Board of County Commissioners on 2026-01-06 9:00 AM - Jan 06, 2026

Good morning and welcome to our January 6th, 2026 meeting. This is our first meeting of 2026. I'm extremely optimistic about this year. Please join us for a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. And now, Sherilyn, friend, would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then tell us about your service? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic which stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good morning. Good morning. Happy New Year. So I'm Sherilyn Scraters. I served for a short time in the United States Army, stationed at Fort McClellan, Alabama, and my MOS was an MP, military police officer. Very nice. Thank you. Thank you very much. MP, we can put her into work over here. Let's see. This morning, we have a regular agenda. At 1030, we have a preset, which is the Synegro South contract. At 505, we have a designation of a brownfield. There's one proclamation, and there is a pull from the consent agenda, which is consent 7, which has been pulled by Commissioner Capps and Vargas. Is there a motion to approve for the agenda, minus the consent agenda? So moved. Move approval. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. It's time for public comment. I have two requests to speak forms. The first is Jeff Order. The second is Tom Pine. You'll have three minutes to address us. Morning. I was asked, Jeff Order was asked to speak about this. County commissioners approved a 30-year lease with Dahar that was not compliant with land usage and grant assurance at the airport. A big problem. A complaint was filed with the FAA about the lease, and so last week, the commissioners approved a voluntary corrective action plan, VCAP, to try to resolve the complaint. This plan calls for 63 acres of airport development and expansion, more buildings, noise, and traffic without citizen knowledge or approval. To resolve the issue with a 30-year lease, the VCAP calls for one, remove 13 acres from the Dahar lease, if Dahar agrees, if. Then develop this 13-acre parcel, but the VCAP states because there are no taxiways currently running from this parcel, they would have to be constructed by the county or a future tenant. Two, restructure the lease's usage designation annually. A smaller lease with different usage likely means less money for the county than the TCOM report of over $402,000 per year. Three, develop 16 acres, parcel A, but the VCAP states the county faces a significant hurdle because the parcel doesn't have runway access. Taxiway infrastructure for this parcel is not currently included in the county's capital improvement program. Four, develop 10 acres, parcel B, located on the south side, over the next two and a half to four years. Five, develop 23 acres, parcel C, along Monterey Road. The VCAP states that this parcel is vacant, densely vegetated, and inaccessible to aeronautical infrastructure such as taxiways and runways. This parcel is also constrained by multiple zoning issues. Developing and cutting down the vegetation of parcel C will mean a massive increase in noise for those in surrounding neighborhoods. So how much will this VCAP cost citizens? What will it do to the quality of our lives? Why is this VCAP not available online for all the citizens to see? After approving the non-compliant 30-year lease, the commission during a holiday week at a specially called meeting approved this VCAP, a potentially very costly 63-acre airport expansion plan for more buildings noise and traffic while showing no benefit to citizens. If you're watching, please file a complaint with the FAA at FAA.gov forward slash A-N-C-I-R. FAA.gov forward slash A-N-C-I-R. File it under the noise complaints section. Use the current date and time on the site's drop-down menu and tell the FAA don't approve the VCAP. Thank you. Thank you. Tom Pine is next and Mr. Pine is the last request to speak form. If you would like to address us, please fill out a request to speak form and hand it to the bailiff who will get it to us. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. Today in the consent agenda, this commission will approve $42,072,160.13, which was spent between November 24th and December 25th of 2025 without identifying the payees or the purpose of the payment. Today I will read an editorial from February 11th, 2011 from the Stewart News when the newspaper was much more relevant than it is today. The policy is clear. The Martin County Commission should use its meetings agenda, consent agenda only for items that are routine in nature, implement a prior approved board plan, program, or directive, and or require no separate discussion by the board before the vote is taken. So states the county's rules and procedures. Policy is one thing. Adhering to policy is another. The public rarely knows what's in the consent agenda in advance. Controversial items have been put on this agenda the Friday prior to Tuesday's meeting. It has included consultants, contracts, fees and grants, including grants which require matching county funds without public vote or discussion. Consider the consent agenda for January 25th, 2011. The meeting contained more than $2.5 million in spending. Some of the items were routine. No separate discussion by the board. Others such as additional $670 for wastewater treatment plant. Another item of quasi-judicial nature should have selected to public discussion. On Tuesday, one sitting, one of our sitting county commissioners responded to criticisms that commissioners and county administrators are using consent to hide from the public. I will tell you there's nothing further from the truth, the commissioner said. The public's right to know is paramount. If this is true, that the public's right to know is paramount, then county officials should be very judicious with their use of the consent agenda. The fail-safe, the commissioner continued, is that any commissioner can pull items from the consent agenda. That's not good enough. The only true fail-safe is adhering to county policy and limiting consent items to those descended in the rules and procedures. To do otherwise fuels the perception. Commissioners and county administrators do indeed have something to hide. If county officials are going to error, they should err on the side of transparency. It's the public right to know, Commissioner McClain, when the wide rental deal for the Jensen Beach Community Center got renting, when renting the community center hidden in the public agenda, in the public, hidden from the public in the consent agenda. Sir, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have a proclamation, a proclamation celebrating the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yes. Good morning. And we have Nina Dooley here to accept, and I'll just read a little intro, and then you guys can come up. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that a person's worth should not be measured by his or her color, culture, or class, but rather by a commitment to creating a better life for all. In honor of his legacy, the Afro-American Citizens of East Stewart presents the 2026 MLK Weekend Celebration, in which an event will be held daily in different locations throughout Martin County from January 15th through the 19th. The weekend will end with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade on January 19th at 11 a.m., beginning at 575 Georgia Avenue and then ending at Guy Davis Park. The board joins the Afro-American Citizens of East Stewart and other civic groups throughout our county in celebrating the life of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and encouraging all citizens, residents, and visitors to participate in activities honoring his legacy. Ms. Dooley? Good morning. Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you all for having us here today to speak about the Reverend Dr. King holiday coming up in about three weeks. My name is Nina Dooley. I am the president of ACES. We partner with the city and the county to host this event. We have been doing it for the last six years here in Martin County. We do a five-day weekend for MLK instead of just the one day on Monday. On the 15th, which is Thursday, we do Jensen Beach, which we have a fish fry. The 16th, we're in Port Salerno. The 17th, we're in Hope Sound. And the 18th, we're in any town. And of course, the 19th Monday for the parade in the city of Stewart. I want to thank the commissioners for your love and support for this holiday. For all the ones who contribute, I thank you very much for your support. Thank you. I just want to add to that to say thank you for all your support. Also, if you come out and celebrate with us, let's have a good time. You might get a free barbecue sandwich on that Monday. Let's get in a parade. Let's get involved. This city and county belong to all of us. This celebration belong to all of us. It's history. And it did all of us some good to be united together as one. Say love your neighbors, love themselves. So we should love one another. Let's enjoy. Let's put aside all the other differences and let's celebrate God's blessing upon all of us. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Next year, let's plan an event in Palm City. I heard Palm City was not on that list. I'll help you for next year to do something in Palm City. I'm ready. I'm the one that brought it up. Got a spot. Is Commissioner comments. Commissioner Vargas. I want to wish everybody a happy new year. And we go forth in stride of cooperation and good faith and good heartedness for everything we decide here this particular year. And welcome back all of my fellow commissioners and Madam Chairman. Thanks. And Mr. Donaldson, of course, and Ms. Elder, too. Mr. Capps. Happy New Year to all. We look forward to a great year ahead. I want to begin by expressing my condolences to my executive aide, Colleen Pakowitz, and her family for the loss of her father a few weeks ago. Harry Yates was the first director of the Martin County Children's Services Council, a role that he held for 17 years. He was a pillar of our community and will be greatly missed. There will be a service for him this coming Saturday at 3 o'clock at the Treasure Coast Sea Wounds Funeral Home on Monterey Road. And then, as I begin my second year in this role, I want to thank my colleagues on this board and wish each of them a great year ahead. And to the residents of Martin County, thank you for the opportunity to serve. May each of you have a wonderful 2026. Thank you. And Commissioners, with your indulgence, we're going to, after Commissioner comments are finished, we're going to take up Department 4 out of order because we have people in the audience who I'm sure would like to get on to their jobs. Mr. Campy. Thank you. First off, I appreciate those good, happy wishes from my colleagues. I appreciate that. I will try as well to make sure that 2026 is a year that we can work collaboratively for the, for whatever is best for our community and our residents. Um, I was thinking about not bringing this up, but I think it's too important not to remind our parents. Sadly, this week, we lost three members of our community in fatal car accidents. Two young people, 17 and I believe 16, and a 13-year-old severely injured, but the first two passed away at the intersection of Bridge Road and 95. And then also a, I believe a 20-year-old on US 1, uh, just south of Sea Branch killed in a fatal car accident during the day. Uh, and then sadly, uh, not in our county, but in Palm Beach County, a 26-year-old killed in a motorcycle accident. That's four in less than a couple of days. And the sheriff was quoted in the paper as saying, you know, obviously, um, we don't know what the circumstances are of these specific accidents, but, um, speed can sometimes play a role and, uh, inattentive driving. And I'm not saying that that's what the case was here, but it does happen. Uh, I think it's important as parents that we remind our younger, new drivers how important it is to be aware, to follow the speed limits, to not get crazy. Stop signs are stop signs. Red lights are red lights. And speed limits are speed limits. I think all of my colleagues will agree that we hear many, many complaints from residents and constituents about traffic safety issues. So let's not let these four young people's lives go, uh, extinguished without some kind of meaning and that maybe we can use these tragedies to avoid future tragedies. So I just, I know that's sort of a doom and gloom thing, but when you have four in less than a week in our small county, I think it's important that we remind ourselves, because it's not all young people, plenty of, uh, adults are speeding around and breaking the rules, uh, and the results are catastrophic. So thank you. And I wish everyone a very healthy 2026. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. I had that on my list as well. And I wanted to wish condolences to the family that lost, um, those family members in that accident. And I can't imagine a more tragic thing that your family member would leave and not come home that day. So I would encourage, and I know Sheriff Budenseek has done so, encourage everyone to be patient and drive safe. As we move into season, you're going to see more people from out of town here. And so encourage everyone to just drive cautious and, um, be patient. And just, I think this is the year of, as our colleagues have said, love thy neighbor. And we're going to have a wonderful 2026. And I wish all my colleagues the best as well. Mr. Donaldson. Yes. And, uh, on behalf of your staff, um, we're, uh, ready to help maintain Martin County is the best of the 67 and, uh, happy new year. Ms. Elder. Jimmy Smith, would you like to address this as public comment? Sure. Because it's so important that what's going on, uh, uh, through the holidays, there's been some real bad incident all across. And there are some real bad things that's bound to happen. If we don't put some, spoke with Mr. Kapp there. We're going to try to work with something in Hope Sound, uh, the speeding that in the community. I know the young kids, you know, and they look at the motorcycles. I got calls saying, what can we do to put a speed bump or something there on Florida Avenue in Hope Sound? They're running the motorcycles a hundred miles an hour down the streets. And, and, you know, they carry on sometime. And the little kids, sometimes I was down there yesterday and, and just seeing the little kids on their little scooters and cars, boom, come by, just missed the kids. So anything in these communities that we can slow this pace down. I know that some communities, oh, we don't want to speed bump in there until something happens to one of their family members. Then you'll want all those things. We got to prevent these things before it happened. Then talk about it after it happened. I'll be working with you. See, we can go take a look. I got someone going to video the situation. So we'll have a little more evidence that people can see. It's not to hurt the kids, but to help them to understand before you get yourself in a lot of trouble. Uh, not only there, there's in Porcelain or the same thing. I know the holiday is a very great day that we all want everybody to have a good time. There was a few incidents that happened there over the holiday. A couple of things got turned over. Some girl got a real crush. Boy, got his neck messed up. Uh, uh, I don't want to call any names and all that, but, uh, someone was my family members and, um, I wanted to see how we can work together to make it safe for all people during the holidays, especially during new years and 4th of July and all those things. We want people to enjoy the history of celebration of this country, but also we wanted to be safe. And Mr. Campion say that the young folks don't realize the danger and people losing loved ones. So I want to say that, but also just, just on this issue, uh, do I, can I speak on what I fill out a card for? Oh, I have to wait on that term, right? Yeah. Which, what is that? Which one is that? I want to also say something on the Boys and Girls Club, but I can wait to that agenda. Yes. Okay. But, uh, just thank you. How can we work to make these communities safe? It's real sad if you see it and we don't want that to happen, what you say, Mr. Campion and Ms. Harrington on that. Thank you very much. Thanks. We will now take up department four, which is, uh, request for approval of a first amendment to the lease agreement with the district board of trustees of Indian river state college, along with an access and maintenance easement along citrus Southwest citrus Boulevard in Western Martin County. Good morning. Uh, Mandy Johns, real property professional. This is a request for the approval of a first amendment to the lease agreement between Martin County and the district board of trustees of Indian river state college to amend the lease boundary to include 30.72 acres for sports facilities, along with a approval of a non-exclusive access and maintenance easement along the main entrance, uh, located on citrus Boulevard. Let's see. On February 22nd, 2022, the county and IRSC executed a lease for approximately 25 acres along citrus Boulevard for the purpose of creating a charter high school. The initial term of this lease is for 55 years with the option to renew a lease for four additional terms of 10 years each with the final renewal option of four years for the potential total term, including all renewal options of 99 years. The renewals are not automatic and require one year prior written notice. IRSC has, uh, requested an additional 30.72 acres of adjacent land to build, operate, and maintain sports fields and associated sports facilities and structures. The remaining terms of the lease will remain the same. The county is also providing a non-exclusive access easement for, to IRSC for the entrance along citrus Boulevard that leads to the Indiantown High School and the future Martin County Fair. So we would move that the board approve the first amendment to the lease agreement between Martin County and IRSC and approve the non-exclusive access and maintenance easement and authorize the chair to execute any and all documents associated. Thank you. Questions for Ms. Johns? I'll speak. Dr. Moore, would you like to address us? And anyone else who would like to address us on this matter, please fill out a request to speak form, hand it to the bailiff and the bailiff will make sure that it gets to me. Good morning. Good morning, chair. How are you? Um, other members, thank you so much for your time. Um, we're excited about this opportunity. The district board of trustees is, uh, committed along with the Johnson Family Foundation to provide resources, uh, to, uh, develop this site, uh, uh, as a companion to the Indiantown High School. Uh, we recognize that it is a, uh, an extension of the lease. We want to make sure that you understand this is property we hold and, uh, and, um, uh, esteem to make sure that we take care of it, uh, make sure we preserve it properly, uh, that it is useful for the fair as well. Um, we have approximately 10 to $13 million we're seeking this year in the legislature for improvement of the site, along with the Johnson's generous $2 million gift. As you know, they pledged $10 million in 2021, uh, which started the sequence of Indiantown High School. So we're very excited about this. We think it's a natural extension. It's, um, a further commitment to the community of Indiantown, and we believe it is, uh, a cost-effective way for the county to extend services, uh, the reach, uh, help the fair, uh, as well as provide, uh, needed, um, uh, recreational facilities for the community there. So, ma'am, we ask you for consideration and approval for this, um, item on the agenda. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Campy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you, Dr. Moore. I wanted to just say that I think what has happened out there thus far, I remember having a meeting, uh, being invited to a meeting by Marsha Powers where Mr. Johnston was at, up at IRSC, and there was just a vision at the time. Uh, Kevin Powers had worked his magic by touring the Johnstons around in Indiantown, and any of you that have had the Kevin Powers Indiantown tour know how impactful that is. Uh, and then it was just a conversation, and I remember as I shared with the folks this morning, Mr. Johnson said, look, I'm not a young man. I want to make sure that this project is built, uh, beautifully and quickly so that I can actually see it. And then very quickly, a gorgeous facility came out of the ground, uh, that has just been remarkable. I mean, you know, it is open to all students. It's called Indiantown High School, but any Martin County student, or I guess other students from other counties as well, could participate. It's state-of-the-art, it's incorporating, uh, local businesses. It is training our young people into, uh, immediate career opportunities. Uh, they don't have to wonder, like, what happens after I graduate from the Indiantown High School. They'll know. And so a natural extension to add the things that most folks that think about a high school would assume is already out there, uh, and for the Johnstons to continue to put money, investing and giving money to our community is a godsend. And to partner with IRSC, um, which we're so fortunate to have. So many communities take that higher level of education for granted. Uh, many communities don't have any. Uh, and all of their young people have to travel away to have it. Uh, so today is a, is a fabulous opportunity. I'm thrilled it's in my district. Uh, and I would gladly make the motion to accept staff's recommendation. Commissioner Hetherington. I'll echo those comments. And, um, I, I, as a resident of Indiantown, and I went to Warfield, uh, Indiantown Middle School and South Fork High School. Somebody asked me yesterday, did your high school look like this, um, this, uh, Indiantown High School? I said, no, but the Bulldogs are pretty, pretty tough, you know, South Fork. So, um, I would say that Indian River State College has made immense investments in our community. The fact that, uh, you know, you're right there in Indiantown and training, not just Indiantown residents for future trade career opportunities. I think something is something that's so important to our community. You've done everything that you've said. You, you've made investments in our community. This serves a public purpose. And I think even our parks recreational master plan showed that we need these kinds of facilities. And our young people need this kind of interaction to grow into young leaders and to keep their minds out of social media and digital. And so I would gladly support this. And I thank you for investing and for taking good care of all of your investments in our community and investing in our young people. So I'd gladly second it. Ms. Johns, what size is the parent parcel? The current parcel? The whole parcel before we started dividing it up. Oh, oh, I'm not sure to be honest. And how much, how much of it is now leased to other entities? So currently IRSC has 25 acres. We are adding an additional 30 acres and the back portion that's going to go potentially to the fair at some point. Uh, I don't have that in front of me. I don't know if George knows. Yes. Morning, Madam Chair. George Stoke, Assistant County Minister. You have approximately 30 acres leased to the fair currently. This would be an additional to the front 30 acres. Uh, I think Ms. Johns told you what the current occupied, occupied lease area is for IRSC and it leaves approximately, well, I'd say about 20 acres on the north side behind what would be behind the high school if you're standing on Citrus Boulevard, which would probably be used for stormwater infrastructure at some point by both parties. So of the 120 acres, there are 20 acres left available for stormwater to treat the stormwater that comes off of the least 85 acres? Uh, approximately. I mean, IRSC high school has their stormwater facilities and then they'll have to all treat on their own separate, uh, parcels, but there is about 20 acres to the north side of the high school. Who's going to pay for the stormwater treatment area for the 20 acres? Well, it would have to be one of those two parties if they would need it. And we do have to come back to this board and amend leases if they were to do it onto that site. But right now it's set that they're going to do it on their current sites, but we left it as extra on the top. And what access does the, uh, college propose to give Martin County taxpayers and residents on this parcel? I'm more than happy to have Mr. Moore answer that. Okay. Rather than off of the, um, Citrus Boulevard going north, expanding that to allow both access to the, uh, uh, recreational facilities and the fairgrounds provide additional parking in there as well. And to, uh, Mr. Sokas's earlier comment, uh, the stormwater runoff, we believe we have a retention pond that's sufficient to carry all that right now in front of the high school. So we think that's there, but to answer your question, ma'am, the, uh, existing penetration north of, uh, of Citrus Boulevard would be expanded to allow traffic flow for the fair, uh, for the high school and for the recreational facilities. And what kind of access do our residents have to use those facilities? Well, the high school of course would be blocked off, but the, uh, recreational facilities would be open for the community, ma'am and the fairgrounds. Is this part of the lease? Do we have access to what kind of access do we have to any recreational facilities? It is our asset. Ma'am chair, I don't think we've defined the actual access and hours and so on and so forth of that property. Well, how have we defined it? I have to go. It would be up to the college to allow access for public use. So, um, uh, it is, uh, currently not in the lease as I understand it to specifically provide for public access other than, um, the, the college's willingness in the future to allow use of it by, um, parks or Indian town or anybody else, uh, based upon their schedule. So it's principally for the high school, um, first and then secondarily it would be for any other use with permission from the college. Dr. Moore, would you be willing to amend the lease to allow public access? Absolutely, ma'am. In fact, I was going to say, I think our master plan indicates there is a, uh, a parking facility in the front of the, uh, the planned sports complex that allow that, uh, to be easier access off of Citrus Boulevard and parking for the community. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Um, I had discussion with the folks from Indian River. I see no rent is being paid to Martin County taxpayers for this property. I think 99 years. Yes, ma'am. I think it's an, it's nominal, but we put, uh, to date we put, uh, over $25 million of combined, uh, assets from our foundation, as well as the Johnston foundation, uh, and in addition to another, I think five or $6 million for the state, uh, some County grants have gone in there. So we have about $35 million that have been invested for the taxpayers of Martin County into that facility. So I think that would offset, uh, revenue from taxes, uh, for this, uh, current proposed, uh, facility for recreational use, uh, approximately, uh, $13 million of state dollars, uh, plus additional dollars from the college plus the Johnson's donation. So again, we're looking at all in about a $50 million investment that the college has made, uh, through our donations and combination of funds and our, our resources from the state. Yeah. Dr. Moore, everything that comes from the state is taxpayer funds. You realize that. Yes, ma'am. And I realize that also. The other thing is 99 years. Why so long? Well, uh, in order for, uh, the property to be, again, it's 50 years, I think is the original term, ma'am. And I think there's also 10, uh, four year terms that come off of that, uh, or four 10 year terms plus an additional cap to make it 99 years. That's subject to approval by this commission at the end of 50 years. Okay. So it's not, it's, it's 99 years is, is the, is the targeted goal for the use. That'd be the normal service life of the building with improvements and whatnot. But at 50 years, we have to come back and take a look at it. We have to notice the commission that we're going to come back and extend the lease or request extension lease. Exorbitant amount of time, 99 years. Yes, ma'am. Uh, that, that is not typical today. No matter what anybody says on this commission, it's not typical today. People are not doing that. Um, we need to review this sooner. Um, I think that, and what I've read here and correct me if I'm wrong, does Martin County have the option to terminate the lease? It looks like the trustees can. Is that correct? And what I've read here? I, I, I, that, I don't know. I had to go back and research it. Well, we need to know these things. If we're approving something, this is a document that you're asking us to, to sign on. Well, I think we've been, uh, uh, good stewards of the property and the rights that the commission has granted us earlier, uh, speed to target to get the high school, uh, constructed, uh, pledge to not use, uh, Martin County's, uh, tax base, uh, for, uh, the construction of this program. Again, uh, 25 million of this came from charitable donations, ma'am. Okay. But you're a nonprofit. So what is the benefit for the taxpayers? Well, the educational benefit, ma'am. Okay. I understand. I taught high school at one time and they redid all the high schools in the county that I was in. I understand that I went to junior college, you know, and Miami Dade. So I understand all of that, but what, what, what is the benefit? The benefit, ma'am, is we're providing the youth of, uh, Indian town, an opportunity, both for education, recreational outlets. Uh, the second part of this is it builds a character and leadership. Third part of this is it, uh, provides an anchoring point. I'd also pointed to this commission that once we announced we were building the high school, uh, this is when the Terralago began building out as well. This, this was a triggering event for the investments inside of the Indian town community. So we believe there's been a cascade of events economically, probably approaching somewhere in the 150 to $200 million investment for the taxpayers of Indian town in Martin County. So we believe this is a very positive event. So, so those are my two sticking points. Yes, ma'am. We're not getting any revenue from this. 99 years is way too long for a lease. And it seems as if the trustees, it's unilateral, this contract. Uh, ma'am, that's, that's the way the lease is set up. I, the board of trustees are, are a sovereign corporation in the state of Florida. How many set up the lease? Who set up, you set up the lease. We propose the lease. The commissioner approved the lease, ma'am. Well, I'm expressing my opinions about this. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Capps. I think this will be a great benefit to Indian town high school. I remember being at a village council meeting for Indian town a number of months ago. And it was like a visioning event on a Saturday morning. And the commissioners were talking about how the, the youth of Indian town need more recreational activity. Um, it's, it's a great need. And I think this will go a long ways toward helping that. And, um, so I will support it, um, with, uh, the, uh, issue, uh, that, uh, commissioner heard brought up about, um, amending the lease for public access. And, uh, as long as that's in there. Yes, sir. We can do that. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. Just, uh, to, I was here when we approved the original lease. It's, it's not uncommon for the government, especially with large donations being put forward for a 99 year lease. I think the Elliott museum has a 99 year lease. I think the children's museum, I remember going back and forth that the term of the lease was very, very important for donors to realize, you know, before they'll write checks, the, the benefit to the community is that I would say probably 100%, if not in the high 90% of the students at Indian town high school are Martin County residents, uh, getting a vocational training, the charter school aspect. And we're, I'm thrilled. We should all be thrilled to have the partnership with IRSC versus a charter school with a, you know, a entity from outside the state. Uh, we have other charter schools, uh, to have someone that has, you know, generational history and a track record. Um, everything that happens at the Chastain campus in, on Salerno, I, I think all of us have been to hundreds of meetings that the facility was opened up to the public to use their, uh, meeting spaces, their AV spaces, their staff has come. Uh, all of us have been there where their professional staff have come in to help with, uh, AV issues. And, uh, that facility is very well used. So I'm very confident in the partnership, uh, and the generosity of the space. In terms of, uh, to Commissioner Hurd's point, that it is our asset. The land is our asset that was donated to us from, uh, South Florida Water Management District, uh, as surplus from them to us. And for probably the last 10 to 15 years prior to this use has sat completely empty, unused. So the asset of the property is ours, but the asset itself is being completely funded by you all. And yes, a lot of the money that comes down from Tallahassee or Washington, if that's the case, is at one point was taxpayer dollars. But how great that Martin County taxpayers that are sending money to Tallahassee would have it come back to Martin County in the form of a, you know, what I will believe to be a world-class facility. And every graduate that gets out of there and has a job and a future and a career, especially if they're able to work in the community that they grew up in, live in the community that they grew up in, I don't know how you put a dollar amount on that. So again, I guess there's five of us for a reason to create a different perspective. And the questions are, look, you're a tough guy. You're not afraid of these questions. You have some military background. I was only kidding when I said we were going to beat you up. But I know that the questions are valuable so that people that have maybe the same concerns as my colleagues can hear your response. And then the difference of opinions up here, I think, makes us a more cohesive board. So I appreciate and welcome the comments. It forces all of us to really pay attention. In terms of changing the lease to add, you know, some type of language, I'm not opposed to that as long as it doesn't slow the process down at all. We have a similar scenario with school district properties that we have joint use resolutions and agreements. I look at this as a very friendly, amicable arrangement and a lease from friends and partners. Thank you. Chair, with your permission, ma'am, we had a graduation earlier in 2025 of 14 students that graduated high school early, that their families came up afterwards. We had over 220 people in attendance for that graduation ceremony. They were effusive with praise that the county and the college had worked together to create this high school, to create this opportunity. And those are 14 citizens are now going out with a degree, with technical skills to go get jobs. I think that's just the beginning of where we are. And so I'm very pleased that the relationship has worked as well as it has. We're committed to work side by side with the county to continue to improve lives, change lives through education. Whatever is necessary for this commission to feel comfortable with access to that property, we will work through that process. We do this in all four counties that we support. We're there to support the communities which we serve. So please understand, if it's not articulated in the agreement as you wish, we will go back and amend that. But I share Commissioner Campi's one comment here. I want to make sure we go quickly because again, part of the gift from the Johnsons was the speed. Mr. Johnson's approaching that age in life where next day is not necessarily assured and wants to see this done. And with the passing of Sister Elizabeth, he's got a renewed commitment now to see this thing completed. And so that's where we stand as a college and the Board of Trustees is unified behind us in this process. So please understand, we will work side by side as a good citizen and advocacy for this commission's reach to make sure we improve the lives of all citizens within the Martin County area. Thank you. I just want to give a little bit of history about the donation of this parcel. It was not a donation. It was part of Martin County and South Florida Water Management District's partnership to acquire land for the C-44 project. Martin County residents paid $20 million for this parcel, for the parcels that are used for the C-44. And this was a parcel from that acquisition that wasn't used for the project. But Martin County residents certainly paid more than our fair share for our piece of this parcel. So I just want to make sure that Martin County taxpayers' interests are protected. I'm supportive of this project, but I don't, so this is what the lease says for use. The trustees shall use the leased premises solely and exclusively for the construction and operation of a charter school near the village of Indiantown. That's it. That's what the language says. It doesn't say anything about public use. I don't think that this lease can be sufficiently amended, quite frankly, in order to guarantee that there's shared use. So if I may, Commissioner, so we can amend the actual amendment that's being proposed today to allow use for the public for the recreational facilities that are being added to the lease right now. So we can craft some language that allows the public to access and use the recreational facilities that would be subject to the county attorney's approval and the college's approval. And it wouldn't have to come back to the board if the board wanted to do it that way. And we can move forward and ensure that there is public access to those recreational facilities if the board desires to do that. And it would be in the amendment that we're approving now because the access would only be for the recreational facilities and not for the actual high school. So it would fit. Okay. As the motion maker, I will amend my motion to add in that our legal staff and Mr. Donelson work with the IRSC entity, whoever it should be, to add in some language that the recreational facilities have public access that is agreeable to the IRSC and to our representatives so that it does not need to come back to the commission. Secondary agrees. Mr. Fox, is this your light? Yes. Ms. Elder addressed my clarification, but I'd also like to point out, as to some of the questions about the term of the lease, a 99-year term is somewhat typical of a ground lease. And one of the aspects of a ground lease is that at the end of the term or early termination of the term, any improvements to the real property become the property of the lessor, in this case, the county. I just wanted to make that clear. Any further questions? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's see. Let's take up the consent agenda item number seven, I believe it is. That's Mr. Abate, or this was pulled by two commissioners, Commissioner Capps and Commissioner Vargas. If you would like to explain what your questions are so we can have them answered. I had a member of this particular advisory board approach me stating that they feel that they do not have enough input. This is obviously something voluntary, not a paid position. They're bringing their expertise from outside. They were appointed or selected to be on this board. And so they will have another meeting in about three weeks or so, three or four weeks. I would like to postpone this until after that time, and they'll alert us as to when they had their meeting, or you may know when they have their meeting, you can tell us, so that they can have resolved whatever differences are going on there. Actually, it was told to me is that their piece of paper is put in front of them, okay, this is our strategy. This is what we're going to be doing. Just check the boxes. And that's not what they're there for. They're there to be consulted. Everybody puts their ideas on the table. You know, they work through this. And I think this is the proper thing to do for this particular committee. We want people to be involved in the community. And I think it's reasonable. I would want this also. So. Mr. Capps. So the issue here is whether we should, the Parks and Rec Board should meet monthly or quarterly. And I had a member of the Parks Board request that the Parks Board be able to weigh in on the issue before we do. And I thought that would, was a courtesy that we ought to grant. So I would agree with that, that we should continue this item until they've had a chance to vote on it. Is that a motion? Yes. Regarding the board, I just want to bring to the board's attention, I'm sorry, Melissa Petrick, a senior assistant county attorney. In selecting the board, just so that you are all aware, it is the BOCCs. It is your decision to set up how many times they meet. In our code of ordinances, chapter 17, article 1, section 17.2, it's the board of county commissioners are the ones that may establish the advisory board. So historically, when I've gone through the resolutions, it was always at the request of the board to change the meetings. It's not, from what I've seen, not based upon a vote from the members of the PRAB. I just wanted to clarify that so that you're aware that in setting the dates that is meeting, it is your decision to be made. As proposed, the resolution in here does allow the PRAB members to extend those meeting dates. If they want to hold a special meeting, they're allowed to vote on that. And that is, that gives them that option there then essentially to modify their schedule. But the resolution itself is something that the BOCC determines. Okay. Right. And I realize that it's our ultimate decision, but just to influence what we should do, I'd love to hear from them. I understand there's been some participation problems on the monthly basis that the attendance is not quite as good as it should be. And it could be that if the board knew that we were going to switch them to just four meetings a year, that that would prompt them to come to the meetings more often on a monthly basis. And maybe that would be the ultimate resolution of the issue. Or maybe, maybe they're all good with, with meeting four times a year. And I don't have a, a big preference on the issue. I'd just like to hear from them first. Any further questions? Is there a second to the motion? Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Now, is there a motion to approve the remainder of the consent agenda? So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Now, let's start with DPQJ1, which is a departmental quasi-judicial request for revised final site plan approval for the Boys and Girls Club of Martin County, located at 11500 Southeast Larris Avenue within the Hobes Sound Community Redevelopment Area. Good morning, Mr. Griselka. Good morning. Thank you, Commissioner Hurd, if I might. We need to take the public hearing before the final site plan. Did you announce the final site plan? Where is that? So it's public hearing quasi-judicial, not DPQ. That's the one that's up on the screen, though. It's public hearing quasi-judicial. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No. We need to do the abandonment before the site plan. And where is that? 54. It's right after the consent. Okay. Sorry. We are going to take up a public hearing quasi-judicial number one, which is a request for abandonment of a portion of the deeded right-of-way in Martin County. And, Mr. Griselka, you are taking up this matter. Yes, ma'am. Good morning, Commissioners. First of all, this is quasi-judicial. Any ex parte disclosures? If I have any, they've been filed. If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. I don't have any, and that's been filed. So, and anybody who's going to provide sworn testimony, please stand up, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? And, Mr. Griselka, have you handed your information to the clerk? Yeah, everything has been filed except for the public noticing certification. Thank you. Please proceed. Good morning. As we discussed, this is a request for a portion, a partial abandonment of the public right-of-way adjacent to the Boys and Girls Club of Martin County. It's approximately 2,148 square feet of deeded right-of-way as shown in Exhibit A lying within Gozman's Grant in Jupiter Island, Martin County, Florida. All parcels abutting the subject right-of-way are owned by Boys and Girls Club of Martin County. Upon approval, the abandoned right-of-way will be incorporated into the Boys and Girls Club Hopestown project and will be privately owned and privately maintained in perpetuity. Section 139.2, the Martin County Code of Ordinance, which requires a privileged fee for abandonment and vacation of county property and roads. However, the board may waive the privileged fee required upon a showing of good cause. The applicant is a not-for-profit entity and has requested a waiver of the privileged fee. So basically, this is a piece of property that they had deeded to us prior and had deeded us far out from what we were requesting. There had been a Scribner's error in it that left a hiatus piece between the piece they originally deeded us and the existing right-of-way that they had since come back and given us that other piece there. So they are, in conjunction with this and with their site plan, they are now deeding the rest of the right-of-way along the southern portion of their property to be equal to what's here, and we're abandoning the six-and-a-half-foot strip on the northern part of the property. Let me see if I can get that picture up. What we're showing in green is what we are abandoning, so that everything to the east of what's shown in green will remain county right-of-way, and then as part of their project later on, they're donating an additional eight-and-a-half-feet section of right-of-way on the southern portion to make it a straight-line right-of-way line along Larris Avenue. That's the basics of the whole thing. And this other right-of-way had been deeded from this property on an earlier piece of an earlier approval. So, I mean, we're basically going to be giving right-of-way back that they deeded to us at an earlier time. And about the presentation, I'd be glad to answer any questions that come up. Commissioner Campy. I think the most important point here is that they're asking for something that they had given to us in the past back, because when they originally built this building, it facilitated the needs of the community at the time. But now we're going to be the beneficiaries of a huge new expansion and sort of a rebirth of this site. So, this is almost just clerical paperwork. Am I correct? I make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Second. After public comment. Yeah. Do you want me... The recommendation is a little lengthy. Should I... Sure. Or do you want me to read it? Chair said yes. Sure. Let's see how well you read. If not, we can send you to the Boys and Girls Club and they can help you with your reading. There you go. The recommendation is move that the board receive and file the agenda item summary and all the attachments for the record as Exhibit 1. Move that the board adopt the resolution abandoning portions of deeded right-of-way lying within Gomez Grand and Jupiter Island as described in Exhibit A, subject with the following conditions precedent. Proper notification of a notice of adoption of this resolution. Move that the board waive the privilege fee if it finds good cause shown by the petitioner and move that the board authorize the chair to execute all documents necessary to complete the transaction. Thank you. Mr. Griselka, what are our policies regarding waivers of privilege fees? I don't... I mean, it's strictly a board decision if they want to... If they feel it's in good cause to waive that fee. This has... You know, they... This is a non-profit that had previously donated this property to us. So, it's our kind of recommendation is that we go ahead and waive the fee to be able to basically give them the piece of property back that they donated to us previously. In this case, it's a moot point. I agree. It's... You know, they donated it before and now they're getting it back. You know, there's no net gain or loss to either party. But I think that our policy is lousy. It seems to me that we waive privilege fees when it feels good, and that's picking winners and losers, and I am not in favor of that. I think we need a clear policy about waiving privilege fees. Either we do it or we don't do it. And I think that in all... You know, in most cases, when there's a private entity, they pay the fee. And they do lots of good things in the community, too. So, Commissioner Vargas. I'm in total agreement with Chairwoman Hurd. We have to have a strong policy, not shifting sands. And I've noticed this over the last year. Whether you're a not-for-profit, and we do support them to give our tax dollars, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yes. Then there's a fee. It's a wonderful organization. I've seen it in different counties in Florida. Wonderful. But we have to protect the taxpayers of Martin County, who put their hard-earned dollars to support us here. So, I'm in agreement with Chairwoman Hurd. Commissioner Capps. I noticed that the value of the strip of land that's called right-of-way was $40,000. Correct. That's what the appraisal came in at. Right. Is the privilege fee usually the value of the piece of land, or is it something less than that? No, it's normally the value of the land. Okay. Okay. Good enough. That's good. Thanks. There's a motion and a second. All those, oops, I'm sorry. Is this a public hearing? Would anyone like to address us? You're probably going to be on the next item, Mr. Smith. That's the next item. So, seeing none, we'll return back to the board. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll now take up DPQJ1, which is now the request for a revised final site plan for the Boys and Girls Club of Hope Sound. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? If I have any, they've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Anyone who's going to be providing sworn testimony in this, please stand up. Raise your right hand and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Excellent. Mr. Sinnott, have you provided all the necessary materials to the clerk? I'm turning a copy of the agenda item in my work history to be filed as Exhibit 1. Excellent. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm John Sennott, Principal Planner with Growth Management. I'm presenting the Boys and Girls Club of Martin County revised final site plan application. This is a request by Architects Design Collaborative on behalf of Boys and Girls Club of Martin County for revised final site plan approval for the Boys and Girls Club site at 11500 Southeast Larrys Avenue within the Hobesound Community Redevelopment Area. The existing facility is proposed to be demolished. The redevelopment of the 5.04-acre site includes a new 28,142-square-foot facility consisting of a programming space, teen center, and gymnasium, as well as associated infrastructure and accessory structures, included as a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. The site's located within the Hobesound CRA. It's about 700 feet south of the intersection of Southeast Larrys Avenue and Southeast Dixie Highway. It's also just south of the Hobes Village Mobile Home Park. And again, it's just over five acres in size. The site is located within the general subdistrict of the Hobesound CRA. You can see in the brown to the north, you can see the multifamily subdistrict. And to the south, in the pink, you can see the corridor subdistrict. The future land use designation of the site is CRA Center. And to the north, you can also see the CRA Neighborhood Future Land Use designation. As part of the current proposal, the existing clubhouse and gymnasium will be demolished. The parking areas and the soccer field will be reconfigured. And a new 28,142-square-foot facility will be constructed. This will consist of a gymnasium, programming space, and teen center. As part of this application, they'll also be constructing an outdoor classroom, an elevated garden area, as well as an 800-square-foot field house. Included with this application is a request to release two existing unities of title encumbering the site. The unities of title were recorded in 1998-1999. As the subject revised final site plan application requires a right-of-way dedication, the applicant requests to release these two unities of title to allow a new unity of title to be recorded, which would permit this conveyance. The required right-of-way dedication is 8 1⁄2 feet in width along the southern portion of the southeast Larry's Avenue frontage. The site plan depicts the 6 1⁄2-foot right-of-way abandonment, which was just approved via item PHQJ-1. This is the first sheet of the proposed final site plan. The existing facility will be demolished. The new building will be situated in the southeast corner in keeping with the CRA building setbacks. The existing parking areas and soccer field will be reconfigured. Access will be continued to be provided from southeast Edwin Street and southeast Larry's Avenue. As part of the redevelopment activities, the applicant will be cleaning up the existing upland preserve area. They'll be removing exotics and doing some revegetation activities. The site will continue to be served by South Martin Regional Utility. I'd like to pull up the building elevations here to show you. These are the proposed building elevations, and I believe the agent will also have some color renderings in their presentation in a few minutes. This top elevation is the primary facade facing southeast Larry's Avenue. The Hope Sound CRA permits a variety of architectural styles. The applicant is proposing the contemporary style. Some alternative compliance has been approved as part of this proposal. Alternative compliance has been approved with respect to facade transparency. Full compliance with facade transparency could present safety concerns for the children. Staff finds that the alternative compliance request is appropriate given this institutional use. The proposal as a whole still fulfills the intent of the CRA and Article 12. Pursuing to Article 10, Table 10.5F9, Martin County Land Development Regulations, review of this application is not required by the local planning agency. Development review staff have found the Boys and Girls Club of Martin County application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report. Staff recommendation is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1. Move that the board adopt the resolution approving the revised final site plan for Boys and Girls Club of Martin County. Move that the board adopt a resolution releasing the existing unities of title. And move that the board adopt a resolution accepting and approving the warranty deed for dedicated right-of-way along Southeast Larry's Avenue from Boys and Girls Club of Martin County and authorize the chair to sign all documents necessary to complete the transaction. That concludes my presentation. Questions for Mr. Sinnott. Mr. Sinnott, you stated that the design is compatible with the contemporary design? Yes, that's correct. Which is an acceptable building design. Can you give me some other examples in Hope Sound of the contemporary design? Just recently, the PBS headquarters facility. It's just a couple blocks south of this facility on Anstis Place. That was approved, I believe it was in November, using the contemporary architectural style. Where is that? That's on Southeast Anstis Place. I can probably show you here on the map. Just a block north of Bridge Road. Is it 28,000 square feet? I believe the total of those buildings was roughly 16,000 square feet. It was several detached contemporary architecture buildings in that case. Sorry for the orientation, but in the upper right-hand corner, that is where the PBS headquarters project will be. What does the PBS stand for? Positive Behavior Support. They're a national behavioral therapy company, and now they're bringing their administrative headquarters to Hope Sound. Commissioner Vargas. That was my question. All right. Any further questions? Applicant, would you like to make a presentation? Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning. Questioners, Raul Ocampo for the applicant, Architects Design Collaborative. This is going to be the third Boys and Girls Club that we do in Martin County. We did the Indian Town Boys and Girls Club a few years back. About, I guess, close to a year ago now, we finished the Stewart Boys and Girls Club. Obviously, there has been a transition and an evolution as we have gone through the process of designing and building Boys and Girls Clubs in the county. It's not just in the county, but everywhere else in the state and in the nation, for that matter. There are certain areas of concern that Boys and Girls Club have that are kind of unique to it. And one of them is the amount of windows that we have on the building and the sill height of those windows. This is something that we have gone over extensively with staff. Staff has been an absolute pleasure to work with. There has been a lot of back and forth. There has been a lot of questions. I think that all of those have been answered to their satisfaction and to be in accordance with our program. But handling the primary question in terms of the fenestrations in the building, the security requirements and all of the issues that go along with dealing with the clients, the children that go to the Boys and Girls Club is something that has been handed down now for a while from National Boys and Girls Club in terms of not being able to see into a facility from the outside of the building, into the classroom activity areas, into the gymnasium and so forth. That has led us to adopt a standard of five foot, six inches for the windowsill of any fenestration looking into those areas of the Boys and Girls Club. This is for their safety. As you are probably aware, the children that come to the Boys and Girls Club come from sometimes homes that are not exactly to the average, if you will, not only just single-parent households but quite sometimes not even a parent but a family member who is taking care of them. The issues that that leads to is that there may be arguments amongst the parents. There may be people that are trying to take advantage of a relational situation within the family to be able to identify and acknowledge the location of a certain child. So that's really the principle behind why this requirement is set for the Boys and Girls Club. Having said that, we have tried to increase the head of the windows so that we get the maximum amount of natural light into each one of these clubs. That's very important for us. It's very important for the program because natural light, we all know, is a precursor to a healthy environment for learning in the classrooms and in general. So we have set most of those heads either close to the ceiling or very close to the height of the structure that will permit that amount of light. And so we have tried to maximize the amount of light that comes into it. Now, as Mr. Sano had gone over the different elements of the project, this is a close to a 30,000-square-foot facility. Some 10,000 square feet of it are for the gymnasium. That gymnasium is not just a gymnasium. It is really more or less a performing arts center, if you will. There are many, many activities that occur within that facility. That is also the central portion of the area of the club that is open to the community for use by the community, whether it be for basketball, other types of sports uses, or for community facilities, gatherings that the community would like to use. The design of the building is such that access to that specific part of the building does not preclude or include access to any other parts of the building. So we continue to have a secure facility while we allow the community equal access and easy access to that part of the community. The other two portions, one is the basic club, and I say basic because it's multipurpose classrooms that are used for many, many different programs. Those programs have to be multipurpose and flexible in nature because the programs change over time. What we call the teen center is really the area where we prepare kids that are so interested to go into the different trades within the community. This has become more and more relevant, more and more important as we all see the news lately with the requirements that AI is beginning to take over many of the functions that have traditionally been those that are being done by graduates of college. We see now that most of those functions that are not being taken over and most of those functions that are really in dire need of new students are all of those trades and professions, and this is something that Boys and Girls Clubs excels at. If you have not seen them in action, I would suggest that you visit Indian Town or that you visit the Steward Facility, which is the latest, which has programs for HVAC, for welding, for electronics, for digital. Anything that you can think of in the trade industry, they either have or are proposing to have. So this facility is going to be, I think, a very unique facility in the sense of the contemporary architecture, but it's also unique in what it brings to the community and the ability to facilitate many different programs for the children of our community. Now I'd like to go ahead and show you some of the visuals. This is the overall site plan. Of course, this is the pretty picture site plan rather than the one that is shown with all of the details and dimensions and everything else, but it shows that we have a U14 soccer field as kind of the centerpiece of the site. That soccer field is surrounded by the Upland Preserve on two sides. The building was moved from its original location, which is at the base of what would be the soccer field, to the corner. That was a requirement of the CRA design guidelines that we have zero to five feet of setback from the roads. Honestly, we would have put it there anyway because this is really the corner that would exhibit the facility the best and give us the greatest amount of green area left over on the back side of the property to be able to use that for all of the other facilities that we have. The upper right is the club. The lower left is the teen center. And then you have the gymnasium on the corner, that being the tallest portion of the building, so we draw attention to it. And later on I'll show you in some of the slides how the facility can be enhanced in the evening so that it also shows off as a nice portion of the streetscape of Hobe Sound. To the left, and just up of the parking areas, you have the outdoor classroom. There is a need for outdoor classrooms. There is also a raised garden area, which is part of their culinary program to take food from farm to table. This is an important program. It's not just an important program for actually being able to provide a lot of the food stuff for the Boys and Girls Club themselves, but also teaching the kids about the culinary programs. We have a state-of-the-art facility in the kitchen. The program there is really, I would say, next to no one. In fact, some of the people that run the program have been asked to consult on some of our other Boys and Girls Clubs in Palm Beach County, which we also do Boys and Girls Club facilities for. So you can be very proud of the program that is being presented here. Next to the outdoor classroom, we have the field house. The field house is strictly an area for storing of some of the play equipment. There are the bathroom facilities there. All of the bathroom facilities, again, because of the requirement of risk management for Boys and Girls Club, all of them are unisex. They are all ADA handicap accessible. The only yang toilets, in an old term, if you will, are those next to the gymnasium or within use of the gymnasium for the community facilities, community access. It's just a much more efficient way of providing bathrooms to the community and to the public outside of the use of the Boys and Girls Club requirements. This is the floor plan of the facility. Again, to the right is the club itself with the multi-purpose classrooms. In the corner is the gymnasium. You'll see that it has a performing arts stage. It also has bleachers, which can seat somewhere between 150 and 170 folks. And to the upper left, where the green is, that is our basic trade school type of uses. And we also have a music facility, a music room, which is going to advance a new program, which was just started at the Boys and Girls Club in Stewart. And we are, again, going to facilitate that in this location. This is a view of the facility along Lairs Avenue, looking kind of southwest, if you will. Everything that you see in the bright colors is a metallic surface. So it's a siding, if you will. The rest of it is all paint. The roofs that you see that are kind of sawtooth on the top section there have windows that are facing north. Those are going to allow for natural light to come into the facility in the main circulation area that is going to distribute the kids once they get into the classroom arena. And it also is the area where the lunchroom cafeteria, if you will, occurs. This is what the intersection of Lairs and Edwin looks like. So, again, you can see the metal is signifying the area where the gymnasium is. The eyebrows occur on this facade only because this is a south facade, which requires that we try to limit the amount of solar heat gain that comes in through the windows. This is kind of an aerial of the entrance and kind of showing you an overall facility. You see the big canopy in the front with the tree-style columns that are supporting it. That's the main entrance to the building. Obviously, this is a secure building, so when you look at the other entrances of the building or the other doors, exterior doors to the building, those are really required emergency exit ways rather than real entrances. The main entrance with controlled security occurs at this location. This is an up-close of that. You can see the speed table, which will slow any traffic down through the parking area itself. Before you get into the main entrance. This is the facade on Lairs. The purpose of this is to show, I think, at one point, one of the concerns from staff was, are we hiding the service area of the facility? So it's very hard to see and designed in that way that you don't see the dumpsters. The trees have kind of been transparent, so you can see a little bit better. But in reality, as you approach the facility from the south, you really can't see much of any type of service facility there. Another point that I think should be made is that we have made every attempt, and I think that staff would agree with us, and this is in cooperation with them, to salvage as many of the existing trees there. I mean, this facility has been there for a very, very long time. And the trees that are there are very large. They're mature. They're, for the most part, in very good health. So we've made every effort to maintain those trees. One of the alternative compliance requests was regarding the parking, actually this parking in particular, where the parking is required on layers to be 30 feet setback from layers. We have a 19-foot-10 setback, which is to preserve the parking as it is there and not incur an additional expense at really no need since we are, I think, complying with the intent of creating the streetscape that is required by the CRA. This is a view of the garden area. This garden area is a deck that is elevated above the retention, one of the retention areas out here. As you can see, there will be planting beds for vegetables. There's going to be the towers for hydroponics. In the background, you see a little bit of the shed roof that is over the outdoor classroom. We'll see a little bit better view here. This is an area, again, where the kids are learning all about the culinary arts. They're learning not just how to cook it but how to harvest, how to bring it in, how to clean it, how to transport it from one location to another. The outdoor classroom has two soft walls. Those are green walls. The green walls there in particular are going to have flowered planting materials so that we can create a butterfly garden on both sides of this classroom. And if you look a little bit further to the right there, you'll see another green space there. That is actually an herb garden so that the kids will, again, start to be able to create their own herb gardens. I mean, most of us have herb gardens at home. This is a place where they come and actually, you know, pick and take home. And so this is part of the programming that the Boys and Girls Clubs has for all of their facilities. And this is an overview looking at the facility from, I guess, the corner of the two preserves, if you will, the upland preserves, so that you can see the extent of the amount of green area that is being preserved, albeit as a soccer field. But you can see the rest of the facilities in the background. As I said before, we're trying to also create an image in the evenings. This is by no means a showcase or a show place. We don't have a lot of intensive lighting, but we do have subdued lighting that will enhance the streetscape along layers during the evening hours. This is what we intend for the corner of the facility to look like. Again, elegant lighting, nothing that is really overly lit and creating any kind of a nuisance, if you will. The entrance, well lit. Again, this is a facility that will be used by the community after hours, so we wanted to make sure that we had adequate lighting, that we had appropriate lighting for entrances and identifying all of the main features. This is from a step away, again from layers, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Commissioner Capps. Yes, I had a question about the gym, and you mentioned that it could be used for community events. Yes. You know, appropriate ones. And as far as the size and the scale of that gym, how does it compare with the one in Stewart? Because I've been to a couple of luncheons over there, and that's a very impressive facility, but I was just trying to think of how big it is because in Hope Sound, we don't have a lot of places where a larger group could meet. Man, that could be a nice feature. I'm curious as to how many people could be at something. Within a couple hundred square feet, it's the same size as the one at Stewart, and I believe the capacity that we have at Stewart, well, one that you're familiar with, is somewhere in the 300, 350 people max, depending on what the seating arrangement might be. Okay, good. That'll be a nice thing for Hope Sound. And then on the contemporary style, the one in Stewart is also contemporary, right? That's correct. Right. So it's kind of in that flavor and style of architecture. Yes. Okay. Well, I would move approval. Second. Commissioner Hetherington. I would also lend my support. And boy, the Boys and Girls Club has come a long way. My son used to go to aftercare in the old fire station on Martintown's Boulevard. So you've made a lot of gains. You've been a good community partner, partnering even with Treasure Coast Basketball and some other organizations lending your facilities. So I gladly support you, and thank you for your partnership with our residents and our community organizations. Mr. Campy. Thank you, Mr. Ocampo. I appreciate that thorough sort of visioning, if you will. I think now that we have had the City of Stewart facility built, there's no need to necessarily have to come hat in hand. You've already proven. The organization has proven themselves. I've had the opportunity to speak at several events, most recently when they had members from other Boys and Girls Club from throughout the state. We hosted them here. When I say we, I mean you guys did. And had the opportunity to meet and speak to a lot of them. And they were just so in awe, if not jealous, of what we've been able to accomplish here. I think the Boys and Girls Club in particular shows how generous our community is. Absolutely. The facility in East Stewart is absolutely remarkable. And I know the financing, it was, you know, close north or in the neighborhood of $20 million to build that. And, again, like you said, it's already been proven that it is a community facility. I've been there for many events outside of specifically the function of the Boys and Girls Club. It is something that not only the employees that work there can be proud of, you know, the students and the clients and the kids that go to it. You know, most of us that are older remember that the Boys and Girls Club, at least the one in my town, they helped you with your homework. They gave you an after-school snack. And maybe you played basketball. And I know you are representing more of the project than the organization. But I know that whether it's drones or any of the technical skills, the culinary, soon-to-be health care and everything else, kids that and as the school districts, and God bless this public school system, has more and more of those extracurricular technical things that we're used to having as they start to strip away from the school system, our community would be void of them if it wasn't for the Boys and Girls Club constantly say, wait, you're not going to do that anymore? We'll do it. That program is going away. We'll take it on. As well as the fact that I think Martin County in particular has really addressed the necessity of mental health for the kids that come there. Because, like you mentioned, these kids come from very challenging backgrounds, not all of them, but a lot of them do. And so when you talk about the design of the building, a lot of us might not take into consideration what your organization and staff members have to take in when you'll have an aggressive parent that's not entitled to access to, even if it's a child, their own child, legally not entitled, and all of a sudden your organization has to build a facility that can handle that. And I think East Stewart is so, I know, and Jimmy is here to talk about how thankful they are, because before it was just an idea and now it's a reality. And I know that you've had a club in Hobe Sound for a long, long time, and they've been very fortunate to have this located in the community where your students and kids live is such an advantage. And now to take it and have, you know, again, probably in the neighborhood of a $20 million facility to build it and run it and staff it. And I thank the folks from the Boys and Girls Club that have been so generous with their money. You know, this is not a taxpayer-funded operation. It's a generosity of our community from their hearts and their wallets-funded operation. So I'm happy that the district commissioner got to make the motion for it. I'm happy to participate. And we are so fortunate. And so from my perspective, to the Boys and Girls Club folks that are here, thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Jimmy Smith would like to address us. If anyone else would like to address us, please fill out a request to speak form. Welcome back. I'm excited. Thank you. Didn't bring anything with you. Sandwiches or anything, but I'm just... I have some ribs and mac and cheese and all that stuff. Go get it. Assume. As being the president of the Martin County branch, I want to let you know right now you are the most watched county and city in the United States through the NAACP National. Right now we're being watched probably over the state of Florida. We're one of the most watched branches here. Whether it's excitement or what takes place in Martin County, I want to take my hats off to you all and the leadership you're doing here. Most counties are adopting what we do here. All right? I just want you to know that. And first I want to say, give my hats off to the Boys and Girls Club team. I look back. I've been here since 1962. Here in Martin County, I don't want to count my age. But I see the hardship of communities that couldn't afford to have their kids have a decent meal and being able to be educated because they had to work in the fields. I'm one of the ones that as a little kid picked tomatoes and okra and all that stuff off of Brees Road down going towards 95 with my parents. And just to make ends meet, missed school. Went to school to Dunbar Elementary when it was segregated. I look at all those things that didn't have here in Martin County. Then I look over the years at how Martin County, with the love, like Mr. Kemper was just saying, how the love of the people of the community of Martin County comes together with care and love. You have put together, all of you all in Martin County, have put together that love and compassion for each other here. I just, I'm just so excited in my heart and I know for the fact that the Boys and Girls Club has set us an example in Martin County because I remember that it was only the small, like you said, we only gave us a snack. But now with the Boys and Girls Club, give back to the community. He stood in Indian Town. When he built one in Indian Town and then I think the President, CEO, Mr. Fletch became the President later. And then that facility and steward and how the impact it has been for the kid education to be able to advance. The reading skills, I know that J.D. Parker was one of the filling schools it was for our youth. And then now with the Boys and Girls Club coming, it's just advanced for these kids. Now the kids have more activity. The kids can see things. They can believe they can be something now in life. And in the community, just so much love. The kids don't go hungry, the culinary school, the kids, they run me down. Hey, but Smith, I learned how to cook, this and that. And they're just so excited at what they offer. And then the one in Hope Sound, I remember when they first started in their little facility and over there off of British Road there, most of the majority of that is my family on my father's side. I look at those kids now. Those kids are so eager in the education part that they are giving them. I just say that Martin County is one of the greatest counties to be in and across the world. And you look at the statistics and they're saying that what you have here, there's nobody go hungry here in Martin County. Everybody got something to give here in Martin County from their heart. And so I say this, and I end my, what I have to say that, I don't know, the president here, Mr. Fletch, I take my hat off. This dude has a heart, and his team, the whole team of the Boys and Girls Club, all the staff members you talked to them, and they all, I know they work, but their heart is still more than just the work. Because, see, money can't take a place of love, okay? Money can just help love, but it can't take a place of love. So I just say to them that, and to you all, I thank you for your support of this facility and what it's going to bring to the community. And you did mention about the use for activities on that side that the Boys and Girls Club allowed the venue to be able to utilize. We don't have many places for a venue that can hold 300 people. Most of the places here are only 150, and then the fire department come in and check and see how many you got in there. So that's they doing their job. But 300 people is a great number for us to use that facility, and I want to say that. Thank you, and thank you for your love and your compassion. You got my support. I support that, and I hope you continue to support the great things for the kids, because the kids is our future. Thank you very much. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address us? And I'll close out the public hearing. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Commissioner? I would like to make a statement. I recognize Mr. Barrett Englert in the back of the room with Proctor Construction, who's going to be spearheading this development in Hope Sound. And just wanted to give a shout-out to you. He's the man that gets things done. When he looks at you, it's already done. So, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And I've been to numerous events at the Boys and Girls Club in Stewart, and it's a beautiful facility, but I understand the modifications you've made here, and I think it's well worth the effort. So, thank you. Thank you. We are back taking up item Department 5, which is a request to approve a contract from Synegro South. Take it away, Mr. Graham and Mr. Amerson. Good morning, Commissioners. This is Matt Graham, Assistant County Administrator. Joining me is Sam Amerson, our Utilities and Solid Waste Director. And later on in the presentation, we'll have Stanley and Andrew from Cedron and Synegro presenting. But this agenda item is a request to approve a contract with Synegro South, LLC, for advanced waste residuals, processing, and beneficial use recovery. This item before you follows a formal RFP process that was advertised on March 28, 2025, and subsequently reviewed by the Selection Committee. The proposed agreement is for a 10-year term with two optional five-year renewals. I'm going to turn it over to Sam, who's going to talk a little bit about the county's biosolids management program. And then after that, Stanley and Andrew will be presenting on Synegro. Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, Commissioners. It's good to be here with you once again. I don't get too excited about agenda items. You've probably recognized that over the years. But this one, I'm very excited about presenting this to you today. This is going to put Martin County in a very good position going forward for residuals management. A brief history on our residuals management. I call them residuals, wastewater residuals, or biosolids. I'll use that kind of interchangeable. It's the same thing. But a history of the county's biosolids management. In 1983, the county utilized sludge drying beds. This is where sludge was pulled off the bottom of the clarifier, decanted. And the solids were a very small percentage content, like 1.5% to 2%. So it was very liquid. This went into an area contained on the ground. It exfiltrated. The biosolids dried naturally outdoors. And then that was hauled to either land application or a landfill for disposal. In 97, the county advanced that to a lime stabilization. And this is a process where you take residuals, the biosolids, or the sludge. You add lime for a period of 24 hours. You reach a pH of 12. That's as high as you can reach on pH. And it destroys all the pathogens and all the viruses that may be contained in that product. In 2002, the county moved to a mobile sludge dewatering operation where they had a vendor, which I believe was Senegro at the time, would come onto the treatment facility sites. And they would have a mobile centrifuge, bring it on, dewater, and then haul that sludge away. In 2015, the county advanced that even further and went to a chemical injection process to produce a AA, exceptional quality biosolids. And AA means that it doesn't have 12 of the listed heavy metals above contamination limits in those residuals. And then in 2019, we decided to go to strictly dewatering. And then that dewatered biosolids would be hauled to a composting facility in Indian River County, which is New Terra. No longer in service. And so most of our biosolids, much of that is going to landfill application. And so moving on to June 8th of 2018, the South Florida Regional Planning Council held a symposium, a biosolid symposium. You may recall that. Had a number of speakers and presenters there. Three of the presenters were providing information on what we call emerging technologies. So these were emerging technologies with new treatment facilities, new treatment processes. Some of them have been tried and tested. Some were in the development phase. So we got a presentation on advanced pyrolysis technology. This is using high heat, high energy to zap. Basically, the biosolids dried them completely and destroyed the pathogens and the PFAS that may be a part of that. The other was a supercritical water oxidation process. And then thirdly, Janicki Industries presented, which we know as Cedron Technologies now, a mechanical vapor recompression. And this is what's being proposed for treatment in this contract. Senegal will sub and partner with Cedron Technologies, who has this proprietary process. So moving on, we requested proposals. That was advertised in May of 14, of 25, for advanced waste residuals processing and a beneficial reuse recovery. The proposals were to include transportation and processing of the biosolids. One proposal was received from Senegal South, LLC. Selection committee was formed to review that proposal. The pricing in the proposal was, as I said, for transportation and processing used into this patented NVR method. The benefits of contracting with Senegal at this point. We have the ability to execute a long-term contract for the transportation and processing of our biosolids. This provides for budget predictability and security into the future. It provides for beneficial use recovery of liquid fertilizer in the form of ammonia, dried residuals for use as a fuel for either a waste-to-energy facility or even, in particular, a cement kiln. And with that process, it's guaranteed to destroy any PFAS in those residuals. The contract, as I said, assures the destruction of the PFAS, and then it also avoids land application of our residuals, which was an environmental concern for the board over the years. The land application and even depositing the biosolids in a landfill. We just didn't want to put it in someone else's backyard. We really wanted to solve the issue permanently. And so, like the waste management contract that was approved several years ago, that was advertised. The board negotiated that agreement, staff, and the board. It was a little higher cost than what we were paying for currently for that service. In hindsight, that was a sound decision by the board. It was an outstanding decision. It was a long-term decision that provided predictability and a high level of service. We know that some other facilities, actually other cities and counties, had some issues following that contract, where they had issues with their service and levels of service. They're paying a lot more for a lower level of service. So, in hindsight, the board made a sound decision there. We're requesting the board look at this contract in a similar fashion. It provides long-term stability. Taking this action will provide a secure future for biosolids management and will avoid reactionary responses to proposed legislation in the future. So, it sets the county well ahead of any proposed legislation that may cost us and may restrict how we're processing biosolids currently. So, that's enough for me, and I'll hand it over back to Matt. Sure. So, I'm going to turn it over to Andrew Bozinger from Synegro. He's going to do a quick introduction, followed by Stanley Janicki. Great. Thank you very much, Commissioners. Thank you for having me here today. Appreciate the opportunity to be here and to present these concepts, and importantly, to be available to answer any questions that you may have. There we go. You know, we're here to talk about this. As well-introduced already, the Advanced Biosolids Processing and Beneficial Use Contract, and what it means to Martin County. There's been a detailed kind of background already provided, so I will just say that the priority that Martin County has always had a clear, you know, and very thoughtful approach to biosolids, proactive, and I think, you know, what you're hearing today is really about the results of a strategic planning and then procurement process and about implementation of the strategy that you've developed. So, Synegro was the recommended respondent to the RFP. Synegro is North America's largest biosolids management company. We have about 1,000 contracts across North America where we're providing biosolids management solutions for municipalities. So, I think it's important to note that Synegro isn't a technology supplier. We're not a manufacturer, a designer. We don't represent any specific technology. We're a solution provider. So, our role is to go out into the marketplace and identify the best technologies in the world and bring them to bear for the solutions that best fit the specific market in which they're designed to serve. And we believe firmly that the Sedron technology is absolutely that technology for Martin County and for Florida in general, really, with its very sensitive water environment, for Martin County's goals of taking biosolids off the land and, you know, being in a very sustainable position and, I think, very accurately, you know, in a position that's ahead of the market right now. And so, I will let Stanley come up and address some of the very specifics about the Sedron technology, the Indiantown site, and the project. Yeah, so thank you all for the time, and thank you, Andrew, for the intro there. So, many of you may have heard a little bit about Sedron before, but we're a spinoff of an aerospace company called Janik Industries that my father founded in the early 1990s. That company has about 2,000 employees. We spun off Sedron in 2014 with initial funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to focus on water and sanitation in developing countries. We then realized that there's an incredible need for these sorts of technologies here in the U.S. So, we developed what we call the VARCOR system, which is what the technology that's proposed here, which Sam did a great job providing on that is mechanical vapor recompression. So, we'll jump into that here in just a moment. Here's what one of them looks like. This is one up in Seattle. So, what it does is it takes the biosolids, and it dries them out, and it extracts the ammonia. I have to click it twice each time. The ammonia, which is one of the nutrients, right? Nutrients come in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Those are the main nutrients. We extract the ammonia, then make a dry solid product. And we do that through distillation. The distillation that we use is mechanical vapor recompression. So, normally, when you see something getting dried, all this vapor comes off and is lost. That's heat getting lost to the environment. What we do is we capture that steam and recycle it and use electricity to run that process. And that allows us to boil water out of the biosolids for substantially less energy than other technologies. We then combine that with a power plant, a biomass power plant, that takes those dried biosolids. Dried biosolids have the same energy content as low-grade coal. It's absolutely incredible. You take those and you run them into a biomass power plant, and you create green electricity. If you draw a circle around our VARCOR with the power plant, we actually have carbon-negative electricity, which is incredible to see. We have biosolids come in and electricity leaves. It's very, very cool. We'll take biosolids from a range of wastewater treatment plants in South Florida, and, of course, the intent to take from Martin County's plants as well. So, we're right here at basically the beginning of Q1. We're hoping to break ground here in the next few weeks, months. And then we'll be off to the races with processing soon after that. So, that's sort of the high level there. Andrew, do you have more to add? Yeah? I'm done. The rest is yours. Unless you want me to go. No, I... All right. Just keep rolling. Perfect. Sorry about that. Yeah, happy to provide some context on what the markets look like on biosolids in South Florida on the new Senate bill that came out on land application banning, which is a material thing. It's actually, I think that Sam and Matt and the whole crew have done a great job teeing things up because there's actually, it looks like in June or July, land application of biosolids will be prohibited in Florida. And so, that's putting the county way ahead of that proposed legislation. The other thing that you'll notice is that the majority of wastewater treatment plants in South Florida are actually paying rates substantially higher than this. If you look at what Fort Lauderdale is paying, what Miami-Dade is paying, these are all rates that are substantially higher. So, I think that they've done a great job taking a fiduciary view of this and getting a great contract. That's about it. Commissioner Hetherington. I think in addition to, you know, the Senate bill you mentioned, isn't the EPA passing some regulation and your technology will start removing PFAS from some of the... That, to me, is, in addition to avoiding land application, the removal of the PFAS out of the material, I think, puts Martin County leaps and bounds. And the EPA is definitely going to pass regulation, I've heard, and that puts us in the forefront of that. We would agree with that. So, what the literature says is that you need three things for PFAS destruction. There are three T's of PFAS destruction. Time, temperature, and turbidity. And what it means is you've got to take your product, you've got to hit it up to 900 degrees centigrade. That's in our biomass boiler. And then you keep it there for two seconds or more. And you do it in a turbid environment, so you get plenty of heat transfer happening in that process. And then you break down the PFAS. That's what the literature suggests. You take that PFAS now that's broken apart. What is a PFAS molecule, right? It's fluorine, it's carbons, it's oxygens. The carbons get turned into carbon dioxide and into energy when that happens. The fluorine molecule that comes off of there, we can't have that go into the environment. So, what we do is we run it by calcium, which is a basic environment, and you get it with calcium fluoride. And that's an inert product. So, what we do is the process takes that PFAS and turns it into calcium fluoride. Okay. Thank you. So, this agreement is between Martin County and Synegro. What's your role, Mr. Janicki? We're the subcontractor for Synegro. We actually will design, build, own, operate, and maintain our technology in Indian Town, which is where it's being built, which is in the county itself here. Okay. Then, what's Synegro's role? Synegro's role is to be the prime contractor. So, we will pick up and service the biosolids management needs of the county every single day, including providing, as might be necessary, backup disposal so that, you know, there has to be 100% continuity of removal and management of the county's biosolids. So, both will be present for the term of the contract? Correct. And also, the capacity of this facility, what percentage of the total capacity is Martin County going to be absorbing? So, the plant, Martin County is about 8,000 tons of biosolids per year, and we're designing the plant for approximately 300,000 tons a year. So, it's a relatively small volume, but it's, it also, by having the contract, you'll guarantee that availability. Okay. And, and what kind of space does a 300,000 ton facility take up? We're on 14 acres in the village of Indian Town. All right. Further questions? Commissioner Capps. So, is the plan to, for Indian Town to service other municipalities in South Florida? Yes. That is the plan. Okay. And, so, this is kind of a new thing. How long has this technology been around in some area of the United States? I mean, like. So, we had our first operational plant using this technology in Texas in 2018. We then built another facility in Indiana, one in Seattle, and then five more in Indiana, and then three more up in Wisconsin. Okay. So, it's catching on. Yeah. Mechanical vapor recompression, however, in various forms has been around for decades, as has thermal drying of sludge, which has really been, been a mainstream drying processing technology for biosolids since the 1940s. It's just, it's, it's, what, how I see personally, the, the Sedron technology is, is innovative, but it's using technologies at its core that are well proven and established. There's, you know, very little that's not very well demonstrated in the market. And then, the, the pricing and the cost comparison between what we have been paying and for this disposal or whatever you want to call it, compared to what it's going to cost. So, there, there's a very small premium right now. If you just look at the pure numbers of what's the cost per wet ton to, to process and beneficially use the, the county's biosolids. It's about $10 a wet ton or maybe $80,000 a year. But the, the prices don't really exist that you have now in, in the marketplace. The, the, the very, there's a very critical shortage of, of biosolids management capacity in Florida right now, which is, is really, you know, the, the driver for, for this project, creating capacity that's urgently needed in the state. So, facilities, prices have been rising very, very fast because of the constraints on capacity. And, you know, facilities aren't able to keep up. They, there, there has been several instances where wastewater plants in the state haven't had anywhere to go with their solids and have, they've backed up into the waterways. They can. So, you know, what we're seeing now is the prices that you have now, if you re-bid that contract right now, you'd get a much higher price. On top of that, as, as you've heard already, you know, there are bills pending in the Senate that are going to ban biosolids land application. That's going to further constrain the market. So, you know, there, while there is a, there's a slight premium there, there is, you know, it, it's absolutely, in my view, good public policy. And, frankly, your staff is, is looking, they were way ahead of what's happening in the market to participate and, and identify new technologies and solutions. It's going to benefit not only Martin County, but, but the entire region. And then, you know, I'm curious as to how this, well, let me ask you this. Is, is, is this going to be the only one in Florida or the first one in Florida? This will be the first use of this technology in Florida. Okay. And the history of Martin County's pursuit of this type of industry, when, when did that start? I know we have the former county administrator in the audience, Taryn Krizda, and I think she had a lot to do with that. I first started working with people here in Martin County in 2018. So we've been working for a long period of time. Commissioner Smith loved this whole concept. Right, right. Well, one other comment, you know, I, I wrote down before the meeting, uh, this comment in my notes, what does Sam Amerson think? And so if, if Sam's for it, that's probably a good thing. Cause, uh, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And if he's into it, uh, an old dog, but I can learn new tricks. That's what I heard. If he thinks it's a good idea, that speaks a lot. Commissioner Hetherington. I'll just say, I think, um, this sets Martin County apart, you know, as a leader in the industry, both, uh, environmentally and economically. Environmentally, you know, we invest so much of our time, energy and dollars in water quality. And I think this, you know, speaks volumes to that, that we're a leader in the state for, um, this new technology. And economically, because we don't need to wait until unfunded mandates hit us. Cause when we are reacting to unfunded mandates from the state or the federal government, then economically we put our taxpayers at a disadvantage. So I think addressing this before the unfunded mandates come forward, it puts our taxpayers at an advantage. And I would like to say to Sam and Matt, thank you for the very diligent job you did working with the companies to negotiate the very best, um, transaction and deal for our taxpayers. And everybody, I think, did such an amazing job. And it's, it, we're, again, it sets us apart as a leader in Martin County. I'll gladly make the motion to support it. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, um, I'd spoken with you in meeting. I've spoken with Mr. Emerson also, Mr. Graham extensively, um, who owns the land where this is going to be built? Yeah, Taryn can answer that. I mean, I can answer as well, but Taryn. Good morning, commissioners. Taryn Krista for the record. Uh, the property where this site is going, Matt, you had a, uh, site photo, is the juice plant that was, uh, originally in Indian town, had over 400 jobs. And with the greening of the citrus, it went defunct, if you will. And those jobs were lost. Mr. Gary Hendry, who, uh, was a Martin County resident, I don't know if he still lives in Martin County or not, but anyways, he, uh, bought this property and he is repurposing it. This is a true example of economic development where he's taken a site that, and with very little renovations to it, he currently has about 14 different businesses there. There's a crematorium for large animals on that site. There's some boat, um, marine maintenance on the site. There's a power, powder coating facility on the site. Um, his, there's a welding company on the site. So this is, so as Stanley indicated, he's taking 14 acres on the, on the top left. Actually, it's right here. Oh, yeah, you're right. I got to get myself oriented. So he'll be on the, on the Silver Fox, uh, and also along the railroad tracks there. Uh, and, uh, this will be the site. They worked out an arrangement with Mr. Hendry to lease the property for a certain period of time, and this will put tax dollars. They had the slide up there, but this, the county will gain, Morton County itself will get over a million dollars in tax revenue just from your general countywide and your fire rescue. And then, uh, the, all the other taxing authorities, there's another million dollars, uh, within that. So, um, the benefit, I'm sorry, well, Florida Inland Navigation, Children's Services Council, South Florida Water Management District, and then the village of Indiantown, uh, will realize, uh, over a couple hundred thousand in taxes at the existing millage rates today. Okay. So, uh, somebody whispered over here, 99 year lease. Is that correct? No, I was only kidding. Okay, good. Because we nearly, we need to roll that back. Okay, that was, it's not today. Um, so, so in other words, I see here, it's, it's a 10 year, and then two, five years. Am I reading this correctly with Martin County? Is, is that correct? That's correct, yes. Our agreement with you. That equals 20 in my mind. Anyway, um, you mentioned, I'm sorry, I, I couldn't hear you because you have a very soft voice. Time, turbidity, and what was the other T? Temperature. Temperature, of course. Okay, and I understand about the PFAS and all of that, and yeah, they're definitely going to be squeezing municipalities and counties, you know, to correct this. I appreciate Mr. Emerson's, um, thoughtful consideration of this. And, of course, um, he has light years, and this is wisdom, as I will say, that cannot be replaced at all. It has nothing to do with age. You can be young and wise, but that's unusual. And so he has a lot of life in him, and I know he wants to go, no boarding, Colorado. But anyway, having said that, um, I have not seen the property. I haven't, you know, where you are. I'm talking about in Washington State, and hopefully we'll be able to, to look at that. And, of course, you have further north, I think, the, the space development. Is that correct? That's with your father. Okay. Aerospace in general. Aerospace in general. My, my nephew's an aerospace engineer with Boeing, so I understand. I don't understand anything about it. He tells me about the wing flap going, I said, that's great, honey. I'm really glad for you, you know. But anyway, having said that, I appreciate what you're saying. Um, I don't think I have any other questions right now. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. A couple points. One, it's interesting that Mr. Emerson, who says he's normally not enthused by agenda items, is very excited by this. Interesting, isn't it? Yes, and then, based on what Commissioner Hetherington said, since we're the first one, and I normally say this exclusively about Mr. Emerson, but now, as a county, we're basically going to be number one in the number two business. Yeah, you can have that one. I have one more question. One, just, I think it's an excellent idea. I know that I mentioned Commissioner Smith had been talking about this, and I know that the Florida Association of Counties has been, this has been an issue for a long, long time. I don't think most people have any understanding of after they, quote-unquote, flush their toilets, what happens afterwards. It just magically disappears. And when we had originally heard that it's, you know, processed and then spread out on land, I think most people would be shocked by that. And so, for us to, once again, lead in an environmental arena, as we are doing here, it was a long time coming, as everyone said, and it was an issue that really, until you guys came along, didn't look like it had a solution that was viable. So, with all those things in mind, I would happily second Commissioner Hetherington's motion. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, I have a question. So, you mentioned, excuse, Ms. Tarran had mentioned about powder coating, welding, crematorium for animals, boat building, that sort of thing. So, they're all going to be sharing this parcel with you? Is that correct? We're going to have, we're leasing a portion of the parcel that will be exclusively our parcel. It's an industrial park that Gary has turned that piece of property into, and there's other tenants on the industrial park, but our spot will be exclusively for us. Okay, yes, I've toured that area. I believe that's an area that we toured, and she pointed out different things there. So, I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's not the reason why I go to conferences, because I'm very familiar with the Florida Association of, well, of counties. As a matter of fact, I'm going to one in the next couple of days, and that's why you have to stay on the cutting edge. If you're here and just sitting in the chair, you really don't know, that's why I encourage my fellow commissioners to partake in that, and any of them can do that. So, I'm very well aware of the conversation going on about this and other matters, too. Mr. Donaldson. Just one point that I think deserves to be reiterated, and the reason why we're so concerned about our processing of biosolids and what happens to it. And Martin County was a leader in not allowing unclassified biosolids being distributed on Martin County itself. And this, you know, and it can get processed in what's considered a fertilizer. So, one of the byproducts of our sewage treatment, essentially, would be it would be processed in other communities, and then farmers would use it as a fertilizer on their land, and the measurement of fertilizer was only on one constituent, typically phosphorus or nitrogen, excuse me. And so, you would overly apply phosphorus, but it was legal, and it also had all other nutrients in there. So, we wound up spending extra money in our own communities doing water quality treatment to think these nutrients are coming back on us. So, our interest in this, and the commissioner's interest in this a long time has been, you know, this vicious circle of where are all the nutrients coming from, and this is one of those areas. And this is a technology that ends that cycle of any of it coming on the land, and that's why we were so focused on it. And then, as we're going through this process, PFAS has emerged as an element of significant concern. Now, it's not been banned or, you know, identified as a hazardous waste at this point, but it is highly concerned by all of us. And this is also a process that destroys that element. So, we're getting a two-four in that, and I think, in the end, as Mr. Amerson pointed out, that both of those reasons are going to be legislated in the future. But we wanted to do it initially because we already knew the cost it takes to remove nutrients from our water once they're already in there, and that stops it. And as Mr. Krista pointed out, while we are paying slightly more per unit to get it out of there, they are building the facility here in Martin County, and the tax revenues will offset any costs that we have, any additional. So, I think it's a great program. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor DePaulo, would you like to address us? Happy New Year. No, I had, like, a five-page speech for you, but I have to listen to everybody. Go ahead. You all get it. You all get it. So, I think we're making history here. I think this is going to be the future for waste management. And, you know, it's not even waste management. It's just, it's, you know, it's preserving our environment. It's environmental. So, we're going to be the leader on that, and everybody's going to be watching us. Everybody's going to be coming here, just like some of us went to Seattle to see how the system works. There'll be a lot of different people coming here from different counties and different mayors and different county commissioners and administrators from around the country, I think. I mean, I was talking about it, I was up in Boston, and I was talking to a county commissioner up in Boston, and he's planning on coming down. He says, give me a call when it's up and running, and we'll like to come look at it. So, I think we're making history here. So, thank you all for what you do. Appreciate it. I'm not going to say any more. 26 is going to be a great year. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address us? I've been sitting in this seat for 23 years, and we've been looking for this solution for 23 years. A good day for us. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. See you at the ribbon cutting. Are we doing DPQJ2? Is that what we're up to? Staying on the same topic. We are taking up DPQJ2, which is a quasi-judicial item to consider the American Humane Society Association's septic system waiver. This is quasi-judicial. Any ex parte disclosures? Commissioner Vargas? If I have any, they have been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. So, anybody who's going to be providing sworn testimony in this case, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Mr. Elam, have you provided all of your necessary documentation to the clerk? Yes, Madam Chair. A copy of the agenda item and my work history have been turned in. Perfect. Please proceed. For the record, Brian Elam, I'm principal planner with the Growth Management Department. The American Humane Association is requesting approval of a waiver of policy 10.2A.8 of the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan, which applies to on-site sewage treatment and disposal systems outside the primary urban service district, that exceed a total site build-out flow of 2,000 gallons per day, not to exceed total site build-out flow of 5,000 gallons per day. The approximate 13.5-acre property is located at 4903 Southeast Quail Hollow Street at the northwest intersection of southwest Quail Hollow Street and southwest Citrus Boulevard in Palm City. Last January, the American Humane Association met with staff to discuss development of their approximate 13.5-acre property as a rescue center and service dog training facility, and the property is currently being reviewed for minor final site plan approval under Project A089-003. The total site build-out flows for the proposed development are below the 5,000 gallons per day threshold allowed by the waiver and have been approved by the Department of Health. Proposed septic system drain fields meet the required setbacks for upland preserve areas, water bodies, or wetlands, and retention and detention areas. Staff recommends approval of the American Humane Association waiver request, and we move that the board receive and file the agenda item as Exhibit 1. I move that the board approve the waiver of the 2,000-gallon-per-day flow limitation, not to exceed total site build-out flow of 5,000 gallons per day. And that concludes my presentation. Questions for Mr. Elon. Commissioner Capps. Okay. The words on-site sewage treatment and disposal system, is that what used to be called a package sewer plant? No, this is a septic system. Septic system. Oh, okay. Okay. Tell us the difference between the... Good morning, Commissioners. Paul Schilling, Growth Management Director for the record. So the package plant is a different animal entirety. That is intended to serve multiple properties. This property is going to be redeveloped and is currently in the process of being reviewed for that proposal and will be an on-site sewer system, meaning it is specific to the 10 acres, which are the subject of this application. It is being permitted by the Department of Health and following all those criteria. It has been analyzed by the Department of Health and their representatives. And the purpose of the hearing today is because of the limitation on the 2,000 gallons within the regulations. So the purpose of the waiver today is to request the additional flow for the existing site. Commissioner, on-site systems are just another word for a septic tank and drain field. So it's what you would typically see at a single-family home and a package plant, which would have mechanical pumps and a system to serve a much larger volume, typically. So where you'd have to have an operator. This does not require an operator. It's just as you would typically see in a residential community. So what's the rationale on the comp plan for the 2,000 gallons per day limitation? And then what is the rationale for an exception? I don't know what the rationale for the 2,000 gallons per day is. I do. When it's my turn, I'll tell you. It's in our code, and that's the limitation of a, you know, the Department of Health has a much higher limitation for a property owner. Commissioners, I believe the rationale was to limit the size of a facility that would be outside our urban service district that is using an on-site system. So it was to try to, or at least restrict, you know, when it would require board approval if you're going to exceed that volume. So if it's less than 2,000, this application would not be seen. If it's between 2,000 and the state maximum, which is what, 5,000? 10,000. 10,000. It requires your review to, and I believe the board is looking to ensure that the facility and its location is such that it would not be harming an adjacent water body. And as far as the frequency of these exceptions, are there a lot of them that are granted for various reasons? I know that's a vague question. They are infrequent. Infrequent? Okay. Yes, sir. Okay. That's all. Thanks. Mr. Campy. I was here then. I think the two key words that Mr. Donaldson used was limit and restrict. The state's, unless they've changed it, the state's number is 10,000 gallons per day. The debate at the time amongst the commission was to go down to 2,000. We tried to negotiate back to 5,000, and I think at the time what we've come up with is what we're doing today, that we would primarily make it a 2,000-gallon-per-day limit. That's a household or whatever else. And then when something was to arise that would have a different set of circumstances, it would come before the board. Imagine this whole project could be approved without coming to the board. The only reason it's coming to us is to decide how many times, you know, how many gallons can go into the septic system per day. I remember the argument was, well, just because the state is at 10,000, we are different. We just had an agenda item that shows we are different, think differently. So we had to come up with a compromise of 2,000 gallons and the ability to have an applicant come forward so that we could see what it was. If it was, and if I'm not mistaken, it might have even been that neighborhood project that was on the couple of homes, it might have been Mr. Raines, a couple of homes down like off of Island Way in the Loxahatchee, where they had come forward looking to get onto a sewer line and they wanted some additional housing and instead we said, the argument was, hey, they should keep the septic systems and we were saying, well, they're so close to the Loxahatchee, what are we doing septic systems for? And so that's where the gallon, if I'm hopefully not confusing two different items, but the point being historically, we had agreed to 2,000 with the ability to go to more if it had to. So with that in mind, I would make a motion that we accept the waiver to go to 5,000. I've had the opportunity specifically within the applicant that we're discussing today, I've had the opportunity to go out there. It is a beautiful facility that will be rehabbing and rescuing dogs. And then also their other issue is they're going to be training service dogs for veterans and other folks that need service dogs. They are a nationally recognized organization that has decided to build a facility here in Martin. It's out off of Citrus on a very large piece of property. It's not on a water body. So to go from 2,000 to 5,000 to allow them to do what they need to do out there, we are fortunate to have them in conjunction with our own humane society. So to go from 2,000 to 5,000, which is still half of the state daily limit, I think makes perfect sense. Commissioner Vargas. So this is to growth management question. So by virtue of the fact that a septic system will be built to a capacity maximum of 5,000, is that correct? That would be the policing factor. Is that correct? That's correct. The permitting, in effect, currently would be the flow rate is in here. I think it's 3,414 now. 3,414. Right. But the absolute limit is 5,000. Yes, ma'am. And so is the potential they could come back and ask us to increase if the state is 10,000? There is no provision to go over 5,000. There will not be. Correct. Okay. Second. Commissioner Hetherington. So any septic tank would take into account the DEP's 2030 advanced treatment system requirements in their application? Yes, Commissioner. It will have to comply with the state's requirement, which that depends on your location and proximity to an impaired water. But if that does qualify, they would have to upgrade that to meet that 2030 standard. Okay. I'm supportive. Any further questions for staff? Commissioner Vargas. Okay. I just want to clarify this. There is no water body visible, not visible from the street, from the property adjacent to this. There are wetlands on the property that have been encompassed in a preserve area management plan for several years. The siting of this, the equipment associated with this, meets the demonstrated setback criteria from any water body, which we could get into, but it meets all those criteria. We want to protect that. We're working hard. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. Is there an applicant presentation? Apparently not an applicant here. Would anyone from the public like to address us? Seeing none, we will come back to the board. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll now go on to DPQJ, which is a quasi-judicial hearing requesting approval of the final site plan for the Discovery Planned Unit Development Phase 1D, Tract R3, Pasture Recreation Area. Mr. Elam. This is quasi-judicial. Any ex parte disclosures? Commissioner Vargas. If I have any, it's been filed. Commissioner Capps. If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and that's been filed. And Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Anybody who's going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand up, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. You swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Mr. Elam, have you provided the clerk with all of your necessary documentation? I have a copy of my work history and the agenda item. Madam Chair, thank you. Thank you. Please proceed, Mr. Elam. All right. For the record again, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with the Growth Management Department. This is a request by Lucido and Associates on behalf of Atlantic Fields Club, LLC, for final site plan approval for the Phase 1D within the Discovery PUD. The final site plan includes the construction of an access road from Phase 2C to access pasture areas, temporary sales center, building, parking areas, barn, and related supporting infrastructure, included with this request is a certificate for public facilities reservation. Phase 1D is approximately 15 and three-quarters acres and is located in the northwest area of Ridge Road and southeast Discovery Drive intersection in Hope Sound. The current zoning on the property is the Discovery Planned Unit Development Zoning Agreement with the future land use of rural lifestyle. This is just a picture of the phasing plan so that you can see the site and the area that we're talking about for the Phase 1D final site plan is highlighted in red. And this is sheet 1 of the Phase 1D final site plan, which is the pasture recreation area. You can see the access road, really, that I mentioned before is here to the adjacent organic farm, which will be coming up next, I believe. They have, these are production, I believe, farms, and this is the sales center and a barn. So review of this application by the local planning agency is not required. Development review staff have found the Atlantic Fields Club LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations of the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan as detailed in our staff report. The staff recommends approval of this application. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board adopt the resolution approving the Phase 1D final site plan for the Discovery PUD project. That concludes my presentation. Questions for Mr. Elan. Applicant, do you have a presentation? Good morning. For the record, my name is Morris Crady, senior partner with Los Cedro & Associates on behalf of the applicant. I do not have a presentation. We are in full agreement, and I appreciate Brian's job of describing the phase. This phase and the next two phases are consistent with the approved master site plan and the PUD agreement and all the conditions of approval. This is probably the least of the activity on this particular phase. This is right at the entry to the project. What you see today is pasture land out there. This is really enhanced pasture with barns and a sales center that's going to be constructed. The next phase is the organic farm phase where we have a farm-to-table restaurant, and then the last phase that's going to be heard today is the adventure park, which is the recreational amenity for the project. So we don't have a presentation, but I do have Rick Melchory here to give you just a brief update on the progress of the project and to answer any questions you may have on the operation. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Rick Melchory, Senior Vice President of Development for Atlantic Fields. I appreciate the time today. I'm just going to give you a real quick update on where we stand. We have now been in development of the property for a little over two years. We started basically two years ago in October. Most of our infrastructure now is complete. We are in the process now of final testing of water systems, sanitary systems, startup of lift stations, et cetera, and then constructing and final paving as some of the roadways that are remaining. Our east loop is complete. The west loop is constructed but still needs to be paved. We do anticipate primarily finalizing all of the infrastructure, fully certified and done probably by March, April time frame, depending on testing, maybe a little bit later. We do now have both golf courses are open to members. We opened some new facilities this year, including the two comfort stations on the golf course, the golf house, and the performance center. So those are all completed and active and operational at this point. Sales, can't complain, have been going pretty well. We've sold 133 lots so far. We've closed 114 of that 133. We have probably 10 to 12 more in the pipeline that we feel should be contracted between the next couple of months. It's been a good season for us so far. Some of the other things that we've done, landscaping-wise, we've planted now almost 11,000 trees, 350,000 shrubs. That includes on the golf course, the roadways, starting the perimeters, et cetera. The only other thing that I think was left out hanging of our public benefits, I know what we had done, the tree farm was put into conservation, we had taken care of the train station, we had taken care of the park, and that dedication, and I believe the park now is actually they're occupying the facilities and planning how they're going to utilize them and open them to the public. I would anticipate that probably sometime this year that that'll take place. But the last thing was the habitat restoration area. All of the earth work is completed there now, and we'll go ahead and begin the planting and landscaping of that area here in first quarter. So with that, that's kind of a quick update of where we're at, but happy to answer any questions. Commissioner Campy. Thank you, Mr. Mercuri. Yeah, from the beginning of the time that we heard about the project that you guys were thinking about coming out, I had the opportunity to review Discovery Land Company and see what they had accomplished elsewhere in the world. So I was always so appreciative of getting to have this project in Martin County. You mentioned, I mean, you live it, so it's different, but when you talk about 11,000 trees and 350,000, that's before a lot of the houses are even built. We're not talking about site. This is just your work. This is just common. This is common area, which is remarkable. And it doesn't go unappreciated by me and I think a majority of our residents. Most people have no idea what you're doing down there. They'll reap the benefits in their tax collection for the schools and us and all the other taxing authorities. You guys were the first of the premier folks that came our way, and so I really appreciate it, and I would make a motion to accept staff's recommendation first of three today. Commissioner Capps. So how many lots are in the whole development? 317. 317, and 133 have been sold. And then so the plan would be to eventually build 317 houses. The plan is for 317, but we have buyers that have bought multiple lots adjacent to each other. So I would expect, with Unity as a title, we're probably going to end up around 310, somewhere in that area. And then how many are actually broken ground? Good question. We have 26 developer builds that are under construction. We have another five customs. So there's about 30 houses under construction. We would anticipate the first COs sometime June, July-ish. In theory, obviously, a resident can move in, but I think our residents are a little more seasonal. So we really anticipate starting occupancy with residents sometime September, October. Okay. And then there's a little road on the eastern border that goes north, and that's going to be the public access to the Atlantic Ridge State Park. That's correct, yes. You know, many people don't even know that that is a state park because there's no real evidence of a state park in the southern part of the county down at Bridge Road. You know, you can enter the Atlantic Ridge State Park from Cove Road back on Gaines Avenue. And my wife and I have gone in there before, and it's a little dirt road that you have to kind of hunt for. And then there's a gate there that has the phone number for Jonathan Dickinson State Park on there. And you dial that number, and they'll give you, like, accommodation. And you can go in and walk the trails from Cove Road south toward Bridge Road. But hopefully one day we will have trails cut in from Bridge Road coming up north that join in with those trails, the Cove Road trails, I'll call them, so that you can, you know, take your horse or walk or your mountain bike or whatever and ride trails from Cove Road all the way down to Bridge Road through the wilderness. And it's going to be really cool one day when we have that. And as far as that road on the eastern border of the property there, who owns the road? We own the road, but the park has a dedicated easement on it. That was done by the Platt. Okay. My understanding, you know, the park actually is living out there. They have a person in residency at the building that we donated. I'm hearing, give or take, they're going to do something this year with as far as opening it up to public access. I know the idea is obviously to connect the trail systems. They're going to have vendors for horseback riding and other things out there. I just don't know their official plans yet. Right. Well, we look forward to having that. That's going to be nice. We do, too, as our residents also do. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. What is the anticipated tax revenue final build-out? I'm going to go out and guess probably somewhere in the $40 million to $45 million a year. Is that correct? I'm not an accountant. On your studies, what do you anticipate? Well, I mean, I can say that effectively this year our tax bill was in the $25 million range, and that's before a house is on there, so I think $40 million is probably reasonable. Since these are part-time homes, they wouldn't be homesteaded property. We have some residents that are going to be family-orientated, kids in school, so they may homestead, but I would suspect the majority would not be. Because this is a big year for Admiral Warren taxes. I understand. Commissioner Hetherington. So, Mr. Milcory, you had 317 homes. What's the total property, including the tree farm acreage, and can you describe the mechanism that was put in place to conserve that perpetually? Sure. Our property, the developable property, is 1,530 acres. The tree farm is 800. The 800 acres was put under a permanent agricultural easement, so basically all of the development rights on that property were removed. That is a three-party agreement that was done between us as the owner, Becker as the owner, the county in Conservation Florida. Basically, what we've done is bonded that to Conservation Florida and provided them basically a revenue source, so they come through once, maybe twice a year, and inspect it to make sure that we're basically doing everything according to what the easement agreement is. And that's obviously in place for perpetuity. Thank you for keeping the corridor a rule, and I'll be glad to second it. Any further questions? Would anyone from the public like to address us? Seeing none, I'll close the public meeting, and there's a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We'll now go on to the organic farm, DPQJ4, which is also quasi-judicial. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? I have any. They've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Anyone who's going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand up, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Mr. Elam, have you provided all of your documentation to the clerk? There's a copy of my work history and the agenda item. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioners, this is a request by Lucido and Associates on behalf of Atlantic Fields Club LLC for final site plan approval for Phase 2C within the Discovery PUD. The final site plan includes the construction of new access roads from Southeast Discovery Drive, the farm packing house, production greenhouses, starter greenhouses, production beds, shade house, farm-to-table dining hall, grill, outdoor dining, playground, parking, and various supporting elements and infrastructure improvements. Included is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. Phase 2C is approximately 8.15 acres and located west of Southeast Discovery Drive, approximately a half mile north of Southeast Bridge Road in Holmstown. The current zoning is the Discovery Plan Unit Development Zoning Agreement, and the feature land use is Rural Lifestyle. This is a shot of the phasing plan. Outlined in red is where the location of the Phase 2C site is, and this is Sheet 1 of the Phase 2C final site plan. You can see that they have production greenhouses, planters, and various things that I described here, and then the dining hall here and the parking areas. Review of this application by the local planning agency is not required, and development review staff have found the Atlantic Fields Club LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations, and the comprehensive growth management plan is detailed in the staff report. Staff recommends approval of this application. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board adopt the resolution approving the Phase 2C final site plan for the Discovery PUD project. That concludes my presentation. Questions for Mr. Elam? Mr. Crady. Okay. For the record again, my name is Morris Crady here on behalf of the applicant. We agree with everything that Brian has presented to the board, and we're glad to answer any questions. Commissioner Campy. I'll cut to the chase instead. I'd like to make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Commissioner Capps. I wonder if someone could explain how many phases are there at Discovery, and what are the purposes for approving things in phases? Rick. Yeah, we created, I think there's about 16 different phases on the phasing plan, on the approved phasing plan, and what they describe is a particular element. The first phase, for instance, was the entire site work for the entire project, for the entire 1,500 acres. So each of these other phases are tied to plats, the plats that were recorded. So within this organic, there's a tract of land that applies particular to this phase. And so on that tract of land is where we do all the site data tabulation and everything else so that each of these phases have a separate final site plan. And so if we change something in the future, we're just revising that final site plan. We're not having to revise everything in the entire project. So we break them out according to the construction schedule that, you know, that they have. Like you said, the next phase is the adventure park, which is the amenities for the project. But that's the purpose is to be able to do these in individual site plan applications so that we're not revising the entire project or trying to re-approve the entire project all at once. And it's broken down based on construction schedule more than anything else. Okay. Thank you. It's how you eat an elephant. Yeah. Commissioner Vargas. Yeah. So this reminds me of, what's that other development? Newfield. Everybody's doing the farm thing, planting. Is that like in Vogue when they first had work live? You know, multi-story? Again, for the record, Rick, Will Corey with Atlantic Fields. It's a pretty common amenity in all of our projects. Farm-to-table dining has been kind of in vogue, I guess, for the last probably 10 or 15 years. So we will create the restaurant facilities and obviously the farming facilities to go along with it. I was going to say next to that is car washes and storage facilities. We have no intentions in putting a storage facility or car wash on there. Any further questions? Would anyone from the public like to address us? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and come back to the board. There's a motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll also second it. Didn't you put the motion? Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. On to DPQJ5, which is a quasi-judicial public hearing requesting approval of the final site plan for the Discovery Planned Unit Development Phase 4, which is the Adventure Park. This is quasi-judicial. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? I have any. They've been filed. Commissioner Kipps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any and that's been filed. Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any and they've been filed. Anyone who's going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? And Mr. Elam, have you provided documentation, all the necessary documentation, to the clerk? Madam Chair, this is a copy of my work history and the agenda item turned in for Exhibit 1. Please proceed. All right, again, for the record, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with the Growth Management Department. This is a request by Lucido and Associates on behalf of Atlantic Fields Club, LLC, for final site plan approval for Phase 4 within the Discovery PUD. The final site plan includes the construction of the Adventure Park, consisting of a water park, baseball field, a boat dock, and other indoor and outdoor amenities. Included is a request with this application as a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. Phase 4 is approximately 18.88 acres, located east of Southeast Thoroughbred Drive, approximately 1.7 miles north of Bridge Road and Hope Sound. The current zoning is the Discovery Plan Unit Development Zoning Agreement, and the future land use is Rural Lifestyle. This is a picture of the phasing plan, and outlined in red is to give you an idea of where the Phase 4 construction is occurring. This is a picture of the Phase 4, or sheet 1 of the Phase 4 final site plan. You can see the baseball field. This actually is bordering a large lake, so there's a dock, a boat dock here. We have the parking, the water park. Some of these are indoor and outdoor amenities, tennis. I'm not sure all the different amenities, whatever they would like. So a review of this application is not required by the local planning agency, and development review staff have found the Atlantic Fields Club LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations. And the comprehensive growth management plan is detailed in the staff report. Staff recommends approval of this application. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board adopt the resolution approving the Phase 4 final site plan for the Discovery PUD project. That concludes my presentation. Questions from Mr. Elam. Mr. Crady. Thank you. For the record again, Morris Crady, on behalf of the applicant, we're in agreement with everything that Brian has presented to the board. This is not your typical recreational amenity, as you can see from the site plan. And as Brian mentioned, it does provide just about everything that you could possibly need in a recreation adventure park. So with that, we'll answer any questions you may have. Mr. Campy. I'm starting to get like a Groundhog Day feel, but I think these amenities are probably going to be fantastic for the folks that live here. I'd make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Mr. Capps. A second, provided that there's public access to the Adventure Park portion. No. Okay. That was a joke. It's just a second. I have a question. The whole parcel is 18.8 acres. How much of that is water park? Who's the utility provider? How big is the water park? How much water is it using? Water is a precious resource here. I would hope that we were very conservative about agreeing to providing a consumptive use permit to this facility. I'm going to take these in little bite-sized pieces, if you don't mind. The overall site, as Brian mentioned, is about 18 acres. The pool area and stuff is probably two, three acres. Our public water source is SMRU. That's our water supply for potable, et cetera. We do have a consumptive use permit for irrigation and those type of things. That is also done through Hope St. Lucie Conservancy District as part of their overall D&I permit. I think our consumptive use, and this is a little, the Conservancy District gets a consumptive use permit for all properties within the district. And then those properties are assigned a certain value or a certain quantity. The property was assigned the quantity of water for irrigation and those purposes based on citrus at the time, because that's when the Conservancy District was put in place. Obviously, the amount of water that we use currently for irrigation is considerably less than citrus. I mean, a fraction of, quite frankly. So we have plenty of available water through our consumptive use and, obviously, then through the potable supplies through SMRU. Are any of the other Hope St. Lucie Conservancy District members, do any of them have anything besides agricultural uses? It's a big district, so I don't know. Well, there's agricultural uses, and then a fairly substantial part of the district is owned by South Florida. And that's just basically preservation area. So I would say if you combine South Florida and the other property owners, it's probably 50-50 between ag and preservation or conservation or, you know, public lands, I guess you'd say. Does anybody know how big Sailfish Splash is? I do. How big is it? Ten acres, including the parking lot and the remaining sites. How big is the water park? A couple of acres, I think. So this is going to be bigger than Sailfish Splash? It says it's going to be two or three acres. No, but, I mean, I'm talking, you've got to talk about the amenities. We have a very small, lazy river. We have two water slides, and then we have a little bit of a splash pad. So when we talk about acres, you can't really use that to figure out what the activities are. A lot of ours is concrete for chaise lounges and things. There's a building that has classrooms and locker rooms. The other side of the acres that I was talking about is the competitive swimming pool and the learn-to-swim pool. So when we speak about acres, they could probably build two water slides similar to what we built at Sailfish Splash because we built Sailfish Splash to be, and I don't know if it's 10. I think it was a $10 million project. It might be a little less than 10 acres. Those are moderate water slides. They could have comparable water slides on their property, but ours are not like the Rapids or Disney-level stuff. Ours are relatively small also. Our lazy river is considered a very small lazy river, and in terms of water usage in most of these places, the evaporation is the biggest use. They don't require a tremendous amount of constant water because once you fill them up, you're filtering the water or heating the water or cleansing the water, so it's not like you're filling this thing up every day. So it requires a decent amount of water, but like Mr. Malkuri said, a citrus grove requires way more water than they could possibly use on this. Yes. Celine Dion had her own water park on her property on Jupiter Island, and she got beat up pretty good, but that was because if you looked at her water consumption versus her next-door neighbors that just had single residential homes and pools, she had a water park. This is a water park. This is also called a water park. It is. It's a substantial amenity. There's no question. It's going to be consuming a lot of one of our most precious resources. Less than it used to. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, Madam Chairwoman, I'd like to understand your concern about this. I can see that we're trying to put our selfish splash park comparable to this, but it's not. This is huge. This is huge. I wonder if it was our utility if we had been so eager to permit it. I wonder, too. Unfortunately, it wasn't here. Well, it's South Martin. It's not Martin County. I mean, this is going to be a real, real big consumptive use permit. It's really not a consumptive use permit. So we will obtain our potable water through our normal channels through SMRU. Our consumptive use permits are already in place through our DNI. So we have more than adequate volume of consumptive use for all of the needs that we have. And it's actually considerably less than when the property was being farmed for citrus. Considerably less. And in an agricultural use, you're spraying the water out onto the ground and it goes into the soil. This, you're filling up a water park, and obviously it's going to require a substantial amount of water, but it's not going into the soil every single day. The pools and the amenities are filled up and recycled and recirculated and filtered. I mean, it sounds like it's a tremendous amount, but it's not to the levels that other people that have come here that are just spraying it out onto the ground. Mr. Capps. Sort of a general question for people who may not follow this stuff all the time. Tell us a little bit about the Conservancy District and what its purposes are and who's in it in that area. And I believe there are more of them in other parts of the county. Is that right or something? There are. Hope St. Lucie is a 298 district. It's filed under Chapter 298 Florida statute, which is basically an irrigation drainage district. There's a number of properties that are included within it. But that legislation, I believe the initial legislation was approved somewhere back in the early 90s, somewhere in there. And then it was amended in 2006 to add some other recreational powers and things like that for the landowners. There are, and don't quote me on these acreages because I'm not 100% sure, but I would guess probably 15,000 to 20,000 acres of land that's incorporated within the district in its various parcels, including private landowners and South Florida Water Management District. I think South Florida Water Management District is the largest landowner in the district, and I want to say theirs is probably somewhere around 10,000 acres. But basically, it operates as kind of a pseudo-government. It's ran by the landowners. The board members are elected by the landowners. There's assessments that are given to each landowner every year based on maintenance of the master infrastructure that supports the irrigation and drainage for the properties. And then if there's any individual projects or maintenance that are done on those properties, that maybe becomes part of the assessment for that property. But basically, what it ensures is that, you know, it's not tax dollars that are being used. It's an assessment that is billed directly to the landowner by the district. And it actually goes through the tax roll. So at the, call it September, the district sends our assessment rolls to the tax assessor, and then that's added to the tax bill for those landowners. Okay. So would Palmar be another example of a, it's its own. So this is kind of like another Palmar thing in Hope Sound. And there are other ones in Palm City, or out by Indiana. No, we have Troop, Indiantown Drainage District, Hope, St. Lucie Conservancy District. Palmar is kind of its own unique thing, so I don't want to compare that to the other ones. But, you know, Palm City Farms had one. It went defunct, I think, in the 40s or 50s. And so if you look in other counties, there are usually a lot of drainage districts. Martin County is kind of unique in that all of our separate drainage districts were agricultural only, and the urban areas don't have it. But you go south of us, and there's, you know, if you live in Palm Beach County, almost everybody lives, they get a separate tax bill for the drainage district they live in, whether it's Lake Worth or South Indian River Water Control District, nicknames are wicked, right, is that Northern Palm Beach County, there's a whole host of them, you know, Loxahatchee District. But anyway, to get the blabored into it, other than it's an educational moment for you all, is we don't have those. So the county winds up being the drainage provider for most of its residents, where other communities you have multiple drainage providers, not only the county, but you have these districts that take responsibility for canals, ditches, and things like that. And then I'll mention one other thing just about discovery that I thought was quite impressive. Next to you is a large parcel that has the southern tip of the South Fork River on it, South Fork. And as I remember talking to you before, there used to be more, the water that used to go into the South Fork there used to be dirtier than it is now. But some of the things you've done help to clean the water up before it goes into the South Fork? It is, because prior to developing the property, it was agricultural, so the discharge, there was no treatment for the discharge at that point. So through our development, we've incorporated 200-plus acres of storage. We've also accounted for 320 acres of land adjacent to us, and we take that, their discharge, and bring it into our property. So all that goes through treatment now before it goes into the South Fork. So, yeah, we did provide good benefit there. Thank you. Mr. Elam, you would know this. I seem to recall also that Harmony Story is in Hope St. Lucie Conservancy District. It's not? Okay. I thought it was. Any further questions? And would anyone from the public like to address this? Returning to the board, I believe, is there a motion and a second? Motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to commissioners, you want to chug through all this stuff until we break, and then we'll come back at 5 o'clock? Look at this head shake. Yes. Yeah, everybody? Okay. Sounds good to me. Let's do Department 1, Office of Management and Budget Items, which require board approval. I have a scone. Do you need a scone? Let me give you a piece of a scone. Good morning. Stephanie Murley, Director of OMB here, afternoon, to give you six items on OMB today. The first item is a permission to accept the FY2526 Spencer Educational Foundation Summer Internship Grant for a Risk Management Student Intern. Our Risk Management Division is requesting the award of $7,500 for funding of a student intern, and there is no cash match required. The second item is a permission to accept the FY26 Surfings Evolution and Preservation Foundation Grant. Our Ocean Rescue Division is requesting the acceptance of $3,180 to fund the purchase of two training mannequins to enhance Ocean Rescue's training capabilities. There is no cash match required on that one. Item number three is a permission to accept the FY26 Mosquito Control Agreement from the state of Florida. Our Mosquito Control Division is requesting the acceptance of $6,855.56 for the Mosquito Control purchase of chemicals for Arthrobot Control. There is no cash match required for that one. Item number four is a permission to accept the Florida Inland Navigation District or fine grant for the Fiddler Crab Access Project. Our Ecosystem Division is requesting the acceptance of $119,000 to fund the Fiddler Crab Access Project for a boardwalk six-foot structure and a floating dock. There is a $119,000 county match required, which is programmed in our Fiddler Crab Access FY26 CIP budget. Item number five is a permission to accept the amendment number two for the FDEP agreement for our Utilities and Solid Waste Department. This is a non-monetary change that is just reducing the number of connections to ensure that project connection schedule aligns with the duration of grant funding. Also, it updates special audit requirements. There is no monetary implication or cash match required for this amendment. Can we pause there and explain to me why we're reducing the number of connections to the central sewer system from 850 to 400? Tell me why and tell me where. Sure. Good afternoon, Commissioner. For the record, Sam Amherst, Utilities and Solid Waste Department. This item, the DEP recognized that we were having some difficulties in this one project area. We had anticipated several years ago when we submitted for this grant, we suggested that we would be able to apply grant funding to 850 connections. The connections were not happening that quickly. And so the DEP recognized that. And instead of losing out on grant funding, they reduced the number of requirements, therefore allowing more dollars to go for each connection. Okay. And so it was an effort to utilize all the grant funding available and not have to turn things back because we couldn't get to 850 connections during that time frame. And where is the project that's being impacted? These are multiple locations. This one was not project specific. What we've done, we've changed our strategy over the last few years. And instead of doing specific on-site connections for a specific project, it's area-wide. So it will apply to anyone that needs to connect. And also, our septic-to-sewer projects have been the subject of terrific inflation over the last couple years. You see any lessening of that? I think we did. We just recently, you awarded the bid for the septic-to-sewer system for Coral Gardens. That came in well under our engineer's estimate, which was based on recent pricing and inflation. That's just a point in time. But once we receive bids in the next few months for Port Salerno, New Monrovia, I think we'll know then and have a better feel for inflationary impacts. I mean, we don't see the rate of inflation as it was. I mean, it's slightly, slowly coming down the rate of inflation. But once we get those bids in for Port Salerno, I think we're going to be able to determine that, yeah, things are turning around. We're seeing some pricing leveling off. And any other grants in jeopardy because we're running out of time? No, ma'am. Okay. Good. Thanks. Thank you. Item number 6A is a request to allocate unanticipated contribution from the U.S. Sailing Center for the Phase II Overflow Parking Lot Project at Indian Riverside Park. The county has received a contribution of $31,350 to use towards the construction. This is based on a memorandum of agreement between Martin County and the U.S. Sailing Center. And OMB is requesting a budget resolution to appropriate those funds. 6B is a request to allocate an unanticipated contribution from the hog striping storage final site plan. So as agreed upon in the hog striping storage development order, the owner has agreed to compensate for 181 required trees. We are in receipt of $42,716. These funds will be used to plant the excess trees on an approved public site within District 4. Who's going to make that determination? Commissioners, Paul Schilling, Growth Management Director for the record. So this is the hog striping site plan. This was approved by way of a minor final site plan application, which I signed in August of this year. One of the requirements of that development order is to provide this payment. We don't have the plan on the screen right now, but it is an open yard with a commercial building approximately 20,000 square feet. And one of the provisions in the landscape regulations provides that if you cannot, first of all, we managed to, our staff managed to save, Peter may know a little bit more about this, some significant champion oak trees on the perimeter, which are unaffected by the proposed development. But there are provisions in the plan, the land development regulations, which state that if it is more burdensome to put more material on the site, there are provisions to compensate. So the 181 trees results in 42,000 approximately, and that is the purpose of this agenda item. And do we know where those trees are going to be planted? And who's going to determine where they're going to be planted? As far as I understand, public works and, yeah. We could use a few of those and hope so. And a district four. And Palm City. And normally we would divide it out evenly over the five districts, I'm just saying. Jim Gordon, public works director. So our urban forestry division is the one that's working on locations. They're going to meet with the district commissioner with some proposals on locations that make sense. Okay, terrific. Commissioner Campy. I had a question about one of your other items. Are you done? I got one more. And then I'll ask my question. And finally, we have a request to allocate the anticipated reimbursement from the state of Florida for health department renovations. Our general services department is administering the renovation work on behalf of the state of Florida for the Stewart and Indiantown health department facilities. The scope of work includes first floor reconfiguration and modifications to walls, doors, and workstations. And the state of Florida has issued the purchase orders to the county of $232,936 that OMB is requesting to appropriate into the budget. And that's it. Questions for Ms. Merle. I had a question about the ocean rescue mannequins. Is there anybody here from ocean rescue that I could speak to? Yes. Guy's dressed up. That happens. We have a... Guy's dressed up. He's in his class A. Can't let him hide in the back of the room. What have you been using currently? Have you been using volunteers? And... Ian Mojola, ocean rescue chief of the Martin County Fire Rescue. Commissioner, I can always rely on you to call me up. I'm here for you. So thank you. But, yeah, so to answer your question, we do tend to use each other for our training scenarios each morning. Our captain organizes our weekly trainings. So anything that's in the water, we'll typically use each other for any kind of water-related emergency training. So these mannequins, I think, will really enhance our training capabilities. We'll have one that we'll be able to use in the water. And then another one we can transfer to. It's a half mannequin that will simulate an adult airway. So we can use the adult mannequin in the water, which will be heavy, about 150 pounds. And then we can transfer over. If it's full of water, too, maybe it'll have to. No, I get it, yeah. But, you know, we're also having the training mannequin to simulate an airway that we can use all of our airway equipment to simulate any kind of drowning emergencies that we might see on our beaches. No, I appreciate it. I mean, I know you guys are always looking to be in front of the curve and especially with technology. So I appreciate it. When I read it, I thought, you know, you don't really think about it. I know I've seen we've all seen training dummies for CPR and everything else, but you don't think about the mannequins. Excuse me. I'm going to use the proper terminology. The mannequins in a in a water rescue scenario. So I was pleased. So I was thinking if I saw you, I would obviously, especially if you're in the class A. So thank you very much for keeping us safe at the beach. Absolutely. Thanks, sir. Thanks. Commissioner Capps. I'd just like to mention something that I've picked up from one of our advocacy organizations in Martin County. There's the Martin County Taxpayers Association, and they put out an e-mail, and a lot of times they'll focus a lot of their comments on this portion of our agenda, the Office of Management and Budget Items, which require board approval. And you don't usually see much commentary written about this section of the agenda, but a lot of times they have to give shape and to simplify what this item is about. So I'd just like to recognize them for that and give them a little bit of a shout-out for helping the public to understand what these grants are all about and what they're used for. Motion to accept staff's presentation. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Ms. Burley. I say we break for lunch now. We're not going to do that. Department 2. Contracts that meet the threshold for board approval of a million dollars or greater. Good afternoon. Thank you for powering through. I appreciate it. Christy Brotherton, your chief procurement officer. I have four items for your consideration today. And the first one is a continuing services agreement. This is for underground services. This contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $5 million with a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. And staff is... Oops. I jumped around here. There we go. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is Black Sands Development Group, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Number two, we have a contract for the Rocky Point Neighborhood Restoration Project. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is Sunshine Land Design, in the amount of $2,638,629.82, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Ms. Brotherton, before you move on, how does this coordinate with septic to sewer, water extension, and road resurfacing? Because those things are all around the corner. Yep. So Jim Gorton, Public Works Director. This is Phase 1 of Rocky Point Neighborhood Restoration, and it's on the roadways that don't need water or sewer. So we're going to catch all of those first in this phase, and then the future phases will incorporate those other improvements in the neighborhood. Okay, so these are probably the newer developments? It's kind of a mix. Coral Point on the north end is one of the roadways that is going to be picked up, and it's just the ones that already have infrastructure in place that have already done an accessible project for water and sewer. But it's a mix. It's not any one spot in Rocky Point. It's spread around the community. And so it's not going to be along the perimeter roads? It won't be on the major roadways. So it won't be an exercise in frustration for the entire peninsula. It will just be on a street-by-street basis. Okay. Sounds good. Okay, and next we have the construction contract for the Martin County Fire Rescue Training Tower. Staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which is Proctor Construction Company, in the amount of $6,723,641. Local vendor preference was applied to this contract award, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Tell me how this is going to be used for $6.7 million. Commissioner, this is the final piece of the training facility, which is the tower, the burn tower. They have the burn building. And then this is a burn tower to, you know, simulate fires and stairways. And so it is the final piece of the training facility. Okay. It's a training tower that's $6.7 million. I would assume that for $6.7 million it's used every day, all day. You have a good point. Good afternoon, Commissioner. Joe Labosco, District Chief Fire Rescue. That's correct. It will be used on a daily basis. By whom? By our fire rescue personnel. So they'll be leaving their jobs in order to train here? Are they going to be receiving additional overtime pay in order to train here? Yeah, they'll be training on duty, ma'am. And when they're on duty, they're not fighting fires or rescuing people. They're here instead? They'll be at the training facility, and we'll have people covering there. Commissioner Capps. I had a question about local vendor preference and how it's used and when it's used. I think that only applies or that does not apply when there's state funds or federal funds involved, right? So the county has an ordinance where if a non-local bidder, so we have interlocal agreements with St. Lucie County, so we only consider Martin County and St. Lucie County businesses as local vendors. Whenever a non-local vendor is the low bidder and a local vendor is within 5% of that low bidder's pricing, the local vendor will have the opportunity to match the pricing of the non-local vendor. We're seeing the prices come in a lot tighter now, which is a good sign. I know you guys were talking about inflation and whatnot. So we haven't had a local vendor preference applied in a while, mostly because a lot of our projects are grant-funded, so we're not allowed to implement that. But this is one of those instances where the 5% was in play. It was actually less than 5%, and Proctor Construction agreed to match the low bidder's pricing. Yeah, I thought that was interesting to learn about that. Like a lot of people might say, well, why can't we have a local preference for certain things? And, you know, when federal dollars are involved or state dollars are involved, you know, the federal government has to watch the way their money is handled because it has to be for the benefit of everybody in the whole country, you know. And it wouldn't be fair to have local vendor preferences when federal money is involved, and the same with the state. But if it's a local project, then you can use local vendor preference. Thank you. And, Commissioners, it's important to note that the taxpayers are getting the lowest price because the local had the match. So it's just that the federal procurement rules don't allow us to use that technique. But in the end, they are getting the lowest price. It just gave our local vendor the opportunity to match the outside vendor's price and to get the award. Commissioner Campy. I just wanted to follow up on your concern, Madam Chair, in regards to your question, if they are training, they're not working, doing something else. The beautiful advantage of what we've created here is for decades our staff and our equipment used to have to go to other counties, specifically up into Indian River County, driving our rescues, driving our engines, and taking our staff. So there was the commuting time, paying to be in another county, training in another county in a facility that we had no say, our people had no say in what the facility would look like. So we've built this facility in three phases, the burn, what do you call it, the burn building? Tower, yeah. Train tower. Yes. And then... Burn building was second phase. Correct. And so the tower is the last of the three phases, and now we will have a much more efficient use of our equipment and personnel. So I think it's finally, it's been many, many years for us to get to this point. So I'm very happy for our residents. And then in terms of training versus actually protecting, I'm sure they have it worked out, but the job for the benefit of the public and the benefit of our personnel is to constantly train so that they get that muscle memory to know what these circumstances are. You can't have, especially when we're hiring, constantly bringing on younger members of the department that might not have been involved in any of these scenarios. I think each of us have had an opportunity to be in the burn building, and it's much different than you think you... You know, I remember hearing about a fire, and you hear, well, the people didn't run in and rescue because there's like a force field of heat around even a minor fire that most people don't even comprehend. And even if you're wearing the equipment, I don't think you understand what it genuinely is like to be there. So if we can continue to train them to keep them safe and then so that they're ready to go in rescuing our residents, I'm happy, very happy. We can all check a box that we've created that on our watch. I make a motion to accept Ms. Brotherton's presentation. I have one more item. And I have another question, and that is you say that this new training tower is going to be used on a daily basis. How often do the fire rescue people train currently? Currently, we train seven days a week, ma'am. So driving to these remote locations? We have different levels of training right now. Like Commissioner Campy said, we have the burn building. We have some part of Phase 2 of the training facility, so our crews do utilize that on duty. Anything off-duty they would be going to in the River State College. So when this facility is built, will there be a reduction in our costs because we have this local facility, whereas before we had to drive to Barrow Beach or wherever? Where were you driving before? So will we see a savings because we're no longer commuting to these remote locations? Yeah, absolutely. I believe it was in the CIP. I believe it was $120,000 savings roughly per year for commuting to four peers. It would take a while for that to add up to 6.7. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. And last but not least, we have a change order. This is for the Coral Gardens Vacuum Sewer System Engineering Services. I do want to point out that this work that is being requested through this change order was initially included in the 2022 contract. Just a dollar amount was never negotiated at that time. So staff is recommending that the board approve Amendment No. 2 to Wade Trim Incorporated in the amount of $1,511,847 and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And that concludes this item. Commissioner Hetherington. What was the material change in the engineering of the plan? I don't know that there was any material engineering. This was just the – It said there was a design change, and that was the increase. Leo Rappetti with Martin County Utilities. There were no design changes associated with this. This is an amendment to their original contract. They had done the design work for the project. Okay. All right. Now we're moving to the CEI services. I was concerned when I saw – when I read design change. Sorry. No, and this item unfortunately didn't make it to the Board County Commission Chamber meeting back in December when we approved the coal gardens assessment and also the contract for the contractor to perform the construction. So they should have been with that, but unfortunately didn't make it. All right. Thanks. So now I will make a motion to accept Ms. Brotherton's presentation, and go Navy. Mr. Capps. When it comes to septic to sewer – big septic to sewer projects that we're doing, 10,000 houses in 10 years, which ones have already been done and which ones – like give me like just a bullet point schedule. Like which ones have already been done? Okay. So on our vacuum sewer project, we've completed the North River Shores and the Golden Gate projects. On our grinder program, we've gone into about 24 different neighborhoods, and the grinder program has allowed us to convert almost 3,000 homes for septic to sewer, and for the vacuum sewer, just over 1,000, 1,200 homes. We're on track to continue on with – we have the coal gardens project coming up next. Portsland is right behind it. Our prediction for our 10-year, which starting back in 2019, this would take us out to 2028, is to have septic to sewer conversions available for 8,000 homes. So our goal was 10,000 in 10 years. We're on track for 8,000 in 10 years at our current level of funding and projection for the assessments. Good. So Coral Gardens is – it's already started, right, or not? Not yet. No, the contractor is very anxious to get going. We actually have a pre-construction meeting with them next week. They've submitted all the documents they need to purchasing to have the contract in place and to get moving with it. Felix, they did the construction for the North River Shores project, and they're very anxious to get moving. So it appears they have manpower and availability, and they really want to get moving quickly on this one. And then next is Port Salerno. Correct. And that's a really big one, right, big area? It encompasses a larger geographic footprint than the Coral Gardens project. It's approximately 930 homes. This project for Coral Gardens is about 630 homes, so it is a bit bigger. Okay. Thanks. And Old Palm City and Rocky Point are also right there in the mix that we actually have some grant funds already for. Mr. Repetti, do we hope to complete Palm City and Rocky Point by 2028? The plan right now is to have Coral Gardens complete in 27, to have Port Salerno complete in 28, Old Palm City complete in 29. We like 28 as well. And Rocky Point? Right behind that. 30? 29 or 30, yeah. We're going to shave years off. We're going to get a year off the Palm City. We're going to get a year off Rocky Point. He's got a full head of hair. Madam Chairman, what's your concern? It's taking too long. Even though I will remind us that the board at the time, it was 10,000 homes in 20 years, and we cut it in half at the time to say we wanted 10,000 homes in 10 years, and our staff has done a remarkable job to get us pretty close. Thank you. Yes, you have. Is there a motion and a second? Yes. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We will go on to number Department 3, which is adoption of the updated Martin County Local Mitigation Strategy. Good afternoon, Commissioners, and Happy New Year. Sally Wade, Emergency Management Director. Every five years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, otherwise known as FEMA, requires local governments to update and formally adopt their local mitigation plan. Amy Heiberger-Lopez, Deputy Director, will provide an overview of those updates included in this revision, and we are respectfully requesting after the update that the board formally adopt the updated plan. Good afternoon. My name is Amy Heiberger-Lopez, Deputy Emergency Management Director. I'm excited to present to you an overview of the Martin County Local Mitigation Strategy Plan that is ready for your approval and adoption. In emergency management, there are four phases that guide us, preparedness, response, and recovery, which you may be very familiar with, and the lesser known, less flashy, although equally important, mitigation. Mitigation is the action of reducing the severity or harmful effects of an existing or possible hazards that affect Martin County. The Local Mitigation Strategy, or LMS, is required by Title 44, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 201.3.d, where it describes that the key responsibilities of local governments are to prepare and adopt a jurisdiction-wide natural hazard mitigation plan as a condition of receiving project grant funds under the HMGP, or Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, in accordance with Part 201.6. And at a minimum, review and update the Local Mitigation Plan every five years from the date of the plan approval of the previous plan in order to continue program eligibility. As outlined in 44 CFR 201.6, and in accordance with the Florida Administrative Code Chapter 27P-22, this plan presented is the five-year update and meets the required criteria to be approved and adopted by Martin County and the local jurisdictions. The last update of this plan was in 2020. The LMS plan is structured into four major sections, the introduction, the planning process, the risk assessment, the mitigation strategy. The introduction mainly outlines the geography, climate, demographics, economy, housing, education, health, transportation, utilities, media, and tourism in Martin County, and its jurisdictions. This provides a clear picture of what is important in our county and why it's worth mitigating hazards to preserve and improve the existing conditions. The planning process outlines how the plan was updated. The formal update process for this plan began in July of 2024 with participation from various county departments and all the jurisdictions in Martin County. The City of Stewart, Town of Sewell's Point, Town of Jupiter Island, Town of Ocean Breeze, and the Village of Indiantown. Other agencies included in this plan are the Martin County School District and Cleveland Clinic. All of these agencies mentioned will also formally adopt this plan after the board has adopted it. I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to all the representatives from the jurisdictions who made this update possible, as well as other partner agencies and organizations that participated in the plan update, providing data, feedback, and their expertise. The risk assessment describes how any potential hazards could affect Martin County. Hazards are divided into three categories, natural, technological, and societal. The natural hazards that could affect Martin County are drought, epidemics and pandemics, extreme temperatures, including both hot and cold, floods, harmful algal bloom, invasive species, sea level rise, severe thunderstorms, shoreline erosion, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, tsunamis, and wildfires. The technological hazards include cyber incidents, dam and levee failures, hazardous materials incidents, radiological and nuclear incidents, transportation system incidents, and well-fueled contamination. And finally, the societal hazards are civil disturbances, mass migration, and terrorism and sabotage. Boy, happy new year. We deal with this every day. All these hazards were ranked for their risk by comparing their threat to us and our vulnerability to them. Considerations for rankings included frequency, probability, onset, response time, location, and human, property, infrastructure, economic, and environmental impacts. This table on the screen illustrates where each hazard ranks with others on the scales from minimal to extreme threat and minimal to extreme vulnerability. Finally, the mitigation strategy takes all the aforementioned information into account to present projects for each jurisdiction that can lessen the impacts of these hazards in our community. We currently have 35 projects on our LMS committee has reviewed and prioritized and are eligible for hazard mitigation grant program funding. These jurisdictions have already applied, some jurisdictions have already applied for HMGP funding and are in the process of getting approved pending the adoption of this plan. Approximately half of the projects focus on flood mitigation. Each jurisdiction is responsible for funding and completing their projects. One way we keep this list updated and plan information current is by having quarterly LMS committee meetings that are open for anyone with an interest to attend. These meetings are typically held on the third Wednesday of February, May, August, and November. The plan was submitted to the Florida Division of Emergency Management Mitigation Bureau for review, and we received a full approval on December 2, 2025. This approval confirms that Martin County Local Mitigation Strategy meets all the requirements for state and federal regulations. The formal approval by the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be issued once this plan is adopted by Martin County and its jurisdictions. This concludes the Martin County Local Mitigation Strategy Plan update. My contact information is on the slide, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Excellent. Questions for Ms. Heimberger-Lopez. Commissioner Capps. I would just like to note that this looks like a ton of work that somebody did. I think it's the supporting documents for this item in our book here are 365 pages long. That's like writing a book. Did you get a chance to read it? Over the holidays? We ran it around the fire with the kids. But anyway, thanks for your hard work. Of course. Any further questions? Terrific work. Thank you. Motion to accept. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. We are finished, commissioners, until 5 o'clock this afternoon. So we will return at approximately 5 o'clock for our brownfield. Good afternoon. We are back. We are taking up our 505 public hearing. This is a quasi-judicial public hearing to consider adoption of a resolution designating a brownfield at 9450 Southeast Gomez Avenue in Hope Sound. This is the second required public hearing. Please proceed. Oh, first of all, any ex parte disclosures. Commissioner Vargas? I have any. They've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. If I have any, they've been filed. If I have any, they've also been filed. If any, they've been filed. Anyone who's going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn. Anyone who's providing testimony. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Ms. Nabe, have you sent all the required documentation to the clerk? Yes, Madam Chair. A copy of my work history and the agenda item has been turned in to the clerk. Excellent. Please begin. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jenna Nabe, Senior Planner with the Growth Management Department. And before you today is a request to consider adoption of a resolution designating a brownfield at 9450 Southeast Gomez Avenue, as requested by the Palms of Hobe Sound, LLC, and Oasis Development, LLC. Section 376.80 of Florida Statutes outlines the brownfield program administration process and states that the jurisdictional local government shall adopt a resolution designating the property as a brownfield if the requesting party establishes that all of the necessary criteria in the statute have been met during these two public hearings. The first public hearing for this was held on December 9, 2025, and this is the second of two required public hearings for this designation process. Brownfields are defined in Florida Statute as real property. The expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by actual or perceived environmental contamination. And we covered a lot of this information in the first public hearing, but I'll reintroduce it. So this property is located at 9450 Southeast Gomez Avenue in Hope Sound, and it is 19.44 acres. This is an aerial of the subject property. It has a future land use designation of residential estate density, two units per acre, and two different zoning designations, R2 and R2B. There is currently a minor site plan application in review with the Growth Management Department that proposes 38 single-family residential units, amenities, and associated infrastructure for that development. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, or FDEP, is the state agency that oversees and administers the brownfields program. And so when properties are designated as brownfields and they're entered into the program, there are state-based financial incentives that are afforded to brownfield sites that are eligible for the brownfields program. These incentives are intended to promote voluntary cleanup and remediation of these brownfield sites. And brownfield sites also must enter into a rehabilitation agreement that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is a party to that agreement. Since the December 9th, 2025, public hearing for this request, there was additional information and documentation that was requested by this board. So since that meeting, the applicant has provided an economic report that speaks to the job creation criteria. They've also sent out a letter notifying surrounding property owners within 500 feet of this public hearing today. They've provided updated notice materials consistent with the statutory requirements. And they've also provided additional financial documentation, all of which has been provided either in the published agenda or on the dais to you today. So I know the applicant can speak more to the contents of that supplementary information. But with all of that being said, staff recommends that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board finds this request meets the criteria outlined in Section 376.802C of Florida Statutes and adopt the resolution designating the property as a brownfield. That concludes staff's presentation, and I know that the applicant has their own presentation as well. Questions from Ms. Naveh. For starters, Ms. Naveh, is there a deadline for additional materials to be submitted for them to be reviewed? In other words, I haven't had the opportunity to review the additional materials. Have you? I've reviewed them as they've come in, yes. And what's been part of the published final agenda for this meeting. And how do you authenticate the materials that you received? We received them from the applicant, so if they're, you know, signed bank statements and letters and reports. Thank you. Any other questions? Applicant, would you like to make a presentation? Good evening, Madam Chair, board members. For the record, I'm Michael Schnapps-Tyler. I'm an environmental attorney with Cobb-Cole. Office is located at 1 Daytona Boulevard Suite, 600 in Daytona Beach, Florida. On behalf of the applicants here this evening, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. And for you all moving the meeting to 5 o'clock, it's a lot easier for us coming from Daytona Beach than if we had to be here at 9 o'clock this morning. I want to thank staff for their report and the opportunity to work with them to provide the supplemental materials that you all requested after our hearing in January. We do have the applicant here as well as someone affiliated with the company that prepared the employment report that you all have that was in the agenda, and they are available to authenticate those documents here this evening as well. I have the clicker here. So just by way of overview, I am going to just go very quickly through some of the background materials that were reviewed last time. I think your big concern and focus for tonight's hearing were on the job creation requirements and the financial viability of the applicant. So that's really where I'm going to focus my presentation this evening. But I'm happy to revisit any of the other things we discussed at the previous meeting, anything that's in the staff report related to the Brownfields program. But we'll also include some discussion on the next steps for the property as well. I don't think it's relevant for the actual designation criteria that applies to this evening, but it is important, I think, so that everyone understands where we are in this process and where we'll be going from here. So, again, as staff mentioned, approximately 20 acres, 19.44 acres. It's a former flower nursery that had packaging and chemical storage structures out there, and the proposed redevelopment is for residential uses. This kind of shows the – this is a slide from last time that shows the layout when the nursery was in operation. And this is the same summary from last time of the previous environmental investigations that have occurred since 2018, before our clients acquired the property and into 2024, as our clients have owned the property. And then this is just an overview of the residential development, the same figure that was in our presentation from the last hearing. And here are some of the renderings for the proposed residences, again, similar to what we – exactly what we had at the last hearing. Staff covered the definition of a brownfield, and then along those lines, what's before us this evening is a request for a brownfield area designation. And so a brownfield area is just one or more brownfields that has been declared a brownfield area by resolution of the local government. So, again, tonight we are here just to determine whether this property meets the definition of a brownfield area under the applicable Florida statutes. And the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, as staff mentioned, does enforce and manage the brownfields program. And they have some fantastic guidance on the importance of redeveloping brownfields in Florida. I provided some statistics at our last hearing on this, but I just wanted to give you some information from the guidance. The guidance states that investing in brownfields utilizes existing infrastructure, increases your local tax base, it removes development pressures on undeveloped green spaces and vacant and open land, it improves and protects our environment, all while encouraging the highest and best use of blighted properties. A brownfield area designation is based on specific requirements in Florida statutes that I'll jump in to very shortly. But I think it's important to review the state's legislative intent on the brownfield program when the Florida legislature created this program because it guides you in the decision-making before us this evening as the local government with jurisdiction over the property. So this is a direct quote from Florida statutes, the legislative intent of the beginning of the Brownfields Act. And I've just covered one of four, the first four, legislative intent findings. There's, I believe, eight total in the statute. But the first one focuses on the reduction of public health and environmental hazards on sites proposed to be rehabilitated and redeveloped is vital. It's important to their use and reuse as sources of employment, housing, recreation, and open space. And that word housing is going to be really important, and I'll get back to it later in the presentation because I think there's been some question about whether brownfields can be redeveloped for housing and single-family housing. And I'll give you some examples of projects that I personally am working on now where brownfields are being redeveloped for single-family housing throughout the state of Florida. Some other of the legislative intent focuses on how the abandonment and underuse of brownfield sites contributes to concerns about environmental equity and the distribution of environmental risk across population groups. Environmental justice is a key component to the brownfields program, the idea that underprivileged communities, minority communities, and communities in general shouldn't bear a disproportionate burden of the impacts of environmental contamination issues. The intent goes on to say that incentives should be developed and put in place to encourage parties to take responsibility for cleanup and voluntarily implement cleanup plans without the use of taxpayer dollars or the need for enforcement actions by government agencies or local governments. And finally, environmental and public health hazards cannot be eliminated without clear, definable remediation standards that provide for protection of the environment and public health, which is what this brownfield program helped establish and create. Florida statutes provides for two different ways to designate a brownfield area. One is by the initiative of the local government, meaning without a request of an applicant, and the second is the one that's before us this evening, by the request of an applicant. Separate criteria apply depending on whether the local government takes the initiative or the applicant requests the designation. The local government designation process is open-ended criteria. It's very subjective. Will we attract redevelopers to the property? Are there portions of the site that can be used for open space and recreation? Is it a reasonably sized area to designate a brownfield area? That's done to encourage people to come in and redevelop these properties without needing to come to the local government for the brownfield area designation. And on this slide that's before you is what's called the Seminole Economic Enhancement District. It's a brownfield area in Seminole County. It's a nearly 16-mile stretch of land starting from the northern point of Seminole County going all the way to the southern point of Seminole County that's already been designated as a brownfield area because Seminole County and the local governments in that community took the position that we don't want redevelopers to have to go through this process if they've got a contaminated site that they want to redevelop. If you didn't cause the contamination, if you have a contaminated site that you want to redevelop, we're going to designate this large corridor as a brownfield to encourage people to come out and redevelop these sites. And this includes property that can be redeveloped for residential uses, commercial uses, industrial uses, open space. It extends, like I said, north to south throughout an entire corridor of the county. It's all these areas in blue on the figure. The areas in turquoise are the actual brownfield sites, the sites that are being cleaned up. There's a rectangle just by the airport there on Lake Mary Boulevard that we actually cleaned up for a client in the city of Sanford. The second way that a brownfield area can be designated is by the request of an applicant, which we call the mandatory brownfield area designation process because it's for a specific project and it has specific criteria that if you meet the five criteria, the statute actually says you shall designate the brownfield area. So this is the beginning of the specific criteria that's before you all this evening. So if you're designating a brownfield area that's proposed by someone other than the local government, so by an applicant, the local government with jurisdiction shall adopt a resolution if, at the public hearing, the person establishes the following, which are the next five criteria that we're going to work through. So, again, I think this one has been established. I don't think there's a question about it, but the person who owns or controls the site is requesting the designation and has agreed to clean up and redevelop the site. The applicant owns the property, controls the property, and they intend to enter into the brownfield cleanup agreement with the state if the brownfield area is designated. The second criteria is focused on job creation. So will the redevelopment of the property, the brownfield site, result in the economic productivity of the area along with the creation of at least five new permanent jobs that are full-time equivalent, not associated with the cleanup, so not your consultants, and not associated with construction activities, so not the building of the homes, the grading of the property, and all that. The job creation component does not apply if recreational areas are part of the redevelopment. We do know that there is a recreational component to this, but it's not the primary use, so we're not relying on that here before you all this evening, but I just did want to point that out to you that the job creation criteria does not apply if you're going to redevelop the site and it has recreation as a part of it. But with the job creation and the emphasis on permanent jobs not associated with the cleanup and not associated with the redevelopment, the intent is to look at the job creation after the redevelopment is complete, meaning but for these housings being developed, would these jobs exist at the property? And so to verify the job creation components of this project, the applicant did hire a company, Fishkind Consulting, to prepare an employment report that was part of your agenda packet that was submitted before this meeting, and their analysis of the number of full-time jobs created by the project divides the number of jobs into two types of categories. Jobs that are related to the community itself and jobs related to the specific homes, meaning people that would be helping homeowners with the maintenance and the use of their homes or people that are helping with the community itself. So that report documents 6.8 community-related jobs for security, landscape and maintenance, and the fitness center and the recreation areas, and then 15, 15.2 household-related jobs. So house cleaning, home, property maintenance, repairs, and things of that nature. And so with us this evening is Tony DiNardo with Fishkind and Associates. So I'd like to bring him up just to answer some questions about his report. Good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners. My name is Anthony DiNardo. They call me Tony, but it's Anthony DiNardo. Mr. DiNardo, what do you do for a living? I'm a senior associate for Fishkind Litigation and Consulting Company. And what do you do in that role? I analyze. I do fiscal impact analysis. I do rezoning. I do economic model analysis. And I do litigation analysis. And what's your educational background? I have a BA in economics from New York University. I have an MBA in accounting from New York University. And can you talk about your employment history? Uh, my employment history. I worked for a company called, I started my experience in real estate back in New York City with a company called Helmsley Spear. And I came to Florida in 1979. And I worked from 1981 to 1994 with a company called Avida. And there I was, had the position of VP of Finance for the Hospitality Division. In 1994, I went to Naples, and I worked for a company called Gulf Bay Group, which developed a community called Fiddler's Creek, which is 4,000 acres and will be over 6,000 units in the Naples area. And also, we developed a lot of the high-rises in a community called Pelican Bay. After that, I retired for a year or two. And then I'm presently working with Fishkind Litigation Services and Consulting. Have you testified as an expert witness before? Yes. And in what types of fields and matters have you testified? In real estate development, in real estate zoning. And does that experience include property management, community management? Yes, yes. Okay. And you mentioned development of residential communities. Does that include high-end or luxury developments? Yes. Great. And Tony, is this a copy of your resume? Yes. All right. I would just ask that, give a copy of the resume of the clerk to be put in the record for the matter. And just to clarify, if I may ask staff, is the report already provided to the clerk, the employment report? Yes. Okay. All right. So, Mr. Darnardo, is this a copy of the report that Fishkind and Associates prepared for this matter? Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. And have you seen this report before? Yes. Okay. And the report was prepared by your employer? Yes. And that's a true and correct copy of the report? Yes. All right. So, what documents were reviewed by Fishkind in the preparation of the report? Well, besides the law itself and making sure that the report adheres to the law, we pulled from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the Consumer Expenditure Survey for Households to calculate the amount of employees or full-time equivalent employees that this report encompasses, and we also used our personal experiences to come up with these numbers. And did you also look at the site plan for the redevelopment? Oh, yeah. Yes. Of course. You start with a site plan. I'm sorry. And what is Fishkind Consulting's opinion on the potential for job creation at the site? That we divided the types of jobs into two categories. One is the jobs that will be on the site itself, which is about 6.8 jobs, 3.8 dealing with security, and the rest dealing with the other amenities. And 15.2 jobs, full-time equivalent jobs relating to the households in areas like pest control, landscaping, AC, what typical households would use at that level of value and homeowner. And so for a community like this, so the demand created by the homes exceeds the need for one job for each of the job types you all identified? Yes. And were any of those jobs you identified affiliated with the cleanup of the property or the construction of the homes? No. And were any of those jobs associated with sales positions to sell the homes? No. So at a minimum, will the redevelopment result in the creation of at least five full-time equivalent jobs that are not associated with the cleanup and the redevelopment? Yes. Okay. And then how will the residential development add to the economic productivity of the county? There's three segments of economic development. One, even though it's not being counted as employee for the community, there'll be the construction of the community, of the OASIS community, which will have an economic impact on the county. The permanent employees will have an impact on the county. And in addition, the dirt aspect is that the fiscal impact that's generated by this community would increase because, at present, the taxable assessed value of this land is $1.8 million. And after this community is completed, it'll be in excess of $72 million. So those three elements will have a positive impact on the county. Mr. Denner, thank you. That's all the questions I have for you at this time. After we conclude, the commission may have some questions for you. Thank you very much. So we've touched on the first two criteria. I'll briefly touch on the third criteria, which is, is the redevelopment consistent with the comp plan and permittable under your local government regulations? We've addressed that with staff. We addressed that at the last hearing. I don't think there's an issue here with respect to the land use and zoning. As staff mentioned, there's that minor site plan that's moving forward, 38 single-family homes, which is in line with the land use and zoning. And then briefly, as staff mentioned, we did follow the statutory notice requirements in the Brownfields Redevelopment Act. But in addition to that, we did mail notice of this meeting to residents within 500 feet, which resulted in us sending over 210 notices out by certified mail for this meeting. We followed the same process that any redeveloper would follow if they were coming before you for rezoning. We could have done 100 feet, 200 feet, 300 feet, but we went into your land development code and went with 500 feet. And then the last criteria is that the person proposing the Brownfield area designation has provided reasonable assurance that they have the financial resources to complete the cleanup and facilitate the redevelopment. And so what we initially provided to you was we followed what you all did for the Brownfield area that was designated in February of 2025. The applicant submitted a letter that described their history, some of their projects, their plan for the redevelopment. We submitted that to you all. We provided it to staff. As you all mentioned at the last meeting, you had some concerns about the financial ability of this applicant to complete the project. So throughout December, we provided a loan commitment for a $35 million loan for the project. There's an affidavit of authentication that is provided with that loan commitment that you can see that it has been signed by someone affiliated with the lender for the project itself. We've provided a lot of information on existing and planned developments in Hobe Sound and other areas in Florida that our client is currently developing or has previously developed. And we do have our primary client contact here, Richard Wasserstein, who I'd like to bring up to provide some testimony as well. And, Richard, before I get into the questions I have for you, I just wanted to state on the record that if you take a look at those financial records that are on the dais, it's $35 million for the loan commitment along with the affidavit of authenticity. We do have a bank statement from TD Bank showing that the applicant has over $6 million currently in the applicant's bank account. And then we've provided statements showing funds in excess of $19 million for partners or family members associated with Mr. Wasserstein who are working with him on this development. So can you please state your name for the record? Richard Wasserstein, 1124 King Concourse, Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, 33154. Okay. And, Mr. Wasserstein, what do you do for a living? I'm a real estate investor and developer. And how long have you been investing and developing in real estate? Since 1983. When I was younger, I used to go with my father and my grandfather when they used to build and go to the different projects, and that's where I fell in love with construction. And just generally, we'll get into specifics, but what types of real estate developments have you worked on? I've worked on, I started off with single-family homes, and we built in the 80s in Surfside and Miami Beach and Bay Harbor, multiple single-family homes. And then we veered into commercial. Back in the RTC days, we were able to acquire some commercial properties. And then from there, we've bought some warehouses. And then we've also started developing condominiums and converting condominiums to, converting rental properties to condominiums. And then currently, we've gotten involved in hotels. We own Candlewood Suites by Miami International Airport. It's an IHG hotel. It's one of the top performers in the country. We built it from scratch and operated. We are currently building Holiday Inn Express right next door to the Candlewood, which is also an IHG hotel. We just finished completing the structure and are currently doing the interior. And then in Fort Lauderdale on U.S. 1, we're building an Indigo, which happens to also be an IHG hotel, a little higher scale. And can you describe how the business entities that you work for are set up? So, you know, sometimes I'll do the deals myself. Sometimes, most of the time, we'll do it my family, my parents, my brothers. And occasionally, we'll bring in outside investors. So for each property, we'll set up an entity, and depending on who the partners are. And is it common for developers to use a specific entity, like a limited liability company, for a specific project? Yes. It's a single-purpose entity. So you open it and you use it just for this project. You have insurance, but if, God forbid, something horrible happens, your exposure is limited to this one project. And we provided a summary of some of the projects that you have developed to the clerk. It's on the dais there in front of you. I have this document in front of you. Can you just take a look at the document and just let us know what it is? Yeah, these are pictures and descriptions of some of our projects. Unfortunately, I didn't keep, you know, a very good log of every project. So these are the ones more recent. I did provide to my attorney last night. I spent going through the public records on different companies and different properties. And there was another, I think, 20, 30 properties that we've developed in the early 80s, early 90s. Can you speak to some of the single-family residential developments, single-family homes and things that you've developed in Martin County and throughout Florida? Yeah. So, like I mentioned initially, when I graduated law school in 1986, I started developing homes. I started in 1983, but then in 86, I became more active. I had a partner who was a general contractor. And with him, we were building in Surfside, Bay Harbor. We were building upscale homes. One of the homes that we developed was sold to Julio Garcia's daughter. Then I kept developing homes in those areas. And I joined somebody who lives in Jupiter now but used to live in Martin County. And we built homes in Zeus Park. We built homes in Jupiter and Pine Tree. We built, I think it was like a 7,000, 8,000-square-foot home that we sold for like $4.5 million. So, we've been very active in building. You know, we try to do upscale homes, you know, top-quality homes that people will be proud of. And can you speak to the auto art gallery that you have in Martin County? Yeah, so, in Martin County, at 11700 Southeast Shell Avenue, with a local Martin County partner, we built 12 townhouse, 12 warehouses, condominiums, which people have purchased to store their cars, you know, expensive cars and things of that nature, and collectibles. And then we're working on an office building on the corner, finishing up an office building that will also be sold. And that warehouse space you mentioned, that's where we had the community meeting for this Brownfield area designation, correct? That's correct. Can you talk about how you funded the capital investment in these developments that we've been talking about here this evening? I've been, I funded it from my own personal funds. The warehouses is all my personal funds. The funds came from my practice of law for 35 years, and my developing for 35 years. And investing in real estate, the values, you know, have gone crazy. So, thank God I've done well, and my family's done well. I want to turn our attention now to the property that's being considered for the Brownfield area designation this evening. How long have you owned that property? It was owned in 21. It was acquired, and my company had a mortgage on the property, as well as an ownership interest. And we took control of the property about a year ago. And we've started, we hired, you know, top architects, top designers, top engineers, to develop a community that's going to be a beautiful, upscale community. And what is your plan to fund the cleanup and redevelopment of this property? So, when we discovered that there was the problem with the dieldrin and, I think, arsenic, we hired an environmental consultant. I've spent with him close to $100,000 testing and trying to designate the area that has the contamination. We finally have reached the point where we know exactly where it is, and I want to clean it up. I want to remove it because I want to build a beautiful community of upscale homes. I know families are going to live there. There's going to be kids, and I want to have a kid. You know, I want to have it cleaned. I have five kids myself, eight grandkids, so it's important, you know, for me to clean it. And what are the funding sources you're going to use for both the cleanup and the redevelopment? So, the sources will probably, as of right now, everything that we've used has been personal funds. Pursuant to the bank statements, we have enough funds to fund the entire development. I also have a commitment letter from New Wave to lend us $35 million, which is all that we need to complete the project. I think we need to put one more million dollars in, which we clearly have, and they would lend us the $35 million. I've also, while I'm on the record and I've sworn to tell the truth, we've also used Ocean Bank in the past for most of our projects, and they've already expressed an interest also in lending us the money to develop the project. Unfortunately, my loan officer was on vacation the whole Christmas. He just got back. In fact, he just sent me an email to pay for an appraisal, you know, for another loan that we're doing with him. So, Ocean Bank will also fund the project without question, but we have sufficient funds. I don't know if my counsel provided you the other letter from my brother, Alan, that was dated in March that had like $20 million. No, we just have the more recent letter. Okay, so there's another letter in March. I didn't need extra money, but there's a letter in March that we had my brother and I and my parents and my family having different business accounts, another $20 million available to us. Can you speak a little bit about New Wave Residential, who they are, and what types of funding you've seen them do before? Yeah, New Wave is located in Aventura, Florida, and there's a lady, Alexandra, and a gentleman, Ryan Powers, and we've done deals with them in the past, loans, loans for clients of ours, and they're kind of what you call a hard equity lender. So, basically, they viewed the property, they viewed the values, and they felt very comfortable. So, they're a little bit higher interest rate than a bank, but there's no personal guarantee, and it's a much easier process. And just for the record, we have provided the financial records to the clerk. They're in your packet. But I just wanted to point out that, in the affidavit, New Wave Residential does point out that they have over $1.1 billion in commercial residential loans funded since 2021. Is this the packet that we provide to the county, if you want to flip through it? I think it has, as you mentioned, the OASIS statement, the New Wave loan commitment, the statement for your family's funds as well? Yes, that's correct. And you had mentioned Ocean Bank. Do you have any other partners in this development currently for this specific project? Just my family. Okay. And their resources total, more than $19 million, as documented in these records? Far more than that. Okay. And, Richard, there's been some concerns made about the charges that were previously made against you. Has that impacted your ability to finance and develop projects like this one? So, in the beginning, obviously, it did impact me. I was unable to get any financing. The banks, because we did a lot of business with Ocean Bank, they hired their own counsel and they did a review of what happened to me. And now I'm receiving funding from them and I'm approved by them to Ocean Bank to get any loans. And if, you know, anybody on the commission or the public or anybody has any questions about what happened, I'm more than happy to elaborate. Okay. And the existing loans and funding that you have, that's all occurred after, you know, the criminal proceedings you went through and all that. That's correct. We just recently, about six months ago, closed on the loan for the Holiday Inn Express with Ocean Bank. They lent us $25 million for that project. We closed on a loan for the Indigo, the one in Fort Lauderdale, the hotel. We've already closed on the loan and started the construction with S3 Capital. And they're a hedge fund and they lent us $30 million on that project. And the financial institutions we've talked about today, New Wave, TD Bank, they all have approved loans and are holding funds and are aware of what occurred. A hundred percent. And just to finalize, last question here, does the applicant have the financial ability to complete the cleanup and redevelopment of the project? Absolutely. Okay. Thanks. I hope for you now. So, again, just to turn back to the criteria, the requirement is reasonable assurance that you have the financial ability to complete the project, so it's not funds in hand at the moment, it's have you provided reasonable assurance. And so the testimony, the exhibits, the track record, we believe all is substantial competent evidence that demonstrates that there's reasonable assurance of the ability to complete the project. And the jobs report, the financial records, our original application, the exhibits we've provided today, that's all substantial competent evidence that's been put on the record. And since this is a quasi-judicial hearing, I just wanted to share some of the case law up on the screen that talks about how the substantial competent evidence works in the context of a quasi-judicial hearing where you all are applying that specific five criteria to the facts that have been put on the record. So, again, if someone is opposing or wanting to deny this application, they must show by substantial competent evidence that that criteria is not met. The case I cited applies to a special exception, but I think that holds true for any quasi-judicial hearing. A staff recommendation of approval is substantial competent evidence to support the decision to grant an application. That's a case from the third DCA. We do have our staff recommendation of approval for this application as well. And then another case from the first DCA, the evidence must be beyond just a lay person's opinion to support claims of denying the competent evidence that's on the record. Moving through, just to conclude here, because I know I've been talking for a while, this is just some of the same statistics on the success of the Brownfields program. These all comes from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's annual report that the legislature requires the state to prepare and submit to the legislature. Again, $3.1 billion in capital investments in Brownfield sites in Florida since 1997, approaching 100,000 confirmed and indirect jobs, and more than 600 of these Brownfield areas exist, and then 532 projects have moved forward for cleanup. And again, I mentioned earlier, some concerns have been expressed about Brownfields only being redeveloped for commercial and industrial uses. I think that's contradicted by the legislative intent that I shared with you earlier that specifically focuses on housing and encourages redevelopment for both housing, open space, and recreation. At the last hearing I shared with you, a success story, City of Oviedo prepared a beautiful park on a former Brownfield area as well. But I wanted to share three projects that I personally and my colleague Jessica Gow and I have worked on that are true success stories in the Brownfield redevelopment world, provided a couple of articles and links here as well. These are Brownfield sites that have been redeveloped for single-family residential use. We represented a developer that bought an abandoned golf course in the city of DeLand, Florida. It's the former DeLand Country Club. They signed a Brownfield site rehabilitation agreement after the city of DeLand designated the Brownfield area. The no further action letter, it's called a site rehabilitation completion order, was issued in 2015. And Mattamy Homes, which is a large developer from Canada, built a 155-single-family residential community called Bentley Greens. It's sold out. It's a very successful community. It's a great addition to the DeLand area. In fact, this project was featured as a success story on the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's annual Brownfield report after the redevelopment occurred. Madera at St. Augustine is the former Ponce de Leon golf resort located up of US 1 north of downtown St. Augustine. It's a project that my colleague Jessica and I are currently working on right now because that golf course is being redeveloped in phases. So as each kind of section of the golf course gets redeveloped, a different home builder comes in and they release a set of homes. You may recognize some of the home builders that are in there, Toll Brothers, Mastercraft Homes, AR Homes. Some of these homes are on the waterfront, so they're beautiful homes, over 400 single-family homes in this community. We anticipate getting through and final closure on the cleanup with the last phase towards the end of this year or possibly the year after. And a project we're currently working on right now in the process of identifying the extent of the issues and working on a cleanup plan is the Bears for Springs redevelopment. It's also located in DeLand. That property was acquired by D.R. Horton, which is another large home builder. They bought the property and then took an assumption of the Brownfield cleanup agreement. There was already an existing cleanup agreement by a developer. They started it. D.R. Horton came in and said, We love this community. We understand the issues. We want to step into your role as the responsible party. And so we're working on the cleanup as we speak. That redevelopment plan was approved by the city of DeLand a couple years ago. The plan is to redevelop that site for 250 single-family homes and 150 townhomes as well. So this is a very similar slide to what I shared at our last hearing in December. This is our final hearing on the proposed area designation. If the Brownfield area designation is approved, the property owner plans to execute the Brownfield cleanup agreement with DEP. That is the contract between the State Department of Environmental Protection and the redeveloper that requires them to complete the cleanup as if they were the responsible party. They have to follow the specific Brownfield regulatory framework in the Florida Administrative Code. All of the work is completed at the cost of the redeveloper. The reports are submitted to the DEP for review and approval. There's a schedule. There's compliance requirements. It also establishes an advisory committee that we have to periodically update on the progress of the cleanup. That's very different from any other gas station site or if the site weren't going to be cleaned up under the Brownfields program. That is a specific requirement of the Brownfield program that actually requires locals who live either in the Brownfield area that's been designated or in the vicinity of the Brownfield area to get periodic updates as the cleanup progresses and moves forward. And again, just a brief summary on how the cleanup process works. We're happy to answer any questions that you have about that. But just to conclude the presentation, we've demonstrated compliance with the five statutory requirements for the Brownfield area designation. Our client is committed to the cleanup of a significant environmental issue under the Brownfields program. We appreciate your time this evening, the opportunity to present to you all. We're available for any questions that you have. We respectfully request your approval of the application. And I would also ask for just the opportunity to briefly address you all after public comment occurs. Thank you so much. Questions for the applicant. I have two requests to speak forms from the public. If you would like to speak to us, please fill out a request to speak form, hand it to the bailiff, and the bailiff will get it to me. The first request to speak form I have is from Mary Gavin, followed by Kelly Lehman. Sure. And if you would like a copy of this, because I'm going to speak very quickly, just let me know, or I can email it. Happy New Year, staff and commissioners. Because I only have three minutes, I'm going to read my personal assessment after a lot of research, support, and information. Although this is the first residential zone property that I was able to find for Brownfield, maybe there have been some, but they certainly weren't on the site, according to Scott Sweeney at the state. My concern in this case is more the fact that we do have somebody applying for tax credits that has, unfortunately, defrauded our state. I don't have an issue with the Brownfield status. I think it's absolutely necessary. I'm more concerned with the tax credits, but that's not the main issue. I also find it a little bit appalling that I don't feel like we've received straightforward information from the owner's representative. For example, we were told that the property was not for sale and that it was removed from listings, although it had been previously listed. Contrary to what I was told, we found the listing on LoopNet, and on December 20th, I have a copy of the listing, and it was removed about a week later, I believe, after I notified Michael. He probably wasn't aware. It had been listed for over three years, right about the time this property was purchased by one of the current owners. I don't think it really matters, and it's kind of none of my business. They can sell it according to the information I've gotten. But once again, this is a matter of getting straightforward information, and it would be helpful. And I think having brownfield status is probably going to help them facilitate a sale if that's where they go. Additionally, I'm of more concern, and the biggest issue is with the brownfield status stating that it's contained to the property. I had asked Michael for information about testing of the surrounding areas. I did not receive any. We've proceeded to do some of our own. And unfortunately, I haven't gotten all the tests back due to the holiday, but I have gotten one that is of concern. This is county property that I was testing because it's our swale that the Homeowner Association maintains, and there was a DDT issue on one of the swales, which I've been digging in that dirt for years. So I do want to mention that I guess really it's something that I feel like the county should be doing. When I checked into the reports to verify whether or not they were there, there's a report called Oculus. There were not any reports that my representatives and resources were able to find there regarding testing outside the property. From my personal perspective, I think the thing to do is, of course, give them status contingent on the testing of the property because the scope could change. They may need to also do some additional work in the outlying areas. The tests that were conducted are from a reputable firm, both a law firm and GeoSyntec in Boca Raton, Florida. And the DDT can't... You have 15 seconds. Okay. Okay. I'm just going to summarize by saying I think it should be put on hold. I also want to add that Maureen Smith, who administers the tax credit program, I have an email from her stating that it requires 10 jobs to be created and not five. And the last thing is, relative to the DADE development, their program is different. DADE has their own program. I don't know if they still follow any of the state statutes. Thank you. Thank you. Kelly Lehman is next, followed by Jan Forrest. Afternoon. Is the overhead projector working again? It is not. Okay. I'm going to give this to your attorney, Elise Elder, to look at and maybe pass down the line, if that's okay with you, Chair Hurd. Okay. Happy New Year. I am a private citizen here tonight. I have never addressed you at this microphone in this chamber. I am here purely as a Good Samaritan private citizen, community member who cares about this area and Hope Sound, in particular family there. I am myself trying to relocate to that area when market prices may be stabilized. And if you remember, about two years ago, this county commission was wonderful in asking the Florida legislature for some funds to bring the Petway neighborhood, which is just to the southwest of this parcel you're discussing, onto potable water. Unfortunately, and in that map you'll see, which I'm happy to email in as well if needed for the public record, Commissioner Jenkins, for all his might, was only able to secure funding for the west side of the railroad. So if you can visualize this, and that's what the map is, but basically the east side of the railroad, which is east Petway, there are about two dozen homes who will not be able to tie in to public water. That area has a known wellfield that is contaminated, that is not providing good potable water for those residents. They are enveloped by public utilities everywhere else around them. So as much hard work as the county has done, I would strongly suggest, and I do not have a dog anywhere in this hunt. I do not have any property in this vicinity. I do not know the property owner. I have no clients with a vested interest in this issue. My only concern is about 25 homes that are on both sides of Petway, east of the railroad, lying about roughly four streets south, immediately south, of this parcel. So brownfields, and I heard the word arsenic tonight. I have not had a chance to look at the brownfields legislation that was just passed in the 2025 legislation, which completely rewrote the brownfields statutes with much more incentives for development for same. So I have not had a chance to do the research that I know your staff is highly capable of doing and may have already undertaken. But I just hope that we possibly, in this exercise, keep in mind those two dozen homes that missed under the wire being brought into the Petway transfer for drinking water onto public utilities, and that we somehow keep them in mind. And I did very briefly talk with Commissioner Jenkins very briefly, and neither one of us could remember today if the county had had the Florida Department of Health test east of the railroad. We know it was done west of the railroad. Don Donaldson might remember where the testing occurred for those homes. But perhaps we could bring them into that testing before this exercise is final. Thank you so much. Thank you. Jan Forrest is next, followed by Ted Jonsek. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for moving this meeting to 5 p.m. So more people could attend. My name is Jan Forrest. I live on Sable Street, which is right across from the former flower carnation farm. And I just wanted to voice my opinion about that this property was known as a flower farm. It had been there ever since we had moved to Hopestown 37 years ago. And as an experienced developer, I feel that they should have known that there would be environmental cleanup. I'm not sure how I feel about them. I am in favor of the brownfield. But my question is that their renderings of their development does not even show the railroad tracks. And I feel like that's a little bit deceptive. I also feel like their development and the cost of the homes are not really going to be conducive with Hope Sound, our area. This is not Miami Beach. And so my question is, if the developer ends up not being able to develop the land because of the lavish plans that he has, how is that going to work as far as, like, if they are awarded the brownfield, or if it should just be up to them to personally, their company, clean up the land. So that's my question for you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ted Johnsek is next, followed by Chris Metzger. Good evening. I'm Ted Johnsek. I live on southeast Royal Street, which backs up to the development. I've been there since 1986. And I was at the last meeting, and I've been very involved in my community. I was president of the Homeowners Association for, like, 30 years, dealt with the county on a number of issues. I'm going to reiterate probably some of the things that have been already said by some of the speakers. But the concern I have in reviewing, I requested information from the county, and I was given reports. I requested it two months ago, and I just got the reports today, and probably about 500 pages of information. So really haven't had a chance to do really good due diligence on that. I saw who the reports are from. Specifically, one I looked at was from Hardiman & Associates, and a lot of historical information there. One of the sections shows all of the plats. This, you know, this carnation nursery farm started in the 1960s, okay, and it was just sold by them in 214. So that was an active site for 50 years. And at one time, that entire site was filled with carnations. And you're only looking at one particular area where you think the contamination is contained. But, and I'm looking at some of the testing wells and the locations of the testing wells, it shows them on the eastern side of the development. But I don't see any designated testing wells around the rest of the property. Obviously, if we had carnations growing around the whole property, they had to be treated with pesticides, okay? So how could we eliminate that? And it doesn't look like there was a lot of due diligence done with the previous owner. Some of the comments made in some of the reports on a limited time to evaluate them says that they had limited contact, if any, with the previous owner. So how could you really do a valid assessment, not having talked to the owners of Sun Shine Corners and Nurseries and getting a full, you know, perspective of what exactly was done on that site? You know, it's pretty easy to assume because it was a nursery that, as we've stated before and the environmentalists have, you know, it was designated as a brownfield site because, you know, just being from a perspective of logic, you would think that that site was contaminated. My biggest concern is why did we just find out that we had a contaminated site in, like, last year, okay? My understanding from what I reviewed, I might be wrong, but I think they knew that that site was contaminated back in 2013. You know, why isn't remedial action taken back then? And the bigger concern I have, I'm all for the development, okay? I want to state that clearly. You know, if it's done properly and it's cleaned up properly. Sir, your time is up. Thank you. Wrap it up. Can I make one more comment? Sure. One more comment. This is probably the most critical comment, and it ties into what I just heard. If they're not successful in cleaning up that site, who is obligated and responsible for that cleanup? I don't believe the county can just ignore that. You know, you know you have a known contaminated site in the middle of residential developments. Somebody has got to be responsible, okay? And I'm willing, you know, as a property owner, I've been there since 86, to take it to whatever degree I need to, to make sure that that site is cleaned up by somebody. Because that's my biggest concern. Again, I'm all for the development, but we need to know what you want to do next. Thank you very much. Appreciate the time. Chris Metzger is next, and Mr. Metzger is the last request to speak for him I have. I live right next to Ted in the same spot. Back in my yard is the issue that we have, you know. And so what I'll tell you is I moved there in 86 also and raised my kids there. We picked it specifically for the way it is. I think most of the people in Hope Sound that have been there for any time at all recognize the uniqueness of it. People talk all the time about they go to other towns for ceremonies and that kind of stuff. It's unique. It's absolutely unique, okay? And we're screwing it up to make it the truth, okay? You've got little areas. You've got hearing the natives. You've got, you know, your business is there or was there, okay? And I just think it's an atrocity. People look for this kind of places, okay? The area you're talking about, you're going to put double the amount of houses in there and everything, you know? The road, it goes up and down there. It can't take any more traffic. It's terrible now. The bicycle guys are getting run over. I mean, it's just ridiculous, okay? I'm sorry. That's all I've got to say. But I think we need to understand what we have here that people come to see. Sure, they want to move here and get a – who doesn't, okay? Sorry. Thanks. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address this? Back to the board. Questions for staff or the applicant? Yeah, I asked for an opportunity to – Okay. Madam Chair and board members, again, for the record, Michael Schnapps-Tiler on behalf of the applicant. I'll keep this as brief as I can. I think the consensus of the public comment was not focused on the five specific criteria, but I'm happy to address some of the concerns. I think the most important one is the cleanup itself. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is the regulatory agency with jurisdiction over the cleanup. They review every single document related to the assessment of the site, where the contamination starts and stops. They tell us, based on the reports, do you go off-site or not? Do you go test here, there, and other places? As soon as we get the reports back from Ms. Gavin when they're ready, we'll provide them to our consultants. We'll analyze them and see how it relates to the issues on our site, and we'll work together with the DEP. Since it's county property, we'll work with county staff. We'll work together on this. This is how brownfield sites are cleaned up throughout the state of Florida. There is a very specific iterative process in the Florida Administrative Code that has penalties, it has requirements, it has obligations, that says these are the steps you have to take to complete the cleanup, and that's what the brownfield program requires you to do. You are signing a contract that says you are going to do this. We don't get to dictate what level of cleanup occurs. We can propose something, but if it doesn't meet the state requirements, the DEP is going to tell us, go back again, do more testing, go back again, come up with a new plan, go back again, and go off-site. These are all requirements that happen on thousands and thousands of cleanup sites throughout Florida and more than 500 sites that are currently in the brownfield program as well. I wanted to just kind of briefly finish with talking about the tax credit program. The tax credit program is just one of many, many important aspects of the brownfields program, and that ability to apply for and receive for tax credits is based on the actual spending that is done on the cleanup, and it's defined by very specific statutes and even its own set of regulations in the Florida Administrative Code. The environmental consultants sign and seal their professional engineering and geology certifications on the line when they put the certification in for the applications. A CPA has to do an independent review of all proposals, invoices, and bank records, not just copies of checks, but the actual bank records to show that the cleanup activities have occurred, the money has been spent, the funds have been withdrawn for the account. That's all reviewed and scrutinized by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. We are many, many, many steps away from even being able to submit the application, and the DEP is very protective of the $35 million in tax credits that they're able to issue every year, and they will deny applications. They regularly deny applications that are not in compliance with their statutes and regulations. But as I mentioned, the tax credit program is just one, just one small part of the Brownfields program that is critical in the cleanup and redevelopment of so many underutilized sites throughout Florida. We have expedited technical review, the advisory committee that I talked about, the set schedule for the cleanup, the regulatory framework. These all benefit not just the redeveloper, but also the community at large that's concerned about the environmental contamination on the site. So, again, if our client does not qualify for that tax credit program, the DEP will not approve it. They will not approve it. But we will still be able to utilize those other aspects of the program that allow us to complete the cleanup of the site. Thank you. Hold light. I don't know who this question is for. I'm looking at the proposed soil sample sites, and I'm looking at an outline of the – it's an aerial of the site and also a cartoon of the site. I'm on pages 189 and 191, and I see that 60 percent of the property has been cultivated. So, there are grow plots on a majority of the parcel, and yet the only proposed soil samples are in a very small area on the east side where it says former plant packaging and former chemical storage. Well, it just makes sense that the same chemicals that were stored on the eastern part were used on the rest of the cultivated site. So, who makes the determination of where the soil sample sites are? I'd be happy to just briefly address – Please be brief. Very brief. Yeah. This is just a snapshot in time. This is just a proposal for the yellow circles to be sampled at that specific time based on previously testing that occurred. The assessment is still in progress. We have a good handle on the extent of where the soil starts and stops. You'll see some green dots, just a few, towards the west side of the property, the north side and the south side. Again, those are just some former soil samples from previous assessment events, but there have been other soil samples taken. This is just one small snapshot in time. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection reviews the entire history, all the historic aerials, to see where the operations occurred, and then works with and provides letters and recommendations. And then, if we don't follow those recommendations, orders the redeveloper, the responsible party, to complete those cleanup activities. Again, this is just one small example of the hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of environmental cleanup reports that either currently exist or will exist as we move through the cleanup process for the site. Well, we're not making a decision on that. We're making a decision today based upon the illustrations that we've been given, and they're unsatisfactory, I can tell you that, at least from my perspective they are. And if I may just respond, again, we have five brownfield area designation criteria, and it's not what is the extent of the issues. There are brownfield sites that have very small cleanups, and they have brownfield sites that have millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars being spent. This was provided just to designate that property as a brownfield area and show that there's an existing contamination issue on the property. That's it. That's all it shows. And for our staff, we have to make a determination about whether these five criteria have been met, and what do we use to determine if five new permanent jobs will be created? Are we relying upon the applicant's consultant? We review the application materials that are submitted to us as part of this request, and if a professional report is attesting to that, then we review and make the determination based on those materials. So we're accepting the consultant's theory that there are going to be 22 full-time jobs created with 38 homes. I couldn't buy five, so I'm really struggling with 22. Paul Schilling, growth management director for the record. Madam Chair, we routinely rely on professional reports and testimony within public quasi-judicial matters, so this isn't unique in that respect. The applicant could probably talk more about their job report, but from my position, as far as the department director and in my role, I take that report as meeting the criteria. So we don't verify. You have the expert testimony tonight. Commissioner Campy. Old light. I'm going to wait. Commissioner Vargas. You know, character is everything. Character is everything. I mean, when I saw this, I was, I'll tell you, aghast. Criminal case. Sober home. Takedown. You know, I'm from Miami-Dade County. I know Miami Beach very well. Graduate of Miami Beach Senior High. Know it super well. You know, Bell Harbor shops is like second home. I understand all of that. The housing is exploded insofar as pricing, and I know some of the areas that you've developed. I also have a broker's license, too, for many years. I've got a lot of questions similar to what our Madam Chairwoman has, too. Who says there are going to be five or ten full-time jobs? A person that you paid. Is it five or is it ten? I'm really confused. And my colleagues know me. I do my homework very, very carefully. And I check, and I go back and double-check, and I test it also. So if we're talking about a quasi-judicial, did we meet all five criteria? I think we're lacking on that. I would not pay a full-time guard the salary plus all the benefits for 38 homes. I would not as an astute business person and a homeowner. And you're a businessman. I see these numbers here. Five million, five seventy. Eleven million. Let me do my math quickly. That would be about another 13 million right there, plus another 20 million. And you're asking us to say, sure, let's go ahead and stamp it. But what happens when the market, the real estate market, turns down, which is already starting to put the brakes on? I know this because I'm in the business. And I understand about hard money lenders, they're just looking to the property for collateral, not a personal guarantee. I understand that because I'm in the money business, too. But permanent, full-time jobs, I'm not satisfied with that. And the other thing is that normally this would be for blighted areas so that you would be able to say, okay, this is public use. We're reclaiming the blighted areas. It could be environmentally impaired for civic and broadly accessible purposes. So here's the thing. You're looking for tax incentives. That's our money. That's our tax money. Anybody who's heard me for the last year knows I really, really will always protect the taxpayers, I being one of them, too. The thing is that if you're going to be getting the tax credit, I mean, you have enough money here to do this on your own. I'm just looking at this right here. And you have an attorney and you have consultants and you've been in the business for a long time. You should be able to do this on your own. But the thing is, what's the clawback? How do we claw back those incentives? This was another issue that came before us, too. It's not fun to do. It is not fun to do at all. Here comes the attorney again. Okay. But here's the thing. You are very capable of doing this. If you made a bad purchase, well, so be it. So be it. But it is on the market. I think it's for, is it $16 or $12 million? Is it still on the, you can, I don't know. Can he come up? He wants to talk. He wants to rebut. $12, $16 million, whatever. A million here, a million there. The thing is, if you just say, oh, I don't want anything to do with this. Maybe the neighbors don't want this. These homes are extremely expensive for little old Hope Sound. And I do love Hope Sound. I will tell you, Commissioner Gaus. I enjoy going down. It reminds me of my old Florida neighborhoods. But we're talking about $3 million. No place like it. No place like Hope Sound or Jensen Beach either. Or Palm City. Stand in your shoes. Well, Palm City is a little more sophisticated. But anyway, take that as a compliment. I do. Okay. Remember, I'm from Omni-Dade County. I know what sophistication is. But anyway, you're talking about a spa fitness center attendant. A pool boy, I think is what I see here. On-site landscapers. A manned gate. You know, there are communities that have 134 homes originally planned to have a security guard there. No, it's not there. The cost is excessive. Excessive, especially today. And certainly to find those positions to what your scenario is, what your creation is, might be a bit difficult. So then we're going to make a decision based on all five criteria met, which I'm not satisfied that particular one has been met. But more than that, why do you need the money to do this? Just write the check and do it. Just do it. Because if you don't go through with it, I do not, I believe my fellow commissioners, do not want to be put in the position of chasing after money. That's not good business sense. And you know, you've been doing this a long time. Your grandfather, your father, you. As I say, I know the areas you've developed. And in Miami, too, near the airport. I haven't stayed at your hotels, but I passed by them. So that's what I have to say about this right now. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. There's a lot to unpack here. The presentation, the comments from the owner, the public comments, our staff. So let me try to capsulize it as best I can. In regards to using the program, the reason you're here today in the first place, it's not a Martin County program. It's a state of Florida program. It's a tax credit program and a policy that the state put in place for the entire state to take advantage of. So I'm not, you know, as a shrewd business person, I see no reason why you and hundreds of other people in the last several years have taken advantage of a bona fide legal state program. I don't care if you're Elon Musk, if, you know, smart business people are taking advantage of programs that are available. Back to our local residents, a couple of points were made during the public comment, and I was very careful to listen. And I appreciate you all coming out. And I appreciate the people that speak so that we can get a better understanding of what's happening right there. I will tell you during today's lunch break, I drove down, looked to see if the property was cleaned up, and it was. Drove down both the streets, the dead ends on both sides, north and south of the property, gorgeous, both. And then I went across the street as well, beautiful neighborhoods, obviously not blighted, which is fine because this property is blighted. I'd also remind you and my newer colleagues that several years ago when this property was set to be redeveloped, the skies opened up, and people came and were very well organized, and we denied it. And the property has sat with the contamination on the site for the years since that happened. It's not going to get any better. These are probably generational kind of issues that if left untreated and taken care of, it's dangerous for you all. And when you go to sell your own beautiful homes, you're going to have to explain or your realtor is going to have to explain. I think by law you've got a couple of realtors up here. I don't think you can keep that a secret from potential buyers. So I think the sooner we get it cleaned up, the better. And there have been, I don't remember the last group that was looking to develop that property coming forward and talking about the brownfield program. I don't remember even, we didn't get that deep into it at the time, but we didn't even start to talk about the contaminations. So if you finally have someone who's willing to come forward, obviously bought the property knowing it was contaminated, it's a carnation farm. And I'm not an expert, but I'll tell you, we had the exact same situation in Palm City on Berry Avenue with the exact same company. It was Sunshine Carnation Farms. And we didn't discuss brownfield. And there wasn't a lot of talk, if I can remember. And I have a pretty good memory of contamination. And that's a beautiful neighborhood now, much less, you know, very pretty homes, but not to the scale of the homes that would be appropriate in your neighborhood or would be appropriate. So, and I also heard very carefully, the neighbors didn't say, actually, they said the opposite, I'm in favor of the project. I'm in favor of the brownfield cleanup. So I'm wondering where the controversy is or where the animosity is here, because I've heard the neighbors very respectfully say, look, we're not opposed to the project. And we want it cleaned up. Well, there's a guy that's willing to clean it up. And he's allowed to take advantage of a program that exists for everywhere. You saw that one picture, 16 miles in Seminole County. And then he showed, the only knock I'll give you is you talk, and this is coming from me. Your presentation too long. I get you, you're trying to put it all on the record. I get it. But that being said, the property was not contaminated by its current owner or his representatives. Those people escaped. They contaminated the property, and then they left. Now, like I said, I'm not an expert, but I have been involved with some folks that were looking to purchase property here in Martin County many years ago. And they had to do their due diligence, because there are flower farms all over Martin County. It's a flower, it's the chrysanthemum capital of the world. So I had a friend who was looking at some property, and he had to go through the level one inspection, the level two, and where did you pick and choose? It would make sense as a layperson that if you put the over, go back to the one that showed what it used to look like, this one. I mean, you don't have to be Perry Mason to figure out former chemical storage area. It's, we're talking about the content, like the level of contamination. If they're spraying whatever they were spraying onto the flower on the grow plots versus letting it soak out a gallon of rusty containers or buckets or filling equipment and sprayers at that location, and it's just seeping into the ground, I understand why it might not be contaminated all over the place, and it is very much concentrated right there. So now we start looking at, you know, look, his history and his criminal background, that was interesting to hear the last time we did. But I think between, you know, look, we're not the moral police and the judge and jury up here. If he, and he was willing to tell the story, and I was cringing when he said it because I don't want to hear the whole entire story. We read through the information that was submitted, and I appreciate it. I have it in my mind. I thought about it thoughtfully on whether or not I would, you know, deny the entire project because of his history. I won't. In terms of the questions that I ask, and if you go back and watch, I was the one that was saying, I want this and I want that. I wanted you to notify the neighbors beyond a sign that maybe some people saw and some people, you notified, what did you say, a couple hundred people, 500? Oh, no, 500 feet, a couple hundred people. I checked that box because our responsibility is to make sure that the infected, impacted parties are at least aware, and you did that. I thought, well, if you're trying to come here and ask us to do something for you, at least shape the property up. The signs were all, the grass was tall. I specifically drove down there today to see if you did it, and you did. In terms of the employee count, look, 15, 20, 25, I have no idea, but the requirement from what we have heard from our staff and from you is five. Now, Mary said that she got an email that someone says it's 10. I didn't see the email, but let's say it's, that's fine. Yeah, and it's fine. Look, we're not experts, but we got one in the back who's obviously qualified. He read his whole resume to us, and when Mr. Schilling says that, hey, you know, we rely on, and I wrote it down, outside consultants and professionals come with every application. Environmental consultants, lawyers, traffic consultants, we don't then say, well, you know, I don't know if you're a traffic consultant or not. That guy gave his resume, and that's what we required of you. Now, if you don't, in terms of will you have a manned guard gate in front of your 38 homes, if they're million-dollar homes, it's not impossible to have that. Some people will love it. It's gorgeous. I mean, the soundings and across the street, it's beautiful down there. It's probably one of the nicest areas in Martin County. It really, you know, all in a row. Gomez is gorgeous. He said, yes, I got to take him at his word. I don't know more than he does. He said, yes, he's staking his professional reputation, and he signed the letter. In terms of if he can raise the money or not, you know, look, we could say that to every applicant that comes forward. You showed a letter that said you could afford to buy the property today, three months from now you sell it, you don't sell it. You know, I don't care. My concern is for the constituents and the residents. What's the ultimate goal? Clean up the property. I mean, you don't have to be a biologist or a scientist to realize the first thing we need to do as quickly as possible is clean up the property. We've only done brownfields very recently, and it's been two in like the last six months. We didn't grill the other team that hard. We were just glad they were cleaning up the property. And that was on the canal. And you're not on the canal. You're close on the other side there, but I would clean it up for the residents, for the people that live adjacent to it. You have deep properties. And so at the end of the day, let's get the property cleaned up. If you want to start figuring out what does the architecture look like and, you know, that's down the road. And the last thing I'll say is that this is a quasi-judicial, which gives us sort of like judicial kind of responsibilities. And I know you tried to put it, lay it out there very casually, but by the way, it's like, listen, this is legal precedent that's been set. These are court cases that have been solved. Our staff, which did have time to review all the documentation, which have decades of experience and collectively probably centuries of experience, reviewed this. And what did they say to us, their job? Yes, we agree that it's been handled. So if three of us decide today that we shouldn't, I think, and I always tell people, I'm not afraid of the county getting into a lawsuit. I'm afraid of the county losing a lawsuit. Our staff that we task with telling us, do you think this is up or down, they said up. We saw the finances. We got the guy with the five jobs. We're guessing if there'll be five jobs there or not. But the final thing to my colleagues is this. We're not going to have to claw the money back. From the applicant, if they don't do what they're supposed to, it's a state program. The state is going to come looking for their money back. The state's going to hold their feet to the fire to see if they do what they're legally required to do. So when I put those things together, even if at the last meeting I left thinking I'm a no, I think I have to be a yes. Because at the end of the day, we're looking to clean the property up, and I think they've met the burden of at least getting them to the next step. And then when we get into the fact of do you like the house, if this wasn't contaminated, would this size project even come to us? No, sir. It's 38 units proposed, so it's under the threshold of a major development. If it wasn't contaminated, we're not even having this conversation. So I'm focusing most of my attention on how do I clean up the contamination for you? And we got a guy that's willing to do it. Let's make sure he does it, but let's give him the opportunity to do it. Because if it's not him, there's no one else coming behind him. Thank you very much. Commissioner Hetherington. I will. Number one, I can empathize with the residents. I'm a fourth-generation native, and I know it's changed, and it's hard to see, especially when it's going literally. You have the two gentlemen in your backyard. And whether it's out of character for the area, in this particular determination, I'm only looking at the brownfield, because that will come, and clearly it will not come before this board. But the five criteria, have they been met? So number one was ownership. That's certainly been met, in my opinion. Jobs. My question to Ms. Elder is, if there are questions on the expert, what's the legal requirement for someone to produce this information? And is it five jobs, or is it ten jobs? So under the statute, it's five jobs. So they have to establish by competent, substantial evidence that this project will create five jobs. They brought in an expert economist to do that. So if the board, for some reason, doesn't find him credible or doesn't find the evidence he provided credible, that would be the only way for you to deny it if you found it not to be credible evidence, because the county does not usually provide evidence in response to contradict an applicant. And I think staff evaluated the evidence and determined it was credible. But the board can make that determination on their own if the expert was credible. And Commissioner Campy said you look at his work history, what he's done in the past, what kind of expert he is, and things like that to determine if he has the credibility and the skills to make this determination. Okay. And then three was does it follow the local comprehensive plan, which staff says it does? And four was the notice, and you've gone above and beyond the notice. And number five was a reasonable assurance of the financials being met. And I don't believe that was the case the last hearing, but I do believe that reasonable assurance has been met in this particular case. And so I believe in this particular hearing that those five criteria, and I think Commissioner Campy mentioned this, no one wants to be in a lawsuit, but we certainly don't want to be in a losing lawsuit for our residents. So I'm inclined to support this brownfield area. And I have one more question. And so if it was never designated a brownfield area, it would still require a cleanup, correct? Correct. So the applicant can still clean it up, whether or not it's designated as a brownfield. If they want to develop it, it has to be cleaned up. So regardless if it's designated, once it's cleaned, it's eligible for whatever the county deems is legally acceptable to develop it. Correct. Mr. Capps. I want to thank my fellow Hope Town residents for coming out and speaking about this. I share your concerns. I live about a mile south of the project, off of Alabama Place. So I think our main thing is we want this cleaned up. And I appreciate what everyone has had to say, and I think you've added tremendous value to the discussion. And this is a quasi-judicial hearing where the legal standard is competent, substantial evidence in the record. It's a state program. There are five very clearly laid out criteria. And it seems to me that there were two issues going in. One had to do with sufficient financial resources. And it appears that that requirement is met and that we have reasonable assurance of adequate and sufficient financial resources. And then the only other issue really in play, it would seem, is whether five permanent, full-time, full-time equivalent positions are satisfied. But, you know, at first when I thought I was a little concerned about this because I thought, is a 38-home community going to have 24-7 security with 3.8 workers involved for a community that small? You know, I've been to a lot of gated communities in Martin County. And that would seem questionable to me as to whether your homeowners association is going to keep that much staffing for security for a community that's that small. But when it comes to this five full-time equivalent permanent positions, if we look at the criteria on page, let's see, if we look at the full-time jobs created by Oasis Hobson on page 234, and then you look at these tables, like on page 237. Let's see, we've got three tables. Table one is gate staff, 3.8 workers, and then table two is household staff. And that total comes to, well, they don't have that totaled up, but yeah, 3.8, yeah, down at the bottom. And then table three, permanent jobs supported by the project. And until I read a little deeper, I didn't know you could count all of this, you know, but, you know, you've got house cleaners, pest service, AC maintenance, spa fitness center, landscape pool maintenance, gate guards. It comes to a grand total of 22. So it's not really a close thing. I mean, like, if we were really worried about whether the security guards were critical in order to meet the five-person requirement, but it's not even close. I mean, if they have competent substantial evidence that shows 22 FTEs and all we need is five, they're way over that number. So I think that allays my concern about the five worker requirements. So it seems to me that the requirements are met, but I really appreciate everything that everyone has said that gives further light on what needs to be done with this project going forward. And I look forward to seeing it coming to fruition and allaying everybody's concerns. I'm in Hope Sound, and I have those concerns as well. So I will support the designation of the brownfield here tonight. Commissioner Vargas. No, I think that I've said what I had to say about this enough. It can be cleaned up without being designated as a brownfield. I don't know how many people are going to be spraying for bugs, but I'd be more concerned about that, you know. I see the number of hours here. The pool, I mean, the fellow comes once a week. So there's a lot of inconsistencies and inaccuracies here. And it's not that my heart doesn't go out to those folks in the area, but we have to be careful. Are we going to be consistent or inconsistent? My fellow commissioners, some have been here longer than I have, and they need to come to that determination because people are watching. Martin County taxpayers and residents are a very astute group of people, very astute. And I get the calls because they say there's nobody else to speak to. So I hope this changes this year. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. I just wanted to bring up the point that another public commenter had made about the east side of the railroad tracks for Petway. If separate from this, obviously, it has nothing to do with this. But while it's being mentioned and while we're discussing it, I'd like staff to look into seeing what would be the case. I do remember when that came up originally. I didn't realize that the outcome was half one side of the railroad tracks was yes, and the other side was no as a separate thing. And then in regards to our taxpayers, the project is currently bringing in $1.2 million in taxes, taxable value, and then it'll be as a fully built-out beautiful neighborhood in conjunction and appropriate to the rest of the surrounding neighborhoods. It'll bring in multi-millions of dollars. So I think our taxpayers, as well as the fact that we're cleaning up a contaminated site in Martin County, I see it as a win. Thank you. So I guess we're all dancing. I'll make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Second. Mr. Vargas. I mean, we are assuming that the taxes will be brought in. This is a year when there's going to be strategic change with ad valorem taxes. So to hang your hat on the same argument may not carry water. And if the market has a downturn, I think that the gentleman will definitely say, wait a moment, maybe this is not the right time. So I think we really need to look a little deeper than just making the same comments we've made for the last 16 years. So there's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. That brings us to the end of our meeting. I'm just going to generally ask if commissioners have any comments. You'll feel free to refrain. I just wanted to make an announcement on two events that we're having in Palm City. On January 15th at 8 a.m. at the Palm City Community Center, I'm having Dish with the Commission with our Sheriff, Boot and Seek. We're going to discuss a lot of the issues that Martin County residents have questions for him. 8 a.m. on Thursday, January 15th. And then on Saturday, January 17th at 6 p.m., we're having Music in the Park on Map Road, which is right next door to the Station 21 Fire Station. And with that, I appreciate it. Those are free events. Any further comments? Nope. We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.