Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. If you wish to speak to any item on the agenda or during the public comment portion of the meeting, Please fill out a speaker card. Each person addressing the board shall have three minutes to complete his or her comments on each agenda item for which he or she has
filled out a card. The chair has the discretion to determine or alter the time limits on any agenda item. The board of county commissioners requests that speakers appearing under the public comment section of the agenda limit their comments or presentations to matters relating to county business that
are within the board's control, authority, and jurisdiction. Good morning and welcome to the November 18th regular meeting and organizational meeting for the board of county commissioners. We have a quorum. I'll call the meeting to order. Today we have
an invitation by Pastor Troy Countryman from Faith Vieira Lutheran Church. Thank you for being here this morning, sir. You're recognized. >> All right. Good morning and thanks for having me. It's uh again I think it's the third time I've done this. It's a blessing. It's a privilege to uh to be
here uh with you. And as Rob said, I'm not I'm not just here as a as a pastor of Faith Vera, but as a husband, as a father, as a fellow citizen of Bvard County, and I appreciate you and in your service and and to our community. So, uh let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, you are the one who rules and reigns over all things and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to your son, Jesus. And we thank you that in and through him, you've shown us mercy. You've shown us life. You've shown us light. You also gather us into
communities. You establish rulers and officials for the welfare of all people and for the maintenance of order and justice. And so I pray that today you would bless these Bvard County Commissioners, all those who gather here to serve uh as citizens in this community. Grant them the wisdom that
comes from you, integrity of heart, courage to do what is right and just. and I pray that their decisions will promote peace, protect life and property, and advance the common good according to your good and gracious will. Keep us always mindful that we are just stewards, caretakers of the life of
the gifts that you have entrusted to us. And one day we will give an account before your judgment seat. So turn our hearts to fear, love, and trust in you above all things that we would serve our neighbors faithfully and live together in godliness and dignity dignity. We pray this in the holy and precious name
of Jesus. Amen. Thank you, sir, very much. Commissioner Atinson, for the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. >> All right, commissioners, real quick. Commissioner Goodson, are you on the phone, sir? Is Tom there? >> Commissioner Goodson, can you hear us? >> No. All right. Maybe he's got technical difficulties this morning. All right. We're going to
go on to the selection. >> Okay. Um, nonetheless, we're going to ask for a motion to allow him. >> Okay, there he is. Okay. All right. I need a motion for Commissioner Goodson to participate by phone. >> Make a motion. >> All right. Motion by Commissioner
Delaney, second by Commissioner Alman. Uh, clerk will call the role on that. >> All right, we're going. >> Commissioner Delaney. Yes. >> Chairman. >> Yes. >> Excuse me. >> That's okay. >> Commissioner Goodson.
Yes. >> Commissioner Atkinson. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Altman. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Felner. >> Yes. All right. Uh thank you for that. Commissioners will go to the uh election of chair. Is there a motion for >> a motion?
>> I would like to make a motion for Commissioner Altner. See our new chair. >> All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Atinson for Commissioner Alman for chair. I have a second by Commissioner Delaney. Commissioner Alman, I I assume you uh accept this willingly. >> I will. It would be a great honor. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> All right. Clerk will call the role for chair. >> Commissioner Delaney. >> Yes. Commissioner Goodson. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Atkinson. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Alman. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Felner.
>> Yes. Congratulations, sir. >> Thank you. >> Turn it on. It's your meeting, sir. >> I don't care. >> Okay. I'll stay right here for now. Okay. Um >> Okay. I think uh next order of business would be to uh have a motion for the
vice chair. >> Chairman, I'd like to make the motion for Kim Atkins to remain as vice chair. >> Okay. Uh motion for representative Commissioner Atinson, vice chair. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Second by
>> Commissioner. >> Oh, >> yep. and and motion second. >> Okay. Any >> Commissioner Delaney? >> Yes. >> Commissioner Goodson, >> yes. >> Vice Chair Atkinson, >> yes. >> Chair Alman,
>> yes. >> Commissioner Felner, >> yes. >> Very good. Okay. Congratulations. So, first I'd like to um really uh commend the job that uh
represent Commissioner Felner has done as chair. It's been a great joy working under underneath him and you did a wonderful job and you served with great honor and dignity and like to present something to you before we proceed with the meeting. All right.
That's nice. >> What are you doing? >> That was me. Uh, Commissioner Felder made this job look easy. It's not as easy as it looks. If you notice, I've already called two commissioners representatives. Sorry. 21
years getting the habit of being in another body, but um it's just been a joy to work with this commission and the staff and I'm I'm really looking forward to serving them in this capacity as chairman. That said, uh our first order
of business is uh approval for the minutes for September 10th and October 2nd, September 23rd and May 20th. Motion by uh Commissioner Delaney. >> Second. >> Second by Ainson. Uh all those in favor
signify by saying yay. Yay. >> Yay. >> I don't think that calls for roll call vote, does it? >> Um okay. Uh next item, resolutions, awards, and presentations. E1 resolution for Susan Jackson, deputy director of
public works district 4. Like for Susan to come up. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >> Susan. It's an honor for me to to uh do this for you. Today I have a resolution uh
rightly recognizing uh the contributions Susan Jackson has has made to this county. Um and after this we'll vote on it and then we'll present you with uh the resolution. >> I don't care. >> Commissioner Goodson, I think maybe mute
or maybe we can mute him. Um >> yeah. >> All right. Whereas Miss Jackson has been providing exceptional guidance and leadership to the Bvard County Board of County Commissioners since June 27th, 1998.
And whereas Miss Jackson graduated from Valencia College in 1985 with an associates degree in land surveying, a bachelor's degree in legal studies from the University of Central Florida in 2007, and a master's degree in public
administration in two 2014. And whereas Miss Jackson worked her way up in the private sector in various roles and capacities, including as a professional land surveyor and previously owning Jackson Land Surveying, Inc. prior to
coming to work for the county in 1998 as the county surveyor. While at the county, Miss Jackson excelled at being the county surveyor and was subsequently promoted to the road and bridge program manager in 2012 and later the assistant
director, including road and bridge program manager in 2019, working her way up to the deputy public works director prior to her retirement. And whereas Miss Jackson's contributions have had a positive impact on public works
throughout the county, including but not limited to effortlessly filling in for the public works director director in his her absence, modernizing the survey program, and making the road and bridge program more responsive, professional,
and accountable. Over her tenure, she specifically led the county's highly successful resurfacing, preservation, and reconstruction paving program, significantly increasing the condition of county roads, oversaw and delivered
on thousands of drainage, road, bridge, and other infrastructure maintenance task, repairs, andor replacement projects, as well as led response efforts to hurricane and other natural disasters. And whereas Miss Jackson
served as a Bvard County Executive Leadership Institute adjunct lecturer and mentor for many years. And whereas Miss Jackson has earned the admiration and respect of her staff and colleagues at the Bvard County Board of County
Commissioners for her professionalism, dedication, skillful leadership, and hard work ethic. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Bvard County Board of County Commissioners do hereby extend to Susan Jackson our sincere appre appreciation for her outstanding public
service from 27 June 1998 to November 18th, 2025 with an effective retirement date of February 6, 2026 and wish her a wonderful retirement enjoying time with her friends and family done order and adopted in regular session this 18th day
of November 2025. Five. And with that, Mr. Chair, I will make a motion to approve. >> Second. >> Okay. Motion uh second by Commissioner Delaney. Um any discussion? All in favor signify by saying yay. I >> yay. >> Motion carries unanimous.
>> Susan Um, commissioners, uh, county leadership, staff, and my friends and family, I am humbled and deeply grateful for this resolution um, and the recognition.
I stand before you today filled with mixed emotions. Uh so happy about the new chapter ahead, but a little sad to be leaving a place and people and a mission that has meant so much to me for
more than for almost three decades. As I reflect back over the years, I can say without hesitation that serving the public and the employees that I've had the privilege to lead has been the greatest honor of my professional life.
the journey um that has uh my journey has been shaped by all the people around me uh including county leadership uh and my colleagues across every department.
I have had the benefit of their support, their wisdom uh and their unwavering commitment to public service. They are truly the heart and soul of this organization.
To my friends and my family, I thank them for their encouragement and their understanding throughout my journey. Uh their sacrifices were real uh and their love has been my foundation.
What I hope remains um as I step uh away are the accomplishments that we have achieved together. To my public works family, I am so looking forward to the incredible things that you will continue to accomplish
and do it better. But I do want to say one thing. I will be watching from the sidelines and and I excuse me. >> You read my mind. And yes, entering a
service request when I spot a pothole or I happen to see construction debris in our gutters or those overenthusiastic sprinklers that like to water our very expensive pavement. Um, you will be receiving a service request from me.
Um, but uh, commissioners, thank you. Um truly from the bottom of my heart um I will treasure this um recognition always. Thank you. Susan, it's been a great honor to have you serve the people of Bvard and you
represent uh county employees and citizenship in a very exemplary manner and your skill, your commitment, your talent talent, your compassion is just a wonderful thing and we're going to miss you greatly. Commissioner Felner, did you want to say
>> I I just I've had the great pleasure of working with Susan uh since I was elected here and you know I take advantage of my office being on this uh complex. So I'm I'm a regular uh over in the public works area and Susan's always
been in incredibly gracious. Um, I have some uh empathy for the pickle ballers of uh district 4 uh because uh with uh the increased time that she's going to have to play pickle ball, I'm sure she's going to shame a lot of uh people out
there. So, take it easy on them. Okay, >> thank you. Um I just wanted to say thank you so much, Susan. Um D1 is probably the uh most called district I think. Um we we have so much need in our community
and you just are always there with the answers to questions with timelines with organization. Um I just really appreciate you as a new commissioner. you know, you were such a resource for us and um I just thank you
so much for your time and effort and your service to our community. Okay. Uh we have a slight agenda change here. We're going to move up uh the presentation for the Indian River Lagoon economic impact uh update. Uh,
Representative Atinson, I mean, Commissioner Atkinson. >> Thank you, Chair. So, um, Valerie or Courtourtney, come on up. So, for everyone out there, I um am on the IRL NEP
and a presentation was given. Um, and I thought we really should hear it here. So, I appreciate you coming to do this for us and I think we're all going to be pretty excited to hear the difference that Bvard County makes um just in general taking care of our our
environment. >> All right. Thank you. >> Give us a little time to clear the room. >> Okay. Sounds good. >> Yeah. >> Exciting morning for a lot of people. All right. Okay, >> the floor is yours. >> All right, thank you and good morning,
commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to share with you this work. I'm Valerie Sidal with the Bmoral Group. Um, we led the team uh for Dwayne DeFreeze and the others at the NEP updating the economic impact uh of the lagoon. And I have with me Courtney
Cortez, a Bvard County native and a senior economist uh with our firm who worked on this quite a bit. One of the things we did that was different with this economic update was really focus on the ecosystem services. And importantly, the lagoon system includes over 900,000
acres of natural lands and egglands that retain more than 100 billion gallons of flood waters annually. So that's an important point. If that additional 100 billion gallons of flood water had nowhere else to go, it would be going into, you know, our homes and streets and buildings. And so we really thought it was important this time to focus on
some of those ecosystem services including 50,000 acres of natural lands providing additional coastal protection. 360,000 acres of land providing water filtration and purification. And these lands and waters generate values that have true contribution to your local
economy. So overall uh our modeling found that these ecosystem service values generate over10 billion dollar annually in value. I'll talk about a couple of them today, but that ranges from um over a billion dollars annually just in property value premiums that
come from the the additional values in your property sales to $250 million in coastal protection, $530 million in water quality and so forth. And so the way we look at these ecosystem services is we we run models
that estimate what would that what would that protection have been or what would that ecosystem service had been if that habitat was not there. And so for example with coastal protection this is a little screenshot down near Tqua right at the the county line border there. And
it's showing for example mangroves and oyster beds. And in this case, you know, we're finding that those mangroves and oyster beds and salt marsh and and so forth across the lagoon, they're providing um they're removing exposure to coastal hazards that you
wouldn't have if those natural processes were not intact. In other words, if that land was not preserved and conserved, you know, the the coastal protection would not be there to the tune of about quarter billion dollars a year. And there are current Noah funded projects in place right now that we estimate at
about 8.4 4 million a year just in coastal protection. Water filtration is similar. Um in this map here, you can see the the values ranging from um you know $50,000 up to $4.5 million in different basins. And that's another
360,000 acres of different habitats that are providing water filtration and nutrient filtration. And that is, you know, work that you would otherwise have to replace with infrastructure, really expensive um treatment plants and so forth. So these are um these are
important ecosystem services to the tune of more than half a billion dollars a year. And the projects underway now alone are expected to add another 38 million. From a wildlife to habitat perspective, the people of Florida have, you know, consistently stated a preference for strong preservation of
our environmental habitats for our wildlife and habitat connectivity. And we find that these uh these habitats across the lagoon generate more than a billion dollars a year in the public's willingness to pay. And that ranges greatly from 400,000 to, you know, 90
million by these subbasins. And then finally on the property values when you're talking cold hard cash um this still you know has an important value. So the way we look at these is we look at all of the sales transactions from the county property appraiser and do and we hold constant statistically the value
of those homes if you paved over the lagoon basically what would that house still be worth you know a three bed two bath with pool whatever versus one that is close to the lagoon. And we're able to tease out statistically that in Breard being within 100 meters of lagoon adds about $350,000. All other factors
being equal. That varies greatly by location, of course. In Palm Beach, it's almost a million dollars for that that same um value. So, in Bvard specifically, uh we end up with about $6.1 billion in property value premiums
contributed by the lagoon. And that sounds like a lot of money. Um, but if you, you know, think about it, the total just value right now is about $114 billion. So, in the whole scheme of things, it's it's a couple percent, but it's an important couple percent. And when we annualized it, that's contributing, you know, almost uh
400,000 annually to the local economy. And then we also looked at the Noah funded studies that are taking place right now. A number of principal investigators and programs within Bvard County are contributing to those. We looked across the different habitats from salt marsh
to oyster reefs, wetlands, and so forth at all of these different projects, how much we expect them to cost over 10 years in current uh dollar values and what we expect their their benefits to um generate over the next 10 years. So, for example, the the salt marsh project
uh that was chosen is expected to have total cost of about $380,000, but total benefits of about 2.8 million. The two really big projects um in here in terms of benefits are both removing empoundments um at KSC and Begum. And
you can see the the benefits on those are huge 55 and $30 million. Really transformative projects really expected to change the nature of the fisheries out there and the water quality and that has a lot of public benefits. So in terms of how these tease out across the
different types of projects, you can see there's benefit cost ratios, meaning how many benefits you receive per dollar of cost. Anything over one is good. You've cleared your you've cleared your threshold. Uh you can see that the two there that I mentioned have really high
BCRs. Even if you took those away, we would have an average of about 10. But all told, you end up with about a 24x return on investment. So really good expenditure of u public funds. And then lastly, we also included a a more traditional uh economic impact
study. So this is your direct spending. You are margining out things that we don't produce locally. Like when you buy a gallon of gas, you know, we don't make gas here. So a lot of that leaves the area. And then that creates indirect jobs and indirect business expenditures. And when we have visitors, you also u
received induced impacts. And when we look at the lagoon overall, uh, we end up with about $26.9 billion in total output. That's contributing about $15 billion to local GDP, um,
including the 1.4 annualized of property value impacts and supporting 128,000 jobs. So really significant impact. And uh looking at that across the sectors there, you can see how this teases out across everything from the actual
resource management to the recreational spending that's generated and the aerospace that depends on having this wide open space uh without development in it. And finally for Bard County specifically, um we pulled some numbers
here just to kind of drill down to this a little bit more. And and you can see a big chunk of course of that aerospace. Brevard gener or Brev benefits from um and a big chunk of the recreation recreational benefits also are generated in Bvard County to the tune of
supporting you know more than 80,000 jobs and totaling about $10.6 billion in annual economic values added to your local economy and that's generating um 637 million in state and local taxes um every year that contribute to support
local services. All of this data is available in a dashboard that's publicly available so people can slice and dice it by their, you know, county, city, local area, by the sector that they're interested in and so forth. And, you know, really
providing a lot of transparency into where these numbers come from and whatever a particular audience may be interested in. Um which one small thing here I just wanted to mention the natural resource management is particularly interesting
because for the jobs that are generated in this area see that indirect and the induce for every job we were able to identify um 440 directly funded resource management jobs. The modeling shows that
those jobs generate another 600 jobs just by themselves. So that may not sound like a lot, but if you compare that to some of the other sectors, each job may generate another.3.4 jobs. Whereas these resource management jobs were showing they're generating an
more than one additional job. So really a good investment of public monies. Uh and that's all I have. Happy to take any questions. I know we blew through that pretty quickly, but thank you for your time. >> I do have one question, >> Representative Commissioner Atinson.
>> Thanks, Valerie. Um, when you were talking about the the return on investment 24 times, that's an overall >> on those Noah funded projects, >> right? >> Yes. >> Would that be different in Bvard County? Would it be 24 times if you were just and this is just a guess, I know, but would it be?
>> Yes. So, so we did look at the those projects went across um the lagoon and so you can see we went, you know, across the different we tried to capture all sections of the lagoon within those calculations. >> Having said that, you know, fish don't
care where the county line is, right? So, when they have new fish passage area, they're they're now generating benefits wherever they swim and are caught. So, um, so it would be safe to say that the overall numbers show Bard
captures a lot of the benefits from the lagoon. >> It would be more difficult to say that ecosystem service >> only went from Bvard County. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah, it does. Thank you, >> Commissioner Delaney. >> I was just wondering if you wouldn't
mind emailing this presentation to me. >> Sure. >> Would that be okay? Thank you. >> Absolutely. and I'll echo that. Okay. >> Yeah. So, we can have the electronic version of it would be very helpful. >> Yep. >> I don't have any questions.
>> Okay. Thank you. This is very thorough. >> Thank you. >> And I know that um the economic impact staggering. Of course, what's even more staggering than the economic impact are the spiritual components. You just can't replace what
it is to have a beautiful lagoon, to see it a mullet run, or to catch a fish with your child or to to see a sunset or sunrise that has just you really can't put a dollar value on that. But it's good to be able to object objectively
also communicate the fiscal impact. A question I had, did you evaluate the economic impact if we did not protect the lagoon, for example,
repeated algae blooms, the smell, the health risk? I have a friend who nearly lost a leg from vibrio in the lagoon. That's a whole another area, isn't it? The economic impact of doing nothing. Mhm. That's a great question and one we frequently get. So in this case, of
course, we were looking at what is there. Um I would argue that one way to look at that is this is what you have to lose if you don't continue to make the investments. Um and we have looked at um
harmful algolooms and their impacts both uh along um the lagoon as well as down in um the southwest Gulf Coast. And the impacts are massive. I mean, they can, you know, completely wipe out those annual values of your recreation in a given year or two or three because
social media doesn't always recognize that something that happened here didn't happen in the next county or the next city. So, I would encourage you to use these as values of what is at risk if you don't continue to make the appropriate investments. And the NEP has
estimated that over um 20 years, you know, we're probably looking at about a total expenditure of about $4 billion to truly restore to what people have been here a while may remember. Yes. >> You know, the L lagoon being like and um and and that's the path that would
really need to continue to follow. Our numbers in here for excuse me for commercial fishing are extremely low and so low that we looked at them many times before we vetted them with a lot of people and that's that's just where they are. But so we're
showing now about $3 million annually in lagoon commercial fishery lagoon wide. That's not Bard. Um but you know 10 years ago 20 well more like 20 years ago that was an order of magnitude you know larger than that. So that's that's what we've already
>> uh seen in terms of economic impacts. >> Wow. It's an interesting point. >> Yeah. >> I know we used to be the saltwater. We used to be the speckled trout capital of the world. All the world records here in the lagoon. We also used to lead the state of Florida in clam as a clam uh
fishery. >> Yeah. And those numbers have >> Yeah. >> dropped off a cliff. the the number for the wildlife habitat, the public's value going, you know, back to your points about you can't really put a price on it. I mean, that billion dollars a year is genuinely represents a lower bound of
what the public has indicated it's worth to them to have those lands available to them and to their children. >> Thank you so much. And um I want to thank Commissioner Atinson for getting this on the agenda. >> You're welcome. And I thank you guys for bringing it to our attention.
>> Thank you. Appreciate it. Do we have any cards? >> One for the next item. >> Okay, this is for the next item. >> Okay. All right. Our next item is the consent agenda.
Do we have any items of the consent that any uh commissioner would like to remove? Okay. A motion would be in order for the consent agenda. >> Oh, is that for the consent? Yeah.
>> Okay. Agenda consent an item F five. Okay. Okay. So, other than F5, do we have a motion on the consent agenda? >> So, second. >> Um motion by Commissioner Atinson,
second by Commissioner Delaney. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by saying yay. >> Yay. Carries unanimously. >> Now Morris, speak up if something needs
a roll call vote. And I don't. Yes, sir. Um, we're not going to have anything where a roll call votes required. Sometimes it adds clarity if we have a supermajority requirement, for example. So, we may ask for one at at that time, but it's your discretion whether you choose to exercise roll call
vote. Good. Good. Thank you. Okay. Uh we have a card for F5. Sandra Sullivan. And F5 is acknowledge the county municipal county redevelopment agency CRFY 2025 annual budgets and amendments.
>> You've done this before. >> Yes, but I'm a little >> Good morning. Happy Thanksgiving. So the reason I wanted to uh talk about the CRAAS um is because of the increase uh in
Bvard's budget 2022 it was $1.8 billion 2025 $2.8 billion. And so when we look at real estate going up, uh the amount of of of property taxes
being felt by people and of course this is something a hot topic at our state. And so both last year and this year, the state did legislation proposing to do away with all new debt
in CRAAS and to to um basically pay off CRAAS and close them. So I wanted to bring up the point we have three CRAAS is my understanding that have no debt and can be closed now. And since um a
number of CRAAS were have been presented earlier this year and there was a brief conversation about this topic um NBEDS is a tax increment. It was like a CRA and these are a tax increment. So, I'll
just use one uh Ogalli Riverfront because of the increase in property values, they are bringing in 12 13 almost 13% more of an increase in revenue just in one year. So, our taxes
are going to CRAAS when fiscally we should be looking at closing CRAAS in order to get taxes down. And um so I just want to say here property tax increases
uh I want taxes to be less that that the people may have more Kelvin Kulage smaller government less taxes that's the principle of of being a fiscal conservative right and so I want to encourage you today under this item to
have a genuine conversation about sunsetting the CRAAS with no debt and encouraging maybe interlogal agreements with our CR the remaining CRAAS to pay down their debt
but to to work with them to not take on additional debt. Um and then we have as of the last budget we had a $2.2 billion deficit in transportation. We have a lot of issues with our fire
department. We have sewage plants that we are still putting development on that are at capacity. We have dumps all the time and we're not being fiscally conservative. So, I hope you will
discuss closing three CRAAS. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your input. All right. Uh I think that's the only cards on the consent. Uh we u would be in order to have a motion on item F5. >> I have some discussion if it's okay.
>> Okay. >> Um I Morris I was wondering what what would it take to um dissolve the CRAAS that don't have debt. >> It's variable. It depends on whether they were created pre or postcharter. It
depends on uh the language and an interlocal agreement that was negotiated by the board. for most of these CRAAS sometime in the um uh era between about 2017 and 2021. Several of them have interlocal some of
them uh the board uh gave over the right to um terminate the CRAAS other than the limitations that were put forth in the IL. So it would really depend on each one individually and I I can't answer that as to all of them off the top of my head right now but we could pull that
together. >> Okay. That would be great. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, any other discussion? Is there a motion uh to acknowledge the county municipal redevelopment ay's FY2526 annual budgets? An amendment.
>> So moved. >> Moved by Commissioner Atinson. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Commissioner Felner. Discussion. I'd like to say a few things. Um, one of the points that was made about the CRAAS producing more revenue is
because property values have increased. That's part of it. But one of the reasons that revenues have increased into the CRAAS is because the CRAAS are doing such a phenomenal job, fantastic job revitalizing our downtown areas.
So, and and also one reason our revenues are going up as as a county is the fact that our downtown redevelopment and our CRA are increasing the quality of life that we have here. So, people are paying more to
live here. Businesses are coming here. It has been a complete and total success. So, I see this revenue increase as a positive, not a negative. I just get so much out of going to downtown Titusville. Coco, Melbourne, Ogalli. It re and the Merit Island Redevelopment
Agency. It has turned our county around and so I think it's a wonderful thing. >> Any other discussions? >> Uh all in favor of uh Fifi by saying yay. >> Yay. >> Opposed carries unanimously.
>> Okay. Now we do have cards here for public comments. Item G. And our first is Robert Picker. Pickert. Pickert. Did I say that right? Robert. >> Yeah. Pickert. >> Pickert. Well, good morning commissioners. I'm
Bob Pickert, a longtime Bvard resident, Indian River Lagoon supporter, and EHS manager for Wakefield Biochar. I would like to propose a circular approach for managing dredge lagoon muck. That would be good for the lagoon, good for the watershed, and good for
Bvard's economy. In a word, biochar. Amending dewatered muck with biochar would transform the muck into a slowrelease fertilizer and soil amendment. Replace or supplement the sorrel tax with a non- tax revenue from the sales within and beyond the
watershed. Distribute a high quality and permanent source of carbon to landscape soils that would reduce the flux of nutrients and other contaminants to the lagoon and provide a way for Bvard residents and businesses to contribute directly to the restoration of the lagoon. The irony is that to get the
muck out and stay the muck away, we need to embrace and enhance the muck. First, let me talk about biochar. Biochar is a powerful plant-based soil amendment produced by woody biomass in a high temperature, low oxygen environment through a process known as pyrolysis.
This locks carbon into a lightweight and stable form with incredible surface area. Think activated carbon like the pitcher uh for your water pitcher in your refrigerator. That carbon remains stable in soils for hundreds of years. Biochar has impressive health benefits. It absorbs
and retains water, making landscape soils more droughtresilient. It absorbs nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, making them more bioavailable to plants and less leechable to surface and groundwater. It absorbs and retains metals such as
arsenic and chromium and organic contaminants, including the many emerging ubiquitous contaminants like POS. It provides the ideal habitat for beneficial microbes critical to soil health, increasing nutrient utilization, decreasing nutrient demand, and
increasing microbial metabolism of a growing list of toxic chemicals. And it increases soil caton exchange capacity, making plants more salt tolerant. There are more benefits, including the fact that biochar is carbon negative, often providing sellable carbon credits in voluntary
carbon markets. I've distributed a biochar flyer from IUS explaining some of the benefits of biochar so you don't have to take my word for it. Pelletized biochar is a highly effective media for storm water treatment in low impact designs. To get a feel for how this could finance
the sorrel programs, the sale of 2 million one cubic foot bags for $45 each, the equivalent of four bags for every home and business in Bvard, Valuchia, Indian River, and Martin counties would generate nearly $100 million of annual gross sales. Assuming
40% goes to retailers, the remaining 60% or 60 million would be applied to capital and operating costs and generate annual net non- tax revenues of 20 to $40 million for sorrel programs. Could that possibly be three minutes? >> Yeah, go ahead. We'll let you finish
your thought. >> We would also produce super sacks for commercial landscapers. The numbers will start out smaller but could get larger if distribution extended beyond the watershed. think taking market share from bioolids based materials like morganite. The owner of a popular
nursery said that if Sally Scalera of the IAS Bard County Extension gave a dewatered muck biochar soil amendment a favorable review in the Sunday paper they would have over a 100 customers asking for it Monday morning. Sally has responded to the idea enthusiastically calling it fantastic. I brought some
bags of of biochar for you to play with and I'll I'll leave them here or work with you to distribute them. There are a variety of other powerful >> I have a question and and >> we definitely want to hear the rest of your presentation. If you can give us a copy of that >> the copy is hopefully hopefully they were distributed around really good
>> and I love the fact that I think you're the first p first person I've heard say we need to embrace the muck >> and I think it's a great idea and also it's ironic we need to include in this economic impact the sale of muk. Um I I hope that you know you picked a good day
to be here. Uh there's a lot of folks from our Indian River Lagoon committee, and I think it offers great great promise. >> There's a lot of work to do to make this happen, but we're going to do a lot of work anyway, so we might as well make it count for the lagoon. >> The question I have for you, um is did
you come all the way from Valdasa? >> No, sir. I am a Bvard County resident, have been since 91. My wife was born and raised here. We've been here as a family ever since. Our production facility is in Valdasta, Georgia, but I work remotely and get up to the plant to to help with to do >> because I saw the Valdasta.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's our operations there. And I'd love to talk to you more about the company and what we're doing and the source of our biochar materials and and lots of other stuff. I'd love to talk. >> I love that. And I'll get my staff. Yes. Represent Felner. I'm Commissioner Felner.
>> That's okay. Is uh the biochar a product of gasification? is is no. >> Well, when you pyrolyze when you pyrolyze woody woody material, woody wastes, when you pyrolyze it, you do get a sin gas, a synthetic gas, and that can
be used uh as a source of of gas for operating turbines, engines, whatever you want to do, you would capture that. You don't release it to the environment. >> The the carbon credits come from the fact that woody waste will deteriorate and decompose in the environment, generating methane and CO2. If you
interrupt that and and send it through a pyrolysis process, you capture those gases and then you've now prevented those uh hydrocarbons from entering the atmosphere. And we get carbon credits associated with a lot of the biochar that we sell. The county, my point is we
can do this and provide biochar for the county. I'd like to see the county have its own pyrolysis system, take storm debris and woody waste from the yard uh waste collection program and produce our own biochar right here and use it for a dozen different things. And the sin gas
that we would capture from that, what what would I mean if we were doing this at the municipal level, what what would you >> I would say primarily feed >> run a generator, >> feed it right back into the process because to to the pyrolysis process, think incineration, but it's it's lower
temperature, less oxygen, >> but feed it right back in. So it's a self feeding kind of that's the source of your energy for driving that process. >> Okay. All right, sir. Very good. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Commissioner Delaney,
>> I really just have a comment. Um, hopefully we can also convince you to move that business to Bard. >> Let's make it here. >> I love that. >> Let's make it here. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Very interesting. Vance Erenss.
>> Thank you, chair. Um, honorable members of the council and the citizens of Bvard County. My name is Vance Erenss. I'm the president of the progressive democratic caucus of Bvard County. I'm here today to draw attention to an atrocity that has befallen one of our me u one of our
citizens um and to hopefully propose a resolution for this board. On February 15th, a 15-year-old boy was home asleep when more than a dozen mass soldiers broke into his home and took him away from his family. They threw
this child into an adult prison known for its inhumane treatments. Over the following nine months, Muhammad has been subject to harsh unsanitary conditions, has significant detrimental weight loss, and contracted scabies, and has been
subjected to severe beatings. This child has been unjustly and illegally held in Israel without a complete trial or hearing, without direct contact to his family. The right to freedom and due process and
protection of one's government are fundamental rights for all US citizens. Muhammad is a boy from Palm Bay. He's a natural-born citizen of the United States, being held in a foreign prison under appalling conditions.
This summer, he was planning on getting his driver's license like any 16-year-old. Instead, he was being beaten in a prison in Israel. The State Department has stated there is no higher priority than the safety and security of our citizens abroad. The continued
detention of a citizen, especially when that citizen is a minor and our neighbor, should be a profound concern to the citizens of Bvard and to this board. I think it's highly appropriate for this body to speak out against the hum the inhumane treatment of one of our
citizens. I have emailed each one of you a copy of the resolution for the county to formally demand the uh the immediate release of Muhammad and return to his family and to call on the US State Department to ensure his safety and
unhindered access to his family and US counselor officials until his release. My contact information is in that email. I also do have a copy of that resolution here today with me. Um, I look forward to working with you to help make this a formal resolution and I thank you for
your attention to this matter. >> Thank you. >> Our next speaker, Joy Metsler. Did I say that right? >> Go ahead. >> Um, good morning everyone and thank you for hearing my comments today. I'm here
speaking uh on behalf of the resolution that my friend Vance just spoke on. Uh my name is Joy Metsler. I'm a Ver County resident and I'm an Air Force veteran. When I joined to serve in the military, I had one focus on my mind, the defense of my friends and my neighbors. And now,
despite being out of the service, I find myself driven to speak up for one of our neighbors that has been kidnapped and detained illegally overseas by Israeli military forces. His name is Muhammad Ibraham. He is one of our neighbors and he is one of our children. His uncle owns a clothing store up the street on
Route 1. Muhammad is a Palm Bay resident and his cousin Safe, a resident of Tampa City, was just recently murdered by Israeli settlers in July of this year. Muhammad was kidnapped from his home when he was visiting family at 3:00 a.m. by masked Israeli soldiers in February
2025, zip tied and blindfolded in front of his family. We have just passed the 9-month mark of him being held in captivity in a military prison. He was 15 when he was taken and turned 16 while in an Israeli prison cell when he should have been preparing to get his driver's
permit and start preparing to graduate from high school. As the holidays approach in the US, we are acutely aware of the missing presence of Muhammad, an American child who should be at home in the US with his family. Instead, he has been beaten, starved, and intentionally
deprived of medical care. During this, his federal level representatives have been silent on the fate of one of their own constituents. This upcoming Friday will be our sixth week standing on the intersection just outside this building begging Representative Heridopoulos to
show compassion for a child from his district. We know that a single phone call from the president could bring this boy home tomorrow, but still the State Department refuses to even issue a statement in support of a US citizen. We urge you as a coalition of over 200
organizations comprised of faith groups, veterans groups, human rights and advocacy groups, and many, many more, local and national, to one, adopt the resolution that my comrade Vance has introduced to you, and two, in the absence of his federal representatives,
to publicly call for his release and the full support of public efforts to secure his return home. We are praying for his safe return before the holidays and the urgency we feel is real. His health is in grave danger and your advocacy for him could mean the difference between
life and death. Thank you for your attention to this matter and we hope to see this resolution passed in the future and the full support of efforts to bring Muhammad home. >> Thank you. our next speaker, Robin Anders.
And then after Robin Anders, uh, Judy Trendal, you can start walking here. Oh, you're already right here. So, >> hi. Uh, thank you for allowing me to speak today. Mine is more of a complaint than an ask. I guess it's an ask and a complaint. We live on Leehall Place on a
culde-sac in Fort St. John and our property has flooded severely five times since 2008. This last time two weeks ago, the water was solid from my neighbor's house that's an acre away to the corner of our house. It looked like
a lake to include half of the entire culde-sac. The next day, when I walked my dog to be able to get out, I had to go across my neighbor's front yard and down the other side of their driveway because my front was so full of water. The water came up this high on the fence, this high in the
house. Luckily, we have a dirt field foundation, so there was no water intrusion into the house, but it was a mess. We were underwater completely in the backyard for a full week before it started to recede. The reason that we're holding so much water at the end of the street is because a neighbor five houses
up the street filled in their swale in the backyard. Our culdesac, all the houses have a swale behind them and then it drains into the canal. Last year in the summer, we got letters from the public works saying that they were going to come out and clear and redo all the
swailes on the north side of the street. We got another email saying, "Okay, we're going to start in two weeks." Never saw anything. The only thing that they did was they cleaned out the canals, which is great, but our water can't get to the canal. So, you know, when I understand when you get a flood
like we did, you know, this past Sunday, of course, the water is going to raise, but everywhere else in Port St. John, the water came way up and went right back down by the next day. We held water in our driveway and the sideyard, the entire half of the yard, if not 3/4. Our
shed was underwater. Our motor home was underwater. The fence, 90% of our our wooden fencing was sitting underwater for a week and a half. That's unacceptable, you know, and it stinks. And the mosquitoes and the birds and the bird poop. It's just We'd really like to
get a resolution. public works department came out years ago and said, "Yeah, that swale was filled in. All we need to do is clean it out and alleviate your problem." That's all we're asking is to have what was supposed to be there restored. And it's not the current neighbor that lives
there. It was a previous owner. So, any questions? >> Thank you so much, Commissioner Delaney. >> Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. I know that um when we met, you know, we talked about some of this stuff and um I I really appreciate you coming um
because this is this is a problem we have all over North Boulevard. Um one of the one of the issues is that the coverts are um the property owners uh responsibility to upkeep and pretty much
it doesn't happen for the most part. So you drive around North Boulevard and I, you know, that's my district, so that's where I spend most of my time, but I'm sure that's happening in other districts as well. Um, but that's one of the issues is that the coverts, you know, don't necessarily get
maintained the way that they should be. And then in this particular situation with the swale being um filled in, there's nowhere for this water to go. And the issue is is that the back of the properties um a lot of them are behind
fences and but those are easements and so it's there's some you know gray area as to how the county can come in and um maintain our easements when it's behind a fence. Um, so I was hoping that we
could, you know, talk about this, give some direction to staff, think about it, and bring back direction for staff at a later meeting. Um, but just open up some kind of communication about this because it's happening all over my district.
And, um, it's it's not just that the soil's been filled in or the coverts, you know, are full. It's also there's massive sections in um Port St. John, Titusville, um you know, and some other areas too
that uh don't even have any drainage system near the property. So, one of the issues that we had a couple weeks ago was even if the property owners could get pumps, there was nowhere to pump the water to because they weren't close enough to any kind of drainage um
conveyance system. So, I just wanted to kind of throw all that out there. Can I say something about the >> That's probably just the beginning of it. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> See, if it's a hairy thing about, you know, how the county can come on to the easement because there's fences and
stuff, but we got a letter in the summer of last year last year saying that they were going to do just that, right? >> And then when we called about it, then there was either no funding or this or that. And my husband's been calling Roads and Bridges probably three times this week. One time he got a message
back, voicemail saying, um, sorry you're holding water and now they won't even answer. Pick up the phone for his calls. So, you know, we're frustrated. We've been fighting with this since 2008. So, sorry I went over my time. >> No, thank you for bringing us to the your attention, your situation. It's a
serious problem countywide and it's one of the big challenges that we have and so when we come up with some of these solutions, hopefully you can be there supporting us in our >> That would be great. That would be absolutely great. So, thank you for your time, >> Mr. Chair. Sorry, ma'am. Miss Andrews,
what was the name of the street? >> Lee Hall Place. >> Lee Hall Place. >> Two words. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Trudy Trenell, our next speaker. >> Good morning. Um, I'm glad I follow I'm
following that lady because what I have to say is important. Um, and I'm going to get everybody's attention with this sentence. The Indian River Lagoon is not broken. Our Bvard
County infrastructure is broken. Every resident sees the same challenges. aging roads, storm water systems that can't keep up with heavy rains, wastewater infrastructure that needs modernization, growing concerns about our environment
and water quality. These issues affect our safety, our property values, our economic growth, and our daily quality of life. I'm proposing a dedicated 1%
discretionary sales tax focused solely on infrastructure. This is not a general tax and not a blank check. Every dollar would be legally restricted to essential tangible improvements, road upgrades and
resurfacing, storm water and flood mitigation projects, wastewater and sewer modernization, environmental restoration, and water quality protection. The cert tax would be shared fairly and
proportionately between Bvard County and each municipality, ensuring that every community from the largest city to the smallest town has the resources to repair, maintain, and upgrade the systems we all rely on.
This is how the Indian River Lagoon becomes healthy again. So why a sales tax? because it distributes the cost broadly, including visitors, non-residents, users of our roads and waterways, reducing the
burden on property owners and renters. And with a clear list of projects, citizen oversight, and annual reporting, residents will be able to see exactly where their money goes and what improvements are delivered. This is a
future focused plan. It supports public safety, protect our waterways, strengthens our infrastructure, and ensures that today's problems don't becomes tomorrow's crisis, which is already there. I'm asking us to invest
wisely, transparently, and responsibly in the long-term health and resilience of our communities. A dedicated 1% infrastructure certex give us gives us the tools to finally address what
everyone knows must be fixed and I hope you consider this. So that's all I have. >> Thank you Trudy. I I think you bring up a very valid point and I think it's going to be something that will be
discussed in the future. It would have to be in the public forum. That's something the people of Bvard would have to step forward and support. >> I think every I think every resident Bvard County would vote yes even more 2%.
>> Well, we might find out. We might find out. Okay, I think that's all our cards in the um public comment. So, we now go to I got so enthralled in that presentation, I lost my way. Um
H1 uh petition to vacate portions of three public utility easements in district two. >> Pardon me. >> Okay. Good morning, board. Uh this is a petition of vacate as you mentioned
chair a portion of three public utility easements. It's in Glenn Haven within district 2. Um these three uh obstructions uh two buildings and a pool screen enclosure uh were discovered in a new boundary uh survey while attempting
to sell uh their home. Uh it was uh constructed prior to them purchasing uh but was not picked up on the original title exception. We have no issues with uh vacating it. >> Okay. A motion for approval will be in order. >> Are there any cards? No cards.
>> Do we have no cards? >> I'll make a motion to approve. >> Second. >> So move chair. >> Oh. >> Oh. We'll let Representative Goodson make that motion. I mean Commissioner Goodson make that motion. He's a representative too. Uh is there a second? >> Second.
>> Second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying yay. >> I. >> Yay. >> Yay. Motion carries. IH2 second final public hearing adoption of amendments to chapter 62 article 4
section 623316 on premises science. >> Good morning Mr. Chair. Yes, this is the second and final public hearing for amendments to chapter 62 article 9 section 62-3316 entitled on premises signs and chapter
62 article 4 table one entitled signs by type and zoning classification. This is an order to allow community development districts to have specified signage for parks within certain zoning classifications. >> I'll make a motion to approve if there's no questions. >> Motion and second. Uh any discussion
there? Are there any cards? All those f favor signify by saying yay. Yay. >> Motion carries unanimously. Okay, we will move on to I and finished business. Do we have anything under? No. Uh new business uh
development and economic services group approval dispersement of educational impact fees. J1. >> Good morning, commissioners. Item J1. It is request that the board of county commissioners authorize the dispersement of educational impact fees in the amount of 9,93,32544
cents to the Bvard County School Board in accordance with the interlocal agreement and authorize the county manager to execute all necessary budget change requests to implement this dispersement. >> So moved. >> Is there a motion? Is there a second?
>> I'll second. Second uh by Commissioner Felner. Any discussion? Do we have any cards? >> Anybody here from the school board? I think I see one. Susan M. Thank you for being here. All those in favor signify by saying
yay. Yay. >> Yay. >> Uh carries unanimous. We certainly appreciate our relationship with the school board. J2 approval state of Florida Department of Transportation State Road 405 landscape termination agreements.
>> Good morning again board. Um we are requesting approval to uh terminate three uh joint partition uh participation agreements with the uh Florida Department of Transportation. um they were um initiated back in 2002,
2003 and 2004 respectively. Uh this uh requires the county to maintain a portion of a state road um specifically state road 405 from state road 407 uh to US1. Um the great thing about joint
participation agreements is that uh they help fund and offset uh things like this when uh the board may want to do an aesthetic improvement. The bad side or downside rather is that uh in perpetuity, as long as these agreements are in place, we must uh maintain it.
And back in 2019, it was determined that our vegetation was out of compliance. So, we had to take it down due to a safety concern. And now it's going to cost us a million dollars to replace it. Um again, this is a state road. There's no requirement for us to maintain it.
And by getting out of these agreements, we'll be able to restore the existing landscape and uh use the district 1 MSTU funds for higher purposes. >> So moved. >> There's a motion second.
>> Motion a second. Um any discussion? I I have a couple things. I'm a big advocate of these beautifification programs. Uh we call them our translation enhancement funds. some of these monies come down from federal dollars and I hope as we
move forward we can um figure out ways to to maintain them in in perpetuity. Obviously you don't do them to be installed to beautify and then destroy them take them out. So I'm hoping as we move forward we can look for funds to
maintain you know some of our CRAAS could maintain those. We had one in North Bard that might have been a great revenue source. Can I say something about >> I I drive 405 every day and I really appreciate the beautifification. Yes, >> sir. uh you know up there in uh North
Bard there was a very serious accident where a family uh four from Great Britain did a U-turn uh there on Colombia and that's that's forgotten now but um it's very possible that they did not see the oncoming truck um when they
were when they were making that U-turn because of the vegetation right there uh on Colombia. And I think we discussed that yesterday in my I brought that up in my briefing. So there there's a place for some of these things and in in some of the intersections. Uh I I sometimes I
shake my head cuz I don't understand putting a tree in the in the middle of the road and then forcing people to make a U-turn um where they can't see around it. So um I I appreciate your thought on that, but some of these um probably need to be removed from the roadway.
>> Oh, I agree. Safety always is first. That's why we need to properly design them and properly maintain them and u we we don't need to jeopardize compromise safety in doing that. >> If if I can say also chair um this one was um a little bit of a tough
one for me originally. Um Mark had brought this to me uh pretty early on after I uh got elected and it was a little bit of a struggle because this is you know the the road that goes into the space center. So, you know, of course,
we want it to look, you know, really nice and and um for people to have a beautiful drive uh to the space center, but when I realized that it was taking from our maintenance funds, it's just we have so much need in the north end that
I would love to look at other revenue streams to, you know, to make that possible. Maybe even the, like you mentioned, the Titusville CRA. I don't know where that um those boundaries are, but maybe that's something they can help with. >> I know you see signs in a lot of places,
including Bvard uh in other communities where p the private sector, private service clubs and businesses and what have you, adopted medians, maybe we can reach out to our private partners and get some support. Something I'm personally interested in, we get involved in. And um I think it's
important to for the aesthetic and the viability of our community. Commissioner Goodson, did I hear you? Did you have something? >> No, sir. Nothing at all. >> Okay, thank you. I just want to be sure we're not missing you. Okay, good. Uh,
so, uh, did we vote on that? I think we did not. Did we vote? I do know we have a motion, a second. All in favor signify by saying yay. >> Motion carries unanimously. Okay, next item J3, appointments of the North
Bard Hospital District board members. And we do have three cards. Why don't we hear the cards first if they'd like to be heard? Joseph Ash and then Shelby Love and then Christopher Childs.
Good morning, commissioners. My name is Joseph Ash and I am a cardiologist who practices in uh Titusville. For the last 30 years, I have cared for patients at the bedside and gained more than 20 years of experience in hospital and medical staff governance. I have chaired clinical departments at local hospitals
and at Worust Rocklage. I coordinated medical staff quality as chair of the clinical quality committee. I was also president of the medical staff. My experience in medical governance is not easy to come by and is needed now because sadly parish has a quality
problem. First, parish suffers from entrenched leadership. According to the American Hospital Association, Florida's hospital CEOs in general serve terms of four to seven years. Rarely do CEOs serve 10 years or more because orderly and timely succession encourages
innovation. The current CEO at Parish has was hired in 2001, which is more than 24 years ago. Why has he been the CEO for so long? Well, could it be that the hospital board is stagnant and held back by institutional inertia? Well, of
the nine board members, four have served more than 20 years, one of whom has served for almost 30 years. Three other members have served between 10 and 13 years, and the average board tenure at parish is 15.6 years. By contrast, many elected officials in Florida have term
limits, and none of them serves 15 years in one office. The parish board does not have term limits, and only the county commission and the city council of Titusville can impose tenure discipline by encouraging healthy turnover and avoiding entrenchment.
The CMS star ratings are the gold standard measure for quality care and they show a serious downward trend for parish over the past eight years, not calendar quarters, eight years. In 2018, Parish had three CMS stars, which is
considered an average score. In 2019 and 2020, Parish got one star, which is considered poor. From 21 to 24, Parish had a 4-year run of two stars. Okay, improvement. But in 2025, Parish fell back to one star, which puts Parish in
the bottom 5% nationally for quality. In Bvard County, we have three hospitals with four or five uh star ratings, but Parish is the only hospital with a one-star rating. Before it closed in April, Rocklage Hospital actually had a five-star rating. Patients read about
these ratings and if the quality ratings for parish persist at these low levels, patients who have a choice to go elsewhere will take their business elsewhere affecting parish's bottom line. In closing, 125 residents of North Bard have signed a petition supporting
my application to the parish board. They want new leadership and many other residents in North Bard agree with them. If appointed to seat 4, I will fight for fresh ideas which will support five-star medical care at Parish because our patients deserve better than one-star
results. Thank you. Thank you. Our next uh card shall be loved. Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself to the board. I'm Shelby Love and I applied for this position because I place a high value on
public service. I previously served as a chairperson of another county board. I have a master's degree in public administration with a focus in healthcare and a desire to do the right thing for the residents of our community. Thank you.
Thank you. Uh Christopher Childs. Hello board. Um my name is Christopher Childs and I applied I'm one of the candidates for this. I want to apply because I have over 20 plus years experience in healthcare and my daughter
Penelopey was born at Parish Hospital and uh with my 20 plus years experience in healthcare I was mostly healthcare IT consultant. I work for some of the top hospitals in the world including Sier Sinai um Mount Sinai uh NYU Langon
Medical Center in New York and uh the number four hospital in the world Johns Hopkins at some of these hospitals. I also work at Wake Forest in in North Carolina and most of my experience uh with hospitals and ambulatoratory
centers is focused on operations with the EMR and working across departments to get improvements, capital improvements, things like that. One of the projects I worked on um Wake Forest was I was brought in specifically because they had switched from one EMR
to another and they were missing over a million dollars year-over-year for lab charges specifically. And so I was brought in to lead the team to figure out where these charges were, get this missing money. It was so big that they actually had the the story in the local
papers. And so, um, I worked with lab staff, you know, physicians, uh, operations exe executives to figure out what the problem was. We figured out what we were doing wrong. Um, we corrected it. I worked with the trainers to get, you know, training out there. I
worked direct directly with lab staff and and physicians to get that workflow implemented because you it wouldn't work without that. So, uh, after all of this, we went through and, um, uh, I met with the executive staff and, uh, we went
over the results and we were, not only did we get the revenue back on track, but we were trending up and we were we were capturing more charges than what we had um, lost from that year before. So uh I have extensive experience with um
working through multiple departments and and uh getting you know people on the right track and getting things so you know not just not just revenue but patient safety patient um privacy keeping all those things and that's what some of the top hospitals do like Johns
Hopkins they're not number one just because they have the top people they got to top people because patient satisfaction and and being trusted to to take care of patients So, I learned that from, you know, being around all of those people. Um, and, uh, let me let me
use my experience. And usually I charge thousands of dollars, but today only you you can get me for zero dollars. Thank you. Thank you. >> That's good to know. Thank you. Um, do we have anybody here from uh the
hospital or the hospital district? I just back. >> Back. Oh, there you are. Good. Good. We got George. Okay. Good. Thank you for being here. We may have some questions. It's good to have you here. Um, so this
there are two positions for the U board. Uh, uh, yes. >> Maybe. >> Oh, okay. >> Want me to introduce? >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Um it is requested that the board review the eight applications for the
North Bard County Hospital District uh board of member seat 4 and member seat 8. Uh the North Bard Hospital District is a special taxing district within the county. It was first created by House Bill 1370 adopted by the Florida legislators in
1953 and was uh since revised to the current legislation in 2003. We have two seats that are available right now. It's member seat four, which is appointed by the board of county commissioners. The term will begin on January 1st for a
four-year term, and member seat 8, which is appointed by the board of county commissioners and subject to confirmation by the city council. There are five applicants for each seat. However, two applicants did not specify which seat that they wanted, so we put
them in seat four and seat eight. H question I have I know a lot of these appointments we have a a a ballot that we fill out uh as we did in the the ELS committee. I I I turn to the commission on their desire how would they like to
do this whether they'd want to have a ballot form or just a simple motion. >> I um I uh >> have one vote for ballot. Okay. >> If I could speak on this. I um while I understand what the language says in the
um in the in the referendum um that of course this is a county board um but this is a hospital that affects my district um and part of why I was elected was because um
you know while I can't discount the good things that are going on at parish and the community involvement and um all of that there are people who feel like there are some improvements that can be done and I feel like if leadership continues to be the same and when I say
leadership I talk about the board um when you have 20 plus years on on aos on a board it's hard to necessarily see things with fresh eyes and um I actually looked back over the past 10 years in the our
minutes and our um the videos where um it was the D1 commissioner that put forward, you know, their their the people that they wanted, you know, to to be on this board and it was always
unanimously um accepted. And um so while I understand that might not be the will of the board this goound, um I'm proposing something different than what was brought to us in our agenda packet,
which was basically a ballot. Um I'm I'm proposing more of a ranking system that was similar to what we did for eels. I feel like it's a fair um situation. And um I'm also proposing
that the top two candidates that we designate um if they're seat four or seat 8. Um I I don't believe I've reached out to all the the candidates. I don't believe that anybody has a problem if they're seat four or seat eight. I think that they just didn't know which one to put and didn't realize that they
could put both. Um, so I I printed these out and um each of us have one of these at our desks and I'm hoping that I could get board support to go ahead and um do it this way. >> Okay. Uh any other discussion?
I I'd like to just chime in on something and lose some of the things said. Um this hospital, the Parish Hospital is a countywide resource. On a personal level, I can say that our family uh and I think we have wonderful hospitals in
this county. We had we made a conscious choice after reviewing all the hospitals in our county to have a a very important procedure surgery done and we chose Parish because we like that hospital. We like
the team. We like the surgeons and we could not have been more pleased with the service we got. So, I know there's been some disparaging remarks about Paris, but we literally chose Paris and we live in South Bard. We're Indian-Atlantic residents and so we've chosen the other hospital for other
needs, but it is a very important element of our healthcare delivery in Bvard County and it is countywide. It affects not only from the term of patients, the whole county and um and it also u has employees from all over. So, however we decide to choose it, it's up
to the commission. Does any other commission have any opinions about how we we do that? So, you have a ballot. >> I gave everybody one if you want to look. Yeah, it should be in your papers. >> I
don't have mine. Yeah. My pile of paperwork. >> Okay, good. >> And if I could just say one more thing. Um, uh, I I totally agree and respect that this is a county board. One thing that I just want to make sure
everybody's aware of is that this is also a spe a special taxing district and the people who would be imposed with those taxes would be residents of North Bard if those were ever imposed, which to Mr. Mkhitaryan's um, uh, work has
never been done before, but that doesn't mean that won't ever be done. So, just wanted to put that out there. >> Okay. We we have before us >> a um I call it a ballot. Is that what it is? Um I u
>> Commissioner Goodson, do you have this? >> He does not. M Comm Commissioner Goodson does not have that. >> Nope. >> He's got a picture. >> No. >> Okay. Why don't we do this? Let's take a fiveminut recess and see if somehow we
can get him a copy of this. I think it's time for a recess anyway. Um at five 10 minutes. We'll come back at 10:35. >> Good idea. Hey. Hey. Hey. I'm Heat. Heat. N.
Okay. >> I need a gabble. have a gobble over there. Do we have a goble? >> No. >> So, um like to call the uh commission meeting back in session. Okay. We have before us a um
a ballot that um Commissioner Delaney has handed out where we rank order each applicant. We also have what's come to my attention and I have a question, Commissioner Delaney. We did have an original ballot that staffed it more just as a
discussion point. It wasn't anything they were advocating. But one thing that is different that I do does raise a question is this doesn't delineate the seats, >> right? >> How do you delineate the seats?
>> So on the bottom um I wrote the top two candidates with the most points get appointed to seats four and eight. And then please specify which appointee will be in which seat in your motion. top two and and I don't know if it really
matters, but when you had somebody who made an application, almost all the applicants specifically applied for seat four or eight. So the and there's a difference. I guess the the most telling difference is one of
the seats also appointed by the city council of Titusville. So I'm assuming that when you applied for seat 8, you wanted to to be a part of that Titusville. I don't know if if these are people that lived in the city
of Tisville, but I think we we need to have a system where we know which seat we're voting on. When I talked to most of the um applicants, most of them were like, "I just picked one." It wasn't that they were um saying, "Oh, I really wanted to go before Titusville or
>> um that kind of thing." >> Interesting. >> But you didn't talk to all of the candidates? >> All but one. >> Okay. >> Okay. Is there any requirement on the seat 8 that they live in Titusville? I mean obviously if it requires >> you know they all have to live within
the boundary of the district >> but not necessarily in the city right >> okay >> okay >> this is literally up to us >> okay >> all right so um if the board is comfortable with this process I think we
we go ahead and rank order them is that okay with the board does that seem >> sure >> okay let's do that >> thank you board. >> Let's go and take another three minute break so we can fill out these U ballots.
If that is that going to be enough, I'm sure the board's up. >> I've already gone through mine. >> Okay. So, sometimes with rank choice with rank preference, your first choice you would put number one intuitively, but I guess on this form, is it intended to be your
first choice you give eight? >> Oh my gosh, I'm so glad. That's why we have an crackerjack attorney on our representing. I thought the opposite. >> That that would be intuitive, but I think there's language at the bottom that suggests otherwise. So, I just wanted to clarify. Commissioner Delaney, your intent is
>> the most points. >> The most points. >> So, that's what I get for not reading your directions, Commissioner. Okay. So, Commissioner Goodson, I know you're listening. Uh, most the higher the rank, the higher the number is the what you would prefer. Okay. Okay. Great. Got
you. All right. >> I apologize. I might have a silly question, but does that mean that nobody can have the same number? Like there can't be two fives. There has to be >> another good question. >> Another good question.
>> Thank you. >> Is that the answer? My intent was that you could pick one through eight for each candidate because most likely we'll all have some different numbers. So >> with a with a ranking typically you can only put one number to one candidate. So
if you use your number five, you can't use it again on someone else. You'd have someone who's last, which would be one, and someone who's first, which would be >> each candidate has to have a different number. Has got that right. Okay. Which that's different than how we did it with eels.
Morris >> Morris that was different than how we did it with eels, right? >> This whole thing is different though. >> Right. But it's this is our choice. It's not necessarily um you know how it has to be.
I just want to make sure that that's known for the public, especially when this was historically over the past 10 years a D1 appointed um board. Just please commissioners make sure there's a place to sign at the bottom and make sure everyone does that for
sunshine purposes. We can't have secret ballots. So your your name has to be on and there'll be an announcement about how everyone voted at the end of the process. Commissioner, would you like to? >> No, I I think we pretty much have these.
Now the rank that on the right hand column do we fill that out or does is that filled out independently by the >> I put it there just for the ease of whoever was adding all the numbers up. >> Okay, good.
Okay. >> Do we need to sign these? >> Yes, please. Just you can print your name, sign it. That just we just need to know which belongs to whom. They'll go in the record and I'll take it. >> I'm just going to fold it in half and send it down.
>> Okay, I'll take it. Put this somewhere I won't spill it. They don't have tops back there. Mr. Chair, can I make a suggestion? Uh, just in the interest of everyone's waiting in the audience today, could we go to J4 while they're ting that up and we'll come back.
>> Okay, it's a good idea. We can do that. We'll go to J4. Um, okay. Uh J4, a board of county commissioners direction on the city of Melbourne request to amend the interlocal agreement governing the old galley
riverfront community development agency. And we'll interrupt that discussion once we hear the ballot tally, which I think will be really short, but let's go ahead and have staff. >> Do you want me to go? >> Yeah, go ahead.
>> Okay. Um, this is a request for the board to provide direction to staff regarding the proposed amendment submitted by the city of Melbourne to revise the interlocal agreement between the board, the city of Melbourne, and the old O'Gali community redevelopment
agency. And this would give us authorization to staff to negotiate with the city of Melbourne's proposed amendments to the interlocal agreement, including establish the parameters the board is willing to negotiate with the city of Melbourne to revise the
interlocal agreement adopted by the board on May 4th, 2021. based on the parameters established by the board. Revised interlocal agreement and the resolution will be brought back to the board for their consideration at
a later date or provide other action as determined by the board. The highlights of the city's proposed amendments include um include provisions that the interlocal agreement authorize a public private partnership consistent with state law and city code. Increase the
associated financing using the tax increment fund which are currently uh capped at 6.835 million. the flexibility to use taxable or taxexempt financing and to authorize the city and the CRA to
adopt a parking management plan and charge for parking. That such fees can be used to fund capital and annual expenses of the parking garage and reduce or eliminate the requirements that 90% of the parking garage be
reserved for public parking. >> I have a question. >> Go ahead. Um are aren't one of the changes also that it's going from a 50-year um free parking for residents to a five-year and only during certain times?
>> No, they're still going to they are still recommending a restriction for the 50-year public parking. What they are recommending is doing a parking study and after five years after the construction of the parking garage that they can implement fees for parking in
the garage, >> right? So it opens the doors for paid parking from our citizens even though we originally had a pretty good deal that was 50 years, you know, that that seems like it's a little bit more of a benefit
to the community than five. >> Thank you. We have we have four cards. And before we go to the cards, I want to see did we get our tally because I know people are here on the parish issue and I want want to be able to allow them to. >> Our first speaker is Kathy Elias. Elias.
Elas. Elias. Did I pronounce that right? Is she here? >> Is she Did she leave or is she coming back? >> Well, I see the mayor's here. Let's go and hear from the mayor, but >> I think there's a little bit of
deliberation over there. Okay. >> Go ahead, sir. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Yeah. Are you guys ready? >> Yes. >> We'll hear from the mayor then. Okay. Thank you, sir. Uh, real quick, I'd like to I'm going to try to keep my comments short because we do have our city manager, our city attorney, uh, and a
couple others that can answer any of your questions. Uh, kind of want to kind of take you back on this project. Uh, back in 2021, I worked with then Commissioner Tobias and and uh, uh, Zanka uh, to kind of structure this
where the any money in the CRA would go to just the infrastructure to this project. And I actually appreciate that. Now I appreciate what the commissioner said is listen that CRA money I think we all feel similar that the CRA is a tool but we want to make sure it really focus on infrastructure. At least that's my
belief. And what we did said all any of that amount of money in 2021 was going to go strictly toward a parking garage and and we know what happened in 2021 2022 with the escalation of prices COVID etc. But at this point, we have a from from those actions working with those uh
commissioners at the time, uh we have a current current savings of about $6.5 million toward this project. So there's nothing been going into any kind of street funds, nothing like that been for this project. Um what's interesting now when you talk about construction, I know all of y'all are uh fighting with it
now. Uh what you could have built something four, five or six years ago, you can't build it uh for it now. And and so for example, our law enforcement uh center that we built at that time, uh we kind of look back now and said, you know, we built it for estimated cost
about 35 million. Probably to build it now would be about $48 million. So again, it's is something that we've been trying to get moving on. Uh the cost of building a parking garage is is not what it was back then, but this is actually a uh in my opinion a great uh avenue for
us to succeed in and getting a downtown parking garage for GI. And if I'm sure I've seen some of you down in downtown Ogalli, how many of the businesses it's growing up, it's our art district. Uh and again uh I'm going to leave most of the question that you have uh to our city attorney and city manager. Uh one
of the things when you talk about when I spoke to the commissioners back then was you know free parking. I like free parking. I don't like to go somewhere and pay for parking especially when the taxpayers taxpayers already paid for the structure itself. Uh my only concern is maintenance. uh we all know we have to
maintain uh that structure. Uh so that's my only concern and like and I would say anything that comes before me now when it comes to parking cost uh I'm never for it unless it's to pay to clean it, maintain it, pressure wash it, whatever
because we still have a duty to our our uh constituents to maintain our infrastructure and such. So, uh, again, I appreciate all of you your time on this, uh, and the consideration. And again, this this minor change is so we can finally get this project done in a
manner, and you'll hear soon at a cost that's is a cost savings to our to our residents. Okay. Well, thank you. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions? Any Okay. Now, our next speaker, but do we have a result? Do we have a tally?
Do I get to like say the >> winner? I don't get to do that. No. >> Yes. Good morning, commissioners. I was uh trying to get that to print, but uh we added up the scoring and the highest
ranked applicant was Billy Fitzgerald. The second highest rated applicant was Melissa E. Lugo. >> Okay. I have a um comment about this if I may.
Um I I have some trouble when it comes to this. And I met with um >> let's do this then. Let's move this to the end of the meeting. >> I don't feel comfortable making um a vote on this. >> Well, let's move to because we've
already embarked upon the Melbourne issue. Let's get this out of the way so we can focus all of our attention on one thing. So, um, okay, good. If that's okay with the board, does that sound good? Okay, let's just do that. Uh,
okay. Our next speaker, Sandra Sullivan. >> So, I first want to say we're not in the same fiscal position we were in 2021. and Tobaya did not like CRAAS and in
fact he campaigned on doing away with CRAAS. this particular CRA has no debt and we could exit this uh and and whether they keep the monies that they've received today to date from the
county or not it could be structured but we we can right now we can stop and close the CRA which is the will of the our state legislators last year and this year are both trying to do that. Um, we have a
lot of fiscal issues in the county. As I mentioned before, uh, in February was noted $2.2 billion deficit for transportation. As much as the budget was projected at that time, we ended up with a budget of $2.8 billion. We have
sewage treatment plants that we are still putting development on which are at capacity. We have infrastructure needs and we have commissioners talking about going to meetings suggesting we do away with the 3% tax cap. So while we
just got a tax increase, this this deal feels like driftwood all over again. Special interests, we're going to give money to special interests. Uh and I'll say here because of political connections. And I'm gonna tell everybody who is
listening in on this that my suggestion is that they email, if this passes, they email dogemail.house.gov. I'm going to say it again to everyone listening, we the people, if this commission passes this deal
to email dogemail.house.gov. Bvard needs Doge. We need an audit and we need to look at wasteful spending. Just as the state has come in into other counties and highlighted wasteful spending. Well, you're giving us tax
increases and you're talking about an increase from $6.8 million on our round numbers to 12.1 million. Couple months ago or a month ago, it was $10.5 million.
Earlier this year, it was $ 8.7 million. I mean, they can't even get their numbers right. You have a controversy right now where you TDC gave money, you know, at $2.7 million to people that didn't perform. And I'll just say right
now, there's a bad look on Bvard County. And I'm going to say CRAAS, the ones that you have that have no debt should be closed out. And you want to talk about a blight and stuff and what they do. There's been a number of CRAAS
that have had FDLE investigations where monies went to fire and police and to mayor's pension fund etc. And there's there's a lot of concern about CRAAS and I'm just going to say this for the deal
to change even to where it was free parking for the people and now they want to charge us parking for maintenance. Oh gee, this sounds just like Cocoa Beach Garage all over again, doesn't it? Okay, let me put it very simply. We the people
are getting tax increases while you want to give money to we the money special interest. Not a good look. Please close the CRA. Kathy Elias, did she ever come back? No. Tell her we're waiting on her if she's
still here. Um, but you might want to hear this, mayor. I don't know if you want to hear. I don't want you to miss the public com. Okay, good. Um, the next speaker is Adam Connley. Good morning, commissioners. I'm Adam Connley, city attorney for the city of
Melbourne. I'm here also with uh Miss Lamb, uh, city manager of the city of Melbourne. Uh hopefully her um speaker card is also also in. Um generally here generally here to answer any questions that you have. Um I will echo some of
the mayor's sentiments. Um in as early as 2020 there's been interest from the private sector to partner with the city and the CRA uh for uh shared parking facility within downtown Ogalli. Uh the interlocal agreement that was entered
into in May of 2021 um for all of its good intentions didn't necessarily contemplate or address the circumstance of it of the parking garage being uh developed through a public private partnership. Uh the existing interlocal agreement contains terms such
as um 90% of the parking has to be uh for public use which would um effectively eliminate any opportunity for a public private partnership for for a shared facility. Um the existing interlocal agreement also um doesn't contemplate the increase in construction
costs that we've experienced over the past uh four to five years. Right? The u maximum contribution that the CRA can make pursuant to the existing interlocal is capped at about $8.9 million uh between uh debt service as well as
existing funds in the CRA trust fund. um what was presented to uh city staff uh this July and uh was negotiated and and revised uh in August. That's the version um that uh Mr. Richardson Lizenfeld
presented to you uh in in this. Um again, happy to answer any specific questions. Um, again, we understand that uh there are some u material changes to the to the terms that are being presented um from city council's direction from July, including um asking
for the ability to um charge for parking. Uh I will note that the terms uh of the existing propo of the current proposal limit those fees to the amounts that are projected and necessary for uh
annual um capital reserves and annual maintenance. So it's not intended to be a significant revenue generator for the city or CRA. It's intended to capture and uh recover those necessary costs associated with those capital and and annual maintenance costs. So, um, again,
I think I think that goes to the underlying level of, uh, fees and revenues that are likely to be expected for for that purpose. Uh, beyond that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have and thank you for your time and consideration on this item. >> Have a question. >> Okay. Represent Commissioner Delaney.
>> Um, with the parking fees, is that um, determination as simple as a a council vote that they could change that at any time? likely. Yes. Right. We would based based on the um parking study that we would do
um that would likely go towards the fees also with regards to projections for um annual budgets for capital maintenance and other things, right? We're we're um council just recently gave uh authorization for us to start working on comprehensive public private partnership
agreement for the project. And so again, that that will go to the proportionality of those capital and annual maintenance costs for for a shared garage project. And so, you know, council council will be making decisions on what those rates are, both in understanding what our
underlying um obligations are going to be on an annual budget basis for those capital reserves and those annual maintenance costs a as well as, you know, projections from those parking studies that that may be done occasionally. So I I think yes, council will ultimately make that decision on on
what those rates and charges are. Again, subject to the terms of the interlocal agreement saying the underlying limit and purpose is to again capture those those underlying costs and not go beyond that. >> May I chair? Um just a followup to that.
So, if um say the council would like to um I don't know have a new splash pad or a statue of so and so, could they say this could be a potential revenue stream? Let's you know add a dollar to our parking rates and that could be
dedicated funds to this project that we want to do in the city. again right as as proposed in in the current proposal of the interlocal um it's section 9C of the um of the proposed interlocal and again it it
speaks to uh eligible uses of public parking fees being for capital maintenance reserves and annual um operational and maintenance obligations for the project. So, uh, again, you know, there may be circumstances where there are improvements or other things made to the garage. If if you're talking
about somewhere else in the Ogali CRA, that's that's probably not an eligible use of those of those parking. >> I just wanted to put that on the record and make sure. Thank you. >> I have a question, too. >> Okay, we have another question. I want to mention something that I probably
should have mentioned at the beginning. So, we're not giving final approval at on this uh request today. What we're doing is giving staff some general guidelines, >> negotiating guidelines, some policy, general policy direction. So, that's a
>> that is correct. >> I just wanted to be in that posture. Uh >> Commissioner Atinson, >> so you talked about the the parking fees. Uh originally for 50 years there weren't going to be anybody any for residents and now we're talking about changing that um because of maintenance
costs. How are we going to pay for those maintenance costs in the original agreement for 50 years with no where were those maintenance costs going to originally come from? >> Uh theoretically and I I would probably defer the city manager, right? Theoretically come from other CRA revenues and then as the CRA sunset it
would come from city general revenue funds, right? And that's that's where, you know, the city's proposal is going to the long-term feasibility of the project and recognizing that um you know, it may be uh more advantageous and and equitable for users of the garage to
um cover some of those underlying uh capital reserve and and annual costs rather than the taxpayers generally who may not may not utilize the garage. So, it's it's an attempt to be equitable with those capital reserve and and annual maintenance costs. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much for your time. >> Our next speaker, Jenny Lamb. Did you want to >> um Hello, I'm Jenny Lamb. I am the city of Melbourne city manager. And I don't want to duplicate what you've already heard from our city attorney, um, Adam
Connley. But um you know back in 2020 2021 when the interlocal agreement the last interlocal agreement was modified um everybody agreed that the focus should be on parking and on a parking garage and that is what we're still
doing. Um, so the current interlocal agreement did not allow for a public private partnership and part of that is that 90% of the parking spaces were supposed to be public. But if we enter a public private partnership and we have approximately 550 parking spaces that
would mean only and we said we only wanted about 300 and that's what the need is for the community that then we would not be only 50 of those could be for the in the public private partnership. So that is one of the reasons that we want that change. Um,
also with the funding, yes, the funding has gone up. Um, construction costs have gone up across the board. Um, as city manager, I see it in in almost every single construction project we have. Um, whether it's a um water wastewater facility project, it's a road project,
it it's storm water projects. The construction costs have gone up and that is then a result of that. But I also think it's important to note that while the construction cost has gone up, part of what we are um proposing and that we have spoken to your um county manager
and county attorney about is that the projections for the hotel or for the the projections for the garage debt service repayment would allow us to sunset the CRA sooner than the current interlocal of 2038. and we we respectfully request
that it stays at 2038, but we're projecting that we could sunset about five years sooner with um using the funding that we have already saved towards the parking garage. And we are seeing that the debt service repayment could be paid up to five five years
early. So, we're looking at probably 2033 to be the date that we would be able to sunset the um the inter or the CRA. and and what it you asked what the benefit is to the county. If we sunset, then your portion of the tax would come
straight to the county after that point and that would be 5 years earlier than our current interlocal. So, um I know that when this passed back in 2021 there, you know, there the feel of the commission at that time was should we
get rid of the CRA? Should we not? That is when we came to the agreement that parking really should be the main focus and to us the changes that we're requesting. Keep that focus on parking and for maintenance of the parking. We did agree that we would not charge anything for up to 5 years and then it
would solely be for those maintenance costs. And we have experience with the parking garage with our own city hall parking garage. And we see that as it ages those those costs are starting to add up. And at first we just covered it under
First, we just covered it under general fund, but it is it is something that adds up over time. >> Okay. Do we have any questions? Okay. That is our last card. Ben will find the other speaker. So, bring it to the board. I know I have my
opinions, but I'll yield to you. Represent Felner and Commissioner Felner. I'll let you let you >> I think we like to hear from the rest of you. Okay. >> Um so, go ahead. Well, I'm I grew up in O'Galli. Mayor knows that we're galley guys
and I I literally grew up in Ogalli and right in this downtown area from 1957. So, it's a area that I'm very passionate about. It's my home. I am really excited about the CRA in Ogalli. Ogalli's been kind of the stepchild in in Melbourne
and I remember even when we merged with Melbourne where we had our own city and I spent a lot of time at the civic center of the park the even had to go to the courthouse there once on a traffic violation. So I have a fond me a very interesting memory of that. It worked
out okay but this one we had municipal judges. So it's it's it's home my first checking account just everything. So, I'm really excited about the Sierra. Ogalli is finally getting its due attention. It's in such an incredible area. So, I really am excited about a
parking garage. I like it. I think it's necessary. It's always a gamecher. I hope one day we get one in Coco. I I just um it's been wonderful having one in downtown Melbourne. So, I wholeheartedly support this. Uh, I on
the parking fee, I can tell you I hate parking fees. I I I I kind of rate the quality of communities based on whether they have public parking or not. It just drives me crazy to go to a downtown area. Uh, I go to park and I got to download the app and
then I can't remember my my iCloud number and I have to find that and I spent all this time and finally download the right app and then I got to enter it into the machine. I'm running around 50 and then even after you pay it, you don't know if it's been paid or not. I I and I and the more money you spend
parking, the less you can spend at the shops and the restaurants and the bars and whatever where you're going. So, I like the idea of free parking. I like the idea of a public private partnership. I think you can achieve more through public private partnerships. Cordis that balance
between how many is public, how many is private in terms of parking spaces probably I would we let staff work on that and bring back to us some alternatives. So as far as policy direction um definitely support the CRA.
I I don't necessarily feel there needs to be a cap on the amount. I trust the city's abilities to to bid at and work with the private uh developer to determine what size and what best and what cost. Uh so I have no problem with raising those amounts. So private
parking, I mean free parking, public private partnership, yes. Uh no bond restriction based on what the staff feels necessary. when I say staff of the city and and and the county and um as far as the sunset I I'm not in a rush to
sunset the Ogalli uh C. It depends on what you know what the needs are there and if there's more economic development that can benefit. So I I view this as a good thing and um I'm looking forward to hearing what staff comes back with.
>> Y >> thank you. Um, so I think that if this was primarily about the parking garage, we wouldn't even be here. >> Um, because that's what it originally was was about the parking garage. So
my direction to staff would be a little different, I think. Um, I don't know about the 90%, maybe that's negotiable, but not by a lot in my opinion. I would also say that if people are paying to build it, they should get to park there
for free for quite a while, at least as long as they've been paying taxes to build the thing. Maybe that's not 50 years. Um the bond council, I think, um maybe should be the one who decides what the most economical way to proceed is.
And I'm not crazy about going higher um as far as the bond. So, that's my two cents. >> If I >> um I I would have to agree with Commissioner Atinson. Um I I think that
um personally for me, I I can't support this today, but I would be um I would be okay. I would feel much better about it if we negotiated a better deal for the residents in in that
area. Um because like Commissioner Alman said, I mean, there's nothing more annoying than going to a parking garage and figuring out that system because they all have different ones. Um so, uh I I would definitely like to see staff,
you know, try to negotiate hard in on behalf of the residents that are paying for this and um you know, that they should be able to use it for free. Thank you. Well, the good news is we're we're not
um voting on the final plan today. We're voting to give direction to staff to go negotiate with the city of Melbourne and come back with a plan. So, I have a motion that I will make. Hopefully, um you you can support this. I would
delegate the county manager, the county attorney, and our new chair um Chair Alman to negotiate with the city. Um, I'm going to take the city up on the idea that the CRA sunsets in 2033.
I think that's a that's a better deal for the county 5 years earlier. I want to see no differential in parking fees, whatever that is down the road, whether that's 5 years or whatever the the group collectively decides. So that
means county residents, city residents, uh guests staying the night down there, people from out of town, one fee. Everybody drives in there, it's three bucks, whatever the case may be. And then finally, all money collected uh in
parking fees shall be used for the maintenance of the parking garage. So, I can appreciate that you don't want to saddle um your taxpayers with the maintenance of the garage. That's my motion.
>> Chair, may I >> uh Yes. Is there a second? >> I have a friendly amendment. >> Okay. Would you consider um free parking at least as long as it's take it's going to take to build the thing and to um
allow the bond council council to recommend the most economical way to proceed? >> Certainly the bound the bond council I think I think that's I'm I'm not I'm not a I don't issue bonds so uh the point's well taken. I think they'd have to do that. As far as uh the length of time uh
I think that can be negotiated um with Melbourne and I think that ought to be attached to the 2033 sunset of the CRA. So I see those two as linked together. >> So does that mean you will agree
or not? >> I would want to see that in the in the final plan. How they get to 20 33 sunset to me is the more important issue. >> Okay. Okay. So, you're not going to accept that amendment of free parking at least as long as it taken? >> I don't know. We give I I don't know we
can give that direction today to to staff. Um but I'll tell you what, I'll accept as an amendment that they'll negotiate that. >> Um and we'll see what comes back. So, we can certainly suggest that they're they have a position. They're going to
suggest something else. So, so as far as a negotiating point, to make it easy, let's have that included in your amendment. Do you want to rephrase what she said as a part of your amendment? >> Okay. So, um I I think I understand that what you're asking for is that the free
parking uh be for as long as the CRA last. Is is is that right? >> As long as people have been taxed. Yes. >> Okay. But does that mean 2033? Okay. Um Okay. I would accept that as a as a friendly amendment. Are we clear on the
on the motion then? >> Okay. Let let me let me let me just start from the beginning. Delegate the county manager, county attorney, and the uh county commission chair Alman to negotiate with the city. All money
collected in parking fees shall be used for the maintenance of the parking garage. The CRA sun sets in 2033. There will be no differential in parking fees. Whether that's overnight stays,
that's Bvard residents, that's out of town residents, that's city residents. No differential in parking fees. And that the free parking continues until the CRA is sunset in 2033. >> I have a question. So, does that mean
eight years of um free parking or does that mean >> 12 years of free parking? >> I think I guess the question is when does the parking garage construction begin? I don't I don't think we're we're there yet. >> Well, then maybe we need to say a
certain time frame after the parking garage is completed. >> How about we say eight years? You want to split split that? So, for eight years, >> it's not the same as 50, >> right? That's what I was just about to say that we're going from 50 years of free parking to >> I I understand. I really do get this
dilemma. I look at the things that the county is saddled with today and uh that we we don't have uh revenue to take care of. And so I don't want to set the city up um for failure certainly in taking
care of what is not just their asset but ours, right? Our our taxpayers has helped paid for that too, >> right? But how many people from Scotsmore are going to Ogali? >> I can't answer that, Commissioner. I I go to all kinds of different places across the state of Florida
>> have have parked in garages. There have been um a garage I parked in recently where on the weekends it's free. They only charge during the week. And >> I I think there's I think there's some ways that they they could get there and we could bring something back to the
board and debate that then. So, >> isn't there also a storm water change that's prompting this? Aren't they trying to get around some storm water changes in regards to the construction of this building? >> I I can't speak to that specifically. Perhaps um the city could speak to that
issue. Um yes, right now the the design it that we are trying to accelerate the design portion of it to um the stormwater rules change and that site is almost 100% impervious now and so we are trying to there we will still have storm water
treatment but yes we are trying to accelerate the design of that. So I I personally feel like and I'm sorry I um I I personally feel like we are giving up a lot here. We're giving up storm water changes. We're giving up many many years of free parking. We're I
mean we're allowing them to have more money cons to construct this thing that you know I'm I'm not against a parking garage, but I just think that you know this deal needs to work for all parties, not and it just feels really one-sided right now.
>> Well, and keep in mind we're we're not making a final decision here. We're giving some general guidance. So, we'll vote on something, but your input's important. Your all of our input's important. So, when the staff has sticky items, so the main thing is getting the
ball rolling. And I wouldn't be surprised that if the staff would be reporting back to us in future meetings, kind of kind of letting us know how things are going, >> but agreeing to a motion right now, that's what the staff to go forward. >> That's true. That's true. It gives them
some guidelines, but we're not going to negotiate it here. You know, I I wanted to and maybe I could ask the mayor that to put a amendment in this that in the event that the old galley boundaries deanex and recreates their municipality and separates from Melbourne, the garage
would go with them. >> Oh boy. >> Okay, we won't I won't, you know, I'm an old galley guy as well. And and I I will say uh again this is something that when you talk about the storm water uh when you build something it's under the current codes and and
that's what we're just doing right now is keeping it under the current codes. That's all we're doing. We're not trying to change anything. Uh again we've been working on this since about five years now. And and again we talk about even commissioners Tobias and Zona. Uh this was a this is something that we worked
out. Hey, we want all the money to go to this parking garage because it's that important. So again, I I hear everybody understand. I do not like paying for parking. Uh I agree with that. Uh uh my my uh my only issue is how do we pay for the maintenance down the road? That is
it. Again, it's already discussed >> and and and by the way, and Melbourne's done a wonderful job on this, too. We appreciate it. >> And I one thing about storm water, parking garages are a heck of a lot better for storm water than expansive sprawling parking lots. So
>> I have a question about that for in the in the design there's um there's different materials that could be used now and I feel like every day it's become services >> right it's absolutely and I'm a big fan of that surfaces because instead of paving it's for example the pavers you
can put the pavers in um um I I talking to the developers that's something that we stress that it's in the arts district it's done with it's going to like an arts hotel that we use those kind of services uh you know the the bricks that you know that take in the water as
opposed to just black top. So um I I kind of see the evolution of Ogalli now. If you go down there, a lot of that's happening now. It it's definitely uh it's definitely different and it's the way to go. So I I absolutely hear every one of you. I agree with every one of you on on making sure this is done
right. Uh but I do know the history and you know following the other commissioners and you we'll get to here. We'll get there. I'm I'm sure we will. And and again, I appreciate each and every one of you your comments because I'm sitting there thinking about the 2033 and I'm giving a thumbs up because I agree with that. If we could sunset this faster, all the money is going to
this parking garage and and again, if we waited uh for the new codes, it may be an additional million dollars. And that's why when you build something, you try to build it under the current codes, not codes that may come out later. >> Okay. Any other questions? >> Thank you, sir. >> You know, uh on the parking, paid
parking, I think there's there's variables in that. I know where there are pay there are parking attendants. I don't have half the heartburn. Like in Clement Plaza and Tallahass you go to park, >> there's always an attendant there. >> Um that just makes it so much easier.
But as we get into the negotiation, we can get into the nittyritty. So, but we want to hear your motion and try to follow that. >> We can we can separate the parking part to just be part of the negotiation if you like. I I see these as some minimums. Okay.
>> Okay. I wanted I wanted to put some minimums in there. So, one uh I'll say again, delegate the county manager, county attorney, and the chair of the commission, Commissioner Altman, to negotiate uh with the the city. Um all
money collected in the future in parking fees shall be used for the maintenance of the parking garage. So, we're not giving them a revenue stream. They're going to use the money to take care of the asset that we both uh jointly built.
No differential in parking fees. So that is everyone pays the same in parking fees whether you're visiting Bvard, you live in Bard, you're a city of Melbourne resident, um whatever you're doing business down there, and then I'm going
to take them up on the 2033 deadline. I think that's a good thing for the county. That's five years of TIFF funding that comes back to us. So I I think those are those are good things. So that would be my my motion then. >> Okay. Very good motion. Is there a
second? >> Can I add a friendly amendment? >> Okay. Um, could we um could we add in that in the spirit of the coming storm water um changes that they do everything in their power to use as many LI
construction practices as possible. >> Okay, I would accept that as a friendly amendment. I I think the city is amendable to that also. >> Right. So as much low impact development practices as possible
>> with with a mind towards dealing with storm water on site and modern day practices there. Okay. >> Okay. >> That included. That's a good motion. And is there a second? >> Do I hear a second?
>> I don't even know. Is Commissioner Goodson even still on the phone? Are you there, Commissioner? >> Okay, >> I'm here. >> Okay, good. Uh, a motion dies for lack of second. I don't hear a second. >> All right. >> Does anyone have a a motion that they
would like to offer? Wow. So, we need to give staff some direction. Uh, I think we're going to need to have a motion of some sort. If not, we'll need to table this item and have it heard at the next meeting. >> I make a motion to table. >> Okay, there's a motion to table. Is
there a second? >> Second. >> Uh, we need to have a date certain. Can we table it to the next zoning meeting? Because it needs to be a regular schedule meeting. >> Uh, I believe the next regular schedule meeting is December 2nd. I think that'll be ahead of your zoning.
>> Okay, there's a motion to table. uh to the next regularly scheduled commission meeting December 2nd. Notice no debate on the table. So I'll call the I'll make this roll call uh vote here. Um and I'll let staff make the call the
role. >> This is to table to December 2nd. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Delaney. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Goodson. Yes, >> Vice Chair Atkinson.
>> Yes, >> Chairman. >> Chairman Alman. >> Yes, >> Commissioner Felner. >> Yes. >> Okay. Motion carries unanimously. We will follow up with staff. We get some more information and I'm certain
obviously some commissioners have more questions, so we'll we'll get those answered. We really appreciate you being here, mayor, and our and city attorney and and city manager. It's a great honor having you here and we'll work this out. Okay.
All right. So, we will move on to J5 legislative intent. Staff direction future funding needs for restoring health to the Indian River Lagoon. municipal support for the county managing dedicated funds and public items. I had um put this request on the
agenda and um first of all and this staff it spells out the general direction we'd like to give to staff but I'd like to start out pointing out that this is not a decision to put the infrastructure
sales tax or whatever portion of a sales tax we choose to put on the ballot. Uh it came to my attention that if we were to wait to do these things, the ministerial things that we need to do to offer this
to the public to vote, if we were to wait to, for example, this spring, it would be too late. Uh we wouldn't be able to provide the technical support and the information and the data necessary to make a educated decision. as well as the fact that staff can't do
this without direction from the board. It would put them in the position of looking like they were advocating for placing it back on the agenda. So, this simply empowers staff to do the due diligence that that needs to
be done if we were to consider uh placing this very successful program back on the ballot and giving the public uh an opportunity to vote on it. I know Virginia is here. Like for her to make a few comments, too. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, uh, as you
said, this is a citizen request placed on the agenda by your office to start a multi-step process to consider renewing the Save Our Univer Lagoon sales tax. So, just a quick um, walk through history. The 2016 referendum was a
mandate from the voters to restore health, prosperity, and resilience to the lagoon. Not just in good times, but also through bad times, including heavy storms. However, this new program was harder than starting from zero and accelerating flight speed. In 2016, the lagoon was in a rapid downward spiral,
getting worse and worse each year. From the 2011 super bloom to the 2012 brown tide to the 2013 unusual mortality events of dolphins, manatees, and pelicans to the worst fish kill in the recorded history of the lagoon. Before we could start making the lagoon better,
we had to first slow down and reverse the rapid decline that was well underway. At the same time, we had to build a new program from scratch with good governance, transparency, accountability, accessibility, and flexibility. the collective wisdom of
commissioners, the citizen oversight committee, Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program Committee members, agency, city and county staff, non-governmental organizations, citizen scientists and volunteers, as well as countless academic and professional peers have all been integral to our
success. Bvard's investment in the lagoon supports recreation, tourism, and real estate. It's helped to grow jobs and retain workforce talent. The tax has provided an opportunity to advance clean water technology businesses in Bvard. Dedicated local funds have made it
possible to plan and implement challenging multi-year capital improvement projects and effectively compete to secure over $110 million in state and federal grants to modernize our infrastructure and attract venture capital. These investments inspire new
solutions that accelerate innovation and advance human expertise in clean water technologies so that our workforce can lead Florida and perhaps the US in scalable solutions, technology transfers, and be a beacon of local stewardship.
Since 2016, we have overcome a global pandemic, supply chain issues, and skyrocketing inflation to complete 116 community projects and over 200, sorry, 2,200 individual homeowner projects. We have reduced nitrogen pollution by over
a million pounds. The annual value of the entire lagoon, as you heard this morning, has grown from an estimated 7.6 billion to nearly four times higher at 28.3 billion. For every $1 invested in lagoon restoration, the latest uh
economic assessment indicates a $24 return on investment. We've gone from performance tracking using monthly grab samples at a few dozen locations to weekly mapping of water quality across the entire water body using satellite
imagery. And now we are embarking on a model that will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to forecast future water quality conditions and facilitate preemptive response measures. The 2016 downward spiral has been replaced by a strong upward
trajectory evidenced by job growth, wage growth, tourism growth, property value growth, improved water clarity, better water quality, and encouraging seaggrass and marine life recovery. But we are not done yet. Long-term success requires continued strategic investments
dedicated to lowering the impact of development through implementing updated septic, storm water, and wastewater regulations. Embracing more Florida friendly lagoon loyal lifestyles, all guided by decision science using timely data collected and analyzed for
evidence-based adaptive management. We have built a good governance structure with intergovernmental collaborations, partnerships with businesses, NOS's, academics, and students. Our citizen oversight committee considers public input monthly. The Save Our Numer Lagoon
program is ready for whatever direction the board gives today, and staff are here to answer your questions. Thank you. >> Okay, good. That was very very informative and thorough update of of the program. We have cards. First
speaker is Craig Wallace. >> Chairman board. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning with Craig Wallace, chairman of the Bvard Indian, excuse me, Bvard Indian River Lagoon Coalition. Uh we're a leading independent unifying
voice connecting community partners to restore the Indian River Lagoon. Our members and partner organizations strongly support funding for science-based efforts to restore the Bvard County portion of the Indian River Lagoon. In
2016, we assumed a leadership role in the efforts to pass the halfsent sales tax referendum for the Save Arund River Lagoon project plan, which Virginia just spoke about. This was approved by a majority of voters in every precinct of
the county. Funding for this program expires in 26 2026 as you're aware. We are seeing some positive results from this work as Virginia has just documented, but we have a long way to go before we have a full return of of uh stabilizing
seaggrass to the lagoon. We are prepared to launch an effort uh similar to what we did in 2016 uh renewal uh for for the re uh renewal of the the sales tax in 2026.
So today we strongly encourage your vote on this agenda item to initiate the renewal planning process. As was explained, this is just to get the process started. This request includes the development of the ballot language associated ordinance items that you will
need before considering the quest request to approve it hopefully uh next year. Starting this process now will allow staff time to identify the needs, inform the citizens of the county about what the program will would look like
going forward, receive their input, which is critical uh and the uh um and be ready for the ballot referendum u deadline in August. Bvard's Bvard's unique Save Our Indian River Lagoon program has attracted
matching state, federal, and state and federal grants. Has just received the brilliance award from the East Coast Florida Regional Planning Council. Pretty significant award. So, we're asking you simply, please vote to allow the staff to develop the plan
to continue restoration of the Indian River Lagoon, which provides u much more than what we had originally anticipated. you've heard all the numbers uh annually for lo uh annual local impact and uh uh we we thank you for the
opportunity to speak and be happy to answer any questions. >> Well, thank you for your service and your interest in protecting the lagoon. Are there any questions? Do we have any questions? Okay. >> Um next speaker, Megan Murphy. get my milk and rinse it out with ice in
it for me. >> I don't have any prepared remarks. Um, I would introduce myself to say that I'm a century mom. I'm a nurse and I live in a community that is aging but has a good brand. I'm happy to hear that almost
every topic that you've discussed today relates to storm water because I think it's one of the number one things that homeowners need to understand. um these ladies that were here from the north end of the county. I live in the east uh central part of the county. Um we have
so many issues related to erosion. Um the trees on the rightways um our opportunities to uh control storm water um and beautify our community. flooding.
Um, all of those things impact individual homeowners, homeowners associations, the county at large. Um, and then all of the economic development impacts and environmental impacts that you're talking about are these highlevel pieces that you guys are dealing with. But as a homeowner, as a mom, as
somebody who works in my community to help people understand, um, we need you to continue to stay focused on the impacts of storm water, the environmental impacts, and the financial impacts that it has on every single one of us. And our tax dollars are important. We are paying for all of
these things. So, the idea that you would say we need to use these lid um interventions when we're making a construction commitment, when we're going to be making uh community impact
decisions, we need to communicate that to individual homeowners so that they know about the swailes in their backyard, about rain gardens for uh storm water mitigation, and then how to achieve those goals when we don't have access to large infrastructure.
um construction equipment and those kinds of things. These are the public private partnerships that we need you to continue to focus on. So, thanks for your time. >> Thank you. Next speaker, Lewis Continent.
Continent. >> He had to leave. Okay. Sandra Sullivan. Sandra Sullivan. So, the number one metric on whether the lagoon is succeeding in in restoration
or not is seaggrass. And I've been posting about the FWC seaggrass map and it's kind of interesting because there isn't a whole lot of seaggrass in Bvard County. You look at some of the
surrounding counties and they have seaggrass. So we're the only county with a lagoon tax and we have the worst deg. We have the most manatee deaths and we have by far almost most of the dolphin
deaths in the Indian River Lagoon. Um in 2010 the state made a legislative change to lay off 1300 workers. This is according to MRC and switch to broadcast spraying of
herbicides. And so when I look at what the other counties around us did is they stopped spraying. Bvard didn't although you did a year ago on our canals in our area. So I've read a lot of Bocc
meetings and I want to go back to this article in 2016 um on legislators proposed tapping sales tax to remove muk. And Mr. Alman, you were a representative then and along
with Mayfield, you're both cited in this article as saying Florida State Statute 212.055, the infrastructure sir tax does not allow for environmental muck duding under the law and that you're going to change this
law. Well, when you look at the bill that's cited in here, it failed in appropriations. It didn't fail once, it failed twice. So when you look at the law now, it still does not allow muck dredging.
So I've been going to the RAB meetings for Patrick's Space Force Base, Air Force Base since 2018, and they did a remedial investigation study uh in early 2015 that prompted the idea of the Muck
Tax, and that's what it was called. and that that study. So they had a Florida D permit to dispose their AF firefighting to the river from Florida D. Now in
scientific studies and even stated by Miss Virginia at sorrel meetings is that longchain P foss tend to bind organic molecules to sediment especially high organic and
so the original plan that came out had a very high percentage of of muck dredging 66% and pollution is not in there even though It's it's in the CCMP. And I'm just going to wrap up and I'm going to
make a suggestion. My suggestion is as a environmental advocate in 2016, we really needed the lagoon tax. What I'm going to suggest to you now is our critical need is infrastructure and the sewage dumps and our infrastructure
pipes that are 60 years old and the INI. That's what we need to address. This is an infrastructure syax under Florida statute 212. We should focus and change this intent to look at a one-scent sales tax, transportation, storm water, and
sewage and infrastructure. I think that would pass. This won't pass. People look at the lagoon and they go, they think it's a they think soil is an abysmal failure. Try it. >> Okay. Thank you for your input, Jenny
Lamb, city manager of Melbourne. Jenny Lamb, um, City of Melbourne, city manager. I will keep this very brief. I just want to say that the city of Melbourne has been an active partner in many sororal projects. We've worked very
closely with your natural resources team and with Virginia. And um it is also it has been a longstanding priority of Melbourne City Council to support programs to fund, manage, protect, and restore the lagoon and contributing waters. And that's really all I wanted
to say today is we are supportive of of any type of program of this program. You know, if it's for this program to continue that um Melbourne City Council is is supportive of that. >> Great. Thank you. It's been great having you a partner in that program.
Okay, those are all our cards and we're back on the agenda item and I think what we're looking for is approval from the um commission to allow staff to proceed. Um, I know it was mentioned about the
different things, Sandra, you mentioned that. Um, that's that's certainly what we want to look. We don't want to pigeon hole the staff or any direction. We want to solicit public input. This is an effort, a planning process. We're not putting something solid on the agenda. We're
beginning that process. So, any discussion? >> I have an Oh, I'm sorry. I I have an amendment. If you if you'd consider it, then maybe we could discuss the item further. >> Okay, let's discuss it and then if there's some amendments, that's fine, too. You want to talk about your amendment now?
>> I I think it'd be easier if we go to the amendment first. Okay. My opinion, Mr. Chair, if you'd indulge me. >> Uh I I suggest uh I like I like the idea of two workshops and we have a lot of meetings in this part of the county. Um,
I think one and I'm I'm proposing two evening workshops in January. One to be at Titusville City Council Chambers. I've already checked with uh the city. And then a second one at Palm Bay uh
council chambers in Titusville. We could do uh January between January 5th uh and 9th. So a Monday even to the Friday. I don't think anybody wants to do on Friday, but that's available to us if we were to take it in Palm Bay. Um, and I
got other dates, but uh I it looks like maybe the premium date would be January the 12th, and that's on Monday. I think a uh 5:00 p.m. to, you know, time certain we're walking out of there for the purpose of their staff and everybody
else, 9:00 p.m. I think something like that would um would work. that would give the the public the opportunity to come and speak. We can obviously talk to each other. We can have uh pre you know start with a presentation. So on number
four in the agenda packet where it says solicit input to be considered um this is this is my amendment specifically to that item. >> Oh, I think that's a good amendment. >> Definitely. >> Excellent. >> So I'd accept that. I would um it would
be better for my schedule if we could do the fifth or the sixth um rather than the end of the week, but I could make whatever work >> on the date right now. >> Well, I think for the purpose of the cities that we need to give them some
some I mean they they use their chambers. They have different events. Um this is what I got from them yesterday. So I I think you know just as a guy used to book space I think we We need to let them know and let our staff know. So that's
>> January 12th is okay on my >> same day. >> So the 12th would be Palm Bay if we're all open to that. I think that's the I think that's the better day. Titusville. Um we could do anywhere from the 5th to the 9th. I I heard fifth or sixth from
Commissioner Delaney. Uh these these days are okay with me, too. So, >> so that's three three for fifth. >> Cool. >> Monday's usually good for me. >> So, do you want me to restate um my amendment and we'll then we'll be back on the on the item. Do it that way. Sir,
>> restate that amendment. We'll fold it into the that's written in the agenda. >> So, I'm going to I'm my amendment is that we have a workshop in Titusville, Titusville City Chamber, um C council chambers, January
5th, 5:00 p.m. in Titusville. We have a second one in Palm Bay, Monday, January 12th at 5:00 PM. I also I think 900 PM time certain we leave and that is again for the purpose of the cities, you know,
their staff closing up etc. That's my amendment here. >> Okay, that amendment is accepted in the general motion that I will make. >> Mr. Chair, just make sure it's mostly me understand. a the board of county commissioners hosting a workshop with all five of you in public session sort
of like what we do in the Florida room. >> Yes. >> Yes. Same idea. I just, you know, I'm just trying to be sensitive to I think we need to go north county and we need to go to South County. We have a lot of meetings in in this uh facility here. >> I think that's superb. You know, when I
first was elected in the ' 80s, we met >> Yeah. >> We were traveling road show. >> Yep. >> Maybe not. It was kind of a good thing. Not to that extent, but I think this is good. That's why judges were originally circuit judges because they used to ride the circuit. >> Oh, really? >> Yeah. >> Learn something every day. >> It's good.
>> Okay. You have something uh >> um >> Commissioner Delaney. >> So, when I talked to staff about this um in my briefing, um I think this is great that we're going forward to um decide how we want to move forward and all the
public input. I love that. So, thank you, Commissioner Felner, for bring proposing those um workshops. Um, one of my concerns also is after um the considerable amount of um flooding that uh we've experienced
this year, um we have somewhere around $400 million in the sorrel uh plan. that's um earmarked to get spent on certain projects and whatnot. Um and
I just want to put it out there for the board to see if there's any um consideration that maybe we could look at that and see what projects how far along they are. Um I certainly wouldn't want to waste money as far as like if a project is almost permitted, let's just
finish the thing and you know make sure that um that process is solidified. Um so it could be a shovel ready project possibly for you know appropriations that we could go and and fight for. But
um I think that it's really clear in in my mind at least and for for my residents that I've um that I've spoken to that we need to make some changes and we need to start like yesterday um
between the state of our sewage plants and the um the storm water situation and whatnot. And while I understand that, you know, a boat is moving in a direction, we could change that at any point to focus on the
real infrastructure needs that we have right now today. And there's this pot of money that's just sitting there. >> Could I could I say something on that, Mr. Mr. Chair? uh commissioner on your behalf um I I've I've asked about um storm water projects in the north county
and I I think there's opportunity also and and I think there is money sitting there I've had discussion with short discussion with Virginia that that is there it isn't designed but I think these two things can come together
pretty nicely which is storm water >> and uh you know keeping nutrients out of the lagoon right because keeping keeping runoff uh from going into into the lagoon. So So really one of the things that happens in some of these older uh
areas that were built before 1985 really is that there just isn't storm water retention, >> right? >> And uh so I I think there's some opportunity. I certainly would explore that with you. So um >> I appreciate that.
>> Thank you. Okay. Is there any other discussion? I know it's been brought to my attention that um some have advocated including the St. John's basin in this in this uh
overall lagoon. And I think that's worth looking at as well because >> without a healthy St. John's Basin, we probably would never have a healthy lagoon either. those two systems are so intricately tied. >> I kind of use the example of the
Everglades and Florida Bay >> and we're we're losing that flood plane. We've lost so much of that flood plane that needs to be restored and that's another reason we're seeing some of the flooding and also has significant water quality impact. So >> I would not be adverse to at least
having us consider that this is what this is about engaging the public and looking at other issues. So uh this gives the public time to do that. had we if we were to wait they wouldn't have the time to do it. So >> that's sort of the intent.
>> Okay. Um so uh I would entertain a motion to u direct the staff to proceed in the process given the five items that listed in the agenda request. Approve legislative intent. I'll just summarize.
Direct staff to work with municipalities. Three uh direct staff to uh well two direct staff to work with miss three to direct staff with municip municipalities and community on project plans that are most cost effective select public input
to be considered direct staff to develop ballot language and and I'll add a number six would be the amendment that uh Commissioner Felner included. Is there a motion to that effect? >> I have a question. >> Yes. Um, so could we direct staff to
look if if the board of course wishes, could we direct staff to look at um the possibility of a 1% tax and to include transportation um kind of do it as a whole package um so that we could address all of our
infrastructure needs. >> Is there any discussion on that? Yeah, I I like to keep things separate and simple. I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to hearing that on its own, but I think sticking it with this wouldn't be my preferred way of of going forward.
>> Commissioner Felton, I saw you. >> I just uh my two cents is I think I think you can I mean, the ballot language doesn't have to, you know, it's it's not an emergency. Certainly it it helps to to get to get it worked out soon, but we could certainly take that
issue up specifically um after the after the workshops. >> Okay. >> So, that'd be an opportunity for us all to discuss this together as a group over two evenings with the public and and then you could get the the ballot language um where you want it.
>> Sounds good. >> Yeah, we want to listen to the public. So, we don't know what may come out of those public hearings. >> So, I'm going to make the motion that you just said. Okay, >> Mr. Chair. >> All right, there's a motion by Commissioner Atkinson. Is there a second?
>> I'll second. >> Second by Commissioner Felner. Any discussion? >> Uh, all those in fig in favor signify by saying yay. Yay. >> I >> motion carries unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Um, we will move
forward. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. uh still have the hospital issue. >> Uh >> yeah, let's go back to J. There is a J6 I noticed. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, that's uh J I'm sorry. Uh we apologize. That was my fault putting on that is the plates as
we change over from chairman that that makes the clerk so we can so she can pay all the bills for us. >> Okay, we'll work on that. >> Thank you. >> There's a motion. Is there a second? >> All in favor signify by saying >> yes. >> I >> I oppose. Nay. That carries unanimously. Thank you. Let's go back to the hospital
issue J3. Okay. >> If if I could, um I I don't mean to jump in front of everybody, but this is something that I feel really passionate about. It's something I campaigned on. It's something that I was elected to um
advocate on behalf of. And um I had a conversation with um Mr. Mkhitaryian and you know of course he he had mentioned to me that there were two people that he would like to see on this board and those just so
happened to be the two people that got appointed um or that won our our our uh tallies there. Um, I'm sure you all have had those reachouts as well, not just from him, but um from a particular lobbyist
and um I'm just I'm I'm wondering, you know, what how you guys came to your choice and was it simply that, you know, um that they said that these are the people we want or was it that you looked
through all the resumes and you said that that is you know these are the people that I think would do the best job bring some diversity bring some new new and fresh ideas um because I just want to speak on behalf of a couple of people that you know I was hoping to um have on this
board and one of them was Christopher Childs and as he explained his job for many many years was going into hospitals, working with the staff, working with um the uh the boards and
and the leadership of these hospitals. I mean, this is a person who makes who has made thousands of dollars um you know providing these services and he's here volunteering to do this job for free that he could get paid you know many
many dollars you know to do this as a job. um you know and as a public hospital who does not assess a millillage at this point um that again would be the millillage would be assessed on my residence
um that I feel like somebody who is skilled and um has the experience in the IT world would bring much value to this board. um
somebody who understands how to look into the systems and processes of a hospital and save a million dollars. I mean, that that to me is a no-brainer. Um and I would think that a a public hospital would want that type of
expertise on their board. Um and then the other person that I was hoping was um the person named Kyle Mack and um they have fire rescue background and the thing about that is that that is a um
vital role um that's I think missing from the hospital board is somebody that has the experience um of you know our our our wall times as they call it and the the
role that um EMS has on uh our hospitals. And I think that, you know, those two voices, those two um experiences would be pivotal to make this board uh
more successful to get better processes and at the end of the day have better outcomes for the patients of this hospital and um you know so I'm I'm really curious as to uh another thing that I had mentioned to
um you know in my conversations that I've had with people about this is that um you know there are people who they are awesome um with their people skills and they do a great job raising
money for for um say for the foundation of Parish Hospital. Um it's a different set of skills to run a hospital and to make the policies and procedures that go into into that there, you know, one's more analytical, one's
more, you know, you have a um there are different roles and not saying that one is better than the other. It's just, you know, where do your skills and your your um attributes where can we use those the best? And not everybody who serves on a board is great
at, you know, raising money and, you know, vice versa. So, um, I'm extremely concerned that it would be like Mr. Leenfelt going out campaigning for a um, commissioner.
that would be the same situation. I I feel like it's inappropriate. I feel like it's um it's not what should happen because the board of directors is who, you know, uh hires and fires the CEO, just like how
we hire and fire the county manager, and it's there's rules against that. I can't imagine us as a board being uh okay with our county manager going out and campaigning for for candidates. Um
so with that being said, I I I really feel like my constituency deserves a reasoning as to why the people that got chosen got chosen. Okay. And I think what we're going to need and I can respond to that, but just
to put this in the proper posture, we will need a motion by the board in a vote. Is that correct? >> I can make a motion, >> Morris. >> Yes, sir. >> U as far as first would be probably a motion on our ballot that we filled out. Uh I can tell you um
uh I don't think anyone has to justify why they voted. I trust everyone's on this board to to do the right thing and I think their motives are right and I respect everyone's everyone's um judgment. I can tell you from my point of view what was important to me. I
think continuity was important, consistency and stability. Uh that's why I voted for incumbents. You know, we've had some really tough things happen. We've lost an entire hospital. uh we've had to re restructure the way we provide
emergency services to uh adjust for that. I know there's there's a lot of health care challenges and I I think it's time for some continuity and stability. My experience with this hospital has been extremely positive and I that's why I support it. I can't I can
say I think it's a wonderful facility and that's why I voted the way I did. >> So you didn't get a message from a particular lobbyist? Well, I've reached out to a number of people, but um I I try not to make these decisions in a void.
>> That's >> I think it's fair for my constituency to hear from you guys. I a lot of times I say these things and I just get looked at with silence and it's not right. my constituents. This is our hospital in district one. And I understand people from all over the county use it, but the
majority of people that this hospital serves is District One. And we're the people who will be paying for it if the leaderships decides to um impose a a millage at some point. And I it it is
not right for the public, this is for the public, to be met with silence. >> Okay. I think what we we need is a motion. >> I would like to make a motion to appoint Kyle Mack and Christopher Childs to the
um North Bard Hospital District. >> Is there a second? Is there a second? Okay, the mot that motion dies for lack of second. A lack of for lack of a second. >> Is there a motion on the slate of appointments that we voted on? Do we
have a motion? >> I'll make a motion to appoint >> represent Goodson. Did I hear you? >> Yes. I'd like to make a motion to nominate Melissa Luggo and Billy uh
Fitzgerald. >> May I ask Mr. Chair for some clarification to Mr. Goodson's motion? >> Okay. >> Commissioner Goodson, Melissa Lugo applied for seat 4 and Billy Fitzgerald applied for seat 8.
Uh would your motion be to appoint Miss Fitzgerald to seat 8 and Miss Lugo to seat four? Uh yes, that is correct. >> Thank you, sir. >> Okay, Commissioner Gerson made a motion. Is there a second?
>> Second by Second by um Commissioner Delaney. >> Commissioner Atinson was the second. >> Oh. >> Um >> Commissioner Atinson, second of the motion. Okay. Sorry. >> Okay. Is there any discussion on the motion? >> I have discussion.
>> Yes. Um, I have to reiterate again that this is this is the first time in 10 years in 10 years that the District 1 commissioner has not had their say and their input in
this process. the first time in 10 years. And that's just as many years as I've looked back. I would I would gamble to say that every year since its existence, the D1 appoint has appointed the people that they saw fit.
This is based off of two years of campaigning, knocking on 15,000 doors, speaking to even so many more people than that. And the input from the community is we
want you because we want something different going on. We want some new voices going on at this hospital. And so I just want to make it really clear by you all, the four of you
going against District One and their wishes. That's what you're doing right now. the the entire community of district 1 and they made that perfectly clear when they elected me. This is this is uncalled for. This is
not the way it should be. Um you know, Commissioner Atkinson and Commissioner Altman, you all got to decide, you know, on your Melbourne Tilman um board. And I personally, I'm sorry, I don't
have a level of trust because of the silence that I've been met with on this board. I don't have a level of trust to know that you could even tell me one thing about any of these other applicants. >> Mr. Chair, >> yes, >> Commissioner Delaney, every single one of these CVs I have in front of me has
been highlighted with notes by myself. >> Okay. I decided to pick the people I picked because of the research that I did mostly using their CVs to be fair. >> Yeah. I I'm sorry. I just I'm I'm I'm not
buying that. Um and I don't mean disrespect by saying that, but it's just it's it's very clear that we were told who wanted who was wanted to be on this board. And you know, obviously those two
people won, but I think that it's imperative that the public knows that this happened and that, you know, all I could say is vote wisely. >> Okay. Uh any other discussion? Uh seeing
none, uh let's make this a roll call vote. Have a step. Good. Call roll. >> Commissioner Delaney. >> No. >> Commissioner Goodson,
>> yes. >> Vice Chair Atkinson, >> yes. >> Chair Alman, >> yes. >> Commissioner Felner, >> yes. >> Okay. by your motion. Uh so 41 vote the
nominees are appointed. Okay, we have cards for >> public comment. >> Okay, public comment. First one is Shane Murphy,
Sandra Sullivan after that she's pretty close up being up front. Richard Verber and then Marcus Smith. Hello. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yes, we hear you well. >> All right. Chair, commissioners, and community members. Thank you for
granting me the time to speak today. My name is Shane. I'm a resident of South Breard here on behalf of Space Coast DSA. I'm here because a child from our community, 16-year-old American citizen Muhammad Ibraim of Pal Bay, Florida, has
been unjustly imprisoned abroad for nearly 9 months. His family lives here, his friends live here, and this county has a responsibility to stand with the residents when their children are in danger.
In February of this year, while visiting relatives in the West Bank, over 25 heavily armed Israeli soldiers entered his family's home at 3 a.m., tied his hands, blindfolded him, and took him from his bed. He was 15 years old. Since
then, Muhammad has been held in Israeli military prison. Uh the same system extensively documented for severe abuses, torture, and routine violations of international law. For nine months, Muhammad's parents here in Florida have not been allowed a
single phone call with their son. He has lost more than 25% of his body weight, developed scabies due to this condition, and has been denied adequate food and medical care. These are not abstract allegations. These are documented facts
reported by human rights organizations, national news outlets, and members of Congress who have already sounded the alarm. Muhammad turned 16 years old inside Ofar prison alone. That should never happen to any American child and certainly not to one
who comes from our own county. Right now, federal interventions have been slow and insufficient. Despite public statements acknowledging that Muhammad should have never been arrested, the State Department has not secured his release. Hearings continue
to be delayed and Muhammad's health continued to decline. Every day that passes is another day that this child's life is put at risk. This is not a foreign policy debate. This is a local family in crisis. A
Florida teenager, one of our own is being starved, mistreated, and denied process. Our county has the moral duty to stand with his family and help bring their son home alive. Today, I'm asking the board to take two concrete steps.
Issue a formal county resolution calling for the immediate release and safe return of Muhammad Ibrahim, affirming that Bvard County stands with all of its residents, including Palestinian-American families who deserve equal protections under US law.
Two, send a joint letter from this board to the White House, the State Department, and our congressional delegation urging urgent intervention before it's too late. As elected leaders, you have the authority to stand with a local family,
may I finish, who is suffering and say clearly, no child from this county will be abandoned, no American child should be abused abroad, and Muhammad must come home. I urge you to act urgently, decisively, and publicly. His life depends on you. Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you. >> Next speaker, Senator Sullivan. >> Senator Sullivan. So, you talked maybe about um redirecting redirecting some of the the lagoon tax to storm water. So I
want to just mention so in 2010 the seaggrass meadows were as good as 1943. 2010 we started spraying herbicides. So there have been multiple seaggrass planting projects including one right here cost analysis case studies talking
about a $5 million project in central IRL. There have been multiple projects at Samson Island in Salai Beach. Guess what? Seagrass doesn't grow there. It keeps dying. Why? because salinity is too low. And so recently, you know, there's a new
project being built right now in Satellite Beach. They eradicated the wetlands. They made the retention pond smaller and the developer said, "We're going to improve the storm water on the site." Well, when I dug into it with Florida Department of Transportation,
guess where they put the storm water? To the canal to the Banana River. And that's what's going on. So, and I'm going to go and I'm just going to call the lagoon tax. We got mocked. Okay. And in the new in the lagoon plan as it is,
there's over $1 billion in muck projects. Going back to the article uh dated December 1st, 2015, uh Mayfield told the Indian River Council Friday during the regular monthly meeting, "It's actually a
current program that can be used for infrastructure. we're just going to add mckucking to what the tax can be used for. Unfortunately, the changes to that legislation, Florida statute 212.055, failed. Now, I'm going to say it gets
much worse. You had a $49 million muck project for O'Galli. Now, this project was originally $27 million for OALI North and South. It's currently budgeted in there for $165 million. Why? Because
there's some real estate deal going on with Sarno Lands according to Melbourne Council minutes. So, we're pumping muck 8.1 miles. Now, this is about to be approved and entered into a contract, and I'm asking you guys
to bring this to an agenda item here to this because you rejected the $49 million and natural resources went out and rebid it on your request, reduced the muck by twothirds,
took out the interstitial cleanout cleanout, and then wrote the bid to say, "We'll add these things back in as change orders." But it gets worse. A couple meetings ago, you guys approved piggybacking contracts.
And Salai Beach is 13 miles away. And so it's written into the grants by Boulevard County the intention to piggy bank piggyback on this ridiculous Ogali project, this the Satellite Beach Indian Harbor project. So what's that going to be? $75
million more, $80 million more. Are you talking pumping muck 13 miles to Palm Bay? Because why? Because there's some real estate deal going on. I mean, I don't even think I think there's a big
legal issue here that this muk dredging is not even legal in the lagoon plan. There is a $250 million NASA banana river project to muck which is not yet funded. And I'm just going to say this
muck judging for the POS contamination should be paid by the federal government and we got mocked. We need to sh change the shift to infrastructure to sewage, storm water, roads and and key issues. Thank
you. >> Next speaker, Richard Vieber. Yes. Hi, >> I'm Rick Bieber. I live in Coco and I'm here to support the people speaking on behalf and the family of um Muhammad
Ibraham. I hope that you all will follow through on that resolution. Uh he is a nativeborn US US citizen. He has resided in Palm Bay and I I think he was um visiting
family in the West Bank when he was apprehended. He's not getting any uh uh justice there. He is being imprisoned in a a very bad place. He is not getting any due process and we need to get him
home. So, we I'd appreciate if you all could make an effort to um look at this and sign the relish resolution. Mike Heridopoulos is doing nothing. He's uh ostricated the family of the um victim
who is a child 16year-old and this is unconscionable. So, um, want to go over just a few things on the resolution if I didn't lose it, but,
um, those are a couple of main points. Um, yeah, just just speak out against prolonged inhumane detention of of this child that should be back here. He he
shouldn't be in a a prison in Israel uh without any justice and no uh due process. Um that's pretty much it. There's been reported uh soldiers u
beating Muhammad resulting in visible injury, not to mention the scabies which I'd already read about and the weight loss. But do what you can. Appreciate it. Thank you all.
>> Okay, we have one more speaker card. Marcus Smith. Good afternoon, commissioners. Um, my name is Marcus Smith, uh, city council member for city of Melbourne, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. I want to highlight the important role of community redevelopment areas have played across
BVAR County. Just as Commissioner Alman stated eloquently earlier, CRAAS have proven themselves time and time again. Whether you look at downtown Melbourne, the O'Galli Arts District, Babcock Business District, effectively known as Melbourne Midtown or Cocoa Village,
uh Rocklage or Merida Island, the pattern is the same. When we invest intentionally in a defined area, when we upgrade infrastructure, when we support small business growth, create public private partnership opportunities, property values rise,
blight decreases, private investment follows, we create safer streets, stronger businesses, and real community pride. Just like the project the parking garage discussed earlier in OGAD, in Egas can serve as a powerful catalyst for development. Melbourne's downtown
Sierra is a prime example. Since its inception, the tax base has grown more than sixfold. Those tax increment dollars have funded streetscapes, safety projects, facade programs, public amenities, and help spark major private investments like Hotel Melb, the
Highline apartments, and numerous local businesses. That area looks and feel alive today because a line vision will sustain placebased investment. But here's the reality we cannot ignore. Success has not reached every neighborhood. There are still pockets of Bvoulevard County where the challenges
are clear, but the tools of redevelopment have not been applied. South Melbourne is one of those places. This is an area steeped in history, full of potential position between downtown Melbourne and the beautiful Florida Tech campus. Yet, it carries aging commercial
strips, deteriorating properties, and stubborn pockets of blight that sit just outside of CRA boundaries. This corridor is rich with opportunities located next to one of our strongest uh ed educational and economic anchors, but has not benefited from the focused reinvestment that CRAAS provide. And
sometimes a little momentum is all it takes to turn a struggling corridor into a thriving one. Given the shifting legislative conditions, creating new CRAAS may not be the easiest and most viable solution moving forward. But we cannot but we can use the CRA playbook
in nonCRA areas. This includes like targeted small business and facade improvement grants, zoning tools like integrated commercial edge uh district to promote mixed use redevelopment, strategic inf infrastructure upgrades and short-term enforce code enforcement
and beautifification blisses blitzes. Commissioners, blight does not respect boundary lines. Opportunity is not limited to areas with CRA designation. And if we want a stronger, more balanced, more competitive Boulevard County, we must bring proven redevelopment strategies to
neighborhoods that need them the most. I invite you to explore a framework that applies lessons learned from our most successful CRAAS to South Melbourne and other overlooked corridors. A little momentum paired with intentional focus could turn today's neglected areas into
tomorrow's engines of revenue and growth and community pride. Thank you for your time and your leadership. Thank you. >> Thank Thank you for that input. Quick question. The present Melbourne downtown CRA, how far south does that go? What is the southern boundary?
>> The southern bound it runs it stops at University and runs along US1 and then it goes up uh where we were at the American Legion. It goes up the street there. Then it turns off and goes back towards downtown. So you're leaving off uh a major corridor of University up to Florida Tech, Florida Avenue, and some
of those other areas where businesses could be developed. So there's no incentive for businesses in those areas. >> Okay. Can could I clarify because I'm cur uh so the American Legion post that parcel is is within the CRA. It is. But
uh one of the things I just proposed at a recent city council is a business incentive grant because the American Legion is in and other organizations like that. A facade program doesn't necessarily help because you have to have money and it has to be reimbursed. But if we can look at ways of doing incentivized uh activity, that's a
slightly different way of looking at using some of those funds. So the American Legion has been stuck because of not having the upfront resources to do the facade program. And then the facade program is also just outside, but as you saw, being on the inside, there are things that we can do operationally
where funds could be used in other ways. >> Oh, I thought the inside was nice. >> Yeah. Well, that's because we put a lot of work and elbow grease into it. >> Okay. You decorated it very nicely. >> That's right. >> Okay. It was very festive. All right. >> Any other questions? >> Okay. Thank you for that valuable input. >> Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you. All right. That concludes our meeting. We will go to board reports. Uh, county manager No report, Mr. Chair. >> County Attorney, I have no report other than to remind the board that we have an executive attorney client session
following the meeting and that the chair has an announcement to make after reports in that regard. Thank you, sir. >> Okay. Commissioner District 1. >> Yes. So, um I was able to host my first um town hall
meeting. I intended to um do this a lot sooner um but time just didn't allow in my first uh year and um it went really well. It was well attended and I just really thank the community that came out for it. And um we use the Bvard room um
in in Titusville which is a really great space. And uh one of the things that has been really important to me was um getting our meetings more attended. And so one of the things that I highlighted was
why speak at a meeting? How to speak? What do you do when you get there? You know, cuz for people that have never come, it's, you know, a lot to do. You don't know what to do. Do I sign up with a card? Do I, you know, so I I brought that education to um to the meeting and
uh it was a really a really great time. And I'm I'm saying all that to segue into um our community lost a uh amazing lady recently. Um Susan Connelly and um I'm
going to try to say this all without tearing up. Um we lovingly called her the Speak Up Bard um ambassador. Um, I always say that she was the angel I
never knew I needed. You know, she she popped into my life unexpectedly and um there was nobody uh that's as warm and sweet and kind as Susan and um she will
be greatly missed. uh she had such a beautiful way of advocating on behalf of her community, not just in the county, but in Palm Bay. Um she was so kind and sweet even when she disagreed with what
was going on. Um and she deeply cared about this community and everybody in it and she will be greatly missed and so I just wanted to um recognize her today. Why don't we stand for a moment of silence
for Susan, a wonderful person? >> Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. >> Okay. Uh, District two, >> no report. >> Okay, District three. >> Yes, just uh just short I'm going to
echo um everything that Commissioner Delaney just said, but also add a few things. Um Susan was a joy to speak with and as passionate as she was about many things, she listened. That was the thing about Susan is that
she listened. She digested and then she came back with a solution or at least an idea for people to think about. And I I cherish that. You can come to me with all the problems in the world, but Susan came with some answers and some some really
important um ideas. She wasn't just looking out for D3 where she lived and Palm Bay where she lived. She was looking out for everybody in Bard County. She was, in my opinion, a phenomenal example of how residents can effectively
engage. >> Thank you, commissioner, and I echo those comments and uh she will be sorely missed. And one of the ladies that made all this worthwhile to to work with and I have no report on
that uh we'll show the meeting ajourned. I have something to read though before we adjourn it. We don't we're not adjourning. I make that clear. Wait a second. Okay. All right. Um, as authorized by section 286.0118, Florida statutes, the BVAR County Board
of Commissioners will now commence an attorney client session discussing litigation strategy and settlement negotiations in the case of Waters Mark Development Enterprises LC where Bavar County, Florida, case number 05-2014-CA-41947. Uh, attending the attorney client
session will be the county commissioners, the county manager, the county attorney, our outside litigation council, Scott Dale, and a court reporter. The attorney client session will be held in the county manager's office room on the third floor of this building. The estimated length of the
session is 1 hour or less. I will now entertain a motion to temporarily temporarily adjurnn and reconvene in the county commissioner office. And you can stay. I'll make the motion. >> Second. >> And And when would we? 5 minutes, 3 minutes,
>> sir. I'd suggest uh 12:45 we start. It gives everybody 10 minutes go do what they got to do. >> Okay. 124. >> That's my suggestion. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. The opinions expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the
views or opinions of the board of county commissioners of Bvard County, Florida, Space Coast Government Television, or the program sponsor and are solely those of the presenter. The board of county commissioners of Bvard County Florida, Space Coast Government Television, and the program sponsor hereby expressly disclaim any and all responsibility or
liability for any defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period. Bye-bye. Hey everybody.