joining us here this morning we're delighted to have you with us please join us for a moment of silence followed by a pledge of allegiance which will be delivered by cecil ed whitaker who is a u.s marine and vietnam vet thank you mr whitaker please join us i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr whitaker please tell us a bit about your service say again would you please tell us a bit about your service uh i was drafted in marines in 66 and did my time in paris island and training for about eight months then off to vietnam uh for 13 and a half months so that's about about it i ended up in a place called caisson it's on the dmz it's not like kmart so that's about it thank you very much commissioner hetherington has a word to say yes i would like to say a very special thank you for your service and um for all of you in the this is also cecil edgar whitaker is my fantastic father and brave brave american soldier thank you for your service and thank you for being an amazing father you'll join us again for a proclamation yes we have several presets today at 905 we'll have public comment at 9 30 we have a lease agreement with martin county healthy start coalition at 505 or at the end of our meeting we will have again public comment there are several additional items one is a proclamation recognizing the pines school boys varsity soccer team for winning the florida high school athletics association class 1a state championships consent 19 is the first amendment to the third renewal to the financial services agreement between martin county and the solar and energy loan fund of st lucie county consent 20 is adoption of a proclamation declaring may 2026 as mental health awareness month in martin county and there's a request to continue not to a date certain at the applicant's request and that is quasi-judicial public hearing number one which is a request for approval of the final site plan for heritage ridge planned unit development parcel c4 lot 2b for the storage place hope sound project i'll move approval of the agenda with the additional items and the request to continue heritage ridge plan unit development madam chair just to be clear if anyone's here for the self storage at heritage ridge we will not be hearing that item today correct it's been it's been removed i'll let our attorney respond it was at the request of the applicant so they're going to bring it back at a later date but they're not going to be a why we have love out here today. We're strongly opposed to this. Is there a reason for this? I'll let our attorney respond. It was at the request of the applicant, so they're going to bring it back at a later date. But they can still do public comment. Do public comment. Yeah. Yeah, you can do public comment. You can still provide public comment during general public comment if you want to, but there's no item today. Thank you. It's kind of shocking. Yeah, we had an attorney who consulted. So you can certainly speak at public comment, sir, as soon as the room is cleared. We are going to... The meeting is still in progress. Please be quiet. We're going to take up proclamations, followed by the presentation to the Pine School soccer team. You're having a hard time clearing out there. The first proclamation is a proclamation declaring National Safe Boating Week. Yes, we have Robert Hess with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 5-9 commander here and his staff. Staff, would you like to come forward, please? Let's wait until the doors close. Soccer team first. Oh, okay. Maybe not. There, I couldn't hear you. Good. Share a few words. You don't... You don't... Good morning. Honorable Martin County, Florida commissioners. I wanted to tell you that we're thrilled by your proclamation supporting National Safe Boating Week for 2026. The United States Coast Guard Flotilla 59 Stewart, a trusted group since U-Boat Surveillance in 1942, proudly provides free boating education thanks to partners like the Austin Blue Foundation that funds free boating safety courses for youths age 12 to 21 and their parents. If you complete our course, you can earn your boating safety card, and that's your key to an anchor on your driver's license now, which attests to your legal status to drive cars and boats in the state of Florida. We partner with local merchants, offer free vessel exams, and endeavor to ensure every boater returns home safely. Right now, we're involved in preparing to resume on water patrols alongside of our aviation volunteers. So this is a great time to join us, and we've always been happy to welcome new members, whether you're 18 or 80. You're never told to learn and join in this type of an active community service. Our flotilla of 65, award-winning men and women, will gladly teach and integrate you into our happy crews so that you can help us keep these waters safe. Now, if there's one thing that I say this morning that I'm hoping people will remember is that if you have a child and you think that that child never goes near the water, well, my parents didn't have a clue about what I did when I was a teenager. We're a boating community, and there's a really, really good chance that your non-boating child will end up on a boat. And it would be a really great thing if they had a day's worth of education so they knew what was right when they were on that boat. But thanks for the proclamation, and we're here to serve. Thanks. See, imagine in an emergency, trying to put one of these on. Even better if you have a... Take one, throw it in the water, and try to put it on. These are your lines on the board. We've got a couple more. You were there last year. We've got a couple more. two, two, three, one. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. See you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're out there. We're using for hello. Yeah. We're so good. Thank you. See you again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, dear. Thank you very much. You're on a boat. I know. Now we want to recognize and honor the Pine School soccer team. Yes. Nice. Into the well. Tom, have them come in here. Madam Chair, board members, thanks for having us this morning. District Commissioner Blakes, thank you. Thank you for the interview. I want to introduce to you real quickly the 2026 summertime state champion. Make sure the mic's on. The Pine School. We are missing some seniors this morning. It's signing day, so the seniors are at the school. But I also want to introduce to you real quickly Coach Cam Omsborg, who just has a couple words to say, and also Athletic Director Jeff Schur and his coaches. Thank you, Tom. Thank you all. Great group of young men who work exceptionally hard on the field, in the classroom, within the community. And like Tom said, our seniors now are participating in college signing day, which is really exciting for them, and we're really proud of them. Unfortunately, they couldn't be here. We have our juniors and our sophomores, Benji Blanco, Chris Caballero, Hunter Harrington, Gavin DeValero, Mateo Fiordolino, Riley Locke, Christian Pooley, Blade Hathaway, Jackson Schoble, and Zach Lady. Their hard work has paid off in undefeated season state championship teams, so incredibly proud of these young men. Thank you all. And then we have our assistant coaches, Coach Carlos, Coach John, and our Athletic Director, Jeff Schur. So thank you all. I just want to jump in real quick to give a huge thank you to Coach Omsborg and his staff. We are working very hard to create a culture of excellence at the Pine School and following our values of educating through sport. And these young men you see in front of you are a prime example of what we are creating at Pine and who represents us at Pine. And it's not just on the soccer field. These young men are outstanding human beings, outstanding individuals. The way they carry themselves around the school is – it's just something to follow. They are great role models to our K-12 environment. So thank you, gentlemen, for that. And we are really excited about the future. I know, you know, this group has won four out of the last five soccer state championships, and we have some plans of expanding our facilities and creating more opportunities for our athletes to grow, not just in soccer but across all of our sports. So super excited. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. Job well done. Congratulations, guys. We're going to take a picture. Yeah, we're going to take one here. Take a couple of – That brotherhood, so beautiful. And two. Congrats. Great job. Guys, put the life jackets on. Go Knights. Congrats. Charge on. That's a different – It's great to have champions in our midst. Our next proclamation is a proclamation recognizing Public Works Week in Martin County, Florida. Yep. This year marks the 66th annual National Public Works Week, sponsored by the American Public Works Association. And we recognize May 17th through the 23rd as Public Works Week. And this week commends the public works professionals, engineers, managers, employees, and the substantial contributions they make to protecting our health, safety, and advancing the quality of life for all in Martin County. Jim Gorton. Good morning, and thank you, commissioners, for taking the time to recognize the vital and often unseen work of the men and women who keep Martin County running every single day. From infrastructure improvements and the traffic signs that guide drivers safely on our roads to stormwater maintenance, public transit, and the protection of our coast and acquisition of natural lands, the many divisions within our department play an essential role in maintaining the quality of life our residents and visitors rely upon daily. Public Works is more than roads and equipment. It is service. Our employees are out before sunrise, during storms, after emergencies, and behind the scenes every day working to ensure our community remains safe, connected, and resilient. During National Public Works Week, we are proud to recognize the hardworking individuals who serve this county with integrity, skill, and commitment. Their efforts help strengthen our infrastructure, protect our environment, and improve the daily lives of everyone who calls Martin County home. On behalf of our entire department, thank you again for the proclamation. In the well. In the well. State champs. State I've never been up here. They're in there smiling. All right, what song are we going to sing? One, two, three, two. Congrats. Thank you. Our next proclamation is a proclamation declaring Memorial Day in Martin County, Florida. The Board recognizes May 25, 2026 as Memorial Day and calls upon all citizens to take the time to remember those who served and sacrificed. To be sure this nation remains the bastion of freedom we are all privileged to enjoy. Mr. Whitaker, come on up. Hard one to follow. The flotation devices and the safety and all that. And champions. And I'm up here by myself. But we do have a veterans' safety device here. Your veterans' administrator is our safety support. And you have it right here in this building. Well, Michael Dross, if he would like to come up here with me. Hi. Hi, Michael. This is our veterans' support. Thank you so much. Thank you. Can we take a photo? Sure. And would you please get in the photo also? Sure. And would you please get in the photo? Sure. Is it good? Yeah. Beautiful. Put that little baby girl in there. Our next proclamation is a proclamation declaring Emergency Medical Services Week in Martin County, Florida. The week of May 17th through the 23rd is recognized as Emergency Medical Services Week with the theme, Improving Outcomes Together. The board commends the men and women of Martin County Fire Rescue for their continuing service to the citizens of Martin County. Chief. Good morning. For the record, my name is Chad Chanchule, Fire Chief from Martin County Fire Rescue. I really thank you for presenting the proclamation to us because it gives us a chance to pump the brakes for a minute and recognize the people that are out there that are really doing the work. And that's the boots on the ground. And that has to do with our dispatchers, our firefighters, our ocean rescue people, our law enforcement that participate in that. I mean, it's an amazing community that we have of first responders. And the EMS services that we provide, it's something that it's not an easy job to do. From the outside, looking in, it may seem easy. But I'm telling you now, this job, it takes a toll on you physically and mentally. But the people that do it, they're proud. They love this job. They believe in this community. But I'm going to pass this off to our district chief. And this is Kevin. Kevin is not just a pretty face. Kevin, he runs our EMS Bureau and he is committed. So when you want to see an example of an employee of what they do, what they look like, how they act, how they present themselves to professionalism, Kevin is the definition of that. So I'm going to kick it over to Kevin. Thank you. So EMS Week is dedicated to honoring our EMS professionals. Also raising awareness to the public about the vital role we play within the community. So on behalf of Martin County Fire Rescue, I want to thank the Board of County Commissioners for recognizing EMS Week. And we are honored to serve this beautiful community. You know, our men and women, they show up every day wanting to make a difference in somebody else's life. And that's really what makes our organization strong, just like what Chief Chachin truly said. And we are truly honored and blessed and grateful to be a part of this community. And being able to be a staple in it is very honorable. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hang around. We'll take it sooner than later. Put our high-tech security back up. We're going to take one more out of order, and that is... We're going to take... Yeah. We're going to take consent 16, 17, and 18 out of order, please. Is... Okay. Yeah. Good morning, Ms. Segura. Good morning. Carla Segura, real property manager. These three items that I have here are for the approval and acceptance of a deed from Mrs. Louise C. Yeiser to Martin County for her generous donation of two separate items that are parcels located in Hobesound, adjacent to the Hobesound scrub and along Southeast Hillside Circle. And the other parcel is located on...adjacent to the East Fork Creek property off of Southeast Federal Highway. These items were presented to the board at the May 5th meeting where Mrs. Yeiser spoke, and we asked that the board adopt a resolution for each of these three agenda items, approving and accepting the donation from Mrs. Yeiser and authorize the chair to execute all documents associated with this transaction. And a little birdie told me she was here today, so we're lucky that she's here if she'd like to speak. Wonderful. Would you like to speak first? Sure. Yeah. I will after she speaks. We've really got to stop meeting like this. We've really got to stop meeting like this. Good morning and thank you for another opportunity to speak. Most especially, thank you commissioners for taking on the responsibility and care of these donated parcels of land. I'm also deeply grateful to the team who helped bring this together. Deborah Parker, Michael Dooley, John Mayo, Carla, and Tyson Waters and the many others who sat through meetings with me and helped make this project a reality. For me, donating this land is not simply an act of charity. It is my response to the concern I feel as I watch open land disappear to apartments, townhouses, big box stores, strip malls, storage facilities, and warehouses. As I drive through our communities, I often find myself asking, why is this habitat disappearing so quickly? And how can it be stopped or at least slowed down and managed more thoughtfully? Land donation is one way to begin preserving what is still here. What I am doing is only a very small step in a very large task. But I wait with great anticipation and hope for the next person or persons to approach this county with the gift of land to remain undeveloped in perpetuity, helping preserve not only the appearance of Martin County, but also its feeling, its character, and its sense of place. There are others in this county who have the ability and the means to shape not just what Martin County looks like, but what it feels like for generations to come. I am speaking directly to those people today. Please step forward. You are needed, very much needed. What we choose to protect defines us, and that choice is ours. Thank you. Thank you. If you haven't been following every one of our meetings, and you may not recognize Ms. Yeiser, this is not the first time she's been here. This is not her first gift to Martin County. She is exhibiting unprecedented philanthropy in Martin County. She is small in stature, but these are very, very big shoes to fill. She has, just this morning we are adding an additional 1.15 acres of land adjacent to the Hope Sound scrub preserve. This is especially rare, valuable habitat in the heart of urban development. It's an additional $1 million donation. The next one is a four-acre parcel that's adjacent to the East Fork Creek on US 1. That's $900,000. The next one is one and a half acres off of Dixie Highway and fronting Hillside Circle adjacent to the Hope Sound scrub preserve, adding to the prior donation, and that's an additional $3 million. This is just unprecedented philanthropy, and we are so grateful to Ms. Yeiser. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Any other comments, Commissioner? Yes, Ms. Yeiser, I'd love to take you for a ride around in Palm City. Commissioner Capps. Ms. Yeiser, at our last meeting we took a picture with you in the well here, and I took a copy of that picture over to the framery in Hope Sound to have it framed just a few days ago, and it will soon be in my office. We will always remember you for what you've done. Thank you so much. Thank you. Commissioners, I think we need motions to approve consent 16, 17, and 18. Separate. Can we do them en masse? You can do them in one as long as there's no changes to anything, sure. I'll move approval of consent 16, 17, and 18. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next, we're going to take up consent 8, which is approval of the interlocal agreement for fire suppression and emergency medical services between Martin County and the City of Stewart. That was pulled by me, Madam Chair. First time I've ever pulled an item off the consent. I didn't want this item to just go in as part of the overall. A couple of weeks ago we had asked our chief to meet professionally with the chief of the Stewart Fire Department to work out a couple of potential disputes that we were having amongst professional colleagues and the city and the county. And I thought that it would be probably more effective and efficient if the professionals sat down together and met alone. And then within very, very quick order, all of those issues were resolved. So I didn't want the residents to wonder whatever happened with the second half of that conversation. So our chief is here today to explain what took place. Thank you, sir. Thank you. For the record, Chad Chancholi, fire chief. Martin County Fire Rescue. Good morning, Commissioner. Joseph Labosco, fire rescue district chief. Good morning, Commissioners. Matt Rush, fire rescue administrator. Before I begin, I think one important thing that I just identified in this meeting is I need to go to the Pine School and start recruiting for future firefighters. Yeah, they look like a group. Those kids look like studs. They really do. And that's what we want. So, all right, let's talk about the interlocal agreement. I appreciate the fact that you did pull this because it gives us an opportunity to really highlight the benefits of the changes from when I would last spoken with you all probably a few weeks ago. And it's for the betterment of the community. And I couldn't be more happy to present this today. So, but for the general public who hasn't heard this before, I'm going to recap a little bit to understand how we got to where we are today. So, first, I'm going to take us back to April of 2025. In April 2025, Cleveland Clinic consolidated their label and delivery services, and they do no longer offer them at Cleveland Clinic North. So, any L&D services were out of the county. So, that was something that they gave us plenty of warning. Operationally, we had to look at our policies and procedures to make sure we were transporting our OB patients to the appropriate destination. And that's what we did. But here's where the confusion started to get in. So, as we were going through this since post-April 2025, we, as a, if you think about the holistic approach of the general community, most people in the community don't understand that a hospital is specialized. They really believe a hospital is a one-size-fits-all. So, we were having OB patients that were in labor and delivery needs immediate walking into the front doors of Cleveland Clinic North. And that's where the issues started developing. The ER physician, the ER team, recognized the patient needed to be transported out of the hospital and going to an appropriate label and delivery facility that was outside of the county. And what would happen at that point for Cleveland Clinic, their inter-facility transport company is Coastal Care. They work for Cleveland Clinic. That is their first phone call they make. If it is an immediate transfer needed for that OB patient, Cleveland Clinic Coastal Care has 30 minutes to respond for that patient. If they cannot respond in that 30 minutes, the next decision they make in their policy is to call 911. Well, as we all know, Cleveland Clinic North resides in the jurisdiction of the City of Stewart. This is where it gets a little gray. So, when they call 911, City of Stewart responds there. They assess the needs of the patient. This is where it gets a little complicated, and I don't want to get too into details, but we have medical directors. We have a medical director at Walsh for Martin County Fire Rescue. And there is a medical director that works for the City of Stewart. And they have a different interpretation of what imminent delivery actually means. And that's where it gets a little gray. We have to follow what we call EMTALA laws. That's Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. That determines, when it comes to imminent labor, where the patients go. So, the confusion set in as in, who's going to take this patient? Is it going to be the city? Or is it going to be Martin County Fire Rescue? So, what we did, we recognized the issue. We brought it forward. And we wanted to have a constructive meeting with the city to remedy this. Because we knew this is something the public needed to understand. And we knew we needed to treat the public the right way and get them to the appropriate facility. So, we initiated the meeting. And it got canceled. And then the next thing I know, that interlocal agreement and the OB issue, it goes into the City of Stewart Commission meeting. And then it got politicized overnight. How or why? I can't explain. Then, what happened is they sent a letter to you, Board of County Commissioners in Martin County, requesting to actually publicly and politically renegotiate the interlocal agreement. Now, we knew that's not how you do this. So, what you did is requested that I come before the board and then I present what the issues and concerns are with the interlocal agreement. And I did. But, the whole point of that meeting was to get a directive from you to allow me to go back and do the right thing. Renegotiate these issues, not on a political setting, but with subject matter experts. You gave me two objectives. First, you told me, have a meeting with OB only. And we did. Second, you said, have another meeting with just the interlocal agreement. And we did. So, let's go to the first meeting. In the first meeting, how we handled it was with direct operational coordination, right? This is stakeholders that need to be in a room to truly discuss the needs, especially when we're talking about OB patients. So, we had both medical directors in the room. We had fire rescue administration from both agencies. And then we had leadership from Cleveland Clinic North. And we looked at the details and we hashed it out. Again, the only part I couldn't control was the interpretation of imminent delivery between medical directors, not fire rescue administration. But what we did control in the room is anything that happened at Cleveland Clinic North where coastal care was not available, that when they call 9-1-1, Martin County Fire Rescue will be the primary response and take them out of there and make sure that we get them to the appropriate facility, no questions asked. So, that was a remedy. And just for context, how many times could that happen in a year? It's infrequent. It could be anywhere from six to nine times a year. Coastal care does a good job of handling their internal. So, this isn't something that's a daily thing to happen. So, the next thing that happens is the ILA. This is meeting number two. This is efficiency at its best. This is where a phone call took place and it was between myself and Chief Felicione. This was just chief to chief. Nobody else in the room. No cameras. No lights. No political campaigns. Two chiefs doing their job. And we first agreed to meet off-site. Within the first 15 minutes of that meeting, what we did is we aligned our mission. And what's the mission? It's simple. To protect this community and provide the highest level of service possible. Once we did that, then we just built the framework out of this agreement. And we made sure it was with the community in mind. Then, we took that legal document. We ran it through legal. And it was both on city and county. And we had this document completed in under two weeks of time. Now, when you talk about designing a contract and going through legal, two weeks of time, it's something unheard of. It's proven. You put the right people in the room, things will happen. And I want to thank our legal department for expediting this process to get me back in front of you to approve this. This document is amazing. But, let's talk about the cool stuff. What are the actual deliverables of the document? So, first, closest unit response for all emergency calls. What's that mean? All of our trucks are tracked with GPS. So, when a call comes in to a dispatcher, they locate the call, they look for the closest truck, and they attach that truck to that emergency. That right there, doesn't matter if it's county, city, doesn't matter at all. That is going to reduce your response times in that central area. This is phenomenal for the community. The other thing we did is we removed the fees associated with the calls that were running. Back in 2019, we had an imbalance. That's why the fees were put in there, to help the community and to help the city grow. It put some pressure on them. And what the city has done since 2019 to current is they have doubled in size with their personnel, their boots on the ground, and they built an additional fire station. So, now, it truly is mutual services like services. So, no fees at all. But the question I would have, if I was you, is if it's balanced today, what happens in the future when it changes? Well, what we did is we do a balanced review in here. What we have is something called a 10% rule. If one agency is running 10% more of the other agency's calls, it brings myself and the chief back in the room to actually look at those circumstances. We see the extended wedding circumstances. We mitigate them. We make the adjustments. And then we move forward. That's how you do business. That's true collaboration. The other is, let's just say the year goes. Nothing happens at all. We still have an annual review where myself and the chief get in the room, look at the document, look at the details of the document, and see if we can make any tweaks. When you have a contract in place, it could be year, two year, three year, five year, or in perpetuity. It's always good to do an annual review because there's always opportunity to do something a little bit better. We agreed to do that. The other is especially a response. That's our hazmat, our dive team, technical response. That's holistic for city and county. No fees associated. It all stays the same. So in this, what I want to do is extend my gratitude to Chief Felicione for the fact that he made this easy. When we got together and we aligned the mission and the objectives of the goals of what we wanted to do, this was a simple thing to produce at our level. And one thing about he and I, we worked together for over 30 years. In fact, 28 years ago, we were both in paramedic school together. I have a relationship with him. We know each other, and it made this much easier. But the exciting part is, since we sat down and started talking about this document, we've already had City of Stewart Fire Rescue come to the Martin County Fire Rescue Training Facility, and we've already done interagency training. Already, it's already happened several times. We've already had two live fire burns with them, and we're also looking at policies and procedures. We're looking at the trucks. Firefighters are firefighters. I don't care what your patch is. We all have the same mission of what we want to do and why we got into this job. This part is easy, and we are destined to take these two agencies, grow them at a pace collectively together, improve upon our services, and deliver a very unified, qualified level of service to county and city. So, we're pleased with that. So, at the end, what I'm asking is the board to approve the agreement today. It's not because who pushed forward or who wants credit for it. It's because this is the right thing to do for the county and the city. So, that'll conclude the presentation, and we're happy to take any questions. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. That was perfect. I think it was important that the citizens in both the city and the county got a chance to hear you say that. There has been some concern on who would respond. I want to thank you, Chief. I want to thank Chief Felicione, the city staff that worked with our staff, but also to our colleagues that are on the City of Stewart Commission. And at the end of the day, I thought you said it was right. Our firefighters, the City of Stewart's firefighters, they are a different type of individual that will rescue and help people. So, I don't think if you were, as a family member or a resident of the community, you were concerned of what color the truck was or what patches the person was wearing, who's closest. That this could have turned into like a really sort of ugly, protracted problem, but it didn't. So, well done for both us and the city. And I would make a motion to accept the new ILA. Second. Any further discussion? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. We will now take up our preset at 9.05, which is public comments. The first request to speak form I have is from Laura DeBerard, followed by Doug Farley. So, Madam Chair, before public comment, I was told I need to read. Since we are in election season, politicking is prohibited, which is defined as advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office, either partisan or nonpartisan. This includes the use of words, dates, signs, props, and or wearing apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group of persons. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning. Good morning. My talk will not cause any problems. My name is Laura DeBerard, and the purpose for my speaking to you this morning is to ask that you put on the agenda a quiet zone vote for Martin County. I have been a resident of Martin County for 46 years. I've been active in quiet zones for Martin County since the fall, and in that time have rarely spoken to anyone who is not bothered by the train horns. And the vast majority want quiet zones where reasonably possible in our county. According to the Brightline website, there are approximately 30 trains per day through our town. And in addition to the 30, 80 mile an hour Brightline trains, there are 14 to 18 freight trains per day. They run predominantly at night. Each of these 48, 30 plus 18 trains blow their horns four separate times at each intersection in our county. At one intersection, that is almost 200 train horns in 24 hours. Commissioners, there are 27 intersections in our county, which mean 5,400 train horns in one 24 hour period. My math is correct. This should be considered noise pollution. It is certainly polluting the lives of the residents and wildlife of the railroad corridor of our town. Another important point for your consideration is the effect that this noise pollution has on real estate values. I have spoken with several real estate agents in our county, and they are of the opinion that the trains have significantly impacted real estate values in close proximity to the train tracks. In communities like Mariner Sands, Stewart Yacht and Country Club, Harbor Ridge Condominiums, Mariner Cay, Loblolly Pines, Hope Sound, and Ocean Breeze. These owners are profoundly impacted by the train pollution and are unhappy. Please put quiet zones on the agenda at your next meeting so there can be a vote to move forward in implementing them in our county. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you. Doug Farley is next, followed by Jeffrey Ederman. No pressure, Doug Farley. Yeah, not a fan of public speaking. Good morning. So, I'm Doug Farley. I live in Jensen Beach. I'm here to ask the county commissioners to implement quiet zones at railroad intersections. Myself and some of our friends, Laura being one of them, have been reaching out to our neighbors to inform them and make them aware that quiet zones are safe and legal. Many folks didn't know this was even doable. Many people are just conditioned to the idea that horns are necessary and effective, while neither are true. We've enlisted the help of our neighbors to convince this commission to do the right thing. Some of them are here to voice their support. It's important to note that because this is a weekday warning, only a small fraction of them could actually appear. Collectively, we've collected about 1,500 names of people who want this done. And, let's see, I'm going to skip that part because it's political. This issue was voted down last year. At that time, I feel this commission acted solely on the interest of safety, which is prudent, of course, but no consideration was given regarding the disruptive and intrusive noise pollution that affect the quality of life for Martin County residents. Since then, we've learned a few things about quiet zones. We've learned that many communities in Florida and nationally have quiet zones. Martin County would not be implementing a new or radical idea. It's a tested and proven approach to ensure a better quality of life. We've learned that by following the Federal Rail Commission's requirements, these intersections are actually safer, safer because of improved infrastructure. Most notably, the addition of gates and the opposite direction of travel, preventing motorists from simply driving around the gate. This physical barrier traps a vehicle from proceeding, something a horn cannot do. A couple of points for your consideration. If there were a commissioner on this board whose platform or vision for Martin County was managing growth and controlling over development, of which I'm a fan, quiet zones make perfect sense. If a commissioner ever told their constituents that slow managed growth equals better quality of life, quiet zones make sense. The reason for checking our growth is because it promotes a more rural, less urban lifestyle. One of the glaring downsides of urbanization is noise pollution. Martin County residents appreciate the environment that controlled growth provides. The constant blaring of train horns does not fit that narrative, does it? If there were commissioners concerned about the cost of upgrading these intersections, please understand that many of the most expensive upgrades have already been completed. So the money necessary to finish these upgrades is nominal compared to starting from scratch. Frankly, I feel it's hard to argue any of these points. So let's please do the right thing and implement quiet zones. Thank you very much. Jeffrey Eiderman is next, followed by John Whitaker. Good morning, Chair, Chairman, and Commissioners. A little tall for this microphone here. Yeah. I'd like to first off just start by thanking Miss Geiser for her unbelievable donation helping us in Hope Sound and the wildlife. It's kind of hand in hand with what we're talking about today. My name is Jeff Ederman. My wife and I, Heather, live in Hope Sound. And I'm here today on behalf of thousands of Martin County residents asking for one simple thing. Relief from excessive train horn noise through the implementation of federally approved railroad quiet zones. We are requesting that Martin County move forward with establishing quiet zones at crossings that already meet federal administration, railroad administration requirements. From Gleason Street and Hope Sound north through southeast Dixie Highway in Stewart, along with two additional crossings in Jensen Beach and future crossings as they meet safety requirements. This is not about eliminating safety. It's about improving quality of life while maintaining safety standards that are already recognized and approved by the FRA. Under quiet zone regulations, train engineers can still sound their horn any time they see danger, an obstruction, or any unsafe situation ahead. They don't have to honk just to honk. What changes is the excessive number of unnecessary routine blasting of freight and Brightline train horns through our neighborhoods day and night when crossings already have proper protections in place. Right now, residents throughout Martin County are dealing with repeated train horn noise that exceed 100 decibels. Louder than a chainsaw, louder than a rock concert, and in many cases loud enough to wake entire neighborhoods multiple times a night. Families are losing sleep. Veterans suffering from PTSD are being startled awake. Students are trying to learn while horns interrupt classrooms. Seniors are working and working families are experiencing constant disruption to their daily lives. And this affects far more than human residents. Martin County is known for its natural beauty, wildlife habitats, and environmentally sensitive areas. The repeated blasting of train horns impacts birds, nesting wildlife, pets, and the peaceful character of our coastal communities. We work so hard to protect our environment and preserve our quality of life, yet every single day these unnecessary horns continue to echo through neighborhoods, waterways, and natural areas. There is also a very real economic impact, like Laura mentioned. Communities across South Florida that have implemented quiet zones, including most of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, big counties with a lot of people, and areas of St. Lucie County have shown that quiet zones can coexist with safe railroad operations while improving residential desirability and protecting our property values. People invest their life savings into homes here in Martin County because they value peace, community, and quality of life. Constant train horn noise threatens that investment and negatively affects the character of our neighborhoods. And the most important point is quiet zones do not mean reduced safety. The FRA requires enhanced safety measures such as four quadrant gates, raised medians, upgraded signage, and additional crossing protections before quiet zones are approved. These are proven safety improvements designed specifically to prevent drivers from bypassing the gates and making crossings safer for everyone. Sir, your time is up. Thank you. Closing. You see the lights. You hear the bells. The gates go down. It's pretty simple. Don't go down. Sir. Thank you. We have over 3,000. Thank you very much. Thank you. John Whitaker is next, followed by Susan Hagen. He might be outside. Mr. Whitaker. Susan Hagen. I know Susan Hagen. Wow, that's unexpected. But I'm happy to be in front of you and express, as my neighbors have, the inconvenience to the families that live close and near the tracks. The disruptions to our daily lives, the quality of our sleep has been decreased with the increase of the trains. And we would ask that you seriously consider putting in the quiet zones. Our, our, your constituents, our members of this community, really rely on you to do what's right. So our neighbors have pretty much put before you statistics. And there are many of us that urge you to move forward on this. Thank you. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you for hearing us. Lisa Farley is next, followed by Maureen Keelian. I also live in Jensen Beach. I'm just going to throw a couple of my key points out regarding the, asking you guys to put this on the agenda about the silencing of the train horns. As we had already mentioned, the counties all around us have implemented this and there has, statistically has not been much of a change or any change in accidents. People make the accidents, people make the accidents, horns don't stop the accidents. Um, a lot of people will argue that we bought in these neighborhoods. I've lived in my neighborhood on, um, in Jensen Beach for 25 years. The tracks were already there. Well, they built an extra track. And my argument to those people is that who doesn't want to make their neighborhood better? Who doesn't want to make a change to improve your neighborhood? Yes, we knew those trains were there. We lived with them. But now it's time to make our neighborhoods better for everybody around us. Um, we're, I'm asking you to please put this on the agenda to vote. Um, also, um, when you go through a red light, you know, at the, on the corner of Jensen Beach Boulevard and US 1, do you just lay on your horn when you have a green light? These trains have a green light. Why do they have, I don't put my horn on. I'm going to start doing that. So when you hear a horn going through a green light, it's me, everybody. So with that said, please put it on the agenda. Let's not make that a thing. Maureen Keelyan is next, followed by Yamila Roland Escalona. Good morning. My name is Maureen Keelyan. I'm the president of Southeast Florida Recovery Advocates. And I am here as a mother. My son struggles every day to attain long-term recovery from substance use disorder. He survived what we call the Florida Shuffle. If you haven't heard about it, Google it. We are facing, not everybody survives the Florida Shuffle. My son did. We are facing two crises at once in the recovery community. And together they create a perfect storm. The first is invisible, the body brokering, Florida Shuffle. This is illegal trafficking of vulnerable people struggling with addiction, flown in from out of state, placed in unregulated recovery homes, and cycled through the system for insurance fraud. It is a felony. The second crisis is visible. Homelessness causes, in addition to what we have. When the insurance runs out, these men and women who are brought here by predators are dropped on our streets. Many are thousands of miles away from home. No family, no support, no way back. This is not a coincidence. This is a business model. Homeless on our streets. We are asking this board to establish a voluntary community advisory committee, a rapid response team, to advise on funding this public health safety issue, work with the sheriff's office and local PDs to enforce statute 817505. Criminalizing homelessness is a failed policy. It costs more to jail someone than to house them. A criminal record blocks jobs and future housing. And arrests do not fix poverty. They hide it. We hear a lot of thoughts and prayers, but Proverbs tells us we are called to speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves and defend the rights of the poor. I am here doing exactly that. A vast majority of our people on our streets are navigating disabilities, HIV, trauma, mental illness, or substance use disorder. For many, a single crisis or relapse becomes a freefall. There's no safety net. Martin County lacks a shelter, certified transitional, and respite recovery residences. As it says in John 1, love without action is empty. A citation is not action. An arrest is not action. A roof is action. A front door is action. The solution is not a cell. It is a front door. We are ready to be your partners. We're asking for a meeting with this board to present our full community engagement plan. Reach your hand out and help them up. Thank you. And we have an event coming up June 3rd about the laws that are on the books to protect people seeking long-term recovery and keeping them safely housed in our communities. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Escalona is next, followed by Polly Cooper. Buenos dias, commissioners. I am Yamila Royan Escalona, executive director of Yaya Por Vida, member of the Treasure Coast Opioid Task Force and subject matter expert for the St. Lucie DOH Overdose Fatality Review Board. I am a person in long-term recovery on medically assisted treatment. I am a sister who lost her only sibling to an overdose. I am an adoptive mother to my niece, a child of loss, and a native Floridian. I stand here before you because our community is bleeding. The Martin County Medical Examiner confirms a 32% increase in overdose fatalities in 2024. That is a massacre. We are seeing a sharp rise in deaths involving xylazine, better known as TRANK, a drug that causes severe flesh wounds and does not respond to naloxone. Tallahassee has given us a lifeline, House Bill 477, legalizing xylazine test strips on July 1st, 2026, accompanying the decriminalization of fentanyl test strips enacted July 2023. But there is a disconnect. Most of our patrol officers do not know about this law. Without immediate training, residents carrying these life-saving strips risk arrest for paraphernalia. We cannot legalize a tool and then arrest people for using it. Here is the danger. On this exact same day, July 1st, Florida's ADAP funding is sharply becoming defunded. The AIDS Drug Assistance Program keeps neighbors with HIV healthy enough to work and stay housed. Simultaneously, the state is slashing rapid rehousing funding to address a massive deficit. We have a 2024 encampment ban making it illegal to sleep outside. Yet when we are cutting the housing required to comply, we have nowhere to place our folks. When ADAP ends, people will lose their meds, lose their homes, and be forced onto the streets. We are legalizing safety tools while cutting the housing that keeps people alive. We are telling our community, you can test your drugs, but you cannot afford to live. We need a voluntary community advisory committee to train law enforcement on HB 477 and coordinate a crisis response for the ADAP cliff. I invite every single commissioner, first responder, and person with lived experience to the Treasure Coast Opioid Task Force Town Hall, June 3rd, 1-3 at the St. Lucie County DOH HN 5150 Milner Drive. We need you to turn this 32% increase into a turning point. Housing is health. Health is safety. Let's not wait for the bodies to pile up because y'all might feel that we're dispensable. Again, thank you and God bless. Thank you. Polly Cooper is next, followed by Marlene Marco Ryan. Hi. Morning. I'm here to just maybe enlighten you to a few things that people have already not said. I live in Jensen Beach, and we don't live adjacent to the railroad tracks. We live approximately two blocks back. But I'm here to tell you that we can hear the train horns from three intersections. The two closest to us on Skyline Drive and also Jensen Beach Boulevard. So it impacts a huge number of people. My husband, Tom Cooper, has sent emails to the commission on two occasions. Just in the last two days, he sent another. I hope you will read it. He has points in addition to those that you've already heard. We're here asking you. Excuse me. I really hate doing this. I'm sorry. It's obvious. We're asking you to please put it on the agenda and consider it. And also, there's just very valid reasons for having the various intersections that are eligible. Excuse me. There are seven intersections that could be addressed quickly, we've been told. There's 27 total intersections in Martin County. So please put it on the agenda and help us. Thank you. Thank you. Dean Mark O'Ryan is next, followed by Kerry Ehotz. Hello, I'm Mark O'Ryan, a resident of Martin County for 55 years. And we used to have a quiet zone in Martin County. And then one person, maybe three decades ago, I'm not sure, but one person got killed by a train. It wasn't even at an intersection. It was from Stewart to Hobes Sound. And in the middle of it, this drunk got killed. So, automatically, they suspended the quiet zones and started the train hoards. Meanwhile, it was only one person in the span of 30, 35 years that had an accident. And that was when there was no gates on the crossings. So, I really believe that we should have the quiet zones back again. Because it's an inconvenience for a whole lot of people and a whole lot of buildings in downtown Stewart have to listen to that train horn after paying a million dollars for their condominium. It just doesn't make sense. That's all I have for you. Thank you. Thank you. Carrie Ehotz is next, followed by Joey Ehotz. Leah Hagen is next, followed by Dina McPherson. I know the little girl version of this person. Hi. My mom was just up here a little bit ago. I also live in the Skyline area. Speak right into the mic. You can lift it up a little bit. I also live in Jensen Beach in the Skyline neighborhood, like many of the people you've already heard from. We do hear from four different crossings every time a train goes by, and it is very disruptive. I know a lot of people have already studied a lot of statistics, and I don't have any new information on that front. But it would be really great if you all considered putting that on the agenda for the next few meetings. Thank you. Thank you. Dina McPherson is next, followed by Eric Mehranen. Hello. My name is Dina McPherson. I also live in Jensen Beach. I'm also here to please ask you to put on the quiet zone on the agenda. If they can do it in Broward and they can do it in Dade, we should be able to do it in our beautiful little community where we try to protect our wildlife and our way of life. It's very special here, and we would like to continue it to be that way. With the new trains, it's been just crazy loud. There is a huge increase with all of the extra train. So please consider your community is here today to beg you to do the right thing for us and our quality of life. Thank you. Amen. Eric Mehranen is next, followed by Ina Friksione. Some version thereof. Right. Hi, I'm Eric Mehranen. I'm also the voice of Ina Friksione. She had to go back to work. Just another voice to be heard for the train. We live right there off a skyline. We're two blocks away from the train. And again, the other day we counted, it rang 14 times just for no apparent reason. Now, just so you all know, I am a veteran. I do suffer from PTSD. So getting woken up in the middle of the night, it's very startling. Luckily, the VA has happily upped my dosage of sleeping medication. But I shouldn't have to do that. We have our grandson. Our grandson can't stay at our house because he gets woken up in the middle of the night. We've had guests actually have to leave our house and go get a hotel because of the train whistle. So, again, we hope that you will hear our voices and put it on the internet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. John Bologna is next, followed by Mario Marino. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the opportunity to address you. I also am here to speak about the train horns. New to Florida. Been here since 23. Not new to train horns. Prior to this, we lived in Virginia. A block and a half from my house there, we had a train track line. 700 approximate housing units there encompassed over about a mile and a half and two railroad crossings. The only thing we asked for there and we got it was a quiet zone from 10 at night to 6 in the morning. And in the 18 plus years that I lived there, once those quiet zones were implemented, there were zero impacts. As somebody else pointed out, as a driver, you sat down and took a test and you said, I understand what the road control measures are and stuff like that. Blowing a horn going through an intersection with flashing red lights is not going to stop somebody from making an idiotic decision and proceeding onto a track. So, at least 10 at night to 6 in the morning, I'm not asking you to eliminate, you know, all horns. I understand during the day when there's heavy traffic pattern, it's a balance between safety and quality of life. But 10 at night to 6 in the morning, I mean, first time we got here and the first train that went through, I looked at my wife and said, stop putting quarters in the magic motion bed. So, we not only hear the sound, we've got the vibration. I am literally 100 feet from a railroad track. And I understood it was there when I bought it. My real estate agent pulled a big Pinocchio and said, they hardly ever run. Okay, but that's here and there. But again, please, 10 at night to 6 in the morning. It's a quality of life issue for thousands of people that live along that corridor. Thank you. Thank you. Mario Marino is next, followed by Charlie Bartholome. Thank you for hearing me. I'm Mario Marino. I live about 300 feet away from the train and you guys all heard what everybody else had to say. I would love to have you guys come to my house for dinner or even sleep over one night. I'm living my own, you know, cousin Vinny. You know, it's like you wake up in the morning at 5 in the morning. It's like a train's coming by. If the guy had a bad day with his wife, he's taking it out on us in the middle of the night. And so, you know, I can't add any more to what anybody else is saying other than if you're not, if you live too far away from the train and you're not hearing it like we do, I'm pretty sure that we can arrange to have a train horn outside your house at, you know, at 3 in the morning. And, you know, so just consider just passing it along and let someone else make that vote for you. Thank you very much. How do I contact you about sleeping over? Bed and breakfast. Charlie Bartholomew is next, followed by Terry Moore. I'm City. Morning, Commissioners. Morning. Ladies and gentlemen. I'm here representing an applicant, Lisa Copeland. I'm just reviewing a couple of things. In our last meeting, Commissioner, you made a very good suggestion, which my client was in total agreement with. And that was to call your office and supply any documentation, legal determinations from the state, from the field marshals, reps, the agents from Wellington that came up and viewed the project site, from your own staff. Apparently, we are at a point where it's not a legal issue and it's not a zoning issue. What it is is an issue of noncompliance, a very minor one at that. And my client is prepared to cure and remedy this as soon as possible. All we ask then and all we're asking for now, now that Mr. Galando has received the same material, he's forwarded it to Mr. Doherty. He has the same material and you've had the material in your office since our last meeting. And we seem to be in that same area of nothing. In other words, we aren't getting a response from the county. We are willing to cure the defect and do it right. The neighbors want it. History supports it. The general permit, which is unique and to the two licenses in Florida, supports it. And we are still waiting to hopefully move it to the venue where this can be remedied, cleared up in that little beautiful area. And Bird Island can once again be nice. I've been a boat captain here since the Outrigger, working for Ralph and Francis. And I've made a lot of effort and hard work to advance the growth of our special marine environment, both offshore, the Caribbean, down the Treasure Coast, toward Jupiter. And just as importantly, the ecosystem that's probably the most unique in the whole world, the Indian River Lagoon. So whenever you're ready, we are ready. Thank you. We'll contact you. Next up is Terry Moore, followed by Patricia Moore. Good morning, Commissioners. I live in Jensen Beach. And when I moved there five years ago, we had, they were building the tracks for Brightline. It started out with a few trains that were kind of annoying. And now we hear 480 blasts in a 24-hour period. We sit on top of the hill. We can hear it starting in Jensen Beach at the Roundabout and then at the Trailer Court and then at Skyline and then at County Line. It doesn't always go off at County Line. They have a quiet time at night, I believe. However, it's annoying. I can be annoying too. Can you hear this? This was at 8 o'clock this morning. It also went off at 4.02 and 4.15. We got to stop this noise. Property values are sinking. It's time to make a change. Please put it on the agenda and get this set up for quiet zones in Martin County. Thank you very much. Thank you. Patricia Moore is next, followed by Douglas Smith. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. My name is Patricia Moore. And I did send you all an email. I just wanted you to be able to put a face to the email that you did receive. We have a very close-knit family on Ocean View Circle in Jensen Beach. And the neighbors like to get together. And we do things together. We socialize. And in the middle of socializing, we have to stop what we're doing, stop our conversations, because the train's going by and you can't hear over the horns. The horns need to stop. We need quiet zones. We need our peaceful neighborhood back so we can go back to being good neighbors. Please put it on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Douglas Smith is next, followed by CeCe Schofield. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. I am not the previous Commissioner Douglas Smith. I was going to say, you look different. Yes. And boy, do I get grief for it. Thank you for serving. I've heard from other people about the noise of the train. And they speak clearly about the subject matter. And I can't see how any caring, logical commissioner could deny us this quiet zone. The only reason I could think of denying it is because you don't live near it. And it doesn't affect you. It's the only reason I can think of because it really affects the rest of us around where the train tracks are and the horns go off. And if I could ask, but I don't think I'll get the response, if I could get three minutes from each one of you to tell me why you won't do this, I'd really like to hear that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. CeCe Schofield is next, followed by Angela Harrison. Hi, good morning. I'm CeCe Schofield from Palm City, and I'm here to plant a seed. Liquid fireworks are spectacular synchronized musical water and light shows. I would like an opportunity to present a short proposal to the commission, but I can't do it in 30 seconds. The seed is planted. Let's see where the wind takes it. You have my contact information. William. Falsing Waters presents Liquid Fireworks. From my office. Angela Harrison is next, followed by Ariane Levin. Again. Good morning, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for allowing us the opportunity to speak. My name's Angela Harrison. I'm representing Tent City Helpers. If you'd like, you could all follow us on Facebook. I'd like to basically just go over an article that we placed on our website in reference to the homeless issues. This is a judge. Stephanie Burke wrote that Kentucky's camping ban essentially punishes people experiencing homelessness for an essential human need, needing to sleep. She issued the order Monday after Monday, months of arguments between the state attorney general and the public defender representing 33-year-old Michael Williams. Williams' attorney had argued Kentucky's unlawful camping statue was unconstitutionally vague, gave the police too much power, and ultimately punishes people simply for being homeless. Before her ruling, Burke agreed with a defense stating that the law violates both the state constitution and the U.S. Constitution. Criminalizing these involuntary conduct, which is necessary to sustain human life, effectively punishes the statue of being homeless and is in violation of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment, Burke wrote. As the ruling, Burke also took aim at state legislators, arguing that the General Assembly intended to criminalize existing in public while homeless. This is just one of the many laws that have been backed by them, and I just want to know what else we need to do as a community to come up with a resolution to have some type of housing or to build a facility for the homeless. I know that a lot of people. I know that a lot of people think that these things are due to alcoholism or drugs. That has, you know, some parts of it, but that's not what all of this is about. These are human beings, you know, they don't always have the proper education, I'm assuming, or, you know, it's hard to get housing also. If you have a felony, which, I mean, not to put myself out there, but I'm a convicted felon, it's also hard to get jobs. I have my associates in science for accounting, and I can't find a job doing accounting because everybody wants to run a background check on me for something that I did when I was younger. You know, as I said before, I have moved up to Martin County to give myself a better life to start over as a new person to give my children an amazing life, which they have. I have one that has her associates, the other one's in the process of getting her bachelors, so I just want to know what we need to do. Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Ma'am Levin is next, followed by Trey Lokey. Trey Lokey. Joshua Raya. Raja. Joshua, are you here? Corey Delaplane. Missy Harris, followed by Dwayne Muse. Good afternoon. My name is Missy Harris. I live on Alamanda Way, and I've been a resident for a really long time. I am here because I would like to request that you reinstate in the oath, so help me God, when they swear in the people. Sunday, as a nation, our president declared the 17th of May as a rededication of our nation back to God. The president knows only honoring God can save this nation. The founding fathers taught us that with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, God is essential. When COVID came, I was able to attend more of the county, the city, and the courthouse, the meetings. Sad to say, the courthouse and here have deleted, so help me God, out of the oath. By deleting, so help me God, we are not honoring God and his authority over Martin County. So I'm asking for it to be reinstated. It is really important that we honor God in what we do. Thank you. Thank you. Dwayne Muse is next, followed by Meredith Smerlio, followed by Mario Smerlio, followed by Elizabeth O'Neill, Judith Wiegand, Kirsten Michalowskis, followed by John Handlin. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. You can lift that up. Good morning. My name is Kirsten Michalowskis, and I live in Stewart. When I moved to Martin County four and a half years ago, I was welcomed to the community with open arms, for which I am very grateful. This is a beautiful place to live, and I enjoy my life very much here. However, I have come to realize that one of the main reasons for that welcome was because I came here with financial resources and as an employed person with the wherewithal to make decisions when the crises of life occur for my family and myself. But not everyone has been dealt the same hand as I have. And since I have been here, I have seen things that I have never seen in any other community in which I have lived. One of those things is that we arrest our community members who cannot afford shelter simply because they try to sleep in a park or other public place. Many people, many people, and I am one of them, will argue that how a community treats its poorest, weakest, and most vulnerable people reveals its true moral character. And that a society that ignores its most needy is often seen as morally failing, not merely economically, but spiritually and ethically. On that note, I have also seen in our community a large number of nonprofits, churches, community volunteers and dollars, as well as federal and local government agencies working to support and include our neighbors who are homeless or on the verge of homelessness. So it is clear to me that we do have a true community here in Martin County. I am sure you already know the disparity between the incomes of those we classify as middle and lower income groups, as well as the financial assistance given to the disabled versus the current cost of living. So I won't bore you with statistics. I will say that we are in desperate need of creative and safe housing and shelter solutions for all of our community members. I am not here today to ask you to help the efforts being put forth by all of the entities that I listed above. I do respectfully ask that all commissioners, please, at a minimum, stop fighting those of us in the community who are trying to come up with those creative housing and shelter solutions. We want to ensure that all of our community members can have their basic needs of safe shelter, food, and health care met. Thank you for your consideration and your time. Thank you. John Handlin is next, followed by Harry MacArthur. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. I've lived in Martin County since the mid-70s and not always near the tracks, although I live about 100 yards from the tracks in Jensen Beach now. And as everyone else has said, the guardrails are the ones that do the work, not the horns. And I have an efficiency at my place, so it's not just me, it's my neighbors, it's my tenants, and also the rest of the Stewart-Martin County, Palm City-included area. I'd just like to see this get put on the agenda, not only for myself, but for everyone here in Martin County. This is a great place to live, grew up here, and I will continue living here. Thank you. Thank you. Harry MacArthur is next, followed by Grayson. I remember Harry MacArthur used to bring cookies, but I guess that's... I brought cookies this morning. Where are they? You brought... They're right over there. Excellent. They're right over there. All right, hold your comment. No. Yes, I'll tell you what. Thank you. I brought 20 cookies right there. Good for you, my friend. I brought you back to me, so I did it. Say... Harry and the Natives, Bridge Road, US 1. Harry and the Natives, Bridge Road, US 1. I'm just a burger flipper. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Diki bar. Thank you. Live music. What? Oh, sorry. No, yours is better than mine. Thank you so much for doing this tough job. I mean, every one of you are amazing for doing this. Thank you for doing this for Martin County, and thanks staff for what you do. Thank you so much. I just want to... First is I want to talk about the Pine School. I'll tell you what. This needs to get rolling. I'll tell you what. The only one that's slowing this down is Greg Braun. I think this needs to start rolling. This is something that needs to happen in Pine School. This was Nathaniel Reed and the family's dream to have the school there. I think he would be supportive of the project they're doing. I would be... My friend for all my life was him, and I think I know what Nathaniel would want, and Nathaniel would want this to roll on for the Pine School. So please consider that. The other one is Florida's. It used to be the Angle Inn. I'll tell you what. Mike and Susie Graham bought it probably, I don't know, 20 years ago. My numbers aren't good, but they have been wonderful neighbors. They have tried to improve that project as small-funded operation local people, and I think they've done very well at it. So please consider them for this. We need to keep Florida's Trailer Park as it is, or Angle Inn, or if we want to keep going back to when it was done. But they're wonderful neighbors, and thank you so much for them. So please consider both of those. And I think you've heard enough about the train, so I'm not going to beat you up anymore. You have a very tough job listening to all this. Tell us about the train. No, listen, you know what? All I'm saying is, you know, just give us 8 to 8, you know, 8 at night. Pamela Reed, you know what? She had it 8 to 8, so you know what? We can go back to her as if it was good enough when she was alive. Let's go back to that, and she was a very, very special lady, and we wouldn't have Jonathan Dexton State Park without her. So she made three trips to Tallahassee to make Jonathan Dixon, and she preserved South Martin County as well as anybody. So for that reason, I'd say just consider 8 to 8. You know what? It would be nice. Thank you so much for all you do. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you all. Thank you. Grayson, it could be... Is there a Grayson in the audience? Okay. How about a Bennett Richards? Victoria Blake, and following Ms. Blake is Bruce Jerner. I'm so sure. Good morning. My name is Victoria Blake, and I'm here to represent Tent City Helpers. We deliver meals, warm meals, goodie bags, tents, sleeping bags, toiletries, batteries, bug spray, you name it, every Monday. We welcome one of you all to join us any Monday at 3 p.m. We meet at Hudson's and Stewart, and we go to six different locations to experience these wonderful human beings that have been taken from their homes for whatever reason. I've met executives who lost their job and lost their house, and now they're living on the street. It's just alarming. So a little story. I'm from a little southern town called Roanoke, Virginia. It's in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's gorgeous. Roanoke has... Stay with me here. Roanoke has 95,000 residents in Roanoke County alone. They also have something called a Roanoke Rescue Mission, where they provide three meals a day. It sleeps over 300 a night. Each bed has a homemade quilt. It's very southern and very quaint. So if you're homeless, can you imagine walking into a bed that has a homemade handmade quilt? There's a chapel, medical checkups, and they help the homeless transition to jobs, get back on their feet. Every Thanksgiving, we do a drumstick dash. They raise $300,000 every Thanksgiving for the homeless in the rescue mission. I think it's fantastic. So put that in perspective with Martin County. My research shows Martin County has 165,000 residents, give or take. And we have amazing resources. Y'all know these. La Jolla, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. They provide meals, showers, laundry, but they have no beds. There's nowhere for them to sleep. Tent City Helpers. Our community table has over 500 volunteers and serves 3,000 meals every week. Man of Ministries, House of Hope, Elevate Hope. You know them all. But then our homeless have nowhere to sleep. And Bill 1365 prohibits sleeping in public property. All right. Martin County Fairgrounds. The majority of January had no events on Martin County Fairgrounds. And in February, of course, we had the Martin County Fair. But since March 29th to May 19th, there's only been one event, a livestock barbecue on April 26th. So for two months, our homeless could have had somewhere safe to sleep. I mean, can we consider making a deal with Martin County Fairgrounds? Let's make a deal. If it's not being used, can the homeless stay there legally? Because as we know, it's illegal for them to sleep in public spots. So can we do better? I mean, we have to do better. We'd love for you to join us. And again, wonderful human beings who just suffered some setback of some amount. I'll end with Matthew 25, verse 40. Jesus said, truly, I tell you, whatever you did for the one of the least of these brothers and sisters, you did for me. Thank you for listening. Amen. Thank you. Bruce Joerner is next. He's not here. Followed by Justin Ducasse. He's here. Followed by John Tellum. John Tellum left. Justin Ducasse. John Tellum left. Good morning. I also appreciate you guys. I love you guys. Thank you for what you do. And thank you for letting us. There we go. And thank you for letting us speak. All right. So I just wanted to. All right. Well, first, my name is Justin Ducasse. I just wanted to clarify what I said last time about the $30 million. That is in House Bill 5001, which is basically like the yearly budget for Florida. And that was in 2024. But I think like that rolls over into like the next years if it's not used. Um, and I think that's under the control of DCF. I'm not entirely sure. But, um, I know that we are on the agenda, um, uh, like for this topic, I think today. Um, so, um, I'm really putting like my faith in you guys that we can, um, work towards something. But I just want to say in like the meantime, I still have to commit a crime to sleep tonight. So, um, that's definitely going to happen. Um, it's just the question is where. And I think really the best spot would be the Martin County Sheriff's Office headquarters front lawn. Like, to be honest with you, because like, since I have to do it. And like, I have like no problems like with the cops, but I like them. But it's like, they know that like, I have to commit a crime. So like, I might as well just do it on like the front lawn. Um, and I think that would, uh, be in line like with their motto to protect and serve and serve. You know what I'm saying? So, um, like I said, I like the cops. Uh, I love Martin County. I love you guys. Um, and, uh, I also think that, um, yeah, I'm just going to leave it at that. Uh, thank you guys. Thank you. Jeff Whitman is next. Oh, here he is. Followed by Althea. She's here. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Jeff Whitman, Hope Sound. Um, I was hoping to have my Tuesday morning, Tuesday mornings off, but, uh, here I am again. Um, I've been here a lot. Um, Hope Sound just got two new preserves. Thanks to the, thanks to commission, especially commissioner caps and especially miss Louise Yizer. Um, I love this lady. Um, my wife doesn't watch commission meetings, so I think I'm safe, but she's just a wonderful lady. Um, this $10 million donation was slated to become a storage facility, townhouses and apartments. It was a tremendous gift to the people of Martin County, and I want to thank everyone who was involved in its preservation. Um, the other thing is, uh, the Pine School is asking for an amendment to their existing preserve, preserve area boundary. Um, the PAMP amendment proposes to remove 11 acres of existing upland scrub habitat. This 11.07 acres has over 45 gopher tortoises. It has not been determined how many of these are active. It has not been determined where these tortoises are going to be relocated. It could either be on site or out of the county. Um, the, the solution in this would be for the Pine School to, um, give us more preserve area. Um, 11 acres for 17 acres with a six acre gain is not enough. Um, gopher tortoises are a keystone species. There are burrows service habitats for hundreds of other species. Um, it needs, it needs to be preserved, um, more than it, than the proposal from, uh, Lucido and associates. So, the other thing is there's a native Indian mound there. Native American mound there. It's the, uh, um, Banner Lake mound. That was one of the largest Native American sites in the county. Um, they did an archaeological survey back in 2005. Um, I would like that. They, they do another archaeological survey before they do the building. It's on the back side, back where Banner Lake is. And the other thing was there was a, uh, Negro League ball field there, um, where it's been rumored that Satchel Page may have played. Um, I was an intervener in 2007. And I asked the headmaster to try to set aside some of that Negro League ballpark. And he wouldn't do it, but he said they would put up a, um, plaque or a monument. So, it's now, the place where Satchel Page may have played, uh, is now a parking lot. Um, it'd be nice if there is a kind of memorial there to the Negro League players. My pastor, Reverend Buddy, Buddy Lewis, um, played first base there. So, anyway, I'm out of time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. That is next. And Althea is the last request to speak form I have. If you would like to address us, please fill out a request to speak form and get it to the bailiff. Good morning. Good morning. Um, what's happening in the community? Um, yeah, a lot. So, um, kind of nervous here. It's a whole nother, um, element. We're not going to deal with friends. But it's just me, Althea, right? So, I'm here on, speaking on behalf of the Tent City, um, community. Um, when Tent City started, I was one of their first, um, to help with the meal prepare. Prepare the meals for them. Um, and the other day, last week, I believe it was, I was sitting, I was, you know, watching. And, um, the young man that was speaking, I, um, like, was listening to him. Right? And I was listening as though I was watching a movie. And so, I want to say none of us are exempt. None of us are exempt from being homeless. And I'm sitting here very transparent. And I was watching him like I was watching a movie, observing a story from a distance, quietly listening, quietly feeling compassion for what I was seeing. And then it hit me. What was he talking about? Was I, myself, and a lot of people that we know because none of us are exempt. I don't care who we are, what title we hold, how we're dressed, where we live. We're not exempt. I realized that while I was emotionally observing his experience, I myself have been living through housing instability, homelessness in my own way. If it were not for the grace of God, family and friends, I too would not currently be committing crime every day. And I think that what many people fail to understand about homelessness. Homelessness comes in all colors, size, backgrounds and status. Not everyone experienced homelessness looks the way society imagines. Some people are staying with family. Some people are sleeping on couches. Some are moving place to place trying to survive quietly while holding themselves together mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially. Some are professionals. Some are seniors. Some are mothers, fathers, caregivers, veterans or working people trying their best to survive life quietly, unwell around them. Many people are only one situation away from homelessness. One job, one illness, one divorce, one tragedy, one expected, unexpected crisis, one late payment. And suddenly life changes. And many people also do not talk about it. The mental, emotional toll. Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Is Carrie Ethos here? Is Joey Ethos here? Is John Whitaker here? Linda Fithian. She is here. Followed by Danny McWhorter. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Linda Fithian. I live in Palm City since 2009. We've had our home. I'm here today to ask a couple of questions. There was the state legislature and Governor Substantus signed into law Bill 1389, which is an addition on to the Live Local Act that was passed a couple years ago. And some of the things that are in this bill, I'm wondering if we know. And my concern is because of the people who are donating these lands for conservation and also our half percent sales tax that's to purchase conservation land. In this bill, I'm just going to read what I have here. As of March 2026, the Florida legislator approved House Bill 1389, which significantly amends the Live Local Act. Key changes expand the act to include land owned by governments and religious institutions, limit local government control over building heights and setbacks, and strengthen developer rights against local zoning. Expansion to new lands allows for affordable housing projects on lands owned by counties, municipalities, school districts, and religious institutions if owned for at least 10 years. Preemption protection prohibits local governments from circumventing height allowances using restrictive setbacks or other dimension means. Have any of you heard about this? Okay. So that is our four-story limit, right? Missing middle tax exemption. Vesting for tax exemptions now occurs at the building permit stage. Others with the building permit on or after July 1st, 2026 may apply for the exemption. Legal protections amends the Florida Fair Housing Act to allow developers to sue local governments that violate live local provisions overriding previous court decisions regarding sovereign immunity. Commercial industrial definitions exclude certain farms and farm operations from industrial restrictions. So my question is, with all this conservative land that we're purchasing as a county, is that land protected against developers saying that they want to develop and the states saying they can? Because the local government can be overruled. So that's my concern and my question. And I hope that you can address that. So thank you very much for listening. It's nice to see you all. Thank you. Thank you. Danny McHorder, would you like to speak on this item? So you don't want to speak in public? I can speak in public. Okay. All right. Please proceed. Otherwise they don't hear you. Good morning. My name is Danny McHorder and I'm a retired 21-year Navy veteran. Oh, Navy. Thank you. I'm here for the expansion of the Florida A's RV park. In the past few years, I've had the opportunity to stay at multiple RV resorts, parks, national parks, and such across this great state of Florida. This includes the Florida A's RV park for a couple of seasons. With that being said, my girlfriend and I came here and we have repeatedly been pleasantly surprised by not only how well the park is managed by Scott and Barbara, but how hands-on the owners Mike and Susie are. These people really treat us like family. The location is fantastic for us and we really appreciate the affordability, allowing us to live on a relatively limited budget and still enjoy entertainment and recreational activities, shopping, beaches, and of course, dining out at some incredible spots, both in Homes Sound, Stewart, and Jupiter. We've met some very nice people, both in the park and out, and very much enjoy being part of the community. This is a very peaceful, quiet, and clean park. It's my understanding they are wishing to make some needed modernization, which would enhance our stays. I would ask that you please consider them. Thank you much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Gus Denbrick. Gus Denbrick. Am I Owen Brick? Followed by Scott. It begins with a P. It's as far as I can get. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. It's still a good morning. Yes. My name is Gus Owen Brick. I am a licensed general contractor in the state of Florida and in 20 other states within the United States. And I've been a general contractor in the state of Florida for 45 years. So I've been around the block a few times. And all I would like to say, to keep this short and simple, is that I fully support the upgrades being suggested for the Florida Days Park. I know the owners extremely well. And I think they would do a great job on enhancing the value of that property. The only other thing I'd like to mention is I pull permits for, like, power plants and LNG projects. And all of those permits are issued by the local authorities, not the state, not the federal government. Every time I pull a permit, I talk to somebody who actually lives there. Excuse me. And that is the way I think that these Florida Park upgrades should be handled through the local officials. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Scott Price is next, followed by Steven Owen Brink. I bet they're related. I'm Steven Owen. At the item. Okay. We can do that. All right. Then there are no more public comments. Quickly, because we need to go to break. Do you want to speak after the break or before? No, right now. Please. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. I appreciate all of the public comment. I know that when we discussed quiet zones last time, staff had made presentations and things like that. I think we ended up voting unanimously, but there was more conversation before the vote based on information that we received. I'll cut right to the chase and make a motion that we hear quiet zones on June 9th. Commissioner Hetherington. So, several months ago when we were here outlining our commission priorities, I had selected quiet zones as one of my priorities. And for that reason, I had had the opportunity to speak with FRA and our own staff and hear from the residents. And I believe that we owe it. We can successfully balance this critical public safety issue and a quality of life issue. That's why I put it on my priorities, and I would gladly, I was going to make a motion to bring it back as an agenda item and have staff consult with FRA and put this on the agenda for further conversation. We can safely implement and balance public safety and the quality of life issues. So, I will gladly second Commissioner Campbell's motion. Thank you. Any further? Mr. Capps. I still have a number of concerns about safety at our crossings. I am very, very cognizant of some concerns in that area, but I realize that a number of our residents are very interested in the subject. And out of respect for them, I will support a motion to have another agenda item on this subject at a future meeting, not necessarily June 9th, because I would like the motion maker to add an amendment that says that the FRA, Federal Railroad Administration expert, who was with us last year when we took this issue up, that he be at this next meeting so that we can ask him questions. And I would like the date of June 9th to be removed from the motion and to give flexibility to our county administrator in choosing that appropriate date. So, are you making a motion for that? Yes, but we're not agreeing with the substitute. No, it's not a substitute motion. It's to support if, well, I guess it would be a substitute motion, actually. Yes, that we take the June 9th requirement out of it and that we have the FRA expert here so that we can pose questions and we'll leave it to the county administrator as to the appropriate date. Okay, so that's a motion. Yes. I second that motion. Mr. Campy. To my colleague, what if by June 9th the FRA expert is able to come? We don't know. It's a couple of weeks from now. Why don't we, I could alter my original motion to say that an expert from the Florida Rail Administration, Federal Rail Administration, be able to attend that meeting and that we have it on June 9th. I don't disagree that having both sides of the issue, most of the people that spoke today, no one's against the safety portion of it. We probably live the furthest away from the tracks in Palm City and I can hear the train. I can hear the horn. So I can imagine. And I know, you know, Commissioner Capsula is probably the closest to it. And so obviously we're a divided board at this point, but I think that there are options that are available. We heard a couple of them. Even last time we met, I was thinking that a 10 o'clock at night is too late because if you're putting your kids to sleep at 7 o'clock at night or you're doing homework or trying to settle in for the evening, I'm not opposed to an 8 to 8. So maybe it doesn't have to be an all or nothing so that if our residents want it to be 24 hours a day and it fails, maybe the compromise would be potentially 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. and it passes. I understand and we heard our expert talk about the safety, but I mean it's very obvious that it's very loud and it's very often. And I live in Palm City, so you can imagine how for my colleagues that live closer and our residents that live closer, it has to be horribly disruptive. So if the experts are not available to offer a fair presentation of the information both sides of the issue, then I agree that June 9th wouldn't be an ideal date, especially if two or three commissioners will vote it down and then we kick it way into the future, which is what we've done. So I have the highest level of respect for Commissioner Capps. I want us to be unified in our decision making. So if we could make it June 9th and if the experts are not available, then we would postpone it. We could put that out on our website so it's not like you would show up on the 9th and said, wait a second, we're not having the agenda item. We could tell, I agree, if the experts are not available, we shouldn't have it on June 9th, but let's find out if the experts are available on June 9th. The longer we wait, the more you're going to hear the train horn. Commissioner Hetherington. I agree with that assessment and I have had a number of conversations with FRA and perceive them to be very available and have offered their assistance. So I say we would get that June 9th if FRA is available. And again, out of the many conversations we've had, they've made themselves accessible. And I, too, hear it at 4 a.m. and live very close to the train tracks. But let's consult with FRA and I believe that they have made themselves available to come. There's a substitute motion that has a second and that's to have a meeting as soon as the FRA experts can join our meeting. But that could be June 9th. But it may not be June 9th. So let's not hammer that. We have to be certain that the officials are available. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes 3-2 with commissioners Campy and Hetherington dissenting. We are, unfortunately, we have to take a 10-minute break for our closed captioner. Sorry. Healthy Start. We will return to Healthy Start. Thank you. Seconded by Commissioner Campy. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes 4-0 with Commissioner Vargas absent. We now will move on to Department 4, which is adopting a resolution approving an option to lease and lease agreement with Martin County Healthy Start Coalition for the use of a county-owned property on Southeast Tower Drive in Stewart. Ms. Segura. Good morning. Carla Segura, Real Property Manager. I have to hear you. Can me make sure her mic is on, please? I think they do it in the back. No, it's still not on. This option to lease and lease agreement with the Martin County Healthy Start Coalition is in follow-up to the February 25, 2025 Board of County Commissioner meeting, where the Board authorized staff to proceed with the preparation of the option and lease with the Martin County Healthy Start. The proposed option to lease provides Martin County Healthy Start the opportunity to develop a public facility that will offer support and education to pregnant women and infants in Martin County. Healthy Start applied to the county for this option for the use of the property adjacent to the former EOC facility on Southeast Tower Drive close to the Cleveland Clinic South Hospital in Stewart. The option requires timely submittal of all preliminary engineering designs, development schedules, and milestones, cost estimates, and lists of contractors, subcontractors, vendors. Once all of this is all supplied along with a certification by their treasurer and their accountant before August of 2028, the lease that's attached will be in place and commence. The recommendation is that the lease term be for 25 years with four 10-year renewal options or such term as provided by the Board. Annual rent will be approximately $1 in consideration of the public benefit of this facility on county property. We have Samantha Suffolk here along with other members that would like to talk. And if the Board should have any questions, the recommendation is that the Board approve an option to lease, provide direction regarding any modification to the lease term or renewal options, adopt a resolution approving the public purpose lease agreement upon satisfaction of all the option requirements. I ask that Samantha come up and discuss. Good morning, Ms. Suffolk. Good morning. Thank you very much for the opportunity for you guys to even consider this partnership to benefit moms and babies in Martin County. I did want to extend gratitude to your staff. They've been absolutely wonderful to work with between legal and public works. And I also wanted to acknowledge a number of people in the audience who have shown up to support. We lost a few over the public comments, but if you're here to support the Treasure Coast Maternity Center, will you please stand up? Thank you. So, I wanted to explain that, so Martin County Healthy Start exists to identify issues in a system of care for moms and babies. And when Cleveland Clinic closed labor and delivery at North Hospital in April, we developed a huge gap. We don't have a place for babies to be born in Martin County. So, in November of 2024, we developed the Treasure Coast Maternity Center, which is a nonprofit organization that is an extension of Healthy Start, because statute does not allow Healthy Start to provide clinical services. So, now we have the Treasure Coast Maternity Center to provide those clinical services. Those clinical services are being offered on our mom mobile, which is a 38-foot Winnebago that goes into the community. Did I get cut off? Okay. So, it goes into the community to provide prenatal care by midwives. So, I just wanted to say that Martin County is our heritage to be proud of where we are from. Many people have pride in where they are born. Having Martin County on the birth certificate, there's no reason why we shouldn't have a place for babies to be born in our community. I'm going to be a little facetious when I say we don't want to cross bridges to have our babies. So, the issue of labor and delivery closing is an issue across the nation. This is our opportunity to do something a little bit more innovative, where we can interweave our Healthy Start social services as well as our clinical services, so we can have coordinated case management, and this would allow for us to have better outcomes in the long run. And I am one of 32 coalitions across the state. I can tell you that Martin County is different and unique because we do have significant amount of resources that we can funnel into our most vulnerable moms and babies. I am here to answer any questions, if you have any, and I appreciate your consideration of this. Questions from Ms. Suffage. We do have some requests to speak forms, if we can get to those. The first is Dr. Brian Moriarty, followed by Dr. Fernando Petrie. Bringing out the hitters. Good morning, Chair Hurd, Vice Chair Campy, Commissioners. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Dr. Brian Moriarty. I'm the owner of Loving Chiropractic of Stewart, a huge pregnancy and pediatric chiropractic office in Stewart. I also serve on the Martin County School Board, District 5, as well as the Children's Services Council. And I'm here today to support Healthy Start and their initiative. My journey with them starts about a decade ago when I competed in their primary fundraiser, Dancing with the Martin Stars, a version of Dancing with the Stars on a local version. And with two left feet, I somehow won the competition. The only reason he came today is to tell everybody that he won. And I will tell you, I learned a ton about Healthy Start in the process. I learned a lot about myself. And honestly, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. And another experience would be the birth of my son, which was also one of the greatest experiences of my life. But he was born in Martin North Hospital, and now we can't have babies in Martin County. So this is a wonderful initiative. This fills a void. And Martin County Healthy Start is the organization to push this across the finish line so we can get back to having births. And honestly, the time of travel is significant to go to other counties to give births. It is significant for outcomes when you're driving 45 minutes to an hour to try to give a birth when it could be here locally. That will change lives. That will save lives. That will make births better. So I wholeheartedly support this initiative. I hope you do, too. And let's change some lives for Martin County. Thank you. Dr. Petrie is next, followed by Thomas Shinsky. Maybe. He had to go. Good morning. Good morning. Dr. Fernando Petrie. I was a former chief medical officer for Cleveland Clinic Martin Health. I was up here a few times with Rob Lord during our pandemic response. And I am a true believer in what Treasure Coast Maternal Care is doing. They are an excellent corporation or entity that is really looking to bring maternal care here to Martin County to help the mothers and the babies that need to be born within our borders. Myself and part of the Cleveland Clinic staff that were here several years ago actually brought in obstetrical nurses. We did a whole revamping of the labor and delivery unit, but also brought in laborists or OB hospitalists to come in and help deliver babies because there was a group that had come out of Martin County and moved to do all their deliveries in St. Lucie County a couple of years back. We were actually on the verge of actually closing the labor and delivery unit. This was back in 2019. We were able to stay open. We were able to bring maternal fetal medicine services here to Martin County and to St. Lucie County through Cleveland Clinic. And it was sad to see the closing of the Martin North labor and delivery unit. And that's what brought me to work together with Healthy Start and Treasure Coast Maternity Center. To me, it's an important issue. I think that women's health services are something that are not taken seriously by hospitals. It's a service that's seen as a loss leader. It's unfortunately something that doesn't make money for the hospitals like your big surgeries and orthopedics and cardiovascular and neurosurgical. But it's an essential service because through maternal services is where you start your introduction of the family into the health care community. And so typically when a mom goes to a physician, the children go to the same practice. The husbands will typically follow because they have to. Well, women tell them what to do. But it's important that we offer care from birth to death in the community in a way that is holistic and in a way that brings improved outcomes. And we can do that with this new maternity center. And I would hope that we get the approval of this commission because it's going to be important that we continue to have babies within Martin County. Everything that I've heard today about the railroad, about the interlocal agreement with the fire department and rescue. All these things were impacted by what is happening in Cleveland Clinic Martin Health. If a person has to go from where they live on the east side of the railroad tracks to tradition to deliver a baby, that's a 45 minute to maybe 60 minute wait because of the railroad going through. And so we have to make sure that we have maternal services here. Thank you. Thank you. Angela Alicio is next, followed by Cara Good. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity, commissioners. I'm here to share with you a client's story. My client lives in Stewart, just five minutes from Cleveland Clinic North, where the maternity center used to be. It is only 1.6 miles from her home. However, she lives nine miles away from the closest labor and delivery center at a Port St. Lucie hospital where she intended to deliver her baby. Depending on traffic, it can take 25 to 45 minutes. One night she went into labor and her friend drove her to the hospital. They took us one, which, as you all know, has many lights. Unfortunately, she did not reach the hospital in time and delivered her baby in the car just minutes away from that hospital. She arrived at the hospital with her baby still attached. She was very concerned and deeply afraid about her baby's health. This was her fifth child, but it was the first time that anything like this had ever happened to her. Thankfully, both she and the baby are okay. But the experience was extremely frightening for her. If there were still a maternity center in Stewart, she would not have had to deliver the baby in her car, but instead could have done it here. Thank you. Thank you. Kara Good is next, followed by Tyler Raines. Good morning. Good morning, Chair, commissioners, and community partners. My name is Kara Good. I'm the director of program operations for the Children's Services Council of Martin County and a resident of Port Salerno. At the Children's Services Council, our strategic plan includes a healthy children funding priority area because we know healthy beginnings are foundational to lifelong success. Today, I'm here to speak about an urgent issue directly impacting the health and safety of mothers, infants, and families in Martin County. With the closure of labor and delivery at Martin North, Martin County families no longer have access to local labor and delivery services, as you've already heard. Hundreds of local families have now lost access to nearby maternity care. Access to safe childbirth should not depend on a family's zip code, whether they have reliable transportation or their income level. This is not just an inconvenience. Increased travel time during labor creates real health and safety risks for both mothers and babies. Delays in care can mean the difference between a healthy delivery and a medical emergency. That is why the proposed Treasure Coast Maternity Center is such an important and timely solution. This community-based maternity center would restore access to safe and local care for low-risk pregnancies before, during, and after birth. It's important to note that a freestanding birth center is an evidence-based program and associated with positive birth outcomes, including lower preterm birth rates, 40% lower cesarean delivery rates, and lower health care costs overall. Supporting this agenda item is an investment in healthier babies, safer births, stronger families, and the future of Martin County. This project is about restoring critical healthcare infrastructure for our community. It's also an opportunity for Martin County to be a leader in innovative, family-centered maternal health care. The Children's Services Council believes every child deserves a healthy start, and every mother deserves access to safe, quality care close to home. We respectfully ask for your partnership and leadership in advancing this important initiative to ensure Martin County families are no longer left without local maternity care. Thank you for your time and for your continued commitment to the children and families of Martin County. Thank you. Mr. Rains is our last request-to-speak form. If you would like to address us, please fill out a request-to-speak form and get it to the bailiff. Good morning. Morning. I'm Tyler Rains. I am a Martin County native. I was actually born at Martin North. If you ask my mother, it was on most of railroad tracks. I'm actually the board president of the Treasure Coast Maternity Center and a former dancer for Dancing with the Martin Stars. Me too. I did not win. Still a little salty. This is an important issue that strikes close to home. I have two kids, both born in St. Lucie County. 45 minutes may not sound long to us with reliable vehicles, but it could be an all-day trip via bus. The Church Coast Maternity Center and Healthy Start, we're trying to be a proactive community-based solution that will restore access to maternity care. And we already have some strong momentum with a million-dollar state appropriation, thanks to Senator Harrell and Representative Overdorf. I urge the board to approve the lease. It's an investment in safe births, healthier babies, and the future of Martin County. Thank you. Thank you. Burrington. Yes. Thank you. And in 2015, I also had a chance to get acquainted with Healthy Start as being tapped by one of their Martin County Dancing with the Stars member. And like Dr. Bryan, I see he probably left to go to work, but like Dr. Bryan, I participated and I learned a lot about Healthy Start. I learned a lot about myself. We raised a lot of money, and I took home the mirror ball, which is upstairs in my office if you care to visit it. I'm surprised you didn't bring it down. Yes. I should have, actually. You can have someone bring it down. So, but I learned so much, and following that experience with Dancing with the Stars, I was able to serve on the board of Healthy Start for several years and learn just how valuable their services that they provide in this community. And now they've got the Mom Mobile. And I want to thank Senator Harrell and Representative Overdorf, who I saw in this room earlier, for their support of it. And you provide valuable services in this county. This is going to be a valuable piece of that, and I will gladly motion for support of this item. Second. Mr. Campy. Thank you. I have not danced because I thought it was unfair to have two pros dancing. That being said, I think Healthy Start, you know, it's not an unknown entity coming to us asking for a piece of valuable Martin County property. It is an organization that the county, you know, they do such a good job. I think that some folks in our community start to just forget how valuable they are because it just becomes part of everyday life. But many, many communities, a lot of us will know, don't have that option. So when, you know, several years ago there were some issues out in Indian town, and we said, well, don't worry, we have Healthy Start. And then when the hospital started to figure out how they could or could not continue to do the services here at Martin North, it was very concerning. However, don't worry, we still have Healthy Start. When Samantha started to speak about this option of creating our own maternity center in the county, I knew that if anyone would be able to pull it off, it would be Samantha, along with her team and the board. So it's not really, from my perspective at least, that much of a gamble. I think that this is the smallest step that the five of us can take in offering up a piece of property that is actually ideal, if you think about it, because it's very centrally located throughout the entire county. If you're coming from north, south, east or west, it's also next to or relatively close to Martin South. And it wasn't something that we were really utilizing. So to go from basically a non-distinct, defunct piece of county property inventory to this is a remarkable rebirth of the property. And with that in mind, I would also tell people that today is not the last day of the process. It's practically the first day of the process. This small step that we could potentially take is pretty easy. The heavy lifting will come with everyone that will need to look into Healthy Start, figure out a way to assist, figure out a way to participate financially. We're a very, very generous community as organizations and as individuals. I have heard lots of people. My niece was born in Martin County. And I get the concept of having that level of pride in where you were born. I think that Cleveland Clinic, I had the opportunity of being friendly with Rishi Singh, Dr. Singh, and now with Dr. Chaudry. I believe that they will look at this as a partnership benefit in the long term. Realize that it's not one or the other. It's really a collaboration. And similar to the other things we discussed this morning, it's another example of how wonderful it can be to live here. And for us to help people start their lives right here and to help the people that might be in an emergency type of scenario. Between what we heard from our fire chief this morning and this and our friendships and relationships with Cleveland Clinic, we will be in very good care. The only thing we need to do is get this open as quickly as possible. I'm thrilled to support you. I already second it. Are we making comments still? Sure. Commissioner Capps. I think this will be a wonderful addition to our community to fill a very pressing public need. And I'm glad the land is useful for your purposes. And I'll gladly support this. Commissioner Vargas. I am not in support, nor am I comfortable, investing taxpayer monies and assets in this venture. So the MomMobile has been in service for just a short period of time. And already they have delivered six or seven healthy babies. Imagine what they can do with a brick and mortar place. I am happy to welcome them into our community, re-welcome them into our community. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Thank you. I see an awful lot of people with matching t-shirts on in here. So we will take up department. Let's see. No, that's not three. Public hearing two. Public hearing two. Public hearing two, which is the floor days. PH2. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. I'm John Sennett, Principal Planner with Growth Management. A copy of my work history is on file with the Clerk. This is a request by Florida's Mobile Park to amend Division 1, Uniform Redevelopment Standards, and Division 5, Hobe Sound, Article 12, Community Redevelopment Code, Land Development Regulations, Martin County Code, to modify the recreational vehicle park standards specific to the Hobe Sound community redevelopment area. This item was continued from the March 10, 2026 Board of County Commissioners hearing. Article 12 establishes redevelopment zoning districts, permitted uses, and development standards for Martin County's six CRAs. Table 12-1.02 in Section 12.1.01, Division 1, Article 12 identifies which standards of Article 3 are modified, replaced, or do not apply in the redevelopment zoning districts. Section 3.91, Recreational Vehicle Park, Division 3, Article 3, applies as written in the redevelopment zoning districts. This proposed LDR amendment to Article 12 is to modify the RV park standards specific to the Hobe Sound CRA. The remaining CRAs would continue to be subject to the requirements of Section 3.91. On the left-hand side of this table, you can see the current Section 3.9 standards, which currently apply as written in the CRAs. And on the right column, you can see the proposed RV park standards, which would be specific to the Hobe Sound CRA. The current 3.91 standard is that each RV site shall be a minimum of 2,000 square feet. The applicant is proposing that each RV site shall be a minimum of 1,500 square feet. The current 3.91 standard is that at least one wastewater pump-out station shall be provided within the facility. The applicant's proposed standard is that at least one wastewater pump-out station shall be provided within the facility, unless the recreational park has a potable water and sewer hookup at each site, and the park only rents to RVs that are self-contained units. With respect to density, the current standard is that maximum density shall not exceed 10 RV sites per acre. The applicant is proposing a maximum density of 15 RV sites per acre. The current 3.91 standard is that RVs shall be limited to a short-term rental basis for tenancies of less than six consecutive months, or a total of six months in any calendar year. The applicant is proposing similar language, except that pursuant to the terms of an employment agreement, managers or caretakers are exempt from the short-term tenancy requirement. The current standards regarding an accessory dwelling unit is that an accessory dwelling unit for a park manager or caretaker may receive a separate address from the park office. The accessory dwelling unit shall not be at RV or mobile home. The applicant's proposing similar language. An accessory dwelling unit for a park manager or caretaker may receive a separate address from the park office if the accessory dwelling unit is a permanent structure. The proposed amendment removes the prohibition on park trailers. It also contains other provisions which are consistent with the existing 3.91 criteria. The proposed amendment would currently allow a manager or caretaker to occupy an RV site indefinitely. This conflicts with the LDR definition of RV park as the commercial use of land to provide individual spaces for two or more recreational vehicles on a daily fee or short-term rental basis for tenancies of less than six consecutive months. As it's currently written, there's no proposed limit on the number of managers or caretakers which may occupy RV sites. RV parks are subject to state regulations including Florida Administrative Code Chapter 64E-15 and Chapter 513 Florida Statutes. Section 64E-15.002 Florida Administrative Code stipulates that each RV space shall contain a minimum of 1,200 square feet and that density shall not exceed 25 RV units per acre of gross site. Based on provisions in Florida Statutes and Florida Administrative Code, Martin County LDR standards regarding RV parks could be preempted if the proposed LDR text amendment is approved. Such preemption could result in RV parks being developed in accordance with state standards rather than the more restrictive Martin County LDR standards. And I would just like to read from Florida Statute. This is Section 513.1115 Florida Statutes, Paragraph 4. This section does not limit the regulation of the Uniform Fire Safety Standards established under Section 633.206. However, this section supersedes any county, municipality, or special district ordinance or regulation regarding the lot size, lot density, or separation or setback distance of a recreational vehicle park, which goes into effect after the initial permitting and construction of the park. The application was prevented at the January 14, 2026 Hobestown Neighborhood Advisory Committee meeting. The Hobestown NAC recommended denial of the application by a vote of 4-3. The application was presented to the Community Redevelopment Agency on February 23, 2026. The CRA recommended denial of the application by a vote of 5-1. This matter was heard before the LPA on March 5, 2026. The LPA recommended denial of the application by a vote of 3-0. This application was scheduled before the BCC on March 10, 2026, and was continued to today's hearing at the request of the applicant. Staff recommendation is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as Exhibit 1, and move that the board deny the proposed ordinance amending Article 12, Community Redevelopment Code, Land Development Regulations, Martin County Code. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes my presentation. And, Commissioners, if I can, this agenda item has a very unique legal issue. I don't think it's come up before since I've been here, and I don't think I've ever read a statute that has this similar language. So, John read the language that was enacted by the legislature in 2020, and it's a little bit vague and confusing. So, what we did is we looked to the bill analysis, and that's the analysis that travels with the bill through the legislature while it's being enacted. And if, John, if you can, or Donna, can you go to the supplemental memo, page 7 of the bill analysis? And in the bill analysis, it talks about the effect of the proposed change that they are enacting, which is paragraph 4 of Florida Statutes 513-1115. And what that bill analysis says is that the bill provides that the DOH regulations relating to the placement of RVs on lots in RV parks of any county ordinance that is enacted after a park is permitted by the Department of Health, those regulations supersede your ordinance. It doesn't clarify whether it's more burdensome or less burdensome. It basically says if the board enacts an ordinance after the implementation or after the permitting of an RV park, then the Department of Health regulations apply. The Department of Health regulations for lot size, lot density, and setbacks are less restrictive than the proposed text. But what this means that is for an RV park like Florida's, which is already permitted in the Hope Sound CRA, the Department of Health regulations could apply to that property. They can argue that. So even though they're doing an LDR amendment, which is a legislative hearing, this is discretionary on the board, it's a policy decision, and they're asking for 15, they could technically, under this provision in the statute, argue they're entitled to 25. The county attorney's office is never going to recommend approval of an action that could cause a state regulation to supersede the board. So we are recommending denial. If the board is okay with the Department of Health regulations, then you can approve it. But that is why we are recommending denial. It's in the bill analysis. We did not make this up. It's not a preemption that the state is going to come in and preempt you. But it's like a preemption because you're going to pass an ordinance and then the state regulations are going to apply to RV parks that are already permitted in the CRA in Hope Sound. So I just wanted to make that explanation so everybody understood what the preemption issue is. It's really being superseded by the state regulation. And I'm happy to answer any questions. It's very confusing. It's a very unique legal issue. And this is a legislative proceeding. It's an LDR change. It's not site specific. It's not just floor days. This LDR change would affect the entire Hope Sound CRA. And it's a blanket LDR change for the CRA. Thank you. Questions for staff. Would the applicant like to make the presentation? Good morning, I guess. Still morning, barely. I'm Krista Story and, excuse me? Hold the mic down a little bit. It's harder to hear. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'm Krista Story and I'm with the law firm of, excuse me, Polymath Law. We've changed our name recently. And before I go to my part of the presentation, I would like to introduce you to my clients, or reintroduce you to my clients, Susie and Mike Graham, who would like to make some opening comments. And then I'll take it up from there. So the Grahams, please. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. And I also want to say thank you for your service. And if you don't mind, I would like to thank all of our Florida's guests, family, friends, supporters, who are also giving their time to be here because they know us. And let me go back to my scripted script. We're Mike and Susie Graham, owners of Florida's RV Park. You all know us because we've met with you at least twice in the past year about this exact issue. We have owned Florida's for more than 15 years and have worked to maintain a business that brings tourists, supports the local economy, and contributes to the tax revenue in Martin County. As John reviewed, we are asking you to approve a narrowly tailored text amendment for the Hope Sound Community Redevelopment Area so we can responsibly redevelop Florida's into a safer RV park with new environmentally friendly infrastructure. Our request is a compromise, a maximum of 15 units per acre with a minimum of 1,500 square foot sites. It's a middle ground between the current residential density of 10 units per acre and hotel density of 20 units per acre, a density that is already approved in every other community redevelopment area with similar corridor sub-district zoning. The proposal is limited to about 50 individual properties or the roughly 61 acres with that zoning sub-district designation within the Hope Sound CRA. With our RV park ownership experience, we believe that there are only two or three other parcels that are large enough to economically support an RV park within that area. John has already outlined the other things included in our text amendment request. For better understanding, here is a brief timeline. In 2010, prior to buying the park, we were aware that the property had a land use and zoning conflict. We were told by growth management it could remain a non-conforming use as long as no substantial improvements were made. In 2020, we purchased the vacant land next to Florida's and as part of our due diligence, we called the county and we were told the entire area was in the process of getting a CRA sub-district change. In mid-2023, at a pre-application meeting with a conceptual plan that included a redesigned site plan for our existing RV park and expansion into our new vacant land, we learned the 2020 CRA zoning sub-district change to general commercial did not allow RV parks as an approved use for our existing park. We would need a zoning sub-district change to redevelop our existing RV park. From our mid-2023 pre-application meeting until the late fall of 2024, we had been told by the staff of growth management the zoning problem and the text amendment could be handled at the same time. Then at the last minute, we were told to separate the two since we needed to fix the zoning sub-district first. We spent nearly $100,000 and almost two years getting the zoning sub-district correction that you commissioners approved in January of 2025. Due to your unanimous successful vote, our property is zoned for use as an RV park. We followed your successful vote with a lot of research. Meeting with the empathetic Martin staff on multiple occasions. Meeting with each of you asking for your support in our improvement efforts. Facing the financial realities of a full site plan and eventual redevelopment, we pursued this text amendment with the same goals that you've heard about to make a redevelopment economically feasible while improving safety site layout and improving the environmental outcomes with new infrastructure. It was growth management that clearly told us that any change would require a text amendment and that vote would ultimately be up to you, the board of county commissioners. Since our pre-application meeting in 2023, we followed county guidance every step of the way and continued to get a lot of help from growth management staff. Imagine our surprise in August of last year when the initial staff report recommended denial of our request. Once Martin staff realized we planned to persevere even with their denial recommendations that we wanted to take this decision to you commissioners. The staff switched from empathetic and helpful to practically adversarial. For one example, one staff report was not enough. They issued three more with each one recommending denial in each successive report adding new concerns. In all reports, the most notable concern is the perceived theoretical state preemption. Martin staff directly influenced the meeting outcomes of the neighborhood advisory committee, the community redevelopment agency board meeting, and the land planning agency meeting. We believe staff's repeated editorializing and introduction of unintended consequences and what if scenarios have shaped the outcomes of these meetings more than the concrete facts. We are asking you to recognize that all four staff reports and three public meeting denials are because of one interpretation that preemption might occur. This is not a legalism that contains concrete unquestionable preemption language that overrides Martin County land use and zoning authority. It is state legislation that clearly pertains to health and sanitary standards implemented by the Department of Health as it only applies to RV parks. We take your staff's concern for preemption preemption very seriously. We have done our research. We've reached out to everyone we could think of for clarification. We consulted state representatives, such as Representative Toby Overdorf, who helped draft the cited statute, a Senate committee attorney, Florida's RV park industry organization, and the State Department person who oversees all RV parks statewide. All have confirmed the law was intended to protect existing parks after storms, not to create entitlement for new widespread RV development at the highest density. We also consulted commercial realtors in Martin County about demand for RV park development properties. They confirmed they have not had nor have nor expect to have any demand. Our attorney will expand more on these topics. Please consider the Community Redevelopment Agency supposedly exists to encourage redevelopment. In our case, they have been the anti-redevelopment force. Not once since 2010 has anyone from the CRA approached us to discuss our small business needs or to proactively meet with us. Even though Florida's helps bring tourist revenue into the Hope Sound CRA's businesses and that we make up more than 10% of the area by land with quarter sub-district designation within the Hope Sound community redevelopment area. We ask you to consider the clear local benefits, improved safety, environmental upgrades, continued tourist revenue, and a business that supports the community. If you approve our amendment, Florida's can be rebuilt to the CRA's current requirements, including 268 trees, dry retention area, open spaces, and all the other current CRA requirements. Florida's would be a new redeveloped RV park. If you follow staff recommendations and deny our request, we will continue to be an aging RV park that was originally designed as a mobile home park operating like we have for the past 15 years with an as-is maintenance only allowed improvements. We respectfully ask you to give your full attention to Krista Story, our legal counsel. If she casts doubts on the overreaching and exaggerated concern of Martin's legal staff, then vote to support our text amendment and our improvement efforts. With your support, Florida's RV park can be a new improved RV park for Hope Sound and for all of Martin County to be proud of. Thank you for today and all the previous meetings in the past. Thank you. Thank you. So that's a little bit of a hard act to follow, but I may start. So, again, just for the record, I'm Krista Story. I'm with the law firm of Polymath Law, located in Hollywood, Florida. Just before I continue, just to confirm for the record. So we have, I want to make sure, and I believe this is correct, that the county's agenda item and all of its attachments, as well as the Florida's PowerPoint presentation and the handouts that we have provided will be included in the record. And I just want to confirm that. So I know many of you, I, for 25 years, I was a senior assistant county attorney in Martin County. My growth management was my major client. I also have now, you know, counting, I'm counting 42 years as a local government attorney. That's a long time. I've dealt with the issue of preemption for a very long time, very familiar with it. And looked at a lot of those issues and the language in statutes and other things. And it is, it's potentially problematic, confusing, all of that. So, since 2025, the Grams have engaged in this effort to revise the current code to allow them to economically redevelopment the Florida's RV park. We fully understand that this is a text amendment, and it doesn't just apply to Florida's. We understand that. We understand that. But it is very, we think it's very helpful, and for you to understand, and everyone else, that your codes and ordinances, changes or lack thereof, affect real individuals, real businesses, and people's property rights. So, just fleshing out a little bit, this particular applicant, they are my client. Yes, we understand it could apply to others. The broad context, though, that the staff has indicated, it isn't exactly, it isn't factually accurate in terms of potential ramifications, and I'll talk about that in a minute. So, you've heard a little bit about the specifics of the proposal, but I think it's important to address the elephant in the room. And that is this preemption issue. So, I've been attending with the Grams all along the various county meetings. I was at the local planning agency where your county attorney was at the local planning agency meeting, although I'm not certain that she regularly tends those meetings, but certainly that's her right to do so. What we heard in a summary was that any revision to the land development regulations could, might result in Martin County's preemption of the Martin County land use and zoning regulations, resulting in the entitlement for an RV park to request 25 units per acre in sites of 1,200 square feet. And we can flesh that out. So, we had, as you've heard, a staff recommendation of denial. So, speaking from 25 years of experience in the Martin County Attorney's Office, it is very unusual for an applicant to proceed forward with a staff recommendation of denial. But, it's an applicant's absolute right to do so because staff is not the decision maker. The Board of County Commissioners is the decision maker. Staff is one of the participants in the process. The others are the applicant, your advisory boards and committee, and members of the public. Those are all the pieces and parts that go forward for a legislative policy decision. Again, staff, and particularly, I'm a lawyer. When I, yeah, I always like my clients to follow my advice, but lawyers give advice. They don't make decisions. So, those are all the things that you've got to factor in. So, I think it's important to look at this issue in a very systematic way. So, let's first off, let's just get the basics out there. What is preemption? Preemption refers to a higher level of government invalidating or overriding the laws of a lower level of government. Federal law overriding or superseding state or local laws. The state legislature passing laws that prevent cities or counties from creating their own regulations. Since the action of a higher governmental entity over a lower governmental entity is necessary for preemption to occur, the county cannot preempt itself. I've got those words in quotes because although the county attorney did not use those words today, she used those words at the LPA meeting to advise that by enacting the ordinance, the county would be preempting itself. So, let's go on and talk about the language. So, Mr. Sinnott read the language from 513-1115-4 that you see on the screen. What's really important is if you're going to rely on a statute, you read the statutory language all the way to the end. And one of the very critical components about this is even if preemption might apply, it is the entities that are involved are not any RV park coming in, but it is those that have already been approved. Ms. Elder talked about the legislative history related to this particular section and changes that occurred in 2022 in House Bill 343. I've read the legislative history. It's very nice. The highlighted provisions, I will tell you, I actually think they serve us better than the county's position because the background behind this legislation, quite a bit of it, was to protect existing RV parks from the overreach of government and to make sure that their initial permitting, all those types of things, could remain in place because the legislature saw them as an important component of tourism, economic development, as well as affordable housing. Now, let's look at some other preemption language, clear preemption language. On the screen, you've got 513.051. This is language from the same bill, 343, that the legislature passed in 2020. The language here is, and it refers to the department we're talking about, is the Department of Health, is the exclusive regulatory and permitting authority for sanitary and permitting standards for all mobile home parks, lodging parks, etc. That language is very clear. But the highlighted language is for a reason. The Department of Health deals with the sanitary and permitting standards related to RV parks. There's a distinction to be made. The Department of Health and those standards are not land use or zoning regulations. That is very different and distinct. You see on the screen the relevant provisions of Rule 64E-15.023. These are the things we've talked about. The parade of horribles that someone could now come in and be entitled to. The minimum square footage and the number of units per acre. This is the range in which the Department of Health operates. The idea that there's some entitlement to that, I don't agree with that position. The other thing that is working through this in Section 513.115 is that you look at the full context of the language. There is definitely a place for the Department of Health and the local government. One of the dilemmas of legislation is it's not always written by the people that understand how to implement it and to make it clear. And so that's part of why we're talking about this. But I want you to contrast clear preemption language with what you see in 513.1154. So let's take a look at where we went from here once we get there. The grams that it indicated to you that we've looked, we've talked to everyone we could think of. And we came to the conclusion that the language in Section 513.115 was confusing, and so we went forward. Initially, my clients received information from the Martin County Health Department that Martin County was already preempted based on the language you see in Section 115.1154. We subsequently learned that wasn't the prevailing view, so we reached out, as the grams indicated, to various entities. We learned, this is what we learned after talking to the association that is boots on the ground with these rules. We spoke to Representative Overdorf and his office. We reached out to Senator Harrell's office. We also talked to the Florida Department of Health, the administrator, the environmental administrator, Andrea Abels, who said it was fine that I mentioned her name because she's provided with us invaluable information. This is what we learned, that the revisions to Section 513.115 were made in 2020. They were intended to ensure that existing RV parks were not disadvantaged by subsequently adopted county ordinances. We learned that the Department of Health permitting standards are separate and distinct from land use and zoning regulations, and there is no entitlement to 1,200 square feet and 25 units. The Department of Health's review of an operating permit for an RV park is independent of a county's land use and zoning requirements. We also learned through this that the county attorney's preemption assertion, and I don't say this lightly, and the parade of horribles that would follow is not justified. I'd like to go to this next slide. This is a summary of what I've said, and so we can go back and talk about it if we need to. But what I'd like to do now is fast forward to a few of the slides because I think it's important for you to see what kinds of information that we received and what we reached out. So this first item, and you also have handouts and copies of much of this information because I know it's hard to see on the screen. So this is an email. As we indicated, we reached out to Representative Overdorf. I know he was in the room earlier, and we've been chatting about this for quite a while, and I think he might actually speak to this issue. So this email supported what we've been saying, what the intent of the statute was, and again, it does not support this broad preemption that was asserted by the county attorney's office. We also received and reached out actually through Senator Harrell's help. She reached out to the senior attorney of the Florida Senate, the Community Affairs Committee, to get a perspective on this issue of preemption. So you will indicate that he stated to her legislative aide. After looking into this, I can't quite find the state preemption that the county is concerned would lead to an entitlement for the maximum 25 vehicles acres. Most of the preemptions we've dealt with recently have been related to housing, where RV parks are treated throughout the statute more like hotels. So I think that's the relevant part. I followed up with him, and this will just stand, and I think it's an example of the opinion of the county attorney's office is not shared by every other lawyer. The other thing that I would like to bring to your attention, and you have a copy of this in your handout, is the letter we received from the president and CEO of the Florida RV Park and Campground Association. These are the boots-on-the-ground people that are involved in the permitting of RV parks. This association has legal counsel. We've spoken to them before, and certainly this letter was not written without input from the association's legal counsel. So you see the perspective and how that section of the statutes is applied, not the broad preemption that the county attorney's office is talking about. The main thing, there is a difference between land use and zoning and the regulatory standards that the Department of Health utilizes when they're evaluating an operating permit. The other thing that I want to, and this is one of the slides, I hopefully you've, the Grahams have been very thankful and appreciative of your support so far. I do want to go back a few slides. Let me make sure I'm going the right direction. Just up. Sorry, I apologize. Okay. The other things that we've included here, I want you to be aware of, that the Florida's RV Park currently has an operating permit issued by the Department of Health for 18 units, 18 sites, 88 sites, I'm sorry. Thank you, Susie. Okay. This is an existing approval by the Department of Health. The other thing, and as an existing park. I think it's very important to realize this is an existing park. And the other thing that through Ms. Graham's diligent efforts, she also was able to find this 1973 plan. Yes, it relates to the angle in mobile home park. And again, it's for the purpose of illustration that back in 1973, there was a recognition of travel trailer sites, and those were smaller lots. Now, I know that this is, you know, and again, it's just for illustrative purposes that there have been permissions and authority. And this came out of the Department of Health who issues the operating permits. And again, that's who permits RV parks. The county does not, Martin County does not permit RV parks. There's a, there's part of the process is land use and zoning, but the Department of Health is who permits RV parks. So, let me move on to the other kind of stumbling block and issue with this application. The proposal before you, in order to make redevelopment of this existing park or any other place feasible, is both the lot size and the density. And I, I worked here long enough to understand and fully appreciate that any conversation about an increase in density is a red flag in Martin County. I get it. But the reality of this is the following. This, recreational vehicle parks are considered a commercial use. Yet, currently, the allowable density in related to RV parks is more akin to that of residential development, instead of the 20 units per acre that are allowed for hotels and motels. The proposal is 15. It's in between. It's in between. It's in between. Recreational vehicles are currently limited to tenancies of generally not of less than six consecutive months. They have to regularly vacate the property. There's only a limited potential for manager caretakers to reside there. I ask you to consider, is that density really a fair focus on the reality of the situation when this is a commercial use? It's a commercial use. Yet, it's been given a density that's more akin to residential. So, I pointed out to you at one time that we received this email from senior attorney Jack Hackett. And again, he's advising Senator Harrell's office that under state law, RV parks are treated more like hotels and motels. And I think that's just something for you to consider when you're contemplating the issue of what's the appropriate density and what would be the next, where we would go from here. Let me see. I don't know. I'm trying to be conscious of my time. And I don't know. You know, lawyers will talk as long as you just like certain commissioners. They have a mic in front of you. I don't know if that's a good idea to say that right before I have to decide on what you're up to. That's okay. It isn't just, sir. Luckily, we're friends. Exactly. Or maybe we were. Maybe you're talking about commissioner. I don't know. I don't know. Exactly. That said, with all great love and respect. So anyway, so the bottom line in this is that we've proposed something that we think is reasonable. It will address the issues that are an obstacle to recreational vehicle parts, recreational vehicle parks being able to develop. And we don't agree. So we don't agree that the legal conclusions by the county attorney's office are appropriate. I don't agree with them. I have a respect for that office. I used to work in there. It's been a little difficult for me to stand up here and take the positions I have. But I have my clients. I know preemption. I'm the one in the room. I'm the lawyer in the room that has 42 years of experience in local government. And I've looked at my more than fair share of preemptions. And that is not something that I find palatable. But I've learned to distinguish between clear language and fuzzy language. And this perspective about the county would be preempted. RV parks would automatically be entitled to the worst-case scenario. It's not an appropriate interpretation. And the other thing is it's maybe, could, possibly. This is real harm to my clients. Real harm to my clients and anyone else that wants to try to redevelop or construct an RV park. So I'd ask you to keep that in mind. I'd ask you to adopt the proposed ordinance. There is one outstanding issue that we have that has been raised in terms of the number of caretakers or managers on site. That's something we're certainly willing to talk about. But quite frankly, our conversations with the staff have not been productive. And so we really haven't engaged in that conversation. But we certainly, my clients are reasonable people. They participated in the process. And they didn't come in here asking for a compromise. Only to maybe come back later and say we're now entitled to 12,000 square foot lots and 25 units per acre of a density. They proceeded in good faith. And we just asked to be treated in that same way. And I thank you for your consideration if you have any questions. They're members of the public, I know. And I don't know. Representative Oberdorf is in the room, too. And so anyway, I'll go from there. And the other thing, if the staff is going to have an opportunity to present again, I would like the opportunity to do the same. I'm saying this because at the LPA meeting, we had a staff presentation. I made my comments. And staff came back again. And so I would just like that opportunity if that's where we're going to go from here. Thank you. I have two request to speak forms. The first is Scott Price. The second is Steven Owenbrink. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Scott Price. I am the... Lift that up a little bit and you're taller than the last person. Yes, that's true. I won't take as much time. We won't let you. Hi. Hi. I'm the manager of Florida's RV Park. I've been working here for about a year. And my partner, Barbara, over here, she does all the booking. This, you know, Mike and Susie are committed to value of our park. We have a great park. We have a great location. They want to make it a jewel of Hope Sound, something you're proud of. I know everyone that we bring in. We point them downtown. We point them down to the office, you know, to the restaurants and to the stores where they love to come and go. At the end of the day, this density, it's about value. Our customers come back year after year. We are booked solid next winter already. We are 75% full going into this summer. We have a stack this thick of people who have to turn away. So the business is there. So this density is just to help absorb the cost of improving the park, to get it up to standard, to get up to a better code, to make it safer, as Susie pointed out, and to keep value for our customers who come back year and year. And our customers are just, they're from all over our country. We have customers from Denmark. We have customers from Canada. We have people from Sweden. I mean, we have people from, we're an international location in Hope Sound now, just to let everyone know. And these people love to come to Hope Sound. We are a good neighbor. We will remain a good neighbor, okay? And we're just, you know, this ask to me is to keep the value to our customers, to keep people coming to our location and to our town. It's just a win-win for everybody. Everyone loves tax revenue, right? It's there. It's there. It's there, effort-taking. And I'm not seeing people going in, hey, I want to run and get into the RV world. You know, I just came back from a meeting in Orlando. Man, it's like the cost of $60,000, I mean, per site now. It's just, I'm not seeing everyone running to the door wanting to expand and grow and build an RV park these days. So, if you have not been to our park, come to our park. Our park, as is, is a fun place. It's a beautiful place. It's a quiet place. It needs to be improved. And we have to keep the value for our customers to keep people coming. That's all I have. Have a great afternoon. Thank you all for listening. And let's make this a win-win for everybody. Thank you. Steven Owenbrink is next, and Mr. Owenbrink is the last request-to-speak form I have. If you'd like to address this, please fill out a request-to-speak form. Get it to the bailiff, who will get it to me. Thank you. Good afternoon. I think it is now. It is. My name is Steve Owenbrink. I reside at 35 River Drive in Tequesta. I'm about a nine-iron short of the Martin County line. I am a native native, born and raised here, 76 years in northern Palm Beach County. I'm a retired professional engineer. I, too, have 42 years of experience with a local firm which has a Martin County office, Kimley Horn & Associates. I was a principal. I was employee number 22. There's over 10,000 as of today. Wow. Yes. Anyway, so we have been in Martin County. We know all the development around here. Right now our office, their office, I'm retired. I can't get that out of my head, is in Indian Town. It's been many years since I've been in front of your commission, but I am responsible for several developments here in Martin County myself. I am mostly an aviation planner and engineer. My claim to fame is I was the project manager for the New Palm Beach International Airport back from 1981 to 1989. I have, prior to that, run an industrial land development project on Bridge Road, Suzanne Circle. There's an industrial park there that the town of Jupiter Island has their maintenance facility on. I also did four different helistops here in Martin County, four different clients, Mr. Johnson, the medalist, several of them up at the Floridian. So I have some experience here. But I'm here today as a knowledgeable engineer to support the redevelopment of Floridase. I saw it from a distance and got interested. I'm not a paid employee of the Grams. I'm not a consultant. I'm retired. But I'd like to share some things. I hope you've visited there. I heard Scott invite you to do that. When I went to look at it the other day, I see, you know, a 50-plus-year-old park that's pretty old and tired, kind of getting like me, needs some upgrades, needs a facelift, and they're ready and willing to do it. If you visited it during the weekdays, some of the things that you didn't see at that park were they're not at full occupancy today. They're at 70% or so. There's a bunch of vacant spots. It's summer. You didn't see 45-foot-long Rockstar vans. They are mostly people with travel trailers. They got the stickers on there that I've been to everywhere, Wyoming and back. You didn't see a lot of people out there during the day because some of them are working. They are getting supplemental income. So the demographics, to me, going out there, seem to be a little bit older, a little bit more retired with some construction-type people. Your resume was too long. I'm sorry. There is nothing that can't be resolved. I'm not an engineer. I'm not an attorney. You're all going to have to solve the legal side. I'm sorry. Toby Oberdorf. Thank you, Commissioners. All I wanted to do today was just inform you. I'm not here on behalf of Haley Ward. I'm here on behalf of myself as well as a representative. I just wanted to make sure that you knew. Susie and Mike Graham have contacted our office multiple times, as has Krista. They came and met with us. Most recently, they requested that our office put into the Attorney General a request for an official opinion. So hopefully, then, the Attorney General could make an opinion regarding the issues that you've heard here today and how the law that we crafted a couple of years ago may, in fact, or not, in fact, affect this issue. So we are obviously waiting on that. The request was put in recently. I would expect that it would take at least 30 days to get through that process, if not 45. But I just wanted to make sure you were aware that that has been requested and if that has any bearing in your decision at all today. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Would you like our attorney to? Sure. Yeah. I'd like to get an opinion from our attorney. Ms. Elder. Yes. I just wanted to clarify for the board, and John or Donna, can you bring up the issue section of the agenda item, please? So our position is being a bit misrepresented. We're not saying there's a big blanket preemption. We're saying exactly what the legislative history says. So the issue section of the agenda item. And if you look at the last paragraph, what the issue that the county attorney's office has concern over is, and we wrote it. If the board adopts the requested ordinance amending the RV park regulations based on the above underlying provision, which it's up there, an RV park owner that is permitted by the Department of Health, like Florida's, they're permitted by the Department of Health, can claim that the state regulations for lot size, lot density, and setback apply. So we're not saying there's a blanket preemption. We're not saying the state's coming out. It's a very unique thing. And I think some of those letters might even say that. I understand it was enacted to help RV parks. So if there's a hurricane, they can rebuild. But the wording is very broad. It doesn't say that in the statute. It doesn't say that in the effect of the proposed language. We know in Senate Bill 180, that was a hurricane relief bill. And the commission's hands are handcuffed for years. So I understand the intent behind this. But the language is the language. And it is written verbatim of what we are saying in the bill's analysis. We're not saying there's a big preemption. That's a misrepresentation of what we're saying. We're saying a permitted park can say that the state regulations apply. And that's what I said at the LPA. And yes, I always go to the LPA. I just transitioned the LPA. So I go to those. And I always have. So that wasn't a unique appearance. So that's all I wanted to, I just wanted to clarify our position with the board. So you understand it's very limited to RV parks that are already permitted. And it would just be in the Hope Sound CRA. Thank you. Commissioner Campi. Thank you very much. Long time coming to get to this point. A couple of things. One, I did go down to the park. I probably was there for three hours. Met with the Grams. And then walked around on my own. Got an opportunity to speak to the folks that live there. Walking dogs. Putting, you know, riding bikes. And had an opportunity to tour the entire place. However, also speak to the people that live there. I also, you know, I did not go to the Hope Sound NAC meeting. But I did watch the CRA meeting. And I did watch the LPA meeting. And a lot of what happened was based on a four to three vote at the NAC, which then meant some of the CRA members talked about they did not want to supersede the decision made at the NAC, which was a four to three. One vote going the other way. So it wasn't a landslide. I watched the CRA. I watched the LPA five to one and three to zero. The LPA, there should be five members. There was only three. It passed three to zero. It was a similar at both situations was a similar presentation that what you heard today from our staff and from the applicants representatives. I am normally one that very much leans in on relying on our staff for many years. I relied on Krista story's recommendations. However, certain things to me are a little more defined and you'd need engineering or legal professional staff to give you that correction. Some things are more opinion based. And I love our staff and I'm one of the ones that talks about how fantastic they are and they collaborate and things like that. And to me, this is two separate issues. The lawyers are on the lawyer side of it and the preemption of what could potentially happen and what does legislation mean. And I appreciate that Representative Overdorf is here. Normally, when we talk about our legal upper state level representatives, they're not here in the room to give us their actual opinion. So that was a plus. This, though, is going from 88 units to 123 units. The even if what Miss Elder and this is my personal opinion and she's a friend and I helped her sit in that seat. Even if what she says all came true, someone else would have to decide on very limited property only within the CRA of Hobe Sound that they want to duplicate one of these RV parks in one of the premier zip codes in Florida, if not the country. Property cost a fortune. These folks have been at this, not just the Graham's who have owned it for 15 years. So they didn't just show up. I've heard that it could potentially be a situation where they might want to, you know, increase their entitlement to flip it. But they've turned down opportunities for multi millions of dollars. And when they said that to me, like everyone else here, they said, we've had opportunities. They said, show me the proof. And they pulled out letters, offer letters and showed me that people had genuinely tried to purchase this. If this was some kind of a quick money, you know, quick flip money thing, 15 years is a long, quick flip. All that being said, I think of our housing and we have people here still housing is like a ladder. Some people own three or four homes in multiple states and countries. And God bless them. They have homes everywhere. Most people have one. Lots of people have zero. When I spoke to the residents there that were staying and their visitors, they can only stay for six months at a time. But what most of them told me is they come back every single year. They're down here in the winter, like lots of snowbirds that go to homes or condos or townhouses. They come to this park for six months. They already have the friendships. They know their businesses. They go to restaurants and they get their hair cut. And then they go somewhere else in the summer, like every other snowbird, except this on the residential ladder is towards the bottom of the ladder. For a lot of people, this is their permanent housing. And without it, they don't have it. So we don't bring up RV parks that often. I know, you know, there was a time and they seem to be in Hope Sound. There was a time that many years ago there was going to be a redevelopment of an RV park that had lichen on it, reindeer grass. And we stopped it because we're basically trying to do like a no net loss of RV parks in the county because we all understand it's a vital piece rung of the residential ladder. So here's my take, and I know one of my colleagues likes me to be very brief, so I'll try to be as brief as possible. But all of these people sat here all morning, and I'll give you credit. I said, if you want to have this, bring people. You brought people. Good for you. And because of that, and they've waited patiently to hear this, and it's hundreds of thousands of dollars I'm sure at this point, I don't understand why we wouldn't do it. I don't understand why we wouldn't give them another 25 or whatever the amount of units is because potentially it might turn into a problem. And I'm agreeing with Ms. Elder and our team. To me, the reason that there's a multi-level process of approvals, and more for this than most, the NAC, the CRA, the LPA, the commission, the commission, the staff. But at the end of the day, like everyone will agree, it ends with us. And then there's the reason there's five of us because you need to get at least three. I personally think that this is appropriate, and I've already told my staff so as to not surprise them, legal and growth management, that I agreed that this was a good idea. And for the potential that it could turn into a problem is not enough of a reason for me under these circumstances to say no to it. So I would make a motion to adopt the proposed ordinance because that's why I was elected to sit up here, to hear people make their claim and make my personal determination. And that's mine. Thank you. Commissioner Capps. I'd like to begin by thanking the Graham's for being great community partners and good neighbors. They have really changed it, the Florida age for the better. I remember back in the old days when it was Angle Inn Mobile Home Park, and it wasn't nearly as nice as it is today. I was also very impressed with the attorney's story's arguments, very cogent and very well made, particularly her argument on the substantive issue of density and that it's more like a commercial type use rather than a residential type use. I thought that was a very interesting argument and a good one that would influence my thinking somewhat on the density issue. But we have a bigger, more looming issue, and it has to do with the state preemption. We live in an age of preemptions right now, and, you know, we've had Senate Bill 102 that allows high density apartment buildings to go on commercial properties with an administrative approval without public input and without commission approval. We have Senate Bill 180 that prevents us from strengthening our comprehensive plans until October of 2027. We have a new one that is just passed called the Enclave Bill that could have significant impact in Martin County. And here we are again with another preemption with potentially unintended consequences. The bill analysis, I think, has to be heavily relied upon, and it states that the intent of the bill was to limit local government control over RV parks. And, you know, I think we have to be concerned with not just the current owners and the current ownership arrangement, but one of these days they'll end up selling the place, and it will go to someone else. And that person might say, well, hey, you know, I know I was approved for 15 units per acre, but I think I'm pretty persuaded by this preemption and this health department standard of 25. I think I'll go in and litigate or go in and apply for yet another change to the rules. So, you know, in my own business life, I really avoid litigation like the plague. And, you know, I just feel like the bill should have been written differently. If they intended it to be a hurricane recovery bill, they should have made that more plain in the way that the bill was written. And I think that the real solution here is a legislative fix rather than us going down the road of having another unintended consequence and another preemption applying in this situation. So I am more persuaded by our staff's recommendation on the matter. And I'm regretfully, I think I actually I'm going to have to make a substitute motion for denial of the application. Neither motion has a second. I'm all ears. I'll pass the gavel and second Commissioner Capp's motion. Okay. We have a substitute motion for staffs. Do you want to do this first or no? We have a substitute motion. Oh, now we have a light by Commissioner. I'm going to weigh in that I I've heard the arguments on both sides. And I feel, too, that maybe the attorney general's interpretation would suffice. I personally would like to see a private property owner have the right to improve their property. So I lean toward going that direction, allowing them the opportunity to improve their property. I would like to hear what the attorney general has to say. I also am very conscious that if we misinterpret that, that there will be more preemption down the line to prevent local governments from not protecting private property rights. Commissioner Vargas. So I'm trying to clarify. I heard everything you said in this story and the grams. I've spoken with them to this elder. Also, I support you in your position. As you know, I've heard stories about you in the story. Play on words. But good, good, good. Okay. This would only pertain to the CRA in Hope Sound. Is that correct? Not county wide because we've got a Johnson Beach mobile home park up here, which I had a wrangling with. Correct. Unfortunately. It's only in the Hope Sound CRA, this provision. How many other parks are there? I'm not sure. I don't know how many are permitted in Hope Sound. Two, I believe. Okay. Maybe on the other side of the street. I don't know. Twin Rivers. Could apply to two. Potentially. Nope. Their mobile home. Nope. Okay. My clients know that. Just one. This one. This one, I think. Okay. Thank you. Number 15. However, the possibility is 25. Is this correct, Ms. Elder? Based on the language in the bill analysis, because they're permitted, and only because they're permitted, there is a possibility of them coming back to say they want 25. So, yes. So, if we make this move today to change the policy, then you can come back a year from now and say, gee, we want 25. Do you want me to respond or not? Yes. I would love for you to respond. I'm looking for a restriction here. Okay. So, again, so, the Grams, I would just say with you, the Grams were very well aware when we embarked on this, that the state standards for issuing operating permits has that range from 1,200 square feet, lot size, to a density of 25 units per acre. I never proffered that as an option. In spite of all the obstacles, difficulties, and money they have already spent, they are still in this process. We are not asserting that right to the worst-case scenario, depending on your perspective. They have proposed a compromise. And I think that I do take some exception. There was a characterization, and maybe it was made today, and I try to be diplomatic and professional, that once this happens, they're going to turn right back around and come in and demand that you, that their lot size be 1,200 square feet and 25 units per acre. They would not be still, they would not still be in this process if that was the perspective. So, that I think, no. They're not looking for that. I think they're looking for this compromise. However, if they did sell the property, somebody else who was looking for an opportunity could say, well, I'm just going to have the 25 units. Well, it's not an entitlement. You have to go through the process. You have to get an operating permit, and you also would have to come in for site planning. The process where? First of all, through the Department of Health. Yes. You also have the land use and zoning. This is the problem with these statutes and people that don't practice and implement these. You have land use and zoning, and you have operating procedures and standards of the Department of Health. What I've learned, surprisingly, is the Department of Health can issue an operating permit anywhere in that range without any consideration for the county's perspective. But then you still have to come into the county for building permits and anything else you do. So it's this very squiggly, squishy, it needs to be cleaned up. But right now, my clients have been in this for almost three years. So I hope that helps. Ms. Elder, is there any way to put a restriction on this, 15 units per acre? I don't- Or Ms. Storey. You also. Maybe together you can get together to figure this out. It's a legislative public hearing. So you can put 15, and we can assert 15. I don't want to assert 15, but based on the language in the statute and the bill analysis, it's possible for an already-permitted park to come and say they want 25. The language is vague. It's what I've said all along. So you can't really restrict it. There's no provision to put in there, really, because it's legislative. It's not site-specific. It's not a PUD agreement. It's a change of our code. I understand some laws are not written well, not written clearly at all. And this is a wrangle we have, too. To the detriment of somebody that's an actual property owner, yes, for 15 years. Yeah. The applicant has her hand-raised. I don't know if, no? I think we're getting to the point where we've had the information. The only point that I would make as a layperson is having spent time there, we're not talking about, you know, 50, 100 acres. It's pretty close. The RVs are close together to start with. Most people come either towing it with a truck or have a car that they have. Even if you could get to 25, this specific site doesn't allow it to happen. Just logistically, you'd have to put them where they would touch. It looks pretty compact now. There is spaces. But if they needed the extra to be able to finish the park, the park was pretty. I thought it was very nice. You know, you have an idea in your mind what it would look like. That's why I wanted to go down and see how are they treating it. There's not enough room there to put a ton of extra ones. You have to put them on top of each other. That will be the logistical restriction of what can happen at this site. I have also gone past your park. If this passes, I'm going back down and I'm going to count. Okay. So with that in mind, anything else from our commissioner colleagues? We have a motion by Commissioner Capps to accept staff's recommendation of denial, seconded by Commissioner Hurd. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Opposed. Opposed. That motion fails three to two with Commissioners Vargas. I know. I'm just thinking that it did fail for this reason. Commissioner Vargas, Commissioner Hetherington, and Commissioner Campy. So we're back to a, that was a second, that was, I can return the gavel to our chair. That was a substitute motion. My motion to accept staff's recommendation of approval. And actually, while we were waiting, I'd like to add something that might make it a little easier. Part of the conversation was how many management residential units could you have? We're open-ended. I think four is a fair number of, well, that was something that we could just. Is that rotating now? They're not all four at one time because that was one other piece, correct? It's people that were, you would not be allowed to, if you were an employee, the manager or the superintendent or the maintenance person. I was trying to think of what I remember seeing there. So they would get to have units that they could live there permanently, but we could say that they have to be employees of the park. So. Just so that it wasn't open-ended, then they could have 12, and then everyone's an employee of the park. So on your screen, if I may, we did consider some language if you were willing to address this. And so the additional language would be the number of managers or caretakers shall be limited to one manager or caretaker for each 25 lots based on the number of lots depicted on an approved site plan. Because that. But that's much more than I'm saying I'd give you four. Well, then that would, four would be 100. Just because otherwise it's open-ended, and I don't like open-ended. Sure, thank you. This would mean that if you were the manager of the park, you would not have to move every six months. You could stay. Four of the units could stay annually. If they had, yeah. Okay. If they were employees of the park. So now that I don't have the gavel anymore, I would reiterate my original motion to, I folded it up and put it away in my pocket already, that we would approve the ordinance with the issue of a maximum of four year-round units for employees only. Is that agreeable? Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. We would need a second at this point. Have you made a motion, Commissioner Campion? Yes. I second that motion. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes three to two with Commissioner Capps and Hurd dissenting. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And we're going to come back. When are we coming back? What time? 2.15. Is that good? I guess so. Thank you, Commissioners. Plan for the Pine School to modify an existing preserve area. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon. Please proceed. Okay. We're here this afternoon. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Sean McCarthy. I'm a planner in the Environmental Division of the Growth Management Department. Before you today is a request by the Pine School to amend an approved and recorded Preserve Area Management Plan from 2005. This is in conjunction with the revised final site plan application currently under review by the department. The proposed revisions include updates to campus buildings, athletic facilities, infrastructure, dry detention areas, and the existing US-1 entrance to accommodate the school's operational needs and future expansion plans. This requested PAMP amendment would modify the configuration of existing preserve areas. Just to give a little background, the subject property encompasses about 173 acres. Under the original PAMP approved in 2005, approximately 138 acres of the native uplands were identified on site. Of this native upland habitat, 46.28 acres of sand pine scrub was established as upland preserve. 1.09 acres of wetland buffer and 1.96 acres of wetlands were also preserved. For the record, I just want to point out a small error in the staff report under the background section in the second paragraph, where it states the original PAMP identified as preserve area 138.19 acres of native uplands prior to construction of the original school in 2005. This should say, in 2005, 138 acres of native upland habitat was identified on site. Of this habitat acreage, 46.28 acres was established as upland preserve in the original PAMP. The current amendment proposes to remove 11.07 acres of existing upland scrub preserve and provide the addition of 17.14 acres of upland scrub habitat to preserve as compensation, resulting in a net increase of 6.07 acres of preserved scrub habitat above the original PAMP requirement. The requested preserved modifications include removal of 2.16 acres of upland preserve to accommodate the proposed road and athletic facilities currently under review as part of the amended final site plan. An additional 8.91 acres of upland preserve adjacent to Banner Lake is proposed for removal for future campus expansion. This would not be cleared until future final site plan approvals are granted for development in that location, but will no longer be designated as preserved. The proposed preserve area would consolidate preservation efforts in the southeast portion of the site adjacent to existing preserve areas and in closer proximity to JD State Park, which provides habitat for threatened and endangered species, including the Florida scrub jay. Suedant to section 4.36.C of the Martin County Land Development Regulations, amendments to a previously approved preserve area require approval by the Board of County Commissioners, a written request by the applicant outlining the purpose and extent of the alteration, and a recommendation from the Growth Management Department Director regarding the need for the change in appropriate compensation measures. The Growth Management Director has reviewed the request and determined that the amendment satisfies the applicable requirements of Martin County Code and the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan, and as a result recommends approval of the amended PAMP. It was found that the proposal maintains compliance with the original preserve requirements, continues to protect wetlands and wetland buffers, and exceeds the original preservation requirements for rare and unique upland scrub habitat. This concludes my presentation, and we'll be happy to answer any questions. Questions for Mr. McCarthy. Mr. Crady. Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Morris Crady. I'm a senior partner with Lucido and Associates, and I do have a brief PowerPoint on the desktop. Just a couple of slides to show you the original site plan, which was approved actually. Sean. I'm sorry. Paul Schelling for the record. There it is. You got it. I got it. And then, let me hit. Would this work? That's it. Okay. Yeah, I was one of the original consultants that was working on the project in 2005 when it was called St. Michael's School. And then we did another revision in 2019. We didn't mess with the preserve areas at that time, and so here we are in 2026, almost 20 years later after the original approval. So this is the stamped approved plan that was approved in 2019. We did, again, the preserve areas in this particular plan is how they looked, and in fact, I'll use the mouse so I can point. I don't know if I can point with this. Okay. Not really. Let's see if I can. Yeah. Very needy. So yeah, there you go. There's a pointer. So the preserve that we're actually removing as part of this application is about an acre along US-1 in this location, because we're going to relocate the road. This is infested with Brazilian pepper, because it's adjacent to the right-of-way, and there's impacts associated with this preserve area. The other preserve area that we're going to remove as part of this application is about a half acre here, adjacent to these facilities, and then a little piece down here. So the total preserve area that we're actually removing as part of this revised final site plan is only about 2.16 acres, as Steph talked about. I want to also point out that in 2005, I know Jeff Whitman was here earlier, and he mentioned this historic and archeological site, where this is the location of the archeological site. We're not messing with that. That's been there forever, and there's no intention to do anything with it except maybe study it as part of the school curriculum, but that would be something down the road. That's not part of the PAMP at this time. So what we're doing is really just removing two acres to relocate the existing entrance further south. We're going to retain the existing entrance as emergency access. That lines up across the street with the fire station site. So that will be retained as emergency access, but it will only give emergency vehicles access to the ball field. So if they have to come in, they can come in directly into the play area there. So we're relocating the road to create this recreational amenity that has been on the master site plan for years, but at one time they were going to move it south into this area. But this is the area that we're relocating. So we're taking out 8.9 acres of preserve here, and we're relocating it here. If you can go back, I'll show you on the previous plan. There was no preserve in this area. So based on Toby's work, he's determined that this is the most viable scrub habitat on the site. We have permission from SMRU to do management of that area. And again, the only thing that we're taking out is this area here, a little bit up here, this little piece right here. And then we're not taking out. We're actually relocating this preserve area to here. But in the net effect, when we originally got the approval, the scrub preserve requirement based on 25% of the site was 34 acres. So that's what we started. That was the minimum requirement. When we got the site plan approved in 2005, we were 12 acres more than that requirement. So we started out with more required preserve than we were required to have. So now what we're proposing is an additional six acres. So we're going to go from a required scrub preserve of 34 acres to a proposed scrub preserve of 52 acres, and it's all going to be consolidated in the south half of the property where we believe the habitat is most viable. So we're, and we can't take out any, any, any additional habitat until we come in and do a revised final site plan, which will be additional scrub J surveys, additional gopher tortoise surveys. So those areas that aren't designated as preserve areas, but still have scrub habitat in them, we can't, we can't remove any of that until we do additional surveys and go back through the county process for revised final site plan approval. And what I'm talking about there, I see a little bit of things. So we, this is, although we're, we're relocating this preserve to the south, we're not clearing this area. This area cannot be cleared until we have something proposed in that area. And there is a plan in the future for them to put additional ball fields here. But we can't do any of that until we do additional scrub J surveys and gopher tortoise surveys and come back through the process with staff to get revised final site plan approval. Same in this location. This is all, this is all habitat now, but we can't clear that habitat until we go back through the process, get revised final site plan approval and, and, and propose something in that area. And this is an area that they are looking at doing some practice golf facilities in the future. But again, that's a future application. The only thing that we're impacting today is the two acres of preserve area that is on the, on the approved plan and a little bit of habitat where the roads being relocated through. But that, again, that, that, that relates to additional, an additional preserve area of six acres. So we're, although we're taking out two acres of preserve area, we're adding more than that as, as compensation. And I'm going to let Toby kind of walk you through the existing habitat on the, on the site, what he's been through with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and, and also some work with Ann Cox. I know he's been talking with them, but then he'll go through this next slide, which shows the actual impact area. So, Toby, it's all yours. And he just changed it. Good afternoon, commissioners. Um, for the record, Toby Oberdorf with, uh, with Haley Ward and, uh, have been working on this site. Um, actually, believe it or not, my daughter was a, uh, went to school here. And, uh, so I've been working with the school, uh, since it was, uh, first brought down here in this area here. Um, really wanted to run through today just a, a, a quick item, um, on what we're here for. And that is the preserve area management plan modification. Uh, we're not here for a site plan. Um, I know Morris gets, you know, all excited about site plans. That's what he gets paid to do. But we're going to talk about preserve areas and the relocation of preserve areas. So the entire site, as Sean told you, is about 173 acres. And, uh, it has a variety of habitats associated with it. Uh, this includes everything from, uh, from scrub that we're talking about, which is both pine as well as, as well as a xeric oak, um, scrub habitat. There's a little bit of wetland. And, of course, we have the large area, um, up here in the northwest corner, which is, uh, Banner Lake. So what's interesting is long before the pine school actually started to go ahead with this process, they contacted me and wanted me to come in and work on Banner Lake specifically. It had been basically neglected. Uh, there was a lot of exotics, um, in that area there. You could hardly see that it was actually a lake. So we went in there and started to work through that, um, removed a, a lot of exotics out of there. The entire, uh, buffer was done. This was not a requirement of Martin County. This was a ask and a request from the school. They wanted to be good stewards with this. And in fact, I'll tell you a little bit later, a great story that came out of that. Uh, right now we're, we're very sensitive to the fact that we have a fair amount of biodiversity on this site specifically. There are, there's a wetland system. There's scrub systems. And of course we have our, our open areas. Uh, and right now, uh, the only required preserve that based on county requirements is about 34 acres. Uh, then under the previous preserve, as we've talked about, we have, uh, roughly 46 acres is the, now the preserve that's on site. We are relocating preserve, uh, is our proposal. That's why we're here today is to relocate that preserve and give you, give the county, excuse me, an additional six acres. So we'll now have roughly 50, a little over 52 acres in preserve. That means that the county, um, has an additional 18 acres above and beyond what was typically required for a site like this. We celebrated this morning, uh, the don't, the donation and the, the, how the county took over about an acre and a half of scrub. Here's another 18 acres of that as well. So just wanted to make that point there and that, uh, we are really looking at a very much of a net increase here. Also the other side that I want to point out here, this, the green area that you see on your screen currently, that is the proposed reserve. The areas that are in red, um, specifically up next to us one. And this, uh, this line that goes from the northeast to the southwest is a straight line. That's actually a power line easement from FPL. Those are two, the two small red areas which we're proposing for impacts, um, right now are actually pretty disjointed. Uh, they're narrow. They, uh, the one on us one obviously is impacted by exotic vegetation, um, by trash, by other things like that. So what we're doing is consolidating our preserve areas into one large massive area, uh, that will take, take in part the entire green area you see on your screen here. The black, which is our buffers, as well as the existing, uh, preserve to the south. So that's what will, that, um, is a primary preserve area. And then to remain also on the very west side, you see a black area there. That is a buffer around Banner Lake, as well as an upland preserve that's going to remain, uh, in perpetuity. The red areas, uh, the ones we talked about are going to be impacted potentially by, uh, development in the future, um, next to the soccer fields there. There is no plan for that currently, and a site plan will have to come back in. But what we're talking about is adding the green area to the black area, and that is really why we're here today. So what have we done also? We've done a full extent of gopher tortoise surveys throughout the entire parcel. We have done a review of all the vegetation on the parcel. We actually have completed two separate scrub jay surveys during the time. We've been after this for almost four years now. Um, I know that the, the board, the pine school board has been very patient and working through the process. We actually wanted to come in about seven months ago. We realized that scrub jay, uh, survey time was coming up. And they said, no, Toby, go do your thing. Get this done. We want to make sure we have everything right. So we did. We coordinated our methodology with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They approved it. We submitted our, um, our findings to them. They also approved that and found that the scrub jay would not be impacted whatsoever by the proposed project on this. And we have, I have that writing, and I also gave it to the environmental staff. Um, so the scrub jay would not be impacted. We also found, um, some, uh, some lichen on the, on the site there. And, uh, we have some folks that were, were very excited about, um, the possibility. Um, Sean being one of them that was, uh, excited about the possibility of us doing some relocation of the lichen and the Native Plant Society as well. So we have also sent and submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a draft relocation for that listed species, that listed plant species, or listed lichen species. It's kind of a plant. Um, so I know that I'm going to correct, get corrected on that later. Uh, so that being said, um, we're going to be, uh, relocating that, uh, with an approved plan that has to be submitted to growth management after consultation with, um, some local botanists and or Native Plant Society. Uh, we'd also want to make sure that we bring in our students for that. This is kind of an unprecedented, unprecedented opportunity where we're now able to bring in the Pine School students to participate in the relocation activities of this listed species. It's going to be, I'm actually very excited about that. And, uh, to quote the, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, um, when I submitted that to them, they said, uh, the draft relocation plan looks great. What a, what a great idea to involve the students. And that was in a letter from, on May 15th from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So, again, that's kind of an unprecedented little document from them. Uh, the county will be involved prior to any land clearing whatsoever. We do have to make sure that we, number one, uh, survey the entire area that we're going to be proposed for clearing. Well, once that survey is completed, we are going to be relocate, relocating any listed species that are located within there. Um, and we're going to be relocating them to the on-site preserve so that we are going to keep them in the same spot. The, the lichen, um, it's, it can be relocated. It's not always 100% successful, but we are following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protocol and are, again, open to, uh, suggestions as well from experts in that field. And we'll be welcoming them as both enhancing the academia side of this as well as the actual program side of this. So, uh, we've also agreed that we will be doing a scrub management plan. We don't, we do not anticipate doing burns on the site. Uh, we do have Eaglewood. We have U.S. One, um, that are in proximity as well as the school. Uh, so doing a burn out there probably wouldn't be the greatest thing. However, we, there are other ways to do scrub management. And in doing scrub management, we need to make sure that we're not also, um, damaging the lichen that we're going to be relocating or other species like bromeliad as well. So long and short of it, um, I just want to reemphasize there's no development activity whatsoever until we have, uh, the actual relocation plans absolutely finalized, um, approved, uh, through Martin County. And in fact, we've located any and all species that are within the proposed development areas. Uh, we also, um, we will be going through and making sure that, uh, we have additional fish and wild, excuse me, U.S., sorry, Florida Fish and Wildlife, um, approvals for the gopher tortoise. We cannot get those, um, whatsoever until, until we're allowed to develop the property. So even though we know where the boroughs are, we can't go ahead. Um, I did want to also say that, um, through the lake project, we've also had some, some great interaction with the students already. Um, one of the students I think you'll hear from later actually won an award, a grant from DEP associated with some water quality, um, items that she's going to be working through and, uh, working through the Everglades Coalition as well, um, on that issue. So I think you'll hear from Sydney a little bit later on that, but it just gives you an example of how the Pine School truly involves their students, um, in these items. And, uh, I'm frankly very excited about the opportunity to be able to work on this project and, uh, involve some, some teaching opportunities. Actually, that's how I kind of started out in this field was as a marine science instructor. So it's neat to get back to that, um, potentially. So we'll see what happens here. But, um, uh, commissioners, that is basically what we're going to be doing. You're gaining, uh, again, a net positive six acres. We have 18 surplus acres above and beyond what is required. Um, and I'll be happy to answer any questions, but I do know we have at least, uh, one, if not two more people that want to speak to you. So we can go from there. Questions for Mr. Oberdor. Mr. Capps. Uh, there's a thing called federally listed, uh, plants, rare and endangered plants, I guess it's called. Yes, sir. And then there's a state list. What, what's the difference? And, uh, I guess the distinct, the distinctives of the two and how they're treated legally. Um, it seems that I've heard that if it's federally listed, uh, they must actually be relocated. That's what I've heard. And then if they're state listed, you just have to kind of make an effort to relocate them. Is, is, is that what I've heard? I don't know what you've heard, but, um, that's, I mean, uh, so. Obviously two different agencies when it's federally listed, uh, we are going to be making, and we've, we, we did a distinction as well in the materials that we submitted to the county, um, as well as the U S fish and wildlife service, anything that is federally, uh, protected. We certainly, if we can, we'll be relocating it. Um, there are certain plants, um, and I believe that we're going to have, uh, another person come up here and talk about some plants that may have been in the region, but not on our sites. Um, those may not be able to be relocated, but the lichen that we have determined to be on the site, um, certainly can be relocated. Uh, and it's one of the ways that U S fish and wildlife deals with us, uh, as far as the state side, many of the state protected species are protected, um, by the Florida department of agriculture. Uh, and are therefore cannot be sold, um, on a commercial basis. Harvest isn't sold. Uh, that happens a lot with air plants or bromeliad, uh, so that they cannot be, uh, again, on a commercial basis there. Uh, however, they are protected and we do, we have written into our, uh, preserve area management plan, uh, wherever possible. We're going to be relocating the bromeliads as well. And, uh, sometimes you just, you can't get to the top of a 70 foot tree, so we won't be able to do that. However, there are certainly opportunities for doing relocation of the bromeliads as well, which is a state protected species. Mm-hmm. Is the lichen you refer to, is that the, the plant called Cladonia? Yes, sir. And as I understand, that's extremely rare, um, not located in very many places in the world. Thus, it's endangered. Yes, sir. And you would be relocating it? On site. On site. Preserve. Yes, yes, sir. Where it's, uh, where now we have the large preserve area there, um, in the southeast, and that will be the area that we're proposing for relocation. Have we done a thorough evaluation at this point to know where all the lichen might be on all of these, uh, new preserve areas? Uh, within the, we wouldn't do another survey in a preserve area. If it's going in a preserve, I mean, wouldn't. Well, in the areas that you want to develop that are current in your current PAM that you want to take out of the PAM. So we've done a, we've done preliminary surveys. Of course, uh, this is a school that has limited resources. We want to be mindful of those resources. So until we're going to be going ahead with development, uh, we wouldn't want to go in there and, and utilize the school's resources or their money per se. Um, however, we have certainly put in place, uh, the process that we cannot do anything on site until Martin County sees our relocation plan. Until, uh, we actually also invited US Fish and Wildlife Service to participate in that. Um, invited other folks to participate in that as well. So we will be getting, uh, outside review of the relocation plans. Mm-hmm. Uh, when it comes to the federally listed plans, are there consequences to intentionally or unintentionally violating those rules? Like say somebody just blew it off. And what are, what are the consequences to just bulldozing something like that? I'd have to look at the statutes on that. Um, we obviously have no intention of doing that and in any way, shape or form. And so we're, that's why we have made such provisions that we can't have equipment on the site and can't do any land clearing. Even putting in silt fence, even removing gopher tortoises without, in fact, having, uh, this, uh, this review done. All the items located, um, GPS located, as well as then, uh, potentially doing the relocation of any federal species. Mm-hmm. And refresh my memory, give me a little more clarity on the role of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that, uh, that you, you've already had involved. Like, I would tend to think that if they have rules about federally protected plants, that they would be monitoring that very closely themselves in the, somewhere along the course of this project. Right. I mean, are they involved? Uh, again, we submitted our draft relocation plan to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, um, and to a gal named Heather Hitt. And she commented and said, um, and if you want me to read the quote again, uh, to you, she, I'll make sure I get it right. She said, quote, draft relocation plan looks great. What a great idea to involve the students. That's a May 15th letter. Now, of course, that's not the entire letter. She asked for some additional information to which I then said, uh, Ms. Hitt, you're welcome to come to the site when we, when we do the reviews, um, and or review our data. She asked for, uh, location data, which I said, I'd be happy to share that with you once we have it. She had no problem with that whatsoever. Mm-hmm. So there's not any further inspections by federal officials, uh, of the site or to make sure that anything got done in particular? Uh, again, we've invited the, uh, the feds to come out and inspect the site. Um, we have been forthright with all of our information thus, thus far. Uh, we are continuing to share, uh, any and all information with them. And I, I really would struggle to be, even be more open. And, uh, I have to say that the Pine School has been very accommodating as well, uh, during this time. And frankly, um, your staff has been a good driver in this as well. These two gentlemen here, um, also took it upon themselves to, at one point, call U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and did a great job with that. Uh, they were able to get through to a person that's been a great asset. So when it comes to the lichen, uh, Cladonia, um, I would imagine most of that would be over there on the portion by Banner Lake. And the bigger piece that you're going to develop later? Actually, no, sir. The, uh, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and, uh, and the graphic that they shared is actually adjacent to U.S. One, believe it or not. Uh, is the largest, uh, single portion of that, uh, is according to their data. Now, again, we're going to be sharing new data with them showing where, um, some items are and all that type of, uh, of things. But at this point in time, no, it was not on the western area. Mm-hmm. So the plan right now is mainly to develop the open areas to the right. When you go in on the existing road, those open areas there, that, that's kind of what you need right now, right? Isn't that what the main thing that you're focusing on? That is the main focus. And then, and then the park by Banner Lake would be like another phase at a later time where you do more studies on the environment there before you develop it. Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, yes. We, we will not be able to, like I said, even put a silt fence in the ground in a proposed development area, no matter what time it is, without doing a full study and coordinating that with Martin County and others. Okay. I'm good. Thanks. Okay. And the, the, uh, relocation plan that you've done for the lichens that you've submitted, how many, uh, species did you say you're going to relocate? The number is whatever is there. As far as, uh, the amount of the, uh, Cladonia, we will be relocating every, every, um, sprig that we find out there. Every association will be relocating all of that. So you don't have a number. We do not have a number at this time. And, and again, uh, commissioner, that's primarily because, uh, we're going through the, the process right now of getting the, uh, the preserve approved. And we don't have a development order at this point in time or a final site plan approved either. So the preserve is the first step in that, and we're required to come to you for that. So we decided to go with the preserve relocation first. And who approves the relocation plans? Your staff will ultimately, as well as we'll have certainly be having comments from, uh, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We've also requested outside, uh, experts to be commenting on it and to hopefully develop some, uh, academic programs with it as well. Okay. Staff, you agree that we are going to be the ultimate decider of the, uh, decision maker on the relocation plans? So right now we have a draft relocation plan, relocation plan in the PAMP. And it also says that they're required before any lane clearing to finalize that plan. Um, and as part of that, we're going to ask for maps on the locations of these individual endangered plant species. And to make sure that the plan is set ready for people to actually just implement it before any lane clearing takes place. And who approves that plan? Staff? State staff? Federal staff? County staff? So Martin County Code requires that these plants are relocated, uh, federally endangered plants. Um, as to my knowledge, I don't think there's any, um, standard guidelines from the wildlife agencies stating how to exactly do this. For plants? For plants. So for the, uh, gopher tortoise, we have a process in place when we have a, uh, pre-construction meeting for proposed development. We ensure that all those species are surveyed and permits are secured and the tortoises are relocated before you can start development. So in a similar vein, we would be doing the same for plants and following whatever guidelines we get from U.S. Fish and Wildlife for that relocation. Do we know at present how many gopher burrows there are? There is a map that... We did have a map that should be in your packet, um, associated with that. However, the gopher tortoise burrows are not necessarily, they're located throughout, we did a full survey throughout the entire site. So there may not be, uh, some within our proposed development area. Um, there are, in my estimation, we will certainly be relocating some tortoises in order to accomplish the first phase that they're looking at doing. And do you have a mitigation site for the gophers? Unfortunately, FWC has not, um, been, how do I say this politically correct? They haven't been great at getting additional relocation sites, um, especially within Martin County. So we're going to be using the closest geographical place that we can for that. We'd love to relocate all of them on site and save the school a lot of money. Unfortunately, an on-site relocation, believe it or not, is more expensive than an off-site relocation by about an order of three. And will, will these relocation plans come back to us or will they go to you? If I can, the, like, for which species are we talking? Any, any of them? Any relocation plans? We will be sharing all of the relocation materials, whether it's state or federal, with the county, prior to enacting upon that. For the, for specifically for the gopher tortoise, um, your team is copied on those, uh, those before they go, uh, before they go into action. Uh, and then also with the, um, with the cladonia, the, the, the lichen, uh, that will also come back here prior to, like I said, even putting silt fence in the ground. Okay. Even if it's a minor site plan? Yes, ma'am. If it's an area that has. The board? To the county, not to the commission. Confused. It comes, it comes to the staff, excuse me. Yeah, the staff. The staff makes, and that's according to the, the Preserve Area Management Plan guidelines, which, again, we, we don't want to be violating any of that whatsoever. Okay. So we don't know at present whether this is going to be a minor or a major final site plan? Uh, Paul Schelling, Growth Management Director for the record. So the current application is a minor final site plan. Uh, we can't say what the future holds. However, our, our input and coordination has been that the future phases would be administrative in nature. Commissioner, if I may, I apologize, Paul. What we wanted to make sure was that any additional land clearing that was going to happen out here would require, and that's why it's in the PAMP, would require coordination with your staff. Yeah, I'm just. As is the case every day of the year, perhaps, or when we're approving developments and, and, uh, prior to pre-construction meetings, of course, all the appropriate state federal permits are required to be in hand. Prior to this site issuance permit, prior to any clearing whatsoever, with the exception typically being some silt fences. So that the general conclusion is that this is the last time that there will be a public hearing on this, any portion of this, any future plans? Uh, I think that's a safe assumption. Okay. Thanks. I'll bring up the next. Toby, can I ask you one more thing? You can. When you said relocating the Gophers on the existing preserve would cost three times as much. Yes, sir. Um, what does roughly, what does it cost to relocate one gopher? Is it a price per gopher? Like what are the two, what are the two prices off site versus this site? I feel like I'm giving a proposal. Um, so, uh, typically to excavate a burrow, um, it's anywhere between, uh, 400 to, um, $750 to excavate the burrow, which is usually the most cost effective way. Uh, the permit itself has about, uh, has a $400 fee, uh, to a $300 fee depending on how many tortoises are within that. We'll have to do a conservation permit for, for this site. Uh, then you add on the actual, um, cost of admission into the bank. So if you go through the process, you get the permit, you actually excavate the burrow, and then you go ahead and find a tortoise. That tortoise is typically anywhere between, uh, right now the going rates are between $5,500 and $10,000 per tortoise, depending on the bank that you go to. The onsite relocation then is typically anywhere between, uh, and again, some of this is, is the FWC sidelines to it, um, can be as much as $18,000 per tortoise onsite. Mm-hmm. So it's like maybe $6,000 versus $18,000? Uh, for the, just the cost of admission. For the whole thing. Yes, sir. Well, I mean like the package deal. What is it, you know, with all of it? Package deal, all in, you're looking at about $8,000 per tortoise offsite and about $20,000 onsite. Okay. Again, these are rough numbers. It'd be easier to send them to the Pine School. You said it, I did not. All right, thanks. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today, commissioners. My name is Beth Letten-Garver. My husband and I have been residents of Hope Sound for 33 years. From 1998 to 2001, I served as Executive Director of the Hope Sound Chamber of Commerce. Since then, I have had the great pleasure of working at the Pine School. First, as a teacher and coach, and for the last 21 years as the Director of Enrollment Management. For the past 25 years, I have been a part of and witness to the benefits of the transformational education that the Pine School can provide its students. When the board first purchased this amazing piece of property in Hope Sound in the early 2000s, I was invited to walk over the sugar sand dunes with my then first grade son to envision what this could and would become. What a joy it has been to see the multitudes of teachers and students and their families enjoy the beauty that this natural environment provides. As part of my work, every day, I tour prospective families around the campus. It is not often that people describe a bustling school of 500 plus kindergarten through 12th grade students as Zen, but more often than not, that is how most people feel when they visit our school. There is a calmness and a serenity to this campus because of the surrounding preserved land, the undulations of the hills and forest, and the architecture of the building, which so strategically blends into the landscape. A perfect antidote to the often chaotic world we live and work in and such an impactful setting in which to develop young minds. At the Pine School, we commit in our mission to extend our education to our natural campus and beyond. From outdoor education day to lower school gardening, from campus orienteering to regularly visiting and coordinating with the Hope Sound Nature Center. From being recognized for years as a green school of excellence to teaching a Florida ecology science elective. The Pine School cares for and works to understand the environment we inhabit. We have spent tens of thousands of dollars maintaining the health of Banner Lake and financially contributed to a water study with Martin County and Chattercheck to better understand how it might be restored. Our plan today adds a net plus five acres of quality upland protected habitat. And the Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently honored one of our students for her white paper, which studied the benefits of the restoration of Banner Lake. This year, the Pine School will award for the first time ever high school diplomas to four students who have completed a specific program of study in environmental science. We know we can grow and also be good stewards of the land we are fortunate to have. The environment and the preservation of our beloved campus are paramount to the mission of our school. Since Pine moved to Hope Sound in 2007, nearly 20 years ago, not only have our own families and faculty benefited from this unique campus, but so have our neighbors. Our students and teachers work closely with the Banner Lake community next door, volunteering in the Banner Lake Cafe once a month, tutoring students in BLAST, their after-school program, and Banner Lake Academy teachers are often on our campus participating in professional development. The Hope Sound Chamber of Commerce utilizes our parking areas for art festivals. Our annual car show is a favorite for all of our neighbors and friends near and far, especially our veterans. And St. Christopher's Church and the Knights of Columbus have used our gym for basketball free throw contests. The Pine School has been, and will continue to be, a treasured member of the Treasure Coast. We are here today to share with you our vision for the future, and with your help, we can make this vision a reality. At the Pine School, it is our mission to provide not only the best education possible, but also to offer opportunities in the arts and athletics for all of our students and the community at large. Enhanced athletic venues will allow current and future students more expanded and necessary options beyond the already amazing experiences provided by Pine's first-class education, the only fully accredited K-12 independent school in Martin County. Thank you for your time and your consideration, and go Knights! I just want to come up and correct something or rather actually add to it. Commissioner, we've done initial surveys on the site. We have seen Cladonia on the site. It's not like there are fields of weed of Cladonia out there, but there are certainly some areas for it. And that's why we're making sure that we do extensive surveys once the development happens. But we certainly have seen it on site. Specifically, if you look on your map in front of you, the little green area at the very top next to the power line, that is an area that we have seen it. And it actually jives as well with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service maps. So just wanted to make sure. And then we also had your staff out there and walked around, and on the same day we thought we had found some. So just wanted to make sure that that's a clarification. Okay? Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm also a friend Tyson Waters from the law firm of Fox McCluskey on behalf of the applicant and also a proud parent of a former and current Pine School student. I want to note that this is property under private ownership that's proposing to use private funds for these proposed enhancements. Enhancements that include the expansion of six acres of scrub preserve area that will be preserved under this PAMP. A very unique thing that somebody is offering here. You've heard from Toby Overdorf discussing the project and the benefits to the environment that this revised PAMP will propose. And you've also heard from county environmental staff recommending approval of this PAMP amendment and finding that we comply with the local land development regulations and the comprehensive plan. Again, this is a proposal that preserves 18 acres of scrub preserve above your land development requirements. We think it's appropriate. We think it consolidates both the future and proposed improvements, but also the preserve areas. Consolidates it into a combined portion of land, which is what we always try and encourage. So with that, I'd ask for your support and your approval of this PAMP amendment. And after the public comment on the discussion, we'd like an opportunity to come back up here and discuss and clarify any points that need to be made. Thank you very much. Okay. We'll hear from the public. The first request to speak form I have is from Nicole Kirchhoff. Okay. Next is Anne Cox, followed by Terry Gibson. Good afternoon. I'm Chairman Herg and Vice Chair Campini. My name is Anne Cox. I am representing, I have to stand on my tiptoes here, representing the Martin County chapter of the Florida Native Plants Society. And I appreciate the invitation to speak. I'm speaking to the proposed plan, management plan. And we are pleased that the Pine School is successful in meeting its mission to provide an exceptional learning experience and expansion is needed for these students and for the school. The Martin County Native Plants Society members also have concerns with the current design that may not live up to the school's exemplary reputation. The Pine School was built amidst of, of course, a landscape of highly environmentally sensitive natural resources in the sand pine scrub community, which is considered an imperiled community on ancient shorelines. The scrub community supports a variety of wildlife, including several state listed and federally listed plant and animal species that are designated as endangered and threatened. The scrub community serves as a living classroom ideal for a natural habitat that nurtures our students with our young aspiring minds. Our concerns involve the successful relocation of several plant species, including the perforated lichen Cladonia perforata that has been mentioned several times today, which is federally endangered. That's only known in approximately 50 populations in the whole world, mainly Florida. Several other state listed species include epiphytes or air plants, included two endangered species, Colansia fasciculata or the cardinal air plant. And I'm using the scientific language for the plants because that's their only true name, whereas our animals can be called by their animals, gopher tortoises, without using the gophers polyphemus, which is the scientific name. So being a plant ecologist, I like to be precise in giving the exact name for the plants. So again, Cladonia perforata, we are concerned with. And also the fact that these Cladonia have not been mapped. Oh, I'm over. Can I talk more? Okay, thank you. Anyway, those have not been mapped, but I understand from the conversations that have been discussed that they will be mapped. The other concerns are for air plants, which are Tillansia fasciculata, Tillansia utriculata, and those are endangered by the state of Florida, two threatened species, Balbiziana and Tillansia flexuosa. Now your time is up. And now my time is up. Well, can I give you one last talk? The Martin County Native Plant Society also is in agreement with the guardians and respectfully request that the commission reject this pine schools PAMP amendment, opting for a continuation at a later date of the consolidation of knowledge members of the Martin County chapter of Native Plant Society and also the guardians. I understand from the conversations that have been going on that a lot of the some of these issues have been resolved. And we were not aware of some of those situations. So we'll take that into consideration. And of all the schools in Martin County, the Pine School should be setting an admirable standard for environmentally sensitive design and planning. Madam Chair, do you wish to continue? Thank you. We would like to have you. Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Pippa Hilton Green is next, followed by Amy Brandon. Yes. Okay. Ready, set, go. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Pippa Hilton Green, and I'm a senior at Pine. I've also been at Pine for 15 years. This morning, I just became one of the first four students at Pine to complete my environmental diploma. And I was lucky enough to complete this diploma because our school is growing, which is giving us more opportunities to branch out and learn about things that we love. Which for me, growing up as like a true Florida kid and attending environmental study center camps every summer and just spending time outside. What I'm intrigued to learn about is or just has a lot to do with the environment. And I'm also so thankful that we have these resources and chances at the Pine School to do that. As you've been shown, obviously, we have a lot of greenery around our campus. And if you've ever been, you know how great it is to be surrounded by all that nature and wildlife, unlike many other local schools. And the Pine School community puts that to good use. With so many classes taking nature walks and our ecology classes focusing on common native animals and plants on our land. I think that this proposal will only help the school and the environment around it. I'm graduating this Saturday. So with the future expansion, I sadly won't be present to see it every day. But I can't wait to see what the school has in store for future Pine students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Amy Brandon. I'm a, I was born and raised here in Martin County. Um, my son is a upcoming junior. He's been there since EO three back when the school was still next to St. Joseph's, um, being a native Martin County. I know that in 1969, the Potsdam family, which was the founders of Stewart, uh, started the school. Um, my uncle entered the school in winter of 1970. Um, I myself attended St. Michael's as well as all of my cousins. And that's about, there's four of us for four of them. Um, the school has always been very environmentally conscious. That's why we have this big, beautiful campus. Um, I know in the, in this expansion, um, they can do it. Um, keeping in mind the environment. We preach to our kids from the time they're in kindergarten to be environmentally conscious. We are land stewards. We take care of the land. Um, I ask you to please approve this so that we can expand the campus. The Pine school is known all throughout the state. It is a treasure, not just on the treasure coast, but in Martin County. It's been here for almost 60 years and it's an important part of the community. So I please ask you to approve this. Thank you. Thank you. Terry Gibson is next followed by Pippa Hilton green. Good afternoon. Y'all. I'm Terry Gibson. Sarah. I'm sorry. Chair heard two people had to leave earlier. Can I just put in their, their, their, uh, comments for them. As long as you can fit it into three minutes. I can make this really quick. Um, my really good friend, Matt full, uh, his children are just daughter is there at the school. He's built fishing and hunting lodges around the world around sustainability models. He's been involved in this process and he's an alumni and he just wanted to say that he, uh, he strongly supports this, that the due diligence has been done. The other person is Dr. Nicole Kirchhoff. She's a PhD in marine ecologist. She is the person that she was on the board of one of the organizations, my organization funds. Um, I run absolutely everything through her that has to do with the environment. And, uh, she has about 10,000 fish. She had to go feed. She's a fish farmer. And so she had to go home, but she hurt her, uh, her older, older two are there. And she's also been involved in this process and has looked over all the environmental documentation and says, great. My personal motivation for being here is I really want to see the school expand. Um, my son couldn't get in this year. He's, he's 10. Um, I'm not knocking Jensen beach elementary. It's been absolutely awesome, but he's got a couple of challenges that, that they're uniquely qualified to address. He's also a good athlete, but unfortunately, like his dad, he's never going to be a starting center on his high school basketball team. And, um, and so, you know, I, I work three jobs. My wife's a nurse practitioner to do everything we can for that little boy. And, um, the pine school is the right place for him. And, uh, you know, I just hope that we can grow. So we accommodate more kids and more kids can get, get that quality of education. Um, I just want to also thank them, the Florida legislature for the skull school choice work. That's huge. Um, and, uh, I also want to thank Martin County staff for, for the due diligence you guys do. Every time I see any sort of construction project come for this committee, I know that it has been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed. So thank you for raising the bar statewide. Um, anyway, uh, I've toured the school. I grew up in the scrub. I'm a hunting guy. That's my fun job on the weekend. I scrub like the back of my hand. This has been approved all the way through, through the, through the feds. Um, that's not easy. That's really hard. And so I just feel like the due diligence has been done and I hope you approve it today. And, and, um, thank you very much for your time. Okay. HIPAA Hilton green is next. She's not. Uh, Jeff Shirk followed by Benny Caffrey. Hi again. I had the pleasure to get up here with, uh, with these guys this morning. So excited to talk again. Um, I've been at the pine school for five years. So not as long as Beth, um, and Pippa great job. I'm going to, I'm going to have a, I've got some written notes like Beth did, but I'm also going to try to be young like Pippa did and have some notes on my phone as well. Um, so, uh, so I'm the athletic director at the pine school. Uh, I'm also, uh, a parent of three kids. One graduated last year. Uh, one is a junior and, uh, one is a sixth grader. Um, my junior, um, is, uh, uh, got an internship, uh, this summer at, uh, loggerhead marine life, um, center and has really, uh, grown to appreciate, uh, and want to fight for the environment because of what she has learned in her classes, uh, and through the pine school education. Um, so I take a lot of pride in that. And, um, she's headed to, uh, to Flagler to play women's lacrosse is committed there and is looking to study marine biology. Um, I don't think she would have taken that path, uh, if it wasn't for, uh, the pine school and the type of education that she is getting. Um, so again, with everything that's being communicated about, um, the pine school being very aware of the land that we are on and preserving that land, uh, I've seen that in my five years at pine to be, to be very true and very accurate. Um, from an athletic director standpoint, this expansion is needed. Uh, we have outgrown our facilities. We have, uh, tons of kids and growing that want to participate in athletics and, uh, with our educate through sport philosophy. It's just another avenue, another venue that we can, uh, help these kids grow these, these, uh, young adults grow. So, um, to be able to expand our athletic facilities, uh, would be a big deal for us. Um, and I think really important to the overall education. Um, you know, and again, uh, winning is not always the goal, but, but, uh, uh, producing outstanding, uh, young individuals is what we try to do on the athletic, uh, uh, in our athletic venues. So being able to expand, um, the pine school would really help us do that. So thank you. Appreciate you taking the time to, uh, to listen to me. Vinny Caffrey is next followed by Chris Sedaka. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Vinny Caffrey, currently head of school at the pine school and also a proud pine school parent. I know many of my friends and community supporters who are here are, uh, you know, looking at their clocks thinking, ah, man, it's getting a little late here. I'm actually happy we're running late because I got to be with our seniors for their senior pep rally this morning. And I get to be here, uh, to speak with all of you this afternoon. I want to thank you for reading the email. I sent you as a group yesterday. I was glad to have a chance in writing to advocate for the pine school as we seek approval of our PAMP, um, reconfiguration. You know, as, as we think about how this will unfold and the lessons that we teach at the Pine school, um, I'm thinking about accountability, accountability to our environment. And as I look out at all these students here getting a lesson today and how development works, probably gonna have a few who are gonna want to see this like, and when they get back to campus. And, um, there's nothing better than that to make sure that we preserve, um, the environment we have and that we do it right for our students. So, anyway, um, the Pine school has a lot of big plans coming up, exciting things in the work for the school. We have been able to grow and develop and create the program that we do have right now, um, being environmentally minded of all of the resources we are so fortunate to have. And I would expect nothing to happen for the future, but to continue those same preservations. As I listen to this, I know there's still work to be done in terms of identifying the species that need to be effectively relocated and, um, working with staff. And local, local conservationists to make sure that it all happens in a way that is ethically good and sound. But as I speak with you today, I just want to say, um, as I've watched this plan and proposal take shape and I've had the chance to work with our board of trustees over the past few years to bring us to where we are today. I am incredibly proud to lead this school and to see all of this happen in a way that is educationally minded and environmentally sound. So thank you for your time. And, um, I really hope that we can get approval from work from you all today for our plans. Thanks. Thank you. Chris Sadaka will be followed by Chloe Sewers. Good afternoon. I'm sure you guys are tired. Like a lot of us are that have been here since eight 30 this morning. But, um, as you heard this morning from Jeff Shirk and our wonderful coaches, uh, we have some amazing athletes here. And, uh, my daughter is on the varsity girls soccer team, which did amazingly well this year as well. Um, not only are we developing amazing athletes, but we're training these children and young adults to be great stewards and great citizens. Um, one of the cool things is that we've got this 173 acres of amazing property. The kids get to learn about the environment on a daily basis. And one of the main themes that we teach them or that they're learning is to be good stewards of the environment. We all hear about global warming. We hear about, uh, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, all of these things. The kids are learning about this on a daily basis, but what our environment gives them, it gives them the ability to be good environmental stewards by learning about a few things. One being human health connection, right? We need to understand cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner soil. These things help improve our lives on a daily basis. There's also an environmental impact from an economic standpoint, right? There are sustainable practices that these kids are learning about that create jobs in the environmental space. So they're learning a lot of different things that it's, it's pretty important, but overall by expanding our campus and adding world-class sports programs, we're also adding best in class academics that we have, and we're continuing to get better, uh, for our kindergarten through 12th graders. But we're also, we have a fantastic on-site environmental class that will continue to make the Pine School one of the premier educational facilities in all of Florida. Thank you very much, and I hope you, uh, approve the expansion. Chloe Soares is next, followed by Laurel DeBerard. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Chloe Soares. Um, you're noticing here that I have my two, my two children with me who are both Pine School students. Um, first I want to start by thanking each and every one of you for your time and commitment. Um, today is really a lesson for all of us in civic leadership and action. Um, I had what I thought was a really great speech prepared, but, um, fortunately or unfortunately, I had wonderful speakers come before me and they, they stole some of my themes. But, but that's okay, actually, because I think it really demonstrates what all of us are here for today, which is to, um, really emphasize that our school and the way we think about education is very consistent. We have a consistent mission. We have consistent values around stewardship. You heard that word a lot today. Um, you heard themes of, um, how we like to educate our students, our children, um, just in terms of real life scenarios. We're seeing that today. You heard a lot about, uh, the possibility of involving our students in possibly relocating some of these endangered species. Um, I just want to reiterate that all of the plans that we're discussing here are really about protecting the future and that future is sitting in this room today. Um, we are, we are all here for the same reason. Thank you so much. And I, I hope that we can all find common ground and a positive way forward here. Thank you. Thank you. Laurel D. Berard is next followed by is Nicole Kirchoff here. Okay. Yes. You're next. My, my comment is not about what's on the agenda at the moment. My comment is about what happened this morning with the train horns. Would you like me to wait until it's over with? Yes. I'll be happy to be here. The last request to speak form I have is from Kelly Hilton Green. And if you would like to address us, please fill out a request to speak form and hand it to the bailiff. Good afternoon. I know it's been a particularly long day. Uh, thank you so much for hearing this today. And my name is Kelly Hilton Green. Um, as you can tell, I'm a steward resident, uh, local, not born and bred from here, but, uh, but chose to be here 15 years ago. Um, chose to be in Martin County, uh, because of the natural beauty, uh, of what's around us. Uh, and I think that's happened because of the measured growth that you've allowed. Um, I am an educator, um, by trade. I'm an educator by, um, my dad is an educator, still is an educator. He joined us from Cape Town, South Africa this week. Um, I'd like to say just a few things. Um, we ask our students every day to just say something, and it's this. We, as members of the Pine School, agree to uphold the core values of respect, responsibility, honesty, and equality. We agree to always serve a supportive role in our school community. We say that. We believe that. We build that. Uh, we're in the, uh, in the future of growing leaders. And, and that's, that's essentially what they're learning today. Um, we believe in people. Um, we believe in you guys. You guys have done a tremendous job, ladies and gentlemen, of, of, of building an amazing community. We want to be a part of that. We want to continue to be a part of that. Um, we believe in our environment. Um, my daughter was one that spoke probably more eloquently than me, um, with, with less of an accent. And I think that, uh, getting her environmental diploma this morning was, was just one of those steps that the Pine School is taking into making sure our future is not only now, but, but for a long time to be. So I urge you to, to take this vote and, and vote in favor of us. I thank you for your time. I thank you for all your staff's work you've done on this, um, because it's, uh, it's a huge undertaking. And we do appreciate it. I love being in Martin County. I love being a resident here. And it's because of the work that you guys have done. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anything to add? Questions or comments, commissioners? Commissioner Vargas. Okay. This is for Representative Overdorf. We talked about the gopher tortoises. I can hear you. Um, we talked about the gopher tortoises a few moments ago. And, um, they suffer from a lot of stress and also dispersal related mortality. Are you familiar with this? Uh, to an extent. Sure. Sure. Okay. Well, that's what you do. So I assumed you would, they have strong homing instincts and they can walk themselves to death to go back to where their native habitat is. You talked about the cost. If you're going to rehome them right on the property, the school property, or if you're going to put them in another area. So what is most important to you then? So I, I, that's a kind of a wide open question there. No, it's, it's, it's really, it's really straightforward. Because you talked about the triple cost. What's important to me is the long-term continuation of the species. That is what's important to me. Uh, and making sure that the gopher tortoise are in a position where they can in fact be successful. Uh, what we have shown through countless studies, um, and the reason that the FWC supports off-site relocation is that, uh, right now the genetic pool is isolated within, uh, the, the habitat that's associated at the Pine School. By having a conservation area where you're bringing in tortoises from a variety of, of sites, they now have an opportunity to be on managed land. They have a larger gene pool and therefore have an opportunity to be successful. Uh, and in their long-term success, which is exactly what I would like to see is a long-term success of the population. Um, the federal government actually took a look at the gopher tortoise and looked at listing it federally. They then reviewed our state program. The state program is so successful that they chose not to increase the listing associated with gopher tortoise. So I think that the program speaks for itself. Um, what was asked for me was the costs associated with it and that's why I gave the costs, um, with it. We would also have to look at carrying capacity. We have to look at other things like that that are on the site. But again, my, my main concern is the long-term success, um, of a species that is really only here in the Southeast of the United States. Well, tell us how you prevent them wanting to go back to their original home burrow. I've relocated roughly in the neighborhood of, in my career, probably close to 3000 tortoises. I've never had one come back to its area. Yes. But if they do, because this has been written about and I've consulted others about this, I'm trying to get a direct answer from you. I, I commissioner, I think I've given you a direct answer. I'm not trying to be combative. This is a, a known practice. I've honestly, I've never heard of a, with the exception of it, maybe being a quarter mile or a half mile away. I've never heard of a tortoise going back, uh, and making that journey from, uh, in many sites, uh, we have, I think the closest site we have was Bluefield site in, in St. Lucie to a project I did in Martin and none of those ever came back. Um, there is, there is perimeter fencing in these areas. FWC monitors a lot of these, uh, items and looks at that. And if this was a detrimental, uh, item for detrimental practice, I would suggest that, um, there would be a, a lot of regulation that would be added onto this to make sure that it's best for the species. Well, I, I've interviewed those that are familiar with this and they say they don't do well when they're transported off site. Uh, maybe we should take a field trip. I mean, I, I, I don't know what else to tell you. I, I, I, this is an area that I'm an expert in. And again, I, I just have never experienced that whatsoever. Uh, in fact, uh, if you'd like to, um, and there was an experimental, the site that was done behind my house and they're, they're thriving. Trust me. Uh, my experiment, it was SF WMD, uh, years and years ago and they're thriving and they were all relocated from a variety of spots in Martin County. Uh, but that being said, uh, again, happy to do that with you. Happy to get some FWC folks to call you if you, that's something that, that you feel is, uh, is appropriate. Um, but I, I haven't had those concerns previously. Again, if you have those folks that are advising you on this and they have concerns, I'm wide open to, uh, supplying them with additional information. So this is all the answer I can get right now from you. So is there something I can't know because I've interviewed others that are in the field. Okay. And I've seen also tortoises that have been injured. They're trying to walk across roads. So I'm trying to find out if it's the cost factor and you want to relocate them because it's less expensive rather than keeping them on the property. I'm not certain which is more important to you. The long-term, uh, continuation of the species is, is the best for me. Uh, have I ever seen a tortoise cross the road? Certainly. And I've helped it get there. Talking about being killed. But it's not, uh, but those are not coming, those are not coming from a bank or a relocation area whatsoever. I know. So we don't have any banks in Martin County and that's the only place I've had that happen. I'm sorry. Commissioner. Mine is more of a universal, uh, not so much specifically for you, Mr. Overdorf. It's just to, I guess, move the agenda item along based on what we've heard. Uh, first off, I'd want to thank, I know that the soccer team first, this morning there was probably, I went out and had the opportunity to see most of them. It was probably 70 or 80 students from the Pine School and it's just an interesting day. Some days our agenda doesn't take us to lunchtime and today we had the first portion of our day. The speakers for the quiet zone was not an agenda item. It was just a group of residents that decided today was the day that they were going to come forward, obviously to your timing detriment. Then we had a couple other key issues and I was talking to our chair thinking how do we bring your agenda item forward. But everyone's agenda item is important and there were a lot, uh, large groups. So I don't think we've had this many people in the chambers and in the lobby. And I think some of you even went over to the library, uh, in such a long time, which is actually pretty exciting for us. So I'm very appreciative of that. The unintended advantage for you all today is that you did get a real world example of civics or local government in action. I think it was an interesting day for you to hear how it works and how citizens have the ability to come forward and say, I think this is a great idea. I think this is a terrible idea. And then you see our staff weigh in and then you see the five of us that come with very, uh, distinct backgrounds and experiences and opinions. Um, there are times, most times when staff's recommendations and, uh, comments to me are very, very important, but there's also times when it's more opinion based where I would maybe disagree. When we get into technical and environmental type of things like we're discussing today, I lean heavily on our environmental staff, which maybe unfairly gets quite a bit of knocks from some of the members of our, uh, community development community consultant professionals saying that they lean way too heavy on the side of the environmental protection and cautious, which I think is excellent because that's basically what our community wants. So today you had a civics lesson and also, um, this portion that the fact that you, what you're really here for in environmental stewardship, that word was mentioned quite a bit. It's like environmental protection. Um, if there was ever a school and we have remarkable schools, I think the pine school, uh, I have many friends, uh, relatives, my own children, we toured the pine school. Uh, I think what you are, what their, your administration and your faculty are doing is exactly what we heard today, training you and teaching you to be environmentally, uh, sound. I think this particular project will have 500 student researchers, inspectors, and leaders, uh, watching most projects that are, uh, receive a tortoise relocation, a lichen relocation, uh, pamps. There are experts and construction people on the site, but they're pretty much, uh, blocked. This will be a working classroom, an actual working classroom for you all to have the opportunity to see the process being done correctly. Uh, we've heard from some of your classmates' parents that are in the field. You've heard from our expert who, uh, who's been here for years, uh, and then you have Morris Crady, uh, who's been working on this development. Even the folks that probably we had heard that there would be a little more pushback from the environmental community. Ma'am, I appreciate what you said. I think she was giving a balanced kind of understanding that, look, ideally you would prefer nothing to change, but with the fact that there is a change, there is a net gain. Uh, there was more to start with than was necessary, plus there's a net gain. The consolidation of a new area, I think, is, in my opinion, and I'm definitely, uh, more on the layperson side of this, but consolidating the environment makes more sense than having smaller piecemeal, uh, satellite environments. Uh, I've been here long enough to hear that repeated many times. Uh, it's a beautiful campus. I've had the opportunity, the pleasure of being there dozens and dozens of times for all sorts of events. Um, what could have happened, I remember when the school moved from Stewart down to Hobesound, they could have just had a master plan to bulldoze the whole place and put in all of the fields and, um, recreational facilities that they wanted, but they have, from my perspective, had taken a much more of a, uh, incremental approach to building what they needed when they needed it, uh, versus just going in and creating everything up front. So now I wouldn't necessarily want to punish them for the ability that they have created a very successful campus educational institution. Definitely, uh, very well renowned and, uh, respected. Not only locally, plenty of people from all over the place know what the Pine School is. They've turned out fantastic students. They have fantastic students and will continue to. Um, I think this school is too much of a, in the spotlight, if you will, to allow some kind of trick or to not let this project, uh, go on the way it was supposed to. We also received a letter, I'm assuming we all did, from the folks at Banner Lake, just as early as, uh, as recently as today, supporting this. Um, I'm not, um, afraid of making a determination that this is the right group with the right consultants. Uh, at the right time to do this project. And I would make a motion to accept staffs, our environmental professional staffs recommendation of approval. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. I'll be brief because I know it's been a long day. First of all, congratulations to you young men for your achievements and thank you for bearing with us all day. And, uh, I feel very confident that the applicant has presented, um, plenty of evidence that this is going to be an environmentally, um, well-managed project. There is a net gain, which is fantastic. Um, I think one of your, uh, parents summed it up perfectly. What we were all discussing, albeit a long discussion, was protecting our future. And I thought that was a perfect way to sum up this conversation. We all want the best interest. And then, fourthly, I will say, um, to the Pine School, thank you for what you have done in this community. As a parent of two sons, one of my sons went to, uh, a choice school and not the Pine School, but I know how important it is to have, uh, schools of choice for parents. And I think the Pine School adds so much value to our community. And I only want to encourage you to continue to do what you're doing. And I'll be glad to second the motion. Mr. Capps. Uh, thank you all for coming today, especially this fun, uh, good-looking, uh, group of young people. And hopefully you guys have learned some things today about local government. And I want to thank the Pine School for being a wonderful asset to Martin County and to Hope Sound and District 3. These are some, Commissioner Campy, these are some of District 3's finest citizens right here. And you're all from, you're all from District 3, right? This is a Hope Sound school. So, see, I'm sure there's some Palm City kids that go to the Pine School. You know, I, I was thinking one way when I came into this and I was kind of really caught up in the thought that we didn't really have an adequate evaluation plan of the rare and endangered plants. You know, on the sensitive scrub lands. And that we didn't have a relocation plan that was sufficient in place at this point. But now I've, I've understood more about why we don't. Uh, we're dealing with school resources here and you have to make sure that you're spending the money wisely. Um, so, uh, that was an important revelation to me. I also began to feel more comfortable with, uh, the integrity of the process and how it's going to be monitored. Um, and that you're going to have an evaluation plan and a relocation plan. I'm so impressed that the school goes to such great lengths to teach the young people about the environment and how to participate in this. I, I, uh, I can't help but believe that these young people are going to be, this is going to be a very impressionable memory in their minds as they're growing up. That they all came here to learn about local government and about the environment. You know, the scrub is really important to me personally, especially since I live in Hope Sound and that's kind of what we're known for. You know, there are, there are probably some more quaint neighborhoods to live in in Martin County than in Hope Sound. I'll have to admit, I think, I think downtown Stewart is absolutely lovely. And Sewell's Point is just gorgeous. Don't forget Jensen Beach. And Jensen Beach. Palm City. No, it's too avant-garde. Anywhere in Martin County is great, right? But, you know, what Hope Sound has to offer, I always tell people, close beach access and our big natural areas. Uh, hiking in the woods. Man, it's fun. I, I go a lot. Um, I try to exercise like three times a week. And one time a week, I, I walk in the scrub. Um, usually for about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. So I'm in the scrub like once a week. And then I usually walk to the beach once a week from my house and back, which is about four miles. And then I try to go to the gym once a week. That's about all I can fit in. Uh, with busy commission life, I should exercise more. But the, the, the scrub is very much a part of my consciousness. Uh, and I hate to see any of it disturbed. I would love to preserve it all. But, you know, when I think about what a good purpose might be if we had to disturb some of it, you know, having a school situated in it that, that teaches about the value of the scrub lands. Uh, and, uh, a school that really focuses in on that kind of thing. That's probably a really good, um, a really good purpose, uh, if, if it had to happen. And, um, you know, I've often wondered riding around in Hobe Sound now that I've learned more about the scrub. Most of Hobe Sound is built on a big sand ridge. Our land perks really well in Hobe Sound because it's all, we all, we're all living on sugar sand, I'm afraid. Uh, probably my house used to be scrub off of Gomez Avenue. And, uh, most of the neighborhoods in Hobe Sound were probably scrub lands at one time. And that's kind of, kind of sad, but at least we're all on the right course now trying to do all we can to save all we can. And it appears to me that the Pine School is doing this in a very responsible way. So, I am, uh, more comfortable with what you have in mind and I will support it. Thank you, Chairman Hurd. Um, just want to add two quick things. We're not, and this is one thing I want to clean up for Toby that he didn't mention. I'm a little nervous today. I got a little pressure on me. I've got three of my kids in the back of the room, Morgan, Mackenzie, and Madeline. And then there's, uh, and then there's the boss is back. And, Benny, I want to tell you, you've done an incredible job on this master site plan. I know this has been a lot of work, uh, for you and I the last five years. It's a big watermark for the school. Um, the gopher tortoises. I'm not debating the process, but one thing Toby's forgetting to tell you is, we're going to leave every gopher tortoise there that we can. Every single one of them. What we also determined to, and Mrs. Cox has accepted, um, starting tomorrow, she will be working with us in the native plant society to map all of the plants on property, as well as Dr. Nicole Kirchner, who's one of our, uh, doctors, biologists at the school. So we'll be joining in partnership and working with the kids as early as tomorrow. Great. Thank you. Thank you. We're giving this, uh, undue consideration. We're not, um, scrub habitat is not recreatable. Uh, many habitats are, but scrub is not one of them. So we want to make sure that if we're, are destroying a scrub that we're trying to replace it. There is a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. Unanimously. Thank you. I'm going to get them clear out and we'll proceed. Oh. Is it Ed? Wait, do you think right now? No. No. No. No. No. No. Where are you going? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No? No. No. No. No. No. I'm in the room. big time. No. Don't go away. There's no action. It's just a presentation. There's a room. All right, we're taking up public hearing number one, which is a public hearing on proposed Martin County Trico settlement for Michelle Poe versus Martin County, Florida. Good afternoon, Chair and Commissioner. Tangie Grimm, for the record, I'm the Deputy HR Risk Director. This item is being presented as a public hearing for comment only in accordance with the Board's established procedures for Trico settlements. No formal action by the Board is required at this time. The hearing provides an opportunity for public input on a proposed settlement in the case of Michelle Poe versus Martin County, which arose from a trip-and-fall incident at a county facility. The county self-insured through Trico, which assigned council, and participated in settlement discussions. The proposed settlement has been recommended as being in the best interest of the county and is fully covered by previously established Trico reserves. In accordance with Board procedures, this public hearing is required prior to finalizing any settlement over 5,000 to allow for transparency and public comment. Following a public hearing, staff will complete the required procedural steps and notify Trico that the Board's process has been satisfied. This concludes my presentation, and at this time we can open the floor for comments from the public and the Board. This is a public hearing. Would anyone from the public like to address us? Seeing none, Commissioner Canty. Madam Chair, as our representative with the Trico Board, we have, with staff, have reviewed this, and the settlement that is being presented is in the best interest of the county, and it was very well vetted, and this was the best option that we could come up with. We need to take no action, right? No action. No action. Mr. Vargas. No, no, that's fine if it's no action. I was curious, what was the person doing that they were on county property? If they're not an employee, it would have been what? Workers' comp, so. No, they're a civilian just walking. Were they supposed to be there? They had access to be there. It was over at the Indian Riverside. It was what? At the Indian Riverside facility. Park. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Oh, yes. Okay, now I remember the incident. Okay. Thank you. We will take up, let's see. DPQJ2, which is a quasi-judicial public hearing, a request for a variance to allow the issuance of a building permit on a legal lot of record that does not front an open road but has access via an easement. Good afternoon. Good morning. Good afternoon, Chairman. And please proceed. I'm Michael Grzelka, the county engineer, and with me I've got Jet Martell, the acting county surveyor, who will be making the presentation. Jet Martell, for the record, acting county surveyor. I have the board placed through. This is quasi-judicial. Any ex parte disclosures? Commissioner Vargas. If I have any, they've been disclosed. Commissioner Capps. 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. And Commissioner Heatherington. I also don't have any, and that's been filed. And you've filed your information with the clerk? Yes. Yes. 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 the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Please proceed, Ms. Martell. Good afternoon, commissioners. Today we have a request from Robert and Jamie Donovan, along with Sharon and Gerald Beam, for a variance to allow the issuance of a building permit on a legal law of record that does not front an open road. According to Martin County Code Land Development Regulations, Section 4.843-K1C, the Board of County Commissioners may grant a variance that allows a building permit on a lot not fronting an open road, provided that the board determines the following. One, the lot is a legal lot of record, and two, the lot has legal access to an open road that is A, reasonable and practical, and B, in general conformity to the style and character of the neighborhood, and C, established by recorded easement no more than a quarter mile or 1,320 feet long, and three, the variance does not create an undue burden on the county's provision of public safety or public services. Staff's analysis of the required determinations follows the requirement. One, the lot is a legal lot of record and was established pursuant to Palm City Farms, according to the plat thereof, recorded in Platte Book 6, page 42, public records of Palm Beach, now Martin County, Florida, and per a legal lot split as recorded in Official Records Book 3,536, page 2,852, and Official Records Book 3,536, page 2,856. Shown in blue on the location map. Two, the lot has reasonable and practical access to an open road being South West Moore Street, approximately 330 feet to the first lot, shown in red on the location map, and an additional 330 feet to the second lot, shown in yellow on the location map. The total distance being approximately 660 feet in length, which is less than the maximum distance of 1,320 feet. It is in general conformity with the character of the surrounding neighborhood. Access to the lot is established by an access and utilities easement agreement, recorded in Official Records Book 3,536, page 2,860, Public Records of Myron County, Florida. Use of the access, which is located outside of a public right-of-way, would not place an undue burden on the county's provision of public safety or services. The Board of County Commissioners has been asked to be notified if the parcels associated with such a variance is within the urban service boundary and if the parcels are located in Palmar or Palm Beach Heights subdivisions. The subject parcels are not within the primary urban service boundary, nor is it near Palmar or Palm Beach Heights subdivision. It is staff's recommendation, one, that the Board move to receive and file this agenda item summary and all of its attachments for the record as Exhibit 1, and two, move that the Board grant the variance and adopt the resolution to allow insurance of the building permits on certain parcels identified as Exhibit A. And with that, I would be happy to answer any questions. Questions for Ms. Martell? Seeing none. Wait a minute. One question. Yeah, Mr. Camps. The quarter-mile thing, I'm just curious. Is that a fairly strict standard on an issue like that or a lenient standard or kind of in the middle? Or is that something unique to Martin County, Comp Plan? I'm curious about that. Like, say somebody had a lot, like, out in the wilderness, deep into the forest somewhere, and they needed an easement that was, like, five miles long or something. I guess that would not be allowed, then? Not per our LDRs. Yeah, per the LDRs. Okay. Any thoughts about how does that, how do we compare to other counties on that issue? Like, is that a strict interpretation? Or I'm just curious about it. So Tyson Waters on behalf of the applicant, I'm not sure. I think that came a number of years ago when there were some parcels of land, I want to say off Martin Highway, some 20-acre tracts of land that were well off the Martin Highway. And so there were easements and dirt roads that kind of connected to these parcels. And I believe, and certainly correct me if I'm wrong, it evolved out of that. And the quarter mile, I'm not sure how the quarter mile was determined as being reasonable, I would imagine, related to the fact that they still have to get public services. And so wanting to make sure they were close enough to still provide those, get those services. It seems like, it seems reasonable. I was just curious how I compared to other communities. But that's fine. Thank you. I would just add that we went through a number of years of iteration to come up with the rules that you have in front of you, from being super strict that there should be none, to finding out that that didn't work, to creating the procedure that we have today. Our chair endured that with me for many years on how we accomplished that process. Open roads is kind of a unique standard, too, in Martin County. Essentially, you deal with roads that were created by plats, some going back to the early 20s or such like that. And up until 1972, you could just take a bulldozer or whatever and plow an opening and get a building permit. After that, we said you needed to be on an open road, which is a Martin County definition. And it has evolved since that to today where we have it more precisely defined in the land development regulations through a number of iterations. Thank you. Mr. Vargas. Yeah, I think this is way out west, Palm City area, and there are mostly gravel or dirt roads out there, correct? In this particular area we're talking about? I think this is paved, but there's a mixture of... There's paved on the main, and then it's gravel, and then it's gravel to get to your home in these areas, right, or the lots? A good majority of the roads in Palm City Farms have been paved over the years. There are still a number of them that are privately maintained that are dirt roads. Right, but in this particular case... In this particular case, Moore Street is paved up to... Up to that certain point there. Up to this point, correct. Yeah, and then the rest is rock. Well, they're essentially driveways once you get in... I mean, that's what they... They amount for are driveways to get through the west half of track 7 and the east and west half of track 8. Okay. So fire safety, if they have to do turnaround, how do they do that on these roads if they have to get to homes in there? Currently, they normally use driveways. Somebody's driveway. Correct. Just drive around the driveway. They pull in the driveways and back out and... Go on the land or... Yeah. More casual. Mr. Waters. So, again, Tyson Waters on behalf of the applicant. I just want to thank Ms. Martell and staff for working with us in the legal department for getting us to where we're at today. This is... It's in Western Martin County. These are lots of record... All five-acre lots, so all we're looking to do is be able to pull a building permit on each of those five-acre lots. Outside of the Urban Service District, I think as your staff went through, we meet and satisfy all of your requirements in Section 4.843-K1C of your land development regulations. And with that, we'd ask you to agree with your staff and approve this open road variance. And I'm certainly here for any questions that you have. Questions? Move approval. Second. It's a quasi. You've got to ask the public. Yes. This is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address us? Seeing none, I'll close the public portion of the hearing and come back to the board. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you for everything you did today. It was a long day, I hope, but I appreciate it. Your son will be very proud of you on your door. He's 17. I don't know about that. He will. He just won't tell you. We will take up R&P 1, which is a MARTI system update. Mr. Beecher. Good afternoon, commissioners. Ash Beecher, transit administrator. Today we have a presentation from MCT LLC, a division of Senior Resource Association, providing an update on ridership and operations of the MARTI bus system. This will be presented by Karen Deagle and Chris Stevenson from SRA. Thank you, Ash. Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. It's nice to be back in front of you. The last time, I think, was back in November when we made a great decision for the transit system, and we wanted to give you just a quick update on the success that we've had and also some future plans that we're working on. So, first of all, we've got – okay, great. Thank you. So, we just wanted to give you an update on the fiscal year ridership. Currently, since July of last year, when we took over, July 1st, we have seen an increase of 20% ridership. However, if you go to the next slide, please, since in the red, you'll see there – this is November when we decided to go fare-free. There is an increase of 37% ridership. So, it's been very successful. We are looking to even greater numbers because we have some plans that I'm going to let Chris talk about. Hi, y'all. I'm Chris Stevenson. I'm the Director of Transportation at Martin County Transit. And like Karen indicated, we've been really encouraged by the growth in ridership since we went fare-free. And that's just the beginning because we've got some other big plans for the system. We've identified 21 locations in the community where we want to add bus stops. And you can see they're on all of our different routes, not just one specific route. And we're hoping that just by adding, you know, 21 more bus stops, we'll be able to continue to get higher ridership. And those are all locations that don't require any big infrastructure adds. It's just a pole in the ground with the sign on it. There's already a sidewalk there. It's already ADA accessible. So, we feel really good about being able to get those stops added in the very near future. We've already started talking to FDOT and the City of Stewart if the stops are in their right-of-way. So, in the very near future, we'll be adding those stops, and we will continue to see ridership grow there. And then also, we've started a route optimization study. So, we had told you all back in November that that was something we wanted to do for the system. We've engaged Michael Baker International. They're a consulting firm with a very good reputation in the state of Florida, and we started working with them on May 1st. And they are going to help us really dive deep into the system, which routes we need to look at, all the bus stops, considering microtransit, the hours that we're running, things like that. And so, those are things that we told you all we were going to do back in November. We've already started doing that, and we think the system, which has a lot of positive growth right now, is just going to continue to see that growth in the very near future. And that's it. Questions? Commissioner Capps. What was the increase since Fair Free 32 or 36? 37 percent since going Fair Free in November. I wonder if any of you have heard any stories from writers, like initial reactions, when they found out that it would be Fair Free. Well, we did get a lot of great press. I think you remember back in November, December. And, Chris, have you got some stories you want to? Yeah, so, yeah, there were a lot of newspaper articles and things on the news where people were just talking. Well, I'm thinking more in terms of the writers themselves. Like, were people pretty shocked? Absolutely. They went out and spoke to a lot of people in the community. People were thrilled about it. They were talking about how they're able to use the bus more because they don't have to pay a fare. And it's really opened up a lot of doors for people in the community. Better quality of life for them. They're able to get places. And I think that we all know, you know, with the economy, the cost of living, the increases, every little bit helps. And this certainly has helped a lot of people. And we look forward to expanding in even greater so that we can help even more people get places where they need to go. Mr. King. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I represent Palm City, which is a transit desert. That's right. But I just wanted to reiterate, when we went to fare-free, there was some pushback from people that said, oh, you're doing free buses. The gist of that was that, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the grant money that we get from the federal government, let's just use round numbers, it's $1 million. And when we were collecting the fare, if we collected $100,000, the first thing that the federal grant would do is deduct $100,000 from the million-dollar grant. So by going fare-free, we not only still, I guess, achieve the same amount of cash or financing, but it also eliminated the fact that if yours is all about seconds and minutes, correct, on the routes, someone would have to go to the driver, give them the money, the driver would have to either make some kind of transaction for the fare, and then the person behind them and behind them, how many fewer or as many people that get on, then that driver would be responsible for the fare collections and then collecting them, bringing them to wherever the bus ended that evening. Then that money would have to be secured. Then the next morning, a law enforcement officer from the Palm City. Counted first. Counted out in front of someone so that there's checks and balances to see that there's no skimming. Right. Then either a deputy or a steward police officer would have to meet them and then collect that and bring it in for a deposit. And when they counted, you had to have two people in the room in a locked room with video. Correct. So by changing it to fare-free, which has all of the benefits that you mentioned and that Commissioner Capps was asking about, from a logistics point of view, we're saving even additional money because the personnel, the timing, our law enforcement personnel, the deposits and the rest of it for a relatively small amount of money. So that was your suggestion, similar to what they did, a similar study up in St. Lucie. They did the pilot project and they, after the two years of pilot project, they continued to, it's fair for you. Which just seems to make sense. And so we're seeing ridership increase, which is what our ultimate goal is. So that was the two of you. That was your suggestion that we embraced. And thank you very much for that. Thank you very much for understanding. And you guys have done a remarkable job with the whole thing. I've had the opportunity to be with you in Indian River. And, you know, that's our goal. I mean, they're our sister county. And what are they doing, 1.5 million riders? We'll do 1.6 this year. 1.6. Yes. And so similar population and everything else. And we're working our way there. But, I mean, so it's not like it can't work. We just have to be patient. Patient, time, and optimization. With that gentleman sitting right there and the two of you, I think we're going to get there. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I just wanted to make mention that we do have a great working relationship with the Martin County staff, Ash and his team. And it's been going very well. So thank you. Thank you. Great report. Thank you. Now we will take up Department 1, Office of Management and Budget Items, which require board approval. Good afternoon. Stephanie Murley, Director of OMB, here to present two items today on OMB. Our first item is a permission to accept the local agency program or the LAP grant for funding assistance from FDOT for the Southwest Bulldog Way sidewalk project. Our Public Works Department is requesting the acceptance of $1,072,940 for the construction of an eight-foot-wide sidewalk on Southwest Bulldog Way from Southwest Hawk View Circle to the entrance of South Fork High School. The funds for constructions that are more than the program funding in the amount of about $61,000 will be coming from the FY26 Roads Capital Improvement Plan. There is no cash match required for this grant. And item number two is an adjustment to the fiscal year 2026 budget. Martin County is in receipt of an unanticipated contribution from the Hobes Sound Community Chest in the amount of $24,400 for soccer facility improvements at William G. Dockmeyer's Park. The total cost of improvements is $48,822, which will be shared with District 3 MSTU funds. And OMB is just requesting a budget resolution to allocate the unanticipated revenues into the budget. Yo, Community Chest, a big thank you. Yes. And that's all I have today. Any questions? Motion to accept. I'm sorry. Yeah, I will second that motion as well, but I thought I would mention what we have in mind at Doc Myers Park. The Community Chest is a great partner. This will be the second time that I've used some district funds with them. We did scoreboards at Reed Park in Hobes Sound. And so we partnered on that one like 50-50, and then we're doing that on this one too. And what we're going to get at Doc Myers Park is a fence along Dixie. A big portion of the border along Dixie does not have a fence, so it will have a fence. And then we're buying a couple of additional storage sheds that they need for soccer equipment and such. And then there's an existing concession stand building, and we're going to put a big awning roof on the back side of it so the kids can get out of the rain. Those are the main things, as I remember. I think I got it all. But just thought I'd let people know what's happening there. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We'll go on to Department 2, contracts that meet the threshold for board approval of $1 million or greater. Ms. Brotherton. All right. Good afternoon. Christy Brotherton, your Chief Procurement Officer. We have three items for your consideration today, and the first one is a professional services contract for the Dixie Stormwater and Streetscape design. And staff is recommending that the board award the contract to the highest-ranked firm, which is GAI Consultants, in the amount of $1,700,409.34, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. Next, we have a continuing services agreement. This is for parks and recreation planning, design and construction administration services. And this contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $2,500,000 and a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending a contract award to the three highest-scoring firms, which are Kimley Horn & Associates, Miller Legg, and WGI Incorporated, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. And last, we have another continuing services agreement. This is for disaster recovery and resiliency services, and this contract has a maximum not-to-exceed value of $3 million and a maximum not-to-exceed term of five years. And staff is recommending contract award to the two highest-ranked firms, which is La Conte Engineering and Tidal Basin Government Consulting, and move that the board authorize the county administrator or designee to execute all documents related to this request. That concludes this item. Questions? I'll move approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Department 5 is approval of three memorandums of agreement with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Rural and Family Lands Protection Program for the acquisition of conservation easements over certain environmentally sensitive parcels using surtax funding. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayle. Good afternoon. John Mayle, Martin County Environmental Resource Administrator, and this item is the culmination of a Martin County Forever initiative to do rural and family lands easements in partnership with the Florida Department of Ag and Consumer Services. There are three properties that FDAC is moving forward to governor and cabinet hopefully in June, and in order to move those forward on the governor and cabinet agenda item, they wanted to have funding agreements in place with Martin County. So what these MOAs do is establishes that partnership between us and FDACs, and we are agreeing to fund up to 50% on each of these. And the negotiations will take place after governor and cabinet approves those, and we'll bring back the final easements for approval to the board at that time. So the three properties are Turnpike Dairy, which is in the IRL South program. It's west of Fox Brown, south of Martin Grade. It is about 500 acres, and that would be for an agriculture easement with EPDACs. The second property is SS Farms, which falls in the Palmar Water Control District. It's a 55-acre property of active ranching. And the third one is the Leonard property, which is 239 acres more or less on Bridge Road, south side of Bridge Road, and it is part of the Loxalusie program. So we get an easement from three of the four programs. It would be hard to get an ag easement in the Blue Ways. And what we're asking for is the board to approve the MOAs, to partner with Rural and Family Lands to acquire conservation easements on all three properties, and to authorize the chair to execute the MOAs. Questions for Mr. Mayall. Mr. Capps. It seems that I heard that with the EPDACs program, Rural and Family Lands, that they currently have like 500 applications across the state for conservation easements. Is that right? Somewhere in that range? I think it's north of that now. It's been a popular program in part because it's not enjoyed this level of funding for quite some time. And we were one of the early beneficiaries of that in Martin County with the Bull Hammock Ranch being put under easement a year ago last December. That was a very large one. And I think it was at the time it was the largest one that FDACs had done. And it was one of the properties that we had contemplated acquiring an easement on with Martin County Forever. And it was taken off the table right away. But to your point, as they rank these 500-plus acquisitions, they start the ranking with 50% partners. And then once they exhaust those, they'll look at projects that are funded with partners less than 50%. And only until they get through that list do they look at the remainder that would be 100% FDACs funded. So the 50%, I mean, the half cent sales tax that we passed is definitely the key as to why we're getting any of this money. More than likely, if we wouldn't have passed that, we wouldn't be getting any of this. There just wouldn't be any funding to pursue partnering with. So it does uniquely advantages us. Not only that we have the sales tax for conservation acquisition, but that it allowed for and specifically called out easements as an acquisition tool. So it really puts us in a unique place to move our priorities forward with FDACs. And they have the funds right now. Florida Forever has had more austerity in previous budget years and is likely this year to also have not a great year of funding. FDACs continues to be very popular with the legislature. So we expect them to have several hundred million. That's still being sorted out by committee chairs for this budget. But there wasn't an option less than $200 million offered yet. Cool. Now, our half cent sales tax is for four land in four different areas. One is IRL South. One is Palmar. One is Luxa Lucy. And one is Blue Ways. It has to be one of those. And can you tell us just a little bit about the importance of the first one, IRL Southland, and how it interplays with Everglades restoration? You and Chair Herd would be great to tell us about that. I'm not sure who would be best. I think Chair Herd knows about as much about that as any of us could ever know about it. So maybe you could tell us, Chair Herd or John. That would be great. I'm happy to attempt to fill the shoes of our Chair, who was present when the natural lands component of Indian River Lagoon South was approved in 2007, WERDA, and was at the committee hearings arguing for their inclusion and the value of that component. So we throw around IRL South parochially, and a lot of us understand what that means, but I think it's a fair point to bring it up. The Indian River Lagoon South project is one of 67 projects in the comprehensive Everglades restoration plan that was approved in 2000. And then IRL South was approved and authorized by Congress in WERDA 2007, which is the Water Resources Development Act. Included in the Indian River Lagoon South component is a phrase called natural lands. And the idea of natural lands was as they build this infrastructure, i.e. a 3,000-acre reservoir, 6,500 acres of STA in Martin County, and thousands and thousands more acres of that in St. Lucie County, that is not really considered habitat. A giant reservoir actually probably is detrimental to habitat. And so the offset to that is to acquire, per the project implementation report, 90,000 acres of natural lands to offset that habitat loss. A very, very good example of that, and maybe one of the best, was the acquisition of the easement of Barbie Ranch. It's located immediately adjacent to the C44 reservoir in STA that has no trees. By design, that infrastructure is open water and wetlands. So all of the new creatures and birds that are enjoying that facility have nowhere to roost. And what Barbie Ranch does is to make sure that they would always have a place to roost. And natural lands works in that way. It also helps to preserve areas that are permeable so that you get aquifer recharge, you get the natural wetland treatment of that stormwater, and it also mitigates additional flushing to the St. Lucie River. And among other things, it didn't even go into the threatened and endangered species habitat it provides and open space and how much less demand it puts on services if those areas were developed, and I could go on and on. But that's a unique element of the Indian River Lagoon South project that is unique to that one of 67 projects. And that was because of the forward thinking of our board and the community in Martin County that made sure that that was included. One of the other, I'm going to keep going here until you shut me off. You haven't fallen asleep yet, Commissioner Campy, so I know I'm okay. I'd wait for you, my friend. One of the other really unique features of that is when we partner with FDACs to secure these easements, if we're a 50% partner, let's say it's a $1 million acquisition and we put half a million dollars into it, at some point down the road when the Water Management District, as the local sponsor for these Everglades restoration projects, is able to certify those lands in comprehensive Everglades restoration, then that leverages an equal share from the federal government through the Corps of Engineers of spending on Everglades restoration. So in theory, our half a million, in this example, leverages a $2 million improvement to the natural system. Wow, that's really cool. Very good. Thank you. Mr. Campy. See that? Mr. Mail, you and I have had an opportunity to speak briefly. There's very little Palm City property that would ever qualify for the half a cent sales tax, but we do have a little opportunity along within the blue ways category, along Danforth Creek leading to the South Fork of the St. Lucie River. So what needs to happen for us to have that be considered by the ELOC? I believe the property you're talking about is going before the ELOC in June. Okay, good. You were able to just add it on? Yes. And the process is we send that up to the Florida Natural Areas Inventory to provide an environmental assessment. We do some of the scoring that we provide to the ELOC, and then they evaluate them. We bring it to you, and you guys have the ultimate say on whether it is included in the Martin County Forever program. Okay. And then other than us following it on our own, can you keep me apprised of that? Of course. Yes, sir. Thank you. Rick Hartman, would you like to address us? I was present when these three properties were first given to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and it wasn't that long ago, and they were immediately receptive, so very, very fast work. These three parcels will provide enormous environmental benefit to us, so really, really fine work. Is there a motion? I'd love to make a motion for it. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We have reached the end of our meeting. We'll now take up, let's see, would anyone from the public like to address us? Where is Mrs. DeBerard? No. She spoke this morning on the same subject, so I informed her that she could not speak twice on the same subject on the same day. I saw her leave crying. They're horrible. All right. Then we'll do Commissioner comments. Commissioner Hetherington. That's it for today. Thank you. Commissioner Campy. Two events this week in District 5. The first one on May 21st is Dish with the Commish at the Charlie Layton Park Community Center. It's at the base of the Palm City Bridge. You have to, instead of going into the parking lot on the north side, you have to go past the building to the first eastern side street and come around by the Treasure Coast Rowing Center to park in the lot, because Charlie Layton Park is getting close to being finished, but not finished yet. That will be at 8 a.m. on the 21st, and this month's guests are Carol Dietz Howard, who runs the United Way, and our brand new director of the Children's Services Council, Laura Hasse. So they will be together as guests to discuss and take questions on their services, you know, especially the United Way has some transportation services and things I believe our citizens could really take advantage of, but probably don't know about as well. And then on that same, this same week, on Saturday, the 23rd, we're having music in the park. It starts at 6.30. It's on Map Road. We have a great local duo, male and female duo. Sound great. We'll have food trucks. We'll have adult beverages. We'll have ice cream. You can come with little kids, senior citizens. Time to get out and share in the community. The weather will be great, hopefully. And it's just a nice time. You can bring food. You can order food in from some of the local places or picnic lunch or use our food trucks, and we would love to see you at either or both. They're both free, and they're both open to the public. Thank you. Mr. Capps. I'm good today. Mr. Vargas. Yeah. I have received quite a few of calls, e-mails, people stopping me. This is about the operations facility, and there are a lot of questions that are unanswered. I had asked Mr. Donaldson to put this under projects. Was that under projects? Some people called me as late as yesterday and said they couldn't find it. So the commissioner is referring to the infographic that we provided regarding the P3. We included it on our – there's a part of our website, and it's not on the front page, but it's where you can find projects, both development projects and county projects. And when you find the location that has the project for our field ops facility, public works, the infographic was included in there, and that's where it currently resides. We could certainly bring you more attention to it if the board likes, but at this point, that's where we put it. Okay. Why don't we put it under hot topics so people can find this easily? Because as I said, I'm getting a lot of feedback on this still. And there are a lot of questions, too, that they have. Who is the contractor for this? I mean, this is not identified. The other thing is the developer, in this case, was the school company, and they're subcontracting out to other companies. And that's important to identify. We have to be totally transparent about this. So the school people are not building. They are a third party, and we have no bio at all other than what was presented there, who's the third party. And I do want Martin County, this is very important, listed as additional insured to the bond. And it's critical because the developer, the builder, the contractor, they're all different people. And so this is a pseudo-developer for this. General contingencies, profit and overhead. There's no breakdown by percentage either. Nothing was included, and there are three criteria in the bond process, have to make line-item guarantees. The other thing, if they have used any one of those three, they need permission as additional insured. If they have any of these three criteria, they will need permission and must notice Martin County under the bond. This is required. The other thing is, what is the profit and overhead? Nothing's been identified. Who gets this profit and overhead? And there may be a consulting engineer on this, too. They have to outline the deficiencies and the solution under the contract. If you don't have these answers, this is critical. This is a $74 million no-bid project. So the developer that identified themselves as subcontracting to others and not identify who's getting paid what amount of money, we need to know who the third party is. And the bond must be clear as additional insured. The other thing, contingency funds must be identified and approved through the Martin County Board of County Commissioners. This is money that's the taxpayer's money. And the consulting engineer must report to the county also. There has to be accountability for this. What about the soft cost? Who's oversighting that? These are all answers that we are required to provide to our constituents. Is there a pre-development approved budget? And it just seems very excessive, very excessive, because some of these numbers are way off. I mean, I'm just looking at the Turtle Beach Cafe. We made a full presentation last meeting. I did. And also our parks director. The other thing, I had a question on who's construction management services. I asked that the other day. You didn't know. It's right here on this paper. The county is overseeing the construction management service. So that's who the county is construction management services? Our county staff are managing the construction administration. So you've asked a whole litany of things. We are following the same process we use for any. The county is the developer. We are the owner of the facility and over the property. We followed the state statutes in terms of a P-3 contracting arrangement, which is different than, I understand, than we have traditionally followed. And so we are now in the process. Actually, the bonds were sold today. And I think they got very good prices for it. What prices? Can we get all this information? It's kind of vague here. You know, and I understand money. So the borrowing costs and those were presented in the board item, simply the infographic was simply about the P-3 process. The budgeting was in our CIP. Still is. It is a fixed cost contract. It cannot be exceeded. There's no contingency funds because it is. That's the unique party of a P-3. There are no contractor-initiated change orders that can't exceed that. So the facility will be built to a standard that was in the original design documentation, and there can be no change orders. So, but in any event, the infographic, where it is, is how we have traditionally put information regarding projects. If the board wants it, you know, placed under HOP topics, I would ask the three of you to nod and agree. Otherwise, we'll leave it in where we have it with our projects. In terms of providing you updates on the progress of the project, we can certainly do that in terms of where, you know, they have 18 months to design, permit, and build a project and turn it over to the county with furniture, fixtures, and equipment, including stormwater construction, water, sewer, all of the appurtenances necessary for the project. The contract included square footage requirements, wind load requirements, all of those features, and the insurance and bonds. So, I think in terms of what the project is, it's been defined in our CIP in terms of how it's been contracting. It was not contracted under the statutes that have to deal with sole source. It was contracted under the statutes that deal with P-3s, public-private partnerships. And that is the process that we followed. Okay. But I still need to get the particulars of everything I've asked. Plus, you said the bonds were sold today. So, I need those particulars, too. May I send you a letter then requesting all of that? So, a number of things you ask, you don't get from contractors. For instance, they don't disclose any – no contractor discloses their profits. You know, that's just simply not part of the issue. So, I can provide the issue, the information that you've requested, that is normal and readily available. Okay. I'll go ahead and follow up with a letter to you. Thank you. I'm not – Are you going to put this on Hot Topics then so people can find this? That would be up to your colleagues if they would like me to do that. Okay. Colleagues, what do we say? Yes, I agree that it could be on Hot Topics when we requested that infographic or whatever, the one-pager. I appreciate that the staff did it. I think there's nothing for us to hide, and it should be on the Hot Topics to make it more readily easy to find. That's two. Me. Me, two. That's five. Mr. Capps. Yeah, I was just going to mention that thing about no change order. That's a huge deal. Well, you know, if you talk to anyone who's ever built anything, they always say two things. It cost me way more than I ever expected, and it took way longer than I thought it would. And this is just a common thing in the new construction world, and everybody pays way more than they expected to pay. But this is a very unique type of contract, and that's one of its big advantages, I think. And also that white paper showed me estimated costs per square foot for a number of our buildings. The only design build was Sea Turtle Cafe, which was way higher than the other projects. Can we have a status update? I don't know where they got that number. Can we have a status update on that? Yes, we can provide that. Madam Chair, the Taxpayers Association also did a review and printed something that I had also received, as Commissioner Vargas, I had received some concerns and comments about that process. There was a lot of information that was out, and when I forwarded on the recap from the Taxpayers Association, the responses I got from the people that I sent it to was very favorable. Any further questions? We are adjourned. Wait a minute. We're not adjourned. Mr. Donaldson, do you have some comments? I just wanted to say. Since you missed half the day. Yes. I spent the morning with our colleagues at Jupiter Island, and I'm happy to say that Jupiter Island granted us a variance for our fire rescue, ocean rescue facility at the beach. There was a lot of discussion on, if you all know, that the town has a coastal setback line that's very important to them. And so they took a very deliberate approach to reviewing that. And in the process of that, I did make several commitments to the town regarding, one, the project and how we would handle construction. We also received their demolition authorization and the site plan approval. We will be getting some, and I'll meet with you, but some of the things they asked for were related to the contractor and how we would handle the facility when it's under construction, knowing that residents will maybe trying to go there and we have partially closed. So we committed that we would have sheriff's deputies on site when needed for, if we have to close portions of it or all of it at any given time. We committed that the septic and sewer, as you all had approved, that we would install a force main and grinder pump. Or if the town is doing a larger project, that we would contribute to a larger project to get there. At this time, they're not ready for it, so we'll do a septic tank at this time. And we committed that we'd bring an item back in the future regarding late-night usage of the park between midnight and 4 a.m. So I will do that, coordinate a time to discuss that. It said made no promises, but that we would present that item. And another sort of off the – that wasn't related to the project, but there was some concern about the county in the future maybe wanting to put on-street parking on South Beach Road, which we have no interest in doing. And I suggested that the county would be willing to enter into an agreement that says we are not going to build on-street parking on South Beach Road. And I would bring that forward to you in the future, coordinating with the town on how we might accomplish that. Yeah. You know, I attended the first hearing with the town, and I was so glad that we had our county administrator there. That's a tough group. Man, they worked him over. And I was really amazed at County Administrator Donaldson's knowledge and his coolness under fire because they worked him over hard. But he was just masterful in dealing with the situation. And I'm really glad for your leadership and your skill and the way you handle yourself in those kinds of tough situations. So very good job. Well, thank you. Well, certainly going down there and missing a meeting and coming back empty-handed was not something I wanted to do. So I thank Mayor Townsend, who was her last day, for helping me through and giving me advice prior to the meeting. Thank you. Do they name the new appointee today? No, they'll do that tomorrow. Okay. If you're going to get a beatdown somewhere, you should let us know so we can be there to watch. Ms. Elder, anything? Did you bring your gunslinger with you? Anybody else? Now I think we're adjourned. Yes. What am I getting?