Okay, everyone. Well, welcome. Are we on? Welcome. Oh, great. Oh, great. Hello. Hello. And I think we're welcoming someone else
who's here on Zoom. So, welcome everyone. This is our regular parks and wreck meeting. But one decision that we have made already as an executive decision is that the only
topic for tonight will be the ballpark. We have other issues that we will defer to the next meeting. So, um, this will be our our full focus of attention. So, um, let's start out because this is a
committee meeting. Let's start out with a roll call if we may. Yes, ma'am. Carolyn Whiteman, I'm here. Ted Benbo, here. Alina Davis, here. Natasha Early here. David Epstein
here. Christy Hughes here. Joseph Janachu. Perfect. Richard Russell. Yes, ma'am. John Weir here. And Miss Shannon Carrey will be absent. Justified.
All right. So, for our pledge for alle pledge of allegiance, um I wonder if um Cheryl is Cheryl here? I'd like to honor Cheryl Culverson and see if she would honor us by leading us in the pledge.
States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay, I don't think we need to be tedious in going through the approval of the minutes of the last meeting. Um, does
anyone have any objections in the committee? No. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. All right, minutes are approved. And are there any emergency additions or deletions?
Okay, then we're we will head on here. And um I think before we begin public comment, if it's agreeable with you, I'd like to recognize the manager
and see if we could begin um our conversations um so that we get kind of an idea of who's here. And I thought I would also just remind us of the the different
issues that we're dealing with. And our objectives tonight are this is a committee meeting. And the objective will be that the committee will make some recommendation
that will go to council that we will take to council for whatever the next steps are. So that's what our assignment is as a as a committee. Um what I'd like to remind us of is that we have all
kinds of issues here. Um, but I think what we want to do is not get them all collapsed too far because there I think they're primarily two major issues that we want to deal with tonight. One of
them is to clarify and have a complete understanding of the circumstances of the agreement between the the school board and the village. have an understanding of where
that is, what's in it, what isn't in it, what are the next steps, and I'd like for um Ron will certainly handle that. And then the next issue that I think is the controlling issue on moving us
forward will be making the decision as to whether this will be artificial turf or will this will be natural grass. And those decisions I believe are the ones that the manager and the the village
side need to have clear before we can get a lot further. Now obviously there are lots of other things that are involved. You know the size of the stands and where the bathrooms and concession stand and dugouts and offices
and all of those different kinds of things. And I actually had a new consideration to offer. And that is that we consider how we might use our park as a way to commemorate people that have
been really important to us in the village. Um maybe it's youth, maybe it's um people and I don't have a particular agenda on that, but I just think it's something that we want to consider.
So, um, if there's no objection, I'd like to ask Ron if you would take up the next step and tell us what you see as next. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee, audience. Uh, before we
start, want to recognize we have two members of the village council here. We have our vice mayor, Don Horton, and we have council person Anna Richards in the back there. I also want to recognize Pat Leafir. Pat is the executive director of operations for the Mon County School
District. And so Pat will also be uh joining us tonight as far as giving information. Uh for the public, we passed out uh the latest on the uh design plan. The design plan was approved on June 24th by the Mon County School Board. And so that it's a
preliminary design plan. It could change, but that was the first step. We then presented that plan at our workshop the same night. So it hasn't really changed. The only change has been at the request of Alen and others. We did put in elevations and give you a better representation of the plan, but the plan
is the one that was approved by the school board. We just wanted more detail. So, that's here. It's going to be uh available online. So, that nothing's changed. It's just been more detail has been added. As far as where we are from a a document standpoint,
let me be clear. The only document that's been approved so far is the interlocal agreement that was passed by the Alar village council last year, resolution 24-05-39 and also by the school board last year. Uh there was some confusion about who had signed it who hadn't. So I went
ahead and executed it at the end of June and it's been recorded with the clerk of the court. So we have an official interlocal agreement between the village of Almada and the Mono County School District. That's the only document that has been executed and negotiated upon
within that ILA interal agreement. It specifically requires that there will be a baseball license agreement and a use agreement. And so basically these are yet to be negotiated. We do have going back to I think year 2000 a baseball field license agreement. I've been at
the request of several members of the committee I've tried to find any updates. I don't know that there are any. I think they just been operating under the original agreement all these years, just basically renewed or whatever, but there's nothing official that I can find. In any event, whatever there was before, we're going to have a new one. So, so that that's going to be
covered by the interlocal agreement. And could I just ask one clarifying question on that, Ron? And that is that the first number that we've heard is a $5 million
commitment agreement or whatever from the school board. And then there's been word that that number has changed to something else, 6.1 or something. and that there is a question of how that
shortfall might be made up and I'm just asking kind of what's in the what's in the world out here and maybe could you address those things as you go through that. Well, I'll address that now because that's an important point. Uh after the June 24th meeting, I spoke with the next
day with Mindy Khan, who's the schoolboard chair, because she had made some comments that I was able to hear during our meeting about requesting the village uh whether we were going to put any money into this project. And I want to refer everybody to the recorded interlocal agreement uh that states
basically that uh on on items on section 7 uh the recreational facility at the ball field and the acquisition of materials, equipment, etc. I'm going to quote now shall be the responsibility of and paid for by the school board. There's no mention of the village of
Almrada contributing a dollar. I mean, we own the property. We'll continue on the property. Our contribution in my opinion is the fact that we are contributing use of the property, but there's been zero discussion and zero commitment of the village putting in any money into this project. I was told that
the $5 million was a placeholder. In other words, they just put that in there that the 5 million was a preliminary to the design actually being done. That once the design plan was done by uh by the people hired by the school board that it came in at 6.16 million as far
as the estimated cost of of doing what that plan called for. If there's a shortfall, that will be the responsibility of the school board, not of the village. So to be clear, unless my five bosses say something otherwise, the village council uh is our position
that we have not offered and are not going to offer to put in any money towards any shortfall that the the project itself is the total 100% responsibility financially of the school district. So hopefully that clarifies that and once again there's no question about ownership. The village of Amrada
and its residents own the ball field. Uh we have for the past 25 years had a great relationship with the Mon County School District to have the Coral Shores High School baseball team play there and we want to continue that as far as I can tell. But we want to make it clear that this project is the school board's
project which will require in all matters the full cooperation and agreement by the village council of Alamrada. Nothing will be done without it coming before the village council. Uh and that's the bottom line there. Hopefully that clarifies the situation.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Ron. Yeah. Comments from the We're on financials right now. So, who on the sustainment for the next 10, you know, whatever that is 10 years, is that the village or is that the school board? Because, you know, depending on what type of turf, and I'm not really here
for that piece of it. Um, you know, the average cost is there's a percentage, right? 5 10% a year. Who is that? The school board or is that the village? It's a big number. Well, the agreement actually says that
that will be determined and that's one reason I wanted to have this meeting uh addressed tonight. In order to do an agreement for maintenance, which I think is what you're referring to, we have to know whether it's going to be grass or artificial. In other words, I can't enter into any type of negotiation with the school district not knowing if
it's going to be grass or artificial because I don't know what the maintenance requirements would be. So, what I was asking for tonight, if you're willing to do that, would be to give me direction as far as are you recommending grass versus artificial because that will make a big difference as far as the maintenance.
Well, whether whether it's a dollar or 5 minutes, it doesn't matter. There's still there's an agree there's got to be agreement, right? The money the actual number doesn't matter. It matters what what the village agrees to council versus the county. Well, let me read uh section 13 once
again. This is the recorded interlocal agreement that's binding at this point on both the school district and the village of Almrada. The village and the school board agreed that the billing for all materials and services for any construction or renovation recreational facility shall be made to the school board and should be paid by the school
board. Billings for maintenance related costs shall be sent to the village by the school board and paid on a PR rata basis. The village will be responsible for invoice of school for electrical and water charges based on meter readings of the amounts of electricity and water used for scheduled activities as delineated in the use agreement for the
recreational facility. Once again, the use agreement has not yet been negotiated. So those things will be covered in the use agreement which has not yet been executed or even negotiated yet. And it talks about us putting trash containers etc. So I think the IL that's one reason why I wanted to have that ILA
executed in in effect is that we have laid some parameters out there which in my opinion protected the village but also laid out the the responsibilities for the school district and and we still have a baseball license agreement and a use agreement that has not even been discussed. We have some drafts out
there. Uh but I have not made any commitments on behalf of the village because once again the two things I'd really like to have some decisions on tonight would be number one do you recommend grass or artificial turf and there's people in the audience I think want to speak on both sides of that and secondly uh the buildings uh and and I
want to mention to the public and also to the committee I asked our public works director AJ Inglemire to go out there and actually spray paint on the field the two the buildings that would be proposed to be there and Captain Bimma and I walked the field today and he actually was surprised to see where
they're going to be located and I think it addressed some of his concerns that he can speak to. Yes. And and I appreciate you spending the time with me. I actually ran around this town quite a bit today and yesterday and uh answered emails on this subject and spoke with uh council some council people. Um and I appreciate
everybody uh including some of the coaching staff and former coaching staff. Um a couple questions as far as financing goes. I'm kind of a business-minded person. Uh these are I've got a handful of questions that were brought to me and I'd like to address a couple of them now if I may. Um and and I I really think that it
would be a great idea for this group and and the audience to at some point during this meeting walk over there and see what I saw and let Ron explain it to you because it really opened up my eyes to what versus what I was being uh told. Um if we don't spend and I kind of got to
answer this question. If we don't allow the school board to spend the money on this project, it's not going to lower our taxes that we give the school board. Correct? In other words, school board still collects what they collect from us. In
other words, because I've had a lot of people say, I don't want my tax dollars spent on that. But and then part two of this this comment or question is is that if we don't let them allow them to spend the money here, it's going to go south down to Key West like it has for years. Would that be a good assumption?
Well, that you're making assumptions regarding the school district that I'm not really able to speak to. We do have Pat Leafir here who might be able to answer those questions, but let me let me step back for a second and say that property taxes are paid by all of us, I assume, here. And we pay taxes of the county. We pay property taxes school
district, the village of Almada. If you own property here, tax dollars are tax dollars. The village of Almrada owns Founders Park. So, the operation of Founders Park is paid by the people who pay taxes. the village almada. Okay. We also pay school taxes. So there's kind of it's kind of a mixture there
that you can't really separate the two. If if you pay taxes school district and village alrada, property taxes or property taxes as far as the decisions on where the money will go collected by the school district. That is decisions by the school board. I know of at least one school member who's actually
watching uh Ivet My Talbat. Welcome if you can hear us. Uh so I'm not sure others are on there. So the school district is aware and the school board is aware of the situation and it came up at our workshop of where the money may or may not be spent if they didn't do this one. But that's and we have the
principal by the way of of Coral Shore is here. I think she's still she's hiding but Laura is here. And so those decisions can be done down the road depending what we do here. Uh the interlocal agreement actually says that I need to negotiate with whoever's
appointed by the district and I think it either be Laura or the new superintendent Mr. Tierney. You know, I that's those are decisions. As far as where they spend their money, that's up to them. We have zero say as far as where they spend their money, whether it goes to Key West or Keargo or Plantation Key. But from my standpoint, I'm just
looking at where they want to spend it here. Right. And and it won't change our tax burden if we don't do the project. Not that I not not directly at least. And and then to uh to David's question, can we've got to decide if we're going to go turf or grass? Um I'm pretty sure that's really going to be a council
decision. We're just going to make a recommendation. Um, but can you tell us or can one of the coaches tell us or somebody from the school tell us what is the cost per year to maintain grass versus artificial?
And and I I think those are questions I'm going to defer to Mr. Lefir, but I'd like to get more input from the committee before we bring Pat up because you maybe have some questions that he could answer. So, I wanted to kind of get some issues on the table before I ask Pat to come up because uh there may
be I don't want to be repetitious. I know I've talked to individually some of you. And I also want to make the comment that in addition to this committee, uh I have appointed five citizens to a baseball field task force, one of whom is on on this committee, Alina. Uh Jamie
Engel's in the audience. She's been one of them. Uh we have Tony Hammond, who I believe is here. Uh Brian Con and Captain Richard Black. So, we had five people from the public uh that have been kind of my people that I've sent in copies of documents to historical things. Alena can tell you she's been
very conscientious about asking for what she wants to know. And so, in addition to this committee, I've also asked those five people to be the eyes and ears as far as bringing things to me, too. And they've been very good about that, too. So, I think we have a lot of input from the community, which our village council asked for. And the school district has
been very good with Mr. fear particularly of getting us whatever information we've asked for and if you've asked for it, I've tried to get it back to you. Well, the since since you want to get it all out on the table, my my last if you'll indulge me, my last few questions. One is the footprint and these are all questions have been asked
of me. Is the footprint going to be any larger with the new project versus what is being used right now? If you mean the footprint of the ball field, no, of just the whole project of of of the sports complex or whatever you want to call it. then we know but
I will defer that to Mr. Lefir just to confirm that. Um as we spoke as I spoke to some of the uh other people involved uh the sports field is open to the public when it's not baseball season and I would say the answer to that is yes but I I'll I'll
you know we'll wait to hear what that say. And then is there any way in this project, this might be a question for coach Russell or the school board, could we piggyback some other sports uh that would be good for the school and for villagers uh alike? You know, something
like, you know, uh you know, we have a we have a uh golf team that has about as many baseball players on it as golfers. They don't have a place to practice. Could we enhance, you know, the to a putting and chipping facility along with the driving that we already have? And then when it comes to the uh the
concession, concessions has always been a no no here at Founders Park, but if you guys as a school board are going to get a concession stand, could we open that up for bids to the public where they can run it for you and and the village nor you will have to get your hands dirty and then we can have it on a
daily basis instead of just during sports events? Yeah, I'm not really officially the person to answer that. It'll be Pat. They typically have made that a school-based decision and I think Maria will testify to this. We've always made our whatever amenities or that we had
available, they became available to everybody else after the 5 months that we had them and I would certainly anticipate that being true of the concession stand. That would be available for village use for whatever events they may want to choose after. And then what about enhancing of other sports? You see that being something
that can be done for, you know, I I've stopped calling it the baseball field. But it's a multi-purpose field and it will serve the needs of baseball for 5 months for Carl Shores. The remaining 7 months, we've got 140 kids now playing flag football in the upper keys. It can serve
their purposes for both practice and games. We've got uh we've added lacrosse in the last 5 years, boys and girls. And that's a significant program that's well funded, but they don't have a place to play. So, this perhaps could be a venue for that. And then pre-existing were
soccer, boys and girls. pre-existing were baseball uh and pre-existing with softball. So, you know, those are some of the ways that we certainly can help every kid from five to the time they graduate. This is a this is truly has
the possibility of being the ultimate multi-purpose. And I know we can't help everybody, but we would have the opportunity to assist virtually every one of those leagues I just mentioned. And then if we go with turf, could could other things go on that turf off season
like uh our biggest event I believe is the Rotary uh and other events. Could they put vendors there? Yeah, I' I've already spoke I have the honor of being with Ron and and others in this building, the Rotarian, and I've already spoke with Rotary. There are a
number of new booths that could go there that wouldn't necessarily be food related. Obviously, the concession stand is a given and which is a nice place as they come in. Uh oh. Yes. Just by the way, this is probably not my part
to say, but keep Caroline in your thoughts. She's uh she's had some medical challenges the last couple days, and God bless her for being here. We uh we were sure we weren't certain 15 minutes ago she was going to make it. So uh please keep her
in our thoughts and prayers and I I want to express my appreciation. I'd already called Ron and said I will not be the person running this even as vice chair I would defer to to any other member but um I'm not again I'm not the person to answer some of those questions.
Certainly my my superiors are here my principal and also uh Mr. Leafir is the executive director of planning and and uh you know he's ideal for those kinds of answers. And once again let me read from the interlocal agreement which is recorded.
Section 8 says use agreement the village and school board delegate authority to the village manager or designate and the superintendent or designate negotiate and to enter into a recreational use agreement annually. So we have to do this every year providing for the
schedule of use for such year that may be amended from time to time in writing as needed. So every year we will have a use agreement negotiated uh with the school district and the village and for the first year obviously we get the schedule. We've already talked about not
just high school sports that could come over, but also, you know, under uh the little league, for example, or things like that that are not necessarily high school related, but they are for people maybe that have families here in Alamra. So, yeah, community things. Yes.
Did I did I interject something? Yes. Yes. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Well, I I would like to just say briefly uh in regards to what uh Rich said and
and even Ron said is what I hear from some of a lot of the constituents is that that they're worried about the fact that yes, there would be a lot of people using the park that aren't BA Marada
residents. Um, I don't know why we would feel obligated to provide flag football for kids up and down Monroe County when the park was designated for the aisle of Marada residents. That's what what what a lot
of the people are concerned with. um they they feel that this is a issue that the baseball community wants to have, not necessarily the residential community. So, I just wanted to make that point. Um
um I I'm not so keen on having hundreds of kids that aren't from Isa Marada uh be using the park. Um, it's great for the Alam Marada kids obviously. So, um,
that's that's a point that I wanted to emphasize. Thank you. So, but I I second what he's saying, but also I have two questions. Um, one is you mentioned earlier that the $5
million just that number was used as a placeholder possibly. So, a placeholder for what was it for? Like this is going to be the max we'll spend on it or that's what we expect it's going to cost. That's one question. And the other
is um do you see in a in a future where this thing is built? Um, will there be moments during the year where it's going to be locked and you c and you know somebody who comes in after let's say after whatever afternoon and the weekend and they want to play kickball or something they would need to make some
kind of arrangement ahead of time or could they just come up and use it? As to the first question once again I'll defer to Mr. Lefir. Uh uh once again, I was told by the chair of the board the $5 million figure was a placeholder, meaning they had to put they wanted to put some number out there, but until
they had the actual plan, they really couldn't uh come up with the estimates. Um and it still could change because they could change what's going to go out there. As as far as the second thing, I think that once again going to be governed by a use agreement. Um as far as the use of the field, obviously during baseball season, that's pretty
clear that I think the the baseball team has priority. the rest of the year. I think it'd be totally up to the village of Almado and to get to the concern of of one of your members. I think that's a decision that that the village will make through our council as far as uh you what what kind of uses should go there
uh and the maintenance of it, etc. And if are you going to be charging fees? Those are all things that with Maria's and the and the staff's help we can look at. They they do that now. They they have a lot of activities going on in Founders Park. Now I'm not sure how they decide whether it's just for Alam
residents or not but I think those are things that would be governed by use agreement which once again would be every year and if it's a problem we can go back and amend it. Uh the interlocal agreement is for longterm the use agreement's annual and so if that's becomes an issue we can certainly address it but I would like to have it
as as specific as possible just to clear up issues like that and we can always add things. is I'd rather make it more restrictive from the villages standpoint of we're going to be pretty tight on what we initially allow on the field and then if people want to come in then that's a decision we can make based on
our resources for example staffing wise and also maintenance of the field going back again to that would be a big decision whether you're doing grass or artificial because if it's grass that issue is not quite as relevant because when you have grass I've been told you just can't have all those activities
artificial is a different Great. So, if I I'm sorry, Dave. I was just going to interject this because it sort of comes under that same theme of, you know, cooperative spirit, which I I think everybody would say is a way to characterize our our relationship. Uh,
every single year in baseball, the five months that we have it, we close down the weekend of the nautical market. And there's another event that we just shut down the entire end of the week. which of then is and that's island flex island. Okay. So I say all that to say
that when there's when there's a conflict you know we have I think we use the same kind of cooperation that uh you know we've had with other entities here. So I very much appreciate that we had it predating Maria we had it with John.
There's a long history of that. And those are you know to Joe's point those are obviously events that go far beyond the scope of Almirada. you know talking we're talking about the nautical market and the same thing with so okay sorry any more questions any more questions directed to me
because m Mr. is here and I think some of the questions you raise he's better suited to ask. Uh is there anything particularly from the villages standpoint before we hear from the school district? Well, that's what I thought I would say is that I think this is very helpful to have the committee
bring some of these questions up because we'd like to hear from the school board, but we also want to hear public comment and I think the public comment will be more relevant as these questions and some of these answers have already been handled. So, are there any other
comments from the committee? Yeah, I just wanted to bring up the whole misnomer about turf versus grass and the ability to use. So, I heard I've heard a few people say, "Well, if it's grass, we could, you know, it's not a big I'm sorry, if it's turf, not a big deal."
It's actually the opposite. So turf, if you put a lot of stuff on it, which I, you know, nauticals and different uh sports and you tear up the grass a little or the the carpet, it's it doesn't work cuz you can't just like
replant the grass. We got to deal with it. And that's why the whole sustainment piece to this is the county, and we'll hear from the school board, is the school board going to want us to tear that place up doing other things there, right? because you ruin one sheet of that stuff, it ain't cheap. Um, and if
you look at any of the sustainment for most high schools, you know, most of them are private, first of all, lots of money flowing, those kind of things. We're not those people, you know, from a sustainment um, over the course of the next 10 years. I've heard a lot of comments on, well, that field was supposed to be in A+ shape for the last
25 years, and we're complaining that's not. Well, okay, I want to see an A+ shape every year for the next 25 years. So that's a huge that's a cost and that's that's kind of and we'll let the schoolware talk to it, but how are they going to pay for that? So if that's
300,000 a year that comes into the village coffer, awesome. And we'll take care of it, you know, and however that's supposed to work in those inner greens. So thanks. Well, and thanks Dave. I think that kind of lines into the uh you know, turf
versus versus uh artificial. Did you want to get comments from the public before Mr. Lefir? wasn't clear which when you cut order. I have I have one more question. So if we don't have an estimate of cost to maintain,
how can we possibly make a decision that we can say we would like to recommend that village council go forward with this? That's the reason why we have not executed a use agreement because the use
agreement would actually specify who's responsible for what as far as the use of the field and the maintenance of it. And that's why I missed I've asked that question at one of the design meetings for example what's the difference in cost just to install and apparently it wasn't a big difference between grass and artificial which surprised me. Uh I
also asked about the maintenance of it and once again I'm not an expert on artificial or even grass and so I I'd refer that to Mr. Lefir who has said that the official policy of the school district going forward is that all athletic fields from Key West to Kargo
will be artificial turf and I'm assuming that was based on some type of research. I'll also point out that at the workshop that we had from with Miller Leg, the contracted people who did the uh master plan for the for the uh Founders Spark, they were asked
why they actually put on the plan artificial turf on the other field, not on the ball field. And they said they had done the research nationally and they recommended to us to have artificial on the other ball field. I'm just saying somebody's done the research. Uh I'm not the expert, but there have been people looking into it
on both sides and I've heard from both sides and uh that's a decision I think you need to look at as far as making a recommendation. But there's good arguments on both sides of it and you know that's why we're bringing it to you. It's not a slam dunk either way. Um I think let me see if there are any
other questions from the committee and uh John and then let's ask for Mr. Leier. I was hoping and then we'll have public comment. I think that's the good I was hoping to speak at the end after public comment if that's acceptable to
you. Absolutely. And also um John's agreed to help with the timing as we do. Oh, all right. Annie's done it. Okay, great. When we get to public comment then.
Okay. Are there any other comments from the committee? because this is a committee meeting. Is there anything else that we would like to offer for questions? How many boys are on the baseball team at this past year?
Uh varsity and JV, I'm guessing 28 maybe something like that. Okay. And why that's the reason we're not calling it a baseball field. It's it's multi multi-purpose. Is there a is there a growing number of kids in school
that we anticipate that there will be a greater amount of baseball players? Well, again, getting past the premise of baseball. There's 140 kids playing flag football. Uh they're over
we have those other fields here for Isa Marada. If you'll check with those coaches and the people that are in charge of, there's an acute shortage in every single one of those leagues for practice and playing provisions. For the younger kids, we have Harry
Harris. We have the high school are I guess the younger kids can't play at the high school as I understand that it's off limits. It's locked off. Is there any any thing over at Plantation Key School
at the elementary? They've they are maxing out all the provisions available and they are there are still shortages. That's what that's what I was trying to suggest. I just I want to remind everybody this is the Isa Marada Park. You know, we
understand that there's always been a good relationship with the school board, but we need to remember that this is our founders park. Any other um committee
comments, questions? I do I guess I'm just I'm wondering has the school board considered you just purchasing a piece of property that that they could put a ball field on that would belong to the school district and then they could have complete control
over it. at the last uh public workshop June 24th uh that question was raised I believe by our mayor Sharon Mahoney of Mr. Lefir and once again he'll be speaking himself but what was said at the meeting was
that the school district has looked up and down the keys and they could not find a suitable location for ballfield. Tony Hammond who is once again one of the five members on the task force serving with Felina and Jamie sto said at that meeting I believe that he personally who's very familiar with ball
fields in his opinion that there was no place left there maybe years ago there might have been that the current time there was no other suitable piece of property in the upper keys at least uh for a ball field I they're both here tonight Mr. Lefir and Mr. Hammond. So you can hear directly from them. But
that was my recollection of their position was they have looked and there's nothing in the at least in the upper keys that would be suitable for a ball field. I have a suggestion on that. Instead of
changing the ball field, I know that the track needs to be redone, resurfaced or whatever it has to be. What about moving the track and expanding the ball field? Then you would have enough room I believe if you remove the track from
around the football field. I think once again that's probably more appropriate for Mr. Lefir to talk to because I think they have looked into that. But I I I got to be careful about stepping on the toes of the school district as far as issues like that. But I think he's he's looked into it. Uh
Ron, one last question and then Caroline indulge me. I if on the yearly contract agreement, if the village and the school board do not come to an agreement on any one of the years, is the village responsible to
pay the school board back for the facility and what they've spent on it? That's a good question. I'm not sure. You mean if we don't have a a use agreement? Well, you said every year it would be it would be discussed and uh if if if you couldn't come to an agreement if the village could not come
to agreement with the school board on any given year, is there provision in the contract which holds the village uh financially accountable to pay back the school board? Well, there's there's a 2-year cancellation provision that might kick
in at that point. Um, but it's a it's a 20 + 10 plus 10 agreement for over the course of years. Um, I guess theoretically there could be some that'd be have to be negotiated. U because it would depend on what you're talking about canceling the rest of the lease
agreement or are you talking about just that year? Well, the school board puts up 5 million two three years from now. village manager of the council can't come to an agreement with the current board of the school board.
Are is the village coffer going to be responsible for paying the school board back for their investment because that's very important to me. Well, let me say that I'm an attorney, but I try not to offer legal opinions uh because with we have legal counsel
for. So, um let me let me look into that more detail. I don't anticipate that happening obviously but it it is talked about in the interal agreement but I don't want to say something that could could be used against us at a future time. So I would just say uh I I don't anticipate that happening but
it's a possibility that there could be some consequences if we didn't reach agreement which is why both sides have a lot of incentive to agree every year on their use and of course that's beyond this this board but that's definitely something that needs to be brought to light for the village council and the the powers
to be that are going to make the final decision on this. Thank you. Okay, committee questions all out. Then I'd like Ron, I'd like to turn it back over to you to
um bring in um Mr. Lifair. Carol, I'll join John in reserving my comments for the Okay, that's fine. And once again, be just to get directly to what you said, let me just read the uh what it says. And um it's section 14, title to tangible property upon
termination of agreement. The school the village and schoolboard agrees upon terminations agreement the title to all tangible property included the recreation facility be in the the name of the village unless such tangible property is completely removed from the founders park baseball site by the school board at the sole expense of the
school board. So that's wasn't really clear about your question the field itself is there this refers to the tangible property. So for whatever reason, if your question was if for whatever we don't agree, will we have to reimburse the schoolboard? Yes, sir. X million dollars, in my in my opinion,
no. So what would fall under the tangible scope? Would it be the buildings, the you know, the stuff that cannot be removed without being taken out completely, right? Uh so we could be on the hook if we didn't have an agreement. Uh if we couldn't reach an agreement. I'm you
know, it's like you say, you don't anticipate it. I don't either. But that's when that's generally when it happens. Once again, let me read this section 14 which this is recorded with the clerk of the court public record. So everybody can see this. Section 14 says that uh that if the if the vi the agreement is
determined by the village meaning us prior to its normal expiration date then the village shall pay to the schoolboard an amount equal to the adjusted value of the recreational facility and all associated tangible property constructed installed or placed by the schoolboard at the founder park baseball field site.
So that's why it's kind of a gray area. I I I don't mean to be nebulous in my answer, but it there's some definitions there that we probably would want to include in the use agreement, but that's what's in the recorded interlocal agreement. And those are things we'll be negotiating, I'm assuming, when we get
to the license agreement and the use agreement. My my fear is is not today or tomorrow. It's down the road. And the people that'll have those positions, there's a lot of people that don't want this. I'm not necessarily one of them. Um, but you know, you get you get three of them on the uh council and they say, "Well, we
just don't want it here at all." And then all of a sudden we realize we're getting a big lawsuit against, you know, as at the original meeting 25 years ago, Mike Lannon and Frank Kisky were talking in the same form we are now as a council. And and and Frank Kolisky said, you know, the Moro County School Board
could squash us like a grape. And he was right. You know, they've got that kind of money. So, uh, I just want to make sure that we've got all our tees dotted and our, you know, our tees crossed and our eyes dotted on that. Well, and thanks for that, Ted. I think
that these this falls in the category of the agreement, which is part of our ba the major conversation, and then we have the other mo other important conversation, which is the turf. So, if
it's okay with everyone, let me turn this back over to you, Ron, to introduce um uh Pat and you know, however you feel would be best to give us information on these issues and then there will be
public comment. But I think the public comment will be that much more relevant when we've got some of these answers and have a little bit of an idea of what the grounding is. So back to you, Ron. Well, once again, I want to thank Mr. Lefir for coming. He did attend the June
24th workshop after he left the schoolboard meeting when it was over. Answer a lot of questions then. So I asked them once again to come to this meeting uh to give information because there's a lot of information out there may not always be accurate. So, I think it's rather than me interpreting what he may or may not say, uh, we have him
here. We have Tony Hammond who's been involved, very involved with the baseball team, and we have our school principal, Laura, here. And so, they can decide from their standpoint who's best suited to respond to some of the questions that have come up. But, at this point, I' I'd introduce and welcome up to the podium Mr. Lefir, who can
maybe address some of the questions, and then if you have other questions, he'd be or or he can refer it to to Tony or to Laura. Thank you, Mr. Saunders. Uh, for those who don't know me, I'm Pat Lefir, executive director of operations and planning for Monroe County School District. Uh, I think this is my fourth
time in front of uh the the community up here uh speaking about this uh project that we think is very important for Coral Shores High School and for the village of Al Marada. And we once again want to start it off by uh expressing our sincere appreciation to the village
council uh the committee here uh and and the citizens of Al Marada for the long-term continued cooperation we've had in the use of the the Founders Park ball field. Uh it's my understanding that I've learned uh through through
some locals around here. I think even board member Waltansky might be online and may be able to speak to it that long ago when when uh the county was looking for sites for a high school up here and for a park uh there was there was discussions on which site could be appropriate for both and and and during
as part of those discussions uh they realized that uh uh they couldn't fit a uh a full athletic complex to include a baseball field and track on the Coral Shores campus. And that's when this whole uh idea of sharing the park with
the high school with regard to use of a baseball field started. And it's been a hugely successful partnership through the years. There are other properties throughout the village that uh there are agreements in place between the school board uh and the village. And uh we we very much uh cherish the relationship we
have with the village because it it it's a it's a a great partnership and I think it it serves not only the students and staff of of of Monroe County Schools uh but the the the citizens and taxpayers in the village of Al Marada. So I want to start by expressing my thanks. Uh the
uh uh I don't know that I have all the questions that that came up during the course of the the committee's input. Uh the the one I thought I heard the most was the uh uh the the price of the project. Uh so when we uh as a uh uh
planning department uh put together uh our capital projects, we have a 10 and a five-year plan uh that we look out and see what the needs are across the school district for capital projects. uh a and we plan those out o over a series of
years based on uh the priority the school board gives to those projects. When when we identify those project needs, there are there is never a detailed scope of work nor certainly a a design uh that could be costed out for
those particular projects. And so quite often uh we we do our best estimate on what the cost of a project will be for that uh for that long-term capital project planning and and those those costs gets get adjusted from year to
year. Uh and that $5 million that we originally uh set aside as a planning number for the Founders Park baseball field project uh was carried for a number of years in the five-year plan. But it wasn't until the first time we
actually put a scope of work to a conceptual design that we were able to do any uh serious cost estimation on it. And that's how we got from the 5 million to the 6.1. Uh so that's that's pretty typical of of how at least for from my
perspective and my uh my experience how the capital project planning for for us in the school board has worked in particular in the in the time I've been here 10 to 12 years uh because along along those along that 10 to 12 year
timeline we've also seen increases in cost of of construction uh here in the county pretty significant ones. So often times those init initial planning numbers that we had in the capital plan when it comes to the first cost estimation uh quite often the the number
comes in a little bit higher. So uh that's that's what I can say with regard to the the the projected the initial planning estimate and the now first projected cost increase. Those those costs will be updated through the course of the design phase. uh and we'll bring
those EP those uh uh those numbers back to this committee if desired and certainly to the village council as we go through the design process. We're very early in that process right now and there will be multiple opportunities for uh me and my team to uh come back to
this group and the and the village council and give updates on both the design the timeline and the and the c the uh uh the cost impacts. The uh the other point I would like to make is I I I stand in front of this committee uh as a representative from from Monroe County
School District. Uh but this concept is not a Monroe County School District concept. It's a very much a Coral Shores High School uh concept. They reached out that they reached out to me three, four years ago and asked me to come up and and listen to them about uh a plan they
had envisioned for their uh uh their ball field, which we're now calling a multi-use field, because it very much is. Uh and and we've been we've been chugging away at this for ever since then. It's not Yeah, I'm leading the effort in front of the committee right
now, but it's very much a Coral Shores High Schoolled effort. Uh and uh we've got Mrs. Leotart here. Uh we've got Mr. Holly here. Uh rich in his role. Uh it's very much uh we're here on behalf of the the the Coral Shores staff and students.
So uh don't don't look at me and think school board uh school district. It's very much a Coral Shores High School project in partnership with the village of Al Marada that uh that I I think uh I think we can do a lot of things with. uh there was there was speak to the use
agreement and uh and how it will be used. It is absolutely 100% a joint use multi-use field and and from every step of the design phase since the very beginning we've always uh had the partnership uh with the v the uh the
village we've got village staff on the design team and at every turn we continue to ask how can we design this in a way that it can be used not just by the baseball team but by the entire village. uh the the conversation, sir,
on the uh the use of the field. Certainly for for most of the uh rec recreation league sporting events, any surface that we put in there would probably be uh uh suitable. But when we start talking about large community events, we'll just have to take a look
at uh once we get into the process of the actual turf selection, we'll need to look at those uses because how how we use the field uh will determine which turf is selected, how durable you want it. if you're going to put uh put uh you
know stands and such on it, we might want to make it a little more durable than if we weren't going to if we were only going to use it as a baseball field. So those those considerations will be made as we go through the turf selection process sometime down the road. Um what other questions were there
have? I know there were a couple more. What was other suitable sites for that? Are we looking at down the road? Are we not looking at having some kind of recommendation come out of this event today at least from the committee
relating to the two choices of of turf? I mean, isn't that the request that you have, Ron? Yeah, I I've requested the committee to if they could today make a recommendation on the grass versus artificial because it's very difficult to enter a use agreement or maintenance
or sustenance as David said without knowing what kind of turf is there. And so the usage agreement would be dependent upon the type of surface that's there. But the there two other things I want to get to. One was the question, have you looked at other sites up and down the upper keys for another
suitable place for ball field? And could Coral Shores be used if they if they swapped the track for the baseball field? I I've heard your answer, but I think it's better coming from you as your position. Also, I've represented that I heard that the official position of the school district is that all
athletic fields, Key West and Keargo, will be recommended by this district to be artificial. And I want to make sure I've represented your position correctly. to to the point on actively seeking other properties. I don't know that we have done that, but we are not aware of
any other properties and and we're pretty familiar with the property uh up and down the keys because we are looking uh as everybody is right now looking for opportunity for uh uh for affordable housing. Uh so in that regard, we're not
aware of any space large enough for either a baseball field or a track. So uh that's to answer that question. In the second half, Ryan was the the question came up from some of the members. Could you move the track over to the park and move the baseball field behind Coral Shores?
Yeah. No, not to the park. There's a piece of property on the oceanside at about mile marker 95 that's for sale. And I think because of its rectangular shape, it could be a
possible site for the track. and then the track would leave and that would allow more room to expand the baseball field at Coral Shores. That is not something that uh we would look at or probably anything that the quite I can't speak for the school
board, but I'm not sure that it would be because that would come at a a considerable uh increase in capital funding to to buy a property and then have to build it rather than continue the partnership with the uh with the village. Is that the Robing property you're
talking about? Um, it's almost across from Georgia. Yeah, that's the Robin property. Yeah. And and I I actually at the request of the mayor looked at it and uh the asking price is 9 million for the property.
Also, there's a lot of trees on the property. Uh so there were some concerns with that particular piece of property. Obviously it would be the school district looking at it but uh that price just the price of the property was 9 million just to as a point of information. Not everybody pays list.
We do have several realtors in the audience I'm sure will be happy to help out. C can I just interject though that's not a simple tradeout. It's not like track for you think about how small a track is. You're not going to fit a baseball field in that. We would go back to the original design. T they would know it
and anybody who went to Coral Shores would know it. And that would mean that we'd knock out the tennis courts, we'd knock out the concession stand, the uh storage facility and the coaches room. Uh that would have to be gone. So we'd lose tennis, we would lose track. We had
to reorient the for the football field. Again, we go back to the original configuration because that's the only thing that works with the sun with the baseball field. That was why it was designed that way to begin with. So that logistically would be a nightmare I'm afraid.
Mr. Shiners, another thing that I just recalled that the question of the the the use agreement and the cost. Currently there are uh costs that are being shared between the village and the uh uh and the school board on the
maintenance of the existing field. Uh that agreement has been in place for a long time. that proratic cost has kind of ebbed and flowed through the years. Uh especially probably in the last five years, uh the school board has started investing a little bit more into it to
to maintain it to a level that we need to to play baseball, high school baseball on as compared to just a recck league field. Uh so uh the the amount of cost for a natural grass field in the
long run would be less village cost over the the the long the length of the the project. And quite frankly uh all of the projects since the school board is covering the installation costs for the return on the investment for the school board will come after a number of years
when those uh uh the the maintenance costs that we save by using an artificial surface are realized. What's the uh so in Key West what's the projected um length of turf um that's down there now? How long is that
supposed to last? The industry standard that we hear for the conditions we have down here in the Florida Keys is about 10 years. Uh I can tell you that uh uh my my job prior to coming to the school district was commanding officer of the Naval Air Station. And soon after I left that position, they installed an
artificial field uh on 6B park annex down in Key West and that field is over 10 years and is still in fantastic shape. And then the footprint question, is the footprint going to change with this project? Because walking over there with Ron, I walked over there thinking it
was, but then when I saw where your microphone, sorry. Uh, walking over there with Ron, it looked like to me the footprint wasn't going to change. But what are your thoughts on that, sir? The exterior perimeter will remain exactly the same. Okay. Including the new buildings though,
the exterior perimeter will remain exactly the same. The the buildings within that exterior perimeter will change. And again, Ron, I really think that's something that this committee needs to do is walk over there with you and have
have you show them what you showed me today because it really changed my mind a little bit on this. Well, what my thought on that would be it's I think it would be important to do that before you make any recommendation. So perhaps after we've heard from Mr. fear after you've heard public comment maybe take a break and then have people
whoever the public whoever wants to go walk the field then come back then that that before you make any decisions tonight that way you've seen with your own eyes they've seen with their eyes what's actually going to be out there as proposed and then come back and then finalize your discussion if you if
that's the will of the committee. No, I think that sounds I think if our commitment tonight is to handle the two issues that we started with. one is getting clear about the agreement and I believe we have some clarity on that
that it's not clear it's not final and fixed but it is an it is an ongoing dialogue and so I think that first part we can feel comfortable that it is asis
the second thing that you've requested is the decision as to what kind of surface that we would that would be in the property. Now, this excludes a conversation as to whether this whole
thing goes somewhere else. Um, and I don't know that we're prepared to have that conversation right now, although that if that's the will of everyone, but but based on where we are right now, I think we have the school board here.
They've made their commitment and it seems to me that our job next is to make a basic decision on which turf it is that we recommend and accept. And what I'm hearing is that the school board has
made a decision that any program within Monroe County will use artificial turf. Is that correct? There's been no board decision in that regard. I would I would say that I I don't know that I could make that broad
of a statement, but in most cases uh in in an athletic field uh application or even in a playground application based on what I've seen over the last 10 years with regard to artificial surface, artificial surfaces and how advanced and
durable and environmental friendly they've become. Uh it would be my recommendation to put artificial in just about every application. Then what kinds of steps could we take right now to have information from you on how that how
that decision flows more to artificial? Is there some kind of the report of the expertise that you all have used that how long it lasts, the issues of safety, the issues of cost and all of that? Is
there some of that that we can hear that can validate or help to reinforce the decision that you're leaning to that you're that is part of your request and that the manager is asking for? Is there something you can
give to us? I I can't point to one document, ma'am, because I can I can get on the internet just like anybody in this room and find an argument for either case. And I don't if you look at enough of it, you'll you'll quite frankly get get confused because it's it's not conclusive on what you read.
The the due diligence research that we've done uh as a schoolboard facilities team uh in the recommendations we've made to the school board uh were to put artificial fields in uh in Key West. the two fields that we've done in Key West and we've taken
all considerations in player safety, uh, long-term costs and cost savings for maintenance, uh, environmental concerns and we continue to believe that the artificial surface, especially in a high school athletic field, is is by far the
most, uh, costeffective, safe, and environmental friendly approach. Well, I would ask Ron and maybe also Richie if there's any kind of additional I mean, it's nice to say we can all go
on the internet, but we'll all be in the internet for the next year. I don't think that is going to solve what we need. Is there a way that we can Can I say something here real quick? Hello. I I think the deciding factor of whether
we're going to use astroturf or natural grass is how much use the field is going to get. Now, if there just 13 games of baseball a year, it doesn't seem feasible to have a na an unnatural turf.
But if we're going to use it as what a lot of people are saying as a multi-use field, then of course astroturf would be a a more practical situation cuz you're not going to end up with dirt instead of no
grass if there's so much use on it. Okay. So, as a village or as a committee, we need to decide, well, how much of that baseball field do we want people using it? Do we want again, do we want flag
football kids from all over Monroe County playing on it? And do we want soccer being playing on it? Do we want lacrosse being played on it? Then I think you'd have to go at natural turf. But I don't think that was what the park was designated to do. I think it's a a
park that's uh supposed to be green and spacious and um you know for a boating and fishing community, not not a baseball community. So um I'm all for having a baseball team there play 13,
14, 18 games a season, but I you know then you can have the you can have grass green real grass on the field. Well, thank you. And I believe that Richie has said that this is really a
multi-use property. Yeah. And it's not limited to multi multi-use. It's not limited to multiports. We could have events there that we haven't even conceived of at this point. I was talking to somebody. They brought up, you know, it would be neat to have a
fundraiser with the Savannah Bananas coming in. Well, they've gotten too big, but they're going to have knockoffs of Savannah Bananas. King Court. King is court and those those types of ideas would be fun for Al Marada. It could be a fundraiser for Almada. I think those are all possibilities. Let me share just real
quickly because you asked about turf and some statistics about it. And Dave, with all due respect, I spent the last four years polling uh athletic directors and coaches both at the college level and and and at high school level and
universally without exception, they all support moving to uh moving to artificial. Moreover, and this is this is very important, uh you can got to understand municipalities all over the country are making the same decisions and the doctors are coming forward and
everybody's bringing forth their case. In the last 20 years, artificial gone up 400%. The projections for the next 10 years are they will double once again 400% and double that once again. And it comes down to the same reasons. You know, a
lot of the things that we talked about it is the durability. In our case, it's taking the pressure off of uh the aquifer. If you look at what we spent last uh 10 years, we've averaged between one and 1.5 million gallons of water
from the Biscane aquifer. And uh you know, Jamie asked me, she said, "Well, if the field was so bad, why did you play on it?" The simple answer is there was no plan B. There is no plan B up and down the keys. It's the same answer I gave, by the way, for a
mother who came by and she said she saw us fertilizing before a practice. She are you telling my son, my son's going out there and rolling around in fertilizer that you've just watered and she figured out there's pesticides and herbicides and insecticides, too. And but it doesn't happen a lot. This
happened one time, but it's same answer, ma'am. We either do that or we don't play. And it does beg the question since there is no containment and by the way this system is contained. We can uh we can divert the water anywhere we want to with the underground plumbing. I've got
the exact statement from the design engineer. But right now we don't have that. So that's running all that. You can see the which way that thing rolls. It goes right toward the beach. So all those things in my estimation and obviously I you know I'm predisposed but
it's from four years of research. It's not just something, you know, from two articles I've read or one person I talked to. Caroline, maybe the best thing for this committee, do we have three council people here right now? Um, maybe the best thing for this committee to do is
listen to the public comment and then if there's a motion, maybe just get a motion or not a motion to move forward with the project and let the council people figure out what they want to do as far as grass versus turf. That's Well, well, I mean, because I bet they
can hear some chuckles. There there's there's no information for us to make a sound decision. I'll bet all we're doing is listen. I mean, we're going to listen to people that are going to tell us it's horrible and we're going to listen to people going to tell us it's the best way to go and none of them are scientists and neither am I.
I'll take slight exception to that. You're a doctor. You're you're you're a doctor. But and I will offer legitimate comments that I hope will guide you to making a decision that you're comfortable with. I hope you do. I hope you do. Well, I think this is important. I think
for us to keep holding back and going, you know, maybe and it's on the internet and everybody's got ideas. That's where we've been for a long time. And what the manager is saying is he cannot move
forward until we get a sense of what direction we're going in. The recommendation or the ideas that are shared here by a combination of the input from the public and from the
committee goes next to the council of course. But I think the, you know, we keep pushing this wherever it's going. And I think I think it's time to hear some of these things like if John has
got some information, if um Richie has got some other information. I think we need to hear this and we need to get clear on what are the reasons that where there may be intuitive senses that
natural grass is great but that the artificial is being promoted. There have to be good reasons for it and I think we need to know those and hear those. So, so Caroline, should we have should we have a motion to go forward with the
project, have public comment about how to proceed with that project, or do or do you want to hear all public comment first? No, we we have ignored public comment first because this is a committee meeting. Okay. But I believe what I'd like to
hear is if Richie has got a little bit more information from four years of research, if John has got some information, if Mr. Leafir does not have anything specific to present, and if no
one else I I think I'd like to hear the facts. I'd like to hear what people are basing their decisions on. Well, there's lots of articles. I have been emailed articles and um you know that the
pediatric association says no that it should not be artificial turf that it should be natural grass that there are more injuries. You hear the other side. So I don't know which one is more
correct but I want to get back to the basics here. This is our park. I understand you don't want to call it a baseball field, but then you want to call it a multiuse field. So, it's fenced all the way
around. You talk about putting stuff there for for uh the rotary. You How are you going to get anything in there? You know, that's ridiculous. It's fenced. It's all fenced. They're g Everything's gated. There's
you can get it's 30 ft 30 ft across both right field and left field. So you could drive and so now you're talking about a multi-use field. You still have the outlines of the base paths, right? So
they do, but they are they're not clay. So in other words, you could play any of the sports that we've identified on them theoretically. So then you're only going to have kickball could go there without any issues. That hasn't been the issue in the past. Again, it's all moot unless we go down
there and look at it. I totally agree because they're talking about Ron was showing me they're going to move the fence way in. Well, hold on a second. That's the first I've heard of that. That makes sense. There's a lot of things that make sense that I didn't hear about logistics and I that's truly what we're talking about is logistics is part of
it. But we're all sitting here. I mean, we really need to walk down there and look at it. We've got some golf carts set up. Uh, and you also need to look at the elevations. That's logistics, but that still does not make the decision about artificial
versus grass. And maybe that decision is too premature. And and that's what I'm hearing, Caroline, is that people you can't make a decision whether you want artificial turf until you could decide
how much use the field is going to get. If it's going to get an excessive amount of use, you it was obvious that you would use turf. But if it's just for baseball, which I think is what most of the residents of Isaorado desire is to
help the Coral Shores baseball team have their 13 14 games and that's it. We're not interested in having the Savannah bananas coming in. We're not I I I don't I don't think anybody is. We We want a green, quiet,
open space natural park, not a complex for entertainment and multitudes of people coming in and using our park. Like Alina says, it's our park, not the mo the school board's park, not Monroe
County's park. It's Isa Marada's park. So, we need to decide how much we want that baseball field to be used before we can even decide whether we're going to have turf or green grass. Ron, any comments?
Well, most of the stuff that you've heard I've I've been hearing quite a bit. Obviously, um I'm getting a lot of input. Couple of issues that I think we need to put on the table. One is the injury issue. I've heard both sides of that as Alina has. We have the doctor here that want to comment on that. Uh
both sides have studies. Which one's safer? I don't know. But that's something we should look at. The second is the environmental impacts of grass versus artificial. With grass, you have fertilizers. For example, you have water use, but then artificial. There's
allegations that that has some type of chemical impacts that we need to find out from the school district what what kind of turf they've be using whether that's even applicable as far as the environmental impact of artificial. I've heard the artificial generates a lot more heat but then I've also heard that depends on what kind of subsurface there
is and so these are all issues that have been brought to me from both sides that that's one reason I asked Mr. Lefir to come here. I'm assuming, you know, right or wrong, that they have researched some of these issues and they have a position. Otherwise, why would they have recommended to the school board to go
ahead with artificial? Now, they may not be official studies or whatever, but I'm assuming that that was taken into consideration before Mr. Lefir took it to the school board, which officially voted to approve a plan that has synthetic turf. If that wasn't the case, then that I misunderstood that. But I
think that they did that research to make that recommendation. That's why Miss Lefir is here tonight to either verify or not because if I remember this committee, I'd want to know answer those questions. Is turf more or less safe than grass. Is is there more heat generated? If so, how do you handle
that? What is the environmental impact of of grass versus synthetic? Those are questions that I purposely wanted Mr. Lefir here to say yes, they looked at it. Now, he may not have an exhaustive study to throw on your desk right now, but I'm assuming that his decision was made based on those factors. And if he
wants to discuss it, that's up to him. But I'm saying my assumption going forward with you guys was that decision was made by the school board based on certain parameters. And if that's wrong, then that's something you need to ask him. You Ron is the safety factor really I'm
going to get nailed for this. I don't think that's this board's uh you know, I think that's up to the school board to decide whether it's safe for their students or not. Um Tony Hammond, do you think it's safe to put that up? Would you put your students on there? I think it's the only choice we have.
And is it is it a better technology than it was 30 years ago? You need to get on the microphone because the people listening at home won't be able to hear comments from the audience. So, if you want to ask a question. Well, let me ask Richie Russell then. Richie, is it safer than it was? The answer is is yes. And it it you know, trying to compare the uh turf of
30 years ago with turf today and the technology would be akin to comparing your cell phone from 30 years ago. It's it's grown that exponentially and but you know we're blessed to have an expert. I mean he's a leading authority. He uh Doug Manavich is in the back and
for those who don't know Doug led United States to Olympic gold medal. He has a he's in his Hall of Fame at Florida State University, played 12 years in Major League Baseball, coached professionally and in minor leagues for eight years. He has seen everything
across the world. So I I can't imagine a better source of authority when the time comes for public comment for him to lend some of his expertise. I would I just want to point to that moving forward. Well, we need to have public comments. Could I ask you Rich? You you had some
kind of a an outline of what this pro what what this program would look like about the water recycling and so on. Would you just give us a couple of minutes on that on the proposed project for artificial so that
well as I mentioned before the uh uh we'd be cutting down the water dramatically which obviously would be helping out the entire uh South Florida because of the drain on the Biscane aquifer. But the um the other thing that
um that I wanted to point out I'm just looking through my notes because you sort of caught me off guard. One of the things that that is an accepted premise and it's a false premise is grass versus artificial. If you're taking pristine grass and measuring it to artificial,
that's one thing. Week two, it's no longer pristine. We had and and Doug can speak to this, Tony can speak to this. school bike has done a great job of doing the best they can and I know the village has done the you know maintenance teams are committing a ton
but they they just can't handle the pressure. We replaced that field entirely. I think uh Steve Shay, we've done it twice in the last five years, but we did it I think December uh before last. Okay. Of 23. Okay. Exactly. And by mid
Well, first of all, 3 weeks after we replaced it, I'm driving by on a Saturday and I see somebody hitting a a a wedge from first baseline cuz we can't control it. And and I get it, it's a public park, but that all points in the same direction. You have to have some
kind of surface that can that can hand that. We don't ever want golf off there, but I'm just saying it would withstand that. Whereas, so going back to the safety issue, pristine grass versus pristine turf, I think every baseball and guy say yes, but it doesn't stay
pristine. It doesn't stay for two weeks. It certainly doesn't for two months. And for a heck, it doesn't it's not going to stay for two years. It becomes an artillery range. So, it it's not apples and apples. It's it's grapes and grapefruit. I
I hate to call call it out, Mr. Russell, but it's not an artillery range. It's a safe surface to play on, sir. Safe surface to play on. It's not an artillery range. Let's let's not mischaracterize the condition of the art. Exactly. It's not been an unsafe surface since I've been in the job.
And I said, and every effort been made, I mean, and incredibly proactive. Anytime we said something, the maintenance crew was down there the next day. for that matter, Doug was there. Tony's been there. It's just problematic. It's endemic of grass. And
natural grass surface in this environment in the Florida Keys. It's true at all of our schools is incredibly challenging to maintain to a level uh of quality that has continued to raise through the years for our athletic fields, all our athletic programs. And it's it's just becoming uh
insurmountable for a a staff the size of a school district or a village uh or or any of our local municipalities or county to to maintain it to almost a professional level of of uh quality which is what's becoming the expectation.
Mr. Lefor um is there plans if if you haven't already done is there plans to take the Coral Shores football field and turn it to turf? Yes. Yeah. and practice real. How long has the Key West baseball field been turf?
I believe it's eight, seven or eight years. And what is the difference with the maintenance costs and the water usage between when it was grass and now that it's turf? We're seeing significant savings. I don't have any numbers to show you right
now, but we've got we we've seen the savings. It's it's what we forecasted it. It's coming to fruition. What what other sports are played on? The the outfield is also the football field during football season. Carolina
was dual. Say again. They had a lot of problems with it though too. But there was a lot of problems with it and it cost us some games. I know that because baseball and Yeah. I just make a point really quick. I kind
of had on the tip of my tongue the whole time. Go ahead. Um I I don't know. It kind of breaks my heart a little bit. I feel like I'm looking at this a little emotional. I mean I'm here on this committee as a you know citizen of Alam Marada, a business owner, a substitute teacher, um and a
mother. And I don't know to hear some other committee members say that they don't want um basically to support our children here, you know, with this baseball field. We have the school district behind the um plan to do a nice renovation, you know,
whatever the details are with artificial and buildings and all that. I mean, they they've proposed this. They've allocated money for it. Very thankful for that um to support, you know, the children at Coral Shores through that agreement that they have set in place. Um, but to hear other committee members say they don't want, you know, all the people from
Monroe County or everywhere to come here. I mean, people are coming here. You know, we want people to come here and play sports and we want to be able to have like nice facilities for our children that we live here um and support um and be able to support um you know, the athletics program here. So,
that's that's one thing that I wanted to share that I kept feeling like I couldn't quite the right time. And I think again that comes into the issues that are underneath all of this that if those kinds of issues get us
tangled in stopping us from having a progression of a project then we're getting down in the weeds which is what I suggested. We need to make some the basic decisions and then
the rest of it is who all of the things about who comes and all the rest of that. But we've got issues of safety. We've got issues of maintenance and we've got envision issues of environment. We've got envisions of we've got issues of the fact that it is
the school board that is offering or providing or agreeing to or however you want to say it to to enhance the ability of using this multi- field multi-purpose
place. And that one of their underlying requests guidelines is for all the reasons that they've done homework with that it should be artificial. And artificial does not mean old tires
and astroturf and all the rest of that. We're talking about much more upfront things. So I think what the my question is how would you like us to proceed because we have not had public comment.
Um and if it's a desire to take a break and walk out to the field honestly I don't know that that impacts the decision the two decisions that we're talking about. I think that is a very important piece.
But I think the work that we need to do right here is to progress on the decision if the two issues that we talked about are the agreement and with the manager with you. We're that's in
works and will happen. The next question is do we use artificial turf or do we use do we use grass? And I think that is the decision that needs to be made and maybe if there is no more
um actual factual stuff that anybody wants to present. Can I give a delayed response to your earlier question? I apologize. I did not have it in front of me. That's good. Everybody here knows I'm a little bit slow. No. So, uh, but we talked about the turf system and
I asked the engineer that for this the uh turf that is being proposed in this project. It says this the turf system is being designed as a closed drainage setup. It includes permeable turf, a free draining stone base and a network
of collector pipes below. that water can be directed to an approved outlet or even reused in the system if if you want to get creative. Most importantly, it is fully controlled below grade and there is no treatment or untreated flow heading toward the bay which obviously
that's where it goes now. And then he went on to say to uh talk about the infills which is always I think the paralyzing paradigm about aster turf or as you call it or artificial turf I've heard called it artificial turf it used to use cut up tires they now have
organic options and here were six of the ones he gave cork is an option coconut husk olive pits walnut shells thermally modified wood and other plant f uh plant-based uh fibers all of which you
know quantitatively bring down the not only bring down the uh the temperature but obviously make it much more ecologically friendly and any they never sustained any uh in all the research they never found anything carcinogenic
about cutup tires but I can't imagine they're good for you so that's just my so we we don't want to even consider those that's not in the plan that's very helpful Carolyn speak on behalf of the community use the field,
current use and what we plan on using in the future. Please do. Um because when it's not baseball season, the parks department, you know, manages the fields and we manage it for all our youth organizations and I want to list all the youth organizations that
use a field. The Florida Keys Soccer Club, that's our youth soccer practices. There's over 400 participants in the program. our Upper Keys Youth Lacrosse Association. They use it for practices and they have a tournament out there
every year to raise funds for lacrosse organization. The Upper Keys Baseball Foundation, Little League and Youth Softball, also can use the field. A youth organization called Steady Bats program starts next week. It's for youth
baseball clinics and so forth. Again, that starts next week. youth flag football. Over 150 participants, kids are in that program and they're asking for use of the field as well. And this is we're talking about the outfield and
also for the parks programs. We have adult co-ed kickball and also just general recreation use by children and families that go out there, play frisbee, hit the ball, throw the ball around, all that use. So those are um use that
community uses because we keep talking about a multi-use field. So these are the other uses of the field that I wanted to include in the conversation. So is that of the baseball field or of the other fields? That is the outfield of the high school
of just the outfield. Yes. And most of these are for practices. They use the outfield for practice. There could be games out there with the with if we go if we move forward with turf, you could use that infield for
different things now because when it was natural clay was very hard to keep the surface up to playing capacity like the the uh our adult kickball league the field measurements was tearing up the grass and the infield so it was
interfering with the baseball play. So those are the uses and you've also mentioned that the that outflow or overflow is necessary because the rest of the fields are are over our current soccer we call it a
multi-use field as well our soccer field it is used by all these organizations so the overflow is we need more field space it's difficult for us now to maintain our our field because of all the use.
So there is definitely use more needed field space and you know this and that's not only our opinion but it's also opinions from our youth organizations. Good. Okay. I would like to propose
um and Ron if you have a suggestion on this. Um, I'd like to propose that rather than taking a break, I mean, maybe we should, but maybe everybody, you know, finds their own break that we
turn to um public comment. But yeah, the suggestion would be um number one, early in the meeting, I introduced uh Vice Mayor Horton and uh Councilwoman uh Anna Richards. We've been joined also by council person Deb Gillis. So we have three of the five village council here
in the audience. Uh I think initially I thought it'd be a good idea to take a break and go to the field. I think at this point if you want to go to the field after the meeting because at this point until we decide the grass versus artificial really the rest can't even move forward. And so my recommendation would be to go ahead and and if you're
finished with Mr. Lefir open it up for public comment. You're going to hear from both sides and then at that point if it's appropriate have somebody make a motion to either proceed with the plan as approved by the school board to have artificial without going into details on the buildings because that's a
preliminary design plan that could the buildings can change but the grass versus artificial we can't do anything until we make progress on that decision. So, I would say there's a lot of people here that want to speak, hear from both sides, and then if you want to make a decision to recommend to the council
which way to go to um Ron, that's an important thing I just heard you say about that the buildings could change because for just for me and a couple of folks that have emailed me, a concern isn't so much as like, do we want a ball field? Do we want to provide
for the kids? I think who would say no to that? But this all of these big new buildings like that's a concern for me and other people that I'm talking to. So are we are you saying that like saying okay yeah we want this new ball field now let's decide grass or not grass
the buildings are not a part of it. This is a decision that's going to be made later. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I I almost feel like Ron we need it's a two-part deal. We need to decide as a committee do we want to go forward with
with updating the field and then the second part after pop public comment to decide do we want to go grass or artificial. Well, that's a decision. I I think I think right now what we want to do is um
I'd like to hear from the public. Um the committee has had their comments. I think we've done as much as we can with um Mr. Lupier. Thank you very much. And don't, you know, don't leave if we can keep you. Um because I'm sure there will
be questions. Um but I think what we would like to do is is move now into public comment. Um the request is that it be a threeminut comment. And let's remember that uh as we said earlier,
this conversation is not based on is there going to be a dugout that's two stories f tall or any of that. That's not part of this conversation. This is really just part of what do we do with the turf and that gives the manager the
opportunity to begin negotiating all the rest of these things. Then the details I think come later. Is that Am I off base on that? No, I I would think that's the way to proceed. I I will not I've made the commitment I won't even advance to the council yet until we get more public
input on the buildings, for example. But that's something the school district have to look at because if you're over budget, perhaps they're going to look at scaling that plan back or whatever. But that's their decision at this point. Uh I do think it's good for you to get a better idea of what they're planning out in the field. But I think for today's meeting, it's better just to focus on
number one, do you want to move ahead with something? And if you do, do you want grass versus artificial? And I think if you can make those decisions tonight, that gives us enough. And then I think we can schedule another meeting. I think what next month you're meeting again, if you want to have another meeting after you've made decisions
tonight on the buildings after you've had a chance to look at them in more detail, then that might be the time to get more input on the buildings. But for tonight, I'd rather just focus on number one, you want to move ahead, and number two, if so, grass versus artificial, and then schedule another meeting for all
the other details. Yep. Caroline, can we hear how many doctors are in the room? Just one. Can we hear from him before we get to the parents and you know, because I'd like to hear what he has to say because I know there's going to be some refuted kind of stuff.
I'd be happy if John would like to. I was hoping to speak after public comment so that I could address any concerns that were raised during public comment in a meaningful fashion, but I will do whatever the chair wants. I No, I'm But I do whatever you choose,
John. So, I would like to speak after public comment. Okay, that's fine. We're John. Why can't you speak now and share some thoughts and then we'll have I'm sorry. Say again without him. before and after.
Before and after. Very well. Um, my name is John Weir. For those of you who I have not had the pleasure of meeting, I am a member of this committee. And I was a pediatrician for 40 years. For the better part of
four decades, I took care of young people not only when they were sick, but when they were injured, children and adolescence and athletic injuries. And since this first came up to the committee two years ago, I believe I can
say honestly to everyone in the audience and to the members of this committee who have concern that I have plenty of time to look into this. If I speak again afterwards, I would be grateful for the opportunity to address any issues that come up. But I would like to
specifically address the issue of safety with respect to grass versus artificial turf. Many of the studies that have been put out and have been quoted by certain people have addressed
soccer, football, field hockey, and lacrosse played among adults. The purpose of several of those articles was less about the turf and more about the cleats. This is a soccer cleat if
everyone can see it. It allows you to grip the soccer field artificial and increases your risk of injury. This is a baseball cleat that our Coral Shores baseball players use
when they travel or play on natural grass. This is a shoe given to me by a mother of a current Coral Shores baseball field that her son uses when they play on artificial. You will notice it has no
cleats. The risk is greater for artificial turf for injury when playing soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and those sports where you suddenly have to turn. I do
not believe after looking at these articles for the past two years that it applies for baseball. and my genuine heartfelt endorsement to the committee when you get ready to vote and to the village council members when you take this up and to anyone in the office that
has to has concerns from a safety perspective. I genuinely feel that the artificial turf is going to be safer for our young people playing baseball. Thank you. Specific to baseball, soccer will be a different issue for the other fields.
Yeah, thanks very much, John. Okay, with the intention of having full public um comment, uh we'd ask you to limit your comments to three minutes and you
understand that our focus really I think they're really only two major topics here. Do you choose to go forward with a project at all? Which sounds like there are some people who don't want it at all. And if you want to speak against
it, you're welcome to do so. And the other is, would you like to make a consideration between artificial and um natural turf um based on the information that we have? Is that does that sound right?
Okay. Then um we will open for public comment and I don't know how um Annie I think I'll let you guys run that Annie and Maria. Yeah, we don't have any assignments. So we'll just go whoever wants to go first.
Okay, here we go. We have three minutes. There we go. Hi Jamie Angel um village of island Marada resident on the task force that Ron mentioned. So a couple of things that came up some notes I took. Um someone asked um if the money is not
spent on this project does it go back south? Mr. Lefair stated at one of the last schoolboard meetings no it goes to the backyard of Coral Shores. Meaning if it's not used here it stays with Coral Shores. It stays in the upper keys. Our kids do not lose out on that money. It
just goes to Coral Shores. That was Mr. Lefair's comment on one of the meetings. Yes, the footprint does change if you are considering that we're adding buildings. We're adding an 800 square f foot twotory which is 1,600 square f foot concession stand restroom and all
of that. It's also like Alina pointed out the elevation. You have to not just look at the ground. You need to look at what it's going to look like up. Then there's the 300 seats that are there at the, you know, on on on the seating for
the bleachers. That is um parking. Has anyone done a parking study? Has anyone done a traffic survey? Has anyone decided that in front of all of those parking spaces up and down there are blue signs? And those blue signs say if you are not a resident of the village of
Island Marada, you have to pay for the park entrance. So what happens in that case? Is that wiped out just for the time the school district has it or it does you know where does the money go if they do have to pay? How much do they have to pay? I think that's something that needs that is something else. It's
a question that needs to be looked at. Um I think someone needs to do a cost analysis. I mean we're all sitting here and you're talking. It sounds like it's really the first time all of you are sitting here listening to this school. The design team um has had since 2022
they've been meeting on this. The school district's been looking at this and planning this since 2022. So I think you as a committee and as the village council, you have to look at it for not one month, not 30 days. You need to look at it for quite a long time. Great
questions from the committee because I think you do need to have someone come in and do a debate. Let's just say someone who is in note and I appreciate all the information you just gave um on the cleats. But I and I'll finish off because there's a whole bunch of notes that I did take, but this is something I
found the other day. The school district has hired or signed a contract with a company called Bright View Landscape and it is an athletic field maintenance agreement and I think Mr. Lefair can probably fill us in on this. It is an agreement to maintain all of the
athletic fields throughout the district from Keargo to Key West including Founders Park. That agreement was signed at the March school board meeting from what I understand and it started in April of 2025 and it goes through April
of 2029. So, if you're trying to decide whether to do turf or grass and maintaining that turf or grass, I think you need to, and I'll be done in a sec, I think you need to look at that contract because that contract requires
that company to service our field here at Founders Park for 6 months out of the year. They service coral shores, but the contract says they have to maintain all of the athletic fields in a safe and upkeep condition. So why wouldn't the
village then just go hire this company for the remainder of the year to make sure that whether it's you know if it's grass or turf that the that it's whatever we put down there is going to end up being maintained properly because obviously there is an issue on the
maintenance for the past however many years based on the comments that were made by coaches and umpires and athletic directors and parents and everybody at that meeting on June June 24th. And I will leave this and I've sent you all this email. My last thing I'm going to
say is I think everybody needs this a great conversation. My bigger conversation is what are you planning on doing to get that field in shape for the 2026 Coral Shores High School baseball season? If it is in such bad condition,
as was said over and over and over and over again at that last meeting, I would love for this committee or for the village council or for someone to sit down and figure out what are you going to do in the meantime before the project starts. Those kids deserve a safe field
to be played on. And it has to start today with a conversation between the village and the school board to decide what you're going to do, who's going to pay for it, who's going to be responsible to oversee it, and to make the kids that are coming up on that
field on January 2026 that they have a safe field to play on that's in good condition. Thank you. Okay, public comment. I guess we don't have an actual sign in so you can stand up uh
get in line or whatever. Hi, I'm Barry Ray Isle Marada. I think I know most of you up there. Uh I also am the executive director for the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition which started in 2010 in response to the oil spill. We've done an amazing amount of
work in this community on environmental issues. I also uh am a coach for nearly 40 years in running and I was an elite runner. Uh I was on the Marine Corps track team, many different things. Uh
and I've coached a lot here for the last 15 years and much of that on grass surfaces over at the high school and here at the park and a lot of it on the road as well. I'm also a master's degree engineer in electrical engineering and I
double majored in mechanical and electrical engineering in my undergrad. I've done construction projects all over this planet. And so when I hear that, oh well, we can't make the grass field work. It's just got holes in it, iguanas, and all
these problems. And the drainage goes into the ocean and uh that's all engineering, folks. And that's garbage. Of the 30 professional baseball fields, 25 of them are grass. They used to have
10, there's only five that are artificial turf. They used to have 10 that were artificial turf. They've all reverted back to grass, those five. The five remaining that are artificial turf have to do with severe weather conditions like extreme drought and
things like that. We don't necessarily have those problems other than in the wintertime here when we have the dry season, but we have ways to address all of that. So, piling these things on is going, "Hey, we can't do this with
grass." I think is wrong. I think one of the things that was just said that is most accurate and you need to take this very seriously as committee. I can tell you when I ran uh I was chair of the affordable housing committee as was Cheryl. I think she may have left. Uh
oh, there you are. Great. Uh the bottom line is we never had this many people at a meeting ever. We were surprised if we had anybody public speaking. This is a very very important and very concerned decision for our community. Everything from people that are going really do we
need the baseball field there? Is that what our park's for? to those of us that believe yeah I think it's you know we have to bind in as a community and do things for the community which may extend beyond Isa Marada so to try and say well we should exclude people that
aren't from Isa Marada we got kids playing here they they don't know the geography they don't know Keargo from Key West all right they just want to get out there and play and have a good time and learn how to do sports right so let's not get into that bifurcating
of different people here. That's not who we are as a community. But what we do need to do is take more time for this committee. It is wrong to shove this down your throat and make you make a decision this quick. I would not do it.
I would not I I just look at this and and I appreciate the last speaker so much because of that one statement. You need to take more time. This is just wrong. And and look, Richie's seen me, coach, he's seen me for years. I am a
huge fan of everything that goes on sportsswise here in this community. So, making this decision on artificial turf, my personal opinion is we can do it with grass and we can do it as well, if not better, on grass. If the it's good enough for the pros, it's good enough
for us. We need to make it that way. And I'm hearing all this, "Wow, the cost of maintenance, who cares? I don't want to have another plastic field where we're supposed to be representing the green of the world. We're an echosentric draw for
tourism and we want to continue that. We want to see plastic bags and all this stuff eradicated from our retail outlets. We want to be what is Marada and what the keys are supposed to be. We need to wrap it up. Sorry about
preaching, but this is part of what we're all supposed to think about in a bigger scope. Thank you, Barry. And thank you very much for giving me this time. If you'll turn the clock, we're not trying to be impolite, right? No, but uh just so you know, many when
you represent an organization, many times you have five minutes, not three. So, you may want to consider that. Thank you. That's fine. And if anybody is representing an organization, let me know that and then we can we can five times. Can I make a suggestion? Yes, ma'am.
On behalf of these guys, can you create just a sign up list? Just take a piece of paper so they don't have to stand there. Just give them a little give a piece of paper over there. So, my apologies. I will try to keep this
brief because my leg hurts. Do not put artificial turf down. You are asking to pay be pay to pay for a first class field. First class fields starting with Mark Light Stadium at the University of Miami. Richie, University of Florida, University of
Georgia, Omaha, Nebraska, the home of the College World Series are all natural turf. Class 2 divisions, which is a secondass group, some of them play on artificial. artificial technically costs less to maintain and but in the long
term it's not as costefficient. You're talking about laying down a bed with engineered water through that to do water runoff. Do the same thing with your artificial tur which a good golf course does. And by the way, most TE's do on good golf courses so your water runoff is handled. You've got to prep
your surface first. Steve Shay knows that. Do not use what is commonly called to as crap as far as I'm concerned when it's artificial turf. Yes, you get hurt. And if you have an injury and a twisting injury, listen to the voice of experience on artificial turf. It can
end your season. It hurts. It's not fun to slide on. The only person making money on the long run on that is the person that sells it to you. Do not put artificial turf. This is a green community, not a plastic community. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl.
Ready? Okay, Doug Mcmanavage. Uh, thank you for the expert. I'm far from it. But on this subject in this room, I made a career out of it. It was my living. It was my livelihood from 19 whatever. Been playing since I was 5 years old. We're
leaving out one main thing about the grass, the turf thing. You're leaving out the dirt that includes with the grass. No one's brought it up once. For everybody that's going over to that field right now, I'd be more than happy to hit you ground balls on it and just watch the hops. It's no disrespect to
Bright View or whoever. I was coach here for two years. Been doing steady bats for almost five. Um it's not about it's not just regular grass to grass. This is we've tried it. Richie brought it up about the infield. We redid it. We put it in in December,
January 15th. It was gone. There's there's all kinds of pesticides. You'll see it now. There's spray paint green. It's I'm not making a I'm not trying to downplay the people that are trying it. All these people that keep talking about major league stadiums, do you understand the cost of a grounds crew? Do you
understand the grounds crew are 50 to 75 people per facility? We don't have that. Key West has had their baseball field on turf since 2018. They replace one section of the mound a year for $900. That's it. I know for a fact that I spent my own I had my son out there and
the injury my son blew his knee out on that field at Coral Shores and in this infield over here at Founders Park. The maintain that we we have to do I would get to the field at this park for at 6 p.m. for a 6 p.m. game. I'd be here at 1:30 pouring nothing but gallons and
gallons of water on this infield to get it playable so no kid gets their teeth knocked out. And I've heard all the complaints and I've heard everything back and forth. Aren't more kids isn't that what we're here for? Aren't don't we want more kids? The more kids that spend time on that field, the less problems we're going to have as a
community. And that's I think I don't want that to get lost in the shuffle of this. And it's about the kids and the kids that are going to move up. All the people that are complaining about turf there haven't been I haven't stepped on that field. We've spent a lot of time on that. It means a lot to me. And I've
never seen in the years I've played I've been playing since I was 5 years old. I'm 51 years old. I've either coached or played. I've never seen an injury due to turf in 45 years as far as blowing a knee out or anything about cutting or anything like that. So,
maintenance-wise, they do their best. They There's only a couple guys. They can't keep up with it. This is not a major league facility. And the amount of money it would be to maintain that field properly, we just can't do it. So, it's not necessarily grass as what you think about grass is. I think we all agree we
would want grass, but it's it's it's just it's a moot point. we can't do it. Um, I just want to keep remind that that when you mention grass, there's dirt also. And keep in mind this is for kids and multi-use. And again, multi-use, we
can have one thing going on and then use a section of the outfield for something else that we can't do normally, but we do now. Thank you. Thank you very much. And also thank you for your for being such a wonderful part of the
community and contributor and for your outstanding background. Sorry, did we work out the Good evening, Joe Zahime, Venetian Shores. You've been here 25 years, probably longer than some of your kids have been alive. But my problem with the
following is the following. We have a council manager government here. And Mr. Mayor, that's why I'm bringing these remarks up. First of all, basically, it's always about the money. Venetian
chores pays 15% of the advarum taxes of the village islands. If in any normal company, 15% would control the company. I'm asking our councilmen here who were elected by people in Venetian shores to
maybe look and respect the fact that they represent Venetian shores. In addition to that, the mayor serves at the pleasure of the council. It's up to the council to were elected by the village owners, the citizens of village
of islands to do what they want done and they have to give direction to you. you do not correct direction. If you are then in your violations with city vi of uh of uh management. So I think we got a problem here. We got a problem of a
committee here doing all these good things. The council tells him what to do but you you who are here have to tell him what to do. So we got the cart before the horse. Vinyl or plastic or grass doesn't matter. You have to look
at what the console tells you to do. And it's up to you to listen to what the to influence the council so they can tell him what to do. So you got the cart before the horse guys. So go back to the village principles of government council
manager and violate. If you don't do this then we're all in violation and if the lawyer was here he'd shut this thing down. So think about it. I respectfully disagree with you sir. the the council has asked us to give them focus group. You know, it's basically
what we are. Good. And then they're going to do what they want to do. And honestly, I I I believe that this is probably already decided, but they're asking for our blessing on whether we agree with it or not. We're not doing it the wrong way, sir. Good. Thank you. But remember, he does not make the decision.
The council does. And he's not. Good. Thank you. He's a village man, not sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, I'm next. All right. Well, I'm going to represent Coral Shores Baseball since I'm the uh
the last coach, I guess, here. So, uh let me just run through some random things. I hopefully I won't take five minutes, but I'll I'll get through this. We have uh two 250 kids um playing little league baseball right now in the community. Basically, that's a term that I was given at that last meeting. Uh
their T-ball children have to go play up at Friendship Park in in Hibiscus Park. that's the only place they can play T-ball right now. Um, people said, "You need to mention where all of our equipment is being stored." Do you realize that the little white trailer out there by the baseball field is is where we have to keep all of our
baseball equipment? And the nearest bathroom right now, I notice the portallet is gone right now. Um, is 300 and about 350 ft away from the baseball field. Nobody's going to be sitting there watching a baseball game and then sprinting out to the bathrooms and then sprinting back. It just it it it's it's
not practical for what we have right now. Um, one of our young men bought a B baseball glove two years ago. We put it in the in the locker room there. Um, came back after the weekend. Brand new glove. They cost hundreds of dollars now. Rats had eaten the glove. So, I had
the baseball team go buy this young man a new a new baseball glove. And uh thanks to AJ and and uh Terry Abel and I, we were able to to uh extract the rats from the concession area that was uh out there, which we got rid of. Um,
one of the things that I think we need to keep in mind is that when all of us played baseball, the ball, we never faced pitching like we're facing today in in high school baseball. We have a young man that was clocked at 95 mph this year who's playing with Florida State, has already
committed to Florida State, and he's playing for us. is a pitcher uh coming up as a senior this next year and the speed coming off of the composite bats is over 100 miles an hour. That's why we need some some turf and and a good a
good playing surface. Um I want to just make a comment about the residents only comment that was I I don't get ticked at a meeting very often. That just flat ticked me off. Um, if we're going to apply that rule, we need to apply it to the swim teams, to
the tennis teams, to the people that use the boat ramps, to lacrosse, to soccer, to all the concerts, to all of the events that we have here at Founders Park and say, "Oh, it's a residentonly park, and it's going to be a passive park." And that's nonsense. That was not the intent of this park to begin with.
Uh, it was here to be a facility to be used by the residents of of this community. Um, natural turf. I can tell you from one who has been doing baseball fields for about 50 years, I think it would cost you a million dollars a year
to maintain the field properly to saw it and bring the team in that would need to maintain it. Just do some math on that. Um, it is just impossible. It will take about 4 acres minimum to put a baseball field in. That does not include swailes,
setbacks, etc. There's no place that has that kind of acreage here. Um, Bright View, uh, does a great job. They're not trained. They sometimes have to do Plantation Key, Coral Shores, and in two minutes and and us
in the same day. I've gone out with them and tried to help them in learning how to do it. And it it's they don't have anything to work with. So, I would say they're overloaded and they need more training and more help. certainly more financing. Um the other thing I think
that we need to recognize, we're leaving $5 million on the table if we walk away from this. Uh that's a huge deal. Um addressing the artificial turf versus natural turf, D2 and D3 fields or NIA rather are almost all going back to
artificial hands down. D1 and major league ball can afford to put in natural turf and that's why they are are doing it. Um, also there's new technology that provides an under layer, a pad, as well as a traction layer. The studies on the new turf are showing that traction is
actually better on the new artificial turf than they on in even on natural grass. So, I'm a huge um supporter of that. Um, and to have a comment even about whether or not we can be at Founders Park, that ship sailed with the
original council. It would be horrible to say to the school board, to say to the residents of the upper keys, "Oh, sorry. You can no longer be a Founders Park. I know we had that agreement and it was a it was for 50 years, but we're going to vote you off the island.
See you later." How terrible would that be? So, that's all my comments. I'm next. For the record, I'm Captain Ed Davidson, chairman of the IRS 501c3, Florida Keys Citizens Coalition, and I've been getting five minutes from the
county and from this committee and from Isa Marada for decades, and I'd appreciate it today. The 24th June Ballfield artificial turf briefing during the Founders Park master plan update was the first actual televised
and zoom public truly public report to the citizens of Alam Marada after 2 and a half years of largely undisclosed development of and widespread lobbying for the school system's conceptual plan for the now 6 to7 million bulldozer
installed artificial turf upholstered commercial stadium office complex with significant ificantly expanded year- round usage, which you've been hearing about, and multiple sports programs and imported promotional events. That was a mere two and a half weeks ago, which
makes a mockery of many past unces that the public would be consulted and involved every step of the way. Yet, the school board has already approved two sequential design build contracts without publicly consulting the Alamada taxpayer park owners at all. the current
underway contract having been authorized at 11 February 25th on their consent agenda with no board discussion and no public comment allowed. So much for participation, Mr. Manager. This particularly offensive to neglected
rights of the Alamra taxpayer owners of the park in view of this rush to judgment rubber stamp approval campaign to have Alamra Council sign off on all these controversies on the 22nd of July. a mere four weeks after the first public briefing after more than three years of
secretive planning with only intermittent sunshine. That is also a mere 12 days from this first briefing for this committee. 12 days. It's absurd to rush everything like that. The most
usage rights the school board ever had in the past 25 years under the long expired original permit. And this is it campers. And this is what it says. 2:30 to dark Monday through Friday only, no weekends, 19 weeks a year. They have no
entitlement to build the stadium office complex they defaulted on building 24 years ago. Especially as the carrying capacity of the park has been used up by all the construction since, by the police, the fire and rescue, by
government buildings are wrecked since that stadium default occurred. Hm. And the alleged poor state of God's green grass ball field. There's a lot of contradictions here. Mr. Lefir says it's not a death trap for children. Uh and
yet all kinds of people said that it's a it's un Richie had some phrases for it. Um, but it's at any rate in the shape it's in because the decision was made in the school district
to go to artificial turf and it's been neglected for that reason. But there's still nowhere near full disclosure from the AstroTurf promoters. Um for at the 24 June schoolboard
meeting, QS member Darren Heran said plainly, a timeline 1 hour 21 minutes. Watch it yourself that he expected bat ball field cost overruns to increase that the village should have to kick in as much as $2 million to help fund just the initial cost overruns with more
expected in the future. Uh board chair Mindy Khan has made similar public on camera remarks in public. Um and um Mr. Lefair came from that schoolboard meeting uh to to the public in this room
and talked about what they'd approved, but he uh somehow uh I guess ran out of time and neglected to mention to the room full of Island Marada taxpayers here that um some folks on the school board wanted to write an IOU for 2
million bucks to this community. But Mr. Mr. Lfira did say that village manager Saunders is in quote in lock step with us and wants to get this signed in July. That's a mistake. Uh uh Ron's job is to ensure that all rod
and nature park owner citizens have the opportunity to thoroughly review and comment upon this long undisclosed expanded exploitation plan. 30 seconds. Okay. But all you've heard from is advocates. Richie's been an advocate for turf for many years and so have other
people you've heard from. But let me suggest this since you are a lawyer, Ron. If the turf advocates insist that astroturf is so substantially safer for our children, then have them sign you, and I suggested to this a long time ago,
if you'll recall, have them sign a release and hold harmless against increased injuries, which lots of professional organizations have stated as national policy. The NFL Players Association is insisting that all fields
go back to God's green grass. And it's that's not from tackling injuries. That's from running and falling down injuries, which is very common in the kind of sports we're talking about. Have them sign a release and hold harmless if they're so convinced it's safer for our kids.
And have some independent experts testify, not just many of your advocates. Thank you, Captain Ed. Don't hear any. Up next, Jason Richards.
Jason Richards, uh, director of concessions for Coral Shores booster. Can you please set the clock for five minutes? Aren't you glad you guys ain't on the peacock committee? All right, so I want to hit you guys with some facts. I had two uh student
athletes that came through Coral Shores baseball program. That's all they ever wanted to play. Uh and uh I spent a lot of blood, sweat, tears along with a lot of other volunteers. Rich, you'll know of getting that field the best we could
game ready. And it's been neglected for a long time. And it's not really anybody's fault, but a lot of people do not realize how much time, effort, and money it takes to manage a sports turf that is able to play at the level of
high school baseball. Let me throw out some facts here real quick. I I hear about injuries. All right, there is 32 NFL teams in NFL, National Football League. 17 out of the 32 have artificial turfs. Okay, each team gets $290 million
salary cap. So if you times that by 32, they're playing players $8.9 billion to play the game of football. Now, out of those 17 teams besides the Cleveland Browns, if if you think about it, do you
think if it was that unsafe, they would they would let them play on artificial turf when they have all that money invested in them? Just something to think about. All right, let's talk about the uh amount of money that we could save possibly.
Does anybody know that how much a gallon of water in the Keys cost on your water bill? $10.60. A gallon of water. A gallon of water. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. $10.60. Oh, I'm sorry. Per thousand gallon. You're right. Sorry.
Sorry. Um per thousand gallons of water. All right. And artificial turf on the studies that I read, they could save anywhere from 55,000 to 90,000 per thousand feet of water a year. Just let that sink in for a second. Now, let's
talk if we don't go to the artificial turf. Let's talk if we go to turf. In order to maintain a sports turf, you have to mow it every two days. Bermuda sports turf. Are you going to be able to put guys on that when the when the school board's not uh maintaining it and
and have them mow it at two times uh I mean every two days? Probably not. Now, well, you could, but it's going to cost the taxpayers a lot more money for the staffing to do that. Now, let's talk about what you have to do to that field
throughout the year. You have to airify it. You have to uh top dress it, right? That baseball field when we top dressed it back when my kids were playing. I had a guy donate all the money. It took it takes about 30 tons per acre. 4 and a
half acre ball field would take about 150 tons of tons of sand. Two more minutes. Okay. So, that being said, you have to do that twice a year. Then you need to air, then you need to verticut it. You need all this stuff. Now, we're not even talking about doing the clay. And that's
the problem where the lips come in. If we don't keep the clay moisture, the right moisture, the clay blows in the wind, goes under the grass, grass goes in it, we get lips. We do it every year. We cut the lips out. It's It's just a pain in the butt. So, this is going to save us a lot in maintenance, and it's
going to be a lot safer for our players to be able to play on this. Major League Baseball teams, not a very good example to use because a lot of them are the green, the gods green, but that's kind of a tradition. But let's take the Boston Red Sox. They spend anywhere from
500,000 to a million thou a million dollars a year just to maintain their turf. Okay, that's how much money it takes to keep these sports turf fields at a proper playing level. So that's all I got. How much more time I got?
What else you want to talk about? All right. Thank you guys. Right. Up next, Sandy Basicia. Hi, Sandy Bia. Isa Marada. I'm in support of Coral Shores High School students continuing to play baseball and
sports here at Coral at the uh Founders Park. But I'm just going to address some confusing things. The Miller Lelay comprehensive plan survey we authorized for hundreds of thousands of dollars just a few weeks ago shared live on TV with our village council stated that
citizens did not want any new buildings in the park. They just wanted renovations of existing amenities in Founders Park. So why are new multiple stadium level type buildings being proposed in Founders Park? At the June 24th schoolboard meeting, which any of
you can go back to and watch, two school board members, to include the chair, explicitly stated, not asked, more than once, that they expected the village to quote, "Kick in at least $2 million for the proposal for the sports uh
sports complex at Founders because it's not their property." And it was a $5 million project, but now it's a $6.2 million project. So, thanks to Ron Saunders for um interceding and reigning that whole concept in this in return for
what we gave them a 20-year lease for $10 a year for the last 20 years to help out the kids at Coral Shores High School because the school system apparently didn't adequately prioritize and plan for the ball field on their own property
and then they let that lease expire. So, is it fair now to rush to build? There are adjacent neighborhoods to be affected by PA system noise, traffic, water or chemical runoff, parking issues, etc. That would be Treasure
Harbor across the street, Plantation Lake Estates across the street, the Gimpy Gulch neighborhood, the Cor Road uh neighborhood, the East Ridge Road neighborhood, and Executive Bay. That represents hundreds of homeowners. We
live across from, as Alina Davis mentioned, our park. Have any of these neighboring communities received official notice to attend a meeting regarding ball field use expansion to include PA systems, increased traffic,
water, or chemical runoff from astroturf parking issues and new large multiple buildings with large walls? Have there been traffic studies, reports from biologists regarding runoff safety procedures for chemically treated
plastic grass or biological runoff um transparent to the public? And is it proper that the public has only 12 days until July 22nd to respond to this expansive sports complex proposal now at
$6.2 $2 million until their intended village sign office rushed through as this proposal for multiple buildings in the park affects several neighborhoods and is not in keeping with
what the citizens just said they did not want that time. Shouldn't it be a referendum in the next voting cycle in the next 15 months? Thank you. Okay, up next is Carla Bon. Hi. Uh, I'll be respectful of your time,
so please forgive me for uh just reading my notes. Um, first, I find it offensive that any adult would deny a child the ability to play ball on a league or swim in our pool because their parents don't live in Isam Marada and don't pay real
estate taxes. I raised two boys in Isa Marada and if they only had fellow Isaam Marada kids to play ball, I think their experience would have been quite different rather than the wonderful experience they had as Keys kids. I
truly hope I am misunderstanding what's being said when I hear that Alam Marada residents don't want the Keargo kids using our park. Second, I am not an expert on artificial turf. So, I do defer and thank those experts that have
shared um their thoughts. Um I do know a couple of coaches. Um actually, one of my boys has moved back here and he and his wife are the Coral Shores girls lacrosse coach. And I will tell you from firstirhand experience, they both can attest to the fact that there has been
more injuries to their players on grass fields, whether it's our field or other fields that they've gone to. They play on grass and they play on artificial turf. Hands down, as coaches, they would prefer that we have our all artificial turf on all of our sporting fields. Um,
as far as what's already been stated on natural grass, Jason, thank you. That was awesome. Um, it must be watered, it must be maintained, all of which are expensive and possibly harmful to our environment. I do not expect this multi-use facility
to meet every need. We already have soccer fields that cannot be used for parking and festivals. It's not a new concept to restrict the use to just sports. So, prohibiting tents and parking. Yes, I vote yes for the uh for
the turf, please. And lastly, uh I am not in favor necessarily of the locker room component. It's a nice perk, but I'm not totally convinced it's necessary. However, if that 1600 ft um
or the 1,600 ft building is required to meet high school requirements, um I would just ask that maybe perhaps it could be configured more maybe similar to this room that during the offseason we can use it as a um community room.
Maybe our um summer um camp kids can uh can find refuge there AC and do arts and crafts in there and maybe use it for some other uh multi-purpose. 30 seconds in addition to um the locker rooms. Thank you.
Very helpful, Carla. Thank you. Are there any other comments, kind of repeat comments or anything for anyone else? Yeah, we still have more public comment. You went six and a half. Did I go six and a half?
I I we let you continue. Okay, guys. We We Hey, guys. We got our marathon going anyway. We want everybody to be heard. So, let's be respectful. And committee, thank you for all your time.
I'm sorry. You know, it's taking so long to get through something that should be so simple. Um, I just want to fact check a couple things. I don't know, Doug, how long we've been talking about this field. I think since we, you know, Crooked Palm, we tried that about four years ago. So, I think it's been about four years we talking about the field. So,
whoever's saying it's been uh this is something new. It's it's something that's needed, not new. Um, I'm not a professional, so I'm going to stick with the professionals like Jason and Doug and uh, Coach Russell that have taught these kids and played with these kids and know what the baseball field's about and what it takes to have a field. You
know, I know we have kids, a lot of kids in these room that spending all their time. Appreciate it. But just want to say uh, I think turf's the right way. I think this is something needed um, and something that we're just spending a lot of people's time that we just need to approve. Thanks.
Thank you. Okay, up next, Ed Holly. I just want to say thank you guys. It's an honor. How's that? Is that better? Yeah. You mind introducing yourself? My name is Ed Holly. I'm the athlet blessed to be the athletic director at
Coral Shores High School. And I love this. I love getting up here. I love to have the opportunity to talk to you. And obviously, I'm in favor of the field. That's not a question about the multi-use field. And I hear all this yays and nays. And I want to talk to you not as the athletic director real quick, but as a dad, I have had I have been
blessed. First of all, work for the greatest boss in the history of the bosses. Miss Leotard is awesome. And she says, "Coach, do whatever is best for the kids. Work for the kids. Drive the kids. Get them to college. Get them up. It is awesome. It's a great place to work." As we all know, at Coral Shores High School, I've had three children, a
daughter Katie Marie, Johnny, and Eddie graduated from Coral Shores High School. Two of those students, uh, Johnny and Eddie, are playing college football right now. Both of them are playing on synthetic turf fields. I have zero zero problem with it as a dad. They had
chances to sign at other places, other programs that had grass fields. And you say, well, why would that make a decision? Go to a grass for a scholarship or go to a synthetic turf. And I said, synthetic turf, and I've coached on both. Love it. It's way easier. It's You don't have to worry
about the bumps. You don't have to worry about if uh if somebody chips on the field, you don't have to worry about any uneven playing surface and they're playing at the collegiate level right now. In high school, I worried when my son was out there. He played catcher for us and I was grateful that he was a
catcher because he was behind the plate because I heard stories and I know about the Founders Hop, but I would not have changed it for the world. We are so lucky and as a dad and a member of this community, the greatest community in my place in the entire world to have my son play at Coral Shores Baseball. And I
have a fourth son or a third son, the fourth child, Billy Lee. Billy Lee is a sophomore. And what you decide to do with this committee and with this organization is going to directly affect them. And I pray and I think and I know if we keep our kids first and I look at
the kids from the back and I say I see that field not just as a field but a field of dreams because when you look at that field you're not looking at just a guy playing now. You're looking at what he's not doing number one being a positive person and what he has the opportunity to do in the future. And
that future like we have two guys right now in college playing baseball. We got a third that just had the opportunity to sign at a division one program. How many more are we going to come? And as the athletic director, how many calls am I not going to have to take? They say, "Coach, we're not coming to play you." So, what do you mean you're not coming to play us? We're not coming to play
you. You can come to us and that's why we travel so much. And with a facility like this that's going to bring the community together that's going to be unbelievable. I am truly truly blessed to be here. And when you think and you vote, I just want you to think about it. Think about your
kids. Think about what the community is. And think about the future. Thank you for your time. Thanks, coach. Okay, up next is Jennina. What button do I need to push? This one. Okay. Okay. Hello, I'm Jenny Dopp. I live in
the village. I have a son that um plays lots of sports, but uh baseball is his focus and and he loves to play. Um the kids play all year. Um there's limited field space across all the keys as we
all know and we get to be outside every single day and that is what is uh there's not we need the space for the kids to play. Um, and I wish there was more fields and more room because
practices are backed up for every sport and for every division of all the sports AC across town. Um, I know that not everyone's going to agree on everything and that's natural. There's a lot of things I would like to
see different and don't think we always need around here, but I stay quiet and let processes happen. If I am concerned about this stalling any further though, um so the agreement to move forward is dependent
on the maintenance costs. Is did I get that right? Um, so if the maintenance costs, can't you uh decide or have the numbers for how much it costs to maintain the grass and then ask Key West and Marathon how much it costs to
maintain the turf and then come up with a reasonable number so at least we can get that portion of the agreement signed and move one step further in instead of just going around in circles again and again and again for however more years
it's been going on. So, um, and that I think that's about it, but thank you. Thank you. Okay, that was uh Do we have any on Zoom?
There are no hands raised on Zoom. Okay, that is the end of this list. No hands. Hand hand raised. Yes, I only got three minutes. We got six. I'll be quick. I just want to uh reiterate um I brought the Minnesota
Twins grounds crew down here two three years ago to help me my own dime. Put in um the the field stuff. Long story short, clay bricks, lay it down for the
mound, lay it down for the plate. I brought them down here to redo our mound and redo our home plate. We did that on our own. Um, and these guys are professionals. They they do the whole Lee County Sports Complex. They were
realized that we brought probably seven or eight of them down here. They looked at me and said, "There's no way two people can keep this thing the way it is. It's impossible." So, that's I just wanted to make sure that I got cut off. I wanted to make sure you guys heard. These are professional people who do this at the major league level. And they
came down and said, "There's no other way to go but go with turf." Trust me, I love grass, too. don't get me wrong, but this is not the same grass that you guys think at the major league stadium. So, I had a professional grounds crew come and say that exact same thing. I said, "We you guys can't you guys cannot stay
ahead of this and they're pros." So, I just wanted to get that part in there. Thank you. Okay. Anything else from Mike? Sorry. Sorry. Anything else from the
from the peanut gallery? Okay. The question is as we continue the the council needs to continue our conversation. Um do you choose to have a break or do you want to do a break? If
you need a break, go sneak a break on your own and I think we uh if there's no major conversation, please feel free to go sneak a break on your own and uh and then we will Yeah.
Thank you. Yep. No, understood. So, let me see if Do you want to speak now, John? Okay.
Yep. Good. And Richie is also going to do the same. Okay. Figured we needed a little break. How are you? like Um, no. We need a gamble.
Cheryl. Cheryl. Cheryl. Yes. Okay. So, welcome back. We have uh reserved two speakers from the committee to make some comments and
then we will move forward with our recommendations. So um John, would you like to start? Yes. Thank you very much. So to all of you on the committee and to our village council members who were here, I s I
sincerely meant what I said earlier. after 2 years of careful consideration and recognizing the difference between type of shoe wear and type of game being played and that the conclusions drawn
for soccer and lacrosse do not apply to baseball. I sincerely believe that artificial turf is going to be the safer surface for our baseball field. And I
don't want any of you who are going to be voting on this to think that I am just blindly endorsing artificial turf without careful consideration. when all of us gather together is a committee to consider the entire Miller
Leg proposal. Phase for the park. For those of you who aren't familiar, Miller Leg is the contracted group for the Founders Park master plan. Phase two of that includes the soccer lacrosse fields. I won't say multi-use because that's been banded
around today. Initially, I endorsed artificial turf for that, too. I can no longer in good conscience endorse artificial turf for our soccer lacrosse large fields because of what
I've read about for injuries. But sincerely, genuinely heartfelt, I believe that it will be the safer surface for our baseball players. I think we owe it to our young people
not only to move this forward but to ask you and ultimately our village council members to endorse artificial turf for this field. Besides the injury I don't want to take up all evening but I also looked into the heat related issue. I
think I heard one speaker mention I tried to make notes. Yes, artificial turf is hotter than natural turf. I think that will be more of a factor for our soccer fields than our baseball fields. But there is no medical literature to
support an increased risk of heat related illness warranting medical attention when you play on artificial turf. Again, I think we'll have to revisit this issue for the soccer fields in
phase two of the Miller leg plan, but I genuinely feel that this is the right decision for our baseball team, our community, and the young people in this community that we owe it to not to do two things this evening. One, move it
forward with an endorsement to proceed, and two, endorse to the village council that we proceed with artificial turf. And I sincerely thank you. Thank you, John. I have a question for John real quick. Sure. So, John, did you just say that
you want it for baseball, but you cannot endorse it for the other sports? Is that what I just heard you say? When it comes time for us to consider the entire Miller leg, Founders Park
master plan phase two, which will include the soccer lacrosse fields. I will try to objectively present the material that I gave you this evening and then I'm going to be neutral and I'm not going to make a recommendation and
it's going to be up to the rest of you to the village council and hopefully more input from the soccer and lacrosse parent communities. I'm just going to be neutral, okay? because Maria has stated all of those other
groups that play other than baseball on the baseball field. So, they would be negatively impacted by using turf rather than natural grass.
And I respect that and she is correct. They used them, but they used them in an informal fashion. And I'm speaking this honestly and I would never take anything away from you. During the evenings for Wreck soccer, it is quite crowded.
There is not always room for all of the rec soccer players in the fall to play. So you have a couple of hundred children playing on the main fields and one of the coaches will take 10 or 20 over to the baseball outfield
for drill work and specialty work one-on-one. It is very short. It is not intense. Is that a correct assessment on my part? Yes. Uh they use it for practice. Yes. Currently use practice. For practice for overflow. They are not
running at full speed. they are not cutting abruptly wearing their cleats. I do not believe for those few players in that specific setting that they will be at the same injury risk that they will be when they're playing on the main fields. Great. Thank you, John. And I think we
get to remember these are conversations that are very valuable for now and they're also not today's conversations. So, I respect the fact that you've separated it right now. This is what we're working on right now. We're trying
to get a little progress. So, thank you. That'll that will come up next. Um Richie, yeah, I I'll run through just I'm sorry. I'll run through a few responses and let me just qualify this or preface it by saying the people that I'm going to be
taking exception with are friends of mine. I've known them forever. I have great respect for them. This will not change this one way or the other. At least on my part. I share with something Jamie said about the $6.2 million that the school has school board is talking
about putting here. If it doesn't go here, it's still going to stay up here. That's a little bit misleading from the standpoint that yes, the next project is at Coral Shores and let's just say it's $10 million. That 6.2 would be put toward that, which means we're only they're only going to have to put four
more, you know, the the 3.8 eight to go with it as opposed to the 10 million that we should be getting allocated, you know, that we're rightfully we should be getting according to the schoolbased taxes. That's the way the allocations have worked. I think uh at Key West they
got 12 million for the backyard and they I think they're up to about 20 something for Tommy Roberts with the change orders and so forth. Um so, you know, I just want to make sure that that's clear. Uh um Captain and and Sandy, you know,
again, we're on a lot of same issues together. Uh I don't disrespect, you know, Captain's service. I rever his service. This will not change any of that. But he talked about that $1.2 million and the discussion that took place between Mindy and Mr. Herand. And
it was just that it was discussion. They then convened at 50 unanimously to move forward. As as Ron said, section 13 of the interlocal agreement says very specifically that school board is responsible for all those expenses. Uh
Barry and I shared during the little break or whatever. And by the way, you talking about somebody who's just dedicated to kids and to coaching them up and doing a great job of it. He's done it for decades and he does it on his own dime. Uh you I have tremendous respect for him. But I took exception to on the ecology cuz I know you're with
ecology and right now we're spending as I mentioned before 1 1 million to 1.5 million gallons of water that's going on fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and ecologically we know where it's going into. It's far away and as opposed to the new system which will be
self-contained, all of that can be diverted in the direction we want it to be. Um, we talked, I think Cheryl mentioned, and another dear friend. I know her since she got here. Cheryl talked about, well, all these major league teams are using base, you know, professional team.
Richie, University of Miami. Yes, absolutely. Because it's a dedicated field. Nobody else gets on it. It's not a public park. It's not a mun municipality. It's not being shared. Which leads me to my last thing. Municipalities around the country. I
said this already and it's repetitive, but they have had the same questions and same same issues that we're dealing with. I mean, around the country and people, bright groups just like this and doctors coming in and and professionals
from every area and 400% they've grown. We've gone up in in artificial graphs and projection is for the next 10 year for that enormous figure to double again. They know something. It's the reason that our paid consultants came in
and and uh suggested that we use artificial turf here for everything. And doc, I'll say one thing and and I'll it's a repeat and there's nobody I respect more than you and thank you for representing your position. But the studies that you're looking at, I'll maintain again. We're talking about
pristine grass versus, you know, like professional grass versus professional turf. And this is no longer professional grass after a couple weeks. That's my concern. I, you know, I don't pretend to know a hundth of what you know. But that's that's the false premise of those
all those surveys. And people just sort of skip over that and say, you know, well, grass is cra but it is no longer good grass after two weeks, two months, two years. It just degenerates uh, you know, systematically. I think we all know that. And you can't keep up with it
in the Keys. I've lived here all my life. I can tell you. We've had grass in my backyard all my life. And we've been chasing it all my life. Thank you guys. Thanks, Richie. Any other comments from the from the committee?
Yeah. Um so kind of over the weekend I had asked some questions um and and most of them have been answered um that I'd asked Alicia, hey, can you provide us with background information? Right. So whether it's the approval requests that
Ron has talked to, field use by by the village and the schools. Now we're talking about grass and turf um environmental studies. I think we're we're good. Um, and the only thing left was the cost, right? And the reason I talk about cost has to do with I want to
make sure Ron, Don, and the rest of the everybody else has the teeth they need with the school board to make sure we get our money from the school board. And so that's the only reason I ask for it. Um, and I think by giving him um, you
know, what we're going to do tonight gives him the teeth um, to go forward. And that's where I mean this is kind it's not like it's a foregone conclusion, but it is. We got to we need a new field. I've been to Key West. I've seen the facilities. It's badass. Guess how many scholarships come out of Key
West and I know he sent his kid down there. I know people that go down there and it's cool. I was down there 2 weeks ago talking. So, um, we're going to do this. So, let's just get it done. Make sure they have the teeth they need. So, when they go poor, we get our money. when there's no
more Ron and there's no more village council that we have a new one coming in hopefully he stays longer than most they have what they need right so so that's really what for me that's all this was about so I bring up different things you know I'm on Richie
side on 99 99.9 um and I agree with the runoff piece we're actually saving water by doing that I mean we're saving a lot we don't need it to run off in there and get our green algae in the bay and all that other crap that goes on out there. Um, you look around the village right now,
how many people have fake grass in their yard? It probably from 5 years ago it was like 5%, now it's like 50%. Hell, I just put in I live on Coral Road. I can't keep all the grass for you. And I know I'm saving water and I'm saving, you know, saving the earth to be honest with you because we are using cork and
all these other things now that are recycled. It's not water bottles. It's not any of that stuff. So anyway, that's what I had to say about it. I appreciate what we did tonight. I know what we're going to do and what we're going to do moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else?
I wanted to introduce two motions one at a time separately. Yes. So Oh, you want to you want to do it? I'll wait till you finish. But no, I was going to I was going to begin by saying motion number one, I move that the
committee endorsed to the village council to proceed with the Founders Park baseball field renovation. I'll second that. Can I like ask a question about it or maybe modify it somehow? I'm I'm in
favor of moving forward. Oh, sorry. I I just wanted to say like I'm in favor of moving forward with the with the project with the school board, but I but in an altered state like like I I'm afraid to say yes, I'd like to
move forward and I don't really want to say yeah, I want to move forward with these in my opinion like really big buildings that I think change the the nature of the park. like is there do we really are we are we greenlighting the
what the village uh school board has approved that's why I said simply move forward according to the interlocal agreement they can't do anything without the village agreement everything you say is valid and that will be addressed separately
all I'm saying is yes let's decide to do it is something yeah as We as we started today we said there are two objectives. One of them is are we going to go forward with a
project with the baseball field with the with the school board. So that's option that's question number one and that's what I think John is doing. And what we tried to outline is there are a million variables that are not included with
saying yes, we're willing to go forward with the project. Now, there are lots of details to deal with, but the first thing we want to do is to give the general approval that yes, we do want to continue with the the
proposals. We want to continue with the the proposal. And so, um, Ron, if you'd like to clean up the language, John did it beautifully, but if you'd like to just make sure we say it correctly. No, I think what was said was correct. I
think there are some concerns about the buildings and so that's not going to be finally decided today. Uh, the school district and I have to talk about that. And once again, I invite before we forget after this meeting, I invite everybody to still go to the field and I think it might answer some concerns. I can do with the captain where you
actually see where they may go, may address those concerns, but for the mo purpose of the motion, I think it's very adequate to go with it. All right. And can I say one one thing real quick, too? You're absolutely right. Um the baseball portion, the amenities and so forth will be addressed in what formally in
February of 2001 was exhibit C. It spoke about all the amenities and gave the sizes and you know gave that was all laid out but it was it's an addendum to the interlocal agreement. So that's we're not there. I got a feeling a lot of it will be repurposed but some may
need to be modified too from 2001 and I say repurposed cuz if you look at the old interlocal agreement with the new one it's a lot of cut and paste. So, you hear? Well, the other thing to clarify about that is the money and the fact that the
proposal by the school board originally was a $5 million project and then there was conversation about being at a 6.1 or 6.2 and you know who might handle that difference. That is totally not part of
this conversation, right? And I think Richie already addressed that. It's not up to the village. Richie's addressed it. So has the man so is the manager. Yes. So that is not a part of this conversation. This is simply accepting the basic proposal.
Does that did I say that correctly? 13. Okay. Well, we have a motion. We have a motion to the committee. Do we have a second? I second it. All right. Any uh objections from the committee?
I still don't think that this I understand that this is what everybody wants so that then village council can pound the gavl on July the 22nd. Would that be correct? At this point in time, it wouldn't be my
intention to take it to the council for final approval of the design plan because I still think we need to talk to the school district about that. the what we want to do is make sure we've moved this forward and primarily get the grass versus artificial because it's really hard to negotiate anything else until we
make that decision. Yeah, that's part two. Yeah, but I'm not sure that at this point we're ready to go to take this for final approval to the council. So, I think we'll probably discuss it on the 22nd, but probably not bring it up again until probably the September meeting as far as any final approval. But what we
can do is present to the council that the that the um that the committee has has agreed that we choose to support moving the project ahead with all kinds of variables still incomplete. Is that
well remember that the school the school board voted on a it's even called a preliminary design plan which means it's not a final plan. So theoretically, I guess the council could do the same thing with the recognition there's going to be many more meetings and those plans could change two or three times down the
road. So I'm not I'm not clear what the direction will be until I talk to the school district cuz they may say we just want the school the village council to give a an approval to the preliminary plan. It's not a final plan because the final plan would have to be approved by
both the council and the school board. So if if it's not their intention this be the final plan then I don't think it really matters when we take it to the council because eventually the council must approve whatever actually is going to happen there. Yep. I think there need to be a lot more workshops
and you're talking about okay maybe not July but then September that's not that far down the road. Yep. But but that's not final. That's just agree we need to do this. No, we had that long list final plan September.
Let me let me try to clarify it. Okay, first off, I think the direction of the committee that I'm hearing is you're probably going to go ahead and move that we should continue discussions except give preliminary approval to just doing something. The second one, more specifically, I'm asking for direction
or recommendation of grass versus artificial. I still need to go back to our council members individually and say, you know, what do you want to do? cuz they wanted we had three of them here tonight. So, I'd like to get some feedback before we make any decisions going forward. But my point to Lena is no matter what happens next month, 2
months, 3 months, that plan that you have in front of you today could change two or three times in before it's ever finalized. So, this is still preliminary cuz once again, go out and look where the buildings were. I did with the captain today. His opinion changed. Opinions will change on this committee maybe. And that's great. The the public
opinion may change. We're taking input from everybody. So we want to move it forward. Can we approve preliminary plan and move forward and it needs to come back to this body for final approval? Well, it ultimately come back
because we are, you know, it's the village of Isa Marada that needs to decide. Right. And so maybe a referendum might be needed. We talked about that. Or perhaps more workshops. I know that you know on the comprehensive the founders park
comprehensive plan there was over 80% of the people who did want more construction more buildings. So if they vote in that manner we should abide by those decisions. Well when I say it could be nine months
before we do a final. I mean I don't know what goes in between between that but I think we need to give him some leverage to go and articulate that that was my I think where we are right now is in the now what can we do right now to move
this another step forward. So we had an agreement that we had two things. So now we have motion on the table. We have do we have no objections or do we have an objection to the motion that we continue
to have um we continue to um explore the h however we best we're saying it you guys said it I think we need to do a roll call vote I I understand I'm trying to restate it I I I think the motion was just to uh
give to recommend that the village move forward in our negotiations with the school district. Well, I mean, we have a recommendation. We have a second. You've either got to vote it down and do another No, we're going to vote on this. Just wanted to be clear about what it is. We can't adjust to unless you
Let's Let's call for the vote on this. Let's call for the vote on this motion. All right. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Carolyn Whiteman. Yes. What was the motion exactly? Yes, John Weir made a motion to endorse
that to recommend the endorsement to village council to proceed with the Founders Park baseball field renovation. Ted Benbau second. So that was the motion. I would like to propose that we amend
that motion to what Ron Saunders just suggested. We would have to vote this one out then and then do another unless I think I think what the doc the motion's fine as it's stated and I'll I'll whatever you want us to come back with I'll be happy to come back with. I
don't want to complicate it. I think the motion is very simple and I'm I'm willing to work with that. Then we'll go to the next issue. But the motion is made is I'm I'm fine with I agree with point of order. Point of order. You can actually both of you have
to agree to amend the motion, but you can amend the motion. Right. Right. Thank you. I agree. Okay. So, we started the roll call. Yes. I said yes. All right. Ted Benbau, yes. Alina Davis,
no. Natasha Early, yes. David Epste, yes. Chrissy Hughes, yes. Joseph Janak. I'm not sure if he's still with us on Zoom.
Doesn't look like it. Okay. Richard Russell. Yes. And John Weir. Yes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven yeses and two nos. Two nos. Could you
Oh, I'm sorry. One no. One no. My apologies. Okay. So, that motion is carried. So the decision is to go forward with something with some communication. Okay. We now have the second conversation
and that is the decision as to whether we recommend accepting I was getting ready to introduce a motion. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I move that the committee endorse to the village council the recommendation for
the use of artificial turf in any new baseball field development that occurs. Okay. Second. All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on that? A little bit. I mean, I'm going to be
honest. I'm sorry. Full disclosure. 25 years ago, I wasn't for the baseball field going at a community park. So, I understand that argument, but but it's here and we're stuck with it. Uh or I shouldn't say that. It's here and here we are. That's
a bad choice of words. Um the apples to apples we don't have here. We have apples to oranges. We don't have the budget that a major leap major league field does, guys. Um I mean, we could if you really wanted. Uh yesterday I was in
my mind I was thinking no way on turf but we were lucky enough to have you know of all the people who came we only have two people here really qualified to talk about it medically we have doc here and then we've got a baseball player in the back and um you guys have turned me
around. Uh I'm I'm for artificial. Okay. Another thing to be reminded of is that the proposal by the school board includes the expectation that there will be artificial turf.
So if that is denied by us, that basically denies the the participation from the school board. So, um, Alina
or not Alina. See, we're missing Alina. We're missing Alina. Okay, Carolyn. Elisia. Alisia is not here. You got me. I'm okay. Miss Carolyn Whiteitman, yes. Okay. Ted Benbell,
yes. Alina Davis, no. Natasha Early, yes. David Epstein. Yes. Chrissy Hughes. I am going to say something similar to
what Ted said. I'm surprised to find myself saying yes. I thought grass is better. How could it not be better? But it sounds like it's really the safer option. So, I'm a yes. Okay. Richard Russell, I'm a yes. And John Weir? Yes.
Okay. Again, seven yeses, one no. Motion passed. Okay. So, um, Mr. Manager, do you feel like you've gotten some,
um, collaboration from the committee? Yes. And this obviously with great respect takes in everything that all of you have contributed. I think we're in one of those situations
where it's nothing is going to be perfect and waiting longer is probably not going to make it better. And as I've heard, the baseball program has been waiting for a long time. Like what are we going to do in this next year before
it even gets finally put in place? But it sounds like it's time that we move forward and do it with the best judgment that we have. And so with that, um, if there's no objection, I think the
meeting is adjourned. You said the next day. Oh, future date. Yeah. What's um, if you're going to go over to the ball field, we need to make sure the lights are on. I don't know if you have. Yes, we can turn them on. Hopefully have some spray because
the turf will help with that. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, our future meeting date future meeting date we looked at