the Tuesday March 25th 2025 regular Board of County Commissioners meeting will now be called to order we'll begin with a moment of silence reflection for the first responders and members of the armed forces followed by an invocation by none other than the
deacon Wilfford Hart from the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church it will be followed by the pledge of allegiance led by Sheriff Daryl Law let's pray lord whatever you're doing in
this season don't do it without us lord we need a blessing and only you can give the way that it should be given we also Lord ask for a covering over our leadership team in this
building and wherever else they might be father God I know it might be out of order but I want to say a special prayer for our superintendent of schools today that Father God you have given him a task like no other person in this state
of Florida lord you know what his heart desire is and we going to pray that you keep a hedge of protection over him that no weapons formed against him shall prosper father God we pray for our other leaders Father God that they be led by
the Holy Spirit to do the will of the Lord not their will but your will be done and so Lord we just ask for a constant blessing for our county and then Lord move those out of positions that don't belong in them and put the right folks in these positions Father
God so that our county will grow and it will prosper and it will be all about the name of Jesus and we pray this prayer and every heart that love the Lord will say amen good morning please join me in the
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 next item on the agenda is the any
additions deletions to the agenda emergency items mr chair move the agenda as approval as written yes second sorry we have a motion and a second any further
discussion all in favor i opposed motion carries unanimously off to a great start and it gets even better because I have the uh the privilege and honor of presenting a
proclamation to a very special guy um he's used to receiving proclamations um he could probably lower the budget for the uh the school district by
utilizing the proclamations as wall covering and uh I I say that because I I think his superlative would be most likely to be proclaimed so without further ado I'd like to call Dr david
Moore up to the podium not your entire entourage just you for now i know i know it takes it takes a team well we have the privilege and honor of uh presenting this proclamation to Dr
david K moore for outstanding leadership and achievement in education whereas we are proudly recognized Dr david K moore for his exceptional leadership culminating in his selection as the
2025 Florida Superintendent of the Year a 2025 National Superintendent of the Year finalist and a 2024 Consortium of Florida Education Foundation also known as
CF we're known for our acronisms star Superintendent whereas under Dr war's leadership the Indian River County School District has achieved unprecedented academic growth rising
from 38th to 9inth place in the state rankings and the students consistently outperforming state assessment average by 95% of the schools earning a grade in 2023 2024 school
year whereas Dr mo's commitment to student success has resulted in a 96% high school graduation rate ranking fourth in Florida while his sound fiscal management has transformed the
district's financial health yielding $4.5 million in cost-saving and securing critical resources for educators and students and whereas through strategic decisions he has strengthened the
instructional quality and established the district's first direct support organization ensuring the sustained community investment in education whereas Dr moore's visionary leadership and
dedication to educational excellence have earned national recognition inspiring positive change in our county and setting a standard of success for districts across Florida and beyond now therefore be it proclaimed by
the board of county commissioners of any river county Florida that we recognize Dr moore's transformation transformative impact on the public education and express our gratitude for his unwavering
commitment to excellence duly adopted this 25th day of March and it is signed by all five county commissioners dr moore thank you thank you [Applause]
so I I will be brief but I cannot thank uh each and every single commissioner for your support uh and the reality is when we we being me and my wife came here five years ago it was really to put a stake in the ground and say in getting to know Indian River County we shouldn't
be 38th of 67 districts we should be number one that every single school in this district should be an A and those are bold and courageous statements I was accused of overpromising but through partnership through hard work putting
children at the forefront of every decision that we have made over the last five years we have seen drastic improvements and the reality is we're we're not done we are in the final stretch for for this year we think ninth is great we celebrate being in the top
10 but we anticipate uh continuing to move up the ranks and creating a system in which every single family in any river county has to have the conversation every single school in this district is a choice which school uniquely fits the interest of my son or
my daughter as a school system uh under the leadership of our board Doc Jones is here our chair Terry Baronborg is here hope I don't miss anybody else um but we're creating a new strategic plan and as we conclude the first strategic plan
which closes this my first five years it really was to stabilize the system improve the quality of instruction which propels us up the ranks uh in terms of state but now we need to reform the the complete student experience making sure
every single family uh understands what is unique about every single school because they understand what is unique about their child and then make that match so we are looking to reinvent what public education looks like we embrace choice five years ago and we will continue to be innovative we will
continue to explore new ways in order to ensure every child has that option so cannot thank you enough cannot thank my team enough and I cannot thank you uh your continued uh support your generosity and ensuring that we have programming across the board this is not something that Dr moore did this is
something our community has done uh we have all rallied together to support our children um so I'll accept the proclamation i'll I'll put it up with all the others this will be the one in the middle though um but it's everyone's proclamation because ultimately no one
person can do what Indian River County is doing thank you uh I just want to say I I believe it was about five years ago we met and uh we met it was a dark and gloomy afternoon but we were inside of the school
district and you spoke non-stop for two hours and that was the intro well they said I had to out outlast you so it was I think you've succeeded and I'll tell
you what I only hope to be able to cash the checks that you you wrote because you have cashed the check that you wrote that day i I I heard it uh everyone was talking about "Wow this guy can talk and
it was in a favorable manner but you delivered a lot of commitment and over these past five years we've seen your commitment come into play." Yes it does take a team but it takes great leadership we're very fortunate to have
you in this Indie River County running the school district thank you thank you thank you very much thank you you want to bring your team i mean I I know the under a few have brought brought themselves
into the receiving end thank you good morning thank you again the next item is a presentation of proclamation designating April 6th through the 12th 2025 as National Crime
Victims Rights Week and we'll have uh Vice Chairman Law present thank you Mr chair i think uh I saw Lori Lori Saputoo in the audience if she'd like to come up uh and I will tell the audience that
when we talk about victim's rights and victim's rights weeks and victims advocates and the like uh I can tell you personally that um not only Lori and I see Captain Parti and the others from
the state attorney's office u they are certainly lifesavers uh Harriet when it when it comes to different situations involving crimes and the like and we could not do the job without them so I say thank you it's an honor Mr chair for me to read this
proclamation designating April 6th through April 12th as the 2025 National Crime Victims Rights Week whereas crime affects individuals families and communities in profound and varied ways often leaving lasting physical emotional
and social challenges whereas the concept of kinship underscores the connection that builds bridges to support services and shared strength among survivors advocates and communities paul come on down whereas kinship and the foundation of victim
advoc advocacy inspiring traumainformed care that meets survivors where they are whereas through the kinship we build peer networks and community alliances that empower survivors foster resilience and often
pathways to healing now therefore be it proclaimed by the board of county commissioners of Indian River County Florida we recognize April 6th through the 12th as National Crime Victim's Rights Week and reaffirm our dedication of building connections standing in kinship with survivors and creating a
future where healing and hope within reach each and everyone adopted this 25th day of March and signed by all five county commissioners welcome team and uh again Mr chair I I I
look at the group of of uh fine individuals here and know and I know that uh Mr herman and yourself know um it's hard to explain but when you have a situation or a scene we all may feel
like we have this shield uh but deep down we're waiting for the victim's advocates to arrive to the scene to be quite frank with you many days yeah and for that I thank you each and every one of you well thank you for commissioners i
appreciate this uh annual ceremony that we have um I'm struck by the uh commitment that the Indian River County Police Departments and their diligence with uh their proactive approach to uh getting
drunk drivers off the road uh 17 years ago we uh we started this victim impact panel along with Mrs tro who started it first but uh over the 17 years we've seen over 5,000 people that we briefed
on the dangers of drunk driving and I've just uh I read recently a report by the Florida Department of Highway Safety Motor Vehicles that Indian River County had zero fatalities in 2024 due to the diligence of uh these people
behind me um and the law enforcement agencies and also the coalition so we appreciate seeing uh this culminating in such a good good event and the lives that were saved by these people so thank you so much and uh want to invite each
and every one of you to the April 5th ceremony we'll have a special guest there uh Mrs andrews mrs andrews she's the mother of uh Miss Duvet who uh suffered a terrible event
back years ago she will be our keynote speaker so uh I hope all you can can go can come April 5th at 9:30 at Memorial Island uh it's a short short ceremony but uh we'll have a nice uh presentation
by Mrs andrews uh thank you so much Senior County uh uh police department has been sheriff's office has been great in helping us put this ceremony together we would not be able to do it without them
um director of victim services for the 19th judicial circuit is here she's my right arm and my left arm is uh police department as well as u Julie so um they're they're app I I
appreciate the help so much from the 19th Judicial Circuit so they'll be there as well so thank you so much i I also just want to thank you on behalf of the state attorney's office and um the sexual assault assistance program um for being so supportive of
the victim services unit and you know allowing us to provide these services for all of Indian River County and also the sheriff's office who is an amazing partner um in working together to get help for victims all through out the year
uh I want to start with saying thank you to recognizing this week and this group special thank you to our advocates and all those that work in the victim's rights uh Sheriff Lur you said it best when you said that we couldn't do it without them you know as a as an as investigator former investigator when
we're out on the scene and we're working we're we're focused on collecting finding evidence and and solving the crime that that we're out there on and sometimes uh you know sometimes the victim isn't in our forethought so having these victims advocates with us is incredibly important to make sure
they're getting the their needs are met and the services that they need are being reached so just want to say a special thank you to uh all the advocates to do that job all right come on up guys [Applause]
one more time for this [Applause] crowd next item is a presentation by Debbie Padnock from the Bureau of Beach be kind on youth kindness day
good morning do I turn it up technical thank you well good morning and thank you um chairman and commissioners for inviting me to speak on behalf of this grassroots
messaging campaign bureau beach kind and our current youth projects 2025 so a little bit of history um we began a little over two years ago when anti-semitic literature was dropped
throughout Vero Beach neighborhoods and we had individual responses but Rabbi Michael Burnernholtz of Temple Beth Shalom called our community to have a community response to say hate is not welcome here so he
gathered concerned citizens faith leaders organizational leaders and we met for over six months to discuss how we could come up with a community response and while we were meeting we listened and learned
from each other we learned what it was like to live as a marginalized or minority in this community we appreciated that differences could be appreciated and our strength was in our
unity so out of this the Vero Beach kind campaign was born we wanted to include practical steps of how each of us can take our message of kindness outward so these are reminders and
values that we may all intend to practice but when we're under stress or feel threatened or defensive we can forget so this campaign asked us to remember we stand united in support for
kindness in our community we speak up against hate and we listen and learn from each other and this response to hate transcends political and partisan and
religious beliefs together we are stronger so the campaign has been wellreceived it's not another organization or group because we have so many wonderful
organizations and groups here in Indian River County it's just a campaign a reminder so we were here a little over a year ago receiving a proclamation and we were at the city
council on October 8th of this past year where they proclaimed it bureau beach kind day we've invite been invited to the school board and there was a feature article in Bureau Beach magazine so this campaign energizes
people and we wanted to expand that and include young people in Indian River County so therefore this year we have planned youth kindness projects between January 13th and April
5th of this year various schools community organizations groups have been doing kindness projects and they will all be celebrated together in an event at the environmental learning center on
April uh 6 so one of the projects for instance we turned to the school system and Dr moore's advisory council came up with youthoriented messages for new t-shirts
so if you've noticed we have messages on the back of our t-shirts that we adults came up with we wanted something that resonated with young people so we asked them to come up with it and they came up with three but there
was a tie for number three so we took that to the Bureau Beach Rowing Club and they debated and conducted a survey and they came up with the third one so we have the winners kindness is strength not weakness share kindness and it will
find its way back to you and the winning third one don't wait for others to be kind lead by example so we have ordered new t-shirts and through generous donors we'll be able to give 50 away to the first 50 who come to
our celebration at the Environmental Learning Center which is on April 6 they've very generously turned their campus over to us for the celebration we'll have some musical performances
demonstrations of our uh projects and just a day to come out and enjoy a beautiful campus in Indian River County with family so everyone is welcome admission is free that day and the whole
idea behind this the whole motivation is to show young people it's not just your church it's not just your school your group that cares about kindness this is a communitywide effort so together we
can show them that we are stronger thank you thank you thanks great job thank you very much thank you next item is a presentation of District
19 new medical examiner facility by Scotty Below good morning chair and commissioners my name is Scotty Belaloo i'm the construction manager over at St lucy County Facilities i want to first thank each of you to give us a list little bit of time so we can um run through a presentation and give you an
update on the medical examiner facility um we're not asking anything of the board feel free to stop us at any time and let us know if you have any questions so I'm going to turn it over to Johnny he's actually going to run through the slides we want to be respectful of your time good morning and uh thank you again
for the opportunity to to present to you this morning um as Scotty mentioned today's just kind of an update for you but yes feel free to stop and ask any kind of questions you may have um that's no problem at all so real quick um we're going to talk a little bit about the scope of work of the project just a
little bit about what medical examiner uh design really means and what it what it's about project uh location give you a quick example of the floor plans i will be quick Mr administrator i promise I could spend two hours going over the floor plans i won't do that to you um
and take a look at what the project looks like and talk a little bit about some next steps okay uh my name is Johnny Lauram i'm with JL2 Architecture we don't need to go into the details of this we were selected for the project we're so grateful and thankful and blessed to be a part of it um like to thank all of the entities that are a
part of this project and and thank you so much um we do have um a national pathology architecture partner that is a part of this project this is what they do they've done more than uh 50 medical examiners projects all over the the state or all over the country and more
than half of them uh in the state of Florida they were a part of so we do have a team of expertise that know how to do these facilities local experience uh to date myself a little bit I have u significant experience in my past working in this area um and again to
date myself I was the project architect for your Storm Grove Middle School um a long time ago and even longer I was a very young intern working on this complex when I uh was working here in the area a long time ago and more currently my firm now is currently
working on the new um uh sheriff's administration facility for uh for Indian River County Sheriff so appreciate the opportunity um we've done over 300 plus public safety facilities this is what we do we do consider medical examiner facilities public safety and we do consider them essential
facilities because they have to survive the storms and they have to handle uh the same thing that other other types of facilities of this nature do um we're part of the project from the beginning to the end um through the construction there's a bit of the scope of services on the right um won't go through the list of it but it was basically a
turnkey operation as far as what what our team provided um for those of that that don't know this is a partnership right between the the medical examiners St lucy County Martin County Okachobee County and of course uh Indian River County yourselves um when we're looking
at medical examiners facilities probably the number one important thing is to give you a facility that's name accredited and that's the organization that um gives the accreditation to these type of facilities and the things that we're thinking about are things like odor mitigation
flexibility natural light adaptability containment sight lines public and staff safety so um again I could speak way too way longer than what you really want to hear about these type of works so um here's just some quick uh imagery of
again not what this facility looks like but some potential of the type of spaces that would be in the facility obviously you have morg space um this field facility is more than just a morg right so there's administrative components to it um and h and how we how we uh provide
space for the administrators and the staff that are going to be serving here uh along with the doctors and the lab space um how we're controlling how the deedants come and go through the sallyport and enter and exit the facility in a private secure manner
technology is important this is an example of a new piece of technology not new piece of technology but it will be new for this facility called a low doc machine it's a full body scanner um it it really is um kind of state-of-the-art and something that's going to help them do their job better and more efficiently
um viewing locations um above and beyond that there's also a location in the facility so that um families can come and breathe in a family room that's up front and everything can be done through video instead of like we all see in the movies and on TV going and looking at
the actual you know autopsy itself but we do need to have this capability for investigators and such to to have visibility of what's going on in the lab and yes to pontificate just a little bit I am an architect i have to do that right we don't we don't look at these
facilities as a giant morg right we look at it as kind of a facility that allows the community to help bereieve right and that's kind of the the the essence of what this quote is so really we feel that empathy and kind of understanding of the community and how to help the community bereieve is really the core
essence of a project like this we sent spent a significant amount of time with Dr veronica the medical examiner the chief medical examiner and her staff and Scotty and facilities and maintenance and um a lot of time up front figuring out how they work what how their operations are and uh really
understanding the needs so this is the end of the programming document we looked at numbers for uh 20 years and 30 years out we do not want to design a facility that the second you move in you're already oversized and ultimately came to a conclusion that you needed
about a 25,000 square foot facility facility is located on the Indian River uh State College campus um right adjacent to the public safety facility uh training center that's there um it is on a piece of property that St
lucy County uh leases for a dollar a year I believe is that correct Scotty yeah it's a dollar a year for a 40-year lease and we have a renewable of 40 years so kind kind of a no-brainer as far as the location um now that does mean that we did have to work with the
college on what the facility looked like and their standards and things of that nature um this is the site plan and some of the things that we think about with this site planning is it has to be a civic facility but it has to while being inviting to the public um we also has to
have to provide a secure um and safe manner again like I mentioned for the funeral homes and the deedants to come and grow come and go privately through the facility so site screening and controlled access is important where the where public park and where the staff
park safe uh safely um and how traffic flows through the site that's important in separating the public separating the trucks that come and go the vehicles that come and go and then um one thing that just came to a forefront over the last several years especially with COVID and things like that is mass disaster
preparation so there is accommodations on the site um for when there are an activation event or a mass disaster event that we are accommodating additional plugins additional site locations for for refrigerated trucks and things of that nature um so that we
don't have a situation where that can't be accommodated for in in a larger situation here's a kind of a site aerial uh view of the um entire site you can see staff parking up front or in the back public parking up front the facility is
surrounded by a secure a secure fence with controlled access this is the project floor plan um depending on what color is coming up on your screen the kind of the the yellow greenish area is what we would consider the administrative component of the
facility with the back area is kind of that blue purple area being the lab space the morg space the refrigeration and the gray space being the uh mechanical systems right so this is a fully redundant N plus1 facility that means that if a chiller goes down or a
generator goes down there's backups to those systems um because it's imperative that this facility can run for uh self- sustaining for multiple days um and can withstand uh it's survival facility uh so it can withstand hurricanes and tornadoes tornadoes and things of that
nature um about the overall design you know medical examiner facilities uh a long time ago were designed uh for this contaminant and odor control and other things that you have to accomplish and to do that you would have a lab space
and you'd have an administrative space and it'd be connected with an outdoor walkway that's not fun cost-effective nor very good facility for the state of Florida or in this Florida environment so the facility is divided by this corridor this white that white corridor right down there and the systems for the
lab are separate than the systems for the administrative space and that helps with this contaminant um control and really when you walk into this facility on the administrative portion you you never know you're in a lab space taking a look at some of the
finishes we've added these uh multiple options for finishes ultimately um the facility finishes they need to be maintenance friendly they need to be uh some of them centered around the AA requirements health and safety standards um the facility um that picture in the
upper right is an example of another facility that we've worked on but that it gives you a good idea of kind of what the lab space would look like the colors that we've chosen the materials that we've chosen um and uh we'll move forward with with this base option as we
move into the construction documents um here's a shot coming uh along the street level of the facility facility is very simple in design other than the front door the the thought process was be cost-ffective with taxpayers dollars this is a tilt wall facility if anybody's familiar with how that works
tilt walls formed on the ground and and it's all tilted up and literally over the weekend you'll have a building standing so it's clad in materials that are appropriate for the Indian River State College design guideline requirements such as uh brick and metal panel um you can see here's another shot
of that that front entry so again it's meant to be more of a civic front entry welcoming to the public here's another view of that and then kind of a night shot okay some next steps 100%
construction documents were completed on February 5th and re and uh submitted to all of the entities um basically the way this process has worked is at every single milestone all five of the entities have had a 30-day review period and have had involvement and
opportunities to uh be involved in the project to make comments to be a part of the meetings i believe we're through that 30-day process finally on these 100% documents um we have submitted to the building department um received a few comments it's being permitted through uh Indian River State College
and um those comments will be addressed shortly and we'll be ready to go out uh for RFB for the construction uh this is a very unique project and you it will be a hard bid project however the county is going to pre-qualify so they're going to
select um a handful of contractors that are familiar with constructing this type of facility pre-qualify them and then those contractors will be allowed to submit uh bids that were out on the street for 45 days whatever the the state requirement is um that process is
ongoing as we speak as far as preparing that RFP um I don't know the exact dates of when all this is going to happen but um as far as construction is concerned when it does kick off we do see this as a 14 to 16month construction build um
and we believe everything's going to be very successful and it's going to be a really nice facility for all five of the entities involved thank you again uh for your time i hope I hit my 10-minute mark but we we greatly appreciate it and again are blessed to be a part of this thank you so much
i also wanted to say that Dr veronica was sorry she couldn't be here in person she's very very busy at the moment and she wanted to you know send her apologies for that well thank you for the presentation a few of us have spent ample time
at morg this morg the morgs and I'll tell you what it's always uh regardless it even it's not family it's it's always unsettling so I just want to say that uh
and a lot of us in the room will be there we just won't know it but for the living that are going and having to respond to that uncomfortable moment I like uh very much that you have a reception area correct a a a an
environment that will ease some of the difficulties in having to work with it other than standing in that stainless steel environment it's uh it's always a tough time and uh
I I like the approach and the materials and moving forward I I think we have a a great a great plan and I want to thank you for uh developing it in the manner you did thank you very much Mr chairman
thank you uh this was one of my first committees that uh I was assigned I think by you actually when you were chairman and what was so unique about this was not only the the subject matter that we had to discuss but it was
reference to we really needed a facility really bad the the facility that the medical examiner is currently in down at the college was not good at all that's all I can say i don't know how they functioned and and and and kept things going like they did
but they're they're to be uh thanked for that but what was unique about this was we put together a committee of all of all of all our counties Okachobee Martin St lucy and any river and we all met and we all were on a mission of course nobody wanted to pay you know it was an
expensive item we knew it was going to happen but we had to we had no choice so we made we made the best out of a bad situation we all pulled together we all came up with an idea we all came up with the idea that that we would all have an input but yet being that was in St lucy
County and on St lucy County and college property it it was best to let Scotty's office to head this up and and and move this through that put an extra burden on them with all the stuff they have going but they've risen to the occasion and and done a done a great job with this so
as uh my my I guess my final point was all the counties pulled together and made this happen without really any difficulty whatsoever or no argument or anything like that i mean we all fussed over the money and but but in the end we we all find a way to come up with it and
make this happen so uh Scott I appreciate what what you and St lucy County our friends down there are doing to make this happen and appreciate your work and it was uh I'm glad to see it coming to fruition finally it's awesome thank you thank you for your kind words all right
thank you well next item is a little little exciting uh it's a United Way announcement for the Jackie Robinson celebration game that's right number 42
will be celebrated here in Iny River County and baseball is back baseball is in the air mr chairman thank you very much michael Zto deputy county administrator uh I have in chambers today a few people that I'm just so
grateful to work with and um partnering uh for this event it's going to be wonderful it's going to be April 15th i'm going to let Meredith tell you about it um but it's been five years since we've been able to put something like this together and we're just so excited about
it let me just start with a quote from our friend James Errol Jones since it's March and we're getting ready to opening day is around the corner baseball baseball it's been erased like a blackboard it's been built and erased again but baseball has marked
the time this field this game it's part of our past Ray and that's the way I feel about the Jackie Robinson game homeman Stadium is part of our past it's now part of our future with our agreement with Major
League Baseball and I'm just delighted to be here and introduce Meredith Egan and Rael Madreal from United Way and Major League Baseball thank you Mike thank you commissioners good morning Mayor De Vegan United Way
um thank you for your time today usually I'm standing before you with a complicated request um so it's a pleasure to be here this morning with something much simpler a genuine heartfelt thank you um as you've heard the beloved Jackie Robinson Celebration Game is back after several years this
cherished tradition is returning to Holman Stadium at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex on Tuesday April 15 2025 Jackie Robinson Day as it is celebrated across Major League Baseball we are thrilled to be hosting this exciting matchup between the Clearwater
Threshers and the Palm Beach Cardinals bringing the thrill of the game back to our community so the event yes is hosted by United Way of Indian River County in partnership with Major League Baseball and the Jackie Robinson Training Complex it's more than just baseball it
celebrates Jackie's enduring legacy it unites our community and raises critical funds to support United Way's 48 programs serving Indian River County with one in four residents benefiting from these programs this game plays a vital role in helping us meet the needs
of our neighbors we hope you will join us for this special evening gates open at 5:00 pm with an inspiring opening ceremony around 6 pm followed by the first pitch at 6:42 p.m uh the Jackie Robinson Celebration Game began in 2014
as an annual tradition to honor Jackie's historic impact on sports and society on April 15th 1947 he shattered baseball's color barrier by making his major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers right here in Indian River County holman Stadium played a pivotal role in his
story serving as the first integrated spring training facility in the South this game is a testament to the power of the the power that sports has to inspire connect and bring people together for a shared purpose commissioners we are deeply grateful for your support in
making this event possible and for bringing baseball back to our community in a way that al also strengthens United Way's mission thank you for being part of this celebration and for all you to support do to support our neighbors here in Indian River County we hope to see you at the [Music]
ballpark good morning everyone and I just want to say on behalf of Major League Baseball I cannot thank you enough for believing in the vision of the facility when you gave us the opportunity to take over the operation 6 years ago we have done tremendous things together and that's because of the
partnership with Indian River County it took us many years to bring this game back in the capacity that we wanted to it's always been the goal but we had to put in the hard work together to get there we've been through many waves of facility improvements since 2019 many of
which were at home in Stadium and we are super proud to be able to show that off together with you on April 15th and I want to thank the United Way because this would not be possible without their partnership and their volunteers and their level of commitment to make this a while for our community so I hope to see
you out there on April 15th we can't wait to show it off and it's going to be a great day in Indian River County thank you [Applause] well this is very exciting and we we we
just appreciate that the game is back again we could not uh overcome the the post the COVID lag and then the the inability to be able to get the teams
together so quickly so we did lose a few years but the game is back and I think the excitement is back and I How many can we hold there 6,000 250 and I I I think traditionally we've
been able to have a tenants of a bare minimum of twothirds of that i think it's a sellout this year i think that people are excited that we're going to have that big game i'd like everybody to
enjoy the the great the great stadium that we have and the fact that Major League Baseball has formed this into back into the arena that the citizens deserve but more importantly we're going
to see a real game thank you thank you did Did you have something you have sure Curtis Carpenter from the board Captain Ross Parti from the board United Way it's just amazing work they do above
and beyond this event so thank you we have to take the picture they're going to put it on the Tron at the game thank you again thank you label all right next item is uh a regular meeting of January 24 January
14th that will be the approval of the minutes with approval and we have a motion by Commissioner Adams seconded by Vice Chairman Law is there anything further discussed all in favor opposed motion carried unanimously
we'll move on to uhformational items that uh do not require action but uh uh this this first one does require a little bit of action on our public uh it is water conservation month uh April is
traditionally a a drier month uh so we wanted the folks to be aware of how precious that resource is and just as a reminder to conserve as we're irrigating and as we're using and changing in the
pools and uh just conserve the water where you can because it is not only precious it's very costly i understand you pay the bill but it's very costly to get that precious resource and sometimes it's very limited so just as a gentle
reminder um and we have uh two items here that uh well I I do see that uh our clerk of the court the Honorable Ryan Butler is here
so we have uh an announcement that uh he's received some recognition and in addition we have Operation Green Light so if I can call upon our clerk of the court to just talk for
a few minutes about this good morning thank you Mr chairman commissioners uh let me start with Operation Greenlight uh this is the the other Operation Greenlight you heard about a different one a couple of months ago I think by the Veterans Council uh this Operation Greenlight that is next week March 31st
through April 4th is a collective effort of all the clerks throughout the state so all 67 clerks and it's an opportunity to encourage people who have outstanding fines and fees with the court system to come in and clear up those fines and
fees the reality is that when people don't pay their traffic tickets or they don't pay their fines or costs related to criminal cases their license gets suspended their driver's license and of course when their driver's license is suspended and they continue to drive
then they get arrested and they get more fines and fees and those fines and fees will accumulate right now in Indian River County we have over $10 million in outstanding court costs and that goes back decades many people are currently on
payment plans and all it takes is for someone who owes these outstanding fines and fees is to come in and get on a payment plan they don't have to pay it in full they can make a minimum payment as long as they keep current with those payments then they have the eligibility
to get their driver's license reinstated and that's what Operation Greenlight is is all about for those who have had their cases referred to collections the collection fees are actually waved next week and if they pay their fines and fees in full we do
discount the interest charges because those interest rates do collect and in years past the interest rates were as high as 14 or 15% and in many cases they far exceed the original fine amount so it's a great opportunity for those who owe the money to come down to the
courthouse next week Monday through Friday uh Friday 8 to 5:00 or visit our website at indian riverclerker.com and go ahead and sign up for a payment plan and talk to us about how to get back uh your eligibility for a driver's license
and get those fines and fees paid off thank you now the annual comprehensive financial report last week all of you probably received your copy of the most recent edition the 422 page uh page turner that it is i finished reading it
still still reading it working on it some some have called it a cure for insomnia but actually I I think it it's full of a lot of very useful information uh we've also received word that the prior year's annual financial report uh
received uh for the 41st consecutive year the award from the government finance officers association there are a set of exacting standards that the commonrollers's office has to meet to qualify for that award it's not simply um the length of the book there are a
number of uh G governmental accounting standards general accounting principles uh that require certain things to be in this financial statement um and it does take some time before we can publish this book people have asked me the question well why are you publishing
this book this is for the year that ended September 30th 2024 this is March why does it take six months well the reason for that is because when the books close on September 30th of we'll use last year 2024 that's when the process of the
annual audit begins and there's an external audit firm that comes in and audits the county's books that process takes about six months and just uh last week receive the actual audit report once that audit report is finalized and
received and by the way the county received a very clear and positive audit um as you have for a number of years once that's received we can publish the annual comprehensive report so that's why there's a six-month delay but the previous year's uh annual comprehensive
report received the award we have received that since 1983 when clerk free to write first submitted the annual report to the government finance officers association the summarized version which is the one that I think more people probably read and enjoy is
called the popular annual financial report and uh we call it the paffer for short that one will be published uh in a couple of weeks but last year's version also received the government finance officers association award uh that is
the ninth consecutive year for the paffer and the only reason it's it's the ninth and not the 41st is because we didn't have one in 1983 uh but every year that we have submitted that for consideration we have received the awards so we're very pleased to have received these awards and really it's a
collective effort and the credit goes to the staff at the comrollers's office our chief deputy comroller Alyssa Naggie Rayanne Conn who is our assistant there Jason Brown Laura Macccyver who doubles as our HR director and our publisher for
the the paffer as well as Kristen Daniels and her staff at the budget office and really all the constitutional officers because the annual comprehensive report contains financial reports efforts from the sheriff the property appraiser the supervisor of elections and the tax collector and so
we do have to work with all of those other constitutional officers to compile that annual report and all of that goes into making these publications and that's why we've been so successful because of our ability to work well with the other constitutional officers and
the county fabulous thank you thank you and congrats the paffer I will say is much more exciting than the pages well it has pictures a lot of pictures yeah there's just great facts lots of numbers yeah
great facts it is great and I appreciate that we are always um you guys are doing such a great job putting those publications out it's a lot of information in them thank you oh and uh we also have the designation
of March 3rd through the 9th 2025 as flood awareness week and uh I guess you're all aware that there there is a possibility of flooding and there's also a possibility of insurance and there's a
lot of information and what we'll do is on the next meeting we will have a presentation regarding the good work that's being done to ensure that uh we're protected
and uh we're able to deal with the insurance as well to ensure that you have a flood-free environment or at least a flood resistant environment so uh with that uh we'll
move on to uh any public comment uh if there is anybody here that wishes to uh talk about anything on the agenda that may not be able to stay while the item is onent please most certainly so long as it's
not a a public a public discussion item well I'll listen my name is Brent Wenberg but anyway I listen to the the pitching and it brings back memories or the baseball i was a pitcher when I was
in high school and I I had a mean curveball it it looked like it was coming right at the batter and then it it break just where it hit them and sometimes it wouldn't break kepts the rest of them guessing i especially love the when the opposing
team pitcher come up to strike them out commissioner also listen to the medical examiner and uh the schools um there you know there's like two ways to teach a kid to swim you take them to
the deep end throw them in or you take them to the shallow end let them gradually get better and I get the feeling that our kids are having a hard time it's like we're losing more of our kids than Vietnam all 10 years of Vietnam and
they're ending up in the medical examiners um but every year they have a high school reunion and I'd like to see them follow up to to try to court these companies and
uh lead them uh to bring in uh things here like uh I work helped build Kimberly Clark medical supplies and there's food processing all kinds of industry and having lived all over i I think I've
always thought of was kind of a sad town because you only have Piper aircraft and even then our kids some of them could be groomed uh into not just throwing them in the they have a high school year reunion follow up on how they're doing and uh
making sure they're not going to be in the medical examiners and train them in the skills to go into industry and court industry to bring it in here uh be it language skills or or whatever uh
because when a when you're working in a manufacturing plant they want you to eat sleep and breathe their their product and that's kind of Oh yeah um I don't
This is because it's how you spend money wasting tax dollars on things don't fall into this black hole uh yesterday's paper in Bvard County says they're going to spend 130 million federal tax dollars because all these
projects takes tax money and well they're spending 150 million to restore sand on the beach and you're getting making you feel like you're going to cut 20 million off well neutralize the acid before it gets
to the beach uh historically our our shores was uh our all ver all our roads are mar shell high pH uh water left the lagoon and the life was so abundant that
you didn't go fishing all day just for a little while that's another industry that could be brought here and our kids could be trained and led into supplying our nation with food like it used to
well thanks for hearing me thank you sir appreciate you is there anyone else who wishes to talk seeing none we'll move on to the consent agenda 9p sir nine people 9p Papa 9 F 9F Fox 9S
Sunshine We had the be kind group here 9S Sierra Mr sure if I could pull 9 H 9H and which one H
and 9 Romeo 9R Romeo so I have uh H Hotel Romeo Pa Ftrot Sierra is there anything else that I've missed there's still some items left on
the uh consent agenda so we'll we'll let's go ahead and cover what's left does anybody from the public no we don't
i'll be happy to move consent agenda as amended second that's a motion by Commissioner Adams seconded by myself any further discussion all in favor i
opposed motion carried unanimously let's start off with uh alphabetically let's start off with 9F Foxtrot sure Mr chair um I just wanted to pull this because the rail trail expansion has been a hot topic in the north county
area so I'm very happy to see this moving forward and I wasn't sure i know this is a city of Felsmere project we're just basically allowing them to you know go across the our area but I didn't know if anybody had a time frame
on when that project was going to be started and or completed and I I don't really what this is is a consent since we have a joining right away that FDOT requires so it's
really just something um we're doing to help them help facilitate it but I didn't really get any timelines i can I can follow up with their attorney if you'd like me to yeah if we could just get because I I get that question a lot and I'd like to at
least be able to have a general time frame like it's going to start in the summer and be done in the winter it doesn't have to be specific but okay just something would be great but I am happy to see that moving forward so with that I'll move approval second
we have a motion like Mr adam seconded by myself any further discussion all in favor i opposed motion carries unanimously thank you and we have item
9H hotel thank you Mr chair this is more of anformational item um I think oftent times we see u stockpiles of millings here and there uh and as you mentioned earlier uh flood recognition coming up
and I think this is an opportunity for uh certain entities uh to have conversation with us uh to either enhance their parking lots or their drive and I think it's refreshing that the uh that the community knows about it
yeah it's knowings have been the answer for many of our trials and tribulations with getting small roads or uh parking lots done and millings was were not that much
available uh they were available when they were uh doing all the work on I95 we had ample millings and there was a time where we had a shortage so I'm glad there is some available and that we can I think Commissioner Man's
neighborhood millings yeah I got mailings like 15 years ago and it works it's awesome i mean my roads in great shape still so but if you've ever I went riding with Danny Ulie our superintendent a couple months ago we've got mountains of them right now
buildings just information fill this room let's get it out there yeah we need to get them out there with that I move approval chair second i have a motion by Vice Chairman Law seconded by Commissioner Adams any further discussion all in favor i opposed motion
carries unanimously thank you and bless you next item is uh item 9P Papa thank you Mr chairman mr chairman you all know that u this well this is for coastal
technology work order uh for sector 7 alternate assessments you know I've been to y'all a few times on the easements of sector 7 we've had many discussions on sector 7 and basically uh we said no more we're not doing the
we're not doing the project we can't due to lack of easements and various other things well I'm going to tell you that our staff is thinking outside the box and our staff has come up with a
idea that I'm going to let them explain to you that might resolve this issue in the long run or if it if at least it's going to give us a possibility to do something in sector 7 or not do something in sector 7
and I feel a very minimal cost that they having her budget but I want to let them talk about it versus me talking about it anymore and I would tell you that that that Quinton is here and we didn't know if he was going to be here today or not because Quinton's going to be a proud
father this week by the way so congratulations thank you thank you appreciate it good morning commissioners quinton Bergman your coastal resource manager in our uh natural resources department um I've actually prepared a couple of slides that we presented to
Beach and Shores so I'll I'll go over that so our uh sector 7 area is located in our southern portion of the county um a lot of you are familiar with sector 7 and has been uh one of our our discussion points for the last uh
handful of years now so sector 7 is uh a bit unique you can see here it kind of sticks out along our coastline um in the coastal engineering realm they call this a headland feature so it's acting as a headland so it's protruding away from the rest of the coast on the north side
it can collect sand and then itself and the south side it can uh have erosional sand and we see just that here are a couple of u aerial photos some historic ones and some recent ones so I just kind of grabbed two locations in sector 7 to
kind of give us an idea um how what the condition is down there so in our 2019 beach preservation plan our engineers looked at the data our beach profiles and we see that anywhere between 1 to 2 feet of shoreline retreat per year and
here just some some quick simple u biology math I see you know before you is looking at the distance between some of the structures and that vegetated dune line we can see that it is retreating um so obviously sector 7 is
mentioned in our beach preservation plan as one of our management areas that we uh look at and manage for so the rest of my presentation I'm going to go over a couple of the details on the permitted design uh we're going to review the easement status and then discuss the
alternative design uh the proposed work order and then finish with our staff recommendation so to set the stage we did receive a construction permit back in 2020 this construction permit from FD as well as Army Corps of Engineers is
still valid up until 2035 to build the original size project um our permit allows for us to bring sand from offshore dredged sites as well as upland uh truck hall sites um it includes a beach feature so widening the width of
the beach berm the area we walk on as well as the dune feature that is the beha back of the beach um we will in the permit also requires us to install plants we like to see that in our beach reourishment projects it makes the dune last longer and this permit is
specifically a non-impacting design meaning that we're not going to place so much sand in the water that it's going to move offshore or off off the beach and and impact our nearshore reef um we want to protect that reef if we can so here's the plan view of that original uh
designed project back in 2020 so on the next page is the rest of the beach but a couple of things I want to point out here is this orange line is the landward edge of hard bottom that's our reef so beyond that there is more reef but this is the closest edge of that reef um on
the northern part of the project we have a feeder beach design so the re you see the the reef peels away from the shoreline therefore we can place more sand in this northern section and that will passively we we we understand that that will erode and passively feed the
downdrift beach that narrow beach you see here so the rest of that project is that narrow beach feature um moving on to our easements we still have 55 signed and recorded beach easements um we have we are still
seeking 27 easements in the entire area um and one of them is a pending response we understand that that property owner if we do move forward with the project will come out and and has agreed to assign an easement um so I want to focus on these areas you see before you our
northern section and our southern section is what I'm going to be talking about today um and as well as a little bit in our middle middle section so that northern section um we have about 12 parcels nine of them have denied signing the easement and three have signed the
easement you can see here I've kind of I don't unfortunately I don't have the design overlaid with easements but I've done the best here this is our feeder beach area this is where a lot of sand is being is designed to be placed now moving down to our southern
section we have 10 parcels six denied easements four signed easements this is another area where we have a larger group that have denied signing the easement our middle section is is a little bit more favorable still uh some room for improvement um with 11 denied
but 48 have signed so majority of the signed easements we do we do currently have are found in that middle section um therefore we are proposing to look into an alternative design um we would remove the areas to the
north the northern section and the southern section but the question we are trying the question that this work order is going to answer is how effective would it be if we only constructed that middle section um so this proposed work order is going to do a handful of things
you can see here on on the screen in front of you um we're going to look at the how much sand is actually required that again a few things have happened since 2020 now being 2025 so we're going to have the engineer look at uh how much sand is actually needed we're going to
update some drawings um compare the project performance of the 2007 uh project placement that was the last time we placed any sand in sector 7 it was 07 um as well as look the engineer is going to look into some of the results from
our 2019 from 2019 to 2025 but the the main point of this work order is to characterize the performance of two options as previously designed and permitted as well as a modified design shortening and decreasing the length of the project um we're going to
mathematically determine the lifespan of the project that's that uh barebones costbenefit analysis that we're going to be doing the engineer would provide the the deliverable as a a technical memo giving us the results of his calculations um and then if we needed to
we could also have the engineer attend a public meeting present to the board here as well as beach and shores or the like uh in total the work order is $21,000 or 21 just over $21,000 i do want to let you know as well on
March 17th we took this um item to the Beach and Shores Preservation Advisory Committee and they did uh vote favorably upon it and do recommend uh we we move forward with it so I'll end with our our staff recommendation that the board approve work order in the lumpsum amount
of $21,000 $21,90 and authorize the chairman to execute work order on behalf of the county with that I am happy to answer any questions you may have that's great thank you i'm glad that you're doing this so I do have a couple
questions one so you're looking at what type of project you can do in the area where you have easements so you wouldn't be utilizing the feeder beach scenario then probably correct um do we have funding to do a project on
there because I thought we gave back the FEMA dollars or am I mistaken we have funding for this work order but I'll I'll hand that over to uh my uh department director for that so we do have a very limited amount of funding available currently for this project um
that being said our beach preservation plan does identify other potential avenues for us to try to secure funding so essentially this particular work order is our commitment to evaluate an alternative it is not saying that we're
definitely going to move forward with a project it's not saying that we have any funding currently available so um in that beach preservation plan there are some other options such as MSTUS MSBUs that have been utilized in other agencies successfully so that is a route
that we could eventually look at but ultimately uh the question that we're trying to answer here is whether or not an alternative design is even viable so if we got rid of that feeder beach section what is our project performance can we get at least five years out of a
project because ultimately that is um what needs to happen in order for us to fund a project at minimum other than availability of resources okay yeah i just wanted I know we've talked about this project or this
sector at nauseium many difficult meetings yes so I wanted to make sure we all understood what it was what the ask is and where we're going with this because it's you know been talked about multiple multiple times
all right thank you yep mr chair they've done a great job they they came up with this suggestion to find out can we green light this or is it going to get a red light i mean it it's it's uh I'm very proud of their thinking outside the box
and this and I hope it uh transforms into a bunch of other departments here in the county eventually but thank you for your for your work and and I'll support this i'll I'll make a motion to approve staff's recommendations second i have a motion by Commissioner Airman
seconded by myself um any further discussion all in favor i opposed motion carries unanimously i do I do want to say that uh just recently we were visited by
uh Congressman Mike Heridopoulos who was looking forward to taking a look at our beach our resource our dunes and learn a little bit more about the turtles he had the occasion to uh uh be in the
presence of um Quinton and Dr and truly and I have to say that he was quite impressed and the followup was that we are in in the company of well-qualified individuals and the congressman uh did
comment that he looks forward to working with us and when we need to because it is a combined effort to get through the process so I want to thank them both publicly for the amount of input and
time that they took to ensure that Congressman Herodopoulos was aware of what was going on here in Indian River County he was impressed thank you thank you very much you have somewhere to
go right yeah godspeed and good luck uh next item uh was pulled was 9R Romeo and that was Vice Chairman Law thank you Mr chair
um as this body knows we discussed and voted on this on December 3rd uh my questions primarily are for the administrator uh specific to u the funding and his thoughts
on the recent uh developments of federal funding coming from Washington with respect to Noah on this particular case and uh if Noah dollars are
uh not included for example what would the county do then yes you know excuse me there so it's my understanding uh the the total Noah
grant is $340,000 out of the the million uh $73,000 and if the grant funds are obligated and the project's underway that they're that they're not subject to precision uh and maybe Kristen or Kylie
can verify that so there was a temporary snafu I'll call it in terms of the availability of the Noah funds where the accounts were frozen and IRL NEP did not have access to those monies however that was an administrative issue it has been
resolved so essentially we do have that contract with the Indian River Lagoon Council in place this agreement with CN Shoreline jennifer was very very careful to make sure that we had a contingency clause in there so that we would only
pursue the project in the event that those Noah transformational habitat funds are still available so in that agreement if those funds for whatever reason disappear then our agreement with C and Shoreline ultimately
um we wouldn't be expending the funds so essentially this agreement is um solidifying the fact that they're a partner we are to pay them for the work that they perform and then we get reimbursed through IRL NEP but funds go
away our agreement goes away and we ultimately stop the projects okay and for the administrator that um million dollars on our behalf that's correct it's 1.4 total million30
million37,000 on ours 340,000 through NLP through the Noah transformational habitat grant but again it's my understanding from watching is if it's obligated and the project's underway it's generally not been subject
to recision it's where the money's just sitting there and not doing anything that's where they've been focused on unspent funds right and our first third would be out of this fiscal yes yes so they are ramping up to
initiate the project this late spring okay now on December 3rd we did not have all of that information correct yeah so things did change with the new administration that came in in
terms of Noah and whatnot so uh this is definitely something that has been a concern of the IRL NEP Lagoon Council and of staff um but generally speaking they're confident that we can start moving forward
right we had a IRL NAP meeting and Dr defree brought this very subject up regards to all funding for IRL NAP you know but the board the whole board and Dr freaw felt well and I think it's
going to hold true because he hasn't he said he would notify us if there was an issue but we're not real was not one of the organizations that the Trump administration was targeting for things like EI and and and all the other stuff we've all heard
in the news about so we felt we were we were pretty safe with this and that all the projects would go through and none of none of the money would be impacted to the IRL because you know it's not high on it's not they're not
under the radar for any issues it's a very small group and a very small group of people and there's other IRL any IR those there's other estuary programs throughout the United States that also haven't received any cuts or or anything
or been told by the federal government that their project so in December we we didn't know the true financial commitment as well and it may
change so right so um as a partner of the IRL NEP the expectation when we brought that to the board was that we would be fully reimbursed and we the impact would be inind services only so um ultimately the funding mech while the
invoicing mechanism that was identified by the Indian River Lagoon Council was that we would pay C and Shoreline for their work and then we would receive reimbursement so um that was something that came after that December meeting
and then of course um everyone is a little nervous about the availability of funds in general especially given their account was temporarily frozen but again that has been resolved they have access to the funds right now so they're
confident that we can move forward with our projected project but of course um again that's part of why that contingency language has been added in that agreement to try to protect the county just in case once again if this is
affirmed today uh and we are shorted uh it's anticipated that the project will be scrubbed correct correct you know
I I look at this and I look at a million dollars and we're talking about 22 acres uh to monitor the planting and the and the like typically I could be wrong i
thought these grants were the other way around where the locking share is a grant and then the lesser balance is the county's responsibility is that typically the scenario administrator well I think it depends upon the grant funding agency and the funding that they
have it's it's not always a it's not always a science some are 5050 some are 75 it depends on the grant funding agency so it's collectively $466,000 a year to
monitor 26 acres it's uh it includes planting so you're actually doing the installation of the seagrasses in those areas that were identified in our lagoon management plan as needing additional seaggrasses so and um again it's 100%
reimburseable so the county's obligation is the inind services for the monitoring events so it's staff time but as it relates to the work that C and Shoreline is going to perform should we move forward that is we'd get fully reimbursed for that $1
million and a lot of our grants do operate that way where they're reimbursement based so we front the money and then we collect back i didn't understand that this I move approval chairman second
we have multiple seconds all right we have a motion by vice chairman law seconded by commission Adams any further discussion all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously
thank you for the clarification and we have item 9S Sierra yes uh thank you Mr chair and this item has to do with the uh citizens advisory committee to MO which is our uh
transportation board county Commission has five appointed members and as you know uh the cities also have appointed members our appointed members um I I was in conversation email conversation with Mr freeman to do a little research on
this since we've looked at our appointees uh basically to all the advisory boards or to many of them at any rate at this point and it is a matter that uh last I understood commissioner man will be bringing back to us in terms of length of terms and
term li potential of term limits and that kind of thing so um in in researching this by the way I'm happy pardon me that wasn't discussed i mentioned that that I would offer it yeah that that perhaps your We didn't
make a post i I may Well whether whether you do or you don't I'll just I'll just continue with this um because I'm I'm happy to to move this forward in terms of having an alternate they've been having a problem achieving a quorum and Anne Bert I think would be make a fine
alternate uh but in terms of my research and Mr freeman answered these questions for me i asked uh how long has each of the five uh BCC appointed members served and Juliana Young was appointed in 1993
uh Chuck Meckling in 2009 Francine Miguel Miguel uh in 2019 Mike Grim in 2019 and Erica Oglevie in 2019
so then I asked uh further if um you know if there are any applications there's just this one which is fine and as I said I'm prepared to move it forward as an alternate uh then I asked about attendance records because that had come up when we were discussing u
advisory boards so Julie Young who has served on SEESAC since 1993 has an outstanding attendance record and has served as chair for many years uh Chuck Meckling was appointed in 2009 but has missed uh meetings uh the other three
members were all appointed in 2019 and have good attendance records so with regard to uh Mr meckling he's missed five of the last six meetings uh going back to the start of the year so as I said I'm prepared to move this
uh person forward as an alternate would the board like to discuss uh you know advertising for applications i think that's what we did uh previously with the other uh advisory boards and commissions uh giving public notice that
we're accepting applications for this position and then uh bring it back to consider uh any applications that might be submitted so that's that's my question of my colleagues good morning uh commissioners brian Freeman NO staff director um as was
mentioned you probably heard at some of the NO meetings because I know all of you serve on the NO board we have had some quorum issues with the CAC over the last year a lot of that had to do with some vacancies in some of the city uh positions on that board and luckily we've had all those filled in the last
two months and uh also we thought that because there are five at large appointees from the board of county commissioners perhaps we could have an alternate who could fill in uh because there's usually at least one of the five are not present at the meetings and so that's we also had someone who was had
contacted us in an interest in serving on a commission and and she had attended the February meeting and still decided to proceed with submitting an application afterwards and we had also about that same time advertise the vacancy because we do a whenever we have a vacancy on the CAC or the BPAC or our
transportation disadvantaged uh coordinating board we do advertise those on the same website where all the other county um committees get advertised so does this board does the citizens advisory committee have a attendance
like most of them say you know if you've missed three meetings unexcused or something of that nature does this one have some language about that um there's not anything presently in the NO's bylaws on that um we are looking at
updating the bylaws at this time um so that is something we could look at putting in a provision of that type i think we have a standard in place for the TDLCB's bylaws which are separate from the other has anybody reached out to the members regarding their attendance those that have had less than
stellar because I would start there i think that usually like on my committees if I have people that aren't are getting close to some of those and just reach out and say "Hey are you still interested in being on the board your attendance is needed at meetings if not
please let us know we appreciate your commitment blah blah blah but we need to have functional committees i mean something non abrasive but I would I would start there and then see what they say and then bring that back and then we
can figure out if we need to go from there but I I would agree that if if you're on a board or a committee attend attendance is helpful to making that function properly
again attendance is important and uh as you brought out Mr freeman that uh again there's nothing in the bylaws so how we have addressed it in the past
is the friendly notice uh sometimes people turn around didn't realize they had to be there or they didn't feel the importance of it well I'll be there if necessary so sometimes it's a mindset
challenge so I believe that uh a tacid uh notice uh by the no director which is it's stateapp appointed uh we have to have
an advisory boards subsequent to the no uh but there is nothing in the bylaws that states you miss three you're out there strike three right yeah baseball that's right but Nonetheless caught myself quoting a
baseball baseball day yeah uh nonetheless there is nothing in uh the bylaws that gives you or us the right and authority just to say you're out uh
so yeah I I think the TDLCB bylaws have a pro provision that if someone misses three consecutive meetings then we would notify the MO board in that case and Commissioner Moss makes an an excellent point of you know if you're not going to
be here don't be on it and I know it's clear but uh it's not so clear in the address i believe that a friendly reminder uh might be maybe the tacid approach first that's f that's fine with
me any other comments while we're on it no but I do have a question for Brian go ahead no no go ahead this it was related to the Felsmere Rails trail thing do you know the time frame of when they're going to start and finish i figured that might solve Jennifer having to contact
the city yes um I believe FDOT is looking to encumber the funds in April so um I can um I have a meeting coming up very soon with FDOT over that particular project so I I'll get as far as the schedule it I suspect it's
sometime later this year but I'm not sure i keep getting the questions so I just wanted to make sure I wasn't giving out wrong information so thanks i appreciate that as painful as it sounds I'd like to get back to the original okay well thank I appreciate your comments and I'm happy to uh move to
approve um Anne Bert as an alternate for the CAC second and that's a motion by Commissioner Moore seconded by myself any further discussion on the item all in favor i I opposed motion carries
unanimously with that we're about ready to enter into public hearing so let's take a brief recess i guess everybody be here a while start a meeting like that all right
county Commission meeting will now be called back to order and the first item is a public hearing item 11 A1 which is the second public hearing for proposed developers agreement between Meritage Homes of Florida Incorporated and Iny
River County this is legislative in nature good morning councelor good morning commissioner Susan Prao deputy county attorney on behalf of the county attorney's office um this morning we do have the second public hearing for the proposed developers agreement for
Maritage um sorry between Indian County and Maritage Homes this would be for the proposed development of Lakeside West um the first public hearing was held on March 11th 2025 at roughly 9:00 a.m or thereafter um once again just briefly Lakeside West
development is 2011 single family home lots which is located north of 25th Street Southwest on 43rd A um and it's proposed to be constructed in two phases um before we get into this a little further I would like to go ahead and ask that if Kim can please put up a PowerPoint we have put together for this
particular item to kind of explain just a little better um yes sir counselor because of the rain I will try to talk more into the mic sir i apologize um we have put together uh between the staff and the different staff members
and myself a PowerPoint for the Lakeside West developers agreement um to kind of let the board know what this entails as well as kind of what a developer agreement is and I hope to answer some of your questions um so a developer's agreement is entered into by us the local
government um and a developer it's subject to Florida statute that Florida statute is the Florida Local Government Development Agreement Act it lays out the different obligations that both the developer has to the local government agency um as well as kind of the rules
and regulations that we have in place at the time entering into that developer agreement what that does is it basically says that if they enter into the developers agreement today the rules and regulations that are entered into here today are the ones that will be applicable to their development so should something change next week next
month what's applicable is what they entered into here today so it's an contractual obligation on both parties and it's to be reviewed on the annual basis to ensure compliance with the contract by the parties that annual basis review as discussed previously is a statutory requirement
and it is something that the county has to do um and because it is a contract obviously we have our remedies which would be something along the line of breach of contract um when we can bring that back here in front of the board to have those remedies we can amend a contract um it's part of the beauty of
having it being a contract um it's a memoralization in many cases of vested rights that developers have to their property um this is important because as we know uh a property owner has certain vested rights when they do purchase
their property to develop them to a certain level uh whatever is is usually in place at that time um if they're zoned for example for you know commercial they're allowed to then develop whatever sort of commercial is allowed on that if they're vested or they're zoned for in RS3 then they're
allowed to develop up to residential three units per acre mr chair yes sir yes sir m product by the term vested rights in other words if someone is in a position to purchase a parcel of land and the land the existing
land regulations uh allow for what they desire to build upon say a subdivision a car wash storage facility uh that would be included in their vested interest or vested rights
ye yes sir they have a right to develop to that but even more in tune for example for these cases for the residential development or even commercial development residential development we usually have a it's usually a uh a plat or some sort of residential land development permits if
you will that are issued and when they have those issued they have vested rights in what we've approved for so long um and similarly with a uh a site plan that would be something for a commercial development for example and they would have a vested right to develop that commercial property for
whatever was approved for so long um that's that's also another instance where we're talking about vested rights so for example this development has been approved for the um 201 single family homes although they have the ability to develop more they have agreed to develop
the 2011 right so by purchasing the project going through the site development uh they have certain rights in other words uh they have the right and the ability to construct in this particular case a
subdivision uh the county would be in an awkward position if we were to let's say debate or fight the rights that they've been given and that could lead to litigation is that correct that is correct sir thank you
follow-up question how long do those rates vest or does it depend like site plan is for it it depends on what there is and it also depends for example on how much tolling there is for and as was stated I think in the last hearing this was one
of those that was vested a while ago but because of all the tollings because of the natural disasters and things that happen per Florida statute that vestature kind of goes out depending on each and every natural disaster that happens so it could be a hurricane it could be a windstorm it could be a hailtorm whatever it is when there's a
state of emergency that's declared and there's a natural disaster that vesting period kind of tolls and it gets later on and that's per state statute that the tolling happens yes ma'am okay thank you Miss Prada similar to what we've heard earlier today I believe there
was a discussion on the beach uh where we had permits obtained five years ago and they were still in effect uh I believe that was what the record should report so regardless of when you procured uh
your land and started the procedure absent as Commissioner Adams mentioned any type of catastrophic event or change in uh I guess the physical landscape that would still be in effect yes sir
now that's not to say that those things can't expire i mean permits and things do expire however in this case this has not in this particular case it has not expired due to the tolling that has happened correct and through the last 21
years we've all experienced different highs and lows in the economy and the population yes sir thank you Mr chair can I I just add something because I I just kind of want to parse it a little bit more because Susan's talking about
vested rights maybe in a particular um permit or development that's been proposed but there's what she was also talking about and I think what you were talking about is people have property rights and development rights in general that are um that are contemplated under
our code so in this case um this is a particular project but if if it were not to be approved they would still have development rights and they would still be entitled to what our zoning allows for that's kind of a little bit of a separate concept but worth mentioning
but separate tracks property rights are given as a property owner and vested rights are calculated through the permit process that is correct yes and they're then owned
yes sir for they Well leased they they can pass they usually run with the lancer yes so they can pass so if it passes from one developer to another yes sir um this agreement has a term of seven years is that that's the term seven years is that an average term i
mean that is how does it work yes ma'am so that is the term that usually requires for for certain items to be looked at again if you will i know that they can run up to 30 years um however because it
is a because things change as they have with development because um the need for certain items change to kind of chain us or the developer to something for seven years for sorry for 30 years um is is a bit much this way if it does change
hands um within the seven years if the de development doesn't happen within those seven years it requires them to come back to the table to negotiate again for us to see kind of where we are at at that 7th year time frame so if there is a significant change we can
then address it in that renegotiation so that's why it's it's better to have this lesser time frame than the longer time frame not only that but some of their vestatures expire after the the seven-year if they're not continuously told so that's part of part of why this
time frame okay i'm I'm looking to understand the procedure um it was mentioned at the first hearing that this had been approved by the planning and zoning commission and I have some questions i have the minutes to that meeting it was approved uh Janu uh
excuse me June 23rd uh 2022 i don't know if you're the person I should inquire uh of with regard to the questions on the minutes i'm wondering just generally it it doesn't appear right here that they have the same information
that we have and I I'm thinking it should align pnz should have the same information that we have especially in this case since the traffic studies from 2004 so I mean there wasn't any you know definitely they should have the same information i I'll just I'll just read
this and you can comment or perhaps someone else can answer but this is from the minutes of that uh PNZ meeting mr sweeney showed a map and described details of the of the proposed traffic circulation plan as well as some planned intersection improvements it makes no
mention of the 2004 uh traffic study do you do you know if that was presented at that meeting i mean they voted on this i could not answer that um Commissioner Moss I believe there's the planning and
services director who could give you a better response as to that question good morning good morning chris Walter planning and development services director so at that time the traffic engineer had as I stated on the previous
uh meeting had reviewed the actual study and had confirmed with staff that it had met all the requirements that was needed for today's time which was reflected in the actual staff report so if it wasn't brought up by the actual board members it was reflected in the staff report
okay so so PNZ did not see that it was a 2004 traffic study they got some kind of um summary they got a summary that stated that it met the needs of the county and also met the needs for the actual traffic study
some of the other things that came up during that meeting was uh let's see here and I we didn't really discuss this uh here at county commission but it said uh let's see Mr sweeney further explained that the park is actually part of a different
PD project and that this developer's this developer's requirement is a financial contribution to the park's public benefit which will be held in escrow until that project proceeds so is there is there an amount that's being held in escrow
it's actually a part of the developer agreement so if you actually look in the developers agreement it states all of the actual uh requirements that's required of the actual developer i'm sorry is is there a 50,000
as it relates to the park if my recollection is correct it's $50,000 uh number 11 prior to the issuance of land development permit development shall pay to the county the development contribution and oh no excuse me $90,000 towards improvements to the
south county initiative park okay so the other I just would like to point exhibit D and this goes back to the previous agenda item the first public hearing provided a copy of the planning and zoning staff report wherein item 10
discussed traffic circulation and it was noted um with the access points and other things and it talked about uh the turtle circulation plan and driveway conduction have been reviewed and approved by traffic engineering fire prevention mention and then moreover the project's
previous traffic impact study and associated required traffic improvements are still vested under the previous conceptual PD plan and special exception approval based on the project's previously traffic impact study the following off-site improvements are required and it listed them actually in
the staff report for the P&Z to include you know a A through G as well as the other one the the additional uh the design the money going to the $25,000 the impacts to 43rd a state road 60 it
discussed in section 11 the rightway dedications and in section 12 the required uh improvements of which there was you know without numbering them but A through F as it relates to transportation just want to point that
out thank you actually we had a very uh robust discussion of traffic at the first public hearing so for anyone who missed that and uh doesn't isn't aware that every single meeting is videotaped and it is available on Indian River.gov
so you can watch uh the last or actually the first of uh hearing on this um I just had a couple of other questions having to do with uh the minutes it was stated then um chairman day commented that it seemed they are seeing larger
size water management areas mr sweeney responded that this could partly be due to the number of projects located in a flood plane so and that's that was a concern of mine um with this developers agreement it's
you know it's number 16 and evidently they were aware of that um back in 2022 but number 16 uh in in this developers agreement states that the site is also located within a special flood hazard area as designated by the flood
insurance rate maps because Indian River County participates in the community rating system through FEMA it is the developer's responsibility to stay a breast of any required finished floor elevation freeboard changes to the IRC
code and the Florida State Building Code and it's perfect that we're discussing this since we have our flood awareness proclamation which was not read in its entirety but thank you to the chair uh for acknowledging it this is a real uh
concern um you know I met I guess it was yesterday uh with staff about flooding around the county and and I've I've said it publicly here um we get a lot of complaints about flooding um it's something we all have to be concerned
about proclamation indicates that but it was a bit um ironic that while I was in the meeting with staff someone called to complain about flooding and my assistant took a message so I you know I told them all that later that I appreciated their
time but it's this is a um this is a real concern of mine could you you know comment on it or or perhaps perhaps this is not your your belly wick it's not butting i can comment on it a little bit so as sites develop uh through there's
multiple different facets they have to meet federal regulations and they also have to meet local and state regulations generally u about 20% of a general site is eaten up by storm water retention so attenuation has to be kept on site that means all of the storm water has to be
kept on site and the only thing that's allowed is any historic discharge so that what what was historically discharging or less is what's allowed offsite that's why you see all of these projects have larger and larger storm water retention ponds because they have to attenuate on site not only that but
the it all depends on the actual soil composition as well different soils perk differently whether they go into the groundwater at a certain um pace or they actually get kept in holding ponds which are the wet retention ponds you have dry retention ponds um I know the public
works department can speak a little bit more on the storm water end of it but that's just kind of a generic on it and if I may really quickly on that one too i know that when it they do have the storm retention ponds on the plant from my review process one of the required language and one of the requirements
they have to have usually is that they have to have some sort of um calculation for them to take in some of the storm water drainage from the roadways that are next to that so uh or next to the actual property or the development that is some language that is there and that
we have the ability to drain into those storm waters so um that is a benefit also to the county and compared to us having to buy more um or further rightway to have to make way for these storm water retention areas um we are allowed to do that in some of these
developments uh through some of their larger storm water ponds so just a note from at least from that standpoint i know that's something I do see when I do see the final plat review also as far as the the flood they are required to put there on the plat that it is within a you know a certain flood zone and they
have to have the latest flood map listed that is another requirement when they do get to the final plat stage so that everyone and anyone who purchases a property in that area is put on notice as to what they are purchasing and Susan or Chris could answer this but isn't it generally the case that
postdevelopment discharge must equal or be less than pre-development that's correct correct yes not only that but generally the nice thing about planned developments is that usually the developer will choose as one of their public benefits to provide some
attenuation on site for the county to make the actual area better so when they donate right of way or actually do any storm water improvements they attenuate for our storm water in our area as well i guess what we're expecting and I think
the proclamation uh and I I'll read just one excerpt from it short um Inu River County has experienced severe weather in the past in the form of extreme rainfall or tropical storm events resulting in flooding in coastal inter coastal
low-lying and other special flood hazard areas which was where this property is located and this flooding has caused damage and flood losses to homes and buildings in all areas whether they are high- risk special flood hazard areas or
low to moderate risk flood zones so I think part of this is or do they have to uh purchase uh flood insurance you know to live here there was some discussion of that yesterday commissioner Moss could we
return back to the presentation your input is important it's a general discussion but you're just tearing the whole project apart piece by piece and we need to have the presentation absolutely this is the second public
hearing thank you absolutely thank you thank you counselor uh yes commissioners um so just sorry carrying back towards the presentation we talked about what a developer's agreement is um we want to go ahead and talk about some of the things that they are not so it's it's not an instrument used to renegotiate
already vested rights of the developer for example some of the vested rights they have in the preliminary plat approval um that's even recognized in Florida statute that they have great vested rights in a preliminary plot um it's also not a tool to try to circumvent or skirt obligations or limitations that are imposed by
development law um what that means is you know it's it's time for both parties the county so much as the developer to come to the table with an open mind and to negotiate pursuant to the requirements that each party has um and they both have to live up to those
expectations um it's also not an internal document as I mentioned before and it can be amended should something or circumstances change um so some of the benefits of the developers agreement is it it encourages sound capital improvement planning and financing um what that does for example
is many times it is very expensive to build a road um to widen a road as we know we've um seen I know some people on the board have seen uh imminent domain procedures before the cost that it that it takes to widen a road to purchase the uh the property from the property owners and do all of those um actions that come
along with it um in this case if if some of this encouragement of sound capital improvement planning and financing for example is dedications of rightaway um in this particular development if you look at the actual attachments uh BNC you will see that there is dedication of
rightway from the developer that they are giving us along 21st Street Southwest and as well as the corner of 25th Street Southwest and that dedication also is 50 ft wide on the west side of 43rd Avenue so they are dedicating right away for future if the
county needs to have future expansion there um which is a cost savings for us planning um for the future um also it assists in assuring that there are adequate capital facilities for the development again going back to um we can look at roads we can look at
utilities it makes sure that we address those that they're actually there and that they can be provided for and if not how are they going to get there who's going to pay for them how are they going to be put in um and it encourages private participation in comprehensive planning again many times if if there's
a project going in it may be cheaper and easier for a developer that's already out there to go ahead and start some of the the process of paving a road or something that perhaps is on the county's plan but we haven't been able to get to and for them it would save us on mo u mobilization costs and the like
um so those are things that kind of um sometimes even encourage the private participation in the comprehensive planning and looking forward um as far as some of those capital improvements and I will let uh Chris take over i believe this is your portion
Chris sure so here's a little bit of the back background and timeline of the project so originally Lakeside West was Tips and Trail um which was originally improved at 296 dwelling units it was uh part of the South County initiative
which was only two projects that have been developed out of the seven projects um and there's a map that you'll see coming up to show you where those projects are and how they've actually played out so back in October 19th 2004 the BCC granted conceptual PD plan and
special exception approval for the 288 unit single family residential project under the name Typson Trail that's what actually locks in the development rights the in April 2005 the PCC granted preliminary uh PD
plan approval uh anytime a plat's approved that's actually what allows a developer to divvy up land and sell it in 2016 the preliminary PD uh plan and plat approval expired however the
conceptual PD um still remain the same so those are all those vested entitlements to the actual project um and it runs val it runs with the land in June uh June 23rd 2022 uh the project
was revitalized and came under Meritage that PCC PCC granted preliminary PD plan and plat approval for 201 so they dropped down the units for the project now to be called Lakeside West uh the
current preliminary PD plan and plat approval requires the developer to enter into developers agreement that's that actual agreement that Susan was just speaking on that is all the enumerations of what the contract that we and the developer are entering into on all of the improvements that they're making and
what we've agreed upon so here's an actual map of the South County initiative you can see all of the subdivisions that were proposed a part of it one through seven um there's only been two that have been actually
built and then there is a map of an aerial the map key that shows all of the units for the proposed uh developments and then what's actually been built so total in all there's been three developments that have been built this
will be the third Lakeside West when it builds so two are currently constructed one is proposed which is W Lakeside West to be constructed so just real quick one and seven is what's been constructed that you can see on the aerial map and
four is what we're talking about today correct okay thank you you're welcome i'm going to turn it over to Addie and Joseph and they're going to talk a little bit about all of the traffic that was brought up at the last meeting mr chairman fellow commissioners Joseph
Defrrono county engineer for the record glad the rain stopped so to um present the traffic perspective we um wanted to introduce this slide that
basically demonstrates that uh what we call trip generation it's from an institute of transportation manual that's used for traffic studies so there were trips generated based on the land use code for 288 units so um our
requirements back at that time were basically to focus on the PM peak hour so this was the numbers from the 2004 traffic impact study that was done and down below of course it was tips and trail at the time but it was still
talking about Lakeside West down below the trip generation today so for 201 based on the same IT trip generation manual you can see that there is a reduction of the daily trips which is
what ADT means average daily trips as well as the PM peak hour trips 56 in and 33 out so the key takeaway is even if we updated or used a more current study with fewer units there's fewer trips
generated and that's what leads to mitigating once you anal analyze the uh impacts of those trips then that's what generates the need for the improvements and the improvements are based on the number of trips that are going to be
generated by the project yes both intersection at intersections as well as driveway access points to the development so the 2004 study indicates based on the 288
units that there would be 175 trips in and 103 trips out in the PM peak hours correct and currently with 201 um the generator would indicate that there would be 119 trips in and 70 trips
out correct so if we were to redo the traffic study they would most likely not necessarily have to do as many of the improvements because it's generating less trips yes
that's on the next slide oh okay okay so it sounds like going with the older one is actually giving us more benefit to the county but we'll see what the next slide yes based on higher trip generation and and traffic volumes that
that would need to be mitigated so so this slide basically shows what was required for off-site roadway improvements based on the 2004 traffic impact study um which all of these are contained in the developers
agreement so uh looking to the right there under the present if those same improvements were required based on fewer trips generated we you you may there'd be different thresholds that
you'd be reaching so you may not have those same impacts based on fewer trips and fewer trips would mean fewer impacts to mitigate so if it's a red X under present a based on the current number of
units and current number of trips we most likely would not be able to leverage those improvements through the developers that that's that's correct so these would be based on a reduction of trips due to the fewer units so we'd get less yes
Mr chair yes please judged by the by my simple math from the 296 to 2011's about a 32% decrease in the residents in the proposed subdivision so that pretty much correlates with this as well yes fewer
units equals fewer trips generated so it's 32% less homes than prior or previously proposed so we had our traffic engineering staff go ahead and and do a traffic study um at the intersection of Oslo Road and
43rd just so we'd have a snapshot of what we're seeing today in terms of those traffic volumes and in addition uh they went ahead and collected some data for vehicles exiting the the the Fountain's uh residential development
there so this is pretty much showing you from an AM peak and a PM peak the volumes in the third uh column over from the south would be vehicles coming from the south to the north and approaching
the Oslo Road intersection so these are 15minute increments and right now that signal handles what's there today um occasionally if there's an incident um you might see higher volumes on 43rd uh
it varies from day to day week to week month to month fewer traffic if there's you know less uh vehicles on the road for spring break or other times of the year so we just wanted to be able to provide uh some information to show what's happening at that individual
intersection there which included uh the numbers of exiting vehicles there at at the fountain's development and so lastly um we we provided the map that's called 9inth Manor Southwest those are the numbers that were during the AM peak
hour exiting that so u we just wanted to provide that snapshot of course March 18th of 2025 it could be different next week it certainly it varies over time depending on um the surrounding traffic and and what's happening so that we see
that that roadway itself is under capacity 43rd at the moment and Oslo's already widened out this center this intersection operates uh effectively with the traffic that's on there today any other questions regarding
traffic that we can answer it's under capacity right now 43rd is yes we we we shared we shared some of that information um before that there were a number of vehicles on 43rd it's a
two-lane road but until it reaches above you know that capacity of a two-lane road it's it's under capacity as traffic volumes increase on 43rd as a two-lane road it will eventually reach its capacity
but right now it's sufficient correct sufficient correct and again as you discussed there are some anomalies there is the holidays there's spring breaks there's other events there's storm events crashes that are going to impede
upon the flow of traffic but they're not taken into consideration although that people would like them to be because they experience that on a seasonal value it's not taken into consideration in the calculation so
crashes are random and traffic patterns change yes so we we provided um just a snapshot of what's happening at that intersection but we we collect traffic volumes on 43rd and other roadways each and every year so based on the 2024 link
volumes it's it's closer to capacity north of Oslo but less than that south of Oslo Road but the what I'm saying is the anomalies that we were referred to are not taken in consideration in the
calculations when you say calculations please please clarify the the traffic assessment and accountability and vulnerability and the load that none of that is to take into consideration when
we talk about u other anomalies like you know an event or an an incident uh we that doesn't get into the calculation of the ability for a roadway to handle the
traffic not an incident but there is an adjustment factor a peak seasonal adjustment factor so volumes are are are adjusted through the the traffic impact study analysis thank you Mr
question do those capacity numbers or that count go into the grade that we give the intersections yes the the typical it's level of service level of service for an intersection or a node as well as level
of service for uh the service capacity for the roadway itself and the county adopts what level of service it wants yes correct and our level of service is D D yes and what does that mean like how many times how many cycles do you
basically sit at a stoplight um well as you can see let me go back one so uh a traffic signal has a cycle length so every cycle length it's allowing different phases of traffic to to move through the intersection so this is just 15minute increments but based on these
peak hours that that intersection functions fine and it will change over time i mean as traffic volumes increase but we're always looking at the operation of our of our traffic signals as well as the that's what the link reports that we we produce that uh
consultants can use in their analysis um commissioners I know at no a lot of times we do talk about the level of service um and the grades of our intersections and what we have accepted and what that means so all this goes into that and it's not just something
that's plucked out of the sky that is something that that we discuss and I would point out that the MO is not just comprised of commissioners but also of representatives of the cities across the entirety of the county thank you
and it should be pointed out that level of service A and B only exists on paper it doesn't exist in the real world um and again because when we hear level of service D we revert back to when we were
all school children and thinking a D isn't good but it just equates to the amount of wait time that you would have to go traveling a roadway correct correct the best explanation is it's approaching its capacity yes new roads
that are newly built with other um contributors to the traffic can be A and B their new roads their new facilities uh things around the area may not have been built out so but yes the level of service usually goes down as well always
goes down as traffic volumes increase and generally after ribbon cutting the A and the B go away and it goes right to a C at that point it could happen that way yes thank you Mr chair um so A is the
gold standard then um and do we aspire to to B and C i would hope no no don't that's not at all it doesn't exist the level of service correlates to the wait time at a
traffic or the the grade is how that correlates we've had presentations on this all the time at NO i know you've you've heard them and it's basically how many cycles you have to sit at a stoplight to get through that stoplight
so if you have to sit at a stoplight two cycles to get through the stoplight that's an indication of a level of service level of service A does not exist i mean it really
doesn't it's it's philosophical it's like there's one car on the road all day long that's level of service A and then you have B and C most of our intersections are level of service B
or C when they start approaching a level of service D that's when we start making improvements and that's what these development agreements are is to prevent getting to capacity for us capacity is D
if you go over to Tampa or Orlando most of those are capac are level of service F that's what that's what they have accepted because it's very costly to make improvements to intersections so we have a level of
service D once intersections approach or attain a level of service Dgrade and I think Brian gives us or I don't know Audi probably could a report with some of those level of services throughout the county and you'll see most of them are B and C there are some
that are what I would call a C minus this is probably a C minus it's approaching its capacity but it's not at capacity yet that puts it on the list to make those improvements and then we start looking at what we need to do before it gets there so to say
that A and B is the gold standard and we're basically sherking our duties by attaining to a level D is inaccurate and a mis that's a mischaracterization of of what this is the reason I was pointing this out is
because you people need to have a reasonable expectation of what you're going to have to go through when you're driving around an urbanized area i mean if you want to live out in a rural area and not have stop lights and not have
intersections then that is a choice if you live in an urban area you are going to have some of these things but for us to put on um developers I think the county does a very good job at looking at where we're
going to have traffic problems and trying to leverage as much as we can out of these developments to make sure that that is being taken care of the fact that this is a 2004 traffic study um I know there's been a lot made about that
in the news but if you break it down and look at it if we did update if we required them to update the traffic study we would be getting less that neighborhood would be getting less out of that developer as far as roadway improvements go so we would be doing a
disservice to the community by doing that so I think it's very important that sometimes we understand what the documents are and how they interact with each other instead of just looking at
these headlines of 2004 20 years old all that kind of stuff the fact of the matter is the 20-year-old traffic study allows us to get more for that community to offset the impacts than a 2024 or
2025 traffic study would we are doing a better job for them by doing that and also by understanding what it even means and at the end of the day to get back to Commissioner Lur's point at the beginning of this people whether we like it or not I would love if nobody built
anything else in this county for the rest of time but people have property rights because we have made zoning decisions we did or commissions before us and if they want to do what is allowed in that
zoning there's nothing we can legally do or else we will get sued and it has happened in the past and that's a choice that we can make if that's what we want to do and we want to accept that liability we can certainly make that decision but I don't think that that's a
good decision either i think that what we need to do as commissioners is understand what this process is and understand where we can make the changes that we might want to make for instance my question is in a development
agreement what can we ask for and what can we not ask for is there things that you guys want to see that we need to let staff know so when they go to negotiate these development agreements they have the tools to say "The commission is
going to want to see X Y and Z the planning and zoning board is going to want to see X Y and Z give them the tools to do the job we want them to do instead of waiting to this point and having some kind of just huge brewhaha because we didn't
do our jobs at the beginning so what can we ask for in a development agreement and what can't we thank you commissioners um we can ask for we can move around time frames for example so instead of asking for a road to be allowed if for this one has two
phases some other projects may have multiple phases so instead of allowing things to happen at a later phase we could ask them to happen at an earlier phase so that those sorts of improvements are put in upfront versus perhaps later those are the kinds of things we can ask to have kind of moved
around um what we can't ask for is we can't ask we can't ask for them to do more than what they're required to do and if we do then we have to give them what is called an impact fee credit for those items for which an impact fee would otherwise be collected and that's
statutory so under the Florida statute anytime they do something that has to do with um for example if this roadway is something that they would get impact fees or would have to pay impact fees for they are entitled per Florida statute on a dollar for-doll basis an impact fee credit so we have to be
really careful what we can't do is we can't overreach there is case law on that which says that we can't necessarily overreach and overburden them to require them to do more than what they're required to do unless we're willing to compensate so at the same
token that they're required to pay for the new the new developments that are coming in for the new citizens we also can't make them pay for you know old stuff that we failed to upkeep or that perhaps we want to push on to someone else that's that kind of we have to be
even and equal and work with each other so that way we can accommodate help them to accommodate for new growth but also we can't overburden them with something that perhaps you know they did not cause for example so that's what that's where that kind of push and give and take kind
of comes in if you will so if we wanted to see um some of these traffic impact projects happen in phase one versus phase two that is something that we could ask for from my understanding yes ma'am
sorry go ahead i'm sorry Mr chair i think it was my question did you care to comment i know you answered it thank you for that but did you for for further clarification i was just going to say do we aspire to be in C that's all i didn't say this i wasn't you know discussing
this sure and as I stated up front we had a very robust discussion on traffic at the first hearing and I referred people to that uh video so for further clarification that back to the the the level of service um at an intersection
it's it's vehicular delay so there's an amount of delay as delay increases the level of service decreases but you can start with a something worse than an A B C D depending on the existing condition so wherever the development is and its
area of influence there's an existing and then they build on that from there i mean what we heard last time at the first hearing was uh that there is already a problem with regard to traffic in this area that and we heard from quite a number of people so I don't know
i guess I'll revert to baseball uh like Yogi Barra said that's the difference between theory and practice you know in theory theory is the same as practice and in practice it's not so what's on paper is not necessarily what people see
when they're driving in that area and I'll just remind everyone not to do uh necessarily with this particular development but we have you know our urban service boundary study and the answer to the question what are the top concerns you have related to future
growth within the county traffic was in the top three uh concerns so it's just something that we always should be aware of all of us and of course the staff because it's a concern countywide and we saw that expressed uh last at the first
hearing with regard to this particular matter thank you any other questions related to traffic yes Vice Chairman well thank you Chairman i uh I want to compliment Commissioner Adams on uh bringing it
home so to speak and uh very very articulate um Joseph how long have you been a engineer 35 years 35 years primarily with a traffic background uh I have a advanced degree uh beyond the
bachelor's level a master's degree and that focus the emphasis was on both traffic engineering and transportation planning and thank you and we do appreciate you and every member of our staff and we also appreciate uh your intimate knowledge of this particular
area as you travel this road every day on your way home is that correct i do that's correct uh with your 35 years experience Joseph wouldn't you agree that uh although you do see traffic on your way home southbound typically uh
presumably going to Indrio Road 9995 which is a major corridor to get to I95 from Indian River County wouldn't it be safe to say with your training and experience that uh once the Oslo Road
and I 95 opens uh we will even see less traffic on 43rd Avenue southbound in the evenings and northbound in the mornings we could see uh changes in the the travel patterns in in that area i myself
uh commute uh from St county so um it's easier for me to to get off of I 95 at Indrio and either um drive on 43rd or or 27th uh but if the interchange were were there tomorrow it
would be easier for me and probably a faster trip to to go up to Oslo Road and go over and I'd have many more choices to go up to State Road 60 to get to get here so with that new interchange uh
Oslo Road being a four-lane facility drivers tend to go where the facilities are better and where the level of service is better so that's really what changes that travel pattern is the path of lease resistance so it it would it would affect the travel patterns in that
area right and I appreciate that um and with respect to some of the the neighborhoods that are north that already exist they would obviously see perhaps a reduction as well with that southbound traffic in the afternoons
like I said if I was uh traveling tomorrow and the interchange was open I'd probably stay on State Road 60 go out to to 58th or 66th and and and get on I 95 at at Oslo instead of going all the way down to to St lucy County at
Indrio right and maybe a little out of your discipline but um with the anticipated opening time frame in sometime early 27 uh for Oslo 95 and parallel that with the um this
particular project uh I think it's safe to say they're not too far apart by months on which would be uh developed first and accessible first so yes these usually develop out in phases so with phase one and the completion of of that
new interchange there'd be more options for for for travel um into St lucy County out of St lucy County and from Indian River County going wherever they're going right particularly with 32% less homes in this particular sub there will be fewer trips based on fewer
units thank you Mr chair you know uh we heard a comment uh about uh many people had complained about the difficulties in navigating and travel at the last meeting the first hearing um
it's it's ironic that they're the same residents that complained when in the early 2000s when we wanted to widen 43rd and they're they're all vehement about you can't do that we don't need it
now we see how visionary staff was and the amount of expertise and knowledge that was applied to the future growth and now I just wanted I just thought it was ironic that
now nobody wants to see anything happen so long as they have their home and they're getting to where they got to go to and they don't want to be slowed down in any way shape or form just think of the previous folks that moved here how
they would have thought thank you you're welcome any any further questions for staff commissioners at this time no okay then um staff's recommendation is that uh the board open the public
hearing take comments and once the public hearing is closed um accept the proposed developers agreement for Lakeside West with Meritage Homes and allow the chairman to sign the proposed agreement and I will sit down thank you thank you councelor at this time we will open the
public hearing there are two podiums please state your your name and address for the record my name is Jeannie Coons i am a resident at the fountains that we have had robust
discussion about uh listening to the presentation i appreciate some of the answers to my questions being uh presented this morning i just want to point out a few items before you make your final
decision uh we have a lot going on in that area i attended the offlow quarter workshop last week which even added more concern in regards to the traffic in the
area uh yes I understand that by the numbers on the books when you apply the formulas and everything that the expectation is that we would have less traffic
uh on 43rd but I'd like to point out a couple of items one of them is if there is development to the west of us on Oslo uh and I know that there at the
workshop we were looking at 58th Avenue West where are those people going to go to shop the nearest shopping for groceries is on the corner of 43rd and
Oslo uh now I typically do not if even if I'm going west on uh Oslo approaching 43rd Avenue and I want to go to Publix I tend to make the left at the light and then make the left
again to go into the shopping center coming out of the shopping center I take my left it is very very dangerous some days because you cannot see to make that left with
the traffic during peak times another thing that I would like to ask the commission to consider is that we are so close to the county line and the developments that have been
that are being proposed uh where BIES is going in and that interchange at 95 will I mean I'm looking at numbers that go from 1500 to 2500 homes that they're planning on building in that
area right now we get traffic from Spanish Flakes Fairway up to Publix uh that unless they St lucy builds some type of shopping they're
going to come up 43rd to shop at our Publix and and the places that we have there so I'd like for you to just really think about the future in developing anything to the south of us with you've got to look at
what infrastructure is going to be he said that eventually we're going to be at capacity probably well now's the time to think about that not when we are at capacity i mean we already have difficulty during
peak times this morning I was I left my home at 8:30 i didn't get here until 10 after 9 that is because when I went across
Oslo geez 43rd which is already at capacity had an accident road was closed had to make a right go down Fourth Street get to 27th all the traffic was on 27th
uh I mean we're we've got to think of the future and not put anything new in without some infrastructure being improved and being there to be able to uh to handle it not just to the south on
uh 43rd Avenue but also looking at the Oslo corridor that's going to bring more traffic uh right now we are on a truck route the people get off of 95 at Indrio Road uh they come right up we have all
kinds of semis heavy heavy construction trucks that are coming through all you know during the day even and I understand this that I understand your dilemma with the traffic study now that he's gone in depth about disco
discussion on it however there is still going to be a problem in the future and I think we need to take the time now to look at what that is going to be and get ourselves prepared for it thank you thank you ma'am uh just regarding the uh
infrastructure requirements on development we most we most certainly are uh looking at that and there are no plans at this point but when those plans are made believe us that that will be
taken in consideration that people will have to travel to shop for resources as well it is anticipated and uh another uh comment please don't think that the retailers in
in uh groceries would allow the opportunity to be missed not to develop another site so that they can accommodate the needs of a community thank you good morning Marie Sha Van Fountains at Amber
Lakes um based upon what I've read subsequent to the last meeting and and in this meeting this Lakeside West is going to go in emerson Oaks will go in gas Bies will go in as well i think
we've made our position known that we have a traffic problem that's okay so what I'm asking as part of the Lakeside West project if you could do something to give us some relief because we don't have relief now if you could maybe pave
58th Street so we could take a ride out when it's all backed up if we could take a ride out go down 13th yes it's going the long way around but at least it gives us a path to get onto Oslo so we're going the back way but we're
taking a right the other thing is maybe consider additional traffic lights placed strategically on 43rd i mean I'm not an engineer but play strategically that maybe will help with the the public's issue taking the left out of Publix i
don't know but give us some help uh because I know we're going to need that so we're just making that request um I think we're also asking you consider our community when the Oslo and 95 interchange goes in to give up as you're
flushing out that project to help with our 43rd Street so our community is asking for some help short-term when you implement this project or these projects emerson Oaks is going in as well and I don't know how many homes are there do you know how
many homes anybody no okay thank you good morning my name is Tracy Hatch and I live just west on 21st Street Southwest everybody else is talking
about their developments that they currently live in but we live on the dirt road um we love our dirt road believe it or not we choose to live there um for very good reason um our concerns our neighbors concerns yes I do
have neighbors they may be very far away but we still call them neighbors um our our concerns are when they develop that specific area and they are going to pave part of 21st Street
Southwest from 43rd just west i don't know how how far maybe a quarter of a mile whatever it may be for those two entrances that are going to be coming out there on 21st Street
Southwest to the Lakeside West development the traffic flow from there if anybody is commuting or needing to go west out west of town on Route 60
anywhere that way or going to the new interchange that's opening at Oslo Road all of those homes are going to be utilizing our dirt roads is Meritage Homes going to be covering with impact fees to develop those roads
because the dirt roads are not going to be able to handle those that traffic so when approving this we need to go into this a little bit further of impact fees for the development or developer to
possibly future develop those roads and possibly pave them um not that we're asking for it to be paved because truly we don't want them to be paved it prevents people from coming out there um we like the quiet um there's also future
I I don't know what the plans are um future Christian private school going to be possibly built there at 13th Street Southwest and 58th Avenue again are these homes the um homeowners going to be wanting to put
their children in that school because it's near them and they're going to be traveling the back dirt road to get to that school there is going to be more of a traffic impact than what I believe our engineers
are looking at um and taking into consideration even though there are less homes going in at Meritage Homes than originally thought from 200 whatever it was four or back
then whenever this started I may have my dates incorrect we have still had developments and not just big communities going in but we have had homes being built in South Vo or Indian River County so are we taking that into
consideration when they're looking at the the 2004 traffic study i don't think they are personally but it's possible that they have but these are things that we question as um residents of the
county and we are concerned about um truly of making sure that our dirt roads are being maintained properly for possible increase in traffic thank you for your time
good morning wesley Mills Mil Short Associates i'm the engineer record for the project i'm just happy to answer any questions that you may additionally have thank you anything further given fair
opportunity public hearing is now closed commissioners Mr mr chairman this will be my two my two cents worth in regards to this development i think Miss Hatch just
summed up a lot of what I want to say um I'm not necessarily against this or I voted for the other one i'm necessarily against this one i just too have concerns about ingress
and egress i understand I do believe that that 95 or the the interchange at 95 will take some of the heat off but there's still going to be a lot of people that are going to be using 43rd South in and out of any river county
i would very much like to see us think about doing something with 58th Avenue south of Ocelot Road to allow ingress and egress and take some of the pressure off the 5 acre and 10acre track homes
that are out there on the dirt road such as she said and I'll bring to your attention again that you have Emerson you have Lakeside that's going to be right there you are going to have if it's already been approved the Rivero Classical School that's going to be up
to the high school level that's going to be back there on 13th Street Southwest and I know that we require them to pave say for instance on the I'm looking at this with the Meritage project they're going to
have to pave from 43rd down to their western boundary and I understand that and they're going to put in a numerous amount of turn lanes off of 43rd you know right lane left turn lane kind of things and I think that's
great i'm concerned about the long run right now 58th Avenue south of Oslo because it's in my district we see we receive calls on a pretty regular basis about the condition of the road and it's
terrible and our public works department has been trying to work on that to put millings on it to find some way for them to say more substantial because it's a lot of traffic on 58th Avenue South uh
going down to 13th 17th 21st and 25th The school is going to be right there they're going to be required to pave some we may want to look at paving 58 further down unless maybe we
can get some help if we ask some the the two developers PTE and and marriages if they want to be a part of it but I think it would be in our best interest to look at what we can do with extending 58th Avenue South further i
don't know if we need to go to the county line yet to 25th Street it's it's uh that's a pretty good stretch but I know that the 13th Street Southwest that road right now is horrendous and we need to we need to make some improvements to
that so I don't know when exactly these projects are going to go be shovel ready and go in the ground but maybe we have time to plan for a project on 58th Avenue south of Oslo i think that's probably up to to
Audi and his staff to to let us come back with that but I'm not I would just like to see us include that somehow that we take a look at 58th Avenue South i think it's going to be in the long run i think we'd be much better off in in the long term for what's going
to go down there what potentially can go down there and plus there's a stop light at 58th Avenue in Oslo that would probably mitigate some of the concerns of traffic now and in the future but what everybody said what Commissioner Lur said what Commissioner Adams said
was spoton and and and and I agree and I don't see where I can necessarily vote against this but I just want to say we need to look at 58th Avenue extension for now and in the future that's all we got
mr chair I move staff approval second and discussion i I heard the I heard you loud and clear on the concerns on 58th but as we heard uh we
can't ask a developer to do more than would be required by calculations and count uh other than well I mean we could ask for less everybody likes that but we can't
ask them to develop a roadway that we anticipate might be uh burdened in a future time uh I think we're prohibited from doing that if they wanted to hey you know what let
me build a road for you too by the way uh we often hear when developers are uh applying uh that u they they will tout that hey I did this for you I did that fee i just want you to know that there were
requirements they were understanding that staff had gone through uh the all the whole process to ensure that they brought it up to their commitment their level of
level of service or they enhanced the the uh the turn signal the the the turn lanes the entry uh to satisfy the traffic concerns to satisfy the
needs but we can't say "Hey let's pave that roadway down to the county line and expect them to pick up the freight." Again I'm not ask this may be on I could see it it doesn't hurt to ask but we can this
would probably be on our dime and I think that we need to plan ahead over the next few years to say "Hey maybe we need to look at Haven 58th Avenue south of Offslow to maybe do the county line or less." I think we need And that
process is to get it on the uh capital improvement list and and move it as swiftly as possible uh bearing in mind the needs well okay that's not for today i was just going to say that you
know that's great but you have the other side of the coin which is the people in the five and 10acre ranchettes that don't really want to encourage more people going through their area it's so I mean I get it i live on 10 acres out in the middle of Felsmere so I and I'm
between two you know with a new exit at St john's I'm on Babcock it's it's a it's crazy so you're going to have that too but I think that that is our goal our role is to have the conversations and we need to have the conversations and the only way you prevent traffic problems is to continue to grow your
grid network which we've done a decent job of in Indian River County but traffic and roadway improvements are expensive so if the commission wants to prioritize that then we need to prioritize the money and the funding to do it and that's on us so you know
that's not for today's discussion but I you know this is a discussion we should be having at no this is a discussion we should be having when we talk about CIP and we give direction to the budget okay so we do have a motion and a
second is there any further discussion all in favor opposed nay motion carries four to one with Commissioner Moss dissenting push one more okay forge
ahead we'll now move on to the first public hearing for the proposed developers agreement between DRP bookbinder Multistate LLC and Iny River County good afternoon
commissioners susan Praa deputy county attorney for Indian River County Attorney's Office um this is a little bit of a unique uh situation so this is the first public hearing for proposed developers agreement between DRP Bookbinder Multistate and Indian River
County um the second public hearing for this proposed developers agreement is scheduled for April 8th 2025 and that is um pursuant to 163 3225 of the Florida statutes um if this developers agreement looks very similar to you it's because
it is this is the same developers agreement that was brought towards the board for Harmony it's the Harmony Isle development however the ownership has changed um prior to execution of the finalized developers agreement the
development was sold to another entity um so this particular developer agreement everything the same but for the owner of the property was brought in front of the board back on January 28th 2025 for the first
um public hearing and then again on February 11 2025 for the second public hearing at which point in time this uh piece of property was sold from the then owner who was Riverfront Groves to the now current owner DRP bookbinder
multi-state LLC so that would be the only change in this developer agreement everything else remains the same um as far as the development would be consisting of the 237 single family lots 147 town homes and is to be located at
137598th Avenue Vero Beach Florida mr chair Castle yes u Okay so we we're mirroring a a previous affforementioned presentation
yes sir and um and that's all good and as far as the project going forward but I just want to go back to uh just do we know anything about DRP
bookbinder multistate because again most of us have had the experience where our mortgage or our uh insurance has been sold transferred we're dealing with a new
entity the new entity may have different services the new entity may have less services the new entity may be more costly there's always some change when we have a buy and sell and in this case
that's what has happened do we know anything about this firm out of New York that's taking it over no sir i was contacted by uh it was the I believe the attorney that was representing them the
de the the firm when it cames to the sale of this and the acquirement of this property um they wanted to take over this property by a simple assignment because the actual developer agreement that the board approved on back in February has an assignment clause on it
so if should the prior owner Riverfront Groves have signed this developers agreement and it had been finalized they could assign it to any corporation um of their choosing without any consent from the county so we don't know anything about this company other than
they purchased it and they're wanting to move forward and bind themselves to the same conditions and requirements as the former entity did they're not asking for any changes it's merely a um if you will I can't s I sold the house to Jennifer
i'm just going to use this for an example or and so I can no longer sign for a permit jennifer as a new owner has to be the one to sign for the permit or if it were to work vice versa that's simply what it is is it's the changing of entity i don't know if that answers your
question you did i just wanted to uh separate the two that you know we're looking at the project but I also had never heard of this group organization and I did not know if we
did any vetting or uh due diligence upon their existence capacity past performance that would indicate that they would follow through as committed no sir the only thing that would require them to follow through as committed
would be the contract so we're there's no requirement for anybody to vet any business that comes in and does business with the county um if there's an applicant we accept the applications and they either comply with the requirements or they don't our office does check to
make sure obviously that all signing authority is in place that they're in good standing with whatever state that they're registered with for example if they are a Florida you know business we need to make sure that they're in good standing with Sunbiz they're not something that's dissolved because they wouldn't have the ability to enter into
an agreement as a dissolved corporation um if it's an outofstate corporation we require all the documentation for that and to demonstrate that they're in good standing so that they can do business here in the state of Florida as well but that is as far as our due diligence goes um for a company that's coming in and
wanting to do business um with the county thank you basically all we're being asked to do today is take a developer agreement that we've already approved and assign it to the new owner
yes correct thank you York well I don't know if I'm going to comment on that one but thank you i'll take it as a compliment any other
questions from New Yorkers of non New York good all right well we're going to open up to public hearing thank you good morning i think it's still morning
um Sharon Gorey um I live in Village Green welcome uh this particular development on 90th um actually had caused us some concern because of the
um traffic on 60 and as well it sits like practically in the middle between Route 60 and Oslo so you know you've got your Oslo corridor as well to take into consideration which also falls back on
the 43rd Avenue issue i mean the network of of traveling around this town is getting a little more difficult when you're looking for lower traffic um but if this is just a matter of approving a new owner and you've already approved
the project there's nothing any of us can protest is that correct right so it was wonderful well your input is important it was wonderful spending the day with you guys thank you uh what were you gonna ask me no no your
your input is important don't don't uh lessen the value i know it is i know like four of you up there so so I just use the phone sometimes and And you're you're aware that State Road 60 was uh enhanced and widened and as is
that oh more than aware i just am also more than aware I don't go on it unless I absolutely have to i used to respond to your community i know how how that flow goes yes no we uh and 26th Avenue is 26th Street is quickly getting Yes a
little dangerous too so we might all just have to get golf carts and build a grocery store ourselves i don't know anyway but thank you thank you so much good morning Mr chair members of the commission pete Sweeney with the firm of
MTC Law representing the applicant um just very quickly to answer the question it's a joint venture which was created as you might expect um a project of this size uh the other thing I strongly want to mention is how appreciative I am
personally of staff um and I want to compliment the county a lot was discussed in the prior hearing about looking forward and trusting in staff in doing this right and no shortcut was taken not on the first iteration of this uh it was a very laborious process and I
want to thank Miss Praau and your county attorney Meler um we we spent months working through it and the county is going to see significant improvements not only in traffic but also in utilities which was not brought up during some of the prior discussion that's also an aspect of growth and
impacts but even more importantly something that would have been as simple as a form being filled out had it already been signed and then submitted to the planning department simply for tracking purposes for the county to know who the new owner is that wasn't done no
shortcut was taken and again Jennifer thank you very much um for your office cooperating and communicating with the title attorney who handled the closing for Susan jumping right on it um and getting this up as quickly as possible
this is the way it should be done and again I compliment you I compliment staff and I compliment the future of the county because this will be something you'll be able to look back on and go "This is the right process this is the right procedure." And there's no hidden untransparent document floating out
there from decades ago you'll be able to see exactly what was required on behalf of the applicant behalf of the county and and I think you're going to see shovels in the ground sooner than you expect so I'm happy to answer any additional questions but I wanted to make sure I emphasized how appreciative I am of of staff so thank you
thank you anything else i thought you were coming up having given an ample opportunity public hearing is now closed second if I
can New York thank you and staff recommendation is for um us to bring this back for the second public hearing um at the next commission meeting as moved by vice chairman or myself any further discussion
all in favor opposed opposed nay and for the record um I voted the same way on the previous uh iteration of this matter thank you thank you motion passes 4 to one with Commissioner Moss desenting thank you
Commissioner second hearing see you then time yet or keep going yeah we're going to take a brief recess meeting will now be called back to order and the next item is item 11 A3 which is the miscellaneous budget amendment
two report good afternoon commissioners kristen Daniels budget director before you today is budget amendment two um this budget amendment funds with cash the recently approved CIE as well as previously
approved board items that were on previous agendas and also some rollover projects that were incomplete at the end of last year that we need to roll into the current fiscal year uh per Florida statute 129.062F whenever the budget is amended
using cash we are required to hold this public hearing um so today staff is recommending that after the public hearing is closed that the board approve the budget resolution amending the fiscal year 2425 budget and I am available if you have any questions on
the items the list is robust mr chair I'd like to discuss item 22 and has to do with the the district 19 medical examiners um
quite frankly the chair I was a little put back Thursday when I when I read this agenda item um I'm not so certain apparently we were notified or the administrator was notified on February
24th uh this is the first my of my knowledge I believe Thursday afternoon uh and if we could have Miss Daniels brief kind of brief us on it please sure um so they are asking for an increase to
her salary um to raise it to a total of where is it down here uh $494,857 so the portion that we're asking you to approve today is just for the remainder of this fiscal year but obviously we will incur those additional costs going forward um so the backup
that we that John was provided from St lucy County they did a study on the comparison of the autopsies performed in the total staff of the surrounding districts and determined that her
compensation as it was currently uh at 367,000 is not adequate i didn't get that particular back and I didn't I as you know I got this from you yesterday um one thing for clarification
from uh maybe the administrator I I read in paragraph two sentence two uh that the 19th district performed over over 900 autopsies um is that
uh year to date is that physical is that calendar uh and I uh I struggle with that number of 900 so that and I'm going to read it just as I received it based upon our survey of
Florida medical examiners conducted February 25 our district performed over 900 autopsies and it's was my understanding that was as of you know February 2025 that was the number per year
and we have backup to support that that's I I can certainly request that from St lucy County uh they were the ones that provided the the chart and I guess to provide some more context uh at the time that they they called was there
was and there still may be but there were seven you know ME positions open in the state and the current medical examiner was being uh recruited by two others with a lesser workload
and and then proposed to or went spoke to the administrator and I understand that um there's also support among the law enforcement and the the uh state attorney's office you know for based on
the work that she's performing wow so you had this information on February 25th i think it was shortly after that i mean because you can even see even says "Dear Mr donaldson but I mean I can get you the exact date um to our budget director with respect
to our earlier presentation about uh the new medical examiner's facility can you remind this body about th those dollars sure so um we get monthly updates from St lucy County and the one I I looked
back and the one that has numbers most recently was in November and the estimate was $22 million for the new facility now our portion is roughly 25% of the of the 4 county um so that would be about 5.5 million what I can tell you
um is is previously we had budgeted 5 million in the CIE we've got 2.5 million this year and 2.5 next year um they haven't got the bid results yet that number is going to change so if something were to go up or down we could
reflect it in the 2526 budget um but that 22 million is just an estimate understood and you know I look at it um not that the doctor would be working in a brand new building
state-of-the-art and I compare that with administrator statement about there's other openings in the state or in the country i happen to be on her selection committee along with chairman Flesher many years well not many years ago probably
2020 years ago somewhere in there so if we're going to talk about a particular uh position and in the periphery to talk about well there's seven other openings and he or she's been entertained by other jurisdictions
um you know we we could do that for any position in the agency and we could also um look at the dollars that we've committed for the new facility and by virtue of
of you know getting this information on Thursday and not being able to to call some of the the contacts that the administrator mentioned are in favor of this in addition to the 900 autopsies
which I uh there's a I don't want to get too deep into it but there's a method whether it's an unattended death or an attended death an attended death would be hospice nursing homes
um Commissioner Urban's well aware of that as well as chair uh versus an unattended typically an unattended death there is in fact an autopsy uh in some instances of attended
uh the family or others could request an autopsy uh I would challenge how this is being documented if we're looking at 900 actually it says over i don't know if that means 991 or 999 i don't know
what over means but I do find it um it would be very helpful if we had that number i will disagree that it's 900 could be completely wrong but I'm not comfortable with this
um particular budget amendment well shoot thank you uh Vice Cham u as you pointed out we were on the selection committee we we were part of Dr veronica
getting hired unequivocably she's she's tops and not taken away from that at all but during that process when we had all of the county
representation and law enforcement state attorney chhatted and as we were going through the assessment I think she was hired at about $375,000
and most of the talk was around the building and we were committed to move it forward when we did move it forward all of the county representation got together we discussed it it was also
determined that St lucy would being the the host county uh would um uh work hand in hand in day-to-day operations and and
manage which was fine um but when we look at the bigger picture and how this budget amendment is done it's it's after the
fact the funds are committed now we're we're we're going to pay out for the past few months no sir no sir let me just clarify something no so the St lucy County is not presenting
it to their board until June 1st i'm reading the email we got it after the deadline for the the the last meeting uh and it's like you know comment if you and your board is okay with this i would like to move forward and have this been placed by June 1st pending board's
approval this is not in effect until that June 1st meeting so we can we could pull this and bring it back separately we actually had a discussion whether we should do it separately as part of the the budget amendment which was coming up and because it was a
$14,578 for this fiscal year we can if you want to pull this we can I can go back to the administrator get the information you're requesting and then bring it back separately well again as as it reads St lucy County is
recommending a salary increase and that Indie River County's portion of the increase of $14,578 for the four months remaining in the current fiscal year um again we were all part of the
decision process to select Dr veronica again not taking away from what she does i think it's very highly of her i think it's disingenuous to have St
lucy recommend a salary adjustment uh without discussion with all of the counties we are all partners we have put into this a lot in this selection
process we were asked about the building we all stepped up to the plate and discussed it and it is working out by virtue of what you heard this morning and a salary adjustment of that
nature of Dr ronica is a resident of our county um I So she's paying taxes in our county she does yeah yeah so I just think that it's a little
offkilter and it it's not as transparent as I would like it to be as our commitment to good stewards of the people that we serve not to be part of the process
before it gets to that just by virtue of somebody made a decision so just got to open up the checkbook so I I do believe that there was a discussion due in order to that to happen mr chair I also think her
contract uh is June 1 through July so you have a a separate issue with respect to our fiscal additionally I think the backup should include uh her contract so we can see where we're at and again this has nothing to do with our budget
director she's bringing this information to us correct but a conversation was had before it got here so it seems that way according to the first sentence it has to was anybody from Indian River County
included in this study or discussion well I was contacted by the county administrator and we discussed the before or after the study oh after so St lucy County decided that she wanted a
raise and did a study and then is telling us I think she went to St lucy County for the raise and then since they're at 46% 47% of the the salary the responsibility and I think it's part of the ILA that I think doesn't I think she
reports that i'll get a copy of that as well well I understand that that they pay the the lion share i I get that but you're still talking about a 33% increase in her salary that's pretty significant to not have I mean I I can't disagree i
would like to see this pulled and have somebody come and talk to us about how the what the process is that they went through to even come up with that suggested salary because I'm looking at the information on this
survey and it doesn't necessarily indicate to me that the number that they have gotten to is justified you know and the way I look at it is our taxpayers are silent partners with a gag
order they had no say in the matter but they have the ability to pay the taxes that are going to be used for this appropriation and and I believe that at that point that we as a county
representing the good citizens who are paying their taxes to be involved in the process and not just one phone call to the county administrator and all right we'll just get that going uh I I just
think our taxpayers are due more of an explanation participation by us because we were committed in the selection process we are committed in the building process and this is just another
expenditure that should be accounted for and we should have participation when somebody's getting a 30 33% increase i think you all would like to have a 33% increase
147,000 that was it again this is not about Dr veronica this is about the process how we're here today what we're doing and how it got to us mr chairman this I agree with with
you all and Commissioner Adams i think we need to take another look at this maybe have the county administrators meet and report back to us and have somebody or have somebody come here i don't know who that would be i don't think it's the county's job either
to to tell us this is what we want to pay or you all join in i think we all have to agree on that so maybe the county administrators of the four county area should get together talk about it bring us back something that y'all can agree
on i mean explaining our our position and I'm sure because I remember when we were building the facility Okachobee was like no way at all we can't afford this that we're going to build a facility but
at least we see that's getting done so maybe uh that's just a thought i mean I'm open for a game i I think we need to I think we need to look at this as a whole and not be basically told by St lucy County this is what we want to do
agreed is someone going to make a motion i'll be glad what i'll make a motion to have the county administrators discuss it somehow together as a group to see what they can come back with come back with information what are contract states all
those things and we'll we'll make a decision from there but I think at least it's just easier for them to get together that the county administrators should talk about it other than trying to get us all to talk about it the county administrators aren't commissioned
to adjust the budget we owe it to them so they can communicate all they want but that comes back before this body yeah bring it back and have the county administrator bring something back so that's that's my motion it'll be an agenda item in the future i'll I'll
second I'll second that the agenda item uh 22 right okay not the entire package correct correct can as part of that can there be somebody here that can answer our questions i don't know who that
would be but somebody made a decision and did a study so somebody can be here to answer the questions that we have i think St lucy County did the study but yeah might not hurt to have the medical examiner here too not sure sorry studies affected our budget mr
chairman let me rephrase my motion i make a motion to approve the uh miscellaneous budget amendment well we had a motion in the second with the exception of Wait excuse me you mean do you want me to clarify it the second this is the the
second removed and if the initial is removed then you can go ahead with a new motion okay it's my motion we approve it's fine i'll I'll re I'll remove the original second we approve the miscellaneous budget amendment with the exception of 22 and
then 20 under 22 we have the county administrator meet with the other county administrators and vet this out come back to us prior to the June 1st deadline it's going to be a public meeting it's going to be on our agenda he bring it
back here okay okay that was Can we do it in a separate way i have two separate motions i'd like to you would like have an approval of everything exclusive of 22 so this way that's done i like that idea
okay so uh you you're I'll make a motion to approve the budget amendment with the exception of item 22 my motion with the exception of item 22 i have a motion and a second second we have a
motion by Joe Airman seconded by Commissioner Moss any further discussion all in favor opposed motion carries that leaves item
22 at the oveance which make a motion to have the county administrator meet come back with information such as how the study was done the contract and asked somebody to be here to present that information at a
f at a future meeting prior to the June 1st second discussion i'm presuming June 1st has something to do with her contract i wouldn't know i don't have the contract i don't know that either
but you're probably right i believe it's just timing on when when she was I Yes so your motion is to the other deal with
it come back with further information or contract everything identify and is that to identify the process reasoning and the numbers that
were presented to us correct yes you understand any further discussion all in favor i opposed motion carried unanimously uh thank you Chris thank you to the county administrator um do we
anticipate that coming back at the next meeting the next meeting uh I doubt the next meeting but I think the meeting after that yes sir just want to get a flavor for the timeline thank you all
right we got miscellaneous done for the most part and now we'll move on we have uh no public notice items but we do have community services that's item
13B1 and we have a return on investment report go team here we go chairman commissioners on behalf of the Children's Services Advisory Committee and the Community Services Department I
want to begin by extending a heartfelt thank you your continued commitment to funding programs that support the children and the families of Indian River County is not only appreciated but it's truly impactful this funding
represents one of the most proactive forwardthinking investments you can make in the well-being of this community by supporting wraparound services such as afterchool care and summer enrichment you're helping our working parents remain employed and children stay
engaged in safe and supportive environments your leadership here ensures that families in Indian River can access essential resources without trying to choose between job stability and their child's safety or development but it really doesn't stop there thanks
to your support these programs extend from prenatal care all the way through high school graduation offering a continuum of services that build strong foundations address challenges early on and unlock potential in every child so
I'm going to let Megan our human services manager take you deeper into the outcomes performance measures and the the really incredible impact that we're making here because of this funding and talk about what that investment means for the future of any river county
good afternoon i had in my speech good morning but we had to do a little editing um I'll walk you through quickly we just wanted again to say thank you for everything you've done um when you look through the research it shows that there is a 2.7 to 16% return on
investment for every child not for every but for serving early childhood education and programs um we in 2324 our annual report which I'm not going to go through all of it uh but it is posted on
our children services website we had over 20,000 touch points through 46 funded programs so this return on investment is happening here in Indian River County just a couple highlights 97% of children in early childhood
development supported by through SESAC funding demonstrated improved gross motor skills 571 children entered kindergarten ready to learn thanks to the support of our programs 80% of participants in workforce programs transitioned to
employment becoming tax law-abiding taxpaying citizens 100% of children uh in our intervention programs avoided the juvenile justice involvement which we all know can be a very costly program so being proactive
instead of reactive is something that I thank you for allowing us to do oh last one 97% of participating parents showed an increase in developmentally appropriate parenting skills helping build that foundation for
their children very early in life we are moving full steam ahead so in 2425 thanks to the board of county commissioners who allocated over $3 million to invest in children programming we have 47 funded programs the SEESAC staff along with the SEESAC
committees have been out to the majority of these programs doing site visits to ensure that their activities are aligned to the outcomes that are stated in the goal each of these 47 programs that we are funding uh submitted an application in the funding priorities that were
identified in our needs assessment those funding priorities quickly are health and well-being nurturing families and communities and success in school and life um those needs identified from the needs assessment committee uh looked over thousands of pieces of state data
local data and research studies to determine what our local needs are and what the biggest return on investment is so with that we are just going to quickly show the return on investment for each funding priority i'm not going to read everyone verbatim um but it is on our children's services website for
any of you to go deeper on um or anybody in the community so just a couple in the health and well-being the cost um savings for investing in pre-natal care um is anywhere is around 5.7 return on
investment and it could save the society two 26.2 billion or 51 almost $51,000 per infant nurturing families in community um this is just a big one to catch a 14-year-old and save them from a
path an at risk path um it could save society 3.2 to 5.5 million when you compound all of the things that you have to do when you have somebody that's incarcerated um lastly success in school and life investment in early childhood
programs for disadvantage children yield a 4 to$16 return and we all know if we were investing that's where we'd want our money to be um one other one that I found very interesting is that investing in youth um career and technical education programs leads to a
220% return on investment within 5 years so the money that you guys are investing in our children and our family are really making a difference we see it every day we hear the impact stories and we can't thank you enough for everything you do i know together we can ensure that every child in Indian River County
reaches their full full potential so thank you any questions what are you doing sorry did you ask if there are any questions okay why' you have a question i I'm sorry that that's all um I certainly
think that uh there are a lot of benefits to the SESAC funding however if we're being asked to acknowledge this specific report I noticed that eight of the 13 uh references or academic
references are more than 10 years old so and so I I Googled it i'm like well is that you know should it be more than 10 years old you know references that you're citing so I'll just read some of the answers I got and anybody can do this uh in terms of research uh a good
rule of thumb is to use sources published in the past five years for research uh another one was be careful about citing all references the rule of thumb is to go back at most five to six years exceptions to this rule should be
reserved for quote seinal works and the third thing that I came up with uh the study using outdated technology or methods uh for analyzing data uh research could have been superseded by
more recent studies with stronger evidence so these were just different you know there you know it's just objective i mean it's not quibbling about does it benefit yes uh you know I think that it certainly benefits people but this specific uh document you know
the references are just old yeah as you know there was a global pandemic which did halt a lot of research in these areas with a return on investment because there were so many variables at play so we did do our due
diligence in finding the most up-to-date research but please if you find other research that um you think would be worthwhile for us to look into we would be happy to continue looking into that both Megan and I have um a master's degree in in educational leadership we'd
be happy to look at that data and continue uh moving forward and we could bring it to our needs assessment committee um who updates the needs assessment every year so we would love to have the additional data great thank you yeah thank
you anything else all right next item is 13 G1 which is the children's services funding allocation for fiscal year 2022 2526 maybe Oh
thank you queuing up the PowerPoint i was waiting for you oh okay all right so today we're seeking approval for the 2526 funding allocation so a little bit of background here the funding is based on the change
of the prior year's tax role with exceptions during the economic downturn when it was a challenge for the county to sustain that level of funding and there were some years where we had to decrease um back in 2022 the board made amendments to the SESAC ordinance that
took the prior millage cap of 1/8 of a mill or.125 up to a quarter of a mill as an option um the mill rate has stayed the same however at 1.25 that 1/8 of a mill
um not only since the 2022 ordinance change but also as far back as 201920 so here we have the history since inception um as you can see we had decreases beginning in 2007 and 8 that
was during our downturn lasted through 201213 where funding love it off for a few years uh but then it has begun to increase steadily since then so today staff's recommendation is to continue funding SESAC at the uh 1/8
of a mill level funding uh this will generate [Music] $3,479,492 for the upcoming fiscal year i will note it is an additional $458,951 or 15.2% over the previous year's
allocation for the funding um and this is a little bit larger than the increase we saw in last year's tax which is closer to 10 and a half% and that's because um if you'll recall there was $128,810 that was not awarded to the 46
programs that were funded um as part of the SEESAC and staff shared recommendation so that's why the increase this year is a little bit larger than our increase in the tax role from the prior year and I'm available if you have any questions mr chair I just want to publicly thank
Commissioner Adams for taking over that role in SESAC and working well with the team of course it's been a good time we've gotten a lot accomplished um and you know Commissioner Erman was instrumental
in in getting us to this point so uh I think this is a good increase we'll be able to do um a lot there's more need out there but as Kristen says this is allows us also to work with those agencies and help them expand um their
ability to serve more uh we'll be looking at location of services where they're being provided where we have maybe service deserts um and trying to address that in the next couple of years um but you know the committee is doing great work i think the return on
investment that you just saw um is is instrumental and I'm proud of what what they're doing and what the team's doing as a whole and with that I'd be happy to move approval second i just have one more comment would that be all right okay
thank you um I had already mentioned this to uh to the county administrator so it's not the first time he's hearing it i know understand that it's a delegate matter um that being said at the main SESAC meeting on February 11th
and I watched uh the video of it uh during the public comments section uh uh fears were expressed that uh that there was staff retaliation could be uh in play against certain agencies that
might have questioned certain practices um so anybody can watch uh can watch that video i just want to ensure I've and I said I've already mentioned this to the county administrator i just want to be sure that people all the people
participating you know all the nonprofits feel free to ask questions and to speak up um without any fear of reprisal in a very open atmosphere because I know u myself own experience
we uh was that on August uh for the our meeting August 23rd of 2023 I had questions And just because you have questions doesn't make you the problem you know it doesn't but the questions I had and this
is all public record um and I'm not going to read the questions now but I'll I'll read segments of it so you can see perhaps recall the tone of it number one was I would suggest for your consideration number two was do you have a preference and number three was do you
have any comments or suggestions so it was just to to get the ball rolling on certain areas having to do with policy and it was sumearily voted off the agenda that day um so I've you know I've
experienced a bit of uh um suppression or hesitancy to discuss openly um items that that should be policy or even just should be considered so I don't want this to happen to anyone else because
I'm you know I'm in a position where I can take that because you know I stand for reelection and uh did very well in the last uh election period so I you know I I have that to fall back on but these
nonprofits you know I I try to put myself in their position if they are afraid of any reprisals because they have uh questions comments that might be um unpleasant to be heard or or maybe
just people don't want to talk about it but uh at any rate I I would I would appreciate it if the county administrator and I've already discussed this with him uh could however he chooses to do so look into this because
I I I just if there is this commissioner concern I'd like to see it addressed if I could address your concerns since I'm the chair of that committee and I was there that day and if you had watched the entirety of the meeting and we can
talk about the entirety of the meeting it was very clear that the agency was had come in for funding under the wrong category in fact they admitted that at the meeting
a B staff makes no decisions about funding staff makes no decisions about the programs staff makes no decisions about any of that they guide the committee the committee makes the
decisions then the subgrant committee the needs assessment committee and the main committee the main committee sets up all the requirements that these nonprofits have to go through not staff there's no opportunity for staff to have any kind of reprisal
because staff is not in any kind of decision-making position and in regards to your item on August 29th of 2023 that was removed that wasn't removed by staff that was removed by the fellow commissioners that sit up here that are also
elected so I think it is um again a misrepresentation that staff has anything to do with the decision-making process what staff does do is puts together a PowerPoint presentation as you know you used to be
on this committee you used to chair it and then the committee goes through and makes the decisions and if you listen to the entirety of the conversation at that meeting on February 11th it was very clear that the committee did not agree
with uh the comments that were made that the comments that were made were inappropriate and the organization itself admitted to being having applied for a program in a category in which
they couldn't meet the measurable outcomes because their program was not that type of program in fact I believe they came in under um an educational category and they should have come in under more of the wellness category
which they indicated which is why they couldn't meet the measurable outcomes it's not measurable outcomes as determined by the staff it's measurable outcomes as determined by the entirety of the main committee so I think it's very important to put all of this in the
proper context and nothing that you have said today had anything to do with staff but everything to do with the committee and your fellow commissioners well if in the video um it's interesting because the person uh making the
comments you know was concerned about you know retaliation and being able to speak freely and I mean I guess you look at it as supporting staff but I looked at it then everybody has a different point of view and everybody can watch the video it's it's public record um in
its entirety if you choose or you bet that's about two hours in uh that it gets a public comment but when the person uh made that comment the other committee members you know attacked the person who made the comments and I uh that's you know that's how I viewed it i
I I you know I've had enough of that you know the personal attacks um I completely understand you know it's not it's not right i completely understand but it's also important that the person that made the comment was a committee member it was not somebody from the public it was another member of the
committee and I will say that we have re-evaluated the way that the agenda is done so if a committee member has something that they want to bring up it will be on the agenda for everybody to notice so there's none of this gotcha moment at the end of the meetings just like has been happening because that's
unfair to committee members and it's unfair to staff i think that it was very clear that where staff has gone with this and this group is doing a lot better as far as transparency as far as responsiveness and as far as providing information i also know that you have
not necessarily been the biggest supporter of this program or this funding since its inception which I respect you don't have to just like I'm not a big supporter of some of the other things that we have funded as a commission that being said I think it is very inappropriate just to lob grenades
into conversations without the proper context um and blame staff for things that are decisions of commissioners and committees and with that being said nobody's blaming staff you just did so there was I just said take I did make a
motion and I think there was a second Mr chair i'd like to call the question it was I I appreciate your edification and uh information pertaining to the meetings i just want to add that I have
witnessed the meetings and we talk about measurable outcomes it's not the two individuals that are sitting in the room it is the board when they are looking at this there is dissension as you're aware not
everybody agrees but the majority assesses and it it's about the benefit to the children to the community with taxpayer dollar and I
think that the system is working as well staff does have an obligation and then we have an obligation at the end to say the system worked but in no way shape or form did anybody from this dis steer
anything and in no way shape or form did two individuals that are present today steer anything and I just realized that one of the committee members are in in the room as well so again uh if you're
going to cast aigate on a system know how the system's working who the people are and what's being discussed in the approval process and then you got something we have a motion in a second
mr chair if I could just add I've heard the word suppressed and reprisal and I think it goes back to understanding the topic and understanding and believing in the staff
that this county has uh whether it be SESAC or or a traffic study for example um we have to move the dial and not talk about suppression not talk about reprisal and understand the commitment
that our men and women of this agency have thank you motion in a second any further discussion all in favor i opposed
motion carries unanimously thank you next item uh is public works item 13J1 which is the options for paving of 32nd Avenue in the Gford
neighborhood there are attachments on disclosure there's option one and two but there are three options and well good afternoon Doc good afternoon honorable chair and commissioners adi Javeed public works
director here to present the options for paving off 32nd Avenue you have the attachments and and the board uh staff report in front of you and I have a quick presentation where I'm going to go over some of these options with some more details i also wanted to point out that we
recently actually met with progressive civic league and also shared this information with me we also had county administrator John Titkanik and then also Nancy and Chris Walter as well and these three options were presented to
them as well for information purposes only so the three options that we're looking at and obviously these options are more conceptual at this time one is just paving 43rd place between uh 33rd Avenue and 32nd Avenue within existing
county right away the second option is to basically pave 43rd place and 32nd Avenue and option third includes option second along with drainage improvements and just to give you a little bit more information and perspective this is the
the project location with the aerial view and and the street view and this is the first option I'm looking at is the option for paving of 43rd place between 32nd and 33rd Avenue there
is an existing county right away uh about 30 foot wide and the reason for proposing this option is to take care of a utility manhole that's at the intersection of 43rd place and 32nd and based on the comments from the residents
we understood that that was a big concern when folks are uh either coming in or leaving the premises so we wanted to at least make sure that if we were to propose any kind of a paving operations in this area that we're basically providing some opportunities to take
care of the manhole and graded in a way where it doesn't keep getting uh disruptive to the the incoming off flow obviously the second option we were looking at is paving uh 32nd Avenue between 43rd Street North all the way to
44th Street and obviously this is not within County Rightway and there's about 10 lots or homeowners that will be impacted if we were to do any kind of a paving off 32nd Avenue and if you look at the street view there
is an existing dirt uh pathway which is about 20 foot wide and the proposed recommendation for this uh paving option includes basically uh paving it and having to also look at some options for
drainage improvements last option that I wanted to also present is basically not just pave 43rd place and 32nd Avenue but also look at doing some drainage improvements along 33rd Avenue and bring them all the way
north to 45th Street and tie those drainage improvements into the uh Indian River Farms Water Control District drainage canal up there this will not only address the the paving issues but it will also address some of the the drainage concerns that we heard from the
the residents uh during a recent meeting and these are the three different options and also wanted to point out that the cost uh for all these three options so for option one it's about 300,000 that is only for paving of 43rd
place the second option which is the paving of 43rd place and 32nd avenue revenue is about 1 million and then for third option the the cost is about 2 a.5 million as I mentioned there's going to
be impacts to about 10 homeowners if you were to pave 32nd Avenue and this map basically shows those impacts one thing I also want to point out that typically for streets like this one you know county used to require a 70ft wide
rightway that has changed changed uh in past years from 70 to 60 to now 50 obviously in this case if you were to take 50 foot right away you know there would be substantial impacts to the residents so what we're suggesting is to
basically make that right away acquisition down to 30 foot consistent with the rightway that county has on 43rd place and with that the reason for me presenting these option is to seek your guidance and see if you have any preference for uh any of these options
presented to you today and I stand for any questions that you may have for thank you Audi um as you know um from the early times this project is very near and dear to me
um I it's been a long time it's been in the gate neighborhood plan uh we've heard many turns of reasons why we can't and we
shouldn't we don't there was so many avoidance issues we've gotten past that and so I want to say thank you for bringing these options so that we can finally get it done because this was signed off for the
future plan 10 years ago and others were involved not Abby with that said uh I I do appreciate the presentation of options um first and foremost I I don't
believe option one addresses the issue um it kind of protects the mufflers and the catalytic converters from the manhole because it's an avoidance you got to go through the hammerhead and you
get back around and I realize it's a short street it's not this is not a highway but in looking at the cost analysis or estimates of option two and then three well I'll tell you what
option three really does it all that's the Cadillac but it's got a Cadillac price and I don't I believe and after talking with you that option three really does
it but with a conscience to say how can we get there how can we get to the issue of the drainage well option two does something of that nature pretty well
and again I I think I'm the only one here that waited through the waters with the local residents uh it does flood we have a flooding challenge just one street over then two streets over
amongst the there is a lot of concerns about drainage but that area specifically does have more of a concern because it does flood um we get a rain like today I'm sure there's water there um it any time we
have that flash drive it builds up real quick that's a lack of drainage from the engineer so such being the case I I think that option two works well uh for what we have to address and
that's protection of that manhole ensure a personal I don't know the access and then it gives ease of access through the community and it provides for drainage i
would like to see more drainage only because sometimes the boots don't work it's It's that much and you I I know you're aware of that but is that enough to trip it to a $2.5 million project for
that street i think if if we had asurances and then maybe if if if you think it's possible to hit the drawing board just a little bit more because there's some
swelles that might be able to help in the process uh that we we've uh identified and discussed and there's drainage applications that may have been held
back for the premium position but if we can incorporate them a little bit more into that middle of the road project I I I think you have magic so we can definitely look into option
two with with maybe a modified approach for storm water and drainage issues i do want to point out that if we were to go with option two then you know in that case just so you realize that you know we will not be completely eliminating any kind of drainage issues you know we
will help alleviate some of the the the flooding but it would not completely be removed and obviously you know one of the reasons for having higher price tag with option three is because there will be some uh coordination required with St john's and also with Indian River Farms
water control district you know if we were to move forward with doing doing it all is is there a possibility to in enhance to make a hybrid
uh as we say juice up the volume we can definitely look at that as part of option two and see what what we can do yes sir there is there's an opportunity to look into that you think we can enhance the drainability of the
project we we we can certainly do some of that not all of it but yes i mean I've I've heard from many of the constituents as well and their concerns are are getting the drainage as we all
know uh but um some have felt uh hey that's a lot of money for our street something also I would like to add which I I just wanted to point out that that you know their expectations are there but they still want to have the
conservative approach with the monetary input understood and just wanted to also point out that you know with the option three 2 and a half mil you know you're also looking at maybe putting some structures and some pipes we may not be able to handle all all the drainage in
that area just using swailes and stuff like that so that may be another reason why you know there's a higher price tag for option three it's a lot of a lot of diameter yes sir mr chair I I understand through
the administrator that he has he's spoken with with Gford neighborhood plans progressive civically i look at it a little different and where these dollars presumably would be coming from and I
would recommend that the dollars that we've been kicking around I think by having the feedback from the community and perhaps uh finding a a less expensive solution and
simultaneously getting their ideas for perhaps some of the balance of of uh of the dollars in other words not only 32nd Avenue but these large dollars amounts would there be other areas of Gford that may be
appropriate that that aren't on the list well and and that's uh I I did have the opportunity and we don't have to act like they're not in the room uh the two individuals I I I speak with uh as well
um representing uh the association and the league um they they have spoken and there are other needs as we
said just one street over so perhaps maybe that can be uh addressed at an additional time but my focus is we want to get this job done
but there are drainage issues and we have to look at them globally and we also have to budget accordingly so agreed with you but if I don't know if that was It could help uh
thank you Mr chair otter could you go back to a couple of the slides the last one actually I keep going the one closer I think there was a red a red truck in the driveway seemed closed on on 30
second right in that area um and I I think I read something about term I've never heard before was it knuckle hammerhead hammerhead i haven't heard that i I don't know a lot of
people don't know what the hammerhead is ai if you want to sure so that was just basically a description to because we're right at the intersection you know we cannot just pave through the middle of the intersection and we have to make sure that we're taking care of all the approaches at that intersection from
32nd and 40 43rd so that's why we came up with with the terminology hammerhead learn something every day the um has there been any discussion about onewaying the street so in this case potentially since we're looking at a 15 to 20 foot wide street you know it will
in essence will act as a one-way street but you know instead of putting like a one-way street we still want to keep it open to be able to provide access for folks to be able to go in and out otherwise you know if you make it one street oneway street it would have to basically either come from 43rd Street
or come from 43rd place right for example that photo there at the bottom seems to me that would get awful close to that house in some cases yes it will and one of the other things what we're looking to do is uh I'm going to have our county survey team go out there
and stake some of these areas you know once we get get a go ahead from from the commission in terms of which option you want us to pursue and get a better idea of the impacts and see if we need to maybe you know tweak some of the alignment obviously this is more conceptual stuff but once we have more
further guidance from the commission we can look into it and set something in motion and we've had feedback from those nine or 10 residents so we have not specifically talked to individual homeowners yet we wanted to to bring it
back to the commission for your feedback before you know we initiate any of those conversations but we did just like I mentioned you know presented this at the Progressive Civic League and I believe some of the residents were uh in attendance at that workshop
mr chairman so we're let's let's just say for right now we're going to we're going to pave all those streets how wide again is the pavement supposed to be you think you already said it but
tell me again how wide would the pavement be so we're looking at potentially 15 to 20 foot wide pavement section in this area when I was I went by this site yesterday i'm I'm no engineer but I pretty much know where county rights are
based on landmarks telephone polls all that sort of stuff i see us moving into people's front yards and taking a good portion of their front yard on 32nd Avenue just by
doing the minimum basically one car almost like a single road it's still going to take a good portion of their yard up take their mailboxes the shrubs on one area are gone and it's right up next to their front porch the edge of the
road i just I I look at this and go there's there might be this road needs improvement but how much improvement does it does it need i mean it's kind of swely and kind of unlevel and that's probably part of the drainage
issue it's got some dips in it some heights in it i would almost say that this project needs to be redesigned as either I'd like to I'd like to pave it but I don't know if
it if paving is what a pavement is going to cause more of an issue I think than than what we than what we what we need what about if we leveled it got it right and milled it i live on a street Ninth
Lane right off of 43rd Avenue we milled that road 15 years ago and I sent Kim some pictures i don't know if you can bring it up but my millings are great because it doesn't it's not like 58th Avenue south of Oslo like we were
talking about earlier because that's gets some high-speed traffic and a lot of traffic my road has 10 cars on it two yeah there's five houses 10 cars on it it doesn't get torn up because it's low speed which is just kind of low speed there's not a lot of traffic on
it just redesign the road flatten it out make sure it's even put the millings around it and and and continue with that that's just my first idea because it work it works i mean it works it works fine if it's done right
as you know i think if we pave it we're we're coming close to all these houses i mean you just showed the yellow line how far it went up to the ones off of 43rd place i I don't think these I don't I don't think they would like it i wouldn't like the road being right next
to my front porch or taking out my mailbox and my shrubs and all that stuff that I have there i would like to see us spend Heck if we're going to spend two and a half million I think we could spend it on
something i guess I'll just say it better than this than than trying to redesign a road that I think just needs improvement i don't think it needs to be redesigned i don't think it needs to have paving with a stripe down the middle i think it could be a nice
road with with with a little less effort and we can apply if we have these dollars and I haven't really gotten to the conversation with the county administrator about these dollars have these dollars let's put them somewhere else in the Gford in the Gford plan i don't I don't know maybe that's
that's kind of just where I'm at right now i'm really kind of confused about the whole thing to be honest with you no it shouldn't be we're committed to make that a paved road and the word pave
uh is is an asphalt road there is a hybrid um that could be used and it's called chip sealing and has that been thought of so we're
looking at some of those options including chip seal i'm supposed to actually meet with one of the contractors who does chip sealing for some of the neighboring counties and agencies and we're going to explore that as an option as well sir
and it's a it's an additional additive of the emulsifi emulsification process to bond bond bond millings um but it's it's a whole different surface you can't tell the
difference between a an a hot asphalt and chip ceiling it's it's that good um the millings you got a long time out of the millings millings don't last as long
they last maybe 8 years 10 years they start spidering because they're never fully bonded together whereas an asphalt will last 10 to 15 years with little or no difficulty or maybe even 20 years is
that correct you are correct at the same time I would also like to add that if done right you know I've seen places where milling can work both so sometimes it depends on the contractor as well so it could be a hybrid between what commissioner man saying and and and and
your point sir millings are 15 years old they're perfect and it also depends on how old the milling you must have you must good take good care of your millings um you know not all millings are created but I good batch it did want
Yeah you got a good batch right um the other point I wanted to make is I was looking at that last photo um with the house with the red truck right and we're looking at the edge of the driveway now I realize that we go
back can Can we put that up again because uh again most of the houses that are are there have been there for a long time and the property lines really
weren't exactly according to what they are today would that be fair to say yes sir and I noticed that the driveways are a little shorter than out to the road where the mailbox is
um I I think this happens a lot in in an older community uh where uh houses have been existed for some time i would like to see that the overlay of the property lines uh this
way we can clarify all of the discussion about property lines and we're taking it's going to be too close to the house um do do we have an overlay shot so we can do that thing again in this pres for
this presentation you know the level of effort that we put in is more desktop level so you know if you look at the the map on the screen right now it does show some of the impacts but to be able to de demonstrate and show the exact impacts I would have to have our county survey go
out there and stake the proposed right away as shown on this map and be able to you know see exactly what those impacts would be including impacts on the driveways and mailboxes this would delay it once again but we're
used to delays with this project um and we can expedite that i mean definitely it doesn't have to be weeks and weeks you know to be able to go out and stake it and and and determine the impacts i'm willing to think that we we have a lot of the right away we need
and if if that's the case then the decision on which option is a lot lot clearer mr chairman you say we have the rightway we need if if I said if if I
I willing to wag you that we have a lot of the rightway need we need i have some questions yes ma'am um option two doesn't include drainage correct yes ma'am it does not include my
understanding is anytime we pave something we have to provide for storm water drainage so in this case one of the reasons just like I mentioned is that you know for some of these drainage related issues we would be help able to help alleviate the situation if we were to just move forward with paving but we
would not be able to completely eliminate any flooding issues and you are right that typically whenever we pave you know we have to go through the whole storm water permitting process with St johns and this case even with Indian river farms water control district and that's one of the reasons
for looking at other paving options just like uh commissioner man alluded to including you know maybe a modified chip seal option to be because what that does is that adds less to the impervious surface and you get more storm water
credits for being able to do that correct but it just seems to me that option two isn't really an option it's really option one or option three because we have to provide drainage if we do paving and in this case that's going to either require curb and gutter
or swale so in this case with option two you know there would be some what I call like open swailes but there wouldn't be any curve and gutter and stuff like that especially in this area if you were to put curve and gutter you know you're going to have more substantial impacts
on I don't disagree i just think that it's a misnomer to say that we're just going to pave when we're going to have to be we are going to be required to provide drainage and storm water so
option two is not really an accurate saying 43rd place and 32nd Avenue paving you're still going to have to include drainage you just are like it's a requirement it it will be an open drainage maybe shallow swale but yes there would be some grading involved my
second question is is 32nd Avenue 32nd Avenue is a private road yes ma'am so we don't have any right of way so there is a 10-ft utility strip out there and it's being investigated right now in terms of whether it's a rightaway or just a
utility eastment but that's all we have along 32nd Avenue so if you look at the map it actually shows on the west side about a 10 foot i don't know if it's so where it says apparent ride ofway 10 foot that's kind of what we have but yes
ma'am the bigger okay so I don't I don't want to put off a decision necessarily but I don't want to make a bad decision and make a situation that's already um been difficult worse and I don't I feel
like we need to give some direction to staff to to bring back a I need a little bit more information before I I know what is going to be the most appropriate thing to do yes in the Gford neighborhood plan we've committed to to paving this and and if that's what
has been the commitment then that's fine but I need to understand exactly what that means from a design and project perspective right-of-way acquisition are we what is going to be the cost of right-of-way acquisition if we don't have that right
ofway what is that going to mean for some of these people's property if you look at the the top corner where it says Scott on this map um it looks like that's going to bring that road or at least part of it right
up to that person's wall um I do think I drove the road the other day as well it's It's in very bad shape and I say that as somebody who lives on dirt roads and drives them all the time this is not good shape at
all but I think we we just need to make sure that what project we're putting together is a good project and everybody understands the entirety of the project because even if you go with option one or option two at
what is it $1 million it's really not what it's going to cost because we're going to need rideway we're going to have to do swailes it's it's not just paving it and I think the neighborhood needs to needs to be aware and see and
be okay with the fact that some of these things are going to come very close to them i'm not trying to bel labor or put off a decision but I think we need to make a quality decision not just a a quick decision because quick decisions don't
necessarily end up you it ends up worse in the long run and generally well we're not going to get a speeding ticket on this one we already have 10 years behind us no I understand I just but with wi with that that's why I uh discussed that
while option two does not could that be a hybrid and AI said he could reduce or would would work and it is an option i I think I think still that's uh the least
costly uh process yes it probably does not provide for 12 in uh underground drainage but it will provide for something since we are required to have
a d a drainage mechanism in a roadway that it would be required to have something so if you wanted to enhance it you you stated Audi that you could look at that and we could get some drainage
into it we could get some drainage but not completely eliminate i just want to point that out but yes there could be some improvements done to at least take care of some of the drainage is it possible to have the surveyor go out and give us a clear definition of
what we have what we would need and come back with some of these options as far as if we pave we're going to do a swale or are we going to do underground piping i mean there's so many variables at this point that I really want to make sure
that I know what this looks like not only for the for the neighborhood but just so we can make a good decision and I don't I I feel like there's too many variables i don't want to make a decision and then I didn't really fully understand what it was and we made a bad
decision that's going to make I mean it nothing really can make that road worse i I get that i I do get that um and I get that we made the commitment and I'm I'm fine with that commitment i just I don't feel like I have enough information to make a decision about the options sure so what I can offer to you
is that for option two back to chair's comment we can do some open drainage and be able to take care of some of the the drainage issues for option three that's where we're looking to put pipes to be able to take it all the way to 45th Street and dump when you say open
drainage what does that mean that means open drainage basically means shallow swailes and and some graded depression areas to be able to take care of some and would that be within that 30-foot ride ofway or would that be in an addition so we will try to do it within
that 30 foot rightway so you know in this case it can potentially again this is just one option where it could be a 15t wide pavement section with maybe 5ft depressions on either side that adds up to you know 15 + 5 + 5 about 25 ft and
you will still have a little bit room again that's just an option that can be looked into the water flows north or does it flow west it based on our review right now it flows to the west and then goes north along 33rd based on the initial
review and observation sir I'm with Commissioner Adams on this i think there's way too much unanswered information because I'm telling you you just told me 20 foot road that's going to be on parcel 106 and 108 it's going to
be right out their front door they're going to be after careful when they step out of the door in some cases depending on how far over the how wide the road's going to be and what the needs are i think we have to have it surveyed and discuss the impacts with these residents as to what
needs to be done we can definitely look into that the other thing I would like to also offer is that in this case you're basically looking at more of a paved joint access versus a paved street you know that could be like kind of a delineation between like a paved street
owned by by the by the city or by the by us here at the county versus you know maybe even looking at it more of like an egress and ingress easement and then work something out with the residents along those versus you know having a complete p paved street because
definitely there would be a lot more impacts and and I acknowledge the fact that you know one of the reasons for basically asking for the reduction in right away from 50 to 30 foot because there would be substantial impacts to the homeowners so not going to deny that
there would not be any impacts in addition to that Mr chair could we ask for uh some more firm numbers you know I I think that from hearing this
is little differences but if we have an overlay and we know what we're dealing with what what we believe right away is
cost uh now hearing that we have a utility easement we don't have that right of way i was under the impression that we had some right of way we only have that 10-ft strip in there but there's not you know it's it's shown on
the map that's it mr chair we need to go into this project just like we would if somebody requested this to be done and there would be an assessment on these homes this needs to be treated the same way we would do
anything we need to know how much right away what's the cost where the boundaries are where the roads going to lay if not just go in there and keep it dirt and throw some dirt down and do a nice pave job and level it out i don't think
they want that either so that's just me so well I I Yeah I'm not supportive of petition paving we No no no no i'm just saying if I don't think he was talking about doing what I was saying i think he was the process right if it came out
that way process if we if we were doing if I wanted to get my road paid to buy a house and I requested it I would be that would be an assessment i would be willing to pay we need to do the same process but not we're not asking for the assessment but we need to have the same
information as to where these rideaways are going and how it's going to affect I want I would want to see a stake out in front of my yard to see how close this road's going to come to my house so we need to do everything that we can figure
out no I'm not talking assessment maybe you didn't understand i'm not we're not discussing that's not even in the mix you mentioned assessment but because it would be the same process I got you the same evaluative research and the other thing I also would like to add is that
you know the information you're requesting can be done but that involves more in-depth engineering so typically you know anytime you're doing transportation projects the first step is to look at the feasibility and look at the options and that's why we're here with those big picture conceptual options for you to to to kind of you
know get an idea for what may be required and then based on further guidance or questions we can go back and look at some more options and you know provide you with more engineering and then come back with additional but at
least as long as you can help me help us identify whether you want us to look at the improvements for 33rd or just focus on 43rd and 32nd that would be helpful i hope you're going to want to undercommit and overperform called
expedition so if it's that's the case what do you need from us so in case what I'm looking for right now is that between those three options so option one is basically for 43rd place option two is for 43rd and 32nd and then option three includes all three
streets which is 32nd 43rd and 33rd so what I need at least is that if you can guide the staff and give us some direction on whether you know want us to just focus on 32nd and 43rd and not look at 33rd for you know all the drainage
improvements then that's one thing we can use to basically move forward with getting some of the engineering done commissioner Flesher I I don't see how we could just do 43rd or just do 32nd i mean it's going to the road is it's
already got a problem at that where they jun junction whatever the intersection um yeah I can't use my words today sorry um but so I'm fine at looking at a project that includes 43rd and
32nd but I need more information on what that means to see what kind of project that looks like maybe the design includes something on 33rd because you're going to have to take into account storm water you're going to have to figure that out there's
there's not there's not a footprint there really to do what you would consider a normal street even if it's smaller so you know that's the d that is the only direction
I'm comfortable giving today because I think there's too many variables and and we need to have a better design so how about and I do want to point out that you know we've looked at these options conceptually so these haven't been like
fully designed or anything these are more conceptual level options presented to the commission for your further guidance and consideration these numbers are close right yes i don't think so so no you're saying that the numbers
are fairly accurate these are ballpark figures well these are based on today's construction costs and the design and we also looked at the Oslo MSVU as as a comparable because we just went through the same design for that stuff but obviously you know things can change and
we wanted to at least present the options in terms of what can be done less the rightway because the rightway I mean we we we need to see the other other thing cooperation of the residents and phone fund them accordingly so right
now you know as part of the map we have identified the rightway impacts and that's about 20,000 square foot between those 10 homeowners we also have the prices based on the apprais property appraiser but you know once you start negotiations with the homeowners I don't
know you know what what their fair value would be for for them to be able to negotiate so we have some prices based on the information from the appraisal we may have to engage a professional who can give us the opinion on what that cost would be so there's some additional things that can be done
mr sheriff if you view it as a miniature 66th Avenue with the process a similar process of procuring those rightaways now you're involving the uh obviously the attorney's office and it'll be another rainy season
until we see this in fruition another rainy season we started 66th Avenue in 2007 it's not completed uh it's been a long process it's it is 2025 folks that's 18 years that 66th Avenue was
working south of 60 up to Sebastian and uh big delay was procuring the rideways big delay a lot of legal delay and then just getting enough of Bob's barricades out there exactly it
just been a long process i have to drive through that every day as well and right to your point right away acquisition can be a pretty involving process and and can take some time and the people are are due their their fair value and it's
going to take some time and I think this one street is going to be a lot more than just that 10-ft easement i'm not an engineer sir but I did sleep well last night and this is a bigger
it's a small project but it's it's a little more it's a lot more in depth than than you would think absolutely so yes we need more information any administrator i just want to echo you know for Audi because I think he's
waiting to get the more concrete expectation and direction from the board or the focus and what but it's difficult to get that that the direction it
it it we're given I mean I like option two but if it's not going to satisfy the needs we have a drainage issue there that you know we have four
or five blocks of low-lying nonabsorbing ground and there is more than just one street that has the drainage issue so but option two gets the paving done protects it and
I was under the impression that we could get into uh a drainage scenario with option two with option two we can look at doing some drainage improvements but it would not again fully satisfy yes sir
it would not completely eliminate all the flooding issues in the area i just want to make sure that you know we understand and realize that connecting to the the the existing swailes in some way that that that can't
be accomplished there are no swells right now in that area so it's all open uh shoulders like grass grassy areas right next to the streets so you know as such there are no swells and that was one of the reasons for you know if we were to do any kind of a paving we can
come up with some depressions or some swailes that can help with some of the drainage because right now it's all flat so it's all sheet flow that goes to the west and then goes to the north what about on the rear of the uh Habitat for
Humanity project isn't there a deeper swale there so they were working on some of those things canal so there's some deeper areas in close to the habitat for humanity and we actually did some work recently to create some of those areas
we we actually went out u with some of the commissioners recently and visited the areas and the some of the the streets where there were no drainage or swells we actually end up going back and re recreating some of that stuff again that's what I'm saying is that as part
of these improvements there's a potential to do some open drainage improvements and take care of some of the flooding but it will not completely remove everything without putting pipes how long is it going to take to come back with I'm going to ask it again how long is it going to take to come
back with the new and improved version with the overlay and the surveyed property i mean it can't take the 10 years it's taken already so in this case we can come up with some design options for you if you prefer to you know look at option
two and option three and then based on that information you you can guide us further the other thing I would also like to point out with option three we may need to actually also buy land for putting some kind of a pond or something again that there's a potential for that
if you want to go full out and basically take care of all the flooding issues so so just realize that that the magnitude of the or the intent of the improvements can expand real quick if we wanted to take care of all the drainage issues in that area
we want you to be aware of that mr chair wouldn't you also want to meet with the residents to see what temperature they have or what flavor they prefer i'd like to know right now i mean well we have public comment
yes he did where do where do you put this retention so we would have to look at probably along either 33rd or 32nd again that would be one of the options we would have to look into if we were to go with full-blown drainage improvements so it
gets a lot more involved and that's why when you asked the question about you know what can be done about the the option two there would be some minimal some water improvements but it will not completely eliminate all the flooding issues out there i just want you to know that thing
Mr chair if I could say something for a minute as I have been deeply involved with the Gford neighborhood plan um as speaking with the residents and everybody in the actual area uh we all know that this is part of one of the Gford neighborhood objectives uh that
doesn't mean that this is the first bite of the apple at the last meeting that we had when we were directed to come back with this uh it was given direction to staff to look at the paving on these two roads that's not to say in the subsequent meetings that we had that also you attended one of them that there
was an option to proceed with a new plan after we get these improvements finished it was the general direction of the community that they really wanted these last few items buttoned up with before moving forward on another Gford
neighborhood plan what I would ask is if we do choose to go with an option of a potential storm water improvement that we can add that into a new Gford neighborhood plan for that storm water improvement now obviously paving any
roads in the county do require minimal storm water improvement to make the roads safe and usable and also provide some storm water retention so we're not flooding out but obviously from our meetings and John and Nancy were both there as well that storm water is an
issue on 33rd and that could be part of another plan at a later later time again this all started when we were all a lot younger and I don't want to add to another millennium to the project and
that's what it sounds like it would be migrating to to another let's get it to the planning stage let's you know add it to the plan if a neighborhood plan was a commitment
it was document agreement we had many debates about it i don't want to see the can get kicked down the other side of boat of course Mr flesher it seems like a long distance
away if we're going to add it to the new plan i was thankfully I wasn't spec specifically speaking on the actual paving part of it but that Cadillac version of 33rd and providing all the storm water improvements we could do it as a phased approach where the first
phase I mean option two is the most desirable for right now for uh looking into actually paving the road and getting some start water retention in for the area the third phase which is that Cadillac plan could be in a further
Gford neighborhood plan we could say 2.0 to incorporate all of the storm water retentions that are desired in the area and also necessary so might I just Audi can we Mr chair can we have an opportunity for Audi and
staff to meet and then bring back a timeline at the next meeting on what a design for option two/ternative option three with the requisite data information that you're all looking for in terms of the entirety of the project
the impact to the to the community uh in terms of uh addressing the issues as it relates to you know I think as commissioner man mentioned that all the things that we would do if we were you know we were requested to do a specific
improvement and have all that information that detailed more detailed engineering than a concept and kind of give you a timeline for that because I think what what I'm seeing right now is that you're not ready to commit to a timeline right now is that the case that
is correct we will need you don't know how long it's going to take yes sir for for the engineering and bringing back more information correct because it will also involve the permitting like Commissioner Adams was saying so some of that can also add to the complete timeline it can be 30 to 60 days for a
permit approval and sometimes you know again depending on the the flooding and and the level of improvements we're looking to do it could be more involved and then the other question would be the the rightway impacts and acquisition that would be a big big thing it can be 6 months it can be 18
months i've seen small projects take several years before you get all the all the right away again buying versus donation you know those are some of the options but that's something we probably would have to discuss with the homeowners and see and but but I think from the community standpoint we need
the plan actually and there's a member of the rep with the community one of the leaders raising his hand wants to speak by the way Mr there you want to and I think also it's vital that you speak with the community because you may have an overwhelming amount not want to
participate in the sale of the rightway that would send you to plan B or C D uh and that could expedite the process entirely that's why you have to communicate with the community in my opinion sorry Mr chair
you know what i'd like to invite anybody that would like to speak regarding this matter thank you Commissioners uh
What we're looking at is an anomaly and I don't think anybody's seeing it chris said something awesome audi said something I don't think anyone heard access
Street i said oneway street i played on that street i shot marbles on that street i played baseball when you start talking about taking these people in if you're at 32nd which intersects with
43rd if you walk that you going to have to buy that whole house on that corner if you go south one house you going to have to buy that one on the north side on the corner of
32nd and 43rd the county allowed that house to be built without the curb radius if you go look at it the one you talk with the red truck yes sir that if
they would have done that according to code he wouldn't have any front yard so we're not going to make all these changes relevant we need the street paved
i don't believe in shell and and milling and all of that because we were promised something those people not going to sell their land another factor you haven't looked at everybody on that
street was basically born and raised there the red truck is a Scott next door to a Scott across the street is a Scott the second house from the corner is a Scott then the Rosses then across the street is the
Rosses this is where you have to think outside of the box and I think you have a competent staff to understand that this is something that's not going to be easy i went to the FEMA mitigation
uh seminar they had i don't know who else was there as Chris brought forth moving forward FEMA has mitigation money to deal with flooding in communities commissioners if you just focus on
flooding in Gford you will be focused for the next 20 years because all of Gford floods it has been doing it forever right now we at a moment where we want to close out one plan and as Chris said
let's start looking into the future commissioner Fletcher has been he signed his name on the dotted line years ago that we were going to do this we can keep finding reasons and reasons what I've heard about this man
since I heard him up here now is real if we give him or you give him some directions I don't want you spending over $2 million on a street in Gford with all the needs we have that's not even relevant
i think uh Commissioner Fletcher brought up if you go uh Chris you know west of 33rd in that area there's a drainage canal that can be
accessed you talking about uh AI said open drainage i got 1.1 acres that I live i got open drainage if during Hurricane Milton you could
have bought boats in my yard and and and and so it's not all of that for open drainage my community wants to see something done let's make it simple let's make it cost effective $300,000
nah but somewhere in that number two or B or whatever I think can be made to work but if you open up Pandora's box talking about buying people land you going to have to buy the whole
house commissioner Adams says she drove commissioner Man you drove please be advised i lived that street was never supposed to be there that's a
trail and how you going to arugment from a trail somebody ought to listen to Audi when he said access i know a couple commissioners I mentioned oneway street that's the most feasible thing to
me with the hammerhead thing where it will go in one way or go out one way but that's going to be the only way we do it commissioners but we'll be over and over i just turned 72 i'd like to see this before it ends so I think you got this
man and this man and some staff around them if you just say come back to me within this number two that hybrid you keep talking about Commissioner Flesher i think we can make it work that's my two cents thank you thank you
i didn't speak oh Joe is he is he is suffering banking he's sick but he was going to see it through and Freddy is under the weather and we didn't want Freddy out in this weather but so they made me the pitman so thank you happy
belated got him covered all right well well but I think that's the whole point of what we're trying to ask like bring us something that we can accomplish and do this isn't this isn't enough information to do that bring us back something that fits the
bill shoot long day my goodness it's been a long day just bring us back something that we can get behind or that has all the information that has the surveys that has all that so we can move forward because right now I don't think we're being
we're being asked we're not being asked to do that we'll get you additional information as requested but in the meanwhile if I can at least get some kind of a consensus to look at option two as the preferred option that will be helpful
consensus are dangerous and timelines are dangerous i mean I think I think you can bring us something back based on the totality of this entire conversation which has been going on now i trust you at Nauseium
but yes let's get it done would make it happen so there's no there's there's no vote today we're going to this is going to be continued real soon
we will get you additional information just looking for some guidance and some consensus i think we have that so we can move forward thank you thank you wait a minute you said you said timelines dangerous
no no he he uh give me an indication give me a few weeks and I'll give you an indication i'll give you more information on that two weeks yes sir three all right couples two a fuse three
it's what it's It won't make the next agenda he's not going to have the information tomorrow well he won't have that because you require it the week before so it's not going to happen outside the Yeah so realistically and for the public
I wanted to know that two weeks is going to be the 20 when's that meeting 20 third you mean the second meeting in April yes
23rd second we'll have an we'll have that update we'll get you an update by then i'm okay with it everybody okay with that okay thank you it's direction thank you
at this point uh does anybody uh from the public want to speak about [Music] anything bob Good i figured you're here
i'm glad you guys kind of went along today i plan on being here from the again Bob McParland City of Sebastian we're here as long as you need us all right but I went up and the governor had a press conference up in Palm Bay this morning and it looks like they're going to be putting about 380 $390 million
into water improvement bureau Beach got $11 million for water reclamation and looking for the Indian River Lagoon $100 million in grants so hopefully we can work together and get everything along our riverfront from septic to sewer wow
fabulous all right yeah thank you great meeting have a good day thank you all right is there anything else at this time this meeting is journed