--------- ready to going to order the regular meeting of the steart city commission 27 January 2025 roll call please Madam clerk mayor Rich here vice mayor Collins here commissioner Clark here commissioner
goob here commissioner Reed here the invocation this evening will be provided by Pastor Jim bro and will you then lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please please stand good evening ladies and Gentlemen let's
pray Father in Heaven again thank you for this beautiful day you've given us thank you for this beautiful area you've allowed us to live in I do thank you for these ladies and gentlemen and uh Lord all of them that uh as they look to the future for us and make the rules and
regulations that are going to bring uh good things to us so Grant wisdom Grant strength pray for them and their families Lord that would know your health and your peace pray for our city overall Lord that you would again make us a city of peace and joy and hope to
uh all the residents and those around us uh may you be exalted here and may your joy overflow us we thank you for all of this in the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus 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 comments by City commissioners commissioner Reid do you have any comments this
evening on agenda items no okay thank you commissioner giobi do you have a comment this evening yes I do um I have been assigned to the Martin Arts coun I went to my first meeting I suggest that if you haven't been over
there it's right next to the courthouse you should take a trip there it's interesting the building is historic in itself I've left some pamphlets outside for everyone to grab uh on the Martin Arts Council and they have some events coming up that would be interesting to
everyone I think Martin County is celebrating a centennial and the Martin Arts Council is doing a festival at Memorial Park on that day uh I've also been assigned to the Martin County Business Development board board I attended my first meeting it was interesting and it gave me an
opportunity to let them get to know me and what my vision is for um the building of the attraction of businesses to the county and the city and uh so I want to just make a comment about our
local reporter here hi Keith um we are constantly being misquoted and not correctly portrayed in the paper and I have to commend Keith we have had a conversation and you quoted me correctly I want to thank you
okay thank you uh commissioner Clark I I I don't really have much to say but I just wanted again to say that before we had this meeting we had a joint meeting with the community redevelopment board and for me it's the
first in the history of Stuart that we have like five new members on the um crb so we are hoping that they crb will be there to help guide us as we look towards um projects for the community
redevelopment area and um in our downtown and all around that area that's a part of that uh designation and I just want to thank those who we just sworn in tonight to serve on that committee and I also want I know that Miss uh
commissioner giobi mentioned about the um Business Development board and I think he's been here before but Mr Corbin from the business development board is here tonight visiting us at our meeting and I just want to um say thank
you thank you vice mayor Collins I just have brief remarks um we had the MLK day very chilly celebration as I say the parade is small
in size but big in heart I was happy to see Commissioners Reed and joobie there for the first time and commissioner Clark and myself obviously were there um despite that very cool weather um it did proceed through town and we ended up at
uh at 10th Street and I must admit I left early so did it did go as long as usual with no I think that they called for the mayor and I I was H I happened to be there and so I read the proclamation on behalf of the mayor but
um I [Music] had that was very good good but but it's you know it's it's nice the city can do that and and share that with the community oh I'm okay oh I know that you're giving your thing but since you
mentioned Martin Luther King it was also brought out to me by many people who were attending and I think I don't know if the Press took note of this but um that both the city and the County Commissioners were out for that event on that day and I think that people um were
appreciative of that to see their elected officials out the new sheriff was there and the sheriff yes thank you and finally I'd just like to commend the Florida legislator sometime government is best when it does very little and
they convened and adjourned their special session on the same day so I think they deserve credit for that Mr mortell do you have any comments this evening um uh just a couple uh first we did have a joint meeting today
we were talking about traffic and it seems to be a very common conversation um especially this time of year when it's season and all of our friends from up North are here I wanted to comment that there's been an ongoing long range Transportation uh plan by the
mo and fot and uh to put it in perspective um Port St Lucy's population in 2000 was roughly 84,000 people and then in um
2018 it was 180,000 people and now it's about 247,000 people so it doubled in population from 2 to 218 and and and we obviously feel that tremendously uh in our community and from
2020 uh until 2024 they've they've added uh well over 40 or 50,000 people they uh continue to grow and they're the debate is whether or not Port St Lucy will actually be larger than Miami um the Port St Lucy urbanized area
which we live in now is the urban area looked at from Washington DC rather than you know they don't think of small little towns or you know they don't get that close of focus but the pza is currently has a population of approxim
imately 522,000 people and that's all of Martin County and roughly St Lucy County and they're projecting that by by 2050 to 2060 that that number is going to grow and they've projected that Martin County
um will max out or reach its uh maximum development potential at about 190 to 200,000 people the city of Stewart will be part of that number when we reach ours at about 24,000 people
the 190,000 people is really only adding Martin County's roughly 170 now so we're talking about 20,000 to 30,000 people being added to Martin County between now and 2055 um which even if you said the next
25 to 30 years but the Port St Lucy urbanized area is projected to be 900 to 950,000 people so that will put us at 522 to 9 50 which is putting roughly another 400,000 people in our area and
when you think about where we live in Stewart It's kind of Ground Zero because it's the well it's the urban center for Martin County it's the county seat and if you're coming from Port St Lucy and you want to go to the beach you're either going to take Jensen Beach
Boulevard the 10cent bridge or East Ocean Boulevard or Bridge Road because the closest Bridge other than that would actually be in Palm Beach County or in Fort Pierce so you know no matter what
we do we need to um plan on and take into consideration that you know realistically Martin County doesn't isn't going to see much more in the way of growth and neither is the city of Stewart but we are going to see a
significant number of people coming by way of whether it's daily or passing through or just as part of the surrounding Community I just found those numbers to be kind of amazing numbers and thought I would share them because it it seemed enormous but then when you
look back and realize Port St Lucy has doubled in a half in the last 20 years it's real um but that's all I've got thank you thank you um can I get a motion for approval of the the agenda move approval of the
agenda is published second we have a motion by commissioner Clark and a second by vice mayor Collins um any comments from the public on this item seeing none all in favor the agenda
for the agenda approving the agenda that's Republic comment you're next you're next Mr Hamilton all in fav see none all in favor I I opposed okay do we have any any comments from the
public on non-agenda items yes mayor Mr I'm Sorry Miss Helen McBride good evening Miss McBride even both no I've been here since 3:30 tell McBride and Flamingo Avenue and I listen I did listen at the last meeting
at the CRA and how concerned you all are about seol alleyway and burying all those wires and that uh I invite you all to ride down 10th Street from Palm Beach Road to Dolphin now thank God we have Mr
leard and his group I don't know what we people in that area would do without him I don't know who the construction company come was or was there but there were construction company they were digging now it's all like kind of all by
St Joseph's property they dug a hole they got a black one of those plastic wires where wires must have been on then down uh right where the school used to be there was a whole and we were all concerned and one of my neighbors called Mr leant and God bless him he came up
and put a safety that a safety thing on there there's a orange wire has been hanging from the pole way up down and kids are kids we've got the two well we really have three schools we got St Parker um they care and St Joseph and
that wire is still hanging there now I don't think our city workers should have to clean up after contractors but this mess has been there for I'd say at least two years if not more and there's a wire hanging down on pal on us one by the
bowan alley but that's a black wire hanging down and that's been hanging there for year it's true I don't think my tax dollars and my wonderful workers and Mr liet's Department should have to go out and take care of these things I
don't know how you work construction but I they used to be had to put a bond up but I we in my neighborhood for the safety of our children want something done and we don't want to have our city workers do it we want whoever made the mess clean the mess up and if they could
be find that would be wonderful thank you thank you thank you m McBride I think the orange wire is cable um I believe the orange wire is uh cable or is internet and the black wire probably electricity but no I'll follow up with
attt in Comcast to find out who it is and have it addressed but do you know which intersection it's at yeah it's right um oh yeah Pine School you know where Pine School used to be I know I'm but I didn't know know I know you know what I'm talking about it's right hanging there where U you're coming out
um between St Joe's and the Pine School yeah it's right there okay is that and Mr Leed put a thing with you know one of those over that you'll see the whole where the
looks like um cement and that no take it right over M you us to go in that neighborhood come on over and get out of the car and walk like our kids do thank you thank you Miss McBride miss Karen y
rudge good evening thank you for your service Karen Hall Yos Ro 7 1901 Southwest Palm City Road I um even though uh commissioner goobi spoke or joked about uh public comment first I'm just going to say and I'm going to keep
saying it took me five years to get an attorney so I think the public comment should be first just for you guys to defer to us we pay you and we pay for everything and tonight wasn't bad but many times people
are sitting here for an hour hour and a half waiting to say their three minutes that they probably worked on all day it's very hard to get up here and speak for some people most people so let's put public comment first but I want to talk about the
transparency Martin County when you send an email to them you can see that they post that I don't know what their program is I've spoken about this before I really would like our city to do the same thing just for transparency and to
make the residents feel better we have you know we've gone up we've had 300 people about Costco lately it's been 600 people about the train in favor of the train well we should be able to see those 600 emails it's not that we don't
trust you but sometimes we just don't trust you so we need to see these emails if you're getting 600 emails we should be able to go and see what people wrote to you and what how you responded they
do it at the county I'm not sure why we don't do that I think that's something I it can't cost that much and I don't think people would be offended to pay that so um and also mayor you they called for you um at the uh Martin
Luther King thing and it was sad because they called for the mayor they called for the mayor the mayor wasn't there there was a little grumbling where I was sitting but yes when you are in the mayor of art not you but when one is the mayor when you go to that Martin Luther
King Jr thing please stay long enough it makes the people feel better they feel like maybe you don't care enough that you couldn't come and do the proclamation thank you commissioner Clark for doing it but yes we need um we'd like transparency when some if you
say you're getting 600 emails I think I should be able to see them and how you responded just for transparency so so that we can all get along together how beautiful it is when we dwell together in unity
hello you Mr Walter Lloyd evening Commissioners Walter Lloyd 150 Southwest Cabana Point um so commissioner giobi mentioned the respon responsibility of our media and
I'd like to take this moment on the public record to say that this morning and maybe some of you saw it it was announced that the bright line letter uh request was going to come up in this meeting today so probably some of us
showed up to see what that was about um the other thing is that I saw in our local Hometown news that I think is TC poem mentioned or misquoted many of you in their representation of what went on
in that meeting it's it's like they give one side of the story with they're not given the whole side you guys don't have anything to do with that but I want the public to hear and probably pipe up because we need responsible journalism uh Mr city manager
appropriately mentioned the growth surrounding Us in this city in this County and the many many uh people that are coming into the area are going to be traveling here and I just want to point out that our
Costco is almost ready to open up and really increase our pain because everybody in the region that's growing exponentially is going to be coming here filling up their car and taking off and going home I don't know what other than the jobs in that Costco were benefiting
maybe you could help us see that we didn't see it during the presentation to bring to Costco maybe we could understand it now the other thing is the train itself again I don't think that I've heard too many opposed to having a train station I
have heard that it's ironic that a train is supposed to make the traffic less so why are we complaining again people are going to come from this exponential growth they're going to jump on the train they're going to go north and south they're going to come back and go home
and that's traffic and that hurts so keep that in mind please stand your ground in representation of your constituent taxpayers don't give up no matter what name calling is taking place
please stand strong for us and we appreciate it thank you now we're tougher than we look thank you Mr Robert Hamilton good evening wanted to give you a little bit of an update on where we're at uh within the next several days you guys
will get the estimate that's from the contractor that we've selected more importantly what I want to discuss with you now is our tax dollars everybody in this room we're all paying
taxes and I know I've been in here again and again and again but when we pay taxes and our city commission gives a directive and the directive is not followed and then come back into this
chamber and lie to the people Commissioners on the dis is unacceptable from the taxpayer we have more traffic coming by even though we're closed and we've been closed for almost a year now in may
it'll be a year and I keep hearing the same thing from the people that are coming by they want to know why it's not done they want to know why the tax dollars were abused this way and about the oversight it is incumbent upon you
to set a new directive that if your oversight and your rules are not followed from that dis you need to terminate them just like we would in any Corporation any Fortune 500 company this is with all due respect I'm not being
mean this is our money you people work for us not in a bad way we we put you there because we care about you there are other issues inside this government that need to be resolved we shouldn't be victimized
again and again and then the taxpayer pays again and again we hear the beautiful stuff that's put on for the CRA and the crb it looks good on the surface but when you really sit down and look at some of it who's paying for this
this isn't the money from the city this is taxpayer money you all have an important job to do we put you here to do the job I need you to do the job not for me for everybody sitting in this room tonight
we pay the tax we care about each other to come into this room I don't put my dog and other fights unless they align with myself and it's sad to walk into a room where there's so many of us heading in the same direction
it's sad but I believe in progress I believe it can be resolved I believe everything that's going on can be resolved with cool heads there's three attorneys sitting there the first thing you learn is mediate
negotiate we don't have to go beating the crap out of each other let's just sit back back and do what judge G used to say the reasonable man standard I spent 25 years in front of that man and the other judges here what is the
reasonable man's standard I've not asked for anything more than that and I've been treated horribly thank you very much thank you Mr Hamilton Mr Frank mccristal before I get on my topic uh it was uh I was thinking as uh Mr mortell was
talking about the state and their view from 30,000 fet and the planning they're going to do you know I was thinking that might be a good thing because Martin County did the absolute wrong thing when they built the second Palm City Bridge it should have been built north of here
on Brit going out Brit road to uh R to reroute all the Port St Lucy worker be out to 95 somewhere that had to come all way through our town here so maybe they'll do some good things uh well with that in mind too uh
US1 will be a parking lot soon there is no answer for it and I would hope that the city of Stewart just stands firm and says hey we didn't cause this there nothing we can do about it us WS a parking lot tough tough we're not going
to redesign our whole downtown to uh allow people to get off of us one quicker sorry okay all right so once again I want to thank the commissioner majority for doing what you do and the more I think about it you're probably
unique in the whole country in the sense that each of you and the majority really got out amongst the people and listen to them and you had none of you really had to do this thing okay but you did it and you felt
something was wrong and now you're sticking to what you promised the people and it's just got to be you maybe just unique in the whole country at these City levels and County levels so again thank you so
much Civics I wasn't paying too much attention but people some people call it a de uh representative democracy or a republic all I know is we the people and I think it works like this I think we the people elect
representatives and we have a majority representative here and then the representatives form policy based on what their constituents have have asked them to
do and then the next level is the is the administrative level your lawyers and uh City uh managers and city planners and everybody there I I thought I think it's their
professional job to just not take any side of any political issue but do what they've been asked to do and and be on board with the majority which would be the people now and you know this this
right left Pro this anti- that it swings back and forth but I think we need the perfe professionalism at the at the uh Administration level thank you so much thank you Mr mistal I have no more mayor thank you
can I get a motion for approval of the consent calendar move approval of the consent calendar which includes the minutes of um January 13 2025 second we have a motion by commissioner Clark and a second by vice mayor
Collins do we have any any public comment on this issue no see none all in favor all in favor all in favor I I sorry okay Wai for roll call ordinance first reading Mr bagot will you read
item two for our consideration please absolutely ordinance number 2537 d225 an ordinance of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida amending the city's official zoning map to rezone a
33 acre parcel which is located at 255 Southwest 6th street from the urban Waterfront zoning designation to the urban Highway zoning designation providing directions to uh the city clerk providing for repeal of all
ordinances in Conflict providing for severability and providing an effective date and for other purposes Mr Mayor if I may be heard briefly presentation by staff uh we do but I just wanted to briefly give some legal uh guidance on this um
as you recognized initially that this is the first reading of the ordinance and I thought it would just we've had this issue come up multiple times when we have two hearings and I just wanted to reference our code um where for a resoning such as
this it says the city commission public hearing two hearings shall be conducted by the city commission to consider a proposed resoning such hearings may be scheduled on the agenda of a regular City commission but shall be held after 5:00 P pm and shall not be less than uh
10 calendar days apart um the rezoning ordinance may be read by title at the first hearing which is where we're at now and then the second hearing shall be quasi judicial in nature the resoning ordinance may be adopted at the conclusion of the Quasi judicial hearing which is the second hearing um I just
wanted to point that out because I know sometimes we go ahead and vote at the first uh Hearing in in uh under our code um it says at a minimum it should be read you could have the option of just doing a motion to post or to move
it to the second hearing and have the Quasi judicial um hearing next week or the next hearing um however it's been kind of practice of the commission to do it at both hearings so um I just wanted to let you know that to give you some sort of legal guidance as far as what
our code says um in my impression it tends to and I've seen it at other cities in fact the city that I used to work at that they would do the same they wouldn't have much of a quasi judicial public hearing at the first rating they would do it at the second hearing um
however I've seen us do it at both so I just wanted to reiterate the code agenda item indicates it is quasi judicial exactly that's why I felt the need to point it out to you what our code reads is there a consensus of the
commission how we like to proceed here I have my lied up so Mr City City attorney uh if if I'd like to hear the staff report and then have consideration and then maybe we'll vote at the next meeting does the mayor have to go
through the entire quasi judicial cqu now or do we just ask for the staff report no how does the staff prepare like if they had their legal notices they would turn that in now today um I I we can go through the staff
presentation um again it's up to y'all at a minimum all you are required to do is read what I just did is read the title and then um it where I Envision when they created this code and I've I've witnessed it when I worked for Port
St Lucy is they just moved the they move the item to the next um next hearing and then that's when you have the quazi judicial hearing my concern is having evidence testimony in in in one hearing and then have it at a second hearing
okay technically you're not we have a staff presentation I mean if we were to hear from the applicant we're we're in a quasi judicial proceeding at that point correct I I I would I would just caution you because
you could make comments like you're making a decision now when you haven't heard all the evidence and all the evidence would be concluded at the second hearing and that would be my concern um about voting on your opinion on on on the item as far as waiting for all the evidence to be concluded at the
second hearing okay after you've read your which you've read now should we move it to a date certain then for two weeks from now it's already scheduled what is that it's already scheduled for the next agend yeah that's right a second yeah so we have this is the first
reading and then so the first the the second hearing is so they know and the notices will will follow that uh so then in order not to mess anything up uh just hear we shouldn't hear anything today we
should just move it to the next meeting Lee what would you recommend I I I so here's the issue that comes up you you may have questions for the applicant or whatnot and you could raise that in the first hearing then they could address it at the second hearing um you know if you
don't do anything today or hear from anybody I'm I'm just giving you the negative aspect of it you get to the next meeting and then you'd have to have a third hearing to have them come back so um which is the the negative side to doing as I'm proposing but I'm just I'm explaining to
you how the code is written and it's my impression that that's how it was envisioned just a mere reading um at the first hearing and we have addressed this in the past and I've I've I raised this issue before and I've emailed you all um
about my opinion on this in the past but I just thought I'd bring up because here we are again and we have a first reading um and then we'll have a second reading at the next think we should just proceed with the so that we can hear from Jody we can hear from the applicant we can get our questions out I did have a
question for Le on this procedurally so at the end of of assuming we heard uh from you know the applicant Jody we really wouldn't vote because there is technically a roll call at the end of the and I I and I how I've heard
it at other how would you other places is the motion is to transmit the item to the next uh stage the second reading transmit to the second reading right that's that's what you would vote on right seems the best of both world and then you you don't vote on the merits of
the motion because and if you are going to hear from the applicant um I I I think we should do quasi judicial they need to be under roath because it would be then you can rely on evidence you heard in the first hearing also in the second hearing and it should be noted that you can't vote no because the state statute requires
you to transmit it to the second hearing okay so let's just follow the but I and and I've heard the reason why you guys have had in the maybe not this board but prior boards and I think
we might have as well um is when you have you know a quasi judicial at the first reading also you you pre you prevent having a third hearing because right you give guidance or feedback to the um applicant and they come back I I
don't this seems more of a straight issue than like they're not presenting a project you know and and there would be a lot going back and forth but again this is the first reading I just wanted to point out because this has this issue has come up before um no thank you for
taking the time and I think I think the uh the manner in which we're going to proceed is simpler and safer for all of us um so do the Commissioners have any expar Communications to disclose with this applicant uh commissioner
Reed yes I spoke to the applicant Friday or Saturday this week okay commissioner jobi I'm not sure I'm going to ask Lee a question the City attorney I did not speak with the applicant but I was at the LPA meeting so I did hear their
presentation I don't know if that counts for being for anything but I just wanted to let that be known nothing wrong with disclosing it but it's more of it's more of discussions outside of a public hearing that they would know about so it would get let's say you spoke to anybody including the applicant they the
applicant would have an opportunity to question you about those Communications I've none and I'm here with an open mind I spoke with the mesh probably a year and a half ago a while ago two years ago it's time's flying man that's
all surprisingly I have none with this applicant so I guess they didn't want to talk could you place any potential Witnesses under oath Please Mr baggot anybody's going to speak on
behalf of the applicant raise your hand including staff you affirm that everything you're about to testify and provide will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you guide all right will the development dep Department please provide a brief summary of the agenda item item
including the location size of the property current zoning zoning requested UN list the applicants request to deviate from the land use development regulations good evening board members for the record my name is Jody cougler I'm the development director with the
city of Stewart tonight I'll be presenting agenda item number two for an amendment to the official zoning Atlas from Urban Waterfront to Urban Highway zoning destination located at 2 255 Southwest 6th
Street pursuant to the Land Development code public notice requirements on December 20th 2024 the applicant mailed notices to all adjacent prop owners within 300 feet of the subject parcel to provide details of the requested petition in the date and time of
tonight's public Hearing in addition to three public notice signs were placed on the property with the same information for context the point3 3 Acre parcel at 255 Southwest 6th Street is currently
vacant the site is within the urban overlay district and the community redevelopment area the future land use is downtown Redevelopment and the existing zoning is urban Waterfront which refers to special Waterfront oriented uses including
marinas restaurants entertainment hotels and higher density residential existing Marine Industrial uses are conditionally permitted this shows the property with the existing zoning as you see most of the property is in a purple and this
property is in a blue which is the urban Waterfront the proposed zoning is urban Highway this occurs on both sides of the Southeast Federal Highway and it traverses is the urban code district this area allows for large front setbacks and Highway oriented commercial
or high density residential uses with generous parking lots as you can see majority of the property is located in the urban Highway the property that is in question is located let me just put my cursor on
there is this right here it would be consistent um to the proposed development that's going to the West this item was heard at the planning the local planning agency they held a public hearing on January 16 2025 and a
board voted unanimously passing a motion to forward a recommendation of approval to the city of Stuart City commission also at the public hearing some of the adjacent residents did Express concerns regarding not this particular application but when it moves forward
through the site planning process to um consider the location of the parking lot the the lighting the pollution lighting pollution security and the condition of Frasier Creek the LPA also recommended if the petitioner would consider holding
a neighborhood meeting to discuss specific concerns and the petitioner is um going to move forward with the neighborhood meeting once the plans are prepared and ready to be seen at for site plan level this petition conforms to this
criteria outlined in section 11.01 09 of the Stuart Land Development code Florida Statutes and inconsistent with the goals objectives and policy of the city of Stewart comprehensive plan staff recommends the city commission forward to the second reading adoption
of ordinance number 252 2537 d224 to approve the resoning the subject parcel from Urban Waterfront to the urban Highway this concludes staff presentation uh we also have the
partitioner who also has a presentation prepared for you tonight just before we go forward Le it doesn't indicate that staff can take questions but we allow the Commissioners yeah I I don't see any issue with that do do any of the Commissioners have questions of staff I
do okay yes um I realized that a site plan is probably not ready yet but did did they submit a temporary site plan as to whether this is agreed upon or not because because there would be two ways
that this would be built uh commissioner Joby uh they have submitted a site plan um during the site plan process uh that's when the inconsistency of the design guidelines with the urban Waterfront versus the urban Highway uh one says Park in a rear one says park in
the front so to make the property consistent uh staff recommended they rezone the portion they purchased all the other parcels and put in the unity title so this is one little piece that actually is not even touching the Razer Creek Waterfront so um this would make the
guidelines consistent okay and how does it affect other properties that are just touching the creek where they're not full-blown on the creek are there other properties that are similar to this so in this particular Pro um application let me just go back to the slide you can
see the property that's unified which is all yellow this is the a property has been purchased by the partitioner um is all consistent even though one portion of it does touch the Razer Creek but that has already been zoned Urban
highway so this just makes it consistent throughout the corridor okay and have they met with the um people in the neighborhood to um have they met with the people in the neighborhood I know at the LPA meeting I just heard that there were some that
they wanted to meet with the developers so the uh staff has been in touch with the with the uh neighborhood um once we received a new revised set of plans with the new architectural with the consistent design guidelines we will be setting up a neighborhood meeting and we
meeting with the neighborhood as well okay thank you welome is is it forgive me I'm going through the applicants Reed do you have questions of staff not yet okay are they required to to have a
neighborhood meeting within the urban so you're doing that supplementary to try to be a good neighbor cins to to do a zoning change the theory is that there's no development at all right what you'd be looking at under chapter 3 is all of
the uses that could be done in urban highway or Urban Waterfront you know we all know uh nemish and we've had business dealings with them in the past so everybody's familiar with what they're doing but the truth is the agenda item tonight is not about a site
plan or the development but is rather limited to the issue of the zoning and you're not going to flip this to do apartments right I'm just kidding I know you're a hotel year I'm joking they'll make a presentation and then you can question okay so Jody what's what is did
they have to be consistent here or you just recommended just to have the consistent zoning uh commissioner Collins we did recommend that because there is portions of the code and when you're dealing with two different type of design guidelines Urban Highway says everything should be pushed up to the front you're parking in the rear your
Urban Waterfront says put a Sherry bik and back with these vegetables so they can see down the Waterway so that would if you kept with the urban Waterfront and the urban way it is today it's it's very inconsistent so you're going to end up with the design guidelines that are a
little hodge podge just trying to make both of them work so by changing it to the urban Highway they will push their hotel further to the front where it should be and uh are there any other guidelines within that distinction between Waterfront and Highway that
would make it more appropriate for that particular parcel to remain Waterfront is there anything beyond the parking that's a cardinal difference that you could point to or is it just really isolated to parking and making sure that it's it's um it's incidental to just
inconsistency yes it would be the parking and where the placement of the um structure would be and for clarification Urban Highway which is what we're talking about changing this would have the parking in the back so off of US1 which would create additional
buffer in between this hotel and the residential neighborhood that's on the other side of that Creek and the that is correct and and just for for um clarification this particular parcel which is if you notice on my screen
right here this doesn't even touch the Waterfront your water's right here this doesn't even touch the Waterfront so really it should have been stay as Urban Highway any way with with the parking lot going in the back and being right up against um the creek does that affect the drainage and
or if that should be more or less permeable with that parking lot in the creek there are there considerations with that if it's front versus rear so without really getting into the site plan um weeds um they do have to address
all their drainage and fix the long-term drainage issues that have been been going on other properties so they will I think they are trying to establish some of the Imperial P pavers um whether the parking was in the front or back though is it relates to zoning we shouldn't be discussing their site plan
right so but if the Cardinal difference between the two zoning designations is where the parking goes I think that's relevant that's actually where the structure goes but not the storm water control our code requires everyone to maintain storm water and present an engineered storm water plan regardless
of which zoning it is it's not more and they both have same zoning requirements it's not more demanding on Waterfront versus highway it's the same no that's in your chapter six and that's all gets into site details okay I
think that's all my questions thank you okay does the petitioner wish to make a presentation commissioner Reed oh commissioner Reed I'm Sor do you have a I was just going to State I was going through it um yes the biggest difference is the parking front
rear um if there was parking on the side that would limit them to the three stories um with the urban Highway um there was curb cuts which may or may not matter to
some um that's all I have for now though it's why it's good to have you here you can real time dig it up out of the Cod okay good evening Commissioners uh my name is Jared Gaylord for the record I do have a PowerPoint presentation for PK Street
hotels um I'm joined by Mr Nesh Patel this evening of PK Street hotels Inc um as Jody mentioned we were before the city's LPA meeting on the 16th where we did receive unanimous approval um and I'm going to ask Jody to flip through
the slides when get a moment next slide this is the surrounding neighborhood if you're familiar with the location it's on the east side of US1 um just south of that Fraser Creek Bridge and just south of dun dog for the hot dog aishan AOS um
and just north of 6 Street um you can see that it is somewhat of a unique shaped property there's about a 100 feet that is fronting Frasier Creek um but again the odd part about that is that 100 feet that front Fraser Creek is is not the portion that zoned Urban
waterfront that's actually previously zoned Urban Highway next slide please this is just an an up close uh portion of the slide it's the southeast Corner which is 33 Acres that's current where jod has uh using the cursor to
designate that vacant area right there is um is currently Urban Waterfront the rest of the lot is urban Highway um as jod did mention my clients purchased this property in April of 2023 three it was three separate Parcels at that time
those obviously needed to be joined with a Unity of title so that the property could be redeveloped obviously you wanted to have one cohesive property as opposed to three with different setbacks and everything like that so there was a Unity of title filed in the Martin County public records in May of
2023 um this is just an aerial because there were some comments at the LPA meeting that I did want to show that that that vantage point from uh some of the property owners across from Frasier Creek towards the property you can see that uh the the distance from uh some of
the homes on the east side of Fraser Creek to the to our property is about 71 feet so there is a little bit of a distance there um there there's also dense mangroves on both sides of the creek which will help uh buffer some of the view um it's also our opinion
they're about 40 feet tall they're not no not 40 feet tall um they do have planned um they do have planned a six- foot site wall there and again these plans are preliminary so they may be subject to change but there is a a six
foot CBS site wall on the rear of those of the proposed parking lot and then there's also um eight wax myrtle U uh plants that are about 12 feet tall so there will be some Landscaping in addition to the to the existing mangroves that will help buffer or or limit the view from across the Waterway
which we think is helpful we're also removing the old crematorium um which should be a positive next slide please and then this is just a view um Facing East again you can see um where
the crematorium is located that's actually uh zoned Urban Highway and then just to the south of there where the cursor is that is zoned Urban Waterfront now the parcel directly to the east where that structure is um that's also
zon zoned orb Waterfront which makes sense again it is located on Frasier Creek um uh but our lot is not uh or that portion of the lot rather is not along Fraser Creek and again you can see there are some there's some vegetation
on both sides of the um the creek next slide please these are just some of the existing um site photographs if you've been by you can see that the you know the the property needs some enhancement and we believe that uh the new hotel
will provide that um it was a for a former funeral home uh and again the hotel will be located on the front um if it was Urban Waterfront again that hotel would be located closer to the creek which obviously would be much more difficult to buffer with Landscaping
anything El next slide uh this is just a survey of the property uh you can go to the next slide which is a closeup Yep this is just a survey of the property the property is 1.4 58 Acres total or 68891 Square ft and again that parcel D
in the lower right hand corner uh is where the rezoning will take place next slide this is just the copy of the unity of title you can go to the next slide and these are slides that you we've already been through with the
resoning next slide that's just the future land use designated downtown next slide and I'm happy to read through the resoning standards but there should be in your agenda packets and I'm happy to answer any questions that the commission may
have do any of the Commissioners have any questions for the applicant I do commissioner giobi hello hi hi good evening good evening um I know that the where the crematorium is is designated it's not designated
Waterfront but it is basically closer to the water dismantling of that crematorium will it in any way impact or damage the creek uh I not to my knowledge but again that would probably be a question for the contractor which
I'm sure that they're going to ensure that you know the rubble does not fall into the creek or anything like that sure that there will be Safeguard taking place so that it those safeguards would definitely be in that contract I would hope okay and that and that would be I
presume with the city's permitting office as well so thank you you're welcome I have any other question so just to be clear we're only talking about that little 33 Acres that is
correct that's the only area that we're making a decision on this evening that is correct not okay I just want it to be clear yep um okay oh commissioner Reed yes I I just wanted to ask this might be for the development department I know it's a
zoning that we're discussing why would there be things in here where it's talking about the possible overloading of the city sewage collection treatment obviously going from acock funeral home to a hotel that we necessarily I
understand it's a zoning change so we have no clue on the site plan so we don't know the room sizes the capacity so how do you make that determination and why would it be in the the zoning that you would be determining is if you looked under
chapter 3 under the urban code where you were just reading the difference of where the buildings were you would look and determine what the capacity was for urban Waterfront and then you would compare it with Urban Highway and the
distinction would be does the city have the capacity to absorb any change it's a lot different when you're changing it from R1 to B2 where it's going from single family residential to multif
family office but in this particular instance what staff will tell you is that if you read the urban code that both zoning districts allow the exact same uses correct so it wouldn't matter which zoning it was the impacts or
intensities on parking you utilities Police Service Etc are identical it's just the location and style of the structure that was going to be built that is the distinguishing Factor so from a concurrency or capacity
standpoint it's equal because you're not talking about a hotel here you're talking about every single possible use you have to imagine that if they changed their mind and didn't build it if someone else came along it would be zoned Urban Highway and then what could
they build as Urban Highway versus Urban Waterfront the only new thing they could build is under our code you cannot build a um automobile
repair service business unless it's Urban Highway and then it has to be inside so by changing it from Urban Waterfront to Urban Highway technically that somebody could ultimately build an automobile repair service there but
adjacent to it already they own the property that's already Urban highway so technically speaking they could do the automobile repair service anyway which leads us full circle back to the fact that both codes allow the same uses so
the capacity or intensities of use don't change they both would have the same impacts on the St infrastructure so as like a board member up here what what would we do to look out for I
guess the Public's interest as well because and I understand where you're coming from Mike and um but it's a big zoning change obviously um and a big development change um like I said going from acock funeral home
to many more people that are going to be there besides coming for a funeral home services and they're leaving and I understand it's zoning so you can't really discuss it then I mean it's not it's not a funeral home well the funeral what was there it was
it it was Urban Waterfront which allowed hotels funeral homes movie theaters restaurants Etc and they're requesting to make it Urban Highway which allows funeral homes
hotels restaurants Etc so I know that the use was a funeral home at some point way less intense yeah that's where I was going with it but the zoning allowed corre acock could have built a hotel
there as well just like you could build a hotel they would have had a site plan then you guys are speaking two different languages you're speaking real world practical intensity of development and you're speaking well speak zoning which is what hearing is just zoning not site
plan the thing is when you have an urban when you have a code this won't come in for a site plan though will it well that's the thing the only future land use that the city has that requires everything to come in for the commission vote is neighborhood
special district every other land use the city has allows development by right in this particular instance these properties already had a future land use of downtown which allowed development by right with within downtown their zoning
was either Urban Highway urban center Urban neighborhood or Urban Waterfront and those all came with development by right without needing to come before the commission unless they wanted to vary from that code in this instance what you
heard was the primary distinction between urban Waterfront and urban highway is that both allow hotels both allow four stories both allow the same number of square feet it's just that
Urban Highway requires the building to be built against the highway and up against the highway with the parking and back an urban Waterfront requires the building to be built up against the water with the parking in front toward the highway so from an intensity or
density or whatever that perspective is it's the same the real question is as a commissioner what is visually what do you want to see on that Corridor and one of the things is is it compatible with the adjacent uses well the reality of it
is is the blue on that map is urban Waterfront so it's already been demonstrated that it is compatible with Urban Waterfront and the purple on the map which is every other property on the highway all the way down um is also
demonstrated as also being compatible so the the the the board really has the the discretion to decide which it deems more appropriate I think he raises a good point that might be a sub conversation
or may not even belong in this particular hearing but how how does this commission beyond the you know legally technically accurate zoning and and and this kind of thing how how does this commission could I just ask that we are
are we finished with the p petitioner we have any other questions of him from the board if not okay then we can discuss it yeah um and you and you don't wish to present any other information not unless you have any questions okay so the
presentation of evidence has ended and the hearing is closed does any member of the public wish to make a comment regarding this mayor I have none okay [Music] um you have additional time to make
presentation additional fact Stone you have I did include some additional information if there were questions but they're much more related to sight planal rather than the resoning matter okay so I'm asking for direction in the
form of a motion to Simply transmit it to the next correct yes I'd like to make uh did any did anyone we okay so I'd like to make a motion to move it to the next meeting in two weeks on the premise
that the neighborhood meeting would be done before then is that possible that you guys if I may may so they're not the way that we talk to do no no
sir thank you um apparently we're not legally required them to do that but we can ask separate from the motion yes separate from the motion yes Jody I'm I'm sorry if I may intervene um the way we left it with
this the residents that are had concerns and wanted to do the neighborhood meeting is once they get the consistent zoning then we're meeting with the the neighborhood to go over the site plan and how it's going to function how it's going to lay out and and and have that
conversation they would go straight to the development department it is yes it will go straight to the development department but we are going to have that meeting before any development order is even drawn up okay but after the zoning is decided by the commission we have a motion I'm going to with oh you he's
withdrawing so we don't have a motion yet I make a motion that we move this forward to the second required meeting we have a motion by commissioner Clark second and we have a second second by the vice mayor
um will you clarify the motion for the record please Mr bagot can I there any for it no I I I think it the motion was to transmit the um the agenda item to the second reading
at the next um uh commission meeting which it's already scheduled okay ordinance number 2537 d225 as presented and read by the City attorney okay do we have any discussions or questions amongst the Commissioners I had a
question for the development department that letter that we had on the presentation was that the same letter that was sent out um before it came before the LPA board because I think the property address was different uh commissioner Reed we did correct that and send out new
letters okay that would be a big deal mayor any additional um yes Ju Just back to that original point I know we're still in the middle of this but um how to to commissioner re
Point how do you Safeguard internally you know if every single for instance on us one if every one of those Parcels became four-story hotels that they would have to put some Demand on our infrastructure that's not wholly accounted for you don't all you
don't put that in your code I mean that that's I mean honestly that's the truth of it is we know that economy-wise if everything was a hotel there'd be too many hotels and nobody would stay in the mall and they'd go broke and but if
everything was four story apartments theoretically mix use the security behind it is that that's what codes are for a lot of communities and that's where the in terms of like water supply water supply how do you make sure that
you already have determined that we have sufficient water supply by a lot to be able to provide water and sewer for everything left in Stewart very easily and development reviews that right as a
metric how what is the actual measurement to that that that's tangible to check off that we still have room so when there's when you're building a commercial building you have equivalent residential connections and an equivalent residential connection is a Formula that the utilities department
uses to determine how many gallons per day a particular use will use based upon Actuarial numbers that are widely available in the industry and therefore a dentist office that has a water pick is probably going to use a lot more
water than a lawyer's office and so the information that's available all calculated down to these equivalent residential connections or erc's is how they charge the the person building or
constructing whether it's office residential Hotel movie theater whatever it is be code and like land use and Zoning that actually marries to tangible real world water supply do we have sort of a a running tally of how
much we're using and what we to supply we we we did a study last February or two februaries ago now for a consumptive use that authorized us to generate and produce
roughly 3.1 million gallons of water per day we are not consuming 3.1 million gallons of water per day are we tallying what we're consuming every single day we know how many gallons of water was pumped out of the out of the water
treatment plant and this hotel and again I don't I don't know the math on what erc's are but I can tell you that when they do the review a four-story hotel or a two-story hotel or a 20 room Hotel versus an 80 room Hotel
versus a 400 room Hotel there's mathematical numbers that would be and again they're not exact but it's an estimate of what the consumption would be just like I can tell you the average household uses X gallons a day but some people use more and so then that consumptive use permit coupled with what
you're actually outputting per day is is that metric right and that's what you put up against the dev it me exactly got it that's you actually bring up an interesting point vice mayor because the city we will eventually bump up against
that that will be the capacity of the city well that we already have when we did the consumptive use for 23,700 people know when we get there it's over right so whether they're in private homes or hotels or right yeah so that
that will be a limiting element to the city's growth yeah you would basically uh redevelop with the same density and use usage in terms of water consumption something similar so you're your your your consumptive use on that particular parcel would have to mirror when you
redevelop right well do so where where's like the running tally of what we're consuming currently but we know how much water we use every day we can you I mean right you can come in every day and Peter can meet with you and tell you how many gallons the the other thing is it's an interesting you
said hold on time out you said our you said our permits for 3 million a day roughly 3.1 million per day but what's interesting is that at the end of the month obviously there's 30 days and it's $3 million or three million gallons a day you would think that the number of
gallons that we made would equal the number of gallons that went to every single person's house but we have found over the years that there's pipes underground that leak and so at the end of the month when the billing comes in if for example we use 2.5 million
gallons left our left our plant today the billing might only show that 2,490 th000 gallons were used and there's 10,000 gallons that didn't go through a meter now that might be because somebody cut the pipe and made
it go around the meter to skip it or that somebody caught a hole in it on accident or that there's a leak somewhere or that there's a joint leaking or or a thousand different things but so that that consumptive use permit isn't isn't married just to a population density
it's also married to the total total development how does that how does how does the 3.1 million and 25,000 or 24,000 tail because my understanding was it was like a population density is like
whichever when it well the reason that it was presented to you guys in population density is because that's what you wanted to hear the presentation by the consultant was responding to your questions but the truth was that if
every single parcel in Stewart was developed to its maximum it wasn't always residential some of it could have been office building or Costco or whatever it was but the study that was done was the maximum of every single
parcel equals this projected number of gallons and they use that to extrapolate it and say essentially based upon the land uses you have right now and the maximum densities you have right now you're going to end up with
23,700 people when you get to every piece of land that's developed to its maximum density the consumptive use permit the truth is we could have produced 4 million gallons a day but the board chose to produce the number
equated to the study so to go the other way and cap it at the 237 so effectively regulating the amount of growth across the board no matter what it is to that number and so in order to change that
you'd have to change the consumptive use permit change capacities and you also our sewer has a significant amount of capacity anyway but that also plays a role in it and we entered in an agreement 2007 with the county to provide them sewer and to have
interconnection for our water in the event that there was an emergency so that no one would actually go without water whenever we don't have a slammed agenda because it's a larger conversation I would love to have a discussion about that just to better understand you know how that works going
forward with development and you know how that relates real world into what jod or not um I I agree we can bring something forward for you for that just so we're not tying up anymore you're paying a lot per hour to have him here right so and
for what it's worth obviously February February is is a tight month because we have the zoning in progress so it'll probably be in March that I bring it back not because we can't bring it back sooner but understand just strategically it's probably better to wait till March with the agendas we have
but theoretically Mike Mr Mortel you could have a a byright development on your piece of property but if the city can't Supply you the water if we don't have the capacity we don't have to approve it we can't approve it right we
can't approve it right it is a limiting element and by the way Indian Town's in that position right now yeah they don't they don't have the water and they've got development applications they cannot address because they don't have it okay
any question other questions com commissioner goob I had a question for the city manager Mr Mel I'm just questioning that kimley horn uh presentation that was made to the city because you quoted it and I'm just confused because it did say that they they suggested that the city depend on
shallow Wells which draw from the surface uh aquifer to produce 3 million gallons of water a day the current capacity of the 23 Wells is 5.5 million gallons on a good day the city then would maximize production of the reverse osmosis plan to yield 3 million gallons
a day 1.5 million more than originally planned so it's already at the point in July when they made this they it was already basically yielding more than it was originally planned to it had a total capacity now of 6 million a day residents visitors and businesses
currently use an average of 3.1 million gallons a day in July of 2024 not even taking into account anything that was built since then or will be built in the next couple of years okay so my question is you're saying it the the the report was based
on information we were asking back for no was it not factual I said the report related to residential density because that's the question you were asking not the number of gallons that was being prepared and generated but the question
the commission asked was how many people does that equate to and the answer was 23,700 people but the engineer that did that report didn't care about density they were focused on well capacity
volume of water and a a d conversation as it related to a consumptive use permit for water although we could pump more water out the D's capacity is at
3.1 million before we built the RO plant we were pumping 3 million gallons a day out of the surficial aquifer we then built the RO plant plant and as the report points out we have the ability to
pump $1.5 million a day or gallons a day out of the RO plant be nice that would be no it feels like it goes the other way by the way well it was saying actually it was three million 3 million gallons a day 1.5 more than originally anticipated but both plants could
operate alone the point of it being is that if the problem with pooa could not have been cured and we couldn't have put in the or the ion exchange failed and we couldn't use surficial aquifer at all we would still be able to use the RO plant generate the 3 million gallons and
provide our city with water but that's not what we did what we did is we use both plants and we use a portion of water from the RO plant and a portion of water and we blend them together to do two things number one it helps charge
the surficial aquifer number two it saves US money on the replacement of the ion exchange media that's extremely expensive and number three it it saves money on the operation of the RO plant which is also extremely expensive so
what it is is trying to find The Sweet Spot that makes operational costs most efficient but at the end of the day even though between the two plants we could have had 6 million gallons we only got a
permit for 3.1 million gallons and the 3.1 million gallons is based upon taking every single parcel in the city of Stewart's water area and saying in the future if this gets built
out to its maximum density can this system support those uses and and the rationale for that would be that you really should not be going above that three because if God forbid uh either one of those two were to fail well you
would now be in trouble and we would destroy the surficial o ER if we started taking 5 million gallons a day out of it because it would never rehydrate and you would you would lose the resource Comm Reed yeah this was for Jody so going
through the agenda packet I'm just trying to understand I know the the traffic data gets very confusing um I was looking on one of the pages it was talking about based off of 94 rooms
and then it goes to 147 then 164 and 159 I believe in the agenda packet I just want to make sure that's what I'm looking at those are projections okay but we don't know because there's obviously right these are just projections that based on that type of
land use those projections um could the could the zoning support those type of uses so it all depends on what type of use you're looking at so those are just projections in the report so for example when it says daily traffic generation of 414 tpd what does tpd stand for traffic
per day right traffic per day so that'd be the daily traffic per day of vehicles coming in so what would the tpd be for 147 164 and 159 then that's I don't know I don't I don't have that report it wasn't in here so some of it
was mayor rich and that's why I was asking thanks so those are just projections based off thep different type of uses Within that land use or that zoning District when the site development comes in they will have to do a site specific type of traffic review based on the number of rooms is
this something that you and I would be able to sit down on so I understand it because I know if there was 94 rooms it says in here there'd be 414 trips daily so if if hypothetically I sat with you you would help me calculate the 147 164 and 159 number I could assist you but
I'm not a traffic engineer Nei I would I okay thank you you're welcome make it up Motion in second we have a motion at a second we' we've concluded our deliberation is that correct yes yes so
uh may we have a roll call please Madam clerk vice mayor Collins yes commissioner Reed did we yes oh there is no public comment there's no public comment I just want to make sure that I'm sorry go ahead commissioner Goob yes commissioner
Clark yes and mayor Rich yes when is that date certain again for the public February 10 okay to make sure Mr bagot item three for our consideration please thank you guys ordinance of the city of Stewart
Florida repealing article 9 expanded poly steering and Plastics regulation of chapter 20 of the code of ordinances providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date we have a presentation by staff on
this there there there really isn't a presentation by staff um in I believe it was early November the commission directed uh staff to bring back the straw ordinance as a recision normally
when we do these types of ordinances we would ask you to go through the language and tweak it to provide language to fulfill your intent or to make sure that we weren't opening up an opening for something that we didn't intend but in this instance the direction was to
redline the entire uh regulation and therefore there isn't it's more of a thumbs up or a thumbs down I will say that um how we got here I guess is a better description the original intention was that it was to ban plastic
bags and grocery stores like they've done in communities and to get rid of those plastic bags but after uh the commission that address this issue brought it up it was determined that the State of Florida had preempted the
regulation of any plastic containers including plastic bottles bags Etc and as a result the city didn't have the legal right to ban the bags the intention behind the straws was to send a message you know look we car
about the Plastics we want our our community to be aware of it and to take steps to you know avoid single-use Plastics the the reality of it is is that since it has been adopted there hasn't been a noticeable decline of
single use Plastics by anybody other than the businesses in the city of Stewart that do not use plastic straws um those businesses actually have to incur an additional cost because
nonplastic straws like the bamboo straws or whatever they are are significantly more expensive the business that's not there anymore Frankenstein's the guy that owned that at the time told me that he could buy a thousand plastic straws for
$10 and he could only buy a hundred of the other straws for $10 again not that it matters because you could also have no straws at all but it turned out that that the issue of straw well and that was the other thing people are
using biodegradable straws with a styrofoam cup and a plastic lit and and it it it really just turned out to be a not a huge financial burden but it was a financial burden in a regulation placed on businesses in Stewart that didn't exist anywhere else and if you
were in South Stewart or north of the bridge there was literally competing businesses across the street that didn't have to comply with it or do it and so the uh commission gave us direction to bring it back to have it um rescinded
and that's how we're here and it's the pleasure of the board mayor motion yeah mayor I would like to move approval of ordinance number 2538 2025 we have a motion by the vice mayor I'll second motion I'll second by commissioner giobi is there any public
comment on this Mr BR bill you know better will you please hand a green card you have to put your new address on there yeah it's uh 406 Southeast finny Drive Stewart Florida 34996 yeah yeah um
quickly the only thing I wanted to comment on and and Mike his analysis is really good in that it put a real economic burden on on businesses in Stuart and put them at a competitive disadvantage and I don't think we should be doing that and I was not in favor of
that at the time for that reason but one of the things the whole idea aidea of potentially you know Recycling and keeping that stuff out of the water and out of the you know environment is still a generally good idea um I just don't think it's the city's responsibility to
force it on private business but I think we could incentivize the uh use of uh there's designations that uh the ocean AG uh that that can be done for uh clean oceans and things like that that we could incentivize a business that chooses to get that designation maybe we
can give them a small credit against their fee or their permit or something like that to encourage I don't you know I don't think we should have forced the businesses but I think we could encourage the businesses to uh you know maybe take a a steps to still conserve because it's our River and you
know it's our environment so anyway thank you Frank mccristal here we go walk like that what's they what's that they call the in in
uh evolutionary evolutionary terms a VES uh appendage or something vesu appendage yes so this is just a this is left over from a previous commission as a Feelgood about
ourselves okay and uh I'm I just love those mushy paper straws I mean once once you're done with your drink you just you you can just slam it down and get some Fiber it all works out
good all right so but my point is this I'm wondering if we went searching how much more of that feel-good stuff of the previous and I was a greeny way back before it was cool I was greeny when it
started in 1974 okay but how much of this could nonsense we find from the previous commission all right thank you byebye thank you that's a your blessing nice H okay we have a motion on oh I'm
sorry Helen that's okay hel McBride Flamingo Avenue it was the environmentalist we wanted to save the turtles and that was the whole thing it was our Turtles now we're not out there
on the ocean were in here and it wasn't I don't blame it past Commissioners or the future Commissioners at the time we were all here and we were trying because they showed what our Turtles were drink
getting into their stomachs but it was the environmentalists who listened to the people because it the movement was save the turtles had nothing to do with past Commissioners people like hel McBride who can't stop talking it it was we were the environmentalist thank you
thank you was that for guess [Music] straight we have no more mayor thank you do we have any comments or questions from the commission regarding
this yeah I think I like Helen I I still I know that it's a hard thing and I've seen the restaurants and places that I've gone to and basically nobody's complying but that doesn't mean that we throw up and say that we're not going to do anything I think that there's other
materials that can be used and um I know that the shops do what they can and some people not everybody uses soggy paper straws but um I think that uh I I subscribe to making every single effort
we can in every location and it's not just because we're not having a uh the possibility of having restaurants in our jur jurisdiction on the beach or whatever we have them on the water here on the waterfront too but things are just going to our garbage so I want to
see us still continue to do as much as we can I don't see any environmental folks here today and I haven't really heard one way or another from any uh res residents but I think that um I I just want to at
least say that I'm trying to do as much as I can for the environment um even though it's some what seems like a feda complete uh with our little city but yeah this is I have one last question okay question I'm just gonna
biggy back off of what you said I don't think it's really about being an environmentalist it's just being a good Steward of our community and of our planet so whatever straw you get just don't throw it on the beach it throw it in the garbage and it will be recycled thank you
so this allegation that Pest and pooa is in these straws comes from one study as far as I could tell I could only find one study that was in Belgium come on you know a couple years ago and
um as it was set up here you can get you can get studies to say anything you want I I I think commissioner Clark makes a good point I really hate going backwards here and every effort how small and it is a small amount of the waist stream
that is affected is important you want to read some of these with me no I may I finish my comments I mean we can go down the line on these if you want yeah after you may make a comment after
um there's p and POA in plastic straws um there's pasas and poo and so much of you know the plastic packaging that your food is in in the grocery store the other problem with the plastic
straws is they contaminate the waste stream and when we send our recycling to the plant if there's too many plastic straws they reject it and they just send it all to the dump so what is the net
result there if we're just contaminating our own garbage stream and recycling less and less so I just I really don't feel like I have enough information at this point
um I would like to understand the result uh understand the costs incurred by contaminating the waist stream if that actually does happen there seems to be some contention there but um so I along with Comm with along with commissioner
CL I just don't like to go backwards I think every effort is worthwhile and clearly we have a commitment to our environment and our Waterway and I don't think this is a good decision at this point in
time so there's there's been yeah there's been several different studies and and in fact if you start to get into this and and I'm going to take a little bit of authority on this because it's kind of my world you know this is kind of what I do with
health u in fact there are only a handful of companies that produce nonplastic plant-based straws that have non-detect levels of posos it's such an overwhelming normal within the plant-based straw U industry you have to
search pretty uh far and wide and dig in to even find companies that have non- detect levels and so basically our option would be either Force you know double down on this and force uh businesses to buy
straws from a one or two companies which does not seem like a good idea or you know just leave it up to business owners to make that decision for themselves which you know in the United States of America seems like the
best idea to me but I'll stop with that oh I agree with you I'm always very reluctant to force businesses to behave in a certain way and and I think the point that it's that it's not countywide is a very significant point because that
is unfair I I should also throw into this conversation Florida statute section 403 7033 the legislature finds that prudent regulation of recyclable materials is crucial to the ongoing welfare of
Florida's ecology and economy as such the department of Environmental Protection shall undertake an analysis of the need for new or different regulation of auxiliary containers wrappings or disposable plastic bags used by consumers to carry products from retail establishments the analysis shall
include input from state and local government agencies stakeholders private businesses and citizens and shall evaluate the efficacy and necessity of both Statewide and local regulations of these materials to ensure consistent and effective implementation the department
shall submit a report with conclusions and recommendations to the legislature no later than February 1st of 2010 and until this report is finished the legislature adopts and recommends of the department no local government local government agency or state government
agency May enact any rule regulation or ordinance regarding use disposition sale prohibition restriction or tax of such auxilary containers wrappings or disposable plastic bags and as a result
this why we only have a St right because the study isn't quite finished yet but they're close well it's only 14 years overdue come on give him more time any other comments or questions I have no other comments roll call please
Madam clerk commissioner Reed yes commissioner goob yes commissioner Clark no mayor Rich no and vice mayor Collins yes so motion passes on first reading on first reading
we can always change our mind second reading right on first reading discuss D and D authorization to schedule would you read this item for our discussion and deliberation Please Mr bagot absolutely uh resolution number
18-22 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stuart Florida authorizing the City attorney to schedule an attorney client session with the city commission city manager City attorney and outside legal council regarding pending litigation matters pursuant to Florida statutes section
28611 subsection 8 providing an effective date and for other purposes and uh this was an agenda item that I prepared and uh we have three uh separate cases in litigation and um it was my opinion that
we and and they're all being handled by outside Council three different lawyers and uh it's been my opinion that uh we need to have an attorney client session for various reasons on each of these three um cases I can identify them but they're listed in the agenda item these
are what are called shade meetings Mr correct so as we commonly hear Sun new Commissioners you can sure so uh you hear Florida Sunshine Florida Sunshine Florida Sunshine we understand the concept okay they call this shade meetings so it's out of sunshine behind
closed doors so what we would have is we would come to a public meeting and uh we would open up for public comment but then announce that we're going to have a shade meeting and we'll go into the anti chamber um with u um all of us up here and our outside
Council and we'll also have in the room um a court reporter who will take take down everything that's being said and and that'll be available at the close of any of the cases no um after the litigation each one yeah yeah each separately
respectively when that case is over that becomes public record uh and sometimes we'll have more than one shade meeting uh but that will not be available during the pendency of the lawsuit that just it gives us a reason to discuss strategy in the case and also um potential settlement without the other side
knowing about it how soon do we need to do this uh well i' I've suggested I've got two separate dates um number one I would suggest a special meeting because we have three cases we've got to discuss um February 5th which is a Wednesday and
week do it any time during the day I can't do that um or we can add it to the regular meeting on February 24th however we do have CRA that day at 4 and the city commission meeting starts at 5:30 and I believe the zoning of progress
second reading would be then so that would be a long day we could do it earlier in the day we have the no on the 24th at what time is that 9 to 12 it's uh slated for on my calendar we can't do it take a look here
um we had some issues with the outside Council schedule and those were the two dates you don't have February the 12th oh because the council can only come on those two days um well would you be able to do it on the 24th um at 1 o o00 yeah
like 2 o'clock like 1:30 or 2 o'clock if you're two hours is going to be enough time to go through the cases yeah yeah okay then we would go right into the meeting we're gonna it's going to take more time to go through the the procedure just to get in the room but so if you think it's an hour do you want to do it at 3: and then
we'll go into our CR I I think we need more than an hour 2 p.m. or 1:30 on the 24th um 230 you we just to 130 no not I I would suggest two then we have a break in between CRA and this it could
go on I mean you guys could you know you guys could discuss a lot I I don't know but we every meeting we're going to have to come back out can we get it done in an hour and a half um if if if you think so and you guys can be quick we we don't have to come out between them we're going to call it on we'll we'll announce all
three we'll go into the shade meeting discuss each one and separate them on the court reporter and then we'll come back out and then that way the record will be clear so the court reporter can transcribe just to say money right we we do have three separate lawyers so each of them we have to have a different
lawyer come in in right but we don't have to redo the process each time all of them are um you know um applied by by Trio relation insurance so our outside Council on these so it's that one day the 24th at 2 2 p.m. correct yeah that's
either February 5th any time during the day or night or uh there is no meeting and that's a Wednesday 24th wait wait wait wait no no I can't do that February 10th and February 24th are our regular meetings February 10th doesn't work because of other conflicts so February
24th is what you're discussing yeah 2 2:30 I prefer the fifth commissioner cins I can't do the I can't do the fifth Campbell I got work I'm not independently wealthy as yet Mark will find a way I got it got it I got I got Ms to
feed man what happened on the fifth he cannot do the fifth I gotta work so then we'll we'll need you know a vote on uh February 24th at 2:30 yeah now we're talking you think we can do them all in two hours three and two hours you
can that's an hour always continue it in right okay it's like we did tonight worst case scenario I can read them out uh city of Stewart versus North
Point Ventures LLC Behavioral Health Centers LLC versus city of Stewart and giant oil inc versus city of Stewart that's what that's our meeting about because it's not requiring a shade meeting apparently so and that's what's up for discussion
at the moment all right is that are we done with that item Mr B do you need a motion or is consensus good enough or it's a do you feel authorized I don't think it's a resolution but I think we had a resolution in it okay then the resolution need when we're finished can
I ask a question roll call requires us to put this notice out in advance so it's better to pass it by resolution so it's documented like so mayor I'd like to move resolution number 18 2025 second we have a motion by the vice mayor and a second by commissioner
Clark any public comment on this item Ken h 1701 Southwest Palm City Road there is pending litigation and this has been the problem nobody wants to talk about it you don't want to have a shade meaning I remember when I was running for commissioner and YULA Clark was the
mayor and she said oh we'll we'll just after the election we'll have a sit down and we'll go through it well that never happened I just I don't understand the selective nature and I have an idea why because it's pretty damning and you guys
will all find out I think what they've done before they try to keep it hidden from the new Commissioners but it won't stay hidden I have two attorneys now and they've been court appointed and so you know you will discuss this someday and
you will settle Mr Mortel and you will take accountability anyway love you thanks for your service and and just and briefly in response to to her litigation bring that up so city of Stewart was involved in litigation with the rges in
2009 and it went back and forth with litigation and Mike Durham settled that litigation with the execution of full releases signed by Mrs rudge Mr rudge and the city in 2012 in 2015 the property was sold to a
entity called a toz a toz then filed a quiet title action against the rges in 2016 and joined the city and the county because we had code enforcement leans they quickly dismissed the city and the county from the lawsuit when they
everyone agreed the lean was going to stay and during the pendency of that litigation the rges filed several motions to join the city or sue the city but none of them were granted by the court so the city was never actually
joined in another lawsuit with the rges since 2012 she's filed several cases in federal court and the current case she filed a motion to dismiss was filed by the trio Council that she sued the state attorney the county the city the judge
lots of people in any event don't is and leaving he is sitting their I'm not trying to upset you Mrs rud she filed a lawsuit against the city regarding their
property and that's it the magistrate dismissed it and the federal judge entered an order dismissing the lawsuit and she appealed the federal judges order of dismissal the reason there's no shade
meeting is because there's no set of facts for us to discuss with you that is confidential the city's never been a party to the lawsuit since 2012 and as a result there to it's not even the appeal
of the federal judge dismissal we don't even know what she's appealing so at some point it might get to the point where we have to discuss it with you and we will but for now we have a motion on second to accept the date of Wednesday February the 24th and 2m do
you have regarding that motion 2:30 I don't know that that's Wednesday this was for C Lee yeah a question I did Mr Bag uh yes Mr bagget how many open cases for litigation does the city currently
have against them besides the three listed in the agenda packet I I I don't know the answer to that currently I don't think there's not a significant number but there might be a couple other like a car accident or something like that but we can get the list from Trio but it's sure no worries we just got a
new one today on well not today no I I was like I haven't been served with a lawsuit today but some days I feel like usually daily but Mr Jo would you have a comment regarding the accepting the date of February 24th no not at all I thought we were voting
thank you we're going to vote let me get the switches going oh commissioner Clark I'm sorry it was you no I don't have any problem with the date I just had an comment but it's okay I don't think we want to be no we're not going to get by public comment
right right right for for clarification Monday 24 at 2:30 2 2:30 2 P.M um that would be an hour you want me to clarify because I've heard Wednesday I'm here in different times so the 24th is a Monday because I'm not going to be here
on the 24th February 24th Monday do you think you need two hours or an hour and a half um I I I would say an abundance of caution but you guys control if the CRA goes a half hour late we were late today from the CRA starting this meeting so I mean we can continue on and as Mr
mortell said if we run out of time we could postpone one any discussions with attorneys with three different attorneys on three different cases two o'clock it takes I would suggest two o'clock o' thank you may but so I relent then let's let's make sure we have the motion
corrected because we Monday the 24th at two is that correct Madam Clark it is um if I could just have commissioner Clark um agree to the amended motion for 2 o'clock on the 24th I thought I'd voted for 2m yes it was originally 2:30 they
just amended it to 2 o' Perfect 2 o' hours that's what I agreed to 2:00 okay see no more discussion roll call please vice mayor Collins yes mayor Rich yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner goob
yes and commissioner Reed yes okay as a courtesy to the vice mayor and I wish You' brought this up during your comment yes I just had one more point before I forgot uh Joe gilo is here he had sent an email uh reminding me about
the exotic plants at poppleton Creek project in the presentation uh and final report that he had issued in April last year and I guess some of the recommendations are being implemented
the um the intention treatment of the the intention of his report was directly related to the maintenance of the perimeters of the ponds in the city of Stewart and the cost
of grass removal the report that he gave us said to spray removal or to use uh pesticides as a spray on a limited basis and we've tried to not spray at all and
as a result you do get some additional growth and the growth gets higher I read his email and yes you could go in and spray right now and remove it or you could incur going out to bid and having somebody go to all the ponds and do the
manual removal but when David went out to bid on that I can't remember what the number was but for the manual removal it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to do all the ponds so what happened was we said let's engage in this study to determine whether or not
we should spray what what percentage of poppleton Creek did we manually remove vet that exotic vegetation from it was limited to where the Sailor men were can I can I borrow Jo excuse
me Commissioners publon Creek uh what we did is had three 75 foot sections of the perimeter of that particular Lake that's the only Lake I was concerned
about and on one the uh uh the Public Works took out the 75 ft by pulling the weed and raking them out excellent job the second part we sprayed but I didn't spray your ABC people who
do your lake maintenance sprayed they did an excellent job the third one and that's what been talking about is on the south side of the lake 75 feet long and I figured it wouldn't work but you have to try that as an experiment so I said don't pull the weeds Don't Spray the
weeds let me put the data plants in there to see if they would overtake the weeds well of course they did not and now over the last two and a half years that 75t section closest to the road is growing and now starting to seed and it
would be a good idea to remove it you can either remove it by spraying it or taking it out pulling the weeds because I know that the your uh your Public Works did an excellent job the first time and I hate to see it spread if I might say this that a AO AV
my recommendation to you which I presume has been implemented is that they are not spraying the good plants that are appearing on the lake and uh that is excellent because you're getting a spread of native vegetation not much but you're getting
it and I did not recommend well I did recommend that that the same process be apply to your other leges but I have nothing to do with it so so to summarize if if if this is accurate your research
showed that planting the natives to help compete with the Exotics and then either spraying or manually removing the Exotics to allow the natives to flourish better yes and produce a lot of the positive
outcome what's happening is a ABC your excellent Lake management firm implemented not spraying the good stuff and the good stuff is spray is spreading the way I expected it to spread not as much it's only covered maybe 10% it
should cover in my opinion somewhere about 80 or 90% okay thank you sir I think you bring up a good and I think let's have a presentation we we don't really have a means of having a lengthy discussion in back and forth regarding this if you
want to put it on a D and D that's fine but let's have a presentation by staff and Milton and I don't know who he does the maintenance can I can I finish Joe already did a presentation I mean right he already did presentation the the next phase is now how do we want to implement
what he found you actually adopted the phase and instructed Milton to use ABC or whatever the company was and to manage the ponds through that company we hired them and they're managing them but holistically no what we're doing right now is spot treating the Exotics but
we're not planting the natives and let's have them come back we're not removing manually the Exotics either so we're sort of partially doing it as as is budgetarily right let's have him come back feasible and explain what he's doing what it cost and the results
they're seeing and you can speak again at length if the commission chooses but just tag this on at the end whatever the place I just want I just I did want to revisit this conversation because it seemed to kind of fizzle the the totality of his
recommendations versus just spot treating the Exotics we allow staff to make presentations to us exactly and I think it's I share your concern for this this is very important so I would like an in-depth presentation and certainly to know what it costs so then it can be
very expensive so then could we could we um sort of drive you to work with Joe and start to come up with some different options that see see what he did come into full holistic why don't we it
rather than getting the debate we can talk about it like individually I can go over with you what the city's done what you budgeted what the resolutions were what staff is doing what the what the company that's managing the lakes are doing the truth of it is is that Joe
only looked at one Pond as a test study at one point it was going to be Hospital Pond but then we decided it was going to be poppleton Creek Pond but there are hundreds of ponds in the city that are being managed and it's a it's just like every road if I found a pothole on the
on your street I could say we need to go in and pave all the roads but the truth is we have to Prior prioritize and go through them the point of this I hear you Joe hasn't gone and looked at any of the other ponds but the point of the poppleton creek uh study was to project
that out onto all the ponds right and then it wasn't just to study Pon Creek it was a smaller test that would and then he came back gave his report we presented it to the commission and the commission authorized Public Works to
hire the company and spray on a very limited basis as little as possible which meant that he has to let them grow more than just regular because the more you let even the Exotics grow the less
you spray so the tolerance is how tight do you want the ponds because we were letting them grow and the sailboat guys couldn't get their sailboats in if you remember so then we had to spray to make it so that the sailboats could get in but if we spray too often then it looks
great like a golf course and it's manicured perfectly but the problem is that cumulative effect is horrible for the water and the environment and the banks of the ponds so this idea of planting the natives planting additional natives I think is the the if I had to characterize what the missing pieces
from what he's recommending versus what we're doing that's not what his report says it included planting the grasses yes yeah I did suggest to plant some additional native plants along the
shoreline number one number two I yes in poppleton Creek number two what I strongly recommended to the board was to get the data from ABC which they have to keep on how much spray they do how much
spray they use in the history of it so you can see if they're using less or more can we have all that together for an update from staff yeah you have that okay versus versus it just feels like a bit of a ston wall where it's like that's too expensive I can't do it ah stop you know and I'd like to get what
we can really I don't think the two new Commissioners were their first presentation so it would be I actually was oh okay you were both there and and I need to speak before you close out the meeting thank you Joe Commission job okay so in line with Mr jilo he had reached out to me and I'd like to know
how we put this on the next agenda to vote on and to review he has put or he's putting in for a grant um which he was looking for a what's the term U you're not looking for no but the term that you
want the city to do you want the city to right it's a support letter co-sponsor yeah not well not so much co-sponsored but with the city if he had the grant completed and any commissioner present Ed it to us and said you wanted to write a letter of support for him we could do that at any meeting I can put
that on February 10th if you want okay I don't put that on February 10th and we can vote on it I have information but I don't think the grant application's completed you have here a draft time is the essence because they're meeting the the the board the legislature meets March 4th and right now all of our
commissioners and senators are up in Talahassee okay collecting all this stuff Joe can I suggest that you have that application completed and it'll be on the next board meeting to approve the there's two options I have on that application one if the I have
$40,000 uh to be respect requested of the legislature of which 350 goes to Lake okobe restoration initiative not Joseph L Julio soulle proprietor I have I have many hats as you guys do and ladies do the Hat I'm talking to you now
is president of Lake Oobi restoration initiative a 501c3 that is trying to clean up Lake okobi and clean up St Lucy River this proposal that I have is to actually go and look
at the pollution history from all the available good data sir we are not going to go down a whole new road on a grant appli okay okay if a commiss as Mr Mortel said if a commissioner has a specific Grant we were talking about the
ponds I I don't want to conflate the two I want to make sure we do we talk about the ponds first Joe if you will email me your Grant application I'm happy to put the letter of recommendation you're requesting on the February 10th meeting thank you okay that's really what we
were asking I can remind the Commissioners agend these are the types of items you bring up during your comments okay you don't save them till the end of the meeting well we we leave time at the end for discussion and Joe
Mr J our agenda is due for the February 10th meeting on Wednesday so if I don't get it by Wednesday I can't put it on February 10th right okay weely thank you Joe no other items for
our consideration the meeting is a [Music] journey for Part: 2
okay I'm calling this meeting to order this large meeting to order of the joint meeting of the steart city commission community redevelopment agency and the community redevelopment board for 27 January roll call please miss
mayor mayor Rich here vice mayor Collins commissioner Clark here commissioner goob here commissioner Reed here for the community redevelopment agency I have chair Rich here vice mayor Collins here board
member Clark here board member goobi here board member Reed here board member bville here and for the community redevelopment board I have Vice chair bville here board member James here board member maner
here board member mccristal present board member Moser board member Sher here and board member whan here so welcome to our four new board members
um sure okay I hope you find uh your service on this board interesting and rewarding and the Heart you work at it the more valuable will be your contribution both to this board and to
the city and the CRA so thank you and who will be administering the oath Mr bagot the pledge of I mean I'm sorry we have to do the Pledge of Allegiance first okay please stand
somebody's IED to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands God indivisible withy and justice for all and now we have the Advisory Board
member oath of office will all the Advisory board members please stand and raise your right hand and repeat after me even the old new ones huh the new ones all of them it's on an annual basis oh right
okay you're reinstating them notice that they're the commission and they've got all right so I state your name am qualified under the Constitution laws of Florida laws of
Florida and the code of ordinances for the city of Stewart Florida and the code ofan Florida to serve as a member of the community redevelopment board serve as a m of the community redevelopment board and that I will well and
Faithfully perform the duties of an Advisory Board member and that I willfully perform the duties of an Advisory Board M on which I am about to enter on so help me God may be
[Applause] seated thank you Mr baggot can we get a motion for the approval of the agenda please move second we have a move by board member Collins and a second by board member Clark all in
favor okay do we have any comments from the public on non-agenda related items I do I have one approve the minutes did we approve oh I'm sorry you're right I'm move approval of the
minutes that are in items number just do them individually Su yes please I'll second we have to do them individual yes 10 2824 thank you we have a motion by board member Clark and a second by board member goobi all in favor I I um move
approval of the minutes of 11:25 2024 for the C we have a motion by board member CL C who that c has to be a c um all in favor Mark on okay okay I
see okay I just it was a commission second was by board member pH yeah thank you Mark all in favor iosing okay pardon me thank you board member Clark for keeping me in order now do we
have comments from the public on non agenda item sus yes I do have Mr Robert Hamilton Mr Hamilton I see you sitting there good afternoon Mr Hamilton I just wanted to take a moment and uh talk to you about just coming
here just walking here on Third Street I'm sorry Robert Hamilton 311 southest Third Street just coming here the bottleneck that happens in the circle and I think somebody will eventually get hurt there the train goes by cars can't
go north or out and it all gets buckled up the other issue with the circle is uh they just do not pay attention to the pedestrian crosswalks you really have to be on your toes going through there and I think that that
would fall under CRA and I think that would be very helpful to the community that's my opinion A lot of times people wait until catastrophic event happens like you know what happens to our place and now we're
dealing with that situation I wouldn't want to see that happen to anybody else in the community I just think it's an issue at the Circle and I think there are funds available through the CRA for that just a suggestion just a thought public comment thank you very much Mr
Hamilton are are you referring to confusion corner or right here jnes Jefferson actually both but right here cuz I walk this one more okay and what happens is when the train goes by when the train goes by by everybody huddles up and the cars
can't go then when the cars are flowing you better pay very close attention coming up to that crosswalk because someone's going to get hit and then we know what happens after that it's going to cost us even more money and litigation it just a thought I
thought it would be something that that you guys could discuss to be important as public safety and our tax dollars with that said Thank you thank you too any other comments Su no
sir okay comments by board members we'll start um I'll start with you board member Reed my comments were uh just to the new board members and fellow board members welcome um my advice to you guys there's
there's three things when it comes to the city of Stewart that I particularly pay attention to and it comes to the city of Stuart mun code and it's code of ordinances the comprehensive plan and the Land Development code those three documents are very beneficial and uh if
you're a computer person contrl f as well so you can search it and you can narrow it down and uh this one's for Lee so when it comes to Sunshine I can talk to my board appointee and no other appointees or I can talk to
them you you can talk to them except on items with I guess two of them I I I know and there's only two that's what I need you can talk you can talk in general you you can
talk to them just nothing about items that are going to come up right you know on the agenda or come before the CRA now I would caution you you're outside after a CRA meeting speaking to one of them people are going to assume you're talking about something that came up but
um but just in abundance of caution I mentioned that but yeah so there's nonvoting voting members you know here from the crb that are not on the CRA we have a joint meeting today but um you're not on the same board as the crb just the two um at will um or at large I'm
sorry uh members on the C thanks is that all did you get your question answered you could talk to Mr James who my appointment you could talk to any one of them individually just not me but I know talk to you anyway Sean
so right I and you have to appoint one other some no I think onear I thought you had an appointment that's what I thought not on this I think that's an at large appointment that's that's for the crb crb willo I crb willo I have not
appointed somebody to the east Stewart uh committee because that's the historical committee because I hadn't found somebody who had a historical background I thought want to do it that's where I'm point I think mayor has a list of interested people yeah so when
will the crb make that second meeting okay when it is yeah February 4th people who you can contact board member goob do you have any comments this evening yes well Sean as always covered a lot but I'd also like to thank I'd like to thank
him back thank back the older members renewing thank you for continuing to support the city thank you to the new members we welcome you your board and hope you enjoy your stay on this board and um we really appreciate you being here thank
you um board member Clark yes I'd like to leave off where Mr Hamilton started as a member of the public comment that um number one just thank those members of the public and our our community who are not elected officials but who want
to serve on a board like this we appreciate your interest and this year is somewhat unique we have two four five new people starting off at the same time so you know that you have like Sean said a great deal of knowledge to gain from
looking at documents and history and learning from staff as to what's going on and of course putting your own vision and your background into the future of stewards so that is so important and I appreciate that and again going back to
Mr Hamilton one of my things that I'm concerned with I'm a transportation planner uh by trade that's what my Master's in urban planning is about but having complete Street networks having connections
having walkability is very important and I know that I've talked to staff and I think that coming up with plans to use CRA funds to do some of these projects that will help us to make it easier for people to reach certain areas in our
within our CRA and to get along with uh some Redevelopment activities that need to happen um is very important so Rome wasn't built in a day but there's lots of ideas and projects that we can do and I really appreciate everybody wanting to
serve and um wanting to learn and to make sure that our city uh stays a wonderful place to live work and play thank you and safe and safe board member Collin yes I just wanted to also thank each of you for being willing to do this
and taking time away from your businesses and your families and just encourage you that what you're doing is incredibly important that you're helping guide the decisions that we will make how we will spend taxpayer money um and
basically guide the type of city that 20,000 plus human beings dwell in so you guys are the front line on making the decisions and probably the hottest area in the crb of where Redevelopment will happen so thank you for serving please
show up to your meetings it has been an issue in the past so thank you board member brickville yes I just I had a couple things one uh I wanted to piggyback on Robert's situation because um I've said
before that the way the traffic flow goes out of that goes out of the city at the tracks here um on on the sailfish circle is that those cars have to stop on the tracks and wait for the traffic that's going this way and we need some kind of signage there to tell people
that that's what's happening because they're in the middle of the intersection and on the middle of the tracks before they realize what's going on so I wanted to follow up on that because I I think I kind of mentioned that about a year ago and I think it's something we need to look at uh the second thing I would just this is a
great group it's it's a great opportunity um and I think it from that standpoint I think it's really great to serve on this I've enjoyed my year plus on this and um but two things I want to mention relative to that one you know ultimately we serve the
city but we have to be Rec we have to recognize you know the needs of the commission as well so so that's one thing and I I think we want to still continue to keep our focus on return on investment the CRA is different than the city in general our dollars are earned
differently than the city in general and I think it's important to continue to um to focus on return on investment we started to do this last year in the and and panol gave us some numbers on returns on investment but I think it's our job as stewards of of the CRA money
to spend that wisely that generates future returns to the city and to the community so that's all thank you board member mccristal I have no comments at this time new board member Mr Jeff Monera you have
any comments for us this [Laughter] evening sometimes listening is the best way to start Mr Mayor can I ask Mr Man to just tell us AIT about himself that's a good idea I have a commercial
local in and out of since and I live uh right on Indian new board member Mr Frederick James apparently board member Clark would like a brief introduction of you who you are any comments my name isi James I
Pastor PA Church in Stuart Florida the only comment that I've had today would be this word that i' like to say you are the light of the world city that's set on a hill not be here so I come to join
this board pray that L of the board thank you new board member Mr Clay Sher yeah good evening everyone thank you the kind words of
wisdom apprciate new board member Mr Scott whan Scott wh what what town in Canada what where's that oh okay okay thank you board member Ms
moser do you have any comments thank you I still feel a little winded from racing in here um as I've been thinking about 2025 and and um you know our board this year um and thinking about the city um um the thing that
keeps coming to my mind is trees um and I bring that to you today because um within the CRA and just within the city as a whole um I've noticed some new developments that have been built some are open now and they're
missing something they're missing shade trees um so I want to challenge us all this year I know that folks get really heated about parking and we're not going to give anybody any passes on parking I want to challenge us not to give any passes on the shade trees um if you've got Landscape Architects involved in
your designs from the beginning they're going to make sure those trees are placed in a place where they'll stay healthy and they'll provide shade um and the reason that's so important to me is because shade makes places more comfortable it makes places more walkable it makes places more
valuable um and they're just I mean you all have heard the presentations on the US one street tree or shade tree study you know all the benefits um so yeah that's what I would just like to challenge us all this year is to um to think about our trees and how they
impact our city because when we let you know one thing pass here and one thing pass there then we end up with entire corridors that are hot and uncomfortable to be on so that's it thank you thank you thank you uh I really have no comments but I just we've had two
comments that make suggestions that sensibly should be part of our discussion on item number five and certainly a greater commitment in terms of effort and perhaps funding for more trees is
valuable and uh I actually Mr Hamilton had written in my book for the safety of The Crossings and intersections is yes I mean we've been dealing with M Moser and I have been dealing with an issue in another part of town and um you know it's one thing to drive through these
intersections but if you want to be terrified go stand and uh by confusion corner for 30 minutes or stand yeah it's a whole different world when you walk through them or bike through them so I appreciate your concern and hope we can
work on this and make some progress okay action items number four Mr bagot will you read item number four for our consideration please resolution number 11-202 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart
Florida authorizing the city to actively pursue a Florida Department of Environmental Protection Trail Town designation through its office of Greenways and trails in collaboration with Martin County Office of Tourism and marketing providing for an effective date and for other
purposes do we have a staff presentation on this it doesn't sound like a gy I will speak loudly there we go um first of all congratulations to the new board members we appreciate appreciate your service we really do and since we're still in
January Happy New Year to every why don't you introduce yourself in your position Jim kolski Community Services director for the city of Stewart and I'm here to present resolution number 11 2025 which is an opportunity for our community to become a trail town with
the state of Florida I put together a brief presentation for you that will explain what trail town is Trail towns are a part of the state's effort to integrate Recreation ecotourism and Local Economic Development within the
Florida Greenways and Trail systems priority Corridor programs Trail towns act as hubs that connect Trail users to nearby resources and attractions promoting sustainable travel along the corridors these designated towns align
with the program by ensuring trails are accessible enhancing the user experience and encouraging stewardship of natural and cultural resources they also support the goal of creating a connected Statewide Trail network with local businesses and communities benefiting
from increased visitation Trail towns are not Standalone communities they're linked together with longdistance Trail Corridor these users may pass may be passing through a town on a day trip or
longer trick or may Park along access other Trails such as paddling trails Trail users want to explore interesting and vibrant places in their travels and need services that the town provides basic characteristics of a successful
Trail Town include working with neighborhood communities encourages Trail users off Trail to explore the town illuminates clear and safe connections welcomes Trail users by making the town information readily available educates businesses on the economic benefits promotes a trail
friendly Town character integrates the trailed into to the town's culture with annual events and festivals and connects residents safely to work through schools parks and shopping these are some of the trail towns that exist in the State of Florida
currently and as you can see there's about 20 and I would love to be able to stencil in the city of Stewart right underneath Sanford we're a natural choice for a trail town because we feature commercial District next to our Trail areas we have
quality Trails already in place we have existing recreational programming and our benefits are it will increase ecotourism assists in positive branding and also assists in Economic Development as you may know the community services department through
the recreation division is now uh sponsoring various EC tourism natural recreational programs and wellness programs that really kind of dovetail this whole program together um we have different fitness programs and wellness programs like yoga on the river and
Zumba on the river and all these things all of these areas would be a part of our trail system as well as you're probably familiar with our hany Creek walks that we have on the first Tuesday of each month at nine o'clock we've been running that very successfully as well so Trail town really complements these
existing recreational programs that we're currently producing so my recommendation is to adopt resolution 112 25 uh to apply to become a trail Town within the State of Florida any
questions Jim yes I have Jim I have a question you know in looking through this material on trail towns um and going through it it appears that what we're talking about is creating a recreational environment
specific spefically along trails and according to the material I read we're supposed to be in general connection with a major Trail or a trail that connects to a major Trail yes so my question would be you know are we committed to that I mean I I think it's great if we can do that but I don't
think this is something that they're just going to let us put a name on it like you know greatest small town in America or something and and that's it I think we have to devote resources now so my first question is what major Trail are we connecting
to and the answer to that is is that we're going to be evaluated by this program to determine the exact Trails within Martin County so they have come to us through the tourism Development Council to find out if we would be ready to go ahead and apply and then be
evaluated um so that we can identify those specific Trails within our community well looking at at what is out there it looks like the closest major trail that we would dovetail with is actually at the end of Green River
Parkway and up in the savanas and so and that's great because it takes us right by Haney Circle it takes us I mean by um The Haney trails and it takes us by you know the some other Trails we've got and it actually would make could make downtown Stewart at least the Flagler
section a key starting point uh for that but I think we need to because we're going to have to have support from who's ever in between MH to to get the designation I think if we're connecting to a trail that's you know in St Lucy County or something we're going through Martin County to get it I think we're
going to require the the support of Martin County and we do and Martin County was the one who approached us with this entire concept they came to us yeah so I just think that you know we need to dovetail on be aware of that what we're what we're committing to and asking for I think it's pretty cool I
would the only other comment because I'd like to see um I'd like to see not only the trail and the walking and and potentially even coordinating that with uh events that we have in terms of um 5Ks and marathons and those kind of
things maybe we could have a portion of that go on the trail because that's a major drawing point but the the other thing that that I would like to see is if we could get some kayaking type thing if we could use the river as part of our Trail so that we can pull the river into the trail process and U and make that a
a key point for our our Trail I understand your comment Mr bre bill um as far as the um expense side of things um the only thing that there would be required at this point would be some signage in which I think I'm not talking for panal that they agreed that that
would be a part of their program and I spoke to Milton Leed as far as any kind of additional uh resources needed for um the program and at this time the original what they've given to us is that it's very minimal if any besides a signage
we'd probably we would I would hope to be able to go before the tourism Development Council and get some money for collateral material so that we can actually once it's designated illustrate the actual Trail itself like we did with our cultural history map well and plus
if it's in the CRA we can use some CRA funds for that then probably use TDC money what let's use TDC money oh yeah no yeah I'm I'm good for that but but we have to spend some of thaty
I'm M Collins so they so TDC narissa came to you Nissa staff yes does this open the TDC up to more grants is this something that the city would be open opening up to Hope with this whole thing is let's
get something started so that when we're going back to the TDC that we've got an open door to additional why did she come to is what I'm asking what what was the I think it was Grant possibilities in the future was that no it wasn't it was really really that they were looking to be able to participate in this program
as an overall benefit to Martin County um and Port solo I believe is participating as well so they wanted to make sure and we're actually we're kind of readymade for it because we have a commercial District sort of TurnKey so it's really kind of lwh hanging fruit for us to be able to adopt the program
because our Wilderness kind of runs right through our commercial District to some degree so it's fits all the their criteria okay is there any expectation of financial involvement no okay wow where'
member goob be part of this presentation has like a six-page check off of things that um we they would be looking at to see if we you know meet the requirements um one thing that I thought would actually be good for downtown is it it says that it
would be beneficial to have um a store or some sort of facefront that has hiking gear things that are geared toward the people who are doing this type of hiking biking all of those all the things I don't do very
athletic so we don't I don't think we have such a story in downtown but it would be nice opportunity for someone to it would be a nice opportunity for someone to think of opening that business once this gets rolling another reason to bring the people between downtown and the
trails board member Brickell just a quick comment about that um panol can probably pull out some old drawings of some popups that were scheduled to be in Flagler Park um and those popups were designed to be just what you're talking about um facilities for you know
sunglasses they weren't big stores they were just little pop-ups yeah little kiosk types thing you can put a couple of them together and and that would be ideal to promote uh something to down there for that purpose and real small business everybody would be it would be retainable for the small business owner to do that and they were also talking
about a kayak rental place at the end of the Flagler park there potentially to to bring that into play as well that that was in a drawing that we did probably eight or 10 years ago I I'm sure I don't know if the board is familiar with the art and history map that we did about five years ago um it's very very
accurate and people are able to do self-guided tours and understand what our history and what our art um sculptures are and all our murals and everything and we see this as being a part of that umbrella as we build our portfolio of activities and resources within the
city Mr Mayor yeah member thank you for recognizing me Mr Mayor yes Mr Mr ksky I was going to bring that up because you mentioned the the cultural aspects and I know that we've had that um in the past
and of course we have the advisor committee especially from East Stewart and they're working on some things and I know that in Martin County there's a Heritage committee that they're working on and that's considered for the State of Florida they have what they call the
black history Trail but there's also um some things here that can be added and put in um to that that trail idea that that highlights um things in the city of Stewart so definitely um they if those
who are not aware of the cultural thing or of Pinal can send out um something to to the the members so that they aware of some of the things in the past um uh Jim mentioned the um the Dolphins or turtles
or whatever they are they have things on the history of it and you know the Stewart Water Tower and so many things that are affiliated with the old downtown as well as the extended um C so I think it would be a good effort and
I'm going to make a motion that we adopt resolution number 11- 2025 uh that's my motion if anybody wants to Second for second thank you a motion by board member CLK and second by board member
Collins is there any public comment on this issue I have none um any further discussion by the board board member go I just have one question um com Vice uh commissioner
Collins had mentioned about the um any monetary toward the city so in looking at some of the things there are you know what they're looking for the amenities of restrooms Trail heads uh water fountains bike racks bike or bike repair stations boat docks and launches so some
of those things we don't have and so where would the monies come to entice people or at least get us through the process where we would be considered um commissioner giobi they're not required um you know once the trail is designated
you know we can look at those things but I wasn't under the impression that we were going to recruit or build anything specifically to support that I just in on like if I were to reference Haney Creek Haney Creek does have a trail head
it's got water facilities it's got bathroom facilities it's also got the parking and Boardwalk facilities over on the Green River Park Side if in fact the trail were to lead down to Frasier Creek we have the docking and the boat dock in the boat ramp facilities on channel
Avenue we have already a street end dedicated park that's got a kayak launch on it and so I think that the intention behind it is to start by trying to put together a map identifying where these amenities are and then the ultimate goal
is to kind of connect them through a pedestrian Trailway ultimately so that someone could pass from the north to the South all the way through Stewart without having to uh be on a car possibly if they wanted to walk or hike or bike whatever it is
Florida also has some significant Geographic barriers because of the way the roads and the bridges they go over the water so there are only three ways to pass it becoming from the north but either way um so so most of these would be funded either through the tourist or
the CRA I would think private business would do right now signage right now nothing would be funded without us coming back board so the only thing that Jim's asking for right now is a commitment to participate in it and then
the board would have the discretion to do as much or as little as it wants but you also have a half cent sales tax that's going to be coming forward and money is going to be generated that we can't spend that money outside of the
city limits so we're not in a position to buy swats of land out you know on the Arthur Bluffs but rather we will be and because there's so little vacant land left in the city it's more likely that we will be enhancing those green spaces that we have and this kind of
thing correct right no I think it's a great idea I didn't realize those amenities were not really required but they certainly would be helpful in them evaluating our application board col I'm sorry board number thank you I'm I'm hearing something of a
theme from you all talking about safety Improvement and connectivity and I just want to um use this as an opportunity think of this as an opportunity to make those improvements um um excuse me I I I also looked at the
five-page checklist and something that stood out to me was the safety category um and I just want to preface this with I walk and bike the city a lot um with my kids in a bike trailer behind me and um I just want to
go through a couple of these um does your town have wide sidewalks wides classified as 10 to 12 feet uh no does your town have protected bike Lanes no um does is your downtown safely navigable by foot or bicycle we've
already heard from the audience and I can also verify that's a no um and does your Trail town have emergency call backs is no although I can say working in trails that that's not something that's super common anywhere um I still think that this is a great program for
us to join but I do want to challenge us if we're going to join it let's actually um make the effort get get working um try to make these safety improvements connectivity improvements um and also possibly increasing our Trail Network so that we can you know there's no reason I
shouldn't be able to bike with my kids to the beach or two miles away but I would never do that um the way that our roads are designed right now um even through downtown where we would expect everyone to be able to bike I can tell you that my one-year-old and I came downtown to meet uh my husband and my
son for ice cream on our bikes about a week ago on Oola and four times I was cut off in the crosswalk by a car there's not that many intersections that's almost every intersection so um just food for thought and feedback for you all I still think it's a great program for us to join and and to use at
the momentum to start making some improvements perhaps his motivation to accomplish these goals board member College I was just going to ask and I don't want this to be interpreted that I'm against this in any way but if
there's some kind of sunset on this or revisit that we could add in if for some reason we find that this is uh not working hard some or not working of just living forever I think anything is possible I it's not like we're ourselves to a work agenda on this
we're really just to apply to qualify at this point um the program is relatively new as you saw there was only about 20 cities um really not that well known yet and you're going to come back and bring us some kind of update as it evolve yeah
okay oh yeah that's I'm good sure board member BR yeah I I'm generally I'm really in favor of this if we're going to make it a real thing so I I said before if all we're going to do is throw a few dollars out there because we're we're going to
spend them and waste them I don't think we should do that but if we're going to make this a a integral part of coming to Stewart and especially the CRA then I think we need to consider doing it right we need to create a trail that people
are going to come to from other places to go on that trail not of not a road that we're going to put in so that we have better traffic locally because uh but you know and then people might happen to come in that way I think at least the way I read this thing this is
this is a program that that uh is designed to be a go-to type of place it's it's ecotourism we've talked about that in the past you know it it's a it's it Fosters less traffic it's foot traffic but less traffic and so you know
I think we if we do this we should commit to doing it as a project if it's successful it's going to gener generate a fairly significant return on investment to the downtown I think because it will create significant value but anyway board member go I agree with
board member Brill and I agree with board member mosa if we are going to do this let's do it right and I think the safety issues are the first they are let's take care of those first not an afterthought not once we put everything in place we're just not going to be ass signed says we are this but we're really
not let's do the safety first let's spend the money on on that this way even if we don't do it all of the traveling around town for the locals and anyone else would still be safe we need that it's important thank you which is all a great segue to item number five right we'll be able to talk
to you so Jim almost like it was designed that way Jim yes sir mayor this is meant to be part of a very large Network in the State of Florida right yes how many miles of trails are currently I wouldn't even want to tell you that or
guess at this point part of this is doing an inventory of our assets so that we can give you a really solid answer that was my next so the point is to be able to get on the System enter Martin County on the North side for example move through Martin County which includes the small segment of the city
and then exit Martin County on the same network so step one would be my question was how many miles of trail that we does the city currently have that would qualify in your saying you don't know which is yeah the first step would be a mapping exercise of our existing inventory once we get the mapping
exercise done I mean I can tell you off the top of your head you know you got Haney Creek we can do some rough math there but there might be some interconnective opportunities that we haven't really even thought about yet yeah I would think it would be a fairly Meandering yeah route through the city
um step two in my mind is to being able to illustrate that like we did with that art and history map so that there's a piece of collateral that will educate people and then thirdly we can get behind it and promotee it with some sort of video and be able to go ahead and publicize that video out there on the
ecotourism channels that we have does the trail system includ Florida island is Florida it does if you go if you go to Google Maps and you highlight the bike trail portion of Google Maps it will light up for you
okay the green lines and you kind of see those on here well the green lines for example in this situation show Green River Parkway as a trail and it shows coming over the Roosevelt bridge but as soon as it gets to Stewart it stops because Martin County had identified it
it shows sus Point bridge and out on Hutchinson Island as a trail where the sidewalks are but we have a six foot wide sidewalk the entire length of Green River Parkway that's 50 feet away from the right uh road but if you look for
example on Google m apps here you can see where it's identified north of um the Jensen Beach Boulevard but on the south side of Jensen Beach Boulevard where it's in the city it's not and
again that was a County Road in a county project I don't know if it just hasn't been updated or whatever but kind of the point of this grouping of it is to get everybody to come together to identify these Trails because they aren't mapped
and if you're not very familiar with them nobody knows where they are and the purpose is to identify them so people can get some exercise and utilize them now someone also mentioned uh water and it does say that paddling trails are part of this so that's certainly an
opportunity we we can take advantage of in the city this would be a great benefit I mean I love to bring people into the county or the city on bike or foot but if as as Miss suggest we really work on this and Miss Board member goob
we really work on developing this and paying attention to safety the residents are going to love it and take advantage of it more than anyone so I I'm glad the county has approached us and we have this opportunity mayor no other
comments roll call please commissioner Clark yes commissioner goob yes vice mayor yes mayor Rich yes and commissioner Reed thank you thank
you okay Mr bagot item five for our consideration please it's not a resolution or an ordinance no that's discussion and deliberation of the CRA 5year Capital Improvement
plan so this is um I guess it's up to us to decide how to structure this discussion I do have a presentation oh I'm sorry go ahead yeah um pan saas CR director for the
record welcome to the new board members I look forward to working with all of you and I'm available any time if you would like to meet with me um after this meeting uh I would I'd be happy to sit down and go through the CRA projects and everything that we've been working on um
I just do want to give a little brief background of what a CRA is um because we do have some new members I'll walk you through that in some of the projects that have come up in the past years so what is the c um it's a special district created through Florida statues
requirement uh within the city uh where we initiate projects and programs to revitalize the blighted areas uh we use the tax increment financing to fund the projects with a goal to improve uh the overall quality of our area uh both
Martin County and city of Stewart General funds contribute to the Tiff uh that we reinvest back into the community um the goal is goal is to continue reinvesting our Tiff Revenue that we get every year uh when we don't invest then we don't get to leverage any future tax
uh Revenue that we get from uh Redevelopment so it's important that we identify projects and continue to invest into our CRA uh the city of Stewart CR is generally bounded by Northeast Baker Road uh which is to the North Monterey
Road to to the South Palm Beach Road to the East and Federal Highway to the West which makes up about 20% of the city so over the years we've used Tiff revenue and Grant to fund projects like Tiana's Park uh parking lot and
construction osula street parking lot uh redesign of MLK Boulevard uh Fraser Creek improvements uh we've done various Street resurfacing projects uh we did the East Stewart welcome sign uh Riverwalk AG structure um all these are
listed in your agenda package I'm not going to go through each one um but we've done numerous projects in the C since it was uh reestablished in 1998 um some other projects uh very well-known project Colorado Avenue which
was a complete Street project uh we used uh Tiff revenue and we received grant for that project uh we've done a lot of streetscape projects uh Kindred and Johnson Avenue uh that was done in uh uh n uh 201 uh5
2017 um we did that project through CRA and uh we received grant for that project also uh green bike Lanes on Colorado uh Federal Highway on median Improvement projects uh we've done resurfacing projects in E Stewart uh
rail rail uh Riverwalk uh handrail replacement and shepher Shephard Park Improvement uh some of the projects that are in progress are downtown undergrounding and streetscape uh seminal streetscape project uh project lift uh which is a demolition and new
construction in in the East Stewart Community uh guy Davis Community Park improvements uh MLK streetscape project which is in progress and in design uh Dixie Highway streetscape improvements uh which is from Joan Jefferson to Colorado so we hope to address some of
the safety issues that were brought up today uh through that project diman neighborhood drainage improvements uh we applied for the grant for that project in 2023 so we're waiting for um uh for the state to review our application and
hopefully uh we should get an approval uh in the next couple of months for that project uh Gateway signages uh traffic control box wraps allender Park improvements um and Riverside Park neighborhood Improvement project which is just North of the old bridge that's
in construction right now and most recently uh the board approved the Memorial Park phase four improvements some of the projects that we uh I would like to discuss with the board today and it's come up over the years uh I would like some direction from the board uh as to you know what
projects you want to initiate uh how to prioritize these projects um so we're looking for direction uh to help us prioritize for the next three to 5 years uh we received Tiff revenue of about $6.3 million in fiscal year 2025 5 we
expect to receive um about the same between 6.5 to7 million uh in the next fiscal year uh so we do have some operating expenses and some ongoing expenses every year so we'll have about $3 million in uh funding available next
year for redevelopment projects and we have about $3 million in fund balance right now so um staff will be looking for direction how to how to uh appropriate those funds for projects um Stuart Main Street Ula Street uh extension concept this was developed
through Main Street um from St Lucy Avenue to Flagler Park to provide connectivity and expanding uh the downtown um I think there's a missed opportunity here because over all these years there are a lot of people that don't even go past St Lucy Avenue and we
have two historic buildings and a beautiful Waterfront that is underutilized so um this would be a great uh project to pursue which is an extension of Oola Street um also I think um uh board member Mark breil brought up
um some popup that we had envisioned uh as part of uh the oio Street Extension project City Hall Redevelopment um we've heard this many times um so as you know that some of our city departments have
already relocated to Wells Fargo Building um so staff would like to understand board's Vision as to um how this this site will get redeveloped in the past uh lucido and Associate prepared a conceptual plan with uh Redevelopment along Flagler and
extending Flagler part on the waterfront here's a little bit of a close-up picture um we can have some storefront along Flagler Avenue to activate the area and a familyfriendly waterfront park in the back of the property and as you can see um that the
Ula Street Extension uh is also shown in this conceptual um it it will allow us to do the popup um some businesses um to take advantage um uh to uh around this park and that's something that was um
initiated by Main Street looks great minus the hotel yes that's why I didn't mention Hotel I said storefront um so Downtown parking garage there been there have been many discussions about down downtown parking
garage um one of the potential location is the sailfish uh surface lot uh which is about 7 Acres um currently the surface parking lot has 67 parking spaces uh the proposed three-story parking garage uh
could provide approximately 200 parking spaces so there would be an increase of 133 new parking spaces if we were to um redevelop this from surface parking to three three story parking
garage another potential location that we could consider for parking garage is just east of Haney Circle we have a surface parking lot on Oola that the city owns uh we would need to acquire the adjacent parcel um where um
aa aa AAA Lodge is located uh to develop a new parking garage um this is just another option to consider uh but staff would really like to hear from the board uh and if they if the board uh wants to even pursue parking garage in
downtown um this is a map that I created a few years ago with anticipation that we would continue uh the extension of undergrounding project uh where we still have wooden poles um because once fpn fpnl hardens these poles it makes it very difficult and very expensive to go
underground um the board could consider continuing undergrounding of overhead utilities just east of our existing project or in the Triangle District um these areas are an extension of our downtown so here are like some of the
current conditions um as you can see um the these poles are placed in the middle of the sidewalk um constraining the width of the sidewalk for pedestrians um and it makes it very uncomfortable and unsafe um so in the future um even if we
don't use streetcape improvements if we do the undergrounding project then um in the future planners can redesign these Street and uh provide wider sidewalk and shade trees for better pedestrian experience which is all the things that
we talked about earlier in the meeting today this is um streetscape improvements along Southwest Ocean Boulevard from Federal Highway um and Dixie Highway this is one of the project that is recommended in the Triangle District District Master Plan uh we've already implemented a couple of projects
that have that were recommended in the Triangle District uh District Master Plan including the Dixie Highway improvements um from Joan Jefferson to uh Colorado um we receive funding for that so that's in the design phase and
the alleyway improvements behind the AT&T building so this would be the third project that we could initiate in the Triangle District um which would include uh wider sidewalk on street parking crosswalks street lights potentially
undergrounding the overhead utilities landscaping and address all the safety issues another project to consider is Improvement to the 10th Street Community Center and Recreation Center um since all the after school programs have been have moved to Boys and Girls Club uh the
space in the in the community center can be reconfigured for events and new programming and increased parti participation um this would work really well and complement the guy Davis uh Community Park improvements and provide additional amenities and services to our
community and all is that included already in the guy Davis Park project no 10th Street would have something happen to it no that building is not no beay pedestrian bridge um this is another project that's identified in the Eastward master plan um currently the
residents um have to if they want to go to the hosital hospital or Ocean Boulevard they have to go to either Georgia Avenue or Cortez Avenue it just makes it more difficult to access um to those areas without a vehicle so pedestrian bridge um would be a great
benefit and it would provide connectivity walkability bikeability uh reduce uh vehicular traffic on MLK Georgia Avenue and Cortez um there is a grant available for this project um so if the board is interested I could
pursue the this grant um the deadline is March 5th so um that's something I would be looking for direction from the board uh another interest uh if there's an interest for affordable housing in in our community um this uh the maintenance
facility site uh usually comes up um it's on MLK and Georgia Avenue um if we want to pursue this we could do a RFP with a very specific requirements so we can control how it gets developed in terms of density and and intensity uh we
can bring more housing options for our residents and uh younger demographics who wants to move back home you didn't really capture it very well on that picture on the bottom right compared to what we've seen in the past with the four story yeah this is more like Town
Town Homes family above Starbucks that's not quite what's going to be there I'd imagine with that well that's why we would do RFP if there's an interest and we can really control that's from the Treasure Coast Regional planning master plan yes it is
um quiet zones uh we have four locations within the SI that we could apply for uh Federal Railway Administration for quiet zones um it includes the confusion Corner uh Florida and Dixie uh MLK and Dixie and fern in Dixie uh we'll need to
prepare uh engineering drawings detailing all the safety improvements uh that exceed the level of safety for all these Crossings uh if we are to um get rid of the horns um we want to make sure that it doesn't increase the risk of accidents uh so we want to comply with
the F safety standards and guidelines uh but this is something that um we would have to design and and um and apply Mike can we do that without the counties no well the the the city's intersections
did not meet the quiet zones in their current status um we've met multiple times with captech engineering and with the um f uh representative as it relates to intersection improvements that would need to be done in order for the city to
comply on its own we're still moving forward on some of the design aspects of it but very minimal if you remember we had the Dixie Highway improvements that we were talking about and that the the ra kind of said to leave it the way it
was um but following that I still talked to ctech about designing an additional gate at um confusion corner and also going with what Mr bricka was talking about earlier is some conversations
related to the traffic going around sailfish Circle um I have Joe kaer looking into it but it seemed pretty simple that there's timers on those trains and the gates go down based upon the distance the train is away if you had a
small traffic signal light that made the Northbound traffic on Dixie Highway get a red light so that they couldn't enter conv or sailfish Circle if the train was one minute away or whatever it is before
the gates go down stopping those cars so that those cars that Mark was referencing trying to get out of downtown would then have an open path to to clear the intersection and then once the gate went down obviously that light could turn green again because it
wouldn't matter while the gate was down the cars could continue to flow he hasn't gotten back with the design on anything like that but we have been talking about it and I think if we did those and um a couple of things to Fern that we would probably score well enough
to get quiet zones do they have some kind of liaison that you can talk to to we have a representative from F that we can talk to but it's just a matter of they say you you want it I was getting ready to the point even if we even if we
got the quiet Zone qualification right it's really been Peter and Milton in my conversation that that's kind of the least of our concern it's really about the safety aspect of it and what is going to make these Crossings safe for
pedestrians bikes and cars especially if no one hear them coming right well they hear them coming anyway in fact I was put to a challenge several years ago to find a case where the train horn would
have prevented the train accident and we were able to find that because in most cases in fact so far it's been 100% of the bright line cases it has been um the not the Train's fault someone's either been trespassing or someone like
recently there was the fire truck that went around the gate which is is as amazing as it sounds we all have found ourselves in things going God I can't believe I did that or why did I do that after the fact and it clearly happens fairly common in this circumstance with
the train so without trying to say it's one person's fault or another the fact is human nature is that people have accidents and so we got to do what we can to make it safe you know Mike if we were talking about that signal and you you hit it right on the head but the other thing is there's no reason why
there couldn't be a signal right at the start at the end of Joan Jefferson before the circle to just stop that traffic temporarily and then you wouldn't have the congestion in the circle that's when do you stop it as soon as that signal is triggered I mean it's a minute so as soon as that sign we
found is that every day between 4: and 6:00 p.m. what happens is people are funneling through downtown and funneling out and as the people go across the tracks the people going north on Dixie have the right of way into the traffic circle and they never let up because
they're coming from confusion corner and as a result three cars get stacked up on the tracks and it can be three four five minutes before one gets out and then another car Stacks up and the only way
to prevent them from going in would be to have them sitting on Flagler Avenue waiting to go over the tracks until an opening happened in the circle which by the time they got up to the circle that opening would be gone
because another car would be there and then they're stuck on the tracks but I know what you're talking about but we've looked into it and it's it's a complicated maneuver because of the width I know but what I'm saying is I I understand what you're talking about there but if at the other end of the circle you can leave the circle but you
can't come in for a minute it would stop the traffic coming in from Joan Jefferson and then that would allow the traffic to get out there wouldn't be any traffic in The Circle at that point Mr talk about I know I'm just saying it is so the design is there right I think you
you you failed to answer board member Allen's question about if the county in fact who has to apply for the quiet zones as we sit here right now the county is would need to apply for quiet zones or we would need to apply for
quiet zones with the county in order for us to qualify absent making safety improvements to our intersection or crossing thank you okay just have one more one more uh another item that has come up is the underground review uh system in
downtown uh this is something our previous Public Works director was really interested in uh Dave Peters and implementing this in downtown uh and it was recently brought up by board member Mark brille so I wanted to bring this to the entire board and get direction um
the the benefit of this system is it saves a lot of uh above ground space uh reduces odor prevents animal access and frees up space for parking in Downtown um because the system is underground um it's currently implemented in city of kissm and clear water and I have a
couple of videos that I can show you just so you can understand how it works this not Nei one it's under this is a first in the city the United States for that matter in disposing garbage in the
city this is an underground waste container system used all over Europe but making its debut in the city of CMI this is State ofthe art something right out of the Jetson absolutely we needed to solve a problem in our downtown area we have a very compact area uh and the
dumpsters that have been in use for many many years just weren't cutting it any longer this system is an underground trash container more than six cubic yards of trash can be placed here that's about 12 to 15 96 gallon cans of trash it's 11 ft deep and a 5 ton concrete
bunker the container is then lifted by a crane system onto this autocar truck that collects the solid waste then takes it to the Landfield you know it's going to make a aesthetically pleasing to the downtown area it keeps out it keeps the smells more enclosed into the system uh
there's not there's not a keeps out the Vermin and pest our desire right now is to to cover the downtown area which is about a 10 square block area that's our most dense area the cost is relatively comparable to a traditional dumpster setup this truck
$475,000 about $144,000 each for the below ground unit and 3,000 for this above ground unit partnering with underground Refuge systems the future is now and the system has a key to curtail any illegal dumping in Oola County G
Pascal Brown W 2 News pretty cool and just another short video for Clear Water these are pretty here take a look for yourself they look like average trash cans but while they're the average size
underneath them is actually a 12T Bol and water is only the second place in the entire country to have this trash system cre it's aesthetic you aesthetically pleased it looks a lot better than what we had before it's and
Clos that's the big Clos where the wind doesn't blow to trash all over it birds or don't get into it and uh we don't have to keep coming out here to clean up land Earl gler is the director of solid waste and says trash receptacles are
really cutting edge there are two one trash one for recycling and everything is kept underground until Cru with a special track come each day to empty the VA right now there are three of these underground Refuge systems along Clearwater and there will be seven total
in the first base trash won't be able to blow away on the sand and seagulls can't get into these L says with more and more people visiting each year these trash cans will be key in making sure Clearwater Beach always lives up to its
reputation of being one of the best we're doing everything the less Environ numbers that we have our numbers here this help us stay at the Forefront um these two TR sorry it
wasn't working very clearly but um what I'm looking for now is I presented all the different projects that um that staff has heard over the years and and wants uh the board uh to help staff prioritize these projects and make any other recommendation um that staff can
Implement in the next uh to five years so may have m board member Clark um Miss what is it thank you gandas okay so um I've only been making that mistake
forever I know um and I actually talk to penal most of the times so um you heard Miss moa's comment and I know that we had a former commissioner who had started the um tree planting
idea and I think that was CRA funds and I just wanted to hear about the success of that tree that tree planting idea I know that uh commissioner Joby had mentioned well what does it take to do something when you have an idea I know
that that ended up with people the city going in for 90 days and watering the plants and then there was even the commercial area when people had applied for Grants some of them had to put in a system or whatever just to keep the
plants going and so I just wanted to know if we still have that we had like a a an area of um I don't know if you'd call it a tree desert but a area where the shade the the shade Factor was very low and the heat Factor was very high
and we're trying to get some more trees planted in certain neighborhoods I didn't see that on this plan on this proposed plan and I'm hoping that these are just new ideas but all the other things that we've done with the businesses before and the paint up
program and those kind of things I hope that they're there and while I'm on the floor I'm just going to say what I think my few ideas are are I'm glad that you did have um finishing up the Martin Luther King um Boulevard I want to make
sure that that goes up sometime soon after 2026 or so that as soon as we get some of the things done in the East Stewart area we'll have that coming on board because we do need to to get that and it's also a part of that
walkability um idea um the other thing is that I didn't see and I know that people have brought this up and asked about it in terms of economic Redevelopment is and we have project LIF coming in if we could do some type of a
um business Hub incubator or or something in that area and like I said it doesn't have to be now but just an idea for the CRA to look into and maybe bring back in the future for ideas but like I said to add to add to the the the
project for upcoming um planning and budgeting definitely MLK Boulevard that um pedestrian bridge is I think is going to be crucial for young people who may not be able to cross through the um boys
and girls club property or even uh adults to cross through there that it'd be good to have a cross through from high school Avenue somewhere in that area that's safe to cross through on the um bayu bridge and of course any
anything to do with uh walkability um downtown uh anywhere uh and connectivity is always good I know that we've been asking developers to go more than six feet if they can help with something to do with the sidewalk we're also working
on any city sidewalks that we have if I know that marttin Luther King Boulevard is probably going to constrain some of the sidewalk there because it's already constrained and we can't get it any wider for sidewalk but if we can get wider sidewalks we've been asking and
we've been working on those and then the other thing which is the elephant in the room every time we decide how to spend our money and what to do with with the monies that we're collecting uh within the SI area I think we need to bite the
bullet and look seriously at what we're going to do with the um City Garage property when things move and honestly work with uh as a sample of trying to live up to what our ideals are in the
comprehensive plan and what the needs are for our community to try to come up with something that's affordable housing now it may not be affordable to all but it will be some type of example of something that can work uh down town and
that can help with uh Redevelopment uh that is compatible with uh the single family and multif family that's already existing in certain areas of our community so and I like um Lor's
idea of trying to encourage businesses to to locate in the downtown that are um you know going to help with we've asked we've been asked before by private companies to come in and to do the bike rental and the um segue rental and I
think we voted against some of those plans maybe four five six years ago but if some of those businesses coming again maybe we can find a way to um to work with them but I think that uh if we're going to do something that's going to
accommodate people when they come here and make it easy to walk around then we need to encourage ways to um support those businesses when they want to come into our um CRA area those are just my little comments for right now and you don't have to resp respond to them just
take notes whatever I don't do we have to give you a list of things that you have to go back and include and bring back that plan for us for 2025 we have to decide how we going to proceed okay all right I was just going to ask penala and Mike what the because they'll come
back during budget regular budget time in in the C directors in my conversation uh he's looking for direction from the policy makers as to what the C wants and it'll probably be a subject matter at each one of these
quarterly joint meetings to update you if you've given us Direction on a project and say this is where we're going but it's also important to get direction of where you want us to not go right so you know both sides of that board member Collins
yes so I got a few if I just go down the the menu of what you provided P all I would say you know the trash can thing if you can find a grant for the truck because I'd imagine that truck isn't cheap I don't care what they said up there um in terms of a
garage the more centrally located position for a garage would be this property it makes the most sense but I you know my sense is that the average resident more than seeing a garage or a hotel here would rather have Green Space
down here so uh for me that that ACAA property if it would be possible to secure it or you know start having conversations with them and have that existing parking lot in AAA Lodge be not a uh obviously four story but two or three story garage would make more sense
to me so you can secure the Green Space here which I think is the most valuable thing for this uh parcel long term though I know in the past we've talked about hotels and big commercial things and fly Bridges and extending Oola and yada yada
um more macro you know sever many thousand feet up I would say generally moving away from this and I've said this to you before the mode that we've been in in terms of investing in these large scale projects that really
drain our overall budget for the CRA like bright line or undergrounding to me undergrounding represents the antithesis to what I think we should be doing and and not to just be negative I'll give more context
instead of burning up all of our capital on undergrounding you know just the downtown we have many more neighborhoods in the city of Stewart than just the downtown right so uh I like the idea of pedestrian bridge and thing like you know things like this that makes sense
to me and makes it more connective um but moving away from burning $10 million on undergrounding one part and then sort of extending that out to the rest of downtown um I would like to see
us if I had to characterize it instead of doing these projects that terraform or make large scale changes it seems like in the three years two and a half years whatever I've been here whenever we go to augment a neighborhood nobody's
happy I've sat to those meetings where we're trying to do a complete Street there or CH and nobody's happy everybody's got an issue so my general sense would be that the average human being here would like you to uh address blight not by augmenting it but making
it nice so resurface the roads put in new sidewalks if there's a way to make them wider without you know taking somebody's front yard if there's an opportunity to make some drainage changes especially where there's flooding you know these kind of things but but swapping things around moving
things uh trying to Do complete streets if it's going to take somebody's ride of way like I would be incredibly upset if you took my fruit trees away you know so this kind of a thing I think frustrates people and after a lot of engineering and planning and money burned you get a
room full of people who were saying just leave my street alone stop you know so in terms of so I don't know if that if that comes across as clear but um add shade trees you know make sidewalks you
know wider whatever make things nice and new without dram atically augmenting and spread it across the city not just downtown not just in one area uh but not the city but the CRA spread it across the CRA we're just talking about the C
correct correct correct spread it across the CRA okay now this one this one's spicy but with affordable housing because this this I have I have a lot of frustration with what I perceive to be the plan for East Stewart over the
years and it's referenced here with the East Stewart master plan right the 2004 Treasure Treasure Coast Regional planning when you look at that it has the entire neighborhood of East Stewart as two three multi-story mixed use
development and so you know we on one side of our head cried that we need affordable housing and on the other side you know from 2004 until now where we approved form based code which just went
through another round of this we gentrify the entire neighborhood and turn it into city place and then want to stuff East Stewart into apartment rentals on that property this is the the the bird's eye view that I can see this which may be inflammatory to some
of us but instead of leaving this you know neighborhood alone this East Stewart master plan does that it's all Starbucks and then upstairs fancy Apartments ostensibly a bright line
Village and then we're going to take all the people who who live in that neighborhood and either they have to find somewhere else to live or um they can live in these low-income apartments that we put on the city garage so I think the better thing to do would be neither of those two things and just
leave a single family home neighborhood alone and then if anything use this parcel that we have that's adjacent to a park uh move that garage Dodge property over to the water treatment area and let that be green space it doesn't necessarily have to be formal Park but
uh for me I would not want to see that turn into some uh you know four-story low income apartments uh because I do not believe that you know people renting is is a way to really address affordable housing either um property ownership and Home
Ownership is is the real way to hedge um in these situations but with that I'll retire my thank you comments board member go thank you um I I liked many of the items on the proposal the one thing I
had an issue with under utilities the only thing addressed were the underground and um what happens in the past I'd like not to happen in the future you have a great Five-Year Plan we're trying to clean the river and you want to put things on the river to add
to that that's number one we have um beautifying everything kind of what you see but then we have flooding because we're not taking care of infrastructure before the developments are done which is what we've done in the past we develop then we decide oh this doesn't work it's flooding let's fix it now it's
more expensive to do it that way the aftera so let's address that the thing I want to address is that back in July of 2024 a consulting firm informed the city that we have um we have wells that are dying they need the the city water
supply the wells are dying they need to be replaced and it would be a cost over a decade $ 66.3 million there were three other more expensive options that were 97.1 million the city has two Water Supplies um and we need to address that
before we start building and adding and uh doing all of that this needs to be done first uh so what I'm suggesting and I do understand that some of the monies for this would become come from that um court case that the city won money from and I understand that
but I think these things need to be addressed too before we start putting a shovel in the ground all over the city I it would be illegal for us use the C funds on the water plan can't use it for that because they're not in the C and they go for the whole city well that's
fine but you still we can't address it as a as I mean jur we could talk about it but this the agenda item being the CRA okay can't spend money on that okay but all I'm saying is just again a general statement which is let's fix this if we have to use other
monies but let's get this done before we start reim proving neighborhoods with they can't support the water that can't support the flooding that needs to be done first let's get it right this time let's not do the building first and then worry about how it all floods and doesn't flow uh that's all I'm asking
and I do agree with commissioner Collins that we need to do smaller projects rather than this whole overview of just the downtown okay I'm going to jump in there as Mr Martell points out that's that's a good good assignment for the commission your fellow Commissioners but
that's not the purview of of this um this is a very brief uh action item but this is an enormous topic I mean if you look at here's the list you know Oola
Street City Hall Downtown and she didn't even include the project that she has in there and I would urge you all to go through this submission it starts on page 44 and goes to page 110 and it's really a terrific uh presentation we
worked with the treasur coast region planning Council that just deals with the triangle District you guys and women could spend easily spend just two meetings on
that one single item so if there's no objection I'd like to bring this meeting to a conclusion and asked the crb if they could make very specific recommendations to us um I I
see you Tuesday um but do we really want to get into this in depth at 5:30 and I don't know how much progress we can really make on it maybe see if commissioner Reed had any comments it's a lot has been met I mean what the C
wanted to do is introduce it to the board hear from the boards have this discussion so that we can get everybody thinking about it and as we have these joint board meetings as they come back will continue to progress forward obviously but they can they can progress on their own but and as commissioner
Clark pointed out there are already projects in the CRA right that are going on so the director was just saying hey guys if you have any projects or you have a direction you want us to go for here's your opportunity be thinking
about it and let us know mayor Rich our agendas are mayor Rich I'm I was our agendas are a little light and I think we could just as the commission speak about what our priorities are for the CRA as well and
then at our next meeting they'll have an idea of what's important and you know it's it's very difficult on such a large topic to come to some consens while we have these luminaries here should we not right on
I I have a and so does Mark mayor Rich I just had a comment one of the things I'd like to accomplish at the crb going forward is we do have a lot of new members and I wanted to create some workshop dates for us to go over some of these items because we can't get caught up in a one-hour session or or whatever
and so what I was hoping is that we would you know in our next meeting maybe we'd set a few dates and open to the public and we would talk about a couple of these issues when we got time and we can get public comment and then that'll help with what you guys are looking to
do okay I have a card up I really urge you to go through that package and understand commissioner member m you throw the water bottle at his head no that's okay okay well you keep
calling everyone else except me oh do you want to go first commission no go ahead great it's not your call it's his to call but I'm just noting to him that I've had the card up that's all okay I just wanted to note it it sounds like we've got some discussion
discussing to do um and hopefully within that discussion we can talk about our trees and crossings intersection safety improvements beautification improvements um I did just want to say one thing because I don't want to scare people in thinking if we're talking about complete streets or streetscape improvements um I
would never as a professional recommend taking rideway from people or expanding rideway and I don't think any good firm that you hire they would ideally be from out of town so that they can come at this from um a neutral point of view would would try to propose doing
something like that one it's expensive two it does make people very angry and three it just doesn't end up being productive um and I think that if we're looking at things like this we need to make sure that we're um not making people mad and and
the ways that we do that by make the ways we make them mad are one having poor Outreach two having poor Community engagement and three making people feel like they don't have a voice especially on their street and so um just something
to note you guys I think get to be involved in hiring whoever you get to hire so um if we do do streetscape improvements just make sure you're picking the right people who are going to actually engage with your community and give them what they want and not what they don't want well thank you Mr
Mayor all I wanted to say was I thought the purpose of this meeting was for especially the new board members to hear what the commissioner's views are we can't reach out to them we can't talk to them this is the venue in which to do it but you can certainly near the mayor you can decide to have them meet and then
we'll just have extra meetings to meet with them so they can hear our views thank you board member Crystal I'm awake now I've recovered from my grueling caner Highway trip from Indian
town uh so here I am Mr glass glass half empty as usual so I guess I just randomly put these things down and it's all General stuff I'll be done in a minute okay the garage the the uh what's it called the
the garage for the City Maintenance it's in the perfect place it's it's surrounded on three sides by nonresidential stuff and then there's a street and across the street there's a few residences I'm sure but to find another place in the city for
that yeah good luck to that and I'd like to say no to any any Cutting Edge new technology as good as those trash cans looked anything that we're going to spend money on we we don't have to be
first and so Progressive and be you know we're we're on The Cutting Edge of this stuff right we don't have to be let's wait five years and see what really happens out there at these other cities and stuff like that all right yes if we're serious about the
undergrounding and making the downtown area hurricane proof for the important part of town then let's do it get it over with all right but we got to decide that how important is that because that
will eat up all of the funds all right and I'm just has anyone thought maybe how many projects as far as the VIN diagram thing how many projects overlap with what exactly is going to happen
with it when when and if the train station and when and if our parking garage for the train station so how many of these things kind of like should we do this until we find out about that right all right and last but not least
let's see here walkability it's nothing but a dream folks it's nothing but a dream we live in a place where is Hades for 9 months out of a year nobody wants to walk
anywhere all right we're not in California we're not in Carmel Valley all right we're just not and I'm against anything that promotes walkability at the expense of cutting
into traffic flow because we've already got traffic flow issues and the cars are not going to go away as much as the progressives would like the cars to go away thank you very much one more point and then I swear
I'll stop if undergrounding is so important maybe downtown should pay for their undergrounding has anybody ever considered this instead of the CRA at large if our plan is to underground the whole downtown well that's why when when
I did the return on investment where I showed um how Tiff Revenue Downtown uh contributes to the CRA that is their contribution but letting them it's contribute an additional tax or something for down downtown
undergrounding versus eating up the entire budget for the CRA C wide well the the Flagler and seal streets have already been voted on and has moved forward so we're talking about additional underground over this way e
20 million million you know do these we can do it in segment um doesn't have to be all together be and the board obviously can vote not to right we haven't seen a proposal on that all right I'll stop on that yes um mayor would you mayor Rich yes we
have one public comment we have two public comments you still have two members you still have two board members waiting to speak and I okay well let's hear from board member Mona I just have a quick question I want to make sure the the new crb members have access to all this information and to back fill in
some of the history and some of the you're referencing a lot of long documents things I don't know if we all have it's all available you have access to anything you want you're welcome to reach out to me or to pel and we can give them to you and provide you direct access that's a very good point and
that's one reason I was hoping to adjourn here to provide opportunity to get access to this material all material is available on cra's web page all the plans but I'd be happy I'd be happy to sit down with them and provide the plans yes aren't they going to have their own
meeting and choose their own new people new board the crb meetings I think the first week of February and they'll get all the stuff from Lee on procedures and the clerk and the CRA person they're going to it's coming Jeff it's coming you're going to get more than you want
before we go to the public Mr Mayor go through yeah she'll go through it um walkability uh I was thinking I've asked when Mr Amerson was the engineer and I hope that Mr leot is
listening um oh he's listen I know that do has put in all these arrows on the roads on us one and the major roads and it's all over the State of Florida just to make sure that people supposedly aren't driving the wrong way they can see clearly at night and I've asked to
have the white Arrow around confusion corner and also at Joan Jefferson so that people know exactly where they're supposed to go in a roundabout but it seems like it's not happening and I was told oh that's nonsensical people should
know where to go people come there and they just go crazy even if there were normal human beings they go crazy when they come to confusion corner so I'm asking if we can have like a walksafe program in the crra area where we try to
find little notches and niches where people are getting hung up by pedestrian crosswalks are at pedestrian crosswalks and other places where there's more little things that have flashing lights or whatever have a whole walk Safe program and really push it and so that
the people know to stop and not speed up and all this good stuff I don't know all I'm doing I'm just trying I have a problem on Palm Beach Road coming out of my little side street onto Palm Beach Road when the Catholic church is on when
the school is on when everything is on okay and so it's there I'm not going to complain because I know everybody has the same traffic issue but there are ways that we can deal with it we can deal with it to put things and I think
working on something on the ground at confusion corner so people know where the AR goes I think it helps the visitors but I don't know I just think some kind of a walksafe program so that everybody in the city knows that we're all friendly we are walking doesn't
sound friendly we can do whatever so whatever signs we put up need to have it on both sides because the other day they were coming right at me so that's the first time in about three months one issue that is not on P's list and this was an offer made to myself is
the city should take over Palm Beach Road from the county do in control Palm Beach Road CH we want to make that would be free I I know and I we know I know I know right by confusion Corner a portion
of it the city and then where you get to where the where on East Ocean where you see the bike path start kind of right near I guess Alamanda from there to the beach is the county roads are expensive yeah board member Moser you have a comment on this pal
Beach Road from East Ocean down to monter road is no no she was just asking question program formal program it's just my it's just my theme of a theme theme of walk safe walk safe
two things walk good walk good two things the Martin M has a new bike pad coordinator and I bet she would love to be involved in a program like that and secondly I have been complaining to the county because they do own Palm Beach Road just for the crosswalks right by the elementary school and they don't
really want to do anything then they're concerned about coordinating with the city so it would be easier if we did own that road for us to take control and do what we want with it if you think they not that we need to make big changes just little safety changes an item for
consideration Mr Martel it's not a poli special assessment for 10th Street it is dangerous for all those children and all those schols it's true it's I think if there's one consensus item is safety at our intersections praise the Lord both the traffic intersection
Safety First yeah and this newly named program walk good walk fast unless there is an objection I am going to com I'm
sorry let's hear those Mr Robert Hamilton good evening I want to welcome you I forgot to do that before I apologize but I also want to invite separately each and every one of you to comb by the church on
Third Street and see exactly what happens when one of these programs goes wrong and you're victimized and it's destroyed and damaged now we are trying to get it worked out we're in the process of doing that but when you have oversight in place and it's not
used all of you here are in a position to use that oversight correctly there's a lot of tax dollars at stake there's litigation at stake there's more litigation coming unnecessarily shouldn't have been done
the oversight should have been enforced I say that for everybody to keep cognitive of that when you're making decisions but come by the church separately and talk to ogre we know what it's like to be victimized Miss Hall knows what it's
like to be victimized we've all been there anyway thank youil and Miss Gil Goldie good evening Commissioners and board members um couple of things I just wanted to touch on um the trail town I think it's wonderful I think you're
doing looking at a lot of nice things to do and um my main concern with the uh Trail town is um the biking Lanes um you know there's a lot of uh things going on with biking we're talking about adding
bike lanes and widening side walks and such and um there was a rumble strips put in on Hutchinson Island in the uh biking Lanes uh several accidents have already happened um and I think that
this was done without much input from the bicycle groups there is the um Treasure Coast Cycling Association that um I would hope that uh if you do anything with the biking Lanes or anything at all like that that you
would involve the uh public so that they if they're bikers because they know I was at a charet that we had here and I believe it was regarding Palm City Road and they were talking about all the different configurations for possibly for Palm City Road and um in talking
with the group that we hired to make the presentation for all the different possibilities for Palm City Road uh when she was when I approached the woman who was on the committee from the the uh company that we
hired I asked her if she was a biker and she said no she was not a biker so it just boggles my mind that you can have people on these committees that don't partake about what they're uh there to be talking about and making recommendations for and then um the
other thing that I wanted to talk about was the um YULA Clark brought up a comment about the confusion Corner which we all know confusion corner is a huge problem for a lot of people and um I just have a suggestion that I think it's
possible that maybe we could put in all of the yield signs that are going around confusion Corner maybe have them flashing because 99% of the drivers have no idea what yield means when you enter an intersection so I think that that
could possibly be something to add to the safety and uh and that's it that's all I had to say thank you thank you that's all mayor so I'm calling this meeting
adjourned thank you all and we will reconvene the regular City commission meeting in 15 minutes