Okay, it is 10 o'clock April 10th. This I'm calling to order the meeting the advisory committee, the marine and environmental resource task force for the town of Fort Myers Beach. I ask everyone to please rise and pledge
allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. Please
have a seat. And with that, I will um give a role to establish the quorum. Jennifer Rust here. Rob Howell here. Leo Sand here, Ed Rude here, Sharon Hankstrom here, Bill
Alv, and Dave Nusbomb is here. We have a full committee today. Thank you very much. Our next item on the agenda is to approve the agenda we have for today.
And in looking at it, uh Chad, did we have the dune plantings as part of what we voted on last. I can make a motion to approve the addition or you could just approve it as printed.
Oh, are I make a motion that we approve the agenda as printed? I'll second it. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.
Okay. Having that done, uh we have two uh previous meeting minutes and I would like a motion to approve both uh the AA MURF joint meeting from February 2025.
So move and the MURF March 2025 meeting. So moved. Okay. Leo Clay has uh moved. I will second that for approval. Is there discussion? Okay. Hearing none. I All
those in favor of approving the minutes from both meetings as written, please say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Leo. Okay. Moving right down. Public comment.
We have uh people in the audience. So, if anyone would like to make a public comment, now is your time. You have three minutes, please introduce yourself for the record. Yes. Uh, my name is Michael Thornton, uh,
21541 Madiraa Road. I submitted a letter last month because I was not able to attend uh just talking about the importance of canal dredging and just wanted to express uh our association's
support for the work that's going on. I understand there's an attempt to try to get some federal funding to help with permitting and possibly dredging and I just want to stay in tune with what's happening with that. Okay. Thank you. Uh
just as a comment that is on our an agenda item today. Yes. So we will get to that on the agenda. Any other public comment? Okay. Seeing and hearing none, I will close public comment. Thank you
very much. Current items. Okay. Item number one, we kind of group uh three items into code compliance uh because we all had discussions on it
and they kind of fell under the code compliant purview. So, um, first of all, uh, Jennifer, Vice Chairman Ross could ask to comment on the turtle season as May is coming up
and this is your time for your to make your comments on it and then we're going to talk about code compliance. Sure. Uh, so sea turtle nesting season starts May 1st and goes until October, the end of October. And uh we just need to make
sure that um our lights are turned off. No uh flashlights on the beach and uh that everyone that uh if you are on the beach and you are looking up on inward landward and you see any sort of
lighting coming from a window or a porch, uh I just I I ask the community to go out there, take a look, keep an eye on your property, make sure that all your lights are turned off and your drapes are
that during the night time so our sea turtles can successfully come on and nest and that the hatchlings can successfully uh get to the water during hatching season. That's from 9:00 on, isn't it? Yes, sir. 9 p.m.
Jennifer, if we wanted more of these stickers, where would we get them? So, you will you can request them from me and uh you can hand them out to all your condo associations. It might take me um like a week or two to get enough of them, but uh or you can contact the uh
sea turtle consery. Um but I can get them for you. Thank you. They're great. I use them in the uh resort. They're clear window clings. They're really neat. Nice reminder. And that way people don't run into the sunglass doors. Right. Right. And it's a reminder. Okay.
And then you also I noticed um we've got to you know and pick up your garbage. Don't leave uh tents and and umbrellas out and garbage and and um our beaches in the past couple weeks were pretty
filthy and I did happen to see our town staff out there immediately picking up. They did an amazing job on keeping our beaches clean along with of course our volunteers. Um but uh but the town was
uh I had seen on many occasions where big groups of kids had left huge amounts of garbage, even coolers, chairs, just got up and left everything and the town was on top of it picking it all up. Um,
now, uh, I would suggest never leaving the beach area and leaving a bunch of garbage on the beach or things that you, uh, don't want to lose because if you walk away with a lot of garbage, um, empty cans and empty uh, water bottles
and and things just strewed all over the place, a town will think that it has been abandoned. We can't have that garbage. So, uh, just make sure that you pick up after yourself. We have garbage cans at every uh beach entrance. Uh so yeah, that would be a
nice thing to do. Also fill in holes. I was going to mention that. One of the biggest issues we have at least on the 6,000 section and going south are the people that love to create sand castles
with moes and dig down as far as they can to get the water in. Yeah. Mr. Chair, and that's great, but they have to fill it back up. Mr. Chair, I'm sorry to intercede here, but uh we've got Tom Yazo from Code Compliance here. He's in another meeting. If we could just maybe
squeeze him in. He's got about five minutes. Absolutely. I apologize. I have stuff that we're working on with FEMA, please. And I'm trying to get some stuff out for our deadline. The microphone is yours. Good morning. Uh Thomas Yazo, emergency
operations director, Fort Myers Beach. I'm here to help and answer any questions that I have the ability to do that for code, uh, permitting, whatever else you guys need at this point. If I can't answer that question, then I will definitely write down that and we will try to work on getting answers back. I
will get them back to Chad as best or try to answer you back as best as I can. Okay. I have a quick question for you. Um, when you're coming onto the island, you turn right going towards Bowitch. Um, some of the street lights, uh, they don't look to be turtle friendly. They look just like regular white lights. So,
that's going to be part of the process. Um, and that's the lighting thing. And I think Chad had a better grip on some of that stuff, but uh, director Hogi is working on that with our new lighting project. There is also a um I think it's a sheriff booth or something blinking
bright blue lights there at um at the park. It's something with bright blue lights at the park right there by the old pier. Oh, that's that's going to be probably their tower stack for for cameras. uh they have to have certain lighting on them. Okay. All right. For
safety issues. So, um that's not Yeah. No, I get it. And some of that stuff can't be modified. The we can work on with the sheriff's department on some try to shield that in some manner, but I'll have to talk to the sheriff's department on that. Thank you. That's all I've noticed so far. Quick question. We and this was brought up at the last
meeting. Um, we had people making comments that there are several trailers that are still on the island that are uh it appeared to be, and this is
anecdotal conversations, appeared to be uh discharging into the storm sewer. Um, what do you suggest if someone sees that as far as reporting it to So, just to be clear, they're discharging their waste from the trailer into the storm drain.
Yes. Okay. It's not pool water that's been diffused and uh abridged in some manner for debris, right? It's just it's waste. Correct. So, if if you do see that in any manner, please make sure you contact code. We do take that seriously. if someone's uh we've had issues with
it. We've issued NOVs. We've also shut down people's uh trailer space. We've we've had their uh permits revoked for having not even on the property in any manner. They have to have their waste has to be disposed of properly. Uh an environmentally sound space where they
go into a sewer outlet that's designed for that. So, if you do see that, please contact us right away and we will deal with that. Okay. Thank you. Of course. Any other thing that we wanted to discuss? Do you know when the uh pipe will be removed from the beach? May
31st. May 31st. I found that out this morning actually. It was a was a great relief in some respect. But they're doing an amazing job out there and we I give those guys all the credit in the world. They've they've really accommodated a lot. Um their staff out there with including
with Chad, he's been out there and he's been on them about their speeds. Uh they have escort vehicles when they need them and anytime we've had to stop them for any reason, they're always uh compliant and they've done everything they can to try to to be good neighbors in this
process. Are you the person to contact if there's large uh pro uh uh uh palm frrons that are blocking the sidewalks or the streets? That would be public works. Public works. um with uh what what kind
of vehicles are allowed on the beach right now? So, uh the vehicles that we have have to be approved. Um they have to have certain tire with pressure. Um that goes through Chad's purview a little bit more as what he is what what's acceptable. But right now, you'll see town vehicles that are out there and
they're usually side by sides, right? Any of the vehicles that are on there for the reclamation space for the beach, they've all been approved through environmental. So you'll if you see them out there and if they're not if they don't have some type of signage in the front windshield or to the side window
then they're not supposed to be out there or they someone call us please call the rangers. We make a stop and we've issued a ton of summons for people who think it's a side street to get past the traffic. What about ebikes and um those hoverboards and things like that?
So, anything that's assisted, motorized assisted that has an electronic means in it in any manner that be that a battery or gasoline, they're still not allowed on the beach. Okay. All right. There's they're working through council right now on some stuff for sidewalks. Um, but
right now that is still not allowed on the beach and for a lot of reasons. We all know that people don't tend to lay down on the sidewalk. You know, it's not Manhattan. They don't lay down and sleep on the sidewalk here. So, um, but on the beach they do. So that was part of consideration with talks that we are
still not allowing that on the beach. How fast um are the um approved vehicles supposed to go? I mean is there um a slow speed for these vehicles? So it's still u according to uh FWC and the
instruction that we all have to go through. Chad sends it out to everybody on a regular basis that we have to go through this training. It's 8 miles per hour at max. Six. Is it six? It's six miles an hour. for all beach vehicles that are for any vehicle traveling on
that beach. Yes, it's supposed to be six and that becomes more enforcement's another creature. Let's be very honest. I don't have I'm not going to be able to run radar out there, especially for bikes and all the other stuff. Uh the that would be LCSO and you're now you're talking about a mass issue. To run
radar, you have to have a certain mass to be able to check somebody's speed and stuff. And that's something that's it's a bit of an enforcement issue, but most people that I've seen have been they've been playing nice with this to be very honest. So town staff has been trained. They've all been trained. Yes. So nothing over 6 miles per hour. Yes.
Okay. So when there is a dog off leash, bike or ebike of some kind on the What's the best quickest way to get you guys? Call the 588 number and that's our baseline. Okay. You call into that. Um and that'll go through Rangers. So, we
have central, we call it central base, which is our dispatch space for us. You'll call in, this is what I see. All I ask is everybody to be very clear. Don't just say, "I saw him on the beach and it's by Island Pines Way," right? You have to give us a good description of what you're seeing. You have to give
us a good location of what you're seeing or where it's at. So, then we can dispatch a ranger to that space or if needed, we can contact LCSO and they'll get somebody as I I saw the sheriff's department out there and I saw them many uh many times stopping people with loose dogs and I thought that was
fantastic. Will the sheriff's uh be out there year round? I I've been seeing or was it just during spring break in a certain area? No, there's a regular patrol that's out here. It's a third precinct for LCSO. Uh Commander Lawler is
is committed to making the beach safe and he does put staff out here. Can we have side by sides out here all the time? No. There's a It's a big county and they have other stuff they have to hit, too. But every time they can, they do have their units out there and they're diligent just like our rangers.
There's still RVs parked on single family lots. When do those have to be off and that comes back to a council question? End of September. End of September is where they're I think that is going to be the deadline for that space and they can't be put back on. Is that right?
Uh we're still working through that, but as it is of right now, it's the end of September. Uh unless there's significant uh they're showing progress on build rebuilding. All right. Thank you. That brings me to a decision with the
the that was just made with the the park the the food truck park that was going to be and they they're going to have trailers there. Are are they going to have to move them in September as well? I think those are scheduled to leave every day, I believe. Oh, they go and
come on a daily basis. That I I could be wrong about that. It was It was a long meeting. Two long meetings, actually. Missed it. Sorry. That's all right. So, the what you're talking about with trailers on private property was a special exception. It was
basically a permit that was given for a temporary permit space. temporary permit is different than a than a property that now has gone through LPA will be for a town council and such. Okay. They they might not have to leave daily. Uh but they do have to leave within a certain
amount of time before a storm. Before a storm. Okay. Okay. Do you have extra patrols down at the CWA on the south that's been posted now? I understand. So, I do have rangers who will hit that space, but I promote
my rangers and I've also talked to uh Commander Lawler in some respect about how we're going to have staffing down that space. Uh we are very leery just because there are eggs in the sand now and they're not easy to see. So, to my
mind without, you know, environmental being there or doing I would prefer them to get out of their buggy and do a walk every once in a while. So, they are in that space. We do respond to calls down there though, just so you know. Yeah, because I've still seen dogs everywhere. I know. And we we do hit it up and we do
hit that space for the dogs. And you know, the push back always is I live here. I've been here for a million years. And you know, I'm the king of this island and I'm going to put whatever I want. Let my dog lose and dig. Yes. And he's going to go dig holes in the dunes and I'm not going to clean up his waist and if he chases a herd, I
don't care. So, you know, that's that's what you're dealing with and that's an education part. Hopefully that's something that we're putting out more and more, right, to let people know that the dogs when they start bothering these birds, it does affect their habitat. So, we do try to educate when we're out
there and Chad's been an amazing help with that, giving us the right resources to to educate those people. So, yes, we're moving forward with that. Are your rangers allowed to ticket if they We are We can write We can write tickets. Remember something though, we're not We are quasi law enforcement. So, we do not
have arrest powers. We cannot do a forceful stop. We can stop and have conversation with people. If it becomes too uh contentious, then we call LCSO. LCSO is very great is very good in the response. They respond with a deputy and
they have stop powers. So what we do then is we do stop, we ID, and we do issue summons. For the most part, even when people get contentious with us, we found that after a couple minutes of talking to them, they throw the dog on the leash. I can't, you know, we can't be everywhere, but we do our best.
And if you do see that, please call because we take a case report on all these things. We're monitoring where the case reports are and that's going to start going to LCSO as a as a a case that we handle on a regular basis. These are time frames and it kind of lets us track it. Do how much is a ticket? It
depends. They can be up to $250 and it's going to depend on uh how egregious and repeat violations. Okay. What's that number again? 239-463-5888. And do remember we're not 24/7. So we
have people on that phone usually about 4:30, 5:00 during the week and usually 5:30 to 6 on the weekends. And it'll be a ranger asking answering on the weekend. Just tell them what you need. They'll get somebody dispatched. Thank you, sir, for your time. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone.
Be well. Be safe. Thank you, Tom. Uh just to follow up briefly, Jennifer, you were talking about LCSO. They do have a tendency to staff up during spring break and holidays. Okay. One of the things that I think we can do
as an advisory committee to the town council is going to them and taking just a brief minute to remind the residents of the
shorebird nesting on the south end and the importance that they do keep their animals on a leash and protect the the fledgling birds and the nests down there because we are very unique in the state
of Florida. We have we're the only place that has four endangered shorebird species nesting on the south end of the island and which represents a very large population of the shorebirds in Florida.
So well said. I think um I I feel like a lot of the island right now, not a lot, I don't want to generalize, but some of the island has some contention around the shorebirds and that whole situation. Um and I'm that's the number one reason for the for the dogs on leash. But what
I have found especially with talking with people about that is how it's not about your dog. It's about how your dog might go up to an aggressive dog that could be on a leash. It's that you don't have control over that dog in any way and you're putting your own dog in danger when you kind of put it back on
them. It really because you look up how many times people have had dogs off leash that go up to another dog that is controlled and contained on a leash and that other dog on the leash will attack that littleer one because it feels like you're coming into a space. It's defending the owner. Um, I I usually get some pretty like a little light bulb
almost goes off where it's like, you know, because you come at them, oh, please leave the dog on the leash about the birds or the dunes or the ecosystem. However important that is, the person already knows the rules. They're already choosing to break the rules. But when you kind of put it on them to say it's for your dog's protection because this
has happened and it can happen again, it seems to really hit home then. So, not not, you know, just another, you know, tool in the tool box there for a good point because there's a local veterinarian office where I was actually going uh and picking up crow birds and
dropping uh animals off for crow. And um and uh that veterinarian who owns the practice actually said during season many times they have to put down dogs that run out onto Sterile Boulevard that
were loose that actually get ran over, hit or by, especially lately by um the the motorized bicycles, the ebikes, because they can go up to 30 miles an hour and they're on sidewalks and you have a little dog go running off of the
beach onto a sidewalk, they're not going to see it. They're going to hit, you know, that's also, you know, something I am concerned with with the with the sidewalks and allowing ebikes is you've got a lot of little kids, too, on the sidewalk. I feel like the kings of the island, you know, Alex and me, they
they've been here for, you know, they've said they've been here for years, then they know the law. They're just choosing to break it. So, when you put it on them, that's it's for your protection. I it I and it's the truth. I mean, at the end of the day, it's not manipulated. It's the truth of what it is, you know. But again, there they can be contentious
and they're docu. Okay. Okay. Uh next under current items was um canal and canal dredging and I had had a conversation with Chad
um after our meeting, excuse me, where we were looking at the problem of identifying exactly who the owners were on the particular canals.
and who had the responsibility for removing the excess sand in the canals to make them u operable for boats and Chad, do you
want to step in on this? Sure. Uh so Chad shoots town staff for the record. Um so we have 30 canals. Some of those canals have fingers on them. Some of those canals are
uh have private submerged land owners that are uh still technically in the rightway as in their surface waters of the state, but they own the bottom. Um some of those owners are private individuals. Some of those owners are HOAs. So, it's
a complicated picture in terms of who's actually responsible for uh dredging those canals to restore navigation. Um, that's something that's going to take some some time to sort out. Uh, if
the HOA is up and functioning and they own it, I think that that'll probably be the easier ones such as like Fair View Isles or if we get something that says, "Hey, our HOA is no longer um operating." Um maybe that clears it up. That's going to be discussions with
the lawyer. But um you know in determining who is the maintenance entity for those canals, we're we're going to have some research to be done. At the last Anchorage committee, um our liaison Curtis uh Lewig uh had said that the town had been
looking into getting some grants or some FEMA money to do the dredging, but they weren't they weren't very successful, right? So that it may have to fall back onto the adjacent property owners of the
canals to actually pay for the dredging. Is that correct or so? One uh funding mechanism that has been used in the past um with the town is a uh assessment. Yeah. Basically setting up a taxing district that was set up for Lagona
Channel that um is on the Yeah. Laguna Shores is the neighborhood. I call it Lagona Channel is the channel um that services uh Marina Towers um those those houses along Estrita as well as all inside Buccaneer Lagoon
um all of those properties have the benefit of accessing the Gulf through that channel which right now is filled with about 6,000 cubic yards. It's been dredged in the past. It has been maintained but it was already full before Ian. Therefore, you know, FEMA
isn't going to pay for it because the the pre-torm state was full. You know, there's no returning to pre pre-torm state, per se. Um so that funding mechanism looked at uh all the properties all the waterfront properties
um assigned them a benefiting unit and then um basically divided the cost of the project and uh it's paid for uh like that on your tax bill. That's a process that you go through Lee County um
commissioners to get it onto the tax bill. Um it's a process. It's something that would need to be started relatively soon if it's going to be done. Um, and if we wanted to uh duplicate that uh islandwide,
um, questions become, are we doing an islandwide uh, municipal, you know, municipal tax benefiting unit, MS? I don't know. There's so many acronyms. Anyway, if we did that taxing
district islandwide, then Are we doing an islandwide project? Uh Josh, if you can go down to page uh 4-9, I believe. Okay, so yeah, this
is the one that I wanted. Uh so we have uh these graphics that show uh kind of some uh coloring to demonstrate where things need to be dredged in hot pink and going down to the blues and then the
light green where it is already atg5 mean low water or greater depth. Um just to educate everybody. So in general whenever you're getting uh dredge projects um permitted
everything's relative to negative mean low water which is basically an elevation just like mean high water is an elevation. So everything's relative to that mean low water because that's in general you want to have that's you know at low tide you still want to have enough clearance. So
um neg5 mean low water is what uh the town is going to be seeking for all canals. If there's any canals that can justify deeper maintenance uh depth, we will be going after uh that deeper maintenance depth which um you can see
on the deeper ones. So here we see one, two, and three. And what's that area we're looking at J? This is north of so Josh if we can keep going down one more. Um so we yeah just uh if
you can go down slowly Josh just every you know 5 seconds or so we can just take a look. So we see here, you know, it's in general, you see the um the ends of the canals are uh fairly shallow, relatively shallow, and then on some of
the mouths of the canals, you'll see um some sedimentation as well. So, uh, we have, um, some numbers that, uh, FEMA, uh, community assistance, um,
folks did for us in terms of, uh, they did a storm water project. Our canals are part of the storm water conveyance system. So, we wanted to see, uh, what that system looked like. And, uh, I have a quick question. I'm sorry.
Sure. So, uh, it says, um, Let's see. Conceptual dredge uh depth table. Is that what it is now? Or is the maintenance depth that is needed for maintenance? Is that this is existing conditions?
Existing. What is the maintenance deck? Negative5 mean low water or deeper depending on the canal. Okay. So, um Yep. And keep going down, Josh. So again, so like on that canal up top, you can see a bit of pink right there
where it's uh uh these are the the getting towards the bird streets down south. Um over there is a challenge because we'll also need to uh dredge uh getting permitting for the the canals, the man-made canals is
relatively easy. it's not considered state submerged lands. Whereas once we get out into the bay, those are submerged state lands where the permitting is a little bit more complicated and you have to deal with um uh severance fees for dredge spoils,
etc. So getting a getting access to that channel outside of there is going to be theoretically should be part of that project. So, not only can boats navigate their canal, but they can also get to the navigable channel, excuse
me. Um, and you can see down south, these canals are relatively deep. Um, these are, uh, some candidates for those deeper maintenance configurations, um, where you have, uh, canals that were likely dug deeper to begin with,
um, to support sailboats, etc. So, um, they estimated to get all the canals to -5 meanow water, uh, around 57,000 cubic yards. Um, in talking to dredgers, uh,
you're looking at anywhere from 70 to $100 a cubic yard. Um we're hoping we, you know, whenever we do go through this project relatively soon and take advantage of all the staging lots that we do have um for uh handling uh the
material. Um having having staging lots close to where you're dredging at makes it easier, makes it cheaper. And then what are we doing with the dredge spoils? It's probably, you know, I don't know if we can take 57,000 cubic yards of material uh here on this island. Um, plus you'd
have environmental concerns with uh the contents of those dredge spoils. So, that's likely going to be shipped to the the um the landfill or if we can find a beneficial use. Hopefully, we can find a beneficial use such as uh streets or you
know something that needs material to use that that's closer by and reduce that trucking cost which is the bulk of the cost whenever you're doing dredging. But $70 to $100 if you're looking, let's just say it's $100 for round figure sake, you know, that's that's a $5.7
million project just to get it to um the negative five. And if we wanted to get all of them, which um is not what I'm suggesting, but if we wanted to get all of them to mean low water, that'd be about 144,000 cubic
yards. um where about So and and getting back to Jen's question with the funding um are we doing an islandwide assessment or would we look at each canal separately or
maybe each section of the island separately where we could do you know north of Stero Island dredge project assess that north of Stero Island um benefiting properties look at the the mid look at the around the bird streets
etc. look at Buccaneer Lagoon and that way you don't have a a property owner on the north end saying, "Hey, I paid my taxes. You're over there on the south end and you haven't even dredged me and I can't get out and and generating that." So, um it it would be more work
to get a little bit more fine-tuned, but it may be worth it um you know, in terms of uh you're putting your money into your benefit a little bit closer to home. So with when you say we are you talking about um um islandwide meaning
even people would be paying taxes that didn't live on canals or is it just the property owners that live Yeah. the benefiting property okay properties would be the waterfront properties that enjoy access. You weren't here last uh
month and um I believe it was this gentleman who spoke at public comment uh that was here as well. He had some uh pictures of uh the canal that I believe he shared uh of his canal. And um I had
noticed because I do my walks, my turtle walks in that area and I notic that there's no um there's no BMS there. So I'm not sure if that those property owners approved um or gave you permission to put the emergency BMS or
you know our our um our dunes uh there. So if There's no dunes and no BMS uh on the beach properties, beachside property and and their sand is constantly being
pushed up into the same canal every time we have a storm. Doesn't that present a problem for the canal? Yeah, overwash. I mean, we definitely have some canals that were impacted by overwash and that is, you know, putting the dune vegetation on there to
stabilize wherever we can um is the goal and we're going to talk about that on the next item. Yep. So going forward, Chad, if this committee is recommending
to the town, where do you feel would be our best recommendation to go in front of council? So funding is tough. Uh it was tough before the current administration.
um and and the cost cutting that's happening. I think it's going to be even tougher going forward looking for federal and state funding. Um if the waterfront properties would like their canals to be dredged, I think there's a conversation to be had of do
we want to do a taxing district to dredge those canals. um you know I can I can get these number published and it's it's just a mathematical exercise to say hey we got you know 20 houses and there's 500 cubic yards that that need
to be dredged and um it's kind of like how we did on the beach project where we uh have different segments and then we can also you know create line items for each segment and divvy out the cost of the project accordingly including the mobilization the demob etc and
Um, you know, and then again, is it is it a islandwide taxing district or is it a canal by canal taxing district or somewhere in between? But I don't see us getting funding unless we unless we do it
ourselves. I Okay. When you say do it ourselves, you mean create a tax island wide or create an islandwide taxing district or Well, create a taxing district, be it islandwide or canal by canal or somewhere in between that makes sense for doing dredging projects and
phases. So, if we did a canal by canal, we we could we would be eligible for some funding grants from somebody. No. So, the taxing Well, I'm not saying we're eligible either way. this the taxing
district is a means of um you know it it's put on I think it's put on a ballot and it gets voted on and do you want this so we need to have political buy in before we do something like this but if can if canal front owners want things to be dredged the
question to them is do we want to pay for it or do we want to just keep trying to go get funding from off island so to speak I get okay because my understanding is that the town the FEMA and grants are not available right now. We It's It's not that it's
not available. We don't We don't qualify for FEMA funding for this because we we had the only The only channel that we had maintained was the Laguna channel. It was filled in before the storm. We were about to dredge it. It's still filled in with 6,000 cubic yards. Um has
a town looked into grants? Um absolutely. And what's been the the We're still not funded. Okay. So Chad, I have several questions, so bear with me. Uh, you said it could be on a ballot. Does that mean you have to be a resident of the island to vote? So a property
owner that does that's going to get assessed would not that doesn't live here would get assessed. I'm not sure the mechanics of the taxing the benefiting taxing unit process. How about the beachfront? When they did the reourishment of the beach, was there any taxing to the beachfront properties? So
that I believe the uh town's local share uh was funded in the general fund which you know that was the originally that was about $2 million. So yes, all the residents did pay into the town somehow someway and funded that general fund to
pay for that $2 million um for that, but it was not necessarily a a benefiting unit of only the beachfront properties. And to date, the town has not paid. We only just the first bill that
we paid where we will be uh liable for 15% of that was um just this week. So that first uh I don't know how many millions of dollars I think it was like nine or $10 million was paid for by the state. So how many miles or feet of
canals do we have? And is that that 14 144 cubic yards does that include getting out to the channel or is that just the canals themselves? Just the canals themselves as well as um I think you know maybe the mouth you know extended out a little bit. Um if you can
you know whenever you were seeing those uh that color coding you see it kind of went out a little bit further from the the mouth of the canal. Okay. Um but yeah that's just the canals themselves. So I have a question for Councilman King then. who doesn't take questions on Thursday, by the way.
Pretend it's Friday because it's the end of the week for you. Um, has a has a town looked at benefiting for what the taxes would generate from having canals dredged or right now we've got a lot of
single family lots that are empty and also damaged homes and so forth. as the town looked at with along with the county what the benefit would be to have those lots being sold and built on with open canals that would be able to boat
through. I mean, have you looked at that? In other words, right now, if you buy if you you go look at I've saw some of the pictures and you go look at some of the canals, they're full of sand and they're not going to sell that lot without having some way of having that dredged. So, you know, from a town's
perspective, to me, it looks like, you know, the PE I live on the beach, so I I get this, but um we get benefits and the beach is a public benefit for everybody. So, I get that the canals also are public benefit to a certain extent. Is
there any way that you can look at I like the idea of taxing authority to for benefit of properties, but I think if you look at after Hurricane Ian, we saw your property tax and revenue for the town and Lee County go
down dramatically, right? Mhm. Has anybody looked at what that has been brought back to and where it could go to if we did something on a, you know, islandwide project and try to get, you know, some of that money captured back
through increased property taxes? Not specifically that I'm aware of to your to your point, Leo. Um the only thing I know of is uh the assessor Matt Caldwell has looked at what happened because of Ian. There
were um obviously a downturn and then folks that couldn't live there so they were given property relief on that thanks to the legislature. So that has bounced back. It had been to I think 50% as of the last fiscal year and he was
projecting that it would increase again in this coming fiscal year but nothing specifically along those lines that I'm aware of. You need like an economist to you know do there if you wanted to quantify you're talking about quantifying what a property is worth. Well, you'd
have to look at I mean, if you just look at just simple mathematics and look at how many homes are destroyed, what the lot value is, what the real estate tax is on that today versus having what it was prehurricane Ian and then looked at
saying that lot would sell today for X dollars and you'd put a you know, the homes on the islands are are, you know, I remember when you can buy like a a beachfront property before the storm for two to two and a half million. Those are same lots empty. That was with a house
on it. By the way, today that that same property, no house on it, just a bare lot is three to three and a half million and going up dramatically. So, we're going to see increase of property taxes that's going to come into the town in the in Lee County. And what I'm asking
is there's any way you could look at taking some of that tax money, general tax money to help out with this dredging of the canals because it's a benefit to the to the property owner. Yes. But if you look at how you're going to get everybody to agree to be uh taxed on
that, that's going to take a long process, is it not? It's a process. Um I mean but you know again they they it's the same process that they did for Laguna Channel. Okay. And you know if you have
you know everybody along the canals that want the property or want the canals to be dredged and it seems like you have a um you've met a threshold of 50% or more then going through the exercise of getting that in front of the Lee County
Commissioners does seem feasible. Well, let me Are you I'm okay. Let me bring this back to trying to encapsulate what you said, Chad. If there's multiple owners and we're
aware of that, every canal owner will benefit if the canal is dredged. It then becomes that and the town per Leo's suggestion will also benefit in the fact
that the property will increase in value per se to what extent we have no idea. But obviously if a can if a canal is non navigable and then you dredge it out, you can bring boats in. There's a
perceived value in that that raises the value of the property which also you know shows up in the tax base. So there's kind of a property owner gets a win, the town gets a win. It's something that
we looking at the issues that Chad so clearly marked out on all the canals on the island is something that has to be done. So now it becomes in my mind our recommendation to
the town that they determine how they want to pay for this improvement or remedy of storm damage to bring up the values of the
property and raise the tax base of the tunnel. Did I say that kind of but I So if I'm going to agree with that, I would like uh to ask Chad a question. So we are an environmental marine environmental committee. Can you tell me
how this benefits uh our canals being dredged? How does it benefit the marine environment? It's restoring navigation. You're removing muck which has water quality issues. You're also improving conveyance
for storm water. Some of our outfalls are sediment um and no longer functioning as well. Um you know the canals are you know the can it's tough to argue that the canals are for environmental benefit. Those
canals were dug for navigation. So that's that's the primary purpose of dredging them. So D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D Dave, uh you kind of hit the hit where I was going with this topic. Okay, so I'm originally from Minnesota and we use
what's called a tax increment finance district, a tiff district. I don't know if Florida has that, but it works this way. You have a lot that's worth, let's just say $100,000, and it pays $1,000 of taxes. You build a house on that and that lot
becomes a $2 million house and it has let's just say $20,000 in taxes. The increment between the $1,000 and 20,000 is $19,000. That money or part of it would go towards a project like this.
It's not costing the existing taxpayers anything. It's promoting development of our island or redevelopment of our island. That's what I was talking about. and it earmarks it specifically for that. Correct. Now, in Minnesota, we we have the county, the city or town, and
then there's the school district, and the school district can opt out and say, "No, we don't want to put our money towards that." So, they can take the county and the and the town could put their money towards that tax increment district. It would get the it would get people an incentive to rebuild quicker,
and that's what we want to see, right? I mean, we want to see the island come back to more of its normal charm and and and it's not it's never going to be the same. We all recognize that. But to get it back to where it's actually um you know, people want to come back to the
island and spend money. The number one um business in our our community is tourism and that's what we need to promote. Part of part of the dredging the channels is is boating as well. Uh, so I I I'm just trying to brainstorm is all I'm trying to do. Throw out some
ideas. And I mean, I don't know if you saw the figures uh with our uh TDC and the return of, you know, the resorts and I forget if it was like we're at like 50 or 60% or whatever. Yeah. But even with everything, you know, all the resorts
that we've had opened up, to me, it kind of says, you know, there's a lot of houses with bed tax that haven't been rebuilt and you know, that those waterfront properties with a a dock and maybe even
a boat where um you're having that vacation rental makes it a lot more valuable um to your point. Okay. So if um I guess my question is is or one more question for you Chad. How does the um
marine environment um is it um I guess by by dredging can it be a marine environmental issue by dredging the canals or what is the environmental impacts of dredging the
canals? Uh well, turbidity is one of one of the impacts and that the the permitting that we would seek with FDP and Army Corps would uh have conditions in those permits to mitigate uh those issues. Are there hazardous materials in
the spoils? Uh I know arsenic is one thing they would require you to test for if you wanted to put it back on a lot. Um I would need to do a little bit more research. Man, the answer to your question is probably yes. It depends on
what you consider hazardous, but there can be what I consider hazardous. Okay. Well, the ones that filled in since also from the storm, there's still going to be debris in that in that sediment. Even though you cleaned all the debris out, visible debris that's
above it, right? You've got two or three feet of of of of sediment uh that's washed in there and it's going to be full of all kinds of stuff. Absolutely. I mean it, you know, me wanting to make use of everything you can and you say, "Well, you know, we need this fill. People need this fill." And then that's the first thing you kind of think of.
It's like, you know, you're you're digging and all of a sudden you realize that this this fill is this Yeah, it's going to be full of stuff. No question. I mean, all the small wares and all the stuff that were in people's yards and it's going to be full of all this. Anything that sinks that doesn't float is going to be all mixed in it. Yep.
So, does anyone have would like to put a motion out as far as recommending recommendations to the town council? Would it be along the lines of the town council develop
a an economic research plan to see what would be the most economical avenue to fun dredging. I would I would Bill, you might want to
pull your microphone down. So, I would I would I would add to that that we recognize the need to have the canal dredged and cleaned both from an
environmental and economical standpoint. And because of that, we think the town should move to find the most impactful way of of getting financing
for this for all of the canals. Would dredging and cleaning are those two things that go hand in hand? They have they're different, but they're they do go hand in hand. I mean that you have cleaning, I'm assuming you're meaning debris, which we're doing right now,
whereas dredging is specifically getting the material out to a certain depth to restore navigation material. Can you material muck, sand, and that's all clamshell dredging, right? Uh I would want to permit
it both uh hydraulic dredge and mechanical. mechanical being um you know a track hoe to uh scoop it out. Um, that seems to be uh that may be the preferred method for for this, but I would still want to give
our contractor the option to maybe have like a uh a cutter head to basically vacuum to the depth. And then you could um pipe it onto uh basically a barge that has um containers, sealed
containers, and take the material to um wherever you're going to stage it and dewater it and put it in the trucks. From an environmental aspect, the uh rrookery there um it's south of the island um or it's
it's in the south end of the island that took a big hit from Ian and all the other storms. Could we use some of the material potentially for rebuilding that rrookery? Uh, so by rrookery, what are we talking about? We're talking I honestly don't know the name. It's before you get to
the very south end. Um, there's a whole bunch of frigot birds that used to go there and pelicans. Talking about like making a spoil island. Yeah, it would be a spoil island. Um, it was already there, but it took a big hit and it's like not even half what it was. I mean, I don't think the town actually has a say on the rere. Well, I understand
that, but for something to do with some of that, it might be on a positive positive note for the environment of what we could do with some of these. Yeah. I mean, I've I've uh so the canal material itself, um it's not going to be beach compatible. That's why I was asking if the beach um but building a
spoil island, I would need to explore that with the regulatory agencies. Um, you know, I've definitely, uh, thought about, you know, the Laguna Channel, um, has, you know, it looks like it's beach compatible and looking at it. Maybe not all of it, but definitely some
of it. And especially if you did a nearshore placement where you can have a higher silk content, um, and maybe we could recreate little eststerero island out there and, uh, and and have that, you know, place for the birds to go to offshore. Yeah. Whether that's feasible from a regulatory standpoint, I'm not
sure. Okay, just just a thought. Okay, you want to try it again, Bill? Big mouth. Um, the motion would be for the Murf to recommend the town
council seek the most uh economical avenue to fund dredging. me this down y because this this is a
can of worms that every time you open your mouth you've got another booklet that's so I think if we focus on something very broad like the town council should explore the funding avenues right so
whenever you say economical what do you mean by that like the lease cost to the town or what prudent and a cost prudent let's use prudent I I think you could throw in uh using avenue or um using uh
vehicles of like tax increment financing if it's available in Florida, things like that. It is available in Florida. I think it's also tied and I'm not sure how tightly to CRA, which is community redevelopment agency. And I know the legislature was putting uh for lack of a
better term a kibos on that with this legislative session because we had looked at possibly utilizing that for redevelopment on the island uh say in Times Square area and things like that and we were told to uh get on that very
quickly because it looked like by the summer it was going to be gone. Uh I'm not sure if TIFF is is part of that and u but I know either way you'd have to go through the county to get that uh taken care of. What I will do, Leo, is um the
issues you brought up. Uh I will talk to town management about that and then I will contact the county appraiser to see if there's a way to capture that information. Okay. So I'll second Bill's motion, whatever that was. Okay. Because I agree with that. But can I can we
articulate that one more time? Yeah. [Laughter] No. Uh panel council to uh research develop funding mechanisms to dredge our canals. Dredge the canal.
Dredge the recognizing the importance of the economics benefits and and environmental improvement of the canals that they that they do it. If if they're not working, they're not working. If they're supposed to be a
storm water bypass and they're full of sand, they're not working. So, all right. So, I'll second that. I'd like to have a little discussion on if you don't mind. Okay. Yeah, discussion. All right. Um, John, what you need to have is not only the appraisal appraiser
look at this, but I'm not sure what the town has for tax revenue coming in prehurricane Ian versus what it is today. All right. But if you look at the the 14.4 $4 million price tag if that's
truly what it is. Um that can be that can be paid for in a relatively short period of time during using tick tax increment financing of some sort and we all recognize that. Um I don't know what the the bond rating for town of Fort Myers Beach, but Lee County could be on
that as well to be able to pass a bond, you know, float a bond, sell bonds to do this and then recapture that um recapture the tax increment by people building. Uh you mentioned Time Square, you know, that could be also part of it.
It doesn't have to necessarily be benefiting of the canals itself, but you know, we have redevelopment districts, we have economic uh impact districts, things like that. There's different districts that you have, and I don't know what Florida has available, but any
one of those avenues should be explored. And just because the legislature may change something, it means that we just have our work cut out to go explain and try to lobby them to say our beach and our island was impacted.
tremendously. So you look at this could be something that could be adopted in Santael Captiva and others up and down the coast that have been impacted. So I think it's worth exploring. That's what I'm asking. So
any other discussion before I call the question? Well, my I guess my question is is is this really a So Chad is are you saying because some of these canals uh need dredging that we're having water runoff
issues with our sills stills? Is it sills or sills? Sorry, where the water runoff is? Sill falls. I'm not sure what you're referring to. What you had said was environmentally to have uh these
canals dredged would benefit our water runoff and um and I guess maybe conveyance. Yeah. Conveyance or or that maybe some of the sills or are clogged where the water runoff can the outfalls Yeah. have been silted in. Yeah. Or Yes.
So yeah. So I mean if you notice usually our outfalls are at the the um the back of the canals and That's, you know, usually where you see the shallower areas next to those outfalls. Um, so if you have sediment that's blocking the
outfall, it doesn't work as well. Where does the water go then? Into the canals. It goes into the canals. Yes. That's part of the storm water conveyance system. So, the benefit of dredging would help restore conveyance. Restore. Okay. Don't
you have wildlife that uses canals as well? Oh, yes. Lots of catfish, dolphins, manatees. Dolphins and manatees. Yes, sir. Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. With that, I will call the
question. All those in favor of u uh committee committeeman Alough's motion, please say I. I. I. Oppose. I oppose. Okay. Roll also.
All right. And and just um if I may, I have lots of friends in canals and I would love to see that. I just don't think it's a marine environmental resource task force uh thing to take to to council. Well, we are an advisory
committee and if you look at our if you look at our statement, we're we're to ensure the quality of the waters and the economic viability of those who make a living off the waters.
And you know, if there there are numerous people, I know several of them that rent on the canals. Mhm. We've had people up here that have complained to us or made the statement, "Our canals are full of sand. We can't put a boat in
there." If you're trying to rent a place and you have a canal that doesn't work, suddenly you're you're not getting your full value of your rental. Oh, I totally understand. I'm saying I I and I and I would love to see all these canals uh
dredged, but I do believe that it should be the property owner's expense and something that the property owners uh should be filing for permits and things like that and looking into uh paying for it.
Uh not because the taxpayers paid the town uh staff um or you know they they pay So, but there's nothing in the motion that says the town is paying for it or not paying for it. All the motion
said is to find the most prudent, you know, way of paying for it, which could be either a tiff. It could be a special tax on the canal owners. All we're advising the council to do is
we recognize it's a problem and you have to and we're telling you we believe you need to find a way to fix it. We're not Well, the motion passed. I just wanted to make a second. So, let's move on. Just just to clarify something. I respect your opinion and disagreement
with this, but if you look at the uh the impact of our water quality from all the the u for lack of better word crap that went into the into the canals during Hurricane Ian, Helen, Milton, uh there
is a lot of um stuff that's not environmentally friendly sitting in those canals and the sooner we get it out, the better it is. And if that means helping trying to dredge this to make that happen, that's what I'm in favor of doing, trying to
find a solution. Well, there there's opposition to both sides. There's so Okay, very good. Let's move on to item C, dune planting. Chant, you're on. All right. All right, Mr. Josh. So, um, we
have our dune planning plan. Uh our coastal engineer and I have put a lot of work into this. Um uh if we want to go to the next page, Josh, um we'll see. We have a stero island. These our monuments are the FD
um uh monuments that go down the beach. Uh from the north, they start in 174 and in the south 210. Uh we can go ahead and move to the next one, Josh. So uh we had three uh dune planting
schemes in our dune management plan. Uh the difference in those schemes are the relative percentages of the four species of dune plants being seats, bitter panicum grass,
uh railroad vine and dune daisies. The highprofile number one has a relatively high composition of sea oats. Uh Lee County preferred the high composition uh I think it's 75% sea oats and then
the remaining 25 30% was uh dune daisies railroad vine and bitter panicum. The lowprofile dune plantings are uh I believe it's 15% COS
uh and then more bitter panicum and dune daisies and railroad vine as well. So uh based on the feedback from the community to staff um low profile was what the beach pro uh
property owners preferred. uh that is going to be the default. Uh staff is open to if if there are property owners that prefer something different one two uh you know the number one or number two scheme um the time to contact us is now.
But um having said that uh we do plan on uh rolling out additional phases where we can um add additional species of plantings um in the future. Um, but that low profile is what what we're looking
at. And I think in terms of the in the spirit of the FGCU uh advice that we got for more species diversity, I think that that lowprofile uh planting plan does have uh you know the the percentages of those four
species are more spread out rather than the uh the the heavy seat 75% seat uh number one plan. Um you'll also see some um black marks. Josh, if we can uh kind of just you can scroll down relatively
fast. I I I don't think we necessarily need to analyze this too much, but as you scroll down, you'll see um those black marks. Those are uh paths, the the the 10 foot wide path that uh based on
historical uh dune paths uh that existed in the aerials prior to Ian. And that's what those historical paths are based on or that's what those black marks based uh based on um I've talked yesterday uh met with
uh Bill Perry and the condo owners on the north about a half dozen of them and we just talked about hey we wanted here hey we wanted there and that is the process um this this was laid out you know the alignment is basically the burm alignment and the paths are historical
paths if there's something different um that the property owners like uh please come and speak with me and we can uh definitely discuss it. Um uh you know the and just like we did yesterday with those those uh the condo
HOAs that we met with yesterday. Um having said all that, as you can imagine, if you're laying out miles and miles and miles of dune plantings, the more uniform um it is, the easier it will be on staff, the more costefficient it will be for the town.
Um, but you know, staff recognizes some people like it on top of the burm, some people want it on the seawward side of the burm, some people may want it on the landward side of the burm. I'm happy as long as we're getting plants out on the beach. I think it's going to be a great thing for us.
Um, so as we come down to here, a couple more slides and then stop Josh once we get to the schematic. So, uh, you know, like I said, Bill Perry, we we met with the the Dune property owners. He's been instrumental
in, um, you know, from the very start from getting easement signed to, um, just offering, you know, advice on how he's been managing the beach over, uh, the last three decades. And uh this is a schematic. You can see below is is his
so-called commod where the instead of having an opening as you do on the top where the water can go straight in. Um you have a bit more coverage uh where you know if the shore is on the bottom, you know, you really can't see a way in and the water is going to be a little
bit more obstructed from overwashing uh that burm. um that opening would face towards Santael where you have less wave fetch. Um you know theoretically the the the the stronger wave action would happen um coming out of
the south rather than rather than the north. So that's that's the direction that that opening would be facing on the bottom. Um it's about 10 ft wide. uh that that's going to be wide enough for if you needed your your beach groomer to
uh come in and maintain behind the dune, they can maintain behind it. Um the dune management plan does say that property owners um are allowed up to 25% of their shoreline length to be unveated. I'm committed to having that. Um, but I will
always give my advice as environmental staff in terms of resilience and um protecting your property, maximizing the protection on your property. Um, I I'm recommending uh maximize the vegetation that we're planting out there and the
bottom schematic where um you have more coverage and uh that opening facing to the north rather than um straight out to the Gulf um will maximize the resilience uh of your uh BM uh to uh storm surge
and wave action. Um Josh, we can go to the next one. Yeah, thank you. So that first one was the schematic for the uh the high profile and this one is the low profile. Uh as you can see,
we have some sea oats that are one gallon and 4 in. Um those are more mature plants. Uh 2 in is kind of the the minimum size. So we're planting more mature plants. FEMA did give us funding uh as a a mitigation. It gave us extra I
think it was like $200,000 on the north end for those uh more mature plants. And um staff has um gotten funding from FDIM um which will also help uh fund more mature plants plantings on the
non-engineered side of the beach that FEMA does not um did not cover in their category G uh public assistance. Um can you help me understand a couple things? Yes, sir.
Good luck. Um, help me understand the bottom. If we've already put the BMS in place, how do we get that alignment? So, these are plantings. So, you can imagine you're on the top of the burm. Well, but are we looking at basically a burm in
and the bottom one? Well, the burm is about 30 ft wide. Yeah. Toe to toe. These plantings are about 10 feet wide. So, if you're running um I'm I'm just specifically talking about how do we get that opening at an angle like that if it's already been
done? So, the angle is with the plants, not necessarily the burm. The burm is straight. Okay. And we have our plantings coming from the north and going south. And then start planting. All right. Okay. Along
here. And it kind of, you know, the first schematic, so the 10 ft, the 10 ft is in in vegetation there. Yeah. The first, not the burm opening. Yes, sir. And that's the first schematic we had was kind of like here and here. And you can imagine if we kept on doing that, the burm would march out, march
out. So that's why this is kind of tying in to the next property where then again it'll come across and so it'll just keep on those openings. Which brings in mind another would that bottom figure have a chance to capture more sand then um than
the top figure? It is more planned. So in theory yes. Thank you. Are you asking the committee which way to go? No ma'am. I want to make these available to I want to give property owners options. Like I said, they have
the option to if they have a 100 foot property, that 10 five a 10 foot wide gap could be 25 25 feet wide based on the dune management plan. Um, so, you know, this is this is kind of a best case and this is what I want
to offer to property owners, but I want to make clear on record that staff is willing to, you know, talk to them. This is the default. We need to lay out something that's as uniform as possible to get this project done. that if there are customizations that property owners would like to have, I am all ears and
we'll work with them. When will planting begin? Uh we're hoping around July. Um we you know these just got this yesterday from the um our coastal engineer. We have a couple of uh uh tweaks to the tech specs
um to make in the in the in the bid table to make in the in the invitation to bid and we hope to have that out um ASAP. Um so that's a 60-day process where we 30 days to get the bids, you know, another month to get council
approval and uh get the, you know, all the notices and bonding and etc. done. Um, so, you know, within two months we should hopefully have a contractor and then, you know, we're we're planting in the summer. Our permit allows for that.
Um, say hypothetically there was a a turtle nest on the burm where they were going to plant. Um, obviously you're not going to mess with it. Let the turtles hatch and, you know, make their way out. Um, will they go back then and replant where that nest was, or is it just kind of hopefully it'll fill in with the
pre-planted plants? Is there any kind of plan for that? Um, I haven't thought about, you know, we can possibly do change orders to to adjust to that if we need to go back and plant, you know, 60 days after that.
Um, the the if the plantings are are, you know, if there's a nest, you know, you have it's going to be 60 days before it hatches. You know, this project, I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but in theory, you know, there could be if they're still out there, that could be an easy fix. Mhm. Um if they're not,
then a change order should accomplish that. Okay. Or, you know, maybe it's just town staff uh procuring the plants directly and then getting an augur out there and and planting that, you know, relatively small section. Okay. There's options. I'm not I'm not particularly
worried about that. Yeah, I was curious. Chad, I would imagine that you're going to present this to the count town council, this planting, or would you like We do have it on our our website and uh You want to see this in a town council
meeting or you have enough to look at what I can do. Chad, whatever you whatever you need to make it happen. Yeah, I think I mean I'm I'm looking for basically Murf support um Okay. in this dune planting plan. Um, I think it's important to have community support with what we're doing and and that's what I'm
looking for. And and we want to reach out let the let the residents and property owners know that they can reach out and discuss the options available. Yep. on the planting that this is this is one of the options or you've listed
the options you know and right you know make it make it clear to them that it's not this is what you have to do absolutely yeah I mean like I said we've uh yesterday uh Bill Perry uh organized the northern uh eststerero island condos
and we went through it with them felt good about that we've already had discussions with the 7000 and 8000 blocks Um the, you know, all the single family homes in between are a little bit more difficult, but I've already had single family homes, you know, they they've gotten the word and said, "Hey, Chad, I
want my path here." Um, so that's that's already happening and and will continue to happen. Yes, sir. And we'll get with uh Nicole that's been posted and and get a a public service announcement out to uh let people know, hey, take a look at it. contact me if you have any concerns
or uh just want to uh understand it more. Okay. I'm assuming that the gaps in the line I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Okay. I wasn't at the meeting that you're talking about for 8300 and I don't understand it at all. I would like to
know if the dune planting is out at the water side at the side of the at the at the beach side or is it closer to the building? So it would be on your on the burm that's out there. That will be our dune planting. Yes, ma'am. On our burm.
Yes, ma'am. That doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't. Have you looked at it? Yes, ma'am. It doesn't It does not even a foot high. It was so high. Right. And and it protected us so much during Milton. We had no sand on our whole
property or on the road in front of us. None. And now it's gone. And I'm pretty it is I think Bill Perry took it down at at the at two people on the board's recommendation. I think I I see the elevation out there. You have to remember that that beach has
been brought up. You know, it was scoured out and then we put sand uh you know tens of thousands of cubic yards. Yeah. Out there. So that beach was brought up to you know around four. Okay. Uh NABD. So you know that burm that was looked like at the Himalayas
whenever there was no sand out in the beach and then when you bring up the sand around it it does look relatively low and that's you know if you think about you know whenever we put that emergency burm right after Ian it looked like you know it was the only thing on the beach because it was because the rest of the beach was at sea level but now that the rest of that beach is
filled in you know it it you know it's okay nobody's really worried about it like people were worried about the Himalayas coming up in front of their property. So, our burm will be our burm will be planted with these plantings. Yes, ma'am. Profile ping. It will be planted. Okay. The burm. That's the
intention. And I can talk to your your HOA and if there's any concerns, we can work work through those. Okay. So, Chad, um, what is the height of the burm compared to the high water mark of the Gulf? Right. So, um, mean high water is
about 0.3 feet in AVD, and the burm in its original construction was about 6.2 ft across most of the island, more or less, that burm has been uh overwashed several times. Um, however, where, you know, ATNA, our our dredge contractor
for rebuilding the beach was kind enough to rebuild that burm where they could um before Helena Milton um that got overwashed again. But we then made uh use of the uh sand debris, screened that
sand, and rebuilt the burm where we could again. And so that burm has been rebuilt like two even three times in some areas. But it's no longer I wouldn't between mother nature and you know whenever we were whenever we were
doing the um the sand debris it wasn't necessarily an engineered burn where we went out and did it. We just we had the old alignment and went in that and went into that old alignment that we had before. Um, so what would you guess the BM's going
to be at finish grade uh today when it's finished? Is it going to be six or is it going to be somewhat less than that? I would say it would be somewhat less than that in most spots. I mean, mother nature has, you know, overwashed it, blown it, etc. And there's some spots
where there's no burm right now. And the intent of the burm is to stop or slow it down the water. Right. Absolutely. Okay. And over time that burm should grow because of drifting sand hitting that that uh grass area. Right. Yes sir. Okay. I just want to make sure. How did
you come to the conclusion of the actual plants that were chosen? Uh it was based on Keith uh Lackinan's uh doing management plan that he had back in uh early 2010 2011. Sorry Mr. the uh just to to add on to
that, the Burman area is probably about a foot lower than it was originally and but it's still pretty I mean it's still intact and it's still still good. Um the gaps in the vegetation on the maps are those property owners have have
specifically said they don't want any vegetation on the property. Yes, there are places that did not send their easements and therefore are there are there any in the are there property owners, single family or or condos that
that have declined the vegetation in the seven and 8,000 block. No sir, you've done a great job at getting me a lot of easements and getting those available. I just want to make sure if there were, I would reach out to them and explain it to them. Yeah, we can look at it later and if there's any issues, we can I know
a few of the folks in this in the 6,000 block, too, but I don't know if I don't know if they're around. We have one one guy right here. Well, sitting here. Yeah. This is u funded by FEMA still right because of uh the funding is uh
complicated. So FEMA did pay for uh they will be paying for the vegetation on the previously engineered beach which is from Baldage to uh Crescent Park. Okay. And that's also where they gave us extra money for more mature plants as a form
of mitigation to have more established plantings as soon as possible. Fingers crossed we don't get any overwashes. Um and then on the south end between um the monies that we have from FTE
uh our LGFR local government funding request that we put in every year that includes uh the agreement 23LE1 which is our beach reourishment uh funding for our beach reourishment where uh FDP pays for like 42% TDC pays for
43% and the town pays for 15% would how those uh plantings would be funded as well as FDM gave us money and my understanding is we can use those FDM monies for uh plantings as well uh to complete the beach project. So um we've
been very fortunate in that regard to get funding to get our beach back again. Thank you. Y is there a specific location that Burm has to be located on somebody's property? Uh the recommendation from the coastal engineer is have it closer to the structures
rather than closer to the Gulf because the closer it is to the Gulf, the quicker it would erode. Okay. So the the property owners that aren't participating, what are you doing to try and get them to participate? Um there may be some opportunities, as you know, there's been some property has
been bought and sold. So, um there may be some opportunities with new owners to to chase them out. Um, and we, you know, I've put in previous, uh, announcements to, you know, it's never too late, you know, sign your easement. I did have one
single family property owner, um, he's come around and wants to sign the easement, so it is happening and we're open to it. Um, is that a property that uh, originally declined the Burm? Correct. So, we can go back and and uh
and do the burm in that location along with the plantings. Well, putting the burm back there um is a little more complicated because we're in sea turtle season. You know, we're wrapping up beach operations right now and then we're going to be planting
right now. So, you know, if we're planting and we have um if there's no plantings there and we have monies from the state for, you know, Hurricane Helen Milton recovery like we did for Ian and Nicole. There
may be an opportunity if we get the funding to um reestablish uh the BMS there, get money for sand and reestablish BMS where there's no BMS. But once those plantings are done throughout the island, even where there's no burm right now, we're going to lay out those plantings and
that will naturally accrete sand um in those plantings and reestablish a burm there. Um am I answering your question? Yes. Um, how uh how many properties, if you can remember offhand, um um approve
the approve the BMS and the plantings from Time Square, say to pass Diamond Head? I'd have to I'd have to look at the spreadsheet. Sorry. Come on. It's pretty much on the mantle. Yeah.
Okay. So, should we move a motion to advise town council of our support? I just had one more quick question. I know we're trying to wrap up and I'm sorry. Um, when we were going back through there, I was seeing some of those 10- foot openings really close to like just an edge. I was just trying to understand what the thought process is, not just
having people go around that extra because I feel like a an opening and then a little bit of burm and then a, you know, a big opening where there's not a burm or dune. I'm just wondering like isn't that just going to wash it away and like there's no point to it. But if they just destroy, not destroy
it, but like put a burm in there and planted that 10 foot section and then they can just, you know, if that's a walking path or whatever it may be, just come over that other 10 20 feet. I'm not sure I understand the scenario. Could we go back a couple instead of Hey
Joshy, can we go back a couple slides, please? I'll tell you when. Right there is good. So, like right here would be a good example. I know there's a walking path there, but for lack of a better example where there's not a walking path where there's grass,
there's an opening right there next to a big opening. So, you know, not not this specific scenario because I like I I say, I do see the walking path there, but in some other examples, there wasn't a walking path. It was just open beach where like there's just that teeny
little bit of, you know, soon to be dune there. I just feel like Does that make sense? So you're you're suggesting Sorry, Mr. Go ahead. Every property that's that that's um agreed to the vegetation um is going to have to have
uh their own their own opening because true. They have to have their own I didn't know that. Well, because if they didn't and they walked to where there was a natural opening, they'd be trespassing on other people's properties. Yeah. Okay. And that's what that was going to be my followup. Is that considered trespassing when it's when it's an open beach right in front?
Okay. Okay. And that's my ignorance. Thank you. Seriously. Okay. Okay. So, Chad was asked looking for affirmation from the committee that he could take to the town council. So, is there a motion to
u recommend to the council that we support the plan as presented? I motion that the plan that Chad has as of now with property owners is exceptional or you know acceptable and we we're back. Exceptional is good.
Exceptional exceptional is good. I'll go there. Okay. Is there a second to that? I second it. Okay. And we made seconded. Any further discussion? Yes. My pen back. Okay. Okay. So Chad, is it
possible that we could add more a v more of a variety of uh sand dune plants? Absolutely. So my next I had the ITB to get out. I was trying to combine it and it just was getting too much onto one
uh task so to speak. Next, um I'm going to be putting out a RFP with a big table of uh not only salt tolerant dune vegetation, but uh also Florida friendly trees
um to have basically a uh a go-to for uh vegetation and um get get pricing on those from um you know, nurseries around so that uh we have a a go to for uh
getting additional plants and you know I've included all the dune vegetation that was suggested by the FGCU professor and what I am envisioning and um we can talk about now or talk about later uh is so we have this
initial basic dune management plan um and um we need to get that out as soon as possible and don't complicate it with other things but I would like a phase two where We offer additional uh dune species, you know, grasses, uh
Forbes, you know, flowers, uh you know, sea grapes, um etc. Uh to property owners that want to participate and have additional plantings in their yards and and that's kind of an optional thing. Do you want who wants this? And just put it
out there and have additional plantings. And then also um you know uh with funding hopefully I can get funding add uh canopy as well in our accesses as well as if I can get funding on private you know trees uh uh on private land
being beachfront properties that would like a you know maybe they want to see grape tree or a a sable palm and restore the canopy. Um the accesses would be the first go-to for that. And then I know there's been some interest from condos that would like a nice shade tree. Um,
and you know, the sea grapes and the the sable palms are the the go-to for, you know, having trees out on the beach. Those would need to be behind the dune. Um, just so they don't get overwashed and and get get an anchor, like a root ball anchor on there to uh to mitigate
any hazards that is associated with that. But we're in desperate need of canopy as well. Okay. Fantastic job, by the way. I'm super excited. I grew up in an area where there was lots of sand dunes, dunes with uh native uh plants and I think it's going to really help um
with any future storms. So, thank you. Any further discussion? I have to go because I have an appointment, but I do vote. I do. Okay, I'm calling it right now. All those in favor closing discussion. All those in
favor of the motion on the floor say I. I I oppose. Motion car. I also say I motion carries unanimously. Chad, you could take that. Thank you.
Very good. Okay. Exceptional. So, moving along members items. Um I'd like to talk to uh I guess I've got for
FWC about having a a plan of maybe MURF doing compaction testing out on the beach to make sure that we are all in compliance to compaction.
There has been some issues brought up with the beach raker research that looked at they they feel as though there there is a degree of harassment he has like from the 80s or something that okay and I just want to
do a little bit of investigation into that talk to both of those government agencies and then I'll get back to you but I think the ultimate goal would be you know maybe Murf would u do some
random compaction testing out on the beach. Well, I and and I I understand what you're saying on that. I think we probably need to see a little
uh information on it before we kind of direct people to go out and do it such as Sure. Let me make my conversation. get through to the right people to see right what the requirements are and I think we as a committee can look at it
as soon as we get the information. Okay. Two parts. Yeah. Why don't do a little research and then I'll get back to you. I can help in any way. I think yeah I I I think that's a great idea actually with the controversy that that that just continues on and on about uh um the the
compaction and the and the beach raking that that uh uh uh that's being done. Um if if we had something like that, it would provide a path to just put this to bed and get it behind us.
and and and it wouldn't be a it wouldn't be an area of contention going for going forward. Um I know there there's a lot of people that are tired that are tired of of hearing about it and um and so that would be it would that would be greatly beneficial I think.
Just to add um as a part of our FD permit we will be doing compaction test uh after the project. Now is that repetitive or just a one time shop? I believe it's just a one time shot, but it may be after each tilling event, which we have to do for the next three
years. When you're saying tilling event, it's your beach rapers tilling events. No, no, it'll be our uh the town will need to procure tilling. Uh the ATNA, our marine, our dredging contractor who's building the beach right now will
do it this year um before uh May 1st. So this month um there'll be tilling and then our coastal engineer will do uh comb penetrometer sampling. The coastal
engineer does. Okay. Okay. So maybe we can take advantage of that too. Yeah. Learn how learn how to do it. I'll definitely be um shadowing them and seeing how it's done and find out what what they're looking for more
or less. Yep. Yep. It's just a Yeah, basically just a PSI, how far it penetrates. Um, mainly for me, I just want to let any property owners know, condo owners know, resorts um if they want any type of sea turtle literature, anything like
that, like Jen has out here. Um, just please contact um myself, Jen, turtle time. We want to hook you up with all the information you need. Turtle turtle season officially starts May 1st, but we have had turtles on the island as early as midappril. So, um, have we seen any
yet? Not yet. No, not any official, but I've seen them in the bay on my tours. They're popping their heads up already. So, um, but yeah, just just be aware and I like at uh, Pink Shell, we our turtle season is April 15th just to get in the practice and um, get on on board with
anything. So, we're ready by the first. So, right, that's all. Oh boy. Ready? Okay. So, I guess the first one uh would be that I do um understand that we received a grant uh for 75 royal
palms to go on a stero boulevard. And my concern with those royal palms is that those uh those fronds those palm frrons can weigh up to 50 pounds. And some people on the east side of
Asera Boulevard are concerned that those trees, if we have something to happen, could fall onto their property. Um, I also think that they would be too big um and not really appropriate for a sterile boulevard. Uh, I would recommend maybe
silver buttonwood uh woods, which are classified as as bushes, but they can be trimmed as trees and more shade trees and wouldn't be so um intrusive to Astero Boulevard. And not only that, but
also um you know would cost the town a lot of money to constantly have to you know go out and pick up these large fronds. Um, so my question is would be to Chad is is there somebody that that
is in charge of the grant that may can go back and maybe see if we can change the Royal Palms to something that's more appropriate for a stero. I believe that would be a a policy decision from town council. My current
direction is Royal Palms. So, you don't know somebody who's in charge of asking for that grant that could go back and actually see if we could get something that's better than Royal Palms? I mean, we didn't those Royal Palms didn't even make it in Time Square. They had to be replanted. So,
I'm just I just don't see it as um um a good thing for Ster Boulevard, Royal Palms. Those are very trees. With regards to your question on um who's in charge of the grant, uh I
did the application for the grant and wrote it up and then Jeff Hy is our public works director. So, are you willing to go back and see if we can change it from a royal palm to something that's more um It's not a it's not a
grant restriction per se. It's it's it's it's a that's what was there before and my understanding from the community is that's what uh is being wanting to be replaced. Um if there are
uh property owners along the north of Boulevard that are concerned about it, please have them come and talk to staff. Well, I'm concerned. I'm a I'm a taxpayer and I'm concerned for the for people bicyclists and people that are actually walking on a boulevard or riding their bikes that they get hit by
um one of these fronds. Okay, understood. So, um would you consider you know changing it from a royal palm to a shade tree? I Jennifer,
that's not within our purview. Our purview is to advise the town council. You've made an you've made a statement. He's answered it. If property owners have an issue, they can go to staff and
express their concern. Okay, let's see. The second uh thing would be how is beach reourishment going? Um where is the sand coming from? My understanding is that they've had issues bringing in the sand from the
equipment out in the Gulf and that we're actually trucking in sand and and but I don't know where that sand is coming from. So, we have several mines that are approved on our permit. Um and it's being brought in from several of those mines. Which
mines? Uh, Steuart Mine, Bore Haven. Um, I think Steuart Mine, Emocachi, uh, Vulcan, and I think it's, uh, it's like there's one that starts with a J. It's like, they're all approved. They're all approved mics.
Yeah, they're they're all listed on the permit. They're um, and then also we have an Easter egg hunt at Bayside um, Bay Oaks. Sorry, not Bayside Bay Oaks uh Saturday morning and um Murf was asked to be
there. So, I will be setting up a table if that's all right with everyone. Um and I'll be in a sea turtle outfit. So, thank you, Jennifer. Hopefully, it's not that hot. And then I have uh another event coming up uh with the Anchorage
Committee and that's April 27th and Murf will also be there along with many many other nonprofit and organizations, local organizations. So I hope to see everyone there to support that. And that is it.
Uh just a couple of quick things. Um the um the friends of Littlest Island um is uh in the process of replacing the uh critical wildlife uh information panels uh again uh because they got washed away
during Milton. Um, we also this time are uh donating the time and the materials and we have some volunteers that are con going to be uh constructing the framework and um setting them in the
into the into the sand and um um one of them is done. The other one on the north end is not done. It'll be done Friday or Saturday. Um, and we've u we've u um um taken care of the cost of that. We've covered the cost of it. Um the other
thing is um and I know was I feel like I'm wearing the subject out. You know, here I am. I'm out there on the beach and now now I've got 15 foot tall um Australian pines out on my beach. Um, so I I I
wanted to ask a question of of the committee and and Chad also. Uh, it it seems that that I'm I'm going to have to figure out a way to take this upon myself to get it to get it taken care of. Um, is Chad, is there anything that
would restrict me from taking like surveyor tape and tying surveyor tape on the trunks of the Australian pines u up the up the beach? And then um I reached out to I reached out to beach talk head
yesterday and he hasn't replied. I don't know why yet, but anyway, maybe he's busy. But um he has been pretty handy at putting uh volunteers together. Um they um we could put it we could put some volunteers together for like on a
Saturday and then um cut the trees down uh at the sand level um and make uh piles as we go or whatever. uh public works would have to have to after it's done public work we
would have to rely on public works to come out with their approved uh vehicles and load up all the uh Australian pines that have been cut down. But also uh the root system those will come back up
unless they're killed. So, um, you know, I could go along behind them and and drill a few holes in the in the stump that's left after they're cut and just and put some put some Round Up
on them. Um, but then I was told that uh from someone that they thought that I that it had to be someone that that has a license to use um um herbicides. Has to be someone that's has a license to
use them. So then that's fine. I'll figure out how to reach out to someone that has a license uh that that that way that they're certified to be able to do that and to keep them from coming back up yet again.
Um I I I think it could be a relatively simple process and and not take not take a lot of time, but I have to have um I have to have permission or whatever in order to do these things.
Uh so in the past um when when we've done this uh FWC has restricted us cutting them during bird nesting season. So that's going to be the challenge right now. Um we can wait just in the critical wildlife area or entirely. Um I would be most concerned about the
critical wildlife area. Okay. And we would need FWC's permission to obviously my shoreline is in the critical wildlife area. Yep. But um so it would be something we got to put off until September.
Uh yes. Okay. Well, that being said, then I'll attack it again. I'll bring it up and attack it again after September. I still think we should do a Christmas tree sale. Right. Anything else? No, that's it. Okay, Leo. I just had two
things. Um back when Captain Chris Wittman was here, he's talking about jetties. uh keeping the sand on their beach and stuff. I'd like to at least explore that of whether or not that can be done in the future. Uh he I don't know if you were at the meeting at all, Chad, but um
he talked about having jetties out in the water to keep like down by a federal beach and tennis club. You're putting sand on the beach there, but that point always gets eroded. And if there could be a jetty put out in that area, that could solve that erosion of the beach.
like where we're at Caper Beach, we get a lot of the sand coming from the north end coming down and settling in and making our beach deeper. That happens all the way along the the beach and Chris mentioned that jetties would would solve that problem or at least prevent
it from occurring uh rather rapidly, I guess. So, that was one item. Okay. Second item was in front of uh Caper Beach. It was brought to my attention that the um dock the old dock system that was there. Um we lost two poles in
Ian that came popping out of the ground. One is can they replace those. Two is the contractor pulled up all those posts and cut them off and there's a concern about those popping up during the next storm again.
So let me do the first one first. So the armorament um the permitting is complicated, the cost are substantial and the consequences are um complex and whenever you keep sand in
one place, you're always robbing it from another. And I've talked to uh our coastal engineer about this several times whenever it's brought up. And um it's just the permitting is difficult and um again any kind of armament that you
do it it it significantly changes the way sand is transported across the beach. So it there's a lot more scrutiny on it. Um but I'm I'm happy to explore it. We do have um a report from some years ago
um that did look at the uh basically a feasibility study or economical study on um doing armorament versus doing reourishment. And uh what it found was that um doing
reourishment um as we're doing right now uh had the same benefits as doing armorament but at a fraction of the cost. So as expensive as doing the speeches um arament would cost significantly
more. Okay. One one question I have. Are you aware that uh there is seaw walls on the beach in a lot of different places that are actually buried underneath the the sand? We saw seaw walls that we haven't seen for decades after. I just want to make sure because I was told by
people that have been on the island for quite some time that there's this extensive seaw wall that's buried underneath the beach in a lot of different areas. Yep. And um those personally I feel those retaining walls are very valuable for those properties to keep that sand in in a um
catastrophic event like we had. Um so for your second one, we had discussions with um your property on on you know the you wanted those pilings to stay. I wasn't aware of them cutting any. I did hear
about that. Um but they p they pull them up about two feet and then cut them off. Right. So, but we we so the choices were we bury them and nobody was willing to bury them or we put the sand there and pull them up so that they're still
exposed. Um I apologize to interrupt. Um we actually got to get going. Yeah. No disrespect, Mr. Chairman. Chad, I'm sorry. No worries. Y'all take care. I think the question really is are they going to be able to put them back in? And it, you know, I'm sure they're going
to ask at whose cost because they will pop out on the next storm. So that's the problem. So So all right. I do have one more that I forgot. Um so Asterero Beach uh Asterero uh garden club did um print out this
piece of paper that I handed all of you. I have handed out probably over a hundred of these. They've been super helpful, especially after Ann when people went to replant and they didn't plant things that survived Helen and and Milton. It's a great list of uh trees
and small trees, shrubs, palms, wild flowers, ground covers, cactus, succulents, grasses, and I was hoping that maybe we could get this list on our town u uh website. Yeah, I can discuss that with the town manager. Thank you so much. I appreciate
it. Is the town manager still um um Andy? Yes. Is he still here? Okay. Yes. How long is Royal Palm survived here? What's that? Royal Palm survived here. Look at that. They did. But they also lost a lot of the fronds. And it's a good thing people didn't get hurt from
them. But uh hopefully the town it doesn't become a waste of money putting in those 75 royal palms. And that's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um, in the interest of time and the fact that if we lose one more member, we no longer have a
quorum. Gonna I'm going to pass off this uh staff update. Chad has done a wonderful job. If there's anything else you'd like to add. Uh, so the 8,000 block um the bird nesting uh area has
been posted. Uh my understanding is Brianna along with the help of uh Bill and William Perry uh posted that area uh the other day. Uh Bill brought out his tractor and was hauling equipment out there. So a big thanks to him. Um we are in bird nesting season. So please no
dogs in the CWA. If you want if you do need to walk your dog uh in that area, the uh the runway or the burm that is on the landward side of the lagoon is the place to do that. And please make sure you keep them on the leash. We do have uh our first
Wilson clover nest uh has eggs. So uh you know it's almost Easter so to speak. Um where we well don't say where but do you know where about in the critical wildlife? Yes. Yes. We're I guess we
don't want to announce it. No we'd prefer not to put it out over so it it is it is it is marked and posted. So if you if you frequent that area, I'm sure you'll Okay. So they've already marked it. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Um beach nourishment project. Uh we they secure a
mod to extend it till April 30th and we will be uh done on the south end by April 30th and uh along the central section by uh May 31st. We're working with Turtle Time um to uh relocate nest and uh we continue to uh monitor for
shore shorebird nesting. um uh you know daily uh in accordance with our permit and um plenty I could talk about but we'll leave it there. Okay. Chairman chairman
you'd asked me I think at the last meeting you'd asked me for some type of a a written a written report or something or something along the lines of an article. Yes. What am I supposed to do with that? Um send it to Chad. Send it to Chad.
Yes, sir. And Yeah. And Nicole. And Nicole. Nicole is our public information officer. So if you have it in an if you have it on your computer or your phone. Oh, send
it electronically. Yes, that's the best. If you want to give me a copy, I'd love to read it ahead of time, but that's okay. Well, I made a copy for everyone. I didn't know what I didn't know. Okay. I didn't know what was expected, so I came prepared. Who's next on on the
article? I am to do turtle time. Okay. Or turtle season. Yes, you are. I will get that to Chad. I have family coming in, so I'll get it in the next week or two. Very good. All right. Um, did you want a copy of that? Yes, please. Okay.
One more. All right. Uh, public comment. Anything just one thing for Chad. Please you got it for the record again. Michael Thornton 21541 Madira Road. Uh
the renderings that you showed of the canal depth, are those available? If they're not on the website, I'll make sure they are. And which website? The town website. Town website. Yes, sir. And if um if you want to email me, my email is cha. I I think I've got it.
Okay. Yeah. send me an email and I'll I'll make sure we get you a copy as well. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any more public comment? Seeing no more public comment is closed. Okay. Murf award. Any nominations? You had one in
the bank. I did. I can't remember now. There was the artist with the library um who did the wraparound um when you enter which is a seascape and
she originally did. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Motion made for the MURF award to be the artist for the library. Okay. I'll second that. All
those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Would you write that up and send? Yeah, I have pictures and whole interview from her. Excellent. All right. Agenda for next meeting. Couple of things taking from
um what Mr. um Mr. Root said. And I think we ought to have a little bit of discussion as far as recommending to the town what if
we can get some kind of special permit, do not pass go, do not collect 200 that would enable someone to go on the beach and remove Hungarian pines in short order. not not in turtle or bird season,
but something that says here's an invasive species permit that allows you to go on the beach and I'd like to have some discussion on that on the MUR panel so that we can recommend something to the town. What do you got against it? Hungarian pipe. Well, whatever.
Australian pipes. Sorry. Australian pipes. And I have nothing against Australia, so I want to be clear on that. But I I don't care for their trees, but I think they're invasive. They're all over They're all over the island. Quite a few on the beach. And I think if we had a a special permit
that'll let you go down and apply for it to put a vehicle on the beach to remove them because you can pull them out if you have the right vehicle on the beach like a tractor or so on so forth, and get all the root balls and everything, especially after a rain. So, there's a
lot of Good one. And I think that would help, but we can discuss it. That's just one of the things I want to put on the agenda for next meeting. Anybody when they're small, you can actually just pull them up out of the sink because I've done it several times and just throw them down the ground. Discussion next. For
discussion next time. I don't want to get into it now. Right. Okay. Anybody else have something? I would like to see a follow up on the planting just so we can go through and just on the next agenda.
Yeah. Yes, sir. I would also like to keep on the agenda just um updates on how the beach nourishment's going. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. With that Oh, and um sorry, I I apologize.
And an update on how it's going with the dune with the dunes, the dune plantings. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Okay. All right. I'll get that out. With that, we've reached the end. I will accept a motion for You need to set your
next meeting date. Oh, next meeting date. That's right. Um we have some conflicts going up. So, I asked um Amy when what dates were available and we have May 1st, May 2nd, and May
9th. Sharon said Fridays are a bad day, which is May 2nd and May 9th. Um, so I would say that uh I I would prefer May 1st if we could do it.
Um, which gives us a full 30 days and then we can go into June, but uh that's my recommendation. Does anyone have a problem with May 1st? I'm fine with it. I may be late. I have a meeting that morning. I
don't know yet. So, no thanks said it. All right. So, let's set it for May 1st and I'll advise Amy or Chad Cam and uh that will be our next
meeting. I have I have a quick question. If you come in late, does that um is that considered a you get a double demerit? Frap. That it it only it it's only a problem
if we don't have a quorum for the for the meeting. If we have a quorum and you come in late, you don't get double detention stars or something. Okay. It it it only is a fact. Okay.
So, got that squared away. I will accept a motion to adjurnn the meeting. So, move. Second. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. the post.