes that I think are going to weaken our planning efforts. Commissioner Hetherington. So if we were to continue this, keeping in mind that we've all discussed a 15-year planning period and potentially some other changes, we still have the ability to change this Chapter 1 at the final adoption hearing. Correct. Correct. You can make it more restrictive. Based on what happens in Chapter 4. Correct. Commissioner Vargas. A couple of things here. I like restricting. I like to go that way rather than that way. I think it's important, and I do agree with Commissioner Campy. It doesn't happen often, but I do today, right at this moment. Please mark that on the record. Just to give some levity here. It's getting a little bit tight here. So if we were going to make more restrictive, how can we have a genial coming together for the betterment of our county, for the protection of our county, hearing our residents' concerns? Can we enumerate them? Besides what you said, and I heard everything that you said, Chairwoman, heard, could you give us some direction here? We probably should have workshopped this so that we could sit down and discuss how the chapters are linked. We've missed out on that opportunity. I don't know that it's gone forever, but that would have given us an opportunity to consider these, not just discreetly, but altogether. Maybe it's still possible to do that. Yes. Can we do that? At the will of the board, we could schedule a meeting. I think there's enough time to advertise it. So if the board wants to hold a workshop on Chapter 4 and the related chapters, you can hold a special meeting if you want to. I think there's time to advertise it before March 25th, so that shouldn't be a problem. We just have to do the proper notice. So, yes, you could if you wanted to. All right. So that's a solution. That's a positive. And we can bring all of our concerns at the same time. As long as we advertise it, yeah. Yes. Mr. Campy. The concept of workshop is something that, from the very first day I showed up here, has been something that we discuss. It's not, in my opinion, the proper mechanism. I think this is the workshop, commission meetings. More people are paying attention to commission meetings. No one's going to watch workshops. If they're held in the afternoon, people can't come anyway. I don't understand. To me, that's just a definition. This is our workshop. This is not, we're not just saying yes or no to a defined document today. That's why when I asked Commissioner Hurd, give me more specifics of what you're interested in, we're workshopping it now when people knew that it was coming. To have an additional meeting, I was actually expecting, based on the e-mails and the things that we received today, I was expecting the room to be nearly full today with folks. And I get that people work, and we're going to have a conversation on nighttime meetings versus daytime meetings. But I'll tell you, I watch the City of Stewart meetings, and when they go until 1.30 in the morning, you're not giving the public an opportunity to participate in that meeting either. Because if you start at 4 o'clock, people work to 5 or 6. And then people have to eat dinner, and then people have to, if you're a family person, you've got to put your kids to bed. So when do you have the meeting? So that being said, this is the meeting. I would prefer to go through these methodically now and hear your suggestions. I get what you said about your concerns with Chapter 4. I don't disagree with that. I'd love to hear what our new commissioners are thinking, because, you know, Commissioner Vargas might think that she and I won't agree on a lot of these things, but that might not be the case. I'm interested in hearing them. I agree. Martin County is at a crossroads, and people are concerned. Now, I won't just lock it down and go restrictive on every single thing, too, because there's a fine line where you're down the center giving people an opportunity to continue to grow a strong community versus, you know, going back to the days where people were petrified to do any business here. There's a fine line, and I think all five of us, for the most part, are somewhere in the middle. To say that we're not going to do anything opens us up wildly to lawsuits and Burt Harris and unintended consequences. So if there's some tweaking, and that's what this whole seven-year thing is about. I remember the last time we did the EAR. Now, whether you liked how the process worked, it was definitely a much bigger process. And I liked what we did now with the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, because last time it was ad hoc groups of citizens, and they turned into, like, kind of, like, just slam sessions. And even on the pro-development side, if you will, the groups that formed, it was like 80, 90 people arguing back and forth, and it became almost like some kind of weird hockey game. This, I think, was a much more civilized process. Sometimes civilized looks like it's not transparent, but I think it was. So if you have a couple more things in Chapter 1, I get that we will see them in Chapter 4. We're talking about Chapter 1. Let's talk about it. Ms. Elder. So a possible solution would be, so for March 25th, Chapter 4 is advertised, and I think Chapter 2 and Chapter 1 are the other related. We can talk about them on March 25th. You'll be able to have public hearings on all of them. Chapter 4 will go first. And if there's dramatic changes or a lot of changes that the board wants to make, you can always continue the hearing to another meeting. We still have a little bit of buffer time before our 180 days work out. So if necessary, on the 25th, you can continue all 16 public hearings if more work has to be done. But they'll all be there on the 25th for you to talk about, so that might be also an option if another meeting doesn't work. Okay. Mr. Donaldson. I was just going to say that I think the residential capacity analysis is probably one of your most technical issues of this whole discussion, and I don't think staff was trying to do anything to make it more difficult. There are simply nuances in regards to defensibility in the current data that I think you just need an opportunity to talk about. Keeping it the way it is is certainly fine. Making some changes has really to do with staff's look at the current economic situation because some of that residential capacity analysis calculation was done at a time during the Great Recession when you had lots of foreclosures, and it was anticipating using that. So we're only looking at how you might use that either positively or negatively against us, and so I think that was part of how the calculation was amended. That being said, I think we'll need to present a much more detailed presentation to you on that particular piece, but be prepared at the time to basically how the spiderweb of it linked through these other chapters. However you make that change, we'll be prepared to make it throughout all of the documents transparently for you. March 25th, we're fine with, or whether we put simply a discussion on residential capacity calculation in between that would also be another way we could try to address it before the 25th, so you have a chance to kind of talk about that particular issue I think is, again, one of the most significant ones. That's all I had at. And when was the last time a residential capacity analysis was performed? We performed one in 2023. And it showed us what? That we have capacity in our urban service districts. And what would the residential capacity analysis, if amended in 4 and 1, how much capacity would the county have using the new laws? It would still show capacity. It would just be... Would it be more capacity or less capacity? Less. Not substantially, but less. That's what I'm concerned about. Commissioner Vargas. So, I understand what you're saying about your report. However, the market forces may prove differently, of which will be discovered in the future. You know, people are losing their homes, losing their jobs, whatever it may be. Am I thinking correctly on this? That's a possibility. There are market changes that may be happening. Members of the board, I'd like to... I know we can't talk about Chapter 4, but some of the same language that's in 4 is right here in front of you in Chapter 1. And Chapter 1.7a is part of that methodology. It's not changing. It's... Every word stays the same, both in this chapter and in 4. Chapter 1.7b, housing demand projection, is still a requirement. It's still going to be a part of it. But the words occupied housing and vacant seasonal housing are not going to be needed because of a change that's later on proposed. We'll still be dealing with peak population. We'll still be dealing with projecting for housing units in the future in very much the same way that we do right now. There's not a lot changing there. It looks like more than it is. We're just clarifying the language here that parcels in unincorporated Martin counties are not included. That's always been the case. And we're clarifying that that portion of the secondary, which has become very small next to Indiantown, will just be included in the total tally. That's not a big change. If you didn't make this change, it wouldn't make any difference in the capacity analysis. In the capacity calculations, there are some small changes. This change right here, if you do A and B or you just change it the way it's proposed for wording, it still ends up being exactly the same. There's no difference whether you count vacant single-family duplex lots of records pre-82 and then have another line that says post-82. It doesn't matter. We're counting both either way. So this change right here, where my cursor is, is really just a wording change. It doesn't change the capacity methodology at all. May I stop you there for a second, Madam Chair? Sure. He just went through three little portions of this section. Do you agree with him or disagree? Probably not. Okay. So that's really the juxta of this. If those of us that are going to rely on professional staff's opinions, having worked on this for a long time, giving my colleague her due for being up here for many years and her strong positions, I will then have to make a determination. And there are cases where I will agree with you, my colleague. Thank you. To prepare these, the Planning Council did. Any of this work you disagree with? Actually, this was prepared by staff. Okay. And I'm not trying to turn this into a whole thing. I'm just saying that if we're not going to even agree on what this, the most simple, hey, these are not fundamental changes, if you disagree with that, then that's a non-starter. We might as well just do like we normally do, put them up. Some of us will vote yes, some of us will vote no, and staff will just roll the dice and see if it's going to be three in your direction or three against. We could just as easily do that and move through this pretty quickly unless we're genuinely going to hash it out, which I am absolutely willing to do. Or we can go old school and just choose sides. Well, you've already – that's easy for you to say because you've already approved this, these changes back in October. Well, listen, and I'm trying to keep it really high level here. When the majority passed in 2008 – in 12, excuse me, in 12, wholesale changes across all sorts of things happened on day one with former commissioners, with a very involved legal counsel in the community started totally disassembling this. I don't need to take this document back and forth every time there's a political shift in the majority. I'm pretty comfortable with it. This – I would never have even brought this up if the ear wasn't a thing. Some of the changes that you guys made back then I agreed with. Some I didn't. When you get a new majority come in, there's a new philosophy. Some of these changes, I take them at his word. If he's saying this is just housekeeping language, I agree. You know, the only concern I have with residential capacity analysis is if I own five acres in Palm City and you tell me that there's – and an analysis says that there's room in Hope Sound or Jensen Beach for capacity, but I own five acres in Palm City, I only care about my five acres in Palm City. I won't want to hear someone say, sorry, there's nothing you can do on your property because we need more houses in Hope Sound. I don't own property in Hope Sound. That's my concern with analysis or all those other studies that we do because some people will like them and some people won't, so we shelve them or we use them depending on who's got the three votes at the time. I am flexible here. I thought even if we could make some incremental changes, then I'm okay. Like he was giving us a suggestion, do we want A and B or just A or just B? That's two sentences. Can we figure that one out? Take little baby steps at this? Or should we not and just move ahead and we'll let the chips fall where they may? Some people will think we're geniuses and other people will think we're terrible. Members of the board, there's one more point I wanted to make in this analysis or in this presentation. Paren 4, which is highlighted on your screen, is the change that all of the others are really related to. It deletes the calculation or the inclusion of excess vacant housing. It is a part of the methodology that is dated because of the fact that there is not the excess vacant housing, excess housing units that people once lived in as there was in 2010, 11, 12, 13, 14. We don't have houses where the lawns where people have walked away from them and left them to the bank. We don't have overgrown yards and pools that have turned green because as we did in those days. And this was, this methodology, this piece of the methodology was specific to that situation and that time and that time has passed. And that concludes the remarks. Commissioners, do you want to take action on this item or do you want to continue it or? Commissioner, we have to continue it, right? Public comment, please. Is there any public comment? Yes, sir. Please come forward and when you're finished, please fill out a request to speak form. Thank you. Walter Lloyd, 150 Southwest Cabana Point. To your point, sir, you just said that this time doesn't exist as it did when this verbiage was created. Does that? I'm not going to put it as a question. To me, that means it doesn't matter if it stays or goes because that time, as we heard the commissioner allude to, could come up again. If it's not pertinent today, but it's in the verbiage, it doesn't hurt a thing. So why not leave it? Thank you. Commissioner Campy. Mr. Doolin, would you like to answer that question? It adds shadow units that aren't there because it's based on the only way you can get that excess vacant calculation is to use very old census data that's only provided once every 10 years. And those numbers have already changed by the time we run the calculation. That's why. But what if there is a recession five years from now and the language is no longer in there because it wasn't applicable in 2025? It certainly is applicable in 2030, but we're not going to have a way to estimate those excess vacant units. Commissioner, may I? Sure. Paul Schilling, Growth Management Director, for the record. Applications at some point in the future we do not anticipate. However, at some point in the future there could be an application to, as the Commissioner Vargas mentioned, there are no current applications to move the urban boundary. Certainly nothing in the plan prohibits someone, an individual property owner. I'm sorry? Yeah, there is. I'm sorry. It certainly is. I'm sorry. I'm trying to speak generally. But that would be on an application-by-application basis. We're not entertaining any movement of the urban boundary today. What we're simply talking about is these changes as part of the state-required changes. Okay. I'm fine with that. Then let's make the changes that the state requires. That's not what we're doing. Since you're looking for direction, I'll... Mr. Canty. Render some direction. Having heard that from Ms. Elder that the most of the... Not most. She didn't say that. The language here, the verbiage in this chapter, will be based on what happens in Chapter 4. Uh, and that if something we debate when we do debate Chapter 4, uh, would render this no longer important or part of it, it'll automatically, I will move staff's recommendation for this chapter, knowing that... To continue it. To continue it. To March 25th, knowing that we'll have an opportunity to see it again. Would anyone from the public like to address us? We did that. I thought maybe someone else would. Oh. Um, there's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? This is to continue. Correct. All those in favor? Yeah, I don't know if there... I didn't hear a second. I thought Hetherington seconded. No, but I will second to continue it to March 25th because we have to continue it and take it up on March 25th. Okay. Commissioner Capps? I think what we'll have to remember on March 25th is how all of these provisions and the different amendments relate to each other. And, and the real hinge will be Chapter 4 that will influence what we ultimately do with, uh, is this Chapter 1? Yeah, Chapter 1, and we'll have to think about and have a good discussion about how they all interrelate and so that everything is consistent from one chapter to the next, so. Agreed. There is a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? That motion passes 4-1 with HERD dissenting. We will now take a 10-minute break. Thank you. Your Honor. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Kimberly Levy, your Chief of Staff, and we're here today to talk about the Treasure Coast Medical Examiner's Office. In November of 2022, the 19th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee... Closer to the mic, thanks. ...and Okeechobee Counties, signed an interlocal agreement for the purpose of locating, designing, permitting, and constructing a new facility for the medical examiner. I'm joined with a small group today, which includes Scotty Blue, the project and construction manager from St. Lucie County, the architect, and we have the medical examiner here with us today. They're going to give you a presentation on how the project is going. Please join us. Good morning and welcome. Dignitaries, visitors, nice to have you. Good morning, Chair, Commissioners. My name's Scotty Blue. I'm the construction manager over at St. Lucie County Facilities. We're just here to give you a brief update on the medical examiner facility. We want to thank each and every one of you for your time today. I'm joined by Johnny Lorem, and obviously Dr. Aronica is here with us as well to answer any questions that you would have. This is for informational purposes only, so please stop us as many times as you'd like. Ask as many questions as you'd like. We'd like to give you as much information on this project as we possibly can. So we're here for you. Ask away. And with that being said, I'm going to hand it over to Johnny. Thanks, Scotty. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to kind of catch up to speed on where this project stands. On behalf of my firm, first, thank you for the opportunity. This project's been a blessing. It's been a priority for my firm. It will continue to be a priority, and just wanted to thank everyone for that opportunity. Again, as Scotty mentioned, strictly, you know, informational, so stop me at any time. No worries with any questions or anything. Want me to back up or go after. So real quickly, we just did introductions. Want to talk a little bit about kind of the scope of work that our team was tasked with. A little bit about medical examiner design. And if that's not interesting, you know, tell me, hey, Johnny, move forward, you know, skip on. A little bit about the project location. High-level overview of the floor plans and what the project looks like. And talk a little bit about next steps. Okay. Again, my name is Johnny Lorem. I'm president of JL2 Architecture. I've been doing municipal projects for 24 years. I am 100% involved in this project from day one through the end, through construction. I'm not going anywhere. You know, we have a list of consultants at the bottom of the screen here that are local consultants that are familiar with the area, know how to work here, know how to design here. And that's important when you're doing a local project. I am out of the Longwood area. However, our team has experience, you know, working in this area. We are also partnered with a national firm, MWL. They specialize completely in forensic labs, public safety facilities. And more importantly for this project, they've done more than 50 medical examiner projects. And I can tell you that they've had a hand in more than half of the medical examiner facilities in the past or currently ongoing in design in the state of Florida. So they are a partner of ours that I've worked with over a decade now. They specifically are pathology architects. So they've been critical to this project. And, again, just a little bit of local personal experience of mine, just to show, you know, my individually I've had experience, you know, in my past working in this area, you know, whether it was with high schools or the Fenn Center or the EOC. I also had a hand. I don't have it on the screen. But I was the project architect of Martin County Middle School way back in the day, right? So my past life. So we are familiar with working in this area and know the community well. My team has done a combination of over 300-plus public safety projects. And, yes, I do consider a medical examiner, a public safety project, first responders, that type of facility. And we want to design the type of facility that can serve that nature. So project scope is to do 100% design through construction, administration, there's kind of a laundry list on the right there of some of those scope of services, architectural, MEP, fire, civil, anything site-related and site investigations, structural engineering, landscape, security design, traffic design. That's just kind of a taste of, you know, a little bit of what was involved in putting this project together. As you know, it's an interlocal agreement between the medical examiner, St. Lucie County, Indian River County, Martin County, Okeechobee County. We have done our due diligence and done, you know, per the agreement, every time we've had a milestone. It has been the 30-day review period at each milestone for each of the entities, including yourselves, to have a say and make sure you've been involved in the project itself. And I'm just going to add a little bit onto that slide. We also partner with IRSC, so they have donated a parcel of land for us. And we will be building this building on the IRSC campus over in Fort Pierce. So we do have a really nice, high-and-dry two-acre parcel on the actual campus. And we will be permitting through IRSC because they have their own permitting and building department. And I would like to thank Scotty and especially Dr. Aronica's staff. They spent a significant amount of time with our team, especially up front, several months of getting to know how they work, what their philosophies are, what their needs are. That was a big proponent to the start of this project. Had a very heavy hand in making sure we were being very responsible with taxpayers' dollars. You know, we are sitting on the Indian River State campus, so the college campus, you know, so it has a certain look. But I can tell you the facility is very cost-effective, and that was something that was important to our team. And just, again, wanted to thank them as they were very heavy-handed in the outcome of where we're at. So just a little bit of kind of criteria when we're looking at a facility like this. First and foremost, the project will achieve name accreditation, which is kind of the foremost authority in accrediting these type of facilities. And here's some things that we're looking at in the design. We're wanting to control odor. We want to be flexible and have the capability of expandability, whether it's future growth or, you know, multi-use spaces, things like that, where we're really being efficient with the space that we're designing. Natural light is important with these type of facilities. Adaptability, containment is important. Sight lines is important, and really public and staff safety. So these are some critical items that we look at in design and NME project. I've got just a myriad of images here. These are not renderings or anything of, you know, the facility that we're designing. These are just examples of some spaces that are very similar to what you'll see in the design of your new project. This is, you know, this is the morgue space, right? Administrative space, I think. I've got a quote that I'll bring up here in a minute, but I think when everybody thinks of a medical examiner facility, the first thing that pops into their head is this, right? And that is not what it's all about, right? The lab space is, of course, kind of the heart of this, but really the facility is there to serve the community and to serve families that are coming to visit there, to serve the administrative staff that's there. And we have to create an environment for them as well, right? So we don't like to look at it as just a giant morgue. It's also administrative space. It's other space really there to serve the community. So, again, just some other examples of the type of open-style workspaces that you may have in your new facility. The sally port, right, being very respective and responsible and secure when you're bringing decedents through the property. An example of this is called a LODOX machine. This is an example of the technology that would be in your new facility. So this is a full-body scanner, and this is incredibly important and helpful and is a necessity for these type of facilities moving forward. And your facility will have this. Observation areas, you know, there's two types of observation areas, right? You have the observation areas that are looking directly into the lab itself, but there's also a family room at the lobby portion of this facility, and I'll show you in the floor plan, that really allows for if family members or others are not going to come back and don't want to have this kind of visibility, that can be done in a little bit more comforting of a setting with video and things like that. And this is kind of that comment that I was talking about earlier, and I'll just read it directly. The purpose of a medical examiner's facility extends beyond the bounds of functionality and has the opportunity to help with the bereavement process in the community. So in our minds, empathy and understanding are really what's at the core of this type of project. We started the project, again, as I mentioned, spending a lot of time with staff through a needs assessment programming effort. I'm not going to put every single one of that, you know, staff got a book this thick, you know, of, you know, the needs and everything. But ultimately, this is the last page of the programming document, which really looks at 20-year needs and 30-year needs, right? So, and we do that with the council of you really want to pay attention to those 30-year needs. You don't want to design a facility that you're going to grow out of five years after you move into or sometimes quicker. And honestly, if you can look at the difference here, the 20-year needs really turned out to be about a 23,000-square-foot facility. The 30-year needs were about a 25,000-square-foot facility. So, you know, when it comes to costs and just being proactive and thinking about the future, this facility is designed around those 30-year needs and is roughly about 25,000 square feet. Here's an example of the site. As Scotty mentioned, it is on the Indian River State College campus. It's on the corner of Kirby Loop and Home Road. If you're not familiar with that, it's directly west of the public safety facility that's been there for a really long time. Again, as Scotty mentioned, it's about a two-acre parcel. Some of the things that we, you know, look at when we're developing the site plan is, you know, does the project have a civic look? You know, it still needs to be somewhat inviting to the public. And keep in mind, Indian River State College also has their specific standards, you know, as far as, you know, wanting to fit in with their look. Expansion capability becomes important with these type of facilities. When you expand in the future, it's in a couple of areas. It's in the morgue space, the lab space, and in the admin space. So we've set this facility up so that if, you know, you did ever need to expand beyond those 25,000 square feet, you know, we keep things like utilities and stuff out of these open areas that are marked future on here so that you can make those expansions easily. Site screening is important. Decedent staff, secure staff parking versus public parking we look at. Again, where the private decedent receiving is. There are name requirements for how those vehicles are to get in and out privately and securely. You know, how traffic is flowing on the site. And really trying to accommodate for something that has really affected, you know, the whole country really in these type of facilities in the last five, six years because of COVID. And it's just planning for a mass disaster, right? So I think if you've ever had the opportunity to visit these type facilities in the last several years when this event has been occurring, you'll see, you know, you'll see freezers and trucks and things like that parked outside, really nowhere to go, right? So we try to plan for that larger, you know, that larger event. You know, maybe it's a hurricane, things like that. So these are just kind of the things in looking at this type of facility from a site planning standpoint. Here is an actual overall kind of aerial rendering of the current design of the project. Just give you an idea that, you know, public parking is there up front. Staff parking is in the back. The project is fenced and it's behind secure gates. At least the back portion of the project is. Here's the floor plan. And depending on what color comes up on your screen, we'll just say yellow, purple, and blue, right? So that kind of yellow portion up front, that's the administrative portion of the facility, right? And it's divided by a corridor, which helps from a system standpoint, a controllability standpoint, a security standpoint. Everything relative to kind of the lab operations is in back. Look, you know, 10, 15 years ago when you were doing a facility like this, the way they would handle it is you've got an admin facility over here. You've got a morgue space and lab space over here. And they would connect it with an outside walkway. That's not necessary. We can control that with systems and using proper HVAC. And here in Florida, nobody wants to go outside and go down a walkway and spend extra dollars for that in any ways that's not really conducive. So this is truly a modern design. This is what you'll see throughout other districts in Florida. I'll just focus a couple of seconds on that front door where that black arrow is at the yellow area. You walk into a main lobby. To the right is that kind of family room we talked about. And then to the left is something that we worked very hard with staff, facilities, with Dr. Aronica's staff, to not create a facility that was designing a training room here and a break room here and another, you know, outdoor area here. We created one area that can be dividable with walls, and that area is for internal training. It's for conference room space. It's for the break area. And the intent is, instead of building, you know, for example, 10,000 square feet, we did all that accomplished in 5,000 square feet. And it really doesn't affect the operations of the facility, but it saves dollars, and it helps operationally your efficiencies. Moving on, this upper – this is the – Can I ask you – Yeah, absolutely. Just on that. Yes, sir. Will that room be for press conferences if you had to have them there as well? So that room right now is currently – I mean, it's set for internal training from a press conference standpoint. We in general don't do press conferences. There's the answer. Thank you. She's the expert. I'm just – This is an example board of the interior selections that were selected for the project. I will say that that picture on the upper right, that is just an example of colors that we used from another project. That is not a picture of this project. But you can see this is the color scheme, and I believe we offered up three or four different schemes with the team. And with the intent of you have to select materials that are maintenance-friendly, right? We don't want to give you materials that you're replacing in two or three years. But the materials have to last a long time. They have to withstand a lot of abuse, a lot of cleaning, sanitizing. But they also have to meet – even though this building doesn't have any kind of ACA standards, you have health and safety standards for materials that, you know, no seams in the flooring or the walls, in the lab area, things like that. So we selected good, hardy materials that will last a long time but are still maintenance-friendly for facilities. This is an example of the exterior of the facility. The facility is constructed out of a tilt wall. I'm not familiar – if you're not familiar with tilt wall, tilt wall is basically it. The project is poured in concrete panels on the ground, and then it's lifted up and formed into place. We do have a mix of kind of brick, white, and cream colors. This is a mix of what was necessary to build on the Indy River State College campus. We have had this vetted. We have appropriately gone through their process for approvals for the exterior look. And then we also still want to, as I mentioned before, create an entry that is warm and welcoming to the public, not being too cold. And I can tell you this is where the bulk of the exterior kind of dollars were spent, right, was that front door. The building, the rest of the facility is pretty much a box, right, and that's done on purpose, right? It doesn't need to be any more than that. We can still get nice architecture on the front, meet everybody's requirements, and be cost-effective. And here's just kind of a night shot, right? We're just playing around, showing you some examples of what this might look like at night. Some of our next steps, you know, the 100% construction documents were completed on time and submitted. They have been submitted also to all the counties, including yourselves, and I believe we're about three weeks into that kind of 30-day review period. Once that review period is complete, you know, we'll feel comfortable in submitting the documents to the college. They are permitting the project. They have their own permitting department. And we'll submit there, and then the county is in the process right now of St. Lucie County, I apologize, of going through the pre-qualification process. So the interlocal agreement, you know, allows some flexibility in how we procure the project. We don't want to just do the traditional design bid and then kind of build and then hard bid of the project. We want some qualifications there. This is a highly technical project facility that you really want the contractor to kind of know what they're doing. So we're going to do the pre-qualification process where we'll shortlist, based on quals, a handful of contractors, and then the project will go out for what you would consider a traditional hard bid, but it would only be for those pre-qualified contractors. And construction, I don't have a specific date. You know, we have this time frame we need to go through to get to that point of bidding. But once it starts, we anticipate this to be a 14- to 16-month project relative to construction. And, I mean, with that, you know, we'll open it up to any questions you might have. Obviously, Dr. Aronik is here for any technical questions that, you know, the architect doesn't know anything about, right? And, again, we appreciate your time so much. Mr. Capps. As a new commissioner, I thought I would ask you a few things that go back in time regarding this whole effort. Like, who is – well, let me ask you this. Can you comment on the need for a new facility? And when this effort began and, like, who compelled the construction of a new facility, those types of issues? Dr. Aronika is going to take that one. Hi, I'm Dr. Aronika. I do want to say that there was a task force that was put together, including a member of each of the counties. And there was Representative Tribulsi and Senator Harrell. And we all got together, state attorney's office, myself, and looked at our new – what we're working in right now, in our facility right now, to see if that facility could be updated or if we needed to build a new facility. So those – that whole process has been done. The need was noted where we are, and I would welcome you to come to where we are right now. Currently, we are in the county – or at the Indian River State College in Building I. The building is – was retrofitted originally for a medical examiner's office. It was never built that way. There are a lot of problems with the building. And we've discussed a lot of these in the past. And I'm happy to show you – currently, three offices are completely closed and sealed off for mold remediation. So we are doing that as well. We have a lot of issues with our building. And I'd be happy to show you – and any of you, please come see our building where we are right now. And then another issue is there are four counties – five counties that – four counties that participate in the funding of this project. That is correct. Martin, St. Louis, the Indian River, and Okeechobee. That is correct. And each county does a percentage of the cost? Yes, just like from our budget. Our budget is broken into percentage. And the way that the agreement was prior to me getting here, but what it is is there's – we look at how many deaths occur in your county and how many deaths occur in all four. And there's a percentage. Then we also look at how many autopsies are done for your county and how many autopsies we've done total. And there's a percentage. Those two percentages are averaged. And then each county gets a percentage of the budget. So for last year, the totals for your county for 24 – well, actually 23, it was 21.28 percent for Martin, 25 for Indian River, 7.04 for Okeechobee, and 46.41 for St. Lucie County. That was in 23. And each year, we change those percentages based on those factors. And then it seems like I remember prior discussions about – for a while, it seemed that this was a state responsibility, and it took the counties a while to arrive to the conclusion that the counties had to do this. And comment a little bit on how that all happened. Yeah, so there is the legislature that is written that says that the counties will provide a facility for the medical examiner to do the work. So that is what was decided that that was the interpretation of the way it was written. There has been some money that was able to be established for this – for the PD&A, for the development of the plans. We were able to get some money through grant funding. So I know that we were able to get that. And I know from speaking with lots of other medical examiners in the state who are doing just what I'm doing, what we're doing right now, the counties are the responsible entities that are providing the monies to each of these individual counties that are building their own new buildings around the state. And then one other question, how does this benefit IRSE? Why are they willing to give you a piece of land to do this? Does it benefit them in some way? So in the past, there was a relationship with them that we were on the county and we were on the land, and we would help them by having some of their students come over and view autopsies. There was some change in that recently. We asked for us to have appointments with the college, and we're working towards that right now to have appointments so that the medical examiners would be teaching at their offices or for their school. And that sort of on a volunteer basis, if the medical examiners wanted to do that, to help teach their public safety officers, incoming police academy, and those types of things. So we're working on that relationship. It isn't completely solidified at this time. Okay. And then one other question that has to do with the funding, our contribution toward this. I think I read that we had already had the money saved up and that it wasn't going to have to come out of, like, our general fund or something. Yeah. So we've been working on this for a number of years. We've had cost estimates from day one and adjusting them, and so we've been budgeting a small amount every year so that at this point in time we would have our match for the project when it gets bid. And so no additional appropriations from the county. As long as it comes in to the estimate, we're covered. I want to just, for the record, I wanted to say that IRSC didn't give us the land. We have a 40-year lease with them at $1 a year, and it's renewable for another 40 years. Just for the record, I want to make sure that we weren't donated the land. And we do have some things built in to keep this on that budget that we have currently. You know, we have some ad alternates that we're going to do. We're going to do some direct purchases, things of that nature. So we're going to be creative if we do get some higher bids that come in to keep it at the numbers that we've been projecting thus far. Good. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. Is there a school of mortuary science at IRSC? I don't know. Oh, okay. I understand about the percentage, and I'm following what Commissioner Capps had asked. What is the dollar figure that Martin County has saved up for? The current estimate is roughly $4 million for the county. Between $4 and $5 million, yes. Yeah. That's our share. Yes. The entire project is right at $22 million right now. And, Commissioner, our percentage of that is 22.42%. Yes, yes. I made the note there. Anything further? Commissioner Campy. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Appreciate it. I know, having been here since the beginning of the conversation, I know why it was necessary. A couple of things, Dr. Aronica. Thank you. Can you give us an idea? You gave the percentages. Can you give us an idea of how many decedents you examine in a year total? And then how many come from us? So, over the years, I have the stats here back until 2000. I just think that maybe our residents have no real concept of how busy your office is. Sure. We, you know, 2021 was one of our busiest years. And we had 754 autopsies that were performed that year. Last year, it looks like 659. And a lot of that was some of the COVID-related. But also, the narcotics-related and drug-related deaths had really spiked during that time. And what we've seen in our office, in the state and nationally, is that everywhere that the drug-related deaths are coming down. So, that's good news. And so, our numbers are coming down. As far as Martin County, we are doing for the county back in 21, 157. And last year, 117. Okay. That's autopsies? Full autopsies. Not just... Also, we do bring individuals in for just examinations. So, we do get a lot of people who are from out-of-state, snowbirds, who happen to die here. But they don't have a doctor to sign the death certificate. You must be licensed in Florida. So, we take on that responsibility. So, we will bring you into our facility or send one of our investigators out to view the body and look at it for us. And then we will have to issue the death certificate for them. So, we're not counting those particular cases. Those are external exams. So, I'm talking about just full autopsy cases only are what I have mentioned in the 659 numbers. So, there's a lot of those. We also are responsible for all the cremation permits for our entire district. So, if your loved one is going to be cremated and a doctor has signed that death certificate, we have to review the death certificate. If anywhere on there it says anything that looks non-natural, we have to get those records and catch those cases that might be something that someone has died from a homicide. And we've caught those where somebody has been shot in the past and they're quadriplegic. Well, that's still a homicide if they died as complications of quadriplegia. So, we review all of those as well. And there are a lot of cremations in our jurisdiction. So, our duties aren't just autopsies. They're external exams. They're also doing all these cremation approvals and record reviews. So, there's a lot more to just what we're doing as an office as a whole. Thank you. Can I ask you, what year did you start here in the district? I started here in May of 2020. And prior, I was in Maryland for 18 years. So, you never had the opportunity to, or did you, to meet Dr. Middleman? Well, I met him because I took over for him. But you retired. Right. I spent a week sort of overlapping with him to learn the office. And then, unfortunately, six months later, he did pass. He happened to be a friend of mine. His son went to school with my daughter. He was a Palm City resident. I know he was there for 20 years. He came in, he died in 2020, but he was there in the office. I think he came in 2001 or 2002. So, he was there for nearly 20 years. And when this first came up, it was, I think the conversation was not that long after he had passed. Imagine. And he wasn't very old. I mean, should have had a long retirement. He retired and, like you said, six months later, had passed away. Sort of suddenly, I had made reference then, and I'd like to make a personal plea to you now, that the building, this beautiful brand new building, be named in his honor, having have worked in the building for 20 years. Dr. Roger Middleman. So, I think that that would be a beautiful honor for him and his family. Having known him personally, having been a Martin County resident, a Palm City resident, if IRSC's board is okay with that, and if you feel that maybe they're not, let me know. Because I know some of their board, their board of directors, or their, you know, some of our residents are on their board. I think that that would be a nice honor. You only got to know him for a week, but I think his legacy has been something that you've had to, you know, sort of share in since you've been there. And I appreciate all your efforts. Do you need action on this? I'm just hearing it. I appreciate it. What number are we? You have to visit all four counties. What are? You're actually number two. Okay, where'd you go? Yeah, we go to Okeechobee on Thursday, and then we, sometime in March, March 15th or something, we're in Indian River. Okay, so you're on tour. Yes. Well, I appreciate it so much. Thank you very much. And how does a body end up at the medical examiners for an autopsy? In a van. No, I mean, what's the criteria for a body going? Absolutely. Absolutely. So we follow the Florida Statute 40611, and it lists each case that becomes our case where we take jurisdiction. Mainly, it's cases that are non-natural. So any deaths that occur by violence, homicides, suicides, accidents, all of those will be our, because no other doctor in the state or jurisdiction can sign those death certificates but us. We have to be the ones signing anything non-natural. And we also do a lot of naturals as well. Young people, you know, under the age of 50, 55, even 60, who don't have doctors, who there's no one to sign their death certificate, they're not being followed, they come to us as well, and we will find out what occurred with them, infants, children. So all of those types of cases, all Martin County Correctional Institute, we're responsible for all of those, Okeechobee Correctional Institute, and then, of course, all the jails here as well. How many employees are employed at this facility? Currently, there's approximately 20. So explain to me why you need a 25,000-square-foot building. So that is to project out into that. Most of this is going to be autopsy space. That's correct. We did do staffing analysis, and we looked at needs moving into those 20- and 30-year needs, and the major growth really wasn't in staff. It was more on space for the autopsy space, for the lab space. That's really the bulk of the facility. And I will say that we need more people right now. We're 20 right now, but I need more staff. I don't have anywhere to put them. I cannot hire any more people. There are no – there's no more office space. We have completely used every corner. We had a break room that was converted into two offices. We made it for two people. And now the break room is in the back unfinished area. So we're using every ounce of space we can use. I need two more investigators, but I don't have space to put them. And who pays your operational expenses? So all of our – we have a budget, and we come – you all approve it. And, again, it's the same type of percentage from our budget. So it's in our budget. So as you expand, we'll pay for our portion of your expansion? Yes. And the existing facility, what's going to be done with it? Where is it? What's going to be done with it? It is Building I on the Indian River State College campus. We are renting that space. We have a – we pay a dollar a year to the college. So that is their building, and we are just renters. And so I don't know what they plan on doing with it for sure, but they may be flattening it because the building behind us was also flattened. I think they will probably be building something new. Okay. Commissioner Vargas. What is your budget? I don't have it right here, but I do know that it's approximately $4 million a year. And how much do you project that to go up in this new building? Those estimates I don't have. I don't have what's going to occur. It will go up. Well, I'm certain. But do you have a percentage? Have you done a study? Have you thought about this? It's going to cost me this much to run this larger facility? I have not. I don't know if we've done those things, Scotty. Are you going to do that? It's not typical, but I think that's something that we can assist the county in. Yeah, we can certainly look into it. We just know that right now, the building that they're in right now is so old, antiquated, needs a lot of repairs. So we're going to absorb. We're not going to have those repairs and things in the new facility. We have all LED lighting. We have, you know, it's more of an efficient building. So we will save in those areas, but we could do a cost analysis of what that saving is versus the square footage. I think it's also because you're going to hire more people. So what does it cost to have that person come in, train them, the benefits that they have, the salary increments, all of that to run a business? I think that's responsible. Yes, and I have been talking with, I know, St. Lucie County administration about some of that with Mr. Landry about our needs. But right now, we know we can't do that. So we are trying to project out for what we're going to need when we move in. Looking into that, I was looking at just adding three people or four people as we move in. I don't think we're going to need any more doctors, which is what our big tickets are. That's where a lot of our funds go, our doctor salaries. I think our doctors are going to be okay for quite some time. I think we're going to need at least two more investigators. And investigators, their salaries are just around $50,000 a year, depending on their experience level. So we're looking at that. Now, as far as the building costs, that I just really, that part, I don't know that I have specs on that. You could bring some more information to us. That would be greatly appreciated. Yeah, absolutely. So we did build the building. I mean, we designed the building to be very maintenance friendly. Roofs, obviously, not going to have issues like her roof does now. We're over there repairing that pretty much monthly, it feels like. So, but yes, and we did build a very efficient design in this particular facility. But we'll get some numbers for you. We'll let you know what, well, you know, because obviously there's a square footage increase, but there's also a reduction, an increase in efficiency as well with the newer buildings. I understand that, but the soft cost of the human resource cost, you want to employ people, what are their salaries? What are they going to be demanding? So all of our human resources and all of our benefits, they, you know, we work under the St. Lucie County umbrella. So they are the ones providing all those things to us. However, our budget does account for all of the monies that we pay into each person's salary. We then have benefits on there and, you know, what their benefits package would be. We pay for that out of our budget. So, I mean, I don't know, as far as people, I see that being somewhere around, you know, $150,000, $200,000 more a year for the extra added individuals. Okay. So the salaries are paid by St. Lucie County? Is that what I'm understanding? No, no, no. The benefits packages, we file under them for the package. So they provide us with the package. They're our fiscal agent. So we still pay them, or actually all of us do, your four counties pay those fees, but we get a break on those is what I'm saying, because we're not going out on our own as our own entity to get health insurance is what I'm saying. We're getting health insurance by their, under their umbrella. So we pay 22% of your capital costs and 22% of your operational costs. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. We now will return to public hearing number three, which is an ear amendment to consider adoption of the transportation element. Good morning, commissioners. Samantha Lovelady for the record with the Cook Management Department. This is an amendment to, a text amendment to chapter five, which is the transportation element. of the comprehensive growth management plan to implement the recommended changes of the adopted evaluation and appraisal report. And I have Mike Griselka here to go over these changes with you. Good morning, commissioners. For the record, I'm Michael Griselka, the county engineer. Transportation element, it looks like a lot, but it's really not. A whole lot of changes going on there. A lot of it's just rearrangement of the articles and so that every section in there follows the same procedural order and keeps it all straight. All the existing goals are preserved. The transportation network gathers the statements about the overall network. It has resiliency objectives. Existing roadway introduces the FDOT-adopted qualitative level of service concept. It provides the descriptions of the context classifications and includes the vulnerability assessments. Those are kind of the new stuff that's in there. This is the new qualitative or context classifications, which basically changes all the classifications based on perception and drivability from a rural side all the way into a city, city limits. This is the way the DOT has changed everything. Section 5.5 clarifies the long and short-term forecasting methods, and it removes redundant references to capacity, traffic analysis, and level of service in Section 5.2. The goal 5.3 updates the qualitative level of service targets and provides an applicant to pay or construct its proportionate share. The existing pathways reflects the current facilities and crash mitigation strategies and moves references to planning efforts to Section 5.6a. A lot of these are just clean-up stuff where we're moving stuff around. Nothing's really, a lot of it's not new, and it's just being updated. Pathway needs describes efforts used to prioritize future projects and introduces and provides descriptions of FDOT-adopted level of traffic stress concepts, which is for pathways and cyclists. This is the new concept of how stressful the paths are that the residents are using, either bicycling or walking. We are not adopting any type of a level of service of it. This is a tool that we can utilize to evaluate which areas we need to improve upon and which ones we could, you know, are still usable the way they are. Goal 5.4 clarifies jurisdiction on the state roadways, and again, it adds policy to establish level of traffic stress targets. Existing transit, it removes the redundant references to planning efforts and identifies the services currently offered, clarifies the planning efforts, and updates the level of service target methodologies. It adds policy to establish level of service targets. On the airports, updates descriptions of the facilities and services provided at public use airports, updates the 2023 master plan, and operations, update and operations forecast data, and updates the goals to the current facilities. The rail is basically, didn't have a whole lot in it before. It talks about the, updating the passenger rail now being added. The second, the second rail as well, the single track over the St. Lucie River. And the future needs of, you know, the new bridge and things like that is all provided for in this section. The waterways, same thing with the waterways. There wasn't a whole lot in it before. There's really not a lot new or anything added into it. It just recognizes, supports, and maintains, you know, the marine transportation as the driver of local economics, recreation, and enjoyment. The figures have been reordered to be consistent with the existing conditions and the future needs and the goals. The existing conditions and future needs have been updated. Several amendments to the functional classification are proposed. Features are, yeah, just wrapping things up. Features are ordered consistently now. So, you can jump from one section to the next and follow through where everything is lined up. Existing conditions and future needs are updated for consistency with statute, studies, and guidance. The existing goals are all preserved. And the new goals were added for the waterways. So, with that, I guess I'll open it up for any questions or you want to? I'm good. Questions? Commissioner Hetherington. I just have a simple question. On page 8 of 10, you list a number of roadways where we're changing the classification. Is that via, we talked about this briefly, traffic analysis or another methodology to change the classification, say, from major to minor? Some of them are downgraded, it looks like, and some of them go from local to minor or major to local. And all of them make sense to me while you're doing it. I just wondered what the methodology of that classification is. We looked at the roads, you know, as a whole and what it's being utilized as for the most part. I mean, like we talked about, there's sections of roads that were collectors that are being downgraded to rural because they aren't acting as collectors. South Street, take that for example, it's a collector between, you know, Savannah Road and Skyline Drive, but the section from Skyline Drive to the dead end is not a collector. It's a local road because it only serves the four or five houses that are down there. There's a bunch of those kind of streets that we did to downgrade those. There's ones that are inside gated communities that were collectors that really shouldn't be because they're in behind the gate. I mean, it's really, they're a local road, and so we were just doing cleanup on that kind of stuff for the most part. All right. Thank you. You eliminated a table on page 455, which is characteristics of levels of service, and instead replaced it with one that's much more simplistic and not as detailed and doesn't provide as accurate a narrative. Why? It's on 455 if that's helpful. Is that the table you're speaking of? No. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah. In mine, it's outlined, but yes, that's the one that's been eliminated, and the preceding page is the new one, which is? The qualitative, the context classification stuff. That's the new DOT classification system that they've implemented, and that's the way they're classifying everything, so we're being consistent with DOT on the classifications. They actually came and gave us a plenary map where they classified all of our roads. We are in the process with them telling them, uh-uh, back up. Let's put this on brakes because, you know, they were classifying a lot of our, some of our rural roads as more agricultural roads as opposed to when, so we're working with them right now going back and forth trying to get them because the, you know, someone sitting in an office in Fort Lauderdale doesn't know how operations work up here. So, this, that's just all to be consistent with the new regulations and the new classifications that the DOT has implemented. Okay. I think that the existing one is way more helpful. And also, transportation concurrency exception areas, do you have those mapped out? I do not know if we have them mapped. We used to. Why don't we any longer? I personally don't know. I can find out for you, but most of the concurrency exception areas are like in the CRAs and, um. Are they in all the CRAs? Are we saying that the CRAs are allowed to have failing roadways because they're CRAs? The city has taken that position. They say that they, their roads are pretty much all TCEAs, but are we adopting the same sort of, uh, we give up, uh, in the, our CRAs? Commissioners, as I recall, each road that had a transportation concurrency area had its limits specifically identified and was adopted by the board as opposed to just a blanket area. It's each, for instance, Dixie Highway through Salerno has been a transportation, uh, concurrency exception area, uh, to prevent it from being a four-lane facility. So that, that's the one I'm aware of. I can't think of, um, uh. You used to have to approve them. Yes, you do. But where's that map? Where's that approval? Where are those transportation concurrency exception areas in the county now? I want to know where we've given up. Okay. We'll find out. And I think that should be in here. Okay. Um, transit. Um, we are using existing conditions, and I get that, but our, we are really looking at improving transit, and does this give us enough flexibility to abandon our current transit plans for a, a, uh, a variety of new transit plans? Microtransit isn't mentioned. I mean, these are things that the MPO is, is looking at. We're studying, but I don't know that there's the flexibility in here that it, maybe it, it ties our hands to big buses, which I don't want my hands tied to big buses anymore. Okay. Um, I don't believe the plan limits the type of, um, um, uh, service you're providing. But that is, it does, and the plan always has. So it always has talked about providing some sort of transit. I think if, um, uh, I would suggest that we leave the plan as it is until you make a change and we can amend the comp plan to deal with the change. But I think there is a commitment to, a minimal commitment to transit in the plan. Um, and, uh, I think, uh, your transit agency is looking to have a new vendor and, uh, and is working with you all on providing options on how, how to deliver, um, public transportation efficiently. It's still in the works. As long as we have some flexibility. Yes. Um, do you feel that, that there's language in there sufficient to have that flexibility? I, I do. I think the language is sufficient to, to have you have flexibility. I think if you wanted to say, uh, we're not going to provide public transit at all, you need, we'll need to amend the comp plan and take it out. But I don't think today is the day to do that. I agree. We need to have, because we are looking at other options that the ability to have flexibility. Yes, I believe the ability is there because the language is essentially is the same. And we started out with a paratransit facility. We have a fixed route facility and we can adopt it in the future to, to make changes. But we still have a public transit operation, um, that, uh, is, is going to stay in operation, um, for the time being. 5.4 B is, um, analysis and LOS standards, which has been stricken. Where is that reproduced? 5.4 B. There it is. You just passed it. That's being stricken. But below that was the new stuff. Okay. Well, that's 5.5. Yeah. So predicting. Are you talking about policy? No, but she's written there. It's, yeah, it's 5, 5.4 B is, as, uh, LOS standards. And I just need to know where the new LOS standards are, just since if these are stricken, where are they reproduced? I see. Samantha, uh, Paul Schilling, growth management director for the record. So Samantha, I think you can go to the staff report. I believe it's page four of 10. That has the chart. That's a weird look. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. We were trying to look at the paper copy, trying to figure out where they, where, where everything got moved. Well, it says it's, uh, 5.5 A, but that's, that's not the case. 5.5 B, um, proposed says roadways not, oh, not meeting the LOS targets. The staff report says that it's, that 5.4 B is, um, proposed in 5.5 A, but it's not. So break for lunch and come back and take this up. Please. Are we good with that? Okay. Is that good? Are, everybody's okay with that? See you back at 1.30. Did you do it now? You're on. Okay. We are returning to contemplation of the transportation element. Proceed, please. We're contemplation, transportation. Okay. Um, went back and looked up the, um, traffic concurrency exception areas. Yeah. Um, are all the CRAs and they were adopted in 2021. Okay. And there is no map. We never had a map. It was just, apparently people would just show the, uh, the CRA map. And, and how do we designate transportation concurrency exception areas? Are there volumes? Or we just say, okay, we're going to make these failed roads or how, how is that accomplished? I think, do you, do you know that? Hi, I'm, I'm Lisa Wixer. I'm the chief project engineer for public works department. Yes, you are. And, um, I did most of the, the modifications of this chapter were done by me. So, um, I offered to come and answer some of your questions. So, TCEAs were established, um, back in 2021, as Michael said, basically to address what Don mentioned earlier, we recognized that we had some roads that had the potential to fail the level of service within the CRAs that we had just had invested a lot of money. Dixie Highway in Port Salerno was one. And we also looked at the potential for Dixie Highway if, and when in Jensen Beach, um, and Ryo, um, you know, the, and Map Road, those were all done intentionally. Bridge Road was another one. So, we established the TCEAs and used the CRA boundary because it made logical sense to have the CRA boundary be the boundary of the transportation concurrency exception area. The board had to agree to that, which they did in 2021. And there were two amendments made to the comp plan, one in the, in the transportation element, and then one in chapter 18, which is the community redevelopment area element. Okay. Thanks. You're welcome. And then back on the level of service, the level of service was actually in two separate, two areas in there. So, it's actually in 5.23. It was where it was qualifying things and now it was, it was added, um, up in that area. So, I mean, it wasn't added. It was changed when it was changed from the, um, well, level of service to the qualitative level of service that, that piece down there was a duplicate. So, it got taken out as it's, because it actually is up in 5.2. Where's 5.2? I see 5.3. I see. It's in the roadway portion for existing roadway. And in the existing roadway, it describes the existing level of service that's been adopted. There's level of service D for the most part. And, and then I found it was also in the future description of the future network, which was redundant. So, I removed the redundancy from the future and left it in existing because it is an existing adopted level of service. And, and it was then updated to correspond to the new context classification. I'm, I'm still not seeing it. I'm, I'm looking at the, uh, language that's some of it's old, some of it's new on page 455, which starts out at the most current qualitative level of service on all major roadways. Is that it that's replacing? So, 4.23, um, which is up on the screen, this qualitative level of service targets and the table that you were referencing earlier. Yeah. That's the new section that was moved from 5.4. 4. It's on page 5, 4.54. So, now it's all in one spot as opposed to being in two separate spots. Let me flip around in my paper copy here to see if I. So, it would be on page 5, um, page 4 of 34 of the, the chapter 5, the table that you asked why the descriptions were abbreviated. So, all of this, the things that were under 5.4 B, which is analysis and LOS standards, you believe are now fully duplicated in 5.3 in two paragraphs at the top of page 454. Yes. Um, and in what was in 5.4 or 5.5 A previously, I'm sorry, 5.4 B analysis and level of service standards is now traffic forecasting and analysis because it, it talks about how we predict what our needs are going to be in the future. And the existing 5.2 talks about the roadway capacity and the adopted level of service standards. So, what was under 5.4 B, the roadway capacity and adopted level of service standards, those two were moved to 5.2 and the traffic analysis techniques was left in 5.5 A. So, just separating what's existing from what's future was the, is the intent. Except that 5.2 largely is unaffected. And yet you say that 5.4 has been incorporated. So, it was, in my opinion, it was redundant before. So, I removed the redundancy from the two sections. All right. I'm going to have to read this more thoroughly. And also, on page, what's the last policy in the chapter, which is policy 5.12 A3, maintain the channel in Manatee Pocket. The county shall maintain the channel in the Manatee Pocket to enable deeper draft vessels to access local marinas and service facilities. I don't, I don't think it's necessary to, to include, to enable deeper draft vessels to access local marinas and service facilities. I think it's absolutely, the county shall maintain the channel in the Manatee Pocket. I think that that's specific enough. Stop. That's the will of the board. I'm sure. I agree. Thanks. Any further questions or comments? I don't think I need to, do I? So, we want to, well, we need public comment. We need public comment. Is there any public comment on the transportation element? Wise move. I will move that we continue the item to the March 25th board meeting. And include the changes that were suggested for the Manatee Pocket. And include the changes that we have discussed. Is there a second? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously on to the next item, which is public hearing number 4, which is a legislative public hearing to consider amending the Complan Amendment 24-03, Intergovernmental Coordination Element. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I have them in here. Again, for the record, my name is Clyde Doolin, the Comprehensive Planning Administrator. With me is Stephanie Haidt from the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. And this is Chapter 3, Intergovernmental Coordination. There are not a lot of changes going on here. Again, we're recognizing things like the village of Indiantown and making some minor changes. And so, I will turn it over to Stephanie if you wish to, if there's anything you wish to cover on the highlights. For the record, Stephanie Haidt, Deputy Executive Director of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. As Clyde said, there's very few changes in this one. We just, names of some agencies have changed, referencing the village of Indiantown, just making some of the language consistent with current legislation, and then language to coordinate school site planning with the Martin County School District. There was one policy where we had noted that there was an interlocal agreement between the county and the town of Jupiter Island. I believe Chair Hurd had brought that up last time that that was something to get on. Again, I do believe that you're in the process of updating that interlocal agreement. So, I think when it comes back in the March 25th, by that time we'll know whether or not to keep that language in or remove that language. I know that we have an agreement that's being negotiated. We have it scheduled for the March 11th VCC meeting. So, if the board adopts that interlocal agreement at that point, then on March 25th, we'll be able to bring you revised language here instead of this sentence shown. Okay. Jupiter Island's already approved it. That's what I thought. I thought it was imminent. Yeah. Good. That will be good to get in the comp plan. Also, on March 11th, we'll be presenting to you Chapter 11 of the comprehensive plan, and it has a couple of figures in it that reflect that old interlocal agreement. So, we'll probably be discussing with you changes to those figures as well. Okay. Good. Unless you have anything else, I think that concludes staff presentation. I have a question. It's on page 620. Conservation element, the Land Acquisition Selection Committee is responsible for evaluating and prioritizing parcels identified for acquisition by the county and will be used as needed. The committee is composed of representatives of business and environmental organizations and the VCC. I don't think it's composed of the VCC. I don't think so. So, we'll revise language. Was it land conservation? Conservation element. Yeah. The Land Selection Committee. Land Acquisition Selection Committee. It also has agricultural folks in it. Okay. Yeah, it does. So, just make it be reflective of the VCC. The current one as opposed to the prior. Yes. Yeah, I can work with you, Clyde, to we'll update it for the current Environmental Land Committee. I don't think that committee exists anymore. You read the underlying stuff, didn't you? I read it when I'm sleeping. Is there any public comments? Thank you. Any commissioner comments? I agree with you. Sierra, motion. Motion to continue to March 25. There's a motion. Is there a second? Second. And with the amendment to the language. Yes. Second. Yes. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. On to public hearing number five, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of an ear amendment to, on amendment 24-06 housing element. Thank you, members of the board. Thank you, members of the board. Thank you, members of the board. Stephanie Height also worked on this one and assisted staff with a lot of data analysis mining. And we're very appreciative of all the work that the TCRPC did in coming up with all this data and research. This has not changed from what was presented on October 22, 2024. Most of the changes here are really pretty much data analysis that's had to be replaced and updated. There are no real, no policy changes of sorts. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you know what page? Do you want to reference that? I don't know what page it is in that agenda item. Policy 6-3-C. Okay. I'll go to 6-3-C. 6-3-C is 793 if you can do pages. Thank you, Commissioner. I think we had originally said that we were going to change this to the 23 years and then add a policy to reference back to Chapter 4. But then after discussion, we just made it consistent. We didn't change the whole policy. We just changed the year planning period. So I think that goes back to the discussion earlier today about that, that we need to make all that consistent. So I think when you come back to discuss Chapter 4, this will be another policy that's going to need to reflect it and be consistent with the others. Agreed. Agreed. Yep. But we're really just changing the 15 and 20 in this case. Yes. We had proposed more changes to 6-3-C, and then we backed away from those changes and left it pretty much as is. But, yes, we'll change the additional 15 and 20 consistently. We'll have to do that through all chapters. Also on page 798, number 7 is a new policy, and it's the county may provide an exception or waiver for an impact fee for the development or construction of housing that's affordable as defined in something. If the county provides such an exception or waiver, it's not required to use any revenues to offset the impact. Is this a new statute, a new state statute? Then why isn't it, what's S-429-71? That's a reference to Florida statutes. So it's not F-S something, something, something? It is Florida statutes, yes. Okay. We can add that in to say Florida statutes, F-S. Any more questions, comments? For staff, any public comments? Is there a motion to continue this item? Do you want to speak to this? Okay. Motion to accept. Motion to continue this until March 25th with any changes that were discussed, like F-S. Yeah. There's a motion. Second. Second. You made the motion. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. On to public hearing number six, which is a legislative public hearing to consider amending 24-07, the recreation element. Joining me is Amy Offenbach, planner. She's going to hit the highlights of Chapter 7 for us. Chapter 7 is the recreation element of the comprehensive plan. And the proposed amendments are not related to any changes in the state statutes and are housekeeping in nature. Growth management coordinated with the Parks and Recreation Department for these changes. And the main changes are for the removal of the development of regional impact, or DRI, from the plan, which is no longer required by state statutes. And updating the Parks and Recreation Master Plan every 10 years. And the, you can go to page, I know the changes for them. This is the strike and underline. If you have any questions for staff, we'll be happy to answer. But staff recommends approval of continuation for March 25th, 2025. And this concludes the presentation. Commissioner Vargas. Just a question here on page 867. It says the updates to the Parks and Recreation Master Plan will be conducted every 10 years. Would that have to correspond with the same amount of years that we discussed earlier today? Or is this something separate? It is separate. And that was changed from 5. Is that because those are expensive? I believe the Parks Department does feel that extending from 5 to 10 gives them more time in order to fund and make the changes. Is there anything Kevin does that's not expensive? No. We try and rein him in, though. He's a good money manager. But he does good work. He makes money. Yeah, that's right. That's Stephanie Murley. Is there any public comment? Commissioner comments? Is there a motion to continue this item? Yes, there is. This is a motion to continue this item until March 25th. Second. Any comments? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. And we'll take up public hearing number 7, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adopting Complan Amendment 24-16, Arts, Culture, and Historic Preservation. Yes. Okay. Again, Stephanie Haidt, Church of Coast Regional Planning Council. In this chapter, the changes, again, are mostly housekeeping in nature. We did want to update. There was a 2015 study done that was in there. It was updated in 2022. So, those numbers are being updated to reflect the current information obtained from that study. Specific information from Martin County. There are 25 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations that participated in that study. It identifies 378 jobs in arts and culture, 14.4 million income to residents, and 4.2 million in tax revenue to the county. We did some updating to some existing conditions. The number of historic properties went up. So, we listed those, and then we added some new organizations. Also, there's a policy being revised to reflect the renaming of the Public Arts Site Committee to the Public Art Advisory Committee and terminating the Public Art Master Plan and Five-Year Plan, which was done by ordinance by the county in 2019. And then, we're just relocating a policy to a different objective because it fits better where that is because it's related to information on local history. So, and I'd also like to just acknowledge Nancy Torell at Martin Arts helped a lot with this information in getting these updates to this data. With that, I guess we recommend that you approve to continue this to March 25th, and that's the end of our presentation. Any questions? Comments? I have one question. It's on page 1029, and it's policy 16.2A1, development of a cultural performing arts center. The county shall assist in developing a cultural and performing arts center and other facilities as they come to be needed, such as the efforts to renovate and repurpose the historic Stewart High School building. I'm a little sensitive to this, staying in our lane. You know, I really don't want to meddle in this. I wouldn't want somebody meddling, you know, wouldn't want somebody staking a claim on how we use our buildings. Well, they're doing it. It's done. They're moving forward with that. Good. I don't want to have a part in it. I don't want to. Just a quick question. Sure. When you referenced Ms. Turrell, did she help you, and this was her language? This wasn't your idea to have the county help with the high school, I mean, the former? I don't recall where it came from, but I think it was just as an example of something that was happening at the time. I mean, the way it reads in there, it is just being put in as just an example of something to do. I mean, we don't have to add that language in. I agree with Commissioner Hurd. You're welcome. Just end it at the needed. We'll just leave the policy as it is and not have the underlined. I just don't want to substitute our authority for where it's not appropriate. And most likely by the time it happens again, that building will be done. So we'll just, that suggested text that we have in there, we'll just not put that in. Unless there was some. And the sentence, the word needed. Yes. Yeah, just there. Can you just do me a favor and speak to her if there was some reason that, I know she's trying for a tremendous amount of grants to pay for this. If there was some grant language that was necessary that we show that we have an official, kind of the county is interested in an official point of view, I would hate to strike language because we felt we should. And then she doesn't qualify for grants or something. Sure. And you could let us know by March 25th. Is there any public comments? Is there a motion to continue? Motion to continue to March 25th. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. And public hearing number eight is a legislative public hearing to consider adopting comp plan amendment 24-17 public schools facility element. And Ms. Height. Yes. Thank you. For this, again, it's a lot of just housekeeping things, updating some of the information and the data. And one of the sections, the school enrollment has been updated to include information related to decreased enrollment statistics in public schools. Between 2019 and 2023. And then increased enrollment and charter schools during the 2022-2023 school year. Also, fiscal considerations has been updated to the current information on the district's capital assets and long-term debt. We revised and revised and added language related to school concurrency created by development, included the Village of Indiantown into the annual review of the public school facilities element, and then also updated another one policy to include that the Village of Indiantown and the Martin Metropolitan Planning Organization be involved in efforts to coordinate for sidewalks and bike paths to facilitate travel to and from schools and recreation facilities. Also, the maps in there were updated, there were two new schools since the last time that was updated, that were added in the Treasure Coast Classical Academy and the Indiantown High School. And a lot of, again, a lot of thanks goes to the school district for helping us and providing us the information we needed to update this element. Yes. Thank you to the school district. Any questions or comments from the board? Would anyone from the public like to address us? Oh, Commissioner Capps. Sorry. Does our comp plan require public school concurrency now for new developments? Like, say, a large development wants to go in. I remember years ago, that used to be like a thing where maybe certain people would say, you don't have the schools for that development, therefore the development cannot happen. Or has that kind of been done away with, kind of like the road concurrency thing, where you can no longer bring up an inadequate road as a reason for denying something? The statutes no longer require school concurrency, but in your comp plan you do have some, I'm not specific with it, but there are policies that are going to require development to provide those schools, you know, to do a study and require what that capacity need would be. Our interlocal agreement and this element require that the school district do an analysis. And we have actually on our LPA a member from the school district that participates and they do review all of the residential site plans and comp plan amendments and provide us with some basic analysis of their school needs related to it. And we do factor that in as a part of plan amendments and as a part of site planning. However, there may be circumstances where if there's a shortfall, it is not unlike what you described with the road situation. I think where I remember this is back in the day when Indiantown was going to do the big giant DRI. I think those arguments were brought up frequently, as I remember, oh, you don't have the schools to do that. But actually, I mean, in the analysis that has been done on a number of the plan amendments and so on lately is in many of the schools and, you know, whether it be the high school, there may be only a deficiency in one grade level or, you know, one middle school or elementary. And because of the decrease in population, as Stephanie said, there's not really an issue in many cases. Commissioner, if I could add into that, one of the primary reasons for having the joint meeting with the school and the city and the county and now the village added to it was initially that group was created to discuss concurrency, school concurrency and capital projects. But since that time, we've also had charter schools develop significantly. And so you can see the county school system has a number of additional capacity drawn by the number of charter schools that have been developed. So this story, it's changed. What grades does Treasure Coast Classical Academy have? Almost all. It's through 12 now. Is it through 12? Yeah. Is there any public comments? Is there a motion to continue this item? I move to continue to March 25th. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Most of the motions and seconds are coming from this side. I noticed. You're doing a great job down there. Thank you. Second half of the meeting. You're working hard down there. A lot of motions. These are good ones for you. The people on the left don't want to be responsible. We're in learning mode. Plus, let's turn this next one down. We're just listening to the old pros. I'm old. You're not old. You're not even 50. I'm 50. We are taking a public hearing quasi-judicial number one, which is a request for rezoning approval to planned unit development through a PUD zoning agreement for the Chansey Bay Ranch project, including a master final cycle. Good afternoon. Oh, sorry. So, this is quasi-judicial. Any ex parte disclosures? Commissioner Vargas? Yes. None. Already been filed. I report. Mr. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I have them, and they have been filed. I do, and they've been filed. And have you turned in all of your work stuff and handed it to the clerk? Copy of my work history in this agenda item. It's turned in as Exhibit 1. And anyone who's going to be offering testimony, please stand up. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioners, for the record, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with the Growth Management Department. This is a request by WGI Incorporated on behalf of CBR Investors, LLC, for approval of a planned unit development zoning agreement for the Chansey Bay Ranch project. Including a master final site plan for a nine-lot single-family subdivision and associated infrastructure with a resulting density of 0.49 units per acre. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. I'd like to, for the purposes of clarity, just bring up this map. Since the property is over a mile long, it gives you a little bit better view of where it's at. So the approximate 18.2-acre site is generally located on the west side of Southwest Connors Highway, approximately six miles north of Southwest Canter Highway and south of 10150 Southwest Connors Highway, which is the property to the north. This undeveloped land borders a canal on its west side and Southwest Connors Highway on its east side. There's a single-family home to the north of the property, and due south is cropland. The property is outside the Urban Services District and will use well and septic. The existing zoning district on the property is RE2A, Rural Estate Density District, with a rural density underlying future land use. Single-family detached dwellings are of permitted use in the RE2A zoning district. Pursuant to Policy 4.13A.5, parentheses 1, of the Martin County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan lands with rural density, shall be developed at a density of no more than one dwelling per two gross acres. All rural development shall have a maximum building height of 40 feet and maintain at least 50 percent of the gross land area's open space. This proposal complies with these requirements. The following tables show the structure setbacks and development standards of the existing RE2A, Rural Estate Density Zoning District. The bottom row in red shows the setbacks and development of the proposed planned unit development zoning agreement. So you can see that the existing zoning here is setbacks are 30 feet for all stories, front, rear, and side. And the proposed setbacks for the PUD is exceeds or meets the requirements of straight zoning. Double for the side at minimum, it's meeting it for the rear, and it exceeds it by two feet at minimum for the front. Excuse me. Then also, for the development standards, it meets the two-acre minimum lot size, the minimum lot width. It meets the maximum residential density with 0.49, and the minimum open space for this proposal is 75 percent, and it's required to be 50 percent. The proposed PUD is asking for the maximum height to be 40 feet, which is allowed per the comp plan, but is not allowed in the straight zoning. The applicant is seeking rezoning approval to a planned unit development to allow the maximum building height of 40 feet permitted in the comp plan. As a condition of the PUD agreement, the owner will make a one-time public benefits contribution to the county in the amount of $6,000 for use by Martin County Fire Rescue to purchase one fire preemption device. This is sheet one of the final site plan. As I said, it's over a mile long, so it's a little bit over, I think it's 18.2 acres, so that has been split up or divided into two-acre lots minimum, and you can see that the east and west property lines vary, so the lengths of the properties also vary. A little bit closer. So this is a little bit of an enlargement of the proposal. The distances of the driveway aprons is defined by FDOT at 660 feet minimum, which is what's shown on these plans. The stormwater design includes a large, continuous, dry retention area along the entire property along the canal with extensions towards the roadway designed to retain runoff from a hundred-year, three-day storm event. The event stormwater runoff, in the event that the stormwater runoff becomes too high and excess water, excess water will be discharged into the canal, which is the legal positive outfall for this project through an emergency outfall structure. Here is an elevation drawing showing a conceptual development utilizing the increased height to provide a view of the lake. Let me reiterate, this is not a proposed development. There are no homes proposed with this application. It's just showing you what could be done with the PUD using the increased height, allowing you to see Lake Okeechobee over the Rim Canal and over the dike. Development review staff have found the CBR Investors LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations, and the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan is detailed in the staff report. This application was heard before the local planning agency on February 20, 2025, and it was voted 3-2 in favor of accepting staff's recommendation of approval. Staff does recommend approval of this application, and we move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and we move that the board adopt the resolution approving the rezoning from RE-2A, Rural Estate District to Planned Unit Development, and approve the Chansey Bay Ranch PUD zoning agreement, including the master final site plan. That concludes the presentation. Questions for staff? I didn't get the LPA recommendation. It was 3-2 in favor of staff's recommendation. And the dissenters, what were their reasons? Do you recall? Yes. One did not want there to be the upper level, which was shown on the conceptual plan, to be a living space. They wanted it to be just a place you could sit outside, but not to be enclosed, such as in a bedroom. No living space. I don't recall. Do you remember what the other dissenter was? He was just basically against any code provisions that would allow PUD out there. I don't recall anything really specific. Oh, I do now. It was the shoreline protection zone. He felt like that there should be one on the Rim Canal and the lake, and there isn't one. Right. Thanks. Yes. Staff, would you like to make a presentation? Or rather, applicant, would you like to make a presentation? Yes. Thank you. That is not yours. I think it's far over right. Sorry. Thank you. Not that one. Not that one either. It's Rickard's training. We should have that now briefly. Yeah, the very top right. This one? Here we go. Yeah, it was. Is it already up? I guess it's already up. Yeah, there it is. Okay. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Matthew Barnes, Senior Project Manager for WGI, here on behalf of the applicant CBR Investors, LLC. Brian did a great job showing you where exactly this property is. So it is way out west on the Rim Canal and north and west of Indiantown. It is, as Brian said, over a mile long, 5600 feet approximately. And it's very narrow. It varies in width from, or depth, I should say, from as little as 75 feet at the narrowest part to 224 feet at the widest part. So they'll be sort of long and skinny lots is what's proposed. Surrounding uses, also as Brian explained, are primarily agricultural and with some single-family residential to the north. So this is what you would see, this is what you see currently if you drive along Connors Highway and you look off to the west. It's small and narrow and it's really, it's separated by the highway from the other property that the same property owner owns. So it's too small and narrow to be effectively used as agriculture. So it is already zoned with the RE2A zoning. So we're seeking to develop a compatible density subdivision. So what are we applying for? It's a master and final site plan for a nine single-family homes, all on two-acre lots, as well as a PUD agreement that rezones the property from RE2A to PUD. And it formalizes the development agreement and the required public benefits. As staff noted in their presentation though, that there are things that we are not doing, right? So we're not requesting a land use change, right? That's very important. The existing land use destination is rural density, which allows one unit for two acres and that's what we're seeking. We're not seeking to increase the allowable density. Number two, we're not also increasing the density through any other means, right? So we're not increasing the land use or not changing the future land use, I have to say. We're also not like, we're not decreasing the minimum lot size. So we're not taking nine units and wanting to build them on half acre lots at one end of the property. We're keeping them as intended to be two acre lots. The PUD is only necessary in order to achieve the views of Lake Okeechobee that we're trying to achieve. In other words, it's the height that we're asking to increase, which I'll go over later in more detail. But I do want to point out that the existing future land use category of rural density does allow heights up to 40 feet. So in essence, we're seeking to, you know, normalize if you want to the zoning with the land use in this case, in terms of the allowable height. Other zoning standards, as Brian pointed out in his presentation, we're actually meeting and exceeding, including side setbacks, minimum lot width, sorry, minimum lot frontage, the minimum open space. The minimum open space we're exceeding from 50% to 75%. So with any PUD, you have to, you know, the applicant needs to proffer public benefits, which, of course, is ultimately the purview of the Board of County Commissioners. So we are proffering to provide a signal preemption device for the Martin County Fire Rescue, which, as you probably all know, is a device that is put onto a signal that all the trucks then have the equipment. Then when they approach the signal, it automatically turns the signal from red to green if it happens to be red, which allows for, obviously, faster response times across the county. There's a second benefit to the public that is not a public benefit in the PUD agreement, but we think it is a benefit to the county and therefore the public, which is the design of the stormwater system. So it's, it's, it's over design. So let me explain that it's the standard county stormwater design and the South Florida water water management district design is to hold back your what's called the 25 year three day storm event, which is modeled all the civil engineers, you know, how to design stormwater to hold back that amount of water. So the proposed storm dry detention areas on this project is designed to retain the 100 year three day storm event, which is the largest storm you can model, right? So 100% of all the rainwater stormwater that falls on the property will be retained onsite and will not be discharged into the public water system. Our legal positive outfall is the Rim Canal, which is where we would normally be discharging our water. But again, we're, we're designed to hold, hold it back for the 100 year three days storm event with zero discharge into the public water system. That actually does require about twice the size of the stormwater design or dry detention areas, I should say. So I just wanted to point that out as well. So we've kind of, you saw the site plan in the black and white version on Brian's presentation. I'll get into a little more detail of it here. It's not anything fancy, right? It's, it's the size of the property kind of lays itself out into the water. Lays itself out in terms of how the lots are designed. But again, it's 75% minimum open space. One each lot is two acres. We're not increasing density, and we're not decreasing the minimum lot size. So here's a, here's a close up view of like the southernmost, I'm sorry, the northernmost three lots, just to give you an example. You know, each house, this, this house, when you scale it off is approximately a 3000 square foot footprint, just to give you an idea of the, what you're looking at as a, as a representation. As Brian stated, we're not, we're not proposing specific houses, specific footprints or architecture with, with this, that that's handled at the building permit stage. That's not part of the PUD process. Each lot will have its own driveway connection to Connors Highway. And the darker green areas represent what the tried attention areas are, where there's going to be landscaping, which I'll get into a second. And then there's going to be additional landscaping that's not on our landscaping plan, because it'll be up to each individual homeowner to plant trees in between their front, in the front of their home and the highway. Here's like the middle lots, as you can see some of the lots, you know, on the left side of the screen here, that's where the property gets the narrowest. So it's actually too narrow to, to be able to put a home over there. So you have to, some of these homes will have to be placed in certain parts of the lot. But for the most part, the homeowner will have the freedom to, to locate the house, obviously not within the setbacks. As Brian said, we're, we have larger than required side setbacks in the front and rear setbacks. So the trees, I do want to point out that there's 158 trees on site now, right? And we are proposing to preserve about 70% of that 109 trees. And therefore, which means we're proposing to remove 49 trees from the site. 60% of those trees that we're proposing to remove are due to poor health, insect damage. And of course, some of the trees out there unfortunately did suffer some severe damage from the hurricane in October, Hurricane Milton. But I'm pleased to report that just in the landscaping that's in the side and the rear yards, that we are proposing to add 417, sorry, we're proposing to add 466 new trees, which means the total tree count on the property at a minimum will be 575 trees. That's a net of 417 new trees on site when you factor in what we're removing due to poor health and other things. Again, that does not count the trees that the homeowners will be placing in their own front yards between their house and the highway. I do want to point out that in terms of gopher tortoise burrow there when the environmental assessment was first done. This project actually was filed in 2023 with the county. So in June of 2023 and again in May of 2024, there was a gopher tortoise burrow found near the southern end of the property. In mid-February of this year, just not too long ago, the site was visited again, but the borough was found to be collapsed, perhaps due to when the hurricane came through, but this isn't uncommon. This happens with gopher tortoise boroughs all the time. In fact, it was a very isolated borough, so it's probably that he moved on to a different location. So the one zoning regulation that, of course, we are proposing to modify with the PUD is the allowable height. The RE2A zoning district limits the height to 30 feet, and we're seeking a height of 40 feet, which again is consistent with and the same height as allowed by the rural density future land use designation that is applicable to the property currently. So being able to get up to the 40-foot height is just enough height to be able to see over the height of the Herbert Hoover dike. That is, of course, directly to the west of the property. And if you think back to the image I showed you when you're driving along the highway, that's the predominant thing you see in the background of that picture is the height of the dike. If we were limited to 30 feet, you wouldn't have enough height to be able to see over the top of the dike and then down into the lake. So keep in mind that the surface water of the lake is approximately 20 feet lower than the top of the dike. It's not like the water is right below the dike. I mean, we hope it's not. So you have to be able to get up high enough to see then not only over the dike but then sort of down into it in order to have achieved, you know, water views, which is the intent of our request for the additional height. You know, you've heard from staff. Obviously, they're recommending approval. They have reviewed the project and assert that it meets all of the guidelines and standards in the comprehensive plan and the land development regulations. And I do want to just wrap up my presentation by talking a little bit about the applicant, which is Chancey Bay Ranch LLC. They actually own the property directly to the east as well, which is over 1,000 acres of farmland and pasture land. The mission of Chancey Bay Ranch is, as it says here on the screen, it's to integrate the supply chain from the producer to the consumer to raise, process and produce the most tender and healthy local raised, 100 percent grass fed, grass finished beef in a manner that protects and enhances the environment. They are a small local operation with 100 percent of their cattle. It's born and raised and harvested here in Florida, here in mostly in Martin County. They are it's a free range operation on there on the east side of the highway with over 1,000 acres, as I mentioned. The livestock enjoy humane and clean conditions. It's grass fed and grass finished beef. No grains, corn, GMO or artificial supplements or animal products byproducts are in their diet. So real quick, the benefits of grass fed and grass finished beef is that, you know, it's less overall fat, higher levels of heart healthy omega three fatty acids, more heart disease fight fighting antioxidant vitamins. And environmentally, though, it's very important that it does decrease greenhouse gas emissions compared to what you might call traditional cattle farming. It increases the biodiversity of the pasture and it improves the quality of the runoff of the water. Finally, I'll just leave you with this, too, that they have owned the property for over 10 years. It's it's in total. It's a little over 1500 acres family owned. They're not developers. They're just seeking to build these. Again, it's the small piece on the west side of the highway that's not suitable for agriculture. They're just seeking to develop the buy right density that's on the property. And they do plan to observe one of these nine lots for the use of their own family. So they will. You know, they're not they're not selling this or they're not looking to develop this and flip it to a national home builder or anything like that. This is one of these lots will be for their own family. So with that, I conclude my presentation. I thank you for your time and happy to answer any questions. Questions for Mr. Barnes? Not officially. Is there any public comment? See, none. Back to the board. Mr. Campy. This used to be my district before the redistricting. I had when I first heard about this project a couple of weeks ago, I took a ride out there because I was thinking there's about as far out west as you can get. I hadn't been out this way in a while. And the pictures tell the story. There's literally nothing out there. So I was originally wondering, like, why? You know, why would you do nine units out here? It's pretty. It's isolated. Uh, it's not for everybody, but you're not building 200 of them. You're building nine. And, um, and as I think you, our staff and the applicant made perfectly clear 99.9% of this you're allowed to do on your own anyway. The only thing that you're really looking for, uh, for some consideration from us was that 10 foot difference. Um, but if you look at it on some of your lot coverages, it was supposed to be no more than 50 feet. And you're doing, you're making it no had to be 50. You're making the open space 75. And so I think that I, in my mind, at least I saw some balance there. Uh, and you know, the logical question for me would be, why do you need the extra 10? I think it's obvious to build a home out there to the Eastern side of the Herbert Hoover Dyke looking directly. And if you could almost go back to that picture, looking directly at the side of the Dyke sort of defeats the whole concept of the sunsets and the, the location, the value of the location. The only reason to be that far out there other than the isolation would be the gorgeous Western views. So I personally don't have an issue with that. I think you've met all the other criteria. Um, the only reason you're going from straight to PUD is because like I mentioned about this height issue. So the concept of having this dramatic, uh, public benefit, uh, that a PUD would come hand in hand with on nine homes. I don't think it's the same as when we're doing neighborhoods. Um, and I thought it's one of those examples of an interesting point of view. People own this property. They have, um, I'm sure explored. Hey, can we put some of those gorgeous cows over on the other side of the road or whatever? Or farm it. They've, they've determined that they couldn't. Um, I don't see my position up here to be punitive and to, you know, knock people down from having ideas, uh, and aspirations on their own property. And because of that, barring public comment, which I think you asked for already, uh, I would make a motion to accept the applicant's staff's recommendation and, uh, to approve the application. Commissioner Hetherington. Yep. I agree with most of what you said. I do have one question for the applicant. I forgot to ask earlier. I'd like, um, while you're coming up, I like that you over injured engineered it to the hundred year storm threshold. And DEP has asked that if sewer is not available to connect by 2030, that, um, advanced treatment systems will be installed in lieu of septic tanks. So will you be installing those at construction of this? Um, I, do you mind if I consult with, um, my team real quick and I'll, I'll finish my comments while you're consulting. So I, I also agree that public benefit either. We got a lot of emails about public benefits. Um, and I, I agree they should be able to use their private property. And if this was in a location, say on Salerno or Monterey, then I feel like you could require them to do a sidewalk and bike paths and things that maybe, um, the public sees as more of a traditional public benefit. But quite frankly, with this location, I don't know what, um, what more you could require them legally to do as a public benefit. So with that, um, pending the answer to this question, I would second the motion. I think what I'd say at this moment is, of course, we will comply with whatever regulation is in place at the time the building permits are sought. So I think that's, I would, I would consider that because if you're building new structures and the, the department is requiring those by 2030, then I mean, it's 2025. Now you'll be just under that window. And particularly since you're on the, the dike and the lake, I'm not super familiar with the advanced treatment systems, but there was a, a bill passed that those will be, um, used and replaced. And replaced with traditional septic tanks by 2030. So, and I'm pretty sure we're not going to be bringing water and sewer out there anytime soon. Nope. No, that's for sure. Guys, no plan on that, right? Water, so. Commissioner Capps. Uh, as it was mentioned previously, this is a, this is not a comp plan amendment. It's not a density increase. It doesn't violate our four story height limit. And I'm really impressed with the fact that this is a, a small project owned by local ag people. Apparently they own the property right across the street. It doesn't obstruct the view of anyone because you have a working ranch across the street owned by the same people. Um, they, they plan to live in one of the houses themselves. And so I will support it. Ms. Elder. Yes. Um, Elise Elder, deputy county attorney. I just want, I have a couple of things. I wanted to confirm that we turned in our notice, uh, affidavit notice at the LPA for this. Yes. And then I just want to make the record clear that there's nothing in the PUD agreement that requires this family to continue to own these properties. They could sell it to a developer tomorrow, just so the records clear, um, on that. And then there's nothing about the septic in the, in the agreement either. So that's all. Any further comments? I, on the other hand, um, don't like exceptions. Um, there are always unintended consequences. You know, this, this, uh, applicant may be very noble and, and, uh, uh, treasure our comprehensive plan. Uh, but the next one may not be. And I'm fearful any time of, of, uh, raising height limits. I don't believe I ever have. And now is certainly not the place to start. So I won't be supporting the motion. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. Opposed. Opposed. That motion passes three to two with commissioners Vargas and heard dissenting. Thank you. Come to our last item. Department four, which is an initial assessment resolution for the Beau Rivage water main municipal service benefit unit. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners for the record, Sam Amerson, utilities and solid waste department director. And I have Leo Rapetti. He's our technical services administrator. That's our engineering division for utilities and solid waste. And Leo is going to present the item. Good afternoon. Next slide, please. No. Us. It's Donna. It's us. Here we go. Uh, the Beau Rivage neighborhood, uh, the attached aerial show shows the benefited area, uh, shaded back in pink. Uh, the Beau Rivage neighborhood consists of, uh, Western Beau Rivage plus a small piece at the bottom of Bay Colony. This property was, uh, the Beau Rivage property was annexed into Martin County from St. Lucie County in 2013. Martin County utilities received a petition to connect water to 259 residents. Once we received the ballots back in September of 2020, there were 217 for 41 against approximately 85% of the residents agreed to be assessed for water within this community. At the time, the, uh, range of anticipated costs was between $6,500 and $7,500. Martin County utilities applied for and received state revolving fund financing for this project back in July of 2023. Uh, this project and three other, uh, assessment projects. Uh, the funding for that money, uh, the interest of that money is a 1.52%. Uh, construction plans were bid out back in December of 2024. Accurate drilling was deemed the lowest responsible bidder. Uh, the water assessment project will provide a number of, uh, benefits to the neighborhood, including, uh, in addition to safe, reliable, clean drinking water and fire protection. The costs here show that each benefited property would be assessed, uh, $9,989. Uh, they have the option of paying that up, up front at the beginning of, uh, of the project, or they can pay overtime on their tax bill as a, uh, annual assessment for over the period of 20 years for $638.87. Uh, the lump sum shown here is consistent with, uh, prior board policy. I believe that was approved back in the fall to keep our water assessments, uh, capped at the $10,000 mark. For residents connecting to water, uh, they typically use about 6,000 gallons a day. They would see a total water bill of just under $35. Moving on to schedule, uh, we're at the second bullet item, the initial resolution, uh, today, February 25th. Uh, what's not shown on here is a, uh, public community, uh, workshop that we'll be hosting here in the chambers at, uh, March 18th. Uh, we're looking, uh, if the project's approved, we move forward, uh, looking to commence construction in May of this year and be complete approximately 10 months later. Um, in this, uh, Mr. Repetti. Yes. Just a logistical question. You said you're going to have the community meeting here in the chambers. Why not like at the library up in Jensen or something? Because this is all the way up that way, tucked in off of Britt Road, right? Uh, just as a suggestion. I mean, you'd probably get more people to come and the more people that come understand the project to make your lives easier. Uh, Kendu, we, uh, we've not sent the letters out yet. The letters are scheduled to go out on March 5th. So, uh, point well taken and we'll, we'll take care of that. I hope. Um, so, uh, in this neighborhood, uh, public works has been busy. They've spent, uh, about a million dollars, uh, designing and doing improvements to the drainage within the community. Concurrent with the construction of the water main as part of this assessment, uh, this neighborhood is targeted for Martin County Utility's ongoing grinder-based septic to sewer program. So we have the opportunity to remove, uh, about 250 septic systems that are in relatively close proximity to the North Fork of the St. Lucie River. One of our missions is to try to get those properties converted in, uh, areas, uh, adjacent to the waterways. Once we're done with this project, then public works will come in and they will overlay, uh, all the public roads, uh, that, uh, that they maintain out there. And so the neighborhood will be, um, new drainage, new roads, uh, water and wastewater, um, um, um, moving, uh, moving forward. Uh, we shouldn't have to be back in there for, for many, many years. Uh, this concludes our presentation and staff recommends the board approve the initial assessment resolution to create the Beau Ravage Water Main Municipal Service Benefit Unit. And I'd be happy to take any questions at this point. You guys are going to make that project so nice St. Lucie County is going to try to get it back. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, I have a question. Um, who decided to cap this at $10,000? I know you said it was back in the fall before the new board was seated, but who, who came up with that? Um, that was developed, uh, several months back. We had another water main assessment project for the Evergreen and Windstone, uh, neighborhoods in Palm City, Western Palm City. Uh, and, uh, we had, uh, balloted them several years ago. And four to five, six years ago, these water main assessments were coming in between $6,500 to $7,500 per ERC or per, per, per connection. And with inflation, everything going on, uh, supply chain issues, pricing increased significantly for these materials. And so when we had a, uh, staff level workshop with those communities, um, it was decided or discussed would be, would be able to do some utility contributions in order to cap that. We have a cap of $12,000 on the vacuum sewer systems, the assessments. And the thought came up, well, can we cap the water main assessments because the prices have gotten extremely high since some of these subdivisions were first balloted. And so that's how this came about. The board asked, uh, staff to review our policy on assessments to include that language, uh, in the policy. We brought that department level policy back to the board and the board approved that unanimously. And so we're following board policy as best we can. And, and, and commissioners, if I can, uh, comment on that too, in your, in our comp plan, uh, our primary utilities job is to provide services within the urban service boundary. And so, um, how well is that working out for us? Really? It's doing well. So, um, um, the, so on, one of the, the, the project that highlighted, uh, with the evergreen one was that there was a lot of infrastructure needed to get to that project. And there was canal and some other things. And so part of that policy was to look at what is the utility doing in regard to, um, um, uh, getting the, the infrastructure to the subdivision. And so we looked, so that was part of the important part of the policy is that the looking at getting the, um, the infrastructure to the subdivision. And then the assessment would be based upon the servicing on the internal subdivision too, so that we could have some consistency between one assessment to the other. And because we'd already had a policy regarding sewer projects, um, uh, with a cap at, uh, uh, uh, roughly was a 12,000 that these, the water was, uh, recommended that we have a cap at 10,000. Where on a number of projects, um, where you already have existing infrastructure nearby, we could come under that cap without having to do anything. And those that other ones we may need to seek grants or other means to be able to, to get the price down. So that was the impetus for the actual program to, um, to encourage the infill development, um, uh, to have water and sewer. Mr. Campy. Yes, thank you. I think that's a very legitimate question, especially considering that you weren't here for the process. The story goes back further than that. That particular neighborhood, uh, had taken a vote and had agreed to do water. And our staff had created an option since there's a canal there of trying to come across. It was a much closer, uh, trip, if you will, for the piping to come under the canal, uh, or the waterway. That's there into the neighborhood. But it required, uh, a lot of back and forth, uh, approvals from the DEP, South Florida and the Corps of Engineers, uh, for them to eventually say no. But that took a couple of years. And then by that point, the price had gone from as what Mr. Amerson said, as a reasonable price to much more expensive. So the residents were saying, wait a second, a couple of years ago, we had agreed to these prices. Yes, you had an engineering strategy that would have been terrific, but it didn't work. So now we're being punished to the tune of thousands of additional dollars, as well as what you heard, that everything is more expensive. And what we've found is that if you make up, if you create a price that is so high, then you defeat your ultimate goal because the residents will always deny it. They won't do it. And, um, to Mr. Donaldson's point, Evergreen happens to be one of those neighborhoods that sort of stretches out far off of High Meadow, not High Meadow, Murphy, uh, towards the back with larger lots. Uh, but it's an older neighborhood. So you'd think, wow, this is a very fancy, rich neighborhood. Well, not necessarily if people bought those houses 40 years ago. And you'd think, well, they can easily afford to pay whatever. They can't. They're older residents that live in there. But the problem was is that the original calculations had assumed that we would bring, you know, that the neighborhood would pay to get the pipe all the way in there when really it's the county's responsible to get the pipe to the front gate and then the residents pay. And what you'll find in the future, even in your, most of your district is pretty well established, but what you'll find is that's not the only price that those residents will pay. That brings the water line to the street in front of their home. They're still going to be responsible for the connections and the plumbing and the rest of it, which is most of the time, especially on those larger lots, additional thousands and thousands of dollars. So it's not out the door a tent, but we just needed to create some kind of a ceiling because these gentlemen are going through all this effort to have the projects denied because they thought it was going to be 8,000. But instead, it was 15,000. And so now there's some consistency. If you get both, it's $22,000 before you do any work. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. What is, Mr. Emerson, what is the actual cost for this? I've heard everything that's been said. What's the actual cost? The total construction cost. Per home. Per home. Without any contributions from the utilities or any grants, the cost is approximately $13,580 per ERC per connection. Just to the street, not to the house. That's fine. But that's the cost. That's where I'm going to say here. That's the infrastructure cost. So who makes up the difference for that? In our calculation sheet, we have a line item for contributions, whether it be grant, state funding, other sources, utility funds. In this case, the utility is contributing approximately $930,000 for this effort. That's moving it from another fund that you could have used that money for? It's from utility funds, CFC funds, utility contributions, utility fees. Commissioner Vargas, this was also, until pretty recently, an oddball enclave of St. Lucie counties, and we were persuaded to annex them by one of our state representatives. I'm just curious, on the first aerial, there is a great big swath of green space to the east of the assessment area. Is that privately owned, that, all that? Is that publicly or privately owned, all that? Privately owned. Oh, that's the golf course, isn't it? No. There's actually a slew that passes through from the north. As you can see, the water body east of the, where it says Beau Ravage, there's a slew that runs all the way down. There's a bridge that we're actually crossing on Britt Road that ultimately goes to the waterway just east of the pink area at the south tip there. So those grades in there are extremely low. They're in elevation 2, 3, 4. The reason that there is a pink, large rectangle that's all owned by one person, they have graciously given us an easement across their property. The neighborhood to the north has a water main and adequate easements to be able to get to there. So instead of us having a dead-end water main coming down Britt Road, we're able to loop that back to provide redundancy and better water quality through the north neighborhood by allowing him to connect. And, you know, at the future, if he wanted to build something on that lot, then obviously we'd have to meet all the other one-county land-owned regulations and permitting requirements. Is the same thing true of the vacant land on the south that's half the size? That's a residential property that fronts Britt Road, so it benefits from our existing project. Okay. If you zoom way in below the tennis courts, you can see a small white box. That's an existing home, and that's all of his property that wraps around there. I've been there, as a matter of fact, yep. Okay. Is that there? Denny Hudson? No. I'll think of it in a bit. Okay. Okay, great. Commissioner Capps. Can you talk a little bit about the goals of our septic to sewer plan? Ken, just for a good review for us, new folks on the commission here. Sure, absolutely. I came on board in April of 2018, and the county staff prior to that had been trying to develop a septic to sewer conversion program or septic tank elimination program. In 2015, a report was provided. We call it the CAPTEC report. It identified some priority areas, 24 priority areas, that the county should evaluate for sewer systems to eliminate septic tanks. In November or December of 2019, the board staff brought a policy to the board, a septic to sewer conversion policy to the board, which they adopted, and it was the board's really an environmental initiative to improve water quality in the rivers, reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loadings on the river and surface waters. And so we brought that forward. That was approved. And the goal basically was to provide sewer service to 10,000 homes in 10 years, which is a pretty big challenge. Well, it was originally 20 years, and we then made it. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Number one and then number two. I knew that was. Yes. That's a true story. We always say it starts in parks and it ends in utilities. So. But that was basic initiative, and so we've been working on that. The commissioners understood early on that if we were going to be successful in getting grants, the only way we could make this happen, make it somewhat cost feasible, was through grant funding and other sources. The county recognized that. We needed some skin in the game when we apply for grants, local matches, and the board, which I've never seen in my career since it was a board's initiative. They contributed state revenue sharing and some FPNL franchise fees to assist in that process, and that was because a lot of this work, when it's complete, the roads need to be milled and resurfaced. So once the construction is complete, we've got completely, basically new roads for the residents. And so that was the only way we could actually make this happen, and they realized that early on, and it's been a huge benefit for the program. And so how far along are we for 10,000 houses in 10 years? So, so far between our vacuum sewer program and our grinder-based program, we are approaching 5,000 units available for connection in the past about six years. So we're well on target. This neighborhood would be neighborhood number 18 that we're able to get septic-to-sewer conversions done with our grinder-based septic-to-sewer program. Great, and then I had one other question. The caps that we have for 10,000 on water and 12,000 on sewer? No relation. Not necessarily? No, I meant to your last name, sorry. Oh, okay. Okay. Are those reasonable for the future? You know, I mean, like you described a period of time where inflation drove the water number from 7,000 to 10,000. It wasn't that long of a period of time. Like, how long can we rely on those two numbers? That's a very good question. Going forward, we may not be able to rely on that in the next several years, but we will know. We'll have a couple more projects out to bid in the near future, and we're going to reevaluate it at that time. It may be that we have to modify that policy going forward. If we see that inflation is not coming down significantly and material pricing is not coming down, labor is not coming down. But if we see a downward trend in those costs, we definitely should be able to keep it on those caps we currently have. But it's going to be, I think, a wait and see on the next several projects that we receive bids. I think you can sustain that number for a number of years if the state continues to invest $100 to $300 million a year into septic to sewer and surface water improvement projects. If we're able to do that, I think we'll be able to get grants that can match 50-50 or close to that or maybe a little bit more. And on average, we should be able to meet the goal. But it will be dependent upon the state of Florida continuing to invest in our water program. Great, and just looking at this map here, when you see the close proximity to the North Fork of the St. Lucie River, I think the river is going to be breathing a sigh of relief. So good job with this. Thank you. And just a quick comment, and thank you for recognizing that. And even though you see they're all not waterfront, riverfront, the drainage system in here eventually discharges to the river, which most subdivisions do. But what's on treatment and retention, they all discharge through the river. So good point. Mr. Vargas. Yes, this may be a question for Mr. Donaldson. How often or when can we revisit this initiative that has the CAP sort of piggybacking on to what Commissioner Cappshead referred to? I don't see pricing going down or any of the other enumerated items that Mr. Emerson referred to. So normally we would bring this up when we were struggling with meeting the goal. For instance, the challenge would really surface when you have a project that in order to fulfill the special assessment and we've maxed the local and state contributions and you have a project that is a go-no-go at, let's say, $13,000 or $14,000 or whatever it is, that's normally when we'd bring it to you and ask you, this doesn't meet your policy, but this is the best we can do. Do you want to continue this or do we want to amend it? Other than that, it would be simply any time the board asked us to revisit the program. Any further questions? Do you have a motion on that one? Not yet. I will move staff's recommendation for approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good day. We look forward to seeing you soon. That brings us to the close of our meeting. We'll hear Commissioner comments. Commissioner Vargas? Nothing yet. Commissioner Capps? I'm good. I am too. Commissioner Campy? I have had, I'm sure it's happening everywhere, but in the last two weeks, there's been some very serious car accidents in Palm City, specifically along the Martin Downs Boulevard area. One was a fatality across the street from the Cummings Library, which has had a share of accidents there. The neighborhood is Pine Ridge on the south side there. It's just like where Matheson ends. And I've been hearing this for quite a long time. I know that when, and Mr. Donaldson will get panicky when I say this next point, but the permissive flashing yellow arrow. Imagine, if you will, you're cam over the Palm City Bridge, you're driving on Martin Downs Boulevard, you live in Pine Ridge, you're getting, you're in the left turn lane, you get the blink, it's a, it's a older neighborhood. I don't know if it's specifically 55 and older, but basically it's an older residential neighborhood. And I don't mean older, like the houses are old, the people that live in it are older. So now you, there's cars that are looking to make the left heading to go north on Matheson, and the traffic coming on Martin Downs Boulevard is racing towards you. So you're older, you've been driving for a long time, the car's behind you, putting a little pressure on you, so you go. And you cannot see, because there's cars basically doing the opposite left turn in front of you, so you can't really see. So you sort of go for it, and we've created a situation where people are losing their lives or being catastrophically injured. I, I don't have the statistics, but I would tell you from, anecdotally, there's been several accidents there in the last couple of years. The residents reach out to me, and they say, you have to do something. I completely agree with them. I know that that road is a state road, it's an FDOT road, and I get the value. I personally don't get the value of flashing permissive yellow arrows. I get that it's a traffic engineering technique, and I'm not debating that. But I think what we need to have, as commissioners and staff, is the ability that if we see consistently a situation, that we should be allowed or eligible to eliminate it there, at that specific intersection. Not necessarily everywhere, but I can't, with a straight face, go, and I speak to those people all the time, with a straight face and say, we're not going to do anything about it. You know, their neighbor and their friend is dead. The accident was absolutely horrific. It was like you could barely understand which were the cars. We have to address that. It has to. If we do it as a pilot program, I'm really insisting that we eliminate that left-turning, blinking arrow at Martindowns Boulevard as it enters into Pine Ridge. I can at least go back to that neighborhood if I have to and show them this video, but I really mean it that we need to address that. I don't want to hear or get an email or a phone call from somebody else that says another person has been seriously injured there. They cannot comprehend the driving technique involved for making that turn into blind traffic. Plenty of people can. I'm concerned about the people that can't. Thank you. I agree with you. I think that they're in some low-volume intersections. They work fine. But the same thing is true of Indian Street and Dixie Highway, and it's an unsafe situation. It's awful. No one should be turning on a yellow arrow at that intersection. You just can't see. And there are others along Dixie that work just fine, but that one is an example of one where it shouldn't be allowed. The one at Martin Highway and Map, where I make the left to go to my home, the advantage is in both directions, north and south, if you're making the left, there's the turning lanes to make the left, and then there's like a striped out like 10-foot extra. And then there's the two straight lanes. So that extra little width of that extra lane allows you to see if any cars are coming. The one that I'm mentioning by Pine Ridge, it's blind. There's no possible way to look past the cars to see if anybody's coming. Plus, the straightaway from the light previous is so far down. And these cars are picking up a little – they're not driving – even if they were driving 45, which is, I think, what that is there, they're doing 55 or 60. You're basically just trying to play Russian roulette. Did you get my point? Not a time for humor, but yes, I do. We have a new traffic engineer, Eric Ferguson. He actually had been with us in the past. We were lucky to get him back, and so I will have him take a look at those intersections that were mentioned today and make recommendations to DOT. By the way, speaking of Eric Ferguson, you should talk to him. He made a presentation to the MPO yesterday about improving intersections on Dixie and Hope Sound, just in Hope Sound, at about five intersections, right? And it was really a good presentation. He's bringing some really good suggestions to you. He had been with us for a while, then he went down to Palm Beach, then he went up to Indian River. He's got a really remarkable resume for handling these kind of issues. So, yeah, I mean, I love Luke Lambert, but I'm okay with our replacement. And where does he live? And he lives in Palm City, you know, of course. That's him right there. Don't walk in. Go, go. No, come on in. Come on in. The commissioners are calling. He was just casually walking by. We're talking about you. No. Yes. Can you introduce yourself to our new colleagues and explain your resume? I had heard about it. Eric Ferguson, Traffic Engineering Administrator. I was previously the county traffic engineer in Indian River County. And I've been a Palm City resident. I worked here before from 2008 to 2014. I was a project engineer in traffic. And I also split time on the CRA. So I'm glad to be back again. What did you do in Palm Beach County? Oh, I came from Indian River County most recently. Yeah. But I was in Palm Beach County. I was a roadway project engineer. I jumped around a little bit. I went to the city of West Palm Beach. Yeah. What was your big project? Clematis Street. Yeah. And that won a lot of awards. You did Clematis. Yep. Yeah. Don't. Well, you can say that here in the county. Don't say that. So I was just saying that you made a really, really good presentation to the NPO yesterday. And unfortunately, Commissioner Capps wasn't there. But I asked him to meet with you so that you could give him the presentation. Because it's going to please him. Yeah. Right. I look forward to it. Yeah. We identified it. The project focuses on five crossings in Hobes Sound. Awesome. And we're even potentially a traffic signal at Gleason. Right. Limited. As you're well aware, we have very little space between Dixie and the tracks for trucks. So there's, and there's a lot of, the other signals need upgrades to meet current standards. So it's a lot of what I, sorry. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Indian, as I mentioned yesterday when you weren't there, Indian River County had a best practice grant with Brightline that I was kind of, it's kind of lucky my predecessor there was a national expert on railroads and traffic signals. And we did a lot of innovative things at other, that's the only place in FEC. And I'm glad that hopefully we can, if we get this grant, we'll be able to do the same thing in Martin County. So I'll, I could be happy to explain it to you more. I look forward to it. Thank you. Welcome back. While I have you here, I would say that, uh, taking my shot. I'm not going to, I'm not going to waste my shot. But, um, as a Palm City resident, Martin Downs Boulevard, when you'd make the left into Pine Ridge, they have a permissive yellow flashing arrow. There was a fatality there two weeks ago at that specific intersection. And our colleagues have a couple others. Matheson? Matheson, you'd make the right onto Matheson. It's where it dead ends right at, into Pine Ridge. The, the neighborhood's demographic is older, so people pull out in front and get killed. And so I need you to work with FDOT. That cannot be, it needs to be a straight red, green arrow, left arrow there. Because I can't continue to make excuses for the catastrophic accidents that are happening there. Right. We, we did receive some requests from residents in Pine Ridge on that. We forwarded it to FDOT. I'll need more than that. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Welcome back. Okay. See you in the neighborhood. Commissioner Hetherington. I'm all set. Mr. Donaldson. We're good. Ms. Woods. Anybody else? We are adjourned. Thank you. Plug it in.