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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,

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authority and jurisdiction. Thank you. I would like to recognize
Bishop Wells from Path Apostolic Apostolic Church in Titusville. Thank you for being here,
Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Vice chair, my Commissioner. And to the Commission entirely. And staff, thank you
for the invitation to pray. Let's all pray together. Father, we thank you for your goodness
and your blessing upon America, Florida,
and indeed Brevard County.

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We thank you for each of our
commissioners, their staff, and the many men and women
who serve this region. We thank you for the opportunity
for civil discourse and federal, state
and local government right now. We invoke your blessing
upon this meeting and upon every speaker
and every participant. We invoke your truth,
your wisdom and your love, one for the other,
throughout this meeting. And while we have the right
to express

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and demonstrate free will,
we do ask, not our will, but thy will be done on earth
as in heaven. Finally,
we make all these petitions and invoke all these blessings
in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much
for being here, making that drive down from Titusville. I really appreciate it. I'd like to ask everyone
to stand for the pledge,
and Commissioner Pritchett will lead us in the pledge. And. Stands
one nation under God,

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indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. I'd like to officially call the meeting to order,
and we have no minutes. But we do have a resolution 
presentation. Oh, yes. Yes,
we need that motion. May I make a motion to allow Commissioner Goodson
to participate by phone? It's a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. All those in favor? Allowing Commissioner Goodson
to participate by phone. All in favor, say aye. Yay!

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Carries unanimously. Good to have you here,
Commissioner. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So we have in a presentation. We have the potential impact
of the November property tax amendment on Brevard
County. Yes. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioners,
I just have a few slides. The highlight a few items. The papers attached to the agenda
for further reading, for the audience
and for the commissioners.

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So let me do. Come on. It worked in practice. Well. We'll go. So. So what we're doing,
we're being asked to the. Did it come through? There
we go. I'm sure that was Logan
helping me. So what you have on amendment
three in the ballot is what we're being asked to is a vote to change the state
constitution. And it has impacts, 
obviously, would have impacts in the county
if the voters vote for it. What amendment
three will do will limit use of county property
tax, the ad valorem tax,

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which is the first line
you see in your tax bills, it would restrict
those tax revenues, can only fund the core services. And I'm actually going
to read them there on the slide. But the core
services would be in the new if this is voted upon it would be in the state
constitution. Core services can only be spent
on public safety, including law enforcement, fire services
and emergency medical services. They could be core services would be in public schools,
which obviously is not us. That would be the school board
infrastructure, including construction and maintenance of roads
and bridges, stormwater management
and other public infrastructure,

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flood control, natural resources
projects, bond obligations, pension obligations
for local government employees. And I'm taking
a little bit of assumption that's mostly for cities
that have private I shouldn't
say private their own pensions. We as a county were under
the Florida retirement system and then operation
administration of counties, municipalities,
constitutional officers and other authorized government
functions and our county. When you look at that would be the board
of county commissioners, tax collector,
sheriff, property appraiser, clerk of the courts,
your court system.

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I think I got most of them.
Oh, supervisor of elections. Those would all be included
in the core services. See, Logan's
taking good care of me, folks. So some notes, remember, for
for all is what this what what this vote. What this does is it lowers
the countywide taxable value by raising your homestead,
your homestead exemption up to the first year
to $150, $50,000. Second year is going
to raise it up to 250,000. And when I have the slide show
in the impacts, I'll be talking. Not yet. Logan I'll be talking about
the $250,000. This.

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And this would only apply
to homesteaded properties for the non homesteaded
properties and commercials. There's an there's
an assessed valuation cap that they can go up to 10%
in the current law. Now their increased assessed
value can only go up to 5%. And then the part
I want to make sure everybody knows and it's right
there on the bullet point is just because the service is defined as a core service
does, that does not mean it's going to be held harmless. I mean that, and I'll show you
in just a minute. That includes law enforcement
and fire rescue. Not ready for next slide.
There you go.

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So here's a couple of the anticipated
impacts from the second year when the homestead exemption
goes up to up to the $250,000 note, our Parks and Recreation department
would face an $18 million loss. And I'm pointing them out
because Parks and Rec number one receives a municipal service
tax unit the voters voted upon. So they're going to lose about $7 million
from the lower taxable value. And then Parks and Recreation is
not defined as a core service. So the property tax
we spend now, the ad valorem,

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we would not be able to use
for parks and recreation law enforcement
through their MS2. They'll lose about
and sorry for the audience. MS2 is municipal service
taxing units. They'll lose about 7 million. Our fire rescue
would lose about 6 million. The libraries in the $6
million range, you could have rounding off
the numbers. You also have mosquito control
to a lesser extent. And the environmentally
endangered lands. Some of the services
that we currently fund with our general funds
will be prohibited. We won't be able
to use those avalanche taxes.

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So right now
we have about little over $2 million a year
going to the transit services. That money would disappear. They use that as their match. Housing and Human Services
has I just lost my number. Has somewhere in the
neighborhood of $3.2 million. They use that for all their
different programs for match. And that also includes
the Veteran Services Office, which we have in Merritt Island,
palm Bay, and here
at the Government Center. That is not an eligible
core service. So we'd have to find
different ways to fund that. So, you know, as you look at the green, if this happens,
the voters approved.

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What do you do?
And I'm just going to talk. We don't know the impacts yet. This will sitting down with the
all working this through. But I'm going to use libraries because it's kind of a simpler
explanation. Libraries receives their tax
and you go on your tax bill. You see the library tax
right there. So they're going to have
an impact of somewhere
in the $6 million range. So board will be coming to you. If they lose $6 million.
What do we need to do. Do we start looking at closing
branches. Do we look at reducing service
hours? Is there a combination thereof? And when you look at it
as you do service hours,

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you got to make sure you have the minimum
staffing in a library. You know,
you just can't have one employee working in the library. You got to make sure
it's got a cover. You got to make sure
you cover your shifts. So it's not just a simple answer
of all. You've lost 20%. You just closed down
20% of the hours, or you closed down
20% of the branches. We're going to have to look through
and talk to the citizens. Parks and recreation. That's a much bigger picture. You know, we have over 100 parks
throughout the county, and the definition of parks
and recreation is right there. We provide parks
and we provide recreations.

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So do you look at cutting
back on parks? You look at cutting
back on recreation. I know the department's
already taken a look, you know, do you raise the fees
on the recreation? You know, but, you know,
can you raise the fees high enough
to keep the programs going? You know, you look at some of the youth
leagues and similar things. Could that could that be
a large number, 200, $400? We don't know that yet,
but that could be a big number you look at. I just saw them today. You look at the summer camps
or last week. I just saw them out here
at Viera. You know, that's a very important
to a lot of working families.

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You know,
can I forget the number 175 weeks, something like that
to, you know, do we raise the fee so high
to keep the summer camps going that people can't afford
to go to summer camps? How do we find some money
to help fund those? And the last one,
at least in Parks and Rec, is also the boat ramps. We have a very active boat
ramp program. Better way to call it. We provide it up
and down the county. Most of the public boat ramps,
you see our county operated. So at what point what do we do
for the boat ramps? So I mean there's some very
important things to look at. I want to even get
we don't even know details.

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Talk about law enforcement,
fire rescue, mosquito control. I just want to point those
two out because they're kind of libraries
is kind of simpler budget to work with
because they are self-contained. And then but then seeing
the impacts on parks and recreation, it's pretty obvious
what you're going to see. Some of the impacts
that Parks and Rec. Right. So next slide Logan. So this is in the report
this this shows the gap between core service expenses
and the general ad valorem. So when you look at the
the blue line that is the core services includes public safety
sheriff's office

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road and bridge facilities,
constitutional offices. There's
actually some general fund that goes to natural resources
on their code enforcement side. Then when you look at when I'm
never go with the colors, let's call it burnt orange,
the burnt orange color that is your general
ad valorem tax revenue. So you see, based on trends,
we expect the trends to go up on the blue line. And then that burnt orange color
that is actually data coming back.
We work property appraiser. They've been good
at giving us some data. So that's
following the next two years. And then assuming there'll be
a little bit of an increase.

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But I'm going to read
this straight from the report because I want to point out
this gap. We already have
the existing gap, you know,
whether this passes or not. And so currently in this fiscal
year, the gap between general fund revenues available
for core government services and the cost of providing
these services is covered by substantial portion of other major general general
fund revenues, which includes the sales tax, state shared
revenue, FPL franchise fees, communication service tax
and other miscellaneous revenue is the gap between property
tax revenues and core services.

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Expenditures continue to widen. An increasing
share of these other major general fund revenues
must be redirected to support core government
functions, leaving fewer resources available
to fund county programs and services that would not be eligible
for the property tax funding
on the proposed amendment. So our our issue here is
we're already having a gap. So it would be very difficult
for the board to say, well, we'll just take all the state,
the half cent sales tax and directed to Parks
and Recreation. It's basically not available

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because we're using those funds
to fill in that gap. What you have now, and as you see
the gap is getting wider. So you may have to look at core
services. We'll have to face
some some sort of reduction. And then if we look at we want to try to keep Parks
and Rec hole or transit, we're going to have to look at different
funding sources, because we're going to use the alternative
funding sources to fix that gap. So I just
want to point that out. Yeah. Of course services. So you have
you can only spend those. You only can spend your
ad valorem in the core services. Then you're using other revenues to make sure
you balance that budget,

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which limits your ability
to fund the other departments that are not core service
departments. Yeah. So so we understand so the actual effect
of the amendment basically says if you're not
a part of these core services, you cannot spend
any heavily on it. Or is it limited? What is the actual
impact of that. You cannot spend the funds
if it's not a core service. So so you have to find some other user fee
and what have you.

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Well, I know, but 93% of our
parks are for playgrounds. Children 76 run summer youth programs, 86%
for team sports. This is an anti children
proposal. I mean or you just charge user fees
or you charge it and and you know and as you do the user fee for
you do away with these children. You do. I mean, you know,
we're not to the point yet, but I mean, I could see us having the discussion is
do you want parks

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that have playgrounds
and swing sets and nothing else? Or do you want recreation programs
and you don't have standalone parks that don't offer anything
besides recreation programs? I should add, also, in the parks
you have, we have run a number of community centers, and I actually had the conversation
with the supervisor. Our community centers,
they're wonderful early voting locations.
They're perfect for them. And the other interesting thing
is that community centers, the way we do
evacuations for hurricane, there are number one
evacuation centers right now. They're designed to be
that they're designed to help.

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And so we work. So I mean, so there's some impacts beyond
just parks in those situations that affect
how we provide service. And you know how it affects
the people services. So just Commissioner, just a couple things
I just wanted to clarify. We're not allowed to use the core services
outside the core services. You're
not allowed to use of alarm. Another question
I have, because I think having some of the basic
understanding as you present. How do you define public safety? I mean, mosquitoes
and mosquito outbreaks,

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you know, infectious diseases,
I would think quarter, what we do for protecting public
safety in Florida is mosquito control. But it's my understanding
mosquito control is not included. Has that been did the
legislature fix that problem or. I'll be straight on honest. We had a meeting with all the
counties, county administrators, Florida Association,
County Online, and our folks asked that question
about mosquito control and MSU. And I forget the exact chart
of accounts. The Florida chart of accounts

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is not include mosquito control
under public safety. So that the definition
at that moment, the definition is mosquito
control is not a core service. Now, maybe if this passes
the implementation they might add it
in, I don't know. But based
on the chart of accounts and how they state budgets
basically allocate the revenue, it's
not a public safety function. Sure. Absolutely.
I have two questions. The first question is
when you're talking about core services
being law enforcement and fire one hand, we're saying that,
you know,

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we're going to make sure
that we fund them. And on
the other hand, we're saying we're not holding them harmless. What does that actually look
like when we're talking about reducing law enforcement
and to save fire at the moment? Those two things,
I don't have the budgets in front of me, but it's it's
the sheriff's department. I have to if we can't find
a different way, let me back up the sheriff's department
facing a $7 million cut. You know, just based on the MSU
at our fire rescue department, you know, we talk red and blue.

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It's on the fire
operations side. It would face a $6 million cut. There is a way
you could raise the millage on the non
homesteaded properties to bring back that revenue
up to that point, but 3540 it would be like a 30 or 540%
increase to the military rates to what is the
when you say the for fire the operation side are
you wouldn't be talking about the big truck
the big red trucks you're talking about
not the ambulances. Yes. So is that maintenance?
Is that getting new things? Is it
replacing old? It's everything.

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It's everything. Sure, absolutely. Does that mean that
we have to impose assessments, cover those services? Yeah. I guess that you could
raise the. Well, you have to do this
for the assessment. You have to do a study
and you have to show the assessments are based on
how it benefits the property slash household. I'm not going to get the term
exactly right. But yeah it you just if this passes November 3rd you can't come in November 4th and say I'm going
to raise the assessment by the equivalent of that
7 million. You got to do a study. You got to go
through the process.

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So it's not a short
simple process. Some things like EMS and general
law enforcement services, we can't fund by assessment.
Yeah. One other question, if I may, at
the tail end of what you said, Jim, you said that we we can't we can't fund. Some things are defined
as core services. And then if I heard you,
you said but once this is voted on then
they might stick it back in. So are we voting for something
we don't actually understand?

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It is not the
amendment is not comprehensive. And you know, the bill that they passed
and they are supposed to. And so if it passes,
they're going to have to have a what's the right word
implementation session on how to implement it. Okay. So I mean this is just
Jimmy talking here Jim talking. That's where you see
the sausage being made. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. We cut parks. We'll definitely. And recreation program
for youth program. We'll definitely have to spend
more money on law enforcement. Jail. It could be.

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Mr. chair, would the board
like to receive a brief update on the ruling in the case on the
ballot language from today? Okay.
And then we'll have Jim finish. Any other questions but I okay. Yeah that's okay. Sorry,
but it's just I think I'm sorry. Were you finished, Jim?
I can wait until after you. Okay. Terrific. Perfect. Yeah. All right. So, so as you as, you know, as
Jim sent out the notice earlier, Leon County Circuit Court judge today declared the ballot title
and summary for amendment three to be clearly
and conclusively defective. Among the issues
with the ballot title

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and summary
was that the ballot title, the. The court found that
it was more akin to a political slogan,
and that the title Save Our Homes from Excessive Property
Taxes was not fair and neutral. That invoking Save Our Homes borrowed
the brand of the assessment cap that we're all familiar with and for other reasons, that
it was more political rhetoric and not neutral or not
an explanation. Also found the summary
to be defective in its structure and language. The summary states that the amendment benefits
Florida taxpayers

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by and then list
a number of things. First and foremost was ensuring
funding for core services. What the court found was that
the amendment does not ensure funding for anything, including those core services
we've discussed, because by shrinking the local tax base, it's likely to decrease the revenues
available to local governments even to fund
those core services. So that's that's the court's
analysis of the title. In summary, it's been sent back
to the attorney general who has ten days
to rewrite the ballot title, and then there will be ten days
from that

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for anyone else
to mount a challenge. The state could also appeal
from this ruling. So that's the current status. All that said, amendment
three will be on the ballot. It's just this particular title, in summary
that we're at issue in the case. Have a question. So gosh,
just got my sample ballot. How will that work with
ballots about to be printed? Well, that's why I know
who's in the middle of all this. You probably know when
the ballots are being printed. Well, the the ballot,
Mister chair, the ballots for the general
is what we're talking about.

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00:21:21.313 --> 00:21:53.228
And so those won't be printed
until after the primary. And I think there's some period
in time, maybe it's ten days or something like that
to certify the election and all those things. So I don't think the, the design for the ballot
even happens until the very beginning of September. So it would be early September
I because of you. So that's 45 days ahead of 
an election is when military ballots
and overseas have to go. So they've got a small
a small window there

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to certify the election results
from the primary before they start
printing ballots again. So definitely
the early part of September, obviously Tim's not here and I'm I don't want to answer
on his behalf, but as I think I have a good
understanding on that okay. All right. And I just want it's not on I just want to conclude
with a couple of points. I mean, if the voters approve this,
we as staff and I will tell you, we have not sat down
with the directors, but I could see on November 3rd
the voters approve it. After the third, we'd be looking
at some kind of targeted

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hiring freeze. You know, you still hire bus drivers and your road
and bridge operators because you need those
to keep operating. But we look at what we need to
do, possibly place a hold on capital projects that have not started yet,
to see what the impact is and make sure
we can continue to fund them. And then we'd be sitting down
pretty quickly to have a consultation
with the board on what to do. The interesting thing
is we'll have a new board. Your last meeting, I believe, is this board's
constituted as November 10th. The next board gets sworn
in November 17th.

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So probably after Thanksgiving. But we'd be asking you
to sit down because the my, my reading
wrote it this way. Final note
if amendment three is passed, the impacts
and reduction of services that the citizens will feel
will happen before October 1st, because, you know, you're going
to, you know, good staff members if they're going to get laid off
the leave before October, you know,
what are we going to do? So it's not a 12 month
or 11 month wait at that point. You'll see the effects
throughout 2027. So and just repeat the

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we did write like a six page,
seven page report. It's attached in the agenda items
for anyone to take a look at. That's it. One of the questions I had, and I don't know
if we got a clear answer or not,
we've talked about this. So a bond issues and I'm sure
throughout the state there's quite a few bonds
that have been issued. Those bonds have been issued
based on a homestead exemption. At a certain amount
you go to 250. What happens if if the ability
to pay those bonds

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is compromised
because of a lower assessment? Does anybody know
I am not the expert on that one? I would say bond
obligations are a core service. But you're right, the revenue
could still be going down. So at some point
you would have an effect on your your ability to
bond, your rates would go up. The obvious thing, your rates would go up
because you have less guaranteed to the bonds. So the legislature
has an implementation session. So I guess the answer
they may give is the problems that are created

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that will go
before the legislature. And they will, I hope so hopefully
be able to fix some of those. Okay. Okay. I mean, I think always
our understanding of when you're when you're talking about debt,
the debt must be serviced, shall be serviced. So existing bonds have to have
to be repaid am I right. Okay. So I think
I think the question of, you know, rates
and those sorts of things would be on
any kind of future ability because that, that certainly
could be influenced

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by your your ability
to service debt in the future. But whatever,
whatever exists today that we, that we service
will continue to be right. I don't I don't think
there's anything in there that says that we don't have
that obligation because of this referendum,
and it's a core service. And the at least paying off
is at general fund and debt
service is $2.8 million a year. So it's not for us.
We're in decent shape. I mean, there's utility,
solid waste, have some debt out there, but
they're not the general funding.

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Mister chair, answer yes,
I just have a comment. It's not a question. So this original homestead thing
was designed to keep people in their houses, right? It was designed that sounded
like a question is not. But you look at it. And if we have to bring money
in other ways, then it's still going to come
out of the pockets of the people who suddenly don't have this anymore. I don't know, I'm just concerned
that it's not it's not doing what they
wanted it to do, that's all.

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00:26:31.072 --> 00:27:06.675
Okay. Well, thank you for that update and we'll just follow this
as it moves on. I certainly agree
with the general intent. We need to fix some problems
with our property tax issues. Is this the solution? It could be problematic okay. I'd like to move on
to the consent agenda. Do we have any cards on the consent? Okay. Any any consent items that
the board would like to pull?

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Don't have any. So we do have cards. So first card, Rick Heffelfinger F5. No projector today. Rick. District one, 2000,
Juniper Drive. My concern with this one
is that in the recent past there was a water main break,
I think, or some service
that needed to be done, and there was a boil water
notice that went up north. And this project is up
north, and I understand you're going to be shutting down
a pretty major line to divert into the new line
and isolate the old line, if I have that right,
I think I do.

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My concern is that there was
a disconnect in communication with up north from what I heard,
that there were not notified. The water just went out. They didn't know if they were
going to have to boil water. People are at work.
The water is out. They don't know
if when the water goes out you don't have fire protection
as far as I know. So I would hope that some lessons
were learned from that, because I think there were
some people that squawked pretty loudly about
not being notified of that, and that that would happen here. And that is my only comment,
that it's great that you're replacing water mains,
and that's super duper. There was also
there might have been

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some concern
about a water pressure drop. So if that's going to happen up
there, I think people
ought to be informed. So it was just my concern
for recent history. And because this does
seem to be a pretty major line that's going to affect
a lot of people. And that was all I had. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Recognize this state F6. You do. F6. So this is the FDP
grant applications. Now this doesn't kick
in until next year. But again I always like
to praise you guys. Go for every one of those grants
and get every piece of money

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that you don't have to pay
anything for. My question with this one is it's been identified
that two of these grants applications
have matching funds, and the first one is inflow
and implementation prevention. Countywide there is a utility
service match 3 million. I assume they have that money. There's a utility service
match of 1.1 million. But there are some biggies
in here that say zero match. I don't know if they truly are
zero match. There is no requirement
to match them, or we just haven't
decided how much that is

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and where it comes from. So because again, I told you,
I always look for the big numbers
on these things, right? The financial impacts. And so it's only saying
that there's 1.1 and a 3 million coming from. But it is identified utility service
and that's an enterprise fund. So everything's
cool there right. I just don't know
if there's any more match. That's I just had a question I think no match
means no match, doesn't it? That means no match. No match. I like that answer. All right,
I'm done with that one. Okay, Rick, you're still on F7. Let's see what we got here.

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F7 this sounds like public
hearing to amend the barefoot Bay utility service rates. There were some people here
last month that I think were quite adamant that you guys need
to give them some relief. I don't know if this gives them 100% relief,
but it's good news, right? It's going to reduce roll their
rate back at least last year. So I think that's good. There is a fiscal impact. It doesn't say there is. When it rolls back to 2025
I guess there was a study that was done that identified
that phasing out the barefoot

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Bay was not going to cost
that high of a rate, because all those monies
that were being collected, partially because of that rate,
I think, was to maintain that plant. And you're going to I hope you just keep it on its
last legs until it phases out. But it doesn't say
how much revenue is being lost due to that rollback. Again, that's probably
an enterprise fun thing. And then do I care? I don't know, just
it seemed like a reducing reducing rates and not showing
how much rate loss there was. I was just
a little concerned about that. Why don't we do this?

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If you're finished, we have 11 cards on this item. Maybe have staff give a quick
summary of it. Okay. And maybe some of the questions
could be answered. It's a lot of people came up
from I guess, to be heard. I think there was a multi-year rate increase
that everybody was squawking. I don't know what it rolled
all that back. I don't I think that was almost complete
or did complete last year. Let's get a good presentation. Thank you. Good evening. Just to give you a brief
overview on this agenda item. So at the last board meeting,

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the board approved
for the barefoot Bay Water Sewer District to be sunset, 
effective in January of 2030. That's based on the last bond
payment associated with the barefoot Bay Water Sewer District
being made on December of 2029. So, you know, when we do rate
calculations, we're always looking at read calculations for the entity
to be around for perpetuity. Can everybody here okay.

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00:32:10.061 --> 00:32:44.912
I'm sorry it's difficult. Is that better to speak
up. Okay. You want them to start over? Yes. Okay. So, just to repeat. So last board meeting,
the board approved for the barefoot Bay Water
Sewer District to be sunset in 20, in January of 2030. The rationale of that is,
is that the last bond payment associated with the barefoot Bay
Water Sewer District occurs in December of 2029. Based on that board action,
we looked at,

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along with the rate consultant
and analysis of looking at what the what the needed 
revenue would be in order to sustain itself
until the 2030 sunset period. Based on that,
we did an analysis. We reviewed that the user rates could be rolled
back to the 2025. I believe
that's a reduction of 4.8% and that we would flatline them
from their out.

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I will say in the agenda report
and you know, there is further red lines
associated with it. So anytime you anytime you make
a revision to a resolution, you have to show it
through a red line process. When the when the rates
were approved in 2022, the rates that are shown
in red line. Not only are they adjusted,
but they were basically shown to the 2025 rate and we just made
them in the remaining rates.

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We just made current
from the 2022 to the 2026. So in a nutshell, water and sewer user rates rolled back to 2025,
a 4.8% reduction. They'll be flatlined
through 2030. Come 2030. The barefoot Bay,
the water and sewer accounts and the barefoot Bay Water Sewer District
will get turned over to adopted to whatever the county wide
system is at that time.

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Okay. And this is not passing
the rate. This is simply permission
to advertise. That's correct.
This is step one. Yes, absolutely. So I just want to clarify. So when we had people coming
into my office saying the rates down in barefoot Bay are, are difficult, and
when we ask you to look at this. What did you anticipate
the percentage rate increase being over the next three years
prior to your relooking at it?

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We were so by board direction. We use the CPI water and sewer
maintenance index. So the last adjustment
was 4.8%. And we look at it
every November. And what did we anticipate
those increases to be. Any idea I would have to
look at the number. But the way everything's going. I would anticipate another 4
or 5% increase. So so by doing what we're doing, we're not only rolling it back,
we're also stopping those increases
for the next three years. Yeah. So if you look at, you know,

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if you asked me the way
how everything is going in the industry, the CPI is
absolutely in a trajectory to keep going up and up. So you're correct. We're
kind of like flatlining it. Okay. Great. Thanks. Any
other questions. We'll open up. We have about 11 cards. Dennis Emanuel. Emanuel. My name is Dennis LaBelle. M e l Denise. I'm sorry.

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Denise. Can. Dennis. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Actually, he's. Yeah.
He's next. So. My name is Dennis LaBelle, and I live in barefoot Bay,
and it's basically. I'm on a good evening. This is awkward for me. Let's come up to you, as I'm sure you've seen
many people like that before, but I'm here
representing the unified group of barefoot Bay
water and sewer customers.

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We are here to address
a clear legal contradiction in how how of art county
structures, its water billing. That's this agenda item. Today
you are voting on a proposal to decrease our water and sewer
rates back to the 2025 level, a 5.15% decrease. While any rate reduction is
a step in the right direction. Let us be clear this tiny
rollback is an inadequate Band-Aid that does nothing to alleviate
the crushing weight of our bills.

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It will not play us for anybody who's watching my bills $110
for two people. So you would compare
that to your bill? Between two 2022 and 2026, barefoot Bay utility rates
skyrocketed by a staggering 54%. You can argue that if you like, rolling rates back by
just one year leaves us trapped under a compounding massive
financial penalty compared

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to the rest of the Beaufort
County customers. You manage. A single family
residential home in barefoot Bay is an exact same consumer class
as residential homes in Port Saint John,
Merritt Island and Mims. We flush the same water,
require the same statutory environmental processing, and answer to the same board
of county commissioners. So basically a 54% increase rollback of 5.515%

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is not adequate. And I've got another 40s or so. So when you
when they turned over the system barefoot based system to the county,
they were required to pay a fee. So when new builders build
these massive buildings, are they required
to pay a fee to hook up? And just for my information, did
I have to pay like $5 million
to hook up to the system?

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Yes, there is an impact fee that new construction
has to pay. You want to just give us
a general idea of maybe where that is? I'm sorry. In like 5 million
or 10 million for 10,000 units, it's under $1,000
for water and sewer. The exact amount,
I believe it's like seven, 800 for orbit. Excuse me. Percy. RC single
family home equivalent. Okay,
so for Barefoot baby, $5,000,

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we just adjusted. So it's a single resident. It's a calculation. So as you'll see 
we do the same calculation. So the agenda item
we have later about the connection fees
for countywide. It started off with the two. It starts off
with a two bedroom equivalent. And then we used the Florida
Administrative code to do the calculation on
anything that alters from that, whether it's high or low. Thank you. One thing I want to
I appreciate your input.

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So we're not voting on
anything today. Other
than advertising the ordinance. So we're not going to do
any fees or increases or this is only
to have permission to advertise. So thank you. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Denise I messed it up. I'm sorry. Denise. That's the first time. Will be the last.

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00:40:42.473 --> 00:41:15.539
Good evening, Mr. Chair. Members of the board. I, too, am a single family home in barefoot Bay,
and my water bill is $94. I am the only one who lives
there. I won't even power wash my house
because of the water bill. Despite the facts
of our sameness, the county continues to carve
barefoot Bay utility customers out into an isolated
billing island. Even with this 5.15% decrease, our neighbors across the county
will still pay a base suit.

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00:41:15.739 --> 00:41:49.073
Excuse me, sewer fee of 3279. While we are charged
a premium $54, our consumption rate will remain
highly inflated. This is not a difference
in usage. It is a geographical penalty,
freezing or slightly rolling back. These rates until 2029
does not solve the underlying injustice, only integrating us
into the county wide system sooner will truly help
with our bills. All five of you are equal
in representing us and in being responsible
for our water and wastewater.

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00:41:49.190 --> 00:42:28.345
Since buying our utility system
26 years ago, we customers have paid inflated
rates. Is in 26 years long enough? Must we really wait
another three and a half years
to see real relief? We ask this commission to stop
delaying and integrate us into a single, equal county
utility class immediately. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Chuck Barrett, our next speaker. You guys switch papers,
and then after that, Bonnie Carpenter,
put your own deck.

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00:42:29.380 --> 00:43:05.866
She's on deck. Chuck Berry, my name is Karen Conrad,
and I live in barefoot Bay. Yeah, I called up Chuck Barrett. Well, we switched Barnett. Barnett. We have all the cards in order,
but there. Yeah, they're out of order. Actually, we. This is the order they returned.
And this is number five. Number six. Ken. Yeah, I was supposed to be
number three, just following the number
by which was given to me.

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00:43:06.634 --> 00:43:45.623
Does it matter
if I speak before? What's your name again? Karen. Karen. Conrad. Have a card for me. See? Oh, you were number four. I may have messed up. All right.
It's your number four. You're right, I was wrong. I'm number three, I think. Good evening. Just give me your name. Y'all
go in there already. You like, I don't care. Okay. My name is Karen
Conrad from barefoot Bay. And I would like to closely
look at the administrative logic

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the county uses to justify
our utility bills. Brevard County Utility
Service is currently operates six wastewater treatment plants
for five of those plants. The county operates a unified
regional pricing structure. This means
if a plant in Northern Brevard needs a multi-million dollar
upgrade or a facility in the South Beaches
faces high operational costs, these financial burdens
are socialized across

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the entire county footprint. The county does this
because it recognizes that a unified utility networks
benefits the whole region's
health, ecology, and economy. But when it comes to the six
plant our plan barefoot Bay, the logic just flips. Suddenly, regional socialization stops
and localized billing begins. Why does this principle
of a shared infrastructure apply

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to only five plants, but ends at
the borders of barefoot Bay? It's just different logic. Thank you. Thank you. Chuck. Okay, why don't you just come up
and give me your name? Because I think you guys have it
all worked out, so. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Members of the board.
My name is Chuck Barnett, and I'm a member
of the barefoot Bay. We have heard the responsible. The response from the county's
hands are tied until existing

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utility bonds are paid off
on December 31st, 2029. Respectfully, commissioners,
this is a bureaucratic excuse, not a legal barrier. Bond obligations do not prevent
you from giving us operational equity. Today, you could vote to integrate us
into the county countywide system. Now by keeping
the remaining bonds payments as a transparent temporary
fix line item exclusively on barefoot
based bills until 2029.

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Our existing debt will will still be paid
by the users of the system, and not one penny need to be paid
by the other customers. If current bond debt obligations
doesn't prevent the county from bleeding
from blending rates from the rest of its system, it cannot be used as an excuse
to isolate us. The dual standard is
administratively inconsistent. If this system is regional
for five plants, it must be reasonable
for all six. This is something you yourselves agreed
to when you voted two weeks ago

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to integrate barefoot Bay
into the county wide system. You have no legal
or logical basis to justify waiting
until December 31st, 2029. Thank you. Thank you. Bonnie Carpenter I lived
in the Pines for 23 years. I now live in barefoot Bay and
I am a resident of barefoot Bay. I'm here to challenge the accounting behind Barefoot
Bay's inflated utility rates. When A isolates a single infrastructure
asset for localized billing,

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the math almost always penalizes
the captive ratepayer through the overall
of administrative overhead. We are paying a massive premium
on our base facility charges. I pay $110 a month,
and I throw my dishwater out on my plants
so I don't get it. We want to know exactly
how much Central County overhead is being packed
into that number. Our billing is processed
centrally by Brevard County Utility Services. Our engineering is managed
centrally.

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00:47:56.707 --> 00:48:38.065
The executive leadership, legal
teams and administrative staff are all located in Viera, funded
by general utility revenues. If we are paying higher rates
to cover localized operational costs,
but we are also being charged a percentage
to support the county's central administrative apparatus,
we are being double dipped. Thank you. Thank you. Norman Perkins on my list. Good evening. I'm Norman Perkins.

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00:48:38.065 --> 00:49:09.663
I do live in barefoot
Bay on Papaya Circle. And the reason we are publicly requesting
a transparent line item of the most recent cost
service study. We want to. We want proof that revenues
collected by barefoot Bay are staying entirely
within our plant ecosystem, and are not actively subsidizing
central staff or capital improvements of the other
five blended facilities.

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00:49:10.263 --> 00:49:44.381
In addition, we are publicly requesting
a transparent line item audit going back to our utility
increases from 2013. Resolution number 13 002 and a transparent line item audit of increases from 2022. Resolution number 2020 201. We want proof that the revenue
collected from barefoot Bay customers has been used for
and accounted

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00:49:44.431 --> 00:50:16.313
for the items in areas
that were stated in the resolutions
that they were used. In addition, I'd like to say that my water bill
was $186 last month, and it's unfortunate that
I can't even drink the water. I have a whole house 
filter system which many, many, many people in barefoot Bay also
can't drink the water there. They either by the water
and use it like that, or

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00:50:16.630 --> 00:51:00.991
they have to have some kind
of a filtration system. So it's kind of unfortunate that I pay $186 and
I can't even drink the water. But I thank you for your time. Thank you. Ray. I'm. I'm ready to. I'm from barefoot Bay. I've been there since 2019. And thank you
for the opportunity to least get a chance to talk to us. I want to bring this back
to the human cost of this rate structure. The vast
majority of the customers that use barefoot Bay
water and sewer system

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live in the two
manufactured home communities. A majority of these residents are retirees,
veterans, individuals living on fixed
fix the Social Security incomes. Their public utility designs are supposed to act
as a form of social insurance. It is meant to protect
vulnerable populations from being financially wiped out
by localized geographic
or infrastructure challenges. Over the last few years,
while general county utility

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00:51:37.227 --> 00:52:11.144
rates increases were managed
at single digit percentages. Barefoot Bay was hit with
compounding double double digit annual increases for someone on
fixed income at $54 base rate. Just for wastewater is not just
a minor inconvenience. It cuts directly into money
needed for groceries, health care, gas, and insurance. I want to just lift this
bill up and show you. But this is a utility bill is
an example of the unfairness

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00:52:12.145 --> 00:52:47.030
in June 10th to July 10th of 2026, the total current charges
for 2800 gallons of usage is $132, with rollback to the 2025 rates. The cost of this bill
would be $125 in this home. If this home was on
Merritt Island or on another countywide
system, the cost would be $77. Big difference. The increase to the other
countywide customers

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00:52:47.030 --> 00:53:23.466
if you integrated us
into the countywide system now would be $2 a month, or even less if the barefoot Bay
customers continue paying off existing bond debt,
as we have proposed. Again, I've been there since
2019 when we first moved there. Our bill was $46 minimum
that we had to pay. My last bill was how much? 143 $143. Where do you go from 46 to 143? Not sure,
but maybe you can help us

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00:53:23.466 --> 00:54:02.389
get into that and figure that
out and correct that for us. Thank you very much. Time. Thank you. Sidney. James. Mr. chairman,
fellow commissioners, I've been a barefoot Bay water sewer customer
for over 12 years. We are a captive consumer class. We cannot choose
another sewer provider. We cannot dig
our own septic tanks. We're entirely
at the mercy of this board. Forcing a fixed income
retirement community

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00:54:02.389 --> 00:54:32.819
to bear 100% of its localized
infrastructure burden for another three
and a half years, while younger, wealthier, wealthier, more
developing parts of the county enjoy socialized
blended rates is funnily unfair. It's just unjust. It is fundamentally unaffordable
for many of the residents in this system, including mobile home
communities of barefoot Bay and Snug Harbor. We've been paying a lot more

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00:54:32.819 --> 00:55:10.423
than everyone else
in the county. Since the first double digit
increases of 2022. We're not asking for a refund. We just want you to
stop fleecing us. Thank you. Terry brewer so that was Terry. Oh. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's hard of hearing. John, this is Sidney. James. Sidney. Herb,
we heard from Sydney. Thank you. To wrap up our group. That your name? Sidney. James. Okay. Good evening, Mr. Chair and board members, to wrap up our group's
presentation today.

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00:55:10.423 --> 00:55:45.225
We want to look forward
to the solution. We acknowledge
that the county commission has previously discussed
and voted to move forward with sunsetting the independent
barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District, and by advertising
today to roll back rates a tiny bit and promise
they will not increase from now until we are integrated
into the countywide system. This is not a gift. I read the audit,
we were overpaying and the audit said that. And so you get to not raise it
anymore and roll it back.

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00:55:45.275 --> 00:56:16.339
And we're still paying
all of everything we owe on. So it's not a gift
to not charge us more. In fact, legally you're not supposed to
charge more than is required. These are tiny concessions
you're offering, and they do not solve
the problem of the unfair and unaffordable
rates for barefoot Bay water and sewer customers. Let us address the claim
that this transition cannot happen until December
31st, 2029, because of outstanding
bond debt. This is legally incorrect.

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00:56:16.339 --> 00:56:47.587
Florida law allows this board to dissolve
the district immediately. Morris
Richardson can tell you as much. The bondholders only care
that their debt service is secured by the utilities
revenues. You do not need to wait
three and a half more years. You can dissolve the district
now, absorb barefoot Bay into the unified county
network, and immediately lower our base sewer rate from $54.28
to the countywide standard of $32.79

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00:56:47.620 --> 00:57:20.069
or less, depending
on the tier of customer. To honor
the remaining bond obligations. Simply place,
as previously stated, a transparent temporary debt
service surcharge as a separate line item exclusively on the barefoot Bay
customer bills. This allows us to pay off
our outstanding bond debt without being forced to suffer
under unaffordable fees for the next three
and a half years. Don't let this transition drag
out through years of artificial

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00:57:20.103 --> 00:57:51.067
bureaucratic delay. We have proven well,
we have stated the legal inconsistency, the mathematical
and fairness, and the clear path to an immediate
financial compromise. You have the ability to to reconsider
or repeal your vote from two weeks ago
and update the timeline for integration
of our utility system. We ask for a concrete timeline
and an expedited vote to finally
bring regional utility equity

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00:57:51.067 --> 00:58:49.192
to barefoot Bay by
the end of 2026. Thank you. Thank you John. Getting better at that. Trying very well sir. Thanks. Can I pass this out? Yes. Definitely got to have one on time. And. Only a personal. Thank you. So I agree
with all my fellow residents. It's so nice to see them here.

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00:58:49.192 --> 00:59:20.790
Barefoot Bay
is a wonderful place to live. Except for the water. That's
why we're fighting so hard. We love it there. So what I have set before you is
I looked over and I have been asking for this by email,
and I've come here on a how many times? Just right here
that you put out. Miss Atkinson
had this done by the council for going over the prices, the cost,
the debt and everything. The barefoot Bay
water and sewer.

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00:59:20.790 --> 00:59:54.791
I read it twice. I understand a little. You'll see
some questions on your page. And they are for Mr. Edward, Miss
Atkinson and someone from the council
that did this survey. And I requesting
that you come to barefoot Bay, send appointment
out with the Board of Trustees. Come to barefoot Bay.
You've been there before. You've done this before town
hall meeting and explain the audit. It's difficult to understand.

105
00:59:54.791 --> 01:00:27.740
As an example,
they will see several questions on there that I have. I have more as I read it. You can't do that
in your three minutes of. Three minutes of independence, you get three minutes
of democracy that you have. So I'm confused about the cost
of the bond when it started. I'm confused about
how many bonds were involved. I hear there was at least two. I'm confused about
how much is collected. The highlighted stuff you see on the pages answers
I got from your audit.

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01:00:27.740 --> 01:01:00.990
I put that on there. I see the total
take in per year $7,760,587. It's hard looking at that thing. I want to know where the money
goes. And I still would like to know what is the estimated cost
for the consumer. When we go on the new plant, you have to have an idea of what
that's going to be. You have to have a forecast. You can't build something
if you don't know what you're going to charge. So I'm really curious
about that.

107
01:01:01.074 --> 01:01:34.590
And I want to make sure
that none of our funds or that we're paying
now are going towards that new facility
right now, since that's going to be
we're going to be liberated and be a part of Brevard County, which we don't feel like
we are right now. Separate
district is what I keep hearing. So that's my request. I agree with my fellow citizens. This is amazing. I usually come here by myself
for a couple of years. This is just heart lifting. So, you know, I really would like you
to get Ahold of the trustees

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01:01:34.590 --> 01:02:11.060
and set a meeting up. I'm requesting that you do that
very, very strongly. There's nothing wrong
with transparency. There's nothing wrong
with answering question. We still disagree with the decision you made,
but it doesn't mean you can't answer
these questions. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that was our last card,
I think. Is there anyone else
you cut me off to have the. I use my three minutes
on that last one. I want to play back to the tape. Okay.

109
01:02:11.394 --> 01:02:44.827
Playback. Okay. This is the next. Okay I know. All right. So we'll go to F8. Thank you for your input. I know
we'll be not making a decision. Just simply having permission to advertise
and give us an opportunity to answer
any additional questions. Commissioner Atkins. Go ahead. You can. I'll make sure
that these get answered if they haven't
gotten answered for you. We'll make sure that they do. Thank you. And thank you for your input.

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01:02:44.827 --> 01:03:21.380
Okay. F8. Richard. You wave. Okay. All right. That's it for all the. Consent agenda. So a motion would be in order
for the consent. There's a motion. Is there a second to approve
consent? Second. Second. All in favor, say yay! Yay! Opposed? Yeah. Yeah.
Carries. Unanimously. Thank you. We will move on here.

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01:03:21.414 --> 01:04:09.111
A chance to. Okay. I've taken so many notes
from that last item. I have to dig through them
and get back on the agenda. Public hearings, amend the utility services
rate resolution, adjusting connection fees. Staff, we have 
we have GMC public comment. We have g public comments. Okay. We have. I'm sorry I skipped over
public comments. We have two cards on the public
comment part of the agenda. Sorry, Brian. Brad. All good.

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01:04:09.111 --> 01:04:42.461
I have a rough night tonight. It's probably my handwriting. Good, right? Just want to say good
evening, everybody, and thanks for letting me speak
tonight. My name is Brad Molander,
live down in Melbourne Beach. I've been here for about ten years, AI engineer
during the day and I work at since I work, I volunteer at Brevard Soccer
Academy in the in the evening. So the reason why
I'm here tonight, I want to take up too much time. But with the property tax. On the agenda for this fall and its potential
ramifications to the county. I was curious on what

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01:04:42.461 --> 01:05:17.063
modeling had been done
for impacts to Parks and Rec. You know, I noticed that
you had some numbers created, and I was wondering if you guys had a plan on the Parks and Rec side on how that might
impact our youth programs. And as a reminder,
I got into this. You know, one day you show up to
your daughter's soccer practice and they say, hey,
we need a coach and I'll do it. So you volunteer and do it
and then kind of get sucked in the whole thing. Because when I was little, I was in youth soccer,
and it kind of gave me the opportunities
that I have in my life. And one of the great things
about BSA, specifically in other area clubs, is that
we are a nonprofit organization.

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So we are here
exclusively for the community and to get kids off iPads,
get them outside. And as of last spring, we have
1600 kids in our program. And so one of the things that we're looking at
is how those services potentially
could impact the club, you know, the parks
but also the families. So we have a lot of kids that we subsidize that
cannot afford to play soccer. And we get them in the club,
put them on the field, get them shoes and get them out
there. It's a sight to see if any of you ever
near max roads in the evenings.

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In the fall of spring semester, you're going to see
a lot of kids out there having the time of their lives, and that is all due
to the volunteers to do it. So I do appreciate everything
that Parks and Rec has done for the club
up to this point. It's been wonderful. It's a great partnership
that we have, and I think that's my question
is what modeling has be done, what impacts are there? And is Parks
and Rec open to talking with some of the area clubs so that we can start
making provisions and and help understand
what those impacts could be, because our our season runs
starting right now

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and goes through right at the end of November
and then of course, right in February,
fire up again. So appreciate everything that
you guys do day in and day out. And this
is my specific question. Thank you. Let's maybe since we did
have this at the beginning we did have questions. Any I think it's
a very good question and very I look at Ian Golden's
the Park and RECs director. He's sitting right there.
So he's going to catch it Mr. Mullin. So.
Oh okay. That'd be great. And you want to come up,
say a few words and I and I will just highlight again
that $18 million number.

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That's $11 million
a general fund that wouldn't be eligible
because it's not a core service. And that $7 million number
is the reduction due to less
taxable values in the MST use. And there is three, 3 or 4. I forget the exact number
of parks MST use. So each part of the county
is a little bit different. So the quick answer is if someone requests information,
some factual information about what
the potential impacts are, we can have a conversation. There is that state law
that restricts county employees

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while they're on the clock
from starting conversations. I will not take a position one way or the other,
but I'll be happy to have a conversation with you. And I was going to catch you
as you walked out and basically
tell you the same thing. I know, I know, that's great. And again, there's just a
a reminder. I guess it'll be helpful. There's a lot of area clubs
like us. We're not even largest
one 1600 kids, a lot of kids. We're not even the largest one. And so I think
it would be helpful just to open
those lines of communication so that we can help work with the parents, because
we're getting questions as well.

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So appreciate
it. Thank you everybody. Yes, Commissioner. I, I get your pain on this. And I have a lot of concern
to a quick question. And if you don't know, just give me the eyeballs
and we'll figure it out later. But are we allowed to
if this gets implemented next year, to have new voter
approved referendums just for parks? That question, the short answer is on
that is any new referendum would have to be
at a general election.

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So that would put you at 2028. So it would not be able to help
the first year of reduction. Okay. So that makes it tough. Commissioner Altman,
I do agree with you on this. I think they're taking this out
a lot on the kids, and I have great concern
for that myself. So thank you. Thank you. Very good questions.
And as we go through this hopefully
we'll have more answers. The problem staff has is
they're under the gun. They try to answer a question,
then they're going to be accused of advocating
for against the referendum

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or you know,
so they have to be careful. I really appreciate
your question, because if the public is asking for a question, we're not preempting you
or asking, you know, prior to having a question, we should have the ability
to answer objective questions. How much money,
how much money is lost and how do we
how do we replace that? I think this questions
are really good. And please keep them coming. Please keep them coming. What you do to our soccer league

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Sandra Sullivan. Good evening, Sandra Sullivan. So I run
a group called Waves Action and the focus is on accountability
and transparency. And I want to have a couple of comments on amendment
three on this referendum and just say that
coming into this budget time, myself and others
ask that you do some cutting costs of wasteful
spending and cut costs.

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And so it's it's the sentiment
that I have seen on waves action. Are people are pissed off
that the spending keeps going up, up, up, up, up
and without restraint. Our budget, we have the highest assessments,
we have the highest growth. We have a lot of growth.
Revenue coming in. The budget went from 1.83
million in 20 22 to 2.8 3,000,000 in 2025,
pretty substantial increase.

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I'm going to say
my disappointment in the last meeting with this
project coming on on this board. The motion
that was taken on the budget to bust the cap
with Felton are voting for that. The only Novo was Katie Delaney to direct staff and Mr. Felton or I staff to clarify
were they preparing two budgets, one to put up there
that wasn't busting the cap and one to bust the cap?

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No, it was clarified they were only preparing
a budget to bust the cap. So in the last meeting,
a budget was put up that didn't bust the cap. And then at the last minute,
Geraldton takes a vote. Oh, let's let's take a vote
on a different budget with no accountability and transparency,
no documents online. And the vote
was taken to bust the cap. So not too happy about that. And I also want to point out
that in coming here for many years,
there's been the requests

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to cut the Cras
that had no debt. No, we gave $12.1 million to
your friend who wants to build through the CRA
to build a hotel, parking lot, parking, building, impact
fees. We didn't take action on that. We kicked
the can down the road on that. We didn't cut waste. We didn't. I advise you don't vote to put
salt because you may need this. If this amendment three passes
for infrastructure needs. No, we went ahead. We're
going to put that on there. I hope people vote no.

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And I just say that
I would ask you at this time to go
and look at that budget and go cut waste and go cut costs
and cut where you need to do. Miss Atkinson
did a very good list of things that you could cut. There's a lot of wasteful spending and it's it's
time to take action on that now before this budget
goes through or you just digging yourself
deeper. Right on Sandra. Okay. That's our public hearings. I don't think we have another
public hearing card.

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01:13:15.140 --> 01:13:49.341
Do we know? Okay, we'll go to H-1. Good evening Commissioner. So item H one is to amend
the utility services rate resolution, adjusting essentially the connection fees
for South Beach's Merritt Island, North
Brevard, Port Saint John and South
Central Mainland Service Area. As you'll see
in the agenda item, there's you'll see
a clean version and a red line version to just go
over the red line version.

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The core of it is that we made the adjustments
to the connection fee to get current from the 1993
to current. In addition,
we also took the liberty of doing some definition
revisions. Some of the small service
fees like towing service. We made some minor adjustments from like $50 to 75
and of that magnitude. But the the big component
with regard to this

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is the water sewer connection
fee and seeking approval. Okay. We have any
questions from the commission. We have one card from Richard
Heffelfinger, couple finger
district one 2000 Juniper Drive. Again, we did a big blow
up on seven, seven, 26. I was really pissed off in 7.7 26 because this was
extremely confusing. I will give I will give Eddie
and his gang credit. We cleaned up the attachments
here quite nicely. There's no more dock files. There's no more confusion that
this was only connection fees.

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01:14:58.026 --> 01:15:30.859
Right? And I'll tell you what
I would have loved to have had attached
that first time was this. This study right here would have caused
that confusion to go away. Why is it left
only at the public hearing? Because we can't study it. I don't know
if I was a conspiracy theorist. I'd say you held out
until the end. But you have a connection. This study was done in October
22nd, 2025, and it should have been
connected. It should have been attached
the time we had that conversation. You wasted a lot of my time
on your own. I think it was not a clean.

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01:15:30.859 --> 01:16:03.191
And I'm glad to see it
cleaned up. And I'll give Eddie credit
for that. I would hope my complaining
had something to do with that. Maybe. Maybe not,
but I'll take that. And this is connection
fees and jam it to them. I'm 100% in favor. Thank you, thank you okay. Any questions? Comments? Motion a question okay. Yeah.
I didn't get the privilege of working through
you guys with this. So I am not going to vote
to support this. I would have supported
spreading it out over a five year period of time

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01:16:03.191 --> 01:16:43.348
to just check and see how much it might have maybe knocked us out
of the market of new housing. So I'm just letting
you guys know this. That's going to be my vote. But so. Okay. Right. Right. Any other comments or questions? All right. We'll bring it to the board
as our motion. I'm sorry. Well go ahead. You'll recognize I'm waiting to see what it is
that we want to do here. Maybe there's
more discussion needed. Okay,
let's have more discussion,

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01:16:43.348 --> 01:17:19.701
I think. As Mr. Heffelfinger said,
we cleaned it up. We did a lot of work on it.
Staff took a lot of time. I'm ready to support this thing
because of the work that they've done. And I support connection fees on new builds. So. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second the motion
and second, any discussion.

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01:17:20.752 --> 01:17:54.219
All those in favor say aye. Yay! Yay! Oppose. Passes 4 to 1 with Commissioner Pritchett. Tom, I think you voted for it, didn't you? I guess you voted against it. Okay. I'm sorry
I misunderstood hard here. So it passes. Three, two.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Item H two,

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01:17:54.219 --> 01:18:26.385
Mr. chair, item
H two is an ordinance that would amend chapter 100 102 of the Brevard County Code
to make data centers ineligible for economic development. AD valorem tax exemptions. At your April 7th, 2026, regular meeting,
the board approved legislative intent and permission
to advertise an ordinance to make data centers ineligible
for those tax exemptions. That was approved at the time. It took a while because there was a previous amendment to the code
that had not been incorporated by muni code
into our codified ordinances,

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so had to take some measures
to make sure that this is codified correctly
if the board enacts it. But it's before you. Tonight,
the proposed ordinance provides a definition
for the term data center, which is drawn from federal
and state law, further provides the data centers are ineligible
for the economic development ad valorem
tax exemption program. Okay. First
Speaker Richard Heffelfinger. District one, 2000
Juniper Drive. Yeah, this has been hanging out
since April, so I'm glad to see it
finally show up. And the fiscal impact
is an interesting statement, because it says the correlation
is that the lack of incentive

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01:19:02.704 --> 01:19:34.986
may cause a developer to locate
to another Florida county or state. The Brevard County will receive no new ad valorem
and tangible personal property tax revenues from the project. That was exactly
the objective of doing this was to give them
no reason to want to come here. We've heard all the news.
It's a hot topic. It's a hot thing for everybody. It's yeah, you might get a big boom
at the construction phase, but then you're going to eat it
on the water. The electricity usage
and the public's going to bear
a large part of that. I don't think that's disputed. I think that's fact now. So I don't I mean, geez,

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01:19:34.986 --> 01:20:06.701
the Chinese
are going to beat us at AI. I doubt it. Right? But hey, that's just not something
that I think as a, as a taxpayer and as a resident here,
I want to bear that cost. And I don't think anybody does. You can stick them out
in the middle of nowhere where there's plenty of water.
We don't have plenty of water. We know that. We've been telling
that for years, and yet we're still building
like crazy. That's a different topic. Electricity costs. I think we've got one nuclear
power plant here, don't we? We should get some more if you want to play with
with data centers. So I think the intent here
was good. But the intent
it's not complete.

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01:20:06.701 --> 01:20:38.233
You're going to hear some requests for a motion
to ask for a moratorium. So we have more time
to look at it because I don't want to
you know, we say
that these things are fact. Are they truly fact?
What is the water? You should you'll hear
some people say, no, man. They fill up the chillers
and they reuse the water. So they're not really
a big water drain. Well that's not
I've heard that one place. I don't know
if it's true or not, but time to think about it
would be a good time to spend. Since we're not going
to give them incentives, they're probably not
going to want to come here and to say that we're going
to write them off completely.

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01:20:38.233 --> 01:21:08.830
That's not fair either, but I
don't want to incentivize them. So I think a moratorium
would allow this issue to be settled
and studied better to decide exactly what the impacts are. So I think that's a good way
to put that on hold and, and have more data come together, because it's a lot of
people are digging it and there's going to be technology
changes. Maybe some of this heat factor electronics incredible jumps
and bounds. Right. We're doing now what we couldn't with unthinkable ten years ago. So maybe that data center
problem goes away and maybe we could have data centers.

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01:21:08.830 --> 01:21:42.948
But until that happens we need to spend some time
and think about it. So I'd like to see a move for
a motion to have a moratorium, bring back an ordinance language for that so we can spend more time
about this before somebody drops a big problem in our lab.
Thank you very much, Rick. Before you leave, under Senate Bill 180, are
we allowed to pass a moratorium? Morris 
I was under the impression that. It could
be problematic with regard to what we'd get an opinion
for that later, but it's more of a motion to look at.
It would be a good, good start. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay.

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01:21:42.948 --> 01:22:22.137
Sandra Sullivan. Good evening, Sandra
Sullivan of Waves action. So thank you for putting this
on the agenda to remove the data center tax exemption
for the EDC tax abatement. We also are asking
for a two year moratorium on hyperscale data
centers. Yesterday, Flagler County and Lakeland passed moratoriums
on data centers. Will Edgewater
pass the permanent band?

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01:22:22.137 --> 01:22:53.385
Ormond beach votes tonight
with Palm Beach and Dixie County
meeting on the August 6th. There are about 20 counties
and cities Florida wide. In advance of that, I spoke at the last meeting
that have a moratorium. And as you know,
the governor race is really heated up
over this race. So over this issue, I want to
just go over a little bit about the the past performance
on this particular issue.

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01:22:53.385 --> 01:23:24.833
So Brevard County voted to approve the legislative
intent on April 7th. Brevard 
did not go to legislative intent before the vote
on December 17th, which gave the data centers
20 year tax exemption under Florida Statute 196.1995. Brevard County voters passed the referendum
on November 5th, 2024. They voted for a specific, strictly bound
constitutional authority. The statute dictates
any tax exemption

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01:23:24.833 --> 01:23:56.664
granted by the county board
under this program cannot exceed ten years,
and so it should not have been approved
in the first place. On November 5th, 2024,
when voters approved the tax exemption abatement, voters would
probably not have voted for it. If you had put in a 20 year
tax exemption for data centers right after on December
17th, 2024, right before Christmas,
when everybody's busy, when Filner was on the EDC board
and chair of this commission, the ordinance was changed
for 20 year tax exemption

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01:23:56.915 --> 01:24:30.014
as by Florida statute 125 .66. You cannot change the ordinance
without going out to legislative intent, as you did for this item,
for voter referendum. Now, I came here, I spoke about this,
and I am grateful that you have taken action
on this. Data centers
concerned the public very much the hyperscale. So again,
I hope that you will consider also doing a moratorium
two years, not a long time, but enough time
to evaluate this.

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01:24:30.031 --> 01:25:01.312
My understanding is EDC has
some proposals in front of them. As you know,
the EDC gets a 12 month exemption on public records
by the law that that the state has has done. So we don't even get to find out
what's really going on. But we know what's going on because I've done enough records
request to to see that the EDC is already working on
this issue. So I hope that you'll approve
this item today and correct that record. Thank you.

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01:25:01.312 --> 01:25:48.393
Next speaker, Steve Burnette. Thank you, Commissioner Steve Burdette,
Rockledge, Florida. I've in my retirement. I've kind of had a lot of time
to see what's going on with these data centers
throughout our country. And I know that a lot of people
have had concerns over basically what happens
to the water availability, what happens to their water
bills. Same with electricity. I'm especially
concerned about the noise, especially those that
have to live by these things. And I know from my experience,
I believe the county has

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01:25:48.710 --> 01:26:22.060
a noise ordinance, but
I'm not sure how it would apply to a business of this nature. The other concern I expressed,
and this was even before a lot of these data
centers were built, was and this is more of the
national level, not necessarily you guys, but you know, what
happens to these data centers. You know, we have these
redevelopment areas that were supposed to be used
for blight to take care of blight. Well,
if these data centers end up becoming, you know, outdated,
who's going to take him down?

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01:26:22.393 --> 01:26:56.144
Who's going to get rid of them? I mean, 
are they going to be an eyesore? Is that part
of the cost that these people have to do, you know, when they decide
to build these data centers? I just wanted to express
my concerns. I know it's it's a a lot of people
throughout the country have had concerns about it. And I just soon
they don't start here. Or if they do that we make sure that they're governed properly. Thank you. Okay. Those are all our cards. We will go back to the board

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01:26:56.711 --> 01:27:27.909
for the. Code adjustment. Motion to approve, sir. I'll second the motion
and a second to approve. May I ask the
the ordinance are the. The agenda is phrased
as. Consider adopting. So would you mind phrasing that just in adopt
the proposed ordinance. Is that the motion to. Thank you very much. So the motion is to adopt
the proposed ordinance amending chapter 102,
article four, Division three of the Brevard County Code
to make data centers

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01:27:27.909 --> 01:28:00.992
ineligible for economic
development of tax exemptions. Okay. Thank you. And there's a second. Second. Okay. All in favor, say yay. Yay! Carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay. Next item is item I1. Discussion state lobbying services. Do we have any cards? Kathy first. Good. Good evening, Mr. Chair and commissioners.

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01:28:00.992 --> 01:28:33.141
Tonight we're here to discuss
state lobbying services. And Mr. Steve Christopher is here
to discuss his annual report. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, chairman
and commissioners, Steve, Chris Foley
representing SBM partners. As the agenda says, it's
you know, about the state lobbying contract,
but we never discussed anything with regard to 
the legislative session. We discussed
potentially doing that in July. Thank you for your grace

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01:28:33.141 --> 01:29:06.591
and allowing us to do it
at this meeting. And so, in a nutshell,
I sent each of y'all a breakdown
of the legislative session. If I if you didn't
get it from me, maybe Kathy
or Jim sent that to you. But so this year was the early session year
where session starts in January, finishes in March, and yet again
this year we finished the session
without a budget. So governor called session back
legislation, legislature back into session in the middle
of May to work on a budget. And at that time,
after a little over two weeks,

156
01:29:06.641 --> 01:29:38.473
they were able to pass $117.5
billion budget. That is half $1 billion less
than what it was two years ago. So they did pull down. And with that,
they put $18 million into into a rainy day fund. So, you know, legislatures
tightening its belt too, in these tougher
economic times of that. This session, we went in as a county
with 12 appropriations requests across a range of spectrum
of transportation issues, water issues. And we were able
to get six of those funded.

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01:29:38.589 --> 01:30:10.788
Two of those did end up
getting vetoed in the end. All in all,
the county ended up with 6.87 million that was funded
from the legislature. 500,000 of that was vetoed. The two items that were vetoed
were the Multi Basin Study at Miramar and Martin and Fisk,
and then the signal at Kensington and Stadium, 
which all are very aware of. Along with the county's request, the sheriff did put a request in this year for $5 million
for his animal care center, which we were able to get
the full appropriation on that.

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01:30:10.788 --> 01:30:41.586
As some of you were at the groundbreaking,
I believe it was last week. And then beyond that,
the county, through the transportation work program in the different grants,
brought in $281.5 million to the county to fulfill
fill those needs. Besides that,
it was a very slow year with regard to legislation. This year, there was 1896
measures that were filed, and only 237 that were passed,
192 of those were general bills. So for those that have

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01:30:41.586 --> 01:31:12.633
been familiar with that process,
that's a very, very slow year. That's a lot of battling back and forth
between the House and Senate. On coming to terms, on agreeing
on on the different issues. I think the greatest victory
that the county had is being able
to secure the funding that we did based on a budget
that's smaller than it was two years ago. And knowing that there's less resources in the different buckets
that they create that can go out to the counties. With that,
the governor did end up vetoing
just under $1 billion of that.

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01:31:12.633 --> 01:31:43.865
As I told you, 500,000 of it was issues that we had asked
for funding on. And then, Commissioner Atkinson,
I know an issue near and dear to you
was the SB 180 glitch bill that the Senate passed unanimously,
but the House did not take up. Everybody wonders why there's
a lot of internal politics on that. I do know, in speaking with the Senate sponsor
that he is intending to bring that back again next year,
and under new leadership, you may see a house that's more,
more interested in that issue

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01:31:43.948 --> 01:32:16.030
this time around. So with that, again, I'd sent you all the information on some of the different bills
that may impact the county with regard
to growth management, water resources, transportation,
those types of things. But any questions? Happy to answer those for you. Okay. Thank you for being here
and presenting to us and the hard work you've put in
during the legislative session. Thank you. Very communication
throughout session. I mean, you know,
always there to answer a call. And I know several of you
I've talked to several times during session
when there were questions,

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01:32:16.030 --> 01:32:50.464
especially
with the property tax, you know, issue
on on the ballot. I know Maurice may have mentioned this,
but the attorney general does have ten days to either
appeal or change that language. So we will know in very short order
what that's going to look like. And if you know, there's
an appeal that does take place and how it's accepted versus
the language change. So that is in short
order for sure. What happens
if they don't agree? If the court rules
again that it's improper. They start to run out of time to get language
through.

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01:32:50.464 --> 01:33:25.383
The two proved. But amendment
three will be on there. I'm sure they will get
to a place where it's, with the court. Right. The language. I don't believe so. Well, that would be interesting. Okay. Any questions? Do we have any questions
on behalf of the board. What? Maybe after the card, I'll ask. I'll say that again.
You want to hear the card first. We can hear the card
and then I'll. I'll do that all the way. We do have one card. Okay. So Sandra Sullivan,
do you want to speak now?

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01:33:29.387 --> 01:34:02.069
Commissioner Goodson,
did you have a question? Why don't we let the public speak
and then we'll go to questions? No, sir. Sandra Sullivan. So, you know,
I appreciate that. Mr. Christopher, as former House
speaker, has a great deal of knowledge up in Tallahassee
and brings a lot of expertise. However, on the agenda,
there is an option to go out to RFP. And I do think that's
the appropriate thing to do. And I'm just going to say,
you know,

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01:34:02.420 --> 01:34:37.621
there are a few conflicts that reset 222 unit development. He was the lobbyists,
I understand from from online
for that particular project. And also with Health First,
it does present a few potentially
conflicts of interest. It also I also have a bit of heartburn
with what was it, 35,000? I don't know, it's been a while
that went to your pack when you were running from his 
from his pack that paid for,

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01:34:37.672 --> 01:35:10.988
you know, thank you, Rob,
for fighting for the lagoon. You know, stuff. It just, you know,
you tried three times to get him as our as our county lobbyist
from runbook. I just, I just think the the
the fair and equitable thing is to go out to RFP, see,
see what comes in and make an informed decision
with everything at hand. I'm not negating his abilities,
but I would like to just say one thing. I've come up here
and asked about. There's 130 to $197
million costs

167
01:35:10.988 --> 01:35:43.821
that you're
looking at putting on We the People for the connection
by space Florida. I think the state and the feds
need to pay for that. That's
a significant amount of money that a promise was made here that that that burden would not
be put on the ratepayers. And yet the budget indicates
it's going to be put on the ratepayers, probably
after the election. Right. So just not not so good optics
that really needs to be prioritized for, for funding. So not to put that
on us. Thank you very much. Okay. That's the only card we have.

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01:35:43.821 --> 01:36:15.753
Let's go back to any questions
related to legislative report. If go ahead. Yeah I think I'm working it. I'm not sure if I'm working it
right. I just use that other one.
That's what I do. Which one? This one. Yeah. Okay. Mr. Christopher, I want to thank you
for all the work you've done. And as far as lobbyist, I think you're hitting it
out of the park. I really appreciate you
having so many connections up in the state of Florida.
And you're nice. So they listen to you. So that's an extra bonus.

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Thank you
for not raising your rates. So there's a lot of pluses
to that. And a quick question,
I'm sure it's not an issue because I asked
the county attorney about this. There is not a conflict
on the things that you're doing other work on as far as this job
we have him doing. Correct. Although
those guidelines are pretty. So there are two prohibitions
in the current contract. One prohibits
SBM from lobbying, where there is a board of county commissioners, where
there's a conflict of interest,

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there's another that's just a blanket prohibition
against SBM lobbying on behalf of private entities
before the Board of County commissioners, regardless
of whether there's an actual conflict of interest. That's more of an optics
provision than an ethics provision. If that remains within the contract,
then in my opinion, Mr. Christopher Lee, in his capacity
as a partner at SBM, would not, consistent
with the contract, be able to lobby
on behalf of private entities before the board, so the board may wish to

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consider
whether to keep that prohibition in order to eliminate it,
and leave only the prohibition of blabbing
when there's an actual conflict of interest. How long have
you lived in Brevard County? 55 years.
You're fighting for your home. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Speaker. Appreciate. Appreciate everything
that you've done for us. I thought maybe take this moment
to to tell us about what we should anticipate
with the implementing language.

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And we talked about the
referendum tonight a little bit. And maybe
since we're all here together, you can tell us that's going to that's going to happen
in December. That's going to be during
organizational session. It'll be a special session. What we might anticipate
that process looking like. Yes. And Morse
actually touched on it. You know, the reality is there is a session
of implementation when you put the language
together. We've done this many
a time on statewide initiatives that that legislature
has to come back and work on.

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Now, the nuance to this one is you're going
to have a new governor that will have been elected
on November and November, and you have an organizational session
that starts November 18th. The likelihood
of a special session for implementation, should it
pass, would take place likely at that point in time or during
the first committee week that they have now set
in the second week of December or the first week of December. So, you know, the question is,

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does the current governor
want the ability to set the standard on on what this initiative is going to be while
working with the legislature? Because it is important
to recognize the governor doesn't pass
legislation. He just, you know,
he approves it or denies it. And in this case, you know, it's an implementation
of a statewide amendment. And I don't know the answer
to whether or not he gets a final say so
on on what the initiative is. But he's certainly
going to have, you know, a foot in the ring
when it when it comes
to having this discussion,

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because this was his initiative
to begin with. Now, having said that,
you've got two new legislative leaders,
Senator Boyd and Speaker Garrison,
that will be coming in, and they have their own ideas
as well. And I will tell you, you know, I'm certain that as they start
pulling this over the next couple of months,
especially with the change in language, that will certainly
change the dynamics around, you know, the ability for this
to pass on the ballot. But as they start pulling it,
I would tell you, if they start seeing the likelihood that it's
going to hit the threshold

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of 60% plus one, 
they will start, you know, formulating their ideas on on
how they're going to move forward. Right now,
I think it's anybody's guess. And as we know, polling
I can say this, y'all can't. But pulling always starts
higher and finishes lower. Just because people become more
educated, they understand. They hear, you know, the impact that it's
going to have in their backyard. And certainly there's
a conversation to be had on, on, on that around the state
over the next couple of months. I would be remiss
if I did not mention

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leaders Roy and Senator Mayfield
and their help this year. They sponsored each
and every one of these budget initiatives and worked
diligently to get those passed. And I want to make sure
I give them the proper credit
as well as incoming Senator present Boyd, who sponsored one
of the dredging projects for us just because he likes Brevard
County and wanted to see us have some success on that front. So I wanted to make sure
I mentioned give a little love to
those folks as well. So, but but, Commissioner, there will be a session. It will be one

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that will all be intimately
involved in if if in fact, there is a conversation
that has to take place if a ballot initiative passes. So and I think something else
to point out, I mean, tell me if I got it wrong, but a quarter of the legislature
changes every other year. Yes. That is that is correct. There's there's several people
that will not be in that chamber that voted on this. And admittedly, you know,
a lot of representatives voted on this
to give the people a voice. They didn't vote on it because they favored it
or disfavored it.

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They voted on it
to give people a voice on it, because it has to go
in the Constitution because of the way it's drafted. So, you know, so probably
some of them are glad they're not going to be there to
implement it, to be be honest. But but the truth
is, you're right. A third of that legislature
that that put it in place will will be there to implement
it should they have
that opportunity to do so. And I think it's
I think it's shocking to think that you're sworn in. And within 
a couple of weeks of that, you're there
for a special session to implement language
that could be

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perhaps the most significant
put in or referendum that that goes before the voters
in quite a long time. So, so certainly challenges
ahead of us for for all of those reasons
and for, for the good work
that you've done for the county. I'd like to renew the, the,
the contract. That would be my motion today. I'd second that. Go ahead sir. Mister chair. Yes. If I may, would

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you either address the issue
of the prohibition on lobbying activities
on behalf of private clients, or perhaps
we'd like to hear from Mr. Christopher Lee on that issue
how I'd like. I mean, I think some
there's a nuance to it as well. I don't represent SBM partners when I represent
the local clients that I do, I represent them through Chris
Foley Consulting. Now, that's a nuance,
and you're the legal mind, and I don't know how that
how that, you know, interacts. But I do not represent anybody
before the county

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01:43:21.995 --> 01:43:53.594
through SBM partners. I only represent folks, 
you know, through my Christopher Lee consulting company,
and never in a way that directly is contrary
to a stance that the county has on something,
especially on a state issue. It's just not not the way to do
business. So, you know, I want to be clear on that, that nuance, because I do have all of those folks
contracted under Christopher
Lee consulting, and I'm just looking
for the board's understanding of that provision
and what the board's pleasure is with regard
to that contractual issue,

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01:43:53.594 --> 01:44:24.675
whether or not the board
is, you know, okay, with Mr. Chris Foley doing that
kind of representation. Again,
it's not an ethical conflict that's already addressed
by a separate prohibition. It's just a blanket ban on all
lobbying on private activities in the contract.
And we can clarify that depending on the board's
direction. I think you had said something
about when there's a clear conflict earlier, when when a
clear conflict presents itself,

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01:44:24.675 --> 01:44:56.023
just when there's a conflict that that prohibition is in
there, it's not going to change. But there is a secondary clause
that no lobbying whatsoever, conflict or not,
on behalf of a private client, exist
in the current SBM contract. And there is nuance as to
whether or not that applies to Mr. Christopher, his activities,
but for staffs, for for our direction
moving forward, you know, is that the board's intention
that the consultant and Mr. Christopher cannot lobby
on behalf of those private interests,
even when there is no conflict?

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01:44:56.023 --> 01:45:29.272
Or would the board
be amenable to modifying that language? It sounds like
we need to fix that, that we only disallow lobbying
if there's a direct conflict. I would
agree with that. Yeah. So okay, we
can we can make that revision. So is there a way to structure the motion
so that we can make that clear if if the motion incorporates
that just strike the blanket prohibition
on lobbying activities and retain
the prohibition on lobbying

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01:45:29.272 --> 01:46:00.620
when there's
a conflict of interest, that'll be enough direction. Okay. You want me to to restate that. So to so my motion
would be to renew the contract, strike the blanket prohibition
and keep the the other prohibition
that only addresses when there's a direct conflict,
when there's a direct conflict. Perfect. Okay. With that. Okay.
And I second that. There's a motion and a second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor, say yay. Yay, yay.

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01:46:00.620 --> 01:46:38.191
Carries unanimously. It's going to be
an interesting year. It will.
Thank you. Look forward to it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next item J2. I'm J1. I need my Wheaties tonight
or something. I don't know maybe because
I haven't had dinner, but J1 Eddie High Commissioner this is an item about 
before we go on. And I agree with this. We've gone over our time
for a normal break.

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01:46:38.191 --> 01:47:12.843
Let's do a quick
ten minute break. And because we do have quite a few cards
and we'll be back at 655. Thank you. Okay. All right. We'll proceed. Thank you for your patience. J1 proposed donation
of real property from barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District
to Brevard County for use for use by the county utility
services to facilitate,

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01:47:12.893 --> 01:47:44.641
design and construct
construction of a new water and wastewater
treatment facility. Katie. Thank you Commissioner. So what this is, is, as we're currently
in the process of designing the what we're calling South
Brevard Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant,
which is ultimately not only going to serve South Brevard
within the utility Brevard County Utility Service area,
but it's also going to also be the replacement
for the barefoot Bay Water
and Wastewater Treatment plant.

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01:47:45.642 --> 01:48:16.089
As we're going through
this, some of the design is consists of the design
being on barefoot Bay water and wastewater water
and sewer district property. But it's being
these projects are being funded by the county 
on the county wide system. There are occasions
when we fill out grant applications. They ask who owns the property. And so the feedback that we were getting from
some agencies were when we say

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01:48:16.089 --> 01:48:49.606
it's a Brevard County project,
but it's a, you know, the the barefoot Bay
Water and Sewer District, it kind of gives like a sense that we might not
have the full entity of it. So given the fact that in three
and a half years that barefoot Bay
is going to sunset and to give us a hopefully
a better opportunity in achieving grant funds, which ask
this question, we're asking the board two things,
and I guess it's two parts. We're asking you all as the governing board
of the barefoot Bay

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01:48:49.639 --> 01:49:28.478
Water Sewer District
to donate the property. And we're asking for you, as the Board of county
commissioners to accept it. Okay. We have three cards that J1. Will enter. Good evening, Mr. Chair. Members of the board. My name is Hannah Wallander. I am a customer of the barefoot
Bay Water and Sewer District. I'm addressing agenda item J1, the proposed donation of real
property from the barefoot Bay Water and Sewer
District to Brevard County

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01:49:28.478 --> 01:50:01.478
for use by the County Utility Services
Department of facilitate design and construction
of a new advanced water and wastewater
treatment facility. There are, as I can
tell, four properties that are being proposed
to donate for $10. The property fact sheet has an additional piece of property, which was not shown on any map
that I could tell. It's a 30 g dash, 38

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01:50:01.962 --> 01:50:36.930
dash, 01--, asterisks 31. And its assessed
value is $12 million. The land my my investigation
revealed that the valued amount, the properties that were being asked to donate,
or that the barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District
is being proposed to donate, is valued at $14,963,430. The original purchase price,

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01:50:37.530 --> 01:51:12.966
which varies from 1974 1985 9596. The total of the purchase
prices was $1,077,800. These figures were based on the 2025 property
slash real estate amounts today, and were obtained from the Brevard County Property
Appraiser website. So this is a huge
amount of money

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01:51:12.966 --> 01:51:47.083
that is going to be donated. Meanwhile, barefoot Bay and other impacted
communities continue to pay for the existing plant
and the land. So, as you previously heard under F7, since I'm taking notes on my notes,
so bear with me. It's a mess. Since
2022, customers are barefoot. Bay Water and Sewer District have been paying towards 
the nutrient plant as we understand it,
as well as the the current one,

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01:51:47.133 --> 01:52:18.248
which we all still $4
million, I believe. And. There was a 54% increase
in our rates over the five year period, which was addressed
under item F7. The land value alone,
I believe, should offer the customers
of barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District
some relief. And so let's see. I do have one question,
if I may ask,

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01:52:18.248 --> 01:52:56.836
how much have customers
a barefoot Bay water sewer district paid
currently towards the bond the existing bond outstanding
come out or existing body? Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Cindy. Sydney James. Good evening, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. I am flabbergasted. Mr. Fontana just said that
the new facility is going to be. The cost would be borne
by the county.

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01:52:56.836 --> 01:53:27.367
Because it will be, I assume,
because it's going to be part of the county wide system. I want to share some documents. I wish I had the overhead, but
I'll hand these to you after. This is from January 14th, 2022 when the rates got raised
by these double digits. It says one of the reasons why, in order
to utilize the new facility for not only barefoot Bay
customers, but also unincorporated
future development, the decision was made
to locate the new facility outside of the barefoot Bay
water and sewer boundaries.

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01:53:27.367 --> 01:54:03.970
This will make the new facility part of the county wide system,
so that has been in the plan at least
since January 14th, 2022, that this new facility would be
in the county wide system. Then it says. The proposed rate adjustments of the 2025 through 2026, 35% would go to cover the rise
in operating maintenance costs, while the majority or remaining
65% of all of these. These increases again, 54% over
five years, 65% of

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01:54:03.970 --> 01:54:38.488
those increases will be associated with the need
for capital reinvestment. The only capital reinvestment
in the in this audit is all I'm sorry. In this document
is all the new facility we've been paying,
65% of our rate increases have been going towards paying
for this new facility, which now you're saying
is not going to be in the in there for water and treatment. It's going to be in this
brand new thing that means we're
we have been paying and we will be paying on two
at the same time.

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01:54:38.521 --> 01:55:10.837
Yet he just said
that the new facility is going to be borne
by the county. The cost to build. Why have we paid so much? How much have we paid? May 9th, 2024 audit the department plans
to build a water and wastewater system new system outside
the barefoot Bay district. The district
will be decommissioned when this new system is completed
in about 5 to 6 years from now, May 9th, 2020, for 5 to 6 years
from now is before 2030 or 2029, when it's supposed
to be decommissioned.

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01:55:10.837 --> 01:55:41.200
It's supposed
to be built by them. And it says once
the new system is operational, it will be provided. All of our requirements will be
provided by the new system. So I'm just confounded
how you can take the land from the barefoot Bay
Water and Sewer District, which set is almost value
of 15 million? Transfer it
and then all the money we've been paying to build
a new system now is going to be borne
by the county.

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01:55:41.200 --> 01:56:24.560
And then do we get a refund? Next speaker, Terry Brewer. Mr. chairman,
fellow commissioners, I'm sure you've seen this. The map is of the proposed
purchase properties in in the barefoot Bay Sewer District,
which is aligned in blue. The purchase
properties are in red. And as you've heard
from the previous speakers, the valuation of that property
is gone up by millions. It just seems inconceivable

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01:56:24.961 --> 01:57:03.249
that elected representatives
representing all of us in Brevard
County Sewer District, as well as the rest of
the county, could look at this and say they paid for that
$10, though that's fair. I just can't believe that you see conceivable
that we don't get credit for what we invested
in to going towards what we're going to be paying
in the future. I'm sorry. Think about that. Sleep on it. Thank you.

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01:57:03.249 --> 01:57:37.917
Those are our cards. And this is a handout. I think we have one copy here. We get that to the proper put. Assume you want all of us
to have this to the clerk. Yeah okay. All right. Okay. That concludes our cards on this item. Is there a motion? Can I ask a couple questions. Because I've missed
a bit of this. And just from listening
to the comments,

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01:57:38.051 --> 01:58:08.564
are we making them
go on the county system? I think there was communication a long time ago
when we were doing this. They had their own water system. So my question is,
if they've got this land, maybe we should not be doing this
and let them figure out how to build a plant
since they've got the funds. I don't know, I'm
just asking questions. Miss Atkinson,
I think it was really good that you did an audit,
making sure we weren't overcharging fees
and get it back. I have to go study
this a little more. It's a little bit different
than when I remember.

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01:58:08.564 --> 01:58:41.764
That's
just a question out there. Are we doing a disservice to them
or did they want to do this. So this just if you give me a
little background, that would be you know what? I'm going to let Eddie
answer that because clearly he has
all of the numbers and the, the history
about how this all happened, because technically it happened
before I got here. I remember a long time ago
they had the bonds, and I think the county build out
some, some bond issues and helped with that.
But I didn't know if we did something
different here recently. So as far as I understand right now we have in
this particular agenda item,

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01:58:41.764 --> 01:59:14.130
we are donating the land
and then accepting the land. And I'm going to let Eddie
address why we have to do that. Well, for accepting the land,
is that for us to build a water plant for these these residents. So the so the idea commissioner,
we had an agenda item a month or two ago
where not barefoot bay not a donation,
but Brevard County purchased an 80 acre
parcel off of Doughty Drive. Purchase price
I believe was $5 million.

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01:59:14.130 --> 01:59:46.329
We did that through
county funds. The idea
of this is, is that we are we're looking, first
of all, the barefoot Bay Water and Wastewater plant fall
under the jurisdiction of our department
as being a Brevard County utility services asset. So and the deciding factor of
that is you all because you act as the governing board
of the barefoot Bay Water Sewer District. The the idea of this is,
as we're moving forward

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01:59:46.329 --> 02:00:19.412
with the design,
we could have done like a bulk sewer, a bulk water agreement between barefoot Bay
and the county. We chose not to that way. We were just going to blend them in with it
and incur the cost of that through the county wide system, given the fact that
they're now going to be sunset. So the whole idea was just clean up some of the design
components of this. Can we wait till 2030?

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02:00:19.412 --> 02:00:52.361
I suppose, 
but as we've we received an FDP grant application
and that they were asking what the what the who owns
the land and it's it causes some confusion in Tallahassee
when you put who the entity is and the landowner
isn't the same. So we see this as an opportunity
that the investments were going to be making
at these facilities would. Absolutely. We could start implementing
that to kind of get

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02:00:52.361 --> 02:01:24.043
a running start on that. Do you know
what the estimated cost is going to be to get this plant
rebuilt and up running? So right now the water
and wastewater treatment plant, we are looking tentatively now
at around 150 million. But I wouldn't be surprised
if it goes higher. We we went out and solicited for a construction
manager at risk, which means we now
have a contractor on board. They're already given us early
estimations.

214
02:01:24.043 --> 02:01:57.476
We're only about like 15, 20% in
the design. We're still in permitting
and whatnot, but this is absolutely going
to be $150 million. The initial capacity
is really the replacement of what barefoot Bay has. So there will be the option
to add on capacity as development
outside of the barefoot Bay district grows. But really,
this is really the investment on replacing the water and sewer
capacity from their plants.

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02:01:57.476 --> 02:02:29.558
Their plants
do not meet DEP regulations. They are not advanced
wastewater treatment, which means their current
wastewater plant exceeds the nutrient limits
for effluent. The investment
due to the age of that. And believe me,
we've put money in it over the 20 years
to kind of revamp it. But this latest of it now
be in advanced wastewater treatment
due to the age and whatnot. We made the decision
that we need to go

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02:02:29.558 --> 02:03:01.157
new on the facility
on the water side. They're already at capacity,
essentially on the water side. And due to the PFAS requirement,
they don't have the technology at that water plant
in order to do the PFAS removal. So the new water plant
is going to be a reverse osmosis,
which is literally the cleanest. You can get water to be good. So for 150 million, with
the amount of customers on it, how long is it going to take
to recoup the amount of money we're
spending building a new plant

217
02:03:02.324 --> 02:03:32.922
from the barefoot Bay waters? I maybe I can get it from
you later. Yeah,
that's an interesting question. So it's a it's
been all the way along. All the ratepayers
are going to have to try to cover the new plant,
because once we looked at it, we're really looking at it
as it getting melted in. We are going to need some more
capacity up in the north area to so you guys know in the future
coming up. But thank you sir. That's expensive. Thank you.

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02:03:34.440 --> 02:04:05.721
Mr. Chair. Okay. So if I understand correctly Morris, please correct me
if I'm wrong. We have to make the motion
as the governing board, and then the second motion
has to be as the board of county commissioners.
It would be two motions. You'll wear your hats
first as the governing board or the barefoot Bay Water Sewer District
and make a motion to donate the property. And then you'll change hats
to board of county commissioners
and accept the property. And just to be clear, when regardless of
whether you do this now,

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02:04:05.805 --> 02:04:37.436
when the barefoot Bay Water
Sewer District sunsets in 2029 by operation of statute, all of its assets are going
to come to the county anyway. So this is
this is not anything sinister. It's accelerating it. Now for purposes of eddy
and utilities ability to make grant applications
and start that money to make it better
for the new plan. Yes. So if there's no other discussion,
I'd like to make a motion. Yes. As the governing board
of the barefoot Bay

220
02:04:37.486 --> 02:05:14.723
Water and Sewer District,
I moved to approve the donation of the property
currently owned by the PSD and as further
described in the attached to Brevard County. There's a second to the motion
by any discussion. All in favor, say yay! Yay endlessly. Thank you. So my second motion would be
as the Board of County Commission of Brevard County, I would like to accept
the donation. Is there a better way to say
that?

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02:05:14.723 --> 02:05:47.656
That's exactly right. Okay. I move to accept the donation.
Jim, did you have. And, Madam Commissioner,
if you can also authorize the chair to execute the attached deed
conveying the property, describe their end
to Brevard County. I would like to include that
in my motion. But is that included in the second? Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor, say yay, yay cares and animus. Thank you. Okay. On that. You did a that's a good job.

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02:05:47.656 --> 02:06:27.413
Your district. I don't know if they know
what they don't what you're doing
say that publicly. What she pulled off for her district up
there is is pretty phenomenal. So good job. Okay I think they left. That's a tough issue. We appreciate all the effort
that you're doing for your constituents
down there. And anything we can do to help because we certainly
listened to them okay. Item J2. Good evening. Good evening.

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02:06:27.413 --> 02:06:59.078
Item J2 is a request
for the letter of support for the Housing Authority
of Brevard County. Disposition of Lakeview Point
to Space Coast Community Development Corporation
and housing authorities. Nonprofit affiliate Lakeview
Point was constructed in 1964 and consists of 56
public housing units serving low income households. The properties, age, deteriorating infrastructure,
and functional limitations affecting the housing authorities ability to provide
quality housing efficiently. The Housing Authority
Development Strategy

224
02:06:59.078 --> 02:07:31.560
is to transfer ownership
of Lakeview Point to Space Coast Community
Development Corporation, request tenant protection vouchers,
and permission to demo from HUD. Once all tenants have been
relocated, then demolished, then demolished,
the Lake Viewpoint Lakeview Point redevelopment. Construction would be
in the late 2029 to mid 2030. Redevelopment will include
no fewer than 56 affordable units, subject to approval
and final relocation plan. The Housing Authority
will provide

225
02:07:31.560 --> 02:08:10.916
effective residents
with all notices, advisory services, relocation
assistance and moving assistance and compare by housing
opportunities required by HUD. Okay. Any questions? Is there a motion? Oh, we have cards. Okay. Richard. 2000 Juniper Drive. This one. Really? I don't usually get involved
with public housing or any of that stuff because I. We won't go into
why I don't, but

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02:08:10.916 --> 02:08:42.247
this is confusing
because I don't understand. It looks like you are taking something
that is funded by Brevard County through housing development
dollars that are given, I guess, primarily by the state,
and they are running this development
or they own it. I don't know, do you own it? So you own it,
maintain it as low. Okay. Head shake.
You don't own it. You manage it. It's managed to be. Nope. Don't manage it. Keep going. More. I'm learning
more as you shake your head. So my question is the way
you're shaking your head.

227
02:08:42.247 --> 02:09:14.363
I really appreciate trying to figure out
what's going on, because I. It looks like the housing wants to punt and they want to punt
to a private entity because there's some advantage
to punting to a private entity. Now as far as I know. Right. Housing. It's a nonprofit. When it's kind of
public housing. Are you punting? Are they going to get some profit advantage by knocking it
down, building it up? Are they going to replace the same number of units
for low income housing? Are the costs going to be
higher? It's going to be better here.

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All the cards
and we'll have the answer. That's just and who owns who. Supposedly this outfit, Space
Coast Community Development Corporation
is actually part of a BC now. Yet it's just confusing
and it sounds like that. Who owns it now? Like we were talking about
the water plant, you know, does
that special district own it? Or so I'm wary
of that kind of shenanigans. Like what could what could
possibly be the advantage somebody somebody's
going to get an advantage. That's my question. Next speaker Sandra Solomon.

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02:09:56.839 --> 02:10:31.840
So I was
just going to say so 1950 the the the county formed this entity of HIV BC,
the Housing Authority of Brevard County, 
as a quasi governmental thing. So it's but when you go
and you look up on Sundays, there's no such entity. If you look at who is
and I sent in an email earlier, when you go to some this,
you got all these businesses

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02:10:31.840 --> 02:11:05.440
here at 1401 Guava
Avenue in Melbourne. The location
which are these two of the who you want to convey
this property to that you say is a wholly owned
nonprofit affiliate. But then when you look up
who this guy is, you know, he's associated
with a lot of developments, not just in Florida
but outside of Florida. And this looks stinky. I'm just going to say, you know,
it's like, hey, BC doesn't exist
according to Sundays.

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02:11:05.524 --> 02:11:38.490
And yet there's 300 and let's see, 374 properties that are all in the
housing authority. It preferred county
and the property appraisers. And now now we're going to do
something unprecedented. Now we're going to put it
into another entity. But there's nothing to support
that. It's wholly owned
nonprofit affiliate. So I would ask that
you defer this for today

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02:11:38.523 --> 02:12:11.323
until there's
additional documents put up. But I'll just say, you know,
sitting coming here to these meetings for eight years
and the the stink. And I'm just not happy
with Pritchett being back on the board
appointed, given some of the stinky stuff
that has gone on that in having to come
to these meetings and disclose that, you know, $30 million
to driftwood, you know, I get lift list off a
a long list of oh, no,

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02:12:11.356 --> 02:12:46.041
you know, I'm looking at the agenda again
and roll my eyes like, not again. The next four months
is just going to be hell. I think. District one. Okay. Thank you. I'm actually
looking forward to them I am. Okay, that's our public cards. And how about the questions? Do we have some answers. Just Jim, I just jump in. All we're doing is asking for as a subject says on
the agenda letter support for the Housing Authority
of Brevard County. They're not part of us. They have the name
Brevard County.

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02:12:46.041 --> 02:13:21.360
They're not Brevard County, their housing authority
that you find pretty much everywhere
across the country. They have their own nonprofit to work
on, the on the development. So we're just all we're doing, they're looking for letter
support from us. Okay. I would like to make a motion
to approve the requested action. There's a motion. And second,
for approval of the requested letter of support to the Housing
Authority, Brevard County. All in favor, say yeah. Opposed. Nay. Carries unanimously. Thank you.

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02:13:21.360 --> 02:13:53.725
Okay. Next item is election
two value adjustment board. All right. Thank you. Sir. Every year, the Board of County Commissioners is required
to elect two of its members to serve on the value
adjustment Board. And one of those members,
the board must elect a service, the chairperson of the Value
Adjustment Board. The orientation session
for the value Adjustment Board is coming up later
this month, and that's that's part of the cycle for each tax
year that August orientation. So just need the board
to please elect two of your

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02:13:53.725 --> 02:14:26.641
members to serve on that board
and one to serve as chair. Currently, Commissioners
Atkinson and Altman serve on the board,
with Chair Altman serving as the chairperson
of the Value Adjustment Board. This is for the next
cycle that begins in August. It begins this month. Okay. Is there a motion as the board
having I'm willing to continue this up
to this, up to the board, I'm willing to continue. But I would really like you
to stay as chair only because you grabbed
hold of the thing and nobody seemed to know
what they were doing

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02:14:26.641 --> 02:14:57.322
until you started
asking questions. Well, and I appreciate
your willingness. Would you would you consider
staying as chair? I'll be willing to do that.
Okay? Okay. Do you
do you want separate motions? Morris I think you can do it
either way. Okay. I will make the motion
for our chairman graciously being the chair
again of the value Adjustment Board
and for Commissioner Atkinson to to be the second commissioner
on the VAB.

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02:14:57.839 --> 02:15:32.407
Second. All in favor, say aye. Yay! Carries unanimously. Thank you. I think
I think it's an honor to serve. Thanks. Next item J for permission. Advertise. Request for proposal to solicit
competitive sealed proposals to furnish subject
to individual distributed wastewater treatment systems
within Brevard County, Florida. Do we have cards? I think we have some
seekers here and then speakers. Okay.

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02:15:32.407 --> 02:16:07.325
We have Jeff Littlejohn for questions only. Herschel Vineyard questions
only, and James Morris and then Richard Helsingor. Let's hold the first two cards
because I think we will have questions. Well maybe let's hear them
first. So speakers
will have a little bit of yeah, I have some questions
I'd love for, for Jeff and Herschel
to maybe give a quick summary, very simple of the promise
that this new technology

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02:16:07.325 --> 02:16:40.008
may have in terms
of of environmental benefits, as well as giving land owners
a choice, as well as maybe some of the new innovative technology
that that I'm excited about, that we're bringing to to wastewater treatment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Members of the Commission. My name is Herschel Vineyard. My colleague is Jeff Littlejohn. We're we're here on the
distributed wastewater issue. Obviously, historically,
you've had three choices

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02:16:40.008 --> 02:17:11.957
on how to get rid of domestic
wastewater. You've got septic tanks, you've got septic tanks
with some bells and whistles on them. You've got your central
traditional sewer system where you have
a large collection system, and you bring it all into
a central area for treatment. Technology has given us
a fourth alternative, and it's called distributed
wastewater treatment. It's like a micro wastewater
treatment plant

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02:17:11.957 --> 02:17:43.405
that is in
your backyard is fully remotely monitored, controlled
and operated off site by a licensed wastewater
treatment operator. DEP has tested this
for a number of years and has approved it. Recently, the Florida
Legislature recognized it in statute and in fact adopted
a expedited permitting process for distributed wastewater
because of they want to

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02:17:44.956 --> 02:18:22.610
put this out in the field as fast as they can
because the technology works. And, and they
they want to get this permitted and in lieu of septic tanks. And one quick question,
rather than the sending all the wastewater
back to a central location, the wastewater is treated
in the system in your yard and it is dispersed
in your yard. Jeff,
did you have anything to add? No. Okay. That's a good job. One of the things that truly
excites me about this technology

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02:18:22.610 --> 02:18:56.044
is that it is a fourth
alternative that we don't have. And one of the things
that we have an onsite sewage treatment, septic tanks
is there, put in and then they just are in
never never land. You don't really know. Are they working? You don't know
when they're failing. I remember I was in the Florida Senate
when we passed legislation, really trying to grab a hold
of the septic tank problem, and it required annual inspections
with a lot of fees.

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02:18:56.077 --> 02:19:27.559
And it was it was a solution,
but not a solution like this. It was very, very controversial because of
the expense of the consumer, because of the cost
of having the the impact
that the cost of overseeing, regulating them, reviewing them,
making sure they were working. We're taking advantage
of internet technology, digital technology,
maybe eventually AI technology to to have these
septic facilities or onsite

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02:19:27.609 --> 02:20:01.242
wastewater treatment facilities
that are continually monitored as they would in a public sewage
treatment plant at very little cost. I think this is just beginning
of a new wave of how we address our stormwater,
our our septic impact problems as well. There's some
ways that this is even superior to sanitary sewer system. We all know what happens
so often. The times of hurricane storm
surge flooding where pump stations get overwhelmed,
they back up.

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02:20:01.292 --> 02:20:35.443
This happened numerous times. This could prevent
that from happening because in the times of storms, most of that wastewater
is confined into the tanks. So I'm excited about it. Also, if you look in the agenda
packet, you see large
portions of Brevard County and now under a moratorium due
to a federal judge where landowners have no option,
deprivation of their own personal private property
rights, even very large
sites are limited from use. And this gives consumers
an alternative.

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02:20:35.443 --> 02:21:07.892
And thirdly, I think ultimately,
if we don't fix this problem, you're going to have some significant impacts
to our revenue stream, because at some point,
if you can't use your property, your three acre
site for anything, you're going to see
some significant reductions in our assessed valuation. And so I'm excited about it. I'm excited
about about the future. And I think
a county like Brevard, which is so state of the art, but space age technology,
it's appropriate that we be that we become
one of the leaders that said,

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02:21:07.892 --> 02:21:40.241
we're not the leader. This is also Herschel. You didn't mention there are other counties already embarking upon this
and doing this technology. Yes, sir. Lake County, which doesn't have a utility
at all, is essentially 
banned septic tanks in most circumstances
in their county. And they're directing say
a new development comes along. Like I said, they don't have a wastewater
utility and they direct it
to distributed wastewater treatment
as the as the solution. I think today
Santa Rosa County just signed on

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02:21:40.308 --> 02:22:10.772
for this technology. They also don't have a
wastewater utility. So we're excited
about the technology. And in the say there's
an industrial computer that that runs it. You mentioned it's it is monitored 24 over
seven and controlled. So off site a licensed
wastewater treatment utility operator,
if they see that there's a problem
with the system in your yard,

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02:22:10.989 --> 02:22:44.088
they can actually override
what goes on with the system and make sure the water is
treated properly. Even if you have a leaky faucet
or a toilet, running the bells and whistles can go off and
that homeowner can be notified. It's really exciting. Yes. Go ahead. What would be the 
the difference between this
and an advanced sewer system? Because I'm guessing
you're a compact system. So I think this would be a
good thing for us to understand.

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02:22:44.439 --> 02:23:15.520
What is the similarities, what's the difference,
and which one does a better job. The biggest issue
is the ability to monitor and control the system off site,
where an advanced treatment unit is a septic tank
with some bells and whistles, there's no monitoring, there's
no control, and also with the distributed wastewater
to meet the definition of the the Florida legislature
that they established, there's actually got to be
monthly reporting of the water

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02:23:15.520 --> 02:23:49.404
quality that's leaving the unit
that's made to DEP each month. So just like Edie's,
your own utility has to make their
their monthly reporting to DEP. So does 
the units that are involved that are distributed wastewater. I'll turn it over to Jeff
Littlejohn who's actually professional engi Commissioner. Thank you. Great question. I think Herschel covered it
very well for an attorney. So he gives me credit
for being an engineer.

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02:23:49.404 --> 02:24:19.851
But honestly that's a
that's a pretty good answer. I think the the, the primary
benefit of having that that continuous monitoring
and then monthly testing is you get reasonable assurance
that you're actually getting the nutrients out of the system
that you're paying for. If you're contributing taxpayer
funds to, to, to a program like this, or if a homeowner is paying
for this type of technology, or if a new developer is paying
for this type of technology, the state. And in this, in this case, the county would have
the assurance

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02:24:19.851 --> 02:24:52.800
that the wastewater is actually being treated
to that high standard because it's verified
every month. Mr. Altman, you just came off
the state of Florida. Did you guys have been going well, ever do anything to make it so that homeowners
had to get inspections done on their skeptics? Well,
we passed a law back and gosh, about ten years ago, 12 years, Senator Constantine's
bill that required that it was a revolt against it
because of the fees, the cost of getting inspectors
out there. I forget if it was annual or by
and I forget often, but it

256
02:24:53.117 --> 02:25:24.882
and even in between inspections
you really don't know what's going on. And it was it was
it was repealed. I think the very next year
it didn't get very far. We didn't
go very far on that one. No, no, shut out the saddle. But this is far superior
to that, I might say to I just. I've been incredibly impressed
with the team that onsite has put together. Herschel,
former director of the DEP. Jeff,
very knowledgeable engineer.

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02:25:24.966 --> 02:25:56.881
You have operators of large
or pretty respectable sewer treatment facilities. And that said,
we're not committing to them as forcing them to go out
and selectively bid. So we will spin the word out
and we'll see and it
will come back to us and, and and we'll review the proposals. It sounds good. Is there any downfalls to this
that that would just be any kind of hesitation with it
that we have to overcome.

258
02:26:00.318 --> 02:26:30.448
Commissioner, I know you don't
want to tell me that. I honestly, I was trying to think of
what would be a downside. I mean, there are it's
a more complex piece of technology
than a conventional septic tank. Certainly it's a more complex
piece of technology than an advanced septic tank. It's a miniature wastewater
treatment plant. So there's multiple
pumps, a blower, a computer. There are things that fail. The good news is
that it's continuously monitored by a professional. So when failures occur,
we know about it immediately. We don't rely on the homeowner
to tell us

259
02:26:30.448 --> 02:27:01.963
there's an alarm going off
or my toilet won't flush. It's remotely controlled
and monitored so that a technician
can be dispatched to fix it. So I think
if there's a downside, maybe we're you know, we're
sending technicians to people's neighborhoods and homes and knocking on the door
and saying, hey, can I fix your wastewater
plant in your backyard? You know, maybe
a little bit more visitation. But honestly, you know,
whether you think of that as a downside or an upside, it's assurance
that your equipment is working. And before it backs up
in your living room, you know,

260
02:27:02.330 --> 02:27:36.531
and and further answer
to your question, one of the larger or the bigger
near-term advantages is, as you heard your
the presentation about your new advanced wastewater treatment
plant, it's $150 million. It's going to take multiple years
to bring that system online. This is something that you could
you could do in 30 days at an individual home. And so if you're the opinion
that the lagoon can't wait, this is immediate technology
that you could deploy at far

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02:27:36.531 --> 02:28:08.329
lower cost. It's very interesting
to me up in district one. We have a lot of property right
now, actually, as someone call me, they were going to buy
a place on home, but we're told not a good time to buy
because you can't build a house because you can't put it
in a septic system. So we're kind of got a lot of stuck areas
up in district one right now. So something we're trying to
figure out what to do to help. I wish this whole thing
would just go away, but I can't control judges. But whoever brought this
up, it's interesting things. When I
heard about this, I got excited.

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02:28:08.329 --> 02:28:40.011
I've been worried sitting
on the value adjustment board. It's a time bomb. If this bear warrior case
is not overturned, there's an economic time bomb
waiting to go off. When all these properties,
thousands of acres, suddenly are undeveloped. You know, I'm never ceased. Amaze me
the power of federal judge. I've asked. General counsel. Explain it to me. But it's. It's scary
to think how one individual

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02:28:40.011 --> 02:29:13.878
can can just shut down a county. And Morris tried to educate me, but it's a it's it's amazing. You think of all the rulemaking
and all the studies and all the land use planning
and all the things you do to properly plan for a growth
or a septic services, to think just a single individual
can just decide to shut it down. And it has gone before
about 11 judge panel I think in Atlanta
that we're waiting.

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02:29:13.928 --> 02:29:48.212
This is the more before the 11th circuit
in April for oral argument. And they have not
unless it happened today or yesterday
about issued an opinion I'm sure I would have heard by
now had that. I think if there's a downside,
I don't think there's any. But if there were, one
is it's new technology so it's not proven. We are pioneers here. I think it's proven technology,
but the implementation hasn't been done. So we're we're going
to be cutting edge second.

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02:29:48.412 --> 02:30:19.477
And it is maybe an advantage. It can be a little bit
of a disadvantage, but it might turn out
to be a big advantage. It doesn't. It does a better job than traditional substance
than getting the phosphorus out. But we haven't completely fixed
the phosphorus challenge,
which is so tough on the lagoon. But I'm understanding there's research being done that this solution may even be able
to address the problem with phosphorus, which would be huge in terms
of the lagoon and quality.

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02:30:19.527 --> 02:30:50.558
So we're hopeful with that. Yes, Commissioner, thank you
for bringing that phosphorus. The city of Apopka,
which also runs a distributed wastewater
treatment system program similar to the one
we've been talking about. They received an innovative
technology grant from DEP. We're partnering with the city
to study a phosphorus removal modification
to our existing technology. That would strip
the phosphorus out. We are very optimistic.
We've done a lot of testing. We believe we're going to

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02:30:50.558 --> 02:31:24.325
we're going to pass with flying colors,
and then we'll have a unit for nitrogen only,
and we'll have a unit for nitrogen and phosphorus. That's great. Yes. Who's going to own
the units in the future. You put it in the ground,
then who owns it? It would be the county. The way the state is set up,
the permitting process, they all have to be commonly
owned and operated. And so in
this case would be a county. If this was a new development,
theoretically it could be an order or a seed
that could could own it.

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02:31:24.325 --> 02:31:58.959
But in this instance
it would be the county. What Jeff and I both have
a background at DEP and what we've found
in our time there, specifically with the the atoms, the
the snazzy septic tanks, homeowners make terrible
wastewater plant operators. And so that's why
you got to put it in the hands of, of a government or an HOA,
a more responsible entity. So you talked about a technician
having to come in the future.

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02:31:59.076 --> 02:32:30.341
Okay. And so when that happens the county utility services
is going to pay for that. We we can offer that as a
as a turnkey thing. Of course it'll be in the I guess
the RFP is that worked out. But we have people that do that
just ten years from now. Units been in the in the ground. There's some kind of an issue. Technician comes out
and services the unit. That's going to be Brevard
County Utility Services.

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02:32:30.341 --> 02:33:01.572
That's going to get the bill. We own it, we own it. So we're going to get the bill.
Commissioner, it's a great question. The the structure that has made
the most sense with our other municipal partners. So Lake County, Santa
Rosa County, city of Apopka is that the county owns
and operates the equipment, as it does with a lift station or collection system
or central plant. The homeowners that that receive
service from that utility owned wastewater infrastructure
receive a sewer bill. So the sewer bill covers

271
02:33:01.572 --> 02:33:34.889
that the homeowner pays
for receiving. Public sewer service covers
the ongoing cost of operation, repair, replacement,
testing, compliance, everything. So our role as a contract
provider in all of those scenarios
is we service all of the equipment
in accordance with our contract with our municipal partner,
in accordance with all of our regulatory
requirements from DDP, we do not charge the county
something additional. If something breaks, that's just part of a standard service
agreement. It's a fixed fee model 
and we cover everything

272
02:33:34.889 --> 02:34:06.487
for that, that fixed fee. Again, we're going to describe
all of this if we have an opportunity
to respond to this RFP. But the homeowner doesn't
have to pay anything other than the monthly sewer bill
as if they were attached to. If I may make a point,
I know those are good questions. You have more. This is all by choice. It's something
the consumer chooses. We're not inflicting onto
anybody this system. It's it's a landowner
or a property owner or a homeowner that chooses to
to have the system.

273
02:34:06.570 --> 02:34:38.285
And what's interesting is that it's really very cost
competitive with, with some of the state of the
art or the non state of the art on site treatment systems. What really motivated me
this, and obviously getting calls from people
that can even use their land and some of these land,
I mean 2 or 3 unit acre lots, but I purchase a home in Lake
Poinsett that had one of these so-called new systems
and was horrified. It was horrified
how poorly the system worked,

274
02:34:38.319 --> 02:35:10.367
how often it broke, how it would
just the pumps would quit running or not stop running
and just dump sewage out on the. I was like, I always thought
these new systems were so great and they're not. And then and not knowing if they were
working or not working. And then thirdly,
how unresponsive and how expensive these private
septic tank companies are, and maintaining the systems
and the lack of ability for the even service
and the money you spend,

275
02:35:10.401 --> 02:35:44.251
it's kind of the Wild West
and they're simply not working. And this, this really is a, I think
an exciting alternative. And we'll see how it works. You know, it's it's it's a test. It's I guess
it's an innovative solution that may have paid
great dividends. We had a very good meeting
in my office and you explained it. And so considering building
a new home and you have the, you know,
you have this federal issue that that may be impeding you.

276
02:35:44.718 --> 02:36:16.917
This is this is a way to
to be able to build your home, put this system in now
to put it in the ground. The homeowner is is going to pay
that bill. Well, the way we have,
we have typically done it is they would pay the
the local government a monthly fee, just like homeowners on 
the county sewer system. They would pay the monthly fee
and then we would contract with the county
to operate, maintain service it.

277
02:36:16.967 --> 02:36:48.932
What's the upfront cost? Let's just say I'm
just going to use round numbers. One of these things
cost $30,000 on on a property less than that. Right? Yes. Okay. $20,000, $20,000
that goes in the ground. Who gets the bill for for that? The county. So it takes the 20,000. And then in the case
of a new construction that would be borne by the homeowner,
but that would be in exchange, you know, they're going to build a house.
So it's just like the countertops are borne
by the homeowner.

278
02:36:48.932 --> 02:37:19.646
So is the the wastewater system. In that case, when we in
other areas where we've done septic to sewer,
DEP is actually funding grants for homeowners
to convert from septic systems over to distributed wastewater
treatment systems. I understand. Okay. So on a new construction, the homeowner, just like
they would accept a tank. They have they have that expense and then they'll get
a sewer bill from the county. Yes, sir.

279
02:37:19.646 --> 02:37:52.796
For the maintenance of it,
if you if you will. And then when there is maintenance
and potentially you come out, you build a county,
you build a county. We charge them a sewer fee. It's built into
the, the bulk fee that we would charge the county. So it's not like 
unless the homeowner, for example, damaged,
you know, it's like if your kid takes a baseball
bat to your electric meter that's not covered in your
your normal electric fees.

280
02:37:52.796 --> 02:38:26.530
So but if it's just
if a pump goes out, something like that,
the typical things that go wrong that would be covered
in the monthly fee that the homeowner pays to the county. Okay. Well, we talked a lot of technical issues
when you came to meet with me. I'm sure there'll be more
as as we move along, but 
that's all I have for tonight. Thanks. We do have two cards.
Any questions? I just
because I'm interested in it, I'm working out
all the financial details.

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02:38:26.530 --> 02:38:56.610
I wonder if any of this would
qualify for some lagoon funds, since it's an upgrade on
what we're doing with the event. Septic. Because we did that for a long time
with the advanced skeptics, that might be something
to help homeowners because that'd be hard to digest
$20,000 for. I guess it is. We think it would
for you're talking about your the specific lagoon tax
that y'all have. I mean it's certainly something
that DEP is funding today. And so my suspicion is
and I'll defer

282
02:38:56.610 --> 02:39:32.079
to your lawyer is is the the. The the language
that allows you to spend the money would would could cover this is that
are we going to give Eddie a lot more money so he can build a whole nother
system in North Brevard? So yeah. Why don't we. Here we have two cards. Thank y'all. Thank you. Thank you. We might have more questions
after we hear the cards. Do we have more than two cards? Just to. Okay. James Morris.

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02:39:37.284 --> 02:40:07.881
Good evening. My name is James Morris. Me and my wife live up in Port
Saint John. We actually are
on the other side of this. We bought a property about five
years ago in Merritt Island. We saved up.
We're both firefighters. My wife was working as a nurse
during Covid as well. We buy our property. We're working on
trying to build. We had some hurdles, got set back
by the interest rates going up. And right when we finally found
the right builder, everything lined up for us. Our builder tells us, hey,
you can't get a permit.

284
02:40:08.131 --> 02:40:46.086
So as you can imagine, this is
supposed to be forever home. I started digging, I started calling them,
calling around, trying to see, are
we really in this moratorium? A corner of our lot on Merritt
Island falls right inside that line. Again, setbacks. But in that talks, I again spoke with the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection,
and they actually suggest this as well. I am thankful I'm here to say
thank you for looking at this. As you know, without it,
I can't build it. Our family home that we want to
live forever and cannot happen

285
02:40:46.286 --> 02:41:22.289
unless that federal judge
overturns it. Obviously,
I think we'd all be frustrated. I'm just here to say thank you. Thank you for working with anybody
who's willing to find solutions. And thank you
for trying to help us. You know, I will say,
even without the moratorium, after learning about the wastewater
treatment systems, me and my wife
have talked about it. We would
like to do it either way. Like you were saying, chairman,
the fact that it's monitored, I know it's working there,
reporting levels to the DEP.

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02:41:22.372 --> 02:41:52.919
And on top of that,
my sewer bill for I think when we talked to him, I think they said probably
about 50 bucks covers all again, Commissioner Feltman covers all the maintenance and stuff
and any repairs included. Like, to me, it's a win
win, especially with amendment three coming down the talks
of all the budgets, wastewater needs, the new facility
being $150 million. It's costing the county nothing
but giving us the ability to to build our home, to

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02:41:53.203 --> 02:42:29.089
thank you, thank you and thank you for your service
and your wife's as well. Okay. Richard Heffelfinger. District one, 2000,
Juniper Drive. My biggest question is,
why is district five chair? Are you having to raise this
and bring this as a as something that we consider?
This sure sounds so. Unless it is, the objective is to beat the septic moratorium
or whatever about that. If does this system qualify that you can put this in
and beat that right now?

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02:42:29.089 --> 02:42:59.836
If it doesn't, then you need to find that out first
because this is going to cost if I understand it right
and see if I do, these guys are here
and they can tell me I have a standard septic system
and I love it and it works. You want to know why?
I know what works? Because the crap
don't back up in my shower and when it doesn't,
crap backs up in my shower. I have it pumped. It's inspected,
my system is working. The leach field is now. Does it make current code
requirements? No, because if I had to, I should be
so many more inches above, you know, the resting
groundwater and and I and it needs to be bigger,

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02:42:59.836 --> 02:43:30.600
I've been told,
because I thought about modifying it
and immediately decided not to because they said
you'd have to come up to code. So I know it's not the best,
but I've got an acre. And, you know,
as long as our density doesn't get too high, the Earth can handle a certain
amount, right? We get density higher. It can't. So we need these more efficient
systems. Now soil is going and spending a lot of money of soil money
to install these. I think on this chart
that was attached to this, they're installing the enhanced
nitrogen reduction septic performance
based treatment system. There's that true
what you guys know. All right.

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02:43:30.600 --> 02:44:02.566
So so that's
what they're installing and then is paying
for some of that. Now I realize that's probably
only if you're in the sorrel high risk area to try it. Because your Allegiant
would go into the groundwater close to the river,
get the river. So that's you know,
we want to do that. This system sounds like it is much more it's
super in performance. And this would be a good thing
for soil to be researching to say, let's
get the max hit for the money. Well, let me see. Does it? Well,
now you guys are a little lower. I assume that on this chart
you're the private package.

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02:44:02.566 --> 02:44:37.484
Treatment plans. Know what numbers are yours
or you don't know what they are distributed? No. Why don't you address
your comments to the. Instead of trying to make sure
that I'm. That I'm
just pairing apples and oranges. So questions
to the public and okay, so they're actually not quite as good as enhanced
nitrogen for removing nitrogen. Is that true? I don't understand does the so
that homeowner has a leach field and these guys
just put sensors on it. Oh I think these are
wonderful questions. And I think if we go proceed
with the RFP,

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02:44:37.918 --> 02:45:11.284
we're going to have a lot of
data and time to to answer them. You asked a question
why justify? Well,
I'm looking at a map of the five districts of county commission because we all represent
the county. I have massive areas of land
in my district. Actually, this affects
all five commissioners is a huge impact on a county. So what really inspired me was I have three wonderful kids
and two wonderful grandkids. They're the age of trying to buy
homes and start their lives and have friends,
and they call me.

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02:45:11.284 --> 02:45:42.365
Their friends are calling them
and calling me. Your dad's
a county commissioner. I just invested my life savings. My wife and I just got married. We want to have a family we
literally can't even build now. And a lot that we just bought
just as the the testimony
that that we just had from James and just tragic and stealing people their dream. So that was really
the motivation for me.

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02:45:42.365 --> 02:46:14.247
And then secondly,
having a home that has one of these
so-called new systems and seeing how poorly
they operate and how bad the industry is
and how difficult it is. And then thirdly,
the impacts on the lagoon. There's a lot of reasons that
I personally got involved in did a lot of due diligence,
and we spent a lot of time before
bringing it to this level. And and so I'm excited about it. I well, I think that would be
the reason your logic is perfect. That would be a reason
why sorrel should be looking

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02:46:14.247 --> 02:46:46.529
at this as an alternative
to what they're paying for. Now, if this is that much better
and it's not going to because the soil system fails,
nobody knows, right? Until the pump backs up and
poops in your shower like I get. But you don't know that
the leach well think
there's a crack in the tank. You know, that's kind
of the worst thing, I guess. But so this is monitored
and I like that. But I just don't understand
if there's cost. I think soil
should bear the cost to do the research
that you're asking for. Find out
if we can put better sewer, high capacity skeptics.

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02:46:46.529 --> 02:47:18.011
Well, you can't go to sewer
because there is no sewer. And if it doesn't beat
the moratorium, then I don't know why
you would even pursue it unless it gets you out
from under the moratorium. I don't know why the advancements
don't currently today get you out
from that moratorium. Well, I think the testimony was
approved, and I feel the same. I have a system. I, I'm interested in this
regardless of the moratorium. It's a better system. Thank you. I'd like to make sure sorrel
pays for it if it can, because we need to maximize that.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, that's all our cards. Yes. You have a question? So I have a couple comments.

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02:47:18.011 --> 02:47:49.926
I'm going to support this
agenda item not because I,
I know anything about this because you guys didn't
come to me. So I have no idea. I have a whole list
of questions. And I think
that if we if we go out, if staff
can educate us by answering all of the questions
that we have, and if you can all be patient, I'm just going to list
what my questions are. My first question is
how many companies do this? Why do we have to hold
the DEP permit? Why can't the vendor do it? Because then it seems like
we're going

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02:47:49.926 --> 02:48:25.044
to be holding the bag
if something goes wrong. And then that's my
other question is, are we are we holding the bag when something goes wrong
or when the company goes bust? I understand that they have
a proprietary platform. This is all above my head,
so I don't understand it, but I need to know
what does that mean for us? If the
company we pick does go bust? I mean. Could
we just do a pilot program, maybe just a small area rather than just,
you know, eventually saying, okay, we're
just going to do this county. Why could we do a small
study area?

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02:48:25.078 --> 02:48:56.676
I don't know. So those are my questions
that hopefully we'll get answered when we
when we get this report back. Those are really good questions. Get back in off of that. What would be the typical cost
for repairs if it breaks so that we know we're charging enough to cover
all of those incidentals. So yeah, I think I,
I'm very interested in it, but I don't have any of those dollar numbers
as far as the cost and what we're looking
at coming back in. So yeah, because we can't put it
on the backs of other taxpayers.

300
02:48:56.676 --> 02:49:34.931
So but I like the idea a lot of those questions are going to be better answered
if we take this. This is not committing us
to anything. So I think there's
a really good points and good questions,
and I'm looking forward to hearing some of those
as well. Yes, yes. Eddie, do you want to know? We're sorry, Commissioner, we're
trying to drag up Kathy Wall. Okay. So Eddie was either raising his hand or ducking,
I don't know.

301
02:49:44.641 --> 02:50:15.688
I do want to say
while we're waiting, I really appreciate the comments by the commission
because it makes me realize they they have a grasp of
just how significant this is. This is a this is could be epic, could play, have a huge impact,
I think in a positive way. But those are the questions that make me realize,
you realize how big this is and how important. So and I think, you know, I'm
looking forward to to having some of those
questions answered. A lot of them already have been

302
02:50:15.688 --> 02:50:49.923
I've taken a personal
interest in this because of, you know,
it's I'm interested in lagoon. I'm interested in
in the technology and has had many years
of challenging. I've had personal decades
of fighting the septic issue. Did you have? Yes. I'm sorry, Commissioner,
it's kind of on the line. Maurice and I and Kathy
just double checking because, you know, Commissioner Atkinson,
they had mentioned they hadn't visited. We met with the on site
folks twice. You were there once. You vote for this RFP.
We're in a cone of silence.

303
02:50:49.923 --> 02:51:21.371
I want to make sure
that, you know, you can't you can't have on site
visiting you. They can't be visiting us
either as staff. So I just wanted to make sure of that
because it's a little it's a little different
than a normal RFP because. Yeah, yeah. And once there are different
processes released, then once it's
how about when we receive it prior to the at one point,
can we start meeting with them? Well, you know what. Let's have the expert
answer that question okay. All right. Typically. I'm sorry. May I? Yeah, absolutely. When we've done RFPs,

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02:51:21.371 --> 02:51:55.605
we already kind of know
the cost to the county. Do we have any of that already?
I'm getting a little. I'm thinking like an accountant. I can't help it right now. What I envision is a component
of this RFP will be price. Okay. Because we do not know
the price of this system yet. So that will be a component. There will be 5 or 6 components
and one of them will be priced. Don't we need to know the cost of maintenance
and those types of things? Do you guys have those
or that that would also be part

305
02:51:55.605 --> 02:52:29.639
of the be part of the RFP
that will get all the data. It will be
the cost of the capital, okay. The cost to maintain those costs
will be part of the RFP. Okay. Okay. I'm good. Okay. All right. Do we have any other questions,
any discussion? If not,
a motion would be in order. Motion to advertise for the proposal. I'll second that. There's a motion
a second to advertise for proposal in the RFP.

306
02:52:29.639 --> 02:53:02.922
Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Yay! Yeah. Carries. Unanimously. Thank you so much. Appreciate your your time. And I think we save the best
last I guess you know, that's our last item,
I believe. Oh. We have public comment. Richard Heffelfinger and I think
this is our last item. I'm always interested in those. Okay, Rick. Epiphany district
one, 2000, Juniper Drive. I really wanted to

307
02:53:02.922 --> 02:53:35.171
address this during E1,
but there was no comments. And E1 is very nice because it says there's
a challenge coming if we, you know, do a referendum
and you guys lose a large portion
of real estate tax, right? So but that challenge already
exists today. And we know that
because we did an impact study and we know we have
multiple things that are in serious backlog,
a potential that we turned out that that even an impact fees
is not going to save our lives, but those things that we

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02:53:35.171 --> 02:54:10.890
the impact fee
was one possible solution to try to address those issues,
right? Because fire rescue over the next ten years
has got an $87 million cost estimate
that we don't have covered, as far as I know,
the way that they did that impact study 19 million
for correctional facilities. Libraries have got 18 million solid waste doesn't have any
because we've handled that in other ways. The worst one is transportation 3,000,000,561, $3.6 billion worth of backlog
that we know we have. Now.

309
02:54:10.923 --> 02:54:41.487
Wait til
if this thing gets passed, what does what happens to that? And we've tried
to over the years. I mean it's been many,
many years. This backlog
just didn't happen overnight. I think there's already
a solution and it's already been provided
by you during the budget review or the budget workshop process,
because you did get some possible solutions
that were inside that workshop. You just have not executed
any of them. They've been shown to you. How about county and regional transportation
system, discretionary sales

310
02:54:41.487 --> 02:55:13.169
surtax that could give
additional revenue 25 to 100 million US government
infrastructure discovery sales surtax
37 million. Public service taxes
nine cent fuel tax. We talked about fuel taxes. Nobody wanted to take that up. So those those have been presented yet you just haven't
taken the the bite yet. We're going
to have to take the bite, especially if this happens. You need to take the bite now because we've already got a serious backlog
over the next ten years

311
02:55:13.169 --> 02:55:46.519
going to have to do something,
not doing anything. It's no longer an option. And I don't even care
if this doesn't pass this, this referendum
that says you pull 51 million off of you in the first year,
I think is one of the numbers. 51 million is nothing compared to the current backlog
that we have that the impact fees showed
we had. So and the staff
has actually provided answers. They were they were in some of those
workshops, but nobody nobody grabbed those and said, we need to get our way
out of this. And we have, you know,
it only gets worse every year. You don't do anything. So there were a lot
of potential things in that.

312
02:55:46.519 --> 02:56:17.450
And the solution is
you just need to take those. And instead of saying,
no, we don't want to do that, you're going to have to say,
we're going to have to do that. Or the deficit continues
to grow. It'll grow even faster
if this passes. So the action
has been on the table for years. You just have to start
taking it. And those those solutions
are already on the table. You can
you just have to enact them. Make a motion to make staff
put forward. You got to tell them to
to do that. And I think that's the only way
you're going to get it done. Thanks. You're 100% right.

313
02:56:17.450 --> 02:56:50.600
I really appreciate
what you just said. It's not an easy thing to say,
but it's true. It takes courage and commitment
and vision for the future. And I have to say,
I agree with on that. Rick. Okay. Let's go to. Let's go to board reports. County manager
I have no report tonight. Thank you, Mr. Chair. County attorney no report. Mr. chair. Commissioner one two small items.

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02:56:50.600 --> 02:57:21.847
One I was looking into try
to put together something for the gas tax. I would have to go
on the ballot. I don't think it would get voted
through this year. You guys might
get it through next year. So that's something you guys
might want to discuss later. Put more of a user
fee thing onto the ballot. Because if this goes through,
I've been trying to find revenues, I have been digging
and there just isn't any. So the only way
you're going to be able to pull out of here is you guys create a new revenue source, which is going to be

315
02:57:21.847 --> 02:57:53.129
new industry and businesses coming in
because our new construction is down right now to. So you've lost all that
tax foundation as well. So just throw that out for you
guys. But I don't think we have time to get anything in the ballot
right now. I don't I don't think we could with a couple of those things which might be some game
changers, but then you've got
to get people to vote for them. So I don't think you're
in that atmosphere right now, but you might be next year because usually people
will vote for things when they're a little bit
more of a position of seeing the consequences
of what's going on.

316
02:57:53.129 --> 02:58:24.477
My other thing is I've been
prepping for the meetings. I've been kind of studying. So I went back
in a couple of our items. I kind of paid attention
what was going on with the advisory board? We have and it's chaos. So I'm going to throw this out
to you. I know you guys. I'm thinking
you did it as a trial, but I think that board
needs to go back to a smaller grouping of of
maybe two for each of us. Let the alternates
be alternates again. So I was going to throw that out

317
02:58:24.477 --> 02:58:58.477
if, if you guys are agreeable
to it because right now
I can't hardly sit through it. And I can't imagine
what those guys are going through with it too. So I'm going to throw that out
and see if you guys were maybe okay with that. And that way we cut government
down a little bit to and they get a little more done
when we try to read through that stuff. So yeah, I've actually gotten complaints
from my appointees that they are they feel ineffective because of
the size of the board. And I was actually going
to bring that up in my board report to ask the staff,
go ahead. No, no, no, it's perfectly fine
because I,

318
02:58:58.527 --> 02:59:31.410
I've been hearing my people
and I agree. So okay. So you guys go with we have county staff
start working on it and yeah. Well I agree
I think we all agree. Yeah. Do you need a motion or we
you can just you may have a motion
already prepared I don't so I have just read my please
go ahead I'll read my thing. So I said if the board is agreeable
I'd like to direct staff to bring back an amended ordinance that reduces the number
of the members on the Z and adjust
the quorum requirements accordingly, and provides
any other streamlining

319
02:59:31.410 --> 03:00:05.010
efficiencies, modernizations
that they might identify. A second that it's amazing
both saw the same thing at the same time without talking
to each other, knowing. All right, motion and a second.
All in favor, say aye. Unanimously. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's all that shortens
my board report. Yeah. Okay. District two. No. District three. I think I got one other thing. So as vice chair,
I was invited this year

320
03:00:05.010 --> 03:00:40.162
to accompany
the EDC to their trip to DC. So I'm seeking board approval
before finalizing any travel. And I'm happy for this to come
out of the the D3 budget. I don't know if I need a motion
or just an okay, I don't know how that works
in that. A few times
I've gotten to do that, it's really changed my ability
to think differently here. So I think, I think it's a great trip
for you to be on, and hopefully you get some more businesses back here
and some government entities to agree. And especially our county was so heavily
impacted by federal policy.

321
03:00:40.162 --> 03:01:15.247
So any discussion? All in favor say yay yay cares. Unanimously. Thank you. District four. We had talked about an issue before
with Water Main for reuse. I just
I just want to tell you that we are talking to Saint John's. I know that you were talking
about that. We've reached out
utility services and I had a very good discussion
with them. So we're moving forward. Oh that's great.
Okay. That's good news.

322
03:01:15.247 --> 03:01:49.648
We'll save the taxpayers
some money. All right. Excellent. And I have no report, so. But we got something. Oh. Do you want to do that now? Okay, yes I should. Yeah, I want to I wanted to acknowledge
that we just lost a giant. A person really made an impact
to our county. As a former county
administrator, Tom Jenkins. And this is a resolution that that was read about him
when he retired.

323
03:01:49.798 --> 03:02:22.164
And I just want to acknowledge
that he passed. We lost him this past week. I'd like to bring this
resolution before the board
at the next meeting and invite, you know, anybody who would like
to be a part of it. I just want to acknowledge that Tom Tom passed
and really appreciate his impact that he made here
in Brevard County at one point. I think he was the longest
serving county administrator, 17 years, 17 years,
and all of Florida at the time in Florida. Yes,
he was the longest serving.

324
03:02:22.164 --> 03:02:53.445
Yes. So just wanted to say we're
very saddened to learn, and I'll bring this resolution
up at the next meeting. Thank you for bringing that
my attention. Okay. I think that concludes
our items. I'd like to join the meeting. 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 Brevard County, Florida, Space Coast Government television,
or the program sponsor and are solely
those of the presenter.

325
03:02:53.445 --> 03:03:08.077
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