Please rise for silent invocation followed by pledge of allegiance. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. The clerk call the role. Councilman Foley here. Councilman Ger here. Councilman Green here. Vice Mayor Grubs here. Mayor Stelner
here. Five. Everybody is here. Good deal. Item number four. Welcome Lucia County District 2 Councilman Matt Reinhardt to the Port Orange City Council Chambers this evening. Welcome, sir. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. What brings you to town?
I thought I'd give you a little update. We'd love that. Yeah. Okay, that's all. Take care. Let's lock the door. Lock the door. So, good evening. I'm going to try I'm very technically challenged, but they've assured me that Hey, it works. Okay.
So, uh good evening everybody. As you know, I'm Matt Reinhardt, your Val County vice chair and District 2 representative, uh, which represents, for those that don't know, half of Port Orange, half of Daytona, all of South Daytona, all of Ponland, and all of Daytona Beach Shores. Um, it's always a
privilege for me to come here. Um, unfortunately, I can't get as often as I'd like to because you kind you do your meeting at the same time as somebody else. So, Oh, yeah. Us. We just don't start as early. Yeah, exactly. Or last as long. That's true. So, we were just talking about that. We don't even want to get into that. Uh
tonight I want to update you on several projects that we have going and some initiatives that we've uh we've been working on. Just to kind of give you an update uh with respect to the first slide here, the transform 386. Uh if you weren't made aware today, uh we just ordered us or ordered. Yeah, we did. We
ordered it's been a long day. Um we just approved a substantial amount of money. Uh I think total project cost of $79 million uh $110,926 and several projects um 10 of which were city projects that you guys have
submitted applications for for the transer transform 386 uh I'll point out again as I did in today's council meeting six of those 10 were in district 2. Yeah. So four of which were in uh Port Orange.
So I think this slide there approved projects for as I just said over $21 million in transform 386. The the funding that comes from transform 386 as you know came from the HUD uh initiative that they had done the HUD funding and I was quite surprised. Thank
goodness we got that money before the government shut down. Uh so the checks are still clearing. So that's a good deal. That's a beautiful thing. So, the first project, uh, the sugar forest storm water project. Um, today's approval, uh, the city will move forward
with a building of a new storm water retention pond and a high-capacity pumping station on Meline Avenue and Pepper Hill Road. Uh the plan calls for more than 8,000 ft of new storm water force main pipeline to carry water from Port Arms to the new outfall uh at the
Halifax River and a conveyance system to capture runoff before it comes back into the streets and homes. Um this project will provide stronger protection for families in the Sugar Forest and greater uh peace of mind uh when storms approach. Uh the next project that was
approved was the Portona area storm water. Uh the second project, this plan uh will create two new storm water ponds. Uh one near Charles and Herbert Streets and the other between Second Street and the railroad rightway. Uh it also upgrades
the outfall beneath the railroad tracks uh with a new backflow prevention device. Uh that means water will be able to move um out of the neighborhood before it rushes back in. Uh these improvements give Portona uh residents modern fl uh modern flood protection and
a more resilient storm water system for years to come. The sleepy hollow. Uh this third project, uh the city will install new storm water conveyance piping to expand from the existing ponds into one larger
and more effective system and will add uh a brand new pump station. The project also includes new outfall into Rose Bay uh which will help water uh out from the neighborhood more uh efficiently during heavy rains. We all know how those go,
especially this past week. And then the last uh was the P Avenue storm water. The pond will capture runoff and connect to the Halifax Canal through a new control structure moving water safely out of the neighborhood. The project will also ease flooding on Dunlop Avenue
uh especially at Spruce Creek Road which serves as an important evacuation route and to help safeguard uh Florida Power and Light substation which is a critical infrastructure uh for those surrounding communities. uh taken together these four projects mark a transform a transform transformational I can't even
talk tonight investment in Port Orange's residents uh resilience in the future and I'm proud to see them very very proud to see them moving forward now on to our beach uh the North Sand placement been some controversy about that uh but
I will tell you um remember that we had uh this funding that was approved a couple years ago as a result of the hurricanes and the first project was a dredging project that would be taken of the entire uh inter coastal waterway. This is something that the Army Corps of
Engineers does every five six years anyways, but they normally take that sand and dump it off in about anywhere from 8 to 12 ft of water out in the ocean. They never have ever changed their permit and we convinced them to do so as a result of the damage and uh that we received as a result of those two
hurricanes. Um, so instead we created an area in Pon Inlet to be able to stockpile that sand by pumping it in after it's dredged uh and then pump it into uh that area and then we could truck it from Sunglow Pier and go back to Pon Inlet. Um, and I'll get to
what'll happen after that. Uh, everybody wonders what will happen on the other side of Sununglope Pier. Granted, it didn't sustain as much damage, but it did sustain some. So that first project should have given us about uh 770,000 cubic yards of sand. However, uh it
produced uh about 990,000 cubic yards of sand, which was good. I mean, that was great to where we able to go all the way back to to Ponley, the phase two, uh which will help fortify the the areas that were subjected to that damage uh in
New Simra Beach, and the piping already existed for that. And that sand was captured off a place called Rattlesnake Island. I know everybody wants to go there. Uh, however, that'll give us a 550. Now, these slides talk about the two different programs or two different
projects, but yet there's a third and that'll get back to what I was saying before about going north of Sununglow Pier. So there was an air we had enough money left over uh from those projects from what was uh given to us from the state from FD from Florida Department of
Emergency Management. Uh that gave us enough to do a third project which will actually attack the Scholes of the Inter coastal waterway those side areas. Um that'll give us anywhere from 1.7 to 2.2 million cubic yards of sand, more sand.
And that project will start probably the first part of next year. So probably around January when things uh calm down somewhat. And we're going to utilize the same company that's doing the project for the Army Corps of Engineers. So we don't have to wait for another dredging ship or two dredging ships to come.
We're using the same one that you utilized out of Jacksonville. So to go back to that for a minute when we talked about everybody has seen when I said it was kind of a little bit controversial. We've noticed as a result of these king tides that we've seen a lot of uh where it tapers off and you
see anywhere from four, five, six foot drop. What it's doing though is doing what? It's protecting the properties. That's what the original intent was. A lot of the coastline properties, yes, we want to restore the beach back to its natural habitat, but it is protecting the homes. A lot of people have had the
opportunities. We were able to convince FT to extend those permits to allow us uh we worked with Fish and Wildlife to allow us to continue construction during the turtle season for two years. Uh normally they don't budge from that. Uh and usually if a turtle is seen, they
make you stop all construction. We were able to convince them to give us a 20ft radius around if a sea turtle uh area is identified, they could just simply rope it off and we could work around it. That was something that was never done before. So it was obviously that our partners up in the state and the federal
level saw the importance of uh the the need to be able to fix this and work around those those those problems. Um this these projects were as a result of studies that were done. Everybody talks about studies study studies. You know we have to do studies. You had to do studies for your four projects that we
approved for transform 386. Those are requirements that were made by HUD. We had to do studies for this for the beach reourishment. We knew that king tides and things of that nature would come into play. We knew that that would seriously be a detriment to that area. Uh and that you have the possibility of
those drop offs that I referred to. So everything that's happening, we planned for uh some things that we learned along the way with the plants and whatnot. I love comment. Yeah, they're off somewhere. Um the plants that we did utilize, we purchased with some of the leftover funds that we had. I'm going to
get to a slide here in the future. uh if you bear with me about our second chance initiative that we're doing at the jail that we're going to actually grow those plants here locally so we won't have to buy them. That's awesome. The next project or the next thing that we have which is something pretty
exciting. Um did I skip over one? I did. I'm sorry. Oh, I did. You're just going further? I'm just going further in. Time's up. Time's up. Yes. I'm sorry. That's okay. Rob want to jump in and
help you real quick. Yeah. Rob. All right. Bring in a pinch. Pinch it. I'm challenged. When you go to get on the escalator, it's going to stop, too. Appreciate it. So, JetBlue returns uh December 4th. JetBlue is returning to
Daytona Beach International Airport with direct non-stop flights to JFK and Boston. Um, so the more that we bring in, if you remember, we had JetBlue here once before. What I really loved about this is that we are bringing JetBlue in, you know, when we brought in um a couple
of the other airlines before that we had to have incentives incentives with that. We did not have to with JetBlue. So, the important thing to remember here is if you're utilizing our airport, which we hope you do, uh, to utilize these flights because that's going to be the only way that we can sustain those flights if we can. Yeah, I know you're
using them. You better use them as much as you travel. I've got some stats for you. All right. I bet you do. Is that part of the 20 questions, Mayor? Yeah, that's he's he's down to 19. He's down to 19. Um, uh, the Port Orange Library. Uh the
Port Orange Regional Li library is uh as you know one of the busiest that we have in our county system. Uh it's more than just books. It's a gathering place for uh children, teens, adults, counselors, events, events. Uh the county continu continues
to invest in keeping the libraries welcoming, accessible, and technology upgrades, expanded resource, and strong uh stronger programming. Uh students will also take advantage of Brainfuse, which is a free online tutoring service available with the library card, connecting students with five tutor or
with live tutors uh daily from 2 to 11:00 p.m. uh children and college students with extra help uh they need to be able to succeed. Um it's another example of county and Port Orange at work working together. Um and now
the second chance initiative. This is something obviously that's very near and dear to my heart. So, back uh my prior life of corrections for 30 years, um one of the things that I had the hardest time wrapping my head around was the uh the fact that we have inmates are
returning to jail. The recidiv recetivism rate was unbelievable. It's all unbelievable all over the place. And often times I'd ask the question, what makes them keep coming back? And it's because they check that box because they were prior prior incarceration. Um, so we wanted to be able to see if we could
find ways to open up that those doors. One of the things I saw in other jails around the state of Florida were farms, MA Farms, and I thought, you know what, this is this is multi-prong. And what I mean by that is not only are we teaching them a trade because farming is a trade, it's also they're eating healthier. At
the same time that we are minimizing our food costs because if you look at the the budget that we have the jail operation which is a substantial part of the general fund the general fund for the county is 1.4 billion dollars with the B. A big part of that is your general fund. A lot of the general fund
is your jail operation. So you have an average population right now of about 1300 inmates. I've seen it as high as 1,700. The average cost to house one inmate, average cost to house one inmate last year was $111.99.95. We have now reduced that to $10055.
Much of which we can attribute to some of the programs that we're already starting to do. So there is a success to this. And what I mean by that, not just the farm because we haven't started that up. We knew that we weren't going to be able to get this going right away because there's some infrastructure issues that we have to address first. So I didn't want to sit on my hands. So we
started uh programs such as our barbering program which you see some of the pictures here. The barbering program is a partnership with Daytona State UN or college that we uh convince him to give us four of their chairs. Uh they were getting ready to purchase new ones. We utilize them. We contacted a barber
locally uh who was able to come out and offer his time for free to be able to teach these inmates and certify him in barbering. We also partner with Daytona State for virtual welding. And I can tell you when I was first asked by Daytona, hey, would you be interested in welding in these inmates? I said, whoa,
inmates and welding. Maybe not. And they said, "No, it's all virtual. There's no material. There's no fire, no arc, no nothing. It's simply like you're playing a video game." So, I went out and looked at it. We had our staff look at it. We are now doing that program and now expanding that to the female population. Welding is a big
trade and you It doesn't certify them in welding. What it does is puts them at the front of the line once they're out of out of jail and be able to uh get their certification from Daytona State once they're released. We have started other programs um a cosmetology program
for the female inmates. We are getting ready to do um uh some HBAC training, electrical, plumbing. We are doing forklift training. The reason why I wanted to start that is we have warehouses here. You may know of one. It's called Amazon. If you don't, my
wife will tell you all about it. So, uh, there's a need for that that type of training. So, we are doing fork for forklift training on site. Uh, we're doing a flagging program. I thought, what is a flagging program? FDOT is doing a lot of construction here in the in the, uh, area and they're willing to hire individuals that may have been
incarcerated as long as they're trained. We can train them in the safety practices that are needed for that. The second chance initiative is growing and it's getting bigger and bigger with more and more involvement. We're also doing in job fairs at the jail. So, we're lining these possible employers up with
job opportunities before they're released from custody. And it started off with little mom paw type businesses. We're now doing uh where we have Amazon that's coming out, Trader Joe's, CocaCola, uh Sam's, BJ's, all these places are coming out. They want to take part of
it. There's a lot of excitement with this. These people are opening up their minds to uh getting rid of the stigma associated with those uh individuals that were previously incarcerated. it is successful. And so, uh, keep that in mind. For those of you that own or
operate or know businesses, we're always willing to entertain that. And I think that was about it, gentlemen. I could go on and on. I probably go on for a couple more hours about the second chance initiative, but uh, nonetheless, that is about it that I have. So, if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to try and answer
them, except for Mr. F. Yeah, we'll we'll hold him back. So, uh, you know, obviously the the the news today on the transform 386 funding is a huge, uh, exciting thing for us. Um, we have a lot of projects and a lot of
things we want to get accomplished. And it's been almost two years in the making of doing those studies that you mentioned to to validate that, hey, this idea is not just an idea. It has been studied. It has been modeled. We know that if we can get the funding, we can make a difference. And so it there's a
lot of time. It all comes down to having the money. You got to get the funding right. So to to be able to get that and acquire that kind of funding today is monumental to what we need to try to do. And we truly appreciate the county's partnership. And I just want to tell you
that how much I appreciate the fact that yourself, Councilman Johansson, and and Councilman Danny Robbins stay very well connected to me. You guys frequently call me. You check in on the city of Port Orange. it is very very appreciative. Uh I know you guys have watched these projects move through the
process and the transform 386 up until today's vote. And so personally I just want to say thank you for that. I also want to say thank you to your staff, the the county staff and thank you to the city staff have been amazing. The
cohesiveness to work together behind the scenes to to make these projects score out. Uh, one of the things if you guys haven't seen it, I will tell you that Port Orange had three of the highest scoring projects. I heard that today. I heard that today. So, and and all four scored out among
the highest. And so, that doesn't just happen because like the guys down in Port Orange, right? So, there was a lot of criteria, a lot of work, and to be able to get that amount of money in and projects, you have to have the meat on the bone. And so the city staff and the
county staff really rolled up the sleeves, communicated well, communicated effectively, keeping both sides of government informed and getting that stuff moving forward. So, I just want to say thank you. Special thank you to Donna Butler, by the way. Please pass that along. She she actually made a comment today.
That's when I learned the fact that you guys had scored so high. Uh, she caught me in the car be after the end of the meeting and I told her I was coming here tonight and she said, "Please convey that to your to the mayor and the commission and the and their staff." She goes, her words were they knocked it out of the park. Excellent.
So, um, and that's all attributed to your staff. So, excellent. And we and we appreciate her as well because it's it's it's that it's it's that whole working relationship thing and it has been been awesome. We're gonna probably talk more about transform 386 and what it means and allow the city manager to kind of give
us a little bit of update on the what now, right? And so I I won't hold you up. I know you you had a long day already. Anybody have any specific questions for council jump in? Oh, you know you want to Sean. No, I I just want to say thank you for
your responsiveness. Um you know, a couple weeks ago, uh our city was flooding. I mean the streets were underwater houses some houses got some water in them and it was a big concern to our citizens and um there's a lot of
information that goes through Facebook that's incorrect and the first thing I did was I called you and asked you hey who's responsible for actually our staff provided me with who's responsible for what canals and you had someone out there the very next day looking at what the what our citizens see.
Yeah. And it's a perception that you know the water's not going to flow if it's full of vegetation and sure you know but to to answer the call then have I believe it was your step and Bartlett out there the next day looking at it and and and hopefully addressing
that in the future. I appreciate the fact that you know you care about your district and absolutely you've always had an open communication with me anyway so I appreciate it. Thank you. Oh Matt I just want to echo what the mayor said. Um, thank thanks for seeing
what we what we need and and what you guys did today is is proof that you you see what we need and what we're working towards here and again thanks for your support on everything and we couldn't we couldn't do it without you. Thank you. For sure. I say just echoing everybody up here.
Um, I reached out two weeks ago and you gave me Ben Bartlett's number and you probably chuckled when he gave it to me going he's going to love this. But I mean, having those conversations and open communications between the county and the city, it's how we get things done. Um, having your staff and our
staff be able to work cohesively is just amazing. So, you still accept the phone calls. That means we can't be too bad. So, I I appreciate you answering every time I call. Thank you. Go ahead, Reed. Yeah. Well, first I'll
Yeah, I bet you do. Uh, first, congratulations on the second chance initiative. Uh you and I have talked a few times over lunch and how important that project was to you, especially with your 30-year dream, I say with your with your tenure in service there in the justice department, you know, uh criminal justice. That's
just awesome, man. And so I'm very happy for you for that. And the JetBlue thing is really exciting. I've I have been on 84 flights this year already. So um all out of Daytona, you know, uh well, you know, round trips, right? Okay. But no, I will tell you I fly Daytona. I
have valued it. I pay more to fly out of Daytona because of security, like how fast I can go through there. The whole experience is better. Parking is more affordable. You don't have to leave your car in Orlando. You don't have to drive 70 miles each direction. Cut your security weight time by half an hour. The only problem is you only you can
only go direct to a couple locations. And so adding JetBlue is huge, you know. Um it's actually funny. Um cuz I do travel so much. I believe it's a VEL, right, that's flying. There's billboards all over Nashville saying fly direct to Daytona Beach right now. So that's
pretty cool. So there's there's another side of that coin that you guys don't even see that I'm seeing as I'm out there traveling. So thought that was pretty cool. I want to share that with you. But thanks for the hard work on that as well. Um as a as a frequent commuter and then uh obviously these projects are huge especially for
district one uh and some of my impacted residents district 2. you know, we are the ones who've, you know, had to answer a lot of emails and a lot of phone calls. Mayor has to, staff has, uh, of people who felt somewhat not hopeless, but certainly, you know, what do we do
when you have your home flood, not once, but twice over the course of three years, and, you know, my home's had water in it as well, as you well know, twice, and so I'm right there with them. Um, this is a huge vote of confidence to me uh across the board in this council's
work that it is done, staff's work at this level that they've done to be able to bring that information forward and the vote of confidence in you guys approving it and your staff and everyone. Um, it just means a lot to all of the residents I know and so thank you very very much for uh voting for that
today and for your counterparts as well. I will tell you a little inside baseball with Aello, not Aello, with JetBlue. Uh we do have a large community over on the west side, especially that Hispanic community and they've always asked about Caribbean flights. Well, you remember
JetBlue does travel to the Caribbean. So, the more that these flights and JetBlue are utilized, the possibility and potential of those flights opening up does exist. They've already made mention they won't commit to anything yet. They want to see how this works out first. Well, and the number one thing people can do is support it, you know. I mean,
we have a great airport. We have a great city, and things just keep growing. Well, not only a great city, we have a great area in the entire county, and that airport is such a convenient thing for so many people. You travel for work almost as much as I do. You know, it's so amazing to have that there. And it's
really, you know, if you're talking $25, $50, you know, just the price of gas to go to Orlando, you're going to offset that. Absolutely. And you're supporting a It is in its own way, it is a local business. Those are our residents that work there at that place. and that operate it. Those are It's money that
stays right here in Valuchia County. It does. Good stuff. Thank you very much. Anything else? No, that's it. Thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you so much. You're always welcome. We appreciate you very much. Thank you, Matt. Item five, public comments on consent agenda items only. Any public comments
on consent agenda items tonight? Seeing none, can I get a motion to approve consent agenda items? Uh, mayor, if I may, I want to actually pull consent item number seven. So, um, I'd make a motion to approve the consent
agenda items 6, 8, 9, and 10, pulling number seven. I think I know why. Can I get a second to that motion? I'll second it. All right. We have a motion and a second for items 6 through 10 with the exception of item seven to be pulled. Clerk, call the role.
Councilman Folly, yes. Councilman Ger, yes. Councilman Green. Yes. Vice Mayor CRS. Yes. Mayor Stelner. Yes. 50. Item number seven, approval of major special event request for Biketoberfest 2025 for the turn incorporated.
I'll let you start with this one. Uh it's just simply I need to declare a um a voting conflict on this one. Um there's a possibility I'll be doing some employment work with them next year and so if that happens, it just wouldn't be good for me to have a vote on record.
All right. appreciate you bringing that forward. Uh, knowing that, can I get another member of council to give us a motion and then someone give us a second for this item? Go ahead and um move to approve item number seven. Second it.
Have a motion and a second for the approval of item se seven. Clerk, call the role. Councilman Paul. Councilman Gain. Yes. Councilman Green. Yes. Vice Mayors. Yes. Mayor still.
Yes. 40 with one abstaining. All right. Moving right on down to item 11, domestic violence awareness month proclamation. It's my honor to read this and present tonight. Where we at? Here we go. Come on up.
Whereas domestic violence remains a pervasive issue across Valuchia County, the United States, and the world with implications for personal and community health. And whereas domestic violence does not discriminate and prevalent in every community regardless of age, race,
disability, gender identity, and socioeconomic status. And whereas in Valuchia County, approximately 20 people are physically abused by an intimate partner every minute. And the need for safe house continues to be rated as survivors most urgent need. And whereas
the crime of domestic violence violates members of our community's privacy, security, and humanity in the form of physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse. And whereas research shows that by creating communities where people are connected,
supportive, and care for one another can reduce incidents of domestic violence. And whereas every day in Port Orange, individuals and organizations play a part in supporting people impacted by domestic violence, providing services including therapeutic, legal,
educational, housing, advocacy, and medical services. Now therefore, I, Scott Stilner, the city mayor of the city of Port Orange, Florida, do hereby proclaim October 2025 as domestic violence awareness month in Port Orange and urge all residents to become aware
of this epidemic and become involved in efforts to prevent and respond to domestic violence and recognize the impact of domestic violence in our community. Welcome everybody. So, I'm not I'm not seeking what you're not going to talk again, right?
I we're going to allow you to be the spokesperson. How about that? Sure. Come on up. Tell us who give us a collective idea who everybody is here tonight while I walk this down to get a picture with you guys. All right. I'm My name is Odetta Ouchner. I am the victim advocate
coordinator with the city of Port Orange Police Department. I my coworker Julie Fletcher and then next to her we have Fonda Mai. She is from New Simra Beach. She's the victim advocate coordinator
there. And her new co-orker is Samantha Menardi. Okay. And also one of my volunteers from my office is Elellanar Claproot. She does come in and help assist with making phone calls for fraud
and larsening primarily. And the rest of the staff, you can step up and go ahead. Well, wait. I have one more from my office. I have Vicki and Moxy. They come in to help not just to support my staff
but also the police officers when needed. Who else do we have here? Hi, good evening everyone. My name is Dr. Ferris. I am the current chair of the domestic abuse council board and I have some of my board members here. So, welcome. Welcome.
Thank you. I'm Amanda Washington media pasture. Welcome James CEO. We don't know each other. Matt Rock, can we step over here and we'll get a group picture real quick? Is that puty in the front?
We don't have great photo op layout here. I won't bite anybody. I promise. Yeah. Hey, come here. Wind is perfection. Otherwise, people think we're in an emergency. I think Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how it
work. Thank you guys. Appreciate you guys being here. Take care, guys. You can go back right now. [Music] Thank you guys again for all coming out tonight. Appreciate everything you guys
do. Moving on to public participation non-aggenda. Kathleen Tarno. Good to see you. Welcome. Uh, Kathleen Tarno, 791 Sugarcane Lane, Sugar Forest. Um, I kind of did bullet
points tonight and already a couple of them have already been blown out of the water and I bet we're going to cover some more here in just a few minutes, but go right ahead. So, um, first off, I know y'all are familiar with the hoarding gentleman in Sugar Forest. Well, he's back and he's collecting things and he's
bringing someone with him. And I apparently I understood he's been evicted from his other home. So he's living in his truck in Sugar Forest and and there's no facilities for him to go to the bathroom or anything. So that's a concern. And can we do something before
it escalates like it did before? Um I still have concerns about the Nova Road Canal and the cleaning out of the canal. Um that's I guess a continuous thing. Um, and I see areas that need cleaning.
Um, and again I ask, is the city considered the purchase, I know this is a biggie, of the vacant lot at Meline and Nova Road? Uh, that whole corner is vacant. It was
going to be a Walmart, so it's quite large and it maybe possibly could be used for some type of storm water management. Um, on a personal level, I have a concern about the drain in my backyard
that also drains bananberry. When that drain gets full, it just comes right into my yard and out into Sugar Forest. Um, if it can't expel the water out to I guess Nova Road Canal is where
it goes. That's a concern. Um, I'm excited about the Pepper Hill Meline project. I want to know when that's going to start. That's the biggie. Um, are we going to have to get through several more hurricane seasons before
that's completed? Thousand ft of I'll just tell you yes. The answer is yes. It's a huge project. Go ahead. I don't want to. That's okay. Um, will the council consider the formation of a storm water advisory board? That was brought up, I believe, after Ian.
Uh, and I haven't heard anything about that. We have lots of uh advisory boards in the city. Not lots, but we have several. That might be something I think this council should consider. And is it possible for some kind of
grant or bond to assist qualified homeowners with storm water mitigation? And at this time, I'm considering Damn Easy and Backer Rod, my house. It's going to cost $22,000. So, there's a lot of things we can do to
help ourselves, but they cost a lot of money. So, um, so those are my questions, my vital questions and concerns. So, I appreciate your time. Thank you, Kathleen. Appreciate you being here. Item 12, council member comments. Um, I
know that uh we will all have some some comments on the transform 386. So, we'll just kind of start off with that. Uh, I'm going to ask the city manager to take a couple of notes and he can weigh in. So, uh um again, we heard from Councilman Reinhardt today on the action
that was taken. Uh it's about $22 million. that in conjunction with the money that we received from the state um just adds more and more to where we need to be from a financial standpoint to be able to do a lot of these projects. Um these projects,
some of them are very very comprehensive. They are very expensive. They will take a considerable amount of time to complete them, but they have to be done and they just have to keep moving forward. And that's kind of what a lot of the process is. That doesn't mean that there aren't things that we
will continue to try to do day in and day out like we've been doing to try to mitigate as much stuff as possible. I know the previous person mentioned the Nova Canal System. This county has recently initiated a study. As everybody has probably heard a thousand times, the Nova Canal System does not belong to the
city of Port Orange. It belongs to the state of Florida until it turns on Canal View and heads back to the east. And then at that point the remainder of it belongs to the county of Aluchia. Um so while it is a huge part of the infrastructure that can impact the city
of Port Orange uh those agencies are the ones that oversee that maintain it and they are in the process of that study. Um there are other studies like the B19 canal system that are underway. Um so you know this is this is not a a a a
discussion from a couple of months ago and there are a few decisions that are made. These are pretty comprehensive things that are going on that are going to take time as we have found from just this process with the uh transform 386 program as well as how well we did with
uh state appropriations this past year. You have to have these studies. You have to have the validation or you are not going to get the funding. You just can't show up with your handout. You've got to be able to show them how this is going to be done and that this will work. And
even that is at a at a level of of of a concept to the degree of once you get them to buy in and provide the funding, there now has to be very comprehensive engineering to actually get the plans and then those projects will go out to bid. And I'm going to save some of that
for the city manager to talk about the what is next in that process. Um, did anybody before I go to each of you guys individually, any particular comments on storm water related projects or the transform 386 funding that we just received? Okay, we'll save we'll save
some of this for the city manager uh uh comments. Um, I want to welcome everybody tonight from the Chamber of Commerce leadership program. It's great to see you guys. Uh, why don't we get this guy, Mr. Bernett, to come up here just for a moment. We're going to put
the timer for one minute. Okay. But just uh come to give you my name. You sure do. Yeah. I'm not coming alone. Come on, guys. We'll let him be the only one that has to speak, but we'd love to see you guys all.
Welcome. And tell us a little bit about this program that the Chamber of Commerce overseas. Thank you, Mayor. Uh it is great to see all of you. And you didn't start the timer. I'm already in trouble. Uh we have 20 people in the chamber leadership program this year. Uh including what
we've already gone through. This will be week five tomorrow. So we'll be halfway through. Uh you'll recognize some of the faces via the chamber itself. Some of them are employees of yours. We've got employees from the city of South Daytona, Daytona Beach Shores and Ponland, as well as many, many community
leaders uh and businesses throughout. And Emily didn't make it tonight, did she? Oh, there you are. I forgot to mention from the uh uh tax collector's office. Uh and while I might boo Roberts, I'm not going to boo her, but that's my own thing. Will's a
longtime friend. Will we get enough? So, yeah. Well, oh, absolutely. But, uh if there are anything that we can help you with, uh we are always more than willing to do what we need to do to help back you up and your hard work for this community. Excellent. I just want to say thank you
guys for for everything you do in our community. I know a lot of you do a lot of different things and involved in other organizations and nonprofits and and different ways to serve the community. I think being involved in these leadership programs just gives you a broader knowledge. We appreciate it
because we we constantly fight so to speak against bad information that gets put out there all over and it's almost an impossible fight. when folks go through programs like this and you learn more about city government and business and and just over general operations
throughout the the cities and the county and stuff like that, you guys become better advocates in the public for for setting the record straight, providing factual information, pointing people in the right direction that have questions and things like that. So, I'm just trying to figure out why your microphone works so much better than mine here.
Yeah, we do that on purpose. So, absolutely. But anyway, great seeing you guys. You're always welcome here at the council chambers. Come anytime. Oh yeah. Can we get a can we get a picture real quick for you guys? Absolutely. You want to do that? I'll slide down there.
You're the only one going to join us. I'm a graduate. I'm coming now. Damn right. I got my own seat. You don't even have to leave. [Laughter] I'm in the seat. But you're not hiding.
Where you going? [Music] Thank you guys. Thank you guys. For those that don't know, attendance is so good in that program because usually where they go there's free food. Just not here. Bob Ford used to say, "If you want to
get people involved, you got to have food." That's true. Bob was not wrong. He was not wrong. All right, let's start with Councilman Foley this evening. All right. Um, you know, I think I've already talked about Transone 36x and, you know, just thanks to all those who
voted to support that. Um, I want to let you guys know I won't be at the next meeting here, which means Tracy, uh, if you can attend the TPO as my alternate, I would appreciate that on the 22nd of October. Um, and then I I talked to Wayne about this today. I don't want to
make a major deal about it. Um, but, um, I brought to his attention because I it's in our it's in our city and it's concerning me and so he's contacted Valuchia County. So, Honda Lton, where Village Trail intersects, there's a red
light there. And that red light is currently got an interesting timing procedure, okay? Especially coming off Village Trail. Especially coming off Village Trail. And look, I'm not saying it always has to be the same where turn lanes go and then straight lanes go. In fact, Dunlton
currently has an interesting setup on the north south on Nova Road. If you are on Nova and you are heading south, you get a there's a green and turn. They both go at the same time. Eventually the turn goes red and then the other side goes straight. Eventually that turn across going south goes red and then the
green turns finally is the last thing to go. Anyway, that's that's that intersection. That's not a standard light, but that one works fantastic. The one at Village Trail and Dunlen is going to cause a car crash if it and it may be one that is going to be awful. I'm
telling you, I've been there at that intersection now. I have seen four to five close calls in less than 2 months ever since it started behaving a little more erratically. It seems to send uh green lights to the northbound coming out of Village Trail and then simultaneously sends a flashing yellow
light coming south out of Village Trail on the other side. Eventually, one of the straights turn red and then this turns green and next thing you know there's a motorcycle crossing where there's a green light that says you can walk. And I'm just telling y'all because I've told Lane and I know he's reached out to the county and uh you know
because the county controls the red lights. We don't control them. F DOT doesn't control them. Um and I know they've looked at it. They've got an explanation. I'm just asking them publicly to reconsider and to maybe uh see if there's not some small adjustment we can make. Again, I'm not saying it has to be a standard procedure like some
of the lights, but even if it was something more similar to that that's being done on Dunlton. I would really love if they'd reconsider that because I'm very concerned as somebody that goes through that intersection five to 10 times every single week. And so, um, otherwise, I'm going to leave family
days and all the other stuff for you guys. Let you let the mayor have all the pomp and circumstance down there for that one. So, I see some some interesting looks on faces. So, I'll just point out that as we talked about with the Nova Canal system being a little quirky on who's who. Traffic lights are another issue where a lot of the roadways that are in the city of Port Orange don't actually
belong to the city of Port Orange. They belong to the state of Florida or the county and county department of traffic engineering actually regulates all of the traffic lights that you see throughout the municipality. So, thank you, Tracy. Okay. Uh, well, thank you for the
leadership team being here. I was a 2020 COVID class for you guys. So, we we had a very interesting group uh just like yourselves. Having you guys here is a is remarkable because it allows you to learn how this process works and then everything else about the rest of the
city and how beautiful and lucky we are to have what we have. Uh so, thank you for being in the class. Um transfer 386, we cannot thank the staff enough. two and a half years of struggle
to show that over a $20 million payoff to the city. That's huge. That would coupled with the state and other resilience Florida money and things coming in. That means top four projects of $53 million means the residents um
really we're almost to the point of where we have everything funded of $53 million from all the other federal entities that are stepping into this. that only comes about by the hard work and the staff and what you guys have done. So, cannot thank you enough for
that. Um, on another note, um, parks and recreation, we get this memo every year and it kind of goes untalked about and it's what gets donated to the city and in kind. And
there's a lot of businesses that donate top dollars to the city to see parks and recreation um do such a great job that they do. It's not just taxpayer dollars, it's donations, too. And top three, I just picked them up. Um Susan uh gave me some
information on it. It's ABS Financials, $3,800 last year. Jumping Beans, uh Bounce Houses, uh $3,500. And then vintage paper um which is shirts and mugs and things local
business right here on Dunlton $3,100. So you know it's that type of stuff that shows you that people are working in Port Orange, living in Port Orange and donating back to Port Orange. And that's that's what we want to see. That means
we're doing something right because people aren't going to invest in something they don't believe in. So, uh, thank you for reinvesting. Um, I'm going to touch on family days, but I'm going to leave that, would you? No, go ahead. Family days this weekend fun for all the
kids uh starting Thursday night. Thursday night and, uh, art festival for art house for chalk art. If you have not seen what people can do with chalk, it is absolutely amazing. They do it right out here on city hall going around the
concrete walkway. Um, come and vote. We got from kids that I mean, I'm horrible. I can't even draw a stick figure. And these guys come out here and just blow me away. Threedimensional on flat chalk. Um, I know you're you're voting, so I'm
going to be biased. I might give you some extra points to vote. And, uh, some of the stuff they do is just amazing. And then uh lastly um I know we're talking about transform 386 and some of the projects. Just something for council for uh next time I'm going to be
bringing forward some thoughts. Two weeks ago we had an individual talk about shortterm solutions things. You know we got these plans and water management plans coming that have taken years to be in processed. But short terms is what can we do? And it's it's
hard to do short terms when you're dealing with permits. been on a roadblock with permits, you know, and it's not permits of the city or the county. It may be all the way to the federals and the Army Corps of Engineers, but uh some food forthought
ideas is how do we get rid of water and that's hydraulically pumping Lance, I know you'd probably agree, a 24-in uh pump system uh to be able to push that water out far far away inside the Halifax permanently put a pipe out there. We need the Army Corps of
Engineers to be able to permit some of this stuff to go through those processes can take two to three years. So when I come back to y'all next council meeting, it's going to be here's here's where we need help. not just from us but from the
citizens to be calling state representatives and federal representatives of our Congress and Senate to be going, "Hey, we need some help with Army Corps of Engineers." And I'll probably get black eyed for saying this later, my staff, but this is how we get things
done. We have to get in front of the people that we voted for uh that are higher up to get some of these entities to help us with permits. Um, a 24-in pipe uh pump system pumps about a
million.1 gallons of water an hour. Two would actually put a huge headway on the Nova Road Canal. So, this isn't a city thing. This is a city, state, county thing to be able to get some of these things mitigated and going. But, it could be something that we could
financially do renting a pump, not having to buy it. We buy the pipe, put the pipe in, and then as we go forward, that two pumps is approximately about $120,000 starting August through November having
on station ready to go. This all came about because we listened to the citizens last meeting saying we need a short-term solution. This is a great short-term solution. I I talked to a couple people and they came back with this idea to me. I'm going to take it
and run it with engineering and city staff. Uh they're probably already ready to choke me out because of talking about it, but it's having the ideal as we push forward and how we get there. And we have to get there with federal reg
regulatory permits. And we're going to need everybody's help for this. And that's reaching out, making phone calls and emails to get things going. So that'll be coming up next. Council, anything else? That's it. Just to clarify on the funding, we are not there on the funding.
We are about halfway. We're close. We have a strategy for the rest, but we are I don't want people thinking that these projects are funded. They are not fully funded. So just to clarify, go ahead, Sean. Yeah, I like what you said. I'll reach out to uh our federal government when they open back up.
Yep. So, at any rate, City of Port Orange is open and I just want to say uh it's a testament to our prior council Don and the individuals who were up here before us uh to give our city staff the tools,
our city manager and his staff the tools to prep and prepare for the opportunity to go ask for money. Uh you just don't get it without being prepared. We talked a lot about that in the studies that we had already put forth out. So, it's a testament to uh that hard work. So,
thank you very much, Juno, and and Wayne Clark, and you the staff uh cuz it worked. We got money from the state. We got money from the county. We may never get it again, but we did our best, and I appreciate your efforts. I got an opportunity to go to the ribbon cutting
for the new YMCA, the redevelopment, the remodel of the YMCA. It is first class. I think they uh from what they said, they made enough mistakes on remodeling all the other ones when it came to Portage. I think they got it right. So, uh it looks really good. I'm really
excited about that for our citizens that they have some options out there outside of some private um organizations, but it's all good. We So many awesome things for our citizens, you know, whether it be the LA Fitness that no one wanted to have built, but it
got built and everyone goes to it. um to our YMCA, to local businesses, entrepreneurs out there opening up opportunities for us to uh stay in shape. Um, so and then back to some of the discussion that you just had,
there's never probably going to be a delay on our part because I think Wayne's going to explain how the process works now and we're doing everything we can for mitigation as possible as a council and as a staff, but there are a
lot of things that are out of our control when it comes to timing. So people are just going to have to be patient and no one wants to hear that when 12 ines of rain are landing on our city in 6 hours and it just doesn't go fast enough away from homes and we've seen it in the last couple years you
know what what happens. But um outside of that I want to say congratulations on taking the time to commit to learning about how our city operates through the university that the chamber offers. We also have a Port Orange University as well does a lot of the same things, but
I think the chamber I was a I'm a graduate of 2005. This was prior to Towns West being developed and I learned about Towns West through that class. So, you learn a lot. I hope that you could
uh use it in your business and spread what you have learned to citizens that don't really know and encourage them to get involved. They don't have to be a member of the chamber to participate and uh we appreciate what you're the time you're putting into it and then take a
look at Port Orange University because you'll learn some more things as well. But thank you for your commitment. That's all I got. Port Orange University goes to the sewer plant. That's the best visit of them all. Yeah, that too. Um, I just got a couple things and again I'm going to I was with Sean at the at
the YMCA and it is a beautiful facility. Sean and I did do a fitness test and I was victorious on that one. Sean don't want to admit that one, but it was push-ups and sit-ups and chin-ups. Was that what it was, Sean? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Um, just a couple things um on as far as
it's the the transport six goes. And and again, back to to what Sean said is this has been a path that's been we've been on for a while and and and we're starting to see a little bit of a light towards the end of the tunnel and and having this money and having these funds
are going to get us that much closer, but again, we still got a lot of work to do. Um the only other comment I want is on consent agenda tonight. Um Wayne, we had the the the um temporary license agreement for the back of the Publix. That's been a that's been something
that's been damaged for now for about three or four years. We need to get that thing going uh as quickly as possible now that we have this licensing agreement. I think it's really important that we get that thing uh going quickly. Okay, that's all I got. Very good. Uh some more just more
perspective on the on the funding and and the strategic path to kind of put that into um perspective. Uh so the city of Port Orange when we went to Tallahassee and advocated for funding last year, we got more money out of the
legislature than any city in Valuchia County. This transform 386 process, we got more money than any city that's been involved in the applications for projects to transform 386. And second place isn't even close. And I can't
overemphasize the testament that is to the staff having the right people in place, understanding that you have to have a plan and a strategy or you will come up short. I can tell you that a lot of other cities are scrambling now to
figure out how to do it the way Port Orange has been doing it to try to be that successful. So, um, anyhow, I just want to emphasize that again that these these are big numbers. They're big projects, but they're big numbers. They take a lot of funding and a lot of execution. Again, we'll let the city
manager talk more on that. Real quick, city attorney, did you have anything? Yeah, just a quick update on 828 Sugar House. That we know that's been a problem property. Uh, you guys have authorized us to move forward in the courts. We we have secured the judgment in that case. Been working with the civil division of the sheriff's office
to collect on that judgment. We are finally at the finish line for that. So, there'll be certain publication notices. Um, but I mean, we we should have a uh a sale date here within the coming weeks. So, um hopefully that'll put a final end to that. I mean, that it it will force a
sale. Um we'll have a new owner in there and and these issues, you know, won't be something we hear about anymore. That's it. Does he get removed or Yes. Trespass. Excellent. All right. Mr. City Manager, this is your time, my friend. fill us in a
little bit on what have we missed uh that we need to talk about and kind of walk us through just a brief what what now in terms of these projects and what does this mean and how will these steps go and if you could also touch on the
role of the county because I've actually had some questions on that today uh as to now that the funds have been approved who's really overseeing the projects and how does that relationship continue to work on that if you speak briefly on that, that would be awesome.
I'll start with the the magnitude of this too. The so the $21 million in transform 386, the 4.4 from the state legislature. Uh our we just adopted a budget with a millage rate of 4.975 that will generate revenue for an entire year
off property taxes that is almost the same amount as what we just got from outside agencies. So that $25 million that we got from other agencies is the equivalent of an entire year of property taxes in this city. That is a huge amount of money from other sources. Uh
as all of you have said, the the agencies that help the the staff that put this together, the the stormwater master plan, the vulnerability assessment, having evidence that what we're doing will work and will make a difference means these people trust us to have their money. They're giving us
their money. Now, the downside of them giving us their money is it's their money. We have to follow their rules. So, that that is going to impact some of the timing on these projects and as the mayor mentioned, the transform 386 projects are now in control of the county. They are the lead agency on
these projects. They it's they're running the money through the federal government. So, that the CDBG money gets allocated to them. It's their responsibility to make sure that they follow the rules and they are compliant with everything. So they will be handling all the paperwork related to the contracts and the payments on it. Uh
we have been told you know in a nice way and and that we got them into this we requested them. They expect our staff to be involved in the construction of these projects. So the same quality of work that you saw from the staff that got $25 million is the same quality of work
you'll see from staff to make sure that that anything we can do on our side to speed these things along is going to be done by the staff. So where we have the ability to control it, we will. Uh but I do think at going forward from today, what this means is so the county will come back to us with a we'll call a
joint project agreement. So it'll be this big umbrella for each project where generally lays out the terms of how they work. We expect there will be sub agreements that follow with specific details that explain exactly how how the process will work. It will provide timelines and some milestones. So you'll
start seeing those things. It's possible at next meeting, but I think November is more likely when you'll see the first joint project agreements coming forward to to move those ahead. As as far as the big picture, so there in the master plan, there were a number of projects, but there's three really large projects
that come out of it. Cambridge, the sugar forest, and sleepy hollow were the three big ones. Cambridge is not part of the transform 386. So that's that's an area where we are already almost completed with the design and that's a FEMA reimbursement because it's an existing project damaged by prior
storms. So the majority of that funding is going to come from FEMA. Uh that one's like 75% FEMA, 25% US. Uh we're we expect to have plans for that project ready to go out to bid at the end of the year and start construction in the first quarter of next year. So Cambridge will
be under construction during 2026. That's the first one going. That's the one we started on. That is a critical project. When we were looking at drainage basins as a whole, the majority of the homes we saw that flooded are in the Nova Canal Basin. Cambridge is a subbasin of the Nova. It drains to the
same outfall point. Although the water that's in the Cambridge area doesn't mix in with the Halifax Nova Canal ditch. It gets there separately, but they end up in the same spot. But where we had the majority of our flooding and I'm just rounding the numbers but in the ballpark
of 1,00 to,200 homes about 400 or so of them are in the Cambridge and the rest of them were in the the core Nova area. So Cambridge is critically important because it's about a third of the damaged areas to take care of. So that starts in ' 06 under construction should
be done early ' 07. That's that's the first one you'll see out there and done. Uh the sugar forest project is in design now. We're getting close to the 60% plans on that. The we have already submitted a resilient Florida grant for that too. So where we
have $25 million already from other sources. The the plan is to submit almost another $20 million from Resilient Florida. So the the Sugar Forest one is about a little over 4 million that's already been submitted. So that's in the current grant cycle. Sleepy Hollow will be in the next grant
cycle starting next summer. uh that project should finish design uh in 226 and we would start construction first quarter of 27. So it's a little more than a year to build that. As you mentioned with the question earlier that's a couple hurricane seasons out to
get that complex project constructed and and finished. Uh and then following that there's some smaller ones. Well the sleepy hollow one we also think we'll start designing 26 on that one. That one's 100% funded under this is transform 386 and resilient Florida. One
of the benefits we we just did recently we had the rain in early September and we did a lot of testing of of some different things that we had out there to see what we could do. One of the things we did in Sleepy Hollow there there, if you're familiar with the area on the south side of the neighborhood, there was a little small pond closest to
the houses and a large pond that DOT stuff drains to that they they kind of blended together when the burn between them broke uh during Milton and and so we we took the water that's in there and pumped it to the outfall of that canal. It does not go that gives you basically
two ways out. Currently, Sleepy Hollow goes up across to Halifax Canal and fights with all that water coming down from Nova. We were pumping an alternate way out down Nova Road and out into the bay closer to where the driving range is. So, it gave a different way to get
water out and and the test pumps work. So, we're going to leave that pump there. So, there will always be that there as a way to help lower water going forward with a temporary pump in that area to help Sleepy Hollow. We've been working on other temporary solutions in the area where Beacon Woods is. it isn't quite as effective because it's still
fightened in that Halifax Canal area, but we continue to try things. We appreciate that all of you keep coming up with some of them are like the Councilman Green came up with an idea, Tracy's idea. There's some there are some ideas that are out there as far as like unique approaches that are going to
be challenging to get someone to permit and let us do it. Uh, and they also are going to be expensive. So, uh, some of those are going to be right now we probably can't get other people's money for some of those because they haven't been through the design process. So, if we go down some of those paths, they may
end up taking just as long as some of these other projects are. But, I would never want to say we're not going to try. I think whatever idea you come up with, we'll go give it a shot and see what we can do. And if we can get somebody to permit it and somebody to pay for it, then then we'll go give it a shot. So, you never know where the next great idea is going to come from. Uh we
got a bunch of good people here that that can help out with getting that done. Uh and then there's the smaller scale projects, Portona and Powers. Uh those should be a little bit quicker even when they come out because they're not quite at the same scale. They're purchasing land, building some ponds. Uh
so we expect to see those happen a little quicker once we get the project agreements going. The one thing I didn't touch on, the county is working uh with us to do and you mentioned that the drainage basin study. So B19 underway, Spruce Creek underway, NOVA is really critical to us because as we mentioned,
that's where a thousand of the 1,200 homes or more are impacted and it's a regional issue and we all know the issue with with that canal is there's an outfall at LP LPGA, one at Reed Canal, and then we're the bottom of the end where it comes out and and like where we're at right now, you get a king high
tide with an onshore wind and a bunch of rain, nothing's coming out. it's just stuck in there and it piles up and comes over. So that Reed the Nova Canal study with the county is going to be critical. If we did anything in the Reed Canal area that is in South Daytona, we don't
have any land anywhere near it. Uh so that's going to require a joint cooperation. They're going to have to want to do it. The county owns the canal. They're going to have to want to do it. Uh so in order for those things to work, it's going to require regional cooperation. I think the the property that we have at Powers gives us a closer
proximity. if we were going to do another outfall pushing down Dunlton, that is as close as you can get to the river. So, you shorten the length of a of an outfall from there. So, that's the beginning of that process as well. So, there there are a lot of things going on on the large scale. Uh we're we're
constantly testing smaller solutions to see what we can do. Uh I hate to think of anything like we just went through in the month of September as a good thing, but the half full cup of it is we got to test sandbag distribution. We learned a lot from that. Uh we got to test pumps in different areas. So every time
there's a we try to find some positive out of every one of these opportunities to learn something and get better at it. Awesome. For sure. Um just the uh the complexity of some of this stuff is is amazing. But we we've got a lot of really smart people that can vet
out things very quick and and and we have had a lot of residents who will reach out to us with different ideas. A lot of times they're ideas that have already been thought of. They've already been vetted out. They could be done. They're being done. If they can't, then there's there's there's reasons why they're not effective. We hear a lot
about, you know, just pump the water out of here. Well, you got to have a place to pump it to, and it's got to be a legal way to do it. And that's a huge challenge with a lot of this stuff. Um, I just wanted to make a a brief comment. Uh, I've had a couple of residents who they they hear the great news and they
see the titles of some of these projects and and I want to say that, you know, a project title might say Sugar Forest or Maline Pepper Hill or or uh Portona or something. And people say, "Well, that's great for them, but that doesn't help my neighborhood." Well, it's not
necessarily true. Much like the Nova Canal system, you don't necessarily have to live next to the Nova Canal system for your area to be significantly impacted by what happens in that Nova Canal system and be improved by what what may come in the future. Same thing
with Lake Sugar Forest, Maline Pepper Hill area. You know, the topography of the land slopes toward the river and eventually towards Pon Inlet. And so water that can be more effectively temporarily contained and then pumped
without having to pump it through streets, neighborhoods, and homes will benefit everybody in that geographical area as well further going east. The the reasons they have that titling strictly has a lot to do with the the mapping and
and and how the the um the modeling is done. I see an an engineer in the back. He's watching on every word I'm saying. I love it. But but but but but they know that there are benefits outside the scope of that. So I don't want people to think, well, that only is going to help
these 80 homes or these 90 homes. It doesn't work like that, folks. It it it helps a lot more. But at some point, you have to cut the modeling off to go, okay, this is a focal area that we know has a massive problem that contributes to all these other problems down here. So that that's a lot of that. So I don't
want people thinking, well, this project here, this project there, that doesn't help me. Nova Canal System. That one helps a ton and we can't wait to to see how that uh study and all that stuff. Same thing with the B19. But anyhow, so when you see those project titles, don't um don't think that that doesn't
necessarily help other areas in the city because it sure does. Anybody else want to weigh in on any of that stuff? Mr. City Manager, you good? I didn't say I didn't say anything wrong, right? All right, good enough. All right, sounds good. All right, we're moving on to some patient folks. Item 15, approval of
partial release of tree conservation easement for 4629 Clyde Morris Boulevard. Did I miss something? Can you get a motion to remove that from the table?
Move what? From the table. All right. Sure. We need some move for approval. Right. Move to remove it off the table so we can consider it. All right. I I'll make a motion to unte item 15. I'll second it. Have a motion in a second to remove it
from the table. We good on that? Okay. Do we need a vote on that? We got a vote. We got a vote on that. Clerk, call the role. Councilman Folly, yes. Councilman Ger, yes. Councilman Green, yes. Vice Mayor Grez, yes.
Mayor Stilner, yes. Motion to approve. 5. Now, can I get a motion to approve item 15? I move to approve item 15. Second. We have a motion and approve. We have a motion and a second to approve item 15. Gotta love having staff to keep us
straight. Right, Don? Thank you, Robin. Go ahead. Now it's your turn. You can speak. Oh, I wrapped this up already. Yeah. Good evening. Tim Burman Community. Um, this item went before you back on September 16th. It was table. Um since that time we have worked with the property owner and the applicant on
basically relocating some of the tree conservation easement area onto other locations within the property. Um basically as shown the graphic here the two areas in pink are the areas that are being requested to be removed from the tree conservation easement. This is due to the fact that property owners are
looking to expand on the property in terms of construction of a new building which may necessate the need to go into that pink area and also to modification of stormwater pond which may need to go into that area that's located in the back here then. So what they're trying to do is establish basically getting
that even areas free. That way they know moving forward with development plan that those have been removed versus that uncertainty thing. So when staff got with them and looked at it, we've looked to basically kind of areas on the site that have a number of specimen trees that are not protected and areas that the land development code allows to be
part of tree conservation areas. Then so basically the code does state that areas that are located with a required landscape buffer can be part of that tree conservation area requirement and meet that requirement need. So we looked at basically applying the tree conservation area um that's going to be
replaced to the area the buffer and the green space area between the roadways Herbert Street and Clyde Morris and the parking lot. Then this area is generally equal to the acreage that would be vacated the purple areas and in addition to the number of trees being protected
specimen trees we would have up to 12 specimen trees protected in lie of the two that are currently protected. So the proposal complies with land development code in terms of location in easement area and also actually exceeds the number of trees required to be protected by the land development code. Um again
we've met with the property owners. They are basically you know okay with moving forward with this concept then and um staff is uh still recommending approval of this revised um plan. All right council any questions for Tim? Yeah. So, this has been this was my
subject and and and I've had several discussions with Tim about this and um I'm still not quite okay with it because uh what's in yellow is already the landscape buffer that is required and then what you have in purple was the
areas that were additional conservation. Uh what I've asked him to do if it was possible was to uh get me some kind of compensation for the purple area that was in the middle and put it over top of the easterly side
trees that already exist that are matured. So we've kind of square footage to square footage and I thought okay here it is on the screen. This was was a uh basically a a what I thought was a a good calculation swap of
property to still maintain that conservation area and yet be, you know, friendly to the to to the to the owners here. Um and this was something I asked him to do uh while we've been working on this. And so this thing you see on your screen right now is what uh I had come
up with as an alternative to this particular uh approval request. Anything else? Um I like the uh the other way that they came up with and here's the reason why.
Um right now they have correct me if I'm wrong there's 28 trees in the landscape buffer. There's 25 total specimen trees in the site. Okay. So, majority of them are out on the sidewalk area or Clyde Morris and
Herbert. Correct. That are in yellow right now based on the screen. Yes. And there's nothing right now stopping them or anyone else that buys the property 10 years from now to take those trees down. Correct. No. To the tree. It's a buffer, but it's not it
they could basically permitted to remove those trees. They would need to be a pay of the mitigation payment that's required for removal of specimen trees and also then replant a tree. So they basically meet the landscape buffer requirement for the number of trees in a buffer. Okay. But it could be done.
It could be done. Yes. So but if we do this they can't it cannot be done unless they come back before council to request that ement area to be vacated again. Right. This has an extra layer of protection on those trees along the major corridor.
We're trying to connect the front, not the back. I've been on the site and right now what we have in a conservation easement is um it's just it's uh I don't know the right word to use it, but it's um it's
terrible. It's ugly. It's the tree that might be uh protected is dying. It's getting choked out by vegetation. And if that was what we want to call a conservation easement, that's that's just not right. And it's harboring
anything that wants to be back there or anyone that wants to be back there. And it's a mess. And I I I like the idea of keeping the good trees, the one that they're actually taking care of out front with never the opportunity to have
anyone take them down or come to a council, which might not be us, to take them down because they're in a conservation. They'd have to go have that conservation easement vacated. So, we're what we're doing is protecting what's really good and eliminating
potentially because we haven't seen the site plan once this is approved. What's really not looking good at all. It's just I just like the idea. That's all there. Anything else? No. Tracy, anything for Tim? Uh, nothing with Tim. I actually agree
with Sean. uh protecting the front, the foliage and the trees that are existing specimens um gives us a way to protect the whole beauty of the outside of that plaza. Um the stuff in the back, I understand
conservation area and the water retention, they still have to do that when they come back with site plans. So, I'm okay with that and protecting the trees in the front uh to make sure that the eye of the city is beautified and it's always that way. I'm good for
that. So, Tim, Wayne, someone here, just just explain to me why this was ever a convers conservation area to begin with. I I just don't understand when I look at all the other parcels in Port Orange how this one ended up where it was prior to
this conversation. I think again, this was developed 25 years ago. At that time, a lot of these trees along the buffer area were not a specimen tree. They were piped at that time. So they were not meeting specimen tree requirement. So there probably a limited number of specimen trees on this site at that time which is probably in
those areas that basically put the conservation area over it. So I think that's why that was there. Also too there is a minimum 15% tree preservation area required on a site that does not have to be in a conservation area that has to be identified on a site plan. What appears that they did on this one
is that basically they put these conservation areas there to meet that 15%. Um, so we kind of going back again kind of hard to kind of go back 25 years ago and see what was done and why, but kind of looking back to site plan that appears why those areas were picked out for this.
That was prior to your time. It was about a decade before me, but I think what Tim was saying it it's it's not what you typically see cities use conservation easements for. It it was an overreach for a conservation easement. There were two trees in there that they were trying to protect and we used to do
stuff like that. It's really a you can't use it easement. Uh but you can you can protect normally when you do conservation and I can see because you can see the faces everybody's looking it it it's it you normally think that that's the most high level environmental part of the site and and there are
subdivisions out on the west side where we have conservation easements in there because those are the wetland areas that they protected to stay natural and and and and that's what you use them for. You you take the highest level quality you take the wetlands and you protect them. In this case you don't need a conservation easement to protect a
couple of trees. It it it was it's a little bit aggressive in protecting what's there and it affects the ability to redevelop a site. If it was the highest quality section of the site, I think you'd fight to keep it there. As as everybody has pointed out, that's not
really where the best stuff is on the site now. In fact, being able to protect the mature trees out on the street probably provides you better benefit because now they've been here for 20 years and have actually grown better than what's in there. So, I just think it was it's unfortunate that we used the term conservation easement 20 years ago
when we put stuff on there to protect trees and and it's created some confusion at this point in time, but I think like Tim said, it was it was it was what we did back then. Yeah. I just I'm I'm looking at at it and I I couldn't imagine this
development this this property coming before us and us starting from scratch and ending where it ended up 25 years ago. It just makes no sense to me at all. So I Yeah, it's crazy how it even got here. So Wayne, if I Wayne, sorry
Tim. So if I understand it correctly, if we go with the proposal that staff here has here, all the trees in the front that that border Clyde Morris and Herbert Street, all those would be protected, barring them basically becoming unhealthy and and they're all protected
and then it would free up our our business owner here to do whatever he wants to do in the areas in purple. Yeah. The specimen trees within there, there's a few palm trees that are not specimen trees that those could be, you know, removed there. Yeah, the main the fact the oaks and stuff like that those would be protected moving forward then.
Okay, it's easy for me. Good. Good. Tim, thanks. I just want to I appreciate your time and conversation. I know you and I spoke previously and I appreciate uh staff hearing council out from the previous meeting and kind of going back to the drawing board with the uh
applicant to try to see where we can end up in a better place. So, I appreciate the effort on that. Uh applicant want to speak? Yeah, if you'd like. You don't have to. Yeah, sweet for a second. It's always a risk. Come talk us out of it.
I'll try. It could happen. It has happened. But um yeah, one of the big things about that that middle area that we're talking about kind of the worse for the better is there was also the issue of pepper trees. So there were the invasive trees in there. There was not only the vines constricting some of the trees. There
are invasive trees that keep growing and spreading. So when we're looking at it, that was also a big thing. It's just the actual maintenance of the property. It is the trees going on to other properties nearby because you know they spread uh quite quickly. But um yeah, I think the total amount of trees um in
our new proposed idea, I think it was 14 or 13 specimen trees, which is actually over the total trees needed on the site just naturally. So, uh we'll have almost double that amount just preserved. Um that's around it. I'd like to say thank you to the staff and everyone for, you know, doing this and, you know, looking
through it and trying to figure out ways and for, you know, you all to go and have me up here and, you know, listen to what I have to say and I appreciate everything. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anybody else from the public want to speak to this? Come on up, Robert. My name is Michael Saul Jan. I'm the
property owners. Thank Council members. Robert Reinhagen, 1425, Benjamin Drive North, Port Orange. Um, with with the trees on the on the buffer zone, um, to me, um,
they're protected already. And so, the applicant is making no concessions as I see it. And I think it would be a terrible precedent to get rid of this um
uh conservation area. And um to me uh if we we're making a huge concession to that developer or property owner uh giving him property that he can develop now that he would not have otherwise
been able to develop. And we should the city should get some consideration And you know there's there's people whose houses have been flooded. So, if we're going to give him a quarter acre or 3/10en of an acre, whatever, then I
suggest that we get him to buy 3/4 of an acre or whatever it is of somebody's property that you can then make into a another conservation zone other than than what you're doing here, which is uh
just double protecting of what's already protected. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else want to speak to it? All right, back to council. Any other comments on council? Yeah, so I just want to comment this again to to Councilman Foley's note.
This this is the product of a matured site. This is a product of what our council members 25 years ago saw in this site. And what we have along Herbert and Clyde Morris is is the product of
matured landscape buffers. So to to say now we're just going to put that buffer onto there and say it's good. I don't think that's the same calculation. That's just my opinion. But what we are discussing here is we are discussing a a matured site. I have no problem with
trying to again take take the center piece out like I had said if it's dead whatever it's not a good tree whatever but get some other area of that site that's going to compensate this calculation because the front is already protected and that's I'm going to leave it at that
thanks gentlemen anything no good my my only other comment is is that I you know as the city grows and times change. I think it's important for us to try to be flexible as well. And so
I, you know, for me, I think this is one of those areas where, you know, we want businesses to succeed. We we don't want empty buildings and blight all over the city because businesses don't feel like there's a pathway for them to succeed. So, it's critically important that we
look when when asked where the flexibility can be made so that we don't see that because you certainly see that all over the state of Florida and a lot of other places. So, um, I just think this is a unique piece of property. Um, it's it's an area that obviously our our community loves. Um, and there's a a
little bit of a change in what's going to be going on there in a business plan and I'm appreciative that the fact that we have somebody there that wants to continue to invest in the city. So, for that reason, I think I'm on board. Clerk, call the role. Councilman Folly, yes.
Councilman Gford, yes. Councilman Green, no. Vice Mayor Grubs, yes. Mayor Stelner. Yes. 41. Do a good job. Item 16, second reading of ordinance number 2025-19.
That's an ordinance of the city of Orange County, Florida, amending the land development code chapter 15 relating to non-conforming signs to incentivize the removal of certain existing non-conforming signs and sign faces in exchange for the allowance of reconstructing by agreement certain existing non-conforming signs and sign
faces along the I95 corridor and Ridgewood Avenue. Removing unintended duplicate language providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, and an effective date. Move for approval of ordinance number 2025-9. Second.
We have a motion and a second. Any discussion of council? Second reading. Good. Anybody from the public have any comments on second reading? Back to councel or call the role. Councilman Folly. Yes. Councilman Gford. Yes. Councilman Green.
Yes. Yes. Yes. 50. Item 17, city council committee report. Lucia flag. Oh, you got to speak at least. I said thank you. Go ahead. I I actually don't have anything to report, so
All right. Well, that's very good. Mr. Tarno, if you if you have a moment after the meeting, I wanted to catch you for a second. Thank you. Anything else to be brought for us tonight? Reminder for family days. Finger crossed. Side sidewalk chart. Sidewalk
chalk art does better when it's not raining. I'll leave you with that. Have a good night, everybody.